Villain at Night *Third Book To Hero by Day

Chapter 21 - A stereotypical villain deathtrap

"Okay, anybody on our side hiding any shocking and fantastic abilities they'd like to disclose? I'm open to suggestions."

~ Tony Stark (Iron Man)

:Aden:

I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe for Annalise to be trapped in a glass box, or for her to be slowly bleeding out on the floor, or some other impossible situation where I couldn't save her.

But, I wasn't expecting this.

Annalise was tied up and hanging from the ceiling from her wrists. She was above a pit of dark liquid that was seeping a black shadowy mist, like it was boiling. The mist it let off looked exactly like the shadows that Midnight – Mary – created, which was not the best sign. Annalise was conscious, thankfully, but she didn't look comfortable. Her wrists were red and raw from being tied up by the rope and her shoulders must've been aching with her arms at such a position over her head. I wondered how long she'd been here, and I decided not to think about it.

At the bottom of the pit, two of Mary's shadow monsters lurked. It looked like they were guarding Annalise from me rather than stopping her from escaping. She wasn't in much of a condition to pull a James Bond.

I figured this was The Obstructer's way of getting rid of me. He knew that I'd do anything to save Annalise, even potentially hurting myself in the process. If I tried to get Annalise and accidentally fell in that pit, I'd be done. I didn't doubt that the liquid was anything less than toxic.

I took a step and a black liquid bubble popped, sending dark steam up to Annalise. When some of it reached her foot, she screamed out in pain as it left a red spot. If it really was some of Mary's shadows, then it was creating more pain than something just physical.

A timer suddenly flashed on the wall behind Annalise with ten minutes on the clock. The Obstructer's mechanized voice filled the room. "You've seen what's at risk here, you have ten minutes to save her. Tick Tock."

The timer started to count down and I saw the rope holding Annalise bring her further down to the pit by a few inches. By the time the ten minutes were up, she would be completely submerged in the pit, maybe not dead, but run completely crazy by her thoughts. Olly told me about his time with the shadows, and I didn't wish that on Annalise. She was only getting a small taste of it so far and she looked like she was in a lot of pain.

It tugged at my heart to see her like this, but the sooner I could get rid of the shadow monsters and get her down from being hanged up, the better off she'd be.

I took another step towards her and the monsters growled. Apparently they didn't like me that much.

"Kratos?" Annalise asked, half delirious. It probably didn't help her that the mist kept coming up at her in small doses, inflicting more pain over a small period of time.

I didn't know how anyone, even a super villain, could inflict pain like that on someone who did nothing wrong. I mean – I know The Obstructer thought I was horrible because I accidentally became a super, but Annalise did nothing wrong. She was just connected to me. By association was she now like me? Was that the logic of The Obstructer?

I didn't know what had turned The Obstructer into what they were now, but it was enough to turn them bitter to the world. Bitter enough to believe that supers were the root of all evil and that everything they did was wrong. Bitter enough to hurt others in their own misguided attempt to get justice.

Whoever The Obstructer was, I was not keen with them. No matter their reasoning (because super villains always had such good reasons for being evil), The Obstructer was in the wrong.