Villains Don't Date Heroes! (Night Terror and Fialux, #1)

by Mia Archer

"Mistress, are we still planning on world domination?"

Not for the first time I wondered why a computer that could simulate the entirety of the known universe in a matter of milliseconds needed to dominate the flesh and blood world of humans, but he got pissy when I started asking existential questions about computerized desires and motivations so I’d learned long ago to treat the subject the same as bringing up the whole Jesus thing with Janet in accounting.

It’s not like I had much of a basis of comparison having never worked in an office myself. The closest I had was working in the goddamn Applied Sciences Department at Starlight City University.

"Oh yes," I said. I rubbed my hands together and grinned. "Domination. Complete and total domination. That's the plan."

"Are you sure about that mistress?" "What are you talking about?" "You have that smile you use when you are lying to me via omission."

There was a code of honor among thieves, but it didn’t extend to scum like him. He gave my ancient and honored profession a bad name, and I looked at this as the equivalent of putting down a rabid dog before it could cause too much damage.

I cocked my head and grinned. "Come on. We both know that's not going to do you any good," I said.

Too bad for these guys they’d just run into the apex predator in this city. Oh well.

"And you're saying that if I don't stop screaming it's going to be bad for me?" "Well… Yeah!" "But I've already made it clear I don't have any money and you’ve already made it clear that because of my lack of money things are already going to be bad for me. What possible incentive do I have not to yell if you're going to beat the shit out of me no matter what I do?

"Aw hell," he said. "Now I'm going to beat the shit out of you just for being a smartass." I shrugged. "Suit yourself."

The head thug skidded to a halt and if anything the look of terror on his face when he thought he was just dealing with an overeager heroic type turned to one of pure abject horror when he realized he'd just tried to mug Night Terror. I grinned and waggled my fingers at him in a friendly wave. "That's right buddy,"

"Night Terror." I sketched a little bow. "None other than."

That annoyed me. I was used to being the one with the wonderful toys. Having someone else out there with better toys than mine was frustrating, to say the least.

I didn’t bother asking when I’d pissed in his Wheaties, though. There were a lot of people in this city lined up for a ticket on the Night Terror train.

“Wasn’t that name already taken?” I asked. “Some low level chick who got herself splatted against the side of a building fighting a giant irradiated lizard or something like that?”

It would be really sad if this guy was out to avenge his dead wife or something who got it in her head that she was going to be a hero and found out, too late, that there were consequences for trying to sit at the big kid table when you weren’t ready to give up the sippy cup.

“Never!” “Will so!” “No you won’t!” I stomped. “Yes I will! Because right now my evil plan doesn’t extend past vaporizing you and I’m pretty sure that’s going to be pretty easy to do with a cut rate wannabe!”

“Nice trick,” I said. “But the problem with only having one ace up your sleeve is it doesn’t work with someone hiding a full deck.”

Which meant it would disassociate all of my molecules rapidly and painfully whether or not it hit my face or another part of my body.

Stupid fucking Applied Sciences department. They didn’t know true genius when they saw it. There weren’t many things in this world that could get me going off on a ranting monologue tangent, but thinking about getting kicked out by the Applied Sciences people was one of them.

They never tried to kick me out, and I never tried to take over the satellites bristling with nuclear missiles or simple long chunks of steel for orbital bombardment that really weren’t supposed to exist.

At least from the parts of the department the university didn’t want the world to know about. The parts where I’d made my home when I was still in grad school.

It was difficult to keep the joy out of my voice, so I didn’t bother.

“Really mistress?” CORVAC said. “You’re going to voluntarily move closer to Fialux?”

There was a pause. It lasted long enough that I found myself wondering if he was taking me seriously or if he was simply trying to think of ways that he could take me out without causing too much of a fuss.

Flying back to Starlight City University reminded me of the good old days when I’d been a bright-eyed young kid leaving home for the first time and looking forward to pursuing a career in the applied sciences that would allow me to finally achieve the goal I’d been hoping for since I was a little girl. Taking over the world.

Everyone had a weakness. It was simply a matter of figuring out what the heck that weakness was.

Lasers would be invisible unless the idiots down there tossing blasts around were having their fight in the middle of a fog bank.

There was evil, and then there was just being an asshole.

I’d stolen everything interesting related to my work on my way out and I’d destroyed anything I couldn’t take with me. There wasn’t a chance they were working with my tech, early draft or not.

Fialux fell forward on her hands and knees. It was a pose I could get used to.

Her familiar heels clicked in an echo that filled my brain with residual terror from the days when I’d had to listen for the sound of her heels clicking down the tile hallway.

I smiled. A faint smile, but it was there. It was always nice to know my work was appreciated, and it was very nice to know that CORVAC could recognize my work.

“I would imagine the head of the goddamn doublecrossing motherfuckers at the Applied Sciences Department is stalling for time, as you so eloquently put it.”

This seemed like something out of my playbook.

The phrase “it takes one to know one” came to mind when I thought about her. I was an evil supergenius. She gave off a vibe.

That made me want to get my hands on one of those toys. It made me want to get my hands on it real bad.

“I don’t respond well to threats. I don’t know who you are, but I’m not going with you,”

I winced. That looked like it hurt.

And I felt something that surprised me as I looked down at the scene playing out before me. Anger.

I told myself it was simply the rage of someone out there doing better than I did, but I knew it was more than that. It was the rage of knowing that she was in danger.

It was time to show these assholes who was the real greatest villain in this city.

The wind whipped through my hair. CORVAC was always going on about how dangerous it was for me to have my hair out like that. People could grab it in a fight. It wasn’t aerodynamic enough when I was out flying around.

It’s not like there were many people in this city with a knack for the sort of megalomaniacal superscience that had always interested me.

“You can’t have her,” Dr. Lana said. I cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Funny. I was about to say the same to you,” I replied.

There was nothing like the ominous hum of the sort of energies that turned the universe at the atomic level charging up ready to be unleashed on whoever was irritating me at the moment.

I’d always been unique in my mania regarding collateral damage.

“And I think you’re going to come in and have a chat with me. There’s a lot of unfinished business between us.”

“Remember a few years back when there were all those airbursts over the city that didn’t actually rain down any electromagnetic interference or bust any electronics?”