Mathilda is bound to a metal chair in a creepy warehouse. She is relieved to note a plethora of chicken feathers littering the floor. "Joe, you're going to make me late."

"Joe is not here right now," Responds a sibilant voice, that clearly does not belong to Joe.

Mathilda wiggles to loosen the hemp ropes as the annoying T-rex faced henchman saunters into the perfect Broadway sheen spotlight. "Where's your master Rexy?"

"I ate him." He graces her with a toothy grin.

"You ate a robot truck monster? Did he get stuck in your teeth?"

"Foolish mortal. You know not what goes on in the shadows."

Mathilda wrinkles her nose. "You know not what to do with breath mints."

Predictably, his razor sharp claws slice at the space where Mathilda's head would have been had she not been anticipating this very action. She drops the ropes to the floor, shaking out her flexy steel super suit. The dinosaur hisses at her. Mathilda rolls across the floor into a supporting beam. One yank and the building tumbles down around their ears.

This is her first altercation with someone other than Joe in a month. She'd almost forgotten this city had an infestation of super posers. Barely winded, she checks the watch on the inside of her wrist. Still time.

She dials her sister from the ear piece installed in her head. "Your mother is driving me crazy." Is the greeting.

Mathilda unlocks the super bike parked inconspicuously next to the art museum. "She's your mother too."

"Not when she is a ball of criticism."

"She just wants you to have a healthy pregnancy."

Mathilda can hear the eye roll through the ear piece. "I should never have told you people."

"Good luck keeping it from Dad's super hearing."

"Anyway you doing anything fun?" Her sister has a note of desperation to her voice, the sounds of a person extraordinarily bored.

"Nothing more than knocking a building down on a dinosaur."

"Tildy, that hikes the insurance rates."

Mathilda zips through traffic. "I was going to be late."

"Why haven't we met your new friends?"

"Every time I make a new friend, they end up liking you better." Mathilda grins. "I just want something for myself." She knows her sister will take this statement as the compliment it is.

"Alright. Well, maybe bring them to Thanksgiving and I'll try to be on my most hormonal worst behavior."

"Thanks sis."

***

Cops are surrounding the dance club when Mathilda arrives. "What now?" She wonders why her sister didn't tell her there'd been an event. Maybe it was minor and already over, she hopes.

Joe is wearing something blindingly sparkly. His hair is plastered down on his head with a pound of black shoe polish. He is frowning at her and alone. "Where have you been? And why do you look like hell?"

Mathilda shrugs. "Do Villains have a competitive bracket like basketball teams? Because if so, I think you just moved up one."

Joe leans in. The flashing lights of the ambulance highlight his hair. "And who did we kill this evening?"

"I dropped a building on a TRex after he ate a robot."

"Awe Monster Terminator is dead? I liked him."

"You would." They watch an ambulance pull away without a siren. "Hey what happened here?"

Joe rolls his eyes. "Mosh pit accident."

"Did you cause it?"

"Talk to our mutual friend."

"Lucy got hurt?"

"Lucinda elbowed a guy twice her size in the nose, then didn't even let me taze his friends when they came after her."

"Why did you let her out of your sight?" Mathilda accuses.

Just then a prehistoric roar interrupted their conversation. The ground thundered beneath their feet. "You didn't finish the job? Amateur."

"Where's Lucy?"

"Flirting with an EMT over there." Mathilda takes off in the direction Joe points. "Thanks for taking care of the giant dinosaur I left for you Joe." He yells mockingly at her retreating figure.

"You're a big boy. I'm sure you can play nice with the big dinosaur."

Joe really wishes Lucinda didn't take his taser especially since his boots are a bitch to remove. The TRex charges into view and he must actually do something or risk Lucinda forcing him to find a new dance club.

He retrieves the capped fast acting tranquilizer he keeps on his person for misbehaving supes and flings it at the sensitive armpit of the approaching lizard. It halts. "Rexy did you have to eat Terminator? He's the only one who laughs at my jokes at the retreats."