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  Chapter 1

  I didn’t see any signs of the two supervillains in the park, but I knew they had to be here, and I knew they would have to show themselves sooner or later.

  I just hoped it would be sooner. I had already thought of half a dozen improvements that I wanted to make to my suit, plus to the suit of my superpowered girlfriend, and that didn’t even count what I had in mind for my assistant. But I couldn’t afford to think about that too much right now because we had two supervillains to kill, and at the moment, they had decided to play an irritating game of hide-and-seek.

  “Aileen, are there any signs of them from the security camera footage across the street?” I asked as I leaned forward and peered through the windshield of my soccer mom van.

  “One moment,” the sultry voice of my AI responded in my ear.

  “It’s almost like they’re afraid of us,” my girlfriend Elizabeth said as she flexed her fingers into tight fists.

  “You mean they’re afraid of a random van that just came up and parked at the edge of the park?” Norma, my mousy assistant, laughed. “I doubt they have any idea who’s in here.”

  “Ooh!” Penumbra said from the far back of the van. “It’s like one of those movies where we’re, like, the FBI, you know? And we’re after the bad guys, but we just have to wait in our little secret van!”

  “Yeah, except the FBI might actually try to arrest them,” I snickered,

  “but we’re just going to kill them.”

  “Well, other than that, I guess it’s like we’re the FBI,” the blonde superheroine giggled.

  “I have taken over all the security cameras around the perimeter of the park,” my robotic assistant said, “and I detect movement in the treetops in the southeastern quadrant of the park.”

  “Um, and what quadrant are we in?” Penumbra asked as she pulled her long blonde hair up into a ponytail.

  “The eastern one,” I replied. “No other movement, Aileen? And do you have eyes on any civilians?”

  “No civilians,” my robotic assistant said. “They have all fled the park, but they are standing in groups along the street itself.”

  “Then let’s give them a good show,” I growled and started to open the door of the van.

  “Hold on, Miles,” Elizabeth said as she reached forward to lay her hand on my arm. “Shouldn’t we be a little careful about how many people

  see us in action? We don’t want civilians to actually see us kill them, do we?”

  “Oh, we can kill them out of sight,” I said, “but with everything that’s happened in the last week, I really fucking doubt they would mind if we did kill them right out in public.”

  “Grayville has had a rough week since the Shadow Knight’s death,”

  my assistant agreed as she pushed her oversized glasses up her nose.

  “Norma’s right about that,” I said. “Crime has skyrocketed since all the supervillains in town heard about the Shadow Knight’s death, but I knew that would happen. That’s exactly why we’ve been so busy for the last couple of days.”

  “Well, it has helped restore Grayville’s trust in us,” Elizabeth said.

  “Even Optimo’s smear campaign against the Evil Genius hasn’t done well since we started getting rid of all the supervillains who decide to cause us any problems.”

  “Exactly,” I said as I smiled at my gorgeous girlfriend.

  The only thing better than my nickname of ‘Evil Genius’ was when I heard Elizabeth, also known by the superhero name of Dynamo, say it. It sounded even sexier to hear my name on the lips of such a beautiful and powerful woman.

  Elizabeth smiled back at me now, and the expression softened her whole face. She often looked very stern to the rest of the world, but whenever she looked at me, she smiled and blinked her long eyelashes at me. When she smiled at me like that, it always felt like she was picturing ripping the high-tech suit that I had designed for her right off her body so that I could lick every inch of her pale skin.

  And to be honest, that was what I thought about every time I looked at her, too. Sure, I had designed her suit to be practical and protective, so it could amplify her super strength and serve as an extra shield between her and our enemies, since after all, Dynamo might have regenerative abilities, but she could still get hurt. But I had also made sure that her suit was still sexy at the same time, so the tops of her creamy white thighs were exposed below the suit itself and before her reinforced boots started just above her knees.

  “Uh, Miles?” Norma cleared her throat, and I realized that I had missed whatever my mousy assistant just said.

  “Hm?” I asked.

  “I said, are you ready?” Norma repeated.

  “I’m always ready,” I laughed. “Everybody knows the plan?”

  “I stay up in the air and try to get Harpy and Vulture out of the trees,”

  Penumbra said, “and if they stay in the same place long enough, I can use my powers to change their mass and drop them to the ground.”

  “Good girl,” I said. “Norma? Elizabeth?”

  “I’ll stay right beside you for as long as you need me,” my assistant replied and then started to blush. “You know, so I can watch your back.”

  “Of course,” I said with a grin. “For as long as I need you.”

  “And I’ll try to distract them and get both supervillains to engage me in a fight,” Elizabeth said as she stretched out her long, well-muscled legs.

  “You’ll sneak up behind them, and then we should be able to take them down together.”

  “Movement in the southeast park quadrant is beginning to shift in your direction,” Aileen said calmly into our comms.

  “Then we better shift our asses out of this van!” Norma said.

  “Still working on your one-liners, are you?” I smirked.

  “Don’t tell me,” my mousy assistant groaned. “We need to workshop it, right?”

  “Something like that,” I laughed. “Aileen, keep us posted on any movements you detect through the security cams. Everybody else, come with me.”

  I had decided to leave my robotic assistant behind in my Grayville mansion so she could run everything for us remotely. She would eventually come on missions with us, but I wanted to do a few more tweaks to her skin before I brought her out into public, and until then, she could do everything we needed from the mansion.

  I opened the front door of the van at the same time that my black-haired girlfriend slid open the side door. After Elizabeth and I jumped to the ground, Norma and Penumbra hurried out the door to join us, and then I led the way toward the southeastern quadrant of the city park.

  As soon as I started to run toward Harpy and Vulture’s last known locations, I felt my muscles groan at the movement. There hadn’t been much downtime between fights during the last week, so I could feel how much my body wanted a long, hot soak in the tub… preferably with my superpowered girlfriend in my lap, of course.

  After we fought Harpy and Vulture, we might finally be able to get in a little R and R, but based on what I knew about our next two supervillains, our second fight of the day promised to be harder than our first.

  We had already killed the villain Voltage that morning, but we’d barely had time to wipe the blood off of our suits before Aileen had informed us about another attack at the main city park in Grayville. Harpy and Vulture had always worked alone before, and one of them wouldn’t

 
have been too bad, but it would be much more difficult to take out two aerial villains at the same time.

  Harpy was known for her quick attacks, since she could spring down from any high position and then fly back into the air before anyone could stop her. She didn’t have any wings, so how she flew was something of a mystery, but it gave her the advantage of looking like a regular human, and that was exactly how she was able to sneak up on new or expectant mothers. They never saw her coming until it was too late, and by then, Harpy had already triggered the razor-sharp metal spikes in her skin and made her victims bleed to death.

  She didn’t normally work with anyone since she preferred her little sneak attacks, but apparently, Harpy had made an exception today to work with Vulture. Vulture did have wings, and he was able to shift his feet back and forth between huge talons and normal feet, so any time he dive-bombed one of his random victims, usually some old person who had gone out to bird-watch or some shit, he could rip their throats out with his talons and then disappear before anyone could call the cops.

  I didn’t like that these two assholes had suddenly decided to team up together. In fact, I was goddamn suspicious of it, but I would have to figure out why later.

  Right now, we just needed to find them and put them down.

  “Go ahead up into the air,” I told Penumbra as we approached the thick cluster of trees ahead. “See if you can see them from above, but be careful that they don’t fly up and attack you.”

  “I’m on it, Miles,” the blonde superheroine replied, and then she floated up high above us.

  “You lead the way now, Elizabeth,” I said. “Norma and I will be right behind you.”

  Dynamo flexed her fingers, looked up at a rustle from one of the trees in front of us, and then she sprinted forward to draw the supervillains’

  attention.

  The distraction worked like a fucking charm.

  Harpy and Vulture both plunged down from the treetops toward Dynamo at the same time, and they both moved so fast that my girlfriend only managed to get one punch in before the supervillains both flew back up into the air, perched on a high limb, and then dove right back down again.

  This definitely wouldn’t be an easy fight.

  Both villains were fast, so our best hope was to get them separated from each other, so we could take them down more easily. Of course, that plan was slightly complicated by the fact that both villains could fly, but

  then again, they probably hadn’t thought that four of us would show up to fight them.

  After all, they were used to dealing with the Shadow Knight, and he had always prided himself on the fact that he almost always worked alone.

  Even when he worked with his Silver Squires, he never gave them enough weapons or knowledge to actually help him, so the Shadow Knight could continue to be Grayville’s only superhero.

  Well, he had been Grayville’s only superhero… right up until he went insane and we killed him.

  I gestured for Norma to go left, while I moved to the closest tree on the right. I wanted to hide behind the trunk for just a minute so I could analyze the supervillains’ attacks on Dynamo, and then I would know the best way to strike back against them.

  The next time they swooped down from the trees, Harpy was half a second ahead of Vulture. As soon as Harpy landed on the ground beside Dynamo, she hissed, and all the pores in her skin immediately erupted into tiny sharp spikes. She barreled forward into my girlfriend, but Dynamo’s suit protected her from the spikes, and she managed to land a solid punch on Harpy’s spiked chin before the supervillain flew back into the trees.

  Vulture didn’t bother to land beside Elizabeth before he attacked her.

  Instead, as he flew to the ground, he stretched out his feet until they shifted and turned into massive talons. He aimed them directly at Dynamo’s neck, but the blue-eyed brunette had reflexes just as fast as Vulture’s were, so she rolled forward, grabbed a rock from the ground, and lobbed it backward at Vulture’s head.

  The rock grazed the feathers along the side of his head, but Vulture dodged the worst of it and then flew back up into the trees with Harpy. That was the problem with the fact that these two assholes had attacked civilians in the park. There were way too many places for them to hide, and the thick wooded area let them fly up and down constantly but remain hidden every time.

  “How’s it going up top, Penumbra?” I whispered into the comms.

  “They won’t stay still long enough for me to lock onto them,” the blonde heroine wailed. “I keep trying, but every time I almost get them, they fly back down to the ground.”

  “I’ve got the same problem,” Elizabeth said. “They’re so fast that I can hardly get a punch in before they head right back up to the trees.”

  “We’ll have to deploy the webbing,” I said. “Norma, I want you to--”

  “Incoming,” Aileen said calmly.

  “Incoming what?” Elizabeth demanded.

  “There appears to be another supervillain headed your way,” my robotic assistant said. “He is flying straight toward you, and he should be there in three… two… now.”

  On Aileen’s cue, a third figure flew into view overhead and dove down through the trees toward Elizabeth. Before he could even reach her, Penumbra darted down to intercept him, grabbed the back of his collar, and hauled him back up into the air.

  He twisted out of her grip, but it was enough to distract him away from Dynamo. He immediately turned toward Penumbra in the middle of the air and tried to throw a punch, but she floated back just out of reach.

  “The new arrival appears to be Swallow,” Aileen announced. “His appearance matches that particular entry in the Shadow Knight’s records.”

  “Swallow?” I smirked. “I wonder how he came up with that name.”

  “Maybe because he’s really fast,” Dynamo laughed and then spun around to land another punch on Vulture. “You know, like a bird?”

  “Well, it’s certainly not very intimidating,” Norma said.

  “Change of plans, Penumbra,” I said. “Do you think you can take Swallow on by yourself? We don’t need a third supervillain thrown into the mix just now.”

  “Don’t worry, I can take him,” the blonde called as she zipped up into the air and got Swallow to follow her. “You guys just take care of the other two, alright?”

  “Oh, we will,” I said. “Just get him away from the fight.”

  Penumbra did another little mid-air dance with the new supervillain, and it looked like she made him mad enough that when she darted away from the park, he followed right after her and forgot all about Dynamo, Harpy, and Vulture.

  “So what did you want me to do, Miles?” Norma chirped as she glanced over at me from her hiding place.

  “I want you to climb up into that tree as high as you can go,” I said,

  “and when I give the signal, throw one of your smoke grenades down at Elizabeth.”

  “What did I do to piss you off?” my girlfriend teased.

  “Not a damn thing,” I said. “You’ll have to move fast if you want to get out of the way, but that should give me just enough time to get the webbing into place, while Harpy and Vulture can’t see anything.”

  “You got it,” Norma said, and then she started to climb.

  I smiled at the sight of my mousy assistant as she pulled herself up onto the lowest branch of the tree, and then she began to climb quickly with

  all the skill of an average rock-climber. Norma hadn’t even needed a reminder that she had all the climbing skills she needed, and I was pleased that she seemed to be more confident lately.

  Of course, I knew that half her confidence came from the sleek suit that I had designed for her, since it was a hell of a lot more flattering than the normal frumpy, flowered outfits that my assistant usually wore. Still, her suit didn’t do very much to enhance her powers, but instead, it was designed to support and protect her until she figured out that the ability to be average at absolutely everything was act
ually the most badass superpower of all.

  She’d figure it out herself eventually. I just had to keep hinting at it.

  I turned my attention back to my girlfriend, just as Harpy and Vulture dove back down to attack her from both sides. Harpy aimed her spiky skin at Elizabeth’s legs to try to knock her off balance, but she didn’t stumble backward into Vulture’s talons like the supervillains wanted her to.

  Instead, Dynamo did a backflip so the toe of her boot caught Harpy on the chin and propelled her high into the air. As the black-haired superheroine flipped back down toward the ground, her boot almost collided with Vulture, too, but the taloned supervillain launched himself into the air just in time to avoid her kick.

  Harpy was one tough fucking bird if she could take two hits from Dynamo and still be upright.

  “They continue to return to the same trees,” Aileen purred into my ear. “They seem to prefer the angle of attack that they can get from there, and they haven’t changed trees since Dynamo showed up. They appear to only change which branches they return to.”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  The two supervillains attacked Dynamo again, but my robotic assistant was right. Their attacks were just about as predictable as their return to the treetops, so even though they were both fast, they relied too heavily on their speed, and as a result their attacks themselves weren’t really all that powerful.

  At least, not compared to my own team.

  The next time Harpy and Vulture launched themselves back toward the treetops, I waited a few seconds until I knew they were about to dive back down, and then just as the treetops started to rustle with their movements, I prepared to strike.

  “Now, Norma!” I said.

  As my mousy assistant flung a smoke grenade down at Elizabeth, my girlfriend rolled out of the way. While the grenade started to fill the air with

  thick smoke, Dynamo retreated back toward me, but I just stepped past her and aimed my arm up at the treetops.

  I heard Harpy and Vulture crash to the ground and start to cough, so I fired my webbing solution at the top branches of the trees where the two supervillains had been returning to. I had damn near perfected the webbing technology that I’d taken from the villain Tarantulator, and I had been eager for an excuse to use it again.