"Another one?" Fialux shouted.

A beam of irradiated fire slammed into the building where we stood. I jumped out of the way at the last moment. Not because I needed to so much as because it seemed dramatically appropriate to wait for the last moment, and there were always cameras watching in these fights.

My shields worked well enough to take one of those blasts without too much trouble. Even a direct hit. See all that stuff I said during my last fight with one of these bastards about how their nuclear reactors didn't hold a candle to the kind of fusion power I was pushing out.

That didn't mean I wanted to test my shields against the thing or give the scaly bastard a freebie. Running down my systems when I knew Dr. Lana was probably out there somewhere waiting to cause trouble didn't seem like the smartest idea.

Not to mention the way that beam bisected the building seemed off. Usually they caused some damage, maybe a collapse if they got in a lucky shot on a load bearing part of a building, but cutting a skyscraper in half so it slid down into the street below?

That was new. Way more powerful than usual. Fuck. The same attack but somehow bigger. This had Dr. Lana written all over it.

"There's been a boring lack of diversity in the kind of monsters that've been attacking the city lately," I growled.

"Can't someone stop them before they get big like this?" Fialux asked.

"You'd think they would," I said, dodging another beam and getting a frustrated roar from below for my trouble.

It was a wonder the government hadn't figured out that cleaning up all that nuclear waste in the restricted zones on the outskirts of the city was a hell of a lot cheaper than constantly throwing weapons at the things when they got big, but then again it wasn't like anyone in the government was in the habit of consulting me on that sort of thing.

Not when I'd made it clear that I thought the best way to bring peace and prosperity to this world was to fire anyone currently working in the government and replace them with my benevolent rule.

Yeah, when somebody knew you were gunning for their job that tended to eliminate any desire they had to work with you.

Fialux dove down at the thing, but she was smart enough to stay behind the monster where the thing's spines rose. Good girl. She'd learned.

That wasn't enough to save her from getting smacked by the giant tail that came flying through the air and slammed against her, but it's not like it was entirely her fault. Those tails could come out of nowhere, and it was always difficult to tell if you were going up against the kind of lizard that just dragged its tail behind it like tokutsatsu from the '60s or '70s when they couldn't figure out how to articulate the thing, or if it was going to use that motherfucker as a weapon like in some of the more recent movies where CGI allowed them to do cool stuff like that.

I'd even heard of one enterprising indie filmmaker who'd tried shooting a guerrilla found footage giant irradiated monster movie using an actual attack. The funeral for them and their actors was sparsely attended, but I'd made a quiet donation to all their families to keep them afloat.

Fialux flew through the air and slammed into a building. Bits of brick fell down around her, but there was also the telltale shimmer of a shield winking into existence as she hit.

I'd turned all her systems up for this fight. She'd been operating with training wheels the last time around, but I figured if we were going up against a giant adversary than I needed to let her have access to all the toys she could possibly have at her disposal.

I turned and let out a serious growl at the giant lizard. It turned and growled back at me, which was also new. Usually these things weren't that cocky.

I have to admit, its growl was a hell of a lot more intimidating than anything I could ever hope to come up with. It swiped at me, but this wasn't my first giant lizard rodeo. Though again, there was something about the air displacement as it swiped that seemed off. Wrong.

More powerful.

A tingle rose along the back of my neck. A tingle I never liked. That fucking tingle meant nothing good because it meant my "shit's about to go down" sense was going off.

When you're in the profession I'm in it's never good when shit's about to go down. Not that it was going to stop me from taking on Bitchzilla here.

"You picked the wrong day to…"

Then I heard something coming from off in the distance. Something that had that "oh shit" feeling going into overdrive. Something that shouldn't be. A sound I hadn't heard since…

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I stopped. Whirled in the air. Stared up to where Fialux had slammed into the building just to make sure she was still there. Sure enough there she was, shaking her head and looking a little dazed but otherwise not any worse for the wear considering she'd just been smacked by a giant lizard tail.

She looked at me, and it was clear the noise confused her too. It was the sonic boom of somebody flying in low in the concrete canyon that was downtown Starlight City.

The only other person I'd ever known who could do something like that was Fialux.

Something flashed. It reminded me of some of the more terrifying moments when I'd tried to take Fialux on. Tried, and failed more often than not if I'm being completely honest. I hated being completely honest about being defeated, but what can you do?

"What the hell is that?" Fialux shouted.

I shrugged. There shouldn't be anything that sounded like her flying in low over the city, and then something slammed into the lizard. One moment it was staring at me and growling, and the next its entire head was completely reversed.

The buildings echoed with a sickening crunch that sounded like a couple of semis being crushed in a car compactor. I wasn't even sure if semis could be crushed in a car compactor like that, but that was what I imagined it would sound like.

Only it wasn't a semi being crushed. No, that was the sound of the giant lizard's spine being severed as its head suddenly did a one-eighty. Not exactly the kind of thing any living thing could recover from. Even if it was a giant radioactive scaly hunk of anger and nuclear hatred that continued to exist in defiance of the square-cube law.

"What. The. Fuck."

A hero floated in the air above the giant lizard. A hero who shouldn't be there. A hero I'd been expecting, though not like this. A hero who wasn't much of a hero at all. A hero who'd finally ditched the full face mask to reveal her true self to the world.

"Dr. Lana?" I shouted.

She gave a little wave, accompanied by a self-satisfied smirk. A smirk I wanted to punch right off her smarmy face, but I had a feeling if I tried punching that smirk off her face I was going to find myself in a world of hurt.

She'd just made an entrance that was exactly like the entrances Fialux used to make. That meant she had powers. The power of flight, at least. Probably strength too considering the way she'd crunched that lizard's spine.

She wore a suit that looked kind of like what Fialux used to tool around in, and this time around there wasn't any hint of any of the toys I'd made to give myself the powers of a god. Toys she'd stolen and coopted, the bitch.

I'd expected her to come up with some fresh hell to deal with, but I'd really hoped that trick wouldn't be stealing Fialux's powers.

There were times when I hated being right.

"Hello there, Night Terror," she said. "It was awfully good of you to teleport me away after you tried to kill me with your little death chamber. Not that it would've done you a damn bit of good one way or another."

I didn't even bother asking her how it was possible she was still alive. I knew that was the kind of thing heroes shouted to villains just before they were defeated. Or the kind of thing villains shouted at heroes just before they were handed a messy beat down and defeat.

I wasn't sure if I was hero or villain, that was a little fuzzy right now, but I didn't want to give her any excuse for handing me a beat down. No way.

Instead I did the one thing everyone should do when they suddenly find themselves confronted with an opponent who shouldn't be. An opponent who may or may not have just as much power as they do. I flew straight at her, fist outstretched, and fired everything I had from my wrist blaster.

Dr. Lana just floated there in the air. Well she didn't just float there. She also let out a theatrical yawn to let me know just what she thought of my attack. The bitch.

The blasts ricocheted harmlessly off of her. Plasma blasts weren't supposed to ricochet off of anything. She wasn't supposed to be able to absorb all that energy. The only other time I'd seen someone take a hit like that was…

I looked down to the building where Fialux had finally gotten to her feet. She stood on a ledge watching with the kind of amazement you'd expect from somebody who suddenly found herself confronted with the living embodiment of all the powers she'd resigned herself to no longer having.

Yeah, that had to be a hell of a surprise for her. I knew it was a hell of a surprise for me. I pulled to a stop. If she was absorbing my ranged weapons then I sure as hell didn't want to get in close enough for her to hit me with the same sort of punch she used on that lizard.

My systems could take it for a little while. Especially with the upgrades I'd worked out fighting Fialux. But it would be a war of attrition I'd ultimately lose if she really did have the same powers Fialux used to have, and something told me she wouldn't stop at violating my fifth amendment rights when that fight came to its inevitable conclusion.

"What the hell are you doing?" I shouted.

"What does it look like?" Dr. Lana asked. "I'm taking over this city. I was going to make them love me by defeating these lizards, but since you insist on meddling in my heroics I'm going to start by taking out the greatest villain this city has ever known!"

I grinned. "I think that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me!"

Her mouth turned to a thin line. She seemed to realize a little too late exactly what she'd said. I'm sure the last thing she meant to do was compliment me, and that slip up seemed to piss her off even more.

"Let's see the greatest villain fight this," she growled.

I figured she was going to come at me. But she didn't. She just floated there smiling. And it was at that moment I heard it. I pulled up the seismic display and saw something big moving towards me. Something that…

Her momentary distraction was enough to allow the giant robot to slam into me. It was an amateur mistake, really, but I suppose anyone would make that sort of mistake when they suddenly found their nemesis approaching them with the kinds of powers no nemesis should rightfully have, damn it.

To quote a fellow titan of mad science: if I had a nickel every time that happened to me I'd have two nickels. Which wasn't a lot, but it's weird it happened twice.

How the hell had she figured out how to mimic Fialux's powers? And more to the point, did it have something to do with the way she'd stolen those powers in the first place?

If this kept up for much longer then I was really going to have to start reevaluating whether or not maybe she was the better villain, regardless of what she said.

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