I stopped to think about just how much I wanted to let her distract me. On the one hand I'd promised her I was going to whip her into fighting shape again. That I was going to use every bit of technological savvy I had to make sure she was every bit the hero she'd been before the incident with Dr. Lana had robbed her of her powers.

Weird. I barely felt a skittering of guilt running across my conscience when I thought of that moment now. Sure I still felt bad, but at the same time I'd come to accept that she knew the risks when she went into that fight.

It helped that I'd also realized she could still be the hero she once was. Even if it was going to take a little bit of assistance from me. Even if the technology I had was nothing compared to what she'd been able to do in her prime.

Assuming she learned how to actually use this stuff and not just barrel into situations and hope her powers would be enough to save her cute ass.

"You know you're never going to learn anything if…"

I was interrupted by her finger moving up to my lips. There was a twinkle in her eyes. A twinkle I knew all too well. A twinkle that had distracted me on more than one occasion, and it was clear she was going to try and get out of this particular lesson by distracting me with the sexy.

"You're really only hurting yourself by…"

"Quiet," she said. "There's nothing saying we can't have a little bit of fun in the middle of training. Think of it as providing motivation.

Okay. Not that I minded being distracted with the sexy. Especially if she was in the mood to distract me with the sexy. It was something I'd been perfectly fine to be distracted by in the past, after all.

It's just that there was real work that had to be done here and…

"You're bad. You know that, right?" I asked.

"Maybe I am," she said, her breath hot against me. "But I think you love it.

She was right on that count. My toes were already curling and her lips weren't even pressing against mine. If she kept this up for much longer then…

And sure enough she was leaning up. Her lips puckered up and her eyes closed. I found myself leaning in without really thinking about how I was letting her get out of her work.

That's what this was really about. She was used to just being able to do this stuff with her powers. Now she had to actually train, and she got annoyed at training.

I was starting to suspect one of the reasons why she'd chosen a journalism major in the first place was because it was the kind of major that didn't have a lot of academic rigor so she could skate by.

And she was getting away with it. I was losing it. Losing it wasn't good. I needed to train her, damn it.

A shield popped up between us at the last moment. I regretted doing it, but at the same time it had to be done. Fialux bounced off of it with a surprised grunt. She fell to the ground with a grunt, but a shield popped up around her at the last moment to keep it from hurting too much.

"What the…"

I'd barely managed to put up one of my directional shields in time. Fialux looked supremely surprised to see the shield there between us, and she arched an eyebrow.

"Always use protection," I said.

"I don't think that applies to us," she said.

"Not in the traditional sense, but I think it applies in the sense I'm using it right now," I said.

"Isn't that shield one of those things you only use when something life-threatening is coming at you?"

"Something like that," I said.

"And you consider me kissing you life-threatening?" she asked. "Do I need to brush my teeth or something? I mean I know I had that everything bagel yesterday, but I figured…"

I smiled. I couldn't help it. She was so cute when she got like this. She was so used to me throwing myself at her that it didn't compute when I changed things up.

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Besides, it was nice to know I could frustrate her, because she'd been frustrating me an awful lot with her constant attempts to get out of her training.

"It's nothing like that," I said. "But not training properly could be potentially life-threatening. You remember what happened the last time you tried to use some of my equipment out in the wild, right?"

Her face fell. Yeah, she totally remembered the last time she tried using some of my equipment out in the wild. We'd tried fighting off a couple of giant robots rampaging through the city, and the end result hadn't been pretty.

Tried was the operative word there. I ended up doing most of the fighting while she did her best impression of Fay Wray, only she'd been grabbed by a giant robot Dr. Lana was unimaginatively showing off to military types.

At least I was pretty sure that whole thing had been her putting on a show for Uncle Sam and his deep pockets when it came to anything related to military spending. Nobody ever got rich developing ways to feed the poor or come up with a healthcare program for everyone, after all.

Bastards.

"What does that have to do with me kissing you?" she asked. "I promise I brushed my teeth and I used mouthwash after I got done eating that bagel!"

My mouth compressed to a thin line. I'd been pretty sure she'd had something like that to eat yesterday. I swear. This girl had an iron stomach even if she had lost all of her powers.

I couldn't eat stuff like that without my stomach twisting into knots. I couldn't smell the remains of something like that on someone's breath without my stomach twisting into knots, for that matter.

Maybe it was a good thing I'd put up that shield. The last thing I needed was to lose my lunch after kissing her because she liked disgusting spices on her food.

No, scratch that. Those spices were delicious while I was eating them. They weren't quite as great when I was kissing someone who'd been eating them.

"Yes, well the point is you're trying to kiss me to distract me from training you, and you really need to learn how to use this stuff. What happens if you go out there trying to use these toys and you don't actually have the experience to use them? What happens if you don't have me there to pull your bacon out of the frying pan?"

She stalked off to the other side of the flight room and I heard her saying a couple of choice things about the chastity of my mother that I'm not going to repeat, but I kept my peace.

After all, my mother did have to have questionable chastity on at least one occasion if I was here, right? There was a certain elegant logic to her litany of swear words, even if it wasn't exactly nice.

She took a deep breath. Held out the control box in her fist. Elevated into the air, and zipped across the room. Right towards me.

"That's it! Let the hate flow through you!" I shouted.

"If you think references are going to save your ass when I get you you're sorely mistaken!" she shouted back.

I wasn't sure I needed references to save me. Usually all I had to do was stand in place and wait for her to go flying around me. Ooh, that was good. I could use that.

"I figure I'm safe as long as you're aiming for me!" I shouted.

Her eyes narrowed. Oh yeah, that pissed her off. Her fist clenched in front of her and she let out a scream.

I didn't think it was necessarily appropriate for her to always be coming at me with her fist outstretched like that, screaming in rage, but then again if taking out a little bit of her frustration on me because she had a problem with my teaching methods was enough to get her to actually do what needed to be done?

I'd take it.

I watched without much in the way of real fear. Maybe just a touch of PTSD worry from all the times she'd come at me like that when she was a real danger. She flew across the room, fist outstretched, face contorted in the sort of rage that only comes from a student frustrated with a teacher for giving out what they consider an unfair homework assignment.

Sure enough, there was no cause for me to be too worried. That look of pure fury turned to a look of pure surprise and terror as she started to lose control and went flying through the air again. Her shields kicked up just in time to stop her from really hurting herself as she smashed into various parts of the flight lab.

I sighed. We were going to be at this for a while.

I glanced at the Starlight City News Network feed in the heads up display I maintained in my contact lenses. They let me keep tabs on the world without getting Fialux too distracted.

Like almost everyone from our generation, the appearance of a screen was enough to immediately pull her away from whatever she was doing.

I frowned as I looked at the feed. A giant irradiated lizard was attacking the city, and it was really giving things a walloping. As I watched it clawed the facade of an all glass tower, and the destruction was nothing short of spectacular.

Not my problem, but it could become my problem if Fialux found out about the damn thing. Which is one reason why the news feed was strictly isolated to my contacts right now.

Something whooshed past me. I blinked and looked at Fialux screaming as she slammed against the wall yet again. Yet again the shields popped up and kept her from hurting herself too bad. I guess while I'd been distracted by the giant monster attacking the city I hadn't noticed her closing.

Oops.

I closed down the SCNN news feed. It's not like there was ever anything interesting that happened during those giant lizard attacks. Mostly it was an opportunity for the military to prance around and show off all the toys they never got a chance to show off otherwise since there were no other hyperpowers in the world stupid enough to take them on.

I suppose using multimillion dollar cruise missiles to take potshots at people living in tents in the desert got old. The lizards were probably a nice change of pace.

Also? Totally not my concern. I'd catch up on the reports later when I wasn't training Fialux.

I turned back to my lovely girlfriend and grinned. She was sprawled against the back wall with her head on the ground and her ass and legs up in the air against the wall.

"Very good," I said. "Now let's do that again until you get it right. We're not stopping until I feel your fist against my face!"

"That can be arranged!" she growled, hurtling through the air again.

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