The Siege
The miles vanished beneath me, the city retreating and a sea of dark forest laid out below. A flash of blue suddenly lit up the night on the face of the mountains. Oh, that wasn’t good. That wasn’t good at all! I put on another burst of speed, the air screaming around my helmet as I shifted direction. No time to hesitate. No time. No time!
I rounded the slope and halted in midair with horror. Before me lay the chalet, and it was under attack! Huge sheets of ice formed massive walls around the compound. Glacia’s work for sure. The chalet’s windows were shuttered with metal like a bunker under full lockdown. Pillars of ice impaled monsters here and there, but the real show was overhead.
A tilt-rotor aircraft was hovering just out of range of Glacia’s attacks, the thumping of its propellors deafening. All in black and highlights of green, the aircraft’s spotlights blasted down on the lawn, illuminating leaping throggs as they surged across the grounds. Here and there I spotted Dolly’s maintenance robots, mostly in pieces, while Teklin’s chrome warbots marched over their corpses, flamethrowers blasting holes in the icy walls so they could complete their advance.
Glacia floated above the front entrance of the building, glowing like the north star, her arms raised, winds screaming with icy cold all around her, too strong for the aircraft to close. All the while her hands were busy blasting rays of searing white at the creatures advancing across the lawn.
I felt my chest tighten at the sight. Teklin. Bastard. Fucking bastard! He was going to pay for this!
I swooped low, landing by the door and letting go of Psyren.
“Sir!” Glacia gasped, drifting down, the wind around her dying. She didn’t look good. Her face was flushed a bright red and she was breathing hard. Even her descent was wobbly, and when she landed she staggered a bit. “You’re… you’re back.”
“I am. Psyren?” I said, looking back at the psychic and nodding towards the advancing throggs. “Can you do something about these things?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” she giggled, reaching up and taking off her headphones.
Instantly I felt a throbbing in my skull like someone had tightened a vice around my brain. A humming tinted the air a neon pink and buzzed in the stone and metal around us. Motes of dust and small rocks rose from the ground as, smirking, Psyren threw open her arms, her eyes pulsing with pink hearts.
“Hello boys!” she cried, her voice vibrating in the air. “Who wants to be my friend?”
The throggs froze, staring at her with round yellow eyes, enraptured with her figure as she stood before them. Which made it wonderfully convenient for me to focus on the warbots who’d finally broken through the ice. As the androids marched forward in fascist lockstep, weapons levelling, I reached out my hand, sending my magnetic powers surging into them, resonating with the circuitry under their metal exteriors. Almost too easy. With a jerk I wrenched out their components.
Sparks exploded from the robots, raining down as the mechanical monsters slumped, inert like a cyber plague had laid them low. In a wave they toppled, crashing to the lawn, some twitching as sparks hissed from between joints.
I turned from the destroyed androids and looked up at the black aircraft hovering over the battlefield, engines thumping audibly. Even as I locked eyes on it, the pilot turned its rotors to pull it away and back into the night.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said, pointing at it, my powers magnetically seizing it. The aircraft halted, rotors whining as they strained against my hold. I widened my stance, feeling the pull of it, but there was no escaping me.
Time to make him pay.
I pulled my arm back, and with it came the aircraft, reeled towards me like a fish on the line. Engines howling, the pilot, likely guessing what I was trying to do, rotated the nose-mounted gatling gun my way. That might have been a problem for anyone else, but not for me. I raised my other arm as the gun roared, chattering as a barrage of bullets rained down on me in a storm, only to swerve aside as they hit a magnetic barrier, punching holes into the lawn instead of me and the girls.
I let it finish up its assault, the rotating cannon glowing a cherry red as it ran out of ammo. What I wouldn’t give to see the expression on the pilot’s face.
Ah well. This was still my favorite part, and I couldn’t suppress a smile as I suddenly squeezed.
The rotors of its propellors groaned, crushed like a beer can in my magnetic grip. Explosions erupted from the engines, jostling the aircraft. I kept it aloft for a hot second, just long enough for the occupants to feel a faint twinge of hope that maybe they were okay.
And then I let it go.
The whole machine plummeted out of the sky like a rock. It hit the lawn in an explosion of fire and wreckage, illuminating the night in a flash. Ah. That felt good.
“Victor!”
I looked back as the door to the chalet swung open with a whirr and Dolly flew out, crashing into my back with a suffocating hug. Oof! She was strong despite being kinda short. I staggered forward, then patted her head as she nuzzled my back. “You okay?” I asked.
“Fine. Fine! Oh fuck. Victor. I almost… I didn’t…”
I stroked her hair until she calmed down, then I looked back over to the wreck of the aircraft. Something was moving in there. “It’s not over yet,” I said, easing her back. “Just a second while I finish this.”
Dolly shuffled back a step and I made my way towards the crash site. Acrid smoke plumed from the thing and the fires licked all over the smashed hull and wings. But the cockpit had clearly been reinforced, and had largely survived the impact, along with its denizen. As I drew near, the glass dome was heaved off, and a figure tumbled out of it and onto the grass.
Well well.
Would ya look at that.
Forcing himself onto his hands and knees, his black coat shredded and singed, Teklin raised his head and looked at me wrathfully. His neon jaw was tight, the cybernetics threading his body faintly vibrating as I got near him.
“You… Look what you did!” he spat.
“Yeah, I’m the asshole here,” I said, reaching out. He jerked as my magnetic powers grasped the metal in his body, lifting him off the ground and into the air. “I wasn’t the one who sent monsters, assassins, and worse after someone. And I sure as fuck didn’t try and storm somebody’s home while they were out at a concert, which you almost nearly fucked up, by the way. So thanks for that. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you led this little invasion yourself. Had to get Dolly back at any cost, huh?”
Teklin quivered in my magnetic grip, his mechanical eye glowing hot, radioactive green as he glared down at me. “She is… wasted… with you!”
“Well, that’s her decision,” I said. “Not yours.”
“You can’t… beat… me!” he spat, teeth grit, green light pulsing from his augmentics. “You’re… nothing!”
“Yeah? Well, you’re the one who lost to me. So what’s that say about you?”
“Haven’t… lost… yet!”
His human hand opened, dropping something. It hit the ground with a clinking sound and I looked down.
To see an empty syringe, the tip glowing a soft green.
Oh fuck.
I whipped my head back towards Teklin in horror as his grin warped, growing wider, toothier, and sharper than before. Mother fucker got me monologuing! With my powers I grabbed the cybernetics infesting his body and ripped them out. Teklin screamed as every piece of metal was torn out of him, but even as I watched his wounds closed and flesh swelled.
Without the cybernetics, he dropped from my magnetic grasp and to the ground, still changing. Scales rippled across his skin. His eyes grew larger, blazing with a poisonous green glow. Fingers stretched into claws, and still his body got bigger.
Bigger.
Bigger!
I backpedaled as Teklin grew larger with every passing second. I stretched my magnetic powers behind me, grabbing the bullets his rotator gun had peppered the lawn with and pulled them into the air around me. “Psyren!” I shouted. “Get him! Now!”
Psyren glowered at the creature then flinched and staggered back. “His brain is… it’s fucked up, boss. I can’t get a read on it.”
“Do what you can,” I shouted.
Psyren scowled, then looked at the toad-like monsters all over the lawn staring at her in rapt adoration. “Attack!” Psyren shouted, her voice ringing in the air with her psychic powers.
As one the throggs burst into motion, turning on their master in a mob. Teklin howled as their teeth bit into his flesh, but he simply tore them off as he continued to grow, his flesh remolding and swirling together almost like a liquid. Forming horns and claws and extra limbs with every passing moment.
“Dolly! What the fuck?” I demanded as I sent a return-to-sender barrage of bullets at Teklin without much noticeable effect.
“He used the mutagen!” she gasped.
“Cliffnotes version!” I demanded.
“It’s a rapid regenerator serum! It was designed as an immortality drug, but we never got it right. It always caused horrible mutations. I left before we could fix that. He’ll just keep regenerating until it runs out of juice!”
“Well, how long will that take?”
“At this rate? A month.”
Well shit, that wasn’t good at all.
But wait.
Wait…
“What about the death ray? Can you use it to hit him hard enough to make it stop?”
“I um… maybe,” Dolly said, brightening. “But it’ll need time to charge up.”
“Well, get started! I’ll hold him until you can.”
Dolly’s expression firmed. She nodded, then grabbed me by the face, pulled me down, and kissed me hard.
My mind went blank, fireworks bursting behind my eyes. The ferocity of her kiss genuinely shocked me. I’d kissed Dolly many a time before, but the passion she was putting into it at that moment put all those other times to shame.
She pulled back, and I swore I could hear our lips pop apart from the force of the suction. “Don’t die,” she gasped.
“Uh… okay,” my frazzled brain managed.
Dolly giggled, then turned and raced back into the chalet. I watched her go, swaying a little where I stood. Holy fuck. That was…
“Sir!”
Oh, right. The kaiju forming on the front lawn.
Should probably do something about that.
I turned about as Teklin howled, throwing aside the surviving throggs. Four arms tipped in massive claws slammed into the earth as he reared up. Fucker was already bigger than a goddam toolshed and was showing no signs of slowing down.
“Glacia?” I said. “Buy me some time. Psyren? Give him the mother of all fucking headaches.”
“Yes sir!” Glacia said, rising into the air on a whirl of freezing air.
“Got an idea, boss?” Psyren said.
“Yeah. But I need time to make it work.”
“You’ll get it,” Psyren said with a wink, then looked back to the monster that was Teklin.
I exhaled. I didn’t want to put the girls in danger, but I needed a couple minutes. I hadn’t done this in a long ass time. I pushed my focus into my center, stretching out my arms. I tried to block out the howl of rage from Teklin’s three mouths as Glacia sent a ray of freezing cold up his arm. Even as he turned to go after her he stumbled, head thrashing as Psyren sent a spear of mental anguish into his frontal cortex.
I forced myself to pay them no attention. All my focus was here. I stretched out my power, feeling all the metal scattered about the grounds. The broken warbots. The ruin of the aircraft. Even the metal shutters over the windows of the chalet. Well, if this didn’t work, those metal barriers would be about as useful as a wet paper towel against a machete. Time to put them to better use.
I tightened my hands into fists, the metal all across the grounds vibrating. Humming in answer to my power. I pulled back my arms, and from everywhere it came. Smashed components. Chunks of the aircraft. Metal shutters tearing free of the chalet and soaring to me, whirling about me. Warbots were disassembled with a few motions, their armour plating circling around me. The pieces of the aircraft thumped into place. I rose off the ground as the metal coalesced around me, forming immense arms and legs held in place with my power. Fingers of metal plating twisted into shape along with a heavy center.
I opened my eyes, and through the holes in the head of my new junk mecha, I beheld the monster.
I slowly moved my mech’s arms, my magnetic powers easing every motion, but it was pretty stiff. Assembling the thing strictly with my powers would do that. It had been a long time since I’d used this technique. I hadn’t tried it since I’d been hired by Calcif Toothpaste to take a beating from the Cavity Crusher. They’d wanted something bigger than usual, and I’d certainly delivered. But given how massive this thing was, the difficulty holding it together, and the unavoidable collateral damage, I rarely ever did it. No one could afford it.
But it was the perfect thing to make Teklin pay.
“Glacia! Pick up Psyren. Pull her back and try to attack at range,” I thundered through my helmet, my voice echoing weirdly from the metal head I lurked within. I moved the mech’s hands, pounding a fist into an open palm with a groan and bang of metal on metal. “I’ve got it now.”
“Yes, sir!” Glacia gasped. She broke off her attack, instead swooping low and picking up Psyren, who was staring at my mech with awe.
“Holy shit, boss! Look at you!” Psyren gushed.
“Yeah, look at me,” I grunted, moving the mech’s legs, lumbering towards Teklin.
The monster tried to snap after Glacia, but when he heard me coming his head swung my way. Eight massive eyes widened in shock as my fist drew back and slammed into his face like a jackhammer. His head whipsawed back with a screech that went down my spine like fingernails. I followed it up with another swing that smashed into his scaly underbelly and doubled him over.
But it wasn’t going to be all my way. Almost at once Teklin’s lowered head thrust forward, slamming into the mech’s chest with a groan of metal. I braced as best I could, but my metal body was big and pretty much empty. My mech’s arms wrapped around Teklin’s torso and I heaved. Ohhhhhhh fuck I regretted this! He was heavy as all hell, but I somehow managed to lift him temporarily off the ground. Teklin screeched as his legs kicked uselessly moments before I slammed him down, smashing his head into the ground in a piledriver. I could hear the snap of bones, but even as I did his tail crashed into my mech’s body hard.
I staggered back and heard a loud crunch below me. I made a crack in my armour to see what I’d stepped on. Oh fucking hell. I’d just turned the foyer of the chalet into a crater. That was going to be expensive. Provided I survived this.
And as I turned back to face Teklin I knew that was in doubt. This wasn’t a fight fists were going to win. I’d broken Teklin’s neck, but before my eyes his whole body rolled back upright, growing a new pair of legs, his arms shrinking to make up for the mass. His old head sank into his body, reforming into a toothy maw at the end of a second tail. The rest of him compacted into a massive round thing like a throgg, complete with a maw of razor sharp teeth that was basically his whole stomach. And I just bet he’d also have some acid spit for me.
Time to get some distance.
I’d picked up a hell of a lot of weaponry when I’d disassembled those warbots into my mech, and now I opened my chest and put them all right there. Teklin looked down at the sudden battery of gun barrels, flamethrowers and missile pods suddenly jutting from my mech, and some edge of understanding seemed to penetrate his twisted brain.
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said, and with a flick of my magnetic powers, pulled every last trigger.
Missiles, bullets, and even some things that looked like rays of laser cannons poured out of my mech and hammered Teklin. He howled again in rage and pain, forced back several steps as explosions peppered his bulk. But that wouldn’t last long.
And neither would I.
I was already starting to feel the strain of overusing my magnetic powers. My body felt like it was being pulled apart by the weight of every piece of metal I was manipulating, and it was only going to get worse. Teklin, on the other hand, showed no signs of slowing down. He shook off my assault, wounds closing almost instantly as he plowed through the smoke, rushing me. I forced my mech’s arms up, hands meeting Teklin’s as he tried to bring his fists down to crush me. All down my mech I hastily fitted metal plates together, firming my mech suit against the impact, holding it. We locked in that contest for a grim moment, metal groaning until two more arms sprouted from Teklin’s sides.
“Oh that’s just cheating!” I gasped as his new fists slammed into my mech’s chest, the metal beneath me buckling as his claws shredded great holes in my mech’s torso. I hastily manipulated the sheared steel, dropping them down like guillotines and slicing Teklin’s new fingers off.
“Roooooooo!” the monster roared, his new arms smashing once more into my side, staggering me as the plates I’d locked became undone. Another blow crashed into me, sending me flying backwards.
My mech slammed into the ground, the vertigo sending my stomach jumping around in my body and head spinning.
“Victor!” shouted a voice in my ear.
I shook the stars from my eyes, listening to my helmet’s transmitter. “Dolly?”
“I’m all charged up! Lure him over to the side of the building.”
“Easier said than done,” I gasped, forcing my suit to get back up, only for Teklin to make his appearance, slamming into my midriff and carrying me back. I braced my mech’s feet, digging great gouges through the lawn, but let Teklin carry me until I saw we’d reached the side of the chalet. I spotted the glittering glass of the ballroom’s balcony and I turned the mech’s head so I could see the windows slide open, the barrel of the death ray angling, locking on.
“Get out of there, Victor!” Dolly shouted as the barrel of the death ray began to glow, the tesla coils behind it crackling with the whirring whine of gathering energy.
“Might… be a problem,” I gasped, every fiber quivering as I sought to hold Teklin where he was.
A sudden blast of freezing blue hit Teklin’s side. The creature shrieked, rearing back as a layer of ice grew across it. I spotted Glacia soaring above him, one hand unloading her powers on the monster while the other held Psyren tight.
“Now, Victor! Let him go!” Dolly said into my intercom.
For a second, I hesitated. But no. I had to trust the girls. At once, I released my hold on the mech’s armour. I let the metal head fall apart around me, and with a magnetic push off the rest of the suit, threw myself up into the air.
I saw some of Teklin’s dozens of eyes lock onto me. He snarled, tentacles bursting from his back like from popped zits.
“STOP!”
The sheer psychic power of Psyren’s command slammed through the air with physical force. My head rang like I’d taken a right hook from Mike Tyson, but it was far worse for Teklin. The monster froze, his whole body quivering at the power in that word.
And then Dolly fired.
The air screamed as it was ionized in the ray’s path, slamming into Teklin’s mass. The creature shrieked with pain, extra mouths ripping their way into existence in order to properly express his torment, a sound so loud the windows of the ballroom shattered and rained down like falling stars. Teklin’s body roiled, bubbled, flesh cracking as red lightning buzzed and snapped like bullwhips all over his form.
I dropped down to the ground, looking up at the monster as he writhed in agony. Before my eyes he seemed to rot, flesh melting like wax to reveal bone. Ah. Now that was a sight to bring a smile to my face.
But sooner than I’d like, the beam of light faded. The creature howled, crackling red energy still buzzing over his flesh, but in diminished amounts.
“That’s it. That’s the shot,” Dolly said. “Sorry, Victor.”
“Don’t be,” I said as I moved my hand, lifting dozens of sharp scraps of metal into the air. “I’ll take it from here.”
Teklin swung his head down towards me, and I rewarded his interest by sending a barrage of jagged metal into him like a hail of razor blades. He shrieked, staggering as the metal ripped through him. “Not regenerating anymore, are you?” I noted as viscous green blood oozed from his wounds. “Good. It’s about damn time!”
Teklin raised his foot and tried to bring it down on me, but I easily skimmed back and out of range, my powers sending me gliding around him. He tried to follow me, but I threw another storm of metal shards into his face.
The monster screamed, rearing back, and I took that moment of distraction to rise back into the air, gathering more pieces of metal around me, locking them together to form a massive a spear made of scrap. I could already see that Teklin wasn’t long for this world. More and more pieces of him were falling off, rotting from his body as whatever the serum did lost its cohesion.
I waited until he looked back up, saw me, and then I drew back my arm, the spear of metal quivering, the tip glistening in the moonlight.
Ah.
I lived for moments like this.
I threw my arm forward, and so went the spear. The metal spike slammed through a cluster of Teklin’s eyes and right into his warped brain.
Teklin swayed where he stood, and I gave the spear a light magnetic push. Like a falling titan Teklin finally toppled away from the chalet, the earth shuddering as he crashed to terra firma, brought down at long last.
I let my arm drop, exhaling heavily as Teklin’s massive corpse continued to decay, flesh sloughing off and rotting. Well, that was either going to do wonders to fertilize the lawn or make sure nothing ever grew there again. Oh well. Nothing for it now, I supposed.
I felt the brush of a cold wind and turned my head to find Glacia descending to my side. “That was most impressive, sir,” she said.
“Yeah. That worked out,” I said, then looked back to parts of the ruined chalet. I grimaced, floating slowly back to the earth. “Kind of…”
“Aw, c’mon, boss,” Psyren said as she hopped out of Glacia’s grasp and onto the lawn. “What’s a bit of property damage to kill a knockoff Godzilla? Besides! Now we have a great excuse to remodel!”
I wasn’t exactly jumping with joy at the prospect, as I’d be the one paying for it. But given the options, I’d take some damage to the building instead of to the girls. It was then that I noticed the throgg following Psyren.
“Psyren!” I said, immediately grabbing a chunk of jagged metal with my magnetic powers. “Behind you!”
“Boss! No!” she cried, throwing herself in front of the waddling monster. “Don’t hurt Nibbles!”
“Nibbles? What?”
“I totally have him under my control,” she said, putting her hand on the monster’s round head and giving him a soothing stroke. “See? He’s a good boy. Aren’t you?” she cooed, squatting beside the horror and stroking its head fondly. “Who’s mommy’s favorite abomination? Is it Nibbles? I think it’s Nibbles! Yes it is. Yes it is!”
The throgg huffed, tongue lolling as it wiggled in pleasure under Psyren’s attention. I’d heard of ugly cute, but the throgg was pushing even that definition.
“I…”
“Pleeeease, boss? Can I keep him? You were the one telling me I needed some more muscle as a villainess. And what could be better than a horrific monster designed for villains? I promise I’ll take good care of him, clean up after him, and totally not feed him anyone! Not even the jerks who cut in front of me in the line at Starbucks.”
Ughhhh… I looked again at the monster, who was panting like a dog. There was a rule in Hollywood and I applied it to my work too, which was never work with animals or children. Both tend to go off script at the worst time, and given people in my line of work were throwing around fireballs and cars, that was a recipe for goddam disaster. But, well, I supposed Psyren did deserve some kind of reward for helping out here. And to be fair, we weren’t exactly running the risk of someone claiming the thing, seeing as how the only person who could was a twenty-foot-tall mass of rotting flesh on my front lawn.
I sighed. “Fine,” I said. “But he stays at the chalet until we’re damn sure he’s not going to go rogue and try to eat people. And he’s not sleeping on my bed!”
Psyren squealed and abandoned the throgg to throw her arms around my neck, kissing me with delight. “Oh, thank you, boss! Thank you, thank you thank you!”
My arm instinctively snaked around her, hugging her back as she snuggled in close. Well, maybe it wasn’t all bad. I cleared my throat, easing Psyren back. “Right. Well, any injuries?” I asked instead, looking between Glacia and Psyren.
“Absolutely fine,” Psyren said, giggling as she ran her hands over her figure. “And looking good too!”
“I am pleased to report that we have come through largely unscathed, sir,” Glacia said stiffly.
Well, that was true for them, but I still felt like I’d gotten a massage from a steamroller. Everything ached, my joints feeling like it they’d been torn from their sockets. Fuuuuck. That was why I hated the mech thing. Incredibly impressive, yeah, but I’d be feeling like I’d tried to fistfight a truck for a week.
I rolled my shoulders, wincing as I surveyed the battlefield. “Right,” I said. “But first, Glacia? Do a quick scout around. Make sure there aren’t any more monsters. Psyren? Can you do the same with your powers? Last thing I need is some straggler busting inside after all this.”
“Yes sir,” Glacia said, already rising into the air.
“Sure thing, bossman,” Psyren said with a wink as the glow of her eyes grew stronger. I felt her power wash over me like a tingling in my head.
“Uh, Victor?” Dolly’s voice crackled in my ear.
“Yeah?” I said.
“We got something inbound. Radar is picking it up coming in hot. Small figure. I think it might be a hero.”
I groaned. Ugh. Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. Even though the chalet was well out of city limits, given the damage Teklin and I’d done to the area, we’d surely gotten picked up on satellite, if not seismic devices. “Any idea who?” I said, peering at the night sky, trying to pick out the hero coming to bust us.
“Not sure. Coming in fast, though. Lots of electricity.”
Ah.
Valkyria again.
Well, could be worse.
“Psyren? Pick up anything?” I asked.
“No monsters left. Aside from this cutie,” she giggled, rubbing the throgg’s head fondly, the slavering monster drooling, acid spit sizzling on the grass.
“Uh, yeah. Great. Then, headphones back on, please. Got a visitor. Dolly? Track them, but power down the weapons. We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“If you say so,” Dolly said, sounding dubious.
“It’ll be fine,” I said. You never knew with heroes, but ideally Valkyria would see where I was coming from.
Hopefully.
I made my way towards Teklin’s corpse while I waited and gave his skull a kick. Oh yeah. He wasn’t getting up again. Which could only benefit me, really. Witnesses were a pain in the ass, and if he was alive, he could have made my life quite a bit harder. I turned from the corpse and watched as the crackle of blue lightning became visible in the night sky, growing brighter as it closed the distance. I stepped back as it thundered down, hitting the lawn with a deafening boom. I winced. Well, what was one more hole in the lawn at this point?
Valkyria slowly straightened, still buzzing with static, but to my diminishing surprise she wasn’t alone. With her was Olympia, who stood by the heroine stiffly, but the surprise plain on her face. She actually sucked in a breath when she saw the corpse of Teklin.
“By the gods!” she said.
Valkyria said nothing. She’d seen much the same, and far worse in her career. She looked about the grounds, the ruins of the chalet’s front, the still smoking bits of my mech, and finally the immense corpse of Teklin. Her eyes finally found me.
“Seems you’ve been busy,” she observed.
Understatement of the decade.
“Yeah. Things have sort of… happened,” I said.
“Hm,” she said, then gave me a close look. “I believe you should probably explain.”
Well, that was fair enough. Leaning against Teklin’s skull, I gave Valkyria a highly edited run down. I cut out any mention of Dolly’s connection to Teklin, as well as Arman and the fight at the Nights, instead talking about how I’d foiled Teklin’s attack on the university, causing him to come after me for revenge. It was pretty tripe, but also pretty predictable. Villains didn’t really need too heavy a motivation to fuck around with people. I should know, and revenge was pretty believable for an egoist like Teklin.
But I had no intention of letting Dolly get tied into this whole ‘super arms’ business. She had enough trouble with the whole thing, and had left that behind. And I was going to protect her. That much I swore.
Valkyria listened grimly, nodding now and then. I could tell she didn’t totally buy it, but she seemed satisfied when I finished.
“I see,” she said, glancing past us and to the ballroom window, where the barrel of the death ray was still poking out. “So, you have a death ray?”
“Seems like it was a wise precaution,” I said carefully. “You never know these days. Especially outside the city. Crime in the rural areas has become just terrible.”
“Quite so,” so said, then looked at me again. “In that case, I suppose everything seems in order.”
“Sorry to make you come all the way out here,” I said.
“I didn’t mind. However, Magneron, I am a bit worried about all this new equipment. You aren’t going true villain, are you?”
“Me?” I said. “No! Of course not.”
“Is that so? Because you do have a lair. And a death ray. And a number of additional villain underlings…”
“Well… yes. But that’s all very above board,” I quickly said.
“Is that right?” Valkyria said, fixing me with a steely look. “Well,” she said. “Perhaps so. But the Heroes of Earth might be concerned about all this…”
Oh, I didn’t like where this was going at all. “Uh huh,” I said slowly. “Well, I understand your concerns…?”
“Excellent. Then I look forward to seeing you at the Hall of Heroes.”
“…Sorry, what?” I said.
“Standard procedure when a city-level threat is encountered. You don’t have a problem with that, right?” Valkyria said with a look my way. “We would hate to think that you might have something to hide. And you must understand that a scene like this will demand a response.”
Fuck.
Technically, I probably didn’t have to say yes. In fact, Valkyria had no official authority to do anything to me. She couldn’t arrest me, and she wasn’t going to pick a fight, but I knew better than to stonewall a heroine like her. She had a lot of highly placed contacts, and could make my life very difficult. And I was going to have enough problems as it was without getting the HoE on my case. And… well, to be perfectly fair, I could see where she was coming from. I looked back at the death ray. I sure as hell wasn’t sad that I’d let Dolly install the thing, but it was hard to look at it and think I’d only need it to take on thirty to fifty feral hogs.
“Nooooo,” I said slowly. “Not at all. I’d be just… delighted to pay you a visit in your fortress of heroes.”
Valkyria smiled, plainly able to see right through me. “Good. So glad we could come to an agreement. Olympia? Let us go.”
“Of course, ma’am!” Olympia said, banging a hand against her chest in a salute.
Valkyria nodded and glanced back at me. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Of course,” I said dryly as Valkyria grabbed Olympia and braced herself, building up a charge before shooting into the sky with a boom of thunder. I watched them go, feeling my stomach turn with unease. I sighed, scratching the back of my head, staring at the night sky.
I was still doing that when I heard someone clear their throat behind me. I looked back to find Dolly standing not far.
“Oh. Hey,” I said.
“Hi, Victor,” she said. She shuffled her feet. “I uh… tracked those heroes. They left our airspace.”
“Oh. Good.”
I looked back towards the monstrous corpse on the lawn. Dolly stepped nearer and moved in close against me. “I can’t believe it’s really over,” she said softly.
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure. The problem with fighting evil geniuses was they often had backup plans and other bullshit. Clones. Supercomputers designed to deliver a final payload of vengeance. A hidden daughter that’d come out of the woodwork a few years from now swearing revenge (though given Teklin’s personality, I kind doubted any kids he had would be too broken up about him getting offed). But Dolly didn’t need to worry about that right now. Instead, I reached out and gave her woolly head an affectionate rub.
“Yeah,” I said. “How’s it feel to be free?”
Dolly hummed, wriggling in her lab coat, her lashes fluttering as I pet her sensitive wool. “Ohhhh… It feels good,” she giggled.
“Want to kick his corpse a bit?” I asked.
Dolly gasped with delight. “Can I?”
“Sure. Go nuts. Here,” I said, magnetically floating a chunk of metal to her. “Whack it a bit with this too. Really get that stress out of you.”
With almost manic glee Dolly grabbed the metal bar and skipped over to the skull. She drew back and started whaling on Teklin’s skull, smashing the bar against it like a mobster breaking some kneecaps. “And this is for making me hide in a basement for six years! And this is for trying to hunt me down! And this is for stealing my sandwich out of the community fridge! And this…”
I shook my head, chuckling as Dolly vented herself on the corpse of her tormentor. I watched her, feeling the grin pull at the corner of my lips.
What a fucking night…