I hated sneaking around and using disguises. I was Night Terror. The greatest villain Starlight City had ever seen, which meant I was the greatest villain the world had ever seen.

Fialux said it best. Sure she was trying to build me up, but still. She was the greatest hero the world had ever seen. She knew her shit.

I was the greatest, and I had to resort to sneaking into the Applied Sciences Department to get my revenge. The last thing I wanted was another fight with Dr. Lana.

Not because I was afraid of her. Oh no. Because fighting her had been one of the most annoying experiences of my villainous career. We're talking I'd almost rather listen to CORVAC going on about all the cool whizz-bangs he was going to put into his giant death robot.

Almost.

So I went with the disguise this time. A disguise was marginally less annoying than Dr. Lana refusing to stay down.

Slow and steady. Don't mind me. I was just a college student, maybe even a grad student, making my way through the Applied Sciences Department. I'd put on the traditional college girl uniform of yoga pants and a T-shirt featuring Greek letters that, ironically enough, could usually only be read by the college kids most likely to prefer drinking to studying.

And some of the nerds in the math department who enjoyed masochism via textbook.

Sure it'd taken me a little longer than usual to get out of the lab this morning. Selena took one look at me in that traditional uniform and she was all over me.

That led to a blush. I didn't need a blush right now. I needed to concentrate.

"Are you ready for me yet?"

I jumped at the voice, and it earned me an odd look from a girl staring at the entrance lobby with the deer in headlights look that most freshmen get when they're navigating campus without the benefit of a tour group.

The poor thing was probably still terrified from the giant robot attack. Followed by Night Terror, the greatest villain this city and the world had ever seen, descending on this building in full force and…

Getting a whole lot of nothing for her trouble, if I was being honest.

"Not happening," I said in a really quiet whisper that could only be picked up by a microscopic mic implanted next to my voice box. The practical upshot was I could have a conversation nice and quiet-like without anyone around me having any idea what I was doing.

Though I was in the goddamned Applied Sciences Department. If there was anyone out there who could screw me over on that score, it was Dr. Lana. She'd proved to be irritatingly persistent.

"Come on Natalie," Selena whined. "Things have been so boring lately!"

I smiled. Then quickly schooled my face to look like I was just another student gawking at finally being at Starlight City University.

I passed a security guard who was packing a lot more heat than most people you saw working campus security. Which is to say he was packing heat.

It was a sign they were taking things a hell of a lot more seriously here in the Applied Sciences Department than they did at any other part of the University. That guy hadn't been there a week ago.

And he was useless. All it took was a temporary dye job and a pair of glasses and he didn't realize he was looking at the great Night Terror who had so recently terrorized his boss.

"Natalie? You're ignoring me again," she said.

I would've cursed if I could get away with it and not raise some eyebrows. I almost missed CORVAC being in my ear. At least he could monitor everything through the feeds in my equipment and be satisfied. Selena could see those same feeds, but clearly she was itching for more.

The people who went after her with those weird weapons that sapped her power, weapons I hadn't been able to figure out despite spending hours trying in the past week at her insistence, were the same people who were stealing my designs. It'd taken all of my persuasive powers to keep her from coming out here and turning the building into a crater.

Turns out she was just trying to sweet talk me with that whole "hovering over the spaghetti and promising to stay away from the Applied Sciences Department" routine. Apparently it wasn't just men who were willing to say whatever they thought you wanted to hear to get some.

"You're not coming out here until we figure out what's going on here and where they're keeping their R&D lab," I whispered. "That means no smash and grab!"

I swear. There were times when it was like talking to CORVAC. Her method of taking care of problems was always far more direct than mine. No finesse. No subtlety.

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Which admittedly had worked out pretty well with CORVAC, but it wouldn't work here. Dr. Lana was too crafty for that.

"Fine," she said. "But those security people can't stop you."

"They can't stop me, but they could alert other people and turn this into a huge headache. Are you forgetting what happened last time?"

Those armed security guards might not make this that much more dangerous, but it was still an added element of danger. Marginally more danger, to be sure, but still more danger.

Which is why I was walking around as though I was a meek student. I definitely wasn't the world's premier super villainess who'd come into the Applied Sciences Department because recent events had left me with one hell of a sneaking suspicion they were stealing my stuff.

I had to know if that stupid bitch Dr. Lana had a copy of all my records from when I was still a student here, or if she'd somehow figured out a way to get into my systems.

After CORVAC I couldn't take any possible breach lightly. Not with such a major betrayal still fresh in my memory. Hell, it was possible Selena was right and CORVAC was the breach, for all that he acted like he loathed Dr. Lana, but I had to be sure.

I smiled. It had been a betrayal, but that bastard got what was coming to him in the end.

"Looks like someone has been hitting the donuts a little hard," Selena said.

I tried not to snicker as I nodded to the rotund guard sitting behind a security desk as I stepped onto an elevator he was guarding. Again, there hadn't been a guard there a week ago.

I stepped onto the elevator and breathed a sigh of relief.

The Applied Sciences Department might rise a couple stories above the university, but the good stuff happened in the basement levels that spread out all across camp. Down where nobody but the Applied Sciences people and the occasional mole person invading to get revenge for some relative or another who was tragically killed when they were digging out these tunnels for the Manhattan Project knew what was happening.

"Would you stop that?" I whispered once I was on the elevator. "If you keep up this commentary you're going to make me laugh and give myself away!"

"Would that be so bad?" she asked. "Then we can get down to the real action!"

"We are not getting down to the real action until…"

The doors opened and I shut up. It's not like someone could hear, but I didn't want to take too many risks.

The bored guard on this lower level sat behind a desk that screamed retro-futuristic. I would've said that was because whoever designed this place liked that aesthetic, but the plain truth was this part of the Applied Sciences Department had been around since the '40s when retro-futuristic was still plain old futuristic.

Next to that retro-future desk was my first test of the day. And it was almost enough to make me laugh. This had all been here the last time I worked here, and I'd prepared for it.

A metal detector. With a second very bored security guard standing next to it.

"That guard's shirt has to incorporate some of the cutting-edge materials science they're working on in this building," I whispered, unable to stop from making a crack of my own.

"Come again?" Selena asked.

I didn't roll my eyes, but I was feeling it. "Come on. I can't think of any other way for a gut that big to be held in by a shirt like that!"

"I see."

"Regular buttons can't contain fat of that magnitude!"

"Is that another reference or something?" she asked.

"Come on. Return of the Jedi?"

"Remind me. Is that a Star War or a Star Trek?"

"It's a line from a Star War, yes," I said. "Maybe the last good Star Wars movie. Unless you count the one Mel Brooks made."

"Oh. Um, sure. Ha ha?" Selena said, letting out a very half assed laugh.

I reminded myself that she was, at heart, a journalism student. I guess science jokes didn't do it for her.

The corpulent guard didn't even look up from his phone as I passed through the metal detector. Which was almost a pity.

Almost, but not quite. I didn't want to raise the alarm too early, after all.

There was no question that I'd eventually raise the alarm. It was just a matter of how far I managed to penetrate before the bullets started to fly.

"So what do you want to eat tonight? Chinese?"

"You know Chinese upsets my stomach," I whispered, not realizing how mundane the conversation was until the words were out of my mouth.

"Everything upsets your stomach," she said.

"Everything spicy," I replied. "Some of us don't have a stomach that was forged in the nuclear fire of an alien sun, y'know."

I was fishing. I did that a lot with her lately. And as always she refused to rise to the bait.

Rex Roth had her admitting to being an alien from another world in one of his interviews, but I knew now that Rex Roth could also get her to say whatever he wanted her to say. I didn't trust anything from his interviews, and Selena had been surprisingly cagey about her origins.

Even the one time I threatened to stop making out with her unless she told me something. That threat hadn't lasted too long. She knew me too well.

"Right. So we could go get Chinese at a buffet and you could get the boring stuff on the back end!"

"Fine," I said. "But only after we get done with this."

"I'm starting to think you're never getting done with this," she said. "My way's faster."

"It's faster, but we might not find everything Dr. Lana is hiding in here."

I activated a small device that told the metal detector there was nothing to see here. In a fit of pique I'd even put a giant slab of iron right in the middle of the thing.

The iron didn't serve any practical purpose. It was just a not-so-subtle "fuck you" to anyone operating a metal detector who thought they were going to capture the great and powerful Night Terror.

"You don't have to stand there if it doesn't beep," the guard grunted, not bothering to look up from his phone.

I looked around. Right. I'd allowed myself to get distracted. He probably thought I was some freshman coming down here for the first time.

Which was kind of flattering when you thought about it. It was nice to know I could still pull off the freshman look despite being closer to my late twenties.

"Sorry," I muttered, not needing to act out the blush that hit me.

I walked deeper into the Applied Sciences Department. If memory served, the elevator bank leading down into the really impressive stuff would be just around the corner and…

I found myself facing the elevator banks, but it was like nothing I'd seen when I still went to school here. No, obviously Dr. Lana had been very busy making sure her personal fiefdom was impenetrable.

Damn it. I'd figured parts of this were going to be harder than waltzing in, but I hadn't expected to run into a wall so soon.

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