Imperfections (Patreon)

Inspired by a Reddit Writing Prompt:

A minor superhero seemed insignificant in the eyes of the world, due to the fact his power was the ability to cause imperfections. Small, and unnoticed. After being laughed off the league, and turning to crime for revenge, they proved to be a lot more dangerous as a villain.

Fred sighed. They still weren't getting it. "No, I don't cause machinery to catastrophically malfunction. That's noticeable. What I do is change minor aspects. Stuff that you would never pick up in the normal run of things. Like, um ... a slow leak in your car tyre valve that makes you late for work in a week." He absently tugged on the T-shirt he was wearing, that showed a sniggering little demonic creature setting an alarm clock forward. That, a domino mask, and a pair of black jeans, comprised his costume to this point. "I cause tiny imperfections, and in time they add up to big things."

The Gadgeteer rubbed his chin. "Hmm. So ... when you exert your power, do the imperfections resist repair? For instance, if you made Professor Perfidy's force shield less than totally reliable, would he be able to mend it? Or would it remain problematic forever after, no matter what he did?"

"Oh, it's totally fixable, depending on what it is," Fred said at once. "If he took out the part that made it unreliable and replaced it, the force shield would work fine."

"Hmm." The Solar Paladin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He floated a few inches off the ground, as was his habit. The sun that was emblazoned on his chest glowed with its own light. As far as Fred was aware, the floating and glowing thing wasn't a matter of showing off; if the man didn't exert his powers somehow, the solar energy he absorbed every second of the day even at night-time just kept making him stronger. "Tell me; can you convince your power that something is an imperfection when it's really improving it? Such as making Dark Avenger's costume bulletproof while masking it as making the sleeves and legs less flexible?"

Fred shook his head. "No, it doesn't work that way. It has to be specifically inconvenient to the person it affects the most. Every time I've tried something like that, it's done it in a way that screwed me and the other guy over."

"So what use are you?" asked Toy Wonder, stepping up alongside her mentor, The Gadgeteer. "You can only make things go wrong in tiny ways. It's not like you've got anything to bring to the team."

"As rude as the young lady is, I am afraid that I must agree with her." Solar Paladin looked around at the other members of L.E.A.G.U.E. "What say you, friends?"

The Gadgeteer nodded briefly. "If he cannot aid me in my battle against Professor Perfidy, then my vote is no as well. Dark Avenger?"

The black-clad woman, silent as the night which she preferred to frequent, stepped closer to Fred. Eye to eye they stared at one another, then she shook her head and turned away.

"Oh, come on," Fred protested, even as he realised it would do no good. "It's a legitimate power. Was it the costume? I can fix the costume."

"Face it, dude," Toy Wonder snarked. "Your powers suck so hard that if you became a supervillain, crime would go down."

"Now, that's just not a nice thing to say," the Gadgeteer said, but his tone was mild and there was a grin on his face under his HUD visor. "Sorry, Gremlin. Best of luck."

Fred turned and headed for the teleporter that would transmit him back to Earth from the orbiting space station that served as a base for L.E.A.G.U.E.

Externally, he was calm. Internally, he was seething. Those assholes hadn't even given him a chance to show what he could do. Everyone knew the Federal Government subsidised L.E.A.G.U.E., giving each of the so-called 'heroes' a seven-figure annual salary; he would've been happy with a tenth of that, just so he could help pay his mother's medical bills, maybe with a little left over to put his kid sister through college.

But no, they couldn't even be human enough to do that.

Fuck it, he told himself as he was transmitted back to Earth. Toy Blunder says I should become a villain. I might just do that. I'll damn-sure get more respect that way.

Four Months Later

"So why exactly are we all attending this alarm, again?" Flying easily alongside his teammates, the Solar Paladin turned on his side so as to address the Gadgeteer more easily. "Surely any one of us could handle it."

"Normally, I'd say yes," the tech hero replied, angling his flying powersuit to swoop around a building. Not because he had to, but because it made great PR pictures. "But this one villain has cleaned out six banks in the last six weeks, using the same MO each time. He's a headliner. If just one of us takes him down, it'll make him look like nothing much. But if we all come together to capture him, he looks more dangerous and we look more heroic."

"Aww," complained Toy Wonder, doing lazy barrel rolls in her own suit. "I wanted to take him in myself. Pretty sure it's that dork who showed up in the screen-printed T-shirt that one time. Same name, anyway."

Down below, a motorcycle roared along, following their path. It was completely black, with the logo DA in red on either side. "Be careful," warned the Dark Avenger over their radio link. "There's more to this one than he seems."

"You say that every single time," Solar Paladin retorted, rolling his eyes. "You can take the 'brooding creature of the night' shtick a little too far sometimes, you know."

They converged on the front steps of the Metroberg Municipal First Bank, just as a costumed figure emerged pushing a dolly, upon which was stacked several satchels. He had another slung over his shoulder. One of the satchels was slightly open, showing stacks of money. As the heroes gathered together, he stopped, letting the dolly stand upright by itself. The top satchel, unbalanced by the movement, fell forward and went a couple of steps down.

"My god, you're right," exclaimed the Gadgeteer. "Gremlin, is that you? Did you seriously think you could become a villain and not fall afoul of us?"

"Doesn't matter now," declared Toy Wonder gleefully. Activating her flight systems, she swooped toward the errant bag of money and grabbed the strap. "Yoink!"

That was when it went wrong. As she angled around to return to her comrades, money bag held high in triumph, the satchel strap gave way, opening the bag completely. An instant later, half a dozen dye bombs inside the satchel went off, covering her in thick blue sticky liquid.

"Waagh!" she yelped as, a moment later, the dye got into the air intakes for her jet boots and they flamed out. Hitting the pavement, she rolled over and over until she ended up in a groaning blue heap up against a dumpster.

"I was going to say, watch out," Gremlin called out. "Those dye bombs can be tricky. Especially if they've got problematic triggers."

"Well, that was uncommonly clever of you, wasn't it?" The Gadgeteer cracked his knuckles, or at least mimed doing so, as he stepped forward. "Don't think I'll be taking the bait with your other bags of money. I'm just going to--whooaaaa!"

Gremlin, the Solar Paladin, the Dark Avenger and a dozen or so bystanders watched with varying degrees of fascinated interest as every single device the Gadgeteer had built into his suit went off, one after the other. Flares shot out his wrists, one jet boot flared to life and caused him to fly in a semi-circle, blinking lights started then stopped, and then the whole thing became engulfed in a huge spherical balloon. As the balloon, with the Gadgeteer inside, began to roll gently off down the street, Gremlin scratched his head.

"You'd think he would've thought twice about making threats while wearing a whole suit made of hair-triggers, wouldn't you?" he mused out loud.

"I won't make that mistake," hissed the Dark Avenger. As the Solar Paladin began to step forward, the black-clad woman put an arm across his chest. "He's mine."

Gremlin raised his eyebrows. "Dibs now, huh? Okay then. Give it your best shot."

"Don't worry. I intend to." Drawing two curved throwing implements (inscribed with her trademark "DA") from her belt, the Dark Avenger hefted them in her hands. "No circuitry for you to foul up here." So saying, she hurled them with deadly accuracy at Gremlin.

Whom they promptly missed, whiffing off to the left and right in a dazzling display of not much at all.

"Hm," he mused. "Seems that some imperfections might've crept into the manufacturing process there."

"Oh, forget it!" She leaped up the steps, only to be brought to a sudden halt when her cape caught in a niche in the concrete, jamming fast. Only by the most agile of backflips, casting off the cape as she did so, did she prevent herself from performing a humiliating pratfall on the steps.

When she looked up at Gremlin, he was holding up three fingers. Then two. Then one. She furrowed her brow, trying to determine what his plan was.

"Look out--!" shouted Solar Paladin, far too late, as both Avengerangs beaned her from behind, sending her slumping to the steps.

"Oops," observed Gremlin, raising his eyebrows behind his mask. "That's gonna leave a mark." From the number of photos being taken by the bystanders, they agreed. Not all bruises were physical, after all.

The Solar Paladin, most powerful man in the world, turned back to the two-bit villain who had single-handedly defeated his entire team without moving a muscle. "Well done," he said, clapping his hands gently. "But you're going to have to up your game against me. After all, simple dye bombs and knocks to the head are not going to cut it against a man who is bulletproof and can see through most common materials."

Gremlin shook his head. "They were the hard ones. I had to engineer their defeats. Yours came ready-made."

Solar Paladin shook his head in puzzlement, then shook it again, as if to ward off dizziness. "What ... what did you do to me?" he slurred, sounding drunk. His feet were now three feet off the pavement, and rising.

"Solar energy gives you your power," explained Gremlin patiently, "but too much makes you drunk ... and far too much sends your power into high gear ... including flight. Your costume regulates your intake of solar energy. It was just a tiny alteration, a minor imperfection, to change the texture so that it makes you absorb more."

"Yooouuu basstaarrrdd ..." But the hero's voice was already dopplering into the distance as he flew wildly and aimlessly into the sky, glowing brighter and brighter all the time.

Gremlin sighed as he started down the steps again to his waiting car. The bystanders stepped back to let him pass.

"How did you defeat them?" called out one brave man.

Gremlin paused in loading the satchels onto the back seat. "They were too sure of themselves," he said after a moment of thought. "And as such, their tactics were ... imperfect."

Climbing into the driver's seat, he started the car and drove away.