Paragon

Captain Atlas lounged in his underground headquarters, toying with a pen and eyeing the concrete chips scattered across the floor.

He should really have started the paperwork hours ago. There were insurance claims, construction contracts, and all the careful NDAs and workarounds of getting a superhero's hideout repaired. Vortex's assault had torn right through his lair. He'd have to get everything replaced.

Including Ricky, of course. So sad. He was going to have to start all over again. Put on his philanthropist face. Trawl the foster system. Find a new Ricky.

"Atlas."

At just the sound of the voice Atlas was on his feet, fingers glowing with white fire. He was here, his nemesis was here, again, standing in the flesh with that ridiculous purple costume.

None of the alarms had gone off. When Vortex had rolled in the first time it had been with thunder and chaos, blasting apart his defenses and laughing all the while. But now, suddenly, he was here again, without a sound, with a sad, tired look Atlas had never seen before.

"I'm not here to fight, Atlas," he said, "just to talk."

"Then talk," said Atlas through gritted teeth.

Vortex began to pace. Atlas could just sense the grandiose monologue brewing. "What do you think I am, above all else?" the villain asked.

"A coward," Atlas spat.

"I'm an actor, Atlas," said Vortex. "I play a role, a role that pleases me. You, the paragon of righteousness; me, the dastardly rogue.

"Every day a hundred and fifty thousand people die on this planet," he said. "A thousand murders a day. An uncountable number of injustices, large and small.

"But here, Atlas, in this microcosm we have created, we can play at justice," he said. "In our tiny bubble the hero beats the villain, good triumphs over evil. A lie, obscene in its simplification, but beautiful in its naivety. A lie I was reluctant to rupture."

"So this is all some kind of game to you?" said Atlas.

"Of course," Vortex replied, "Isn't it to you? You're a billionaire, Atlas. You could save half the planet with your money. But instead, you play the role. You enjoy it: the sensation, of being *right*, and *powerful*, and *adored*.

"I knew it couldn't last forever, of course," he said, "but that makes it no less heartbreaking when it ends."

He sighed. "Why couldn't you have stuck to the role, Atlas?" he said. "Why couldn't you have been perfect?"

Atlas stared at him. "I have no idea what you're talking about, you crazy-"

"I know what you've done, Atlas." There was steel in the villain's voice now. "I took the boy as part of the game. In time, you would have rescued him. But from the moment he spoke I knew your every sin.

"You'd do anything for that power, wouldn't you? For that adoration," he said. "So you broke that boy. You ground him down to nothing, so that you could be his savior. He would do anything for you." Rage glimmered in his eye. "And you made him do so many things."

Atlas roared. Fire tore loose from his fingers and raced at Vortex. At his lying mouth. It caught him full in the face, engulfing his entire head in white hot flame.

He moved not an inch. "Oh no, Atlas," he said, speaking even as his lips began to burn. "We're done playing that game."

Atlas watched in horror as Vortex's hair was fried off his head, as his eyes melted in their sockets, running down his charring cheeks. And all the while, he continued to speak.

"You burst the bubble, Atlas," he said. "You made it real. We're back in the world of injustice now, where good and evil are lies told by men to pretend the universe gives a damn about them." There was no face left now, just a skull scorched black.

"What are you?" Atlas managed to stammer out.

"I told you before," it said. "I'm an actor. Play the villain. Play the human. Play the mortal."

Atlas tried to run, to fight, to scream or beg, but he found himself frozen.

"I'll take care of the boy," the skull said. "Not myself, of course. People who spend too much time around me tend to suffer unfortunate fates. But there will be a future for him. And who knows? Maybe in time, there will be another superhero for me to play with.

"But not you," it said. "You ruined my vacation."

It leaned in, the jawbone cracking as the mouth opened impossibly wide. In the darkness within, Atlas could see stars.