The rest looked at me with fear after that, but I was a few steps too far from caring.The archer tried to speak again, barely making an audible voice, "I'm s- sorry."

I eased up the pressure on her by a bit, letting her breath more easily, however if everything today could be solved with "sorry" and apologies, I wouldn't be this mad.

My store could be rebuilt, it was barely of any consequence. My people though? My employees and friends? The trauma from today? That wasn't fixable by an apology and a monetary reward.

"If I see you five working as "Heroes" again, I swear to the tiny thread that's holding me back right now, I will kill you."

I eased up the pressure on all of them but one. At that point, there was only one face in front of me as I lifted the red haired man into the air, ruble falling from his struggling body.

"As for you?" I said, not even remembering the man's name, only focusing on the same hateful look that their leader had previously given me, "You won't get a second chance."

And then the man stopped moving. Just like that, without a hand gesture, without any torture, without a warning, the man was dead.

I could see the brown haired barrier mage wet his pants and frowned at that.

I let the pressure around them fade completely, however I was still vigilant and if they decided to test me, I would show them just how fast a life could disappear a second time. Though looking at their terror stricken faces, that was unlikely.

I moved towards the ambulance, where my friend lay unconscious and barely breathing. To this point the police were holding their gaping mouths and quite honestly it was surprising how they hadn't already run from the scene.

The doctor beside him, who seemed to have a healing type of superpower and likely the only reason my friend was still alive, was the only one not perturbed. Technie, or as his real name would soon be known, Nick Evoland, looked at the doctor with gratitude.

I turned my head towards my best friend and hesitated as I uttered what would probably be the last time I spoke to him, "I'm sorry Greg, old friend. Recover well and don't worry about me. You have a child and a family, so don't you die on me. I-" I stopped. I didn't know what else to say.

Guilt and sadness filled my voice and if it weren't for the mask, the public would have seen me cry, though it wasn't lost to the doctor that tears dripped down the mask.I very much wanted to see how the others were doing, but it was unlikely they would let me have the chance.

With a sorrowful sigh, I disappeared from everyone's sight, much to everyone's relief and to the oncoming A-grade Heroes annoyance.

While I was strong, I didn't want to test myself against an entire team of A-grade Heroes, nor did I see the need to. What started off as a joke, what started off as a good day ended up like this.

What a messed up joke this was...

But while what'd happened today was fucked up, I'd come to love messing with the heroes and testing myself and my knowledge against them. Perhaps not with Technie, but I knew what my focus would be for the near future. Technie deserved a well fought for rest.

As I reappeared outside the city, looking back at the empty dark sky, I wondered how best to fill it with light. Problem number one, light pollution, and I knew how I would start my carrier with the next supervillain.

(2/2)

My power is telekinesis, but they've never seen me use that power, instead, "We've defeated your measly robots Technie! It's time for you to surrender and put and end to your evil deeds!" Honestly, it was a fun hobby, but cause an explosion one too many times and all of a sudden you're a supervillain.

It didn't help that I was criminally bored at the time, "You brainless fools! You think these robots were all I had? You were WRONG!" I said, calling forth my new invention. It stood at three meters tall and packed quite a punch. It resembled a gorilla both in form and strength. For this bad puppy I had to call in a few favors. Turns out when you play supervillain for fun, you can also meet actual supervillains.

"Now go!" I ordered my and [Redacted]'s creation. It jumped forward at an incredible pace and for a moment I feared it would be too much for these C-grade heroes, but they managed to surprise me by first taking the robots vision and then its mobility. Thankfully my mask hid my worry and I didn't let my posture waver.

It was a tricky thing to do as there were numerous small hidden cameras, but the black tar they threw at it seemed to cover its entire body and stick.

Their empowered arrows were too weak to bypass its defense, let alone their measly punches and flamethrower attacks, but they were quick to change tactics when nothing of that worked.

After throwing more of that tar, they carefully evaded its punches and attacked its joints. I have to say, they'd improved over the course of these last few years.

While they were busy doing all of that, I sneakily made my escape. Yet another loss for Technie... I wonder what I should have for breakfast.

The day passed quickly as I drank my coffee and watched the news. Today was of course, all about Technie. It was at times like these I had to wonder how many heroes and supervillains were faking it. It was a good reality show though, and I enjoyed messing with the heroes.

I still had to head to my civilian business, but on the meanwhile I would think of new quirky things to add to my dialogue. I should also try to break less roads during my fights, this traffic was horrendous.

Finally when I was right outside my store, I noticed the numerous police cars and sirens that'd surrounded the place. A bad feeling started to well up on my stomach as I had yet to see my dear employees.

I approached with all the self restraint I could master, nudging a cop that very obviously wasn't paying attention, "What happened here?" I asked and he jumped, turning around to see who was speaking.

"Get out of here civilian, there is an ongoing hero investigation here about a supervillain called Technie. I predict things won't be as peaceful as they were in the morning." The man said, trying to shoo me out of the scene.

The bad feeling only increased at his words, I batted away his hands, holding my poker face as best as I could, though he was starting to grow suspicious, so perhaps I wasn't doing as good of a job as I could.

The officer looked me over once more, seeing the figure of a worried man and with a sigh started to answer, "If this is indeed one of the Technie's hideouts, he won't be happy. The heroes entered with a band, not knowing what to expect and a lot of the civilians working inside were injured. I heard one of them was even in a critical condition. Yo-" I cut him off there, any remaining self-restrain I had vanishing in seconds.

The officer didn't even notice when he went unconscious, but it was doubtful he would forget the visage of a man filled with enough anger to burn down a city.

Still, the man hadn't done anything wrong, so I loathed to hurt him more.

As I walked back towards my car, taking out a spare suit I'd only put there as a joke, my mind started to wonder. There was no way the heroes were this stupid, there had to have been customers going in and out. Let alone that, the outside was build from glass, it was reinforced glass, but nowadays it would be rarer to find ones that had normal glass. They had to have seen my employees.

Yet... they still decided to head in with force. They still decided to hurt civilians. My people, my employees.

The law was clear, in a fight between supers, those that'd caused the most harm were called villains. In comparison to what they'd done today, I'd done nothing. They were villains. They were villains, and so was I.

I cracked my neck, wearing the suit without even moving. It was a costly trick to design, though made easier with my telekinesis, but my mind wasn't on that now.

Perhaps I'd been too kind. Perhaps I should take myself seriously for once.

I threw one of the police vehicles that was blocking my way and the police finally started to take notice of me. They noticed my mask and yelled at me to back off, but I didn't reply, I only kept moving towards my store. When the first officer shot at me, I caught the bullet, surprising them all. If they wanted to see a serious Technie, they now would.

I ignored the officer that shot me and passed by him, not sparing him a glance. The man collapsed into his own two feet after I'd passed by, breathing heavily. They could see I was serious when I hadn't made a single comment and shook their heads. This wasn't a fight they could interfere in.

Instead, they opened the radio to inform the others and perhaps even the heroes, but how would I have left a piece of technology intact when I was changing into my suit. There were numerous cameras and the best way to avoid getting my real identity caught was to fry them all. While I wasn't the tech supervillain they all believed me to be, I still had a lot of toys in store to make them think I was.

When I reached the smoldering remains of my store, a vision of happy, hard working employees superimposed itself in front of the destruction. And then, the charred remains and melted glass... my face grew colder and colder beneath the mask, and when I saw the ambulance at the edge of my vision, recognizing Greg, everything turned red.

The pavement cracked beneath me and reality started to undulate. It seems like the heroes had finally heard of who'd appeared and made their entrance. But this time they didn't encounter the quirky and sarcastic man that normally greeted them with a bang, or a trap. No, the Technie they encountered was silent and nothing had attacked them on the way, despite their expectations. And despite what they saw, the man in front of them was an order of magnitude scarier than Technie.

A bit unnerved at his quiet figure, the archer Melinda spoke first, "If this is about your store we're sorry, my friends and I were too excited to finally have a lead at your homebase and-"

Her leader, Tart, stopped her at that point, putting his hand up to shush her, "Why do you care about the base of a supervillain. We either kill or capture him and we're done with this menace to society."

None of the heroes noticed, but the fluctuating space that'd started to calmed down tensed a bit more as the man finished speaking. More cracks appeared at the asphalt but they didn't notice that either.

Not trusting myself to speak much, I only uttered two words, "I see..." My cold tone threw off even their leader, who by now had a glowing sword up and ready to fight with.

Slowly, I started to walk towards them, taking in every little detail as they didn't know how to react to a Technie with no robots. From how they tensed up, to the smirk on their leader vanishing, I saw and accounted for every little detail.

But it wasn't needed. With my next step, they all fell to the ground, the pressure around them intensifying to a point where even the barrier one of them threw around them didn't last for more than a second.

The fire that poured out of the red hair's hands was consequently extinguished moments after its appearance. Still, I didn't want to kill them, so I eased up on the pressure a bit, but not enough where they could move.

From their point of view it should feel like a hundred elephants were pressing down on them. And they should be thankful I hadn't turned their bones into paste already, though looking at the hateful look Tart gave me, that wasn't going to last long.

"Don't bother Tart, you five have a few things to apologize for." I said, breaking Tart's bones the very same second. First his fingers, one by one, then his entire arm and then about every limb in his body.

His screams were more of an annoyance than anything pleasing, and I shut his mouth to make him shut up. The moaning was still very annoying, so at the end, I knocked him unconscious.

(1/2)

Nah, it was a great fun to read. Check out my version if you want.

I was cleaning my grandpa's attic as he'd asked me to only a few days before passing. He'd promised me a secret and a gift at the end of it and asked me to pay close attention to what I would be touching. The secret wasn't important, but I'd a lot of cherished memories here. As I dusted off an old binder, I felt grooves in the cover and back of the book. There was an intricate pattern carved into it that I couldn't see well.

The poor lighting didn't help, but I opened the binder to sate my curiosity. Opening it I found a boatload of cards with various of descriptions and names on them. Taking one out to inspect closer, the name read 'Lesser Explosion'. The description was blank, though I could swear there was stuff written in it only a few seconds ago.

Thinking it was something like a magic trick card, I turned it round and around checking for what the trick was. Not only was I unable to find the trick, I also fumbled putting it back where I found it from and dropped it accidentally. A loud pop was heard with a spark of light, startling the life out of me. Picking back up the card, I noticed it was warm to the touch and although there were scorch marks around where the card had fallen, the card itself was fine.

Putting it back with far more care, I took out another card. I'd examined the previous card to hell and back before it fell and there was no gunpowder or anything that would cause it to go off like a firecracker. This time the card read 'Water Blade' and I let the card fall.

The card touched the ground and... nothing. Thinking I was silly, I picked up the card and turned it around to see the backside. That small gesture seemed to be enough as an activation trigger and a blade of water shot out the length of a small table. The blade cut through the wood like it was paper, and I seriously worried about the structural integrity of the attic for a second before my mind turned back to the card.

Seeing how the ceiling wasn't about to fall on me I let out a small breath I didn't know I was holding. Turning my head back to look at the binder filled to the brim with similar cards, this time my hands were trembling as I put the card back to where I found it.

My hands were trembling out of fear, but the silly grin on my face betrayed the excitement I felt from my discovery.

Was this what my grandpa wanted to show me? Where had he found these cards? And how did they even work?! Logic dictated that there was no room for a mechanism to shoot out water in the shape of a blade with enough power to cut through wood and possibly metal in a small card the size of my palm.

But seeing is believing and to be honest, seeing what I couldn't help but call magic, I didn't hesitate much to believe it was magic.

I run out of the attic, binder in hand, almost stumbling in the steps leading downstairs. The cold autumn air cooled my head a bit and helped me focus. The house was in a rural area and there was no one around me for a dozen miles at least. With better lighting and no danger of accidentally collapsing the roof of the house on my head, I sat on a small stool, letting my feet rest on the grass and opened the binder.

'Fireball' check.

'Summon Eldritch Being' check.

'Air Burst' check.

'Healing Touch' check.

'Dragon's Breath' check.

'Light Annihilation' check.

My eyes turned back to the eldritch being card, but I wasn't sure if that would kill me or not, so I went with a classic. Making sure I wasn't facing the card anywhere people lived in case it would summon an actual Dragon's Breath, I took out the hard and swiped it in the direction I wanted it to activate much like I'd done with 'Water Blade'.

The illusionary form of a dragon appeared in front of me, the size of its head almost twice my height, as it readied to breath death to anything in front of it and I realized that perhaps while not summoning the eldritch being was a smart choice, going for the dragon one wasn't.

Awe and devastation were the only words that came to mind that would describe what I was feeling right now. In front of me the ground was scorched and where the fire had actually touched the ground, lava. This continued for almost a kilometer in length and the only reason there was no more fire burning was because there was nothing else to burn.

In a dazed sort of way, I took out the other card I'd prepared in case a fire broke out and reading its name again, I decided to switch it out for a lesser version. 'Water Tsunami' didn't seem like a bright idea if I wanted to keep this under wraps any more.

The grass that was cool to the touch only a few minutes ago was nowhere to be seen, as were the rocks and some trees that had been in the way. 'Water Downpour' helped make sure there wasn't going to be a forest fire, but this was already getting a bit too much for me to handle... not.

Grandpa, you chose the wrong person to share this secret with.