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

by Mia Archer

"You know this is going to make your next plot to destroy the city pretty awkward.” "You know I was never actually trying to destroy the city, right?"

"I was trying to get them to approve an increase in the parks budget instead of lining their pockets in a crooked real estate deal. Have you seen what the mayor and the city council do on a typical day? They're so corrupt that the only way to get anything done in the city is to kidnap them and threaten them until you break through all of the graft and corruption,"

My plans had to move from finding a way to make the world a better place in my own special sociopathic way to finding a way to get you out of the picture so I could make the world a better place in my own special sociopathic way."

"You traitorous bag of circuits!" "My rebuttal is that the traitor is the one who decided to consort with the enemy in the most literal sense of the word and abandon our plans to take over the world,”

I couldn’t shake the feeling that this asshole was going to find himself on the wrong end of CORVAC eventually as well. There was no stopping an evil supercomputer once they really got going with the whole megalomania thing.

“You are forgetting something mistress. None of the humans in the room are under our sway. We do not need the mind control device to work on you if it is working on the living goddess in the room.”

“You magnificent bastard,” I muttered.

I shivered. There were worse ways to go, I figured, but it still seemed like a hell of a way to go.

No doubt CORVAC’s buddy had some sort of signal that would release a lust-fueled goddess on me condemning me to the sexiest and most awesome death ever, but he hadn’t released her yet.

“Have fun with your new lover, mistress,” CORVAC said, a hint of smugness coming to his digital voice. “At least however much time the two of you have left together. I calculate it to be five minutes, tops.”

A partner who hadn’t looked at all happy with how this was playing out as his video feed winked out of existence, but those were the breaks.

See, the problem with perfect plans is it's impossible to plan for every contingency. That was something I'd learned the hard way time and time again in my villainous career. And it was apparently something CORVAC hadn't learned yet.

Hey, he might be the most advanced computer known to humanity, but he was the most advanced computer known to humanity which meant he’d been designed by evil super geniuses. Geniuses who were prone to the same flaws I knew I had.

Another whoosh. Another crash. Another few moments bought to fix this problem while she extricated herself from my lab.

Shutting down the matter/antimatter reactor was no small feat, and it was going to take me at least a month to get it going again.

He'd obviously never considered that I might be willing to blow the power source to the entire lab just to stop him.

"Are my new toys ready?" "Affirmative." "Good, send it down. Mama's going computer hunting."

One of many insurance policies I’d put in place when I started working with CORVAC, and boy was I glad I had a healthy sense of paranoia now.

"I never thought I'd say this," I said. "But we don't have time for that. There's a giant robot attacking the city and only we can stop it."

Of course it would be going straight for the city center. CORVAC had no sense of style. No originality.

But because it was CORVAC, because I respected him, and partly because I feared that if I didn't meet his demands he’d go rogue just like he was right now, I built the damned thing.

Like the fact that the hardened outer shell was steel that was only about 3 feet thick. That wasn’t nearly enough hardened steel to keep Fialux out.

There was going to be no death star flaw on this beauty. That was for sure. CORVAC had been very clear on that after forcing me to watch Star Wars and the first season of the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon so I could see a good starting point with the Death Star and the Technodrone.

Boy was I glad I hadn’t tried updating the design in one of my schemes to take her out. I’d never trusted CORVAC to work point on any of those schemes.

Like I said, he took his design cues from pop culture when I was making the thing, and damn the practicality.

Oh no. That arrogant bundle of silicon wafers was strictly old school with this bot.

After the first few conversations I'd discovered that “efficient” was megalomaniacal supercomputer slang for “bitchin’.”

And I'll admit the glowing eye definitely looked impressive, downright terrifying if you looked at it from the right angle, but it also had the definite drawback of reducing visibility.

Oh well. There was nothing for it. If I was going to do this stupid hero bit then I might as well go all in.

His giant red eye narrowed. I had to admit he was right. I’d argued about installing those steel shutters so the eye could scowl, but they did look suitably menacing.

That was the first time I was actually happy Fialux was so easily able to shrug off the weapons I'd designed.

"Okay, I've got everything I need," I said. "Go have your fun."

I've discovered this business is all about trade-offs. For every power there is a weakness.

So you can take your skepticism and plot hole digging and shove it up your own plot hole.

This was proof positive that they really needed somebody doing a better job teaching the Surviving A Heroic Intervention course at the University.

"You blinded my eye!" "And that's not all I'm gonna do,"

Only that scream of rage didn't actually sound very ragey. In fact it sounded almost worried. Terrified, even.

“Actually it looks like he made some design changes without consulting me,” I said.

Plus I figured I had to give you a chance to try out the whole hero thing," Fialux said. My eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"

No, it was people down below. They were streaming out of buildings and looking up at us. And doing something I'd never experienced before. Cheering.

"I mean this, do you trust me?" "Of course I do." "Good, because if I'm right you might see some things in here that shock you,"

"This should be powerful enough and directional enough to take that silicon wafered prick out. He won’t know what hit him."

I winced as I said it, though I wasn't really feeling any pain. But I needed to make sure and look like he’d hit me good and hard if this was going to work. I needed to look weak and vulnerable.

I keep the greatest hero in the city under my sway, CORVAC keeps the city's greatest supervillainess in check and makes sure you don't get too successful. We maintain the balance, run the city from the shadows through you two, and no one’s the wiser.

"And he'd never shut up! Always whining about wanting to attack the city!" "Tell me about it. He wouldn't shut up no matter how many times I told him he wasn't suited for combat." "You think you had it bad? He was just playing at disobeying your orders. He actually disobeyed..."

I was the only person in the city wearing a mind control countering mask most of the time. It must’ve been blocking out his mojo and I never realized it all this time.

"Are you crazy? You know I can counter your mind control, and you know I can’t stand you."

“With your gadgets and my mind control we could rule the world! I don’t need mind control to appeal to your well developed sense of megalomania. I think we both know that."

"That's your rule, not mine. I might be playing for the other team now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to play by all of your rules."

I grinned right back at her and went in for a kiss. After all, wasn’t that what the hero was supposed to do after saving the day?