Supervillain Girlfriend!

Part Two, Chapter Twenty: Mother

"Yes. Absolutely." Beatrice said. "Why would I think you were anything else?"

Her mother said nothing more, only rolled her eyes and grabbed her wrist. Before Beatrice even had a chance to protest, she was teleported back out of the room. She jerked her wrist away just as they appeared back out in the parking area.

"Take me back to her!" Beatrice snapped. "I'm not playing your games."

"Just teleport there yourself." Her mother said. "What, did you forget you have super powers?"

Embarrassment washed over her. Her heart was beating so fast. She hadn't planned on the next time she saw her mother being like this. She thought she was finally going to best her. She thought she wasn't going to be afraid of her.

She was wrong. Here she was already losing her composure.

"I don't know what you could have planned." Beatrice said.

Her mother regarded her with a surprisingly neutral expression, before turning away and waving her hand.

"Come with me."

At a loss for what else to do, Beatrice followed her. She led her to another small office and leaned back against a desk in the middle of the room.

"What do you want from me?" Beatrice snapped.

"I just wanted to talk to you as your mother." She said.

"The last time I saw you, you strangled me and broke my arm." Beatrice seethed. "Why would I ever want to fucking see you again, let alone cooperate with you?"

"Because you have clarity now." Her mother said.

Beatrice frowned.

"I have what?"

"Clarity." She repeated. "You've seen how they treat us, the mutants. You're just a commodity to them. The only reason we're not second class citizens to them anymore is because they've decided that we can be useful."

"No, that's-" she started to disagree, even though some of what she said seemed to make sense, but her mother cut her off before she could really get anything out.

"You saw what they did to your brother, what they were doing to all of those other mutants. Using him to make a product. He was just a criminal anyway. Most of us are criminals in their eyes anway.

That's what they do. Beatrice - they take the parts of us that they like and they toss the rest to the side. They just take and take and take. Take things that belong to us.

They even turned on your little girlfriend, even though her whole thing is supposed to be making people like her. How sad is that? That their prejudice is that strong?"

"They didn't know Charlie-"

"I mean, they hated you until they could use you to protect oil pipelines and sell magazines. They didn't really care about you though. They never do."

Beatrice faltered. She didn't like her mother capitalizing on the isolation and rejection she had always feared her whole life. She didn't like the way she could monopolize her emotions like that.

Most of all, she hated that the only reason she could think of to tell her mom she had become a hero, aside from money, was that she hated her. She knew her mother was evil, and she wanted to do the opposite of what her mother would have wanted her to do.

"I know you're not happy, Beatrice- but you could be."

Beatrice shook her head.

"You don't know anything about me."

A smile spread across her mother's face, like those were the words she had been waiting to hear

"I know more about you than any of your little friends in there."

Beatrice narrowed her eyes.

"What does that mean?"

Her mother walked around the office desk, and pulled the center drawer open. From it, she produced the green syringe that Beatrice had stolen from the warehouse when she had rescued TJ. Beatrice's eyes widened and she nervously rubbed her palms together

"You stole this from the factory." Her mother said. "But you didn't hand it over to the police, and you didn't tell your little friends about it either. You didn't even mention it to your little girlfriend. Why is that?"

"I- it's nothing like that-" she said, "You're making it into something it's not."

In truth, Beatrice never really could explain her actions to herself. She had thought of it as more of a... curiosity. A what if.

What if her powers were stronger?

"You wanted to make yourself stronger." She said.

"I- I'm already strong."

"Are you though?"

Beatrice opened her mouth, but couldn't find the will to puff herself up when she didn't really believe it.

At her silence, her mother pushed the syringe closer.

"You could be."

Do it. Just do it.

She thought to herself.

Then you can finally be strong enough to beat her. She wants you to be stronger anyway.

Do it and turn on her

She swallowed.

She grabbed the syringe off of the table, and jabbed it straight into her thigh. The gel-like substance surged through her veins with a cold burn. It felt almost like her blood was turning into ice.

The burn faded away after a moment, and she blinked in surprise.

She immediately knew something was wrong.

Her body felt... quiet.

It was like being in a room with an air conditioner running. While it was going, you didn't notice the constant hum, but as soon as it shut off, the silence seemed... wrong.

Beatrice panicked at the feeling, and immediately turned and waved her hand, trying to get the door to the office to slam shut. Nothing happened. She tried over and over and over again, but nothing happened.

She turned to her mother, eyes wide and heart racing in fear.

"Wha- what did you do to me?"

A smile spread across her mother's face that sent a chill down her spine.

"You really are gullible, aren't you?"