Villain

Villain is the eighth book in the Gone Series, and the second in the Monster Trilogy.

Plot
The book begins with Dillon Poe, who wreaks havoc in the drunk tank by using his morph to order people to bite out their own tongues.

Malik is in deep pain after being burned by the napalm from Tom Peaks’ morph. After being given a dose of the rock by Cruz, he morphs into a less-accurate version of himself, with a power to siphon off his own pain to other people.

Dekka and Armo leave Sam and Astrid’s house after informing them of what has been going on, and that Drake is alive and most likely coming after Astrid.

ASO-6 is sent off course due hitting to a loose space toolkit floating in orbit around earth. It lands in a different location than expected and wipes out an entire ship.

General DiMarco runs down the top ten list of most dangerous mutants, coming to the decision that Francis Specter is to be killed on sight, and that Drake may be useful for their purposes.

Tom Peaks is hiding out with Drake in a cave, and Drake decides to attack Astrid soon, when civilization begins to fall apart.

Shade, Cruz and Malik escape the hospital now that Malik is fit to move. They hide out in a secluded house in the Mojave Desert.

Francis Specter escapes the Mojave Huns, the gang with which her mother is tied up in. She goes in search of Dekka Talent. As soon as she is out, the compound is blown up, and she realizes that it was because they wanted to destroy her.

Shade experiments with seeing how fast she can go, and finds that she can reach 800 mph. She decides, along with Cruz, that their goal is to overthrow the Ranch by recording the horrors taking place inside and posting it to the public.

Dillon Poe goes to the Venetian in Las Vegas and tells people to begin eating each other, with the exception of children. He then uses Saffron to become his henchman, and she convinces him that she should be his queen instead,

ASO-6 morphs an animal, creating an animal that is part killer-whale, part crab, and over 200 feet long, which is classified as a chimera. A boat armed with nuclear weapons equivalent to about 192 Hiroshimas is heading north to patrol the Norwegian sea. It is sunken by the strange animal.

Dekka and Armo arrive in Las Vegas to find Dillon Poe creating disaster everywhere. They decide to go after him.

Shade, Cruz and Malik are able to get into the Ranch grounds, despite being pursued by an entire fleet of military helicopters. Malik unleashes his power on all nearby, so they are able to progress further into the Ranch. Shade films the horrible experiments carried out on human beings, and even interviews a couple of them. Some are so crippled by the experiments they don’t make in out of the Ranch alive, and others need chemicals to function, so they die as well. The rest flee into the woods nearby, many vowing to seek revenge on HSTF-66.

Dekka and Armo attempt to stop Dillon Poe, but are almost arrested by the police, so are unable to do so. Dillon continues to tell people to kill each other, but Dekka and Armo do not thanks to their morphs.

Malik finds he is able to send waves of pain towards the Dark Watchers, even if they happen to be very minor.

Francis glimpses Dekka and Armo whilst driving through Las Vegas on a motorcycle and pursues them.

DiMarco places Dekka in the number one spot for most dangerous, making her a KOS also.

Dillon Poe drives off, as it is becoming too dangerous for him, and he has realized the threat the Rockborn pose to him. Saffron is killed by a man following Dillon’s orders. He makes the decision to create chaos at a basketball stadium that seats over 17 000 people.

Cruz, Shade and Malik also discover Dekka is in Las Vegas and begin to head there.

Dillon takes over the control booth at the game, and forces the entire crowd of 7000 to obey him. He commands them to go to the Las Vegas Strip and kill anybody in uniform. He reserves nine cheerleaders to remain with him.

General DiMarco sends a tank brigade to go deal with Dillon and his army, and any other morphers. Dillon‘s army begins killing of those in uniform, and in a short amount of time, Vegas is in lockdown.

Drake is blown up by the NSA, and is put temporarily out of action whilst he regrows himself.

Shade, Malik, and Cruz meet up with Dekka and Armo. Francis also arrives at a similar time. Dekka asks Shade for some of the rock for Astrid, so she is able to protect herself against Drake by morphing. Francis arrives to help Dekka, and they all begin to formulate a plan: go in to save people when everything begins to fall apart.

Vincent Vu, Tom Peaks, and Justin DeVeere are all heading towards Las Vegas, which will result in all the important morphers being in the same location.

Dillon Poe broadcasts a video on social media telling people to come to the Strip and kill anybody in the military, and to send the message to all their followers. However, social media is quickly taken down, but not before many people have heard the message. He then attempts to get the message on CNN, which works. He tells the person in charge to put in on a constant replay. Dillon then dials 911 and asks for his message to be heard by everybody in the emergency center. He also tells them to spread the message to anyone they encounter. Dillon then tells the tank brigade to annihilate the entirety of Las Vegas. He comes to the realization that even if they don’t destroy the building he is in, it will still be eventually destroyed by the spread of flames. He creates a deal that if he gets what he wants (which includes a large sum of money and a helicopter for his escape) he will leave everybody alone.

Shade and the others trying to stop Dillon get into morph so they don’t fall prey to Dillon’s orders. Cruz heads out into the chaos, to tell Shade when it is time for her to step in and save everyone. When Dillon drops a sparking windup toy, she realizes it will set the gasoline alight, so she calls in Shade, who uses her speed to suck all of the oxygen out of the air, putting out the flame.

Dillon is shot in the collarbone by a sniper shooter, and retreats to a hotel room. Tom Peaks arrives, and, without realizing what the result will be, spews lava everywhere. Everything begins to catch fire. Dekka uses her super-sonic screeches to turn nearby buildings into rubble, smothering the flame. Shade extinguishes the remaining flames using the same method she used with the windup toy. Her and Armo manage to rescue some people from the flames, but many still die.

Francis and Malik go confront Dillon. Malik tricks Dillon, stating that he is on the same side as the Dark Watchers, as he had given up trying to escape him. He tells Dillon the injury will vanish if he demorphs. As soon as Dillon does this, Malik hits him with a wave of pain.

At that point the tank brigade open fire on the hotel Dillon is in. Dekka destroys the firing barrels of the tanks, so they are unable to fire. However, the hotel continues to be fired at. One shot hits the window of the room Dillon is being tortured by Malik in. After allowing him to spend time under the stress of the agony, Malik presents Dillon with a decision: have his tongue cut out, or jump out the window. His thoughts distorted by agony, Dillon jumps out the window, ending his own life.

After the battle, Cruz, Shade, Dekka, Malik, Armo, and Francis are regarded as heroes. Although many died, they managed to stop Dillon and save those that they could.

A woman on board the ship sunk near ASO-6 decided to destroy the creature, and all aboard the sunken ship, by releasing all the nuclear bombs onboard. Everything in the surrounding area is completely obliterated. ASO-7 passes through the moon‘s orbit and begins its plummet towards earth.

Deaths

 * Sergeant Tolliver - Sliced by Knightmare out of mercy after being nearly killed by a missile.
 * Vincent - Shot with a missile.
 * Dillon - Suicide after being tortured by Malik.
 * Saffron - Sliced by a civilian following Dillon's orders with a meat cleaver.
 * 3,102 people that burned in las vegas.