They always have secret lairs, Lounatic thought to himself. And now I am very probably being held by a being who has all the power, intelligence, and ambition of Action Pre but who is unburdened by any moral considerations. Well I suppose it might be a good time to evaluate what got me to this point.
Lounatic had graduated with an MBA, but his dreams of business empires had quickly been dashed when he found himself stuck in middle management. Feeling doomed to a lifetime full of meetings, mission statements, and disinterested employees, his ambitions quickly lead him to a life of crime. He'd found it absurdly easy to make a large profit from selling the trade secrets of his employer. From there he had moved to embezzlement, corporate espionage, and outright stealing. Although he was good at it, this last venture proved his downfall. Lounatic had only within the last year been released from prison for armed robbery. His best employment opportunity after being released had been to join a gang headed by crime boss with a flair for the dramatic, The Original Mr. E-vil, Elli Manalo.
Sadly it had turned out that instead of being interested in profitable ventures, like illegal gambling, or protection rackets, "Mr. E-vil" was primarily interested in fighting a fat bearded man in a cape calling himself by the ridiculous name of Action Steve. Lounatic had eventually had enough and shot Elli Manalo straight in the chest and then dropped him from a great height. When it came to betrayal, Lounatic took no chances. Action Steve and his dinosaur pet, Action Raptor, were quickly caught and replaced with techno-magical clones. But his partner in crime, The Senator, just had to capture a minor ancient greek god of toilets, Biggus Mikus. Predictably, the god escaped, along with Action Steve, by making all the bathrooms in their new building flood in a great torrent.
One lesson from all this was clear at least. Lounatic was going to have to re-evaluate the kind of people he chose to work with.
Knock. Knock.
What? What kind of jailer knocks on a prisoner's door before entering? Have I been captured by kind captors, Lounatic silently asked himself.
The door opens to reveal Lounatic's "jailer", who is smiling like any cookie-cutter super-villain might. This is hardly surprising but Lounatic doesn't have a chance to notice its unsurprisingness because he is too busy being surprised by who the villain is, a clone of himself. Action Pre's clone was making clones of his own.
