"Just shut up and give me the money!" the man said to the nervous cashier. Nervous and not frightened, because the man who was robbing her posed no real threat. To her life, that is. She was one of the lucky 30% that were born with some sort of paranatural ability. "Empowered" they were called.
Her ability was widely known in the area, a simple barrier that could stop even a bullet or two. Not enough to make a living out of fighting or committing crime, but enough to deter most would-be robbers. Not this one though.
You see, my power allows me to fiddle and mess with people's heads a bit. Just a bit. And because of my meddling this woman now felt compelled to not take the risk that this armed, unmasked criminal presented. After all, he could just empty his clip on her all at once. Her barrier could stop a couple of bullets, but even she knew 5 or 6 were sure to shatter it.
It wasn't likely to happen. There was no way a thief killing someone this deliberately and maliciously would get anything lower than life in prison once inevitably caught and presented to the court. Not many would risk that heavy a sentence for such a small payout. Not to mention that 5 or 6 shots would absolutely guarantee a hero showing up before he had even cleaned out the register. In fact, she had never felt unsure enough to let these particular thoughts sway her before, but now she did. And unless I reverted it later she would forever more.
Silently she obeyed the stranger's orders and handed over what he wanted
With the money secured the man left the little shop and ducked into a nearby alley. He had been silent and avoided tripping any alarms, but a hero would show up any minute now and I needed him to be gone by then. He quickly and expertly maneuvered through sidestreets and shortcuts he had never even known existed but that I was intimately familiar with.
After a good 6 or 7 minutes of running and climbing, he reached his destination. A little abandoned dumpster in a remote back alley. No one ever came by here. Not for a long time.
He opened the lid and looked inside. A limp body caught his eye. The baggy clothes made it difficult to discern the gender, but the tattered cape and worn gas mask left no doubt as to the body's identity. In this trash receptacle lay the body of local D-List villain "Master Controller". My body.
The man took out his ill-gotten cash and placed it in my pocket before closing his eyes. Quickly, within a couple of seconds, I could feel my mind peeling away from his body, giving him back the control he so desperately longed to feel again.
His body fell limply to the ground as soon as I completely decoupled from him. With a groan I began clasping and unclasping my hands, making sure I was in full possession of my faculties, before slowly pulling myself to my feet. I hated the first minute after returning to my own body. It always felt like I had hit the bars all night the night before and was recovering from being black-out drunk. Terrible.
Trying my best not to stumble (and failing) I crawled out of the dumpster, grabbed the makeshift staff that completed my outfit, and waited for the man to wake up. As soon as he opened his eyes I placed my foot softly on his chest, not to cause harm but just to make sure he stayed down for now.
"Don't move. You had the honor of being used by the Master Controller." My voice startled me. It always did after Possessing a man. Despite the obfuscating voice scrambler embedded into my mask, my voice was still noticeably female. That's why I usually stuck to piloting around other women for my crimes. Easier to make the switch. "Tell your family. Tell your friends. This is my area."
It really wasn't. This was no one's area. Too many heroes in close proximity. But villains tended to be arrogant and presumptuous, so I acted the part. With those words I took my leave, fleeing down another labyrinth of inconspicuous passages and shortcuts until I was sure I was all alone.
I took off what I generously called my costume. The worn cape and the old gasmask I had found in the trash a few months ago, shortly before starting my criminal "career". My little black jumpsuit and gloves were the clothes I had worn while confined in the Powerbreaker's lab.
Looking at them conjured up years of terrible memories but also reminded me why I am where I am now. I had the gas mask fitted with a scrambler at the local BHF haunt with the money I made from my first mind-control mugging. My staff was nothing more than a little fancied-up iron pipe. It's a thin and long rod, the top decorated with a little "MC". I had commissioned it a month into my legacy.
With a sigh I opened my little waist bag and stuffed the costume in there, staff included. That little thing was one of the "presents" the Powerbreaker gave me when he let me go. A petite bag strapped to the waist with the carrying capacity of a small rentable storage unit. Unlike the 10k bucks of his that I had refused to touch, I made liberal use of that waist-bag.
Once I had stored everything I ran a hand through my sweat-slicked dark blonde hair. Costumes are really hot. I had never really thought of it during my days as a hero, head too high in the clouds probably, but now that I thought back on it it was just as bad. At least as a hero, I had friends who suffered in these hot vanity prisons with me. Or rather I thought they were friends.
With a yawn on my lips and this month's food money secured I made my way back to my apartment. It was fairly far away since I had decided to keep my workplace a good distance apart from my home. Just in case.
----- --- --- ---
My apartment was small and shabby but it suited me just fine. I knew what it was like as an Empowered but otherwise normal middle-class woman, I knew how it felt as a rich and celebrated hero living the high life, and now I knew what it was like near the bottom. I went up to the dilapidated, abandoned house and put my hand on the rough and heavily cracked wall. The soft warmth of the identifying magic crept up my hand and made me shiver until it abruptly stopped. With a barely audible rumbling noise, the wall opened up before me. Home sweet home. I stepped inside and turned leftwards as I heard the bricks seal back up behind me.
This building, the magic inner one, is what is jokingly called a "Villain-Condo" by those in the know. Little unassuming spots that have entrances to small pocket dimensions hidden within. Most are managed by the BHF, an organization made up of all those types of villains that are committed to the craft but don't really want to go out in the field and get their hands dirty. The enchanters, the fences, the brokers, intermediaries, and so on. Even those that let active but struggling villains like myself live in shitholes like this for free. One of the biggest culture shocks coming from a life on the up and up was that supervillain landlords tended to be pretty nice and accommodating. They never ever fixed any issues save entrance-related ones, but they also charged literally nothing, so they were okay in my book.
BHF stands for "Big Happy Family", a rather ironic name considering how dysfunctional you'd think villain groups would have to be by nature. But, at least on the low end where I was, there was also a lot of solidarity. Much more than between low-grade heroes, that's for sure.
I walked past the many closed doors either belonging to other D-Listers like me or staying empty waiting for an occupant and climbed the stairs to the second floor of this strange, windowless building. Finally arriving at my destination I moved to grab the key but thought better of it and knocked softly. At this time she'd probably be home.
Like I expected the door magically flew open and I was pulled inside by an invisible force. My roommate elegantly tipped her wand to the right and I was pulled towards-, then pushed atop my bed.
"Hey, MC." she said with a short giggle and flicked her wrist, closing the door.
"Still working hard, Witchling?" I asked while letting myself fall on top of my mattress. She giggled again and with another few hand movements, a cup of coffee began brewing itself.
"Ya know it. Next time i'll actually manage to steal something! Just ya wait!" She raised an arm in premature triumph. Whatever confidence she had managed to build immediately collapsed a few short seconds later. "But until that happens......" She looked at me with her patented stare of sorrow. I shook my head and fumbled around in my nifty bag. Once I found what I was looking for I threw the wad of cash into the air and with a touch of my roommate's magic it separated itself into two stacks, 100 bucks going to her nightstand and the rest floating neatly onto mine.
"You're the best, MC!" she shouted and pulled me up for a little impromptu Witchling dance. Her real name was Jessica Chazman. She had always been a real big fan of villains growing up (the "steal and rob and make it a show" kind, not the murdery death kind) and when she saw an ancient mystical-looking wristband in her aunt's antique collection she stole it for herself. It didn't take her long to discover her prize's magical properties and after gathering some things and sneaking away at night she started her not-so-illustrious criminal career.
Her family was rich so she had taken a good bit of money with her, but most of that went to paying a minor villain to introduce her to the local hidden BHF office and the rest went toward her costume. That minor villain was me. I got her situated as my roommate, let her help me lure some victims in my visual range for my Possession ability, and even went with her to the BHF tailor to get her costume designed. While she could be annoying at times, she was exactly the kind of person I needed to have around me at that point. Her positivity was downright infectious.
Jessica was not Empowered and the only thing the bracelet could do was levitate things, and even that not very well at first. But her idea for her evil villain persona was a classic, cackley witch, and so we tried to find her an outfit that worked. In the end, we went for a variation on the basic black witch garb; torn dress, spiky hat, broom, and wand. We gave everything some gold accents too to fit the bracelet into the theme. The golden hat-buckle was my personal favorite.
Speaking of the bracelet...The way it worked, with wrist, finger, and hand movements coupled with internal commands, meant that the wand was entirely useless. Much like my staff, it was just for show. You of course can't forget the black lipstick and thick eyeliner to create dark sunken eyes. I had tried to talk her out of the makeup to no avail. The broom too was little more than a prop for now. She was saving it for when she got a bit of a better handle on her magic. She had improved quite a bit already, but enough to continuously keep a broom afloat with herself on it? Probably not.
Despite me knowing quite a bit about her past, I never told her anything about mine. I often wondered what she'd think, knowing that her low-tier villain roommate was once one of the top heroes of the country. Awe? Disbelief? Anger? Astonishment? It didn't matter. She'd never find out anyway. After our little dance came to an end she sat back down on her bed.
"Read my mind." she suddenly asserted. I looked at her quizzically. "Thought me." she continued eagerly.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Certain kinds of powers have commonly accepted names. Most are just grouped in types, but a rare few specific ones have names of their own. Entering someone's mindscape, the realm of their true beliefs, and being able to explore all that they are is called Deep Thought.
The weaker version of this power, the ability to attach yourself to another's consciousness so you can see, feel, smell, taste, and hear what they do is simply called Thought. In addition to mindreading, I was sort of capable of Deep Thought and definitely capable of achieving Thought. It was always a bit weird though. You can't control your victim while in the state of Thought, you merely experience everything they do. But unlike Possession, you aren't cut off from your body so you still experience the sensations of your own senses too.
"Do it." she dared me.
I sighed and concentrated on her grinning face. Slowly her thoughts poured into my mind.
Can you hear me?
I nodded and her grin got even wider. This is so cool! Are you Thoughting me?'
I shook my head. For now, I was just doing basic mind reading. Only the surface stuff. I couldn't help but let out a chuckle as I saw her cross her arms and pout. "Hey, don't be like that. I just don't think invading your brain is necessary right now."
Her face shifted and she appeared to be contemplating something. I have an idea about how you can make it up to me.
I raised my eyebrow. "I'm listening."
Take me with you on your next run.
She saw my head shake slowly and frowned. "Going on a run" is similar to a hero "Going on patrol". It meant the speaker wanted to get their hands dirty, or at least be actively involved when things go down.
My eyes glanced at her bracelet. She had been getting a lot more skilled with it lately, but......
"Tell you what." I started, clapping my hands and looking back up at her. "I'll go on another run in two or three weeks. If you have improved enough to fly around on this broom for two or three minutes I'll take you with me as my partner. Otherwise, you can be my lure again."
Her eyes lit up like stars. "Yes ma'am!" she proclaimed with a crooked salute. I let out another chuckle. Back when I first started my second life on the other side of the costumed coin I was deeply miserable. I had just managed to leave the worst time of my life behind me and start anew, but it was still eating at me every day. Both my time in captivity and my time as a hero. Hate and resentment both fueled my tank and those were the only things I was driven by.
But Witchling changed that a bit. She had really helped me put my mind off of things and enjoy the moment. She actually got me to start shaping the Master Controller's personality properly too.
I had always assumed only heroes did that, and the villains just ran around aggressively being themselves. But while it is true that there are a lot of villains who just act like they always do, the same is true for heroes. And like with heroes, most actually do work hard on creating and establishing a persona.
From all I'd gathered so far the main difference lay in their priorities. Most heroes try to divorce their personas a bit from themselves. Not totally, their own person is almost always the base, but generally, they try to be an inspiration to others or even themselves. Villains on the other hand like to take their base personality and crank it up a few hundred notches. Adding some flourishes here and there but staying mostly in line.
A villain who enjoys a good pun now and then while out of costume may constantly sling around themed puns for every occasion. A villain who tends to be very indecisive in his civilian life could theme himself around luck and leave all his decisions to chance. Of course, that's not a steadfast rule. But it often applies, especially to brand-new villains. The hard part was deciding which personality traits to emphasize and how, and which to downplay. All that while finding a fitting theme that meshes well with both your power and personality.
Heroes rarely get to see villains dial it back, even when they successfully catch them, so I guessed it made sense that my perspective on them was so flawed. Until switching sides I never actually realized I was doing the villain thing as a hero, just hypercharging my own personality for my alter ego. So of course when I started shaping Master Controller I tried my best to do it the hero way. Someone better than myself. Someone a young(er) me could look up to. Me, but with super high self-confidence. Me, but never afraid and always ready to rush into action. Me, but enjoying life to the fullest.
As I peeked at Jessica pumping herself up with all the youthful vigor and enthusiasm that had long since left me I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, things would be fine. Not perfect, not great, not even good, just fine. Just fine.
-----------------
A week later I found myself casually stalking through small alleyways and sidestreets again. The area I was in right now was the place Witchling and I went to make her a costume. I approached a shuttered window and held my palm against it. The BHF identification spell did its magic and soon the nearby door clicked open. I slipped inside as quickly and as quietly as I could and closed the door behind me.
Davison was one of the few non-Empowered BHF fences. No enhanced charisma, persuasion powers, or pheromones, he had made all his connections legitimately over decades of work in the Hero Equipment Manufacturing and Distribution field. Consequently, his little shop was very sparsely decorated and mostly practical. Theatricality is the domain of costumed villains.
He had synthetic eyes directly connected to his brain that allowed him to browse the internet, do his work, and use his in-built phone without moving an inch. As usual, he appeared to just stare at the wall and didn't even acknowledge me as I walked up to him.
Despite liking to appear fully absorbed in whatever it was he did I knew that he never had both eyes in screen-mode at the same time and was observing me carefully as I stopped my advance in front of his desk. I pulled my gas mask out of my bag and placed it in front of him. The food portion of my cash was already spent and I was planning to put the rest to use for a little upgrade.
"I have 1500 to offer. What can you get me that'll improve my vision?"
He smirked, finally acknowledging my existence. "The Master Controller needs better vision, huh? Let me see."
I waited as he appeared to be doing nothing for quite a while before finally giving me the options. "For 1500 you won't get a lot, but I have some merch on offer. Crusading Capes sells a nice little cheap zoom-in display, but I know your power doesn't work through electronic screens. The only two things that fit are from magic suppliers."
Figures. Magitech is a relatively new field, only about a century old. Despite its name, a magitech product didn't necessarily have to have anything to do with technology. All the term really meant was "a product of magical nature that does not require magical talent from the end-user to work or keep in a functional state". It was usually more expensive than pure tech products but also very useful in specialized niches that most tech firms either can't or don't care to cover.
"The Watchful Coating from Warlock Wanda's will give you both a zoom as well as the ability to see through walls. Just smear it over the inside of your mask and you're dandy. But like the name implies it's a coating that wears off. You'd have to continually buy new tubs and they ain't cheap."
Tempting, but I didn't like the idea of depending on a tool this finite and easily lost. Davison seemed to sense my apprehension.
"Hmmm. I get it, girlie. I wouldn't have gone for it either. There is one more thing but it won't be going in your mask. Sorcery Solutions has the Third Oculus."
I knew about the SorSol Oculuses. They were magically-created eyes that connected themselves with your optic nerves despite being entirely separate from your body. The original Oculus had you implant it somewhere on your body to have a third eye in any place you chose. The Second Oculus was an eye you could implant in a place to always have it in your view. The Third Oculus was by far the most advanced and expensive. It was an eyeball that could float around, directly controlled by you, and could even reach great distances allowing you to observe things far far away. But....
"Isn't that a little expensive?" I asked.
Davison shook his head. "Yeah, a brand-new Third Oculus would cost about 500 thou on the open market; I sell them for 300 thou myself." A smirk crept onto his face. "But with every emerging magitech there are faults and kinks that aren't caught in testing and R&D. You see, whenever its owner is killed, a Third Oculus resets to factory settings. The magic is very new and volatile though and each reset permanently damages the thing. A Third Oculus that has survived 5 people has an effective range of maybe 10 feet at most. Almost useless, but I'm sure with your power 10 feet are plenty to achieve some good synergy. I'll get you a 5-times broken one for the full 1500, and that's a steep discount. I really think you have what it takes to make this city quake in its boots, so I'm willing to take a little loss with this product. If you want it, that is."
A fully functional Third Oculus would make me practically unbeatable, but a broken one? I contemplated for a few seconds. 10 feet is not a lot but it would allow me to see and target people around corners and inside nearby buildings.
I swapped the mask on the table for the cash. "Do it. Send me a message when it's ready for pickup." Without the BHF villains would be much less of a threat, or even much less of a thing period. They were a global operation and their heavy and liberal use of magic for nearly everything made them hard to pin down targets. Once you get registered in a local BHF office you get a marker placed on you. This invisible sigil is used for verification of everything BHF-related.
Better yet, it only reacts when you want it to and is not detectable by any currently available magic detection methods, meaning it can't be used against you to prove you're a villain. And once you make the internal decision to switch sides or rat out the BHF it automatically removes itself from you, taking all your BHF-related memories with it and labeling you as a traitor in their system.
They even have a phone- as well as a PC operating system that is only visible to those with the sigil. In hero circles, the BHF might as well be the devil himself, but for villains, they are absolutely essential.
Davison nodded as I turned around and headed for the door. I could hear a faint "Pleasure doing business with you." before the cool outside air hit my face. Penniless once more, I decided it was time to go home again. I was about halfway there when a loud crash caught my attention, followed by screams. Following my not-quite-dead heroic instincts I turned and ran towards the direction of the noise. As I turned the corner I found myself witnessing a rampage in progress.
".....no...please, I......I just...." the young costumed man pleaded, breathing heavily. His old-timey musketeer outfit was ripped to shreds, blood staining it red around the stomach, a crimson pool forming under his broken legs. Around him lay 3 other similarly dressed up bodies, as well as two civilians. All dead, most cut in two. Above the struggling hero stood a monstrous behemoth of a man. His piercing cat eyes, flowing mane, and sharp teeth seemed to be natural parts of his biology. As did his bulging muscles. His tiger-striped fur jacket, fur pants, and fur boots as well as his sharp, bloody claws on the other hand were clearly just man-made accessories.
I knew about this villain. In fact, I helped arrest him many times. His moniker was Leotigris, a dumb brute with the power to grow progressively more beastlike as his excitement rises. The monster let out a wry laugh. "What, no clever one-liners prepared anymore, compadre? And I thought we were having fun!"
He picked up the wounded man who desperately tried to escape his maimer's clutches, but it was in vain. "At least you'll get to see your friends again. Goodbye, D'Artagnan. T'was fun." The unfortunate sap's head was effortlessly ripped from his body by the strong, carnivorous jaw of the beast-man. My stomach turned as I watched him savor his fresh meal.
I turned to run but abruptly froze. Memories of my captivity came back to me. Lying paralyzed. Attacked by hungry, starved dogs. Ripped apart by the ruthless beasts and then carefully healed so I could live through it again. I had enough hungry feral predators take bites out of me for a lifetime. I wanted to be anywhere but here right now.
But I couldn't let that stop me. I couldn't mentally stay in that lab forever. I had to act. People ran by me, fleeing in panic. Leotigris had begun devouring the corpses of his other victims. Once he was done, he would go find more.
I may have become a villain, and gotten desensitized to theft and violence, but murder was a step too far for me. That, and rampaging villains make the general populace less sympathetic. It may be hard to believe, but in areas full of non-lethal, over-the-top, and very theatrical villains a lot of regular people start tolerating and accepting them, some even become fans.
Those villains almost never steal from the poor. If out of solidarity or because the poor were not worth robbing didn't really matter. All that mattered was that these villains gave the average person some excitement and entertainment, a vector to escape their boring, monotone lives, while rarely being seriously impacted themselves.
Concerningly, groups who murder regularly but are more targeted in their violence like EATR and Freakshow still had a large but mostly anonymous following. Rampages however were pretty much never good for the PR.
Maybe it was my lingering muscle memory from my time as a hero, or maybe it was my new villainous selfish need for validation, but I had to do something. I shook my head furiously to get out of the funk I was trapped in.
Yes, I was a coward. Yes, I was useless. Yes, I was broken and weak.
But the Master Controller wasn't.
What would she do?