Selena looked over her shoulder and frowned. Clearly she wasn’t happy about being followed.

  "Go away!"

  The voice held all the command of a goddess who was used to getting her way. It was the kind of command that almost had me stopping in my tracks.

  Almost, but not quite. She was still the student and I was the professor. We were still playing those roles even if I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t going to last much longer.

  "Not until you explain why you think you can just leave class like that," I said.

  She kept walking. I briefly thought about getting out the device here, but no. There was always the chance someone would step out into the hallway, and it wouldn't do for all my plans to go awry because some stupid college jock saw me using my stasis field and decided to tackle me from behind.

  My plans had been ruined by far more stupid coincidences. This had to be perfect.

  "You don't understand," she said. "I have to go."

  "I think I understand perfectly," I said. "You're afraid of your feelings after that incident in my office, and now you're running away from them."

  That definitely got her attention. Was I being entirely fair? Probably not. Bringing up something like that was dirty pool, but at the same time there was nothing in the evil supervillainess handbook that said you had to play nice.

  Selena turned and took a step towards me, a pleading look on her face. I almost felt bad for her. She glanced behind her towards a door I knew led to a stairwell since I'd scoped out this entire building during the planning phase.

  I'm sure she wanted nothing more than to hop into the stairwell, zip up to the roof, and go out to fight the giant death robot attacking the city. And yet she still stopped to talk to me.

  This was getting interesting.

  A jingle sounded in the empty hallway. Her phone. Damn it! Of all the times for that thing to go off!

  Then again, why wouldn’t someone call her when there was a giant robot attacking the city? I was surprised her phone worked at all considering how jammed the cell towers usually got during an incident like this.

  Selena pulled out the phone and looked at it. Frowned. I stared with rapt attention. Was she going to answer it?

  A war of desires was clearly playing out in front of me. Her desire to save the city, her desire to talk to me, and her desire to answer her phone. Which would win? Two out of the three options worked for me.

  I saw that slack-jawed look start to cross her face, the look that said she was about to answer and launch into an endless call with this mysterious boyfriend of hers, but then there was a loud explosion off in the distance that rattled the building.

  Damn. CORVAC must’ve found a way around the safeties. Not good. Unfortunately for the city, and fortunately for CORVAC, I was preoccupied by my master plan so he’d get to play for a little longer.

  That explosion got her attention though, so maybe it wasn’t all bad. The blank look disappeared, her look firmed to one of determination, and she put the phone back in her pocket.

  She looked up. Locked eyes with me. I blinked. Was she actually choosing me for a change? I figured for sure her desire to save the city would win out. Her choosing me was impossible, but it sent a warm feeling running through me as she spoke.

  "That's not it at all," she said.

  "Then what is it?"

  She took another step closer. And another. She was just as close to me now as we'd been in my office, only now there was no fake wood chair in between us.

  I was painfully aware that she could snap me like a twig if she realized who I was and what my game was. I was painfully aware that all it would take was for one of us to lean forward and wrap our arms around the other and we would be in the middle of one of the most passionate embraces of my life.

  Both thoughts terrified me.

  "I don't know what it is about you," she said. "There's something about you. Something that draws me to you."

  I was so caught up in her words, so distracted by what she was saying, the feel of her body so close to mine, that I almost forgot my true purpose. I almost let her go into that stairwell to fly out and destroy the death robot that I knew wouldn’t survive a single encounter with her anyways.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Almost.

  I just hoped this worked. I hoped I was right about why the Anti-Newtonian stasis field didn’t work correctly the first time I used it on Fialux.

  Obviously if she was already moving and in action when I activated the field there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell the field would be able to stand up to the kind of power she was throwing around. But I was about to seriously risk life and limb testing the thing in a live scenario when she was already a body at rest…

  Like she was right now. Staring up at me with the barest hint of moisture in her eyes. Begging me to let her go save the city. The city that didn't actually need saving since CORVAC had strict orders to disappear as soon as I made the capture.

  Assuming the safeties were still working. It sounded like they weren’t.

  Hey, I might know the giant death robot was a dud, but that didn't mean I wanted to waste all the work that went into it by risking some hero destroying it. Or the military getting in a lucky shot.

  It was bad enough that Dr. Laura was trying to steal my ideas. The last thing I needed were the idiots in the government getting their grubby paws on my stuff.

  Yet I couldn't help but feel something as I reached out with the Anti-Newtonian device. An odd feeling. Something I don't think I'd ever felt before, or at the very least an emotion I'd thoroughly stomped down up until this moment.

  Guilt.

  I can't say that I liked what I was about to do, but work was work. There was still the risk of someone interrupting us since we were stuck in the middle of this deserted hallway, but I wasn’t going to get a better opportunity.

  It was now or never.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered.

  Selena raised her eyebrows in confusion. "Sorry? What are you talking about?"

  I activated the stasis field. It sprang up around her, the glow not quite so bright in the lighted hallway as it had been when I was fighting Fialux at night. I looked back up at her and a huge grin split my face.

  "I'm sorry I'm so fucking awesome!"

  Selena’s eyes went wide. She started thrashing around, but I raised the field slightly so she was floating in the air and couldn't actually launch herself off of anything.

  Damn. That would've been embarrassing if I went to all the trouble of capturing her in the field and she was still able to push off the ground. She flailed more and more and the glow grew brighter and brighter.

  For a moment I worried that maybe the kind of power she was throwing around was still too much for the field, but even as it glowed brightly, turning blue and then purple, it stayed firmly in place.

  The field was working exactly as designed when she wasn’t already throwing her momentum around. I threw my head back and allowed myself a victorious villainous cackle. It’d been way too long since I had occasion to let out a good victorious villain laugh.

  I lowered my chin and narrowed my eyes at Fialux. Because only Fialux could put out enough power to cause the field to blue shift like that.

  "Damn it feels good to be a villain," I said.

  "Who are you? Why are you doing this? The city is in danger!"

  "Oh, right. About that."

  I pulled my wrist up to my mouth and my wrist computer materialized there. I had the satisfaction of watching Fialux's eyes go as big as saucers as she saw the wrist computer. Oh yes. She recognized that.

  "CORVAC, call off the attack," I said.

  "But mistress, I'm almost to a populated area," CORVAC's metallic voice rang out of my wrist communicator.

  "I don't care. I've got the package and it's about to be delivered. Now shut down the bot and get back to base," I snapped.

  "You!" Fialux said.

  I sketched a brief bow and came back up with a grin. "I suppose it's time to do away with silly costumes, wouldn't you say?"

  I raised my blaster and fired at her once, twice. She didn't even flinch. The first blast knocked off her university logo shirt revealing the bright green skintight Fialux top underneath.

  Just as I suspected, the Fialux outfit didn't singe as I blasted it. Though I had to admit part of me was disappointed that it didn't blast away her clothes to reveal her fantastic body. Then again, I suppose she had to be ready for anything when she went out. Which meant always being in uniform under her regular clothes.

  Besides, that was the kind of distraction I did not need right about now.

  The second blast knocked away her deliciously tight jean shorts revealing the skirt she wore underneath. It looked slightly disheveled from being kept tight in those shorts. Obviously flying at high speeds was part of what kept it looking presentable.

  "I suppose I should let my hair down too," I said.

  And so I did just that. I hated that damn academic bun I'd forced myself to wear while I was teaching this course anyway. I reached up and my hair fell down across my shoulders.

  There, that was far more comfortable. I didn't turn the blaster on myself, but I did very carefully and meticulously unbutton my shirt and pants, slipping out of them revealing my far more comfortable carbon fiber suit underneath.

  I hit a button on my wrist computer and my custom HUD sprang to life feeding me information as my contacts materialized in place. I felt one with the world again.

  I felt like I was walking around naked without my contacts and the steady feed of information it brought me. I’d worried Fialux might notice my contacts feeding me information if she was in that classroom.

  I couldn't help but notice the way Fialux's eyes stared at me intently. There was anger there for sure, but something else as well as I disrobed. Admiration? Lust? I could hope.

  "I can't believe it Fialux," I said. " I finally have you in my clutches."

  "Even if you kill me there are others who will try and stop you," Fialux said.

  "Kill you?" I asked, arching an eyebrow. "Now what in the time we’ve spent together this semester makes you think I’d go and do a silly thing like kill you?"

  "Then what are you going to do?"

  I chuckled and reached out to attach a long range teleportation targeter to Fialux. I needed something to do because I honestly didn’t have a good answer for what I was going to do with her.

  The original plan had been to run some trials with that weapon I pilfered from Dr. Laura and find out what made Fialux tick, but somehow that felt wrong now. I also worried about what CORVAC might try when we had her safe in captivity.

  Honestly? I was like the dog who caught the car. I never thought I’d get here, and I didn’t have anything but the haziest plans on where to go from here.

  Whatever. I’d think of something. I always did. Even if the plans running through my mind mostly involved pillow fights and staying up late talking and repeating that wonderful kiss and all sorts of other things that weren’t going to help me take over the world.

  Damn it.

  I didn’t have a plan, but she didn’t have to know that.

  "Oh Fialux, I have some very interesting things in store for you.”