Super Villain Girlfriend: Anomaly 2 (complete)

Female Main Character/Monster x Male Human (both cis)

Ben’s next visit is a few days later, and his usual mask of bravado and joy quickly slips away once he’s in the room alone with me. I stand looking at him, waiting for him to complain that I’m not wearing the outfit he bought for me. “I thought for once you’d wear it.” He picks up the box, which I haven’t even opened this time. “C’mon, for me? Just this once?”

“That’s your favorite thing to say, isn’t it? Just this once.” I stride towards him. “Just this once, Anna, let me take credit for this. Just this once, Anna, pretend you’re a villain. Just this once, Anna, just go to prison.”

Ben sets the box down. “You’re angrier than usual this afternoon. Should I prepare myself for a pegging?” he jokes.

I smirk and can’t help but laugh. That’s one way to put it. My shadows crawl out from under the table and seize his ankles. “My mom told me Oddity is sick.”

“Your horse?” Ben yelps as I pull him to his knees. My shadows cover his legs, making it appear as if he is sinking into the floor. “Easy now!” he froths angrily.

I stand before him, arms crossed and gaze sharp. “I want to go see her.”

“Hell wants ice water. What do you expect me to do about it?” Ben falls over and tries to regain his balance, but my shadows seize his hands as well. He looks like an ottoman, so I sit down on his back. “Sunny is willing to come forward about her story now.” I look at my nails. “Oh, did you get my nail polish?”

Ben grunts, but he’s enjoying it. “They’re in the box with… Wait, what was that first part?”

I reach for the box on the table, opening it and pulling out a box inside, filled with all the shades of nail polish I asked for. “Our little sister wants to come forward with her story.” I take out the eggplant shade of my dreams and start painting my nails.

“She can’t!” Ben nearly screams.

“And why can’t she, Ben?” I hold my nails up, smiling happily at the dark purple color, which matches my aesthetic so well. It even matches the orange jumper I’m forced to wear day in and day out.

“Because it could ruin me!”

I grab Ben’s hair with a shadow, pulling it hard. “You get the point!”

He struggles, trying to pull himself up. “You fucking crazy bitch. You’re not trying to blackmail me for a horse! You could have done this anytime? Why now?”

“Because I want it now,” I hiss at him. “Oddity meant the world to me. I want to see her before she has to die, and if that means both Sunny and I spilling our guts about you and your father, then so be it.”

“You’re serious.” Ben tries to wrench himself from the floor. “You. too?”

“I’ll tell them you’re the one that made me, that I took the fall for your failure. I only came here and stayed here willingly because I wanted to see you struggle out there without me.” I lick his cheek, and he shivers. “So what will it be? My horse or your name?”

Ben looks me dead in the eye. “I didn’t make you.”

I slap him, then quickly check to make sure I didn’t ruin my nail polish. “You know what you did, Ben. You know what and who you are, and that’s why you hide. That’s why you still come to me. You need me. You can’t be yourself with anybody else.”

“Anna, please…” he sputters.

“I’m sick of you begging me.” I walk away from him and sit down on the bed. “Why should I pity you anymore?”

“I got fired!” Ben bursts.

I stare at him. “Oh, my god, is that what the meeting was about? They fired you from the school board?” I could almost cackle. “What did you do?”

“Those fucking kids!” He tries to wrench himself from the floor. “They made their report, and the board…”

I narrow my eyes at him and laugh. “Stop it, Ben. I’m not going to feel sorry for you. This is your bed, so lie in it.”

“But those two little gay shits…”

I thrust a shadow so far into his mouth I’m sure he could swallow it. “You stop right there, you shitty little pig. How dare you? You say that about those young men when you…” I throw out my arms and laugh. “When you are here with me to get your rocks off? Sunstone and Spite aren’t the problem here. It’s you.”

There’s fear in Ben’s eyes, but I can tell it’s a cover-up for his rage. “You know that now is the perfect time for our sister and I to kick you while you’re down. Don’t cry for me. I’m not buying those tears.” I kneel before him and grin. “I want my horse. That’s all I am asking for, Ben.”

He’s drooling and slobbering around the shadow in his mouth. He really does look like a roasted pig with that lame-ass tan of his. I remove the shadow from his mouth and he chokes, coughing before he stares me in the eyes. “I’ll find a way for you to see your horse. But you’re going to have to promise me something, too. Once you see that horse, you’re signing a nondisclosure agreement so that this never happens again. Just keep your whore mouth shut…”

I shove the shadow back into his mouth. “Good boy.” I stand up. “Now, shall we play like usual?”

He struggles against my shadows, and his voice is muffled by the one in his mouth. I grin down at him. “Good.” I pull him up, stretching his arms far above his head before I open up his suit, exposing his erect cock. “God, you’re pathetic,” I laugh. “But that’s what I like about you.”

Like myself, my mother knew the charm and persuasion of the Miraculous men. My mother fell for it and went to bed with Mr. Miraculous not long after we became neighbors. It wasn’t until she overheard a conversation between Ben and I that she caught wind of what his family was capable of. And this was before she even realized she was pregnant. She tried to stop me from partnering with Ben, and I wish I had listened to her. Maybe my life wouldn’t have gone this way if I had. Lesson learned - listen to your mother.

“I don’t think he’s looking out for your best interests.” I realize she could have been talking to herself as well back then. She’d secretly been with Mr. Miraculous for years by that time.

“Mom, we’re a team! You know I can protect myself. You know what I can do. Why are you so worried now, instead of all the other times?” I was deflecting. I just wanted to earn Ben’s praise and gratitude, and I would have done anything for him then.

“Just stay home for one night. It won’t hurt you, and it won’t hurt him.” She tried to coax me into sitting on the couch.

“He needs me,” I said.

“Exactly.” Mom was almost breathless from those words. “He needs you but you don’t need him.”

How prophetic my mother’s words were, but I paid them no heed. I left that night, thinking I had a future with Ben as a team, a partnership, two heroes fighting for the people of this world. But no. Ben only fought for himself.

Years went by, and always I remained in the shadows, which is technically where I belonged and worked best. But Ben hid me away, his secret weapon, making him look like the powerful hero. One evening, though, things went sour and Ben killed the wrong target. I remember it vividly - the body was splayed on the concrete, half in the street and half on the sidewalk. He was carrying a bag from a nearby bodega, and Ben mistook him for one of the Ghoul Gurls. Milk was pooled around him, and tendrils of red swirled through the pure white.

“What do we do?” I cried.

Ben didn’t move, and barely blinked. His hand twitched and he looked at me. I could hear sirens coming. He had to tell me what to do. I turned to see the police cars on the horizon, and Ben grabbed me. I thought he was holding me because he was scared, but his grip tightened, and he tugged me down and struck me in the back of the head. Everything was going dark but I heard him still. “I’m sorry,” he rasped. Then he shouted, “I got the culprit! She’s part of the Ghoul Gurls!”

I was arrested and tried for the murder of the man Ben killed. I was broken out of jail before I went to court. The Ghoul Gurls did it, inviting me to join them, because they had seen what Ben did to me. I heard nothing from him.

I don’t know what strings Ben has pulled now, but he gets me out of prison to see Oddity. I’m led into an armored car filled with red lights, with Ben sitting guard. He glares at me the entire time, and I just smile proudly. “Do you know what I had to do to get you out of there?” he demands.

“I certainly don’t know and I absolutely don’t care.” I sigh. “I wish there were windows.”

“Dammit!” Ben stands up, hits his head on the ceiling, then utters a long stream of profanity under his breath.

I roll my eyes at his theatrics. “What now?”

Ben punches the seat, denting the metal and bending it into a deep V shape. “It pinched me.”

I smirk to myself. “That’s what you get for being mean to a lady.”

“You’re no lady,” Ben grumbles as he takes the seat beside me.

“That’s because of you.” I glare at him, watching his handsome profile. His brow is furrowed, and in the red light his usual blond locks look dark. His eyes look hollow and empty. Too bad we couldn’t switch places. He’d make a much better Anomaly than me.

“You’re the one who joined up with the Ghoul Gurls.” Of course he won’t accept his fault in the matter.

“I joined them because you framed me. And even after that, you used me to advance your career. It’s my fault I kept fucking you through it.” Ben’s expression doesn’t change. “We’re both addicted to certain things, Ben. We just happen to satisfy that certain poison in each other. But fame will always be more important to you than I am. And I’ve accepted that.”

He smiles. “It didn’t used to be that way.”

“I really don’t fucking care about the past anymore.” I rub my temples. “Can we just keep quiet until I get home and see my horse?”

“Fine, suit yourself.” Ben leans back against the wall of the van. “Got a few hours, though. Maybe we could…”

“I can’t use my shadows,” I say bluntly.

“Right, right,” he sniffs.

We arrive at my mother’s home, where she’s keeping Oddity. The guards escort me off the van, keeping red lights pointed at me at all times. My mother comes out, looking me over than at Ben. For the briefest flash, I think she sneers at him. “The stable is this way.” She leads the guards back to the stable, which she had built once Oddity was in her possession. Almost as if she can sense me, I can hear Oddity already whinnying and stomping her hooves.

I enter the stable, followed closely by Ben and the guards. There she is, a little more wizened since I last saw her, but still as majestic and beautiful as ever. “There’s my angel. I’ve missed you so much,” I whisper. I approach Oddity, and she places her head on my shoulder. I raise my chained hands, touching her face and stroking down her neck. “I’m so sorry this will be the last time I see you, girl.” I have never been able to control tears. They flow so freely from me. My soul aches at the thought that I will soon exist in a world without Oddity, with only fond memories to look back on rather than the hope that one day I can be free with her again.

“Come on.” Ben’s voice is stern. “That’s enough, now.”

“Back off! This is the last time I’ll ever see her. I may be a villain to you, but I still deserve to tell her goodbye!”

I think, in some twisted way, Ben is jealous of my love for Oddity. He wants me to love him in that way, and while I still feel brotherly love for Ben, as much as I hate it, he’ll never come close to Oddity, or my mother and sister. Hell, he doesn’t even love Sunny. I kiss Oddity’s snout lovingly and look into her soulful brown eyes. “I’ll see you soon, one way or another.” The tears come again. “Watch over me, wherever you go. Perhaps the Underneath will call to you. Just let go when you’re tired, okay? Don’t try to be like me. I don’t want you in pain.”

Ben pulls on the tether holding my arms. “You don’t have much time, you know?”

“Miraculous, come on,” one of the guards whispers.

“Don’t try and talk to him,” I warn them. “He’s made up his mind. He certainly doesn’t owe me anything,” I say pointedly to Ben’s face.

My mother, waiting outside the barn, walks beside me as they take me back to the armored van. “I’ll let you know what happens.”

“Just promise me you’ll put her somewhere she’d like, okay?” More tears, which I hate that Ben gets to see.

“Can I hug her?” my mother asks.

The guard from before tries to give an okay, but Ben talks over him. “Ma’am, she’s a prisoner.”

“She’s still my baby.”

Ben rolls his eyes. Had the guards not been there, he would have pulled me away. Instead he lets my mother hug me, but not long enough for what I need. Then he leads into the back of the van. “In a hurry?” I wipe at my eyes, sick and tired of him seeing me cry.

“I am. Once we’re back at the prison, you’re signing that nondisclosure agreement,” he grumbles at me. “Your sister, too.”

I could punch him in the stomach right now. “That’s not what you said.”

“I need to make sure you have no more leverage. You sign and then you tell your sister she has to sign one too.” He sits back down beside me.

I shake my head and have to scoff. “This was a really bad day for me, you know?”

“Was it bad for you? Because it was absolutely fucking worse for me,” he snaps. “You may not give a shit what I had to do so you could tell that fucking animal to stay gold or whatever bullshit.” He flops back and shakes his head. “Do you even care about me anymore?”

Here we go. He wants me to feel sorry for him. He always wants the spotlight even if I am the only person there. “Unfortunately for me, Ben, I do care about you. Just not the way you want me to.”

“We used to be friends,” he huffs. “We used to do everything together.”

“Oh my god, just shut up!” I’ve had enough of him for today. “I fuck you, and that’s our relationship now. I’m in jail because you put me there. And you still won’t leave me alone! What do you want from me, Ben? You already got everything good from me. What fucking else is there?”

I wonder what Ben’s sob story will be. What will he do to turn the tables so that I’ll think I’m the hysterical one? “You’re the only one who sees me,” he whispers. “That’s why I need you. And I am the only one who sees you.”

I smirk. “If you tell me I need you, I will laugh. The only thing good about you is your dick.”

He glares at me laughs haughtily. “I’m telling you the truth! I know you, Anna! Try and say I don’t.”

“You don’t. You know what you want to know about me, and that’s it.” I look away from him just to annoy him more.

Ben comes close to my face. I can feel his hot breath on my neck, his nose to my ear. “I could kill you right now,” he tells me through clenched teeth. “And no one would care or notice.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Careful now, Ben,” I say. “I might have to take you seriously.”

“I think the world would be grateful if I took you down, actually.”

“Thinking about that fame again,” I sneer. “I told you, nothing matters more to you than fame.”

Ben sniffs and sits erect again. “That’s why I won’t let anyone take it from me. Not you. Not your mother. Not even those bastards on the school board.”

I put my hand on his thigh, digging in my pretty, painted nails. “What are you going to do? Are you fucking stupid? Every hero in the world has ties to that school. You do something there, you really will be the evil son of a bitch you made me into.”

Ben grabs my hand and yanks it back. “I won’t touch anyone there. But the Beast just might.”

Now I’m getting mad. “What did you do to her?”

Ben’s smug smile makes me want to shove his face in shit. “Not her, but her sister.” He chuckles. “I found out about that when I worked with Spite.”

I grip his thigh more tightly. “You’re foul!”

Ben cackles, throwing his head back like he’s figured it all out. “Then try and stop me, Anna. You have no power in this red light!”

A shadow wraps around Ben’s throat. “Guess again.” I slam him into the wall, and the van brakes to a sudden stop. I keep Ben gagging on the floor as the back door is opened. Two shadows leap out and raise the guards into the sky while they shoot down, trying to hit them.

I lift Ben back up and grin at him. “You don’t know shit about me anymore.”

“The red light,” he wheezes. “How?”

“I grew out of it.” I throw him from the van and, using the puppetry, pose him as if he’s going to fight me. “You don’t know anything about me, Ben. You only know what benefits you. And I used that.”

“Stop this, Anna!” Ben roars, struggling against my influence. “Please! I don’t want to hurt you.” He’s so good at putting on the act. Exactly what I wanted.

“I know you don’t want me to, Ben,” I taunt him. “I know you want this. You want me wild. You need me out here as your nemesis. Because let’s face it, without me you’re just another pretty boy in tights!” I hop out of the van and pull him towards me like he’s ready to attack.

He’s so angry, I can see it in his eyes. But as long as the two guards are above us and he’s held in my grasp, he can’t do anything about it. “Why hide it all this time? You could have escaped at any time!”

“But I didn’t want to.” I smile brightly and make exaggerated jazz hands. “It was so much more fun watching you flounder around out there. Without me, you had nothing that made you special. So you teamed up and embarrassed yourself for clout. And that was so much more satisfying than me being free could ever possibly be! And you still begged me to fuck you!”

Here come the puppy dog eyes. “Anna, I thought…”

I just shake my head. “You don’t think at all.” I lift him and take hold of the two guards. “Good thinking. I’ll just see myself out.” I phase into the shadows, sinking into them like water. The guards and Ben were free, but they had no way of knowing where I was or the ability to chase me.  I hid the brunt of my powers from him all this time, just for a moment like this.

Ben didn’t use me as a scapegoat just once. He did it more and more as the rivalry between us grew. The Ghoul Gurls took me in, and as time went on I moved up through their ranks. I became their mother figure, their leader. It wasn’t my intention to play a villain, and I never even considered myself that. What I wanted to do was to give the girls a purpose for their magic and malice. But my sexual chemistry made it difficult to stay away from Ben, and I blame myself for that mistake. I let him continue to use me, to build me up as some monster he always conquered.

But that last time I was arrested, I let it happen. I let the Ghoul Gurls go and told them not to try and rescue me again. I was placed into Heimlich and, just like I wanted, Ben returned to me to continue our games. I know I was the fool before, but inside those walls, I was the queen and I made him dance for my amusement.

My father’s notebook revealed to me what I had assumed about myself all along. My father’s cult worshipped and studied a dimension existing between the layers of our own, called the Underneath, and I was just an attempt to bridge a connection between the two. They thought that with access to the Underneath they could go to different realities. In the Underneath they believed there were powerful beasts much more frightening and mighty than the demons we knew.

I don’t know where to find the Beast to tell her the truth, but I know someone much easier to track. I find the candy cane creature still on campus at the school, waiting outside in the dark. I appear beside him and he still doesn’t notice me, although his hoodie moves strangely. “Oh good, a creepy woman. Exactly what I wanted,” a raspy voice jabs at me.

The boy turns, looking much younger than I assumed, with a mop of wild brown hair. He looks at me, clutching his strange hoodie.

“As cliche as it sounds, I mean you no harm. You’re the hero Spite, right?

“Y-yes,” he says shakily.

“Who the fuck are you?” A face like a skinned cat’s appears on the hoodie, that stretches out and moves towards me. I might like him.

“You told Miraculous that Beast had a sister. That was a bad idea. That girl is in danger, and she’ll be used as a pawn to control Beast. I suggest you find a way to protect her, or alert the supers at this school.”

“Miraculous was fired,” the boy says breathlessly. “I thought…”

“Be wary of him. Keep your distance.”

“Is that a threat?” the hoodie cackles.

“If it has to be, yes.”

The boy swallows. “Who are you?”

I smile, seeing a sweetness and innocence in him that I once thought Ben had. I hope he stays that way for his own safety. “Miraculous’ worst enemy.” I fall back into the shadows, or perhaps the Underneath.

Igo to Ben’s home, a mostly-empty mansion where each room looks like a picture from a catalog. I go to his favorite room, filled with framed photos of all his accomplishments, city keys, trophies, and everything that will stroke his ego. He’s there, drinking by himself while he stares out the window. I coil a shadow around his neck and breathe into his ear. “Tell me again who needs who, Ben.”

“Why are you here?” I actually hear fear in his voice.

“Touch my sister, touch my mother, and I will do you one worse than death. Touch anyone at the school, and the world will know you the way I know you.” He shudders in my hands, and I love the feeling. “You wanted me to be the bad guy, right? Well now you’ve got hell to reap.”

“Anna, please…” he

I start laughing, cackling loudly and screeching into his ear. I hoist him into the air, dragging him along the wall and sweeping all his success onto the floor. I toss him down amongst all his honors, his ego shattered on the carpet. “Don’t you ever say that to me again, Ben,” I whisper. I tap my finger into the center of my chest. “I know who I am now.”

Ben’s breathless, staring wide-eyed at me. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Try,” I whisper. “For the first time in your life. Try.” My shadows knock the remaining photos and honors off the wall, leaving him in a trash heap.

Then I return to my home, where I raised my Ghoul Gurls. The place is empty now, but it will be full again. I take in a deep breath, and when I exhale, I am free.