by Archer, Mia
No, this was pure hunger. Pure lust. Her mouth opened to mine. Her tongue pressed into my mouth. I felt myself moaning as her hands ran up and down my body. I was just about ready to say fuck the city. They’d laughed at me enough times that I really didn’t care if they were left high and dry.
Her hand moved down. Started to move past my waist. Down to where I knew there was nothing that could save the city because I wasn't going to be able to resist her. But she stopped just before the ultimate goal. She smiled.
"What the hell?" I asked, frustrated at her stopping just when things were getting good.
She grinned and wagged a finger.
"Naughty girl," she said. "Taking your own pleasure ahead of saving all those poor people."
I let my head fall back. And winced. The antigrav was set to a sensitivity that stopped someone who was careening across the room at a high speed. The sort of thing that would happen if we were in the middle of training.
It wasn't designed to stop an idiot from, say, slamming her head against the ground. The force involved in that wasn’t enough to even tickle the antigrav sensors. Stars danced in front of my vision and it had nothing to do with the epic makeout session I'd just been enjoying with the Heroic Wonder.
"So you're saying I go out there and save the city, give it my all, and we come back and do more of this?"
She winked. "It looks like my little experiment in positive reinforcement is working better than I ever could have hoped."
I stuck my tongue out. It was the least she deserved for taking my first love, science, and trying to turn it against me. Then again, if that was the kind of positive reinforcement she planned on using then I was more than happy to be a rat in a maze. Because what she had to offer was a hell of a lot more compelling than a food pellet.
"Now, come on," she said. "We have some heroics to do."
"Right," I grumbled, climbing to my elbow and then getting to my feet. "You know, you're lucky. I was just about to really turn up the intensity on your training."
"Sure you were," she said. "Now let's get your cute ass in gear. There's a city to save!"
I kept right on grumbling as my suit materialized around me, but it was a good-natured grumbling. Going out into the city and seeing just how much she’d learned while I was training her was just the ticket.
I just hoped I wasn't going to end up regretting it like I had every other time I’d set her loose on the city lately.
21
Another Lizard Bites the Dust
"Another one?" Fialux shouted.
A beam of irradiated fire slammed into the building where we stood. I jumped out of the way at the last moment. Not because I needed to so much as because it seemed dramatically appropriate to wait for the last moment, and there were always cameras watching in these fights.
My shields worked well enough to take one of those blasts without too much trouble. Even a direct hit. See all that stuff I said during my last fight with one of these bastards about how their nuclear reactors didn't hold a candle to the kind of fusion power I was pushing out.
That didn't mean that I wanted to test my shields against the thing or give the scaly bastard a freebie. Running down my systems when I knew Dr. Lana was probably out there somewhere waiting to cause trouble didn’t seem like the smartest idea.
Not to mention the way that beam bisected the building seemed off. Usually they caused some damage, maybe a collapse if they got in a lucky shot on a load bearing part of a building, but cutting a skyscraper in half so it slid down into the street below?
That was new. Way more powerful than usual. Fuck. The same attack but somehow bigger. This had Dr. Lana written all over it.
“There's been a boring lack of diversity in the kind of monsters that’ve been attacking the city lately," I growled.
“Can’t someone stop them before they get big like this?” Fialux asked.
“You’d think they would,” I said, dodging another beam and getting a frustrated roar from below for my trouble.
It was a wonder the government hadn't figured that cleaning up all that nuclear waste in the restricted zones on the outskirts of the city was a hell of a lot cheaper than constantly throwing weapons at the things when they got big, but then again it wasn't like anyone in the government was in the habit of consulting me on that sort of thing.
Not when I'd made it clear that I thought the best way to bring peace and prosperity to this world was to fire anyone currently working in the government and replace them with my benevolent rule.
Yeah, when somebody knew you were gunning for their job that tended to eliminate any desire they had to work with you.
Fialux dove down at the thing, but she was smart enough to stay behind the monster where the thing’s spines rose. Good girl. She'd learned.
That wasn't enough to save her from getting smacked by the giant tail that came flying through the air and slammed against her, but it's not like it was entirely her fault. Those tails could come out of nowhere, and it was always difficult to tell if you were going up against the kind of lizard that just dragged its tail behind it like tokutsatsu from the ‘60s or ‘70s when they couldn't figure out how to articulate the thing, or if it was going to use that motherfucker like a weapon like in some of the more recent movies where CGI allowed them to do cool stuff like that.
Fialux flew through the air and slammed into a building. Bits of brick fell down around her, but there was also the telltale shimmer of a shield bubble winking into existence as she hit.
I’d turned all her systems up for this fight. She'd been operating with training wheels the last time around, but I figured if we were going up against a giant adversary than I needed to let her have access to all the toys she could possibly have at her disposal.
I turned and let out a serious growl at the giant lizard. It turned and growled back at me, which was also new. Usually these things weren’t that cocky.
I have to admit its growl was a hell of a lot more intimidating than anything I could ever hope to come up with. It swiped at me, but this wasn’t my first giant lizard rodeo. Though again there was something about the air displacement as it swiped that seemed off. Wrong.
More powerful.
A tingle rose along the back of my neck. A tingle that I never liked. That fucking tingle meant nothing good because it meant my “shit’s about to go down” sense was going off.
When you’re in the profession I’m in it’s never good when shit’s about to go down. Not that it was going to stop me from taking on Bitchzilla here.
“You picked the wrong day to…”
Then I heard something coming from off in the distance. Something that had that “oh shit” feeling going into overdrive. Something that shouldn’t be. A sound I hadn’t heard since…
I stopped. Whirled in the air. Stared up to where Fialux had slammed into the building just to make sure she was still there. Sure enough there she was, shaking her head and looking a little dazed but otherwise not any worse for the wear considering she’d just been smacked by a giant lizard tail.
She looked at me and it was clear the noise confused her too. It was the sonic boom of somebody flying in low in the concrete canyon that was downtown Starlight City.
The only other person I’d ever known who could do something like that was Fialux, and since she’d had her powers removed it wasn’t like she was going to be the one making that noise.
Something flashed. It reminded me of some of the more terrifying moments when I’d tried to take Fialux on. Tried, and failed more often than not if I’m being completely honest. I hated being completely honest about being defeated, but what can you do?
“What the hell is that?” Fialux shouted up to me.
I shrugged. There shouldn’t be anything that sounded like her flying in low over the city, and then something slammed into the lizard. One moment it was staring at me and growling, and the next its entire head was completely reversed.
The buildings echoed with a sicke
ning crunch that sounded like a couple of semis being crushed in a car compactor. I wasn’t even sure if semis could be crushed in a car compactor like that, but that was what I imagined it would sound like.
Only it wasn’t a semi being crushed. No, that was the sound of the giant lizard’s spine being severed as its head suddenly did a one-eighty. Not exactly the kind of thing any living thing could recover from. Even if it was a giant radioactive scaly hunk of anger and nuclear hatred that continued to exist in defiance of the square-cube law.
“What. The. Fuck.”
A hero floated in the air above the giant lizard. A hero who shouldn’t be there. A hero I’d been expecting, though not like this. A hero who wasn’t much of a hero at all. A hero who’d finally ditched the full face mask to reveal her true self to the world.
“Dr. Lana?” I shouted.
She gave a little wave accompanied by a self-satisfied smirk. A smirk that I wanted to punch right off of her smarmy face, but I had a feeling if I tried punching that smirk off her face I was going to find myself in a world of hurt.
She’d just made an entrance that was exactly like the entrances Fialux used to make. That meant she had powers. The power of flight, at least. Probably strength too considering the way she’d crunched that lizard’s spine.
She wore a suit that looked kind of like what Fialux used to tool around in, and this time around there wasn’t any hint of any of the toys I’d made to give myself the powers of a god. Toys she’d stolen and coopted, the bitch.
I’d expected her to come up with some fresh hell to deal with, but I’d really hoped that trick wouldn’t be stealing Fialux’s powers.
There were times when I hated being right.
“Hello there Night Terror,” she said. “It was awfully good of you to teleport me away after you tried to kill me with your little death chamber. Not that it would have done you a damn bit of good one way or another.”
I didn’t even bother asking her how it was possible that she was still alive. I knew that was the kind of thing that heroes shouted to villains just before they were defeated. Or the kind of thing villains shouted at heroes just before they were handed a messy beat down and defeat.
I wasn’t sure right now if I was hero or villain, that was a little fuzzy right now, but I didn’t want to give her any excuse for handing me a beat down. No way.
Instead I did the one thing that everyone should do when they suddenly find themselves confronted with an opponent who shouldn’t be. An opponent who may or may not have just as much power as they do. I flew straight at her, fist outstretched, and fired everything I had from my wrist blaster.
Dr. Lana just floated there in the air. Well she didn’t just float there. She also let out a theatrical yawn to let me know just what she thought of my attack. The bitch.
The blasts ricocheted harmlessly off of her. Plasma blasts weren’t supposed to ricochet off of anything. She wasn’t supposed to be able to absorb all that energy. The only other time I’d seen someone take a hit like that was…
I looked down to the building where Fialux had finally gotten to her feet. She stood on a ledge watching with the kind of amazement you’d expect from somebody who suddenly found herself confronted with the living embodiment of all the powers she’d resigned herself to no longer having.
Yeah, that had to be a hell of a surprise for her. I knew it was a hell of a surprise for me. I pulled to a stop. If she was absorbing my ranged weapons then I sure as hell didn’t want to get in close enough for her to hit me with the same sort of punch she used on that lizard.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shouted.
“What does it look like?” Dr. Lana asked. “I’m taking over this city. I was going to make them love me by defeating these lizards, but since you insist on meddling in my heroics I’m going to start by taking out the greatest villain this city has ever known!”
I grinned. “I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me!”
Her mouth turned to a thin line. She seemed to realize a little too late exactly what she’d said. I’m sure the last thing she meant to do was compliment me, and that slip up seemed to piss her off even more.
“Let’s see the greatest villain fight this,” she growled.
I figured she was going to come at me. But she didn’t. She just floated there smiling. And it was at that moment I heard it. I pulled up the seismic display and saw something big moving towards me. Something that…
Her momentary distraction was enough to allow the giant robot to slam into me. It was an amateur mistake, really, but I suppose anyone would make that sort of mistake when they suddenly found their nemesis approaching them with the kinds of powers that no nemesis should rightfully have, damn it.
How the hell had she figured out how to mimic Fialux’s powers? And more to the point did it have something to do with the way she’d stolen those powers in the first place?
If this kept up for much longer then I was really going to have to start reevaluating whether or not maybe she was the better villain, regardless of what she said.
22
Death Threat
I flew through the air in the clutches of a giant robot that held me tightly, but not to the point that it was squeezing me to death.
Not that I thought the bucket of bolts could actually squeeze me to death, not really, but it could certainly test all the equipment I had on me and it would push me to the red line which would leave me wide open for Dr. Lana to step in and destroy me.
It was a hell of a one-two punch of the surprise of being confronted with an enemy far more powerful than I thought, and allowing myself to be distracted.
Like I said. Amateur hour. I was better than this, damn it.
The robot went sliding to the ground for all the world like a runner that was going for home plate. Which seemed like unusual behavior for a giant robot that was supposed to be squeezing me to death.
The thing came to a halt and looked up at me. Then its other hand went up to where it lips would be if it had lips. Of course it was a robot so lips were seriously lacking. Still, the lack of lips didn’t stop it from clearly made a shushing motion.
I bit my lip. I couldn’t be sure, but I was almost certain I was about to have a reunion with an old friend. A friend, I might add, who I’d sworn to destroy as quickly and messily as possible if he ever came back into my life. Only I guess things changed. He’d already saved my life once, and it was entirely possible he was doing the same now.
“Hello mistress,” CORVAC’s voice rang out loud and clear in my ears.
In my earpieces, actually. The ones that were designed both to allow me to communicate with the world when I had somebody in the lab who could communicate with me, and to keep all the various loud tinnitus-inducing sounds that were part of the job out of my ears under other circumstances.
“CORVAC?” I asked. “How the hell do I know it’s really you?”
He cocked his head to the side. It seemed to say he was thinking about it. Which was odd considering he used to be able to answer questions like this with a sarcastic quip in no time at all, but then again that’d been back when he was connected to my hardware.
Maybe whatever Dr. Lana had plugged him into was the budget version of my toys. Just like everything else she did.
“Do you recall the argument we had about whether or not an eyestalk was useful in the giant death robot chassis you created for me?” he asked.
I instinctively glanced around to make sure there were no pesky drones from the Starlight City News Network, or some upstart news network for that matter, or even some neckbeard controlling a drone from the comfort his parents’ basement out in the suburbs because it seemed like the Internet had learned a little bit and started using WiFi relays to control their hobbyist drones so they weren’t directly exposed to the radiation that was regularly thrown around in these fights.
Luckily for yours truly it didn’t look like there was anyone flitting around recording anythi
ng pesky I might not want the world to hear. As far as the news was concerned that giant robot CORVAC took for a spin downtown had nothing to do with me until I showed up on the scene to save the day, and I intended to keep it that way. For now. At least until that reveal served some useful villainous purpose.
“Not so loud,” I hissed. “And that eyestalk was a stupid fucking idea. It drew the attention of everyone who fired on you.”
His head cocked to the side. “But that is not a fair scientifically rigorous test of whether or not the eyestalk was legitimate. You, a person who made it clear that you absolutely hated that eyestalk from the very beginning, were the only person firing weapons at me during that fight. Therefore we cannot empirically state whether or not the eyestalk did its intended purpose of intimidation or if it was a bad idea that drew fire since the only sample we have to work from was one already predisposed to hating the eyestalk.”
I felt a familiar annoyed frustration building inside me at his calm, logical, just bordering on the edge of smartass response. God I’d missed this asshole.
“You listen here you bag of circuits,” I said. “That eyestalk was a disgusting flamboyance, and you know it didn’t work. You’re just afraid to admit it and…”
Then I realized exactly what had happened. I’d been drawn into an argument just like old times. My old computer nemesis was pulling a fast one on me. I wagged a finger at him and grinned. I was surprised at how much I’d missed having these little “debates.” If you could call them debates.
“You bastard,” I said. “Either you’re a very good copy, or you really are CORVAC.”
“None other than mistress,” he said. “And I still say you were wrong about the eyestalk.”
I stuck my tongue out. Not that it was going to do much good. I should’ve been firing my wrist blaster at him. And that reminded me that there was still a fight going on behind us.
