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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/daecrist on 2025-05-12 19:43:42+00:00.

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The warehouse looked abandoned, but I knew that was a lie. The transmission had been coming from somewhere in this area, though it shut off as soon as whoever was controlling it realized we were flying straight for the source.

Only it was too late. There was still a giant power source coming from somewhere around here, and according to my readings that somewhere was right below this warehouse.

It looked like I wasn’t the only villain to have the bright idea of locating a base under the city. Only this asshole, whoever he was, had gone for post-industrial chic rather than hiding under suburban sprawl.

"What is this place?" Fialux asked.

"A rat hole," I said. I turned to Fialux. "Do you trust me?"

She raised an eyebrow. "I'd think it's safe to say I do at this point."

"I mean this, do you trust me?"

"Of course I do."

"Good, because if I'm right you might see some things in here that shock you," I said.

"More shocking than what happened with you today?"

"I'm just saying be prepared."

We walked into the warehouse, but it was absolutely silent. No noise, no nothing. The only thing filling the warehouse was the debris from manufacturing that had gone to another country decades ago, and the occasional mote of dust dancing in the light of giant occasionally broken windows that ran the length of the place.

The place smelled of dust and wood and old oil that hadn’t been properly cleaned up when the company abandoned this place. Obviously whoever was inhabiting this lair wasn’t using the ground floor.

"Are you sure there's something down there?" Fialux asked.

I looked down at my wrist computer. We were close.

"I'm certain," I said.

"I could just burrow straight down. Do a little spin and drill to whatever's hidden down there."

"No, I don't think that's necessary," I said. I adjusted some settings on my wrist computer. "This should be powerful enough and directional enough to take that silicon wafered prick out. He won’t know what hit him."

That was the problem with being a machine. At the end of the day when all the defense systems were gone, when all the schemes were defeated, when the giant death robot had been destroyed, there was nowhere for a supercomputer to run because they were stuck in place by necessity. 

Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. No way to save yourself if the person hunting you has a way of taking you out without entering your lair and risking whatever traps you’ve laid.

Something told me this bolt hole wasn’t hardened against what I was about to dish out. That I could detect a power source at all told me whoever designed the place was relying on not being found as stealth tactic numero uno. 

Which didn’t do a damn bit of good if you got sloppy and let someone find you. At least I hoped CORVAC just got sloppy. Or maybe CORVAC was the new roomie and his partner hadn’t bothered to harden the place against attack.

Maybe the place wasn’t hardened against this kind of attack because his new roomie wasn’t the kind of person who’d ever had to do that. No, if he could make his way through life mind controlling his way to fame and fortune then why bother defending against an EMP?

I held out my wrist computer and paused with my hand over a big red button I pulled up on the touch screen. I liked big red buttons. I didn’t like that this one had to go on my touch screen, but it wasn’t practical to have a big red click button taking up that much space on my wrist computer.

I didn’t pause because of any sort of hesitation or guilt over killing CORVAC. No. I knew there was a good chance he had a monitor hidden around here somewhere, and I wanted him to know what was hitting him and who was doing it before I pulled the trigger.

I wanted him to see it coming. 

I pushed the button and the speakers played a satisfying click sound. It might be a touch screen, but I couldn’t have a big red button press without a satisfying click. My wrist computer started to make a high-pitched beeping noise, and a moment later the entire room flickered as the beeping stopped.

The change was almost instantaneous. The building flickered around us again, giant structures coming into view then disappearing. And then they appeared again as though a curtain was being pulled back. Though it was a curtain of invisibility and not the traditional cloth variety.

Revealing a room that looked nothing like the dusty warehouse we’d been looking at.

"What was that?" Fialux asked.

I grinned. "Localized directional electromagnetic pulse. I had it go straight down on the gamble that CORVAC's actual hardware was hiding somewhere down there with that power source.” I glanced around the room. "Looks like I was right too."

"Impressive."

I didn't respond. I looked down at my wrist computer and scanned for any of the telltale signs of CORVAC's positronic matrix brain. Only there was nothing. No energy signal either. Whatever I’d done, it took out the power source and hopefully whatever was left of his traitorous circuits.

I smiled and very nearly breathed a sigh of relief. I'd shown him, the digitized asshole.

My only regret was I didn't get to see the look on his self-satisfied screens as I fried his circuits for the last time.

My moment of distraction thinking of CORVAC's last moments, it would've been less than a second but that was an eternity in computer time and plenty of time for him to consider the error of fighting Night Terror, was when the attack came.

A flash of black slammed into me and I hit the ground sliding. The wind was knocked out of me. My reinforced suit might be enough to prevent damage when I was hit, but that didn't mean the laws of physics just stopped working. Getting hit with enough force could jostle me around inside the suit and really hurt, even with the inertial dampeners I'd added.

It was the same old problem. I couldn't actually add anything large enough to completely shield me from everything that might hit me. Only enough to prevent most blows from doing serious damage if I could see them coming, which was usually advantage enough.

Not that the hit I took was particularly powerful. It was just a surprise, and without CORVAC monitoring things and adjusting to blows he could see coming on monitors in realtime it could be difficult to anticipate a hit in the same way I had pre-betrayal.

I was going to have to work on that if I made it out of this alive.

I looked up and wasn’t at all surprised at who I saw there.

"I was wondering when you’d come out to play," I said.

A fist connected with my cheek and I spit out blood. Blood! Damn that hurt!

I had to admit this reception was definitely more physical than the last time we met, though it also wasn't entirely unexpected.

"Rex," Fialux growled.

The fuck?

She looked like she was about to launch herself at the asshole, but I held up a hand. "Wait!"

The asshole stood and clapped. My eyes narrowed. My mouth fell open. I’d been expecting to meet a wannabe villain masquerading as a hero who beat the shit out of low level criminals on the regular, but I didn’t expect the wannabe villain to be this particular someone. I couldn’t believe it.

Chalk another one up for Night Terror. All of my suspicions were absolutely true! But at the same time erase one off the board for Night Terror. My suspicions were completely wrong.

“Rex?” I asked, the incredulity dripping from my voice. “Rex Roth is your mysterious boyfriend?”

“Well… I…” Fialux mumbled and shook her head as though trying to clear out a familiar fog that was hitting her again.

Rex Roth. Sniveling weenie. Famous reporter for the Starlight City News Network. Well known around the world as the only man to get exclusive interviews with numerous heroes and villains including Fialux, and apparently an aspiring supervillain in his own right.

He ascended stairs on the other end of the newly revealed lair, I guess he did use the ground floor, to what could only be described as a lavish throne.

When I say lavish we’re talking the kind of thing I'd be ashamed to sit on if I ever managed to take over the world. And as far as I could tell he hadn't even launched any plans to try and take over the world, or even the city for that matter.

Talk about an overinflated sense of self-worth. Not that I was surprised to see that coming from Rex Roth. The asshole.

"Bravo, Selena," Rex said. "Bravo. I guess Night Terror’s toy means my little deception has been discovered. I knew that computer would be useless.”

His eyes did that weird mind control thing again. Which didn’t do jack or shit to me because I knew what was coming and was compensating for it with my contacts. Also? It didn’t hit Fialux thanks to her identical contacts that were doing the same filtering.

I wondered if he realized that. Probably not.

“Rex Roth is Shadow Wing?” I said, still having trouble believing it as I looked him up and down in his ridiculous all black getup, minus the equally ridiculous mask.

“Is that really so hard to believe?” he asked, sounding insulted that it was so hard to believe.

I looked him up and down. “Please take this the wrong way because that’s totally the spirit its offered in, but you don’t exactly look like the kin...

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