TEN

The Hole was the sleaziest bar in the sleaziest part of the city. That evening the doors were closed, but there was light inside. Nobody uninvited would think about knocking on the door. The bar had that kind of reputation. It was there that The Raider and his new potential allies had gathered.

Sitting around a large table filled with booze were quite a few colorful characters, all notorious villains. The Raider knew them all from reputation, though not all personally. There was the guy with metal arms, a leather jacket and long hair called Speed Metal. A bald, muscular guy clad in red spandex with a huge M on his chest, Maximizer. A guy in a clown outfit, Balloon Clown. An attractive but muscular woman wearing a bearskin for a dress, Queen Neanderthal. And there was King Winter.

“Good to see you all. Thank you for coming. Today will be the first day of our new, successful criminal careers. Today is the day we band together to defeat the supers that plague our daily operations,” The Raider told the villains.

“Queen Neanderthal not yet agree. We not friends,” the muscular lady said.

“Yeah,” Speed Metal snarled. “Why would we join forces with you? I’m not much of a team player. I’m just here for the free booze. And please, put on some heavy metal. That blues rock is boring me.”

“Leave it on!” Maximizer said. “I love the blues.”

“Because you’re a boring old shit,” Speed Metal told Maximizer.

Maximizer stood from his chair, growing three heads bigger, dwarfing the less muscular Speed Metal. “Say that again and I will smash you!”

Speed Metal moved with incredible speed, his hands morphing into knives. He suddenly had his knives touching Maximizer’s genitals. “Are you sure?”

The Raider and King Winter interfered, pushing the two arguing villains away from each other.

“Come on, take it easy. The Raider has some good stuff to say. Listen to the man, chill out,” King Winter said.

Speed Metal groaned. “Chill out… Puns are so lame.”

Balloon Clown laughed a hysterical laugh. “I love puns, hee-hee-hee!”

The Raider continued his speech. “Thank you, King Winter. This was a good example why the heroes manage to defeat us. They work together, banding together in teams like The Heroic Alliance and the Teens Supreme while we fight each other. Imagine if we put aside our differences and worked together… Think about what that would bring us. The money, the power.”

“You already had me with money,” Balloon Clown said.

“And I guess you will be our leader then?” Speed Metal guffawed.

The Raider shrugged. “Do you think you would make a better leader?”

“As I told you, I don’t play well with others.”

“Then you can of course just leave. More money and more power to us,” The Raider said.

“I will stick around a bit longer. You seem pretty sure of yourself,” Speed Metal had to admit.

“That is because I have been leading a group of armed criminals for years now. I have been doing pretty well for myself. Imagine if I had a group of not only armed, but also superpowered criminals to lead. What a success that would be.”

“If I say I’m in. Where do we start?” Maximizer asked.

“Glad you asked,” The Raider said. “We start by destroying the police department. With that out of the way we only need to concentrate on the supers. Soon the city will be ours!”

“I’ll drink to that!” King Winter said and toasted with a cold beer.