Jitters

I've got a big crime planned this weekend. Oh yes. It's daring, it's bold, it will net me a ton of loot and more importantly, it's going to be really cool. This weekend, I really put the hurting on Comfort Bay.

I'm scared poopless.

I'm not scared because the crime is so big. I'm scared because I am 100% confident in this plan. It is foolproof. It can not fail. Which is the same thing I used to hear from Diva Pain and Professor Malice right before a crime got the crap blown out from under it. Somehow those heroes always knew. ALWAYS! We could have a plan that was only known to five people and a mutated donkey and those Heroes would come flying in messing up everything.

That sort of thing messes with your head. I mean, it's just me and the Bots but I can't help feeling that the heroes will know somehow. Are they psychic? Is there a big hero helpline that we villains don't know about? Sometimes I just think the universe hates villains. Professor Malice should have taken over the universe by now, but no, henchmen betray him, heroes will stumble on a coded transmission or the cursed specially trained ape commando will have a change of heart and let the captured Heroes go. Cripes, it really must be fate.

There could be another reason. Jaser told me once that there was a Lady In White, some mystic type that shows up, snitches to the Heroes and dissappears. She never fights her own battles, but she's the downfall of hundreds of villains. I thought it was just a bogeyman story villains tell each other but one drunken night, Warstrike told me the same story.

I think I'll go over the plan one more time and work out a Heroes-Know-Everything plan.

A Hole in the Motif

So I was watching the History Channel this morning hoping to catch some Pirate documentries. Instead of soemthing educational, they decided to play a retrospective on the 60's hero, Electric Knight. I was half watching the show while eating my breakfast of pancakes and sea biscuits when they started covering his villains. The first one they covered was the Gardener, that mad plant controlling jerk who would rob banks with mutant Venus Flytrap minions. The stock footage they had was of the Gardener driving up to the bank in a hideous green Cadillac. What made me choke on my sea biscuit was that the caption read, 'Gardener's Green Machine'.

Arrg, that Gardener might have been lame but at least he knew his vehicle needed a catchy name. I turned around and looked at my black getaway van with the skull and crossbones painted on the side. I've been waiting to buy a boat of some kind but here I am with a black van and I haven't bothered to name it? What kind of thematic super villain am I?

"HelmsBot! Get some red paint and put a name on the getaway van!"

"Query: What designation do you desire?" HelmsBot asked.

That was a damn good question.

The van might be small in comparison to the juggernaut I intend to command one day, but it is my first 'ship' so to speak. I need a name that strikes terror in History Channel watchers forty years from now. My parents would want me to name it something tradtional, like Queen Anne's Revenge after Blackbeard's ship but that's not my way. I've adopted the Pirate Lifestyle but only as a guide not as something I have to renact every step of the way.

So I spent an hour brainstorming today. The Bots were useless when it comes to original thoughts. I toyed with the idea of 'The Evil Pearl' and almost had HelmsBot paint it on before I remembered that the name of Jack Sparrow's ship was the Black Pearl. Heroes i don't mind fighting but Disney Lawyers? No thanks.

I settled on The Lustful Raider. Aye it is a mouthful but I think it works. It's sexy like me, and it evokes that plunder and kill feeling with the word Raider. After HelmsBot was done painting the name, I took the last bottle of rum and gave a short christening speech. 1stMateBot recorded it so I can type it out now.

"Crew, we are gathered here today to officially include our getaway vehicle into our Villain theme. A theme is a terribly important thing to have as it helps build villain recognition as well as provide props for when I retire, get pardoned and license my equipment and names to toy companies. We christen this van today not only so that it can strike fear into our enemies and victims but so I can afford all the intoxicants and male nurses I desire in my old age."

"I call you the Lustful Raider, and may your tires stay filled, your armor never buckle and your windsheild never crack from hitting some slow moving hero!"

The Long Hard Holiday Weekend

Blast my lips, stomach and eyes because they all hurt! Blackbeard's cutlass! Is it really 6pm? All right, I really need to cut back on the rum.

As you can tell, my weekend was one long act of debauchery. Friday I cased out my next crime. I took notes and made my plans although I have no memory of actually doing it. Luckily 1stMateBot has an automatic record feature whenever I'm making evil schemes.

It must have been on Friday that I got a little touch of the melancholy over the fact that I was spending a holiday alone. Now, I could have gone and committed some great crime but it is a hard truth that only the crazy villains commit crimes on holidays. Heroes take it very personal when you have interrupted their plans and they tend to throw in a few more kicks in tender places. Don't believe me? That's all right. Go rob a bank during Christmas and find out for yourself. Even sugary do gooders like Ms. Sunshine will slam your head into the vault door a few times before turning you over to the police.

So what could I do other than hit the stripclubs and see if I could russle up some action? I had all my money from the last heist, no since saving it. There aren't many male strip clubs open on the day after Thanksgiving but I found a real dive called 'The Stable'. I have to admit I don't recall much of that night but I must have liked what I saw because I brought back three handsome lads called Pedro, Steel and ummmm, some blonde guy.

Now I don't want you to think I'm a pirate villain of low morals. In my defense, I can say it was the holidays, the rum and the fact that I did have a crapload of money that was burning a hole in my treasure chest. I've never spent an entire weekend drunk out of my skull and covered in muscular men and hey, you only sail this world once you know?

Unfortunately, I appear to be one heck of a tipper. All my cash was gone when I woke up this afternoon and at first, I thought the guys had robbed me. Reviewing the AVI's that HelmsBot made of my celebration, I discovered that I spent more time stuffing Pedro's, Steel's and Blonde Guy's g-strings with money than I did actually inside said g-strings.

This is the part of the blog where I try to figure out why I spend my hard earned loot on strippers and drinking and realize it has something to do with my father not loving me. Well, deep six those ideas now. I'm actually got proud of myself! When I went solo, I wasn't sure I could do the whole hard drinking, carousing till all hours and wind up broke again lifestyle so popular with the pirates. Shoot, if anything, I'm too good at it. I'm going to e-mail this blog entry to Mom and Dad tonight so they can be proud of me.

A Pirate Queen Gives Thanks

It's that time of the year where people sit down and give thanks for those things they are grateful for the past year. Now I may be a super villain, but even I have a small amount of humility and gratitude. I would have more if it wasn't for the fact that I owe all of my success to myself.

First, I am grateful to my old boss Warstrike, who had the good luck to get killed in a freak hit and run, giving me the chance to loot his years of robberies. If it wasn't for his death, I would have never been able to afford that trip to the Caribbean and finace my current operations.

Second, I'm grateful to Frost Sting, who's high publicity factor allowed me to really make a huge impression on Comfort Bay when I defeated her.

I'm also thankful to my mom and dad, whos' love of all things piratey has given me the background and training to live a life of leisure and male strippers. Thanks Mom and Dad!

I'm more grateful than you know to Diva Pain's beauty secrets which have kepy my sails full, my hull round and my bow lean and mean if you know what I mean.

I'm very thankful to every boyfriend who doesn't call, drop by or send me a letter while I sit here alone during the holidays. It makes it easier to shoot, maim and plunder the rest of the year.

That about sums it all up. CookBot's got the Turkey roasting in the oven. BosunBot has hooked on his Rum Keg upgrade. 1stMateBot's went down the street and robbed the local bookie so it doesn't matter who won today's games. HelmsBot just gave the getaway van a new coat of paint. It's a lazy day and that's just the way I like it. No annoying family, no kids running around screaming, and no obnoxious friends eating all my groceries for free. It's just me, the Bots, the turkey and a DVD of Captain Blood.

Support Your Local Fence

Monday was a total wash for me. I just did the big raid on Saturday, spent the loose cash on rum and electronics on Sunday, and Monday, well, I mostly slept Monday off. Being a super villain means never having to work on Monday if you don't want to.

Today I went to see Mad Dave. He's the most reputable Fence in Comfort Bay, which means he is known for selling your stuff and not ratting out where he got it to the first sidekick who scowls at him. My sources in the Underworld told me that Dave was a little odd, but honest. Good, let him be the honest one.

I'm not going to tell you where Mad Dave is located, but I will say his place we pretty clean. The tiled floor had mop ruts in the floor where someone had scrubbed it obsessively for the last twenty years. The lights were as bright as a lighthouse operated by a six year old afraid of the dark. Mad Dave himself was a sterling example of grooming, as every bit of clothing he was wearing looked like he just got it out of the dryer.

"Scarlett Drake? I've been expecting you. Nice job you did there."

Those were the first words Dave said to me and I was liking him already.

"That was just a scouting raid. Before long I'll be doing something really worth talking about. But in the mean time, I got some loot to sell."

"Very well," Mad Dave said. He then put on a pair of latex gloves and then put on a pair of rubber gloves over them. We walked out to the van where I opened the back door and let him see my haul.

"Yes, yes, I know just the man who will buy these paintings," he said. "I can sell these watches to a wizard I know who's planning to command time. Oh! Nice gun. I can sell this to a gang leader I know."

On and on he went, talking out loud as he cataloged my treasure. It was nice to hear him ramble. I could just feel the cash total rising higher and higher.

Eventually he took out a calculater and put in a number. Mad Dave showed it to me and I frowned.

"This is about half of what I was epecting," I said.

Mad Dave shrugged. "There is a recession going on. The economy just hasn't been the same since the Republicans took over. Although . . ."

I squinted at him with my non cybernetic eye. "Yes?"

Mad Dave licked his lips. "I could double that offer if you did me a small favor . . ."

Uh oh. I reconized that look. It was the same look Diva Pain would give me whenever I asked for a raise. That look was usually accompanied by a shifting of the hips and a suggestion that I was wearing too many clothes for a promotion. Oh well. That's one of the disadvantages of being a hot female super villain.

I sucked in my stomach and went up a cup size. "What kind of favor?" I asked. I didn't tell him that anything too forward would get him a Blasket shot to the lap.

Mad Dave swallowed and said, "If you were to get one of your Bots to step on my foot, I'll double my offer and throw in two tickets to 'Wicked'."

I blinked. That was one bizarre request. As I was processing it, it occurred to me that he mentioned 'Wicked'. That was the most anticpated show in town. "Wicked the play? What day?"

"Opening night on Friday."

I looked at 1stMateBot. I've had my Bots do a lot of terrible things. They're my gimmick and my tools, but I also look at them as my crew. I've had to them shoot people, yank purses from old women and once in a while, I even have them make prank phone calls to old boyfriends. I've never really used one to satisfy someone else's sick needs. I debated until I realized it was for 'Wicked'.

"1stMateBot, step on his foot."

Mad Dave shuddered with delight as 1stMateBot took a step forward onto Mad Dave's foot. Unfortunately for Mad Dave, I didn't specify wether to put his full weight on Dave's foot. The sound of metal crushing bone was a rather gruesome sound. I kind of liked it.

"Was that too much?" I asked. There was a bit of evil glee in my voice I am proud to say.

Mad Dave closed his eyes for a few seconds and then said, "Now you can."

1stMateBot removed his foot and Mad Dave hobbled over to a crate. I tried not looking at his mangled foot. Mad Dave reached into his pockets and counted out my money in nice lovely cash. He topped the pile with the tickets and handed them to me.

"You are a wonderful woman, it was a pleasure doing business with you." He was smiling like a sailor with free keg of rum.

"Errr, right," was all I could manage to say.

I had the Bots unload the van and we drove off. Tonight I plan to hit the male stripclub, 'Men-R-Us' and blow some of my hard earned cash on some smooth chested guys with an exhibitionist complex instead of whatever Mad Dave is currently suffering under. I hear that on Tusedays it's Country and Western night. Argg, I hope it's the costumes and not the music.

Duel with Frost Sting

Frost Sting and I faced each other for about five seconds before we launched into our witty banter. I was in a hurry because I had programmed a Monologue Pause into the Bots if we ever met a Hero and I knew the clock was ticking. I have to say though, she had a rather cool looking costume. Blue spandex covered her slender body and it was clear that whatever caused her powers also gave her abs that I would kill for. White frost covered her hands and boots but for her it worked. Her face was covered by her costume except for her mouth and her very short blonde hair. A black scorpion was painted onto her chest, just in case you didn't realize the name Frost Sting was referring to stinging cold and not some sort of weird cake icing hero.

"Ahoy Frost Sting! Step aside or I'll be making a flag from your costume."

The blonde smirked. She smirked! "You're a bit far inland for a pirate aren't you? Or are you working out a serious Johnny Depp infatuation?"

I cocked my Blasket. (yes, it's a laser pistol and it doesn't exactly need to be cocked but I included a cocking-like sound and action for when I adjust the setting from Stun to Lethal just for occasions like this) The smirk faded when I pointed my Blasket at her with one hand and gave her the middle finger with other.

"Attack me hearties," I said. This time it was my turn to smirk.

The Bots snapped into a quickdraw action and filled the air with laser blasts. Frost Sting jumped back and erected an ice wall to block the blasts. That was fine with me. I pulled a heat grenade from my utility bandolier and tossed it at the wall. The grenade ignited in midair and burned right through her ice wall like a cannon shot through a paper mache boat.

This is the part I couldn't beleive. If I was her, I would have flown right back through that window and given up on stopping this crime but no, this crazy wench flew through the hole my heat grenade just made! She zipped through like a John Woo, firing cold blasts from her hands with annoying accuracy. She froze HelmsBot to the floor, iced over BosunBot's sensor array, missed 1stMateBot completely, froze CookBot's arm solid and sent a distrubingly large chunk of ice my way that I barely dodged. This was a wench with steel nipples if you get my meaning.

1stMateBot moved into position and made a grab for her leg. Those extra hours I spent overclocking his arm motors paid off as his metal fingers locked around her ankle. Frost Sting's flight came to a halt and the hero twisted around to blast 1stMateBot with a two handed frost blast. I could hear his engine whining as he heated up to compensate for the intense cold. I took sight with my Blasket and squeezed off a shot at her back. The laser sliced clean through her shoulder. She screamed out but I was annoyed with myself. I was hoping for a spine hit.

Frost Sting created a freaking huge ice sword and swung it down on 1stMateBot's hand. The metal shattered and the blonde hero kicked free. My Bot's hand was still around her ankle but it didn't seem to slow her flight down.

"Shooting people in the back?" she sneered.

I shrugged. "My Bots are about to do the same. We're pirates you know."

She spun around just in time to catch a barrage of laser bolts from my crew. Frost Sting tried to create a another sheild of ice but the lasers were too fast. I watched as her body danced in the air as the shots went through her and bounced off her body. Hrrmmm, she must have some sort of armor in the costume's front that she didn't have in the back. Maybe I should have held off on my snappy line. Either way, it was satisfying to see her bounce around so clumsily in the air after pulling that Matrix move earlier. She looked like a rowboat being tossed about by a hurricane until she finally crashed into an expensive coffee table. I swear, it's always the way. I think coffee tables were made to be fallen on.

I admit, I strutted a little when I walked up to her. I threw a little swing in my hips so my cape would swish side to side. The security cameras were following my every move and I knew this would make CNN if I did this just right. I looked down at Frost Sting and she was groaning, but she was unconcious. The shots that her costume didn't reflect had punched through her and cauterized the wounds. Although there was no blood, she was still a sorry sight. I stalled for a few seconds, sneering down at my opponent while I thought of something cool to do.

I placed one boot on her heaving chest and ground my heel a little. My hand went to my knee in my best Captain Morgan impersonation as I surveyed the melting ice and destroyed office.

"This fish is too small. We'll spare her this time in the hope that she becomes a worthier opponent. Bots! Finish stripping this place of treasure and let's head out. Scarlett Drake is finished here!"

Gods, I have seen that clip a thousand times on all the news channels and I never get tired of seeing it. My Bots cleaned out the office and Pug was more than happy to give us his wallet, rings and other assorted bling after what we did to Frost Sting. Of course they don't show that part of the footage, they just played the part where I put my heel on Frost Sting and gave my little insult. That's fine by me.

The police arrived but a few land torpedoes from the getaway van blasted their cars ten feet into the air. They didn't really give chase after that. We made it to the lair without a hitch and just in time to watch superhero anaylsts on the news discuss my entire career up to this point. I tried on diamond rings while cookBot made me a celebratory rum and coke.

That is how Saturdays are meant to be spent.

Piracy for Fun and Hero Bashing

By now you’ve seen the news coverage, you’ve downloaded the clips from the Internet and your friends have discussed how my robbing of the offices of Maximum Security Records was the most exciting thing to hit Comfort Bay in years. The press ate it up. They just loved reporting how a super villain with a pirate theme engaged in an act of direct piracy against a record company. That’s called Irony. It’s a surefire way of making sure your crime stays in the news cycle until Helen Hilton accidently releases another sex tape.

Anyway, I’m sure you saw the security footage but it doesn’t compare to actually being there. Helmsbot drove the getaway van right through the very beautiful and very fragile glass doors into the lobby. My Bots poured out the back, firing their arm lasers at any poor bastard who happened to be there. The Bots and I had our lasers set to Stun, but let’s a nasty Ten-Tasers-On-The-Nads kind of Stun. It really messes up your Christmas.My records show we nailed two security guards, a UPS guy, all five members of the gangsta group Pimps-n-Wheels, and a rather cute front desk guy that I really regret shooting personally through the head. Sometimes I just get caught up in the moment.

You might not think there is a lot of loot to be had in a record company’s office but you’re wrong. The younger the company, the more money they spend to make themselves look impressive. The lobby alone had three paintings that I didn’t recognize but I could tell by the fancy security they had around them that they were worth something. CookBot looted them in a tsunami second and had them packed in the van. 1stMateBot liberated some dead rapper’s gold urn and BosunBot fleeced the rappers we blasted and sucked their jewelry straight into his on board cargo department. Me? I posed for the security cameras so they could get a good long look at me.

From there, we really had us some fun. We went up the office building slowly, shooting to stun and taking everything that couldn’t be ripped out by a Bot. We also indulged in a little arson along the way since it seemed the pirate thing to do. A little fire, a few demolished walls and stunned twitching people really helps set the mood.

It’s times like these that I really love being a super villain. I was flush with excitement, and hollering with every punk music executive that I shot. I forgot all about the miserable haircut I was hiding with my hat, I forgot about the high rent I was paying on my hideout and I didn’t think for a moment about why Jaser, my old partner didn’t call me on my birthday this year. I was kicking ass and being a pirate.

We made our way up to the penthouse office. The Bots were loaded with booty but I just had to see the top office. Pug Squire, the CEO of Maximum Security Records, was waiting for me. The crazy landlubber had flipped his desk over and was using it as a barricade. BosunBot was first in and Pug nailed him with a shotgun blast that made a mess of BosunBot’s paint job. Didn’t really hurt BosunBot but cripes, it’ll take CookBot an hour to repaint that.

I was about to toss a concussion grenade in when our little firefight was rudely interrupted. The glass windows frosted over and then shattered from intense cold. Pug stayed cowered under his desk but I didn’t care. I had real opposition now.

In flew a short but sleek looking blonde woman wearing a blue and white costume that covered her body. Correction, what I thought was white coloring was actually extreme frost. The woman was twenty feet away from me but I could already see my breath forming in front of me.

It was Frost Sting.

Haircuts of the Damned

This weekend I plan to do my big solo crime that introduces me to the citizens of Comfort Bay. I have a cunning plan all ready to go but for obvious reasons, I can't share that info with you. No sense tipping off any heroes that troll through these blogs. Don't worry, I'll tell you all about it Monday.

What I can talk about was my trip to the hair salon today. Since I expect to be on the news, I wanted to look my best. CookBot cleaned my cape and shined my boots but I don't trust a killer robot with scissors around my head, you know? Especially with the Threat Assesment malfunctions of our little furniture excursion.

So I go to a small haircut place charmingly called 'Cut Above'. I should have been tipped off by the fact that there was no waiting but I wasn't. I sat down, explained in simple terms that I needed a trim but enough long hair to flow dramatically from under my hat. I also needed my right side trimmed back over my cybernetic eye so it doesn't interfere with my targeting programs. Simple, right?

Of course it wasn't.

My stylist was a young woman who threw me off when she excitedly asked me what I did for a living. Crap, it's been so long since I dealt with normals that I didn't even think to come up with a cover story. I froze up and for some reason I told her I worked as a cab driver. She got really excited from some reason and asked me all about my job. her scissors are flying fast and furious and I'm desperately putting together a false life where I deal with sailors looking for bars, women stood up on dates and anything else I can think of. When she asked me if I was worried about getting killed by a super-villain, I broke out in an evil disbelieving laugh. It was an uncomfortable silence when I finally stopped. Darn it, maintaining cover is hard work.

She didn't talk much more after that, which is a shame because she was butchering my hair and if she had asked, I could have told her that I didn't need a mullet. I could have also told her that I just needed a little more off my right side, not an entire quadrant. I of course didn't know anything of this as I had my eyes closed and was thinking of my Big Crime. If I had known, I could have shot her with my concealed Blastket and saved my poor lovely hair.

When the ordeal was done, I looked up and saw what this assassin had done to my hair. It truly was a work of evil. I had a mullet instead of my usual long red locks. The right side of my hair had been savaged and made my cybernetic eye look like after effect of a crazed surgeon. Worse of all was the smile the stylist had.

"Is this what you were going for?" she asked sweetly.

"Yes, thank you very much," I said through gritted teeth. I paid her in cash although I skimped on a tip. It might be too much to shoot her down in broad daylight but I wasn't going to reward her for the massacre.

I did however enter 'Cut Above' into my GPS system for future refrences. If I ever launch a missle at Comfort Bay, I'll make this place ground zero.

Sigh, at least my hat hides most of the damage. I don't know how normal people put up with this level of crappy service. Do stylists always screw up and destroy hair like this? Why aren't heroes working on that as their big mission? I'd actually spare a hero's life if they waged a war against Criminal Hair Salons but nooooo, heroes like The Choice are too busy fighting petty stuff like political corruption or serial killings. Idiots.

Hammocks and Laser Cannons

I am now officially moved into my Secret Lair. I'd been moving in all week and I have to say that my Bot crew are pretty handy movers. They never complain when you can't decide where to put that pirate hat rack. I don't know how other villains do it. Oh wait, I do. They get their henchmen to do it and will shoot them down, cyborg their minds or crack their spines when they complain. I don't miss those days at all.

I rented a warehouse in the dock area of Comfort Bay. This is really a crappy run down part of town. My warehouse looks awful from the outside but inside it's actually very well maintained. There are no leaks, solid sound proofing everywhere and the electrical system is suspiciously capable of handling my automatic laser defense cannons. I wonder what the blazes this place used to hold. Could I be taking over someone else's old hideout?

Originally I had planned for my first crime in Comfort Bay to be something big, iconic and keeping with my Pirate roots. I debated attacking a cruise ship right as it comes into port, or maybe attacking the Naval Musuem. You want to make the right impression when settling into a city. Let them know what that there's a new Captain in town and she ain't taking orders from no spandex wenches.

Yep, that was the plan. Unfortunately, the rent to the warehouse wiped out my savings. The deposit was a real scourge. I had enought to move in and get my weapons out of storage, but no cash left over for furnishings. I guess I could have roughed it and slept on the floor but darn it, I'm a Pirate Queen of High tech Crime! I was so not going to spend my first night in my first solo hideout sleeping on the floor.

That is why last night I got the Bot crew together and we drove down to Furniture Carnival. It was 2 in the morning but that didn't matter to my Bots. They don't get tired or cranky when it gets late. BosunBot jacked into the pitiful security system they had and cancelled out the alarms. 1stMateBot accompanied me with his single headlight as I picked and choose my new furnishings. CookBot loaded the van while HelmsBot kept the engine running and monitored the police bands. I swear, my crew is one, err, four well oiled machines.

The prices that these people charge for furniture makes me glad I'm a pirate. Sheesh, did the world run out of trees while I was in the Carribean? Are the handles made of real gold? How do normal people afford this robbery? By the time the van was loaded, I was hauling more cash value than the last bank robbery I was in. Granted, I can't imagine how I would fence a four poster King sized bed but it is tempting.

The theft went so smooth at first that I thought I might be able to sneak this crime out without making it my debut. The truck was loaded and 1stMateBot reported that we didn't leave so much as a single footprint behind. I was climiing into the passenger seat when disaster struck. A taxicab was cruising down the street and most likely didn't even see us much less think we were up to anything. Unfortunately, HelmsBot apparently has a few flaws in his Threat Assesment Programming. He leaned out the window and fired three beautifully perfect if entirely unneccassary laser shots from his arm cannon. I would have cheered at how fast he was if I wasn't too busy gasping in horror as the cab burst into flames.

My first kill in Comfort Bay was a cab driver. Not my proudest moment.

HelmsBot happily drove off and got us back to our lair without commiting any other acts of murder. I know I built them and all but sometimes they are just too hardcore. He slaughtered that cabbie without hesitation and updated his kill ratio file. On the other hand, that was pretty awesome! HelmsBot is a steel cold killer without a care in the world and I'm his
Captain! That makes me a bad mamma jamma by default.

I awoke this morning on my new bed and turned on the TV. Local News 7 had Janet Baker's frowning face talking about the senseless (Boy, if they only knew) death of a cab driver. Police suspect it's related to the theft of several thousand dollars worth of stolen furniture on the same street. There were no suspects yet, but the laser holes they found in the cab suggested a high tech super-villain. They forgot to mention that is was a high tech super villian with an AWESOME bedroom suite.

A Port to Call Home

When I decided to return to my life of crime, I thought long and hard on which city to plunder. Ideally you would think a villain would keep moving and strike one city after another but that way leads to a very quick crossover doom. Heroes LOVE to work together and as soon as you cross from one hero's backyard into another, then you have an excited duo barrelling down on you thinking you're trying to take over the world. As crazy as it sounds, it's safer to stay in one area and risk having the local heroes get to know you then it is to excite an entire coast.

Part of picking a city is also picking what hero you want to deal with. If you don't want to get beaten for a solid ten minutes by a crazed psycho with a leather fetish, don't operate out of Windy City, you know what I mean? I also avoided any places that had large teams operating in the area as I have no desire to relive my Meta-Corp smackdown. I prefer my heroes one at a time thank you.

In the end I decided on Comfort Bay. Even though I am not a pirate with a ship per say, I would like to eventually build one and really attack the city in style. Comfort bay is a nice large southern port city with mild weather which is a big plus. Never repair a cold Bot with your bare hands let me tell you. Port cities are also good for their large warehouse districts that always have a spare warehouse or two for hideouts. I swear, if I was a hero I would just buy up empty warehouses and cut the crime down by 70%.

The other thing I like about Comfort bay is their small hero population. I don't know if it's just Georgia, but heroes just don't seem to hang around in southern towns unless they're magic types haunting in New Orleans. Comfort Bay has a grand total of three known heroes- The Choice, a black martial arts woman with a political streak, Frost Sting, the blonde mistress of giving people frostbite and finally, Upgrade, a battlesuit guy with lots and lots of sexy gadgets. I saw him using his rapid pulse beam on that crazy Sludge monster on CNN and I knew his wrists lasers had to be mine. His jetpack's kind of sleek too. I wouldn't mind peeling that armor off of him and finding out what makes it tick.

Ahem, anyway, three heroes is nothing. Odds are the Choice will be busy marching somewhere important, Frost Sting's ice powers can't be that useful in a hot city like Comfort Bay and Upgrade, well I see him more like walking treasure than anything else. I sense easy pickings.

The Powdermonkey Years

After I graduated in 96, I couldn't just go into a full blown Super-Villain career. Have you ever wondered why some villains seem to stick around for years and years no matter how silly they are while new fresh villains only commit one crime and then seem to dissappear? It's a simple answer really- Villains engage in vicious New Villain culling. It's true. Villains actually have a higher defeat record of other villains than most heroes. It's not out of jealousy or deathray envy although it is the case with Gigantus. No, most villains cull other villains for safety reasons.

Let me put it this way. You're Cat-Burglar and you've worked years to establish your cat costume, your claws and your cat motiff for all your crimes. The Big City Musuem is going to have a display of gems with Cat names as a special theme starting on Nov 15. You've mapped out when the gems are being delivered, slept with the chief of security to get a copy of his fingerprints in order to frame him, outfitted your gang with a custom made cat ears and you've arranged for a fire to break out at the orphanage to keep City Defender busy for the time of the crime. Everything is planned and perfect for your crime. Unfortunately, Dark Newbie picks Nov. 14 as the night he is going to break in and steal the Egyptian thingamigjig that's been there for ten years. Dark Newbie succeeds in stealing it which means the police is crawling all over the musuem, the chief of security is sweating over his one night stand and decides to come clean and resign and Nosy Nose, the ace reporter is standing vigil over the musuem. That's not even taking into account that City Defender is now looking at the rest of the musuem and seeing that the cat theme gems are going to be there tomorrow so he makes a note to himself to patrol near the musuem all week, looking for YOU.

See why it is easier just to drive by Dark Newbie's not so secret lair and drop a few bombs on him?

One of the benefits of attending an evil college is that I had a few references for when I graduated. I was able to join up with Diva Pain, the militant feminist revolutionary. I have to say that I didn't agree with all her politics, but kidnapping male models and destroying the Playboy Mansion was pretty fun. Diva Pain never killed a henchwoman but she was a bit touchy feely if you get my drift. I found it a small disadvantage when you keep in mind that she had an excellent 401K and dental plan. It was a shame when she renounced her evil ways and went to live on Herland. She was real nice about it and didn't seem to be too bothered when the rest of her henchwomen went on to other villains.

After Diva Pain I signed up with Professor Malice. Diva Pain had been good to me but I really wanted to work with another inventor type. Professor Malice was working on his three year project to take over the world with nanobot mind control implants, so it was a good time to fine tune some of my own technology as well as learn about the human brain.

The Professor was 80% robot at that point so he left the actual crimes to me and his other underling, Jaser, the human laser. Those were the days. The Professor would need ten tons of steel with a side of three psychologists and off me and Jaser would go. We'd do our daring crimes, return to base and spend the rest of the day watching Xena and Hercules. Sometimes the Professor would need a lab assistant and I would get some on the job training. He was nice enough to let me use his spare robots for parts. Thanks to the Professor, I finally got my Bots the artifical intelligence they needed to not run right into a hero's razer edged boomarang.

I don't need to recount how Meta-Corp caught wind of Professor Malice's scheme and tracked him down to the secret lair. Suffice to say, that was one long bad day for me and Jaser. Meta-Corps came blasting in, destroying robots, our carefully built traps and Jaser's lifesize Lucy Lawless poster. I personally managed to knock out the speedster Warp, but then who hasn't? It didn't make up for Shamballah blasting me with those weird energy beams of her's. My hair smelled like lotus flowers for months afterwards. Jaser luckily managed to grab me and run away, leaving Professor Malice alone to fight Meta-Corp. The Professor lost of course, but man, he came close.

Jaser wanted to go on a crime spree with me but I turned him down. A pirate has to know when she is not ready to be a Captain you know? I signed up with Warstrike and that was the smartest thing I ever did.

Now I know Warstrike is known mostly for being a crazed gun toting maniac in a battlesuit but let me tell you something about Warstrike you don't know, the guy is more paranoid than an FBI agent with a sister abducted by aliens. He plans EVERYTHING, terrified that some hero is taping into his mind through a secret radio wave. Warstrike would make endless back up plans, some of which he would only do in writing or sometimes in hand signals. Working with him taught me to get ready for anything. You never knew when you had to uproot the secret lair and move it across the street because Warstrike thought the mailman was onto us.

I worked with Warstrike until last year when he got obliterated by a runaway bus. It was one of those freak accidents that really weirded you out. We had just come out of Applebees and were crossing the street when BLAM!, dead Warstrike. The rest of his henchmen just stood there looking at his twitching corpse. The bus stopped and the driver was screaming in shock. Heck, some of my fellow employees were screaming too.

Being the senior henchman, Warstrike's gang looked up to me to be the leader so I did the only thing I could think of. I whipped out my patented Blastket and shot my coworkers down in the street. I then stole Warstrike's wallet and escaped to the lair. I spent the next hour trying to drain as many of his bank accounts as I could before running off to the Caribbean. By the time the police and local heroes realized that Warstrike was now roadkill, I was sipping rum on a sandy beach while a native boy massaged my feet. Now that's how a modern day pirate should act.

As you can guess, my loot finally ran out. I've come back to the states and I think I'm ready to be my own Captain. I've been the loyal crew member for too long. I've been lucky in that I really haven't had a bad boss, but these schemes have been silly. Mind controlling the world? Like some hero isn't going to notice that? No, it's time to do some really smart plans. Something that will keep me in gold and rum for the rest of my life. Something that will make my parents proud to have a pirate daughter. And if I run into a loyal cabin boy along the way? All the better.

Four Rusty Bots

I really should be working on my wishlist so that piratephile men with too much money can buy me booty, but I wanted to spare a word or two about my loyal Bots.

When I decided to become a Pirate Super-Villian, I knew a regular crew wasn't going to cut the lime. Humans are fragile, complain a lot and demand a share of the booty. That wounds me to the quick it does. I put in all the work masterminding the heists, why should some mook get any money just because they stopped a bullet or two?

This is why I went to school and got my Engineering Robotics Degree at Evilania University. I know, people badmouth Evilania because of their Geneva conventions violations and their dictator, Empereor Devastation's track record with experimenting on his populace, but they have a really good robotics program. I graduated second in my class with only that witch Sheila Feinrich having higher grades. You might know her better as the Inventatrix. I'm not saying Sheila slept with her professors, but if my graduation day deathtrap would have succeeded, they would have had to bury her in a Y-shaped coffin.

Anyway, I took my education and created my own crew of loyal steel robot minions. 1stMateBot alone has taken nearly thirty fatal blasts for me from over eager heroes. BosunBot has pirated more music than a Metallica fan with a Britney Spears obsession. HelmsBot not only drives the getaway van with precision, but he's also detailed the sides in a fetching Jolly Roger that's the envy of all the other gangs. CookBot has mastered all the classics like sea biscuits, spiced rum and fried marlin. Not even Inventatrix could make a finer crew then my Bots.

And would she have the style to give every Bot an eypatch over a defunct sensor? I think not.

Ahoy!

This be my first log for my new career as a super villain pirate captain. In the days of old, pirate captains would keep their logs on paper or the flayed skins of misbehaving cabin boys. But since I am a modern day high tech pirate captain with an crew of robot sailors to do my bidding, I think we can do things a mite bit more updated.

Let's introduce ourselves shall we? I'm Scarlett Drake, and yes that is sadly my real name. My parents were Drakes and they were both piratephiles. My dear father used to buy cutlasses and rapiers while my mother was more into the knots and the ropework. they both wanted a son so they could call him Francis but they got me instead. The named me Scarlett after Gone with the Wind as they had visions of me running the Brett Butlers of my life through with a long shank of metal. They both had a drama streak that I have inherited.

So my childhood was pretty good for someone who's embarked on a life of crime. I helped my parents shoplift and we would bury our loot in the back yard till Christmas. Every night Dad would read a classic like 'Treasure Island' to me. Mom helped me tie up my first boyfriend. Instead of ballet I took lots and lots of swimming classes and instead of a dog my first pet was a parrot named Hook.

That's why it broke my parents' hearts when I decided at 18 that I wasn't going to become a sailor, join a ship's crew just to overthrow the captain at a critical moment and begin a life of piracy. It wasn't that I object to the plan morally, I just thought it was a stupid plan. it was 1991 and the first Gulf War was in full swing. I wanted to stay at home and do things a bit smarter. No boats that were going to get hit with the lastest in missile technology, no annoying crew that doesn't take a woman captain seriously and best of all, no water to mess up the not quite waterproof cybernetic implants I was working on.

My cunning plan was simple and yet offensive to my traditional piratephile family. I was going to have a crew made up of cold loyal deadly robots!