Morals of a Villain

Chapter 7: Willing Captive

Damon guided Pandora the rest of the way up the stairs to the room her sister had occupied less than half an hour ago. "I hope this is alright." He said, out of instinct. Pandora laughed scornfully as he opened the door. "It will have to be, won't it?" She said, letting out a little sigh. Damon shrugged, glancing around the room just to be sure that there wasn't anything in it that could immediately be used as a weapon. Of course, he was sure that someone as crafty as Pandora could find multiple ways to turn the most mundane objects into tools of an early demise, but he wanted to be certain that he wasn't giving her a head start by leaving a knife or something in the out. 
"This was where I had your sister stay, by the way." Damon added, gesturing to the coat still draped across the chair. Pandora nodded, smiling a little bit. "I know. We were passing messages, so she had plenty of time to tell me what was going on and where exactly in the building she was." She said. Damon frowned, still a little puzzled on that front. "How exactly did that work? It's not like you had windows to see flags through or anything." He said. Pandora grinned. "Oh, well, 'messages' is actually kind of the wrong word to use. I really just broke in and made copies of your keys, then came up here and talked to my sister in person." She said. Damon stared at her, taken aback. "How? I have the most advanced security system anyone could have. For crying out loud, there are guards at every door and window  when I'm holding someone captive. There is no way they didn't see you." He said. Pandora laughed. "Oh, they saw me alright. They also saw a puff of my favorite blackout drug get blown in their face before they could do anything about it." She said, pulling a small drawstring bag out of her pocket. "Speaking of that, you might want to take this." She added, handing it over. Damon looked down at it, at last connecting a few puzzle pieces that had drifted around in his head for a while now. "Ah, so this is why a few of them were so groggy and tired. I thought they just hadn't been getting enough sleep." He muttered. "I'm honestly really glad you haven't had something like this happen before. I was taking a bit of a chance with this whole thing, since I knew that it's a trick that can only be played once. It was rather relieving when I got through and you weren't immediately suspicious." Pandora said, beginning to unstrap her swords and the daggers around her belt. "I imagine you'll be wanting these?" She asked. Damon nodded. "I'm sure it doesn't particularly matter, but yes. You probably have fifty other weapons that I wouldn't be able to find even if I looked." He said, taking the swords and tucking them under his arm. 
Pandora smiled. "I actually traveled light today. I wasn't expecting to live through this." She said, making a clear hint at how hurt she still was that Damon hadn't killed her. Damon nodded, ignoring the glare she was throwing at him. "I'm sure. But I have a feeling that your 'traveling light' is not the same as mine." He said. "You could say that again." Pandora muttered. Damon wanted to ask what she meant, but the look in her eyes stopped him. Whatever she was talking about probably related back to her boss and whatever weird and strict rules he had put her under, and that wasn't a scar that needed to be picked at any more than it already had been.
"Well, do you think you'll be comfortable here? I'll have some guards back in a minute, but until then you'll be here on your own." He said. He knew what a bad idea it was to leave her here without anyone watching her. But he also knew that if she wanted to escape, she was going to. There really wasn't any use trying to stop her.
Pandora smiled. "I'll be fine. This place is really lovely compared to some of the prisons I've been kept in by anyone who managed to capture me in the past." She added, glancing around the room with an appreciative look in her eyes. "I'm glad you like it. Your sister didn't." Damon said, pleasantly surprised. Most of the time, he would ask the people he caught if they liked the cage he put them in or the food he fed them just out of boredom, and their replies would always be so extremely spiteful and meaningless that he would chuckle over them for the rest of the day. Pandora's genuine liking for the room was not something he was used to, although it was rather nice. Of course, her circumstances were different from her sister's, or the those of any other hero, for that matter. But that didn't change the fact that he oddly felt a lot better knowing that she wasn't going to pitch a fit about being held here. Perhaps she would even be passive aggressive about it. That would be fun, if it was the case. He loved slowly burning someone in a battle of wits and cunning. Especially if that someone was the single person that he and every other self acclaimed villain on the planet feared. Pandora nodded. "She has the same sort of attitude that most of the actual heroes do. It's mainly because she looks up to them as much as she looks up to me, and so she mimics everything they do. But the thing about that is, every other hero I've ever met is a pompuss, stuck-up, self-centered do-gooder whos only real talent is being photogenic in the public eye and having the most entitled attitude when they're fighting. I personally find most of the people I work with extremely irritating, especially when someone asks them for a story about their 'adventures'. They all over inflate themselves and leave out the bit about having a full team of support behind them when they're in even the most dangerous situations. It's maddening, to say the least." She sighed. Damon grinned. "Finally, someone who gets it. I didn't think you people existed." He said. Pandora laughed. "Oh, we do. It's just that we're either too busy trying not to die at the hands of people we don't particularly want to fight, or we have already killed ourselves." She said, crossing the room and sitting on the edge of the bed.
Damon sighed. "I wish more of you would just switch sides. It's difficult for villains to recruit when everyone's against us and no one particularly wants to be on the receiving end of a million years of hatred." He said. Pandora chuckled, incredulous. "Oh, you sweet summer child. You think we have any sort of choice when it comes to that? I'm sure plenty of heroes from the past who got fed up with the whole thing would love to switch sides. A lot of the old legends I learned from told me to be careful in my carrier as a hero, and always judge whether someone was a villain or not based off of what they do, and not what everyone tells me they are. A few even went so far as to sympathise with the people they fought and killed, saying that most of them hadn't actually been villains; just good guys from a different angle. It's only recently that people on your side have actually started to refer to themselves as evil, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the only reason for that is you can't get anyone to see you in a different light. The options are either to spend you entire lives trying to show people who you really are, or say 'fuck it, I can't get anyone to believe me and it's depressing to try. Might as well give in to the whole thing and have some fun'. I've personally met a lot of people who told me without any sort of shame that if they had realized just how corrupt and stupid the system was before they left their prime, they would have started to look for ways out of it immediately. Most of those people also said that if any of the villains they were put up against had given them a different option, they would have taken it. But things are so skewed and off balance that no one on your side bothers to try converting anyone from my side, because they know that it's just a waste of breath. I'm sure that if things were different, the 'sides' would be a lot more evenly balanced. But because of the world we live in and the people who run it, any opposition to the 'good' people have started seeing themselves as bad, and thinking that there isn't even a slight chance that anyone would join them. The 'villains' are killing themselves more effectively than any hero ever could, just because they don't believe there's any other option." She said, a sad light flashing through her eyes for a split second.
Damon was silent for a long moment, struggling to take in what she had just told him. Was that really true? Were villains actually that brainwashed that they didn't think anyone would join them? As much as he hated to so much as think it, he had to admit that it fit way to well into place for it to be the wrong idea. No one he knew had ever tried to recruit any sort of hero, choosing instead to either let them go, or kill them. When he looked at it from Pandora's perspective, he couldn't help thinking that what villains did seemed far too similar to playing in to the whole 'good and bad' stereotype that plenty of people Damon had met hated. None of them actually ever did anything to stop the root cause of heroes constantly coming after them, him included. And what did that say about him? Did it mean that he was really just as bad? He hated the very thought. But he couldn't deny that it seemed more true than some of the things he told himself when he got up in the morning. After all, he had always had plans and daydreams about changing the world and bringing some sort of light back into the eyes of the people who lived in it. He had always wanted to help people, even if it was for no reason other than that he hated seeing depressed blemishes on the face of a rosy and joyful earth. After all, wasn't the world only as good as the people who lived in it? And didn't that mean that if those in control of everything were completely horrible, then there was no way for the society they ran to be anything different? He bit his lip, frustrated that he hadn't thought of this before. He liked being evil, of course. It was a lot more fun than the alternative. But did being on the 'good' side really have to be that horrible? For the life of him, he couldn't see a reason why it would was required to be that way.
"Would you ever switch sides?" Damon asked, curious. Pandora tilted her head a little, contemplating this. "I think I already have. Not to your side, of course; I stand in the middle, with all of the fallen heroes and the legends past their prime. The people who don't see themselves as either good or bad are the ones who's viewpoints make the most sense to me. I doubt I could ever be haughty and flamboyant enough to be a villain, and I most certainly am not merciless enough to stay on the hero's side. I'm just in the exact center of the chaos, where I judge who I want to fight and who I don't based off of my own opinion, not the things that people tell me to think or even what whoever I'm fighting against has to say. Of course, I take those things into account. But the divider between the sides that have labeled themselves out of conformity to fictional boundaries is not something I pay attention to." She said. Damon nodded. "I can understand that. Do you...think you'd ever join me?" He asked, realizing just how stupid he felt saying it. There really was a part of him that didn't like to think he even had a chance at recruiting anyone new to his side, and he hated it. Pandora laughed, truly amused. "Don't push it. For now, let's just say I'm your willing captive." She smiled.