Having a nemesis could be so damn boring at times. Some random asshole that you don’t even get to choose is suddenly your responsibility? It was bullshit, and so, so predictable. This had to be the thirtieth time Slipspace had been called in to deal with Kinetiq in the past six months, going a full week without seeing the little bastard was a blessing at this point. And god, fighting him was so boring at this point. Even when she lost, which she rarely did, it was boring. Like yeah, wow, he could turn the potential energy within him into force fields and energy blasts, whoop-dee-fucking-do, so unique. He wasn’t even good at fighting, that power of his would be ridiculously strong if he actually knew what he was doing, but somehow Slipspace, whose only claim to fame was being able to kind of, sort of teleport in a very limited capacity, was able to regularly kick his ass. The fucking name didn’t even make sense, there was nothing kinetic about his power source at all, and changing one letter on a physics word didn’t make a supervillain name, honestly who the hell decided he was her responsibility? The media, apparently, her list of “asses to kick extra hard if they ever turn villain” consisted mostly of reporters and anchors at this point. Though apparently he owed that shitty name to them as well, so there was at least one thing they had in common. 

Slipspace wrenched her thoughts away from that frustrating spiral of annoyance and forced herself to focus on the task at hand. She always got like this before and after a fight with him, and just because this time he’d gone down literally instantly didn’t mean he wasn’t still a threat. A quick breathing exercise, a gentle rubbing of her temples and Slipspace was back on track, time to get to securing her prize. At least her day job prepped her for that, tying people up was a lifestyle at this point. She spun on her heel and took a half step toward his motionless form, before her eyes flashed wide, finding her foot, and the rest of herself frozen in place. Try as she may she couldn’t move an inch, not even enough to open a portal. To her horror, Kinetiq rose to his feet, cracking his neck loudly and stretching.

“Oof, do you have any idea how long it takes to perfect an invisible energy barrier with the exact feel of a human skull on impact? Months, but damn if it’s not worth it. You know, Slip, normally this would be the time where I might say ‘nothing personal,’ but after months and months of you getting in the way of my dream, I’ve gotta say I’m going to enjoy this. Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? What’s a bit of missing delta-tech here and there? Not like these fuckers are going to miss it.” He gestured around the elegant AzurTeck lab-space that served as our battleground and flashed me a wicked grin.

“You think I give a fuck about these rich assholes? This has nothing to do with them and everything to do with what might happen if this stuff fell into the wrong hands, specifically, yours.” Thankfully whatever forcefield Kinetiq had trapped her in wasn’t so restrictive as to prevent her from speaking. What surprised her, however. was that he almost seemed offended, angry.

“Is that all villains are to you people? I happen to need this tech, and it’s for personal reasons, not all of us can - ugh, you’re all so fucking infuriating ‘just go through the proper channels, A--,’" his mouth clamped shut. Despite the ridiculous steam-punk makeover welding goggles and gas mask he used to hide his face, Slipspace could clearly tell Kinetiq was flinching at the prospect of almost letting his civilian name slip. "Regardless, not everyone can afford this kind of shit on their own, I doubt you’d know anything about that though, hero.”  

“Pray tell, what exactly are the personal reasons you have for stealing from the most despicable weapons company in the entire world?” Her whole body would be shaking with rage if it could, she’d heard flimsy justifications before but this was unreal. It was sickening enough having to protect this deplorable company, that just because Kinetiq was her ‘responsibility’ she was expected to keep him from doing something absolutely unforgivable. A heist like this was way above her paygrade, every hero in the city should have been trying to stop whatever tech Kinetiq had stolen from getting out, but nobody took a villain that ‘portal-girl’ could beat seriously.

Kinetiq advanced on her with purpose, seemingly infuriated by her accusation, his black, skin-tight suit glistening under the flickering lights of the trashed laboratory. “I’m doing the right thing, not as part of some grand plan to change society forever, not as some greedy plot to enrich myself at the expense of others, but because people like me deserve to put our needs first sometimes, and if that hurts some asshole shareholder’s stock portfolio then so be it. But whatever, this was our last bout. I’ve got what I need to retire, now fuck off, Slip, see you never.” There was a light humming sound, and a bright, flash of solid blue light, a lot of pain, then darkness.

- - - 

Apparently the healer waiting list was two whole weeks for a low powered hero, at least, that’s what the bureaucrat asshole had told Slipspace on the phone two months before, she’d stopped bothering to call after the third week of them pushing it back. Besides, her injuries were hardly unbearable, some cracked ribs, a sprained ankle, a minor concussion, some internal bleeding. Kinetiq had clearly not meant to actually kill her, just incapacitate her, not that she was about to start singing his praise over a lack of murderous intent. Still, she had been in no shape to fight since, living out the past two months on leave. Though it seemed things were mostly healed, at least physically anyway, there was still a certain mental tax weighing heavily on her mood. It wasn’t the whole losing thing, she’d lost plenty of fights, even a few to Kinetiq. The fact that she could take on villains with powers of his caliber all while her portals could barely move her five feet, really only affording the advantage of evasiveness and more angles to strike from, was honestly always quite empowering to her. No, this wasn’t pride, this was far, far worse: doubt. His comments during that fight had been weighing on Slipspace’s mind ever since, forcing her to consider that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t after that tech for nefarious purposes. 

AzurTeck was best known for pioneering some of the most horrific, nastiest delta-tech weapons ever created. They had cropped up out of nowhere just after the superpowered delta-human came to be and completely flipped what technological innovation was capable of on its head. Put simply, there was practically an entire section of the Geneva Convention dedicated to the new war crimes that their shit was responsible for. Nobody should have access to their weaponry, ever, especially not someone acting independent of any oversight. That being said, ever since the fight there had been growing rumors among deltas, both “heroes” and “villains,” that Azur had recently made a huge breakthrough which accidentally proved more useful for medical purposes than killing. What if Kinetiq somehow knew about that before anyone else? What if he was trying to steal cutting edge medical technology in the hopes of finding a way to make it available en-masse instead of at premium like Azur was certain to do? What if he was stealing prototype weapons specifically because Azur tech already were the wrong hands and he wanted them destroyed? It was a stretch but the thought was troubling. Azur hadn’t actually made any official statement on what was stolen, neither had her superiors, who mostly seemed embarrassed they’d allowed a break-in at the mega-corp go answered by only one measly low-powered hero. 

When she’d first started heroing, Slipspace made a promise to herself she wasn’t going to use her abilities to enrich the powerful or punish the weak. Licensed deltas already had the reputation of being glorified cops, but low powered ones such as herself were essentially just independent contractors, sure, she had official assignments she was meant to do, but she -- and the villains, or more accurately villain, she faced off against -- wasn't important enough to really bother over. She hadn't taken arrested anyone in, well, ever, but so long as she managed to stop the crimes from actually happening her paychecks got signed. The media and the guild she belonged to expected Slipspace to show up where Kinetiq did, so she did. And apparently her blind dislike of that responsibility which she never wanted may have obscured her better judgment. For what seemed like the thousandth time over her injury-leave, Slipspace considered just ditching the job entirely, but she knew she couldn’t. Any sufficiently powered delta-human was practically fast-tracked into hero work by an endless army of recruiters and societal expectations, with great power came obligation, apparently. One did not get to be a dangerous delta just living a mundane life, there were heroes, and there were villains, and quitting due to moral conflict over a villain fight was a one-way ticket to becoming a pariah.

Slipspace was rescued from her own thoughts by her phone’s alarm, reminding her to leave for her other job, the one she actually enjoyed. She smiled a little, standing and stretching, then gathered her things and headed out. Just like that she was Elaine Norton, civilian, not Slipspace, recovering supe. Not that Elaine the civilian was a particularly mundane person by any means. Being a professional dominatrix was never boring, clients came in just about every flavor of unusual, but that wasn’t always a bad thing. To Elaine’s delight, on this particular night she was headed to the home of her absolute favorite client. Allie was an absolute treasure, a treat among treats. She’d first called for Elaine’s services about a month and a half prior, and this would already be their fourth session together. Allie was eager, a fun conversationalist, and absolutely adorable, both in and out of the ropes. Not to mention she always tipped very well. If it hadn’t been for the weird power dynamic of it all Elaine would have asked Allie out weeks ago, but, sadly that wasn’t the sort of thing she could pursue with a client. Regardless, it was practically impossible for Elaine to be in low spirits when Allie was involved.

As though fate itself had taken that thought as a personal challenge, her work phone chose that moment to ring, and not the fun work phone. Elaine fished it from her pocket and glanced at the screen, gave an annoyed sigh and answered. "Hey, Tic. What’s up? You know I’m still on leave right?” That was kind of, sort of not true. Officially Slipspace was given three months to recover, but the expectation was that as soon as she was fully healed, which she basically was, she was to return to duty.

“Hey Slip, yeah I know. What, did you think I of all people would be calling you with a job?” She sighed in relief, but that didn’t make his call an extremely unwelcome disruption. 

“Right, I guess that wouldn’t make sense, no. So why are you calling?” She was straight to the point, feeling a little bad for the cold-shoulder treatment she was giving her friend, but she so desperately did not want to get dragged back into anything hero related until they forced her back in.

“Just thought you should know that apparently Kinetiq is out of retirement.” Fuck. “Only, there’s something else. See, we had this other low level villain emerge pretty recently calling herself Arcadia, real idealist y’know? Everyone thought she was using some kind of weak telekinesis, I think pretending that was the case was her intention, she wanted to hide who she really was. Anyway, long story short it’s Kinetiq. She somehow caught the Attention of Mind’s Eye, who was able to identify her, the official story is she wound up selling that tech she stole to--” Elaine could hear Tic grumbling in annoyance on his end.

“What is it, Tic, don’t leave me hanging here.” She growled.

“I just hate saying the stupid fucking name.” If an eye-roll could be a sound, it was Tic’s tone in that moment. Elaine didn’t bother responding, she wasn't in the mood to humor him. “Okay fine, be that way. Kinetiq sold it to Dr. DeLEXIous, who apparently double crossed her and turned her into a woman? Which doesn't really make any sense at all and is almost certainly not what actually happened, but word is that’s what Kinetiq has been telling just about every one of her associates that ask.” 

“Wait you don’t mean that weirdo mad scientist who just spends all day every day fucking with Sentinel do you? Isn’t like her entire raison d'être that she clearly just wants that oblivious dumbass to ask her out?” Elaine would have laughed at the whole situation if it weren’t for the fact that her unwanted nemesis was apparently not retired after all.

“That’s the one, but listen, just keep your ears open okay? Wouldn’t be surprised if they called you in at some point in the next few days if Kinetiq, or Arcadia or whatever their name is decides to strike again.” Elaine just grunted in acknowledgment and hung up, cursing under her breath. That had to be the weirdest, and most unwelcome phone conversation she’d ever had. With purpose, she set off into the night, forcing herself to put the villain(ess?) out of her mind. She was going to enjoy her night with Allie and nobody could stop that, dammit.