“You are so pathetic,” I spewed, flinging a dramatic spray of spittle in Magnus’s face. “It would have taken ten, no a hundred of you to stop me!” I stared intensely into his eyes, soaking in the ambiance of this perfect moment, the culmination of more than a year’s worth of preparation and planning. Finally I would leave my mark on society. At last I could show my family how a true villain writes the history books.
The flickering glow of distant flames in the night reflected off the pitiful hero’s glassy eyes as he stared through me, no doubt contemplating the menial, negligible meaning of his existence. He didn’t even struggle against the chains I’d used to tie him to the flag pole atop his own high rise headquarters, a massive 144 floor skyscraper emblazoned on all sides with his signature gold and maroon insignia. The entire city around him was burning, sirens and screams rising into the moonless sky, and soon the explosives I’d planted in the ground floor would detonate, bringing down his pride and joy, decimating the city’s last symbol of hope.
I turned to take in the view. It was truly apocalyptic. Yes, I thought. Surely I will gain supervillain status now. I allowed myself a brief, subdued evil laugh and quickly twisted my maniacal face back to Magnus. “Any last words, hero?” I sneered.
His morose eyes gazed steadily into mine, oozing defeat. Slowly he lowered his countenance without so much as a whimper, resigned to his fate.
I stared at him a moment longer, then shrugged and walked around behind the flag pole to the helipad where my escape vehicle waited. It was a sleek, expensive VTOL prototype I’d stolen from a research facility in Nevada. It had a mean look about it. Once I had painted it black, it perfectly fit my evil aesthetic. I loved the attention it drew at family gatherings. Their jealousy fueled my desire to put their reputations to shame.
As I settled into the single seat aircraft I watched the reflection of the fires off the canopy while it closed. I heard a soft thunk as the relay contacts closed, followed by the quiet whine of charging supercapacitors. The cockpit hissed as it sealed closed and a haunting chorus of steady tones sang out as the electric propulsion system spun up. It always gave me chills, but tonight the effect was magnified by an overwhelming and confident sense of achievement.
It was a short flight to my evil lair, where I deftly touched down on a makeshift landing pad just behind a magnificent waterfall. I loved the white noise echoing through my cave. The whole place was my cozy place. I was beaming from ear to ear as I disembarked from my villainous getaway jet, already planning an incredible evening of celebration, when a familiar bright tear in the fabric of time and space just outside the door to my bedroom sent my heart pounding.
“Oh no,” I groaned. “Not you again.”
The brightness faded, revealing the smiling time traveler. “Hello Angus,” he called out with far too cordial a tone.
“Go away,” I yelled over the reverberating roar of rushing water. “I’m celebrating a key victory in my career as a supervillain and you are not invited.” I pushed past him and through the door.
He followed me into the quiet of the hallway, jittery with excited energy. “Don’t you want to hear the news?”
I rolled my eyes. “Holy frickin’ heckballs,” I jeered, “do I ever!” I whirled around and glared at him. “No! Every time I do anything evil you have to come ruin my day. Well not today dingleberries-for-brains. I just defeated my arch nemesis, destroyed the city, and left an awful scar on the planet that secures my place in history as one of the greatest supervillains ever. I’m going to get completely plastered, call all of my exes to gloat, and scrape all the frosting out of an entire pack of Oreos. Tell you what, come back in the morning and you can have the leftover cookies. They’ll be covered in my vomit.”
The time traveling nuisance stood there staring at me as I huffed and shoved my way through the bedroom door, slamming it opened.
Inside I threw off my villain’s cape and collapsed on the bed, trying to muster my evil smile back. I heard the time traveler clear his throat and instantly I was scowling again.
“Well,” he began, “I regret to inform you that officially, as of now, history will remember you as ‘super’ so…”
I sat up and stared at him, furrowing my brow while he shrugged sheepishly. “But not a super villain?” I growled.
“The city you wiped out… It was such a scourge. Every evil dictator for the next hundred years was born from its slums. By nearly destroying the city, you probably saved billions of lives.” He winced and forced half a smile.
I clenched my jaw and lowered my brows.
“And Magnus? His effect on the city was negligible anyway. I mean, he never stopped any of the deeply rooted corruption, and his presence just encouraged the common people to remain weak and helpless. By killing him, the remaining population rose to the occasion and overcame the incumbent corrupt leaders.” His smile looked painful, as though he knew I was about to punch a hole in his big stupid forehead. “And the blast crater left behind by your explosives… That revealed an incredible supply of rare minerals and…”
“STOP!” I bellowed, slapping my hands down on the bed. “Just stop it! You’re ruining everything! Why do you even come tell me these things? Is it your personal mission to make sure I know exactly how much of a failure I am, even when I’m trying to celebrate a clear success? How on earth are you people interpreting my nearly genocidal acts of merciless murder and villainy as anything but pure, vile evil? Can’t you just let me have this?”
I stood up and watched him crumple into a gently trembling, nervous ball. He whimpered a little, then shakily lifted a finger and his lips parted. He spoke slowly and haltingly, measuring each word fastidiously before speaking. “You are the single greatest hero the world has ever known,” he stuttered. “It was my great honor to be appointed your temporal ambassador.”
I took a menacing step toward him and he flinched, closing his eyes. “I am not a hero,” I seethed through grinding teeth. The man continued to shrink before me as my blood boiled.
“Well,” he began, choking on his words. “It’s just that…”
Without thinking I pulled my gun, racked a round, and shot him in the head. His lifeless body flopped to the ground. Immediately a blinding flash of light filled the room.
A chipper voice cried out. “Wow Angus! You’re not going to believe this but…”
I fired into the closing rift, splattering the traveler’s blood through time and space, and watched his body collapse next to the other one just as the light was fading.
Another bright flash filled the room. “No!” I cried, feeling my sanity melting away. “Stop it!”
“But Angus! You’ve done it again!” the voice called out. I saw an excitedly bouncing woman and as the light dimmed her wide, hopeful eyes darted to the gun and bodies on the floor in quick succession. “Uh…”
I took aim and fired. Her body fell draped over the other two. I was seething, foaming at the mouth. My eyes were full of rage and my blood was at a rolling boil. If one more light flared up…
And it did. I screamed, my sanity long dead. With one hand I grabbed a fist full of my own hair, and with the other I mindlessly brought the barrel of the gun to my chin, aimed at my own destabilized brain. I was breathing in short, heavy bursts like an enraged wild ape. The light faded and the man that appeared quickly took in the scene, his eyes wide with horror.
“Oh crap…” he began.
And I pulled the trigger.
Mermaid Pirate Dispatch 
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