A Story With Much Violence, But No Sex

It was around 1:00am when Sarah's eyes opened. Something was happening.

She was sleeping with Lana, also known as the superhero the Flame. This itself wasn't unusual, they had done this quite a bit in the last two months.

No. What was important they hadn't had sex first.

It was Wednesday, and she had come over after working on the days shoot, with bluerays of the first three star war movies, the new ones...well, you know what i am talking about: Episodes 1-3. Lana had never seen them before. They watched the first two. She had, of course, seen the original movies...she wasn't that strange. But not the next three Lucas made in the nineties.

They ended up watching the Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. Both were actually a lot better then she had remembered they were supposed to be. Both had a couple of fun action  sequences, even if some of the performances were pretty stiff. Yoda with a lightsaber made her clap her hands. Lana had made them a light dinner (for someone who claimed to want to gain weight she didn't eat that much). It was fun. As they watched them with her she seemed to enjoy it to a degree, effecting in her weird semi-emotionless, hard-to-read kind of way that this was passable entertainment. Lana, whose taste tended more toward theatre, classical music, and the legitimate arts, didn't talk them down. She sat and watched...well, like a girlfriend who was sitting with their partner and trying to like what they like.

Girlfriend: After about three months, yeah...that was increasingly the word.

And so she slept over. They had kissed before going to bed a bit and she was snuggling into her a bit, but she was still wearing her work clothes at 12:35. Tommorow she had set her clock to wake her at 7am for a 8am shoot at the studio...and yeah, she was a girlfirend coming to her SO house tonight not to have sex.

Not having sex was an important step. Her first boyfriend and her did it a couple of times before actually having sex when she was a teenager - but after that..well. Here she was. Only with Jim (who stayed with her a couple of weeks between roommates on a trial basis that never lasted more than a trial) had she ever done this with before.

It wasn't bad. Lana had a nice big bed, in an impeccably kept house. Lana was a small thing and didn't take up much of the space or the covers. And while she had the personality of a cold fish, her body was actually quite warm, in a snuggable way.

Fuck. She would have to go to work tomorrow wearing the same clothes she came into after not fucking.

Maybe it was time to ask for a drawer.

Sarah sighed. It would be impossible to walk out of the room now. And should she?

That's when it went off in her mind. The feeling...the sense. Something was wrong.

Something was incredibly wrong.

And not with their relationship.

She shook her head. She would have to deal with this...

"Lana" she said to the woman next to her.She pressed agianst her slightly.

"What is it," she asked sleepily, not quite waking up.

"Trouble. It's...I don't know...but I can sense it. Something big."

Lana woke up opening her eyes with almost inhuman speed. Like her, of course, she was slightly inhuman. Just in a different way.  "Any more information?"

"Downtown."

Lana got out of bed and went to her closet, pushing aside garments as she did, until she found her gingham dress that was the costume of the Eternal Flame. Part of the performance aspect, she had told Sarah.

"I'm coming with you, of course."

Sarah sighed. She had never gone on patrol with the Eternal Flame before. She didn't like going "On patrol". Sarah and Lana here...well, something. But 'Mazing Girl and the Eternal Flame were not nothing.

Sarah shook her head. How could she stop her? She got out of bed. " Can you drive? It'd feel odd carrying you."

"Doesn't quite work well with my image in any method. Sure."

Sarah undressed in front of her, taking off her work polo shirt her work pants. Flame was doing the same. She had undressed for her lover before. Now she was undressing as if they were going to play soccor or something.

This was important. This was a step. And she didn't know what she was feeling. Lana's advantage, and her downside as a lover, as she could never quite get a read on what she was feeling, good or bad. For a telepath, she had no real idea what she was thinking.

*******

They were taking the Flame's black '48 Packard. Lana drove a Lexus, but you know, well...image. The car was not a stock Packard. It had a much more powerful and quick engine, the tires were modern, and there was surprisingly powerful equipment built into its dashboard but the idea was the same.

They drove down surface streets, Sarah slumped in the seats.

"Do you have any more information?" Lana asked.

"It's big, and it's downtown. Like, around City Hall, I want to say. That area," Sarah told her.

Sarah was never quite sure what it was that guided her. It should be perhaps explained that all of the heroes and villains who had actual power as far as was known were mutants of a kind. Most of them where psychic, some of them were more physical. One in a million or so was like this for genetic reasons no one fully understood. Now, through large portions of human history, one in a  million meant one or two in the whole world. They often fell into myth and superstition, or hid it as whatever. It wasn't until the late 19th century that anyone really suspected they existed - it wasn't until the 1920s when proof was gained. Comic book stories were developing and they became creatures of comicbooks. Which was just as well, as circus freak or all powerful tyrant was not a good thing either.

However, Sarah had been blessed underneath her nerdy charm to be have a fair amount of religion. Nerds often did. She had grown up in a fairly religious Tallahassee area family. She had been brought up baptist, and somewhere inside her still believed in God, and that God gave her these gifts, to either use to bless humanity or punish it.

Or, to put it another way: Her family knew about 'Mazing Girl. Her family supported 'Mazing Girl. She hadn't told them about Lana and wasn't sure how to. But if they were sleeping together and not having sex, she probably ought to.

Lana drove on. "Going to turn on the scanners?"

"No need," said Sarah as she looked up.

And there truly was no need, for floating above the downtown skyline was a giant blimp emblazened with metal decals. And huge artillery raining down fire.

*****

"Deca."

The police had setup a roadblock around the downtown area, but when Flame and 'Mazing Girl came they opened the road for them. "He's doing something really big. Shooting some of the buildings. Thankfully, at this time of night, the area is mostly empty. We're scrambling some jets from Mugu, but they'll take awhile. Really glad your here."

"She gave me a lift." 'Mazing Girl nodded to Flame and the 10 police in the command center. That was technically true.

Flame had a look that made it impossible to tell what she was thinking. "So: Deca. Hes finally made his move."

"No demands, or loudspeaker, thankfully," said the captain.

"He wants me," 'Mazing Girl informed them. "Well...that's always the case. It's time we end this."

"But not alone." For a second Sarah thought Flame said it, and would feel a bit of the heart string. But no. Behind her was.... Glider.

He wasn't actually (wearing? using?) his hang-glider. He wore a suit that looked a lot like a World War I pilot uniform. All leather, with dashing cavalry pants and a leather helmet with googles. In a steampunk nightclub worn by a girl who was 20 years younger then the 40-ish paunchy hero it would look dashing. Perhaps when he started out it would look dashing. now he looked a little silly.

"He knows you can get there easily with your jumping powers. But Flame, and the others, are powerless to help. But not me!! For you can run, but you can't glide."

Catchphrase. She needed one. His was catchy, she'll give it that.

"He can fly. You can jump. I'll figure something out," the Flame at last suggested.

"Your just going to let me go up there by myself?" demanded 'Mazing Girl, shocked by her lack of emotion at all of this.

"you're your own hero, 'bnazing. you have skills and talents that i don't. i am not going to smother you," said Flame.

"Smother me?"

"Oooh," said a police officer, shaking his head.

"Don't 'oooh' me!" said 'Mazing Girl. "The last thing I need, or anyone needs in this situation, is a giant 'oooh' going on. That doesn't help ithe sitution in the slightest most infimestimal"

"are you frightened?" asked Flame.

"Yeah, I'm frightened. This guy has a giant fucking blimp. A giant fucking blimp. I am not joking. Giant fuckin....g blimp.!!!1How do you build something like that?"

Flame put a hand on her shoulder. It was very calm and friendly. "I wish I could take your fear from you, but I can't. nothing to be said.nlimp and all. all I can say is what is obvious. you are the most powerful hero in the city. you're stronger then all the rest of us put together! i have tremendous faith in your powers, and your skills."

Glider nodded. "Give me a minute to get ready. We should try a co-ordinated attack."

Flame looked thoughtful a moment. "i think it's a helium balloon, which means its non-flamable, but i'll try to figure out something, well, useful."

Glider walked away.

"I could just carry you. I have done with Knife Girl a dozen times. "

"i'll find a way."

'Mazing Girl leaned in to whisper. "are you frightened?"

((would it help you for me to say i was?))

'Mazing Girl shook her head. No reading this woman.

*******

'Mazing girl walked away from the police cars. She looked up at the blimp. It was shooting a lot of things. She saw Glider go up.

"Ready to go when you are," he boldly declared, and lowered his goggles into place as she smiled at him slightly.

Then what looked like a rocket hit him, and he exploded.

'Mazing Girl freaked out for a second and screamed, but realised that would do her nor anybody else any good. Instead, she flew up into air with the scream still on her lips.

*****

It was dark inside the blimp. No one was present. She wondered if Deca had brought any thugs or things of that nature with him. For a second it occured to her that a viable strategy might be to wait 'til she got there then detonate it remotely. It would be a smart play if he wanted to kill her, but something about him suggested otherwise.

He wanted to face her.

Then an intercom went off. "WELL, IT TURNED OUT IN THE END THAT HE COULD NEITHER RUN OR GLIDE."

"Can you hear me?" asked Mazing Girl

"I WOULDN'T MISS THIS FOR THE WORLD."

'Mazing Girl shrugged. The logical place for the control would be at the front/underneath of the gondola  but realistically it could be anywhere. Even inside the balloon itself. She looked around.

"I HAVE TAKEN THE TIME TO MAKE ROBOT GUARDS. DON'T WORRY...I DO THINK YOU CAN BEAT THEM. BUT THEY MAY...TIRE YOU...A BIT"

He wasn't making this easy. Nonetheless, the Airforce was going to come in at some point and deal with this, so perhaps a viable strategy was to distract him a bit by fighting guards and come for him then.

Nope.

She saw the guard robots. It would be nice to say they were large metal robots with hands and tin pots for head but they where short squat robots that walked on four legs. With a large gun on top of their body. There were about 20 of them and they all shot her at once.

That hurt a lot.

So she ran. Right through them, down the hall they came from, past them...

Ran down on down the hallway.

Right over a large opening into the sky.

She fell in an instant, down into the sky, falling and flailing her arms and probably looking a little stupid. Then she gained calm again, from somewhere. This was moments that needed calm.

Nope...falling.

She straightened herself.

And then got shot by a giant artlerly shell.

That hurt an awful lot.

She realised that the lower half of her costume was entirely gone, leaving her in hopefully clean panties. Her dignity was hurt. As was the rest of her.

And she needed to get this fucker down...

She hit the ground, and pushed down against it, destroying the concrete street as she did. Sarah shot right up, very nearly breaking the speed of sound.

And went through the blimp like a giant bullet.

She went through the  cabin  then the balloon. Blimps have a lot of steel girders in them, she hit a couple before breaking through the top, making a huge hole as she saw the night sky.

She landed on top of it.

The blimp was bleeding helium. Despite what you might think, it wasn't an incredibly fast process but it was a process underway. It was going down. No matter what happened this flight would be over at some point in the very near future. She saw 1000's of police officers (that may have been an exaggeration) on the ground. It looked like the national guard. This would be over. Deca couldn't escape. She had won. She had saved the city.

She flopped down on top of the balloon exhausted. Her body was covered in soot and scars. Every part of her hurt. Every part of her.

Yet she would still get to work tomorrow. She didn't want to get the reputation of someone who missed days.

But now she relaxed.

"What a waste," observed Nighthawk, who was somehow standing next to her. "Pathetic."

"The blimps going down. I saved us."

"The blimps not the problem. He is! And look at you: Slacking. You and all your terrific powers. What a waste on a pathetic slacker like yourself. I worked for this...a thousand hours in the gym, training my body to the peak of humanity. And you come in with your fancy tricks to make the people love you. But they never guess what a waste you are, Sarah. Yeah...I know: Ms. Jennings. All the power in the world and you will never live up to your potential."

Mazing giirl looked at him

"Well  you mani-pedi!"

That was a good comeback. That was amazing. Nighthawk...

Well...Nighthawk suddenly had a huge hole in his chest as Deca stuck his hand through it from behind. He fell over...dead.

"SARAH HUH?" said  Deca "JENNINGS? NICE TO MEET YOU."

Sarah stood up on the top of the falling blimp. Deca was there hovering, he had some type of jetpack thingy. It made his giant black cape swish a bit.

She adjusted a bit. "What do you possibly hope to accomplish?" she asked "" I am not trying to trick you, or anything, I just honestly, honestly, want to know the point of all of this."

"You," Deca told her, in a surpsingly normal voice. "You were always the goal. He was right, you know. Ms. Jennings, you are the most powerful super in the world. Your powers, your skills, are greater then anyone else on the planet."

"No...thats not true. Hiro, Defender, Maiden of..."

"Reputation. Goverments wanting there champions to seem mighty. Newspapers selling papers. But I didn't say reputation. You are stronger, faster, tougher...all of it. You are the ultimate expression of humanity. And if I destroy that, then thats what I will be."

"No," Sarah protested. Then she realised that this guy was crazy. She had beaten him before, and that probably inflated her a bit in his eyes. It had to be that.

Wasn't it?

Ah fuck.

As it went through her mind she thought about the big heroes of the past. The one that had saved cities from destruction. Strong; Brave. sometimes backed by society - but her powers was just amazing. While plenty of them had been strong, her strength was beyond theirs. She was.....

Well, time for the most powerful hero in the world to do her thing.

"This is for Brian"

She jumped forward off the blimp grabbing him and flying forward with him at 250 miles an hour, into the side of a bank two or three miles away.

She hoped she was smashing into something heavy, but it was really just the windows. They came to a stop inside an office.

Deca then punched her in the head. That hurt probably the most of anything so far.

"Since the last time we were together I've increase my hydraulic power tenfold. I hope that's enough. I doubt it a bit...but one can hope."

She punched him agian  "This is for Joe"

Deca turned." The first one i remember....the second one"

"And that is why you suck" said Sarah as she kicked him in the chest.

"Improved armour protection, too."

Sarah paused as he punched her again. This was hurting. The artillery earlier hadn't helped, but this was hurting. She punched at him, but he dodged it. He punched her, but she grabbed his arm and threw him out of the building and to the ground bellow.

She caught her breath for a second, but then he just flew back up out the window.

"Jetpack."

It was then that a rain of bullets hit her, pounding her as she ducked behind a support column.

"Coward!" She ran through the building - literally through the building, not bothering to stop for walls - until she hit the side of the last glass wall and jumped out.

"I am not the 90 pound weakling in a stupid suit!"

She jumped towards the police men in central city. that whoudl give her more protection.

She noted that the blimp had hit the side of one of the huge courthouses and was coming down with a bit of a crash. It didn't look that bad though.

She also noted that he was following her

"PATHETIC!"

A stream of bullets flew at her, spewing into the night.

She hit the side of the courthouse with her feet and like a swimmer and flew right back into him.

This smashed him, knocking him and his jetpack down. He crashed  in a park, skidding into a fountain.

She adjusted a bit and landed on the Time building before jumping down next to him.

With her, 100 policemen encircled him.

"Stand back! Let me handle it!" "Mazing Girl commanded, with more authority then she could usually muster. They listened to her.

She grabbed Deca's body as it faltered, and punched off his mask. There was his face. His real face...like a Scooby-Doo villain. He was a small man, really...small and pathetic.

She then felt an incredible sensation at the back of her neck, felt it smashing. Her trouble-detector, only at a 100 times the normal magnitude.

He  was still on the ground. "You forgot my power, 'Mazing Girl: Getting into your mind. It is amazing. I can get in there and trigger that little sense of yours...too much? Hmmm...let's see what it does..."

Sarah fell to the ground. The sense of horror his horror was too much for her. Too fucking much she felt incredible. All of the evils of the world entering her skull unfettered by rhyme or reason.

"90 pound weekling in a suit? Guilty. All that time and energy, robots meca and i had it all along"

Sarah felt the world's pain, it's suffering, all in her head. All of it at once.

When someone else walked over.

"hello brother," the Eternal Flame greeted Deca  as she walked onto the scene from out of nowhere.

"Hello sister" said Deca. "Oh, you didn't know this? Or did you? That Flame and I are twin brother and sister?"

"near identical power-sets," said Flame. " i didn't want to fight you, i admit. nut you give me no choice."

Sarah could barely look up at the scene in front of her.

"Oh." Deca smiled, standing up.  "I just peeked in her mind. Really? Her? That's where your getting your pleasures? This makes it all the sweeter! Dear sister, do you want to know if she loves you? You're too polite, or perhaps too scared to find out...but you want to know, don't you?"

Sarah could feel the power, as it grew stronger it grew more pronouced. She realized that 92 people had died tonight, 140 had some form of injury, 12,453 where in a massive traffic jam as the restult of closing downtown, and 12,234,234 where worried watching this on the news, worried for their loved ones, worried for the families. Sarah learned that it if she had captured him that night 6 months ago none of this would have happened. She learned of the massive property damage he had caused (she had caused), all the destruction and evil that had happened. A giant looming darkness. And perhaps, in her most fevered moments, she could sense something beyond it, something beyond words or meaning. Something.

And then a thought entered her head. He was *monarching* her. He was treating this as if it was a game they were playing. None of it mattered except winning. All of that was irelevant. What was the point of taking a city that wasn't worth two licks?  Sarah was many things, but she cared. She was fat lets face it, a nerd, a slacker, and someone who ocasionaly smoked pot, but she cared.

And man did she hate the show the Venture Brothers.

Sarah was wracked with more pain then she had ever felt before, splayed on the ground. but then she closed her hand and got to her feet. Evil was afoot, and she was the 'Mazing lady sent to stop it.

Deca continued to wraped up in his monologuing. "Does the pathetic little stage-tech really care? Why bother telling you though, because now she is..."

"Done," Sarah finished for him, and punched him in the face. He fell over in a slumpy pile.

The pain was just gone. It was like it was never there. She got up as police swarmed around her and Deca's twitching body on the ground. The Flame drifted away, and she didn't see where she went. Sarah wasn't sure how much the police had heard of the little exchange. No one talked about it much, which was all for the best. But maybe just wishful thinking.

She walked away to the fire of the blimp.

Knife Girl was there, looking over the body of Nighthawk. They had taken off the mask.

"Michael."

Sarah paused. She had never seen Knife Girl's boyfriend, and a sudden thought occured to her. What if it had been Nighthawk? What if his reluctance masked the fact that it was really him and that they were secretly enemies and lovers. It would be poetic. Terrible for her, but poetic.

"Do you know him?" she asked Knife Girl.

"No. He was a TV weather man."

Sarah shook her head and looked at him, thought of glider, thought of all that had happened. The ranks of the heroes had dropped today. There would be stories about how brave all of them had been today, and what sacrifices they had made for the city. It gave little comfort. She had been a hero. She brought down his blimp defeated him, but that gave her no joy. It was kind of an awful night. And there would be another night like it soon enough. If not Deca(probably not Deca as that final punch may have broken his spine) but someone to fill the darkness with dread. And there was less light in it.

"I'm going to miss the fucker," confessed Knife Girl, and that was the exact thing to say.

And Sarah realised she was still just wearing panties on her bottom. She really hoped there wasn't a lot of cameramen.

"Can you get me, like. a blanket or something?" she asked a paramedic.

He did so, and got her water too. She went to sit down under a tree in the park.

"what a waste  my brother was," observed the flame from "when he saw our parents die he thought of fortune and fame. when he got our powers he wanted money. I let him...why not? but that wasn't enough, it was never enough. he wanted power for its own sake. greedy eyes."

Flame, of course, came from nowhere to sit next to Sarah. She put her hand on Sarah's knee.

"You should have told me" said Sarah.

"we have the same last name," Flame told her. "I would assume you could have figured it out."

Sarah chuckled slightly, and then she looked at Lana.She wasn't sad in a traditional sense, or crying. But Sarah looked up at Lana and she saw something human in her eyes. It was just a glance really, perhaps a tad of fear, worry, and panic.

"i was scared that they would get you," theFlame said. "afraid I would loose you. Thats why I didn't want to go with you. Too scared to see. Blimps."

And with that sarah paused consider something. She meant something to someone. She was melting the ice queen.

And, oh fuck, she was falling in love with her too. Fuck.

"Lana would you like a roommate?"

Was she saying this? She had a condo. Lana owned a Five bedroom house Mid-Wiltshire. A roommate was kind of silly. What, would she contribute to utilities?

Lana's eyes were starting to get misty and she could tell this wasn't tears of sadness. She was defiently breaking. Flame was getting sappy on her, and she was defiently getting sappy back.

"It would be nice you know...to have someone to come home to..and I know we can team up and stuff and..."

She was saying this. She was asking to fucking live together. In her head she thought about making a rose garden, and having children together. 401K's, and marriage with two little brides on the cake. Fuck.

Lana leaned in and hugged her. She was crying, or looked like it. She nuzzled into her neck with the look, if not incredible warmth,  tenderness.

This was so so not her. And lana was so not her type. They could never get a beer together, watch action movies together, discuss the merits of Iron Man together,  eat smoked meats together. Yet the imense desire to spend the rest of her fucking life with this women filed her with sudden mania.

"Can I read your thoughts?" Lana asked as she looked up at her. Her own eyes were weak, scared, vulnerable. Then she paused.

Sarah filled the space. "Okay. I just don...."

"No need. Your face tells me everything. It's not bad. It's not good, it's...you feel exactly what I'm feeling right now."

Sarah paused. Damn.

Lana finished Sarah's thought. "And that may not be love, that may not be forever, but goddammit if its not beautiful."

There is no perfect ending to this story. No ending that would be happily ever afte. Sarah was a bit of a flake. Lana had emotional issues up the ying-yang. Whether they stayed together or seperated they would do so with the knowledge of this perfect moment, and the fact that its promise could never be entirely fulfilled. Also, Lana was entirely lesbian and Sarah was  kind of fooling around.

Heroes didn't exist. Humanity was no good. Love's potential was doomed to folly.

But the next day Sarah went to a condo real estate agent and, damned if she didn't get  85% of her asking price. She was never happier.

Becuse it didn't have to be perfect. It didn't have to be neat, or clean or simple.

It was life.

And it was amazing.

A Man in Ten

There were three stages to the supervillain game, really.

1. The stage where you worked to make your evil plan happen.

2. The execution.

3. Aftermath.

Deca’s modus operandi, as probably one of the most feared and powerful supervillains in the world, seemed to be destroy a massive areas, cause chaos and havoc. However, he did so fairly infrequently. Mainly because he was, if anything, an expert planner and worker who was very dedicated to his craft. His meaningless rounds of murder and destruction were very hard to put together. His next plan had taken him 8 months, really, to put together. Putting in mostly 20 hour days. There were still plenty of people in America who would be very impressed with his work ethic.

Deca drove a truck going up to a security gate. His headquarters were in a desert in one of the surprisingly empty quarters of Orange county. He drove forward it and the door opened allowing him to enter. He proceeded to a building in what looked to be a disused electronics office.

He was nervous. In movies or TV, when a villain hatches an evil scheme the transition between going from the working to the execution was dangerous.  That’s always when James Bond came in to stop them from using the Heiliocent Device. Deca wasn't a stupid man, and he knew the world would try to stop him. He didn't super begrudge the world for it either - but he was so close...so very close...

But wel llife . Richard Maclaine was a former Stock Trader, with incredible Telepathic power. He went to UCLA, where he learned about money and how people think-well litterally he was a telepath that was the main trick. He could read minds there passions and what they planned to do with companies and stocks.

And as he learned was often wrong about it. That was the big lesion. He went out to New York for a week to listen to the minds of the stock exchanges and private clubs- to read in some cases fortune 500 companies ceos minds---and even with perfect knowledge of the world fucked it up a lot in his first six months. He lost money when a big deal he tried to short based on a lower earnines report on a Tech Company ended up overall raising the value of the stock.

It was a humbling experience-but by and by over the next view years he learned to do more-to take the unexpected to balance desires and fears, hopes and dreams-and take all of them.

Somehow it had lead him here as he entered the main floor

Deca watched the group toil.

Robots; all of them robots.

It wasn't that he didn't trust people - that was the wrong word. His superpower was fundamentally super-honesty. He knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men, and he trusted that. No. He mainly used machines because of...well philosophy may be one word, credo may be better.

If he made something, he did it. He was responsible for it. And he wanted to be responsible to have stake in his action. A general of men stood on the backs of his men - Alexander was just a little Greek guy who took credit - but he...well, his robot minions were an extension of him.

It was arguably the ultimate extension of a Rand philosophy, complete with a fair amount of racism against Hispanics.

Of course there where people - he just didn't surface them - tons of workers who made the first robots, plenty of people who did the actual work. And Of course his money had come from stealing information and a little bit of other stuff from people who had worked for them, or at least invested them wisely. Or poorly on gimmicks. He was at heart a simple thief.  Like the government, except unlike the government he didn't give people roads or Columbus Day.

And besides, taking apart Rand’s philosophy was pretty tiresome.

He shrugged. Ahh...it was life. And in the small corner of his mind that would still register human emotion he liked Columbus Day. He didn't have a good reason for it, as he thought Columbus was a dirty Italian.

His robots were neither dirty nor Italian.

And he actually wasn't really an objectivist or anything, he was far crazier then that. Which said something.

He shook his head and went back to his work: programming an override to Airspace control protocols. It was hacking, but well...that was another thing that took of planning to do properly. And also involved both stealing information from air traffic controllers heads, and paying a couple of them off. Ahh, well...

Deca’s eyes glazed over a bit. At some point in his life he had decided to become a machine-based supervillain - which meant he had to learn a lot about machines, and how to program them. It could be interesting actually. He did have some genuine interest in it. But it could be very tedious, looking at numbers on a screen. It had very little do with destroying a city or to draw out his foe, and watching the life be sucked out of her. Well, abstractly it did, yes, have something to with that, but not really.

His first battle with mazing girl was really his second major event. his first major battle  had built his first metal suit and attacked fairly randomly he would admit a Shopping center in Artesia(why artesia he didn't have a good anwser). It had went better then he expected. Police showed up if not swat and he managed to defeat about five cop cars-killing about 26 or so in the process. He had killed before, but never on scale. The metal suit that he had spent about 9 months devoloping work liked a glove- better when the bullets bounced-well..

The real fun part he remembered was destroying the parking metters next to the place- it was fun when he ripped them out and smashed them good in a nice long row. it appealed to his ocd side.

his next attack six days latter when he attempted to destroy a school-well thats when he met her. Thats when he was forced to take a boy hostage to escape, and thats when she managed to save the boy he took hostage, even if he got away. failure.

Decas name came from the fact that his suit was as powerful as 10 men. Well there was a design flaw in there guess what?

Two days letter the FBI peirced together the clues-and sennsibly brought her in as opposed to the army. he had repaired his suit increased its strength as best as he could but she beat him. it was in a small park outside of his home. she jumped in through the trees, which he didn't expect. He punched her a couple of times-and this time, this time he managed to knock her back .Set his auto cannons, and for a second-just 5 seconds really he though he beat. he though the muzzle flash of the guns and the bullets was really going to do her in-

But then she got up. shaken yes but she got up. Yes mazing girl was to powerful for him, she could walk through the hail of bullets and grab him and rip his arm off until he was nude- even the  gortex base layer she ripped off and left him naked and humilated defeated  as she looked down at him, so big so supperiror so......

When a red alert went off on his desk.

And something popped up on his screen. It was a security monitor showing a giant bull-like creature with a green mask and an odd outfit. He was standing on top of his building, little lights coming out of his arm cannons.

Blizzard. The champion of Orange County. The hero inspired by World of Warcraft.

Fun.

*****

Blizzard looked around, uncharacteristically cautious. There had been something about this place that didn't quite feel right. A check of records suggested that this old building hadn't been used in months - but it was unusually clean.

Then he heard a noise.

"HI," said a voice.

Blizzard turned his head and body to see a gigantic mechanical man 7 and a half feet tall and covered in horrible plating that formed circles around his body in silver. A black cape, an eyeless helmet. He had never met him, never seen him, but he knew who it was. Deca. Standing 20 feet away.

It meant ten Blizzard thought. It was funny how thought processes went

"I"VE NEVER ACTUALLY TESTED THE NEW ARMOUR AGIANST A REAL FOE. THIS WILL BE USEFUL."

Blizzard considered. He knew he couldn't be cautious. He knew he couldn't be scared. But fear filled a small part of his heart.

Then he screamed.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" he screamed, running towards Deca. He pulled from his back a giant AX. He pressed a button to electrify it to its highest level.

"Electrical attack!"

It hit Deca on the shoulder.

And did nothing at all.

Deca swatted him away, knocking him across the roof.

"ELECTRICAL? I KNOW THAT’S NOT GOING TO HURT ME AT ALL. THAT’S JUST TO PROTECT ME AGIANST A SHORT. I THOUGHT YOU WHERE A COLD BASED HERO."

Blizzard pulled up his gun. Out of which came a giant bullet of liquid nitrogen. He hoped the aiming computer was really good.

It hit Deca in the face.

"GOOD TARGET....BUT...DIAGNOSTIC PROGRAM RUNNING.....AHH, NOPE. NOTHING."

Blizzard started to run, both arms stretched toward his target shooting bullet after bullet. Some hit. Some didn't. But Deca was pelted.

And started to walk forward.

"THIS IS BEGINNING TO BORE ME."

Blizzard got up, his legs hurt a lot from the throw, and just punched Deca’s chest as he came at him. Blizzard realized that was a mistake. He had broken his hand. It didn't hurt too much. Yet. Shock really, but...

"IT’S NOT YOU," Deca told him. "I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU ARE A CREDIBLE THREAT...”

Deca punched blizzard in the face...and the green mask cracked and fell to the ground. As did Blizzard, now a pitiful heap. Deca looked at his opponents face. My god...

"BOBBY KOTECK!" Deca marvelled. "PRESIDENT OF ACTIVISION/BlIZZARD!"

"Do what you will," said Mr. Koteck.

Deca grabbed him in his hands, holding him like a piece of limp cheese, as his own mask pulled down to revel his real face.

He looked at the poor mass in front of him.

"Have you told anyone where you are?"

"Plenty," bluffed Blizzard.

"No. You’re lying. I can read your mind. Going out on a lie. That’s a shitty thing," said Deca.

Then he ripped off Blizzards head with a single movement of his arm. 

Deca sighed.

Murder was something he generally enjoyed. In the moment.

Dead bodies were tricky - and by god he couldn't quite find Blizzard’s head.

The mind-read suggested that Blizzard didn't have any particular steps in place if he disappeared, but a man like him was...well, he was the head of one of the top 100 American companies...he probably couldn't stay missing for long.

He could hide the body somewhere – but, well...no head. And people expect that.

He sighed. He liked the pleasure of telling the world what stuff he did - like killing one of the two major heroes in the county...but if put his body out at the front gate people would start snooping - well pretty much anywhere - people would start snooping. This was going to be a hassle, even if he just hid it.

And if he did that, no one would find out that the orc clad superhero of cold justice was really a pudgy business executive in his mid 50s, who had once been in the Brad Pitt movie "Moneyball" as the nebish team owner. And he’d been good in it to.

It was kind of funny really, and Deca wanted to share the joke with the world.

But no head...

********

Deca built a metal box. A casket of sorts really, though no real funeral was held. He hid into his new...device.

He didn't expect the device to survive his big attack. But that’s okay. Only robots or dead bodies would be there, and there would be many more dead bodies.

However with luck they would find Blizzard...and know.

Deca liked the idea of it.

And he was extra pleased when a small robot came in holding the head.

"GOOD JOB!"

He patted the little thing, though it was just a machine.

X of the Week

"Today we have a special treat: With us in studio - Amazing Girl!" Brian declared. There were two problems with this, thought Sarah the fantastic ‘Mazing Girl. 1) She never pronounced the ‘A’, it was implied. And 2) this wasn't a studio. It was a living room, albeit a very nice one by most standards.

"Hi!" said ‘Mazing Girl. She waved. To no-one, as she had specifically requested that this not be filmed. She was wearing her costume, but hadn't bothered with makeup, and ‘Mazing Girl did require a lot of makeup to look ‘mazing. She was actually looking a bit like she just got out of bed. Which was at 10:00 on a Saturday not completely true, but more true then not. This was her.

"Wow you look amazing,” complimented Joe, Brian’s co-host. Both were superhero nerds - fans of the different heroes in the world if such a thing exists. Actually they did, as Sarah had been one such nerd growing up, but kind of grew out of it a bit as she had grown in. But even their enthusiasm was enthusiastic.

They had a podcast called "Superhero Adventure Hour" where they talked about superhero business, developments around the world, and interviewed people from the superhero world (yes mainly fans, but also agents, government officials and a very interesting podcast about someone who made Steamer’s suit). And yes, occasionally they interviewed people like Sarah. She liked the show. She listened to it now and then. They made a request through her agent, Carl, and she saw it on a list of media requests - and why not? What the hell... It looked fun.

Sarah had done a bit of media work before. Joe her agent had been big on that, when she first hired him.  It was okay. Some superheroes, the aforementioned Steamer for example, did a lot of PR through the media. He was a regular on the Letterman show, and did silly skits. Magica in New York had done some movies, and had posed for some pictures in Vogue that were *not* tasteful. She kept it cool.

She wasn't trying to sell herself as anything other then a helpful presence, and she tried to show she was not scary despite the fact that she could crush you like a gnat with just her toe. Not her big toe, mind you, her little bitty one - she could push it against your chest, feel your rib bones crack, your lungs explode, listen to you gasping on your last breath until there was nothing left, nothing left for you to breath until you look out and see her, and see her smile - and know that she....

Well, actually she had never done anything like that. God...that was horrible. Why was she thinking about that, when she was looking at Brian, who was a handsome looking young man with glasses. He had an “I am a nerd, and I’m not actually in any form of the word ‘cool’, but I am kind of geeky-handsome and probably very nice” air about him, an air that Sarah found attractive sometimes. And the fact that he was worshipful toward her...well, yeah - she was thinking things. She made it a point as ‘Mazing Girl never to act on things, because that could hurt her rep *a lot* if it got out, and because it may explode the little guys soul. She didn't want that, or the lung thingy.

But she had done media: She had done a couple of magazines, including Superheroes Quarterly, Newsweek and the LA Times on multiple occasions (the latter was very good at doing phone-ins that didn't make her sound like a nincompoop). She had done the Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien which was a good way of focusing on the exact moment she had appeared. That had been a good time. She always was afraid, that unless one got into nuts and bolts, there wasn't a whole lot to what she did that she could reasonably talk about - but Conan was a trooper. And, yes, he did ask her to bend a steel bar.

It broke about halfway, as steel bars tended to do when you bent them too quickly. Then she had taken both ends and pushed them together so hard they literally melted into a new bar - I mean it glowed 8000 degrees.

She put it down afterward and told Conan: “Don't touch it as it may hot”.

She still thought that was the funniest gag she maybe ever did in her life. Which was a shame, as it was a visual joke and thus does not translate well here.

However, Conan got fired a couple of months later, and she didn't want to do Leno, didn't want to fly to New York to do press so...for the last couple of years she didn't do all that much.

Until...

"So you have been doing this for about five years now," Brian began. "How has it changed your view of Los Angeles?"

Sarah paused. Podcasts were weird. There was an expectation of doing something slightly serious, and ask intelligent questions, but also to be kind of funny. It was a weird mix.

"LA is an easy city - and you both live here, so I guess you know what I mean - but LA is an easy city to be in one neighbourhood, to have one experience, and forget 100 feet down the road someone else is leading a totally different life, and I enter it, and...”

"Toss cars around."

"Less then you might think," said Sarah.

 "So what do you do?"

“I wander the streets, looking for problems as they come. It’s a hard job, but...”

"No wait,” Joe interrupted. “How often do you toss cars around?"

Sarah shrugged. "Cars specifically? Once a month...maybe a little more frequently. It’s rarely one of those dramatic things but just, like, car accidents. I do general superstrength stuff, well, just about every day. ‘Couple times a week. You’d be surprised what needs lifting."

"And what was the weirdest thing that needed lifting?"

"Oh come on," groaned Brian. "You have one of the most powerful women in the entire world and your asking her that? What is this? Morning radio?"

Sarah, who did not have the superpower to distinguish between podcasts and morning talk radio, this was lost upon.

"I lifted a kangaroo once. The funny thing is there was nothing funny about it. It made perfectly logical sense at the time. Completely."

"Oh, come on!" said Joe. "You got to tell us what happened."

"No," observed ‘Mazing Girl. "I don’t."


********

And so they talked for about 40 minutes. The conversation got a tad more personal then Sarah would have liked - even though she made it a ground rule that, like comedian Paula Poundstone or Bill Murray, you did not talk about her personal life.

Unlike Ms. Poundstone it wasn't because she didn't have one, just...well the questions weren't precisely about her homelife, or even if the question she got occasionally, if she was 'happy', but rather the delved into the depths her fears, and prodded her vital essence.

Actually, it was a pretty good conversation. And Brian was cute. Really cute, and intelligent, and sensitive. And if his wall was any indication, a fan of 70s DC comics.

Sarah had the feeling - perhaps it was the setting, perhaps it was the fact that he did offer her a glass of wine,
perhaps....

Perhaps, perhaps. Sarah made it a rule not to date any one as ‘Mazing Girl.

Joe left for home.

She drank a glass of wine. They were talking but she only heard the music.

And then fell over unconscious.

****

And woke up in what looked to be a dungeon.

The wine was still in her head. Whatever knocked her out wasn't.

She was wrapped in large metal chains, huge chunks of steel that wrapped all over her body.

And then she wasn't.

They took all of about a second to pull apart link by link. She felt the pressure expand against her superpowered muscles as they themselves grew, pushing against her costume, swelling into rippling steel cords of their own – only far more powerful ones. The chains broke and shattered against the room, flying into pieces. Her left arm, her right arm, her leg. A large band in the centre cracked like a walnut shell in the hut sun, turning into so much scrap metal. But then again, it took like a second.

She also realized she was laying down on a bed. It was acceptable that she didn't realize that before, as again this all took like a second. She got up, stretched a bit.

She could tell from the coldness of floor that this was reality, but it did have a feel of an honest to goodness dungeon - not some kind of fake set, or faker reality. This was real stone on the floor. It actually looked kind of cool. Everything was grey and black stone constructed of uneven tiles. There was some kind of vaguely purplish light somewhere that lit it. There was dankness, wetness, the sound of water dripping - but it was not unattractive. It felt and looked like a deep dark dungeon - but yeah, if you ever actually where in one you would say that was neat.

Which Sarah, literally, did.

"This is neat."

Sarah actually wasn't, in the scheme of things, all that pissed off. For someone who spent a lot of time dealing with depressing crack addicts, this did have the feel of honest adventure. Perfect stuff for discussing on a podcast.

She got up.

There was darkness after about 20 feet, but she went forward into it, walking down the space which seemed like a wetter version of a video game - or like about 2010, in video games where the trick was to make everything shiny and wet, and vaguely gross - but as mentioned it was actually kind of neat. Sarah didn't know what was at the end. Which felt almost a shame really. There would be an end and there would undoubtedly be a battle, but this sense of mystery would leave, and the mystery was kind of fun.

"Ohhhhh" said a voice. She recognized it.

It was Brian. She looked down to see him on the floor - just on the floor.

"I don't feel so good," he confessed.

Sarah picked him. He must have been drugged a little more then she was. Humans with their weaknesses...

He felt like a feather, but it was a good weight. Not a bad one. Just the slightest of strain as she held him in her hands. She looked into his eyes.

"Don't worry. We’ll get through this. We’ll get out of this."

He had beautiful eyes. Sweet ones. Gentle ones.

Sarah put him over her shoulder.

She walked.

This dungeon was pretty long actually, all things considered.

*********

"So you’re into DC comics?" Sarah asked.

"The modern stuff...the new 52. I get the idea. It doesn't work" said Brian.

"Yeah," agreed Sarah "Clark Kent looks way too attractive."

There was a gurgle on her shoulder of acknowledgement. "But it had some fun stuff. You know, people say Superman is just this cold unrelatable hero...like that line in Kill Bill when they critiqued him...but really they have done a lot of weird fun stuff. Specially in the Perez...”

And then Brian vomited down her back.

Sarah looked on. She was walking fairly slowly by her standards, or any others. Her vision was dark, this was a strange hallway. She had been in mazes before - and going too quickly could set off horribleness. Not to her. She wasn't worried for her own safety, but she wasn't alone. She had Brian.

And she didn't want to loose him.

But vomit and all that...

But she kept still. Vomit could be a method to get her to move faster, or just an upset stomach. When people vomited, that was usually in fact a good sign.

She shook her head.

"So...you married?" Brian asked.

"No," admitted ‘Mazing Girl.

"Seeing anyone?" Brian pressed.

"No.”

"Ever?"

"Of course" said ‘Mazing Girl.

"You wonder, you deal with the stuff I do, maybe you guys are robots or something...I don' know," said Brian "you think things. Now I’m Lois Lane."

"Don't have the gams for it," ‘Mazing Girl coolly informed him.

"No...seriously. Maybe why I did this...did all of this. You know...get rescued, be next to you...and now I feel like crap. Just crap. You don't think about vomiting all over your cape."

"It’s okay."

"No. You’re probably going to have to get a new cape. Seriously will...all this vomit...you don’t...”

And then he started to cry.

And Sarah brought him over her head and held him in her arm, kneeling down for a second.

"There, there. It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay. Shhhh."

"I am so scared right now...so scared...you...you do this all the time...”

"I’m not scared at all," said Sarah. "Except scared that your scared, or afraid your afraid...wait a second. Does that make any sense what-so-ever?"

"yeah" said Brain.

"We’ll be okay, I am Amazing Girl," vowed ‘Mazing Girl, pronouncing the A. "I am the greatest hero in the land, and I’m your shining knight, or princess or...”

And then she leaned in and kissed him. Kissed him deeply, kissed him strongly, with a kiss like she had never really meant in a long, long, time. It felt on her lips like honeysuckle and dandelions and pure joy as she kissed him.

And then he threw up in her mouth.

She coughed it out.

"God," muttered Brian.

And she breathed.

"Let’s do this quick.”

She picked Brian up in her arms....and then embracing the person who was increasingly the most precious thing in the world to her,  she ran. Ran as fast as her legs could carry her, hoping whatever traps that caught her were at least a little time- based. Hoping...

And about 20 feet later there was a left turn and she was outside.

She looked around.

It was a park.

She didn't recognize it, but it had the quality of trees, grass, one expected in a park.

It was dark - maybe midnight - but clearly a park.

And she jumped.

*****

She needed to take Brian to a hospital, that much was clear. But where was she? What hospital? Where was this the right place to go?

She jumped a few minutes

Okay.

The park was Elysium Park - near the police academy actually. That was good. County USC was nearby. That was good. That was...a pretty crappy hospital in the scheme of things...but it would do.

She...

And then she felt something. Or not.

Brian was unconscious.

*****

Sarah kicked open the door to the ER, hard enough that one of the doors shattered on impact.

"I NEED HELP IMEDIATLTY!!" declared Sarah, screaming to no one in particular.

A bright Hispanic doctor came forward.

"What’s wrong?”

"He’s been...drugged...or something. Help, please help.”

The doctor looked at Brian as she put him down on a bed. He was unconscious now. Fading.

"Let’s get him into the ER. Any idea what did this?" the doctor asked.

Sarah closed her eyes. "No."

"Nurse, let’s get some saline...it looks some kind of strong alkaloid...”

And Sarah was lost in the words.

****

45 minutes later Sarah was sitting in the waiting room.

People where around her.

People you see in a county hospital at 1am. Not good people, but people.

They had a fairly nice fish tank. She was surprised. Not just goldfish, but clownfish like from Finding Nemo. She watched it

and thought about her Brian.

Her wonderful Brian, who had a last name, and probably a real job.

Brian.

She shook her head, she took of her cape as it was bothering her...sitting it next to a homeless man beside her. She ignored him it was covered with vomit. Brian was right, she would probably throw it away. Or make her wedding dress out of it. Or...

There was a note attached to it.

Oh fuck. She read it. It was typed in Arial font. Which was a classy but cold font, and not her favourite. She was more of a Verdana gal.

She noted it was typed all in capitals.

"DEAR MAZING GAL,

THERE IS AN EXPRESSION: THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL. IT’S NOT REALLY PERSONAL TO ME, OF COURSE. I CARE NOTHING FOR YOU FOR OR AGIANST - BUT I FOUND SOMEHOW THE DESIRE TO MAKE IT PERSONAL FOR YOU"


Sarah had to stop reading as a nurse came forward. County hospitals could be cold bouts of no emotion - but her...wow this was

"I'm sorry...I am so sorry, I know you were waiting for the guy...but I am so, so, sorry...but...Mr. Fallsen is dead. He died five minutes ago. We don't know what of, but when he got in he was already suffering heaving organ failure and he....”

And the nurse started to cry.

This was not helping Sarah one bit. One iota. Tears came to her face. She cried.

And then she cried.

******

It was only two hours latter that she got back to the note still sitting in the room with the clown fish. but she looked and

read.

"THE PODCAST WAS ADVERTISED. HEAVILY. I HAVE FILTERS TO FIND STORIES ON THE INTERNET. 'IN STUDIO'. I FOUND TWO BOTTLES OF WINE IN A RECOGNIZANCE OF THE HOUSE. IT WAS A SLIGHTLY DUBIOUS SCHEME, BUT IF IT FAILED OR YOU DRANK THE BOTTLES IN THE WRONG ORDER, NO GREAT LOSS. NOT EVEN MONEY. BUT YOU DID. PERFECTLY. THE SECOND BOTTLE DRUGGED, YOU AND I BROUGHT YOU AND MR FALLSEN TO THE TUNNEL IN THE PARK. ITS AN OLD MINE BY THE WAY. YOU I
CHAINED UP FOR SHOW. HIM - HIM I INJECTED A THIRD POISON. A SLOWER ONE, ONE THAT IF YOU BROUGHT HIM TO A HOSPITOL IMEDIATLY THEY MAY IDENTIFY AND TREAT (AND I WON'T NAME IT IN CASE YOU FIND THIS TOO EARLY) BUT MOST LIKELY...HE’S DEAD. DEAD ISN'T HE WHEN YOU READ THIS? HOW OFTEN DO YOU CHECK BEHIND YOUR CAPE. THIS WAS THE SECOND BOTTLE - BUT THERE WERE TWO, RIGHT? THE FIRST BOTTLE. THE CIA SEVERAL YEARS AGO DEVOLOPED WHAT WAS IN
EFFECT A LOVE POTION - NOT REALLY, NOT LEGALLY, BUT IT INCREASED ALCHOLS ABILITY TO MAKE YOU ATTRACTED TO SOMEONE, TO WANT TO BE WITH SOMEONE - THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU BECOMES A GOD. IN 20 YEARS IT WILL BE DECLASSIFED AND A FUN PARTY DRUG. NOW I CAN KILL ANYONE. AS I AM SAYING THIS I FOUND MR. BRIAN FALLSEN’S COHOST AND JUST FINISHED SLAUGHTERING HIM. NO REASON,
JUST TO MAKE A POINT IN A NOTE IN A LETTER I AM SENDING YOU. BUT YOU DON'T CARE REALLY. WHO WOULD? SO MUCH DEATH IN THE WORLD. BUT HIM? MR FALLSEN. TELL ME ABOUT HIS EYES, HOW DREAMY THEY ARE, AND YOUR PLANS FOR CHILDREN...

AS I SAID I WANTED TO MAKE IT PERSONAL BY KILLING SOMEONE YOU LOVED. NOT KNOWING WHO YOU REALLY LOVE, I DID THE NEXT BESTTHING. I MADE SOMEONE FOR YOU TO LOVE. AND THEN KILLED THEM.

SEE YOU SOON - deca"


Sarah crumpled up the note.

Now Deca left out that the drug wasn't that powerful in the scheme of things and that the emotions it produced tended to be short lived. But at that momment it didn't matter, she didn't care and even if she lived for a thousand years it shouldn't matter.

She walked out of the hospital.

She didn't say that it was now personal, as she had no one to say it to really.

Not even Brian.

Beautiful wonderful Brian.

Ride the Intense Pyschodrama!!

  Sarah was not entirely sure how she should feel about this.

It wasn't the guys hand on her thing that was just on the hem of her sundress. Yeah, she could deal with that. She was on a date with Steven, who was nice enough but a little handsy, especially for the surroundings. She could like handsy in the right circumstance. However, there were kids around. If his fingers went a slip beneath the hem she would probably say something.

No, what Sarah wasn't sure about was where she was - Universal Studios Hollywood. It was a theme park - that was certainly the right word for it, built into a movie studio, built into a mesa over the valley. Now, Sarah had been to many movie studios over the years, but she was specifically in the theme park zone of the park, with no way to cross the magical line into, well, her everyday.

Universal Studios was designed to show people that line - its entire themes were movies. Mostly Universal movies and a couple of others were all represented in a couple of rides that were basically themed to some movie property (and surprisingly few of them), shows where some movie property was demonstrated, like sound effects or animal training, with just a tad of education (not that the field necessarily required depth. When people used cowbells to make sound effects it wasn't incredibly deeper then that - other then it was a pain to time correctly), a couple of very small museum-like spaces where they showed actual bits of movie history (Sarah saw the letter where Groucho Marx actually said that he didn't want to be part of any club that would let him be a member[underlying premise of joke that most people didn't get: He was Jewish [[secret underlying premise: He already was a member of the West La Country Club and was feuding with them over how they ran there golf course[[[underlying premise to the underlying premise: Groucho was in real life an unhappy asshole]]] ]] ] )

And, yes, shops. Sarah had locked Steven arms around her like they had been dating for years - you could buy things that looked like movie props; toys of swords, of cream pies, hats, badges - the kind of stuff she made everyday and now was being sold for 10 bucks, made in china.  She didn't quite know how she felt about that. Granted, this wasn't stuff that she had made, and except in the case of some of the really expensive stuff, was clearly toys pretending to be props (and in reality most props where toys pretending to be something else) but there was an air of turning what she had into the store.

Ehhh...it was a lot like Comic-Con with better display tables. This was magic with indifferent tourists...this was...

Well, time to take the studio tour.

Sarah had been here before. When she was 8 her father had taken her to Universal Studios Hollywood (there was a Universal Studios Florida, her home state, however she had never been). She had LOVED It. It would be simplistic to say her current life’s work had started here, but that was one of the things that led to it. She remembered the sets to all her favourite movies, the shark from Jaws that came out at her, King Kong attempting to attack her. It was a magical day, in her magical trip to Los Angeles. One of the best in her life.

It was wrong to expect it to be the same today. Just when she was moving to LA there was a fire in the studio that had destroyed the giant stuffed King Kong and a lot of the backlot. She had heard that Universal was planning to rebuild a lot of the sets they used to take you through, but they didn't seem in an incredible hurry to do so. They had largely replaced the tour guides with a video presentation, which was good in giving you a sense of history, but lost a little of the charm. They had taken out the Battlestar Galactica exhibit (which was for the original 1970s show - and last in to the time of the reboot. Tricia Helfer was nowhere in the new one). In general it seemed the fact that this was a working movie studio was less of the buzz here.

And for someone who had taken the ride once nearly 20 years ago she was some expert on it.


She sighed. She was with Steven, and this was nice. That was the thing about first dates. You’re with someone and the focus is on them - learning who they are what they are all about. Going to Universal Studios (which was his idea and a good one, she gave him that much) at least made the focus the parting of the Red Sea, and just being with someone. She liked being with someone. She nuzzled him and put her head into his shoulder.

They past a suburban street that had all the houses from sitcoms - The Munsters, Leave It To Beaver. It was fake of course, well all movies where fake, but she knew they wouldn't have built it all there, but it was good. She smiled and was happy. When she let herself go, when she let all of the crap of being a superhero, a single girl, a nerd with home homeowner dues...when all of it was gone she could be happy.

She liked being happy.

Sarah smiled brightly. Why do women do this? She stood on a ladder putting up wallpaper. It was silly in a way, she was working so hard to put little dragons and unicorns up on the wall of her children’s bedroom. By the time they would notice it, it would be time to put up some other wallpaper again - but ahh. it was cheery. She liked dragons and unicorns.

And she felt the baby kick.

Then the other.

She was nesting-building up her space for baby.  She rubbed her stomach. She had always been a larger women - now she had twins inside of her. And she was larger, true. For most of her life one could have described her as being on the cusp of fat. Now she had crossed that line. However her boobs had also grown from D all the way to F, so who was to complain. Large to feed her children. Her joys. Little Dianna and Kara.

She smiled.

The wallpaper would take a little while to dry, and she was getting a little tired.

She went to the living room of their little bungalow. She looked out the window of the perfect Florida sun. She got a glass of lemonade and waited.
      
She thought of her husband. He was such a nice man.  He would be home from his office job in a couple of hours. What would she serve him for dinner? Her mother always loved cooking ham hocks, potatoes, and peas. She would make that.  She briefly thought she had missed but why? Her parents lived 10 miles away, and had done so for all her life, in Tallahassee.

The thought caused a weird sensation at the back of her neck. However, she ignored it.

She sighed and relaxed. She missed her husband, though he had been gone, what? 5 hours. She missed every second he was gone, every second she was apart from him. But it made her happy to know that he existed, that he was there and he was perfect - her perfect match.

She relaxed a bit.

She turned on the TV. They were playing the movie King Kong. It was a favourite of hers. She loved watching King Kong destroy the city - she sometimes wished she was that strong, that she was that mighty, that she could rampage through the city pounding her chest.

Sarah Kong

She would have beaten her chest but, well...babies.

The movie did, however, take a while to get going - a lot of stuff with a blatantly offensive Chinese cook... She had watched the 2005 movie once - and realized it took a long time to get going too - almost an hour. That was pretty bad. And once they got to the island there were native stereotypes that were a lot more offensive then the first movie. Ahh, well...

She liked movies. She remembered that she had wanted to get into them once long ago, before becoming a homemaker - but well, she would never be an actress - but she would be the best Sarah she could.

She smiled and felt alive. The babies kicked again. It was an odd sensation, and a perfect sensation, to be full of life - to be connected to things that were literally a part of her and yet separate. To be one, and many, to...be. Yes, this was the dream, this was how she wanted to be, and even if she wasn't rich or powerful, or special, then yes...just like this.

"REALLY?"

Sarah turned her head. There was a man in her house. She looked at the man wearing strange metal armor and a black cape. Somehow, she wasn't frightened though the man was strange and dressed like a nincompoop.

"THIS IS YOUR FANTASY? THIS IS WHAT YOU SECRETLY DREAM TO BE? LOOK AT YOU...YOU’RE BAREFOOT!"

Sarah looked down. She was not, in fact, wearing any shoes.

The metal figure did airquotes - which was very tricky in so much as he always yelled.

"I MAY BE A 'SUPERVILLIAN' AND 'HOMOSEXUAL'... 'DEPRAVED' AND 'DEVIANT'...BUT THIS IS JUST TOO HETRONORMATIVE. LOOSING TO YOU. AND PEOPLE SAY I AM CRAZY.'

“What do you want Deca?" asked Sarah. Huh? His name was Deca - she knew that.

"TO SEE YOU TICK I GUESS.  IT TOOK A LOT OF DOING TO FIND YOUR MENTAL BRAINWAVES WHEN YOU’RE A SLEEP. SIX MILLION PEOPLE AND YOU’RE A NEEDLE IN IT...BUT THIS...WOW, JUST...WOW..."

"I'm happy here" said Sarah, not quite sure what she was saying. "Can't you let me be in peace? I am going to make my husband chicken and dumplings."

Deca laughed.

"I CAN'T KILL YOU IN YOUR DREAMS...THIS ISN'T INCEPTION, OR NIGHTMARE ON THE 13TH  . BUT...WELL...I CAN HURT YOU. NO ONE LOVES YOU ‘MAZING GIRL. YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT UP IN YOUR HEAD. NO ONE LOVES ME EITHER SO DON'T SHOOT THAT IN MY FACE...BUT I DON'T CARE. NO ONE LOVES YOU, NOT REALLY. SURE WHEN I KILL YOU THERES GOING TO BE A BIG FUNNERAL AND THE PRESIDENT IS GOING TO SPEAK AND PEOPLE ARE GOING TO CRY...BUT NOT REALLY. NOT REALLY IN THE WAY YOU WANT IT. IF YOU DID YOU WOULDN"T MAKE THIS FAKE LITTLE MATCHSTICK WORLD. WHAT DOES YOUR HUSBAND LOOK LIKE?"

"Um," Sarah thought. "He’s...” And found couldn't describe him.

Deca giggled. Which was also hard to do for someone who always shouted. "BECUSE HE DOESN'T EXIST. YOU CAN'T EVEN IMAGINE HIS FACE. HE’S NOT REAL. NO HUMAN WOULD EVER TAKE YOU. YOU DANCE AROUND AND YOU PROBABLY FUCK AROUND BUT YOU KNOW DEEP IN YOUR HEART THAT YOUR POWERS HAVE ISOLATED YOU FROM ANY REAL CONTACT. YEAH, YOU’RE A FUCKING FATASS BUT SOME GUYS LIKE THAT...THAT’S NOT WHAT STOPING YOU. IT’S YOU. YOU’RE A MISERABLE MONSTER TRYING TO PRETEND YOU’RE SOME GOOD HEROIC FIGURE...BUT YOU’RE NOT REALLY ONE OF THEM. NEITHER AM I...BUT I, AT LEAST, HAVE THE GUTS TO ADMIT.”

Sarah paused a moment and looked at him. She couldn't feel her children inside her anymore – it wasn’t as if they were dead - but as if they were never there.....they were a gone. That’s what got to her. That’s what hurt.

"I try."

"WHAT?"

"I try. I don't know...I...”

"OH GREAT. THAT MAKES YOU...”

Sarah looked at Deca for a second.

and then his face had dafodill petals around it.

"This is my dream isn't it? And I can do whatever I want?”

And Deca now was a four legged creature with a flag for a tale and a sausage for a nose.

"WAY TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT..."

"And you’re probably not real either. 99% of you just the part of my subconscious that wants to fuck up. Inception ain’t real. But...well, thank you. Without you in the back of my fucking head then I would be just like you. I will admit to be a creature of crippling self doubt...but, that’s what makes me ‘Mazing Girl,"

And she was wearing her costume.

And he was green - with polka dots.

"That makes me want to save the world, and be a heroine and tell kids to stay off drugs, despite the fact that I occasionally..."

And Sarah woke up. She looked up, and saw Stevens face.

He wasn't her husband.

That was her first thought, she thought perhaps one of the worst in her life. He was a perfectly nice guy really. Black, which she was kind of curious about - not about the giant penis rumours which she knew were a racist stereotype and which she had before and was no great trick...

But well he was perfectly nice guy. Handsy, but at least his hands were on her, and he seemed attentive and he had shared part of his hamburger with her, becuse the hamburger at universal studios was very good.

But he wasn't her husband, he wasn't.

"You dozed off there. I mean, this is very long...”

And all around them an avalanche went off - ice crystals fell on top of the tram car and it started to spin around in a giant vortex of destruction as the earth cracked and gored.

And Sarah grabbed him, and held him in mock terror at the fake movie magic, but with real desire to hold him, even though he wasn't her husband, and be with him. The thought filled her as he screamed in mock horror.

Movies, it had been observed, were dreams at 24 frames a second.

This was a soundstage from the seventies that had been poorly converted into a variation of a carnival attraction.

But it shared a dream quality with a sense of reality, and as she shared this moment with him, slightly groggy and unsure, she felt the magic: she dreamed she had a husband, that she had been together with him, that he had made her barefoot and pregnant in the most redneck part of Florida.

Wow...maybe Deca had been right. Maybe her dreams were pretty fucked up.

But she was Sarah Jennings, and she was 'Mazing Girl, and all the dreams and fantasies, hard work and reality, all of it - all of it had brought her here and she was happy.

So when she got home she gave Universal Studios a Yelp score of 5. Out of 5!!

Vs. Lex Luthor

"Seventh District" was filmed in a soundstage in Koreatown that was the mainly off street. You wouldn't notice it if you didn't know it was there. It didn't have any signs, no outward descript.  It was kind of like Shield headquarters in the old comics, if Shield headquarters was in a shifty neighborhood in an old building with lots of movie trucks parked in the back.

It was also, depending on the time of day she was to be on set, about an hour from her condo in El Segundo. But she liked living on the beach. Okay, her place was actually about a mile from the beach. And that mile had a large patch of land that was owned by an oil company. And El Segundo, because of oil interests, a bluff, and LAX, had a pretty shitty beach. But still: There was a principal somewhere.

It was a Friday morning, she found herself in traffic on the 405 - thankfully she had planned for it time wise. She was listening to a podcast in which a comedian interviewed another comedian. Normally she got into it, but it turned very quickly, as they often did, into a ‘who you met on the way up’, and exhaustive lists of comedy clubs. At first she thought it was kind of interesting listening to interviews with comedians that weren't just telling jokes. Then she realized that they still had to be entertaining about it. Comedy world: a little chummy.

Ahh, well...she turned to terrestrial radio. That could be fun and Yelly.

However, as she turned to a radio station that promised to give her the world in 22 minutes, and trafic and weather on the fives (where she learned the traffic continued on the 10 freeway).

She heard: "We are just getting word of a series of what appears to be co-ordinated robberies on banks and jewellery stores have just taken place at five locations in Downtown, West Hollywood, and Irvine, this morning. No injuries have been reported, but groups of suspects have managed to rob..."

Sarah paused. The thought came to her head. MAZING GIRL TO THE RESCUE!!!

However, she was stuck in traffic. She could get off the freeway, but that would take, like, 10 minutes in this traffic...just to do that. And the robberies were reported in the past tense. And no one was injured. She shrugged. Her gut told her that, yeah, this probably was a problem, and that things were about her, but well...only so much she could do this exact minute.

She adjusted her ipod and found a podcast all about home winemaking that sounded like fun.


******

She followed the story for the rest of the day as she could while working mainly on building a canister of used deodorant that was a plot point in next weeks show. You couldn't just go to the store, and the script was fairly specific about it. A lot of design went into it - or was blatantly stolen from an AXE brand deodorant can she got.

But the robberies where all coordinated to go off at the same time, using near identical MO’s, before the stores were open - and it looked like they had managed to claim about 300k in jewellery and cash. In one case the police had reached the scene, but they had escaped. All of the robbers had good equipment seemed highly trained.

Ehhh...these kind of places were insured to one inch of their lives, so it wasn't too big a loss, and no one was hurt so Sarah first impulse was to kind of shrug it off. Her powers gave her a vague sense of when people were in trouble, and it hadn't gone off. So, all was well...

******

That night - well actually, around sunset – ‘Mazing Girl jumped over to a rooftop and observed one of the banks. It was a semi detached two-story structure in West Hollywood with large glass windows...it looked a lot like a fucking bank. It even appeared to be open, as if nothing was going on which probably made sense. If you’re not going to get any interest at your bank these days, good opening hours are a courtesy.

She watched it for few moments lost in thought. She turned her head and saw someone standing next to her.

"These little chats we have," said Knighthawk, "are they getting tiresome for you as well?”

"Look, I can't be in six places at once."

"Were you at the store?" asked Knighthawk.

"In traffic."

"Oh great," Knighthawk remarked. "When you first appeared some people told me, you know, ‘Maybe you should move. San Francisco could use your services...someplace else’. LA was in such good hands."

‘Mazing Girl shook her head. "Look...can't we just team up here?  Pool our resources? Shit like that? Or are you just going to lecture me? You weren't there either."

Knighthawk sighed. "If I find something...I'll be in touch."

‘Mazing girl sighed. And she turned her head sideways. It looked like a glance away to see something on the street - but really it was to look away so he could disappear and the conversation would end. It was one of the good things about dealing with superheros. Goodbyes were crap sometimes in real life.

Sarah turned to go, walking across the rooftop...

And right into The flame.

"heard your conservation. don’t mean to pry."

Sarah looked down at the shorter heroine that continued to look like something Rob Zombie would put, for atmosphere, in one of his videos. An evil looking 12 year old that would burn your eyes out.

"Jesus," said Sarah.

"take this."

The little girl (or was she 30?) had something in her hand. It was strange because a second ago she swore she had nothing at all. Except, that is, except the night. But, yeah, that was being poetic. Flame wasn't holding anything earlier...

It was a grey manila folder. Sarah took it, and looked at it in the edge of darkness.

"Do you have like access to the FBI?" asked ‘Mazing Girl, "And the NSA?"

The Flame looked up and smiled. "Very little in this city happens that I do not know of, almost always before they do. But then they learn, and the slowly gather...like the limited small reptile minds they are."

Actually, “smiled” may have been the wrong word. It was accurate, but didn't convey the correct connotations. Sarah shook her head.

"in any case, the location and identity of the robbers is beyond obvious. and in a few days the authorities will figure out what they already know, poor devils, but they will know what they know...the robbers have infiltrated the fbi, which is also obvious...but probably not to the fbi. well, you can see the mess we’re in."

"No I can’t," said ‘Mazing. "I just glanced at a NSA letterhead."

And The Flame smiled.

"well, read the memo. this is the work of one man. a very dangerous man. don't know his real name. he’s rented an office downtown, under a corporation. he’s the key.”

"Do you want to team up and stop him?"

"he’s also rented a warehouse in southpark. like the robberies, you attack one; the other vanishes into the night. without it you couldn't convict him. without him it’s pointless."
Sarah nodded.

"you take him. several of his conversations suggest he’s obsessed with you, in some fashion. why not give him what he wants? and i am better, i suspect, with frightening large groups of men to doubt their sanity and their lives."

"You probably went to school for it," said ‘Mazing.

"i went to yale."

And Sarah laughed out loud.

"So where is this place?"

"again, in the memo. last page: conclusions."

"This must 50 pages long, he robbed the banks this morning, how quickly did you do this?"

The Flame turned and disappeared into the mist. "Let’s aim for 9:45? Don't enter the building before then."

Sarah smiled. Sometimes when she was with The Flame, she worried about her brain exploding. Sometimes she smiled. She turned and walked into Knighthawk.

"Um, I was going to tell you.”

Knighthawk laughed "I've been doing this for longer then you have, and will give you one piece of advice."

"Really. Just one?"

"She’s never quite on the level. There’s an angle you don't know about. She’s brilliant, but.... you do it. If what I heard was right, threes a crowd here. You do it."

"Your great for encouragement," said Sarah.

"I respect her. You..."

And Sarah turned her head again.

*********

The office turned out to be in the old gas company building, a gorgeous building built into a fountain - literally built in as a modernist glass expanse. She had driven buy it dozens of times in LA, but never been inside. It was one of the good parts of being a superhero. The Bradbury Building, the Parker Center - she had the excuse to break into a lot of nice buildings.

However, she decided not to break in. She went to her car and pulled out a trench coat from the trunk - it was one of her utility items. Wearing it she looked like a woman walking into an office at 9:45 PM wearing a baggy trench coat. That wasn't the least suspicious...
 
However...as she walked in, past a guard who seemed oblivious, it seemed to have worked. She entered into an elevator going up to the 9th floor...and fixed her mask back in place. She left her jacket on her shoulder...it would look cool dropping it off as she walked out the elevator.

Not cool for anyone in particular, but cool.

And as the elevator dinged and she walked out, the trench coat hit the floor. Yeah....she did look cool.

You know what I’m talking about.

She walked calmly down a hallway in a non-descript office building - and kicked open a door.

Inside was an empty secretaries office - I mean, literally empty. There wasn't a lick of furniture in it. Beyond it, Sarah saw an empty doorway to a room with a large glass window overlooking the city. A large wooden desk of beautiful construction, a cold concrete floor, two chairs, and a man in a suit.

A very nice suit with a very bald head.

"Good evening," He said. "I've been waiting for you."

"Oh?" queried ‘Mazing Girl. She hated when people said that. Now, it could have been a lie, but it was disturbing thing to hear.

"My name...is Lex Luthor"

Huh?

Lex Luthor. He was one of those comicbook characters who you think appeared fully formed from the outset, but not really. He fought superman in, like, the late 40s: first as a generic hairy foreign spy, then as a mad scientist; then as kind of bald power-mad fiend with body armor; then as a corporate executive; then pretending to be his own son; then as president; then a power-mad fiend in body armour... She thought that there was even a spot where Luthor became messiah or something. All of this stuff, it should be noted, Sarah remembered in like 5 seconds. Great use of her brain.

"You’re not Lex Luthor, its a fictional character created by.....

"Oooh! I have the same name as a fictional villain. Well...I am the real one and oooooooooooooooh! Like I care about a cease and desist letter. Ooooh! Copyright infringment...oooooooooh!! Civil lawsuit. I just robbed half a million dollars and plan to rob the Federal Reserve next week.....oooooooooooooooh, this is such a big issue."

"Well, you don't have to be a dick about it,"  ‘Mazing Girl told him.

"Well, I do get to be a dick about it, I am Lex fucking Luthor, I can do what the fuck I want."  

‘Mazing Girl shrugged and covered her eyes. Other shoe...other shoe...

"Jigs up, can we make this simple? No? You’ve got a master plan. You got something really evil thing do," said ‘Mazing Girl. "And please note I don't normally describe people as evil, as that is rhetorically lazy, but the entire setup here, yahadaha yadahah."

"You talk a big game. But you know by now I am a genius. Every step was to bring you here. Right here. And once you’re gone I will loot Los Angeles clean and destroy your precious city...for money: yes. But mainly because you care about it."

"And? Next we have..?"

"Mazing girl...I have something very special for you. Something very special indeed."

He went into the desk with slow movements - as if he was daring her to stop him. But she stood still. He found a small container about the size of a snuffbox clearly made of metal and...

He opened it. Inside was a small shiny green rock in a bed of velvet.

"Kryptonite, my dear ‘Mazing Girl. Kryptonite!"

‘Mazing Girl paused. She looked at the stone.

Then stoped, and looked at it some more. Really? There had to be a trick here.

"Ahhhh..?"

"It took some doing," gloated Luthor. “But...."

"Kryptonite doesn't exist. It was created for the radio show because the actor who played superman wanted to take a vacation."

Wow...she knew a lot.

"It’s radioactive krypton."

"1. Krypton is a noble gas...which means it’s a gas at room temperature. 2. As a noble gas its variance shield is complete and by definition it can't be radioactive, as its particle mass is always neutral."   

(Note: This wasn't actually true, but much of Sarah’s high school chemistry was obviously replaced with comic book trivia)

Sarah looked at the stone again. She tried to place it. Some type of jade - it was clearly a real rock but...

"Maybe this takes longer than in the comics," mused Luthor.

"All day I thought: ‘Ooh god!” I was scared of the criminal mastermind - but God! Kryptonite? Are you fucking serious? My weakness is not kryptonite. That’s just stupid...and made up. Yes, I kind of have the powers of superman, but not the silly shit."

Lex Luthor looked at his stone, and then at her.

"Maybe your just pretending.”

‘Mazing Girl picked up the stone. For a second, she thought about eating it. But thought that might have been a bad idea. Kryptonite poisoning would be a bad idea. Instead she crumbled it. It would have been nice to say into dust, but really it was just turned into very fine pebbles.

Lex paused. "So...."
  
"Do you want to be taken to jail out of the window, or through the door?" asked ‘Mazing Girl. “I'll leave it to you."

Mazing Girl grabbed him, lifting him up by the scruff of his suit in one hand. She didn't do this for very long, as it tended to rip things, but it was a cool visual.

"What is your weakness, by the way?” Lex asked.

"I can't stand pure salt water," offered Sarah "It’s like acid to me."

Lex paused...and was quiet the rest of the trip to the police station. He had the kind of pause that suggested his pop culture frame of reference wasn't good enough to be a real supervillain.

******

As it was, The Flame managed to capture 3 men and retrieve large quantities of jewelles, and money - as well as a bunch of bank robbing equipment. The rest of the robbers and money were in the mist - probably a good deal of them permanently.

Still, not a bad night. “Luthor” was in jail on 20 million dollars bond - still no real name, or was the poor bastard really a poor bastard?  It gave her a moments pity for him. 

Still...it had been a successful evening.

So, to celebrate the next day she went to the beach.

It was a good chance to wear that blue bathing suit she had bought about, oh...a year ago. It did, for whatever reason, make her arms look cool.

But the water was kind of cold. Sitting outdoors it the kind of weather where it didn't quite sunburn, but kind of did; and she didn't have a good book; and the meal made her loggy. And she was by herself so she couldn't throw Frisbees to anyone.

And worse yet was the thought in the back of her mind – there’s always an angle with The Flame...always a second layer. What was the purpose of what she did? Was something going to happen with her, something that rocked her to her very core?

Damm that Knighthawk.

Ahh... She went home after about an hour. 


ELSEWHERE...

Deca sat in his... lair, that was the right word...and watched the video from inside Luthor’s office for the dozenth time.  He had needed an emergency cash injection and the entire episode had pizzazz. He laughed.

"YOU ARE SO PREDICTABLE, FLAME, LEADING HER RIGHT....MY GOD IS THAT A REFERENCE TO ALIEN NATION?"

he paused.

"SO THAT’S YOUR SECRET ‘MAZING GIRL....YOUR A NERD!"

And he laughed some more. Laughing was free. The next part would cost a lot of money. 

He especially guffawed when he saw the 25 bodies of the robbers he killed after today’s heist on the floor.

Dance of the Sugar Cleaning Fairies

It was a Good Idea.  It wasn't sarah's entirely but it was a good idea.

When she had first moved to LA three years ago, she had met Wendy, who introduced her to Grace and F (her name was Florence, but everyone called her F). All of them were low industry girls at the time, living in the Southbay. Wendy and F were roommates of the non-sexual variety. Three years latter Sarah had become prop master on her own show. Janice had moved from working at a rental shop to being a first assistant camerawoman. F was now manager at the rental house, and Wendy was still a secretary for a production company.

They still got together once a month or so and had cleaning parties. All of the girls where messy, so spending a couple of hours each month to clean off their apartments together did help. Each girl would get a chore that they could somewhat tolerate, they would spend about an hour at each place...and well, maybe drink (Janice was a featherweight so usually she drove). Mainly they chatted about boys, music, or whatever. Sarah was the biggest nerd of the group by far, so constant talk about pop music was something she could kind of zone out on, but she was pleasant and she had fun. And occasionally they wouldn't bother with the chores, and watch a DVD or something.

It was Thursday around 7. Sarah had spent about 7 hours in the studio which was pretty easy work in the business. She felt kind of awake to be honest. It was the kind of night she could have gone out and fought crime. But crime would have to wait.

Or maybe spent some time with her little magic wand (don't judge her). It was often said of superheroes that their powers made them super-horny. Not Sarah, not really.  Her libido  was normal, maybe a tad above average, but really, she could manage it.

But Sarah couldn't help rubbing her legs together a bit as she sat on her bed. She knew would have to get dressed after taking off her work clothes to put on some old sweats (that were rubbing her breasts just the right way) She had to get to Janice’s house by  7:30   . She did have 15 minutes. if she ran and jumped there, she could do it three times as fast as driving. And she was feeling worked up...

She sighed. No, that probably wouldn’t work.

Then her hand found its way into her sweats pants. Ahh, fuck.

****

It was around 7:40 when a slightly flushed and unshowered Sarah made her way to Janice’s house (and it was a house, even if like a lot of places in the Southbay it had no yard or anything). Janice at some point had invested in the kind of furniture one would get from an Italian store. It was brass bowls and strong colors.  Still, Janice was nice enough, if maybe a tad withdrawn, and they got along okay. Sarah was the last person there but no one commented.

"Tough day at the shoot"

"Good episode?" asked F. F was the type of person who worked in TV but never actually watched much of it. She was the kind of conventional attractive that one would see from across the street, until you realize that she kind of had a strange personality. How strange was hard to say.

"Ahhh, the directors not bad actually," Sarah commented "He’s done some Indie movies you never heard of, and he’s trying some interesting stuff with the camera"

The actual answer was, 'No, it was pretty terrible', but Sarah was not the type in Hollywood to bad-mouth the crap she worked on.

"Bought some margarita mixes. Three in the package, a forth I made my own," said Wendy. “Let’s have ourselves a night."

Wendy drank.  The imprecise amount of alcohol in her drink suggested that she may in fact have a 'dranking' problem.  owever, she was a pleasant enough person either sober or drunk, and she was good with a vacuum.

Wendy vacuumed. F could dust with the best of them. Janice could wash and clean a kitchen to spotlessness. Sarah had learned something about herself.  She actually could tolerate cleaning other people’s bathrooms, despite what people did in bathrooms. She was tolerant of shit and blood she found, well, she could handle it. It wasn't that hard.  This was despite the fact that they had by moving doubled the number of bathrooms she did in the night from 3 to 6. She found she was better at a really good once over.

Sarah spent about 30 minutes in the bathroom. It was kind of hard to hear Janice talking about her boyfriend, who was clearly coming over a lot. Pee stains on the side of the toilet confirm this, and the **** vague/vast **** amounts of it suggested it wasn't from one visit.

He was really into sports, and Janice’s voice suggested that she was in a particular stage of maybe caring about sports herself.

Sarah had seen sporting events of course, on occasion, but had never managed to care about it. With her great gifts at all athletic endeavours she had tried, basketball, softball and tennis had been trifles, not worth the bother to win, or watch the other players loose. She got peeved at them for their lack of ability. It was around Junior High when her abilities fully blossomed that her parents suggested she faked being bad, to go into the background and not become the worlds best tennis player or fastest  miler . She agreed, and never did much in the way of traditional athletics again...and never bother watching it either. Why didn't that basketball player do a slam dunk from half court like she could? Instead, she found a whole world of comicbooks and action figures to bide her time.

It should be noted, as said before, that Sarah Jennings was secretly ‘Mazing Girl, champion of Los Angeles. None of her friends here knew. The only friend who knew (except for Knife Girl, who was also a hero), was Jim...an ex-boyfriend who was now just a friend...but he knew her secret. The rest just assumed she was a plumpy, vaguely semi-put-together nerd. A nerd who was friendly enough, enjoyed a beer,  and was a good shoulder to talk to And willing, in Janice’s case, to clean her bathroom of a lot crud this week. Ahh well.

Yet they were her friends and she was glad for them. She knew other superheroes spent a lot of time mainly together forming cliques and circles. She wanted to you know actual humanity. She worked all day with actors, and had seen what happened to them...how they could grow isolated in their fame. Even the friendliest of stars, tended to have an aura of isolation...of distance. She shook her head. Not for her. Theoretically there were methods through advertising or some foundation she could be 'mazing full time, but she was glad for being her.

"Ooh! A quarter!" she said, as she found it behind the toilet. She paused Janet was a good friend.  And 25 cents had some value as money. But ahh, it was hers.

It took her about 30 minutes to clean bathroom one, 10 to clean bathroom two (the half bath off the main living room), and a glance at the small bathroom for Janice’s unused second and third bedrooms to confirm that, once again, no one had used them since last time. Hell, she probably should do some light dusting.  Meanwhile the other girls finished their chores, and some margaritas were consumed.  It wasn't a great evening, but the margaritas were starting to kick in when Janice agreed to drive them to Sarah’s condo to get going.

Sarah was a little embarrassed by her little two bedroom condo. One bedroom was obviously a bedroom with a giant bed, and the second was used as an office/workroom that in actual working periods didn't see much use, other then to paint models or the occasional action figure (her hobby). It was maybe a tad bigger then a two bedroom apartment, but only a tad. Some posters, some of them signed by the original artist, lined the wall...but they weren't framed or anything. She could have probably, theoretically, afforded more...but ehh, it was her little piece of El Segundo magic (though it didn't have a view of the ocean or anything).

She didn't have a Batcave. She had thought about getting, like, a bat-computer or something, but had no idea what she would actually do with it. She put some news apps on her phone and felt she was giving due diligence in that department. 

Still, secrecy made her keep her costume, and her backup costume in the trunk of her car. What if they came across her embarrassing secret!! The vibrator she kept in her room worried her, but less. She drove her car home, feeling sober enough to drive, hoping that a cop would agree...and not find her secret. This would be the most embarrassing way to loose your secret identity imaginable. Unless midgets or people wearing furry costumes were involved.

Well what can you do? She hadn't drank that much yet, and it would be a pain to get the car tomorrow.

It was on the drive home that she noticed it. Well...heard it. She turned on local news.

“A large apartment fire is raging in Torrance this evening...”

She could have driven there in, what? 2 minutes? She was good with fires. Her powers made these kinds of events trivial.

But she had guests coming home. And an apartment to clean...

"No causalities have been reported as yet, but fire-crews are on the scene, rescuing people...”

Friends. And she had promised snacks.

She got home and opened the door for everyone.

"Someone’s been messy" F teased.

Well screw you. But she had guests.

She worked on cleaning her own bathroom.  She hadn't been that bad really, but clearly at some point she had spilled some stuff.

The girls talked. She turned on the radio.

"What’s going on?" asked Wendy.

"Just listening."

"...artment fire in Torrance. It has spread to an adjoining building...and the super villain known as Deca is at the site.” They played Deca’s voice: "PEOPLE OF LOS ANGELES, BUT MAINLY THE WRETDCHED CREATURE KNOWN AS ‘MAZING GIRL, COME TO ME!!! OR I WILL DESTROY YOUR PRECIOUS CITY, BUILDING BY BUILDING!!!”

Deca. He was her arch-nemeses. His real name was Arthur Macquire, and like her had a superpower: Telepathy. He had used it in a productive way. For insider trade so much that it hurt. But as he read peoples mines he learned dirty secrets (and clean ones) about earnings reports etc. It was never proven that he actually talked to anyone, which just meant he was very lucky at the stock market.

Still, Sarah had captured him about two years ago. But not on this. For Macquire wanted to be a real supervillain too. Despite making millions and millions and owning a very large mansion in  Bel Air (She had been there. It was pretty sweet), he had invested in thugs, private armies, and most notably power-armor. She remembered the truck incident about a month ago. That so could have been him. He liked armor and machines and things like that, and despite having no real technical skill had invested in tons. Plus he had a snazzy black cape.

But why? Even at his trial he had never really given a good answer as to what the end-game was. It wasn't money. He wasn't trying to take over the world or destroy it. What his end-game was, despite really being mad at her for capturing him, was never known. The government had taken his house, his cars, and his gay lovers (well the government didn't take that but that had been the result).

She hoped he wasn't monarching her from the Venture Bros, because she always found that show tiresomely up its own ass.

He had managed to escape jail using his a’Mazing powers to get past the guards (or possibly bribed them) and had spent a lot of time trying to enact some terrible vengeance on her.

This was pretty brazen.

But, well...she had bathrooms to clean.

"We have fresh reports that Nighthawk and The Glider are now on the scene. One unconfirmed sighting of Knife Girl...”

She finished early and helped Janice in the kitchen.

"You doing something interesting with cheese," Janice said.

"Made some pretty kicking fajitas the other night."

She wanted to be social but she only half paid attention.

"This is something to see, Jim. Glider is setting down anti-aircraft style fire from his laser at Deca, while Nighthawk is trying a more hands on strategy. However, Deca’s armor is extremely powerful, and it maybe to much for him to...”

"WHERE IS ‘MAZING GIRL!? DO NOT PESTER ME WITH THESE PATHETIC FOES!!”

Her apartment was pretty easy to clean. It was small, before they then moved on to F’s largish house. Sarah paused to consider. Should she call it a night? People’s lives could, you know, be at stake, and all...

"Hey, you know guys...um...I’m feeling a little...well I’m feeling a little...crampy.”

“Urgh,” uttered Wendy.

"We’re at my house already...I don't think the alcohol was helping..."

"Alcohol helps all problems," Wendy said.

"I don't want you have to drive me home early."

"That’s a good idea" said Janice. “We’ll finish up here."

And they did finish up, helpfully, as Sarah lay on her bed. And listened.

"WHERE IS ‘MAZING GIRL? WATCH ME RIP THE SKULL FROM THIS PRETENDER!"

"Oh my...Nighthawk...how to describe it...wait, wait. Knife Girl IS here. Knife Girl is here...She’s throwing knives at Deca, which seems to have distracted him from killing nighthawk. Deca’s coming over to attack...Glider just came down and kicked him. No wait! Deca has hit Glider’s hang-glider and he’s down. God! He’s down! Nighthawk is up and going at Deca from behind...and wait...Knife Girl has stuck a knife in Deca’s back...it looks...it looks like it hit something important. Sparks are flying...”

"DAMM YOU!! WHERE IS ‘MAZING GIRL!!!?”

“Deca has thrown down all three heroes with just a thrust of his hand. Like they’re dominos...bowling pins...now he’s running away...running...”

"PESTERING ANTS...NO I WILL NOT ANSWER QUESTIONS FROM THE MEDIA...”

"I think we’re done in here.”

"Thanks, guys," Sarah said as she helped them out. “I really got to thank you all.”

"What are friends for? See in you a couple of weeks.”

"I'll buy some really kick-ass cleanser. And some better margaritas."


*******

It was about 30 minutes before she got to the scene. The fire was still blazing, but all the people had been evacuated. Not much she could do. Still she made an appearance, looking over the wreckage.

She looked over at the building from another side.

"Where were you?" demanded Nighthawk, coming from the shadows.

"Um, I had personal business to attend to...I came as fast as I could.”

"That clown of a friend of yours, Knife Girl, almost got me killed," said Nighthawk, "We almost got killed, and Glider...”

Glider was a telekinetic, which meant he could move things with his mind. Mainly himself. He couldn't fly, perse, as his powers tired his mind quickly, but he could manipulate a hang-glider to provide lift and float so he could kind of fly. He also had a laser from somewhere.

"I heard you, all of you did pretty well...you and Knife Girl made a pretty good team."

Nighthawk shrugged. "She’s a menace."

"Right," said ‘Mazing girl. "Sorry I couldn't help more."

"You are the most powerful among us ‘Mazing girl. Frankly you’re among the top five in the world. You have to be responsible with these gifts, use them well, or they might as well not be there."

"I came as soon as I could. You know super-battles. This was done in like 5 minutes. I can't be everywhere."

Nighthawk didn't answer,   he just slinked off into the shadows dropping into the night .

Sarah sat down on the buildings edge. She was feeling really guilty about letting down two sides of her life. Wendy’s bathroom would not be as fresh as it could be...and Deca had escaped to possibly threaten millions.

Life. Well...life.