Supervillainess (Part One) by Lizzy Ford

said you rescued her?”
    Kimber nodded.
    “Then you saw the scars,” Igor stated.
    “I assumed she’d been in more than one
altercation.”
    “She’d never been bested in battle before
that night. Her brother betrayed and ambushed her,” Igor growled.
“Those scars were from her childhood. She and Jermaine are twins.
Their father tortured them, starved them, twisted their minds. From
the time they were two until they came of age at eighteen, they
knew only evil and pain.”
    Kimber listened, not expecting to feel his
stomach twist at the information. He had seen her scars. Should it
matter that they came from her father instead of during battle with
some other villain? Why did his protective instinct stir at the
idea of her in danger when she could clearly protect herself
against almost anything?
    “ They were isolated, aside
from contact with us nannies. We were permitted to feed them and
bandage them. They never experienced kindness and were never
exposed to normal people. They depended upon each other to survive
their father’s brutality, until last year, when Jermaine …” Igor
drifted off.
    “Jermaine what?” Kimber prodded, intrigued
by the insight into Keladry’s background.
    Igor was silent.
    “Igor, what happened?”
    “Their father found his weakness and broke
him. He hasn’t been the same.” By the clipped tone, whatever had
happened stuck with Igor still.
    Kimber didn’t want to know what made the
imposing nanny – who had witnessed the torture of the child he was
rearing – found disturbing enough he wouldn’t talk about it.
Keladry’s sorrow at losing her brother’s loyalty had been real, and
Kimber wondered if she had also lost her only friend in the
extremely isolated world in which she lived.
    “Why did you stay with the family? Why
didn’t you report child abuse?” he asked, bothered by the image in
his head of a young Keladry crying in pain.
    “Report to whom?” Igor chuckled. “The
Supervillain Council would’ve given him a Father of the Year award
for how he raised those kids. Cops know better than to
interfere.”
    “But if there are supervillains, aren’t
there superheroes, too? Someone you can call when you need
help?”
    “We haven’t had a superhero in two
generations. General Savage’s rule over the city has been
uncontested.”
    “What about their mother? Or some other
relative?” Kimber asked.
    “General Savage killed their mother after
they were born. In order to take over the city, he had to murder
his father – his predecessor – and his brother, who was his only
competition. Those kids had no one but each other.”
    Kimber was quiet once more, troubled by both
Igor’s account and the idea Keladry hadn’t known better than to
behave like an asshole under his care.
    “You’re the first person she’s asked me to
watch over,” Igor added.
    Why does this make me feel
bad? Kimber didn’t know. If anything,
Igor’s explanation clarified Keladry’s path to insanity. Somehow,
eight murders later, Kimber couldn’t help feeling sorry for
her.
    “We’re here.”
    “Why am I not surprised?” Kimber murmured,
peering out the window.
    Igor had taken him to a set of warehouses in
an industrial area near the river. Kimber exited the vehicle and
looked around.
    Igor led him into a warehouse guarded by two
men in black. Kimber glanced at them as he passed. His step slowed
when he saw what exactly was going on inside the massive, open bay
of the warehouse.
    She really does have an
army of ninjas, he thought.
    Dozens of men in black were involved in
combat arms training. They all wore facemasks that gave them the
appearance of ninjas. They were spread out at several different
stations: some sparring with weapons, others hand-to-hand, while
others raced through an obstacle course or participated in heavy
calisthenics. A small gym area was tucked in one corner, and one
entire wall was packed from floor to ceiling with weaponry
retrieved by a mechanical arm