Chapter 9: Monster
'Heard of between a rock and a hard place but this is a bit much' Hanna thought sitting in between an insane mutant and a strange cupcake eating blue bear creature with a flower in its head.
"Want some?" Dementia offered shoving a charred mangled lump of what used to be an arm. Hanna's stomach growled in disgust curling up her nose. She tried to crane away her head from the lizard like woman , her restraints however refused to let her.
"But its well cooked! " She jiggled the arm , bits of flakey charcoal falling down along with dried flakes of blood. The smell of the charred meat gave off a very strong pork-ish smell. It made her stomach churn.
"Dementia!" Dr. Flug hissed turning around in his chair anger written all over his paper bag face," What did I say about bothering the captive-hey that arm better not belong to Magma-man!" Hanna let out a tiny squeak in terror eyeing the arm. She actually hoped it wasn't an arm. Looks like those rumors of the villainess eating humans weren't rumors.
Dementia let out a snort taking a sickening crunch of the charred flesh Hanna's face growing sicker," Shut up nerd! Not my fault your dumb robots interrupted my lunch!"
"You were trying to deep fry a fast food worker!" He screeched nearly jerking the controls in anger," What did I say about making chaos while we're on missions?! Our job is to secure the hero quickly and get out!"
"Nag nag nag!" Dementia mocked the scientist mimicking his mouth with her hand,"Looki at me I'm Mr. Bag head! I think I know everything!"
"That's because I do know everything !"Flug snapped," How many PhDs and doctorates do you have?! Oh that's right none!"
"At least I have fun!"
"At least I actually do my job instead of fooling around tearing apart any random girl that looks at our boss!"
Hanna shrunk her head in as the two started throwing names at each other their verbal fight escalating to a point when the neon green woman threw the charred arm at his face. He let out a shrill screech of anger whipping out a dangerously glowing ray gun. "Do not make me destroy you! I can easily create another living weapon!"
"Didn't my darling forbade you from making more mistakes?" The lizard said picking up the stiff limb. He let out a swear in German hand slamming on autopilot before getting up. Hanna watched in mild amusement and confused terror as he ran after the neon haired villainess spewing words of anger at her.
The way he acted before and the way he acted now was so different she would have forgotten he was the one of the worlds most wanted criminal minds.
Upon meeting her eyes the bear creature handed one of his saccharine cupcakes to her. It was as if it was saying, "Do you want one?"
She shook her head. She was going to personally meet Black Hat in-from what she could see of the monitor- in a half hour. Better not have anything in her stomach when she does.
When Black Hat felt the arrival of those blood sucking parasites he called his minions ; he also felt another presence with them. At first he thought they had done their job right for once. On closer inspection on the presence he came to a likely conclusion: those buffoons brought home the wrong hero!
From the file on Magma man he was supposed to be brimming with vitality, this person however was not! Their life force was very strained weak. Almost fatally so. It was as if they decided to pick up a random homeless person from off the street!
'Did they not learn what happened the last time they tried to trick me?!' He fumed. His form barely held itself together as he stood up smashing his desk in half.
"Looks like I have to teach them another lesson!" He smiled evilly as shadows started to cover him from head to toe. Time to give them a home coming they'll never forget!
"Um, do they always do this?" The captive hero asked wishing that she wasn't restrained. Her back was hurting from being in this position for to long. The two infamous villains were currently running around the ship chasing each other while spew all sorts of insults. The blue creature shrugged with a solemn nod. Or as solemn as one can be with frosting on their faces.
Right now she watched in amazement as Dementia kept effortlessly evading all of Flug's laser blasts.
"Haha! You have crappy aim! " She yelled dodging yet another blast," Seriously are those lasers of yours just for show?"
"How about you stop moving ?! You talk big for someone who can touch their eye with their tongue!"
Their bickering made her remember her spats with her sister and ex-boyfriend. She and her best friend would bicker of course but never on this level. That is until that fight.
Tuning out their fighting she then went into her head space trying and failing to come up with what to say at the interview with Black Hat. 'What am I thinking I'm going to die' She let out a breath of air wishing that she could curl up into a ball.
"I should've went with Sl-" She started to lament when suddenly the lights in the ship snapped off followed by an eerie chill. Her heart stopped when she couldn't see at all in the total darkness.
Because of the habit of her eyes to glow she could see a bit in the dark. Not as clear as night vision goggles but enough that she doesn't stub her toes in the dark. But this darkness was thick. Thicker than pea soup.
"Uh, uh guys ?!" She screamed feeling her heart race. She nearly let out a screech when she felt something soft encircle her in a warm embrace. The soft thing – which she identified as the bear thing by the sugary smell of the cupcakes- let out a terrified whimper.
The two villains paused in their fight finally noticing darkness the suffocating darkness that befell them. Both sported a look of pure terror at the darkness.
"H-Hey baghead wh-why the lights just went out?"
"M-maybe an electrical glitch?"
" Oh it is much , much worse my dear Doctor"
The voice came from all directions; instead of an echo it came from multiple speakers. Hanna felt a spike of pure terror . The increase of the bear things grip did not help.
Dr. Flug took a fearful gulp not caring that he and Dementia were hugging each other for dear life. "B-boss w-what, what are you doing here?" The serious voice from earlier was replaced with a squeak.
The darkness began to recede slowly. Each slither of shadow writhed as it was sucked into a tall mass of blackness. "Oh nothing really " The black mass both tangible and transparent wiggled reminding her of a mass of black bootlace worms congealing slowly into a tall black figure. She watched with more disgust than fear at how the darkness slowly built a towering man thing.
The shadows smoothed and straighten turning into a very stylish black Victorian suit , after forming into spotless wearing white spats on black shoes. Varying shades of black made up this horrible being standing out a on glossy grey skin. The only color that decorated this figure was the bright red stripe of his iconic top hat and his green shark like grin.
The air around her seem to drop a few degrees when his one reptilian eye landed on her peering into her soul. This lone action chilled her blood. "I just wanted to meet our …guest"
With the stealth of a predator appraising a choice for meat Black Hat him self looked at her no doubt going over how he want to dismember her," Flug , Dementia, 5.0.5 is this the Magma man the client asked us to take care of? I may be oh so unfamiliar in the pathetic concept you worms call gender, but I do believe this begger here is not a male".
"We-we acta-actually took h-him -!" Hanna couldn't help but feel sympathetic to Flug's struggle to talk to his boss.
"SPIT IT OUT YOU PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A DOCTOR! OR DO I HAVE TO REPLACE YOUR TONUGE ALONG WITH THOSE USELESS ORBS YOU CALL EYES!" Black Hat roared his form growing at a disturbing rate his eyes-er- eye glowing red. Flug and Dementia cowered further together, the bear thing nearly crushed Hanna when it jumped on her.
Flug took a deep breath trying to look his boss in the eyes while shrinking down to make him look smaller,"Ye-yes! See a-ab-about Mag-magma man- a ridiculous name s-seeing that it should be called lava-"
" GET .TO .THE. POINT. FLUG"
The doctor let a squeak of terror," S-sorry Jefe! I-I we were h-having pr-problems taking h-him down cause of Dementia-"
"It was your fault!"
"I had a plan!"
"Well your plan sucked!"
"No y-you, you suck !"
"SHUT UP BEFORE I REPLACE THE TWO OF YOU WITH MIMES!"
"Yes sir ! "Flug gulped separating himself from Dementia who scurried away the furthest corner of the ship leaving him on his own to face the boss's seething rage," D-do to s-some difficulties with with the hero we um, ah had outside help .
"HELP? YOU HAD HELP DEFEATING A MINOR HERO?!"
His outbursts made Flug curl up in on himself further although he forced himself yo keep looking at his boss who got larger and larger nearly engulfing the whole ship in darkness.'The-the woman right there uh, inadvertently helped us eliminate Magma-man, s-she is-"
At this Black Hat snapped to the dirty person wrapped in restraints. The ice blue glow that surrounded her whole body seemed to get brighter. She may not have realised she was doing so because she was actually generating heat to melt the restraints further restraining her. He narrowed an eye at her moving closely into her personal space.
After what seemed like hours of looking at her his toothy unnerving grin returned a light of malicious glee mae his eye to glow," Well, well well, its not every day I see a hero return from the dead, Miss Love Arrow!"
Hanna s ice blue glow got brighter.
A horrible laugh escaped his mouth as he resumed apprasing her this time as a play thing than prey, which in his twisted mind were the same." I thought murdering a fellow hero was frowned upon or dare I say have you finally gotten tired of pretending to a little goodie two shoes?"
"I- I'm not," Hanna gulped trying looking everywhere except at Black Hats eye . She felt millions of wormy things crawling all over her burrowing deep into her flesh to get to her soul when she did, however the villain of villains just forced her head to look at him with a corpse cold glove covered hand.
"You're not what Miss Rivera? A hero? Maybe not , not after your betrayal by your dear sister and your foolish finacé! How hypocritical those heroes are, appearing virtuous and humble in the weak mind of sheep acting as if they are personifications of righteousness while at the same time abusing those rights given to them by the world!"
"I personally find it amusing how heartbroken or furious people get when they realize that the people that they worship are nothing but humans are guilty of all the same vices they are, turning their back on the very people that they worshiped!"
"But tell me Miss Rivera ," Black Hat grinned acidic salvia dripping down his mouth as he continued to read her soul relishing in the variety of emotions as he sorted through her dower memories. 'That fool .It seems he sent me a another chess piece to play with!' He thought sensing hidden bloodlust in this ex-hero. Humans were strange pathetic and interesting creatures.
From murder to robbery to genocide these creatures fueled mostly by greed and pride even the good things they do was fueled by these same things tricking themselves they do so for the greater good but in fact only for their own benefit. These pitiful creatures whose wants and desires easily made them puppets with out strings just waiting for the perfect puppet master to play them.
Without warning he forcibly summoned her worst memories forcing them to play over and over and over again on repeat. "Does that make you furious? I see those type of people that go to villainy for revenge. It's that type of half-assed plan that gets them killed."
Bloodlust, Anger, Fear, and that sense of lost. He could feel the emotion's run around in her brain in her flickering soul. He didn't mind the resistance from her will as he increased his powers on her, in fact if she didn't showed any resistence he would just get rid of her.
He ignored the scream she let out when he magnified the intensity of the memories not caring about the light show she displayed as she thrashed under his grip," People believe that villains do the things they do for various stupid reasons, however the true villains know exactly why they do so. Tell me Miss Love Arrow what is your reason?"
At this he abruptly stopped letting go of the hero who went limp breathing heavily.
Hanna let out ragged breaths feeling her vision going dark due to the intense mental onslaught, 'My reason…? What is it? I'm tired of this yes but if was I would have just finished myself long ago' Wearily she thought back to her past that sense of suffocation she had reliving those memories she tried hard to forget. But no matter what she couldn't move on.
" Monster!"
"She's crazy why do they let trash like that here?"
"Sister your powers are down right dangerous!"
"You are such a mistake! You derseve to be hit you monster!"
"Freak!"
The voicee increased spewing words that echoed through her brain, her thoughts getting increasingly scrambled inside her head until finally a clear cold famliler voice cut thought saying very clearly:
"Stop. What right do those assholes have over us any way? We're dead to them, we're finally free! After all those years trapped in a society where our every move was looked upon we're free!"
"But won't we prove them right? What if we're really a monster?"
"They did this to us! They all did to us! Not just Angela! Not just Gold heart! Not even that ex-villain that constantly look down on you! Every one! EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THIS PLANET DID THIS TO US! "
"So what is it Miss Rivera?" Black Hats gravelly voice interrupted that manic voice in her head making her blink voice, herself, was right. They called her a monster. Treated her like one all her life her sister. Her ex. Her friend. No matter what they were always afraid of her and she tried painfully tried to make her self approachable. But looking at the mad look in Black Hats eye she realized deep down that she was sick of being trapped in this cell that she put herself in.
So what if she becomes a monster? She already is.
"…I want to be-be free. I want to be a-"
"A villain?
"…No. A monster. I want to be a monster"
After saying her answer everything went dark , the only thing she heard before was a gravelly voice full of mirth saying," GOOD. I'LL MAKE INTO ONE OF THE WORST MISS DESÁMOR THE DEATH OF LOVE"
