Of Heroes And Villains

In which a superhero meets his match, masks are uncovered and a mad scientist just tries to get some mad science-ing done without getting distracted by the antics of her magical minion.

Fanart by the talented Ian Samson, creator of City of Reality and artist of The Wotch


Shade threw himself against a training dummy, kicking and punching and kicking it again until his muscles screamed in agony.

It was his therapy. Couldn’t save a civilian? Train. Had another meaningless one-night-stand, leaving him feeling sick and nauseous? Train. Couldn’t stop thinking about wearing that cute skirt he saw in passing on display in a storefront? Train harder.

He yelled in frustration, bruising his bloody knuckles in a badly aimed hit, and his voice was raw and hoarse and wrong.

Shade was not a woman.

He wasn’t.

He’d had a fucking underwear fetish, that was all.

Shade kicked the dummy again, and then sank to his knees beside it, breathing heavily.

I love you.

She had no right to say that to him. None. She didn’t even know what that meant. They were just words, expertly honed to convince him to stay.

You’re mine.

Had he actually been stupid enough to think he could change her?

He laughed bitterly and was acutely aware of the weight of his breasts rising and falling with each breath. It was her who’d sunk her claws into him, shaping and twisting him to suit her sick desires while he saw things in her that just weren’t there. The way he’d groveled before her…

He’d barely known her two months and he’d already volunteered to go along on a robbery with her. Given time, what would she have turned him into?

He couldn’t recognize the woman staring back at him in the mirror.

She looked so much like Caroline it physically hurt.

“I have failed you,” he rasped.


***


Diane didn’t know how long she just sat there, staring at nothing.

What does a villain know of love?

Nothing, really. As someone born with a heart that was truly terribly broken to the point that it would eventually kill her, she had always scoffed at all these angsty teens whining about broken hearts. They didn’t know heartache. Heartache was not being able to breathe while curling up in a fetal position, thinking that this was the moment she was going to die.

Diane finally understood what they had been talking about.

It hurt.

It hurt a lot.

Different than true physical pain, but pain nonetheless.

Diane decided she didn’t care for the sensation. But she didn’t know what to do about it either. She had never been rejected in her life. Had never put herself in a position where she could be rejected.

Alcohol, said a voice in her head. It emanated from that part of her brain that was widely known for its terrible ideas.

She decided it was a brilliant suggestion.

When Diane pushed open the door to their makeshift kitchen, Amelia was there, glancing up at her entrance. She was sitting at the table and wordlessly slid a glass toward the empty seat in front of her.

“You heard that, huh?” Diane sat down, peering at the orange liquid. Then she experimentally took a sip. Vodka burned in her throat, soothed by the sweet taste of orange juice.

“I have the entire base bugged, so yes.”

There was a long silence as Diane took another sip.

“One of the downsides to being a villain is that no one will ever believe you when you say you are sorry,” Amelia said softly, raising her own glass.

“Are you sorry for bugging our hotel room?”

“I could say yes, but you wouldn’t believe me.”

Diane chuckled bitterly, staring at her glass. “You had no right.”

“I rarely do. That’s what makes us villains, Diane.” Amelia shrugged. “I only did it because I was worried for you. And I was right, as I so often am.” Her dark eyes glistened with a dangerous light. “The hero hurt you.”

Diane said nothing and finished her drink. Then she got up to pour another.

“Why does Shade hate you so much?”

“Heroes like her hate all villains,” she said simply.

She doesn’t hate me.

Or maybe that was didn’t now.

She could have done worse than kill me!

“There has to be more to it than that.” For a brief moment, Shade had sounded scared. Shade hadn’t been scared even when she lay dying in Diane’s arms. Diane had heard of Cinder Snow when she started appearing, seemingly unstoppable, but she didn’t know the details. “Did you meet before?”

“Perhaps. I don’t remember all the flies I swatted away. They came after me in groups.”

Diane returned to the table, sipping from a new glass.

“So you don’t know.”

“I did not say that.” Amelia buffed her fingernails, gazing at them coquettishly. “I can take an educated guess.”

Diane looked at her expectantly, arching an eyebrow. “Well?”

“Heroes are so protective of their own. She is likely angry over what I did to one named PsyKick.”

Diane tilted her head. “What did you do?”

Amelia sighed. “A long story, and a sordid one at that.”

“Tell me.”

The mad scientist swished her drink contemplatively. “I am second generation, you know.”

“Huh?”

“My parents. They were mad scientists before me. They met while trying to steal nuclear missiles for components at the same time. They hit it off. It was all terribly romantic and sappy.”

Amelia started talking slowly, at first, perhaps because she was not familiar with telling her life story to anyone. Diane listened quietly as Amelia leaned back and became more comfortable with every word.

“With parents like them I was always destined for greatness. They taught me everything, giving me a solid understanding of the principles of science by age 3. By age 5 I was studying metaphysics. And by the time I was 8 I was building death rays in our backyard.

“Other children bored me. They were so moronic, barely able to form a coherent thought let alone discuss anything of importance. By the time I was 10 I even started surpassing my own parents.” She smiled grimly. “They didn’t like that. At all. Shocking but true, villains don’t make the most loving caregivers.

“But there was one mind who could keep up with me.

“My sister. Constance.

“She was younger than me, but equally brilliant. Perhaps…” At this thought she looked away, taking a long sip. “Perhaps even more so.

“She also had magic.

“Magic… magic is the universe’s raised middle finger to scientists everywhere. There is no rhyme or reason as to how it works, or who will be born gifted with it.

“Constance was very gifted. Time and space bent to her will.”

Amelia turned up her palm, a blue flame flickering above it. “I gave myself these powers in an effort to keep up with her. It took a few tries and several vats of toxic acid, but I did it. It was still not nearly as impressive as what she could do.

“I loved her, and I hated her.

“…our parents only hated her. They hated magic and they hated that she practiced hers. They favored me.” Her lips curved into a serene smile. “They really should have been nicer to Constance, though. I killed them.

“Their stupidity gave Constance an aversion to the scientific disciplines. She did not want to be like them, so she turned to her magic. I was content to let that happen; this way we weren’t rivals any longer. Still, a genius mind like hers was wasted on magic tricks, or so I thought.

“We came to Paragon, which has one of the few universities to offer Arcane Studies. Constance immersed herself in student life. How she could stand the stupidity of her fellow students I will never understand, but she was happy, and so was I.

“I worked on my inventions and soon enough I was ready. I made my debut as Cinder Snow. And no one could stop me. All learned to fear me.

“Constance had always been very supportive of my efforts to conquer the world. But suddenly she wasn’t. She was uncomfortable with some of the things I did and told me to stop. She said I was turning into our parents.

“That gave me pause.

“What I didn’t know at the time was that Constance had met a man. A fellow student. A hero. She’d deduced his secret identity and somehow – the details are unclear to me and quite frankly, I do not wish to know – they fell in love.

“PsyKick.” She sneered the name like an insult.

“He encouraged her to be a hero, too. Told her that she could rise above her origins. He could never be with a villain, but they could be heroes together.

“He was taking her from me.”

The glass in Amelia’s hand shattered and Diane jumped.

“I could not let that happen. But Constance loved him and wanted to be with him, so I could not just kill him either. I impotently watched as Constance secretly designed herself a hero costume and started partnering up with PsyKick. Chrono Warden, that was the name she chose.

“So I started building a machine that would set things right. I had examined the situation carefully. Constance loved PsyKick. PsyKick was a hero, and would not love a villain. Consequently, Constance was becoming a hero, creating a rift between us.

“So the obvious solution was to make PsyKick a villain. Everyone would be happy.

“PsyKick, as the name implies, had psychic powers; his mental defenses were very strong. It took a lot of effort to break them and reshape him to be my minion.

“The idea was to force him to commit a variety of villainous acts, giving him an overwhelming euphoric response every time he did as I bid him. Constance wanted a happily ever after, so he had to be happy being a villain. Then, once he had a taste of how good life could be, I would remove the need to obey.

“What I didn’t account for was just how horrifying it would be for him to enjoy hurting his former teammates.

“It broke him.

“Constance was so angry. She confronted me in costume, her magic sweeping aside my technological barriers like they were nothing. I didn’t think she would truly hurt me. She loved me. I didn’t realize until too late that, yes, she would.”

Amelia trailed off, seeming lost in memory. Then she turned her gaze toward Diane, eyes shining with emotion.

“I would show you the scars she left, but you took them from me.”

Diane’s mouth was dry, and she licked her lips. “What happened to PsyKick?” she asked in a whisper.

Amelia shrugged. “From what I hear he now compulsively tries to serve any villain he comes across. They keep him locked up in some hospital. His mental defenses are too strong to overcome to fix him.” She got that faraway look in her eyes again, her lips curving into a small smile, voice filled with professional pride. “They do not have tools as good as mine.”

“I see,” Diane somehow choked out.

Amelia gazed at her for a long moment. Then her voice grew silky. “You are not thinking of leaving me, are you?”

Diane forced her lips into her best carefree smile. “Of course not.”

Amelia’s answering smile was so very, very cold.

“Good.”