“Breaking news,” the television host says to the camera: “Intelegant is currently threatening to destroy the whole city.” The camera clips to Intelegant on a roof with a massive lazer-like destructive weapon. “We now take you to our top reporter, Micheal Smith, our eyes on the situation.”

The feed cuts to a trans man standing in a street surrounded by a crowd of people. “Intelegant is waiting for someone to agree to her terms. Naturalist would usually take care of this situation, but today, he’s late.”

There’s a click like something being plugged into a speaker.

“Hello, New Baru!” Intelegant says over every device she could get control of. (New Baru is what the city was named after it changed from a small town to the destination city it is now considered to be).

The camera swivels her. As always she’s wearing her black, pink, and red costume, but unlike always, she has a doomsday device.

“I’m getting bored of waiting so either give me the money or I’ll nuke these gawkers.” There are approximately one hundred or so people gathered to watch the villains antics.

WOOSH

“Stop right there!” Naturalist says as he lands on the ground in front of the people she just threatened.

“I’m not moving,” she says sassily.

“Hand over the weapon,” he says, his finger pointing dramatically in her direction.

“Oh, this little thing?” She shifts it so it points at him.

“Yes. Put it down and give yourself up.”

“Where’s the fun in that!?”

“Nothing about this is fun. You’ve crossed a line this time. That could really hurt someone,” Naturalist declares with the voice of an anime protagonist.

“Chill out. I just made this to get you here,” Intelegant says evilly.

“What? Why would you do that?” Naturalist furrows his brows in confusion.

“I wanted to see if this worked.”

Before Naturalist can respond, or react, she shoots him with the doomsday device.

The crowd gasps, along with everyone watching the live news. The pulsing beam of blue light that connects the hero and device lasts for almost a minute, and in that time the onlookers book it out of there.

They seemed to have jumped the gun because when the beam does taper off, Naturalist still stands, completely unaffected.

“What was that supposed to do?” the hero asks.

The villain snaps her fingers. “Gosh darn it! I thought it would work this time.” Intelegant pulls a screwdriver from her costume’s belt and starts messing with her device.

“What are you doing now?” Naturalist sounds amused.

“Just give me a sec,” Inetelgant says as she sets the machine down and dips underneath the brim of the roof.

The hero flies to her. He takes his time because the public isn’t watching this fight, for once. He’s been hoping for a chance to talk to Intelegant and convince her to become his sidekick, and this seems like the perfect chance.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The villain is too engrossed in the now exposed wires of her machine to notice. He walks over to her, and she still doesn’t notice. She does notice when he taps her on the shoulder.

At that point she jumps, turns, and waves a hand at him in a dismissive manner with a quick, “Go away.”

Naturalist thinks it’s cute. “Where’s the fun in that,” he says, quoting her earlier words.

“Shh, shh. I’m busy.”

“What are you busy doing?”

Rather than responding she closes the hatch showing the exposed wires. “You’ll see.” She sounds the same as she did right before she shot him the first time. Naturalist recognizes the similarities and dodges. A beam of blue light flies into the sky.

“Stay still,” she says as she shifts the machine, moving the beam towards him.

He floats away from the beam at the same slow pace it follows him. “Tell me what it’s supposed to do first.”

“Stay still and maybe I’ll tell you.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“Says who?” She swings the beam wildly. It doesn’t hit him, but it convinces him to destroy the device. He flies to its side and picks it up.

“Hey! Give that back!” She reaches for the device.

He holds it over the edge of the building so she can’t get it. “Tell me what it does and maybe I will.”

“Fine…”

He lowers his guard slightly as he waits for the explanation.

She draws the taser gun from last time out of her fanny pack and shoots him.

Naturalist goes down. As the hero goes limp, he loses his grip on the device, so it tumbles off the building toward its destruction.

“Well that’s just great.” Intelegant pouts. “I worked really hard on that too.”

“Since it’s broken, will you tell me what it does?” the hero says as he starts to get back up.

“No.” She zaps him with the taser again and starts running away. She’s added a sting and a winder so after the projectile is shot, all she has to do is press a button and it shoots back into the gun, ready to be shot again.

“Why are you like this?” Naturalist groans as he gets up. He doesn’t expect her to have stayed close to him, but he didn’t expect her to have managed to travel across three buildings in the time it took him to recover.

He stands up, shoots off the roof and flies over to her.

Her response is to shout, “How are you always so fast???”

“Maybe you’re just slow,” he suggests with a smile.

“I’m not! Well, I’m not until you compare me to a superspeed-having freak!” She turns to him as she speaks. She planned to stick out her tongue once she was done talking but before she could, she trips.

Intelegant’s momentum carries her the rest of the way to the edge of the building and from there she falls.

Naturalist, acting on instinct, speeds up and grabs her before she can crash into the ground. “I told you doing this would get you killed.” He’s holding her by one foot.

“I could survive the fall,” she says confidently.

“Then maybe I’ll drop you,” he lets go for half a second. The instantaneous fear that takes over Intelegant is palpable, but Naturalist doesn’t pick up on it, in fact he mocks her. “Is someone scared?” He looks down at the villain, ready for one of her snappy quips. Instead of seeing the girl he knows, he sees terror. Intelegant has grabbed onto an alley wall and is clinging to it, like a scared cat.

Just as quickly as the glint of fear appeared, it vanishes. She lets go of the building once she sees Naturalist looking at her and declares, “Nothing scares me!”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” Naturalist gently sets her on the roof that she was trying to jump to as he backpedals.

“Wasn’t scared, but thanks for the chance to escape.” She tazes him again.

He falls onto the roof as she starts running away.

He probably could have gotten up sooner than he does, but he is too consumed by his thoughts.

He wonders why she was only scared then and not at any other time. He wonders how she so quickly erased all signs of that fear. He ponders how this will affect his plan to confess to her. Maybe she’ll run away to a different city and he’ll never see her again? Maybe she won’t act the same after this because she’s scared of what he can do? He can understand that because he thinks this is what will make her realize that he’s dangerous.

As he goes back to his apartment, he decides that the next time he sees her he’ll get her alone, somewhere that the media can’t see them, and he’ll tell her everything. He’ll tell her how he wants to date her, how special he thinks she is, and ask her to be his sidekick. As he returns home that day he swears to himself that he’ll go through with his plan.