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

by Archer, Mia

  19

  The Plot Thickens

  That bitch. If there was anyone who’d pull something like that it was Dr. Lana, but for some reason the thought filled me with more rage than any of the other bullshit she’d pulled.

  If Dr. Lana had been experimenting on Selena, if that experimentation was what had created Fialux, then it would explain why Dr. Lana was so obsessed.

  What if this had been all about Fialux all along? I thought about that first night when I’d run into Dr. Lana and Fialux duking it out on campus. I thought in particular about how Dr. Lana had obviously been laying a trap. A trap for somebody with powers like Fialux’s. How she'd come up with a way to neutralize those powers.

  What if she was able to come up with a strategy for neutralizing those powers because she was the one who'd somehow managed to create them in the first place?

  That would be just like crazy old Dr. Lana. Creating a being of such awesome power that she managed to break free before Dr. Lana could figure out exactly what to do with her.

  It fit in with the whole “mad scienctist working with powers that were beyond mortal man” motif she seemed to be going for. Heck, mad science was such a danger at Starlight City University that there was a basic entry-level course for all Applied Sciences majors on how to avoid mad science, when to use it, why your particular excuse probably wasn’t a legitimate use of mad science, and how to clean up without too much involvement from the authorities when you inevitably went into your mad science phase.

  If it was true she’d been dabbling in that nasty shit then it was safe to say it had well and truly come back to bite her in the ass.

  "What's wrong?" Selena asked.

  I shook my head. "Nothing's wrong. I was just thinking."

  “About the space aliens?" she asked.

  "Yeah," I said, seizing on something to distract her. Even aliens were better than giving voice to the suspicions percolating in my brain. Especially if there was a chance she wasn’t a hottie from another planet. "I was totally thinking about the space aliens."

  "So are you going to tell me more about them or…"

  "After you complete this next bit of training," I said. "You need to learn how to grapple while you're using the strength augments and antigrav."

  She frowned. Obviously she wasn't going to give up on this space aliens thing, but as long as she'd been distracted from the matter at hand, namely her terrestrial or extraterrestrial origin, I figured it was a win. Plus I really didn’t want to talk about what might have caused her powers if it turns out she wasn’t originally from out of town.

  There were plenty of ways people got their powers in today’s world. Just because she happened to be an outlier who seemed to have a bunch of powers all rolled up into one didn’t necessarily mean she was the result of a mad science experiment gone very wrong.

  Or gone very right depending on your point of view. So much of mad science’s successes depended on the eye of the beholder. So often the “mad science” label was applied by a beholder who was on the wrong end of whatever experiment had gone terribly awry.

  "You know I did just that plenty of times when I had my powers, right?" she asked.

  "Maybe you did," I replied. "But just about everything you've tried to do with my toys has been completely different from how you did it with your powers, right? You can't just throw yourself at someone and rely on your superior momentum and invulnerability to help you now. This stuff might be the next best thing to having your powers, the closest you're going to get on this planet without me figuring out how to reverse what Dr. Lana did to you, but in the meantime you're not invulnerable. My stuff is all about give and take. It's all about knowing the nuances of the equipment so you can make it look like you're invulnerable when you're anything but."

  She grinned. It was a lopsided and mischievous grin.

  "Yeah," she said. "Like all those times I managed to defeat you by running down your equipment? It's not like it was that difficult to figure out that your fighting ability had an expiration timer from the moment you started a fight,” she said.

  I set my teeth. And then forcefully pulled them apart. The last thing I needed was the dental AI bitching at me the next time I sat down in that scariest of all the chambers of horrors in my lab.

  "I'll have you know that nobody else ever figured out that there were limits to my technology."

  "And what happens the next time you run up against someone with powers like mine?" she asked.

  "I'm hoping you were a once in a lifetime sort of thing," I said, trying not to think of that new heroine who’d punched out a giant lizard. From the thin smile she was hitting me with Fialux was thinking the same thing. "But you never know, and that's why we need to practice. The last thing you want is for Dr. Lana to show up with another you or something else that could kick our collective ass.”

  The last thing I wanted was for that masked heroine to turn out to be Dr. Lana. No, scratch that. I saw the way Fialux was looking at me. The last thing I wanted was to have the conversation that was brewing since I went and let something slip again.

  Motherfucker.

  She cocked her eyebrow. There were times when I hated just how perceptive she could be.

  "Why would you say that?"

  "No reason," I said, probably a little too quickly considering I was trying to throw her off the scent.

  "Bullshit," she said. "You have a reason for everything you ever say. Why would you think Dr. Lana would be coming up with another one of me? How could she even do that? I’m me. There aren’t any others.”

  Oh how wrong she was on that score. Clones were a dime a dozen in this city and a convenient way for villains to appear like they’d been killed when in fact it was a clone who bought it. That was right up there with putting a robot out there to impersonate you in a fight you weren’t sure you could win with a hero.

  I figured I didn’t need to worry her with any of that right now though.

  "I really don't have any reason to think she will," I said. "But you can never be too sure. Better safe than sorry."

  "I don't believe you," she said. "But I don't want to argue with you either."

  "That's the smartest thing you've said all day," I said.

  "Besides. I want to get this over with so you can show me the space aliens!"

  I rolled my eyes. That was safer then grinding my teeth. A little bit, at least. I'd never heard of somebody damaging their eyesockets by rolling their eyes too hard, though if it was possible then I had a feeling I was getting remarkably close to doing that kind of damage.

  "Come on," I growled. “Let’s dance.”

  She flew up to the back of the room. I flew to the other side. Then I flew straight at her. She came right at me. We hit in the middle, slamming into each other with so much force that the inertial dampeners and shields both activated to make sure we weren’t too terribly damaged.

  We both met with about an equal amount of force, and so we both stayed put hovering in the air with our antigrav and strength augments doing all the work. Though unlike a real fight we were pretty evenly matched considering I’d invented this stuff and put the same things in both our suits.

  No governors on her in the controlled environment of the lab where I had other safeties in place to keep her from hurting herself too much.

  Our forces canceled out. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction and all that, and the practical upshot when both actions were using the same amount of force was the reaction was equal as well.

  At least it would’ve been equal if I wasn’t trying to teach her a lesson about the usefulness of hand-to-hand combat.

  I twisted her arm around. I flung her around, but to my surprise she managed to grab my foot at the last moment as I was about to fling her to the ground where she was going to land with a hit that wasn't entirely compensated for since we were trying to use a little bit of pain to get a little bit of gain.

  Only now I found myself flipping around and around. Tum
bling through the air. She had ahold of me in a couple of different spots now with one of her legs wrapped around the back of mine and her arms keeping mine pressed against my body.

  I’d been so focused on throwing her around a little bit to teach her a lesson that I got cocky and let her grapple me like a pro. Damn.

  When we landed I was the one who felt a little bit of that pain. I had my own inertial compensators dialed back just a tad. I figured if she was being forced to go through this without a cushion then I should endure the same.

  And while the ground beneath me might've hit a little harder because I’d dialed down the antigravity just a little bit, what was on top of me was both soft and hard in all the right ways.

  I looked into her eyes and her own eyes darted up and down as if she seemed to realize exactly what had happened here.

  “So…” I said.

  "So what?" she asked, a smile curling up the corner of her mouth as she got a little gleam in her eye that never meant anything good for me.

  Though in this case I got the feeling that it very much might mean something good for me.

  "Well I was just thinking about our awkward landing position," I said, moving a hand down and running it along her side.

  She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Oh yeah. She was feeling this just as much as I was.

  There was that smile. That mischievous smile. A smile that said she was up to no good, and I loved it.

  Sure it was distracting us from training, but what a distraction!

  20

  Heroic Type

  "I don't know," she said. "After all. Don't we have a lot of important training to do around here?"

  I blinked. Now she was talking about training? Of course this would be the moment she finally got a work ethic when it came to her training and…

  "I know exactly what you're doing," I said.

  "Do you now?" she asked. "Because I have no idea. My teacher has always stressed how important it is to make sure I apply myself in my training. After all, it's not like using your toys is anything like back when I had my powers. It's so totally different that I need plenty of practice and…"

  Whatever she was about to say disappeared in a surprised “oh!” as I pulled her down to kiss me.

  There was a brief moment where I wondered if she might not take this as an opportunity to do a little more on the ground grappling, but no. Her mouth opened to mine and I sighed in contentment.

  There really was nothing quite as wonderful as feeling Selena molding to my body. Feeling her hand starting to run up and down in very interesting places and ways.

  There’d been a few times when our training had ended with a distraction like this. More than a few times, if I'm being honest. Enough times that I'd had to put an end to it, much to her frustration. So I could see why she’d decided to have a little bit of fun at my expense even if it was frustrating.

  I really should have been training her. But it was just too tempting. She was so hot. I couldn't resist and…

  The distant wail of sirens brought me back to reality. It brought Selena back as well. There was still that pesky heroic impulse buried deep inside her that stopped her from doing just about anything when she heard the sound of trouble somewhere out in the city.

  "Is that?"

  "What?" I asked, maybe a touch defensive.

  "We're buried deep under the suburbs," she said. "How are we hearing the giant thing attacking the city sirens all the way down here?"

  I blushed, and that blush had nothing to do with what we'd just been doing. No, it had everything to do with the exact reason why those sirens were being pumped down here into the flight training room.

  "Maybe I told the computer to pump that sound into whatever room I happen to be in so I know when there's something going on in the city," I said.

  It was a crude approximation of the warning system I'd had in place when I was with CORVAC. He’d known to watch all the news channels and figure out when there was something worth my attention.

  Unfortunately this new AI didn't quite have the smarts to pull something like that off. Mostly because I was afraid to take off the training wheels on this one because I was terrified once I did it was going to use the considerable power that came with being an artificial intelligence attached to my lab to wreak havoc on the world just like the last one had.

  "Why Night Terror," she said, lapsing into calling me by my villainous name like she always did whenever we were talking about business. "That seems downright heroic of you."

  "It's more of a distraction than anything," I said. "My old computer could tell me whenever there was trouble that was worth my attention. Now I have to listen to those damn sirens and have a look at whatever's going on in the city every time they go off. Talk about frustrating."

  "You poor thing," Fialux said, her tone indicating she didn't have nearly as much sympathy for my plight as her words might indicate.

  "Yeah, well you should be annoyed too. After all, it's taking away from valuable training time."

  She blushed, and then she rolled off of me. Damn. I guess it was true. I really wasn't going to get the "training time" I'd been hoping for. Stupid cockblocking emergency sirens. Not that I had a cock to block, but I wasn’t aware of a similar vulgar phrase that used lady parts.

  Oh well. I guess it wasn't the end of the world. Even if most of my body, every nerve ending that had been attached to her, was screaming that it was very much a problem thank you very much.

  "Come on," I said. "It's time for Night Terror and the Heroic Wonder to figure out what's attacking the city.”

  “The Heroic Wonder?" she asked, both of her eyebrows shooting up.

  "I'm workshopping sidekick names," I said. "What do you think of that one?"

  "It's totally lame," Fialux said. "And besides. If anyone is the sidekick it's you. Not me."

  I turned and arched an eyebrow at her. "Are you sure about that?" I asked. "Because last time I checked you were the one who was only still doing your heroics because of my technology. That screams sidekick. Maybe you'll take over for me someday, or maybe you’ll get all dark and brooding and separate from me after we have a falling out. Isn't that how it usually goes with you heroic types who have sidekicks?"

  "So you’re finally admitting you're a hero type then?" she asked.

  I rolled my eyes.

  "Don't go getting any ideas about my motivations.

  I really didn’t want her getting too many ideas about my motivations considering there were times when the only motivation that had me doing outright heroic things was lust coupled with the desire to avoid an argument with her when we got back to the lab.

  "And why shouldn't I?" she asked.

  "Think about those bank robbers we faced down. They thought they knew my motivations, and at least one of them got vaporized for their trouble."

  I dropped that deliberately to test her. She hadn't been a fan of me vaporizing anybody, but for a surprise she just cocked her head to the side and nodded with understanding.

  Damn. I could get used to this new, more bloodthirsty Fialux. Even if it took Dr. Lana robbing her of her powers and pushing her around to the point that she’d finally reached a breaking point.

  That was a dangerous place to be, but as long as she was on the angry and vengeful side of that coin rather than being on the mopey, sad, and depressed side of that coin I'd take it.

  I really didn't want to have to go out and rebuild some more of my precious cleaning robots. Talk about a pain in the ass since that was something delicate enough that I didn't trust to the autofabricator.

  "Come on Heroic Wonder," I said. "We need to save the city."

  We needed to get out there and see if there was another giant irradiated lizard attacking the city. Or if there was a mysterious hero in a full face mask who’d show up to fight the thing.

  If it was a giant lizard that was one more bit of evidence pointing to a wannabe villain I knew all too well who tended to repeat the sa
me uninspired plots over and over again, only bigger each time.

  I called it the Rita Repulsa gambit. It never worked, but a plan not working had never stopped Dr. Lana from trying it.

  "You know how much I love it when you get all heroic like that," she said.

  I didn't need her to tell me how she got when I got all "heroic" like that. The way she looked at me as she contemplated me going out to save the city was distracting. A distraction was the last thing I needed right about now. Not when there was probably something attacking the city as part of some plot so ridiculously stupid that I was way too smart to figure it out without going out there and springing whatever trap we were obviously flying into.

  I'm probably starting sound like a hell of a broken record whenever I bring this up, but thoughts of CORVAC drifted through my head. Particularly thoughts of how much easier life had been when he was around. The bastard. Why did he have to betray me?

  For that matter, where the hell was he? I knew he was out there somewhere. Was he the one attacking the city?

  I tried to get up. It was time to get to work. Only Fialux had other ideas. Her hand flashed out and she hit a couple of buttons on my wrist computer. She pushed me back down like she was a giant cat playing with a helpless little mouse. And that sent a little bit of a thrill running through me.

  Huh. I never knew that was the sort of thing I’d be into, but now that she’d hit on it…

  "What the hell are you doing?" I asked. “I’d think you of all people would be the most eager to get out there and save the damn city."

  "Oh, I am," she said. "But first, I was thinking a little bit of fun is in order. After all, in this job you never know when a job might be your last…”

  Then she was on me. Her lips pressed against mine. It was a hungry sort of kiss. We’re not talking the kind of gentle, passionate kiss you see in, say, a romantic movie that's supposed to get everyone in the audience so hot and bothered that they go home and pour some of that energy into their significant other.