In her familiar Scottish accent, Lovely Lass spoke first. "I bring ye peace and love, my friends." It was her usual catchphrase.

I looked around for Captain Maximum, and didn't see him. Even with the captain, I wondered if I could take them on, and decided to try to reason with them instead. I clenched my hand around my cane. "I'm surprised to see you here. Do you often patrol science laboratories?"

Mister Black chuckled before he growled, "Captain Maximum said you'd be here, scumbag."

Lovely Lass stepped forward. "Aye, he said ye would come for yon bonnie aquamadite. Ye plan to build yerself an exoskeleton like the one Kid Maximum wore, eh? We're all waitin' wherever ye might be for that."

That gave me a little comfort that Captain Maximum wasn't here, but I knew he would be soon. I had to escape quickly.

I narrowed my eyes. "You must have seen the video I sent out."

Mister Black gave me a quick nod. "Yeah, we saw it."

"You know it's true. You've worked with him for years. You must have suspected the truth about Captain Maximum."

Mister Black gave that hollow chuckle again. "Of course we knew."

Lady Thunder blurted. "Then why are you working with him?"

Lovely Lass held out her hands. "Ye nae got a notion o' what's at stake. Captain Maximum will bring peace and love to the whole planet, unite us all, and bring us to a better world."

Mister Black shrugged. "That's what's in it for her. I just wanna watch the world burn. And you won't stop us."

Lovely Lass raised her hands. "Love and peace, unite!"

A group of security guards and scientists came running out from behind her, and charged us.

Caused by an overdose of an experimental designer drug, Lovely Lass had the mental power to increase dopamine, oxytocin, and vasopressin in the minds of others. That amounted to the power to cause others to feel euphoric and even fall in love with her. Just being around her brought people under her control, and she could organize them into an army of willing soldiers.

I was never too supportive of her tactic of turning helpless civilians into her love slaves. She made it seem like she was just spreading love and joy through the world, but I didn't buy it. Her forcing innocent men and women to throw themselves at supervillains, often getting hurt or even killed, was controversial to say the least, but she always argued that she never forced anyone. She claimed the people she used were always willing and they would happily agree, but of course, there's no way to tell since she could force them to say they wanted it.

Some people (nicknamed "Lasshunters") actually wanted her to take control of them, and would drive around the city searching for her to get taken over. Still, I didn't think that many people wanted to dive unarmed at a six-hundred foot monster. Knowing she worked with a literal monster like Captain Maximum made me more convinced than ever that she was manipulating people against their will.

Her only limit was that she could only control ten people at a time, and couldn't control everyone's mind, only those with a specific neural pattern. Anyone without that pattern was immune to her. Since I didn't feel overwhelming love for her at that moment, I assume I was either immune or my own mental powers protected me.

As for Mister Black, he was a skilled martial artist, but his real power came from his control of shadows. He claimed that his training allowed him to enter an alternate dimension connected to all shadows that he could move through. That meant he could jump into any shadow of any size and come out of any other shadow, letting him teleport anywhere he wanted. Mister Black preferred to work in darkness where he would use the shadows to move in and out around his enemies.

Worse than that, Mister Black was one of the few superheroes who would openly kill his opponents. While Captain Maximum had made expressions of concern that (in retrospect) were clearly hypocritical, he hadn't done anything to stop his teammate. Now I understood why.

I felt a moment of panic as Mister Black leaped into the shadow of a nearby shelf of boxes and vanished. A loud clang of metal made me turn around to see Mister Black falling from a shadow on the ceiling onto one of my robots. With his legs straddling the metal minion's head, Mister Black drove a knife into the top of its head, and tore it off in a spray of sparks.

I didn't have much time to consider that because Lovely Lass' army descended upon me. Two security guards had tasers and nightsticks to attack me with, but two other scientists had nothing but their bare hands grasping at me.

I fired my freeze gun at one of the guards, encasing the head and arm of one in ice, while Brutus leaped in between me and the others. He chomped down on the arm of one guard and yanked to throw him across the room. Meanwhile, the two collided with Brutus' massive body, throwing punches and kicks that he didn't even flinch from.

Lady Thunder roared while charging into the ongoing crowd. Her fists and feet flew, sending bodies flying in all directions. I wasn't worried about her. Nothing short of a bomb could break her skin.

With Brutus holding back the crowd, I turned to Mister Black again. He had engaged with my robots, flipping and spinning in and out of shadows as the robots fired their lasers in the air, trying to shoot him. One by one, Mister Black would drive his knives into their metal bodies, and leap away until the robots began to fall. Within seconds, only one robot still remained standing, but it staggered on one broken leg.

I fired my freeze ray over and over, but never managed to hit Mister Black. That would be a lost cause.

I took a step back as my last robot fell and Mister Black leaped into another shadow. My eyes darted from one shadow to another, but I didn't see him.

I looked at my dog who fought with the last of Lovely Lass' slaves. "Brutus, can you smell him, boy?"

My dog barked yes before chomping the neck of the last security guard.

"Tell me where he is."

Brutus sniffed the air and barked at a shadow in the corner.

I used my telekinesis just as Mister Black lunged out of it, his knives aimed at my head. He froze in mid-air, suspended inches away from me. Before I could even feel good about seizing him, he whipped a knife at me that stabbed me in the shoulder.

The pain made me let go of Mister Black and he fell onto my shadow and vanished. I seized the knife in my shoulder, gasping in pain, knowing that logically I should leave it in because the knife was likely blocking blood vessels that were just severed. Taking the knife out would allow them to bleed out so keeping the knife inside would keep the wound closed and prevent excessive bleeding, but every instinct was to yank it out as quickly as possible.

My focus had to be on Mister Black. He would likely be coming for me again.

Mister Black's voice seemed to come at me from everywhere. "You think you can stop me? I am feared by the underworld, I am the scourge of evil, I am Mister Black."

"Brutus," I hissed. "Find him."

My dog barked at a shadow behind me.

Before I could turn, Mister Black had already hit me with a series of punches and kicks that sent me flying. By the time I hit the ground, and rolled over, he had vanished again.

I started to breathe harder, knowing I didn't have much time. Mister Black was just toying with me now. He would kill me soon, quickly and easily.

Brutus barked again, and this time, I used my mind to lift and throw a box full of metal gears at the corner, just as the black-clad hero came leaping out again. As the metal rained down on him, he twisted and yelled in agony.

Brutus leaped at him to chomp his leg and pull him out of the air.

That let me bring up and shoot my freeze ray. The ray slammed into him, encasing his head and shoulders in ice, and his body crashed to the floor. His arms and legs twitched for a few seconds before he went limp.

With Mister Black gone, I felt free to focus on Lovely Lass. She had no more scientists or guards to throw at me.

Or so I thought.

Lady Thunder came running at me, and I thought she was going to embrace me until I saw the murderous look in her eyes. I jumped back just as her fists slammed into the floor where I stood, cracking the concrete.

She looked up at me again, and she had the same look in her eyes that she had at the bank when we first met, one of deadly intent. I knew Lovely Lass had her under control. I tried to use my mental powers to stop her, but nothing changed, once again reinforcing that I do not possess powers of telepathy.

Brutus skipped from side to side and whimpered, and I knew he wanted to protect me, but was torn with loyalty to her. I didn't blame him for holding back. I didn't want to hurt her either.

"Lady," I yelled. "Snap out of--"

She swung her arm quicker than I expected to strike my left leg. If a normal woman had brushed my leg that way, I would barely have felt it. Lady Thunder snapped my leg like a twig, leaving me crumpled on the floor, crying out in agony.

I hoped the sight of my injury would snap her out of it, but Lady Thunder came back, swinging for me again. She would have smashed my skull open if Brutus hadn't leaped into the way, biting her arm and twisting it away from me. Her fist smashed through a brick wall instead.

I used my telekinesis to push her back, but she grabbed onto a metal rack of engines to steady herself, and pushed it over onto me the moment I released her. The engines crashed down over me, and one cracked a rib in my chest.

I knew I couldn't stop Lady Thunder. I had to stop the source, Lovely Lass.

Of course, everyone knew that Lovely Lass would lose control of her army if she lost consciousness. In battling her, many villains had tried to stop her by knocking her out quickly, so she wore a force field generator to protect herself. She also could control some of the enemies she faced, making their attempts to stop her irrelevant.

She couldn't control me. I had that as my advantage, as well as my intellect.

I pointed at Lovely Lass and managed to speak through the pain in my chest. "Attack, boy!"

Brutus roared as he lunged at Lovely Lass. He reached her, but his claws and teeth just slipped over her as he tried to bite and maul her. She ignored him, still smiling at Lady Thunder while the pink sparkles swirled around her.

I knew he wouldn't stop her but hoped to buy time to look around the room. When he attacked her, that made Lady Thunder turn her attention away from me.

"Get away from her," Lady Thunder screamed as she grabbed Brutus and pulled him away.

It seemed like this was a storage room for equipment and supplies, which meant it had plenty of raw materials. It took me seconds to identify what I needed.

I couldn't run or even move in my position so I raised my hand and used my telekinesis to make one bottle of solvent float over to another bottle of lubricant and smashed the two together. The chemicals dripped down onto the shelf, and I used my power to throw the liquid onto Lovely Lass.

The moment the solution hit her force field, the field flickered around her and collapsed.

Her smile fell just as quickly. "What--"

I whistled and Brutus let Lady Thunder pull him back, out of range.

When he was clear, I used my mind to lift a nearby oxygen tank into the air. I flipped the switch on my gun to cause it to fire slugs and shot at the tank until it exploded into flames and hurled the tank at Lovely Lass.

The flames poured over her as she shrieked and stumbled back. While fire spread over her costume, Lady Thunder stopped and shook her head, obviously coming back to normal as Lovely Lass crashed to the floor as a burning pile of ash.

Lady Thunder swept me into her arms. "My God, they stabbed you! And I broke your leg! I'm so sorry!"

I shook my head. "It's n-not your fault. But let's flee before anyone else shows up to do more damage."

She carried me as she ran for the exit with Brutus close behind. Without any guards to stop us, we bolted out into the night. I heard police sirens going off, but didn't see Captain Maximum or police cars, so we climbed in, and Lady Thunder set me down in the passenger seat. She managed to squeeze behind the wheel and took off. With a push of a button, my van changed back into its non-descript form so she could drive it past the police cars rushing to the lab.

"We need to get you to the hospital," she yelled.

I shook my head. "No, they will arrest me."

"Not the regular hospital, the supervillain hospital!"

"What?"

She didn't answer, just skidded around a corner and put the gas pedal to the floor. I didn't argue since she knew the supervillain underworld in the city better than I did. I just settled back, trying not to pass out from the pain soaring through my body with every bounce of the van. I failed because I woke up just as she drove to what looked like a large but well-built house.

When she pulled into the driveway, I murmured, "This does not look like a hospital."

She unbuckled and lifted me gently. "It's what we use for a hospital. Doctor Cyclops takes care of all of us in the Kindred, and he's really discreet."

She carried me out of the car and up to the front door, where she set me down and knocked on the door in a pattern.

An old man dressed all in white answered the door. Despite the darkness, he wore sunglasses. He took one look at me and waved while speaking with a British accent. "Get in, quickly."

Lady Thunder carried me inside and set me down in a stretcher conveniently placed next to the front door, a sign he was indeed more than just an old man.

He unlocked the wheels and led the way while Lady Thunder pushed the stretcher through an elegant home. Stopping in the foyer, he went to a wall and punched in a code. That made a bookcase slide open, revealing an elevator.

He gestured to her to push the stretcher into the elevator and let Lady Thunder follow him, but held up a hand when Brutus tried to follow.

"No animals," he snapped. "This is a bloody sterile environment we're going to."

I waved to Brutus. "I'll be all right. Stay here, boy."

Brutus whimpered but sat down with his ears flat.

The old man pushed a button and the elevator doors closed while the car rumbled down. When the elevator doors opened again, we stepped out into a fully equipped medical center, including an operating table.

Doctor Cyclops led the way to the table while Lady Thunder pushed the stretcher to the operating table, and carefully laid me onto it.

Doctor Cyclops pulled off his sunglasses, and revealed that he only had one eye. Scar tissue covered the right eye, and his left eye glowed red in its socket. He looked down at me while the red eye narrowed.

Lady Thunder pointed. "He's got X-ray vision."

The doctor grunted as he looked me over. "Yes, but I wouldn't need X-ray vision to see you're in bad shape, dear boy. Did you lose a fight with a wrecking ball?"

"Something like that."

Doctor Cyclops sighed as he opened a cabinet and took out medical supplies. "You understand that this will be expensive. I can perform bone regeneration but that isn't cheap. Five hundred thousand."

"We can pay." I nodded at my pocket, and Lady Thunder took out my card for Doctor Cyclops to swipe on his phone.

When the payment went through, he reached out and yanked out the knife in my shoulder. While I screamed, he picked up a metal wand and waved it over the open wound. It felt better almost immediately. The flesh whispered as it knitted itself back together before my eyes.

He unwrapped a needle, filled it from a bottle, and injected my thigh with it. "A painkiller."

It made the pain disappear so quickly that I collapsed with a sigh.

He went back to his tools to draw out what looked like a large flashlight. He aimed the device at me and a pulsating red light washed over me. As the light passed over my broken leg, I could see it straighten and snap back into place.

Doctor Cyclops nodded. "Right. Try to keep yourself in one piece from now on, my dear fellow. Reattaching your head can be quite pricey."