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Dramatic entrance? Check. Costume polished? Check. Monologue practiced? Check. Evil laugh practiced in the mirror? Check. Darksteel racked his brains for anything he may have forgotten before he faced his nemesis, Flare. This was the third time he caught her, and he was going to do it right, or he would never hear the end of it from Mind Terror. He was doing it all by the book, following everything to the letter. See, every villain was given a handbook upon making his first big bang in the super world. The book outlined all the requirements, from how your henchmen were decided to how your costume was designed. One of the biggest and most important rules was that every villain must come up with an evil monologue on how they plan to take over the world in order to stun and amaze their opponents. Granted, it never actually stunned them and gave the hero ample time to escape and foil your plans. But it was in the book, so it had to be done. Feeling incredibly confident, Darksteel was sure there was no way for him to mess this up. “You are the most evil villain in the world, you cannot fail!” He whispered as he walked to the large reinforced blast door to confront Flare. He whipped the door open and in his most deep voice he began, “Welcome Flare to my secret hide….” Sitting in chains in front of him was one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen. “You’re really hot.” Flare looked at him with wide eyes, mouth agape and beginning to blush. “Oh my gosh I’m so so sorry….” Darksteel stammered out realizing he had thought aloud. This was not going according to plan!
Flare was not in the best of moods right now. To start, she had gotten captured by her arch nemesis Darksteel, for the third time in eight months. She was sure that her friends Mermaiden and Spectrum were assembling a rescue team, and she would be free in at least twelve hours. But that didn’t mean that twelve hours of sitting on her knees in a cold metal room with only a small television was any more enjoyable. Another thing was that Darksteel had the audacity to turn the television to the news, so she could sit and listen to all the reporters complaining that their fight caused too much damage, or that she had failed the city. Of course their fight destroyed several blocks, they were super humans!!! They should try fighting a man with incredible strength and a body as hard as a diamond. It probably didn’t help that her powers were fire based, but still. As she sat there listening to some stuck up snob with way too much hair gel complain how she should have done better, or done this instead of that, all that Flare felt was anger. How dare they mock her!? She had saved their lives more times than she could count on both hands risking her own life in the process. These people meant nothing to her, she had no moral obligation to save the people that didn’t give her the light of day when she was one of them. Flare’s real name, Sarah Belle, meant nothing to them. All she was to them was some poor naive young waitress at the bar. She had even served the guy talking on the tv last night! He had complained about his meal and didn’t even pay, let alone give her a tip. She decided right then in that cold dark room, that enough was enough. They clearly didn’t appreciate her and thought they would be better off without her, so why should she help them? She wasn’t going to save them anymore, now she had different goals.
Darksteel was freaking out, his enemy wasn’t supposed to be one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen! His plans were crumbling before his very eyes, and he didn’t function well without plans. He kind of just breaks down and starts spouting nonsense during confrontation. And he did not need to do that in front of Flare, that would be incredibly embarrassing. *cough* “Let’s start over, welcome to my humble abode, I trust it has met your standards?” Darksteel said mischievously. “Oh it’s wonderful, I’m thinking about moving here permanently.” Darksteel filed away the information that his superhero enemy was sarcastic for later use. You never know what you could use against them. “Well I’m sad to say you won’t be around here much longer, I can’t have you foiling any of my plans you see.” Darksteel was ready for her to ask about his plans and was about to launch into his epic monologue when Flare cut him off. “You don’t have to worry about me ruining your chance at world domination,” Darksteel paused, confused at what Flare was saying. “As a matter of fact, I want to help. Teach me to be a villain.” Darksteel looked at her curiously for a moment, then fainted in shock.