a supervillain writing experiment (1)

Nobody ever tells you how much it hurts being thrown through a wall. First the initial impact tears the air from your lungs, something not even near-impervious skin protects from. Then, for the briefest of moments, your body is a battleground between the momentum you have built up, and the structural integrity of the wall itself. Flesh compressed, bones creaking, reinforced concrete cracking, metal supports bending and suddenly something gives and you are through, only to smack into something else and rest there, velocity depleted. Nobody ever tells you that, at least nobody ever told me. After all, this is not even my body.

I always saw Lady Argent as invincible, silver skin shedding bullets like rain, muscles strong enough to punch through a tank. I should know. I saw it happen on that day when the world turned itself inside out and the skies themselves tried to devour us. They called it the Antiverse Incursion, and it only lasted three days. Had it lasted four I suspect there would have been nothing left but pieces. She was there, with the rest of us, fighting impossible odds and nightmares from beyond the gate, fighting cackling shadows of ourselves, fighting men of science and women of magic, fighting the very fabric of reality itself as it was torn apart around us. I saw her fight, but I never knew how much it hurt, doing the things that she did. Not until now, when I am inside her skin, when I feel every punch and every bullet and realises this was what she always hid from us, that her invulnerability came with a price. She could still feel everything.

Like I do now. I pick myself up from the floor and try to wrap my thoughts around that part in the back of her mind that controls her reptile brain of speed and strength. She is not like a normal puppet; I can’t dare to let her mind get even close to waking. I can’t tap into her memories or her skills, and so I’m left with a stumbling marionette, a novice in a skinsuit, a bungler hijacking the brain of one of the most powerful women I have ever known. I was never a fighter when I played the hero game; I read surface thoughts and mapped intentions. I knew when somebody would take a shot, and would just choose to be elsewhere. I wove illusions of distraction to keep up with the best; I used guns and technological toys, everything I could to distract from the fact that I have never been able to throw a punch to save my life. I always had a backup plan.

I don’t have one now. I have to use every ounce of my power to keep her mind in my grasp, to piggyback her nightmares, to keep her unaware that this is really happening. That she really is fighting the rest of the Quartet. Or rather, that I am. The Herald swoops through the hole he punched me through, trying to reason with a woman that is no longer there. I almost feel bad for him as I feign weakness and confusion, stumbling to my knees. He lands, of course. It’s no secret that he and Lady Argent are lovers, and for a moment worry overwhelm caution. He doesn’t even gasp when my punch hit him squarely in the groin, he just wheezes a little and falls over, curled up in a ball of unimaginable pain. I take this moment to rise and run, not out in the street but further back, into the building where I was tossed. I barely register nameless offices and screaming people, doors are no more hindrance than windows, and I break through the fire exit in a shower of splinters. I spot an almost empty trashcan and decide that this is my best bet. It takes but a moment to drop the circuitry I stole, and in another breath I am out on the street again, glittering in the sunlight as cars screech to a halt around me.

All that remains now is to go out in a properly villainous fashion. I have got what I came for, and it’s time to let this puppet go, she has done her job. And yet, I can’t quite resist lingering inside her brain. I am starting to get the hang of how her biology works; the thrill of being able to lift a car over my head and toss it down the street is intoxicating. I am a woman of steel in a world of cardboard, and I leap and land on a truck, raising my hands towards the heavens as I laugh maniacally. So this is what makes a proper villain, I find myself thinking. You laugh because you cannot keep your silence. The joy is simply too great, the world is too beautiful when it burns, people scattering around your feet like ants. We are all children at heart; we dress up in bright revealing costumes and play at being gods and devils. I laugh, but already I see Porphyry barging down the street, massive stone fists swinging like pendulums as he gathers speed.

It is time to end this. I tense my borrowed legs and jump to meet him. Part of me wants to stay, to see if she truly would be strong enough to beat even the granite behemoth that once fought The Calamity to a standstill. But, this is going to hurt, and at heart I am a coward. So I detach myself from her brain, jolts her out of her confused dreams and into this waking nightmare of burning cars and onrushing fists of stone. I close her eyes hard, and open my own a second later, the disconnect making my stomach turn over. I rise on trembling legs and make my way to the bathroom just in time to save myself from the indignity of throwing up all over my suit. The air-conditioning hums quietly in the hotel, but I can hear the sirens in the distance. By now the battle must be all over the networks, but I keep hugging the toilet until the world stops spinning around me. I did it. I actually did it. I would have laughed if saliva wasn’t dripping from my mouth.

Step one, complete.