《Villains Don't Date Heroes!》


 1: Distractions

    ¡°Night Terror!¡±


    I smiled as the dust settled around me. I had to admit that was one of my more dramatic entrances.


    I always figured if you were going to do something then you should do it with style, and a focused energy blast on a revolving door leading into a bank that wasn¡¯t designed to handle anything like a focused energy blast was always suitably impressive to the normals.


    Tellers and patrons alike looked at me in terror, shying away as I strolled through the bank like I owned the place. Which, for the next few minutes at least, was more or less true. I could do whatever I wanted, and there wasn¡¯t anybody who could stop me.


    Damn it felt good to be a villain.


    Of course that didn¡¯t mean the normals wouldn¡¯t try to stop me. Movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned and saw a chubby security guard wearing a white uniform and a badge that looked almost, but not quite entirely unlike the police badges from the local constabulary.


    He was in the middle of pulling out a gun, an ancient revolver, and moving the barrel towards me. The thing seriously looked like something some prop guy pulled out that had been sitting in the back room since the ¡®40s when gangster movies were still the big thing.


    I had to admire his tenacity. And his ability to handle himself under pressure. The gun was only shaking a little as he trained it on me. Just enough to make him dangerous, but it was clear he knew how to use the piece. As though he practiced that sort of thing waiting for a chance to use it.


    Definitely not what I¡¯d expect from an older bank security guard. Maybe he was former PD, though it¡¯d have to be way former PD since everyone on the force since I started working knew better than to draw on me.


    Or maybe he was one of those guys who always wanted to be a cop but wasn¡¯t quite stupid enough to pass their entrance exams. Whatever. Not my problem.


    It¡¯s not like that gun was going to help him.


    He fired and time stood still. People screamed. I scoffed.


    Please. As though something as simple as an ancient six shooter could actually be a problem when they had a living goddess in front of them throwing around the kind of futuristic weaponry that would make Heinlein drool.


    I lifted a hand and flicked my fingers as the bullet came towards me. It was easy enough to track it through the heads-up display I had overlaid on my mask.


    A focused energy field sprang up in front of my hand and the bullet ricocheted away with a delightful ting. Only it wasn¡¯t entirely accurate to say that it ricocheted. More that I deflected the bullet away from me, and the energy of that deflection disintegrated it before it could do any real damage.


    Hey, I might be a villain, but I wasn¡¯t completely heartless. Collateral damage was always a pain in the butt. It always got the talking heads jabbering about how heartless and cruel you were. Basically it was a PR disaster I wasn¡¯t interested in getting involved with.


    Though it was difficult to resist the urge to create a PR disaster by disintegrating the security guard since he insisted on firing at me. Typical security guard. Shoot first and ask questions later, never stopping to think that by trying to shoot me he was putting the lives of all the innocent people in this bank at risk.


    I resisted the urge to vaporize him, but I did set my wrist blaster to stun and fired off a quick shot. I grimaced and hoped he didn¡¯t have a heart condition.


    There was only so much you could do with a ¡°stun¡± setting on these things. The real world didn¡¯t work on Star Trek logic. He didn¡¯t look like the type to have a heart condition, but hoping was the best I could do. I certainly couldn¡¯t leave him conscious to keep firing that antique.


    I looked around the bank lobby and raised an eyebrow. ¡°Anybody else want to be a hero?¡±


    Nobody moved. Nobody so much as breathed. Good. The last thing I needed was some normie with more testosterone than brains trying to impress their lady by trying to take me on.


    No, actually the last thing I needed was to rob a bank while there was a real hero in plain clothes hanging out. Not that I was too worried. I wasn¡¯t the number one villain in the city for nothing. The real heroes knew to stay away when mama was working, but it would put a cramp in my plans if I had to take the time to dispatch some hero looking to make a name for him or herself on top of doing the usual work of robbing a bank.


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    ¡°Good,¡± I said with a nod. ¡°You all can go about your business. I¡¯ll be in the vault if anybody needs me.¡±


    Everyone stared blankly. I put my hands on my hips.


    ¡°Come on. Does anyone here have more than a couple hundred thousand in the bank?¡±


    No one raised their hands. Figures. No one saved money these days. Then again the system was sort of stacked against people being able to save. Which was a big reason why I was constantly making withdrawals like this.


    ¡°Just what I thought. You¡¯re all insured.¡± I waved a dismissive hand. ¡°Go about your business and someone let the cops know I¡¯m in the vault when they get here.¡±


    I turned and marched off.


    I never understood why these banks insisted on keeping vaults full of actual cash money in this day and age. In a world where dollars were created with the push of a button it seemed like a silly anachronism to keep the physical paper around.


    Not that I was complaining. An old school robbery was a nice distraction. I needed a good distraction right now.


    Bank patrons and employees alike still cowered behind their desks or against potted plants as I walked through the lobby. I rolled my eyes. They always did that, even after I told them they were free to go about business as usual.


    It¡¯s not like I was a normal bank robber taking people hostage. I didn¡¯t have any need for something as brutish as hostages. And it¡¯s not like I was actually taking any of their money either. Most of their transactions were electronic, and I couldn¡¯t care less what the tellers had in their drawers. I was after the bigger bags of money.


    Good old fashioned impossible to trace cash.


    I whistled a happy tune as I raised my wrist blaster to the vault, then frowned. Some enterprising bank manager had managed to get the vault shut before I blew the front doors. I knew they¡¯d managed to get it shut because it¡¯d been sitting wide open when I walked in wearing plain clothes to scout the place before I stepped out and made the switch to my work outfit.


    ¡°Interesting,¡± I said.


    Apparently that enterprising bank manager was going to make a stand. A young guy in a cheap suit and tie stepped in front of the vault door and held out his arms.


    ¡°I¡¯m not going to let you do this,¡± he said.


    I cocked an eyebrow at him and he swallowed.


    ¡°If you¡¯re standing there in a minute then you¡¯d better hope you have superpowers of the invulnerability variety,¡± I said.


    He held my gaze. That was new and unsettling. Unsettling in the ¡°normies shouldn¡¯t be standing up to a goddess¡± sense. Not in the sense that I was actually bothered by him standing up to me.


    ¡°You won¡¯t shoot me. You don¡¯t kill civilians,¡± he said, his voice only wavering a little as he tried to sound confident.


    I cocked my head. Now there was an unpleasant development. The moment it started getting around that you tried to avoid collateral damage it gave the collateral damage an excuse to get in your way in an attempt to stop you from world domination. This asshole in a cheap suit was the embodiment of that old quote about having nothing but work once word got around that you¡¯d gone soft.


    Of course that assumed I had gone soft, which I hadn¡¯t. It was more a risk/reward calculation, and this asshole just fell on the wrong side of that.


    Unfortunately for him there was an easy solution for that. I started charging my wrist blaster. It was going to take one hell of a blast to knock that vault door off its hinges, after all.


    The kind of blast that would go very poorly for whatever poor bastard was standing in the way when it went off.


    ¡°Now you¡¯ve put me in a difficult position,¡± I said. The ominous hum of my wrist blaster filled the room. He tugged at his tie and a bead of sweat ran down his face. ¡°Now that I know you have absolutely no plans of moving, that you¡¯re using yourself as a human shield for a bunch of paper and metal that doesn¡¯t give a shit if you live or die, I have more incentive to blast you along with the door and use you as an example than I do to spare you.¡±


    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t,¡± he said.


    I held my wrist blaster up. Energy crackled and little bolts of electricity arced back and forth in front of the barrel. The ominous hum was growing louder and louder, sounding like the sort of electric hum you¡¯d get from a high tension electrical wire with a couple of angry killer bee hives hanging from it and magnified by about a thousand.


    ¡°Care to try me?¡± I asked.


    The suit swallowed one last time, that must be a nervous tic with the guy or something, and then he thought better of playing a game of chicken with the most powerful villain in the world and dove out of the way.


    A good thing too, because I was completely serious about him being more valuable as an example than anything.


    I glanced at the indicators on my wrist blaster. The ominous hum was louder than I¡¯d ever heard before. Strictly speaking it was probably more charged than I needed even for this thick vault door, but I was in the mood for a little theatricality now that a stupid suit dared to defy me.


    He¡¯d put me in a bad mood. That hadn¡¯t happened in a long time, and I figured taking out that bad mood on some of the property he was supposed to be protecting would be just the ticket.


    A little yellow warning light flashed on the wrist blaster. That meant we were about five minutes away from a meltdown that would take out a few city blocks at the very least. That wouldn¡¯t do.


    I might be angry, but I wasn¡¯t suicidal.


    I let loose. A bolt of crackling energy flew across the room and slammed into the door. I figured it was going to take a lot to open the thing, but apparently banks had started cheaping out on vault doors.


    The energy blast slammed into the metal and the entire damn thing disintegrated. Disintegrated!


    Huh. That was new.


    Either my stuff was a hell of a lot more powerful than I thought, or somebody had decided to save a little money by getting a vault door that looked impressive but couldn¡¯t hold up to your average super villain with a futuristic charged energy weapon. Which was a major mistake if you wanted to hold onto your physical cash reserves in Starlight City.


    Oh well. That was their problem. Not mine. It was time to get to work.

 2: The Useful Blue Line

    I stepped through the vault door and put up a force field behind me with a casual wave of my hand. My force field generator really only worked in small directed bursts, good for things like deflecting those bullets the guard shot at me with his little pea shooter, so if somebody really wanted to get in here while the field was spread across the entire entrance they¡¯d be able to.


    Only who would be silly enough to try something like that? They just saw me blow the vault door aside like it was cardboard, and then they saw me put up a force field that shimmered with just enough translucence to make out shapes on the other side.


    How could they know it wasn¡¯t going to disintegrate them if they touched the field?


    They didn¡¯t. Theatricality was as much a part of being a good super villain as actually having gadgets that could follow through on some of my threats. If one out of five gadgets worked the way people expected then they started to think five out of five gadgets were capable of vaporizing them or doing other nasty things if they dared defy me.


    Not to mention walking through that force field would take long enough that I¡¯d have ample warning to turn and vaporize them, so it was really six of one and half a dozen of another as far as outcomes for anyone stupid enough to bother me while I was working.


    I glanced around the vault. There were some gold bars that had been rattled loose by the door¡¯s disintegration. There were piles of cash in giant bags. They didn¡¯t have anything as silly as giant dollar signs on them like cartoons would lead you to believe, but I¡¯d stolen enough of them over the years to know a bag full of cash when I saw it.


    I held up my wrist computer. ¡°You ready, CORVAC?¡±


    ¡°Ready mistress,¡± CORVAC¡¯s metallic voice came through the wrist computer.


    I moved over to the back wall and leaned against it. I watched the translucent shapes of people running around outside the vault. No doubt trying to get out of the bank while the employees tried to figure out how the hell they¡¯d get rid of me.


    I¡¯m sure the police were being called and I¡¯d have to deal with that once I was back on the other side. I was counting on it, actually, but I didn¡¯t feel the rush I¡¯d expected. Not like old times.


    I slumped against the wall and sighed. This wasn¡¯t nearly as distracting as I¡¯d hoped. I tapped a button on my belt and a long range teleportation targeter materialized from the pattern buffer in one of my belt storage units.


    The problem with teleportation over long ranges without line of sight was it required something to home in on. Nothing like those stupid television shows that always depicted teleporters just working over ridiculously long distances.


    Talk about unrealistic.


    I mean sure I had one teleporter that was capable of working at interstellar distances, but the one time I¡¯d actually used the thing it ended up killing someone very close to me. The less I thought about firing that one up again the better. With my luck I¡¯d accidentally open a portal to some planet with aliens who were interested in conquering the pale blue dot I¡¯d just brought to their attention.


    If there was one thing I didn¡¯t have time for right now it was singlehandedly fighting off another alien invasion.


    ¡°Do you have the coordinates, CORVAC?¡±


    ¡°Yes Mistress,¡± CORVAC said. ¡°Remotely programming the long range unit now. I still don¡¯t understand why you needed to make a personal appearance for this.¡±


    I was starting to wonder why I¡¯d made a personal appearance for this. Damn it.


    ¡°Just transport everything out of this room in about five minutes,¡± I said.


    ¡°You¡¯re not coming with?¡±


    ¡°Nope,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m going to take the long way out. Maybe that¡¯ll be interesting.¡±


    ¡°Whatever you say, Mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    I knew he was a bundle of vacuum tubes and circuits that could do a reasonably passable imitation of sapience, but there were times, like right now, when I almost thought he wasn¡¯t faking it.


    Too bad there wasn¡¯t a Turing test for smartassery.


    ¡°I could do without the sarcasm, CORVAC,¡± I snapped.


    ¡°So terribly sorry mistress.¡±


    Not for the first time I regretted installing that extra module that gave him the ability to feel emotions. It¡¯d seemed like a good idea at the time. I figured it¡¯d make him happier. I thought it might make him a more enjoyable conversational companion since he was the only person I had to talk to when I was busy in the lab.


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    Damn were there times I wished I had someone other than that stupid computer to talk to. Times I wished my meddling in forces best left untouched hadn¡¯t resulted in accidentally teleporting the one woman I¡¯d ever loved halfway across the galaxy.


    But no. Adding in that emotion chip seemed to turn him into a miserable, depressed, misanthropic, and overly sarcastic pile of circuitry. And it¡¯s not like I could go back in and remove that emotion chip since I¡¯m pretty sure he had safeguards on most of his systems that¡¯d try to vaporize me if I ever got close enough to his hardware for anything other than an authorized upgrade.


    He wouldn¡¯t succeed, but just trying would be enough of a pain in the ass that I didn¡¯t want to mess with it if I could avoid it.


    No, CORVAC definitely wasn¡¯t the kind of computer to idly set by singing Daisy while someone ripped out his circuit boards because they were displeased with his performance or annoyed by his homicidal streak.


    I glanced through the shimmering shield and sighed again. They definitely called the cops. At least there were darker shapes that looked very much like the local five-oh lining up to do their impotent best to keep up the appearance they were trying to stop me from doing whatever the hell I pleased.


    To be perfectly honest this job could¡¯ve been a hell of a lot easier. CORVAC was right in being just a little snippy and sarcastic.


    I could¡¯ve hacked into the bank computers and created some money for myself and transferred it, all anonymous and friendly like, into my untraceable bank accounts where nobody would ever know the money was even missing. I could¡¯ve cased the bank, gotten the coordinates of the vault, walked into the lobby in civilian clothes with my belt on, materialized the long range teleportation targeter into the vault using the short range teleporter built into my belt, transported all the contents out, and then rolled around in the money, after sanitizing it of course because that stuff was filthy, on my bed back at the lab without anyone knowing the great Night Terror was in their midst.


    Sure there was always the risk of also transporting some unfortunate bank employee along with the cash, but a quick transportation back to the old coordinates minus all the cash usually took care of that.


    The only problem with that?


    No one would know the great Night Terror had been in their midst. Every two-bit villain in the city would step up and take credit for the job and there would always be some doubt I¡¯d done it even if I took credit.


    No, my reputation and my ego prevented me from doing anything other than a personal appearance for a job like this.


    Of course the main reason I was out today was boredom. This whole thing he had gotten too easy. There were no new worlds to conquer. I was the top villain in a city that was filled with the greatest villains and heroes the world had ever seen, and there was nobody who dared challenge me.


    Boring.


    ¡°Night Terror! We know you¡¯re in there! Come out with your hands up and nobody gets hurt!¡±


    I frowned. Okay. The local cops pretended to challenge me, but that was always a token show of resistance and it¡¯s not like they even tried that hard anymore.


    ¡°Give me a minute!¡± I shouted through the force field.


    I heard muttering on the other side, but nobody said a damn thing. Hopefully they¡¯d cleared out the bank so none of the civilians saw them following orders.


    We both knew the score. They didn¡¯t overwork themselves trying to grab me, and I made sure I didn¡¯t cause too much collateral damage, make them look too bad, or accidentally vaporize one of them while I was making an escape.


    No, you definitely knew you¡¯d made it as a villain it when you went toe to toe with the cops so often that you gave one another professional courtesy.


    But the flip side of that professional courtesy was that it made the whole damn thing so mundane and routine.


    ¡°Take your time, Miss Terror,¡± the familiar voice of the commissioner came through the loudspeaker. Huh. He must be bored today too. ¡°We¡¯ve cleared out any potential hostages so don¡¯t get any ideas.¡±


    Translation: they had cleared out anyone who might take a video of them cooperating with me and spread it on the Internet. Good.


    Still, this was nothing like the early days when I was making a name for myself. When the people had no idea who Night Terror was. When I still had to prove myself against the best heroes the city had to offer. When I still had to fight for territory against the best villains the city had to offer.


    I smiled as I thought back to those days. That had been fun. Now those heroes ran as fast as their powers would carry them in the other direction when they heard I was around, and the criminal element in the city was well aware that Night Terror¡¯s territory was wherever the hell Night Terror decided to be at a given moment.


    And it was all so damn boring. There wasn¡¯t any challenge anymore.


    I¡¯d hoped getting out and doing a good old-fashioned bank heist would be a nice change of pace from the boring research stuff I¡¯d been doing recently. Stupid CORVAC and his obsession with having me build him a giant death robot so he could get in on some of the city dominating fun.


    Not that I planned on ever letting him actually get out and take the thing for a spin, but drafting the plans for a pointless giant death robot was the same exhausting work whether or not you intended the thing to actually see use out in the real world.


    Even more exhausting considering I was building in multiple exploitable weaknesses and design flaws while cleverly disguising them so he wouldn¡¯t know I was setting him up for a double cross on the off chance he tried to double cross me.


    ¡°Okay. I¡¯m done here. Coming out!¡± I shouted to give them ample warning.


    So much for a distraction. Now I felt more depressed than I¡¯d been before I made this run. I reached down and made sure my wrist blaster was good and charged, that my shield was ready to go, and that the antigravity units and strength modifiers hidden in my suit were good to go.


    Hey, I might be bored, but I wasn¡¯t going to go into a fight with a handicap and throw the game. I was never so bored that I¡¯d deliver anything less than a total curb stomp to my enemies.


    Well, I¡¯d do less than a total curb stomp with the cops. They were just doing their job after all. But I still had to be good to go and ready to take on whatever they threw at me. We all had our parts to play.


    Everything was in order. Everything was always in order. It¡¯s not like I¡¯d leave my lair if my reactor wasn¡¯t working properly or one of the other numerous bits of body enhancing technology that adorned my suit weren¡¯t good to go.


    I sighed. It was time to go out and be the scariest villain in the city.


    Again.


    It was time to make the police run in terror.


    Again.


    It was time to show any heroes who might be working in the vicinity exactly how futile it was to take on Night Terror.


    Again.


    Yeah, just another boring day at work.


    I took a deep breath and let the force field drop.

 3: Goddess in a Green Cape

    A hail of bullets flew towards me as soon as the force field dropped. Of course the cops might as well be firing blanks for all the good it was going to do them.


    I held up my hand and a wide dispersal force field sprang to life. I made sure to give the field a little give. I couldn¡¯t stop that many bullets outright, but I could slow them down to the point of being useless.


    It stretched wherever bullets hit but none made it through. The field sprang back and the bullets fell harmlessly to the ground when I let it go.


    I didn¡¯t want them to ricochet and cause collateral damage. Even if the collateral damage had been a little uppity on this trip. I tried to remember the last time they fired on me. Maybe it was because I blew the vault door?


    The cops lowered their weapons. Well, most of them did. One rookie kept his raised until the commissioner, I recognized his trench coat and impressive bushy gray mustache, reached out and smacked the younger guy on the back of the head. The rookie lowered his gun with a sheepish grin.


    I smiled and waved as I walked past them. ¡°Hello boys.¡±


    Some muttered a hello right back at me. Some waved sheepishly. Like a dog that knew it¡¯d done something wrong. I held back a laugh. None of them raised their weapons again.


    They knew the drill. They got off their first volley to make it look like they were doing something, they didn¡¯t bother to raise their weapons again, and none of them had to go to the hospital because I had to break out my toys. It was a cushy arrangement all around.


    I nodded to the commissioner as I passed. ¡°Commish. How¡¯s the wife?¡±


    ¡°Just fine Miss Terror,¡± he said. ¡°Doing just fine.¡±


    ¡°Good to hear,¡± I said.


    ¡°And your daughter?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Dealing with her last year in high school, but she¡¯ll make it through just fine,¡± he said. ¡°That kid¡¯s going places. Loves to tinker with things.¡±


    I smiled. That reminded me of a certain world class supervillain when she was younger. I¡¯d have to be sure and wire a little extra bonus to his special account later. His daughter was getting ready to start college, and I did have some extra money burning a hole in my pocket now.


    And then I was past them. I couldn¡¯t help but sigh just a little in disappointment. There was a time when taking on the cops had been, well, if not difficult then at least something mildly amusing to pass the time.


    Oh well. That was what I got for proving I was so completely and utterly dominant in this city. I had no one to blame but myself.


    I blasted out of the double doors leading out to the street. Bright light shone through the cracks way up above in the high reaches of the concrete jungle.


    There were times when it felt like Starlight City was nothing but skyscrapers. At least all the important parts of Starlight City where all the real shit went down. No self-respecting superhero or villain wanted to duke it out in the suburbs with a bunch of Karens recording on their cell phones and complaining about how they didn¡¯t need ¡°those flying people¡± ruining their property values.


    A police line had been set up all around the entrance to the bank and there were officers all around with their weapons raised, but none of them made a move. No, the real danger right now was some hero out there trying to make a name for themselves by taking on the great and powerful Night Terror.


    That was when things started to get messy. That was why the police had lines set up well down the street to keep the civilians away just in case something went down.


    Well, that and if they had that line set up then there was no way pesky reporters or members of the public could see just how little they were doing to try and stop me.


    Funny how public safety and covering their own asses went hand-in-hand.


    ¡°How¡¯s it going, boys?¡±


    ¡°Mistress, do you care to tell me what you¡¯re doing?¡±


    Some of the cops looked around nervously. Though they were mostly looking down the street to where the lines were set up to keep civilians out.


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    ¡°Just having a conversation with the cops,¡± I said. ¡°Is there something wrong with that?¡±


    ¡°You¡¯re a super villain,¡± CORVAC said. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be getting so chummy with the police.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, but the only person I have to talk to on the regular is a homicidal supercomputer,¡± I said.


    ¡°Which is all you should need, Mistress,¡± he said with another trademark sniff.


    ¡°Quiet down. I¡¯ll be home soon enough,¡± I muttered.


    I smiled and waved at the group of cops on either side of me. Some of them actually smiled and waved back. Some of the rookies scowled. They hadn¡¯t been on the force long enough to learn about our unofficial arrangement. Or at the very least they hadn¡¯t been on the force long enough to appreciate just how useful our little understanding was for both sides.


    It might be time to make another donation to the Fraternal Order of Police. It¡¯d been a while since I greased the skids with the newbies and the FOP was the best about funneling my ill gotten gains where it needed to go.


    I stood with my hands on my hips glancing around. I almost hoped somebody was going to try something. I needed the distraction, and if the cops weren¡¯t going to provide it then maybe there was a new up and coming hero who wanted to try me.


    Nothing.


    The only sound was the shifting of semiautomatic weapons in the cop¡¯s hands, and believe me that never sounded as dramatic in person as it did in the movies. The distant sound of crowds trying to break through to where the action was happening filtered down the streets. My computer system noted bullhorns and cops telling people to stay back off in the distance and dulled the noise before it reached my ears because it wasn¡¯t important to my current situation.


    All the usual stuff. Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing to indicate there was a hero on the way.


    Oh well. I guess I could console myself with the piles of money I¡¯d just illegitimately gained.


    I was just about to activate my antigravity units and take off when something stopped me. An odd noise. Something that sounded almost like a fighter jet off in the distance, though it was unlike any jet I¡¯d ever heard before. Not to mention it¡¯d been forever and a day since the military was stupid enough to try me.


    I cocked an ear to listen more closely.


    The noise was so faint I almost thought I was hearing things. Almost thought I was going crazy. Only the cops were starting to look up in the sky as well. They heard it too.


    More importantly my earpieces were picking it up. Something was out there. Something that sent a shiver of excitement running through me.


    What the hell was that?


    I pulled up my wrist computer and looked at the screen.


    ¡°CORVAC, is there anything odd going on downtown? Anything like a jet or something else coming this way?¡±


    It couldn¡¯t be a police helicopter. They didn¡¯t bother sending those after me anymore. Not after I disabled the last one with a handy focused electromagnetic pulse and gently landed it with one of my antigravity units.


    They got the message loud and clear. Don¡¯t try to follow me and figure out where my lair was.


    ¡°I¡¯m picking up something odd on satellite,¡± CORVAC said. ¡°An unidentified bogey. Moving fast.¡±


    ¡°Well what the hell is it?¡± I asked.


    ¡°If I knew what it was then it wouldn¡¯t be unidentified, now would it, Mistress?¡± CORVAC¡¯s testy reply came back.


    I rolled my eyes and let out a frustrated growl, but I was elated by this turn of events.


    Here was something new. Here was something exciting. Here was something to break up the monotony, even if it probably was something lame like the National Guard sending in a jet to try and take me out or something similarly stupid like that. Though the outcry when they fired an air-to-air missile at me and ended up making the tallest building in the city the second tallest building in the city had been enough to keep them away from me for a good long while.


    Even if it was another hero this was likely to be over rather quickly.


    The sound grew louder. Louder. Wind kicked up as something displaced it down the concrete canyons, and goose bumps rose all over my body in anticipation. I looked around, but whatever this thing was I couldn¡¯t see it through the concrete jungle surrounding me.


    But I could hear it. Loud enough that it was overwhelming the sound dampeners as it echoed against the walls. That sound bounced across the glass skyscrapers. Ornate stained glass windows across the way in the new Thomas Opera House rattled and several splintered.


    The noise was almost deafening. Even with ear protection, which was sort of a necessity in my line of work.


    ¡°CORVAC, can I get a satellite picture?¡±


    A holographic image projected up from my wrist computer. I saw a small blue tinted version of the city that zoomed in so I was looking at a 3-D map of the immediate area.


    Off in the distance, though not too far and closing fast, was a small dot speeding towards me. The thing was moving really damn fast. Faster than even my antigravity units could handle, and that was saying something.


    I raised an eyebrow. This was new.


    ¡°Definitely not a jet,¡± I muttered.


    Then I didn¡¯t have to look at the holographic projection to see what was coming. On the projection it rounded a corner and I looked up. Everyone else looked up at the same time and started pointing.


    I heard cheers from the crowds down the way and scowled. They never appreciated how good they had it with a villain like me who tried my best to make sure nobody got hurt while I was working.


    I only wanted what was best for the people of this city. All I asked in return was that they didn¡¯t get in my way too much while I robbed them blind and ruled them with an iron fist.


    ¡°Is it a bird?¡± one cop shouted.


    ¡°Nah. Moving that fast it has to be a plane!¡± another shouted loud enough to be overheard over the din.


    The impossibly fast whatever resolved into a person, though still too far away to make out much detail. Then, faster than lightning, the unidentified flying person landed with a loud crash in front of me.


    I threw my arm over my face to shield myself. Bits of pavement went flying through the air and I kicked up my shield at the last moment causing several bits of asphalt to slam against it and then fall harmlessly.


    I pulled my arm down and looked. Well, looked is probably a little bit of a misnomer. When I saw the creature standing before me I stared, my mouth hanging open.


    I couldn¡¯t believe it. A goddess stood before me.

 4: New Challenger

    I stared at the goddess in her high boots and a skirt that molded itself to a body that looked like it was sculpted by the gods. A bare flat stomach ran up to perfect breasts encased in a tight shirt that didn¡¯t have a symbol on it.


    Whoever this was, she was new enough in the city that she hadn¡¯t even taken the time to brand herself yet. And that face. Deep green eyes you could get lost in. Beautiful soft features framed by flowing light red hair that whipped dramatically in the wind created by her landing and matched the movement of the cape streaming behind her.


    I smiled. No branding meant a complete newbie. It meant a new hero who¡¯d decided to forego jumping in the deep end and went straight to diving the metaphorical Mariana Trench by trying herself on the great and powerful Night Terror.


    It meant a newbie who was very quickly going to be relegated to the scrap heap of hero wannabes who learned the hard way what it meant to go up against me. I held out my arm and my wrist blaster started its ominous hum as it powered up.


    This was going to be fun, and I wasn¡¯t just talking about the eye candy.


    ¡°I¡¯m Fialux,¡± she said, her eyes narrowing.


    Damn. Even when she was angry she was still hot. Hot enough I found myself wishing I¡¯d put some sort of hotness filter in my heads up display, but who would think of something like that?


    I shook my head. I needed to get my head back in the game. I¡¯d seen plenty of heroines before and they¡¯d never affected me like this.


    It¡¯d been way too long since I felt this strange burning in the pit of my stomach. I¡¯d never felt it on the job. It was new, weird, and I¡¯m not entirely sure I liked mixing business and pleasure even if it did feel oddly, strangely, good.


    I didn¡¯t need this. I didn¡¯t have time for dating or ogling. Especially not with a hero I was about to rough up.


    She might be the hottest chick I¡¯d ever seen, but she was also standing between me and continued dominance in Starlight City.


    Which meant what I was about to do was business.


    ¡°Well Fialux,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s time for you to learn what happens to heroes in this city who are foolish enough to challenge Night Terror.¡±


    Usually that was enough to send whatever hero hopeful was attacking me running, well, in terror. There was reason I chose the name I chose.


    Only it was different with this one. She floated there with the oddly sexy juxtaposition of a thin confident smile on her lips and a scowl in her eyes. Lips that were so red. That looked so delightfully inviting. That made me wonder what it would feel like to lean forward and brush my own lips against hers¡­


    No! I was not going to do this! Now wasn¡¯t the time. There wasn¡¯t ever a time for me to indulge these sorts of feelings, I was too busy with my plans for world domination, but right before a battle definitely wasn¡¯t the opportune moment.


    And what better way to clear my head than by taking on the city¡¯s latest hero hopeful? I couldn¡¯t be hypnotized by a hero who¡¯d been vaporized, after all.


    I raised my blaster and fired off a couple of shots, dead center, only they flew harmlessly through her and slammed into police cars behind her that lit up spectacularly.


    I winced. It didn¡¯t look like any cops were standing around the cars when they went up at least. The city really needed to talk to the contractor who put their cars together. They had a pesky habit of blowing up at the least provocation. So I didn¡¯t count that bit of collateral damage as my fault, even if I had lit the match.


    I blinked as the dust settled from the exploding cars. This hero, this goddess, this Fialux, floated exactly where she¡¯d been with her hands on her hips. One hip was cocked slightly to the side, and she wore that confident smile as her cape streamed behind her.


    That sight was so¡­ no! I squashed the thought before it could form.


    What she just did was impossible. Had she thrown herself out of phase with this universe or something allowing that blast to go right through her?


    I felt the first beginnings of something close to worry edging through the back of my mind. Just slinking along back there like a thief in the night, barely even recognizable for what it was, but it was there.


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    I stomped down on it. This Fialux wasn¡¯t special. She was just like every other hero who took me on, and I was going to wipe that look off her face just like I had with every other hero hopeful who took a swing at the queen.


    Only I couldn¡¯t figure out how the hell those blasts of energy had gone straight through her. It didn¡¯t make sense.


    Anything that made it make sense violated the laws of physics. Sure I was in the habit of taking those laws into a back alley and roughing them up with my inventions, but there was a big difference between me violating the laws of physics with my superior intellect and watching someone else do it via means I couldn¡¯t begin to fathom.


    I didn¡¯t like that feeling any more than I liked the worry worming through me.


    I needed to think this through. My rational mind, my ability to stay cool in the most ridiculous of situations, was one of the big reasons why I was still the top villain in the city after all.


    This was an interesting puzzle I had to work out. Nothing more. I needed to ignore the more irrational parts of my mind threatening to take control and gawk at this beauty while I should be figuring out how to defeat her.


    I wouldn¡¯t panic. I wouldn¡¯t give into that quiet nagging voice whispering that I might¡¯ve finally met a foe that was beyond me. That voice was always there when things didn¡¯t go well initially, and that voice was always wrong.


    This beautiful hero, damn it I needed to stop thinking of her as beautiful and get down to business, obviously had the ability to manipulate matter somehow. People didn¡¯t just go flying without the aid of machinery all willy-nilly like that after all. Somehow she was managing to manipulate the air molecules surrounding her to create the power of flight.


    If she was able to do that then maybe she really was able to somehow set her body out of phase with this universe. Maybe she was somehow able to manipulate the matter in her body so my bolt of energy went through the empty spaces in between the atoms holding her together. Which would explain how it seemed like my energy blasts went right through her.


    There was only one way to find out for sure. More data.


    I grinned. In this case ¡°more data¡± meant more blasting. I loved it when an experiment involved blowing shit up. It sure as shit beat the boring research I did when I was a grad student at Starlight City University.


    I fired a few more shots, this time making sure there was nothing on the other side of her but burning slags of metal that¡¯d been cop cars moments ago. Typical hero not thinking about the damage they did trying to stop me from having my way.


    Once more the blasts went through her and slammed into the unfortunate burning cop cars which moved but didn¡¯t explode this time around since all the combustible material was gone.


    This time I made sure to record everything with my mask. I pulled up the recording in my heads-up display for review.


    My eyes widened as I watched her in slow motion. Even going frame by frame at a ridiculously high frame rate I could barely make out a blur moving out of the way then moving back in place faster than the unaided eye could see.


    She wasn¡¯t moving out of phase with this universe. She wasn¡¯t doing anything fancy with the molecules in her body.


    No, she was just ridiculously fast. So fast she could step out of the way of an energy ball traveling at an appreciable fraction of the speed of light and get back in place before I noticed. It was literally a blink and you¡¯ll miss it situation.


    It was also a seriously pants shitting movement. If she had as much mass as she seemed to have and she was moving that fast then by all accounts the world should¡¯ve been destroyed the moment she slammed into a mote of dust floating in the air at her own appreciable fraction of the speed of light.


    Relativity. It was a bitch. Only the fact that the world was still here and not doing its best Alderaan impression meant this new hero was somehow making relativity her bitch.


    I let out a snarl and ran towards the strange goddess. Fine. If energy weapons weren¡¯t going to work then let¡¯s see how she did getting hit with a good old-fashioned enhanced punch.


    The carbon fiber weave of my suit tensed, building up energy fed from my chest reactor to augment my punch. The metal exoskeleton hidden in my suit also coiled for the blow.


    I loved feeling so ridiculously strong. The exoskeleton was hidden so well in my suit that even the most avid super watchers didn¡¯t know it was there. I knew because I scoured the Internet to make sure nobody was figuring out my secrets.


    Most people assumed I had superpowers of some sort. That was one of the fun things about being a mad scientist. Any piece of mad science, sufficiently advanced, was indistinguishable from superpowers.


    I had a moment to take everything in. The cops standing around the edges staring at us with their mouths hanging open. It¡¯d been awhile since they¡¯d see me in action against a hero. This was a special show for them.


    Also? A good object lesson in why normies shouldn¡¯t take on their betters.


    I even caught a glimpse of that asshole reporter Rex Roth with his stupid camera taking video of the whole thing. The jerk must¡¯ve bribed a cop to let him through the line or something.


    It seemed like he was always able to get into places other reporters could only dream of. It was one of the things that made him such a pain in the ass.


    Of course there were advantages to him getting through the line. I had no doubt this was going to be all over the news tonight. I smiled. That was fine by me. Let them broadcast my victory to the world. Let them show other heroes the folly of taking on Night Terror.


    And in front of me I saw, in slow motion, this beautiful new hero who thought she could come out of nowhere to challenge me.


    My suit coiled on a molecular level like a snake ready to strike and I released all the power available to me in a punch to her sculpted and oh so sexy stomach.


    Her hand flashed out just as I¡¯d expected. I smiled. She was in for one hell of a surprise when my suit made contact. Super speed was one thing, but there was no way she was going to be able to go toe to toe with the strength of my augmented suit.


    My fist made contact. With her hand. That suddenly held my fist as though it was nothing despite all the power I was pouring into that punch.


    Shit.

 5: Unfair Fight

    My entire body reverberated with the recoil from her hand slamming into my fist mid-punch. It was only thanks to the inertial dampeners I installed on my suit that I didn¡¯t get a serious case of whiplash as my entire body came to a severe and very quick stop.


    Physics. It¡¯d get you every time if you didn¡¯t think of a way to counteract it. Movies where heroes took massive hits or survived massive falls without turning into mush because they had armor on were particularly amusing.


    That armor might keep someone from getting bumps and bruises, but it wouldn¡¯t stop the force of one hell of an impact from turning the unfortunate son-of-a-bitch in the armor into the consistency of gelatin.


    Not usually the sort of thing that went well with long-term survival, and I was a survivor thank you very much.


    A survivor who was in deep shit, because that punch sent a couple of those inertial dampers into the red before they came back down to normal levels.


    My mouth hung open. I couldn¡¯t believe it. She smiled, a sexy half smile that only quirked up at one side. God that smile was beautiful. Being up close to her like this, feeling her so close to me, was pretty damn fun thank you very much.


    It was almost enough to distract me from what happened next. Almost.


    Her other fist, the one that wasn¡¯t holding my hand in place, flashed out. Again a combination of my suit¡¯s armor weave, the inertial dampeners, and a safety system built into my suit designed to raise a shield any time anything got to within a few inches of me traveling at supersonic speeds, saved my bacon and prevented me from getting a seriously bad case of cracked ribs.


    Her fist made contact and I flew through the air back towards the bank. I only barely managed to right myself and get my antigravity units oriented before I slammed into the brick wall.


    That would¡¯ve hurt like hell considering more inertial dampers were redlining. It took them longer to get back to yellow this time, and a few didn¡¯t go back to the happy green I liked.


    Not good.


    I floated to the ground. My cape streamed behind me thanks to an antigrav weave worked into the thing that made sure it was always billowing in a suitably dramatic fashion whether or not the wind was around and playing ball.


    I eyed my new opponent with new eyes. Eyes that were almost worried. Almost. She was turning out to be more trouble than I would¡¯ve anticipated.


    ¡°What are you?¡± I asked.


    ¡°I¡¯m the woman who¡¯s going to save this city from criminal scum like you,¡± she said. She turned and her voice projected. Like we¡¯re talking it was loud enough that they could hear her all the way down at the police barricade. ¡°The good people of Starlight City will live in fear no longer!¡±


    Huh. Her voice projected. I wondered if that was a trick of the acoustics in the concrete canyon or if that was another power of hers.


    Decent speech, too. Pretty cliched, but she was new. She¡¯d get better with time, and it worried me that I was already thinking she might get that time because this fight was not going well for yours truly.


    And her voice! Hearing that voice made me want to thank a God I no longer believed in that such a beautiful thing existed in this world. I could listen to her talk all day long.


    Never mind that her words didn¡¯t bode well for my long term career prospects. Especially considering how well she was holding up in this fight.


    I couldn¡¯t deny it or rationalize it away any longer. I was getting my ass handed to me for the first time in years. I was getting beat by a girl, to use the old playground parlance. And it wasn¡¯t because I¡¯d gone soft or anything.


    No, this woman was a legitimate threat to my reign of benevolent supervillainy.


    ¡°Having some trouble there, Night Terror?¡± a familiar voice said from behind me.


    I looked over my shoulder to see the Commissioner calling out to me from inside the bank. A couple of the cops around him were elbowing him in the side and grinning.


    My eyes narrowed. The cops were acting like they weren¡¯t afraid of me. Not good. I needed to end this before they started getting too uppity.


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    I turned back to Fialux and took in the stream of information filtering through the computer back at the lab into my mask. Estimates of her power.


    I frowned. Not good. I wanted to end this now, but I couldn¡¯t escape the undeniable conclusion that ending this now might mean me taking a big L. Which would be even worse than people seeing Night Terror having trouble in a fight.


    I¡¯d always believed discretion was the better part of valor, and that was never more the case than when I found myself going up against something I didn¡¯t understand. Something that was beyond my ability to defeat and grind into dust for the moment.


    Retreat, regroup, and come up with a plan to come out on top. I smiled slightly. I wouldn¡¯t mind being on top of her if you catch my¡­ Damn it. I was doing it again!


    I pulled up my wrist computer and tried to tap into the teleportation system. Only nothing happened.


    ¡°CORVAC,¡± I said. ¡°Run a diagnostic on the teleportation unit in my suit.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid it was knocked out in that last hit mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    Damn. That thing was supposed to have multiple redundancies for a situation just like this. Why the fuck wasn¡¯t it working? I¡¯d have to look into that. Assuming I made it out of this alive.


    That malfunction meant there¡¯d be no hopping a short distance away with teleportation so she couldn¡¯t follow me. Just my luck.


    I also couldn¡¯t fly out of here. That worked when I was dealing with the cops and their mundane transportation like an ancient helicopter from the ¡®70s with a spotty maintenance record thanks to an anemic public safety budget, but something told me flight wasn¡¯t going to be as effective an escape with this super powered beauty able able to fly behind me with super speed.


    I was fast when I really got the antigravity units cooking, but I¡¯d seen her approach on satellite. I was nowhere near as fast as her.


    No options. I was backed into a corner. I absolutely hated being backed into a corner.


    ¡°Mistress.¡± CORVAC¡¯s voice came through my earpiece.


    ¡°What is it?¡±


    ¡°I could bring the giant death robot into the city mistress? I¡¯m sure that would take care of this creature with no problem. I know it¡¯s untested, but what better way to test a roving weapon of mass destruction than on a hero like this?¡±


    ¡°I thought you were supposed to be a logical computer CORVAC,¡± I said.


    ¡°I am, Mistress,¡± he said. There was just the hint of a pout in his mechanical voice.


    It was a voice that sounded like something out of an Apple advertisement from the mid ¡®80s. Back when the idea of voice synthesis was so novel that it was enough to sell people on a piece of machinery that cost as much as a budget car.


    Not so much these days, but the voice was nostalgic so I kept it, and that creepy green moving light thing he did on his displays that made him look like a CGA Cylon, in place. A tribute to whatever mad scientist had invented the murderous pile of circuits way back when and then left him buried and unused since at least the late ¡®70s given his fondness for old school Battlestar Galactica theming.


    Until I found him and put that murderous impulse to work for yours truly. Not that he was helping me much right now. The only person he was killing out here was me by not coming up with realistic solutions.


    ¡°Obviously you¡¯re not thinking logically if you think that unfinished hunk of metal will be able to go toe to toe with this hero when I¡¯m having trouble defeating her. That¡¯s a triumph of optimism over logic if I ever heard it,¡± I said.


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to be mean, Mistress,¡± he said.


    Something flashed in front of me and I immediately knew I¡¯d made a mistake by sitting here kvetching with CORVAC for so long.


    My foresight to program safeties into my suit¡¯s AI, a rather stupid and pliable AI compared to CORVAC since the last thing I wanted was my clothing realizing cogito ergo sum and rebelling against me in the middle of a fight, saved my bacon by throwing up shields at the last moment and activating the inertial dampeners in all the right places.


    I felt the tingle of the shield going up next to my left cheek just before stars appeared in my heads up display. That was odd. I didn¡¯t remember programming a starfield screensaver into my mask¡¯s HUD.


    I might like CORVAC¡¯s voice for nostalgia¡¯s sake, but I¡¯d never been big on starfields or flying toasters back in the day thank you very much and¡­


    Oh. Right. I¡¯d been hit so hard I was seeing stars. That wasn¡¯t a fault in my heads up display. That was a fault in my brain.


    Also? I appeared to be flying without the aid of my antigravity system. And sliding on the ground. And slamming into a very solid building that seemed to think about crumbling on top of me as I hit it.


    Let¡¯s just say that was one hell of a punch.


    I looked up, fully expecting to see this new hero shaking out her fist. That had to hurt her as much as it hurt me, Newton¡¯s laws about actions having equal and opposite reactions and all that.


    Only she was just standing there as though Newton and normal physics weren¡¯t a thing for her. Well, it would be more accurate to say that she was floating in a dramatic pose with her hair and cape billowing behind her as though Newton, normal physics, and the need for makeup and hair product to look good weren¡¯t a thing for her.


    I knew this totally wasn¡¯t the time for it but damn did she look good!


    I shook my head. I needed to stop this! I needed to stop getting distracted. Getting distracted by CORVAC and his stupid solutions. Getting distracted by how goddamn beautiful this woman was.


    I did not get distracted by women in the middle of a fight! At least I never allowed myself to get distracted up to this point which was practically the same thing, right?


    Right.


    Time to get down to business.


    Only business was coming to me. She was flying straight at me, fist outstretched, with a half smile and half grimace plastered on her beautiful face.


    Huh. Well at least if I was going to go then I was going to go a happy woman with that last beautiful sight to send me into whatever was waiting on the other side of death¡¯s door!

 6: Curb Stomp

    This was going to really hurt if she made contact. Alarms were going off all through my suit. All the major readouts in my heads-up display were in the red, blinking, or had gone dark entirely.


    I was on the verge of a critical systems failure. I¡¯d designed the suit to take on anything this world could throw at me, but I was starting to have a sneaking suspicion this beautiful heroine was not of this world.


    And her out-of-this-world fist attached to an out-of-this-world body was about to put me completely out-of-this-business if I didn¡¯t think of something to save my ass.


    Fast.


    I gathered all of my strength as she flew towards me and formed a desperate plan. I felt a rush as I started working out that desperate plan. It¡¯d been a long time since I¡¯d had to put together a desperate plan in the heat of battle because I was in very real danger of losing.


    Much as I hated to admit it, this was giving me the thrill I¡¯d hoped for when I got out of bed and decided to rob a bank this morning.


    Fialux didn¡¯t seem to be moving nearly as fast as she could potentially move. That just made planning easier. At least it would¡¯ve made planning easier if the connection to the big computer back at the lab didn¡¯t choose that moment to crap out.


    ¡°What the fuck, CORVAC?¡± I growled.


    ¡°Apologies, Mistress,¡± he said. ¡°It would appear that this new hero is hitting hard enough to take out some of your failsafes.¡±


    ¡°Yeah, time to make new failsafes then,¡± I muttered. ¡°Assuming I survive this.¡±


    ¡°I certainly hope you do, Mistress,¡± CORVAC said. ¡°It would be quite lonely down here in the lab without your unique brand of ranting and raving.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m sure it would be,¡± I muttered, focusing on the problem at hand.


    No connection to the lab meant I had to do all the calculations mentally which delayed me a little bit.


    Visions of my third grade teacher lecturing us on the importance of good mental math skills because we weren¡¯t always going to have a calculator handy to help us with our addition and subtraction flashed through my head. They said your life flashed before your eyes before you bought it.


    It would be just my luck that Mrs. Harris was the first thing to float up in my memory. Not the first time I got with a girl or the time I came in second place to that same girl in my middle school science fair because the stupid science teachers thought I was faking the matter/antimatter reactor I¡¯d constructed.


    Whatever. Calculations. No calculator. Stupid Mrs. Harris and her stupid prognosticating.


    Sure I was doing complicated calculus and trigonometry in my head trying to figure out the exact physics of this situation and how to best use her strength against her rather than the basic arithmetic Mrs. Harris was thinking of back in the day, but whatever.


    Adding up the grocery bill. Calculating the exact force to use against a super powered goddess intent on turning you into the authorities for a life of super crime. I could do both in my head easily enough thank you very much.


    I gathered all the power left in my suit and channeled it down to my leg reinforcements. I had a moment of satisfaction as I saw her eyes go wide when I pivoted into a kick and my leg made contact. Her flight trajectory was thrown off ever so slightly, and apparently she couldn¡¯t turn on a dime.


    Either that or she was so surprised that she wasn¡¯t able to turn on a dime in this particular case. Whatever it was, I¡¯d take it. She went flying across the way and slammed into an older building which sent chunks of glass and stone flying.


    I winced. It really was a shame when some of the older Art Deco buildings in the city went down like that. I was always a fan of the more Gothic buildings over the new glass and metal crap they were putting up these days.


    One more thing for my list when I eventually ruled the world. One of the lower things on my list, to be sure, but I still hated ruining a good building.


    Only perhaps she could turn on a dime, because no sooner had she recovered from slamming into that building than she was flying back towards me. My eyes darted around my heads-up display looking for something, anything.


    I didn¡¯t have anything left. All the connections to my reactor were damaged to the point that if I tried to use them I was running the serious risk of having a nuclear meltdown, or even worse having the mini reactor go critical. Either way, downtown would be turned into a radioactive wasteland.


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    I wanted to rule the city, not turned it into a radioactive slag heap.


    I closed my eyes. This was going to hurt. Of course a part of me figured it was what I deserved. I¡¯d gotten cocky. I thought I was queen of this city. I¡¯d been thinking to myself how wonderful it would be if I actually had a challenge for a change.


    Be careful what you wish for and all that.


    As she approached, her fist outstretched once more, the heads-up display now permanently red in the spots where it hadn¡¯t gone dark entirely, I did the only thing I could think of. The only thing that was left to me. I¡¯d always been a ¡°discretion is the better part of valor¡± kind of girl, like I said, and there was only one way left to exercise that discretion.


    I fell to my knees and held my hands up. The only thing I had left was the hope she was a hero who saddled herself with a silly moral code. Who was I kidding? They all had a silly moral code. That¡¯s what made it so easy to defeat them.


    Usually.


    A loud noise like I¡¯d decided to take a nap on top of a 747 engine spinning up grew louder until it felt like I was standing next to an irritated Tyrannosaurus Rex who¡¯d just been pulled into a futuristic science lab via a poorly advised time portal.


    Trust me, I knew what that sounded like from firsthand experience, and it wasn¡¯t pretty.


    Fialux was traveling fast enough that when she hit it would destroy me. Maybe she didn¡¯t have one of those pesky moral codes after all. Then again, maybe she did and my impending smearing was my fault.


    After all, I was the one who¡¯d created the image of the indestructible villainess by using hidden technology scattered throughout my suit. I was the one who¡¯d just gone toe to toe with a living goddess complete with super strength, the ability to fly, super speed, and who knew what else.


    How was she to know I didn¡¯t have the same abilities she did? She could destroy me unintentionally and never know I was a normal under all these magnificent toys until the moment she vaporized me with sheer kinetic force.


    I absolutely hated surrendering, but it was a better alternative than death.


    Unfortunately my work into figuring out a way to conveniently resurrect had hit multiple dead ends. Literally.


    ¡°I surrender!¡±


    The noise like an angry Tyrannosaurus Rex riding on top of a 747 engine, I was confused and mixing up my metaphors, stopped. I opened up one eye and peeked out, scarcely believing I was still alive.


    A part of me was painfully aware of the steadily clicking cameras from journalists who¡¯d used the distraction of our fight to sneak through. Of news crews, particularly of that asshole Rex Roth, filming everything as I sat on my knees submitting to this annoying but incredibly hot new hero.


    I bet that asshole Roth was loving every minute of this. I¡¯m sure it was going to be all over the news this evening. Hell, the way he worked it was probably all over the news live and in HD.


    Great.


    Only I didn¡¯t care about any of that. The only thing I cared about was the goddess standing over me. The wind caught her bright red hair sending it and her cape billowing dramatically as she stood before me with hands on her hips looking down with the sternest, most angry expression I think I¡¯d ever seen.


    She was beautiful. I couldn¡¯t deny it. And yet I wondered what the hell that meant. Where the hell that feeling was coming from. It was a new feeling to have at work. Thrilling. Terrifying. And confusing.


    It¡¯d been so long since I¡¯d been on a date, too busy trying to take over the world, that I¡¯d forgotten what it felt like to feel like this.


    I should¡¯ve been worried about being captured. I should¡¯ve been worried about the effect this was going to have on my reputation. And yet the only thing I could think about was how gorgeous she was. How nice it would feel to press my body against hers. To press my lips against hers. I wondered how softly she would kiss given the hard-as-steel strength I¡¯d seen on display today.


    I shook my head. I really needed to get control of myself before this got even worse.


    ¡°You submit?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Yeah, yeah, whatever,¡± I said. ¡°Just please stop.¡±


    The scowl broke into a huge smile and it was like the sun dawning. I stared, my mouth open and my eyes wide. When she smiled it was like seeing the dawn for the first time. It sent butterflies rushing through my stomach, a disconcerting feeling I hadn¡¯t enjoyed in a long time.


    When you¡¯re in the villain business you pretty much only have time for emotions like anger and revenge, that sort of thing. Butterflies were different.


    Not bad. Just different. I felt lightheaded. I felt giddy. I felt like a girl with a crush. Now there was a weird feeling.


    ¡°God you¡¯re beautiful!¡±


    It was a whisper, but she heard it. She arched a curious eyebrow. My hand flew up to my mouth, my eyes even wider. Now why the hell had I gone and said something stupid like that?


    Well, it was pretty obvious why I¡¯d gone and said something stupid like that. I was more interested in what it was that caused me to completely lose control. What it was about this woman that brought down all my defenses, and I¡¯m not talking about the sad state of my suit.


    I was the greatest villainess in the city, probably in the world. I shouldn¡¯t be staring up at heroes with doe eyes and invoking the name of a deity I didn¡¯t even believe in to describe how hot she was!


    This little encounter would¡¯ve made for one hell of a session with my therapist if I hadn¡¯t vaporized the asshole after I realized he got his psychiatry degree from the University of Antigua Correspondence Course and most of his ¡°advice¡± was cribbing quotes from old Frasier reruns.


    The hero, the goddess, Fialux I suppose, floated down and reached behind me. I closed my eyes and breathed in her scent. Warmth radiated off her body. She smelled of some sort of perfume or body wash and the sweat from our battle.


    Damn was that an intoxicating smell!


    No. I was not going to let these thoughts distract me! I was going to take control!


    She grabbed the back of my collar and lifted. I was thankful I¡¯d put together one hell of a strong suit, because with the way she was lifting me, like she was a mama cat and I was a kitten, any other fabric would¡¯ve torn and put me at the mercy of gravity since my antigrav units were out.


    I was even more thankful a moment later when I suddenly heard a low rumble. The air just around the edges of her body shimmered ever so slightly, and we exploded up into the air.


    Huh. That felt weird when someone else was doing it.

 7: Perp Flight

    I¡¯m not ashamed to admit that I screamed like a hero who just realized they¡¯d completely overestimated their ability to go toe to toe with the great Night Terror. Though after this encounter that was an analogy I was going to have to reconsider even though it was one of my favorites.


    It¡¯s not like I was afraid of heights or flying. I did it all the time with the antigrav built into my suit.


    The problem was flying with those antigrav units used technology I could understand. I put power from my reactor into the nice machine I built and the laws of physics took five and ignored me.


    ¡°So do you fly the friendly skies like this often?¡± I asked, wondering if she¡¯d bite.


    ¡°I don¡¯t talk to criminals,¡± she growled.


    It was simple, it was elegant, and most importantly I understood exactly how it worked because I was the one who invented the damn thing.


    This, though. This was a completely different experience. All the connections between my suit¡¯s reactor and the antigrav units were severed, so there was absolutely nothing to save my bacon if this chick got butterfingers and sent me plummeting a couple thousand feet to my doom.


    I didn¡¯t even have my shields or the inertial dampeners to absorb the impact so that I¡¯d only break every bone in my body. The square-cube law meant I was going to make quite the splash if she let go and I came in for an unscheduled landing.


    ¡°Well that¡¯s good for both of us,¡± I said, trying to smile. Though it probably looked more like a rictus of terror considering my current situation.


    I was completely at her mercy. I hated being completely at someone else¡¯s mercy. I hated not knowing how I was flying. There was only a slight sparkling shimmer close to her skin to go on.


    I wondered if she somehow manipulated the molecules in her immediate vicinity to provide flight. It was certainly interesting to see up close.


    It made me wish some of the instruments on my suit were working so I could take measurements with something other than the good old fashioned Mark 1 Eyeball.


    ¡°How is you being a criminal good for both of us?¡± she growled. She seemed to like growling.


    ¡°That¡¯s simple. I¡¯m not a criminal,¡± I said.


    ¡°You control the criminal element in this city and keep them under your thumb,¡± she said, staring down at me like she couldn¡¯t believe I was trying to spin this bullshit.


    My mind raced. I didn¡¯t have enough information. I was being dragged through the air by a super powered being I didn¡¯t understand blessed with a power of flight that made no rational sense. She was disobeying the laws of physics just as cavalierly as I did, only there wasn¡¯t any obvious technology to back her up.


    It was infuriating and terrifying.


    Also? I was just a little jealous. That must be pretty awesome to be able to fly whenever you wanted without worrying about putting on an advanced flight suit first.


    ¡°But that¡¯s exactly my point. I keep the criminal element under control,¡± I said. ¡°Which means I¡¯m keeping them from getting too out of hand, so in a way you could say I do more good for the city than any hero.¡±


    I waited to see if she would buy that bullshit. I doubted it. She seemed like the kind of hero who had annoying black and white morality that was a pain in the ass to deal with.


    She¡¯d repositioned me so her arm was wrapped around me, which was just fine by me. I didn¡¯t like the idea of my entire life hanging on her ability to keep her grip. She seemed really damn strong, but I¡¯d only known her for about twenty minutes, most of that fighting, and I really didn¡¯t want to test the limits of her strength while I was dangling a few thousand feet above the city.


    ¡°Does anyone actually buy that?¡± she asked.


    ¡°Some do. Usually it comes with a bribe, but something tells me that¡¯s not going to work with you,¡± I said.


    She grunted and kept flying, holding me against her. Carrying me so I was right next to her gorgeous face.


    Sure it was a gorgeous face that was plastered with what I could only describe as a frown of justice, your basic look that most heroes got when they were dealing with a dastardly villain like yours truly, but it was still a nice face to look at even if she was pissed off.


    I closed my eyes and a goofy grin spread across my face. Not at all the stern defeated villain face I should be using in counterpoint to her justice face, but I felt what I felt.


    ¡°Is something wrong?¡±


    I opened my eyes. Damn it. Here I was flying with a woman who I had a good feeling was about to become my new arch nemesis, and I was grinning like a goofy schoolgirl with a crush because of the way she felt pressed against me!


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    A blush rose to my cheeks. I hated it when I blushed. Blushing was a sign of weakness. Emotion was a sign of weakness.


    ¡°No, nothing¡¯s wrong,¡± I spat out at her.


    Perhaps there was a little more heat than I¡¯d intended. She¡¯d caught me in a moment of weakness, and I didn¡¯t like that. It made me hate her even as I was drawn to her.


    It was a weird, roiling, confusing mix of emotions. So to avoid those feelings I looked down instead. And realized the city was coming closer again.


    ¡°Where are you taking me?¡±


    She smiled. God what a smile. I absolutely loved making her smile.


    Which probably wasn¡¯t a good thing considering my line of work was a career path that made heroes frown more than it made them smile.


    Oops.


    ¡°Don¡¯t worry. I¡¯m taking you someplace where you can¡¯t cause trouble anymore.¡±


    She glanced down to me. A glance that took in my entire body. An appraising glance that sent a shiver running down my spine.


    That was new. I¡¯d never had a shiver running down my spine when a hero looked at me before. Come to think of it, I couldn¡¯t recall a hero looking at me like that before, but I liked it.


    Though the look was tempered somewhat by what she said next.


    ¡°Something tells me the police will have no trouble with you now that all your toys are broken.¡±


    Damn. My secret was out. I still had no idea what she meant about never causing trouble anymore. That was awfully cryptic. And ominous.


    Usually these goody two shoes types were pretty straightforward about telling me exactly what they were doing. It was a weakness every hero seemed to have.


    I didn¡¯t have to wait in suspense for long. Her intent became obvious as we landed.


    I blinked as I looked up at the stylish new all glass structure in front of me. I hated this building, and not just because when the cops moved to their new headquarters they decided to go with a modernist monstrosity.


    ¡°Police headquarters?¡± I turned and stared, incredulous. ¡°You¡¯re dropping me off at police headquarters?¡±


    ¡°Who better to deal with you than the rightful authorities?¡±


    Anyone but the local cops, really. Half of them were completely ineffective and half of them were getting regular bribes from yours truly.


    Sure there was considerable overlap between those two groups, but there were enough cops in my pocket and enough cops who respected our unofficial peace that chances were they wouldn¡¯t even bother to cuff me let alone book me or charge me.


    Not that I was going to tell her any of that. If she was going to drop me off in front of an organization I¡¯d bribed fair and square that was her problem, not mine.


    A couple of cops were coming out the front entrance, but they were the only ones in sight. I smiled.


    Most of them were probably busy on the other side of downtown dealing with the aftermath of our little altercation. One was younger with the trimmed flat top that all young cops seemed to have. The other was older with the bushy white mustache and donut gut that all older cops seemed to have.


    Both stopped and stared when they realized who was standing on the steps of their HQ.


    ¡°Good,¡± she said. ¡°Here are a couple of fine officers who can help me out. Excuse me, officer?¡±


    The old one stepped forward and scratched his head. Clearly he was just as bemused by her goody-two-shoes routine as I was.


    ¡°Um, yeah?¡±


    He glanced between me and Fialux. Fear flashed in his eyes as he looked at me, then disappeared as he realized this new hero had actually gotten the best of me and had me in custody. Or at least as close to ¡°in custody¡± as someone could get with me.


    Which was pretty close to actually being in custody, as much as I hated to admit it.


    I sighed. I had a feeling I could wave goodbye to my reputation and my off the books peace with the cops after this. It was going to take a hell of a lot of work to get back to that instant look of fear.


    ¡°I believe you¡¯ll find this villain has been completely incapacitated. You can take her in, officer,¡± Fialux said.


    Talk about insulting! This villain has been incapacitated? It¡¯s like she had no respect for my position as the greatest villain this city or the world had ever seen!


    Heroes these days. They had no appreciation for their betters. I was going to have to teach her a lesson.


    As soon as I figured out a way to get out of this.


    The older cop scratched his head again, but the rookie moved forward. The old cop held out an arm as though to stop him, but the young one was way ahead of him.


    I shook my head. Damn it! If it¡¯d been a couple of older cops this might¡¯ve gone better. Just my luck I got a rookie who obviously hadn¡¯t gone up against me yet.


    He pulled out his cuffs and put them around my wrists, slight surprise registering when I didn¡¯t do anything to stop him. At least he knew enough about the great Night Terror¡¯s reputation to be surprised I wasn¡¯t vaporizing him for daring to cuff me.


    That lack of vaporization seemed to encourage the older one. He stepped forward and a wide smile spread across his face.


    ¡°Well how about that,¡± he said with a grin that wasn¡¯t at all pleasant. ¡°Night Terror brought down a few pegs.¡±


    Was he serious? Was this really happening? I hadn¡¯t been arrested in years! This was really going to hurt my reputation. This was going to ruin years of leg work and bribes I¡¯d put into making sure the cops were terrified enough and rich enough to honor our unspoken understanding.


    ¡°I think you two can handle it from here,¡± Fialux said.


    And with that she thrust her fist up to the sky, the air around her shimmered like a heat mirage, and she flew straight up.


    I couldn¡¯t help but stare. My mouth hung wide open. Damn could she make an exit. The way her skirt fluttered, the way her cape billowed behind her, the way the wind seemed to catch her hair in just the right way as she flew was absolutely stunning.


    I barely knew her, I was pretty sure she was my new arch enemy, I didn¡¯t have time for a relationship with my career because who did these days, and I was pretty sure I was falling for her.


    ¡°Damn it.¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s right Night Terror,¡± the older cop said as he put his arm under mine. The rookie did the same and they lifted and carried me towards headquarters like a sack of potatoes. If potatoes came in sacks made of super advanced weaponry that had been disabled by a pesky hero. ¡°You¡¯re really in for it now.¡±


    I rolled my eyes. Cops. They were all the same. They might think they had me, they might think they were taking me in and this was the end of the great Night Terror, but little did they know I had one last trick up my sleeve. One final thing that was guaranteed to help me escape from their clutches. Something that would allow me to return to my lair and plan for another day. Start to rebuild my reputation after the horrible hit it had probably taken.


    No, these cops had no idea what was about to hit them.


    I smiled and chuckled.


    ¡°What¡¯s so funny?¡± the rookie asked.


    ¡°I want to talk to my lawyer.¡±

 8: Post Morten

    ¡°So do you have anything else you¡¯d like to say? A message for the people of Earth?¡± Rex Roth asked.


    I wanted to punch him in his smarmy face. I wasn¡¯t sure if it was because punching was the usual reaction I had to seeing his face or because the jerk was getting up close and personal with Starlight City¡¯s newest hero and I wasn¡¯t.


    Huh. Jealousy. There was a new one. At least where the fairer sex was concerned.


    ¡°Yes, I do. Your world has a new champion. No longer will you have to live in fear of the villains who preyed upon you and ran the city with impunity,¡± Fialux said. ¡°I¡¯m on the job.¡±


    I didn¡¯t like the way she said ¡°ran¡± the city. That past tense was ominous.


    Rex smiled and leaned forward, winking. He winked! It was just like that prick to take the opportunity of a groundbreaking interview, the kind of thing that was probably going to win him a Pulitzer or whatever they gave cable news pukes, to flirt.


    God I hated him!


    Why did Roth get to be close to her? Why did he get to chat and wink? Why did she smile at him like that? Why couldn¡¯t that be me?


    I¡¯d show him. One of these days I was going to lose it and vaporize him. PR consequences be damned.


    ¡°Welcome to Earth,¡± Roth said.


    ¡°Glad to be here,¡± Fialux said.


    I slammed my hand down on the stop button and the image froze on the screen. Sure I could¡¯ve asked CORVAC to do that for me, but there was something tactile about beating the shit out of a console that felt good.


    I needed to beat the shit out of something right now.


    Go out into the city. Rob a bank like the good old days. Get some of the cobwebs out. Maybe take out a hero if some newbie was cocky enough to take on the great Night Terror.


    Yeah, there was a plan that had worked out really well. I was the one who got cocky, and I paid the price.


    At least I hadn¡¯t spent long in jail. Not because of any particular skill on my lawyer¡¯s part, but mainly because that old shark managed to delay the cops long enough to allow me time to get my reactor reconnected to a few critical systems.


    A quick teleport out of my cell and then it was a hop, skip, and a quick flight back to my lair where I could plan a way to best this perplexing new hero.


    And boy had the city¡¯s newest hero been busy in the past week. One plane saved from crashing. Five local minor villains brought into the authorities. Including one clown that the great and mighty Shadow Wing himself seemed to have difficulty bringing in permanently.


    I wondered if that was going to start a little heroes¡¯ spat between the old reigning heroic king of the city whose favorite thing to do was go out and beat the shit out of low level criminals and the new hotness who seemed a little more squeaky clean.


    No, that was none of my business. Forget Shadow Wing. He never bothered me and I never bothered him. There was no need for me to bother him since I wasn¡¯t a petty thief in need of an imminent hospitalization, which was how he worked.


    He went after minnows, and I was a whale.


    Besides, I had my own problems. I was feeling something I hadn¡¯t felt in a good long while. Worry.


    The way Fialux flitted about the city making a good name for herself while cleaning up the criminal element wasn¡¯t good for business. Three of those five villains she¡¯d taken in were funneling a percentage of their proceeds my way, which meant I was taking a hit in the pocketbook.


    Not to mention I ran a tight ship. I prevented collateral damage. Anyone who made a mess knew they were going to get a quick meeting with a vaporizer.


    There were going to be some serious changes in the city if this kept up. Especially if she kept arresting villains working under my code of ethics and they were replaced by newbies who didn¡¯t know the score in Starlight City.


    I had to take her out before the good people of Starlight City started to do silly things like hope.


    Not to mention I had to do something before she took out so many of my revenue streams that I had to start robbing banks out of necessity and not out of boredom.


    ¡°Let¡¯s go over everything again,¡± I said.


    If CORVAC had lungs to sigh he would have. As it was he paused for just a little longer than was strictly necessary. Actually, for a computer whose mind could run as fast as his? He paused for an eternity.


    ¡°Do we have to do this again, Mistress?¡± CORVAC asked.


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    ¡°Yes! We¡¯re doing this until we figure out a weakness!¡±


    I was missing something. There was a piece of this puzzle that would fall in place and give me what I needed. Give me the means to defeat Fialux for good.


    I just needed to find that damn puzzle piece.


    I stared at the 3D projection of Fialux I had CORVAC put up in the center of the lab. It was surprisingly lifelike. I had some of the best holoprojection technology known to man. Mostly because I had the only holoprojection technology that was worth a damn considering I¡¯d invented most of it myself.


    She looked stunning. CORVAC rotated between various shots taken from local newsfeeds. He was able to piece together multiple angles to get a pretty decent 3D representation. A damn gorgeous 3D representation.


    Now that I was back in the safety of my lab I felt a little better about indulging in a little mooning over this beauty. It¡¯s not like anyone other than CORVAC could see how I was reacting, and I was pretty sure he lacked enough capacity for interpreting human emotions to realize what was going on.


    At least I hoped he lacked enough capacity for recognizing human emotions to realize what was going on. It would be damn embarrassing if my evil supercomputer and partner in crime realized I was falling for my newest enemy.


    Talk about a major embarrassment.


    ¡°Something new coming in mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    I raised an eyebrow and turned to the big board. ¡°On screen.¡±


    ¡°As you say mistress.¡±


    I frowned as the screen popped up and the Starlight City News Network appeared. Starlight City News Network meant Rex Roth. That asshole always had a way of being front and center whenever there was heroic action going down.


    Of course that also meant he was a front and center whenever I was working. I smiled as I thought back to some of the more embarrassing things I¡¯d done to him in our short time going toe to toe.


    Like the time I promised to show up for an exclusive interview. Oh how he crowed about that. He was the reporter to the heroes, but talking to me would make him the first reporter to snag an interview with the greatest villain of our time.


    I almost felt a little bit of affection for the guy when he described me that way, but not enough affection to prevent me from using my short range teleporter to transport his clothes three feet to the left on a live television feed going out to the whole world.


    That was the best interview I ever gave, and I didn¡¯t have to say a word.


    Sure enough, there was Rex¡¯s smarmy face smiling at the screen as something moved in the background downtown. I¡¯d been so preoccupied with trying to find ways to defeat Fialux that I didn¡¯t have my finger on the pulse of the criminal element in the city like I usually did.


    Usually I knew when a job was going down well before it went down. Sometimes villains even got in touch with me to let me know what they were doing, to make sure they wouldn¡¯t be stepping on my toes, but this was a complete surprise.


    ¡°Interesting,¡± I said. ¡°Stylish and stupid, but interesting.¡±


    And by interesting I meant interesting in the sense that you didn¡¯t see this sort of thing every day. Not interesting in the sense I thought it was actually a good idea.


    ¡°I rather think it¡¯s just stupid, mistress,¡± CORVAC said with a digital sniff.


    ¡°Yeah, maybe so,¡± I muttered.


    Some yahoo had retrofitted an old sailing ship with helicopter blades and was flying the rickety death trap through downtown firing cannon blasts into skyscrapers.


    I rolled my eyes. Like I said, interesting but stupid. Too much collateral damage. You never caused more collateral damage than you needed to. You never allowed public opinion to sway against you to the point people started really getting upset. Not if you could avoid it.


    No, public opinion was a fickle mistress. Proper villainy was a constant tightrope act of doing things sufficiently dastardly that everyone knew who you were and to stay the hell out of your way, but not so bad that people actually looked up from their cell phones and television long enough to denounce you as a monster and ask someone in power to do something about you.


    You definitely didn¡¯t fly through the most densely populated part of one of the most densely populated cities in the world causing destruction willy-nilly. That ship might look impressive, but a sidewinder to the hull from a boring old fighter jet would be enough to take it out.


    No heroes necessary. It was a really bad idea to get too cocky if you were flying around in something the normies could take out with their weapons.


    If I wasn¡¯t so busy trying to figure out how to defeat Fialux then I probably would¡¯ve gone and vaporized their ship out from under them on principle. That kind of stuff was bad for everybody in the business, not just the asshole who decided it would be a good idea to fire indiscriminately at civilians.


    Only there was no need for me to go out and take care of business. No, of course there wasn¡¯t. There was a new sheriff in town, and I heard the familiar sound of a jet engine that wasn¡¯t a jet engine off in the distance.


    Rex started to get excited.


    ¡°Turn up the SCNN news feed,¡± I said.


    ¡°Affirmative mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    Roth¡¯s voice was downright giddy. ¡°It sounds like Fialux is coming! I can hear her in the distance!¡±


    Yes. There was the stunning insight, the deep cutting journalism, that made him the best the cable news business had to offer. I wept for the current state of journalism.


    Sure enough Fialux appeared in the distance. The cameras shook as they tried to zoom in and keep up with her incredible speed. She zipped down and slammed straight into the ship, which rocked to the side as she made contact.


    And of course there wasn¡¯t a damn thing they could do about it. What could you do against a hero like that when your only offensive capability was a bunch of cannons that hadn¡¯t been advanced weaponry since the eighteenth century?


    I watched to see if maybe they had some other weapon in waiting, but no. They didn¡¯t. They¡¯d brought a 17th century weapon to a 21st century super fight. Idiots.


    I rolled my eyes. It was obvious they made their plans for the whole flying ship thing before Fialux showed up. She¡¯d only been around for a week, after all, and retrofitted flying sailing ships weren¡¯t the kind of thing your average stupid criminal built overnight.


    But the game had changed in that week, and they¡¯d decided they were going to go ahead with the flying ship schtick regardless of the goddess who¡¯d recently taken up residence in the city and shown she was more than capable of taking out villains of far greater caliber than they could ever hope to be.


    Idiots.


    Fialux must¡¯ve hit something important when she smashed into the side of the ship, because it started to list to the side. It started to get dangerously close to some of the buildings.


    I leaned forward. Now things were starting to get interesting. Was she going to let that massive ship slam into a skyscraper?


    ¡°CORVAC, do we have any drones ready downtown?¡±


    ¡°Of course, mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    ¡°Fire them up. I want a front row seat for whatever she¡¯s doing out there.¡±

 9: Front Row Seats

    Smaller screens around the big board lit up with several different angles showing Fialux in all her glory.


    I wasn¡¯t sure how to react. My hands clenched into fists while meanwhile a blush rose to my cheeks. A blush that wasn¡¯t becoming of the city¡¯s greatest villain looking at the city¡¯s new greatest hero.


    So I focused on the drone feeds instead. Maintaining a fleet of drones hidden behind invisibility shields throughout the city was one of the many devious ways I maintained my grip on said city. A grip that was slipping, but hopefully one of my electronic babies would provide me with some information that would allow that grip to tighten once more.


    Fialux appeared on the other side of the ship.Oh yeah. The feed from my babies was so much better than the stupid feeds they were showing on the Starlight City News Network.


    None of the drone feeds had Rex Roth¡¯s smarmy face overlaid on them pontificating about the meaning of the fight, for example, which was a major improvement.


    I leaned forward. Watching her in action was incredible! She moved so fast and she did it with such style in that amazing outfit. I told myself I was only leaning forward staring with rapt attention because I was interested in her heroics.


    I didn¡¯t want to process what the other pesky feelings that threatened to bubble to the surface every time I saw her meant.


    Fialux pressed against the ship where it was taking a nosedive towards a massive glass skyscraper. I couldn¡¯t remember what that particular building was called. Everyone referred to it as the building that wasn¡¯t quite as tall as the Thomas building.


    I¡¯m sure it was named after somebody who was a big deal when it was built, but everybody stopped caring as soon as it got surpassed in height.


    Now there was a metaphor for the world if I¡¯d ever heard one. You were either on top or nobody gave a damn.


    The pirate ship turned, smoke billowing out of the Fialux sized hole in its side, and pitched down towards the street. CORVAC repositioned one of the drones so that it was in the line of fire.


    I¡¯d probably lose that drone in the process, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.


    Our heroine moved down under the ship and pressed up as though she was trying to lift the whole thing. I leaned forward and squinted at the screen. I thought I saw something just as she pressed up. That same sparkling heat mirage I¡¯d seen when I was up close with her.


    Only it was pushing out in the direction she was lifting. It looked like it was, at least. Maybe it was my imagination. I¡¯d have to go back and review the recording.


    The improbable airship started to right itself, started to fly in an almost straight line, but then a loud crack pumped through the lab speakers. Rex Roth screamed like a scared little girl and I glanced up to his screen.


    Now that was interesting.


    The ship¡¯s hull had split right down the middle. Right where Fialux had been pushing on it. Now that it was in two pieces there wasn¡¯t a chance in hell it was going to stay airborne.


    The stern went crashing to the ground immediately, landing on a group of cars abandoned in the street. At least they looked like they¡¯d been abandoned. Nobody in their right mind stayed out in the open when heroes and villains were doing their business.


    The bow kept going since it had the advantage of an attractive superheroine sort of holding it up and almost keeping it on course.


    Fialux barely managed to bring it to something sort of resembling a controlled stop. Almost. At the last moment she lost control as it shattered under the strain of being held up at a single point of pressure.


    Pieces of airship crashed down around her, leaving a very confused hero looking at the two parts of the ship with a bemused expression.


    ¡°Yes!¡± I shouted. ¡°Zoom in on that expression CORVAC! I want that one to go in the highlight reel!¡±


    ¡°As you wish, mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    I looked up from that wonderful freeze frame to the feed from the Starlight City News Network. Rex Roth was surveying the damage from the top of a skyscraper and narrating. That was about the only thing he was a good for. Narrating other people doing real work.


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    ¡°And despite the valiant efforts of the brave new heroine Fialux, it appears the villains onboard the ship were unable to keep it together,¡± Roth said.


    I shook my head. ¡°You dumbass. Anyone who¡¯s taken basic high school physics could tell you it was her fault that ship broke up in midair.¡±


    Not that I¡¯d expect a journalism major to understand something as complicated as basic high school physics. He probably didn¡¯t even bother to take it and opted for a creative writing class instead.


    That seemed like the thing he¡¯d do. I imagined a dorky Rex Roth spending more time writing stories than going out and doing fun stuff like parties and dates and it made me feel better.


    Even though a voice in the back of my head whispered that it¡¯s not like I was partying or dating much in college either. I had my work.


    It looked like the show was over. I went back to trying to think of a way to defeat Fialux. Except I kept coming back to that ship breaking up around a very confused heroine while the whole city watched and Rex Roth jumped to all the wrong conclusions. Again.


    Rex Roth. Idiots. High school. Physics. There was something there. I knew there was something there because my brain didn¡¯t get stuck on something unless that something was there. I was on the verge of something important. I just didn¡¯t know what that something important was.


    It was one of the best things about being an evil mastermind. Never knowing what present my mind was going to deliver to me next.


    Even someone with a basic understanding of high school physics¡­ She¡¯d tried to attack that thing and her ¡°help¡± hadn¡¯t been enough to save the ship.


    She hadn¡¯t been able to magically lift the whole damn thing. It looked like the laws of physics still applied to her, aside from the whole flying thing. And the whole strength thing too. But still. If I could just figure out a way to¡­


    ¡°Holy shit!


    ¡°What is it, mistress?¡±


    ¡°The laws of physics still work for her just the same as they do for everybody else!¡±


    ¡°Are you feeling well, mistress?¡±


    ¡°What do you mean?¡±


    ¡°She can fly through the air, she has super strength,¡± CORVAC started rattling down the list.


    I waved a dismissive hand and mercifully stopped him before he could continue with his litany of all the powers we¡¯d been cataloging since her arrival in the city.


    ¡°I know, I know! I mean aside from the flying thing the laws of physics still apply to her! Don¡¯t you see what that means?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid I don¡¯t mistress, but that is why you¡¯re the brains of this operation.¡±


    I decided to ignore the undercurrent of electronic sarcasm. I¡¯d let him get his little jabs in. They kept up his morale, after all.


    ¡°What that means is she exerted force on that ship,¡± I explained.


    ¡°And it disintegrated,¡± CORVAC said.


    ¡°Exactly! She applied too much pressure to one point, more than the structure of that ship could handle, and it shattered right down the middle where she was pushing on it. Don¡¯t you see what this means? It¡¯s basic Newtonian physics. The third law! I can¡¯t believe it¡¯s that simple!¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m afraid I still don¡¯t follow, mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m the brains behind this operation,¡± I said.


    I wasn¡¯t above getting my own sarcastic jabs in, after all. CORVAC paused, and then I swear he let out the electronic equivalent of a harrumph.


    ¡°Basic physics CORVAC. Objects exert force on each other. Fialux pushes on a ship with her super powers and the ship can¡¯t push back on her with equal force, so it breaks up. She might be able to fly, she might be ridiculously strong, but ultimately all of her super powers come down to her exerting force on the world around her!¡±


    ¡°Well yes,¡± CORVAC said. ¡°That much is obvious.¡±


    ¡°So she has all these things she can exert force on. The air. Skyscrapers. Unfortunate villains who get in her way. She can do that weird molecule shimmering thing that causes her to fly. She can use her super strength to throw things around. But what if we created a situation where there was nothing for her to interact with? What if there was nothing for her to apply force to?¡±


    ¡°Are you suggesting some sort of inert field that removes her ability to interact with the outside world?¡±


    I held up a triumphant finger. ¡°That¡¯s exactly what I¡¯m talking about! Teleport one of my suits over here. I have to get to work.¡±


    A suit materialized on my workbench. I glanced up to the hologram of Fialux floating above me. She was smiling down with a triumphant expression. I smiled right back at that hologram. It wasn¡¯t a pleasant smile.


    If only she knew what she was in for.


    ¡°Mistress?¡±


    ¡°Yes CORVAC?¡±


    ¡°Are we taking development time away from the robot?¡±


    ¡°You bet your electronic ass we are,¡± I said.


    ¡°How are you going to do it?¡±


    ¡°I figure we modify the inertial dampeners somehow, unless you have a better idea,¡± I said.


    ¡°That is exactly what I was thinking, mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    ¡°Thought so,¡± I muttered.


    ¡°What was that, mistress?¡±


    ¡°Nothing,¡± I said.


    I smiled as I started pulling out the inertial dampening unit.


    I¡¯d have to figure out a way to amplify the power a hell of a lot, and find a way to project it rather than having a unit built into my suit that generated a localized field to protect me when the laws of physics threatened to turn my insides to mush.


    But those were trivial problems. I figured it would take me a week or two at most to work out all the kinks and take it on its first test run. Hopefully on its first and only test run.


    I looked up at the holographic projection of Fialux. And for once I wasn¡¯t thinking of how tempting it would be to kiss those lips. How amazing it would feel to have her body pressed against mine.


    No, all I was thinking about was how glorious it was going to be when I caught her in my modified anti-Newtonian field, name still under development, where her powers wouldn¡¯t do her a damn bit of good.


    Oh yes, Night Terror was going to be on top again. And it was going to be glorious.

 10: Ultimate Showdown?

    Rain fell all around us as I floated down from the top of the Thomas building. Bright city lights reflected off both the rain and the massive skyscrapers surrounding us in all the colors of the rainbow.


    My cape fluttered behind me in the storm, still tattered and charred where her heat vision hit me. That had been an unpleasant surprise.


    That was the problem with these heroes. There was no convenient government registry that tracked all of them and kept a list of their powers to make it easier to know how to take them down.


    Which meant the occasional unpleasant surprise. Like her firing a beam of energy, maybe from her eyes but I hadn¡¯t been looking all that closely since I was already pulling evasive maneuvers, that singed my cape and nearly did some serious damage.


    Right. No more Miss Nice Villain. She singed one of my favorite capes, and those things were made of a supposedly indestructible polymer that wasn¡¯t cheap!


    Also, totally not as indestructible as I thought.


    ¡°Fialux,¡± I growled.


    ¡°Night Terror,¡± she replied. ¡°I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d see you showing your face again after our last encounter.¡±


    I let out a yell and dove towards her, pushing my antigravity units to the limit even as I started powering up the secondary reactor I¡¯d added to the suit. The reactor tied into the brand new anti-Newtonian field I¡¯d created.


    I couldn¡¯t come up with a better name. Whatever. It didn¡¯t need a flashy name if it worked.


    I ducked under Fialux at the last moment and she went tumbling. I had a moment to register a look of surprise on her gorgeous face, and then I was turning around and pointing my wrist blaster at her.


    Only I¡¯d modified my blaster just a little. Now in addition to the stun and vaporize settings I also had the stasis field as a new addition. I¡¯d tried it out on test projectiles in the lab set to move as fast as Fialux and it had performed admirably in every trial.


    I was confident, cool, collected. I was Night Terror. I owned this city, and it was time to show this upstart heroine what that meant.


    Fialux dove towards me again, screaming and creating a pressure wave in front of her that caused the rain to move around her in a bubble rather than falling on her.


    Damn, that was impressive. I could just float here and watch her in action.


    I shook my head. No! Now was not the time to indulge in this ridiculous crush. Now was the time to defeat her completely and utterly. Business before pleasure and all that.


    I raised my wrist blaster, took aim, and fired.


    The anti-Newtonian stasis field shot out with a pleasing pink glow. I could¡¯ve made it whatever color I wanted, but I figured if I was going to have a device that defeated the greatest hero this city had ever known, as far as I was concerned she was already worthy of that title simply by virtue of defeating me, then I was going to do it with a little bit of style.


    The field made contact. I looked away as a blinding light flashed back at me as the field turned from pink to white and then shifted to blue.


    When I blinked and looked up I saw Fialux in the middle of that field, only impossibly she was still coming towards me. A little slower than before, to be sure, but not by much. Not by nearly what it would take to stop her before she got close enough to do some serious damage.


    ¡°Whatever you¡¯re doing, it¡¯s not going to work!¡± she growled.


    ¡°Who says I¡¯m trying anything?¡± I said, trying to sound sweet and innocent despite it being obvious I was attacking her.


    My wrist started to vibrate in a very unpleasant and slightly worrying fashion. Alarms blinked angry reds in my heads-up display. Alarms that told me shit was about to go down.


    It was literally about to go down. As in all the defensive systems in my suit were about to go down and I¡¯d be a sitting duck before a woman who was basically a goddess.


    As with the last time the alarms turned yellow, red, then they went black. The stasis field winked out and I felt an incredible feedback go blasting through the systems in my suit.


    Damn! I¡¯d tested it on projectiles in the lab, but apparently tiny projectiles accelerated to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light by technology so far beyond anything else that existed in the world that the analogy of a caveman trying to use a calculator didn¡¯t come close to doing it justice didn¡¯t come close to matching the raw power Fialux could put out.


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Particularly when she was already in motion. It appeared my attempts to circumvent Newton¡¯s Third Law was running smack dab against Newton¡¯s First Law, and it was going to be a painful lesson in elementary physics for me.


    Connections to my reactor dropped and the alarms started going off for more systems than my wrist blaster. I dove for the ground and just barely made before my antigrav units gave out entirely and I was suddenly terrestrially bound like the normals.


    Not that there were many normals around here. There was an SCNN chopper hovering at a safe distance, no doubt broadcasting this to the whole city with that asshole Rex Roth providing his usual insipid commentary, but everyone else had cleared out.


    Smart idea. A good idea. One I was going to have to do myself.


    ¡°It¡¯s over, Night Terror!¡±


    Fialux slammed down in front of me looking absolutely amazing as rain fell around her. The water trickled down her skin and her hair fell down across her shoulders slick and wet.


    Also? It totally caused her outfit to press against her body in all the right places. I licked my lips as I looked at her. As I felt a strange burning in the pit of my stomach. As I felt strange feelings I¡¯d tried to ignore back in high school and college.


    Not because I was ashamed of them so much as because I was too busy planning how I was going to try to take over the world to have time for something like love. Aside from one ill-advised fling in college that ended with my girlfriend getting tossed through an experimental portal to who knows where.


    Yeah, the less said about that one the better, for all that it was probably one of the more unique breakup stories the world had ever seen.


    Though when I looked at Fialux? Those feelings were raging like a massive forest fire compared to the puny candle flame I¡¯d felt for girls I crushed on back before I decided to go into a career in super villainy.


    It wasn¡¯t a career that was very friendly to long term relationships to begin with, and most potential dates had trouble with a girl who could vaporize them if the breakup didn¡¯t go well. Not that I¡¯d ever do that. Without a really good reason.


    Not that I¡¯d ever told my few potential dates that I was actually an infamous supervillain by night. And by day. Really most of the time. It was sort of one of those jobs where you were always on call, which made dating difficult.


    What the hell was wrong with me? Where were these feelings coming from? I didn¡¯t ask for them, and now here I was staring at my greatest and most mortal enemy, the greatest threat to that villainous career, and all I could think about was how hot she looked?


    I needed to get my priorities straight.


    Fialux smiled. It wasn¡¯t a pleasant smile, but it still sent a thrill rather than a chill running down my spine. She was smiling at me. I was a goofy schoolgirl with a crush if that was the sort of thing that got me excited. What the hell?


    ¡°When you say it¡¯s over, do you mean this fight? I¡¯m happy to let bygones be bygones. We can call this one a draw!¡± I said, my smile and tone going a little more obsequious than I cared for.


    Her hand balled into a fist at her side. I blinked. This wasn¡¯t going to be fun. Fialux raised her fist and moved towards me at lightning fast speed.


    I smiled. Unlike the last time I found myself going up against her, I¡¯d come prepared with an independent teleportation unit that had its own power supply that wasn¡¯t tied into the rest of my systems.


    Sure I was gambling she wouldn¡¯t hit that power supply directly in the fight, but I figured as long as it wasn¡¯t directly tied into any systems that might be overloaded by her abilities there was a good chance it would last long enough to help me make an escape.


    Turns out I¡¯d been absolutely right. My foresight meant I had one last trick up my sleeve.


    Sure my attorney was going to be annoyed he wasn¡¯t getting his usual outrageous fee for keeping the cops occupied long enough for me to make an escape, but the sneaky old shark was rich enough already.


    It was time to get out of here before I took another involuntary trip down to the main PD office. Even if that would be fun to be up close and personal with her again pulling an old fashioned Reeves/Kidder ¡°can you read my mind?¡±


    The only problem with that idea was if I could read her mind I¡¯m sure the only thing I¡¯d find in there were thoughts of how much she wanted me to be safely locked up somewhere I couldn¡¯t bother her or the city anymore.


    ¡°Okay. Guess we aren¡¯t calling it a draw,¡± I muttered, well aware that she could probably hear me.


    Super hearing was another surprise I¡¯d picked up on muttering some unflattering things about her in a fight.


    Discretion was the better part of valor, and I figured a hero flying towards me at top speed with her fist outstretched was as good a time as any for a little bit of discretion. I reached behind to the small of my back where the teleportation unit was hidden behind my cape, that blast that singed the cape had nearly taken out the backup teleporter, and pressed the button.


    I had a satisfying moment to see Fialux¡¯s eyes go wide in surprise as the world disappeared in a flash of light. My molecules were scrambled and transported a few blocks away. When I rematerialized I glanced in the direction of our fight.


    ¡°An excellent teleportation, mistress. That actually worked,¡± CORVAC said, sounding surprised it actually worked.


    ¡°I could do without the sarcasm,¡± I muttered. ¡°My plans always work.¡±


    ¡°Of course they do, mistress. The anti-Newtonian field was a smashing success.¡±


    I rolled my eyes and chose to ignore that. Instead I looked at smoke rising above the skyscrapers and winced as I heard a crash as Newton¡¯s First Law sent Fialux slamming into a building after I ceased existing between it and her high speed flight path.


    I smiled and limped away, hitting the backup teleporter and jumping a few city blocks every couple of steps when I had a clear line of sight and could be sure I wasn¡¯t going to materialize in the middle of a brick wall.


    I only had enough power for a couple of jumps, but with a little luck Fialux wouldn¡¯t find me before I made my escape.


    And if she did manage to catch me? I could see if she could read my mind, though she might be surprised. There was less anger there and more the sort of thing that might make Starlight City¡¯s newest heroine blush if she realized what I really thought of her.

 11: Back Home

    Stupid Fialux.


    I stumbled through the front door not even caring if somebody saw me. Hopefully if one of the neighbors did happen to look out their window at that moment the careful cover story I''d developed about dressing up in costumes for insipid comic book conventions would be enough to explain why I was showing up in a busted and beaten Night Terror costume.


    The worst that could happen was they called the police. And even with the recent dings to my previously unsullied reputation it''s not like the boys in blue would actually dare set foot on a city block if they thought it was Night Terror''s true lair. Too much risk of vaporization on my home turf.


    No, they''d just call Fialux and let her do their dirty work like they always did these days.


    Of course there was always the danger Fialux herself might see me stumbling through my front door, but I was fairly certain I''d given her the slip.


    Either way I was too tired to care. I was too upset to care. Let her come. Let her rip apart my lair. Let her drop me down in the middle of a prison yard without anything approaching due process.


    My attorney would have a field day with that one.


    I reached down and pressed the emergency release button on one of my power enhanced leg modules. Normally that would send it clattering to the ground, but in this case the thing kicked up and nearly smacked me in the face.


    Now that would be a trick. I could see the headline now. Famed villainess Night Terror killed by malfunctioning super boot of her own design.


    That jerk Rex Roth would have a field day.


    Yeah, what a way to go. Definitely not the massive showdown with Fialux that a villainess of my caliber deserved. Not that a showdown would be all that massive if tonight¡¯s performance was anything to go on.


    Or every other showdown we¡¯d had, for that matter.


    If the emergency release wouldn''t work then I''d just have to do this the old-fashioned way. I took aim with the energy blaster attached to my right wrist, careful to make sure I was targeting the strength enhancer and not my leg underneath, and blasted.


    The leg strength enhancer sizzled but split allowing me to move again. I reached down in the hole my blaster left and yanked out the dead enhancer and tossed it to the ground with a satisfying clink.


    Bots skittered out of their little mouse holes to pick up the mess I''d left behind. Little bright flashes of blue appeared behind me as they used their plasma cutters to rip the thing apart so it could be carried down to the lair for recycling.


    Hey, I might be an infamous villainess, but I was conscious of the environment.


    A slight acrid smoky smell drew my attention as I continued towards my small study. I looked down and realized that last shot must have been a little too much for the blaster.


    Well, I suppose that was to be expected. The thing was designed for blowing the doors off of bank vaults. That sort of thing impressed the normals. It definitely wasn''t designed to go toe to toe with Fialux''s damned heat vision or whatever the hell that had been.


    Still, that was really fun when she blasted out with the old laser eyes and I brought up my wrist beam just in time for the two to meet in a massive explosion. I hoped they got a good shot of that for the evening news.


    I hit the release button on the blaster, this one actually worked, and it clattered to the floor behind me.


    A sudden gust of wind had me wheeling around in terror. But it was nothing. I¡¯d just left the front door open. It definitely wasn''t a heroine sent to our world from another planet with an annoying array of superpowers coming to carry me off to jail.


    I breathed a sigh of relief and turned back towards my study. The door could wait. Either one of the bots would get it or some unfortunate robber would decide to take advantage of the situation and the security beams would get a little target practice.


    Either way it didn''t matter to me. It¡¯d been that kind of night.


    I reached back and pulled on a spot where my suit was riding up my ass. These damned suits. The carbon fiber weave definitely kept up with the extreme activities I got up to at night and it had a nice combination of stretchy and strength that made it invaluable if your job description involved regularly fighting living gods, but it also had a nasty tendency to ride up in all the wrong places.


    I had to spend at least two hours a day in the gym just to stay in good enough shape to pull the look off. Not that I was complaining, mind you. I looked damn good and I was proud of it.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    I finally reached my study, actually a dining room I''d converted into a study by putting up bookshelves around the edge, and reached out to pull out my copy of The Villain''s Manifesto.


    The RFID chip hidden in the book went to work and a moment later the bookshelf flipped open to reveal a small alcove set into the wall. A hover plate keyed specifically to me floated in the open air.


    Anyone who wasn''t me that tried stepping on the thing would find its antigravity technology quickly surrendering to the laws of physics.


    One of many nasty surprises I''d worked up for anyone who dared trespass in my lair. Not that anyone ever had. Not that I¡¯d know since most of the surprises I¡¯d worked up involved immediate vaporization.


    Not that it mattered against an enemy who could fly.


    I stepped onto the hover plate which descended down into my lair. The bookshelf closed behind me overhead, but there was still plenty of light from the bright purple neon runners I''d installed on either side of the tunnel.


    Hey, if you''re going to have an entrance to a secret lair then I figured you should do it in style.


    The antigrav plate came to a halt and I stepped into my lair with a contented sigh. Home. I held out my arms and robotic tentacles reached out and grabbed at bits of my suit. What was left of my suit.


    One had to jerk a couple of times as it tugged on one of the arm enhancers I wore, but eventually the thing broke loose with a snap.


    I grimaced. Going toe to toe with Fialux came with an expensive repair bill.


    I rolled my shoulder where that particular enhancer connected. Stupid Fialux hit me with a lucky punch there. The jerk.


    Why couldn¡¯t she just fall into my anti-Newtonian field and give up?


    "How did everything go ma''am?" CORVAC asked, his metallic voice booming through the speakers in the lair.


    The name was short for Computational Organic Vacuum Tube Intelligence, although I''d upgraded his systems so many times since I discovered him in the burnt out ruins of another villain''s old lair that there wasn''t a single vacuum tube left in his sarcastic circuits.


    I rolled my eyes and looked at a monitor where the faint silhouette of a human head was projected in a grainy bright green display. CORVAC said it was old school or something like that. I thought it was a waste of a perfectly good high definition display to turn it into an ancient EGA display straight out of the late ¡®80s but whatever.


    "How do you think it went CORVAC?" I asked. ¡°I¡¯m sure you were watching on the drone displays.¡±


    For emphasis I held up a tattered bit of my cape that was good and charred where Fialux''s damned laser attack thing hit with a glancing blow.


    Who knew she had that? I certainly didn¡¯t, so I didn''t bother with one of the heat resistant capes. I wouldn''t make that mistake again, no matter how itchy they got in summer.


    "Another successful mission I see," CORVAC said.


    I stalked across the room and sat down at the main computer terminal. I briefly considered typing format on CORVAC''s command prompt, another old school affectation, and hitting enter, but decided against it for perhaps the thousandth time since I''d brought him back online and upgraded him.


    The problem with relying on a self-aware computer system based on architecture created by one evil super genius and then upgraded by an even more intelligent super genius, myself thank you very much, was said computer tended to have algorithms and subroutines of its own that could hide nasty surprises.


    CORVAC could be downright nasty and efficient, which was fine with me as long as he was on my side. But best not to do anything to irritate him, lest I discover he had a vaporizer attached to my seat set to go off when I hit format much in the same way that I would vaporize any petty criminal getting in my way.


    "Were you at least successful?"


    I rolled my eyes and growled. ¡°You know the answer CORVAC.¡±


    ¡°I do mistress,¡± he said. ¡°I just thought it might help you to talk about it.¡±


    ¡°Remind me why we¡¯re spending all this time building a giant death robot for you instead of a mute button that works on your speakers?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Because that would lead down a dark path that ended with one or both of us completely destroyed?¡±


    ¡°Good point,¡± I said. ¡°Pull up the Fialux hologram.¡±


    ¡°Whatever you say mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    The holodisplay in the center of the room flickered, wavered, and Fialux stared down at me.


    I hated her. I needed more. I hated that I needed more.


    I recognized those feelings. I''d felt them before, though not since that tragic accident when my last and only girlfriend accidentally walked in on one of my early matter teleportation experiments at Starlight City University.


    I liked to think she was still out there somewhere. Living on some distant planet somewhere in the galaxy. Still fighting the good fight, or at least settled down living whatever passed for the good life on her adopted planet.


    Maybe even soaking up the light of some different colored sun playing the hero role herself.


    But I knew in reality that space was a big place, with a whole hell of a lot more places that were inhospitable to life than were hospitable. So it was more likely she was floating out there in the vacuum. A frozen humancicle who''d confuse future explorers if humanity ever got off its collective ass and started seriously exploring space.


    Anyway, I''m getting away from myself.


    Why couldn¡¯t things go back to being nice and uncomplicated like they were back before I spent every waking hour trying to come up with schemes for taking over the world?


    Then it hit me. A frozen humancicle. A body as at rest as a body could be floating between the stars at absolute zero. And that was the ticket. A body at rest.


    ¡°Wait a minute CORVAC,¡± I said.


    ¡°Yes mistress?¡±


    ¡°I used the anti-Newtonian field on her when she was already going full speed.¡±


    ¡°Is that a problem mistress?¡±


    ¡°That¡¯s exactly the problem! The whole point is to throw her into a field where her powers have nothing to act against, but that doesn¡¯t do a damned bit of good if she¡¯s already in motion!¡±


    ¡°Is this more of that elementary physics you were lecturing me about mistress?¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s exactly that! It¡¯s so simple I can¡¯t believe I missed it. An object in motion stays in motion!¡±


    ¡°So?¡±


    ¡°So she was pumping too much power into the field by the time it hit her!¡±


    ¡°Fascinating mistress, really, but perhaps we could discuss the chassis for the robot?¡±


    ¡°Forget that robot crap CORVAC,¡± I said with a dismissive wave. ¡°It was right in front of me the whole time. The field works. I just need to capture Fialux in it while she¡¯s not in motion! Or when she¡¯s not moving faster than a speeding bullet train.¡±


    ¡°Fascinating conjecture mistress, but how do you propose doing that considering she launches herself at you the moment you announce yourself?¡±


    ¡°Simple. I take her by surprise.¡±

 12: Damsel in Disguise

    I slouched my way along the pitted and often nonexistent sidewalks on the old east end of Starlight City. All around me stood the rusted out broken remains of a part of the city that had seen its heyday long ago.


    The intervening years had seen nothing but depression and crime taking over. Basically it was the perfect place to try and lure Fialux.


    Not that I didn''t get an earful about this plan from CORVAC.


    "But mistress," CORVAC said. He used a voice that would¡¯ve sounded suspiciously close to whining if I didn¡¯t know for a fact he was a pile of circuits and wires incapable of true emotion. "If you were fighting Fialux openly and losing with the best super powered augments you had available, what makes you think that a simple disguise will allow you to get the jump on her?"


    I decided to ignore the unspoken undercurrent of judgment in his words. The thing with CORVAC was that undercurrent of judgment was never far from the surface. More of an undertow of judgment, really, and if I fought it I¡¯d only get pulled out to sea into one hell of an argument.


    Ever tried arguing with a sapient evil supercomputer that was well aware of his capabilities? Not fun. Not fun at all.


    Besides. My plan tonight was perfect. It relied on good old fashioned brains. Not on wonderful toys.


    "There''s nothing a hero can resist less than a good damsel in distress," I said. "Trust me. This will work."


    "Mistress. I think we should talk about the incident where your system froze in front of the holoprojector."


    I rolled my eyes. CORVAC was a bucket of bolts, and so he related to the world through the lens of a bucket of bolts.


    Apparently he¡¯d used that lens to determine that my little staring contest with the holoprojection of Fialux a few days back when I came up with this whole ¡°surprise her¡± idea was my brain hanging on a processing error.


    I¡¯d allowed him to entertain the idea. It was better than him figuring out the truth. which would then necessitate me to explain a lot more about human biology than I cared to discuss with my computer. Even though he had the Internet so presumably he knew the broad strokes already.


    "CORVAC, that''s the last thing I want to discuss with you."


    "But mistress¡­"


    "I said I didn''t want to talk about it."


    There was a pause. Pauses were unusual for CORVAC. Sure I made jokes about him being a pile of circuits or a bundle of bolts, all affectionate for the most part, but I was also well aware his artificial brain could think at speeds that made my own mind look like a slimeless snail running on a salt flat.


    When he paused like that either he was really thinking about something, the digital equivalent of simulated civilizations could rise and fall multiple times deep inside his computer mind in the amount of time he was taking, or he''d just got caught in another logic bomb that tied up his circuits.


    That was the problem with evil super computers. They were vulnerable to logic bombs hurled by the hero at just the right moment. I''d done my best to program those out, but he still occasionally got thrown into an annoying Kirk Loop that reduced the most sophisticated computer on the planet to running slower than a copy of Windows ME that had just been introduced to Comet Cursor for the first time.


    "Mistress, are we still planning on world domination?"


    Domination. That had taken a backseat what with my obsession with Fialux, but best not to let on to CORVAC. He got touchy about that sort of thing.


    Not for the first time I wondered why a computer that could simulate the entirety of the known universe in milliseconds needed to dominate the flesh and blood world of humans, but he got pissy when I started asking existential questions about computerized desires and motivations. I¡¯d learned long ago to treat the subject the same as bringing up the whole Jesus thing with Janet in accounting.


    At least I assumed every office had a Janet from accounting who talked a little too much about the whole Jesus thing if you brought it up. Or even if you didn¡¯t bring it up.


    It¡¯s not like I had much of a basis of comparison having never worked in an office myself. The closest I had was working in the goddamn Applied Sciences Department at Starlight City University.


    Before they kicked me out for ¡°malfeasance.¡± Yeah, turns out that was actually still a word and a charge they used in the twenty-first century.


    No one in academia appreciated good evil super science, but I was going to make sure Fialux got to appreciate it firsthand.


    "Oh yes," I said. I rubbed my hands together and grinned. "Domination. Complete and total domination. That''s the plan."


    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.


    "Are you sure about that mistress?"


    "What are you talking about?"


    "You have that smile you use when you are lying to me via omission."


    Not for the first time I cursed myself for ever loading that facial recognition software. Like an artificial intelligence really needed to be able to recognize the range of human expression to do its job.


    A dark shadow in one of the alleys up ahead shook me away from my reverie about CORVAC and his annoying complaints. I smiled. Hopefully this was exactly what I was looking for.


    A normal person in this part of Starlight City would cross to the other side of the street. Hell, any sane person wouldn''t be in this part of town at this time of night to begin with. But I kept going.


    With a little luck I wouldn''t have to wander all night looking for a crime statistic waiting to happen that was willing to take me on. Not that it was difficult to run into crime in this part of town, statistically speaking.


    As I stumbled past the entrance to the dark alley a voice whispered to me. My grin got bigger. That¡¯s a bingo!


    "Hey. You."


    I turned, my eyes widened, and I blinked at the voice from the darkness. A moment later a hulking man who looked like he hadn¡¯t seen the sharp end of a razor in weeks carrying an ancient revolver appeared out of the shadows.


    He jerked the gun, gesturing for me to join him in that dark alley. I quickly bit back my smile and replaced it with a look of pure terror. At least I hoped it was a look of pure terror.


    Just like Janet from accounting I didn¡¯t have much direct experience with being terrified. Consequence of being mistress of my domain. I needed to look the part though.


    "Oh sir, please don''t hurt me!"


    I held up my hands and opened my eyes as wide as possible. It wasn''t too difficult to mimic what a crime victim looked like considering all the firsthand experience I had. Admittedly from the the other side of things, but still.


    "I said get in here, bitch," the guy said.


    "I swear I don''t have any money!" I said.


    He pointed his gun straight at my face. I opened my eyes even wider and tried not to snicker.


    A part of me wanted him to just fire the damn thing. After all, occasionally the kinetic force shield I wore caused a ricochet, and I might have enough time to register the look of surprise before his own bullet bounced back into his quite unpleasant face.


    But he didn''t do anything so stupid. That was probably for the best. I was supposed to be an innocent victim, after all.


    If anyone saw some girl walking around with obvious super science then it would make it very difficult to actually accomplish my mission. It would make this part of town safe for young women wandering around alone for awhile, but that wouldn''t help me at all.


    "I''m not interested in any money from you, bitch," the guy said. "Now step into the alley before I waste you and finish the job anyways."


    Talk about your common street thug. No class whatsoever. No sense of style. And pretty disgusting in his intent and methods. I rolled my eyes and put my hands on my hips. I was disappointed and disgusted in equal measure. This guy was proof positive that this city deserved a better class of criminal.


    "Seriously?"


    The gun wavered and a look of confusion passed across his face. Probably the first time he''d gotten that sort of reaction from one of his potential victims.


    This was his lucky night. It would also be the last time he ever saw that sort of reaction from one of his victims. This would be the last time he saw any sort of reaction from anybody considering what he¡¯d just admitted he was out here doing.


    There was a code of honor among villains, but it didn¡¯t extend to scum like him. He gave my ancient and honored profession a bad name, and I looked at this as the equivalent of putting down a rabid dog before it could cause too much damage.


    I stalked past him into the darker parts of the alley. I definitely didn''t want this to be seen from the street.


    He did a double take as I shoved past him and he looked down at his seemingly worthless gun in confusion. Then he grinned and followed.


    "That''s more like it," he said, reaching for his belt.


    "You don''t have anyone else with you, do you?" I asked.


    I glanced around the alley, but it didn''t look like anyone else was hiding in the shadows. Partly I wanted to make sure there''d be no witnesses, but mostly I wanted to make sure there was no chance of me salvaging this and maybe attracting a little heroic attention.


    His belt buckle stopped jingling as he looked up at me with that quizzical expression. I imagined the dumb lug wore that expression most of the time. At least when he wasn''t trying to be menacing.


    "Well it''s just me¡­"


    "Do you do this sort of thing a lot?" I asked.


    He shrugged, the oddity of the situation seemingly made him forget the gun he still held in his hand as he awkwardly tried to undo his belt buckle while keeping control of his weapon.


    From where I stood keeping control of his weapon was definitely a problem. A problem I planned on fixing.


    ¡°A couple times a month maybe. It really depends," he said.


    Huh. It really said something about the police presence in this part of town that he was able to get away with this sort of thing every couple of weeks.


    No more. Best to be absolutely sure though.


    "You¡¯re sure you''re definitely not a robber?"


    This time he grinned. "What''s the fun in robbing a bitch?"


    "Thanks," I said with a grin of my own. "That''s all I needed to hear."


    I reached up and undid the top few buttons on my dirty shirt. It was a ragged number I got from a thrift store then rolled through some mud to be certain it had the right amount of grime for this part of town.


    My assailant¡¯s grin grew even wider as he saw me opening my shirt, but the grin turned to a frown as I revealed my suit underneath.


    It was dark, but I was never one to let a little darkness get in the way of style. My suit was black, but my logo glowed a faint purple day or night so anyone could tell who they were going up against regardless of the current lighting situation.


    So I was sure he could make out the logo on my chest. Good branding was important for a villain, and there wasn''t a criminal in the city who didn''t know the Night Terror brand. Or what it meant to get in the way of that brand.


    His eyes grew wide and his mouth worked silently as he held up his gun.


    I cocked my head and grinned.


    "Come on. We both know that''s not going to do you any good," I said.


    He dropped the gun. Good idea. Then he turned and ran down the alley towards the supposed safety of the street. Not such a good idea. Not that any of his ideas were going to help him, good or bad.


    I held up my wrist blaster, let loose with a focused beam, and a moment later there were only tiny disassociated atomic particles where criminal scum once stood.


    I dusted off my hands and moved out of the alley whistling a tune. I''d have to find darker pastures to get the sort of trouble I was looking for, but I could at least rest assured that I¡¯d cleaned up a small part of the city tonight.

 13: Shadow Wing

    "Give us all your money," the gruff voice said.


    I narrowed my eyes as I backed against the dark alley wall. "Are you sure you''re after my money?"


    The big guy hefted a tire iron in his hand and looked at me as though I''d sprouted horns. "What are you talking about? Of course we''re after your money. Now pay up or else."


    I breathed a sigh of relief. For a part of town that was supposedly the most crime-ridden area in the state, hell, maybe even in the hemisphere considering the low level hero population the crime statistics in this area were able to support, I was having a hell of a time finding some crime to get victimized by.


    It was enough to make me wonder if the police department was padding numbers in an attempt to inflate their budget, but no. There were so many street heroes out there that there had to be enough petty crime to support them.


    It was a predator and prey relationship. You had to have so many herd animals to support a lion or a wolf, and you had to have a certain baseline of low to high level crime to support a city teeming with a heroic ecosystem as developed as Starlight City.


    Too bad for these guys they¡¯d just run into the apex predator in that metaphor.


    Oh well. Time to trot out the innocent victim act again. This whole incognito thing was pretty fun.


    "But I don''t have any money!"


    A couple of the guys behind the big one turned to each other and grinned. The big guy didn''t grin, but he did start smacking his tire iron against a big meaty fist.


    "Well now that is a problem," he said. "Because if you can''t pay the toll then I''m afraid I''m going to have to hurt you now."


    I threw my head to the sky and screamed at the top of my lungs. "Help! Somebody please help! Oh for the love of God won''t somebody save me!"


    The big one raised his tire iron. "You need to shut your mouth right now before you start drawing the wrong kind of attention."


    Now it was my turn to put my hands on my hips and cock my head at this guy.


    "Are you serious?"


    He stopped his advance and the tire iron lowered slightly. He was clearly just as confused as the guy I¡¯d vaporized earlier.


    "What are you talking about?"


    "You''re worried I''m going to call a hero down on you, right?"


    "Well¡­ Yeah?"


    "And you''re saying that if I don''t stop screaming it''s going to be bad for me?"


    "Well¡­ Yeah!"


    "But I''ve already made it clear I don''t have any money and you¡¯ve already made it clear that because of my lack of money things are already going to be bad for me. What possible incentive do I have not to yell if you''re going to beat the shit out of me no matter what I do?


    The big one raised the tire iron to the side of his head and scratched. I wondered if maybe I''d broken him with logic.


    If so then it was a hell of a lot easier than breaking CORVAC with logic. This guy didn''t strike me as the type that did much in the way of critical thinking. Although by the way he handled that tire iron I had the feeling he was something of an artist with it.


    Everyone had their own skills in their own areas. It wasn¡¯t for me to judge. Even if his imperviousness to logic and rational conversation meant he was going to get hurt when we inevitably tangled.


    "Aw hell," he said. "Now I''m going to beat the shit out of you just for being a smartass."


    I shrugged. "Suit yourself."


    I readied my wrist blaster. It didn''t look like I was going to get any heroic help. And if I wasn''t going to get any heroic help then I was just going to have to rely on the blaster at my side.


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    It was a pity. This was definitely the best chance I was going to get all night to draw Fialux''s attention. Zap her with the anti-Newtonian field while she was distracted by a low powered fight with low level street thugs.


    Oh well.


    The big one raised his tire iron and ran towards me with a snarl. I was just about to raise my wrist blaster out of the rags at my side when a shadow descended and a guy next to the ringleader disappeared with a scream.


    My buddy with the tire iron skidded to a halt and looked up into the shadows overhead, searching for whatever had just grabbed his minion.


    I blinked. That definitely wasn''t one of my tricks. The other guys standing around the alley with various crowbars and other blunt instruments looked up in terror. One pulled a gun. Not that it would do him a damn bit of good if there was a hero lurking out there.


    From the glares he was getting from his buddies they were well aware of that fact. It was almost a pity. I wanted to see that look on their collective faces when they realized who I was.


    I guess you couldn¡¯t have it all.


    "It''s the Wing," one of them whispered.


    ¡°If it''s the Wing that''s fine by me," the leader said. ¡°He ain¡¯t getting none of ours tonight, and he ain¡¯t got any real powers!¡±


    I arched an eyebrow. The Wing? I had no idea what they were talking about. A new hero I hadn¡¯t heard of was rare, but to be fair I had been distracted lately.


    The big guy hefted his tire iron and grinned at his buddies. Though it was a sickly grin that didn¡¯t look nearly as confident as he was probably shooting for.


    "I hear the Wing can bleed. Not like that new Fialux chick that¡¯s been shutting down business around the city."


    "You can''t make something bleed if you can''t hit it," another one said.


    The first one turn to say something, but whatever he said turned to a strangled scream as the shadow descended out of the darkness once again and pulled him up. The sound of someone getting the crap beat out of them drifted down from the shadows above followed by silence.


    The shadow dropped down in the middle of us. It turned towards me and shouted in a gravelly voice.


    "Run!"


    Then it was running forward and engaging the other two guys.


    I crossed my arms under my breasts and rolled my eyes. The Wing. Shadow Wing. I should¡¯ve realized, damn it. I come out here looking for Fialux, and instead I pull a mortal hero who I normally didn¡¯t bother with because I didn¡¯t come to this part of town.


    The criminals down here were nice enough to send me their protection money via electronic transfer so I didn¡¯t have to bother.


    ¡°Someone punch him!¡± the guy with the tire iron said. ¡°It¡¯s not that hard!¡±


    I¡¯d put a few mortal heroes out of business myself over the course of my career. Not lately since they¡¯d all learned better than to fuck with yours truly, but once upon a time it¡¯d been a going concern for me.


    Not that many of them lasted long enough to get to me in the first place. Not that I ever bothered with Shadow Wing since he never gave any inclination that he wanted to do any more than beat the shit out of petty thugs.


    Which was something I could respect. Find something you love.


    ¡°Don¡¯t run away! He¡¯s going to hit you with his throwing stars!¡±


    Usually the mortal heroes ended up dead. Getting killed by a regular thug because they weren¡¯t bullet proof everywhere. Going up against a super villain who didn¡¯t have my reservations about killing unless it was absolutely necessary.


    There were a lot of ways for a normal hero to die in this city. It was a pity Shadow Wing hadn¡¯t shed his mortal coil. If there was already an active hero out here tonight it meant there was less chance Fialux would bother with this part of town. Why get involved in a situation that was already well under control?


    One of the thugs raised a crowbar and was about to get the drop on the hero when he went stock still. Just for a second, but that was long enough for the hero to turn and get in a sucker punch.


    I frowned. It was dark, but I was pretty sure I¡¯d seen what I¡¯d seen. What was that all about? The thug went down with a thunk and Shadow Wing turned to me again.


    "I said run!"


    Even more interesting. That voice was definitely gravelly. That wasn¡¯t a one time thing in the heat of combat. Like someone gave him some bad advice about gargling rocks or smoking too much to sound intimidating.


    He sounded like he needed a sore throat lozenge is what he sounded like.


    The ringleader broke free from the hero and ran towards me screaming with a tire iron raised over his head. He¡¯d somehow managed to last until the very end. Respect. Not that it was going to help him very much.


    Maybe he figured if he was going to get the crap kicked out of him then at least he was going to take me with him. Shadow Wing followed at a sprint, but it was obvious he wasn''t going to make it in time.


    The thug¡¯s snarl turned to a wide smile.


    "Damn it! Run!" The hero shouted.


    I let him get within two steps of me before I hit a button on my wrist control and my rags were teleported a few feet to the right revealing my Night Terror suit underneath.


    The head thug skidded to a halt, and if anything the look of terror on his face when he thought he was just dealing with an overeager heroic type turned to one of pure abject horror when he realized he''d just tried to mug Night Terror.


    I grinned and waggled my fingers at him in a friendly wave.


    "That''s right buddy," I said. "You and your friends picked the wrong alley to go robbing in."


    He turned and ran in the other direction. Unfortunately the hero¡¯s fist was waiting for him in that direction. There was a loud crack, followed by a grunt as he slammed to the ground.


    The hero knelt in the darkness and looked up at me, his eyes glowing slightly. Must be some sort of night vision device he was using. I had similar toys, although mine didn''t make that pesky glow.


    I wasn''t sure if that was an aesthetic choice on his part, or if he just didn''t have access to some of the more advanced toys I enjoyed. Probably the latter.


    "Night Terror."


    I sketched a little bow. "None other than."

 14: Compelling

    "I don''t know what you''re doing with these thugs," Shadow Wing said. "But you¡¯re not going to work this part of town. Go get your ass handed to you by the new hero and leave this neighborhood well enough alone."


    "No need to pull the tough guy routine," I said.


    I was a little annoyed, but I was also impressed. I avoided Shadow Wing professionally, but he had a pair on him. It wasn¡¯t every day a hero got a chance to go up against the great and powerful Night Terror, and it really wasn¡¯t every day they stood up to me when they got that chance.


    It would¡¯ve made for an interesting evening of toying with him if it weren¡¯t for the fact this wasn¡¯t the hero I needed to find tonight, damn it.


    Those glowing eyes narrowed. Now that was an interesting trick. How did he manage to pull that one off? There was no rational explanation for how the infrared illuminators on a pair of night vision goggles would narrow like that.


    Maybe it was a special modification? I wasn¡¯t one to talk when it came to modifying tech exclusively to do something that looked cool.


    ¡°What are you doing in my territory?¡± he growled.


    Now it was my turn for my eyes to narrow."Not that it¡¯s any of your business, but I''ll tell you exactly what I was doing here.¡±


    The unspoken promise there was I was willing to tell this wannabe hero what I was doing out here tonight because he wasn¡¯t going to survive this encounter. I know people liked to mock villains who got caught up in doing a monologue and then got their asses handed to them, but that wasn¡¯t how I operated.


    I found it far more efficient to gloat about my genius plan just long enough that a hero thought they might have a chance to defeat me and then vaporize them.


    It was a hell of a lot easier to keep a hero from trying to foil my plans if they were free floating molecules that had been a person in a hero suit of wildly varying build qualities moments before.


    ¡°I was fishing for a hero."


    Shadow Wing brushed a speck of dirt off of his suit. "Fishing for a hero?"


    "Sure," I said. "I was hoping I could lure Fialux with a little damsel in distress routine, but I''m assuming since you''re out here she''s not going to be found on the side of town, which is really putting a cramp on my plans and¡­"


    The attack was almost faster than lightning. The only problem is I was ready for it. The instant he darted forward I activated the anti-Newtonian stasis field and his fist stopped an inch from my face.


    It wasn¡¯t exactly catching Fialux off guard, the power involved in the punch this wannabe threw was orders of magnitude less than anything Fialux could throw around, but it was a start.


    At least that proved I could stop someone with the stasis field if they weren¡¯t putting out the kind of power Fialux was capable of. After all, this guy was obviously a mere mortal for all the impressive gadgets he had.


    And now that he stood there in the glow of the stasis field? I could get a good look at the hero behind the mysterious shadowy figure who was so terrifying to the criminal element in this alley that they''d almost peed themselves when their buddies started disappearing.


    I could appreciate that. I was all about putting on a show while I worked, and I felt a kindred spirit in this hero. I could respect someone who spent all their time working around the fringes of the law, for all that Shadow Wing was doing it in service of vigilante justice rather than outright breaking the law.


    Shadow Wing glared at me. And when he glared at me it was a glare that seemed personal. I didn¡¯t bother asking when I¡¯d pissed in his Wheaties, though. There were a lot of people in this city lined up for a ticket on the Night Terror train.


    Occupational hazard when you were the best worst villain the world had ever seen. I¡¯d stepped on a lot of toes on my rise to the top. Maybe this one even got into heroics because of something I¡¯d done. Swore revenge and all that.


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    It wouldn¡¯t be the first time I¡¯d gone against someone who got into the hero business because I¡¯d done them wrong. Not that it was going to do him a damn bit of good.


    The guy looked to be in pretty good shape, which I knew from the stories I¡¯d heard. I suppose that''s to be expected for a normal who kept himself in good enough shape to go out and tangle with criminals on a nightly basis.


    I walked in a circle and gave him a good once over. He wore a dark gray form fitting suit very similar to what I wore. Though it looked like the asshole had taken the time to sculpt abs and pecs on the thing rather than just working on the abs and pecs and having them show through the suit.


    No cape. Which was a sensible choice for a mortal hero. Fialux could get away with a cape since she was impervious to practically anything and it didn''t matter if she got tangled up for a few minutes while a giant death robot pounded her with every weapon in its arsenal, but a mortal hero had to worry about that sort of thing.


    ¡°So you¡¯re Shadow Wing?¡± I asked as I came back around to his front and planted my hands on my hips.


    ¡°I am,¡± he growled.


    It was weird. His voice sounded slightly distorted coming out of the field. Which made sense, but I hadn¡¯t exactly had a conversation with Fialux while she was trapped in the field intent on kicking my ass.


    I looked up to the sky overhead. Not that there was much to see in the sky up there. For a place called Starlight City there was enough light pollution that the only thing you could really see in the skies was occasionally the moon when it was full.


    Well, the moon when it was full and all the various spotlights with heroic silhouettes projected up into the light pollution and adding to the problem. That had gotten really out of hand ever since the Supreme Court ruled that displaying a spotlight like that was technically free speech and now it seemed like every other rooftop in the parts of town that were good enough to afford it but bad enough to have some crime sported one.


    At least until the hero behind the light gave up or got themselves killed. That was the problem with projecting your personalized hero spotlight from a building where you lived instead of waiting on the police to need you enough that they put it on the roof of headquarters. It was a good way to advertise to any villains in the area where you lived.


    Not that I¡¯d taken advantage of that to track down a hero who was annoying me and ruin their life to the point they had to leave the city. I¡¯d totally never even consider doing something like that.


    ¡°Wasn¡¯t that name already taken?¡± I asked. ¡°Some low level chick who got herself splatted against the side of a building fighting a giant irradiated lizard?¡±


    Odd, that. Most lizard species reacted to radiation the same as every other multicellular thing that was exposed to radiation. They died. Either via rapid cell death or slow cancers depending on how great the exposure was.


    Of course if there was going to be a species of iguana that reacted to radiation by growing to gargantuan size and going for a stroll through downtown it would be in Starlight City. This place was like a beacon for weird shit like that.


    The asshole tensed when I mentioned the former Shadow Wing. It was enough to make me wonder if maybe there wasn¡¯t something going on there. Maybe a personal connection.


    It would be really sad if this guy was out to avenge his dead wife who got it in her head she was going to be a hero and found out, too late, that there were consequences for trying to sit at the big kid table when you weren¡¯t ready to give up the sippy cup.


    Not my problem though. This guy was about to learn the same lesson. If for no other reason than there was something about him that irritated me more than anyone had ever irritated me before.


    Well, maybe not as much as Rex Roth, but it was close.


    ¡°I¡¯m Shadow Wing,¡± he growled.


    I rolled my eyes. ¡°You¡¯re going to have to do more than repeating your hero name if you want to impress me. I know you¡¯ve made a name for yourself beating up street level criminals, but I¡¯m in a totally different class of bad guy.¡±


    "Whatever you have planned, you won''t get away with it," Shadow Wing said. ¡°You won¡¯t defeat Fialux.¡±


    ¡°Actually I¡¯m pretty sure I am going to get away with it,¡± I said.


    ¡°Never!¡±


    ¡°Will so!¡±


    ¡°No you won¡¯t!¡±


    I stomped. ¡°Yes I will! Because right now my evil plan doesn¡¯t extend past vaporizing you and I¡¯m pretty sure that¡¯s going to be pretty easy to do with a cut rate wannabe!¡±


    Yeah, this guy was really irritating me. Who the hell did he think he was challenging me? I was at the top of the A list and he was strictly bush-league.


    I leaned in until I was inches from his face. The glow from his night vision goggles disappeared and his eyes appeared beneath his mask. I felt like I''d seen those eyes before somewhere, but who knew?


    The city was lousy with secret identities, and who was to say I hadn''t run into this Shadow Wing''s secret identity at some point? Hell, he could be the barista where I got my coffee every Friday, or a cop I avoided vaporizing on a regular basis. There was no telling.


    Pity he had to cross me now while I was on the job and in a more vaporizing mood. Especially if it turned out to be the nice guy who made that wonderful coffee at the Starlight City University coffee shop.


    I put a hand under his chin. One of the fringe perks I¡¯d discovered with my newly developed stasis technology was that whatever I wanted not moving definitely couldn''t move, unless it was Fialux of course, but it was keyed to my biometrics. So if I needed to manipulate the field all I had to do was reach out and touch whatever I¡¯d caught in my web of super science.


    Something happened, but it wasn¡¯t the vaporizing I was expecting. No, his eyes turned a dark black and I staggered back.


    Huh. That was unexpected.

 15: Mind Control

    Weird. I almost felt like I was back at a middle school dance where I¡¯d turned the DJ¡¯s lights into a hypnotic pattern that would¡¯ve allowed me to overthrow the school and institute my benevolent regime of all academics and no gym class.


    I figured that was a better use of my time than risking the terror of wading out into the sea of hormones raging at the center of the gym dance floor and sinking in that vast and treacherous ocean.


    That plan had backfired when the special glasses I wore to prevent the light pattern from hypnotizing yours truly had slipped when someone bumped into me and I¡¯d been caught in my own web. I only realized I¡¯d failed when I woke up the next day along with everyone else after a janitor came in and unplugged the DJ¡¯s machinery.


    I felt that now, only it was hitting me with a lot more power than those lights, even. The more I looked into those dark eyes the more I felt like I wanted to do whatever this idiot wanted me to.


    Terror seized me even as the desire to do whatever he wanted washed over me. Maybe it was a good thing I¡¯d made that mistake all those years ago so I knew what it felt like when someone was trying to take control of my mind.


    Which he shouldn¡¯t be able to do. I had tech embedded in the contacts that contained my heads up display that kept the visual mind control impulses out, and stuff in the earbuds buried in my ear canal that kept out the auditory shit.


    So why was it happening now?


    It hit me where this asshole got all his toys even if he seemed like he was a normie. If he had the power to control minds then¡­


    Well he was a more dangerous hero than I¡¯d given him credit for. More dangerous, but he still wasn¡¯t much of a threat to yours truly.


    No. I was villainy made flesh. I was the Night Terror. This wasn¡¯t amateur hour, and I wasn¡¯t going to be taken by something that simple.


    ¡°Really? Mind control?¡± I asked. ¡°CORVAC, could you please analyze whatever this joker is using and turn up the filtering?¡±


    I said the last bit much quieter. Subvocalized it, really. Most heroes only had one superpower, and I was willing to risk that this guy didn¡¯t have super hearing on top of everything else.


    ¡°Analyzed and added to the bag of tricks mistress,¡± CORVAC said.


    ¡°Right,¡± I said, looking straight at the dude. His eyes were still totally black. Which was really freaky, but it¡¯s not like it was anything to be worried about.


    I always had a plan in place.


    He blinked. Obviously he was surprised. I held up my wrist and there was no missing the bright glow there. It was bright enough to light up the whole alley and get across the point that I wasn¡¯t fucking around.


    ¡°Nice trick,¡± I said. ¡°But the problem with only having one ace up your sleeve is it doesn¡¯t work with someone hiding a full deck.¡±


    Okay, so maybe that wasn¡¯t the best pithy line, but I¡¯d been so busy with Fialux I hadn¡¯t had a chance to come up with any new villainous quips lately.


    Whatever. This guy was about to learn his last lesson ever. It wasn¡¯t a good idea to fuck with Night Terror. Yeah, he¡¯d learn that lesson as soon as I turned my wrist blaster and pointed it to my head. All I¡¯d have to do was squeeze just a little and¡­


    ¡°Isaac Newton¡¯s dangling hairy balls!¡±


    The emergency system built into my suit went into full gear. One moment I was standing there staring into eyes that totally shouldn¡¯t have been able to hypnotize me, especially after dialing up the countermeasures, and the next I was rocketing up and over the city.


    I really hoped the boys at NORAD weren¡¯t looking too closely at the city. I was always nice enough to notify them when I was doing something that might show up as ballistic on their sensors which, unfortunately, hadn¡¯t been updated all that much since the sixties and were far more prone to false positives than would make your average civilian comfortable if they had access to that information.


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    They tended to be a little more lenient about that sort of thing around Starlight City considering all the people with superpowers, both innate and built with their own two hands, but I figured you could never be too careful about that sort of thing.


    ¡°Drones are incoming mistress,¡± CORVAC said. ¡°Shall I identify the hostile and¡­¡±


    ¡°No need to send them out,¡± I said. ¡°He¡¯s not going to be there by the time you get the drones down there.¡±


    ¡°What happened mistress?¡± he asked.


    ¡°The asshole was somehow getting through the filter. I don¡¯t know how he did it, but I was about to blast myself in the face with the vaporizer.¡±


    It¡¯s not like it would¡¯ve mattered whether I hit myself in the face or another part of my body. I was using the vaporizer, after all, and it did exactly what it said on the tin.


    Which meant it would disassociate all of my molecules rapidly and painfully whether it hit my face or another part of my body.


    I shook my head. That¡¯d been close. Too damn close. I didn¡¯t like when my tech didn¡¯t work. It was the reason I¡¯d come to dominate this city, and some asshole with mind control powers who could make it through one of my filters was really something to worry about.


    ¡°How the hell did he manage to get through the filtering CORVAC?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Unknown,¡± CORVAC said. ¡°There was a spike in the EM his eyes were giving off when you started pointing the vaporizer at your head. It is possible that spike was related to your sudden desire to off yourself.¡±


    ¡°You think?¡± I asked.


    There was another thought working its way through the back of my mind. I¡¯d been about to shoot myself in the face and CORVAC hadn¡¯t said a damn thing to stop me. That was something to think about.


    Something to think about. Not something to ask him about. If the traitorous bucket of bolts really was trying to do me in by messing with some of the settings on my suit it wasn¡¯t something I wanted to let on.


    The only place he couldn¡¯t hear me was inside my head. That was one of the reasons why I¡¯d been reluctant to switch over to a suit system that was directly jacked into my brain.


    ¡°Apologies, mistress,¡± CORVAC said, sounding totally normal. Which is to say sounding like a soulless logic-driven bucket of bolts intent on world domination.


    I didn¡¯t trust CORVAC, not entirely, and this little incident was one more reason to wonder. The thought of having a connection that went straight from my brain to any system he controlled was enough to give me a mild case of the shakes.


    Or maybe the shakes were from the near miss I¡¯d just had with that Shadow Wing joker. That was one to keep an eye out for.


    After I¡¯d gone through and run a bunch of diagnostics on my suit systems with independently verifiable equipment that wasn¡¯t attached to CORVAC¡¯s systems. In one of the auxiliary labs he didn¡¯t know about. One couldn¡¯t be too safe.


    ¡°Are you quite well mistress?¡± CORVAC asked. ¡°I¡¯m registering elevated pulse and blood pressure.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± I lied.


    He probably knew it for the lie it was. Or suspected it for the lie it was. He might not be jacked directly into my brain, but he did have access to all the diagnostics on the suit.


    I hadn¡¯t figured out a way to keep him away from that information and still maintain combat effectiveness without having him ask too many questions about why I was restricting access.


    The dangers of working with an evil supercomputer.


    ¡°I think I¡¯m going to call it a night,¡± I said. ¡°One close brush with certain defeat is more than enough for one night.¡±


    ¡°Yes, that does seem to be happening to you quite a bit lately,¡± CORVAC said.


    I bit back a couple of choice words that would¡¯ve let him know exactly what I thought of his assessment of my abilities. There¡¯d been a time when I was at the top of my game in this city without his help, thank you very much. I occasionally had to remind him he would be so many dead circuits gathering dust in the bowels of some long forgotten evil lair if it weren¡¯t for me finding and resurrecting him.


    I didn¡¯t have the energy to get into the same old argument with him tonight though. No, I was still shaken from that encounter with Shadow Wing. More than anything I wanted to get somewhere I didn¡¯t have to think. Where I could check out for the night and not think about how I was losing my grip on this city and quickly ruining my reputation with every new fight I went into.


    First I¡¯d lost to Fialux repeatedly, and then I let some normal with a parlor trick power get the best of me? What was wrong with me?


    If this kept up then I really wouldn¡¯t deserve to have the title of the best villain in the city. I might as well switch to petty crime.


    Unfortunately it was the distractions of thinking about how my career in villainy was in serious danger that caused the next misstep.


    One moment I was flying along over the city minding my own business, and the next I heard something thump. It was a sound I recognized even through the audio scrubbers in my earpieces that filtered out the kind of loud noises inherent in this job that were part of the reason why tinnitus was such a big problem with heroes and villains in the city.


    Especially the ones with super hearing, ironically enough.


    Yeah, I knew what that thump was. It was none other than the sound of a sonic boom. Moving in low and fast over the city.


    It could only mean one thing. They didn¡¯t allow jets to fly that fast over the city unless it was maybe the military trying to fight one of the aforementioned irradiated lizards.


    The problem was it was notoriously difficult for the FAA to regulate anyone who had super powers, and I had a feeling I¡¯d finally found Fialux. Or she¡¯d found me, and she wouldn¡¯t be completely oblivious to an ambush if she was gunning for me.


    Just great. I pulled up to a stop and scanned the skies looking for the telltale atmospheric disturbance that meant she was coming in hot to ruin my night.


    Even as it was going to make my night just that little bit brighter being close to her. Damn it.