"How'd it go with the new recruit?" Duncan asked, poking his head into Maggie's room.
Maggie sat up from where she'd been lying on her bed, practicing her telekinesis with the items she'd lifted the day she'd first met Max, which she still hadn't gotten around to selling at the pawn shop. She glowered at Duncan. "Did I say you could come into this room?"
Duncan rolled his eyes. "I'm not technically in your room, you know."
"You're in my theater, and I can kick you out whenever I feel like it," Maggie reminded him.
It was Duncan's turn to scowl. "I was just asking how things went with the girl Kevin found. You met with her today, right?"
Maggie kept up her glare until she got tired of it, then sighed, kicking the footboard with her shoed feet. "Yeah, I met her. She seems all right. I told her she can come to our Friday meeting this week."
"Really?" Duncan's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "So we're gonna let her in on the plan and everything?"
"You got a problem with that?" Maggie fixed him with a hard stare.
Duncan smiled wanly. "I was just under the impression that you don't trust people very easily."
"I don't. And I'm not saying I trust her. I'm just saying I think she's a good fit for what we're trying to do, and it'll be helpful to have more hands on deck." The more villains causing chaos all throughout the parade, the less scrutiny on me.
"So is she—" Duncan broke off, tensing. Maggie felt it too—the sudden shake of the ground, then again, and again, like mini-earthquakes.
Maggie scowled, the way she did every time their allies showed up uninvited. They may be on the same side for the time being, both groups determined to take power and show society that in fact, villains were still around, but Maggie wasn't stupid. She held no love for any of the four ex-Renegades who'd joined their villainous crusade, and she knew that they were planning on eventually double-crossing her just as she was planning on eventually double-crossing them. Besides that, their leader had the kind of sickeningly sweet, pretend-to-be-nice-while-planning-to-stab-you-in-the-back-with-an-ice-pick kind of personality that just grated on Maggie's nerves.
Maggie threw herself off the bed and stalked past Duncan, wrinkling her nose against the odor that always seemed to hang around him no matter how recently he'd showered. "Kevin didn't tell them about her, did he?" she asked.
Duncan snorted. "Kevin's scared to death of every single one of them."
Maggie rolled her eyes, stepping out onto the stage just as their allies burst in through the doors at the back of the auditorium.
"Margaret White!" Genissa Clark, a.k.a. Frostbite, a.k.a. leader of Maggie's gang's allies, spat Maggie's full name furiously, waving what looked like a newspaper in the air beside her head. "What is the meaning of this?"
Maggie surveyed Frostbite and her cronies with a bored look. It was the usual crew—Aftershock, the cause of the small earthquakes; Stingray, whose barbed tail could inject poisons that temporarily paralyzed people, and Gargoyle, the massive man who could turn his body to solid stone at will. All four of them were extremely dangerous, and back when they'd all been Renegades, Maggie had usually tried to give them a wide berth. But the thing was, she wasn't scared of them anymore. She'd seen Gargoyle defeated at the Renegade trials once, and while Maggie didn't like to remind herself that it was the inexplicably annoying Nova Artino who'd beaten him, it was rather nice that someone had been able to put him in his place. Of course, then there was the time when the entire group minus Stingray had been stripped of their powers, this time thanks to the Renegades' "brilliant" invention of Agent N, the substance that could magically turn prodigies into non-prodigies. Maggie could've told anyone from the start that carrying such a substance was a recipe for disaster, but of course no one would have listened to her.
It had turned out not to matter, though, since everyone who'd been neutralized had gotten their powers back as a result of the Supernova, and this was good for Maggie. Frostbite and her crew were the only real muscle the gang had, and they would play an integral role in the destruction of the parade.
"What is the meaning of what, Genissa?" Maggie drawled, knowing that Frostbite hated being called by her given name over her superhero alias.
"This," spat Frostbite, marching closer and slamming the newspaper down at Maggie's feet.
Maggie bent down and picked it up, eyes traveling to the headline: GATLON CITY BEWARE: VILLAINS ARE BACK. Beneath the headline was a picture that showed what looked like the interior of some kind of sandwich shop up in flames.
Maggie felt like her veins had turned to ice, and she cast a suspicious glance up at Frostbite to make sure that this was not actually the case. Frostbite's eyes were narrowed into slits. "Read it."
Maggie began reading the article. On September 14, at 2:13pm, Garrett Haller, owner of Mission Street Bistro, dialed in the first distress call to the Renegades Emergency Hotline. His call was soon joined by over a dozen others, all reporting the same thing: Heroes' Heroes, a sandwich shop owned and operated by Roger Bravette (alias The Chef), was on fire, with The Chef and others trapped inside.
Passers-by rushed to the rescue, each using their own unique talents to subdue the flames and bring the patrons to safety. The most notable hero on the scene was Insomnia/Nightmare (Nova Artino), who, with help from other heroes, was able to quench the fire with her own invention, a set of fire extinguishing smoke grenades.
At this, Maggie looked up. "Seriously? You're all bent out of shape because Nova Artino got her name in the paper again?" Frostbite nursed a grudge against Nova even bigger than Maggie's, which made sense, Maggie supposed, given that Nova was the one responsible for Frostbite losing her powers all those years ago, and—according to Stingray—one of many Renegades who'd stepped up to file complaints against Frostbite and her team when they'd tried to be reinstated as Renegades after the Supernova. And—oh yeah—the fact that Nightmare, previously one of the Renegades' most hunted villains, had been allowed to stay on as a Renegade while Frostbite and her team had been asked to step down surely hadn't helped matters. But acting like the world was about to come to an end just because a news article with a falsely seductive headline proudly praised one's nemesis was just childish.
Maggie made to hand the paper back to Frostbite, making sure to indicate through her body language exactly how disgusted she was by Frostbite's pettiness. "Next time you have something to show me, make sure it's something that actually—"
"You didn't read it," Frostbite hissed venomously. "Read the whole thing."
Maggie sighed in exasperation, but opened the paper back up and continued where she'd left off.
The only fatality from the incident was The Chef himself, having been held in the fire for up to twenty minutes with no reprieve. Coroners state that the cause of death was a combination of smoke inhalation and third-degree burns.
Although most of the heroes who responded to the fire assumed that it resulted from an accident in the kitchen, the patrons who were there when it started tell a different story. "The Chef was just standing behind the counter when a tall man came in from the back and grabbed him," reports Ashley Zenson, alias Galaxy. "The man called himself Flamethrower and said he was there to show us all that some superpowers are more powerful than others."
Galaxy also reports that upon these words, all of the patrons began calling on their own superpowers and skills in an attempt to save The Chef and capture Flamethrower. However, at that point Flamethrower unleashed a wall of flames, forcing the patrons to vacate the premises. Although many prodigies attempted to apprehend Flamethrower after the fire extinguisher grenades were used, he got away and is still presumably at large. We here at the Gatlon Gazette would like to urge everyone to take extreme caution in the advent of this new threat to society.
Maggie felt like the fire from the article was burning beneath her skin. She now understood what Frostbite was so upset about. All this time, they'd been planning and scheming to set themselves up as the new Gatlon City Villains—a group that would swoop in to take power before society decided to start classifying people based on how powerful their gifts were. But now this Flamethrower guy had stolen their idea.
"Do you know anything about him?" she asked Frostbite.
"The question is," Frostbite retorted snarkily, leaning closer to her. "Do you know anything about him?"
Maggie stared at her. "Why would I know anything?"
"I don't know. Seemed like someone who shared your line of thinking. Thought you might have recruited him."
"Are you kidding?" Maggie threw the newspaper down in disgust. "We have a plan. We've always had a plan. And this guy here—" She jutted her toe toward the paper "—is throwing a huge wrench in our plans. The whole idea was for villains to come out of nowhere! For us to take everyone by surprise! Thanks to the stupid Flamethrower, everyone and their dog's going to be on the lookout for villains. Especially at an event as big as the Renegade Parade. Oh, I'm sorry. The 'Hero Parade.'" She drew sarcastic air quotes around the words.
Frostbite relaxed some, evidently coming to recognize the candor of Maggie's frustration. "So what do you propose? I've come up with a few ideas myself, but I'm curious to hear your suggestions."
Maggie's mind was racing. All of her careful planning had pointed to the parade. It was the day when the most people would be gathered in the same place, leaving very few people around to catch her sneaking down to the catacombs. She'd figured that, if nine villains all at once started wreaking havoc in a relatively centralized location, it would be even more of a draw away from the location of Ace Anarchy's helmet.
"We can't wait another year," Maggie said definitively. Even if it weren't for the Flamethrower incident, a whole additional year of allowing society to deteriorate would be too much. Maggie had already caught the subtle decline of culture, the slow shift from everyone recognizing everyone as heroes, toward people starting to praise only the most notable heroes. It would only be a matter of time before they'd redefine the word "hero" yet again, and society would be worse off than it had been before the Supernova.
"You don't believe everyone can be a hero?" The memory came unbidden, accompanied by the perpetually earnest face of Callum Treadwell, who had never, not once, said anything negative about anyone's abilities—or about anyone period, for that matter. "Why not? What does the word 'villain' mean to you? Do you think the world would be different if we didn't classify prodigies into categories of 'heroes' and 'villains'?" He had always been trying to get her involved in discussions about good and evil, heroes and villains, worldviews and differences in perspective. Always been trying to convince her of humanity's inherent goodness and heroism.
But Callum was dead, because not everyone was a hero. Some people were, and would always be, villains.
Maggie felt the familiar uncomfortable twinge start pinpricking her heart again, and she quickly diverted her attention back to the matter at hand. "Our only options are to stick with the parade, or to do it sooner."
"Or," said Frostbite, a wicked smile curling her lips, "We announce ourselves by killing Flamethrower brutally and publicly. Proving your gang's point—that a group of prodigies with small, insignificant powers can take out someone with a 'better' power."
Maggie's stomach clenched. Yes, she was a villain, and yes, she wanted nothing more than to be the one with all the power. But killing someone? She wasn't sure why the idea put such a bad taste in her mouth. All the old villains had killed people; she knew that. Some of the Renegades even had, when it was necessary. And Maggie was anything but squeamish when it came to bodies and things like that—she'd been scavenging usable items from crime scenes since she was eight years old.
But there was just something about ending the life of another human being that didn't sit well with her.
"How would you suggest doing that?" she asked nonchalantly, not wanting Frostbite to pick up on her distaste.
"How wouldn't I suggest doing it?" Frostbite laughed, and her apparent glee sent a chill down Maggie's spine. "I'll come up with a plan, little Magpie, don't worry. Flamethrower will get what he deserves."
"Okay, but how are we going to make sure everyone sees it happen?" Maggie challenged. "It's not worth it if we can't draw a crowd."
"Oh, we'll still do it at the parade," said Frostbite. "You seriously think Flamethrower would pass up an opportunity to be part of something like that? We're just going to change up our positions a little. You were supposed to be—what, down on Stone Street? We'll just move you up a couple blocks, closer to the action. You'll use your telekinesis to plant a camera on the Council float when it passes by, and I'll be part of the crowd on Paring Avenue watching their progress. I'd imagine they'd be Flamethrower's most obvious target at the parade, right, since they're all so powerful—" She broke off, a wicked grin curling her lips as she stared off into the distance. "No. Not the Council's float. We'll do Sketch's float. We'll come up with a way to make sure Flamethrower targets that specific float, and then we'll all come from our different angles, attacking all the floats and causing mayhem just like the plan's always been, except the heat of everything will be on Sketch's float. Then we can take out that entire team along with Flamethrower."
The lunch Maggie had eaten earlier that day threatened to encroach into her throat. "Wait—you want to kill not only the Flamethrower, but Sketch's entire team too?"
Frostbite raised her eyebrows. "Do I detect a little bit of softness for the Renegades? Is little Magpie considering going back over to the heroes' side?"
"No," Maggie insisted. "It's just—that's a very powerful team. Sketch can draw anything he wants into reality. Nightmare can put people to sleep. Smokescreen can make smoke so thick you can't see anything, Red Assassin can make gemstones out of her own blood and then use them against you, Monarch can easily get away just by turning herself into butterflies, and Mirror Walker can just leave through any reflective surface. Oh yeah—and don't forget that Sketch is also the Sentinel, who has, like, what, eight or nine different powers by now? If we're trying to show how powerful we are, attacking a team who might have a chance at actually beating us isn't the way to go."
Frostbite was still eyeing her skeptically, and Maggie forced herself to continue staring defiantly right back into those ice-blue eyes. The reasons she'd just given were the reasons she didn't want to attack Sketch's float. Pure and simple. She had nothing to hide. It's not like she cared what happened to Sketch or any of the others. My opinion on this has nothing to do with Sketch being Max's brother, she told herself. Nothing at all.
"Their team has no chance at beating us," Frostbite sneered.
Maggie guffawed. "Yeah, 'cause they've never beat you before."
Frostbite's body went rigid, an icicle forming around her left hand. She raised it just high enough to be subtly menacing. "That was different. Agent N was in the equation then, and that freaky kid who could steal people's powers. It's not a fair fight when one side has the ability to take the other side's very powers away."
That freaky kid who could steal people's powers. Maggie opened her mouth in indignation, but closed it just as quickly, knowing that defending Max would only raise questions about her own loyalty to the cause. "I seem to remember it was your team who was the most excited about Agent N when the Council announced it," she quipped instead. "And I also seem to remember that it didn't even take the whole team to take all of you out of commission. It was just Nightmare, wasn't it? She's gotten the best of your team a few times." Maggie was aware of the hint of admiration that had crept into her voice, and she hated herself for it. She had no warm feelings whatsoever for Nova Artino—but she couldn't deny that the girl did have some exceptional skills.
"Well, we'll just have to deal with her first, then, won't we?" said Frostbite. "Her and Sketch. We'll just tell Flamethrower that they'll be the biggest threats, and I don't think he'll have any trouble at all roasting both of them like fowl over a bonfire."
"You're forgetting something," Maggie said flatly. "Flamethrower isn't on our side."
"Not yet," Frostbite smirked. "But I'm beginning to think we could use a temporary new recruit."