The fight at the nightclub had ended, and people were getting up or, in some cases, getting helped up, and in some, they weren't getting up at all.

  Lester looked down at Brad. The guy was definitely in bad shape. Judging by how he was bent, the guy's spine seemed to be a bit loose. One could also see some brain under a skull fracture. Stuff like this happened when you got thrown through a wall without having superhuman damage resistance. All in all, Brad might already be dead.

  Next to Brad, on her knees, was Nancy, the great-granddaughter of Lord Psion. She was crying. Lester really didn't know what to do. Nancy had just, like five minutes ago, put some mind control on the young man, making him love her. And somehow the mind control had backfired, or it was just how her power worked, but in either case, she was now in love with Brad, who was in no shape to return her love.

  "So," Lester started. Then he stopped for a while and continued, "Should we take him to a hospital or something?"

  "No, you idiot," Nancy answered. "He's dead, and it's all your fault. You should have protected him the way you were supposed to."

  Lester thought of reminding her that he was supposed to protect her, not Brad. But Nancy clearly wasn't in a state where she was susceptible to reason.

  Just as Lester was about to open his mouth to give an answer he didn't have, a guy stepped in. He was the young man in the dark suit who'd summoned the shadow shield during the fight. He said, "I know a guy who could maybe fix Brad."

  Lester looked at the shadow guy, then he looked back at Brad, seeing the puddle of blood spreading under the poor fellow. Then he looked at Nancy, who had stopped crying, now with a hopeful expression. Lester said to Nancy, "Your car is waiting for you outside."

  "Yes," Nancy said, while grabbing Brad's hands and dragging him onward in a way, which, Lester noted, might not have been the medically safest for the broken guy, whose head hung down, bouncing off the floor as she dragged.

  ***

  As they rode in the back of Nancy's limousine, Lester discreetly studied Nancy's friends, the two women and the man. They were all in their early twenties or late teens. The guy's name was, Lester had just learned, Gren, and he was the one with shadow powers. One of the young women was cradling her left hand with her right. The arm might have been broken, but it didn't seem to bother her much. There wasn't any pain in her expression. None of them were shocked about what had happened. They just strode along with glazed expressions.

  Lester turned his focus on Nancy. She was crying, as she held, on her lap, the head of her instalove Brad, who was definitely dead now. Nancy's shenanigans, sure, were from a totally different universe. And somehow her friends tolerated her. None of them had even tried to convince her that she was not actually in love. It was hard to tell why someone would follow the crazy woman. Probably because she was something like royalty in the supervillain circles. Whatever their motives were, at this moment, Nancy's friends were totally high on a lot of stuff.

  The limousine stopped, and the driver announced through a speaker, "We're there now."

  As they got out, Lester recognized the neighbourhood. It was in the area known as the Outer Ring near where he used to live back when he still was a superhero. The poor area of Recalm City. The rich folk with their limousine were totally out of place here.

  They were now standing next to a large building with a tall garage door. Gren went and knocked on the door. After a while, the garage door rose up and Lester could see inside. There was a man. Or a creature. A hunchback with three eyes—the extra one was just above the left eye—and a one-toothed grin. The guy was dressed in a lab coat. Definitely a mad scientist. If you judged the madness of this mad scientist just by his looks, Brad might actually have a decent chance of getting out of this alive despite having been most certainly dead for a while now.

  "What a pleasant surprise, and at this hour," the hunchback guy said.

  Lester took a deep breath. He glanced back at the limousine driver, who just waved at him, indicating everything was good. Then the guy lit a cigarette and started smoking while standing next to the car.

  After Gren exchanged a couple of words with the hunchback scientist, the strange fellow indicated for them to follow in. Lester helped drag Brad's corpse, which wasn't as limp as it had been a while ago.

  As they went in, Lester got a look around the large garage. There was a lot of stuff here, including some monster parts he recognized. There was even a faintly glowing horn on one table, probably from a wooly rhino. This seemed to be one of those places that took in the kind of stuff he'd hunted back when he'd been part of Armie's Strongarms.

  "Lay him here." The hunchback indicated toward an operating table, which looked like just a normal table with some straps there in case the subject wanted to escape. Then the mad scientist took a look at Brad, staring into the young man's eyes with all three of his own. "This man is not dead yet."

  Nancy let out a gasp, and the hunchback turned toward her and said, "There is hope. For I, Himburg the Gorgeous, have the cure." Himburg paused. "But, of this miracle cure, I have only a single dose. See, one of its key ingredients was extracted from a flower that grows only in a single place—inside a burning volcano on the other side of the world. I can't give it away for free. Not even for the tears of a fine young lady like yourself."

  "I'll pay anything," Nancy said.

  As a silence came upon the room, Lester noticed a glint of surprise and greed in Himburg's eyes. Then the guy said, "Would two hundred thousand be a reasonable price?"

  "Yes." Nancy took out her phone, and she opened her bank app.

  In shock, Lester watched as the money was transferred under the gaze of drooling Himburg. And he, Lester, had thought five thousand was a lot of money for a single day's work. Mad science sure did pay well. Maybe he should have chosen the tinkering power back at Nasty's place. He could be making big money, and he could be making it easy. However, there was a chance that, if he'd gone down that path, he would have—through some freak accident—ended up looking like Himburg here.

  "Let's make a miracle," Himburg said as he opened a freezer box and took out a vial. The vial was green, and Lester thought he knew where it had come from. There was this species of large mutant rats with great regenerative abilities that could be found around Recalm City. Once he and the rest of Armie's Strongarms had drained one of these rats of its green blood. And the rat had definitely not been a flower with its boil-covered hairless skin.

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  "Here it is." Himburg held the vial in his hands, like it was the most precious thing in the world. He then opened the vial and took out a metal syringe from his pocket, which he then filled with the green liquid, emptying the vial. The guy then moved next to Brad's body, which lay on the table. All three eyes gleaming and a one-toothed mouth grinning, Himburg yelled, "For science!" And he slammed the syringe into Brad's heart.

  They all waited in anticipation. But even after several minutes, nothing happened.

  "No worries." Himburg ran to a corner and dug a rod out of a box. It was a stun stick, and he tested it, creating a small arc of electricity on the other end of the stick. "Just needs a bit of stimulus." He proceeded to poke Brad with the stick, making the body twist.

  After several minutes of poking, there was a reaction. Brad's foot started twitching, and it wasn't from the electric shocks.

  Nancy gasped, clearly getting her hopes up.

  Lester could see the wounds of the young man start to heal, the cracked skull mending itself back together, the bent spine snapping back straight. It was a sick sight indeed. But he just had to see what would happen.

  Lester suddered, but his eyes were glued on Brad's regenerating body.

  It took a while, but after the healing had passed, Brad rose to sit on the bed, and he said, "What's going on? Who are you people? Where's Birgitta?"

  Lester noted the mention of Brad's actual girlfriend, Birgitta. This probably meant that Brad had shrugged off Nancy's mind control during his dead phase.

  "Brad, my love," Nancy said as she approached the young man.

  Brad turned to her. "You're Nancy Psion." Then he looked at all of us, his eyes stopping for a moment on Himburg. "You're villains. You've kidnapped me."

  Nancy approached Brad, taking hold of his hand. "You're just confused. I'll make it all better." She leaned in to kiss him on the lips.

  But Brad stopped her, pushing her away and yelling, "You evil bitch. You're trying to put some mind fuck on me." Then he slammed his fist on Nancy's nose with a crunch, sending her stumbling onto the floor, where she sat, looking around confused as her friends rushed to her side.

  Lester saw Nancy's expression change. She was getting angry, her face twisting and eyes shining. And he could feel it. Nancy was gathering her power, much more than he'd witnessed her use before. The crazy woman was even turning red.

  "Fuck," Lester said as he dove away just as Nancy released her scream. And the scream shook the small garage, sending people onto their knees, clutching their heads.

  It lasted for several seconds, and then there was silence. Lester got up and surveyed the scene. Everyone was down, except for Brad. He'd somehow resisted the scream and was now pressing the buttons next to the garage door.

  Lester moved toward Nancy, who sat on the floor, surrounded by her unconscious friends, eyes staring at nothing while a trail of blood dripped out of her nose. Lester said, "Are you okay?"

  "Why does this keep happening to me?" Nancy said, not paying Lester any attention. "Why do I have such bad luck with men?"

  Yep, Lester's inner voice said with sarcasm, it's all about luck.

  The garage door started rising, and, when there was enough room under the door, Brad slid under it, escaping into the night.

  "I won't let this be!" Nancy said, and she sprang up and sprinted toward the rising door, sliding under it in chase of Brad.

  Lester watched her go. Was the job really worth five thousand a day? That was a really good question. But that was not the real issue here. If something happened to Nancy, he might get blasted to oblivion by Lord Psion.

  Lester let out a deep sigh, got up, and ran after Nancy.

  As he exited the garage, Lester saw Nancy running away along the dark street, as most of the street lamps were broken. Also, she was, in her short dress and heels, someone who maybe should not be running at night, in the bad side of the town. But on the other hand, pity the poor criminal who assaulted her.

  Lester sprinted after her, shrinking the distance between them easily. They took a turn toward the border of the city, where the automatic autocannon turrets, fences, and mines kept the wildlife away from the city. There were only homeless people here. No one had built anything permanent within a hundred meters of the first of many fences.

  Lester caught up with Nancy but decided not to try to reason with her. She would probably just do as she pleased, that, now being, running in the dark after her victim slash fake boyfriend.

  Lester kept the distance as Nancy followed Brad, who now stopped next to the fence that marked the end of the city. He turned around and looked at Nancy. Lester could see Brad's face in the light of the moon. And the recently resurrected young man definitely didn't look fine. There was a large boil forming on the guy's forehead, his face had slightly elongated, forming a kind of snout, and his two front teeth had grown in length. Maybe some kind of a rat-human hybrid.

  "You did this to me!" Brad yelled at Nancy, who came to a halt a few meters in front of him. Brad showed her his hands, which now had claws forming on them.

  "I'm sorry," Nancy said. "But I had no other choice. If I had not taken you to the doctor, you would have died."

  "You used your mind control on me. You made me attack my girlfriend." Brad let out an inhuman wheeze.

  Lester took out the gun, but he didn't point it at Brad, deciding to only keep it at hand, pointed down. No need to escalate. There might still be a chance for a peaceful resolution.

  "Yes, I did all that," Nancy said, "But that does not mean I did not really love you. But now…" She took a deep breath. "Brad darling, I'm not really into this Beauty and the Beast thing."

  This seemed to tick Brad off. "Die you evil bitch," he screeched and flung himself toward Nancy, but before he could reach her, Lester fired the gun, hitting Brad five times in the body. And the mutating young man fell down, slumping face first onto the road at Nancy's feet.

  I killed someone, Lester thought. It had happened so fast. He'd just acted, and now Brad was dead.

  Lester said, "Shit."

  He looked at Nancy, who was just staring at Brad. The young woman seemed to be in her own world. Was she even remotely aware of what she was doing to people around her? Her idiot shenanigans had just forced him to kill a guy. Protecting her wasn't worth five thousand. If her great-grandfather wasn't one of the scariest people alive, he would shoot her now for the good of humanity.

  Brad's body twitched, and the guy let out a cough. This seemed to wake Nancy up, and she turned to Lester and said, "You didn't kill him properly. Give me the gun."

  Lester started to protest, "But—"

  "Give me the gun, henchman, or I'll tell my grandpa that you were rude to me."

  For a split second, Lester thought about denying her. That would have been the morally correct decision. But sometimes, the not so privileged had to make the wrong decision.

  Lester handed the gun to her, and she took it. Then she pointed it at Brad's head and said, "Brad, I know that what we had wasn't real, but for a moment there, I was happy." She pulled the trigger repeatedly, firing the final seven rounds, most of them hitting Brad in the back of his head. And now Brad lay there within a puddle of his blood and brain matter.

  Nancy tossed the empty gun back to Lester, and she said, "I'm getting tired. Let's go home."

  Lester was relieved to hear that. The night would finally be over. But he was certain that the stuff that had happened on this night would haunt him the rest of his life.

  "As you wish, Miss Psion," Lester said, and indicated the way toward where they had come and where the limousine was.

  As they left, Lester looked back and saw Brad's leg twitch. It seemed that there might still be some life in the guy due to the mad scientist's miracle cure. Maybe he should go back and finish the guy permanently, so the mutated man wouldn't come back and, one day, kill Nancy. But then again, maybe Brad deserved to have a go at some revenge.

  Lester continued on, walking beside Nancy as they made their way toward the limousine.