Branding
Did I mention how glad I was General Winter owned the chalet before me?
Sure, getting it from him had been an absolute fucking nightmare, but the reward hadn’t just been his absolutely gorgeous daughter coming to learn the art of villainy from me, but also his local headquarters. So what did that mean?
World domination room, baby!
I’d loved that room since the moment I found it. It was in the center of the chalet, without windows and would probably need a bunker buster to take out. True, I had no real use for the giant world map on the wall, but the look of the thing was just perfect. It even beat out the giant looming screen on the opposite wall from which to call the UN and threaten them with a death ray or a plague of mutated nuclear frogs. And best of all, it had the Big Table.
Every evil organization needed the Big Table. The sort of table you could sit at with your fellow psychopaths, go around, introduce yourself, and showcase your latest efforts at conquering the world or dominating humanity. The Big Table was a requirement. Usually made of wood tinted black, or occasionally metal, often looking like someone stole it from the set of Dr. Strangelove. And it even had a set of buttons with which to dump anyone who’d failed you into the incinerator under their chairs. Naturally I’d disconnected it. But the look of the thing was just so peak bad guy.
I leaned back in the big chair, just enjoying its tall back and subtle cushion. With a grand exercise of will I kept myself from steepling my fingers and gazing over them at the others. It was all hands on deck for this thing, of course. My one regret was the big screen wasn’t touch enabled, so I’d been forced to wheel in a whiteboard for the meeting.
Glacia sat at my right hand, stiff and prim and proper as ever, her white hair tucked behind her ear and hands clasped atop the table. On my left was Dolly, grinning widely as she snuggled in her plush lab coat, hands resting on the arms of her chair, and beside her was Psyren, Nibbles panting on her lap as she rubbed his chin, baby talking to the round monster.
It was a good looking group I had to say. Hit all the bases of the villainous org that was needed. And it was time to talk some shop.
“Ladies,” I said, opening the meeting grandly. “First off, thank you all for coming. I’m glad we could all meet like this, because we have some things to discuss. First off, I’d like to tell you how glad I am to see all of you in such good health. We’ve had some difficulties.”
“That’s an understatement,” Dolly giggled, leaning against my arm and looking up at me with a flutter of her lashes. “By the way, did I mention how grateful I was that you killed Teklin for me, Victor? It’s been aaaaages since I’ve been able to go out and get my own food. Delivery is fine and all, but sometimes I want to eat out, ya know?”
“Glad to help,” I said. “Now, as for the whole villainy thing, we have a few issues we need to address. First of all, the big reveal of our new evil organization to the world at large.”
“Sir,” Glacia said. “Might I suggest we ransom the UN? Their building would be simple to take control of, and would be very high profile.”
“Ha!” Psyren snorted, glancing up from her phone. “That’s so eighties. Who gives a shit about the UN these days? But we should totally do something big! How about kidnapping some celebrities. Huh? News’d be all over that shit. And I could tooootally get some good engagement. Wouldn’t I, Nibbles? Wouldn’t I? Oh yes I would. Yes I would!”
Nibbles slobbered a bit on the table, the saliva sizzling on the wood. Lovely.
“How about more of a tiered heist,” Dolly said, looking around the table. “Like, we steal a bunch of different pieces of gear to make a doomsday device. Build up the plot a bit so people can follow along, and cap it off with one big bang, huh?”
“Now that’s not a bad idea,” I said.
Dolly smirked. “Well, what can I say?” she said, crossing her arms behind her head, leaning back in her chair smugly. “I am a genius.”
“Right,” I said. “Good ideas, girls. So...” I stood, though I was reluctant to leave my imposing villain chair. Oh well. Grabbing the white board, I dragged it over and uncapped a marker. “So possibly a tiered thing. And I want us to keep in mind it has to be a realistic job for us. We need someone willing to work with us as well, so big organizations like the UN probably wouldn’t be good. And kidnapping a celebrity lacks a bit of oomph. But let’s keep brainstorming. What else we got?”
“Sir!” Glacia said, raising her arm quickly. “I believe an elemental themed heist would be ideal for the situation. A similar outline to my first reveal in the museum.”
“Alright, Elemental,” I said, writing it down on the whiteboard. “Okay, good. Anyone else?”
“Oh! Oh!” Psyren gasped, thrusting her arm eagerly into the air, practically bouncing in her seat. “I know! Brainwashing a business conference! I’m totally the sound girl. I can go in as, like, the band and brainwash all the rich guys!”
“Good. Great. Music Theme,” I said, writing it out on the board as well. “Perfect. And I seem to recall the Metro City Arts studio is holding a presentation on Stradivarius. Even has one of the violins, so we could maybe work with that.”
“Stradiwhovius?” Psyren said.
“Stradivarius,” Glacia said serenely. “A stringed instrument made by the Stradivari family in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Reputed to be the finest stringed instruments ever made, and extremely valuable collector items. It’s claimed that their sound is unequaled in the world, with some claiming the quality of the wood is unlike any known now due to the Little Ice Age that gripped the world at the time.”
Guess I shouldn’t be surprised Glacia knew about that one. The General had probably given her the finest tutors in the world, even if he had to kidnap them. “Right, exactly,” I said. “So potentially we could go in and steal the violin. Naturally,” I added quickly. “It wouldn’t be the actual Stradivarius. It’d be a replica. We couldn’t risk damaging the real one, but there’s a number of heroes that would be interested in stopping that kind of thing. Potentially some sort of sonar doomsday device. So we’ve got elemental, music...”
“I say we build a weather dominator,” Dolly said.
“Oh?” I said, looking at her.
“Sure!” she said. “It’d work out great! Big machine. Lots of tubes, some tesla coils. Really flashy thing. Could even be mobile if we wanted to get crazy with it. We ‘steal,’” Dolly said with liberal finger quotes, “some tech parts, I make the machine, and then we threaten Metro City with tornadoes and hurricanes and stuff. Real dramatic look with the storms raging while you beat the fucking tar out of some hero who came to thwart you, but then they bust up the machine and we flee to fight another day!”
“You could build that?” I asked her.
“Oh hell yeah, Victor! I’ve got a bunch of ideas for it,” she said, grinning evilly.
I quickly held up my hand. “Okay, but it can’t be an actual machine like that. Right? We don’t want to build an actual doomsday device. Just something that would make a big storm and menacing air.”
“Aw, you’re no fun,” Dolly whined, pouting. “But yeah. I could do that. I guess.”
I nodded. “Alright. So,” I said, tapping the marker on the board. “Any other ideas?”
I gave another look around the table but seemed that was it. I capped off the marker. “Alright. Well, that sounds pretty good either way. I think we have the beginnings of a plan now. Looking at the board, I do think that the Weather Dominator is probably the best.”
“Yes!” Dolly said, pumping her fist. “Fuck yeah!”
Psyren groaned, folding her arms atop Nibbles’s head and pouting. “Fiiiine! But I still think my idea is better.”
“It was a good one,” I told her. “And we can definitely file it away for another scenario.”
“Yeah yeah. But you’re gonna have to make this up to me, boss,” Psyren said with a lewd twitch of her brows.
I couldn’t help but smile. At least morale was still high. “Good,” I said, tapping the marker against the board. “As for components, we can make a pretty big deal about that. I’m sure there’s some companies that’d be willing to rent out some labs for us to ‘break’ into.”
“Really, sir?” Glacia said.
“Absolutely,” I said. “No better way to advertise what your company is working on than to have some supervillain bust in to try and steal it. It’ll be all over the news within a day.”
“It’s true,” Dolly said, nodding. “I always watch the news whenever a lab gets smashed up. You learn about so many fun new projects that way.”
“Exactly. I think we’ll go with a three-component plot,” I said. “One for each of you. And I’ll be the final boss to be taken down by the weather dominator itself.”
“Score!” Psyren shouted, pumping her fist. “I’m going to be the baddest of them!”
“Hold on there,” I said, looking severely at Psyren. “You’ll be last.”
She gave me a blank look. “Huh?”
“Sorry,” I said, shrugging. “But that’s how it’s gotta be. I can’t be putting you out there at risk while the Brain Trust is still looking to grab you for the Mind Spike. So you’ll be at the chalet until we take them down.”
Psyren’s face pinched with anger. “Those dicks!” she spat. “I’ll make them pay for this!”
I nodded. Well, at least she was motivated. “Good. Which brings me to the second item on our agenda,” I said, rubbing out the marks I’d made on the whiteboard before writing BRANDING in big, black letters.
“Branding?” Glacia said.
Dolly gasped, sitting up abruptly. “Holy shit, Victor! Are you going to brand our asses?”
I gave her a shocked look. “Wh-what? No!”
“You sure?” Dolly said, grinning and wiggling teasingly in her seat. “Because I gotta say, that’d be super kinky. Make sure everyone knows who owns us.”
“No one’s branding anyone!” I said. “That’s not what I meant. I mean, if we are going to be part of an evil organization, we need to start building the brand up. And for that, we need a few things. Number 1, a name. Something easily recognizable,” I said, writing NAME down on the board. “Two, a symbol. Something we can stick on a badge or on the helmet of our henchmen.”
“Oh! Like Cobra!” Psyren said. “I loved that snake symbol. GI Joe all the way, baby! So disappointing the action figures didn’t have anything below the belt, though.”
“I know, right?” Dolly gushed. “I always wondered if Destro had his junk bronzed like his head.”
I rubbed my brow. Like herding fucking cats. “Ladies? Can we stay on topic?” I said. “Now, name, symbol and theme! That’s what we’re in need of.”
“It should reflect you as our leader, sir,” Glacia said firmly. “A monument to your greatness!”
“Uh, right. So-“
“Yeah!” Psyren said, perking up visibly. “Like a big ass V!”
“Right, but-“
“Oh, that’d be perfect! Big letters are always great. And a V has that awesome sharp swoopiness,” Dolly said. “Super menacing.”
“But I’m not going out there as Victor!” I protested.
“Aw fuck, that’s right,” Psyren said, then shrugged. “Alright. So we use a big capital M. For Magneron.”
“That could work,” Glacia said.
“Right, we could,” I said. “But the thing is this isn’t really all about me.”
“It’s not?” Dolly said.
I shook my head. “No. See, that kind of symbol of the bad guy’s name is usually for a solo villain. The kind that only has henchmen and his giant evil lair. Maybe some monsters or evil robots. When you’ve got more of an… evil association, having name punctuation is less popular. The trick is,” I said, drawing a couple circles on the whiteboard, “we’re more of an umbrella evil organization. Which means the henchmen can be devoted to the big bad guy, but you girls are more ancillary villains.”
“What’s that mean?” Dolly said.
“It means though we work for sir,” Glacia said, “we are also our own villains.”
“Exactly,” I said, pointing the marker at her, relieved she grasped it so quickly. At this rate, Glacia was really gonna earn those ‘evil number 2’ stripes. “Though we’re under a single organization, you will all also be your own villainesses. Not every evil you perform will be at the behest of the parent body. The same way the Guild of Villainous Foes doesn’t coordinate its member’s outfits, you all are more than just my hangers on. You’ll be making appearances on your own and doing evil deeds independently.”
“Really? Cool,” Psyren said. “Does that mean we get our own deathrays?”
“We barely have the budget for one,” I noted.
“Can we get them as Christmas bonuses?” Psyren suggested.
“I did have some plans for a pocket-sized Facemelter 3000,” Dolly observed.
“Awesome name for a band, by the way. The Facemelters! I claim dibs!” Psyren said, pointing at everyone in the room.
Nibbles barked.
“We’ll talk about that another time,” I said patiently, trying to get things back on track. “On topic, you’ll each be individual villains, but beneath an umbrella organization. That’s the idea. It’s common with villains who band together to take down a specific hero, often going by numbers names like the Sinister Six, the Evil Eight, so on. Now, we could do something similar.”
“No way,” Psyren said.
“Uh uh,” Dolly added.
I looked at them blankly. “No?”
“I concur with the others, sir,” Glacia said, rising and placing her hand over her chest. “We have come together under your evil command with the intention to menace heroes with you as our leader. We must insist that your name be the one which we are marked under.”
“Yeah!” Psyren said. “I’m not getting numbered. I want anyone who sees me to know you’re my boss, boss!”
I… honestly wasn’t sure what to say about that. Even when I’d been invited by other villains into their groups or partnerships it had always been as a subordinate. Villains were notorious dick measurers, and heaven help you if they ever started to think you were getting more famous than them. More villain groups had imploded because of disagreements in name order than by hero actions. So getting demanded my name be the brand was a bit of a surprise.
“Um… alright then,” I said. “I guess we can think of… something for that.”
“Like Magneron’s Bitches!” Psyren said.
“What?” I said. “No! We’re not using that.”
“Aw come on!” Psyren whined. “It would be fucking awesome. We could even get like, collars and dog tags with your initial on it, boss. And, just pointing out, if you had a leash, it could be a ton of fun in the bedroom. Super kinky stuff,” Psyren said with a suggestive wiggle of her brows.
“Oooooh,” Dolly said, nibbling on her lower lip.
I cleared my throat, feeling some heat rise to my face. “No. Going to have to put my foot down on that one. No profanity. We don’t want something that would be hard to market. Brands are more lenient these days, but not that much.”
“Indeed, sir,” Glacia said. “It would be most difficult to name ourselves anything beyond PG and expect high end work. But Psyren’s suggestion does have merit, Therefore, I propose our working name be Magneron’s Maidens.”
“Mmm. Not as fun, but fuck it. I’m game,” Psyren said with a lazy shrug.
“Third!” Dolly said.
“Magneron’s Maidens?” I said, mulling it over. Well, I was a sucker for some good alliteration, and the design could be a good jumping point unless we picked out something better. “Alright. That might work. If we need to rework it we’ll keep that in mind and save the big proclamation for another day. So,” I said, my marker squeaking as I wrote out Magneron’s Maidens on the whiteboard. “Magneron’s Maidens is the working name. The symbol and where it goes we can figure out later.”
“Totally!” Dolly said. “And just saying, if branding is a no go, we could still get tattoos,” she said, rising out of her chair, leaning over the table and giving her ass a playful spank. “Right on the cheek here, Victor. No one even needs to see. Just saying.”
“We’re not doing that,” I said firmly. “No one is getting my name tattooed on their ass.”
“Awww…” Dolly said, sliding her elbows onto the table, propping up her hands to cup her pouting chin.
“Good. Since that’s cleared up,” I said to the room at large. “Now, the second thing we need to do is coordinate the henchmen outfits. And for that, I called in a specialist, who has generously volunteered to do some preliminary work in finding a design.”
I gestured towards the doors, a tug of my magnetic powers opening them wide. My trio of villainesses turned to see Madame Mammon stride in, as gorgeously proud as ever, her chin tilted back and a smirk upon her lips.
“Good day, darlings,” she said.
“Mammon!” Psyren squealed in delight, jumping up from the desk and rushing towards the demoness. Mammon easily caught up the exuberant psychic in another hug.
“Hello, Psyren. So good to see you. To see all of you!” she declared, turning to the group. “Yes,” she said, touching her breast, buttons quivering as she puffed herself up grandly. “It is I, darlings. Madame Mammon, at your service. And I have such wonderful plans, darling. Such wonderful ideas! Even though you shot down my first one, Victor, darling. Very rude of you,” she said with a stern look my way.
“I’m not summoning actual demons from hell,” I said firmly. “Even ones you can colour coordinate.”
“Oh but they’d look so good, darling. So good! Ah, but no matter. As you like it! As you like it. Now,” she added, clapping her hands and beaming. “Henchmen outfits! Yes, always such a concern, darlings. Such a concern! Something modest yet eye-catching. Something thematic yet deadly. Something thrilling yet common. A challenge, darling. A delightful challenge!”
I stepped back as Mammon swept across the room and to the writing board. Grabbing it, she flipped it over, exposing the empty side. A flick of her hand conjured a black pen from a swirl of shadows, and she immediately began to sketch.
“Now, for the look of it, darling, I think we’ll be wanting to capture the menace of it well, but we mustn’t detract from the beauties. I am considering a style of skulls. Always popular, darling.”
I had to agree. Bad guys and skull motifs went together like syrup and waffles.
“Okay. So we got skulls. We got black and red. What else we got?” I asked in general.
“Uh, someone at the gate,” Dolly said.
“Right, we got someone… Sorry?”
I turned to Dolly, whose head was cocked, a holographic screen hovering before her face as she frowned at it.
“Sorry, what was that?” I said.
“Got someone at the front,” Dolly repeated. “Looks like they want to come in.”
“Who is it?”
“Uhhh... maybe you better see. Here,” she said, tapping something on her wristband.
I turned my head as the screen behind her lit up, the grainy image focusing on a woman standing on the road before the bars of the front gates. A woman in norse armour, carrying a mace crackling with electricity, her disapproving face turned up towards the camera.
Valkyria.
“Oh great,” I groaned.
“Maybe it’s a social call?” Dolly said.
“Yeah. Maybe,” I said drily.
“Should we send her off, sir?” Glacia said, rising, her eyes narrowed.
Psyren cracked her knuckles, grinning evilly. “Or should we invite her in for some... fun?”
“Let her in,” I told Dolly reluctantly. “Not to fight her,” I told Psyren pointedly. “I’ll go meet with her. Everyone else, take five.”
There was some murmuring from the girls, but they took it in stride, which I appreciated. I left the room and didn't waste time, levitating myself for an extra burst of speed once I was out the doors, sending me zipping across the grounds and towards the front gate. That Valkyria had shown up on foot was a pretty good sign. If she was here to cause trouble she’d probably have just blasted into my lawn like a goddam meteor again. But she was also fully kitted out in hero gear, so it seemed like anything was on the table.
When I reached the gate it swung open, Valkyria walking in warily, her eyes flicking about, ready for anything. “Valkyria. What a pleasant surprise,” I said, landing in front of her, pointedly blocking her from coming in further. “What can I do for you.”
“Magneron,” she said stiffly, her hand slowly flexing on the mace, but the heroine kept her weapon holstered at her side. “I wish to speak to you.”
“Do you? About what?” I said.
Her eyes roamed about the grounds slowly, then stopped, arrested suddenly. I glanced back, following her intense gaze.
And found her staring at the ice statue of myself looming over the chalet.
I felt the heat start to rise to my face. “Ah...”
“I see you are decorating your lair with graven images of yourself,” she noted.
“Yes, well, adds a bit of flair to the place, don’t you think?” I said weakly.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Would you like to come in?” I said. “Have some tea? Biscuits? Coffee?”
“No. Thank you,” she said. “Were you aware of a certain occurrence in the old industrial area?”
“Occurrence?” I said.
“The Heroes of Earth recently responded to an… incident,” she said. “An old toothpaste factory in the industrial district had been the scene of a battle.”
Fuck! Guess I shouldn’t have been too shocked someone had noticed what had been going on there eventually. But I was surprised someone had called in the HoE. Certainly wouldn’t have been the Neons, and I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d been hanging around the area who might have noticed. Good thing I’d had Psyren take care of the one witness. “Is that right?” I said mildly. “Any leads?”
She gave me a level look. “Few,” she said. “The interior appeared to have been frozen solid. A number of monsters had been encased in ice inside, along with an elaborate laboratory. A certain Doctor Denton’s lair apparently.”
“Gosh,” I said. “Is he alright?”
“He’s dead.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
Her stare could have nailed a poster to the wall. “One of our patrolling heroes found Doctor Denton in the factory area. Dead. His head had exploded.”
I felt a chill work over me. “What?” I said.
“Do you know anything about this?” Valkyria demanded.
I forced myself not to panic. “Why suspect me?” I said.
“The room encased in ice. The factory with most of its metal components ripped apart and thrown about the room. And a man whose brain exploded. I can think of few groups whose powersets would so completely match what we found there.”
“Come on now,” I said. “You found ice all around a place and a bunch of machinery torn up. Why come straight to me? There’s any number of streeters that would have loved to take on a mad scientist and fuck up his lab. We both know that. And his head blew up? What about it? That kind of damage could be done with super strength. Or maybe one of his experiments went awry. Why would I go after him?” I looked at her more attentively. “Why do you think I went after him?”
Valkyria stared at me, her eyes revealing nothing. I frowned, crossing my arms, staring back at her. “Is this because I turned down your offer?”
“It is not,” she replied.
“Then why?”
Her fingers drummed the hilt of her mace.
“We both know you’re not going to use that thing here,” I said, nodding at her weapon. “I’ve done nothing wrong. You know it and I know it. You have a dead mad scientist. They die all the time. They have a worse mortality rate than lemmings going on vacation to the Grand Canyon. He probably tried some new whitening formula that made his teeth explode.”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction. The air crackled with tension. Literally. Static rolled off her like jagged tongues. I didn’t react, just staring down the heroine grimly.
Finally, Valkyria aimed a finger at me.
“This is not over, Magneron,” she said. “I hope you have nothing to do with this. But I am far from ruling it out.”
I shrugged. “Sounds sensible. I mean, I am the bad guy. And what kind of hero wouldn’t suspect a known villain? But for now, do you want me to call you a cab?”
Now she drew her mace. I stiffened, but all she did was raise her weapon into the sky. Electricity crackled, surged around her, and like a bolt of lightning she blasted into the heavens.
I watched the trail of electric blue snap away through the clouds, carrying Valkyria back towards Metro City. Then I looked at the new crater in my front lawn.
Haah. So wonderful when company comes by...
Whatever, I’d fill it up later. For now, I needed to talk to Psyren about certain head explosions.
Fortunately I didn’t have far to go. As I opened the doors to the chalet foyer, I found all four women waiting for me. Glacia had been at the window and turned to face me as the door opened, while Psyren was pretending not to be concerned by lying on a nearby couch and playing with Nibbles. Her ease was belied by how fast she sat up.
“Anything wrong, sir?” Glacia asked.
“No. Well, kinda. Psyren?” I said, looking towards her.
“Myeah?”
“I need you to think back. When you were rummaging around in Brute Canal’s head, did you... I don’t know, accidentally set his brain to explode?”
“Huh?”
“Just... tell me,” I said.
She looked perplexed, her pink lips pursing in uncertainty. “Uh, no. No, I totally didn’t, boss. Why? Did his head explode?”
“According to Valkyria, yeah,” I said. “Probably shortly after we left.”
Psyren’s eyes widened, then she smirked. “Cool,” she said.
“Psyren!”
“Not that I did it!” she added quickly, waving her hands. “No way, boss. I’d never disobey your orders. Or, at least, I wouldn’t unless I was feeling naughty. But not, like, in something that matters. Honest! Cross my heart and hope to fry. Stick a needle in my behind.”
I sighed. “Alright,” I said. “I believe you.”
“Wha... Really?” Psyren said. “Because, I mean, I wouldn’t believe me.”
“Maybe. But I do. Because you’re a terrible liar.”
“Hey!” she barked indignantly.
I shook my head. “Psyren, if you had made his head explode, you wouldn’t stop bragging about it. You’d probably have put it up on your Instagram feed.”
Psyren seemed to consider that, then nodded. “Yeah, probably,” she admitted.
“That does seem like her,” Dolly said.
“Exactly,” I said. “So someone else likely did it.”
“Who?” Glacia said.
I shrugged. “Could be any number of people. The Neons might have come by once we were gone and plastered his brains over the floor. Or a streeter. But odds are it was the Mind, who took the opportunity to settle the score.”
“Huh. Yeah, that makes sense,” Psyren said. “So... what now?”
“Now?” I said. “Now we try and figure out where the Mind is. And then pay him a little visit.”