They both looked up. Their eyes went wide as they saw me barreling towards them with my fists outstretched. And then both their heads shot back as my antigrav assisted fists made contact with their chins.

They both went down in crumpled heaps on the floor, leaving the one who'd come at me first staring at me and wiggling his fingers where there was no doubt one hell of a sting from having that crowbar knocked out of his hand by a plasma blast.

I looked at the guy and grinned. A lopsided half grin.

"So I know what you have to be asking yourself right now. I have a miniaturized atomic reactor that only gives me enough power to fight off two and a half giant creatures at the same time. Or one superpowered hero."

That was a lie, but one of the things I regularly did was spread misinformation about my abilities in fights when it didn't matter so I'd continually keep the people who could actually give me a run for my money guessing. I wasn't above a bit of lying or misdirection in the name of maintaining my reputation.

"So far I've taken out several of your buddies. So you have to be asking yourself, do I have enough energy after doing all of that to still blast you to smithereens? I've got to be honest, I've lost count too."

That was also a lie. I had a power indicator that showed me I was still delightfully in the green as far as power reserves went. A bunch of thugs robbing a bank wouldn't even bring me down to 99%. Which was a nice change from what it had been recently.

My power situation was getting seriously out of hand after upgrading everything thanks to having access to Fialux for some up close and personal testing. At least before she'd lost her powers.

Compared to all the resource management I'd had to do while I was fighting off Dr. Lana's giant robots? It was refreshing to go after a bunch of normal bank robbers for a change.

But of course that wouldn't go along with the line I was paraphrasing. A line I was sure this guy knew, because he had the look of the kind of guy who could quote any Clint Eastwood movie ever made chapter and verse.

My grin grew even wider. Maybe even a little maniacal. I'd spent a lot of time in front of the mirror practicing this look. It even upset CORVAC when I'd perfected it, and I figured upsetting that bucket of bolts, wherever the hell he was, meant I could upset just about anyone with the crazy eyes.

"So you have to ask yourself. Do I feel lucky? Well do ya, punk?"

I held up my wrist blaster. It was set on what I liked to call the "ominous hum" setting. Electricity arced and crackled from the tip.

That arcing electricity wasn't strictly necessary to send a bolt of plasma flying, but I found that it was very effective for upping the intimidation factor. It gave a nice visual representation of the world of hurt that was about to be visited on someone.

The guy stared at the arcing electricity for a long moment where he seemed to be contemplating his own mortality and thinking about all the poor choices he'd made in life that led him to this moment. I recognized the look all too well. It seemed to happen a lot with normals who found themselves confronting me and my wonderful toys.

Then he scrambled for the door.

"That's what I thought!" I shouted after him.

Then I remembered we were supposed to be doing the whole heroic thing here. So I switched my wrist blaster to stun, hopefully he didn't have a heart condition, and fired. The guy did a swan dive into a desk and was still.

I winced, but it's not like there was much I could do about where he landed. All I could do was create a setting that disrupted the nervous system just enough that it stopped a person in their tracks without actually killing them.

Again, assuming they didn't have a heart problem or some other preexisting condition.

So far there hadn't been a single asshole out there brave enough to actually try and sue me because of injuries that resulted from the stun setting. Not when they knew that was likely to end with a visit from yours truly to introduce them to the vaporize setting and not a subpoena.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I whirled around. I could worry about lawsuits later. Right now I was more concerned with a group of bank robbers who were slowly but surely dragging Fialux towards what looked like a back entrance that probably led to that loading dock I'd scouted out earlier.

I knew everything about this place because, unlike these assholes who clearly didn't know what the hell they were doing, I'd cased the place multiple times. This wasn't the only time I'd been at this branch of the bank, but it was the only time I'd been here defending this branch of the bank rather than trying to make a withdrawal of my own.

I sighed and floated out the front door. I took my time. I had time to kill. That was the one thing I could kill without pissing Fialux off.

Maybe they thought they were getting away with Fialux. Maybe they thought they were going to get whatever the hell bounty was being offered on her sexy superpowered head, but they'd have another think coming if they thought they were getting one over on Night Terror.

I went on a nice leisurely float over the building and then down to one of the fire escapes that overlooked the loading dock. The thing was in an alley that was wide as they measured that sort of thing in Starlight City, with a dead end in one direction and the street in the other direction.

The perfect place for a bank robber turkey shoot. I stared down at the loading dock. Waited for the back door to open. And sure enough, it did.

Fialux flailed in every direction as they carted her off. Dialing down her power so I didn't have to worry about her hurting herself or other people meant now she was at their mercy.

Okay, so mostly I was worried about her hurting other people. Hey, I might be a villain at heart, but I was still worried about collateral damage.

Maybe Fialux was right. Maybe there was a touch of the hero in me. I'd saved the city a couple of times now, though the city seemed to be conflicted on whether they loved me or hated me for doing that saving.

There was still a large contingent of talking heads on the Starlight City News Network who went on and on about how if I was at the scene of a crime then I had to have something to do with that crime. Even if it looked like I was trying to stop said crime.

The pricks. Journalists. Always patting themselves on the back about talking about other people doing interesting things as though that was the same as doing interesting things. When they weren't cowering and kowtowing to the rich and powerful because they were the ones who signed their paychecks in the era of media consolidation.

It was almost enough to make me buy my own news network to talk about how great I was all the time.

The robbers took a couple of steps before I pulled out my wrist blaster and fired off a couple of warning shots. Chunks of asphalt flew in the air, and they all stopped in their tracks and looked up. I smiled and did a little wave at them where I wiggled my fingers.

"Hello boys," I said. "Which one of you wants to go first?"

They all looked at each other. And then they dispersed. Running for both ends of the alley.

The only problem was, again, obviously none of these assholes had done their homework. One end of the alley was a dead end, so I didn't bother to chase after the pricks going that way.

The other end let out onto the street. I could hear the telltale sirens that meant the cops were on their way, but I couldn't be sure they'd get here in time. After all, I could also still hear and feel the deep bass thrum of that giant lizard making its way through the city somewhere off in the distance. Followed by an unearthly roar and the sounds of buildings getting clawed.

That was fucking loud. Okay then. Maybe that thing was closer than I thought.

I suppose I could've gone for something simple. A disrupter or something that would stop them in their tracks and render them unable to move until the cops showed up.

But that seemed too good for these assholes. After all, they had done their best to try and capture Fialux. To say I took a dim view of the assholes trying to capture my girlfriend would be one hell of an understatement.

So I fired off a spread of anti-Newtonian bubbles.

That damn thing really was useful. I was finding new ways to manipulate it almost every day, and not all of them had to do with the safety applications of dealing with someone who was getting used to antigravity powered flight.

Take this for example. The bubbles shot down the alley and enveloped each of the robbers who'd been trying to make their escape that way. No sooner had the bubbles made contact with the pricks than they all slowed to a crawl.

Sure they were still moving, very slowly, but if it took awhile for me to get out of an anti-Newtonian field when I was operating my high-powered equipment? Then it was going to take a hell of a lot longer for those assholes to get out of the same field when all they were operating with was what mother nature gave them.

Considering how out of shape some of those guys looked? Mother nature hadn't given them all that much to begin with, and they'd destroyed that through years of smoking, drinking, and overeating. They'd still be trying to get away by the time the cops showed up to apprehend them.

"Sucks to be you dickheads!" I shouted after them.

Wrapped in an anti-Newtonian field like that, I'd be long gone by the time they turned to react to my taunt. Which was too bad, but I had zero intention of sticking around long enough for the fuzz to show up and start yanking my monkey chain.

My reputation had already suffered a setback with the fuzz when I was doing battle with Fialux on the regular. It turns out having your ass dropped in front of the police station time and time again with all my equipment busted to hell and back had the effect of making the police a little less terrified.

It was going to take awhile to regain that perfect balance of fear and respect I'd enjoyed with the cops before Fialux came along, and now wasn't the time to mess with that.

I looked to the other end of the alley. To Fialux and the remaining robbers down at the end of the alley.

Training day wasn't over yet, but it was these robber assholes who were about to get schooled.

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