I wish I could say this was one of those moments where I was wrong. I'd honestly love nothing more than for Fialux to suddenly get her groove back. To be able to take on all the bad guys at once.

The only problem was she still didn't have much experience when it came to using my super suits. She still kept pretending she had her powers.

That was a big problem, because she was still going at everything like a bull in a China shop. She had no finesse. No sense of style. She didn't use their momentum against them. No, she simply flew forward with her fist outstretched.

To be fair to Fialux, this time when she flew right at someone she managed to make contact. The guy stood there like an idiot, obliging enough to watch in disbelief as she flew at him. Her fist made contact and his head jerked back, his eyes rolling into the back of his head as he went down.

When he hit the floor he was still conscious, but his nose was bleeding and that was going to leave a mark.

"Come on," I said. "That's your idea of ethically taking out a bad guy? Seriously? You beat the shit out of him!"

No one was paying attention to my not-so-quiet frustration. Not Fialux, and not the robbers. Damn it.

All the other asshole bank robbers looked at her in disbelief, but then a couple of them started to smile. And I realized exactly what was wrong.

In flying at that guy at a much slower speed and punching him but only giving him a bloody nose rather than knocking him out or knocking him through the back wall she'd just revealed she wasn't operating at the same level she usually did.

"I told you it was true!" the one who'd given up the info about the bounty shouted. "She doesn't have her powers! Wait until everyone hears this! You get her boys! She's worth millions!"

I arched an eyebrow. This guy really didn't know when to shut the hell up. It was one of the many villain rules I lived by. Keep your big mouth shut and never reveal anything to a hero you didn't want thwarted later at a dramatically appropriate moment.

But at the same time I felt like a mama cat watching her kitten playing with a mouse. Sure Fialux wasn't doing a very good job of fighting these guys off, her fighting style only worked when she had the advantage of overwhelming power and invulnerability, but I had to let her make her own mistakes while I watched to make sure she was never in any real danger.

A couple of the robbers did a quick game of paper rock scissors, and the losers turned and advanced on me. They didn't look happy about advancing on me. The rest of them sprinted across the bank towards Fialux who'd kept right on flying after landing that punch and crashed into a bank vault in the back.

I saw someone's head pop up from a desk by that vault and a brief moment of recognition hit me. I smiled. It was the asshole who'd tried to step between me and a bank vault on the day I first met Fialux. How appropriate that he'd be here today at this main branch.

This wasn't the same bank from that morning I met Fialux, but obviously this guy had gotten a transfer. I'm sure he'd thought it was quite a promotion to be relocated to the main branch of the Starlight City National Bank, but I'm also pretty sure he was regretting the decision to take that promotion now.

He locked eyes with me. Recognition dawned on his face. Not recognition of the sort that said he knew I was Night Terror. It was always fun when somebody hit me with that look of dawning terror and recognition. The sure knowledge that they were about to be deep in the shit.

But no, obviously he knew who I was since the bad guys here had been kind enough to announce my presence when I moved in. Besides, everybody knew exactly who I was unless I was trying to go incognito, and I clearly wasn't trying to go incognito here.

No, that terrified look on his face was the recognition that he knew I recognized him. He yelped, his eyes going wide, and then he dove out of sight.

Probably a good plan on his part. It was nice to see he'd learned his lesson about getting in the way of his betters during our last tangle.

Fialux stumbled to her feet. She looked at the villains surrounding her and grinned. Obviously she was enjoying the hell out of this even if she was having a little bit of trouble getting used to wearing that suit.

She ran at one of them and threw another punch. Her repertoire wasn't all that varied, but it was a good punch. The guy went flying back as he was hit with all the enhanced strength that came from wearing one of my toys.

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The only problem was she neglected to take account of her surroundings before she threw that punch. Namely the three guys behind her who had an opening as she stumbled forward because she wasn't used to the way my suits operated.

They piled on, and clearly she was having some difficulty getting them off of her. Sure she was flailing and trying her best to get rid of them, but her best wasn't going to be enough.

I shook my head. Her modus operandi had been "throw punches and elbows in every direction and rely on super strength to take care of the rest" for so long that she didn't know any other way to fight. Clearly I was going to have to take care of that if we were going to go on any more of these training expeditions.

That situation would keep for the moment though. It might to do her some good to realize she couldn't just wade into the middle of a battle and start throwing punches. Not anymore. Maybe she'd realize she had to use a little bit of finesse now.

I'd tried to tell her as much, but she hadn't listened, and now look where it had gotten her.

I turned my attention to the robbers surrounding me. A couple of them had pulled out tire irons and truncheons. I guess they'd decided to forego the shotguns since I'd already demonstrated they were useless.

I cocked an eyebrow.

"Do you really want to use those on me?" I asked. "This isn't a fucking video game where melee weapons are my magic weakness just because I'm strong against ranged weapons. Here's a hint, assholes. I'll kick your ass no matter what you're packing."

They paused. Glanced at each other. Then advanced on me anyways.

I shrugged. "Your funeral."

I couldn't for the life of me understand why they were coming at me with melee weapons when I'd already shown that guns were no match for me and I'd made it clear I didn't have weaknesses cooked up in the fever dreams of some crazed tactical RPG developer's nightmares.

Then again, maybe that was the method to their madness. Maybe they'd seen the way it worked when they came at me with guns. The way I casually swiped all their shotgun pellets out of the air. Maybe they figured if they closed in for a close fight they'd have a better chance.

It was sound logic if you were the kind of criminal asshole who thought it was a good idea to rob a bank in the middle of a major attack on the city. Which is a roundabout way of saying it wasn't very good logic at all, and they were going to pay for it.

They all came at me at once. A couple of them glanced over their shoulders and grinned when they saw that Fialux was almost down on the ground. Sure she was still hurting them a lot for every inch she gave, but it was clear those assholes were going to have no trouble overpowering her given enough time.

Clearly they were expecting me to go down just as quickly in a one-on-one fight. The only problem was they weren't reckoning with the fact that they were dealing with none other than Night Terror.

I knew how to use my shit. I'd turned villainy into an art form, and it was time to paint my canvas with their blood.

There was a reason I'd been at the top of my game for so long, and if the common criminal element had forgotten that then I figured that merely meant it was time for me to teach them a lesson in humility.

The first one came at me and raised his crowbar. I, in turn, raised my wrist blaster and fired. The crowbar flew across the room and embedded in the ceiling before falling down onto some poor bank employee's desk with a shower of plaster.

I winced. Some of these buildings were old enough that the building material still contained asbestos. I had filtering mechanisms in the medbay that could take care of that shit, but the people cowering away from the robbers, Fialux, and myself didn't have that luxury.

Hopefully some of my attempts to get my medbays into wider medicine, an attempt so far that had encountered Semmelweisian levels of resistance from the medical establishment, would bear fruit before they were alive long enough for the actuarial tables around cancer incidences after exposure to catch up to them.

The robber looked at his hand then back to me. Then he yelled and ran at me anyways. I rolled my eyes. Ducked and shoved my shoulder into his stomach and threw him over me.

The other two came at me at the same time. At least they weren't pulling the mistake of sending guys at me one at a time in the hopes that maybe I'd get tired and they could overpower me.

Again, the only problem with their plan was it still wasn't going to do them a damn bit of good. No, they hadn't had a chance against me from the moment they decided to pick this fight, and the sooner they admitted that the better.

They both had their hands raised with crowbars as well. I ducked down at the last moment. Both of their arms came down where I'd been, but I used my antigravity units to push myself out of the way.

They'd come at me at the same time, sure, but they'd made the classic mistake of trying to flank me. Which meant when their crowbars came down and there was no me in the way to stop those crowbars? They ended up slamming into the opposite robber instead.

Oops. They really should've been paying better attention.

Both of them cried out in pain, and both of them stood there shaking their hands and arms where they'd just landed one hell of a hit on each other.

It wouldn't have hurt me that much unless they got in a lucky shot, but neither one of them had the benefit of a suit that could tell the laws of physics to take a hike for a few moments. So it was clear they were feeling every bit of pain running through their bodies.

It served them right. The assholes.

"Oh boys?" I asked.

I didn't actually have anything to say to them. I was more interested in getting their attention as I fired up the antigrav.

It was time to bring the kind of hurt down on these assholes that could only be delivered by the greatest villainess the city had ever seen using all the wonderful toys at her disposal.

I'd been toying with them up to this point because it was fun. Fialux was occupied and not paying attention. It was time to let out the villain inside me that desperately wanted to play. I grinned an evil little grin.

"Time to show you pricks just how stupid it is to bring a crowbar to a super science fight."

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