A Tale of Two Masks

Two years went by with the slow torturous grind of the every day. It wasn’t because he wasn’t busy. Ashton’s days were scheduled out from start to finish. Classes, internship, villain training, and villain work took every spare second of his time. He felt bad, but he had been taking it out a little on the silly hero assigned to him, Golden Reign.

That didn’t change his immediate foreboding when he spotted a message from his keeper. “Heard your time was almost up, so let’s make your last appearance end with a bang! Time to prove the existence of relics. The lab created a new toy just for you.”

Relics. It was the major theory many had about why villains constantly appeared in the graveyard of the first villains, the Old Town. No one was sure what they were or what they could do, only that the villains wanted them. Of course, the truth was that SI owned the abandoned land and used it as their stage.

There was no way this was going to end well. Unfortunately had no choice but to comply with whatever crazy plan they had. At least this would be the last one. He looked over the details in the attached document with the terrible title ‘Phoenix’s Last Flame’. The people in charge of writing his mission plans always had a flair for the dramatic. Or overdramatic.

Luckily, the plan was fairly straightforward. He needed to record a low quality video of breaking into a warehouse, and fake a phone call with an old burner phone. The next night, coincidentally the very last night of his internship, he would have his final battle with Golden Reign. Unfortunately, this meant he would have to put on that ridiculous outfit two nights in a row.

His costume was bulky, and hindered his movement. The useless decorations made noise when he moved, and the mask’s eye holes never lined up with his eyes quite right. Why was this? To make it easier for him to appear clumsy despite the rigorous training they put him through.

Ashton begrudgingly put away the project he had been working on and stood from his desk. As usual, no one questioned him. By now, everyone knew the higher ups ‘favored’ him with special tasks. As annoying as it was to be the subject of pity, it was better than the alternative of them knowing the truth.

And so, he got to work. The video was a quick, one take affair. Apparently his fed up expression was exactly what the mission writers had been looking for. Then they had to prep the warehouse for the big show, and he spent the rest of the day practicing in his newly staged environment.

He had to stop when the sun’s rays left their beams all around the warehouse. After two years of pretending to be hurt by light, he always jerked away from it out of habit now. It was a habit he had every intention to break now that he wouldn’t be needing it anymore.

The next day he arrived at the warehouse extremely early. He had noticed that Golden Reign had a terrible habit of showing up before time, and he had the annoying task of beating her to every scene. Luckily, this time there was an upper floor in the warehouse with an office he could wait in.

Just as he had expected, Golden Reign arrived long before time. He waited for the camera crew to finish setting up, and even let her light up the place before he announced his presence.

“Finished settling in?” Ashton called from the rafters. He made sure the rope was firmly attached before swinging down. Golden Reign jumped back as he landed right where she had stood moments before.

Her look of surprise turned into a glare as he released his grip on the rope. “Phoenix,” she scoffed, “You are more like a bat.”

This again? Who cared if he was a bat or a phoenix? Both were ridiculous. Since he couldn’t say that, he played his character instead. “Bat, phoenix, it doesn’t matter,” he told her with a shrug, “You are too late.”

Right on cue she stared him down, eyes frantically searching for anything that could be a relic. There was no way she could miss it. The bright orange and red key printed with flame designs clashed with his usual black and purple costume. That was without mentioning the fact that the keychain it was attached to was terribly out of place.

“You were looking for a key?” she asked.

Way to state the obvious. Still, it’s not like she had any real training so he couldn’t be too hard on her. “You mean this thing? Neat, isn’t it? Aren’t you curious about what this key might open? But you won’t be able to use it. You don’t have a flame based power.”

After he recited the lines of the script he was given, she made her move. There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation as she dove for the key, and Ashton stepped back out of reflex. It should be fine. He was supposed to lose, but he had to be careful not to be too obvious.

Golden Reign glowered, annoyed by his quick steps. “Try avoiding me now!” she shouted, summoning a cage of light to trap his movement.

Ashton stepped back and instantly regretted it as he saw light hit his shoulder from the corner of his eye. He sucked in a frustrated breath and fell to his knees. What was he even supposed to do in this situation? Ever since she invented this light cage, his hands had been tied.

“Stupid egotistical hero,” he spat.

“Don’t you know, villain?” she asked in an obnoxiously sweet tone, “Heroes always win.”

Oh yes, the mantra that SI worked tirelessly to maintain. Heroes always win. Villains always lose. His job here was to reinforce that brainwashing. But he also had another mission.

“Make sure the key is destroyed. We can’t have anyone snooping to find out what it opens. It should explode as long as it is thrown against a hard surface.”

Ashton recalled the instructions as Golden Reign happily took the key from his belt, not knowing what she held was essentially a bomb. Now was as good a chance as any. He reached out and grabbed her ankle, knocking her down. The key skittered across the floor, farther than he had expected. It hit an iron beam on the far side of the warehouse. That should be far enough.

“Oh no,” he said, sarcasm dripping from his tone, “Whatever will our hero do.” All he had to do now was act like he knew nothing. He just needed to pretend there wasn’t a bomb ready to blow right across the room. He could only hope they had kept a small damage radius in their considerations.

The fire printed key began to glow like real fire, and Golden Reign seemed to notice too. Her actions, though, took him by surprise. “Watch out!” she shouted, as she released the cage and shoved him behind the nearest pillar.

Just in time, too. The key burst into flame, causing an explosive wave. A wave of heat washed over them for a moment, and Ashton peeked at the damage only to see that a crate had caught fire. A few swear words slipped out. This was not the plan.

“Forget this nonsense,” he said, pushing the startled Summer away from him with a bit more strength than he intended, “I’m done. I quit. The stupid fire relic was a trap. See ya never, Goldy.”

He raced to the exit, hoping she had the brains to follow before the rest of the warehouse caught fire. What were those idiots thinking!? Their job was to protect the heroes and make sure they always won, not endanger them with bombs disguised as keys! What even was that thing?

Ashton quickly ducked into a narrow alleyway between two buildings just in time. He heard her stumble out of the building with enough noise to wake the whole neighborhood, if there had been one.

“Where did he go?!” she shouted.

He waited, slowly sliding further into hiding as her footsteps departed. It was over. Finally over. All he had to do now was file his report, and he was definitely going to make sure that whatever had just happened was labeled as too dangerous for use. He did feel a little bad for Golden Reign. Without a villain ‘weak’ to her light powers she would be sidelined and forgotten.

It was a shame, but Ashton wasn’t going to ruin his life to fulfill some fake heroic fantasy.