"What are you talking about, Night Terror?"

The sneer was obvious in his voice. He hated me almost as much as I hated him. The details weren't important. Let's just say one of my plans ended up humiliating the great Rex Roth in front of the entire world and leave it at that.

It might have involved him being terrified of one of my toys. That's all I'm going to say.

Maybe he peed his pants a little. Or a lot. While he was crying.

In the middle of a live report on national television.

"It really was a clever plan," I said.

Rex smiled and puffed up a bit. "Why thank you," he said. "That's high praise indeed coming from the second-best villain in the city."

I bristled at that jab, but I kept up the act. There was a reason I was number one, and part of that was because I wouldn't let ego get in the way when it mattered. I just hoped that Rex would.

"What's she talking about, Rex?" Fialux asked.

Rex walked over to Fialux. He reached a hand out and put it under her chin with a smile. His other hand came out. His eyes did that weird glowy thing, but of course there was no reaction from Fialux because she was wearing my contacts independent of any meddling supercomputers.

Confirmation piling on confirmation, but I still had to be careful. If I didn't play this right then it could all blow up in my face in a seriously bad way.

"Don't worry about what Night Terror's saying," Rex said. "I know you don't understand that you love me…"

He hesitated at that. Turned to glare at me. Which was interesting. Had he tried to use his mind control on her and it didn't work? At least not for… that?

That was a relief. I flattered myself that she was so into me that Rex Roth's mind control charms didn't work on her. More likely? Baby, she was born this way. It's not like it was a choice like those religious fruitcakes who were constantly trying to pray the gay away because they were so deep in the closet they thought they had to choose to be straight to make their invisible sky friend happy insisted.

Also? Rex was definitely going for the double cross play. Turning the superheroine against me and letting her rip me apart. Sure Fialux seemed to have a prohibition against killing people, but Rex didn't seem to have any pesky moral compass preventing him from ordering her to kill me.

It was splitting morality hairs, but it was a hair splitting that could've resulted in Fialux splitting me right down the middle with her super strength if I hadn't given her countermeasures.

I was really glad I gave her my countermeasures.

Rex looked for a long expectant moment and sighed when he realized his trick wasn't working. That was the problem with having one arrow in your quiver. And he dared call me second best. The prick.

"Do you really think you can control her?" I asked.

"Is it any different from what you've done? Don't think I won't forget how you tried to steal my favorite pet away from me."

"I did nothing of the sort," I said. "She's free to come and go as she pleases, and I'm certainly not giving any orders. Plus she kissed me. Something tells me you didn't even get that far."

Rex whirled on me and his face was a mask of pure fury. Oh yeah. He didn't even get that far.

"You just had to interfere, didn't you? And I made the mistake of trusting that damn computer, thinking it could keep you under control," he said.

"So CORVAC was in on it?" I said.

"Yes! And it would've been the perfect plan too, if that bag of circuits hadn't screwed up!"

I chuckled. "I've thought that one to myself more than once."

I glanced at Fialux. She was looking at good old Rex Roth like he'd sprung a second head and fangs. Good. Now I just had to keep him talking long enough to let him hoist himself by his own petard with a villainous monologue.

"So what? You keep Fialux occupied and CORVAC keeps me tied up? That was seriously your plan?"

Rex shrugged. "It was working well enough. 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. Until that computer decided he wanted to be more front and center. The idiot."

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"You've got that right. CORVAC was an idiot," I said.

"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…"

Rex stopped and his eyes narrowed. I shook my head. Huh. Apparently Rex Roth and I had at least one thing in common. Hatred of CORVAC. But it wasn't enough to save him.

He took a step towards me. His fist raised and I had to hold back a laugh. If he thought he was going to get me by getting physical then he had another think coming. It's not like he had super strength or anything that would actually be useful in a fight.

No, he was just a dude with one trick I'd rendered useless. An asshole with a mind control augmented charisma score. Which explained why everyone in the city seemed to love him while I saw right through him to what an asshole he really was.

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.

Then his fist loosened. He looked at it, then back to me. A smile broke out his across his face.

"But there's nothing saying I can't keep on with the original plan even if that damn computer managed to fail, right?"

I arched an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

He took a step towards me, that smile still on his face. It looked like he was trying to turn on the charm full power, but as I looked at him I still saw the same sniveling, skinny bag of slop I hated so much. Was he really trying to use his mind control on me?

"It doesn't have to be like this, Night Terror," he said. "You could join in my takeover of the world. The two of us working together! We'd be unstoppable!"

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

The smile slipped. Was he really expecting mind control to work on me? Hadn't he noticed I was standing here talking to him, insulting him, rather than standing around slack-jawed looking at him like he was the best thing since the invention of subatomic matter teleportation?

Which I invented thank you very much.

It appeared I was in luck. It appeared my assessment of Rex Roth was still very much true. He was an idiot. Of course I don't know why I expected a journalist to notice subtle detail. Whatever. That was his mistake and not my problem.

No sooner had his smile slipped than it was back in full force.

"I'm not giving you orders, Night Terror. 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. Think of what we could do with our powers combined!"

"So that's your plan for world domination?" I asked. "Take influential women under your control and get them to do your bidding?"

The smile slipped again. "Of course that's my plan! And it's not like I'm doing anything wrong. Selena was happy. Content. Right, baby?"

He turned Fialux, but she looked anything but happy. Only he smiled and seemed to take that as confirmation that he was absolutely right.

I rolled my eyes. Rex was your typical manchild who never learned how to appropriately interact with women, and the shit cherry on top of the crap sundae was he had those crazy mind control eyes that meant he never had to learn the lesson that he was a useless pile of crap with no redeeming qualities and no interest in developing them.

"So let me get this straight. Now that CORVAC failed, your big plan was to use mind control on me?" I asked. "And if that doesn't work you're going to keep right on using your mind control on other women until you get what you want?"

"Of course," Rex said with a shrug. "Why not?"

Here we were. Right back in the same place I'd been in a dark alley a while back trying to trick Fialux into rescuing me. Rex was a mad dog just the same as that asshole in that dark alley. The only difference was he was working on a scale that far surpassed anything a lone criminal working the bad part of town could ever hope for.

And what did we do with mad dogs?

I raised my wrist blaster. His eyes widened, but it was already too late. Oh yes, he'd seen me use the wrist blaster countless times before. He'd seen exactly what kind of damage it could do. He was the great Rex Roth. The only journalist brave enough to cover supervillains and the heroes who fought them and live to tell the tale.

I wondered how many times he'd survived because he'd used his mind control mojo to get out of a sticky situation. The asshole was lucky the worst I'd wanted to do was humiliate him in front of a national audience with the way I could resist his trick.

"No!"

He tripped over his own feet as he scrambled up and turned to run. Unfortunately he turned to run directly away from me instead of jumping to the side.

"You should've paid better attention in Surviving A Heroic Intervention, Rex," I said as he scrambled away. In a straight line. "Rule number one. You can't outrun the speed of light."

Rex's final terrified cry still hung in the air as the disintegration beam shot out, made contact with his body, and a moment later there was nothing but disassociated molecules that used to be Rex Roth.

I stood and brushed off my suit just in case some of those molecules happened to float my way before they dispersed. The last thing I needed was Rex Roth molecular remnants getting on me.

Yuck.

Fialux might have a no-kill policy, at least I was pretty sure she was a no-kill hero based on my observations, but I wasn't above taking out the trash when it was obvious it needed to be done. One death to prevent many. That was a tradeoff I was willing to take.

"Rex won't bother anybody ever again," I said.

I turned to Fialux. This next part could get dicey. She frowned as we locked eyes, and it was clear she wasn't happy about what I'd just done.

"No killing."

Okay. That confirmed her policy.

I floated over and put a finger to her lips. "That's your rule, not mine. We might be working together on this, but that doesn't mean I'm going to play by all of your rules."

To my surprise her frown split to a grin. "The asshole did deserve it."

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?

I could get back to villainy later. After my heroic kiss.

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