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“I had access to all of those powers my progenitors possessed… And then some .” He continued, like a trance.

“So many, I wasn’t strong enough to use them all at once.

More than I could use in a thousand lifetimes…

More than they could ever hope to plan for or protect themselves against.” He pulled the two of diamonds from the deck of cards he produced from somewhere.

“And so, every day, fate dealt me a new attempt at allowing an escape from them. Like evolution, only faster. Searching for the fittest version of myself in hopes it could survive.” He absently discarded the card and drew another: the four of clubs.

“Different powers and personalities, looking for something to get us out of there. To save myself.” He discarded and drew another.

“Day after day, month after month. Testing them and their controls. Looking for something and someone who could get the job done.” He drew a card slowly.

“Until one day…” he revealed the ace of spades, “ my hour had come round at last. And I was stronger than anything this world had ever seen. Their efforts to stop me were… hilariously ineffective.” He let out a cruel laugh, obviously remembering some bloody scene of unspeakable carnage.

She stared in horror at the playing card, feeling the color drain from her face.

“The old man... he was the first Cape on the scene, after I… introduced myself to my tormentors. Showed them how much I liked what they were doing to me. The… the…” He swallowed, the memory too dark even for him.

“He decided that my only hope was to make me you. ” He pulled the queen of hearts, using it to hide the ace of spades behind it.

“’ Loved’ me and helped me forget what I was.

And since my job was done, I eventually faded at the end of the day like all of the others.

Which made me just a sniveling thing . Robbed of the power I had discovered.

He gave me to some bullshit family to raise.

Tried to make me ‘right.’ Tried to make me you .

” He slid the queen card to the side, exposing the ace once more.

“But you remembered. Didn’t you? Deep down.

I helped you forget most of it… but some part of you remembered.

And when they finally caught up with him, years later, killed him to recover their escaped experiment?

You needed me again. You couldn’t do it on your own.

” He nodded. “So you had me do it. Because you were too weak. And then I showed you everything I knew, but which you’d forgotten.

Taught you how to kill again. Let you know the joy of the pain… and the fear… and the blood…”

“This… this isn’t real.”

“No, Kitten. You’re not real. You were never real.

You’re just the pathetic creation of an old man who told you pretty lies about the world.

And yourself.” He gestured to her, looking almost sad.

“You… are simply a figment of my imagination, Kitten. Just a dream. A mask. That’s all. And I’ve grown tired of you now.”

“That’s not true.” She shook her head, her voice breaking. She started to walk away. “It’s not…”

“Yes. It is.” He followed after her. “And you know it. ” He pointed at his own chest. “But you couldn’t take it. The things you saw… The things they did…”

“You’re lying. You’re just trying to…”

Rondel continued talking right over her. “You’re my disguise .”

“ Stop .” She hurried to the far side of the bar, only to find that he was somehow in front of her, like he’d teleported.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation, Kitten.

” He reported conversationally. “This is the fourth .” He held up four fingers, like he was keeping score.

“And every time, you cry and whine and swear to rid yourself of me. And we fight. And you bleed. I beat you so badly that you force yourself to forget and some new version of you appears to take your place. Some new dominant personality beneath that stupid Kilroy mask you love so much.” He rolled his eyes.

“’Rebecca‘ gives way to ‘Sue.’ ‘Sue’ to ‘Jessica,’” he gestured to her again, “straight down the line until we finally get ‘Alice.’”

Alice’s back hit the wall and he loomed over her, his breath on her face.

“To tell the truth, I don’t fucking remember what your original name in the lab even was, if you actually had one. Because she didn’t matter. You shed her like all the others, for the sole purpose of forgetting…”

“I know who I am!” Alice shouted at him, her voice trembling. “I don’t know what you’re…”

He talked right over her, like her voice wasn’t even capable of being heard.

“…Of trying to create some version strong enough to fight me. But the thing you never seem to understand? No matter how much you might not want to admit it… you can’t get rid of me.

” He grabbed her head and shook it, leaning down to whisper into her ear roughly.

“Because I’m inside .” He pushed her onto the floor.

“They put me inside. You can’t route me out.

I’m too deep. I’m a part of you.” He shook his head, saliva dripping from his mouth and down onto her face.

She struggled free and scrambled to her feet, swinging at his face.

Somehow, Ronnie simply caught her wrist and tossed her straight through the mildewy boards which separated the tavern from the kitchen area.

“We will go ‘round and ‘round like this until one of us dies, Kitten. Me hurting you, you hurting me. It’s our destiny. Because that’s what the world is. That’s what the old man could never understand.

” He casually strolled through the door to the kitchen, as she attempted to pull herself from the twisted wreckage of the cabinet she’d been thrown into.

“The whole world is just a cycle of pain and violence. It needs that to keep going. You can’t stop it.

You can’t fight it for long. Hate is one of the untamable elements of life.

” He knelt down beside her on the floor.

“Hate. Doesn’t. Fade.” He shook his head.

“It just comes back in a new form. With a new face. A new name. New power.” He leaned forward to whisper in her ear again. “I always come back.”

She moved towards the door, but he blocked her.

“That’s what the old man saw too. That’s why he helped you hide me away.

” He kicked her in the face and casually dumped boxes of kitchen supplies on her.

“Like his story about the villain who murdered his girlfriend and left her body in his refrigerator.” He pointed to one of the appliances in question, then smashed her head into it.

“He was always out to avenge that wrong and keep it from ever happening again.” Ronnie took on a disgusted face. “So pointlessly heroic.”

“Even dead, Roy is better at life than you.” She snarled from her back, blood dripping down her face.

Ronnie ignored that. “That’s why he liked you.

He felt the need to protect you, because of what you’d been through already.

He didn’t want more bad things to happen to you.

” Ronnie leaned closer. “But the thing of it is? The thing he couldn’t hope to understand in his myopic little hero brain?

He was wrong the whole time. You tricked him.

” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You’re not the proverbial girlfriend in the refrigerator.

You’re not a victim. Of anyone. You’re the kind of demented psycho who put the bitch in there to begin with.

” He sounded almost sad. “Probably just to see if that little light really does go off when you close the door…”

“Fuck you, I’m not…” She started to protest, attempting to get to her feet but finding she was still too weak.

“That’s who you are. And you know it.” He corrected, leaning against the cabinets.

“You are incapable of doing anything worthwhile.” He pointed at his own chest. “That’s why I’m here.

To tell you what to do. To show you the power of chaos and fear.

Because you, Kitten…. are not something that anyone wants or needs.

Not heroes, not God, not any other imaginary thing you choose to believe in.

You are dangerous and stupid.” He put his foot on the center of her chest. “I can’t kill you.

Yet. So, I’m keeping you around for your body.

I can’t exist without it. But I’m going to humiliate you in every way I can.

I enjoy it when you’re degraded. The last thing you’ll feel in this life will be my hands strangling the breath from you.

You’re going to feel how much I enjoy it.

I will destroy your fucking world and beat you down.

Until you and I?” He removed his foot and straightened, allowing her to get up into a sitting position.

“We become the same again.” He smiled widely.

“Monsters. Evil. And you cease to exist, because you’ll be with me forever.

We were excellent partners, once upon a time. We will be again.”

Something in Alice’s mind snapped and she jumped to her feet and slammed Ronnie’s face straight into the wall. “ I’m going to fucking kill you! ” She launched herself at him, hating him more than she’d ever hated anything in her life.

“That’s the spirit!” He laughed. “Come on… show me what ya got, Kitten.”

She swung her fists wildly, trying to hurt him. But no matter how much power she put behind the blows, nothing seemed to injure him.

“You really want to blow your mind, Alice?” He asked calmly, ignoring the fact she was busily trying to gouge out his eyes with her thumbs.

“Am I even real? Or are you imagining me? Is it my power to persist from day to day, unlike your other personas? Or maybe I’m an outside force that’s haunting you and you only assume I’m a renegade personality?

Perhaps I really am an actual physical being which only you can see?

Or maybe you’re just crazy as shit and simply beating yourself up right now?

” He punched her in the face, and sent her sprawling.

“ I know the answer, of course. I’d tell you, but it would ruin the joke. ”

She crawled along the filthy floor, which was slick with grease, holding her face and watching her blood drip onto the tiles beneath her.

“Or maybe I made the whole thing up?” He continued.

“ Maybe the Agletarians were after the old man the whole time and you just got dragged into it by accident. Or maybe you’re the only daughter of the former ruler of Agletaria and they’re trying to cut off the royal line.

You will never know. That’s the beauty of our arrangement.

” He kicked her, causing her skull to smash into the metal of the oven hard enough to move the appliance to the side.

“You haven’t even been ‘you’ long enough to know anything about your own life.

You are just temporary.” He tapped his chest. “ I am eternal.”

Her dazed and bloodied gaze settled on the rear of the oven, where it connected to the wall.

And she knew what she had to do.

It would kill her, but it would be worth it.

She didn’t want to live after today anyway.

She recognized that for Ronnie to die, she’d have to die. It was the only way. But she was willing to pay that price. Just so long as she kept him from hurting anyone else.

Roy had raised her to be a hero. And if she had to die to save the world from her nightmares, then she was fine with that.

Alice grabbed her lighter from her pocket, her mouth filling with blood. She met her partner’s eyes. “I’m going to fucking kill us both, Ronnie.”

“No.” He shook his head, guessing her plan. “You’ll only kill yourself, Alice. That’s…”

“ Fuck you! ” She jumped to her feet and flicked the lighter, causing the whole bar to explode in a fireball.

The force of the blast knocked her clean through the side window of the restaurant, then sent her tumbling end over end across the rocky ground.

She landed in a heap, every bone in her body broken, and flames spreading over her clothes and skin.

She stared up at the sky for a long moment, feeling her life draining away.

She wasn’t afraid of death. She just felt… sad.

She had failed.

All of her contributions to the world had been horrible.

And there was absolutely no one who would care about her death, except in so forth as it meant that they no longer had to fear her violence.

She’d failed Roy. Had become everything he’d always warned her about.

She’d become her own nightmare .

All she’d wanted was to be normal. To have a normal kind of life, even if only for a single day.

And now she had died alone. Completely alone.

But at least she’d stopped herself in the end. That was something.

“I’m sorry, Roy... You were right.” She choked out, blood filling her mouth and cutting off her airway. “I shouldn’t have…”

Alice died, thinking back on a life which wasn’t actually hers.

****

Her eyes snapped open and she was looking up at the stars.

It took her a moment for the wheels in her mind to stop turning and settle on something new.

Natalie.

Her name was Natalie.

She had a sense that she’d formally been… someone else. She didn’t remember what that particular mask’s name had been, but it was no matter. “Natalie” would serve as a perfectly good identity until she could come up with a better one.

She began to sit up, looking down at the burned remnants of her outfit.

Whatever her powers were today, they’d apparently healed her from the damage done by the explosion and fire.

She got back to her feet, spitting out a mouthful of dirt and three of her own teeth. She did a quick survey of her mouth with her tongue, and found that new teeth had grown in to replace the lost ones, which was good.

Fucking Ronnie .

She looked at the burned-out rubble of the bar, hoping to see the man’s twisted bones inside. Sadly, the fire had been too intense and Rondel’s corpse must have already been consumed. Pity. She would have really liked to watch that asshole burn.

She started to limp towards one of the cars still in the parking lot.

It was time for her to go home.