When I returned home, I was stunned to realise Gilbert had been telling the truth. Almost all of my henchmen were behind bars, with only Candycane, Crazy Coyote, and Loud Sword still free. They'd escaped arrest because their civilian identities had been a closely-guarded secret. My own civilian identity was safe, but since Gilbert knew who I was, he'd reveal that knowledge to the authorities the first chance he got.
Only, he didn't. Instead, when he returned to Essex, he contacted me and told me that I had one chance of staying out of prison. "You have only to play the part of devoted wife, and I won't expose you," the last of the message read. "You don't have to like it, but then again, I don't like having my heart in the possession of someone as vile as you."
I glared at the message before sending a furious reply. "You can take your false words and shove them where the sun don't shine," I wrote, fingers trembling. "I know you want to bring me down, so why not go ahead and do it?"
There was silence before his rebuttal came back. "I'm not going to expose the woman carrying my child," his message ran. "Once my child is born, I will, of course, enact my due rights as a father and ensure you never have the chance to corrupt him to your cause. And when he's grown, he'll be the one to take you down. That will be my revenge, my dear. Then you'll know true and lasting defeat, knowing that you had the chance for true happiness, but ruined it because you were too stubborn to see you're just a tool. Had you ever realised you were more than the weapon your parents created, none of this would have happened. Alas, you believed you were just the tool designed to bring me down, and so here we are. There isn't a damned thing you can do to change my mind, so don't even try."
I took a deep breath. "Over my dead body," I said aloud, referring to his plan to claim custody of my unborn son. "You're never getting your hands on my child, no matter what I have to do to prevent it!"
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The next day, I filed for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. Heroes and villains generally didn't marry each other, thanks in part to the enormous risks each party faced from the other. So my petition for divorce, filed under the name of Eva Destruction, was granted swiftly. Gilbert was not happy when he found out, but I'd removed his one bargaining chip; he couldn't very well expose me while I was pregnant with his son, and I almost smirked at imagining his teeth-gritting fury.
Once the divorce was secured, I then married Loud Sword, thus gaining a husband who was truly devoted to me, and protection for my unborn child. Gilbert was even angrier when he found out, and Mister Impossible Sentinel made it public that his wife, Eva Destruction, had been suborned by the very devil himself, a person who delighted in killing, and that he, Mister Impossible Sentinel, feared for the safety of his unborn child. He pleaded with the public to get help in dissolving this unholy union, so that he might reclaim his wife and child and keep them safe from harm.
The public, having been convinced of his innocence, didn't hesitate to set about trying to separate Loud Sword and myself. The only problem was, they hadn't the foggiest idea who Loud Sword and I really were, and therefore, when we appeared in public in our civilian identities, the unsuspecting populace passed us by with nary a glance in our direction. We took great care never to appear together in our villain guises; we, along with Candycane and Crazy Coyote, were outnumbered over a hundred to four. Any attacks would be accomplished with almost contemptible ease.
Gilbert, once more, was disappointed when he failed in his mission to try and kidnap me, so he resorted to the one thing I never dreamed he'd use against me.
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As my pregnancy drew near to full term, Mister Impossible Sentinel made a public, impassioned speech in Trafalgar Square. "I call Eva Destruction to account!" he announced, his voice projected from one end of the city to the other. "She has stolen my heart, and I, to my everlasting shame, am deeply in love with her. I believe that love can win her back, and make her forswear her villain ways. She has but to come and meet me here, any time of the day or night, and I will forgive her on bended knee for all the crimes she's committed over the last eight years. I will even forgive her cohorts, Candycane, Crazy Coyote, and her so-called husband Loud Sword, so long as they agree to exile across the Channel. However, if they accept exile - as indeed, they must! - they will not be permitted to ever have contact with Eva Destruction for the rest of their natural lives. Should they ever fail in this directive, I will have them exposed and arraigned for trial here in the United Kingdom, to face the full force of the law!"
"You bastard," I muttered, feeling a thrum of deep emotion score its path across my heart. "You think I'd let myself be touched by you again?"
As if he'd heard me, Mister Impossible Sentinel delivered his coup de grace. "I am only allowing Eva one week," he said. "If she fails to appear here, seeking my forgiveness, then by the end of that week, I will be forced to exercise my rights as her child's father. I will claim sole custody of that child, and she will never be permitted to lay hand on him for as long as I live. If she wishes any sort of contact with my child, she has only to come here before the week's end. And it won't matter whose name she puts on the birth certificate! I am the father of her son, and no power on earth will stop me from claiming my due rights!"
I sat back, stunned speechless as he left the square, to the approving murmur of the spell-bound civilians. "I don't like this," I said bleakly.
"We need to run fast and far," Loud Sword agreed. "Llian, how fit are you?"
"Fit enough to do a runner across the Channel and into the one place he can't get to me," I said, standing. "His family can never enter, and I can raise my son in peace. Then we can get to the bottom of this turn-around in Gilbert's fortunes, and how he was able to regain the love of the populace so quickly."
Candycane and Crazy Coyote nodded. "Then let's go," the former said.
I nodded. "Lets."
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