Only four people have successfully stolen a superhero suit, and two of those were idiots.

The first didn’t last a month before he was hunted down by a Superhero Corps team of obedient superhero bloodhounds. His trial only lasted for four hours before he was convicted of treason in the highest degree. After that the Corps started putting tracers in the suits, so the second thief lasted less than a day. The Corps tried to take her alive, but the resulting battle set fire to a hundred acres of forest and ended with one roasted renegade.

As I said, they were idiots.

I lasted two years.

I had it all planned out: I did my homework and found out how to deactivate my suit’s tracking device, then I faked my own death while on a mission, robbed a few banks during a saucer attack, and found a cave to lay low in. I hired a few lackeys and settled myself down for the good life. I traded weapons and other illicit treasures to keep myself entertained and built up a modest villainous empire. Nothing extravagant: enough to keep myself from getting bored, but not enough to get noticed.

I hardly ever wore my suit. Occasionally I would take it out to rob a jewelry store at night or to hassle some of my competitors by burning down their warehouses, but that was more for fun rather than any real necessity. I liked the look on my rivals’ faces when I crashed through their roofs and walked through their bullets.

It was a good time.

My confidence that I had fooled the world lasted right up until the moment that Dark Fire burnt his way into my hideout and knocked me out with a Taser. In hindsight, it was lucky for me that I wasn’t in my suit at the time because otherwise I think he may have ended up killing me. I woke up on the Cerberus with a shock collar around my neck and a furious Dark Fire in my face.

He was shorter than I expected; I would have considered taking him hostage in exchange for my freedom but he never took his suit off.

He gave me the offer of serving or dying, and I chose not to die. I won’t bore you with the battles that followed other than to say that I was an adequate if reluctant soldier and my peers were an insufferable, arrogant lot with messiah complexes.

Suffice to say we did not get on. I am physically small, and the others picked on me until I knocked one of them out with a slipper containing metal filings. After that we got along just fine, but I pined for my previous days of freedom. Life on the boat lacked the independence I had grown used to in my days as a renegade, and I made many attempts to escape. They all failed, and I began to despair.

Then the fourth person to steal a superhero suit struck. He wasn’t as good at covering his tracks as I had been, but he wasn’t an idiot. He robbed a series of high value targets, sank a few ships and then disappeared.

Secretly, I hoped he would succeed. I liked the way he was giving the whole world a super-powered middle finger. I was envious, even. I imagined myself in his place, flying unhindered through the skies, raiding banks and cargo ships.

Then he attacked a town and burnt it to the ground. I don’t know why he did that, but that was the end for him. Dark Fire was still officially dead in those days, and the Corps had been holding him in reserve. The video of a renegade superhero shooting flames at innocent civilians quickly changed their minds. Dark Fire called me into his office and had me sit on a chair in front of his desk. It was a big leather chair with comfortable arm rests.

“You and I are going hunting,” he said to me.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Set a thief to find a thief.”

He must have been desperate; I didn’t want to catch a thief, I wanted to be one.

“Sounds good,” I said as sincerely as I could manage.

Dark Fire sighed. Metal straps emerged from the chair and locked down my arms and legs, holding me in place.

“You must think I’m an idiot,” he said.

The thought had crossed my mind… right up to the moment the chair took me prisoner. I struggled against the straps, but I couldn’t escape. Dark Fire produced a syringe of pink fluid and walked over to me. He injected it into my arm and my whole body went numb for a few seconds.

It was not a good feeling.

“That’s a poison that will kill you in three days,” Dark Fire said casually, “you only get the antidote if we find our quarry.

I can tell when people were lying, and he wasn’t.

“Better get on with it,” he suggested.

Where would a supervillain hide? The world is an enormous place with an infinity of hiding places for those of us who can fly. My quarry had stealth, and he was smart enough to use it. A simple search was never going to work if he didn’t want to be found.

So, what does a supervillain want? Answering that was easy: power. Superhero suits are power.

I needed to get in contact with him. His suit had a radio receiver, but that was no good to me. My next step was to get back into really dark parts of the ‘net where the worst of the weapons dealers lurk. I still had my old login details, so I looked like a proper villain again. I even made a few new purchases while I was on there, just to keep my hand in. Besides, the Super Corps was paying. I spent the better part of two days there before I found what I was looking for: someone was buying every piece of illegal superhero tech they could get their hands on, and they were paying big money for it.

The kind of big money that is only available to supervillains, corrupt government officials and other people with no conscience. Like investment bankers.

I got in contact with the mysterious buyer and left him a voicemail.

“Listen,” I said, “I’m an escapee like you. I have a suit with a power source, but it’s broken. I’ll trade it for two hundred million U.S. dollars.”

A fair price, I thought, for a broken suit. A price he could afford, if he had half a brain.

I received a reply in under ten minutes, and we were on. I set up a meeting at midnight in a desert far away from any people. I didn’t really care about the people, of course, but it was easier than arguing with Dark Fire. The idea was to let the supervillain steal the fake suit that we had packed full of tracers and other nasty surprises.

Or that was the plan I suggested to Dark Fire. My actual plan involved stealing the supervillain’s suit and then making my own escape. I had it all planned out, and I was sure that this time I was going to succeed. Then Dark Fire called me into his office two hours before the exchange.

“Ready, boss? We are going to nail this guy!” I said excitedly, “Let's go get suited up!”

Dark Fire was already in his suit, of course; he never changed out of it. My role in the plan was to track the villain back to his lair and ambush him. I was looking forward to it, but not for the reasons he might have expected.

“You still think I’m an idiot,” said Dark Fire, and then he tasered me again.

I woke up in Dark Fire’s office ten hours later. I wasn’t dead, so I suppose he must have given me the antidote to his poison.

“Ouch,” I said reproachfully.

“You deserved it,” he said flatly, “Your plan worked out fine, by the way. We got him.”

I thought about acting naïve about why he tasered me, but I couldn’t be bothered. It was something of a compliment that he trusted me so little and thought me capable of so much.

“What happened to the guy?” I asked, expecting that Dark Fire had acquired him for the Cerberus team.

“He was found guilty of treason and shot. We couldn’t have a man like that running around the world.”

I was mildly offended by that statement; I am a lot more dangerous than that idiot was ever going to be. On the other hand, I still preferred life on the Cerberus to being dead. The food was better, for one thing.

“Why didn’t you bring him here?” I asked, “You accepted me.”

“You are both sharks, it’s true, but you are my shark. You have your uses, but I’ll be keeping you on a tight leash. Try to escape again and you will be joining him. Now get out.”

Chef made my favorite soup that night, and I had three bowls with extra croutons. That helped settle the seething anger in my soul as I thought of a new way to escape. I had no doubt that Dark Fire was watching me, and I knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to take me out if I set a foot wrong. I decided to stay, at least for now. There are still ways for me to amuse myself here, and life isn’t all bad.

And it’s better to be a Pet Shark than a dead one.