I'm Not A Hero!

by Mia Archer

  I’d figured out what had happened to all the factory workers, and it wasn’t pretty.

  “I think I’m going to lose everything I ate today,” I said.

  “Would it help if I teleported a stomach soother to you mistress?”

  “No,” I said. “Not at all.”

  I stared down at what could only be a breeding ground for more of those worms. And what did every good breeding ground need? Why a good food source for whatever the hell was being created from all that breeding.

  Obviously the worm queen had been at work here, and obviously they’d made like a spider wasp and found some nice yummy hosts to provide the new brood of worms.

  The worms had found a use for humans in their parasitic lifestyle, and unfortunately for humans it was less of an Invasion of the Body Snatchers mind control deal and more of a To Serve Man kind of deal.

  “That is seriously disgusting,” I said.

  “And this is what is going to happen to you when we have finally subdued you,” the cat said.

  It turned around and came at me with its claws out.

  “Mistress,” CORVAC said. “Now might be a good time for you to get out of the way of the super powered cat that is doing its best to dispose of you.”

  “No,” I said.

  “No, mistress?” CORVAC asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m done with this bullshit. I’m done with fighting villains and holding back because I’m worried about upsetting my girlfriend or hurting one of my cats. This fucker did this to all those people down there, and I am fucking over it.”

  I felt more villainous than I had in a good long while. I needed to maim something, and there was a target coming right at me that had done terrible things to a bunch of innocent people who only wanted to get through the day without being injected with a bunch of radioactive alien worm larva.

  The only problem with that plan was the cat didn’t have any intention of going quietly. It slammed into me with all the force I’d come to expect from battling Fialux and Dr. Lana, and we flew through the catwalks running over the boiling vats before finally coming to a stop against one of the walls which cracked under the impact but didn’t collapse.

  Probably a good thing. I didn’t want to think about how nasty it would be if this factory came down on itself. Though it did strike me as a very effective way of getting rid of all those worms that were making a snack out of the previous occupants of this factory.

  Huh. Bringing this factory down on top of all those worms would be one hell of an effective way to take care of business for good. And if I happened to catch this white cat who I was pretty sure was the queen in the middle of it…

  The cat came at me again. It was nothing if not consistent in its desire to royally fuck my shit up.

  Only this time I was ready. It swiped at me with a clawed paw that I had a feeling was going to do some serious damage, but I caught it and put all the power I could into that part of my suit.

  The cat looked down in surprise and then back up to me.

  “I have a feeling about you,” I said. “You’ve been craftier than all the others. You’ve had a lot better control of your cat body than the other bastard cats I’ve run into,” I said.

  I gave the thing a shove and now it was the cat’s turn to fly across the factory. Right into a massive metal support that I was pretty sure was also a load bearing support.

  A load bearing support that snapped in two when the cat slammed into it. The thing crumpled and a good chunk of the factory ceiling came down and landed in the middle of a vat of nasty boiling chemicals.

  The splash was epic, and some of the crap that splashed up landed in another vat of chemicals where it went up creating a chain reaction that set off several explosions.

  Clearly this place wasn’t going to last much longer. I needed to get out of here, but I wanted to make sure I took care of business first.

  Not that I had to wait all that long or do all that much looking to take care of business. No, business came looking for me with its claws out and its fangs showing.

  “I’m going to kill you!” it screeched.

  “Oh I’m sorry queenie,” I said. “Are you upset that I’m killing off all your hellspawn?”

  The thing let out an inarticulate howl that felt like it owed more to the canine family than the feline, and then we were tumbling through the air again.

  You bet your ass I made sure we tumbled right into another massive metal beam that looked like it was supporting a good chunk of the building. More roof collapsed into vats and again it seemed like whatever was in those vats of boiling chemicals wasn’t something that should be mixed.

  Clearly there was a reason they were being kept in separate containers considering how explosive the combinations were.

  I reached around as the cat clawed at me. Though it was mostly clawing at my shields so it’s not like it was doing the thing a damn bit of good.

  “Did you really think you were going to defeat me?” I asked. “I mean I get your plan. You breed in a place that manufactures cat toys, but even then you’re too fucking stupid to get it right.”

  I grabbed the thing by the scruff of its neck and held it out. It clawed at the air, but the super strength I was pumping through my suit was more than enough to overpower the fucker.

  It might be operating with the same sort of strength that Fialux was able to put out once upon a time, but that wasn’t going to do the little furry fucker a damn bit of good if it couldn’t land a hit.

  “Look around you, idiot,” I said. “This is the place that manufactures the things that eventually become the cat toys. Maybe you were trying to take over the world by putting your demon spawn in cat toy packages or something, but it wasn’t going to work if you were doing it in a place where they make the plastic that eventually becomes cat toys.”

  The factory rumbled and something hit me with enough power and heat that my inertial compensators kicked into high gear and prevented the shockwave from doing any damage. It wasn’t going to be long before this whole place went up and took anything inside with it.

  I was pretty sure my stuff could survive, but I didn’t want to try that out with a practical test. Not when it was my ass on the line and I hadn’t yet perfected the whole uploading my consciousness to a computer thing yet.

  The next time the cat hit me I made sure it was in a load bearing support that was right over the charnel house that was all the former workers in this factory. We blew right through the thing and a moment later there was a loud crack and a series of explosions that took out the disgusting sight below.

  I have a stomach for a lot of nasty things, but this one was too much even for me. I wanted to puke even after I watched a wall of flame take out all the little worms that’d been waiting for their chance to get shipped out to the unsuspecting public.

  I turned to the cat and laughed.

  “I’d like to see you try and take over the world now asshole!” I said. “Is this how you did it on your planet?”

  The cat looked down at the destruction below. Then it let out a low wail that was unlike anything I’d ever heard from an earth cat. Which made sense because I was pretty sure this fucker wasn’t an earth cat, but I also didn’t think I was going to be able to get close enough to stick a needle in the fucker to find out for sure.

  “You’ll pay for this!” the thing shrieked.

  “No, you’re going to pay for this,” I said. “How dare you kill all those poor fuckers down there who were just trying to do their job.”

  I grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck and whirled around a couple of times getting up a good head of steam. I had the targeting computer in my heads up display pick the exact time to let the fucker fly with all the strength I could muster in my suit.

  The thing slammed into a row of metal struts holding up a good chunk of the factory. From there more and more of the roof came down. I figured it was time to get the hell out of there.

  I flew up and into the sky,
just ahead of one hell of a fireball as the rest of the factory went up behind me in response to all those chemicals spilling out and mixing together and creating one hell of a firestorm.

  It would’ve been a hell of an impressive exit if there was anyone around to see me make it. For the first time in a good long while I found myself actually sad that Starlight City News Network wasn’t there with a drone waiting to capture my every move, but you couldn’t have everything in this line of work.

  26

  Inevitable Escape

  “Mistress?” CORVAC asked. “Were you planning on hovering over the exploding factory all day long?”

  “Nah,” I said. “I was just hanging out here for the fun of it.”

  “Oh. Well I never claim to understand why you humans do the things that you do but if it is something that brings you pleasure then far be it for me to…”

  “Shut up CORVAC,” I said. “Of course I’m not hanging out here because it’s fun. I’m waiting for that fucker to reappear.”

  “You think that is something the cat you were fighting is likely to do?” he asked.

  “I can almost guarantee that’s something the cat I was fighting is about to do,” I said. “Just wait for it. He’s still in there, and he’s not dead. If he had the kind of invulnerability that Fialux had then an exploding factory falling down around him isn’t going to be enough to take him out.”

  “As you say mistress,” CORVAC said. “Could you tell me why you believe this is the case? It is a rather massive ongoing explosion. I believe SCNN is going to be there shortly with some drones to record the festivities.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course they’re going to come out here after all the impressive stuff has already happened.”

  “But I thought you disliked the Starlight City News Network following you around with their drones mistress?” CORVAC asked.

  “Only when they’re annoying me. If I’m doing something suitably impressive I don’t mind them following me around.”

  “I am not going to even pretend to understand the way your mind works on that score mistress,” he said.

  Something shifted in the fiery maelstrom beneath me and I waited to see if it was going to be what I was expecting. A moment later something went jetting up from the factory fire, but it became pretty clear that it was just a bit of the factory that had been superheated and fired off by one of the explosions happening down there in that inferno.

  I fired an anti-Newtonian bubble at the thing. I needed to take care of that bastard cat, but I didn’t want the rest of the city going up around me.

  Not when there were plenty of factories around here manufacturing things a lot nastier than chemicals that would eventually go into cat toys.

  “I don’t think that cat is coming out,” CORVAC said.

  “Trust me. He’s going to pop out of there,” I said. “You have the drones at the perimeter scanning for that radiation?”

  “I do,” CORVAC said. “Though I do not understand why you are insisting on looking for a creature that has caused you this much difficulty.”

  “Because if this cat makes it then there’s a chance she’s still alive out there somewhere in the universe too,” I whispered.

  “Ah.”

  It was something I hadn’t been willing to acknowledge up to this point, but it was the thing that had been driving me through all of this craziness.

  Fialux. I had to believe she was still out there. I had to hold onto the hope that there’d come a day when we were reunited. A day when I would find out what planet she’d been sent off to and I’d finally be able to rescue her.

  If I didn’t have that hope then there was nothing to stop me from sinking into a dark place, and right about now dark places were the last thing the city needed me to sink into considering what I was capable of when I went to those very dark places.

  “Movement on the east side of the fire mistress,” CORVAC said.

  Hope rose within me. Yes. If that cat could survive something like this then there was a chance that Fialux, charged up by whatever the fuck that strange radiation, could survive. Crazy logic? Maybe, but crazy was all I had so I’d take it.

  “What is it?” I asked, almost afraid of the answer.

  “The fire department has finally moved in and is preparing to contain the blaze,” CORVAC said.

  I moved up just a little. Far enough that I could see Starlight City’s finest gearing up to go into that inferno and look for survivors. I felt something that was a little weird for me.

  A pang of conscience. I couldn’t let them go in there when I knew there wasn’t anything left alive in there.

  As much as I hated to admit it to myself, as much as it felt like I was giving up on Selena by admitting this, that cat from another world was a goner. It looked like even the radiation combined with our atmosphere hadn’t been enough to save its ass.

  That was my working theory. Something about being exposed to the radiation on the worms’ homeworld coupled with exposure to our atmosphere or our strange yellow sun gave things superpowers provided they stuck around long enough to have that radiation mix with whatever the hell it was on earth that created a super power stew.

  It was a damn good thing, all things considered, that all of those giant irradiated lizards had been killed before they could grow to their full potential. They were hard enough to kill just by virtue of being giant irradiated lizards.

  Add superpowers to that and we’d be looking at a civilization ending event.

  “I’m going to go down and warn them,” I said. “Keep an eye out with the drones, but I’m pretty sure that cat is a goner.”

  “Are you certain you need to do that mistress?” CORVAC asked.

  “I don’t want to do it. They’re going to think I’m being all heroic, but I’m also not letting them go in there,” I said. “There’s nothing in there to save.”

  “You are getting surprisingly close to how you were acting when you gave up on taking over the world mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “I’m doing this to be a decent person CORVAC,” I said, feeling suddenly exhausted. “Not because I need to take over the world or I’m working an angle. Sometimes you just have to be a good person even if you’re a bad person.”

  “Affirmative, mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “And if you think for a moment that this is a sign of weakness or something then I dare you to take me on and see what happens. Remember what happened to you the last time you tried it,” I continued.

  “I wouldn’t dream of crossing you mistress,” CORVAC said.

  “Damn straight you won’t,” I muttered.

  I flew down over the firefighters. They saw me well before I was close enough to pick them out individually. They were pointing in the sky and doing the whole “look up there!” thing. I landed in front of a guy with the biggest and bushiest mustache.

  I figured there was a good chance that was the guy who was running this shindig.

  “Night Terror,” he said, nodding at me with respect.

  Huh. That was new. I was used to them recoiling from me in terror. Then again I guess I had been doing enough things on the heroic side of the balance scale lately that they might think I was on their side or something.

  And I guess in this case I totally was.

  “Don’t bother sending your men in there,” I said.

  “Afraid I can’t do that ma’am,” he said, his mustache bristling. He had the quiet air of a man who was used to authority.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “It would be crazy for you to go in there.”

  “We have to at least scout it out ma’am,” he said with the casual disinterest of someone who was trying his best to placate someone difficult while also doing his job. “We’ve got word from the people who own that factory that there are at least twenty people working in there today.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Thought of the unfortunate sight I’d been treated to of all those people being devoured by alien worm larvae. If th
at was what those things planned on doing to the only sapient species on the planet then I suddenly felt very justified in smashing every one of those fuckers I could get my hands on.

  “They’re all dead,” I said.

  “You saw it?” he asked. “Did the fire or the explosion get’em?”

  “I caused the explosion,” I said.

  “You caused it?” he asked, his eyebrows going up just a bit. “Didn’t think you did things that could kill innocents like that.”

  Huh. Usually my interactions with Starlight City officials was with the police department since they were the ones who were always on the scene making a token effort of trying to stop me and taking bribes after the fact, but it was nice to know that someone out there had recognized that I tried to avoid collateral damage whenever I could.

  Those assholes at Starlight City News Network certainly never seemed to notice or care when they were dragging my name through the mud.

  “They were already dead,” I said. “Long story short, there are parasitic worms trying to take over the planet by infesting house cats and their queen dropped a bunch of larva in there that were feasting on those workers before the place blew. I blew it up to kill them and stop them from spreading.”

  I figured the guy would think I was crazy. I figured wrong though. He simply nodded and turned to his men.

  “Cancel the rescue boys,” he said. “We’re going to fall back and create a perimeter and let this blow off some steam before…”

  A small crack from somewhere deep inside that raging inferno was the first and only indication that something had gone terribly wrong in there. I turned just in time to see a wall of flame bursting out from all sides.

  The look of sheer terror from the firemen was haunting. Those were the looks of men who knew they’d signed up to go into the line of fire in a city where going into the line of fire often meant going up against things far more powerful than they could conceive of, and yet they did it day in and day out.