Accidental Villainy 43 (Patreon)

It didn’t take long for them to arrive. A few minutes, barely enough for me to get used to the idea of cold-blooded murder. The Commander and the Wall-Breaker retreated, surrounded by a small army of henchmen, while the King Shadow followed, still surrounded by his attacks. 

I took a deep breath, trying to calm my heartbeat even as I drew a gun, trying to aim. Observation helped with the aim, but not when my hands were trembling badly.  

As they approached, I tried to decide what to do. My initial objective was to shoot King Shadow first. With his rotating shadows creating a permanent defensive line, he was the hardest target, and I wanted to deal with him before things got too wild. 

All of them were mass murderers, so I had no moral problems dealing with them, but apparently, my body was determined not to get that message. My palms grew sweaty, my heartbeat picked up, and no matter how much I tried to breathe, the air wasn’t enough. 

I breathed.  

They got closer…

I breathed. 

They got closer…

Feeling helpless, I overcharged my power. Already feeling the pain from the last time, the headache was blinding. Yet, I welcomed it. The pain, along with the sudden flow of extra information, was enough to distract me from what was about to do. 

Pain was an excellent distraction.

I let out my breath, aimed for King Shadow, waiting for just when one of his shadows was near the Commander. 

And, took a shot.  

It was not for nothing. Emily’s research showed that, whenever he was wounded, his control over his shadows weakened, which contributed to his reputation for collateral damage. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t have been too dangerous, but I timed it perfectly to one of his ‘close calls’, something that was only possible due to the practiced nature of their pattern, and my power. 

The shadow exploded … sending the Commander flinging. He wasn’t dead, but the pain clearly distracted him. The sight of his panicking henchmen had been enough to confirm that. Their incredible courage and steady, practiced attack that would make special forces jealous was gone, replaced by panic as they started to spray King Shadow with their bullets. 

Ironically, since they clearly didn’t know they weren’t actually enemies, they were even more dangerous. King Shadow created a few barriers in front of him, blocking the assault, but it left him open to an attack from high up. 

Unfortunately, even in the chaos, they didn’t miss the fact that someone attacked from a window. They didn’t know from which, so they attacked all of them. King Shadow also looked up … and before he could register it, I took a shot. 

Headshot. 

I just killed someone, I realized with a chill, overwhelming my headache.

Ironically, the sight of many henchmen targeting the window I had just fired from was enough motivation not to linger on that.  

I ducked down, not wanting to get caught by a rain of bullets, and rushed up. I ignored the realization that I had just become a murderer, and rushed toward the stairs. “Follow me. Let’s kill him,” the Wall Breaker shouted, clearly unhappy with the death of his secret ally. I doubted the unaware henchmen shared his opinion, but they were too disoriented.

Escaping was the safest choice, but I noticed that the bullet storm stopped after his order, replaced by the sound of running. And, I didn’t want my bar to be attacked by a magically-coordinated team of henchmen, so I poked my head, aimed at the Commander, who was lying in the street, dazed, and took another shot. Hardly honorable, but I didn’t have that luxury when I was in the crosshairs of the biggest Hero Guild and a mysterious villain group at the same time. 

Just like that, I was a double-murderer. 

I stopped overcharging my power as I turned back and rushed toward the stairs. I climbed up as fast as I could, deliberately making a lot of noise. 

The building was dangerous enough, and the faster they moved, the higher the chances of them stepping on something dangerous. The building wasn’t exactly the safest, after all. They rushed in rapidly, which would have surprised me if it wasn’t for two reasons.

With the Commander dead, his henchmen were still in a panicked daze as they followed the only other Villain … and the Wall Breaker was not famous for his strategic mind. He climbed the stairs up stupidly, confident that, in close distance, he could deal with a sniper. 

I doubted he even realized I used a pistol. 

Unfortunately, even as I climbed up, I could hear his footsteps getting closer, showing that he had some kind of super speed as well. Or, based on the loudness of his footsteps, he was using his strength to replicate super speed. 

Not a good choice, as I could feel the building trembling. A beam fell, which I only caught thanks to my power, dodging in time. 

I started firing down from the gaps on the floor blindly, hoping to delay him as I cursed my choice. I should have ambushed from an even higher floor. 

I didn’t expect him to react in such a stupid way. A failure on my part. 

I continued to run even as the henchmen responded, trying to shoot from his position. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t know the exact weak spots on the floor to allow the bullets to pass. I was confident that, if I was determined to ambush, I could deal with them as long as the building didn’t collapse. 

But, with the Wall Breaker’s rough dashes breaking what little remained from the building, that was not certain. One glancing blow to a load-bearing column and…

“Perfect,” I suddenly gasped as I pulled off my coat hung it behind a load-bearing column, and left my gun in a way it would catch the sunlight. 

The perfect red flag for a mindless bull. Then, I stopped firing as I climbed down the last few steps, and just like that, I was on the roof. 

One benefit of arranging my escape path beforehand, I didn’t need to slow down even for a moment before I jumped to the next roof … then, half a dozen more before I climbed down a concealed fire escape. 

Halfway down, a loud crush reached my ear, followed by a huge plume of dust. The building collapsed. It looked like my primitive trap worked even better than I expected, not only getting rid of the Wall Breaker but also getting rid of all evidence of the process, turning what happened into a mystery. 

Hopefully. 

It also added to the indirect count of the deaths I was responsible for, but that, I ignored, instead focusing on the more immediate problems, like getting away from the crime scene as much as possible while avoiding all cameras. 

Luckily, the resulting dust cloud helped me quite a bit as well. Once I was five minutes away, I slipped into a  public bathroom, changed my clothes, bagged the old ones, and cleaned the grime off my face. Then, I moved away, joining the civilians that was getting away from the dust cloud. 

There wasn’t much panic as the civilians evacuated. At this point, getting away from the collateral damage was a common habit. 

I still made a point of stealing occasional coats and accessories to confuse a potential tracker even further before I took a bus … and arrived back at the bar, once again using the secret tunnel. 

“Everything alright, sir?” Tara asked as she arrived. 

“Nothing much, I just overused my power,” I said even as I stumbled to upstairs. “Make sure to wake me up when it’s time to open the bar.” 

“Sir, you don’t look —” she started. 

“No, it’s important,” I cut her off, not in the mood to explain to her. It was a bit rude, but I was not in the mood to explain her nonetheless. 

I threw myself to the bed, hoping the sleep would come. 

It didn’t.