A part of me was sure that she would turn around, grab my fist and twirl me around to grind it into my back, but she doesn't. My knuckles actually connect to the back of her skull, and the sound is as loud as the tremor through my bones is painful. The Domina collapses down nearly flat. She looks so helpless sprawled out in only a thin little bikini. It must be important to firing the Spear, or she would probably have prepared our showdown to be again with her dressed as Silver Girl.

My whole arm feels like it's vibrating and all of its nerves feel on fire. If there is a next time, I'll be sure to go for something with a much lower chance of actually hurting myself. Grabbing her though would be the absolute worst idea. Even wearing this suit my face is exposed. I've missed the feeling of sparks, but not that much.

"I . . . I really didn't want to do this. You might have trouble believing that, but I wanted this to go much better. I couldn't have conceived of how different we'd grown . . ." Slowly she starts to push herself up onto her hands and knees, and shakily starts to stand. "Or maybe we grew to be too similar."

This is not going to be an easy battle. She's no street thug. She's me. She's me with more years of experience and with an unlimited arsenal of sparks. Who knows what surprises this room alone holds?

Still there must be some weapon I have with me that will be quick enough and effective enough to disable her. She might be an evil woman but she's doing it out of pain and desperation. There has to be some way for me to defeat her so that I can save her. If I can save her from what she's done to herself then that means . . . that means a lot.

"I believe you. After all, we both know that the truth is a lot more effective at shaking confidences than a lie. You really do wish you could have just seduced me into joining you. You really wish that we could have actually done this together . . . I bet you were even going to offer me a place in this scheme as more than just a participant." Slowly I step back as she starts to finally stop shaking. "Sorry. I'm not an Agent of Chronos anymore. I'm just your friendly neighborhood super heroine."

The Domina shrugs and her whole body starts to glow. Even if I didn't know what that would mean it would seem ominous. She slowly rises up her arms so her body forms a "T" and all of her just shimmers and glows. It's a light glow, but I know that could change in an instant.

A hand on my belt pulls back out my hair tie and I put it right back where it should be. I can't have a strand of hair giving The Domina the upper hand. "I'm not an Agent anymore either. I am The Domina Argenti. It's time for a game of rock paper scissors, and I'm sorry it had to end this way paper . . . but I'll be sure to cut right to the point!"

Her hands pull back behind her, only to thrust up towards the ceiling. Her silver glow starts to peel off of her like it's being vacuumed away. It collects in the air above us, and I was thinking she was going to use our favorite little trick, the one we used on Yanta, the fireflies . . . but this is different.

It doesn't look like a mass of tiny little shimmering sparks, it looks like a giant cloud. I used to be able to see the actual energy that produced the effect, but all I can see with my eyes brown instead of silver is the large glow and occasional arcs of the brighter color underneath.

"I'll give The Lady your regards." Slowly the cloud moves to directly above me. The Domina lowers her hands and the cloud grows apart in the middle to completely surround me. It's all around me, but not over me . . .

In a flash, she claps her hands together, and the spark cloud slams into me from every angle at once. None of it hits my face. The currents of energy that try, I shove back with my suit coated hands. All of the cloud ricochets off of me at full speed, moving through walls, electrical equipment, and The Domina herself.

She gasps and lets out a long slow moan as the cloud between us crashes into her and I can tell that she's feeling it. Her inner thighs shake, and the way her chest shudders, her top almost moves right up over her breasts. She didn't look in especially perfect condition after the punch, but her entire body wasn't slick with sweat. She wasn't panting before.

The advantage seems to be mine for the moment. "You knew I was going after the Slut Squad, no doubt that I kept one of them around a little bit longer . . . You were able to use my own information source against me, but you didn't know that I managed to get one of these? Really, that's just sloppy."

"It wasn't like I knew everything!" She starts to glow again, but this isn't a solid glow, this glow is pulsing and shining. "I could only draw out bits and pieces through our link . . ."

"Thanks. I'll be sure to keep that in mind." The palm beacon is right out. Her eyes would be able to tell what happened but the effect of a bright flash would be negated. Blue dreams are too slow and the ventilation systems might be able to purify the air . . . Somehow taking out the self proclaimed Domina Argenti in a fist fight just doesn't seem right. It also doesn't sound smart to try.

Besides, if I can't take her out quickly she'll just call reinforcements. She must have a means of getting Ember here on the double. I'm not looking forward to another ice shard from Madam Freeze pop.

Stalling is an even worse idea than just running right up to her and giving her a boot to the face. If she has time to come up with some new plan then any plan I might be able to come up with could be moot . . . "It doesn't matter, Patina. I don't need to know everything to be able to defeat you. Yanuka took away what could have made this a fair fight. I'll have to thank her after I'm done dealing with you."

She actually kept Yanuka?! I would have thought we'd learn from our dealing with those witches that staying as far away from them as possible is the best idea. Yanuka only came after me because I broke Yanta. It was my only option, but I didn't choose to keep Yanta around as evidence . . . granted, The Lady did.

I have a feeling that The Domina taking out Yanuka is going to wind up biting me in the ass and not her. "I would think that after our encounter on the rooftop you'd realize that I don't need to be Silver to best you, Domina."

"You took me by surprise, and you recall, I still got away thinking." The Domina once again starts to slowly rise up her arms, but the expression on her face is far different. It's not a smirk or a grin. It's that look of pure satisfaction I feel on my face whenever I know that I'm about to accomplish something truly important. Let her feel confident. I'll be okay as long as I can keep her at bay until something occurs to me.

"Jade isn't here. It's just us." It's now or never. I either need to start attacking her now, or just accept that she's won. Since I can't do the later . . .

From my belt I pull out the last of the shadow I have from our last encounter. It won't be enough to take her out, but if I can just whittle her down then my pendant might be enough to take her down. So far she's been sparked, and taken a blow to the noggin.

The Domina just shrugs, and slides her left foot slowly behind the right making her knees very slightly bend. "If you think that matters then this fight might be over with a great deal sooner than you think."

Not even bothering to return the shrug I lob the shadow at her as quick as I can. Right as it begins to reach up for her, she launches her self up from the crouched position, flips mid air, and then . . . stays floating mid air once she's right side up again. She's glowing, but I can see her still so clearly and she's . . . floating, a good three feet above the air.

I didn't know that we could do that! She must be using some of Yanta's magic. I'm surprised she didn't just teleport away. Maybe that spell is trickier than she made it seem and she'd had it specially prepared when we met in the Slut Squad's former education center or . . .

"Oh, this? See, I didn't get the time to tell you before, but we were really only starting to come to grips with our power's full range around the time I came back in time to say hello. We can do so much more than just make pretty little stars. Maybe I should show you something else they can do?" The distance I made between us is halved. I don't like how confident she sounds. "That suit of yours may deflect my sparks, but I'm sure I can find a way to use that to my advantage."

Her right hand rises up above her head, and from each of her fingers a spark moves to the center of her palm and fuse together into a smaller version of that cloud from earlier. "You're not the only one who grew."

I raise my hands up over my face just in case. That's just great. She can fly. That is going to make taking her out significantly more difficult than I'd planned.

Her hand drops, and what I can only describe as a beam of pure silver energy slams right into my chest. It must be like the sparks I could make that actually grew or stretched, just in a much bigger, and more impressive way. Why the hell didn't I ever think of using them like that before?!

They might not be able to get through my suit, but there is an incredibly strong momentum behind the beam. When I feel it hit the center of my chest I lower my hands to try and deflect it towards The Domina, but it's a little late for that. The Domina has already quickly flown back out of the way of the ricochet, and the force of the blast knocks me into the air, and then several feet farther back, right on my ass.

It doesn't hurt overly much, but I think that I get her point. I am not facing Silver Girl. I am facing The Domina Argenti. That makes the situation one hell of a lot worse.

"So, I really can't trust you at my side . . . but if you surrender now then I can go a lot easier on you. What do you say, sister? We might not make a very good team, but I could only rewrite your mind like I did with Ember instead of like what we did with Aureus." She does look gorgeous floating in the air like some sort of glowing goddess, but she has to know that's not going to make me surrender.

I can't surrender, but I need a new way to challenge her. These tactics are already losing usefulness. "We LaSilvas women seem to be really good at breaking out of others' control. How could you be sure I wouldn't just end up throwing you right out of the Array the second I got a chance?"

She rolls her eyes, and I don't blame her. Even I think it's a long shot's long shot. That's quite honestly being generous to me. "That was an aspect of the powers you no longer possess, Patina. If you would like to test that theory then I would be perfectly willing to give you the chance to do so, but I assure you that it will not end well. Well, it would end wonderfully, but not in a rebellious sense."

Is she doing this because this is what a villain would do or because she really wants to do this? Could it be that we're still just a parody of ourselves even in the future she's from? No, that's an awful angle to look at it with.

My team isn't here . . . I'm out of shadow . . . My pendant isn't going to work until she's at least nearly incapacitated. It probably won't work, but I stand up, pop a pill of blue to build up some immunity before throwing out all of the blue dreams that I have left. The blue mist begins to fill the air with satisfying little hissing sounds, and The Domina doesn't look at all concerned.

"That wasn't an especially good idea either." Just to be sure I pop another pill, and grin as the clouds begin to rise up towards my floating opponent. "I'm not going to kneel with just a little bit of your pharmaceutical intervention."

Most of the room is filled with the blue, but her head stays just barely above it. She flies at me and I rise up my hands to block, but her kick comes in right under my guard and knocks me back over again before a second tries to connect with my face. This one I manage to block and even grab a hold of, trying to use it to pull her down with me or slam her into the ground.

Neither happens. She pivots in mid air and slams her bare foot into my forehead. I try to keep my grip, but the second blow makes me too dizzy to keep it up.

Her eyes look a little fuzzy around the edges, but not as much as I want them to be. She should at least be whimpering by now with so much of the blue in the air, but she's not. Instead she flies right past me and slams down some commands on a computer console.

Shit! There's an even louder hissing sound as the blue begins to be sucked out of the room, and then a blowing sound when we're treated to some newer, fresher air.

Still, she's a little worse for ware. I try to regain my footing and dash over to her before she can turn around, but she just moves hard to the left in mid air, and before I know it she's the one behind me, and I only narrowly manage to fall to my knees to miss the foot she swings forward.

Even slightly drugged, and a little banged up she can still literally fly circles around me. I can't think of anything I have that would actually disable her. She's too quick or resilient for anything I have.

Pandora's flames would be able to even things out really quick, and a little flying artillery would be nice. Aureus would have no problems taking The Domina's blows and would probably just end up making my doppelganger break her fist or her foot. Me, I have stealth, martial arts, and various little drugs that she has ways of avoiding . . .

The only way I can win is to somehow trick her, or use her own confidence against her, but the problem is, she has every reason to be confident. It's hard to make someone worried they're going to loose when you're pretty convinced of that already.

"So, are you realizing how futile this is? Inevitably you will tire, or weaken, or I'll simply grow tired of this and finish you off in a flurry of sparks right to the back of your head. You must realize by now that I'm just playing with you. I could have finished this at least a dozen times by now. You're outmatched." The Domina slowly lowers herself down to the floor a mere foot or two in front of me. "Yield."

Yield? Who the hell does she think she is? The Domina Argenti with a weapon of unimaginable mind controlling power aimed directly at the only class M world that I have any knowledge of?

Out here in the heavens, up above the earth, things are going to decide everything down below and the only member of the team prepared to make the difference who still has two independent brain cells isn't tempted by the offer to yield, but realizes that refusing it is only a formality. What else can I do . . .?

She's managed to do all of this; she can practically reach out and touch the stars . . . stars . . . the sun . . . her lofty ambitions . . .

It's a long shot, but I have one plan that might actually turn the tide. It's now or never. "I don't think I'll be yielding, Domina. But you know what . . . ? There was one woman who was always really great at making us yield. The Lady was the only one who was really able to shake us out of it, and even Pink couldn't really compare. You must remember her even better than I do."

The Domina just groans and rolls her eyes as I reach my hand down into a pouch for a small little break apart container. "You know, eventually I got a little better at resisting her, but yes. Dust. Who could forget Dust? She was actually worth you sacrificing your powers for."

"Good. Because if you remember her so well, you must remember just what it feels like . . . to be dusted!" I break the container apart in my hand, and before she can react I thrust the dust covered hand right into her face.

She stumbles back trying to push it all away, but her shocked breathing just has her breathing in so much of it as she does. Good. That's exactly, exactly what I was counting on . . . "A handful of dust?! Do you have any recollection of just how much she would shove into our heads to make us that fuzzy? We'd need to be covered with it, surrounded in it, to be made helpless, especially if we were spazzing out or in the middle of a fight! This is beyond underestimation. This is just stupid!"

If I'd just done what she thought I had, then frankly, I wouldn't blame her. I can show her submission in a handful of dust, but not the way it seems.

"I knew that Dust was selling this stuff on the street, but even refined you'd need a hell of a lot more than just this to stop me. You know, for a second there, I thought you were just going to try using pretty words about dust to lull me into a swoon, and I was sort of looking forward to it . . . now I'm just tired of this game all together." She frowns, and steps back to the computer console.

There's a very loud click as she presses down some button or another and speaks at the wall. "Ember, I don't know what the hell is taking you so long, but when I made it sound like I didn't want you to rush, that didn't mean that I wanted you to take your sweet time. Pyria wants this world cleansed, remember? The cleansing is being moved ahead of schedule, I'm growing tired of this game. Bring Emerald and my Raine Drop . . . Now!"

She sounds very upset. Did I actually find a way to make her lose her cool? It's not enough to really exploit, as it is, I just need to give this plan time. If something goes wrong then I'll still have time to come up with a backup plan, I'm sure of it . . .

"I'm sorry, Patina, but you just blew the very last of my patience. You see, somewhere along the third time that I managed to get away from a holding cell in one of Midas's lovely jails for supers, I lost my patience. I just have this point where I can't take any more of waiting, annoyances, or for that matter, stupidity." In one fluid motion she snaps all of her knuckles and shakes her head. "You crossed that line."

"Well, at least I'm good at something, huh?" My silly crooked grin comes back to my face and I feel so much better than I did a few minutes ago. "Do you really think that I don't have some plan to stop you? I might have relied on my own tenacity before, but I've grown past that."

The Domina shakes her head and presses a few more buttons on the console with a sigh. "You just played your trump card. I know that tone of voice. Remember I use the same one? I've been using it for longer. I know my poker faces pretty well by now. You're trying to shake my confidence or get me to reveal some weakness by pretending you didn't just run all out of options."

"Maybe, but are you ready to take the chance that my time as Patina hasn't changed my tells?"

"Yes."

"Too bad." My grin doesn't weaken, and that must shake her at least a little. In the past, there was always a point where I just gave up. I just surrendered. I just let the inevitability of the situation consume me. Even before the control of the women after me became absolute there was always a moment where a part of me willingly surrendered to it. Maybe that's the side effect of what happened to Susan before I was born . . . maybe not. This time, I'm not going to give up. Even if my plan fails I'll go down fighting.

She presses another button on the console with a flourish. "Mind Bore. Send our two newest drones to the Spear's chamber. Aureus and Pandora should be good at making sure Patina doesn't have any further chances at interfering, while still keeping her front row seat."

Slowly The Domina makes her way towards the construct in the middle of the room. She's shaking just a little, no doubt from the sparking she gave herself, and the blue. What I gave her isn't even kicking in yet though I'm sure that her mind is creating all sorts of feelings.

The mind is a wonderful thing. When you think that you can go a little further then your mind can try it's best to shove you forward. If you give up, your mind has an amazing idea of making it happen.

Dust is selling her dust on the street corner? That, I was unaware of. If Dust is still in Midas then I just might need to track her down. If she learned anything near as much from Chronos as I did then she's dangerous. Selling dust like a drug . . . It must be a really good high even if it must cost an arm and a leg and a mind.

Maybe the price is offset by the inevitable enslavement. After all, I don't think she'd want to scare off potential slaves just because they couldn't afford a dose.

"Patina . . . Lucia . . . Whoever you think you are now or whoever you actually are, I'm done playing this game. You might have actually become a real woman now and not just an approximation, but that doesn't mean that you're at all actually capable of stopping me. I'm glad to see you'll keep some dignity this time." Her voice is so cold and cutting, but I manage not to retort.

She laughs as the doors begin to open. "You really have grown a little, even if barely at all . . ." Ember enters right along with a green haired woman in a fancy power suit, and Doctor Raine in her lab coat. "Come, my colleagues . . . my love . . . It's time to make history."

Valerie looks so happy, so hopeful. I'm sure she thinks this is just going to cure all of the world's energy woes. That's the supposed feature of the spear. I'm sure that she thinks this is going to make the world a better place . . .

Emerald just looks like a shrewd business woman. If she's involved in the actual firing of the spear then I must have missed something in those files or they purposefully altered them. All the information I had on her just made her seem like a once weapons designer turned faux philanthropist. Chandra, Ember, whoever she is, did used to be a member of her staff even before she was involved in The Argentum Project.

Ember just looks devoted. The poor woman . . . Maybe out of The Domina's control she's a heroine like The Domina herself used to be. I guess that I'll never know. If things go poorly now, it might not matter anyway.

"Sarah . . . We're read-what happened?!" Valerie runs up to The Domina and wraps her arms around her before starting to look over her at the few bruises and bumps I managed to give her. Before long her eyes fall on me, and I wince at the pure rage and distaste on her face. I don't have my mask on, but that doesn't mean she'll recognize me as that patient from all that time ago . . . "You! Patina!"

"She boarded a cargo shuttle and was trying to sabotage the project. Don't worry my little Raine Drop, I'm fine. We had a little bit of a scuffle but I came out on top. Two of our new security officers will be here shortly." She sighs, and I want to bloody her nose a thousand times more now than I did before. "But since she was so determined to see us fair, I thought that the best way to show this little delinquent that crime is a bad Idea, was to have security simply restrain her so that she could see our success."

Emerald and Ember are going over to the half sphere, and working something into computer consoles near it. Soon it'll be all or nothing . . . A part of me is still hoping that Aureus managed to break the Spear, but right now I have to hope that what I did will nullify that anyway.

Valerie kisses The Domina's cheek and then smiles warmly before embracing her tightly. "If you're confident that she won't pose a threat then that makes sense to me. When Ember told me we were ready to fire the generator preemptively I was so excited. You've been waiting for this moment for too long . . . After this is done, the advances that this will lead to boggle the mind. Where this could go from here is just such an amazing thing to wonder!"

The doors open anew, and this time Pandora and Aureus start to walk towards me. They're dressed in knee length short skirts and matching sleeveless tops. A moment later they've moved over to me, and each of them grab a wrist and a shoulder to force me down before just holding a shoulder each.

I don't struggle. If I can hold out just a little bit longer, I won't need to. Soon . . . So soon . . . This will all be over one way or another, for good or evil.

Emerald looks over to The Domina, and their eyes lock. Emerald's voice speaks up, and I smile right along with them. "Let's begin."