"Do I really have to do this?" she asked.

I shook my head. I didn't actually say anything though. No, I had something that was better than lecturing her this time around.

I hit a button and activated a recording. It showed none other than one of the cameras I always had hidden on my person so I could go back and do an after action report. Video replay was invaluable for making sure I didn't make the same mistake twice, but it was even more valuable for showing Fialux exactly why she "had to do this."

The recording showed Fialux being dragged out of the back of the bank and then down the alley like she was a sack of potatoes. Not someone wearing a suit that should've augmented her abilities to the point a bunch of normal bank robbers didn't have a chance.

"Come on, Natalie," she said. "This isn't fair."

I switched to a first person view of her flying through the air with the occasional shot of the latest giant irradiated lizard to threaten the city clear in the background.

Her begging was loud and clear considering she was right next to the recorder.

"This isn't fair Natalie," she whined.

"Look," I said. "You wade into fights you can't win. You rely on superpowers you don't have anymore. If you're serious about getting back in the saddle then you need to train, and you need to take that training seriously. I'm more than willing to teach you everything I've learned over a long and storied villainous career."

"But it's so frustrating!" she said, as though all the lessons she'd learned the day before had been forgotten.

It was like dealing with a lazy college student who didn't want to do the work. I knew because once upon a time I'd been a lazy college student who didn't want to do the work because it was all so boring and beneath me. Karma had come around to bite me in the ass in the form of a couple of lazy college students taking my Surviving A Heroic Intervention class.

"If we're going to get you out there in the world fighting crime again then you're going to have to learn how to do this right," I said. "And you're going to have to learn how to do it with my stuff, because I still haven't figured out how the hell Dr. Lana's power sucking raygun works."

The last bit came out more as a growl than conversation. That was a sore spot. I'd been poking and prodding at the thing ever since Dr. Lana was kind enough to leave it behind in my dummy lab.

Well, left it behind might be charitable. It was more like she dropped it after triggering every nasty countermeasure I'd ever come up with to kill intruders many times over. She'd been severely maimed and her remains teleported to a landfill before I could ask her anything about how the gun actually worked, but at least I had the gun to examine.

I had the gun and a growing sense of unease that she was out there somewhere healing up and hatching a new plan to ruin my day.

The fact that her body hadn't been where the teleporter sent it when I went looking was all the proof I needed. I kept thinking of the opening of the second Ninja Turtles movie when the Shredder stuck his hand up out of the garbage. I shivered thinking about a similar scene playing out with Dr. Lana, but luckily Fialux was there to pull me out of my funk with a little well timed sass.

"You know, there was a time when I was pretty close to ending that long and storied villainous career you're talking about," she said.

"Yes," I said. "And as I recall, you sort of did end my villainous career. Maybe. If you squint your eyes and look at it just right. But that doesn't change the fact that things have changed. Whether you like it or not, you don't have the same powers you had when we first met, and that means if you're going to do this then you need to get off your cute tight ass and learn how to fight my way."

I grinned. It was a singularly unpleasant grin. The kind of grin that made her take a step back. No doubt because she remembered all the times we'd fought and me grinning at her like that meant I was about to pull something on her.

"Besides. You'll recall that I gave almost as good as I got in a lot of those fights despite the fact that I was severely underpowered compared to you. If you learn from that? You'll be unstoppable."

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Maybe I was tooting my own horn, but I liked to think the fact that I'd been able to stand up to a living goddess with nothing but the technology I'd invented and a willingness to be downright mean in a fight was yet another one of the many ingredients that added to the spice that was my continued reign as the top villain in the city.

Even if there were idiots out there like Dr. Lana who seemed hellbent on ending my reign as the top villain in the city by replacing me. The stupid bitch.

Fialux grinned and took a step closer. A step that had her pressing against me in a most distracting manner. I let out a shuddering breath. I almost put up the shields again, but she reached down and grabbed at my computer.

I felt a stab of worry. After all, the last time she'd gone feeling up a wrist computer she'd ended up flying across the city and into battle against Dr. Lana and a bunch of robots she definitely wasn't ready to take on.

I tried to pull away, but she leaned in for a kiss that stopped me in my tracks.

"No need for that," she said.

Then she made every reservation I had about her hands on my wrist computer come true. She deftly pressed a couple of buttons, putting my shields in a diagnostic cycle before I could bring them up.

I was so shocked that I didn't react for a moment. I looked down at the wrist computer. It was one thing to activate the flight controls on one of these things, those were pretty obvious, but it was another to mess with the diagnostics to disable my shields. I was the only one who was supposed to know how to do that.

I stared at her, wide eyed. "When did you learn how to do that? How the hell did you learn how to do that?"

"You're not the only one who has some smarts," she said. "I've watched the way you operate that thing. And maybe your lab computer gave me access to some of the schematics for all those wonderful toys you're always playing with."

I bit back a couple of choice curse words. CORVAC would've never let her get access to any of my schematics. I found myself missing him and wondering exactly what he was doing. Was he trapped in a set of data banks somewhere in the city? Or had Dr. Lana already recovered enough that she'd gone back and given him a reprogramming he was never going to forget?

The poor bastard. I know I shouldn't have felt bad for him at all considering the way he'd betrayed me, but he had saved my life.

Sure him saving my life might be part of a play Dr. Lana was running, but I doubted it. I liked to think I knew that mechanical asshole after working with him for so long, and if anyone out there was going to torture him? It was going to be me.

Dr. Lana could get in line.

"But you don't know anything about computers," I said. "You had to have me teach you how to use all those apps on your iPhone, and that's like a computer for babies!"

I knew it was ridiculous the moment the statement left my lips. Of course she knew something about computers. After all, she was the one who figured out how to take over my flight computer when she'd gone for that ill-advised jaunt over the city while it was being attacked by the one-two punch of Dr. Lana and her nasty robots.

"Do I?" she asked. "Or was all that complaining about the iPhone a ruse to get you to let your guard down? What if this whole thing was a game I'm playing with you? What if I'm actually a Manchurian hero sent by Dr. Lana? Maybe I was brainwashed by that beam to finally do what needs to be done to bring peace to the city."

Her eyes went blank. As though she was an automaton. Like she'd lost all control. She held her arms up and looked for all the world like a zombie. Like we're talking a slow moving Romero zombie from back before the '80s when Return of the Living Dead solidified a lot of the genre tropes.

No, that wasn't quite right. She looked like those creepy Lee Meriwether "I am for you James t. Kirk" chicks from that episode of the old Star Trek who went after the big three and had their asses handed to them as a result.

I have to say it was a lot more unpleasant seeing that sort of thing in real life than it was watching it on the small screen where I knew Shatner was going to come through with some way to save the day by the end of the show's runtime.

"Must kill Night Terror…" she said in a strange monotone. Her hand moved down to my wrist blaster and started to pull it towards me. "Must kill Night Terror…"

Her hands were slow. Inexorable. Inevitable.

As though she had every bit of super strength she'd ever possessed. I tried to push back, but it was difficult. Whatever she was doing, she was able to continue moving my wrist blaster up towards me even though there was no way she should have that kind of strength.

The blaster hadn't turned on, yet, but I had a moment of real fear. A moment where I thought I might actually be on the verge of being destroyed by my own weapons. Being destroyed by my own emotions, for that matter.

Honestly I figured the idea that I was going to get killed because I'd trusted her was more insulting than the idea I was going to get killed by my own stuff.

Then her face split into a small smile. So small I would've missed it if I hadn't been staring so intently at her face wondering if this was going to be the last thing I saw before I died. Before a Fialux who still had her powers and had been brainwashed by Dr. Lana killed me.

Given everything I'd learned about Dr. Lana so far I wouldn't put it past her to pull something like this to kill me from beyond the grave. Assuming she was even in the grave which was in doubt. I honestly wouldn't put anything past her at this point.

"You asshole," I said.

That was too much for her. Her frozen face quirked into a smile. The smile turned to an outright giggle. Still, I breathed a small sigh of relief. It was nice to know she was screwing with me and I wasn't about to die, even if it wasn't a very nice joke.

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