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“Watch this, Oz.” She threw a lighter into the street, and when it hit the ground, fire raced out in several directions. “If you were looking at this from above, it would look like the Kilroy symbol.” She casually explained. “And it’d be fucking awesome. ”

Oz watched the fire for a beat, then turned back to her. “Don’t you think there could have possibly been better uses of your time than painting your own symbol on the concrete with gasoline this morning?”

“Who cares?” She gestured to it. “It looks cool!”

“Only from above.”

“So?”

He looked up into the sky. “So no one is above us right now.”

“You have no sense of theatricality, Oz.” She shook her head in disapproval. “That’s your problem. You need to have some drama in your life, not to mention the power of branding. You don’t even have a logo.”

Oz went back to watching the flames. “So how long did that take you to plan out?”

“About an hour. Maybe a little more. Used graph paper.”

“Ah.” He watched the fire spread for a moment longer. “Did you bring a fire extinguisher?”

She snorted at the question. “Why would I start a fire in the shape of my symbol and then want to put it out?”

“Because it could spread and burn the whole city down?”

“I’m a superhero, not a fireman.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not my problem.”

“People could be in danger.” He pointed out logically.

“Luckily, I’m a hero. If the fire spreads, I can rescue them from it, right? That’s what heroes do. Especially since I’m already in the neighborhood blowing up other shit anyway. So, no problem.”

He frowned slightly. “I really think this company needs a refresher course on heroism.” He paused for a beat.

“And fire safety.” He gestured towards the building with the side of his head.

“Let’s go ask the people in charge why they wanted to kill you.

” He hoped his voice was level and didn’t sound as impressed and turned-on as he felt.

She beamed, obviously liking the go-ahead from him. Then she started through the debris, towards the broken and smoldering remains of the buildings entrance. “I’ll clear the road, just bask in my awesome, Baby Doll.”

Oz’s eyes once more settled on her rear, deeply enjoying watching the way it moved when she walked. “Okay.”

Natalie kicked aside the shattered security glass, which might have been bomb-proof, but did little to stop an exploding helicopter from crashing through it.

She looked around the lobby, which featured a central atrium all the way to the top.

She gestured to the smoldering decorations, which had been arranged around the space, for some reason.

“Ya know, they might be evil pieces of shit, but at least they remembered the holidays. And I bet they get a lot of presents this year… provided they asked Santa for gruesome deaths.” She casually leaned against the security desk in the lobby, pressing the button for the building’s intercom, which surprisingly still worked.

“ Attention Agletarians! ” She yelled into the microphone.

“My name is Hare Trigger today, and you tried to kill me last week. I took it personal. So now I’m here to WRECK YOUR SHIT!

!!” She took on a friendly tone. “Please report to the lobby and form an orderly line to be shot dead. Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving!” She placed her phone next to the microphone and blasted out an irritatingly cheerful pop song over the building’s speakers, as loud as they would go.

The only discernible lyrics seemed to be the nonsense word “ MMMBop ,” which the women singing the song used way too frequently.

The song instantly made Oz angry, for some reason.

Soldiers on the floor above them started shooting down at them from the exposed balcony, and Natalie pushed him to the side, before returning fire with her machine pistols.

“You done pissed off the wrooooong bitch this time!” She shouted at them.

Several of the men went down in the hail of automatic weapons fire, while the rest dove for cover.

Natalie looked back at him. “Race ya to the top, Baby Doll!” Then she leapt away, covering the entire distance to the second floor in a single bound, landing among the completely surprised men and cutting them down before they even knew what was happening.

Oz could have handled this in a responsible and methodical way. He could have carefully secured his point-of-entry and waited for Traitor and Flimflam to join the fight. Use the cover to his advantage and ensure complete safety for himself and bystanders.

That’s what he normally would have done. It’s what he always did.

But in the current circumstances, that wasn’t what he was doing.

Instead, he was sprinting up the stairs, trying to keep from laughing.

For some reason, he was finding this whole thing surprisingly fun.

Natalie’s enthusiasm for the work was rather infectious.

And she looked really, really good in fishnet stockings, which probably had something to do with it.

Whatever the reason, Oz was determined to take Natalie’s dare and beat her to the top.

He rounded the corner of the flight of stairs, taking the next flight two at a time. A soldier moved to shoot him, but Oz simply slammed his palm into the man’s chest, sending him backwards over the railing to the floor below, knocking him out.

Natalie’s annoying pop song continued to blare over the speakers, loud enough to even be heard over the gunfire.

He went up four more flights in a similar way, arriving on the sixth floor to find that soldiers were stationed along an elevated skywalk, shooting down at him.

On the other side of the open atrium, Natalie was duel-wielding falchion swords, to hack and slash her way through several guards.

She ducked under their gunfire, then slammed one of the swords through the side of one man’s head and straight through another, pinning them both to the wall.

She used the remaining sword to cut the last guard across his body, clean through from his waist to the base of his neck, then caught the guard’s gun before it hit the ground, using it to return fire on the men shooting at her from the skywalk.

And for the first time in his life, Oz wasn’t afraid to use his powers.

It was probably just to show off, but he didn’t even think about it.

The bolts holding the skywalk to the structural support of the building were as contaminated and covered with microbes as everything else in this world.

And they were only too happy to rust away and eat the metal for him at a microscopic scale.

The skywalk hung in place for half a second, then collapsed down through the building, taking the men with it.

It crashed onto the floor of the lobby, sending up a cloud of no-doubt toxic debris and smoke.

The men would live, but they’d probably need extended hospital stays. At the moment, they weren’t in much of a condition to do anything more than writhe.

Natalie stood up, retrieved her swords, then looked over the railing to see what had happened to the skywalk.

Then her eyes met his. They stared at each other for a timeless moment.

Natalie grinned and her eyebrows shot up, in flirtatious challenge.

Then they both raced to get to the seventh floor first. Oz sprinting up the stairs, while Natalie jumped onto the crumbling remains of the skywalk supports and ran to beat him to the landing.

It was basically a tie, although both claimed victory.

The whole thing was childish, dangerous, and needlessly messy. To say nothing of the deaths which resulted from it. But… Oz didn’t seem to care at the moment. Which was certainly odd. He would have expected to. He just… didn’t.

In fact, his only real emotion was continuing to dwell on how nice Natalie looked and how her face was brightened by the exercise.

All in all, he was having a good time. Which was terrifying. It undoubtedly indicated that more and more his ‘bad blood’ was taking him over. But right now, he didn’t care about that either.

They made their way towards the only office on the floor, with Oz’s eyes scanning every shadow for a possible attack and Natalie dancing with herself, completely ignoring the peril.

Her head and hips gracefully swayed to the beat of the song, lost in the music.

She grabbed his hand and used it to raise his arm, then twirled herself.

“Do you know ‘The Pony,’ Oz?” She asked playfully, moving out in front of him to do the dance from the 1960s, prancing from foot to foot and spinning in a circle, arms outstretched. It was a wholly silly and completely joyful little dance. “Come on, dance with me!”

Oz started laughing, utterly amazed by the woman.

Two more guards rounded the corner and Oz charged the one on the left, driving his knee up into the man’s chest, breaking his sternum and sending him to the ground, then slammed his fist into the man’s face as he landed on him, knocking him out cold.

Natalie continued her dancing spin and pulled her gun and one of her swords in the same movement, decapitating the other guard as he opened fire.

The rounds impacted the floor, as his head tumbled down by Natalie’s feet, at which point she bounced it from foot to foot, then kicked it hard enough to send the head sailing out over the railing of the atrium and through the large Christmas wreath hanging from the ceiling.

She put both her arms straight over her head to signal a field goal in football. “It’s up, it’s good! ” She shouted, then went back to dancing, not missing a beat.

Oz started laughing, despite how gruesome it was. “Maybe you should try to concentrate, Nat.”

She started mouthing along with the lyrics, pumping her arms in the air and occasionally firing off her weapon to accentuate the beat.