Malice

Curtis Clairmont Malice the Third sat high in the old building, frowning at the view the wide window offered him. Most people knew him as Lord Malice, the third man to bear that name. His father and grandfather had also gone by Lord Malice and their reigns had been cruel and terrible ones. Regions of the country had trembled in fear before them. Presidents, Prime Ministers and emperors had treated them with deep respect. The name Malice was one that commanded great power. Or had. Had, before the second Lord Malice had been struck down by the combined power of the Mighty Men and the First United Army.

“Nice day,” Curtis said to himself. He sipped water from his mug, a heavy and ponderous thing of pewter with the Malice family crest upon it. It was ugly, but family relics were all he had in the tower. Curtis stood and strolled away from the window and around the room. It was a large thing, built for great crowds and guests or perhaps some grand demonstration of a super weapon. It was not a thing for a teenage boy to live in by himself.

The metal steps clanked beneath his heavy boots as Curtis descended the rickety spiral stairs, something ripped straight from a lighthouse. It might have been. Malice Tower had been built hundreds of years ago and rogue mages might have stolen stairs from a lighthouse if they'd caught the fancy of Henry Malice, the respected man who'd built the ancestral home.

The Malice family had come across the seas from Mordania, the old country where wild things still roamed and civilization was half-rumor. That was when House Malice had lived up to its name. That was when it had taken the entirety of the emperor's power to drive the Malices from the shores of Mordania. And so a new reign of terror had begun under Henry Malice.

Curtis thought for the umpteenth time that he'd have to get his costume tailored, somewhere. The cape was cut too long, made for a much taller man with broader shoulders. The hood got in the way too, the boots were uncomfortable, and the mask he eschewed completely. He didn't even look the part of a Lord Malice. Too short, too round of face, hair too shaggy. It was dark, yes, always good, but plump lips and perpetually raised eyebrows ruined that effect. He looked, in short, too much like a school boy to ever be considered a serious threat. That was all he could be, or had to be. If his father or anyone in his family was around today, they'd expect it. The world expected it.

The click click of his footfall rang through the empty tower, reminding Curtis once again of how empty it was. It would be prudent, he thought, to get out and about in the country, to the city. He needed resources. His father had left him blueprints from the last failed attempt at world domination, or whatever his goal had been that time. “It was world domination two times ago,” he muttered, ticking the events off on his fingers. “Before that was money-grabbing. Last time was takeover of the Presidency through a show of power.” His father had never quite grasped the basics of democracy.

In the grand and echoing laboratory in the basement of Malice Tower, Curtis flopped down in a chair, frowning as he looked out over the room around him. All outdated equipment, dusty test tubes and glassware, colossal engines of his grandfather's invention, towers of coils meant to harness the Elementary Particles. “I don't have the resources,” Curtis observed. “No money. Nothing.” What was left in the Malice coffers? Not enough to attempt anything approaching world domination. The Mighty Men would laugh at his pathetic attempts. Look, they'd say, the little Malice boy is trying to be a supervillain! And that would be an insult, wouldn't it? Laughing at him, at his family. At his father.

But it had to be done. Villainy was in his blood.

Curtis studied the blueprints covering the cork board on the other end of the room, the white lines on blue dim in the half-lit room. “Couldn't have explained it to me before you went and got yourself imprisoned, huh Dad?” No, of course not. His father had been a man of too much ambition and pride.

First thing's first. Understanding the plans came before scrounging up resources or even worrying about the Mighty Men or whatever other threats the mages of the First Union posed. Priorities.

So once again Curtis settled down on the metal table in the center of the lab, blueprints spread about, and set to deciphering them.