SCNN droned on in the background about the crime wave and I only got more irritated. I felt a snap and looked down in surprise. I'd snapped the handle right off of one of my favorite coffee mugs. An old thing that had a diagram of the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

That was my second favorite Enterprise behind the Constitution Refit which should be rightly at the top of anyone's list of the best starships Enterprise. Seeing the Enterprise-D return to life at the end of Picard had me crying like a baby.

Accidentally breaking my mug only put me in an even more foul mood as I thought about the city getting its collective panties in a twist over a bunch of petty crime. Petty crime!

"This shit doesn't even seem like much of a crime wave to me! Some bank robberies, a few muggings in the dodgy part of town. Basically the kind of crime that would've been unremarkable in any normal city," I said. "And there are parts of town down near the dock where getting mugged is practically the only economic activity!"

Fialux nodded. I could tell from her smile that this was amusing her, but she was also trying her best to be understanding. I guess I'd have to take it.

"Let it all out," she said.

"I've looked up the statistics for the "crime wave" SCNN is up in arms about, and the numbers are still a hell of a lot better than other comparable cities like New York, Chicago, or LA," I said. "And don't even get me started on how they're massaging the statistics. Per capita there are lots of podunk cow towns in the flyover states that have far worse crime and murder rates!"

"Have you ever thought that maybe it's just that they've spent so much time covering the kind of crime you used to get up to that they don't know how to cover regular crime?"

"That sure as hell seems to be what's going on," I growled. "They're treating every petty bank robber or kid who steals a candy bar like they're the next huge villain to hit the city."

"That sounds about right," Fialux said. "News everywhere lives by 'if it bleeds, it leads.' I should know. I'm about to graduate with a journalism degree."

"Yeah, that mixed in with a touch of Starlight City's news agencies getting so used to living under the benevolent umbrella of me being the ultimate crime boss in the city means when I suddenly disappear they go crazy making mountains out of a few molehills," I grumbled. "All because they'd rather chase ratings than do their jobs responsibly."

"And you don't like them making mountains out of those molehills?" she asked, seeming genuine for the first time since this conversation started. "Why wouldn't you be happy? If they're making mountains out of molehills it means there aren't any mountains that are about to smack down on the city."

I opened my mouth. I was on the verge of telling her that the big problem was I wanted to be the mountain knocking down those molehills, but I stopped myself. She really didn't like it when I referred to my former career, and I didn't want to start an argument.

Even if it did frustrate me to see a bunch of D-list criminal scum getting all the attention in the news. That should've been me out there getting A-list criminal scum coverage, damn it.

I blamed myself. I'd been busy canoodling with my girlfriend who was only truly happy if I was on the straight and narrow. Then I'd been busy trying to make my girlfriend feel better about losing the superpowers that allowed her to make her own not insignificant contribution to the city's crime statistics.

"It's like we take a little vacation to fight off a legitimate supervillainess moving in on my territory and suddenly a few weeks not operating under my benevolent villainous protection is enough to make everyone decide Night Terror and Fialux are gone for good," I said.

Fialux snorted. I looked up and realized, too late, that maybe that wasn't the best way to phrase that. Not when there was a chance that Fialux, or at least the Fialux who'd won over Starlight City, might be gone for good.

"It could be worse," I said, trying to change the subject. "The lesser criminals might know I'm still out here, but maybe they think I've gone good or something because I keep saving the city instead of trying to take it over like I used to."

"And that's a good thing that you keep saving the city," Fialux said. "I know it's a difficult transition, but you know it feels right."

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I looked up at her and forced a smile. I'd thought it felt right when we defeated CORVAC the first time around. Feeling the city cheering for me had been wonderful, but the problem was the more time went on the more I felt like all this hero business wasn't for me.

Dr. Lana was a good example. I should've vaporized that bitch the first time I saw her about to cause trouble. I hadn't, and look where it got Fialux.

"Besides, I don't think the petty criminals in this city are going on crime sprees because they think you've suddenly turned good," Fialux said.

I arched an eyebrow. "You don't?"

She snorted. "You were a terror to them when you were a villain. Breathing your name was enough to keep them under control. Why the hell would they be out there trying to muscle in on your territory if they thought you'd gone good?"

"Which, by logical extension, means I'd be trying to stop them with the full force of the powers they'd been so terrified of when I was bad?" I asked.

"Exactly."

"Yeah, the only problem with that is petty criminals aren't exactly known for their great critical thinking abilities. It's a big part of the reason why they turn to petty crime in the first place," I said. "It was a nice idea, though."

Plus I figured there was something else at work. Something far nicer and far more sinister at the same time.

Maybe they figured if I'd gone good then I'd caught a case of conscience. It happened to villains, but it hadn't happened to me. I wasn't any less likely to vaporize someone for muscling in on my territory now that I'd saved the city a couple of times than I was when I was in the business of bending the city to my will and running things from behind the scenes.

The only problem was the person I kept trying to kill this time around happened to be the only person I'd ever run up against who could survive the many forms of death I kept throwing at her.

"What about you?" she asked.

"What about me?"

"You're a genius. Like Jeopardy smart, and you went into a life of crime," she said.

I snorted. "There's a difference between a life of petty crime and trying to take over the world darling."

"Yeah? Seems to me it's just a matter of scale," she said.

"Hardly," I said. "I decided to go into a life of crime because I was tired of living by society's rules. I figured only the strong survived, it was survival of the fittest out there, and the little tech toys I created for myself meant I was the fittest of them all."

Fialux leaned forward. There was a gleam to her eyes that I liked. A gleam she got when I started monologuing, for all that she got pissy when I started putting the theory in my monologues into practice in the real world.

"Go on," she said.

"I figure anyone who tried to get in my way was either going to have a bad day or potentially get vaporized," I said.

Her mouth opened just a bit. Weird how she could get all hot and bothered thinking about me being villainous while getting annoyed when I actually acted villainous out in the field. Which might be a problem if we ran into that new hero. Especially if it turned out she wasn't who I suspected.

"Seems like getting vaporized would be a bad day," she said.

I shrugged. "Probably is a bad day, but at least it's a bad day that isn't going to last longer than it takes for someone's body to be ripped apart at the atomic level. My vaporizers work really fast on people."

"Right. So I still don't see how what you do is any better than what petty criminals do," she said. "You're like a politician or something. You just do it on a big enough scale that it ceases to be a crime."

"I do it on a big enough scale that no one can do anything about it being a crime," I said. "Slight difference."

Fialux rolled her eyes to let me know exactly what she thought of that. No surprises there though. I didn't think she was ever going to give up on her attempts to get me to walk the straight and narrow, but she was also damn good in bed so I figured on balance there were worse things I could endure.

"Let's face it," I said. "I'm part of a grand tradition of criminal geniuses who were so good at what they did that by the time they were done they were seen as pillars of society."

"Or you're like people who do white-collar crime on such a huge scale they only get a slap on the wrist and sent to a minimum-security country club for a few weeks even though the damage they do is far outsized compared to somebody dealing a little pot here and there or someone stealing from the corner store," Fialux said. "You can afford a better lawyer so even when you are apprehended you get away with it."

I grinned. "See. Now you're getting the hang of it! Go big enough and the magnitude of your crime becomes so great that people want to get to know you rather than wanting to lock you up, and in the super powered crime industry there's no one bigger than Night Terror."

"Maybe," she said. "But there's one thing you're not taking into account."

"What's that?" I asked, suddenly wary. There was something about the way she looked at me that I didn't particularly care for.

"You're forgetting that you're about to go out and do something stupidly heroic to impress a girl."

She had me there. Impressing the object of one's affection was, at its root, pretty much why anyone does something stupidly heroic. When you got down to it, wasn't it really the reason anyone ultimately did anything?

"Fine. We can go out and give the whole crime fighting thing a try," I said. "For the sake of fighting crime, and not to train you or try to corner that new hero. Will that make you happy?"

It grated on me to even say it. To even insinuate that I'd be into the idea of going out and saving the city rather than trying to subjugate it to my will. But if that's what it took to get Selena back in the saddle, to get her to finally test some of the training she obviously so desperately needed, well then I'd gladly do it.

The things I do for love.

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