In the darkest, dampest dungeon, sat a large, blue man on an operating table illuminated by a single, overhead light. The man was twenty feet tall, packed with muscle, and totally unconscious. He was naked save for a white sheet over his waist, covering his blue twig and berries. The operating table itself was straining from his weight, but it had been reinforced specifically for him. Bindings around his wrists and ankle kept him held down, and his movement limited.
"You don't have to keep pretending," said a voice from the darkness, "I know you woke up a while ago."
The blue man squinted his closed eyes, then opened them to look around. Despite craning his thick neck in every direction, the blue man's eyes were adjusted to the harsh overhead light and couldn't see through the veil of darkness.
"Where is this?" the blue giant demanded, clenching his fists and curling his toes in their bindings. "Is it Saturday already?"
"Clever," said the unseen voice, "but not as clever as you think you are, Ymir."
"We've established who I am," the blue giant played along, "but who are you?"
"Oh, dear Ymir, I'm cut! How could you not recognize your oldest friend?"
From out of the darkness near Ymir's head stepped a man wearing a classy tuxedo and top hat, the brim of which kept his face shrouded in darkness.
"Gentleman!" Ymir cursed. "I should have known. The Department always suspected you were up to something more sinister than your plots thus far."
"Said the pot to the kettle," the Gentleman cursed. "Don't play superhero with me, you blue bastard! I've seen what you do in the dark."
Rather than repost with another cliche heroic line, the blue giant narrowed his eyes, trying to peer through the harsh lighting and into the darkness.
"Allow me," the Gentleman offered, removing his top hat and shining a light into his own face.
There was the mask that the supervillain was famous for, the smiling face of the comedy mask that could switch to tragedy on command. With gentle fingers, the mask was peeled off, revealing the face of the most notorious mastermind ever to plague the Hero Department.
The Gentleman was a fairly average caucasian male in his early adult years, with black hair cut short and to the point. He had no facial hair, blue eyes, strong features from the physical exercise he got on the job. There was a scar just over his right eye and a small burn on the left side of his face near his ear.
Ymir tried to recall if he'd ever seen this man before, but his extensive memory couldn't recall where the face was from.
"I see you don't remember me," the Gentleman concluded, turning the light away. "Not that I would expect you to."
"It's weird seeing your lips move when you talk," the hero quipped.
The villain picked up his top hat and reached inside where a subspace of his own design led to a large storage room. He felt inside until he laid hands on a coarse cloth material, which he pulled out to reveal a standard issue United States Army uniform.
Ymir looked at the chest and read, "Brooks. Your name is Brooks. It's nice to meet you, Mr. Brooks."
"I was Johnathan Brooks at one point," the Gentleman sighed nostalgically. "I joined the military out of high-school and received some of the highest scores the training had to offer. Because of my dormant super powers, I was selected to participate in the Nightfall division, the part of the military specialized in dealing with meta-humans... like you. You wouldn't know this, but I was part of the team that raided your personal island in Somalia. Reports of screams and bodies washing up on shore warranted an investigation, so we went in and found your little shop of horrors.
"Not that it mattered. We had triggered your silent alarm, and the nuke you'd planted under the foundation went of to hide your crimes against humanity. The media obviously said someone had tried to nuke you, but because us Nightfall bastards don't technically exist, my brothers were swept under the rug. I was also declared dead in the blast, but I had some tricks that even the army didn't know about. You see, Anthony Brooks was a false identity I used to infiltrate the military, just so I could get close to you."
"I had a feeling you had some sort of hate-boner for me," Ymir joked.
With fifteen years of anger balled up in one fist, the Gentleman punched the invincible Ymir right in the nose. The satisfying crunch of cartilidge on the man who was considered invincible was muted by the near-orgasmic feeling of his stupid, confused expression. He was glad that he'd set up a fifth dimensional recording device to savor every moment.
"Hurts, doesn't it..., Doctor Slavens?"
That name caused Ymir to jerk, pulling at his bonds. For the man who could lift mountains and hold two moons apart with only his hands, he grew more confused as he failed to break his bindings. When his strength failed, he glared at the villain who was resting his old uniform on the rocky ground.
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"You're too young to be an assistant," he said while blood slowly spilled from his broken nose. "You were one of the kids?"
"I WAS THE KID, DOCTOR!" the Gentleman shouted, losing his characteristic calm reservations. "I was the one you chose to take special care of! The one you specifically tortured, out of the three-hundred and sixteen others, I was the one given special treatment to be the primer for your sick, superpowered fantasies! The one you put through every torture imaginable! The cuts, the shots, the burns, the surgeries to mix my nerves around, and especially the rape!"
"Marcel," Ymir recalled, pulling at his chains again. "Jason Marcel."
"James," the Gentleman corrected with all the hatred of a thousand demons. "James Marcel. Glad to see you still remember the little guys."
"You- you won't get away with this!" the blue giant shouted. "The Hero Department have a hundred people keeping tabs on me! My team will come get me! We've stopped you before, we'll do it again!"
The Gentleman coughed, then coughed some more until his coughing turned into a chuckle, then a laugh, then a soul-gouging cackling fit. Ymir squirmed in extreme discomfort as his nemesis, a villain prized for his self-control and muted activity laughed from the bottom of his soul to the tip of his imagination. He was actively crying, failing to speak through the tears.
"You- Haha ahah- actually thought- hee hee he- that you or the Dumbass Department foiled a single one of my plans?"
The discomfort was evident on the blue man's giant face, which launched a second round of laughter from the normally calm, composed Gentleman.
"Listen," the Gentleman wiped away a tear, "I'm guessing you were too busy partying it up back at headquarters to ask yourselves how I always managed to escape once the dust was settled? WHY every prison cell, transport vehicle, or top-secret location failed to hold me?"
Ymir had a deep-seated frown as his life's work was spat on. The gentleman picked up his top hat and reached in once again, pulling out an ancient parchment preserved in laminate.
"Do you remember this? Back in Chicago in twenty-sixteen, when I helped Barrister build the gravity cannon to turn the moon into a black hole, I demanded we put the laser on the top of the Natural History Museum. That night, the museum was hosting the Aztec Goddess Quetzalcoatl's personal belongings dug up from an archeological site. One of those belongings was this, an ancient curse that suppresses the powers of meta-humans. During the ensuing fight, part of the museum was destroyed, and this little beauty was listed as collateral damage. It's thanks to this curse and a few other artifacts I've collected that you're weakened right now, and they will only dispel when I decide to release it."
"I planned EVERYTHING!" the Gentleman excitedly revealed. "Every time your band of chumps was basking in your fake victory, another piece of the puzzle slipped through the cracks and into my hands! You might have thought you were saving the world, but you were dancing to MY tune on MY stage under MY directions! While you and your ilk were drinking yourself silly for your hollow success, I was assembling the perfect trap to finally get my revenge. And this is it, the final act. Your little doofus brigade won't know you're dead until long after I've had my fill."
It was at this point that James Marcel turned on more lights around the cave, revealing a massive machine suspended over the helpless hero. It had buzz saws, grabbing arms, and all manner of nefarious sharp bits. The cave itself was much larger than Ymir had envisioned from the tiny cone of light that kept him from seeing anything. Another button was pressed and the machine lowered itself down onto the blue giant, who screamed as a large stake was driven through his abdomen.
"Stop," the hero pleaded as the machine got to work, "I-I'll give you anything you want! Money, power, fame, women; it's all yours!"
The Gentleman turned dramatically to watch the show and said in a vicious tone of voice:
"I want to hear you scream."
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When the deed was done, The Gentleman, Anthony Brooks, and James Marcel let out the heaviest, most contented sigh ever released by man. The cries and horrified screams were still fresh in his mind, and the catharsis of cutting through skin and bone was only now escaping him.
Ymir, the monster of a man formerly known as Samuel Slavens, lay dead on the operating table. The blue body was a tangled mess of gore and vore, with blood pooled around the base like a gruesome pond.
"I," the Gentleman announced, "I think... I did it.... I think..., I'm done!"
It came as a surprise to the supervillain that he was still here after his revenge had succeeded, a plan fifteen years in the making coming to fruition. After so much meticulous planning and organizing, the supervillain had no idea what to do. Any brainpower that spared a thought for after his revenge was redirected to the task at hand. He half-expected some Hero Department goons to barge in at some point, and had contingencies for them to do so. But even the greatest minds on earth wouldn't be able to find the hidden subspace he'd prepared.
'I'll cross that bridge when I get to it,' had been his philosophy on the matter, mostly because he didn't know if he'd make it across alive. But now he was standing at the opposite cliff face into the forest of unknown futures and had no idea where to go.
"Am I... afraid?" he asked, probing the uncertainty that plagued his feelings.
Anthony felt the butterflies dancing in his stomach as the unknown encroached upon his narrow world view.
"Fear is as natural as it is prevalent," James recited from memory, "but it should never be allowed to stop you."
The notorious supervillain stood up and looked at himself in the mirror. His dapper tuxedo was spun from the silk of a death's head spider, whose webbing had the tensile strength of tungsten. The band of the bowtie he wore was actually a length of army-issue emergency rations of ten-thousand calories per square inch. His left and right cuff links contained vials of poison and toxin, respectively, both powerful enough to kill a demigod. Both of his shoes contained a small kernel of white phosphorous smoke for emergencies. All of his underwear was partially formed from dispersion gel, so any hard impacts would be evenly distributed across a wider area. The inserts in his shoes were made of the spongiest material available, giving unrivaled comfort and a slight benefit when landing from high places.
"It's finally over," he said to himself, sniffling as a wave of relief as powerful as his revenge washed over him.
With careful hands, The Gentleman stripped down until the only thing he was wearing was his watch. It felt refreshing, embracing the sensation of defenselessness as if he had been cocooned his whole life. He stepped away a new man, free of the bonds he'd held for his entire grueling life.
"I need a new name," he pondered, then smiled and said, "but I guess... I have some time to figure it out."