Night Terror & Fialux (Book 3): Villains Don't Train Heroes!

by Archer, Mia

  This wasn’t the same bank from that morning I met Fialux, but obviously this guy had gotten a transfer. I’m sure he’d thought it was quite a promotion to be relocated to the main branch of the Starlight City National Bank, but I’m also pretty sure he was regretting that decision to take that promotion now.

  He locked eyes with me. Recognition dawned on his face. Not recognition of the sort that said he knew I was Night Terror. It was always fun when somebody hit me with that look of dawning terror and recognition. The sure knowledge that they were about to be deep in the shit.

  But no, obviously he knew who I was since the bad guys here had been kind enough to announce my presence when I moved in. Besides, everybody knew exactly who I was unless I was trying to go incognito, and I clearly wasn’t trying to go incognito here.

  No, that terrified look on his face was the recognition that he knew I recognized him. He yelped, his eyes going wide, and then he dove out of sight.

  Probably a good plan on his part. It was nice to see he’d learned his lesson about getting in the way of his betters during our last tangle.

  Fialux stumbled to her feet. Looked at the villains surrounding her. Grinned. Obviously she was enjoying the hell out of this even if she was having a little bit of trouble getting used to wearing that suit.

  She ran at one of them and threw another punch. Her repertoire wasn’t all that varied, but it was a good punch. The guy went flying back as he was hit with all of the enhanced strength that came from wearing one of my toys.

  The only problem was she neglected to take account of her surroundings before she threw that punch. Namely the three guys behind her who had an opening as she stumbled forward because she wasn’t used to the way my suits operated.

  They piled on, and clearly she was having some difficulty getting them off of her. Sure she was flailing around and trying her best to get rid of them, but her best wasn’t going to be enough.

  I shook my head. Her modus operandi had been “throw punches and elbows and anything else in any direction and rely on super strength to take care of the rest” for so long that she didn’t know any other way to fight. Clearly I was going to have to take care of that if we were going to go on any more of these training expeditions.

  That situation would keep for the moment though. It might to do her some good to realize she couldn’t just wade into the middle of a battle and start throwing punches. Not anymore. Maybe she’d realize she had to use a little bit of finesse now.

  I’d tried to tell her as much, but she hadn’t listened and now look where it had gotten her.

  I turned my attention to the robbers surrounding me. A couple of them had pulled out tire irons and truncheons. I guess they’d decided to forego the shotguns since I’d already demonstrated they were useless.

  I cocked an eyebrow.

  “Do you really want to use those on me?” I asked. “This isn’t a fucking video game where melee weapons are my magic weakness just because I’m strong against ranged weapons. Here’s a hint assholes. I’ll kick your ass no matter what you’re packing.”

  They paused. Glanced at each other. Then advanced on me anyways.

  I shrugged. “Your funeral.”

  I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they were coming at me with melee weapons when I’d already shown that guns were no match for me and I’d made it clear I didn’t have weaknesses cooked up in the fever dreams of some crazed tactical RPG developer’s nightmares.

  Then again maybe that was the method to their madness. Maybe they’d seen the way it worked when they came at me with guns. The way I casually swiped all their shotgun pellets out of the air. Maybe they figured if they closed in for a close fight they’d have a better chance.

  It was sound logic if you were the kind of criminal asshole who thought it was a good idea to rob a bank in the middle of a major attack on the city. Which is a roundabout way of saying it wasn’t very good logic at all, and they were going to pay for it.

  They all came at me at once. A couple of them glanced over their shoulders and grinned when they saw that Fialux was almost down on the ground. Sure she was still hurting them a lot for every inch she gave, but it was clear those assholes were going to have no trouble overpowering her given enough time.

  Clearly they were expecting me to go down just as quickly in a one-on-one fight. The only problem was they weren’t reckoning with the fact that they were dealing with none other than Night Terror.

  There was a reason I’d been at the top of my game for so long, and if the common criminal element had forgotten that then I figured that merely meant it was time for me to teach them a lesson in humility.

  The first one came at me and raised his crowbar. I, in turn, raised my wrist blaster and fired it at him. The crowbar flew across the room and embedded in the ceiling before falling down onto some poor bank employee’s desk with a shower of plaster.

  I winced. Some of these buildings were old enough that the building material still contained asbestos. I had filtering mechanisms in the med bay that could take care of that shit, but the people cowering away from the robbers, Fialux, and myself didn’t have that luxury.

  The robber looked at his hand then back to me. Then he yelled and ran at me anyways. I rolled my eyes. Ducked and shoved my shoulder into his stomach and threw him over me.

  The other two came at me at the same time. At least they weren’t pulling the mistake of sending guys at me one at a time in the hopes that maybe I’d get tired and they could overpower me.

  Again, the only problem with their plan was it still wasn’t going to do them a damn bit of good. No, they hadn’t had a chance against me from the moment they decided to pick this fight, and the sooner they admitted that the better.

  They both had their hands raised with crowbars as well. I ducked down at the last moment. Both of their arms came down where I’d been, but I used my antigravity units to push myself out of the way.

  They’d come at me at the same time, sure, but they’d made the classic mistake of trying to flank me. Which meant when their crowbars came down and there was no me in the way to stop those crowbars they ended up slamming into the opposite robber instead.

  Oops. They really should’ve been paying better attention.

  Both of them cried out in pain, and both of them stood there shaking their hands and arms where they’d just landed one hell of a hit on each other.

  It wouldn’t have hurt me that much unless they got in a lucky shot, but neither one of them had the benefit of a suit that could tell the laws of physics to take a hike for a few moments, and it was clear they were feeling every bit of pain running through their bodies.

  It served them right. The assholes.

  “Oh boys?” I asked.

  I didn’t actually have anything to say to them. I was more interested in getting their attention as I fired up the antigrav.

  It was time to bring the kind of hurt down on these assholes that could only be delivered by the greatest villainess the city had ever seen using all of the wonderful toys at her disposal.

  Fialux was occupied and not paying attention. It was time to let out the villain inside me that desperately wanted to play. I grinned an evil little grin.

  “Time to show you pricks just how stupid it is to bring a crowbar to a super science powered fight.”

  11

  Beatdown

  They both looked up. Their eyes went wide as they saw me barreling towards them with my fists outstretched. And then both their heads shot back as my antigrav assisted fists made contact with their chins.

  They both went down in crumpled heaps on the floor, leaving the one who’d come at me first staring at me and wiggling his fingers where there was no doubt one hell of a sting from having that crowbar knocked out of his hand by a plasma blast.

  I looked at the guy and grinned. A lopsided half grin.

  “So I know what you have to be asking yourself right now. I have a miniaturized atomic reactor that only gives me enough
power to fight off two and a half giant creatures at the same time. Or one superpowered hero.”

  That was a lie, but one of the things I regularly did was spread misinformation about my abilities in fights when it didn’t matter so I’d continually keep the people who could actually give me a run for my money guessing. I wasn’t above a bit of lying or misdirection in the name of maintaining my reputation.

  “So far I’ve taken out several of your buddies. So you have to be asking yourself, do I have enough energy after doing all of that to still blast you to smithereens? I’ve got to be honest, I’ve lost count too.”

  That was also a lie. I had a power indicator that showed me I was still delightfully in the green as far as power reserves went. Which was a nice change from what it had been recently.

  My power situation was getting seriously out of hand after upgrading everything thanks to having access to Fialux for some up close and personal testing. At least before she’d lost her powers.

  Compared to all the resource management I’d had to do while I was fighting off Dr. Lana’s giant robots it was refreshing to go after a bunch of normal bank robbers for a change.

  But of course that wouldn’t go along with the line I was paraphrasing. A line I was sure this guy knew, because he had the look of the kind of guy who could quote any Clint Eastwood movie ever made chapter and verse.

  My grin grew even wider. Maybe even a little maniacal. I’d spent a lot of time in front of the mirror practicing this look. It even upset CORVAC when I’d perfected it, and I figured upsetting that bucket of bolts, wherever the hell he was, meant I could upset just about anyone with the crazy eyes.

  “So you have to ask yourself. Do I feel lucky? Well do you punk?”

  I held up my wrist blaster. Set it on what I liked to call it the “ominous hum” setting. Electricity arced from the tip.

  That arcing electricity wasn’t strictly necessary to send a bolt of plasma flying, but I found that it was very effective for upping the intimidation factor.

  The guy stared at the arcing electricity for a long moment where he seemed to be contemplating his own mortality. I recognized the look all too well. It seemed to happen a lot with normals who found themselves confronting me and my wonderful toys.

  Then he scrambled for the door.

  “That’s what I thought!” I shouted after him.

  Then I remembered that we were supposed to be doing the whole heroic thing here. So I switched my wrist blaster to stun, hopefully he didn’t have a heart condition, and fired. The guy did a swan dive into a desk and was still.

  I winced, but it’s not like there was much I could do about where he landed. All I could do was create a setting that disrupted the nervous system just enough that it stopped a person in their tracks without actually killing them.

  So far there hadn’t been a single asshole out there brave enough to actually try and sue me because of injuries that resulted from the stun setting. Not when they knew that was likely to end with a visit from yours truly carrying around the vaporize setting and not a subpoena.

  I whirled around. I could worry about lawsuits later. Right now I was more concerned with a group of bank robbers who were slowly but surely dragging Fialux towards what looked like a back entrance that probably led to that loading dock I’d scouted out earlier.

  I knew everything about this place because, unlike these assholes who clearly didn’t know what the hell they were doing, I’d cased the place multiple times. This wasn’t the only time I’d been at this branch of the bank, but it was the only time I’d been here defending this branch of the bank rather than trying to make a withdrawal of my own.

  I sighed. Floated out the front door. I took my time. I had time to kill. That was the one thing I could kill without pissing Fialux off.

  Maybe they thought they were getting away with Fialux. Maybe they thought they were going to get whatever the hell bounty was being offered on her sexy superpowered head, but they’d have another thing coming if they thought they were getting one over on Night Terror.

  I went on a nice leisurely float over the building and then down to one of the fire escapes that overlooked the loading dock. The thing was in an alley that was wide as they measured that sort of thing in Starlight City with a dead end in one direction and the street in the other direction.

  The perfect place for a bank robber turkey shoot. I stared down at the loading dock. Waited for the back door to open. And sure enough it did.

  Fialux flailed about in every direction as they carted her off. Dialing down her power so I didn’t have to worry about her hurting herself or other people meant now she was at their mercy.

  Okay, so mostly I was worried about her hurting other people. Hey, I might be a villain at heart, but I was still worried about collateral damage.

  Maybe Fialux was right. Maybe there was a touch of the hero in me. I’d saved the city a couple of times now, though the city seemed to be conflicted on whether they loved me or hated me for doing that saving.

  There was still a large contingent of talking heads on the Starlight City News Network who went on and on about how if I was at the scene of a crime then I had to have something to do with that crime. Even if it looked like I was trying to stop said crime.

  The pricks. Journalists. Always patting themselves on the back about talking about other people doing interesting things as though that was the same as doing interesting things.

  The robbers took a couple of steps before I pulled out my wrist blaster and fired off a couple of warning shots. Chunks of asphalt flew in the air and they all stopped in their tracks. Looked up. I smiled and did a little wave at them where I wiggled my fingers.

  “Hello boys,” I said. “Which one of you wants to go first?”

  They all looked at each other. And then they dispersed. Running for both ends of the alley the loading dock was situated in.

  The only problem was, again, obviously none of these assholes had done their homework. One end of the alley was a dead end, so I didn’t bother to chase after the pricks going that way.

  The other end let out onto the street. I could hear the telltale sirens that meant the cops were on their way, but I couldn’t be sure they’d get here in time. After all, I could also still hear and feel the deep bass thrum of that giant lizard making its way through the city somewhere off in the distance. Followed by an unearthly roar and the sounds of buildings crashing down.

  That was fucking loud. Okay then. Maybe that thing was closer than I thought.

  I suppose I could have gone for something simple. A disrupter or something that would stop them in their tracks and render them unable to move until the cops showed up.

  But that seemed too good for these assholes. After all, they had done their best to try and capture Fialux. To say that I took a dim view of the assholes trying to capture my girlfriend would be one hell of an understatement.

  So I fired off a spread of anti-Newtonian bubbles.

  That damn thing really was useful. I was finding new ways to manipulate it almost every day, and not all of them had to do with the safety applications of dealing with someone who was getting used to antigravity powered flight.

  Take this for example. The bubbles shot down the alley and enveloped each of the robbers who’d been trying to make their escape that way. No sooner had the bubbles made contact with the pricks than they all slowed to a crawl.

  Sure they were still moving, very slowly, but if it took awhile for me to get out of an anti-Newtonian field when I was operating my high-powered equipment then it was going to take a hell of a lot longer for those assholes to get out of the same field when all they were operating with was what mother nature gave them.

  Considering how out of shape some of those guys looked mother nature hadn’t given them all that much to begin with, and they’d destroyed that through years of smoking, drinking, and overeating. They’d still be trying to get away by the time the cops showed up to apprehend them.

  “Sucks to be
you dickheads!” I shouted after them.

  Wrapped in an anti-Newtonian field like that I’d be long gone by the time they turned to react to my taunt, which was too bad, but I had zero intention of sticking around long enough for the fuzz to show up and start yanking my monkey chain.

  My reputation had already suffered a setback with the fuzz when I was doing battle with Fialux on the regular. It turns out having your ass dropped in front of the police station time and time again with all of my equipment busted to hell and back had the effect of making the police a little less terrified.

  It was going to take awhile to regain that perfect balance of fear and respect I’d enjoyed with the cops before Fialux came along, and now wasn’t the time to mess with that.

  I looked to the other end of the alley. To Fialux and the remaining robbers down at the end of the alley.

  Training day wasn’t over yet, but it was these robber assholes who were about to get schooled.

  12

  Another Beatdown

  I looked down to the alley floor. Felt the grime and muck crunching underfoot.

  You’d think a bank would care a little more about what went on in the alley behind their building, but I guess not. It was almost like there was a city ordinance no one bothered to tell me about that said all back alleys in Starlight City had to be dank grimy affairs without much light filtering down from above.

  Fialux looked up at me. Glowered at me, is more like it. She looked a little worse for the wear.

  “You weren’t going to do anything?” she growled.

  I shrugged. “What was there to do?”

  “You could’ve swooped in and saved me when they tried dragging me away! And what the hell were they talking about with a bounty?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “But you can bet your cute ass I’m going to do my best to find out.”