As far back as I could remember, I’d always wanted to be a villain. Rooting for the bad guy was what I loved to do. 

I remember in my comic books when the colossal-sized, metal-skinned Adam Antium had his heart ripped out when he lost his sister to a virus; this hit close to home for me, as I had lost my brother, James, in a car accident to some careless trucker. It was almost a year now.

Instead of grieving like I did, helplessly watching that asshole survive the crash and walk away from a prison sentence, Adam Antium became stronger. He joined his enemies and swore revenge on the creators of the virus, which turned out to be good guys, making him a hero no more. 

All it takes is one day. 

Being a villain meant you had all the best styles in costumes, the most deadly weapons and memorable lines. And if you think about it, their goal wasn’t entirely different from the heroes’. They just obtained it in a more…creative, extreme way. Retribution.

It was thoughts and events like these that defined me and eventually led me here — to the top of a giant skyscraper overlooking a desolate cityscape, which was trashed as far as the eye could see. This world was based on everyone having a unique identifying avatar, linked with their genetic information that was coded and collected into what was called Gatica.

And I was ready to defend mine.

My feet were freshly saddled in heavy, teeth-kicking, steel-toed boots. My overly muscled body was clad in vibrant, skin-tight, yellow spandex, diagonally cut with purple striations, which spiraled on my chest to center on a tattered monochromatic American flag on fire. A inverted version from the star spangled hero my brother had came to know and love; The Bald Eagle.

The banded sheaths on my metallic arms shone a reddish hue in the low setting sun. I embodied the powers of Adam Antium. Like some sort of looming, metallic battlecat, I was waiting to pounce on my next victim, a fully-fledged superhero. 

This was the newest virtual game world I’d created: Supervillain, Me. New users to the platform could get ‘infected’ with a virus, thus altering their Gatica, and rendered an enemy for the entirety of the game. This put them at slim odds against the insanely powered up ‘clean’ superheroes that were trying to kill them. 

There was only one way to win: stay alive in all your villainy glory and pass it onto the next unwitting ‘virgin’ user. You either died a villain, or lived long enough to see yourself become the hero. If you died, the virus reverted back to the one who created you; for many, the source of that infectious code was a beautiful, seductive villainess A.I., QuinTessa.

I stepped forward to the ledge of the towering building I stood on, looking down on all the game’s glory — contemplating the hundreds of hours my fellow modelers, light technicians, and texture artists spent building this level. Frizzy garments hung from drab clotheslines extending across sky-high balconies, strung together like a spider’s web of latent poverty. Just below that were the soot-covered alleyways lined with blistered barrels filled with burning American flags, which wafted their threaded ash in the simulated breeze. 

Spectator players and NPCs, what we call non-player characters, were huddled over flames, coughing and rubbing their fingerless-gloved hands together—not to obtain heat, but in eager anticipation of the fight to come. This city was a constant nightmare. 

And I loved it.

My name is my Michael Sutter, and I am the latest game creator contracted by the AR/VR indie company Iconoclast Games. My task? Design the most badass game in the Subspace. A game that didn’t exist on the virtual web or live on a server, but was everywhere, all around us, folded into a tiny dimension. 

Some speculated the actual existence of it. Was it truly another dimension or simply a folded space within the virtual code itself? I didn’t bother with such philosophical questions.

For me, the platform was amazing: infinitely scalable, and naturally taking the shape of what I loved as a kid… bad guys. However, my simulated pride and joy was the sultry QuinTessa.

Tessa, as I liked to call her, made the whole thing work. Her viral code was an amalgamation of serial killer profiles, A/B tested over horrendous comic book supervillainesses, and distilled with the worst kind of psychological illnesses to bat. She was as insane as Harley Quinn, as hard as Hela, and as crafty as Lorena Bobbitt. 

It didn’t help that I made her gorgeous, too; ideal body adorned with innocent dimples, and a beautiful smile that peeked out under cascading blonde hair. She might as well have been a heroine, from the looks of her perfect, soaring, blue eyes. 

That’s how she got the new users. One and done, and these ‘virgins’ were hers, condemned to be hunted as the next target in the game.

I’d already had several ‘encounters’ with Tessa. This latest time being seduced, tricked into unsheathing my metal skin, only to get her claws dug deep into my ribs with spiteful mania. But I liked it, in a weird way. I wanted to see how her A.I. was developing and evolving. She got you a different way every time, and every time, it hurt like a son of a bitch. 

Now I was on the run. Well, more of a parade. I was a supervillain with no care for anyone but myself. I felt the hatred for the good and the disdain for the weak running through my cortex and the rest of my body. I was being projected into the Subspace via my ARMOR, my Augmented Reality Materialization Output Rig. It was the latest in haptic technology from Enconn Industries, and more than just virtual. We had created a sub-dimensional MMO. I could feel everything in this world, and everyone could feel me. 

I touched my chest as if to feel the flag on fire that represented my brother taken from me. I swelled with evil.

I saw motion in the building ahead, just a few floors down from my level on the roof. NPCs loitering in their daily predetermined paths like rats in a wall. They were worth ten Gatica each, barely enough to get me the credit I needed to charge my special attack. I had to make a move to find a superhero, and there was only one way to call them: destruction — slaughtering the innocent. 

Time to collect.

I balled my metallic hand into a fist. Yellow energy radiated around it in ferocious fury. I extended my arm, aiming at the run-down building ahead, and opened my fist. A beam of plasma energy shot from my hand, destroying the structure and turning it into shambles. Debris and shattered glass fell to the ground, leaving only a plume of smoke, smoldering trusses, and incinerated I-beams, jutting out like Satan’s fingers themselves.

The Gatica swarmed from the casualties into my body, registering a higher credit count on my peripheral menu. I looked around for the righteous super assholes and found nothing, but I knew they were coming. 

I stepped off the ledge, feeling the weight of gravity release its pull. I was flying. I threw my metallic arms down, and the world rushed away below me. Violent turbulence of simulated wind fought my course, but I broke free from the friction. I made it to space and saw the pillow-clouded Earth just below.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Above, the stars looked like a million diamonds strewn across a jet black flag, spangled and each one holding potential worlds created by users — heroes ready to fight me. I screamed at the skies as if calling for James, but soon realized I was beckoning, like only an evil agent of deception would, for an opponent to come at me.

And that’s when I felt it. Like a sinister spider sense tingling up my spine. I focused my fiery red eyes, enacting my super vision, and looked back at the blue marble below. I saw the thundering tornado gust of wind that followed him in his wake. The force of his speed pulled ten to fifteen cars behind from sheer momentum alone. He was looking for me, and I was ready.

I took a deep breath and balled up both of my fists. I felt the radiant energy burning through me. Then I fired it off.

BOOM!

I felt the heat from the atmosphere brushing past my metal skin as I re-entered, setting it to a fiery glow. It didn’t bother me, though. I was composed of the strongest metal in the game universe: unobtanium. I gritted my teeth and pushed harder toward the tumbling mess of cars. He was there and he would die.

CRAASHH!

I slammed into the ground, pushing the slab of blacktop a couple of feet deep into what was now melted bedrock. I watched the percussion of my impact radiate outward at the speed of sound. It would take a moment for the Superhero to find me. 

I stepped from the crater and charged my fist once more. I had to anticipate what he would do. A heat blast of laser vision? A thunderous call of Zeus’s lightning from above? I raised my hand, and my holo screen appeared before me in its blue statistic glory. Toggling through, my health meter read fine, but if I took one direct hit from a special attack at full super metered ability, I’d be a goner. 

I scanned the horizon. Still nothing. I toggled to my Gatica meter; it was only three quarters of the way full. I would have to destroy more NPCs or make some definitive hits to some super assholes to bring it up if I was to use my special attack, The City Leveler. This move would not only destroy everyone within a twenty-mile radius, but would also wound me, take me down to the lowest bar of health. If one super douchebag happened to survive it, it would be game over for me.

CRACK!

My jaw was blindsided by a pipe weighing a thousand pounds. My head shook from the impact, jostling my suspended cerebellum like pickles in a jar. I was on the ground, a few feet from where I’d been, looking to my right at a gargantuan beast of a man holding a long tailpipe. This super asshole was a different from the one running fast, pulling the cars behind him. One confident, furrowed eyebrow, cocked in pride. His smile was blinding, teeth, ever sparkling, two shades whiter than a paper plate. Heroically standing like the buffoon he was, his slicked, black hair was two oil cans short of needing a change. 

WHAAAM!

My stomach caved in. I caught a glimpse of a red, booted foot kicking into my abdomen, right before everything I saw changed into a streaking blurred motion. A smash, then debris from a building tumbling down around me. I scooped and pounded my way out; as the dust settled, I spotted my attackers.

They were double-teaming me, and they hadn’t even bought me a drink first. 

The one that had kicked me was smaller than the Oil-Can-Henry-looking motherfucker. This one was short and stocky and broad shouldered, like a rage-induced animal waiting to let its berserker out. I couldn’t help but notice their ridiculous matching attire: a one-piece mechanic’s overall affected with armored plating in strategic locations. The shorter one held a short tailpipe in one hand and in the other was a fistful of bolts and nuts he’d dug from his deep front pockets. Iridescent energy seemed to radiate from the hardware, like he was charging them up.

That’s when I recognized them.

The Greasers. A band of brothers that spent their nights killing supervillains, while during the day, they modified Gran Turismo racers with the previous night’s winnings, all to lose them in the night circuit by doing terrible, risky stunts. But one thing was for sure: right now, they were killers, and they wanted my code — my Gatica.

I slammed both fists together, charging them instantly, and blasted my energy in their direction. Oil Can Henry took the hit square in the frame, while the short, stocky one was Quicksilver-like, leaving only a cloud of dust in his wake. I felt my super meter heighten from the hit, and I tumbled to get a better angle for my next shot.

The big guy charged, energy swelling into a blue orb of energy from his core into his arms. He cocked his arms back and pummeled the energy ball toward me. He was going to be in for a surprise. I’d recently upgraded my absorption factor, and took the hit to my chest in stride. 

I felt the energy try to destroy me from the inside, but it subsided as I channeled it to my hands. I had him now. I threw my arm up into the air, sending the barreling blast toward him. The large man was thrown to the ground, but in the corner of my eye, I saw a flash. Movement to my left, and streaks all around. The other one was coming back for me and he was fast.

POP POP POP!

A barrage of tiny sparks tattered me like popcorn in a kettle. He was throwing his fistfuls of hardware, but they couldn’t penetrate my skin. It was too tough. 

I focused again on the large, brooding Greaser now making his way toward me. His eyes grew enraged as he looked at the surrounding NPCs laughing at his disheveled appearance.

“You will pay for that,” the large man warned me menacingly.

“No,” I said, greedily happy to see the NPCs so close to the action, “they will pay me.”

I charged up my fists. Bolts of energy swelled from my shiny arms into my hands. I thrust my might toward the NPCs not far away. A flash whipped by, catching my attack and saving the worthless souls of my targets. The smaller, faster greaser was stopping me. I charged up again and threw a second attack toward the large Greaser. The same flash whipped by and caught the ensuing blast. 

They had me surrounded. Frustrated by the events, I was enveloped with rage. The blood in my veins felt like fire, crawling its way to my molten heart, which was beating with a fiery volcanic fury. A red notification flash on my peripheral reading:

MAXIMUM HATE LEVEL ACHIEVED

MUTATED GATICA EARNED

SUPERSONIC LASER EYES ACQUIRED

The world slowed down, moving at what seemed like a snail’s pace. I could now see the short Greaser running circles around me, panting in exhaustion. But the weariness on his face soon turned to dread when he saw my burning, red eyes, wafting smoke from their sockets.

I squinted toward him and blasted the quick son of a bitch. He flew back into the NPCs and smashed into the building. He was obliterated. I felt the small Greaser’s and the NPC’s Gatica fill me. A series of letters reading ‘GTCA’ tumbled through the air and into my stockpile holo panel.

I lunged for the last Greaser. He caught my metal arms with ease, but I unleashed a god ray of laser light, burning into his chest. He quickly let go, holding his wound in pain. 

I looked around to see more spectators and NPCs watching. They were entertained by my success. My eyes burned and I held a smile that only a demonic joker could. Hate filled me, and I began to blast all the surrounding people; the Gatica flowed like lava into me, coursing in my veins, its power too much to overcome.

Then I saw them.

A multitude of superheroes surrounding me from the city’s rooftops. They had banded together to take me on. Never had I seen a team-up involving so many users. I must have made my mark, and word had spread that a supervillain was taking over. 

The odds of me beating them were slim. My health meter was at just half its capacity. Sure, I could port some Gatica over to it, but then I would lose my special attack.

“It's over,” one superhero called out from the rooftop.

I took a knee, charged my fists once more, and smiled in devious triumph, for I would rather die than let a superhero take me down.

“Come and get me,” I said.

Each superhero jumped off the roof, barreling toward my position. I held steady, waiting for the right moment, when I could see the whites of their eyes and the fear in their hearts. One superhero reached me faster than the others; he was a speeder. I blasted him with my fists of energy, knocking him back. 

Two massive, strong hands grabbed me from behind. I could tell they were strong by the way my ribs were cracking. The pain shot to my head and became overwhelming. I couldn’t hold on any longer. I needed to reach over to toggle my powers — to let all these superheroes know who they were fucking with. 

CRACK!

Suddenly the pain disappeared.

I turned my head, and from the corner of my eye, I saw a reptilian supervillain. Ari. My best friend and colleague was in his signature gator-style outfit, topped with an alligator hood to stifle his Jewfro. He was shaking off the pain in his hand from the blow he just made. This character was his favorite to play when he joined in my game world. He must have entered and gotten infected by Tessa. He always had a way of making an entrance at the right time and helping me out.

The distraction of his blow to the super asshole’s face gave me a chance to scroll through my holo panel. I heard a thump and turned again to see that Ari had been hit from behind. Two heroes piled on him, twisting his supervillain, hardened limbs. He cried out in pain.

“What are you waiting for, brother?” Ari yelled. “Do it!”

I gritted my sharp teeth and squinted my beady eyes, letting it all go. A burst of flames ignited and shot out from me, consuming everyone and everything in its path.

The City Leveler.

Blackness.