I flipped up the visor on my helmet to look at Lady Thunder, and she winced at me.

"Not so easy, after all?" she asked.

"It's Tricky Dick and Sunflower. They're in the museum. I thought she was in the hospital."

"They must have sent her to Professor Caduceus. He's the superhero equivalent of Doctor Cyclops. Way more expensive, too."

I went back to the visor on my helmet where I saw Tricky Dick laugh again as he threw what looked like a can of mixed nuts, but when it hit the ground, green snakes burst out to wrap around my robots.

The snakes tightened around the robots until they burst open in a show of sparks. One by one, my robots fell until Beta and the camera went black.

Lady Thunder grabbed my arm. "We should go. Seriously. We can't fight those two."

"Yes, we can."

"No, we can't. Tricky Dick by himself, maybe, but Sunflower is a serious threat. You haven't fought her. I have. She'll barbecue you for real."

I looked at her. "I had the crystal. It was in my grasp. I won't leave without it."

She took a deep breath, looking into my eyes, and exhaled before she spoke again. "Okay. I'm right behind you."

Brutus barked and wagged his tail.

I looked down at the smooth black metal covering my chest. "All right. We can do this. It's time to put my suit to the test."

I pushed open the door to the van. We still needed to be subtle, so I let us around the museum to a maintenance entrance. Using my freeze gun, I shattered the door's lock to allow us to slip inside.

Passing through the storage room, we crept through the door into the main hall of the museum. It stood mostly in darkness, except for the occasional spotlight on an exhibit. I looked through a display of Egyptian artifacts, a room of abstract paintings, and a hall of dinosaur fossils. I saw many things, but not Tricky Dick and Sunflower.

Lady Thunder tapped on my shoulder and whispered, "Where are they?"

I shook my head, whispering back, "We'll check the Earth Science exhibit."

Brutus growled a little as he followed us, and barked loudly at a box next to a statue of an Egyptian goddess.

One side of the box fell open, and a bunch of tiny green plastic soldiers came marching out. They began to fire their tiny guns, and it seemed like a joke until the gunfire hit a rare painting next to me, and shredded it instantly. The bullets hit me in the chest like a thousand needles, sending me flying back. I crashed into the glass case around an abstract painting and slid to the ground.

Laughter echoed through the hall as Tricky Dick came sliding down from a balcony on what looked like a jump rope. He yelled, "Tag, you're it!"

The toy soldiers continued to march, but broke into three groups. One stayed firing at me, the second turned to shoot at Lady Thunder, and the third aimed at Brutus.

Lady Thunder just winced and blocked the shots with her arm, and Brutus seemed more annoyed by them than hurt. I felt less sure of myself, but when I felt my chest, the metal remained intact. It had passed the first test.

I couldn't enjoy the victory, because a loud roar came just as a light flew out of a corridor and lit up the main hall. When I shielded my eyes, I could see it was Sunflower.

If you're not familiar with her story, Sunflower had been an astronaut flying an experimental spacecraft designed to allow it to fly close to the sun for research. The spaceship's shielding failed, flooding her with the sun's heat, but a combination of chemicals vaporising off the hull and the radiation caused her to transform. She gained the power to absorb the sun's rays and use it to fly and create beams of heat.

The toy soldiers had stopped shooting, and Sunflower hovered over me with her hands clenched into fists. "Hello, Mastermind."

My mind raced to find a way of stopping her. I realized Sunflower was powered by sunlight, but it was nighttime. Her power reserves had to be running low. If I could get her to use her power enough, she would run out and would be helpless.

In seconds, I used the onboard computer to call up all the video and history I could find on her, and run a simulation based on all the available data on Sunflower's power usage. I focused particularly on her nighttime activity. It didn't take long to discover that she worked mostly during the day. On the few occasions she had fought at night, she always retreated after fifteen minutes. I guessed that's how long it took for her to run out of power. We had been fighting for five minutes. That meant we had another ten minutes.

Ten minutes felt like an eternity.

Once again, I counted on them not being able to resist talking and I nodded. "Sunflower. Nice to see you again."

Her fists burned with white light and smoke. "Last time, you almost killed me. I'm going to return the favor. I normally don't kill villains but I won't hold back."

I looked at Tricky Dick, who reached into the bag on his shoulder. "I'll ask you the same question I asked Lovely Lass and Mister Black."

"Before we killed them," Lady Thunder yelled.

"Quite so. Did you know about Captain Maximum?"

Tricky Dick whooped as he pulled out a whoopie cushion that would certainly be more than that. "Abso-fucking-lutely! So of course, I had to go along. It's the best gag this world has ever seen!"

While he laughed, Sunflower shook her head. "Tricky Dick has his reasons. I happen to believe in the captain. We're lovers. What he wants is what I want."

"Lovers?" Lady Thunder called up. "Did you see what he did to his other lover, Andrews?"

She snorted. "That bitch. I was glad to see her go. Now it's just the captain and me."

"He's not human, girl. He doesn't care about you. We need to stop him."

Sunflower smirked. "Baby, if you knew what Captain Maximum could do with those tentacles, you'd be willing to give up everything for him, too."

"Enough talk," Tricky Dick yelled. "Let's dance, kids!"

Tricky Dick threw the whoopie cushion on the floor by Lady Thunder's feet. When it hit the ground, the cushion exploded like a grenade. It sent her flying and smashing through a wall behind her. Through the hole she left, I could see she had landed in the dinosaur exhibit. The explosion also left a strong smell of flatulence.

I snarled at Tricky Dick. "Toys? That's what you use your genius for?"

I knew from reading about him that Tricky Dick's outlandish costume was actually sophisticated and bulletproof. Even his mask could protect him in deep space. Instead of bullets, I fired my freeze ray at him.

The ice hit his side and covered it in ice, but his rainbow coat glowed hot enough to melt it in seconds.

"Forget about him," Sunflower yelled. "You're mine, Mastermind!"

Sunflower fired a beam of hot light. I dodged and it struck a suit of armor, instantly melting it into a pile of red-hot molten metal.

Even without hitting me, the heat made my suit burn against my skin. I wasn't confident that my exoskeleton could handle a direct blast, so I ran, ducking behind exhibits as I shot freeze beams at her. She just held up her hands to make a wall of fire in front of her that stopped the beams cold.

With my freeze gun useless against her, I switched to firing bullets, and ran into an Egyptian archaeology exhibit for cover. The beautiful and ancient statues and tablets held little interest to me. My bullets seemed to melt before they even touched her, but I kept shooting. I had little choice.

Sunflower followed closely and fired a beam at me that melted a metal case holding gold Egyptian artifacts. It struck me that she had already destroyed millions of dollars worth of antiquities but I wouldn't be concerned if she wasn't.

At the same time, I couldn't help noticing that Tricky Dick had continued his fight with Lady Thunder. He had launched a wave of tiny airplanes that swooped over her, dropping little bombs that made explosions strong enough to knock her down. She stumbled at the base of a huge Tyrannosaurus skeleton.

Brutus jumped across the museum, snapping and clawing at the air to reach Sunflower, but she flew too high to catch her.

"Filthy animal," she yelled and shot him with a blast of heat.

He yelped and scurried back, not burned but with smoke pouring from his side.

"Forget me," I yelled at him. "Help the lady!"

I shot more bullets at Sunflower while he barked and rushed at Tricky Dick instead.

Tricky Dick threw a pink ball of what looked like Silly Putty, but when it bounced on the ground, it grew ten times larger into a pink goo that enveloped my dog entirely, leaving him trashing and squirming in a slimy prison.

"You little bastard," Lady Thunder yelled as she charged at Tricky Dick.

She threw punch after punch at thin air while he bounced around her on springs in his sneakers.

"Such anger," he yelled. "Is it that time of the month? Having a visit from Aunt Flo?"

While they fought, I kept running from Sunflower but not for long. One of her heat blasts hit me on the left side, and it felt like getting thrown into a furnace. I screamed and fell, and my lab coat burst into flames, but my suit was only blackened and not burned.

I threw off my lab coat and tossed it up at Sunflower. She just torched it, but it gave me a few seconds.

I decided to try out my exoskeleton's enhanced strength, and picked up a Pharaoh's solid gold coffin. It should have weighed a ton, but felt like it was made of paper as I hoisted it, and hurled it at Sunflower. It knocked her back, but she spun and kept on going. She generated so much heat that the coffin had softened before it even reached her, blunting its impact.

I decided to focus on Tricky Dick to get him out of the fight. My freeze gun didn't work on Tricky Dick's costume so I tried his bag of tricks instead. I shot his bag with ice, but it just heated up and melted instead.

Tricky Dick laughed. "You think you're the first freezing villain I've fought? You make Chillpill look like a criminal genius! This bag don't come off that easy!"

I needed more help so I shot the Silly Putty wrapped around Brutus with my freeze ray. The ice formed around it until it hardened, and Brutus came bursting out of the putty with it shattering like glass.

Brutus leaped straight at Tricky Dick, grabbed the bag on his shoulder, and ripped it off. I thought it would just come off his shoulder but it took his arm along with it.

Tricky Dick screamed, looking down at the bag in Brutus' mouth instead of the arm lying at his feet. "No! My lovely toys!"

With him on the ground, Lady Thunder pushed on the Tyrannosaurus skeleton. The pieces broke loose of their scaffolding, and tumbled down onto Tricky Dick. He only had time to scream before the avalanche of fossilized bone buried him.

That left Sunflower to deal with. Five more minutes.

She screamed, "You shitheads! I'll roast you all for that!"

Despite my fears, she turned to fly towards me. It seemed she still had the biggest grudge against me. I had to use that, lead her away from the others to protect them.

I ran through the museum, limping for a while before remembering my platform shoes. At a faster pace, I rushed out of the Egyptian exhibit, and into the Outer Space exhibit. Huge models of the planets hung from cords in a cavernous hall, and twinkling lights covered the black ceiling like stars. It would have seemed quite pretty had it not been for the shrieking banshee pursuing me.

She flew in, and blasted the roof by the entrance, causing the ceiling to cave in and dump a pile of burning wood and chunks of plaster in front of the doorway. I was trapped, and Lady Thunder and Brutus couldn't follow..

Sunflower faced me, and her eyes glowed red. "No one to help you now."

"I don't need help, you whore," I snapped.

I hoped her anger would make her burn her energy faster as I dove behind a display case holding moon rocks from the third Apollo mission. A fireball slammed into it, and through it, splashing hot embers over me. Once again, I felt relief that my suit held up because it should have killed me.

I fired my freeze gun at the cord holding a model of Mars, and the cord snapped so the model fell onto Sunflower. I didn't expect it to stop her, and it didn't, just causing her to knock it aside. It rolled on the floor, through fire that spread from the inferno Sunflower had left by the door.

I ran over and used my strength to pick up the enormous steel Mars model, and hurled it at her. The model slammed into her, but she unleashed a blast of fire that caused it to soften, and she burst out of it.

I ran from one hiding place to another, dodging the fireballs she threw, counting the seconds in my mind. One minute. Two minutes. I wondered if my calculations had been incorrect.

As I tried to duck behind a scale model of the Lunar Lander, Sunflower swooped down on a jet of flame. Before I could dodge, she punched me in the face with a flaming fist, and it scorched my unprotected jaw.

As I screamed, she kicked my chest with a flaming boot, and sent me slamming up against the wall.

Sunflower landed as I lay there, coughing and gasping. Flames rippled all around me as she stood over me, hands burning like suns.

"I know this will disappoint the captain," she growled, "because he wanted to be the one to kill you, but this is for all of us."

She gasped as the glow in her hands began to fade. "No."

I gasped as well, since my calculations showed she should have had another two minutes. It seemed she had used up her power faster than normal, perhaps because of her anger. She ran for the door of the exhibit instead of flying, which confirmed for me her powers were almost gone.

I aimed my gun and fired at her feet, encasing them in ice and sending her sprawling. I could have finished her off with my freeze gun, but I wanted something more.

I went to her, grabbed her by the shoulder, and lifted her over my head. I punched her in the chest as hard as I could, which turned out to be so hard that she tore a hole in the ceiling and went flying into the darkness.

Lady Thunder chose that moment to tear through the burning wreckage blocking the entrance. She ran in with Brutus at her side, looking around. "Where is she?"

I pointed up. "I sent her for a little ride."

Lady Thunder gasped. "Really?"

Brutus whimpered.

We all ran back into the main museum hall, where I grabbed the crystal I needed, and bolted out of the front door.

When we went outside, it didn't take long to see what happened to Sunshine. She lay on the wreckage of a car parked nearby, her broken arms and legs at angles and blood pouring from her mouth.

Her bloodshot eyes rolled down to me, and she gasped, "C-Captain-Muh-Maximum-will-ah-avenge-us."

Her eyes rolled up, and she was dead.

Lady Thunder and I stood a moment, staring at her, both likely thinking the same thing: we had beaten the Saviors. Only Captain Maximum remained, but he would be the toughest of all.

The thought of that sent us scurrying to the van, where we climbed in, and took off as fast as we could. I still had burns on my face and under my suit, but I felt positively elated.

"I don't believe it," Lady Thunder gasped. "You were amazing. Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?"

I winced. "Perhaps later. I must finish my Omega Anti-Matter Phaser before the night is through. No doubt Captain Maximum will be coming for us."

We returned to the lab where I quickly constructed the Omega Anti-Matter Phaser. Parts of it, I constructed out of metal and components I had in the lab. Others, I needed to build with a 3D printer.

I worked as fast as I could until sweat ran down my face. As I labored, Lady Thunder and Brutus watched from the corner, but they soon dozed off. I was alone as rain pounded the windows, and thunder shook the glass.

When they fell asleep, I decided to take stronger measures. I took some of the parts used to construct my robots, and broke them down into turrets that I installed along the edges of the warehouse. I also took time to set up a few more surprises for unwanted visitors, and went back to work on the weapon.

Within hours, I stepped back at the long rifle I had constructed, and inserted the crystal into the box underneath it. I watched the crystal glow as the energy flowed through the weapon.

I touched Lady Thunder's shoulder, waking her gently, and whispered. "It's done. All I need now is the mesotronic regulator. No doubt, Captain Maximum himself will be there to stop me. But I have a plan--"

The warehouse shook with a boom so loud the windows shattered, and glass showered over everything.

I looked outside, up into the sky, for what I knew what I would find.

Captain Maximum came flying down from the clouds over my lab.

"Mastermind," he roared.