"Okay. So you defeated the scary robot that was blocking the entrance, and you managed to kill Dr. Lana, which I'm pretty sure is straight-up murder," Selena said.

"It wasn't straight-up murder," I said.

"You sent that thing after her, and it exploded and blew her up. It was premeditated and everything," Selena said. "And don't think for a moment I haven't forgotten about all that supernatural stuff. I still want to know whether or not you're putting me on,"

"You mean whether or not I'm bullshitting you," I said, grinning despite the situation.

My head was on a swivel. I was looking this way and that, trying to find some sign of whatever trap Dr. Lana was going to spring on me next. I had zero doubt there was a trap she was going to spring on me.

"You know I don't like using salty language," she said with a sniff.

"And you know I don't like putting you in the line of fire," I said.

The robot didn't rise from the grave. I half-expected more of them to come running in, but when I walked over and had a look, I realized the thing was stuck to an animatronic base. It probably wasn't all that much more advanced than the kind of thing you'd see on Pirates of the Caribbean.

Minus the advanced power cell because apparently she didn't want to go to the trouble of connecting this to building power for some reason. Probably because it drew way more power than the plugs here were rated for.

It was an old building. I'd run into that trouble a few times when I tried experimenting with stuff above the basement levels where everything was wired to a reactor that the university and the DoD swore up and down didn't exist there.

Plus when the Pirates of the Caribbean came out to sing a merry tune? They weren't packing heat and trying to kill you. That was a big difference.

"Is this really the best you've got?" I said, looking up and around. "The kind of animatronics Walt Disney was putting together back in the '60s? You seriously are the worst wannabe villain in the world."

"Who are you talking to?" Selena asked.

"To Dr. Lana, of course," I said.

I strode past the robot receptionist and into a long hallway. There was an elevator at the end of the hallway, and it led to the real Applied Sciences Department underground. Not the building above ground that everybody assumed was the Applied Sciences Department.

"But you just killed her," Selena said, "In cold blood, I might add."

"You keep sounding upset about that, but I need to remind you I am a villain, and she did try to kill you. She was also trying to kill me just now with that robot. That makes it self-defense."

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. "That's what this is really about, isn't it?"

"Self-defense?"

"No. The other thing."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"You just said it a minute ago. You didn't want me to come out there because you're worried about me."

I thought about those weapons Dr. Lana used against her. I'd been holding them in my lab ever since that incident in front of the goddamn Applied Sciences Department. I thought of that night when, for the first time, we met and didn't immediately launch into a fight.

It was a night I cherished, and not because Dr. Lana had apparently managed to come up with some sort of Klingon pain stick bullshit that could be used to harm the great and powerful Fialux before I came up with a solution.

I hadn't bothered to study them since. I worried that CORVAC might've been studying them and they might make an appearance in our fight with his giant death robot, but thankfully that never happened.

"I don't remember saying anything like that," I finally said.

"Do you want me to play back the recording?" she asked. "I'm getting really good at figuring out how to use all the fun toys you have at your disposal here in your lab."

"I'd rather you didn't," I said with a sniff.

"Fine," she said, "But you said it, and you have to let me go out and do things. I am the greatest hero Starlight City has ever seen."

"I mean, the jury's still out on that," I said.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

I reached the elevator. I looked up at the thing and took in a deep breath. I let it out in a long sigh.

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I hated the goddamn Applied Sciences Department, sure, but there was something to be said for coming back to your old stomping grounds after a long absence. Even if my old stomping grounds were bringing up all sorts of painful memories I'd rather forget.

"I seem to recall that I was the one who fought off the giant death robot CORVAC was tooling around in. I was the one everybody was cheering for that day."

I grinned despite myself. That was something she couldn't see from the other side of the display. Not without a drone feed.

I knew it would get her good and riled up. Riling her up was always fun. It always made for a more interesting end to date night, which is why I was doing it.

Even if sometimes I had to wear my suit to the end of date night to make sure we didn't accidentally break something because she got so riled up.

"Are you kidding me?" she said. "You're going back to this?"

Then I heard her take a deep breath. Meanwhile, I hit the button on the elevator and waited for it to come up. I wondered if my old passcodes still worked, or if I'd have to rely on the stuff I hacked fair and square.

That was fine. I'd sent out a whole heap of phishing emails to everybody who worked in the goddamn Applied Sciences Department in preparation. I was pretty sure at least one of the old fossils who'd been tooling around here long enough that they probably knew Oppenheimer on a first name basis would fall for one and give me a passcode that would work on the elevator.

"You're trying to get a rise out of me," she said. "I'm not falling for it this time."

"But it's so fun," I said.

"Yeah, it can be fun, but don't forget that time I almost broke your arm. I don't know my own strength sometimes."

"Believe me, I know it," I said, rotating my shoulder and thinking about a time she threw me down on the bed so hard that the bed collapsed under me, and I almost went through it and into the floor.

Thank goodness for the inertial dampeners I'd set up around the bed after a couple of close calls prior to that.

"Okay, I'm done with this," she said. "I'm coming out there to help you."

The doors to the elevator opened. I was about to open my mouth and tell her I didn't want her to come out here. I really was worried she'd end up getting hurt somehow. I knew Dr. Lana probably had all kinds of little tricks set up all through her lair. I'd heard about a lot of them when I was still teaching here, and I knew she was a fan of that kind of bullshit.

Even if it was cut-rate bullshit. Like having an animatronic that was literally bolted to the floor rather than an actual robot that could get up and move around and attack.

The doors opened, and any words left my lips as I saw Dr. Lana standing there. Still in the same outfit she'd been earlier on the video feed. It didn't look like the thing was so much as singed. She also had a blood red cape that almost moved into purple, and it billowed around her.

I cocked my head to the side and frowned.

"Did you seriously attach a fan to the back of your super suit so you could make your cape billow behind you even when there's no wind?"

She smiled. "I figure if there's no wind then I might as well make my own. That's a little bit of theatricality I learned from you. You should be flattered."

"Forgive me if I'm not," I said.

She shrugged. "That's your problem, not mine."

And then she ran forward. A pulse of energy appeared in front of her fist. She slammed it into my gut, sending me flying back.

Like when I say "flying back," that usually conjures an image of somebody sliding across the floor and maybe coming to rest a few feet away from the asshole who punched them. I don't want to give somebody that idea here.

I didn't go sliding back. I went flying back. Back through the front lobby, through the front doors that crashed all around me as I crashed through them, back out into the plaza in front of the goddamn Applied Sciences Department. The very same place where I had that fateful first conversation with Fialux where we weren't trying to defeat each other.

Also one of the first conversations we had that didn't end with her trying to make a very illegal citizen's non-arrest.

I slammed into a fountain on the other side of that plaza. The thing featured a statue in the middle that was supposed to represent the spirit of Ingenuity or some crap like that.

I came up sputtering and splashing. Swimming wasn't exactly my favorite thing. Going back to an ancient memory of my dad thinking it'd be a good idea to teach me how to swim by tossing me into a brown muddy lake where I couldn't touch the bottom. And when I did sink to the bottom, it felt like the mud was reaching up and trying to suck me under.

"Seriously? You always have to be so dramatic," Dr. Lana said, floating in front of the fountain.

I blinked, and then I sat up. Right. The water was so shallow I could sit on my ass and my head would still be well above the waterline. It's not like the fountains on campus were deep sea trenches.

I shot up as she brought her wrist to bear on me again.

A blast went through the air where I'd just been a moment ago. It sizzled, followed by a crunching noise, and then something crashed to the ground and sent a wave of water splashing out over the fountain.

"You just destroyed the spirit of Ingenuity, you bitch!" I shouted, throwing my head back and cackling.

"Why are you laughing about me destroying the statue?" she said, putting her hands on her hips and staring up at me, indignant.

"Because that's the perfect metaphor for your career in super science!"

"You bitch," she said, and her wrist blaster started firing again. Only I quickly realized she was having trouble actually hitting me.

Which I could totally understand. She was using one of my wrist blaster designs, and clearly she hadn't taken the time to actually learn how to use it. Firing a wrist blaster was a lot easier than aiming a gun in a lot of ways, but at the same time it was also very different from aiming a traditional gun. It took some getting used to.

And clearly she couldn't hit the broad side of a giant death robot with the way she was blasting away. I paused midair.

"Why won't you hold still?" she screamed in frustration.

"Fine," I said, coming to a standstill right above the fountain she'd just desecrated. Not that I was all that upset that she'd desecrated the fountain. I always thought it was tacky and in poor taste considering all the weapons research the Applied Sciences Department did on the regular.

I drew a bead on her. There was no need for me to work on my aim with my wrist blaster. I'd been doing this long enough that I knew exactly what I was doing.

Meanwhile, she was firing all around me.

"What's the matter?" I called down. "I'm holding still for you. Can't you hit me?"

"I'm going to kill you and then I'm going to steal everything you've ever created and make it my own," she shouted.

"Over my dead body!" I shouted down at her.

"I can arrange that," she said as blasts continued sizzling through the air all around me.

"Yeah, I'm not that scared."

I was about to fire when a green blur appeared out of nowhere, and suddenly there was no Dr. Lana down in the plaza below. Though I could track where she was going by the path of destruction from her wrist blaster as she continued to fire as she was carried off faster than a speeding bullet.

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