The 2005 Annual Super-Villain’s Conference

By Remix17

CHAPTER ONE

The (Evil) Event of the Season

You are cordially invited, the glossy invitation read, to the 2005 Annual Super-Villain’s Conference, a get-together of the best and brightest super-criminals in the United States. The conference will be held this year in sunny Jump City, CA., on July the 12th, 2005. As always, the conference will take place in secret so as to avoid detection by the authorities or super-heroic crime fighters. The address is included with your package. (Please memorize the address, then destroy it immediately.)

If you are currently in a dispute with another super-villain who will also be attending the conference, we kindly ask that you refrain from exacting retribution on him or her until the conference has ended. Weapons are also not allowed to be brought to the conference.

Thank-you, and we hope to see you there!

As it turned out, this year the Super-Villain’s conference was held in an upper-class hotel owned by a wealthy criminal who could not attend the event himself this year. The guests started arriving in small amounts at 7:30 p.m., but their number started increasing as the night progressed. Many of them were Jump City’s own colorful brands of bad guy, while the others were all out-of-towners, some of them even out-of-country. The hotel catered to them all, supplying bedrooms, business rooms, an elegant dining hall with well-dressed (and sometimes nervous) waiters, and an all-you-can-eat buffet for those who didn’t want to order a dinner from the kitchen.

Slade entered the building at 9:30 p.m., after over half of the guests had arrived. As usual, the rest of the criminal element parted to give the man room when he walked into the entrance hall. Terra, his small apprentice, followed behind him, dressed in the neurological armor that her master had given her.

Slade had never really enjoyed attending the conferences he was invited to, but it was an affair that even the highest-ranking criminals were expected to attend. Slade came every other year to make showing up more bearable; though this was his “year off,” he had decided to come tonight, partly to scope out how the rest of his competition was doing, partly to “introduce” his apprentice to the villain community. And judging from the way the girl looked about her nervously, sticking extra-close to her master as they walked through the hordes of dangerous individuals, Terra needed it.

They were almost into the lobby when an unfortunately familiar voice cried out, “Sladey, my man!” The Joker slid in front of his path, accompanied by his sidekick and lover, Harley Quinn. As usual, the Joker was wearing his blatantly purple jacket and pants, and his face was atrociously clownish. The man’s arms were spread wide, a large, supposedly friendly grin on his white face. Harley, clothed in her red-and-black court-jester’s outfit, was practically clinging to the man.

“So, how’s it going, Slade?” the Joker questioned, as if the two were lifelong chums. “What a surprise meeting you here, eh?”

Spare me, Slade thought. Terra hid behind his arm to avoid being seen by the two clowns.

“Well, it’s good you showed up!” the Joker continued. “Even you have to get out of the lair every now and then, right? Put ‘er there, amigo!” The Joker held out one cuff-linked, white-gloved hand to Slade.

Curling his lip in disgust, Slade took the Joker’s hand—and the clown’s manic eyes bulged with acute pain as the larger man’s grip crushed not only the Joker’s hand but the small, electric buzzer hidden in his palm. “Eughhhh,” the Joker grunted shrilly as his bones crunched together. Slade squeezed a few more seconds, then released him, the now-defunct buzzer pieces falling to the floor. The Joker clutched his hand, backing away from the man. He made a pained smile at Slade. “N-nice grip you got there.”

“Oh, puddin’!” Harley simpered.

“Good to see you again,” Slade told the Joker. Signaling for Terra to follow, he walked past the Gotham villain and headed for the dining room.

“Pick a card, any card!” The Amazing Mumbo held out his playing deck to a bored Killer Moth sitting across from him at their dining table, who was idly picking at the linen tablecloth. “Pick a card,” Mumbo continued, “and I will read your miiiiinnnd.”

“If you could read my mind,” Killer Moth returned dully, “why aren’t you running?”

Mumbo’s eyes widened behind his white mask, and he sat back in his chair, returning his cards into his jacket.

The fanciful dining hall around them was half-filled with the country’s best (or was the correct term worst?) super-villains, some of whom were seated at the same table as Mumbo and Killer Moth. There were thirteen tables in all, one of which was located at the back of the dining hall, away from the other tables. It was covered in a finer tablecloth, and decorated with fancier china and crystal. As Killer Moth’s multi-faceted eyes browsed the room, they soon fell upon the table, and his antennae quivered in both displeasure grim determination.

“Someday,” the insect-fanatic vowed to Mumbo in a low voice, “I will be seated there. And then everyone will respect me.”

Mumbo cast a quick glance at the table the other villain was eyeing, and let out a small snort. “That’s what I used to tell myself every year,” he said. “But no one like us will ever sit at the head table. Trust me.”

Technically, the “head table” was open to anyone who had an rear end to sit on and found an open chair. In reality, however, it was strictly off-limits to all but a few unique individuals in the super-crime field. The seats were only for the richest and most powerful baddies, the ones that all the other villains admired and feared. In a way, it was like being back in high school—the head table was the place where all the jocks hung out to bask in their own glory—jocks, for example, like Brother Blood, Rupert Thorne, the Penguin, Lex Luthor, and Slade.

Anyone below these villain’s level that took one of their chairs risked severe punishment. Two years ago, an up-and-coming bad boy (who might have gotten to the table anyway if he’d been patient enough) sat down in Lex Luthor’s seat and disappeared the very next day. He washed up on a Japanese beach two months later. To this day he was still in Japan, operating a geisha house and public gardens. Now a strictly legitimate businessman, he was afraid to return to the United States.

Mumbo cast another glance at the table, then turned his attention back to Killer Moth. “So,” Mumbo said, trying to change the subject, “don’t you have a daughter or something that usually comes to these things with you?”

“Yes,” Killer Moth said tightly. With the expulsion of that one word, he suddenly sounded as if he had heartburn.

“What’s her name again?” Mumbo asked, puling out his cards and shuffling them.” Kitty or something like that?”

“Her name is Kitten,” Killer Moth told him. He let out a small sigh, and his antennae wilted. “She had a date with her boyfriend tonight and she didn’t…want to come with me this year.” The man-moth looked down at his empty plate almost tearfully.

“Do you need a minute?” Mumbo asked wryly.

“No, no; I’m fine.”

“What’s the boyfriend’s name?”

“Fang.”

“Fang?”

“Yeah. He’s a nice kid.”

”Uh-huh.”

“Kitten would have been bored here anyway,” Killer Moth said, trying to convince himself more than Mumbo. “There aren’t a lot of other young people here aside from Hotstreak, Senior’s son, and some of those HIVE children.” He lifted up his champagne glass, which was filled with cold spring water, and started to sip.

“Whatever—whoa!” Mumbo said, gazing over at the double-door entrance to the dining hall. ”Head villain alert—Slade has just entered the building.” The clown pulled out a pair ridiculously large, yellow binoculars from his jacket, and aimed them in Slade’s direction. “Oooh, lookie—he’s brought his little tart along with him. That blonde girl. Huh—” Mumbo adjusted the binocular’s lenses. “That’s funny. He looks bigger than he did last year.”

“Maybe he works out,” Killer Moth said sarcastically. He slammed down his glass of water, and some of it splashed over the side onto the tablecloth. “I thought he was skipping the conference this year,” the villain muttered. “This was supposed to be his year off, wasn’t it?”

“I was hoping.” Mumbo watched Slade and his apprentice for a few more seconds, then took down the binoculars, tucking them away. “I mean, that guy really knows how to bring down a party.”

“Yeah. And Kitten doesn’t really like him either.”

“Stay close,” Slade ordered Terra as they made their way into the hotel’s elegant dining hall. “I don’t want you getting lost in here.”

“Neither do I,” Terra answered, looking around the room full of dangerous, villainous men only superheroes dared to chase. A thought suddenly occurred to her.

“How is all of this not noticed by the superheroes?” she asked Slade as they walked. “Don’t they know this goes on every year?”

“Oh, they know,” Slade assured her, a smug note to his voice. “They just don’t know when, or where, to look.”

“Have they ever found out?” Terra asked.

“Yes. Once. Back when security was more lax.”

Terra was intrigued. “What happened?” she asked.

“It was pandemonium,” Slade told her, almost savoring the word. “It was the 2001 conference held in Chicago. The building was damaged beyond repair.”

“Were you there?”

“Like I said—the building was damaged beyond repair.”

With Slade in the lead, they soon stopped in front of the most elegant table in the hall. Sitting at it were a variety of men. Most of them were middle-aged, wore suits, and had a rich, nourished aura about them. Slade and Terra’s seats were in between Lex Luthor and the Penguin, with Luthor next to Slade and the penguin next to Terra. Slade absently pushed Terra into her seat before taking his own. He steeled himself for a long night.

“Well, hello, Slade,” Luthor greeted, giving the fellow criminal his usual secretive, superior smile—the kind he gave everyone. “So you decided to come after all. Some of didn’t think you would be attending this year. Isn’t that right, Penguin?”

“Indeed,” the Penguin agreed. “We were about to write your off.” He attention turned to Terra. “Well, aren’t you an adorable little thing!” he said. He looked up at Slade and asked almost eagerly, “Tell, me, Slade, is it true she’s super-powered?”

“Of course,” Slade responded. But he put a possessive hand on his apprentice’s shoulder. “However, I’m afraid that she won’t be giving any demonstrations tonight.”

“Not even just a little one?” the Penguin asked, trying wheedle a display of her abilities out of the man.

“No,” Slade told him, and the look in his eye ended the conversation.

Across the table, Brother Blood was getting impatient as he waited for dinner to commence. “Is anyone else here hungry?” he asked in annoyance. “Why do they insist on serving dinner so damned late?”

“When is the meal, anyway?” Senor Senior, Junior asked. Despite the fact that the dim narcissist and his billionaire father had be attending the villain’s conference for a couple of years now, he still didn’t know when dinner was served.

“Eleven,” Luthor said, without a glance in the boy’s direction. He kept his eyes on his more mature associates. “So, gentleman,” he began, “did anyone hear about the stockpile of Xinothium ore that the authorities found being smuggled in New York City harbor? Supposedly the Kingpin was being it.”

“And what would the Kingpin use Xinothium for?” Brother Blood asked, taking a sip of crystalline water from his glass.

“Rumor has it he’s developing some new kind of armor that runs on it…”

(TT TT TT)

The two robed, caped figures silently entered the hotel from one of its many skylights.

When they were safely in the building, they found themselves in an elegant but empty room. Long tables and chairs were stacked against the walls, clearing the magenta-carpeted floor. The two robed figures could tell that this room would not be used for the conference tonight, and they nodded approval at each other with their masked, hooded heads. The taller one smoothed out its black robes and adjusted its hooded cape, making sure everything was in place.

The shorter one raised its arm and spoke into the com device strapped there, and uttered two simple words in distorted, mechanized voice.

“We’re in.”

(To be continued)

Yes, that’s right. I still haven’t finished my other two fics, but I am now devoting myself to a third as well. What has happened to me? I used to be such a sensible kid.

But truth be told, I have had this idea for months. I started it, according to my computer, in March. When I sat down today, this chapter was like 70-80 percent finished—I just did some editing and added another paragraph. So I’ve had it for a while and I’ve decided just to go through with it already. It’s taking up valuable space on my comp.

Prepare to meet a lot of well-known villains and even some heroes.