The Games of Supervillainy (The Supervillainy Saga Book 2) (17 page)

The Black Witch seemed disappointed, then nodded. “Good luck.”

“Our prayers will be with you,” Gabrielle said, looking between her fellows before wrapping them all in Ultraforce bubbles and taking to the sky.

“Thanks, you two,” I said, knowing only Gabrielle could hear me. “Okay, Amanda, whatever you can tell us about your father's defenses would be great.”

I was expecting state of the art security systems because of the man's billionaire status. It was also likely he had some magical defenses due to his membership in the Brotherhood of Infamy. With my group's combined strength, I was pretty sure we could tear through that like wet tissue paper.

“Well, I don't know how much has changed. I had to flee the mansion when the cult killed my father.” Amanda looked bitter. “They slaughtered the cleaning staff and their families too. Some of them were friends of mine.”

“End of the world, Amanda. Try to keep your brooding to a minimum here.” I immediately regretted saying it.

Amanda shot a withering glare to me before Mandy put a helpful hand on her shoulder.              

“Please, just try and remember.” Mandy said, her voice calm, even soothing. “We’re on your side. Mostly.”

Amanda took a deep breath. “Well, if I had to narrow it down to one single thing you have to worry about I'd probably tell you to look out for the giant robot.”

“The giant robot,” I repeated, looking over to the cyborg dinosaurs. “Right, okay, sounds about right.”

Amanda nodded. “My Dad is... was... a collector of a lot of weird superhuman stuff. One of them is the German
Automatisch Ubersoldatten
, a twenty-foot-tall machine from WW2 powered by the souls of the damned. My Dad never used it but I'm sure the cultists have reactivated it.”

“A magical
Nazi
robot.” Mandy blinked rapidly. It was as if she couldn’t quite digest what she just said.

“You’ve had a very interesting childhood,” I said.

“Tell me about it,” Amanda said, wiping her face off with her sleeve. “It kind of put a crimp on inviting anyone over to play.”

“I call cultural dibs on smashing this thing to pieces.” I raised my hand. I needed to apologize to God for my blasphemous boast earlier.

“Ditto,” Cindy added, grinning from ear-to-ear.

“You'll have to wait in line,” Amanda replied, smirking. “I've lived my entire life with that stupid thing in our living room. Nothing on Earth is going to keep me from smashing to pieces.”             

“How are we going to get there, though?” Cindy asked, gesturing to the wreckage spread across the bridge. “Our cars are trashed.”

No time to deal with that now, though. “When you're a supervillain, there's a never-ending supply of cars to steal. To the Merciless Mobile!”

“There is no Merciless Mobile,” Cindy pointed out. “You trashed the Nightcar.”

“I know that,” I said, having gotten caught up in the moment. “We'll improvise.”

We, instead, hijacked a minivan abandoned on the side of the road.

The journey to the Douglas family mansion wasn't long. They lived just outside of the city limits, still under the dome erected by the Brotherhood of Infamy. Their home was in a picturesque region of Falconcrest City filled with golf courses and houses worth more than some countries' national debt. Amanda's childhood home wasn't hard to pick out from the row after row of forty -room-plus villas.

Hers was the only castle.

The place was either a genuine Medieval castle transplanted to the United States stone-by-stone or a damn fine reproduction of one. It was complete with creepy towers and overgrown grass. A wrought iron fence surrounded the place with a large metal ‘D’ hanging over the gate. I expected bats to fly out of the tower belfries any minute. Storm clouds were gathering behind the castle, the edge of the bubble-like dome over the city shimmering behind it like the Aurora Borealis.

“We're in a van heading to a creepy castle. All we need is a talking dog and this is officially an episode of
Scooby Doo
,” Mandy muttered, sitting beside me in the passenger's seat.

“If so, I'm Daphne,” Cindy called from the very back of the van. Diabloman and Angel Eyes were sitting in front of her with Amanda between them.
              “I am not Velma,” Mandy’s voice brooked no disagreement.
              “Well I'm obviously Shaggy,” I said. “Angel Eyes is Fred. I suppose that makes Diabloman Scooby.”
              “This conversation has gone a direction I find insulting to a man who has overthrown governments,” Diabloman grumbled. “Besides, I like Velma.”

Angel Eyes just ignored us, doing his nails.

I shrugged and switched topics. “How did you end up living in a place like this anyway, Amanda? Most teenage girls only wish they lived in fairy tale castles. Albeit, in your case, the original dark and disturbing Brother’s Grimm version.”

“It's not as bad as you might think,” Amanda said, smiling. “My dad bought it from Vincent Weird, the sorcerer. It came with a lot of cool stuff like secret passages, giant spiders, and other cool things I got to play with as a child.

“You're like the debutante version of Wednesday Addams,” I said before turning around and reaching towards Cindy. “Henchperson, hand me my Merciless Binoculars.”

“You mean your regular binoculars? The ones we stole from an Omegamart on the way here?” Cindy said, handing them over.

“Yes,
my Merciless Binoculars
.” I shook my hand for emphasis.

Cindy sighed and gave me a pair.

Taking my binoculars, I surveyed the area before the mansion's entrance. I saw the place was surrounded by a group of about a hundred skin head punks. They were armed with a mixture of automatic weapons, bats, chains, and machetes.

I did my best Harrison Ford impression. “Nazis, I hate these guys.”

“You and me both, pal,” Cindy said.

There was also a giant Nazi robot coming around the back, waving its arms in front of it like it was a monster from an old black and white science fiction movie. The
Automatisch Ubersoldattan
, as Amanda called it, was a classic art deco design. It was mostly blocky with a square head and body with rectangular arms as well as legs. A number of blinking lights dotted its crude face. Instead of hands, the robot had claw grips and there was a long spinning radar dish on the top of its head. The thing honestly looked like an oversized child's toy with the exception of the steel swastika on its front chest.

“I have never wanted to destroy something so much in my life,” I muttered, narrowing my eyes. “Why the hell is the Brotherhood using a Nazi robot, though? I mean, at the very least, they could have scraped off the insignia. I mean, aren't supervillains today enlightened enough to avoid the sheer
tackiness
of it?”

“
The Brotherhood of Infamy has often made use of Nazi remnants and their imitators across the decades
,” Cloak explained. “
The Brotherhood claims they will be rewarded with a purely Aryan world upon the destruction of civilization by Zul-Barbas. This is, of course, nonsense
.”

“So, they make use of Neo-Nazis and a Nazi robot because they're idiots?”

“
Yes
.”

“
That
, I understand.”

“Don't you hate the way he talks to himself?” Cindy asked Amanda.

“Let me ask my Dad,” Amanda said, staring at her cloak. A second later, she said, “No.”

“Spoilsport,” Cindy said, pouting.

Mandy took the binoculars and took a look through them herself. “The robot seems to be patrolling around the castle grounds rather slowly. We should probably wait until it's moved to the back of the castle grounds to move in.”

“Yes, and all we have to do is kill a hundred or more Neo-Nazis,” I said, smiling at the prospect.

“It would not be difficult to kill them all,” Angel Eyes said, rubbing his facial scar. “Apparently, Aphrodite has not abandoned me completely. Between my magic and your fire powers, we could kill them all in under a minute.”

“Simple but effective, I like it. Who’s up for an old fashioned Nazi bash?”

Cindy's hand shot up, oddly so did Angel Eyes's.

“May I use lethal force?” Diabloman asked.

“As much as you want. In fact, if you
don’t
kill every one of them, I'll be disappointed.”

“We're not killing a hundred people,” Amanda said, taking charge. “Even Nazis.”

“Really?” I looked back at her, raising an eyebrow. “
National Socialists
are where you're going to draw your 'no killing' line?”

“Well...” Amanda trailed off, looking guilty. “It's not that I like them—”

“Even Ultragod killed Nazis both before and after taking down the Fuhrer,” I said, raising my forefinger for emphasis. “Superheroes can kill three types of people: Robots, Ugly Aliens, and Goose-Stepping Morons.”

“Don't forget zombies,” Mandy said, seemingly amused by our discussion. “That's important.”

“Yeah, the undead don't count either. They’re soulless abominations,” I said, throwing my hands up in mock surrender. “Besides, Amanda, you're not going to be killing them.
I'll
be killing them. Angel Eyes too.”

“I have no objection to killing fascists,” Angel Eyes said. “I killed more than my fair share during the Second Great War. I confess, though, I mostly ended up killing Italian fascists. They were not kind to Greece.”

Diabloman simply said, “I am at your service.”

“My family would never forgive me if I
didn't
kill Nazis,” Cindy said. “Even poseurs.”

“Could you at least
try
and cut down on the mass murder in my presence?” Amanda sighed, exasperated.

“After what happened at the stadium?” I asked.

“Because of what happened at the stadium.” Amanda corrected.

I sighed, realizing she was probably still traumatized by the slaughter there. “Fine, though this goes against my every instinct.”

I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair before rubbing my chin. “How powerful is this 1940s robot, anyway, Amanda? Do you know?”

“It was designed by Doctor Terror,” Amanda said. “So it's got all sorts of bells and whistles like super strength, near invulnerability, and—”

“Wait,
Tom Terror
worked for the Nazis?” I interrupted, shocked.
“Uh, duh,” Amanda said. “Didn't you know that?”

“I'm more a Silver Age fan than the Golden Age.” I felt sick to my stomach. “That son of a bitch. I can’t believe I didn’t
kill him when I had the chance.”

“That was probably a mistake,” Angel Eyes said. “For both the world and humanity.”

“Bastard.”  I cursed myself.

Mandy patted me on the shoulder. “It's okay, I'm sure you'll be able to kill the global-trotting terrorist the next time you meet.”

Mandy always knew the right thing to cheer me up.

“Thank you,” I said, looking back over at her “In any case, please finish up what you were saying, Amanda.”

“The robot has death rays—”

“There's a classic,” I interrupted, smiling. “I've always admired Ming the Merciless for having one of those.”

“Don't be racist, Boss,” Diabloman said. “It's getting annoying.”

“I'm not racist!” I snapped. “Just... okay, yeah, Ming the Merciless was a pretty racist. Sorry.”

“The robot also has motion sensors and radar. It's limited by its human pilot, however,” Amanda ignored us, rapidly developing one of the qualities necessary for survival in my group.

“A human pilot, huh? Interesting,” I said. Facts started coming together in interesting and peculiar ways. Okay, I have a plan.”

Everyone was curiously silent.

“Nobody is going to complain?” I asked.

“Your plans have an oddball way of working,” Diabloman replied. “Against all the laws of physics and good sense.”

“I think you're insane, Gary,” Mandy said. “I don't think you're stupid.”

“Yet, you married him,” Cindy pointed out.

“I love lunatics,” Mandy said. “What can I say?”

“That explains why you're here,” Amanda deadpanned, showing there may be hope for her yet.

“
Anyway
,” I said, “here's what we're going to do...”

Twenty minutes later, when the robot was safely on the other side of the house, the majority of the Douglas family mansion front yard exploded. A colossal wall of fire rose from the ground, illuminating the place for miles.

My distraction had begun.

Seconds after the explosion tore through the front gate and most of the Douglas family estate front lawn, a towering column of flame arose from the ground at least twenty-feet-high. Above it I hovered, back-lit by the fire, as I shouted with an exaggerated voice, “Doom is upon you! Beware!”

At the end of the day, all a supervillain has is his capacity for
showmanship
. Well, in my case, at the end of the day all I have is my capacity showmanship, a magic cape, and a team of extremely talented henchmen. Whatever the case, it would be theatricality that carried the day.

“Holy shit!” One of the skinheads shouted. “It's the Nightwalker!”

“It can't be him! He's dead!” Another exclaimed.

“Tell him that!” A third screamed.

A few of them started firing at my levitating form. Given I was insubstantial, their weapons were utterly useless. I made sure I was visible enough that they were able to see it. Nothing inspires fear like seeing your opponent shrug off your strongest attack.

“Your souls are mine, so speaks the Dark Lord!” I shouted, conjuring a bunch of hailstones to fall down upon them with my ice powers.

Oddly, it was the ice that did it. The skinheads, to the man, panicked and started running in every conceivable direction. The robot was still on the other side of the castle and thus we had plenty of time to rush on in before it arrived.

Levitating downward, I settled down a few feet away from the heat less fires and surveyed the empty area with no small degree of satisfaction. The ground was covered in abandoned guns, melee weapons, and even a rocket launcher.

“I must confess, Angel Eyes, I'm impressed with your skill at illusions. I never would have been able to make a conflagration like that myself.” I looked up at the massive inferno.  The fire was still burning brightly, almost like a work of art. I would have been exhausted making something a quarter of its size.

Angel Eyes walked through the wall of flames behind me, treating it as it were no more than a wall of mist. He took a moment to survey the landscape and gave a proud smile. “I still believe we should have killed them all. Still, I admire your theatricality. Aristophanes would be proud.”

Amanda Douglas, having pulled her mask on again, followed Angel Eyes through the harmless flame. “Please, you stole all of that from
The Princess Bride
.”

“I always steal from the best.”

Cindy, Diabloman, and Mandy passed through the illusionary wall of fire one by one. We'd left the minivan parked outside the estate in case the giant robot decided to smash it to pieces while we were inside.

From its halting, jerky, movements I figured we had at least six or seven minutes until the
Automatisch Ubersoldattan
finished its rounds about the estate. I'd waited for it to start on its journey away from the mansion and was counting on its sensors not picking up the illusionary fire we created. That gave us time to be cautious in our investigation of the mansion interior.

“Okay,” I said. “Here's my plan. We move to the front door, Amanda and I turn insubstantial, and then we scout ahead. You guys stay on the outside until the robot comes or we give the all-clear. We'll then proceed to—”

“Duck,” Angel Eyes said.

I immediately threw myself on the ground. A glowing blast of red energy sailed over my head and struck the ground behind me. A three-foot-deep crater appeared in the resulting explosion, showering me with charred dirt and burning grass. My face and back stung like hell as my ears rung from the noise.

“
Sieg Heil! Das ist ein Überfall
!” a deep robotic voice shouted as the
Automatisch Ubersoldattan
started tromping around from the back of the castle, moving at a far faster speed than I would have thought its blocky legs capable.

Its palm was sticking out and I saw a hole in the center of it, smoking from the blast it shot out at us. Obviously, I'd severely miscalculated the robot's self-awareness and speed.

“God damn World War 2 super-science!” I grit my teeth and looked to the Heavens. “Is there no end to the evils you bring!?”

Mandy tackled me out of the way as a pair of twin rockets fired from the machine's back and landed where I was standing, causing another explosion of dirt and flaming debris.

Mandy slapped me across the face. “This is no time for jokes!”

Her words stung. “Sorry, I don't know how to react to danger unless I'm joking.”

“Running and screaming is good!”

“But that's a joke by itself!”

“Shut up and fight!”

“
Eliminieren! Eliminieren
!” the robot shouted, waving its arms around wildly.

Angel Eyes began casting something, only to have the robot bat him away like a toddler knocking away a toy. It wouldn't be lethal to the Greek demigod but I suspected it would hurt like hell. Cindy, being the sensible soul that she was, ran like hell for cover and never looked back. Diabloman, brave but foolishly went for the rocket launcher dropped by one of the skinheads. I suspected it wouldn't even put a dent in the machine's reinforced steel hide but admired his courage.

“
Gary, this is a pointless distraction
,” Cloak said to me.

“Oh really? Cause, I thought it was us trying to stay alive!” I shouted, running alongside Mandy as the robot fired a number of energy blasts at us. I got to repay Mandy back for saving my life seconds later, pushing her out of the way as another energy blast exploded beside us.

“
There's no reason this place would be as heavily guarded as it is unless one or more of the Brotherhood's Inner Circle was present here,”
Cloak said. “
This might even be the location they're summoning Zul-Barbas from. You should dispense with fighting this mindless creature and focus on getting into the mansion
.”

The
Automatisch Ubersoldattan
picked up Amanda Douglas in one of its claw grips, the young woman trying to keep it from crushing her. Diabloman fired his rocket launcher, striking the machine in its shoulder. While it didn't do much damage, the resulting explosion caused smokes and sparks to pour from the spot.

The giant robot turned its head to the damage. “You little shit!”

“That's not a stock German phrase,” I said, wrinkling my brow. “Mandy, are you pondering what I'm pondering?”

“Why you keep joking despite imminent danger of death?” Mandy said, ironically going with my joke.

“No,” I said, trying to think of a response before shouting at Amanda, “Shoot the radar dish!”

Amanda, still held in the robot's claw grip, nodded and threw back her hand like she was pitching a baseball. A second later, a huge bolt of blue lightning shot forth and struck the machine's radar dish.

Electricity moved up and down the front of the creature before it lifted its claw grips up and started fumbling backwards, flailing its arms. To my amusement, the
Automatisch Ubersoldattan
did a semi-decent rendition of ‘The Robot Dance’ before it fell over.

Amanda, having leaped out of its grip as soon as she'd thrown her lightning bolt, cheered and gave a fist pump in the air. “Ten points! My first giant robot! Woo!”

“Yeah, it's a super-heroic milestone.” I walked up beside her. “Hold on,
you have lightning powers
?”

“Yeah?” Amanda inquired, looking at me. “What's wrong with that?”

“Lightning and super strength is
way cooler
than fire and ice powers,” I muttered. “Why couldn't I have had all four?”

“Don't be greedy, Gary,” Mandy chastised, taking up position beside me. “So, what do we do now?”

“Wait to talk to someone who might actually know something. It's likely one of the Brotherhood's inner circle if they're trusted enough to have a giant robot and smart enough to know two different languages,” I observed, staring at the ruined robot. “You know, if Amanda's lightning bolt didn't fry him.” It was also possible it was another Amazon and I hoped she was alright. For some reason, I felt sicker having killed them than the myriad cultists back at the stadium.

Amanda winced, the look visible through her mask. “Alight. Let’s crank her open.”

Diabloman and Angel Eyes took up position behind me as Cindy reluctantly crawled from behind an uprooted willow tree. Moments later, the front panel of the 
Automatisch Ubersoldattan
popped open, smoke pouring out of the front. An elderly man stumbled out, well into his sixties, and obviously wearing one of the seven Reaper's Cloaks.

“You... imbeciles!” The Brotherhood of Infamy cultist screamed. “Do you have any idea what you're interfering with?”

His voice sounded familiar and the closer he got, the more I could make out his features. I was gobsmacked when I realized who it was. “No way.
Chief Watkins
?”

The Chief of Police, Bill Watkins, was a member of the Brotherhood of Infamy? The man supposedly in charge of keeping the city safe from supervillains? It explained a lot, not the least bit including why our city sucked so bad. He’d been willing to let me go after killing the Typewriter, despite the fact I’d been involved in an earlier bank robbery.  Watkins probably thought I'd eventually get myself killed fighting the other supervillains in town and that would allow him to recover the Reaper's Cloak I was wearing.

Damn.

“He would have gotten away with it too if not for you meddling kids!” Cindy piped in from the back.

I waved behind me. “Not now, Cindy.”

“
I don't believe it
.” Cloak was horrified. “
I was friends with that man for thirty years. I was friends with his father for almost as long. How could I have been so blind
?”

“Save the self-pity for another time.” I stared daggers at the crooked cop. “Does he have any oogie-boogie powers I should worry about?”

“
He's wearing the Cloak of the Oracle
,” Cloak said, still sounding upset. “
It grants the ability to tell the future. You don't have to worry about him turning insubstantial or throwing fireballs like you and Amanda are capable of doing.”

“Good to know,” I replied, gesturing to the man. “Diablo, beat this guy up.”

“As you wish,” Diabloman answered, advancing towards the Chief of Police, his hands extended as if to crush the cultist.

“Wait!” Chief Watkins shouted, raising his hands in surrender. “We can make a deal.”

“Why did I know he would say that?” I sighed, rubbing the bridge of my nose.

“Because criminals tend to be a superstitious cowardly lot?” Amanda said.

“Yeah.” I nodded, before doing a double take. “Hey! Wait a damn minute, we are not!”

Amanda giggled while Mandy grinned.

Chief Watkins took a deep breath. “It's not like I'm insane for joining the Brotherhood. I had very good reasons.”

“I'm pretty sure summoning an eldritch abomination to destroy the world is the very definition of insane.”

“The world is doomed,” Chief Watkins replied, staring at me. His eyes blazed, filled with a hate I couldn't even begin to describe. “Hundreds of people die every year in this city due to supervillains. Men, women, children... especially children. My father waited until I'd seen how people ignore the horrible things supervillains, people like you, do before inducting me into the Brotherhood. My God, have you ever stopped to look at how
insane
this world is?”

“You mean how supervillains can kill a hundred guys or blow up a city in Florida only to get out on good behavior in a month? How superheroes can never kill people despite facing people objectively worse they'd fight in wartime?” I asked, my voice getting higher with each example. “How the masses are entertained by superhero and supervillain fights despite the fact they're risking hundreds of lives every time they brawl in the middle of downtown?”

“Yes!” the Chief shouted.

“No,” I said. “Not really.”

Chief Watkins looked frustrated but undeterred. “Zul-Barbas will destroy the world by reducing it to chaos, yes, but the ambient magical energy left behind will be greater than anything our world has ever seen. The Nightmaster, our leader, will use the
Book of Midnight
to harness that energy. We can remake the world overnight! Think about it! No more superheroes, no more supervillains, and the entire world running on the principles of science alone!”

“So, let me get this straight,” Mandy said, staring at him. “You intend to destroy the world with magic… so you can rebuild it with science?”

“Yes!” Chief Watkins hands shook as he spoke. “Not insane science either but the solid earthy kind. We'll have cars that don't fly and space that's an empty void we need gigantic rockets to visit. That's the kind of world we want to build!”

“You, Sir,” I said, pointing at his chest, “are a disgrace to Einstein and Tesla.”