As I pulled up in front of the house, I felt my heartbeat increasing. Last time I was around my big brother, he tried to blow up my whole mansion while I was busy throwing fireballs at him. I wasn’t nervous about meeting with him today, tough. It just always was a bit strange having to be civil around him. So, here I was - walking up to our parents’ house for our annual holiday family dinner. Everything was already covered in snow, but still there came more falling from the sky.
I really need to find a possibility to control the weather, I thought while walking towards the door.
This was so annoying. Of course I loved snow, I was no monster. Everybody loves snow! As long as it comes in reasonable quantities. Everything that’s more than 30 centimeters is just a pain in the…
“Theodora! You’re early!” As usually my mother’s definition of an appropriate greeting for her so-called ‘super villain’ daughter was a big long hug. Even though we both knew that I was not her favorite. I tried to somehow get out of it, but as every year that was absolutely impossible. Until, after what felt like eternity, my mother decided she was finished hugging me, so I could get a proper amount of space between us.
“How are you, Darling?” She kept calling me by pet names. For no reason I could see. Apparently, nobody wanted to invite any of my family members to anything anymore. At least not since I started going my own way. Which was in no way my fault! I just didn’t feel like doing all this ‘staying out of trouble and away from everything’ cra…
“Honey? I asked you a question. It would be nice to get an answer”, my mother reminded me of her presence.
“I’m freezing. It’s like a thousand degrees below zero!” I complained and shook my head to get rid of all the snow that landed in my hair.
“It’s Christmas, Darling! Of course there is snow!” She forced herself to laugh and asked me inside the house.
Since my mother insisted on her ‘absolutely no shoes inside’ policy, I had to take off my crazy-expensive but also crazy-beautiful high heels and put on the kitten guest slippers my mother handed me. I hated those things! Well, actually I loved them because they were incredibly cute, but I have an image to maintain. So I pretended to hate them. I even set them on fire once – by accident, of course – but my mother had just bought a new pair. And knowing my mother it was best to simply give up then and there.
“Theo!” My little brother came down the stairs, delighted to see me again. We didn’t really spend much time together. I’d love to, but it’s usually a bit difficult juggling more or less evil plans and having a healthy relationship with your siblings.
Did I mention that ‘little’ was quite relative here? Technically, he’s taller than me. A lot. But he’s my younger brother and will therefore always stay my ‘little’ brother.
Although I usually hate hugs and interhuman contact, Tristan is an exception. This is why I did not have any problem with him literally lifting me off my feet while embracing me.
“It is so great to see you again!”, he said while putting me back on the floor.
“You, too!”, I answered. “How do you like university? Is there anyone who needs to meet your big sister?” I asked half as a joke, although we both knew that I wouldn’t hesitate at anything if anyone gave my brother a hard time.
Tristan laughed. “Everything’s great at University. Don’t worry.” Lovingly, he punched my arm. “But I loved what you did when they presented that new statue in honor to our loving big brother.”
“Yes it was hilarious how she set free a thousand bunnies in the town square when I was supposed to give my speech. And guess who had to catch them? All of them! She surely didn’t lift a finger.”
There he was. My big brother Tyler. Beloved superhero, mommy’s favorite and my archenemy. At least for 364 days of the year. Christmas has always been a family holiday that my mother wouldn’t miss to celebrate with all her children, despite Tyler’s and mine countless attempts to murder each other. Of course, that murderous behavior towards each other changed a bit over the last few years.
In the beginning I was actually trying to do evil. By now, I mainly invent things and sell them to the highest bidder. Nothing really dangerous, though. More like rings that block special abilities or levitation helmets. I do realize that those things could be dangerous in the wrong hands, but most people buying my stuff just want to have some fun. Also, there are not really any people that would use my inventions to do harm. People here are happy. I’m just making lots and lots of money off inventing luxurious toys.
So, technically there was only one reason I was called a super villain: If I wanted, I could destroy everything. All I had to do was invent the right thing. Everybody knew this and was somehow afraid I would. And having a superhero somehow asks for a villain as well. In a society where everyone has some power of some kind, being the only ones with unique abilities also gives you some special place. Whether you want it or not. My brother could fly and was completely resistant against the cold. I could bend fire to my will. Somehow mine was considered ‘evil’, so I was pushed into that category. Until I started acting upon it, nobody cared.
And then I maybe might have blown up the public library. There were some casualties, but the number stayed within the single digits, so I never really understood what all the fuss was about. After that, the government decided that my brother needed to stop me. Didn’t really work, obviously. Over time I got bored of blowing things up and killing people, so I decided to sell my inventions and annoy my brother every now and then. Just like I did at that big revelation of his statue. Bought a bunny, cloned it a few hundred times and set them all free in the town square. The best part was watching everybody trying to help my brother catching them again, though. I chuckled at the memory of it.
“Oh yes, it was great fun for you, wasn’t it?”, Tyler asked in an irritated voice.
“Yes it was. But I was pretty nice. I could have used snakes.”
Tristan laughed at the thought of Tyler trying to catch a thousand snakes in the town square.
Our mother interrupted my teasing: “Children! Would you please come into the salon? I’d like to begin the evening!”
When we entered the salon and sat down on the sofa in front of the fireplace, our mother handed us our usual Christmas drinks: a scotch for Tyler, martini for me and a coke for Tristan, who hates alcohol.
“Mom, where are Dad and Tawny?” After taking a sip of his scotch, Tyler realized that our family wasn’t complete yet.
“Your father is still on the phone with his sister who won’t understand that we can’t come to her place for dinner today and your sister can’t decide on anything to wear.”
“Why can’t we go to Aunt Melinda’s place for Christmas?”, I asked in my most innocent voice, being fully aware of the reason being Tyler and me and our endless bickering.
“Don’t pretend to be so innocent, young lady”, my mother warned me. “Unless you want me to let your vegetables get burned in the oven.”
“Really, you’re still a vegetarian? You don’t have the slightest problem with blowing up buildings filled with people, but never will you eat a dead animal”, Tyler asked unbelievingly.
“Hey! That was an accident! I didn’t know there were that many people in there! Had I known that, I would have made sure they died without much pain. But have you ever seen an animal? They’re so cute! How could anyone ever harm them?” It wasn’t the first time I tried to explain that to him. But he just wouldn’t understand that there was a huge difference between humans and animals for me.
“Hey! I thought they weren’t allowed to talk about their hero/villain bullsh…”
“Tawny! Don’t you dare to finish that sentence!”
My sister loved swearing and always got into trouble with our mother over it.
“They are not allowed to, which they know. So I hope for everybody’s sake that it won’t happen again tonight.”
Tyler and I exchanged an unhappy look, but agreed with our mother anyway. We both knew that this evening was going to be a lot more pleasant when we just agreed on her terms.
“Tawny, what are you wearing?” Tristan looked at his twin sister’s dress in shock. It was indeed pretty inappropriate for a family dinner. It only just covered her ass and exposed a lot of skin on several spots.
“What? She is allowed to do sexy, but I’m not? That’s not fair!” She pointed her finger at me and pretended to be hurt.
“Tawny, there is a difference between wearing a corsage and leggings and a dress that shows more skin than it covers up!”, Tyler tried to explain to her.
“Although your brothers are right, you will keep that on and we will go to the dining room right now to finally have dinner. You children are tiring!” Mother decided not to wait for father any longer, otherwise the food was going to be overcooked and therefore ruined.
When we entered the dining room, we saw that mother had once again outdone herself with the Christmas decorations. There were lights and festoons everywhere across the whole room. Even the flowers in the middle of the table had lights in them.
“Wow, the room looks amazing, mom.” Tyler, being the Mama’s Boy he is, just had to state the fact that was obviously written over everybody’s faces.
“Children! You’re all here!” Dad had just entered the room from the other side and now came over to welcome us.
“What took you so long?” Mother looked at him angrily and crossed her arms.
“Well, you know how Melinda can be. When something doesn’t go her way, she needs an outlet for her anger. You know how that works: Melinda shouts at people, others blow up buildings.” He threw a quick smile in my direction.
Somehow, to everybody in my family except Tyler and my mother, my being the ‘villain’ in our community was more of an amusement than something to be afraid of.
“Stop encouraging her already!” Tyler was always a bit paranoid when somebody talked about the terrible terrible things I did without telling me off for it.
“Enough now! I just want us to be a normal family for tonight and have a normal Christmas dinner. Is that too much to ask for?” Mother was about to get really cross, so without communicating it, everybody agreed on stopping teasing.
We all sat down at the table. Mother and Dad sat on opposite sides of the table; I sat next to Tristan and opposite Tawny, while Tyler sat next to Tawny and opposite Tristan. In the first two years, Tyler and I sat next to each other opposite the twins, which both times ended in us punching each other. The year after that we sat opposite each other, which ended in the both of us kicking each other under the table. Since then we’ve always been sitting like this because it’s really hard for my brother and me to hurt each other over that distance. Granted, I could throw a fireball, but then Tristan would create force fields around me and Tawny would get jealous of not being allowed to use her power and create an illusion of all of us sitting in a different environment having dinner. That would lead to mother getting cross and picking a fight with Dad. He would then morph his face to look like mother’s and mock her. And everybody would be fighting. No thanks. Even if nobody believes me, I do actually enjoy these yearly dinners. Which is why I probably shouldn’t have done what I did the day before.
Anyway, Tyler and I had made a pact a few years ago, agreeing on not attacking each other anymore while in presence of our family. All for the sake of our family’s integrity.
So we had a normal family dinner. We talked about normal family stuff: How was university for the twins? How was Dad’s company doing? What was new at mother’s tea parties? (I said nobody wanted to invite them to anything. But being invited was still a huge honor). As usually, we completely left out Tyler’s and my lives.
Funnily enough, all the negative energy had been let out in the beginning of the evening, so the dinner was really peaceful and enjoyable. I always seemed to forget this peace throughout the year.
But just because I enjoyed these dinners didn’t mean I was going to change my life. So, I planted a bomb in the government building yesterday, which I activated via remote control after the main course. It looked really nice, when the building exploded. Sitting opposite the window, I had a perfect view of it. Tyler was not amused.
“Are you out of your mind? What if there were people in there?”, he shouted at me.
I thought a bit that for about three seconds, then I smiled at my brother and answered: “Then they’re dead now.” I didn’t care what else my brother wanted to let me know in a really loud manner. I just stood up, put on my shoes and left. Taking the kitten slippers with me. I knew that tomorrow my brother was going to try and make me pay for what I just did, but I didn’t care.
I am the villain. And lately people seemed to have forgotten about that. But nobody claims my place as long as I am alive. So I’ll have to blow up some buildings every now and then. It’s not like I don’t have any fun doing that.
