Author Daecrist

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 37: Contingencies

Fialux slammed into the wall with a crunch and I had a moment to gather myself while she was trying to extricate herself from a sparking computer bank. It looked like I had a few seconds, at least.

“Son of a bitch!” I shouted.

“Get over here,” Fialux growled.

Time to go to work. It’s not like I had much time.

The monitors shut down and there was nothing else fr...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 36: Betrayed

I wanted to know how the hell that asshole got on the video feed, and how the hell he was able to do his hypnotic routine through a screen like that. Only I didn’t want this guy or CORVAC to know the hypnosis wasn’t working on me, so I tried my best to look like someone under the sway of a mind control device. 

It wasn’t too terribly difficult. All I had to do was look at Fialu...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 35: Metallic Shoe Drop

There are kisses and then there are kisses. Some people are terrible at it. Some people think opening their mouth and jabbing their tongue is all it takes. Some think opening their mouth like a gaping maw and lying there letting the other half do the work is good enough. 

And then there are those who really and truly know what they're doing. Fialux obviously really and truly knew wha...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 34: Confessions

Fialux looked so beautiful strung up in an antigravity field I'd placed in the lab for just this occasion. Coupled with the stasis field and the extra juice from my lab’s matter-antimatter reactor, I was pretty sure there was no way she could escape until I was ready to let her escape. 

I hoped there was no way she could escape until I was ready to let her escape. Let’s just say ...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 33: A Plan Comes Together

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 snea...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 32: Secret Identities

I glanced at my watch and then back up to the students who were waiting expectantly. We were five minutes into class and I still hadn't said anything. 

I didn't have any demonstration planned today. Today's lesson would be far more practical than anything the class had seen up to this point.

Damn it. What was taking CORVAC so long?

I had to say something. It was time to w...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 31: Office Hours

I quickly moved my wrist behind my back so the computer wasn't obvious as none other than Selena Solare stepped through. She looked absolutely radiant in the standard warm weather college girl uniform of a tight fitting tank top and an even tighter fitting pair of shorts. 

If she was Fialux, and I was starting to seriously question that hypothesis, then she’d changed back into her ...

Advance chapters programming note

Hello! I currently have advance chapters up for the correct tiers for Villains Don't Date Heroes! I'm about a week ahead on revising/rewriting How I Helped My Smokin' Hot Alien Girlfriend Conquer the Empire and hope to have advance chapters up in a week or so.

Going on vacation put a cramp on getting those finished before linking to this Patreon. For now please enj...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 30: Wannabe

"Office hours" for me usually involved leaving behind a small transmitter tied to my wrist computer that I could use to determine when someone was knocking on my door. From there it was a matter of quickly teleporting back to the university where I could impart my knowledge on the eagerly awaiting student.

There was no way I was staying in this tiny cramped space when I could pop over to ...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 29: Blink

I sighed. My shoulders slumped. It looked like once again Fialux had won. Just like she’d won every round so far, assuming that Fialux and Selena Solare were the same person. 

I’d really hate to go up against her in a game of poker.

I threw the remote to the ground and it shattered into pieces. People cried out, but it’s not like it mattered since the thing was keyed to m...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 28: Really Nasty Tricks

I didn’t want to bring out the big guns, but she left me with no choice. So at the start of the next class I fished inside my desk and pulled out a small orb. 

I let go and it floated into the air. Up into the middle of the room where a red light started to run around its equator.

“Does anybody know what this is?” I asked.

Blank looks. Of course. I shook my head. I ...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 27: Moderately Nasty Tricks

It was time to get down to business. The only problem with that deceptively simple and obvious plan? Nothing would draw her out and the class became pure torture as the semester wore on. 

Every day I’d demonstrate some new and devious method to try and get Fialux to reveal herself, and every day Selena Solare sat halfway up the seats and stared at me with a smile on her face. As th...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 26: Lunch Sparring

My palms were sweaty. My pulse was racing. If I had my suit on right now I’m sure it would be telling me that all my usual readings were off the charts.

This was worse than the time I faced down that angry tyrannosaur I’d accidentally time shifted into the middle of my lab, and that encounter was pretty high up on my list of super science screw ups I never wanted to repeat.

Turn...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 25: Dining Hall

I glanced through the material on offer at the dining hall and frowned. This definitely was nothing compared to what I was used to working in my lab thanks to my mastery of reconstituting anything I wanted whenever I wanted. 

It turns out inventing the replicator was a pleasant fringe benefit of developing teleportation technology. 

The stuff in the dining hall though? Wha...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 24: Journalism 105

A hand raised near the middle of the lecture hall. I squinted and peered at the girl. Auburn hair, gorgeous face, green eyes covered by a pair of slim fashionable glasses, and what looked like a pretty fit figure though it was hard to tell for sure since she was sitting down.

She certainly looked the part. The hair was a little off, but maybe being able to do a quick dye job was one of he...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 23: Super Survival

"Journalism."

I paused and relished the moment as an entire lecture hall full of students leaned forward eagerly hanging on my every word. I could get used to this. 

Well, I could get used to it if it wasn't so dull. Aside from the part where I had the somewhat rapt attention of hundreds of college students. As rapt as a college student’s attention could get on the first day ...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 22: New Job

"I'm sorry Miss… Terrare?"

"It's Terror," I said with a smile. “It's pronounced just how it's spelled."

The human resources drone shuffled some papers uncomfortably on her desk and pointedly didn't look at me. "I see. That's an… interesting name."

If this was a real job interview I'd be worried right about now. The way she barely glanced over my resume. The derisive snif...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 21: Fishing

Her eyes narrowed. I wasn’t sure if that was her being annoyed with me for implying she swung that way or if she was annoyed with me for fishing for information.

Either way it’s not like I could fault her for being annoyed. I’d be pissed off if someone was fishing for info about yours truly like that.

Especially if it was right after I got in the middle of a fight I was obviou...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 20: Hero's Dilemma

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” I said. “What about that big ship you took out? The old one flying through downtown that couldn’t possibly stand up against you? They’re going to be repairing that building for months! What about that time you ripped a bank vault right out of the bank basement and nearly collapsed the building above it to get some robbers out? Everywhere you go you cre...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 19: Cleanup

At least the thing was off her. I could take care of business and not worry about killing the good doctor at the same time.

She might be one of my oldest enemies, but that didn’t mean I wanted to go around turning her into her component atomic parts courtesy of her being too stubborn to admit when she was wrong.

That might be a fitting and poetic end, but I’d feel bad about it. ...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 18: Snazzy Entrance

The wind whipped through my hair. CORVAC was always going on about how dangerous it was for me to have my hair out like that. People could grab it in a fight. It wasn’t aerodynamic when I was flying around.

He’d even done wind tunnel simulations and everything and tried to show them to me, but the plain truth was that, just like a good cape, there was no substitute for making a dramat...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 17: Not On My Watch

Lana, I refused to honor her doctorate after the bullshit she pulled on me, advanced across the quad. Her familiar heels clicked in an echo that filled my brain with residual terror from the days when I’d had to listen for the sound of her heels clicking down the tile hallway.

I’d learned pretty early on that it was a good idea to not be anywhere she was when she was on the warpath. C...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 16: Heroine Distress

“What are you looking for mistress?” CORVAC asked.

“I just heard a sonic boom. Which could mean Fialux moving in over the city somewhere,” I said. “Could’ve sworn that was her. Are we getting anything on the overhead or the drones?”

I was bracing for the impact. Usually the drones picked her up, but she moved so fast that she was on me before I could use that informati...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 15: Mind Control

Weird. I almost felt like I was back at a middle school dance where I’d turned the DJ’s lights into a hypnotic pattern that would’ve allowed me to overthrow the school and institute my benevolent regime of all academics and no gym class.

I figured that was a better use of my time than risking the terror of wading out into the sea of hormones raging at the center of the gym dance flo...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 14: Compelling

"I don't know what you're doing with these thugs," Shadow Wing said. "But you’re not going to work this part of town. Go get your ass handed to you by the new hero and leave this neighborhood well enough alone."

"No need to pull the tough guy routine," I said.

I was a little annoyed, but I was also impressed. I avoided Shadow Wing professionally, but he had a pair on him. It wasn�...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 13: Shadow Wing

"Give us all your money," the gruff voice said.

I narrowed my eyes as I backed against the dark alley wall. "Are you sure you're after my money?"

The big guy hefted a tire iron in his hand and looked at me as though I'd sprouted horns. "What are you talking about? Of course we're after your money. Now pay up or else."

I breathed a sigh of relief. For a part of town that was su...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 12: Damsel in Disguise

I slouched my way along the pitted and often nonexistent sidewalks on the old east end of Starlight City. All around me stood the rusted out broken remains of a part of the city that had seen its heyday long ago.

The intervening years had seen nothing but depression and crime taking over. Basically it was the perfect place to try and lure Fialux.

Not that I didn't get an earful abou...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 11: Back Home

Stupid Fialux.

I stumbled through the front door not even caring if somebody saw me. Hopefully if one of the neighbors did happen to look out their window at that moment the careful cover story I'd developed about dressing up in costumes for insipid comic book conventions would be enough to explain why I was showing up in a busted and beaten Night Terror costume.

The worst that coul...

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 10: Ultimate Showdown?

Rain fell all around us as I floated down from the top of the Thomas building. Bright city lights reflected off both the rain and the massive skyscrapers surrounding us in all the colors of the rainbow. 

My cape fluttered behind me in the storm, still tattered and charred where her heat vision hit me. That had been an unpleasant surprise.

That was the problem with these heroes....

Villains Don't Date Heroes! 9: Front Row Seats

Smaller screens around the big board lit up with several different angles showing Fialux in all her glory. 

I wasn’t sure how to react. My hands clenched into fists while meanwhile a blush rose to my cheeks. A blush that wasn’t becoming of the city’s greatest villain looking at the city’s new greatest hero.

So I focused on the drone feeds instead. Maintaining a fleet of...