One of my reviewers is psychic.
…
Uther Pendragon sat down at his office, his hands folded, his face crossed into a furious scowl.
"Have you heard what they're saying?" The Girl Wonder slammed a headline down on Uther's desk.
"I've seen the papers," Uther informed her dully.
"The death of good," the Girl Wonder read, "new supervillain, the Magic Man, bests Ultraman in under ten minutes."
"It was a much longer fight than ten minutes," Uther said to himself. The Girl Wonder glared at him. For a woman who could look so youthful in pink spandex, Uther knew she was nearing her fiftieth birthday, but she, like him, had never stopped crimefighting.
For the first time, Uther was questioning that.
"I'm old," he realized suddenly.
"Nonsense, you're fifty-three," the Girl Wonder dismissed the thought.
"No, Jessice," Uther refered to her directly and the Girl Wonder, Jessice, looked up at him in surprise. "I'm fifty-three, you're forty-nine, and we're still fighting the same war we were fighting when we were twenty." Uther stood up, his gaze drawn to the golden suit thrown carelessly on a coffeetable. "Inhuman abilities doesn't make us inhuman, almost one percent of the population now has abilities, superheroes are commonplace."
"Not superheroes, there are people with abilities who are heroes, and then there are others who are superheroes, like Mother Theresa and... and Ultraman," the Girl Wonder assured.
"Something has to change," Uther realized.
The Girl Wonder laughed nervously. "One defeat and you're ready to quit? In the world of comics, Superman was defeated hundreds of times, Batman too," she reminded him.
"In the real world a hero can't afford to lose," Uther told her, "I would never have lost to that clumsy oaf of a villain even five years ago, but I feel tired, Jessice."
The Girl Wonder sighed. Accepting this, she'd been expecting it, she asked, "Then what do you want to do?"
"Why can't a hero retire?" Uther asked her, a slight smile on his lips.
"The villains will come after you for revenge anyway," the Girl Wonder answered immediately.
Uther chuckled. "They don't know who we are, they've never been able to find out, not Spiderlord, not Nova, not any of my trademark villains. We could-"
The Girl Wonder interrupted. "Not until the Magic Man, he saw you without your mask, Uther, and I'm pretty sure he'll recognize the richest man in the world."
"The Magic Man isn't a real adversary," Uther told her, "he won't do anything with the information. He was some kid trying to make a quick buck-"
"He ran off with four million dollars in bonds," the Girl Wonder interrupted again, "that's some quick buck."
"Regardless, the only power I saw him use was a tempermental telekinesis, one power isn't enough to make it in this game," Uther informed her, "the Magic Man, if he surfaces again, will just be a minor villain trying to get as much money as he can."
"He now has credibility," the Girl Wonder told him, "he defeated you, he'll have out of work assassins and soldiers and minions lining up at his door."
"The Magic Man will be the next generation's problem. I think it's time for the Justice Union to retire."
The Girl Wonder's eyes widened. "All of us?"
"Name one of us who isn't nearing fifty, name one of us who is at the top of their game," Uther challenged.
The Girl Wonder couldn't.
"The purpose of Hero University, we all know, was to train those with powers to use them for good and to select the future generation to protect the world, and to protect the city of Metropolis. Why do we have to wait until we are dead to announce our successors?" Uther gently touched the cape of his suit with one hand, as if saying a silent goodbye.
"I know who you are going to choose for a successor," the Girl Wonder said, her voice suddenly harsh, "and I want you to know that he should never have been accepted into Hero University in the first place and he'd never be ready to replace you."
"Arthur will learn," Uther announced stubbornly.
"Just because he's your son doesn't mean he's you." The Girl Wonder crossed her arms.
"Jessice," Uther warned.
"Uther," the Girl Wonder countered.
Uther sighed. "Your warning has been noted, and will be ignored," he said.
"He'll die out there," the Girl Wonder told him.
"Why? Because he has one power? There have been many heroes with one ability!" Uther argued.
"And none of those heroes lived past twenty-five!" The Girl Wonder shouted.
Uther frowned. "Arthur will be different, he's my son."
"Can you just accept that your son is not meant to do the same work you do?" The Girl Wonder asked harshly.
Uther laughed. "Ultraman's son? What do you want Arthur to be? A banker? An accountant?"
"At least those jobs won't get him killed," the Girl Wonder announced.
Uther shook his head, "No," he said, "you choose who you will, and I will choose Arthur. Inform the other members of the Justice Union my decision."
Seething, the Girl Wonder relented.
...
Merlin was sitting at the dinner table, in skinny jeans, converse, and a shirt bearing the legend 'Error 404, Request not found', and Hunith was next to him, wearing a flower-print dress Merlin had picked out for her. "Eat something," Merlin said quietly, pushing a plate of his mother's favorite, chicken parmesan, in front of her.
"I told you, Merlin, I'm not hungry." Hunith crossed her arms.
Merlin frowned. Tense, he took his own fork, spearing the meat on his place with malice. Then he sat back, staring at his food, and he crossed his arms in a perfect imitation of his mother.
"You don't have to stop eating because of me," Hunith said quietly, reaching over to Merlin. Her hand just brushed against his shoulder and Merlin stood up abruptly.
"What do you want?" Merlin shouted at her. "We have MONEY! We have a NICE HOME! We HAVE ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING AND YOU GLARE AT ME LIKE YOU'RE DISSAPPOINTED THAT I DID THIS!" Chest heaving, he slammed his hands down on the table and glared at her.
"I am," Hunith said, not threatened by Merlin's actions.
"You're WHAT?" Merlin demanded.
"I'm disappointed in you," Hunith told him.
Merlin's face contorted in confusion. "I GOT US WHAT WE NEEDED!" He stepped back from the table, knocking aside his chair.
"Did we need a huge home? Did we need millions of stolen dollars? Did we need the papers declaring my son as the next great supervillain?" Her voice caught in her throat. "Merlin, we don't need this."
"Like you were doing so well caring for us," Merlin scorned. Guilt appeared on his face immediately, but Merlin didn't apologize.
"I think I'll retire to my room now," Hunith said, standing up.
"I'll eat dinner!" Merlin shouted.
But when his mother had left, all Merlin could manage to swallow was a single bite, and even that felt heavy in his stomach. He dropped his head in his hands, and thought.
...
In his room, looking down at the people below from his window, Merlin pressed his forehead to the glass. The television on in the corner was announcing something else in the news, the Democrat candidate was beating the Republican candidate in some online poll, but Merlin could see, in the reflection on the glass, a reel constantly spinning on the channel. 'Ultraman defeated, Magic Man victorious'.
Merlin hated this feeling. It wasn't right. "I don't want to be the bad guy," Merlin said to himself.
'Ultraman defeated, Magic Man victorious; Ultraman defeated, Magic Man victorious; Ultraman defeated, Magic Man victorious; Ultraman defeated, Magic Man victorious.' The reel kept playing on the screen and Merlin watched it as if hypnotized.
"I wanted to be meant for something more." 'Ultraman defeated, Magic Man victorious.'
'Ultraman defeated, Magic Man victorious; Ultraman defeated, Magic Man victorious.'
"Supervillain," Merlin chuckled to himself. "An eighteen year-old supervillain living with his mother." 'Ultraman defeated.'
'Magic Man victorious.' "I wanted to be a superhero, defending everyone. What does a supervillain even do?"
The answer came immediately. Whatever you want.
Merlin suddenly smiled. "I defeated Ultraman, I won. There's no one stronger than me now," Merlin laughed. "I won!" He said happily, and his magic surged in him as a response.
"I can destroy Hooters, steal any money I want, burn down my old high school!" A thought, a better thought, came to Merlin and he smiled, "I can destroy Hero University."
...
In order to perform Merlin's first great act of villainy, he needed barely any preparation and two million dollars. He already had the money, and he was very good at doing very little preparation.
As Magic Man, Merlin sat across from Violini. The music from the night club was loud, but they were in a room away from all of that, and Merlin was sourrounded by Violini's bodyguards, all too frightened to even come within three yards of him. Merlin rather enjoyed that fear.
"A bomb," Violini was saying.
Merlin shook his head, "No, just a collection of explosives, that's all."
Violini tapped on his chin, pretending to scruitinize Merlin. "The Magic Man himself comes to me for a little exploding magic?"
"No, explosives, that's not magic," Merlin informed him.
"Alright, alright," Violini waved him off, "what kind of explosives?"
"Something that can blow up steel," Merlin said. A bodyguard was looking at him funny, and so Merlin slowly turned his porcelain face to look at the bodyguard, who immediately started to tremble. Brown eyes, Merlin noted as he looked at the bodyguard, soft brown hair, muscles. Merlin smirked, "You work out?"
The bodyguard started. "Wh... what?"
Coward, Merlin thought, but that didn't stop him from appreciating the bodyguard's looks.
"You'll want either massive amounts of C4," Violini was saying, "or my latest bomb, but I warn you, neither option is cheap."
The C4 would be better to make it look like an accident, the bomb would be showy. Everyone would immediately know I'd done it, or at least a villain had. Violini was waiting for a reply. So either do I go underspoken, or do I announce to the heavens that I'm the next great supervillain? "How much do each cost?" Merlin asked.
"Depends on how thick the steel is that you want to break," Violini replied, searching for some hint as to what Merlin wanted to destroy.
"The side of a corner steel pillar of a skyscraper," Merlin answered.
Violini nodded to himself. "Well," he said, "I would prefer to know exactly what is going to be destroyed, so I don't have to be anywhere near it when it happens, know what I mean?"
"I'll give you that information after we make our transaction," Merlin told him, "you don't need to worry that I'll withhold it from you, you have been very helpful and I wouldn't mind doing business with you again." And because he couldn't resist, Merlin looked back at the bodyguard and added, "Especially with someone with such strapping, handsome guards."
Violini frowned. "They're supposed to be intimidating," he confided in Merlin.
"I am so not intimidated," Merlin winked at the guard.
Violini shuddered. "Anyway," he said, "C4 or bomb? Both cost half a million dollars."
"Bomb then," Merlin informed him. "And stay away from the Martin Accountancy Building."
Violini blinked. "You're destroying the accountant's building?"
"I have a thing against chartered accountancy," Merlin informed him.
...
Merlin walked, unchallenged, into the accountancy building wearing a boring grey suit and a bow tie, carrying a heavy silver case. He took the elevator to the basement and came out of the basement without the heavy silver case. Then he took the elevator to the forteenth floor, took the stairs to the sixteenth floor, and lit several fires in the unoccupied sixteenth floor. And then he took the elevator to the lobby and left the Martin Accountancy Building a few minutes before the alarm bells began ring and the building was evacuated.
Merlin, entering a nearby gas station, then had the unpleasant business of waiting for a very large, fat trucker to get out of the bathroom so he could change, and eventually just went into the girls bathroom, and the irony of it made him laugh as he struggled to pull his tight gloves over his leather clothes.
Merlin then walked happily to a park bench where he had a perfect view of Hero University. It seemed, as the Magic Man, that people were diliberately avoiding looking at him as he sat down or were taking pictures and videos of him with their cell phones. Merlin whistled to himself, first 'Raindrops are falling on my head', then Katy Perry's 'I Kissed a Girl', and eventually found himself stuck in 'This is the Song that Never Ends'.
That was definetly going to be a hit on Youtube, supervillain whistles Katy Perry.
Merlin, realizing he didn't have a watch, shouted to one of the people taking a video of him, "Have the time?"
Her hands shaking, the girl replied, "Two... uh... two twenty... uh... twenty eight."
"Seven minutes," Merlin said to himself.
"Seven minutes for what?" A very important, deep voice asked.
Merlin turned slightly around, to see a group of people wearing purple and gold 'Hero University shirts'. "Ah, the minions have arrived," Merlin smiled.
"We are heroes," a very pretty girl with black hair said, stepping forward.
Merlin's magic decided to be helpful. He had never met nor heard of this girl in his life, but his magic informed him, nicely, her name. "Ah, Morgana," Merlin said, and he had the satisfaction of seeing the pretty girl flinch.
"How do you know who she is?" The other girl in the group, a girl with skin slightly tanned and soft brown hair asked, her voice light.
Merlin took a moment to look at his four 'opponents'. First, there were two boys and two girls, so he had the idea that this was the classic team which had been formed by some teachers in the University. Second, they were all incredibly good-looking, like every hero should be, especially a blonde, tall, fit twenty-something standing slightly in the front like a leader. Merlin licked his lips.
"Answer her!" The other hero in the group, a dark haired, Spanish looking, rugged type demanded.
"Gweneviere, Arthur, and Lancelot," Merlin's magic named them and Merlin repeated it. "My, you're the top class at the University aren't you? Juniors, right? So, were you playing Ultimate Frisbee in the park and decided to ask for another player? Because I'd love to join."
"Next time you decide to lounge about in the park, you might consider doing it somewhere away from the sight of the University gym," Arthur warned. His hands clenched into fists, and there was something in his powerful gaze that left Merlin with the knowledge that a punch from him meant six months in the hospital.
"But then I'd miss out on this lovely view," Merlin informed him. And, crossing his legs, he smirked at Arthur, "Although I have to admit, it did just get better."
"You're riding on the fame of a fluke," Morgana growled, "how does that feel?"
"Let's see..." Merlin said to himself. Heroes were idiots, Merlin knew one of the first thngs they were taught was to get the villain to exercise some sort of emotion. What they didn't understand, was that Merlin always had to be emotional, his powers only responded to how he was feeling. "I'm rich, infamous, handsome, and rich, it feels wonderful," Merlin replied. And then, seriously, he asked, "How do you feel?"
"Surrender now," Arthur offered in a way that reminded Merlin, almost spookily, of Ultraman, "or we'll be forced to fight you."
"I'm a lover, not a fighter," Merlin said, exaggerated, "what about you, handsome?" Arthur recoiled.
And then they all heard an explosion. "Aha!" Merlin announced, jumping to his feet. "My evil plan is working!" Arthur was in front of Merlin in a second, and he reached out with a fist, prepared to knock Merlin to the side. Except his fist froze in midair.
"Wait there for just one second," Merlin told him, "I'll be right with you. Don't move." And Arthur couldn't even struggle.
The beam of the Martin Accountancy Building was vaporized, although only Merlin knew that at the moment. The building had been poorly built, but stable, and in a city like Metropolis, that spanned over twenty miles in every direction, that was all that mattered until Merlin realized that if the Martin Accountancy Building happened to fall over in the right direction, it would completely crush a certain building underneath it.
"Say goodbye to your school," Merlin said happily, "good thing it's Sunday, so no one's inside, right?"
The three others were in shock, they just stared as the Martin Accountancy Building toppled over directly onto the gorgeous, Greek-themed university that was the pride of everyone in Metropolis.
By the time Gweneviere, Morgana, and Lancelot looked back, Merlin had disappeared and so had Arthur.
Morgana sighed. "Ultraman's going to kill me," she moaned.
...
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