3-36: Vengeance

There was one problem with the whole plan to avenge my dead girlfriend. I had to have a dead girlfriend to avenge in the first place.

Fortunately, as I screamed it became obvious that I didn’t have a dead girlfriend. An annoyed girlfriend? Sure. A pissed off girlfriend? Most indubitably. A girlfriend who was about to lay down some serious ass kicking?

Oh hell to the yes.

It was like watching every bit of training I’d done with Fialux over the past couple of months suddenly kick into high gear, and on top of that it was kicking into high gear with a Fialux who seemed to be throwing around a hell of a lot more power than she had any business throwing around wearing one of my suits.

Especially considering the suit she wore had been completely powered down.

Dr. Lana’s hands moved, but rather than twisting Fialux’s head to the side and snapping her spine, her hands tugged but Fialux’s head stayed in place.

Damn. I’d seen the power Dr. Lana was throwing around, and to say that this was a perplexing development would be one hell of an understatement. It was a welcome development, to be sure, but puzzling to say the least.

“What the…”

Fialux looked over her shoulder ever so slightly, and then she elbowed Dr. Lana in the gut. It was a classic defensive move that was meant to throw an attacker off balance, but in this case it did a hell of a lot more than throw Dr. Lana off balance.

It threw the bitch clear across the room. Dr. Lana slammed against the wall and made a dent. Like we’re talking it was seriously the kind of Dr. Lana shaped dent you usually only saw from coyotes trying to chase down roadrunners. She picked herself up and shook herself off, but clearly she was just as surprised as I was.

“Not now!” she growled, sounding annoyed but not surprised.

Huh. Okay then. Maybe she was expecting something like this. The surprises just kept coming.

Fialux looked just as astonished as I felt. She looked down at her elbow as though she was expecting it to start to glow or something, but it’s not like she’d just been through the colon of a giant radioactive lizard, so she did’t have a particularly compelling reason to be glowing.

What she did do almost brought a tear to my eye. She held her hands out in a classic Keanu pose and motioned for Dr. Lana to come at her.

“Fuck yes,” I whispered.

“What is happening, mistress?” CORVAC asked.

“It looks like Fialux might’ve just gotten her powers back,” I said.

“That would be a fortunate development,” he said.

“That’s not why I’m so excited,” I said.

“Why are you so excited, mistress?” he asked.

“I’m excited because she has her powers back and she’s still remembering to fight defensively. This is beautiful.”

Sure enough, she wasn’t throwing herself into the fight despite the fact that it very much looked like she was now firing on all cylinders where her powers were concerned. Dr. Lana flew at her, and her face was contorted in rage.

“Should I do something about this?” CORVAC asked. “I did go to the trouble of taking over Dr. Lana’s robot army, after all. I’d hate for it to go to waste.”

“Nah,” I said. “It looks like she has some issues she’s working through with this fight. Besides, it’ll be good for her to have a sparring match with someone who isn’t me.”

“I have seen those sparring matches you had with her in the flight gym,” CORVAC said. “She has come a long way.”

Dr. Lana pulled her fist back, and it looked like she was preparing for one hell of a right hook. The only problem with that plan was Fialux dodged to the side, which sent Dr. Lana cartwheeling through the air. Which was pretty damn funny if you asked me. 

No one in the room asked me, but whatever.

Dr. Lana flew to the other end of the room and made yet another Dr. Lana shaped hole in the wall. This time it took her a little longer to pick herself up and fling herself across the room at Fialux, and I thought about the pattern I’d seen earlier while fighting.

“CORVAC,” I said. “Correct me if I’m wrong here.”

“I have never had a problem correcting you on the many occasions you have been wrong, mistress,” he said.

I decided to ignore that. There was a time and a place, and it wasn’t while my girlfriend was locked in mortal combat with my archnemesis.

“Fine. Don’t correct me. Merely validate my opinion because that’s totally what I’m looking for when I tell you to correct me if I’m wrong,” I said.

“Consider it done, mistress,” CORVAC said. “But you have not rendered an opinion for me to validate.”

“I was just going to say that Dr. Lana appears to have a timer on whatever abilities she’s using here.”

There was a momentary pause. A pause I’d gotten used to a long time ago. A pause I hadn’t realized I’d missed. Having CORVAC out of my life had been like losing an arm. He was an integral part of the way my villainous career worked, and I was working at half capacity if he wasn’t around to help me out.

Now I could tell he was thinking things over. Mulling over the same information I’d been chewing on this entire time.

Meanwhile, Fialux grabbed Dr. Lana and did a little twirling motion that used all the momentum the good doctor had built up hurtling herself at my girlfriend again and sent her slamming into some of those robots arrayed on the floor below. They scattered like so many bowling pins, and parts flew everywhere.

Fialux turned, but she flew directly at me. Not at Dr. Lana.

For the briefest of moments I worried that maybe getting her powers back had done a number on her. That maybe basking in the radiation of that portal, I was pretty sure that had something to do with this sudden reversal of fortune, had also erased her memories.

Again.

If that was the case then I was well and truly fucked. The only advantage I had over her previously was that I was a better fighter than her, and even that hadn’t been much of an advantage when you got down to it.

She flew at me and then stopped just short. Winked.

“I had you there for a minute, didn’t I?” she asked.

I breathed out a sigh of relief. It wasn’t something she could miss. Her mouth quirked up in a half smile.

“That wasn’t funny,” I said. “Now do you want to tell me what the hell is going on here?”

I had my suspicions, but I wasn’t going to give voice to them. Not yet. Not when there was a chance that hovering in front of that portal to a strange new world with strange levels of radiation piping through might be enough to jog loose some memories.

Even if I was starting to think she didn’t come from a strange new world. No, I was more and more certain that maybe she came from this world and she’d been the subject of some weird science experiments at the hands of Dr. Lana.

It made sense. She’d started manifesting her powers when she came to SCU. At least if she wasn’t lying about the way her powers had manifested. There was still so much I didn’t know about her.

The point is that jived with the idea that she came to Starlight City University where she caught the eye of Dr. Lana for some reason, and then from there she was the subject of some experiment she might not even realize she was taking part in.

Fialux shrugged. “I have no clue. I was hovering in front of that weird portal thing, and the next thing I know I’m feeling better than I’ve felt since… Well you know what I’m getting at.”

“Yeah, I totally do,” I said.

“This isn’t fair!” Dr. Lana screamed.

We both turned to face her. She was looking a little wobbly. She also had a hell of a shiner that indicated whatever was going on with her in the invulnerability department had worn off.

“I believe your suspicion is correct, mistress,” CORVAC said in that calm logical voice of his. “It would appear that she has a limited amount of time to use whatever powers she gains from standing in front of those portals.”

I grinned. Fialux cocked her head to the side.

“What’s up?” she asked.

I had to remind myself that she couldn’t hear the ongoing conversation between yours truly and CORVAC. I would’ve gladly patched her in. The only problem was it was sort of impossible to do that if the suit she wore was dead and I had no way of powering it.

Sure CORVAC could talk to both of us through his newly acquired robot army, but that would also mean letting Dr. Lana in on our conversation. If transmissions are being monitored during battle, no uncoded messages on an open frequency, to quote a bit of wisdom from a venerable Starlet admiral.

“We think she has an expiration timer on her powers,” I said. “She seems to run out of gas pretty damn quick.”

Fialux’s face split into a wide grin. “So you’re saying if we wear her down long enough, it’s only a matter of time before we can take her out?”

“That would appear to be the case,” CORVAC said, and this time it was in that weird legion of robotic voices that was so creepy. I guess he decided to patch Fialux into our conversation.

The grin only lasted for the space of maybe a breath. Then her face fell. She looked genuinely depressed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“If it only lasts for a little while with her then that means it’s only going to last a little while with me,” she said.

I took her hands in mine and stared into her eyes. I tried to give her some of the strength she’d given me through all the difficulties we’d been through. I tried to beam the thought into her mind that I was here for her no matter what.

“Hey, don’t you worry about that,” I said. “This means we’re one step closer to figuring out what the hell it is she did to you in the first place. This means we can beat the shit out of Dr. Lana, which should be a good time, and we’ll keep right on beating the shit out of her until she tells us exactly what’s happening with you. The fact that she was able to do the same to herself means we can fix you.”

Fialux seemed to get some backbone at that. She grinned.

“You’re right,” she said. “Now let’s get to the part where we’re beating the crap out of Dr. Lana, because that sounds like a lot of fun.”

“I love you so much,” I said.

“Right back at you,” she said, then she pulled me in for one hell of a kiss.

I know she was supposed to be the damsel in distress and I was supposed to be the one pulling her in for kisses, but under the circumstances? I wasn’t going to knock it.