To Rescue a Villain

Chapter 18

[This chapter's music video was provided by Kin rin, an awesome youtuber whose videos you should definitely check out.]

The first video was labeled "Episode 1" and the rest continued up until "Episode 21: The Final Chapter". Watching these would take a lot of hours from my life. Oh well. I did have work to do but this felt more important since I cared more about Mary than my boss.

"Playing 'Episode 1'," Di stated.

As I watched I had to admit that the art style was really nice to look at. It wasn't completely cartoonish but not realistic either, which was super appealing. Mary had good taste.

The characters were also quite fascinating. They formed a group of three heroes, the most prominent one being an attractive eastern girl with cropped, inky hair. Accompanying her were two men, one who constantly wore some kind of black, robotic suit that blocked his face and the other a blond who looked similar to Ace. I pointed this out to Di but she didn't seem to care.

"I don't think I've seen this show before," I commented, leaning forward so I could get a closer look.

The trio were on some kind of alien planet or moon on a mission to stop the villain, whoever he was. From the loads of gunfire and sarcastic banter involved, I knew I would have fit in well with these guys.

Twenty minutes in the credits were rolling and I was enthralled. I couldn't wait to watch the next episode and was about to press the skip button when a final cut scene appeared at the end of the credits, accompanied by a male narrative mocking the previous actions of the main characters.

The black screen melted into a blood red and cut to a tall, middle aged man with dark hair and a scar across his forehead. I'd assumed he was the one narrating and was therefore the villain based on his tone and posture.

I was about to grin since I'd always liked how fascinating and relatable villains were when the camera zoomed in on his cartoon face and turned black, leaving me to sit in my unstable chair, dumbfounded.

He had my face.

There was no "Oh, he looks kind of similar to me" type thing. He had my face! He had my eyes and my hair that curled a little bit on the ends if it got too long and that scar on his head was the one I'd gotten when Grandma tried to kill me. Now that I thought about it, his voice was almost identical to mine as well although it had become a bit deeper.

"Di..." I whispered, feeling heat rise in my chest again. I clutched the sides of my chair to try to stay calm but it wasn't working. "Di...What was that?"

"It is a show your wife told me not to show you," the computer informed me in her monotone. Obviously, my orders outranked Mary's.

"Mary..." I cleared my throat and pointed at the blank screen. "Mary told you not to show me this?"

"Yes."

I laughed in disbelief. She'd had something like this, a show with me in it, as the villain no less, and she hadn't told me. What had possessed her to create this?

...No. She couldn't have. This was some high production animation. There was no way she'd created this video in two months by herself without making me suspicious. And she never would have cast me as the villain...would she?

On that note, I paused. What was it she had called me when my grandmother attacked us? Drake? Dark?

"Di, what's the name of the villain in this show?"

"Analyzing...Dark Hacket."

Dark Hacket. Too lazy to bother changing my last name, huh?

So, she and someone else, maybe even a team of people, had for some reason, made a show where I was the villain. Why? Why would she base that character on me? What did that accomplish? And why had she kept this a secret from me?