Villains Don't Save Heroes! (Night Terror Book 2)

by Mia Archer

So I leaned forward. Pressed my lips against hers. I had the pleasure of watching her eyes go wide in surprise.

I couldn’t help but smile at that reaction. It was nice to know she was just as attracted to me when she was suffering from severe memory loss as she’d been when we were officially dating.

Right. So I’d short-circuited her mind. Again. Without the help of any med bay technology this time. Time to get her back on track though.

“Cut the bullshit. Did you like it? Yes or no?” “Well… Yes?”

“Believe it or not, as crazy as it sounds you’re the most important thing in my life, and I want to see you well again. You’re also suffering from a bit of temporary amnesia, and I figure this is going to help. I hope.”

What can I say? Even if it didn’t help with the amnesia it was a hell of a lot of fun.

At least I hoped it was only temporary. After all, I had no way of knowing how the med bay would work on a person with alien anatomy that had been scrambled to normal non-superpowered human anatomy.

“I’ll do whatever it takes to help you. To save you. To make you better. Even if it means you completely forget everything we ever had.”

It felt weird to speak a truth like that. This wasn’t me. I was a villain. I tried to take over the world.

“You’re completely serious, aren’t you?” she asked. “I am,” I said.

I stared. I wasn’t exactly equipped to deal with this sort of thing. Interpersonal relations, at least the kind of interpersonal relations that didn’t involve intimidating people or trying to bend them to my will, or occasionally bribing them to my will, weren’t my strong suit.

She kept crying. I couldn’t think of anything to say. How did you console someone in a moment like this?

The fact that she could heal herself was only a plus as far as I was concerned. That meant I could punch her to my heart’s content, wait for her to heal, and then punch her some more!

“I don’t know that I like it. How do you deal with it?” “By cocooning myself in as much advanced technology as possible to try and avoid it,” I said. “I suppose everyone else just deals with it. Life is pain, as a wise man once said.”

So instead I lied. Hey, it’s not like lying was something that was difficult for me. It’d been one of the main tools in my arsenal once upon a time. Although this would mark the first time I’d ever lied to someone because I was trying to make them feel better about their situation in life rather than trying to dupe them.

I know there are some people who think lying is bad no matter what, but they’re full of shit.

And if it distracted her from the more murderous side of my megalomania, the more murderous side of my desire to help those closest to me, then all the better.

Even if giving her that distance really sucked. I was supposed to be her girlfriend. I still felt like her girlfriend. I’d been her girlfriend that morning and nothing about my feelings had changed even if she couldn’t remember a damn thing.

I was going to have to talk to her again, eventually, but it broke my heart every time I looked at her and I saw attraction there, but not the half cocked grin she gave me that said I was hers.

That did sound like the kind of thing I’d do. Except I’d never deliberately delete someone’s memories as part of a scheme. Take over a college class? Sure. Delete memories? No way.

“I know. You’re going to ask me if I really programmed a computer to do all that and then you’ll ask me to take you on a tour of the laundry facility. Once I show you you’re going to say it seems like a bit much for one person to avoid doing laundry when I could throw stuff into the washer myself.”

I turned on the TV. Went to my recordings. I had to press like five different button combinations to get to my recordings, stupid Bell themed cable company and their stupid entertainment package that never gave me what I was asking for, but eventually I pulled up the recording I was looking for.

It couldn’t have been more perfect. Starlight City News Network had finally done something right.

I figured telling her she was going to have to start counting calories when she was used to packing away the junk food would be too much on top of everything else.

“The real bad guy? What are you…” I waved a hand and stopped her. “There’s always a real bad guy behind the bad guy you think is the real bad guy, if that makes sense.”

“Simple. I’ve prepared for just about every eventuality I thought someone might throw at me. Including all of the eventualities I’d invented to throw at other people.” She frowned. “So you’ve used mind control on people before?”

I frowned and looked down at my empty bowl of boring sugar-free oatmeal. Oh to have a fabulous metabolism that allowed me to eat whatever the hell I wanted without consequences in the calorie department.

What can I say? When she gave me the eyes and started running her hand up and down my arm I was willing to do anything.

Off in the distance one of those robots raked a hand across the front of the Thomas building. The thing was a shining example of Art Deco architecture, and that robot destroying the front was like somebody defacing the Mona Lisa as far as I was concerned. “Bastards,” I hissed.

“The last time I walked into a situation with guns blazing, the last time I thought I could rely on my technology to take care of everything, it ended with you losing your powers. I’m afraid we’re going to lose more than that next time.”

I squinted. And then I remembered I didn’t have to squint. One of the points of augmenting my suit with cybernetic enhancements was I didn’t have to rely on just my good old-fashioned Mark One eyeballs.

“You had super vision too?” I asked. “Maybe,” she said, sounding testy.

“It looks like she’s trying to… Turn the robots off? Put them into Spanish mode? I don’t know,” I said.

I was going to kill her. Plain and simple. Even when I’d been fighting Fialux for control of the city I’d never had the desire to actually kill and maim her. Dominate her? Yes… That brought a blush to my cheeks as I thought about some of the many ways I’d dominated her since then, but the less said about that the better.

If she thought me tugging on her hair wasn’t pleasant then getting thrown on her face by a giant robot had to be the ultimate indignity for her pain receptors.

I let out a scream of frustration. Changed my angle just a little. Flew straight at the robot, and I fired off everything I had.

I dusted my hands off. Well then. That took care of that.

I really hoped this wasn’t something that was going to become a regular thing, because it was worrying to the black depths of my villainous heart how much I was enjoying this whole knight in carbon fiber armor routine.

“And you’re the one who’s getting in the way of my product demonstration with your stupid heroics! I thought you were a villain! What the hell are you doing trying to save the city?” she shouted back.

And when I looked back to Dr. Lana I realized that maybe that glance had given away for more than I’d intended. A grin split her face. A very unpleasant grin. As though a dawning realization was coming over her.

I winced. The last thing I needed was my relationship status to be common knowledge. The absolute last thing I wanted was for my relationship status to be in the hands of my arch nemesis.

Honestly, though, that’d never been much of a concern for me. My name actually had been Natalie Terror. My grandpa told me something about a relative hundreds of years ago who’d done a little bit of pillaging and maybe that other stuff and had made a name for himself as, well, you get the point.

It was far more efficient to make a fortune by either ruling the world or taking advantage of the financial markets. And occasionally making a forceful withdrawal from a bank when I was either bored or running low on liquid assets.

Associated with the real me, that is. Night Terror. The villain who was destined to rule the world someday.

“Stupid AI.” “I know, right?” I said. “I mean you come to rely on it for everything and then it tries to betray you and…” “Exactly!” Dr. Lana said. “Is it too much to ask for an AI who’s only third law safe for its master?” “I totally get where you’re coming from,” I said. “I mean with…”

Great. Not only was Dr. Lana copying my stuff, but she was also selling it to the highest bidder. The last thing I wanted was my technology in the hands of the world’s militaries.

The shockwave, the physical force of the explosion, was way more dangerous than the fiery bits. It’d turn your insides into jelly. I imagined it wasn’t a pleasant experience for the half a second it took for someone to completely lose consciousness after having their insides liquefied.

“We’re not going to die today.” Then I looked down at Fialux who stared up at me in wide-eyed terror and realized maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say given the circumstances. Whoops.

“No, no, no, no, no!” I looked up to see Dr. Lana hovering looking down at me with pure fury. “What now?” I asked.

“You’re forgetting one thing,” I said. “I’m not a regular human.”