My Ultimate Showdown With the Big Bad

The righteous would always find their path towards victory; that much was truer than I expected. That villain thought she could exterminate me and get away scot-free, without fathoming what she was up against. My agents had already found her hiding place—Wisdom was true to his name, getting the needed information effortlessly. As for what method he used, I had no time to ask in detail, because the first order of business was to storm the complex before the slimy criminal could escape again.

She resided in the penthouse of an office building, above her money-laundering schemes, overlooking the entire city and living at the mercy of the night. I could imagine her sinisterly grinning out of her top-floor windows, oozing with hubris, while the masses remained ignorant of the truth before them, or maybe they were blind by choice, accomplices to the suffering.

When my people cut off her electric supply, Nadia tensed up at the disappearance of lights and ventilation, as if she had just witnessed her room lose its soul. Still, she retained the composure to set down her glass of red wine, before fumbling through the dark to search for a way back to the warmth of manmade radiance. She didn’t have to embark on this journey completely blind, as the glimmer leaking through the giant floor-to-ceiling windows provided just enough for her to know where to go.

After traversing a quiet corridor lined with the highest-quality marble, she scanned her keycard at the reader, which would have normally let her through the front door to the elevator lobby. A beep responded, but it was one that declared her access denied, and the blinking light from the device remained red.

Perhaps thinking it a fluke, she tried again. It was futile, which she must have known by the third try. But she kept going, because there wasn’t anything better for her to do. She had struggled before the closed door for long enough, and so there was no point for me to wait any longer. I lit the flashlight in my hand and stepped out of the room behind her, from where I had been watching her. “Hello, Nadia.”

With her eyes wide but her movements kept as stable and controlled, Nadia swirled to face me. It took one second for her to complete the spin, and less than that to draw her pistol. I stared straight into the barrel. What she had in hand was no different from a toy. A sudden noise caused her to tremble, and so her fingers curled slightly in a twitch, skirting the edge of a misfire. The possibility seemed scarier to her than to me.

“You should be dead! Why are you alive?” Her scathing words sounded more like a plea, a petition to leave her alone disguised as a question. At this point, I had an ear for this kind of speech, because my whole life had been training after training in social conventions and etiquette. February made sure to drill that knowledge into me.

I hate it.

“Because I’m the chosen one. Why else?” I smirked.

The air settled around us, and silence graced the space with its presence once more. Judging from her strained eyes, I gathered that perhaps she was processing my words. What a shock it must have been to hear that she had been standing face to face with humanity’s savior. Her lack of movement might even be due to fear. Fear of my judgment.

Still, I would like a bit more of a reaction.

That was why I took a step forward. “We can resolve this peacefully,” I said from the bottom of my sincere heart. She could surrender and come with us. We would hand her over to the local police and make sure that justice would be served. Then no one would have to die.

But evil had other plans. With a bang that could pierce eardrums, a bullet tore through the peaceful scene and whistled toward me. More of that same sound boomed in the air, but I could barely feel the projectiles striking my skin—only from the clattering of bullets did I know the shots had hit their intended target, though none of them dealt the intended damage.

The mob boss widened her eyes as if they were wedged open, and she glanced at the cluster of lead gathering at my feet. In the gap of relative quiet left by the firing, even as my ears were still haunted by a phantom ringing, I could unmistakably hear her breathing warp and tumble into an erratic rhythm. She must have realized that crime never pays. That her path would only end in death.

“Who… What are you?” She suddenly switched from English to Slavish. Kind of weird to do this mid-conversation, but I wouldn’t judge. I was fluent in both anyway, thanks to February getting me a private instructor for each of the major languages. This, I was thankful for.

“I’m the chosen one,” I answered in Slavish.

Maybe Nadia didn’t hear me, because without a word, she lurched to the metallic door handle with a desperation that was almost laughable. Almost. But ultimately, I could understand it. She must have felt it, after all.

The end of her reign.

Inevitability couldn’t be escaped so easily. My people hacked into her home system, after all. The locked door wouldn’t budge just because she wanted to. She wasn’t special. She wasn’t chosen. She was a mere criminal who thought of herself as the queen of the streets.

The futility of her efforts must have gotten through to her, since she stopped the pointless struggle. She looked straight at me, glint in her eyes. Panic or rebellion? I didn’t care which it was, because the outcome would be the same.

“What do you want? The products? I can give you your products back with your money.” She tried so hard to sound confident, but it merely got a chuckle out of me.

“We raided your storehouses already. You have nothing to offer me.”

Nadia lowered her eyes and took a deep breath, playing with the straps of her dark dress. “That’s not true. There is always something to offer.”

Before I could scoff at the utter absurdity, a figure dashed in front of me with open arms, facing the mobster as if protecting me. “You… you harlot! Are you trying to seduce Leon? Leon… Leon’s heart is already reserved for someone else! Shame, shame, shame on you!”

I had no good guess as to who Faith was referring to with the statement, but I would assume that she had her mind set on our mission so much that she personified the vague and abstract.

Her devotion was exactly what I wished for in the Leonians, so I affirmed her resolve by patting her on the shoulder. A bright pink overran her cheeks for whatever reason, and she turned her longing gaze to me. Clearly, this praise was long overdue. I noted to myself to be a better, more honest leader.

The villain didn’t share my enthusiasm. She rolled her eyes and ignored Faith. A fire reignited in her eyes, and that must have infected me too, as an inexplicable heat also surged within me at the sight of her renewed spirit.

Brushing dust off her dress, she stood up, and cleared her throat. “You must think that I’m a slimy cheat. Denying you what you’ve paid for. Ordering my subordinates to kill you while I hide in secret tunnels like a coward. But I’m neither a cheat nor a coward. I’m more like a general, you see. And it is all for this country. We have to eliminate anyone who tries to amass weapons. Part of a deal we made with our great government.”

She even considered us enough for her to spout her ramblings in English, but… Huh? What was she talking about? Governments and mafias, the two of them were like the sun and the moon, as distant from each other as possible. Order and chaos. An eternal struggle with no definite winner. Unthinkable, it was simply unthinkable that they would mix. There was only one thing I could do in response to this.

I asked for clarification. The exact wording that I’d used eluded me, and it was getting increasingly obvious that an unknown blanket had shrouded my thoughts. I only heard her answer. “Because it is necessary. This system benefits all of us. And this is how we keep society stable and peaceful.”

Did Nadia actually say this? Or merely something similar, while my mind filled in the blanks with a mantra of what I had remembered far too well. Her sentiment, her smug, indignant grin, even her patronizing pose resonated with my memories, forcing me to recall childhood memories of those lessons that stripped away my humanity.

“It’s necessary,” February would always explain. “I promised your parents to raise you as my own, in the event that anything befell them. You can’t survive in the brutal system otherwise. You can’t say anything that comes to your mind. Do you really think society can remain stable and peaceful if we all just let parts of the truth spill out all the time? Humans can never truly understand each other, and lies are always preferred over half-truths.”

I didn’t believe that those statements came from a single lecture. My mind must have blended all of them together, so I had lost track of the truth. Left forgotten, I couldn’t isolate a single scene and insert the scattered speech into coherent conversations. Just bits and pieces. Bits and pieces of the truth.

The actual content of her verbal defense aside, the rage that it stirred up within me was undoubtedly real. “This isn’t how it is supposed to be.”

“What did you say?”

Oh wait. It turned out my head had drooped unconsciously. So, I lifted it to face my adversary again, and this time, I spoke in English. “This isn’t how it is supposed to be.”

“What isn’t?”

“You’re a mobster. You’re supposed to rebel against the government. Against society.”

“That isn’t how the world works.”

“No.” I shook my head to get all traces of her filthy statement out of my head. “You shouldn’t give up.”

Nadia chuckled, actually chuckled, even though there was nothing funny about what I’d said. “Easy for you to say. Not everyone is bulletproof. Some of us actually have to struggle.”

“Then struggle. Fight. You think that I can just flap around and do nothing just because I’m immortal? You think that the world will give up its evil ways just because I ask nicely? No, that’s why I’m doing this. It’s not easy to clear society of its filth. It’s not easy to bring the two-faced elites to their knees. But I’m going to do it anyway. I’ll rebel against this distorted society.”

As I was declaring my noble resolve, a laugh rose, growing from the deep abyss of Nadia’s lungs. She doubled over, terror evaporating from her creased face. Why? Maybe she had been driven mad by my impressive grit. I couldn’t know, because our moment was interrupted by Wisdom speaking through my earpiece.

“Mr. Leon, the local police popped out of nowhere, and they are surrounding the building.”

Faith stared at me, having heard the same information. Just before I could issue a command, Nadia lunged into action and dashed past us, tearing the skirt of her dress so she could move faster. Faith reacted a second later and gave chase. I took another second longer than her to respond.

I pushed through the dead air to navigate the dark environment, sprinting straight through a few spacious rooms right behind Faith. Nadia slammed the in-between doors shut to slow us down, but none of them had locks, so we didn’t lose much time. The chase was cut short as I found Faith standing at the doorway of a bedroom as if she had no permission to enter it. Puzzling at first, it all became clear when I arrived next to her and got a glimpse of the interior. The space reminded me of February’s room at our mansion. Clean and organized as if it were a display at a furniture store. Never mind that, because the issue was that we’d lost sight of Nadia.

“Where is she?” I asked.

Faith pursed her lips. “I don’t know. I’m so sorry.”

I reached out to feel the edge of the nearest mahogany closet. “She must have a secret passage of sorts. Villains always have that.”

Faith nodded and joined me in my search. The few other Leonians stationed on this floor heard the commotion and hurried to our location. Even with seven people searching, it still took a few minutes for us to find a trapdoor, and by then a frown was already nestled on my face. The contraption would open simply by stepping on it, which must have been how she could get in so quickly.

My eyes squinted at the darkness that the open trapdoor revealed, and faintly I could make out a shallow drop to a passage underneath. A hollow echo whispered from the tunnel, warning me that nothing could be found within. Nadia was long gone. I let out a sigh that broke the silence. Pushback against my goal was to be expected. I should have expected it. “Let’s leave. I don’t want to run into the police and risk them finding out about us now. It’s too soon.”

Faith furrowed her brow. “But Nadia could tell them about us.”

Silly girl. Funny how her mind worked. And I smiled. I smiled at how ridiculous her statement was. Before I could speak, distant gunfire echoed from the secret passage. Unexplainable. Maybe it could be the police fighting Nadia. They were nemeses after all. I should have left them to fight each other from the start, focusing instead on my own grand purpose. That said, her last laugh left a sour taste in my mouth. Even though it shouldn’t have.