Part 3: Bombastic

                                    

                                          
Galaxy Girl didn't have to search for long before uncovering the bomb, encased in a huge ball and left conspicuously in the middle of a city park. She quickly grasped the giant metal sphere and flew up, as far away from the park as she could get. Other heroes might have been suspicious of the placing of such an item in such a wide, open, easily locatable part of the city, but this particular hero just rolled her eyes as she made sure to not pulverize the handles with her intense grip.
                          
She knew Toxic had always been the victim of a flair for the over-dramatic, and that with his level of genius, he could have easily made this bomb as small as a bowling ball. But he just had to make it the size of an elephant, so that nobody would miss the spectacle when she lugged it up and out of the city. 
                          
Galaxy Girl swung around a bit to the left in mid-flight so the Channel 7 tower would get her good side as she flew with the bomb, her destination: space. She could have just waited for the bomb squad to arrive instead of taking the bomb up into space, but Toxic wasn't the only one in this city who loved being the center of attention. 
Up she went, breaking out of the earth's atmosphere. Soon, the hero began to feel the air thinning as she struggled to breathe. She began to gasp for puffs of oxygen. Flying in space was yet another thing on the list of feats that her father could readily perform that she couldn't. When she had gone as far as her body would allow her, she chucked the device hard, aiming towards the farthest patch of emptiness. 
                          
Less than a minute later, she was crashing through the wall of Toxic's latest lair, this one, inside an old art museum. Bits of red brick scattered around her as she landed upon the polished hardwood. Without warning, an orb of green energy blasted her in the side, and she was thrown against a wall, the impact of her body leaving a large crack. Something made a clicking sound behind her and before she knew it, her hands were shackled above her head. 
                          
"You know you don't always have to crash through my walls, the door WAS unlocked," Toxic said, nodding at the now splintered remnants of the oak door that had come down along with the wall when Galaxy Girl burst through.
                          
Toxic stood in the hallway, wielding another one of his many radiation-powered guns, this particular one looking like a rocket launcher. 
"How do you feel?" he enquired about the effect of his latest radiation gun. 
She felt fine; only his pure radiation affected this hero. 
"Nope, nothing this time, sorry," she shrugged. 
Toxic sighed, clearly disappointed. "Well, you can't blame a villain for trying." He covered the distance between them, stepping closer until he was only about two strides away from his arch nemesis, near enough to be up-close and personal, but not so close that their powers would begin to affect each other. 
                          
"Miss me?" he asked, his usual sarcasm clearly present in adequate amounts. 
"Always," Galaxy Girl admitted with a roll of her eyes.
The one thing these arch-enemies had in common, was that even after several years, they remained truthful to each other. It was a stable part of their dynamics. 
It was the truth, she did miss him, or at least, she missed the challenge he presented. Being nearly indestructible could get boring and surely, Toxic was a challenge, something she didn't have every day. He was something in her life that she didn't have to hold back on, the one criminal she never had to worry about breaking. She looked up at her hands to see what he had tried to capture her with this time. 
                          
"Diamonds, seriously?" she asked.
Clamped around each of her wrists was a thick cuff of solid, sparkling diamond. She considered the fact that these had probably taken a while to create, and she was impressed with the fine craftsmanship. 
                          
"One of the hardest natural substances on earth," Toxic said smugly. 
"Is that a fact?" Galaxy Girl asked in slight annoyance. 
                          
She broke out of the diamond cuffs with ease, jerking her arms out of the bonds that held them, as chunks of the glittering mineral glistened all around her before falling to the floor. The smug smile drained from Toxic's pale face and dark brown eyes, in its place now stood a familiar look of disappointment.