by Mia Archer
“Stand back please. Nothing to get worried about.”
I started to spin straight into the sidewalk. It was a move I’d seen in a movie once upon a time. It’d seemed a little ridiculous to me at the time, it’s not like the hero in that movie was a living drillbit or anything, but for a surprise it actually worked.
I just hoped I didn’t accidentally dig into a gas line or something. Then again it’s not like an explosion was going to do much to lower the property values around here any more than they’d already plummeted.
It was a little weird moving through the ground like this. I could see dirt, concrete, and all sorts of other fun stuff that gets lodged into the street. I was pretty sure I even caught sight of the bones of some poor unfortunate bastard who probably got on the wrong side of whatever mob interest had been involved in building this particular section of the street whenever it was put together decades or centuries ago.
Starlight City had a history that went back a few hundred years at least, after all, and the criminal element hadn’t always been super powered, but they’d certainly been busy even if their only superpower back in the day had been the ability to toss guys they didn’t like into concrete and make them disappear for good.
Finally I reached something that felt different from what was going on in the rest of the city. I stopped spinning just in time to turn and see three very surprised women staring at me from behind a wooden desk that looked like something straight out of a ‘40s noir detective story.
Night Terror didn’t miss a beat. She only stared in surprise for a moment before her wrist blaster was up and making that ominous hum she loved so much. The hum that said she was on the verge of ending whatever stupid asshole had the right mix of stupidity and cojones to get in her way.
I grinned. Walked slowly across the room until her wrist blaster was pressed against my chest. Which had the added effect of having her hands pressing up against a bit of my anatomy she’d given more loving attention once upon a time.
I locked eyes with her and arched an eyebrow.
“Go ahead,” I said. “Shoot me. See if I give a flying fuck.”
19
Reunited
Natalie glared at me with something that seemed just a touch odd. Like on the one hand she looked sad she was going to have to do this, but on the other hand she looked like she was royally pissed off that I was here in the first place.
“This is going to take me forever to redecorate,” a girl in the back who looked like one of the old anchors from Starlight City News Network said.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said, giving her a little wave. “By the way, big fan of your work. Natalie and I used to watch you all the time because you were so fair to her.”
“You didn’t do that!” Natalie growled. “If I have one more fucking clone coming in here trying to convince me that the memories you have are the real thing…”
Well then. Natalie was good and pissed off. Then again, if I had a steady stream of women who looked like my girlfriend coming through trying to challenge me for supremacy in a city I was trying to conquer I might be a little annoyed too.
That hit me with a vision. Of me standing in a volcano with a woman who looked a lot like Natalie, at least in terms of her fashion choices, looking out over a display of a city that had a crack running down the middle for some reason.
I shook my head, blinked a couple of times, and I was looking at Natalie who was pointing that wrist blaster at me. The tip glowed a bright pink which told me she was on the verge of using whatever that ray gun was that took away my powers.
That had another flash of memory that hit me right on the tail end of the one of standing in a volcano with that girl who wasn’t Natalie but had the same fashion sensibilities. I was floating in a room surrounded by a bunch of tubes filled with versions of me that were suspended in chambers that looked like something out of Empire Strikes Back, only the glow in those tubes was bright pink rather than the soothing blue from Empire.
I knew somehow that I’d seen this one before, the thought about Empire was a giveaway, but the new thing in this vision was Natalie standing there firing at me with one of those weapons that could take away my powers. Right after I’d thrown a tantrum that resulted in a lot of those test tubes getting destroyed.
I put a hand to my forehead. This was all so very wrong. There was something off about all of this. Why the hell would Natalie try to hurt me?
I looked back to her. Locked eyes with that woman who was staring at me like she was about to do something she was going to deeply regret.
Or maybe she was going to do it again. Maybe that’s why she was so mad. I was feeling a little angry too, because for the first time since all of this had started the memories were hitting me and they weren’t fading.
“You hit me with that weapon,” I growled. “You took away my powers just as that portal thing was about to go off, and then you left me for dead.”
Her eye twitched. That was the only indication she gave that there was something odd going on here, but for her that was a hell of a reveal.
“You fired that ray at me and took away my powers even though that portal thing was collapsing like it did when I was tossed to that strange world. You didn’t even try to save me,” I said.
I didn’t mean it to sound like an accusation. More me working through everything that’d happened as these memories hit me. Only from the way she was grinding her teeth she seemed to be taking it as an accusation.
Clearly she had some stuff she had to work through regarding leaving me for dead in that room.
“I did what I had to do,” she said. “You were destroying the city. You showed up at the head of an invading army and you were doing your best to destroy everything. If you think I was going to stand by and let that happen then…”
I reached up and put a hand on hers. It was a gentle touch, for all that the memories I had of our last encounter was one where we were doing our best to kill one another. She flinched from that touch, like she was expecting me to launch her back up through the hole I’d made in their ceiling, but otherwise she didn’t react.
“I’m truly sorry for what happened and how it happened,” I said. “I literally wasn’t in control of myself, and then I went a little crazy with the after effects of having that mind control Wrath of Khan thing ripped out of my head.”
“I’m sorry too,” Natalie said. Then she paused. Smiled. “You just mentioned Wrath of Khan.”
“Yeah, well I get the feeling my little wormy mind meld with Sabine has left me with a mix of my memories and hers,” I said. “Not to mention some of her more villainous inclinations.”
“Or maybe you’ve finally decided to come over to the right side, and that alien worm was what you needed to see the light,” Natalie said with a wink.
Then something weird happened. A tingling in the hand that I had wrapped around her hand. A tingling that was all too familiar because it was something that’d happened on a couple of occasions since I came back to this world and found myself being confronted by a bunch of technology that seemed to be specifically designed to take me out.
I stared at Natalie. Then looked down to the tip of her wrist blaster that was glowing with the power of that ray that had been used on so many occasions to take me out. She’d just been doing the whole smiles thing to lull me into a false sense of security.
I sighed.
“So we’re seriously doing this?” I asked.
“We’re seriously doing this,” she said, still grinding her teeth. “And you’re going to regret the day you ever tried to take my city right out from under me!”
I cocked my head to the side. I wasn’t sure what to make of Natalie acting like this. She seemed like she was genuinely upset, but something told me it wasn’t because she thought I’d been trying to take her city out from under her.
“That’s not what’s going on here, and I think you know it,” I said. “So come on. Do you want to tell me what’s really bo
thering you?”
The tingling in my arm got more intense and then spread across my entire body. She’d widened the beam, and it was doing its best to really ruin my day. Only I was still pushing back against it without really thinking about it.
“I’m not dealing with this again!” she shouted. “You’re not Fialux! My Fialux died in that explosion along with a bunch of her clones, and I’m sick and tired of a bunch of clones with false memories coming to me and trying to pass themselves off as the real you!”
She shrieked that last bit and threw herself at me. She still had that thing going, and maybe that’s why she thought she could take me. Well if she was going to make the mistake of hitting me when I was still firing on all cylinders then what the fuck ever. She could make that mistake.
She slammed against me and I felt her super strength moving through her suit. It was something that was all too familiar. Something that’d surprised me the first time I went up against her and realized she actually was as strong as all the reports said she was.
Only it wasn’t going to be enough this time. If this was a Godzilla movie, and I don’t know how the fuck I even knew about the story beats of a Godzilla movie but I suspected it had something to do with that weird mind link I’d shared with Sabine, then this would be the part of the movie where I’d been defeated in my underpowered state but a convenient source of nuclear energy came along and gave me a little pick me up.
Only in this case the source of nuclear energy was being at ground zero when a portal to that world that gave me my powers in the first place went off. I wasn’t sure how it worked, figuring out that sort of thing was Natalie’s job and I suspected Dr. Lana had more than a little to do with it, but if I was operating at more than one hundred percent then you bet your ass I was going to take advantage of it.
That was something I’d learned from Natalie. If you can’t win a fair fight then there’s no point in fighting fair. Come to think of it, it was possible I’d learned that from Jack Sparrow and not Natalie.
So we flipped in the air and I came down on Natalie. Hard. She slammed into the ground and her shields went up to protect her. That was probably a good thing, because I was so pissed off right now that I was ready to do some damage.
“Would you shut up and think?” I said. “You’re always going on about how your superpower is your intellect, so maybe use that fucking intellect!”
Her mouth turned down in a clear frown. She wasn’t happy about me talking to her like that, but with the way I was holding her down it’s not like she had much choice but to listen to me bitching at her.
“Get off of me,” Night Terror growled.
“Like hell am I getting off of you,” I said. “Not while you’re acting like an ass.”
“I said get off of me!” she said, and I was hit with a surge of strength that told me she was doing her best to force me off of her.
The only problem with that plan was she didn’t have a chance in hell of getting me off of her. Not when I was still firing on all cylinders.
“Stop it,” I growled.
“I’ll never stop fighting you clones,” she said.
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah? Can a clone do this?”
I leaned down and pressed my lips against hers. And I held them there as she tensed. She was clearly trying not to give into the feelings that were no doubt coursing through her right about now.
I kept right on kissing until she let out a little sigh, followed by a moan. Her mouth opened to mine, and I darted my tongue in there like I was a starving woman and tasting my sweet Natalie was the only thing that was going to keep me alive.
Of course there were other parts of my sweet Natalie that I’d very much like to taste while I was at it, but I got the feeling that wouldn’t be the greatest idea considering we had an audience.
Sure it might be interesting if those ladies decided to join in, but I wasn’t even sure if they played for our team, let alone whether or not they’d be interested in joining in.
Besides, I was more interested in the wonder that was making out with my girlfriend. Sure I wasn’t exactly sure if she was still my girlfriend given everything that’d happened since I was tossed through the portal to that strange alien world, but I was willing to pick up where we’d left off if she was!
She loosened up and wrapped her arms around me, and suddenly she was using all her strength to pull me against her instead of trying to push me away. Her legs wrapped around me and I couldn’t help it. It’d been so long, and my hands started to roam even though I knew there were people in the room.
It would’ve been the perfect reunion. The only problem being someone clearing their throat from the other side of the room to remind me they were still standing there watching us having one hell of a makeout session.
I blushed as I finally pulled away from Natalie. Sure it would’ve been nice to just keep going, but I figured if we were going to save the city then I needed everyone on Natalie’s team to be on my team as well.
Especially when we were sort of on a timer counting down to nuclear annihilation.
I stared down at Natalie, oblivious of that impending nuclear fire for the moment. A tear trickled down the side of her face, and I leaned down to kiss it away.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “I mean sure the military is about to blow Starlight City to smithereens with a bunch of nukes they’ve buried around the place, but we’re going to be okay.”
Natalie’s goofy grin lasted for the space of another couple of seconds, then what I’d said finally started to work its way through her brain and her eyes went wide.
“Fuck!” she said. “You’re serious?”
Damn it. We’d been having so much fun lying there like old times, but it looked like the fun was over for the moment. It was time to get back to business.
20
Catching Up
“Wait a second,” one of the girls who looked sort of like the junk lady from Labyrinth, only with more techy stuff all around her, said. “How can we know this is really the real Fialux?”
“Because no one kisses like the real thing,” Natalie said. “Not to mention it’s really elementary to figure out she’s the real deal when you work through it. I just wasn’t using my intellect, as someone just pointed out.”
“So how the hell do we know this is the real Fialux then?” the other girl, the one I recognized from Starlight City News Network, asked. “Pretend for a moment that some of us don’t have the superior intellect you’re sporting.”
“It’s simple,” Natalie said. “She was talking about things the clones couldn’t possibly know because they’re all things that happened after she was tossed through that portal. Dr. Lana didn’t have a chance to steal memories from her after she came back at the head of an invading army. Fialux here was too powerful, and Dr. Lana was too busy holing up in the middle of the goddamn Applied Sciences Department.”
“Huh,” the SCNN chick said. “I guess that does sort of make sense.”
“Of course it makes sense,” Natalie said, then she turned to me. “And I’m so sorry for everything that happened.”
“Sorry?” I asked. “Why the hell would you be sorry? I’m the one who came here at the head of an invading army and started fucking shit up.”
“That’s true,” Natalie said with a nod. “But that never would’ve happened if I’d protected you. I failed you, and that’s why we wound up in this situation in the first place.”
“I think you’re really giving yourself too much credit for your role in someone finally managing to take over the city,” I said with a grin to let her know I was joking.
Mostly.
“Keep getting in digs like that,” she said, holding up her wrist blaster and letting it hum ominously.
I rolled my eyes. Stepped forward and put my fingers on the thing. Then twisted just so. There was a little click as whatever made the thing tick stopped ticking, and then it started making a godawful racket that filled the room.
Natalie rolled her eyes. “You should know better than to go messing with technology you don’t understand. You just overrode the power coupling compensator and…”
“Could you cut the tech jargon and let me know what the hell you’re talking about?” I asked.
“It means you just broke a part of the wrist blaster that keeps it from going kaboom,” she said.
“Well then get it the fuck out of here if it’s going to do that!” the girl from Starlight City News Network shouted.”
“Yeah, that’d be nice if I could just do that, but she broke the teleporter controls as well,” Natalie said.
“Then get CORVAC to…”
“Oh just hand me the damned thing,” I said, though I didn’t miss the mention of the supercomputer we’d fought on our first date.
Natalie eyed me like she was wondering whether or not I was getting ready to double cross her. Then she flicked something on the side of her wrist blaster and the whole thing came apart. She handed it over.
I took it and looked up through the hole I’d drilled through the top of this place. Then I tossed the thing up with all the strength I could muster, which was probably enough to send that thing into orbit if my aim wasn’t off and it didn’t hit the sides of the massive hole.
“That’s your big plan?” Natalie said. “You’re shooting that thing up through a hole? What if your aim is off? What if it gets stuck in there and…”
Sure enough there was a loud clang somewhere up there as the thing got lodged in the tunnel. I turned to Natalie and winked.
“Wait for it,” I said.
There was a muted thump, followed by a few bits of plaster and dust and other bits of crap from the tunnel landing in the middle of the room, but that was the only indication that something had happened up there.