Villains Wear Masks
Chapter 8: Choosing the right path

“I have seen your heart and it is mine.”

~ Tom Marvolo Riddle (Lord Voldemort)

“What about adulthood?” April asked the most high profile villain in Alcatraz, “If you don’t want to talk anymore about your childhood, we can move on to there.”

X leaned back in his chair, smirking. “Well, we both already know how that turned out. I’ll be spending most of it in here.”

She heard the accusation in his tone and backed off, shaking her head, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before. Every person who comes in here just loves to shove it in my face that I’m a prisoner in here until I die. It makes them feel better about themselves if they can belittle someone they view as a criminal.”

April leaned forward on the drab grey table that separated them. “X, I can assure you that I’m nothing like them.”

He shrugged. “Sure you aren’t. No one admits to being prejudice outright. People frown at people imprisoned because it reminds them that they are law-abiding citizens. Somehow people feel justified in looking down at criminals because they were smart enough to follow the laws of the land. People never stop to question if the rules regulating their life are fair or just until they apply to them, but by then it’s too late.”

“You’re in here because of your crimes against the people of Kingdom City, not because you questioned the system,” April argued.

“Oh? Am I?” X questioned. “Is giving the people what they need such a bad thing? It wasn’t like people were jumping at the chance to arrest me anyways.”

April crossed her arms and lifted her eyebrows. “You mean until White Knight came along and defeated you?”

X bit his lip. “So you defend your boyfriend when it’s convenient to you?”

“What?”

A sigh. “I’m nothing if not perceptive after years of nothing else to do in this place. You justify White Knight’s actions when they match up to your own views, but when they clash with your need to be independent, you suddenly can’t stand him. You’re as much of a hypocrite as the rest of your family.”

“Isn’t that what everyone does though?” April defended.

X shook his head. “Not me. I always tell the truth nowadays. I hate everyone equally, so how can I ever be a hypocrite?”

April shrugged.

“Now, back to this White Knight thing. Do you feel like it’s okay to switch between approving and disapproving of the guy? Because I don’t think that’s fair.”

“We’re here to talk about you, not me.”

Rolling his eyes, X sighed. “Fine. I got involved in the underground drug trade after high school and made my way through the Black Tiger gang with the intention of leading it. But, as most people know, they ended up just being a piggyback into greater ventures. It was one of my only choices in life seeing as no deadbeat from Oakland was going to get anywhere societally acceptable in life.”

April was surprised at the information he had just told her. Most of the public was aware that X used the Black Tiger gang to do some of his dirty work once he was in power because of the police manhunt for them after X was taken down. April only thought he paid them, not that he used to be one of them. You didn’t need to buy loyalty if you had brotherhood.

She had already deduced that X hadn’t had a great life until his rise to power. He didn’t talk about his parents and most days deflected questions about his childhood. If he joined a gang, it would explain where he learned to use a weapon and why he used to have so much respect amongst the criminal community. It also explained how he was able to distribute The Pill to so many Kingdom City residents so quickly without detection. The gangs in the city were the only reason drugs grew to such huge epidemics. They knew how to avoid cops and get their stuff to the right people. It was insane the damage they were able to cause.

The Pill had been detrimental to the city. The people who didn’t die from overdose were delirious and out of it most of the time, their only drive to get more of the drug that did this to them. The Pill was so addictive in fact that even supers, the pillars of societies around the globe, could easily fall to it. There had always been a rumor of a whisper about April’s sister and the drug. She did, after all, go to Iris City around the time of X’s downfall.

But her parents wouldn’t cast off her sister just because she fell to something against her control. No matter how horribly they sometimes treated April, she knew they would never purposely ignore their favorite daughter. She was a super after all.

“Just because you grew up there didn’t mean you couldn’t make a better name for yourself.”

X straight up laughed out loud. “Oh, please. You only say that because you grew up in Kingdom Hills. You’re fed this pretty little lie that you’re going somewhere in life because you worked for it, not because your parents had money and were able to give you opportunities. The kids from the bad parts of town never got the same chances as you. Your parents will tell you that it’s all an even race, but even if the distances were the same, people like me were weighed down by handcuffs and an impossible obstacle course. Because there are occasional lucky kids who make it out of that hellhole, people like you feel justified in their belief that we all could’ve made it out if we had truly wanted to.”

The truth was, April didn’t want to believe it. Everyone everywhere knew deep down the special treatment rich kids got over poor ones, even if they didn’t want to admit it. If one person from the projects and one from Beverly Hills both had the same amount of talent, which one would make it big? Sometimes opportunities meant everything.

Maybe if X had grown up in a family like hers full of prominent supers he would’ve turned out different. But, he hadn’t.

“Maybe you’re more like the rest of your family than I thought you were.”

April felt that insult in her heart, but before she could retort, Agent Argent opened the door to the room. She never barged in during their sessions, so April knew that something must’ve been up.

“I’m in the middle of a session.”

Argent nodded. “I know, but something has happened.”

April took one last look at X before following Argent out in the hallway. A million bad scenarios were making their way through her mind.

When the door closed, Argent turned to April with a grim expression. “Your sister, Diana, is hurt. Some villain in Iris City got the better of her.”

“I need to go there right away, Iris City is only like an hour away.”

Argent stopped April from turning to leave, “She’s not there anymore, your parents had her transported back to Kingdom City.”

April’s heart fell. If she wanted to make sure her sister was alright, she’d have to go back to Kingdom City. She’d have to face everyone she was trying so hard to forget.

“Um, okay. I’ll just head back to my hotel and get my stuff together.” April responded, tucking a hair behind her ear.

April barely remembered the ride on the ferry to the mainland. She was too lost in her thoughts to register what was going on around her. She hadn’t been letting herself think about her family, or at least she’d been trying not to, for months. She had stopped answering Brandon’s texts and wouldn’t voluntarily look him up on the SNN.

She found she couldn’t remember what their last conversation had been about. When had April stopped completely caring about him? She had always been annoyed by his constant need to be a hero to her, but she knew it wasn’t his fault he was like that.

Anakin had left her mind too. To think how many times April had spent in his company just talking about life. Anakin had been more of a friend to her than anyone had, even if it was because he was always kidnapping her to try and defeat Brandon.

How could she forgotten about them so easily?

She was thrust out of her thoughts on the bus ride back to her hotel from the port. There was a traffic jam up ahead and the bus had unexpectedly stopped. Along with some of the other bored passengers, April looked out the window for an explanation. In the corner of her vision, she spotted a figure that made her heart sink. What looked like a bundle of interlocked mint ropes was rolling around the corner.

“Wow, it’s Stretchy Girl!”

Some of the bus-goers were now extremely excited, pushing their way to the nearest windows to catch a glimpse of one of San Francisco’s heroes.

Stretchy Girl and her partner, Merman, were originally natives of Empire City, but once it got overcrowded with the League of Legends, they both decided to move here. Most of the time they were seen trying to stop idiot teenagers and super villains from trying to get to Alcatraz. Only a small number of villains had ever broken out, only two, in fact, and both had outside help from the same man. Nemesis was dead now anyways, so he wouldn’t be getting anyone out of there anytime soon.

The impossible odds didn’t stop people from trying.

“Look! She’s fighting her arch nemesis, Strong Man!”

The villain was also an Empire City native that followed the hero to San Francisco.

As they watched the scene unfold, the traffic jam showed no signs of stopping. If there was a super battle in the middle of the street, you could be guaranteed that there would be a backup for hours. Even as she thought that, she saw citizens leaving their cars with their phones high over their heads. April could only spot the occasional upset or annoyed person in the crowd. Most people were excited to see a superhero, as usual.

April had been getting used to not seeing superheroes every day. Her commute early in the morning and late at night usually deemed her able to avoid seeing any sign of Merman or Stretchy Girl. And, in Alcatraz, the super villains were all in orange with no powers in sight.

Pretty soon, she realized, April would be living this life again. She would always be a damsel when she went home because of Brandon and Anakin.

It would never end.

Eventually Stretchy Girl contracted her body from its contortionist positioning and stood up to her normal height and width. April briefly remembered meeting her when she was little. Captain Fantastic had been in a meeting with her at MASKED and taken her with him. At this point Diana had already received her powers, and everyone still thought April would follow in the family footsteps as well.

April remembered Stretchy Girl playing tag with them through the Kingdom City MASKED headquarters. She remembered her sister laughing, sounding so melodious because of her voice control.

She had wanted to be stuck in that moment forever.

Strong Man made his way through the cars stuck in traffic. The sensible people moved out of the way, though they still kept their phones on video. Stretchy Girl catapulted herself at him and they rolled nearer to the bus. Strong Man kept trying to punch Stretchy Girl, but it was like trying to punch putty.

April remembered a time like this when White Knight and Black Knight were fighting in the middle of a crowded street with April sitting in the Super Burger across from them. It was the one time she could remember seeing them fight without being the thing they were fighting after. They probably hadn’t even known she was there, only feet away from their battle. If they had, Black Knight would’ve made an effort to put her in danger to catch his nemesis off guard. Or maybe White Knight would’ve been thrown off of his game because the girl he had gone after for years was in possibility of getting hurt by his battle.

She couldn’t remember what they had been fighting about, and never bothered to replace out. April remembered replaceing it comforting that they could maybe have had real things to fight about, not stupid attempts to take over the city or make her a damsel in distress.

Eventually Stretchy Girl got the upper hand, like everyone knew she would.

When the police cars showed up, April knew the bus wasn’t moving anytime soon. The Super Task Force loved to talk to witnesses, and April Watson would definitely make for an interesting witness. She shouldered past the others on the bus, most who were still ogling at the hero who had stayed to talk with the San Francisco Super Task Force. The bus driver, distracted by the hero as much as the passengers, let April off of the vehicle.

April walked on the sidewalk, past the police cars that had edged their way through the traffic with blue and red sirens. She got a quick look at Strong Man being forced into Merlonium laced handcuffs before being shoved in the back of a squad car. Stretchy Girl was smiling as she talked with an officer. April didn’t let herself stand for too long. All she would need was one glance in her direction for Stretchy Girl to recognize her as Captain Fantastic’s daughter.

The walk back to the hotel room from here would be too long, and of course April’s phone had to die the moment she started calling for an Uber. She huffed as she walked down the street. The best thing for her to do would be to wait in a nearby store or restaurant while the street cleared up and she could catch another bus. Up ahead she saw a family owned diner and a Super Burger right next to each other. She could wait in one of those establishments, catch the next bus, and then gather her stuff to travel back to Kingdom City.

April walked into one of the doors and smiled at the person behind the counter, who was probably used to most of the business going next-door. “Do you sell burgers?”