Winter War
I’ll say this about the General, he knew how to do a proper villain lair.
I looked up at the former hotel that now served as the General’s base of operations and had to admit, I was impressed. It had apparently once been a ski chalet, which only confirmed to me that he was hiding in there. True villains can’t quite help themselves sometimes. They really needed to stick to a theme, and the fact that the Roue Devard looked like the Overlook Hotel only strengthened that idea. Set on a ridge, surrounded by mountains and pine trees, it stood alone in the night, the fence and wall high around it. Peaking roofs jutted out, the whole place like a forgotten relic of past fortunes now fallen. It was dark, the night choking the mountains and leaving me half blind, but I could feel the metal in some security cameras topping the fence, and from where I parked I could see a number of lights still glowed in the Roue Devard’s windows.
And it was the home of General Winter, that was for sure. Villains weren’t really all that good at subtly hiding their lairs. They always did something weird like stick a giant letter on the building, or building a Scottish castle on the roof. I mean really, what kind of person builds a fucking castle atop a skyscraper? That is not normal.
And in this case, it was the cold.
We were still in the middle of summer, but snowdrifts clung to the sides of the building and frost gleamed in sprawling patterns on every window. The grass of the grounds shone and glistened in the moonlight with frost, and ice steamed outside the main doors and bled from windows like someone had trapped a season inside. A faint nimbus of dark clouds roiled above the hotel, and snow drifted down every now and then. I wasn’t even sure if the General was consciously doing it. He was not the type of man to care too much about such subtleties, but the sheer scale of his power meant he really didn’t need to hide. Who’d dare fuck with him? I was kind of shocked he’d bothered to go so far as try and scheme in order kidnap Glacia instead of just plowing a cold front into the city to get her back.
But that only spoke to his confidence. Confidence well placed, I had to admit. I’d parked up the road while I scoped out the hotel with my binoculars, but now I put them away and got out of my old car.
“Anything?” I asked into the radio earpiece I’d had Dolly install into my helmet.
“Mmm. Satellite imaging not showing much, Victor,” she said. “Those clouds aren’t being helpful, but no guards outside the grounds, aside from a couple near a helicopter pad.”
“Probably all inside getting ready to pull out,” I said. Which worked for me. Less likely to get attacked in the rear. I activated my armour, letting the metal plates coat my arms and body with a clicking sound. The cape I’d foregone. I wasn’t there to show off, for once, and it would just get in the way. I stood on the driveway, looking up towards the looming edifice of the hotel like some monster of wood, gilt, and frost. I let out a long breath.
“Ready?” Dolly’s voice chimed in my earpiece.
“As I’ll ever be,” I said, and started walking.
You learned a lot about security systems as a villain. Part of the territory. I’d never genuinely robbed somewhere, but when you’re doing a job, every bit of information helped. I was used to playing to security cameras, and often security footage was the only cameras that saw the battle with the hero, so you had to work them. This was the same, only in reverse.
I tracked the cameras, and when they inevitably scanned away I dashed forward. A slight magnetic push kept them turned just long enough for me to give a lift to my armour, sending me flying soundlessly through the air and over the fence, not even brushing the very menacing spikes that peaked the walls. I drifted down until only the tip of my boot brushed the frozen grass, and with another subtle pulse of my power I skimmed across the lawn as if I were skating over it. I doubted the General had installed pressure pads under the grass, but you can never be too sure.
I reached the wall of the hotel with gratifying ease and moved along it until I found the fuse box that Mortrim had told us about. The cold was stronger here, and I was glad for the heavy coat I’d thrown on before coming. My breath steaming the air, I wrenched the metal plating off the box with another quirk of my powers and revealed the wiring within.
From a pocket I brought out the receiver Dolly had given me and I threaded it into the fuse box. It adhered with a click, cables snaking from it and plunging into the machinery like fangs of steel.
“You in?” I said.
“Of course I am!” Dolly said, the clicking of keys audible through the audio feed. “Hmmm, Guild security is always such a tough nut to crack.”
I didn’t doubt it. Paranoia is part and parcel for villains, but the Guild had the resources to hire/kidnap the skills needed to keep their lairs secure. “Can you bypass it?”
“Please!” Dolly scoffed, and I could fairly see her smirking in her lab, face lit by the glow of her screen. “They’ve got nothing on me. Aaaaaand… I’m in! Oooh, they’re smart. They diffused the security grid. I’d need access to the central banks to really fix it, but I can turn off the outside alarms and the auto turrets, as well as a blackout on ranged communication.”
“How long until that’s noticed?”
“Mmm… I’d love to say a while but really, as soon as I do it, they’re gonna figure it out. Sorry, Victor.”
“No, you did good,” I said, turning to face the bulk of the building, flexing my fists at my sides as I prepared myself for what I had to do. I really, really didn’t want to make an enemy of the Guild. They could make my life a living hell. And afterlife, if it came to that. I knew there was at least one demon on the Council. But there were just some things a man couldn’t do, and one of them was leaving a lady in the cold grasp of a subzero villain with a global rap sheet a mile long. Even if that man was her dad.
If I had a penny for every time that happened…
I sighed. Well, nothing for it. I glided around to the front of the building and set myself down on the porch leading to the old wood doors. I raised my hand and felt my power cling to the hinges and metal knobs. Here goes nothing.
I shoved my arm forward, and with a groan of metal and crackle of breaking wood I forced the doors inside, ripping them off the frame and hurling them across the room.
Instantly alarms started blaring as I strode inside. Chaos met me. Security were still picking themselves up from the ruinous passage of the doors. Ice coated the gallery and the ground floor like an ice age had swept in uninvited and froze all the fine varnished wood and elaborate paneling. Even the paintings were coated in a layer of frost.
I swept my eyes around, noticing the bulky shapes of a couple Guild scorpo bots, their metal camo’d white, the curving tails ending in the stingers of death rays, now inert thanks to Dolly. But the low tech solution of henchmen were recovering fast. Men in heavy grey coats and furred hats from their northern home hurried into position, all armed to the teeth, and I felt every weapon in the room train on me.
“Freeze!” one of the goons shouted as he swung up his rifle.
“You’re funny,” I said, reached up, and pinched my fingers.
Every muzzle tightened instantly, squeezed shut. As the goons pulled the triggers, their weapons backfired, exploding in their hands. Screams of agony and shock filled the room, echoing off the frozen walls and paintings.
Ah.
Good times.
One of the minions, showing that single-minded stupidity and loyalty of a real paid and proper henchmen, tried to rush me with a combat knife. Unfortunately for him, his uniform was loaded with metal buttons and his belts had the same. I barely had to move my hand to throw him across the room, smashing him into the far wall so hard he went right through it.
Well, I made my entrance.
Time to make it count.
I strode forward, passing through moaning bodies of henchmen and towards the large doors at the back. This time the goons on the other side were ready. As I threw open the doors a hail of bullets thundered at me, only to veer off a magnetic field I threw up, instead chewing up the walls and floors around me. It was near impossible to stop a bullet coming at you, especially in the numbers I was being pounded with. Too much force behind them, a lesson I learned the hard way. But redirecting them? That was child’s play.
The henchmen stared in shock as I strode through the barrage of gunfire like I was off on a morning stroll, never even slowing until their guns clicked, empty. Belatedly, they reached for more clips. I waited until they’d loaded them, and before they could take aim again I let my field drop, magnetically grabbed the metal in their clothes, and threw all of them back and into the doors at the end of the hall. They hit it hard, bodies battering through with meaty thuds to fly into the next room, skimming across the icy floor like hockey pucks.
I was in the ballroom, the floor a skating rink and the tall windows iced shut and rimed with frost. Above, a lone chandelier glittered like a heavenly crown, icicles drooping from it like daggers.
In the middle of the room was a huge bastard, that was for sure. Twice as tall as me and half again as wide, he was covered in thick white fur and his face was bestial and tusked. His hands were huge and leathery, and he wore a butler’s waistcoat, standing with stiff properness, his face rigid with incongruous disdain.
Weird, but I’d seen weirder than a butler yeti.
“Do you have an appointment?” the yeti said, his voice a distinguished growl.
“No,” I said as I felt for the metal on the monster, but only finding some buttons and a pocket watch. Typical. “Can you fit me in? I was really hoping to see the General.”
The yeti’s eyes narrowed and he curled a lip over a savage tusk. “Hrm. The master has no time for you. I will remove you!”
“Sure thing, fuzzy,” I said, my armour humming. “Let’s see you try.”
The yeti smiled again, which promptly turned into a sneer. He sprang into motion so fast anyone else would have been easily gutted by the swipe of his massive paws, but I’d fought speedsters, and never let down my guard. A push on my armour sent me skidding out of range. The yeti snarled, his hands planting his paws onto the ice, tearing great gouges from it as he propelled himself after me like an ape.
I at once kicked off, rising into the air. The yeti bunched his legs and threw himself at me, but I evaded him with a push of my armour and a sharp drift to the right. The beast missed me, landing on the far wall, his claws digging into the wood for purchase as he turned towards me and flung himself once more at me.
Again I dodged, dropping out of range even as he soared through the air. He landed on the chandelier, grabbing the rim and swinging on it like a monkey. Crystal chimed and icicles fell to smash into the floor below with a sound like breaking glass. The beast turned my way, his muscles bunching to leap again.
I didn’t give him the chance.
Reaching out with my magnetic powers, I grabbed the chandelier and pulled hard. Bolts gave way with a groan, the anchor tearing part of the ceiling out. The yeti looked up, momentarily baffled as he felt the sudden slack in the chandelier. Then he rode it down until he it the ground with a crash, fracturing the ice below, the yeti’s howl of pain and surprise almost lost as the whole thing busted a massive hole in the floor, going down like a torpedoed ship of silver and gold.
I floated near the hole and glanced down it, but the yeti wasn’t moving at the bottom, having been caught under the chandelier. Dead or not, he was out of the way.
As I looked into the hole, I felt the room get colder.
I raised my head as I felt the chill in the air deepen. I heard the air snap. Crackle. Across the ice a new layer of frost grew, popping as it sucked the moisture out of the air. The bone-numbing cold seeped even through my jacket, and I shivered.
The upper gallery about the ballroom sported another set of doors, and I could actually see the frost creep across them, spreading in a freezing scrum that glittered in the remaining light like fallen stars as they slid open.
And into the room stepped Glacia.
I actually felt my jaw drop. Well, this would certainly make the rescue a bit faster. “Glacia!” I said. “There you are. Did-“
“Go home, Victor.”
The chill in her voice stopped me dead. No way I heard that right. “What?” I said. “Glacia, what are you talking about? I came here to get you.”
I noticed then the aloofness of her expression. Her face was rigid and uncaring as an iceberg bearing down on the Titanic, Her arms were crossed and her white coat was rustling in the chill air that seeped through from behind her, wafting like mist down the stairs she stood at the top of.
“Leave at once,” she said, her words biting like early frost. “I have no more business with you.”
Well, wasn’t that a strange reaction. I magnetically reached out to her, but found not a flake of metal on her aside from her uniform. So not a robot, and though I wasn’t ruling out evil clone, the General didn’t strike me as the type who could whip that out real quick. Occam’s razor therefore told me she was lying.
“Yeah, that doesn’t seem right,” I said, letting myself drop down, landing lightly on the floor and beginning to walk towards her.
Glacia’s eyes narrowed. “Leave, Victor. I will not warn you again.”
“What happened to ‘sir?’” I said. “You know, I always secretly liked it when you called me that. What changed?”
“I have no interest in working for some low level thug!” she barked, raising her hands, freezing air growing around her, her hair swirling with the power she gathered. “Now leave. Or I shall make you!”
“Then go ahead,” I said, opening my arms wide as I drew closer. “Make me! I’m wide open. I won’t fight back. What kind of mentor would I be if I fought my student?”
Glacia hissed and swept a ray of freezing cold across the floor. Ice burst like spikes in its wake, but missed me widely.
“You asked for me,” I said as I began to climb the stairs. “You studied under me. Why? Why run now? What are you really afraid of?”
“Stay back!” Glacia snapped, but I caught the twitch of emotion in her face as she swept her other arm towards me. Another spine of ice exploded, this time to my right, closer, but still too far to do anything but throw some frost onto my coat. “I… I’m warning you!”
“I came to get you, Glacia,” I said. “I came for you.”
She took a shaky step back, her lips quivering, her lashes furiously blinking away tears. “I… I can’t. I…”
I was now close enough, and I grabbed her, swept her into my arms and hugged her to my chest. Fuck she was cold! It was like hugging an ice cube, but I held her tight, squeezing her, feeling her shake in my arms.
“Glacia,” I said. “I’m here for you.”
She shuddered, and then her arms were around me, clinging to me, and she burst into tears. I held her against me, feeling the biting cold die down, the freezing wind lessening, her body slowly growing warm again.
“Sir… I’m sorry. I’m s-so s-sorry,” she whimpered, sniffling. “F-father… he… he came to me. He t-told me that… that if I d-didn’t go with him, he’d k-kill you. I’m so… I’m so s-sorry, sir. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it…”
I patted her hair, soothing her until she stopped shaking, but let her cling to me. “It’s okay,” I said gently. “It’s alright. I know. It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna get you out of here.”
A shudder worked through her, and Glacia raised her head from my chest. “Sir,” she said, sniffling. “I… I don’t think we will…”
I didn’t need to ask what she meant, because another cold wind was blowing into the ballroom. One that made Glacia’s chill feel like a Mexican summer. I looked towards the doors she’d come from and saw a mass of white swirling through it. Paintings along the walls snapped and popped as they froze, swallowed in the whiteout.
Oh fuck.
Grabbing Glacia’s hand, I tugged her down the steps after me. We hurried across the ballroom as the roar of a winter storm blew out the throat of the hallway. It erupted, howling into the main room like an avalanche. Frost and snow swept along the walls in a freezing wave, coating them in a layer of glistening ice. We were nearly at the exit when a ray of cold screamed over my head, sealing the door shut under a ten-inch-thick wall of ice.
So much for a quick exit.
I turned with Glacia and looked up.
For General Winter had come.
I recognized him from when we met at the museum, but when a villain put on his costume, it’s a whole ‘nother beast. Like a relic thawed from Stalingrad he stood on the edge of the stairs, a grey greatcoat hanging long over him. His beard was thick and mustache curled in aristocratic contempt. His eyes were flinty blue and he wore a stiff military hat that probably once bore a red star.
As his eyes fell on me, even I felt the chill. This wasn’t some streeter looking to make his name, or newbie villain off to prove his chops by taking on someone bigger. This was a man who knew evil. Who commanded it. Used it. Under other circumstances, I’d be in goddam awe of the sheer menace the figure before me radiated.
But this was now, and he’d sent assassins after me, kidnapped my protégé, and so things were inevitably going to be a bit tense.
Sill though, you had to respect the art.
“You will let go of my daughter,” the General said, his voice heavy as falling lead, every word accompanied by a swirl of the wind.
I released Glacia, but pushed her gently behind me. Glacia might have been powerful, but this wasn’t a fight for her. Not even I could take a headliner of the Guild in a fair fight.
But in an unfair fight…
“You lied to her,” I said. “You said if she came to your side, you’d let me go. But you sent an assassin after me.”
I felt Glacia stiffen behind me. The General didn’t even blink.
“Who are you to question me?” the General said, taking the first step of the stairs, ice crackling over the wood where he walked. “Do you think your life means anything to me? You? Little more than the punching bag for super heroes? Who sells himself to make others seem great? You are not worthy for my daughter to waste her time on. Had I known why she truly wished to come to this city, I would never have allowed it.”
“She can make her own decisions,” I said, stretching out my magnetic powers, gripping every gun once held by the minions I’d blown open the door with. Plans within plans. That’s how villains fight. I felt the pins, bolts, and triggers in the guns as I subtly lifted them off the ground, keeping the General’s attention on me. “She has that right.”
“She is my daughter. And I am her father,” the General said, halting halfway down the stairs, arms crossed behind his back as he looked down at me like I was something unpleasant he found under his shoe. “And I do not take advice from a dead man.”
“About that…” I said, and tightened my grip on a dozen triggers.
The General’s head snapped about at the clicking, finally spotting the machine guns hovering around him. With a chattering roar they opened up, unloading a hail of bullets, chewing up the ice and steps around the General, throwing up a cloud of powdered ice and snow.
“Father!” Glacia screamed, clutching my coat.
She needn’t have worried, much to my annoyance, but not surprise. As the guns clicked empty and the bullets ran out the clouds of powdered ice faded, revealing the General, still standing there, unruffled, a fractured wall of ice risen all around him like floating shields, their surfaces scored and cracked by the barrage.
And he did not look happy.
“You think that will stop me?” he demanded.
I dropped the guns, throwing out my hands. Plan B had the grenades which hung from the henchmen’s belts rip free and fly across the room for him. The General’s eyes flicked and flashed blue. A wave of freezing air rushed out from him like an expanding dome, catching up the grenades, encasing them in ice them before I could yank out the pins.
Instead, I tightened my hands, using my magnetic powers to manually jam the detonators directly into the charges. Explosions blasted apart the General’s ice shields, staggering him a step.
I had the briefest moment of smug enjoyment before his blazing eyes looked back at me.
Uh oh.
I gripped Glacia’s buttons with my magnetic powers and shoved her from me, doing the same to myself as the General raised a hand towards us. A nimbus of freezing power coalesced around him like an aurora, the air crackling with cold as he blasted the space I was in with a freezing ray. Spines of jagged ice burst where it hit, following me as I swung myself around, keeping well away from Glacia, but the General’s eyes tracked me as surely as an AA gun.
“You think tricks will be enough?” he demanded, spears of ice forming in the air about him. “You have not known the battlefields I have fought upon. You have not dreamed of the suffering I have caused. I am General Winter! And you are nothing!”
I couldn’t help but admire his villainous oration, even as the spears of ice launched themselves through the air in a hail of daggered shards. It took everything I had to weave out of their path, and even then a couple glanced off my armour, shrieking as they scratched the metal and ripped holes in my jacket, letting in the freezing air. Fuck! If I didn’t solve this soon, I’d just die of hypothermia. I could already feel my fingers starting to go numb.
“You’re one of the best, there’s no doubt,” I said as another mass of freezing icicles formed around the General. “But you’ve got my protégé, and I’m not letting her go!”
I reached down to the chandelier under the floor. Ooooh, this was gonna be close. As the General released another barrage of icicles, I dropped out of the air, landing hard on the floor, ice cracking, the impact jarring into my legs. Fuck! That was gonna smart tomorrow. But I didn’t have time to think about it. Grabbing the air before me, I hauled on the magnetic field around the chandelier.
Like a whale of bourgeois excess the chandelier was ripped up from under the floor, tearing through the boards with a crash, right up from under the General’s feet. The old man’s arms pinwheeled as he toppled back into the chandelier’s tangled interior. Instantly I gripped the chains that made up the decorative insides. With a sharp gesture I tore them from their moorings, twisting them around the General, pinning his arms to his sides.
General Winter looked down, momentarily stunned by what had just happened. Then he looked back at me, and his teeth grit and face turned thunderous as Odin’s wrath.
“You think this is enough to stop me!” he roared.
“Kinda hoping it is,” I admitted, even as I hastily wound more chains around him.
“I do not need my arms to kill you!” he thundered.
I tried to tighten the chains like the coils of an anaconda, but they barely bit into the furs he wore. The act did pull part of his coat open, revealing a gleam of something beneath. Ice! The bastard was wearing armour of ice under his jacket! Damn, that was clever. I’d have to get Glacia to learn that trick. Provided I survived this, which was rapidly becoming less likely. Especially when the air suddenly howled about the General in a freezing gust, encasing the chandelier beneath him in a frozen block, lifting him back to his feet on a glacial cliff and facing me down.
He stomped, and the iceberg cracked beneath him. But not into shards. Into a shape. Chunks of ice fell free exploding off the floor in clouds of white, revealing a massive wolf crudely hacked into shape. Its jaws opened, teeth of ice scraping against each other with a shriek, but the howl that left it chilled the soul like winter itself.
“Feast!” the General snarled, and the mass of ice hurled itself at me like a living thing.
Even I’d not faced something like this before. I skimmed back, buying some desperate seconds. It was a bit early to use the next trick I’d gotten from Dolly, but now or never! I barely had time to reach into my pocket and pull out some of the heat capsules she’d sold me. I hurled them at the creature, propelling them with my magnetic powers, each one punching into a different piece of the wolf.
It was nearly on me when the heat capsules burst, blasting chunks out of the wolf in clouds of steam. I pushed my armour up, lifting me into the air as the whole frozen artifice fell midstride, skidding across the ice and shedding chunks of itself across the floor before smashing into the far wall with a deafening crash
Phew. That was good. But I didn’t waste time marvelling at its demise. The General was far from out, and turning his way, I was proven right. While I was distracted by his construct, he’d frozen the metal chains. His face was knotted with concentration and effort, and with a howl he shattered the brittle metal, ripping free of the chains and sending their shards spinning.
Well shit, goes to show why he was so high in the Guild. I didn’t want to have to go this far, but if this was it, I still had one last trick up my sleeve.
Literally.
I reached out, pulling with a magnetic tug a side arm from the holster of one of the downed henchmen. The gun whipped through the air and into my waiting hand.
The General’s actually laughed at the sight. Storms of freezing air whirled around him like a coming blizzard. “So this is your final ploy?” he demanded, chunks of ice the size of sedans forming in the air around him. “Perhaps you should save the last bullet, fool. Spare yourself what is to come.”
“Funny you should mention that,” I said, and as I took aim. “I’m only going to need one bullet.”
A question turned his face, for if nothing else, I’d shown him not to underestimate me. And he was right not to, as I used my magnetic powers to push out the bars of copper I’d stitched in my sleeve.
The General’s brows knit, clearly wondering what I was up to. Then he saw the copper start to hum. Static crackled between them as they rotated about the barrel of my gun, the whine of magnetising force growing louder than the howling storm.
“You might want to block this,” I said.
His eyes widened as he suddenly realized what I was doing. He abandoned the chunks of ice he’d been forming and instead made a frantic lifting motion with his arm. An absolute wall of ice coalesced between me and him.
“Too late,” I said, and fired my makeshift rail gun.
The recoil that left the pistol was nothing, but when it hit the magnets the force of it blasted me back a few feet and nearly tore my arm from its socket. The copper bars actually melted with the sheer friction of that shot, the bullet screaming through the air so fast arctic wind billowed in its wake. The bullet hit the icy wall the General had thrown up and shattered it like it had been made of glass.
The explosion hurled the General off his feet, sending him flying across the room to smash into the stairs so hard the steps cracked and broke under him. Blood burst from his mouth, speckling his beard as he flopped in the impact crater.
I let out a gasp of breath, lowering my gun, the hum of magnetism lessening.
And then the General got back up.
I couldn’t believe it. Sure, he looked wobbly, but by sheer grit and rage he managed to regain his feet, staggering a step, but glaring at me with all the hate of a man possessed. I couldn’t help but feel a certain awe. This was a true villain. A man who would not quit. Who would fight to the end and come back for more when by all rights he should be down for the count. It was a trait shared with every great hero and their nemesis, and I knew then it wasn’t power, ruthlessness or fashion sense alone that had gotten the General his seat on the Council of 9.
“You think… you think you’ve won?” the General said, straightening with effort, more ice manifesting into hammer headed blocks of frost all around him.
I grimaced, going over my options. I raised the gun. If I gave the bullet another good push…
“Father! Stop!”
Spears of ice ripped through the General’s ice chunks, diamond hardness shattering the blocks like they were made of glass. What the hell? I turned in surprise to see Glacia floating towards her father, hands upraised like some northern goddess, more spears of ice whirling around her, her eyes blazing with blue fire.
I actually felt my jaw drop at the sight. Damn! She had this kind of power in her? I snuck a glance at the General, but he seemed even more surprised than me, staring at Glacia in stunned wonder.
“Daughter!” he finally said. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Stopping this!” Glacia said. “I will not let you two kill each other!”
“Daughter-“
“Did you really send an assassin after him, father?” Glacia said, landing between him and me, quivering with anger. “Did you really break your word? To me?”
For the first time the General actually looked abashed. He cleared his throat, the cold in the air dissipating just a bit. “W-well…”
“You swore to me, father,” Glacia said, marching up to him, frost crackling about her feet. “You swore if I went with you, he would be left alone. You broke your word! And you always told me a man is only as good as his word. How could you!”
Yeesh. I actually felt sorry for him. There’s nothing that makes a man squirm like being rightfully called out by a woman he loves. And though General Winter might be the greatest villain from pole to pole, right now he probably wished he was on a train heading straight to Siberia. He cleared his throat, ducking his chin into his beard, plainly uncomfortable.
“Daughter, really,” he said. “I was… Well… He was the whole reason you left the Ice Palace. All those blasted posters and videos you were always watching… How could I leave him be?”
…Hm?
I looked at Glacia, who met my eyes for the briefest moment before glancing quickly away, a light blush reddening her normally pale face.
“That…” she said, then shook herself. “Father, that is neither here nor there.”
“Of course it is!” the General barked, drawing himself back up, pointing an accusing finger at me. “You left the Ice Palace to find this man and do what? Learn how to be trounced by heroes? No! I will not accept that! You are a princess of the North! You are my daughter! I will not put you in the hands of a man like this! I will not leave you unprotected!”
“Do you really think I am unprotected?” Glacia cried. “Father, he held his own against you! Pushed you this far! Can you look me in the eye and say you cannot acknowledge his strength?”
The General once more looked uncomfortable. “Well… That is not to say… Hm…”
His eyes wandered back to me. I hastily drew myself up. The General’s weathered brows knit like the bark of an ancient tree.
“He is not… unskilled,” the General at last admitted, though it sounded like it was torn from him by rusty hooks.
I had to admit I was surprised. That was pretty high praise from a man who had fought in two world wars and more battles than I could count, even if it was begrudging. But Glacia looked smugly satisfied by those words. “Exactly!” she said. “No hero has been able to push you to such a point since the War when Spy Smasher confronted you during the Siege of Yakutsk! Father, who other than he could protect me outside your Palace? He alone is capable of this. A man worthy of training me further in my powers and skills!”
“But Glacia…” the General said, an entreating note entering his voice.
“Papa, please,” she said, moving forward, hands clasped, a pleading look in her pretty face. “I want to be trained by him. I want to live beyond the walls of the Palace, and this is the best way. Won’t you permit me? Who could keep me safer than a man who matched you?”
The General ducked his chin, grumbling into his beard again. I couldn’t help but stare. Was this really the man who had seized control of Greenland? Who had nations quail at even the thought of his attention? Who was on the most wanted list of every alphabet agency from the FBI to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars? Because right now he just looked like a grumpy old man being scolded by his daughter.
Not that I thought it changed much. He’d tossed enough chunks of ice at me today to assert his power. I looked again around the ruined ballroom, resembling more an arctic wasteland than anything else.
“You!”
I snapped back to attention at the General’s parade ground bark, his glower directed at me, his face bristling with anger and frosty whiskers. “You,” he repeated with a little less of a growl. “Do you truly believe you can protect my daughter?”
“What? Oh, er, yes. I do,” I said.
The General glared at me, his jaw moving as if literally chewing over my words. “Fine,” he snapped, again directing a pointed finger my way. “Then, she shall remain here under your guard. Train her as you believe will benefit her. But if even a hair is harmed upon her head, I shall bring a new ice age upon you!”
Was… was he serious? I tried to see a lie in his expression, but the grim pronunciation didn’t leave much space for that. He was dead serious.
“I… Yes. I mean, yes,” I said more firmly. “I will protect her. I swear it.”
The General huffed. “Very well. Here!”
He flung something at me. I felt the magnetic field of it and held up my hand, stopping it midair, expecting a grenade, only to find myself looking at a ring of quite elaborate keys.
“I will not have my daughter living in some filthy apartment like a serf,” the General growled. “You may have this building as your home. A gift, my dear,” he said to Glacia, his face softening just a bit. “To ensure you are well taken care of.”
“Papa!” Glacia cried, throwing her arms around the General’s neck, hugging him tightly. “Thank you! Thank you, papa! I won’t disappoint.”
The General patted her on the back, the menace leaving his wrinkled face as he returned her embrace. “My daughter, you could never disappoint me.”
While they occupied themselves, I awkwardly turned my attention away, instead scanning the ballroom. A gigantic hole in the floor. Glaciers spreading forth from the walls, stalactites of ice from the ceiling and, once it all melted, some severe freaking water damage in the future. It was starting to look like I’d gotten a very backhanded prize.
But you didn’t say no to a gift from a man like General Winter. Besides, I was out an apartment thanks to him, and I didn’t exactly relish living in my car or another hotel room while I waited for things to settle down. And if it meant keeping Glacia by my side, I’d take the hit to the wallet.
“I’ll look after her,” I said, floating the keys into my hand and snatching them out of the air. “I promise.”
“Hmph,” the General scoffed at me, but nodded. “Good. Then, I shall go.” He eased Glacia back, looking down at her fondly. “Farewell, my daughter. And ensure you write me everyday.”
“I will, father,” Glacia said. “I will.”
There was no more to say. The General left her there, passing me by with another warning glare that froze the blood before making his way out the doors and towards the main room. I heard him barking orders to responding henchmen, and I looked again at the keys I now held, the full import of what I had and what I’d volunteered for settling in.
“Sir?”
I looked up as Glacia shuffled towards me, her hands fidgeting nervously as she shyly evaded my eyes.
“Sir,” she said, coasting to a halt. “I… I would just like to inform you that I did not wish to put undue pressure upon you. I am ready to accept that my actions did not necessarily take into account your own opinion, and that you may have been motivated primarily by sympathy, but I-“
“Did you really have posters of me in your bedroom?” I said.
She raised her eyes, and I couldn’t help but grin at the blush that suffused her face. “I ah… that is… Sir, I-“
“Because I don’t remember getting anything like that made,” I said, stroking my chin in exaggerated thought. “And if they were, I’d really like to get my hands on those royalties…”
“I ah… I may have taken the liberty, sir, of… of printing them off myself and enlarging them.”
“Did you now?” I said, trying hard to hide my amusement. “And, the recordings?”
“Internet postings, sir,” she said, looking redder than Heatstroke and about ready to melt through the floor with embarrassment. “I would review your fights every night. I studied them all thoroughly, sir. I did mention that…”
“You said you watched battles with heroes,” I said.
She lowered her eyes again. “Sir…”
Now that was a shame. I touched her chin, lifting it back up so I could look into her eyes. God but they were such a brilliant blue. Prettier than the Ice Diamond. “Well,” I said, grinning down at her. “I suppose that means I’d better prove it. I’d hate to see you go and try to get some training from some other villain.”
“I-I would never, sir!” she gasped. “You are… w-wait. Sir? Then, you mean…”
I moved in closer, my arms wrapping around her once more. “Well,” I said. “I didn’t come all this way and take on General Winter himself to just abandon you again. Although we won’t have a contract with Razer, I think we’ll still be able to find you some work. And it wouldn’t be so bad to have a partner, I suppose.”
“You… you mean it, sir?” she said, and the fragility in her voice told me I had to assure her utterly. And, if her father walked in, I might have been in for another brawl.
But fuck it. I’m a villain. Risks were what I did best.
And so I leaned down, and kissed Glacia hard on her lips.
She stiffened, gasped, then moaned and melted into my arms. I moved them around her, scooping her up, holding her tight against my chest as I deepened the kiss yet further. Her body was cold, but rapidly warmed as her arms wrapped around my neck and pulled herself tight against me, quivering with a quiet energy and need. Fuck! I wasn’t going to be able to hold back. Adrenaline and lust pounded in my veins like liquid fire. A wonderful change from the bone-biting cold I was dealing with too.
I suddenly scooped her up bridal style, hoisting her into my arms. “Bedroom. Where? Now!”
“Th-there’s some down the hall. In the west wing,” Glacia gasped.
Fucking worked for me! I locked lips with her again, even as I pushed my armour off the floor, floating rapidly the way the General had come in through. The ice caverns of the hallway broke off after a couple of branches, and I was about ready to tear out of my clothes and damn the frostbite when Glacia finally gasped, “Here!”
I didn’t even bother with the magnetism. I kicked down the goddam door like it had insulted me personally. The bedroom was just a hotel room with a painting of a glacial scene over the bed and an adjoining bathroom. But it was the bed that grabbed all my attention. I floated towards it, already undressing Glacia, who was helpfully doing the same for me. Spinning in midair from our efforts, I finally managed to open up the front of her bodysuit by the time I laid her out on the sheets.
She landed soft as an angel on the bed, her white hair tumbling like a halo, her costume’s jacket spreading out behind her like wings. Her normally pale face was flushed bright red and her blue eyes were lidded by her lashes, her lips plumped from our kiss, her arms stretching out towards me.
“Sir?” she said, her voice hitching.
“Yeah?” I said, realizing I’d been doing nothing but admiring her for a good minute.
“Take me,” she breathed.
Well, how could I say no to that?
I yanked open my winter jacket, my armour receding back into the bands on my wrists and ankles, freeing me from them. Landed above her, legs straddling her, my lips kissing her again, tasting that sweet sharpness of coldness and mint. Her hands moved over me, tugging up my shirt. I let her pull it off, my chest bruised here and there from the fight, but the pain didn’t even register. Not with Glacia under me, her eyes begging me for attention.
I dipped my head down, sucking on her throat, the whimpers and gasps of pleasure that escaped from her music to my ears. It took me a second to find the hidden zipper that bound the front of her suit shut, but when I did, the hiss as I pulled it down seemed sweeter than anything I’d heard yet.
“Ohhhh,” Glacia moaned, her firm, full breasts emerging from the fabric as she arched in need beneath me. “P-please, sir. Don’t make me wait. I’ve been so… so patient.”
“That you have,” I said, kissing up her neck. “And for that, I’m going to make it special.”
And I was. I was going to give Glacia a night to remember. I slid my hand down as she wriggled, her suit peeling off her as I pushed down the zipper further. My hand found her panties and I slid a finger under the band, gently teasing her slit. She gasped, lashes fluttering, mouth parting as I massaged her. Prepared her, my knuckle pushing down her panties as I slid a finger inside her.
“Oh s-sirrrrr,” she groaned.
“Shhh,” I said, leaning down and kissing the flesh around her nipple. Glacia whimpered, quivering, biting her lip to try and obey my orders, even as breathless squeaks and gasps continued to leak from between her lips. “I’m going to make you feel so good, Glacia. I’m going to make it all so good.”
“P-please, sir. I… I want it…”
“And you’ll have it,” I said, sliding a second finger into her, gently stretching her as she moaned and rocked her hips, shyly riding my fingers. I continued kissing her. Coaxing her. Stroking her until she was ready, her breath steaming the air, her body hot with anticipation and need. I tugged down her panties, and with a dainty kick Glacia rid herself of them. I moved in between her legs, rubbing her slit with the head of my cock.
“Sir,” she panted, her eyes molten blue, aflame with anticipation and passion. “Sir… I… I’m ready.”
“Good girl,” I said.
Kissed her.
And pushed in home.
“Mmmmm!” Glacia moaned, her inner walls tightening around my shaft, her legs wrapping around my waist and her hands clutching at my back. I grunted at the sudden tightness of her pleasure, and only an iron control kept me from thrusting into her like a mad thing. I forced myself to take it slow, pumping in and out of her until the tension began to evaporate in her, replaced by a shivering pleasure as I took her.
“Oh…” she gasped, her whimpers music to my ears. “Oh s-sir. I… I always dreamed… dreamed of this. Ah… ha… And… and I never dared think… think it would come true.”
“It’s true,” I said, my lips an inch from hers. “It’s true.”
Tears pricked her eyes, and with a wild cry she wrapped her arms around me, pulled me in close and kissed me again with a wild, desperate passion. The sheer urgency of her embrace broke what self-control was holding me back. I increased my pace, fucking her faster, unable to keep myself from claiming her lovely body, her cool skin heating with her pleasure. Her passion. She clung to me like a sailor would a stone in the midst of a storm, her moans swallowed by my kiss, her tongue submitting to me as I kissed her deeper.
I could feel her orgasm coming near. Her muscles twitching with the ecstasy that poured through her. Her arms tightening around my neck. Her hips rocking beneath me, as if trying to drive me even further into her tight pussy.
“Sir!” she gasped. “Sir I… I… I’m c-cummiiiiiiiing!”
Her body squeezed me, legs quivering, squeezing, arms hugging, her cry ringing in the half-frozen room as I hilted once more within her.
“Oh fuuuuck!” I groaned, her orgasm pushing me over the edge as I filled her up a final time, cumming with a groan of pleasure.
Glacia rode out her orgasm and sagged onto the sheets beneath me with a moan, her eyes lidded, beautiful as some ethereal angel carved of marble. A smile touched her lips as her eyes slid shut.
“Sir… That was…”
“Shhh,” I said, kissing her cheek. “Just rest now. It’s all going to be alright.”
With a contented sound she tilted her head, her breasts rising and falling, already fast asleep. I couldn’t help but chuckle, even as I felt the exhaustion from the day finally start to hit me like my body was filling with lead. It had been a long ass day, that was for sure, but a fulfilling one too. Lifting the blankets, I wrapped them around us, pulling Glacia against my chest. With a soft sound she turned towards me, burying her face in my chest, snuggling up against me. I smiled.
Well, who said it’s only the hero who gets the girl?