One Million Masks: REDUX | ✓

One Million Masks, 2026

|| One Million Masks, 2026 ||

"Admit it, dijete. You're smitten. Abso-fucking-lutely whipped over this guy." Emil shells his peanuts into a gas station soda cup, cracking the brown cusps like bones. "Look at you scanning the horizon for a glimpse. Can't even focus. What happened to you? You used to be the biggest baddest boss around and now you're out here simpering over a cat in a cape."

"I'm not smitten," I growl at the old man.

Emil scoffs, wet peanut meat flying from his mouth.

"Ha! You been scoping him out since August, don't think I didn't notice. Why else would you play the theatrics? Why else would you, week after week, go through all these hula-hoops just to get his attention?"

W h y? Because I'm the muthafukin' king - that's why.

He asks why like he doesn't know.

I'm out here because I'm a professional doom dealer with a reputation for pushing the envelope in all matters evil and devious - that's why.

You don't become the #1 ranked villain by accident. You don't just wake up one morning and go "well, I think I'll terrorize society and start a reign of unholy chaos" as a hobby.

Nothing about good villany (heh) is casual.

The idea I would rig the largest vacation cruise I could find on this side of the Atlantic with two tons of C-4 just to get your attention is absurd and, quite frankly, insulting to my craft.

Not everything I do I do for you.

I do, however, worry if the explosion is impressive enough to see from the coast. Maybe I should've waited a few more minutes before I killed the captain - so he could properly finish his emergency transmission...

Too late for it now.

I just have to hope the Coast Guard pings you and you're not tied up with another villain back home, possibly Kitemare and his stupid fucking razor ghost kites. The thought of you missing this beautifully orchestrated tragedy so you can fight Kitemare makes me so angry I want to eat my hand.

Inexcusable.

Emil is still on his rant talking about fuck all.

"They just don't make villains like they used to. You're all reverse psychology and god complexes. So wrapped up in your technology you can't even spare time to punch each other the right way. What happened to setting booby traps and dangling girlfriends over acid pits? What happened to ticking timers? Railroad tracks? Mustaches and goatees? In my day villains and heroes didn't skype each other to set up dates."

"Fuck, do you ever shut up? Where's the off button?"

"I'm not the one commandeering a floating deathtrap so I can make goo-goo eyes at Makeshift."

"No, you're just here to insult me and bum free peanuts. Some villain you are. I thought Professor Kill was a real one."

He snaps at me like a sassy hairdresser. "You didn't deny it, dijete."

I turn away from him, still scanning the sky for a flash of silver. The shape of you.

"There's nothing to deny."

Emil bitterly laughs over the crazed screams of the passengers below us. He leans out his jelly rainbow beach chair and tosses the shells on their heads like Mardi Gras beads.

Emil calls me kid because compared to him even death itself looks like a sulky teenager; though I suspect it has more to do with him not remembering what century we're in.