Boring

Based on this prompt from writing-prompt-s on tumblr! :

 The Hero may have decided to spare the life of the Dark Lord, but you, the Dark Lord’s Former Coworker, will show no such mercy 

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“Yes,” you say, trailing your hand along machine dials, turning them and, ultimately fucking up whatever the machine had been calibrated to do. Judging by the size of it, spanning one side of the lab and towering above your six foot frame, it must do a lot. Your ex-coworker’s always been a lot. “Yes,” you say again. “I never expected the Hero to leave you alive.”

The Dark Lord, the strongest magic-user on the planet, tech-genius and billionaire, struggles against the simple ropes you’ve used to tie him to his desk chair. The power-suppressors the Hero left on him are blinking furiously, flaring each time he tries to use his power and is denied. The ones on his ankles are red, the ones on his wrists are blue, and the one around his neck is green.

It looks like a disco in here.

“I don’t understand,” he says through gritted teeth. The bruises the hero left behind are almost healed despite landing yesterday--the Dark Lord’d injected himself with a super-healing serum years ago. “I thought you retired.”

“I did,” you admit. You peer at one of the screens on the machine and are delighted to see a tsunami building up off the Florida Coast. “Did you build an earthquake machine? The Hero must have missed this lab if they didn’t take this.” Your eyes slide to where he’s glaring at you. You smile. “Good. It means they won’t know where to look when they realize you’ve gone missing.”

“You won’t get away with this,” the Dark Lord starts to say and then bites his tongue hard enough to draw blood. That’s a hero line. He breathes deeply and asks, “Why are you doing this?”

“Giving me a chance to monologue?” you ask, delighted. “How kind of you!” You turn away from the screen as it starts flashing red. Impact imminent. Too bad this lab isn’t in Florida. “It’s not going to change the outcome, you realize? You’re not a hero--there won’t be any last minute escapes.”

The Dark Lord gives you the Look, the one he used to give you when you worked together, the one that tells you to speed things up Or Else. It used to be followed by a lightning bolt to the head or knife to the leg if you didn’t oblige. It almost makes you want to take longer now that those consequences aren’t on the table, but you can’t.

You’re on a rather tight schedule.

“Retirement was boring,” you say. You walk up to him, staying out of the spotlight he’s sitting in. “No fights, nothing to steal, no maiming or blackmailing or kidnapping. I took up chess.” You shrug. “That got boring when I won all those stupid tournaments.”

“There are a lot of other hobbies,” the Dark Lord says. He’s watching you like you’re dangerous, which is hilarious. He’s never treated you like you’re dangerous before. “Maybe you should try a few more out before you decide to give up on retirement.”

“I did,” you say. You cross your arms and scowl at him. “You always think I don’t do enough! I tried knitting, sewing, horse breeding, horse racing, surfing, carpentry-- you get the picture. Hobbies aren’t fun when you can win them. I didn’t even know you could win at knitting.” They’d hung your sweater in the Louvre. It was a little much.

“You have always been talented,” the Dark Lord says. It sounds like it hurts him to say it. “That still doesn’t explain what’s happening right now.”

“It kinda does,” you say. “You know how much I hate being bored.” You sigh. “Remember the old days? Before you got so powerful? Remember that time the Hero stopped us before we could blow up the city? And we were both so hurt and defeated that we stopped committing crime for two months?” You sigh again, this time dreamily. “I miss those times.”

The Dark Lord gapes at you. “You...you miss being nearly eviscerated?”

“Not the healing part,” you admit. You hate being stuck in the hospital. So does he. That’s why he invented the super-healing serum and gave it to you both. “But the excitement of not knowing if we’d survive or not. The possibility of failure. I’ve always loved the danger of failing.” You purse your lips. “And then, of course, you had to ruin everything.”

The Dark Lord is doing some very fast thinking. You used to love watching him think, in awe of his speed and his brilliance. It had seemed to you that no one earth could be as fast as him. 

Then, of course, you learned how to do it too.

“I became too powerful,” the Dark Lord tries out. There’s still confusion in his eyes, but he knows the answer is right. “All of our heists and other actions became easy. Fail safe. Nobody could stop us.”

“It didn’t help that you got meaner,” you admit. You lift up one side of your shirt to show the splashing scars lightning leaves behind. “Always yelling and saying I didn’t do enough. That was kind of exciting at first, honestly, being afraid of you. But it wasn’t enough. So I left to find something that wasn’t so--”

“So boring,” the Dark Lord interrupts. His brow lowers, the start to the thunderous expression you remember so well. “You were bored being retired so you decided to sell me out to the Hero?”

You scoff. He’s always underestimated you! “I didn’t sell you out. Selling you out would have been too easy. No, I decided to do something much more interesting.”

You step, for the first time, into the light. You are dressed very differently from the old days. In the old days, you’d wear all black and armor. Right now, you are wearing bright red pants, dark purple armor, and a white, sparkling cape.

“No,” the Dark Lord says.

“Yes!” You give a twirl so he can see the large eye on the back of your cape. “They call me Sherlock, it’s not trademarked, can you believe it? Apparently there’s already a Detective and a Sight so...” you shrug, turning back around. “What can you do?”

“You’re that sidekick who found my lair.” He shakes his head. “How--I didn’t even have that lair when we worked together!”

“I know,” you say. You clap your hands together. “That’s why it was so hard to find! They’re talking about making me a full hero, you know, because of my help capturing you.”

“You,” the Dark Lord says. He can’t seem to wrap his mind around it. “You, a hero? Your hands are as bloody as mine!”

“Bloodier,” you promise him. You smile. “Or they’re about to be. As I said, I didn’t expect the Hero to leave you alive.”

The Dark Lord doesn’t have as hard a time wrapping his mind around that. He starts struggling again, lighting up the dark lab with green and blue and red.

“You’ve known me too long,” you say almost apologetically. You’re not really sorry for what you’re about to do. He’s become boring.You know you should feel sorry though which is why you give it a try. “Sorry.”

“Don’t lie,” the Dark Lord snarls. He recovers himself, remembering what you’re about to do, and tries for a different tactic. “You--you don’t really want to kill me. Isn’t it more exciting to leave me alive? I could tell the League who you are at any moment. I could cause your failure.”

“I thought about that,” you say. You pull you knife from the back of your belt and let the disco lights catch on the edge. It’s very sharp. “I almost didn’t come here when I thought about all the chances you’d have to realize it was me under the mask. But, the thing is, you’re really too good at being a villain. No other villains will come to this city because of you and you know what they say about the lack of variety, right?”

The Dark Lord remains silent, blood draining from his face.

“Boring,” you whisper.

The lights dance across your blade for a good long while before winking out completely.