Red, orange and purple filled the sky like a painting of hell. The scent of blood disappeared under the smell of burnt flesh and sweat, and the world was a canvas for pain. Rubble covered the ground, piles and piles of it, stone and trunks and broken glass littered everywhere, glowing red under the sky.

On blood-smudged grass surrounded by broken things stood the Hero who’d saved the day.

If it were not for the wind, nothing would be moving.

*

When night had fallen and the blood had dried, the Hero picked the villain’s body up. She looked around. If she focused, she could almost hear them wheeze. Shallow breaths and twisted limbs, chests barely rising.

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The Hero walked to her motorbike. It stood still where she had left it, unscathed. She positioned the Restrainer’s body as best she could and sat down behind it. She turned one last glance towards the ruins of the mansion and the bodies lying there, then turned the key and finally drove away.

It was relaxing, this absence of crowd. More villains should live in the middle of nowhere. Those minions, though - she was glad they were an anomaly. The fight had been exhausting. She couldn’t remember most of it, but dealing with that many people had been bothersome, more so than avoiding projectiles. And they hey had been such an odd group, what with all this dedication to a villain everyone feared… There was something there she couldn’t quite shake off. Something disturbing, but quiet. Something buried. She wondered what the Restrainer had promised them, and whether they would be able to get it - probably not. But they were still alive, and that was already more than anyone who’d ever tried to stop her.

They might come for her life later.

She almost hoped they would.