She Pushed the Button

There's no particular reason why Villain Central exists and it's not my fault and it certainly wasn't because I felt I needed to see a highly volatile experiment to completion and definitely has nothing to do with Malleate .
A/n: This is not a story that Ruby Gray is capable of telling, because she still largely refuses to admit that this even happened. The other people involved, especially Malleate, are less likely to admit to this.
It's described by outsiders as a battle between two great villains, a titanic clash that ended up creating enough chaos that it carved out a separate country, thus changing the world forever. And also the environment of the area.

Let Me Explain

So, instead of a titanic clash, it was Ruby versus someone trying harder than necessary to parent her. Which she desperately needed, as evidenced by the fact that she unleashed a weather phenomenon that still affects the local landscape.
She was nine, and as per usual was messing around with dangerous concepts that should have been left alone. At least this time didn't involve time travel. She has her device all set up and ready to go, when Malleate arrived to thwart her. It was setting up to be more of a formal villainous face off, but since Ruby was a child and Malleate isn't a complete monster, it devolved to more of an argument.

Eventually. It still started as an actual fight. Ruby had a robot army at the time, and used it against Malleate. She even gave a whole monologue to start it off in proper dramatic fashion. It was a little generic since she'd expected to have to use it against the government, but he was the first one to get there. He used his ability to change matter and altered some of the robots, but the internal components had enough organic elements that they almost got him.
They fought, and tore up the area pretty good. And that was before Ruby hit the button that set off the storm.
There are not many people in the world that Ruby will listen to, and when she pushed the button that day she conclusively proved that Malleate is not one of those people.