by Mia Archer
That would’ve hurt like hell.
I floated to the ground, cape streaming behind me in a suitably dramatic fashion, and eyed my new opponent once more. She was turning out to be far more trouble than I would’ve anticipated.
“What are you?” I asked.
“I’m the woman who’s going to save the city from criminal scum like you,” she said.
Just 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 sit and listen to her talk like that all day long, never mind that her words definitely 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. And it wasn’t because I’d gone soft or anything.
No, this was a legitimate threat to my reign of benevolent supervillainy.
I always believed that discretion was the better part of valor, and that was never more the case then when I found myself going up against something I didn’t understand. Something that was beyond my ability to handle at that 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 that it was knocked out in that last hit mistress,” CORVAC said.
Damn. No hopping a short distance away with teleportation so she couldn’t follow me. I also couldn’t very well try to fly out of here. That sort of thing 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 city crime 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 that 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 communicator.
“What is it?”
“I couldn’t bring the giant death robot into the city mistress? I’m sure that would take care of this creature with no problem,” he said.
“I thought you were supposed to be a logical computer CORVAC,” I said.
“I told you I am mistress,” he said. There was just the hint of a pout in his mechanical voice.
“Well thinking that unfinished useless hunk of metal will be able to go toe to toe with this girl when I’m having trouble defeating her is 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. Once again the safeties built into the system that put up a shield every time something came at me with supersonic velocity was the only thing that saved my bacon. Well, my foresight to program that into my suit’s AI, a rather stupid and pliable AI compared to CORVAC since the last thing I wanted was my clothing rebelling against me, saved my bacon.
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 star field screensaver into my mask’s HUD. Oh. Right. I’d been hit so hard I was seeing stars. And flying without the aid of my antigravity system. And sliding on the ground.
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 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 blowing behind her as though Newton, normal physics, and the need for makeup and hair product to look good weren’t a thing for her.
Damn did she look hot!
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 like that. I wasn’t into girls! At least I hadn’t been up until 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.
This was going to really hurt if she made contact. Alarms were going off all through my suit. All the major readouts on 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 designed the suit to take on anything this world could throw at me, but I was starting to have a sneaking suspicion that this beautiful heroine was not of this world.
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. I had to conserve all my energy for this last futile gesture of defiance, and that meant I couldn’t use the heads-up display for my calculations like I usually did. I had to do all the calculations mentally which delayed me a little bit. Briefly I had 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. I was doing complicated calculus and trigonometry calculations in my head right now trying to figure out the exact physics of this situation and how to best use her strength against her, 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 figured they were more or less the same thing.
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 my legs made contact. Her flight trajectory was thrown off ever so slightly, and apparently she couldn’t exactly 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 in the city 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. 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 that 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 use a little discretion.
I fell to my knees and held my hands up. The only thing I could hope for was that she was a hero who saddled herself with something silly and useless like a 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 that was 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 first from first-hand 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 hit me.
No, there was only one thing to do. Only one way to get out of this. I absolutely hated it, but it was a better alternative than death.
Unfortunately my work into figuring out a way to conveniently resurrect had all run into dead ends. Literally. Fortunately my time travel device turned out to be far better suited to preventing me from making stupid mistakes than it had been at transporting angry stubby armed dinosaurs with big pointy teeth to the future.
In absence of a reliable way to bring myself back from the land of the dead I had no choice.
I hated myself for it, but I got down on my knees, squeezed my eyes shut, and held my arms up. I screamed out the next words to make sure everybody heard, though I had no doubt she’d have no trouble hearing me.
“I surrender!”
The angry Tyrannosaurus Rex riding on top of a 747 engine, I was confused and mixing up my metaphors, immediately stopped. I opened up one eye and peeked out, scarcely believing I was still alive.
I opened one eye and looked up. 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 in her perfectly sculpted body. The wind caught her bright red hair sending it and her cape billowing in a suitably dramatic fashion as she stood before me with hands on her hips looking down at me with the sternest, most angry expression I think I’ve ever seen on someone’s face.
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 new. Thrilling. Terrifying. And confusing.
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 a hold on myself. I needed to take control. Why the hell did these thoughts keep running through my mind? It was like I had no control over them, and I have to say I didn’t like it however pleasantly confusing those thoughts were.
“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 was dawning. I stared, my mouth open and my eyes wide. This woman was gorgeous no matter what, but when she smiled it was as though I was seeing the dawn for the first time. It sent butterflies rushing through my stomach, a disconcerting feeling I hadn’t felt in a long time. When you’re in the villain business you pretty much only have time for emotions like anger, 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 looked down and 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 still went to her.
The hero, the goddess, Fialux I suppose, stepped forward and reached behind me. I closed my eyes and breathed in her scent as she moved in close. I could feel warmth radiating off her body. I could smell her scent, a mixture 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 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 have 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 then we were exploding up into the air.
3: Cops and Villains
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 antigravity units built into my suit.
The problem was that when I was flying with those antigravity units I was at least using a piece of 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 for awhile. 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 antigravity units were severed, so there was absolutely nothing to save my bacon if this chick and suddenly got butterfingers and sent me falling 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.
I was completely at her mercy. I hated being completel
y at someone else’s mercy.
I had no idea what was holding me up. I also hated not knowing how I was flying. There was still that slight sparkling shimmer close to her skin. I briefly wondered if my theory that she somehow manipulated the molecules in her immediate vicinity to somehow provide her flight ability had some truth to it.
I didn’t have enough information. I was being dragged through the air by a super powered being I didn’t understand who was blessed with a power of flight that made no rational sense. She was disobeying the laws of physics just as a cavalierly as I did, only there wasn’t any obvious technology to back her up.
It was infuriating and terrifying.
Of course along with the terror I was also getting a different kind of rush. 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.
Of course wrapping her arm around me had the added effect of pulling me against her. Pulling me against that incredible body. Pulling me up so that I was right next to her gorgeous face.
I closed my eyes and a goofy grin spread across my face.
“Is something wrong?”
I opened my eyes. I hadn’t even realized I’d closed them. I didn’t even realize I had a ridiculous goofy grin on my face! Damn it. Here I was flying along 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! A blush rose to my cheeks. I hated it when I blushed. It was a sign of weakness.
“No, nothing’s wrong,” I spat out at her.
