Super•Villainous

Interlude

He had been told countless times by his guardian that the most fortunate gift his power ever bestowed upon him was allowing himself to forget. It gave him the chance to start over as a blank slate. It gave him the chance to not bury himself in the guilt of all he'd supposedly done.

"Trust me, dear boy," his guardian said countless times. Always simply 'boy', until they came up with his alias nearly a year later and deemed him recovered enough to begin work in the Underground. Out of sight. Far from mind. "You don't want to know who you were. What you've done. Don't go searching for answers that can only scar you further. Most of us don't get the luxury of a fresh start."

Perhaps that speech would have worked counter to its purpose with another teenager, one who railed against authority. Not him, however. He saw the truth of himself in his maze of scars marring almost every stretch of the canvas that was his skin. He'd felt it in the months of recovery following the incident that brought him to the Guild's attention.

He didn't want to know what he'd done that was so terrible, and as he grew older, so too did his aversion to that forbidden knowledge. Truth was the offer of a poisoned chalice that could turned down without consequence, not at all tempting like a sweet fruit hanging from a tree in a remote garden paradise. He inflicted enough harm in the course of his Guild duties without going out of his way to further wound himself with such unpleasant knowledge.

Ignorance was not bliss, because he was not happy, but maybe it could be a balm to soothe the true severity of long forgotten wounds.

Upon encountering her for the first time, he'd merely been puzzled about how the Mark of his power had ended up on a complete stranger, surely existing from the time Before. What had she done to earn his ire for him to curse her with such a thing? The harder he concentrated, though, the more confused he became about the sheer maturity of the Mark, like he could reach forward and brush away the dust and cobwebs settled around it. It was far older than any of the others he consciously balanced day after day.

Early on, his guardian deduced that he could Mark up to nine people or objects at a time. Up to nine lives either buoyed or slowly destroyed. He felt every one of his Marks deeply, an invisible tether that bound him to the recipients of his capricious power.

Then, she bumped into his side by chance one evening, and a last bond suddenly, irrevocably snapped into place from a position burrowed far deeper than the others, like a chain abruptly yanked out of a sand dune. Buried. Forgotten. And unearthed again from a period Before.

"Sorry," she'd murmured at the time, clearly discomfited in that crowded Guildhall, only really focusing her attention on him when he failed to respond.

Ten, he'd thought nonsensically. She makes ten.

Turning away from her that day had felt like turning his back on the one great clue of a past he'd never before felt a desire to investigate. A self-destructive instinct almost brought him to betray his most strictly held edict.

Why did I curse you, and why are you not yet dead from a curse so long in place?

Alas, he'd been brought up from the Underground that evening for a terrible purpose, and he intended to fulfill it. Nothing was entirely safe from a little bad luck.

Using only a foundation of his intent, he could create the most unfathomable tragedies, so long as the barest possibility existed, be the odds one in ten, or one in ten billion. A blizzard in July. A vicious flood amidst a drought. Or, another example would be to, say, manufacture just enough misfortune for a supposedly Super-proof ceiling to cave in on the Guildhall due to the rolling earth far below, thanks in part to Tectonic villainous efforts outside the Gala.