by Mia Archer
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, maybe not 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.
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 let the force field drop.
2: A New Challenger
A hail of bullets roared towards me as soon as 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. It stretched in wherever bullets hit but none made it through to me. The field stretched then sprang back and the bullets fell harmlessly to the ground when I let it go. No good having them ricochet and cause some collateral damage.
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 to the younger guy on the shoulder. 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. I held back a laugh. None of them tried to raise 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.
I nodded to the commissioner as I passed. “Commissioner, how’s the wife?”
“Just fine Miss Terror,” he said. “Doing just fine.”
“Good to hear,” I said. I’d have to be sure and wire a little extra bonus to his special account later. I heard his daughter was getting ready to start college.
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. It was really my own fault.
I blasted out of the double doors leading out to the street. Bright light shone in. 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 actually doing to try and stop me. It was funny how public safety and covering their own asses went hand-in-hand.
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 at me. 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.
I stood with my hands on my hips glancing around. I almost hoped somebody was going to try and start something. I needed the distraction. Only there was nothing. The only sound was the shifting of semiautomatic weapons in the cop’s hands. The distant sound of crowds trying to break through. Bullhorns and cops telling people to stay back. 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 just 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 jet fighter off in the distance, though it was unlike any jet I’d ever heard before. I cocked an ear to listen more closely.
The noise was so faint that I almost thought I was hearing things. Almost thought I was going crazy. Only the cops were starting to look up and around as well. They heard it too.
What the hell was that?
I pulled up my wrist computer.
“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 even bother sending those after me anymore. Not after I disabled the last one with a handy focused electromagnetic pulse and then gently landed it with one of my antigravity units. They got the message loud and clear. Don’t try to figure out where my lair was.
“I’m picking up something odd on satellite,” CORVAC said. “It is 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. Even if it was another hero this was likely to be over rather quickly.
The sound grew louder. Louder. Wind kicked up. I looked around, but whatever this thing was I couldn’t see it through the concrete jungle surrounding me. But I could hear it. Echoing 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.
“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. And off in the distance, though not too far and closing fast, was a small dot speeding towards me. Coming fast. Really damn fast. Faster than even my antigravity units could handle.
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 cheering from the crowds down the way and scowled. They never appreciated how good they had it with a Villainess like me who tried my best to make sure nobody got hurt while I was working.
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 didn’t believe it. A goddess stood before me.
I stared at this goddess standing
before me in her high boots, a green 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 green 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 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.
“I’m Fialux,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
Damn it. Even when she was angry she was still so incredibly hot. I shook my head. Now why the hell did I keep thinking about how hot she looked? I’d seen plenty of heroines before and they’d never affected me like this. Sure I could tell objectively when a girl was attractive, but I’d never felt this strange burning in the pit of my stomach before. It was new, weird, and I’m not entirely sure I liked it even if it did feel oddly, strangely, good.
I’d never thought of a woman like that before. Why was this starting now? I definitely didn’t need this. Not with a hero I was likely about to rough up.
“Well Fialux,” I said. “It’s time for you to learn what happens to heroes in this city foolish enough to challenge Night Terror.”
Usually that was enough to send whatever hero hopeful was attacking me running, well, in terror. There was a very good reason I chose the name I chose. Only it was different with this one. She just stood 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 incredibly 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 with another woman, but right before a battle definitely wasn’t exactly an opportune moment.
I needed to chase these thoughts away. I needed to stop thinking like this. I needed to clear my head. That was the whole point of going on this little bank robbery excursion in the first place. And what better way to clear my head than by taking on the city’s latest superhero hopeful? I couldn’t find myself 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. 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, still stood exactly where she’d been with her hands on her hips. One hip was a cocked slightly to the side and she had a confident smile on her face as her cape streamed behind her. That sight was so… no! I squashed that thought before it could form, though that didn’t stop that burning in my stomach, between my legs, from completing a thought I refused to voice with my internal monologue.
This Fialux wasn’t special. She was just like every other hero who decided to take me on. Every other beautiful and enchantingly confident hero who decided to take me on and actually challenge me. I was going to have to wipe that look off of her face just like I had with every other hero who dared to take me on.
Only I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how the hell she’d managed to do that. How those blasts of energy had gone straight through her. It just didn’t make sense.
I needed to think this through. My rational mind, my ability to stay cool in the most ridiculous of situations, was one of the reasons why I was still the top villain in the city. This was the same. This was just an interesting puzzle that I had to work out. Nothing more. I just needed to ignore the more irrational parts of my mind that were threatening to take control and gawk at this beauty while I should be figuring out how to defeat her.
I was not going to panic. I was not going to give into that quiet nagging voice in the back of my head that said I might have finally gone up against something that was beyond me. That voice was always there when things didn’t go well initially, and that voice was always wrong. I ruthlessly stomped down on it.
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 around her somehow. People didn’t just go flying without the aid of machinery all willy-nilly like that. Somehow she was managing to take air molecules surrounding her and create the power of flight.
If she was able to do that then maybe she was also 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 that my bolt of energy went through the empty spaces in between the atoms holding her together, there really was a hell of a lot there if you looked at it from the right perspective, which would explain how it seemed like my energy blasts went right through her.
If that was the case then they did go right through her. Just not in the way most people would imagine it.
There was only one way to find out for sure. More experiments. I grinned. In this case “more experiments” meant more blasting at her with my wrist blaster. I loved it when a good experiment involved using my wrist blaster to blow stuff up. It sure beat the boring research I did when I was a grad student at the university.
I fired a few more shots, this time making sure that there was nothing on the other side but a burning slag of metal cop cars had been moments before. Once more the blasts went straight through and slammed into the unfortunate cop cars which moved but didn’t explode this time around. Nothing left to explode, I suppose.
This time I was ready though. This time I had the recorder in my mask going. I pulled up the recording in my heads-up display for review. My eyes widened behind the mask as I watched her in slow motion. Even going frame by frame I could barely make out a blur moving out of the way of the energy blasts then stepping back.
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 that she could step out of the way of an energy ball traveling close to the speed of light and get back in place before I noticed. It was seriously a blink and you’ll miss it type of movement.
I let out a snarl and ran towards the strange goddess. Fine. If energy weapons weren’t going to work because she was ridiculously fast then let’s see how she did getting hit with a good old-fashioned machine enhanced punch. The carbon fiber weave of my suit tensed, building up energy to augment my punch. The metal exoskeleton hidden in my suit also coiled for the coming blow.
I loved this feeling. I loved feeling so ridiculously strong. The exoskeleton was hidden so well in my suit that most people didn’t even realize I wore the thing. 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 ran forward with my enhanced speed and had a moment to take everything in. The cops standing around the edges staring at us with their mouths hanging open. It had been a while since they’d see me in action against a hero so this was really a special show for them.
I caught a glimpse of that asshole reporter Rex Roth with his stupid camera up taking video of the wh
ole 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 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 cable news tonight. I smiled. That was fine by me. Let them broadcast my victory to the whole world. That was about the only thing that prick was good for these days anyways. 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. I raised my fists, my suit coiled on a molecular level like a snake ready to strike and then 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 with her. 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. My entire body reverberated with the recoil from her hand slamming into my fist mid-punch and 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.
I looked up at Fialux. 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 body so close to mine, was so intoxicating.
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. Once again a combination of my armor, the inertial dampeners, and a safety system built into my suit that was 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 was flying through the air back towards the bank. I only barely managed to right myself and get my antigravity units in place just before I slammed into the brick wall.
