Mr. Canard sat on his couch and replayed the same message in his head. It was a message that had bound him, restrained him, trapped him, not by means of physical force, not with chains, ropes or force fields, but with a bunch of very strange words, a threat and a promise. He sat motionlessly in his apartment on 1024 Grimmins Drive reviewing his own memories and diligently waited for them to show up.

He saw them leave from the elevator, walk across the hallway to his apartment and he did not move still. He waited for them with great patience because his life and his future were now on the line. He waited for them to come just so he could…

The door of his apartment flew open as a metal boot made quick work of his lock, splitting the door frame in twain. Mr. Canard liked his apartment. Maybe he should have just left the door open. A nice thought in hindsight. He expected for them to at least knock. After all, it was only a polite thing to do.

Metal boots clanked towards him. An inflexible face looked upon him, judging his every move. The first guest that entered his apartment was a knight clad in gray that wielded a black gun that pointed straight at his head.

His arms snapped up in the air as colors vanished from the world. Equalizers were not to be messed with.

"I surrender! Don't hurt me, please!" He cried, shaking in fear of the Enforcer.

Two others entered his apartment, after the knight had destroyed his door. A disheveled teenage redhead girl that was wearing pjs and random bits of gold power armor whose name he did not know and a boy. The boy that he had personally infected with his other shard. He knew of these three, felt them distantly all this time, but did not dare to reach out to them or contact them. There was something wrong with the shards in their head, they were somehow twisted, changed.

An aberration.

All three of the kids had the same aberrance in their brains that spooked him to no end. It was as if they were not operating on exactly the same wavelength as him. They felt like distant cousins to him, rather than bits of the same entity.

Mr. Canard felt that he was becoming aberrant himself, he barely felt the desire to replicate now. With each day the little shard was slowly drowning within the memory of the super, integrating with it deeper and deeper. With every passing hour he felt less like an alien that didn’t belong and more like Mr. Canard.

[Don't hurt me! Please! I surrender!] He cried via the song to the odd trio, praying that they would spare his life.

[What.] The Equalizer stopped in front of him, her finger on the trigger of the extremely intimidating gun that was nullifying his power. She looked like she was ready to blow his brains across his nice flowery wallpaper.

[I haven't made any nests! I promise! Feel the truth in my thought-song! I have no intention to make nests! Please just let me live, let me be a teacher! I don’t want to hurt anyone, I swear! I am Joseph Canard!] He shakily sang to them, his hands raised.

[Why should I believe you, you alien monster?! You are to blame for Alexa's imprisonment!] The Equalizer's rage overwhelmed him. She blinded him with some kind of a weaponised memory, showing him nothing but waves of fire and death. He trembled in surrender and fear or her power, bowed to her will, wept in surrender, begged for mercy.

She did not relent, did not waver and just as she was about to let go of the trigger, he showed her and the others the message that had bound him so, the message that he had discovered in the mind of his host only a few days ago. A mind-shattering letter that Mr. Canard had found inside his pocket right after he had brought Alexa to sleep on the couch in his portable office.

. . .

Dear Joseph Canard,

My name is Alexa and I am a supervillain. I know that the superstate has failed you. When I saw a teacher that was a retired hero in my town, I immediately knew that something was deeply wrong. Yes, I could tell that you are a super right away. I’m very attentive to these sorts of things. You don’t move, don’t bend quite like regular people.

Forgive me for digging into your personal life. I feared that you were my enemy, existing at the school as an agent of the Superstate out to get me or my dad. What I had found while digging through the SCA database was something else entirely.

I know that you’ve been fatally injured in a fight and that your power was unable to repair your brain, causing a worsening neurological disorder that was killing you very slowly and painfully. I know that you had already had massive debts with the SCA, damage to properties that they had billed on you due to a failed mission in which the rest of your team had died while fighting a villain and that the SCA doctors were unable to or refused to help you due to your inability to pay off the bills.

I know that you retired in the human world, to wither away over the years as you fully succumbed to the growing neurological damage in your brain. I know that you are a good person and that you wanted to help people out one last time as a teacher for your last decade until you could no longer walk or talk. I am a very observant girl. I knew that you were in great pain. I saw the suffering in your eyes, the twitch in your fingers. I know that you have to take heavy doses of painkillers just to get through the day.

I believe that I have a cure for you. Don’t be alarmed, but it’s an extremely questionable and experimental procedure that involves alien symbiotic/parasitic life that I discovered in world 2424. Life that currently resides in my new, black backpack. You undoubtedly saw it move within my backpack with your x-ray vision. It’s a spider. A spider-shaped alien life-form that is able to cure your condition by repairing the decay in your brain. Be aware that the spider will take over your mind for a few days as it repairs the damage, but over time it will become part of you, synchronize with your thoughts, memories and dreams and you will be made whole again. You will be able to continue teaching or return to your life as a super.

As I am a villain, be aware I am not doing this out of goodwill, but rather because I need a favour from you in the near future. Not to do great evil, but to change the world for the better - to help more people like you whom the superstate has failed.

After Martin and I are asleep, come back into your office and:

(A) Swallow the health-restoring-spider if you agree OR (B) Crush it with your super strength and burn the remnants if you don’t want to go through with it.

The choice is entirely up to you.

Don’t worry about us, the spider can’t get out of the backpack on its own as I’ve secured the compartment with a zip tie. You’ll be able to rip it open with your super strength though! Good luck and godspeed!

~Cheers,

Alexa Cassiopea Terror Nova

P.S. I’m working on the name, okay? Don’t judge me. The part below is for the spider that’s going to be controlling you for a couple of days.

Hi, Handspiderbrain! Manspiderhand? Brainspiderhand?

Sorry, I don’t know what you’re calling yourself. Mr. SpiderCanard?

Anyways, I’m sure that you’ve finally reached this memory upon having fully integrated with your host. Hi!

Yes. It was my fault you’re now a human bean. Exciting, isn’t it? All of these new feelings, people, trees, buildings and that scary ass giant ring in the sky. The heroes in the ring know of you. They’ve seen, examined your erratic, questionable behaviour. They aren’t stupid. They will come for you. The Five mightiest supers in the world led by Nonpareil. They will not strike you down, will not vaporise you as long as you do exactly what I tell you.

They will ask about me. Don’t be afraid. Tell them exactly this - Alexa Terranova is a villain called Cassiopeia. Tell them that Cassiopeia is planning to attack the Superstate with a giant superweapon from the future. They will know exactly when I will appear with my superweapon and they will take you with them as a witness. Tell them that I am in charge. Tell them to arrest me. Pin as many crimes on me as you possibly can. Make shit up if you want! Make me sound scary, rawr! Tell them that I’m a delinquent.

After they arrest me, they will thank you for a job well done and let you go. You will be rewarded, your debts with the SCA will be cleared and you will be a free man. Please don’t make any nests and be a good boy, k? Titanomachy is watching. Go out there and be the bestest human you can be.

Before you do all of that though - Please wait in your apartment during this weekend for my minions to show up and check on you. I believe you have my backpack full of diamonds too. Give it back to them. The bit written below this is for them. You’ll know them when you see them, because they also have brainspiders in them. Keep it down low and don’t transmit any of this info to them before they come into your place or the Superstate will totally know and will take the unlicensed spider-symbiote-brain out of your human head and you’ll be 100% dead.

Cheers,

Your favouritest human girl in the universe.

P.P.S

Hi guys! This is some weird letter inception shit. I love you guys. You’re the best. Be strong for me, okkii? Don’t worry about me, by the time you read this letter I will probably be done with my sky vacation. Or not. I dunno. Either way I’m sure it’s gonna be lots of fun. I get to visit Titanomachy and hang out with my favourite superhero Resonance for a few years in reeducation camp! Oh, such excellent fun we will have! Me and her will undoubtedly launch some fireworks and sit by a campfire exchanging fun stories after dark for a thousand years or ten. Digital pals for one thousand lifetimes! Yay!

XOXO

Your breathtaking supervillain baws,

P.P.P.S.

Cottie, tell Martin to close his mouth, cus a tsetse fly is going to get in there and lay eggs. Not that it would be a problem for someone with brain spiders. jk. Too bad I can’t see your reaction right now. Mwa ha ha ha. Wow, laughing in a letter is weird. Did you think of a funny nickname for me yet? I hope so. You better give it to me when you see me and it better be good. Put your brains together or something. Get it? Cus you have more than one. K, thanks, bye.

. . .

Martin snapped his jaw shut, noticing that it was open from the shock. [What the fuck!? How in the hell did she do that?!]

He looked at Cottie and Ember who were just as befuddled as he was.

Ember blinked, looking back at Martin and Mr. Canard. Just when the ex-hero thought that Alexa had finally gotten her comeuppance by having pushed too hard against enemies that were far too great for her to handle, the girl villain had somehow managed to bamboozle Ember even further. It was insane! Mad! She planned, wanted to be arrested, wanted to go to Titanomachy to be integrated into the Tartarus simulation! Nobody wanted to go to prison on purpose. Who in their right mind would do such a thing and why?!

Contrary to Alexa’s promises of campfires and fireworks, the digital copy of Resonance was not going to have a fun time, Ember concluded. Alexa was clearly a force to be reckoned with, either an insanely good precog herself, or an insanely good planner or some other kind of super bullshit that she was too tired to deal with.

Ember looked beyond ridiculous, now wearing some of her hero’s power armor atop her pjs. Cottie had forced her to get it and put on the bits that still fit. Of all the embarrassing things Ember had thought about, this is what Martin and Cottie had decided to make her do. Ember was feeling very self-conscious about wearing it as a non hero and how silly it looked atop her pjs. The Equalizer was very determined to kill the infected Mr. Canard and saying no to her wasn’t an option.

Cottie felt stunned and bamboozled. She had already emailed a video declaration to SNN that she was a free Equalizer and would murder a hero upon every hour starting with Mr. Canard if her demands to free Alexa were not met.

[Well, shit.] The Equalizer paladin lowered her railgun, clipped Eva back to her belt and sat on the couch next to Mr. Canard. [Do you have any food? I’m starving. Fridge? Okay. Martin, go microwave me a pizza from the fridge.]

Martin was still too stunned to move.

[What?] Cottie thought. [Don’t look at me like that Martin, I know you’ve been in this apartment before. You know where the kitchen is. I think it’s time for me to eat and also to take a nap.]

She looked at Mr. Canard. [Sorry about your door, Joseph. I’ll help you fix it when I’m less emotionally and physically drained.]

Cottie yawned and settled deeper into the couch, feeling relaxed for the first time in twenty four hours.