Poll prompt #1
From this poll: A citizen kidnapped by a supervillain and brought in a...pretty sweet room actually?
*
This was wrong. This was very, very wrong.
Citizen kept throwing anxious looks around them, their shoulders hunched. They’d expected a cell. They’d expected to be bound and gagged and tortured, just for giggles. Instead, they found themself in a fancy room that would have looked nice in a castle. Furniture carved in precious woods and glittering with golden engravings, velvet curtains that hid the barred windows, a large choice of dishes on a table that would have been enough for a dozen guests, and a canopy bed, there was everything and more.
It was kind of tacky, to be honest. Luxurious, impressive, sure. It wasn’t a room you’d like to spill blood on it (which was good news).
But still, tacky.
Then again, tacky had been their kidnapping, in their opinion. They were just texting in a street corner at the wrong time in the wrong place, and hadn’t noticed the Henchmen until they'd bumped into one of them. It didn’t make any difference anyway. What Supervillain wanted, Supervillain took away. Nowhere was safe.
And then, of course, it had taken a turn for the worse. While Citizen was dragged screaming, something had happened. The same something had happened every time they were stressed, really. The world had shifted. The streets had melted into darkness while thorns had appeared around the villains, daring them to coming further. Vultures came flying and skeleton hands surged from the ground, all of that while a demonic laugh was booming in the air and a smell of rotten flesh polluted the atmosphere.
“Enough!”
Supervillain had yelped this in surprise, then clapped their hands. Just like that, the world had turned back to normal. Henchmen had stopped pressing their heads in pain. Citizen had let out a terrified squeak as their cold hand grabbed their throat, that'd changed into a muffled scream as Supervillain had ripped a lock of their hair.
“You. What are you?”
“Nothing! No one! I didn’t do it on purpose, I swear! It just, it- it manifests.”
They had no better explanation, but needless to say, that hadn’t helped their case.
Well... seeing this gilded cage, perhaps it did.
Maybe it was just to humiliate them, to make them understand they were so weak they didn’t even need restraints. Maybe there was a death trap somewhere. They wanted to search every nook and corner, but the presence of the two Henchmen made that impossible. And these guys were...well, something was just off with them. It might have been something in their face. Or in their posture. Or in all of their persons, really. Not that there was anything wrong with each element in itself, but the men seemed identical. There was not a beauty mark, not a haircut, not a scar to differentiate them. Not even real twins looked as much alike.
Citizen had nothing to do but to wait.
*
Meanwhile, in the main room of the Villain’s lair, no one had a lot of fun either. A group of henchmen, as similar-looking as were the guards in Citizen’s room, were giving worried looks at their boss pacing. They could feel their survival chances lowering by the minute. All glanced at Supervillain’s clenched fist, which was holding DNA results. The machine that had spitted the paper out had confirmed that Citizen and them were close parents.
“It’s impossible. I had a doubt – no one is as powerful as me – but it’s impossible. I have no family left, they were all killed. How can this be?”
The closest Henchmen exchanged an awkward look.
“You see, boss,” warily began the first one, “when two people really love each other, sometimes they hug very hard…”
The end of this sentence was lost for the world, replaced by a strangled scream. The other henchman grimaced, but barely glanced when his colleague screamed, his eyes horrified by the vision that Supervillain had inflicted on them. When the victim’s head exploded, the other politely ignored the splashing of blood on his own clothes, a smile plastered on his face and a sweat drop on his forehead.
“Is someone else going to teach me about the flowers and bees?” calmly asked Supervillain. “Because if there’s a thing I know about it is that I don’t do that. Why do you think I clone all of you? I want to stay away from people as much as possible.”
“Yes, boss,” said one of the henchmen, grimacing a smile and looking away. “ That’s a nice cloning machine you have.”
Whatever was the hidden message here, another Henchman caught up immediately.
“Haha,” he said while staring at his shoes, “Yeah, it’s so nice. And it’s working so well, too.”
Supervillain cocked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything, slowly beginning to put two and two together.
“The cloning machine that Hero had tempered with once?” quickly added Henchman for confirmation, his words coming so fast he was barely intelligible.
“Yeah, that’s right! The cloning machine that Hero had tempered with once with plenty of the boss’s blood and hair on their hands.”
Something broke in Supervillain’s surroundings:
“...Motherfucker.”
*
Citizen jumped when the door of their room opened loudly. Supervillain was there, glaring. The prisoner gulped, quickly swallowing the grapes they had in the mouth.
Oh well, at least they wouldn’t die without a snack.
They stayed frozen as all the eyes in the room stared at them.
“Do I - Can I still ask for a quick death, or did I blow my chances-”
They didn't finish. They knew the answer. Citizen took a deep breath in, trying to welcome death with dignity.
Instead, they burst in tears. The rest of the room fell in a deafening silence. They looked back with as much defiance as they could muster:
"Well? Get on with it!"
Supervillain crossed their arms and rubbed their forehead:
“Get out.”
“I- What?”
Citizen wasn’t the only one to be surprised. All the mouths of all the Henchmen gaped in the exact same way. Supervillain ignored them, focusing only on the prisoner, clearly struggling with themself.
“Get out,” they said in a raspy voice. “And never let me see your face again.”
*
If you want another take on the Gilded Cage trope, I've also done this.
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