I'm Not A Hero!

by Mia Archer

  The cat stopped twitching the moment the worm that’d been controlling it was no more.

  “What did you do?” the EMT asked.

  “I didn’t do anything,” the pretty vet said.

  The cat got up and sat down. Started grooming itself. It was still slightly oversized, but it was oversized and acting like a real cat now.

  “I need that cat for my samples,” I said. “Get it back here.”

  “You want me to send in the drones?” CORVAC asked.

  “Don’t bother. Teleport the fucker,” I said. “I’m over caring whether or not people see. They already think these house cats are aliens.”

  “But they are aliens. From a certain point of view mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “Thanks Ben. Now get that cat out here,” I said.

  There were cries of shock and surprise as the cat dematerialized on the drone feed. Your average Starlight Citizen might be a dumbass whose first instinct was to run towards danger with their phone out, but that wasn’t the case with emergency professionals who regularly saw the aftermath of the super powered throwdowns that regularly graced the city.

  They all knew to get the fuck away when something weird was going on, and a cat disappearing right before their eyes was apparently weird enough to overcome their training and kick their self-preservation instinct into high gear.

  “What the fuck was that?” the vet asked.

  One of the cops shook his head. “Looked like Night Terror.”

  “The Terror isn’t around here,” a firefighter said. “Just these aliens she saved.”

  “Yeah, and you bet your ass she’s going to be keeping an eye on what they’re doing,” the cop said, looking around. “There’s something weird going on here.”

  “Whatever,” the fireman said.

  Then their conversation came to a halt as one of the cat aliens appeared in their midst. I guess they’d gotten over the surprise and regained control of their mind control juju.

  The video feed was good enough that I could see eyes glaze over as that weird mind control projection took over.

  It was the white cat. The ringleader who led the multiple escapes. It was a damn shame I couldn’t show up on the spot to give him the middle finger, but I wasn’t tipping my hand until I actually had some decent cards. Any cards at all, for that matter.

  “Turn off the video feed CORVAC,” I said. “I have some work to do. I think we might’ve finally figured out a way to defeat these fuckers nice and non-lethally.”

  “As you say mistress,” CORVAC said. “What would you like me to do?”

  I grinned an evil grin. That felt nice. For the first time since Fialux had been thrown through that portal and I’d discovered alien worms infesting the city via stray cats I felt like I might be on top of the situation for a change.

  “I’m going to need some squirt bottles. Noise makers. Recordings of dogs barking. Anything that annoys cats, and lots of it.”

  22

  Catnip Chemicals

  “Do you care to explain to me why you are going to this chemical factory in particular?” CORVAC asked.

  “Come on CORVAC,” I said. “I would’ve figured that would be obvious.”

  “You’ll forgive me if it is not immediately obvious,” he said. “I repeat my request for an explanation.”

  I sighed as I came down on top of the chemical factory. I felt the heat of the thing and turned up the shields just a little. Then I double checked that there wasn’t anything nasty coming through those shields.

  Starlight City’s numerous industrial facilities weren’t exactly known for their wonderful safety record. The number of twisted villains who’d been created within the confines of the various factories, chemical and otherwise, was a testament of that.

  I didn’t plan on turning this into an origin story for the next phase of my villainous career where I was driven mad after being dipped in a vat of nastiness, thank you very much.

  “It’s simple,” I said. “We’ve been monitoring the city for that radiation signature that came off the giant irradiated lizards.”

  “Of course,” CORVAC said. “Though separating positive signals from the remaining radiation in the paths of destruction those lizards left has been difficult. It does not help that cleaning crews have been removing some of the irradiated material and moving it around the city which…”

  “Can it CORVAC,” I said.

  “Canning it, mistress,” he replied.

  “None of those giant irradiated lizards came through this part of town,” I said. “Dr. Lana was focused on the university and downtown. She didn’t send a single one of those oversized fuckers into any of the industrial zones.”

  And a good fucking thing too. One of those giant fuckers wading through these factories would’ve taken an already nasty disaster and turned it into something truly terrifying.

  “Is something wrong mistress?” CORVAC asked.

  “Nothing really,” I said. “Just thinking about how bad it would’ve been if one of those giant lizards made its way through here.”

  “I imagine a good chunk of the city would have been rendered uninhabitable for an appreciable length of time,” CORVAC said.

  “I imagine you’re right,” I replied. “Now come on. This building isn’t going to investigate itself.”

  “Honestly mistress,” CORVAC said. “I do not understand why you have to investigate this building personally when you could simply send in the drones and let them take care of this. I’d think the swarm has more than proved itself as a concept at this point.”

  “In some circumstances,” I said. “Drones in a small enclosed space with a bunch of creepy smoke and mist from all the chemicals though?”

  I pointed my wrist blaster at the ground and fired. It opened up a hole in the ceiling which I used to float down into the place.

  “Honestly,” I said, looking down at a boiling vat of chemicals right below me and then looking at all the other vats of volatile chemicals. “Why do all these chemical factories have open vats like this? It’s asking for someone to be dipped in the stuff and become a villain. You’d think OSHA would have something to say.”

  “If you believe some of the conspiracy theorists posting on the Internet it is all part of a vast plot to manufacture villains as part of an insurance scheme,” CORVAC said.

  I paused as I stepped down onto a catwalk that ran over the boiling vats of nasty chemicals. Of course there was only one crappy metal railing on either side to keep someone from falling in. Which meant if someone slipped then it would be easy for them to fall through the four feet of space between the railing and the catwalk to their certain doom.

  Or the certain beginning of their evil career.

  “Why the hell would someone create villains as part of an insurance scheme?” I asked. “That makes no sense.”

  “I do not endeavor to understand the inner workings of the tortured minds who come up with the many conspiracy theories I read on the Internet mistress,” CORVAC said. “I merely catalog them and boggle that an intelligent species that has achieved so much could also produce individuals who think that way.”

  “Yeah, well get in line,” I said.

  “I also am still trying to understand why parasitic worms that infect cats would be in a chemical manufacturing facility,” CORVAC said.

  “Did some research on the place,” I replied. “Turns out they provide some of the stuff that goes into the plastic that eventually gets molded into catnip toys. I’m guessing the aliens aren’t all that good at Google searches and got mixed up and went a little too early in the supply chain in a plot to ship out their wormy asses to unsuspecting cats around the country.”

  “Ah,” CORVAC said. “An excellent plan with terrible execution.”

  “Yup. Poor bastards don’t even realize how stupid their plan is,” I said.

  I peered through the dim twilight that was the inside of the chemical factory. I had shielding running over my whole head for this one an
d scrubbers recirculating the air. No rebreather in here since I had a feeling I might be running into things that’d try to knock it off and there wasn’t a chance I wanted to breathe anything that was being made in this place.

  “I have to give them credit though,” CORVAC said. “That exhibits thought patterns that…”

  Whatever he said was cut off. Not because I wasn’t interested, though to be fair I wasn’t. No, he cut off because something slammed into me and the next thing I knew I was rolling along the catwalk.

  It would’ve been a one in a million roll along that catwalk if I was one of the workers from this place. As it was it’s not like I was in much danger even if I took a dip in one of those vats.

  It would’ve been a lot worse for the bastard on top of me though.

  The whole thing was a moot point though. We landed on the scaffolding and the bastard who landed on top of me was doing his best to dig straight to the middle of my chest with some nasty looking claws.

  “Fascinating,” CORVAC said. “The thing has grown to proportions that are…”

  “Yeah, I can see what’s going on CORVAC,” I said. “Little kitty has been on the ‘roids, and it’s not a good look.”

  The cat had grown to truly gigantic proportions. At least gigantic proportions for a fluffy orange motherfucker who’d started its life as a house cat. Like the thing wasn’t nearly as big as a mountain lion or anything like that, but it was easily three times the size of a normal house cat and the hits it was landing on me would’ve been painful if it weren’t for the fact that it’d brought some ‘roided out muscles and claws to a super powered fight.

  “Were you going to do something mistress?” CORVAC asked. “I would remind you that one of those cats was able to bite through your suit earlier.”

  “Yeah, but I turned up the shields so there’s no chance of this fucker getting through,” I said.

  Still, he had a point. I should’ve been doing something other than staring at this thing and wondering what the fuck had happened to the cute little kitty that had been part of my rodent disposal unit until so recently.

  I threw my hands down and acted like I was trying to push the fucker off. I also didn’t put all of my strength into it because I didn’t want to accidentally push the thing off the edge of this very not safe for work catwalk and into the chemicals below.

  At best it would kill the poor kitty who was, after all, still one of my cats. At worst it would twist the symbiotic relationship between cat and worm to the point that I’d accidentally create Starlight City’s cutest unhinged villain.

  “Mistress. What are you doing?”

  I threw my head back and screamed at the top of my lungs. It wasn’t exactly the kind of scream I would’ve let out if, say, I was breathing in fresh air rather than using the small amount of recirculated air that was available within my shields, but I figured it was pretty good.

  And when I threw my head back and looked around as part of that scream I saw we weren’t alone. No, it would appear that some more of this feline fucker’s friends were moving in to get in on this action.

  So much for house cats being solitary creatures. This brand of house cat was definitely hunting in packs.

  “Oh no! Please don’t hurt me! You’re killing me! No!”

  I was really hamming it up. It’d been awhile since I’d had an opportunity to really ham it up. I’d been spending entirely too much time over the past couple of months actually fighting for my life rather than going out and doing fights on easy mode like this.

  It was actually kind of refreshing to go up against an enemy who couldn’t actually hurt me. Even if they had made me look like a hero several times over which still stuck in my craw.

  “Mistress,” CORVAC said. “You really are wasting valuable time we could be using to figure out how to defeat these aliens.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “And when you’re right, you’re right.”

  I reached out and grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck. It was actually pretty easy to grab the fucker. It clearly wasn’t expecting me to do much of anything aside from screaming and begging for my life.

  “Come on kitty,” I said. “Time to put an end to the fun.”

  The cat finally seemed to realize that something was wrong. The clawing slowly died down, though to be honest it felt less like a deadly mauling at the hands of a decently sized predator and more like when a cat climbs on top of someone and starts kneading.

  Which could also be painful if the cat decides to knead with its claws out, but the point is my shields were keeping me safe from any true damage. I’d learned to play it safe around these assholes.

  I held the cat up and looked at it. It tried to hiss and spit, but clearly a cat’s biological imperative to go limp when it was being held by the scruff of its neck was overpowering the alien worm’s desire to claw my eyes out.

  Not that it was going to do the thing a damn bit of good even if it did try to claw my eyes out.

  “You aren’t harmed?”

  The voice came from behind me. I turned to see my old nemesis the white cat staring at me. Though it looked more like the Arnold version of that white cat. It was even bigger than the one that’d attacked me.

  “Nope. Not a scratch,” I said.

  I even did a little twirl to demonstrate just how little damage that attack had done. The cat’s tail twitched and its eyes narrowed. I figured that meant I’d pissed it off real good.

  “Oh I’m sorry,” I said. “Did you actually think you’d defeated the greatest villainous mind this world has ever seen? Because there have been a lot of people standing where you are right now, a lot of assholes who’ve tried, and they’ve all been sorely disappointed.”

  I held up my wrist blaster to add to the effect. The tip glowed and it did that ominous hum that I loved so fucking much. Though of course I wasn’t going to use the wrist blaster on these guys.

  They were my rodent disposal units, damn it, and I was going to get them back.

  “You aren’t going to use that,” the cat said, moving closer. The others were doing the same. Walking along other catwalks and railings. Using that insane balancing ability that cats had to look pretty intimidating.

  At least they would’ve looked intimidating were it not for the fact that they were going up against me.

  “Wanna try me?”

  23

  Secret Weapons

  “I would be happy to try you,” the cat said, taking more steps forward.

  I didn’t fire. Not firing was probably a bad thing. Not firing made it look like I didn’t have conviction. Like I was letting them win.

  I was actually trying to lull them into a false sense of security and it seemed like it was working, but they didn’t know that.

  “You aren’t going to fire on us because you are the same as the rest of your species,” the cat said. “You know that the natural order of things is that your people are to serve our people. We have seen what this world was like before we arrived. We know there are ancient civilizations who worshipped us.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Seriously? You’re going to bring up the Egyptian obsession with cat pictures?”

  “But your civilization is obsessed with pictures of us as well,” it said. The thing actually reached my feet and started doing that annoying cat thing where it rubbed up against me. “You fight it, but you know that you are the same as the rest of your species. You love us. You love to serve us.”

  I stared down at the thing and blinked a couple of times. I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on here, but no matter how I sliced it this ballsy cat was coming right up to me and closing within melee range without trying to hurt me.

  Like it didn’t think I would try to hurt it if it got close enough.

  Though I guess it wasn’t really a ballsy move considering I’d had all the balls removed on my autonomous rodent disposal units. The last thing I wanted was a cat orgy in the middle of my ducts.

  That’s wh
en it hit me. This little fucker thought I was just as susceptible to the mind control mumbo jumbo they were pulling as other humans. It didn’t realize that mind control was ancient tech to me, and something that I regularly guarded against.

  I guess it hadn’t gotten the hive mind memo from that cat stuck up in a tree. I wouldn’t have admitted I could counter their mind control if I’d known they were connected to a hive mind network, but I guess it didn’t matter if the message never got to this asshole.

  I chuckled. The chuckle turned to a giggle. That giggle very quickly turned to a full on laugh and before I could stop myself I’d thrown my head back and my arms out and I was letting loose with a good old fashioned villainous cackle.

  Damn it felt good to do that. It’d been too long since I did that when I obviously had the upper hand.

  “So what you’re telling me is you’re a bunch of benevolent alien overlords who are only trying to take over the world because you have the best interests of the dominant species in mind?” I asked.

  I tried to give my voice a singsong quality. Like I was actually starting to buy this line of bullshit. Like I was maybe falling under the sway of its soothing mind control mumbo jumbo.

  “Of course,” the cat said, more than a little note of purring coming to its voice as it said it. “War. Famine. Fighting. All of these things could be in the past if you simply allow us to rule you the way you wish to be ruled.”

  “What if I like some of the fighting and all that?” I asked. “I mean it would be pretty boring if you took over and there was no more world to conquer.”

  “But you look forward to that world, Night Terror,” the cat purred. “We have watched you. Learned about you. All you wish is for the world to be at peace. Let us do our work and the world will be at peace at long last.”

  “Huh,” I said. “There’s just two things you’re missing.”