Slash Salvatore remembers the exact moment she fell for Angel Faux. It's her favourite story, actually, of the ones she has for Angel. Which is saying something, because she could go on (and on, and on) about Angel's... "horrendous" deeds.

After Angel Faux had stolen rings from a jewellry store, Slash Salvatore flew after her. Upon a chase on a cold night, this was not a difficult task. However, Slash neglected to take care of herself for... oh, maybe three weeks straight. (Long story. Breakup involved.)

And so she didn't notice when her wings simply... gave out from under themselves. And she started to plummet.

The scream didn't even make it out of her lungs. She was too exhausted to.

But then an arm caught her arm, and then she was hauled back up the rooftops.

"Merry!" Angel gasped. "What in the world? Are you feeling alright?"

Slash blinked, then, still not-quite-reconciling with the fact that she was not splat on the ground. Angel was waving a hand up and down in front of her face, like she was trying to make her more awake.

"You scared me there, Slash."

Then it hit.

Slash stumbled away from Angel, suddenly defensive. "Why'd you save me?"

"Oh..." Angel Faux laughed. A full and resonant sound; like Christmas bells tolling. "I may be a villain, Slash, but I'd never let my nemesis die."

Then she was off, and off with her rucksack of rings. Slash never saw those back again. Neither did the designer store. (But in civilian clothes, she saw the rings on the streets, worn by children with clothes gaping with holes, and then by single mothers pawning them off to storeowners with dollar signs in their eyes, and elderly couples who wanted to renew their vows but didn't have the means to buy new rings.)

(She fell for Angel a little more, then.)

Eight years and a day after that day, Angel Faux proposed to Slash Salvatore. Eight years and a day after that day, Slash Salvatore accepted. And after their vows, after the kiss to close the night and their bands, shared hand-in-hand, Slash Salvatore thinks that this is the second time Angel Faux has saved her.

And she may be a hero, but she can't say she hates the feeling, either.

Fire and Ice

The mighty War Zeppelin of Dr. Neutron floated high above Star City while the citizens below scrambled to purchase last minutes gifts for the impending holidays. Instead of plotting against them or looking down on them Dr. Neutron instead enjoyed a holiday meal with his unbeknownst to the public wife, Fuzion, and daughter Sarah. Dinner conversation had steered into the familiar territory of Dr. Neutron telling the real story of he and Fuzion's past exploits.

"How come I've never heard about you saving Mom? When did this happen?" Sarah asked between mouthfuls of chicken cordon blue.

Neutron sipped his champagne slowly. "Oh this was ages ago, long before you were born, me and your mother weren't even together at that point. You've never heard it because your wonderful mother is still embarrassed to this day by it."

Fuzion playfully scoffed. "I'm not embarrassed, I would have won with or without your help. Back then you always stuck your nose where it didn't belong."

"Don't make me laugh darling, if I hadn't stepped in you, and this entire city for that matter would have been reduced to a smouldering crater." Neutron replied snootily.

"Can someone please tell me what happened?" Sarah pleaded.

Fuzion and Neutron played rock paper scissors to determine who would be the storyteller. Neutron came out on top, again, Fuzion always picked rock.

"So a long time ago Frozen Shadow was going through a messy divorce, his wife was a bitch. I never liked her, nobody did to be honest. She hired an expensive lawyer who was going to take everything from him, including custody of his daughter, she had him by the short hairs since she knew his secret identity.

Threatening a man's family makes them do outrageous things, Shadow went after the lawyer. Froze the Star City freeway and all the cars on it. Naturally your mother swooped in, like the hero she is, to talk some sense into him. That was a mistake, you can't reason with a person going mad, Shadow shot the first shot, leading to quite a battle. Your mother had to take the fight somewhere less populated, she threw Shadow halfway across the state into an old quarry...."

"I actually threw him across state lines, hell of a toss. Bullseye'd that quarry." Fuzion interjected proudly.

"Correction, across state lines. As you know I keep an eye on all the pesky supers so I grabbed some popcorn, fired up the at the time experimental wormhole engine to watch from this old bird. A battle unfolded like nothing ever seen before. A struggle between fire and ice that shook the Earth to its core. Dear, how did he get the upper hand on you? You are magnitudes more powerful than he ever was."

Fuzion sniffled, a wave of empathy shot through her body. "He was heartbroken, and hurt. He did something a super should never do.....he lost control. A man with nothing left to lose is the most dangerous kind."

"Nobody knew how powerful he really was until that day. Up to that point his methods were fairly peaceful. He can slow down electrons on a sub atomic scale, not manipulate them like I can of course." Neutron always enjoyed throwing in some sneaky brags into his stories. "Normally he would make people really cold, cool their blood, make them unable to fight back, nothing serious. Little did we know at the time, he had some technology from beyond the stars.

A small box that could violate every known law of physics we have, create matter from nothing, produce more energy than it took to power it, and turn a super's own powers against them. I don't have to tell you this, but if your mother ever lost control of her powers it would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like vacation resorts. That's where I come in...."

"How'd you stop him?" Sarah asked excitedly.

"Nothing fancy. Simply repelled down into the quarry behind Shadow and gently placed my hand on his shoulder. Did a little rearranging of his insulin levels, caused him to go into a diabetic coma, nothing too serious. Needed to get him out of the picture while I dealt with the bigger problem, your mother having a meltdown. I couldn't figure out how his device worked so instead of using my vast intellect, I had to go with my gut to save the day."

Fuzion rolled her eyes. "Here it comes...."

"I confidently strode up to your mother and looked her dead in the eyes, those furious orange eyes, the green flames behind them raging like a wildfire. The searing heat from her singed my eyebrows off, but I persevered through the fire and the flames to embrace her. I whispered in her ear, do you remember what I said dear?"

Fuzion gulped down a generous amount of champagne. "If you blow up I'm happy to go, as long as I get to be close to you."

Neutron smiled. "It was a gamble, but it payed off. Your mother got control of herself, no nuclear apocalypse that day. She asked my why and I simply replied......"

"I may be a villain, but I'd never let my nemesis die." Fuzion finished his sentence for him.

"Wait, wait, wait......mom never considered you her nemesis." Sarah said.

"She wasn't, Frozen Shadow was. Now that I'd defeated him and "borrowed" his advanced technology he was no longer a threat to me, he'd be more useful to me alive. It was a win-win situation. Mom got to be the hero who saved the world, and my research advanced exponentially. Also allowed us to make sure a situation like that would never arise again."

"How so?" Sarah asked.

"Your mother signed a pre-nup when we got married. I'd rather be swallowed by nuclear hellfire than have to go to divorce court."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this check out more at r/StarCityChronicles

"I don't understand," Michael said, with the look of utter bewilderment on his face. "I thought you hated me."

"Hate you?" I laughed. "I hate a lot of things, but I don't hate you. I've actually grown quite fond of you."

Michael raised his eyebrows.

"I'm serious," I said, wrapping a blanket around him. "I'm not heartless. I just use unorthodox methods of getting what I want."

"Like stealing and destruction of property?"

"Hey, I only do that to people who can afford it," I said. "Ever wonder why none of my targets are small businesses or individual houses?"

"You know, I never realized that," Michael admitted, "but I suppose that's true."

"You see, you and I, we're not really all that different. We both want the same thing. We just have different methods of trying to get it."

"What do you mean?"

"You want to put an end to poverty, right?"

"Yeah, I do," Michael said.

"Well, so do I," I said, sitting next to him. "Your methods are just more diplomatic than I feel is realistically effective."

"How are your methods more effective than mine?" Michael raised an eyebrow.

"You always assume the best in everyone," I said. "An admirable trait, no doubt about it. It's one of the reasons I've taken a liking to you. But the truth is, all the rich CEOs don't care about the people who hold up signs and sign petitions. They are completely aware of the harm their actions are causing, and they just don't care. All they care about is money. No amount of politely asking is going to convince them to pay their workers more, improve the working conditions, or stop throwing away perfectly good products to create artificial scarcity so they can charge higher prices. They literally don't care."

Michael sat in thought.

"What I'm doing is certainly not fixing the problem," I acknowledged, "but at least what I'm doing is accomplishing something. The world may paint me as a villain, but I see myself as more of a Robin Hood type. Robbing the rich to feed the poor. Illegal, yes. But the law favors the wealthy. The wealthy get elected, the wealthy make the laws, and the wealthy can bribe whoever they need to in order to be above the laws. In order to actually fix this issue, you have to work outside the law."

"That... actually makes sense," Michael said, nodding thoughtfully. "But you must realize that the more you overtly do that, the more the media will paint them as the victims. They're making you out to be some sort of domestic terrorist.

"I know," I said. "And I don't really care. The media can sling as much mud as they want at me. I care more about actually making a difference than I do about my reputation. Besides, who do you think owns the media in the first place?"

"Touché."

"Yeah. Money is power. The more money you have, the greater power you have to sway the minds of the people."

"Well, I do have one anonymous wealthy donor that's been consistently contributing to my fundraisers," Michael said.

"Who do you think that is?" I flashed a grin.

"That was you?" Michael's eyes widened.

"Yep," I said. "Not many people would knowingly accept stolen money. But you're the only person I trust wouldn't keep 90% of donations to themselves."

"That's, I mean, wow," Michael said, shaking his head in amazement.

"Who did you expect it was? The Michaelsoft Binbows guy?"

Michael laughed.

"Anyways, I've been helping you out more than you realize," I said, putting an arm around him. "Even though you've been trying to undermine my antics since the day you started hearing about me. I knew you were only trying to stop me because your heart was just too pure to realize that there's no legal way to fix the massive inequality in this world."

"Why didn't you talk to me about this earlier?"

"You never really gave me a chance to talk," I said. "The only way I saw that I'd have been able to talk to you one on one is if I kidnapped you or something. And I didn't really want to put you through that kind of traumatic experience just for the chance to speak my mind. So I just didn't."

"I suppose that's a fair assessment," Michael said, nodding.

"I don't want to risk tarnishing your reputation by asking you to join me or anything," I said. "I don't want them raking your name through the mud with mine. But if you ever need my help again, I'd be glad to offer you my assistance from the shadows."

"I might take you up on that offer," Michael said with a smile. "And, if you ever want a place to hang out where people aren't, you know, trying to kill you, you could come over to my place. I've got lots of board games to annihilate you with."

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