Mark walked into an atrium of glass and light and business, with people in suits talking with people in normal-ish clothes, and other people walking with purpose, with their heels clicking on the white marble flooring. Overhead, steel sculptures of superheroes and supervillains floated in the air… or rather they were held up by well-hidden cables and support structures. There was Glorious Man, rushing forward with a punch against Nighterror, who reeled back while Wandering Sage, Isoko’s grandmother, twisted the battlefield with blades of wind. There were dozens of major figures, all supported from the ceiling, all fighting their own battles.

Mark didn’t recognize many of the fights, but he was pretty sure that Wandering Sage’s fight against Glorious Man up there was the one that happened when Wandering Sage grabbed that True Healer and jumped the line to get Isoko’s mother treated for cancer. It was a big story, 13 years ago…

Oh.

No.

It was not a tableau of history.

The ‘fight’ Mark was seeing was more of a ‘this is generally how it is’ and less of a specific fight. Nighterror was Glorious Man’s usual big enemy. Wandering Sage was there in the background… Yeah. This wasn’t a historical thing at all.

All the other fights seemed the same way, actually. Was it a marketing thing? Maybe—

“Greetings,” said a man in black, standing a bit away from Mark. He looked… kinda evil. Black suit, purple undershirt, slicked back hair. It was a look with a purpose, for sure. “I’m Gaston Lussier, AKA Shadowlock. I’m a liaison for the Worldwide Villain Program out of Crystal Tower, here at Citadel Freyala for various reasons.”

Ah.

They had come out to meet him, then.

Mark felt a weight settle upon him. A weight of duty? Perhaps.

Mark said, “Hello. I’m Mark Careed. I’m here to sign up for the Villain program… for various reasons.”

Gaston grinned a little bit. And then he said, “I know who you are, Mister Careed.”

He gestured behind himself and a tunnel of shadows ripped through the air, up through the diorama of superhero sculptures, leading all the way up to the fourth floor, or maybe the fifth. The center of the tunnel opened up. On the other side, maybe 5 feet away from Mark, were the doors to an office labeled ‘Crystal Tower Villainy Liaison’ and also ‘Shadowlock’.

Gaston walked through first.

Mark watched as upstairs, on the other side of the portal, Gaston stood, waiting for him.

Well then!

He was using his Powers in public and in a large way, huh? That was clearly ‘villainous’.

… Yeah. ‘Gaston Lussier’ was a ‘villain’; yes that made sense. Was his first name even his real name? Or his business name? Was Mark going to need to choose a better personal name? Like movie stars did sometimes? Maybe he would?

Mark stood tall and walked through the portal.

And then he was on the fourth floor, looking at all the superhero sculptures from above.

Mark watched the shadow tunnel collapse, saying, “That’s neat.”

Gaston chuckled a little, and then he began to cackle as he slammed open the doors to his office and strode through like some sort of demigod. Or something. Or probably just like a villain, actually.

Mark walked inside, asking, “Do I need to learn to cackle like that, too?”

“Absolutely yes!” Gaston said, without hesitation.

The doors shut with flickers of shadow, and Mark was alone in a room with a villain.

Better than being alone in the sky with a dragon, really.

The office looked great and professional. Big desk. Some computer screens. Big screen to the side, in front of some couches. And also a bunch of merchandise, strangely enough. Cups and mugs and bobble-heads and tshirts sat each in their own little cubbyhole, each perfectly illuminated by light sources, each of the heroes or villains looking colorful or dour or sharp or sexy, depending on the hero or villain in question. Mark knew almost none of the people on that merchandise, for superhero culture was vast and Mark was more focused on monster killing, but he did recognize some of those people. He recognized the theme of Gaston’s work… Maybe.

The Hero/Villain Program was different things to different people. Combat preparedness was major goal #1, but money, narrative, and culture, were all #2 through #whatever. A lot of heroes were in it to make a living as a minor movie star for action-oriented shows.

Big bay windows showed off the horizon of Citadel Freyala, and all of the big churches in the distance. Grand Central Citadel rose tall and strong, all Gothic and old/new at the same time, while the wall of the city loomed in the distance, like a solid grey-ish horizon.

Gaston turned around, grinned, and then his entire demeanor changed. His shoulders weren’t quite so straight. His back wasn’t so rigid. His eyes even seemed softer, as all of him seemed a whole lot more approachable. His voice even seemed nicer, as he said, “I was asked to spend some more time here in Citadel Freyala as of a few weeks ago, in case you came this way. I usually move all over the place, but Citadel is one of my normal haunts. Wandering Sage asked me to do this, and also Ivona Gusca, Mind Dancer. I believe you met both of them at a party at the Cybersong residence.”

Mark felt some funny kinda way at being told of small intrigues in the H/VP. He nodded. “I met both of them, yes. Ivona was the pink lady. She, uh, tried to get me to join the Hero Program, but in a way that was… probably intended to make me not want to join. She spoke a lot about money and merchandising and I’m not sure what else.”

Gaston nodded. “All correct!” He went over to a little refreshment station, next to some nice couches and a coffee table, asking, “Would you like to sit? And a cup of coffee? I brewed it a few hours ago. It’s really quite good stuff. I’m having a cup.”

“... I never really liked coffee, but I will certainly try it again.”

Gaston grinned. “Let me make you one with cream and sugar.”

“Sure!”

Mark soon found himself sitting and sipping some really quite good coffee. It was a wonderful shade of brown with a little bit of foam, and it tasted like caramel-milk-something. He smiled as he had a second and third sip. He had never had coffee this good, which was weird. He wondered what Gaston had done differently with his coffee. He had just poured it out of a coffee pot alongside his own cup, and then poured in some foam and sugar.

Mark said, “I think if this had been my introduction to coffee, I might have started drinking it more.”

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Gaston grinned as he sipped his own cup, done in the same style. “Thank you. It’s not often I get to introduce someone to coffee. I grew out of the flavorful stuff decades ago and I mostly take it black these days, but it’s always nice to go back to my roots.” He had another sip, and then set his cup down. “So you’re being more or less forced to be a villain.”

Mark gave a tiny, wry grin. “I would honestly not participate in any of this stuff if I could leave it behind, but yes. This is happening.”

Gaston nodded, looking secure. “That’s just about the best attitude that a future villain can have about this job, because that’s the attitude that allowed this whole hero/villain thing to develop at all. The original villains, Timegrabber and Sunwallower, were all real heroes who saw the need to train the younger generations outside of the death traps that were normal hunter routes in the wilds. They also had a great love for the old comics.

“So Timegrabber and Sunwallower became ‘villains’. This whole idea started with the villains, because you have to have people willing to take the fall to raise other people up. Everything else developed from there.

“We do this job because we must, though we usually end up having a lot of fun, too. And yes, we rob banks and we usually end up getting beaten by young heroes all the time, but this is important work. There’s not a single villain out there that hasn’t helped lift young heroes up, and prepared them for proper take downs of actual villains, or, more usually, monsters.”

Mark smiled a little, and this time it was kinda real. “I heard something like that from a few different people.” He added, “I don’t want to actually do any villain work for a while. Hopefully not ever, but I know that’s impossible with what's-his-face demanding… Whatever he wants to happen. I’m going to Daihoon in like, a month. Maybe a week. I don’t know when, but I do know that’s where I want to go, first. And then I’ll do the villain-thing later. Years later.”

Gaston nodded. “We don’t want the dragon involved in anything yet, either, so that’s a good play. I understand that you, Isoko Kanno, and Eliot Cybersong, are all embarking on a city creation mission, headed in the same general direction, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know what Empire? What general part of Daihoon?”

“I don’t know anything yet, but I have read up on the general order of events. Eliot is going to be the one making the city, I assume, alongside a plethora of other people. I heard he’s in the middle of a great big bidding war right now. I’ll become one of the roamers there, alongside whoever else comes along, and Isoko will be there with me, too. I think they’re making it a really big event, drawing in a thousand people and tens of organizations, or something like that. Larger than a normal settlement thing.”

Gaston nodded a little. “That’s about all I heard, too. If you had known a direction, then I could have tried to set up a H/VP in that direction...” He came to a decision, saying, “We’re not putting you into a villain role, anywhere, but we can go through paperwork and nominally set you up as a villain. Normally, there would be psych evals, history examinations, vouchings, and a host of other concerns, but the big, overriding concern is, ahem, your brother. So you’re getting fast-tracked through all the important stuff and then stalled out on area selection and integration into society. We’ll still go over the major details of what it means to be a villain for the next hour, but how does that sound as a general plan?”

Mark smiled. “Sounds great!”

Gaston nodded. “So to start with, you can either be a villain that makes a lot of money through merchandising and being in a narrative that our writers create — the ‘spotlight’ track— or you can be a background villain that works on the weekends and isn’t in the spotlight at all, though you are required to show up as a henchman for a bigger villain now and then. That’s the ‘lowlight track’. All villains routinely train heroes anyway; that’s just a given. This is the part where I would give you a choice of spotlight, or lowlight, but your brother has already chosen to be a superhero, so you’re getting the spotlight track.

“That’s still a few years away, though, and...”

Mark felt surreal as Gaston spoke of his future as a villain, and what it would entail, which was mainly just fighting for real, but also for a camera. He spoke of a baseline salary as long as Mark fulfilled his training missions with nascent heroes 3 times a month, to bonuses based on how much he could steal from pre-planned vault-heists.

None of it seemed real. This was not the life he wanted. This was not the life he imagined. Mark was—

“Mark?” Gaston asked.

Mark blinked. “Uh. Sorry?”

Gaston nodded a little, then said, “I can tell this isn’t what you wanted, so let me try a different tack. If you want to fight against specific heroes, to learn how to fight against those people, then you can do that. You can target specific Powers, like Mesmer, Mage, Pure Body, which are all rare and incredibly strong. You can learn to fight truly dangerous foes as a villain, instead of the heroes, who only learn how to fight villains so that they can stay in shape, or prepare for bigger fights, or —and this is most of them— so they can look good for a camera.

“We can set up fights for you every single day if you want.

“And that’s how you can learn to become an Inquisitor, which is what I think Freyala is pointing you toward. So you can fight demons and the Fallen.” Gaston lightly stared. “So you can fight dragons.”

Mark felt present, in that moment. He said, “That sounds more my speed.”

Gaston nodded. “Then let’s do some paperwork, Blackvein, and stall you out on area selection.”

Mark felt uncomfortable again.

That name. The name that the goblins had called him, somehow.

“Is that really gonna be my name?”

“Yup,” Gaston said, grinning.

They did some paperwork.

Soon, Gaston spoke of opening a bank account, saying, “Crystal Tower has banks in every city on Earth, and also in Daihoon, and we don’t cave to external pressure. We just up and leave places if they get dangerous to humanity in a detrimental-society sort of way, but that’s pretty much true of everyone.

Mark took a moment to think.

He decided that he probably needed to get his banking squared away. But first—

“I need to, uh, check my finances. I have no idea… about any of that. I kinda put it out of mind.” Mark added, “I need to make a new account, yes, but… I need to check on stuff.”

Gaston asked, “I can leave the room, or escort you to a private room?”

“The latter, please.”

Inside a plain office space, Mark poked at his phone and, with Quark’s (and COFR’s) assistance, he found out that his parent’s assets were frozen by Orange City, and that Mark would need to go back home to unfreeze any of that. Mark rapidly decided that he was not doing that. Not for a while. His parent’s banking was similarly frozen, and his own small bank account was also frozen, though COFR was willing to help Mark reclaim that one. Ten minutes and a few AI phone calls later, and Mark had 113 goldleaf waiting for him in escrow at COFR.

113 goldleaf! That was it!

Getting that done had been the most emotionally draining thing he had done in the last… few days?

Or not. Mark wasn’t sure.

He took another 10 minutes then went back into Gaston’s office and made himself an account with the Hero/Villain Program, with ‘Crystal Banking’.

A while later, Mark shook hands with Gaston, saying, “It was nice to meet you, Gaston Lussier.”

Gaston smiled. “It was nice to meet you as well, Mark Careed. Blackvein.” He plucked a card off of his table and handed it to Mark, saying, “My contact information.”

Mark took the card—

Gaston gestured to the door, and a tunnel of shadows opened up. Behind the tunnel lay the entrance of the building, four stories down. “The fast way, if you wish.”

Mark desperately did wish to get out of there fast, but he tried not to be obvious about it. He probably failed, though.

So Mark just smiled, said, “Thank you. Bye.”

And then Mark rushed through the tunnel, to once again stand under the steel sculptures of superheroes—

Gaston chuckled. His chuckle rose to a laugh, which fractured into a cackle that echoed out of every shadow in the place.

And Gaston announced, “A villain for the ages!”

And then the shadows all dimmed.

Some people in the atrium politely clapped toward Mark. A few people were very, very confused.

Mark was confused, too, but he had places to be.

He walked outside, into the sun, onto Worldly Road.

Mark found himself grinning, feeling pretty good about the weird, wide future.