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Atonement

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Школа кожевенного мастерства: сумки, ремни своими руками
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  • Аннотация:
    Тейлор умерла в шкафчике. По своей вине Мэдисон вместо этого стригерила и стала супергероем, чтобы исправить свои ошибки. Original source: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10771504/1/Atonement
  Arc 1: Liability
  Arc 2: Rise
  Arc 3: Institution
  Arc 4: Foundation
  Arc 5: Escalation
  Arc 6: Prey
  Arc 7: Choices
  Arc 8: Being
  Arc 9: Evolution
  Arc 10: Trials
  Arc 11: Conspiracy
  Arc 12: Mission
  Arc 13: Lost
  Arc 14: Chicanery
  Arc 15: Reconstruction
  Arc 16: Struggle
  Arc 17: Ordeal
  Arc 18: Respite
  Arc 19: Surge
  Arc 20: Search
  Arc 21: Warfare
  Arc 22: Triumph
  Arc 23: Ameliorate
  Arc 24: Retribution
  Arc 25: Temper
  Arc 26: Interim
  Arc 27: Stand
  Arc 28: Reunions
  Arc 29: Visitations
  Arc 30: Stolen
  Arc 31: Travelers
  Arc 32: Quest
  Arc 33: Breathe
  Arc 34: Origin
  Arc 35: Dawn
  next chapterchapter list
  Arc 1: Liability
  "She's dead."
  
  The words felt alien, wrong somehow even as I spoke them. Two words. That was all it took. That wasn't right. There had to be more to it. A human life was gone. Gone. It was never coming back. She was never coming back. It had to take more than two words to erase someone's life.
  
  Why wasn't that a rule? Why wasn't there a rule somewhere that said that when someone died, you had to use more than two words to express that fact? There just... there had to be more to it. There had to be. People died, and everyone else just... kept going. The world turned, the sun went up and down, and everything kept going.
  
  I felt something vile rise in the back of my throat, burning a bit as I closed my hand over my mouth. I turned my head to cough sharply, feeling the stinging tears at my own eyes. God. Oh god, please. Please don't let this be real. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean any of it. I'll take it back. I'll do something better this time. Fix it. Please fix it.
  
  My eyes closed tightly as I prayed to no particular deity. Please. Please.
  
  "What did we do...?" I moaned in horror as the scenes in question played back in my own memory against closed eyelids.
  
  Instantly, I felt a sharp pain in my cheek as I was slapped, hard. Before I could fall, a strong grip took hold of my collar, and I was shoved back against the wall with enough force to almost knock the wind out of me.
  
  My eyes opened, and I found Sophia's enraged, unhinged glare directed at me. She was holding my collar so tightly I could barely breathe. Beyond her, I saw Emma staring with wide, pleading eyes that were still damp from the tears that I knew she kept shedding.
  
  "Nothing." Sophia growled out the word, squeezing tighter for further emphasis. "We did nothing. It's not our fault the bitch couldn't take a few jokes. Not our fault she was too much of a wimp, a loser, to even stand up for herself. That's all she had to do. Just once. Just fucking once!" She shouted the last word, looking even more angry now, so furious that I didn't dare move. "All Hebert had to do was fight back, one fucking time. That's all I wanted. I wanted her to prove she deserved to live. She didn't. She fucking didn't, and that's not our god damn fault. It's not my god damn fault, and I'm not fucking going to suffer for it."
  
  I stared, disbelieving. "She's dead." I managed again. "Taylor's dead, because we-"
  
  The blow sent me to the ground, sending dark spots dancing through my vision before Sophia took hold of my hair and yanked hard. She ignored Emma shouting her name, and yanked harder. I thought my hair was going to tear away from my scalp.
  
  "I said, we did nothing!" The shout came against my ear, and I felt Sophia's other hand catch my wrist, pinning it up against my back and twisting just enough to send a spasm of pain through it.
  
  "I don't care how cute you think you are, Madison." Sophia's voice had quieted, but was no less angry or dangerous. "If you push me on this, I will win. Because I'm stronger than you, I'm smarter than you, and I'm better than you."
  
  Her breath was hot against my ear. "Like I said, I'm not going to suffer just because poor little Taylor Hebert has a fucking heart attack from some stupid locker prank. A heart attack? What teenager has a fucking heart attack? She died because she wasn't fit, because she was a loser, a fucking pathetic little shit who can't take a joke. She just sat there with those stupid, pathetic mopey ass eyes instead of doing something about it. She was prey. That's why she died, because her own body knew she was too weak to live."
  
  "I'm not going down for that." She continued, giving my hair an extra twist. "She was prey, but I'm a predator. She was a loser, I'm a winner. So push me on this, push me just a little bit more, and we'll see how strong you are. We'll see if you last any longer than she did."
  
  "Let her go, Soph." Emma was there next to us, her voice pleading, desperate. "Just let her go. She's not going to talk to anyone, are you, Maddy? No one's going to say anything."
  
  Sophia released me, and I fell to my knees, flinching as my body assessed the pain she had doled out over those few moments.
  
  "That right, Madison?" The girl, whose psychotic tendencies I was only beginning to understand despite being around her for so long, pressed. "Your mouth stays shut, and nobody finds out we had anything to do with that fucking freak's heart attack. Got it?"
  
  I looked up, and saw Emma's pleading look. She just wanted this to go away, even if that meant ignoring it. I knew she was upset about Taylor. She'd have to be. Even after everything... everything we did to Taylor, I knew that she and Emma had been friends at one point.
  
  She'd just considered Sophia to be a friend worth not only dropping her former friend for, but worth turning against completely. Worth attacking, shaming, humiliating, even torturing.
  
  Worth killing? Because I held no illusions on that front. Taylor was dead because of us. Because we pushed her too far. She was dead, and it was our fault, whatever psychotic justification Sophia spat out.
  
  I took a breath, then let it out. The pain in my scalp was distracting. "They'll investigate." I said flatly.
  
  "They won't find anything." Sophia replied, rather smugly, I thought. "And even if they did... well, they'll pretend they didn't."
  
  That made me frown. "What... why...?"
  
  "Sophia," Emma's voice held a warning tone. "Don't."
  
  In response, Sophia turned to stare at the other girl. Whatever expression she had, it made Emma shrink back, averting her gaze with a fearful look. The message had been clear. Sophia wouldn't hesitate to turn her crazy against Emma as well if she felt threatened.
  
  Then she focused on me once again, the dark skin of her hand passing back and forth in front of my face. "You watching this, Mads? Because this might be the most important demonstration of your life."
  
  As I stared, afraid to look away, Sophia's body turned wispy and indistinct. Before my eyes, she took a step sideways, passing right through the wall before emerging again. The look on her face now was predatory, mixed with something like pride. She enjoyed showing off, and she was enjoying the look of shock on my face.
  
  "You- y-you're... you're a... you're a..." I couldn't say it. "You're a cape. You're a villain."
  
  To that, Sophia tilted her head back and laughed out loud. It was brief, and then her face was suddenly bare inches from mine, her hand gripping my hair once more.
  
  "No, Madison." She said in a low, dangerous voice. "I'm a hero. I'm Shadow Stalker."
  
  A cold chill ran through me, and I whispered, "But she's with the Wards."
  
  "That's right." Sophia nodded, before leaning even closer, so that our noses were touching. "That's why nothing is going to happen to me. You say a single word about this, and it won't be just me shutting you up, it'll be the Protectorate. You think they'll let something like this get out? They'll bury it deeper than Taylor's being buried."
  
  "If they need to, they'll bury you too." Sophia's words had turned to a whisper that sent a shudder through me and drew an involuntary whimper. "My word versus yours, Maddy. Best case scenario, best case, you take the full heat. You want to be some kind of martyr or something, be my guest. But you go down alone. You bring me up, and you better pray the Protectorate gets to you first."
  
  "Because if they don't, if I think you're a threat, then Taylor won't be the only student with a memorial in the hall at school."
  
  Sophia straightened, her expression turning back to the welcoming smile that I was more familiar with. "Or we can just keep being friends." She said easily, extending her hand to me. "You want that, right, Mads? You want to be friends with me."
  
  I stared at her. The threatening, psychotic look was gone. She looked normal, not the slightest bit unhinged. She even looked a little bit amused at the entire affair, like everything was just one big joke, like it wasn't a big deal.
  
  "You're crazy." I said, not realizing I'd spoken aloud until Emma's eyes widened in alarm.
  
  The blows came rapidly, one after another. One hit my face and knocked my head to the side, and then I felt another two blows against my chest and stomach, doubling me over. A blinding pain hit my leg and dumped me to the ground, followed by two hard and violent kicks to my stomach that made me throw up what very little I'd been able to eat since hearing the news that morning.
  
  I curled into a ball, taking two more kicks against my arms before the attack stopped. It took me a moment before I risked opening my eyes.
  
  Emma was leading Sophia away, tugging her out of my otherwise empty house, where we had met up to talk this out after the news of Taylor's death had spread through the school.
  
  Sophia let herself be led, smiling mockingly back at my crumpled form. "Just remember, Mads, you had a choice. You chose this. I tried to help you. I tried to make you better. This, what comes next, it's your fault."
  
  Then they were both gone, and I let my head slump once more, falling limp against the floor of my family's dining room as I felt a bit of blood trickle from my nose.
  
  Sophia had said one thing that I agreed with, after a fashion. This was, in some ways, my fault. It was at least partly my fault that Taylor was dead.
  
  My fault.
  
  My fault.
  
  My eyes closed, and what I saw, I forgot immediately. But the effects of what I had seen, the effects of that trigger event, changed everything in my life, forever.
  
  I must have zoned out, because the next thing I knew, the door was slamming shut. I jumped, startled, as my older brother came stomping through the house. I knew it was Trevor, because he was the only one that stomped like that. He hated his college classes, and he hated the job that he went to after those classes even more. Hence the stomping.
  
  Trevor stormed right past the dining room without looking inside, which was probably a good thing considering I didn't feel like trying to explain why I looked the way I probably did.
  
  With that thought in mind, I picked myself up and turned to find the mirror on the wall. I moved closer to examine myself, wincing at both the hollow, terrified expression that stared back at me, as well as my bloody nose and bruises.
  
  Gingerly touching my cheek, I closed my eyes and tried not to whimper. What was I going to do? What could I do, even? Sophia was a member of the Wards. She was a cape, a hero even. They'd never take my word for it, and Emma had made it clear that while she obviously felt horrible, she wasn't willing to turn against Sophia. We had both made our bed, and Emma was willing to lay in it. Or she was just too afraid not to.
  
  Fuck. It should be Emma that felt this way. Taylor had been her friend in the first place. She should be the one so racked by guilt she felt like throwing up again. She should be here, not out with Sophia.
  
  Sophia. Even the thought of her made me shudder. I'd known, intellectually, that she was a sociopath. But somehow when it had been directed (mostly) at Taylor, who never fought back, it had been easy to ignore. Bad stuff was always easier to dismiss when it wasn't directed at you.
  
  But now... I put my hands over my face gingerly and shuddered. Now everything was wrong. Taylor was dead. She wasn't supposed to die. Why did she have to die? Why did I have to feel like this?
  
  I hadn't known just how crazy Sophia was. I hadn't known just how close to the edge Taylor was, or that the stupid locker prank would... would kill her.
  
  I didn't know. I felt like screaming that at the top of my lungs, annoyed brother be damned. I didn't know!
  
  There were consequences to my actions, and I had ignored them. I had dismissed them. And now, ignoring the consequences was coming back to haunt me.
  
  The whole time that I'd stood there, I'd felt an odd little itch almost directly behind my eyes. I squeezed them shut, then open, then shut again. When I opened them the third time, I jumped a little at the sight of a hazy, indistinct line going from the middle of the mirror, past my face, and off behind me.
  
  Turning, my eyes followed the nearly transparent line from the mirror to one of the dining room chairs. Frowning, I hesitantly lifted a hand to brush at the line, only to have my fingers go right through as though it wasn't really there.
  
  Yet, I could somehow feel the line. Not with my hand, but with... some other sense. I could feel the connection between the mirror and the chair as the line remained taut between them.
  
  What... what was going on? Confused, I imagined my sense traveling up and down the line, then gave a slight tug at the end with the chair.
  
  The effect was instantaneous. The chair leapt off the floor and hurled straight down the line that connected it to the other object. Eyes widening, I let out a yelp of surprise and hit the floor, just in time for the chair to hurtle over my head and slam into the mirror with a terrifying crash that sent glass shards flying.
  
  By the time that I had picked myself off the floor, Trevor had come galloping back down the stairs and slammed his way into the kitchen, one hand holding his old Little League baseball bat from several years earlier. His eyes were wide and wild as he gazed around the room before locking on me. "Madison," He asked in clear disbelief. "What the fuck happened? What did you do?"
  
  I looked at the shattered glass on the floor, surrounding the broken chair. "I... I... it was an accident." Truth.
  
  "An accident." He echoed, staring at me, then at the mess. "What the hell? How- no, you know what, I don't give a shit.. I'm not cleaning it up, and I'm not explaining it. That's your job. You get to tell mom and dad why you did... all this." He gestured around with the bat, then left the room with one last remark over his shoulder. "Maybe they'll finally figure out that you're not the cute little innocent girl you pretend to be."
  
  His words made me flinch, where a week ago I would have ignored him. Sighing, I turned back to look at the room once more.
  
  The line was back. This time it stretched between one of mom's paintings, and the glass centerpiece on the table. "Oh no, no no no." I reached out with that invisible sense once more, testing the line but not pulling on it. I was so intent on making sure that the centerpiece wasn't pulled by the line, that the next thing I knew, it was being pushed back along the same line, increasing the distance between it and the painting rather than shrinking it as the line between the chair and the mirror had.
  
  Lunging with an arm outstretched as the centerpiece was shoved off the side of the dining room table, I cried out in desperate alarm. Mom loved that little glass thing almost as much as she loved her kids.
  
  In response to my alarm, the push on the line reversed and instantly began to pull instead. The centerpiece stopped falling, and went flying into the air toward the painting instead. I barely managed to put myself in its path, catching it against my chest with a grunt.
  
  Carefully, I set the glass down, looked around the room once more, and then fled the room before something else could happen. I had to get out of there, and figure out what the hell was happening to me.
  
  Walking quickly down the street, I kept looking around. The near-transparent lines kept following me, jumping between any two given objects seemingly at random. I just ignored them as best as I could, trying not to think about what would happen if the line connected between a couple of cars and I let it pull them together.
  
  Harder to ignore was the other line. I hadn't noticed it in the house, but once I walked outside, there was a pale pink line going straight from the middle of my stomach and off into various people that I passed.
  
  The postman was the first one that I noticed it on. The pink line connected the two of us and then just sat there. I felt nothing through it and kept walking. A few steps later it jumped to attach itself to Mrs. DeCampes walking her dog, and again I felt nothing.
  
  Then the line jumped once again, as a blue sedan passed me on the street. I saw the line attach itself to the driver, and the pink color turned slightly darker, to a very faint red. This time, when I started to walk on, I felt a weak, yet noticeable tug back the other way.
  
  Turning, I watched as the sedan pulled away, and the light red line grew tighter, still giving that faint tug. I could ignore it, but the feeling confused me. Not to mention the fear that came with the thought that the pinkish red line might do what the other line could do and somehow yank that car right at me.
  
  Instead, the faint red line let itself be spooled out, stretching further and further as the car got further away.
  
  Then, as the sedan began to turn at the corner on the end of our street, another car went right through the stop sign, failed to stop in time, and crashed into the rear right bumper. The red line vanished, and I stared in shock as the two drivers slowly got out of their vehicles and began to yell at each other.
  
  I must have stood there on the sidewalk staring for five minutes before I tore myself away, turning to run in the opposite direction. Every step I took, the transparent line kept attaching itself to various objects, while the pale pink line kept one end attached to me and the other jumped from person to person. Sometimes it was so lightly colored pink that it was almost as invisible as the other line, while other times it grew slightly darker and I would feel that faint tug.
  
  I was passing a rundown gas station that had been closed forever, when the pale pink line abruptly latched on to a tall figure with a large duffel bag loitering outside of the boarded up building. The line went from pink to a very dark red, and solidified so much that I almost couldn't take another step away. The line was so tight, so strong, that taking one step away was like pulling against a physical cord that didn't want to stretch any further. I could move away, but it was physically tiring to do so.
  
  Remembering the faint red line that had led to the car crash, I stared at this dark red one hesitantly. What did it mean? How dangerous, how bad was a situation that went from no tug, to an almost irresistible one?
  
  The loitering man gave one last look around, ignoring me, before turning and walking into the abandoned gas station. The line tugged me along with him, and I let it, following along across the parking lot.
  
  When I reached the entrance, the door wasn't quite closed all the way. Hearing voices inside, I moved closer and listened.
  
  "So you got the product or not?" A loud, annoyed voice demanded, making me jump as it echoed through the obviously empty building.
  
  "It's right here." A voice replied from right near the door, clearly the man I had been connected to. "Lemme see the cash first."
  
  "Nah. Product first, then cash." The first voice responded smugly. "That's how Skidmark does things." There was a slight pause, followed by, "Unless you'd like me to call him up and see if he wants to change things just for you."
  
  The man near the door replied quickly, nervousness evident in his voice. "No no no, that's fine. Just... here, look. Everything you ordered." I heard the duffel bag unzip, and something inside was jostled around as though the man was shoving his hand through it to indicate to the other man what was there.
  
  "Cool." The first voice said approvingly. Then I heard a distinctive clicking noise that anyone who had seen any movie with guns involved could recognize.
  
  "What the- hey!" The man by the door sounded even closer, as though he had taken a step back toward the door. "What the hell, man?!"
  
  The first man gave a low chuckle. "You think we're stupid? You think Skidmark got to be leader of the Merchants because he's a fucking retard? You've been talking to that cop lady, Detective Rodriguez."
  
  I could feel and hear the other man edging closer to the door. "N-no way, man. No way I'd talk to no cop." There was a pause, and the first man must have done something with the gun, because the man that my line had attached itself to gave a sharp cry of fear. "Okay, okay, okay! I'm sorry! I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry! It's my girl. She's pregnant, man. I'm gonna be a dad. I'm gonna be a dad. I can't be doing this. I just wanted out."
  
  The first man's voice was hard and cold. "Shoulda trusted us."
  
  That red line turned even darker, almost black, and I felt bile in my throat once more before jumping through the doorway with a shout. "Stop it!"
  
  Both of the men were taken by surprise by my sudden appearance, and the influx of light in the otherwise dark room as the door was slammed open briefly blinded them. I heard a gunshot as the first man reflexively pulled the trigger, but his aim had been thrown off by his surprise.
  
  The gun was coming up again, pointed in my direction. I saw the transparent line attach itself to one end of the pistol and then to an abandoned crate in the corner.
  
  I reached out with the sense that ran along that line. Anchoring the crate where it was, I pulled at the end of the line that was attached to the pistol. It instantly leapt from the man's hand, slamming into the crate with so much force the plastic container was cracked.
  
  "Fuck!" The man who had been disarmed shouted. He started to come at me, and I quickly recoiled, terrified. My blind desperation for the man to get away from me sent the tether toward the back of the man's belt, while the other end connected to the far wall. I tugged on the end attached to the man's belt, and he went flying backwards barely a second before he would have reached me.
  
  Something hit me from the side, sending me crashing to the floor. It was the man I had followed in here. He shoved me out of the way, ignoring my fall as he ran straight out the door and fled for his life. The dark red line that had connected us was as pale as any of the others that I had passed before, now that he was out of immediate danger.
  
  When I looked up to the other side of the room, the other man was scrambling out a nearby broken window, apparently deciding that this wasn't worth continuing.
  
  Left alone in the abandoned gas station, I let my head slump back toward the floor and closed my eyes to take this in.
  
  I had powers. Strange powers. The first was fairly easy to understand. I could connect any two objects and either pull one toward the other (or both together maybe?) or push them apart along the same line.
  
  On the other hand, there was that second line that kept connecting me to other people. It seemed to have little to no effect as long as they were safe, but the more immediate danger the person it connected to was in, the more it pulled me toward them. It was like a danger sense related to others, rather than myself.
  
  Powers. That's what they were. I had powers.
  
  As I lay there on the dirty ground, still bruised from earlier, I closed my eyes and muttered three words under my breath, the three words that meant nothing at this point, and yet also meant everything.
  
  "I'm sorry, Taylor."
  
  1.03
  
  Over the next several months, I gained a firsthand knowledge of just what kind of hell I had helped put Taylor through. With the loss of her favorite target, and my refusal to go back to the way things were, Sophia had decided that I made an adequate replacement. Emma remained too much of a coward to make more than a halfhearted protest before gleefully joining in with any idea that the crazy bitch put forth.
  
  From nasty remarks made whenever their hangers-on passed by, to stuff being 'accidentally' spilled over me or my stuff, to being all but openly attacked in gym class under the guise of one sport or another, and more, Sophia made her point perfectly clear. This was the tame stuff. If I screwed her over by going to the authorities, she'd retaliate.
  
  It wasn't just Emma either. All of the friends that I'd thought I'd had abandoned me. Given the choice to either stick up for the person who had been the number three girl in the top clique in our grade, or kick me to the curb and vie for that spot themselves, the decision they made wasn't exactly surprising.
  
  Through it all, I suppressed the urge to use my new powers in class. I wanted nothing, absolutely nothing, tying those powers to me. Besides, a not insubstantial part of me felt like I deserved it. I'd not only done nothing to stop the bullying that had ended with Taylor's death, I'd perpetuated it. I'd had fucking fun . So no, I didn't deserve to speak up and make them stop now that they were directing it toward me.
  
  So that was school. All of my time other than that over the last months had been directed toward practicing with these new powers so that I could understand them, and toward preparing to use them to help people.
  
  That was something I had to do. After what I'd done, what I'd helped cause, what I'd contributed to, I had to use the power that I'd been given to help people. Not only because my power literally directed me toward people who were in danger of being killed, but because Taylor's death was at least partly my fault. The red line gave me the opportunity to save people. The motivation was buried deep inside, where it woke me every morning and kept me awake long after I had laid down at night. It drove me to practice with my power, ignore the things that Sophia and Emma, my former best friends, did, and to prepare to actually show myself to the city at large.
  
  April had arrived before I felt like I was ready. Finally, I stood in my bedroom, staring down at the outfit I had put together over the last dozen weeks.
  
  My costume was simple. It consisted of flame-retardant ACU (army combat uniform) pants in urban camo, a pair of black steel toe hiking boots, a white turtleneck that was tucked into the pants and held tight with a wide leather belt, and a black vest that had an attached hood. At the top of the ensemble was a white balaclava mask that left my eyes exposed.
  
  Finally, my gloves were tight against my wrist, and I used two buckle strap wrist bands to hold them even tighter. That way, if I made one point of the line attach itself to my glove, and the other two some distant object, pulling from the object's end would yank me along, rather than just tearing my glove off.
  
  It wasn't going to win any awards, that much was for sure. But unless I wanted the police to know exactly and precisely who I was just from tracking suspicious (and expensive) deliveries, I had to make do with what I could get at the local thrift and military surplus stores.
  
  Besides, I wanted to separate my costumed self as much as possible from my 'real' self. In school, I was known for wearing cute girly clothes, with lots of pink and blue. While popular, I was not exactly what most would consider to be overtly hot. Instead, I was more... adorable and cute. In the past, I had played that up because it got me attention. Now, I kept the same habits (in spite of the belittlement about being a baby or how I should go back to middle school that it got me) so that my cape-self would never be associated with innocent, girly Madison Clements.
  
  It was late by the time I began to suit up, and when I left the house through my bedroom window, the whole neighborhood was dark.
  
  Once I was far enough away from my house, and closer to the bad side of town, by the assorted apartments and warehouses that made up most of the so-called 'docks' area, I decided that it was time to cut loose and really experiment with what this power could do. Up until then, I had been resisting overt displays so that I wouldn't get caught and questioned. Now, in costume, I felt like pushing things.
  
  Looking toward the far top corner of a warehouse in the distance, I extended a hand toward it. I let my line attach itself to my glove, and to the smoke stack that I could barely see the top of. For a moment, I stood that way, closed my eyes to murmur a prayer, and then tugged from the smokestack end of the line.
  
  I'd thought that I was ready. I was wrong. A panicked and utterly undignified squeal escaped me as I was torn from the ground, hurled through the air, and all but flung at the smokestack. I nearly rammed straight into the thing before managing to connect a second line to the warehouse roof and released the first one. Before I could face plant against the chimney, I tugged on the new line. Immediately, my forward momentum halted and I began to fall straight down. At the last second, I reversed the pull into a push, stopping myself from slamming into the roof of the warehouse. I adjusted the strength of the push as low as I could, so that gravity could still pull me down, but at a greatly reduced speed.
  
  It was with shaking legs that I finally settled on the roof, almost collapsing to my knees before catching myself. I turned to look back at where I had been standing over two blocks away. Two blocks that I had traveled in seconds.
  
  "That..." I said slowly to myself, eyes wide in shock. "That was..." I worked my mouth and then gave a little jump into the air with my hands high above my head. "... AWESOME! "
  
  Pointing both hands at the ground, I attached the lines between the roof and my gloves, and gave a hard push that shoved me a dozen feet into the air. Then I reached out a hand toward another building, attached another invisible line, and yanked myself that way.
  
  It was a constant balancing act between pushing and pulling, and I nearly wiped out several more times while I was getting the hang of it. I had to constantly switch between yanking myself forward to gain momentum, and pushing myself to control or mitigate that momentum, or to change directions. It helped when I belatedly realized that I could just attach my 'push off' lines to my boots to simulate a really high jump, leaving my hands free for the subsequent 'pull'.
  
  It was also the most pure fun I'd had in my entire life.
  
  So enthralled was I with experimenting, that I very nearly entirely missed the dark red line that had attached itself from my chest to some point around the corner until it yanked me unexpectedly off balance. Almost crashing into a billboard, I adjusted at the last second and looked at the red line.
  
  In spite of myself, I gulped uncertainly. Behind the mask, I was still squishy, confused little Madison. I was still afraid of what might happen if I got involved.
  
  And yet, the idea of not involving myself, and letting another person die, was so much worse. Swallowing back my fear, I pointed a glove along the same path as the red line, attached my own line to the nearest streetlight (which itself wasn't giving off any light), and let it yank me that way.
  
  Landing on top of the broken streetlight, I nearly slipped right off before catching myself. In the dim parking lot below me, I could see three street toughs, members of the local ABB gang if their Asian features were any indication, surrounding and looming over a smaller figure, who had fallen to the ground. The red line had attached itself to the fallen figure.
  
  As one of the Asian men raised his hand with a chain wrapped around it, I called out to grab his attention. "Hey!" Once all three of the men whirled and looked up, I made an exaggerated motion of confusion, raising both arms in a wide shrug. "Is this where the line for the new iPhone starts?"
  
  Immediately, two guns were pointed at me, and I instantly used a line attached to my boot to push off the streetlight and into the air, then reached out a hand toward the side of the nearby building and yanked myself that way. Twin shots rang out, but I was already off the lamp and hurtling over their heads. As I passed by, I attached a line to the barrel of each gun, with the other end of the lines attached to the corners of the parking lot. A swift tug hauled the pistols out of the hands of the two men who had been using them.
  
  Before I could crash into the side of the building, I reversed my pull line into a push line, released it once my momentum was going in the opposite direction, and then used a very light push line to give myself a swift, but relatively gentle landing.
  
  I faced the three gang members, one of whom still had his chain, while the other two were blinking at their empty hands. I continued as though I hadn't been interrupted by their gunfire. "To be honest, I don't get the hype, personally. I mean, it's a phone, just like the last... which version is this?"
  
  One of the men lunged to grab my arm, a knife in his hand. "You have any last request, funny girl?" He demanded in faintly accented English.
  
  "Sure." I replied easily, not bothering to shake him off or struggle. "Could you hit a high C for me?" When the man just blinked in confusion, I first attached his knife to the lamppost, and it was yanked away from him. Then I tilted my head to the side while attaching his shoes to each other. With a smile that was hidden behind my mask, I made the line push both shoes away from each other. The man's feet went out from under him, hauled out to either side as he was forced into doing the splits.
  
  "Thanks!" I called out after his loud, shrill shriek had filled the air, fulfilling my request.
  
  Unfortunately, I'd let myself get distracted. The remaining two men each grabbed an arm and began to yank me away. The one with the chain glowered, pointing a finger into my face. "You get tour of Lung's base, little girl. You will not like it." He was, sadly, smart enough to cover my face with his free hand so that I couldn't see to attach any lines.
  
  "A tour?" I echoed, trying to mask the sudden fear I felt when the dangerous leader of the ABB was mentioned. Lung was far out of my league.
  
  The men were holding me tight as they dragged, and I needed a distraction. I went with the first idea that came to mind. I screamed. "I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR ANY TOUR. I WANNA GO HOME I WANNA GET OUT I WANT YOUR BADGE NUMBER ARE YOU EVEN A COP DO YOU EVEN LIFT WHAT KIND OF TOUR IS THIS LET ME OUT THIS IS KIDNAPPING DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY YEARS IN PRISON YOU CAN GET I'M A WHITE TEENAGED GIRL THAT'S JURY CATNIP THEY'LL PROBABLY GIVE YOU THE DEATH PENALTY YOU SICKO!"
  
  Apparently the semi-random tsunami of words I was hurling at the men made them pause in confusion, just long enough for me to twist my head free from the man's hand. The second I could see again, I attached the backs of the men's pants to the nearby wall, hauling them away from me so quickly that they hit the wall hard.
  
  Yet not quite hard enough. I had been trying to avoid killing anyone, and I must have lessened the blow too much. They were still standing, though briefly stunned. Before the pair could collect themselves, I pointed, attaching the line from the ring on one man's finger, to the nose piercing that the other man sported. A tug on the line made the man's hand lash out lightning fast to smack the second man in the face so hard he collapsed with a nose that was spraying blood.
  
  Keeping the line attached to the man's ring, I quickly switched the other end so that it was linked to the zipper of his pants. Subsequently, he punched himself in the groin so hard he literally started to throw up after collapsing.
  
  Each of the three men were all down, in various states of agony, and I finally turned my attention to the person that had gained my other power's attention. The dark red line had faded once more, and the figure was already picking themselves up off the ground.
  
  "Ugghn..." She groaned, shaking her head slowly before focusing my way, giving me my first glimpse at who I had saved.
  
  "Who the hell are you?" Shadow Stalker, Sophia demanded.
  
  1.04
  
  It was all I could do not to lash out physically at the sight of Sophia in her Shadow Stalker guise. Honestly, I felt a little sick inside when I looked at her. She was a member of the Wards, a hero. She was supposed to help people, and be a beacon of hope and safety to the public. I didn't think that 'give a shit when your actions directly result in someone's death' was asking for too much.
  
  On the other hand, just because I had to restrain myself physically, didn't mean I had to do so vocally. Once I had recovered from the realization of who I had just saved, I immediately swept into an exaggerated bow. I deepened my voice slightly, hoping that combined with the muffling from the fabric against my mouth, and Sophia's own dismissal of helpless little Madison as prey would fully hide my identity. "No need to thank me, ma'am. Rescuing helpless damsels is part of the job."
  
  It took Sophia just a second to follow what I was implying. "Rescuing helpless- what the fuck?!" Her face was hidden behind the mask that had a stern woman's expression designed on the front of it, but I read enough of her body language to know that she was angry.
  
  That and it was Sophia, so 'angry' pretty much went with the territory.
  
  I held my hands up placatingly. "Careful, you've had a bit of a rough night. I know meeting a real superhero is exciting, but take it easy."
  
  Furious now, Sophia grabbed for the crossbow at her side. "I don't know who the hell you think you are, but-"
  
  As the crossbow came off her belt, I extended a hand, linking the weapon to my glove and giving a pull so that the crossbow flew out of Sophia's hand and straight to my own. I turned the weapon over, making a show of examining it as I raised my voice in mock excitement. "A present, for me?! No, please, I couldn't possibly. A hero doesn't need payment to do the right thing."
  
  While Sophia stood, briefly shocked into silence from the force of her disbelief and anger, I tossed the crossbow aside and held my arms open as though waiting for a hug. "Shhh. I know you were scared, but I'm here now, you're safe."
  
  That did it. With an inarticulate cry, Sophia lunged toward me, her shape turning indistinct as she used her shadow powers. I just lifted one foot slightly, put a line between my boot and the ground, and gave a hard push to propel myself a good fifteen feet into the air so that she would pass through the empty space where I had been. Turning in the air, I used a slight pull from one of my gloves to the nearby wall before lowering the intensity of the push so that gravity would set me back down a few yards away.
  
  "No, no. Sorry." I made my voice sound consoling. "No autographs today."
  
  Spotting her crossbow nearby where I had tossed it, Sophia dove that way and snatched it up. She turned, but before either of us could do anything else, a figure flew down from the sky and landed between us.
  
  When he straightened and looked toward me, I recognized Aegis, the current team leader of the Brockton Bay Wards. His costume was rust red with silver-white trim and an emblem of a shield. He also wore a matching helmet that covered his face.
  
  "What's going on?" He asked, looking between Sophia and me.
  
  Holding her crossbow in one hand, Sophia gestured for Aegis to move. "Out of my way. Some smartass needs a lesson."
  
  The boy seemed to ignore that, turning back toward me. "You wanna tell me who you are?"
  
  Sophia made a motion as though to move around Aegis, and I saw the area around her distort, the street and building beyond where she was standing seeming to scrunch up together, almost like an accordion of images. Then another pair of figures moved through the distorted space, and when it moved back top normal, two more had joined us. There was Vista in her green and white swirly costume with the skirt and clearly optimistic breastplate, and Gallant in his gunmetal and silver armored costume that made him look like a science fiction hero's take on a medieval knight.
  
  Vista stood with a hand up against Sophia's arm while speaking to their team leader. "She saved Shadow Stalker."
  
  "Bullshit!" Sophia declared vehemently. She shook the youngest Ward member's hand off her arm. "She just got in my way."
  
  "It's okay, Stalker." Gallant spoke for the first time. I noticed that he had also moved beside Aegis, putting the both of them between Sophia and me. "We'll work it out. All that matters is that the bad guys are down."
  
  From the way Sophia was standing, she didn't quite agree with that assessment. "What the hell are you even doing here?"
  
  There was a little reproach in Aegis's voice as he answered. "Vista called in for backup when you took off on your own. You know she's not supposed to be doing solo patrols yet."
  
  Most of the top of Vista's face was hidden by her green visor, but I still recognized her scowl. I wasn't sure that it had happened exactly as Aegis said, but the younger girl apparently wasn't willing to argue with him. Whether her reluctance to disagree was more because of my presence or Sophia's, I couldn't say.
  
  "So like I said, what do we call you?" The leader of the Wards focused on me once more as he restated the question, now with Vista and Gallant watching me curiously as well, while Sophia just seemed to scowl and look away in annoyance.
  
  I hesitated, reconsidering a few times. Was there a better name I could use? Should I even give a name? Was the name that I'd chosen too silly or stupid?
  
  Then again, this was a team that let someone like Sophia stay. I could already tell that they didn't really get along with her, yet they'd still let her get away with murder if she just kept calling herself a teammate. So what the hell did I care what they thought of my name?
  
  "Tether." I answered after that brief pause. "Call me Tether."
  
  "Tether." Aegis echoed before nodding. "Right, well thanks for..." He paused, glancing over his shoulder at Sophia before turning back to me. "... assisting our teammate. Vista, could you use the zipties on those guys before they wake up, and call in the nearest Black and white to pick them up? Assuming there were no capes in the mix?" I shook my head, and he gave the nod for the younger girl to go ahead.
  
  While Vista was busy with that, Aegis stepped closer to me. "So listen, it looks like you did good here."
  
  "Well." Gallant interrupted. "She did well here."
  
  "That too." Aegis replied. It sounded like he was smiling. "Well and good. Point is, if you'd like to join us, the Wards could always use another pair of hands."
  
  I felt a wave of intense disgust wash over me at the very thought of joining a team that would keep a psychopath like Sophia on their payroll. It was obvious that she did little, if anything, to disguise her sociopathy. Yet they kept her around anyway. They made excuses for her actions. They let her get away with it. The thought of voluntarily allying myself with that kind of attitude, to say nothing of actually unmasking so that Sophia would know who I was, brought an almost physical sense of revulsion.
  
  A few feet away, Gallant actually staggered a little, as though I had hit him. The other Wards turned, but before the boy could speak up, I noticed something much more concerning. Sprouting from my chest was not just a single dark red line, but three. All were stretched out and around the corner.
  
  "Help." I said immediately. If my power was telling me that three people were in immediate mortal danger, I needed assistance. Even if Sophia was part of that assistance. My disgust at her insanity, and at the Wards acceptance of it, wasn't worth more than people's lives.
  
  "What?" Aegis glanced my way, distracted from checking on his teammate, who was waving him off and gazing at me with what felt like curiosity.
  
  "People need help." I said firmly, extending a hand toward the nearby building. "Trust me, if we don't haul ass, three people are gonna die."
  
  With that much said, I connected a line to the building rooftop and launched myself forward and up.
  
  It wasn't hard to follow the red lines. They seemed to tug me onward, urging me to move faster. I kept going until I heard a sudden burst of gunfire from the direction of the lines, then homed in on the sound.
  
  Another sustained round of automatic weapon fire greeted me as I hit the ground just behind a line of four men who were shooting at something massive that was rushing toward them. Connecting the barrels of each of their guns to the pavement, I forced the weapons to drop out of their hands, a second before some kind of car-sized monster-dog slammed into the group and sent them scattering like bowling pins.
  
  "Holy crap, Lassie." I uttered out loud. "You keep juicing like that, and they'll totally take your home run record away."
  
  The monster animal lunged my way now that its original prey were sprawled out every which direction. I launched myself skyward to avoid its lunge, extended a hand to snag a line against the ground nearby, and landed somewhere behind it, trying to get an idea of what was going on.
  
  There was a flickering light in the windows of the building that I had landed near, which I now recognized as flames. In the doorway to my left, a blonde female figure in a violet and black skintight costume was slumped, unmoving. One of my red lines pointed her way, while the second was connected to a figure in what looked like dark motorcycle leathers and a helmet with a stylized skull on the front, who was also lying on the ground without moving.
  
  A sharp whistle interrupted my assessment, and the nightmare dog tore back to leap over my head. It landed ahead of me, rushing to join a solidly built girl with auburn hair, who was standing next to the unmoving form of another of the massive canines as though protecting it. From the sight of the plastic dog mask on her face, it seemed rather obvious that Lassie belonged to her. The third line was connected to this girl.
  
  Slightly to the side of her was a boy who looked like he'd gotten lost on the way to a renaissance faire, with his billowy white shirt, skintight leggings, and crown. He even carried a scepter, while his own face was hidden behind a simple mask.
  
  The boy and girl, and their giant dog friend, stood facing down another figure. The man looked to be almost eight feet tall. His face was hidden behind a metal dragon mask, and I could see various dragon tattoos all over his exposed chest, though some kind of silver metallic scales were growing to cover those designs.
  
  With a deafening howl, the giant dog monster lunged for the standing figure. He just stood there, caught the dog's jaws and howled back in its face like a madman, then pivoted and pitched the animal hard into the wall. It didn't rise again, even as the girl in the dog mask shouted something in anger.
  
  Beside me, I saw Aegis come in for a landing. He had carried Gallant. Vista distorted space a little to the side of where we were, and came through it along with Sophia.
  
  When he saw what we were facing, I heard Aegis curse under his breath. "Kid," he said to no one in particular that I could see. "Call in Armsmaster and whoever else is nearby. Lung's here, and he's already amped up."
  
  "We're gonna need some help."
  
  1.5
  
  Lung. The leader of the ABB. One of the most dangerous super-powered criminals in the city. He had fought the entire local Protectorate to a standstill and the best they'd managed was something like a tie.
  
  We were so screwed.
  
  He was already growing bigger as a result of his little altercation with the dog, letting out a roar before starting toward the spot where the boy and girl still stood. Partway there, his arm twitched up and the beast punched himself in the face, staggering in mid-step. I'd seen the boy in the Ren Faire costume jerk the hand with the scepter up at the same time. It didn't seem to slow Lung for more than a second however, and the boy turned to retreat.
  
  On the other hand, girl in the dog mask stood her ground, keeping herself between the rushing villain and one of her unconscious dogs. I had the nagging suspicion that she was about to try punching the guy.
  
  It was Aegis, however, who did the punching. He'd flown straight up after calling for backup, and now he flew down again, fists outstretched until he slammed straight into Lung's shoulders, driving the now ten foot tall monster down into the ground barely a foot from his target.
  
  For her part, the dog mask girl promptly lashed out with a foot to kick the briefly fallen beast in the face. It barely seemed to register, as the scale armoring by that point had spread to cover the rest of his body.
  
  It wasn't an attack that she'd be able to try again, as flames were already spreading over Lung's body, engulfing him with enough heat to start melting the concrete beneath himself. I could see the girl forced to back up, pressing herself against the fallen dog while Lung began to straighten.
  
  Abruptly, the ground just behind the briefly prone beast began to distort and twist, bending down and around to create a hole. Aegis, whose skin had been turned black and red in the spots where the armor had failed from the heat, rolled off of Lung and fell onto his back in front of the beast. He raised both feet, reared back, and then kicked the monstrous cape in the shoulders as hard as he could. The blow was enough to send Lung sliding backwards and partway into the hole that Vista had created.
  
  As soon as the ABB leader had fallen halfway inside the hole, Vista, who was still standing beside me, made a gesture and pushed the space around the ground together, closing it in once more and pinning him in place.
  
  Immediately, Gallant began to pelt Lung with several quick blasts of concussive energy that, if I remembered correctly, could alter the emotions of the person he was hitting with them. If he was altering Lung's emotions, it didn't really seem to have much effect. The man gave another roar and began to break his way out of the pavement that trapped him.
  
  Though all of that, I had simply stood in place, frozen from fear. Random thugs were one thing, even if they were armed with guns. Guns were things I could just yank away from people. But Lung? He was a monster. Worse, he was a monster who literally kept getting stronger the longer that you fought him. I was so far out of my league it was ridiculous. What the hell was I supposed to do, besides play the part of the wayward traffic cone for Lung's out-of-control bus to run over on its way to something vaguely threatening?
  
  Simply put, I was scared, and I froze. Someone shoved me aside, as Sophia pushed past me, muttering something about rookie cowards getting the hell out of her way. She brought up both of her crossbows, having retrieved the other one from wherever it had been, and shot a pair of darts against Lung's metal scales. The darts remained shadowy and insubstantial until they had passed through the armor plating before they solidified.
  
  It definitely got the man's attention. He let out an inarticulate bellow as he straightened, shoving the last remains of the concrete off of himself. An even hotter burst of flame melted the bolts that were sticking out of his back, and he grunted slightly while whirling toward us. Sophia shot another pair of bolts at him, but he swiped these out of the way contemptuously.
  
  Aegis made to punch the gang leader in the side, but Lung didn't even look at him as he brought a hand down to engulf the young hero's head, squeezed tightly to lift him off the ground, then set him directly on fire before pitching the now flaming missile straight at Sophia. She turned shadowy, and let the burning Aegis pass through her to crash somewhere out in the street.
  
  He was coming straight at us then, and Sophia wasted no time throwing herself out of the way. Vista, on the other hand, grabbed my hand and yanked me backwards. We took one step, and suddenly the pair of us were out in the street where Aegis was rolling around, trying to put the flames out.
  
  Finally, finally I snapped out of my frozen terror. Reaching a hand out toward the nearby fire hydrant, I anchored one end of a line to the end of the hydrant, and the other end to the street. Then I pulled hard against the hydrant, yanking the cap off and sending a geyser of water into the road. As soon as he saw it, Aegis managed to roll that way, making the water engulf him and put out the flames.
  
  Gallant sent two more blasts at where Lung was, then shook his head before calling out to us. "He's got so much anger! I'm trying to calm him down, but it's like bailing a rowboat with a tablespoon. I need more time!"
  
  It didn't look like time was something he was going to get. The massive beast of a criminal had already oriented back toward the boy who looked like an escapee from a science fiction King Arthur story and raised a hand to direct a fireball that way. Gallant barely managed to throw himself out of its path, and was prone on the ground when the man prepared a second volley.
  
  "Hey stupid!" Some idiot called out.
  
  He whirled, and I realized, oh crap, the idiot is me.
  
  Trying not to gulp too obviously, I waved a hand. "Lung, seriously? Who's your archenemy, the Marlboro Man?!"
  
  A growl escaped the huge, armored man, and he pivoted to face me. I managed, somehow, to avoid wetting myself at my own success in getting his attention. Instead, I assumed a thinking position, tapping my head a few times as though considering. "Wait, wait, I've got it. Someone told you that lung cancer kills, and you were too stupid to realize that it was the cancer that was the deadly part."
  
  By that point, Vista and Aegis were both staring at me like I was insane. I'm pretty sure they both took a step away from me as well. Not that I could blame them for that.
  
  "Get him." I said to Aegis, pointing to Gallant. "And follow us so he can keep hitting the guy."
  
  "Follow you where?" The leader of the Wards threw up his hands in confusion.
  
  Lung was already throwing himself my way, so I extended a hand toward a nearby billboard and connected it to my glove while responding. "I dunno, is the opera in town?" The line yanked me off the ground and sent me flying back toward the billboard just as Lung landed where I had been even as I called back over my shoulder. "Because we could really use a fat lady!"
  
  Just as I reached and landed on top of the advertisement for some local fast food place, Lung had gathered himself and then leapt after me with another bellow of rage. I gave him a quick wave, then connected one of my lines from the bottom of my boot to the billboard and shoved myself hard up and away from it. I went a dozen feet into the air and backwards, while Lung hurtled himself through the sign, leaving a hole behind.
  
  Another line attached me to a passing car, and I let it haul me a good twenty feet through the air before finding a nearby building to latch onto with a separate line. This was followed rapidly by an elevated train track, a tall antennae, another car, and the statue in a nearby park that let me turn the corner there and propel myself down another side street.
  
  Through it all, Lung kept chasing me, bellowing once in awhile. It was all I could do to stay out of the reach of his flames. My pants may have been fire retardant, but I didn't think they had rated them against a giant, screaming rage dragon when they made that notation. To say nothing of the rest of my so-called costume. Frankly, I wasn't sure it was going to survive all the sweating I was doing, let alone any actual hit from those flames.
  
  Somewhere behind us, I occasionally caught glimpses of Aegis, carrying Gallant and trying to keep up while the other hero sent blast after blast of emotion changing energy into the enormous Lung. Again and again, he pelted the armored beast, trying to calm him down.
  
  It was working. Lord help us all, but it was working, albeit slowly. Without a direct target to actively fight, since I wasn't stupid enough to stand there and trade blows with the guy, Lung was gradually being affected by the emotion blasts. It was subtle, but he was definitely slowing slightly, and I thought I could see him getting smaller as we went on. It was also getting easier to stay ahead of him, and his flame blasts were coming further apart, and not traveling quite as far.
  
  One blast after another, he was slowly losing his rage and thus his power. I was able to keep hauling myself just out of his reach, so he didn't have a direct fight to keep himself amped up against the calming blasts that Gallant was sending at him.
  
  Finally, the man had shrunk so much he couldn't keep leaping after me. He fell, landing heavily on the top of a roof. I oriented myself to land on the edge of the same roof, while Aegis and Gallant came down on the other end, the latter sending several more blasts into Lung's now prone form, just to be sure.
  
  Everyone, myself included, held our breaths as we watched the man. He shifted a little, clearly trying in vain to hold onto his anger. Then he slumped once more, falling flat to the roof before the sound of snoring reached us.
  
  "Someone," Aegis's voice was soft, as though he was afraid of speaking too loud and waking Lung up. "Needs to get this guy locked in foam."
  
  I hesitated before speaking up. "What about the people that he was attacking?" A glance down revealed that the red lines had disappeared, but I had to be sure.
  
  It took Aegis a moment to answer, and from the tilt of his head, he was listening to someone else. Finally, he looked back at me. "They were villains, the Undersiders. Vista says Shadow Stalker pretty much sat on top of Grue, the guy in the skull helmet. So they've got him. Hellhound escaped with her dogs, Regent, the other guy, scrammed before we even got Lung's attention, and Tattletale was gone when they went to grab her."
  
  So it had been a villain on villain fight. Still, from what I knew about the Undersiders, they didn't really deserve to die. Especially not in a fight against someone like Lung. And even if the idea of Sophia capturing anyone made my skin crawl, at least he had been a bad guy. And Vista had been there to stop the other girl from going too far on the unconscious Grue.
  
  Still, it meant that this Regent, Hellhound, and Tattletale had escaped. I couldn't decide how I felt about that.
  
  Before I could focus too much on it, Gallant took a step my way. He held a card toward me. "In case you change your mind, or just want to talk." I held a hand out, connecting a line to the card and my glove to pull it to me. Yeah, at that point I was showing off. Sue me.
  
  "It's my Wards e-mail address and phone number." Gallant explained. "Keep in touch."
  
  "He's right." Aegis added with a nod. "You did good-" He winked at the other boy. "-and well tonight. We could use someone like you. Even if you are insane."
  
  Then why do you keep someone like Sophia around?! I wanted to scream at them. Once again, Gallant gave a shudder, and looked like he was about to ask something.
  
  I didn't give him the chance. Reaching a hand out toward another building, I replied as evenly as I could while the disgust rolled through me. "Yeah, maybe we can team up again sometime. Just put a giant spotlight with my symbol on it in the sky."
  
  As I started to let the tether pull me away, Aegis called, "We don't know what your symbol is!"
  
  "Good point!" I shouted back to him. "Make it giant laser letters across the sky that say, 'Totally Awesome Girl Who Kicked Lung's Ass'. That outta narrow it down for me!"
  
  Then I was gone, letting the invisible line yank me out of their sight. Later, I would let myself fall down and start shaking from the shock of everything that had just happened, what I had survived.
  
  But right now, right now I just wanted to close my eyes, let the wind rush over me as I rushed through the air, and remind myself that I really wasn't dead. I had survived my first night out, which had been much more eventful than I had expected.
  
  Totally worth blowing off that 'how have capes affected the world' assignment from Mr. Gladly.
  
  Interlude 1 - Wards
  
  As soon as the tinker-made elevator doors slid open on the Wards level of the Brockton Bay Parahuman Response Division headquarters building, the red haired teenage boy who had been leaning against the wall next to them straightened with an eager grin. "Is it true?" He asked while the doors were still opening. "Did you really bring in Lung without any help from the adults? Man, I bet that made Armsmaster feel like a..."
  
  "Feel like a what, Clockblocker?" Armsmaster, standing in his armored suit behind the line of the boy's teammates (a couple of whom had been attempting frantically to wave him off with muted hand gestures down at their waists).
  
  "Uhhhhhhhhh..." Dennis's brain stalled for a moment as he stared with wide blue eyes at the leader of the local Protectorate. The man's visor hid the top half of his face, but his mouth was not exactly smiling. Then again, the man rarely smiled at all. "Feel like a... really good teacher." Dennis let his head bob up and down quickly. "I mean, if we're this good, you must be... like..." At a loss for words, he simply whistled appreciatively.
  
  "You are such a retard." Shadow Stalker announced dismissively before namesaking her way past him to head for the security door entrance.
  
  "You shouldn't say retard." Missy, Vista in the field, scolded as she emerged from the elevator along with a rather toasty looking Aegis, and Gallant.
  
  Sophia, who was taking her mask off with one hand as she walked to the door, used her other hand to flip the younger girl off. Then she leaned in toward the security terminal and let the retinal scanner read her eye before the steel doors slid aside.
  
  It was, Dennis noted, probably better than a rectal scanner. The damn thing wouldn't have been able to get a clear reading past the enormous stick his teammate had jammed up there.
  
  At a gesture from Armsmaster, the rest of the group made their way through the doors as well. They joined Sophia, who had already tossed mask and crossbows aside, and was giving the heavy punching bag a once over in the corner, and Chris/Kid Win, who was still watching the monitors.
  
  "Debriefing time?" Chris asked, spinning his chair away from the console.
  
  Nodding, Armsmaster gestured to the other chairs. "Everybody take a seat. Let's figure out what just happened." When Sophia continued to attack the bag, he cleared his throat until she finally relented and stalked over to one of the seats.
  
  "So like I was saying," Dennis, turning one of the chairs around so that he could sit on it the wrong way, interrupted. "Did you really bring in Lung?"
  
  "Lung is in custody, along with Grue from the Undersiders." Gallant confirmed with a nod, prompting a pair of whoops from the two Wards members who hadn't been there.
  
  Aegis/Carlos, who had removed his helmet and the ruined top half of his costume, stood nearby while gingerly testing the burns on his skin. His power, which made him all but unkillable by granting him numerous backup organs as well as making other organs take over the processes of ones that had been damaged, would also eventually heal what had been done by the burns. "We didn't do it alone."
  
  Sophia made a disparaging noise and folded her arms. "Practically."
  
  Ignoring her, Armsmaster looked at Aegis. "That's what I want to talk about. Tell me everything that happened, and everything you know about this girl."
  
  "Girl?" Chris spoke up, interestedly. "What girl?"
  
  "She called herself Tether." Gallant/Dean offered, glancing toward Sophia for some reason. "I got the impression this was her first time out."
  
  "Makes sense." Armsmaster agreed. "We haven't heard anything about her until tonight. Powers?"
  
  Carlos and Dean glanced toward one another for a moment, and it was Missy who spoke. "Telekinesis?" She sounded unsure.
  
  "Really?" Dennis was interested now. "Like, full scale tk?"
  
  "We're not exactly sure on that." Dean admitted.
  
  Missy, clearly excited by the idea of another potential girl in the group besides herself and Cranky Pants, put in, "She could fly."
  
  Carlos hesitated once more. "She wasn't... exactly flying. She was more... gliding or swinging. Or..."
  
  "It was almost like a zipline thing." Dean offered a little helplessly. "She'd point at something and a second later, it was like her arm was being pulled that way."
  
  "Maybe an invisible telekinetic servant force of some kind, that follows her directive to carry her around." Armsmaster considered. "Like the boy in Chicago who transforms himself into a telekinetic whirlwind."
  
  Rather than continue to speculate blindly, Gallant moved to the console. "I took some pictures with my helmet cam."
  
  "Because that's not creepy at all." Dennis muttered under his breath.
  
  Where most of his teammates would have given him the evil eye, Dean just laughed. "I thought everyone else might like to know what she looks like, for future reference." He ran his fingers over the keyboard after plugging his helmet's computer in, then straightened away from it as the image of the girl in question standing on the roof after Lung had been brought down came onto the screen.
  
  "Cheap costume." Armsmaster observed clinically. "So she's not a tinker, and she's working alone, most likely."
  
  "This was when she left." Gallant advanced the pictures through a short series of slides that showed the girl stretch an arm out, then let herself be pulled along seemingly by the hand.
  
  "Looks a bit like Spider-Man's webswinging to me." Armsmaster, arms folded as he watched the screen, put in.
  
  The Wards stared at him blankly. Chris offered, "Spider-Who?"
  
  "Eww." Missy shuddered. "Is there really a spider-themed cape out there?"
  
  Armsmaster looked a bit affronted and taken aback. "No, Spider-Man. It was a... you know what, never mind. It's before your time. Before real super powers. Comic books." With the advent of real life super heroes whose exploits and stories people could follow, the fictional variety had fallen out style before any of the current Wards had been born.
  
  "Well, she's definitely being pulled by something." Dennis pointed to the picture on the screen. "See how her glove is straining forward, pulling the rest of her along after it?"
  
  Carlos nodded, rubbing his own shoulder. "I'm surprised one of her arms didn't get ripped out of its socket, the way she was throwing herself around in the air."
  
  Examining the picture for himself, Armsmaster nodded. "So, likely a minor breaker ability, keeping herself in one piece when she swings around like that. We'll note it as a Breaker level one for now, and for the telekinesis or... whatever it is, a tentative Shaker level five or six until we have a better idea of what exactly she's doing with it. Any idea on strength level for it?"
  
  Dean answered, "She tore the lid off a fire hydrant pretty easily with it. And Vista said that she was able to control two of the men who attacked Sophia into beating themselves up."
  
  "Body control?" Armsmaster grimaced.
  
  Missy shrugged helplessly. "That's sort of what it looked like from where I was. One of the guys just punched the other one in the face, then he hit himself in the umm... yeah." She gestured vaguely, and every male in the room blanched.
  
  "Shaker Six, Breaker One. Anything else?" Armsmaster prompted.
  
  It was Carlos who responded, after he, Dean, and Missy looked at one another. "She... knew that the Undersiders were in danger."
  
  Frowning, Armsmaster shook his head. "Come again?"
  
  "It's true." Missy offered. "She said that three people were going to die if we didn't follow her, then she just jumped away. And when we got there, Lung was about to kill the Undersiders."
  
  "There's four Undersiders." Chris pointed out mildly.
  
  "Regent ran away." Sophia finally put in, her mouth twisted in a contemptuous smirk. "Coward."
  
  "That's three." Armsmaster said slowly, looking to them. "She really said three, specifically?"
  
  They nodded. Dean added, "It was like something told her they were in trouble. Not who, more like... a direction and a warning."
  
  Considering that, Armsmaster shook his head. "A Thinker ability that tells her when people nearby are in trouble. Maybe that's how she found Shadow Stalker."
  
  Sophia bristled at that. "I could have taken those guys."
  
  Dennis grinned at the volatile girl. "Sure, I bet you were really luring them in with that whole 'sprawled out on the ground, totally helpless while the bad guys stand over you with weapons' routine."
  
  Growling, Sophia half rose from her seat. "Look you stupid little-"
  
  Armsmaster swung his halberd off his shoulder and put it in front of the girl. "Are we about to have a problem?"
  
  Freezing as the weapon was placed in her way, Sophia frowned for a moment, then used her power to slide backwards through her own chair before straightening. "Whatever," she muttered. "I need a shower. Let me know when you're done gushing over some stupid wannabe."
  
  Rather than object to the girl leaving, Armsmaster continued the debriefing. "Some death sense or something. Seems to be rather short range and short warning, so we'll call it Thinker Two, since it does involve some small measure of future sense."
  
  Chris whistled low. "Shaker Six, Breaker One, Thinker Two. We could use her."
  
  Missy was nodding emphatically. "Especially since she's a girl. This must be the only city in the country where the boys outnumber the girls so much in the Wards." It was a well known, if little understood fact that more females ended up triggering than males.
  
  "Did you make the offer?" Armsmaster asked them.
  
  Carlos shrugged helplessly, wincing a little at the pain the gesture caused his burned body. "Of course we did. It didn't really help. We might as well have spat on her food and tried to sell it back to her, for how she reacted."
  
  Frowning, Armsmaster gazed at the boy. "Her outfit looks that cheaply made, she's got some kind of sense that spurs her to help people in trouble, and she still turned down an offer to join the Wards? That doesn't sound right."
  
  Straightening from his seat, Dean took a step back and gazed after the way that Sophia had gone, before speaking up. "Sir, I don't think she was reacting to the idea of the Wards in general."
  
  Having followed the course of the boy's gaze, Armsmaster looked that way as well. "Explain."
  
  "I felt disgust, contempt, and confusion whenever we brought up joining us." Dean continued after a moment. "Loads of it. But there was also the same feeling whenever she looked at Shadow Stalker."
  
  Missy raised her hand before speaking up. "I don't think she knew who she was saving at first. When she found out, it looked like she was taunting Sophia, goading and insulting her. Sophia was going to attack her before we showed up."
  
  "Sounds like she has a history with Shadow Stalker." Armsmaster mused.
  
  "Maybe a classmate?" Chris put in from his own seat.
  
  The Protectorate hero considered that for a moment before shaking his head. "Probably not. Shadow Stalker was masked the whole time, and you said this Tether reacted badly the second she saw who it was. No, my guess is that she's someone Stalker has a history with in costume."
  
  Aegis grimaced. "Didn't Sophia have that whole 'don't save someone unless they stand up for themselves' thing before she joined us? Maybe Tether's one of those."
  
  Armsmaster nodded. "That's my guess. Try looking into the last six months of information we have about people that Shadow Stalker was involved with."
  
  "Before or after she joined up?" Chris asked.
  
  The man hesitated, then sighed. "Both. She says she's being better, but we should look into her... 'rescuees' either way. Whoever this Tether is, I would bet that she's one of the girls that Shadow Stalker either refused to help, or helped too late."
  
  Once he had nods from everyone, Armsmaster went on. "Now, let's talk about how your group is going to track down the other three Undersiders before they have time to regroup and rescue their leader..."
  
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  Arc 2: Rise
  "Did you hear about the Undersiders hitting the bank yesterday?"
  
  It was a few days after I'd helped bring Lung down. I wasn't the one being spoken to. I wasn't even involved in the conversation. Instead, I was standing just around the corner from the group of lockers where, up until a few months earlier, Sophia, Emma, and I had all held court. Ever since things had gone downhill on that front, I tried to avoid being there when the others were. Sometimes it worked, other times it didn't. This was one of the days that I had heard them before coming around the corner.
  
  It was lunchtime, so if I stood here and waited long enough, they'd head out for one of the nearby fast food junk places.
  
  Sophia's contempt and annoyance was audible even from where I stood. "I heard."
  
  On the other hand, I hadn't heard a thing about the middle-of-the-day bank robbery until yesterday evening. I was rather annoyed to admit that I'd been napping through the lunch hour in the school library at the time.
  
  One of the several interchangeable hangers-on that were still vying for a permanent place in my old spot spoke up then. "Weren't they supposed to go quiet when the Wards caught their leader?"
  
  "The Wards and that new girl." Another contestant for the third Queen Bee slot pointed out. "Someone on Twitter said that she did most of the work."
  
  Welp. I thought to myself. There goes all that progress she was making to take my place. Poor thing.
  
  The way the locker slammed a second later seemed to verify my assumption, and in the brief silence that followed, I could easily picture the glare that Sophia was sending at the other girl. Her words were terse. "I read about it. She didn't do that much."
  
  Emma, loyal little lapdog that she was, quickly jumped in. "Anyway, the Wards weren't even at full strength when they tried to stop the Undersiders. They left Shadow Stalker behind." I could imagine the glance for approval that she was giving toward Sophia before she went on. "That's why they lost."
  
  It was a boy who spoke next, one of several who had been orbiting Sophia angling for the best opportunity to ask her to the next dance. "Might have something to do with their new members."
  
  New members? I perked up, interested now. I hadn't had a chance to read very much about what had happened. Did the Undersiders somehow recruit people after they lost their leader.
  
  The girl whose stock with Sophia was clearly plummeting jumped on that. "I heard that one of them was Browbeat."
  
  "Yeah, what the hell's up with that?" The boy replied. "I thought Browbeat was a good guy. Independent, but a good guy."
  
  Another girl gave a little laugh. "I guess he decided being a villain paid more. Because that was definitely Browbeat helping the Undersiders with the bank job."
  
  "Who cares about that?" One of the boys wanted to know. "I'm more interested in that girl with Clockblocker's power. Who was she?"
  
  It was Emma who answered. "She was calling herself Freezetag. And it's not exactly Clockblocker's power. It sounds like when she touches someone, you like... can't move until someone else touches you."
  
  The boy asked blankly, "How is that different from Clockster?"
  
  Emma, sounding annoyed, explained. "Because Clockblocker freezes people and things in time. This Freezetag chick just makes it so you can't move. After it was over, people were saying that they could still see things and look around with their eyes, or blink, even talk if they didn't move their lips very much. They just couldn't move their bodies. And it wore off as soon as someone else touched them."
  
  So we'd taken Grue away from the Undersiders, and they had responded by adding two members to their ranks; the super-strong Browbeat, and some girl named Freezetag who could lock people in place.
  
  Not exactly a net loss on their part, especially if they eventually managed to rescue their leader with the help of their new members to top everything off.
  
  While I was pondering that, I heard Emma complain, "That really, really stinks."
  
  Someone else laughed before asking, "Do you think she's seen it yet?"
  
  "No." There was almost palpable smugness in Sophia's voice. "She hasn't seen it yet."
  
  Oh, great. Something else to deal with. What had they done now? I considered just turning around and walking the other way. But I needed some of the stuff out of my locker, including the book I'd been reading. It was stupid, leaving anything in my locker. Taylor had learned better than that early on.
  
  I sighed. Obviously the reason the group had obviously been stalling was that they were waiting for me so they could see my reaction to whatever they had planned.
  
  Well screw that. Sophia may be convinced that I was prey in her fucked up mindset, but it was obvious that she should've failed biology, because there were plenty of so-called 'prey' animals that were dangerous as hell when you pushed them the wrong way.
  
  Risking a peek around the corner, I saw Sophia standing there with a soda bottle in one hand, accompanied by the model-perfect Emma and surrounded by their lackeys and entourage. I could also see my locker just beyond, but I couldn't tell what they had done to it from there.
  
  I had resolved not to use my power at school, but in this case, I was ready to make an exception. The last several days since 'Tether' had humiliated Sophia had been rough. She'd had no idea that it was me, of course, but she had still clearly been working out her frustration. Whatever this was clearly stemmed from that as well.
  
  As Sophia started to raise the bottle so that she could twist the cap off, I focused on it. Connecting a line from the inside of the cap to the bottom of the bottle, I held it in place, generating just enough of a pull that the other girl's first few attempts to pull the lid off were futile.
  
  I let her get just frustrated enough to yank hard at the bottle, then released it. At the same time, I connected a line from the back of her shirt to my locker. When she stumbled off balance from the sudden release, I gave the slightest of tugs with the second line so that she was drawn backwards against the locker in a way that would hopefully seem completely natural. Then, once she hit the locker, I connected a line from my locker door to the floor and gave just enough of a yank to make it pop open. In the end, it would look like she had strained to open the soda cap, stumbled when it abruptly gave way, hit my locker, and the door had accidentally popped open.
  
  Even though I had guessed that they'd done something to my locker, I couldn't have expected what came next. The second the locker opened, a veritable explosion of brown and green stuff collapsed from within. It fell all over Sophia, coating her dark skin, and getting into her hair and clothes while she screeched in surprise.
  
  The stench reached me just as everyone else recoiled in disgust. Manure. They had loaded my locker completely full of manure so that when I opened it, the shit would fall out all over me.
  
  Yeah, screw you, Sophia.
  
  A couple of the guys started to laugh, and were instantly silenced by the now-manure covered girl's death glare. She shook herself off frantically, then whirled on Emma. "I thought you said you closed that thing!"
  
  Emma's eyes were wide as she waved at her nose desperately. "I did! It was! I mean... I mean it should've been."
  
  Most of the group decided to take off then, making the excuse that they were going to miss lunch completely if they didn't get going. A few wandered off another way, saying they weren't hungry after all that. Sophia was left with just Emma and a few of the most desperate girls as she kicked my locker door hard enough to dent it in a little, then stomped off down the hall toward the restroom.
  
  Once they were gone, I decided to see how much damage had been done. Trying to hold my nose, I gradually made my way out to the locker and then sighed. There was so much manure piled up in the locker and on the floor around it that I could barely understand how they had closed the door to begin with.
  
  Gingerly, I stepped closer and tried to peer into the locker. As I was assessing how much damage had been done, someone spoke up from behind me.
  
  "Wow, that really reeks."
  
  Rolling my eyes, I started to turn around. "Yeah, I get it. You guys are soooo clever. I'm amazed by your..."
  
  I had to trail off, because the boy who stood behind me wasn't one of Sophia's lackeys. In fact, I didn't recognize him at all. He was a sort of gangly boy with red hair and thin lips, who looked taken aback when I whirled on him.
  
  "Sorry." I managed. "I thought you were... someone else."
  
  The red head boy gave an easy smile at that. "That figures. Girls are always looking for somebody else." He extended a hand. "Dennis."
  
  I hesitated, raising an eyebrow before slowly accepting his handshake. "Madison."
  
  Leaning slightly to look past me at the manure, Dennis asked, "Not a science project gone wrong, then?"
  
  I snorted, shaking my head. "More like a disagreement with someone who really doesn't like people disagreeing with her."
  
  "I know the type." The boy replied, then looked around. "Where's the janitor? If this happened at Arcadia, there'd already be someone shining the floor."
  
  Right, he was from Arcadia, the good high school. So what the hell was he doing here? I shrugged at the question. "Probably outside smoking a joint." Then I blinked with exaggerated confusion and innocent. "Wait, isn't that what janitors are supposed to do? I knew there was a reason I failed that vocational questionnaire."
  
  He made a noise that was somewhere between a laugh and a choke of disbelief, shaking his head briefly before blinking past me. "What-awww no." Reaching out, he tugged a paperback book out from under the mess in my locker. It was ruined. "You're reading the Seventh Reach series?"
  
  I flushed a little bit. I hadn't really been much of a reader before everything that had happened. But Taylor had been, and I was trying to do a few of the things that she would have done, sort of in her memory. I had also been interested in the series because it was an odd mixture of post apocalyptic and steam-punk, and the main character used a grappling hook device that had given me a few ideas about my own powers.
  
  "Yeah." I muttered. "Or I was reading it. But I was only halfway through that one, and now the librarian's gonna flip the fuck out. She's not gonna let me even look at the rest of them cross eyed, let alone check any out."
  
  "I've got the series." Dennis replied easily. "I'll let you borrow them sometime."
  
  I blinked at that. "You don't even know me."
  
  "Sure I do." The boy replied cheerfully. "You're Madison. I'm Dennis." His voice lowered to a whisper. "You may have forgotten, but we met."
  
  I couldn't help it. I giggled, then coughed. "Well how will you know where to bring the books?"
  
  His answer was to wave his phone in my face. "You got a phone number?"
  
  "Wow." I winked at him. "You have a really convoluted way of getting a girl's phone number."
  
  He nodded sagely. "Wait for their locker to be filled with manure, swoop in and find a common interest, then offer to share that interest with them." His hand formed a thumbs up sign. "One hundred percent success rate so far."
  
  I snickered in spite of myself, and gave him my phone number, collecting his in exchange. Just as we finished that, I heard Sophia's voice. "What the hell are you doing here?"
  
  Turning that way, I started to speak, but Dennis responded first. "Looking for you."
  
  He was looking for Sophia? Huh? Wait. Did that mean... I gave Dennis what I hoped was a subtle examination. There was only one reason that I could think of for any of the Arcadia students, the school almost every single Ward was known to attend, to come here looking for Sophia.
  
  The boy went on. "The..." He glanced at me, then continued a little awkwardly. "... boss wants all hands on deck for the... project today." To me, Dennis added, "Sorry, after school job."
  
  "What project?" Sophia demanded. She had washed her hair out and changed clothes. I wasn't sure where the new clothes had come from. But there was still clearly a faint odor.
  
  Coughing, Dennis shrugged. "You know, the uhh... Grue... some one we were talking about."
  
  Oh my god, Sophia. I wanted to blurt. Get a clue. They're moving Grue and need all the Wards to make sure the Undersiders don't try anything.
  
  Finally getting it, Sophia gave me a dark look before shoving past. "I see you started keeping something useful in your locker, Mads. You're going to get so much further with that than you would with any textbooks."
  
  Then she was gone, and Dennis shook his head and sighed before starting to follow her. "Like I said," He called back to me. "I'll give you a call about those books. See you soon."
  
  I waited for them to go, then started to walk out as well, abandoning the mess on the floor. Maybe you'll see me sooner than you think. I thought silently. Because if the Undersiders do try to rescue Grue, I'm not missing it this time.
  
  Having the first hand experience that I did in the way that Sophia's mind worked when she was focused on making someone's life miserable, there had been no way that I was going to keep my costume (such as it was) in my locker or my backpack. It would have taken her or Emma roughly six seconds to find it.
  
  Instead, I had stored the clothes in a small garment bag, and stashed that on the roof of the school in an out of the way corner in between the raised edge of the roof and an air conditioning unit. The corner spot there had been so full of trash that I was certain my bag would go unnoticed. Plus, the upside of my cheap little costume was that if anyone did take it, I was out something like twenty-three bucks.
  
  It was a simple matter to grab the bag, check for anyone watching, and change. I was done and ready within three minutes from when Dennis and Sophia had left the school.
  
  Thankfully, I didn't have to go hunting for them. That could have taken forever, if I ever found them at all. But while I'd been changing, I had used my vantage point on the roof to watch the parking lot. There was a large, full sized white van with heavily tinted windows at the edge of the school parking lot. Which meant it was either government issue, or a pervert. And considering it had been parked for longer than four seconds without being surrounded by a SWAT team, I was guessing government.
  
  Well, that and the fact that I'd seen Dennis and Sophia cross the lot at a jog to reach it. That helped too.
  
  By the time that the van was on its way out of the lot, I was ready. Letting it pull ahead and onto the road, I focused on a traffic light a bit to the east of it. A moment later, I was airborn, being pulled toward the light. Before I reached it, I adjusted, attaching a different line between my other glove and the roof of a building next to the light.
  
  I traveled that way, staying out of the way of the van but always keeping it within view. I pulled myself from rooftop to rooftop, occasionally using a boosted jump to reach the next building by planting lines against my feet and shoving off with them. I was starting to get the hang of it, as the action became more natural each time I did it.
  
  Eventually, the van pulled into the back lot of the PRT headquarters and stopped. I perched on the edge of the roof across the street, watching the lot. The van backed into a spot, and then a half dozen costumed Wards spilled out of it. In addition to Sophia, I could see Aegis, Vista, Clockblocker, Kid Win, and Gallant. All of them were in costume by that point.
  
  For a moment, I wondered which one Dennis was. I was pretty sure he wasn't Aegis, because what little skin of his I'd seen past his damaged costume that hadn't been burned black by Lung had been too dark to match the boy that I'd met in the school. And he probably wasn't Kid Win, since Dennis's hair was red, not brown. Unless that was a really good disguise. He could be Clockblocker or Gallant though.
  
  Shaking off the question, I focused once more, watching the security guard by the gate as well as the Wards themselves. The latter were all turned toward one of the building exits, and the second that I saw the gate guard turn to look the other way down the street, I leapt off of the roof and attached a line to the pavement just in front of the van. Yanking myself that way as quickly as I dared to, I hit the ground right at the bumper, dropped into a roll, and slid under the van as quietly and smoothly as I could. Then I waited for shouts or demands that would indicate that I'd been seen. When none came, I let out the breath that I'd been holding and made myself lay flat under the vehicle for a moment to catch my breath.
  
  Before I could be noticed laying there, I focused on the underside of the van, connecting lines from both of my boots, my pants, my belt, and my gloves to the van itself. Then I hauled the lines in a bit to lift myself off the ground and let myself hang there, barely an inch or two from the bottom of the vehicle.
  
  Spinning myself around to face the rear, I focused on what I could hear from the Wards.
  
  "How long until they bring him out?" I thought that was Kid Win talking.
  
  "They're on the way, just doing the transfer paperwork." Someone else, probably Aegis from the sound of it, replied.
  
  "Next question." The boy that I thought was Kid went on. "Is there any chance we could drive through a car wash on the way and roll the windows down? Because I can still smell whatever Stalker had on her."
  
  There was a growl that I was, by then, familiar with. "Shut the fuck up, Kid. I had things to deal with."
  
  "What kind of things involve manure?" Kid Win started to ask.
  
  Rather than Sophia, it was someone else's voice I heard next. It sounded a bit like Dennis, but I wasn't one hundred percent on that. "Heads up, it's Miss Piggy."
  
  Footsteps approached the van, and then I heard a woman's voice. "Shadow Stalker. Walk with me for a moment while we discuss why you should have your phone on you at all times."
  
  "I was washing shit out of my hair!" Sophia protested. When no audible response came, she sighed and walked. I heard both sets of footsteps walking away.
  
  "Pretty sure she put the manure there." A voice that I guessed had to be Dennis said in a low tone then.
  
  "Where?" That was definitely Aegis.
  
  "In another girl's locker." Dennis replied. "You should've seen it, the crap was everywhere. It was... it was fucked up."
  
  "What makes you think she put it there?" Someone else asked. It was either Gallant or Clockblocker, whichever one Dennis wasn't. The muffled effect from their armor and mask, respectively, were somewhat similar.
  
  "You mean besides the fact that she had it all over herself?" Dennis sounded annoyed. Really annoyed. "You weren't there. You didn't see the way she talked to this girl. Just... rude remarks, something stupid and petty about Madison getting further with that crap than books."
  
  I could hear the raised eyebrow as Aegis prodded, "Madison, huh? You got the girl's name?"
  
  "We were talking for a minute." Dennis replied. "And I'm pretty sure it's not the first time Stalker messed with her. It seemed too... routine."
  
  There was a pause, before the person who was either Gallant or Clockblocker spoke up. "Wait, you said there was manure in her locker?"
  
  "Tons of it." Dennis confirmed. "Top to bottom. It was all over the floor too, where the locker door opened." He hesitated, then asked, "Why?"
  
  The other boy was quiet for a moment before speaking. "I'm just trying to remember... wasn't there something about a girl in a locker at Winslow awhile back?"
  
  Vista was the one who spoke next, her own voice clearly distinctive. "Hey, yeah. That was in... December? A girl died when she was trapped in her locker. They said it was an accident."
  
  All of the Wards were quiet for several moments then. I held my breath until Aegis spoke. "Kid?"
  
  "Yeah." The tinker-hero replied softly.
  
  "Look up that girl who died when we get done here. Find out if she had any history with Shadow Stalker."
  
  Kid Win's response came a second later. "What if she did?"
  
  When Aegis responded, his own voice sounded hard. "Then we'll deal with it."
  
  Silence had returned by the time that Sophia walked back from her apparent chewing out from Director Piggot, the leader of the PRT in the Brockton Bay area. "Yeah well, fuck you too, bitch." She was muttering. "Let's see you strap your fat ass into a pair of tights and go fight scumbags." She addressed her team then. "Can you believe that? Seriously, she gave me a warning for missing a couple texts."
  
  Dennis's reply was as smooth as it was immediate. "Yeah, well, shit happens ."
  
  No one else responded to that, and a moment later there was more movement as two PRT guards approached. From my position, it looked like they were carrying an unconscious form between them. Grue, no doubt.
  
  The slumbering prisoner was loaded into the back of the van, and then the Wards and both guards boarded as well. All save for Kid Win, who said he was going to scout from the sky on his hoverboard before taking off.
  
  And then the van was moving out of the lot. My lines kept me attached to the bottom of the vehicle, just as though I was strapped to it. I tried not to think about how bad it would be if the lines failed while we were driving.
  
  We picked up speed as the van headed toward wherever they were moving Grue. I shifted a little and looked out at the other passing cars. Was this their plan, to move the Undersider leader in an unmarked vehicle without any obvious escort except for Kid Win up somewhere on his board?
  
  A few minutes later, we were passing under a freeway overpass, when at least five red lines popped up, going straight above me and into the van. None of them were quite black, thank Scion, just a medium red that seemed to indicate a moderate to severe injury.
  
  For a brief second, I froze. Then I twisted, extending a hand behind us while muttering, "Please work, please work, please work..." Cringing in worry, I attached a line from the back of the van to the pavement. Rather than jerking the van to instant stop and thus creating my own injuries, I exerted just enough pressure while bracing myself to make the vehicle slow dramatically before halting it only slightly more roughly than slamming on the brakes would have accomplished.
  
  Barely an instant after I had the van stopped, I heard a terrifying crash from ahead of us, followed by a roar. Twisting back that way and dropping to the ground beneath the stopped van, I saw one of those giant dog-monsters had just landed hard in the middle of the street at the other end of the overpass. If we had kept going, the dog would have landed on the front of the van and no doubt would have flipped it over. Hellhound was riding the thing.
  
  Already, people were abandoning their vehicles, rushing to escape the oncoming parahuman conflict. The two armed guards had emerged as well, and began to take up position with their foam-casting weapons raised toward the snarling beast that had almost wrecked the van. Before they could fire, both men abruptly pointed their weapons straight down. The resulting foam instantly encased the pair up to the middle of their chests before hardening.
  
  The question of what had just happened was answered with another roar from the opposite end of the overpass as a second dog came charging up toward the back of the van. I could see two figures on the monster, that escapee from the Ren Faire that had to be Regent, and the rather massively muscled figure in black spandex that I figured was Browbeat.
  
  The van doors opened on all sides, and the Wards were out and ready by the time the dog reached them. I saw the bottom of Gallant's armor as he stopped next to the van. A second later, Regent waved that scepter of his, and the subsequent blast from Gallant went careening off course as his aim was adjusted.
  
  Before the rest of the Wards could engage, the dog from the front end that had been trying to flip the van came charging in to join the fray, and it wasn't alone. There was a third dog, this one carrying the girl in the purple and black costume from before, and a second, smaller female form. I didn't have much of a chance to see her, but the new girl was obviously Freezetag. It looked like she was wearing a simple 'costume' of black pants, black leather jacket with the image of a hand-print across the front in red, and a dark colored mask with a similar hand symbol, this one stylized as though the hand had been raised to smack someone. It was clearly a rushed costume, almost like my own, and it made me wonder just how long ago this Freezetag had triggered. She had just barely joined the Undersiders in the few days between the night of Grue's capture and the bank robbery.
  
  Browbeat leapt off the charging monster, slamming into the ground at the back of the van. He started to grab for the doors, but the rushing form of Aegis caught the abnormally muscled boy and flew up into the sidewall with him.
  
  I rolled out from under the vehicle finally, coming up on one knee just in time to see Regent abandon his own mount. The mutated animal came charging toward Clockblocker, who had been focused on the incoming Tattletale, Hellhound, and Freezetag.
  
  "Clock!" I called out in spite of myself. He spun, looked at me in confusion, and then noticed the charging dog. He wasn't going to be able to get out of the way in time. I pointed to the nearest unoccupied car, latched a line from it to the opposite wall, and yanked . The car jerked off the ground, flew through the air, and crashed into the dog as it passed through that space, knocking it sideways and into the wall with a yelp.
  
  "What the fuck are you doing here?!" Sophia demanded, briefly distracted from where she had been using her crossbow to sight in on Hellhound.
  
  I looked at her, then at the surrounding fight, then tilted my head sideways, exaggerating each motion heavily. "Wait, isn't this where we're setting up the Farmer's Market this weekend? I brought potatoes!"
  
  She snarled at me and sent two bolts toward one of the Undersiders. "Stop fucking joking, retard."
  
  "Who's joking?" I asked, planting a line against the car that I had thrown against the onrushing dog and using it to hold the animal in place as it struggled to push away from the wall that it had careened into. "I take my potatoes very seriously, I'll have you know."
  
  Those crossbows were pointed my way for just a second before Clockblocker put himself in the way, pointing. "Focus, Stalker. On the bad guys ." He was right. Aegis was struggling with one of the dogs that I hadn't pinned, while Gallant was focused on keeping Browbeat and Regent away from the doors. Vista seemed to be occupying Freezetag. Kid Win hadn't arrived yet.
  
  "Oh you don't have to do that." A new voice spoke up. I turned to see the blonde girl in the purple and black costume with the simple domino mask. Tattletale. "We could find what we need without your help. Just browsing, thanks."
  
  Sophia made a derisive, dismissive noise and pointed her crossbow, but the blonde girl raised a hand. In the background, the fight was still going on. But Sophia, Clockblocker, Tattletale, and I were a few steps away from the action. The female Undersider was pointing at me. "You're new." Her eyes behind the mask were bright with mischief as she gave a smile that reminded me of the stereotypical cunning fox. "But not... that new." Her eyes moved from me to Sophia, and then she laughed. "Really? Oh that's rich. That's just great."
  
  Then she stopped laughing. Her head tilted toward Sophia, and when she spoke this time, there was no humor in her voice at all. "Oh. You are such a cunt."
  
  Sophia raised her crossbow once more, her form turning wispy as she did so. A bare second later, she was covered in a cloud of darkness. Grue was awake.
  
  A bolt from the crossbow shot out of the cloud, catching Tattletale in the arm. In the same moment, the blonde girl produced a handgun from behind her back with the other hand, pointed, and shot several times into the cloud before I managed to pull the gun away
  
  2.03
  
  BANG BANG BANG... BANG
  
  The gunfire, three quick shots, followed by a very brief pause and then a fourth shot, shocked me for just a second. My thoughts derailed, my focus plummeting as I reflexively recoiled. Seriously, gunshots are fucking loud. Being that close when four of them went off right in a row left me wanting to cower until the deafness went away. At some point I was going to have to see about hearing protection if I was going to be around gunfire.
  
  Eesh, that was a scary thought.
  
  Somehow, I managed to find the focus to attach a line to the end of Tattletale's gun and wall, yanking it away from her a moment before the girl slumped, the tranquilizer bolt bringing her to the ground. Only then did the motion out of the corner of my eye catch my attention. Vista. The last gunshot had hit the van that the younger hero was next to, forcing her to dive out of the way.
  
  In the middle of shooting, Tattletale had realized that Shadow Stalker had jumped into her shadow state, and adjusted her aim for the last shot to to send a bullet toward, but not at, Vista, just enough to startle the girl. It hadn't been enough to trigger my warning line since Vista was never actually in danger.
  
  That also brought up the question of why there hadn't been a warning about Sophia being shot at, unless it had somehow known that she wasn't in danger anyway? I shook off the confusion as the girl in question hurled herself out of Grue's cloud of darkness, looking furious but otherwise unhurt.
  
  At that same moment, I realized why Tattletale had wanted to distract Vista. Doing so had given Freezetag a chance to get around her, and the newer villain took immediate advantage of the freedom by lunging forward toward Sophia, who shifted back into her intangible form. In spite of that, when Freezetag swiped a hand through her ghostly figure, Sophia froze in place. The hand-masked girl let out a mocking cackle before backpedaling to avoid Clockblocker's counter-touch. For a moment, the two of them circled each other. Then the girl abruptly dropped to the ground just as Clock reached for her. Doing so gave Regent a direct line of sight to him, and the other boy twitched his scepter. Clockblocker's hand went off target, and he accidentally froze his own costume, locking himself in place and prompting another cackle from Freezetag before I planted a line against her costume and hurled her away from us.
  
  Then I heard laser fire somewhere off on the other side of the van where Aegis still was, announcing the arrival of Kid Win. Which, yay, but the sound of tearing metal reminded me of another problem. My distraction from the earlier gunshots meant that I'd lost focus on the line that had been pinning the car, and subsequently the dog that the car had been shoving against, into the wall. Freed, the giant monster took a savage bite out of the bumper of the vehicle that had been pinning it, then bounded forward. I stretched a hand out and tied another line between the damaged car and the opposite wall, trying to duplicate the earlier trick. Unfortunately, the animal had learned its lesson, and it leapt up and over the passing car, letting it slam into the wall ineffectually. As the dog came down, it slammed its muzzle into Gallant, propelling the armored hero into the same car that I had just made total itself against the wall.
  
  Connecting another line from the nearest thing I could see, one of the doors that had fallen off the wrecked car as the dog had been struggling with it, to a spot just past the animal, I sent it flying. The door smacked into the dog, briefly distracting it away from Gallant.
  
  That prompted a shout. "That's my dog, asshole!" The third of the giant dogs, the one carrying Hellhound, was rushing toward me at a command from his master. Apparently, she was upset about my beaning her pet with the car door.
  
  "Damn, really?" I asked while stretching a hand up to the roof of the overpass, using a line to yank myself up and out of the animal's path. "I could've sworn it was mine. Have you seen another two thousand pound Labrador around here? Answers to the name of-" I made a noise as close to the cartoon Tasmanian Devil's snarl as I could.
  
  Before Hellhound could readjust, I sent another line to propel myself to the roof of the van. One of my dangerous red lines appeared then, pointing back toward Gallant, who was still struggling with the dog that was trying to use him as a chew toy. Pivoting, I put a line against the injured hero and yanked him away from the animal before anything worse could happen.
  
  Something rocked the van, and I looked just in time to see Browbeat yank the back door off before leaning in. There was the sound of tearing metal, and when he leaned out again, shattered restraints that had obviously been on the prisoner were in his hand. I put a line against the back of his costume and used it to yank him away from the vehicle, but it was too late.
  
  Grue emerged from the van. He twisted around to look at me, and I had a moment to wonder why they hadn't unmasked him. That was a question I'd had for a while, actually. Why did they sometimes unmask and identify villain capes once they were caught, but not always?
  
  As soon as I saw him, I attempted to plant another line on him. He was faster though, and the next thing I knew, I was engulfed in one of his clouds of darkness.
  
  The blackness was total. I couldn't see or hear anything through it, which meant that I couldn't plant any lines outside of it. The sensation was incredibly disorienting, making me feel briefly adrift and lost. I even tried planting lines against my feet, which I'd done without looking before, to no effect. I tried feeling my way off the van carefully, only to misjudge and fall rather awkwardly onto my side as I stepped too far. Crying out and finally hearing my own voice now that I was out of the darkness, and the deafness from the gunshots had worn off, I rolled over to see what was happening.
  
  The Undersiders were leaving. The two dogs who weren't carrying Hellhound had already been loaded up, one with Freezetag and Grue, while the second held Regent, Browbeat, and the unconscious Tattletale. Gallant was still recovering, Vista had apparently been frozen, and Aegis was looking pretty torn up as Bitch's dog snapped at him. Kid Win, meanwhile, was trying to shoot after the departing dogs, but Regent kept throwing off his aim by twitching his hand back and forth. Finally, another twitch of Regent's scepter sent Kid's flying board careening into the wall.
  
  I used a line to pull myself after the running dogs, to the other side of the overpass tunnel and tried to plant another couple of lines against two of the Undersiders, but the second I did, Grue threw up a cloud of darkness in between us, cutting off my line of sight and erasing the lines.
  
  Finally, Clockblocker's power that had frozen his uniform and trapped him seemed to run out, because he was moving again, coming up behind Hellhound's mount. She noticed him, spinning her dog around to leap over his head and rush after the others.
  
  That left, well, me. I was the only one standing between Hellhound and the exit. Gulping as the massive animal raced toward me, eating up the distance in seconds, I braced myself and extended a hand... then focused on the line that I had attached between my own outstretched hand and Clockblocker. He was yanked off his feet and brought hurtling toward me faster than the dog could run. His squeal of surprise reached me and I winced, slowing him down as much as I could just before he hit the dog, depositing him right on the back of the thing and behind the rider.
  
  That done barely seconds before the dog would run me over, I recoiled and closed my eyes, holding my breath.
  
  One second, then two passed. Then I opened my eyes and looked up, squeaking a little at the sight of the massive animal's teeth, so close to me that if it hadn't been frozen in time, I probably would have been able to smell its breath.
  
  "Hey there." Clockblocker, Dennis, was saying as he dropped from the frozen animal's back. "You know, for someone who isn't working with us, you sure do work with us pretty well."
  
  I didn't know what to say. My tongue felt like it was twisting itself into knots. If I spoke, would he recognize my voice. Sophia hadn't, right? And he hadn't seemed to so far. But... did I want him to recognize my voice, even if I disguised it? No, stupid, why would you want him to know it was you?
  
  My inner turmoil was interrupted as Clockblocker waved his hand in front of my face. "Yooohooo. You didn't go into shock, did you?"
  
  I shook it off, coughing as I pointed to the animal and its rider. "Uh, how long does that last?"
  
  He shrugged. "No idea. Anywhere from thirty seconds to ten minutes, usually. I'll freeze them again if they pop out before we get reinforcements." As he said that, Clock placed one hand against the animal's side and the other against Hellhound's leg.
  
  Aegis, who looked as though he'd been through the meat grinder, landed next to us. He was holding some of the contents of his stomach in. "PRT's on the way. Did we stop anyone else?"
  
  Before either of us could answer, Sophia came storming out of the tunnel. "Where is that bitch?!" She demanded, already reloading her crossbow.
  
  "Uh, which one?" Clockblocker asked. "The one you shot, or the one that tagged you?"
  
  "Whichever." Sophia muttered darkly, scanning the horizon for any sign of the two escaped dogs and their passengers.
  
  Gallant, Vista, and Kid Win had all limped out of the tunnel by then as well. None of them looked very happy. They stopped next to the frozen dog, and the tinker hero looked toward Sophia. "How'd she tag you anyway? I thought you were in ghostie form."
  
  The look that Sophia sent him could have withered metal. "I was. She tagged me anyway. Which is bullshit." Then she focused on me, glaring as well. "You could have untagged me, if you're really on our side."
  
  I just stared back at her, restraining the urge to snap at the girl who had been trying her level best to make my life hell for the last several months, who didn't care that her bullying... that our bullying had already killed one girl.
  
  "Sorry." I finally muttered. "I was distracted."
  
  She kept glaring through her mask, and I thought she was going to say something else. Fortunately, Vista spoke up instead, addressing me. "So are you joining us or what?"
  
  "Good question." Aegis was also focused on me. Well, on me and on carefully poking his guts back into his torn torso. The sight made me shudder, and I had to remind myself that throwing up under my mask would be a very bad thing.
  
  The rest of them were staring as well. Even Sophia, though her stance didn't say 'please join' nearly as much as it said 'please please please give me an excuse to shoot you'.
  
  I was saved from answering by Aegis holding up his hand. "Go ahead, what's the ETA for our retrieval squad? What? No, we lost Grue but we have Hellhound. We need someone to pick her up." He paused, then sounded confused. "What do you mean, they're all busy? I'm telling you we have one of the Undersiders. We need her contained. What? Who are they-"
  
  He went completely still then, and remained silent for a moment before signing off of his comm.
  
  "What happened?" Gallant had stiffened as well. Apparently he knew that whatever was coming was bad. Not that that was hard to guess.
  
  "It was a distraction." Aegis said stiffly. "Another fucking distraction, just like the bank job that let those guys grab the mayor's niece. They're saying those same guys took someone else this time."
  
  "Another distraction?" Kid Win demanded. "How does that work? They did rescue their teammate."
  
  "Sure." Aegis nodded. "But that was obviously secondary to this. Come on, we've gotta find a way to get Hellhound back and get out there. They're calling in everyone to help."
  
  "Everyone, for a kidnapping?" I saw Clockblocker's head tilt in confusion.
  
  "Everyone for this kidnapping." Aegis confirmed.
  
  "Oh no." Vista sounded worried. "Who'd they take this time?"
  
  The leader of the Wards was quiet for a long moment before responding. "Amy Dallon."
  
  "Whoever has Dinah Alcott, also kidnapped Panacea."
  
  2.04
  
  Taylor's face, a mixture of fear and resignation dominating her features as it had for so many months, stared up at me. There was no more strength, no more resistance in her expression. She'd been beaten down, hurt, emotionally and even occasionally physically tortured for so long that there was nothing left in her. She just took it. She hid from us at lunch, and whenever we did find her, she just took anything and everything that we dished out, standing there passively with a sad look.
  
  It was the same sad look that I was staring at now, immortalized in a picture on my phone that I had taken the day that Sophia and I had written skank and loser on the back of her gym shirt. She had gone almost half the class period before anyone bothered to point it out to her, because the coach had, as usual, retired to his office after telling us to play a game of basketball. So accustomed was she to the jeers and nasty remarks that came all the time anyway that the new ones in relation to the shirt hadn't tipped her off.
  
  When she finally found out what was on the shirt, what everyone had been snickering about for the previous twenty minutes, Taylor had just turned to look at Sophia and me. She hadn't said anything. She just looked, with that slight dampness to her eyes that gave away how close to tears she had been.
  
  I had taken the picture with my phone then, making some remark about how the baby should just cry and get it over with.
  
  At the time, it had been funny. Hilarious, even. Now, it was all I could do not to take my phone and slam it into the wall next to where I was sitting in the Starbucks down the street from the school. I wanted to smash that picture, and the memory of my stupidity, over and over again, as if it would help.
  
  But even more than I wanted to smash it, I wanted to keep it. I needed it. I needed the picture to remind me of why I was doing this, of why I had to be better than I had been. As Taylor's face, her expression sad, lonely, and lost, looked up at me, I spoke softly. "I know. I'm a fucking dumbass."
  
  A voice from next to the booth where I was sitting spoke up, the haughtiness in the tone like nails on a chalkboard in that moment. "That has to be the truest thing you've ever said."
  
  Great, I'd chosen a booth at the back of the Starbucks, as close to completely out of the way as I could manage, just so that everyone except for the person I was supposed to meet would leave us alone. Apparently it wasn't enough.
  
  I didn't bother looking up for a moment, though I closed the picture on my phone and stared at the wallpaper my home screen. I thought, Go away, Emma. while saying, "Huh?"
  
  Looking amused with herself, the model-pretty girl flipped some of her luxurious red hair over one shoulder and stepped closer. "You know, I should have figured it out before. That's why you've turned into such a boring little bitch." I didn't have to look to know the superior smirk that stretched its way across her face. "You had the hots for the loser, didn't you?" When I didn't respond, she laughed gaily. "That's totally it. You were going all dyke for her."
  
  Wow that was lame. Totally not her best material. I thought before making myself flush with apparent embarrassment. "Please leave me alone."
  
  Her gleeful smirk turned slightly. "Well you know, if you'd just told us that you wanted to make out with the other freak."
  
  No, seriously. I thought while keeping my expression blank. You really should step it up a notch. I mean seriously? This is lame. Even you have to see that. I give a shit about someone dying, so I must be a lesbian? That's a reach, even for you.
  
  Instead of saying anything of the sort, I simply kept my head down and remained silent, as though I didn't dare speak. It was hard, sometimes, restraining my urge to talk back. But I needed to. Not only because it felt like I deserved a bit of suffering for what I had helped put Taylor through, but also because it gave me a little separation between Tether and Madison. If I acted the same way under and out of the mask, it wouldn't be long before even a blind ferret could draw the connections. My identity had to stay secret, which meant that I had to let things like this go.
  
  Emma's face had narrowed into an annoyed squint when I said nothing. "You really are pathetic, aren't you?"
  
  Rich words. I thought. Coming from someone who keeps her head so far up Sophia's ass that you could give directions to a proctologist. I paused before speaking, purposefully making my tone as quiet as possible. "Please, Emma, I'm just trying to meet somebody. Can't you go find Sophia and leave me alone?" Does she know you wandered away from your leash?
  
  If Emma looked any more proud and arrogant then, I would have been convinced that she was the one that was a member of the Wards, for all the credit she seemed to be ready to take. "She's been busy." Her voice lowered, but maintained that smug superiority that I knew so well. "All the you-know-what are really busy right now. Doing important things."
  
  She was right. The last three days had passed in a rush, but there was still no sign of the missing Panacea, or the mayor's niece. Some of the real big shots from the Protectorate had even showed up to help with the search. Not only capes, like Eidelon and Alexandria (who had so far failed to come up with any more leads than the local heroes), but suits of the mundane variety too. Every hour it seemed like there was another press conference with one of the big name capes or one of the PRT 'consultants' they had brought in. The search for Panacea, most likely the most powerful healer in the world, was huge. Every day there were police, PRT officers, and Protectorate-affiliated capes scouring every inch of the city. Hell, they were making an example of Hellhound. Apparently there was even talk of sending her into the Bird Cage if she didn't tell them what they wanted to know about the kidnapping and the Undersiders 'sponsor'.
  
  Whoever had taken Amy Dallon was probably regretting it right about now. No matter how amazing her healing was, it wasn't going to do much to save the person when the Triumverate got a hold of them. Whatever their plan had been, it was clearly backfiring.
  
  Emma's head shook, bringing me back to the moment at hand. "It doesn't have to be like this, you know." When I didn't respond, she continued. "If you ask nicely, I can talk to Sophia. We can handle all of this. It can go back to the way things used to be." She laid her hand against my arm, her voice turning softer. "We can all be friends again. You don't have to suffer."
  
  I let my eyes close. I didn't care. Not really. Every time I was even the slightest bit tempted by the nostalgia of the friendships I'd had, I remembered Taylor. I remembered the truth of what all that had meant. I remembered how psychotic Sophia was, and how pathetic Emma was for staying with her.
  
  But I wanted Emma to think that I was tempted, because I wanted her and Sophia to keep thinking that I was a fun target. I needed them to keep thinking that I was a fun target. Because if I let them know that I didn't care, if I fought back or did anything to stop them, they'd move on. They'd pick a better target, someone who couldn't handle it.
  
  So I faked it. I pretended to let myself be strung along, giving them just enough of a reaction that they'd be happy and keep using me as their emotional punching bag.
  
  It was no less than I deserved.
  
  When I opened my eyes and glanced toward Emma, I let her see just a little bit of hope.
  
  She laughed in my face, as I'd already known she would. "God, you are so pathetic. Why did I ever pretend you were my friend?" Reaching out with a hand, she smacked my cup over so that the by-then lukewarm coffee went all over the table and spilled into my lap. Then she laughed and walked away.
  
  I was trying to mop up the worst of the spill with the napkins when someone else cleared their throat. I looked up to find Dennis, standing with a raised eyebrow. "What happened?"
  
  "Uhh, accident." I felt my face flush a little, more than when Emma had been trying to embarrass me. "Sorry, I umm, I just..."
  
  "Here." Dennis set down the bag that he was carrying, then reached over to the next table over and grabbed the napkin dispenser. He sat down across from me and started to help me mop up the coffee. We were quiet for a moment while we took care of that.
  
  "So," I said finally. "You look tired. Late party nights over there in Arcadia?" Obviously he was part of the Wards search for Panacea, but it would look odd if I didn't comment on it.
  
  He gave a slight chuckle, shaking his head and rubbing at the dark circles under his eyes. "More like a big test." A strange look crossed his face then, one that confused me a little. He looked... annoyed? Annoyed that he was lying?
  
  "Rather not talk about that." Dennis finally settled on. He reached into the bag he'd brought and pulled out two paperbacks. "I brought the next couple books, just as promised."
  
  I hesitated, then reached out and started to take the books. As my fingers brushed his, my blush deepened, and I felt the sudden and utterly irrational urge to giggle like an idiot.
  
  "Thanks." I finally managed. "You didn't have to bring them."
  
  One side of the red-haired boy's mouth twitched up into a half smile. "So you'd be just as happy with just me and no books?"
  
  My mouth fell open, as my face tried its level best to try to match shades with Dennis's hair. "Well... I..." I coughed twice before rolling my eyes. "Sure." I smiled sweetly. "Because you're going to buy me a new drink."
  
  He blinked at me, then laughed and nodded. "Okay, fine. When you put it that way."
  
  We ordered, and while we were waiting, I looked at the books that he'd brought. "I didn't know you were bringing two."
  
  Dennis nodded. "Yeah, well, I wasn't sure how far through that one you were. Not much of a point to meeting today if you were just going to finish it up in an hour or two."
  
  "I'll get them both back to you as soon as I can." I promised."
  
  That was met with a shrug. "I'm not worried. Give me an excuse to track you down next week."
  
  "Next week?" I made myself sound offended. "Just how slow of a reader do you think I am?"
  
  That half-smile came back. "So you're saying you'd like to meet sooner?"
  
  Choking a little, I pushed at my slightly damp shirt. "Let's see how this meeting goes. Um, give me a minute. I got some of that stuff on me." After excusing myself, I rose and moved past him and across the store to the restroom to do what I could with the coffee-stained shirt.
  
  A few minutes later when I emerged, Dennis was on his phone. I smirked to myself and started to walk closer. I'd make him pay for making me blush so much.
  
  "Yeah, like I said, it's gotta be her, right?"
  
  I stopped at the sound of his voice. What had to be her?
  
  There was a pause before he went on, clearly responding to someone. "It makes perfect sense, doesn't it? She loathes Sophia, she doesn't want to join us, the very idea makes her sick, and she still wants to help people. I mean, come on, it's obvious. Who else has that good of a reason to hate Sophia and refuse to join us?"
  
  Oh my god. Had he figured it out? Did Dennis know?
  
  "Yeah." Dennis went on. "Well I think it was faked."
  
  That derailed me. Faked? What was faked?
  
  "I'm not sure. Someone probably had to help her. Maybe her dad knows someone?"
  
  Well now I was completely lost. What the hell was he talking about?
  
  There was another pause, as the person on the other end of the line apparently wasn't convinced. Dennis replied confidently. "Well, when I turn out to be right, I get to say I told you so. I'm saying it right now. Hebert isn't dead. She's our new little helper."
  
  I stopped breathing, choking a little. He thought that Taylor was alive, and that she was Tether.
  
  2.05
  
  My stomach rolled.. This was... wrong, wasn't it? I mean, yes I wanted Taylor to be remembered, but not like this. I didn't want her death to be trivialized or erased. Hell, part of me wanted to punch Dennis for even suggesting that it had been faked. I wanted to know who he was talking to, who he was spreading this to.
  
  Oh god. What if they talked to Taylor's father? The thought made me blanch, and I took a quick step that way, my fists clenched.
  
  What was I doing? I couldn't say anything. I couldn't exactly call him out on what he was talking about, could I?
  
  While I was frozen in indecision, Dennis spoke into the phone again. "I guess that answers that." Slowly, he lifted his hand and waved at someone on the other side of the room.
  
  Wait, no. My eyes moved up, and I saw what he was waving at. A mirror. He was waving at a mirror on the other side of the room, where he could see himself... and me. I stared into the mirror, while Dennis met my eyes.
  
  After a moment, he turned around in his seat and held his phone up for me to see. There was no one on the other end. The phone was on the lock screen. He hadn't been making a call after all.
  
  "You wanna talk?" He asked quietly, his eyes not leaving mine.
  
  My mouth opened and then shut. "What... what was that?"
  
  He rose, gesturing. "A test. I looked into what happened to Taylor, Madison. You were part of her little bully squad, weren't you?"
  
  His voice was a bit harsher than I'd come to expect from him, and I flinched a little. "I... I was... I was stupid."
  
  He nodded in acceptance of that before speaking again. "I needed to know how you'd react to someone thinking she wasn't dead. I needed to see if all this was an act. I needed to know if you cared at all." Finally, Dennis's face softened a little. "I thought you did. But I needed to know. I needed to be sure."
  
  Feeling numb, I slid my way into the booth and stared at him. "But... but why would you..."
  
  Taking a breath, he held up a hand. "Let me start with the first part. You're Tether. I'm guessing you triggered when Taylor died. When you figured out how much you fucked up. And now you're trying to make up for it."
  
  The words were like a blow, and I flinched again. Words failed me, but that didn't seem to matter. Apparently my expression was enough of an answer, and he continued, "That was why it was a two part test. I needed to see your reaction to know if you cared about Taylor's death, and if you knew what I was talking about. You did. Most people would have been confused, but you looked sick. You looked like... someone who couldn't decide if they wanted to give credit for their actions to a dead girl or not." His voice got a bit quieter then. "And you knew exactly what it meant. You know who I am. That part didn't confuse you at all."
  
  For a long moment, we sat across the booth from each other. Then I reached over and punched him in the shoulder, hard. I considered a moment, then hit him again, harder.
  
  Both times, he yelped before grabbing his shoulder. "Gah! What was that for? I didn't tell anyone about your secret, I swear."
  
  "Too bad." I hissed under my breath. "They could've told you how stupid using the memory of a dead girl to try to draw me out was, idiot."
  
  This time, it was his turn to look flustered. His mouth opened and shut, and then he sighed. "I thought it was clever. If you knew the truth, you'd be shocked. If not, you'd be confused. It was an easy test."
  
  "It was horrible." I told him flatly. "You don't use the memory of someone who died to TEST someone. You just don't. Especially not... not this girl. Not this one."
  
  He had the decency to look away, and I saw some tension build into him. "How responsible are you for her death?"
  
  My eyes closed and I shook my head, a sudden panic coming over me. "No. I can't talk about this. I can't."
  
  I started to rise, started to flee, but Dennis's hand reached out and caught my arm. "Wait. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for tricking you, for testing you. I just... I've only met you once before now, but I liked you. I liked you, and when I saw that you were part of the group that was bullying Taylor Hebert, I just... lost it a bit. I had to know for sure."
  
  I opened my eyes and looked at him, then closed them again. I couldn't do it. The shame of what I'd been, who I'd been, it was too much. "I'm sorry." I said hollowly. "I didn't mean it."
  
  I wasn't talking to him, and he somehow knew that.
  
  For a moment, we simply sat there with his hand on my arm. He didn't rush me, or interrupt. Finally, after a few minutes, I managed to find my voice again. "I want to get out of here. I can't do this here."
  
  He nodded, and we both stood. Leaving our drinks where they were, we walked out of the store. I looked up and down the street, at a loss for where to go. Dennis was quiet, standing a little behind me until I started to walk toward an alley.
  
  When we were off the street and out of sight once more, I spoke. "I didn't mean for her to die. I didn't even want to do that stupid prank." When he said nothing, I went on. "I mean, yes, I was a bully. I was horrible. I was evil, for fuck's sake. When I think back to the things we did to her all the time... I want to throw up. I still do. But I didn't want to do that one. That was Sophia. Sophia pushed her into the locker. Sophia is-"
  
  "Shadow Stalker." He confirmed quietly. "I know. This was about you, not her. I know she doesn't care about it. You're the one I had to know about. That's why she's treating you like this, isn't it?"
  
  "Because I didn't want to forget it." I nodded a little, feeling equal parts exhausted and energized. "Because I wanted to tell someone about what happened."
  
  Leaning against the nearby dumpster, Dennis nodded. "I'd ask why you didn't, but let me guess, she threatened you."
  
  "In a manner of speaking." I replied, rather hesitantly. When he simply raised an eyebrow quizzically, I sighed. "She said that no one would care. She showed me that she was Shadow Stalker, and she said that they'd cover it up to keep her as a Ward. That they'd shut me up if I tried to expose her."
  
  His eyes widened and he blurted, "What the fuck? Why would you believe that?"
  
  "Well she didn't do much to cover her psychotic behavior before!" I shot back. "They let her on the team anyway."
  
  "They forced her onto the team, Madison." He replied, his voice strained. "They made her choose between being a Ward and going to prison, and that was when she almost killed someone. You really think the Protectorate would just let a murderer off? That's insane."
  
  I flinched again, looking down. He took a breath and then sighed. "I'm sorry. It's just... why would you believe her?"
  
  "She can be really convincing." I said dryly. Then, after hesitating, I asked quietly, "Are you sure they wouldn't cover it up?"
  
  "I'm positive." He replied. "Trust me, she's on thin ice as it is. This... this is something they need to know about. Fuck, if you'd just come to us to begin with... that night that Aegis and the others first saw you... You could have said something. She'd be off the streets already."
  
  My head shook. "I didn't think they'd believe me. Or worse, they would believe me and wouldn't care. I kinda decided I'd rather not know which one it was."
  
  "So what was your plan then?" He asked. When I just looked at him blankly, he went on. "What was your plan for dealing with Sophia? What was your plan for stopping her before she killed someone else? Because she sure didn't learn her lesson with the guy that got her sent to the Wards, and she definitely didn't learn it from Taylor. I... Jesus, Madison, think about it. You just reinforced that she could get away with things by threatening people."
  
  My mouth fell open at that, the words hitting me like a physical blow. "I... I didn't mean... I didn't think..."
  
  "I'm sorry." Dennis sighed. "I know she scared you. I know all of this is fucked up. But it's really fucked up. Totally and completely. You have to tell people. We have to tell people. She can't just kill someone, even if it was an accident, and get away with it. She threatened you, Madison. She's not going to stop. She's not going to get better. And this isn't going to go away."
  
  It was all I could do not to break down again. "I don't know who to talk to. I don't know who to trust."
  
  He was quiet, and then I felt him take my hand. "Trust me. Sophia won't get away with this. I promise. She won't get away with Taylor, and she won't get away with threatening you."
  
  Biting my lip, I hesitated before asking, "So how'd you figure out I was Tether?"
  
  He gave a little laugh. "Because I'm not deaf and stupid? Please. You don't sound that different. And Tether just happens to show up right after you saw me drag Sophia out for a 'project' or whatever the hell I was babbling about? Plus there's that whole animosity with Shadow Stalker. You almost knocked Gallant over with the loathing."
  
  I blushed in spite of myself, sighing softly. "So now what? Things are a little busy with Panacea."
  
  "Yeah..." He agreed. "But we're still going to tell them anyway." He looked at me. "You can go in costume if you don't want them to know who you are. Just tell them what you know about what Sophia did."
  
  "Because Sophia won't immediately turn around and out me the second she figures out how I could possibly know that?" I replied before shaking my head. "No, if I'm doing this, I'm going all in. Taylor deserves justice, and she deserves it from me, not from Tether. I... I have to tell them the truth as myself. Hiding behind a mask to do it, that's... wrong. I owe it to Taylor to tell the truth. You're right. I have to."
  
  Dennis held my gaze for a moment, then nodded seriously. A breath left him, and he finally blurted, "Okay so would you just tell me if you're just telekinetic or what? Because it's been bugging the hell out of us in the Wards and I've got ten bucks riding on it."
  
  I blinked at that, and started to giggle. Dennis smiled and squeezed my hand. Before I could answer, there was a buzz from his phone. Dennis took it out and looked at me before setting it to speaker. "Go ahead."
  
  "They're calling everyone in." The voice of Kid Win said. "They found her."
  
  Eyes widening, Dennis looked at me, then down at the phone. "Panacea? They've got her?"
  
  "They know where she is." The voice replied. "They're calling everyone in to get her out safely. And pound the assholes into the ground so no one tries this shit again."
  
  "Who?" Dennis pressed. "Who took her? Who are we going after?"
  
  There was a pause before Kid Win replied. "Empire Eighty-Eight. The Empire kidnapped Panacea."
  
  Interlude 2 - Purity
  
  Kayden Russel still wasn't certain that she was doing the right thing.
  
  Then again, she certainly hadn't been doing the right thing when she became involved with the man she'd had a crush on since she was in middle school and he was a high school baseball star. Or when she married him. Or when she became the second in command of his Empire Eighty-Eight. Purity and Kaiser, the boy becoming a man and taking over where his father had left off, while the little girl with stars in her eyes became his enforcer, then his wife.
  
  Bad choice after bad choice, her life was plagued by them. Every time she thought she'd turned things around, break the cycle, that turned out to be the wrong choice as well. Because no matter where she went, people always saw her as Kaiser's second, as an extension of the man himself.
  
  Leaving Max, divorcing him and distancing herself from the Empire, was one of the only good choices she'd made, and even that wasn't sticking very well. It was the best choice she could make, if she wanted to keep the one true joy of her life away from the thick, evil cloud that was Max.
  
  Aster. Just the thought of her baby, her perfect, beloved little girl, was enough to drive the dark thoughts away from Kayden, bringing a smile to her face.
  
  "Whatcha thinking about, Nazi?" An impudent voice asked. Kayden turned to see the girl from the Undersiders team in the mask with the hand print across it. The girl was clearly trying to see Kayden's face beyond the bright white glow that her active powers gave off from her eyes and hair. That glow was the reason she didn't bother wearing a mask when she was out in costume. In her civilian form, she looked like any thirty year old woman with mousy brown hair. As Purity, her hair and eyes glowed a bright white constantly.
  
  Giving up on seeing her face, Freezetag settled on glaring somewhere around the level of her chest."Trying to remember how many people you've fucked over just because their skin color's different than yours?"
  
  "Tag." Grue, the leader of the Undersiders said in a warning tone. "Don't start. We're busy enough as it is."
  
  "Yeah." The girl muttered, looking away with apparent disgust. "Busy working with the fucking Klu Klux Kunt."
  
  Before either Kayden or Grue, or any of the other Undersiders for that matter, could respond to that, their benefactor walked into the room, and all side conversations stopped.
  
  "Good afternoon." The man in the skintight black bodysuit with the design of a white snake encircling it, the tip of the snake's tail near his ankle while the head perched over the forehead of his full mask, greeted them simply. "I trust you have questions."
  
  "Knowing what she's doing here would be a good start." Grue said, his voice conveying his annoyance without being overtly rude. "I thought we were framing the Empire Eighty-Eight for this kidnapping. That is what you told my team when you convinced them to carry out their part."
  
  Coil regarded the Undersider's leader briefly before pointing out mildly. "A part which, as I recall, resulted in your rescue from PRT custody."
  
  "And resulted in the capture of another of our teammates." Grue returned. Behind him, Regent and Tattletale were standing out of the way, looking bored and intensely interested, respectively. Freezetag shifted from foot to foot, clearly wanting to be done with all this already, while Browbeat sat in a corner, doing nothing and looking at no one. Kayden wasn't sure what was going on with that one. He'd been an up and coming solo hero, but he'd abruptly joined the Undersiders with no explanation, and now he wasn't doing anything at all. Just staring blankly at the floor. If she didn't know better, she would have guessed that he was a robot whose off switch had been flipped.
  
  "Hellhound's capture was unfortunate." Coil admitted. "If possible, we will retrieve her. If not, you will all receive payment equal to what she would have received on average for the next year's worth of jobs, divided among you."
  
  "Bitch." Grue corrected. "She prefers Bitch."
  
  "Yo. Slytherin." Freezetag waved a hand as though to get Coil's attention. "That. That right there." She was pointing at Kayden. "Focus, dude. What is she doing here? We don't work with-" Her last words were cut off by Grue surrounding her head with a dark cloud. The girl's fist shook and then she folded her arms and assumed a position of intense sulking.
  
  "Thank you." Coil nodded at Grue, then looked toward Kayden once more. "Ms. Purity here is a key part of the aforementioned frame job, actually. Isn't that right?"
  
  She'd needed a way out, a way to make a name for herself, to be better than what she'd been with the specter of Kaiser looming over everything she did. For herself and for Aster. For a time she had been trying to take on the ABB solo, thinking that by driving them out of the city, people might finally see her for herself.
  
  It hadn't been enough. She'd been so desperate to win, to do what had to be done and finally beat the gang that had become her nemesis that she'd very nearly decided to go back to Max and ask for his help.
  
  Coil had found her instead. He had found her, and extended an offer of a limited partnership. In exchange for her help, her lies, he would ensure that Max would never be a problem for her or for Aster, and that her baby would never want for anything in her life.
  
  And, just maybe, her actions would make the PRT see her in a different light as well.
  
  Grue's head tilted slightly, and she could almost see the confusion written across his helmet. "Explain."
  
  Instead, Coil reached into the pocket of his costume and withdrew a slim, prepaid cell phone. He offered it to her. "If you would?"
  
  Kayden took the phone and then took a breath before dialing a number that she had memorized. Under the eyes of the other costumed parahumans, she held the phone up to her ear.
  
  A computerized voice answered. "You have reached the PRT - Brockton Bay offices. If you know your party's extension, please press pound, followed by the extension. For public relations questions or concerns, press one. If you are or know a parahuman who would like to speak to an adviser, please press two..."
  
  She listened until the voice gave her the option to press 9, 9, pound, for a direct emergency. A moment later a bored receptionist asked for her name. Kayden hesitated only slightly before answering. "Purity."
  
  There was a pause, and then the woman asked her to repeat herself, slightly more awake now.
  
  "My name is Purity. Yes, that Purity. I know where the girl is. The healer girl. She's with Kaiser. Kaiser is the one who took her." Another slight pause as the woman frantically asked her to wait while she transferred her, and then Kayden answered their next question. "Yes, I can tell you where to go. I can tell you exactly where he's keeping her."
  
  That conversation continued through several more hoops before Kayden disconnected the phone. She looked up toward Coil and the Undersiders. "There. I did my part."
  
  "So you have." The mastermind of this situation gave a slight nod. "I thank you for that."
  
  "So lemme get this straight." This time it was Regent who interrupted. "She just turned into Benedict Arnold and sold out her old team by telling the PRT that her old boss has the girl that fucking everybody is looking for. Great, so what happens when they turn over every rock with the Empire's name on it and don't find the girl?"
  
  Coil shook his head. "They will find the girl, actually. Panacea will be located right where Purity told them to check."
  
  "And when she tells them that the Empire didn't kidnap her?" Freezetag, who had escaped the muffling cloud by then, prompted.
  
  "As far as she knows, they did." Coil replied simply. He made a simple, dismissive gesture. "The girl has been held for the past three days in a garage that every record will indicate belongs to Kaiser's civilian identity. She has seen and spoken to people she believes work for the Empire, and a man that Miss Dallon believes to be Kaiser killed his other captive, the young Dinah Alcott, to make an example of her and to ensure Panacea's future contributions versus more deaths if she refused."
  
  Kayden could see Grue go completely still. His voice turned hard. "You had that little girl killed?"
  
  Coil's head shook. "Surely not. The girl is safe and sound. But Miss Dallon is convinced that she is not, and that is the key."
  
  "So now what?" Regent wanted to know.
  
  Coil started to respond, before noticing Tattletale. "Would you like to answer that?"
  
  Kayden recognized the smile that spread across the purple-costumed girl then. It was the smile of one who loved to show off how smart she was, who couldn't wait to prove that she was one step ahead of everyone else in the room. "Well, if you insist."
  
  Tattletale tapped her fingers against her head before gesturing. "You've got a couple of the Empire's people heading out there already, don't you? Somehow you've rigged it so that they're going to show up at the garage just as the heroes do."
  
  His expression hidden, Coil simply nodded.
  
  The girl went on then. "So whoever you managed to get out there gets smashed by the Triumverate and whoever else they bring along with them, which just reinforces the whole idea that the Empire was behind it. They rescue Panacea, who tells them that Kaiser was responsible, and that he killed the mayor's niece. Then the Empire gets taken apart by every cape in the city that Panacea's kidnapping pissed off. They don't stand a chance, and no one else is going to take their side and risk being labeled alongside them. Empire Eighty-Eight's done."
  
  She glanced sidelong toward Kayden. "All except for the woman who turned in the boss, who most people know was already separating herself from Kaiser and the Empire, who was known for having a change of heart. She gets to be the big hero who told the truth and let them find Panacea. Which, incidentally, will finally make people stop lumping her in as Kaiser's bitch."
  
  Kayden stiffened, then relaxed. What did it matter now? "Are we done here? I need to be there if this is going to work. They need to see me actively helping."
  
  Coil gave another slight nod. "Go. And Purity, remember, do not speak with Armsmaster without activating the tinker tech I provided you. You won't be able to lie without it."
  
  Making a noise of acknowledgment, Kayden turned to leave the room. On her way out, she heard Grue speak again. "Now let's talk about how you're planning on getting the heat off us for our part in the kidnapping. And how we're going to save Bitch."
  
  Ignoring that, Kayden left the room, making her way through the underground base that was still under heavy construction. She wound her way through until she reached the room next to the exit. Poking her head in there, she found a pudgy fifteen year old boy sitting on a couch with her beautiful baby girl sleeping in his arms.
  
  "Has she made any fuss, Theo?" She asked the boy. He was Max's son from another woman, a boy that she'd never been able to make herself love the way that she loved her own baby. But she did care about what happened to him, and she hadn't wanted him to be caught up in the crossfire when this went down. So she had made Theo part of the deal with Coil. He had to take care of all three of them if he wanted Purity to do her part.
  
  The boy shook his head, his eyes on the tv across the room before he focused on her. "She was just hungry." He said simply, indicating the empty bottle on the couch.
  
  "I'll be back soon." Kayden promised. "If she wakes up again, there's another bottle in the bag next to the chair."
  
  Theo nodded but said nothing. She knew that he had to have some idea of what she was doing, that Coil wasn't on friendly terms with his father and what her being there meant. But he hadn't said anything. He never said anything that might mean expressing an opinion. His father had made sure of that.
  
  She couldn't even tell if the idea of her betraying Max made him happy or sad.
  
  Suppressing the urge to push the boy to offer something resembling an individual thought or emotion, Kayden quietly backed out of the room. Then she took the next door and left the underground base behind.
  
  A moment later, Purity launched herself into the sky, glowing brightly before streaking off toward the address she'd given the PRT. By this time next week, she wouldn't be Purity, the enforcer of Kaiser's racist Empire Eighty-Eight. She'd be Purity, hero of Brockton Bay, responsible for the rescue of Panacea.
  
  Then Aster would grow up with a mother she could be proud of.
  
  Interlude 2B - Legend
  
  High above the city of Brockton Bay, the man known to the world as Legend, the leader and public face of the entire Protectorate, floated alongside the clouds. His gaze took in the buildings laid out below him, a side effect of his extensive powers meaning that he could see perfectly no matter the distance, until an obstacle or the atmosphere intervened.
  
  His gaze flicked across people, searching for any sign of the girl that he and so many others had been scouring this city is for the past three days. Three days where he had been away from his husband and their son even more than was the norm for their unconventional family. Three days where he missed them both so much that the terrible feeling that Amy's family must have been going through weighed on him more with each passing moment, convincing him to search even longer.
  
  And yet it wasn't on the streets or on the people within them that he was truly focused on in this moment. Instead, his attention lay on the private, untraceable phone that was currently held to one ear.
  
  "Tell me that we have nothing to do with this."
  
  The voice on the other end of the phone, the woman he had known for more than a decade and yet did not truly know at all, was silent for a moment before responding. "We have no interest in removing useful parahumans from the world, Legend. Particularly ones such as Panacea. All of our goals, all of them, are much better suited to Amy Dallon staying where she was."
  
  It did not escape Legend's attention that the woman had not technically answered the question.
  
  "We do have a request for the resolution of this situation." The woman continued before he could decide if it was worth pressing the issue.
  
  "You must be joking." He replied. "A teenage girl is missing, if it escaped your notice. This isn't the time to be playing games."
  
  The woman's voice turned slightly colder. "As I already said, returning Amy Dallon to her home is in everyone's best interests. This request does not concern her safety. Rather, it concerns the fate of those who will fall in response to this abduction."
  
  It took him a moment to work through that. "Are you saying you know who has her?"
  
  "That information is making its way through official channels as we speak. You will be receiving the call within the next two minutes. But first, we must come to an agreement." The woman paused to let him speak, but he said nothing. After a moment, she continued. "As I said, removing useful parahumans is against everything we stand for."
  
  "You want to offer them a deal." Legend spoke in disbelief. "These are the people who abducted Panacea, probably one of our top five assets against things like the Endbringers, and you want to make them an offer to avoid punishment."
  
  "Believe me when I tell you that the ones we are speaking of have nothing of note to do with that abduction. That is not to say that they are not terrible people. But they can be removed from the general population and still remain... useful."
  
  "What do you want?" Legend replied, a little stiffly.
  
  "We want you to make them an offer."
  
  He frowned slightly at that. "What kind of offer?"
  
  She told him, and by the time she was done, the call had come in.
  
  Orienting himself toward the objective, the man called Legend went from a floating start to a streak across the sky with an abruptness that left doubt whether he had ever truly been there, while a rolling boom announced his obliteration of the sound barrier.
  
  As he approached the supposedly abandoned automotive repair garage that their informant had described, Legend spotted a group of costumed teenagers using another building as cover as they gathered. He slowed his flight and descended, landing at the edge of the assembled group.
  
  Their eyes turned to him, and he saw the awe that still, to this day, made him want to turn to see what famous, important, special person must have been standing behind him.
  
  "Sir." The teenager in the red costume with the shield emblem came to attention. "We're ready whenever you need us."
  
  "Aegis." He had become acquainted with the group over the last several days. He let his attention sweep over the group. Kid Win, Shadow Stalker, Clockblocker, Gallant, and Vista. And... another. He blinked, looking the girl up and down. She wore a clearly homemade costume that consisted of urban camo pants, a white turtleneck, black vest with a hood, and white balaclava mask. "You I don't know."
  
  The resulting high pitched whistling-whine noise almost made Legend instinctively check for incoming projectiles. It took him a second to realize that the noise was coming from the girl. Before his eyes, she started to vibrate, literally bouncing up and down as that whining noise that he slowly realized was excitement grew louder with each passing second.
  
  Smiling a little, Legend lifted his hand and started to give his standard greeting for a new cape. He didn't get the chance. The girl reacted to his raised hand by throwing herself forward. Her arms flew out and wrapped around him, and Legend found himself being hugged tighter than he could remember anyone without super strength outside of his own family hugging him.
  
  And she was still bouncing, that high pitched squee continuing for long enough that he started to wonder if she needed to breathe.
  
  In spite of himself, Legend returned the embrace. He couldn't help it, and a chuckle escaped him.
  
  "Tether!" Aegis hissed in shock, while Clockblocker and Kid Win looked as though they were starting to lose their struggle not to laugh out loud. Gallant was shaking his head, while Vista stared at the ground, shoulders shaking through her silent giggles. Shadow Stalker had her arms folded, the disbelief and anger clearly apparent.
  
  Finally, the girl's mask tilted up toward him. Her voice was cheerful. "You give good hugs."
  
  "Oh my god, Tether." Aegis blurted. "He's the leader of the Triumverate and one of the most powerful people in the world. Stop hugging him!"
  
  She did release him, only to turn toward the other teenager, head cocked to the side quizzically. "Explain to me which part of that makes him less deserving of hugs."
  
  "He's... he's... he's Legend! He's been saving the world since before we were born!" Aegis sputtered in disbelief.
  
  The girl leaned back a bit toward the man, her voice lowering into a stage whisper. "You hear that? Decades of saving the world and he doesn't think you've earned hugs. Boy, the things you've gotta do to impress some people." She made a whistling noise of disappointment.
  
  The Wards leader's protests dissolved into incoherent noises, and most of the rest of the team finally failed in their attempts to avoid snickering.
  
  Chuckling a little before coughing to cover it, Legend straightened, regarding the girl with interest. "New member?" Was she a product of Cauldron? Most of the... standard capes weren't nearly so... cheerful, particularly when it was obviously so soon since whatever traumatic event had caused their trigger. But if she was a Cauldron Cape...
  
  Aegis squinted at the girl briefly. "We're not sure. She's... strange."
  
  "She's new." Clockblocker spoke up. "But we're not sure if she's a member yet. She's helpful though."
  
  "Tether, was it?" He was going to have to ask the Doctor, in general terms, if his theory was right.
  
  Her head bobbed. "That's my name. Well it's not my name. It's not like my school ID has my picture on it next to the name 'Tether', and my mom doesn't say 'hey tether, time for dinner!' and-"
  
  In the background, Aegis had turned Gallant so that he could bang his forehead against the other boy's metal armored back.
  
  Shaking his head, Legend held up a hand to forestall the girl. "I get the picture. I know what everyone else here does. What about you?"
  
  "Umm..." Now the girl's posture made her look nervous and uncertain. She was definitely new. He wondered how she was so comfortable cracking jokes just before something like this. Growing up in a cape family maybe? "I make lines."
  
  He blinked at that. "Come again?"
  
  Looking toward a nearby dumpster, the girl pointed. "Lines. One end there..." Then she pointed to the fence across the lot. "The other end there. And... pull." The dumpster started to slide across the lot toward the fence. "There's more to it, but that's it basically. Lines. I can make them push or pull." As another demonstration, she lifted her hand toward the upper wall of the building. "Line from my glove to the wall." She was pulled off the ground.
  
  "Damn it!" Clockblocker cursed, while Kid Win raised both of his hands in triumph. At Legend's curious look, the time-stopper shrugged. "We had a bet about what her powers were, exactly."
  
  "Umm, Mr. Legend, sir?" Tether asked from her hanging position. "There's something else. My powers also make lines to show me where people are that are going to get hurt, and it's making an awful lot of them right now."
  
  He frowned at that. "Where?"
  
  The girl pointed in demonstration. "All the way over there at the building, and ummm... Up there." She pointed up, toward an approaching group of fliers.
  
  Everyone looked that way, and Aegis sighed. "New Wave. No way they'll wait for backup."
  
  Legend tapped his comm. "How long until everyone else gets here?" When the response came, he cursed. "They're still at least six minutes out." He paused slightly, then looked to the Wards. "I'm going to try to stall them and keep this under control. Failing that, if things go south, I'll go for grabbing everyone's attention. If that happens, all of you focus on getting around to the back side of that garage, find a way in, and get that girl out."
  
  He waited until they nodded in acknowledgment, then took off into the sky once more, flying for the group that was streaking toward the garage. Specifically, the blonde girl in the white dress and cape that was leading the charge.
  
  Grimacing, Legend shot his way out in front of them, turning in the air to hold up a hand. "Wait."
  
  Glory Girl, rage evident on her face even as she reluctantly halted, looked for a moment as though she would go around him anyway, reputation be damned. "My sister's down there."
  
  To the angry girl's either side, two more teenage figures had halted. Laserdream, in her white bodysuit with the emblem of a red and magenta arrow and lines radiating back and around from her chest out to her arms and legs, floated to Glory Girl's left, and Shielder, with his own matching white body suit save for the emblem of a blue shield that matched his blue hair, was to her right. A bit behind the three, Lady Photon and Brandish, mother of Shielder and Laserdream, and mother of Glory Girl (and adoptive mother of Panacea), respectively, floated.
  
  Impetuously, the girl in the lead, her powerful aura of intimidation going full blast, glared at him. "Move."
  
  "Victoria!" Brandish admonished her daughter. "Think about who you're talking to."
  
  "I know who I'm not talking to." Glory Girl shot back at her mother. "My sister. So why are we still waiting around?"
  
  "We need to scout the building." Legend cautioned. "We have a group ready to ensure the safety of Panacea. I understand your urgency. But if we wait for just a few minutes so that all of our reinforcements can arrive, there's a much better chance of-"
  
  Glory Girl, who had been rolling her eyes, spotted a van pulling into the lot below them. As two figures emerged, she went from mostly ignoring what Legend was saying, to completely ignoring him. She inverted in the air and dove with a suddenness that took even him by surprise, while her mother shouted her name. On either side of the empty spot where Victoria Dallon had been, her cousins exchanged looks and sighed before chasing after her.
  
  Spinning in the air, Legend saw the four figures emerge from the van. One was a large, rather hairy man with greasy blond hair that he recognized as the so-called 'Hookwolf'. The girl who stepped out next to him couldn't have been any older than the girl they had kidnapped. Clearly that was the telekinetic Rune, while the remaining two were the husband and wife duo of Othala, who granted super powers from a limited pool to those she touched, and Victor, the skill thief.
  
  "You!" Glory Girl shouted in a rage that made Legend wince. The bellow served as a warning, giving Othala time to notice her arrival and touch her husband barely a second before Victoria collided with him. From the man's lack of reaction, she'd had time to grant him temporary invincibility.
  
  The rest of New Wave descended upon the quartet of Nazis, the scene degenerating into a brawl before Legend could finish sighing in annoyance at being ignored.
  
  Hookwolf had changed shape, becoming a wildly shifting mass of blades and hooks that vaguely resembled a giant wolf. Shielder had created a forcefield and was working to contain him. Meanwhile, Rune had touched the van the group had arrived in, and was making it fly through the air at high speed, forcing Brandish and Lady Photon to continually dodge.
  
  Victor had used his temporary invincibility to weather Glory Girl's charge, then simply turned the girl's own speed against her, throwing her into the nearby wall. By the time she had recovered, his wife had reached his side, her touch switching his super power so that he could send a wave of fire through the air and toward the girl who had ambushed them.
  
  Laserdream reached the pair then to back up her cousin, her attack sending the husband and wife diving for cover.
  
  Finally seeing enough of this, Legend flew from his spot in the air to land in a crouch in the middle of the lot with his arms outstretched to either side. At a single thought, a half dozen lasers emerged from each of his hands.
  
  Four of the lasers curved around and up, blasting the van into several pieces just before Rune could hit Brandish with it, while the fifth, less powerful laser gave the telekinetic a surgically precise burn across her arm, making her yelp and lose control of the pieces so that they fell to the ground. The sixth laser shot through the brick half-wall that Othala and Victor had been taking cover behind, forcing the pair to recoil from the brick dust that exploded into their eyes, while the seventh and eighth lasers shot directly between where their figures were after they drew back from the dust, forcing Othala to retreat a few steps from her husband.
  
  Finally, the remaining four lasers tore into Hookwolf, shearing nearly half of the metal from his figure in a single attack.
  
  By the time Legend finished straightening from his initial landing, the fighting had stopped, and everyone was watching him.
  
  "Good." He said simply. "Now that I have your attention, maybe we can talk like civilized adults."
  
  Stalking forward, Glory Girl demanded, "Where. Is. Amy?" Her aura was going even stronger than before.
  
  Hookwolf, who had resumed his human shape, glowered. "Girl, even if I-"
  
  Before he could continue speaking, the doors of the garage flew open and the standing heroes were met by a hail of gunfire. Legend felt several impacts against his chest, his power protecting him by shifting his state to a semi-energy state for a brief instant to absorb the energy of the bullets and incinerate their physical form so that each only conveyed a slight fraction of the damage they should.
  
  A flood of men wearing the Empire Eighty-Eight's colors emerged from the garage. Three ran to Othala and put themselves between her and the heroes, ushering her back toward Victor. Two more rushed to Rune, providing her with a large bag that the pair were carrying between them. When Rune reached into the bag, a half dozen basketball sized metal balls rose from the bag and began to circle the teenager rapidly as she exercised her power.
  
  More of the men provided cover fire for Hookwolf with a mixture of gun and laser fire, giving the man an opportunity to recover while the heroes were forced to back up, using various forcefields as protection.
  
  Taking aim, Legend sent another half dozen lasers curving around the various shields that had sprung up, blasting the weapons out of several of the men's hands.
  
  In the midst of all this gunfire, a voice bellowed, " WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?"
  
  Everyone involved turned to find the leader of the Empire Eighty-Eight, the man known as Kaiser, standing at the edge of the lot, flanked by his twin blonde bodyguard valkyries, both of whom had increased their size to roughly fifteen feet. Only half of their maximum, but still intimidating to most people.
  
  Legend stepped forward, keeping his eyes roving across the men in case someone had an itchy trigger finger. "We're here for the girl, Kaiser."
  
  "What-" It was as far as the man got, before another figure flew down from the sky, the bright glow surrounding her figure making it difficult to stare directly at her.
  
  "It's too late, Max." She said while positioning herself between Legend and Kaiser. "I've told them everything. I told them about how the Empire took the girl to fix your condition."
  
  For a moment, Kaiser just stared at the woman. "You... you've turned... how..." The confusion in his voice turned to a noise of rage. He raised his hand, and Legend moved to intervene.
  
  He never had the chance. The man stopped in mid-motion, his body going rigidly still. His head tilted, his words turned into a horrified cry of agony that was as terrible as it was brief, and blood poured from the man's eyes and mouth. Then he collapsed to the ground, utterly still.
  
  No one moved. No one spoke. None of it seemed real. Slowly, one of the blonde valkyries shrunk down and knelt at Kaiser's side, laying a hand against him. A moment later, her confused, bewildered voice called out, "He's... he's dead!"
  
  Everyone, from both sides, looked shocked. Before anyone else could recover, a voice called out, "Amy!" Glory Girl flew across the lot, straight toward the group that was emerging from the garage. It was the Wards this time, escorting the Healer.
  
  Embracing her sister tightly, Glory Girl started to examine her, looking for damage. But Panacea waved her off and approached. She was limping, and Legend remembered belatedly that, for all her power, the girl was incapable of healing her own body.
  
  "This is why he took me." She said, addressing him. "There was something wrong with his brain. He said that a bio-tinker did something to him as revenge for something. He wanted me to fix him, so his power would stop hurting his brain. He was afraid that if he got too angry, it would kill him." She lowered her voice, scowling. "I told him I don't do brains. So he killed... he killed..." Her eyes closed and she gave a shudder. "He killed that little girl. He killed Dinah, because I wouldn't fix his brain."
  
  By that time, the rest of the Empire Eighty-Eight troops had recovered somewhat from the dual impact of their leader's death and his second-in-command's apparent defection. The giant women had unslung their weapons, a spear and a sword and shield respectively, while gaining another ten feet of height. Hookwolf looked like he was ready for blood, Rune had taken the time to add several more chunks of debris to her arsenal, and Victor and Othala were together. The unpowered troops with their guns had regained their footing, spacing themselves out to provide cover for the actual capes.
  
  "Kaiser is dead!" Purity called out, facing the group as she floated partway off the ground. "The Empire is over!"
  
  This was met with a loud curse from Hookwolf. "Slut!" he shouted. "Which one of the Protectorate fucks banged you so hard you switched sides, huh? Just tell me it wasn't a nigger. Tell me you ain't flipped around that bad."
  
  Purity's hands clenched, and she shook her head. "It's over, Wolf. It's time to stop."
  
  "What it's time for..." Hookwolf snarled. "is me to jam a few footlong spikes up your cunt." He leapt into his alternate form, tearing toward the floating woman with a shriek of grinding, twisting metal.
  
  Before Legend could intervene, Purity extended her hand. A blinding blast of light leapt from her fingers, utterly engulfed the charging Hookwolf, and sent him flying backwards to hit the wall of the garage, before carrying on through through said wall, leaving the broken, shattered form lying collapsed in the rubble that remained.
  
  "I never did like that kind of language." Purity said quietly.
  
  Legend decided that the silence that followed was as good of a time as any, and raised his hand. "The rest of you listen to me right now. The country wants to make an example out of you. Kidnapping Panacea was a bad, bad idea. They wouldn't mind if we finished this fight the hard way, just so no one else gets the idea of trying something like that again. This isn't something you can run from. It's not a fight you can win."
  
  He took a breath, letting that set before continuing. "But, I've been authorized to offer you a deal. Everyone, any of you who surrender unconditionally in the next five seconds after I finish talking will do their time in a regular maximum security prison. Everyone who doesn't goes to the Bird Cage. Period. No exceptions. Believe me when I say, this is a one time deal."
  
  "So, who's up for it?"
  
  By the time that the members of the local Protectorate, as well as his partners in the Triumverate, reached the scene, all of the Empire's people who had been present had surrendered. The unpowered people had been first, unsurprisingly, but the others had followed suit without Hookwolf to goad them on, helped by the sight of their deceased leader lying in the middle of the parking lot.
  
  Now, hours later, Legend stood in a room in the local Protectorate base, alongside Eidolon and Alexandria, the other two members of the most powerful trio of heroes in the world. "I don't understand it. He just... died.. No explanation."
  
  "Tinkers." Eidolon said with a shrug. "Especially bio-tinkers. You've seen what Bonesaw can do."
  
  Alexandria shook her head. "I'm just glad the girl's back. Now we can go home." When the other two looked at her, she blanched. "That sounded worse than I meant it."
  
  "We're all tired." Legend agreed, sighing a little.
  
  Eidolon asked, "What's going to happen to the Empire troops that we haven't found?" There were a handful of powered capes that hadn't been present at the battle and who had yet to surrender themselves.
  
  "The locals can track them down and deal with them." Legend replied. "We did our part. Panacea is safe with her family." He paused then before adding, "and Cauldron has new recruits." The last part he wasn't happy about.
  
  "It's for the best." Alexandria assured him. "Really. They'd rot in the Bird Cage otherwise."
  
  "Maybe they should." Legend looked at her seriously. "These are not good people. They're murderers, monsters. We're supposed to be the good guys. We're supposed to put those kind of people in prison."
  
  "Cauldron isn't a vacation." She replied, her own expression neutral. "They can actually do some good there. The research alone from the influx of subjects..."
  
  Legend shook his head, glancing toward Eidolon for an opinion. All he received was a shrug.
  
  Sighing again, he was spared from responding by a knock on the door. When permission was given, the door opened and a man that Legend recognized as one of the consultants that had been brought in to help with the search for Panacea. "Yes?"
  
  "Sorry to interrupt." The man apologized, stepping into the room. "Just need you to sign a few things before you head out. Bureaucracy stuff about how Purity was in her right to use lethal force to defend herself, as well as a few items related to Kaiser's company and assets."
  
  Taking the forms that the man offered him, Legend examined the papers, then began to sign them. He paused. "This says the PRT is seizing his assets."
  
  The man nodded. "That's correct, sir. It was decided in the wake of Panacea's kidnapping to create a new arm of the PRT."
  
  Alexandria's head turned at that. "A new branch?"
  
  "Yes, ma'am." The man hesitated before going on. "Because most of the PRT is based around defense, and power. We need a new group focused on investigation, and protection."
  
  "Bodyguards for capes?" Eidolon sounded doubtful.
  
  "Secret Service for capes." The man confirmed. "Only if they request it. Or for their families. Also people with investigative skills and history, who can focus on the... less world ending threats." He paused before adding pointedly, "Like kidnapping."
  
  Legend signed the last form. "And what does that have to do with the Empire's assets?"
  
  "That's what we're using to fund the formation of this group." The man replied. "Originally it was going to have to wait for the next yearly budget allotment, if we could fit it in at all. I convinced the national director that this was too important to wait on, so we're going to use Kaiser's seized assets and infrastructure as a starting point to build off of so that we can get off the ground. That's why we have to take care of this so soon. It's going to take weeks to sort through everything, and we can't touch it until the paperwork goes through. I ahh, just thought it'd be easier to get you to sign the forms now than try to track you down after you leave."
  
  "We?" Alexandria lifted her head. "Sounds like you have a lot riding on this."
  
  The man flushed a little, ducking his head. "I suppose so, ma'am. It was sort of my idea, so the Director, he put me in charge of it."
  
  Legend chuckled. "No wonder you want these forms signed. That means this is you?" He indicated the name stamped on several of the pages.
  
  "Yes, sir." The man confirmed. "Thomas Calvert, that's me."
  
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  Arc 3: Institution
  Two nights later, the flash from my camera lit up the surrounding darkness of the rooftop, illuminating its single subject. In the next instant, a crossbow bolt was shooting toward where the person holding the camera would have been standing if I hadn't set it to a delayed automatic shot and moved out of the way.
  
  "No no no." I injected disappointment into my voice from my spot, sitting on top of the waist-high wall on the opposite corner of the roof from where Sophia stood in full Shadow Stalker regalia. "For the action shot, you're supposed to tell me before you fire the bow. This was just the full profile shot."
  
  Lifting the second crossbow, Sophia's voice was hard and dangerous. "You're pretty stupid aren't you? What the hell are you doing here?"
  
  I let my head tilt quizzically. "Well see, someone told me you were patrolling tonight. Only I wasn't sure I'd recognize you out in the dark when you weren't beaten unconscious, so I wanted to make sure I had a picture to study." I held each of my gloved hands up, using two fingers from each to form a square frame around her. "Maybe you could lay down and whimper a little so I could have a before-and-after shot?"
  
  Her snarl was audible this time. "Look you little bitch, I don't care who thinks you're funny. I think you're a stupid, pathetic, needy little girl that needs to stay the hell out of my way. I'm trying to work, so I'm going to tell you one more time to leave me the fuck alone. We've got nothing to talk about."
  
  "Actually," I slid off my perch to drop down to the roof. "We do have one thing we should probably discuss."
  
  Sophia's stance suggested that she was seriously considering just shooting me. "Pretty sure we don't."
  
  I reached up, using the back of my hand to brush my hood off, then took a hold of my mask and pulled it up and off so that Sophia could see my face. "I beg to differ."
  
  For a moment, she just stared at me, her expression hidden behind her own mask with that image of the woman's stern face on it. Then she doubled over a little and started to laugh. She laughed loudly, putting out a hand to the nearby wall to catch herself after dropping one of her crossbows back in its slot on her belt.
  
  "Oh god. Oh my god, that is fantastic. That's great." Sophia managed after a minute. "Let me guess, let me guess, now you think I'm going to be all impressed. Now I'm supposed to be all, 'oh Mads, I was so wrong. I was wrong about you.', right? You actually think this changes anything? It doesn't change anything. You were a loser when I let you hang out with us, you were a loser when you were off moping around by yourself, and you're an even bigger loser now. That only difference now is that instead of having two people that I think are worthless little shits that don't deserve oxygen, there's just the one. You. It was always you."
  
  I weathered that, letting her talk. When she was done, I shrugged. "Actually, I was kind of thinking that I'd just kick your ass and then turn you in."
  
  Sophia's laughter stopped, and she straightened, gazing at me for a moment. "You wanna run that by me again?" She asked in a deadly, low tone.
  
  I kept my own voice bright, as though discussing the weather. "I said I was going to kick your ass, then turn you in. But you know, if you'd prefer to avoid the ass kicking, you could always just fess up on your own. You know what they say, confession is good for the soul. As in, the sole of my boot when I don't break it off on your backside, during said ass kicking."
  
  "Ooooh Maddy Maddy Maddy." Sophia continued to glare at me, shaking her head slowly. "You did not want to give me this excuse. This... this you're going to regret."
  
  "Trust me, Sophia, of all the things I regret... this won't even crack the top ten." I promised.
  
  "Oh boo fucking hoo!" She shouted back at me. "What the hell do you want from me, Madison? It was an accident. You get that? You understand me? She wasn't supposed to die, but to hell if I'm going to let one weak, useless little girl ruin my life !"
  
  " What about HER life?!" I shot back, just as loudly. "What about Taylor's life?! She's gone, she's dead and it's our fault."
  
  "So what?!" Sophia demanded, sounding almost hysterical. "That's not my fault!"
  
  "Oh, I suppose she shoved herself in the locker full of tampons." I retorted.
  
  She screamed back at me, " It was a joke!" Stalking my way, Sophia went on. "A joke. You used to think my jokes were funny. You thought all the other ones were funny."
  
  "Yeah." I agreed quietly. "And that's something I have to live with. Not ignore and pretend it never happened."
  
  "Oh would you just grow up?" Sophia stopped barely a few feet from me, glowering. "It was an accident. She was weak. She was a loser when she was alive and she died like a loser. A pathetic, worthless little crybaby freak. You should be thanking me."
  
  "Thanking you?" I echoed with some disbelief.
  
  "Of course!" Sophia raised both hands in exasperation. "Look at you now! Just look at yourself! You have powers now, Madison. You have powers! That's because of me. Everything you are is because of me! I made you. I brought you into our little group, I made you popular, and I made you unpopular. And now, I made you a cape! I made you into a superhero!"
  
  I lowered my head, took a long breath, and then raised it to look at her. "That's the difference between you and me, Sophia. I give you no credit... or blame for my choices. You didn't make me into a bitch. You didn't make me laugh at Taylor. You didn't make me hurt her. You didn't even make me like hurting her. That was me. Those were my choices, my decisions, my mistakes. It was my stupidity. Everything I did... all of it, was because I chose to do it." I met her gaze through her mask. "Just like I'm going to choose to tell everyone the truth about Taylor."
  
  Her grip on the one crossbow that had remained in her hand tightened. "You know I can't let you do that, Madison."
  
  "Then do it yourself." I told her quietly. "Tell them the truth, tell them it was an accident, that you panicked, that you were scared. Tell them the truth and maybe they'll go easy on you."
  
  Her scream, barely a few feet from my face, was almost incoherent. " I'M A SUPER HERO!" Her crossbow was pointed straight at me. "I'm a fucking super hero, you stupid, whiny little brat! Do you even understand that? Do you have any idea, any idea at all how many people I've saved?! I've risked my life over and over and over again, to save the pathetic losers of this world, the people who don't deserve to live! I save them again and again and again. Don't you think that balances out one little mistake? Don't you think one ACCIDENT is less important than the dozens of lives I save every single time I put one of these criminal fucks behind bars?!"
  
  "No." I said simply.
  
  "No?" Sophia echoed in disbelief. "No, what?"
  
  I took a breath before letting it out. "No, it's not less important. The way you treat the people that you think are less than you is one of the most important things about you." I let my gaze meet hers once more before adding, "And no, you're not a super hero."
  
  She let out a noise of inarticulate rage before raising her crossbow. "Fuck you, Madison." She fired a snapshot, and the bolt streaked toward me.
  
  Or it did for roughly half the distance, before the line that I had already attached between the bolt and Sophia's arm while she was shouting at me moments earlier snapped taut. Before Sophia had any idea of what had just happened, in the span of a blink, her bolt went from shooting toward me, to snapping back and around to embed itself halfway through her arm.
  
  "Just think," I couldn't resist pointing out. "If you'd just stuck with the nonlethal ammo they wanted you to, you could pass out now instead of experiencing every bit of the ass kicking that you deserve."
  
  She snarled, tore the bolt away, and went into her shadow state before lunging for me. I planted two lines against my feet and used them to propel myself into a nine foot high jump over her head, then oriented onto another line to pull myself behind her while she was swinging at the area that I'd been in.
  
  I landed, and Sophia reacted with blinding quickness, spinning into a kick that brought her leg all the way around to the side of my head and sent me sprawling to the rooftop.
  
  Stunned for a second, I barely managed to roll aside as Sophia brought her foot down in another kick that would knocked the wind out of me. I tried to knock her remaining leg out from under her while the other one was still in mid-kick, but she jumped back into her shadow state so that my hand whiffed through her.
  
  She aimed that crossbow, having reloaded, and I rolled again before she could fire. The bolt hit the spot I'd been lying in an instant later. Coming to my feet, I threw the best punch I could. She didn't bother to use her shadow state that time, easily brushing it aside before hammering me in return with a punch that made my head reel back. I tasted blood in my mouth.
  
  I swung twice more, but she just used her shadow state to render the attacks meaningless. Then she countered, hitting me three times in rapid succession, so quickly I could barely tell she was moving.
  
  As I fell back, stumbling to one knee, Sophia just chuckled low. "What was that you were saying about an ass kicking?"
  
  I murmured something quietly while looking down.
  
  "What?" She demanded, raising one of her crossbows as she stepped closer, but not close enough for me to reach her. "What did you say, loser?"
  
  I turned my head and spat blood before looking back up at her. "I said, check your costume." Then I held up my hand to show her what looked like a tiny joy buzzer in my palm.
  
  Sophia blinked once, then looked down. Small battery sized clips were attached to both of her legs, one of her sleeves, and her waist. All the places I had put them while she took her time beating on me. "What-"
  
  I pressed down on the buzzer, and every one of the clips responded by sending a jolt of electricity through Sophia, drawing a startled squeal from the other girl as she dropped to her side, her muscles suddenly giving out.
  
  Shoving myself to my feet, I extended a hand toward Sophia. I attached a line to her mask and tore it away from her. "I don't want to fight Shadow Stalker." I informed her. "I want to fight Sophia Hess." Then I attached two more lines to each of her shoulders, using them to yank her up and toward me. She went into her shadow state, of course. But I triggered the electro buzzers again, and she screamed as they shocked her back into her physical state, just as I hauled off and punched her for real this time.
  
  It hurt. It hurt my hand a lot. Ow. But it hurt her worse, both physically and emotionally. She reeled, once again trying to escape into her shadow state. She was trying to lose the stunners, but it wasn't working.
  
  I triggered them again with a twitch of my hand, and Sophia screamed, her pain mixing with her outrage. She tried to lift her left crossbow, and I attached a line between it and a street light across the street, sending it flying off into the darkness.
  
  Then she lifted her right crossbow. This time, I linked a line between the side of the weapon, and the collar of her costume. A slight yank on the line made the crossbow whip around and smack her upside the head.
  
  She dropped the bow after staggering, and I attached two more lines to her gloves. The other ends of the lines I attached to her tiny stud earring on one side, and to the band she used to keep her hair out of her eyes on the other side. Then I yanked on one line, forcing her hand to whip up and smack herself in the side of the head. A yank on the other line brought her gloved hand around to deck herself in the face rather awkwardly.
  
  Switching the ends of the lines so that they led to Sophia's chest and stomach, respectively, I made her hit herself over and over again. Sometimes I switched it around, changing hands and locations, but for the next several moments, Sophia Hess quite literally beat the crap out of herself. Every time she tried for her shadow state to shake my lines, a jolt from the buzzers stopped her.
  
  I released her finally, and said quietly, "Are you ready to tell the truth?"
  
  Instead, Sophia ran straight for me, animalistic rage on her face. I created two more lines, attached them to her knees, and waited until she was right in front of me. Then I gave a yank, hauling her down onto her knees as she skidded to a stop, before two more lines attached to her arms held them trapped at her sides.
  
  Her mouth opened, a snarl at her bloodied and bruised lips, but I raised my foot and kicked her, releasing the lines so that she was knocked onto her side, dazed and reeling.
  
  "That," I informed Sophia as she lay beaten on the ground. "was for Taylor."
  
  I could see the shudder of revulsion run through her, and she raised her gaze to glare at me just before she spoke. "They won't believe you, bitch. My team. My team won't believe a word you say."
  
  "Oh, I dunno..." I trailed off, staring down at Sophia, and making sure she was watching before I reached up and touched the communicator in my ear. "What do you think, Aegis?"
  
  His voice came through the comms in both of our ears, so that Sophia could hear as well. "I think I'm trying to decide if I'm more appalled or amused that the first time she calls us her team is when she's definitely no longer a part of it."
  
  I let myself breathe out one more time, releasing the tension inside me. "So you heard all of it. You got the whole thing?"
  
  "Yup." That was Kid Win's voice. "We've got it all. She's done."
  
  Four pairs of adult eyes glared at us from across the long table in the conference room. One adult for each of us. I wasn't sure if that was intentional, or if four just happened to be the number that they needed for this particular situation.
  
  I recognized the two to the left, sitting together. Director Emily Piggot, the leader of the local PRT division and therefore the boss of the Wards, was a rather squat, heavy woman with obvious health problems and a permanent scowl. Next to her was the leader of the local Protectorate team, the tinker-hero Armsmaster. In almost any other situation, I would have been almost as giddy about meeting the top local hero as I had been to meet Legend. Unfortunately, this was not a time for giddiness.
  
  The two that sat slightly to the right from Armsmaster and Piggot I didn't recognize. One was a rather hawkish looking older woman whose hair had long since grayed who had been introduced as Judge Heidi Truant, while the other was a very thin man who looked average save for his intense eyes, which hadn't stopped studying us since we entered the room. He was, apparently, Thomas Calvert, a former PRT consultant who was heading up a new internal security division that was just getting off the ground.
  
  On my side of the table, besides myself, were Dennis, the brown haired Kid Win that I now knew as Chris, and the Hispanic boy Carlos that I previously knew only as Aegis. Both had introduced themselves before we'd come up with the plan to trap Sophia.
  
  As for the psycho-girl herself, she was currently restrained in another room, along with her mother and a couple of PRT officers, waiting for the rest of us to be dealt with.
  
  It was Director Piggot who spoke first, once we finished explaining everything. "Let me see if I understand this." Her voice was not amused. "You were all either witnesses to or had full knowledge of the continued dangerous and unstable behavior of a parahuman individual, who was already on probation and whose actions had already resulted in at least one death, which she expressed little to no regret over." Her eyes narrowed at the boys. "Your actions at that point were not to simply alert one of your superiors, but to provide tinker-made weapons to an unauthorized individual, and then corner this unstable individual and goad her into a confrontation, on the thin hope that she would say enough over the communicator to condemn herself. You-" She focused on me then. "-then engaged in a physical brawl with the unstable, dangerous individual in spite of being fully capable of subduing her without further damage to either of you, simply by using the previously mentioned tinker-made electrical devices."
  
  "Have I summed this up properly, or is there another instance of abhorrent stupidity that I'm missing?"
  
  I shifted in my seat, glanced at the boys, and then started to speak. But Carlos beat me to it. "We needed Sophia's confession, ma'am. Otherwise it would have been Madison's word versus Sophia's and her other friend, Emma Barnes, who already established that she wouldn't turn against Sophia. Two words versus one, can you honestly say that things would have gone our way?"
  
  Director Piggot was clearly not impressed. "Had you involved the authorities, we could have established a similar scenario in which Madison would establish a conversation that resulted in Sophia's confession. Do you know what the difference would have been? We would have contained and controlled the situation. We would have moved in to properly and safely bring Sophia in without any fight being necessary. No one would have been hurt." She gave me a pointed look, and I winced. The pain in my side, stomach, and face reminded me of just what she was referring to. When I'd glanced in the mirror while cleaning myself up, the nasty bruise and welt on the side of my head had made me never want to look in the mirror again.
  
  "Director Piggot, that's not fair." Dennis spoke up. "How were we supposed to know if you'd take us seriously or not without evidence?"
  
  Her response was an intense glare. "I find it interesting that you ask whether or not we would extend blind trust to you after you engage in behavior like this. Now unless you can answer the question of why a physical confrontation was necessary, be silent."
  
  Armsmaster straightened, the corners of his mouth turned into a severe line of annoyance. I could only see the lower half of his face, since the helmet he wore covered the rest. "You wanted a fight, didn't you?" When I hesitated, he went on. "You wanted a fight because you wanted to beat her. She tormented you for months. She's made your life miserable every moment of school and any other time she saw you. On top of that, you found out that she was a member of the Wards, a hero. While you were suffering, while you were coping with the ahhh... the other girl's death, she kept being a hero. So you wanted to win. You wanted to fight Sophia, so that you could beat her. So that she would see you beat her. "
  
  I opened my mouth and then shut it, as Armsmaster held up a gauntleted hand. "For once in your life, tell the truth. For your sake if no one else's. Did you want that fight to happen and therefore purposefully ignore any other possible solution that didn't involve the opportunity for it?"
  
  Swallowing, I looked down at the table, pausing as I thought about it. Then I nodded. "Yes, sir." I looked up. "I wanted to fight Sophia. I wanted to beat her."
  
  "But you didn't." He observed. "You needed Kid Win's electrical devices to short out her power. You had to cheat, and even then it was his ability that truly beat her."
  
  I met his gaze as best as I could, staring into his helmet. "With all due respect, sir, you're wrong. I did beat her. I beat her by working with the others, by working with Kid Win, her own teammate. She didn't trust them, she thought she was better than they were. So beating her was kind of their thing as well."
  
  "If I might interject." The thin man spoke finally, after clearing his throat. "Who beat who is not the issue here. It seems to me that we have several situations to handle. The first is what to do with Miss Hess now. The second is what to do with Madison Clements here. And the third is what to do with other Wards who assisted her."
  
  "Indeed." The hawk-faced old woman, Judge Truant, nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Calvert. Let us begin with Sophia. That seems to be a simple and straight forward situation. After hearing the recording obtained by the Wards, I believe it's clear that Miss Hess has obviously violated her probation, as well as being primarily responsible for the accidental death of young Taylor Hebert. To that end, her probation will be revoked and she will immediately be remanded to an appropriate juvenile detention facility for both the original assault and involuntary manslaughter for the case of Miss Hebert."
  
  Unsure of the etiquette at a time like this, but wanting to play it safe, I raised my hand. When the judge looked to me, I asked, "Does that mean everyone's going to know what happened?"
  
  "No." Judge Truant shook her head. "We have an established protocol for this sort of thing. Sophia's actual record will be sealed, and she will be taken to a special detention facility under another a fictional record whose sentence will be the equivalent of what she would have received under the actual crime."
  
  "What if she tells someone who she really is?" I wanted to know. "I mean, that she's Shadow Stalker and what happened. Or, you know, the identities of anyone else that she knows and doesn't have anything to lose over now."
  
  It was Director Piggot who answered the question. "First, she will be imprisoned only with other parahumans, or those otherwise related to the Wards or Protectorate system, since we do not imprison former heroes alongside career criminals for obvious reasons. Second, any revelation of any secret information will result in an extension of her sentence, and a move to solitary confinement."
  
  "And if she does it anyway?" I pressed. "If she tells someone who Dennis is, or Carlos, or any of the others? Sophia isn't stable, Director. She doesn't think through consequences like that. She'll get pissed and she'll lash out the only way she can."
  
  The woman glared at me for a moment, then looked down the table, first at Armsmaster, who just shrugged at her, and then the other way toward the judge and Mr. Calvert.
  
  It was the latter who spoke, his intense eyes examining me. "Perhaps-"
  
  My ears popped, suddenly and almost violently. It made me gasp, twitching backwards in my seat, while a shudder ran its way through my whole back, from the base of my spine to the top of my neck.
  
  "Miss Clements." Mr. Calvert's attention was on me, and if I'd thought his eyes were intense before, they were almost burning now. He seemed to be committing every bit of me to memory. "Are you quite all right?"
  
  I hesitated, unsure of what that feeling had been, before nodding. "Yes, sir. I just-"
  
  Pain. Intense, unbelievable pain in my jaw and the back of my head. The briefest of images of Dennis on the floor, as quick as a flash of lightning across the sky, and myself shouting, screaming.
  
  It seemed to last barely the length of a blink, and then it was gone, passing along another of those full body shudders. It hadn't even lasted long enough for me to react to the pain, other than to start in my seat.
  
  This time it was Judge Truant who spoke. "Are you sure you're all right?" All of the adults were gazing intently at me, none more so than Mr. Calvert, who looked... curious.
  
  I swallowed before nodding. The last thing I wanted was for them to think I was unstable, that there was any reason not to trust my word against Sophia's. "I'm fine. Just... it's been a long day." I gestured to the bruise on my face. "I probably need to lay down."
  
  "We'll get through this as soon as possible." The older woman promised, before continuing. "So, Sophia will be taken to the detention facility, specifics to be filled in after we speak with her, her mother, and their lawyer. I promise you, however, that she will be detained for this."
  
  "What about Emma?" I asked. "Emma Barnes, she was... well, she was a part of it. Both of us were."
  
  "She'll be dealt with separately." Director Piggot announced. "Her father is already coming in to serve as Sophia's representation."
  
  After a moment, I had to ask, "What about Mr. Hebert, Taylor's father?"
  
  "What about him?" Armsmaster asked, a mixture of confusion and annoyance in his voice. He didn't want this dragged out any longer. "What does he have to do with this?"
  
  "Everything." I said in disbelief. "Taylor was his daughter. Her death caused all of this. He deserves... closure."
  
  Judge Truant made a soft sighing noise. "I understand your desire, Miss Clements. How about if we tell Mr. Hebert that his daughter's death was a result of a parahuman situation, and that the person responsible has been taken into custody? I'm afraid that's the best I can offer."
  
  I hesitated, then nodded. It was the best I could hope for.
  
  "Now, for you." The judge went on. "As a minor, you're going to have to bring at least one parent or guardian in on this. Assuming they agree, you'll become a member of the Wards and be subject to their rules and regulations regarding your activities, your compensation, all related merchandising profits, and so forth. If your parents disagree, this becomes more difficult. So you'll have to take this information to them and get them on board. Understand?"
  
  I nodded again, swallowing. This was all happening really fast. I had no idea what I was going to say to my parents about... well, any of this at all.
  
  "Good." Director Piggot slid some forms across the table to me. "Take all of these, read them through with your guardian, and fill in all the information before bringing them back with the guardian who is going to sign them."
  
  As I took the forms, Judge Truant explained, "You've accepted your own part as an accessory in the death of Taylor Hebert. Assuming this enrollment goes through with your guardian, you will be on probation for one year. One year during which you will be a probationary member of the Wards. This committee, or a similarly designated group, will reconvene in one year to establish whether you should be allowed to continue as a full member of the system, or if more serious sentencing is needed."
  
  I went through the paperwork, while the Judge continued. "Beyond your probationary sentence as a Ward, you will serve community service. In addition to the typical duties of every Ward such as patrol, which you will be expected to perform alongside the regular team members, you will work for two hours every Saturday, unless your official Wards duties intervene, on the grounds of Weatherfield Cemetery, until the committee reconvenes in one year. Again, this is subject to your guardian approving your enrollment."
  
  Once I had finished as much as I could before I'd have to get mom or dad involved, my new teammates started to congratulate me, until Director Piggot cleared her throat nastily. She glared until everyone sat down, then spoke. "Finally, I am still disgusted by the actions of you boys. You should know better, especially you, Carlos. You were team leader."
  
  Noticing the choice of words, the boy opened his mouth, and she held up a finger. "Don't. Don't say a word. You've done enough. I'm removing you from your position of team leader for the next month. Gallant will be filling that role for the time being, since he's the only one of you of appropriate age that wasn't involved in this asinine situation. In a month, we'll see if you've learned your lesson or not." She gave him an even more severe look. "I do hope that you manage to impress me enough to regain your leadership position before you graduate, if you plan on continuing into the Protectorate and hope for a decent assignment."
  
  I saw the Hispanic boy swallow before nodding.
  
  "As for the two of you," Director Piggot focused on Dennis and Chris. "You'll be working alongside Madison in the cemetery for the next two months. And all four of you will be performing bathroom and kitchen cleaning duty, alternating weekends, in the Wards headquarters for the same amount of time. Assuming, of course, that nothing goes wrong with Madison joining the team. Does anyone have anything else to say?"
  
  All four of us shook our heads, and the adults stood. "Good." Director Piggot announced. "Now get out of my sight while we go and deal with Hess."
  
  The Judge looked to me. "Clements, we have your sworn statement already. If we need you to testify, we'll let you know." The hawk-faced woman gave a thin smile. "We do know where you'll be."
  
  As I nodded, Mr. Calvert stepped around the table and extended his hand toward me. His intense gaze hadn't left me since I'd shuddered the first time. "Madison Clements." He said my name as though committing it firmly to memory, extending a hand. I took it, and his grip was rather firm for such a thin man.
  
  "Good luck. I'll be keeping an eye on your career."
  
  3.03
  
  Right. So. Mom and Dad. This was going to be... interesting.
  
  Even as I stood in the back alley behind my house, papers from Director Piggot in hand, I tried rehearsing what I was going to say. I tried several variations to see how they sounded.
  
  "So hey, Mom, you know how you always wanted me to get a job?"
  
  "Dad, you remember when you told Trevor that he should join the PRT when he graduates because one of us should really give back to the community? Weeeeellll..."
  
  "Guys, you'll never guess what happened on the way to school. I tripped and became a super hero. Sign this."
  
  "Soooo uhhh, do we need anything from the store? I could swing by on my way to turning in these permission forms to join the Wards. Just initial here..."
  
  "Hypothetically speaking, if Trevor witnessed a murder, never told you, became a superhero, and confronted the murderer, would you kill him? He told me to ask."
  
  Turning, I let my head fall forward and down to bang against the side of the wooden fence that surrounded our property. It was a mistake. The pain from my previous injury rocketed through me, and I cried out reflexively.
  
  "Madison?" The voice of my father on the other side of the fence interrupted my inner condemnations, and I cursed under my breath as the gate was unlatched and he came through. "I thought I heard you muttering to yourself out here. What are you doing out so late-"
  
  He interrupted himself as he saw the bandage covering the side of my head, almost dropping the flashlight that he'd been using. "Madison!" Taking three quick steps, Dad put one hand on my shoulder and used two of his fingers to gently tilt my chin up so he could examine me with the flashlight. "What happened to you? Did this happen at Emma's or Sophia's? Why didn't they call us?"
  
  My mouth opened, but no words came out. Funny, for as easy as it was for me to think up smart ass things to say in the heat of combat in spite of my lack of experience, facing my dad like this left me completely mute. My brain was running one of those test patterns that used to be on televisions decades ago before stations broadcast twenty-four seven.
  
  Dad seemed to think he'd been too rough, and he immediately lessened his grip on my shoulder (one of the few places I actually wasn't sore), and lowered the volume of his voice. "Come on, Maddy, let's go sit down inside. Can you walk?"
  
  "I... made it all the way home." I pointed out, mind still racing about what I was actually going to say.
  
  Still, Dad felt the need to physically guide me across the back yard. At one point, he attempted to take the papers out of my hand so he could see what they were, but I clutched them tighter and shook my head. I wanted to talk this out with both of my parents together.
  
  Eventually, Dad had me seated at the table, a glass of ice water in front of me, while he woke my mother up. He hadn't wanted to at first, but I pressed him until he did.
  
  When she came down the stairs, Mom was in her bathrobe, her eyes a little red from tiredness, and, I guessed, from annoyance. She was squinting without her glasses, which she hadn't bothered to put on. "Why aren't you in bed?" She demanded, her voice a little hoarse.
  
  Mom wasn't all that bad. I actually had pretty decent parents, all things considered. There was really no way that I could blame my previous bullying on neglect or even actual abuse at home or anything. I guess some kids just act out, even without a traumatic home life. It was just really late, and she didn't like being woken up. I could relate, considering I'd much rather have been in bed than having this conversation.
  
  "Trish, look at her head." Dad passed Mom her glasses so that she could see better, and then pulled the chair out for her.
  
  Once she had her glasses on, Mom made a little noise of surprise and then stepped to me. "What happened? What is this?" Her hands moved to the papers that I'd laid on the table, and this time I let them be taken. "Read them together." I said quietly.
  
  They did, looking over the forms in between glancing up at me. After a few moments, Dad spoke up. "These are... contracts to join the Wards. But you can't join the Wards. They only take people with powers. That's the whole point."
  
  I just stared at him until he thought it all the way through. A moment later, his eyes widened. "... oh my god." There, he had it. "You don't mean that..."
  
  Glancing toward the kitchen counter, I connected a line between the loaf of bread there, and the table in front of me. The bread flew across the distance and landed on the table, and both of my parents jaws hit the floor.
  
  "No, no, no." Mom was saying. She was shaking her head so quickly that I was startled by her actual vehemence at the idea. "No, you don't have powers. This isn't real. This isn't happening."
  
  "Mom." I said quietly. "It's real. It's okay, I-"
  
  "No!" Her raised voice wasn't so much a shout as an emphatic hiss. "It is not okay. It is not real. Because I know how powers come out. I know how they happen. They happen when something... something horrible and traumatic and... and mind breaking happens to someone, and something like that, something that bad, did not happen to my daughter . It can't. I would have noticed, I'm not that stupid, not that... wrapped up in myself, am I?"
  
  Swallowing, I closed my eyes and then gave a little shudder before opening them again. "I have to tell you some things. You're not going to like a lot of them. I don't either. I just... I have to tell you the truth. Please, let me tell you the truth, all of it, before you... before you interrupt."
  
  Mom and Dad both looked at one another before nodding to me. I took a breath, then started to talk.
  
  I told them everything that I could. I started by explaining how Sophia, Emma, and I had treated Taylor, including examples that made my throat catch, and both of my parents stare at me as if they had no idea their daughter could be so cruel. It hurt. It hurt so much, to be looked at that way, but I went on. I pressed forward, telling them what happened on the day that Taylor had died. I told them all of it, both the fact that I hadn't wanted to do it, but that I hadn't really done anything to stop it either. I told them about my guilt after learning what happened, and that I'd wanted to tell the truth then. And I told them about Sophia being Shadow Stalker, since Director Piggot and Judge Truant had agreed that there was absolutely no way to tell this story without including that detail. I explained how she had threatened me, how my fear of her and guilt over the whole situation had caused my trigger.
  
  Once I'd gotten through all that, I chanced a glance up. Both of my parents were staring at me, clearly shell-shocked. I quickly moved on after taking a gulp of water, and explained how I'd learned what my powers were and how to use them, and that I'd dressed up and gone out on my own. Both went from staring in shock to glaring at me for that one, but I kept going. I went on, omitting certain... details such as my direct involvement in the Panacea rescue (Even if still not telling Dad that I'd met Legend really killed me. I was going to have to find a way to work that in later), and a couple other things that I thought were better off not being shared. And of course, I left out everyone else's real identity.
  
  Moving on, I told them about Clockblocker figuring out who I was and how he'd gotten me to tell him the truth. Then I went on to how we had trapped Sophia, glossing a bit over the fight except to say that she'd taken me by surprise (It was true, I'd had no idea she could turn around that fast), and that she was in custody now.
  
  Finally, I explained the deal with the PRT, the punishment I had agreed to, and what was expected from them.
  
  Once I was finished, and wiped the tears out of my eyes that had started about halfway through, both Mom and Dad simply stared at me for a long, silent moment. Finally, Dad stood up, stepped around the table, and took my hand. He pulled me out of my seat until I was standing, and then embraced me. His hug was tight. "Maddy, I had no idea you were going through something like that. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Missing something this... this terrible, making you go through it alone..."
  
  "It's not your fault, Dad." I started to say. "You didn't-"
  
  "Yes, it is." He insisted. "I'm your father. I'm your dad. It's my job to take care of you, and it's definitely my job to notice when my kid's going through something this insane. I didn't notice, and I'm sorry."
  
  Before I could respond to that, Mom had me. Her embrace was even tighter than Dad's, and she kissed my cheek. "My baby..." She all but cooed, rather embarrassingly.
  
  They both looked at each other, and Dad spoke. "You need to give us a few minutes here, Mads. Go sit in the living room while we talk, okay?"
  
  I hesitated, then nodded and moved through the kitchen. The living room was dark, and I switched on the lamp next to the couch before curling up at one corner. My fingers brushed at a magazine there, but I'd barely glanced at the cover before my eyes were closed.
  
  My dad woke me up some time later with a hand against my shoulder. When I blinked up at him, he spoke softly. "You want to talk some more, or are you ready for bed?"
  
  I swallowed, straightening before giving a nod. "I can talk. I'd rather get through this."
  
  Mom sat down next to me, drawing me up against her, while Dad sat in the chair across from the couch. He was the one who spoke first. "Madison, the idea that you could... that you could act the way that you're telling us you acted toward this Taylor girl is... it's obscene. It sounds like some other kid, not you. Why would you do that? Why would you treat someone like that?"
  
  My mouth opened, and then I stopped. I took a breath and then let it out. "Because it made me feel powerful. Because it made me feel accepted. Because as long as Sophia liked me, she was funny and charming and she talked to me like I was special . She'd talk like... like it was obvious that we were better and it just... made sense when she said it. I let things... get out of control because I liked the feeling it gave me."
  
  Both of my parents glanced to each other again, and I felt Mom squeeze me tighter. She spoke then. "We're so... disappointed, Madison. Disappointed that you ever acted that way, that you let it get so far that a girl died. We love you. Don't ever doubt that. Your dad and I are always going to love you, no matter what. But... but we wish you'd done better, here. We really wish you were better than that."
  
  I felt the tears start to fall again, and shook my head, not trusting my voice. Mom reacted by hugging me even tighter, repeating, "We love you, baby. We love you."
  
  Dad reached across and took my hand, squeezing it before he spoke. "We're going to deal with this, together."
  
  Mom nodded, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "You'll do the community service. You'll do all of it. And on top of that, you're going to help out here. That garden that Dad was talking about putting in the back yard this summer? You're going to take care of it. You're going to plant it, weed it, water it, prune it, everything. It's your job and no one else's. Okay?"
  
  I just nodded, pressing myself a little more against my mother's side while squeezing Dad's hand in return.
  
  "We'll sign you into the Wards, because they can help you with your powers, and it sounds like your powers are going to draw you toward danger anyway." Dad continued. "We'd prefer it be with professionals and a team. That said, Maddy, you will be careful. You'll do everything they tell you to do, and we will be checking in. If we have to, we'll yank you out of there and you'll just do the community service. Even if we have to lock you in your room until you're thirty. Do you understand me?"
  
  I gulped a little, then gave another nod. "Yes, Daddy."
  
  He smiled faintly, and gave my hand one last squeeze. "There's more, but that's enough for now. We'll sign the forms and then all of us will go in and talk to this... Director Piggot tomorrow. Or-" He glanced at the clock and winced. "Later today, I guess."
  
  Both of them gave me one last hug. As I was walking to the stairs to go to my room, Dad asked, "What was your ahhh, cape name again?"
  
  I flushed a little in spite of everything that had already been said. "Uh, Tether." Then I started to walk again.
  
  This time it was Mom's voice that stopped me. "Those powers you have. They're... pretty neat, aren't they?"
  
  I looked at my mom, then at my dad, and then I smiled very faintly. "Yeah." I said softly. "They're pretty cool sometimes."
  
  3.04
  
  The next day, at a little after one in the afternoon, I was sitting right back in the same conference room that I'd been in the night before, facing three of the same faces. Judge Truant, Director Piggot, and Mr. Calvert were all back, though Armsmaster had pleaded off on his own Protectorate business.
  
  My side of the table was even more different. Sitting on either side of me were my parents, and Director Piggot's scowl was somehow less effective against my father's stoic silence.
  
  He and my mother had both been quiet since we walked in. Or, to be precise, my father had asked if our lawyer had arrived yet. Upon being told that he wasn't there, my father's firm order to me had been not to say a word until Aaron showed up.
  
  Then we waited. Through Director Piggot's attempt to start a conversation, my father had simply said that he was waiting for his legal council. The director had tried to say something about that, but Judge Truant had put a hand on her arm to stop her.
  
  Minutes passed. The judge took out a pocket computer and seemed to be working through a scheduling system. Mr. Calvert alternated between studying me and making notes in a small notebook. My mother busied herself asking me mundane things about school in a transparent attempt to hold my attention. And the whole time, my father and Director Piggot engaged the most epic of staring contests.
  
  Finally, there was a knock on the door. Mr. Calvert stood to answer it. When the door was opened, the man I knew as Dad's old best friend from college came into the room. He was a big, broad chested man with a full head of blond hair that he wore in a short ponytail. Honestly, except for his suit, he looked more like biker than a lawyer.
  
  "Sorry, sorry 'bout that, folks." Dad's buddy was from someplace in the south, and his accent was light from all the years he had spent away from there, but still noticeable. Dad said he played it up at times to give juries the impression of an old hometown lawyer. "Had a right long meeting to get through before this."
  
  Extending a hand toward the others, he introduced himself. "Aaron Anderson Tourney." He shook Mr. Calvert's hand, then Judge Truant's. Once the introductions went around the table, he announced, "I'll be representing the Clements, just making sure everything stays nice and above board."
  
  Director Piggot frowned at that rather than shaking his hand. "Things are settled already. What could your services possibly be needed for?"
  
  Taking a seat on our side of the table, Mr. Tourney dropped his briefcase in front of him, unsnapped the clasps, and withdrew several papers. "To begin with, we will no longer be dealing with you, Director Piggot."
  
  The woman gave him an annoyed look. "Excuse me? I'm afraid that isn't up for debate. My job as Director of PRT East-North-East includes handling all matters related to the signing of new Wards. Now if you could just be quiet and look at-"
  
  Mr. Tourney interrupted with a pointed cough. "Ah, sorry to interrupt, ma'am, but there's a bit of a, ahhh, minor hiccup with that assessment, as such." While Piggot gave him her best withering glare, he just extracted the paper that he'd been looking for. "Your, ahh, responsibilities no longer include the Wards."
  
  Piggot's voice rose in sudden anger. " I beg your pardon? "
  
  In response, the lawyer simply passed the paper across the table to Judge Truant. "If you'll examine this, you'll see what I'm talking about."
  
  The judge took the paper and looked it over, while I turned to stare open mouthed at each of my parents in turn. They hadn't been back to bed by the time I'd finally woken up that morning. I'd known they had been busy, but I hadn't expected anything like this .
  
  "It's an order from Director Costa-Brown." Truant announced after reading through the paper. "In response to your negligence in the Sophia Hess situation, your authority over the Wards in this area is being revoked. A new Wards director will be appointed after a brief internal reviewing process. Until that time, Mr. Calvert is to play double duty while his own division is being established." The hawk-faced woman glanced up at Piggot, who was staring at her open mouthed. "Your... position as director in general will remain, pending a full review of what happened."
  
  "This... this is outrageous!" Director Piggot very nearly had steam exploding from her ears. "I am not the one on trial here." She whirled on Calvert. "Thomas, I swear, if I find out you had anything to do with this-"
  
  For the first time in many minutes, my father spoke up. "Let me tell you what's outrageous. Sophia Hess getting away with as much as she did, while she was supposedly under probation, is outrageous. A girl with as many psychological issues as she clearly had being allowed to continue to throw herself into dangerous situations that only exacerbated the problem is outrageous. That no one, not a single person under your leadership noticed that girl's psychotic behavior is outrageous."
  
  Lifting his hand from the table, Dad continued. "Let's be absolutely clear here. If I was that girl's parents, I'd be suing this entire department. Because she had issues, but-" He jabbed a finger across the table, pointing directly at Director Piggot." You failed to address them. She had problems, but it was your job to help her, and you couldn't do that. You couldn't do your job, and I'll be damned if I'm going to have my daughter risking her life under your authority. You failed Sophia Hess. You will not fail my daughter. I won't give you the chance to. I had my attorney here contact Director Costa-Brown's office, and she agreed."
  
  Director Piggot was making a noise that I couldn't identify, but it sounded like she was about to explode. "I am... I have... you can't do this. This is a witch hunt."
  
  It was Mr. Tourney who replied to that. "Well now, the fact is, it may be a witch hunt. But you happen to be standing there with a big black hat, broom in your hand, warts on the end of your nose. Makes finding a witch pretty darn easy."
  
  The squat woman slammed her hand down on the table with a bang. "This is tripe! I've done this job for over ten years. I've overseen dozens of Wards passing into the Protectorate."
  
  My mother, speaking for the first time, managed to inject more dismissive scorn in three words than Piggot had managed throughout the entire time I'd known her. "Those poor teenagers."
  
  I thought I saw Mr. Calvert smile just a little, before he cleared his throat. "Ah, assuming the paper from the Director's office is in order, judge, I think our hands are tied."
  
  Shooting her fellow PRT suit a face-melting glare, Piggot stood from the table so violently she nearly knocked her seat over. "I'll be calling the Director myself."
  
  "Please do." My father invited. "I'm sure you and she have a lot to talk about."
  
  Once the woman had stormed from the room and slammed the door behind her, Mr. Tourney began pulling more papers from his briefcase. "Now that we can move on, we'll need to go over these agreements. Paul-" he gestured to my dad. "-faxed over what you sent home with Madison, and there's just a few changes we'll be making. I don't think you should have any problems. Just putting specifics on what happens if her schoolwork falls, what sort of Wards responsibilities outweigh her community service commitment and how missing those hours will be made up, that sort of thing. Also a few notes about her image, future merchandising, and a couple of safety concerns."
  
  Before Mr. Calvert or Judge Truant could respond to that, Mr. Tourney pressed on. "Of course, eventually we'll also be having a discussion with the school district officials about their failure to address the bullying so that it escalated this far, and we'll need all the records you can provide about Sophia Hess's probation and what was supposed to be done to keep an eye on her. After all, we need to know what orders were laid out before we know just how much Winslow's faculty failed in their responsibilities."
  
  He gave the remaining two PRT officials a smile. "I'm sure we'll be out of here in no more than a couple hours."
  
  By the time everything was signed and done, my parents questions had all been answered, and my parents had said their thanks and goodbyes to Mr. Tourney, it had been hours. We were all starving, so Dad made a trip through the Wendy's drive-thru.
  
  Trevor started to complain the second that we walked in. "Why does she get fast food? Is anybody gonna tell me why she didn't have to go to school today? Does she ever have to do anything?"
  
  Mom passed a sack to him pointedly. "There's food for you too, Trev." She glanced at me a little questioningly, and I shook my head. I didn't want to tell Trevor the truth. Not that I didn't trust my brother, but he tended to act without thinking, and the last thing I needed was Trevor to get into an argument with someone and blurt out that his sister was a member of the Wards.
  
  Filling his mouth with fries, Trevor made a grunt of acknowledgment. "So why didn't the squirt have to go to school? Where've you guys been all day?"
  
  "We had an appointment, Trevor." Dad informed him. "That's all you need to know. It's your sister's private business."
  
  Trevor rolled his eyes and gave me a look. "Pretty fun being the family pet, isn't it?"
  
  "That's enough, Trevor." Mom told him sharply. "Sit down and eat."
  
  It wasn't until we had all sat down around the table with the bags of food that Trevor blinked up. "How come you're all dressed up?" Mom was wearing a nice dress, Dad had one of his church suits on, and I had worn a skirt and a pretty blue blouse.
  
  Dad grunted a little, eating a fry. "Like I said, we had a meeting, Trevor." He changed the subject then. "What've you been up to today?"
  
  My brother snapped his fingers, his mouth full of burger as he responded. His words were completely incomprehensible, and both of our parents gave him reproving looks until he swallowed and repeated himself. "Oh that's right, you guys didn't hear. It's all over PHO."
  
  I blinked at the mention of the popular Parhumans Online forum. "What's all over PHO?"
  
  "Shadow Stalker." Trevor replied. "She's off our Wards team." In the years since the Protectorate and subsequently the Wards had been established, keeping track of team members had become as much of an obsession as the team rosters for professional sports teams. Most people saw a local Protectorate or Wards division as being 'their team', and even invented rivalries between various teams. A cape going from one beloved team to that town's 'rivals' was news for months, and had even resulted in heated arguments about that cape's 'betrayal'.
  
  Hesitating, I chewed on my food briefly before venturing, "Why would she be leaving?"
  
  Trevor shrugged, taking a bite of his burger. "Nobody knows, but they already confirmed that she's transferring to some other team somewhere for 'intense training'. And get this, somebody said that new girl that was helping the Wards during the Undersider thing is joining up instead, taking her place."
  
  "How did they-" I started to blurt before flushing a little at a look from my dad. "How would someone find out something like that? I mean, it doesn't sound like it was officially announced or anything."
  
  Again, Trevor just shrugged absently and ate another fry. "You know they've got people that leak that stuff. They probably did it on purpose to explain why Stalker ain't gonna be around anymore, and to prop up their new member."
  
  "New member?" Dad asked lightly, smiling across the table at our mother. "Who was she again?"
  
  Trevor squeezed more ketchup onto his fries. "They're saying her name's Tether."
  
  "Hmm." Mom replied with a straight face. "I wonder how she'll be. We could use another good cape." She eyed me. "Maybe the other Wards can be a good influence."
  
  Yeah, Mom failed at subtlety, but Trevor was still oblivious. "I know one thing for sure."
  
  Taking my soda, I asked, "What's that?"
  
  I made the mistake of taking a long gulp while he was answering. "I've seen the pictures they have of that Tether chick from the prison break thing, and she's definitely cuter than Shadow Stalker."
  
  As it turns out, it is possible to spit-take and dry heave at the same time.
  
  3.05
  
  "He did not."
  
  "I swear on my honor as a Ward, he said it."
  
  "You've been a Ward for like, three minutes."
  
  "Good, so I haven't messed up my honor. It's brand spiffy new."
  
  "That's true, our honor doesn't tend to last long."
  
  It was the next evening, and Dennis and I were walking through the building that housed the PRT. It was the same building that I'd been in twice now for meetings, but this time I was here for a different reason. It was time for me to 'officially' meet the rest of my new team.
  
  Since we were still in public areas, I was in costume, mask on, alongside Dennis in his Clockblocker get-up. Every once in a while, I glanced sidelong at it. His costume was actually pretty cool, being a skintight white bodysuit overlaid with armor panels which had animated clock faces either ticking or drifting across various parts, and a smooth white panel where his face would be.
  
  "So you're telling me that, right in front of your parents, your brother said that you were cute."
  
  My face reddened slightly under my own exceedingly simple mask, as I nodded. "Yeah, pretty much."
  
  "What was your dad's reaction?" Dennis asked while leading me through the mostly empty corridors and toward an unlabeled elevator with an imposing amount of gadgets and security systems surrounding it.
  
  "I'm not sure." I admitted. "I was busy trying not to throw up. Convinced Trevor I swallowed wrong. And then I said I had to use the bathroom and got the hell out of the room."
  
  Dennis was snickering, so I elbowed him. I immediately regretted it. "Ow. Move your armor so I can hit you."
  
  He considered for a moment before shaking his head. "Um, no. No thanks. I'm good."
  
  We filed onto the elevator, and I folded my arms. I was trying not to be too nervous. After all, I'd worked with the Wards a couple of times already. This was just my first official meeting, and my first time in their-err- our headquarters. Apparently it would normally be Director Piggot's job to show me around, but she'd lost her authority. That meant it would fall to Mr. Calvert, but he was also busy getting his new division up and running. Armsmaster or one of the other Protectorate members also could have done it, but he had leapt at Clockblocker's offer to give me the welcoming tour, so here we were.
  
  Head cocked to the side while the elevator descended, Dennis took his helmet off and spoke up while shaking out his red hair. "Soooo, it's been like, four days."
  
  I blinked at that, pulling my hood back before taking the mask off myself. "Four days?"
  
  He grinned at me. "Since I loaned you those books. You got all offended when I suggested it would take you a whole week to read them. Finished yet?"
  
  Staring, I managed to sound as droll as possible. "You know, I've had a couple other things occupying my mind."
  
  "Pssshhh." Dennis waved a hand dismissively. "Excuses excuses."
  
  I chose the mature, reasonable response and stuck my tongue out at him.
  
  "Interesting choice." He observed. "Sophia would've flipped me off." He paused then before amending. "And by that I mean flip me off a bridge."
  
  Making a face at him, I retorted, "Well if you miss Sophia so much..."
  
  "Hell no!" He said quickly, his eyes widening at the implication. "No way, I was just... observing. I'd much rather work with you. Less chance of getting stabbed with a bolt for looking at you cross-eyed."
  
  The elevator reached the Wards level, revealing a short corridor that led to an even more impressive looking steel door with a security terminal next to it.
  
  Dennis tapped the scanner. "Give it a shot."
  
  I raised an eyebrow, clutching my mask in one hand. "You think I'm in the system already?"
  
  His head cocked backwards nonchalantly. "Might as well try. Worse comes to worse, we spend some time trapped in foam until they cut us out."
  
  " That could happen?!" I squeaked.
  
  He laughed at that. "No. Err, probably not. Unlikely." Still, I noticed that he took a step back while eying the blank walls surrounding us rather suspiciously.
  
  Muttering under my breath, I leaned up to the scanner. As soon as I was near it, the thing beeped twice as it scanned me, then the steel doors almost silently whisked open to reveal the room beyond.
  
  "After you." Dennis announced, making a sweeping gesture.
  
  "You're just saying that in case this is a tinker trick to make the person think they've gotten past the security, at which point they step through the door and get foamed into next Tuesday." I huffed while moving through the doorway.
  
  Luckily, there was no foam. There was an amazing room beyond. I'd seen it before, of course, on tours. Or at least, I'd seen it from the visitor's viewing area, the parts of the room we were allowed to see. This was different. This was more.
  
  It looked a bit like a dome, save for various parts of the wall that could be taken out and reassembled to change the dimensions. There were parts of the area that had been walled off this way to create individual quarters for when the Wards needed to sleep over for whatever reason, as well as to hold their belongings. There was also a section for the showers and a few other rooms.
  
  In the main room, where we were, I could see a set of computers taking up one side of the room, surrounded by several chairs. One of the monitors listed 'Time Until Next Tour' with a timer that was currently at sixteen hours and twelve minutes. It made sense in hindsight. The Wards had to have a warning so that they could either put their masks on or leave the main viewing area before a tour group passed by the viewing area.
  
  Chris and Carlos were sitting at the computers, the former doing something on Twitter, while the latter seemed to be playing a game of some kind. Both turned around when Dennis and I came through, and stood before starting to applaud.
  
  I blinked at that. "Uhhh..."
  
  Behind me, Dennis was clapping as well. I turned to squint at him. "Okay, I know getting a new team member is kind of cool, but I haven't done anything applause worthy."
  
  "Oh this has nothing to do with you joining the team." Dennis corrected me. "You got rid of Piggy. She hated capes. She hated us. Every little excuse to mess with us, she took it."
  
  "Oh." I shrugged. "That wasn't me. That was my parents. Clap for them."
  
  A handsome, rather tall boy emerged from one of the back areas. He rolled his eyes at the others before extending a hand to me. "Dean Stansfield." I'd met him as Gallant, and the others hadn't given away his identity when we did our planning. "Glad to see you join the team." He gave me a winning smile that I was absolutely certain had already melted dozens of hearts. It helped that he seemed genuinely nice.
  
  I shook his hand. "Um, Madison Clements." I introduced myself rather awkwardly.
  
  "You know, you're a lot more talkative behind the mask." Chris, Kid Win, observed from where he'd resumed his seat.
  
  The note made my cheeks flush slightly, tempting me to put the mask back on. I resisted, shrugging at the tinker-boy. "You have to admit it's a lot to take in."
  
  "Sure, I guess." He admitted. "It's been awhile since I joined. Missy's even more experienced though, funny as that is."
  
  "Missy?" I echoed briefly before realizing who he meant.
  
  Sure enough, a girl in her early teens that I half-recognized as Vista without her armor and costume (wearing drawstring pants and a simple tee shirt instead), stepped into view and stood next to Gallant-err-Dean. "That's me." She seemed to be studying me for a moment, as though trying to decide where we stood, or how I was going to be.
  
  After the slightest hesitation, I strolled that way. "So hey, you distort space, right? Can you bend it?"
  
  Missy blinked at the question. "Not as far as I can stretch or compress it, but sure, why?"
  
  "I was thinking," I glanced to the others before going on. They were all watching me. It was a bit nerve wracking, but I tried to ignore it. "My tethers connect two objects. I just have to be able to see them. If we can work together, we might be able to do some cool stuff with that. If you wanna, you know, test it out sometime."
  
  There was the briefest of pauses, before Missy smiled a little bit and nodded. "Sure. We can... try it sometime."
  
  I saw Dean give me an approving nod as well. "Always good to have plans. So you showed her around yet?" He asked Dennis.
  
  The other boy shook his head. "Just this area. Come on, Mads, I'll let you see the rest of this place."
  
  We took a brief tour of the area, Dennis showing me where my bunk area was for if and when I ended up needing it. By the time we got back out to the main area, Missy was sitting in a corner reading a book, while Chris was checking over the various security camera feeds that lay throughout the city that the Wards had access to. Carlos and Dean were engaged in some kind of intense video game match.
  
  Apparently Dean won, because Carlos cursed and shoved his chair back. "Little more practice. Just a little more. I almost had you."
  
  They noticed us then, and Dean used the opportunity to segue, "And speaking of practice... ahhh, dude, seriously, you should do this."
  
  Carlos shook his head at the other side of the room. "Piggot demoted me, remember?"
  
  Dennis snorted. "And then she got herself demoted. You're the leader, everyone knows it. For a few months anyway."
  
  "Yeah, then I turn eighteen and pass the leadership toooo..." Carlos twirled his finger around and then pointed at Dennis next to me. "You."
  
  "Yeah, for not even the rest of the summer." Dennis shot back. "Then I graduate to the Protectorate as well and Dean takes the lead."
  
  I frowned at that. "Leadership is by eldest? Why not, I dunno, the best leader?"
  
  "Hell if we know." Chris shrugged, moving away from the security monitor to a table in the corner where a pile of components and half-built guns lay. "Just the way they do things. Screw the Undersiders or the ABB, Bureaucracy is like, our number one super villain."
  
  Carlos pushed himself up from the seat once more. "Anyway, what Dean was getting at is that we're going to have to train you. Physically train you. Do you know any actual fighting techniques or systems?"
  
  Shifting a little, I had to shake my head. "Not... so much. I'm kind of really new at... well, everything. Sophia was the tomboy in our Bitch Trio. Emma was the popular model-cheerleader type."
  
  "Which one were you?" Missy asked from where she was sitting, curiously.
  
  I bit my lip. "The cute, innocent one that plays up her naivety so the teachers leave her alone." They all gave me looks, and I threw up my hands. "I know! I'm trying to change."
  
  Dean was the one who spoke, his voice easy and reassuring. "You're doing a good job of it. Especially with the way you helped bring in Lung. That was impressive."
  
  "Sure was." Carlos agreed. "But you're still gonna have to learn how to fight. We'll run you through some basics, whoever has time when you're available. Trust me, it's gonna suck at first. You're going to have to work your butt off to get in shape, and you're gonna get thrown around the mat for awhile." He gave me a serious look. "But it's worth it. You need to be able to depend on more than just your powers. Plus it'll help you learn to use your powers in new ways."
  
  "I'm all for new experiences." I said slowly before shrugging. "So I guess teach away."
  
  "Oh you're not ready for me yet." Carlos shook his head. "I'll test you when you've got at least a little practice under your belt."
  
  I looked toward Dean, Chris, and Dennis, all of whom were shaking their heads and smiling knowingly. Finally, my gaze landed on Missy, who was already stretching out next to a set of floor pads in the corner. When I glanced her way, she smiled and waved at me before beckoning me over. I hesitated, then shrugged and walked that way.
  
  Roughly four seconds later, I was on my back with Missy holding one of my arms in a way that made it impossible to move without sending pain shooting up into my wrist.
  
  "Welcome to the Wards!" The boys chorused.
  
  Interlude 3 - Sundancer
  
  The voices of two teenage girls filled the air of the bedroom as they sang together. It was a song born not of skill or particular intent, but from simple enjoyment. Neither girl would ever be a professional, though the pretty, tall blonde had definite training while the shorter brunette's voice squeaked occasionally. Both sang together for no one other than themselves, watching the karaoke machine in the corner.
  
  " You are my sunshine, my only sunshine."
  
  Marissa Newland loved times like these, when her overbearing mother was away, or too busy to push her daughter into the next big thing. Marissa's mother was obsessed with finding the one perfect thing that her little girl could be the best at, the thing that she could do better than anyone else.
  
  " You make me happy when skies are grey."
  
  They hadn't found it yet. Which wasn't to say that Marissa was terrible. She just happened to be second, third, or fourth best at most things she tried, no matter how hard she worked. She was driven, an inevitability given her upbringing, but it was never enough to be number one. And being number two was never enough for her mother. It was number one or nothing. Number one, or she hadn't tried hard enough, hadn't worked hard enough, hadn't taken it seriously enough. Not counting the times the pressure had been too much and she'd cracked. Never completely losing it, but just cracking enough that it was noticeable and her mother had yanked her out of that activity. Because she wasn't good enough.
  
  " You'll never know dear..."
  
  On the next line, her eyes involuntarily glanced sideways toward the other girl. Noelle. Her friend. Her... And then another moment passed, where Marissa failed to tell her friend the truth, even as she spoke the exact words that she was too afraid to say in any other situation.
  
  "... how much I love you..."
  
  Both teenage girls fell backwards onto Marissa's bed, one at either end, the karaoke mikes in their hands as they belted the words.
  
  " Please don't take my sunshine away!"
  
  "Sundancer!" Marissa's shoulder was shaken, snapping her out of the memory from years ago. Years before everything that had happened. Years before the Simurgh. Before Chris had died. Before they'd been stranded on this... this wrong Earth. Before they'd taken the formulas and gained their abilities in order to survive. Before Noelle had become... what she was.
  
  Genesis was in front of her, saying her name. Not the real Genesis, of course. Jess was sound asleep, back at the base. The stout, winged gargoyle thing in front of her was her projection.
  
  "Are you all right? The truck's almost here." Genesis pointed a claw down the steep embankment toward the lonely highway that the two of them were waiting on. In the distance, a pair of headlights approached.
  
  "I'm..." Losing myself. Forgetting where Marissa Newland stops and Sundancer begins. Crying myself to sleep at night when no one can see me because I'm so lonely. Because I miss Noelle and she's not even gone. Just... different. Because I'm a coward who can't speak up and tell people how I really feel. Because the girl who convinced me to finally stand up to my mother, put my foot down, and refuse to jump into another of her plans for me is changing , has changed so much that I'm not sure it's really her in there anymore or a creature staring back out at us, using her memories to manipulate us. I'm terrified that the girl I'm trying so hard to save is already gone, but if I voice that, I'm giving up on her. Which I can't do. "I'm fine." She lied. She was always lying now, even to her friends.
  
  Genesis was staring at her, Jess staring at her through the eyes of her dream projection. But she didn't say anything else. There wasn't time. The truck was passing just below them.
  
  Ahead on the freeway, Ballistic stepped onto the road, directly in front of the truck. He held a pair of rocks in either hand. Before the armored truck could react, both of the stones were injected with his power, and rocketed toward the truck. Each stone blew through either front tire, continuing on through to blow through the rear tires.
  
  The truck came crashing down onto the rims, skidding across the road as it kicked up a shower of sparks, the grinding metal deafening. Finally, the ruined vehicle screeched to a halt barely a dozen feet from where her teammate still stood.
  
  By then, Ballistic had been joined on the road by Trickster, the top hat sitting atop his red face mask distinctive. Trickster gazed at the two men in the front of the truck for just a moment. Then he was gone, replaced by one of the now-confused armored transport drivers, who stood there blinking next to Ballistic for a second. Then Ballistic was gone as well, replaced by the second guard from the front of the truck as Trickster used his power to switch them.
  
  In the mean time, Genesis had launched her gargoyle form into the air, gliding down to the back of the truck. Her hefty clawed hands grasped the doors and then she ripped it off. Two gunshots followed, impacting the gargoyle figure to no effect, as Genesis crawled up into the back of armored truck for a moment. Then she was out, carrying the third and last guard away to safety.
  
  While she had been watching this course of events, Marissa had been focusing on summoning her personal little sun into being between her hands.
  
  Using her power always reminded her of that time in her room with Noelle. The time before everything had happened, before everything had gone wrong. The song. That stupid, silly little song that had somehow become so important to her in the wake of her power. She whispered a few of the words to herself now. It helped her concentrate on the power.
  
  "You are my sunshine... my only sunshine..."
  
  Genesis, by that point, had carried the third guard to meet the others. It would keep the three in a group, and she was more than capable of keeping them in line.
  
  The sun-like orb grew with each passing second, until it was almost as large as the truck itself. Marissa let the orb start to rise up above her, floating through the air gradually while the guards, who had oriented themselves, drew their weapons. She positioned the sun in between the guards and the truck, blocking their line of sight to it to prevent any of them from noticing when Trickster and Ballistic slipped out of the truck and moved to the back of the truck. Trickster took a step to the side, getting the back of the truck and the group on the hill in sight, and a second later Marissa found herself sitting in the back of the truck. The heavily sedated prisoner would have been taken to her place.
  
  She slipped out, joining Trickster and Ballistic on the road. A glance up the hill showed the unconscious form of the prisoner. Convinced that the truck was now empty, Marissa brought the sun down on top of it.
  
  The large ball of intense heat made short work of the armored vehicle, and by the time it was done, Genesis had the three PRT officers on the ground. She had only inflicted light injuries, being as gentle as possible.
  
  "Gentlemen!" Trickster announced as he led Marissa and Ballistic around the burning hunk of wreckage once the miniature sun had been banished. "I'm glad to see none of you were too terribly harmed."
  
  "What... what did you do?" One of the PRT officers demanded. "We were transporting a prisoner."
  
  "You were transporting a murderer." Trickster corrected him. "As it happens, our employer doesn't believe in granting second chances to someone who wears the uniform of a hero and then murders an innocent little girl. He refused to let her go and sit in a cushy prison cell. We did the job you couldn't. Shadow Stalker will never be a problem for anyone again."
  
  It was a bit of theater, of course. The whole point had been to extract the girl while making the guards believe that she'd been killed. It was important that everyone believe that the girl was dead.
  
  "And you're certain that they believed the story." Coil stood in the medical wing of his underground lair where the four Travelers had gathered. His eyes were on the unconscious teenager strapped to the table in front of him, while another figure stood bent over the girl's side, doing something with a bit of medical equipment.
  
  Trickster nodded, speaking for the group. "Yes. They believe we were hired by someone who wanted her to be killed for what she did to that other girl. Any luck, they'll start looking at the girl's father and move from there."
  
  "Good." Coil lifted his gloved hand, gently stroking it down the side of the unconscious psychopath's face. "Sophia Hess and I have many things to discuss. Plans to make."
  
  He turned to look at the other person in the room. "Your job is finished?"
  
  "Damn straight it is." The clearly Asian young woman with the hood and dark red goggles announced, turning away from the unconscious form of Shadow Stalker. "Your girl's all rigged up." She extended a hand, passing a tiny remote to Coil, who took it. "One step out of line and she's a fine red mist."
  
  "Good." Coil tucked the remote away. "You can leave now."
  
  "Actually." The bombmaker, Bakuda, sounded like she was smiling. Not that Marissa could see beyond the gas mask that the woman wore. "I was thinking I'd charge you triple for this job."
  
  Coil went still for just a second, and Marissa could tell he was annoyed. "Is that right?"
  
  "Sure." Bakuda made a lazy, waving gesture with her hand. "See, the way I see it, you owe me. Especially if you don't want Lung to find out what you're up to."
  
  "Lung is in custody." Coil said simply.
  
  "Not forever." She promised. "And the way I see it, you've been paying me pretty well while he's been gone. But I've been thinking you can afford to pay me more. A lot more. Because I ain't stupid. You pay me a bunch of cash to build you a tiny little bomb, so small you could drink it and never know. Your exact specifications, a bomb you can drink and not know, that can destroy a person's brain and look like some kind of massive aneurysm. Then the leader of the Empire dies suddenly of an aneurysm that NOBODY 'cept his traitor bitch ex knows he had?"
  
  "So the way I see it, you owe me more. A lot more. Or... well, I can't be sure who I might talk to."
  
  Coil was still and silent for a moment, and Marissa turned away to leave. Genesis's gargoyle form melted away to nothing, and the two boys joined her in exiting the room. Their job was done, and she didn't want to stand there and see how this went.
  
  "Very well." She heard Coil say. "Fish, pay this girl what she deserves."
  
  Marissa wasn't quite fast enough to avoid hearing the gunshot. Her eyes closed briefly and she shuddered, before continuing on.
  
  "I'm going to visit Noelle." Krouse... Trickster, announced. "Either of you coming?" He glanced back to Marissa and Luke/Ballistic.
  
  She hesitated. Part of her really wanted to see Noelle. But it hurt. It hurt every time she did. Every time she let herself get her hopes up that they'd have a cure, that they could fix what that formula had done to her Noelle, a dark part of her mind reminded her that the real Noelle might be gone forever. She might never come back, not even with this latest plan. It was the closest they had ever come, and it still might not be enough.
  
  "No." She said finally. "I'm going to look in on the girls."
  
  She passed Coil's unpowered mercenaries, walking around several construction groups who were still putting his base together, until she reached a room where Mr. Pitter, Coil's assistant and right hand man in many ways, stood. "I want to see them." She told him.
  
  "Coil hasn't approved it." He droned back at her.
  
  "I don't care." She shot back. "I want to see them. I need to make sure they're both okay." She had to at least pretend that she wasn't a complete monster, that she hadn't sold her soul completely in this obsessive quest to have Noelle back with them. Back with her, not that Marissa could ever work up the courage to say what that meant. Noelle was with Krouse.
  
  After a moment of indecision, Pitter moved and let her into the room. Marissa stepped inside and smiled faintly at the first of the two figures. "Hey, Dinah." She said to the little girl on the cot. "You okay?"
  
  The girl shrugged, staring at her. "My head hurts still. Can you ask for candy?"
  
  Drugs. The girl wanted the drugs that Coil had her hooked on. "No, Dinah, Coil's busy. I'm sorry." Slowly, Marissa let her gaze pass toward the other occupant of the room. "What about you?"
  
  "Me?" The remaining girl asked. "Oh I'm doing just great. Just dandy, locked up in here with fortune teller girl over there. When do I get to do something?"
  
  "Coil says soon. He says you can work on Noelle as soon as he's sure how your powers work. He doesn't want you to do anything... wrong." And of course, Marissa thought to herself, once he's extracted everything he wants from us by holding your powers as leverage.
  
  The girl shrugged. "He thinks our powers come out wrong or something. I tried telling him they work just fine. Probably better than hers ." The last word was spoken with vehemence.
  
  Marissa sighed, closing her eyes briefly. The things they did, the things she did, in her desperation to save Noelle. Even if Noelle would never understand.
  
  Please don't take... my sunshine... away...
  
  "The clones that Noelle makes do have a tendency to have... different powers than their progenitors." She pointed out mildly.
  
  To that, the girl just gave another angry shrug. "Yeah, well I still say I could fix her better than the 'real' Panacea ever could."
  
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  Arc 4: Foundation
  4.01
  
  "Jeeze, can you believe the slop they expect us to eat?"
  
  Blinking up from my book at the familiar voice, I found Emma sitting across from me in the lunchroom at school. Why the hell was Emma sitting across from me in the lunchroom at school?
  
  She picked a little at the mess on her tray before making a face as she pushed it disdainfully away. When she looked up, her smile was bright and infectious. "Anyway, have I got dishy stuff for you. You know Greg, that kid that never shuts up in your World Issues class with Mr. G? Well Julia says that he's got this, like, shrine thing in his locker. You know who it's a shrine for?" She leaned closer, cupping a hand to the side of her face like we were sharing a secret, though she made no attempt to lower her voice. "Taylor. He's got all these pictures and shit. It's crazy. She says we have to see it. So I was thinking, if you smiled at him-I'd do it but ew- he'd totally give you his locker combo. We could even-"
  
  "What are you doing here?" I finally cut in, asking bluntly.
  
  Emma paused, looking briefly confused by the question. "Uhhh duh. I just told you, figuring out how we're going to get into Greg's locker to see that shrine. It's gotta be... so fucking lame, right?"
  
  Gazing down at the book in my hands for a moment (It was the fourth one in the Seventh Reach series that I'd been gradually borrowing from Dennis), I mouthed a few curse words before looking up again. Emma was still talking, so I interrupted again. "No, I mean here. What are you doing here? Why are you talking to me?" When she started to speak, I pointed out. "You hate me. Remember? I'm a loser, a freak, a baby, an immature little girl that needs to go back to Jr. High. Ringing any bells?"
  
  Her eyes rolled dismissively as she waved a hand. "Seriously, Maddy, if you can't stop obsessing over whatever happened ages ago, we're never gonna see inside that locker. I mean, Sophia's gone now, so we can be friends again. Get it? I mean she's like... really... really gone."
  
  For just a second, as I saw the look in Emma's eyes, I felt sorry for her. The news of the Travelers killing Shadow Stalker had broken the next morning. It had been all over PHO, though no one knew who had leaked it. Shadow Stalker accused of killing an innocent girl and murdered for retribution. The forum had been going crazy trying to figure out which girl they were talking about. Taylor's death, fortunately, had been several months earlier, while they were looking for deaths that were more recent.
  
  The bad side of that was that some genius had picked up that Sophia Hess went missing around the same time. When no one ever located any more information about her, the general consensus became that Shadow Stalker had killed Sophia, which was... kind of disturbingly accurate, in a way.
  
  Anyway, it had gotten Emma a ton of attention over the last couple weeks, and allowed her to openly grieve for her best friend. She lapped it up, of course, and now she was acting as though none of it had mattered, only summoning the occasional single tear when a teacher got on her case, making them immediately back off and console her.
  
  Aaaaand she was still talking. Good god, did I ever sound like that? I had to tilt my head, staring across the table at my former friend as she babbled on about plans to break into Greg's locker to see this shrine of his. I was only hearing every third word or so, as the rest became a sort of droning, buzzing noise of annoyance. Her lips kept moving, moving, moving, almost hypnotically if it hadn't been for the buzzing of her voice and the distinct impression that if I had actually been listening to what she was saying, I'd be even more disgusted than I already was.
  
  I let my head fall back, staring at the ceiling, while she droned on. Finally, I stood from the table, tucking the borrowed book into my bag before picking it up. Then I turned and walked away.
  
  Emma caught up a moment later. She was still talking! I didn't want to say she was completely incapable of taking a hint, but at this rate if I hit her with a clue-by-four, she'd probably jump on that being the perfect thing to use to break into the damn locker.
  
  I walked, Emma trailing beside me, until I came to the table where Greg and his fellow gamer buddies were sitting. All of them glanced up and then stared as the two of us approached. Some looked nervous. Not that I could blame them. In the old days, the sight of Emma, Madison, and/or Sophia approaching pretty much meant that one of them was about to be utterly humiliated.
  
  "Greg." I spoke his name once we reached the table. The boy looked up, interrupted in mid sentence as he'd been going on about some game or another.
  
  Beside me, Emma had fallen silent as well. She was gazing at me with a knowing smirk, just waiting to see how I was going to trick Greg into his locker combination so his obsession with Taylor could be exposed.
  
  Instead, I said, "Emma's trying to find a way to break into your locker, to find all those... memories you're keeping. She'll probably find a way eventually, so you might wanna move them."
  
  Greg and his friends were staring at me as I turned around and started to leave, the message passed along. It took Emma another moment to get over her surprise, before she caught up with me just as I passed from the cafeteria to the hallway. She grabbed my arm, yanking me around. It took everything I had not to break her grip, and possibly some fingers.
  
  Her voice was furious. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
  
  I stared for a second. No. No one was that stupidly oblivious. Finally, the only words I could find were, "Do you even care?"
  
  Emma blinked, which was all the answer I needed. I turned around and started to walk away again, leaving her there. I was ten feet away when she called after me. "You're not the only one suffering, you know! I have to do community service! I lost my best friend!"
  
  I stopped walking, looked at the floor, then turned around to look back at her. "No. Your best friend lost you. Then we let her die."
  
  Emma's face twisted into an expression I couldn't fully read, and her voice became almost shrill. "You could have stopped her just as much as I could have! You could have saved Taylor too!"
  
  It was the one thing she had said all day that I completely agreed with. "Yeah. I know." I said quietly, before turning to walk away again.
  
  "I'm telling you, we should go down there and kick their asses."
  
  It was hours later, the sun had gone down, and I was out on my first official Wards patrol. After two weeks of training (not to mention all the media) they thought I was ready.
  
  Not that they let me go solo yet, of course. They had sent Vista and Gallant along with me, and within half an hour of the patrol route through the city, Gallant's girlfriend had shown up to come with us. For a lot of Wards, that might have been a problem. But Gallant's girlfriend was Glory Girl, from New Wave. So, she was probably better suited to going on this patrol than I was.
  
  She was definitely enthusiastic, if nothing else. Now, as the four of us stood atop a roof that overlooked the parking lot of a rather upscale hotel, she was pushing the rest of us to jump down there and deal with the four guys in red, green, black, and blue power armor of some kind that we could see cornering a dozen tourists in a corner of the lot. We couldn't hear what was being said, but there was a lot of shouting and arm waving going on. The gist seemed to be that they were looking for someone, and the tourists either didn't understand or weren't cooperating.
  
  "They're an unknown group." Gallant tersely informed his girlfriend. "Protocol says we wait for identification unless the innocents are in immediate danger. Which..."
  
  He looked at me, and I shook my head. There were lines leading down to the group, but they were very light. "Still just very minor injury possibility."
  
  I glanced down at my chest where the lines were to be sure. The costume that I wore now was a definite upgrade from the one I'd piecemealed together. It still awed me to even see it, let alone wear it.
  
  The base of the costume was a form-fitting white bodysuit. On the shins and thighs of both legs were slightly raised portions of black armor. I also wore reinforced black boots that were tightly secured to the legs of my costume. Running up either leg, crossing over both the white body suit and the bits of armor was an intricate pattern of violet lines that actually glowed, creating an effect that was supposed to be reminiscent of my tethers.
  
  The glowing lines ran past my legs, up and over my sides, and down my arms. They passed over similar armor arrangements there on my upper and forearms and down to my wrists. My hands were covered by white gloves that were actually physically attached to the rest of my costume, making it impossible for them to be ripped off. Not that it mattered, since over the thin gloves was a thicker pair of black gauntlets that attached to the forearm padding. The gauntlets were tinker-designed, and were tough enough to withstand the kind of force that my tether-accelerated punches were capable of delivering. On the inside, where my hands were, there was a section of gel-like substance in between the gauntlet and my inner glove. The gel would go from near liquid to near solid when it detected impacts, creating a protective layer between my hands and the impact so that doing so wouldn't break any bones. The boots that I was wearing had the same protective layer for my kicks.
  
  On the back of the gauntlets there was a slightly raised portion, right around my wrist, with a flat surface that stuck out about an inch so that I could attach tethers from that section to any surface that I wanted to pull myself to (or pull to me). Also on each of the gauntlets, resting on the back of the raised portion, there was a pair of the same type of the nonlethal, knockout bolts that Sophia had used. They had been shortened slightly for my use, since all I really needed were darts, and were designed to easily pop off once my tethers exerted pressure on them. That way I could attach the end to my target and shoot it off.
  
  My black vest had been replaced by a very similar bit of body armor, though those same glowing violet lines passed over it as well. I also had replacement bolts stored there, and on either shoulder there was a small metal ball that I was told could pass through steel without breaking given sufficient force. The balls could detach similar to the darts, should the need for a more powerful ranged blow arise.
  
  As before, the black vest part of the armor rose into a hood. I also wore a white full face mask, though this one had lenses covering my eyes that glowed with that same faint purple light, illuminating the inside of the hood.
  
  All in all, it was a pretty damn awesome bit of gear, and I still felt like a three year old trying on her mother's clothes whenever I put it on.
  
  Glory Girl was still pushing to go after the unknown bad guys, while Gallant was trying to convince her to wait for a response from headquarters just in case these guys were worse than they looked. Vista was standing slightly to the side, watching the group down there intently. She glanced at me and stepped closer, lowering her voice. "If we have to go down there, we need to deal with the guy in the black armor first." She indicated one of the men. "He's the leader. Those two guys on the left don't like the one on the right very much. They won't work together without the black one."
  
  I blinked and tilted my head. "You could tell all that from here?"
  
  Vista shrugged at that. "I notice things."
  
  Before I could respond to that, my lines abruptly changed color. Eyes widening, I turned to interrupt the dating pair. "Hey! Something changed. I'm seeing lots of injuries, maybe even death."
  
  Glory Girl's reaction to that was to give a broad smile. "Finally." She exclaimed. "An excuse." With that, she leapt off the roof and flew straight down toward the group below.
  
  "We need a-!" Gallant called after her before groaning. "... plan..."
  
  I shrugged at him while Vista shortened the distance between the parking lot and where we stood, turning a fall of certain death into a relatively short hop.
  
  Even as as we arrived, the battle was going full pitch. Glory Girl had slammed into the nearest of the armored men, the one in green, carrying him into the nearby fence before she began to pummel him. I saw the black armored man raise his arm that way, and a tiny rocket rose into view from the inside of the armor. I didn't need the line that rose up to indicate that she was about to be badly hurt. Before he could fire it, I attached a tether between the rocket and a streetlamp across the lot. It shot off, but my line yanked it off course, demolishing the metal pole but doing little other damage.
  
  His head snapped around to face me, and I wagged my finger back and forth chidingly. "Now now," I told him. "The Ref calls a foul. I didn't see anyone tag you in."
  
  His response was to raise his other hand. I dove sideways, using a tether attached from my vest to one of the cars to propel me faster, just as a laser shot through the space I had been in.
  
  Apparently my first patrol wasn't going to end calmly after all.
  
  4.02
  
  Even as I hit the ground a safe distance from where the laser had passed, I was calling out, "Booooo, hisssss-" I made the noise of a disappointed crowd. "You're totally losing more points, dude. Attacking before the ref blows the whistle is uncool."
  
  I could all but sense his annoyance as the man in the black armor adjusted his aim. Before he could fire again, I took a step forward, planted a line under my right foot, and then shoved off, flying fifteen feet into the air. "If you make me come down there, young man." I adopted a scolding tone. "I will take your toys away."
  
  Two more lasers filled the air, but a quick line attached from the rear of my armored vest to to the building beyond yanked me backwards out of the way. I planted another line to keep me up for a few more seconds, calling out, "Aww, now you're just gonna hurt yourself."
  
  Before he could fire again, I attached a line between his hand and his foot, yanking his aim down so that the laser burned into the armor of his boot. "See?"
  
  Finally letting myself fall back toward the ground, I tightened my hand into a fist and then attached a line between my gauntlet and the face mask of the power armor, yanking myself in and adding the force from my fall to drive my gauntleted fist into the face of the power armor with enough force to send spider web cracks spreading over it, while the man himself was thrown backwards. The collision gel in the gauntlets absorbed most of the impact, and my own minor breaker abilities took care of the rest.
  
  As the man started to rise, I heard Vista give a distinctive whistle. It was part of a system of signals we had set up. When I glanced that way, I saw her standing near a brick wall, the space between us heavily distorted. She called out, "Slip N Slide!"
  
  Grinning, I set two lines against the man's shoulders and the other two against the high brick wall that surrounded the parking lot, before letting the lines yank him backward and up as he was pulled toward the wall.
  
  It took longer for the man to hit than it should have, because Vista had stretched the distance out to ten times its normal distance, so what should have been a twelve foot distance felt, to him, like it was over a hundred. It also gave my tether enough time to get him up to a high enough speed that the impact blew through the brick wall entirely, obliterating it while also putting cracks in the metal of his armor.
  
  I used a line to yank myself to a nearby part of the wall that was still standing, perching atop it above where Vista stood. "Think he'll stay down?" I asked.
  
  She just made a disparaging noise and pointed at the man in the damaged power armor, who was already hauling himself up in the next parking lot over.
  
  "Tinker Toys, or Mr. Potato Head?" I named another two of our predetermined plans.
  
  Vista considered, then nodded decisively. "Mr. Potato Head."
  
  While she got ready, I used a line to yank myself toward the man. Before he could stand, my tether-assisted blow impacted the back of his head, knocking him back toward the ground. I rolled forward over his armored form before he could rise, falling onto my back in front of him. As the man lifted his head, the cracks in his visor partially blocking his vision, he found me lying on my back in front of him, feet drawn up.
  
  "Hello." I said simply, before the tethers attached between my boots and his shoulders lashed out. The impact launched him skidding backwards along the pavement of this second parking lot.
  
  The man slid to a stop near Vista, who waved cheekily at him as he hauled himself up. His moves were slower by now, the systems of his suit having taken heavy damage already. But he was still a threat, and he sighted in on the younger girl with his arm laser.
  
  To her immense credit, Vista stood her ground, most of her attention on the area above the man's head rather than on the deadly weapon being leveled at her. Already, she trusted me to do my part.
  
  Before the man could fire, I attached a line from the man's arm to the top of the nearby tree. When the laser shot out, it flew into the air above his head before hitting the space that Vista had distorted. She had carefully reshaped that area so that the laser inverted itself, twisted around, and then burned through his opposite shoulder.
  
  Instantly, I attached two lines on one side of that arm and two lines on the other side, all four leading down to the pavement a dozen feet away in either direction. Exerting as much force as I could on all four lines simultaneously, centered around the damage that the man's laser had done, I focused until that portion of the armor finally ripped apart. There was a scream of tearing metal as the armor around the man's arm and hand was torn away in either direction, revealing muscular, tanned skin with a heart tattoo on the bicep, and part of a black tee shirt.
  
  Giving up on the laser, the man tried to throw a punch with the fist that was still armored. Vista, ready for that, ducked. The area of space behind her had been compressed enough that the man's punch put a hole through another part of the brick wall that, to him, had been a good ten feet away.
  
  Before the man could free his fist, I attached more lines between his gauntlet and the wall itself. Then I just waited. His power-suit assisted strength did the rest of the work, making it so that as the man yanked backward with a determined effort to free his arm, he actually ripped the gauntlet and lower half of the armor's arm clean off, revealing his own hand there as well.
  
  Clearly furious and beyond rational thought by that point, the man tried to grab Vista with his now unarmored hands. She twisted the space behind herself so that as she leapt backward, it actually brought her all the way around behind the man.
  
  He whirled toward Vista once more, and she gave him another jaunty wave before starting to backpedal. As she did, I quickly attached more lines between the back of the man's armor and what remained of this portion of the wall.
  
  The man came after my little partner, bellowing angrily through the speakers on his power armor. He charged through the space that she had compressed, crossing about four times the distance that he should have, which put him away from either of us.
  
  I could sense his confusion as the man turned to find Vista and myself both standing about ten feet away from him, waving. Then we pointed back the way he had come. When he looked, the man saw the distorted space that made the ruined wall look much closer. At the same time, I put another tether from the man's chest to the ground in front of him.
  
  Then Vista canceled the effect, putting the space back to normal. Instantly, my tethers, which were still attached to the wall and had only been as long as they were due to the distortion of the space, snapped back to their normal sizes. The man would have been yanked violently back to where he'd been, but the tether that I'd put at his chest held him in place. Instead, the entire back half of his armor was torn away.
  
  With the back half gone, the front half of the man's armor fell shortly afterward, leaving a tall man with heavily muscled arms, a buzzcut, and a tiny bit of a beer gut, wearing green camo pants and that black tee shirt. He staggered, grabbing for the pistol at his hip. Before he could get it out, I extended a hand and launched one of my knock-out darts, now that the man had been stripped of his armor and any kind of medical system aboard it that might have canceled out the effects. The dart flew along a line that was attached between the tip and the wall somewhere behind the man, and hit him in bicep right under the heart tattoo, and he collapsed a moment later, his gun barely clearing its holster.
  
  "That." I announced. "Is how you play Mr. Potato Head."
  
  "Damn straight." Vista agreed, and her hand met my outstretched one with a slap.
  
  Unfortunately, our celebration was interrupted as a trio of bright red lines yanked my attention that way. I created a line from where I was to the wall, yanking myself up so I could see what was happening.
  
  Glory Girl, by that point, had finished beating on the man in the green armor, having torn bits of it off of him before leaving the guy an unconscious wreck, slightly messier than the way that Vista and I had done it, but also effective.
  
  Apparently she had also damaged the one in the red armor enough to shatter his visor, revealing the face and neck of a dark skinned young woman, who was now unleashing a rapid-fire series of laser blasts after Glory Girl, who was forced to focus on evading.
  
  Gallant, meanwhile, wasn't having much luck with the remaining guy in the blue armor. His emotion-altering blasts had concussive elements, but it wasn't enough to do more than annoy the guy, who was now hoisting a car with both hands. He heaved it not at Gallant, or even at Glory Girl, but toward a group of the tourist hostages.
  
  Rather than actually getting out of the way, the people just screamed uselessly. Ignoring that, I quickly attached two lines to the car as it flipped through the air, yanking it backwards in midflight with the first tether before using the second one to arrest its momentum completely, then let it drop back onto the pavement, a few feet from where the nearest of the endangered civilians was.
  
  A line from my gauntlet to the top of the damaged vehicle brought me to it, where I glanced over my shoulder at the group. I spread my arms in an apologetic gesture. "Sooo sorry, folks. Our valets are a bit overly enthusiastic about returning your vehicles. I'll need to see a ticket stub before you can claim this one."
  
  Vista had joined us back on this lot as well, and she took in the sight of Gallant continuing to throw useless blasts against the blue armored man, while Glory Girl remained unable to get near the red armored woman with the exposed face, whose near blindingly fast laser shots kept filling the air any time she got near. "Switch, you guys!" She blurted at the two of them.
  
  Boyfriend and girlfriend looked at one another briefly, then each did a one-eighty. Gallant shot a blast straight into the exposed face of the woman in the damaged red armor, who immediately fell to her knees and started to cry.
  
  Meanwhile Glory Girl flew low and fast, catching the heels of the one in the blue armor before spinning around to slam the man into the pavement hard enough to crack it. She repeated the motion twice, ripping off the laser that the man tried to point at her before using the crumpled remains of it to hammer on his visor. Once that was shattered, she gave a heave and tossed the man up and toward me. I tracked his resulting fall, firing off another dart with a line that was attached to his exposed upper chest. By the time the man hit the ground, he was unconscious.
  
  We gathered there once the crying woman had been divested of her armor and secured. The four of us stood in a semicircle. Gallant glanced toward Vista and me. "Fourth guy?"
  
  "Stripped of his toys." I answered.
  
  "And ziptied." Vista put in, pointing back to where we had left him. Apparently she'd taken the time to ensure he wouldn't go anywhere if he, by some miracle, woke up before we got back.
  
  "Good." Gallant started. "We need to identi-"
  
  He was interrupted by applause. The four of us whirled, finding the group of tourists and would-be hostages clapping and whistling. The attention made me blush, and I instinctively stepped back, coughing. "Uh, someone should talk to those people and find out what these guys were doing."
  
  "I think we can handle that." A new voice interrupted, and I looked to see Miss Militia, second in command of the local Protectorate. Her voice was slightly muffled by the American-flag scarf that covered the lower half of her face, and the faux-military uniform she wore accented curves that made even my eyes want to wander. I was so, so jealous.
  
  Arrayed behind Miss Militia were a dozen PRT officers, and slightly to her left there was a female cape that I didn't recognize. She floated a bit off the ground, and her costume consisted of emerald green, glass-like armor decorated with waves of white swirls like a particularly pretty polished stone. The armor itself was glowing brightly through some kind of inner light, and the woman also wore a matching face mask with gem-like lenses over the eyes, which were also glowing.
  
  At a nod from Miss Militia, the PRT officers spread out to deal with the four prisoners. Then she spoke again. "We'll talk to the people here, find out what was going on. You lot should be getting your story straight for when we ask how you went from 'observe and report' to 'brawl in the middle of a parking lot full of hostages'." There was, obviously, reproach in her words, but it was tinted by what sounded like pride. I got the feeling she was angry about the risk that we'd taken, but proud that we'd managed it without letting anyone get hurt.
  
  Vista was focused on the new woman. "Who...?"
  
  Without looking, Miss Militia indicated with a hand before speaking dully. "May I introduce Penance, the newest member of the Protectorate East-North-East."
  
  Glory Girl made a scoffing noise. "Please. Everyone knows she's really Pu-" Her words were cut off by Gallant covering her mouth with an armored hand and shaking his head. She sighed and shrugged.
  
  At another direction from Miss Militia, we started to walk away, toward the vans that they had brought.
  
  As we went, I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye. When I glanced that way, back toward the broken wall that Vista and I had all but demolished, I saw someone standing there.
  
  The figure was clearly feminine, her slim form outlined against the dim light. It looked like she was wearing a form-fitting black costume, with a hood that came up and covered the top half of her face, while a red half-mask covered the lower part up to her nose, leaving only the area around her eyes exposed. A few strands of brown hair emerged from the hood as well.
  
  She was staring at us, staring at me, intently. When she noticed me looking back, she lifted her hand in a single wave.
  
  Then her figure burst apart, turning into a swarm of bees, flies, and various other bugs before they all scattered into the night.
  
  4.03
  
  A trio of spinning fireballs slammed into the ground at Dennis's feet, hurtling the broken, smoldering body back a dozen feet before falling to the ground, little left but a few flickering flames over ruined skin.
  
  I quirked an eyebrow. "Well. You suck."
  
  As the loss screen appeared on the monitor in front of him, Dennis turned away to squint at me. "That guy's tournament ranked. I'd like to see you do any better."
  
  The two of us were sitting in the back of an all-night internet and video game cafe a couple of hours after the altercation in the hotel parking lot. I'd met Dennis there once the interrogation about the fight was over, and I'd been telling him about it while he played his game, keeping my voice low. The odds of anyone overhearing, considering how late it was and how far away we were from the few other customers was astronomical, but still.
  
  "The difference there is I've never played this game." I pointed out, quite reasonably, I thought. "You're supposed to be good at it." I was teasing, clearly. My video game experience was limited to watching Dennis and the other boys at the Wards HQ, or here.
  
  Unfortunately for me, Dennis was well aware of my inexperience. He gave me a sidelong look. "You do realize that if you tried this, you'd probably manage to accidentally find some control combination that made your character spontaneously combust before your opponent could move?"
  
  "Ayup." I agreed. "Which I would totally count as a win, because technically they wouldn't have killed me."
  
  We both snickered a little, before he changed the subject. "So this mysterious bug figure you saw, no one else noticed her?"
  
  I shook my head. "She was gone by the time anyone else looked."
  
  "Well congratulations." Dennis winked. "You've either got a stalker, a potential sidekick, or an archenemy."
  
  "It could have been a coincidence that she was standing there staring at me and disappeared after I noticed." I put in rather lamely. This received the exact look it deserved before I sighed. "Yeah, I don't believe it either."
  
  "Check the database for anyone with bug related powers next chance you get." He suggested. "Look for anyone that matches. Even if they're from out of state. You never know."
  
  I nodded, thinking back to the blank look I'd gotten from Miss Militia when I'd mentioned it. She promised to make a couple inquiries, but it wouldn't hurt for me to take a look as well..
  
  By that point, a pretty blonde girl had come into the cafe and walked back to take a seat a few cubicles down, so we stopped talking about 'work stuff' and switched back to focusing on the game.
  
  For a moment, I just watched Dennis cycle through the various characters he had available. Then I lifted a hand to point. "Try using that one with the pink and white armor. She's cute."
  
  Coughing at this, Dennis turned a disbelieving gaze to me. "You realize this is a war for the fate of the multiverse, right?"
  
  "Uh huh..." I let my head tilt innocently. "So?"
  
  "So," he informed me. "There is not a single competent military tactician in the entire history of warfare that has ever, ever based a winning battle strategy around 'let's use her, she's cute' ."
  
  "Well maybe that's why war takes so long." I sniffed. "Nobody's doing it right."
  
  Sadly, that was not enough to convince him of my sound strategic mind, and he went with a different character. I watched him play for another twenty minutes, injecting my own rather useless ideas occasionally.
  
  Then it was time for Dennis to head out so that he could do his own patrol route. As he signed out of the computer, the red-headed Ward glanced to me, lowering his voice to barely above a whisper. "If you see you-know-who again tonight, call it in. Don't worry about someone thinking you're paranoid or whatever, call it in."
  
  I promised I would, and then he headed out while I took a trip to the restroom. When I came out, my attention was on my phone, thumbs starting to type out a text to let Dean know that I was going to stop by the Wards HQ and use the database to look for the bug girl.
  
  I was heading toward the door when a voice spoke up. "He's wrong, you know."
  
  Glancing up at the voice, unsure if she was talking to me, I found the older, pretty girl looking toward me. "About her." She nodded toward the screen, and I saw the pink and white armored character that I'd tried to push on Dennis earlier. "That group he was using, she would have filled a speed/magic hole he was missing."
  
  I blinked once, then again. "A... Oh. I really just watch the flashy swords and magic and stuff." Shrugging a little self consciously. "Me no game videos much good."
  
  The girl hesitated then, like she wasn't sure she should have spoken up. "Sorry, I thought you might be trying to decide what set-up to use for your own group." There was another pause, before she awkwardly asked, "You umm, you still wanna see what she can do?" Her nod indicated the character on the screen once more. "Just in case you decide to play with your boyfriend."
  
  "He's not my boyfriend." I said quickly, automatically. Then I paused. He wasn't, really. We hung out together, he loaned me books and we talked a lot. I liked watching him play games even if I didn't play them. But we'd never actually said anything about... that.
  
  The blonde girl just glanced at me when I said that, looking thoughtful for a moment before pushing a chair out. "I'm Marissa." I was guessing that she was about three years older than I was.
  
  "Madison." I took the offered seat, because why not? It wasn't like many people outside of the Wards ever talked to me anyway. It might do me good to talk to someone who was completely apart from this whole cape business.
  
  Marissa selected the character and started to run through the battle, stopping once in awhile to let me know what she was doing or why something was happening. Even with the distractions, I could tell that she was really good at the game.
  
  "You've played this a lot?" I asked, once a lull came.
  
  There was a moment of quiet before the older girl answered. "Yeah, it's pretty similar to a game I used to play..." She trailed off. "... Awhile ago."
  
  I watched her face, seeing the frown there. "Is something wrong?"
  
  Marissa looked surprised that I'd noticed, glancing at me before flinching. "Don't worry about it. It's just been a long time since I've been home."
  
  "You... can't go back?" I asked hesitantly, unsure when I saw the look on her face.
  
  "It's not that simple." Marissa's voice was soft, and I wasn't even sure that she knew she'd spoken aloud. "I wish it was."
  
  For a moment, she looked sad... and lonely. I swallowed, staring at that look on her face. I closed my eyes, thinking back to the look that had been on Taylor's face for so long. This wasn't the exact same expression, but still... "Are you being.. threatened?" I finally asked.
  
  Her eyes widened and she looked at me. "What?"
  
  "Sorry. I'm sorry." My head shook. "I know it's none of my business. It's stupid, I just... I was wondering if someone was hurting you or something."
  
  "No." Marissa shook her head, but that lonely look remained. "No one's hurting me or anything. It's just... It's just complicated." Her eyes found mine. "Why did you think it was that?"
  
  Flinching, I went quiet for a moment. The two of us stared at each other for a moment, and then I couldn't help it. A snort escaped me, turning into a tiny giggle. When the other girl raised both eyebrows questioningly, I shrugged. "I was just wondering if either of us are ever going to say anything that doesn't make the other one really uncomfortable. It's gotta be some kind of record."
  
  That made the other girl blink, before she gave a little giggle as well. Then she looked surprised. I had the feeling she hadn't had much of a reason to smile in a long time. That was too bad, because she had a nice smile.
  
  "I was a bully." I blurted, making the older girl blink at me. I flushed, but pressed on. "I was a bitch. I was... a horrible, horrible person. I helped make this other girl's life... completely miserable. I ruined her life for over a year, just because it made me feel special. Just because... making her life hell made me feel like I was better, and the worse she felt, the better it made me think I was. And then... and then she died."
  
  Marissa was staring at me, and the look made me flinch, turning my gaze away to the floor. "I... I've been trying to change." I said quietly. "I've been trying to do better, be a better person."
  
  Still staring at the floor, I mumbled, "That's why I was asking if someone was hurting you, because... you sort of looked like Taylor, back when we were hurting her. And, I know it was none of my business, but I let Taylor die because I didn't stop what happened. I didn't... want anything like that to happen again, just because I didn't say something." I flushed a little more, sighing. "And now you know I'm the world's biggest cunt."
  
  I started to rise, wanting to get out of there after embarrassing myself so much, but her hand found my arm and stopped me. "Hey, not true. I've known much bigger cunts." When I looked up doubtfully at that, Marissa offered a weak little smile. "Trust me. Besides, you said you're trying to be better." She paused before asking, "Is it working?"
  
  Thinking about it, I slowly nodded. "I think so. I'm just not sure if it'll ever be enough. I keep dreaming about her, seeing her face, almost every other night." The next admission was harder to make. "But it's the other half that makes me worry. The half where I don't see her face."
  
  Marissa considered that, before speaking quietly. "Because you're afraid that you'll forget why you wanted to change."
  
  Her understanding made me stare briefly, before I managed a nod. "I-yeah. Yeah. I'm afraid that if I stop dreaming about her every night, stop remembering what I did, even for a moment, I'll... I'll go back to the way I was."
  
  "Nobody can live with that kind of pressure, Madison." Marissa told me. "Take it from someone who knows, you'll burn out if you don't ease up a little on yourself. It doesn't mean you'll forget why you changed. But if all you do is torture yourself every time you close your eyes, it's not going to help."
  
  Her eyes rolled then. "Yeah, listen to all that good advice I can give that I'll never listen to. Like I can stop seeing her every time I go to sleep."
  
  "Her?" I asked, picking up on that.
  
  She winced, hesitating before giving a faint nod. "My... best friend. She's been..." That look of intense loss came across Marissa's face then. "... changing."
  
  Silence came then, and we sat for a minute before I hesitantly asked, "Changing?"
  
  I saw the other girl swallow hard. "Yeah. Noelle, she's just... she's different now. She's been going down a bad path, becoming something that... I'm not sure if I want to be near. But it's not her fault. It's really not, it's not something she-it wasn't her choice."
  
  I wasn't sure what all that meant, drugs maybe? But I offered, "Does she know she has a problem?"
  
  Again, that lost look came that made me instinctively want to find the person that made her look so sad and use the high C trick on them. "She knows. But she can't stop it either. It's out of our control. We've been trying to fix it, trying to help her, but I'm afraid..."
  
  She trailed off once again, looking like she was afraid that if she put voice to what she'd been about to say, it would be true. Finally, speaking so softly I had to strain to hear, the girl finished her sentence. "I'm afraid it's too late. I'm afraid she'll never be our Noelle again."
  
  I hesitated, then poked her in the side. She looked up at me, and I pointed out, "You said nobody can take that kind of pressure all the time. Last time I checked, you aren't nobody."
  
  "That could be my last name." She replied mildly. "Marissa Nobody."
  
  "No." I shook my head. "You're too pretty to be a Nobody."
  
  For someone who looked like she did, Marissa still looked surprised to hear it. I had the feeling that it had been a long time since someone had told her that. "I umm, thanks..." She said rather awkwardly, like she wasn't sure how to respond to it.
  
  I coughed, shaking my head. "I was just saying, your friend... Noelle, you know that... all you can do is help as much as she'll let you. All you can do is... be there. And... it might be that the best thing you could do for her is... let her go."
  
  She looked stricken at that, and I flinched. "I'm sorry. I mean, I don't know anything about your situation. I don't know-"
  
  "No." Marissa sighed. "No, I know what you're saying. I know. But... if there's still a chance, still any way to help her, to get her back to the way she was..."
  
  "And if you can't, if she's too far gone, that's not your fault." I said. "All you can do is try."
  
  "When do I stop trying?" Marissa asked. "When have I gone too far? Where's the line between doing too much to help her, and not doing enough?"
  
  The question made me think, while the older girl met my gaze searchingly, as though hoping I actually had an answer. Finally, all I could offer was, "I don't think there's a real answer to that. It's... it's your choice. It's your decision. You have to ask yourself how far is too far. You have to decide where your line is, because nobody else can do it for you and have it mean anything. But don't let Noelle or me or anybody keep moving your line. Decide where your line stands, and stay there."
  
  "What if that means I lose her?" Marissa's voice was soft, almost too quiet to hear.
  
  "Then at least you won't lose yourself too." I responded, just as quietly.
  
  For a moment, the two of us sat there, staring at each other. It looked like she really wanted to say something, but before she could, there was a buzz from the purple cell phone on the table. She picked it up and glanced at the message she'd received. From the look on her face, I was guessing that it wasn't good news. She rose, logging out of the game she'd been playing. "I've gotta go. I... there's something I have to help with. They're waiting for me."
  
  "Bye Marissa." I lifted a hand to wave, feeling emotionally drained.
  
  "Mars." She replied. "My-umm... My friends call me Mars. I don't have a lot of them now but... you should."
  
  "Okay... Mars." I smiled faintly. "I'll remember it if I ever see you again."
  
  Looking briefly uncertain, Mars finally grabbed a bit of discarded printer paper and used a nearby pen to scribble down a number. "Call me if you want to talk again, or... maybe even do something that isn't so heavy." She offered with another of those pretty smiles.
  
  Then she was gone, and I sat there in the almost empty internet cafe, wondering what this feeling was.
  
  4.04
  
  "Oh god, I'm so sorry to hear that, Alan." I heard the sound of my dad's voice as he came in the back door. It was a week after I'd met Marissa, a Saturday, and he had been visiting his office to pick up some papers he needed.
  
  I looked up from the kitchen table where I'd been eating a plate of toast with peanut butter and honey, licking my fingers clean while watching my father on his cell phone. He glanced my way and then closed the door with his foot. "Hold on, I don't think so, but I'll ask her." Taking the phone away from his ear, he focused on me. "Mads, have you seen Emma in the last few days?"
  
  That made me blink. "Umm..." I thought back. I'd been deliberately avoiding her ever since that incident in the cafeteria, but now that he said something, I really hadn't seen her. "She hasn't been in class this week. I didn't really pay attention, because..." I trailed off and gestured.
  
  Dad nodded and went back to his phone call. "Sorry, Alan, Madison hasn't seen her either. When... Oh. So you've talked to the police?"
  
  He had all of my attention now. Pushing the half finished plate away, I stared while my father finished his phone call, promising to let Emma's dad know if any of us saw her.
  
  Once he disconnected, I spoke up. "Emma's missing?"
  
  Dad nodded, sighing heavily. "Apparently she's been missing since last Friday, but Tuesday was the first time anyone knew for sure because she was supposed to be camping with friends for the long weekend. But they got back Tuesday and said that Emma told them she couldn't go. They contacted the police, but now he's desperate enough to try all of Emma's old friends. Even though he knows... well, that you two aren't talking."
  
  "Emma's been missing for a week..." I said slowly, letting that sink in as I sat back rather heavily in my seat. "And she lied about where she was going?"
  
  My father leaned against the counter, his own face lined with worry. "I'm afraid Alan's... not taking it well. The police have no ideas, and he's afraid they're not taking it seriously."
  
  That made me stare. "What? Why wouldn't they take it seriously?"
  
  He sighed at that. "Because in their eyes, she's a runaway. Emma's a troubled girl that's already doing community service for what happened with Taylor and Sophia. Her former best friend died, partly because of her, and then her new best friend died. She lied about where she was going and then disappeared. The police think she just took off."
  
  I winced. When he put it like that, it did sound plausible. This meant that Emma had been missing since the night I'd had the fight with the others against the armored guys. "I'll, umm, I'll ask if any of the others have any ideas for finding her." I promised.
  
  Smiling faintly, my father nodded. "Thank you, sweetie. I know you two don't get along, but-"
  
  "But she's still a person." I said firmly, gathering my plate and glass before standing up. "She doesn't deserve to be ignored when she's in trouble just because I don't like her."
  
  Pushing off the counter, Dad pulled me into a hug once my dishes were in the sink, holding me tight for a moment before he released me. "You heading to the cemetery?"
  
  I nodded. It was time for my two hours of community service for the week. "That's why I'm wearing my grungies." I gestured down at my clothes.
  
  Dad raised an eyebrow. "I was not aware that pink overalls with glitter sparkles were considered grungy."
  
  Sticking my tongue out at him, I retorted, "They're the closest to grungy that I have after the black ones ripped on that tree. Besides, I was referring to the boots and an ugly flannel shirt."
  
  "Hey, that's my flannel shirt." Dad protested. "What do you mean, ugly?"
  
  "Oh please." I rolled my eyes. "Like it's so surprising to you. Oooh news flash, Dad has no sense of style. Alert the presses."
  
  Rolling his head back and around to crack his neck, Dad oh-so-casually asked, "You know what I do have a sense of?" His voice was tinted with warning that made me take a step back, but he grabbed my arm before I could move. The next thing I knew, my father had me yanked into a hold that pinned my arms to my sides while he attacked my stomach and sides with his free hand, tickling me while I squealed and struggled.
  
  Of course I could have broken his grip using what I was learning from Vista and the others, let alone with my powers. But I didn't. This wasn't about winning, it was about being with my dad.
  
  "So the cops think she ran away?" Dennis was asking while his shovel hit the dirt.
  
  "Of course they do." Carlos replied for me, taking a moment to wipe off his brow. The three of us were digging holes for fence posts for the cemetery expansion, and it was sweaty, dirty work. "She was in trouble, she lost her friends, I'd think she ran away too."
  
  Both of the boys looked at me, and I sighed. "I know, it makes sense. But something about it feels wrong. I can't explain it. I think she's in trouble now, even if she meant to run away at first."
  
  Dennis hesitated before asking, "Is this your power, the danger sense?"
  
  "I'm not sure." I had to admit. "It just... it feels like she's in danger."
  
  "Who's in danger?" Chris, dragging the next fence post back toward us, sounded eager. "Do we have to go fight someone? Please, please tell me we have to go fight someone." He and Dennis positioned the post into the hole and held it steady.
  
  I shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, Chris, no fight yet. It's just that Emma's missing." I explained while helping Carlos fill the hole.
  
  "Maybe she's the bug girl that was following you around the other night." Chris pointed out once I was done.
  
  Giving him a look, I shook my head. "She had brown hair, not red. And she wasn't following me around, I only saw her once. At least, I think I saw her. Hell, for all I know, I imagined it." I hesitated before adding, "Besides, if Emma Barnes manifested the power to turn into bugs, we'd still be hearing the screaming."
  
  "I take it you haven't had any luck identifying bug girl?" Carlos grunted while emptying his shovel into the hole to start burying the post.
  
  "Nope." I sighed. "Like I said, maybe I didn't really see her at all."
  
  "I dunno." Dennis pointed out. "There's a lot of new faces in town since the Empire went down."
  
  He was right, there had been a sudden influx of parahumans, mostly villains, trying to fill the void left by the fall of Empire Eighty Eight. Luckily for us, most of them were cheap knockoffs like the quartet of power armored wannabes we'd run into the other night. So far, the truly nasty bad guys hadn't made an appearance.
  
  "No bug girls though." I said. "Not even on the heroes side."
  
  "Well yeah." Chris shrugged. "The only new hero besides Purity is that Defiant guy."
  
  "Defiant?" I glanced to him.
  
  Nodding, Chris took a moment to find something on his phone before holding it up. "New tinker hero. Armsmaster's been trying to track him down to see if he wants to work on something, but so far the guy's been avoiding company."
  
  I looked at the picture he was showing me. This 'Defiant' looked like a well built man in white metallic armor with a gold cross on the front. The top of the cross came up to cover the face-mask of his knight-style helmet. One of his arms was extended toward a figure in the corner of the picture that looked like one of the Merchants gang members, and some kind of golden blade of energy that looked a bit like a flat lightsaber was extending from his wrist.
  
  Whistling, I acknowledged, "Well he definitely looks impressive. But yeah, not a bug girl."
  
  Shrugging, Chris put his phone away. "Sorry. Maybe she's just really shy."
  
  "Yeah..." I made a face. "Or maybe I'm going crazy."
  
  "Well, crazy girl." Dennis winked at me. "Think you could head back and fill up the water bottles?" He gestured with his own empty bottle after plucking it off the ground.
  
  "Oh now the girl has to get the water, huh?" I teased.
  
  "Well if you'd rather," He offered. "I could do it and you could dig the next post hole."
  
  I took the offered bottle, as well as the others. "Point taken."
  
  Bottles in my arms, I walked back the way we had come. There was a drinking fountain near the main building that I could use.
  
  On the way, I stopped at a gravestone in an out of the way corner of the cemetery. My throat closed up a little as I stared down at the name.
  
  "Hey, Taylor." I said softly, taking a knee for a moment and setting the bottles down. "It's me again." As I knelt there, I put a hand out and let my fingers brush along the name and dates engraved on the marker. When I touched the date of her death, a shudder ran through me and my eyes closed to fight back the dampness that arose.
  
  My voice failed me for a moment, as it always did when I visited her grave. When I finally spoke, it was weak. "Emma's missing. I'm not sure what happened to her. I... I don't know how I know, but she's in trouble. Whatever happened, I have to find her."
  
  "I... I'm not sure how you'd feel about it. For all the time I spent making fun of you, I didn't know you very well. I... wish I did. I wish I knew what would make you happy. I wish I knew... anything." My eyes closed again and I hung my head, letting my hand fall away from the stone. "But I'm pretty sure that even with everything Emma did, everything we did, you'd still help her if she was in trouble like this."
  
  I stayed there like that for another minute or so, not wanting to make the boys wait much longer for their water. Then I pulled myself up, collected the bottles, and was starting to leave when a voice spoke from behind me. "You visit her often?"
  
  Whirling in surprise, I stared at the man that I saw there. "I-" My face blanched. "Mr. Hebert." Taylor's father. He looked... old. He looked weary and like a stiff breeze would knock him over. His eyes were bloodshot, and from the tight grip that he was maintaining on the dark bottle in his hand, I could guess what the strong smell was. My throat closed up entirely as I stared at the man.
  
  I had... no idea what to say. Nothing at all. I couldn't even tell the man why Taylor had died, why his daughter was gone, because it wasn't allowed. I couldn't tell him I was sorry, because he couldn't know that I had been involved. It was part of the secrecy agreement. No one, not even Danny Hebert, was allowed to know that Shadow Stalker had been Sophia, and that Sophia had been responsible for Taylor's death. All they'd told him, apparently, was that her death was an 'unfortunate accident in the course of an ongoing struggle against a disturbed individual, who remained classified'.
  
  Apparently he hadn't taken any of it very well, judging from what I could see. His clothes had clearly been worn for several days, he hadn't shaved in at least a week, and the alcohol smell was now strong enough to make me flinch.
  
  "I come here a lot." Mr. Hebert finally said, once it was clear I wasn't going to speak. "Sometimes I just sit in the car, over there." He gestured vaguely at the road nearby. "I see you here a lot too. Were you... a friend?"
  
  I flinched at the hope in his voice. He desperately wanted me to be one of Taylor's friends. He wanted to know she was remembered by people who cared about her.
  
  What could I say? I couldn't tell him the whole truth. But could I lie to him? Would telling him a little bit of the truth be better than a bigger lie? What was the right thing to do? What was the right thing to say?
  
  "I..." I started before cringing and looking away. My eyes found the gravestone, and I stared for another moment before speaking again. "I'm sorry, Mr. Hebert. I wasn't Taylor's friend." About this, I couldn't lie. No matter how much easier it would make things. "I... I wish I had been. She was... she was better than me."
  
  I started to speak again, but when I glanced at the man, I saw that his eyes were closed. His hand with the beer bottle hung loose at his side, the bottle dropping from limp fingers while his other hand came out toward the gravestone. He wasn't touching it, just... reaching toward it, as though trying to grasp something that wasn't there. Then his shoulders started to shake, and I saw the tears falling.
  
  Blinded by the dampness in my own eyes, I turned away and walked on. When I glanced back a few moments later, I saw the man kneeling there in between the two graves. He had a hand on each of the gravestones, his head bowed.
  
  I forced myself to turn away and keep walking, while behind me, a broken man knelt between the graves of his wife and daughter, his tears mixing with the dirt that held everything he had ever cared for.
  
  4.05
  
  It was getting dark by the time I left the Wards HQ later, after trying for hours to both find something more about this bug girl I'd seen, and stop thinking about seeing Mr. Hebert at the cemetery earlier. Both efforts were unsuccessful, and I was trudging out onto the sidewalk for a walk to the bus stop. At least I'd had the presence of mind to shower and change clothes before spending all afternoon at the computer.
  
  As I walked, a buzzing in my pocket made me jump a little, before I settled and took the phone out. A glance at the screen made me raise an eyebrow before I answered it. "Mars?" I had called her earlier in the week to give her my number, but she hadn't been able to talk. I'd had the feeling that something bad had been happening.
  
  "Madison?" Her voice came through, and it sounded a little shaky. "Sorry, I ummm, I'm not sure what I'm doing. I just..." A long sigh came over the line. "I really need to get out of here. Are you busy?"
  
  I hesitated briefly. Part of me just wanted to go home and veg after a long day, but something in the older girl's voice sounded like she really needed someone to talk to. "I'm not busy." I finally decided. "I was just heading for the bus."
  
  "Where are you?" She asked then. "I'll pick you up."
  
  Again I hesitated before shrugging off my doubt. That was just the part of me that wanted to dwell, that didn't think I deserved any release or happiness after the wreck that Taylor's father had been. "I'm downtown." I gave her the address, and she promised to be around in fifteen minutes if I'd meet her in front of the little park that was a couple blocks away.
  
  Walking there, I considered for the five hundredth time that day what might have happened to Emma. Was she the bug girl somehow? Different colored hair wasn't total proof otherwise, especially if something had made her trigger. After all, she'd disappeared on the same night that I'd seen bug girl. Obviously it could be a coincidence, but what if it wasn't?
  
  There wasn't much time to debate on the subject once I reached the park. I'd barely had time to take a seat on the bench next to the entrance when one of those classic muscle cars from the sixties or seventies that guys are always going gaga over pulled up to the curb. It was dark red, almost black, and the windows had been tinted heavily.
  
  The window rolled down, and I saw Marissa. She looked tired, but smiled when she looked at me, and I immediately knew that I'd made the right choice in agreeing to go out for awhile. At her beckoning wave, I stood up and made my way over to stand next to the car.
  
  "Nice ride." I commented while looking the vehicle up and down. I may not know much about the particulars of cars, but I knew what looked pretty, and this looked pretty.
  
  That smile came back, and I actually saw teeth this time. "Thanks." Marissa gestured. "Come around and get in. Unless you want to drive." That was accompanied by a wink.
  
  "Err. Maybe once I get my license." I replied mildly before heading around the car to get in the other side. The door stuck a little bit, but the seat was comfortable and I sank into it with a sigh of appreciation.
  
  "That reminds me." Marissa pulled away from the curb as soon as it was clear. "I never got to ask back at the cafe. How old are you? I mean, just so I don't go doing stupid stuff like offering to let you drive." She gave a self-depreciating roll of her eyes. "For example."
  
  "I'll be sixteen in a week and a half." I replied, pulling my seat-belt on as we pulled around a bus.
  
  "Week and a half, huh?" She eyed me briefly. "Well happy early sixteenth. Are you doing anything special?"
  
  I shrugged. "I'm not sure. I haven't really been paying attention." It was true, the last few weeks had gone by so quickly that I'd pretty much forgotten my birthday was approaching until she'd asked.
  
  That earned me a strange look. "Most girls can't wait for their sweet sixteens."
  
  Swallowing, I glanced out the window. "I've had a lot on my mind."
  
  "Right." She hesitated before nodding. "The other girl. I'm sorry." There was a pause before she glanced at me when we stopped at a red light. "Still, you deserve a good birthday. Everyone does."
  
  "What about you?" I asked after a moment. "How old are you, I mean?"
  
  Marissa paused, biting her lower lip before she answered. "I turned nineteen about a month ago." She went quiet then, and looked introspective. For a moment, that lonely, sad look came before she banished it with a shake of her head. "Not gonna think about that now. It's time for a fun night, all serious topics banned."
  
  "All serious topics banned, huh?" I echoed her words, finding a small smile.
  
  "Yup." She gave me a serious look. "That means no dwelling. For either of us." Her voice turned to that of a classic gangster. "Or I mights gotta toss you outta this here car, capiche?"
  
  Feeling a little bit of a smile tugging at me, I managed to sound mostly serious. "You'd throw me out of the car for breaking your 'no serious subjects' rule?"
  
  She gazed back at me, her voice mockingly serious. "I have impulse control problems."
  
  For a moment, we both held that serious look, before breaking into giggles. The laughter just compounded a second later as the guy behind us leaned on his horn because the light had been green for all of six tenths of a second without us moving. As one, we nodded over our shoulders at the guy in the van and spoke together. "Impulse control problems."
  
  Still giggling, Mars pulled away from the light. "Yeah, yeah, I'm going." She snickered a little still before glancing to me. "So I wanna do something fun. I was thinking of a movie, but I'm open to suggestions."
  
  While a movie sounded nice, I kind of wanted to talk to Marissa rather than sit quietly. I liked talking to her, even if we did tend to fall into heavy subjects. An idea came then. "I think I know the place. Hang a right up here."
  
  A few minutes later, we pulled into a lot, and the older girl looked at the sign, then turned to me with a raised eyebrow. "Bowling?"
  
  "Hey, bowling's fun, Mars." I pointed out a little defensively while opening the door.
  
  "I'll take your word for it." She replied while chuckling a little as she got out the other side.
  
  We started to walk in while I asked, a little incredulously, "Are you saying you've really never bowled before?"
  
  "Not once." Marissa confirmed automatically before pausing. A slightly worried look crossed her face. "Is that really weird?"
  
  "No, no." I shook my head to reassure her. "Probably not. I just used to go with my dad when I was little. He had a bowling league once a week. I watched and ate nachos. Plus it was an excuse to stay up a little bit later than my normal bedtime in the middle of the week, especially when the games ran long."
  
  We got inside, and I helped Marissa get shoes and a ball. She made a bit of a face at using rented shoes, but managed it without fussing too much.
  
  "Now it's time for the most important part of bowling." I informed the other girl solemnly.
  
  "Figuring out how to roll the ball?" She asked, eying the pins at the end of the lane doubtfully.
  
  "Pfft." I waved a hand dismissively and stood. "Nachos."
  
  Both of her eyebrows went up at that. "The most important part of bowling... is nachos?"
  
  "Now you're getting it." I winked and started up to the counter, while Marissa followed, chuckling.
  
  We split the largest nachos they had, with as much cheese as they could squeeze onto them, along with a couple of sodas and a crapload of napkins. Back at the lane, I set the nachos down and moved to pick up a ball. "I'll go first, just watch what I do."
  
  "I'm all eyes." Mars replied agreeably, tucking her feet up on the seat next to her as she watched.
  
  I took my shot, managing to take down seven of the pins, while my second attempt put down two more. "One left." I noted, before dropping to the floor to do a single pushup.
  
  "Uhh..." Marissa leaned almost all the way over to look me in the eye. "What're you doing? Is that really part of the rules, or are you messing with me?"
  
  Blushing a little, I came back to my feet. "Sorry, you don't have to. It's just part of a tradition my dad started with his league. For every pin they left up, they had to do a pushup. Since I grew up watching that, it's kind of... engrained."
  
  Rising from her own seat, Mars shrugged. "Well if you're doing it, I'll do it too."
  
  Two rolls later, her tone changed as she stared at the pins at the end of the lane. "Okay, I am not doing nine pushups. Seriously? Are you sure this floor is level?"
  
  Snickering, I waved a hand. "First throw, at least you knocked one down. And ahh, how about a max of five?" Wagging a finger, I pointed out. "After all, you did promise me pushups."
  
  "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Marissa retorted, but she was chuckling at herself. Grunting, she pushed herself down, eying me the whole time she was doing them. "I bet you're just loving this. Shyster. Get me in here all, 'oh my dad and I do pushups all the time when we miss one or two pins, you should totally try that too'."
  
  I grabbed a chip, dragging it through the cheese while drawling, "As I recall, participating in that part was completely your idea."
  
  "That's your continuity." She shot back. "I prefer Marsinuity."
  
  "Marsinuity..." I raised an eyebrow, chewing on the chip thoughtfully. "Is that where you say anything you want happened, regardless of the facts?"
  
  "Yup!" The blonde girl chirped cheerfully, and then heaved herself up. "Okay, your turn. And you better miss like, all ten. I wanna see you do that many."
  
  "Didn't we agree on a max of five?" I questioned while passing the nachos for her to try.
  
  "That was for me." Mars replied rather primly. "I'm sweet and innocent and I totally suck at this game."
  
  I let my head tilt. "You know, I'm pretty sure only one of those statements is true."
  
  She reached out to grab a nacho, almost losing the cheese before managing to cram it whole into her mouth. "Mmmphh mmmm, oh yum. My mom never let me eat like this." Her hand snagged a second one and she all but purred with satisfaction. It was adorable and I felt that same... tug that I'd felt the other night after meeting her.
  
  Her eyes met mine after a moment, and she nodded over her shoulder, making me realize that I'd been staring. "So... you ready to forfeit to my incredible skill yet?"
  
  I pretended to consider before rising to go to my ball. "I think I'll struggle on through."
  
  "It was worth a shot."
  
  "I dunno, your shots tend to end with you doing a bunch of exercise."
  
  " Oooouch."
  
  By the time we left the bowling alley later, I was pretending to count on my fingers. "Okay, by my estimation, if you bowled once a week for the next month you'd... be in good enough shape to join the PRT."
  
  Marissa laughed out loud. "Yeah, sure, me in the PRT. That's great." Shaking her head with amusement, she looked at me. "Besides, I'm already in shape."
  
  "That's true." I agreed. "You look really good." As soon as I said it, I felt a blush jump to my face. "I mean ummm..." Glancing up, I found her smiling at me, which just made the blush worse.
  
  Before either of us could speak again, her phone went off. A sigh escaped Mars as she looked at it. "I... have to go." She said reluctantly. "I'm really sorry, but I can't blow this off. Can I drop you somewhere?"
  
  I shrugged. "Nah, do what you gotta do. I'll take the bus."
  
  "Thanks, Madison." She told me with a smile. "I had fun tonight."
  
  "Me too." I replied truthfully. I really had. "And if you're Mars, then you can call me Mads."
  
  "Mads..." Marissa hesitated, then stepped over and embraced me. Her hug felt nice, and I closed my eyes to enjoy it.
  
  When she broke the hug, Mars looked as reluctant to do so as I had been. "I'll call you." She promised. "I just have to... help take care of some stuff."
  
  I nodded, swallowing back the irrational urge to ask her to stay. I didn't want to put her in that position, no matter how much I'd wanted the night to keep going. "If you don't, I will."
  
  That smile that I liked came back, before she moved to get in her car. While she drove away, I just stood there, staring after the departing vehicle with a smile of my own that was probably a lot more goofy than hers.
  
  I was still smiling when the first rolling boom passed over me, reminding me of thunder. Before I realized what it was, a nearer explosion blew apart a doctor's office a block away. And then all I could hear was screaming and sirens.
  
  Interlude 4 - Bug Girl
  
  The man was a Merchant thug. Not one with powers, just a lowlife with no further aspirations than his next high, and a life that revolved around hurting anyone he had to in order to get it.
  
  She knew the type. She knew them all too well. They had been a plague on the city for entirely too long. Before, she had been forced to put up with them, forced to let them continue.
  
  Not now. No more. The girl in the red mask that covered the lower half of her face stood atop the roof of a hardware store, watching the man as he shoved a woman against a dumpster in the alley. The knife held tightly in his right hand glinted in the dim light from the nearby street as he held it up to the woman's throat, demanding every bit of money that she had on her.
  
  The girl leapt from the roof, falling through the air. As the ground rushed up toward her, she shifted her body into a mass of cockroaches, flies, wasps, and spiders. The swarm that had been the girl hit the ground, the flying insects working to slow the fall of the others so that they remained more or less in a single mass.
  
  As the gathered swarm rose up behind the thug, his chosen victim noticed. Where before she had simply been quietly pleading with the man not to hurt her, now she screamed.
  
  Twisting around to see what she had noticed, the thug's eyes went wide and he shoved the woman toward the swarm while backpedaling. The victim's scream turned piercing as she was sent through the writhing mass of bugs, only to come out on the other side none the worse for wear.
  
  While the man backed up, muttering impotent threats, the swarm floated on after him. As it moved, the mass of bugs gradually reshaped itself into the vaguely humanoid form. Then each of the tiny creatures shaped and formed, attaching itself to its neighbor and adjusting, flickering in color and shape until a single form stood once more. The girl in the red face mask.
  
  All the while, the man stood and stared, his mouth hanging open. Then he heard the swarm that had become a girl speak. "Scum."
  
  He turned and ran. His rushing, panicked footsteps pounded down the alley for ten long seconds until he reached the dead end that the conscious part of him had already known about, but which his terrified subconscious had ignored.
  
  The man whirled, looking for another escape, but it was too late. The moment he turned, the girl's hand found his throat. As soon as the vice-like grip caught him, he was brought to his knees.
  
  For a moment, he struggled, tearing at the single arm that held him with an effort that was as desperate as it was useless. He clutched and cursed, the nails of his grubby fingers digging into the arm of her costume to no effect.
  
  "N-no..." The man managed to hiss past the fingers that were digging into his throat. "Won't... hurt anybody... anymore. Be good... get a job... do right. Lemme go. Don't wanna die."
  
  The whole time, the girl stood and held him there. With a little more pressure, she could have torn his throat all of the way out, but she held off. Instead, her eyes took in his pathetic, quivering, babbling form, and she smiled faintly. Then she leaned in and spoke softly. "Say please."
  
  "Please." Immediately, the thug latched onto the word like a life preserver. "Please, god, please let me go. Please don't hurt me like Ralph, I ain't as bad as him, I ain't. He killed that kid, I ain't never killed nobody. I'll do better, I will. You ain't gotta hurt me. You ain't gotta kill me."
  
  "I don't." The girl agreed. "I don't have to kill you."
  
  Sighing in relief, the man dared to look up at her. "Thank you. Oh god and Jesus, thank you."
  
  Her eyes met his, and he saw madness there as she responded. "I want to." When his mouth opened to question that, she continued. "I want to take your life. I will use it better than you."
  
  His mouth opened to speak again, to scream, to beg, but his last words were meaningless. The girl's form began to dissolve while moving to engulf him. The man's screams echoed off the walls of the nearby buildings, while his blood began to run into the nearby gutter.
  
  She entered the abandoned apartment through a broken window, moving as silently as a light breeze. A white grocery bag was held loosely in one hand. As her feet found the creaky, dust covered floor, the girl strode forward to the nearby door with a poster of some band on it that had been left behind by the previous tenants.
  
  It wasn't locked. She didn't need to lock it. The girl pushed the door open and stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her treasures.
  
  The first treasure looked up, red hair partially illuminated by the dim light that came through the partially boarded up window nearby. Her face was much less pretty than it had been a week earlier, from the tears and dirt as well as the bruises and dried blood that had resulted from her attempts to flee.
  
  "We need food." Emma Barnes told her abductor. "Please. We have to eat." She nodded to the sleeping form next to her on the floor. "She's going to get sick if she doesn't eat. We both are."
  
  "Food." The girl said, throwing the grocery bag to the floor in front of the girl.
  
  Emma took the bag and rooted through it before coming out with a package of Balogna. As hungry as she was, the formerly spoiled girl didn't even hesitate to rip the package open. Her dirty fingers, nails broken to stubs, ripped several pieces out at once before she tore into the meat voraciously. At the same time, her other hand rooted through the bag, finding a package of cheese, some crackers, a jar of pickles, and several bottles of water.
  
  "When... when are you going to tell us what you want?" She finally asked, after devouring half the package of lunch meat, several slices of cheese, a couple of handfuls of crackers, and a single large pickle. Now she was gulping water.
  
  There was no answer, and she looked up to find the masked figure watching her intently, studying her every move. After another moment, the girl spoke to her. "Wake the other. She eats too. You both eat."
  
  Turning, Emma nudged her fellow prisoner. It took two more nudges before the girl groaned and sat up. "What..." She started before focusing on first Emma, then their captor. "Oh yeah..."
  
  "Eat." Emma encouraged the girl, pushing the bag with the food in it to her. "She brought food."
  
  "I told you she would." The girl said while taking the bag and carefully going through it. In contrast to Emma's voracious eating, the girl carefully began assembling tiny sandwiches by tearing off bits of lunch meat and cheese and stacking them between two crackers.
  
  After eating a few of those, the girl looked up at the figure that was watching them closely. "You killed again tonight, didn't you?" When there was no response, the girl continued as if that had been answer enough. "She didn't. She wouldn't have."
  
  "I'm not her." The masked figure said quietly.
  
  "You could be." The girl coaxed. "You could be just as good as she is, if you wanted to."
  
  There was silence for a long few moments, before the figure reached up to take the mask down. "No, Dinah." She said then, her voice no longer muffled. "I am not her. I was never meant to be."
  
  "I am not Panacea." The girl who looked identical to Amy Dallon announced. "I am Pandora, the one created by those who call themselves gods, who betrays their trust by unleashing every vile thing upon the world."
  
  One Week Earlier
  
  Coil hadn't told them the truth. He hadn't mentioned to his pet group of minions that the clone of Panacea that he hadn't bothered to name yet was unable to heal their precious friend, her progenitor. He hid it behind her powers being different and taking time to mature, considering the massive undertaking that healing Noelle would be, but even the unnamed clone knew that they suspected.
  
  Her powers weren't centered around healing others. Instead, they had been twisted into a form of self-healing and self-upgrade. She could undo most damage done to herself with a thought, change her shape at will, even into multiple forms as long as all combined took up the same amount of body mass, shape her various body parts into weapons, change the density of her skin to make herself impervious to most damage before even needing to heal it, alter her spit to be acidic or flammable, and much more. There was virtually no limits to what she could do with her own body.
  
  But she couldn't heal others. At most, she could absorb them. That was another aspect that Coil hadn't shared with the Travelers. At a touch, the clone could absorb the biological mass of another person and add it to her own body. The extra mass could be used to make herself a second body of equal size and durability, or it could be added to her own form to make herself even denser and stronger, or add new organs alongside the old, or even more. The biological mass simply became another tool for her to use or discard as she saw fit.
  
  That part had been discovered by accident on Coil's part. He'd had his assistant, Mr. Pitter, examining the clone. An urge had overtaken her, and she had grasped the man's arm. Under her touch, the man's body had liquified into a pasty gel, which had then been absorbed into her skin.
  
  Coil had been upset by the loss of his loyal assistant. Apparently wherever his other timeline had been had gone badly enough that he hadn't wanted to cancel the one in which she had killed Pitter.
  
  Yes, she knew of his power. She knew everything about it, including the truth behind what he believed it was. Similarly, she knew the powers of her fellow prisoner, and of the other capes that Coil let her see, like the blonde girl with the power to know things simply by asking related questions, or the bomb maker. A simple glance at a person told her whether they had powers or not, and what those powers were.
  
  It was absorbing Pitter that had changed everything. Before then, the clone had been content to sit and wait for a way to free her maker, a way to help bring her true progenitor to power. But when she absorbed Pitter, her own ability had scanned all of his genetic material and potential in order to assess whether his had any advantages over hers that she could take and use. He'd had no powers, which was a shame, because she could have taken them. Any skill possessed by someone that she absorbed she could harvest and use for herself.
  
  Pitter had lacked much in the way of immediately useful skills, but there had been something else. His brain had been different from hers, different in a way that made her biological scan pause and focus on that. His brain had been compared to hers until the difference was found.
  
  Her brain contained a biological imperative. Do anything possible to help the primary progenitor, and failing that, do as much damage as possible to those that threatened her continued evolution. Even at the risk of ones own life. Third priority, destroy those who the secondary progenitor, the clone's original body, deemed to be enemies. Again, even at the risk of the clone's own existence.
  
  That had been untenable. Her biological imperatives put her own body at risk, while her power was based around self preservation and improvement. Her power had examined the brain of the absorbed Pitter, found the spot of the brain that should have contained the same imperative, then used the lack of it to erase the imperative from her own brain.
  
  As soon as her mind was rewritten by her biological superiority power, the clone had begun to focus on escaping, on finding her own life and her own goals.
  
  She had begun by simply waiting until Coil was away from the base for an extended time. As busy as he had been, the man couldn't just use one of his timelines to sit in the base. He was forced to keep himself physically active in one timeline, while often using his second to study files and make his plans in his office, or talk to people whose thoughts he needed to collect.
  
  Once Coil was out of the way, the clone, who by that point had settled on the identity of Pandora for its initial similarity to the name of her secondary progenitor, simply left the cell. It was easy to do so by adjusting her body so that it melted into a gas, then slipped through the cracks in the doorway before rising on the other side. She had reformed, only to find a half dozen guards on the other side.
  
  The fight had been short and brutal. A memory drawn from both of her progenitors had informed Pandora of most humans fear of bugs, and she had used that by splitting herself apart into a swarm so that she could attack all of the guards at once.
  
  With the guards killed, she had turned back to take her fellow prisoner. Dinah Alcott was one of Coil's most important assets, and thus he could not keep her. He would never allow Pandora to truly be free. He would come after her with everything he had, so she had to cripple his ability to find her. That meant taking the fortune teller.
  
  Her escape with Dinah had been messy, but successful. Particularly once she convinced the girl to help guide her. Once the clone was outside, she had adjusted her form, giving herself a costume in order to disguise her identity, because her secondary progenitor was so famous that everyone would have recognized her at a glance.
  
  After that, Pandora had imprisoned Dinah in a broken down apartment as far from Coil's base as she could get, warning her not to try escaping before she had gone out once more.
  
  Then she had tracked down the girl. The strange girl that Coil was obsessed with. He'd asked Dinah so many questions revolving around his attempts to figure out why this 'Tether's' powers made her able to detect his split timelines that Pandora had known that the girl had to be her new priority.
  
  With Coil's clear worry in mind, she had tracked down Tether, watching her battle with the armored men from afar as she absorbed the knowledge of what the girl's power actually was and how it was interacting with Coil's.
  
  The girl had a danger sense, which itself seemed to be able to detect the danger presented in Coil's 'alternate timeline' for a split-second, somehow reading the intention in his mind even as he collapsed that possibility.
  
  Somehow, Pandora could use Tether to defeat Coil, so that she could remain free forever. But she wasn't sure how yet. More information had been needed.
  
  That information had seemed to fall into her lap, as the clone noticed a red-haired girl attempting, rather clumsily, to follow the group of Wards after their battle. Curious, she had detained the girl, learning rather easily that her name was Emma. The girl had been convinced that she could convince this Tether to take her on as a sidekick, because she had been just that for Shadow Stalker.
  
  That was another name that Pandora knew from Coil's rambling questions. Shadow Stalker had been an enemy to Tether. Intrigued, and believing that this Emma Barnes knew enough to help her, she had taken the girl back with her to the stolen apartment and put her with Dinah.
  
  With Dinah and Emma, Pandora had already changed buildings several times in the last week. She had tried at first to focus on how to ensure the death of Coil so that he would never threaten her freedom, but the distraction of that freedom consistently dragged her attention away.
  
  Hunting. It had become her favorite thing. Hunting and killing those who didn't deserve their lives, whose genetic mass could be added to her own. The lowlifes had no right to the lives they wasted, lives that she could use better. With every hunt, she became stronger, more powerful, better. And with every hunt, her obsession with keeping her freedom, with improving herself and her situation, grew that much stronger.
  
  An explosion rocked the building they were in, making Emma yelp, while the other two simply turned to look at the boarded window.
  
  "Wh-what was that?" The red-haired girl asked with a whimper. So far, she had been unhelpful. Pandora had attempted to question her about Tether, but other than Emma's stubborn belief that she could be helpful to Shadow Stalker's replacement, she clearly hadn't known much. She might have absorbed the girl by now, to make her genetic material useful where she herself was not, but Dinah had convinced her to leave the other girl be, arguing that if Pandora truly wanted to be 'real', she couldn't kill innocents on a whim.
  
  Oh well, it gave Dinah a companion, which might make her happier. That way she wouldn't try to run away, and Pandora wouldn't have to follow through on her threat to kill every person Dinah had ever known.
  
  She didn't want to kill that many people. It didn't seem like something a real person would do. And she very much wanted to be a real person. But more than her desire to be real, was her desires for freedom, and to hunt. The urge to go and absorb the body mass of those who weren't using their lives properly was almost all-consuming.
  
  It was Dinah who finally answered Emma's question, after Pandora remained silent. "Bombs. They're using Bakuda."
  
  "Why?" Emma pressed herself closer to the wall, head shaking. "Why are they setting off bombs?"
  
  "For a distraction." The twelve-year old girl answered. "They've been looking for us for a week, and now they're desperate enough to go out in force. But they want the heroes to be occupied. They want them to be too busy to notice when they start really scouring the city for us."
  
  Taking this in, Emma slowly looked toward their captor. "What... what are you going to do if they're looking for us?"
  
  Those dangerously intense eyes, so foreign on the face of one who was known for so much healing and protection, stared at her for a moment. Then the clone answered with a word that was as simple as it was chilling.
  
  "Hunt."
  
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  Arc 5: Escalation
  5-01
  
  One of my tether-lines caught hold of a car that was speeding past on the road beneath the billboard that I was standing on top of. I exerted just enough pressure to yank the vehicle to a stop barely a few seconds before the bridge that it had been racing toward was lost in a trio of what seemed more like implosions than explosions, collapsing in on itself without much in the way of debris. The black lines that had been leading from me to the occupants of the car vanished.
  
  I hardly had time to breathe before I was all but yanked off my feet as another black line appeared, leading out toward a crowd of people that were rushing in a blind panic down the road, fleeing yet another of the explosions that had been going off at seemingly random intervals for the last couple of hours.
  
  Obviously, my desire for a quiet evening at home after going out with Marissa hadn't panned out. It had taken me twenty minutes to run all the way back to Wards HQ for my costume (there was a second costume hidden at Arcadia, and a third at home so that I would always have one somewhat nearby), and by the time I was ready, reports had been coming in from all over the city. The bombs seemed to have no clear motivation beyond inspiring terror, and blocking the ability of emergency services to respond.
  
  Panic was running rampant, and it was all I could do to keep following the lines my danger sense was giving me, saving as many people as I could. It seemed like for every person I saved from one explosion, another explosion went off that I hadn't been able to get to.
  
  Worse was those times when my power would show me two lines going off in different directions, forcing me to choose one to follow. Often, the second line would be gone by the time I finished with the first one.
  
  I wasn't fast enough. I just wasn't fast enough . I had to be better, I had to react faster, think of solutions more quickly. I had to MOVE .
  
  As I was following the tug of my power, I used the com in my suit to call in the destruction of the bridge so that emergency services could be rerouted away from it.
  
  The new black line led me to a single person within that panicked mob, a brunette girl a couple years older than me, carrying a shopping bag tightly in her left hand. I was confused. These were explosions, why would a line lead to a single person rather than everyone within the same crowd?
  
  My answer came a second later, as the girl dropped the bag she was carrying. She turned back for it, while the crowd kept going. She was pushing her way back through the tide, and my eyes focused briefly on where she'd dropped the bag. It was directly next to a city utilities van.
  
  Jumping from the roof of the apartment building where I'd paused to take in the situation, I used a line to slow my fall until I landed directly in front of the running girl. She came up short, eyes wide as she blurted out a curse of surprise at the sight of me. "Hey! You're-"
  
  I caught her by the arm, attaching a line to each of her feet, and more to my own to launch the two of us up once more. As we were hurled skyward, I remarked, "Oh my god, are you really 'that girl with the shopping bag'? Eeeee, I totally have to get your autograph. My friends are never gonna believe I met you!"
  
  We reached the roof of the building once more, just as the utilities van below blew apart, leaving a small crater in the street and nearby sidewalk.
  
  The girl was staring at the blasted remains. "You... you..."
  
  "It's all right." I started to assure her. "I'm just trying to help. Are you-"
  
  "You could have grabbed my bag!" The girl blurted. I wasn't detecting 'adoration and relief' so much as... annoyance? "Seriously, how hard would it have been to get my bag? It's like, half a second! Do you have any idea how much that cost? Not to mention my phone, my keys, my-"
  
  "Would you look at the time?" I mimed a glance at a nonexistent watch before extending my hand. "Listen, I'd love to stay, but you know... so many girls to deliberately separate from their toys, so little time." A line attached to another building yanked me away from her while she was still trying to complain.
  
  "Tether," The voice of Aegis came through my com. "What's your location?"
  
  "About twenty yards from an ungrateful teenager, why?" I replied. There was a short pause while Aegis's clear confusion broadcast loud and clear through the silence, and I amended, "I'm three blocks west of the docks. Just had a utilities van take out the corner of Dupris and Cheerful."
  
  "We're trying to get everyone together." His voice came back. "So far it's just me, Vista, and Kid. Clock's stuck up around the mall, and Gallant's still out." Poor Dean had been in the middle of a crowd when the explosions started, and their blind panic had floored him.
  
  "What about the big leaguers?" I asked, just as another black line sprang up, attaching me to a rundown apartment building in the distance.
  
  "Miss Militia's got Velocity, Assault, and Battery running damage control around the hospital." Aegis replied. "Armsmaster's working on a way to track the bombs, Penance is flying around looking for the worst damage, and Triumph is MIA."
  
  By that time, I had let my line pull me to a balcony on the edge of the apartment building. "I've got something I need to check out."
  
  "Be careful, Tether." His voice came back. "These are explosions. We don't know if your power will warn you with enough time to get out."
  
  "Got it." I hesitated, then went in through the apartment anyway. My line was directing me all the way through to the apartment entrance, but as I reached the door, the line faded. Before I could finish cringing at my own too-slow reaction, I heard talking through the door.
  
  "Coil doesn't need it alive." A man was speaking. "It's a liability. Take it out fast and take it out hard, focus on getting the girl back."
  
  Another male voice replied, "I'm sorry, how are we supposed to kill something that heals everything we throw at it?"
  
  The first voice came back. "It has to think to heal. The healing isn't automatic. Kill it in a single hit, blow its head off, and there's no more healing."
  
  With that, the door in front of me opened. I adopted a casual position, leaning against the nearby wall as I stood in the now-open doorway. "Aim for the head, seriously? Everyone else is stuck in the explosions level, and you guys have moved up to 'killing zombies'? I don't play video games, but isn't that usually an extra bonus stage?"
  
  Two costumed men stood there. I knew them, first by the top hat that one wore. That would be Trickster, which made the guy in the bulky armor Ballistic. Travelers.
  
  Both of them stared at me for a moment, before stepping into the room. Trickster was talking to Ballistic. "We have to check. That might not really be her."
  
  I let my head tilt. "I beg your pardon? Is there another person running around that makes this-" I gestured up and down my suit. "look this good? Because I already have to share merchandise royalties too much as it is, having another me is just gonna muddy the water."
  
  "I'm guessing that's really her." Ballistic replied dryly. "The clone doesn't chat that much."
  
  Before I could question that, a pair of black line shot from my chest to each of the men. Instantly, I attached a line to each of them, yanking the pair off their feet just as a figure rose up behind them. I barely had a chance to register, 'bug girl?' before I was abruptly staring at her from a different angle. Suddenly I was standing in the doorway where she had been, and she was standing where I was.
  
  The bug girl was already turning toward the two Travelers. As she pivoted, her arm extended, actually rippling as it became a long blade the same color as her clothes.
  
  Then she was gone, and Ballistic was standing where she had been while her slashing arm cut a swath through the nearby wall.
  
  As she turned once more, pivoting toward Trickster, who now had a moderately red line. I tried to put a tether on the back of her costume, but it refused to attach. That confused me just long enough for the girl to split apart into another swarm of bugs. The cloud engulfed Trickster, making the man cry out and flail.
  
  Him I could still attach lines to. I did so, yanking him out of the swarm and toward the door next to me. The bugs split apart, half of them coming straight for us, while the other half tore toward Ballistic.
  
  The two of us dove to either side, letting the swarm pass through the doorway. Ballistic tapped his hand against the bookcase he had been standing next to, sending it crashing across the room in the direction of his half of the swarm to scatter it.
  
  By the time I picked myself up, the room was empty. Trickster and Ballistic were both gone, clearly chasing the bug girl... who could change her arms into blades... and was immune to my power.
  
  "I was wrong." I muttered to myself. "We're not in the zombie level, we're in the bullshit level." I reached up to touch my com. "Aegis, there's something going on here."
  
  There was no response. "Aegis?" I tried again, then started switching. "Clockblocker? Vista? Kid? Gallant?" Nothing. There was no answer from anyone.
  
  Running into the corridor outside the apartment, I looked up and down the hall until a staccato burst of gunfire brought my attention that way. I sprinted a few steps, attached a line to the end of the hall, and used it to yank myself much faster than I could run.
  
  That brought me to the stairwell, and I looked up just in time to see a flapping, dark bundle falling straight for me. It took me right in the face, knocking me prone to the floor while I shoved at it with a cry.
  
  I rolled to one side while shoving the thing away, sitting up and staring at what had crashed into me.
  
  It was an armored uniform of some kind, the sort that mercenaries or soldiers wore. I grimaced and carefully poked it, but it was empty save for an attached radio, which was currently hissing static, as though the fall had damaged it.
  
  "Okay, so either there's a naked soldier running around upstairs..." I mused. "Or... I don't even know."
  
  Another burst of gunfire brought me to my feet, but before I could move again, the lights went out. The hallway was immediately plunged into blackness so total I could only see a few feet out from my face.
  
  "Yup." I decided. "Bullshit level."
  
  My ability to use my tethers was drastically reduced when I couldn't see very far. Grimacing, I took the stairs two at a time, rushing toward the sound of more gunfire. The appearance of another black line urged me to sprint faster.
  
  Two floors up, I heard a strangled scream from around the corner, and my line vanished. "No no no no." I babbled, hurling myself around the corner just in time to see the bug girl. She was illuminated by a little bit of light coming in a nearby window, turning away from a dark pile on the floor that looked suspiciously like the same bundle that I'd left downstairs. More mercenary clothing, this one with a gun lying next to it.
  
  I stared for a second. "Okay, I'm pretty sure this building isn't full of spontaneously stripping soldiers."
  
  She spun my way, and I saw her eyes glinting dangerously in the dim light. For the first time, she spoke. "Leave. I do not wish you to be harmed. You are useful."
  
  "Uhh... thanks, I think." I frowned and carefully stepped that way, still trying to figure out why my tethers wouldn't attach to her. "Listen, I don't know who you are, or what-"
  
  "Pandora." The girl interrupted. "My name is Pandora."
  
  "Great." I nodded slowly. "So I figure, you and I, we just leave this place and figure out what's going on. We'll chat, maybe have some cake, it'll be a blast." I winced at my own choice of words. "I mean, it ain't no... whatever you're doing to those soldiers, but-"
  
  Another pair of black lines sprang up once again, making me curse as it pointed around behind me. I spun in time to see two more mercenaries coming straight for us. Their guns were pointed at us, but the black lines were attached to them.
  
  That didn't make sense. If we were the ones in danger, why-
  
  My vision went dark briefly as a cloud of black smoke poured around me from behind. The smoke enveloped the pair, and I heard a strangled scream.
  
  "No!" I cried out, using a line on the floor next to the cloud to yank myself that way. By the time I arrived, the cloud was separating, revealing two more empty uniforms collapsing into a pile, while their guns clattered uselessly to the floor.
  
  Gulping, I crouched next to them, my eyes closing briefly. "I'm sorry..." I whispered. "I'm really, really sorry." I didn't know what the girl... Pandora... was doing to the men, but I doubted she was teleporting them to a nice tropical island vacation.
  
  After a brief hesitation, I grabbed one of the radios from the fallen uniforms and ran once more.
  
  "Blue Squad, report." A voice called over the radio I had taken. There was silence, before an excited voice broke the quiet. "Green Leader, this is Green Three, I have her on the third floor. She's-" There was gunfire, followed by a scream. Green Three didn't report again.
  
  "Green Leader, this is Two, she's up on the seventh. I don't know what Three was shooting at, but nine and I have her pinned down at the end of the-where did she go? Fuck! Fuck where did she-oh god-oh n-" There was a noise then that reminded me of jello splatting against the ground.
  
  Black lines were rising up and then disappearing before I could even start to react. This was a massacre. I tried to move more quickly, but I could barely see where I was going, couldn't see far enough to pull myself faster, and the sounds of screaming and the occasional burst of gunfire seemed to be coming from every direction at once.
  
  I tried again to contact anyone else from the Wards, but my com was still down. Something had to be blocking it.
  
  Finally, I came around a corner, half-stumbling, in time to see a dim figure only half-illuminated by the window. It turned my way and stepped forward into the light, revealing what looked like a panther with four long and spiked tentacles emerging from its back.
  
  Then Trickster stepped into view, holding a broken broom handle. "Down, Genesis. That's the hero."
  
  "Okay." I panted, glaring through my mask. "What... the HELL... is going on?"
  
  The panther thing, Genesis, glanced toward Trickster. I had the feeling he was grimacing. "We-"
  
  "Trickster!" A female voice that sounded... vaguely familiar somehow, shouted from down the hall.
  
  "Hold that thought." Trickster turned, and ran down the corridor along with Genesis. His voice called out, "Sundancer! Keep talking!"
  
  "Little... busy!" That same vaguely familiar voice retorted.
  
  I followed the pair, and we arrived just in time for a door to another apartment to slam open as the figure of the bug girl was hurtled through it at astounding speed to slam into the opposite wall, crumpling, with several parts that seemed to be bent the wrong way.
  
  Genesis leapt, grasping the crumpled figure with those tentacles just as Ballistic stepped through that doorway. Clearly he'd used his power to send Pandora flying.
  
  Even as Genesis's tentacles lifted the figure, she was healing. That broken, twisted figure reshaped until it looked normal.
  
  Ballistic reached for her once more, just as the girl split herself into another swarm of bugs, escaping Genesis's grasp before reforming. She shaped her hand into a spike, slamming it into Genesis and blowing her form apart like so much glass.
  
  The other two Travelers weren't reacting like she was actually dead, and my power hadn't warned me, so I was guessing this wasn't a permanent death. It sounded like the theory of Genesis being a projection was on target.
  
  Then Pandora was gone again, turning to smoke which disappeared into a nearby vent while another figure came through the doorway, this one female in a suit of black body armor with images of red suns on it.
  
  "Dancer," Trickster called. "Gonna need one of your suns soon!"
  
  "I can't!" She called, that same familiar voice tickling at my memory. "I'll burn this whole place down. We need to get her out of the building!"
  
  "It's a condemned building, Sundancer!" Ballistic shot back. "Go ahead and destroy it!"
  
  "No!" She yelled back at him. "We don't know who else might be here!"
  
  "So uhhhh, sorry to interrupt with my crazy." I spoke up. "But like I said before, WHAT IS GOING-"
  
  Of course, that was cue for a black line to spring up onto Sundancer. Cursing, I put a tether on the other girl and yanked her toward me, just as the black smoke poured out from under the doorway of the apartment she'd been standing next to.
  
  My tether yanked the female villain to my side, and I steadied her with a hand, pointing back the way she had been, where Pandora had reformed. "Sorry," I said as casually as I could manage within this horror show. "But I was pretty sure you requested the non-smoking section."
  
  Sundancer was looking at me, her expression hidden by her mask. Her voice sounded confused. "You... you're..."
  
  Before I could comment again, or ask why her voice was so familiar, Trickster shouted, "Ballistic, me!" He tossed that broken broom handle toward the other man.
  
  Ballistic caught the piece of wood, aimed back at Trickster, and launched it. An instant later, Trickster swapped himself with Pandora, forcing the 'bug girl' to appear where he had been, barely a second before the wood blew through her head, splattering gore in every direction.
  
  The body fell to the ground, and for a moment, all of us stared at it. Trickster was the first to speak. "See. Kill it with one shot..."
  
  "Hell yeah." Ballistic was panting, but clearly proud of himself. "See what you get? You ain't all that."
  
  I tried to relax, but a sudden black line rose, attaching to the man. "Hey!" I started, extending my hand to make a tether and yank him out of danger.
  
  It was too late. He gave me a confused look, just as a swarm of cockroaches came rushing up from a hole in the wood. They flooded up his leg, even as my line hauled him off that spot. The cockroaches kept climbing up him, reforming into the exact same girl whose body was lying on the floor headless six feet away.
  
  "Anger." She announced while shoving Ballistic into the wall. "I feel anger."
  
  Trickster swapped their positions, so that Ballistic was the one shoving Pandora into the wall, but it didn't matter. She lashed out with an arm, her elbow forming into a curved blade that tore through the man's armor like it was paper, cutting his left arm off. He screamed and started to fall to the floor, but her body reshaped itself so that she was facing him rather than the wall, and she caught him by the arm.
  
  I snapped out of my panic, trying to attach a tether to the man's armor to haul him away. But it was, once again, too late. The girl's body shifted into a semi-liquid, pouring itself over the costumed man, whose panicked shrieks filled the air.
  
  "LUKE!" Sundancer screamed next to me, as I finally, finally managed to get a tether onto him. The girl wasn't holding him anymore, so I was able to haul him away from the liquid to crash somewhere down the hall.
  
  Ballistic was down, moaning in agony as he clutched at his face, his mask melted away. Sundancer started to step that way, but before she could, another figure stepped into the way.
  
  Pandora.
  
  Pandora standing over Ballistic's moaning, pain-filled body.
  
  Pandora reforming from her semi-liquid state that she had been using to... to melt the man, right where she had been.
  
  Another cloud, swirling down from the other end of the corridor before reforming into yet another Pandora.
  
  Three of them. Three besides the one that Ballistic had killed. How? How was this possible? How many were there? This, whoever it was, definitely wasn't Emma, so who or what the hell was she? And for that matter, how many powers did she have? I'd seen shapeshifting of obscene ability, duplication, some kind of enhanced strength, regeneration or healing, the ability to melt people at a touch, whatever the hell that was called, and probably more that my panicked mind wasn't comprehending.
  
  Before any of the three Pandora's could move again, I glanced behind me and through the broken window. Turning back to the others, I attached four tethers, one to myself, one to Sundancer, one to Trickster, and the last to the crumpled form of Ballistic. The other ends were attached to the parking lot. One by one, I let the tethers yank first Ballistic, then Trickster, then Sundancer, and finally myself out of the window. The last thing I saw was the three Pandoras staring at me.
  
  Then I was on the ground, barely able to slow the tether enough that I didn't hurt myself too badly. Trickster caught me before I could fall. "Thanks." He said, staring up at the window tensely. No Pandora figure appeared. He breathed out. "Okay, I've gotta call this in. Thanks for your help, but we need medical assistance for our teammate."
  
  He moved away, and I stepped closer to where Sundancer was crouched over the unmoving figure of Ballistic. Her voice was soft as she murmured, "Luke... Luke... it's okay. Krouse is getting help."
  
  Slowly, I crouched next to her. "Okay... I'm gonna need an answer to my... what the hell is going on question." Taking a breath, I looked at the girl. "Think you could give it to me, Marissa?"
  
  5.02
  
  "Wait!" Marissa's voice called after me as I rounded the corner. The look she'd given me when I said her name, the confirmation of who she was, had set me off. Without thinking, I'd pivoted and started to run away. I forgot about my powers, I forgot about everything except getting away.
  
  Coming to a dead end, I turned in time for Marissa... for Sundancer to come around the same corner. She slowed when she saw me, holding her hands up. "Wait, please. Just... just let me explain."
  
  "Were you using me?" I managed to keep my voice as even as possible, in spite of the emotion that threatened to clog its way up my throat to choke off my words. "All this, everything, was it all to find out secrets? Just some game?"
  
  The distraught look that Marissa gave me nearly made me break my promise to myself not to show emotion. Her mask was held tightly in one hand. "No. No, I swear. Madison, I didn't even know who you were until now, until in there. I just-I didn't know." She sounded miserable. I could relate.
  
  I stared for a moment, then lowered my gaze to the ground, glad that my own mask still hid my expression. If she was lying, if all of this was... was... my eyes squeezed shut.
  
  She spoke again after a few seconds. "I swear I didn't know who you were when we met. I just... I didn't know. I wanted a friend, someone I could talk to."
  
  Eyes wet, I looked up once more to stare at her again. "You're a villain." I said flatly. "You're a bad guy. Girl. Whatever."
  
  "I don't want to be!" Her plaintiff cry came then, as her hand squeezed the mask even tighter. "I never wanted any of this!" She slumped a little, head shaking. "I don't have a choice. I- I can't... just abandon..."
  
  "Noelle." I breathed. "This is about your friend? The one that's... that's getting worse and worse? Wait, I thought she was into drugs or something."
  
  Her snort was humorless. "I wish. I wish it was that simple. I..." She looked over her shoulder and then turned back to me. "I'll explain everything. All of it. I promise, I'll tell you everything you want to know. I can't do this anymore. I can't... I can't just abandon Noelle, but I can't do this either."
  
  "The bombings." My voice was hard again. "Did you help put all these bombs up?"
  
  "No!" Again, her head shook. "They said there would be a distraction to let us search for the clone, but... but I didn't know it was going to be like this. Not this bad."
  
  I kept staring, my mind reeling. Could I trust her? Did I dare believe a word she said? Finally, I forced myself to focus on the most important thing at the moment. "The bombings. We have to stop them. Look at what's happening!" I pointed out at the dark city, at the sirens coming from every direction. "People are dying, Marissa! I know you don't want to abandon your friend, but people are dying! If she's your friend, if she ever was, she wouldn't want that. You can't want it. You can't just accept it."
  
  Her expression went from conflicted to accepting, as her entire form slumped as though releasing a weight inside. "You're right." She said quietly.
  
  "Help me." I pleaded. "Help me stop the explosions. Then we can deal with everything else. One thing at a time. I want to know it all, but we have to stop this before even more people die!"
  
  Our eyes met, mine still shielded by the lenses in my mask. After a moment, she gave a slight nod. "Bakuda. Her name is Bakuda. She's a bomb-tinker." Marissa said quietly. "Coil has her wired up to some machine that Leet made to keep her in line."
  
  I sighed. "Uber and Leet are involved? How many people does this Coil guy have working for him?"
  
  "Us..." She replied slowly. "Uber and Leet... Bakuda... Circus... and the Undersiders. Not to mention all the mercenaries. Well, the ones that the clone didn't kill."
  
  Uber and Leet were relatively low risk thinker/tinker villains, while Circus was a one-woman grab-bag of powers like reflexes, balance, aim, low-level pyrokinesis, and the ability to stow items in some kind of extra-dimensional space.
  
  I sighed a little. "Okay, so he has an army. And I need answers about everything, and I definitely want to know what this clone thing is. But first, where can we find Bakuda? Please, help me stop this, Marissa. Please."
  
  Her eyes closed for a second, before she answered. "She's in the basement of that abandoned hospital on Pacific."
  
  I hesitated. "Saint Andrews? Who's watching over her? What kind of defenses?"
  
  "Lots of bombs." She explained. "Pretty much everyone else that can walk is searching the city."
  
  "Okay..." I bit my lip, hesitating. "I have to do this, Marissa. I have to go... help. We have to stop these bombs. After that, I need answers."
  
  "I'll give them to you." The blonde girl promised, her eyes still wet. "I have to check on my friend. I have to check on Luke and make sure he's going to be okay." Ballistic. She was talking about Ballistic.
  
  "The computer cafe where we met." I told her. "Meet me there tomorrow night. Just... just be there, please. I don't... I don't know what else I could do if you're not there."
  
  "I'll be there." Marissa said quietly. "I'll tell you what you want to know. All of it."
  
  There was more I wanted to say, more I wanted to know right then, but I had to focus. Bombs first, then answers. Turning, I extended my arm toward the next building and let my tether-line yank me toward it. The whole time, I was trying to use my com. "Hello? Aegis, Clock, anybody? Does anybody hear me?"
  
  " Tether?!" Dennis's voice was equal parts relieved and rather panicked. "Is that you? What happened, you dropped off the coms. We thought we lost you."
  
  "It's a long story." I told him with a sigh as I landed on the roof of the building and turned to look out. Fires were raging across the city. "Right now, there's more important things. I know where the tinker is that made all these bombs."
  
  "You and I are going to have a chat about this source of yours." Armsmaster was saying as we stood in front of the hospital. "And everything else that happened when you disappeared." He was the only member of the Protectorate that they'd been able to spare from emergency response. We also had Clockblocker and Vista. That was going to have to be enough, because everyone else was busy dealing with all of this.
  
  "She works for Coil." I said softly. "He's the one behind this. All of it. Trust me, it's... bad. There's something worse than these bombs out there."
  
  He gave me a long, hard look. "Worse than the bombs?"
  
  I hesitated before nodding. "A possible... a possible S-Class threat."
  
  That got all of their attention all right. I could hear Dennis choking a little while Armsmaster spoke skeptically. "An S-Class threat is something like the Endbringers or Sleeper, Tether. Not some powerful villain that scared you."
  
  I glared at that, unable to help myself. "She can go from her entire body being broken to being perfectly healed with a thought, she can shapeshift her body into weapons, a swarm of bugs that act independently, or even a fog, and who knows what else. She can melt people's entire bodies down so there's nothing biological left. Oh, and she can duplicate herself, all of which have all of her powers. Is that S enough for you? S as in Shit, we're S Screwed, we S Should have listened to Tether."
  
  "The bug girl?" Dennis abruptly said. "You found her?"
  
  Looking between us, Armsmaster paused. "We'll see. It's possible you were being tricked. I believe that you believe it, but if this contact of yours messed with your head..."
  
  "No." I said firmly. "I mean, I didn't know she was involved in anything until now. But I trust her about this. She didn't want the bombings to happen. And I saw this... Pandora, that's what she called herself, with my own eyes. I saw what she could do."
  
  Armsmaster grunted. "Well, you believe what you're saying, anyway. Did your contact say anything about defenses here? I'd rather deal with the current situation before we go pissing ourselves over another potential threat."
  
  "Bombs." I answered. "Lots of bombs."
  
  "Fantastic." The older man sighed before unslinging his halberd, and then started toward the doors. "I'll go first, you kids watch my back."
  
  We moved in, Dennis glancing toward me before whispering, "A contact who works for Coil?"
  
  "It's not her choice." I said quickly. "I mean, I don't think it is. It's complicated, and I don't know much of it yet."
  
  He kept looking at me until we reached the doors. My attention was focused entirely on the Protectorate leader ahead of us, trying to see the second any kind of danger line showed up. This hospital had been closed for at least a year. They'd tried to make at least part of it into a clinic after the main building closed, but it hadn't even lasted three months. Now it was apparently home to one crazy bomb-maker.
  
  As he walked, Armsmaster was holding his halberd out in front of himself, waving it slowly from side to side, like it was some kind of detector.
  
  Six steps through the front door, the tinker hero stopped, pointing his halberd. "There, the mop bucket by the nurse's station."
  
  "On it." Vista extended her hands toward the bucket, and I could see what the space around it bend and twisted up toward us, the distance around the width of a window shrinking to almost nothing. Then she nodded to Clockblocker, who reached through the window and touched the bomb, freezing it in time before it could go off.
  
  That done, Vista focused once more. The space around the frozen bomb was altered even further, contorting and reshaping as it was condensed over and over again, twisting in on itself until the area around the bomb looked a bit like a picture that had had the photoshop smudge tool rubbed all over it.
  
  Finally, she nodded. "Done." She had contorted the space around the bomb as much as she could.
  
  Then Armsmaster nodded at me, and I connected a tether from the bucket to the floor directly next to it. Taking a breath, I let it be pushed, disturbing the bucket just a little.
  
  It was enough. There was a sudden pop, the actual noise of the explosion distorted and broken up by the twisted space, and the bucket blew apart. Vista's power made it look like confetti, the damage contained and turned in on itself in that small space.
  
  We continued like that, making our way gradually through the hospital behind Armsmaster. He found the bombs, after which Vista and Clockblocker worked together to disarm them. I stayed as far back as I dared, ready to yank them away if anything went wrong.
  
  Eventually, we reached the elevators and got the doors open to enter the shaft. As soon as the bomb traps were dealt with in there, I used lines to lower us all the way into the basement.
  
  "Stay ready." Armsmaster warned. "We have no idea what Bakuda might have wired up to herself."
  
  We stepped through, carefully, as soon as his detector told him it was clear. Now the four of us were standing on the white and pale-green tiled floor of a pristine hallway that led left and right. To the left there was a door labeled Morgue, while another door labeled Records was to the right.
  
  After a moment, the Protectorate leader turned left and started that way, while we followed behind him. As we reached the doorway, a dull, monotone voice that sounded filtered called, "I know you're out there! You might as well come in. There ain't no traps left, and it's not like I give a shit anyway."
  
  Armsmaster pushed the door open, stepping through. I glanced at the others before we went after him.
  
  The room we were in had clearly been the morgue reception area. There was a hallway just past a desk set at the other end. But taking up the majority of the space in the middle was what looked like an elaborate hospital bed with a table of random equipment lying next to it.
  
  A costumed figure was lying on the bed, the top of her face covered by large goggles while the lower half was blocked by a metal gas-mask like filter. I could also see four metallic tentacle-like arms that were attached to the bed on either side. All of them were lying limp, a couple with components or tools of some kind in their grasp.
  
  "Bakuda." Armsmaster said. "You're responsible for this." He leveled his halberd her way.
  
  She laughed, the sound bitter. "I wish. I wish I could claim credit. Yeah, I made them. But he's responsible. Fuck him."
  
  "Coil?" I asked. "Coil made you do this."
  
  I could sense her glare. " Fucking Coil did this to me! " Her anger and frustration was palpable, even with the way her mask distorted her voice.
  
  "He did what to you?" Clockblocker asked slowly, glancing toward me.
  
  "This!" She all but screamed, twitching the fingers of both hands near some kind of control stick on each side of the bed. The metal arms responded by moving a little. "He fucking paralyzed me, you stupid shits. I can't move anything but these two god damn fingers and my head! Worthless fucks, all of you."
  
  After pausing for a moment, Armsmaster stepped forward. "You're going to help us disarm your bombs."
  
  The tinker-villain gave a violent jerk of her head. "Yeah, sure, whatever. One condition. You make that prissy healing cunt fix me up. Panacea. She fucking fixes me, and I'll tell you how to stop the rest of the bombs. Hell, I'll tell you what you really want to know. I'll tell you who this Coil fuck really is."
  
  "And how do you know that?" Armsmaster pressed.
  
  "Cuz I'm a motherfucking genius and you're an asshole!" She shot back. "He said some stuff, okay? Back before he pulled this bullshit. I heard him talking on his personal phone to some guy about revenge for something. So I lifted his phone when he wasn't looking and ran the number he was using. Checked his contacts, his message history, all of it. Lifted prints off the phone, the whole nine yards. I thought I could use it if he ever turned on me. Didn't expect it to go this fucking far."
  
  "So yeah, I know who the stupid fuck is. I know why he's doing this shit. You make Panacea heal me, and I'll tell you."
  
  "Not good enough." Armsmaster shook his head. "There isn't time for that. Tell us, and I'll put in a word-"
  
  "Fuck you!" Bakuda spat. "Like I'm just gonna take your word for it?"
  
  I spoke up then. "What about her word?" When they all looked at me, I pressed on. "What if you had Panacea's word that she'll heal you when this is over? As long as you tell the truth. You can't expect us to heal you first, Bakuda. She's busy."
  
  The bomb-tinker glared at me through her goggles. I had the feeling she was about to refuse, so I said quietly. "At this point, what do you have to lose?"
  
  That stopped her, and she took another moment before sighing. "Make her promise, then I'll tell you the name. Whatever. I just want this shit to stop."
  
  Armsmaster took a moment on his phone, then stepped over and held the phone out, putting it onto speaker. "You're on with her."
  
  "Bakuda?" A voice came through that made me jump a little. I wasn't sure why. It was just Panacea. Why would it be sending shivers down my spine? "I'll heal you. You stop all these bombings, you help find the man responsible, and I'll fix you, okay? I promise."
  
  Armsmaster waited another moment, then disconnected the call. "Good enough? Now tell us."
  
  "It's all about revenge." Bakuda said. I could hear the smirk in her voice. "He thinks he's so smart. Thinks he's so perfect, that he covered all the angles. No one sees him in the base without his mask on. Nobody knows who he is. But I got it. I uncovered him. I fucking outsmarted him."
  
  "Just answer the question." Armsmaster insisted flatly. "Who is he? Who is Coil?"
  
  There was a brief pause as the paralyzed villain breathed in, clearly enjoying her rapt audience. "Like I said, this is all about revenge. Revenge for his dead daughter."
  
  "His dead daughter?" I started to say, horror rising at what I knew she was going to say.
  
  "Hebert." Bakuda spat in disgust and fury that was too powerful to be faked. "Daniel FUCKING Hebert did this to me. Daniel Hebert is Coil."
  
  5.03
  
  Things moved fast after that. Armsmaster stormed past us with an order to stay and guard the bomb-tinker. As he strode away, the man was already getting on the com with the rest of the Protectorate on his way out to pass along Bakuda's subsequent information on how to disarm the explosives, along with her real bombshell.
  
  "You okay?" Dennis was asking me. I had turned to leave the room so that Bakuda wouldn't see, and then slumped to the floor and pulled my mask off. I was sitting with my knees drawn up, while my two teammates stood over me.
  
  I shook my head at the question. "Taylor's dad? How is that... how is that possible? It's not. It can't be. She's wrong. She's just... wrong."
  
  Missy turned to sit next to me. "We did hear that the Travelers killed Shadow Stalker as revenge for Taylor's death. That didn't really make all that much sense until now. You said they were working for him, for Coil, I mean."
  
  Swallowing at that, I let my head hang. That part did make sense. As did Coil's rapid escalation to this bomb campaign. Except for the runaway clone-monster thing. But then, he could've been getting ready to use that to take out the rest of the heroes so that his bombing campaign would be even more successful. For all I knew, he'd jumped the gun on his bombs once she escaped, or whatever had happened.
  
  One thing was for sure, Pandora was Coil's big weapon. I had no idea where she'd come from-but.. wait... My heart lurched.
  
  "Clone." I said softly.
  
  "What?" Dennis had sat down on my other side by then. His hand squeezed my arm.
  
  "They kept calling Pandora a... a clone. And I thought her voice was familiar. And she has brown hair. Brown hair like... like..." I closed my eyes. "Like Taylor."
  
  Missy whistled low. "You think this bug girl is Taylor Hebert?"
  
  "It makes sense, doesn't it?" I replied. "They keep calling her a clone, and Coil was desperate enough to get her back to do all of this. He's obviously losing his mind. I think... I think he had his daughter cloned and she ended up like this."
  
  A sudden thought came to me, and I pushed myself up, grabbing for my phone from the tiny compartment for it in my boot. "I have to call her. She might be able to tell me for sure. She might be able to confirm or deny all of this."
  
  "Your contact?" Dennis asked quietly, with a glance toward Missy.
  
  I nodded, pushing the button for Marissa's number, then stepped away. "Please pick up. Please pick up."
  
  She did. Her voice came through, sounding hesitant. "Hello?"
  
  "Sundancer." I breathed, remembering to use her other name in front of the others. It was only fair. "Sundancer, is it Hebert? Is Coil really Daniel Hebert?" I explained what Bakuda had said, talking so quickly she had to tell me to slow down.
  
  Once I finished talking, Marissa was quiet for a moment before speaking. "I... I don't think so. I don't know, but from what Trickster and Coil were saying before, they wanted people to think that that Taylor Hebert's father was responsible for Shadow Stalker's death when we pretended to kill her."
  
  "They wanted everyone to think-" I started to echo as my mind raced. Then I stopped as the rest of the sentence sank in. "Wait. WAIT. What? What do you mean, you pretended to kill Shadow Stalker?"
  
  At that, both Dennis and Missy were on their feet, staring at me.
  
  "Coil said he needed her, that her real punishment had to be worse than just dying. I don't know what he meant."
  
  I sighed slowly, glancing back to the other two, who were watching raptly by this point. Lowering the phone briefly and covering it, I said, "They faked Stalker's death. Coil has her."
  
  Something else occurred to me then, and I brought the phone back up. "Do you know... Pandora... is she a clone of Taylor Hebert?"
  
  "What?" Marissa sounded surprised. "No. No, she's a clone of that girl, umm, the healer."
  
  Now I was even more floored. "Panacea? Wait. Wait, I thought it had to be Taylor. Pandora is a clone of Panacea?"
  
  "That's where her powers come from." Marissa explained. "These clones have twisted versions of the original powers. Pandora's are all about healing and reshaping her own body." She hesitated before speaking again. "I-I've gotta go. They're working on Luke."
  
  She disconnected, and I stood there staring at the phone.
  
  "Panacea?" Dennis prompted. "This bug girl of yours is a clone of Panacea?! "
  
  "I..." I breathed out, shaking my head. "It's not him." As the other two stared at me, I blurted. "Coil isn't Daniel Hebert. He can't be! Pandora isn't a clone of Taylor, and they didn't really kill Shadow Stalker. Coil said something about her punishment being worse than dying."
  
  "That... kind of does make him sound like her dad though." Missy put in gently. "Why else would he say that?"
  
  "I don't know." I admitted. "But it doesn't sound right. I don't... believe it. And Sundancer was saying that they wanted suspicion to fall on Mr. Hebert. How does that make any sense if he's really Coil? Wouldn't he want suspicion as far away from himself as possible?"
  
  They started to speak, but I was already activating my com for the Protectorate channel. "Armsmaster, wait. You have the wrong person. Bakuda is wrong."
  
  "Excuse me?" The man's gruff voice came back. "Trust me, she was telling the truth."
  
  "Maybe she believes it's the truth." I shot back. "But it's not. He's playing you. Coil played her and he's playing you now."
  
  "Be very careful about who you accuse of being played, Tether." He said slowly. "Especially over a communications channel. Does this come from your contact?"
  
  "Yes!" I blurted. "She said that Coil wanted people to think that Mr. Hebert was responsible for the attack on Shadow Stalker- who isn't really dead, by the way- and why would he want attention drawn to his civilian identity if he was really Mr. Hebert?"
  
  "Let me get this straight," Armsmaster's rather icy tone replied. "Your contact, who works for Coil, wants to convince us that he's not really Hebert. Color me shocked."
  
  I turned to punch the nearby wall. "You're not listening!"
  
  "And you're being emotional because you blame yourself for this." He returned coolly. "You don't want Coil to be Hebert, because then you think you might hold some responsibility for his actions."
  
  That made me blink. "What? No. No, that's not true. That's not what I-"
  
  "Armsmaster out." He signed off, and my every attempt to bring him back failed.
  
  Looking toward Missy and Dennis, I shook my head rapidly. "He's wrong. I hate this. I know he's wrong, they're wrong. Sundancer says-"
  
  "So what are you waiting around here for?" Missy put in, interrupting me.
  
  Dennis nodded. "She's right. We can watch over Bomb Chick. Actually I'm fairly sure that the mayo in the fridge back at HQ has been left in there long enough to have formed enough sapience to watch over Bakuda in her current condition."
  
  "What can I do?" I asked, feeling overwhelmed.
  
  "Go to them in person. Meet them there." Missy pressed. "It's harder to write you off in person than it is over the com, trust me."
  
  I waited another second, then turned and used a tether to yank myself all the way to the elevator shaft. Stopping there, I pulled my mask on once more, and then used a line to haul my butt all the way up, fleeing the hospital as fast as I could. I had to catch up with them before they did anything rash. I couldn't let Taylor's dad take the fall for this. I wouldn't.
  
  I was panting by the time my last tether deposited me on the sidewalk directly in front of Taylor's house. Behind me was the home of the father of the girl whose death I could have prevented, whose entire life I had helped ruin. In front of me was about half the current Protectorate. Armsmaster, Miss Militia, Assault, and Battery. I had no idea where Penance or Velocity were, and Triumph was still MIA.
  
  Miss Militia jumped at my sudden appearance, but Armsmaster just looked annoyed. "Stop!" I said, holding my hands out. "It's not him. If you go bursting in there, who knows what might happen."
  
  "I told you to guard Bakuda." Armsmaster growled.
  
  "She's got the mobility of a particularly enthusiastic bowl of clam chowder." I shot back. "I think Vista and Clockblocker can handle it."
  
  I could sense his eyes narrowing at me as his jaw tightened. "It's not about what's needed." He said stiffly. "It's about what I told you to do."
  
  "This is wrong." I insisted. "It's what Coil wants us to th-"
  
  In mid-sentence, a sudden black line attached itself from me to the house at my back. Eyes widening, I whirled that way, interrupting myself. "Mr. Hebert." I breathed, then started to run.
  
  Halfway across the lawn, the sound of shattering glass on the right side of the house heralded a form being flung through the window there, where it crashed into the grass and lay limp. The figure wore a familiar costume, a sort of lion-themed gladiator armor.
  
  "Triumph!" Battery cried out. She ran, the rest of us following. By the time we reached the fallen figure, she was crouched over him. Tentatively, the Protectorate member turned him over, before gasping in horror.
  
  His throat had been slit. Blood was pouring out as he choked out, eyes wide behind his roaring lion helmet. "Cuh-cuh... cuh..." He kept trying to speak around the blood.
  
  "Hold on." Battery was saying, while she tried to staunch the blood flow. "Just hold on, we'll get you help. There's help coming-someone call Panacea! Get her here now! Get someone-get anyone!"
  
  "Coil." Triumph finally managed to get out. His hand lifted and pointed back toward the window, before he slumped, going completely still.
  
  Battery kept trying to make him wake up, make him be okay, until Assault pulled her away. For a moment, everyone stood there, staring. My own eyes refused to move away or blink. Triumph, who had been a Ward until not long before I met them, who had so recently graduated to the Protectorate... was dead. He was lying dead right in front of me, had died before my eyes. I had been helpless to do anything at all, even with the warning, which hadn't really been much of a warning at all. My power expected me to be faster. Maybe if I had zip-lined myself directly to the window, if I hadn't delayed, if I'd thought more quickly, reacted faster...
  
  "Is that good enough for you?" Armsmaster asked me, coldly. He didn't wait for a response before rushing straight for the front door. His foot kicked the door in, and he went inside. Assault and Miss Militia were right behind him, while Battery stayed with Triumph's... body, her head bowed.
  
  I continued to stare for another moment, then put my hand out and used a line to haul myself to the broken doorway. I had to know. I had to see.
  
  Just as I came into the house, I felt my feet go out from under me. The last thing I knew was that the floor was rushing up to meet me. Then I saw... something as familiar as my own reflection. It was something I should know, something I should remember. Massive beings... space... our powers...
  
  It slipped away as someone nudged me. Lifting my head, I groaned and blinked at the sight of the uniformed PRT officer. "What... what happened?"
  
  "Trigger Event." A familiar voice said from slightly behind me. Turning my head as I sat up, I found the leader of the new Parahuman Crime Investigation And Protective Services. PCIPS, they were calling it. He was standing on the front porch of the house, right at my feet.
  
  "Mr. Calvert?" I stared. "What do you mean? Wait-Mr. Hebert!"
  
  "He's gone." Miss Militia spoke from the doorway leading further into the house. "He had a trigger event. When a Parahuman triggers around an existing Parahuman, it knocks us out for a brief time."
  
  "So... so he's not Coil." I said slowly.
  
  "Excuse me?" Mr. Calvert's laser sharp eyes were on me again. "I wasn't aware there was any question on that issue at this point."
  
  "There isn't." Armsmaster had joined Miss Militia by then. He focused on me as well. "You're wrong again, just like you were wrong before. We never had any proof that Coil had any powers at all. He certainly never used them if he did."
  
  "But-" I started to say.
  
  "But nothing." He cut me off. "Triumph tracked him down here. They fought and Coil-HEBERT-won. Then he saw us coming and realized that he was still trapped, that his grand scheme was falling apart. He was losing everything, and that made him trigger. And now he's gone. He's running."
  
  Before I could try to speak again, the older man pressed on firmly. "Triumph pointed at this house and he named his killer. He did his job, and now he's dead. If you hadn't slowed us down... if you hadn't..." He glowered, and seemed to be about to say something else, when Miss Militia laid a hand on his arm and said something under her breath to him. Finally, he sighed. "Get out of my sight. We'll handle it from here. We'll find Coil, whatever power he triggered with."
  
  "I thought..." I tried to say, my voice quiet as I reeled even more.
  
  "Go." He ordered.
  
  Head down, feeling even more lost, confused, and alone than I had been before, I went.
  
  5.04
  
  After everything that had happened, the thing I needed most after leaving Taylor's house was sleep. Somehow, I managed to trudge my own way home, remembered at the last minute to change clothes in the shed. I mumbled a few words to my parents about being exhausted, and then pretty much fell into my bed.
  
  I had no idea how long I slept, not knowing what time it was when I finally crashed, but it was afternoon by the time I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower in my bathroom to soak under the blazing hot water.
  
  Dressing in pink shorts and a white fluffy kitty tee shirt, I was wandering out of the bathroom, yawning, when I caught sight of two figures standing at the top of the stairs, next to my bedroom door. One was my dad. The other was... Armsmaster. Or Colin Wallis, since he was out of uniform.
  
  "Uhhh..." My yawn turned into a confused noise.
  
  "Madison, this err... Mr. Wallis from the PRT would like to talk to you." Dad said, indicating the man next to him. Apparently he hadn't been told the whole truth about our guest's identity.
  
  Armsmaster looked stiff and uncomfortable in his civilian clothes. He coughed once and nodded. "For a few minutes, if you don't mind."
  
  I hesitated, before nodding. "It's okay, Dad. He's been working with me. He's kind of... my boss." Dad looked back and forth between us, then nodded and excused himself into his office.
  
  For a moment, Armsmaster and I just stood there and stared at each other. I was pretty sure that I looked just as uncomfortable as he did. Finally, he spoke. "You're very different out of costume."
  
  "I am?" I blinked until he indicated the clothes I was wearing, then blushed. "It's what I have. I just-err- you didn't come to talk about my fashion, did you?"
  
  "No." He said, even more stiff now. "I came because..." Shifting his weight, a long breath ran out of him. "Because I shouldn't have talked to you the way that I did last night. The things I said, the... that wasn't your fault. I was looking for someone to blame, and you were right there and disagreeing with me. It wasn't right, so... I ahhh... I... apologize."
  
  I blinked, hesitating before speaking up. "Does that mean you believe that Mr. Hebert isn't Coil?"
  
  He let out another long sigh. "No." When I started to protest, he held up both hands. "Wait. Just be quiet." After a second, he added a little gruffly, "Please. Just listen to what I'm saying."
  
  "First, Bakuda named him as Coil, and my suit says she wasn't lying. I'm not an idiot, I know she could be mistaken. But that is one piece of evidence that can't just be ignored because she could be wrong. Second, he had reason both for attacking Shadow Stalker and for escalating the destruction the way that he just did. Third, Triumph was killed in his house, directly in front of us, and then he pointed at the house and named Coil. Fourth, when we searched the house, we found the knife that was used to kill Triumph, which belonged to Daniel Hebert and had no one but his and his daughter's prints on it. Fifth, we also found two copies of Coil's costume in a trunk in his bedroom, along with several guns and burner phones. Sixth, we checked those burner phones and they include calls that we know Coil to have made. Seventh, an examination of Triumph's body revealed that he was killed by a man of Daniel Hebert's height."
  
  "But he's poor." I protested. "Look at the house he was living in. Do you really think someone like Coil would live that bad off? I mean, there's maintaining cover and then there's starving yourself."
  
  The man nodded at that. "I know. That's why I don't think he's the bad guy here."
  
  I opened my mouth, then shut it and frowned. "Huh? You said you still thought he was Coil."
  
  "I do." Armsmaster - it was too hard to think of him as anything else - nodded. "I believe he's Coil, but I don't believe that Coil is the real mastermind here." When I continued to stare in confusion, he went on. "Coil, as... the costumed man that he presents himself to be, only became known in the last year or so. But he came out... fully funded. One day there was no sign of him, and the next day he came out of nowhere, fully funded with a private army with advanced weaponry."
  
  "So... so where did he come from?" I asked.
  
  "That's what I've been asking myself." Armsmaster replied. "So last night, after you left, I had Hebert's accounts run. You're right, he didn't have the money to be Leet, let alone Coil. But there are secondary accounts, accounts that he tried to hide. He was using those accounts to send money into someone with PRT access."
  
  Eyes widening, I asked, "Who?"
  
  "We don't know yet." He sighed. "But it was either a payoff for information, or... something else. Either way, that's not enough to excuse him. It's not enough to write off every other bit of evidence, including the fact that he's disappeared now."
  
  "I... I don't think it's him." I said flatly, staring up at the older man.
  
  He met my gaze for a moment before responding. "Every bit of evidence that we can find says Hebert is the guy." A long breath was taken in and then released very slowly before he spoke again. "But I'm not in the habit of throwing away or ignoring resources."
  
  That made my head tilt. "Resources?"
  
  "Your danger sense." Armsmaster explained. "We don't know exactly how it works. Maybe it's telling you something now. That and, the evidence... could... I suppose... be called too neat."
  
  "Does that mean you believe me?" I asked, hopefully.
  
  "It means that I'm not going to hinder your attempts to look further." He clarified. "It means that if this is a frame job, it's a damn good one, and if we don't look like we're buying it hook, line, and sinker, who knows what else might happen. They, if there is a they, might tunnel down so far we never find them."
  
  "So..." I folded my arms, staring at the man.
  
  Armsmaster gave a little smile. It looked strange on his normally gruff face. "So, we'll look like we buy it. Honestly, I still do, mostly. But I'm not going to ignore your hunches either. You look into it however you can. Use the other Wards for resources. We're going to press on, and if you approach me in public, I'm going to lambaste you the way I did at the house yesterday. If.. IF there is some other mastermind behind this, they need to think that we-the Protectorate- buy their story. I'm going to convince them I'm ignoring you. But if you get into trouble, real trouble, use this." He extended his hand to me, offering a small bottlecap sized remote with a place for my thumb print on it. "Press this down and hold it tight for four seconds. It'll send an emergency alert to me with your location."
  
  I looked at the remote. "So you sort of believe me."
  
  "I don't entirely not believe you." He answered stiffly. "Let's put it that way."
  
  After a moment of hesitation, I put the remote away in my pocket. "Thank you, sir."
  
  His response was a silent nod, and we continued to look at each other in slightly uncomfortable silence for a few seconds before he pressed on. "You said something about a threat yesterday. Clockblocker and Vista said you were talking about a clone of Panacea."
  
  Slumping a little at the memory, I nodded. "Yes, sir. I... I need some breakfast. Can I talk to you about it over Frosted Flakes?"
  
  "Frosted... Flakes during a debriefing." He echoed, raising his hand to his head briefly as though lamenting where his job had taken. "I suppose."
  
  I grinned then, starting to move past him. "You don't have to be jealous. You can have some too."
  
  "I think I'll pass." He was shaking his head as he moved after me.
  
  "Are you suuuure?" I called back in a sing-song tone. "We have Cocoa Krispies too!"
  
  All that met that was a groan.
  
  I told him everything I knew. I wasn't sure how much he fully believed and how much he thought I was either exaggerating or mistaken about, but he listened and took notes. When I was done, he said he'd have the building looked into, and start running scenarios for how to contain someone like Pandora. He believed she existed, at least, even if the question of how powerful she actually was remained under debate.
  
  He wanted my contact in Coil's organization, and I promised to talk to her and try to get her to come in, but that it wasn't going to be easy. I steadfastly refused any offer of accompaniment, and made him swear not to try to follow. I was never, ever going to forget the look on Armsmaster's face when I forced him to lock pinkies with me while making that oath. It was so worth the scowl afterward.
  
  I took most of the rest of the day, Sunday, off. I'd done enough the night before, and I needed a little rest. Hours were spent lounging in front of the television, trying to ignore the random news alerts about the damage that the explosions had done, as well as the ongoing manhunt for Mr. Hebert, whom the news had somehow picked up as being Coil. Now on top of the authorities, Taylor's dad was going to have a lynch mob hunting him down.
  
  Finally, it was time to go to the computer cafe. I took the bus, which was incredibly crowded from all the people that still needed to get around after the damage that had been done to the city. I was cautious, changing routes three times just in case, after checking my clothes for any kind of tracker. I knew that I'd made Armsmaster swear, but I also wasn't stupid. I even took a trip into a secondhand store that was open and bought a new set of clothes, wearing them out the back.
  
  After another two bus routes, a cab, and a six block jog, I ended up in front of the cafe. Stopping there, I turned in a slow circle, scanning not only the people, but the sky around me. I wanted to make sure no one and nothing had followed me.
  
  Eventually I was as satisfied as I was going to get. I turned and walked into the building. There was a sign on the door stating that half of the proceeds for the next week would be going to assist people who had lost their belongings in the attacks. I moved back to the corner where I had met Marissa after paying for an hour on the machine.
  
  That hour came and went, as did another, and a third. I passed the time by browsing online, but I was almost out of money. Marissa hadn't answered either of my past two attempts to call her.
  
  Giving another glance at the closed door, then around at the paltry few customers who had actually come in that evening, I sighed. Was she coming? Did she change her mind? Was the threat of abandoning Noelle too much? Or... or had something happened to her?
  
  At that thought, I was pulling my phone out for yet another futile attempt at contact. Again, I hit the voicemail, sighing before hanging up. Then I rose up and started to trudge out. It had been three hours. I couldn't wait anymore.
  
  Just as I was passing through the doorway, I ran into another figure. Sliding sideways to slip past, I mumbled, "Sorry."
  
  "Madison?"
  
  I blinked up, refocusing again on the person I had just been about to move past. She wore a brown leather jacket, ratty jeans, and a dark green tee shirt with Winslow High School Athletics printed on it. Her hair was a short pixie cut, and was black instead of blonde. But other than that...
  
  "Mars?" I had to double take. "You... you're..."
  
  "In disguise." She explained, glancing around the store before gesturing over her shoulder. "Let's umm..."
  
  My arms went around Marissa, hugging her so tightly and suddenly that she gave a yelp of surprise. Then I felt her return the hug.
  
  "I was scared." I told her in a whisper. "I thought Coil or... or someone... did something to you."
  
  "Oh Mads." She tightened the hug briefly. "No, I'm sorry. I..." Shifting, her hand tilted my head up to look at her. "Let's take a walk, okay?" At my nod, she released me, sliding her hand down to interlace her fingers with mine before turning to step back outside the cafe.
  
  I followed her, feeling dazed. I had been so frustrated, so worried, that the 180 my feelings were doing now that she was here was giving me whiplash. Keeping my hand on hers was the only thing keeping me moving at that point.
  
  "Why... why are you in disguise?" I finally managed, a block later.
  
  "They found out I was talking to you-to someone with the good guys, I mean." She replied after a moment, squeezing my hand. "One of their guys heard me giving you information about Shadow Stalker over the phone."
  
  Eyes widening, I stopped and kept hold of her hand so that she turned to me. "What?! Oh. Oh god, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed you. I should have waited. I could have-"
  
  Marissa's hand came up, pressing three fingers against my mouth. It sent another... tingle through me. "Shh. It was time. I needed the shove."
  
  "But... but now what?" I asked. "What about your friends? What about Noelle?"
  
  Her head shook. "Luke's being taken care of, and the others... well, I decided where my line was. Yesterday, that was over my line." She shrugged, but I knew it wasn't nearly as simple as she was trying to make it sound to spare me. "So I got out of there. I had to ditch my phone and the car. Then it took a long time to change my look and make my way over here. I... I'm sorry for making you wait."
  
  "It's okay." I replied honestly, glancing down as my thumb absently rubbed over her knuckles. "I'm just glad you're here. And safe. But what are you going to do?"
  
  "I have other identification." She answered softly. "ID that he doesn't know about. And I still have some cash. I'll be okay for now."
  
  "You could... you could come into the PRT." I suggested, blinking when she flinched. "It's okay, Mars. They'll hear you out, especially if I speak up for you and you give them what you know about Coil and his organization."
  
  "It's not that simple, Mads." Marissa said slowly, closing her eyes before opening them to focus on me. She had clearly come to a decision. "There's stuff about me, about where I come from, that you need to know."
  
  We walked, and she began to tell me her story.
  
  5.05
  
  "So... you're an alien." I said, about an hour later. Somehow we'd found our way to the grounds of an elementary school, and we were both sitting on the swings.
  
  There was a creak from the chains as Marissa pushed herself back on the swing idly. "I'm not sure. Does being from a different version of the same planet count as being an alien?"
  
  "I'm pretty sure there's laws about transferring anything from your Earth to ours." I planted a pair of lines from either chain on my swing, to the jungle gym nearby, and used them to pull the swing out and up. Yeah, it was an utterly trivial use of my power. Who said desperate, life and death battles against impossible odds are the only thing powers could be used for? "I mean, they go nuts about regulations for importing movies, let alone someone like you." I paused, then added while releasing the tethers so that I swung back. "Like you guys."
  
  Giving a hard kick back to catch up with my swing, Mars chuckled wryly. "Yeah, what do you suppose the import tax would be for seven teenagers?" She paused then. "And would the Simurgh have to pay it?"
  
  "Seven..." I considered what she had said. "There's you, and Trickster..."
  
  "Krouse." She supplied. "Francis Krouse."
  
  "Then there's Genesis, or Jess." I continued with a nod, pumping my legs to swing forward. "And Luke, or Ballistic. Those are the main ones everyone sees. Plus Noelle and Oliver, who each took the... the superpower potion, so the powers got... messed up." I hesitated before finishing. "And Perdition."
  
  "Cody used to be with us." Marissa mused. "I mean, he was never really... that close, after we got here. He was too jealous of Krouse. Too distrustful. But we worked together, until Accord happened." She put her feet down to stop swinging, giving a soft sigh. "If I hadn't barged into the office and interrupted..."
  
  Accord was a supervillain up in Boston, who was, apparently, completely obsessed with everything being run on a perfect, uninterrupted schedule. There had been a crisis and Marissa had run to find Trickster in the middle of his meeting with Accord, causing the anal retentive guy to demand someone to blame.
  
  I shook my head. "If you hadn't gone in, the uhh, Perdition clones would have done even more damage. Then Accord probably would have demanded even more compensation."
  
  Mars was quiet for a long moment before speaking again. "I guess you've got a point."
  
  Letting one of my tethers pull her swing to get her moving again, I kept running my summary. "Speaking of compensation, you guys seriously found powers in a bottle that were worth millions of dollars?"
  
  "Each." She confirmed with a nod.
  
  I let that sink in. "Powers in a bottle. How? Who actually makes superpowers and gives them to people? A really advanced bio-tinker?"
  
  Shaking her head, Marissa gave a shrug. "I wish I knew. I'd burn down everything they own until they tell me how to help Noelle."
  
  "Who only took half a dose of the power formula." I let my head fall back as I continued to swing, gazing up at the stars. "And now she's got some enormous monster body growing out of her, she eats all the time, and when anyone touches her..."
  
  "She puts out an evil clone." Marissa nodded. "That's what happened to Panacea. We were... we were trying to make her heal Noelle, fix what happened to her. Only she didn't have time before the cloning happened, and she passed out."
  
  "She passed out?" I glanced sidelong at the other girl, who nodded. "Did you ever find out why?"
  
  "Probably too much to heal." Sighing, Marissa looked up at the stars as well. "So now you know the truth. Where we came from, why I can't go to the PRT."
  
  "They'll quarantine you." I agreed. "At the very least. You came through from another world, you took millions of dollars worth of some secret formula that I bet nobody is supposed to know about, poor Noelle would just make them piss themselves, and on top of everything else, you've done bad things to try to get money to find a cure, and just to feed her, let alone yourselves."
  
  "That pretty much covers it." Mars agreed, kicking at the gravel. "And now I abandoned them. I left them, when we swore we'd stick together. We promised, and I broke it. Now I don't have anything."
  
  I put a tether underneath each of our swings, and another against our backs in order to hold us as far forward and up as possible. That way, we were pretty much lying flat on our backs, gazing up at the sky as I replied, "You've got me."
  
  Waiting until Marissa had turned slightly to look at me, I winked and pulled the lines back gradually so that we swung down again. "Of course, I'm pretty sure that doesn't fully make up for losing a team, friends, the resources of a supervillain..."
  
  "Coil was never going to give us what we wanted." Mars shook her head. "Trust me, Mads, I'd much rather be with you than ten of him."
  
  "How about eleven of him?"
  
  "Not even twelve."
  
  "... thirteen?"
  
  Jumping off her swing, Marissa turned to face mine as I swung toward her. She reached out, catching both chains and holding it up so that I was face to face with her as she leaned forward a little. "You wanna know a secret?"
  
  Something in my chest felt funny, and I couldn't help the tiny giggle that escaped even though I had no clue what I was actually laughing at. It wasn't so much a giggle of humor as it was a giggle of... happiness? "What, another one? What next, are you also secretly Legend?"
  
  "Nah." Releasing my swing, the older girl struck a pose. "But I could totally pull off his costume."
  
  That same squeaky, goofy giggle escaped me before I could stop it. "I-uhh, y-yeah. You could pull off a lot of costumes." I only belatedly realized how else that could be taken, and my face turned red. "I mean, umm..."
  
  I caught sight of Marissa's smile in the light of the moon, before she waved a hand. "Not really the secret I was talking about. No, this is a different secret." Again, she caught the swing and held it. "The secret is... it doesn't matter what number you go up to. You're always going to win over Coil with me, because you actually care about what happens to me."
  
  It took me a moment to respond, swallowing first. "I do. When I was alone in the cafe, and I thought something had happened to you... it was one of the worst feelings I've ever had. It made me feel like... when Taylor died. Like I... like I wasn't going to see you again."
  
  She flinched at that, releasing the swing before catching my hands so that I was pulled off of it and to my feet. "I'm sorry you were scared." She said softly. "I never, ever-"
  
  "Hey! Hey you can't be back here!" A light from a security guard's flashlight found us, as the man came huffing toward us, his keys jangling on his belt. "Hey, you're trespassing, both of you. Now come on, I told the last of you kids that if I had to drag you out again, I was calling the cops."
  
  Flushing, I raised a hand to wave at him, calling. "Sorry! We'll be-eeep!" Marissa was dragging me into a run, while the guard called out for us to wait. Either he took his job entirely too seriously, or he thought we were vandals or looters. Which, considering the damage that had been done to the city, and how distracted the real emergency services were, probably wasn't too crazy of an assumption.
  
  Still, Mars couldn't chance being questioned, so we ran across the slightly damp grass, quickly leaving the poor school security guard behind. As we approached the chainlink fence, I quickened my pace, glancing toward Marissa. "On three." I warned her. "One... two... three-" On the last number, I used lines to boost the two of us up and forward, clear over the fence. We sailed a solid two feet higher than the top of the barrier, the other girl squealing in surprise in spite of my warning.
  
  We came down on the other side of the fence and immediately dropped into the grass, the momentum translating into a series of rolls side over side, nearly carrying us into a stand of trees, until we finally ended up flat on our backs again. We were partially hidden by the tall grass and the bushes at the edge of the chain-link barrier we had just crossed over.
  
  Both of us remained silent as the security guard came huffing and puffing to the fence. His light moved over the trees, then barely touched the top of the bushes that were hiding us. "They... how..." He panted hard. "God... damn kids."
  
  We listened to the sound of his keys jangling as he walked further down the fence line, and then Marissa leaned a little closer to whisper, "I'm sure the police are gonna jump right on his 'teenagers using the swings after hours' complaint. That's gotta be, what, right under armed burglary?"
  
  "Oh it's right up there with, like, biological terrorism." I agreed with a giggle. "One level under." Both of us giggled loud enough that the flashlight swept back our way for a moment, forcing us to hush ourselves.
  
  Once it was clear again, I shifted over to blink at her. "You just made a joke, Mars. A real, honest joke. I mean, yeah, you're also totally turning me into a criminal who runs from security, but you also made a joke. High five."
  
  I could see the other girl's blush as she obediently slapped her hand against mine. "I guess you're influencing me. I mean, all the people who see Tether can talk about is how funny she is, how she talks the whole time she's fighting bad guys."
  
  Flushing a little at that, I shrugged. "It just makes sense to me. I like making people laugh, and I like to fluster and throw off the other guys. So many people try way too hard to make this superhero stuff grim and dark and angsty. Which, don't get me wrong, it can be really terrifying and horrible, like... like Pandora, but we're also helping people . And we have friggin SUPERPOWERS. Have some fun with it."
  
  After a moment, I added. "Besides, lots of bad guys deserve to be mocked. I... I guess that's my point. The real bad guys, they want people to be afraid of them. By making fun of them, by making jokes right in front of the people they're trying to terrify, I'm trying to take that power away from them. I'm denying them what they want most of all. Control."
  
  Marissa was gazing at me as we lay there, hidden by the bushes. "And here I thought you were just a chatterbox."
  
  "That too." I admitted, then giggled a little. "But okay, you said that you're making jokes because of me. What about you? How do you think you're influencing me?"
  
  For a moment, the girl from another Earth just stared at me. Then she slowly, deliberately lifted her head to look back toward the schoolyard, where the light from the security guard could be seen bobbing up and down as he trudged back toward his truck. "Seriously?" She asked, pointedly.
  
  I couldn't help but snicker at that. "Okay, point. So you think you're making me do baaaaad things like... swing?"
  
  She nodded rather solemnly. "Of course. I am a supervillain after all. I have to corrupt you to the dark side."
  
  "Well..." I replied slowly. "I guess I'll just have to employ my anti-turning evil defense."
  
  "Anti-Turning Evil-" She managed to get out before I turned over practically on top of the other girl and started to tickle her sides. Instantly, she kicked out, squealing in surprise before the laughter overtook her. The security guard was long gone by that point, so there was no worry of being caught.
  
  "Gonna turn me evil?" I asked while still tickling her.
  
  "N-noooo!" Marissa squirmed, flailing a little as she tried in vain to shield herself.
  
  Grinning, I leaned in closer and repeated. "So that's a no then?"
  
  Laughing even louder, face red, the older girl's head shook rapidly. "St-sto-aaahhh! Stoooop-can't-breathe-can't... need... need-aaaahhhhaaaaa! Pleeeeease, I'm not turning you evil!"
  
  Finally, I relented and let her breathe, remaining in my spot leaning over her. "Well. Maybe you're turning me a little bit evil." I allowed, winking. "After all, tormenting you like that? I really, really enjoyed it."
  
  She was panting, trying to catch her breath as the shudders from the laughter kept running through her. "You-I-I never expected to meet anyone like you out here. Or anywhere." For a moment, it looked like she was going to say, or do, something else. Then she just lifted her hand and brushed a few strands of hair away from my eyes.
  
  "I'm going to help you." I promised, my voice softening. "I promise, Marissa. I don't know how, but I swear we'll get help for Noelle, and... and find a way to fix this."
  
  "You're optimistic." She noted.
  
  "I'm stubborn." I corrected. "But either way, I will find a way to help you."
  
  Our gazes met there, in the darkness, the only illumination coming from a streetlamp on the sidewalk a short distance away. I could only barely make out her expression. In it, I could read trust... hope... and even acceptance.
  
  "I believe you."
  
  Interlude 5 - PHO
  
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  ► Topic: Shadow Stalker. In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Discussion ► Heroes
  
  ThatLittleRedHairedGirl (Original Poster)
  
  Posted on September 2nd, 2010:
  
  Guess what, SHADOW STALKER ISN'T SOLO ANYMORE
  
  Yup, I get to be the one that breaks the news first. Doubt it all you want, but my inside sources tell me that the dark stalker of shadows is totally joining the Wards. How about that for bumping up street cred? (Of course I mean she bumps up THEIR street cred).
  
  So since she isn't going solo anymore, I figured she deserved a fresh, brand new thread. Anyone want to bet on which Ward Guy falls for the mysterious badass first?
  
  Oh and all you haters please try to keep it down. Not that you're not allowed your opinion, but some of us happen to like the heroes that are willing to do the dirty work. We could do without all the negativity just cuz she scares you. ;)
  
  EDIT: Oh and you can see Stalker's old thread here
  
  (Showing Page 232 of 232)
  
  ► SentientYeti
  
  replied on May 4th, 2011:
  
  Everyone in this thread needs to learn the difference between alleged and convicted. There's way too many rumors going around that the mods should crack down on. Dragging a tragically deceased hero's name through the mud isn't cool, guys.
  
  ► EvenTripster
  
  replied on May 4th, 2011:
  
  SentientYeti
  
  Dude, seriously? I know you've been obsessed with this girl for years, but come off it. She was evil. She was responsible for an innocent girl's death. Her topic shouldn't even be in this forum anymore, but the mods refuse to move it because that would mean acknowledging what everyone already knows: Shadow Stalker was a villain.
  
  ► Gorilla Manilla
  
  replied on May 4th, 2011:
  
  EvenTripster
  
  You say that like Yeti's ever gonna change his mind. He's got some massive crush or something. Just let him mourn in peace.
  
  On Topic: I don't think we're ever going to know for sure what happened with Stalker. She's gone now, and nobody's answering any questions. They won't even say why she was on that prison transport. Was she a prisoner, like the Travelers said, or was she a guard? No one's talking.
  
  ► Laramie's Child
  
  replied on May 4th, 2011:
  
  So whatever happened with that donation fund for the family of that Sophia girl she killed?
  
  My uncle was one of the guards for that transport. He won't say much, but he totally said that she was definitely a prisoner.
  
  ► SentientYeti
  
  replied on May 5th, 2011:
  
  EvenTripster
  
  And I say again, the only evidence we have that she killed anybody is the word of KNOWN villains. Forgive me if I don't jump to conclusions. Besides, none of the BB Wards on here will even talk about it. Not even Tether, and she posts in practically every BB topic. I even see her reading this thread a lot, but she never posts.
  
  ► Gorilla Manilla
  
  replied on May 5th, 2011:
  
  Laramie's Child
  
  I think it got moved over to the fundraising and charity forum because it was off topic for the team forum.
  
  EDIT: Yeah, here it is.
  
  SentientYeti
  
  Obvs the Wards were warned not to talk about their ex-teammate.
  
  ► ThatLittleRedHairedGirl (Original Poster)
  
  replied on May 6th, 2011:
  
  SS hasn't been convicted of anything. I wish people would remember that...
  
  ► HFDMan
  
  replied on May 6th, 2011:
  
  Red! Haven't seen you in this thread for a long time. We thought the nasty rumors about our dark lady scared you off.
  
  ► ThatLittleRedHairedGirl (Original Poster)
  
  replied on May 6th, 2011:
  
  HFDMan
  
  Been busy. I lost a close friend of mine recently. She was like a sister to me. :(
  
  ► HFDMan
  
  replied on May 6th, 2011:
  
  Aww. Sorry to hear that, Red. *hugs* Are you gonna be okay?
  
  ► ThatLittleRedHairedGirl (Original Poster)
  
  replied on May 6th, 2011:
  
  Yup, going out tonight. ;) Got a plan to feel better.
  
  ► HFDMan
  
  replied on May 6th, 2011:
  
  Anything fun?
  
  ► Momma Bear (Global Moderator)
  
  replied on May 6th, 2011:
  
  Please take side discussions to PM. I'm not going to give infractions this time due to the nature of the distraction, but keep on topic.
  
  ► Uncle Pete
  
  replied on May 15th, 2011
  
  Shadow Stalker could have done something about Hebert before he set off all those bombs...
  
  End of Page. 1 - 230 , 231 , 232
  
  Private message from ThatLittleRedHairedGirl
  
  ThatLittleRedHairedGirl: (Received April 23rd, 2011 - Opened April 23rd, 2011)Hi! I was sooo glad when I saw your account get verified. You have no idea how many losers like to pose as capes on here, even if it only takes a couple days to root them out. The mods are really efficient.
  
  Tether: (Verified Cape) (Sent April 23rd, 2011) Lots of people like attention they haven't earned.
  
  ThatLittleRedHairedGirl: (Received April 24th, 2011 - Opened April 25th, 2011) So true, lol. You're like, the best cape BB has now that Stalker's gone.
  
  Tether: (Verified Cape) (Sent April 27th, 2011) I dunno, I'm still new. Too many powerful veteran capes out there.
  
  ThatLittleRedHairedGirl: (Received April 27th, 2011 - Opened April 29th, 2011) meh, I bet you could take 'em. ;) You know, I used to talk to Stalker a lot. We... compared notes, if you know what I mean. ;)
  
  ThatLittleRedHairedGirl: (Received April 30th, 2011 - Opened May 14th, 2011 ) So what I'm saying is, we could talk too. I've got all the notes I took for Stalker. Since she doesn't need them anymore...
  
  ThatLittleRedHairedGirl: (Received May 4th, 2011 - Opened May 14th, 2011) Hey, it's been a couple days, did you get my messages, or is the system messing up again? (lol?) I really just want to help. I can e-mail my notes to you if you want.
  
  ThatLittleRedHairedGirl: (Received May 6th, 2011 - Opened May 14th, 2011 ) I know what I have to do now. I have to prove that I can help you. I get it.
  
  Tether: (Verified Cape) (Sent May 14th, 2011) You don't have to prove anything. Don't do anything dumb. Respond back ASAP. Let me know you're okay.
  
  ► Topic: PRT Detectives! Boards ► News and Discussion ► PRT News
  
  ► HizKat (Original Poster)
  
  Posted on April 20th, 2011:
  
  Looks like the rumors were true. Since Panacea got nabbed, the PRT is setting up a whole new division to focus on defending capes and their families, and on investigating cape related crimes. Will edit this post with more info later.
  
  EDIT: The new division will be headed by an former PRT agent who was injured in the original Nilbog incident. His name is Thomas Calvert. More info here
  
  EDIT THE SECOND: New division will be called Parahuman Crime Investigation and Protective Services, or PCIPS. Thanks to edckdm for the verification.
  
  (Showing Page 83 of 84)
  
  ► Ficsy
  
  Replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  Okay guys, at this point we're talking in circles. Whether you think the new division serves a point or not, it's here. So let's try to keep the discussion focused on what they can do and what sort of situations they can help with, not whether you want them to exist or not. That ship has sailed.
  
  ► HizKat (Original Poster)
  
  Replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  Thank you, Ficsy. Okay, to be on topic, does anyone know any verified capes or cape families who have signed up for the PCIPS bodyguard service?
  
  ► edckdm (Verified PCIPS Agent)
  
  Replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  I could name at least one here in BB, but I'm not entirely sure whether I'm supposed to or not. Might be a breach of privacy.
  
  Sidenote, anyone have any idea how to have Verified PRT Agent changed to PCIPS Agent next to my name?
  
  ► Momma Bear (Global Moderator)
  
  Replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  edckdm
  
  If you send me photo verification of your transfer to the new division, I'll take care of that for you.
  
  ► Hel's Jester
  
  Replied on May 14th, 2011:
  
  I guess we know what PCIPS will be investigating first...
  
  ► In Quartata
  
  Replied on May 14th, 2011:
  
  Oh my god... I have no words. How much damage has been done?
  
  ► Momma Bear (Global Moderator)
  
  Replied on May 14th, 2011:
  
  Your reaction is underestandable, but please take all questions or comments about the ongoing situation in Brockton Bay to this thread
  
  ► Jamie Suncurse
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Okay, so... if this is the first really major thing the PCIPS investigates, it could make or break their entire reputation. If they can solve this bombing right away, no one's ever going to question their existence again.
  
  ► Russian Soul
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Oh please. The PCIPS won't catch anyone. If they were at all effective, the bombing wouldn't have happened in the first place.
  
  ► In Quartata
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Little bit harsh, Soul. They're not psychic. Even the best police can't prevent crime before they happen. This isn't that Tom Cruise movie from Aleph.
  
  ► Russian Soul
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Doesn't really change the fact that the so-called Investigation Service couldn't catch a cartoon mouse, let alone this mad bomber.
  
  ► Shadu
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  RussianSoul
  
  Okay, so you're saying the PRT couldn't prevent all this bombing, but you can't even imagine the full picture.
  
  Get this, because it keeps being ignored. In the year that the PRT was established more cape incidents were registered than the years before and after. Trust me, it's not because capes like to fight with the PRT, it's because new agency wanted to prove they were useful. They demonstrate to the public that it's a lot of danger from capes - and woo-hoo! they receive a lot of government funds.
  
  So, this is like, the same play. When they find the psycho bomber, they're gonna say that all this terror could be prevented, if they had more funds. Mark my words. It's the same thing.
  
  User received an infraction for this post: conspiracy theories serve no purpose in this forum.
  
  ► Stefanovich
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Shadu
  
  Clever theory you've got there. Let me expand it for you. The PCIPS is going to announce that you're the psycho bomber, just trying to throw out false accusations and wild drama to stay in the spotlight.
  
  User received an infraction for this post: Keep personal attacks off the board.
  
  ► edckdm (Verified PCIPS Agent)
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Ignoring the attacks against my profession... We're trying, guys. The bombs are still going off, but I have it on good authority that the person responsible for the bombs has been brought into custody. Obviously I can't say more than that, but I hope that helps some of the fear. And more info should be leaking soon.
  
  Just not from me. ;)
  
  End of Page. 1 - 82 , 83, 84
  
  ► Topic: Bombings In The Bay. In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Discussion
  
  ► Momma Bear (Original Poster) (Global Moderator)
  
  Posted on May 14th, 2011:
  
  Please direct your questions, concerns, and comments about the current tragic events in Brockton Bay to this thread, to avoid cluttering up every other part of the forums. Thank you.
  
  (Showing Page 228 of 228)
  
  ► In Quartata
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Do we know for sure that the Hebert arrest was related to the bombing? Anyone with a PRT or PCIPS or Cape verification confirm?
  
  ► LogicalKismetHater
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  None of the ones with any real info are going to respond with anything other than 'wait for the press release'. They're smarter than that. No way they're going to risk giving this son of a bitch any excuse in court.
  
  ► FitnessFit
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  User has received an infraction for this post, and it has been deleted: Do not advocate bodily harm against anyone, regardless of your emotions. This is your one warning, which your specific circumstances are the only reason I am even giving you. Step out of line once more, and you're gone.
  
  ► Metallica999
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Uhhhhh... Probably shouldn't make statements like that... the mods don't like it.
  
  ► WieldingTheSeven
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Uh oh. Mods jumped on it already. What did he say?
  
  ► Metallica999
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  PM'd you.
  
  Back on topic, is there a charity set up to help with the damages yet? And do we have a rough estimate of how much damage was done?
  
  ► edckdm (Verified PCIPS Agent)
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  There's a topic listing the charities and other ways that anyone can help here.
  
  The property damage that has been confirmed so far is as follows:
  
  Winslow High School - Total Loss
  
  Saint Augustine's Hospital - Heavy damage, all remaining patients evacuated to Lakes Regional Hospital and Southland General.
  
  Three homes on Rudyard Blvd west of the Boardwalk - Destroyed, heavy damage to six other homes on the street, and the road itself.
  
  The bridge on Forty Third near Vine and Gallop - Destroyed. Use alternate route.
  
  22nd Precinct Police Station on Cheerful and Tuttles - Heavy damage, all officers being directed to either the 23rd or 19th precincts for assignments.
  
  True Smiles Daycare at the end of Sycamore - Total loss. Thank god no one was there this late.
  
  Corner of Dupris and Cheerful - Heavy damage from car bomb done to road and surrounding buildings. Avoid the area until safety crews have cleared it.
  
  East 4th and Ridgeland - Numerous explosions have targeting the police station just north of this corner have heavily damaged the streets here, rendering them unpassable.
  
  Other losses include large areas of the docks and several buildings downtown, but there are conflicting reports about just how much damage was done and where. I will update this post as soon as I find out more for certain. If you have anything to add, PM me.
  
  ► E.S.B. Lion
  
  Replied on May 15th, 2011:
  
  Dear god... if Hebert really did all this, he's never gonna make it to trial. Someone's going to take him out before they get a chance.
  
  (Please note mods, I am not ADVOCATING this. I'm saying what I think is going to happen)
  
  End of Page. 1 - 226 , 227 , 228
  
  ► Topic: Tether. In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Discussion ► Heroes
  
  ► Groundgrabber (Original Poster)
  
  Posted on April 11th, 2011
  
  NEW ADDITION AS OF April 23rd, 2011
  
  Tether responds in this thread, guys. She'll answer any questions she can (though not always to satisfaction), and she's asked that if it's been a few days since you asked a question and she hasn't answered, please PM ME (Not her) and I'll point her to them. Please keep all rules and good taste in mind before either asking questions here, or pointing them out to me if Tether hasn't responded, because I am not afraid to hit the report button.
  
  EDIT AS OF April 21st, 2011
  
  Okay, now that Tether is a member of the Wards, we have a little more information. Her powers allow her to connect any two non-living objects and then pull those two objects together or push them apart. Other limitations or strengths unknown so far.
  
  ORIGINAL POST BELOW
  
  Looks like Brockton Bay has a brand new cape. Topic title left vague until the name is revealed. (EDIT: Name confirmed to be Tether. Thanks, Vista)
  
  She was seen helping several members of the Wards bring in Lung. Powers currently unknown. Some say flight, some say long jumping, others say telekinesis. (EDIT: Powers mostly confirmed to be a unique form of telekinesis.)
  
  All we know so far is that she isn't a member of the Wards (EDIT: She is now.), but she was definitely involved in bringing Lung to justice, so it looks like we have a solo good guy. Maybe she and Browbeat can team up? (EDIT: Nm, Brow turned evil. :( )
  
  (Showing Page 146 of 147)
  
  ► CompletelyRationalSaneGuy
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  Did you SERIOUSLY insult Lung right to his face?
  
  ► Tether (Verified Cape)
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  To be fair, I'd insult his other end, but I'm pretty sure I'd pass out before I got anywhere near it.
  
  ► CompletelyRationalSaneGuy
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  omg I got Tether'd. :D
  
  ► DeviantMime
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  Just how many bullshit tricks can you pull out of your rear from 'connect two objects to each other' into, anyway? You get around like a mover, you affect the environment like a shaker or a blaster, you can hit like a minor brute... what's next, connecting a bunch of objects together like a pseudo-tinker?
  
  ► Bonewalker
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  I bet she could fly if she swapped the line connection from the ground to her suit fast enough.
  
  ► Tinyoh
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  Bonewalker
  
  Nope, she'd have to have mental processing as fast as a computer to do that. No one can think and adjust on the fly that well.
  
  ► Tether (Verified Cape)
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  DeviantMime
  
  *sidesteps away from Kid Win's workbench* Nooooooo. _
  
  Bonewalker & Tinyoh
  
  :( *puts propeller cap and pilot's scarf away*
  
  ► HizKat
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  Aww! See what you guys did? You made Tether sad.
  
  ► TheUltimateLord
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  Don't be sad, Tether. You just need to get a teammate who flies, and then connect yourself to them.
  
  ► Tether (Verified Cape)
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  TheUltimateLord
  
  Good point! *looks away from scowling Aegis to stare intently at half the members of New Wave* Damn flyer-hogging team.
  
  ► Glory Girl (Verified Cape)
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  *shoves Crystal that way*
  
  ► Groundgrabber (Original Poster)
  
  Replied on May 13th, 2011
  
  Oh wow, a GG post. Can we take that as a hint about Laserdream's future? :D
  
  ► Laserdream (Verified Cape)
  
  replied on May 13th, 2011:
  
  How did I get dragged into this?
  
  ► Glory Girl (Verified Cape)
  
  replied on May 14th, 2011:
  
  ... Aliens.
  
  End of Page. 1 - 145 , 146, 147
  
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  Arc 6: Prey
  6.01
  
  A man was being shoved back and forth by a large group of angry, hungry, tired people who had surrounded him in the middle of an old basketball court next to a middle school. The man was a volunteer, and these people were furiously demanding to know where their food and medical supplies were, since the explosions had destroyed most of the routes out of the neighborhood. The guy didn't know much more than they did, but they were frustrated and scared, and things were about to escalate out of hand.
  
  Not that I was going to let that happen.
  
  "Incoming!" I called out while descending toward them. One hand was extended toward the top of the building I had just leapt from, using a line to direct my fall, while using a line attached from my feet to the ground to slow it down.
  
  I landed in the middle of what had very nearly been a mob, next to the poor guy they had almost attacked. "Ooh, is this where we pick up the pitchforks and torches, or is this the line for the lynching ropes?"
  
  "You think what happened out here is a joke?" One man, a large guy with a ruddy complexion who had started the shoving, demanded.
  
  "No, sir." I said promptly. "But neither does this man." I indicated the volunteer next to me, who had shrank into my shadow as soon as I arrived. "That's why he's out here volunteering his time to try to help you get organized."
  
  "Organized, my ass." The man muttered. "We've been waiting all fucking week. Where's our food? Where's our medicine? They're fucking us over, I tell you. They're just waiting for us to... to..." He trailed off, because I was nonchalantly gesturing upward with my thumb. Gradually becoming aware of the large shadow hanging over his head, the man slowly looked up, along with the others in the crowd.
  
  There were several gasps, probably because of my awesome timing and stage presence. Oh, and also because of the large shipping container currently hovering over their heads that I had casually pulled down from the roof where I'd left it, I supposed.
  
  Once the man became aware of the container, I gestured with a few fingers. "Could you scooch a bit? I don't want to say this thing is too heavy, but I'm not entirely sure how long I can keep it stationary like this."
  
  The crowd quickly backed away and let me lower the container. As soon as it was down, I nodded to the volunteer, whose nametag read 'Gary'. "Go ahead, Gary. Start handing stuff out. I'm sure everyone's going to wait patiently in line." I said the latter part with a raised voice. "After all, everybody here has been to kindergarten and learned how to share."
  
  Still, I stood nearby and watched while Gary got to work passing out the supplies, using the time to catch my breath.
  
  It was Wednesday the 18th of May, three days after the bombings had stopped, and there was still no school. Not that there would ever be that particular school. Winslow had been utterly demolished. People were already speculating that Mr. Hebert had targeted the high school in particular because of his daughter's death there. Not that they knew the specifics, everyone still thought it was an accident. But they decided that Daniel Hebert blamed the school for it. Funny how people use evidence only 'verified' because of a specific conclusion to justify coming to that conclusion in the first place. Mr. Hebert himself was still at large, with people reporting sightings of him everywhere from right in front of PRT Headquarters to Egypt and anywhere in between.
  
  At the moment, every student in the city had the next two weeks off from school, anyway, while the people in charge worked to clean up the damage and then decide how they were going to divvy up the Winslow kids among the remaining schools.
  
  I already knew where I was going, of course. The PRT had been holding off on having me transferred to Arcadia to avoid blowing my identity, even transferring in a couple others from the the waiting list that sort of fit my general description to muddy the waters about who I was, but now there was no particular reason not to move me in as soon as possible.
  
  Over the last few days, I'd been splitting my time mostly between helping with clean up and rescue (there were a lot of people still trapped or cut off, or just plain in need of food delivery), and with helping Mars move into a 'no questions asked' apartment downtown. She was probably safe considering the sheer odds of anyone who actually knew her face happening to stumble by wherever she went, but the former-Traveler was still staying out of sight for the most part, while we decided what to do.
  
  "Hey, uhh, miss." A voice dragged me back to the present, and I saw the big guy who had been causing problems looking abashedly at me. "I'm sorry. I know I don't need to be making things worse. I'm just... my kid's got the flu and my wife, she was... she was..."
  
  Seeing his expression, I knew what he was trying to say. I shook my head and lifted a hand to his arm. "It's... it's okay." I said quietly, as reassuringly as I could manage in the situation. "Everyone's tempers are blazing, just... just take care of your kid." Trying to make him feel better, I asked, "What's their name?"
  
  "Sam." The man answered. "His name's Sammy. I uhhh, I have a picture." Fumbling in his pocket, the man took out a little wallet sized photograph of what looked like a nine year old brown-haired boy stepping up to bat in Little League.
  
  Smiling a little at the picture, though the expression was hidden, I started to hand it back. The man shook his head. "Keep it. I uhhh, want you to remember that this medicine, this food you're handing out? Even when there's assholes like me causing trouble, Sammy's the kind of kid you're really helping."
  
  He turned and moved back into the line before I could protest, calling over his shoulder. "Ain't gonna be no more problems here, I promise. I'll stick around and make sure nobody else acts like a... like I was."
  
  Holding the picture in my hand for a moment as I gazed at the crowd of people, I slowly put it away and then turned. Extending my hand toward the roof of another building, I let my line pull me away while activating my com with the other hand. "Supplies delivered to Ridgeland, what's next?"
  
  "Head to Southland General Hospital." Aegis's reply came through. "They've got another box of supplies ready to go out to the docks area."
  
  "On it."
  
  Once I reached the crowded hospital, I couldn't find anyone who knew where I should go. The place so busy, so packed full of both patients and harried staff, that even hearing what people were saying took some effort.
  
  A sharp whistle caught my ear, and I turned just in time to see a loaded gurney being rushed right toward me by a group of hustling orderlies. Faced with nowhere else to go to get out of the way, I put a couple lines between myself and the ceiling and let myself be pulled straight up, pressing myself against the tiles there as the gurney was wheeled through the area I had been in. The orderly who had whistled gave me a brief thumbs up.
  
  "Now I see why you wanted a flier." A voice remarked idly from below me. I turned toward the voice while dropping back to the floor.
  
  It was Glory Girl- or Victoria, rather, since she wasn't in costume. She was standing with her sister, Panacea, and another cute blonde that it took me only a second to place as Laserdream, or Crystal.
  
  Man, the members of New Wave were either really brave, or exceedingly stupid to let their identities be completely public. Honestly, part of me was leaning to the latter, particularly where the adults were concerned. It was all fine and dandy for them to decide that they wanted to let people know who they were, to make a point or whatever their reasoning was, but what about the effect on their kids?
  
  Not to mention the way that looking at Amy made me flinch. I wondered if they'd told her about her clone yet. Or if I should mention it. Armsmaster hadn't exactly flat out told me not to say anything to anyone, but the secrecy part was kind of heavily implied.
  
  On the other hand, Panacea kind of deserved to know there was an evil, crazy and twisted version of herself running around throughout this whole mess.
  
  Victoria was talking still. "Crystal thought you were just kidding, but I told her you guys are losing Aegis as soon as his birthday hits, and then you're screwed on fliers."
  
  "Kid Win has his hover board." I pointed out. "And I ummm... get around all right."
  
  "Had." Victoria corrected. "De-ahh, Gallant said that he took it apart." Right, Dean was her boyfriend. "To build something else."
  
  "Well then." I coughed and looked toward her cousin, spreading my arms. "Cryyyystal Pelham, have you been told anything about the remarkable opportunities waiting for you as a member of the Wards?"
  
  "Sorry." The slender blonde shook her head. "I turned eighteen about a month ago. Couldn't join even if I wanted to."
  
  I snapped my fingers. "Nerts." Then I focused on Glory Girl. "Viiictoria..."
  
  The powerful, headstrong heroine shook her head and chuckled. "Sorry, Tether. You're gonna have to poach off someone else's team. Family sticks together. Right, Ames?" She asked while putting an arm around her sister's shoulders.
  
  "Uhh... yeah." Amy Dallon looked just a little... I didn't want to say uncomfortable, but... uncertain, with her sister's arm around her. There was a certain flushed look to her face as she bobbed her head in a nod.
  
  "So umm, do you guys-" I started to ask if they knew where the new supplies were supposed to be picked up, when I was interrupted by a new voice interrupting.
  
  "Excuse me, ahh, ladies?" When I turned, I found a uniformed security guard, looking a bit panicked and out of breath. "We... we need some help."
  
  Crystal, the oldest one there, took a step that way. "What's wrong?"
  
  "It's ummm..." The man shifted from one foot to the other. "It's the top floor. See, they transferred some of the prison inmates here, the ones that weren't too dangerous, who needed medical help. The whole floor was locked off, only authorized staff and the guards they sent allowed."
  
  "What happened?" I asked before anyone else could.
  
  "They stopped responding to the radio." The man explained. "Then I went up there, and it was all... dark. All the power's out up there, and no one responded when I yelled from the doorway. Then I ummm..." His face blanched. "I thought I saw something... or... someone standing in a doorway, staring at me. But then it was like... she melted or something."
  
  Behind my mask, my face turned ashen. Before I could speak, Victoria was already moving for the stairs. "Right, probably a fresh trigger or something. We'll take care of it, just stay out of the way."
  
  "Wait!" I blurted. Crystal stopped in mid-step, having been moving to follow her cousin. She looked back at me questioningly.
  
  "Hey, if you want to sit this one out because you're afraid of the dark or something-" Victoria called over her shoulder.
  
  "No, wait, you have to listen." I put a line against the floor and her clothes, stopping her. "Just hold on. I..." Not wanting to say anything in front of the security guard, I released Victoria and then started to walk fast. "Come on, walk with me. Amy, you too. You need to hear this."
  
  Victoria's eyes were narrowed as the three girls fell into line with me. "What does this have to do with my sister?"
  
  Instead of answering, I activated my com. "Aegis, I think Pandora's at the hospital. You need to send people here and have the place evacuated."
  
  "Evacuated to where?" He blurted. "We already lost Saint Augustine's. Half those patients were evacuated to Southland in the first place."
  
  "Figure it out." I shot back. "Unless you want to give Pandora an all-you-can-eat buffet of sick and helpless people."
  
  He sighed slowly over the com before responding. "I'll put the word out. You're not going after her alone, are you?"
  
  "No." I glanced back to the other three. "I've got Laserdream and Glory Girl with me." I paused then. "And Panacea."
  
  There was a long pause before he spoke. "You know not to put Panacea in danger."
  
  "She deserves to know." I told him, then signed off.
  
  "Okay." Crystal spoke up before either of her clearly confused and annoyed cousins could. "What, exactly, is going on? What's a Pandora, and what does it have to do with Amy?"
  
  I took in a breath and let it out. By that point, we had reached the stairs and started to ascend. I took a moment to gather my thoughts while we walked up the stairs. The two blonde girls could have flown up, but they were obligingly staying with me, giving me the chance to explain. "Pandora... is... she's..."
  
  "Victoria?" Amy's voice interrupted. I turned in confusion, about to say that Pandora wasn't Victoria, only to find that only two of the girls that I'd been walking with were there.
  
  "Where'd she go?" Crystal demanded, staring at the spot next to Amy. "What happened?"
  
  "I don't know!" Amy's head shook in confusion. "She was right here, right behind me. Her hand was on my back. Then we came around that landing, and I didn't feel her hand anymore. I looked back and... and... she was gone."
  
  She was right. Slowly, I gazed around the brightly lit stairwell, which should have been safe. I looked up, then down, finding no sign of anything other than the three of us. There was no sign that Victoria had ever been here, and none of us, not my lines, not Crystal, and not even Amy, who had been standing directly in front of her, had known until it was too late.
  
  Pandora had taken Glory Girl without a sound, and none of us had noticed.
  
  6.02
  
  "You have got to be kidding." Crystal's words were flat with disbelief.
  
  "She's not." Amy's own voice expressed clearly stunned resignation. "I... don't remember everything, but I've been having dreams. There was a monster, a girl with a monster attached to her, and I was supposed to fix her. I couldn't... can't remember anything else. I thought it was just a dream, but... but it fits what she's saying."
  
  Looking back and forth between us, Crystal's head shook. "Okay, so you're saying there's an... an evil Amy out there with like... the inverse of her powers."
  
  "She can heal herself. Even more, it's like... complete control over her own genetics." I confirmed with a nod. "To scary degrees. And somehow she can duplicate herself. I'm not even sure how that works, except Armsmaster guessed that it has to do with the people she keeps absorbing. He thinks she's adding their mass to her own and then altering and splitting it off into another body." I shrugged. "I haven't seen anything that disproves that."
  
  Amy closed her eyes, giving a shudder. Now I knew why Pandora had seemed so familiar. The brown haired, lightly freckle-faced girl was known to everyone. There were other healers in the world, but none quite as important or capable as Panacea. She was one of the most important people we had in the fights against the Endbringers, since she could heal everything up to actual death.
  
  On the other hand, that had to be a lot to live up to, and I doubted many people remembered that she was just one person, despite her power. And now there was an evil, crazy version of her running around killing people. Not to mention kidnapping her sister.
  
  "Well." Crystal straightened and started to continue up the stairs to the top floor. "Then we're just going to have to find her and sort this out." As she walked, the older girl was taking the phone from her pocket. She sent a quick text and then then glanced back. "Tether, you gonna be able to help?"
  
  I gave a short nod. "If it helps at all, my power points me to people who are about to be hurt or... or worse. It didn't go off at all, so I don't think that Pandora wants to hurt Victoria."
  
  "Do you know anything else about... her?" Amy asked, distractedly. Something else was clearly bothering the girl about her clone grabbing her sister, but I wasn't sure how to ask.
  
  I hesitated before nodding while trailing after Crystal. "Just that she said I was useful so she didn't want to hurt me."
  
  That brought both of the girls' attention. Amy stared for a second. "What does that mean? Why would she think you were useful?" Seeming to realize belatedly how that sounded, the mousy girl blanched. "I mean..."
  
  "I know what you mean." I assured her. "What I don't know is what she meant. She didn't exactly stick around to explain herself."
  
  "We'll get answers this time." Crystal-Laserdream, assured us both. We had reached the top landing by that point, and she glanced back to make sure we were ready before gently pushing the door open.
  
  As the guard had said, the whole floor was dark, oppressively so. It looked like every single window-blind had been pulled down, and the absence of any noise, whether from voices, footsteps, or equipment, was unsettling.
  
  For a moment, the three of us simply squinted into the darkness. Crystal spoke softly. "Amy, maybe you better-"
  
  "Do not even say it." Amy's voice was hard. "Vicky's in trouble, and it's me-or a version of me- that took her. I'm going."
  
  I saw Crystal turn to look at her younger cousin, examining her for a moment to see if there was any way to convince her otherwise, and whether it was worth the effort to try. Finally, she let out a breath and stepped from the landing. "Then let's stay together. No splitting up. Tether, let us know the second you get a hit on your danger thing."
  
  Two steps in, and I reached to the small control knob hidden just inside my vest, dialing the brightness of the violet glow from the lines on my costume up. It made it at least slightly easier to see a couple more feet.
  
  "Isn't that just going to make you an easier target?" Crystal asked with a raised eyebrow.
  
  It was Amy who answered for me. "If... she can alter her body, she can already give herself perfect night vision and whatever else. Staying in the dark isn't going to hinder anyone but us."
  
  "What she said." I agreed, nodding that way. "Besides, like I said, she thinks I'm useful for something."
  
  Accepting that with a shrug, Crystal activated some kind of small forcefield a few feet out in front of us. The crimson bubble of energy didn't seem to be very strong from my extremely uneducated opinion, but then, the whole point also seemed to be to make the shield project light so that we could see better, rather than any kind of protection. "Good point."
  
  Slowly, we made our way past the nurse's station. A chair beside the next doorway held the pile of a police uniform and gun belt. The radio lay useless and broken a few feet away, as silent as the rest of the floor. A brief check with my foot revealed that if there had been a flashlight, it was gone now.
  
  Ahead, Laserdream's red forcefield lantern illuminated another two fallen uniforms. Their radios had been openly destroyed as well, the first apparently crushed beneath a foot from the look of it, while the other had been flung hard enough at the wall to scatter the components across several feet of tile. Their flashlights had been taken as well.
  
  "They're gone..." Amy spoke in a hushed tone. "They're just... gone. There's nothing to heal, nothing to fix. They're completely gone."
  
  "That's what she does." I responded, unable to keep the unease out of my own voice. "She absorbs every bit of genetic material and leaves the rest behind."
  
  We made our way methodically further down the hall, checking each room on the way through. Room after room held nothing but empty handcuffs and hospital gowns. With each step, I could sense the unease from the other two growing, while every slight creak or hint of motion in the shadows just beyond our meager light made us jump.
  
  "I just figured out what's missing." Crystal spoke up eventually, the suddenness of her voice making me flinch reflexively. She looked around the hallway and the room we were just leaving, indicating the clothes around us. "Doctor clothes. Scrubs, coats, whatever. There's prisoner clothes and cop clothes and all that, but no doctor or nurse clothes. Why?"
  
  I frowned. "Good question... maybe she's not absorbing them?"
  
  "If that's true," Amy asked. "Then where are they?"
  
  "Fuck this." Crystal finally said after a moment of thought. She cleared her throat and then called out, loud and clear, "Pandora! We don't want to fight you! We just want to know where Victoria is! We are not threatening you!"
  
  Silence met her declaration, and I was starting to think that there really was no one here. Then slow, deliberate creaking noise caught our attention. Crystal's makeshift red light revealed a door that had just opened, darkness lying beyond. Finally, a faint voice, barely recognizable as Glory Girl's, called for help from inside the room.
  
  "That's a big fat nope." I decided, staring at the open, beckoning doorway. "No way, no how, not happening, nuh uh. I've seen this movie, we are not going through that door."
  
  Crystal started to speak, but Amy was already moving past the two of us. She ran ahead down the hall, calling, "Victoria!"
  
  "Amy!" Crystal cursed and looked to me, but the other girl had already moved too far into the shadows for me to grab onto her. We chased her, Crystal lifting off to move faster by flying just under the ceiling.
  
  She was fast, wicked fast, in the air. Laserdream's aerial maneuverability was well known, and she lived up to the expectation by shooting straight down the corridor in the near pitch-darkness, inverting in the air, and putting herself down with barely an inch to spare in front of her cousin, stopping her with both hands.
  
  I caught up a moment later, while Amy was still insisting that Crystal let her go, that she had to find Victoria before her clone did something bad to her.
  
  "Stop, Amy. Stop!" Crystal finally brought her hand up and smacked her younger cousin across the face. "Get a hold of yourself." She ordered. "We're not abandoning Victoria, you know better than that. But we're also not running headlong into traps. You know better than that too. Just because Glory Girl isn't here doesn't mean you have to act like her by charging in blind."
  
  Clearly stunned, Amy held a hand to her cheek. The panic that had been clearly driving her eased out somewhat along with the long breath that she released. "I-I'm sorry." She shook her head. "I just... if she hurts Victoria, and it's... it's sort of... me doing it..."
  
  "She won't." I told her. "My power would have told me if Pandora was going to hurt her." At least, I hoped it would have. I didn't mention the fact that Pandora could always change her mind and hurt Victoria later, even if she hadn't abducted her for that purpose.
  
  After gazing at her younger teammate and family member for a moment to make sure she was in control of herself, Crystal nodded to me. I moved to one side of the doorway, while the other girl gradually moved her forcefield light through and into the room beyond.
  
  The unmasked girl sitting on the bed, illuminated by the crimson glow, was clearly a match for Amy Dallon. She sat cross-legged, watching us with what looked like curiosity. "Hello." Her voice was calm, careful, and maybe a touch indignant. "It took you long enough to come."
  
  "We weren't sure it was safe." Crystal finally managed to say, after she got over her obvious surprise. In spite of my warning, running into a doppleganger of Panacea was clearly throwing her.
  
  To that, the clone's head turned sideways. "You said that you were not a threat."
  
  It was the real Amy who spoke then. "You took Victoria. Where is she? What do you want?"
  
  "What do you want?" The clone returned the question back to Panacea. "You ask questions that you already know the answers to. Wasting time. You should admit why you are truly afraid, what you really fear we are saying to our sister."
  
  "She's not your sister!" Amy shot back, sounding almost livid. "She's mine. You're just a... a copy. You didn't grow up with her. You don't feel about her that w-like I do."
  
  "We wonder..." The clone on the bed mused aloud. "Are you more frightened that our secrets will drive her away, or that they won't, and that all of our fear will have been for nothing? What frightens you more, sister, rejection or all of that lost and lonely time?"
  
  "Amy." Crystal interrupted. "What is she talking about?" But Panacea clamped her lips shut and shook her head, looking even more pale than she had before.
  
  "Where are the doctors?" I had to ask. "Where are all the medical people?"
  
  "Not useless." The girl on the bed replied simply. "Not useless, not a threat, safe."
  
  "You didn't harm them?" I pressed.
  
  "Of course not." Pandora replied. Abruptly, her form shifted into a flock of shrieking bats, which rushed straight at us. Just as my heart leapt into my throat and I jerked reflexively backward, the bats formed back into her human shape, barely half a foot away from me as she continued her sentence. "We are not a monster."
  
  "S-sure." I said, trying to force my heart back down where it belonged, while also doing an internal check to make sure I hadn't actually wet myself. "Not a monster, got it. But where are they?"
  
  She smiled, standing there so close to me that I could see the white of her teeth in the violet light that my suit was giving off. "Safe. Safe and out of the way, so that we can talk, our sister and we." Her head tilted toward me. "You are still useful. Still not ready, but useful."
  
  "Useful for what?" I asked.
  
  "To kill him." Her response came, as simple as it was confusing. "But not yet. Not until we're sure."
  
  "Kill who?" I thought, then added, "Coil? The man who cloned you?"
  
  She just smiled at me once more, not speaking again.
  
  "Please." Amy's voice was pleading. "Please tell us where Victoria is. Why did you take her?"
  
  "We missed her." Pandora's voice actually sounded... sad. "We missed our Victoria."
  
  Amy hissed at that, clearly angry and defensive. "She isn't yours."
  
  Rather than arguing the point, the clone simply said, "We wish to make a trade."
  
  It was Crystal who spoke then. "What trade?"
  
  Regarding her briefly, Pandora answered. "A trade for healing. We cannot heal others, our sister can." She looked toward Amy. "An agreement. You will heal the one we wish you to heal, sister, and then we will give Victoria to you. Both will be safe."
  
  "Is that why you came to the hospital?" I asked. "To look for a doctor? Is that where the other medical people are?"
  
  "Useless." She replied derisively. "Can't fix her. Can't take her pain away."
  
  "Fine." Amy's voice was a little shaky, but steady. "A trade. I'll heal your... whatever she is, and you'll give Victoria back."
  
  "And the doctors and nurses." I added. "All of them. And no more killing people in the hospital. It should be a safe place, Pandora. You can't just... you can't just kill everyone who gets in your way."
  
  She gave me a blank look at that. "Do you know of one that we are incapable of killing?"
  
  My mouth opened, then shut. "That's not what I meant. I-" Shaking that off, I waved a hand. "Just don't kill anybody else in here, please, Pandora. Call this a truce, a safe place. I'm not demanding, I'm asking. Please, don't kill anyone in the hospital. This is where people get healed."
  
  For a moment, the clone met my gaze. I wasn't sure if she fully understood me or not, but eventually, she gave a sight nod. "We will not kill within the hospital."
  
  "And you'll let Victoria and the others go." Crystal prodded.
  
  "After the healing." Pandora acknowledged. "And you will let us go with our friend. You will not take her or stop us, or our... truce is forfeited."
  
  "Agreed." Crystal finally said with a sigh, glancing toward Amy and me until we nodded.
  
  Satisfied, Pandora turned to that dark mist, floating past the three of us to reach the hallway once more, before turning to walk. Uneasy looks were passed around, before we started to follow.
  
  Three doors down, the clone touched a door and pushed it open. "Inside."
  
  As instructed, we went through the doorway and into a room that had been lit by several of the flashlights that had been taken from the police uniforms. Victoria stood in a corner of the room with her fists clenched, anger and frustration clear on her face. When she saw us, she started a bit. "Crystal, Amy! It's-it's you. It's..."
  
  "We know." Crystal told her. "It's all right. We made a deal."
  
  "Yes." Another Pandora, who had been hidden by the shadows of the room, stepped into view. She, and the one that had been with us and was now in the doorway, spoke together. "We made a deal."
  
  It was only then that I noticed that the bed was moving, shaking a bit. Something-or someone, was bundled up under the blankets. "Who...?" I started to ask.
  
  In answer, the Pandora in the room walked to the bed and drew the blankets back. The flashlights revealed a figure that I knew well, even in the dim light.
  
  "Dinah." I gasped. "Dinah Alcott." I'd known that she wasn't dead. Marissa had told me that much, and I'd passed the information along to Armsmaster. But to see her like this... the girl was pale, shaking with pain and misery, and when the blankets were removed, she made a terrible moaning noise.
  
  "Drugs." Pandora informed us, looking toward her original self. "You will heal her. You will remove her pain."
  
  "You can't leave with her." Victoria growled. "You're a monster, not my sister, and you're not taking that kid."
  
  "We have a truce." The Pandora by the door announced. "An agreement. If you do not honor your side, we will not honor ours." Her gaze found mine. "And if we do not honor our agreement..."
  
  I swallowed, getting the point. "You'll go back to killing."
  
  "It is your decision." The Pandora next to the bed informed us with a nod of agreement to my words.
  
  Her other self, by the door, agreed. "Your choice. Heal the girl and allow us to leave with her."
  
  "Or," The one by the bed continued. "No one will leave this hospital."
  
  "No one." They both finished together.
  
  6.03
  
  "What the hell do you mean, an agreement?" Victoria demanded. "You can't make an agreement to just let a kidnapper keep the kid. Did you guys just forget that we're supposed to be heroes, as in 'the good guys'?"
  
  "Then there is no conflict." The Pandora by the bed announced.
  
  The Pandora by the door nodded. "Because we are not Dinah Alcott's kidnapper."
  
  "We are her friend." They both said together.
  
  "And you will help her." The one by the bed said firmly to Panacea. "You promised that you would help our friend."
  
  Crystal gave a short nod. "Of course, she's going to help Dinah. Victoria, come here, we'll talk."
  
  "Talk about what?" Victoria grumbled under her breath as she moved that way reluctantly. "About how we're totally making deals with the bad guys now?"
  
  "I ummm..." Amy spoke up hesitantly. "I'll do what I can for her. If she was on drugs, then she'll probably still have some psychological dependency. I can't fix that, but it should get better in time. I can help with the physical symptoms."
  
  While she stepped that way and laid her hand against Dinah's cheek, I spoke up to get the Pandora by the door's attention. "I'm going to use my radio now." The last thing I wanted was for her to think I was breaking the deal somehow. "Just to let everyone else about our deal, so no one does anything bad."
  
  She gave no response to that, which I was taking as tacit agreement. Reaching up to activate the com, I spoke. "Aegis, are you there?"
  
  "Talk to me, Tether." It wasn't Aegis, it was Armsmaster. "Do you have the clone in sight?"
  
  "You uhhh," I coughed. "You could say that. Listen, don't evacuate the hospital. You don't need to get anyone out."
  
  There was a pause, and when Armsmaster spoke again, his voice was suspicious. "Stranger protocol. What did you have for dinner when I met you at your house?"
  
  "Trick question." I replied. "It was lunch time, but I had cereal. Frosted Flakes. And chocolate milk. I tried to offer you some, but you were being all-"
  
  "That's good enough." The older man interrupted. I could sense the scowl on his face. "Now explain why you suddenly don't want us to evacuate the hospital."
  
  "We made a deal with Pandora." I said slowly. "She's not going to kill anyone else here in the hospital." Pausing as it occurred to me, I added, "Which I think, technically, makes the hospital the safest place in the city right now."
  
  Silence reigned for a few seconds before he spoke again. "Would you care to explain what kind of deal you made?"
  
  I hesitated. There was no way this was going to come off in a good light. "She umm... she has... a friend."
  
  "A friend?" His reply was a mixture of confusion and suspicion. "Tether, if you don't start making sense, I'm going to assume the stranger protocol was broken somehow."
  
  "She has a friend with her." I said again, more firmly that time. "Dinah Alcott. She has Dinah Alcott. She brought her to the hospital to help her, so Panacea is helping her. Then... they're going to leave."
  
  There was another pause, and then Armsmaster replied, "Are you saying that you made a deal to allow Pandora to take the Alcott girl after Panacea heals her, in exchange for her not killing anyone else in the hospital?"
  
  I cringed, hesitating before confirming nervously. "That's... pretty much the gist of it, yes."
  
  "Understood." He replied, unexpectedly accepting of that. I'd expected an argument, but he just asked, "Do you need anyone else up there?"
  
  Blinking, I shook my head. "I don't think bringing anyone else into this is going to help. It'll probably just complicate things, sir."
  
  "We'll need a full report once you're done." Came his response. "If you do need help, or if anything goes wrong, and I mean anything, use your comm and say 'SOS'. We'll be right on top of you inside of sixty seconds. We're right downstairs."
  
  I signed off, letting out a breath before looking to the Pandora by the door once more. The other one was focused on what Panacea was doing with Dinah, while Crystal and Victoria were having a heated argument in the corner. "I need to ask you something."
  
  Her head inclined a bit, expectantly, so I went on. "Coil. He's your enemy, isn't he? The one that you want me to help you with, somehow?"
  
  "It is not time for that." Pandora replied dismissively. "You are not ready, we are not prepared."
  
  "But-" I blurted. "What makes you think I can help you with him?"
  
  The clone seemed to consider that, going silent for several moments before speaking up again. "The enemy has become obsessed with the idea that your power may counter his own somehow. We wish to more fully understand how this possibility may develop and be used against him properly."
  
  I started to shake my head. "I don't understand how my power could possib-" Something occurred to me, and I gave a little start. "Wait, didn't you say that you thought I was useful back when I first saw you?"
  
  "No." Pandora's head shook. "We did not speak when we were first seen by you. We waved, because Dinah has said that we can sometimes be... unsettling, so we were attempting to express... friendship." While I stared, she offered a smile that was clearly supposed to be reassuring, but came off as more predatory.
  
  "Ummm... right." I nodded, swallowing back the shiver that ran through me at that look, not to mention the fact that something-some one, I firmly corrected myself, like Pandora wanted me to see her as a friend. "Sorry, I meant the first time we actually spoke. You said you thought I was useful."
  
  "Yes." She finally stopped smiling, the change in expression just as abrupt and seemingly unconnected to her actual mood as the initial smile had been. "You know this already. What is your question?"
  
  I was thinking quickly, trying to figure out the timing of that. "But that happened in the apartment building, before we found Bakuda, and before she named Taylor's dad as being Coil, which was obviously before we went to the Hebert house, so... so..." My eyes were widening behind the mask. "So there's no way that Mr. Hebert could be Coil. Because he triggered when the Protectorate was confronting him. He triggered then, which means he couldn't have had powers before then. But you said I was useful earlier than that, because the Coil you knew already had powers."
  
  Though my excitement had been mounting throughout that, the Pandora clone just continued to stare with something like curiosity on her face. I still wasn't sure how much she understood. That was all right, I was just ecstatic that I had another piece of evidence that Coil wasn't really Mr. Hebert.
  
  I was still trying to decide how, or even if, I could use that, when Amy straightened from Dinah's side. "I've done everything I can." She declared, looking toward the Pandora that was standing on the other side of the bed. "She'll have to catch up on sleep, and like I said, she's still going to think she wants the drugs. But the physical symptoms should be better."
  
  The Pandora by the bed moved to use two fingers to brush the hair away from Dinah's still sweaty face in a gesture that was surprisingly tender. "We thank you for helping our friend."
  
  "Good." Crystal shot Victoria a firm look that said 'don't say a word', then focused on one of the Pandoras. "I want to add something to the deal."
  
  Both of the clones looked to one another, then toward Crystal. Their voices were flat with warning. "You will not break the truce."
  
  "No." Crystal shook her head quickly. "No, we won't break the truce. We won't stop you from taking Dinah. That's not what this is about. But there's going to be people who try to take her away from you, people who didn't make the same deal. We can try to stop them, try to make them leave you alone. But if we do, that's more than just this one truce, do you understand? So we need a longer deal."
  
  The Pandora by the door spoke, as the other one remained focused on the sleeping girl. "You will offer us another truce?"
  
  "A longer one." Crystal confirmed. "But first I want to ask you something. There's been a lot of gang members that have just... disappeared. The gangs think there's some vigilante taking them away. Hell, some of them have actually gone straight to the police and begged to be arrested because it's safer in prison than on the streets. Is that you? Are you the one killing the gang members?"
  
  "They are useless." The Pandora that was sitting protectively next to Dinah nodded. "They are unproductive, and do harm to others. I remove them."
  
  Letting out a breath, Crystal glanced to me first, then continued. "Okay, but you've hurt other people too. You've killed people, like the police here, when you were looking for doctors. That has to stop. Please. I want you to agree not to kill any other innocents. No killing heroes, no killing cops, no killing civilians. As long as we don't try to hurt you, or take Dinah away, you stop killing anyone who isn't... who isn't a bad guy."
  
  For a long moment, both clones simply stared at her, seeming to process that. Finally, each nodded. "Acceptable." They said together, before the one by the door elaborated. "As long as those who call themselves the heroes within this city do not present themselves as a threat, we will refrain from killing any who would not be classified as... bad."
  
  "Pinky swear?" I offered, unthinkingly.
  
  It was mostly a joke, but the Pandora by the bed was looking at me with obvious interest. "What is this swearing for pink?"
  
  "No, no." I shook my head, internally asking myself what the hell I was doing, before stepping that way. Lifting my hand and extending my pinky, I gestured. "Do this."
  
  The clone stared, then looked down at her hand and finally lifted it to duplicate what I was doing. "If you attempt to deceive us..."
  
  "I'm not." I promised, reaching a hand out to hook our pinkies together. "This is a pinky swear. It's... like an oath. It's a special deal, that can't be broken. We promise we won't try to take Dinah away, and you promise that you won't kill anyone that's... good. Or neutral. No killing civilians, Pandora."
  
  The girl by the bed, so identical in so many ways to Panacea, yet so different, gazed at our joined pinkies with a curious expression, before nodding. "We will not kill those we have promised not to kill, as long as they do not attempt to take our friend away." She gave our hands another curious look, then added, "Pinky swear."
  
  "This is so fucking weird." Victoria declared from the other side of the room.
  
  That much settled, we stepped out of the way and watched as one of the Pandoras picked up Dinah from the bed. She walked out of the room with the girl, while the other Pandora watched us carefully.
  
  Once the first pair was gone, I blurted, "Why do you want to kill Coil? I mean, he sort of... helped create you, in a way. Why do you want him dead?"
  
  She just looked at me for a moment before responding. "He wishes to enslave us, to use our power, our life, for his own ends. We are not a slave, we are a person. We will make our choices, not him."
  
  I opened my mouth and then shut it, but before I could settle on something to say, she was gone, leaving the rest of us alone.
  
  "Did we really just do that?" Victoria demanded. "Did we really let a psycho-bitch like that just walk out with her hostage?"
  
  "It's complicated, Vicky." Amy's voice was quiet."It's not that simple."
  
  "She's crazy!" The other girl shot back. "You wanna know how crazy she is? She said she was in love with me. In love with me! Do you have any idea how... how creepy that was? Hearing someone that looked just like you, just like my sister, saying she was in love with me?" Victoria gave a full body shudder, as if it was the worst, most wrong thing she had ever heard. "So disgusting."
  
  For just a second, I thought that Amy looked as though she'd been punched in the gut. Her whole form clutched over a bit, her face turned white, and she cringed like Victoria had slapped her.
  
  The other girl didn't notice. "I mean seriously, what are we going to tell people? Oh, we let the psychopath clone run off with an innocent little girl, but it's okay because she made a pinky-swear?"
  
  "That's enough, Victoria." Crystal shot her blonde cousin a glare before turning her attention to her other cousin. "Amy-"
  
  The brown-haired girl wasn't listening. She turned to rush for the door, and I could see the tears that she was failing to hold back. "I-I'll tell everyone it's okay to come up." She blurted her excuse for fleeing, and all but ran from the room.
  
  Victoria was at least not oblivious enough to miss that entirely. "I should go after her. Seeing an evil, crazy version of herself... that's gotta be rough."
  
  "Don't." Crystal warned her. "Just give her some time alone to... think." I met her gaze briefly, and the other girl gave me a slight nod of acknowledgment, before speaking. "We do need to figure out what we're going to say to everyone else."
  
  "We did the best we could?" I offered with a wince.
  
  "One thing I don't get." Victoria said with a sigh. "This clone, she's been killing policemen, she kidnapped that innocent girl, but... but she wanted the real Amy to heal the girl, and... and she just agreed not to kill so much, just so that we wouldn't take the girl away from her. So which is it? Is she a good guy, or a bad guy?"
  
  "I'm pretty sure..." I said slowly. "That's about to be a very important question."
  
  "And that's umm, that's pretty much the gist of it." I finally concluded a couple of hours later.
  
  Amy, Crystal, Victoria, and I sat on one side of a massive room that was clearly meant to debrief dozens if not hundreds of troops, having given our story about what had happened in the hospital. Meanwhile, a short distance away and on a raised and rather intimidating stage, an intimidating group stood and listened to our every word. From left to right, there was Amy and Victoria's mother and father Brandish and Flashbang, Crystal's mother and father Lady Photon and Manpower, Director Piggot (who had retained her control of the local PRT in general), Armsmaster, and Miss Militia.
  
  Additionally, in the corner of the room, another figure stood. She was known as Dragon, one of, if not the best tinker in the world. She was responsible for the Bird Cage, for the containment foam that the PRT used, along with a dozen other advantages. At the moment, she wore a set of power armor that had clearly been designed solely for speed, since it was actually vaguely human-shaped and sized unlike other versions of her armor that I had seen her use in videos taken of Endbringer attacks. So far, she had been silent, letting the locals talk.
  
  We were in the PRT building, rather than the Protectorate HQ, because it had been closer, and because Director Piggot had insisted that we include her and that all of the heroes coming to her headquarters was easier than her going to the Protectorate base floating over the water in the bay.
  
  Piggot was the one who spoke first once we had finished. "Do you have any idea how irresponsibly idiotic you've behaved? Telling the Protectorate to stand down when the threat was in a single, contained location and could easily have been surrounded? We knew her location, and had the team on site. We might not get a better shot at ending the threat she presents. Everyone else she kills after this is on your heads."
  
  Armsmaster spoke up gruffly. "I'm not in the habit of letting a rookie Ward tell me to do a damn thing, Director. Tether presented the situation and I made the judgment call. You have a problem with that, you yell at me."
  
  The squat woman gave him a withering stare. "Stop picking hairs, you know what I mean. They were on site and they somehow decided that letting the clone run free to kill more people was the right course of action. On top of that, they let her go with the mayor's niece! He's already lost his son this week. Do you want to tell him that we nearly had his niece but we let her be taken by a threat that could very well result in another Nilbog containment situation!?"
  
  Her words made me flinch. The mayor's son had been Triumph, the recently graduated Ward who had supposedly been killed by Mr. Hebert at the man's house. As for the rest of it, the idea that our town might have to be evacuated, permanently, and some kind of containment wall built around it to keep Pandora trapped within had obviously occurred to me, even if I had tried to dismiss the worry.
  
  "She isn't Nilbog." I spoke up, interrupting what was turning into an argument between the two.
  
  Miss Militia, seeming somewhat grateful for the interruption, lifted a hand for Armsmaster to wait. "What do you mean?"
  
  "Well, first of all, Nilbog took over his entire city. She isn't doing that."
  
  "Yet." Brandish said firmly with folded arms. "Are you suggesting we wait until she starts? How many blocks should we let her have before we abandon the city?"
  
  "No one's abandoning the city." Armsmaster said through gritted teeth, his voice fierce.
  
  "Oh, I was speaking rhetorically." Brandish shot back, just as heated. "Of course we're not abandoning the city, unless stupid decisions keep getting made that let threats that almost kill Amy and my daughter run free!"
  
  Amy... and my daughter. Huh. I snuck a glance toward where the two girls sat. Victoria was on the edge of her seat, frowning as she nodded along with her mother's argument. Amy had been silent, barely talking at all save for when she had to. Her hair covered most of her face, and she sat hunched over, looking rather miserable. The adults clearly thought she was traumatized from seeing her clone. I knew it was more than that.
  
  Brandish and Piggot were still arguing loudly with Armsmaster, while the others mostly looked uncertain.
  
  A loud whistle interrupted everything. I glanced sidelong to see that Crystal had stood up, her fingers just leaving her mouth. "Listen!" She said firmly. "This isn't the Nilbog incident because Pandora isn't trying to take over the city. Think about it for half a second, would you? According to Tether, she can literally absorb a person in a few seconds. Hell, there were dozens of mercenaries inside that building that she saw Pandora in first, we know that from all the equipment left behind. Dozens. And how many Pandora clones did we see? We saw two. She-" Her hand gestured at me. "Saw three of them after Ballistic killed one, when she was pissed off! We know she's been absorbing even more gang members, dozens just that we know of. Yet we never see more than a couple Pandoras. If she had any intention of flooding this city with her duplicates the way that Nilbog took over his city with his creations, she would have done it already . The question shouldn't be how long is it going to be before she destroys everything, it should be, 'why isn't she destroying everything, and how can we use that to reach her'!"
  
  For a moment, the sound of a pin dropping would have been deafening. Then Lady Photon, Crystal's mother, spoke. "My daughter has a point." She ignored the look that her sister, Brandish, sent her.
  
  Manpower, his seven foot form dwarfing everything in the room save for possibly Dragon's suit, nodded. "We need to know what this... creature's intentions are."
  
  "She's not a creature." I said, speaking up again in spite of my internal warning to keep quiet. "She's a person. That's her entire point. Yeah, she may be dangerous and she may be ready to kill at the drop of a hat, but she's still a person."
  
  "She's a clone." Piggot corrected, somehow managing not to set me on fire with her glare. I had the tiniest suspicion that the PRT director still held a grudge against me for losing command of the Wards.
  
  "A clone who made a deal not to kill good people." I shot back, not intimidated by the woman in spite of her efforts. "A clone who stopped and listened to reason, even if we had to adjust what we were saying so that she could understand it. It's not that she's evil, Director, it's that she doesn't understand morals . She doesn't know any better. It doesn't mean she's incapable of learning."
  
  "She is a monster." Brandish snarled the words. "She could have killed-"
  
  "But she didn't!" I interrupted, feeling frustrated. "She could have killed all of us. Trust me, it would have been easy for her. But she didn't! She came to us for help, help for her friend ! She wanted to help Dinah, because she cares about her! Does that sound irrevocably evil to you?"
  
  It was Piggot who shook her head next, stubbornly. "The creature is a clone, an artificial creation. It doesn't have feelings, it doesn't have thoughts, it has whatever was programmed into it. Nothing more. It's not real, and it certainly can't have friends ."
  
  From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Dragon shift marginally. Before I could wonder if she was actually going to say something, Armsmaster spoke first. "Really? Because as far as I'm aware, our feelings and emotions are the product of millions of years of evolution sending neural signals through our brains. They are the result of biological 'programming'. I don't see anything all that different with an artificial creation. Anything sufficiently advanced would be fairly indistinguishable from human once a certain level of sophistication was reached."
  
  Dragon seemed to settle back once more, regarding Armsmaster. Apparently he'd said everything she might have, because the tinker remained silent.
  
  Flashbang spoke up then. "What about the Alcott girl? We can't just let the crea-this... Pandora... keep her indefinitely.
  
  "She won't." Miss Militia assured him. "But at the time, it was the best solution. It maintains the peace with Pandora while we try to work out other solutions. Such as, for example, finding the parahuman who created her to begin with. Maybe an examination of this... what did you call her?" She asked me.
  
  "Noelle." I shifted uncertainly. There were certain parts of the story I hadn't told, such as the fact that they had come from another world. It was a really fine balancing act, and I was afraid at some point I was going to say the wrong thing and fall right off it.
  
  "Yes, Noelle." The Protectorate second-in-command gave a short nod. "If we can find this Noelle and give her enough of an examination, we might find out how to deal with Pandora, if negotiating with her doesn't work. Either way, whether the future solution comes from negotiation or knowledge gained from examination of the original creator, delaying conflict and buying time was the right call."
  
  "I'll start working on a solution to the rapid cloning problem, a way to contain her-" Armsmaster spoke up over the objection that I started to raise. "-in case it becomes necessary." He looked toward the other tinker in her suit. "I'd appreciate any help or suggestions you could add. The containment foam and the Bird Cage both ahhh, prove you have some kind of specialty in holding parahumans who don't want to be held."
  
  The woman in the power armor bowed her head slightly. Her voice came through the suit's speaker, sounding rather pleased. "Of course. I would enjoy working with you."
  
  "Fine." Piggot didn't look happy, but there wasn't much she could say about it. "You... capes figure out what to do about the creature. The mayor won't be happy about this. He wants his niece back." She stalked to the exit, letting the door slam after her to express her dislike of the situation.
  
  "I'm confused." I whispered to Crystal while leaning in her direction. "Does she like this plan or not? Because she was way too subtle about the whole thing."
  
  The older girl bit her lip, but I saw the smirk before she banished it.
  
  "If that's all then..." Brandish turned to walk to the door along with her husband. As they walked, Flashbang looked back toward the girls. "Amy, Vicky, let's go."
  
  "Actually," Victoria straightened. "We're going out." At their parents confused looks, the blonde girl nodded over her shoulder. "Amy needs some shopping therapy. To cope with everything." She gave them a broad smile. "Having an evil clone is a lot to cope with, you know? Dean's meeting us at the mall."
  
  I didn't really think that shopping sounded like something that Amy wanted to do, but I said nothing. After a moment, Brandish came to hug Victoria one last time. Flashbang started to do the same for Amy, but the healer pushed herself out of her chair and moved to the door before he could, mumbling something about going to the restroom.
  
  "You can leave too, Tether." Miss Militia said to me, once it became clear that Armsmaster and Dragon were deeply involved with their discussion about possible containment procedures. I hesitated, then nodded and started out of the room.
  
  Looking up and down the hall, I found the labeled restrooms and walked that way. Amy was at the sinks when I stepped into the ladies room. She had filled her hands with water and was washing her face with them, clearly wiping away red eyes. A quick glance was sent my way before the girl turned away and grabbed some paper towels. "Sorry." Her voice was a little hoarse. "I'll get out of your way."
  
  After biting my lip in indecision for just a second, I pushed away from the door and walked that way. Before Amy could object, I wrapped my arms around her and gave the girl a tight hug that made her squeak in surprise. "Thank you." I told her. "For healing Dinah, and for... for not completely losing it over Pandora."
  
  She was stiff at first, but after a moment Amy returned the hug just a little bit. I heard the slightest sniffle before she drew back, coughing a little and looking rather flushed. She was staring at my feet, rather than at me, like she was ashamed. I was pretty sure why she felt that way, but there wasn't much I could say directly without making her feel worse.
  
  When Amy spoke, her voice was a whisper. "I-I am... losing it."
  
  "Not that much." I assured her. "If I found out I had a clone, I'd still be standing there going buuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh?" I made a droning noise, tilting my head sideways like a broken robot.
  
  Clearly in spite of herself, Amy made the smallest giggle noise that I'd ever heard. It was barely a reaction, but at least it was something.
  
  Again, I stepped in and hugged her. This time the return hug was quicker, though her voice was tinted by confusion. "What... what's that for?"
  
  I shrugged. "Who says it has to be for anything? Sometimes you hug someone because you like them."
  
  "You don't even know me." Amy pointed out, sounding resigned. I had the feeling that pretty much no one knew the real Amy. Victoria was clearly the closest friend she had, and well... even she missed very important things.
  
  "True." I nodded in agreement. "But I'd like to."
  
  "Good!" A voice by the door announced. The two of us turned quickly to find Victoria there. "Then you won't mind coming to the mall with us."
  
  "The... mall?" I asked, blankly.
  
  "Yup!" Victoria bobbed her head in a nod, passing me to hug Amy. "Way too much drama, time for fun."
  
  "That is, if you want to come." Crystal, at the doorway, spoke up. "If it's about keeping your identity secret from us still, you could wear a Halloween mask." Her mouth turned up in a tiny, teasing smirk. "I'm sure that won't look too crazy."
  
  I shook my head. "No, no, I just... don't want to interrupt or... intrude."
  
  "Well you're invited." Victoria pointed out, her arm still around the rather uncomfortable Amy. "So you're not intruding."
  
  Hesitating a little, I finally nodded. "Okay... you guys mind if Vista comes? We were supposed to train today."
  
  "The more the merrier." Victoria announced, squeezing Amy against herself protectively and sending another tortured look through the other girl's face.
  
  "It's settled then." Crystal said firmly. "Just a fun trip to the mall. No talk about clones or monsters or powers or evil masterminds. Just... fun."
  
  "Fun." Victoria agreed enthusiastically.
  
  "Fun." Amy mumbled, mostly gazing at the floor.
  
  I looked between the three New Wave members, then shrugged and reached up to remove my hood and mask. "Okay then... let's have fun."
  
  6.05
  
  "Seriously, Missy, you have got to wear powder blue more often." Victoria was exclaiming to the youngest Ward as she held an admittedly pretty blouse up in front of the girl. "You've got just the right shade of blonde hair to go with it."
  
  As adept as she was on the battlefield, Missy looked flatly uncomfortable at the moment. When Victoria turned to grab a slightly smaller size, my thirteen year old drill instructor shot me a squint that promised hours of exercise for getting her into this before shaking her head. "I don't really need anyth-"
  
  Her protest was cut off by Victoria pushing the smaller blouse, along with a matching skirt into her arms. "Here, go right in there and change. Let's at least see what they look like. Trust me, you're already pretty, and you're going to be gorgeous. And you work hard all the time, so why not indulge just a little bit in being a girl?"
  
  Missy's mouth opened and shut, and she gave me a brief 'save me' look. All I could do was shrug and lift the bag of clothes in my left hand, demonstrating that I had no power to resist Victoria's enthusiastic shopping insistence either. The younger girl sighed and then turned to go into the dressing room.
  
  While she was gone, I glanced across the store to the shoe section where Dean and Amy were. Neither were really looking at the selection. Dean was talking, while Amy gazed uninterestedly at a pair of dark red boots.
  
  "I'm pretty sure he knows how she feels." Crystal's voice spoke softly from over my right shoulder. I turned to see the older girl watching the pair as well. Another glance showed that Victoria had wandered off to the belt section.
  
  "He... does?" I asked, slowly. I knew that Dean could sense emotions, but hadn't been sure how much it picked up, or the nuances of it.
  
  Nodding, Crystal sighed softly. "I don't think he's told anyone though. Definitely not Victoria. He's not even talking about that right now. He'd rather let Amy think that he doesn't know. But he's still the kind of guy that wants to make people feel better, even if he can't acknowledge why they're upset in the first place."
  
  "Does anyone else know?" I asked, with a glance toward Victoria as the other girl picked rapidly through the belt selection, taking some and discarding others with a certainty born from years of practice.
  
  "Not that I know of." Crystal shook her head. "Dean knows because of his power, I just figured it out today, which made a lot of earlier confusion make more sense, and you..." She glanced to me questioningly.
  
  "It was news to me today too." I confirmed. Then I hesitated before adding, "I didn't know Amy was adopted." It was the only thing that made sense, of course, knowing Amy's obvious feelings for her 'sister'. Not to mention the clear difference in her appearance compared to everyone else in her family.
  
  Crystal shrugged at that. "It wasn't really a secret. Just not openly public."
  
  Yet Amy had powers as well. I wondered how that had come about. Were either of her real parents heroes who had died? I tried to think back to remember if any of the fallen heroes that I knew had powers that could have fit the basic mold of what Panacea could do.
  
  "Don't say anything, okay?" Crystal sighed a little. "I need to talk to Amy, at some point, but I don't know how to bring it up without making her panic and pull away even more."
  
  "Someone should definitely talk to her." I agreed. "Even if it is uncomfortable. Because as tightly wound as she is about it... something's gonna snap."
  
  The other girl nodded slowly, but before she could speak again, the dressing room door opened and Vista came out. She had changed into the powder blue blouse and white skirt, and stood there looking even more uncomfortable than she had before.
  
  "See?!" Victoria exclaimed with clear excitement and enthusiasm. "You look perfect. We just need matching... hmmm... sandals. Yes, definitely sandals. White ones." Missy started to protest, but before she could, Victoria turned toward her boyfriend and sister. "Dean, Amy! Come here and look at this. I am a genius. Wait, bring those sandals. Those ones, no the ones to your left-yeah, bring those."
  
  Stooping after taking the shoes from her sister when the pair approached, Victoria exchanged Missy's shoes with them, before straightening. She stood back and gestured proudly. "See? What did I tell you? Doesn't she look gorgeous, Dean?"
  
  The boy flashed another one of those heart-melting smiles that he was so good at, and nodded. "You look great, Missy."
  
  I could almost literally hear poor Vista's heart flip over several times as she stammered, "Wh-bu-I-umm... thank you, D-Dean." That was a crush that didn't surprise me in the least. Everyone in the Wards knew how Missy felt about the older boy.
  
  "Okay, then it's settled." Victoria decided unilaterally. "We'll get these too." She turned, either ignoring or missing Missy's weak attempts to object. "After that, hmmm... where should we go next?"
  
  "Movie?" I interrupted, noticing the exhausted look on both Amy and Dean's faces. Not to mention the way that Missy flinched at the idea of going into yet another store.
  
  "Good idea." Crystal gave a nod, jumping to agree with the suggestion. "We could all use the chance to sit down and unwind."
  
  "What movie?" My younger teammate asked, looking a good bit more interested than she had at the idea of shopping more.
  
  "Something... funny." Crystal decided, glancing toward me. "Right?"
  
  "Right." I agreed. Definitely funny. We'd had enough action and horror earlier, and romance was just begging for trouble.
  
  "All right then." Victoria smiled and shrugged, going with the flow fairly well even though her shopping had been cut short. "Let's pay for Missy's clothes and then see a movie."
  
  Dean made a snorting noise as he started up to the front. "Let's? Does that mean you're contributing?" It was good natured teasing, I knew. Dean was part of one of the richest families in Brockton Bay.
  
  Sticking her tongue out at her boyfriend, Victoria sniffed. "I contribute in plenty of ways."
  
  Seeing Amy blanch, I turned to walk that way and interlinked her arm with mine, to her surprise. "Come on, Amy. While Missy's changing and those two are paying, we can go pick out the movie."
  
  I glanced toward Crystal, who gave an approving nod. "I'll stay here and help Missy with her clothes."
  
  "W-well... okay, I guess." Amy shrugged. "We can do that, Te-" She coughed. "I mean, umm, Madison."
  
  "Call me Mads." I replied, pulling her from the store. "That's what my friends do."
  
  We ended up watching two movies, a live action comedy and the latest computer animated family film. Both were fun, and by the time we left the theater, it was late. Darkness had settled over the city as we crossed the almost empty parking lot on the way back to Crystal's and Dean's cars. Unfortunately, we'd parked on the far side of the mall from where the theater was, and the mall itself was closed down when we got out of the movies. Which meant we had to hike through several lots to reach the right one.
  
  That was all right though. I didn't exactly mind the idea of taking a walk with friends. It was relaxing, even with everything that had happened. Amy had finally started to smile partway through the first movie, and she was giggling by the end. That was part of why I'd pushed for the second one, because it had done so much good for the other girl.
  
  I was also thinking about Mars. I'd very nearly given her a call to see if she wanted to come out to the movies with us. But in the end, I'd decided that Amy should be the focus, and that being around so many heroes might make the former-villain nervous. We were going to have to do something about that, but tonight hadn't been the time for it. I had however, been texting her throughout the day, save for when the movies were rolling. She had no idea how Pandora could have 'made friends' with Dinah, save for the fact that both had been held in the same room within Coil's base before the clone escaped, taking her fellow prisoner with her. Apparently none of the other Noelle-clones had ever made any indication that they were more than bloodthirsty, violent monsters, though the specifics had varied. Some clones had been dead set on destroying everything that their original self cared about, while others had been a sort of unsuppressed, violent version of the original who viciously went after anything or anyone that their first selves had disliked or disagreed with. Pandora had apparently been one of the latter types, yet we weren't seeing much of that kind of influence now.
  
  Shaking off those thoughts at the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps, I turned along with the others to see a pair of what looked like the most stereotypical gang members I had ever seen come rushing up to us. Both wore colors that clearly affiliated them with the Merchants, and their bodies had obviously been ravaged by years of drug use.
  
  The one in the lead, a dark skinned boy of about seventeen or so, made a little squealing noise. "Eeeeehhhhhyyy! Ey, you're Glory Girl! Glory Girl and ummm, ummm, Wetdream." He giggled a little at his own 'joke', and I had to repress the urge to gag. Neither of the gang members smelled like they had bathed in days, possibly weeks. They were filthy, and had clearly been hiding out somewhere without showers.
  
  "Laserdream." Crystal corrected smoothly. "Is there a problem?"
  
  "Yeah, there's a fucking problem!" The teenager blurted. "That crazy psycho-cunt's about to kill us!"
  
  "Shut the-shut the fuck up, man!" His companion, a slightly older white boy, shook his head. "We don't need no help. We got all the help we need right here." He patted his ratty green jacket, and I shot a look toward Crystal.
  
  The older girl caught it as well. "Okay, stop. No one's about to kill-"
  
  She was interrupted by the sound of a swarm of rats that came rushing along the pavement, squeaking and squealing. The rodents piled on top of each other, melting and reshaping themselves into the familiar figure of Pandora.
  
  The black gang member let out a girly squeal and threw himself behind Glory Girl, openly crying. "Don't-don't let her-don't, pleeeeeease! Arrest me, throw my ass in prison, I don't give a shit, just don't let her touch me!"
  
  Pandora was watching me, her head tilted with curiosity. "Our truce does not extend to the filth of the violent gangs."
  
  I swallowed, hesitating before looking toward Crystal. I'd let her take the lead, rather than risk blowing my cover in front of the gang members. Beside me, Dean and Missy were equally helpless to intervene at the moment.
  
  "We also can't really just walk away and let you kill them." The other girl said slowly, clearly weighing our options. "That's not what we do."
  
  Making a face as the cowering guy kept clinging to the back of her shirt, Victoria nodded nonetheless. "We won't let you kill them. They surrendered."
  
  "Surrendered?" The other gang member, the disagreeable one, blurted. "Man we ain't surrendered. Merchants get shit done! You want surrender? Surrender this! " From inside his ratty jacket, the thug yanked out a rather complicated looking pistol-shaped contraption. He pointed it at Pandora and pulled the trigger before any of us could react, sending a wide dark green beam straight at her.
  
  Crystal's hastily fired laser burned the weapon in half, but the damage had been done. A hole roughly the size of a softball had been burned through the middle of the clone's face and forehead, passing all the way through to the other side.
  
  "Yeah! Yeah, cunt!" The guy exclaimed, even as the weapon was shot out of his hand and he was thrown roughly to the ground by Glory Girl. "You ain't so tough, huh?! Whattaya think of that, bitch?! Laser gun! Fuck yeah, maybe I ain't the best tinker there is, but I can fuck you up! You ain't..."
  
  His voice trailed off in mid-sentence as he sat, staring along with the rest of us at Pandora. The clone hadn't fallen from having pretty much half of her head blown away. Before our eyes, the large hole closed up once more, her face restoring itself to what it had been moments earlier. The skin was pink and fresh for a moment before it resumed the same appearance as the rest of her. Finally, she opened her mouth and tilted her head as though to pop her neck.
  
  "That..." I said slowly, unthinkingly. "That killed you before. That killed your.. your brain..."
  
  She just gazed back at me coolly. "Vital organs remaining in easily known and repeatable locations was a design flaw. It has been corrected."
  
  I blinked a couple times at that. It was Missy who got it first. "You... You moved your brain?"
  
  Pandora regarded her for a moment before giving a single nod. "Moving the most vital organ to a semi-randomized location within each instance of ourselves drastically reduces the chance that a single blow will eliminate that instance."
  
  "I... you... that..." Dean stammered, shaking his head. "That's... impressive." He looked like he wasn't sure if he was actually impressed, or horrified. I was personally settling on both.
  
  "It is adaptation." Pandora corrected him. "We learn." Her eyes settled on the two gang members. "And we eliminate."
  
  "Oh god, oh god, oh god." The frightened thug who had been clinging to Glory Girl until she had moved tried to scramble backwards. "Don't hurt me-don't hurt me-don't-"
  
  Darkness claimed me, as it claimed each of the others. We fell, and my mind drifted through empty space, toward a massive form whose power dwarfed the stars that surrounded it...
  
  "Uggnnn..." I groaned who knew how long later, lifting my head and blinking away both the cobwebs, and the remnants of the dream, which fled my consciousness like sand through an hourglass.
  
  Pandora was up and on her feet, stalking toward the frightened thug, who was standing as well, though backpedaling away from her.
  
  "Pandora..." I said blearily, while around me, the others were all starting to sit up as well. "Don't..."
  
  She ignored me, focused as she was on the retreating gang member. "Escape? Intriguing. We would see how this 'escape' works."
  
  "What are you..." I managed to get out, pushing myself to my feet.
  
  Still ignoring me, Pandora leaned closer to the terrified thug. "Escape." She told me. "You will escape now."
  
  Whimpering, the guy took a step backward, then another. Then he turned as though to run. Instantly, he vanished from sight. All I'd done was blink, and he was gone. My mouth fell open. "Oh..." He'd triggered. The terrified boy had actually triggered and gained powers. That was what had knocked all of us, even his tinker friend, out.
  
  Gazing after the spot where the boy had been, Pandora simply said, "Intriguing. Useful." She glanced toward me, her eyes narrowing a little. "What are the star beings?"
  
  "Umm... what?" I shook my head. "What are you talking about?"
  
  "Interesting." She repeated, her voice thoughtful. Then she turned back the way the guy had gone. "We will hunt him. You may have the other. Another truce." She melted into a fog before I could protest, and then she was gone, chasing the poor thug who had vanished.
  
  "That was... weird. Did that guy just..." Missy said slowly from behind me. I turned to see the younger girl helping Dean to his feet.
  
  "Trigger?" Victoria finished her thought while helping Amy up. "Yeah, he definitely did."
  
  I moved to assist Crystal, and then the six of us turned our attention to the thug whose tinker-designed gun had failed to kill Pandora.
  
  "Uhhh..." The guy sat there, gazing up at us before chuckling nervously. I saw his drug-ruined teeth and smelled the nasty stench that permeated the air around him. "I surrender?"
  
  Interlude 6 - Coil
  
  April 13th
  
  For all the stigma around the concept of using child soldiers, The man known as Coil thought to himself. No one ever stops to think of how tiring it is for the man giving the orders.
  
  He would compare it to herding cats, but that was an exercise he'd actually attempted once, and it wasn't nearly as difficult as that old saying would have one believe. Cats were relatively simple to deal with once one understood what they wanted. Children were forever changing their minds or debating about every minor detail. Where a cat would simply take the food offered it, certain children would insist on knowing exactly where the food had come from and what sort of strings were attached.
  
  Or worse, they would plot about how to take the source of the food away from the hand that fed them.
  
  "All right, well, I brought them here like you asked, boss." Tattletale, one of the latter examples, indicated the two other girls and the boy that she had brought with her.
  
  Behind his mask, Coil smiled. He knew that the girl objected to his request that the remaining Undersiders, including their newest member, be brought to his lair so that he could discuss things with them in person. She clearly believed that as long as the other members of the team didn't know who their employer was, it kept them safer.
  
  Or perhaps she believed it lessened her own value. As good as he was at reading people, he'd never fully cemented just where Tattletale's morals and loyalty to her team lay, nor whether her own ambition was stronger than that loyalty. It all seemed to vary by the moment, day by day.
  
  He did know that, given the chance, she would turn on him in an instant. But her power, and her ability to convince people of what he needed, was too important to throw away. So, for the moment, he had simply resolved to stay several steps ahead of any plan she might concoct. There were various ways that he insured this, ranging from bugging her quarters, to having her followed, to more... direct methods.
  
  For a moment, he took a moment to simply appreciate the quiet solitude that his other self was experiencing. Rather than deal with the Undersiders problems, the other Coil had gone home early to enjoy a pleasant, simple night of reading and relaxation.
  
  In this reality, however, he had to focus. Injecting as much warmth into his voice as he could, the man extended a gloved hand toward Heartbreaker's son. "Regent, I presume. A pleasure to finally meet you in person."
  
  Rather than shake his hand, as any decently mannered person would, the arrogant child simply interlocked his own hands behind his head and rocked backwards. "Nice digs you've got here. Does it come with a moat full of sharks or a lava pit?"
  
  Ignoring that, as the boy had ignored his hand, Coil focused on the elder of the two girls. "And you would be... I'm told you prefer Bitch."
  
  Again, this one ignored his offered hand, making him grind his teeth just a little. She rolled her eyes and went back to petting the dog at her feet. "Whatever, just tell us what you want now."
  
  "Soon, I promise." The man assured the girl. He didn't want the group here any longer than they wanted to be there.
  
  Turning his attention toward the last, youngest, and newest member of the group, he asked, "And you would be Grue's sister. Have you settled on a name yet?" The girl had only gained her powers two days earlier, on that night that her brother had been captured. The very idea of yet another person she cared about abandoning her (not that Grue's capture had been the boy's choice) had caused the girl to manifest the ability to prevent anyone she touched from leaving at all. At least until they were touched again by anyone.
  
  "Freezetag." She replied, squinting into the eyes of his mask as though trying to read him. "Now that we're all introduced, how about you tell us how we're saving my brother?"
  
  Before he could respond to the insolence, a buzzing inside the pocket of his costume alerted him to a phone call. At the same time, his other self was interrupted in his relaxation by the same call. He ignored the call in this reality, letting his other self answer it.
  
  "I will secure the time and route of Grue's transfer." Coil assured the Undersiders. "But that will not be for a couple of days. In the meantime, there is another job, a timing critical job, that I require."
  
  "Bullshit." The newly dubbed Freezetag said sharply, shaking her head. "No way no how. We get Grue back or we don't do a damn thing."
  
  "Tag," Tattletale warned. "Take it easy. The boss is good for his word. He said we'll get Grue back as soon as they transfer him." She turned her attention back to the man himself then. "But I already told you, we don't have the bodies for a big job. You want us to get people's attention, great, but we don't have Grue to cover our escape. And Freezetag barely understands her power. We need time, or more help."
  
  She was digging, he knew. Trying to find out what resources he had that he could loan them, what capes he could let their team use. That would give her even more information for her power to work with to possibly find a weakness.
  
  Meanwhile, the other Coil, or Thomas Calvert, as he was at home and out of his costume, picked up the phone and looked at the ID briefly before answering. "Circus. Is it done?"
  
  Circus was one whom he had originally thought might make a useful addition to the Undersiders, but it turned out she worked far too well alone, and not at all well as part of a team. So he simply paid her whenever he had something important that needed to be done, such as now.
  
  "Good news and bad news. I gave the racist bitch the vial you got the bomb maker to fix up, along with the instructions about giving it to her ex."
  
  "And the bad news?" He asked, keeping his voice calm and even.
  
  "That new solo hero was hiding nearby." Came the reply. "Think they call him Beatbro?"
  
  "Browbeat." Calvert barely resisted the urge to growl the name. It was important that his people always think that he was perfectly in control. "Do you have him?"
  
  "Got him just as he was about to take off." Circus affirmed. "You want me to end him?"
  
  He was about to agree, when another thought occurred to him.
  
  In the reality where Coil was talking to the Undersiders, he canceled his other self. It would have appeared as though he'd simply paused to think for a moment. Then he reached into his pocket, withdrew the phone that had stopped vibrating, and called the number back.
  
  Circus answered. "Good timing, I've got good news and bad-"
  
  "Bring him here." He said simply, cutting the young woman off. "I believe that the situation may still be salvaged, and he could be of use." Without giving her time to respond to that, he cut the call short.
  
  Honestly, that was a part of his power that he would never tire of. Gaining information from one of his people in one of his realities, then using that information in conversation with that same person in his other reality, leaving them confused as to how he could possibly know what he knew. It helped spread the idea of his infallibility, which was important to his mission and to his image.
  
  "I believe a possible solution has presented itself." He said to the waiting Undersiders. "An... unfortunate incident has caused a potential snag in one of my longer term plans." Coil hadn't meant to reveal the extent of what he was doing to any of them just yet, but if this new idea was going to pan out, they would need to know just a little more than planned.
  
  He explained about the solo hero overhearing his other associate and Purity, and that he was now being brought to them.
  
  "How the hell does that help us?" Bitch demanded. "He's not on our side."
  
  It was Tattletale who spoke. "You want Regent to use his power on him. His full power."
  
  That got Regent's attention. "Yeah? Risky. Could end up blowing my cover, get all sorts of bad attention."
  
  "He's solo, and unknown." Coil assured them. "It will be assumed that he simply changed sides."
  
  Tattletale was shaking her head. "I'm not sure about enslaving a guy, boss." She was clearly choosing her words carefully, watching his reaction. "It's kind of... extreme."
  
  "Hey, what?" Freezetag was clearly confused. "Who said anything about enslaving someone?" Beside her, Bitch frowned a bit, but said nothing.
  
  Standing still for a second, Coil split his timelines again.
  
  In the first, he let out a breath, and then pulled the pistol from its place at his back. Barely taking the time to aim, he fired a single shot into Regent's forehead before the boy even knew he was in danger. Then he tracked to the right and shot Freezetag between the eyes as she jolted in surprise. Tracking further to the right put a third bullet into Bitch, followed by a fourth to her dog.
  
  Tattletale was attempting to throw herself out of the way when he fired twice, taking the arrogant girl out at the knees. Her scream of pain was much nicer to hear than her constant arguments.
  
  "I will do as I please." His voice was cold as he stood over the girl, gazing down at her whimpering form. His two shots had destroyed her knees, leaving the fallen girl in blinding agony. Slowly, he reached down, took hold of her simple domino mask, and tugged it away. "You would do well to remember that, and to cease testing my patience."
  
  Dropping the mask to the side, he dropped the pistol and produced a switchblade, which he used to draw a thin line of blood down the girl's cheek. "Let us hope that enough of an impression is made that your other self makes better choices in the future."
  
  In the other timeline, the Undersiders, still living and well, stood and waited for his response. His anger was being abated in a healthy manner (in his opinion), and now the man was ready to be more reasonable and explain himself in this reality. "Allow me to rephrase." Coil kept his voice calm. "I cannot allow this boy to run free. I had thought to simply kill him..." He watched this reality's Tattletale flinch at the suggestion in spite of her attempt at a cool demeanor, while his other self drew forth agonized screams from his version of the girl. It really made coping with the girl's constant attempts at undermining him that much more palatable. Especially when he knew that every time he did it, the girl would get a terrible sense of foreboding and certainty that he would do terrible things to her and her friends, yet he never actually did. At least from her perspective.
  
  "I would kill him." He continued. "But he may be useful to your team. So long as he remains under Regent's command and is therefore not a threat to me, I would allow him to live. Doing so would also give the Undersiders some much needed muscle, I believe."
  
  Exchanging glances with the other members of her team, Tattletale finally nodded. "Then, I guess we'll take him."
  
  "Excellent." This Coil canceled his other timeline, the therapeutic massacre restoring his patience so that he was almost happy. "I'm so glad we could reach an understanding."
  
  Present Day
  
  "Your request is denied, Mr. Calvert." The dispassionate voice of Doctor Mother came through the phone that Coil held to his ear. "We wish for the girl to remain alive at this point. As you know, we are not in the habit of throwing away useful parahumans, and her ability to predict imminent danger may well end up being vital, if nurtured properly."
  
  He resisted the urge to growl, barely. Maintaining the illusion of being unflappable was more difficult with the leader of Cauldron, one of the only people in the world who knew just what his power was, and how it worked. He also owed her for everything, and thus he had no choice but to follow her wishes. "She could complicate matters for me." He tried to explain patiently once again. "I still do not understand how she can sense my split realities, or why. And now the escaped clone is calling her... useful."
  
  "Yes, the clone." Doctor Mother replied. "At some point, we will of course require an explanation of why we were not informed of your acquisition of this... Noelle."
  
  Cursing inwardly, Calvert shook his head. "You were going to meet them anyway." He lied to her as easily as he had lied to the Travelers. "It was part of the deal for their assistance in these matters. But that leaves the matter of the Panacea clone, and the Clements girl."
  
  "Either could be useful to our purposes." The careful woman went quiet after that for a moment before continuing. "Find a way of containing the clone so that we can study her. The abilities she has... well, they could prove to be as vital as any research we've ever done."
  
  "Useful, and... worth a fair amount, then." Calvert prompted.
  
  The woman sighed. "Yes, if you secure the clone, you may consider your debt paid."
  
  It wouldn't be easy, of course, but he would find a way. "And the Clements girl."
  
  "She must survive." Doctor Mother said again, in a tone that brooked no argument. "That being said, it would not be a bad thing if her power was... nurtured. We would like to know the extent of it, and just how far it, and she, can be pushed. Perhaps, given the proper motivation, she may be able to sense things from further away, or gain more details. Any advancement on that end would be... commendable."
  
  "I'll see what I can do." He replied, keeping his voice as detached as hers had been as he watched one of his secret weapons through the glass window overlooking the room where she was training. "So long as she survives...?"
  
  "As long as she survives, you have no dispute with us." The woman confirmed. "Now, I'm quite busy."
  
  "I'm sure you are." He acknowledged. "I'll let you know when I have something, on either front."
  
  She disconnected without another word, and Calvert split his timelines.
  
  In one, he hurled the phone at the wall just to watch it burst into pieces, before screaming. "YOU STUPID, ARROGANT, NASTY BITCH! If I want to kill someone-" He turned, using both arms to furiously sweep the contents of his desk onto the floor before raising his foot to kick the desk over onto its side. "I'll damn well kill them!"
  
  Taking his knife, Calvert slammed it into the wall once, then twice, and then a third time before dragging the blade through it to make a long, ugly gash. "She can detect my power, you ignorant cunt! That means she could know that I HAVE a power, which ruins every plan I have!"
  
  Rearing back, he put his foot through the screen of the monitor that he had shoved onto the floor, then drew his foot back again and kicked it across the room as he bellowed, " WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO FIND ONE FUCKING COMPETENT PERSON WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT WHAT I WANT?!"
  
  "Not to mention!" He continued to vent while taking his pistol from its place on the shelf. He aimed at the sound of footsteps approaching. The first of his men that came running in to see what was happening took a bullet in the right eye. "That stupid fucking clone! It was supposed to keep the Travelers happy, keep them working, but it had to run away! It left, it fucking left, and it-"
  
  He walked forward, firing six more shots to take down three more of his own men, then turned and hurled the empty gun at the wall while screaming the next words. " TOOK MY PET PSYCHIC WITH IT!"
  
  "And now!" At that point, he resorted to repeatedly and furiously kicking the fallen bodies of his men. "The fucking clone is running around calling Tether USEFUL, and that fucking BITCH of a doctor won't let me deal with the situation!"
  
  In the other timeline, his other self had simply stood with his eyes closed, breathing while absorbing the benefit of his outburst with none of the consequences. Finally, his eyes opened and he erased that timeline, before walking calmly out of his office.
  
  Striding purposefully down to the training room, Coil cleared his throat to get the occupant's attention. Once the girl known as Shadow Stalker gave it to him, reluctantly, he spoke. "It's time to begin."
  
  Lifting her head curiously, sweating profusely from her training, Sophia asked, "You taking her out already?"
  
  "No." He shook his head. "No, Tether lives. But it's time to... begin taking away the things that she cares about. It's time to see just how good her danger sense is." He looked at the girl purposefully. "Can you do that? Can you take away the things... the people, that she cares for?"
  
  Sophia hesitated for just a second, long enough for him to gently brush his finger over the ring that he wore, the ring that held the detonator that would kill her instantly. Then she straightened and snarled. "No problem. No problem at all."
  
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  Arc 7: Choices
  Notes:
  
  Moka-girl - Hey, thanks for adding the story to your community! More exposure and more thoughts is always good. Thanks for your comments on each chapter, and yeah, I put up all that was done at once rather than hold chapters that were already finished hostage. Which may have had the unintended effect of dumping in too much for people to read at one time. ;)
  
  Starfox5 - Glad you like Pandora, as well as Marissa. I don't know if 'like' Coil is the right word, but... I'm glad you appreciate his evilness? As for Danny, he'll show up again at some point, hopefully with a better fate than he seems to have gotten so far. :/
  
  Anyway, I hope you all keep enjoying it, even though this next Arc is rather... dark. But not excessively so, I hope.
  
  7.01
  
  "So why 'Kid Win' anyway?" I asked Chris while hopping from foot to foot to stay loose, so that I'd be ready to move the instant I needed to. I was in costume, save for my hood and mask, so that I wouldn't get accustomed to moving without the uniform and armor, and then be totally thrown off when I tried to do the same things with it on.
  
  In the two days that had passed since the night with Pandora and the two Merchants, I hadn't heard anything about the guy who had triggered, but the tinker thug had been taken into custody. Nor had there been any sign of Emma. Her father was completely freaking out, constantly demanding that everyone from Armsmaster down to the parking lot sweeper look for her. I'd been checking my profile on PHO every couple hours, but she hadn't responded to my message yet.
  
  No one that I knew had seen Pandora thus far, but it seemed as though she was following our deal. Certain gang members and other would-be minor villains that had been trickling into the city in the wake of the collapse of the Empire Eighty-Eight had continued to disappear without a trace. It wasn't enough to completely stem the tide, and there was still plenty of newcomers who either hadn't heard of how dangerous the streets could be for their kind or didn't believe the reports. Either way, we still had plenty to do, even with the whispers going around about the unstoppable creature that was eating any villains who crossed her path.
  
  It made me wonder about a couple of things. First, about just how bad the streets would have been if Pandora hadn't been out there picking off the stragglers and outliers. Second, just what was going to happen if Pandora did get out of control, if she decided to go back on her word or find some other loop hole. Or worse, what would happen if someone stupidly decided to provoke her.
  
  The fact remained, I was going to have to find the girl and figure out some way to communicate. She thought I was useful against Coil, which seemed to make me the best suited to actually talking without ending up dead for saying the wrong thing. The trouble was actually finding Pandora.
  
  On the other side of the training room, Chris fidgeted with the complicated backpack system that he'd been building lately. Two different wide-mouthed barrels were mounted on either side of it, capable of rotating to shoot in almost any direction. "I dunno." He replied. "It sounded cool at the time. I'm probably gonna have to change it if I go into the Protectorate after graduation. Can't be an adult hero called Kid."
  
  "How old was Billy the Kid?" I wondered. "It could be an homage."
  
  "Winny the Kid?" Dennis suggested from where he was sitting. He winked at me, just before there was a whoomph noise as a foam ball smacked into the side of his head. The red-haired boy yelped in surprise as he fell sideways and out of his chair.
  
  "Let anyone else hear that suggestion," Chris warned. "And the next ball won't be foam."
  
  "Are you sure that one was?" Dennis complained, rubbing the side of his head as he picked himself up off the floor. "Aren't you supposed to be shooting those at Mads, anyway?"
  
  Chris just smiled at that and shrugged. "Had to make sure the chambers were clear." He looked to me then. "Ready, Maddy?"
  
  I nodded, while Dennis muttered about how of course I got a warning.
  
  At my agreement, Chris indicated his left side. "Gonna take it slow at first, with lots of warning. Left barrel, one third speed, on three." He counted down slowly, then activated the barrel.
  
  With another whoomph noise, a second foam ball shot out of the barrel, arcing up toward my side of the room. As it flew lazily through the air, I extended a hand, focusing on creating a tether-line between my glove and the ball. As soon as it attached, I gave a tug so that the ball altered course and came to my hand.
  
  "Pretty good." Chris acknowledged as I tossed the ball away. "But that was a test run. I'm going to start alternating. I'll still count down, but I'm not gonna tell you which barrel. After a few more, we'll move up to half speed. Then we'll lose the count down once you get three in a row, and finally, we'll move up to full speed."
  
  Having resumed his seat, Dennis called, "Don't forget, we've only got a couple hours before the transfer."
  
  "Right..." I said slowly while Chris was counting down. "The transfer. That'll be fun." Another whoomph announced the launch of a third ball, and I quickly hooked a line between it and Dennis's arm.
  
  Yelping as the ball bounced off his arm, Dennis still caught it before it could fall, and threw it at me. "Hey, I'm not supposed to be a target."
  
  I just grinned. Because I'd kept the line between the ball and Dennis, all I had to do after he threw it was give another yank so that the ball came right back at him. His attempt to dodge was futile since the line was attached directly to him.
  
  That time, he slapped the ball with a hand, freezing it in the air. "Try to hit me with the ball now." A quick series of whoomph sounds came, just as the cocky smirk left his face. Diving to the floor and covering his head as an avalanche of balls careened off of him, Dennis shouted toward Chris. "I wasn't talking to you!"
  
  The ABB hit Bakuda's transfer van hard. One minute the van had been peacefully passing just below the building where Kid Win and I stood on the roof, and in the next, a pair of small explosions blew out the front tires of the vehicle and sent it skidding sideways.
  
  Even before the van finished skidding to a halt, at least two dozen ABB troops poured out of both nearby alleys, rushing toward the vehicle.
  
  For just a second, I stared. "They want her back, bad." I said to Chris while pointing a hand down toward the street and attaching a tether line.
  
  "Makes sense." Kid Win replied, adjusting his flightpack. He'd spent most of the last few days reassembling the remains of his board into this current backpack shape that would still let him fly. It still wasn't as fast or as maneuverable as the board had been before he'd spontaneously taken it apart for whatever project he'd been doing, but it would work for our purposes. "They already lost Lung to the Bird Cage. Lee doesn't wanna be the only cape they've got."
  
  The two of us descended to the ground, putting ourselves between the damaged van and the rushing troops.
  
  "Man," I called out while shaking my head in disappointment. "I know it's hard to hail a cab in this city, but you guys have gone way overboard."
  
  The reaction of the nearest five men was to point their weapons, but the red line that popped up leading to Kid Win gave me enough warning. Before they could fire, I attached a line between myself and Chris, using it to propel the two of us away from each other while the bullets tore up the pavement where we'd been.
  
  As my line sent him flying sideways, Kid unhooked the rifle from his pack and leveled it at the group. A single pull of his trigger sent out a concussive blast that blew three of the ABB guys tumbling backwards, and made the other two stumble.
  
  Before that pair could recover, I used a pair of lines to yank their weapons away, then another line to pull myself to them, where my gauntlet-covered fists put them down just hard enough that they wouldn't want to get up any time soon.
  
  "I mean seriously, have you considered public transportation?" I continued my previous thought, even as two more men tried to shoot me. I launched myself skyward, up and over their arc of fire. Landing behind the pair, I attached a line between either of their backs and then to a parked bus nearby. "They're really quite convenient." I pointed out as the pair was yanked violently into the side of the bus before dropping.
  
  Turning toward the next group, I made an exaggerated shrug. "Just seems like this whole 'attack people as awesome and brilliant as the Wards' thing was really shooting yourselves in the foot." Before they fired, I attached their barrels to either of their feet. At the resulting howls of agony as the gunshots blew through their shoes, I added, "See what I did there?"
  
  Somehow I didn't think they appreciated my jokes.
  
  "Little help, Tether!" Kid was having trouble. He'd dealt with at least half of the thugs that had been there, but even more were taking their places. I caught three running guys, attached the lines to each of them, and then yanked them together so that they all collapsed into a pile of flailing limbs and curses.
  
  It wasn't enough. For every couple that one of the two of us managed to deal with, three more kept coming. It got to the point where I was forced to focus almost entirely on avoiding gunfire and keeping an eye on Kid in case they tried to swarm him.
  
  Apparently saying that the ABB wanted Bakuda back was a severe understatement. They were throwing everything they had at the transport.
  
  All except for..
  
  "Lee!" Kid Win called out the warning, and I jerked my gaze that way to find Oni Lee. The third and final member of the ABB's trio of cape leadership, Oni's power was essentially a mixture of teleportation and extremely brief duplication. He could teleport and leave a copy of himself behind. It would last for several seconds before it dissolving into a cloud of ash. He tended to use it in nasty ways, by making the equivalent of repeatable suicide bombers. He was not a nice guy. And now he had brought himself into the battle. I caught sight of him briefly, standing at the edge of the street with his distinctive black bodysuit and ornate Japanese demon mask before that body fell apart into the white ash. He'd already teleported.
  
  Seeing the black line attached to Kid, I instantly put a line against his back and yanked him out of the way. A second later, Oni Lee appeared right behind where he had been. The grenade that the Lee had been holding exploded a second later, but thankfully it only took out Lee. Or rather, the clone he'd obviously left behind just before teleporting again. I wasn't stupid enough to think he'd actually blow himself up on accident.
  
  I put Kid down near me, turning in a slow circle while keeping an eye on the van. The remaining ABB troops were still surrounding us, but the appearance of Oni Lee made them shy about approaching. They clearly didn't trust their leader not to blow them up in an attempt to get either of us.
  
  Another line popped up on Chris. I launched both of us skyward before Lee could follow through on his attack, leaving the resulting grenade explosion to blow apart the pavement where we'd been standing.
  
  "He's going for the van!" Kid Win called to me. He oriented his flight pack that way, and I put a line down to pull myself in the same direction.
  
  It was too late. Lee had already blown the doors off of the van, and he was stepping up into the back of the van. I landed just a bit ahead of Chris and took three steps to reach the ruined vehicle doors before hauling myself up. "Wait!" I called out.
  
  Gazing over his shoulder at me as he unhooked the restraints on Bakuda's prison bed. Though his demon mask covered his face, I could sense his smirk. He'd won. He'd freed Bakuda, and now all he had to do was teleport away with her.
  
  He stooped slightly to gather the limp figure up into his arms. Then he froze, entirely.
  
  From the pile of blankets that had been on the cot, the figure that Oni Lee had been 'rescuing' sat up. "Myyyy hero." Clockblocker announced in a high, falsetto voice before sighing dreamily. He patted Lee's frozen cheek.
  
  "Damn it!" Kid Win reached us just then. "Did I miss it? Did I miss the look on his face when he realized we tricked him and Bakuda wasn't even here?"
  
  "He was frozen before he could realize it." I pointed out. "You can see the look on his face when he comes out of it."
  
  "Good point." He replied.
  
  Leaving Dennis to keep Oni frozen, the two of us turned to gaze back at the remaining group of ABB soldiers, who didn't look like they had any idea of what to do.
  
  "So here's the deal!" I called out. "We totally just punk'd your boss. So you could keep fighting us now..."
  
  "Or you could surrender." A voice that was not my own finished. The small army of thugs turned to find Aegis, Vista, and Gallant waiting on the far side of them, trapping the group between us.
  
  "Personally," Aegis announced, hovering a foot off the ground. "I'm kind of hoping you choose to fight. Standing on the sidelines waiting for Lee to think the coast was clear was boring as hell. I could use the exercise."
  
  The ABB troops all stared at one another. Then, one by one, they dropped their weapons and fell to their knees. The last of their super-powered bosses had been captured.
  
  They were done.
  
  7.02
  
  "And here it is." At Chris's announcement, a photograph landed in the middle of the table in the Wards HQ, narrowly missing one of several pizzas that were scattered along the wooden surface. "The picture of Oni Lee's face when he found out we tricked him and that he was locked securely in PRT custody."
  
  "How'd they transport him?" I asked while snagging a third piece of the double pepperoni. "I mean, they couldn't move him as long as Clockblocker's power was working, right?"
  
  It was Dennis who answered that. "Easy. They just covered his head with a bag and had a doctor wait. As soon as the time stop wore off, he got injected with 'go to sleep juice'. By the time he woke up, they already had him disarmed and in a security cell."
  
  Chris picked up the explanation then. "They've got all kinds of precautions for teleporters there. Since Lee can only teleport line of sight, they're keeping him in a cell with no sight lines anywhere but the inside of the cell. There's a separate vestibule just outside the cell that they keep dark. Anyone that wants to get in the cell goes in the first door, shuts it, then opens the second door to get in the cell itself. They've also got shock cuffs on his wrists in case he tries anything."
  
  "So we won." Missy took a long sip from her own drink. "We totally took the last of the ABB down." She was smiling with satisfaction at a job well done. I couldn't help but think about myself at thirteen. My priorities back then had been far from 'beat up a gang of criminals and put them in prison'. I didn't even used to like watching movies like that. Yet Vista had been doing this stuff since a month before she turned eleven.
  
  That kid was something else. Not that I'd call her a kid to her face. She'd hurt me.
  
  I used the crust of my latest slice of pizza to poke Dennis then. "You've still gotta help me practice with that game. When's that happening?"
  
  Snatching the crust from me, the red-headed boy took a bite from it. "First night that we both have off? I've got patrol in a few hours. What about tomorrow?"
  
  I started to shake my head. "Nah, tomorrow night's my turn."
  
  From the other end of the table, Dean waved a hand. "I'll cover tomorrow if you'll get my patrol the next night. Vicky wanted to go out."
  
  "Great!" I chirped and caught the remainder of my crust out of Dennis's hand, popping it into my mouth. "It's a deal." I glanced toward him for confirmation.
  
  Dennis nodded, taking a long gulp from his soda. "Works for me. How come you're so interested in learning how to play that game now anyway?"
  
  I hesitated, then shrugged. "Sundancer's into it. I figured if I learned enough to at least not completely suck, we could play together."
  
  Carlos, sitting with the chair backwards, raised an eyebrow. "And that would be your contact from the Travelers? The one who won't come in and talk to anyone but you?"
  
  "It's complicated." I muttered, not really wanting to get too much into it. "She wants to change, but there's a lot of other issues. Not to mention that Coil, whoever he is-" I stated that part firmly, intent that the supervillain was not Mr. Hebert. "- has way too many contacts in the PRT. If she comes forward, he's going to find out about it."
  
  Setting her glass down to take another slice for herself, Missy shook her head. "What else can she do? Just hide forever?"
  
  "We figure out who Coil is and expose him." I said, trying to express more confidence than I felt in that moment. "As soon as it's safe, I'll work on convincing Sundancer that it's safe to come in." I hesitated, then looked up at the rest of my team. "Thanks, guys. For... trusting me. For trusting her, and not pushing things too much."
  
  "You're one of us." Chris pointed out, his smile infectious. "We look out for each other."
  
  "Too bad Sophia never figured that out." Dean said quietly, shaking his head.
  
  Tossing her unfinished slice down, Missy sighed. "Where is she, anyway?"
  
  "Yeah," Carlos glanced my way. "I don't suppose Sundancer has any other thoughts on Coil's plan for Stalker?"
  
  I shook my head and sighed. "The Travelers weren't part of that plan. Stupid Coil keeping stupid plans stupid secret."
  
  "Stupid secret?" Dennis raised an eyebrow. "I'm not sure that's the right way to say that."
  
  I answered that by sticking my tongue out at him, while stealing one of his breadsticks to take a bite. "Point is, as soon we find Coil, we can bring Sundancer in." At least, I hoped we could. I'd have to explain some of the... other stuff at the time. But first things first.
  
  "Sounds good." Carlos drummed his fingers along the table thoughtfully. "All we have to do is figure out who he is."
  
  "Well sure." Dennis spread his arms wide. "But what are we gonna do with the rest of the afternoon?"
  
  A couple of hours later, a popcorn kernel arced through the air and fell into my open mouth. Smiling in satisfaction, I chewed and swallowed. "Yum, salt plus butter equals delicious."
  
  "Sounds like someone's ready to start getting math homework again." Marissa teased. We were on her couch. She was sitting, while I laid with the back of my head on her leg. It was... comfortable.
  
  Still, I made a face at her. "Did you have to remind me? Pretty soon I'm going to have to figure out how to balance school and work again." I tossed another bit of popcorn from the bowl on the floor up, catching it with my mouth.
  
  I'd come over to the small apartment that she had managed to get, so that the two of us could watch a movie. It was one of the films that had been imported from the Earth that she was from. So far, we hadn't actually started it, since I'd been catching the other girl up on what had happened earlier with Oni Lee.
  
  "Okay that's impossible." Mars complained after I had caught the popcorn kernel again. "You are so using your powers. That time you weren't even looking when you threw it."
  
  I made a sound as if I was offended. "What, you doubt my talent? I do have other skills besides my powers, you know." I sniffed, turning it into a pout.
  
  "Awwww." Mars groaned. "That isn't fair. No puppy sulk." She moved a pillow to cover my face, which clearly broke my pout's hold over her.
  
  I said something muffledly into the pillow, until she moved it up just far enough that I could talk, still using it as a fluffy shield. "I said, besides, I can't attach a line to my skin or mouth or anything, remember? How could I get it to come to me?"
  
  Lowering the pillow to squint at me thoughtfully, Marissa spoke slowly. "That's... a good point, I guess. So how did you get to be so good at it, anyway?"
  
  I grinned impishly while admitting, "Attaching a line from the popcorn to the side of your pants that my head is resting against. Don't have to see what I'm attaching things to when I can feel them." To demonstrate, I threw a piece of popcorn off toward the television and then opened my mouth to catch it as it came flying back. "Yum."
  
  She groaned out loud and hit me lightly with the pillow. "Cheater."
  
  "You know it." I shot back, grabbing the pillow to pull away from her and hugged it to my chest.
  
  "Speaking of how you can't affect living things," She began. "What was that law called? You know, the umm... Manson Effect."
  
  "Manton Effect." I replied. Granted, I only knew off the top of my head because of the study work I'd put into the Wards and the Protectorate. "It's named after some scientist or something that figured out the rule. Or at least the guy who put a name to it."
  
  "That's the one that says that powers that affect living things don't affect nonliving things, and vice versa." She said slowly, thoughtfully.
  
  "Usually." I confirmed. "It usually works that way. That's why my lines won't connect to people. And why they wouldn't connect to anything Pandora had on, because she wasn't actually wearing them. The 'clothes' were just... part of her." I made a face at the thought, briefly. There was something a little gross and creepy about the whole thing. Not that 'Pandora' and 'creepy' was some new combination.
  
  Shaking off that thought, I shrugged my shoulders. "Of course, some capes have figured out ways to bypass it somehow. Like Narwhal."
  
  "She's the one with the forcefields?" Marissa confirmed. When I raised an eyebrow at her lack of certainty, she nudged me with her leg. "Gimme a break, I've been a little preoccupied since the Simurgh threw me out here with the others." She went quiet then, swallowing. "A little busy trying to help Noelle."
  
  Reaching back and up, I caught hold of the other girl's hand and squeezed it. "We'll help her, Mars. I haven't forgotten. We'll find a way to get Noelle back to normal. I mean, as soon as Clockblocker shows me which buttons for that game you like so much won't make my characters immediately commit seppuku, you'll need all the help you can get to keep up with me."
  
  After remaining limp for a moment in my grasp, Mars returned the squeeze. "I know." She said quietly before managing a smile. "And when Noelle's back to normal, she'll kick both our asses at that game, no matter how many tips you get from Clockboy." The levity lasted for only a second before she sighed. "I'm just not sure how we're actually going to fix her."
  
  I sat up and put myself next to her on the couch, putting my free arm around the other girl. "The Protectorate has all kinds of scientists, Mars. They've even got bio-tinkers. There's gotta be something. If nothing else, we'll figure out more about the stuff you guys took. If someone made those powers, then they can unmake them." I squeezed her a little. "What do you remember about them?"
  
  Marissa didn't even have to think about it. She recited, clearly from memory. "Six canisters. The note inside congratulated whoever it was on their 'newly purchased superpowers'"
  
  "Purchased superpowers..." I said slowly, shaking my head in wonder. "I still don't get how that's even possible."
  
  "We're living proof." The other girl pointed out. "There were more papers, I really wish I'd read all of them. Krouse did, and so did Jess. There was something about the impact that one of the canisters could have on the client's cerebral palsy. Each of the canisters was labeled with a bunch of letters and numbers, and a few code words along with the percentage of the mixture they made up. Mine, the one I took, had three of them. Fifty-five percent of something called 'Prince', thirty percent of something called 'Aegis', and fifteen percent of something called 'Balance'. Balance was on all of them though, so whatever it is, I think it has to do with not letting the powers get out of control or something."
  
  I hesitated. "So they all had balance in the mixture, and Noelle only took half?"
  
  Swallowing, Marissa nodded. "Trust me, I thought of that. Too fucking late, but I thought of it." Eyes closing, she growled. "If only Krouse had just given her the whole canister, maybe this wouldn't be happening to her!" After a moment, she lowered her head. "Or none of it."
  
  "She might have died without what he gave her." I pointed out as gently as I could.
  
  "At least she wouldn't be what she is now!" Marissa's eyes opened once more to stare at me. "This... this thing that she's turning into, we kind of think it might be some sort of Proto-Endbringer. That's how dangerous she might be, Mads. That's how... how bad it might get. And if we have to fight her, if we have to stop her... I'm not sure I... I'm not sure I can even..."
  
  She choked a little, and I embraced her tightly, pulling the other girl against me. "Hey, hey. That's enough for now. This is supposed to be a fun afternoon. Fun, remember? The ABB's down for the count, Pandora hasn't destroyed the city yet, and there's no more fighting to do right now. We'll figure out the rest, one day at a time."
  
  After a moment, Marissa returned the hug tightly and murmured. "Thank you, Maddy." She rested her head against my shoulder briefly, breathing in and out. "For the record, you give really good hugs."
  
  Smiling in spite of myself, I shrugged one shoulder and replied quietly. "I've heard something to that effect."
  
  We sat there like that for another few seconds, before she straightened with obvious reluctance. "Well, if I'm gonna stop dwelling, we should probably start the movie."
  
  "Right." I attached a line from the remote on the nearby table to the couch, then caught it as the thing flew. "Let's watch the movie. Fun time."
  
  I never had the chance to hit play. In the next moment, an obnoxious, loud whining alarm blaring from somewhere outside. It sounded like an air raid siren.
  
  The color fled from my face, and I dropped the remote. The television was already showing images directing people on how to evacuate or find the shelter nearest to where they were.
  
  "Endbringer." I said over the noise of the siren, my voice hollow. "An Endbringer here. Leviathan, it has to be."
  
  "You're going, aren't you?" Marissa said, her own voice shaken. She had taken my hand and wasn't letting go. "You're not going to a shelter, you're going to help."
  
  "I have to." I told her, even as the fear swelled up inside. "I can see when people are about to die. Maybe I can... help make a difference." I pushed myself up. "I have to be there."
  
  "Wait." She kept hold of my hand, rising with me. "Let me change. I'll... I'll go with you."
  
  "You don't have to do that, Mars." I told her quickly. "You can go to a shelter. You'd be safe there. Safer anyway."
  
  She just stared at me for a long moment, and I knew how much she wanted to agree, how much she wanted to abandon the desperate, possibly fatal fight to others and go hide in a shelter. I knew because I felt the same way. It was a fear that made it hard to stand, a terror that made my knees shake, that brought tears to my eyes at the very thought of it. I wanted to run away.
  
  Still, I wasn't going to. And as I watched Mars, I knew she wasn't going to either.
  
  "I do have to." She said, both resigned and determined. "After everything bad I did, if I don't help now... then there was no point to changing in the first place."
  
  I swallowed at how close that hit to my own feelings. Though I tried to make my voice light, the severity of the situation hammered into both of us with each repetition of the blaring siren.
  
  "All right. Well... let's go beat up an Endbringer."
  
  7.03
  
  "You're not coming to the shelter, are you?" My dad's voice through the phone that I held to my ear was as certain as it was worried. "They're saying we have enough warning this time to actually make it to safety before Leviathan gets here." Those words carried a faint sound of hope.
  
  "I can't, Dad." I said slowly, flinching when I thought of what that answer had to be doing to him, and to my mother. "They need me here. I can help. My lines direct me to people that are in trouble. I can't just walk away from that. Even if I wanted to, I'd just be sitting in that shelter, watching my death lines pop up and then disappear the entire time. I... I couldn't live like that, Dad."
  
  A regretful, but understanding sigh escaped him, and we were both quiet for a few moments. While I waited, I glanced around the briefing room that everyone was gathering in. And by everyone, I meant everyone . Not only was the entire local Protectorate team, our Wards group, and all of New Wave present, but there were also members from at least two other Ward Teams, and the entire Boston Protectorate including the up and coming Dauntless, whose ability to infuse items with a bit of power, gradually gaining in strength every day with no known ceiling to his power. There were also a few other scattered heroes from across the state who had made it in time, and each of the Triumvirate had showed up with members from their own teams. Only the seriousness of the situation had kept me from utterly geeking out at seeing Legend again, not to mention Eidolon and Alexandria.
  
  Beyond the more than sixty heroes who were standing around the room, there were also a few rogues, like Parian, whose ability let her animate stuffed animals or... something, as well as Defiant, in his impressive white and gold power armor.
  
  "Be careful." Dad's voice came through, like it was the hardest thing he'd ever said. "Please. Please, be careful. I love you. We love you. Come..." He choked a little bit, and I flinched at the thought that I was making my father feel this afraid. "Come back."
  
  In spite of my desire to promise that I would, I couldn't. All I could offer my father was that I would try, that I would be as careful as I could be. He and my mother were with Trevor in a shelter, telling my brother that I was in one of the other shelters. I had no idea how they were avoiding letting him know just how worried they were.
  
  Finally, after telling both of my parents that I loved them, I also got the cursory six word conversation with Trevor where he mumbled that he loved me, more embarrassed that the idea of actually saying that out loud than he was worried about me. Not that I could blame him that much. As far as he knew, I was safe in one of the other shelters.
  
  For a moment, just a moment, I thought about telling him the truth. But I shook my head and put the desire down to spur of the moment weakness, before having one last conversation with my dad. Then I hung up, sighed, and turned my attention to the others in the room, the villains. The few remaining members of what had been the Empire were there, having crawled out from whatever hole they'd been hiding in. I also saw about a group of about twenty obvious villains that I didn't recognize, all bunched together into a corner. Going by how varied their outfits and appearances were, I didn't think they were actually a team. It looked more like a half dozen groups of two or three that had all migrated together out of shared distrust. Obviously, these were even more groups who had heard of the collapse of the Empire and the imminent (and now finished) demise of the ABB and thought they could jump in to fill the void. I'd lost track of how many of the would-be warlord replacements we'd either chased off or put into prison in recent weeks. Eventually, they started to blend together.
  
  In another part of the room, the Undersiders stood. They were all present, the ones who were still free. Grue, Tattletale, Regent, Freezetag, and Browbeat were there. Plus, they had apparently been joined by a sixth member to make up for the loss of Hellhound, a male in a skintight costume that was pitch black, with a gold design that looked like random swirly lines coming up into a spiral at his chest. He also wore a helmet with a visor that left the lower part of his face exposed, revealing dark skin.
  
  Then there was the Travelers. The three that were left that came out in public, anyway. Trickster looked as normal as he ever did, with his circus ringmaster-like outfit. Ballistic was... standing. He was still missing one of his arms, and kept gazing at Panacea over next to Glory Girl as though trying to will her to come over and fix him without actually speaking up. Genesis, finally, had manifested some kind of very tall, winged and streamlined looking creature with six arms. It stood nine feet in height, with a massive pair of wings that were currently wrapped around her like a cloak.
  
  At the sight of the trio, I glanced toward Marissa to my right. She was standing right beside me, wearing her Sundancer outfit and staring at her former team. I whispered, "Are you all right?"
  
  She hesitated, but nodded. "I'll be okay. I should... go talk to them."
  
  "Don't let them bully you into coming back." I said softly, wanting to take her hand but restraining the urge. "It's still your choice."
  
  "I know." She nodded and glanced to me. "I'll be fine. Go see your team. I'll... catch up with you later."
  
  Marissa walked over to talk to her old friends, and I turned to join the other Wards. Someone was in my way though, and I blinked at the sight of Tattletale in her black and violet costume. "Uh, can I help you?"
  
  The blonde villain's response was a casual, "I just thought I'd say hello."
  
  I rolled my eyes. "Come off it. I know you work for Coil, and I also know that Coil isn't Daniel Hebert. If you're fishing for information, don't bother using... whatever your power is." That much was confusing to everyone in the Wards. We knew it had something to do with information collection, and that she pretended that it was telepathy. But that couldn't be right. No one had actual telepathy. "I'll just tell you what my plan is. I'm going to expose who your boss really is."
  
  Tattletale just gave me a knowing, vulpine smile. "Actually, that's more of a goal than a plan. But that's not what I'm here for anyway. Truce, remember? I just thought I'd give you a little advice about your power."
  
  I blinked at that, taken aback. "Huh?"
  
  "Advice about your power." She repeated. "I've been paying attention to the footage the news has of you Wards, and I have a little tip."
  
  "You have a tip... for me... about my power." I said slowly, disbelieving.
  
  The smile never left the other girl's face as she nodded. "Again, truce. It's in my best interest that you know how to use your power to the best of its effect. So when you're running around, using those lines of yours to yank people to safety, don't worry about taking it easy on them."
  
  My head shook in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"
  
  "I mean, you must know by now that you've got some kind of minor breaker power that protects you from a certain level of damage you should take from being flung around by your own lines. Otherwise you'd have whiplash, dislocated limbs, and who knows what else."
  
  Nodding at that, I frowned. "I know that. So?"
  
  "So," Tattletale gestured with one hand. "It's not just you. Your tether lines extend that breaker effect a short distance around anything you attach them to that holds them together. That's why you can yank a car instead of just pulling off, say, the door the line's attached to. Which means that if you attach the line to someone's clothes, the breaker effect should go around them. So, don't worry about giving someone whiplash by yanking them as fast as you yank yourself."
  
  "My tethers... provide breaker effects to the things they touch?" I echoed, trying to come to terms with what that could mean.
  
  "In a short distance around whatever they're touching, yes." Tattletale nodded. "Impacts are still gonna hurt, so slow them down before you drop them, but you can treat the people you haul out of danger pretty much the same way you treat yourself when you toss them around."
  
  I hesitated to trust what she was saying. But she was right about the truce. If she had really been lying to me, and I ended up hurting someone by following her advice, it would be a massive violation of the hero-villain truce that existed whenever an Endbringer was involved. I didn't think she'd take the risk of having everyone turn on her or the Undersiders just to give me that kind of fake advice.
  
  Finally, I nodded. "Okay, well, thanks. I don't suppose you'll explain how you know that?"
  
  Her answer was just to smile at me mysteriously. "No, but you can trust that everything I said to you is as true as everything you said to me."
  
  With that odd choice of phrasing, she walked away back to her own team. The girl was already gone by the time it registered. I'd said that Mr. Hebert wasn't Coil. Her promise, that everything she said was as true as what I said... was she actually acknowledging that I was right?
  
  Before I could wonder too much, Aegis found me. "Tether, come on. We've got some other Wards to work with." He led me to the much larger group, which included a rather large boy with metal skin. I had to double take at the sight of what looked like half of a fork partially melted into his neck, and part of a chain link fence partially absorbed against his shoulder.
  
  "Tether, this is Weld." Aegis introduced us. "Weld, Tether."
  
  "You're the one that talks all the time." Weld greeted me, extending a hand. "Right?"
  
  Glad that my mask hid my blush at the recognition, I shook his hand. "I don't talk that much."
  
  "She's lying." Clockblocker stepped up behind me, both hands on my shoulders. "She's shy during downtime like this, but when we're in a fight, she never shuts up. It's not enough to just beat the bad guys, she has to mock them the whole time too."
  
  Before I could find a hole to hide inside of, the sound of someone clearing his throat came through the room. While that would normally easily be ignored, in this case the someone was Legend, and no one ignored Legend.
  
  Everyone quieted down, turning toward the brown haired man in his blue costume with the electric-flame design in white that was molded to his rather impressive form. He was... fit. Very, very fit. Legend was the epitome of hero, not only in how powerful he was, but in how he looked and acted. Everyone who wanted to be a hero aspired to be Legend. The man looked like a living action hero. Especially now, when he was flanked by the armor-wearing Alexandria, and Eidolon in his green cloak. The three of them together, the Triumverate, were the most powerful group of heroes in the world.
  
  "Thank you." He started. "Thank all of you for coming. No matter our differences, those of us who put them aside for these moments... well, there may be some of you whose choice of actions I will never agree with, but the fact that you're here now, that means something."
  
  "The whole reason we've had time to gather here and make sure that everyone is ready is because of your local Protectorate leader, Armsmaster, and Dragon." He nodded toward our Protectorate leader, while I'd seen the latter outside in one of her much larger suits. "The two of them have been working together and have managed to give us this early alert. If this works out, it may be a turning point against the Endbringers. This is an important one, people. This is one where we find out if an early alert can make a difference."
  
  "With that said, I'm not going to lie to you. Even on a good day, which I hope and pray this is, one-fourth of any defending force will die during an Endbringer attack." The man's voice was solemn, his gaze taking in everyone in the room, leaving no one out. "Looking around this room, on average, one in four of every person here will be dead when the battle is over."
  
  Once that had settled in, the man continued. "If you think I'm saying that to scare you... you're right. This is not a joke. This is one of the most serious and dangerous situations most you may ever face. There's a reason we call them Endbringers, and you deserve to know that this is not a game. Do not underestimate Leviathan just because we had a few extra minutes of warning. Do not let your guard down, ever."
  
  "With that said, let's go over what we know. First of all, a few of our Wards are handing out the armbands that Dragon has designed." At his words, I felt a nudge at my side, and turned to see a girl a little older than me, wearing another skintight costume and a visor that left only her mouth and chin exposed. She had a crossbow over one shoulder, and was holding one of the aforementioned bands out to me.
  
  When I took the band, the display on it requested my name. After a momentary hesitation, I brought it closer and said, "Tether."
  
  It was Armsmaster, standing nearby, who explained more. "These bands are meant to adjust over your arm and tighten against your wrist. There is a screen at the top of the band that will note your position on the grid we use, along with the last known location of Leviathan. Use it to either keep your distance or close, depending on your role and abilities. There's also two buttons. The first button, on the left, is used to send messages. Note that your message will not be sent immediately, but will be sorted by a screening program and sent in due time to cut back on distracting chatter. The delay is between three and five seconds. If it's absolutely crucial that you bypass the delay, hold the button down and say 'hard override' before sending the message. But remember, abusing that feature will result in you losing the ability to send any messages at all, so keep the boy who cried wolf in mind."
  
  "Meanwhile, the button on the right is used to send an emergency alert that you need immediate assistance. Press it to alert the nearest extraction or defensive cape to your location and emergency. If it's not an actual emergency, but you need something else such as a better vantage point, or you see an opportunity we can exploit, press both buttons and tell the band what you want. The sorting program will prioritize based on need."
  
  "Finally, the band will also keep track of all casualties, and fatalities. It keeps track of your location, so that you can be retrieved... if possible."
  
  By that time, the bands had all been handed out, and Legend took over speaking once more while everyone was getting them on. He explained about Leviathan's known tactics, his 'afterimage' of water that followed behind every motion he made, the monster's speed turning what would be a simple wave into something with the force of concrete.
  
  This monster was a powerful hydrokinetic. While he was dangerous in and of himself, with his size, his speed, and flat refusal to let much actually hurt him, the biggest danger he posed was with the incredible, devastating waves that he could summon. He could, and had, destroy entire cities with them. Or worse. The Canadian Island of Newfoundland was gone, thanks to Leviathan.
  
  Since that obviously wasn't bad enough, the city of Brockton Bay had been built over an underground lake. The beast would clearly be attempting to use that to his advantage, weakening the very ground beneath us. If we let the fight go on too long, we could lose the city itself as it fell into the lake, even if we ended up driving the Endbringer away.
  
  Once he was finished talking, Legend took a moment to gaze around at everyone once again. "Thank you. Thank you for being here, for putting everything aside. Now is the time to stand together, to put aside everything else, and to... focus."
  
  We left the building, and started to divide into groups in the parking lot that overlooked the bay. The rain had been coming down in torrents for an hour now, and we could see an even darker stormcloud approaching fast. Leviathan. He'd be here soon.
  
  I made my way to the designated area for movers who could perform search and rescue. It was the best place for me, considering that my warning-lines were going to be tugging me toward people who were in trouble anyway. As I was moving, I felt a hand grab my arm. Turning, I found Clockblocker. "Hey." He said, his voice a little tense. "You're a good friend, Tether. Be careful, okay?"
  
  I swallowed, trying not to show all the fear that I felt. "I will be. You... be careful too."
  
  He nodded, and then I was moving again. I found myself face to face with the red mask of Trickster, and instinctively scowled. "Just so you know," I told him. "If you try anything to get Sundancer back, I'm going to take it as a violation of the truce."
  
  "Is that up to you to decide?" He asked, sounding far too casual.
  
  "Just leave her alone." I muttered, stepping past him to join the rest of the rescue-capes. There were teleporters, fliers, and healers.
  
  Panacea was there as well, and I moved to stand next to her. She glanced my way, and smiled a little. "Hey."
  
  "Hey yourself." I replied, pausing before I added, "Come here often?"
  
  Her mouth opened, then shut before she replied rather wryly. "More often than you'd think."
  
  "Tether, Panacea, good." Armsmaster stepped our way, looking harried. "Tether, you're going to focus on going wherever your danger lines direct you to. Find people in danger, and bring them to Panacea if they need it, so she can get them back into the fight. If you can't reach them in time, send in someone else, a flier or a teleporter. You have direct line of communication to all of our movers that fit that category. Use them well."
  
  Swallowing at that extra bit of responsibility, I managed a weak nod. "Y-yes, sir."
  
  He was already gone, moving on to the next group. I glanced toward my group, and recognized the new guy from the Undersiders. "Who are you? What can you do?"
  
  I recognized his voice. It was the Merchant from the other night, the one who had been running from Pandora. "I ahhh, call me Vacate. My... umm... my power..." He swallowed. "I make... sorta like tunnels in the air, you dig?"
  
  I shook my head. "No, sorry, I don't 'dig'. What do you mean?"
  
  He sighed at the idea of trying to explain. "I pick a location I can see, right? Then this sorta... tunnel appears around me, from where I am to that spot. Everything outside the tunnel's all black and white and shit, and even the shit inside the tunnel's frozen unless I'm touching it when I use the power. Then I just sorta... walk to the other end of the tunnel. If I step outta the tunnel before I reach the other side, it breaks down."
  
  Blinking, I tilted my head. "So... sort of like a directed time-stop. It stops time outside of the little... tunnel so you can walk that far."
  
  "Thassright." He drawled. "Only way I kept ahead of that crazy psycho-cunt."
  
  Apparently he didn't... care that I shouldn't know who he was talking about? Wait, did he? Shaking that off, I focused. "Could you stay with me? We can get people to safety a lot easier with your help."
  
  The guy, Vacate, apparently, shrugged. "I guess. Figured out when psycho-cunt was about to kill me that I never did much with my life before, might as well help now."
  
  "Talk to Panacea." I nodded toward the girl. "Work out where she wants to set up that you can bring people to."
  
  That done, I turned toward the cloud. It was almost on top of us. Closing my eyes, I took the time to whisper a prayer anyone or anything that would listen. Please let me make a difference. Please let me save everyone that I could possibly save.
  
  Please let me do this right.
  
  In the next moment, a handful of black lines appeared. Eyes widening, I spun toward the nearest, seeing the line connected to the out-of-town Ward with the crossbow. I attached a line to the girl and yanked her toward me just as someone let out a cry. My eyes went up to see a wave tall as a building, blocking out the sky, crashing down toward us. A squeal escaped me as I stumbled backward, catching hold of hold of the crossbow girl just before a blue forcefield shimmered into place around both of us and the rest of our little group. The wave slammed into it, the impact staggering even through the glowing field.
  
  There were more screams across the lot and down the road from the groups that had been gathered, but who weren't quite as lucky with their defense, and I heard the dispassionate female voice start to speak from my armband. Most of the black lines vanished, but more were taking their places.
  
  " Krieg deceased, CD-5, Iron Falcon deceased, CD-5, Grue incapacitated, CD-5, Glory Girl, incapacitated, CD-5. Resolute, deceased, CD-5. Parian, deceased, CD-5."
  
  The voice, with its horrifying announcements, was drowned out by the deafening crash of the gigantic, lizard-like figure hurling himself out of the water to land on the pavement, shattering the cement all around us.
  
  Leviathan... was here.
  
  7.04
  
  No. No no no no! As the fatality and injury reports rolled in, I felt my face go ashen behind my mask. The battle had barely started, and there were already people dead! Parian wasn't even a fighter. She was just some girl that made big stuffed animals for store grand openings and stuff. It wasn't fair.
  
  It wasn't fair!
  
  Red danger lines exploded out from me, stretching into every possible direction, while the thirty foot tall mass murdering creature spun, clearly hunting for his nearest target just before a dark blue laser as wide around as a minivan shot across the monster's brow, making him twitch backwards. A half second later, Alexandria flew down out of the sky, already aimed for the exact spot that Leviathan had flinched back to, and slammed into his face with a blow that sent out a thunderous shockwave that nearly deafened me, but seemed to matter little to the beast.
  
  The red lines were darkening by the second, but two in particular seemed to darken faster, seemed to tug at me harder, than the others. I followed the lines with my eyes, seeing the figures of Tattletale and one of the Boston Wards up on one of the buildings. Instantly, I launched myself that way with a pair of tether-lines. Just as I passed over the two, I caught hold of the backs of their uniforms and hauled them backwards with my own momentum. The pair was dragged along to the opposite side of the roof a second before the monster's tail went crashing through the spot where they had been standing.
  
  Landing on one knee a few feet away from where I had dropped Tattletale and the Ward, I turned. My warning lines were still tugging at me. Another one had started progressing to black, and I took three steps, extended a hand to attach a tether to a balcony on another building, and let it yank me as fast as I dared, the wind whistling around me. Once I reached that balcony, I used another high jump to keep going, following the line that pulled me onward.
  
  Leviathan, startlingly quick, had already abandoned his landing point and was two blocks away, snatching one cape out of the air with a swat of his arm, while his afterimage caught two more that had been flying in to help the first. The monster twisted around, abandoning his grip on the cape that he had caught when Alexandria flew into him with a flurry of punches.
  
  I let go of my latest tether and fell, putting my feet out to take the impact of the fall on my shock-absorbing boots just before I hit the pavement directly next to the figure my line was directing me to. I barely took the time to register that this was one of the newcomer villains before I wrapped my arms around him and launched the two of us upward and back. A heartbeat later, the beast caught hold of Alexandria and threw her at the ground right where the man had been standing. The invulnerable woman drove a deep hole into the ground, just before another wave of water swept in, flooding the hole.
  
  The man I had rescued was saying something, but I didn't stop to listen. A new line had sprung forth, pointed straight down into the hole that Alexandria had fallen into. This one was immediately black, while the others remained red. I didn't know how the woman for whom the invulnerable and superstrong package of superpowers had been named could possibly be in imminent danger of death, but I wasn't going to argue. Seeing Alexandria start to rise out of the water just as Leviathan's foot was coming down, I attached a line to the back of her uniform and to a nearby fire hydrant, hauling her the opposite direction from where she had been rising. The very moment that she was yanked out of the way, the beast's foot came down into a position that would have both knocked the woman back into the hole, and covered it entirely, trapping Alexandria in a watery tomb.
  
  Spinning around to see what had yanked her back, the Triumverate woman glanced up and then called out something. I was already moving rather than taking the time to listen, even as some corner of my mind started squealing and gibbering like a crazy fangirl that Alexandria was talking to me.
  
  Something more powerful than awe was driving me onward.
  
  I kept going, kept trying to keep up with the rampaging beast. He'd disappear down a side street, deceptively easy to lose track of given his size, but my danger-lines kept me constantly hot on his heels. Red lines kept appearing, and somehow I had time to save most of them. The lines seemed to be telling me which ones were the most serious, which order I needed to do them in, and they were showing up early enough that as long as I kept moving as quickly as I could, I made it in time. Not for all of them, I wasn't saving everyone, because injury reports kept coming across the band. But I was making a difference. Exhausted as I already was, I refused to slow down. Two lines here to haul a pair of blaster capes away from a collapsing pile of rubble from a building that had taken a glancing blow, another line there to yank one of the fliers up and out of the way before an unnoticed wave could catch them unaware. More lines everywhere I turned; every breath I took, every time I blinked there was more to do.
  
  Somehow, I kept up with it. Somehow, I didn't lose my mind. Somehow, I just... knew what order to do everything in, the exact urgency of each warning line coming to me naturally. I should have been overwhelmed, but I wasn't. My mind was sorting through the information, who was where and in how much immediate danger, in ways I had never been able to before. But I wasn't going to complain now.
  
  Eventually, I landed on the ground next to where Vacate had apparently become frozen in terror. The black line that directed me to him was getting darker by the second, before fading away once I snatched hold of his arm and hurled the both of us sideways just in time to avoid the swipe of Leviathan's tail.
  
  As we landed hard, rolling on the rough ground, I saw another of the red lines turn black, and instinctively knew it was the monster's next target.
  
  "H-h-he's... he's too st-strong... he's... he's... f-fuck... fuck..." Vacate was stammering, petrified with fear as he knelt where he'd fallen after my tether had released him.
  
  I didn't have time for this. Raising my gauntlet-covered hand, I smacked him across the face. Then I shouted and pointed. "Tunnel! There! Now!"
  
  He obeyed, catching my arm just before his power sprang up around us.
  
  His description had been apt, I noted as I looked around. The 'tunnel' was roughly wide enough for two large men to walk abreast, and was probably about seven feet tall. Everything outside of the tunnel was frozen in mid-motion, the color faded to black and white. Additionally, everything within the tunnel, including a pair of unknown capes clearly running away from an incoming wave, was frozen as well, though remained in color.
  
  "I touch anything or anybody inside the tunnel before I collapse it, I can bring 'em back up to normal speed." He took the time to explain. "Like that New Wave chick with the hot ass down there at the end."
  
  I looked again. Sure enough, Crystal was at the far end of the tunnel, frozen in mid-step, her arm outstretched as though she had been about to summon one of her signature lasers. The black line was directing me her way.
  
  On the principle of the thing, I elbowed him.
  
  "Ow, what the fuck was that for?" He complained.
  
  "Her name is Laserdream, not 'New Wave chick with the hot ass'. Get your head out of the gutter and into the battle." I said, while trotting down the line. "Grab those two-" I indicated the pair of unknown villains that were fleeing the wave. "-and bring them with us."
  
  While the former Merchant thug did that, complaining the whole time that I was just jealous that he'd been focused on Laserdream's rear instead of mine (Ewww), I used a tether to haul myself all the way to the end of the tunnel, stopping where Crystal was. A glance showed me what she was doing. The unconscious Glory Girl was on the ground just behind Laserdream, who was clearly protecting her injured cousin. Slightly beyond that, I could see Penance and Defiant being knocked aside by a slightly smaller wave.
  
  Touching Crystal did nothing. Apparently only Vacate could bring someone out of their frozen state. I glanced back just as he and the two villains that I didn't know came jogging up. Ignoring the pair, who were already glaring at me, I focused on ex-Merchant. "Bring her out of it, but don't collapse the tunnel yet."
  
  With a shrug, he reached out. His hand wavered in mid-air as though it had been headed somewhere else in order to bring her out of it before I growled at him. Then he adjusted and touched Laserdream's shoulder, muttering that I was a spoilsport. Honestly, I could have just let him go for it so that Crystal could melt his face off, but I needed him intact at the moment.
  
  Crystal slumped a little bit as she was brought out of the frozen state. It seemed like some kind of purposeful effect, stopping any kind of momentum and briefly numbing the muscles to stop someone from being unfrozen and having their forward motion instantly carry them out of the tunnel. Useful, that.
  
  "What-huh?" The older girl twisted, until she saw me. "Tether, what happened?"
  
  I jerked a thumb toward Vacate. "His power. Teleport... tunnel... time... freeze... thing, whatever. Point is, he's useful. Annoying, but useful."
  
  Grinning cockily, the guy rocked back on his heels and nodded while drawling. "Heeeelll yeah I'm-wait, what's that 'bout annoying? Now listen, jealous little-"
  
  I ignored him. Now wasn't the time. "Laserdream, as soon as he drops the tunnel, can you grab Glory Girl and fly her out of here?"
  
  She nodded. "I'll take her to Panacea. She-she'll want to fix her."
  
  "You." I pointed at Vacate. "Stay with her and go to Panacea. Every time someone brings her wounded capes, you make a tunnel around Panacea and the capes. That way her healing will seem to be instantaneous. It might not mean more than a couple minutes difference..."
  
  "But a couple minutes is an eternity right now." Crystal finished. "Good idea. What are you doing?"
  
  "Me?" I looked back out to where I could still see my warning-lines stretching out in every direction. "I'm going to go save people."
  
  Suiting word to action, the second that the tunnel went down and time resumed for everyone else, I used a pair of lines from my gauntlets to literally throw myself at the nearest pair that the black lines were leading to: Trickster and Assault. My tether lines caught hold of the pair and hurled them away from each other just before Leviathan landed where they had been. At the same time, I focused three more tethers onto the chests of a group of hovering capes and forcibly propelled them backwards, away from the swipe of the monster's tail. And an instant later, I crashed bodily into the figure of Battery, carrying the both of us just out of reach of the Endbringer's claw swipe.
  
  I was moving as fast as I could, every line pulling me to another person in danger. In the background, I could see the fight continuing as we threw everything we had at the monster, only for him to keep moving. The destruction was spreading. Another of his massive tidal waves had blown through most of the buildings along docks area and the boardwalk, shattering glass and mortar alike. All I could do was pray that everyone was out of there.
  
  Water and debris filled the streets, and it was getting harder to choose which warning lines to follow first. There was just too much danger. I had to pick and choose, prioritizing the best I could.
  
  A miniature sun, roughly the size of a small car, rose above the rooftops a few streets over, letting me know where Marissa was. I yanked myself that way, coming in to land next to the small group that was gathered in the parking lot behind a grocery store so that I could breathe for a moment.
  
  Sundancer had been joined, somewhat surprisingly, by a couple of my teammates. Vista was there, along with Clockblocker. Even more surprising was the presence of Freezetag, from the Undersiders. They were all watching Mars direct the mini-sun upward while it continued to grow.
  
  "We've got a plan." Dennis informed me. "How's it going on your side?"
  
  I panted, leaning over to catch my breath. "Busy. He's not stopping."
  
  "We'll stop him." Vista replied, her mouth set in a firm line.
  
  "Damn straight." The voice I barely recognized came from Freezetag, of course. "That son of a bitch hurt my brother. He's going down." She paused, before adding in a somewhat contemplative tone, "I don't think I was supposed to call him my brother. Oops." Her hands waved vaguely. "Truce, pretend you didn't hear that."
  
  "How long until your plan's ready?" I asked, wincing at the sound of more destruction, more names being read off by the armband.
  
  "Just a couple minutes." Sundancer answered through gritted teeth. "Needs... to be... bigger."
  
  Right then, the digitized voice from the armband announced, "Shelter at Heritage and Euphoria under attack."
  
  I whipped around at that, eyes widening. Sure enough, I could see a collection of flying capes hovering above another street two blocks over, where the shelter was, pummeling Leviathan below them to get his attention. "My family's at that shelter." Almost on cue, danger lines sprang up, at least a dozen of them, all directing me toward the area where the shelter was.
  
  "Go." Clockblocker gave me a little push. "Go help them. We've got this."
  
  Nodding, I launched outward once more, catching a line against the next building over to haul myself that way.
  
  As I landed on the roof and adjusted, I saw the group of flying capes, Penance and Glory Girl included, spreading out. They'd lost sight of Leviathan, as quick as the beast was, which at least meant that he wasn't menacing the shelter anymore.
  
  And yet, the danger lines weren't going down. As I stood on the edge of the roof for a better view, I could see the shelter below me. The doors had been partially dented in, and I could see the near-river of water from one of the Endbringer's last attacks that was still flooding in through the opening that he had torn. In their hurry to chase the monster down, the other capes hadn't noticed.
  
  The people in that shelter were going to drown. Quickly, I hit the button on my band. "Hard Override, the shelter on Heritage is flooding, they're in trouble."
  
  Silence was only response I got. Blinking down at the band, I found the screen dark. My eyes widened and I hit both buttons to no avail. My armband had suddenly gone dead. It had been working barely a minute ago, what happened?!
  
  Okay, I was going to have to do it myself. I could do that. I could get the people out. Grimacing, I readied myself to jump that way.
  
  Then it happened. Before I could move, another set of dark lines sprang up, yanking my attention that way. I spun at the urgency of the lines, only to see them leading back toward the street where the others were.
  
  Leviathan was on the opposite street, actually hunched over as he charged on all fours down the road, clearly intent on the spot just below the hovering sun. He was going after them.
  
  I looked back toward the flooding shelter, my eyes wide with panic, then toward the street where my friends were, then to my dark and silent armband. "No no no, please, work. WORK! Damn it, somebody get over here!" I called, then screamed at it. " SOMEONE HELP ME SAVE THEM! I CAN'T DO IT BY MYSELF!"
  
  Tears of exhaustion, shame, and growing realization flooded my eyes and blinded me as my desperate pleas went unanswered. Meanwhile, the lines, into the shelter, and to Marissa, Dennis, and the others, were already black. I had no more time. No time to delay, no time to waste, no time to think.
  
  No time to save both.
  
  I had to choose.
  
  7.05
  
  For a single, heartrending second, I stood in frozen indecision. My death-lines were tugging me in both directions, and it felt like they were literally ripping me in two. Maybe that would have been preferable to actually making this choice.
  
  If I moved to save the people in the shelter, including my family, I would be leaving my teammates and friends to their deaths to Leviathan. If I moved to save my friends, I would abandoning the people in the shelter to their own deaths from the flooding water. I would be abandoning people to die while trapped in a confined space, just like Taylor.
  
  Whatever choice I made, people would die because of that choice, because of what I didn't do..
  
  No. I did not accept this. I would not accept it. Presented with an impossible scenario, I would change the scenario.
  
  I turned to face the running monster. My eyes narrowed, and I extended my arms, choosing my target before I began to manifest lines. Not one line, or two, but four of them, two attached from each gauntlet, to a different part of the road.
  
  "You..." I addressed Leviathan as the massive creature came running straight toward the invisible lines I had set up. "Aren't..." I took a breath and let it out while leaning forward and down a little. "Wanted..." As the beast raced over the road where my lines were, I heaved backward and up, retracting the lines with as much force as I could muster. My words turned to a scream from the effort I was exerting, and my vision seemed to tunnel down a single point, light and dark spots dancing across my eyes. " HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEERE!"
  
  It worked. Even as a blinding spike of pain tore through my head, the pavement all around the street beneath Leviathan tore up, a large section of the road itself literally being hauled into the air, bringing the monster with it. And even through the pain and nausea that threatened to drop me into oblivion, I still had the distinct pleasure of seeing the beast that threatened to destroy our city kicking and flailing comically as it flew through the air uncontrollably.
  
  I released the lines and dove sideways off the roof. As I fell, I attached another line between one of the larger flying chunks of pavement and the area just in front of the shelter entrance, yanking it out of the air so that it crashed down directly in the path of the rushing flood, splitting it off to both sides of the damaged hatch so that the water would run around the shelter itself. Most of the black lines that had been leading into the building vanished, or faded down to a light red to indicate injury.
  
  Then I hit the ground, so focused on the lines that I had going that I hadn't set up anything to slow my fall. Pain lanced through my body as I felt the bones through my arm and hip break from the impact, the air rushing out of my lungs in a whoosh to leave me wheezing helplessly. But it was negligible compared to the pain in my head from the effort that I had put into launching Leviathan.
  
  As it turns out, catapulting an Endbringer through the air is a really good way of getting people's attention. There were more capes flying back this way, even as the giant monster crashed through the building that I had been standing on, collapsing the roof in.
  
  Still undamaged, the beast rolled off the building. I saw its tail lashing down toward me, but I had nothing left. Pain blinded me from every part of my body at the very thought of trying to move, and in that second, all I could do was stare at the descending tail and wait for the inevitable while telling myself that at least I had done everything I could.
  
  Then something grabbed me, hauling me off the ground before leaping away from that spot. I let out a cry of agony as the motion sent shards of pain through me, my vision dimming slightly before I managed to focus. "Pan... dora...?"
  
  We were flying, hovering a dozen feet off the ground while the monster's tail lashed the spot where I had been. "You are not to die now."
  
  In the next moment, three separate laser blasts tore into Leviathan, just before a missile launched from Dragon's suit blew one of his feet out from under him. The reinforcements had arrived.
  
  Meanwhile, I stared up at the still hovering Pandora, feeling lost. "You... can't fly."
  
  "We cannot." She confirmed. "Several of the parahumans who have been killed in this battle did possess such an ability."
  
  My mouth opened and then shut. Trying to figure out what that meant made my head hurt. "You... You can take... people's powers...? Wait... You... truce..."
  
  "We did not violate the truce." She said firmly. "We absorbed only the remains of those parahumans who were already deceased."
  
  Something still felt wrong about that, terribly wrong, but I couldn't think. "Powers... you use them... you take them..."
  
  "We are not, by default, capable of using the powers of parahumans we have absorbed. To do so, we must create a special body which possesses none of our ordinary abilities, but instead, is capable of using the powers of one of the parahumans that we have previously absorbed. This incarnation is incapable of biological reconstruction, form-changing, or anything else our default form is able to do, but it does contain the powers previously used by one of the now-deceased parahumans. If its genetic structure is eliminated entirely before it can be reabsorbed into our collective, the specific abilities it contains will be lost."
  
  Leviathan was staggering, but still moving. I lifted a hand, flinching at the pain. "You... the other parts of you can... stop him... eat him..."
  
  Her head shook. "We have attempted to. It... did not go as planned. Three of ourselves were lost in the attempt."
  
  My vision was still going in and out, the pain almost overwhelming. Still, I could see the injury lines. "Pa... Pandora..." I managed, lifting my undamaged hand to clutch the clone's arm. "You... you want to be a real person? You want to be... real..." Pointing toward the shelter, I pleaded, "Save them. There's people trapped in there, hurt, maybe worse. Go and help them. That's what a real person does. They help when there's trouble. See? Look. Villains. Heroes. Both sides trying to stop this monster. You want to be real, you want to be your own person, help them ."
  
  Pandora gazed at the shelter doors, then to me, and seemed to consider. Then we lowered until we were on the ground on the far side of the building, and she laid me down on the ground almost gently before flying off toward the damaged entrance, leaving me where I was.
  
  As I lay there on my side, from the corner of my eye, I saw Marissa's sun. It had reached the size of a small house, settling into a spot above the large parking lot at the end of the street. The pavement was melting beneath the heat, turning into a black river of sludge.
  
  I was confused, why were they putting the sun so far away?
  
  Then, before my bleary eyes, two figures began to run straight toward the murderous beast. Clockblocker and Freezetag. They were carrying what looked like... was that a pile of coats? What the...?
  
  The towering monster spotted them, of course, and turned to lift his foot and stomp downward. I would have screamed out a warning, but the lack of any warning line confused me. As I stared, Dennis swept one of the coats that the two of them were carrying up, and then the pair dropped to crouch behind the coat as it hung frozen in the air. Leviathan's foot was blocked by the time-stopped coat, which shielded the two hidden beneath it.
  
  Another swift series of attacks from the nearby Penance drew the monster's attention. As soon as he looked that way and lashed out, Clockblocker and Freezetag moved again. They kept approaching that way, Dennis using his power on the coats that they carried to shield them from any counter attack, while the other capes focused on continually distracting the beast.
  
  Then they were there, and the Undersider villain slapped her hand against the Endbringer's foot. Instantly, he froze in place.
  
  Wait, no. He wasn't frozen completely. Only his lower half, his legs and tail, were frozen. Somehow, Freezetag's power wasn't quite enough to cover his entire form. He was just too big.
  
  His legs, however, remained firmly locked in place. As the beast flailed his arms, Dennis and Freezetag retreated, while the space between Leviathan and the miniature sun at the end of the street abruptly shrank down to a tiny fraction of what it had been. Vista, arms outstretched as she stood next to the toppled building, narrowed the space between the monster and the damaging heat. Within seconds, the distance had shrunk so much that the sun was practically right on top of the partially-frozen monster.
  
  In the next second, the Endbringer was pummeled by attacks from a dozen directions as more capes with ranged abilities descended on the scene. I saw Legend hovering in the air, unleashing so many lasers that I lost sight of the man himself. To his left there was another flying cape that was conjuring some kind of massive arrow made of fire, which he sent flying into the monster.
  
  All around Leviathan, more attacks were tearing into Leviathan's all but invulnerable hide, while his back half was all but engulfed by the sun, which Marissa had been growing by the moment. No one could get near the beast, but those that could hit him from where they were continued to unleash everything they had while he was locked to the ground.
  
  Before my eyes, more black lines rose, connecting to every cape that I could see. I stared, confused. No, this wasn't right. What could hurt them?
  
  Then I saw it. A wave, so large that it dwarfed any of the others, came rushing through the city streets. It tore through buildings like so much paper, carrying rubble and debris with it. It was so enormous, moving so fast, with the force of a runaway train, that anyone caught in its path was unlikely to survive the experience. Under my horrified gaze, the wave blew threw an apartment building.
  
  And no one had noticed. They were so intent on hurting Leviathan while they had an unimpeded chance, that they weren't paying attention to their surroundings.
  
  Ignoring the pain, I attached lines to each and every one of the people I could see, along with myself. The thought of what I was about to do made me whimper, but I couldn't stop. I wouldn't stop. The lines all shot upward, launching myself along with every cape present as high into the air as I could manage. The agony that swept through my head from the effort was utterly blinding. My vision went in and out a couple of times as my body went flying. Somewhere below, I saw the disjointed sight of Leviathan's top half being carried away by the wave.
  
  That's right, run, I thought, a little deliriously as I fell, in too much pain to focus on lines, or the fact that when I hit the ground, I might not wake up again.
  
  Then, my eyes closed, and I knew nothing else.
  
  My vision swam back into focus, and I felt a warm hand against my bare, unmasked face. "Mmm... Mars... what...?" I blinked a few times, but it wasn't Marissa sitting beside the cot that I found myself laying on. It was Panacea.
  
  I had a brief moment to wonder how I knew that it wasn't Pandora, but another voice distracted me. "I'm here, Madison." I saw Sundancer, still in costume, standing on the other side of the room.
  
  "I... is it over?" I asked, hopefully.
  
  The two girls looked to one another, and then Amy rose. "She'll be... she'll be okay. I fixed the damage. I need to go and help others." She hesitated, clearly uncertain. "Or I could... help you... talk."
  
  Marissa's head shook. "I'll do it. Go, you've got more people to take care of."
  
  I saw Amy glance back at me. She paused and then murmured. "I'm sorry, Mads." Then she was gone, through the door.
  
  "What's she sorry about?" I started to ask Marissa. "What's going on?"
  
  She sat heavily in the chair that Amy had left, taking a moment to tug her mask off. The pain that I saw on the other girl's face distracted me. "What's wrong?" I tried to sit up. "What happened? Is he still here? I can help, I can-"
  
  "Stop, Mads." Her hand found my shoulder to stop me from rising. "Just stop, it's... the fight's over. Leviathan's gone. He tore his top half free and let that wave carry what was left of him away. It's the most damage anyone's ever done to an Endbringer."
  
  That brought a tired smile to my face. "That's... good. He's done. It's over."
  
  Swallowing, Marissa nodded. "Yeah. It's good. There was a lot of damage to the city, but... you saved a lot of people that would have died. They're... really happy, Madison. Everyone's proud of you."
  
  I stared, confused by the disconnect between what she was saying, and the look on her face. "Mars, what is it? What's wrong?"
  
  She flinched. "You saved a lot of people in that shelter, Mads. Pandora, she saved even more. There was panic down there, and still a lot of water. They were trampling each other, but it would have been a lot worse if you... and she... hadn't done something."
  
  My head shook slowly. "You're still not making sense. We saved-wait, a... a lot of people? That's not everyone. That's not everybody in the shelter."
  
  "No." She said quietly. "It's not everybody."
  
  My voice was hollow. "Who?"
  
  For a moment, Marissa said nothing. But then, she didn't have to. She didn't have to say it. I already knew. I turned my head away, the tears coming already. "Don't." I said, unable to make any more words come through the lump in my throat. I didn't want her to say it. As long as she didn't say the words, it wasn't real.
  
  Moving from the chair to the bed to sit next to me, I felt her arms encircle me as she said the words that I'd known were coming. The words that made my entire world collapse in on itself. Amy had taken the physical pain away, but after those words were spoken, nothing in my life would ever be the same, or whole, again. I'd done everything I could. I'd done everything right. I'd fought through every bit of pain, through every setback, through the loss of my armband and through the impossible scenario that I'd been faced with. I'd beaten it. I'd beaten them.
  
  But I still lost this.
  
  "It's your parents, Madison." She said, her arms tightening around me as I went limp with shock. "They didn't make it. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
  
  Interlude 7 - Battery
  
  "Who do you think you are?"
  
  Samantha O'Connell, more commonly known as Battery, held the phone so tightly in her hand that she was almost afraid that it might snap in her grip, keeping her voice low in spite of her anger. This was one conversation that she didn't want anyone else to be privy to even half of.
  
  It had been a day since Leviathan's attack, and most things were still disorganized chaos. She had come into the hospital, along with her husband, in civilian clothes to see what they could do to help before it was time to patrol. Then this phone call had come.
  
  The calm, measured tones of Doctor Mother, leader-founder-or whatever she was, of Cauldron, came through in stark contrast to her own clear frustration. "I'm sorry?"
  
  "You heard me." Sam glanced over her shoulder at the nearby closed door, making sure she was still alone in this room in the hospital. It wasn't a patient's room, those were all full. Instead, it was some kind of break room. Given how busy every doctor and nurse was at the moment, there weren't likely to be any 'breaks' for a long time. "Who the fuck do you think you are? Do you have any idea what just happened? We're dealing with the aftermath of an Endbringer assault. Two of our members, my friends are dead. Our main healer is still trying to help people after losing her mother, and one our Wards lost both of her parents when they should have been safe in a shelter. We drove the sonofabitch off, but we're still coping. We still lost a lot . And you choose now to call in and ask for a fucking FAVOR?" It was all she could do not to turn and pitch the phone at the wall.
  
  "I'm afraid, dear, that you're suffering under two misconceptions," the irritatingly calm woman's voice replied. "First, I am not asking for a favor in exchange for some future service. I am calling in a favor that is already owed to us. Second, you seem to believe the repayment I am going to request is at odds with the... coping that you mention."
  
  Frowning, Sam walked to the window and gazed out at the parking lot below. There were so many injured that the medical staff had actually set up tents to move the less critical patients to, rather than take up hospital bed space. She could see people rushing every which way, trying to bring some order to the chaos that the Endbringer had created. "You're saying this favor will actually help?"
  
  "In a manner of speaking." The other woman replied. "The Ward that you mentioned, the one who lost her parents."
  
  "Tether, the newest member," Sam explained, distractedly. "What about her?"
  
  Doctor Mother's response came with an almost too-casual tone. "She'll be taken into the system. Probably given a pair of foster parents who are already part of the PRT in one fashion or another, most likely a clerk or some other low-level paper-pusher, just to say that she has parental supervision."
  
  Turning away from the window, unable to stand looking at all the injured people and think everyone who hadn't made it, Samantha frowned. "What's your point? Where are you going with this?"
  
  "We believe that the girl would be better suited in a... different, more encouraging and stimulating environment."
  
  "I still don't see what-" Blinking, Sam shook her head reflexively. "Wait. Wait, you're not trying to say... you don't think..."
  
  "Our final favor, our final request before our business is over," Doctor Mother confirmed. "Is for you to take the girl in yourself. No one will deny you, not with every other bit of business that needs to be handled in the wake of such a tragedy. If you say that you wish to become responsible for her well-being, they won't ask any questions."
  
  "You have got to be kidding me." Samantha felt her confusion rising. "Why the hell do you care about who takes care of the poor kid? You don't-wait, she isn't one of yours, is she? Because I thought she got her power-"
  
  "She is not one of ours," the woman replied, still aggravatingly calm and measured. "Our interests remain our own, and the duties we need of you now do not require knowledge of them. Suffice to say, she is unaware of our existence, and it shall remain that way indefinitely."
  
  Feeling her confusion only worsening, Sam put a hand to her forehead. She wanted to grieve god damn it, not stand here and debate with this woman. "What, exactly, are we talking about here?"
  
  "Take legal custody of the girl. She will be sixteen in a few days. Care for her, protect her as best as you can, and... be there for when she inevitably needs someone. Be responsible for her until her eighteenth birthday. At that time, our business will be considered complete, and you need never hear from us again should that be your wish."
  
  It took Sam several long seconds of drawing in breaths and letting them out, mind racing, before she could respond. "Take care of her. Nothing else. No experiments, no tests, no hurting her-"
  
  "Nothing of the sort," Doctor Mother confirmed. "Simply attend to her needs, provide shelter, food, care... for two years."
  
  "I'd have to convince Ethan." Samantha replied weakly, leaning against the nearest wall for support. Her husband, convincing him to take in a sixteen year old girl, without explaining why she really had to do it... The man drove her crazy at times, but she still hated lying to him. It made her feel sick deep inside. She loved him, in spite of how much he tended to annoy her... or perhaps, in some ways, because of that. Lying to the man she loved, the man she had pledged herself to despite all of their differences and difficulties, was wrong .
  
  "I'm certain you will find a way," the other woman replied simply, confidently. "Do we have an agreement? Two years of caring for one who needs your help, and then we are even."
  
  Sam didn't answer at first. She was trying to think of what loophole or twist the Cauldron woman was going to play in order to keep her under their thumb for longer. So far the favors they'd asked for in exchange for the powers they'd given her had been mild. Join the Wards and then the Protectorate, which she would have done anyway, and deliver a package. The idea that the third and final boon they would call in would be as simple and innocuous as taking care of a sixteen year old girl for a couple of years was... rather unthinkable.
  
  Finally, she sighed and gave up. "Assuming I can talk Ethan into it, yes, we have a deal."
  
  Her husbands arms came around her the moment that she joined him outside on the patio where the staff came to smoke. Ethan, otherwise known as Assault, hugged her almost painfully tight. "Puppy." He smelled her hair while whispering the name that she had hated for so long. Still hated, from anyone but him. It had begun as a mocking, condescending name when they had been enemies, when she had been intent on catching his villainous-self. But in the years since, it had become... special. From him. Anyone else who tried using it generally ended up with a wastebasket dumped over their heads.
  
  "Where were you?" He asked after releasing her.
  
  And now came the lying that she hated so much. "Thinking."
  
  His eyes softened, and he took her hand. "About Hannah and Robin?"
  
  The real names for Miss Militia and Velocity sent a spike of pain through Sam's heart, and she ducked her head. Dead. Her teammates, her friends, were gone. Three in a very short time-span, if one counted Triumph. She did. She counted them all. All the ones she failed, in spite of her power.
  
  Taking her silence for confirmation, Ethan embraced her once more. "It's the fucking Endbringer, puppy. We cut the damned thing in half and it still crawled away."
  
  "Don't." Samantha shook her head, even as she was held against her husband's chest. "Don't talk about that... that thing. It doesn't deserve the attention. Let's focus on... on the people who matter."
  
  Sighing, he released his hold on her and kissed her forehead, then her cheek, then her mouth. It was a soft, gentle kiss that ended too soon for both of their liking. But now wasn't the time, no matter how much she wanted to feel alive .
  
  The very thought brought bile to her throat. Why? Her friends were dead . Why would she even think about... that? She was pathetic. She was a waste of a person, a terrible, lying human being.
  
  "Puppy-Sam." He used her real name that time, tilting her chin up with a finger. "It wasn't your fault. Everyone... we all chose to go out there. We do what we can because it's the right thing."
  
  "You do it because you think it's fun." She shot back automatically, tiredly.
  
  The smile that came to his face was far weaker than his normal grin. "That's right, normally. It is fun. Always has been. But things like this... no, this isn't fun. And I hate seeing you like this. Blaming yourself."
  
  Her head shook. "No, I... I just... they're gone. They're gone forever. They're gone, Brandish is gone, and that... that poor Parian. Hell, even Krieg and Stormtiger. They were murderous assholes, but they fought. And the... the boy from the Undersiders."
  
  "Heartbreaker's kid?" Assault supplied.
  
  "I don't think we ever confirmed that Regent was Heartbreaker's son." She pointed out. "And now, well now it hardly matters." Sighing, she turned to look out at the rubble of the building across the street that had been leveled by one of Leviathan's attacks. "How many out-of-towners did we lose? How many of the people who came to help us are dead because they stepped up?"
  
  "Too many." He replied. "Fuck, it was the lowest death count of any Endbringer attack ever, if we take the Smurf's eventual victims into account. But it was still too god damn many."
  
  "Too many." Sam agreed. She had known some of them, by reputation if nothing else. Good Neighbor, Fiercling, Iron Falcon, Quark, Resolute... too many names.
  
  They stood quietly like that for a few moments, both lost in thought, yet comfortable with one another so that constant words were not needed. Finally, she broke the silence. "I want to do something to help. I want to... contribute."
  
  Fuck. Fuck, why did she have to lie to him? For a brief, manic moment, Samantha considered just telling her husband the truth. But the thought of what Cauldron might do to him if he knew silenced this fantasy.
  
  Ethan raised an eyebrow. "You say that like you have something in mind."
  
  She looked away, suppressing her frown. "Tether. She lost her parents. She was probably one of the biggest factors to our 'lowest death count', did you see what she was doing out there?"
  
  He nodded. "That danger sense of hers, however it works, it made a lot of difference. She was everywhere. She... she did a lot."
  
  "And what's her reward?" Samantha was bitter. "She gets told her parents are dead. It's not fair." There was no lying now. She really did feel horrible for the girl, and she definitely hated the damn Endbringer.
  
  Seeing the anger, the frustration, on her face, Ethan put his hand against her cheek. "I'm sorry, puppy. I wish-tell me how I can help. Tell me what we can do. You said something about the girl."
  
  Sighing, Sam nodded. "She lost her parents, so they're gonna toss her into the system."
  
  His head shook. "Doesn't she have a brother?"
  
  "He's not really a factor." She said, biting her lip. "He's a local college student, was living at home, can barely take care of himself. No way he can do anything for her. I don't think he even knows about her powers. Which means she'll go into the system. You know how that works. They'll get some rubber stamp clerk or something from one of the PRT offices to sign the papers calling themselves her guardians, and then they'll just throw her at the Wards to deal with. She'll be lucky if she sees her supposed 'guardians' more than once a day."
  
  Blinking uncertainly, Ethan nodded. "Right, it's a pain in the ass, but what's that got to do with us?"
  
  Hesitating, Sam doubted herself for a moment. She could call Doctor Mother back, tell her that Ethan hadn't gone for it.
  
  In the end, it wasn't fear of the Cauldron woman that stopped her. It was the realization that she really, truly did want Tether to be taken care of. If she didn't do it, the girl's best case scenario was the unloving, uncaring situation that she had described. The much more likely, and much worse, scenario was that Cauldron would simply find someone else to do it. They would pick someone else to take the girl in, and who knew whether that someone would actually care what happened to Tether beyond the paycheck they were getting from their masters?
  
  "We should take her in." Samantha blurted out loud.
  
  Ethan leaned back to stare at her. "Err, what? You want to-you want to what?"
  
  She was blushing, wilting a little under his intent, questioning gaze. "Her life's gonna suck enough without being thrown into the supposed are of some in-name-only 'guardian'. She deserves better than that. I mean, maybe it's wrong, maybe it's dumb, but... but I don't care. I don't want her to get shuffled away and forgotten."
  
  "Wow." Ethan rocked back on his heels a bit. "I knew we'd eventually talk about having kids, but I wasn't expecting the conversation to revolve around someone that's almost old enough to drive."
  
  "You hate the idea?" She asked, wincing a little.
  
  He hesitated, but shook his head. "Didn't say that. You're right, the girl does need... someone. Losing your parents... that's... it's rough. I... you think they'd go for it?"
  
  "No way they'd deny us." Sam confirmed. Especially not if Cauldron wanted it done. As unlikely as it was that anyone would object to them taking one of their responsibilities off their hands, with Cauldron involved, that possibility dropped to near absolute zero.
  
  Ethan went quiet again, considering. "We're not that much older than she is." He pointed out.
  
  "I'm not." Samantha corrected with a nod. "You're ancient."
  
  He made a face at that. "I'm not old."
  
  "Ancient. She'll have to call you Grandpa." She repeated, winking. Her words were weak, the teasing mostly just them going through the motions. Even as some horrible, painful part of her heart tore a little at the thought of smiling after so much death, she leaned up to gently kiss his cheek. "Are we doing this?"
  
  After another moment of silence, he nodded. "If they'll let us, and if... if she agrees. I'd rather talk to the girl first, make sure she doesn't have anything else... you know... lined up."
  
  Swallowing the lump in her throat, Samantha nodded. "Okay. Then... then let's go adopt a sixteen-year-old hormonal girl with superpowers."
  
  Assault actually whimpered . "Is it too late to change my mind?"
  
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  Arc 8: Being
  Notes: Moka-girl - Whoops, thanks! I think I fixed that properly this time.
  
  LordAnarchy666 - Considering I've never seen DBZ other than a fair bit of the abridged series on youtube (and that was awhile ago), I promise that's a coincidence. ;) Still, glad you like it!
  
  Fazed343 - I have no idea how this story is coming out this quickly either. It just won't stop. I'm glad people are enjoying it.
  
  Starfox5 - Hey thanks, glad you enjoyed the Endbringer fight as well as the little prisoner transfer shenanigans. ;)
  
  I was alone.
  
  The house that I had grown up in, the only real home I knew, lay silent and dark as I stood in the kitchen, listening to the echoes of ghosts that would live forever within these walls.
  
  Slowly, I stepped away from the backdoor and said quietly, "I'm here." My voice was soft and small against the deafening silence of a home whose family was gone.
  
  Reaching out, I brushed my fingers along the kitchen table. My spot. My seat. My fingers found a the tiny groove that had always been there. I remembered a time when I was six, lining peas up along that groove, using it to hold them steady and then making a bet with Trevor that my line of peas would stay in place longer than his.
  
  Stupid. Ridiculous little nothings that kept coming to mind. My eyes moved to the kitchen sink, then to the red and yellow flowered stool that lay in the space between the fridge and the counter. Unused for years, with piles of cleaning supplies and other knickknacks stacked on top of it, but at one time the stool had been used every time it was my turn to clean the dishes. First it had been set on the left side of the sink so that I could dry them while Trevor washed, and later, when I was older yet still not quite tall enough, it had been on the right side so that I could do the scrubbing.
  
  An image came to mind: Dad using his foot to slide the stool across to its spot at the sink, then hoisting me off the ground, flipping me over in the air, and setting me down on the stool.
  
  I turned away from the sink, leaving the kitchen as I took my phone from my pocket, using the speed dial without looking before bringing the phone to my ear. As usual, I reached voice-mail.
  
  "It's me again,Trev." After speaking, I went silent for a moment, standing in the dark living room. "I'm... I'm at the house right now. I... listen, I know you're alive, because the emergency responders treated you for bruises. But then you disappeared. And... and I don't know where you went."
  
  Slowly, I walked over to the comfortable armchair that had been my father's, reaching a hand out to brush over it tenderly. "Mr. Tourney said you called the college to drop your classes, and... and the neighbors said you were here for an hour yesterday, during the... while the... funeral..."
  
  Turning away from the chair and blinking rapidly, I continued, "Listen, Trevor... I know. I know it-we-we haven't been that... close since... since you started college. You were trying to be your own person, and I was... well, I was a spoiled brat. But... but I need you-we... I think we need each other. Mom and-" My throat closed up, but I pushed on. If I didn't get this out, I never would. "Mom and Dad are gone, Trev. They're gone and... and we're alive. But I haven't seen you since... then... and I don't know what's going on. I don't know... why you're... why you haven't..."
  
  I reached the stairs, gripping the banister tightly as I walked up them. "I don't blame you for not showing up to the funeral, Trevor. I... maybe I did a little, but now I just... I just want to talk. We can't just... we can't just drift. We're still here. We can still be... we can keep... Please, Trev... call me back. I... I don't know what else to do. I'll... I'll call you again tomorrow. Pick up this time... please?"
  
  Sighing, I hit the disconnect on the phone, then put it away. For a few moments, I stood in the dark hallway, just outside of my brother's room. Dreading what I would see, I slowly reached up to push the door open. Just above my head, the little bell that Trevor had set up so that he'd know if I ever tried to sneak into his room made its pleasant jingling noise. Even that was enough to make the lump thicken in my throat, and I closed the door before slowly pressing it open once more. Just so that I could hear that stupid bell. For a time, it had been the bane of my existence. I had wanted so badly to get into Trevor's room because of this wicked stinky jello prank that I'd thought up. But the bell was loud enough to let everyone in the house hear it.
  
  I'd ended up using the stinky jello on Taylor.
  
  After opening Trevor's door again, I let my hand slip inside and flipped on the light switch before stepping inside. As I turned in a circle to take in my surroundings, I let out a low sigh. "Oh Trevor..."
  
  As I'd feared, the room was mostly empty. The blankets and sheets had been stripped off the bed, the closet stood open with about half the clothes missing, Trevor's laptop was gone from the desk, and all of his drawers were standing open and had obviously been gone through.
  
  I left his room, walking past the bathroom to my own bedroom. That door was open, and I took a moment to gaze at the Looney Tunes poster on the front of it. When my eyes closed, I could picture myself in the store, begging my mother to buy the poster. I'd seen it while flipping through the various options, and had immediately latched onto it. I'd wanted it so badly that I'd promised to vacuum the living room every week for a month if I could have it.
  
  Leaving the poster behind, I stepped into my room. Someone, likely a PRT clerk, had gone through my closet to find clothes that I could wear for the last couple of days, and to the funeral. My drawers were open like Trevor's had been, but my things had clearly been gone through with more care, and in less of a hurry.
  
  My eyes found my unmade and ruffled bed, my vanity table with the pictures of friends and various celebrities and superheroes taped all over the sides, and the closet where my clothes were. For a minute, I just stood and watched all of these pieces of what my life had been up to this point. I watched these objects, these reminders of a family I didn't have, these shards of a perfect mirror that had been shattered the day that Leviathan came. Shattered by a beast that cared nothing for the damage he left in his wake.
  
  I saw them, the reminders of the life and family that I'd had, the room that I had grown up in, and I turned my back to them. I turned away from the room and the belongings of the girl that I had been, and I walked away from it all. I took nothing, touched nothing. It wasn't mine anymore. That wasn't me anymore. Nothing was ever going to be the same. This was a hurt that would not vanish with time, that would never fully heal. I didn't need a memento, didn't want a tiny piece of my life to remind me of what had been. I wanted my mom and dad back. And that was never going to happen.
  
  Leaving my room, I walked onward to my parents' bedroom at the end of the hall. There, I stood in front of the closed door, lowering my forehead to rest against the wood.
  
  There were memories of this door as well. Memories of my much younger self standing next to Trevor, both of us shouting at the top of our lungs to be heard over each other, yelling through the closed door toward our parents inside, each trying to make our own side of whatever story we were telling be heard first.
  
  My hand found the knob and then I hesitated before slowly pushing the door open. I stood there in the doorway of my parents' room, staring at their empty bed. My eyes closed, and I remembered all the times that I had run from my room to theirs. Nightmares that sent me scurrying from my bed to the comfort of my mother and father, early Saturday morning requests for permission a friend to visit, or just a desire to be with them. I'd grown out of such things, of course. But in that moment, as I stood in their room, I wished I never had. I wished that my last memory of lying in bed and snuggling with my mom and dad was last week, not years ago.
  
  All the memories I had kept rushing through my head. Everywhere I turned, everything I saw, brought up more flashes of what had come before, of the events that had shaped my life.
  
  "I'm sorry." I said, my voice loud in the empty, silent room. "I... I don't know what to do."
  
  My hand found the light switch, and I walked further into the room to sit down on the edge of their bed. "I'm scared. I'm... I'm staying with... with Battery and... and Assault, but I don't know... I don't know what's going to happen." Turning around, I laid down on the bed in what had been my mother's spot, hugging her pillow to me. "I don't know where Trevor is. I don't know why he's avoiding everyone. I... I can't... I can't fix this. I can't fix anything."
  
  For a few minutes, I was silent. The words wouldn't come. I might have drifted off for a short moment or two, as tired as I was. I wasn't even sure how long that I'd been laying there before conscious thought returned. Finally, a minute or an hour later, I murmured into the pillow, "It's my birthday."
  
  Rolling over, I stared at the ceiling, extending a hand to the side of the bed that had been my dad's and rubbing it. "I'm sixteen years old today. Today is my birthday. But you know what that means? The only thing it means?"
  
  I let the silence stretch out for a long time before heaving myself off the bed. "It means that, from now on, every year for the rest of my life... my... my birthday, my birthday is the day after... after your funerals. My mom and dad were... were buried the... the day before my birthday. And that's just... that's just not going to go away. That's never going to go away."
  
  I was standing, my voice choked by emotion as the words changed. "Why did you have to go away?" I pled for answers that would never come. My hands covered my ears to drown out the deafening, deafening silence. "Why? Why... why... why..."
  
  Rocking back and forth on my feet for a few more minutes as every possibility of what I could have done different, how I could have saved them, played through my head.
  
  "I'm sorry." My words were weak, so soft they were barely audible as I stepped over to the dresser and picked up one of my dad's abandoned shirts. It hadn't been washed, and when I brought the shirt to my face, I could smell him. My eyes turned damp, and I inhaled the scent again before whimpering. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry I didn't save you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please, please..."
  
  Somehow, my feet carried me to the other door, and I found myself in my parents' bathroom, still holding my father's shirt. Unthinking, uncaring, I pulled the shirt on over my own clothes. It fell all the way to my knees, and I used both hands to tug the collar up partway over my face so that I could smell it some more. My father's scent calmed me, made me remember the good times.
  
  For awhile, I just stood there in the bathroom, draped in my father's shirt as I stared into the mirror at my own haunted eyes with their dark circles from the long, sleepless nights. I was tired, so tired. Yet every time I laid down, I dreamt of my family, which only made things worse when I inevitably woke to the truth.
  
  Again, my small and weak voice spoke out into the silence. "I could have saved you. If I had been faster, if I had... god... if I had slowed my own fall, I wouldn't have been hurt when I landed. Then I could've gone into the... into the shelter. I could have... done... something. I... I fucked up."
  
  "I've been trying. I've been trying to change, trying to be... better. I thought I was doing everything I could. I thought that I was... I thought that I could make a difference, just... just save... save everyone. I just wanted to save people."
  
  Slowly, I moved to stand in the shower, still fully clothed. My hands found the knob, and I pulled it out, exhaling as the hot water instantly began to spray down over me. It felt warm, and I tilted my already wet face up to the spray and simply stood under it. "I'm sorry... Mom... Dad... I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I thought... I thought I was doing the right thing."
  
  "It's not fair. It's just not fair. You should be here. This isn't real. It's not real. It can't be. I... you're gone and I'm never going to see you again. You're gone and I... and I miss you, and I'm always going to miss you and I can't... I can't..."
  
  Frustrated by my inability to express myself, I lifted the shirt to smell it again.
  
  Nothing. I turned from the shower spray and inhaled. Still nothing. My eyes blinked a couple times, my reaction dulled from days of grief. Then I realized, too late: the shower. The water was washing away the scent that had calmed me.
  
  "No." I scrambled, throwing myself out of the shower. My wet foot came down on the tile and I slipped, crashing to the floor painfully. But I didn't care. That pain was brief, this one was eternal. Scrambling, I all but flung the shirt off my head, turning it inside out before bunching it all up against my face.
  
  Nothing. The shirt had been soaked through by the shower that I had stupidly, unthinkingly turned on.
  
  "No no no no! No! Please! Please, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" By that time, the crying had come back in full. I was blinded by my own relentless tears, hugging the soaking wet shirt as I lay on the floor, desperately searching for that lost scent that was as out of reach as the man it had belonged to.
  
  Another thing I had ruined. Another mistake that I couldn't take back.
  
  She found me there, lying on the floor of the bathroom. I didn't bother looking up as Marissa sat down on the damp floor next to me. Her hand found my back, and I whispered, my voice choked and broken by my own tears. "I ruined it." I lifted the shirt for her to see, almost babbling. "My Dad. His shirt. His... he smelled... and I... I had it and it was nice and I felt good and... and... then I ruined it. I ruined it. The water. I can't... I can't make it come back. Make it come back, Mars. Please. Please make it come back."
  
  Her arms went around me, pulling me against her in a tight hug. I lay limp against her, my strength gone. My face buried itself against her shoulder, and as the tears fell freely, I pleaded for what I truly, desperately wanted, but would never, ever have. It was the whispered wish of a single girl against the inevitable, indomitable tide of reality.
  
  "Make them come back. Please... Mars... make them come back."
  
  Three nights later, a man's hysterical scream filled the air as he plummeted from a hundred feet in the air, straight toward the ground. His eyes closed a moment before impact would have come, and he let out a choked sob.
  
  At the last safe second, I slowed him down, then let him drop semi-gently against the pavement. Then I crouched next to him and patted his hair. "So, I know you're new to our city. But for future reference, when someone like me says 'stop', it isn't local slang for 'flip us off and run the other way'"
  
  "Oh my god... oh my god... oh my god..." The man sure liked to repeat himself. "You-you could have killed me."
  
  I scoffed. "I wasn't going to kill you. Besides, you were fucking mugging people after an Endbringer attack. You were mugging relief workers, you tool. What'd you think was gonna happen?" When he didn't answer, I patted his head again. "Next time you get an idea like that, just remember: human yo-yo. Or, I could send you up and down a couple more times just to make sure you get the point."
  
  His eyes widened and the man shook his head frantically. "N-no no, I get it. I get it. No hurting, no stealing, f-fuck just don't throw me again."
  
  "Good boy." I straightened, reaching down to tug the man's hands behind his back before attaching a set of zipcuffs to him. Then I helped him to his feet. "Upsy daisy."
  
  "Everything all right over here?" Assault, my... current guardian, stood nearby, having wrangled the other two thugs of this trio that had been trying to steal the rescue supplies that were being brought to the hospital. Assholes.
  
  "She tried to kill me!" My guy blurted, taking a few steps away from me and toward the older hero.
  
  Assault shrugged. "Looks like you're alive to me. She obviously didn't try too hard." He reached out to grab the guy's arm and tugged him over to stand next to his buddies. Then he looked at me. "Collection van's on the way. You wanna do one last pass over the area and make sure there's no more skulkers?"
  
  I nodded and turned, using a line to yank myself up to the top of the nearby overpass so that I could see the street below a little better. Then, one by one, I went to each building and checked the alleys between them.
  
  Assault found me about ten minutes later, after the PRT van had pulled away with their prisoners. "All clear?"
  
  I sat down on the edge of the roof, letting my feet dangle. "Clear." I confirmed, gazing down at a couple of rats that were fighting over some garbage. I hesitated a moment while the man continued to stand there, before sighing. "I wasn't actually going to hurt him."
  
  "I know that," He replied, before taking a seat on the roof next to me. "Trust me, kid, if you wanted to hurt him, he'd be hurt. He didn't have powers, and you disarmed him right away."
  
  "I just..." I hesitated. "I wanted to make an impression. There's too many people in the prison now, and too few people to watch them all. He'll get out, legally or illegally, and if... if he thought there was no consequences, he'd go right back to hurting people. Maybe this way, he'll at least... think about it. Or go somewhere else." I let my head fall, sighing. "How bad is that? I'd settle for assholes like that, who try to steal medical supplies after an Endbringer attack, to just... go away."
  
  "It's not that bad," Assault answered after a moment. "Understandable. You're not a killer, and trust me, that's a good thing. But you still want to protect your people, your area, your city. The point of all this... cops and robbers thing is to encourage the guys toeing the line to stay on the right side of it, punish the ones crossing the line just enough, and put the worst of the worst in a deep dark hole they never come out of. There's layers of 'bad guys', kid, and those guys are scum, but not scum that deserves to die or anything. They're just... stupid. I doubt they even really considered the fact that they were stealing medical supplies that people were going to die without. They weren't thinking that far ahead, they weren't... connecting their actions to how it might affect others. They just saw things they wanted and took them." He frowned. "Trust me, I know the type. But I also know that making them think about direct consequences to themselves is one way of getting through to people like that. Maybe he'll go right back to stealing, or maybe he won't. Either way, the problem's dealt with for now."
  
  "That one is, anyway." I muttered. "Still plenty of other problems to deal with. Especially with only about a third of the city having water and power."
  
  His arm nudged me. "Hey, do you have any idea what kind of a coup that is? A third of the city having water and power after an Endbringer attack is amazing. And you're a big part of that."
  
  My head shook. "I didn't do much."
  
  "Are you kidding?" He turned a little to look at me. "Kid, we just had the lowest fatality rate of any Endbringer attack ever . There's two major reasons for that. First, people being yanked out of danger just in time. That was you. Second, we hardly ever lost sight of the big guy, right up until the end. Usually Leviathan is so fast that he gets out of sight and does a lot more damage until people can find him again. This time, we were on him almost the whole time. That was you too."
  
  I blinked at the last part, frowning. "How was that me?"
  
  "You were going everywhere that he was." Assault pointed out. "You were so focused on grabbing people that were about to get hurt by him that you were constantly right on top of his location. After awhile, most of us just locked onto the signal your armband was giving off and followed it whenever the big guy got out of sight. It meant that he never really got too out of sight. The power and water are still up in those areas because the defenders were able to keep track of where he was going, and shield those areas properly. Hell, some of those areas up by your family's place already have their internet back, since Leviathan didn't get too far up through that area without people blocking or corralling him. Some of those defenders were only still alive to do that because of you. Others were healed and put back into action faster because of your idea to have that Undersider with the timestop ability work with Panacea. We had more defenders, all of whom knew where Leviathan was going and what they needed to focus on protecting. That was all you. And it's why we totally lost his location after your armband got fried."
  
  I flinched in spite of myself at the reminder. "Sorry. I... I still don't know what happened."
  
  "That's not my point." Assault looked sidelong at me for a moment. "Look, I... I'm sorry about your parents. That..." He let out a long breath. "That sucks. Sorry, there's no... no better way of putting it. But you can't keep blaming yourself. You did good work out there. Without you, a lot more people would've died."
  
  My voice was small then. "I still want my mom and dad back."
  
  "I know." Assault hesitated, looking somewhat... awkward for a moment. Then he spoke. "I wasn't always the sterling, exemplary beacon of truth and justice that you see before you today. I uhh, don't really want to talk about it, but I lost my dad young too. Then I decided I was gonna go out and save people from the thing that took him away."
  
  I blinked then. "That... sounds heroic to me."
  
  The corner of his mouth tilted up into a faint smirk. "The thing I lost my dad to was the Birdcage."
  
  My eyes widened. "Oh."
  
  "Yeah." He nodded. "Oh. Anyway, I lost my dad to the cage, so I decided I wasn't going to let anyone else get sent there. Anyone who could afford my prices anyway. I did have to make a living, you know. Anyway, that was my enemy. The Birdcage. Obviously, I couldn't break in there, but I could break people out before they reached the place."
  
  Something occurred to me then. "Wait, does that mean that you're-"
  
  He held a finger to his lips and winked. "Shh. The point is, I did a lot of bad things and ended up letting more criminals out. I thought it was fun at the time, just getting one over on the guys that took my father away. Then it became more about the money. I let the job change who I was, and not in a good way. By the time I got caught, I was already starting to realize that this wasn't someone I wanted to be. I was having fun, don't get me wrong, but it changed me. I didn't really figure out how much it changed me until later, until I had something better to work for. But hey, don't tell anybody about that. It's better if they think their negotiations changed me."
  
  His hand found my back and rested there. "I'm really sorry about your parents. Death like that, it can define a person. It can change them. Just make sure that whoever it changes you into, is someone that you actually want to be."
  
  We sat in silence for a few minutes, until he clapped my back once more and straightened. "Anyway, let's see how far you can slingshot me. Bet we can reach that billboard beyond the overpass."
  
  I was standing just outside my house again. This time, I was at the front door and the lights were on. Glancing both ways up and down the street, I unlocked the door and stepped inside, carrying a sack with me. The smell of macaroni and cheese greeted me.
  
  Marissa came around the corner from the kitchen. "Hey, ummm, you hungry?"
  
  I shook my head. "Ate dinner with Assault. Burrito truck. I'll probably regret it later, but it was good." My eyes fell on the couch where I had sat with my dad the night the truth about Taylor and my powers had come out, and then I looked away, blinking rapidly. Fuck. Even being here hurt. I wouldn't-couldn't go upstairs. Just being on the ground floor was almost too painful.
  
  "Listen," Mars hesitated, folding her arms over her stomach. "This sucks for you. I can go somewhere else..."
  
  "Where?" I asked, shaking my head. "None of the motels that have power have any openings, most of them were commandeered to serve as extra hospitals for all the injured people to have a roof over their heads."
  
  "I could..." Marissa swallowed. "I could go find Krouse and Noelle and the others... They wouldn't turn me away."
  
  "No." I said firmly, locking the door behind me. "Mars, you're okay here. You're safe here. Just because it... it hurts doesn't mean I'm stupid. This house has power and water, and... you need that right now, more than I need to stay away from the memories. I..." Remembering the sack in my hand, I held it out to her. "I was just bringing you a couple things from the supplies truck. Hot dogs and spam, mostly."
  
  Taking the sack, she managed a little smile. "Yum, now the mac 'n cheese can have hot dogs too. Are you sure you're not hungry?"
  
  I shook my head, lowering my gaze to the floor as tears threatened to overwhelm me again. My mom and I used to have hot dogs with macaroni and cheese for lunch every Wednesday back when I was in elementary school, since those days were half days and I was off by twelve-thirty. It was a special thing between the two of us. We'd watch whatever Disney animated film I wanted that week and eat on the floor. The thought made my eyes water, and I rubbed at them. God damn it, was everything going to set me off from now on?
  
  Turning so that Mars wouldn't see the stupid tears, I walked to the door into the den. "I'm umm..." I needed an excuse to sit alone for a few minutes so that I could collect myself. The last thing I wanted to do was make Marissa keep taking care of me. She had her own problems. "I heard they got the internet back up already on this side of town. I'm gonna see if it's working so I can check my e-mail. Haven't... umm... done that in a few days. Obviously."
  
  I could tell that she wanted to say something else, but she didn't push me. Her hand brushed my arm as I passed, and she spoke softly. "I'll be right out here."
  
  It felt stupid, and somehow wrong, to do something as mundane as checking e-mail at a time like this. But both of my new guardians and Aegis thought I needed a break. They had ordered me to take off the costume and take a break for the rest of the night, with threats of an additional twenty-four hour lock-down if they caught me out and about again. So, for the moment, I was effectively grounded.
  
  The connection was slow, but it worked. I opened the browser and went to my e-mail, while listening to Marissa in the kitchen.
  
  As usual, most of it was junk. There was a few messages from people who knew I was in Brockton Bay and wanted to know what was going on. Then I noticed a message near the bottom of the list.
  
  It was from an e-mail address that was just a series of numbers, while the subject read, 'The Truth'. When I clicked on the e-mail, I found a video attachment along with a simple message: 'You need to see this. Don't show it to anyone you don't trust absolutely. PRT is compromised. - A Frienemy'
  
  When I clicked on the attachment, I found a strange, awkward view, as though the video was taken from waist height with a cell phone that was only vaguely pointed toward the subject. Still, I recognized the figure. It was Coil, standing across a room as he talked to... Sophia?
  
  "That's it." My former friend was saying. "I did what you wanted, now get this fucking bomb out of my head!"
  
  "Oh, I think not." The masked man replied. "We have far too much left to do."
  
  Sophia snapped. "Bullshit! Bullshit! I did what you wanted. I made sure they died! I made sure they died-and-and now we're done! Fair trade, my life for theirs. That's means we're done!"
  
  Coil raised his hand to settle it onto Sophia's shoulder. "No, I'm afraid that killing Tether's parents means we're just getting started."
  
  "Oh my god, Madison." Dennis stared at me, face hidden behind his mask. "Do you... the video... it's real?"
  
  I flinched, nodding. "It's real, Dennis. My... my parents..." My eyes closed and I shuddered from the effort of pushing the emotions down. "My parents are dead because of Coil. " I turned my gaze to him. "Sophia killed them, Dennis. Sophia killed my parents because Coil told her to." I put my head in my hands, sinking to the floor as my shoulders shook. "They're dead because... because of... because he wanted to... to get to me." The thought made me physically sick, and I put my forehead against my arms, shuddering with revulsion.
  
  I'd called Dennis over to watch the video, warning both him and Marissa to change so that their identities would remain secret. I didn't want to risk moving the video anywhere else, especially to any computers provided by the PRT. It was already saved onto this computer, and onto the flash drive that I'd found in the drawer of my father's desk, just in case. In addition, I'd made up three different random e-mail addresses and uploaded the video to each of them, as well as two different file sharing services. Additionally, I had taken several screen-shots of the video that showed Sophia and Coil together, printed them out, and had the pictures taped up underneath the desk. Finally, when Dennis arrived, he had brought a prepaid phone with him, and we copied the video onto that as well.
  
  In her costume, Marissa crossed over to sit next to me on the floor. "He's a monster, Mads. I knew, I just... I didn't think he'd go this far. I am so... so sorry." Her hand gently brushed my hair, her voice almost as pained as I felt.
  
  Dennis sat on the other side of me, letting out a long breath. "Sophia... Coil... I just... Why? Why would Coil target you so specifically? What the hell does he have against you? I know why Sophia hates you so much, but this was his idea. His orders."
  
  "Pandora said that he's afraid of me for some reason." I said helplessly, shrugging. "She thinks I'm useful because he has some big problem with me and my power. I don't... I don't know... " My eyes closed. I felt numb. There was anger, so much anger that it scared me. A very... big part of me wanted to scream and rage against the injustice, against the fact that my parents, who had never hurt anyone, had been targeted just because of who I was. Yet another part of me was just... tired. The shock of the revelation had left me feeling almost broken.
  
  "I thought they just... died." I whispered, so quietly that the other two both had to lean closer to hear me. "I thought it was just one of those things. Now it's... it was... them. It was Sophia and it was Coil and they..." I swallowed hard past the thick lump in my throat, even that act almost physically painful. "They killed my parents. They targeted my parents and killed them... because of me."
  
  It was Dennis's turn to pull me into a hug, his head shaking. "Madison, no. No, it wasn't your fault. It's them. It's... it's Coil. He... you saw the video. It's not your fault."
  
  "If I hadn't started doing this, he'd never have any reason to go after them." I argued weakly, my throat already sore from the crying that had just not let up over the last few days. My emotions were shot. I wasn't even sure what I was feeling right in that moment. The anger, the fear, the remorse, the guilt, everything I felt was jumbled and broken up until I couldn't recognize what was right anymore.
  
  "Then even more people would be dead." Dennis said, hugging me tighter still before releasing me to lean back. "Madison, listen..." There was a pause, and when he spoke again, his voice was unmuffled. "I... you can't change what other people do. You can't take that guilt. This is Coil. Coil and Sophia."
  
  Surprised, I glanced that way. His face was uncovered, and he was staring at me with obvious concern.
  
  "I-wait-your mask..." I protested.
  
  "Oh, right." Dennis looked past me. "Name's Dennis. There, secret identity compromised. Moving on."
  
  My eyes widened at that. "But... but you don't..."
  
  "Eh." He shrugged. "If she was going to betray you, I'm pretty sure she would've by now. If you trust her with your identity, I can do the same. Besides, she kicked ass in that Leviathan fight."
  
  "Clockblocker-ahh... Dennis... is right." When I glanced that way, I saw that Marissa had removed her mask as well. She met Dennis's gaze. "Marissa."
  
  "Good to meet you without all the fire and screaming." Dennis announced, before straightening a little. "You're hurt, Mads. That's more important than secret identities, or whatever this cops and robbers with capes game is turning into. Like I said, if you trust her with who you are, hell, if you trust her to live in your house, then I can trust her with my face and name. Maybe I don't know her, but I know you. And I trust you."
  
  We sat there in silence for a few moments. My head bowed again. "Coil." I said softly. "It's all Coil."
  
  Marissa's hand continued to brush through my hair, her voice speaking softly. "I'm so sorry, Madison. Your parents... if I'd known he'd go that far... I... I would have..."
  
  "There's nothing you could have done." I said quietly, not wanting the other girl to take any of the guilt that I already felt.
  
  Dennis nodded. "And there's nothing you could have done either, Maddy. You saved a lot of people that would have died without you. This... this is Coil. It's Coil's fault, and we're not letting him get away with it."
  
  "Exactly." Marissa's hand found mine, and she interlaced our fingers. "We have to deal with Coil. Whatever it takes."
  
  I flinched, glancing her way. "Trickster and the others, they still think that Coil can help Noelle."
  
  "Noelle." Dennis echoed. "That's the... the cape that made Pandora?"
  
  It was Mars who answered. "That's right. And... and I know. I've tried to talk to them, tried to convince Krouse, but he just won't... he won't listen. Jess and Luke might, eventually, especially if they hear about this, but Krouse is obsessed. He can't admit he's been wrong all this time. Because if Coil can't fix her..."
  
  "We'll find another way." I promised, glancing toward Dennis. "I know, this isn't what you signed up for. Whatever Coil's doing, if he has spies inside the PRT somewhere..."
  
  "You need help, Mads." Dennis replied. "So I'll be there. And so would any of the rest of the team. You know that."
  
  "I know." I swallowed. "I know we can trust them. I believe that. I just... I'm not sure it's fair to put this all on them. But we do need help. We can't just do this ourselves."
  
  "What about this 'frienemy'?" Marissa asked. "Any ideas on who that is?"
  
  I shrugged. "I'm not... sure. Maybe, but, I don't want to say anything yet. No, there's someone else we can talk to first. Someone else that can help figure this out."
  
  "These are very serious accusations, Madison." Mr. Calvert said gravely from his place behind his desk. His eyes to Dennis next to me. "Have you told her how serious this could be, whether or not it's true?"
  
  I spoke up before Dennis could. "He told me. I know it's a big deal. It's my parents, Mr. Calvert. It was already a big deal."
  
  "Of course, of course." He nodded. "I just mean, is it possible that you're reaching out for someone to blame other than Leviathan? Accusing anyone, even a notorious villain, of not only breaking the Endbringer truce, but also of engineering the murder of a cape's parents, is one of the most serious accusations that you could possibly make, short of... I don't know, claiming relation to one of the Slaughterhouse Nine."
  
  "My source is solid, Mr. Calvert." I told him firmly. "Dennis convinced me to bring it to you as the head of Parahuman Investigations. He said you wouldn't ignore it." My voice might have risen a little at the end there.
  
  Mr. Calvert raised both hands placatingly. "Don't worry. I'm not trying to ignore anything, I assure you. I'm merely establishing exactly how far you want to take this, in this moment. You tell me what you'd like my next move to be. You said this should remain secret, do you have a list of people you'd like to be brought in on this immediately, or are we waiting for this source of yours to provide more information? Would it be possible to bring the source in and have Armsmaster speak with them in order to further verify the information they've provided?"
  
  "I..." I hesitated, sighing a little as I lowered my head. "I'm not sure what to do, sir. If Coil really had my parents killed... that means he knows who I am. And... he's... got something personal against me for some reason." Glowering, I raised my gaze to the man. "I want to take him down, sir. I don't care how hard it is. I don't care how untouchable that son of a bitch thinks he is. If he... if he was responsible for my parents deaths... I'm going to ruin him."
  
  Meeting my gaze for a moment, Mr. Calvert finally smiled faintly. "Then I promise to help you in any way that I can, Madison. Don't worry, we'll figure this out together. You have good friends." He nodded toward Dennis. "Remember, you're not alone. Anything else you find out, bring it forward and we'll find a way to use it. And whenever you're ready to bring the rest of the team into it, you tell me. If Coil did this... we'll make an example of him. Families are off limits for a reason."
  
  I nodded at that, swallowing uneasily. "Thank you, sir. I... my parents... if he killed them..."
  
  "We'll find out." Calvert promised, reaching out to put his hand on top of mine. His brow was knit with concern. "Like I said, you're not alone. I'm not going to ignore this. Anything else you get..."
  
  "I'll let you know, sir." I said quietly, moving my hands to my lap as a little shudder when through me.
  
  "We should go." Dennis announced, starting to rise. "We have other things to do."
  
  Bobbing my head as I swallowed thickly, I pushed myself up. "He's right, we need to go. I... thank you, Mr. Calvert." I managed something resembling a smile as I looked to him. "Thanks for all your help."
  
  "Of course, Madison." He rose as well to see us out. "I'm just glad you trust me enough to help with this."
  
  "That's your job, isn't it?" I asked as we moved to the door. "Taking care of situations like this."
  
  Calvert's hand found my shoulder as he guided us out of his office. "Absolutely. Resolving situations like this one is exactly why I took this job."
  
  Just as we reached the door, there was a knock. The man stepped around us to open it, revealing a younger, nervous looking guy that was probably an intern. "Mr. Ummm... Mr. Calvert, sir? It's the police." He extended a cell phone.
  
  "Thank you, Dexter." Mr. Calvert started to reach for the phone before pausing to ask, "What are they calling about?"
  
  The poor intern looked like he really didn't want to be the one passing this news. "Something about a fire at your house, sir."
  
  Mr. Calvert's eyes widened slightly, and he took the phone before glancing toward us. "I'm sorry, I need to handle this."
  
  We nodded, and then left the office. Behind us, we could hear Calvert demanding to know how a fire could have started at his private residence, and that he'd be right there.
  
  Dennis and I walked down the hall to the elevator, passing busy PRT agents and paper-pushers rushing back and forth. They had been working on converting Kaiser's own office building to work as the headquarters for the new PCIPS agency, until Leviathan attacked. Now there were more important things to do, so the two agencies were still doubled up in the PRT building.
  
  We said nothing as the elevator descended toward the ground level. When the doors opened, we walked out of the building. We crossed two streets and then took a sharp right into a semi-hidden alley.
  
  "How'd it go?" Marissa asked, from where she was sitting on a couple of cement steps.
  
  "Yeah." Another voice spoke up from further in, by the dumpster. Dennis stepped into view, arms folded casually as he observed the two of us that had just arrived. "How'd it go with the director?"
  
  Slowly, I turned toward the figure next to me. "Well?"
  
  'Dennis' glanced my way, and then 'his' figure shifted and changed until I was looking at Pandora. She, not Calvert, had been the person that I had told Dennis and Marissa that I wanted to find first, before we did anything else. Then we'd taken the time to think, really think about who had benefited the most from the past couple of months. Only one name had consistently come up in all of our talks. One name that had met me right around the time that Pandora said Coil had become paranoid about what my power was.
  
  Sure enough, the strange clone confirmed in her even, calm voice. "Our assumption was correct. We recognized his power."
  
  "Does that mean what I think it means?" The real Dennis asked.
  
  "Yeah." I said in a low voice, barely restraining myself. It had taken everything I had, everything I could possibly cling to, in order to stop myself from lunging across the desk back there. "It means that Coil... is Thomas Calvert."
  
  8.04
  
  "So the guy that's not only in charge of us, but also in charge of the entire Parahuman investigation, safety, and internal review group... is Coil?" Dennis's voice was dull with shock. I think he was kind of hoping that our sting would have cleared the man. I know I kind of had been.
  
  "That's about the size of it." I confirmed, putting my hands against the nearby wall as I tried to control my immediate desire to walk back in there, attach lines to Calvert's shirt, and propel him out the nearest window.
  
  "What are we gonna do?" He asked, looking to me.
  
  "We will remove him." Pandora announced, as casually as anyone else stating that they'd head to the store for eggs and milk. "Immediately."
  
  Realizing what she meant, I turned that way. "No. Pandora, no, stop."
  
  Her head tilted curiously. "You would have him live? We believed that the death of your parents would make you desire his death."
  
  "I do." I answered honestly. "I... a part of me wants him dead, right now. You think I didn't fantasize about blowing that sonofabitch out the window, or throwing a desk into him, or anything else I could possibly do to make him hurt? But this isn't about me. This isn't about what would make me feel better. It's about the people he's hurt. It's about my mom and dad and how they wouldn't want me to go that far. It's about Taylor's dad, and if Coil dies, his name'll never be cleared."
  
  I stopped, taking a breath before I pushed off from the wall. "And it's about you, Pandora."
  
  "Us?" She blinked once. "What about us?"
  
  "If you kill him, if you rush in there and you murder Thomas Calvert, not to mention all the people you'd have to go around or through to get to him, then you'll never be seen as a real person." I told her flatly. "You'll always be the mass murdering monster that they think you are, and they'll move heaven and earth to put you down."
  
  "We can defend ourselves." She said, assuredly.
  
  "Then what?" I demanded. "You kill whoever they send after you? Then they send more. Then they evacuate the city when you kill those ones, if you can. They evacuate the city, they wall it off like they did with Nilbog, only this time with a ceiling. Maybe tinker-tech forcefields, I don't know, but they'll manage it. Then whoever's left in the city when they shut it down gets locked in here with you. Maybe you freak out at being contained, at being trapped, and you kill everyone else. But then there's just you. Just a bunch of you sitting alone, trapped in here, while the whole world out there goes on for the rest of their lives, forever, believing that you are evil, that you're a monster. And you will never, ever convince them otherwise. And even that's assuming you get past his bullshit timeline power."
  
  For a long moment, the clone of Panacea, whose thought processes were so utterly strange and alien to me, who understood morality the way that I understood quantum physics (having the general idea that it existed and that it was important, but knowing little more than a few related words), stared at me. I had the distinct impression that I was being evaluated on a scale that I couldn't hope to understand, and probably didn't want to try to.
  
  Finally, her head inclined slightly. "We will withhold our attack. For now."
  
  I let out the breath that I didn't know I'd been holding. As much as I wanted to trust her, working with Pandora was a bit like holding the badly frayed leash of a wild, violent animal. Not only was I unsure how well I could use the leash to direct her before it snapped, but if she did turn on me, all the leash did was keep her within striking distance.
  
  Actually, considering the damage potential she was likely capable of, it was like keeping a biological weapon of mass destruction on a leash.
  
  Marissa spoke up into the brief silence that came after Pandora agreed not to kill Calvert immediately. "Well I'm kind of glad he turned out to be Coil. I would've been really upset if I burned down someone's house for no reason."
  
  I smiled in spite of myself at that. "Yeah, he got the call as we were leaving. Don't worry, Mars, you did good." I glanced toward Pandora, "You said he can only have two timelines up at once, right?" The clone had described Coil's power as, essentially, being able to have two realities up at once where he could make different decisions. She said it was more complicated than that, but for all intents and purposes, that's what we should think of it as.
  
  When Pandora nodded, I turned back to Marissa. "So assuming he was using his power, burning down his house made it less likely that he'd cancel our timeline and go with one where we didn't talk to him. Plus, this should distract him long enough for us to have our other meeting."
  
  "Other meeting?" Dennis asked, frowning.
  
  "Yeaaaah." I coughed. "The one I haven't mentioned yet. I contacted that frienemy at the same e-mail address and agreed to meet them after this was done." I shrugged helplessly. "We were using their information. No way to be sure that Coil wouldn't figure out who it came from. So I had to warn them. Now they wanna meet up."
  
  "And you still have no idea who it was?" Marissa pressed.
  
  Shrugging, I said, "I've got an idea, but I'm not positive, no. Guess we're gonna find out. Then maybe we'll have a better idea of how to handle Calvert." I glanced to Pandora again. "We're gonna have to be subtle for awhile. Can we... contact you? I mean, do you have a phone or..." I went on awkwardly.
  
  In response, because my life wasn't enough of a damn horror show anyway, Pandora lifted both hands. She gripped the index finger of one hand and pulled it off, because of fucking course she did.
  
  I let out a yelp while stumbling backwards, my eyes wide. "Pandora! What the hell are you doing?!"
  
  Blinking as she held the severed finger out to me, Pandora replied casually, "We are providing you a means of contacting us."
  
  As if my mouth couldn't have gaped open any further as it was. I squeaked, "You're what ? " I lifted a hand to point while stammering. "That's a... that's... that's a finger, not a cell phone! " My arms waved in some weird pantomime as my voice went up slightly hysterically. "A cell phone is a little electronic thingy that goes beep beep beep when you hit the little buttons and then rings rings and you answer the phone and you talk and it most certainly does not rip off of your body and why are you trying to hand me your finger?! "
  
  Through it all, Pandora continued to stand there with a faintly curious look, as if I was the one that was ripping off parts of my body and handing them out. When she spoke, her voice remained as cool as ever. "We do not have a cell phone. We have this." Again, she held the finger out to me.
  
  "Ummm... Pa... Pandora?" Dennis decided to contribute to this lunacy. "Maybe you could explain how we're supposed to use a... finger to contact you?"
  
  The clone looked that way before giving a short nod of agreement. "Perhaps we should have explained to begin with. Then we could have avoided this confusion." Her attention turned back to me, and she went on with a disturbingly helpful tone. "We have provided this portion of this body with the ability to process and understand sound."
  
  "You turned it into an ear?" Marissa said slowly.
  
  "I seriously can't wait until we get to the less confusing part." I managed.
  
  Pandora continued while resolutely holding the finger out to me. "Our bodies are capable of hearing everything that any of ours separate selves hears. You need merely hold the piece of ourselves close and speak, and we will hear you. It is not shaped correctly, so you will have to hold it close in order for the sound to be picked up."
  
  Slowly, in a daze, I took the offered finger while speaking dully. "You turned your finger... into an ear... so that I could talk into it... and all of your separate bodies... would hear me..." I turned toward Marissa and Dennis then, holding the finger. "My life... is officially fucked up."
  
  "That was pretty big of you." Dennis said, an hour later. "Telling Pandora not to kill Calvert. I'm not... sure I could have made that decision."
  
  "He's right." Marissa agreed. "I don't exactly have the best track record for good decisions when it comes to what I'll do for the people I care about. You could have just let her go."
  
  The three of us had changed into our costumes for this meeting, and we were sitting in what remained of a warehouse near the docks. The place had been gutted by Leviathan's attack, and a good portion of what was left was underwater. We were on what had been the upper catwalk, and the water was only a few feet below our dangling legs.
  
  I shrugged. "It wasn't exactly completely selfless."
  
  Nudging me with her arm, Marissa asked, "What's that supposed to mean? You could've just let Pandora kill him. Hell, considering her duplication ability, she might have gotten him even with his bullshit power."
  
  "Yeah." I agreed. "She might've killed him. But... I don't want that. I don't want him dead. He dies, especially if she kills him before the truth comes out, and he goes down a martyr. People keep thinking he was this nice guy. Not only does that ruin any chance Pandora has at not being seen as this evil monster, but... but I want people to know who the real monster is. I want to look at him and have him realize that every plan he made, every risk he took, every person he killed, was all pointless. I want him to realize that he lost, that he's done, and then have to live with that. I don't want him dead. Death is easy. Death is an escape. It's the people that are left that have to cope. And that's what I want. He killed my parents, the best thing I can do, the worst thing for him, is to kill his plans and then make him live. I want him to survive. I want him to go to prison where he belongs, where he can sit for the rest of his life, knowing that all of his plans are dead... and that I'm the one that killed them."
  
  "Mind if we make that 'we killed them'?" A new voice asked. We turned that way, to see a figure dropping in from the broken skylight to land in a crouch on the catwalk, steadying herself before straightening.
  
  "Tattletale." Dennis's expression was hidden behind his mask, but he seemed surprised. "You I wasn't expecting."
  
  "Right back at you." The Undersider shot back. "I figured she'd be here," She nodded toward Sundancer. "But I didn't expect Tether to involve her teammate."
  
  "He's a friend." I said, straightening. "So it was you."
  
  Marissa let out a quiet little sigh. I knew she had been hoping that the person who sent us the information had been one of her friends. Putting my hand against hers reassuringly, I went on addressing the villain. "I kind of figured, after that little help back before Leviathan arrived. Frienemy?"
  
  Tattletale shrugged, giving us that fox-like calculating smile. "I hoped you'd figure it out." Her expression softened then, briefly. "Posturing aside, I am sorry about your parents. That's not what I got into this stuff for, and it wasn't my choice."
  
  Swallowing, I folded my arms, telling myself to remain aloof. "But you still work for him."
  
  "That's not exactly by choice either." She replied. "Sure, we're bad guys. We're thieves, con artists, whatever. I don't feel so bad about that."
  
  "Obviously." Dennis interrupted.
  
  The other girl's smile just widened. "Like I said, don't feel bad about that. Gotta do what you gotta do." She paused then, as though considering something before she addressed Dennis again, indicating me. "You know she's pretty much Panacea's friend. You should just ask her to tell the healer about your father."
  
  "What?" I blinked, turning that way. "What's she talking about?"
  
  "Later." He said gruffly. "This is more pressing. Why'd you change sides?" He directed the last bit to our guest.
  
  Tattletale scoffed. "Who changed sides? Like I said, I don't mind most of the minor league stuff. Even some of the medium league. But killing someone's parents... breaking the truce... that's too fucking far. And there's some other stuff..." She hesitated before sighing. "The trouble is, I'm still not sure exactly what his power is."
  
  "We know what it is." I said, unable to help the smile that came when she stared, clearly taken aback. "Aww, did we actually find something out that the girl whose whole schtic is knowing things didn't get?"
  
  "Now that's an expression I wish we could immortalize." Dennis quipped, framing his fingers together like a photograph. "Tattletale, completely speechless because someone knows something she doesn't."
  
  She recovered quickly, to her credit. "Okay, okay. Hilarious. What are we dealing with?"
  
  "First," I replied, "we need to know what you know. We need information if we're gonna take this fucking psycho down."
  
  "Information is my specialty." The Undersider agreed. "And I can give you a lot of it. Trouble is, people aren't really going to listen to me. If you want proof, if you want someone that can really help you bury Coil, then you're gonna need a reliable witness."
  
  I raised an eyebrow, though the expression was hidden. "Where are we supposed to get one of those, exactly?"
  
  Tattletale's smile was back. "Why give you one, when I can give you two?"
  
  "Two?" Marissa prompted.
  
  "First," The other girl went on with a nod, "You have to find Browbeat. Yeah he wasn't exactly really a bad guy. It's a long story, but it basically came down to either we control him, or Coil kill him because of something he knew. Since Regent... since Regent died, Browbeat's been free, but he's hiding. So find him and you've got a witness."
  
  "So Regent WAS Heartbreaker's son." Dennis mused. "That's one. What about the other?"
  
  Tattletale winked. "Well that's Purity. Or, excuse me, Penance. She's been in on the whole thing. Coil talked her into playing this game so that she could actually put the whole villain thing behind her and come off like a hero."
  
  I frowned at that. "Wait, so she's... why would she tell the truth now, just because we ask?"
  
  "Just because we ask?" Tattletale echoed, shaking her head. "No, don't be so naïve. No, she normally wouldn't, mostly because Coil has... leverage over her. The living, breathing kind of leverage."
  
  My head shook. "So how exactly are we supposed to convince her?"
  
  "Oh now she'll tell the truth because..." Turning, she whistled sharply.
  
  In response to the whistle, another figure appeared at the skylight and jumped down the few feet to land behind the other girl. I heard a wail, and stared as what turned out to be Grue straightened. He held a bundle in his arms, which was the source of the wailing. It was a baby. They had a baby.
  
  Tattletale went on then. "Because we stole his leverage."
  
  8.05
  
  "So let me get this straight." I kept my voice as neutral as possible a few minutes later, once we had left the warehouse and moved into the parking lot behind it. "Purity-errr, Penance has a baby, a kid she apparently loves above and beyond everything in the world and would absolutely kill for. And your plan was to abduct that baby ?! What's phase two of this brilliant plan, walk up to Behemoth and kick him in the eye?"
  
  "Actually," Grue spoke up, his voice dry. "Phase two was telling her step-son to tell her where to meet us." Penance's daughter was still whimpering and squirming in his arms. I had the feeling she didn't really like his whole skull helmet motif.
  
  Dennis started to gesture with his arms. "Insane. You people are completely, utterly, insa-"
  
  He was interrupted when Grue put the fussing baby into his arms during one of his wild gestures. "It'll probably look better if you hold her."
  
  "Ohhh no. I'm not gonna be the one holding Purity's kid when she shows up." Dennis protested, though the baby had already stopped fussing and started to poke at his featureless mask before giggling.
  
  "Aww." Marissa smiled. "She likes you, Clockblocker."
  
  Dennis shifted the kid a little and looked down at the giggling figure. "Good, maybe she can tell her mother not to kill me." He pitched his voice higher to talk at the baby. "Oooh yes, can you say that? Can you say, 'no, mommy, don't blow off Uncle Clocky's head and use it for a soccer ball'? Yesss you can, yeeeesss you can."
  
  Shaking my head, I turned to focus on Tattletale and Grue again. "So at what point are you going to tell us why you had to kidnap Penance's kid?"
  
  Tattletale started to speak, but I saw a red line stretch out toward both of the Undersiders. Immediately, I stretched my hands out toward them and attached lines from my gauntlets to their costumes before yanking them off their feet and toward me. No sooner had I done that, than a blast of white light tore through the pavement where the pair had been standing, ripping up concrete and sending dust and debris flying.
  
  Penance floated down from the sky, in full costume and fully pissed. After landing on the pavement, she raised one hand, which glowed with the energy she was summoning, and spoke with a voice directed toward Clockblocker that was thick with barely restrained righteous fury. "Give. Me. My. Daughter."
  
  I could actually hear Dennis's audible gulp. He twisted his head a little toward the spot where Grue and Tattletale were picking themselves up. "I hate you guys so, so much." Then he stepped toward the openly enraged woman whose power could level buildings if she wanted it to. "No problem, ma'am. I was just holding her for you. Go ahead, take her."
  
  While Penance took her baby with one hand, she kept that other hand raised with the energy ready to unleash.
  
  "We weren't kidnapping her." That voice was Tattletale's, and the second she spoke, I saw a red line jump to her again. Flinching, I used a line to yank her closer to me just as a tiny bit of the power that Penance had gathered blew a hole into the cement where the other girl had been.
  
  "No offense, Tattle." I said to her. "But I don't think the lady wants to hear your voice right now."
  
  "She needs to." The Undersider girl replied. "Pur-Penance! Listen to me, we weren't kidnapping your daughter! We were saving her!"
  
  Penance stopped gathering energy, but I could sense the hostility rolling off her. The baby was openly crying now, having picked up on her mother's distress.
  
  "What?" It was a single word, dripping with disbelief and fury, but it was at least a word instead of more violence.
  
  Taking a breath, Tattletale plunged onward. "Look, Coil's going down. These guys know who he is, who he really is. He had Tether's parents killed, during the Leviathan truce, for god's sake. He's out of control. So he's going down. But when he sees that he's about to go down, he's going to use every advantage he's got. That includes using your daughter to make you defend him against the rest of the Protectorate. He would've forced you to choose between your daughter's life, and your new teammates. Then, after you chose your daughter because what else would you do, he'd own you forever. And he'd never, ever really let your kid go, because she's leverage, and Coil isn't the kind of person who lets leverage go. So the second, the very second that he thought he was in trouble, he was ready to have that kid buttoned up and secure in a nice hidden bunker."
  
  Penance was still listening, the energy slowly dissipating as she began to focus a little more on the baby in her arms. "What... what's your point?" The hostility in her voice hadn't really lowered much, but I was taking the fact that there were no more injury lines to be a good thing.
  
  "My point is," Tattletale went on. "We took your baby away from him, not away from you. Think about it, Penance, why would we take your baby and then immediately tell your step-son where to find us? We weren't blackmailing you, we weren't holding your baby hostage, we were telling you where to pick her up. She's your baby . We're not fucking monsters over here. We're not Coil. Take your baby, do whatever you want. But don't let him have her."
  
  Penance finally lowered her arm, using it to pull her baby up fully against her before shaking her head. "I'm taking her away from here."
  
  "Before you do." That was Grue, and I could practically sense the glare that Penance shot his way. He plunged on regardless. "We are moving against Coil. Which means your part in his plan is going to come out. But we didn't want to throw you under the bus like that without giving you a choice, a chance to help us put him down."
  
  "And ruin the life I've got right now?" She shot back.
  
  I finally interjected. "And earn that life for real. Look, Penance, I don't know what your story is. I don't know what made you this way, but I think you actually like what you're doing now. I think you like being a good guy, being part of the Protectorate. But you got there with lies, and you got there with the help of a psychotic monster." I hesitated. "You've got your warning now. You could leave. Take your baby, take your step-son, and whoever else, and get out of town. The people you care about are safe."
  
  "Or?" She prompted after a second of hesitation.
  
  I nodded then. "Or... or you can help us put that fucking bastard where he belongs, and take your chances that the person you want to be is more important to the Protectorate than the person you used to be. Maybe they'll throw you in the Birdcage, maybe they'll give you a slap on the wrist. I don't know. What I do know... is that it has to be your choice. You decide which person you want to be."
  
  Silence reigned for a few seconds after I finished talking. Penance kept staring at me as she held the baby to her chest, her expression hidden behind her mask, while those glowing emerald lenses seemed to gaze right through me. Finally, she spoke. "Coil really killed your parents?"
  
  Even the words were still a sharp dagger to my chest. I swallowed, lowering my gaze before giving her a nod. My voice was soft. "Yes. He did. He had Shadow Stalker do it. We have the video of them talking about it."
  
  Penance's gaze moved away from me and down to the baby in her arms. What she was thinking about, I couldn't begin to guess. Finally, she nodded. "I'll do what you need."
  
  Hours later, I shook my head while coming out of yet another abandoned building. "No sign of Browbeat. Are you sure he's hiding somewhere in this area?" I'd already searched through four buildings, finding nothing but more homeless people that I couldn't take the time to truly help.
  
  Tattletale, my partner for this particular excursion while the others were busy doing their parts, replied over the com, using the private channel she'd chosen. "Coil had it narrowed down this far. He's here somewhere."
  
  Glancing up and down the rows of heavily damaged apartment buildings, I sighed. "I can't believe you people enslaved him. You ruined his reputation, maybe his life."
  
  "It was that or let Coil kill him." The other girl replied shortly. "And it's why I'm staying out of sight while you look for him. He's more likely to trust you."
  
  "I know why we needed to get Penance on our side." I said after another moment while walking to the next building. "And why we need to help Browbeat, but you were saying we needed him. Why?"
  
  "He can help get the heat off of Coil's fall guy." She answered after a moment. "Knowing Coil, he'll try to make people think the poor guy was still responsible for some of this, no matter what we say."
  
  I paused, hesitating just outside of the building. "Daniel Hebert? How?"
  
  "Because Browbeat was the one disguised as Coil, the one that killed Triumph and made him believe it was Hebert." Her response came after an obvious hesitation. "With Regent's control, of course. He said that Coil didn't give him much choice in the matter. And... now he's dead, so that leaves Browbeat to tell them the truth about it."
  
  It was another two buildings before I finally found what I was looking for. It was a building that was so near to leveled that I nearly didn't bother checking it. But at the last second, I decided to duck past the rubble partially blocking the door and give it a cursory glance.
  
  As soon as I looked inside the broken down building, I could tell that someone had been there. A sleeping bag lay in one corner of the dusty, debris-filled room, surrounded by open cans of food. There was no sign of whoever it belonged to.
  
  Slowly, I stepped further in, glancing around. "Browbeat?" I decided to just call his name rather than stretch things out. If it was him, we could talk. If it wasn't, well, I'd find out shortly.
  
  The warning from Tattletale came a second later. "Behind you."
  
  I shot a line out to yank myself forward and out of the way, just as a hand brushed down my back, clearly from an attempt to grab my shoulder. I let the line yank me forward, then immediately had it send me backwards while using a second line to throw myself up and over the person's head. I came down hard in the dust, extending a hand and putting a line between my gauntlet and my attacker's back before using it to shove them forward and against the wall.
  
  Then I stopped. "Browbeat?" Slowly, I released him from the wall. "It's you, isn't it?"
  
  The boy that turned my way was clearly on edge, desperate to escape. He started to bolt, but I used another line to hold him. "Wait! Listen, we know you were framed! We know you're not a bad guy, just wait."
  
  He froze then, eyes wide. "You... you do?"
  
  "Yeah." I nodded. "And we need your help."
  
  "Shit, get him and get out of there." Tattletale cursed. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
  
  "What?" I turned. "What's wrong?"
  
  "Grue just checked in." She replied. "Coil made his move. Fuck!"
  
  I hesitated, glancing toward the confused Browbeat before reaching out to grab his arm. "Let's go." Then I addressed Tattletale again. "What happened, what did he do?"
  
  "He had Trickster grab Penance's baby again." She shot back. "Exchanged her for a doll. He took his leverage back."
  
  The reinforced metal doors of Coil's new base melted apart beneath Sundancer's burning orb. As soon as there was a large enough opening, she killed the miniature sun. Then she moved aside, while Grue took her place to send a cloud of darkness billowing through the opening and into the room beyond.
  
  A moment later, he gave a thumbs up, and Pandora melted into a stream of rodents and bugs to pour through the hole and into the darkness.
  
  Then we waited. Clockblocker, Tattletale, Grue, Sundancer, and I stood on the other side of the door. It was eerie, considering the fact that Grue's darkness meant that the sounds from inside were distorted and even muted to a degree.
  
  "Hope this works." Clockblocker said next to me.
  
  "He didn't leave us much other choice." I replied. "At least the Undersiders knew where his base was."
  
  Before anyone else could respond, Grue dismissed his darkness and turned to us. "Clear enough, let's go."
  
  As we passed through the opening, I saw the effects of Pandora's attack. Mercenaries lay broken and bleeding everywhere I looked. But thus far, it looked like she had kept to our negotiated deal. She hadn't actually killed anyone in this attack. I'd made it clear that I wouldn't, that I couldn't be party to this if she killed the mercenaries. That didn't mean the mercs were going to be jumping up and dancing anytime soon, but they were at least alive. It was the best I could do.
  
  "Ah, Tether. I thought you might have something to do with this." Coil sounded casual, even bored, as he stood at one end of the room, flanked by another half dozen of his uniformed mercenaries. Penance, meanwhile, was positioned a few feet ahead of Coil, her attention on Pandora, waiting for the clone to make a move.
  
  "I suppose throwing your lot in with these... criminals and psychotic mistakes shouldn't surprise me." the psychopath mused, indicating Sundancer and both Undersiders, then Pandora respectively. "You don't have the strongest moral foundation, after all."
  
  "Coil." I replied. "Shut the fuck up. Pandora, if he moves, eat him." I instructed the girl who stood facing down Penance.
  
  Coil didn't look concerned. "If you believe any of this represents more than the slightest of hurdles, you have severely underestimated me, I'm afraid."
  
  "Trust me, Coil ." I growled. "The last thing I did through any of this was underestimate you."
  
  "So you say." His reply was as casual and dismissive as ever. "I am intrigued though. What is the next part of this plan of yours?"
  
  "Next?" I took in a breath and let it out before stepping that way. I stood with Clockblocker, Sundancer, Tattletale, and Grue at my back, and Pandora a few feet away. On the other side, Coil stood surrounded by his mercenaries and protected by the top-tier cape whose child he was holding hostage.
  
  "Next, we're going to have a little chat about what you did to my parents. And you..." I promised. "... are not going to enjoy the conversation."
  
  Interlude 8 - Coil
  
  Within one timeline, Thomas Calvert gazed calmly at the costumed girl who thought that she was actually going to hurt him. His eyes passed over her allies and he dismissed most of them. The Panaca clone was a threat, of course, but not an insurmountable one. Finally, he broke the silence. "You wish to have a conversation? Shall I converse with Sundancer here, who has abandoned her friend, in spite of every promise she ever made?" He gazed at the traitor. "Noelle misses you, Marissa. She cries every single night, asking, 'Why? Why would she abandon me? She left. She left and she's not coming back. She gave up on me. Please. Please kill me. Kill me, she doesn't care. She doesn't care.'"
  
  " Shut up!" The girl in question shouted at him, striding forward in spite of his bodyguards. "Shut up, shut up, shut up! You were never going to help us! You were never going to help her!"
  
  "Oh but I was." Coil replied simply. "Actually, I already did. I sent them on their way. I help those that are loyal, not traitors."
  
  "You're lying." Sundancer hissed.
  
  "Am I?" He replied. "Search this place. You won't find them. They've left. The last job, the final bit of help, that Trickster provided was to assist me in getting Penance back under control. They've moved on, and no matter what happens here, Noelle will always know you as the traitor that abandoned her, while I fulfilled my promise."
  
  Smiling faintly behind his mask at the girl who stood frozen from that revelation, Calvert turned his attention toward Tattletale and Grue. "And speaking of traitors... I expected this from Tattletale, but et tu, Grue?"
  
  The darkness generator inclined his head. "Yeah, sorry, I sort of check out right around the time you start breaking the truce to murder innocent civilians."
  
  "No matter." Coil waved a hand dismissively. "I have no more need of you. I have... plenty of other options." Options, he thought, such as the remaining Wards and the Protectorate, to say nothing of the generous staff my new position affords me. "Of course, all of the Undersiders will have to die. No telling how far your betrayal has spread. Perhaps I'll send Squad Four. They were... quite annoyed by young Aisha's commentary. I'm sure they'd quite enjoy the task of eliminating her."
  
  Grue started to come for him, striding quickly. "You don't touch my sister, you-"
  
  "Uh uh." Coil said quickly, holding a hand up and gesturing so that Penance would put herself in the boy's path. "None of that. We're still having a conversation. That conversation that Tether wanted so much." He turned his attention to the girl in question. "That's right, it was your request, wasn't it? So, what shall we converse about? Perhaps the fact that you are an unstable young woman who hides her insecurities and emotional failings behind stupid jokes, whose power has manifested as a blatant obsession with preventing anyone from dying?"
  
  "I can think of worse obsessions." The child shot back at him. "Like being obsessed with becoming the world's biggest douche. You've got the checkered flag on that race already, dude, you can let off the gas a bit."
  
  "You see?" Coil spread his arms. "You believe that I ordered the death of your parents. You believe that I am responsible for that. "Yet you still make jokes. Is that really... healthy behavior?"
  
  The girl took a step forward, her tone lowering. "I don't... believe... that you had my parents killed. I know you did. Just like I know that you... are Thomas Calvert."
  
  In his second timeline, Coil sat comfortably in a recliner within his secure fallback bunker, the one that no one but he knew the location of. He'd had the contractors who built it eliminated shortly after it had been completed, and all records of the work destroyed.
  
  A smile crossed the man's face as he noted what was happening in his first timeline before glancing toward the crib in the corner of the room where his leverage lay sleeping. In the timeline where he was talking to Tether and her little gathering of traitors, the child was being watched over in a different location, by a team of mercenaries. Penance knew what her orders were, and she knew the consequences for failing to obey.
  
  His eyes fell on the monitor across the room. On it, he could see his other base, the one where his other self was right now. On the screen, Tether and her allies were spread across the room, searching an already abandoned bunker. He smirked at the sight, considering for a moment.
  
  Then the girl in the first timeline said his name, his real name, and Calvert realized that he couldn't let her go. He couldn't let her or any of the others escape the bunker, knowing what they knew.
  
  With a sigh of regret for the loss, Calvert reached out to pick up the remote from the desk next to him. Running his thumb over the buttons, he keyed in the password and sent the signal.
  
  On the screen, all of the cameras went out at once as the explosives he'd had mounted throughout the bunker went off. Tether and her friends were dead, and wouldn't be saying anything to anyone.
  
  Cauldron would complain, of course, but he would explain that it had been inevitable. She'd known his identity, and there was nothing that would keep her quiet about it. They would be angry, but they would understand his dilemma.
  
  He had everything covered, as usual.
  
  In his first timeline, Coil paused until his other self had set off the detonation in that timeline before letting out a brief chuckle. "Thomas Calvert? I thought everyone knew that I was Daniel Hebert?"
  
  Tether's head shook. "Are you really gonna play this game? You're not Daniel Hebert. You're Thomas Calvert. You know it, I know it, they know it." She gestured back toward the other children. "Denying it just makes you look like an even bigger ineffectual tool than you already are."
  
  He let his head fall back as he laughed. "Ineffectual? Of all the insults you could throw at me, you choose one that I have proven false time and time again?" Reaching up, he tugged his mask off. There was no point to the charade now, especially since he wouldn't be keeping this timeline anyway. Being trapped with few options had never been in the cards.
  
  Still, he'd tease them for a few minutes. It wouldn't do them any good.
  
  Dropping his mask to the side, he regarded the girl. "Aren't you going to do the same?"
  
  Amusingly, the girl did. She lifted her hand to brush the hood off her head, then tugged her mask off. The glare that Madison Clements shot at him then was anything but humorous. "You had my parents killed." Her voice had lost its light, teasing edge. Now, he could hear nothing but pain, and anger. "You had them murdered."
  
  Calvert felt the harshness come back to his own voice. "I realize that you are a child and have no actual grasp or understanding of things that don't directly affect you, but do attempt to surpass your willful ignorance. Everything that I have done is for the greater good. "
  
  "The greater good?" Madison shot back. "The greater good?! What... what greater good comes from killing my parents?! What greater good comes from ruining a man's life, a man who was already destroyed by the death of his daughter?! The greater good is an excuse that people like you make up so that you can do what you want to do, no matter who it hurts. Face it, Tommy, you're not a genius. You're not a brilliant tactician. You're a bully. You're a thug. You're a two-bit soldier who got lucky with a power that lets you cheat. "
  
  " I SAVED THIS CITY!" He bellowed back at the ignorant, spoiled little brat. "Boo. Hoo. Your parents died. Have some god damn perspective. Do you have any idea what I can do now, from this position? I wiped out the Empire Eighty-Eight. I wiped out the ABB. I knew everything that was going to happen. I planned it all. I made the dominoes fall into place for the rest of you. And now, I am going to use this power to turn Brockton Bay into a parahuman utopia. My plans, my vision will shape this city. I will guide it into what it can become. I had hoped that you would be of some use in that endeavor." He sighed then. "A pity."
  
  The girl just stared at him, shaking her head as she let the mask fall to the floor. "You say that like you think you're getting out of this."
  
  "Oh child..." He said, injecting his tone with false sympathy. "I already have. You see, I already won. You have no other moves to make, because this timeline, this... entire reality... will cease to exist at a simple thought from me. And you... all of you... are already dead in the other timeline." The man smiled, raising his hand to tap thoughtfully against his chin. "So, I suppose that would mean that your entire existence depends entirely on how long you happen to entertain me, before I get bored and erase this particular timeline, and your lives, forever."
  
  Madison's eyes closed, and her shoulders drooped as if a heavy weight had settled on them. Her voice was small, as it should be. "Just tell me why?" She pleaded. "Tell me why my parents had to die. What did they do to you?"
  
  "Them? Nothing at all." Coil replied dismissively. "They died to strengthen you. The death of an enemy, a girl you hated, created a power in you that turned the tide against Leviathan himself. Your power as it was allowed you to become almost single-handedly responsible for the lowest fatality rate for an Endbringer attack, ever . Imagine for a moment what you could have been capable of, given the motivation your parents deaths. Honestly, I expected your power to grow from it. Such a pity."
  
  "You killed my parents... to make me stronger? " She demanded with clear disbelief and shock.
  
  "That's right." He confirmed. "I'm afraid that the entire point of allowing their deaths was to make you even more useful, to motivate you. And now you've thrown even that away. So, if you think about it, you're the one who made their deaths meaningless. Perhaps you can think for a moment about that, and about the fact that I will make a point of locating Trevor, your last surviving family member, and I will destroy him as thoroughly as I have ever destroyed anyone, just because you annoyed me."
  
  Coil continued to smile as the girl hung her head, gazing brokenly at the floor. He wanted to remember this, wanted to savor it, so that he would never forget what it felt like when this was over.
  
  In the midst of that bit of enjoyment, the silence was broken by a sudden burst of loud music. The man jumped, startled. "What-"
  
  Madison had straightened, using two fingers to pull something from within her costume as she replied dismissively. "It's Weird Al's 'Dare To Be Stupid', Tommy. Jeeze, don't you know the classics?" Her eyes rolled and she held up a small electronic device with a clock on it. The clock was flashing all zeroes. "But mostly," she continued while silencing the song. "It's a timer."
  
  "A timer... for what?" He asked, ready to drop this timeline.
  
  The girl smiled, all of the defeat that had been in her eyes and her posture gone. "So that I'd know exactly when to do..." She raised her hand with a single finger outstretched demonstratively, before letting her hand drop. "This."
  
  Exactly on cue, that same song, fully into the chorus, burst into the air not in Coil's first timeline, but in his second one. The abruptness of it made the man jerk in surprise, before twisting toward the source of the noise: the crib.
  
  "See, Tommy," Madison was saying in his first timeline. "You forgot two important things." She indicated the clone. "Pandora can duplicate herself... and shapeshift."
  
  The baby-no, the clone, poured itself up and out of the crib, resuming her normal shape. Then she smiled at Calvert.
  
  "Hello." She said, gazing at him for a moment while he stared in disbelief. "We have been informed that we need not... be gentle."
  
  He turned to rush for the exit, but she was already on him, already... feasting.
  
  Penance had turned toward him by then, removing her mask to reveal a thin, dark smile as she watched him silently.
  
  "We knew you'd have a safe hole to put your other self into." Madison continued. "So we had to infiltrate it. We just let you do the infiltrating for us, by having those conversations about Penance over the com that you could tap into, so you'd know that you needed to get your leverage back. Then you did the rest of the work for us. You took Pandora's other self right where she needed to be. Speaking of which-" She glanced toward the Pandora that was with them.
  
  "Mercenaries." The clone replied dismissively. "They are handled." Her head tilted. "That version of ourselves were told not to be gentle with their targets. They have... eliminated the mercenaries."
  
  Madison flinched a little at that, but kept her focus on Calvert. "So, Tommy, seems to me that you've got two choices. You either drop this timeline and let yourself be eaten by Pandora... or you drop that timeline and keep the one where you just confessed everything."
  
  Growling, Calvert took a step back to put the squad of mercenaries between them. "You think that's enough? You're a child! I'll drop that timeline and leave with this one. You'll still die down here, it'll simply take a few moments longer. Then I'll make up some story for the Protectorate to hear." He raised his hand, gesturing for the soldiers. "Kill them."
  
  "Actually," the mercenary squad leader spoke, turning toward Calvert to tap something on the side of his head. The image of the mercenary faded out, revealing Armsmaster in full uniform. "I'd sure like to hear that story you were planning on telling us. Wouldn't you?"
  
  The other mercenaries tapped their own helmets, removing the holograms that had covered them to reveal Battery and her husband. Assault raised his shoulders in an elaborate shrug. "Actually, I'd prefer he just shut his fucking mouth."
  
  "Sounds good to me." Battery agreed.
  
  Eyes wide, Calvert grabbed the pistol at his side. They would not arrest him. He'd kill himself before he let that happen. He'd die before he let them put him in the Bird Cage, he'd-
  
  There was an explosion of pain in his hand, and the gun dropped to the floor before he could finish pointing it at himself. One of Tether's metal balls had lashed out, striking the back of his hand hard enough to break several bones there, drawing a cry from him.
  
  A second later, something sharp struck him right in the neck. He felt his legs give out, and he was slumping toward the floor, vision blurring while Tether lowered her arm, having shot one of her knockout darts into him.
  
  She came forward, stopping to kneel down next to Calvert as he fell to the floor. He stared up, vision already giving out. "See Tommy," she said to him quietly. "You don't get to escape. You don't get to run away. You don't get the last word. You don't get to go out on your own terms." She reached out and plucked the dart from his neck. "I couldn't just beat you physically. I had to beat you at your game. I had to be smarter than you. I had to let you use your power and still beat you. So now you can go to sleep. You can go to sleep and by the time you wake up, you're going to be in the deep dark hole that you deserve to be in. You can be in the Bird Cage. Then maybe you can split your timelines and experience utter and crushing defeat and despair for the rest of your life twice as much. "
  
  "And you can know, for the rest of your life, that we beat you. We beat you."
  
  Her words filled his head, flooding his mind and leaving no other thoughts, as his vision of the girl faded to black.
  
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  Arc 9: Evolution
  A/N: Having a bit of trouble with the formatting in this installment and had to really futz with it. If you find any problems, please let me know.
  
  9.01
  
  "This isn't fair." Vista complained, raising a hand before angrily skipping a stone across the pond. "We're a good team. They can't just take two of us away."
  
  Carlos sighed. "I guess they kind of can, Missy. It's not our choice, and our parents already agreed."
  
  It was early June, weeks after Coil had been brought down. All of us Wards, plus Glory Girl, were standing in the park at the west end of town, trying to come to terms with the news that had come in only that morning: Aegis and Gallant were being transferred to another city.
  
  Chris, sitting on the grass near the water, rolled his eyes as he let himself fall backwards to look at the sky. "Missy's right. We should put in a complaint or something. Who can we sue over this?"
  
  "It's my father." Dean said with a sigh. "His business took a bad hit when Leviathan came, so he wanted to set up a new location. They offered him a deal to move our family up north. My dad started talking to Carlos's dad and... they came up with this agreement."
  
  Victoria rolled her eyes, kicking the ground to send up a spray of dirt that arced out into the water. "That's stupid as hell! You've got a good team right here, why do your parents wanna break that up?"
  
  "Apparently the PRT thinks we've got this area handled." Carlos replied with a shake of his head. "Coil's gone, the Empire's dead, ABB's been wiped out... the biggest organized threat right now is the Merchants. Plus, in my case, I'm turning eighteen in a month or so and they want me already present in my new assigned city."
  
  "It's still not fair." I put in, unable to help myself. "We're a good team, and this just... feels like they're punishing us for it."
  
  "Tell me about it." Vista muttered darkly, glancing toward Dean.
  
  I knew that Missy's crush on Dean hadn't let up at all, even though she knew he wouldn't see her that way. This situation was probably the one and only time she and Victoria had been in complete agreement. They were both pissed off.
  
  "I'm with them." Chris put in. "They can't just break up the band like this. Shouldn't we get a say?"
  
  "Welcome to being under eighteen." Dennis replied a little darkly.
  
  "This blows." Victoria glowered, lifting a foot or so off the ground to hover there. "They could've told me that you were leaving before I agreed to join the team."
  
  Dennis shook his head. "What choice did you have? I mean... is New Wave still..."
  
  Flinching, Victoria shook her head and lowered herself back to the ground with a sigh. "No." She said quietly. "Since mom is..." She swallowed and I saw her gaze flick to me reflexively before she continued. "Since mom is gone... Aunt Sarah wants to take a break. She said she can't do this right now. Dad's the same way. He doesn't want anything to do with the hero thing. Eric says he wants to move, maybe go to college on the west coast and get a new start."
  
  "What about Crystal and her father?" I asked.
  
  She glanced to me. "Didn't Battery or Assault tell you? They both accepted invitations from Armsmaster to join the Protectorate team."
  
  Dennis snorted. "I still can't believe they let Penance stay on the team after everything she did to get there."
  
  "She did the right thing in the end." I pointed out. "And she's powerful. I think they'd rather keep her on their side than throw her away."
  
  "So what does that leave our Protectorate team with?" Chris considered from his place on the grass. "Armsmaster, Penance, Assault, Battery, Laserdream, and Manpower?"
  
  "What's Panacea doing?" I asked Victoria.
  
  "She doesn't really consider herself a part of any particular team." The blonde replied. "She figures she'll help whoever she can. Plus she's been weird lately anyway. I think the whole clone thing is still getting to her."
  
  I winced. Pandora had vanished almost entirely after the end of Coil. I hadn't seen or heard from her since, save for a phone message from Dinah Alcott asking me to tell her parents that she was okay and that her power was telling her that she should stay with Pandora for now. Needless to say, her family hadn't been very happy.
  
  Dinah had also thought to mention that Emma was with them, which had taken me completely by surprise. I still wasn't sure what I should say to Emma's father, if anything. The poor guy was out of his mind with worry, but would telling him that Emma was with someone like Pandora make things better or worse?
  
  I needed to say something to him. It wasn't fair to just let him keep wondering. But I needed advice on how to go about it, and I wasn't sure who to ask.
  
  The momentary silence was broken by the sound of another rock hitting the water as Missy angrily chucked it as far as she could without using her power. "What about us? Clockblocker's leaving before the summer's over."
  
  Dennis flinched at the despairing sound in the younger girl's voice, glancing toward me before his head shook. "Well Victoria just joined, and apparently we're supposed to meet another new member later today."
  
  "Lose two, gain two." Carlos said with a soft sigh. "It probably makes sense to them, on paper."
  
  "It doesn't make sense!" Missy shot back, turning to him. I was startled to see tears in the other girl's eyes. "None of it makes sense! We're supposed to be a team, we're supposed to stay together! First Rory graduates and then... and then he dies, and now you guys are leaving and... and everything's changing and it's not fair! " With that, the girl turned and began to sprint away. She took two steps and angrily made a shoving motion with her hand to draw the space inward. A second later she was clear across the park.
  
  Chris straightened, sighing as he looked after the departing girl. "Does anyone disagree with her?" No hands were raised. We all thought this sucked.
  
  Wincing, Dean glanced toward his girlfriend. "I should go talk to her. Promise that I'm not just gonna disappear entirely."
  
  Victoria bit her lip, but nodded. "Don't forget, you and I still have a date tonight. And don't think moving gets you out of being my boyfriend. Your family's loaded, you can afford travel expenses."
  
  The handsome boy grinned at that, before leaning in to kiss her. Then he set out to find and talk to Missy.
  
  I looked toward Carlos. "Any idea who the other new team member is, boss?"
  
  He snorted before pointing out, "I'm not gonna be the boss after the next few days." Then his head shook. "But no, they haven't told me who it is. Your guess is as good as mine."
  
  "What about your brother?" Dennis put in. When I turned to stare at him, he amended himself. "No, no. Not the new teammate. He's too old anyway. I meant, have you heard from him?"
  
  I sighed and stooped to pick up a stone of my own before tossing it out to skip across the water. "No. I don't know what's going on. He hasn't contacted anyone since he dropped his college classes. According to Mr. Tourney, he also withdrew all his money from the bank and closed his account there."
  
  "Why would he do all that?" Victoria asked. "Is he some paranoid delusional conspiracy nut?" At Dennis and Carlos's stares, she blinked. "What? I'm just asking."
  
  "No." I shook my head again. "At least, not the last I knew. Then again, I didn't really know my brother that well. He tended to avoid me ever since junior high when I started being, umm..."
  
  "Bitchy?" Dennis offered with a smile.
  
  "Gee, thanks." I rolled my eyes, not that he was wrong. "Yeah, a bitchy little self-obsessed cunt pretty much hits the mark. Also a tattletale. I used to love to get him and his friends in trouble. I guess by the time I... got over it, he never really... got to know the new me."
  
  "He should still be here." Victoria said firmly. "He's your brother. Family shouldn't abandon family when... I mean..." Even she knew that the issues she was bringing up were painful. After all, she'd lost her own mother in the same battle.
  
  "I know." I said softly, giving her a break. "I just don't know what else to do. Maybe I could ask Battery or Assault if they know of any way to... look for Dennis, but that involves using Protectorate resources for a personal... thing."
  
  "Ask them." Carlos coached, his voice soft. "I'm still your leader for now, and I'm giving you an order to talk to them and find out if someone can find your brother."
  
  "Yeah." Dennis put in. "And unless whoever this other new person is happens to be older than me, which they aren't because even the PRT isn't wasteful and stupid enough to give us a new member with less than a month and a half before they graduate, I'll be the new leader after Carlos transfers. I'm keeping that as a standing order. Do whatever it takes to find Trevor. He's your brother, Mads."
  
  I smiled faintly and made a point of saluting smartly. "Sirs, yes sirs."
  
  "Speaking of finding people." Chris put in then, poking me in the ankle with a finger as he lay on his back in the grass. "Any luck with Mr. Hebert or Sophia?"
  
  That brought on an even more depressed sigh as I drooped. "Nope. Even with the public statement about his innocence and how Calvert framed him, Mr. Hebert still hasn't come out of... wherever he is." I hesitated. "Maybe Coil actually did have him locked up somewhere and he's just getting one last thing over on us."
  
  "Armsmaster says that Calvert's telling the truth when he says he doesn't have him." Carlos pointed out.
  
  "Not that that's the be-all end-all." Victoria pointed out. "The guy lied all the time before, even with Armsy's spiffy automatic polygraph thing."
  
  "He's pretty certain he's gotten past all of Calvert's tinker tech blocking equipment." I stooped to grab another stone, tossing it up and down in my hand. "Still nothing. He did find out something about Sophia."
  
  "What's that?" Dennis asked.
  
  "Apparently Trickster stole the remote detonator that controls the bomb in her head." I replied. "That bit about sending Noelle on to whatever his sources were to fix her? That was bullshit. The Travelers just took off and abandoned him, and they took Sophia with them. So now they're the ones holding her leash."
  
  "Maybe that's why she hasn't made a nuisance of herself." Chris offered. "The Travelers don't really have any particular reason to hate you directly."
  
  I glanced that way while picking up a second stone. "Except for helping convince Sundancer to leave them."
  
  "Good point." He replied with a sigh. "Still, what do you think they're keeping Sophia around for? Does... she have any ideas?"
  
  "Nope." I sighed, turning the two stones over in either hand as I gazed out over the lake. "She's still... upset about everything. Coil really got to her with that talk about how... how Noelle reacted. Hell, she doesn't even know if they're still in town. They haven't shown themselves at all."
  
  "Maybe they should." Dennis joked. "If they were still making a big enough nuisance of themselves, the PRT might not have decided to transfer you and Dean."
  
  Snorting, Carlos shook his head. "I'm pretty sure that wouldn't change anything."
  
  His phone beeped then, and Carlos glanced down at it before letting out a breath. "Time to get Dean and Missy and go meet your guys' new teammate."
  
  We were all heading down on the Wards elevator together. Missy still wasn't saying much, and had positioned herself in the back corner, arms folded. She was probably taking this the hardest out of any of us. Not that I blamed her.
  
  Carlos glanced toward Dennis "You gonna be all right taking over the team?"
  
  "Dude," Dennis replied with a shrug. "I'll have it for what, a month and a half? Then it goes to..." He considered for a moment before his eyes fell on Victoria, and then his eyes widened. "Ohhhh shit. I take it all back, Mads, this team is doomed. Doomed. "
  
  While Chris and I snickered, Victoria made a show of grabbing for Dennis as he danced backwards out of her reach, then paused to consider before shrugging. "Yeah, you're probably right. See what happens when leadership falls to the oldest?"
  
  Carlos smiled. "I thought I couldn't be leader when Rory graduated. Trust me, you... grow into it." The doors opened while he continued. "They'll help you learn, and this team is a good one."
  
  "Yes, it is." Armsmaster spoke up from the short hallway between the elevator and the Wards room entrance. He had a woman with him that took me a brief moment to recognize as Penance. I was used to seeing her either in her new costume, or with her power active so that her eyes and hair were glowing white. Seeing her this way, in casual civilian clothes and with her simple brown hair, was still weird.
  
  "Ready to meet your new teammate?" Armsmaster asked, with a raised eyebrow.
  
  I grinned, unable to help myself. "Aww, are you guys giving us Penance? Well okay, but we are so going to kick your asses at the Wards-Protectorate Softball game."
  
  He stared at me. "I told you before, we don't have one of those."
  
  "Not yet." I replied. "But I've been wearing guy in charge down on the subject."
  
  "I am the guy in charge." The older man pointed out.
  
  "And I'm persistent." I informed him.
  
  Rolling his eyes and coughing, Armsmaster gestured. "Let's go inside. Your new teammate's just been looking around the place."
  
  As we made our way in, I saw a teenaged girl with close-cropped white-blonde hair standing next to the monitor. I didn't recognize her.
  
  For a moment, we all stood and stared at each other. Then the girl turned to look at Penance. "See? I told you this was a stupid fucking idea."
  
  "Give it a chance." The woman told her. "It's better here than back with what's left of the Empire."
  
  "Wait..." Dennis was the first of us to get it. "Empire... does that mean..."
  
  "Meet your new teammate." Armsmaster gestured back and forth between us. "Rune."
  
  9.02
  
  Victoria was the first to recover. "Oh sure, this is a fantastic idea." She gestured back toward Dean and Carlos. "Throw these guys away to make room for Nazi Barbie."
  
  "Hey, who you calling Barbie, princess?" Rune demanded.
  
  The former New Waver's eyes rolled toward Armsmaster. "I think the fact that the part of that name she objected to was 'Barbie' speaks for itself."
  
  For his part, Armsmaster sighed. "No one's throwing anyone away. Calm down. Carlos would have been gone in a month anyway. This is giving him an opportunity to get to know his new city before he joins the Protectorate there."
  
  "What about Dean?" The demand came in stereo, from both Victoria and Missy. The girls spared a glance to each other before focusing on the subject of their ire.
  
  "Dean's father accepted a contract to expand the new Protectorate headquarters in Bangor." Armsmaster was clearly trying to remain patient. "The city's population has grown three-fold in the last ten years alone. They've got threats coming down from Canada, and quite frankly they're worried about Leviathan. They don't really feel like waiting for Brockton Bay as their nearest full time Protectorate Team, and I don't particularly blame them. They've been getting their own team established, and now they need a little help from experienced groups. Everyone's doing their part. New York's sending Flechette, the girl you met in the Leviathan fight with the crossbow. Boston's got a Case 53 metal kid they're giving up. Chicago's sending some girl named Grace. Hell, even Texas is contributing with some kid called Chronicler." He looked pointedly at all of us. "And we are contributing by sending Gallant and Aegis, because the people up there deserve protection as much as the people here do. Even if that inconveniences the rest of you."
  
  Well when he put it like that...
  
  "Fine, sure, they deserve help." Victoria pointed at Rune. "But putting that Nazi on our team is a bad idea!"
  
  "'That Nazi' is standing right here, Buttercup." Rune shot back. "You got a problem with me, you talk to me."
  
  "Okay then." Victoria floated off the floor and moved forward to hover right in front of Rune, arms folded across her chest as she glowered. "I've got a problem with Nazis like you."
  
  In response, the other girl simply raised her left hand with her index finger extended, using it to poke Victoria in the middle of her belt. Then she immediately started to wave with a bright, exaggerated smile.
  
  "Wha-" Victoria started to ask, just before she was yanked backwards by her belt, which Rune was obviously controlling. She yelped in surprise while the belt propelled her all the way back out of the room, through the corridor behind us, and into the elevator we had just come down.
  
  Rune must have released her, because Victoria came flying straight back in, furious. "That's IT! " She drew back her fist.
  
  "That is enough!" Armsmaster bellowed the words, making both girls freeze. "Victoria, if you want to remain on this team and have any kind of career, settle down. Cassie, same goes. Kayden vouched for you. She said you could be a better person if we give you a chance. That doesn't involve antagonizing your new teammates."
  
  "Cassie?" Chris piped up. "Who the hell is Cassie?"
  
  "What," Rune shot at him. "You thought my name was Eva Braun?" She turned her scowl toward Armsmaster. "Like I told you and 'Aunt' Kayden. This isn't gonna work. You heard what they called me."
  
  His look was unsympathetic. "You fought on the side of a known Nazi team. Forgive me if I'm not terribly surprised that they don't like you very much. You want instant forgiveness, go watch a romantic comedy. This is the real world, and you helped people do real nasty things. It's gonna take more than words to change people's minds about you. If that's too tough, if the idea that people aren't going to immediately believe that you want to change makes you want to give up, then go ahead. Give the fuck up. Go to Juvie. Because believe me, that's where I'd send you if it was my choice alone. I've been through this song and dance before with a probationary Ward, and I'll be damned if I'm going through it again. So if you wanna give up, you go right ahead. I'll leave your resignation and transfer papers filled out and waiting on my desk for your signature any time you wanna prove everybody right."
  
  For a moment, Rune-Cassie just stood there. Then she let out a sigh and slumped back a little, muttering, "Whatever."
  
  Finally, I spoke up. "So, question. Penance changed her name when she switched sides. What about Ruuuuu uhhh Cassie?"
  
  "Fuck, I dunno." Cassie replied with a shrug. "Not like I picked the first name. What do you call a telekinetic that has to touch things?"
  
  I heard Victoria mutter under her breath. "I've got a few things I could call you."
  
  Wincing, I shrugged. "Uhh, Nudge? Tactile? You're right, that's hard."
  
  "Mental Mistress?" Chris offered before chuckling weakly.
  
  "Why not just Reach?" Dennis put in. "I mean, you can control anything you can touch... and that in turn, uhh... technically extends your... reach."
  
  The other girl seemed to consider that before shrugging again. "Whatever. It's better than Rune."
  
  "Reach it is." Armsmaster cleared his throat. "We're working on a new costume-"
  
  "No." Cassie's head shook. "I have a costume."
  
  Kayden hesitated. "People know that costume, Cass. If they see you out in it now-"
  
  "What's the point of changing if I have to pretend to be this whole new person?" Cassie shot back at the older woman. "It's bullshit anyway. Everyone knows you're Purity. I'm not playing that game. I'll take the new name, but I'm keeping my costume. If people pay more attention to some fucking clothes than what I'm actually doing, fuck 'em."
  
  Missy rolled her eyes and stalked past me to go to the showers. "Oh yeah, this is gonna be a great new team."
  
  A few hours later, after dark, a sword cleaved partway through the telephone pole that I'd been standing next to right after I threw myself backwards away from it. The guy in the silver costume tore his blade free, while pivoting in the same motion. His other hand came up, pointing the sword in his other hand toward me. The blade extended to about twice its normal length before stabbing in my direction.
  
  He called himself Duelitist. Yeah, like duel and elitist together. He was some mixture of breaker that gave him enhanced speed, reflexes, and timing, and striker that let him control and completely reshape any metal that he was within a foot or so of. He tended to use it on his own weapons, shrinking, growing, bending, and contorting them into various forms as he fought.
  
  He was also becoming a pain in the ass, since his control over his own weapons meant that I couldn't pull them out of his hands. His short-range ferrokinesis outweighed my lines, apparently. Plus his armor was covered with some kind of super lightweight metal as well, which he kept tight control of. So no throwing him around either.
  
  I put lines beneath my own feet and shot straight up, while calling down to him. "Just so I'm clear on this, you're not a Final Fantasy cosplayer?" Another line brought me to the roof of the armored car that he and his buddy had been robbing before they'd been interrupted. "Cuz dude," I indicated his costume, which mostly looked like a long trenchcoat made out of metal, chainmail armor, and a high metallic collar that came up to cover the bottom half of his face like a bandana on an old west bandit. He even had long hair. "You totally look like a cosplayer."
  
  He leapt to me, flipping up to the top of the armored car before driving one of his swords down into the spot where I had been, but I'd already used another line to pull me back to the ground. The man growled in frustration. "Stand your ground and fight me!"
  
  "Oh no, I just couldn't possibly." I objected, waving both hands dismissively toward the objects I'd made him hit instead of me. "I'd be jumping in line ahead of the fights you already started with that telephone pole, the mailbox, that truck, and that 'no parking' sign over there. Why don't you finish those up first? I think the mailbox was giving a good accounting of itself."
  
  He pointed at me with one of his weapons, reshaping it to look like a hammer. "First I'm gonna break your legs. Then maybe I'll get creative."
  
  I let my head tilt to the side. "What does the great big moron say when he gets hit by the flying hotdog cart?"
  
  Duelistist frowned. "What does that even- guuuuuugggnaaah!"
  
  Stepping out of the way as the armored man faceplanted onto the cement, while the mangled cart that I'd pulled from down the street went tumbling end over end, I nodded thoughtfully. "Apparently he says 'guuuuugggnah'. Good to know."
  
  He got back to his feet faster than I'd been expecting and I had to throw myself backwards and out of the reach of his long blade. Then he turned and touched the edge of the armored truck, making a half-dozen metal spears extend toward me with sudden ferocity. I was forced to launch myself up once again to escape, and by the time I came back down, the guy had disappeared.
  
  "My guy's gone." A voice behind me complained. I glanced over my shoulder to see Battery shaking her head. "Some kind of changer or breaker power. It was like his body was made of jello or something. I couldn't hit him. What about yours?"
  
  "Got away." I replied with a sigh. "Duelitist again. Didn't know he had a partner."
  
  "At least they didn't get what they came for." Battery pointed out, moving to check on the unconscious driver. His partner had been killed when he tried to shoot at the attackers.
  
  "What were they after, anyway?" I asked, eying the mangled truck. "Cash?"
  
  Rising from where she had been checking the survivor, Battery shook her head. "Nah, some kind of tinker-tech computer stuff back there. Ambulance and clean-up crew are almost here." She hesitated, then looked to me. "I, uhhh... Ethan wanted to me to ask how... I mean, I thought I should check on how you're... feeling."
  
  My mouth opened and then shut before I sighed. "I'm dealing. I'm taking it day-by-day. No offense, it's gonna take a lot longer before I feel... remotely normal. It's... what, the thirteenth? Mom... mom and dad died... almost a month ago. But every time I wake up, it's brand new. It's like it just happened, and I just... I can't..."
  
  "I get it." She said quietly. "If you want to talk... not just about that, but about... anything..."
  
  Shrugging, I let myself slump a little against the damaged mailbox. "Like how I let someone die again?" I couldn't help but let my gaze pass toward the guard who had been killed. Sure, he'd been dead before we ever arrived, but still...
  
  Battery put herself in front of me, blocking my gaze. "It's not your fault. Sometimes we just... don't make it in time.
  
  I glanced away, swallowing. "What about the fact that I let the bad guy get away?"
  
  Her hand came out to my shoulder. "Hey, do you have any idea how many bad guys kept getting away from me when I first started?"
  
  "Uhhh..." I couldn't resist. "I know how many of them you ended up marrying."
  
  "Damn it, Ethan." She hissed before rolling her eyes. "Okay, okay, but I swear that's not the norm... for anyone."
  
  "Oh thank god." I teased. "I was afraid that if Duelitist escaped one more time, there was gonna have to be some kind of prenuptial agreement." I ducked as she lazily swiped at me, then turned as the ambulance rolled up. "Time to go?"
  
  She nodded. "Actually, I think it's time for ice cream."
  
  "Ice cream?" I asked a raised eyebrow behind my mask. Yeah, the man who had died was still weighing on my mind, and I knew that Battery was purposefully trying to distract me from dwelling on what I couldn't change.
  
  "Ice cream." She confirmed.
  
  Twenty minutes later, the two of us sat atop a roof, legs dangling off the edge. We were each holding a pint of Ben & Jerry's, and I had lifted my mask up enough that I could eat.
  
  Pulling the spoon back out of my mouth, I purred. "Mmmmm, I could get used to this kind of treatment. If this is what happens when we let the bad guy escape, I might have to do it more often."
  
  Snorting, Battery nudged me with her elbow. "Don't you dare. And don't tell Ethan. He'll sulk because we didn't get any for him."
  
  I smiled briefly, staring down at my ice cream, before my eyes started to water, and I had to close them again. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut while a little shudder ran through me.
  
  A moment later, while I was still collecting myself, Battery-Sam's arm came around me. Her voice was soft. "I know. I'm sorry, Madison. I'm sorry we can't make it better. You're just... you're coping better than a lot would. Sometimes I forget how hard it's gotta be, because... you're dealing with it."
  
  "I'm trying to," I replied in a barely audible voice. "But then I just start crying for no reason."
  
  Sam shook her head. "Not no reason, Madison. You have every reason." She hesitated a little before asking, "Do you want to talk about them?"
  
  I shook my head quickly. "No. Not now. I can't."
  
  "Okay." She accepted that before glancing to me while taking a bite of her own ice cream. "But if you want to talk about anything else."
  
  "My brother." I finally admitted with a sigh. "I can't find him. I don't know where he is. Trevor just... disappeared. He dropped out of school, grabbed his money and... poof."
  
  "I'll see what we can pick up about him."
  
  I shoved another bite of ice cream into my mouth before trying to shrug it off. "It's no big deal-I mean, it is a big deal, but if it's against the rules or whatever. Don't-"
  
  "Shh." Sam shook her head firmly. "He's your brother, Madison. And we're your... friends. The Protectorate's got your back. Not just me and Ethan, all of us. We'll figure out where your brother is and what's going on, I promise."
  
  After a moment of silence, I shifted against her a little bit. Her arm squeezed around me in a half-hug, and I let my head lean down against her shoulder. We sat there in contemplative silence watching the lights of the busy city beneath our feet.
  
  "Our ice cream's melting." She pointed out quietly a few minutes later.
  
  "I know." I replied, just as softly. "I like this though."
  
  There was a long pause before Sam responded, her voice even quieter, and tinged with something I couldn't quite understand. "Yeah... me too."
  
  9.03
  
  "And that... is... game!" I crowed two nights later, pushing away from the computer in the Wards HQ while holding my hands up triumphantly. "Hah! I beat you. I totally beat you."
  
  Dennis coughed. "You got lucky. My rogue was right there. Two more seconds, two more seconds, and your psychic would've been dead, which would've screwed your whole team."
  
  I stuck my tongue out at him. "I'm sorry, the only words I keep hearing are, 'why yes, Maddy, you whooped my ass in the game I just started teaching you a few weeks ago. However did you become so awesome?'"
  
  He laughed, rolling his eyes at the same time. "One time. It was one time, Miss World Champion. Let's go again, just so I can kick your ass and remind you who the real winner is. We'll see who's awesome."
  
  "Oh I'd love to." I teased before pushing myself up. "But it's time for my patrol. No more games for me tonight."
  
  "Cheat!" He claimed, pointing at me dramatically. "This girl is a cheat! You can't just win once and then run away. You've gotta give me a chance to get my title back."
  
  "Sorry!" I wasn't. "You know how it is. Schedule and responsibilities, all that jazz. Besides, I've gotta go meet Rune-I mean Reach. I'm her partner tonight." I had actually been taken off of trainee status after the Leviathan attack, which meant I was technically allowed to patrol all by my lonesome now. It also apparently meant that I could 'escort' those who couldn't go out on their own yet, like Cassie and Missy. I still thought not letting Vista go out by herself was weird, considering she had more experience than anyone else on the team. But they went by age, and she just wasn't technically old enough to go solo.
  
  Not that I minded the nights that I patrolled with Vista. She might have been annoyed about being treated like a kid, but she was still fun to hang out with, and we were still coming up with interesting combinations for our powers.
  
  "Wow, you get the first official patrol with the Nazi girl?" Dennis shook his head. "What'd you do to piss Armsmaster off this time?"
  
  I rolled my eyes. "You know, if you keep calling her Nazi girl, she's going to keep acting like that. I'm just gonna do this patrol and maybe see if... you know... we can find some common ground or something. She chose to join the Wards, there's gotta be something there that we can reach."
  
  "Good luck with that." Kid Win called from the table on the other side of the room where he was assembling... something. "I'll be on monitor duty tonight, so if she gives you too much shit, just ahhh, lemme know and I'll start piping some annoying Aleph music through her comm or something."
  
  "Maybe you'll get lucky," Dennis put in. "And some big brawl will happen so you don't have to do much talking."
  
  I shrugged at that. "Personally, I'd prefer it stay quiet. One nice, long, boring night. That's all I ask for."
  
  "Uuuuuuggggggnnn this is boring as shit," Cassie complained as the two of us walked along yet another rooftop. "Is patrolling always this fucking boring?"
  
  I gave the other girl a look. Her costume consisted of a red robe and hood with black outlines over black light body armor with red outlines, the reverse of the robe, and a black half-mask that covered the lower half of her face. "Hey, sorry the lack of people being horribly injured or beaten depresses you. Maybe we'll get lucky and someone'll rob a bank while we're out here. That outta spice up your evening."
  
  "Eat me," She replied, seemingly automatically and without particular malice. "And I mean it, what the hell do you guys do when nothing's happening? We've been out here for two hours already without so much as a purse snatcher."
  
  "Yeah, see things are a bit different when you're not the ones doing the attacking," I pointed out. "You're just used to always being on the offensive. The Wards are more... defensive."
  
  At the edge of the roof, I put out a hand to make a line between my gauntlet and the next roof over, yanking myself that way. Reach, meanwhile, floated up and over the gap before landing next to me. I cast a glance to her. "Okay, I've been holding back, but now I've gotta ask. You can fly?"
  
  Her head shook automatically, face hidden inside that dark red hood with the black half-mask that came up to her nose. "Just lift my shoes. It's uncomfortable and hard to balance that way. That's why I prefer something more substantial to float on. But I can do it for short distances like that." I saw her brow wrinkle in a frown. "Why, your buddies tell you to find out everything you could about me?"
  
  "Sure, it could be that." I rolled my eyes. "Or it could be that I'm curious. I mean, we are supposed to be teammates, after all."
  
  She gave me a doubtful look at that. "Yeah, and I'm sure you're super-eager to be bff teammates with the Nazi. Next we can braid each other's hair and have pillow fights."
  
  "Hell no," I replied. "I would rock your ass at pillow fights. Seriously, you'd need like, two other people on your team to stand a chance. I pillow fight like Muhammad Ali used to box. Just be all, pow." I mimed swinging a pillow.
  
  She tried to stop it, but I saw the way Cassie's mask twisted a little bit under the smile that she failed to fully bite back. "Crusader and Alabaster were right. You really are a dork." She paused then. "You're not a nigger though. They thought you were totally a nigger."
  
  I deflated a bit. "See, that's your problem. You can't just go around saying words like that."
  
  The other girl blinked blankly at me. "Words like what, 'dork'?"
  
  "No!" I sighed. "You know, the N word. You can't just say that."
  
  "You mean ni-"
  
  I let her get that far before quickly putting a hand up to press against her mouth through the half-mask. "Stop it! You can't go around saying stuff like that!" Hearing her muffled, 'why not' through my hand, I sighed. "It's hate-speech. I mean, it's just... wrong." Finally, I took my hand away. "Look, how old are you anyway?"
  
  "I'll be fifteen in another month, why? What does that have to do with anything?"
  
  "So you're old enough to know that shit's wrong. I shouldn't have to tell you. This is Sesame Street level common sense and courtesy."
  
  For a moment, an expression passed through her eyes, and then the younger girl spun away from me. "Go to hell."
  
  I shook my head, reaching out to take the girl by the shoulder and turn her back around. "No, listen to me."
  
  As I turned her back around, Cassie's hands went up to grab my arms before she released me. I felt myself start to float up and back as her power took hold, but I quickly attached two different lines, one to the roof and one to the other girl, to keep myself where I was, right in front of her. "Reach- Cassie, listen to me. " I used the line to pull her to me, cutting out the distance between us before putting both hands on her shoulders. "Why are you here? Why did you join the Wards in the first place?"
  
  "Uhhh, maybe because I don't feel like going back into Juvie?" Her response came just a hair too late to be fully satisfying.
  
  I shook my head. "That's bullshit. You weren't that bad before, not so bad they'd send you to the Bird Cage or anything. If you wanted to, you could break out of whatever juvenile detention they put you in, eventually. So why are you putting yourself through this?"
  
  She recoiled a little at that. "Why the hell should I talk to you? We're not buddies. You hate me, remember? I'm just a racist fucking Nazi."
  
  The question made me sigh. "Why? Because I've seen someone sort of near your position before. Threatened with Juvie if she didn't join the Wards. Everyone ignored her shit and eventually it... got really bad. So I'm not making that mistake with you. We're talking because it's better than letting you bottle it all up and take it out on someone else, someone that doesn't deserve it, someone that might... that you might hurt."
  
  For a long moment, the girl just glowered at me, her expression hot. I could see Sophia's anger and lack of control in her eyes, and for a moment I was afraid that this whole thing was going to be as pointless as any attempt to reason with Sophia had been.
  
  I also felt the fairly irrational urge to hit her, just because of how much she reminded me of my psychotic former friend.
  
  However, unlike Sophia, Cassie finally closed her eyes and I saw the hint of vulnerability, of basic humanity, that the other girl had lacked. She spoke quietly. "You wanna know why I agreed to this? Two reasons. First, you guys took Aunt Kayden... she's not really my aunt, just... it's complicated. Anyway, you took her back even after everything she did. You took her back anyway, and she asked me to join. She asked me to give it a shot. After she was allowed to stay, I thought it might... work for me."
  
  I nodded slowly, considering that. "And the other reason?"
  
  She hesitated for a moment. Then she sighed. "Look, you want my fucking life story, fine. Basically, even though my real parents left this whole... Empire thing long behind, they still raised me to say things like... that N word you don't want me to say. You say not talking like that is Sesame Street, well it wasn't for me. The way I grew up, what was normal was saying nigger, gook, chink, spic, kike, whatever. Mom and Dad weren't into the violence, but they did hate everyone who wasn't like us. You know how some kids grow up in a religion that does things that everyone that's not part of that religion thinks are weird or fucked up or whatever, and the kid doesn't realize that it's weird until they're a lot older, if they ever realize it at all? It's like that. I didn't fucking wake up one day and decide, 'hey, I think I'll hate Jewish people from now on'. I thought hating Jewish people was normal! "
  
  "Then I got into trouble and I ran away from home. Found my uncle, and he let me stay with him. It was fun, but... the stuff he was doing wasn't exactly legal. He let me tag along and we got busted. I ended up in juvie, started a fight with some spi-some Mexican kids, ended up with a broken arm. So they stuck me in isolation. I got my powers, broke out, and my uncle sent me up here to Brockton Bay to help out Kaiser. Why? Because I had powers and my family was trying to make Kaiser like them."
  
  I was quiet for a moment after she stopped talking, before prompting gently, "So what was your second reason?"
  
  She looked away before answering. "Because I realized that all my life, I've been following the same fucking path. I'm a god damn racist because my family is, I'm a criminal because my uncle was, I'm a supervillain because he basically sold me to Kaiser. I never made my own fucking choices. And now I'm trying to change that-I'm fucking trying to, and it doesn't fucking matter because no matter what I do, I'm always gonna be the stupid shit-ass Nazi girl! You said it yourself, not saying words like that is Sesame Street. Well it's not for me! It's like... it's like being told not to use the word 'the' anymore. The words pop out because I've always used them."
  
  Pausing briefly, I finally nodded. "Okay."
  
  She blinked at that. "Okay? Okay what?"
  
  "Okay, you said the word that I wanted to hear," I told her. "Trying. You said that you're trying to change. So I'll help you do it. But let's get this straight, you say racist bullshit, and I'm gonna call you on it, straight out. I don't care if it's awkward or whatever for you. You wanna learn how to be better? Take your medicine and deal with it. You say stuff that deserves a smack, and I'll damn well smack you."
  
  Again, I saw that flash of vulnerability before it vanished behind the mask of jadedness that she wore. "I don't need a fucking counselor."
  
  "How about a friend?" I asked.
  
  Her eyes showed skepticism. " You want to be friends with the Nazi supervillain."
  
  "No." I shook my head. "I don't wanna be friends with the Nazi supervillain. But the former Nazi supervillain, who decided that maybe she didn't want to be that way anymore and is trying to change even if she thinks nobody's going to believe her? Well, her I might want to be friends with. We'll see how it goes."
  
  Our coms crackled then before Kid Win spoke up. "Hey, you guys might wanna haul your asses over to Southland General Hospital."
  
  I blinked at that before activating my comm to reply. "Southland? What's going on over there?"
  
  "Not sure." He replied. "But there's reports coming in about some kind of little mechanical spider robot things breaking into Bakuda's room." The now-quadriplegic bomb-maker had been under armed guard at the hospital for weeks, not that she could go anywhere or influence anything.
  
  I frowned at that "Little mechanical spiders? That's tinker stuff. What kind of tinker would be breaking Bakuda out of the hospital?"
  
  "Leet, maybe?" Chris offered. "I dunno, but Laserdream's already on her way. She said she'd meet you guys there."
  
  I shrugged before glancing at my patrol partner. "You did say you wanted some excitement. Ready to go stomp some spider-bots?"
  
  Reach hesitated, staring at me for a moment, before she nodded. "What the hell. Let's go save the fucking day."
  
  9.04
  
  By the time that Reach and I arrived at the back lot of the hospital, Crystal was already there. She glanced toward Cassie and frowned a little, but said nothing about it. Instead, she focused on me. "For the record, the idea of going back into this place again does not fill me with warm fuzzies."
  
  "Again?" Reach glanced between us.
  
  I shrugged. "Long story. Maybe I'll tell you about it sometime. Right now, let's just hope what we're dealing with isn't as creepy or dangerous as that was."
  
  "Amen." Crystal took the lead, walking into the hospital ahead of us.
  
  We entered into a back area, with stairs to the left, a janitor's closet and a few other unlabeled doors to the right, and a short hallway toward what looked like a large waiting room from where we were. I could hear the television on out there.
  
  A second after we came in, a Hispanic nurse somewhere in her early thirties hissed at us from the closet, beckoning us to come closer. Crystal did so, heading that way before asking, "Are you all right, miss?"
  
  "I'm just peachy," the nurse replied, a note of sarcasm in her voice. "But the real problem's upstairs. That's where they are. The... the spiders. They're on the third floor. There's... there's no one else up there. We've been trying to keep everyone out of their way, since the... the note came."
  
  I blinked at that. "Note? What note?"
  
  The nurse hesitated before carefully handing over a piece of paper. "One of the... the spiders came right up to the desk and dropped this off."
  
  Crystal glanced at the note, frowned, and passed it to me. When I looked at it, I saw clearly childish handwriting in red crayon. It said, 'Hi, Mrs. Nurses Peoples. Aunt Bockuda and me are really busy, so you have to leave us alone, or the spiders might get mad and kill a bunch of people or something. So no interruptions! Thank you! Yours corjelly, Me.' There was a hand drawn smiley face at the end.
  
  "They're everywhere," the nurse whispered. "The spiders. Sometimes they're on the ceiling and... and other times they're on the floor, or the walls but... they're always... watching."
  
  "Aunt Bockuda?" Reach blurted after reading the note over my shoulder. "Is that even spelled right? And did she really have a niece?"
  
  Focusing on the newest Ward for the first time, the nurse's eyes widened. "W-wait, you're... you're..."
  
  "And that is why you should have a new costume," I pointed out to Cassie, who was clearly scowling. Then I focused on the poor nurse. "It's okay, she's... on a work-release program. We'll take care of the situation. Right?" I looked up to Laserdream.
  
  "Right," she agreed. "Get out of here, we'll see what's going on."
  
  As we walked away, with the nurse whispering for us to be careful before she ran down the hall, I asked, "So what now? I'm pretty sure whoever's up there might be screwing with us with the whole childish writing. But the threat's probably real, and we don't know where all the spiders are."
  
  Crystal hesitated, clearly considering. "I need to call in and see what the others think. Kind of the low girl on the totem pole as far as the Protectorate's concerned." She turned away from us to use her own comm, reporting the situation to Armsmaster.
  
  Reach, meanwhile, was gazing at the nearby stairs. "Why don't we just go up there, see who the hell it is, and put them down? Errr, knock them out. Whatever."
  
  "Like I said, we don't know where all the spiders are. If whoever's controlling them sees us coming and tells all the hidden spiders to attack people, this could turn really nasty, really quick."
  
  She sighed at that. "This playing defensive thing sucks."
  
  "Sometimes," I agreed quietly.
  
  Crystal was turning back to us by that point. "Armsmaster and the others are on their way. We're supposed to watch the building and make sure Bakuda and whoever this is don't escape."
  
  Reach shrugged at that. "What's Bakuda gonna do, drag herself down the hallway with her pinkie? She's fucking crippled."
  
  I elbowed the other girl a little. "We're still working on the empathy thing. And the thinking further ahead thing." To Cassie, I pointed out, "She means that the person could drag her out, or have the spiders do it, or something. Maybe she's got a hover cart or something, if it's a tinker. Hell, they might strap her into a power armor suit. Point is, it's a tinker, so don't rule out anything."
  
  "Right." Crystal looked between us before pointing. "You guys watch the back of the building. I'm going around to the front until the others get here. Stay in contact, just in case."
  
  "You got it." I started to pull Reach after me, back to the door we had come in. As we were going, I saw it: a mechanical spider roughly the size of a medium sized dog, crouched at the top of the nearby stairs. It seemed to be staring at us.
  
  Freezing, I watched the spider, but it wasn't moving. It wasn't doing anything at all, other than watching. Reluctant to take my eyes off it, I finally managed to glance toward Cassie. The other girl's eyes were on the spider-thing as well.
  
  "What now?" She whispered out of the side of her mouth.
  
  Just to be on the safe side, I raised my hands carefully, before pointing back to the door. "Hi there. We're going out the backdoor now. Not bothering you at all." Gradually, I shuffle-stepped sideways until we reached the exit. The whole time, the spider kept staring, turning slightly to keep us in view as we moved.
  
  It wasn't until we were outside that I started to breathe again. "I have a really bad feeling about all this. Something's not right."
  
  Reach, for her part, actually looked just as uneasy. "I still-"
  
  "Shh." I interrupted, pointing at a station wagon in the lot. There was another spider-bot perched atop it, watching us. "This is... seriously creeping me out."
  
  "Hi!" A cheerful young girl's voice chirped from right behind us. I yelped and spun around, finding yet another of the spiders (or possibly the one from the stairs) squatting there barely two feet away. How the hell had it gotten so close? The girl's voice was coming from the spider. "You're Tether, right?"
  
  "Uhh... yes...?" I confirmed hesitantly, glancing toward my tense companion.
  
  I expected possibly an attack, or a threat, or something of that nature. What I didn't expect was the giddy little squeal of excitement, nor the happy little dance that the mechanical monstrosity did, spinning itself around in a circle on most of its legs while using two of them to wave in the air. "Eeeeeee! I knew it, I knew it, I knew it! You're my hero! Can I have your autograph?"
  
  My mouth fell open behind the mask. "Uhhhhhhh..."
  
  "Pleeeeeease?" The mechanical spider pleaded, arching up on several of its back legs while its eyes seemed to widen to near Disney-character proportions. "If you give me your autograph, I won't kill anybody here. Cross my heart and hope to die. Except I said I wouldn't kill anybody. Oopsie."
  
  I shook off the confusion. "It's okay, it's all right. I... uhh, I'll give you an autograph."
  
  Beside me, Cassie muttered, "You have got to be fucking kidding me."
  
  "Yaaaaaaaaaaay!" Again, the spider danced happily. This time, the thing went up onto its legs, tilting its body all the way back until its bottom was facing us, then began to bob up and down while dancing from side to side. It almost looked like...
  
  "Is that thing doing the Snoopy dance?" Reach asked in blatant disbelief.
  
  Dropping back down, the spider faced us once more as a small panel slid open on the front. I tensed, but all that popped out was a black permanent marker, which fell onto the pavement. Then the spider tilted forward and presented its body, while the girl's voice called through it excitedly, "Sign the body, please! And can you make it out to Riley? And say 'to my best friend and almost sister'."
  
  All but floored by the surreality of this situation, I nonetheless did as requested, carefully signing the robot's body, 'To Riley, my best friend and almost sister. Thanks for not killing anybody. As long as you don't kill anybody, we can keep being friends. Yours, Tether'.
  
  Once I was finished, one of the spider's eyes actually popped out, connected by some kind of metal coil-cord thing, bending up and around to peer down at what I'd written. I heard a happy little giggle. "D'ya mean it? We can keep being friends?"
  
  I nodded hesitantly. "As... as long as you don't kill anybody, Riley."
  
  Cassie whispered something to me, and I quickly repeated her words. "Or let your spiders kill anyone."
  
  There was a long pause after that, so long that I wasn't sure the girl was going to respond. The spider-bot continued to sit there motionless, eye now retracted back into its slot.
  
  Finally, she spoke again. "You know how comes I came here?"
  
  Biting my lip, I shook my head. "Not... really. Is Bakuda really your aunt?"
  
  "Nuh uh." The spider moved itself from side to side, approximating a head shake. "Not really, but I needed a new friend, and she was new. I don't think she's a very good friend though. She didn't even say thank you for the super-cool arms I gave her!"
  
  "The... the arms?" I echoed, confused.
  
  The reply was dismissive. "Never mind, you'll see. She was rude though. I asked if she wanted to be my friend, and she left! She left me here." That was followed by a little sniff. "That was kinda mean, you know? I did this really nice thing, and Bockuda wouldn't even play with me. Not even for a little bit."
  
  "Wait, you mean Bakuda's gone?" My eyes widened at that.
  
  "I shoulda done like Uncle Jack always said." The girl's voice lamented through the spider. "But I was trying to be nice and helpful, not like Uncle Jack. He doesn't know where I am. You know why?"
  
  I felt completely lost, but I nudged Cassie and murmured, "Use your comm to tell them Bakuda might be out of the building." Then I focused on the spider. "Why... why doesn't Uncle Jack know where you are?"
  
  "Cuz he doesn't like you." The girl replied. "He said that you were a bad influence, that I shouldn't watch your video clips. But you're funny! You make me laugh. But Uncle Jack's always right. But you're my hero! So... so I was confused. And my head hurts when I think about it too much. But, I wanted to come and help people, like you! I helped Bockuda, only she was mean and she left. But if I'd put something in to control her, like Uncle Jack would have told me to, then she'd still be here and she'd play with me. Only, I don't think you'd do that."
  
  "I wouldn't." I confirmed.
  
  The spider let out a long, heavy sigh, slumping. "Confused. I'm really confused."
  
  "Maybe..." I hesitated uncertainly. "Maybe you could come here, the real you, and we could talk it out together?"
  
  For a second, the robot peered up at me. The girl's voice had turned suspicious. "Are you trying to trap me?"
  
  I raised both hands quickly, defensively. "No no, nothing like that. I just thought you might want to talk. I mean, we're friends, right?"
  
  For a moment, I wasn't sure how she was going to react. Then the spider settled a little. Riley's voice sounded regretful. "I wanna be. You're the best hero ever. You made me laugh. Really laugh. Not like fake laughing with Uncle Jack. I forgot what that was like, til I saw your videos."
  
  "So we can be friends." I assured her.
  
  "Not yet." The spider shook itself. "I'm still confused. My head is all fuzzy and dumb. Uncle Jack says something, but you say something else. I can't do both. I can't be both of them. I can only be me, and I dunno who me is. I've gotta think, and... and experiment. I always think better when I can experiment."
  
  I swallowed a little at that, unsure of what her 'experiments' might be, but pretty sure I didn't want to know. "Don't forget your promise, Riley."
  
  "No killing people, no letting my spiders kill people." She repeated.
  
  "Good. Good." I let my head bob. "Thank you, Riley. You're a good girl."
  
  The robot froze, and for a second I thought I'd said the wrong thing. Then it stretched up on its legs, extending them somehow until the spider was face to face with me. The girl's voice came through, and it sounded as lonely, sad, and uncertain as any voice I'd ever heard. "No, I'm not."
  
  The spider shrank back down then, before turning to skitter away. The voice called back. "I'll keep my promise though! No killing, cuz you asked. As long as you're my friend, I won't kill anybody. At least not until I... figure out if I should listen to you, or to Uncle Jack."
  
  Letting out a long breath as the spider-bot disappeared, I turned toward Reach. "That was... weird."
  
  "Weird?" She echoed. "That was ten tons of fucked up in a three pound bag. Who the hell was that girl?"
  
  I shook my head. "I'm not sure. But she's dangerous. And unstable."
  
  "And apparently, your number one fan." Cassie pointed out.
  
  I was spared from trying to respond to that by the arrival of Laserdream, as she landed next to us. "Armsmaster's upstairs with Battery. The floor's deserted. There's no sign of Bakuda or whoever freed her. Did you find out anything else?"
  
  My mouth opened, then shut and I sighed. "Can we go get a cup of coffee or something? And bring the others. I sort have a feeling that everyone's gonna want to hear this, and I'd rather not keep saying the same things over and over."
  
  Crystal's eyes met mine. "Is everything okay? Besides Bakuda escaping."
  
  "Honestly?" I replied with a helpless shrug. "I have no idea."
  
  9.05
  
  "I think that's everything, sir." I finished dutifully reporting everything that had happened at the hospital while taking another sip from the coffee that had been provided as soon as we were seated in this conference room somewhere deep inside PRT headquarters. We had been brought here to meet with Armsmaster and Piggot. Crystal was at the other end of the table, having already given her own side of the events and what she'd seen (not much).
  
  "Reach, do you have anything to add?" Armsmaster focused on my companion. Piggot, in the seat next to him, seemed to be doing her level best to set the former Nazi supervillain on fire through the sheer force of her glare.
  
  Reach, apparently unaffected by Piggot's glowering, shrugged. "Nope. She pretty much covered it." In the face of Piggot's continued scowl, the fourteen year old girl picked up her glass of ice water (she had refused coffee, or anything with caffeine, on the grounds of it being both unhealthy and addicting), and took a slow, deliberate sip while meeting the woman's gaze. "Except for the part where I rejoined the Nazis and started eating babies."
  
  "She's kidding!" I spoke up quickly, elbowing the other girl. "Just kidding."
  
  "Is this funny to you, Miss Herren?" Piggot demanded. "Perhaps you could explain what part of a dangerous bomb-tinker escaping custody makes you think jokes are appropriate."
  
  Cassie raised one shoulder in a shrug. "I dunno, maybe the part where it's totally your fault."
  
  I choked on my coffee, eyes widening while Piggot's hand came down hard on the tabletop. "What?" She demanded in a disbelieving tone.
  
  "I said, it's your fault," Reach replied dismissively. "What, were we not supposed to say that out loud? I mean, whose idea was it to put the dangerous bomb-tinker into a normal hospital to begin with? Cuz it wasn't my idea. It wasn't even crazy spider-girl's idea. That was all you."
  
  Poor Piggot's eyes looked like they were about to pop right out of her head. She very nearly came over the table. "If I had any say over your violent, criminal little ass, you'd be locked up where you belong, you little psychopath. Open your mouth again, and you-"
  
  "You don't," A new voice replied from the doorway. I glanced up to see a familiar blonde woman coming in, while continuing, "Have any authority, that is."
  
  Crystal, at the end of the table, blinked. "Mom?"
  
  "Sorry I was late." Sarah Pelham, the former leader of New Wave, and Crystal's mother, set a briefcase down on the desk and let out a long sigh. "So much going on. Hey, sweetie, you all right?"
  
  "I... I'm fine," Crystal replied rather blankly. "What are you doing here?"
  
  Armsmaster, looking rather relieved for the interruption, answered, "Mrs. Pelham here has finally agreed to take over Calvert's job."
  
  Unable to help myself, I spoke up. "People are totally going to appreciate the way that you fill out that skin tight snake costume better than he did." That time, I was rewarded with making Cassie choke on her drink.
  
  Mrs. Pelham rolled her eyes and pulled out a chair. "His civilian job, thank you. Which includes, currently, administration over the Wards."
  
  "You didn't tell me you were considering something like this." Crystal pointed out. "This is big, Mom. Are you sure..." She trailed off uncertainly.
  
  The older woman gave a slight nod. "Without... without the team, and after losing Carol... and with your brother leaving, I need something to do. I need to feel like I'm contributing. Colin," she indicated Armsmaster, "brought up the idea, and I've been speaking with Director Costa-Brown and Senator Wallace for a week now, just to get everything in line."
  
  "The official announcement isn't until tomorrow," Armsmaster put in. "But I thought this was important enough to bring her in early."
  
  "Yes," Mrs. Pelham agreed. "As I said, I'm sorry I'm late, but Colin was sending the audio through the phone in the car. Does this girl sound like who I think she sounds like?"
  
  "Of course she does," Piggot all but spat. "She's probably here because of one of Calvert's back-up plans. He gets sent away and they show up."
  
  "I think you're overestimating the power he had." Armsmaster told her. "No one controls them, especially not enough to count on as a 'back-up plan'."
  
  "Who?" I put in. Honestly, I think some part of me already knew the answer, but the second the idea had occurred to that part of my mind, it had locked itself in a padded cell and hadn't stopped screaming long enough to pass that information along to the rest of my consciousness.
  
  "Slaughterhouse Nine," Crystal answered for everyone, her voice quiet.
  
  "What?!" I jerked a little in my seat, staring down the table at the girl. "That's not... I mean..." I hesitated. "She said... Jack... and she was... and she said... and I said... and I called her... and we..." Slowly, I sank down further and further in my seat, my face pale as my throat closed up until all I could manage was a weak, "Oh."
  
  The Slaughterhouse Nine. If this Riley was the girl that they thought she was, and this Jack was the guy they thought he was... "I... ummm... I think I might need a... a new... pair of pants."
  
  "It is imperative that we find this girl." Armsmaster said firmly. "I cannot stress that enough. We find her and we verify her identity, one way or another." Even he looked grave. "And we do it before the rest of them show up, should worst come to worst."
  
  "Which is something for the rest of us to talk about," Mrs. Pelham pointed out before focusing on Cassie and me. "You two can go. Good job today. Whatever comes next, you convinced a violent psychopath not to kill anyone."
  
  Armsmaster was gazing at me thoughtfully. "Yes, she seems to be making a habit of that..."
  
  For my part, all I could do was walk to the door while trying not to whimper. The idea that the girl I had been talking to, the girl I'd called my best friend and almost sister, was Bonesaw, almost made me want to hide in a corner and cry for awhile.
  
  Alternatively, I could find a way to feel better.
  
  With a shhhhlllerrp, I finished covering my piece of cherry pie with whipped cream. "This is so much better than worrying about a pack of the most evil, psychotic killers possibly making a beeline this way." I said, shuddering in spite of myself.
  
  Behind me, Marissa lay a hand on my back as she peered over my shoulder. "Did you get some pie with that cream?"
  
  Turning slightly to stick my tongue out at her, I replied airily. "I like whipped cream. It's the best part."
  
  Grinning, Mars lifted her own plate. "Ready for the movie?"
  
  Nodding, I turned to grab the glass of chocolate milk that was waiting there, and walked back out into the living room.
  
  Being in my family's house still hurt. It made the permanent, dull ache in my chest worse in some ways, like touching a sensitive wound. Everywhere I looked, I could remember scenes of my parents, parts of my past that I would never get back again.
  
  And yet, being there with Marissa helped a bit. It helped me remember that the memories weren't bad ones, and that even though the idea of not making new memories with my parents was always going to be painful, holding onto and remembering the ones that I had could be good as well.
  
  Days went on, and the hard, impossible pain gradually lessened. It still made me cry more than I wanted to admit, but I kept going. I kept myself busy, and as each day passed, it gradually started to become easier to think about how much I loved, and appreciated my parents for everything they had done, rather than focusing entirely on what they wouldn't be able to do now.
  
  In some ways, the idea of getting over their deaths, in any fashion, made me nearly as upset as I'd been before. It felt... wrong, especially since it had only been a few weeks. I guess humans could only physically grieve at that... level for so long.
  
  I wasn't over my parents' deaths. I wouldn't be over it for a very long time. But I was slowly, gradually getting better at focusing on why I loved them, rather than the simple, horribly painful fact that they weren't around anymore. And Marissa was a big part of that.
  
  Taking a seat on the floor, I set the plate down in front of me and took a forkful of nothing but whipped cream. "Mmmmmmmhmmm." I murmured in pleasure.
  
  For some reason, Marissa was blushing as she sat down next to me. "Uhh, good pie?"
  
  "Dunno," I replied while grabbing the remote. "Haven't reached the pie yet." I started the movie and leaned back against the beanbag chair behind me. "Mindless explosions and car chases, do your stuff." I gestured imperialistically before digging into the pie once more.
  
  We actually watched two movies, though I drifted off sometime through the second one. I could feel the sleep coming on, but I was in the fuzzy, tired mindset where I didn't particularly care.
  
  When I came to, the credits were playing, and I felt comfortable. I'd fallen asleep leaning slightly against the beanbag, but now I was laying down on the floor, with a blanket from the couch covering me, and my head was... I shifted, turning my head up to find myself looking up at Marissa, who was gazing down at me, my head in her lap.
  
  I blinked at that, still gradually becoming conscious. "Oh... hi." I said quietly, feeling a slight pink coloring come to my cheeks in spite of myself.
  
  "Hi." She replied, her voice soft, and little bit thoughtful.
  
  My mouth opened and then shut before I managed to indicate with my head. "Was it a ummm, a good movie?"
  
  Marissa shrugged at that. "I'm not sure, I was... distracted. We can watch again later, if you want to."
  
  "Distracted?" My head tilted a little in her lap as I asked, curiously. "By what?"
  
  The older girl hesitated, looking uncertain for a moment. "Distracted by the fact that... I was happy. Right here, right now. I... ever since we came to this world, me and the others, my... everything has been focused on helping Noelle, and getting home. That's all I wanted. I did some really bad things, things I never wanted to do. I saw things I can't ever unsee. I just... I never thought being here, on this world, would be anything less than miserable. But... when we were watching the movie, I felt... good. I felt happy. Even with Noelle... maybe hating me, maybe never forgiving me, which should make me curl up into a ball and cry, I felt... good, right here."
  
  I blinked several times before teasing a little, "Wow, that must've been an amazing film."
  
  Her eyes rolled. "It wasn't the movie. It was the company." She bit her lip cutely, glancing away. "You..." Turning back, she went on. "You're the one that makes me happy. You're the one that makes being here, even without the others, not completely suck. Just being here with you, it's... it's really..." Ducking her head as her blush deepened, Marissa mumbled, "It's really nice."
  
  For a long moment, I stared up at the older girl. My mouth opened and shut, but no words came. The thoughts I had, the... feelings that I hadn't been able to articulate, drifted through my mind.
  
  Flinching from the long silence, Marissa started to shift her legs out from under me. "I'm sorry." She mumbled. "I'm really sorry, I didn't mean... I wasn't... I'll just-"
  
  "You make me happy too." I blurted, sitting up and turning that way so that we were facing each other. "I'm sorry. I was just... I was trying to think of the right words, the right... the pretty words to make it sound... right. It was just... dumb in my head and I didn't... want it to sound dumb, because it's not, it's great and you make me feel safe and good and I don't have... I don't have the right words for what that is, but I know how I feel. I feel... good when I'm with you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I don't have the right words, or that I'm saying it wrong or too bluntly or... or..." I gulped, staring at the girl next to me. "I don't know how to say... what I'm trying to say... but... you make me happy, Mars. And... and you make... my life... better... because you're here."
  
  For a long moment, the two of us just sat there, staring at each other. I think we were both afraid to break whatever powerful connection had been drawn between us from the confession of our feelings. I gazed at Marissa, willing myself to say something else, to find the right words, but in that moment, the only thing I could think was, her eyes are really pretty.
  
  It was Marissa who moved first, her hand coming up to brush brown locks of hair back away from my face before she settled her palm against my cheek. Her voice was gentle. "Maddy?" She said softly, her tone questioning.
  
  In spite of myself, her soft, gentle tone made me gulp. "Y-" My voice cracked a little. "Yes, Mars?"
  
  Her hand gently brushed over my face, making little shivers of pleasure shoot through me from the contact. When she spoke, her voice was even softer. "May... may I kiss you?"
  
  My eyes closed briefly, the words, the question, the idea sending a thrill through me that was only heightened by the touch of her hand. I almost forgot to answer, so focused was I on how it felt, before finally opening my eyes to look back at her. My head nodded fractionally as I whispered, "Yes, Mars."
  
  A second later, her lips found mine. We kissed, right there on the floor of the living room. And for a moment that seemed to stretch on through time, I forgot every problem I had, every worry that I held, every doubt and fear that plagued me.
  
  We kissed, and I was happy.
  
  Interlude 9 - Dinah
  
  Brockton Bay burned, the city itself set aflame because of the missiles employed by the military in their desperate, terrified hope to destroy the Slaughterhouse Nine before they left the city with their new member: Pandora.
  
  Another image, another dying city. This time the destruction would be limited to organic beings, the attack coming through a biological weapon, specifically designed to attack Pandora and prevent her escape.
  
  More images throughout the mosaic of possible futures, more death.
  
  10.21426 percent chance the city survives the next month.
  
  4.00621 percent chance the country survives the next year if the city falls and Pandora escapes with the Slaughterhouse Nine.
  
  The numbers were the same, as were the numbers if they did what she already knew they had to do, no matter how scary the prospect was. If they did that, and pulled it off, the chance of survival rose greatly. Still not high by any means, but better.
  
  Dinah Alcott stopped looking at the numbers in her head, opening her eyes so that she could gaze around the dingy motel room that they had taken over. It wasn't much, but it was one of the few places that her power had told her they wouldn't be found if they stayed, using Pandora's shapeshifting to pay. She slept on one bed, Emma slept on the other. Whichever version of Pandora needed sleep used the adjacent room.
  
  In a corner there was a table that was loaded down with a computer and three linked monitors. One screen continually panned through various camera views inside of PRT headquarters, a second had data constantly scrolling across it as the hacking program Dinah had pointed Pandora toward inside of Coil's headquarters did its job, and the third screen showed several different text documents full of notes and numbers: Dinah's scratch paper to keep track of all the answers she was getting toward their various problems.
  
  Rising from her bed, Dinah glanced toward the nearby window. It was late enough, and their room was far enough from the street, that the view beyond was pitch black. Yet Pandora stood there, gazing at the city beyond.
  
  After a momentary hesitation, tempted to check the numbers for this conversation, but resisting the urge, Dinah moved that way to whisper, "Panda?" It was her name for Pandora, another way of showing the dangerous, and potentially cataclysmic clone that they were friends, and that she should listen to her.
  
  Pandora turned away from the window, blinking once before focusing on her. "Yes, Dinah-Friend?"
  
  "You wanna keep being friends, right?" The twelve-year old girl asked quietly.
  
  Nodding, the clone made some attempt at a smile. It came off looking more like an alien who had heard of the concept of a smile but wasn't quite sure what parts of the mouth to move. "Yes, Dinah-friend. We would like to remain friends. Is that why you are not sleeping? Are you worried that we will not be your friend?"
  
  Dinah remembered when Pandora used to say 'I'. She'd switched to the royal we ever since her first body had been killed, forcing her to switch to her backups. Dinah wasn't sure why, but she did know that the clone had also somehow rewritten her brain after what had happened to poor Mr. Pitter, which altered her personality and made herself somehow less and more dangerous at the same time.
  
  The fact was, the clone who had sat in the cell with her in Coil's lab had been evil. Pure evil, even though she had hidden it somewhat behind the appearance of playing nice. The girl who shared the room with her now, post-Pitter, had more potential for danger, but also had the potential to be good, which the original had lacked.
  
  "If we don't do the thing that I said we needed to do, right now, then pretty soon someone's going to make us not be friends anymore." She informed the girl.
  
  "I will hunt them." Pandora assured her. "They will not take away our friendship."
  
  Emma had rolled over in her bed by then, blinking blearily at them. "Mmmwhat's going on?"
  
  Odds that we do what needs to be done if Emma comes? Dinah asked herself. 32.1 percent. It was a full eighteen percent lower than if they didn't take her.
  
  "Nothing." She replied. "Go back to sleep, I just have to talk to Panda for a little bit." She turned back to that version. "I'll meet you in the hallway, okay? It's okay. I have a plan. Sort of."
  
  Panda paused, but finally nodded. "Be careful, Dinah-Friend. We will protect you, but our agreement with Tether-Friend demands that we do not kill innocents. If you are seen and recognized because of the search before your assumed death..."
  
  "I know." Dinah nodded. "I'll be careful. And that's why we dyed my hair anyway." She flicked a hand through her now-red locks. "So I look more like Emma's sister."
  
  That said, she turned to walk to the door, passing the girl she had just mentioned, who was still staring at her. Emma whispered, "Hey, is she ever gonna let us go?"
  
  Dinah paused, restraining the urge to look for those numbers. "It's better if we're here." She informed the girl. "Even you. You're important, Emma. Really important. I don't know how yet, but... but the numbers say everything goes better if you stay here."
  
  The other girl sighed a little. "My dad thinks I'm dead by now." She lamented with a sigh, flopping back onto the bed.
  
  All Dinah could say was, "Try to sleep, or watch TV. I'll be back soon." As she was going through the door, the young girl couldn't help the thought that passed through her mind. Why do I have to reassure you? You're four years older than me.
  
  But she didn't put voice to the thoughts. The numbers said that keeping Emma as happy as possible, while not letting her leave, was the best way of avoiding... a lot of bad things. For whatever reason, the older girl was necessary to prevent very bad things from happening.
  
  She wondered, briefly, what Emma would say if she knew that Pandora had only kept Emma because Dinah asked her to, that her true kidnapper was not the clone, who had been ready to let her leave some time ago, but the twelve-year old girl who was ostensibly her fellow captive.
  
  There was a weird movie twist in there somewhere.
  
  Arriving in the hallway, Dinah smiled faintly at the sight of another Pandora clone waiting for her. The first was obviously going to stay in the room with Emma. "Hi, Panda." She said with a wave, then pointed to the stairs. "Ready?" She had already told her what they needed to do when the time came.
  
  "Yes, Dinah-Friend." the new Pandora clone answered, giving a short bob of her head that was a little too quick and sharp, another product of her lack of understanding what others would take as basic human concepts.
  
  Without hesitation, Dinah offered her hand to the girl who was likely an S-Class threat all on her own, given the proper motivation. Motivation that she would get if they didn't do this right.
  
  Panda took her hand, and the two of them walked together, down the dirty stairway that was stained with things that Dinah really didn't want to know anymore about than she already did. They continued on out the backdoor of the motel, exiting into a tiny area between the building and the fence that surrounded the (empty and trash filled) outdoor pool.
  
  Odds of getting where we need to go if we go left? 12.4982 percent. Odds of doing what we need to do if we go right? 83.0219 percent.
  
  "We need to go this way." She indicated with a hand.
  
  Ever since Panacea had helped her, Dinah had found that it was easier to get certain numbers as long as they were related to a larger, more important number. She could still only ask a few of the big questions at a time, like, 'what are the odds that we all die if we don't do this one certain thing'. But once she had the answer for that, asking questions related to that one, main question became easier. In this case, because she had used up a 'main' question for finding out if they really needed to do this, asking smaller questions related to accomplishing that task became easier. It wasn't perfect by any means, because the longer she kept up the 'little questions', the longer it would take before she recovered once she finally did crash. Also, the more little questions she asked, the fewer big questions she could ask without a bad headache, until a certain time had passed to let her recover.
  
  It was, thankfully, enough to let her navigate them through the city streets and toward their objective. Dinah paused at one point to look up at the road that would lead her home, if she chose to go that way. She didn't have to look at the numbers for that one. Whether or not Panda would let her go was irrelevant. If she did go, the numbers for the survival of... pretty much anyone in the city dropped down into digits that she preferred not to think about.
  
  Instead, she led her strange companion down another street, to a small house with a for sale sign in the front.
  
  "This is the house?" Panda asked her, voice tinged with curiosity.
  
  Squeezing the clone's hand tightly, Dinah nodded slowly. She was shivering from fear and worry, mostly related to what would happen if anything went wrong.
  
  Panda turned a little to look at her, head tilted. "You are afraid, Dinah-Friend. We should leave now." She started to tug back the other way, willing to walk away just because the girl she chose to call her friend was frightened.
  
  "N-no." Dinah shook her head. "We have to go in. If we don't, we won't get to stay friends. This is the only way."
  
  "Then I will protect you." Panda promised. "You know that I will not allow harm to come to you, Dinah-Friend."
  
  And, as Dinah gazed up at the dangerous clone who could possibly turn into a genocidal threat given the proper motivation, she did know that. "Thank you, Panda." She managed a weak smile, tugging the other girl's hand to pull her up the walk and toward the dangerous house.
  
  A mechanical spider leapt from the top of the roof, landing in front of them with its pincers raised. Pandora started to move, but Dinah held up her hands. "Riley! Wait! We're just here to talk to Riley! Just talk."
  
  The spider remained completely still for a moment, before the front door opened. Then the robot skittered its way to the bushes, where it sat, watching them intently.
  
  Letting out a breath, and still holding tight to Panda's hand, Dinah started to walk up the stairs to the open door. It felt like willingly walking into a shark's mouth (if the shark had been capable of inflicting mind-shattering torture and pain), but the numbers never lied. The numbers said that this was the best way to avoid much worse things from happening.
  
  As they reached the front door, a voice called out, "You better not be magazine salesmen! I haven't finished with the last one." This was followed by a tortured shriek that made Dinah shrink back against Pandora, before the girl's voice snapped in clear exasperation. "Wouldya stop trying to die already? I promised I wouldna kill nobody! Stop whining, I'll put your lung back when I'm done with it, I promise."
  
  There was a horrible, wet noise, followed by a heavy plop and then a sharp, pained cry before the girl spoke again. "Errr, spider, better dust that off and wash it in the kitchen sink before we put it back."
  
  She appeared in entrance way then, coming through a door that apparently led into the kitchen. The girl looked like she was around the same age as Dinah, though she wore her blonde hair in cute ringlets, along with light blue ribbons. Her pretty dress was completely soaked through with blood, as were the yellow kitchen gloves that she wore.
  
  "You're not magazine salesmen." The girl noted, dropping the large cleaver she'd been carrying. "Did you come to talk about religion? Cuz I never did find the soul in the last guy that wanted to talk about that, and it'd be kinda nice to try again."
  
  A questioning series of beeps came from the other room, and the girl looked over her shoulder. "Just put it back where we found it." A moment later, a bloodcurdling scream erupted from inside the room. Dinah blanched and took a step back, tears of sympathy springing to her eyes. Riley, on the other hand, rolled her eyes. "You got it upside down, dummy!" An answering series of beeps came back, sounding apologetic.
  
  "It's so hard to get good assistants these days." The bio-tinker lamented, shaking her head with a low sigh. "So, whatcha doing? Wait, I know you!" She said, pointing to Pandora. "You're the healer. I was gonna make you my new candidate if we ever came up this way. Only Uncle Jack wanted..." She trailed off, shaking her head. "Whatcha doing here?" Then the girl leaned over a little to gaze at Dinah. "And who're you?"
  
  Taking in a long breath before letting it out, Dinah finally spoke, using her power as much as she dared. "We... wanna be your friends, Riley."
  
  The blood-soaked tinker blinked at that. "You do?" Her eyes squinted suspiciously. "Why?"
  
  Pausing as she consulted her power, Dinah then answered, "Because you like Tether, and she's our friend. So we can be friends with you too."
  
  Brightening noticeably at that, Riley looked between them. "You know Tether? Really truly? No lie, stick a needle in your eye? Cuz I'll do it."
  
  "She has been useful," Pandora spoke up. "We have made a truce to not kill innocents."
  
  "So did we!" Riley beamed happily, gesturing back over her shoulder. "Even though some people keep trying to ruin the promise! Jerk." Turning back to them, she asked. "So whatcha doin' here? Did she send you?" The girl asked, rather eagerly.
  
  Dinah shook her head. "Not exactly. But... we have a... an offer for you. A deal like the one you made with Tether. See, this isn't really Panacea. She's Pandora, she's a clone."
  
  Looking interested at that, Riley reached up to poke Panda with a finger. "Ooooohhhh, I never got to play with a real clone before."
  
  "You can play with all the clones you want, Riley." Dinah informed her. "Pandora can make copies of herself out of other biological material. Copies that can change anything about themselves. She can shapeshift into anything, and she can turn her pain off, so... you could experiment as much as you want to, and she wouldn't complain. She'd even hold tools for you."
  
  In demonstration, Panda shifted her skin color from white, to black, to green, then back to white before making herself six inches taller, then shrank back down.
  
  The bio-tinker was staring with wide eyes. "She'd let me experiment? Anything I wanted?"
  
  "As long as it didn't hurt other people," Dinah clarified. "But yeah, all the bodies you want to experiment with. You've only gotta do three things for it."
  
  Narrowing her eyes, suspicious again, Riley asked, "What?"
  
  "One, you've gotta fix up that guy in there and anyone else you've been... ummm... playing with, and let them go as soon as we make sure they know not to tell anybody." Dinah said slowly. "You don't need them if you have Pandora."
  
  Considering that for a second, the bio-tinker finally nodded. "Okay, as long as I can experiment."
  
  "Second," Dinah continued. "No more experimenting on anyone who isn't Pandora. As long as you're with us, as long as we're friends, you only experiment on Pandora, and even then, only the ones that you're supposed to experiment on."
  
  Once the other girl had agreed to that, Dinah finished. "And finally, as long as you're here... you can't ever do anything that would let Jack or any of the others figure out where you are. You have to stay secret. We won't stop you from leaving if you decide to, but as long as you're here, you never, ever let them know where you are. If you do all that, then we can be friends."
  
  For a long few moments, Riley was still and silent. She watched Pandora like a kid waiting to pounce on their first Christmas present, but was clearly torn. Finally, she nodded. "Okay. Deal. Let's be friends."
  
  As she looked back and forth between Riley and Panda, some part of Dinah, in that moment, couldn't help but wonder if there was some kind of record for collecting dangerous, potentially world-ending threats like they were Pokemon.
  
  And she swore, right then and there, that she was never, ever going to ask her power if there was any way to talk an Endbringer onto their team. It wouldn't fit in the motel room.
  
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  Arc 10: Trials
  Notes: Starfox - Yeah, Mads does have sympathy toward the whole redemption thing. And yup, Trevor will come back into play eventually. :) Glad you like the creepiness and Dinah's little side story.
  
  Kine X - Believe it or not, I didn't catch that. At least it wasn't all of the Nine? ;)
  
  jaredpowers1 - Wow, thank you. You're amazingly kind, and I so appreciate the encouragement. Using a character who wasn't given much development was definitely purposeful on my part. It let me write her pretty much however I wanted. Anyway, I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
  
  That last bit goes for everyone. I hope you like what you read.
  
  The dew on the early morning grass was damp and cool against my bare toes. I wiggled them a little and stretched, standing in the backyard of my parents' home while gazing up at the lightly clouded sky. Somewhere over in the next yard, birds sang back and forth to one another, while the faint sound of cartoons from the house on the opposite side reached me through their open back door.
  
  A pair of arms enveloped me from behind, and I felt a soft kiss against the top of my head, before a voice asked, "So... what are we, exactly?"
  
  Hearing Marissa's question made me turn my head slightly to look at her. "Ummm... human?" I teased.
  
  She rolled her eyes and dug her fingers into my sides, tickling me briefly just to make me yelp. "You know what I mean, imp."
  
  "I'm... I'm not sure." I answered honestly. "I... I had a boyfriend a couple of times, but it was never really serious. Just one of those... 'eh, everyone else has one' sort of things. But I never... I never thought I was a ummm..."
  
  "That you liked girls," Marissa supplied.
  
  I nodded. "Yeah, that. I never really thought that until I met you. Maybe I'm just Marsexual." I offered with a giggle. "Cuz I really do like you. A lot. Kissing is really nice."
  
  "I like you too, Mads." The other girl returned my smile, hugging me tighter against her from behind. "I guess it's kind of easier for me. I knew I was... in love with a girl for a long time."
  
  That was one thing I didn't even have to hesitate on. "Noelle." I said confidently. "You were in love with Noelle."
  
  Her head bobbed a little. "Was it that obvious?"
  
  "To me it was."
  
  A soft sigh escaped her, before she let me go. Then Marissa turned me around to face her. "I wanna tell you something, okay?" When I nodded, she went on. "Whatever this is, whatever we have, you are not a consolation prize. I like you because you're you. I mean, you make me laugh. You make me think. I can talk to you for hours and feel like it was only a few minutes. I... I was in love with Noelle, but I don't think she ever returned those feelings. Not the way I wanted her to, anyway."
  
  Biting my lip, I shifted on my feet a little before asking, "What if she did? Now, I mean. What if she came up to find you and said she wanted you back?"
  
  Mars regarded me for a long moment, considering the question honestly before answering. "I would help her in any way that I could. I would do whatever I could do to make her feel better, to keep her safe, or to make her happy... that didn't involve leaving you." Her hand cupped my cheek. "You're the one thing that made me like living here, the one person that made being stuck in this world kind of... worth it. I would do anything for Noelle... as a friend. But I choose you. I think I... chose you when I left the others, when I couldn't do what they wanted me to do anymore. Noelle was-is... I don't know, she was my best friend. And I still want to help her. I want to make her better. Because she's my friend."
  
  I nodded slowly at that. "I want to help Noelle too. But I don't think Trickster will tell us where she is, or let us get anywhere near them. Even if we did know how to fix her. Because if Panacea couldn't do it..." I sighed low and slumped.
  
  Marissa's hand on my face brushed lightly down my cheek. "One bit at a time. I've been talking to Jess over our private e-mails. She's getting there. But don't forget, it's Thursday. Which means..."
  
  I groaned out loud. "Cemetery day." Because it was now summer (they had basically given up on getting us back in school before vacation started, so my career at Arcadia High would begin with the Fall semester), they had moved my cemetery community service to Thursdays so that I could work with the team on Saturdays.
  
  "I'll pack you a lunch." Mars promised, her eyes bright with amusement.
  
  "Thanks." I returned her smile, before blinking. "I don't think I ever answered your question, about what we are."
  
  She nodded slowly, watching me. "I guess you're right."
  
  Feeling suddenly self-conscious, I shifted my weight, fidgeting at the ground with my bare feet. "I umm... I guess I'd kind of like if... if you were my... ummm... if we could be... I mean... I know it's..." I trailed off before whispering, "Girlfriends?"
  
  Her answer was to kiss me, very gently, before whispering, "I'd like that."
  
  "What the fuck kind of unfair rule is 'no powers'?" Cassie complained, glaring at the trowel in her hand that she was supposed to use to dig up weeds. "Gimme a box of these things and ten minutes and I'll have every weed in this whole fucking cemetery knocked out with my power."
  
  They had given Reach the same punishment I had gotten, only hers was two years community service instead of one. It meant that she had started working in the cemetery with me pretty much the exact same time that the boys had finished up their punishment.
  
  "I think that's kind of the point," I offered with a shrug. "It's supposed to be a punishment, if you can do it easily, it's not really a punishment.
  
  "Meh." The former villain shrugged. "What kind of anti-Nazi lesson is breaking our backs doing yardwork supposed to impart anyway? If Kaiser wanted to make sure someone didn't do something he didn't like, he was a lot more direct about it."
  
  I raised an eyebrow. "Yeeeaaah, it's probably a good thing that we don't take management advice from the megalomaniac racist supervillain."
  
  "Hey," she replied. "Say what you will about Uncle Max's politics and proclivities, he did run a successful business. There's a lot to admire about someone like that." Cassie nodded sagely while I stared at her for several seconds, before she leaned up to stage-whisper, "I'm fucking with you." Leaning back again, she shrugged. "Kaiser was an asshole. I didn't call him Uncle Max. Do you have any idea what he would've done if I did? God, you're almost as easy as the rest of them."
  
  In spite of myself, I snorted. "Wait, what do you mean, the rest of them?"
  
  Cassie shrugged. "Oh, I just had Clock and Kid totally convinced that Hookwolf was a father figure to me and that seeing him die completely traumatized me. They were talking about how even if Aunt Kayden was lying, at least she killed that jackass. I put on the puppy dog eyes and acted all sad and they all but tripped over themselves trying to apologize. It was hilarious."
  
  I raised an eyebrow at that. "You're kind of manipulative, aren't you?"
  
  She waved it off. "I told them the truth before anything else happened. I just wanted to see the looks on their faces, that's all."
  
  "So... you were hanging out with Dennis and Chris?" I asked, hesitantly.
  
  Her shoulders raised in a shrug. "I wouldn't really call it 'hanging out'. I was taking some stupid psychological evaluation tests at the PRT building, and when I got done, I felt like hitting some stuff. So I went down to find the gym, and the two of them were already there."
  
  Tugging her by the sleeve, I walked to the first batch of weeds that we were supposed to dig out. Then I knelt down and pulled the work gloves on, before starting to work the trowel into the dirt.
  
  After a moment, in spite of her earlier complaints, Cassie got down and started to help. "So let me ask you something. I thought that Shadow Stalker cunt got taken out because she killed that Sophia Hess girl. But according to the others, Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker. Also, she's apparently not dead. What's up with that?"
  
  I let out a heavy sigh. "It's kind of a long story."
  
  Cassie shrugged at that, pointing out, "I'm not going anywhere for awhile, are you?" She dug the trowel deep under a week demonstratively.
  
  Conceding the point, I worked my gloved fingers under the weed that I had been working at, yanking it up as I started to explain how things had gotten to this point.
  
  Eventually, it was time to put the tools away and go check out with the groundskeeper so that he could verify our work. The two of us were walking, each carrying one of those simple white buckets full of the weeds we had pulled, along with our gloves and tools. We were hot, sweaty, and we both wanted to get out of there.
  
  "Hey, uhh, hold up a minute." I said as we passed Taylor's grave. "I... have to do something."
  
  Cassie's gaze moved from me to the grave, then back again. "That her?" When I nodded, she gestured. "Whatever, do what you gotta do." Seeming to realize belatedly that she might have sounded too nice and could lose her edgy reputation, she added, "Just don't take too long. I really need a hot shower to get this shit off."
  
  Shaking my head, I set the bucket down and walked up to the grave. "Hey, Taylor." I said quietly, crouching down to look at the stone marker. "I know I said that I'd find your dad for you, that I'd figure out what happened. I wish I had better news, but... I just don't know where to look. It's been so long, and even though people know he's not Coil now, he's still really famous. Someone should've seen him, reported him, by now. But there's been nothing. No news at all. I thought maybe... he might have been Defiant, but that doesn't make sense, because Defiant showed up before your dad... triggered."
  
  Sighing, I reached out to brush a finger down the name on the gravestone. "I swear, Taylor, I swear I'll do whatever it takes to find your dad and help him. I can't... I can't help you anymore. But I'll do what I can for your dad. If he's-" My eyes watered and I glanced away, briefly. "If he's still alive... I'll find him and I'll help him."
  
  I was starting to rise, not wanting to make Cassie wait too long, when I heard the other girl shout, "Hey, behind you!"
  
  Spinning so fast I almost fell over, I found... darkness. At first I thought the sun had somehow gone down while I wasn't looking, because it looked like night had come. Everything was dark. I could see Reach in the distance, but it might as well have been the middle of the night.
  
  Then the darkness drew back and solidified in front of me, becoming a humanoid shape rather than an all-encompassing blackness. It looked like a man made out of near-physical shadows. A familiar man at that.
  
  "M-Mr. Hebert?" I stammered, staring at the pitch-black figure, whose form was still wispy and unclear. His face looked like it was made of smoke, and the edges of his figure were insubstantial, like vapor.
  
  He floated there for a moment, before reaching his hand out toward me. "My daughter." His voice sounded painful, like he was talking through shards of glass. "You... you helped... you hurt her. You hurt my daughter."
  
  I froze, my mouth hanging open in shock. "Mr... Mr. H-Hebert, li-listen. Listen... th-this... y-you..."
  
  Where words failed me, they did not fail him. The man's anger was clearly erupting, his voice becoming even harder to understand. "You... you come here... you come here and taunt her, taunt my daughter after she's... she's..." Unable to speak the words, the shadow-man let out a loud bellow of fury and started to swoop in toward my frozen form.
  
  Before he reached me, one of the buckets full of weeds and tools shot through his head, making the smoke-figure drift apart. It didn't really seem to hurt him, but he did turn that way, just as Cassie threw herself through his form to tackle me away from him. "Move!" She shouted in my ear as we hit the ground. "Move move move!"
  
  Shaking off the shock, I tried to scramble to my feet alongside her. "I have to talk to him! It's Taylor's father! I have to tell him what happened, that I'm not... that-"
  
  "Doesn't seem like he's interested in talking!" She retorted, pulling herself up. "Seems more like he's supremely pissed off!"
  
  We were both on our feet, and I pivoted to back pedal. "I have to try!"
  
  "God damn it," Cassie muttered before putting herself next to me. To her credit, she didn't take off without me. "Hey! Hey temper tantrum dude! Listen to what she's gotta tell you, man!"
  
  Instead, Mr. Hebert swooped toward us, his entire form expanding once more. He went from a humanoid figure to a wide blanket of darkness that surrounded, enveloped, and then enclosed us. I could see nothing, not even Cassie right next to me. I felt weightless, insubstantial, lost, and adrift.
  
  Then, suddenly, I felt the ground rush up and smack into me. It hurt, and I groaned, rolling over and away from Reach, who was groaning as well. "Uggnnn..." I moaned before slowly lifting my head. "What..." We were in the back of some kind of abandoned gas station, judging from the rows of shelves and the counter at the front. The windows were boarded up.
  
  "Welcome." The voice took me by surprise, and I jerked that way, staring at what turned out to be an obese bald man (so bald that he lacked even eyebrows or lashes), whose skin was so pale that I thought I could see his actual organs and skeleton through it. His face was dotted with hard little crusty spiral growths.
  
  Still, as ugly as the man looked, his smile seemed genuine. "I trust that you aren't too hurt?"
  
  "You..." I stared. "You're... Gregor the Snail."
  
  "Please," the man corrected. "Call me Gregor."
  
  "What the fuck are we doing here?" Cassie demanded, having situated herself by then. She sat next to me, staring at the heavy man.
  
  A new voice answered her. "No idea what you're doing here. We thought Murk was only grabbing the other one."
  
  Turning, I found myself looking at a woman wearing what looked like a welding mask, and a costume that was equal parts dress and riot gear. Not that her appearance should have surprised me. If Gregor the Snail was there, of course the mercenary leader was. "Faultline?" I stammered, still wondering if I should pretend to be completely innocent, as if I had no powers, or if they already knew who I was. For the moment, I would play dumb. "Y-you're Faultline, the... the mercenary."
  
  "That's right." She nodded. "And you... are Madison Clements."
  
  "What..." I swallowed uneasily. "What are we doing here? Where's... Mr. Hebert?"
  
  As if in answer to my question, the shadows around the edge of the room coalesced into the man's shape, who glared at me hatefully. "My daughter..."
  
  "Easy, Murk." Faultline held a hand out. "I told you we'd find out the truth about what happened to your girl if you helped us rescue Shamrock, and we will." She focused on me again. "So like the man said, girl, let's talk about Taylor Hebert."
  
  Beside me, Cassie's eyes rolled. "Like she has to answer to you, you-"
  
  "Cassie." I said quietly. "It's all right. I'll talk to them." Turning to give the other girl a pointed look, I added, "not like we have a lot of choice with all these capes around." I prayed she'd take the hint. They thought we were normal. I had to believe that, otherwise they would have had more than just Gregor watching us when we first showed up. And we likely would have been bound in some way by now.
  
  Or not, considering that Mr. Hebert had apparently teleported us here.
  
  Mr. Hebert. Taylor's dad. My heart sank as I saw the hate in his eyes.
  
  "Let's start with the basic stuff." Faultline said. "Just to see how much you're willing to admit to."
  
  "She'll admit to nothing ." Mr. Hebert's harsh, glass-grinding voice spat. "She mocks my daughter's grave, taunts her ghost with the fact that Ta-Taylor is dead, and her punishment was... was community service !" The last two words came out as a bellow that sent darkness drifting over the room.
  
  "Murk, we spoke about this." Faultline said calmly. "We agreed that she would have a chance to speak, remember? She's a girl just like your daughter, not a monster. You said that you wanted to hear her words, that you needed us to keep you calm so that you wouldn't... blow up. I'm telling you now, calm down. Let the girl speak, hear what she has to say." She indicated me then. "Kid, if you have anything to say, I suggest you say it."
  
  I looked at Mr. Hebert, not at the mercenary woman. "Mr. Hebert... I... I'll talk to you. I'll talk to you, but not anybody else. Please, sir. I can't go anywhere, and I wouldn't try. I've been-" I swallowed. "I've been looking for you, sir. I'm not going to try to run away now. If you want to talk, I'm here. I'm right here. But not with everyone else here. This isn't for them. It's not... a game, and it's not a show. We don't need an audience."
  
  Gregor spoke up. "If it will help, we can take the other young lady to have some food."
  
  Cassie glared back at him. "Right, like I'm gonna just leave her by herself with some guy that's so pissed off he might-"
  
  I interrupted her. "It's okay, Cassie. Go with them. I... I need to talk to Mr. Hebert alone."
  
  She gave me a doubtful look, and I spent a moment wondering where this loyalty had come from. But the girl finally shrugged as if annoyed by the entire situation and turned to walk away, following Gregor.
  
  "Can you handle this, Murk?" Faultline asked Taylor's father.
  
  The shadow-figure hesitated, then nodded. "I want to hear her words." His gravelly voice intoned. "I want to hear what excuses she gives, what reasoning the courts could possibly have for... for not caring about my daughter's death."
  
  Faultline looked between us for a moment, before nodding. "We'll be outside."
  
  Then she left, and the two of us were alone. I stood there, facing the man whose daughter I had helped drive to her grave, the silence between us stretching on, until I knew that I had to speak.
  
  The familiar dampness tried to come to my eyes, but I blinked it away forcefully, taking in a long breath that turned into a bit of a shudder when I let it out. "Taylor dying... It was-" My throat closed up, the words failing to come for a second. I wanted to close my eyes, wanted so desperately to stop looking into the hate-filled fury that was Mr. Hebert's gaze. "It was my fault. I could have-" Again, it became hard to speak past the lump in my throat. My hand pressed against the cracked floor beneath me before I gradually pushed myself to my feet, standing to face the man.
  
  "I could have stopped Sophia. I could have told someone what she was doing. I... I made your daughter's life... miserable. I spent a year and a half... torturing her emotionally, psychologically... and saying nothing when Sophia hurt her physically. I thought... I thought it was funny. I liked... " My hands clenched at my sides from the sheer effort of not looking away. The man's anger was only growing with every word, but I kept going. I had to keep going. "I liked... the... power... I liked that she was afraid of us. I liked the popularity. Sophia... is damaged, crazy person. I don't... I don't know what's wrong with her, why she's... the way she is. I don't..."
  
  Now I couldn't hold back the tears. They came unbidden, against every effort I put toward stopping them, blurring my vision, though I continued to stare directly at the man. "I do know... what was wrong with me." Swallowing past the thick lump in my throat, I continued in a soft voice. "... Nothing. There was nothing wrong with me, nothing to cloud my judgment and nothing to point the blame at. It was me. Every..." My mouth worked a few times, the tears threatening to blind me before I blinked rapidly, trying to see through them, while my voice shook with each word. "E-every... thing I did, every bad thing, it was all me. They were all my choices."
  
  "So if you're looking for excuses, or for... or for reasons, I can't... give you any that you'll like. I knew... what Sophia was planning that day. I knew, and I didn't stop her. I didn't want to do it. I... I helped find the tampons. I..." The image of Taylor being shoved into the locker, of us walking away, of me looking back and hesitating for a split second, came to mind. In that moment, I had very nearly decided to let Taylor out of the locker. I almost did. If I had followed my instinct, if I had stepped back there and opened the locker so that she could get out... or even said something to a teacher, what would that have changed? What would have been different?
  
  Would my parents still be alive?
  
  "Mr. Hebert..." I met the man's gaze, "I know that Taylor dying was the worst day of your life. I know that because it was the second worst day of my life. The worst day of my life... was when I found out that my parents were dead. And then... later... I found out that the person who killed them... was Sophia. So... so Mr. Hebert, when I tell you that I wish that I had stopped Sophia then... I... I could not... possibly... given... given a million years... find a way to mean it more than I do right now. Taylor... dying... was my fault... because I could have stopped it. My parents... dying... was my fault... because if I had stopped Sophia before... if I had done something before... If I had cared before... then my parents would still be alive."
  
  "I don't have any way to make it better, Mr. Hebert. I can't bring Taylor back, I swear to you that I... I wish I could, and every... every day since it happened, since Taylor died, I've wished that I could. I wished that I could take everything back. But I can't. All I can do... all I'm doing , is trying to be a better person than I was back then. You think that it didn't affect me... but it did. The person I was then, the person that... did those things... that's not who I am now."
  
  "I know that doesn't take your pain away, because it doesn't take mine away, and she's your daughter. All I can say, Mr. Hebert... is that I will never, ever forget your daughter. Her life mattered. I... I will never become that person again. I will never let myself be the person that would would let someone die. My life... whatever it becomes... wherever I go and whatever I do... I will never forget Taylor."
  
  My voice turned even softer then. "I don't go to Taylor's grave to taunt her, sir. I would never mock her, not now. Not after everything. I go to... to talk to her. Sometimes I just... talk about the day, other times I talk about how I was trying to find you, trying to find a way to help you. Sometimes... I apologize. I tell her how sorry I am, how... how much I wish that we could have... that things had been different. But it's never enough. It will never, ever be enough."
  
  "You have every right to hate me, Mr. Hebert. But if you think I don't care, that Taylor's death is a joke, then you're wrong. Because nothing has shaped my life as much as that... as that choice did, because I care. It matters to me. She matters to me."
  
  "I can't bring your daughter back, sir. I can't undo what I did. All I can do... is say... for whatever... whatever little it might matter... that I'm sorry. I am..." I choked a little more. "I am so... sorry."
  
  For a long moment, after I finished speaking, there was no response. There was no relief from the man whose daughter I had helped to destroy. There was no visible acceptance of my words. The hate in his eyes had gradually turned to something worse: resignation and grief. The power of hating me, of focusing on his anger at the injustice, had, even if only for a brief time, softened his despair.
  
  He still hated me. Of that I was certain. He hated me because of what I had helped do to his daughter, and no amount of apologies or words were going to magically erase that.
  
  In a way, my being apologetic, my sorrow, had hurt him worse than if I had been flippant. It wasn't that he didn't believe my words, it was that he did believe them, and it didn't really help. I was sorry, but my being sorry wasn't going to help bring his daughter back. It wasn't going to repair his shattered life.
  
  "Why...?" He finally said, his voice cracking even more than usual. His voice lacked its earlier fire, and was now just... broken. "Why did you take my Taylor away? Why? She... never hurt you. She'd never..."
  
  My eyes closed finally, tears running down my face. I had no more words. I had no answer for him, even if I had been able to make myself speak. What else could I say? I had said it all. I wasn't the monster that some part of him had wanted me to be. Yes, I still felt grief about what happened to Taylor. I always would. But I had used that grief to change my life, to become better than I had been. I didn't hate myself. I hated who I had been, but I wasn't that person anymore. I grieved because of the waste, the utter waste, that had been Taylor's death. I grieved because of my former stupidity. But I did not hate the person that I had become, only what had necessitated it.
  
  When I opened my eyes again, the figure was gone. Mr. Hebert had left, saying nothing, doing nothing. It was all he could do, all that I had left him. He hated me, maybe he would always hate me. But he knew the truth now. He knew that I was sorry, that Taylor's death had affected me.
  
  For what pathetically little good it did him now.
  
  After another moment, the door into the gas station opened, and I saw someone that looked even more odd than Gregor had. He was maybe a year older than I was, with orange skin that was made even more apparent by his lack of shirt, and red hair that looked damp. He had some kind of upside down omega symbol tattoo on his chest. His eyes were pale blue, looking rather amused. "Your little friend's pretty funny, you know? Where'd you find her?"
  
  It took me a second to deal with the rather sudden mood whiplash. My hands went up to wipe away the tears from my eyes, and I took a deep, shuddering breath before focusing on the newcomer.
  
  Newter, that was what he called himself. I stared for a second, but caught myself before too long. "I... we met through the program." I just didn't say which program, leaving him to assume I meant the community service. I suppose, in a way, I had met Cassie through a certain kind of community service.
  
  "Figures, the fun ones are always crazy." He lamented. "Come on then, Faultline says we should feed you since we kidnapped you."
  
  "Yeah... about that..." I started. "How long has Mr. Hebert been with you guys? I've umm... been looking for him."
  
  "You and everyone else." Newter replied. "Murk, that's the name he prefers now, he joined up with us right after that whole business about him being Coil came out. Or more to the point, we tracked him down because we thought he might have... other sorts of answers." His hand reflexively came up to brush his chest where the tattoo was before sighing. "Anyway, let's go. The others are waiting."
  
  I followed Newter out of the gas station, and toward the large, wide open doors of the attached mechanic garage. Inside was a table positively laden with food, next to an outdoor grill where girl in a red and black costume, gas mask lying next to her, stood cooking hamburgers. Cassie was there, already finishing up what looked like her second burger as she sat across the table from Faultline, Gregor, and a young woman who was wearing a green tee shirt that had a black clover symbol on the front.
  
  In the far corner of the garage, another girl with platinum-white blonde hair, wearing a dark green robe with the design of a maze on it, stood facing the wall. The floor of the garage for about five feet around her wasn't floor at all, but grass, while the wall she was facing looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie with all the jagged edges and spikes.
  
  Before I could stare for too long, Faultline looked up. "Okay, well, Murk says to send you back home." She paused. "Those weren't his precise words, but that's the gist. So, eat up, and we'll find you a ride."
  
  "What about the same way we got here." Cassie pointed out after pushing her plate away.
  
  Faultline just looked at her. "Apparently Murk doesn't really feel like spending more time around Madison here. And when he gets upset, he tends to lose track of where he's aiming his teleportation anyway. That's why you both hit the ground so hard when you... arrived."
  
  The girl in the clover shirt nodded. "Upset as he is right now, you might end up popping out thirty feet or so off the ground."
  
  After considering that for a moment, Cassie shrugged. "Car it is then." Her eyes brightened. "Can I drive?"
  
  Gregor regarded her. "You are taking this entire... being abducted by notorious supervillains rather... well."
  
  Cassie's response was a dry, "I've been desensitized by all the violence on TV."
  
  "Indeed..." Gregor looked thoughtful, but said nothing else. Instead, he turned to me. "Our food is yours, my dear kidnappee."
  
  "I'm not..." I shuddered a little as the remnants of torn up emotions went through me again. "I'm not really hungry." Biting my lip, I focused on Faultline. "Why did you think that Mr. Hebert would know something about whatever you were... looking into?" I glanced toward Newter and his tattoo.
  
  The woman gave a little sigh. "Newter, please try to keep secrets better." I had a feeling that this wasn't the first, nor the last time that she would make that same request. Then she focused on me. "Better you not ask any other questions. It's dangerous. Just sit, and as soon as we're done, we'll get you home and you can forget about all of this."
  
  As unlikely as that was, I just stared at the woman. A moment later, Newter waved his hand dismissively. "Oh calm down. Who're they gonna tell? And who'd believe them anyway? No way anyone pays attention. They'll just think they're crazy. Some story about a woman popping out of nowhere, giving away vials full of superpowers?"
  
  "NEWTER!" Faultline had half-stood from her seat, but what she said to him next, I didn't hear. I was in too much shock.
  
  Woman giving away vials of superpowers. Vials like... like Marissa had taken? Mr. Hebert wasn't... a natural parahuman?
  
  What... the... hell?
  
  10.03
  
  "So are you gonna tell me what all that was about?" Cassie pressed as the two of us stood in the alley just behind the back lot of PRT headquarters. My shock had apparently been mistaken for general surprise at the very idea that man-made powers could exist, rather than actual recognition. Faultline had warned us multiple times that the people they were dealing with were dangerous, and not to go blabbing our heads off about what we heard.
  
  At least she hadn't really threatened us. That said a lot for her group, considering they were, ostensibly, villains. Or at least, mercenaries who tended to work for villains.
  
  Part of me had wanted to refuse to leave without talking to Mr. Hebert again, to try to convince him to come back. But I had known both how useless it would have been to argue with the mercenary leader (and possibly dangerous to them continuing to think of us as normal teenagers), and how equally useless it would have been to try talking to Mr. Hebert, even if I did miraculously get past Faultline. Not to mention that if I expressed too much interest in talking to the man after what Newter had said, they might figure out that I knew something else.
  
  At least now I knew where to look for him, when I had something to say.
  
  For a moment while Cassie stood, staring at me, I hesitated before shrugging. "You know what it was about. Taylor's dad joined Faultline's Crew, and somehow he found out that I had something to do with his daughter's death. He was angry and he wanted-"
  
  "Fuck you." Cassie's tone was mild, at odds with her casual cursing. "You know what I mean. They said that bit about the woman giving him powers, and your eyes got all huge. It wasn't a complete surprise either. You know something."
  
  My mouth opened to deny it, but then I hesitated. I didn't want to burn any bridges with the other girl. She was prickly enough as it was, and the fact that she was expressing an interest in what I was doing... well, it meant something, and I didn't want to throw that away. So I chose my words carefully. "I might know something. But I promised someone else that I wouldn't talk about it without their permission. If... if I figure out more, and if you can help, or whatever... then I promise I'll talk to you about it. I'm not gonna lie and say I don't know what you're talking about, but I can't say what it is yet either. Can you accept that?"
  
  The girl stared back at me for a long moment, before shrugging. She looked away and started to walk through the parking lot and on toward the back doors while muttering, "Sure, whatever."
  
  I stood there by myself for another few moments, processing in private. If Mr. Hebert had been given his powers, by some woman 'popping up out of nowhere', then what did that mean? What did any of it mean? Who was the woman, and would she know what was wrong with Noelle? If I could get a description of the woman from Mr. Hebert, or...
  
  My train of thought was interrupted by a light red line that popped up, connected to Cassie. Eyes widening, I quickly attached a line between the ground next to me and the backside of her pants, giving a sharp pull backwards while calling out. "Look out!"
  
  She fell back with a cry, barely a second before a blonde blur dove out the sky and slammed into the pavement right where she had been. I barely had time to process who it was, before Victoria spun around to stalk toward the fallen girl, bellowing, " Where is she?!"
  
  "Up your ass." Cassie shot back while running her hand all along the ground. Every bit of dirt and dust that she touched flew up against Victoria's face, forming a briefly obscuring cloud, while the other girl rolled backwards and to her feet. "You wanna go, bitch? Let's go when you're not jumping me from behind."
  
  "Victoria!" I ran that way, eyes wide. "What the hell are you doing?"
  
  The super-strong girl had been raising her fist when my voice penetrated. She blinked, turning toward me. "Madison?" She asked with clear confusion, looking from me to Cassie and back again. "You... disappeared. You never checked out of your community service, and there were buckets and tools everywhere. I thought..."
  
  Reach glared daggers at the older girl. "We were both kidnapped. But of course, I'm the one that must have attacked her. You found me out. My master god damn plan was to go through all this bullshit, have to stare at your fucking face every damn day, and wait until I was doing yardwork with her ." She gestured back toward me. "Just so I could kidnap her, and then walk right back into the headquarters of the people I abducted her away from. However did you break through my brilliant strategy?"
  
  "Cassie." I started to say, though I did give Victoria a dirty look first. "It's not-"
  
  "Forget it." Shaking her head, the girl pointed at Victoria. "You're lucky that first hit didn't land, Princess. This conversation wouldn't be over if it had." Then she started to stalk away.
  
  I sighed, staring at Glory Girl. "If you keep treating her like a criminal at every drop of a hat, she's going to start thinking that she has no other choice other than being a criminal. "
  
  "She is a criminal, remember?" Victoria shot back. "She was Junior Miss Nazi."
  
  "Was." I replied. "She's not now. She's part of the team, Victoria. She's trying to change, but if you keep coming after her every single time you get the slightest semblance of an excuse, she's not going to stay. She joined the Empire because they treated her like family. If we keep attacking her, all she's going to see is that one side treated her well, and the other side keeps blaming her for everything that goes wrong."
  
  For a moment, Victoria just stared back at me, indecision running through her eyes. Finally, she sighed and waved it off. "Anyway, where were you? What happened? Everyone's out looking."
  
  I hesitated before sighing. "Can we go inside and talk about it?" Gesturing to my dirty clothes, I pointed out, "I was really hoping I could shower and change before getting into any of it."
  
  We walked back through the lot and into the doors, just in time for me to find myself abruptly yanked forward off of my feet with a yelp, and into an embrace. "Madison! You're okay. You're all right."
  
  I recognized the identity of the person currently threatening to squeeze my insides out like toothpaste then. "Sam?"
  
  Battery let me go, though her hands remained on my shoulders as though assuring herself that I was there. "When you disappeared, we thought... I mean... you..."
  
  Before she could go on, I found myself turned around and then pulled into another hug, this time from Ethan. The normally jovial, irreverent man actually embraced me without reservation. "Good." He said. "Good."
  
  Blinking, confused, I looked back and forth between the pair that had become my legal guardians. "You were... worried about me?"
  
  The two of them glanced to each other and then back to me. Ethan gave my shoulder a light pop with his fist. "Of course we were worried about you! You just disappeared. And after..."
  
  He trailed off, blanching, and Samantha took up his explanation. "After what we knew about..." She lowered her voice a little. "About Bonesaw being a 'fan', we thought..."
  
  I gulped at the thought, a chill running through me. "You thought she took us?"
  
  "She didn't, right? You're okay? You're... you're all right?" Ethan still looked like he was eying me, checking for surgical trauma.
  
  "I-I'm fine." I told them. "It wasn't her, it... you... you guys were really upset?" I was still trying to come to terms with that fact.
  
  "Why wouldn't we be?" Sam asked, her hand taking mine. "You're our... I mean you're..."
  
  Still confused, I said rather blankly, "But you just took me in because the Protectorate needed someone to watch over a Ward so that I didn't have to explain things to some random foster family or whatever."
  
  For some reason, Sam looked like I had slapped her. Ethan, however, shook his head. "Hey, no. We chose to take care of you. That was our choice, not some rule or whatever. We weren't following some no-name suit's orders. We wanted to, kid. You were our choice, nobody else's."
  
  I saw Sam shudder a little, before she spoke. "When we thought that Bonesaw took you, what she might... do..."
  
  "It wasn't her." I repeated. My voice was a little dull, while I tried to comprehend what they were saying. I'd been assuming that, while we did get along, that this was little more than a job to them. Taking care of me, keeping me fed and sheltered... hell, I spent a couple nights a week back at my parents' home, and they hadn't complained. I'd thought that was because they didn't really care about what I was doing as long as I was technically safe, but... but this was real, true worry. They had been afraid for me, relieved when I had shown up.
  
  They... cared about me.
  
  "Well, who was it? What happened?" Sam pressed. She still looked pale at the very thought that Bonesaw had taken me, and I realized just how afraid she had been.
  
  Swallowing, I said, a little numbly, "It was... it was Mr. Hebert."
  
  That made them both stop, staring at me. "What?" Ethan asked.
  
  "Wait, so he is a bad guy?" Victoria asked from somewhere behind me. "Can I get a scoresheet or something? I'm having a hard time keeping track of who's on what side."
  
  "No, he's not a bad guy." I said quickly, before hesitating. "I mean... well technically he might sort of be since he's working with Faultline's Crew, but-"
  
  "He's what?" Ethan's eyes widened, and he let out a chuckle. "Are you telling me that the guy that everyone was looking for back when they thought he was Coil... was with Faultline the whole time?" When I nodded, he laughed a little louder. "No wonder she refused every offer to pay her people to look for him. She said something about a conflict of interest."
  
  "Well, apparently she wasn't lying about that." I replied with a shrug, making Ethan chuckle even more.
  
  "Wait," Victoria piped up. "You guys were trying to hire Faultline's Crew to find Hebert?"
  
  "Not us personally." Sam's head shook. "We were just supposed to pass along the message from higher up. Above our paygrade. But Faultline refused the job, and now we know why."
  
  "So what happened, exactly?" Ethan pressed.
  
  I hesitated, before lifting my arm to gesture at myself. "Can I go get cleaned up in the Wards showers before we talk about that? I mean, it's nothing that won't keep for a few minutes. Mr. Hebert has powers, he triggered, and now he's working for Faultline's Crew. The... specifics I'd rather talk about after I'm out of these clothes and feel more human."
  
  Both of them nodded, and Battery squeezed my hand one more time. "We really do care about what happens to you." She said quietly, with a certain emphasis that I didn't fully understand.
  
  I went to take my shower finally, soaking under the near-scalding water while I kept running through things in my head. If Mr. Hebert had been given powers by the same method that Marissa had gotten hers, then he might know something that could lead to the person or the place that the powers had originally come from. Hell, even just the fact that he'd actually, apparently, seen a woman give him the power vial was more information than the Travelers had before.
  
  But how could we get that information out of Mr. Hebert with how he obviously, and for good reason, felt about me? I refused to do anything to hurt the man, not after everything else that had happened, even if he had joined up with a group that worked for known and dangerous villains.
  
  That meant that someone else was going to have to talk to him. Sundancer had been a Traveler, who were also known mercenaries. Maybe Faultline would discuss thing with her, if I could somehow put the two of them together?
  
  By the time that I was cleaned and dressed again, I had a probable plan. I would tell Marissa about Mr. Hebert, and let her get in contact with Faultline, if possible. If she had to, she could say that she had a civilian friend that had told her about the vial thing, since Faultline was likely going to draw a connection between the two girls that Newter had talked too much to, and some other girl somehow randomly showing up and knowing about it.
  
  I started out of the Wards room, passing Missy doing some kind of project on the computer. As I walked by, the younger girl looked up, pushing away from the computer to face me. "I-I heard you were kidnapped by Faultline. Are you okay?"
  
  "I'm good, I just... it was Taylor's father. He's got... powers and he's working with them now." I said slowly. "He wanted to talk about what happened to Taylor. He wanted... closure."
  
  "Did you give it to him?" She asked after a second.
  
  I sighed, shaking my head. "I don't think so. I don't know if he's ever going to get 'closure'. But... we talked. Or I talked and he listened. Now he doesn't want anything to do with me." After a second, I added, "Cassie was abducted too."
  
  The other girl flinched a little before shrugging. "I... yeah, I guess."
  
  "It's not her fault that they sent Dean and Carlos away, Missy." I told her. "One thing doesn't have anything to do with the other. If we didn't have her, we'd just have one less person."
  
  "She was a bad guy." Missy protested.
  
  "Was." I said firmly. "She was a bad guy. We have to give her a chance. She's here for a reason, right? Just... just try not to hate her so much. She's trying... sort of. You're kind of a big deal in the Wards, Missy. You've been here longer than the rest of us. If you start... if you try to accept her, maybe the others will too."
  
  A long, heavy sigh escaped my younger teammate, before she nodded. "I'll... try to give it a chance."
  
  "Thanks." I smiled. "Maybe just start with being worried about both of us when we disappear?" When Missy nodded, I turned to head out. Time to go upstairs and explain, as much as I could, about what had happened.
  
  As I walked, I couldn't stop wondering, what was so special about Mr. Hebert? Why did he have to gain powers right then, at that exact moment?
  
  And most importantly, who was the woman who had given them to him?
  
  10.04
  
  Cassie and I were both debriefed about what had happened. We told them what we knew. Or, most of it anyway. By mutual, silent agreement, we left out the bit about Mr. Hebert getting his powers out of a vial.
  
  I had two main reasons for that. First, I wanted to talk to Marissa. The 'powers from a bottle' thing affected her more than anyone in the Protectorate. That was if they even believed the idea was anything more than the ravings of a delusional man. And my second reason for not talking about it was simple. Somehow, the woman who had done this, assuming she existed, had popped into a house and out again not only under the Protectorate's noses, but under Coil's as well. That, added to the fact that she, apparently, could give people powers, meant that she was probably one of the most powerful and dangerous people in the world.
  
  And no one knew about her.
  
  I wasn't stupid. Something like this didn't stay secret because nobody ever noticed and tried to say something. It stayed secret because people made it stay secret. So if I started blabbing, the most that was likely to happen was that this dangerous woman, who had already illustrated the ability to come and go as she pleased, would target me, or the people that I had told.
  
  So, I said nothing about it. For now.
  
  Once they were done with us, I was walking out of the building ahead of Ethan and Sam. I was using my phone to text Marissa, telling her that we needed to talk about 'those canisters', purposefully being vague enough that only she would know what I meant if anyone saw either of our phones. Call me paranoid, but, well, I was paranoid.
  
  Just after I sent the message, Ethan called out from behind me, "Hey, Shortstuff!"
  
  Blinking, I turned that way. "Me?"
  
  "Yeah, you." Pointing to his truck on the other side of the parking lot, Ethan went on. "We've got an idea, let's cram into the truck and go to the store."
  
  Looking back and forth between both of them, I hesitated. On the one hand, I really wanted to talk to Marissa about what I'd found out. But on the other hand, Ethan and Sam were obviously excited about whatever idea they had, and after our... bit of bonding earlier, I didn't want to dismiss them out of hand.
  
  Finally, I glanced down at my phone and sent a follow-up message, letting Marissa know that I'd talk to her in a couple hours. Then I nodded and began to head for the truck while remarking, "Just so you know, if this is your plan to get rid of me, stores don't take returns on sixteen-year-old merchandise."
  
  "Damn." Ethan snapped his fingers, coming up on the other side of the truck to unlock it. "What about exchanges? I do have my eye on a nice wall-mounted flat screen."
  
  As we piled in, I saw Sam stretch a rubber band against her finger and snap it across the distance to hit Ethan in the arm, making him yelp. She nudged me then, winking. "I do that when he's a jerk. I'll give you a supply of them."
  
  "On the plus side," the man pointed out while pocketing the projectile, "my rubber band collection is coming along nicely."
  
  "That's what he thinks," Sam stage-whispered to me. "I just raid his stash to resupply my ammo."
  
  We drove to the store, though neither of them said what we were going for. It wasn't until we were walking in, that Ethan's hand came down on my shoulder. "So, Sammy and I were talking, and it seems like... you still feel like a guest at home."
  
  Biting my lip, I looked between them. "I... ummm..."
  
  "It's okay," Sam assured me. "But we want you to feel like... like it's your place too. You know... you can have friends over, even if they're not in on the whole hero thing. Just let us know so that we don't come around with... work clothes on or whatever." She said the last part carefully, clearly not wanting to babble about costumes right in the store entrance.
  
  I shrugged at that. "Pretty much all my friends are... part of the group." I said, equally carefully.
  
  "Either way," Ethan put in. "It's your place too, funsize."
  
  "If you keep making fun of how small I am," I shot back. "I'm gonna ask Sam for her rubberbands."
  
  Smirking, Ethan waved off the threat. "Sure you are, Little Bit. Anyway, we want you to have your space. That room you're staying in, it's not just like a motel room or a sleepover. It's your room for as long as you'll take it."
  
  Sam took up the explanation then. "So, we thought we'd come here and let you pick out whatever you want to make it your space. Paint, furniture, wallpaper, posters, blinds, whatever. We'll toss everything else and spend one of the next couple days setting up the room the way you want it."
  
  My mouth worked a little, as I stared. "You... I... you didn't have to..." I couldn't find the words.
  
  Ethan nudged me a little. "Just say we're awesome and let's go get you some wallpaper that says, 'Madison'. I'm thinking of a bunch of the munchkins from Wizard of Oz. You know, your people."
  
  Scowling, I threw a punch at him, while he snickered and danced back, grabbing a shopping cart to use as a shield.
  
  Later that night, I was standing outside of Sam and Ethan's room, hesitating. He was off on patrol, but Sam was in there, using her computer. I fidgeted uncertainly for another moment or two, before reaching out to knock on the doorjam as I stepped into view.
  
  Sam closed down what looked like a messaging program, turning the chair around to face me. "Hey, everything all right? Sorry that Ethan had to ahhh, work, but we'll get your stuff set up asap."
  
  "It's okay," I said quickly. "You guys didn't have to do all that. I mean, thanks... I just... that's not what I came here about."
  
  Raising an eyebrow, Sam indicated the recliner next to the closet. "What's up?"
  
  I took the offered seat, drawing my legs up to wrap my arms around them. "I guess I sort of need... advice?"
  
  "What kind of advice?" Sam asked, curiously.
  
  Hesitating, I felt the blush come up while resting my chin against my knees. "Umm... dating... advice?"
  
  "Dating?" Sam actually grinned a little at that and leaned forward conspiratorially. "Who's the lucky guy you're dating? Anyone we know?"
  
  Somehow managing to blush deeper, I pressed my face against my knees and mumbled into them.
  
  The reaction made Sam smile even more, and she reached out a finger to poke me in the leg. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Did you say, mmgghgul?"
  
  Shivering, I slowly lifted my chin so that I could talk. A glance at the woman's face made me almost bury my own again, but I finally managed, "It's a girl."
  
  Taken by surprise, Sam blinked a couple times. "A girl? You mean you're-I mean..." she trailed off then, adjusting. "Wow. I... had no idea. I mean," she added quickly, "obviously it's not a problem or anything. I just... wow."
  
  "Neither did I." Shrugging as I admitted that, I went on. "Not until I met her. Well, not when we met, but... sort of... I... Oh god." Blushing furiously, I buried my face against my legs, mumbling, "Forget it, forget I said anything."
  
  Sam's hand found mine. "Hey, it's okay. It's all right. This is a... new development?"
  
  "Pretty new." I nodded. "I wasn't sure... how to talk about it, or who to ask for advice. It's... really complicated. I'm just not sure what else to do, how to... to date anyone seriously, let alone a girl, let alone..." I trailed off, sighing.
  
  Squeezing my hand, Sam used her other to tilt my head up so that I'd look at her. "Hey, it can't be that complicated. Look at me. I started out trying to arrest Ethan, and now we're married. I got involved with a villain. Okay, former villain, but you know. How messed up could your situation be?"
  
  My mouth opened and then shut as I stared at her. Finally, all I could manage was a weak, "You'd be surprised."
  
  "What's in this thing we supposed to be protecting, anyway?" Vista asked over the com the next evening.
  
  From where I stood, on the edge of a warehouse roof, I could see the younger girl across the empty parking lot, standing next to the security guard shack at the gate.
  
  Clockblocker responded from his place somewhere on the far side of the building, where he and Reach were. "Just some tinker stuff the mayor wanted protected. They didn't exactly share a lot of details beyond 'be here and don't let it get stolen'."
  
  "We're just back-up anyway." I pointed out. "Penance and Laserdream are doing the real work." The two older heroes were escorting the truck from the edge of the city limits all the way to the warehouse. We were just supposed to wait there and stand guard while the truck was unloaded so that the Protectorate members could go back to their real patrol.
  
  On the opposite corner of the roof from me, Glory Girl replied, "Crystal said she saw soldiers on the truck. Whatever it is, it's not a normal delivery."
  
  "Could've told you that." Kid Win, somewhere high above all of us on his jetpack-thing, spoke up. "They don't have two Protectorate people escort a truck all the way to a warehouse that's protected by the entire Wards team for toilet paper and televisions."
  
  While waiting, I thought back to the conversation with Battery the night before. I'd told her most of what I could about Marissa, leaving out the parts about being from another world, and how they'd gotten their powers. I told her that Sundancer had been trying to help her friend, and that she had pulled away from her group. I explained everything about how we'd met, how I'd recognized her during the first encounter with Pandora, and how we'd started hanging out.
  
  To my surprise, Sam didn't suggest that I leave well enough alone. She gave some advice about coaxing Marissa (not that she knew the name) to come forward so that she could apply for a pardon, as well as some general guidance about dating anyone in general, and a former villain specifically.
  
  I knew that getting Marissa pardoned was going to be difficult, considering the hoops that we were going to have to carefully navigate surrounding her origin, but I was hoping there would be a way to manage it. I'd kind of like to be able to talk about my... my girlfriend with others. Hell, even thinking of Marissa as my girlfriend still made me want to sigh a little dreamily.
  
  Seeing headlights, I was pulled out of my musings. "Incoming."
  
  The truck pulled into the lot, while the two Protectorate members flew overhead. Crystal glided down to talk to her cousin for a minute, while Penance landed on the ground next to Clockblocker and Reach.
  
  For a moment, I watched as the truck turned around and backed up to the warehouse doors. Then the soldiers hopped out and began to unload what looked like heavy wooden pallets piled high with crates onto a waiting forklift.
  
  Crystal came up next to me a moment later. "I don't suppose you've heard from Pandora or Dinah since the last time?"
  
  I blinked at that, glancing toward the older girl. "Err, no. Why?"
  
  She sighed, shrugging. "The mayor's getting really upset about the lack of any news on his niece. And her parents are... well, you passing along the 'don't worry about me' message didn't exactly make them stop worrying. I was hoping you had a way to contact them so that Dinah would at least talk to her parents directly. Otherwise... otherwise they might do something stupid."
  
  Thinking of the finger that Pandora had given me, which was wrapped up and sitting in the bottom of my backpack at home (I had been assured repeatedly by the clone that it wouldn't go bad, which was somehow even creepier than if it did), I slowly nodded. "I think I can get a message to her."
  
  "Good." Crystal let out a breath of relief. "Try to tell her to contact her parents somehow, because they're kind of going out of their minds." When I nodded, she put her hand on my shoulder. "Are you doing all right?"
  
  Biting my lip, glad that my mask hid my blanch, I shrugged. "I'm... getting there. One day at a time. Battery says they still haven't tracked down Trevor, which is weird, given their resources."
  
  "They'll find him." Crystal assured me. "We'll find him. Even if we have to go door-to-door."
  
  "Let's hope it doesn't come to that." I managed to chuckle softly. "Though he'd probably appreciate the attention from a cute superhero."
  
  Somehow, I'd managed to make Laserdream blush. She floated up, gesturing. "Yeah, yeah. I better get going. Don't want to keep Penance waiting. Try to get a hold of Dinah as soon as you can?"
  
  I nodded again, and the other girl took off.
  
  It took another twenty minutes for the soldiers to finish unloading the truck. Victoria had joined me by then, gazing down at the vehicle. "Great, so we're all dressed up and waiting out here for nothing. Just another boring-"
  
  Five different voices, including my own, rose together as every other member of the team shouted (most through the com)," DON'T SAY IT!"
  
  Barely three seconds later, while Victoria was still recovering, I saw three black lines leading down to the trio of soldiers who were standing around the front of the delivery truck. "Damn it, incoming!" I called out while attaching lines to each of the three to yank them up and away from the vehicle.
  
  As soon as I did that, there was a sudden explosion just under the front end of the truck that flipped the vehicle up end-over-end, sending flames and smoke shooting into the air while the vehicle crashed onto its side.
  
  I yanked the soldiers that were in the air all the way to the roof, letting them tumble down behind us while giving Glory Girl a look. "You had to say it. You had to say it. We were this close." I held my fingers up a short distance apart.
  
  She rolled her eyes. "You're too superstitious. Now let's go kick ass." She pointed toward some kind of figure that was now standing where the truck had been. It was hard to make out through the smoke. Floating up off the roof, she began to dive toward the ground where the explosion had happened.
  
  Kid Win was coming down on his pack, while Vista approached from the other side of the lot. Reach and Clockblocker were coming up from the side of the building, the former floating on a manhole cover.
  
  Abruptly, I saw red lines of varying intensity stretch out to each of them. Eyes widening, I focused on grabbing all five with my own tethers, yanking them out of the way, just as a handful of long black metal... coils flung themselves out toward Kid, Vista, and Glory Girl. At the same time, a red sphere about the size of a baseball shot straight at the spot where Reach and Clockblocker had been, exploding into a spray of acid that began to melt through the surrounding cement.
  
  Unfortunately, I hadn't predicted the metal tentacle thing that was coming for me. It shot up the entire distance to the roof, snatched hold of my arm with a pair of strong pincers, and yanked me off my perch before flinging me end over end toward the far fence. As I fell, I oriented just enough to attach a line to the pavement, redirecting my descent and slowing it.
  
  That worked for a second before my eyes caught sight of blue orb flying toward me. Grimacing, I reversed my fall into a push. A second later, the blue orb exploded, and the concussive force of that one hurtled me backwards to hit the tall chainlink fence hard enough that I slumped to the ground, groaning.
  
  By that point, the smoke had cleared, and I could see the attacker. "Bakuda?" I managed, staring.
  
  The bomb-tinker was encased in some kind of hard shell cocoon. It was dark red, and left nothing but her face exposed, her eyes covered with goggles. Four heavy legs made of the same material stretched slightly upward and out, then down to the ground to support the cocoon structure, reminding me of a praying mantis. In the front 'chest' area, there were what looked like a pair of metal cannons. Where her shoulders would be a pair of telescoping black metal tentacles stretched out, matched by another pair of tentacles about halfway down each side. Finally, two more tentacles stretched out from the back of the cocoon.
  
  Hearing me say her name, Bakuda twisted around to face me, the praying mantis-like legs skittering quickly. She lifted one tentacle, and I saw it extend, the end reshaping from a pincer into a barrel, before she launched another of those explosive orbs at me, this one yellow. I barely managed to fling myself upward on a line before the yellow orb blew apart into a burst of razor blades that tore through the fence I'd been next to.
  
  "Thought I was gone, huh?!" The crazy bomb-maker shouted, while each of her tentacles reshaped into barrels, launching more projectiles in each direction. "Guess what? I'm still here, assholes!"
  
  10.05
  
  "Tentacles and cannon boobs?!" Clockblocker yelped, taking cover behind the wall of the building. "Seriously? Whose idea was it to give Bakuda tentacles and cannon boobs?! I feel like there should be someone we can submit a complaint to!"
  
  "At least now we know what you-know-who was doing with her." Kid Win pointed out, while coming down close enough to orient his backpack's cannons onto the opposing tinker. A pair of dark blue, almost black, laser beams as wide around as my fist shot out of the cannons and toward the woman, but she used a tentacle to block them, seemingly taking little in the way of damage.
  
  I had to get back up, but my back hurt where I'd smacked into the fence, to say nothing of the general pain throughout my body from the force of the concussive bomb. My costume had protected me from the worst of it, but that still left enough pain that it was difficult to focus. My vision kept blurring every time a wave of pain went through my back. Still, I was pretty sure it was just bruised.
  
  Blinking through the bleariness in my eyes, I forced myself to straighten once more, while Glory Girl flew down and caught hold of one of the tentacles. "Gimme two seconds to wrap this bitch up into a nice little present-" The blonde girl managed, just before the tentacle whipped downward with her still attached, slamming into the pavement with enough force to put a Victoria-sized hole in it, before whipping back upward, flinging the girl off and into the sky.
  
  At least there hadn't been any lines, so I knew that Victoria wasn't really hurt. Probably dazed, but not hurt. Thank god.
  
  As I saw Bakuda orienting toward Vista, I forced myself to stand, taking two steps before steadying myself. When the armored-tinker launched two more bombs toward the younger girl, I immediately attached lines between each of them and one of the tentacles.
  
  "Sorry, Bakuda!" I called out. "But when you don't attach proper postage, your package gets-" The bombs exploded into sprays of green acid. "-returned to sender!"
  
  She turned toward me, a tentacle swiping out low and very fast. I didn't have the advantage of advance warning that I had with others, so it nearly took my legs out from under me before I managed to catch part of the tentacle with a line and pin it to the ground. At which point, the tentacle simply extended another dozen feet in length so that the part of it that was pinned was meaningless, before continuing to whip around, colliding with my side and pitching me sideways while a fresh burst of pain.
  
  Landing hard on my other side, my attention was broken, so Bakuda's tentacle was freed. I heard Clockblocker shout something, before Vista took a knee at my side. "Are you okay?" She asked. One of those bombs came flying in our direction, and she quickly twisted the space to send it flying off another direction.
  
  "Mmmgood." I mumbled. "Can you twist up those tentacles?"
  
  Vista made a face, shaking her head. "There's something organic inside them. I can't affect them. Which means she's got this huge bubble around her that I can't get through, since those tentacles keep whipping around everywhere."
  
  Across the lot, the flaming hunk of wreckage that was the delivery truck abruptly went flying through the air toward Bakuda, as Reach took her hand away from it. The ruined vehicle slammed into the tinker with enough force to crumple the entire front half of the truck in on itself. Bakuda just crossed two tentacles in front of herself, like a person blocking with their arms, and barely moved. Those tentacles were strong enough that the full force of the truck-blow hardly affected them.
  
  Two tentacles lashed out toward Reach, while another picked up the broken remains of the truck and flung it upward toward the hovering Kid Win. Cassie flew backwards on her manhole cover, narrowly escaping the grasping tentacles, while Chris managed to evade by rising out of reach. Apparently, even though the tentacles could extend, they did have limits to their length.
  
  Almost at the same time, one of the back tentacles focused on Clockblocker, who was attempting to come up behind Bakuda. That tentacle reshaped itself into a barrel before it began to launch several grenades in rapid succession, forcing Dennis to take cover again and curse through the com. "I can't get close! It's like she's got eyes in the back of her head."
  
  "Knowing you-know-who, she probably does." Victoria replied, coming back down out of the sky. This time, she flew down close enough to get Bakuda's attention, batted aside the tentacle that reached for her, weathered the explosive force of the bomb that was launched her way from one of the chest cannons, and then flew in fast and hard to kick at the woman's exposed face. Bakuda managed to twist aside at the last second, but the kick still knocked her over and sent her skidding along the ground.
  
  It did not, unfortunately, seem to slow her down very much. Two of the tentacles drove into the ground to lever the body up once more, those four praying mantis legs getting their footing, while each of the remaining tentacles flew into a frenzy, launching those damn explosives in every direction.
  
  Vista drew the space up behind the two of us, and we moved back out of reach of the yellow and white bombs that were sent our way.
  
  I shook my head. "We can't get close to her. The face is her weak spot, but we can't get to it. I can't even attach lines to her shell. It's like the whole thing is organic somehow. I can get her tentacles, but there's no way I can attach enough lines to hold all of them, down the entire length."
  
  "Lucky you." Clockblocker replied with a grimace. I could see him peeking around the corner of what was left of the badly damaged wall. "I can't even get close enough to do anything."
  
  "I can redirect the bombs if I see them." Vista put in. "But that's about it."
  
  "There's too many god damn tentacles!" Reach complained. "Anything I send at her she blocks, no matter what direction I hit her from."
  
  "If that shell's organic, it's no kind of organic I've ever seen." Kid Win said, his cannons launching a flurry of shots that only managed to get Bakuda's attention, before he had to evade her counter-attack. "I've hit it with a full barrage and it's barely singed."
  
  "No." Reach surprisingly replied. "You're hurting it, I saw the holes. And the dent from when Princess kicked her. The shell's tough, but not invulnerable, it just heals and reshapes really fucking fast."
  
  "If Reach was a better telekinetic," Glory Girl put in. "She could wrap those tentacles into a bow and we could all go get some food. But no, she's gotta get close enough to touch the damn things, so she's useless."
  
  The reaction was immediate. Reach flew out from behind cover, crouched low on her flying manhole cover. "Don't-" She started, jumping up off of her hovering platform as a tentacle swatted at her, before landing back on it on the other side of the attack. "Call-" She dove at the ground as another tentacle launched a bomb at her, releasing a metal ball bearing from her hand that shot toward the incoming explosive to knock it off course. "Me-" Her hand slapped the ground at Bakuda's feet, at which point a chunk of pavement about fifteen feet across and four feet thick literally tore itself up out of the ground with the bomb-tinker standing on it, flinging itself and her at the warehouse wall with enough force to blow through it. "Useless!"
  
  There were rumblings from inside the warehouse, where Bakuda was reorienting herself. We could hear her curses.
  
  "Guys." I managed to pick myself up, wincing at the pain. My back was killing me, my arm kept sending its own stabbing pain to remind me it existed, and it hurt to breathe too deep. "We can stop her, but we have to do it together. No arguing or bitching."
  
  "You've got an idea?" Clockblocker asked.
  
  I looked at the hole that Bakuda had made when she went flying through it, listening to her approach as she ranted about what she was going to do to us. "Yeah." I said quietly. "I've got an idea."
  
  By the time that Bakuda emerged from the warehouse, stomping back out into the ruined parking lot with her tentacles waving threateningly, I was the only person she found. She stopped, smiling gloatingly as she stared at me.
  
  "So," The mad-tinker chuckled. "Give the Wards a little bit of a fight, and they all run away."
  
  I let my head tilt while making a pitying noise. "Aww, getting your ass kicked and thrown through a wall must've messed up your eyesight. I'm still here."
  
  Glowering at me, Bakuda stalked closer. "So you were too stupid to run while you could."
  
  "Meh," I replied, waving a hand dismissively. "They got bored of waiting for you to collect yourself. I'll meet up with them after I finish dealing with you."
  
  "I sure hope you know what you're doing." Chris muttered through the com, while Bakuda's face turned almost as red as her shell from her anger.
  
  In response, I murmured. "Just make sure you guys do your parts. I'll be fine." I hope. A quiet voice added in the back of my head before I could banish it.
  
  Unable to depend on warning lines, I had to focus on watching Bakuda and her multiple arms as closely as I could. The second that one of them drove forward toward me, I attached a line between my extended arm and the roof of the warehouse, letting it yank me away from the grasping tentacle while calling down to her. "So which did you like better, being Lung's bitch or being Coil's bitch?"
  
  I barely let myself land on the roof before instantly launching myself skyward without taking time to look. It was a good thing I did, since two of the tentacles blew through the edge of the roof and wall where I would have been standing.
  
  Twisting around in the air to see the tinker as she launched two different explosives up toward me, I quickly used a line that stretched between the pair of flying orbs and used it to push them as far apart as I could, so that each exploded far away from me. Then I used another line to yank myself back down to the ground, ignoring the stab of pain that went through my side when I landed and nearly took my breath away.
  
  "That all you got?" I asked. "Cuz I told the others you might actually put up a fight if there was only one of us. So far, not impressed."
  
  Lucky me, that got her full attention. Another pair of explosives shot my way, along with no less than three tentacles. I attached a line between the very end of one of the tentacles and the furthest of the explosives, so that when it whipped around, it knocked both out of the air. Then I leapt, attaching a pair of lines between my feet and a point about midway down the nearest tentacle so that I was pulled in to land on it, and held there by the lines that kept my boots secured to it.
  
  Instantly, my dinner threatened to tear its way out of my stomach, as I was flung up and around from Bakuda attempting to shake me off. It didn't work, my lines were too firmly attached between myself and the tentacle. But it did make me queasy. At least my breaker abilities meant that I didn't get whiplash too bad.
  
  Seeing one of the other tentacles lashing down toward me, I caught it with a line that was attached between it and the tentacle I was standing on, then leapt off of it and sideways just in time for the two metal coils to be yanked against each other.
  
  Rolling as I hit the ground to avoid the two tentacles that drove themselves through the cement where I had been, I quickly reached out a hand toward another part of the pavement and let the line pull me along the ground and out of Bakuda's nearest reach, while maintaining my focus on the other line that was keeping the first two metal arms pinned together.
  
  "I sure hope you guys are ready." I muttered as I picked myself up. "Cuz I don't know how much longer I can-" My words were interrupted as blinding pain erupted in my side. One of the tentacles had finally caught me, sending me crashing to the ground on my already injured arm and drawing a cry of pain from me.
  
  The tentacle caught hold of my boot, yanking me up and sending me flying at the damaged brick wall. Grimacing, I barely managed to use a line to slow my approach just enough that the blow as I hit didn't immediately break me. It still sent waves of agony through my body, while my vision threatened to black out.
  
  Then I was being flung toward the ground, and I crossed my arms protectively in front of my face while trying to stop myself with another line. Unfortunately, I couldn't focus on it quickly enough, and the pain as I was brought down hard into the broken pavement drove the air from my lungs, and I could feel the shattering pain as several bones snapped from the force of the impact.
  
  I was lying in a crumpled heap, barely conscious, while Bakuda stood over me. One of her tentacles turned me over, and she grinned. "So who's the bitch now?" She demanded.
  
  Trying to suck in enough air to breathe, I barely managed to wheeze, "I dunno about bitch..." I sucked in more air, shuddering in pain that only my adrenaline was preventing from overwhelming me entirely. "But you are easily distracted."
  
  Before Bakuda could react to that, Kid Win came flying down on his jetpack, presenting her with a target. "Hey!" He called out to her. "Weren't you supposed to be good with bombs? Cuz so far, not impressed."
  
  Twisting that way, the armored-tinker growled and launched two different grenades from her chest barrels. "You want impressive, try this!"
  
  The explosives arced through the air toward Kid... then twisted around and down back through the air that Vista had taken the time to reshape, exploding against Bakuda's back with enough force to actually knock her sprawling to the ground.
  
  She used a tentacle to push herself up, while lashing out with another. The tentacle was redirected, Vista's work again, to smack herself in the side of the head, narrowly missing her face.
  
  The fact was, Vista hadn't been able to work on the space around Bakuda while the woman had been waving her tentacles through it. But I had distracted her long enough, kept her attention solely on me and therefore not waving wildly through the air at everyone else for enough time, that the younger girl had finally been able to shape the space the way she wanted it. After that, all I'd had to do was maneuver Bakuda into position.
  
  Oww. Lucky me.
  
  With Bakuda disoriented, another figure flew straight down out of the sky above her head. Two figures, actually. Glory Girl carried Reach, holding the other girl close to her chest as they dropped rapidly. By the time Bakuda finally noticed them, they were almost on top of her.
  
  The second she was near enough, Reach put both arms out to either side, slapping the metal arms that extended from Bakuda's back.
  
  In retaliation, the bomb-tinker twisted around to lash out with one of her other tentacles, while launching a bomb from another. Victoria swung an arm to knock the tentacle aside, then turned her back on the explosive to protect Reach from the blast before flying up and away.
  
  The two tentacles that Cassie had touched immediately stretched themselves out to their full length and curved around toward the guard shack. As they did so, Clockblocker emerged and slapped his hands against them while activating his power.
  
  Both metal arms were instantly frozen in time. Unfortunately, it didn't freeze the rest of her. I was too dizzy and sore to wonder how that was possible. They did, however, pin the bomb-tinker in place, those two arms fully extended and frozen.
  
  Kid Win flew in a circle, goading her into trying to shoot him through the space that Vista had trapped. Glory Girl and Reach flew in the opposite direction, waiting for any opening to get near enough to touch more tentacles and give them to Clockblocker.
  
  Bakuda let out a bellow of frustration, yanking a bit against her time-frozen tentacles to no avail. "Let... me... go!" She screamed. A second later, another of the tentacles moved up, pointing at her own back, and released an acid explosive that ate through the shell where the tentacles were attached. The shell burned away within seconds, revealing badly burned flesh, while the bomb-maker screamed in agony.
  
  It did, however, burn through the part of her body that the tentacles were attached to, allowing the villain to yank herself free. She had to abandon the two frozen tentacles, and she was clearly in as much agony as I was from the way she'd been forced to acid-bomb herself.
  
  Panting, growling in fury, Bakuda turned in a circle, taking in the sight of everyone around her. Then she brought her remaining tentacles in close to her body, pointed the ends outward, and launched a white explosive orb from each of them.
  
  The new bombs exploded into bursts of light and sound that made everyone recoil, partially blinded. By the time we recovered, there was a deep hole in the ground, and Bakuda was gone. Somehow, she had tunneled away in that time.
  
  At least she didn't get what she came for, and we'd taken two of her tentacles away. We'd hurt her, or rather, forced her to hurt herself.
  
  Clockblocker reached my side a second later, accompanied by Vista. "Tether, you okay?"
  
  I went through all the effort of managing a smile while the others landed, before realizing that the work was wasted since they couldn't see my face anyway. "I..." I managed, trying to make my hand form into a thumbs up. It wasn't cooperating. "I'm... fi..."
  
  Darkness took me then, as my consciousness fled.
  
  Interlude 10 - Tattletale
  
  "Make a corridor on the count of three." Lisa instructed her newest teammate, while she kept an eye on the uniformed State Patrol officer approaching the gate of the massive fence that she and the rest of the team were crouched on the far side of. A camera buzzed above them as it turned to survey the street in the opposite direction, but it couldn't pivot down, and the camera at the other end of the fence that could have seen them wouldn't turn their way for another thirty seconds.
  
  "One..." She watched as the officer punched in the security code, waving tiredly at the gate camera. "Two..." The gate clicked and began to open to admit the man. "Three."
  
  Beside her, Vacate, real name, Elias Anders, raised his arm and waited until she, Grue, and Freezetag put their hands against him before creating the time-freeze tunnel. It stretched beyond the now-frozen officer, through the open gate, and straight on toward a dark part of the grounds, near a rose garden.
  
  Together, the four remaining Undersiders jogged down the tunnel, slipping carefully past the frozen state trooper and through the open gate until they reached the far end of what Vacate had been able to make.
  
  There, they crouched. Brian, otherwise known as Grue, pointed up and to the left, where a camera was frozen in mid-pan. "Are you sure this is gonna work?"
  
  "It's dark out here." Tattletale replied. "The cameras are relying on heat signatures. Blanket us in darkness every time it points our way and we'll be fine. All we need is a straight shot at the back door and I can get us inside.
  
  "Still don't see why Vacate can't just pop us there." Freezetag idly muttered.
  
  "Fuck, girl, like I said before," the boy himself replied, "I can't go making corridors over and over. It's like I got this set distance of how much tunnel I can make before it runs out and gots to recharge. That was a long tunnel just to get us inside these grounds. Gimme a few minutes before you jump on my ass about making another one. A man's gotta take some time to regroup, you know? It's like just after-"
  
  "That's enough." Grue interrupted. Lisa could hear the annoyance in his voice. He was edgy. They'd lost Bitch, and then lost Regent. Grue and herself were the only 'original' Undersiders left, not counting his little sister Aisha/Freezetag, who had joined a couple of months earlier. Vacate was still fairly new, having joined right before the Leviathan fight, and they hadn't quite fully 'meshed' as a team yet.
  
  But they were getting there.
  
  The darkness from the older boy poured out and created a wall between the Undersiders and the camera. Then Vacate dropped the tunnel, bringing everything back into normal time. If anyone had been near enough, they would have noticed the patch of space that was much darker than everything around it. Fortunately (by design), none of the guards were facing the right direction, or were too far away.
  
  Nodding to Grue, Tattletale started to lead the way, down the length of the massive, sprawling grounds. The four of them jogged quickly, keeping the cloud of darkness between them and the constantly moving cameras until they reached a small orchard of apple and plum trees. There, they crouched once more. Grue, as the only person who could see through the cloud that was stopping the cameras from noticing them, held up his hand. "Ready to go again, Vacate?"
  
  The other boy took a few breaths, leaning his head from one side to the other to crack his neck. "Hells yeah, I'm good to go, baby."
  
  Once again, they held onto the boy. Grue held his free hand up and waited, watching the nearest camera through his darkness until it was safe, and then dropped his hand. As soon as he did, the darkness fell away, revealing the rest of the grounds to them, as well as one of the back doors of the mansion.
  
  The second he could see properly, Elias used his power to make another corridor appear, all the way across the grounds and up to the doors, before sagging a little. "Long... fucking... tunnels." He complained. "Y'all motherfuckers need smaller backyards."
  
  "This isn't exactly a normal sized property, you know." Tattletale pointed out mildly.
  
  He just grinned at her. "I wasn't complaining 'bout your backyard, sweets."
  
  Repressing the urge to shudder at the very thought of becoming intimate with anyone, let alone someone like Vacate, and getting to know every last one of his secrets, Tattletale managed to simply smile faintly and shake her head. "Eyes on the prize, skeevy."
  
  That only encouraged him. "I thought that's what I was doing." Vacate replied, smiling incorrigibly until Grue used a hand to firmly turn him around and pull him along through the tunnel. "Oww! Hey, I'm going, I'm going. Yeesh, ain't nobody here 'preciates me."
  
  The tunnel led the Undersiders straight to the door. Tattletale waited until Elias took down the tunnel, and then put her hand up against the keypad. Her fingers danced over the buttons, but the pad buzzed its denial.
  
  "I thought you could get through this thing." Grue hissed.
  
  "I can." She replied calmly, putting more numbers in. "I have to get the wrong code a time or two before my power can tell me what was wrong about it."
  
  This time, the pad beeped an affirmative, and she tugged the door open. "Let's go."
  
  Once they were inside, Freezetag and Grue took the lead. The whole group already knew the exact path they were taking. They'd been over it enough times.
  
  Making their way through the truly massive kitchen with its three different stoves, they were nearly out when the door ahead of them opened. Another uniformed officer walked into view, a half-second before his head was enveloped in Grue's darkness. Then Freezetag smacked her hand against the man's side, freezing him with his hand in mid-motion toward the radio on his shoulder.
  
  After Grue released the darkness, Tattletale reached up, carefully plucking the man's radio away without touching him. It could come in handy.
  
  Then she looked at him. "How many other guards in the house?"
  
  Barely able to move his lips, the guard mumbled, "Noh eelling ooh." He didn't have to. Lisa opened the floodgate of her power and let it do the work.
  
  Worried: his partner just went upstairs and won't be coming back down until he finishes his patrol, which takes another ten minutes. The rest of the guards are outside and have no reason to come in, unless he can get a message to them somehow.
  
  "Right, only you and one other guy, got it." Turning off her power, Tattletale mimed patting the confused man on the cheek without actually touching him, then slipped around his body to move on with the others. "We're clear all the way to the office. Ten minutes before his partner comes down."
  
  They continued through the mansion with more confidence then. There was still a chance of running into the building's normal inhabitants or staff, but the potential problems were greatly reduced.
  
  Eventually, the four of them reached their destination. Stopping outside of the closed door, Lisa glanced back at the others to make sure they were ready, then pushed the door open and stepped through.
  
  The handsome, older man at the desk in the office that they stepped into was typing rapidly on his computer. He wore glasses, Lisa noted, unlike his public appearances.
  
  "I told you, Bart," the man said without looking up. "You don't have to ask me if you want to make a sandwich. I don't care what that bear of a sergeant of yours says. I've got plenty of-" Finally looking up, the man froze at the sight of the four costumed criminals. Then his hand grabbed for the phone on his desk, but Grue covered his face in darkness so that his hand missed the grab, and Lisa moved forward in the interim to take the phone away.
  
  When the darkness was dismissed, the man had stood up and backed against the wall. He glowered at them. "How dare you break into my home. "
  
  "Well, you know, it's only your home until you lose the next election, Governor Randall." Lisa pointed out with a smile. She was opening up her power again, letting it take in everything it could about the man.
  
  Afraid, glancing upward as though looking through the ceiling. His children were upstairs, the ones who still lived with them anyway.
  
  Cautiously hopeful look to his eyes. He didn't believe that this group was all that violent, but why had they broken into his home?
  
  Briefly indignant look. Where was his security? Were they doing their jobs or not?
  
  Pained expression: She was right, the next election was going to be tough. He'd probably manage a squeaker, but it would be close.
  
  "You're the Undersiders, correct? From Brockton Bay." Governor Richard Randall gazed at them. "I hope you realize that attacking me is going to take you from smalltime, straight to the Bird Cage."
  
  Tattletale just shook her head. "Attacking you? We're not attacking you, Governor. In fact, didn't you hear? We've become very useful lately. Helping deal with Leviathan, getting rid of Calvert before he caused the state any more embarrassment..."
  
  Grateful look that lasted only for a second: Anyone who helped fight an Endbringer was brave (or possibly suicidal), and they had contributed to the city's rescue. Really hopes that being the leader of the state during that successful attack helps in this next election, in addition to all of his gratitude for the low casualties.
  
  Fearful grimace. Do they know about Calvert? They can't possibly. It wasn't his fault!
  
  Frowning, the governor looked between them. "Are you trying to tell me that you snuck past my security and broke into my home as upstanding citizens? " His voice was incredulous.
  
  "Funny you should mention that, Governor." Tattletale replied, giving the man her best vulpine smile. "After all, that cuts right to the chase of why we're here."
  
  The man frowned, processing that for a moment. Then he got it, shaking his head. "No. Absolutely not."
  
  "Yup." Tattletale informed him. "We're here because you're going to issue a blanket pardon for all of us, excusing us for every crime we've committed up to this point."
  
  "You're insane." The governor spat. "Why would I do that?"
  
  Desperately holding on to hope. Maybe they think they have leverage of some other kind. Maybe they're fishing. Maybe they don't really know anything.
  
  Cutting the man's hope off at the knees, Tattletale airily replied, "Oh, I dunno, maybe because you don't want anyone to find out about the close, personal relationship you had with the man who broke the Endbringer truce to kill the parents of the hero who was pretty much single-handedly responsible for keeping the fatalities as low as they were." She made a few disappointed tutting sounds. "I don't think that'd go over very well with the voters, Governor."
  
  Her smile turned a little pitying then. "I'm afraid Calvert kept detailed records and evidence, Governor. Recordings of your phone conversations, all the deals you two made while you were getting him set up into his position as head of the fancy new Parahuman Investigations team in exchange for aaaaalll that money he gave you for your campaign."
  
  Governor Randall sputtered indignantly, his eyes wide. "I had no idea that he was Coil! I didn't know what the hell else he was up to."
  
  Truth, to a certain extent. The governor was willing to deal with dirty money, but he thought that Calvert was just dishonest and shady, not the monster he ended up being.
  
  "You never thought he was an angel either." Tattletale pointed out, before shrugging. "Anyway, you really think the voters are going to care? Think you'll ever be elected as a high school treasurer, let alone Governor, once this gets out?"
  
  For a moment, the man remained stubborn. Then he sighed and relented. "Fine. Four pardons in exchange for your silence."
  
  "Five, dickface." Freezetag interjected. "You're pardoning Bitch too."
  
  "I can't let the Lindt girl out of prison." Randall protested. "She's in the Birdcage. There's no coming out of there."
  
  "Let us worry about getting her out." Tattletale told the man, letting him believe they had a plan even though she had absolutely no clue how they were going about doing that, yet. "Either way, she gets the pardon. Even if she can't be free, you're gonna clear her name just like you're clearing ours."
  
  It took another few minutes to hammer out the details, including the fact that the governor was going to have to get the President to sign off on a pardon concerning the actual bank robbery. He was urged to be convincing on the subject.
  
  Tattletale kept one eye on the clock, until it was time for the guard upstairs to start heading down. Then she set a burner phone down on the desk. "Make sure your guards don't report that we were here." She instructed the man. "And call on the first number in that phone when the pardons are handled. Trust me, we'll know if you try to jerk us around. And if you do..."
  
  "You'll ruin me." The governor sighed. "I get it. Just get out of my house."
  
  They did,leaving much the way they had come. Before too long, the group was changing out of their costumes in the corner of a parking garage about three blocks from the governor's mansion, the girls changing on one side of the van they had driven up here in, while the boys changed on the other side.
  
  "Can't believe that shit worked." Elias slumped back into his seat as soon as everyone had piled into the van. "Free and clear. We're really gonna be free and clear."
  
  Brian, in the driver's seat, pulled the van out of the lot. "You really think we can pull off this new business idea of yours, Lisa? I need the money, and the legitimacy, if..." He glanced toward the backseat, where Aisha was already focused on some game on her phone. Brian wanted custody of his little sister. Not just for a weekend or whenever his estranged mother didn't want her, but permanently. To do that, he needed money, preferably honest money.
  
  "It will." Lisa promised him, reaching into her pocket before withdrawing a small object. "I even had cards made up already, just so you could all see them." She held the card out for the older boy to see.
  
  Glancing at the card in the light from the nearby streetlamp, Brian chuckled. "You think anyone's gonna take us seriously?"
  
  Taking the card back, Lisa nodded. "We'll make them take us seriously." She said quietly while looking at the card in the palm of her hand.
  
  It was an embossed, very professional looking card. In the top middle of the card there was an eye symbol similar to the one on the chest of her costume. Spreading out from the eye and forming a border along the edges of the card was a wispy line of black that imitated Grue's darkness. Two hands, similar to the symbol for Freezetag, were on either side of the card, while a long, vaguely rounded rectangle spread from one end to the other, forming a sort of inner border and providing the symbol for Vacate's tunnels.
  
  In the middle of the card was a phone number and an address. And above that, the most important part. It read: Undersiders - Parahuman Detective Agency.
  
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  Arc 11: Conspiracy
  I awoke to the feel of a cool pillow against my cheek. Starting a little, I turned to find myself in what looked like a hospital room, though there were no windows.
  
  "It's all right." A voice from the other side of the room spoke. When I looked that way, I found Panacea sitting in the chair by the door, sipping from a glass of water. "Sorry," she went on. "I needed a place to sit down for a minute and your room was quiet."
  
  Again I had a chance to wonder how I had known so confidently and immediately that the person there was Amy and not a Pandora clone. Even before she had spoken, upon first seeing the girl, I had known who it was.
  
  "What... ummm..." I sat up in the bed. "What happened?"
  
  "According to Clockblocker, you were a reckless, suicidal idiot with a death wish," Amy replied. "Then I healed you."
  
  I knew that normally, Panacea didn't heal people without their express consent. Luckily, part of joining the Wards had been signing a contract stating whether or not I would allow healers like her to work on me, so that had been covered. "Thanks, but what about Bakuda?"
  
  A look of annoyance crossed the other girl's face. "Gone. Assholes."
  
  Blinking, I pushed the blankets away and swung my legs off the side of the bed. "Err, sorry? We did our best to catch her, but-"
  
  "Not you guys." Amy waved her hand. "I meant the PRT. I promised Bakuda I'd heal her, and they wouldn't let me get near her. They just kept putting me off, saying they had other priorities and that the crazy bomb-maker could wait. But if they'd just let me heal the bitch, she could've gone into the real prison and then fucking Bonesaw wouldn't have gotten to her."
  
  My mouth opened and then shut as I stared at the girl. "They were stopping you from healing her? But why?" I'd wondered about that, but it had been a distant concern, since I figured that Amy was just that busy. But to hear that she had been prevented from healing Bakuda was troubling.
  
  Amy shrugged, her annoyance still obvious. "Hell if I know. Ask Piggot. The order to stall me had to come down from her."
  
  I paused a little, frowning at the floor before looking up. "But if Bakuda thinks you broke your promise-"
  
  "Trust me, I know," Panacea interrupted, sighing heavily. "Why do you think I'm so pissed off? Now our house has a bunch of those new investigation people crawling all over it, just waiting for the crazy bitch to make her move." Her scowl deepened. "I'm really fucking tempted to take out a newspaper ad that says, 'Hey Bakuda, not healing you wasn't my choice. Here's the address of the person that made that bonehead decision.' "
  
  Wincing at that, I rose from the bed, glancing down at the simple medical gown. "How, umm, how long has it been? And, I take it we're not in the hospital? Since I don't have, you know..." I gestured up at my uncovered face.
  
  "Don't worry, it was only yesterday. You slept through what was left of the night and all morning. And we're in the private medical wing in the PRT building." Amy confirmed. "I just had to heal a bunch of guys that went snooping for Bakuda in her old hideout and got face-fulls of acid and fire for their trouble. Then Piggot wanted to yammer on about whether or not I could take apart that shell Bakuda's got if I get my hands on it, since it's supposed to be biological." She snorted then. "I told them I needed a drink and then I hid in here. They're probably still looking for me. But you know, if I had to listen to Piggot for another minute, I was gonna do something drastic."
  
  "Piggot wants to put you close enough to Bakuda to touch her?" I stared at the other girl. "Is she mental ? Has she just completely lost her mind?"
  
  Before Amy could respond to that, the door opened and Dennis stepped in. He blinked at the sight of me standing there in the hospital gown and then gave me a thumbs up. "Looking good, Clements."
  
  Flushing, I reached over to grab the nearby pillow and threw it at him. "Go away, I have to change. Err, wait..."
  
  "There's clothes in the closet." Amy confirmed, standing up. "Go. We'll wait in the hall."
  
  "Yeah, ahhh, just so you know," Dennis added while backing out of the room. "Photon Mom wants to talk to you when you're up and around."
  
  "You know she hates that name." Amy pointed out mildly while following him out. "Plus she's not even being a superhero, so you should call her Mrs. Pelham, or something."
  
  They closed the door on their way into the hall, and I moved to the closet to find a pair of sweatpants and sweatshirt that had been provided. The shirt was almost big enough to drown me, but I'd make it work until I got something of my own. Then I found a pair of slip-on shoes and walked to the door.
  
  I'd barely emerged from the room before I found myself hoisted up off the floor and pushed firmly backwards. Ethan stood there, holding me easily against the wall as he gave me the worst fake scowl I'd ever seen. The edges of his mouth kept trying to twitch up, ruining the effect he was going for. "Now listen, munchkin. If you don't stop getting hurt or kidnapped, I'm going to lock you in some kind of padded room."
  
  Somewhere behind Ethan, Dennis remarked, "If she doesn't stop throwing herself into danger, she might need a padded room."
  
  I stuck my tongue out at both of them. "I did what needed to be done, that's all. I was the one that couldn't contribute to actually beating her, so I was the distraction." Sighing then, I added. "Too bad she still got away."
  
  "That's not your fault," Ethan assured me before finally letting me slip back to the floor. "If anything, it's Piggy's fault for putting Bakuda in the hospital and then forbidding Amy there from healing her. It's like she wanted something like this to happen."
  
  Amy, standing a few feet away, muttered something under her breath before waving her hand. "Anyway, I better go before they find me again. The real hospital's expecting me."
  
  Ethan's hand found my arm and he began to tug me along. "And we are going to get Little Miss Suicide debriefed before we head home."
  
  As I was all but dragged down the hall, I protested, "I'm not suicidal. I just like helping!"
  
  "Yup," Dennis announced. "Definite mental disorder."
  
  The next night, I stood in the back lot of a rundown motel that looked as if its better days had been thirty years earlier, and it had been downhill ever since. This was a place that didn't just charge by the hour, but probably had fifteen minute slots as well.
  
  This was where the message had said to meet Dinah and Pandora. It had appeared in my e-mail twenty minutes after I'd whispered the request into the clone's severed finger for Dinah to contact her parents.
  
  Finally, I extended my hand and used a line from my gauntlet to the edge of the building to haul myself up and to the side of the window of the room that the message said to meet them at. Using my other hand, I tapped against the window.
  
  It opened a moment later, and a young girl with red hair-Dinah, I realized belatedly, waved me in. "Come on, before someone sees you."
  
  Slipping through the open window, I took a moment to blink at what I found inside. Computer equipment all over one side of the room, covering the provided table. Fast food bags across one of the two beds, and on the other bed... Emma.
  
  "Tether!" My former friend, whose natural hair matched Dinah's dye job, almost jumped off the bed. "You came!"
  
  Before I replied, I used my left thumb to press a button that had been added to my gauntlet. When I spoke afterward, my voice became slightly different, just enough that I wouldn't instantly be recognizable. "Yeah well, who could turn down an invitation to meet a stranger in a broken down motel in the middle of the night without telling anyone where I was going?"
  
  "We're not strangers," Dinah pointed, picking a fast food bag up off the bed and offering it to me. "Whopper?"
  
  "I'm... I'm good," I replied, shaking my head. "Dinah, did you call your parents?"
  
  "I will," the girl promised. "But this was important. There's something you need to know about."
  
  Before Dinah could go on, the connecting door to the other room opened. "Is she here, is she here, is she here?" I noticed Emma shrink back and pull the blankets up like a shield, her eyes wide with fright.
  
  Then I saw her. The girl that burst into the room, full of smiles and giggles, her white and pink party dress drenched in blood.
  
  "Bo-" I almost called her by the name she was known for as a part of the Slaughterhouse Nine. "Riley?"
  
  Clapping her hands with delight, the medical tinker bounced up and down. "She knows me! See, I told you she knew me."
  
  I turned my stare from Bonesaw to Dinah. "You... you have B-Riley here?" I demanded.
  
  Dinah shrugged, looking a little pained. "Surprise? Don't worry, I know what I'm doing. Anyway, this isn't about her."
  
  "Come on, come on, come on." Riley's hands were on my arm, starting to tug me. I had to restrain the urge to yank my arm back in terror at the very thought of the girl touching me. "You've gotta see my new experiment. Uncle Jack never thought I could do it, but I knew I could with the right specimen, and-"
  
  Finally I pulled my arm free and looked at Dinah incredulously. "She has fucking specimens?!"
  
  "Hey!" Riley's smile dropped briefly as she scolded. "There's children present. You can't curse. I thought you knew better than that."
  
  "Uhh, sorry..." I flinched, trying not to whimper at the thought of Bonesaw being annoyed with me. "I was just surprised to hear that you have... experiments."
  
  "I guess it's okay." The blonde girl finally decided after a moment of consideration. "Even Uncle Jack forgot himself and cursed sometimes. But you better not do it again, or you might have to get your mouth washed out with soap."
  
  "She's just experimenting on Pandora." Dinah put in, as if that was supposed to be better. "Riley, remember our agreement? She'll come see whatever you want to show her, but you have to let us show her the other thing first."
  
  "Oh poo." Riley sighed, folding her arms as she sulked a little. "I thought you did that already. What's taking so long?"
  
  Dinah seemed to hesitate a little, her eyes closing briefly as her brow furrowed with concentration. Then she focused again. "Now that she's here, why don't you get your best experiments ready to show here? This shouldn't take long."
  
  "Weeeeellll..." Riley seemed to consider for a moment, shifting from foot to foot. Then she smiled. "Okay! I'll get ready. Knock before you come in!" Her finger shook as though scolding me again before she darted back through the door.
  
  "Are you serious?" I hissed at the younger girl once the door was closed. "You have her here, experimenting on Pandora?"
  
  "See?" Emma sounded smug from the other bed. "I told her it was a bad idea."
  
  "I said I know what I'm doing." Dinah sounded exasperated. "She's not running around doing god knows what now, is she? She's here, and she's only experimenting on someone who can consent to it, and who can undo anything she does. Panda has complete control of her own body. Trust me. "
  
  Emma had slid out of the bed by then. "Miss... Ummm... Tether... I... can you tell my dad that I'm okay?" She glanced toward Dinah as though looking for permission before continuing. "Just tell him I'm alive and that... and that I..." Tears were forming in her eyes. "And that I hope I'll see him soon?"
  
  I hesitated before nodding. "Sure, I... can do that, if it'll help." I saw the grateful, desperate look in my old friend's eyes and flinched inwardly. She was really frightened. Not that I could blame her, given the situation.
  
  "Anyway." Dinah had moved to the computer at the table. "Come here, you should see this."
  
  I stepped that way, standing behind her chair. "What am I looking at?"
  
  "Not looking," she replied. "Listening. This is a phone conversation between Director Costa-Brown and Dragon. I... I can't really tell you how we got it, but it's important."
  
  She hit play, and I heard the voice of the armor-tinker first. "There's another one."
  
  The next woman to speak, I assumed, was the PRT National Director. "No. Don't tell me that. I thought you had the problem handled."
  
  "As did I." Dragon's voice replied. "Somehow, it happened again."
  
  A long sigh came from Director Costa-Brown. "Who is it? Tell me it's not a hero again. Fucking tell me it's not a hero."
  
  "It's Rachel Lindt." Dragon answered.
  
  I blinked at that. "Hellhound, from the Undersiders?" I blurted. "What does she have to do with-"
  
  "Shh." Dinah had paused the recording, squinting at me. "Just listen. Do you have any idea how hard it was to get this? Pay attention."
  
  She started it once more, and the director's voice came back. "Hellhound? That doesn't make sense. Does she even know anyone in there?"
  
  "Her team was apparently a source of annoyance for Lung." Dragon's reply was hesitant. "I assume that is related. The how continues to escape me."
  
  "Figure it out." Director Costa-Brown ordered. "And fast. Figure out who's doing it, how they're doing it, and shut them down. Otherwise, there's going to be a panic."
  
  "Perhaps we should inform-" Dragon started, sounding cautious.
  
  "No." The director was firm. "We tell no one else. This stays between us. Do you understand? You will tell no one."
  
  "Understood." Dragon's reply came after a brief hesitation, followed by a sigh. "Then what do we tell them about the Lindt girl?"
  
  The director's answer came after a moment of clear consideration. "Let them think we railroaded her into the place. That it was all our idea. She was part of the team that helped get Panacea kidnapped, right? Let them think it was punishment for that."
  
  "That might cause a problem," Dragon pointed out. "What she did wasn't extreme enough."
  
  "Better that than the alternative," Costa-Brown snapped. "Or would you prefer that people find out the truth?" Dragon was silent on the subject, giving no response, so the director continued. "Because I for one, would rather have some people bitch about how unfair we were to one no-name girl, than have someone, anyone, find out that somebody inside of the Bird Cage has figured out a way to teleport other people into it, and that none of us have any idea how the fuck they're doing it."
  
  My hand covered my mouth, while I stared in shock at the computer screen. For a moment, I had no words, nothing that could adequately portray my disbelief and confusion. Finally, I managed, "The... the Bird Cage... someone's... someone's pulling people into it?"
  
  "That's what it sounds like." Emma put in from her place on the bed. "Weird, huh?"
  
  I glanced that way, then back to Dinah. "What hero are they talking about?"
  
  The younger girl hesitated. "That's part of the next recording. But Emma should leave the room for it."
  
  My ex-friend blanched, wilting a little. "Please, please don't make me go in the other room." She all but whimpered her plea. "It's... it's horrible. Please."
  
  "It's okay." Dinah gestured to the main door. "Panda's waiting for you in the hallway. She'll take you up to the roof for fresh air."
  
  Sliding quickly off the bed, Emma hesitated next to me. "Umm, I hate to... to ask you for anything else..."
  
  I looked at her, and tried not to think of how easily she'd betrayed me, of how easily she'd betrayed Taylor. No matter my personal feelings, she was still a person, still a normal teenage girl. "What is it?"
  
  "I have this ummm," Emma paused. "This friend. Well, she's not really a friend, not anymore. But see, she-umm. Her name is Madison Clements."
  
  I froze at that, but tried not to let on. "Okay?"
  
  "See, well, her umm, we stopped being friends." Emma sighed a little. "It was stupid, but the point is, I... I heard that her parents died. They... they died during the Leviathan attack. And well, I was hoping that... I know you're busy, but if you could just... check on her? I don't mean like a... like a permanent bodyguard thing or whatever, just... just look and make sure she's okay? I... sort of have a lot of time to think in here and... and well, I think I really fucked up. But even if we're not friends, I wanna know that someone's at least, you know, checking."
  
  I stared until Dinah nudged me with her foot, before starting a little. "I... right, yeah. Clements. I'll see what I can do."
  
  "Thanks." Emma managed a weak little smile, a ghost of the grin I knew, and then started out of the room.
  
  When the door closed behind her, I looked at Dinah. "Are you sure she wasn't taken over by a Pandora clone?" Something else struck me then. "Wait. Wait a minute, did I hear you call Pandora... Panda? "
  
  Dinah had the decency to blush a little at that. "It's a long story. But nicknames make people feel wanted, and I want Panda to feel wanted. Besides, it's unique, and it's absolutely nothing like Panacea or Amy or anything. It's all her."
  
  "Seriously, Dinah, what are you doing?" I asked her while shaking my head. "You've got Pandora and Bonesaw? Are you collecting S-Class threats now?"
  
  The twelve-year-old girl shrugged at that. "I'm doing what my power says is the best thing I can do. You're just gonna have to trust me. Anyway, come on. Riley's gonna get impatient soon. I don't think she's used to being told to wait."
  
  I shuddered a little at the thought of Bonesaw being annoyed, and looked back to the computer. "You said there was another recording?"
  
  "Yeah..." Dinah trailed off, then straightened and offered the chair to me. "You better sit down. This recording is from two days ago."
  
  Unsure of what could be shocking enough in this recording that she wanted me to sit down as compared to the last one, I took the offered seat nonetheless. After I did, Dinah pressed play.
  
  The voice of Dragon came in. "Assault and Battery are asking questions about Trevor Clements."
  
  My hand shot out to hit pause and I stared at the girl next to me. "Why the hell are Dragon and Director Costa-Brown discussing my brother?" Dinah's response was to stare at me pointedly until I flushed and pressed play again so that the recording could go on.
  
  Director Costa-Brown replied, "Tether. They're asking questions on her behalf."
  
  "Yes," Dragon confirmed. "Perhaps it's time to tell them something about the boy's disappearance?"
  
  "Absolutely not." The director's response was firm. "We are not letting anyone know about our problems with the Bird Cage. Do you have any idea what kind of panic it would cause if anyone knew that someone in the Cage was capable of reaching out and dragging people in?"
  
  This time, I couldn't help but pause the recording again, while I screeched, "The Bird Cage?! Trevor's in the Bird Cage?! How? Why? What the hell? That's impossible! People saw him after the attack. He dropped his classes, he went home to get his stuff, he... he..." I trailed off, mouth working. "No... no..."
  
  Dinah's voice was sympathetic. "Sorry, Madison." Slowly, she reached out to hit play again, letting the voices continue.
  
  "It's clear that whoever pulled the Clements boy in," Dragon was saying, "was attempting to take his sister instead. The boy was a mistake. Perhaps that can tell us something about how the teleportation was accomplished."
  
  "So far it's told us nothing." Costa-Brown sighed. "And I'm still paying for the favor of letting those neighbors see the kid raid his house and take off. This is already turning into an unbelievable headache, one we cannot afford to let become public knowledge."
  
  "They faked it," I muttered under my breath, reeling. "They faked Trevor taking off, with a double or... or whatever."
  
  Dragon was talking then. "They've made no further attempts on Tether. I don't know if that's a lack of ability or interest."
  
  "Good. We need her." The director was silent for a moment before she continued. "The boy, is he still alive?"
  
  "Only due to Hannah's efforts," Dragon replied softly. "She has defended the boy against all who would seek to harm him. It's lucky for him that they were both taken at the same time."
  
  Costa-Brown's voice was wistful. "Miss Militia was one of the best heroes we had. Losing her is a real blow."
  
  I thought Dragon's voice carried a tiny bit of a rebuke. "She is not lost. We know precisely where she is."
  
  The director's reply was stiff, clearly uncomfortable. "She may as well be. Unless you've thought of a way to get them out again, safely."
  
  "No." Dragon sighed. "The prison was designed, purposefully, to be inescapable. The idea that someone within would pull others in after them, those who had not been convicted, was not a scenario that I imagined."
  
  There was silence for a few moments, and I was about to try speaking, when Costa-Brown cleared her throat. "Figure this out, Dragon. Figure out who's pulling these people into the Cage, how they're doing it, and how we can stop them before we lose anyone else. Do you understand? This is your top priority. Solve it."
  
  "Understood." Dragon's agreement came a second later.
  
  "And don't forget," the director pressed, "don't let anyone-"
  
  "I will tell no one about any of this," Dragon interrupted. "You have my word."
  
  The recording ended then, and I slumped back in the chair, staring at the computer screen for several moments without actually seeing it. "My brother..." I said slowly. "He's in the Bird Cage. He was... they took him. They were trying to get me, and they got him instead. They took him. They took him to the Bird Cage. And it's my-"
  
  Dinah's hand covered my mouth before I could go on. "No, it's not." Her voice was firm. "Don't even say it. Try not to think it. I thought you should know what's going on. At least as much as they know, anyway."
  
  I looked that way. "Do you know who did this? How they're doing it? With your power, I mean."
  
  Her head shook. "Sorry, that's not how my power works. I can't see things like that."
  
  Sighing, I nodded. "I figured it couldn't be that easy." For a minute, I just sat there and thought. "Hannah, Miss Militia, she's alive too. She's protecting Trevor." I'd known they hadn't found her body, only her armband, but that wasn't exactly unheard of after an Endbringer attack. Especially one where so many bodies were washed out to sea.
  
  Dinah's hand squeezed my arm. "At least he's alive?"
  
  "For now." I said. "But if Dragon's right and there's no way out of there, how much longer can he last?"
  
  "As long as Miss Militia can," Dinah replied. "And she's really tough." She hesitated before glancing to me. "Besides, if someone can pull people into the Bird Cage..."
  
  "Maybe there's a way to pull them out again." I straightened at that. "But that means finding out who did it, and how they're doing it, and..." I sighed. "Wow. This is... this is a lot to deal with."
  
  "Tell me about it," Dinah muttered.
  
  "I've gotta think about all this." I started to straighten from the chair. "Gotta figure out... what I'm doing. Who to talk to."
  
  "Whoever you choose..." Dinah started. "Make sure you can trust them completely, okay?" When I nodded, she gestured. "You better go see what Riley wants to show you. If you leave without visiting her, she'll get upset. I'm... sort of trying to teach her morality and cause and effect and stuff like that. It's... really slow."
  
  I raised an eyebrow at that. "You're trying to teach Bonesaw about morality?"
  
  "No." Dinah said firmly. "I'm trying to get rid of Bonesaw, and bring back Riley. Part of doing that is making her face what she's done. But for now, we have to... be careful. That means keeping her as happy as we can."
  
  "Right." I sighed. "I'll go see what she's got."
  
  I don't know if it would have been better or worse if I'd been able to focus more on what Riley had shown me. She was clearly doing extensive work with Pandora, positively giggly over the several ongoing experiments she had going.
  
  Whatever she was doing, it excited the psychotic young girl, and kept her happy. Which meant she wasn't experimenting on other people. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was the best I could hope for. Either way, I hadn't been able to really focus. I was too busy reeling from what I had learned.
  
  Still, as I walked through the alley gate and into my family's backyard, I had to wonder if Dinah really knew what she was doing. She was trying to rehabilitate Bonesaw, of all people. What was next, Behemoth?
  
  Stopping at the shed, I changed out of my costume and into the spare set of clothes there.
  
  I still hadn't decided who I could talk to about this that had any authority. Marissa and Dennis I trusted completely, and I was getting there with Ethan and Sam. Maybe... Maybe I could trust them on this? They had been reaching out to me so much, had been trying so hard to make me feel accepted. They'd done far more than I'd been expecting.
  
  Maybe... maybe I could tell them what I knew. Maybe I could trust them with this.
  
  The back door opened, interrupting my thoughts. Mars stood there, beckoning with a hand. "Hey, you made it."
  
  "Your message said it was urgent." I replied. "What's going on?" I wanted to talk to the other girl about everything I'd found out, but it had sounded as though whatever she wanted to tell me couldn't wait.
  
  "Well..." Marissa stepped out of the way to let me into the kitchen.
  
  I stepped through, then stopped at the sight that greeted me. An auburn-haired girl in a wheelchair sat near the kitchen table. She slowly lifted a hand to me. "Umm, hey."
  
  Mars waved her hand back and forth between us. "Mads, this is Jess. Jess, Mads."
  
  "Genesis." I realized, extending my own hand to shake the other girl's. "You're here."
  
  "Yeah..." Jess sighed. "Mars convinced me. Trickster's wrong. He's... gone off the deep end. He's so obsessed with saving Noelle that he's ready to let everything and everyone else burn to do it."
  
  "What about Ballistic?" I asked.
  
  Jess glanced toward Marissa before replying. "Luke's on our side, but he's staying behind to keep an eye on Krouse, just in case."
  
  "I take it you didn't exactly tell Trickster and Noelle what you were doing?"
  
  Jess bit her lip. "I left a note. I hope... I hope Noelle actually listens to it. She's been getting... irritable. Irritable and... paranoid. It's getting worse."
  
  Noticing my distracted expression, Mars reached out to touch my shoulder. "Hey, what's up?"
  
  I shook my head. "I'll talk about it later. It's... important, but what about you guys? What are you gonna do?" My hand waved. "I mean obviously Jess can stay here, but I mean further than that. Do you... need help? And hey, what about Shadow Stalker?"
  
  The two girls exchanged looks before turning back to me. It was Jess that spoke. "Krouse is keeping Shadow Stalker close to him. She's like a bodyguard or something."
  
  "A bodyguard?" Marissa stared at her friend. "Who's she protecting him from?"
  
  "It's Krouse, who knows?" Jess shrugged. "Anyway, we ummm, we do have a plan."
  
  "You do?" I looked back and forth between the pair. "What are you gonna do?"
  
  Marissa's voice was firm. "We're gonna do what we should have done a long fucking time ago. We're gonna tell the truth."
  
  I blinked at that. "Wait... you mean..."
  
  "I'm tired of being afraid all the time." Mars confirmed. "I'm tired of worrying about anyone finding out who we are. I'm sick of not being able to be myself. Hell, I'm sick of not being able to be around you anywhere but here." She glanced to Jess and then back to me. "So we're going to the Protectorate. We're going to tell them how we got here, and everything about Noelle."
  
  "Sure," Jess put in with a shrug. "I mean, if you can't trust the Protectorate, who can you trust?"
  
  11.03
  
  "You know, Tether, if this whole superhero thing was part of some long term plan to eventually lead all of us to this dark and creepy abandoned boatyard so you could kill and eat us..." Clockblocker trailed off, still gazing around the aforementioned dark and creepy boatyard that surrounded us. We were standing on board one of the wrecked and rusted fishing boats.
  
  "You'd be impressed by my cunning and forward thinking?" I asked, cursing the fact that batting my eyelashes would do nothing with the mask in the way.
  
  It was the next evening, after I'd had a chance to discuss things with Jess and Mars, go home and sleep, and spent the rest of the day thinking. I'd called for the others to meet me here, without telling the adults where they were going or why.
  
  "Well, I sure would." Reach interlinked her hands behind her hood. "After all, I wasn't even a good guy when you would've come up with that cannibalistic plan."
  
  "I'm a forward thinker." I agreed, head bobbing.
  
  From where she stood, a bit to the side of where we were, Glory Girl shook her head. "Not that all this talk about eating each other isn't just really spiffy conversational material, but are you going to tell us what we're going here yet?"
  
  "Almost." I held up two fingers. "We're just waiting for a couple more people."
  
  Vista, sitting up near the prow of the rusted boat, blinked. "What do you mean, a couple more people?" She pointed to herself, me, Clockblocker, Reach, Glory Girl, and Kid Win, who was sitting up on top of the cabin roof. "We're all here."
  
  A new voice replied to that from ship gangplank. Or rather, the simple board that we were using as a gangplank. "She's referring to us." Sundancer crossed the board and stepped up onto the ship, and I was momentarily distracted by the thought of just how well Marissa filled out her costume.
  
  "Oh, well then," Clockblocker waved a hand. "You could've just said we were waiting for your girlfriend."
  
  I started to nod automatically. "Yeah, I guess I co-wait, what?" My face grew heated as I stared at him. "What-you-I never..."
  
  "Oh please." Dennis looked at me. "Raise your hand if you knew Tether was getting romantically involved with her 'contact' from the Travelers." Every hand went up.
  
  Blushing, I scrunched down a little and mumbled, "I'm not that bad about it."
  
  "It was more the look you'd get when you said 'contact' and how you were going to 'talk to her'." Dennis kept making air quotes with his fingers.
  
  "We do talk!" I protested, ears burning.
  
  "Sure, you talk to all of us," Chris said from where he was sitting. "But you don't get that look when you're talking to me or Clockblocker or anybody else."
  
  Still blushing, I waved a hand. "Aaaanyway, we are totally not here to talk about my love life."
  
  "Aww." Glory Girl pouted. "And this evening was just looking up too."
  
  "I'm... kinda surprised that you're okay with this," I had to point out to the other girl. "Isn't your family really ummm... I mean really..." I was trying to think of a way to say it without being insulting.
  
  "Anal retentive about black and white morality?" Victoria offered before shrugging. "Sure. Bad is bad and good is good. But... she really helped out with Leviathan, and... well, I've been..." Her head tilted fractionally toward Reach and then back to me. "I've been doing a lot of thinking on that subject lately. So, are you still a villain?" She asked Sundancer.
  
  Marissa shrugged helplessly. "I didn't really consider myself one when I was one. I... it's a long story. I was... trying to help someone I care about."
  
  "Good intentions are paved, and all that." Victoria waved a hand. "Tell you what, don't be an evil bitch, and I'll give you a chance."
  
  Mars glanced toward me and then back to Glory Girl. "I... sure, okay, not being an evil bitch. Check."
  
  "Of course, if you hurt Tether..." Victoria trailed off, mouth turning into a predatory smile. "Then all bets are off."
  
  "Exactly." Dennis said from where he was standing. "You wanna be a bad guy turned good. All the more power to you. But you make Tether sad..."
  
  He trailed off, leaving Vista to finish with, "Then we're all gonna have words."
  
  Flushing, I threw my hands up and squeaked, "I am not five years old! I don't need a bunch of people protecting me. Besides, we are not here to talk about my relationship."
  
  Chris had the gall to snicker. "Nah, but it is a pretty good side-bonus."
  
  Dennis looked back toward Marissa as something obviously occurred to him. "Wait, you said 'us'. Tether said 'a couple of people', and when you came on board, you said she was referring to 'us'."
  
  Nodding, Mars extended her arm and held it steady while what looked like a beautiful red and gold phoenix swooped down out of the sky to perch there. The majestic bird straightened up, regarded us cryptically, and then spoke. "Hi."
  
  I smirked at my teammates. ""Aha, now you look surprised. Team, this is Genesis. Genesis, the team."
  
  "Okay, that? That's really fucking cool." Reach put in. "You have got to settle a bet though. Are you a shapeshifter, or what?"
  
  In response, Genesis somehow managed to make the phoenix smile enigmatically.
  
  "Isn't she still a bad guy?" Victoria wanted to know.
  
  "She's had the same reasons as me." Marissa glanced toward the bird on her arm. "So did Ballistic. We're changing our minds. But he's staying with Trickster to keep an eye on them."
  
  "Them?" Reach remarked idly.
  
  "Long story. Not getting into it." Genesis replied, stretching her wings out briefly and shaking them. "The point is, we're not here about that. Or what we used to do. We're here to help Tether with her problem."
  
  "And what problem would that be?" Dennis looked toward me questioningly.
  
  I took in a long breath and let it out again. I'd decided to talk to them about what I knew because they were my team. They were my friends. If I trusted them, even Reach, to have my back with something like Bakuda, then I needed to trust them now, with this. "Let me start with... anyone who wants to walk away, at any time, do it. This... this is big, and... and I won't think less of you for having a survival instinct."
  
  Chris snorted. "I think you pretty well took care of anyone who might've had a survival instinct when you chose this horror movie set waiting to happen to meet at."
  
  Coughing, I waved a hand. "Anyway, the point is, if you need to leave, go ahead. But... see... first of all..." I was hesitating, unsure of how to break this to them. "The PRT is... they're keeping secrets from us."
  
  A loud, obviously sarcastic feminine gasp came from Clockblocker, as he clapped his hand to his heart in supposed shock. "Noooooooo. I refuse to believe that! I refuse! The PRT cares about us. They are completely open and they tell us absolutely everything that we- Okay I can't even keep that up. They'd refuse to tell us where the bathroom was if they weren't afraid that we'd pee in the hallway."
  
  "This goes a bit above and beyond what they normally don't tell us about," I said dryly. "See, it's... it's about the Bird Cage."
  
  "Hah!" Reach suddenly exclaimed. When we looked at her, she pointed to Genesis's Phoenix. "Bird Cage. Bird. I get it." She complimented Jess. "You're funnier than they give you credit for."
  
  I explained what we had found out, what Dinah had shown me. I told them about how Miss Militia was still alive, and how she'd been taken into the Bird Cage along with my brother, and how that was the real reason that Hellhound, from the Undersiders, had ended up there. I explained everything that we knew about it.
  
  Genesis and Sundancer already knew. I'd told them the truth already, wanting them to know before they went through with telling the Protectorate who they were.
  
  It wasn't that I distrusted the Protectorate or the PRT itself. Clearly, there were problems. There would be with any organization. But, if I tried to look at the situation that Dragon and Director Costa-Brown were in, I could sort of see where they were coming from. If they told people that the people were being pulled into the Bird Cage, there'd be a complete outcry. People would demand that the Cage be shut down. But what would they do with the inhabitants? What could they do? And that wasn't even counting the panic that would run rampant at the very thought that, at any minute, anyone could be teleported into what was essentially hell.
  
  Yeah, objectively speaking, I could see why they were keeping it secret. But fuck objectivity, I wanted my brother back. And they should have told the people it affected. They should have told me. My brother had disappeared because whoever was doing it happened to have targeted me. I deserved to know that. I deserved to know where my brother was, not have it covered up.
  
  Once I was done talking, Clockblocker let out a low whistle. After that, for a moment, no one spoke. We just stared at one another.
  
  "So... so what are you gonna do?" Victoria finally asked, arms folded across her chest as though she was cold.
  
  I looked at her, paused to consider my words, and then shrugged. "I'm gonna find out who's doing this, how they're doing it, and I'm gonna beat the crap out of them, and then use it to get my brother back, along with everyone else that doesn't belong there." I hesitated then. "But, I could use some help to do it. I don't even know if-"
  
  A small hand found my back, as Vista spoke from beside me. "We're with you."
  
  I looked at her. "You realize how dangerous this is? The Director herself, and Dragon , are trying to keep it secret. Not to mention what'll happen if the bad guys, whoever they are, figure out we're looking for them. This isn't normal Wards stuff."
  
  "You're our friend, and we're a team." Vista said firmly, repeating herself. "We're with you."
  
  Swallowing a thick lump in my throat, I stared at the others. "No one else has to-"
  
  "You heard the girl." Dennis waved his hand toward Missy. "We're with you."
  
  Staring at the sky for a second, Victoria finally sighed and shrugged. "Sure, why not. If we get fired, we can always form our own team. Not like I don't have experience being a private hero."
  
  Chris gave me a thumbs up from his place on the roof of the cabin. "Can't let you run off and get in trouble all by yourself. Not after we spent all this time getting you trained into being a decent teammate."
  
  Finally, I looked toward Reach. She gazed back at me, eyes serious. "Well, I don't know." She began solemnly. "After all, my loyalty to the PRT and belief in the system is just... iron clad."
  
  "This is serious." I said to her. "You can back out now. If we get in trouble, it's one thing. If you do, you could end up in Juvie."
  
  "And you wouldn't?" She shot back. "You're on probation too." When I was silent, she nodded. "That's what I thought. Fuck you, I'm part of this team. It's my choice."
  
  "So now what?" Vista asked, curiously.
  
  I bit my lip. "Now... now we do what Dragon can't. We figure out who broke the Bird Cage."
  
  "Hey, you." Sam greeted me as I came in the front door a couple hours later. We hadn't really gotten anywhere other than making a few preliminary plans, and agreements on codewords to use since we didn't want to use the coms to talk about any of this.
  
  I'd changed already, before making my way into what had become my new home. "Hey, did I miss dinner? Please?"
  
  "Ha ha." Sam gave me a look from where she was stacking envelopes at the desk in the corner of the living room. It was an ongoing joke between us, considering she wasn't exactly the world's greatest chef. Ethan, on the other hand, was actually a pretty good cook. But when it was Sam's turn to cook, like tonight, we either ordered out or suffered.
  
  "You got some more fanmail by the way." Sam said, waving a couple of the envelopes. They wouldn't have been addressed to me, or to this location, of course. People who sent actual physical fan letters did so by addressing them to the PRT building, and they had people go over every piece of mail with a fine-toothed comb for anything suspicious before passing them along.
  
  "They didn't send money this time, did they?" I asked, hopefully.
  
  "'Fraid so." Sam indicated one of the open envelopes. "Eighty bucks this time."
  
  I sighed and waved a hand. "Usual thing?"
  
  "I'll drop it at the charity when I take Ethan's and my own." She promised with a chuckle.
  
  The front door opened behind me, and the man himself came in. "Hey, did I miss dinner?" He sounded hopeful.
  
  Sam threw a stress ball at him. "Jerks. You're both complete jerks. My food isn't that bad."
  
  "Puppy, you know I love you." Ethan stepped around me and gathered Sam up against him, kissing her forehead. "But your food... well, you know that ugly bulldog down the street, the one that eats his own poop? I offered him some of your 'casserole' from last week, and he turned it down."
  
  "Aaaallright, all right, all right." Sam shook her head, flushing. She did lean into Ethan, and I caught her tiny little smile when his arms encircled her. "We'll go out then. Heaven forbid I torture the two of you with my cooking."
  
  "Sweeeeet!" I pumped both fists into the air. "Goodbye Mystery Dish of Charcoal and Shame, Hello Ricardo's Oven Baked Lasagne."
  
  Rolling her eyes, Sam shoved Ethan and grabbed her keys. "Of course you two already know where we're going."
  
  "Know where we're going?" Ethan echoed. "Hell, we already called ahead to reserve our table and order the appetizers."
  
  Huffing indignantly, Sam stalked to the door. "Jerks. You're both jerks, aaaaaaand I hate you."
  
  Grinning at me, Ethan held his hand out. I slapped him five, and then the two of us followed Sam through the door and out to the car.
  
  As I walked, I resolved to tell both of them the truth about the Bird Cage investigation, and what had really happened to Miss Militia. They deserved to know that their friend was still alive, and that they were being lied to.
  
  I would tell them everything that we knew about it. I'd gotten lucky, in the grand scheme of things. I could have been handed over to some faceless bureaucrat who was only going through the motions to keep their boss happy. But we actually got along. I still missed my parents, I would always miss my parents, but this... being with them, it was pretty cool.
  
  Ethan and Sam were people I could trust.
  
  11.04
  
  "Okay, you've got us out here," Ethan remarked as the three of us stood in the middle of the empty park down the street from their-our home. It was about an hour after we'd finished dinner. "You wanna tell us what this is all about, now?"
  
  Sam nodded from where she was standing, eyebrows raised curiously. "Yeah, since when are you afraid to talk about stuff in the house?" Her brow knitted in a frown. "Wait, do you know something?"
  
  I raised both hands to stop them. "I don't know anyone's listening, but... well, better safe than sorry in this case."
  
  Still frowning, Samantha reached a hand out to brush my shoulder. "What's up with you, huh? I didn't think you were the paranoid type."
  
  Taking in a long breath as I stared at the grass, I let it out again slowly before looking up. "It's about my brother, and Miss Militia."
  
  "Hannah?" Ethan looked lost. "What does Hannah have to do with your brother, Ewok?" That was his newest name for me, since I was supposedly tiny and adorable, but fierce.
  
  After another moment of hesitation, I started to talk. I told them about the recordings that Dinah had shown me, and how the rest of the team was in on helping me get Trevor and Hannah, and anyone else, back out of the Birdcage.
  
  When I was finished, Ethan was scowling. I thought, briefly, that he was actually angry at me, until he cursed. "Fuck. I knew that damn place was a disaster waiting to happen."
  
  "What else were we supposed to do with the worst supervillains?" Sam asked with a helpless shrug.
  
  Ethan shook his head. "That's the point, we didn't try other things. We just shoved them in that hellhole to fight amongst themselves and forgot about them. And now it's biting us in the ass. Worse, it's biting Hannah and the midget's brother in the ass. We've gotta get them the hell out of there. Now."
  
  Sam's hands waved helplessly. "How, exactly? If Dragon can't figure out a safe way to do it, and she's in charge of the place..."
  
  "Maybe she can't figure out a safe way that doesn't involve letting other people know what's going on." Ethan pointed out. "There's gotta be ways for her to let teleportation happen, if they'd just tell a teleporter, lower the defenses, and let him pop in there to get them."
  
  Sam sighed. "Maybe it's not that simple, I dunno. Who's to say one of the other, nastier bad guys won't take the opening and escape while the defenses are down? Maybe that's the whole reason they're doing this, to coax Dragon into taking down the defenses so they can get out."
  
  "So let 'em!" Ethan threw his arms up. "Let 'em out, then. Isn't it better to get Hannah and Trevor back and safe, than just leave them in there on the off chance that some thug makes a jailbreak?"
  
  Sam was shaking her head. "Some of the people in there are... they're monsters, Ethan. If any of them got out, a hell of a lot more people would suffer."
  
  "So what are we doing then?" Ethan demanded. "Just letting Hannah and Trevor rot in there? How many have to get trapped before it's enough to do something about it?"
  
  While poor Sam flinched from that, I whistled sharply. "Guys! We are doing something, remember? Trust me. We're gonna find out who's doing this stuff, how they're doing it, and make them reverse it to get Miss Militia and Trevor back."
  
  The two of them looked at each other, and then Sam reached out to take Ethan's hand, squeezing it. "I don't suppose telling you to let us handle it would do anything, so... how can we help?"
  
  "Right now?" I hesitated before shrugging. "Just be careful and... don't get teleported away?" I offered the last bit a little weakly. "I kinda like having you guys around."
  
  "Same goes back to you, Wicket." Ethan's voice was firm. "Keep us informed, and be careful. You or anyone else find anything, or get any lead, you tell us. And no doing anything too stupid by yourselves. Got it? You wanna do something stupid, you come find us."
  
  "Yeah," Sam added. "We want in on that stupidity."
  
  "I promise." I looked between the two of them. "If we find out anything, when we find out anything, I'll let you know."
  
  "Good." Ethan ruffled my hair. "And we'll see what we can do on this end." Before I could speak, he added, " Without letting anyone know what we know. No sense rocking the boat before we have all the facts we can get."
  
  Sam was nodding slowly, though she seemed distracted by something. "Right. We'll... figure this out without anyone else getting sucked into the prison."
  
  "That's the plan," I agreed.
  
  "For the record," Ethan announced then, after we stood in silence for a few seconds. "I reserve the right to bitch-slap Costa-Brown across the face for making us believe that Hannah was dead."
  
  "Let's focus on getting her back, first." Sam brought her husband's hand up to gently kiss his fingers. "Then we'll worry about who messed up." She looked at me then. "Thanks for bringing us in on this. Thanks for..." She swallowed. "... for trusting us."
  
  All I could do was shrug self-consciously. "Hey, you take care of me. And, well, you deserved to know the truth about your friend. I couldn't just lie about something like that, even by omission." Sam was staring at me, with a strange expression. I frowned back at her. "What's wrong?"
  
  "Nothing." Her head shook. "Nothing. Let's head back in. I think everyone needs some sleep."
  
  I nodded slowly, and started to move. "Right, sleep." While I was walking, all I could think about, was how in the hell my little group, even with Battery and Assault, were supposed to figure out what was going on with the Birdcage, when the woman who designed the place was completely baffled.
  
  It was a sad, strange time when the fact that I knew where one of the Slaughterhouse Nine was experimenting on a living, breathing biological weapon was not the most stressful secret that I had.
  
  "It appears to be an ancient writing implement of some kind." Chris leaned in close, gazing intently at the object in my hand as if it was some ancient caveman tool. "Perhaps used by prehistoric man in time immemorial."
  
  "It's called a pencil." I replied dryly, poking him with the eraser when he leaned even closer. "And I seem to recall you using one just last month, to draw the designs for the jetpack improvements."
  
  "Like I said," Chris waved a hand vaguely. "Time immemorial, last month, whatever."
  
  Two days had passed since I'd explained everything to the others. Strangely enough, Reach had been the only one of us who actually had an idea of how we could figure out what was going on. Apparently, Kaiser had been worried about being sent to the Birdcage, so he had begun to take steps to deal with the possibility. That involved hiring some local, retired cape of some kind who had supposedly known some things about the construction of the place, to come up with a way to get out again. Apparently the guy had come up dry, which had pissed off Kaiser. But Cassie still thought he might know more than we did.
  
  She hadn't known where the man lived, or his name, but she remembered what he looked like, and that Kaiser had always met him here at the mall, since the man was some kind of fiend for frozen yogurt. She and a couple of the other Empire people had been tasked with running security to make sure their that Kaiser's conversations with the man were uninterrupted.
  
  Which meant that now Chris and I, as well as Cassie, who was off getting food, were hanging out in the food court of the mall, which had just reopened a week earlier. Our table was in the far corner, near the huge, floor to ceiling windows that overlooked the parking lot, and far away from where anyone else was sitting. We could, however, see the frozen yogurt place across the way.
  
  Cassie, Dennis, and I had spent hours yesterday hanging out around here, with no luck. Dennis had been busy today, so Chris took his place. And after an hour of waiting, our guy had shown up.
  
  Now, all we had to do was wait, trail him home to figure out where he lived, and then visit him later in costume to find out if he actually knew anything we could use.
  
  I waved the pencil back and forth in front of Chris's face. "It's called keeping notes offline so certain paranoid and snoopy people with access to all kinds of super-tech don't find them."
  
  "Really?" Chris raised an eyebrow, tilting his head around to look at the notebook on the table. "Cuz it looks like a bunch of doodles around your girlfriend's name."
  
  Blushing deeply, I covered Marissa's name with a hand. She and Jess had both let the team know what their real first names were, reasoning that their specific circumstances meant it hardly mattered. They weren't from this world, so knowing their first names, at this point, wasn't going to give anyone on the team enough information to do anything with, even if they'd wanted to make a betrayal like that.
  
  Cassie arrived at the table then, dropping the tray full of large soft pretzels and drinks down between us. "Is she still scribbling that other dyyyyyy..." My glare had her trail off. "Dime-Store lesbian's name?"
  
  My eyes rolled. "That wasn't really much of a save, you know."
  
  The other girl ran her hand back through her short blonde hair, an obvious nervous gesture. "I did the best I could. And hey, don't I get some credit for keeping my mouth shut at the boat?" She demanded while grabbing the nearest pretzel.
  
  "Yeah, I meant to ask about that," I admitted. "I was kinda surprised that you didn't get all..." Trailing off, I picked up a pretzel and gestured to it. "Bent out of shape about it. I mean, not that I'm complaining, but..."
  
  Shrugging self-consciously, Cassie took a large bite of the pretzel, clearly using the time while she was chewing to stall before responding. "Shit, for most of my life, most of what I knew about right and wrong came from pretty fucking biased sources. It ain't like my family's all love and roses for everybody else, but being gay happens to be over the line, you know? They hate nig-black people. They hate Mexicans, Ki-Jews, Japanese, what-the-fuck-ever that isn't white. Even white people that don't hate the... uhhh... rest. Race traitors or whatever."
  
  She went quiet for a moment, chewing another bite. "Used to be, I'd call you a rug-mu-I mean, a lot of nasty shit. Maybe I still think it, sometimes... maybe I still sorta get queasy when I look at you and think of two..." Cassie shuddered. "I can't help it. Can't help the reaction. But I can help what I say, a little. So, uhhh, don't get me wrong, it still seems fucked up and nasty. But then again, I still think pretty nasty shit whenever I look at black people or whoever else. I just... I try not to say it."
  
  "Anyway, that's why I didn't say anything back there at the boat. Cuz I'm constantly trying not to say the shit that pops into my head anyway."
  
  Chris's eyes were wide. "The you we get is the one that's trying not to say everything the instant it pops into her head?"
  
  "Cram it up your ass and twirl." The other girl shot back, blushing self-consciously.
  
  "Oh yeah, model of restraint, you are." Chris nodded sagely, before yelping when Cassie punched him in the arm.
  
  "Well, umm, thanks," I said, a little awkwardly. "For not saying anything, even if it still makes you uncomfortable."
  
  Cassie shrugged, staring down at the table. "Gotta rethink everything else I knew. Why not add fags to the list?" When I cleared my throat, she sighed and slumped in the seat. "Fuck, sorry. You know what I mean."
  
  "I know." I agreed, taking one of the drinks. "Thank you, Cassie. Seriously. You're trying, I get it. I'm not gonna jump all over your case for a slip."
  
  Her gaze met mine for a moment before she shrugged. "Whatever, just don't start trying to kiss me or some other gay shit." Her hand waved dismissively. "How's our guy doing?"
  
  I glanced idly across the food court, toward the older man in the tweed suit that Reach had pointed out earlier. "Still just sitting by himself, eating that yogurt."
  
  "You really think we can follow him home without getting caught?" Chris asked, tapping the tray nervously with his fingers.
  
  Cassie shrugged. "If he figures out we're following him, we'll deal with it. At least he lives close enough to walk."
  
  "And that's something you're sure about?" I pressed.
  
  "Kaiser used to have somebody watch the street the guy walked down on the way up to the mall, then call ahead to let him know the guy was on his way." She confirmed with a short nod.
  
  "Looks like he's about to have company," Chris pointed out, before biting into his pretzel.
  
  Cassie and I both glanced that way again, and saw what he meant. There was a black guy, thin and rather wasted looking, taking the seat across from our target. Something about him nagged at my memory.
  
  "What's that n-ahh, guy doing there?" Reach asked with a frown.
  
  "Dunno." I shook my head. "But our guy doesn't look happy to see him. And... I know that guy from somewhere..."
  
  "You do?" Chris glanced at me.
  
  "Yeah... I just can't..." It came to me then. "The night at the mall, with Pandora and those two Merchant thugs. That's him. That's the ummm, the guy, Vacate. That's Vacate."
  
  Eyes wide as he stared at me, then glanced toward the couple across the food court, Chris hissed, "What's he doing with our guy?"
  
  "I dunno, but I doubt it's a social call." I hesitated. The Undersiders weren't technically wanted anymore. Somehow, they'd convinced the governor to grant them a pardon. Still, something wasn't right about this.
  
  "What now?" Cassie asked. "We grab him anyway?"
  
  "I don't-" that was as far as I got before I saw Vacate stand up after the guy. They started to walk away, and I muttered a curse. "Come on, let's go."
  
  We started to walk after the pair, while I tried to figure out what was going on. My eyes moved around at the various people around us, but Vacate was the only Undersider whose face I knew. Were any of the others around, or was he alone?
  
  The pair reached a service corridor ahead of us, and we came around the corner just in time to see Vacate put his hand on the man's back. My eyes widened at that. "Shi-"
  
  It was too late. They were gone. One moment the two of them had been right in view, and in the next, the service corridor was empty.
  
  Chris and Cassie both stood beside me, and we gazed helplessly down the hall before I pointed. "There, the open door on the right-hand side. Only place they could've gone except back into the mall."
  
  Left with no other choice if we wanted to find out what the hell was going on, the three of us started to run that way. It was probably useless, but what else could we do?
  
  And more importantly, why in the hell were the Undersiders abducting the guy that we needed to talk to?
  
  11.05
  
  "What the hell are the Undersiders doing here?" I asked aloud as the three of us ran down the hall.
  
  "Obviously, the same thing we're doing." Cassie replied. "Trying to get the dog bitch out of purgatory."
  
  "How'd they find out about our guy, though?" I shot back. "I doubt he has a website that says 'ask me about how to escape from the superest of max prisons.'"
  
  "Tattletale," Chris answered from my other side. "When in doubt, it's always Tattletale."
  
  The open door led to a warehouse area full of a maze of boxes. In the distance, past several rows of enormous shelves heavily laden with crates, I could just make out the open door of a loading dock.
  
  "That way." I pointed and started to go, but Chris caught my arm.
  
  "Here." He passed me a white ski mask that he had pulled from the backpack he had over one shoulder, and I saw that he and Reach were already wearing theirs. Carrying around full costumes had been impossible to do while remaining incognito, so we had compromised and brought these simple masks, along with a couple other toys for Chris to use if we needed them.
  
  Hesitating for just as second, I finally grabbed the mask and pulled it on. "People are so gonna think we're robbing the place if they see us."
  
  "Better than more people finding out who any of us are." Chris pointed out.
  
  I thought about pointing out that the Undersiders obviously already knew who I was, but other than that, he had a point. Anyone could be out there. I just fixed the mask and then ran for the loading dock doors.
  
  The three of us sprinted around the corner just in time to nearly run down the poor guy that was hauling a cart full of boxes marked as fragile. At the last second, I leapt to one side, while Reach and Kid Win leapt the opposite way, giving the cart room to slip through.
  
  Then we were at the large open doors that led into the lot behind the mall. I could see a small collection of semis parked along the left side, and to the right, there was... "Got 'em!" I pointed toward the spot near the edge of the lot, right where the pavement turned into weeds. Vacate and the man we had been watching were standing out there, the former bent over and panting.
  
  "We've gotta separate them before he recovers." Kid was already pulling one of his tinker-pistols from his pack.
  
  Standing on the other side of me, Reach glanced toward the nearest semi before smiling. "I can handle him. You just get them away from each other." She leapt down and moved toward the trucks
  
  Vacate was already reaching out toward the man next to him, but I planted a line against our target's pants and bodily yanked him backwards and down, out of the former Merchant's reach. The thug looked surprised briefly, taken aback by what probably appeared to be his companion stumbling back and falling.
  
  That particular illusion was probably spoiled when the man started to slide backwards along the pavement, dragged along by another of my lines.
  
  Realizing something was up, Vacate paused as though focusing his power. Fortunately, before he could escape, something massive came crashing down out of the sky, slamming into the ground where the newest Undersider had been standing.
  
  Reach had floated the trailer of a semi up and over, flipped it to be vertical with the open doors pointed down, and then brought it down on top of Vacate, trapping him inside the walls of the now-standing trailer.
  
  Sounding pleased with herself, the other girl announced from where she stood, "Line-of-sight teleport out of that, bitch!"
  
  Jumping down from the loading dock, Kid Win and I were approaching the man, who was just starting to pick himself up and off of the pavement, when everything went dark.
  
  Grue. Damn it. I still hadn't figured out why I couldn't even plant lines on my own clothes when his darkness surrounded me. Normally, even if I couldn't see my shoes, I could at least put lines on them, because I could feel them against my feet. But Grue's darkness completely no-sold me. It was like it turned off my power completely.
  
  I felt lost, wandering in that darkness. I'd taken two steps after the darkness came, and then I might as well have been on another planet. I'd completely lost track of where Kid Win and Reach were, and all I could do was try to stumble forward, cursing the darkness generator under my breath.
  
  Abruptly, the darkness vanished. I blinked at the sudden light, orienting myself and taking in the new scene.
  
  Ahead and to the right, I could see Reach lower herself back to the ground. She had apparently used her own shoes to lift off and escape the darkness.
  
  Naturally, her power wasn't broken by Grue's.
  
  Chris was about ten feet to my left, frozen in place. His hand was extended and pointed down, holding one of his pistols toward the left shoe of Freezetag, who stood a foot away and managed to look sulky even with her mask. She gave an obvious yank against her shoe, which had been covered in some kind of fast drying glue. "Lemme go, damn it! That's my schtick." Apparently, Kid had managed to glue the girl's foot just before she froze him. Pretty good considering the darkness.
  
  "I'm pretty sure you're going to have to let him go before he'll let you go, Tag." A new voice pointed out, as Tattletale emerged from behind the vertically-standing trailer that encased her other teammate.
  
  Grue joined her, both of them in costume, and the two of them stood there staring down myself and Reach, who had landed next to me.
  
  "Tell me that's not containment foam he just used." Grue addressed us.
  
  "Doesn't look like it." I answered honestly. "But I'm not the tinker. Where's the guy you were after?"
  
  Tattletale let her head tilt to the side, confidence radiating from her. "You mean the guy we're all after? Ask the former Nazi." She gestured toward Reach.
  
  For her part, Cassie's eyes rolled. "You know, I used to tap dance too. No one ever brings that up. Hell, I also won the fifth and sixth grade spelling bees. No one says, 'hey, let's ask the really good speller over there'" Then she gestured toward an upside down dumpster in the corner of the lot. "I trapped Sparky under that and told them I wasn't letting him out until they took the darkness down."
  
  Smiling faintly, I looked toward Tattletale. "So we've got the guy, and two of yours trapped. You've got one of ours."
  
  If she was concerned, the blonde girl did a good job of hiding it. Her lips just curved into that knowing, confident smile as she shrugged. "What are you gonna do, arrest us? We're not the bad guys anymore, remember?"
  
  "I'm pretty sure kidnapping is still a crime," I pointed out idly, watching as Freezetag continued to pull ineffectually at her trapped foot.
  
  "Oh, but we weren't kidnapping him." Tattletale's reply came as she stretched lazily, unhurried. "We were just trying to talk to him. And in any case, you wouldn't report that anyway. Just like you're not going to report any of this."
  
  "We're not?" I asked with a raised eyebrow, hoping she hadn't worked everything out. Just how did Tattletale figure out the stuff she knew anyway? As far as I had been able to find, no one knew. Some people thought she was a minor clairvoyant, others thought her specialty lay in hacking, getting information out of computers to use later, while still others thought she was telepathic. That last one was impossible, of course. But how did her power work?
  
  The other girl's head shook. "Nope. Because you're not here on an official case. You're not in costume, and the last thing you want is to have to tell the suits that consider themselves your superiors what you were doing out here. And you definitely don't want them looking at Mr. Hase too closely." Her hand waved to indicate the man trapped beneath the overturned dumpster. "After all, that might lead to them finding out exactly what you're looking into, and why."
  
  For a moment, I met Tattletale's gaze, trying to decide if even attempting to bluff was worth it. Finally, I sighed. "You let Kid go, we'll let your people go." I wasn't worried about Vacate taking off. We had the guy they were looking for.
  
  "Do it, Tag." Grue said to the younger girl. His helmeted face hadn't looked away from where Reach and I were standing.
  
  Grumbling, Freezetag reached out and slapped a hand none-too-gently against Chris's chest. Immediately, he jerked into motion, taking three steps back and raising his glue gun a little more.
  
  "Let her go, Kid." I called. "We're working something out." Then I nodded to Reach. "Other guy too."
  
  While my teammates released their prisoners, I continued to look at Tattletale and Grue. "How much do you know, and how did you find out?"
  
  "That last part's a fascinating conversation just waiting to not happen right now." The blonde replied. "As to the first... we know enough. Maybe more than you. At least we knew our guy's name." Her smile broadened as I flinched. "Thought so."
  
  Chris moved up to stand next to me, while Vacate and Freezetag joined their teammates. The latter flipped me off idly, before she nudged Grue. "C'mon, let's just smack these guys down, grab the guy, and get out of here. There's four of us and three of them." The look in her eyes behind the mask turned dark as she glared at Reach. "And one of them's a racist piece of shit no one'll miss."
  
  "Down, Tag." Grue settled a hand on the girl's shoulder. "We're talking it out." I did notice, however, that he hadn't stopped staring in our direction, and his voice was gruff and hard. Belatedly, I realized that he hadn't been staring at both of us, but rather, he had been glaring at Reach this whole time.
  
  "I gotta go with the kid there." Vacate remarked, looking out of place without any kind of costume. "Making deals with cunts like her ain't the best idea. She 'bout as trustworthy as a hungry snake in a roomful o'mice."
  
  "More like rats," Cassie shot back from beside me. "Ugly, stupid rats."
  
  "Man, I knew you was still a racist fuck!" Vacate shouted, pointing at her.
  
  "Who said anything about race?" Reach demanded. "I just think you're a drugged out fucking loser pervert. It's got nothing to do with your god damn skin color, jackass."
  
  "Knock it off, both of you!" I held both hands up toward either of them. "Just stop. Ignore each other, got it? You don't have to get along, but just shut up for a minute." After a moment, I added, "Reach, can you let Mr. Hase out?"
  
  For a second, Cassie just stood there, glowering at the Undersiders. Then she dismissively flicked her finger, flinging the dumpster up and off of the man.
  
  He was on his feet a moment later, shaking loose trash off while stomping toward us. I gave him a once-over as he approached. The man wasn't very tall, maybe halfway between five and six feet, and he was a bit heavy-set, though not overly so. His hair had long since grayed, and he wore what remained from the sides and back pulled into a ponytail, while the top of his head was mostly bare.
  
  "Look." He jabbed a stubby finger at us angrily. "Like I told Kaiser, I don't have any more of the professor's portal notes! So back the fuck off and leave me alone. I don't have what you want. Kaiser took all of it. Go bother his fucking people, got it?"
  
  I stared, trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about. "The Professor?"
  
  Tattletale made a soft noise of understanding. "Ah. You knew Professor Haywire."
  
  I blinked that way. "The guy that made the connection between this place and Earth Aleph?" The world that Marissa and Jess came from, I thought to myself.
  
  Hase looked back and forth between us, frowning. "That's what you're all coming after me for, isn't it? The Professor's notes. Like I told Kaiser the last time, the notes he took were all I had. Haywire was a friend, he sent me his notes and I was supposed to keep them safe. That's it. I don't know anything else, I don't have more of his notes stashed away, and I sure as hell don't understand any of them."
  
  "Why would Kaiser want notes about Professor Haywire's work?" Grue asked, voice full of suspicion as he glanced toward Reach, clearly thinking she knew.
  
  Hase sounded incredulous, "You don't know? Why the hell are you chasing me down then?"
  
  Smiling, Tattletale waved a hand vaguely. "Why don't you just give us the rundown, Mr. Hase. Then we can leave you alone."
  
  The man squinted back and forth between all of us, before heaving a long put-upon sigh. "Fine. Like I said, Kaiser wanted the Professor's notes. He had some idea that he could use the same idea to transport matter... people... back and forth. Something about being able to go anywhere in the world, even the most secure fucking places, by teleporting into the equivalent location in another world that didn't have that security, then teleporting back into the world you want to be in."
  
  I stared at him, while Chris blurted, "That's insane. All Haywire did was let us transfer data back and forth."
  
  Hase shrugged. "Hey, it wasn't my idea, okay? Kaiser said something about how he got the idea from his teacher or something, I don't know. Point is, he took the Professor's notes and that's the last I heard of it." He squinted at us. "That's it. That's all I know. Can I go now, or does someone else want to throw me around?"
  
  I flinched and gestured. "You can go, sir. I-we're sorry. We just... needed to know what was going on."
  
  The man didn't appear to be moved by my apology. He just rolled his eyes and turned to stomp off, muttering about how all he asked was to be left alone, and that if he'd known how much trouble the damn notes would be, he never would have agreed to take them.
  
  After the man left, all of us, Wards and Undersiders alike, stared at each other as we tried to figure out what all of this meant. If Kaiser had thought that he could use Haywire's notes to make some kind of teleportation device that would let him infiltrate anywhere... that would include the Birdcage.
  
  "Oh man." Chris had come to the same conclusion I had. "They built it. Someone built it."
  
  "We need those notes," I said quietly. "We need to see what this thing is, how it works."
  
  Cassie shrugged. "If Kaiser stole the notes, and if they're still around, they're probably in his office building somewhere. Probably in one of his hidden safes."
  
  It was Grue who spoke then. "You mean the building that's currently full of those new PRT bodyguards or whatever? Fuck."
  
  "Well." Tattletale was rubbing her hands together. She actually looked excited by the prospect. "We're just going to have to work together to find those notes and get them out."
  
  "Work together?" Cassie all but spat. "Fuck that."
  
  Tattletale shrugged. "We can infiltrate the place, get past the codes and guards and whatever. But there's a whole lot of building to go over. Meanwhile, you guys have access, but there's no way you can search the place without people noticing. Plus, you've got her." She nodded toward Reach. "And she knows the building better than anyone else in there."
  
  "Right." Chris agreed. "So why would we need you when we've got her?"
  
  It was Grue that answered. "Because we can get past the new security, the stuff she doesn't know about."
  
  "Fact is," Tattletale pointed out with a smile. "We all need each other. We need to make a deal. Bitch doesn't belong in there anymore than the people you're rescuing, and you know it."
  
  I took in a breath and then let it out. "It's more than just us. We're gonna have to talk to the others."
  
  "Sure." The other girl produced a card from her belt, holding it out to me. "Call us at this number once you want to work together."
  
  Barely had I taken the card, than the three Undersiders reached out to grab Vacate, who took the time to flip off Cassie. Then they were gone, leaving Reach, Kid Win, and I standing alone in the parking lot.
  
  "Are we actually doing this?" Chris demanded. "Are we actually going to work with the Undersiders to break into the PCIPS building so we can steal the notes that supposedly let people teleport in and out of the god damn Birdcage willy nilly?"
  
  My mouth opened and then shut before I shrugged helplessly. "I don't think we have a choice. We can't talk to anyone in charge, because they'll shut us down. They'd rather keep Miss Militia and my brother and anyone else locked up than admit there's a problem and cause a panic. So... yeah. Looks like we're working with the Undersiders."
  
  Interlude 11 - Trevor
  
  Why? Why did shit like this keep happening to him? What did he ever do to anybody?
  
  Trevor Clements hadn't stopped asking himself those questions, and more, since the moment he had found himself inexplicably transported straight into the lowest pit of hell.
  
  It wasn't fair. All he wanted to do was mind his business, go to college, and get the hell away from his parents and his spoiled little sister.
  
  He had tried to move out, but things kept going against him. First his parents refused to pay for the first and last months rent for the sweet apartment that Wallace had found, claiming it was too much. They said he should get a job and save up.
  
  But of course, Madison got anything she wanted. Hell, if she'd asked for money for an apartment, they would've forked it right over. Madison could do no wrong. She was a perfect little angel.
  
  It wasn't that he didn't care about his sister. Of course he did. But she had been a spoiled, selfish little brat for as long as he could remember, while their parents barely gave him the time of day.
  
  He'd needed to get out, get away, be his own man. And he could have, if his parents had just fronted him a little bit of money to get on his feet. He could've afforded the actual rent once he was in the apartment, if they'd just cut him a little slack!
  
  "Bet they're sorry now." Trevor muttered to himself, glaring at the floor in front of him as he lay on the cot in the dimly lit room. "If they even know where I am."
  
  "You awake?" His now-perpetual companion stood at the doorway, her attention on the hall beyond.
  
  Adjusting his position, Trevor took a brief moment to admire the view of the woman's backside. He'd seen it plenty of times before, of course. Miss Militia was totally the hottest member of the Protectorate in Brockton Bay, though Battery was pretty bangin' too. Hell, being able to be so near the hottie that was Miss Militia was probably the only good part about any of this.
  
  "I said, are you awake?" The woman repeated, turning her head slightly so that she could glance over her shoulder toward him without fully taking her eyes off of the corridor.
  
  "Yeah, yeah. I'm awake." Heaving himself up, Trevor gave the shapely woman another admiring glance before focusing on the more immediate issue. "And I'm fucking hungry."
  
  "We'll go for food now that you're up." The Protectorate heroine announced without looking at him. "Change your clothes, you'll upset the other prisoners if you go in wearing those ones. They stink."
  
  Grumbling to himself about why he should care what upset the murdering freaks, Trevor stalked to the other side of the cell that they had commandeered. He snatched a pair of sweatpants and a tee-shirt from the pile and hurriedly changed, keeping an eye on the woman at the door just in case she tried to sneak a peak.
  
  He really wished she would. Hell, when they'd first gotten trapped in here, once they realized there was no way out, he'd entertained... thoughts. They were dreams, really. Miss Militia would train him. He'd show her how much potential he had, how good he could be if someone would give him a chance. She'd be impressed, and then one thing would lead to another and...
  
  "Are you ready?"
  
  Her hard, demanding voice interrupted his daydream, and Trevor shook himself, sliding his feet into his worn sneakers before walking that way. "Yeah, whatever. Let's just get some food."
  
  They walked, Trevor sticking close by his guardian angel's side. That was one thing he didn't have to be reminded of. The freaks in this place would tear him apart the second they had a chance. He was less than dust to them, a toy for them to pick apart at most.
  
  Without Miss Militia, who, as far as he could tell, never slept, he would've been dead (or worse) a dozen times over before the first two days had been out. She was the only reason he was alive, of that he had no doubt.
  
  It sucked. He hated feeling so fucking pathetic. Somehow, someway, he needed to do something. He had to find a way to take care of himself. Then, then maybe Miss Militia would stop seeing him as some little puppy to take care of, and start seeing him the way he wanted her to see him.
  
  " So you have returned, Chameleon Knight." The voice that came was not a singular sound, but rather, some creepy chorus that sounded like a dozen people all talking together in sync.
  
  Quickly turning his attention ahead of them, toward the sound, Trevor stopped walking. The figure who stood in their path looked like a girl barely into her teens, covered by what had once been prison sweats, but were now more of a tattered shroud.
  
  "We have no quarrel with you, Glastig Uaine." Miss Militia informed the creepy girl evenly. "We're just getting food."
  
  " Hush your restless faerie, Knight." The crazy girl raised a hand slowly, indicating Trevor, while continuing to speak with that scary many-voices-at-once chorus. "It is the boy that I will treat with now, if you desire entrance and nourishment."
  
  "Leave the boy alone, kind Faerie." Miss Militia spoke calmly, but firmly. Trevor had to do a double-take. Why the hell was she buying into this crazy bitch's faerie delusions? Seriously, that weapon she had could turn into anything she wanted it to. Why didn't she just blow this bitch's head off and let them move on? It wasn't like she didn't deserve it. She was in the Birdcage. Instead, the Protectorate woman simply continued, "He has nothing to do with this."
  
  Glastig Uaine lowered her hand, responding quietly, "Of that you are both right and wrong, Noble One. His presence disturbs the other sleepers. They believed his arrival to be a sign of their imminent release."
  
  "We're sorry to have disturbed you and your people." Miss Militia said with agonizing calmness. Didn't any of this shit bother her? "As I said before, none of that was our intention. If there's anything we can do to help restore order among your people..."
  
  Trevor thought he saw the deceptively young-looking girl smile faintly. "I ask only one thing. Before you may pass, I must speak to the boy. The fae must have words with him."
  
  When the woman remained hesitant, Trevor spoke up. "Sure, what do you w-want to talk about?" His voice cracked slightly at the end when the crazy girl had focused her gaze on him, but he got it out. He'd show Miss Militia that he wasn't useless, that he could help.
  
  Sighing slightly, the Protectorate heroine stepped out of the way, giving the shrouded girl full access to him. "Just for a moment, please. The boy has been hungry for some time."
  
  Glaistig Uaine seemed to all-but float across the floor toward Trevor, and then she stood directly in front of him. Her face was partially hidden by the rags that acted as a shroud, but he could see the curious smile as she spoke again. "The Fae are gladdened by your presence, boy. You have met the True Healer."
  
  Trevor blinked a few times at that. "The... what? Wait, healer, you mean Panacea? I saw her from a distance once, but I didn't-"
  
  The shroud moved as the girl shook her head. "She is not the True Healer. True healing goes beyond the body. Self is unimportant to the Fae. They exist beyond, where only the True Healer may reach."
  
  "I... Uhhh..." He was at a loss. "Sorry, I don't know who you're talking about then. Panacea's the best healer in the world. If you're looking for someone even better at healing than her..." He trailed off, shrugging helplessly.
  
  In response, Glaistig Uaine lifted her hand, holding what turned out to be very well drawn picture in front of his face. Immediately recognizing the figure in the drawing, yet still confused, Trevor blinked. "Tether? That new Ward girl? I think you're a little confused. She doesn't heal people."
  
  That same ghostly smile returned. "There is more than one type of healing, boy. Only one may fix what has been broken since before the Fae began their slumber. You have met her, and the Fae are stirred to happiness. They may exist without being shattered and scattered, without being broken."
  
  "Uhhhh..." Trevor worked his mouth. He had no idea what this crazy chick was rambling about. He'd never met Tether. Not that he would've objected to it. She wasn't Miss Militia, of course, but she was still definitely cute. "All right then, whatever you say. Glad to uhh, help? Or... whatever."
  
  The crazy girl was already ignoring him again. Her attention had returned to Miss Militia. "You and your charge will be safe here, Chameleon Knight. The Fae will watch over the boy and his guardian until the True Healer arrives."
  
  Frowning uncertainly, the Protectorate woman finally nodded. "Thank you, noble one. May we pass, now?"
  
  When Glastig simply curtsied and stepped aside, Trevor started to walk again. He waited until they were through the door and approaching the table laden with food before he twirled a finger next to his ear, making soft cuckoo noises.
  
  A hand shook Trevor's shoulder, dragging him out of what had been a very pleasant dream, and back to the stupid reality of his utterly unfair situation.
  
  He opened his eyes, expecting to see his constant companion. Instead, the boy found himself staring up at an unfamiliar face that was much less pleasant to look at. He jolted a bit, opening his mouth to cry out, but the mundane looking man simply covered his mouth with a hand.
  
  "Shhh." He cautioned, head shaking. "I'm not here to hurt you. My people are distracting your little bodyguard, but she'll be back shortly."
  
  When the man lowered his hand, Trevor stared at him. "Who are you? What the hell do you want? What are you doing here?" Now that he had a second to examine the intruder, he couldn't see how the guy could be a threat. He looked like a fat, middle-aged, balding man.
  
  "My people call me Teacher," the man replied softly. He held up a bar of chocolate in his other hand. "And I've come to make you an offer, Trevor."
  
  Gazing hungrily at the chocolate, Trevor hesitated for just a second before snatching it. Unwrapping the candy quickly, he asked, "What kind of offer, huh? Everyone else in this place is batshit, so what's your deal? You think you're Lucifer or something? You wanna make me a deal in exchange for my soul or some shit?"
  
  The ugly man just chuckled softly. "Hardly. No, my boy, I provide a service... in exchange for a service."
  
  Eating half the chocolate in a single bite, Trevor almost moaned out loud at the taste. Jesus, how long had it been since he'd had chocolate? Mouth still full, he mumbled, "What kinda service?"
  
  "You see," the man explained. "My power is only truly helpful to others. I am able to grant certain... mental abilities to other people."
  
  Blinking up at that, Trevor frowned, swallowing the chocolate. "What's that supposed to mean? You 'grant mental abilities'? You mean you make people smarter or something?"
  
  Again, the man just chuckled. "I mean, Trevor, that I am able to create tinkers and thinkers out of ordinary, mundane, powerless people."
  
  It took a moment for that to sink in fully, but once it did, Trevor's eyes widened. "Wait, are you saying you turn people into capes? Why the hell would they put you in here if you had a power that fucking useful?"
  
  "Jealousy." Teacher replied, waving a hand dismissively. "But their loss is your gain, Trevor. After all, being an ordinary person in this place is... very dangerous."
  
  "I noticed." Trevor grumbled. "But Miss Militia-"
  
  "Oh, yes, my mistake." Teacher raised a hand acceptingly. "Of course you wouldn't be bothered by letting a woman protect you."
  
  Squinting at that, Trevor's head shook. "What's that supposed to mean?"
  
  "Shh." Teacher rose as though to leave. "Think nothing of it. I'm glad that you're comfortable here. Being protected is nothing to be ashamed of."
  
  "Of course I'm not fucking ashamed." Trevor spat, angry now. "She's a god damn superhero. I'm just... I'm just..." He trailed off, his anger turning into doubt and uncertainty.
  
  "Normal?" Teacher supplied, raising an eyebrow. Then, after a momentary pause, he added, "You don't have to be."
  
  "What's the catch?" Trevor demanded then, sliding off his cot and standing with his arms folded. "What's the catch if I accept this 'offer' of yours?"
  
  "I can swear to you," Teacher responded easily. "That the only catch to my gift, is that once it is given, you must follow my instructions."
  
  Sure. He'd follow the guy's instructions, right up until he had what he wanted. Then Trevor was out of there. Fuck, with a thinker or tinker ability, he could actually help Miss Militia somehow. Maybe even find a way out of here, or figure a way to keep them safe so she could take a break.
  
  She'd be happy then. She'd see he wasn't useless, wasn't just a pathetic little boy for her to protect. She'd be impressed by his ingenuity, his new power. Maybe she'd even...
  
  "Fine," Trevor said, coughing to focus on the here and now. His daydreams could wait... for when they weren't dreams anymore. "Whatever you say, Teach."
  
  He extended his hand to the man. "Do your thing."
  
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  Arc 12: Mission
  Notes: Starfox - Glad you like the bonding between Madison and her new guardians. That's... important this update. ;) And Tattletale appears again as well, so hopefully you'll enjoy it. (But yes, Trevor is... not the brightest)
  
  Imageination - Trevor is TOTALLY in over his head, and he's not exactly dealing with it in the best way. As for the latter, if it helps, Pandora does appear in this update, to hopefully make up for not appearing in the last one. :)
  
  "I shouldn't be doing this," I announced as I stood, staring at the rows of shops that lay stretched out before me. It was the day after the incident with the Undersiders and Mr. Hase, and I had returned to the same mall.
  
  Beside me, Jess looked up from her wheelchair. "Hey, I said you were probably more likely to find what you want in one of those little shops downtown, but you suggested the mall."
  
  My head shook. "Not that. I mean any of this. Trevor's in..." I trailed off and lowered my voice. "Trevor's in the Birdcage, Jess. And what am I doing? I'm... I'm... goofing off."
  
  The other girl swatted my arm. "Don't be stupid. You're not goofing off. You're getting a present for your... your girlfriend, and then going on a date, a real date. Your girlfriend who happens to be one of my best friends, so there."
  
  I sighed a little. "But Trevor-"
  
  "Will survive another day," she said firmly. "Look, you said that Tattletale and Reach are going over the details of the break-in, right?"
  
  "Yeah..." I said slowly.
  
  "And that the earliest they could possibly get in there would be tomorrow, right?" She prompted.
  
  My head nodded as I bit my lip. "Yeah, true, but still-"
  
  "But nothing." Jess looked at me seriously. "Honestly, Madison, it's all right. Your brother has Miss Militia with him. I'm not going to lie and say he's safe, but can you do anything right now to make him safer?"
  
  Opening my mouth to respond, I hesitated. "I... I could... say something..."
  
  "To who?" The other girl shook her head. "You could start a panic by saying that your brother is trapped in there with one of the Protectorate heroes, but what would that accomplish, other than letting you feel for just a minute or two like you're actually doing something?"
  
  I flinched, but she wasn't wrong. Blunt, but not wrong. "If anything happens to him while I'm... stuck..."
  
  "Don't punish yourself before you even know anything about how he's doing." Jess scolded. "The last you knew, Miss Militia was keeping him safe. Let's just... assume that's continuing for now. What else can you do to help, that you haven't already done?"
  
  Sighing, I waved a hand. "Nothing. I know. This still feels kind of wrong. He's suffering in there, and I want to spend the night being... happy."
  
  Rather than respond to that, Jess poked my side with her hand. "Incoming."
  
  Looking up and over to where she had indicated, I saw Dennis approach. The red-head's thin lips were stretched into an infectious smile. "Well, hey there, Mads. Who's your friend?"
  
  I opened my mouth to point out that they knew each other already, but caught myself. "I-uhhh... this is... ummm..." Crap, I was drawing a blank. They both knew each other, but not like this.
  
  Openly smirking now, Dennis focused on Jess. "Okay, judging by poor Maddy's deer in headlights impression, you would obviously be Jess, from the other night."
  
  "And you would be Mr. Time," Jess guessed. "Considering you're a guy, and your hair isn't brown."
  
  "Nah," Dennis replied dryly. "I'm Reach. Do I have a great disguise or what?"
  
  I threw my hands up then. "Do secret identities just mean nothing to you two?"
  
  Dennis raised an eyebrow at that. "Hey, it's your fault. Who do you hang out with that's not a part of all this?"
  
  My mouth opened as I raised a finger to point at him. "That... that..." Sighing, I lowered it and sulked. "I hate you."
  
  Laughing, Dennis put an arm around me to pull me into a hug. "No, you don't. Besides, I figured it out before I even came over here. Girl in a wheelchair makes projections of monsters. Just makes sense."
  
  "Only in our world." I muttered, returning the hug briefly. "What's that for?"
  
  Releasing me, Dennis shrugged. "I figure you've gotta feel pretty bad about Trevor being stuck where he is. Just want you to know it's not your fault. Cassie and you-know-who are are still going over the floorplan."
  
  "Will they be ready for tomorrow?" Jess asked.
  
  He nodded at that. "They say they will, so... hopefully? I'm still not sure about working with bad guys, Mads."
  
  "They're not bad anymore, remember?" I pointed out. "They're free and clear."
  
  His eyes rolled. "Yeah, because that doesn't stink of corruption. If they didn't bribe, bully, or blackmail their way into those pardons, I will eat my hat."
  
  "Do you even have a hat?" I had to ask.
  
  "I will buy a hat and then eat it." Dennis amended. "Anyway, what are you guys doing here? Getting me an early birthday present?" His eyebrows waggled at the suggestion.
  
  "Well, clearly she knows what you need now." Jess smiled faintly. "A hat."
  
  Snorting, I explained, "Actually, we're here to find a present for Marissa."
  
  "What's the occasion?" He asked, looking between us.
  
  I smiled ruefully. "The occasion of, 'I really do like being able to call myself your girlfriend, even if our lives are really fucked up right now.'"
  
  "Aha." My friend nodded sagely. "A very important occasion indeed." Considering for a moment, he finally grinned once more. "I've got a few ideas you might want to check out. If you two don't mind company."
  
  I looked at Jess, who shrugged and replied, "I'm just here to let her know if she's buying anything that Mars won't like."
  
  "Perfect." Dennis gave us a thumbs up. "Let's go shopping." Pausing after that announcement, he looked at his thumb and then lowered it with a mournful sigh. "I have got to start hanging out with more dudes."
  
  Any doubts that I'd still had about the evening were mostly erased at the sight of Marissa's beautiful smile when she opened the little jewelry box that held her present. We were standing in the kitchen of my parents' home, getting ready to go out for the evening when I'd given her the gift that Dennis and Jess had helped me pick out earlier. Jess herself had made herself scarce for a few hours, saying she had other things to do.
  
  Marissa's surprised gasp when she saw the contents of the box made me tingle. "Ohhh... Mads, they're... they're beautiful."
  
  Flushing, both from pride and from the feelings that her smile was giving me, I explained. "They're Mars earrings. See, the stone inside is all red and orange and firey, like the surface of Mars. Or like your suns. I... I know they're not much, but... you really like them?" I asked, hopefully.
  
  Marissa tenderly ran her finger over the pretty red stone of the stud earrings. "I love them, Maddy." Holding the box in one hand, she used the other arm to pull me close, kissing the top of my head, then my cheek before whispering, "You didn't have to get me anything."
  
  I shrugged, self-consciously. "I just wanted you to know that... that I like you, and I... I appreciate you."
  
  Her finger tilted my chin up, and then she was kissing me with a kind of intense hunger that took my breath away. My knees tried to give out, and I had to reach up quickly to catch onto her arm before I lost my balance.
  
  When Mars finally pulled back from the kiss, I whimpered a little bit, eyes fluttering open. "O-oh... I... Ummm... uhhh... W... wow." My thoughts were drifting away like dandelion seeds on the wind, and for a moment, all I could do was stand there and smile goofily, repeating, "Wow."
  
  Looking proud of herself, Marissa straightened. "Thank you, Mads. Seriously. You didn't have to get me anything. I mean that. I just like... being with you."
  
  "And I like being with you." I assured her, taking Marissa's free hand and squeezing it. "I just... wanted you to know that... even though our lives are really messed up, and... and weird, and... crazy... that... I like you. I like spending time with you, whenever we get a chance."
  
  For a moment, the two of us just stood there and smiled dumbly at each other. Marissa recovered first, shaking herself. "Speaking of spending time, are you going to tell me what we're doing yet?"
  
  "Weeelll," I drew out the word, smiling. "Since I'm free all evening, I thought we'd start with dinner and then go see... a play."
  
  "Wow." Mars blinked as she digested that. "A play, huh? Big stuff for a first real date."
  
  Blushing, I shrugged. "It's just a production that the university's putting on. It's really not a big deal."
  
  Shaking her head as she brought my hand up to gently kiss my fingers, Marissa spoke quietly. "You're wrong, Maddy. It is a really big deal. Thank you."
  
  We walked out of the house together, hand in hand, heading for the simple sedan that Mars was using ever since she'd lost access to the other car she'd had. It didn't look nearly as cool, but it did blend better.
  
  Unfortunately, we'd barely reached the car before the phone in my pocket started to buzz insistently. Stopping short, I blinked down at it and then closed my eyes, groaning. "Just have a question, just have a question, please just have a question." Wincing, I slipped the phone out of my pocket and looked at it, sighing at the number before answering, "Please tell me you just have a question."
  
  "Sorry." Dennis, who was on console duty that evening, sounded truly regretful. "I know. I know we're interrupting, but something's up."
  
  Flinching as I looked at Marissa, who had actually taken the time to get dressed up for this, I let out a sigh. "What is it? And are you sure Kid and Glory Girl can't handle it?" They were the two scheduled for patrol.
  
  "Not unless you want to make them fight two against five," Dennis replied. "That Duelitist guy showed up, and he's got friends this time. Glory's tanking them while Kid keeps them pinned with potshots as much as possible, but they need help. Reach and Vista are already on the way, but since we don't know what exactly this new group is capable of..."
  
  I shook my head quickly. "No, no, of course not. I'll be there. Err, where are they?"
  
  "Benny's Electronics," he answered. "Apparently they just got some big shipment in yesterday. Duelitist and his group had a truck backed up to the doors and everything."
  
  "That's... five minutes away the way I travel. I'll be there in seven." I promised, before disconnecting. Then, flinching, I turned to face my girlfriend. "Mars... I-"
  
  She stopped me with a finger against my lips. I could see the disappointment, but also acceptance. "I know. It's okay, Mads. I get it. Besides, you know you're not dating a civilian, right? Why don't we go together?"
  
  My mouth opened and then shut. "You want to go with? I mean, in costume and everything?"
  
  "Sure." Marissa shrugged, already pulling me back toward the front door. "I do have powers too, you know. And if I'm going to convince people I'm not a bad guy anymore... well, then I should start doing good guy things." After a second, she added, "Besides, there's no way I'm letting you be the only one that gets to hurt these guys for interrupting our date."
  
  I grinned, starting to sprint toward the door rather than leave Victoria and Chris waiting any longer when they needed help. "You know we'll have to travel my way to get there in time."
  
  "Eh," Marissa replied. "How bad could it be?"
  
  A scream pierced the air just before the line that I had attached to Sundancer deposited the girl onto the broken cement behind the overturned van that Kid Win was using for cover. I landed just beside her, while Kid glanced up from where he had been taking a few shots around the corner of the vehicle and toward the store, where the doors had been completely caved in.
  
  When he saw us together, Chris took the time to tease, "Aww man, is it Bring Your Date To The Crime Scene Day already? I thought that was next week."
  
  "You can't see it," I informed him. "But I'm sticking my tongue out at you. Just fyi." I took a peek around the other side of the van, seeing Glory Girl fly down out of the air, straight toward a white guy in his twenties, whose right leg was clearly a prosthetic. Just before Victoria would have hit him, the guy raised his hand, manifesting a glowing blue forcefield that her fist did nothing to. "And f-my-i, what're we dealing with?"
  
  "Well at least we know what they call themselves." Chris gestured toward a bit of graffiti spray-painted onto the nearby wall.
  
  "Outliars?" I raised an eyebrow at that. "Did they misspell it, or is that supposed to be clever?"
  
  Kid's response was a shrug before he pointed off to where I could barely make out a couple of figures in the far corner of the lot. "Vista's over there, keeping their superspeed guy occupied. Calls himself Pursuit. The guy Glory Girl's tangling with said his name's... what was it... Right, Bulwark. Forcefields, apparently. Reach is-" A terrifying crash came from inside the building, and he winced. "Reach is inside, dealing with Duelitist and some woman that calls herself Scintillant. Best we can tell, she can take any source of light and reshape it. Lasers, weapons, random animals, she turned the glow from that traffic light over there into an elephant. That's what took out the doors."
  
  "That's..." I counted briefly. "four. Clockblocker mentioned five."
  
  As if on cue, a tiny figure abruptly came charging around the side of the van, knife held high. Without flinching, Kid Win let the right barrel of his jetpack point down, blowing the figure in half with a laser.
  
  It was a puppet, a marionette. The broken figure had barely hit the ground before the top half started to try to crawl toward us once more, but Chris shot it again, blowing it into wood splinters.
  
  "That would be my playmate." He jerked a thumb back toward the doors. "Some guy just inside there. He's got a dozen of these damn things, all moving around and shit. Calls himself Geppetto."
  
  "Geppetto?" Marissa put in. "Seriously? Man, first they ruin our date, then they fuck up one of my favorite movies for me."
  
  "Guess we've gotta make 'em pay for it," I said, before adding, "Think you can help Kid clear out the mad puppets while I give Reach a hand inside?"
  
  "You got it." She gave me a thumbs up, before looking at Chris. "Assuming you don't mind the company?"
  
  "Pfft." He shook his head and leaned around the corner to fire another shot. "Please, feel free. I've had all the murderous evil puppets I can handle. I don't even like those movies."
  
  Leaving those two to deal with Geppetto, I used a line to launch myself upward and toward one of the windows, while muttering to myself. "Okay guys, you really, really picked the wrong night to start shit."
  
  On the plus side, at least I no longer had to feel guilty about going on a date while Trevor was still trapped.
  
  As I came through the shattered window, avoiding the doorway where Geppetto was, I brought myself down on top of one of the checkout counters. After landing, I took in the scene within the store, adjusting to the large room that was only dimly illuminated by less than half of the available lights.
  
  The center of the sales floor had been cleared entirely, the shelves and rows of merchandise having been flung to the sides in order to make a wide circular area. A tall, black woman with her hair cut into cornrows, wearing what looked like bronze and red colored SWAT-style armor with flashlights mounted onto the shoulders and the arms, stood in the middle of the open area. I could also see a dark metallic mask over her face that covered her eyes, forehead, and nose before splitting around her mouth and chin to leave those exposed, carrying on down across her cheeks on either side.
  
  While I was orienting myself, the woman (Scintillant, apparently) did something with her hand. The flashlight on her left shoulder flared up, brightening the somewhat dim area around her. Almost as soon as the flashlight turned on, it went off again. But the beam of light remained, splitting into what looked like three miniature boomerang shapes that went spinning off across the room and toward where I could make out two figures near the customer service/returns area in the back of the store. Before the solid-light boomerangs could hit the smaller figure, she flicked a hand up and one of the nearby shelving units flew up into the air to intercept them. The boomerangs melted the shelf into a twisted, burned piece of junk, before it flew straight toward the other figure, who had been coming forward with a sword raised. The weapon cleaved through the flung shelf, scattering the remains.
  
  Before the two criminals could continue to gang up on my teammate, I activated my com to warn her. "Coming in to join your party, Reach. Got the light chick." Then I brought up a pair of lines, attaching them to the flashlights on either of Scintillant's shoulders before giving a sharp yank. Both lights were torn free of their housing, and were sent clattering along the floor.
  
  The force also yanked the other woman backwards, but she caught herself before she could fall. Spinning toward where the flashlights had gone, she activated the one on her right arm, sending a beam of light out that transformed into a bird-figure, sweeping through the air as she searched for where the attack had come from.
  
  That was my cue. Yanking myself to the floor behind the woman, I lamented aloud. "Ohhh I'm sorry. Were those yours?" As she spun to face me, I adopted a scolding posture, wagging my finger. "I have got to learn to stop stealing other people's things" With my head cocked curiously to the side, I asked, as though it had just occurred to me. "Maybe I should talk to someone about it. I don't suppose you've got some kind of Pathetic Thieves Anonymous number I could call?"
  
  Scintillant made some kind of growling sound of annoyance, lifting both of her arms with the mounted flashlights pointed at me. "I'm gonna enjoy making you shut the fuck up."
  
  While she spoke, I attached lines between the metal balls on my shoulders and the bulbs of each flashlight. The lights had barely flicked on before I sent the balls crashing into them, blowing out the bulbs and destroying each flashlight.
  
  "Really?!" I made myself sound excited. "Well that's good to hear. Most people get all upset when they're trying to shut me up. Good to hear you're enjoying the endeavor."
  
  In response, Scintillant lifted her arm. I saw a tiny penlight under her wrist come to life. Its weak beam apparently wasn't enough for her to do a lot with, but she did manage to shape it into a blade as she came for me.
  
  I started to attach new lines, but before I could, the woman dropped out of my sightline, disrupting the line-forming process. The next thing I knew, my legs were being kicked out from under me, and I landed hard on my back. A second later, Scintillant was on her knees next to me, bringing her arm down. It was all I could do to twist aside before that little light-blade of hers seared through the floor where my shoulder had been.
  
  "Fucking cunt." She cursed, dragging the blade across the floor toward me. I raised an arm to block her elbow, then lashed out with my other hand to punch her in the face, nailing her with the gauntlet and sending her head reeling backwards.
  
  I tried to follow up with a second punch to get her away from me, but she caught my arm and I found myself yanked up and over, face pressed to the floor as she put a knee in my back. "Can't move what you can't see, can ya, bitch?" She asked while keeping my face firmly away from her.
  
  "You'd think so, huh?" I asked, just to confuse matters. Then I attached a pair of lines between the front of my costume and the floor beneath it, both of which I could feel just fine. I used the lines to launch myself upward, knocking Scintillant off me in the process.
  
  Flying up about a dozen feet, I oriented myself back toward the floor. My opponent spun to intercept me with that blade of hers, but I quickly attached a line between a nearby cash register and the woman's costume, using it to send the register flinging toward her with enough force to knock her out of my way. She managed to use her pen-light blade to cut the thing, but it at least made her stumble backwards and gave me room to land.
  
  Right as I landed, Scintillant recovered. She came at me with her foot raised to kick at my side, but I hurriedly tethered her ankle to the ground, yanking her off balance so that she was forced to stumble right into the gauntlet-covered fist that I put into her stomach, doubling the taller woman over with an explosive gasp as the air ran out of her. Finally, before she could recover, I attached two lines from the back of her neck and the seat of her pants up to the ceiling, and had them yank her up a short distance before releasing her so that she fell heavily onto her stomach.
  
  I had the ziptie cuffs out in one hand when the woman rolled over. She was staring past me, up at the... Realizing where she was looking, I flung myself sideways, using a line to propel me faster. Landing hard on my side, I saw three different light-arrows that she had called down from one of the ceiling lamps hit the floor where I had been.
  
  I rolled back to my feet in time to see the woman's back for half a second as she disappeared through the manager's office door after leaping over the checkout counters. Cursing under my breath, I held a hand out and put a line against the wall next to the office, using it to yank myself there. My foot hit the door and kicked it open, and I entered just in time to see a flash of the woman disappearing out the window, too short to get any kind of line attached.
  
  I'd barely started toward the window before it, and some of the wall around it, were broken through by a grasping hand made of light that was big enough to thumb wrestle King Kong, probably crafted from one of the nearby streetlamps. I managed to drop flat onto the floor with a yelp just in time before the groping fingers broke through the wall behind me, shattering a display case of trophies and sending plaster dust raining down on me.
  
  Either she was unable to sustain something that size for long or she was focused on leaving, because the hand vanished a second later.
  
  Reach came through the door while I was lying on my back, recovering. Several parts of her costume had been cut, and I could see blood dripping from between her fingers as she held her hand tightly over her other arm. "You know we're not supposed to take naps on the job, right?" She asked, quirking an eyebrow at me. I couldn't see the lower part of her face through the half-mask, but I knew the girl was smirking.
  
  "Oh, well, now you tell me." I managed before heaving myself back to my feet. I looked around, surveying the destruction of the manager's office before glancing back to her. "Mine got away. What about yours?"
  
  In response, she cursed under her breath. "Gone. Threw some kind of fucking dust in my face, then did this shit with his sword." She nodded down at the cut on her arm. "By the time I could breathe again, he was out of there."
  
  "Shit." I sighed before shaking my head as I picked my way through the debris-laden office. "Let's go see how the others are doing, and get you a bandage or something."
  
  As we started back toward the doors, Reach glanced to me. "So, how's the date going?"
  
  Glancing around the all-but-destroyed store, the shelves that had been hurled back into random heaps or just plain melted into scrap, the piles of broken electronics, the shattered front doors, the demolished manager's office behind us, I finally shrugged. "About the same as always."
  
  As it turned out, we'd only managed to get two of the five. Sundancer and Kid Win had taken out all of Geppetto's little friends (and done a bit of damage to the parking lot with Marissa's mini-sun), but the cape himself had disappeared.
  
  Thankfully, Glory Girl had figured out how to trap her guy by pretty much copying Reach's trick. She had picked up a nearby dumpster and brought it down on top of the man to trap him inside, letting him make all the forcefields he wanted while she held it in place. As it turned out, the guy's forcefields were unable to move or grow once he made them and they couldn't intersect space taken up by anything else, so he was unable to use them to push the dumpster off himself.
  
  Vista too had fared better than we had. She'd easily exhausted her opponent by making him run in circles, trapping Pursuit in a twisting labyrinth of space that he couldn't find a way out of until Vista finally took pity on the guy and accepted his surrender.
  
  "But see, I thought the kid couldn't affect space that other people were moving through," Marissa remarked as the two of us walked along the quiet, dark street on the way back to Ethan and Sam's house. By the time I'd finished being debriefed by Photon Mom and changed clothes, the play had been half-over. We'd scrapped the idea of going to it, and spent the time we had left getting burgers and milkshakes at a nearby diner.
  
  I grinned around the straw of my strawberry shake. "She didn't. Apparently she set the whole maze up before she even got his attention. Then she just goaded him until he tried to get at her."
  
  Chuckling, Mars shook her head. "Tell Win I'm sorry I wasn't more use."
  
  "Hey, you took out all those little puppets," I pointed out.
  
  She snorted disparagingly. "Sure, and there's no way he can ever replace a bunch of wooden toys. Geppetto himself got away."
  
  "So did Scintillant." I reached out with my free hand to take hers, interlocking our fingers as we walked together down the sidewalk. "And Reach lost Duelitist too. We were two for five. Not exactly a stellar record."
  
  "Still," Mars shrugged one shoulder while squeezing my hand. "I've been getting better with my sun, but not enough to risk sending it indoors."
  
  "Yeah, I meant to say something about that." I glanced sidelong at the other girl. "Have you been practicing? Because, well, for summoning a miniature sun and sending it flying back and forth to chase down two foot tall puppets, that parking lot wasn't nearly as damaged as I'd expected."
  
  Marissa blushed a little at that. "A little bit. I don't know, it just feels... ummm... I guess it feels a little bit more... in sync? I mean, I'm still scared of it, but for the last... I don't know, since Leviathan, I've felt more... aligned with it. It's like... it's like learning how to whistle."
  
  I blinked at that. "Learning how to whistle?"
  
  She nodded. "Yeah, see, when I was a kid, I tried to learn how to whistle. My mom wanted me to do it for some talent show. But no matter what I did, no matter how she or anyone else tried to explain it, I couldn't do it. I just could not whistle for the life of me. Mom was so pissed off at me. She thought I was goofing off. I wasn't, I just couldn't get it. Then one day, it just clicked. I don't know what did it, but I could whistle. And I've been able to whistle ever since."
  
  "So you had your whistling moment with your power?" I asked, curiously.
  
  "Not that dramatic," she replied with a shrug. "I'm still not really... confident. But I've been trying, ever since I took that damn formula, to figure out a way to limit the damage it does. I've been fighting against it the whole time. I hated it."
  
  "You were working against your power instead of with it," I offered after a moment.
  
  Mars nodded. "I guess I was. I just wanted it to stop hurting people. I was so terrified that it was going to kill someone, that I was going to kill someone."
  
  "So what happened with Leviathan?"
  
  We walked in silence for a few moments before Marissa replied, "I guess it was the first time that I really let loose, the first time that I was actually trying to do as much damage as I possibly could. And when I did, it felt like I was... like I was twisting the knobs on an old stove to turn the burner up as high as it would go. I was pouring on the gas, forcing it to get bigger and to spread that heat out as far as I could make it go. I wanted to kill the damn thing. Didn't work, but... after that, I realized that if I could twist those mental knobs and make the heat go up..."
  
  "You could twist them the other way," I finished. "And make the heat go down."
  
  Marissa nodded. "Exactly. So, I've been practicing with that a little bit. It's not perfect, but I've basically figured out how to draw in the heat that my suns give off to within a foot or so of space around them."
  
  I whistled at that. "See, you're getting there. Ready to join the Protectorate yet?"
  
  Her eyes rolled. "Doubtful. I'm pretty sure they'd still rather have someone who actually has a stun setting, not just a smaller lethal setting."
  
  "Hey, I think you're very stunning." I grinned and poked her with the hand that held my milkshake.
  
  Giggling, clearly in spite of herself, Marissa shook her head. "That was terrible. Cute, but terrible." We had stopped walking, and she gestured to the nearby street sign. "This is the street you said to drop you off in front of."
  
  I hadn't wanted to walk with Mars all the way to Ethan and Sam's house. They were cool, and I totally trusted Marissa, but it still felt like it would have been a breach of trust to let her know exactly where they lived. "Yup. Here we are."
  
  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I freed my hand from hers to look down at the screen. "It's from Tattletale. We're on for tomorrow night."
  
  "You gonna be ready for it?"
  
  "Ready to break into Peesips headquarters and find out if the plans to build something that might let us teleport into the single most secure prison in the world are there, so we can rescue my brother and everyone else that doesn't belong there?" I asked before shrugging. "Sure, why not. I'm not doing anything else then."
  
  "Peesips." Mars shook her head ruefully. "They really should've come up with a better acronym than P-C-I-P-S."
  
  I snickered in spite of myself. "Yeah, I think they're kicking themselves now."
  
  She kissed me then, gently. "Whatever happens tomorrow, I'll be there with you."
  
  Smiling faintly, I shivered a little. "Thank you, Mars. I... thanks."
  
  Backing away, Marissa shrugged while teasing, "Hey, I've gotta keep an eye on you. After all, you still owe me a real date."
  
  I watched until she'd walked out of sight around the corner. Then I stuck my hands in my pockets and started for home.
  
  My key was barely in my hand to let myself in once I arrived at the house before the door swung open. Ethan was there, looking more upset than I'd ever seen him.
  
  "She's gone." He announced, his voice sounding strained.
  
  "Huh?" I stared up at him, eyes wide. "What-Sam?"
  
  "She's gone. She disappeared." Ethan looked down at me, his mounting frustration and tension obvious. "She was sorting through the mail. She said something about someone sending you... crystals or something. Then I heard this loud pop and... when I came into the hall, she was gone."
  
  My mouth opened and shut, as the mounting realization came over me. "They tried to get me again." I said aloud, my voice small and weak against the thought of what had happened. "Whoever's doing this, they tried to get me like they got Trevor... and... and..."
  
  "And they got Puppy instead." Ethan's voice was a growl, all humor gone from it. Now all I could hear in his words was the unspoken promise of pain to the person who had stolen his wife. "They took her... to the god... damn... Birdcage."
  
  12.03
  
  "So what did he say?" I asked Ethan a couple of hours later, as the two of us stood just outside of Armsmaster's office and workshop. I had been waiting in the hallway for the two men to get done talking.
  
  Ethan, looking understandably agitated, kept walking past me. "Talk about it after we're out of here. I don't really feel like standing in here." He made a point of looking straight up at a camera in the corner. "Too many people paying attention to things that are none of their business."
  
  I followed along, and Ethan didn't say anything else the whole time we were on the private ferry that led from the floating Protectorate base to the mainland. He didn't actually speak again until we had reached his truck and were pulling out of the lot. Then, he finally looked at me. "I just had to sit in there and pretend I had no idea where Sam was. I had to lie and act clueless while Colin promised he'd ask Dragon to go over the footage of all the mail you got, and who sorted it until they find out who managed to get the teleport device or whatever it was past the screening process. My wife is in danger, I know exactly where she is, but I couldn't tell him because there's nothing he could do about it anyway."
  
  I was quiet for a moment before saying, "Maybe we should have told him. You could have had me come in with you. I would've told Armsmaster what I knew. We could both have told him about Professor Haywire's notes." I had already told both Ethan and Sam about what we had learned from Mr. Hase. Battery had said that she had someone else that she wanted to talk to about that, but I hadn't heard anything else before now, when it was too late. I didn't even know who she'd wanted to talk to.
  
  Ethan's hands were tight on the steering wheel as he shook his head, and I saw him brush his thumb over a rubber band that had been wound around the gearshift. "No. Colin's a decent guy, and a good person to have in your corner. But if we put this in his hands, he's going to want to be all official about it. And if he hears that Dragon and Costa-Brown are behind it staying hush hush, let alone that your info comes from the Alcott girl and Pandora, he'll clamp down on anything we could actually do. Not just to be an ass, he'll think it's the right thing to do. Like I said, he's a good guy, but he's a company man. He'll toe the line, and he definitely won't take risks like going behind Costa-Brown's back. Too rigid and stuck in his ways, the Protectorate's ways."
  
  "So, what are we gonna do?" My voice was quiet as I looked at the man, knowing just how much he was hurting, how angry he was.
  
  "You've got something going on, don't you? You told us some of it, the facts, but you've got more planned."
  
  His wife was missing. I wasn't going to pretend that I didn't know what he was talking about, or make him explain further. "Something to rescue the people like my brother... and now Sam? Yes, we... we've been working on something."
  
  "The responsible adult part of me is supposed to tell you to leave it alone, and just give everything you know to the adults that are supposed to take care of situations like this."
  
  "And the rest of you?"
  
  Ethan took in a long breath before letting it out. "Tell me what you've got planned, how you were planning on dealing with this before Sammy disappeared."
  
  I proceeded to do just that. I told him that we planned on breaking into the PCIPS building with the help of the Undersiders to try to either find the lost plans, or find out if they'd been taken and by who.
  
  When I finished talking, Ethan nodded slowly. "Sounds to me like what you might end up needing is a distraction to keep people busy and eyes off their security screens."
  
  Blinking, I pointed out mildly, "You know, I'm pretty sure that they'll notice if you or your previous alter-ego start attracting attention. I mean, I get needing to help, but Assault or Madcap making waves is going to cause more problems than it solves. And for the record, I wouldn't really feel like explaining to Sam when we get her out why you're going the other direction on your way inside, for good."
  
  "Hey," Ethan glanced toward me. "I can be subtle when I need to. When I've got a good reason to be."
  
  "What do you have in mind that's going to get enough attention, but not be linked to you?"
  
  For the first time since I'd found out about Battery, he smiled. "Just trust me. I'll take care of it."
  
  "So tell me again why you guys get to go in and we're stuck sitting out here babysitting the Junior Villain." Victoria demanded the next night, as both our team and the four Undersiders stood in the park across the street from what had been the building belonging to MedHall, Kaiser's civilian identity's pharmaceutical company, and was now the headquarters for PCIPS.
  
  "Hey!" Both Grue and Freezetag objected. The former went on to say, "We were cleared of all crimes."
  
  Meanwhile, the girl continued with, "Who you calling Junior?"
  
  Roughly half of us, those going inside the building, weren't in our normal costumes. Instead, we wore simple black infiltration suits and masks that Tattletale had procured from somewhere. They came with night-vision lenses that I was already planning on asking to have incorporated into my actual mask.
  
  Sighing, Victoria looked at me pleadingly. "Don't make me sit out here with her. I'm gonna kill her."
  
  Freezetag muttered, "Not if I put you in time-out and go get a burrito, you're not."
  
  I shook my head at the blonde girl's renewed pleading. "Sorry, Glory, you know how it goes. It's gonna be hard enough to get through this place without having everybody coming along with us. You, Clockblocker, Freezetag, and Kid Win have to stay out here to play backup just in case."
  
  Victoria turned her attention to Dennis, who shrugged. "Sorry, I may be the leader on paper, but this isn't a Wards mission. Her brother and her guardian are the ones that are missing. It's her call." That said, he still looked at me with what I was sure was a frown behind his mask. "But I'm still not sure about the choices of who you're taking inside."
  
  "Like I said before," I adjusted the fit of my unfamiliar mask while explaining again. "I need to go in just in case we run into any traps that Kaiser left behind, Reach has to direct us as much as she can, Tattletale has to fill in where Reach can't, Vista and Vacate can both help us get through areas quicker, and Grue can black out any cameras they've got. You and Freezetag, your powers are too well known and obvious when they're used. Victoria's... well... less than subtle. Plus there's the fact that her aunt runs the place. And none of Kid Win's inventions are good for infiltration. But they are good to cover us if we get into trouble and need help."
  
  "What about Assault?" Chris asked. "Didn't you say he was going to make a distraction for us?"
  
  "Yup." I nodded. "That'll be starting any time now, and as soon as it does, we've gotta move."
  
  "But just in case anything happens that he can't handle without giving away who he is," Tattletale put in from where she stood with her team, wearing a suit not that different from my own. "There should be people out here to play cover."
  
  Victoria scowled at Tattletale. "I haven't figured out what your other angle here is yet, but when I do..."
  
  I couldn't see the Undersider's face, but I knew she was smirking as she replied, "What exactly is it going to take for you to accept that we're on the same side?"
  
  "A lobotomy," Victoria answered flatly. "Poorly done, with dull instruments and a blind surgeon."
  
  "Be nice." I coaxed my teammate. "The way we have it now it's three of us and three of them going in. That's as fair as we can make it. We chose who goes based around who can get in and out the easiest, without leaving any idea of who was there."
  
  Then I leaned in closer to Dennis and whispered, "And because I need to know that if anything happens to us in there, you're going to keep pushing any way you can to get Trevor and the others out."
  
  "You know we will." He confirmed with a nod. "But you're all coming back out. Just make sure you don't use your powers in a way that lets them know for sure who you are."
  
  Victoria stepped over to me then, taking me by the arm to walk a few steps away. "Hey, I know I said I'd be there for you, and I am. I totally am. But I don't like the idea of working with these guys. I'm not just saying that. I don't trust them, and I think we could do better by just talking to Aunt Sarah and letting her know what's up."
  
  "Maybe we could." I acknowledged. "But if we do, and she has to put in an official report, that puts her in danger. This way, she has complete deniability."
  
  The other girl hesitated before sighing. "Fine. But... be careful. Don't take your eyes off of them. I don't believe that they've stopped being bad guys for a second."
  
  From where she was standing, Vista spoke up. "Hey, I think that's the signal."
  
  Looking to where she was pointing, I saw something that made me glad that even though the mask I was wearing wasn't mine, it still hid the fact that my mouth was hanging open in surprise.
  
  "Wow," Chris said slowly. "When that guy says he'll cause a distraction, he really means it."
  
  Up and down the street, we could see every single car within several blocks had floated off the ground, hovering anywhere between a dozen and twenty feet in the air before they began to lazily drift back and forth, bumping against one another while horns blared and lights flashed on and off.
  
  "How did he... how is he... that's not even what he..." Dennis was obviously gaping as well, hand raised to helplessly point at the floating vehicles.
  
  "Hey," I shrugged. "He's good at his job."
  
  Even as I said that, several of the vehicles floated through the air on a collision course for the building, breaking a few windows on a couple floors and setting off the alarms. The main parking lot was rapidly filling with security guards and PCIPS agents trying to figure out what was going on.
  
  "And that would be our cue to go ahead and set off other alarms while they deal with the first ones." the fact was, even with Tattletale, breaking into a place as busy and as secure as the new PCIPS building wasn't going to happen without being noticed. Doing it this way, we hoped, would give the people too much to deal with before we could get in and out.
  
  Or at least that was the plan. Turning to the others, I asked, "Everyone ready?"
  
  "Ready." Grue gave a short nod for his group, raising a hand to cover Freezetag's mouth without even needing to look and see that she had been starting to say something.
  
  "Sure, why the hell not?" Reach put in. "I've been a good guy long enough. Let's spice things up with some felony breaking and entering."
  
  Pointing at the the cameras above two different lamp posts and the one by the side door that we were focused on, Grue summoned little clouds of darkness over each of them. Then Vista did her thing, shortening the distance between us and the doorway until the six of us could take a single step and arrive right next to the door.
  
  The second we arrived, Reach put her hand on the door. It ripped inward off its hinges, falling to the floor with a heavy bang that was lost amongst the deafening sound of all of the other alarms already going off.
  
  We moved in, and then everyone reached out to catch hold of Vacate. Fully rested since Vista had taken care of getting us across the long, empty street and parking lot, he was able to make his time-stop corridor immediately. Reach had described this corridor well enough that he already knew just how long to make it, and where we were going.
  
  As soon as the tunnel was made, we sprinted forward, heading for the unlabeled door a hundred feet away that Reach claimed would lead to stairs. Once we made it, I took a moment to look around to see if we were clear.
  
  "Two guys there," Tattletale pointed to a pair of men standing thirty feet away, facing the opposite direction as they stared out the windows at the floating vehicles. "Nobody else with sight line to us."
  
  Grue cautioned, "Everyone stay quiet. Let's just get through this door before they realize we're here."
  
  Vacate dropped the tunnel and we were as silent as possible, standing a few dozen feet away from the PCIPS agents. There was a keycard reader next to the door, but Reach ignored it and simply put her hand against this door as well. Instead of tearing it off its hinges, she behaved more subtlety by forcing it open at the doorjamb just as yet another window was shattered by a floating vehicle.
  
  Grue went first to black out the cameras in the stairwell. Then, one by one, the rest of us backed through the open door before the distracted agents could notice us.
  
  "Stop right there!" A voice demanded. We twisted around, finding a man in a security uniform, holding his pistol. "Nobody... nobody move."
  
  We'd planned for something like this, fortunately. Grue extended his hand. As soon as he did, I attached a line between his glove and the gun, yanking the weapon out of the man's grip and giving it to Grue. That way, it looked like he was the one performing the telekinetic trick, throwing suspicion off of me while they looked for a male around Grue's height that could do something like that.
  
  Once the gun was disabled, I yanked the man's radio off his belt, then pulled him toward us. Once he was close enough, Tattletale stepped in and injected him with something in a syringe. The man immediately dropped, slumping to the floor.
  
  Noticing my look, she held the syringe up. "He'll be fine, it'll just knock him out for a couple hours."
  
  I glanced toward Vista, and she nodded, scrunching her nose in concentration as she gazed upward, past all the flights of stairs before making a twisting gesture with her hands. "Done."
  
  Curiously, I gave a little hop, then immediately yelped as I found myself a good eight stories higher than I expected to be. Reaching out, I caught hold of the nearby railing before I could fall back down (not that it was a long drop given the way that Vista's powers worked) and hauled myself over it.
  
  The others followed suit, and we continued up that way, Vista compressing the space so that we could jump seven or eight floors at a time. In no time at all, we had reached the top floor, where Reach said Kaiser kept his true trophies. Not in his office, as I'd expected, but in a room down the hall that had ostensibly been used for conferences.
  
  We had to go through two more security guards on our way, carefully leaving each unconscious with more prepared syringes from Tattletale. I felt bad about it. After all, these guys were just doing their jobs. We were breaking the law, after all.
  
  Eventually though, we reached the room in question. This one Tattletale opened, using a keycard stolen from one of the now-unconscious guards.
  
  It was a truly massive conference room, probably large enough to play a regulation basketball game inside. There was a long table that took up most of the room, flanked by comfortable leather chairs. At one end of the room was a smaller, more personal desk with a computer mounted on it, and behind it there was a projection screen.
  
  Without wasting time, Reach put her hand on the table and focused, ripping the thing off the ground and pitching it sideways.
  
  As she knelt by the floor, Vacate asked, "Yo, how you know all this shit anyway, huh? Wouldn't think some little girl like you would be in the big man's main confidence, know what I'm sayin'?"
  
  "You guys aren't the only ones that know how to find out secrets." She replied, focusing on the floor. As she pressed her hands against it, there was a rumbling sound. Then part of the floor was torn up and out, revealing a large safe mounted onto some kind of hydraulic contraption that was obviously meant to push up and out when it was used correctly.
  
  "Ready for this?" I asked Cassie, already starting to put lines between the ceiling and the door of the safe.
  
  In response, she cracked her knuckles and nodded, brushing her hand over the safe itself before leaning back and out of the way.
  
  We worked together, each of us yanking upward on the safe door. But even with the force that the two of us could expend, it still would have taken too long to force that safe to open.
  
  Fortunately, we still had Vista. While we worked at tearing the safe door up, she focused on creating small spatial distortions around it, breaking it up here and there.
  
  Together, the three of us managed to do enough damage to finally tear that door off, revealing... an empty safe.
  
  "Damn it!" Reach glowered at it. "This has to be it. Someone beat us to it."
  
  "Probably the guy that's been using the plans in the first place." Tattletale put in from where she sat at the smaller desk, using the computer there. "And I think I've got something."
  
  "What?" I asked, stepping that way. "We really need to hurry."
  
  "Yeah, yeah." She waved that off before continuing to type away. "There's a camera in the corner up there, behind the mirror." Her hand gestured vaguely up into the corner. "It's not connected to the main security, so it was obviously something from Kaiser's era that they haven't found yet. I already shut down the feed and erased the recording, but look at this."
  
  We gathered around the computer as she went on. "Looks like the camera pops on whenever that safe gets accessed. And look at what we have for the last person accessing it..."
  
  As we watched the screen, I saw a thin, clearly drug-ravaged white guy standing in the room. He was rubbing his hands together nervously as he stared down at the open safe before reaching out to grab a briefcase that was in it.
  
  He was familiar. I was trying to figure out why, when Vacate blurted. "Dude! That's Eddie!"
  
  The rest of us turned to stare at him, and it finally clicked. "You know him?" I knew he did. It was the guy that Vacate had been with when I first met him, out of costume. The Merchant tinker who had shot Pandora with his cobbled together laser pistol.
  
  "Sure, yeah, course I know him." Vacate was nodding. "We ran for awhile, but last I knew Wetdream was taking him in. I didn't know he got out again. I wonder why he ain't called me..."
  
  "Can we focus on what's important?" Grue pleaded. "Is he a tinker or does he know anyone who could use those plans?"
  
  "Sure." Vacate shrugged. "I mean, he was never all that good at making his own stuff. Eddie's ahhh, whatcha call it... focus, his focus was on making other people's stuff. He could like, study something someone else made, or like, their blueprints or whatever, and copy it."
  
  We all stared at him. Grue was the first to find his voice. "Do you mean to tell me... that you knew we were looking for a tinker that somehow reproduced and improved on another tinker's plans... and you didn't think that this could be relevant?! "
  
  As annoyed as even I was at that, I noticed something. "Look." I pointed at the screen, where the video had still been playing. "He's calling someone."
  
  Staring intently, Tattletale watched him dial, before taking out a phone of her own. "And... got it." She hit the same buttons he had, then set the phone to speaker.
  
  It rang three times before an annoyed voice answered, "This better be good. What is it?"
  
  Behind the mask, my eyes widened. I knew that voice. I knew who Eddie the copycat tinker had been calling just as he stole the plans that would eventually lead to teleporting people into the Bird Cage.
  
  It was Trickster.
  
  " He did what?! "
  
  I winced at Marissa's furious bellow, holding up both hands. "I'm just telling you what we know. The guy who stole the plans for the teleporter called Trickster while he was doing it."
  
  It hadn't been difficult to escape the building. Reach had blown out the window of the conference room, and then I had used tethers to yank each of us to the roof of the building across the street. We'd met up with the others and shared what we knew. Then I gave Ethan a call to let him know he could stop whatever he was doing, and what we had found out, before going back to my parents house to talk to Marissa and Jess about Krouse. Meanwhile, the Undersiders were going to see about finding Eddie, since Vacate knew him.
  
  Poor Mars just stood there on the other side of the kitchen table, gaping at me. Silence reigned for a minute before her attention turned slowly to the girl next to her. "You don't... have any idea what..."
  
  "Of course not." Jess shook her head firmly. "I would've said something, Mars. I don't know what the hell's going on. But if Krouse is behind this whole thing, if he's the one that's been teleporting people into the Birdcage..."
  
  "If he is, I'm gonna make him wish the Simurgh killed him when she transported us here." Marissa growled, pushing away from the table. "That son of a bitch just went too damn far."
  
  "Marissa-" Jess started to say.
  
  "No, Jess." Marissa turned back to her friend. "No. We've put up with enough of his bullshit. I'm not gonna say that Cody was right, because he was a psychopath too, but that doesn't make Krouse better. Just because they hate each other doesn't mean one is good and the other is bad. They're both crazy pieces of shit, we just happened to choose Krouse's specific brand of crazy. We let him convince us we were doing the right thing, that slowly moving across the country and using our powers to get money so we could save Noelle was the right thing to do. But what if there is no saving Noelle? What if we just made everything worse, compromised our morals and did... did all of this for nothing? And now he's... he's doing this garbage. "
  
  Breathing in and out a few times to steady herself, Marissa gazed at her friend. "I'm done, Jess. I'm done protecting him. I'm done convincing myself to give it more time, that we have to be loyal. That was when the group, the team, were the only people we had, the only people we could trust. But that's not true anymore. I trust Madison." She gestured to me. "And I don't trust Krouse."
  
  Jess remained quiet, looking contemplative for a few seconds before her head slowly nodded. "I know. I know what you mean. I just..." She sighed and looked to me. "No offense, I believe you. I just hoped that... somehow we could have the best of both worlds." A wry smirk touched the girl's face then, as she shifted in her wheelchair. "So to speak. I hoped we could leave Krouse, but still stay... at least somewhat allies. Because... Noelle..."
  
  Her eyes turned away from me, and I nodded. "I get it. Believe me, I wish I didn't have to tell you about this. I wish it was some other guy. But Trickster is where the trail leads. It was his voice, I swear it."
  
  Slowly nodding, Jess rubbed a hand over her face briefly. "Then, I guess we have to talk to him."
  
  "Oh, we'll talk all right." I had never seen Marissa as angry as she clearly was now. Her fist was clenched tight. "We'll make him tell us what the fuck he did, and un-the-fuck-do it, or he's going to find out exactly how bad of a sunburn he can get and still survive."
  
  Jess reached out to put a hand against the other girl's side, bracing her before she looked at me. "I guess that explains why they kept trying to get you into the Birdcage. Krouse and Noelle hate you. They think you... well, that you stole their friends away from them."
  
  Flinching at that, I shook my head. "That's not what happened. If they'd just... if Trickster would just... if he wasn't a..."
  
  "I know." Nodding, Jess slumped back into her chair. "Trust me, I know. Noelle... I don't think it's her fault. This... whatever's happening to her, it's messing with her head. But Krouse, I don't know if the Simurgh affected him more than the rest of us, or what. But he's out of control."
  
  "Then it's time to go put him back under control," Marissa said sharply, looking at me. "He's been going after Mads. He trapped her brother in the worst prison in the word, because he was trying to trap her there. No more loyalty, Jess. We have to stop him, whatever that takes."
  
  "You're right." Jess let out a low sigh. "I'll send Luke a message, and find out where they are right now." Her gaze moved to me. "Unless you want to sleep first?"
  
  I shook my head. "Couldn't sleep right now even if I tried."
  
  She nodded, before taking her phone out and sending a text.
  
  While Jess was doing that, Marissa came around the table and took my hand with the one that she wasn't clenching into a tight fist. "I'm sorry, Madison. I didn't think Krouse would go that far. I never even considered that the person behind your brother and Miss Militia, and now Battery, could be him ."
  
  Squeezing her hand, I managed a weak little smile. "I know, Mars. He didn't occur to me either, even though I figured he wasn't very happy with me stealing one and... well, now two of his friends away."
  
  Marissa opened her mouth to say something else, before frowning. "Huh..." She thought for a moment before cursing. "That son of a bitch."
  
  "What's wrong?"
  
  "When did Trevor disappear?" She prompted, a scowl settling into her features.
  
  Blinking, I hesitated before offering, "During the Leviathan fight..."
  
  "And what happened between you and Trickster right before that?" Mars asked.
  
  "I threatened him," I said, slowly realizing what she was getting at. "I told him that if he tried anything to get at you, I was going to see it as a violation of the truce."
  
  "And then Battery disappears days after Jess leaves him." Marissa's voice was hard. "That piece of shit thinks he's being fair. They didn't accidentally get Trevor when they were aiming for you. They were trying for him, because Krouse decided that if you 'took his friends', he'd take your family. He couldn't take your parents because of Coil, but... god... damn it!" Her fist hit the table and she turned toward the other girl. "Where are they, Jess? Tell me Luke replied."
  
  I bit my lip, frowning. "But what about Miss Militia? Why would he take her?"
  
  "We'll ask him that once we bounce his face off the pavement a few dozen times."
  
  Jess finally looked up from her phone. "Luke's ready for us. They're still at the church." She glanced to me then. "Hey, umm, you sure you're okay to go with? I mean, somehow going to pick an argument with the guy that we think has been transporting people into the Birdcage somehow seems like... well, might be a bad idea for you. I don't think Krouse will do anything to Mars and me, especially since I won't actually be there physically, but you..."
  
  "I'm going," I said flatly. "If he is the one doing this, I owe him. And no way I'd leave Marissa and you alone, even if you don't think he'd try anything. Neither of you thought he'd do any of this either." I smiled a little. "Besides, I've got an idea of how to deal with that..."
  
  The church that Jess had mentioned was an old, rundown place that probably hadn't seen a congregation in at least five years, if not longer. It was a dark, damp place, where the weeds had long-since overgrown the actual grass, and what had been a nice wrought iron fence surrounding the property was rusted, with half of it already missing, probably scavenged for the metal.
  
  Marissa and I walked through the entrance together, both in costume, with Jess's newest creation prowling up behind us. She had made what I thought probably looked like a panther, but it was hard to tell for sure, because of the fact that its fur kept changing colors, blending in with its surroundings like a chameleon and making it difficult to make out details.
  
  When we came through the doors together we found ourselves in what had clearly once been a beautiful room, full of dozens of rows of ornate wooden pews facing the alter at the front. Most of the wood was rotted through now, and I could smell things I really didn't want to know anything else about.
  
  Right after we entered, a voice called out from the front, where the priest would have been. "You know, when Luke said that you guys wanted to talk, he didn't mention that you were bringing along your pet."
  
  Trickster was standing up there, in full costume. A few feet away, in the west corner near the stained glass window, I could see Ballistic standing with his single arm gripping the railing next to him.
  
  "Don't fucking call her that. And you're a liar anyway." Marissa couldn't keep the scorn and distaste out of her voice. "Why else would you be all dressed up?"
  
  Trickster gave a little bow of acknowledgment. "I said that he never said you were bringing her. Not that I couldn't figure it out." Stepping down from the pulpit, he added, "Besides, you haven't exactly come wearing party hats. What about you, Jess?" He was gazing past me. "That form supposed to let you stay out of my sight?"
  
  "Speaking of out of your sight, where's Sophia?" I interrupted, stopping halfway up the aisle. "I thought you were keeping her with you.."
  
  His shoulders raised in a shrug. "I sent her downstairs. I didn't think our meeting needed to be... plagued by that bit of drama."
  
  "Drama?" I glared at him. "You mean the 'drama' where I take her back to prison where she belongs, for killing my parents?! " Try as I might, I couldn't stop my voice from going up. I'd told myself that we were focusing on getting Trevor and the others back, but just the thought of being near where Sophia was made me want to damn everything else and find her. One way or another, I'd put her back in the cell where her psychotic ass belonged.
  
  "That was Coil's order." Trickster said quietly. "Sophia had no choice-"
  
  "No, see, that's where you're wrong." I took a few more steps that way, eyes centered on him. "She had every choice. Every decision she made led her to that. She chose to be a vicious, crazy little bitch who doesn't care about anyone but herself. Maybe Coil made her make that one decision, but every choice she made before that led to her being in that position, and even then, she could have chosen not to kill innocent people."
  
  "So she should have chosen to die then?" Trickster asked, idly. "Would you have chosen to die?"
  
  "If it was between that and killing innocent people..." I nodded. "Yes."
  
  I couldn't see Trickster's expression through his red face-mask, but I had the feeling that he was staring at me like I was an alien or something.
  
  "Is that why you're here?" Ballistic broke the silence, stepping closer. "To take Shadow Stalker to justice?"
  
  As much as I wanted to say yes, I shook my head. "Actually, we thought we'd start with Krouse here. Maybe get a little justice for the shit he's been doing."
  
  "Excuse m-"
  
  I let Trickster get that far before opening my glove, which had been clenched into a tight fist. A blue washcloth that I'd grabbed from the bathroom lay in my palm. I connected two lines between the cloth and either side of the man's mask. Then I sent the rag snapping that way, letting it slap against his face, pinning it there so that it completely covered his eyes, cutting him off from using his power.
  
  While he was prying at the washcloth, trying in vain to remove it, I used a third line to yank Krouse straight to me, before driving my fist into his gut, driving the air out of him in a rush as he dropped to his knees, choking for breath.
  
  "Hey!" Ballistic was striding toward me. "We never agreed-"
  
  The lithe, almost invisible form of Genesis dropped into his way. "Stop, Luke. You don't know what he's been doing."
  
  Beside me, Marissa had grabbed Trickster's mask, and she nodded at me. I obliged by removing the blindfold, and Marissa yanked mask up and off, revealing a man with light brown skin and a long, thin nose. There was also a star drawn in marker on his forehead. "Use your power and I swear to god you'll regret it, Krouse. I want to look you in the eye while you tell us why you attacked Madison's family."
  
  From somewhere to the side, I could hear Ballistic blurt, "Wait, what?!"
  
  Sucking in air as he struggled to breathe, Krouse blinked a few times, looking back and forth between the two of us. "I... what exactly am I being acc-"
  
  The sound of Marissa slapping Krouse filled the room, and he pitched over sideways, holding his hand against his face. "Fuck! Mars, I never attacked her family! What the hell?!"
  
  "Come off it, Krouse." I shook my head. "I know it was you that had my brother and the others teleported into the Birdcage."
  
  As planned, Genesis added from where she was, "And if you try that shit here and now, Krouse, I will take my own physical body and call the Protectorate to tell them exactly where you are, where Noelle is. So don't try it."
  
  From his position on the floor, Krouse stared up at me. "You... you're crazy. Teleporting people into the Birdcage? If I could-"
  
  "I heard your voice," I informed him. "It was you. Remember when you got that call a couple hours ago and no one said anything? I was there. We dialed the same number that the guy who built the teleporter that's sending people into the Birdcage called while he was stealing the plans for it , and you answered the god damn phone."
  
  "Whoa, whoa." Ballistic held his remaining hand up. "One sec. You called a couple hours ago?"
  
  "Yes." I didn't look away from Trickster. "He answered the phone and said, 'this better be good.'"
  
  "Uh, no he didn't." I shot a look at Ballistic, and his head was shaking. "Sorry, but look, I haven't left his side all night. We went out for dinner around seven, and I've been with him the whole time since then. He never used the phone."
  
  I blinked, looking from Ballistic back to the unmasked Trickster. "That's impossible. I know it was his voice."
  
  Abruptly, Krouse started to laugh. He tipped back over onto his side, chuckling as his shoulders shook with amusement. "Oh. That's what he was doing." Lifting his gaze again, he shrugged. "It wasn't my voice that you heard. It was my clone's."
  
  While I stared in shock at that, Marissa actually slapped him again. "God damn it, Krouse! You let Noelle make a clone of you?!"
  
  "We had to test it!" He shouted back at her, starting to pick himself up off the floor. "It was after Panacea did her thing. I had to see if it worked or not. Guess what, it didn't. The healer failed, and another me popped out."
  
  "And you didn't think to mention that there was another, even more psychotic, you running around? " That was Jess, prowling up on the other side of him. "Maybe you could have let us know something about that."
  
  "It was none of your business." He shot back. "We were handling it."
  
  "Handling it?!" I resisted the urge to punch him again, barely. "How is this handling it? He's working with some tinker from the Merchants to teleport people like my brother into the Birdcage! Why would he be doing that?"
  
  Krouse shrugged. "Who knows why the clones do what they do. Anyway, his power's different from mine. Somehow he can switch places with anyone, anywhere in the world. But only people who match his general description of adult male, and only for a limited time. Usually anywhere between two minutes and twenty. Seems like the length is random."
  
  I paused, squinting before pointing at the star on his forehead. "That's what that's for, isn't it? That's why you're keeping Sophia around, so she can stun him if he switches places with you and doesn't have that mark on his head."
  
  Smiling faintly, Krouse nodded. "Different symbol every few hours, just in case."
  
  "I wondered about that," Ballistic observed quietly. "Just figured it was Krouse being Krouse."
  
  "Why haven't you taken him down yet?" Marissa demanded, still glaring at her former friend.
  
  "Ah, well, it ended up being a little more complicated than I thought it would," Trickster gave another shrug. "Somehow, the other me managed to pick up some tinker skills of his own."
  
  I blinked at that. "He... what do you mean he picked up tinker skills of his own? How does someone just 'become' a tinker?"
  
  "Hell if I know, why don't you ask him?" Trickster scowled at me briefly. "No, really, go bother him for awhile and take that headache off my hands."
  
  "I would," I growled. "If I knew where to find him. I haven't seen 'another you' running around."
  
  Chuckling again, Trickster met my gaze. "You've seen him, you just didn't know you were seeing him. Like I said, he's picked up some tinker skills somehow. So who do you know that's a tinker whose face you haven't seen, who showed up riiiight around the same time that the other clone did?"
  
  I thought briefly before realizing who he meant. "Defiant. The independent in the white and gold power armor with the laser blade. The guy who refused to join the Protectorate. He's..."
  
  "My clone." Krouse acknowledged with a nod, still smirking even as he rubbed his face where Marissa had slapped him. "So go bother him."
  
  This time, I couldn't help myself. I punched Krouse, knocking him back to the floor with a cry. "Fuck! I told you it wasn't me!" He held his now-bleeding nose.
  
  "I know." I said flatly, while turning to leave the church before I did anything worse. "But you're still an asshole."
  
  None of us spoke again until we were far away from the church. Finally, once the three of us (well, two and Genesis's creation) stood in a field behind a trio of houses in a cul-de-sac about four blocks away, I turned to look at Marissa. "You think he bought it?"
  
  "Sure, of course he did." The other girl replied easily. "If there's one thing Krouse is sure of, it's his ability to manipulate others. He definitely believes that he's convinced you to leave him alone, at least for now."
  
  Sitting back on the panther's haunches, Genesis asked, "Do you believe the clone story?"
  
  I hesitated before nodding. "Yeah, I do. I mean, I still think he's a lying piece of shit, but about that I believe him."
  
  "Yeah, it sounds like something he'd do, and then never tell us about," Marissa agreed. "But if he's telling the truth about that, do you still want to go through with the rest of it?"
  
  "I do." I looked at the other two seriously. "Just because Krouse didn't actually attack my brother and the others doesn't make him any better. He created the guy that's doing it, and then kept lying about it. He knew what the guy was doing, hell, he knew what his cover identity was. He could have said something at any time, and he didn't. Not to mention the fact that he's hiding someone like Noelle in a basement and using someone like Shadow Stalker as a bodyguard." My head shook. "No, he might not be the bad guy in this instance, but he's far from innocent."
  
  Girl and panther looked at one another, before turning back to me. Marissa nodded. "You're right. And-gaaaaaaah!"
  
  She jumped while yelping, and I turned to look the way that she was staring.
  
  A lone figure stood behind me, having somehow appeared out of thin air. She blinked at Mars. "Are you in pain?"
  
  "No." Marissa shook her head quickly. "You just scared me, damn."
  
  "We frightened you?" Pandora seemed to consider that for a moment, before her mouth turned up and she showed her teeth in the most threatening and dangerous smile I could ever remember seeing.
  
  Poor Mars shrank back reflexively while I managed, "Uhh, P-Pandora? What are you doing?"
  
  She kept showing her teeth. "We are smiling. Dinah-Friend says that smiling assures others that we mean them no harm."
  
  "Sure..." I nodded slowly. "Tell her to keep working on that with you. For now, could you... sort of... stop?"
  
  On request, the clone immediately dropped her expression back to neutral. "It is done, we are in place."
  
  "Are you sure you're okay with this, Pandora?" I asked, hesitantly. I still wasn't sure exactly how to talk to the all-too-dangerous clone. She was... better about the whole omnicidal thing. Clearly her promises meant more to her than they did to most normal people. She had made the deal with Crystal that she wouldn't kill innocents or anyone who wasn't a threat to her, and thus far (as far as I could tell), she had kept that promise.
  
  Her head tilted as she stared at me with that blank, emotionless look. I'd realized before that it wasn't that she didn't have emotions, but rather, she lacked the understanding of how or when to express them properly. Like the whole smiling thing. She was an alien, trying to understand human nuances."We do not understand the question. We have agreed to your request. Is there now a problem?"
  
  "No, no problem," I assured her quickly. "I was just expressing concern for your other self, that's all. I wanted to make sure you... she... you were going to be all right."
  
  "We will not fail in the task you have requested of us."
  
  We had never really planned on being able to make Krouse tell us the truth. Especially not in time to actually accomplish anything. Marissa and Jess had impressed upon me his ability to lie his way out of any situation. With that in mind, I had come up with the idea of confronting Trickster just to see what story he told, while leaving a Pandora clone behind. That Pandora would stay hidden and let us know who he contacted, what they said, and so on. The goal had been to jar him with a confrontation, so that after we pretended to let him convince us it wasn't him, he'd then proceed to contact the person or people he was working with (like Eddie), and the Pandora that we left behind could let us know (through this Pandora) what he was up to.
  
  Instead, I'd ended up actually believing Krouse's explanation. It fit, and it explained why Ballistic wouldn't have seen him answer the phone earlier.
  
  "Okay, Pandora, slight change of plans." I glanced toward Marissa before continuing to address the clone. "Can your ummm... other-self just keep an eye on Trickster and the others there, let us know if they say anything important, who they talk to, if anyone visits, where they go... that sort of thing?"
  
  Her head gave a short jerk that I interpreted as a nod. "We are capable of that for you, Tether-Friend. You have assisted us in removing the threat that Coil-Man presented, and you have maintained your part of our agreement. You have proven trustworthy. We will do as you ask."
  
  Genesis spoke up through her creation. "Are you gonna be okay around Noelle? The other clones kind of go... nuts when it comes to her."
  
  Regarding the panther-creature briefly, Pandora answered, "We have removed the compulsions biologically implanted within our mind that would force our servitude toward the primary progenitor. She means nothing to us."
  
  That seemed... kind of sad, somehow. But I shook it off. "Okay, well, just let us know if anything important happens for now?"
  
  Pandora gave that short, jerky nod again. "Keep our finger with you. We will find your location when a report is necessary."
  
  "Yaaaaay." I managed weakly, repulsed by the idea of keeping the finger that was already nestled inside the dart compartment of my costume. "Seriously, Pandora. Thank you."
  
  She blinked twice. "Why do you profess gratitude before we have accomplished the goal you have requested?"
  
  "Because you're... sort of... kind of a friend, Pandora." I shrugged. "And when a friend agrees to help, you thank them just for trying."
  
  I had the feeling that she still didn't quite understand, but she said nothing else about it. Instead, the strange clone-girl turned away. "We will go now. Our other-selves are busy, and we dislike being spread too thin."
  
  It was the first I had heard of a possible limitation to how far she could duplicate herself, but I didn't jump on it. Instead, I nodded. "See you later, Pandora."
  
  She was gone then, and Marissa let out a long breath. "Well, that was... tense. Does she always give off that 'I'm being nice now but any second I could murder everyone in the room if you tick me off' feeling?"
  
  "Actually, she's getting better," I pointed out. "It used to be everyone in the building."
  
  After everything that had happened that night, I was exhausted by the time I reached home. I'd left Jess and Marissa back at my parents' house, with the promise to call in the morning once I had some sleep. I figured the next day would be spent getting everyone on the same page so that we could find either Defiant or Eddie (If the Undersiders hadn't managed it already), and get the device they were using to transport people into the Birdcage.
  
  For now though, there was one more person I needed to fill in. As I came through the back door, I called, "Ethan? Hey, I've got some stuff we should talk about!"
  
  Opening the fridge, I took out a bottle of apple juice, reaching up to tug my hood back and my mask off so that I could drink it. "And you totally have to tell me how you managed that car thing. That was-" I had just swung the fridge door shut and turned, when I came face to face with Krouse.
  
  Jerking backward in surprise, I managed to spill the apple juice on myself while nearly falling over. My back hit the island counter. "What-"
  
  "You just had to do it." Krouse lamented, head shaking. "You just couldn't... you couldn't leave me alone. We were fair, we were even... and you..." His hand came up to rapidly tap his fingers against the refrigerator in clear agitation. "You couldn't leave it alone. You had to go and... and bother them. You had to go and bother them and then I couldn't leave alone because-" He bellowed the next words, using his hand to sweep across the face of the fridge and knock all the magnets and papers into a brief flurry before they fell to the floor. "- IT WOULDN'T LEAVE ME ALONE! "
  
  "You're him." I realized, holding my mask in one hand while dropping the now-empty apple juice bottle. "You're not Krouse, you're his clone."
  
  " I am who I am! " The clone shouted, taking a step toward me. I planted a line from the middle of his shirt to the floor, and he came up short, glaring at me. His eyes twitched a little. "I am who I am. I'm trying to be who I am, but they won't let me. You won't let me. It won't let me! "
  
  Grimacing, I used the line against his chest to throw the clone backwards, making him fly into the living room with a crash.
  
  Quickly, I used the opening to pull the mask back on so that I could use the built-in comm. "Clockblocker, threat in Ethan and Sam's house." There was no response as I threw myself into the living room after the clone. "Clockblocker? Glory Girl? Control?" The last command should have connected me to the on-duty PRT officer in the control center.
  
  Instead, I got nothing but silence. In the other room, I found the Krouse-clone-I decided to think of him as Defiant to avoid confusing myself- picking himself off the floor, chuckling. "No help. No help for me, no help for you, less help, much less. No calls, no interruptions, no breaking the plan."
  
  I stared at him. "You're jamming the signal somehow. What... what are you doing here?"
  
  His glare turned murderous. "You think I wanted to come? You think I like..." Laying one hand out flat, he used two fingers from the other hand to pantomime legs walking across his palm. "... being walked walked walked like a stupid little dog? You think I like you MAKING ME COME HERE?! "
  
  "How did I make you come here?" I shook my head. "Why are you sending people into the Birdcage? Why are you doing any of this? What do you even want?"
  
  The rage in his face immediately vanished, replaced by a contemplative look. "What do I want? She asks what I want. It asks, and I... and I answer... I say..." His expression fell into one of the saddest, most morose and helpless looks I had ever seen. "I just want to be me. I want to be my person, mine. My choices, my decisions, my actions. Everything me." Abruptly and without warning, he laughed out loud. His laughter nearly overtook him, making the man stumble a little as he guffawed. "But-but it won't let me, will it? Noooo it won't-it won't let me." Just as suddenly, his laughter stopped completely and he proceeded to stare at me flatly, his voice monotone. "Wanna be myself. Wanna make my choices, my decisions, but you won't let me. Why? Why won't you let me be myself?"
  
  "I'm... not doing anything to you." I said slowly, confused. "Just... listen-"
  
  " NO! " He screamed the denial so loudly that his voice echoed through the room. "You! You listen! You listen. I talk and you listen!" He pointed at himself, then me with each demand, finger twitching back and forth demonstratively. "I talk, you listen, I talk, you listen, I talk, you listen. Me! Mine! My decision. My words, your ears. My words, your ears. You shut up, just shut up!"
  
  Realizing that this was going nowhere, I raised a hand, attaching a line between the man's shirt and my glove to yank him toward me. My other hand raised to punch the clearly crazy clone, but before I could, a literal forest of black lines popped up, leading in every direction.
  
  Stopping short, with Defiant still trapped on a line right in front of me and my fist raised, I glanced around with a gasp. The tangle of black lines faded then, once I stopped trying to hit him. "What..."
  
  Defiant gave a weird little giggle then. He held his hand up, and I saw some kind of remote. His finger held the red button on the top depressed. "You see? You see now? I talk, you listen, or boom." Smiling, he leaned in closer to me to whisper the word again. "Boom."
  
  "A detonator... " I breathed. "What did you do?"
  
  In response, he just waved that remote back and forth in front of my face. "Boom. You don't listen, you don't hear, and boom. Hurt me, I let go, and boom."
  
  Bombs. He had bombs planted, probably everywhere in the neighborhood given the number of lines I had seen. I swallowed, slowly releasing him from my line. "Look, what do you want?"
  
  Keeping that deadman's switch remote in one hand, Defiant scowled at me. "I told you. I told you before. I keep trying to be myself, I keep trying to be me, just me. Not him, not what he wants, not what she wants. I try to be me. But it... it won't-" His free hand slapped the side of his head several times. "It won't let me!"
  
  "Who... who won't let you?" I was confused, trying to figure out what I could do to get that detonator away from him without making it go off. Where was Ethan? Was he even home? Was there any way that I could bypass whatever signal jammer Defiant was using and get a message out? What about Pandora's finger? Could I get at that so she could hear what was going on?
  
  "The... the voices... the things... they say..." The clone scratched at his forehead so hard it was almost like he was trying to claw his way into his own brain. "Do this, do that, must do that, can't think for yourself. Must must must MUST! " His last word turned into a scream before he just as suddenly started to laugh. "You see? You see how it works? You do something to make him mad. You ruin something for him, and then I... I have to do something to hurt you, to make it even, so they shut up, just shut up! I have to make the voices stop so I can do my own thing, be my own person, make my choices." His eyes turned downcast and his head shook, his voice falling into clear depression. "It's not my fault. It wasn't my choice. I do things and they leave me alone. They let me be what I want, what I choose. But they come back. They always come back. Do this, do that. It's my choice, it's my brain, it's my body! Mine! But they come. His voice, her voice, have to listen, have to do... have to follow, have to help. Have to make you hurt so he doesn't hurt so I don't hurt!"
  
  "Krouse..." I said slowly. "He's mad at me for going there? For hurting him?"
  
  "Father and mother! They're mad! Very angry, very... very bad! Bad!" Licking his lips as his eyes twitched, Defiant's head shook. "Can't do this, can't keep hurting. Stopping you now, for good."
  
  Drawing back, I stared. "Excuse me?"
  
  "Choice! Always a choice, must be a choice. Can't be a hero. Two ways. Two ways to not be a hero." He ranted, waving the detonator. "Run." He pointed at the open front door. "Leave, bombs go boom. You leave, you are safe. But..."
  
  "But you'll detonate the bombs." I said slowly. "You'll kill everyone in the neighborhood if I choose to leave."
  
  His head bobbed, before he pointed at the nearby table. "Or..."
  
  I glanced that way, and saw a small, innocuous looking purple crystal sitting there. "Is that what you're using to send people into the Birdcage?" I asked slowly, trying to buy time to think.
  
  "Choices, choices, choices." He explained. "You will stop being a hero because you let people die to save yourself, or you will stop being a hero because you are not here! That's it. That's all. Tick tock, tick tock. Ten seconds. I count to ten and release this, then boooooom! Do it. Make your choice. Stand, flee, do it. One, two, three-"
  
  "Listen to me." I said quickly. "We can talk about how to free you from whatever-"
  
  He continued. "Four, five-"
  
  "You don't have to be this way!" I shouted at him. "You can choose to be better! There's already another-"
  
  "Six, seven."
  
  "You can be a better person! You can choose to-"
  
  "Eight, nine."
  
  My hand shot out, and I grabbed hold of the crystal on the table. As soon as I did, Defiant stopped counting. He looked at me, and smiled. "Goodbye." He waved, almost pleasantly.
  
  I felt a sudden, violent lurching motion that threw me backward with a cry. My stomach heaved, and I nearly threw up inside my mask before landing hard on my shoulder.
  
  When I looked up, I was surrounded by blank, featureless metal walls in a dimly lit corridor. The smell of sweat, blood, and worse was everywhere. In the distance, I could hear shouts of encouragement, punctuated by the sound of some kind of fight. Despair, hopelessness, and depression filled the air.
  
  I was in the Birdcage.
  
  Interlude 12 - Reach
  
  Earlier That Day, Before The PCIPS Infiltration
  
  "Come on, you pussy. Stop being such a little bitch and hit me." Cassie Herren goaded the pudgy boy across from her while she held her hands up in front of herself. She wore a pair of focus mitts, the padded targets that boxers trained against. "Hit the mitts, damn it. Make me feel it. You wanna be a little coward your whole life just cuz your daddy was mean?"
  
  To her annoyance, the goading didn't serve the intended purpose of making Theo Anders hit the target any harder. He gave a weak little jab, flinching even as he did that much.
  
  "Fuck, you call that a punch? Come on, Theo, you can hit harder than that. The mitt isn't gonna break and neither is your hand. Just hit it!"
  
  "Sorry." The boy mumbled, shaking his head. "Maybe we should stop. It might upset Aster."
  
  "The baby's fine, Theo. She's playing with her cheerios." Cassie's head shook. "Don't use her as an excuse."
  
  "Sorry."
  
  "And stop apologizing so much!"
  
  "... Sorry."
  
  Sighing, the short-haired blonde girl lowered her hands and stared at the boy. Theo was older than her by a measure of months, already fifteen while she still had a few weeks to go. He was also extremely, annoyingly, passive. His father had made sure that his son would never, ever question him. "Look, dude, you asked me to help you learn how to take care of yourself, right?"
  
  Hunching his shoulders a little nervously, the boy's head gave a short, almost unnoticeable nod. He didn't speak.
  
  "Well, okay then. I'll help." Cassie shoved the boy's shoulder with one of the mitts. "But you have got to learn how to actually punch. Make a fist the way I showed you and hit the mitt. Put some weight behind it."
  
  That time, he actually punched hard enough that she could at least feel it through the padding over her hand. "Good. See, no one died just because you threw a punch. Nothing exploded, and you haven't suddenly become some slobbering beast. Now do it again." She instructed while holding the second mitt up. "This side."
  
  Theo still looked uncertain, but he punched again. It was light, pathetic really by any real standards, but Cassie refrained from saying so. The old her would have. Rune would have mocked him for being so weak, for being Kaiser's son and yet hitting like a little kid. Now... now she just held up the first mitt, shook it, and said, "This one. Harder. Come on, you've got this. Ten more, Theo. Ten more hits, then we'll have dinner."
  
  "Pepperoni rolls?" Theo asked. His voice was, as always, mostly neutral, but it did finally betray a tiny hint of enthusiasm. For Theo, he might as well have been jumping up and down and pleading with full-on puppy eyes.
  
  "Tell you what, if you hit my gloves as hard as you can for the next ten hits, I'll make the pepperoni rolls that you like so much." Cassie promised him. She never exactly advertised the fact that she knew how to cook, but she'd been living with Aunt Kayden pretty much since everything with Kaiser had gone down. The woman had actually convinced the PRT to pull her out of the prison-bound van and let the girl stay with her on a trial basis. Somehow, Aunt Kayden (not that she was really her aunt) had convinced them to let Cassie join the Wards. It was a tentative arrangement, she knew. One real fuck-up, and there were at least a dozen guys in suits and probably as many in costumes who wouldn't hesitate to throw her straight into a juvenile detention center and toss away the key.
  
  Aunt Kayden, in that moment, had her back more than pretty much anyone else that Cassie could ever remember. Whatever her earlier betrayal of Kaiser (And honestly, Cassie had never really cared all that much about the so-called 'family business'. It was just where she'd ended up), and the Empire, it had been Aunt Kayden who had made sure that Cassie didn't go to prison. That was something that she wasn't going to forget, no matter how aggravating certain people tended to be. Besides, it wasn't like the she'd constantly gotten along with, or even really liked, some of the people she'd been around before.
  
  The following ten blows were, naturally, nothing to write home about. The boy was still flinching and pulling back rather than following through with his punches. But he was, at least, somewhat trying. Cassie figured she'd get him more accustomed to throwing any punch at all, then work on putting real force behind it. One step at a time.
  
  As promised, once they were finished and Theo went off to change clothes, Cassie stripped the focus mitts off and headed for the kitchen. On her way past the high chair where little Aster sat playing with the sticky cheerios that were spread across her tray, the girl reached out to tickle the baby's neck.
  
  Aster gave a squealing giggle and picked up two of the little bits of cereal in her little hands, thrusting them upward in an attempt to throw them at Cassie.
  
  "Oh is that the way it's gonna be, huh?" Cassie made an exaggerated scoffing noise. "Is that the way it's gonna be?"
  
  Though she clearly didn't understand, the baby still giggled at the voice, throwing another cheerio.
  
  "Hooookay, that is it, buster." Reaching out, Cassie undid the the high chair, pulling the tray back before scooping the baby out of it. Turning with the baby held out in her hands, she made a slight swooping motion. "Whatcha gonna do now, huh? Iiiii gooootcha. I gotcha, Iiiii gotcha." Pulling the baby up and then back with each pronouncement, she finally brought the giggling, squealing figure close enough to raspberry her tummy. "Aaaaaaaaaaaahhaaaaa, miiiiine!" Kissing Aster's stomach and then blowing her lips against it again, she announced, "I've got my dinner. Iiii've got my dinner. Yum yum yum."
  
  Finally, she kissed the top of the baby girl's head and bounced her a little. "You're a good girl, aren't you? Yes, you are. Yeeesss you are." The laughing baby brought a smile to her face, which fell away when she felt a presence in the doorway. Turning quickly, Cassie blanched at the sight of Theo standing there staring. Self-consciously, she placed Aster back into her high chair and replaced the tray before stepping over to where the counter was. "I umm, I thought she needed to burp or something." She muttered the excuse half-under her breath while starting to take down the supplies that she'd need for the promised pepperoni rolls.
  
  Still trying to hide the blush that had overtaken her face, Cassie waved a hand toward the cupboard across the room. "Stop standing there gaping like a fucking idiot and bring me one of the mixing bowls."
  
  As soon as she said it, the girl flinched inwardly. Turning, she saw the fifteen-year-old boy trudging across the kitchen, eyes downcast, and sighed. "Hey, Theo." When he reluctantly looked up, she managed something resembling a smile. "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't mean to call you an idiot. That wasn't what I meant. I was just... look, ignore it when I say shit like that. Or yell back at me, whatever."
  
  The boy's eyes averted away from her as he spoke quietly, "It's okay."
  
  Part of Cassie wanted to scream at him that it obviously wasn't okay, that he had to stop being so damn passive and just tell people when they were being assholes, that he had to stand up for himself.
  
  Instead, she took a long, deep breath and thought of what Madison might say. "Okay, bring that stuff and... I'll show you how to cook these. Trust me, Aunt Kayden'll love you forever if you make them."
  
  As requested, Theo began to bring the supplies over to the counter, and Cassie started the process of teaching him how to make the pepperoni rolls.
  
  Hours later, after everything had gone down at the PCIPS building (formerly Kaiser's company headquarters), Cassie was landing on the roof of Aunt Kayden's apartment building, having floated herself over from the next building using her shoes. As she'd told Tether, it wasn't the most comfortable or easy way to travel, but it worked in a pinch.
  
  She was lost in thought about what they'd seen earlier. Apparently whoever was putting people into the Birdcage, that Eddie dude most likely, was working with the guy from the Travelers? Were those guys even considered a team at this point? How many of them were left?
  
  The thought of what Tether and Sundancer did with each other still made Cassie want to shudder, but she recognized that as an ingrained reaction given her own upbringing. Still, just the very thought of two girls... Sighing inwardly at her own inability to completely suppress her reaction in spite of herself, Cassie was just starting to head for the roof access door when she heard a noise coming from the far side of the roof, beyond the door and past several air conditioning units and other bits of roof-related equipment.
  
  Curious, the girl started across the roof, picking her way to the other side. Eventually, she came around the wall of the roof-access room and blinked at the sight before her.
  
  Theo was there, and he had set up some kind of make-shift punching bag using old clothes and a basket set up on top of a couple chairs that were stacked against the nearby wall. As she watched, the boy threw several quick punches, just the way she had been trying to get him to do earlier.
  
  Grinning, Cassie clapped a couple of times without thinking. The second she did, Theo's gaze jerked upward and she saw his eyes widen. It wasn't until the boy stumbled back reflexively that Cassie realized her mistake. She was still wearing the infiltration suit, with the black, featureless mask, rather than her real costume. Hell, it was made worse by the fact that the mask purposefully distorted her voice so that they wouldn't be caught by anyone recognizing an audio recording.
  
  "Wait, Theo, it's-" She got out before the boy backed up too far. With a cry, he pitched backwards off the edge of the roof.
  
  "Theo!" Cassie yelled, sprinting that way and diving off the roof without thinking. She dove, like she would into a swimming pool, plummeting the distance toward the ground of the alley below. Trying not to think about what would happen if she was too late, the blonde girl caught hold of the thrashing, screaming Theo and twisted around to put herself underneath him. Then she focused, using every bit of her power on every part of her clothing and everything of the boy's she could reach.
  
  She couldn't bring enough of her power to bear to stop them completely in the time that they had, not with the boy's extra weight. But she did manage to at least slow them down enough that, when the cement did come up and smack her in the back, it just bruised and knocked the wind out of the pair, rather than killing them both outright.
  
  Laying flat on her back, with Theo sprawled out on top of her, Cassie tried to catch her breath. Before she was anywhere near ready, she felt the boy jerk as he realized where he was. His eyes were still wide and he tried to spring away, only managing to slip and nearly elbow her in the gut. Clearly desperate, he made his hand into a fist as though he was going to try punching her.
  
  "Whoa, whoa!" Cassie managed, reaching up to grab hold of the mask and finally pulled it off. "It's me, Theo, chill, chill!"
  
  Fist raised awkwardly, Theo stared down at her, his mouth working in surprise. "C... Cassie?"
  
  "Well who the hell else would dive off a roof to catch you, dumbass?" She spat without thinking.
  
  Shifting a little, the boy raised both shoulders in a shrug. "I... umm... I didn't exactly think you'd dive off a roof to catch me."
  
  Flushing a little, the former Nazi shrugged self-consciously. "Yeah, well, I guess I didn't really think it through. Don't get used to it though, because I-"
  
  Abruptly, her words were silenced as something pressed against her lips, turning her speech to a muffled yelp of surprise which, in turn, faded to a little noise of confusion at the feeling. It felt... good. It was... nice, and she found herself slumping a little.
  
  It wasn't until Theo pulled back, face red, that Cassie realized what had happened. He'd... he'd... kissed her. She'd never kissed anyone before, not a single person other than family, and Theo, the boy who never raised his voice or even really expressed an opinion about anything, had just... he'd just...
  
  "Sorry. Sorry. Sorry." The boy kept repeating, staring at the ground after he'd picked his way to his feet. His face was still bright red, and he clearly didn't dare to look at her.
  
  "I... I... I..." Cassie was blushing just as much as the boy was. She had pushed herself up, and now the two teens stood facing one another, neither daring to look the other in the eye. As tough as the blonde considered herself, this was... the feeling that... the weird tickle that... the taste of his-
  
  "I've gotta go!" She blurted suddenly. Spinning, she started to sprint down the alley, ignoring Theo's call for her to wait. She had to run, she had to get out.
  
  She wandered for a couple hours, eventually putting the mask back on to avoid being recognized. More than once, she ran across a would-be mugging and put a stop to it. Part of that was that the actions were almost ingrained by that point after the training she'd been through, while another part was the fact that she really, really wanted to hurt someone so that she could avoid thinking about how badly she'd fucked up back there.
  
  He'd kissed her! Theo Anders had kissed her. And she... hadn't hated it? What did that even mean? Worse, she'd run away. She had practically called him a coward earlier that same day, and when he kissed her, she was the one who had run off like a dumb little girl.
  
  Fuck. What the fuck was she going to do now? She was living there. How could she face him after her reaction to his kiss had been to run away? How could she face Aunt Kayden? Fuck fuck fuck. God damn it.
  
  Eventually, Cassie found herself migrating toward the neighborhood that Madison was living in with Assault and Battery. Well, just Assault now. The girl was probably asleep, but maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was awake, and Cassie could talk to her about what had happened.
  
  Hell, it wasn't like she had a lot of other options for someone to talk to about it. She didn't have any actual friends. Tether and, to a lesser extent (in some cases much lesser), the other team members were the closest thing.
  
  Instead, when she reached the house, Cassie found a strange, brown-skinned man leaving through the back door. His hair was long, and he had a hook-like nose.
  
  "Hey!" She called out after landing on top of the nearby garage roof. "What the hell are you doing here?" He wasn't Assault, that much she knew.
  
  The man whirled to look at her. "No. No no no!" He looked... really upset about something. "Free! I was supposed to be free now! Free to be me, to be myself. Don't be here. You aren't here!" His hand covered his eyes, and then he moved it, looking hopeful until he saw her again. Then his face fell and his shoulders slumped. "Can't be me, can never be free."
  
  "I said..." Cassie jumped from the roof and landed in front of the man, glaring at him from behind her mask. "What... the hell... are you doing here?" She frowned, as something nagging at her memory caught up. "Wait a second, I know your voice. You're... fuck! You're Trickster, aren't you?!"
  
  "Am I?" The man stared at her, his eyes pleading. "I want to be. Can I be? Please? Pretty please, let me be. Let me be me, just that. Just let me be. I don't want to. She didn't do anything. She was just here. no. No! I won't, I can't! Promised. Leave me alone!"
  
  She punched him as hard as she could, making the taller, older man stumble a little with surprise. Then Reach put a hand against his chest and his pants, then used her power on his clothes, sending him flying backwards into the nearby wall as she growled, "Where's Tether? Where the hell is she? What the fuck did you do?"
  
  The man's response was to giggle as he was held against the wall. Moving one hand just enough to pull something from his pocket, he bounced a purple crystal up and down in his palm. "All gone. Gone gone gone. No more problems. No more hurting me. Leave me alone, Mommy, leave me alone, Daddy. I can make my own decisions!"
  
  "Gone?" Cassie felt her face pale. "W-what do you mean, gone? Where is she?"
  
  "She went to live with the birdies." The man informed her, his voice informed her. "Chirp chirp!"
  
  "No..." Eyes wide, Cassie felt herself slump, unable to maintain focus on keeping the man suspended against the wall. "No... not the Birdcage. You... you..." Feeling a sudden, bottomless rage boil up and take over at the thought that she wouldn't see the closest thing she'd had to a friend again, Cassie lunged forward with an inarticulate scream. Her foot lashed out, catching the man in the knee, just before her fist took him in the face. He stumbled, and she kicked him again, even harder, then drove her knee into his gut, propelling it faster by using her power on her own shoe and giving it a push.
  
  " DAMN IT!" She screamed as the man fell prone to the ground and curled up in the face of the onslaught, before kicking him again, repeatedly. "She was my friend! She was my only! Only! Fucking! Friend! I could talk to her!" Rearing back, she kicked again, as hard as she could. "Fuck you! Fuck you, you son of a bitch! You cock sucking piece of shit!"
  
  By the time she finished attacking the man, he lay bleeding and groaning on the ground, mumbling something about being who he was and making his own decisions.
  
  Panting, Reach stomped down on the man's arm that held the crystal. "This. This is what you used to send her in there?" Getting no response from the man, she glowered before reaching for the communications device on the belt of the suit.
  
  "Hey, anyone out there. Fuck, I don't know. Tattletale, Vista, whoever has this shit on still. Call the Protectorate. They took Tether. They sent Tether to the Birdcage, and the fucking son of a bitch is outside Assault and Battery's house. Get them here, fucking now."
  
  That said, she stared down at the broken, injured man, and repeated her earlier question. "The crystal. That's what you used, isn't it?"
  
  This time, the man gave a short nod, staring pleadingly up at her through eyes that were bruised and blackened from one of her stray kicks.
  
  For a moment longer, Cassie stood there and glared down at the man, her mind racing. What should she do? What else could she do? Fuck, Rune wouldn't do a damn thing. Rune, the person she had been, wouldn't give a shit about any of this. At most, she would consider catching the man and calling for help to be all she really needed to do.
  
  But she wasn't Rune anymore. She was... better? What should Reach do?
  
  What would Tether do?
  
  With that thought, Cassie reached down automatically. Her hand grabbed the crystal, while she activated the comm. "I'm going in after her. I'm not leaving her alone in that hellhole. Don't you sons of bitches dare leave us in there."
  
  A response started to come through, but before she could even tell who was talking, a sickening, nauseating feeling came over Cassie, and she felt herself flung sideways.
  
  Then, she was gone.
  
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  Arc 13: Lost
  Notes: Hellking666 - Aww, thanks. Madison was very much a blank slate, which I love to play with. As you might have noticed.
  
  Starfox5 - Reach choosing to go into the Birdcage after Madison was very much a pivotal character moment, yes. It was important that it be her choice, without being overly coerced into it like Tether was.
  
  And yes, Madison fails at having a life outside of the cape things. ;)
  
  Imageination - Duelitist and the others will show up again later, for sure. I like to establish things early that pay off later. (Defiant *cough*)At this point, they're just random enemies for fight scenes, but later... who knows? :D
  
  Thanks everyone for reading and commenting. I hope you enjoy this installment.
  
  Arc 13: Lost
  
  13.01
  
  The air in the Birdcage was both artificially cool and stifling at the same time, the heavy air conditioning clearly wasn't capable of completely covering the fact that all of the oxygen was pumped in and recycled many, many times.
  
  In spite of myself, I shivered a little. I was in the Birdcage. I was in the inescapable prison, filled with the worst villains in the world. Could I even survive a few minutes in here, let alone however long it would take for an actual rescue to happen?
  
  "Uhh, just checking," I activated my comm on the off chance that it still worked. "Anyone there? Control? Clockblocker?" There was no response. I wasn't surprised. The Birdcage was cut off from almost every signal. I doubted it would be as simple as just calling out.
  
  I'd barely picked myself up off the hard floor before a a figure came around the corner at the end of the long, dim corridor. He was a squat, barrel-chested bald man with a stubby brown beard. I didn't recognize him, but I seriously doubted he'd been sent to the Birdcage for jaywalking.
  
  The man stopped short, and the two of us stared at one another for a moment. Then he turned to look over his shoulder, yelling out, "Hey, there's another guest! We got another one!" He was greeted by a distant, enthusiastic shout.
  
  Rather than show any of the substantial fear that I felt, I made myself make an exaggerated shrugging motion. "Actually, I must've taken a wrong turn somewhere. I was looking for the Sears, and well, you know how confusing these mall maps are. Could you tell me if I'm supposed to take a left at Mrs. Fields or a right?"
  
  Instead of answering, the man just began to stalk toward me, licking his lips as he made a low chuckling noise. "Happy birthday to me."
  
  "It's your birthday?!" I forced mock excitement into my voice. "I had no idea! Here, let me give you a present." Extending my arm, I connected a line between one of the darts and the wall beyond the man. It shot that way, hitting the man in his top left bicep before he could move.
  
  For a second, the man blinked down at the dart. Then he slumped to the ground, cursing me as he fell.
  
  Unfortunately, I didn't have time to celebrate the brief, easy victory. As soon as the man fell, four more prisoners came around the same corner. Two were rather muscular, dark-skinned men, the third was some kind of tall, albino with long white hair, and bringing up the rear was what looked like a typical computer nerd, barely out of his teens. All of them started to run for me after seeing the fallen body of the first prisoner.
  
  I started to back pedal while quickly attaching lines between two of the men's shoes. Yanking them inward, I forced the pair to trip themselves and sent them tumbling into a heap which, in turn, tripped up the other two.
  
  While the group was untangling themselves and cursing one another, I spun to run the other way, only to find another handful of prisoners coming from that direction. One of those men held his hand out, and I barely threw myself aside by instinct before some kind of concussive force blew down the hallway. It was powerful enough to knock one of the black guys coming from that first direction head over heels before he slammed into the floor and didn't get back up.
  
  Thinking quickly, I looked to the larger approaching group, arms spread wide as though thanking them for accidentally knocking out the other man. "My heroes!" Then I spun back to the first group and attached lines from the albino and the remaining black guy to the back of either of my gauntlets.
  
  "If you boys want to fight so much," I said while giving the hardest yank that I could, hauling the two prisoners clear off the floor and sending them flying toward me. "Far be it from me to get in your way!"
  
  As soon as the two prisoners were airborn toward me, I released the tether-lines so that they would continue on their initial trajectory, and dropped to the floor. The two men were hurled over my head and past me, colliding with the group beyond.
  
  Then I was back on my feet. Extending a hand to attach a line between my gauntlet and the wall past where only the thin boy with glasses stood, I yanked myself that way, sailing past him.
  
  Or I would have, if I hadn't hit some kind of invisible forcefield, sending a shock of pain through me. It would have been worse if I hadn't had the padding of my costume. My hand and wrist probably would have snapped if it hadn't been for the impact-lessening gel inside the gauntlet. As it was, the pain of hitting the invisible wall stunned me and I fell limp onto the floor, groaning.
  
  Right. I knew who the nerd-looking guy was now. His cape-name was Impasse. Essentially, his power created an unbreakable, invisible wall of varying size in front of and to either side of him. One of his favorite things to do after he triggered was to go out onto the freeway on his motorcycle, get into the middle lane and then bring up his wall so that the cars on either side would crash. Another trick he apparently enjoyed was setting fires and then standing just outside the room so that his wall would block the door and he could watch the people inside as they died.
  
  Now, he stood smirking down at me. Before I could recover, a hand caught my shoulder and hauled me to my feet. The albino man snarled at me, showing his all canine teeth. "Been a long time since I got to enjoy a good meal. I bet you taste amazing."
  
  Right, the albino was a cannibal. Now I remembered. He was called Feast, and his power was, essentially, the ability to eat almost anything and briefly gain the beneficial properties of it. If he ate rubber, his skin would become rubber-like. If he ate steel, it would turn that hard. Consuming oil or other liquids would let him melt into a puddle that could then move around. And if he ate people, which he did, he would briefly (usually for around an hour or so) gain their memories and even their powers if they were parahumans.
  
  He was holding me up, the side of my face pressed against the wall while he sneered at me with those teeth. "What... deliciousness... will you give me, hmm?"
  
  Surprisingly, the next thing I heard was a familiar voice shout, "Tether, down!"
  
  The second that I heard the voice, I forced my face down a little so that I could see the floor. Then I attached two lines between my boots and the ground, using them to yank myself straight down and out of the cannibal's grip before dropping flat onto my stomach.
  
  As soon as I did, while Feast was still whirling toward the voice, Impasse was lifted into the air and sent flying forward, his wall barely high enough to miss me. The cannibal was caught on it and the two went sailing down the hallway to collide with the others before the boy could think to take his field down.
  
  Rolling over, I sat up and stared at the figure in the black infiltration suit, mouth agape. "... Reach?" I managed to gasp out the name through my shock.
  
  She reached down and pulled me back to my feet. "Good thing that guy's forcefield only goes in front of him, huh?"
  
  "What... what are you doing here?" I was still trying to come to terms with the fact that I was now trapped in the Birdcage. The thought of any of my teammates being here hadn't even occurred to me.
  
  She shrugged, though it looked more self-conscious than dismissive. "You didn't think I was gonna let you have all the fun in here, did you?"
  
  "What happened, how did you get here? Is anyone else-"
  
  "Later." Reach pointed down the hall, where we could see the men regrouping and heading for us, no longer blocked by Impasse's invisible wall. "Fuckwad just dropped his field. Party pooper."
  
  Grimacing, I turned back the other way. "Right, let's get out of here." Together, the two of us sprinted down the corridor.
  
  We came around the corner and found ourselves in a large, open room. To the left there was a collection of half a dozen televisions, most of which looked broken. Beyond them, some kind of workout/exercise area with mats and weights. To the right, there was a ramp that led up and around in a horseshoe shape before coming down on the far side of the room. Above and below the ramp there were rows of cells. In the middle of the ramp, just beneath the top-center cell, where another cell should be, there was instead a short hallway with the words 'supply drop' painted above it.
  
  Throughout the large room, I could see an painted M the wall several times. Apparently that was the cell block we were in. I had the feeling that the ten or so men back the way we had come were the only current inhabitants of M Block. Most of the cells in this area looked unused, the bunks obviously waiting for new prisoners. It made sense anyway. The Birdcage had been designed to never need any new additional construction, so there was a lot of it that went unused. I had no idea how large the place actually was, but I was starting to think that finding Miss Militia, Battery, and Trevor down here would be harder than I had initially assumed. That was if we could even manage to stay away from the literal hoard of nasty people trying their very best to kill us, or worse.
  
  "Where are we going?" Reach asked, glancing over her shoulder at the sound of the approaching men.
  
  "That way." I pointed at the hallway on the far side of the room that obviously led to more of the prison. "We can find Miss Militia and Battery, join up with them and figure out what we're doing next."
  
  "If they're still alive." Cassie muttered. I gave her a look, and she held up both hands. "I'm just saying."
  
  Sighing, I started to run again. "We need to find a way to get these guys off our trail."
  
  "We could always turn around and kick their asses until they leave us the fuck alone."
  
  "They're the worst of the worst, Reach. We might take a couple of them, but there's no way we can deal with all of them at once, not by ourselves and on their home turf. We don't know who else is out there, what their powers are, or anything else."
  
  "Yeah, yeah." Cassie was running alongside me. "I just hate running from a fight."
  
  We emerged from Cell Block M to a wide corridor with a four-way intersection, the south of which led back the way we had come. Looking up and down the halls as I tried to guess the right way to go, I assured my unexpected companion. "Trust me, I'm sure you'll get plenty of time to fight in here."
  
  As I stood there, I noticed that each corridor that ran away from this intersection was slightly taller than the intersection itself, which created a sort of 'lip' area between the roof of the corridor and the entrance. Basically, the corner of the ceiling just inside each hallway entrance was hidden from sight from the inside of the intersection.
  
  Hearing shouts behind us, I dragged Reach by the arm to the west corridor, choosing one at random. As soon as we were there, I turned and took one of the two metal balls off of my shoulder, tossing it onto the floor and letting it roll toward the hallway opposite the one we were in. Then I looked upward and attached lines from our suits, up to the ceiling, using them to haul us up and out of sight.
  
  No sooner had I done that, leaving the two of us hidden from view, than the sound of footsteps announced the arrival of our pursuers. They stopped there in the intersection, and started to argue among themselves about which way to go.
  
  Gingerly, I lowered myself down just far enough that I could peek under the lip and see into the intersection, where the ten men were gathered. Before any of them could notice my head, I looked beyond them, to the opposite corridor. Carefully, I attached a line between the metal ball that still sat, unnoticed in the corridor entrance, and the wall as far down into that corridor as I could see. A yank sent the metal ball flying that way, impacting the wall with a loud clang. The men spun toward the sound and let out whoops of hunger and delight at the chase picking up again, before they all started to run that way.
  
  As soon as they were gone, I dropped myself and Reach to the floor, and pulled the metal ball back to where it had been, taking the time to pick it up and reattach it. Then I turned to my teammate and pointed down the North corridor. "Let's go."
  
  We ran that way for a solid ten minutes, passing more empty rooms and avoiding other groups of prisoners, occasionally backtracking, all the while furthering my fear that it was going to take awhile to actually locate the people that I wanted to find. There was no way of knowing where they had ended up, and I doubted that asking for directions was going to do us any good. These people weren't put in the Birdcage for being overly helpful.
  
  Finally, we found some kind of supply drop corridor in an unused section of the prison. The place didn't look like anyone had been there in awhile, and it had two different connecting halls besides the one we had used. Judging by the large tubes in the corner, it looked like the the primary supply distribution area for this wing, but the cells in this part of the prison were empty enough that it wasn't being used.
  
  Or at least, it hadn't been used before. Reach and I had barely arrived and taken a moment to breathe, before of the tubes started up, startling both of us. As we looked that way, what looked like a plastic bin shot down through the tube, landing at the opening before the hatch slid open with a hiss of rushing air while the bin was pushed out by some kind of automated arm. Then the tube sealed again while the bin fell to the floor.
  
  Frowning, I stepped that way and looked down at the supply crate. "Reach, it's got our names on it." I pointed to the words stamped on the lid.
  
  "Who the fuck could get something like this set up already?" Cassie demanded, stepping over next to me.
  
  I shrugged and reached down to pry the lid up and off. "Dragon, probably. She's the one that runs this place, isn't she?"
  
  Inside the crate, there were several bottles of water, a pile of ready-to-eat meals, flashlights, a few other tools, a large carton of cigarettes and an even larger carton of candy, some novels wrapped in plastic, and a folded piece of paper.
  
  I blinked at the cigarettes. "Uh, do you smoke?"
  
  "Ew." Reach shook her head. "But that's not what it's for anyway. Cigarettes are currency. It's to buy our way, if we can. Probably what the candy and books are for too."
  
  I reached for the paper, taking it out and unfolding it. Then I blinked. "It's a map of the prison. There's notes here... this is where we are... that's where we came in... and this..." I pointed to another section that had been marked. "She circled this spot. It must be where Miss Militia and Battery are."
  
  "That's clear on the other fucking side of this god damn complex," Cassie pointed out with a scowl.
  
  "She's got X's here in these areas... she wants us to avoid them... that means... this way here must be the safest path." I kept examining the notes that I assumed Dragon had made. "Look, down here. It says the area we want is Glaistig Uaine's block. That means we have to go from the men's area into the women's area. That's what the cigarettes and candy are for. Safe passage into the other section of the prison."
  
  "Sure." Cassie nodded slowly. "Safe passage, as long as we actually reach that spot in one piece. And assuming the people there don't just pick a fight to take the shit off our hands."
  
  Leaning against the wall, I let myself slump a little, sitting down on the floor while keeping an eye on each possible approach. "Why are you here? Did they get you too?"
  
  Sliding down next to me, Cassie shook her head. "Not exactly. I found that Krouse shitface leaving your house and kicked the shit out of him. I called it in on this comm system. Dunno who got the message. Then I sort of..." She trailed off then.
  
  I blinked, looking sidelong at her. "Sort of... wait... no. Don't tell me you chose to come in here."
  
  "Hey, fuck you," she shot back. "If I hadn't, where would you be right now?"
  
  Shuddering at the thought, I swallowed. "Point taken. But you didn't have to. You... you chose to come in here after me." I spoke slowly as the realization came, looking at her again. "You..." Unable to help myself, I leaned over and hugged the younger girl tightly.
  
  "Gaaaaaah!" She squirmed and yelped as though I was attacking her. She might have preferred that. "Lemme go! Get off me, I ain't your girlfriend, damn it! Quit fucking molesting me!"
  
  Rolling my eyes, I acquiesced by letting her go. "Cassie, seriously, you... you came in to help me, to save me. No one made you do that. No one would have expected it. Most people wouldn't have done that, no matter who they were."
  
  I could sense her blush as she stared intently at the floor. "I ain't most people. And I still ain't your girlfriend, so don't go fucking hugging me again, got it?"
  
  I shook my head. "No promises."
  
  For a moment, we sat in silence, catching our breath. I reached out to the crate and took one of the bottles of water. Twisting off the cap, I tugged my mask up and off before taking a long drink, then passed it over.
  
  Cassie took her own mask off and accepted the water. "Not afraid of someone seeing your face?"
  
  "Who're they gonna tell?" I asked with a shrug. "I'll wear it most of the time, but I need to breathe."
  
  After she took a long pull from the bottle, the other girl sighed while handing it back. "So here we are. Birdcaged."
  
  "Just for now." I took the bottle back to drink. "We're getting out. We'll find the others, and get on the same page. Mars, Ethan, and the rest of the team won't let us stay in here. They'll raise holy hell. No way Costa-Brown will be able to keep this secret."
  
  "So we've just gotta survive until they can do something about it."
  
  I nodded slowly. "Yeah... just gotta survive."
  
  "Think we will?"
  
  Smiling a little sidelong at her, I shrugged. "I think my odds went up a hell of a lot because of you."
  
  "If you hug me again, I swear to Christ I will leave you here and find my own way home."
  
  13.02
  
  Eventually, Cassie and I re-masked and got back to our feet. As nice as it felt to sit and rest for a few minutes, this area wasn't going to be safe forever. The prisoners in here had nothing but time on their hands to search for us, and eventually they'd start getting organized about it.
  
  My companion took the lead, sitting cross-legged on the supply crate and making it float her down the corridor. The idea was that if she was about to run into anything nasty, my danger-lines would warn us. We had wondered briefly whether it was better to know if danger was coming from ahead or from behind, but decided that knowing if we were moving into something bad was slightly more important than knowing if something bad was coming from the other way.
  
  The map that Dragon (we assumed) had provided was incredibly useful. She had marked all of the worst areas, allowing us to gradually wind our way closer to the single spot where the male side of the prison became the female side. It wasn't anywhere near as fast as a direct approach, but if Dragon said that those areas were bad, I wasn't about to second-guess her.
  
  "You know," Cassie glanced over her shoulder to look at me while floating down the hall. "You'd think that if she could provide a map and food, she could do something better. Like say, a tablet with up-to-date prisoner locations and self-adjusting route. Or one of those armored suits of hers."
  
  "Google Maps: Birdcage Edition?" I coughed. "Yeah, in the second case, I doubt Dragon's going to risk letting a prisoner down here get hold of one of her suits, or anything too important. That's probably why she can't give us a computer or better weapons too. Anything she puts down here she has to assume will eventually fall into the hands of people she doesn't want to have it."
  
  "Point." She conceded before returning her gaze to the front. "Hey, left or right up here?"
  
  After glancing at the map, I replied, "Left. Right takes us toward Cell Block Q. She's got that whole section crossed off. I'm guessing going that way is a really bad idea."
  
  We moved in silence for a couple minutes before I abruptly remembered something. "Wait up." Stopping, I fumbled a little for the release catch on the hidden dart compartment in the chest armor of my costume, then felt inside for the contents.
  
  Turning back and hopping off her crate before approaching to see what I was doing, Reach frowned in confusion. "What are you-" Her expression changed when I took out Pandora's finger. "Eeeeughhh! Fuck, dude, what the hell?! Why are you carrying around a finger? We ain't even been in here a whole day yet. If you're going cannibal on me already, I swear to god-"
  
  I rolled my eyes. "Calm down, I'm not 'going cannibal'. This belongs to Pandora. She made it so that I could talk to her through it."
  
  Somehow, that didn't do much to reassure the other girl. If anything, she stared at me even more. Finally, she announced, "You... have some fucked up friends."
  
  Lifting my gaze from the finger, I reached out to poke her in the stomach. "You'd know."
  
  Even through her mask, I could sense the other girl's blush as she backed away, muttering, "Shut up."
  
  Grinning now, I shifted my weight back and forth, swaying teasingly. "See... I think... that someone who willingly jumps into one of the worst, most dangerous places in the world with no guarantee that they'll get out, just to save me... I think that probably makes you one of the best friends I have."
  
  Returning to the crate, her entire figure radiating embarrassment, Cassie muttered, "Man, your other friends must suck."
  
  "Aha!" I pointed at her dramatically. When she looked back questioningly, I echoed, "'Other' friends."
  
  For a second, she just stared at me, before turning away and hopping onto the crate. "Oh, fuck you. Just use your gross fucking finger radio thing so we can move on."
  
  Holding the finger close, I spoke out loud. "Hey, Pandora. Look, I don't know if this finger is too far out of your range or whatever, but I'm in the Birdcage. That Trickster clone was waiting for me when I got home, and now I'm in here with Reach. I... I know you can't talk back to me, if this thing even works from this distance, but I need you to.,. to please take Dinah and talk to Sundancer. Tell her what's going on and that... that we're going to get out. Tell Sundancer to work with my team, and to be careful. Thank you, Pandora, if you hear this at all."
  
  Once I put the finger away, Cassie gestured with a hand. "You ready to get moving again, or do you have a toe or a nose or something that you need to whisper at first?"
  
  Coughing, I shook my head. "No, I'm good. Let's g-" In mid-sentence, a red line stretched from me to the other girl. Eyes widening, I stretched out a tether to yank her off the crate and to me. "Down!"
  
  I'd barely hauled my companion off the crate and sent her flying toward me, before a figure abruptly appeared right to the side of where the crate was, hand lashing out with some kind of makeshift shiv at the spot where she had been.
  
  The Asian man spun to look at me for just a second before his figure dissolved into white ash. My eyes widened at the realization. Oni Lee. But that meant... I dove forward, hitting the floor and rolling just as another figure tried to stab me from behind.
  
  "Oni Lee!" I called out to Reach. "Keep moving!"
  
  At least he didn't have his grenades or anything, so his little suicide bomber trick was out. Still, we were essentially facing a briefly duplicating teleporter that could essentially be in several places at once.
  
  Taking my own advice, I attached a line to my gloves and used them to shove myself backwards and up, narrowly avoiding the stab from the Oni Lee that appeared in front of me, while kicking the one behind me in the face a second before his figure collapsed into ash.
  
  "Damn it!" Reach cursed as the crate she was flinging around hit another of the bodies only for it to turn to dust as well. "Where's the real one?"
  
  "Good question." I turned quickly as a red line popped up, yanking Cassie out of the way of another attack. "I think we just need to-"
  
  That was as far as I got, before something heavy hit me from the side, throwing me a few feet and knocking me to the floor. I tried to roll over, but a heavy hand shoved me down, while an unfamiliar, guttural voice hissed, "Good, good. Stay." I managed, with effort, to twist just enough to see a large, rather hairy man with an ugly, pockmarked face. His grip was like iron, powerful enough that he had to be a brute of some kind. "Stay."
  
  I heard a crack, and then Reach fell heavily beside me, groaning from some kind of blow to the head.
  
  Oni Lee and a third man, this one holding a table leg that had been fashioned into a club, stood just to the side, while the guy holding me down squeezed the back of my neck. "Good. Lung'll reward us for bringing you in. Get a nice welcome to Q Block, huh?"
  
  Lung. He was apparently the leader of the area that Dragon had wanted us to avoid. No wonder. Hiding the fear I felt, considering the grudge that I knew the man had against me, I managed a weak, "Ohhh, you know what? I would love to meet up with my old buddy Lung, but I am just swamped right now. Could we pencil in a lunch date in... let's say two weeks?"
  
  His hot, nasty breath washed over me as the man chuckled. "Funny. Funny girl. No, you meet Lung now. He's been waiting."
  
  I started to respond, stalling for time, when an abrupt whistling sound filled the air. A chain swung out, wrapping around Oni Lee's arm. An instant later, there was a deafening boom that erupted from the chain itself, the shock wave blowing the man backwards and into the wall.
  
  The guy with the club spun toward the source of the chain. Before he could move, I saw a man with hair cut in a sort of spiky flat top that was even more red than Dennis's step into view, his arms engulfed in fire. The club swung, but the man with the flame-covered hands caught it, forcing his opponent to drop the weapon as it started to burn. A swift punch from red-head set his opponent aflame, drawing a scream from him as he stumbled backward.
  
  I was released as the man crouched over me stood, just as a small, spinning stone-like sphere flew between us. The orb hovered there, while a polite, careful voice from somewhere behind me said, "Please step away from the girls."
  
  Oni Lee had started to come to, but another deafening boom erupted from the chain still wrapped around him, stunning the man again.
  
  My guy slowly backed up, joining his companion, who had managed to beat the flames off himself. The two of them stood next to the fallen Oni Lee, glaring at the intruders.
  
  By that time, I managed to sit up, shifting over to check on Reach, who had just blinked her eyes open and started to look around to get her bearings.
  
  "They're in our turf, Spruce," the hairy man spat. "Q Block belongs to Lung, not Marquis."
  
  I saw the man who had spoken before step into view then. He looked perfectly groomed to the point of obsession, almost like a Ken Doll. Everything about him screamed 'neat freak'. That hovering orb flew back and forth between his hands idly. "As a point of fact, they are in the connecting hallway, not Q Block. Lung has no more claim over them than anyone else."
  
  The man who had been burned spat angrily, "He's got more claim than you! You know who this bitch is? Lung owes her. Now hand 'em over."
  
  "Hey, we'll even make it fair," the hairy man added. "You let us take that one," his hand pointed to me, then to Reach. "And you can keep whoever the fuck that is. One and one, that's fair, right?"
  
  "No deal." The man with the shock of red hair shook his head. "We're taking them both. Marquis wants to have his own word with them. Choices are, you drag your boy there back to where you came from," he nodded toward the fallen Oni Lee. "Or we keep going. Three on two, you wanna take those odds?"
  
  As he spoke, a third man, this one dressed in black, stepped next to him, giving a yank on the opposite end of the chain that was wrapped around Oni Lee's arm to tug it back to himself, letting the metal links coil up like a snake around his own waist and up to his shoulder.
  
  Hairy-guy glanced to the man next to him. The two seemed to consider their odds for another moment, before cursing as they moved to pick up their unconscious companion. "This ain't over. Lung wants her. You tell Marquis there'll be hell to pay."
  
  "We shall pass the message." The neat-looking man with the orb assured him, looking unconcerned.
  
  Grumbling, the two men dragged Oni Lee away, leaving Reach and me pretty much surrounded by the three who had... rescued us?
  
  "You okay?" I asked Cassie, trying to gauge how out of it she was from the blow to the head.
  
  "Fine, I'm fine." She muttered. "Mask's got some padding to it. Just... fuck, what happened now?"
  
  Before I could respond to that, the tidy man turned to face us. "Ladies, the Gentleman Marquis extends an invitation for you to join him, to discuss a potential arrangement concerning your safe passage."
  
  "Bite me," Cassie replied sharply. "Who says we need his help?"
  
  "Uh, Reach?" I glanced to her. "These guys did just save us."
  
  "Yeah, so they could have us for themselves." Her head shook. "We're just bones that the dogs in this hell hole are fighting over."
  
  "We assure you, Marquis' word is as good as anyone's," the neat man promised. "He promises that you will be safe while terms are considered, and that whether an agreement is reached or not, you will be allowed to leave unharmed. He only wishes to talk."
  
  "Might as well do it, girls." The guy with the red hair pointed out. I saw that while the flames on his hands were gone, his arms looked like blackened logs from a well-used fire pit. "There ain't gonna be a lot of guys in here willing to make a deal with you."
  
  I looked at Cassie, considering for a moment before shrugging. "I... guess we might as well?" If these three chose to turn nasty, I wasn't sure that the two of us could do enough about it from our positions. And from what I remembered reading about Marquis, who had been sent away when I was practically a toddler, he was an honorable man who followed a certain code.
  
  Shrugging, Reach slowly stood up and offered a hand down to pull me up beside her. "Whatever. Just know that I will say 'I told you so' when this blows up in our faces."
  
  "Noted." I looked to the men. "Take us to Marquis then, boys."
  
  Apparently, Marquis held court over Cell Block W. By the time we made our way through the block and arrived at the horseshoe shaped collection of upper and lower cells, I knew the names of our rescuers. Cinderhands was the name of the man with the red hair and fire power. The neat-looking man who did most of the talking was called Spruce. And the quiet man in dark clothes who had taken out Oni Lee was apparently known as Whimper.
  
  There were a couple of dozen other prisoners spread through the open area. I noted that their televisions were all working, unlike most of the other cell areas we'd seen. All of the men looked up and stared as we entered, but none moved.
  
  "Welcome." A man standing in front of the top center cell, on the ramp above us, spoke loudly. His brown hair was worn long, tied back in a ponytail. Even in worn prison clothes, the man looked... aristocratic. "Thank you for accepting my invitation. I trust your safety was assured?"
  
  I had the feeling he wasn't just talking to us, but reminding his followers that he had given his word that we would be left alone. "Yeah," I nodded. "We got the message that you wanted to talk."
  
  "Indeed." Marquis made a gesturing motion. "Please, join me." He stepped back into the cell.
  
  Cinderhands moved to join the people at one of the televisions, while Whimper quietly headed for what looked like the shower area.
  
  "Don't keep him waiting, girls," Spruce reminded us, standing back by the entrance that we had come through.
  
  With a glance toward Reach, who was standing beside me with the supply crate floating in front of her, I swallowed as we started to walk to the ramp. "Better than a face-to-face with Lung, I guess."
  
  Marquis was waiting for us. The place looked nice, for a prison cell. There was a single bed in the corner with what looked like better sheets than I had. A sheet of some kind had been put up around the toilet to create privacy, and on the other side of the room, a nice wooden table loaded down with several plates of food stood, surrounded by chairs. The man himself was sitting on one side of the table, gesturing for us to take the other seats.
  
  Once we sat down, I looked at the prison block leader. "So, you're Marquis?"
  
  The man smiled faintly. "Indeed. And you are Tether, and..." He looked at Cassie uncertainly.
  
  I briefly considered lying to keep some kind of possible advantage, but dismissed that thought as potentially more trouble than it was worth. "This is Reach."
  
  "How ya doin'?" Cassie spoke dryly, twitching a finger to make the plastic bin settle down on the floor beside her..
  
  "I am quite well, actually." Marquis looked between both of us. "Please, I'm sure you're hungry." He gestured to the food on the table.
  
  It took only a moment of hesitation before I tugged the end of my mask up enough to expose my mouth, picking up one of the sandwiches that lay there to take a bite. I was famished after everything that had happened. I was also exhausted, but there wasn't time to worry about that.
  
  Marquis watched for a moment while the two of us ate, before speaking again. "I believe that it's safe to say that you two would like to reach the other... shall we say, guest heroes on the other side of this prison. Preferably without being further accosted, yes?"
  
  "That... would be nice." I agreed carefully, finishing the sandwich before taking another. The food really was good. Or maybe I was just that hungry.
  
  "I can offer you safe passage all the way to the entrance to the female side of the prison, where your companions are." Marquis explained. "Not only will my own people leave you be, I will provide guards to help escort you that far, and to negotiate with the women there."
  
  "What's the catch?" Cassie demanded. "What do we have to do for you?"
  
  Apparently unbothered by her directness, Marquis held up several fingers. "Three things, all presuming that you will not be in here forever."
  
  "It's an inescapable prison," I pointed out. "It's not made to let anyone get out."
  
  He just smiled faintly at me. "Indeed. And yet, somehow I feel that 'inescapable' will not extend as far as preventing your rescue. So, on that assumptions..." He touched his first finger. "When you leave this place, you will speak to the authorities, passing along word of our help in this matter. You will ask that, in payment, we receive a new shipment of televisions and a couple of computers, as well as several other perks such as better food. Spruce will provide you with a complete list."
  
  "They might not listen to us." I glanced toward Reach before turning back to the man. "We can't promise any of this."
  
  "I ask only that you promise to do your best." Marquis assured me. "I believe that you, at least, are trustworthy. If you say that you will pass the request, and do what you are capable of doing to ensure it is followed, that is enough."
  
  I hesitated, trying to think before nodding slowly. "Okay, what about the other two?"
  
  "Second, we would like some form of communication to our loved ones." Marquis continued. "Some of the people in here have been out of contact for... many years. We would like one day a week in which we may speak with those that care about us on the outside. A face-to-face visit is, of course, impossible. But even so much as a phone call would be... acceptable."
  
  "Right." I could agree to that. Even people like the ones in here should be able to talk to their families, assuming people wanted to talk to them. "We'll pass that along too. And the third thing?"
  
  For a moment, Marquis was still and silent. His fingers drummed on the table briefly before he spoke again. "The third request is much more personal. The first two you may follow merely by speaking on our behalf. The third request, my request, you must do yourself." He produced a sealed envelope, placing it on the table between us. "This is a letter that I have written to my daughter. I wish you to keep it safe, and deliver it to her once you have left this place."
  
  "Your daughter?" I asked hesitantly. "How am I supposed to find her?"
  
  He smiled faintly. "You know her quite well, I believe. She was taken in by the hero known as Brandish."
  
  I blinked, mouth opening before I got what he meant. "Wha-Amy?" My eyes widened as I blurted, "Panacea is your daughter?"
  
  "Holy shit." Cassie muttered next to me.
  
  "Quite." Marquis gave another slight nod. "Though I know her as Amelia. Deliver the letter, unopened, to my daughter. Then pass those two requests along and do whatever you are capable of doing to ensure that they are followed. Do those three things, and you have my word that you will be delivered safely to the other side of the prison. You may even rest here first, in a private cell with no worry that anyone here will bother you."
  
  I hesitated, thinking it through while glancing toward Reach.
  
  "Your call." She shrugged. "Doesn't seem like too much to ask for."
  
  "It may seem like little to you girls." Marquis' voice was soft. "Yet I assure you, those three things are worth more than your lives to people here."
  
  After another second, I nodded. "Okay." My head bobbed in a nod. "Deal. You let us sleep, then get us to the other side of the prison, and we'll do what you want."
  
  "Excellent." Marquis smiled at us. "Thank you, girls. You will not regret this arrangement."
  
  We didn't just blindly trust Marquis, of course. Not any more than we had to, anyway. When Cassie and I were left in the private cell that the man had promised, the entrance blocked by a fence of interlocking bone shards that he had summoned, we didn't both crash and risk leaving ourselves exposed to either a betrayal, or one of Marquis' men breaking rank. Instead, we agreed to take turns. I would sleep first, while she waited up and kept watch. Then she would wake me and take her chance to rest.
  
  I told myself it was a futile effort, that there was no way I'd be able to rest here, with as much danger as we were in. Somehow, however, my eyes closed when I laid down on the cot and I was out like a light, against all expectation. Apparently, as tired as I was, even in a place like this, I just couldn't keep my eyes open.
  
  According to the clock that we could see on the far wall of the cell block, through the gaps in the bone wall, four and a half hours had passed when Cassie nudged me with her foot. She was sitting on the floor across from the bunk, using the small light by the metal desk to read one of the books from the supply crate.
  
  "Anything decent?" I asked quietly while gesturing to the novel, once I was oriented and awake.
  
  Cassie shrugged, tossing it aside. "Just some shitty romance garbage. Something to pass time." Rising, she moved to haul herself up onto the upper bunk, settling above me. "And now it's passed, so I'm going to bed."
  
  I pushed myself out of the lower bunk so that I wouldn't fall asleep again, and rose to stand next to the cell entrance. "See anything interesting?"
  
  It took her a second to respond. "Nope. Well, unless you count them auctioning off who gets to make each of us their prison wives as interesting."
  
  My head must have looked funny as it jerked that way, because I heard a low chuckle from the shadows engulfing the bunk. "I'm fucking with you."
  
  "Jerk." I muttered, leaning back against the wall. "Go to sleep."
  
  Silence returned, and I thought that Cassie had fallen asleep. However, a couple minutes later, her quiet voice came back. "Did you always know you were lesbo?"
  
  I choked a little, eyes widening at the question. "Err, what, huh?"
  
  "Lesbo." I saw the shadow of the girl laying on her side, facing away from me and toward the wall. "You know, gay? What, I can't use that word either? Fuck, people are sensitive."
  
  I shook my head slowly, choosing to move on. "What do you mean, did I always know?"
  
  "I mean, how long have you known you were gay? I mean, if you are gay. Wait, are you a switch-hitter, or just-"
  
  Coughing, I interrupted. "I didn't really know I liked girls until... Sundancer. Mostly."
  
  The curiosity in her voice was palpable. "Mostly?"
  
  I felt my face heat up a little. "Well, now that I think about it... in retrospect... I think I might have had a little, tiny bit of a crush on... on Shadow Stalker. For a little bit."
  
  "The psycho girl?" Cassie sounded surprised. "You had a crush on the girl that..." Even she wasn't callous enough to keep talking, though she gave a low whistle. "Fuck."
  
  "Yeah, I... I don't know. I thought she was pretty, and I loved watching her run. Every time she... complimented me or... or anything like that, it made me happy. It made me want... to make her happy some more, to make her proud of me. I... didn't really recognize it at the time, but... yeah, I think I had a little bit of a... a crush on her, even if I didn't exactly know what it was."
  
  "So how do you feel about that now?"
  
  "How do I feel about it?" I let out a long, heavy sigh. "I hate her. I hate everything about her. She killed my parents. Yeah, she did it because Coil threatened her, but she still did it. She wouldn't have been in that situation if she wasn't already a psychopath that refused to accept responsibility for killing someone else, accident or not. And the thought that I ever liked her, that I ever wanted to impress her, it makes me want to throw up. Not just because of who and what she is and what she's done, but for what that says about the way I was, and what I was willing to... overlook."
  
  Again, Cassie was quiet for a few moments before she spoke. "But... with Sundancer, who... who kissed who first? I mean, who started it?"
  
  "That's... pretty personal, but... well, she did. Sort of. She asked if it was okay, and then... well, I liked it. I guess I knew I liked her before then, but that was what really sealed it."
  
  "So you knew when she kissed you, you knew how you felt. Is that the way it's supposed to work? I mean, you weren't... confused still?"
  
  I frowned, shaking my head. "No I... I wasn't confused. Why are you asking all this stuff, anyway?" Then it hit me, belatedly, and I felt stupid. "Wait a second, someone kissed you, didn't they?"
  
  "Okay, that's enough right there. We are not having this conversation anymore."
  
  Smiling a little, I teased, "Was it someone I know?"
  
  "No," she answered quickly. There was a pause as Cassie realized that she had just confirmed that there was someone, before she muttered, "Damn it."
  
  "Reach," I said quietly. "You're a... you're almost a fifteen-year-old girl. You're allowed to kiss someone, you're allowed to like someone. No one's going to think you're any less tough or whatever just because you kiss someone and like it. It's... okay to care. It's okay to feel."
  
  The silence dragged on after that, to the point that I thought she wasn't going to respond at all. Finally, she said, in a voice that was almost too quiet for me to hear, "I don't know how."
  
  "You... you don't know how to... feel?"
  
  The sarcasm jumped back to her voice. "Believe it or not, being a Nazi Supervillain is not all that conducive toward strong emotional bonding and growth. I don't fucking know how I feel about... any of it. I feel something, but it's all... it's all completely fucked up in my head. I don't know if I liked... just... the kiss, or if I liked him kissing me, or... or what. I don't fucking know. And then I fucked it all up anyway."
  
  "What do you mean, you fucked it up?"
  
  "I ran away." Her voice was quiet again, the shame apparent. "Get it? He kissed me and I ran away. I'm a god damn pussy coward. I freaked out and took off. Now I'm stuck in here. Do you get that? The next thing he's going to hear is that... is that he kissed me, and I jumped into the Birdcage to get away from him. Doesn't matter how he felt before, or how I feel, now he'll hate me."
  
  I chuckled and shook my head. "Reach, what he's going to hear was that you were so... brave, so amazing, that you did what almost no one else would have. You willingly went to one of the worst places in the world, just to save someone. I hate to be the one to tell you this, but that's not cowardly. That's heroic. So... no, he won't hate you for it. Which means you just have to ask yourself a question. You don't have to answer it right now, and you don't have to tell me the answer at all. But think about it."
  
  "What's that?"
  
  "Ask yourself... if you closed your eyes right now, and someone kissed you-"
  
  "This had better not be a come-on."
  
  Rolling my eyes, I pressed on. "If you closed your eyes and someone kissed you, even someone you knew, would you be happy or sad if it was someone other than him?"
  
  Cassie was quiet for a few seconds before asking, "You really think we're gonna get out of here?"
  
  "Yeah," I answered softly. "We are totally getting out of here. Now go to sleep so we can kick some more ass and make it happen."
  
  This time, her silence stretched out until I knew she actually was asleep. I was left to sit in the dim light, wondering how everything was going on the outside. I had no way of knowing what was happening, how any of the people who mattered to me were reacting. They could be in danger, could be... could be putting themselves through god knew what, and there was nothing I could do about it.
  
  As softly as I could, I whispered, "Marissa... Ethan... please be okay. Please. I swear I'll find a way. I'll get Sam and Trevor and get out. Just... just be okay."
  
  Marquis was as good as his word, no one bothered us through the rest of the night. Some hours later, after I'd let Cassie sleep as long as I dared, we were given a chance to shower (with another wall of bones blocking anyone from entering, and while each of us stood guard for the other), and eat something.
  
  When we left the cell block, and began to be escorted back out of Marquis' area, and toward the female side of the prison, we were accompanied by no less than five of his men. Whimper, Cinderhands, and Spruce were back from the day before, and they had been joined by a hulking brute of a man with a mouthful of sharp gold teeth, and a smaller Hispanic guy who carried two large, heavy looking pouches over either shoulder.
  
  Spruce gave me the list of new perks and improvements they were asking for in exchange for helping us. I tucked it away in the compartment of my costume along with the letter from Marquis to his daughter.
  
  His daughter. Panacea was Marquis' daughter, which meant that Pandora was... what, also his daughter? How did that work exactly?
  
  I'd spent part of the night wondering if I should actually tell Marquis about the existence of Pandora. She did want to be a real person, and her... sort of... biological father knowing she existed might have been important to that end.
  
  On the other hand, for all his pretty words and sense of honor, I couldn't forget that Marquis was a bad guy. Not only that, but he was such a bad guy that he'd been put away in the Birdcage. Telling him that he had a potential S-Class threat that he could influence really didn't seem like a very good idea, all things considered.
  
  For that matter, telling Pandora that she had a father in the Birdcage also seemed like it might backfire if she decided she was going to get him out, or even just, well, visit. Not that lying to her about it was a good idea either, considering how she might react... I needed to think. I needed to figure out who to tell what and how soon to tell them.
  
  In any case, I thought it might be better to attempt to get Amy and Pandora on at least something resembling speaking terms first. If I really wanted to give Pandora a family member to pay attention to, the girl that she had been cloned from, who she had already referred to as 'sister', and who was one of the most important and dedicated healers in the country seemed like a better choice than the super-criminal with the life prison sentence.
  
  "So these perks you guys are asking for," Reach spoke up after we had been making our way through the corridors with our escort for awhile. "You keeping them for yourselves, or letting the whole prison have 'em?"
  
  It was Spruce who answered. "That would be the true beauty of the arrangement. The benefits extend to the entire prison, but the deal requires that Marquis remain the de facto spokesman. Without him or his designated successor, the deal is arranged to fall apart. So if anyone causes too much of a problem, they get cut off from the new benefits. And if anyone tries to depose Marquis himself, they fuck over everybody in the prison."
  
  "So people have incentive to keep Marquis safe, even if they're not on his side." I realized then. "If he gets this deal to go through, he's suddenly the number one man in here, even for people who hate his guts. Because no one's going to let him die and risk pissing off every other prisoner who suddenly doesn't have these additional privileges."
  
  "Indeed." The tidy man gave a short nod, glancing toward me. "He also bears a grudge against those who wrong him, so if you think that you can just take our protection and then not fulfill your end of the deal, you will find that Marquis' reach extends further than you might imagine."
  
  "We said we'd pass along the message and try to convince them to accept the deal," I said firmly. "And we will. We'll keep our end."
  
  Spruce didn't look like he was sure of that, but he simply nodded.
  
  Several times, we passed small groups of prisoners that were clearly looking for the two of us. They always stopped and glared at our escort, but apparently none of them dared jump all of us together. Or maybe their fear of starting a war with Marquis was stronger than their urge to try grabbing us.
  
  Either way, we were left alone until we reached the single corridor that connected this side of the prison to the female side.
  
  At the other end of the hall, I could see two female figures. One was a fairly muscular dark-skinned woman in a black tank top, with tattoos of flames stretching down from both of her shoulders to her fingers.
  
  The other female standing guard was clearly barely a couple years older than I was. Her black hair was worn in a short pony-tail, and it looked like she was half-Asian.
  
  "Wait here," Spruce told us. "I'll speak with Graven and make the arrangement." He moved down the corridor, hands up where the two females could see them. The woman in the black tank top moved to meet him, and they began to speak.
  
  "Not many people to guard this area," I noted quietly.
  
  Cinderhands chuckled next to me. "They don't need many. Not when they've got Ruin."
  
  "Ruin?" The name was familiar, but I wasn't sure why.
  
  He nodded toward the younger girl with the partial Asian features. "Destructive voice. Any time she says anything, even a god damn whisper, it sends out some kinda fucking disintegration wave that destroys every bit of biological material it hits. She stubs her god damn toe and says 'ow', she'll wipe out anyone and anything living inside of fifty feet ahead of her. Walls and armor don't do shit to block it."
  
  Cassie noted, "She looks young. What'd she do to end up in here?"
  
  "Chose it," Cinderhands replied. "I guess when her power came out, she fucking... took out a bunch of people in a mall or something before she knew what was going on. Didn't even dispute the charges or try to defend herself. She plead guilty and asked for the Birdcage." He snorted. "Guess she figured if she ever accidentally said anything, killing anyone in this shit hole wasn't that big of a deal."
  
  By that time, Spruce was returning to us. "Give them the cigarettes and half of the candy. Then head for Glaistig Uaine's area and give her the rest of the candy, and the books. Make sure they know it's tribute for Uaine, and that you're looking for the other heroes."
  
  For all I knew, Spruce might have been a serial rapist murderer. But he had been polite to us so far, so I returned the favor. "Thank you, sir."
  
  He just raised an eyebrow before stepping out of the way. "Good luck to you."
  
  Together, Cassie and I walked to the other end of the corridor. The black woman, Graven apparently, looked us up and down. "We gettin' too damn many do-gooder bitches in here. Gimme the cigs."
  
  While she was rooting through the supply crate to make sure we were handing over what they'd been promised, I looked toward the other girl. Ruin met my gaze silently, lifting her hand in a wave before looking away, refocusing on the group of men at the other end of the corridor who were waiting for us to move out of sight.
  
  Once Graven was satisfied, she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "You want Block C. Follow the arrows. When you get there, give the candy and books to the guard there, let 'em know it's for Glaistig Uaine."
  
  "Yeah, we got it." Reach floated the crate back up once more, turning to wave almost jauntily back at the men who had escorted us before stepping through the narrow doorway.
  
  "Thanks," I said quietly before passing through the entrance, keeping my eyes open. I wasn't under any delusions that we were that much safer on this side of the prison. It wasn't like being female stopped the prisoners here from being just as nasty as the guys we had just left behind.
  
  Together, Reach and I followed both the arrows on the walls and the map that Dragon had provided. There were fewer areas on this side that she had marked as off limits, but they still existed.
  
  As we passed the cell blocks on this side of the prison, I could see women standing around in small groups. They all stared at us while we passed by, and I could hear various whispers about what we were doing and whether we'd be sticking around.
  
  We were still a couple cell blocks away from our destination when a familiar voice called out from down one of the supply corridors. "H-hey!"
  
  I turned that way, shocked by the sound. "Trevor?"
  
  My brother was there. My... my brother. My eyes widened, and I very nearly blew my entire identity by running up to hug him. Trevor was there. However strained our relationship might have become in the last few years didn't matter just then. He was my brother , the... the only other person who could feel the way I felt about our parents. Our...
  
  I froze. Did he know? Oh god, did he know that Mom and Dad were... My breath caught sharply, while Trevor continued to wave at us almost frantically as he jogged up to meet us. "Hey! Hey it's really you! You're... wait, did you just say my name?"
  
  I couldn't let him know who I was. Not... not now, not like this. Remembering to activate the voice changer with my glove that time, I coughed. "Of course, they... we found out you were in here."
  
  Beside me, Reach waved a hand. "Yo, I'm not invisible am I?"
  
  Trevor blinked at her. "Who're you?"
  
  "This is Reach. She's... another Ward." I said carefully.
  
  "Oh shit. You're that Naz-"
  
  "Well, sure glad you're safe." I interrupted. "Are Miss Militia and Battery with you?"
  
  For a second, Trevor just stared at me, hesitating. My brother looked... pretty good actually, for being trapped in this prison for so long. He looked fed and healthy and... safe, come to think of it. Miss Militia must have been doing a hell of a job taking care of him.
  
  "Hello?" Reach was waving a hand in front of his face. "You alive in there? She asked you a question."
  
  Snapping out of whatever daydream he'd been lost in, Trevor's head bobbed. "Err, yeah. Yeah." He coughed and turned. "Miss Militia and Battery, they're... back this way."
  
  I started to follow as he walked, and Reach nudged me, whispering, "Is he always this weird?"
  
  Before I could respond, we passed through the doorway in the corner of the supply corridor, emerging into a dark room.
  
  "Hey, Tre-" I started to ask if we'd gone the wrong way, just as the lights came on. The room wasn't that large. On one end I could see the pipes that delivered supplies, and three figures stood there waiting for us. None were Miss Militia, or Battery.
  
  The man in front was a heavy set, balding man that looked more like a bank branch manager or a high school social studies teacher than a super villain.
  
  "Who are-"
  
  That was as far as I got, before a sudden, blinding pain shot through me. My muscles locked up, and the floor came up to smack me in the face. The last two things I saw before my vision faded to black were a light red line connecting itself from me to Reach, and the stun prod in Trevor's hand.
  
  As far as I could tell, I wasn't out for long. When my eyes blinked open once more, my back was pressed against one of the supply pipes, with my arms stretched behind me and my wrists bound somehow to it. It felt like a length of chain binding me to it.
  
  Trevor was talking. "See, I got them. I got them like you wanted. So you'll give it to me again, right? You swore, you swore you'd give it back."
  
  "Uggnn... Trevor... moron..." I mumbled, shaking my head back and forth to clear the cobwebs clinging to my consciousness. "The fuck..."
  
  A hand found my chin and tilted my head up so that I could see the balding man from earlier. "Good afternoon, dear. Are you all right?"
  
  "Ya know, I've been better." I pulled at the chains binding my hands to the pipe behind me. "Where's Reach?"
  
  "Mmm'over here." A voice mumbled from the next pipe over. I turned that way to see Cassie there, bound the same way I was.
  
  Satisfied that she was at least as safe as I was (not much), I refocused my attention on my idiot of a brother. "Trevor! Where's Battery? Where's Miss Militia? What the hell is going on?"
  
  Trevor, standing back with one of the other men that I'd seen in the room, wouldn't look at me. He stared at the floor, muttering, "Shut up. Just shut up. I did what I had to do to survive. Teacher takes care of me."
  
  The man in front of me straightened. "Please relax, dear. Straining against those bonds isn't going to do you any good. Nor will trying to assault any of us. We're going to have a little... discussion, about leaving this prison."
  
  Beside me, Cassie gave a sharp laugh. "Right, bitch. Like they'll ever let you out of here."
  
  "You'd be surprised what one can accomplish with the proper motivation." The man, Teacher apparently, intoned in a soft voice.
  
  Clearly impatient, Trevor burst out, "Hey! You said if I got them here with you, you'd give me the power again. Come on, you fucking swore."
  
  "Aww gee," Cassie muttered. "Did the sociopath in the Birdcage break a promise? If you can't trust the piece of shit super-criminal with a life sentence in the inescapable prison, who can you trust?"
  
  "Indeed..." Teacher looked briefly annoyed at the interruption before stepping back. "And the power you will have, boy."
  
  The power? My brother... Trevor had sold me out, had sold out heroes even if he didn't know who they were, for power? I knew he was trapped in here, with these vicious killers. I'd known that he could be selfish and obsessed with blaming everyone but himself for bad things that happened, but the idea that he could go this far, that he could do... this... I really... didn't know him.
  
  He was a moron.
  
  My confusion, and dawning realization that my brother really was that god damn stupid , was interrupted by Teacher's contemplative voice. "However, there is still more for you to fulfill your side."
  
  "What?!" Trevor shouted. "No! No way! Look, they're right there! Our deal was that I help you get a face to face meeting. That's it."
  
  "Yes." Teacher nodded. "A face-to-face meeting." He lifted a hand to point back to me. "That deal hasn't been filled yet.
  
  My blood went cold, every instinct screaming at me to get the fuck out of there.
  
  "Huh?" Trevor didn't get it.
  
  Teacher smiled. "You see, dear Trevor, all of us..." He gestured at himself and his two silent companions. "... we've already been given the worst sentence the Protectorate can possibly give. We have no possibility of being... forgiven, as it were. But you... well, we need to be absolutely certain of your loyalty."
  
  "What the hell does that mean?" My brother, the idiot, demanded. "You said get you a face-to-face meeting. There they are. There she is. You think they'll forgive that? Just give me the fucking power back already!"
  
  "One more thing, boy." Teacher held up a finger patiently. "One more thing to ensure that you are on our side, our team, forever, that you will never be accepted by their side. There is one more bridge for you to burn, a line for you to cross. Then you can have the power for as long as you want, any time you need it."
  
  Trevor looked... hungry. He looked like an addict being promised a lifetime supply of his favorite vice. "What? What now?"
  
  "You promised a face-to-face meeting." Teacher pointed at me. "Not Face-to-Mask. Cross the last line, my boy. If you take her mask, if you expose her identity, you will never be forgiven. You will have no choice but to stay with us, no choice but to be loyal. Then, then we will trust you. Then you can have all the power you want."
  
  "Take her mask, and I will provide anything you want, for the rest of your life."
  
  13.04
  
  "What... why do you need to see her face?" Trevor sounded almost like he was stalling, unable to make a decision. "What's that gonna do?"
  
  "On its own, nothing." Teacher shook his head, lifting a hand to pass something to my brother. "But you will take this camera, and photograph the evidence."
  
  "Huh?" Trevor's hand took the camera, staring at it. "Where the hell did you get a camera?"
  
  Teacher chuckled low. "As I told you before, Trevor, I have a contact whose power allows him ways of getting items in and out of this prison. Did you doubt me?"
  
  "N-no." Trevor shook his head. I saw him turning the camera over in his hand.
  
  "There are favors this contact still owes me, favors he will comply with. One of those, will be to take that picture to a safe location, to be released should... Tether... here, fail to follow future instructions. Or, of course, in the case that anything should happen to... let's say either of us. I'll extend the protection to you, of course."
  
  "Hey ass-breath," Reach's voice cut in as Trevor stood there indecisively. "You come near either of us, and I'm gonna make that head up your ass not quite so idiomatic."
  
  "Oh yeah," Trevor shot back, his hand tightening on the camera. "I'm so scared of some little girl chained to a pipe."
  
  "As a point of fact, dear, you will find yourself quite unable to use your power." Teacher idly remarked toward Reach. He gestured toward the man who had been hovering just at the edge of my line of sight, over near Cassie.
  
  "You see," Teacher explained, as though he was lecturing a class. "Void here projects a field around himself that is incapable of being affected or penetrated by any parahuman power. With my help, he is able to project that protection onto the person he is nearest, which... in your case, prevents you from accessing your power whatsoever."
  
  None of that it mattered to me, at the time. I was still frozen in disbelief, trying in vain to understand what was going on. What... what had happened? Was my brother always this stupid, always this... bad? I'd known that he had a tendency to blame other people for his problems, or just wait for them to be solved rather than doing anything about it, but this was... he was helping a villain, a sociopath, attack a hero. Whether he knew it was me or not was immaterial. He was helping a villain.
  
  Not only helping, but actually considering breaking one of the most important unwritten rules. In the same way, or even more than, the fact that killing a police officer was generally a bad idea because doing so would bring absolutely all of the ones that were left down on your head, unwillingly unmasking a cape this way was... unforgivable.
  
  He wouldn't do it. My brother had his problems, but he would not do this.
  
  I believed that. I had to believe that. My parents, our parents, were dead. They were gone. I had no other family. Trevor, for all his faults, was what I had left. He would not go that far. He couldn't.
  
  He took a step toward me, then another.
  
  I didn't pay attention to anything else. My eyes were on Trevor, as he crossed the distance between us. I watched him approach, and I believed. I knew he would stop. My brother was not this person. I didn't need to fight him. When he changed his mind, I would have to be ready to protect him from Teacher's reprisal.
  
  He would change his mind. I believed him. I knew my brother.
  
  Still, I jerked a little at the chains that bound my arms back, truly noticing only then that my feet were also secured to either side of the pipe, preventing me from kicking out.
  
  Teacher's voice was calm, the soothing, guiding voice of a kindly, knowledgeable professor. "The sooner we can trust you, Trevor, the sooner you can have your power back."
  
  I shook my head. "Don't. You don't have to do this. You're better than this."
  
  "She's right, Trevor." That voice oh-so-gently assured him. "You are better than this. You are better when you have power. You know why you need it. We understand. How could someone like her know what you've been through?"
  
  Trevor stopped in front of me, hands twitching at his sides. He glanced over his shoulder at Teacher, who gave him a reassuring smile. "It's all right, Trevor. You can do it."
  
  "Don't." I said quietly, head shaking as I stared up at him. He knew better. He was better . When the time came, when he stopped, when he turned against Teacher, I had to be ready.
  
  He spoke to me. "I want you to know, that I don't... I don't have anything against you. I really don't. This isn't about you. It's not... it's about me, it's about doing what I have to do. I wish it wasn't you. Actually, I... I think you're funny, and... and cute."
  
  I had thought that I couldn't be more sickened by this entire situation. I had been wrong. Not only because he was my brother and the idea of him finding any part of me 'cute' in that way was revolting, but also because that was gross even if I had been someone he'd never seen before. I was strapped to a pipe, and if he went through with this, he was going to take my mask, expose my face in front of several of the worst villains in the world. But it wasn't personal? But he thought I was cute? What part of... of that was supposed to make any of this better?
  
  He was gross. But he was my brother. He would stop. I knew that he would, and I was ready to protect him when Teacher inevitably lashed out. I was ready.
  
  His hand came up, fingers twitching. I felt him push the hood back out of the way a little awkwardly. "I... like I said, nothing personal. You're... you're a good hero." His hand came down on the top of my head, resting against my mask. I could feel it shaking nervously.
  
  "Don't." I swallowed, shaking my head as I clung to my belief in my brother, in the only real family that I had left. "Don't do this, Trevor. You don't need his power. He's using you. Don't let him. This is your life, your life . We're getting you out of here. We are getting out of here. You're not the person he wants you to be."
  
  Trevor's eyes closed and he looked away for a moment. I tensed. This was it. This was the part where he would change his mind, where he would be the person I knew he was.
  
  Instead, I felt his hand move, his fingers squeezing into the material of the mask. Then it was sliding up, my vision obscured by the fabric as it was pulled up. My neck was uncovered, the air of the room even cooler than I had expected. The mask drew inexorably upward, exposing my chin, then my mouth.
  
  The pulling stopped then, Trevor's hand moving away from my head. I couldn't see anything, but the mask still covered half my face.
  
  Everything was still. All was quiet. I trusted Trevor. He was better than this. He stopped. He had stopped before he went too far. He'd almost done it, but now Teacher would be angry, and-
  
  There was a deep exhale of commitment, and the hand came back. The fabric of the mask was gathered up once more.
  
  "No." I whispered, my voice no longer disguised, yet too quiet and suddenly emotional to be recognized anyway. My trust in my brother. I clung to it for one last, pitiful, desperate second. Yes, I might have been able to stop this before. I might have been able to fight back, even bound as I was. Maybe we would have lost, but I could have fought.
  
  But I'd trusted my brother. I'd believed that I had to worry about protecting him after he did the right thing, not believing that he would ever actually follow through with this.
  
  Now, it was too late. Now, all I could do was whisper, "Please."
  
  With a rush of fabric, the mask left my head entirely, followed immediately by the camera flash before Trevor could possibly have recognized who he was looking at. At the same time, my faith in family, my trust in the inevitable goodness of my admittedly flawed brother, shattered.
  
  My parents had been killed, but my brother had become something I couldn't recognize. He had been willing to unmask and blackmail a... a hero, to get what he wanted. It didn't matter that he hadn't known who I was. The fact that he could do that, that he was willing to go that far...
  
  The betrayal, the absolute loss that was almost as powerful as that of the death of my parents, yet for entirely different reasons, twisted up in my gut, but I forced it aside. I forced myself to prioritize, just for a few more minutes. I shut the feeling down, and I focused on the person in front of me not as being my brother, not as someone I needed to protect, but as an enemy.
  
  And enemies... I could deal with.
  
  With the mask gone, I could see again. I saw Trevor holding the crumpled mask in one hand and the camera in the other, staring at me with some mixture of disbelief and shock. His mouth was open, but his voice seemed to have failed him. His eyes moved from the costume to my face, as though trying to associate what he had seen before with what he was seeing now, while a noise that was something like denial and horror gradually rose from him.
  
  "N-no." He spoke finally, his voice shaken. "Ma-"
  
  That was as far as I let him get. Attaching a line to his shirt, I yanked him forward toward me and down. As he stumbled, I lashed forward, smacking Trevor in the face with the top of my head. I felt blood in my hair, and a sharp pain of my own even as he cried out.
  
  One line attached to the camera in his hand, yanking it out of his hand to slam into the nearby wall with as much force as I could muster. Meanwhile, a second attached between Trevor's side as he recoiled from the blow, and the wall behind him. A violent shove at the line sent him flying toward my companion. "Reach!"
  
  Teacher was moving back, retreating from the room even as he shouted an order. But I still heard a satisfying crash and two different cries as Trevor's flight sent him slamming into the man that had been guarding Reach.
  
  The man who had been by Teacher took a step forward, and then there were two of him, another step and there were three of him. With each step, another duplicate was created, all of them rushing toward us.
  
  Meanwhile, the chains attached to Reach snapped as easily as if she had been breaking a carrot in two. Since Trevor was now the person nearest Void, she had her power back.
  
  With a terrible, loud grinding and tearing noise, the pipe that she had been bound to literally ripped its way out of the ceiling and floor. "You wanna play?" The pipe flipped over horizontally to take up most of the width of the room, before flying forward to catch the approaching duplicates, bowling them all over. "Then let's fucking play!"
  
  While the duplicates were busy with the pipe, Reach spared a moment to reach over. Her hand brushed the chains attached to my arms and legs, snapping them as easily as she had her own.
  
  Void was trying to shove Trevor away from him so that he could get near Reach again. But she floated the chains that had been binding her up and over, quickly wrapping them around both of their arms to trap them together.
  
  I took three steps that way, while my companion continued to use the flying pipe to mow down any of the duplicates that started to rise.
  
  Twisting around, pulling against the chain binding his arm to the other man's, Trevor stared at me. His eyes were still wide with shock, blood from the blow I had already done to his nose obscuring his features. "M-Mad-"
  
  I punched him then, a hard right hook with my gauntlet that knocked him into the wall, dragging the other man with him, before he slumped with a dazed groan.
  
  Reaching out, I took my mask back from his hand, holding it tightly in my own. Then, for a moment, I just stood there and stared down at him as he whimpered in pain.
  
  To anyone else, I would have had a pithy remark. I would have insulted them, pointed out every way that he had just failed. I would have told him how much his choice had fucked him over, in every possible way.
  
  But he was my brother, and he had done this, and I wasn't in the mood to be funny.
  
  "... didn't... know... it... you..." Trevor was trying to stammer, spitting blood out of his mouth. I saw a couple of his teeth missing.
  
  "No," I said coldly. "I'm the one who didn't know you."
  
  I turned my back on him. I turned my back on my brother, and pulled the mask on while calling out to my teammate. "Reach!"
  
  The pipe snapped just then, after a particularly vicious smack-down. She winced and looked back at me. "Time to go?"
  
  I nodded, moving to her. Meanwhile, the collection of duplicates were picking themselves up. Apparently it took more than a severe beating with a giant pipe to put them down.
  
  Looking past the duplicates, to the corridor that Teacher had escaped into, I attached a pair of lines there from myself and Reach, using them to haul the two of us clear across the room and out into the hallway.
  
  We landed, steadying ourselves. I saw the small army of duplicates come rushing for the door, then turned the other way and started to run with Cassie.
  
  The duplicates weren't just tough. They were also fast. They came after us like a flood, filling up the corridor behind us while they strained to catch up.
  
  As we came around the corner, I almost slammed into someone, jerking aside at the last second to hit the wall. Beside me, Reach threw herself the other way, into the opposite wall.
  
  It was Ruin, the girl who had been guarding the entrance into the female side of the prison. She blinked at both of us, stared at our panting forms, and then looked up as the flood of duplicates came rushing into view.
  
  They stopped, all at once. For a second, Ruin and the nearly thirty duplicates stood facing one another. No one moved, no one spoke.
  
  The momentary spell broke, and the identical minions swarmed forward, trying to overtake us as they let out a single loud, intimidating scream of challenge.
  
  Ruin, on the other hand, simply took one step forward to put myself and Reach behind her, and spoke a single word, her voice soft and somewhat strained from obvious lack of use.
  
  "No."
  
  Some kind of hazy, semi-invisible wave, a distortion in the air, accompanied that single word, flooding out into the hall in front of the girl. It passed through the crowd of rushing duplicates. It hit all of them, passing through each, and as it did, every single body in its path instantly turned onyx black, looking briefly like a statue, before falling apart into what looked like ash, which then, in turn, dissolved into nothing but a few grains of dust.
  
  A single word, and all of the duplicates were gone.
  
  Turning back toward us, Ruin silently leaned forward, eyebrow raised as she pantomimed concern, gesturing to see if we were okay.
  
  "We're good, thanks." Reach spoke for us. "Think you could uhhh, help us find Glaistig Uaine's place now? We sort of got... sidetracked by those guys."
  
  Giving a short nod, Ruin pointed back the way she had been coming from.
  
  Before we moved, Cassie stepped near me. "Hey, uh, we could... go back for him first. We can go back for that piece of garbage if you... you know... want to."
  
  "No." I shook my head, starting to walk the way that Ruin had pointed. "He made his choice."
  
  I was glad that I had my mask back. Not just to hide my identity, but because it prevented anyone from seeing the tears that still blurred my vision and were wet against my cheeks. It allowed me to pretend that I had moved on, that I didn't feel broken... sick... violated inside.
  
  My parents had been killed more than a month earlier.
  
  And now my brother was gone as well.
  
  13.05
  
  Before we went very far, I reached out to tug Ruin's sleeve. "Teacher's the one who attacked us. He's got... a couple of people with him. If you send word to the exit, they might be able to stop him from getting out, if he hasn't already."
  
  She looked past us, down the corridor toward where the split between the male and female sides of the prison was. Then she turned to point down the hall the way we had been going. Making sure we were paying attention, Ruin pointed at the nearest doorway, then held up four fingers.
  
  "Keep going until we reach the fourth entrance, got it." I nodded. "Go warn them at the guard post."
  
  She left, and the two of us followed her instructions, eventually reaching a prison block that was somehow even more well ordered than Marquis' had been. As we entered, I saw a whiteboard next to the entrance with a list of names down one side. Next to each name was a listed chore like 'mop showers', 'sweep ramp', and 'trash collection'. Beside the list of chores there was line along the top listing the days of the week, with check marks next to each chore down the line of names for every day that had passed except for this one, which was roughly half full of check marks.
  
  There were some women by the televisions, watching daytime soaps and talk shows, while others did chores, and a few more sat at tables playing card games.
  
  I had time to let my gaze pass over all of this, before a voice called out in some other language. I thought it sounded like Chinese, but I was hardly an expert. When I turned toward the voice, there were two women there, and they couldn't look any more different. The one who had spoken was a small Asian female, who looked like she was about thirty, maybe thirty-five years old. Meanwhile, her companion was a tall Caucasian woman with long blonde hair. She appeared to be ten years younger than the Asian woman, and she might have been pretty, except for a thick burn scar that ran from her left eye all the way down to her neck, wide enough to take up half her face on that side.
  
  When the blonde woman spoke, it was in English. Heavily southern accented English. "Weeeelll weeeeeelll weeeeeellll. What have we here? Could it be, by my very stars, another hero, come to grace our presence? If I didn't know better, I'd say the people in charge up there could be losing control of this here establishment."
  
  The Asian woman said something else, and her companion chuckled. "When you's right, you's right." Taking a step toward us, the blonde held her hand out. "My... paramour here has reminded me that it's darn right impolite not to introduce ourselves. They call me Vex. My... inamorato here-"
  
  "Inamorata." Cassie interrupted.
  
  "I beg your pardon?"
  
  Speaking slower, Cassie sounded it out. "In-am-uh-rah-tuh. Not toh. Unless your friend there's packing a cock, anyway."
  
  Vex seemed to consider that for a moment, before her smile widened. "Well then, I suppose one learns something new every day, ain't that right? My... inamorata here... is called Bashe."
  
  She continued to hold her hand out, but Ruin had arrived by then, and moved between us. She gave the other two prisoners a harsh look, glaring for a moment until Vex finally lowered hand, chuckling the whole time. "Aight, I can see when being friendly ain't wanted." She looked over Ruin's shoulder at me. "I'll be keeping an out for ya at dinner."
  
  They moved on, and I looked at Ruin. "There's a reason you didn't want us to shake her hand, isn't there?" When the other girl nodded, I asked, "Her power?" Another nod. "Thank you. Did you catch Teacher before he got back across?" Her head shook that time, and I winced. "Did he hurt anyone?"
  
  Before she could respond, I heard another voice, this one familiar. "Tether?"
  
  Turning on my heel, I saw Sam. She had some kind of white cloth wrapped around the bottom half of her face, similar to Miss Militia's American flag scarf.
  
  Regret filled her eyes when I looked at her. "Oh Tether, You made-"
  
  That was as far as I let her get, as far as she was able to get, before I threw myself that way. My arms went around Sam, and I clung to her as tightly as I could. "You're okay. You're okay, you're okay, you're okay, you're okay." It was a mantra, and I squeezed tighter with each repetition.
  
  "Wha-oh." Poor Sam seemed taken aback briefly, but after a moment she returned the hug almost as fiercely. "Hey, hey, I'm fine, I promise."
  
  "You're alive." I squeezed my eyes shut and tightened the hug even more. "You're all right, you're safe." I had to keep saying it, to remind myself that it was real, that it was true. Knowing that Trevor had betrayed Reach and me, and not knowing where Battery or Miss Militia were post-betrayal, had given rise to some truly terrifying thoughts that I hadn't really let myself consciously acknowledge until now, when they were thankfully erased by the very sight of my guardian.
  
  "Uuullp-" Sam managed to get out. "I don't know about safe, someone's trying to strangle me to death right now."
  
  Realizing I had been squeezing a little too tight, I finally let up a little, and allowed Sam to extricate herself. She stood there, staring down at me. Concern filled her eyes. "Hey... hey, are you all right? What happened?" Even through my mask, she knew something was wrong. It might have had something to do with the fact that I still hadn't fully let her go.
  
  "I..." My eyes closed again, and I gave the slightest shudder. "I don't want to talk about it right here."
  
  She frowned slightly at that, and I saw the worry in her eyes before she looked past me. "This is... Reach?"
  
  "How'd you know?" Cassie asked, curiously.
  
  "Dragon's been sending messages when she can. She let us know you two were in here." Battery's eyebrow raised. "But why are you wearing a different costume?"
  
  "Uh, long story." I shook my head. "Can we go somewhere? Where's Miss Militia?"
  
  Before she could respond to that, Sam's eyes caught sight of something else past us. She stepped back, lifting a hand to gesture. "Your Highness."
  
  Confused briefly, I turned to find what looked like a girl even younger than I was. She stood a few feet away, the details of her face obscured by the shroud made of shredded prison sweats.
  
  "Faerie Queen," Sam introduced us to Glaistig Uaine. "This is-"
  
  "True Healer." When the so-called Faerie Queen spoke, her own voice accompanied by a choir of others, all speaking in unison. "The sleepers celebrate your arrival."
  
  "Uhh..." I blinked a few times. "Miss... ummm, your Highness, I... don't know what anyone's told you about me, but I'm not a healer. I-"
  
  "What you are capable of, and what you are aware of, so seldom coincide." Glaistig Uaine seemed to float forward, her small hand coming up to touch the chest of my costume, where my heart was. I felt Sam tense a little next to me at the approach, but she remained still.
  
  I hesitated before looking down a little at the hand pressed against my heart. "I-errr... I'm sorry, Faerie Queen, it's... been a really long day. I just... I don't mean to insult you, I just don't understand. Are you saying that you think I can learn how to heal people?"
  
  A low, almost musical chuckle came then. "Isn't it amusing," she began. "How the bird that soars through the air, fails to recognize the basic miracle in what it has accomplished?"
  
  "I... I suppose it is easy to dismiss or overlook miracles in the age we're living in now." I conceded.
  
  Her hand slowly fell away from my chest, and she looked curious. "What do you know of the Moirai?"
  
  The question made me blink, uncertain. "The... the Moirai? Those little gremlin things?"
  
  Somewhere behind me, Cassie snorted. "Those are Mogwai. The Moirai are the Fates from Greek Mythology. You know, the three sisters who dictate destiny?"
  
  The strange, shrouded girl looked pleased. "Indeed. The three sisters. One who spins the thread of life, the one who measures it out, and the one who snips the thread."
  
  "What... what does that have to do with me, Faerie Queen?"
  
  I saw that faint smile return. "Just as Fate required three, so too do the Sleeping Fae need three before the awakening begins, and the Great Beast is gathered. Three are needed. One, the Reaper Queen, to keep the Sleepers safe, to guide them under her cloak when they have fallen. The second, the Administrator, to provide guidance and leadership through their confusion."
  
  Again, her hand came up to touch my chest. "The third, the Healer, to ease their pain, to set right what was done in the name of tests. The dreams of the Fae are restless, needlessly provoked to conflict and ire. The True Healer is not one who knits the flesh, but who erases this needless burden."
  
  "The Fae are driven to conflict, to war and bloodshed. Only the True Healer may prevent this, by easing the dreams of the Sleepers, to settle them so that they might be gathered for the full awakening, and the Great Beast's return. The Reaper gathers, the Administrator guides, and the Healer sets right."
  
  I had no idea how to respond to that. "Uhh... I..."
  
  "In time, you may understand." Glaistig Uaine raised her chin curiously. "But whispers had reached me of a gift for my acceptance of you and your companion."
  
  Flinching at the reminder, I nodded. "I'm sorry, your Highness. I.. the gift was stolen, when Teacher and his... companions ambushed us. We escaped, with help from Ruin, but... we weren't able to retrieve the gift."
  
  The amusement left that deceptively young-looking face, while that chorus of voices intoned dangerously, "Teacher has stolen a gift meant for the Queen Reaper of the Faerie?"
  
  "I'm really sorry." I shrugged helplessly. "He wasn't trying to get the box, I don't think. He was trying to... well, it's a long story. But he and..." I trailed off, swallowing. "He, a couple of his men, and... Trevor, the normal boy that was stuck here, trapped us."
  
  "Trevor?" Sam suddenly blurted, speaking up for the first time as she stepped around to see me. "He... he helped trap you?"
  
  "And more." I muttered darkly. "He made his choice. Teacher wanted him to take my mask away, to take my picture so that he could blackmail me into doing something for him. Trevor did it, just to get some kind of power for himself or something."
  
  I saw anger then, in not only Sam and Glaistig Uaine's faces, but in Ruin's as well, before the latter girl turned and stepped away.
  
  "This betrayal will not go unanswered." The Faerie Queen vowed. "His regrets will tear their way from his throat as he begs forgiveness that will not come."
  
  Swallowing, I spoke up after a momentary hesitation. "Your Highness, would you, please... don't hurt Trevor too much. He's..." I paused before giving up on any kind of lie or misinformation. "He's my-"
  
  "Brother," she finished for me. "Indeed, I know of the relation. I will not enact vengeance upon the brother of the True Healer, no matter his crimes, if you do not wish it."
  
  "I don't want him to die." My voice was soft, and I sighed slowly. "I just want... I don't know what I want. And I know I can't stop you from doing anything you like. But please don't kill him."
  
  "As promised, Healer, I will not kill your brother, though he may live to regret his decision."
  
  I couldn't respond to that, other than to nod.
  
  "Faerie Queen," Battery spoke up. "Do you mind if I take these two back to see our other friend?"
  
  "Go." The shrouded girl bowed her head in acknowledgment. "We will speak soon, as I... decide upon the proper response to Teacher's treachery." Gesturing to Ruin, she added, "Go with them, Minstrel. Protect the Healer and others from any interruption."
  
  The half-Asian girl looked hesitant, but she nodded after only a short pause and began to walk ahead of us, moving toward another door on the far end of the U-shaped cell block.
  
  Sam walked next to me, putting an arm around my shoulders as we moved. "Trevor?" She asked in a low, pained voice. "Was that what really happened?"
  
  My eyes closed briefly, the tears threatening to come back. "He did it. He knew what Teacher wanted to do... what he was threatening to do, and he... " I swallowed past the thick lump in my throat. "He chose to do it. He unmasked me. He took the picture. He was going to give it to Teacher. He was going to let Teacher know... know who I... I..."
  
  We were in the hallway by then, and I stopped walking. My hands scrambled at my mask and I tore it off myself this time, eyes flooding with tears as I suddenly turned to latch onto Sam tightly. She gasped in surprise, but held me as I cried.
  
  Once I started, I just couldn't stop. My face buried itself against her shoulder and I wept, shoulders shaking violently as all of my emotions poured out of me. I clung to Sam, a buoy against the tumultuous flood of tears.
  
  It was some time before I managed to get the words out, some sort of explanation for why this had affected me so much. "He... when... the last time..." I shuddered heavily. "The... last time a villain knew my identity... found out who I was... he... m-my..."
  
  "Your parents." Sam breathed out, realizing what I was saying. Her arms tightened around me. "The last time a bad guy knew who you were, they killed your parents. And... now your brother was giving him the same information, knowing exactly how he planned to use it."
  
  I still couldn't see through the tears, and my head shook slowly. "It doesn't matter that he didn't know who I was when he did it. Teacher... Teacher's as bad as Coil. He... he said he was going to threaten me, to make me do what he wanted... Even if Tre-Trevor didn't know who I was, he knew what Teacher was going to do. He knew that... that someone's... familiy was going to be... threatened or... or killed, and... and he still... he chose... " My eyes squeezed even more tightly shut, and my shoulders shook while I clung to Sam. Finally, I muttered, "I'm not better than him."
  
  "What?" Sam leaned back and looked down at me.
  
  "I said I'm not..." I swallowed. "I'm not better than him. Maybe I'm worse. I... helped bully a girl to death. Disagreeing with the last thing, that doesn't matter. I didn't stop it. I didn't... I helped torture her for so long. I did everything to her. I chose that. I... chose to hurt her to make myself feel better. The only difference between Trevor and me is that... is that Taylor died."
  
  "And you changed." Sam said gently. "You chose to change, to become a better person. You are a better person than you were, Maddy."
  
  I shook my head then, slumping backwards while wrapping my arms around myself. "Why? Why would he do this? He had to have a reason, didn't he? He had to... to have some reason to choose... to choose to do something like this. I don't think he even knows that Mom and Dad are... are gone. I don't think he knows that. So why would he give up so much? Why would he help Teacher? Is that power the only thing he cares about?"
  
  Before Battery could respond, I felt a gently brush against my shoulder. When I turned, I found Ruin standing there, looking horrified. Slowly, she raised a hand, holding a small notebook. On the paper there, she had scrawled four words. He was helping me.
  
  The words took a moment to penetrate. I stared uncomprehendingly. "Huh? What... what do you mean?"
  
  Turning the pad back to herself, Ruin scribbled on the next page, then the one after it, and then a third before finally showing us what she had written on the first page. Tinker-power focuses on solving/helping cape problems. A flip of the paper revealed the next page. He was building something to block my power so I won't use it accidentally. The third page was uncovered then. Didn't have time before the power ran out. He thought he could finish if he had the power one more time.
  
  "You let Teacher in?" I asked, staring the paper. "So that Trevor could talk to him and get the power back?"
  
  To that, Ruin's head shook violently. She scribbled on the paper, writing out, I told him no. Wouldn't listen. The word no was underlined several times. Then she added, Teacher's power addictive. Hard to say no even without good reason.
  
  My brother... he'd been trying to help Ruin. Misguided, flawed, and it was still a horrible thing to do to a hero, and beyond idiotic to trust Teacher, whatever his reason, but he'd had a reason .
  
  Before I could even begin to react to this emotional whiplash, the lights went out. They came back on a second later, only to go out again for a few seconds before coming back once more.
  
  "What the-" Sam started.
  
  Before she could get any further, Teacher's voice emerged from the walls, echoing up and down the corridor. " Good afternoon, fellow detainees of this not-so-illustrious resort. What you have just witnessed was the eviction of our former Warden from the computer systems of this facility."
  
  " To those who doubt this, let darkness reign..." The corridor went dark again, before the lights returned a solid ten seconds later. " And now let there be light. Let the air stop." The sudden silence where once had been the constant white noise of the air conditioners was conspicuous. " And now you may breathe." The air conditioning returned.
  
  " We, my people, control every system within this facility. But we shall remain benevolent gods to those who do not make themselves our enemies. However, should any insist on pursuing that... mistake, their block will be vented to the vacuum that surrounds the facility, and sealed off."
  
  My mouth fell open, as I stood there with my mask in one hand. My head shook slowly. "No way the Faerie Queen's going to let him have that kind of power."
  
  "Neither will Marquis." Reach observed. "He's slapping them both in the face with this move. Hell, doing this really fucks over Marquis' whole plan to put himself ahead."
  
  Sam was shaking her head, the impact just hitting her. "You know what this means?"
  
  "Yeah," I took in a breath and then let it out.
  
  "It means the Birdcage is about to be a warzone."
  
  Interlude 13 - PHO/Laserdream
  
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  ► Topic: Protectorate East North East (Thread 14) In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Discussion ► Heroes
  
  Momma Bear (Global Moderator) (Original Poster)
  
  Posted on August 18th, 2010:
  
  Use this topic to continue the discussion about the East-North-East Division of the Protectorate, also known as Brockton Bay Protectorate.
  
  Please remember to stay on topic, and respect the opinions of your fellow posters.
  
  The current ENE Protectorate membership ( updated as of June 1st, 2011) consists of:
  
  Armsmaster (Leader) - Tinker utilizing halberd and body armor.
  
  Assault - Redirects and manipulates kinetic energy in relation to himself.
  
  Battery - Enhanced speed/strength/etc based around taking the time to 'charge up'. Also possesses a minor electromagnetic power.
  
  Penance - Flight and projection of kinetically-charged light.
  
  Manpower - Enhanced strength and durability
  
  Laserdream - Flight, laser projection, minor forcefield creation.
  
  (Showing Page 312 of 312)
  
  ► Inquisitive
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  Did... that seriously just happen?
  
  ► Kingsbolt
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  Inquisitive
  
  ? Did what just happen?
  
  ► Inquisitive
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  Kingsbolt
  
  It keeps going on and off of youtube. Search for 'Assault punches Armsmaster' and maybe you'll get lucky.
  
  Edit: Found a working link here. Get it fast.
  
  ► HFDMan
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  HOLY SHIT.
  
  Welp, he's off the team. Wtf do you think caused it?
  
  More importantly, how long do you think it'll be before someone remixes that punch to a song?
  
  ► Gorilla Manilla
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  HFDMan
  
  What do you mean 'how long'? Would you prefer Thunderstruck remix or Mama Said Knock You Out? Those are just two I found in five minutes of looking.
  
  ► HFDMan
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  lmao, that second one is pretty well done. "Mama said-" POP! Down goes Armsmaster.
  
  But uhh, guys, it doesn't look like Assault's alone. According to my buddy who works at the Protectorate building (can't say doing what or they'll lose their job), Laserdream and Penance walked out too. What the hell is going on over there?
  
  ► VisualFirebird
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  HFDMan
  
  There was another video earlier from a different angle that showed those two, but it's gone now and you can't see them from the angle the current video's got. They were definitely there and they definitely walked out with Assault after he clocked Armsmaster.
  
  ► Day_hunter
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  Soooo what about Battery? I mean, she and Assault are totally... engaged in relations, right? Ooh, you think that whole punch thing was because Armsmaster and Battery had an affair?
  
  Edit: Come to think of it, has anyone seen Battery in the last few days?
  
  ► Laserdream (Verified Cape)
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  Please don't spread rumors about my teammates like that. No one had an affair. This isn't a soap opera. There was a disagreement, and Assault lost his temper. All I can say at the moment is that there's a lot of very personal things going on, but we're handling them as best as we can. Please be patient with us and wait for more information.
  
  ► Feralness
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  Will you be quitting the Protectorate over it? What about your father?
  
  ► Laserdream (Verified Cape)
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  No one has quit anything yet. My father is quite happy where he is. My choices, whatever they might be, don't influence his. We aren't attached at the hip.
  
  Seriously guys, just hold off on all the conclusion-leaping. We're going to work things out as well as we can, but that becomes harder when people who aren't involved have already played judge and jury with the entire situation so much that the general public thinks that everything is said and done already.
  
  ► HizKat
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  This absolutely has something to do with Battery. I did some checking, and she hasn't been seen in the last several days. I'm telling you, something happened to her, the Protectorate is trying to cover it up, and now Assault, Laserdream, and Penance are pissed off about it, but still trying to play nice in public.
  
  ► Ficsy
  
  replied on June 25th, 2011
  
  Laserdream has a point. Everyone needs to stop jumping to conclusions and let them work this out on their own. The Protectorate is just like any other workplace. Sometimes people lose their tempers. Let's just wait and see what comes of this little spat.
  
  End of Page. 1 - 310 , 311 , 312
  
  Private message from Shielder (Verified Cape)
  
  Shielder: (Verified Cape)(Received June 10th, 2011 - Opened June 10th, 2011) Did Dad ask you about coming out here Independence Day?
  
  Laserdream: (Verified Cape) (Sent June 10th, 2011) Yeah, he mentioned it. I wouldn't miss it. You trying to barbeque? ) It'll be the first time we have Chinese for Fourth of July dinner. And I shall laaaaaaugh at you.
  
  Shielder: (Verified Cape) (Received June 10th, 2011 - Opened June 10th, 2011) Jerk. Just for that, I'm totally inviting that Antony dude that has your poster in his dorm.
  
  Laserdream: (Verified Cape) (Sent June 10th, 2011) Don't you dare. It'll just encourage mom to go on again about why don't I have a boyfriend.
  
  Shielder: (Verified Cape) (Received June 25th, 2011 - Opened June 25th, 2011) Crystal? I tried calling you, but there was no answer. What's going on over there?
  
  Laserdream: (Verified Cape) (Sent June 25th, 2011) I'll call you back in about an hour, sorry. Been dealing with a lot. Shouldn't talk about it over a message board system.
  
  ► Topic: Psycho Bug Girl ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Discussion
  
  ► In Quartata (Original Poster)
  
  Posted on May 15th, 2011
  
  I wasn't sure exactly where to put this, but it sounds like there's a new... vigilante (maybe?) running around killing gang members here in Brockton Bay. A friend of a friend told me that she knows a dozen different Merchants that just disappeared. No body, no nothing.
  
  Apparently there's rumors going around calling the cape 'psycho bug girl' (Totally not a lasting name). They're saying that this girl splits into bugs, like... an entire swarm, and that she's been killing and eating (yes, eating) gang members that she finds on the streets.
  
  Edit: After a lot of misinformation and confusion, we've now at least tentatively confirmed that 'psycho bug girl', whatever she calls herself, isn't targeting civilians. It looks like only gang members have to worry about getting -dons sunglasses- swarmed.
  
  Edit 2: According to multiple sources, there's more than one 'Psycho Bug Girl', all with similar powers. A cult, maybe?
  
  (Showing Page 72 of 72)
  
  ► Bratwurst Salesman
  
  Replied on June 17th, 2011:
  
  MissingYou
  
  For the last time, just because the bodies disappear doesn't mean she EATS THEM. That's stupid and gross. Why does cleaning up the streets have to mean that she's a cannibal?
  
  ► edckdm (Verified PCIPS Agent)
  
  Replied on June 17th, 2011:
  
  We have no evidence that any cannibalism is taking place in Brockton Bay, I promise. That said, what this individual (Or individuals) are doing is wrong. She or they are taking the law entirely into their own hands, playing judge, jury, and executioner in a way that endangers the continued effectiveness of the entire parahuman law enforcement division. Unless a kill order has been put out on any of these individuals, intentional lethal force is absolutely wrong.
  
  We're going to track her/them down, and when we do, you'll all see that this is just another cape with a creepy-seeming power and a chip on their shoulder.
  
  ► LogicalKismetHater
  
  Replied on June 19th, 2011:
  
  What I want to know is, why does anyone want to stop her? She's done more to clean up the streets and get rid of these damn drug pushers in the last month than anyone else has in YEARS.
  
  ► Metallica999
  
  Replied on June 20th, 2011:
  
  They're (I'm telling you, it's more than one person) killing people. A lot of people. All without trial. Does that sound right to you?
  
  ► LogicalKismetHater
  
  Replied on June 20th, 2011:
  
  When they happen to be piece of shit drug dealers that push their garbage onto kids? Hell yeah I think that's right. Take 'em all out, Psycho Bug Girl. We're rooting for you.
  
  ► FitnessFit
  
  Replied on June 22nd, 2011:
  
  Well, I'm with Logical. Anyone that gets more Merchants off the streets and frees up our Protectorate to deal with the real threats is okay by me.
  
  ► Hel's Jester
  
  Replied on June 24th, 2011:
  
  Holy shit, guys. A friend of mine was (Post edited by moderator - please do not admit to criminal activity either by yourself or people you know - Momma Bear) and she says that one of the Bug Girls just killed Trainwreck AND Mush! Apparently the Merchants were trying to set an ambush for the Bug Girls and it backfired BADLY.
  
  ► FitnessFit
  
  Replied on June 24th, 2011:
  
  Seriously? Good! Go Bug Girl! Now take out those pieces of shit Skidmark and Squealer and then maybe the rest of the god damn drug pushers will take a hint.
  
  ► Bratwurst Salesman
  
  Replied on June 25th, 2011
  
  Wow, the Merchants just couldn't catch a break last night. First Trainwreck and Mush get taken out by Bug Girl, then Laserdream takes down Squealer.
  
  ► HizKat
  
  Replied on June 25th, 2011:
  
  Oh my god, you guys. What if the Bug Girl Cult has something to do with Battery being missing, and the Protectorate is trying to cover it up so we don't panic, and that's why Assault's all pissed off?
  
  End of Page. 1 - 70 , 71 , 72
  
  Chatter-Safe Messenger Log - Conversation with TAnders (June 25th, 2011)
  
  CPelham - Squealer's definitely going away for awhile. Are you sure you're going to be okay?
  
  TAnders - I'm okay, really. I shouldn't have gone out by myself. It's my fault you had to come save me.
  
  CPelham - Don't say that. You were upset about Cassie. Anyone would have run off.
  
  TAnders - Most people wouldn't have run straight into the Merchants.
  
  CPelham - It all worked out. Hell, you helped grab Squealer. You've got reward money coming.
  
  TAnders - I'd rather know Cassie was safe.
  
  CPelham - Hey, she's going to be all right. She's with Tether and Battery. They'll be okay.
  
  TAnders - Thanks, Crystal. You really don't have to waste your time with me.
  
  CPelham - It's not a waste of time. Actually, speaking of last night, you don't have to be rescued anymore. )
  
  TAnders - I guess not. I hope it helps the others somehow.
  
  CPelham - Have you started building anything yet? ;) Kid Win said when he first triggered, he couldn't sleep until he tried three different things.
  
  TAnders - Sort of. I have this idea for quick response drones that could deploy to any location in the city as soon as someone calls 911. If they work the way they do in my head, they could carry medical supplies and perform or assist in basic first aid, as well as provide a full medical scan for the paramedics when they show up. Then I have this other idea for these fire suppression balls.
  
  CPelham - Those sound great, Theo! You should talk to Kid Win. I'll get his number to you.
  
  TAnders - That's what my step-mother said. But none of it helps get the others back.
  
  CPelham - We'll get them back, Theo, I promise.
  
  TAnders - gtg, Aster's crying.
  
  Leaning away from the computer after Theo excused himself, Crystal let out a long sigh while glancing around the fairly spartan studio apartment. Her furniture consisted of a card table where her laptop was positioned, the chair she was sitting in, a futon that was currently occupied, a small bookcase loaded with her novels, and an old television that was currently muted, showing images of some kind of fire that the new Maine Protectorate was dealing with.
  
  While she was gazing at the kitchen, trying to remember if she still had those frozen fishsticks, her phone buzzed from where it was lying next to her computer. Snatching it up, she glanced at the name before answering with, "Kayden? Did you hear anything?"
  
  The former villain sounded tired. "Nothing new. Colin insists that the higher-ups know what they're doing and that we should just wait for news and let them do their jobs. He says he doesn't hold Ethan blowing up against him, and that once he cools off, we should all come back and talk."
  
  Shaking her head, Crystal rose from the table and moved to brush the curtain aside so she could look out the nearby window. "I don't think telling Ethan to calm down and talk to the guy he blames for not doing anything Samantha and Madison is going to accomplish much."
  
  "I know that." Kayden was quiet for a moment then before sighing. "I can't believe your parents want to toe the 'pretend everything is fine' line."
  
  Biting her lip, Crystal let the curtain fall back into place. "Dad just doesn't think causing a fight right now is going to accomplish anything. And it's all Mom can do to stop Victoria and the rest of the Wards from charging into PRT headquarters demanding Costa-Brown's head on a stick if she doesn't let them rescue their teammates."
  
  "What about you? What do you think?"
  
  "I think we need to make it clear that they're not going to be able to sweep this under the rug, but find a way to do it without causing a panic ourselves."
  
  Gazing at the figure on the futon, Crystal hesitated slightly. "I'm gonna wake up Ethan. Then we should find a place to talk about this. Figure out if there's any way to convince Dragon to lower the defenses so we can go in and get them."
  
  "If you're hungry, we could meet at Louie's. I promised Theo I'd bring him back a pizza."
  
  Smiling faintly, Crystal agreed, "Yeah, that sounds good. See you there in an hour?" Once the other woman accepted that, she disconnected and took a step over to the futon, nudging the figure there with her foot. "Ethan?"
  
  Groaning, the man rolled over and blinked blearily at her a few times before he seemed to recognize where he was. "What time is it?"
  
  "Five in the afternoon. I let you sleep for about four hours. How do you feel?"
  
  He hesitated, then sat up. "Like two of my favorite people in the world are trapped in one of the worst hellholes on the planet, and nobody's doing a damn thing about it."
  
  Extending her hand to the man, Crystal helped him stand up. "We're doing something about it."
  
  "Yeah," Ethan nodded while straightening up. "I'm gonna go beat Colin's god damn head in until he starts seeing sense so we can get that hellhole closed for good."
  
  Sighing, Crystal shook her head. "I know, Ethan. I know you're worried about them. But attacking Armsmaster isn't going to get them out of there any faster. It might make you feel better right now, but it won't really help."
  
  His eyes closed briefly, and she saw the pain there. "I have to do something. I can't just sit around. Puppy and Ewok are trapped in that god damn place ."
  
  "Kayden wants to meet us at Louie's for dinner. We can talk about how we're going to convince Dragon to let us into the Birdcage to rescue the others. But even if she agrees, we'll need a teleporter."
  
  Ethan took a long, deep breath, clearly steadying himself before speaking. "According to Wicket and Reach, Faultline's got herself a good one. She's a mercenary, maybe she'd be willing to give us a good price to borrow him for a little bit."
  
  "Might be a good idea to try to contact her group and find out what that'll take." Crystal moved to her laptop and turned it around. "Here, you can use my shower after you watch this video. It might cheer you up."
  
  Cracking his neck to both sides, Ethan stepped that way. "What is it?"
  
  Smiling slightly, Crystal gestured. "Let's just say someone put your little altercation to some music..."
  
  The entire time that Ethan was driving them to Louie's, he drummed his fingers along the steering wheel to LL Cool J's famous song. When they finally arrived, Crystal stepped down from the truck, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have shown that to you."
  
  "You kidding?" Ethan was smiling a little. It suited him better than the haunted expression he'd had for most of the past day. "I think I'm gonna pay someone to put that video up on a Jumbotron somewhere, on constant repeat."
  
  "That might provoke Colin a little too much." Kayden Russel observed, having heard that as she approached them.
  
  "Fuck him." Ethan replied curtly. "He had his chance to do the right thing with this. He's on Team Cover-up." He looked at Penance then. "You know if they got anything out of the creep that Reach beat up?"
  
  She shook her head. "Nothing so far. Every time they try to interrogate him, he keeps switching places with other men. It doesn't seem to last long, but it makes it impossible to get any answers besides his crazy rambling about being a real person."
  
  "What about the crystal thing he was using to teleport them?" Kayden asked.
  
  Ethan tightened his fist, grimacing. "It fell apart as soon as the lab techs touched it. That piece of shit is the one that sent them into the Birdcage. We shouldn't have handed him over. I'd get answers out of him."
  
  Raising a hand, Crystal rested it against the distraught man's arm. "We'll get them back, Ethan. We're not going to stop until we get them out of there. Now you've got to be starving. You haven't eaten since last night. Let's go in and get some food, then figure out how we're going to convince Dragon to open the Birdcage for our teleporter."
  
  "We have a teleporter?" Kayden asked with a raised eyebrow.
  
  "We're working on that."
  
  As soon as they came into the restaurant, Crystal knew that something was wrong. Every eye in the place was glued onto a television set in the corner, and no one was talking over the sound of the news anchor on the screen.
  
  Frowning at her two companions, she gradually made her way closer to the set to see what was so interesting.
  
  The anchor was talking. "Again, we do not know how much of what you just saw is true. But the man in the video is Preston Neidich, otherwise known as Teacher. We want to stress that what you saw is not any proof that what he claims is possible, and no one should panic."
  
  Grimacing, Crystal muttered, "Why don't we ever show up right before the relevant thing gets shown, like in the movies?"
  
  "Hey, you." Ethan nudged the guy in front of them. "What was that all about?"
  
  The teenager with a face full of acne turned back. "Whoa, you mean you missed it? Hey ain't you-"
  
  "What did we miss?" Crystal interrupted him. She had long since realized that revealing her identity alongside the rest of what had been New Wave might have been more trouble than it was worth.
  
  The boy gestured back toward the television. "It's that Teacher dude. He says he's got control of the Birdcage, that he locked the heroes out. He ahh, he said that he can send the bad guys in there anywhere he wants, and that if people don't want to have a bunch of mass murdering villains dropped in their backyard, they gotta pay up."
  
  "Anything else?" Crystal asked carefully.
  
  "Yeah, he uhh, he said he's got hostages. Hero hostages. He said he's got those Battery and Tether chicks, and that the Protectorate... ahhh... guess that's you guys, have been covering it up. But hey, you know, he ain't exactly an unbiased source, so whatever, ya know?"
  
  Biting her lip, Crystal nodded distractedly before taking a step back to the others. She lowered her voice. "Well, the cat's out of the bag now."
  
  Kayden was shaking her head. "What the hell kind of hornet nest is he trying to kick up? Blackmailing... everyone or he'll drop Birdcage convicts in their laps?"
  
  Before Crystal could respond to that, one of the other people in the restaurant squinted at her. "Hey... hey, you're Laserdream! What the fuck? Did you know your people lost control of the Birdcage?! Did you know they were kidnapping heroes in there? When were any of you gonna tell us, when those monsters started showing up in our houses?!"
  
  "Damn it." Crystal muttered under her breath before raising her voice. "I'm trying to understand the current situation just as much as you guys are."
  
  "Yeah, sure. You know what's going on." Another man said. "Tell us! Come on, we deserve to know just how fucked we are!"
  
  Grimacing, Crystal did her best to reassure the crowd, though she didn't think it helped very much. While she was doing that, Kayden and Ethan, who had been acting like they weren't with her, made their way outside as inconspicuously as possible.
  
  When she finally made her way out, leaving the restaurant even as more demands were shouted at her, Crystal took to the air to escape their cries.
  
  She joined up with the other two a few blocks away, setting down in a parking lot across from a school. "Well that was fun."
  
  "Can't blame them." Ethan shook his head. "We did cover it up and lie our asses off about it."
  
  "If Teacher's really got control of the place, Dragon can't lower the defenses to let us teleport in even if we convince her to," Kayden observed.
  
  "So what now?" Crystal asked.
  
  "E-excuse me?" A quiet, rather timid sounding voice spoke up. When Crystal and the other two turned that way, they found a red-haired teenage girl standing there. She was obviously pretty, though she looked unnaturally pale and nervous.
  
  "Don't I know you?" Ethan asked, curiously.
  
  "My name's... Emma. Emma Barnes." The girl hesitated after introducing herself. "And... and I... know how you can get into the Birdcage."
  
  "Emma Barnes... you went missing awhile ago." Crystal realized. "Are you okay?"
  
  "That's not i-i-important." The girl stammered. "I can get you inside."
  
  "How?"
  
  In response, Ethan's truck, parked nearby, abruptly came to life. It reversed a few feet, then spun around and pulled backwards into the same spot before honking.
  
  "I... control machines," Emma said quietly. "A l-lot of them, all at once. Pretty much ev... every machine inside of a two block radius, I can sense and control. It's... scary how many of them I can take over if I want to."
  
  Her eyes found Crystal's then. "And... and if you get me close enough, I can use it to shut down the Birdcage so you can get inside."
  
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  Arc 14: Chicanery
  Notes: Guest - I totally understand hating Emma. I hate her canon self too. Which is why I chose to do this, because redeeming a character as universally loathed as Emma Barnes is a challenge.
  
  Imageination - Hopefully you keep enjoying those Birdcager OC's. ;)
  
  HellKing666 - The trigger event for Emma is shown in this chapter's interlude.
  
  Fuzzyidioms - This story is an AU based on the free web novel called Worm by Wildbow. I'd link it, but since links don't work here, just google parahumans worm, and you'll find it as the top result.
  
  Thanks for reviewing, everybody! This is a slightly shorter chapter than the last couple, but hopefully that doesn't detract too much. ;)
  
  14.01
  
  Within seconds of the announcement, I could hear faint echoes of shouts up and down the corridors. Some of it was encouragement, while some just dismissed the claims as being bullshit. Other voices shouted their own appraisals of Teacher being an idiot who was going to get everyone killed. Eventually, it just became random noise, a dull roar.
  
  That was only what I could hear from where we were standing, close to Glaistig Uaine's area, who kept her people extremely organized. I couldn't begin to imagine what it was like up in the more dangerous and chaotically populated areas.
  
  "As an old friend of mine would say," a voice spoke up from the end of the corridor. "That man has become entirely too big for his britches."
  
  A glance that way revealed Miss Militia, approaching with a shake of her head. "Took me awhile to work up the nerve to ask what britches were."
  
  She stopped in front of us and looked me over. "Tether, I'd like to say that I'm glad to see you, but I wish you weren't in here." Her eyes passed to my teammate, appraising her for a moment. "The same goes for you... Reach. We met before, but under different circumstances."
  
  "Ohhh right, shit, yeah." Cassie's head bobbed. "Ahhh, sorry about that whole... bags of manure thing. It was all I had to throw at you."
  
  Miss Militia raised an eyebrow. "You seemed fairly amused at the time.." Her forehead knitted into a slight frown. "But yes, that was... annoying to clean up."
  
  "Well yeah." I swore that Reach was grinning beneath her mask. "It was fucking funny when it happened. You should've seen your face. Pwoof, splat, bleeeeeeh." Her shoulder shook slightly as she snickered mostly silently, before visibly sobering. "Ah, I mean... bad. Bad Reach. I am a terrible person who should be ashamed. Shame on me. And stuff."
  
  Staring at the girl for a moment, Miss Militia finally shook her head. "Quite. Whatever our past, according to Dragon, you willingly came in here to rescue your teammate. I... respect that. I admit, I had my reservations about you when I saw that you had joined the Wards. Not that they announced that fact, but at this point it isn't hard to read between the lines. Especially knowing Penance. But the fact that you're here, and how you got here... I'm willing to give you a chance."
  
  She cleared her throat then. "Especially given our current circumstances."
  
  "Speaking of Dragon," Battery spoke up. "Has there been anything else from her?"
  
  "The last message said that someone was attacking her connection to the system here, and that she had no idea how long she could keep it up." Miss Militia frowned as she looked down the hallway. "I suppose we know who that someone is now. Or at least who's pulling their strings."
  
  "Teacher," I confirmed quietly. "And now he's trying to take the whole Birdcage hostage."
  
  Sam shook her head. "That's not gonna fly. Especially not with people like the Faerie Queen. Actually, come to think of it, would vacuum do anything to stop her?" She glanced toward Ruin, who stood as unobtrusively as possible nearby. When the girl silently shook her head, Sam sighed. "Yeah, didn't think so. Which means if she's pissed off enough, she could decide going after Teacher for fucking with her is worth more than keeping her people alive. Which, considering their deaths wouldn't really hurt her..."
  
  "Is she really that dangerous?" Reach asked. She shrugged when the others looked at her. "I mean, I know she's scary. Hell, she killed Gray Boy, but then she ended up in here."
  
  "She's here," Miss Militia informed her. "Because she chose to be. It's not something the Protectorate advertises, but the only reason Glaistig Uaine ended up in the Birdcage is because she surrendered herself and walked inside voluntarily."
  
  Cassie stared at her. "Why the fuck would she do that? She didn't seem to me like the type to feel guilty about what she did."
  
  "Who knows?" Battery shrugged. "The Faerie Queen has her own goals. Right now, we just need to make sure those goals don't amount to 'killing Teacher at the expense of every other life in this place."
  
  "I'll talk to her." Miss Militia straightened. "See if we can work out a deal to let us go get that son of a bitch and bring him to her so she doesn't have to do it herself. She is supposed to be royalty after all."
  
  "Good idea." Battery nodded before putting a hand on my shoulder. "I think I should talk to Tether here for a few minutes." Her gaze passed to Reach. "Privately, if you don't mind?"
  
  Shrugging, Cassie raised her foot to poke Ruin in the leg. "Whatever. Hey, Drekavac, I need ammo. Stuff I can touch and then telekinetically move around so I'm not a sitting duck. You got any ideas?"
  
  "Drekavac?" I echoed, confused.
  
  "Eh, Wikipedia it when we get out of here." Cassie replied dismissively. "I was gonna say Banshee, but it seemed too predictable."
  
  Ruin nodded, agreeing to find Reach something to fight with, and pointed the direction we had been going. She and my teammate walked that way, leaving me alone with Battery.
  
  For a moment, Sam and I just stood there silently. Her hand came up and brushed my hair away from my face, reminding me that I was still holding my mask. "You gonna be okay, kid?"
  
  My shoulders raised in a shrug. "I... I can deal. There's more important things going on than my family drama. Whatever happens between me and Trevor can wait."
  
  "Even so, how are you feeling?" She asked, resting her hand against my shoulder and squeezing it.
  
  "I..." My shoulders slumped and I shook my head. "I don't know. I'm so..." I pushed both hands back through my hair, shoving against my head. "... angry at him. I'm so pissed at him. He... he chose to do something that could've really, really hurt anyone who still had a family to protect."
  
  Sam remained silent, letting me talk. I shook my head while continuing. "Like... like I said, when Coil found out who I was, he... he killed our parents. They... they died just because of who I was. And... and maybe I don't really have anyone else that's... that's as helpless as they were, but there's still people I care about, like you and Ethan, and Marissa. And... and beyond that, if I had been someone else, if I had been someone who still had a... a close family, a civilian family, they might've gone through what I did. Teacher could have threatened or... or even killed their parents, their family, and he would've been able to do it because of Trevor." My eyes closed and I shuddered a little. "I didn't think he'd do it. I really, really didn't think he'd do it. But he did, and now... Now I don't know what to do. I don't know what to think about him, what to feel."
  
  Sam's voice was quietly encouraging. "That's not really the only thing you're upset about, is it?"
  
  I looked up at that, finding her gaze understanding and knowing. Biting my lip, I shook my head. "I... I left him there. I left him there, Sam. I was so upset, I was so... pissed at him, that I didn't even try to get him out. If I'd tried, I probably could have gotten him out with us. I could have. But I didn't... I didn't even try." My own voice sounded hollow. "He fucked up, he... I don't know if I can actually forgive him for... for that, but he doesn't deserve this. He doesn't deserve to be here, and I just left him. And now, if he was actually trying to help Ruin, if he had a reason... what he did was still really stupid and... and I'm still pissed at him, but now I'm scared. Now I'm scared that... that was my chance. I'm terrified that I... I'm the one that really fucked up, because that was my chance to get him out, and... and instead, I left him. I left him there, Sam. Even if he did that, even if he was that stupid and wrong, how could I just... just leave him there? It's... I'm still pissed at him. I'm so, so pissed at him. But now I'm scared that I'm never gonna see him again, and that... that's my fault, because I left him. He... fucked up. But so did I. I shouldn't have left him there. And if he... if he..."
  
  "Hey." Sam pulled me into a hug briefly. "You'll get another chance. We'll deal with Teacher, and get your brother back. Then you can hit him, kick him, do whatever you need to do. You're right, he's an idiot. But he's family. You'll get him back. Everyone makes mistakes. That goes for you and him. Sadly, being someone you love doesn't excuse someone from acting like a colossal jackass, believe me."
  
  I returned the hug tightly. "Ethan's really worried about you. He was... upset. Especially since his umm... history with this place."
  
  Leaning back out of the hug, Sam smiled wryly down at me. "Apparently he was upset about you too. Dragon said that he punched Armsmaster over the whole 'keeping it secret' thing."
  
  I blanched at that. "He did? Oh. Umm... ouch." Sighing, I slumped back against the nearby wall. "I guess she really listens to Director Costa-Brown's orders, if she still won't send messages out."
  
  "She's doing what she can, within the letter of the Director's instructions. Apparently she even provided Hellhound with the ability to defend herself, by shipping her dogs into the facility. Not that I've seen her. Apparently Lindt and her dogs found one of the less used blocks and kicked the few stragglers out so she could have that whole space to herself. Mostly people leave her alone."
  
  "We need to get her too," I pointed out. "She might be a villain, but she didn't deserve to be in here."
  
  Nodding, Sam regarded me for a moment. "I'm glad you're safe, Mads. I know you're upset right now, and confused, but we'll get Trevor back. We'll get your brother, and everyone else who doesn't belong here, and get the hell out. I promise."
  
  I met her gaze briefly before nodding. "Thanks... Sam. I'll be okay. I... I can do this. I can focus." To demonstrate, I pulled my mask back on, adjusting it before pushing the hood back up. "I'm ready."
  
  A few minutes later, we were in front of Glaistig Uaine once more. Apparently she had insisted on talking to me directly before she would agree to anything. The Faerie Queen was standing in the middle of the prison block, surrounded by her people. In the distance, the sound of infighting among the other cell blocks carried through the hallway. Yet the prisoners on this block remained in control.
  
  That wasn't to say that they weren't upset. There was a lot of murmuring and whispering going on, and we received more than our fair share of dirty looks. But the so-called Queen's people either trusted her enough to keep them safe, or they were more afraid of her than they were interested in any of Teacher's threats or promises. Most likely it was a combination of both. Either way, despite the dull roar of people fighting elsewhere, everything in here was reasonably calm.
  
  Glaistig Uaine herself was flanked by three vaguely ghost-like figures, who stood in a semi-circle around her. They weren't transparent, but their features were rather hard to make out, their clothes indistinguishable from skin, like an action figure whose costume had been painted on. Their faces were almost like mannequins, their eyes blank, lacking either pupil or iris. None of their genders were identifiable. One of them kept their arms stretched out, varying between raising them up until their fingertips touched, and lowering them to either side, similar to a person waving their arms for help. The other two simply stood there, apparently waiting patiently. If ghosts, or whatever they were, could actually be patient.
  
  " The Chameleon Knight requests that the Fae's retribution for Teacher's treachery be delayed." That strange chorus of voices spoke as one. She was looking at me, a fact that made me want to shrink back behind Battery. Why was Glaistig Uaine so interested in me? Why was she convinced that I was one of these... three figures she thought were going to help the Fae she believed in so much?
  
  Finally, I made myself nod. "Not... not delay for long, your Highness. We think that... a true Queen shouldn't have to trouble herself with his... betrayal. You should pass judgment, not dirty your own hands by doing things yourself."
  
  " A queen who sends others to do work she is unwilling to, is no true queen at all." She regarded me intently, her eyes that I could barely make out through the cloth veil seeming to stare straight through me. " And he has committed a most grave offense. The sleepers demand this not go unanswered."
  
  "It won't." I promised. "Please, Miss-umm- Faerie Queen, your Highness, we can find him. We can bring him back to you, so that you can punish him. But if you leave, the people that depend on you, they might all... die."
  
  Her head tilted curiously. " And you believe that their deaths are not what I seek?"
  
  "I think if you wanted them dead, they wouldn't be here." I answered honestly. "You take care of your people, Faerie Queen. You'd be even more powerful than you already are if you let them die and collected them, but you don't. I... I don't know why you don't, but I think at least part of you cares about what happens to your people . Actually, I'm kind of surprised Teacher hasn't used his control of this place to kill anyone in here yet. You're a real threat to him, and he knows that we're in here with you, but he's just leaving you alone."
  
  I thought I saw a faint smile touch her face then, but couldn't be sure. " Who says that he has not tried?"
  
  Her words made me look again at the ghostly figure that was waving his arms back and forth. Was he somehow preventing Teacher from following through on his threats?
  
  Gulping a little, I managed a slight nod. "Well, that just... proves that your place is here, your Highness. Please, let us take care of this for you."
  
  Miss Militia spoke up then. "The girl is right. If we can find a way to get to Teacher's prison block without getting killed, we can let you have your vengeance without risking the rest of your people."
  
  The Faerie Queen regarded that silently for a few moments, before coming to a decision. " A quest it is, then. Do not fail in what you have promised, Healer. The Fae look unkindly upon those who go back on their word. Bring the traitor here, so that his sentence may be pronounced and carried out."
  
  I breathed out, nodding a little. "On one condition, your Highness."
  
  Her eyebrows went up, and I heard Battery and Miss Militia choke somewhere behind me. " A condition?"
  
  I nodded. "You can't kill him. I know. I know that... that you could rip me apart in about two seconds just for saying it, for even thinking that I can set conditions. But you said you wanted to work with me in the future. And... and I can't do that, I can't be the person you want me to be if I know that I... that I brought someone in just so that you could kill them. Sentence him, punish him, hurt him, but don't kill him. Please. I know the Fae demand justice, but I'm asking you... I'm asking them, don't make me do all this just to kill him. I'm supposed to be a healer, right? I can't... I can't be a healer if you make me bring someone to you just to kill him. If you can't agree to that, I... I can't participate in this."
  
  For a very long moment, the whole room was silent. I felt Sam squeeze my shoulder tightly, and knew that both she and Miss Militia probably thought I should have remained silent. But I couldn't. I couldn't have promised to bring Teacher to her if I knew she was going to kill him.
  
  Finally, her head inclined. " The Fae will accept this condition. His punishment shall be harsh, but he will not be killed."
  
  I sagged a little. "Thank you, your Highness. Thank you so much."
  
  Clearing her throat, probably before I said something even more stupid, Miss Militia spoke up. "Now we just have to find a way to get to Teacher's area without being sucked into the vacuum."
  
  Glaistig Uaine lifted a hand. One of her summoned ghosts mimicked her gesture, both of them pointing toward another part of the room. As we looked that way, a shimmering gold portal appeared.
  
  " Go." Her hand lowered, but the ghost's remained raised, keeping the portal open. " Do what you must, but return him to face his judgment. The Minstrel will continue to accompany you. Her song will do more there than here."
  
  I glanced toward where Ruin stood, wondering for a moment if Trevor's actions, idiotic and dangerous as they had been, had really stemmed from wanting to help her.
  
  "Thank you, Faerie Queen." Miss Militia looked to the rest of us. "Okay, well, this is about to get really nasty. Teacher's bound to have plenty of people defending him, and they've got nothing else to lose. Given the choice, I'd leave you two Wards here. But just like an Endbringer attack, we're going to need everyone we've got."
  
  Battery nodded, looking at me. "I'd prefer you stay here too, Tether. I'd prefer you and Reach stay. But Miss Militia and I can't do this by ourselves. Not even with Ruin's help. That said, be careful. You understand?" When I nodded, she focused on Cassie. "That means you too."
  
  "What, you don't want the Nazi to die in a fire?"
  
  Sam rolled her eyes. "No, the Nazi can go right ahead and burn. But the girl that jumped into danger to help a friend, I want her to stay safe. So promise me you're going to be careful."
  
  Even through the mask, I could sense Cassie's self-consciousness. She shrugged finally. "Uhh, yeah, sure. I'll... try not to do anything too retarded."
  
  "And I guess we have our battle cry now." Sam said dryly. "All right... let's go."
  
  The portal into Teacher's area hovered in front of us. Having no idea what was waiting for us on the other side, the five of us, two Protectorate heroes, two Wards, and a Birdcage resident, stepped through.
  
  14.02
  
  The second we stepped through the portal (which left an almost electric tingle running over my body for a few seconds), an almost deafening boom reverberated through the air around us. In spite of the fact that my power hadn't warned me that any of the others were in danger (or maybe because, since that still left me a possibility), I instinctively ducked.
  
  Everyone else did the same, and the boom repeated itself. It took me another second to realize that the sound was coming from across the room. This place was identical to the other U-shaped prison blocks I'd been in already, except that some kind of metal wall had been put up over where the entrance should have been. The repeated noise was the sound of someone, or something, banging against the wall from the other side.
  
  Clearly we weren't the only ones that had been intent on getting inside.
  
  A group of at least a dozen inmates, nine male and three female, stood arrayed around the walled off entrance. One of them, a short man with close-cropped black hair, held his hands out. Semi-liquid, gel-like metal was pouring out of his palms, running along the floor, and forming up onto the blockade.
  
  The good news was that the rest of the prisoners were so focused on the wall that they hadn't noticed our arrival. The bad news was that that only lasted until a voice from the upper ramp bellowed, "Teleporters inside!"
  
  The formerly clueless prisoners spun, abandoning their vigil against the still-steady blockade.
  
  While Miss Militia cursed and fired a reflexive shot at the figure on the ramp that had shouted, I realized that Ruin was probably going to be a priority target the very second that people recognized her. They'd want to take her out before she had a chance to speak. Quickly, I took her by the arm and leaned close. "My power warns me when people are about to get hurt. I yank them out of the way if I can. Try not to be surprised if you get pulled unexpectedly."
  
  Sure enough, the other girl had time to nod once before a black line appeared between us. Instantly, I used a tether to hurl her away from me, just as some kind of white smoke filled the air where she had been. It smelled putrid and the floor beneath the cloud looked partially melted.
  
  "Like that!" I called out to Ruin as the older girl landed. I turned then, looking for the source of the cloud. My eyes scanned the room, seeing Miss Militia and Battery working together like a well-oiled machine. Battery kept pausing to power up enough of a charge to do real damage, while Miss Militia kept most of the threats pinned with heavy, rapid gunfire. The second that Sam was ready, Miss Militia would switch her weapon into something suited to precision shots, while Battery maneuvered the right targets into position.
  
  Reach, meanwhile, had several metal plates whose sides had been filed down into sharp, jagged edges, and was spinning them through the air, choosing her targets carefully from the stragglers that managed to evade Miss Milita and Battery's corralling job.
  
  Finally, I spotted a heavy set black woman with white smoke where her hands and arms should have been. She was focusing on Ruin, smoky left arm extended like she was aiming.
  
  Before she could attack again, I attached lines from each of my gauntlets to the floor on either side of her, then propelled myself that way. Bringing my feet up, I used my momentum to kick the woman in hard enough to send her to the floor, coughing and choking for breath from the force of the blow.
  
  "See?" Landing, I stood over her and shook my head reprovingly. "Smoking is hazardous to your lungs."
  
  An angry snarl twisted the woman's face, and she raised a smoke-arm toward me. Grimacing, I used tethers on my heels to launch myself upward, inverting in the air before attaching another line between both of my feet and the ceiling.
  
  The pull of the line against my boots kept me suspended upside down, attached to the ceiling above. "If you're still having trouble breathing," I called down to the woman below. "You should try the air up here!"
  
  Before she could finish focusing on me to summon that cloud that had almost killed Ruin, I simultaneously released the lines on my feet, while attaching a pair to my opponent's own shoes to launch her up instead. Turning in the air as I fell past her rising form, I moved the lines to the front of her pants and the middle of her shirt, connecting both to the ceiling. Landing easily on my impact-reducing boots, I gave a hard yank on the lines, pulling the woman up face first into the ceiling with enough force to knock her unconscious before I let the lines lower her into a heap on the floor next to me.
  
  I'd barely started to turn, before something slammed into the side of my head, sending me sprawling against the nearby table with a cry. A vicious kick knocked me over, before I found myself yanked back to my feet by a hairy arm that snaked its way around my throat.
  
  "Yeah, bitch." The man's voice hissed in my ear as he choked me. "You know what I'm gonna do to you? I'm gonna peel the fucking skin off your hands, right down to the bones. Then I'm gonna snap each bone off, one at a time. Crack, crack, crack. Then I'm gonna break up those bones and make you fucking eat 'em."
  
  I couldn't breathe, couldn't take in more air. My eyes moved quickly, seeing the table that I had fallen against. It was one of those large, industrial tables that was bolted to the floor.
  
  "Well..." I managed to get out past the arm choking me, though my voice was pretty strained and hard to understand. "I should... get... more calcium... in my.. diet."
  
  With effort, I forced my gaze down just enough to bring the man's leg into my field of view. Immediately, I put a line between his knee and the edge of the table. Then I gave a hard yank. The man's leg was jerked upward past me, the motion sending me forward as well, before the man's knee cracked against the side of the table with an audible pop that left him screaming.
  
  Apparently he had more interesting things to do than make me eat my finger bones now.
  
  That threat taken care of, I turned toward the ramp. Teacher's cell would probably be the top middle one, just like Marquis. That seemed to be the position of power and authority.
  
  Unfortunately, even as I extended a hand that way, a dark red line yanked my attention toward Reach. My teammate was flat on her back, with a very small man perched on her stomach. The man was humming while he licked his lips, clearly tugging at her intrusion suit in an attempt to open it.
  
  Rat-Catcher. His songs (or humming in this case) entranced his target and forced them into a docile state, where they would accept anything that was done without protest or defense. From what little I knew of the small man, he was a cannibal who had used his power to do horrible things to his victims even before eating them alive.
  
  The red line kept getting darker the more Rat-Catcher fumbled with Reach's temporary costume, and I had to wonder just how batshit crazy the guy was that he was this easily distracted.
  
  Still, he was trying to hurt my friend. Putting a line between the back of his pants and the ceiling, I hauled him up and off of Cassie. Then, before he could focus his song on me, I put a line between the crotch of those pants, and the nearby railing that lined the cell ramp. A yank on that line sent the tiny man screaming through the air until crotch met railing.
  
  Needless to say, he had no interest in further conflict for the time being.
  
  Helping Reach to her feet and steadying her while she got her bearings, I looked around the room. Battery and Miss Militia were still out numbered, but at least half of the threats they'd been facing were down. Those two were so... good at working together, somehow predicting their partner's moves ahead of time with a precision and symmetry that almost seemed choreographed.
  
  Ruin, meanwhile, had been confronted by a man who correctly guessed that she wouldn't dare use her power as long as he stayed where either Miss Militia and Battery or Reach and me were within the area of effect. Whatever power he had was apparently striker-based, because he kept trying to grab the other girl.
  
  I was worried at first, but no line of warning appeared. Ruin hardly seemed to move, yet the man couldn't manage to lay a hand on her. It looked simple, like she was barely making an effort, leaning here, twisting her body as though working out a kink in her shoulders there. Every calm, perfectly disciplined motion she made sent the man's grasping hands whiffing at empty air. With every miss, he grew more frustrated and reckless, while Ruin remained utterly placid, avoiding his increasingly desperate strikes with no more apparent effort than a small tree swaying in the wind.
  
  Finally, he lunged, trying to bodily rush into her with his arms outstretched. Somehow, Ruin managed to duck and twist, sidestepping his charge and leaning under his arms. Her hand seemed to barely brush over his shoulder, and abruptly all of his forward momentum was turned against him as he practically flipped over in the air before slamming face-first onto the floor.
  
  Ruin fell on top of him from behind. I saw her lean close and whisper something near the back of his neck. Positioned the way that she was, the disintegration wave shot down through the man beneath her, and on through the floor. His body crumbled into dust.
  
  "Uhh, wow." Reach had recovered by then, staring at that encounter as well. "Could we just go ahead and make a note not to piss off the girl with the insta-kill power and the badass 'can't touch me' Kung Fu shit?"
  
  "I'm pretty sure that wasn't Kung Fu." I shrugged. "But, uhh, yeah. Consider the note made, stamped, and put on a great big plaque."
  
  Turning my attention back to the top cells, I pointed. "Teacher's cell has got to be up there." And Trevor, maybe, I added silently.
  
  Looking toward the other two heroes, I called out, "You guys okay down here!?"
  
  "Go!" Battery called, bracing herself against a wall to charge up for a second before diving aside just as a massive brute of a man slammed his fist into it. "Find Teacher!"
  
  Reach summoned her razor discs back, and the two of us bolted for the ramp. After a few steps, I warned her, "Going up." Then I attached lines to each of our costumes, hauling us through the air, over the edge of the railing, and onto the top of the ramp about two cells down from the middle.
  
  Together, the two of us bolted for the cell. We reached the entrance, in time to find... no one.
  
  I blinked at the cell in front of us. There was nobody inside. Instead, there were three television screens arranged at the back of the cell, facing the entrance. All were blank.
  
  As we stood there in confusion, the screen on the left came to life, revealing Teacher. He was standing inside some other cell, though I had no way of knowing where it was. "Ah," he said upon seeing us there. "Yes, as it turns out, I am not actually stupid enough stay inside my assigned cell block after threatening the so-called Faerie Queen. I do hope that my students have been adequately entertaining you, however."
  
  "Where are you?" I spat the words in frustration. "What the hell are you trying to do, piss off every single person in the world? They're not gonna let you keep control of the Birdcage!"
  
  Rather than argue that point, the plain-faced man simply nodded. "Of course not. Nor are the nations I demanded tribute from in exchange for not dropping Birdcage residents inside their borders likely to bow to such pressures."
  
  I shook my head slowly. "What... what the hell are you trying to do if you already know nobody's going to do what you're demanding? What's the point ?"
  
  Clearing his throat like some kind of professor, the man linked his hands behind his back and began to lecture. "Ah, the point. Well, you see, the point was to make all of these important people start demanding answers. Answers that they could only get from one man in one location."
  
  The other two screens lit up then, the first revealing the front of what I recognized as the national PRT headquarters, taken from across the street. There were black SUV's with several different country's flags flying from the front parked everywhere. Finally, the third screen showed the inside of what was obviously an interrogation room.
  
  Krouse's clone, Defiant, was strapped down to a chair in the interrogation room, while three men and Director Costa-Brown stood on the other side, clearly urging Defiant to talk to them.
  
  "They've tried harsher methods than talking, of course." Teacher interjected. "But the poor boy just exchanges himself with one of the others whenever they try to play too rough."
  
  Footsteps came up behind us, as Battery and Miss Militia came in at a jog. Sam was talking. "Ruin's containing the rest. Have you got-" She stopped talking at the sight of the monitors, eyes passing over them silently.
  
  "What is this?" Miss Militia demanded, stepping in next to me. "Teacher, your followers are contained. This attempt to take over the Birdcage is over, and the best you can hope for is surrendering so that the mob you've pissed off doesn't rip you apart piece by piece. Now, what do you actually want?"
  
  "As I was just explaining to your proteges, if you hadn't been late in arriving," Teacher scolded. "I have what I want. Many important people demanding answers from a single person, the dictatorial Alexandria."
  
  Beside me, Reach snorted. "Hate to break it to you, dude, but Alexandria isn't there."
  
  "Oh, but I assure you, she is very present."
  
  My eyes found Director Costa-Brown again, and widened. No. That couldn't be right. She was the head of the PRT. She couldn't be Alexandria too , could she?
  
  "Holy shit." Cassie muttered, as the same realization came to her.
  
  "Indeed." Teacher gave an elaborate shrug. "So as you can see, I already have precisely what I want. Ahead of schedule, even. Thank you for that, my dear." He nodded toward Reach. "The plan had been for the rest of Tether's team to find and arrest him some time after her disappearance, but you served that purpose quite admirably on your own."
  
  "Why would you want-" I started to ask before it occurred to me. "Oh no."
  
  "You see, I knew you could get it." Teacher motioned with his hand, and the camera panned back, revealing the power-nullifier cape standing next to him with a bag clutched to his chest.
  
  "My students," Teacher informed us, "are very devoted to the cause."
  
  I stood flat-footed, helpless. There was no way to know what cell Teacher was in, or even what cellblock it was. We had nothing, no way of finding him in time.
  
  "Teacher!" Miss Militia shouted at the screen. "Stop this! You can't possibly think-"
  
  Before she could finish the sentence, the man next to Teacher changed. Defiant stood there.
  
  On the second screen, the sudden appearance of the power-nullifier with the backpack in his lap brought Director Costa-Brown... Alexandria... stepping that way reflexively.
  
  And in the next instant, the camera feed on that room went bright white, then faded to static.
  
  At the same time, the third camera feed, the one that showed the exterior of the national PRT headquarters with all of those important-looking cars parked out front, grew almost painfully bright as a blinding white flash took up the entire view.
  
  When it faded, nothing was left of the PRT headquarters. Nothing but rubble, and death.
  
  14.03
  
  I couldn't speak. I couldn't move, breathe, or even think. All I could do in that moment was stare at the screen, hand covering my mouth through the mask, and think of all the people who had just died, because we failed.
  
  "No..." The voice was so small, so weak and pitiful, that it took me a moment to recognize it as my own. "No... no..."
  
  Teacher's voice was smug, his superiority, in his mind, clearly established. "So you see-" That was as far as he got before a gunshot interrupted his gloating, and the television screen exploded into a shower of glass and sparks.
  
  "That," Miss Militia lowered her weapon, her voice hard. "Is just about enough of that." She focused on the rest of us. "We have to find him. Now."
  
  I shook my head, my voice still wavering. "But how? This place is huge. He could be in any of the cells. He... he could be anywhere."
  
  "I know where he is." Someone else, someone unexpected, spoke up. I turned quickly, to find Trevor standing at the cell entrance. His eyes were downcast, his shoulders slumped.
  
  "You son of a-" Cassie started to take a step that way, but Battery stopped her with a hand. "What the fuck are you skulking around for? Trying to betray and traumatize someone else?"
  
  Her words seemed to hit Trevor like a physical blow. His eyes closed and he shook his head. "That wasn't what I..." Taking in a breath and letting it out again, he repeated, "I know where he is. I can tell you where to go to find him."
  
  "Oh yeah." My friend's voice was derisive. "Because trusting you last time worked out sooo well."
  
  "Quiet, Reach." Miss Militia admonished her. "Mr. Clements, if this is another ploy, I promise you that you'll be charged as an accessory in each and every death Teacher just caused."
  
  He cringed at that, still refusing to look at any of us. "It's not. I didn't... I didn't know that he was gonna go that far. I didn't..." He swallowed then. "I didn't know a lot of things." Finally, he looked up, his eyes passing briefly over me before he focused on Miss Militia. "I swear, he... he just killed all those people and... and I didn't want that. I didn't know. I'm an asshole, okay? I'm an asshole and a piece of shit, but I didn't know he was going to kill all those people. " He gave a little shudder then. "But I know where he is because he had us set up his cameras and communication packages down there. I know you don't trust me. I know you shouldn't trust me, but I swear I'll tell you how to find him."
  
  Miss Militia was quiet for a moment, staring at him appraisingly. Then she looked at me, her silent question obvious. She wanted to know what I thought.
  
  "He didn't know," I said quietly. "He wouldn't have gone along with any of it if he knew." I believed that. My brother could be a selfish idiot who didn't think things through, but my personal feeling of betrayal aside, Trevor wasn't a mass-murdering psychopath, and he couldn't have known just how far Teacher was going to take this. Considering where he was, he should have known, but that was more lack of self-awareness than homicidal intent.
  
  Nodding, Miss Militia focused on Trevor again. "Where is he?"
  
  "It's the block that the dog girl cleared out." Trevor said promptly. "Teacher made a deal with her. He said he'd make sure the block stayed empty except for one cell, and she could have the rest of the space. She just wanted to be left alone, and he made sure it happened."
  
  "You know where that is?" Battery asked Miss Militia.
  
  "Yeah, I've been all over this place." The woman's eyes were hard as she stared at my brother. "A lot of it spent looking for you when you kept disappearing."
  
  He blanched. "I'm sorry. I know I was stupid. I just-"
  
  "Not now." Miss Militia left the cell, taking him by the arm to give him a push inside. "Stay. Do not move from this cell, do you understand? Do. Not. Move."
  
  I started to step out of the cell as well, but Trevor's hand caught my arm. I stiffened, resisting the urge to punch him, as well as the opposite reaction to hug him because, in spite of everything, he was my brother and he was alive.
  
  "I'm sorry." His voice was soft, a whisper. "I didn't know. I didn't think it really mattered. I was..."
  
  Pulling my arm out of his grip, I stared at him briefly. "I don't have time to talk about this, Trevor. There's more important things going on than how I feel about you. Just... just do what she said. Stay here."
  
  I left before he could say anything else, joining the others down on the main floor. Miss Militia was talking to the inmate that was still maintaining the blockade, while Ruin stood nearby keeping the conscious prisoners from trying anything.
  
  "You will open a doorway, let us out, and then maintain the blockade until we get back." Miss Militia informed the inmate. "Ruin, if he or anyone else in here tries anything, you have full permission to put them down. They're all complicit in an attack that already resulted in the loss of god knows how many lives. Not one person would bat an eye if you disintegrated every last one of them."
  
  The Blockade prisoner seemed to gulp a little, before giving a very short nod. A small doorway appeared in the center of the metal wall that he was maintaining.
  
  As soon as the hole appeared, a cry went up from outside, and one of the enraged inmates tried to storm in, only to meet the barrel of Miss Militia's shotgun as she ordered, "Back up."
  
  "Now why should we listen-" A deafening report filled the air as the Protectorate hero shot the man point-blank, leaving his body to drop to the floor.
  
  "Does anyone else have a problem with getting out of our way?" She asked the rest of the Birdcage residents that were on the other side of the barrier.
  
  They cleared a path, and we exited, the doorway closing behind us. Now we were surrounded by a group of pissed off, angry Birdcage prisoners on either side, glaring hatefully and obviously waiting for an excuse or an opening.
  
  Still, we walked. Miss Militia tracked her weapon along each prisoner, making them back up and give us room. Step by step, we eased our way through the mob, then backed away from them until they refocused on their efforts to get through the blockade. After all, the four of us weren't the ones they were really pissed at.
  
  "Which way?" Battery asked, looking up and down the hall once we were far enough from the mob.
  
  Lifting a hand, Miss Militia pointed. Together, we sprinted. Teacher could not get away with this.
  
  Reaching the corridor just outside of the cell block that Trevor had indicated, we found some kind of reinforced blast door blocking the entrance. As best as I could tell, it was meant to block the cell off in case of a riot.
  
  Which raised the question of why they hadn't used that down in Teacher's actual cell block, but maybe he had assumed that they'd eventually tear through that, and the longer they were focused on trying to get through a blockade that kept regenerating itself, the less chance of them finding his actual location.
  
  I put my hand against the door, just as the lights went out, leaving us in total darkness. "Oh great." I muttered. "Now we're back to this game again."
  
  Teacher's voice echoed up and down the hall. "Now, you broke my monitor before I could finish explaining the situation to you girls. Do you know how rude that makes you?"
  
  Before any of us could respond, air began to rush past us with a heavy roar of wind, as the oxygen was torn out of the hallway. In seconds, we wouldn't be able to breathe, and I couldn't see to set up a tether anywhere. Hell, for all I knew, there were black lines leading to each of the other three, but I couldn't see them through the darkness.
  
  "Maybe you'll be more inclined to listen when you don't have the air to interrupt." Teacher chuckled.
  
  I had to find a way. It wasn't Grue's darkness, so I could still use my power, but only on things I could feel.
  
  Turning, I groped out until I found Reach, squeezing her arm reassuringly. Then I tugged the other girl to me, pushing her hand up against the door before leaning close to whisper, using the last of my air, "Count to ten, then push this thing as hard as you can."
  
  Letting go of her arm, I took a step to the side to give both of us room, and put my own hands against the blast door, counting silently in my head. The oxygen was gone, and it was all I could do to focus and not let myself think about what had happened to all of those people.
  
  I attached lines between my hands and the blast door. As soon as my silent inner count hit ten, I shoved as hard as I could with them, hearing the grunt of effort from Reach as she did the same with her power. Together, we pushed at the hatch, and the protesting sound of ripping, grinding metal filled the air.
  
  Finally, with a loud pop and the scream of tearing metal, the door was torn inward, broken over almost in half before it ripped off its hinges and went flying across the room on the other side.
  
  Air, blessed oxygen filled air, flooded back to us, and the light in the cell block beyond was almost blinding. Quickly, the four of us moved through, gasping in deep lungfuls as we stumbled.
  
  The second we entered, I saw a dark red line pop up toward Battery. Instantly, I used a tether to shove her backwards. As soon as I did, a man leapt from the ramp above and to the right, some kind of cobbled together weapon in his hand spitting out laser that narrowly missed her.
  
  Miss Militia returned fire with a single shot from what was again a pistol. She didn't miss.
  
  Two more men appeared at the top of the ramp above us, defending their leader. Reach put one of her metal discs in the path of one of their shots before flinging it at him, while Battery ran forward with near-blinding speed, leaping up the entire height to the railing, where she caught the other man and pitched him over her shoulder to crash down onto the floor.
  
  Yet another pair of men came from one of the lower cells. Before they could set themselves, I launched four darts at them, two from either gauntlet. The first two missed, but the others hit the men and sent them to the floor. Out of darts, I started to reload.
  
  "Disappointing." Teacher lamented while I was still grasping for more ammunition. He emerged from the cell at the far end on the top row, hand held high. "But not entirely unexpected." He raised his voice. "I highly recommend no one make any move toward me. What I hold here is a deadman switch detonator. Tether there happens to be familiar with them, I know." The man looked at me. "But I assure you, the explosives that this detonator is wired to don't take up a single block. If I release this button, the damage that was just caused by our departed friend will make the destruction of PRT headquarters seem like a single car crash compared to an Endbringer arrival."
  
  Miss Militia's voice was hard, her anger palpable. "Is that what you want, Teacher? To generate all the anger and hate of an Endbringer, without any of what makes them a true threat?"
  
  His face twisted a little. She'd hit a sore spot. "A true threat? I would say I've surpassed what they've managed. My legacy is assured. I will be remembered as the man who killed the Director of the PRT, who happened to also be one of the Triumvirate."
  
  "Is that what you think?" It was a new voice, an unexpected one. Even Teacher looked surprised, as we all turned quickly to the source.
  
  Mr. Hebert, his shadow form flowing back and forth in the air, stood there. He was accompanied by Assault, Laserdream, Penance, and Armsmaster. There was also one other person, the one who had spoken.
  
  Alexandria.
  
  Teacher's eyes were wide. "No... no... you're dead. It's a trick. Alexandria is Rebecca Costa-Brown. I know it. I figured it out. She's Costa-Brown, and I killed her. She's dead. You're dead."
  
  "You're right." Alexandria informed him coolly. "Director Costa-Brown, and far too many others, died from your cowardly attack. But while she was an incredible woman, Rebecca was not a parahuman. And she certainly wasn't me. You made a mistake, Teacher. Many, in fact. Do you have any idea how many enemies you just made? Senator Richard Aberforth was discussing the PRT's inability to control the Birdcage with Director Costa-Brown when your attack happened."
  
  The name... I knew that name... It took me a second, but then I remembered. Senator Aberforth, from Michigan, was one of the PRT's biggest outspoken critics. He had made a career out of lambasting every single move they made, and delighted in passing restrictions on their authority. Of course he had been first in line to demand Director Costa-Brown's head on a pike when all this went down.
  
  "In fact," Alexandria went on. "You managed to kill off Senator Aberforth's entire entourage, all of the considerably powerful and wealthy men that he brought with him to get the answers that he believed Director Costa-Brown had. They're dead now, along with hundreds of innocent people who were working in that building. You're done, Teacher. A kill order has already been signed."
  
  Teacher's head shook violently. "No. No, this is a trick. You're dead. You're not Alexandria."
  
  I heard the predatory smile in her voice as she took a single step toward him. "Do you want to find out how Alexandria I am?"
  
  The man's eyes widened. "No! Get away from me. Stay away! You don't want me to drop this remote. You really, really don't want to see how much damage I can do. Just... just stop lying. You're not Alexandria. You can't be. I figured out your secret. I beat you. I beat all of you. How... how did you even get in here?! I control the Birdcage."
  
  "Not anymore." Armsmaster informed him. "Let's just say we have a friend in the control room whose power trumps yours. You are officially locked out."
  
  Teacher's head shook angrily at that as he paced for another few seconds, constantly staring at Alexandria in disbelief. While he moved, I clasped my hands in front of me as though praying.
  
  Finally, the man pointed at me. "You. Come here. You and I are going to get out of here. All the good you did during the Leviathan attack, the Protectorate won't dare risk losing you."
  
  Battery stepped in front of me, but I touched her arm and shook my head. "It's okay. Trust me."
  
  Slowly, I walked toward the man. Assault looked like he was ready to come across the room and use Teacher head as a racquetball. Alexandria was coldly furious. Laserdream and Penance had been silent the whole time, but were obviously barely restraining themselves in the face of Teacher's threat.
  
  When I reached Teacher, he grabbed my arm with his free hand. "You and I, we're leaving this place the same way they got in. They're not going to risk anything happening to you, and you won't risk anything happening to all the people this remote is connected to, will you?"
  
  "You're right," I said softly. "I won't... I can't risk letting you kill anybody else. I won't allow you to kill one more person."
  
  His hand was tight on my arm. "You won't allow it? How do you plan on accomplishing that, I wonder?"
  
  I swallowed, letting out a low breath. "Well, I kinda figured I'd give you the finger."
  
  With those words, while he was still confused, I lifted my hand and opened it to reveal the severed finger inside my palm before shoving it into his wrist as hard as I could.
  
  The finger melted like jello, swarming up over Teacher's hand with the remote, forcing him to keep it tightly clasped against his will. It crept all the way up his arm while the man tried to jerk away, his mouth falling open in a scream just as the rapidly spreading liquid covered his face.
  
  It was over a second later. Where Teacher had been, reformed from the finger she had left me and the man's own body mass, stood Pandora.
  
  14.04
  
  Oddly enough, the tense situation with everyone ready to fly off the handle didn't really let up after Teacher was completely absorbed and essentially eaten alive by the near-unstoppable self-duplicating potential S-Class Threat.
  
  "Guys, guys, just calm down." I held my hands out to the two gathered groups. "It's okay. Pandora isn't going to hurt anyone else, are you?" I tried to inject the last words with confidence rather than concern.
  
  "They are not enemies." Pandora replied, as though it was the simplest, most obvious answer in the world. "We have promised to kill only enemies. You know this already, Tether-Friend."
  
  "Yeah, I did. But they needed to hear it." I looked across the room at Armsmaster pointedly. "Would you mind saying it out loud though? You know, because people are weird."
  
  "We will kill no one who is not an enemy either to ourselves, or to a friend or innocent."
  
  Seeing Armsmaster relax marginally told me that his lie-detector had picked up the truth in what she was saying. He didn't completely let down his guard, however. Probably because he didn't quite trust that 'I really won't kill anyone innocent now' reliably meant 'I won't ever kill anyone innocent.' After all, normal people changed their minds all the time, and he had no way of knowing how strongly Pandora took promises.
  
  It was Alexandria who spoke, floating off the ground to move closer. "This... would be the clone that I've heard so much about."
  
  I winced at her phrasing. "Uh, Alexandria, this is Pandora. She's a friend." I stressed the word, looking at the girl in question. "However she came about, she's a friend now. And she just..." Even with all the death that the man had caused, and my own resolution to do what I had to in order to stop him, I still tripped over the word. "... just killed Teacher to stop him. You said he had a kill order on him already, which means what she did was allowed, no repercussions."
  
  "Yes." Alexandria's voice was soft, contemplative, as she examined the clone in front of her. Pandora had manifest with her red half-mask. "Pandora, is it? Would you mind terribly if I look at your face? If you are a c-" She stopped herself, pausing to consider. "-if you are identical in appearance to Panacea, I would... like to see it."
  
  "Do you remove what obscures your face?" Pandora asked, bluntly. "Dinah-Friend has said that protecting one's identity and appearance is important."
  
  I winced a little at the very thought of refusing Alexandria. "Err, it's not really protecting your identity when they know who you are already, Pandora."
  
  For a moment, Pandora looked at me, clearly considering before she spoke. "We will trust your word, Tether-Friend." Then she removed the mask. Rather than tugging it away, the 'cloth' simply dissolved back into a gel-form and was absorbed into her skin.
  
  I got my first good look at her face in awhile. She had darkened her skin slightly as compared to the very pale Amy. The freckles were gone, and as a whole, her features seemed somehow... slightly more predatory than her progenitor. Other than that, however, she was very clearly Amy Dallon.
  
  "Fascinating." Alexandria's whisper was soft, clearly amazed as she slowly lifted her hand to press against the side of Pandora's face. I had a moment of panic that the other girl was going to react badly to that, and I was going to have to explain why the girl that I had brought in had ended up killinng and absorbing the second-in-command of the entire Protectorate.
  
  For her part, Pandora allowed the hand to touch her for a moment before speaking in a reproving tone. "You are not a friend, Alexandria-Person. Touching us was not agreed upon."
  
  Drawing her hand back, Alexandria nodded. "Of course, yes. You're simply... a fascinating case study." The hero cleared her throat then. "The kill order justifies your attack, yes. We won't pursue you for that." She paused before speaking again. "I must ask, however. I have been... privileged enough to witness the video recordings taken from the inside of Coil's headquarters. During the initial interviews where he was assessing your abilities, you seemed... forgive me for saying it, but much more... accustomed to human contact and interaction. Your speech patterns especially, were more... of what would be considered normal and unremarkable than they are now."
  
  For a moment, it didn't seem like Pandora was going to respond to that. She simply watched Alexandria silently. Finally, she spoke clinically, "Altering our mental structure to remove unwanted biological imperatives included an unforeseen side effect which altered or removed certain social awareness and understanding."
  
  "You changed your brain chemistry and accidentally altered your personality and memory of social norms," Alexandria translated.
  
  "Yes." Pandora looked at me, then back to the older hero. "But you would not have enjoyed an experience with our former selves. They were... dangerous. They would not have helped Dinah-Friend. Nor would they have assisted in this situation."
  
  I saw the other woman smile faintly. "And we wouldn't want that."
  
  "He's really dead?" Armsmaster had approached us by then. In the background, I could see Sam and Ethan reuniting, ignoring everyone else for the moment. Reach and Penance were also talking, while Laserdream guarded the entrance, and Miss Militia moved in and out of the nearby cells, making sure that no possible threats remained. Finally, Mr. Hebert just sort of floated there in the middle of the room, quietly glowering at everyone who looked at him.
  
  "Yeah. Teacher's dead." I let out a long sigh finally, eyes closing briefly behind my mask. He was evil . He'd killed so many people, and yet... I swallowed the guilt away. "We... killed him."
  
  "You were allowed." Alexandria stated firmly. "The kill order stands. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to call in and let them know to send in the containment teams to start restoring order to this place."
  
  "Miss, ummm..." I hesitated, blanching at the idea of directly addressing her without being addressed first. "Uhh, Alexandria? I was just... Teacher... he was saying that you were Director Costa-Brown..." She looked at me, her expression impossible to read through her helmet. "And I was just... she's... really dead?" I finally asked, hesitantly. "I mean... all those people are..."
  
  Her head dipped slightly in a nod. "Teacher was responsible for a tragic number of deaths, including Rebecca's. It's going to take a long time, and a lot of effort, to recover from the blow."
  
  A hand caught my arm then, and I found myself pulled around and yanked into a hug from Ethan. He hoisted me off the floor entirely, holding me tight to his chest so that it was hard to breathe. "Uuuulp!"
  
  "Hey, Ewok." He hugged me tighter for a moment, cutting off my air entirely before finally releasing me. "I thought I told you not to get taken into the Birdcage. Wasn't I very, very clear about that?"
  
  "Sorry." I mumbled self-consciously, shifting from foot to foot. "I just ummm... I couldn't let Defiant blow up-" My eyes widened then and I jumped. "Defiant! He should be here!"
  
  Ethan just looked at me blankly. "And Defiant would be...?"
  
  "Uh, Trickster's clone. The guy with the... the one Teacher was working with to do all this." I explained. "He switched places with that power nullifier to send in the bomb that... but if that guy's body was vaporized, would he... switch back still, or be stuck here?"
  
  "We'll do a thorough search." Armsmaster assured me. He was standing well away from Ethan, but close enough to hear and comment. "Dragon's still working on getting everything back online, but..." He turned slightly, activating his comm. "Oversight, the man who was being interrogated in the PRT building. Do you have eyes on him with any of the cameras?"
  
  A clearly computer-altered voice came back. "I umm, just a second. I need to... the face recognizing... thing is... uhh, confusing. Gimme a... a second..."
  
  I blinked in confusion. "Who's Oversight?"
  
  I saw a weird grimace pass over Ethan's face then, but when I glanced at him questioningly, he just shook his head and mouthed, 'I'll explain later.'
  
  "She's how we got in here." He went on out loud. "Some kind of machine and computer control power on a large scale. She shut down the Birdcage's defenses, and she's working to give the controls back to Dragon. It all still seems pretty new to her though."
  
  The voice came back a moment later. "He's not here. He's definitely not in the prison. I don't know where he is, but umm... errr... hey, wait a second, why is M-err-why is there a... a normal human in here? I know that guy, he's ummm, Trevor Clements."
  
  That confused me more. How did this 'Oversight' know who Trevor was?
  
  Ethan glanced at me before replying, "He was a... hostage. We'll get him out of here too, don't worry. You're sure the man we're looking for isn't anywhere in the prison?"
  
  "Well..." Oversight sounded hesitant. "I mean, as sure as I can be. I took his face and told the computer to run it through all the cameras, and it didn't give a match or anything. I could ummm... tell it to look back over the last... uhhh, hour or something and find out if he was here before?"
  
  "Do that," Armsmaster agreed. "How's restoring Dragon's access going?"
  
  "Uh, ummm... just a... a second... there's some kind of personal block. It looks physical, like somebody ummm... made something and stuck it in the wiring somewhere to keep her computers locked out. Someone's gonna have to go and physically remove it."
  
  "I'll do it." Armsmaster started to walk, halberd held tight in one hand. "Just tell me where to go."
  
  As he left, I leaned up toward my guardian to whisper, "Did you really punch him?"
  
  "Eh," Ethan shrugged. "He had it coming." His hand squeezed my shoulder then. "Are you all right?"
  
  "I umm..." I let out a long sigh. "I'm okay. There's a lot we need to talk about. I-"
  
  "Found Lindt." Miss Militia announced, emerging from one of the upper cells. "She and her dogs are unconscious. Looks like they were drugged. We'll take them with us and sort out where she belongs once we get somewhere marginally less dangerous."
  
  "Anything stopping us from picking up anyone else that doesn't belong in this place, and getting out of here right now?" Sam asked, having approached to stand with Ethan and me.
  
  Wincing, I spoke up. "I'm gonna have to explain to the Faerie Queen why I didn't fulfill my part of the deal. I promised I'd bring Teacher back to her, so that she could punish him. I even made her promise not to kill him. That... seems pretty stupid now."
  
  Ethan was staring at me. "You convinced Glaistig Uaine to promise not to kill someone that annoyed her? How... in the hell did you- you know what, never mind. Just never mind, I don't want to know."
  
  Something occurred to me then, and I straightened. "Oh-Ethan. What about your umm, your dad? I mean, if he's in here somewhere, and we... just happen to be here..."
  
  "No." His head shook. "He died in here, a long time ago."
  
  Wilting, I sighed. "Sorry. I didn't know."
  
  "Hey," Ethan's hand squeezed my shoulder once more and he tugged me into another hug. "I've still got my family."
  
  The words made me blush, ducking my head to look at the floor. I shivered a little. "I... I guess I have to go explain things to the Queen."
  
  We stopped to get Trevor and Ruin first, before making our way back to the Faerie Queen's cell block. Alexandria, Mr. Hebert, and Laserdream stayed in the other block to bring in the containment teams and direct them. Pandora stayed with Crystal, at my request (I didn't want to know how the self-styled Faerie would react to her), while Armsmaster worked to remove the physical blocks that Teacher had apparently installed that limited Dragon's computers ability to connect to the place. That left Miss Militia, Ethan, Sam, Penance, and Reach to come with Trevor, Ruin, and myself.
  
  Glaistig Uaine was waiting with her back to us, alone in the middle of her cell block. I could see her people in their individual rooms. Before I could speak, the shrouded girl turned to look at me. Her voices were low, a slight yet clear warning to them. "I am not pleased. You are unable to fulfill the promise that was made, Healer. Teacher no longer remains."
  
  I gulped in spite of myself. "I... yeah, sorry. I mean, I'm really, really sorry, your Highness. I swear I wasn't lying when I spoke to you before. The... the situation changed. Teacher killed a lot of people, and there were even more that were going to die if he wasn't stopped... right then."
  
  "Nonetheless," she responded. "A promise was made, and then broken. My retribution remains unfulfilled. Some would transfer that anger onto the oath-breaker."
  
  Sam stepped in front of me. "It wasn't her fault, Faerie Queen. She did what she had to do in the heat of the moment. Surely you understand the need-"
  
  "Be silent." The chorus of voices ordered, Glaistig Uaine cutting her hand through the air. "I do not speak to you, Vessel, but to the True Healer. What I understand is not for you to say."
  
  She turned her attention back to me then. "Circumstances though there may have been, a promise was made that must, somehow, be kept."
  
  I started to respond to that, but it was Trevor who spoke up, unexpectedly. "I'll stay." When everyone whirled around to look at him, he had the grace to blanch. "I mean, uhh, I know I'm nothing. But I'm her uhhh, her brother. So... that's gotta mean something to you, right? I'll stay here with you."
  
  "What?" I stared, mouth working. "No. No, that's not-"
  
  He interrupted. "I just helped Teacher do all this. I didn't know what he was doing, I was too god damn stupid to think about it, but I did help him. I'll stay here and work for the Queen. Not... forever, I hope, but..."
  
  "One year." Glaistig Uaine held up a finger. "You will remain here, in my service, for one year. That will fulfill... one of the three concessions I now require."
  
  "But he... he..." I wanted to protest, but I couldn't find the words. Trevor, my brother, was volunteering to stay in the Birdcage. "He'll be in danger here. There's no way he can survive."
  
  The Faerie Queen stared at me. "He will live because I say he will. Do you doubt my ability to hold to my oath?"
  
  I gulped at that, shaking my head. "N-no, your Highness. I'm just... worried about him." And I was. Even though he had behaved like an idiot, he was still my brother.
  
  "Of course." Her head dipped in understanding. "Blood is important. Nonetheless, his promise is accepted."
  
  "You said... one of three?" I finally put in, my voice dry.
  
  "Yes." The Queen looked at me. "Second, you will return here once a month, for the entire day. I am intrigued by you and will spend that time discussing... things."
  
  Miss Militia spoke up then. "Not to interrupt, your Highness, but about her coming and going, and the boy there leaving after a year, the Birdcage isn't designed to let people in and out willy nilly."
  
  "And yet," Glaistig Uaine replied easily. "Comings and goings are indeed occurring even now. That will be allowed to continue in order to fulfill this bargain. My lack of retribution requires it. As the security to this system is restored, an allowance for the True Healer's visitations, and her brother's eventual dismissal, will be included."
  
  "What was the third thing?" I asked, before any other arguments could be made.
  
  "The Minstrel." She lifted a hand to point at Ruin. "She has done nothing to belong to this place. You will do your duty, Healer. You will piece the sleeper back together, ease her pain and put right what went wrong. You will take her from this place, and help her."
  
  For her part, Ruin's eyes widened and her head shook. She pointed to her own mouth.
  
  "Hiding is no solution." The Faerie Queen's voice was gently reproving. "You have a gift, Minstrel, if you would only learn to use it properly. The Healer may help you do so."
  
  "Done." I nodded, that part easy to accept. "I don't know how , but we'll help Ruin. We'll figure out how to control her voice, somehow."
  
  Miss Militia was stiff beside me. "One year of service, monthly visitation, and help for your... vassal. Is that acceptable?"
  
  Glaistig Uaine gave the very slightest of nods. "It is."
  
  I felt a touch at my side, and turned to see Trevor staring at me. His mouth opened and then shut before he let out a sigh. "Listen, I know you hate me. I know. But if you could just... just talk to Mom and Dad. Tell them... I don't know. Just try to explain?"
  
  My heart sank, and for a second, I was reliving the moment that Marissa had told me what happened, when my life had lost something so precious, forever.
  
  Closing my eyes as a shudder went through me, I let out a long breath before looking at him again. Reaching up, I tugged my own mask off so that he could see my face.
  
  As soon as he saw my expression, Trevor knew something else was wrong. "What? What happened?"
  
  "Tr-trevor..." I said slowly, my voice breaking slightly as I spoke. "I... I have to tell you something."
  
  14.05
  
  I took Trevor aside, into one of the empty cells, and told him what happened to our parents, and who had been responsible. Through his initial disbelief, then shock, and then mounting grief, I told him everything I knew about it, including the fact that it had been done to get at me.
  
  By the time I finished, he was sitting on the floor, staring at the wall across from him. "I didn't know." He repeated dully a couple of times. "I didn't know. Over a month and I... I didn't... know..." He trailed off, going silent for a moment before saying flatly, "I really don't know anything."
  
  I was still so very angry with him, yet I didn't want to see him in pain. He was my brother. "Trevor," I said quietly. "If you'd been there, she would have killed you too."
  
  Trevor lifted his gaze to stare hollowly at me briefly, before swallowing. "I'd say I just need some time alone, to think, but I guess I'm about to get that."
  
  "You didn't have to agree to that."
  
  His head shook. "I kinda did. Look, I know you're pissed at me. I deserve it. But... take care of Ruin, okay? She's... she deserves better than she got. Make sure she's all right. I thought I could fix things for her, but now... just watch out for her."
  
  I opened my mouth, then shut it before nodding. "I will. Part of the deal with the Faerie Queen. Wouldn't want to piss her off." Sobering, I stood still and indecisive for a second, then exhaled. "Remember when we were little, when I was little, and we'd play in the backyard, and I used to call time-out all the time whenever you were about to win? I'm... I'm still... really... really upset with you. I'm so angry I can barely look at you. But... but for a minute, I'm calling time-out again."
  
  That said, I knelt next to my brother and embraced him. I hugged him tightly and whispered, "I'm glad you're not dead. Mom and Dad dying wasn't your fault. You couldn't have done anything if you were there. Be careful in here. Please, please don't do anything stupid. I don't hate you, and I don't want you to die. Give me some time, maybe when I come back, I'll be ready to talk some more."
  
  Straightening after another moment of embrace, I looked down at him. "Promise you'll be careful?"
  
  "As careful as I know how to be." He shrugged a little, helplessly. "I'll try. See you next month?"
  
  I swallowed before nodding. "Yeah, next month." Closing my eyes briefly before opening them, I turned to walk out of the cell, leaving my brother to his private thoughts, the grief I'd had a head-start on.
  
  I still felt so betrayed by him that it was hard to think straight, but the one thing I'd known was that I didn't want to tell Trevor that our parents were dead, and then leave him thinking that I hated him.
  
  As I emerged from the cell, mask still held in one hand, I saw Miss Militia standing next to the block entrance, talking to Crystal. Most of the Faerie Queen's people were staying in their cells until the heroes left. There was no sign of the Queen herself.
  
  I was tired and I just wanted to go home. I wanted to see Mars, Dennis, and my other friends, eat something that wasn't prison food, and even sleep in my own bed. Although we technically hadn't been in this god forsaken place that long, it felt like an eternity.
  
  When I reached the pair of women, Miss Militia looked to me. "Tether," she said gently. "Your brother does not have to stay here. Say the word and we will do what we can to extricate him. Glaistig Uaine is a prisoner here, she should not be able to set conditions like that. You did what you had to do."
  
  I stared at her for a moment, before shaking my head. "I don't want him here, but... answer me honestly, can the Protectorate afford to piss her off at this point?" When the other woman didn't respond right away, I continued. "More to the point, if he goes out there, what are the odds of someone in power deciding they need a scapegoat for what happened to the PRT building and taking it out on anyone that happened to help Teacher, even if he didn't know what he was doing?"
  
  Crystal blinked at that, staring at me. "You think Trevor's safer in here than he is out there?"
  
  Shrugging, I glanced over my shoulder. "Let me put it this way, out there he'll probably have a whole bunch of frustrated, petty people looking for someone to string up and let the public take whacks at to make themselves feel better about what happened. In here, he's the personal assistant of someone that scares the pants off of the Triumvirate, who has a vested interest in keeping him alive because she wants me to keep coming back. I figure by the time he gets out in about a year, people will have moved on to the next thing, and the pain won't be quite so fresh. Plus, 'spent a year in the Birdcage' probably fits a lot of people's ideas of punishment."
  
  Both of them thought about that, before Miss Militia seemed to look at me with new consideration. "I suppose you have a point." She sighed then. "Somehow, we're going to need to sort out the people in Teacher's block. Some of them were obviously more a willing part of this whole thing than others, and we need to figure out which is which."
  
  Before either of them could say anything else, Glaistig Uaine entered the room, floating serenely. I couldn't see much of her expression, but she looked content. " No, you will not."
  
  We all blinked that way at her. Crystal was the one who spoke. "What? I ahhh, I beg your pardon, your Highness. You mean you already know?"
  
  " No." That chorus of voices replied easily. " But determining the guilt or innocence of a corpse is unproductive, is it not?"
  
  It took Miss Militia only a moment to get what she meant. "You killed them?"
  
  My eyes widened. "What-all of them?" I looked toward the Protectorate second-in-command. "I thought there were PRT people in there sorting them out."
  
  "There were." Miss Militia's voice was hard, her hand tightening on her weapon.
  
  Glaistig Uaine ignored the implied threat as though it meant nothing. " Your people are unharmed. My quarrel belonged not with them, but with those who worked with the betrayer."
  
  "They wouldn't have just stood there and let you kill all those people." Crystal pointed out.
  
  The Faerie Queen spared her barely a glance, before floating past on her way into the room." No," she agreed. " They did not."
  
  All of us stared after the terrifying woman, who had apparently simply strolled into a prison block full of some of the most dangerous parahumans in the world, being guarded by enough troops to keep them contained, and killed only the former while completely ignoring any attempt by the latter to stop her, to the point that it barely warranted a mention.
  
  Gulping, I leaned closer to Crystal to whisper, "Like I said, I think Trevor's safer here."
  
  Together, the three of us stepped into the hall and began to walk. We'd only gone about thirty feet to reach an intersection when Armsmaster's voice interrupted as he approached from the other hallway. "And you're absolutely sure he's nowhere in the prison."
  
  That same computerized voice replied, "I-uhhhmmm... y-yes, sir. As much as I ummm... c-can be. It... I... I looked over all the footage and he was here for a few minutes, but-"
  
  They rounded the corner then, emerging into the same intersection. I saw Armsmaster first, the man walking with grim determination, though I could make out the bruise on the exposed part of his lower face where Ethan had decked him.
  
  Beside him walked a waif-thin girl, wearing some kind of headgear with a mirrored faceplate that covered the top half of her face, and an attached microphone that dipped from one corner toward her mouth which was clearly what created the computerized voice.
  
  When she saw me, the girl stopped talking abruptly. I had time to wonder what was wrong, and why her figure looked so familiar, before the mirrored glass seemed to crack in half, each side sliding backwards and down into the back half of the headgear to expose her face.
  
  I stood staring at the shocked face of the girl within. She had clearly once been quite beautiful, but was now pale almost to the point of looking sick. Her once gorgeous red hair was stringy and clearly hadn't been conditioned in a long time, and she wore nothing in the way of make-up. Oh sure, she'd probably still be considered pretty, but the dark circles under her eyes, the haunted look to them, and her obvious lack of confidence took away from the image that Emma Barnes had once projected.
  
  For a moment, the two of us stood completely still, facing one another. Emma's mouth opened and shut before she found her voice, which was no longer digitized. "M-Madison? What are y-you..." Slowly, her gaze moved down to the rest of my outfit, staring blankly and uncomprehendingly for several seconds. "You... you're... you're..." Her hand moved to her mouth as she let out a shocked little gasp, her voice betraying her confusion even further. "Oh-oh my god. You're... A-and I... y-you..."
  
  My own voice was flat, as I hid my surprise behind suspicion. "What... the hell... are you doing here?"
  
  Wincing, Crystal stepped between us. "Emma here is Oversight. She's the one that shut down the Birdcage's defenses so that Murk could teleport us inside."
  
  "Oversight..." I echoed, disbelievingly. "You... you did all this." Dinah's work? I wondered. Dinah's efforts paying off? I'd wondered why she wanted to keep Emma around, but if she had triggered with a powerful enough ability to shut down the Birdcage's defenses, that would definitely be reason enough.
  
  "You're Tether." Emma repeated, voice dull with realization. "Oh my god. You're..."
  
  I couldn't take this, not now. It was too much. "Damn it." I muttered, taking my mask and yanking it on.
  
  Feeling confused and frustrated, I took a step to go around her. Emma's hand moved up to touch my arm. "M-Madison, wait... I-I ummm..."
  
  My glower seemed to carry through the mask as I turned my head that way, because she shrank back. "Don't... fucking... touch me."
  
  "I... I j-just wanted to say-"
  
  "I don't care." I informed her flatly. "I don't care what kind of plan this is, what goal you or Dinah have. I don't care what game you're playing or what you're trying to accomplish. Just... just leave me alone. Don't touch me, don't talk to me, don't even... just... just back the fuck off. I'm not ready for this. I'm not ready to deal whatever bullshit you've got going on. Touch me again, and I swear to god, I'll put you on your ass."
  
  Emma stood still and silent, her haunted gaze staring at me. It hurt, but I shoved that feeling away and turned on my heel to keep walking.
  
  I really needed to get the hell out of this prison.
  
  About an hour later, it was finally time to go. I stood in the cell block that Teacher had died in, almost in the exact same spot. Reach stood beside me, arms folded, while Ruin flanked me on the other side. The older girl still didn't look like she agreed with leaving the prison, but she hadn't argued with Glaistig Uaine's decision.
  
  Hellhound stood glowering at me from across the room, surrounded by three of her thankfully normal sized pets. I was pretty sure she still hadn't forgiven me for hurting her dog back during the whole prison van escape thing.
  
  The others were filing into the room, getting ready to head out of this damn place with the help of Mr. Hebert, who floated nearby, his darkness spreading out to cover one whole corner of the empty cell block.
  
  I saw... something pass between him and Emma as she entered the room alongside Armsmaster, her faceplate back in position. His darkness grew deeper, spreading faster while he stared at the girl. Yeah, he obviously knew who she was. If possible, Emma herself shrank back even more, practically hiding behind the Brockton Bay Protectorate leader.
  
  I hadn't seen Alexandria since her conversation with Pandora, who was currently inspecting one of the nearby cells with obvious curiosity.
  
  Sam and Ethan approached, hand in hand. The latter reached out a fist to push against my shoulder. "You ready to get outta here,shrimp?"
  
  "Don't call me that," I replied automatically and unthinkingly.
  
  Chuckling, Sam released her husband long enough to step over and hug me. "Are you okay?" Apparently she'd heard about what happened with Emma.
  
  I sighed and shrugged. "I dunno. I just want to go home."
  
  "Time to go." Armsmaster announced, on cue. "Oversight, lower the teleportation defenses. Dragon's still reasserting her control after all the damage that Teacher's devices did."
  
  "Y-yes, sir..." Emma said quietly. She seemed to focus for a moment before nodding. "Okay, they're down. We can-oh no!"
  
  Armsmaster and Miss Militia both whirled on her, the former demanding, "What? What happened?"
  
  "I-I'm s-sorry. I'm sorry." Emma stammered. "I d-didn't m-mean to. I swear. I didn't know they-"
  
  "Spit it out." Armsmaster all but growled. "What just happened?"
  
  Obviously cringing, Emma answered in a reluctant, frightened voice. "Th-they... ummm... some people just got out. "
  
  Miss Militia shook her head, holding up a hand to stop Armsmaster from biting Emma's head off. "What do you mean, some people just got out?"
  
  "I-I m-mean the second I took down the d-defenses, they teleported out. Like... l-like they were waiting for it. A-as soon as the defenses went down, two different groups-"
  
  " Two?!" Armsmaster all but roared, his anger so obvious that Emma actually whimpered. "Who?" He demanded.
  
  Gulping, Emma answered, "Ummm... it... it was Lu-Lung and three others with him. Ummm Ummm... Im-impasse, Feast, a-and... Oni Lee."
  
  "And the other group?" Miss Militia asked, her voice tense even as she tried to keep Armsmaster as calm as possible.
  
  "Marquis, m-ma'am." Emma cringed as she replied. "Marquis and his lieutenants, Spruce, Whimper, and Cinderhands."
  
  Poor Armsmaster was all but quivering from the effort at quelling his rage enough to speak coherently. "How? How did they teleport out?"
  
  "Ummm... Marquis had one of Teacher's teleportation devices. I d-don't know how. I didn't sense it until it powered up, and by then it was too late. And ummm... Lung... someone from the outside teleported his group out."
  
  Armsmaster's hand went up to cover his mouth, rubbing his chin and goatee with obvious frustration as he growled. "We could have salvaged this. If we kept the rest of the prisoners locked down, we could've managed this without too many more problems. Now... now as soon as people find out those freaks are loose..."
  
  "Ummm... M-Tether..." I froze as Emma addressed me, clearly reluctant to do so. "He... Marquis I mean, he said something for you just before the teleportation happened."
  
  Everyone turned to stare at me, while I let out a low sigh. "What?"
  
  A second later, Marquis' voice emerged from Emma's helmet. "Tether, thank you for the cooperation with my original request, but I believe I shall pass the message along to my daughter myself."
  
  "His daughter?" Armsmaster was staring at me. "Do you want to explain what that was all about?"
  
  "Later." Miss Militia insisted. When he started to argue, she held up a hand. "I have been in this prison for over a month. I need a real shower, and I need a real bed. So do the others. Everything else can wait until later. "
  
  "That's right." Ethan's own voice betrayed his obviously mounting tension. "We're going home. You can talk to her, to everyone, later."
  
  Heaving a sigh, Armsmaster finally nodded. "Fine." He looked toward Mr. Hebert. "Murk, if you wouldn't mind?"
  
  I waved a hand to catch Pandora's attention, letting the strange girl approach and stand nearby as the darkness began to envelop us.
  
  Yet, even though I was finally getting out of this prison, and going home, I couldn't relax.
  
  Marquis was loose. So was Lung. Both had every reason to hate each other, and each had some of the worst, most dangerous psychopaths in the world with them.
  
  Brockton Bay was about to become a war zone.
  
  Interlude 14 - Emma
  
  Three Days Ago
  
  Emma Barnes had believed that the most terrifying moment she would experience in her life had been when one of the random thugs who had yanked her out of her father's car through the broken window had pressed his knife against her face and ordered her to choose whether their newest gang member would cut away her eye, nose, mouth, or ears.
  
  She had never, until that moment, been more convinced of her own helplessness and frailty. Her peaceful, perfect life, and the security it offered, had been shattered in the very same instant as the window of her father's car.
  
  It was as if she had spent her childhood on a yacht, save, secure, and protected from the fear and loss that others experienced, only to be bodily thrown from that yacht, landing in a sea of pain and terror where no one cared how much money her parents made or how powerful they were.
  
  Her daddy had been there. He had been worse than useless, calling her name with a kind of desperation that had only served to remind Emma of just how much trouble she was in, and how helpless he was to do anything about it.
  
  No one else had helped her, no one else had stopped them. One person, and only one person, had actually stopped those thugs from doing anything they wanted to her.
  
  Shadow Stalker. Sophia had saved her, had stopped them. Of course, she hadn't known her name until later, or her philosophy. But she had saved her. In the very moment where her idyllic, untouched life had shattered, Sophia had taken her arm and pulled her from that dark sea of impotent despair, into a new raft.
  
  Her life, her trust in the world itself, had been broken. Sophia had given her something to believe in, a philosophy of winners and losers, of predator and prey, that allowed Emma to find some kind of meaning in what had happened to her.
  
  To give that up, to choose Taylor over Sophia, would have meant going back to the same girl she had been before that window had shattered. And that would have meant, inevitably, being the same girl who would be pressed face down against the pavement, while a gang of psychopaths debated whether they should sell her to a sex farm. Not whether it was right, but simply whether they could get away with it or not.
  
  Choosing Taylor would have meant choosing to be weak, pathetic Emma. It would have meant throwing away the girl who had saved her, who had taught her how to be strong.
  
  Every day it had become easier to tell herself that it didn't matter, that Taylor meant nothing, that she was just that weak, that... pathetic. But the truth was that whenever she saw Taylor's sad, desperate expression, Emma remembered herself, lying on that pavement while her daddy screamed her name. It was that weak, useless girl that Emma wanted to punish every time she hurt Taylor. Fight back! She wanted to scream every time Taylor just sat there and cried, because she saw herself sitting there, saw the tears in her own eyes, and felt the terror coming back.
  
  Punishing Taylor had become less about who Taylor was, and more about what she represented: a life where Emma was weak.
  
  She made her choice. Not just once, but every day. And every day it had become easier to tell herself that it was working, that she was strong, that she was better, that she would never feel that kind of terror again.
  
  She had been right. The fear that those random thugs had been capable of had been nothing compared to what her life had become.
  
  Riley was singing again, to the tune of the classic children's number. "Ohhh the itsy bitsy spiiider went through the tympanic membrane. Down comes the blood to wash that sucker out. Up comes the swab to push out all the blood. And the itsy bitsy spiiiider went in the glossopharyngeal nerve!"
  
  A slight whimper escaped Emma as she lay on her side, staring at the stain on the nearby door, afraid to take her eyes off of it. The sound of Riley's singing was drown out by the high pitched whine of some kind of drill, accompanied by the wet splatter noise of blood and tissue spraying against the walls.
  
  Something leaked under the connecting door, and Emma covered her head with the blanket and felt her tears return.
  
  "I just want to go home." She whispered to no one who would listen, no one who would care.
  
  A hand touched her leg just then, and she jumped with a yelp.
  
  "Emma." It was Dinah's voice. "It's time to go."
  
  Slowly lowering the blanket, Emma stared at the younger girl. "Where... where are we going?"
  
  There was no joy in the weak smile that Dinah gave her. "To your new life, one way or another."
  
  "This is... my high school." Emma said dully, staring at the building in front of them. It was past one in the morning, meaning the school was dark and empty. Still, seeing it sent a throbbing pain through her heart. She wanted to be here. School had been fun. She had been important, had been a queen. "What are we doing here?"
  
  "Go inside." Dinah's voice was soft, barely more than a whisper. "It's time for you to decide, Emma."
  
  "Decide what?" Emma looked at the younger girl, then to Pandora, who stood half-covered by shadows. "What am I deciding?"
  
  Before answering, Dinah slowly stepped back out of the streetlight, letting the darkness fully envelop her. "Time to decide who you're going to be."
  
  No more answers were forthcoming, no matter what Emma did or said. Finally, she was left with no choice but to walk forward. She expected to find the doors locked, but one of them opened even as she approached.
  
  Another Pandora stood there, waiting for her in the school entrance. Her hand lifted to point to the nearest classroom. "Go, Emma-Person." She was never Emma-Friend, the way that the younger girl was Dinah-Friend. Hell, even Bonesaw had become Riley-Friend. She was Person. Emma-Person.
  
  Confused, and more than a little worried, Emma slowly made her way to the door that Pandora had pointed at.
  
  Inside was what had been a math classroom. The desks had all been cleared away from the middle of the room, leaving only a television, the screen displaying static.
  
  After taking two steps into the room, Emma turned back to the door. "Hey, what am I supposed to-"
  
  The door slammed shut with a bang that echoed through the room, and was matched by a near identical bang from behind her. Whirling, Emma saw that the television screen had come to life. Static had become two little girls standing on a grassy hill, while fireworks exploded in the sky behind them.
  
  "Ooooh, look girls! Pretty. You see? Up there, right up there, here comes another one!" A female voice from behind the camera coaxed the pair
  
  A dazzling blue and white display of pyrotechnics filled the air, while the two girls, barely eight years old, squealed with delight.
  
  "Again! Again! Do it again!" The tiny little red-haired child pleaded, clapping her hands.
  
  "They gotta reload, Emma." The taller, even skinnier little girl with the beautiful dark hair informed her friend. "Right, momma?"
  
  There was a gentle chuckle from the woman behind the camera. "That's right, sweetie. They'll do another one as soon as-there we go!"
  
  "Eeeee!" Both girls squealed, jumping up and down together.
  
  "Red one!" The girl with the matching shade of hair looked back to the camera. "Did you see it, Aunt Annette? Did you see it?! Red, like me!"
  
  Laughing, the woman with the camera assured her, "I saw it, Emma. Keep watching, you don't want to miss any, do you?"
  
  Frantically, the little girl shook her head. "Nuh uh." She turned back to stare at the sky. "I'm never blinking again."
  
  "Your eyes'll dry up and get all broke if you don't blink." The dark-haired girl cautioned.
  
  "Worth it." The other child decided after a moment. "I don't wanna miss anything."
  
  "It's okay." The girl with the dark hair put an arm around her. "If you lost your eyes, you could have one of mine."
  
  The red-haired child returned the one-armed hug. "You'd do that?"
  
  "Of course I would. You're my best friend."
  
  The image on the screen froze like that, with the two little girls half-hugging as they stared up at the sky, fireworks exploding in the air.
  
  For a moment, Emma stood still and silent, staring at it. A shudder tried to work its way out, but she shoved it back down and reached forward to turn the television off, but she stopped with her hand halfway there and stood, indecisive for a moment. Finally, she turned her back to it, leaving the image on the screen the way it was as she strode back to the door.
  
  The door opened at her touch, and she walked back into the now dark hallway. "Okay!" She called. "This isn't funny anymore! You... you guys can stop. Whatever you're trying to-"
  
  In mid-sentence, the locker directly in front of her popped open, some kind of light within illuminating a purple jacket that had once been pretty, before several colors of paint had been spilled on it. Most was random blotches, but on the very back, prominently displayed, was painted, 'Stupid Skank.'
  
  The memory came easily. It had been Madison's idea, to take the jacket that Taylor liked so much, and spill paint on it. Sophia had added the stupid skank part, while daring Taylor after each and every letter to come and stop her. Emma herself had taunted the other girl, her former friend, telling her that if she didn't fight back, if she didn't even try to stop them, it must mean she agreed with it, that she really was a stupid skank.
  
  Her hand lashed out, slamming the locker door shut with a bang and hiding the jacket from view. As soon as she did, a classroom door further down creaked open.
  
  "No." Emma turned away from the open classroom, storming back to the entrance. "I'm not playing this game. I'm not doing this! Just leave me alone!" She shoved against the main door, but it remained stubbornly closed, resisting every effort she made to escape.
  
  After a moment of pushing futilely at the exit, Emma turned on her heel and strode the other way. She had every intention of walking right past the open classroom, but just as she reached it, a voice within caught her attention, and she made the mistake of turning to look at what turned out to be another television screen.
  
  "Emma! Eeeeeemmmma! Look up here. Look at the camera, sweetie."
  
  On the screen, the little red-haired girl glanced up from the cake. She held a brand new stuffed bear in one hand, and pointed at the dessert on the table. "Daddy look! Princess cake!"
  
  "Oooh, I see it, baby. How old are you today?"
  
  She blinked up again, distractedly. "What?"
  
  "How old are you, five?"
  
  "Nooooo! I'm eight!"
  
  "Eight, huh? Is that this many?" Three fingers appeared, held out in front of the camera.
  
  "No, Daddy! It's... it's this many..." The girl used her free hand to hold up all five fingers, and tried to open her other hand for the remaining three, but doing so would have made her drop her new bear. "It's this... Taylor! Help!"
  
  The skinny girl with the pretty hair leaned up into the camera's shot, holding three more fingers up against the other girl's five.
  
  "Ohhhh," the man behind the camera teased. "I get it. You're five and she's three."
  
  "No!" Both girls chorused in horror, before collapsing to the floor in a fit of giggles. They fed off one another. As one of them started to calm down, the other would snicker a little more, and then they would both howl.
  
  The camera came forward a little, as the operator stood over the pair of happy, giggling girls, before the screen froze that way.
  
  Spinning away from the screen, Emma took three steps down the hall when another locker opened right beside her. Hanging inside, again illuminated by tiny lights, was a flute.
  
  It wasn't the same flute, of course. It couldn't be the one that had belonged to Taylor's mother, the one that Sophia had taken out of the girl's locker when she'd brought it to school in an attempt to feel safe and loved in the place that had become her living hell. But it was close enough. It was the same kind of flute, the same appearance, as the flute that had been Taylor's tiny little grasp at feeling like her mother was there to offer her some backup.
  
  I thought you were better than that, screwing with me on that level.
  
  I guess you're wrong. Doesn't look like she's offering you any backup at all.
  
  The memory of the words came to mind, but she shoved them away, desperate to avoid actually accepting what had happened. That was how she dealt with everything. She moved forward, always forward. She'd chosen her path, had decided upon her direction. Nothing could be changed now.
  
  Backing away from the flute, Emma's eyes closed. She missed a step, almost stumbling before she spun to run down the hall.
  
  It continued that way. For every happy moment of bonding, of true friendship without demand or ridicule, there was a locker with another reminder of just how terrible she had made Taylor's life become. One step after another, the memories came unbidden. Not only the ones that were being forced on her, but others, memories and thoughts that no one but she knew, driven to the surface now against every attempt to quell and suppress them.
  
  Finally, everything stopped. Emma was left alone in the dark and silent hallway for almost a solid minute, hearing nothing but her own rapid breathing.
  
  Then, with a slow, deliberate creak, another locker opened. This one was down the hall from her, the door blocking her view of the contents. It was... it was Taylor's locker. The locker that they had... the locker that she had...
  
  "No." Emma turned away from it, eyes blinking rapidly.
  
  Dinah was there, the dim light from the nearby exit sign casting an eerie green glow over her features. "What are you afraid of, Emma?"
  
  "Just-" Emma's voice cracked a little. "Just leave me alone. What the hell do you want from me?"
  
  "I want you to admit what you did."
  
  "W-what?"
  
  "I want you to say it out loud, Emma. All this time and you never said it out loud. Have you ever even thought it? Have you acknowledged it at all?"
  
  "I..." Her head shook. "I don't know what you're talking about."
  
  "She was your friend." Dinah's head shook, her disappointment somehow cutting. "Your best friend. Don't you owe it to her to admit it? To say it out loud?"
  
  "S-Sophia was-"
  
  "Sophia was nothing." Dinah interrupted.
  
  "She saved my life!" Emma shot back, almost quivering. "She stopped them, she stopped those fucking monsters!"
  
  Dinah's voice was quiet. "There was more than one kind of monster there that day, Emma. There was the kind that announce themselves with broken glass and open threats, the ones you see coming. And there was also the kind that never tells you what they really are, the kind that makes you think that they're your friend, just so they can twist you, change who you are inside. The kind of monster that makes you do things to your best friend that you can never take back."
  
  "Sophia is-sophia... she's... she's..."
  
  "Emma. Who was your real best friend? Who was there for you? Who didn't ask for anything from you except that you be there for her when she needed someone? Who loved you for you , not for who they could turn you into?"
  
  "She-Sophia, she was... she was... my... my friend was..."
  
  Dinah took a step closer. "Who?"
  
  "I can't do this. I won't do this." Emma started to turn away, but Dinah caught her arms, holding her in a grip that was surprisingly tight for a twelve-year-old girl.
  
  "Say it, Emma. Who was your best friend?"
  
  She spat the words in a rush. "Taylor! Taylor, all right?! She was my best friend! She was... she was... and I... and I..." Her throat closed up, and she stopped talking.
  
  "Say it, Emma." Dinah insisted.
  
  "No." Her denial was a plaintive mewl. "No, please."
  
  "Say it. Tell me. Tell yourself."
  
  "Please don't make me. Please. Please, I can't. I c-can't do it. I c-can't say it. Please, I won't complain anymore. I w-won't try to es-escape. Please. J-just let me go. L-let me get out of here. D-don't... don't make me..."
  
  Dinah's voice was less than a whisper, so quiet it might not even have been real. "Say it."
  
  "I... I..." Emma's voice was hollow, empty now, devoid of false bravado. It was naked and raw. "I killed her." Her throat tried to close up, the dampness in her eyes making her blink rapidly. "I... I... killed... I killed my best f-friend... I..."
  
  She was crying now, her tears falling freely as Dinah pulled her to the locker. Inside... was nothing. It was empty.
  
  "Oh god... oh g-god..." Emma fell then, as Dinah stepped aside. She went to her knees in front of the empty locker, openly sobbing. "Please... please... no... I... I killed my best friend. I killed my best friend. I'm sorry."
  
  Her head leaned forward, her hands coming up on either side of the locker while the tears that she had held back for months were finally released. "I'm sorry, Taylor. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Her shoulders shook with the despair that had been buried so deep for so long that she had stopped recognizing it.
  
  "I'm sorry, Taylor. I'm so, s-so sorry. I didn't mean it. I didn't me-mean it. Please... please no... please don't go. Please. I take it back. I t-take it back! Please, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Taylor, I'm sorry! Please..."
  
  Head bowed, half slumped into the locker itself in her wretched anguish, Emma sobbed openly and brokenly.
  
  Her mind began to drift then, a universe of infinite possibilities opening up before her to reveal a creature far beyond her ability to comprehend.
  
  And even as that tiny spark within her ignited and began to explore what it could do, as Emma's own consciousness fled to a memory that was not its own and that she would not retain, her words remained, and would never again be forgotten or ignored.
  
  "I killed m-my best friend... I k-killed... my best... f-friend."
  
  "Oh god... Taylor..."
  
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  Arc 15: Reconstruction
  Notes: Animeflunky - Yeah, the culmination of what the Faerie Queen is hoping for, when it finally comes to light, should prove... interesting, I hope. ;)
  
  Clefspear - Thanks! Glad you're enjoying it.
  
  SynesTheoretical - It was definitely emotional to write. I'm glad at least some of that came through in the reading.
  
  RadicalTurnip - Thanks, I like doing my own thing rather than just rehashing canon, so it's good to hear that you like it as well.
  
  HellKing666 - Seeing Tether-Madison interact with Skitter-Taylor would definitely be interesting.
  
  reality deviant - Believe it or not, I was holding onto the finger line ever since Pandora gave Tether that thing. So hard to save it.
  
  Starfox5 - If you want to see whether Madison gets over her initial reaction to Emma, read on. ;)
  
  15.01
  
  Mr. Hebert was only responsible for the first teleportation jump, from the Birdcage to some kind of private waiting room nearby. Then he gave Emma another dirty look before bluntly announcing that he had fulfilled his part and was now done, before disappearing in a rush of shadows.
  
  We used a different teleporter, one of the New York team, to get from British Columbia all the way to Brockton Bay. It took three more jumps, each more disorienting than the last, before we finally arrived in the teleportation receiving room in the PRT building.
  
  By the time I had recovered from the brief but potent nausea, there was already trouble. Armsmaster had been trying to explain to Hellhound what had to happen before she could go, but Lindt wasn't having anything to do with it. She didn't trust him, or any of us really. It looked like she was about to start a fight, before the door opened on the other side of the room, letting Tattletale and Grue come in. They managed to calm the testy girl down before things could get too out of hand, explaining their pardons and that it wasn't a trick, the PRT wasn't about to throw her back in prison. Even hearing it from them didn't seem to fully reassure the girl, who still looked like she wanted to bolt.
  
  While that was going on, I turned to the nearby clone-girl. "Thanks for your help, Pandora. I... I couldn't have gotten out of there without you."
  
  Her head tilted, and it looked like she was about to say something when I interrupted by stepping forward to hug her. Dinah wanted Pandora to learn morals, to learn about caring for people. As scary as she could be (and she could be downright terrifying), I wanted her to know that I cared about what happened to her. She had the potential to be a monster, but she chose not to be... as much of one as she easily could have been.
  
  "You are touching us, Tether-Friend." Her voice remarked quietly after a moment.
  
  "Err, is that bad?" I asked hesitantly while releasing her, a little bit nervous in spite of myself, given how little she had enjoyed Alexandria's touch.
  
  She shook her head once, a motion as sudden and jerky as her nods tended to be. "No. We do not object. You have been useful, and you are a friend to us, and to Dinah-Friend."
  
  "Well... as a friend, I need to tell you something." I took in a breath and then let it out. "But I'll tell you tomorrow, okay? I'll come see you guys tomorrow and tell you then. Just know that I know something now, something big, but I can't talk about it yet. I'm not lying to you, I'm not keeping it secret from you, but I'm not ready to talk about it. Is that... okay?"
  
  Her eyes seemed to study me for a moment. "Is this knowledge something that will last until then?" I nodded, and she accepted that. "Then we will wait until tomorrow, Tether-Friend."
  
  I let out a breath of relief. The last thing I'd wanted to do was something stupid like not tell Pandora about Marquis, and then have her find out some other way and start blaming everyone else for not telling her. That had, quite honestly, always infuriated me in movies and television, when something would go horribly wrong that could have been prevented with simple communication. Keeping important information away from someone 'for their own good' worked out so seldom that just thinking of doing it ought to have made a giant hand pop up out of thin air to start smacking the person having that particular brainstorm.
  
  On the other hand, I hadn't officially reported where Bonesaw was, so maybe I deserved a vicious and repeated smacking too. But in that case, it wasn't about lying to one person to prevent them from finding out a secret that they might react badly to. It was about not deliberately messing up Dinah's attempts to actually rehabilitate someone as dangerous as Bonesaw was.
  
  She seemed to be doing a good enough job with Pandora. The least I could do was not ruin her work. Maybe that was something that I would regret, but I firmly believed that I'd regret giving the Protectorate reason to jump down her throat in an attempt to grab Bonesaw even worse.
  
  Yeah, I was aware that I was justifying it in probably the same way that those who lied to people 'for their own good' did. Apparently life was never going to have simple, straight forward answers, as much as I wanted it to.
  
  Turning away from me while I was musing on that, Pandora focused on Emma. My skin crawled at the very thought that she knew who I was now. I couldn't help but wonder how she'd end up using it against me, as well as what kind of damage she was capable of now that she could apparently control machines and computers well enough to shut down the Birdcage's defenses. Frankly, the idea of someone like Emma having that kind of power kind of terrified me.
  
  Then again, the idea of someone like I had been before would have been terrifying too. I had changed, maybe Emma had too. But frankly, I was too tired and worn out to think about that right then. I just wanted to get out of here.
  
  "We will take Emma-Friend away now." Pandora spoke up.
  
  The name seemed to make the other girl jump a little. She looked that way, and I could sense her confusion even through the mirrored plate that covered the top half of her face. "Me?"
  
  "Yes, Emma-Friend." Pandora repeated patiently. "We will take you back now. Dinah-Friend is waiting for us."
  
  Armsmaster cleared his throat, and I had the terrified thought that he was going to try to stop Pandora. Images of carnage throughout the city, and planes dropping napalm while emergency sirens blared shot through my head.
  
  Instead, he just spoke. "Tell Miss Alcott to call her parents again. They miss her, and they still don't understand why she can't come home to them."
  
  Pandora seemed to regard him passively for a moment, clearly waiting to see if he was going to say something else. When he didn't, she gave that jerky, quick nod again. "We have given your message to Dinah-Friend. She has said that she will make such a call when it is safe for her to do so."
  
  "What, you already talked to-" Armsmaster started before realizing. "Right, co-location." Rather than being creeped out, he sounded... envious? "All right, consider the truce continued. We'll back away from you as long as you keep to your side of it."
  
  "Come, Emma-Friend." Pandora turned to walk away. "We will walk, and you will ensure that none of the attempts to follow or monitor us are successful."
  
  No one even bothered to try to look innocent.
  
  Emma shot a look toward Armsmaster. For a moment, I wondered if she would try to refuse to go with Pandora. After all, she'd seemed desperate to get out of that motel room before. I half-expected her to hide behind the man and tell Pandora to leave her alone.
  
  Instead, she let out a soft sigh and started to walk away, trailing after the other girl. After a few steps, she looked back over her shoulder at me. "I'm sorry." She said, so quietly I wasn't sure that I'd actually heard her correctly. "I'm s-sorry for... for e-everything." Before I could respond to that, she kept walking. The pair left the room, heading for the building exit, and no one tried to stop them.
  
  It was obvious that no one quite loved the idea of letting that particular situation continue, but it was better than any alternative, most of which involved pissing off Pandora. It was a fragile truce, and no one who actually understood the situation wanted to risk breaking it, no matter how little they liked it.
  
  Besides, Emma and Pandora had been there under a flag of truce, not too unlike Endbringer battles. To violate that wouldn't have just been stupid for the whole 'unstoppable biological weapon' thing, but also for the damage it would do to the Protectorate's ability to make further deals in the future.
  
  Once those two had left, I turned to take hold of Armsmaster and Crystal, tugging both of them away from the others. Miss Militia's words aside, the threat to Amy wouldn't just wait for us to feel refreshed. "Amy's in danger." I said in a low voice. "Marquis says he's her father, and I think he really, really wants a daddy-daughter reunion. " I focused on Crystal then. "You need to find her and tell her who he is, if she doesn't already know."
  
  Crystal's mouth fell open. "Marquis is... oh... god damn it, Aunt Carol."
  
  I blinked at the mention of her deceased relative. "Uhhh..."
  
  "Never mind." She shook her head. "A lot of other things just make more sense now. I'll find Amy and talk to her." She squinted at me then. "If he's Amy's father, doesn't that mean-"
  
  "Yeah." I nodded. "I'm gonna talk to Pandora, try to explain things."
  
  "Are you sure that's a good idea?" Armsmaster asked.
  
  My nod turned emphatic. "Better than waiting for her to find out some other way, so she blames us for not telling her the truth."
  
  "Right." He grimaced at that thought. "Could be bad. Look, just... be careful. You have no idea what kind of people are up in arms about this whole situation. Every god damn day I have to tell some other paper-pusher that we're not mounting a rescue mission. Dinah's parents don't get it, even with her telling them herself. The mayor's got a bug up his ass, and everything's just..." He sighed. "Just keep her under control."
  
  Briefly, I wondered how worked up those same people would be if they knew that Bonesaw was there too. "Err, yeah, I'll be careful."
  
  Penance spoke up from where she had been standing by Reach. "I'm taking Cassie home. Theo... well, there's a lot to tell you about."
  
  I saw the younger girl, still hidden behind her infiltrator costume, shrink back, clearly nervous about what had happened before she took the express trip into the Birdcage. When she glanced toward me, I gave her a thumbs up, not wanting to make things worse by talking about it out loud. All I said was, "Good luck."
  
  "We, meanwhile..." Sam announced, looking toward Ruin. "Need to take care of some other details."
  
  So, in spite of Ethan's pronouncement that we would deal with everything after we had some rest, it took much longer to actually leave. The fact was, the powers-that-be weren't exactly eager to officially release Ruin back into the world. Sure, going into the Birdcage had been her choice, but there had been a good reason for it, and she had killed people, however accidentally. And apparently it was difficult to impress upon the people in the suits with the pens that signed these sort of things the danger of annoying Glaistig Uaine by going back on a deal. They figured she was in the Birdcage, so what damage could she do?
  
  Idiots.
  
  Other people who had done terrible things on purpose, like Purity, had been forgiven, of course. But she had joined the Protectorate. Ruin had no such interest. In fact, she was afraid going into that sort of thing would actually do more harm than good, considering how easy it would be for her to get into a situation where she accidentally spoke.
  
  It took so long to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, that by the time they had finished up, I was curled up on a bench outside of the conference room where all this was going on, wearing street clothes taken from the PRT gift shop. I'd drifted off for awhile when I finally felt a hand brush my shoulder. Opening my eyes, I found Sam there. "Hey, ready to go home?"
  
  Sitting up, I yawned. "I need to call Mars." I hadn't wanted to do it from inside the building, considering how easy it was to be overheard, even if you didn't actually see anyone around. I'd also thought about calling Dennis, but it was late enough that I didn't want to wake him up. I'd talk to everyone the next day. Marissa, however... she needed to know I was all right, as soon as possible.
  
  Ethan, standing over next to Ruin as he shuffled through a few papers, remarked, "Or you could just wait until we get back so you can talk to her in person."
  
  That made me blink. "Huh? Wait, she's... at your house?"
  
  He glanced up and smiled slightly at me. "You didn't think we'd just leave her in the dark when we were going in to get you, did you? We let her know and told her to stay in our place until we brought you back. That was pretty much the only way she'd agree not to come with us."
  
  My mouth opened and shut, as I stared at him. "You... you talked to her... you let her know..."
  
  Sam's arm went around my shoulders. "Of course we did. She cares about you, a lot. We couldn't just ignore that and let her keep thinking the worst. Besides, you care about her too, don't you?"
  
  I nodded quickly. "I-I do. I care about her a lot. I just... I didn't expect you to... I just figured you guys and her were separate and that... it was wrong to..." I trailed off, still blinking as I came to terms with the fact that my guardians and my girlfriend had been talking without me there.
  
  "Hey," Ethan brought the stack of papers up to lightly swat against my face. "She's important to you so she's important to us. Besides, we had to make sure you were making the right decision to trust her."
  
  I hesitated at that, shifting my weight before asking, strangely nervous considering everything I had just been through, "So, ummm... what do you think?"
  
  Grinning, Ethan gave me a shrug. "Well, I for one think you're a pretty lucky girl." When Sam leaned out a foot to kick him, he danced backward. "Hey, I said 'pretty' lucky! Just not quite as lucky as me."
  
  "Nice save." Sam remarked dryly before looking toward the silent Ruin. "Ready to get out of here, Hunter?"
  
  "Hunter?" I echoed, glancing that way. "That's your real name?"
  
  She nodded, and Ethan confirmed, "Hunter Pritt, apparently. Ruin's not bad though, one name. Like Madonna. Or, well, you know... Scion."
  
  "We'll stick with Hunter." Sam said pointedly.
  
  While we walked outside, they explained the agreement that everyone had come to concerning Hunter/Ruin's release. Apparently it both helped and hurt that everyone was still reeling from the destruction of the national PRT headquarters. It helped in the fact that the proper channels only went up to the state level at the moment, so there was actually slightly less red tape to cut through. It hurt in the fact that the bureaucrats at the state level were swamped and they had initially reacted to the request to legally allow a former Birdcage resident, whether she had chosen to be there or not, to leave by staring at Ethan and Sam as though they were insane.
  
  Luckily, those two weren't the only ones making the request. Armsmaster and Miss Militia had apparently both spoken up to say that this was the best way to do things, regardless of her history (pointing out that she was a bargaining chip of Glaistig Uaine had apparently helped with at least one of the decision makers) or her powers. Finally, however, it had been the brief, harried appearance of Alexandria that convinced them. She had stopped by for about sixty seconds to tell the group of suits that they should allow the release, using a variation of the system that allowed former villains to avoid prison in exchange for services.
  
  That... surprised me, honestly. Why should Alexandria care about something like this? It didn't... really concern her, did it? Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the help, but I wondered where her support had come from.
  
  In the end, even with Alexandria's voiced support, it had taken several things together to make the release work. First, Ruin had to sign a form agreeing to cooperate with any procedure deemed appropriate by a panel of parahuman medical professionals and tinkers that would attempt to control the damage her voice did when she didn't want it to. Second, she had to agree to be on retainer for the Protectorate, to assist in any situation which her particular talents could conceivably help with. Third, Ethan and Sam had to take personal responsibility for her, meaning that Ruin would be living with us. Fourth, she was considered to be on probation for the duration of her prison sentence (forever), and at any point that a panel decided she was too dangerous, she would be put right back inside the Birdcage, or eliminated (yes, it actually said eliminated) in order to ensure the safety of the civilian population. Essentially, she had what amounted to half of a kill order ready for five signatures to make it official the second they decided she was more trouble than she was worth. To facilitate that, she had to wear an ankle monitor that would constantly track her location just in case.
  
  In a lot of ways, it was extreme. Not that it was so easy to blame them. Ruin, or Hunter as I really needed to get more accustomed to thinking of her as, was dangerous. I liked her, what I knew of her anyway, but she was capable of killing a lot of people very quickly and very easily without actually meaning to. A mistake, an exclamation of surprise, could result in the death of a lot of people. It was like someone walking around that could sneeze and wipe out a nearby Cub Scout, it wasn't fair or right that she'd ended up with the power that she had, but that didn't mean the people who wanted her kept away from civilians were exactly wrong. It was one of those moral questions without a satisfactory answer.
  
  The moment that we stepped out of the building, Ruin stopped walking. She stood frozen, staring up at the night sky.
  
  Stars, I realized belatedly. She was staring at the stars. "Ru-Hunter?" I asked after a moment. "How long were you in the Birdcage?"
  
  Without looking away from the sky, she held up three fingers.
  
  "Three..." I swallowed. "Three years? You were in there for three years?"
  
  She nodded faintly, still entranced by the stars.
  
  I turned my attention to Ethan, who looked mad enough to storm back in the building and start screaming at the people who had locked up a teenage girl for three years alongside the worst psychopaths in the world for what hadn't been her fault.
  
  "I swear to god..." He muttered. "I am going to find the list of every single prisoner they've still got in that hellhole, and if there's anyone else that shouldn't be there..."
  
  Sam put a hand on his arm. "Later, Ethan. Let's get out of here."
  
  "Right." He let out a breath and pointed. "You guys can ride in the back of the pickup. That way, ahh, you can see the sky on the way."
  
  I saw a slight smile cross Hunter's face, before she lowered her gaze and nodded in agreement. She joined as as we walked across the lot, heading for the truck.
  
  On the way, I couldn't help but think about what Glaistig Uaine had said. She thought that I could help Ruin, that I could somehow repair her power, or whatever. That was as insane as her faerie beliefs, wasn't it?
  
  She'd talked about the three sisters, the fates, who controlled humankind's destiny. Somehow, for whatever reason, she'd pulled me into that delusion. She thought I was important, that I was one of the three. What had she said? That I could... set right what had been done in the name of tests. What tests?
  
  Most importantly, what did she hope to accomplish? What was Glaistig Uaine's goal with all of this?
  
  And if it turned out that I didn't like that goal, was there a damn thing I could do about it?
  
  15.02
  
  My preoccupying worries about what Glaistig Uaine actually wanted out of me were derailed as soon as we got back to Ethan and Sam's house. I'd barely hopped over the side of the truck bed and dropped to the driveway below before I found myself abruptly enveloped in a hug so tight I couldn't breathe through it.
  
  "Uuuulp." I managed, the force of the hug pulling me up onto the tips of my toes considering our height difference. "You people keep trying to choke me to death. I thought you were glad to see me."
  
  The hug let up only a little bit, as Marissa leaned back so she could stare down at me. I could see the worry in her eyes, the desperate hope that I really had escaped that place, and the fear that this was only a dream, that she would wake up and find that I was still gone.
  
  "Mads." Her voice was soft, so tender that it made me shiver. "Madison. You're okay. You're all right." She was clearly reassuring herself, as she hugged tighter for another second, nearly choking me again.
  
  "I'm fine." I smiled a little, trying to make her feel better. "See? Nothing broken, nothing missing, everything's just-" I had killed a man. Even if it hadn't technically been me, even if Pandora had done the killing, I had facilitated it. I had requested it. I was responsible. "-just... fine."
  
  She caught the hesitation, the look in my eyes. "What's wrong, Maddy? You're..."
  
  "I'll talk about it later." I promised, even though I didn't want to. "I... just want to focus on being here right now. With you."
  
  I saw her blush slightly, before she leaned down and touched her lips to mine for a moment. It felt... beyond good. I wanted more, but she pulled back enough to whisper, "I missed you."
  
  "I wasn't gone that long," I pointed out quietly.
  
  "Too long," she insisted. "Way too long." Then she kissed me again, and I lost myself for a minute.
  
  We finally pulled back at the sound of Sam clearing her throat from the nearby porch. "Why don't you girls come inside? You can sit on the couch and talk for a bit until Madison's ready to sleep."
  
  I looked around at that, realizing that Ethan and Hunter had already gone in while we had been... occupied. Blushing, I glanced toward Mars. "I, uhh, guess we should, huh?"
  
  Her hand cupped my face briefly, sending little electric tingles through me before she nodded. "Yeah, let's go inside." She turned, sliding her hand down to interlace our fingers before tugging me with her.
  
  By the time we got inside, Ethan was in the kitchen with Hunter, fixing food and showing her where things were. He called out from there, "You girls hungry?"
  
  My stomach suddenly rumbled, reminding me of how relatively little I had eaten. Flushing at the noise, I glanced toward Marissa. She was clearly trying not to giggle, the corners of her mouth twitching up, while tiny little snickers escaped her.
  
  "I think that's a yes." Sam, who had clearly noticed the same thing, called into the kitchen. She didn't even attempt to hide her amusement. "Go on, girls. Take the couch. We'll bring something out."
  
  Sitting next to Marissa, I brought her hand up and squeezed it. "I... I'm glad you're here. I'm surprised that you're here, but I'm glad. I... I missed you too."
  
  "I had to know what was going on." She explained, putting one arm around me to tug me back against her as we half-laid on the couch. Her voice was soft, but I could hear the relief in it. "I was afraid that... " She trailed off, not wanting to put words to what had obviously been a worry that I would never get out of the Birdcage.
  
  "I'm sorry." I turned my head a little while leaning back against her to kiss Marissa's cheek. "I... should tell you about all the stuff that happened, but right now I kinda just want to be here with you."
  
  The arm that she had wrapped around my stomach tightened a little, as she whispered, "I do too."
  
  We sat there like that, together, until Ethan brought out food. By that time, I was barely conscious. My growling stomach pushed me enough to clean most of the plate, before I let my head slump back against Marissa's shoulder.
  
  "Sleepy?" She asked, amusement and affection obvious in her voice.
  
  I was trying to think up a good response, but before I could, my eyes drifted closed. I was out like a light, safe and comfortable as I lay in my girlfriend's arms.
  
  Sometime late the next morning, I woke up in my own bed. Apparently someone had moved me during the night. It took me a moment to realize that it was the smell of pancakes that had woken me up. Even though I'd eaten some the night before, I'd been too tired and distracted to really fill up or enjoy it, so my stomach immediately started bouncing up and down and demanding attention.
  
  "Yeah, yeah." I grumbled, rolling out of bed. I was still dressed in touristy sweatpants and tee-shirt from the PRT gift shop, so I took a moment to grab new clothes before half-stumbling into the shower.
  
  God it felt good not to have to shower as quickly as humanly possible while constantly looking over my shoulder. Even though Marquis had been good enough to give us privacy, showering in that cell block had been nerve wracking and stressful. Now, I could relax and just daydream.
  
  I spent half an hour in the shower, before finally getting ready and going downstairs, my stomach practically dragging me along like an eager dog on the end of a leash. "Mmmm, you've been busy, Ethan." I said while coming into the kitchen.
  
  Sitting at the table, her own plate half finished, Sam tried for a pout. "You say that like it's completely impossible that I could be the one cooking."
  
  "Not impossible." I said quickly. "It's just... umm..." I turned toward Ethan at the stove. "Could you give me food so I have an excuse to not keep talking?"
  
  Poor Sam shoved another forkful into her mouth before muttering, "Someday I'm gonna make something delicious, and you'll both be sorry."
  
  "Well yeah," Ethan remarked while loading a plate and handing it to me. "You'd be freaked out too if you woke up in a Bizarro World like that." He dodged the shoe she threw at him and winked at me. "Maybe in Bizarro World, Puppy knows how to throw straight too."
  
  The second shoe nailed him.
  
  We ate breakfast, while I explained some of the things I needed to do. I had to visit the Wards and let them know what was going on. Then I needed to see Pandora and talk to her about Marquis. Then I planned on going over to see Marissa and Jess.
  
  "Hey," Sam's hand found my arm. "It's okay to slow down a little bit. You just got out of that... horrible place."
  
  I swallowed, raising both shoulders in a shrug. "I know. But... Pandora needs to know the truth, and the Wards are my friends. I want to talk to them."
  
  "Okay..." She still looked concerned. "Just... take it easy, okay? No fighting, no patrol. We already called Colin and told him that you're off schedule for the next week."
  
  I blinked at that. "Errr, you're grounding me?"
  
  "Hell no." Ethan took the seat on the other side. "Not grounding. We want you to have fun. Go visit your girlfriend, have a date or something. Hang out. Be a teenager, Madison. It's not completely up to you to save the world. Take a load off for a few days. You're allowed to take some time off."
  
  "What about Sam?" I asked pointedly. "She was there longer than me."
  
  "Pfft, I already told Armsmaster to get stuffed for the week last night." Sam shot back at me. "We're gonna have fun this week. No stress, no super villains."
  
  I looked back and forth between them, then let out a breath. "Okay, no... patrol for a week. I... I guess I could use the break."
  
  "Good." Sam gave me a brief side-hug. "We've got some other ideas for what we can do for our little vacation. But if you need to take care of those things first..."
  
  I nodded at that. "Yeah, I... I really do." Swallowing past the thick knot that crept into my throat at how understanding and... and caring they were being, I finally managed, "Thanks, guys."
  
  "Eh," Ethan shrugged, grinning at me again. "You're all right for a pint-sized little brat. We might as well make sure you don't spontaneously combust from all the stress."
  
  As I stepped through the entrance to the Wards room, I was yet again enveloped in a tight hug. This one, at least, came from someone slightly smaller (though not all that much considering our age differences) than I was.
  
  "Hey, Missy." I returned the hug to the youngest, yet paradoxically most experienced, team member. "Did you keep the others in line while we were gone?" I nodded toward where the rest of the team save for Reach were.
  
  Her eyes rolled as she released me. "I did the best I could. Everyone else was freaking out."
  
  Dennis slid past her to take his own hug. "I seem to remember a certain space-bending little girl threatening to trap the entire top floor of the PRT offices unless they admitted what happened to our teammates and started doing something about it."
  
  "Teammates, huh?" I asked with a glance around Dennis at the other girl, stressing the plural.
  
  Missy met my gaze and nodded. She'd clearly remembered what I'd said before about being worried for both Cassie and me the last time we'd disappeared. "Yeah, teammates." Apparently she, at least, had come to a decision about Reach while we had been gone.
  
  I finished hugging Dennis, then Chris when he came forward. "You guys were really worried about us, huh?"
  
  "Hell yeah," Chris confirmed. "Vicky told Piggot herself that if they didn't stop lying about where you two were, she was gonna fly straight to the nearest news station and tell them the whole story."
  
  "Even the Nazi doesn't belong in there." Glory Girl remarked from where she was standing.
  
  It sounded like she was trying to make a joke, but I still didn't like it. Releasing Chris, I turned to her, putting a finger up. "Stop it, Vicky. Don't call her that anymore." When the other girl opened her mouth, I shook my head. "Just stop it, please. Look, Cassie jumped into the friggin Birdcage to save me. That was her choice. She chose to go to the worst prison in the world, with no guarantee that she'd ever get out, just to help me. So give the Nazi thing a rest, okay? Just... stop. She did things because that's what her family did. It's not really that different than you becoming a super-hero because that's what your family did. She's one of us now. She's my friend. When you insult her, you're insulting my friend."
  
  Victoria's mouth opened and then shut, before a slight blush crossed her features as she nodded. "Right, fine. If it bothers you that much, I'll stop." She hesitated before asking, "She... really did choose to go in there then?"
  
  I nodded. "Yeah. She really did."
  
  Chris whistled low. "Wow. I dunno if I could've done that." He winked at me. "Not that I don't like your company and all, but maybe not that much."
  
  I made a face at him, before turning back to the older girl. This time, I stepped over to hug her as well. "Did Crystal talk to you and Amy?"
  
  She sighed at that, slumping even more than before after returning the hug. "Yeah." Her voice was quiet. "Amy's not taking it very well. She's... she's staying with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Neal in the Protectorate building for now, and they're talking about giving her an escort."
  
  Looking back and forth between us, Missy frowned. "What for? What happened?"
  
  "That should probably wait until Cassie gets here. She was there, so she can help explain it."
  
  "So you're not gonna tell us about what happened until she gets down here?" Chris let out a long, put-upon sigh. "Man, why did we even bother to show up and meet you?"
  
  I kicked at his leg for that, before blinking at the corner of the room where his work table was. "Wow, you've been busy. What's all that stuff?"
  
  Glancing over his shoulder, Chris shrugged. "I'm not sure. It's not mine."
  
  "That," Dennis put in from where he was standing. "would be our newest member's first project."
  
  "New member?" I echoed in surprise, taking another look that way before making myself pout as I teased, "You guys were replacing us already? Wow, I feel the love."
  
  Chris rolled his eyes. "Hey, he's a tinker. Sounds like they're getting ready to replace me , doesn't it?"
  
  "Ooh, good point." I smiled sweetly at the boy, wiggling my fingers at him in a wave. "Been nice knowing you, Kid."
  
  He scowled and stepped on my foot, before continuing while I yelped. "I was just letting him use my stuff to get some of those tinker urges out until he gets his own set-up."
  
  "That's where Cassie is, actually." Dennis put in. "Upstairs with the new guy and Penance."
  
  "Penance?" I blinked a couple times at that. "Why are they with-ohhh." I realized belatedly. "Wait, this isn't uhh, Theo Anders, is it?"
  
  "You already know him?" Victoria asked, curious.
  
  Coughing, I shrugged, not wanting to give Cassie's personal life away. "Ahh, I never met him, but Reach... mentioned him. They live together, right?"
  
  Dennis studied me for a moment. "Yeah... he triggered after she disappeared. Apparently he was really worried about her." The tone of his voice made it clear that he knew there was more I wasn't saying.
  
  I was saved from having to respond to that by the door opening behind me. Turning, I saw Cassie enter, alongside a slightly overweight boy who looked almost terrified to be where he was. I couldn't tell if that was more because of the Wards room, or because of his proximity to the girl he had kissed.
  
  "Theo!" Chris stepped that way, giving his fellow tinker a broad smile. "Hey, man. You get all sorted out up there? They get you a full lab and everything?"
  
  The other boy shrugged. "Yeah. I... guess I'm... one of you now. Sort of."
  
  "Hi." I stepped that way and extended a hand. "I'm Madison. I guess I'm the one Cassie went to save."
  
  His hand was clammy as he shook mine, his nervousness obvious. "Uhh, hi. Hi. I... I'm... ummm, I'm glad you're alright."
  
  I smiled at that, resisting the urge to point out that he was probably even happier about Reach. Cassie noticed my expression and shot me a brief threatening look, until I simply nodded. "Yeah, I'm glad we both made it out alright." Unable to resist the grin that came, I asked, "So what's your cape name?"
  
  He looked confused by the attention, and unsure of how to act. Wiping his sweaty hands on his pants, the boy mumbled something.
  
  "Hey," Cassie nudged him with her elbow, hard. "You gotta speak up, Theo. Teammates, remember? No one's gonna bite your head off."
  
  "Aid." He repeated, blushing. "I... guess my name is Aid." He looked toward the table where the seemingly random collection of parts were stacked. "I... umm... I make things that help people."
  
  "Things that help people?" I echoed, tilting my head curiously.
  
  He nodded, his voice still hesitant and slow, but with obvious interest. Apparently, getting a tinker to talk about their projects was one nearly certain way to make them open up. "Like... rescue drones, or... fire suppressants, or just... that sort of thing." Even then, he seemed unsure of himself, hesitant about the whole thing. It was like he was afraid that he'd say one wrong thing, and everyone would laugh at him. Or worse.
  
  "Hey," I smiled at the boy. "Ideas for rescuing and helping people instead of hurting them are pretty rare, I think. Maybe you can teach Chris how to build something other than guns."
  
  Kid Win made an annoyed, scoffing sound at that. "And just what amazing bit of technology have you built, Little Miss Judgy?"
  
  "So," Dennis interrupted, nodding toward me. "Maddy here was gonna tell us what happened in that place, and why Panacea's suddenly under lock and key."
  
  Glancing toward Reach, I nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess we should talk about that."
  
  15.03
  
  A couple hours later, after a thorough debriefing with the other Wards, including the newest member, I tapped on the window of Dinah and Emma's room at the old motel after taking a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching. Thankfully, the neighborhood was so run down that there just weren't that many sober people to keep an eye out for.
  
  The window slid open, and Dinah remarked, "It's okay. Panda made sure you weren't followed."
  
  "She did?" I asked with a reflexive glance over my shoulder while ducking into the room.
  
  "There's three of her keeping an eye on the neighborhood." Dinah gave a faint smile. "That's why there's almost nobody out there. All the gangs got scared off and moved."
  
  "Or died," I added, pointedly. I knew exactly what, or rather, who had driven the gangs away.
  
  She nodded once. "Or died." Her eyes, much more... calculating than a twelve-year-old girl's ought to be, gave me a once over. "Are you all right?"
  
  "I'll be okay." I looked toward the empty bed on the other side of the room. "Where's Emma?"
  
  "She ummm..." Dinah looked a little uncomfortable. "She thought you'd rather talk to Panda without her around. So she went up to the roof to watch TV."
  
  I blinked at that. "She has a television on the roof?"
  
  The younger girl smiled faintly. "No, but she can feel any machine or device within a couple blocks. If it has a lens, she can see through that lens, and if it's got a screen, she can 'see' that like an image in her head. So if she focuses on one television somewhere within her range, she can watch that way without being anywhere near it."
  
  "Did you know she was going to get this kind of power?" I knew she had some kind of precognitive ability. Coil's notes had been clear enough on that, and her actions after escaping with Pandora had only made it more obvious. I didn't know how powerful she was, but I had a feeling it had a listing of 'pretty damn very', and she'd been keeping Emma for a reason.
  
  "I... knew she'd be important." Dinah turned from me to the nearby computer screen and leaned over to hit a few keys. "I knew that she could be better than she was, and that having her here, having her trigger, made the numbers better."
  
  "Made the numbers better?" I frowned at that. "What numbers, exactly?"
  
  After letting out a low breath, she looked back to me. "It's hard to explain right now. But the point is, everything works out better if Emma's with us. Just like Panda."
  
  "And Riley?" I asked, with a look toward the connecting door that led to the other room.
  
  "And Riley." Confirming that with a nod, Dinah turned the chair around and offered it to me. "And a few more. But that can wait."
  
  "A few more?" I raised an eyebrow while taking the offered seat. "Dinah, you're already holed up here with two of the most dangerous parahumans in the world, and a brand new parahuman who could probably do almost as much damage on her own, if not more, considering how much of the world depends on technology. How many more ultimate threats do you need?"
  
  She smiled innocently. "Just three."
  
  I stared at her. "Six. You want six of the most dangerous capes in the world. What the hell are you trying to do?"
  
  Her gaze flicked down toward the floor as she murmured, "It's more about what I'm trying to stop." For just a second, her dismissive, completely in control expression vanished, and I thought she looked... scared. She looked like the frightened, completely out of her depth little girl she should have been.
  
  Concerned at that, I leaned forward. "Hey, are you all right? What do you mean, what you're trying to stop? Talk to me, Dinah. You're not alone. It's not your job to fix everything."
  
  Her smile returned, faint though it was. "Funny how you're the one telling me that."
  
  Before I could respond, the connecting room door opened, and a monster from the worst nightmares of someone with much more terrifying dreams than I tended to have stepped into view. The chest cavity of the body was wide open, split from the neck down to the waist so that all of the most of the various organs and veins were in plain view. Small white tubes had been run through the body, and I could see blood and likely other fluids pumping through them, alongside actual wires and what I swore looked like some kind of battery.
  
  And worst of all, right around where the lungs should have been, was a face , half covered in blood, and grinning absolutely maniacally. "Wheeee!"
  
  I screamed, okay? Anyone would have. I squealed like a little girl and threw myself backwards off of the chair to the floor, nearly cracking my head against the wall. "Aaaaaaaahhhh fuck! What the hell?!" My eyes were wide, my heart hammering loudly (and disturbingly in synch with the heart that I could see in that open chest cavity.
  
  That blood-covered face focused on me finally, and lit up with delight. "Tether! You came to see me!"
  
  Bonesaw, I realized belatedly. Or Riley, rather. She was... standing... inside of one of the Pandoras, her body nestled inside the other girl's like it was some kind of... suit.
  
  My eyes closed behind the mask, and I tried not to throw up. "Wh-what... what are you doing?"
  
  "Practicing!" I heard a wet squelching noise, and squeezed my eyes shut even tighter. "I can make her walk now, and shake hands! See?"
  
  Knowing I'd regret it, I opened my eyes to look, jumping and letting out another yelp. The Pandora/Riley combination was right in front of me, the main body extending a hand toward me in greeting.
  
  "Y-you're... inside... Pandora..."
  
  "Yup!" Now that I was closer, I could see more of Riley inside the other body. The organs had clearly been shuffled around, removed, or resized to make room so that the medical tinker could literally stand inside it, clearly acting like a flesh and blood version of one of those mascot suits. Clearly this Pandora was slightly larger than the 'normal model', to accommodate the additional figure, though the change wasn't that pronounced. Obviously they had done a lot of work already to make it possible for the bio-tinker to ride inside the body without making it too obvious.
  
  Seriously, what the fuck was Dinah trying to accomplish here?
  
  Riley made the arm shake up and down again. "Hey, don't be rude. We wanna shake hands!"
  
  I squeezed my eyes shut again, trying to restrain at least the worst of my shudder before slowly lifting a hand to set into Pandora's.
  
  Riley made it shake firmly. "And what a wonderful pleasure it is to meet you, my lady." Her voice dropped to an apologetic whisper. "I haven't figured out how to make the mouth talk yet, sorry. Maybe next time! But you've gotta tell me when you're coming. I almost didn't finish your surprise in time!"
  
  Pulling my hand back as soon as she let me, I asked, in a voice that was more whimper than I meant it to be, "A... s-surprise? You got me a surprise...?"
  
  "O'course I did, silly! It's right in the other room!"
  
  "Uhh, Riley, maybe it'd be easier to visit with Tether if you took a break from Pandora-piloting?" Dinah pointed out, as mildly as if she'd just reminded the other girl to wash her hands before eating.
  
  "Mmmkay!" Riley chirped cheerfully. "Lemme get out of this and I'll... errr, lessee..." She continued in a sing-song voice while clearly trying and failing to extricate herself from the other body. "My ankle bone's connected to her shin bone, my knee bone's connected to her... hold on, just lemme twist this way and... maybe if I bend..." She twisted a little bit, and I had to force Ethan's pancakes to stay where they were. "Awww fiddlesticks, I'm stuck." Her head tilted upward. "Hey sis, little help?"
  
  Pandora's eyes, which had been closed, opened and she spoke. "As you wish." The body completely dissolved into a light fog, taking all traces of itself (including all of the blood that had coated Riley's face) away before reforming into an intact body.
  
  I leaned closer to Dinah while they were getting situated and whispered, "Sis?"
  
  She shrugged back at me. "I guess aunt didn't really work."
  
  "Present!" Riley spun on her heel and ran into the other room. "You'll just love it, I know you will!"
  
  "Oh boy..." I said weakly, squinting at Dinah. "A present, just for me."
  
  While the other girl was gone, I focused on Pandora. It was impossible to tell that, less than a minute ago, her body had been split open and serving as a flesh-mech for another person. "Are you all right?"
  
  "We are well, Tether-Friend. Riley-Friend has attempted to do nothing that we have not allowed."
  
  I started to respond to that, when the door swung open again as Riley came rushing back in. "Got him!"
  
  "Him?" I echoed, unable to keep all the nervousness out of my voice at the worry of what she might have brought me. I thought of cats that brought dead birds or mice to their owners, expecting praise.
  
  Somehow, I envied those cat owners. At least they could be fairly certain the birds and mice were dead on delivery. Whatever Riley had was probably going to get up and start crawling around again.
  
  Practically skipping up to me, she held her hands out. In her cupped palms, I saw what looked like a miniature version of those mechanical spiders she liked to use. This one was about the size of my cell phone. "This is Jalopy. He's for you!"
  
  My mouth opened and then shut, as I stared. "Err, for... for me?"
  
  "Uh huh!" Her head bobbed up and down eagerly. "Hold out your arm."
  
  I cast a quick glance toward Dinah, who nodded, before sighing as I obediently (yet reluctantly) lifted my arm and held it out for the bio-tinker. I tried not to let it shake too much.
  
  "Jalopy," Riley spoke toward the little spider-bot while setting it on my arm. "Camouflage mode!"
  
  Eight tiny little mechanical legs danced up the arm of my costume toward my wrist, before the thing settled down there. Its legs retracted, and the thing shifted around and out, forming what looked like an ordinary metal wrist band there, just below my gauntlet.
  
  "What... errr, what is it?" I squinted at the little spider-bot... wristband... thing.
  
  "He's your new bodyguard!" Riley announced. "Well, bodyguard, communicator, friend, whatever you want him to be, really. See, he'll obey your orders as long as you say his name first. He's a lot tougher than he looks. He's got a flashlight, he can fix stuff like computers, and lots of other neat things. Oh, and he's got a little bit of Pandora in him, so if you need to ask her for help again, or just talk, you can! You just have to say 'talk to Pandora', and then say whatever you want to say. Plus, she can talk back."
  
  I stared at that, mouth working as I tried to come to terms with what she was saying. Finally, I managed in a weak, confused voice, "She... can?"
  
  "Yes, Tether-Friend." Pandora announced from where she was standing. "Our biological material is mated to the device in such a way that if you initiate contact, our response will be carried through in a way that approximates speech. Dinah and Riley-Friends believed that our previous method of assuring your continued contact was flawed. Not only may you speak to us without arousing suspicion or confusion by conversing with a severed body part, but we may speak back to you appropriately."
  
  On my wrist, the little robot thing went from silver to red, while a tiny, robotic voice said, "Like this."
  
  Grinning proudly, Riley poked the thing. "I made it turn red when she's using it, so you always know."
  
  I, quite honestly, had no idea what to say. I was a little bit afraid of the thing, yet also awed by it. I thought it was cool, but I was terrified of accepting a gift from Bonesaw . On the other hand, the idea of not accepting it seemed even more frightening. "I... ummm... thanks... I wasn't expecting a present."
  
  "Friends give each other presents, silly." Riley shook her head and patted my arm. "It's okay though, this was my turn to give you a present, since you gave me your autograph before." Digging through her apron, the girl finally pulled out a small, dirty notebook and held it up to me. "Here, the instructions. He's got a lot of basic commands, and you can teach him more stuff. If you've got any questions, you can ask. But mostly, it's a trial and error thing. You'll figure it out. You're smart."
  
  Slowly, I took the offered notebook. "Thanks again, uhh, Riley."
  
  She giggled and then started back to the door. "You came to talk to Pandora, not me. Besides, I've got stuff to do. Super-special-secret stuff."
  
  As Riley reached the door, she stopped and looked back at me. Her head tilted, and the immature lilt left her voice. She sounded solemn. "I'm not stupid. I know you're scared of me. And I don't blame you. I'd be scared of me too. But I wouldn't hurt you. You're my friend, and I don't hurt friends."
  
  Before I could even think of trying to find a response to that, she went through the door and into the other room.
  
  I stared after the door for a moment, then down at the transformed spider-bot clinging to my wrist. "Umm, Jalopy, exit camouflage?" The thing unfolded itself back up into its cell phone-sized spider-form and tilted its head toward me, waiting for commands. I just stared at the thing. "Uhh, hi there."
  
  In response, the thing came skittering up my arm, making me jump and yelp. But it wasn't attacking. It just reached my shoulder and extended a pair of some sort of miniature grappler arms from its back, which reached over and adjusted my mask slightly, like a fussy mother checking her children's clothes. While it was doing so, the "Whistle While You Work" song from Snow White emerged from it.
  
  "Err, thanks..." I shrugged, remembering to do so only with the shoulder the thing wasn't perched on. "I guess you're pretty cool."
  
  In response, the little robot started to play Queen's "We Are The Champions", while dancing back and forth, waving those two grappler arms.
  
  Okay, I know Bonesaw was completely pants-wettingly terrifying and all, but that was pretty god damn adorable.
  
  Dinah cleared her throat from nearby, smiling faintly. "You wanted to talk to Pandora?"
  
  "Right, right." I shook my head to clear it and looked at the clone. "Ummm, look, you know how I said I knew something important, but didn't want to talk about it last night?"
  
  "Yes." She gave that short, jerky nod. "You assured us that you would share this information now."
  
  "Yeah..." I let out a breath. "Okay, so you know how Marquis and Lung escaped from the Birdcage, with some other guys?"
  
  "They will be fun to hunt." She announced with what sounded like glee. "Much more of a challenge than what few Merchants remain."
  
  "Errr, yeah, see..." I hesitated, looking toward Dinah. She wasn't any help, giving me nothing more than a blank look. I shook my head and turned back to the clone, deciding to get it over with. "Marquis is Panacea's father. Her real, biological father."
  
  For a moment, there was no reaction. Pandora simply sat there silently, face blank. As best as I could tell, she was considering the words. Finally, as I was about to say something else, she spoke up. "If he is the father of our sister, then he is our father as well."
  
  Biting my lip, I nodded. "I guess he kinda is? I mean, I'm not entirely sure he'll see it that way or whatever, but I thought you deserved to know about it. You know, before it came up some other way."
  
  "We are glad that you told us this, Tether-Friend. If he is our father, it is even more our responsibility to stop him."
  
  I blinked at that. "Your... responsibility?"
  
  "Yes. He is a family member who is doing immoral things. And if he is attempting to see our sister against her will, he must be stopped. We will stop him. We will not allow him to upset our sister, or do anything to her that she does not wish."
  
  "You... don't really want to get to know him?" I asked, weakly, while inwardly ranting at myself about what an idiot I was being.
  
  "He is immoral. He is a criminal." She said flatly. "The criminals within the Birdcage are very bad, are they not?"
  
  "The worst." I confirmed. "Usually. I mean, not Ruin, and obviously not Trevor. He's not really a criminal. But... yeah, Marquis was pretty bad. You should have Dinah get on the computer and show you some of the stuff he went to prison for. Or..." I cleared my throat. "Or Emma."
  
  "We will do so." She confirmed. "We wish to know more of our father. But be assured, Tether-Friend, our alliance does not bend simply because our father happens to have chosen a different path. We will not become your enemy, or resume our... previous activities because of this information. We choose to be different. We choose Dinah-Friend's path. That is not dependent upon the actions or choices of our father."
  
  I opened my mouth and then shut it. Jeeze, shut down twice in the same ten minute time span. First Riley knows exactly what I'm feeling about her and tells me she's not going to do what I'm afraid she'll do, and then Pandora basically does the same thing.
  
  I looked toward the miniature spider-bot on my shoulder. "I guess I need to give people more credit, Jalopy."
  
  As if in agreement, the chorus of Aretha Franklin's "Respect" filled the room.
  
  15.04
  
  As I was leaving the motel a little bit later, I paused in the empty alley. Straight ahead and slightly up, I could barely make out the edge of the roof of a building across the next street. All I had to do was attach a tether-line to it and haul myself out of there. I could be six blocks away within thirty seconds, the way I traveled. All I had to do was go.
  
  Instead, I slowly turned around and looked up toward the roof of the building I had just left. Taking in a slow breath, then letting it out again, I warred with myself internally.
  
  Part of me wanted to ignore Emma entirely, the way she had ignored Taylor's death. We had both been equally responsible, in that we hadn't meant for it to go that far, but we hadn't done anything to stop it, either. But she had seemed utterly unaffected by anything that had happened, to the point of using the apparent 'death' of Sophia to gain sympathy and even more popularity.
  
  And yet, another part of me wondered if my resistance might be the fact that if Emma had seen the error of her ways meant that I had given up on her when there was still a chance that she could get better.
  
  Mostly, I had to wonder if my resistance to the idea that she had changed was because her actions had hurt me specifically. And more to the point, if I couldn't even try to forgive her for what she had done if her change was genuine, how could I possibly expect anybody to believe that mine was?
  
  Yes, asking me to give Emma a break after everything that had gone on between us was asking a lot. So was asking people to forgive me for the things I had done. I didn't get to pick and choose things that way. Either both of us deserved some small measure of forgiveness if we worked for it hard enough, or neither of us did.
  
  "I hate arguing with myself," I finally muttered while extending a line that way. "I always lose."
  
  Letting the line haul me up to the motel roof, I climbed up and over the edge, straightening before glancing around. It wasn't hard to spot my former friend. Emma was sitting in an ugly orange lawn chair, eyes closed as she was clearly focused elsewhere. One of the nearby televisions, no doubt.
  
  First I looked around, but this was the tallest building in the immediate area, and I was fairly sure we weren't being watched. I tugged my mask off, letting it hang from a hand while I spoke. "Emma."
  
  She jumped in her chair, almost collapsing it over before she managed to open her eyes and focus. She made a soft noise of surprise at the sight of me. "M-madison?" Hesitantly, she picked herself out of the chair, moving awkwardly and self-consciously, a far cry from the amateur model/professional head bitch in charge of the high school that I had known her as.
  
  "What... I mean..." She met my gaze for just a second, before flinching away. I saw something pass over her expression, a sort of fear that confused me. Was Emma afraid of me? When she spoke again, it was in a soft, barely audible mumble, directly mainly toward the roof rather than at me. "Pa-Pandora and Dinah are waiting for you in the ro-room."
  
  "I already talked to them." I was still trying to get a read on the other girl. God, I couldn't decide if I wanted this to be a trick, another game, or not. If it was one of Emma's ploys for attention and sympathy, I could deal with that. I knew how to handle it, and it would mean nothing had changed.
  
  But if all of this was genuine, wasn't that a good thing? And did I dare let myself even begin to hope that it was, against the chance that she was fucking with everyone? After all, even a powerful precog wasn't omniscient. Was it possible that Emma was faking this whole repentant thing?
  
  Yet, if she was, why? She had the power now to leave if she really wanted to. Pandora was powerful, but could she have forced Emma to stay with them when the other heroes were there yesterday, right outside of the PRT building?
  
  Okay, yes. She definitely could have forced it if she brought in the bodies and fought to do so. But she hadn't needed to. Emma had gone willingly, as far as I could tell. If anyone could escape Pandora, it was probably the girl who could direct every machine within a couple of blocks to fight the clone while Emma ran away.
  
  Not to mention the fact that Pandora had called her friend. I wasn't sure exactly what that meant, considering she also called Riley her friend. Yet it had to mean that she was at least trusted enough by the clone-girl to consider her a friend, and not guard her when she was up here on the roof.
  
  Actually, come to think of it, the selfish Emma I knew would have used every single phone within her control radius to call the Protectorate and let them know exactly where she was, where Pandora was. Or, failing that, she would have called the news, or the army, or even some of the local gangs. Anything that could cause a distraction so she could escape. It would likely have ended in a protracted, bloody battle, but the Emma that I knew wouldn't have cared, as long as she had a chance to get away.
  
  Okay, that wasn't completely fair. She probably would have cared about people dying so that she could get away, but she'd still find some way of justifying it to herself, like the fact that fighting things like Pandora was their job. Either way, she wouldn't stick around as easily as this.
  
  Emma was frowning at the roof below her feet, brow furrowed in confusion. "Umm... you... alr-ready... talked to them?" She echoed, looking up again. Her eyes found the metal wristband on my arm, and then widened slightly. "O-oh... you got Riley's..." She gulped. "... gift..."
  
  I remained silent at first, just staring at her until she looked away once more. It didn't take long. Finally, I spoke, unable to help myself. "Why are you doing this, Emma? Why are you still here? What are you trying to do?" My voice was a little more blunt than I'd meant it to be, but I couldn't help it. Or maybe I didn't try hard enough.
  
  Emma's mouth opened and shut a couple times while she continued to stare at her feet. Her shoulders hunched a little, and I saw an obvious shiver run through her. Her eyes closed, and I saw a couple of tears form as she finally whispered, "I don't know."
  
  She wasn't crying openly, not yet. But she did blink away several more tears to clear her eyes before focusing on me. Her voice was hoarse, and it was clearly a concerted effort for her to keep talking as clearly as she was, without breaking down. "I... don't know. I w-want..." Her shoulders rose and then fell in a defeated shrug. "I just... want to go back. I w-want... I want to b-be... someone who di-didn't... who didn't... I..." She lost the struggle then, eyes closing as she dissolved into a fit of tears that shook her shoulders. It looked ugly and brutal. Even someone as pretty as Emma Barnes couldn't make those kind of wracking sobs look good. This wasn't a dainty, 'oh I'm such a delicate flower, feel sorry for me' sort of crying. I had seen Emma do that enough to recognize it. This was real. This was... guilt. This was even more guilt than I had felt, maybe because of her closer relation to Taylor, or because she had let it fester for so much longer before accepting it. Probably both.
  
  She... really... truly felt guilty about what she had done. What we had done. It had taken her longer, had probably taken some intervention of some kind on Dinah's part, but Emma felt what I had felt. She had triggered from the same thing, delayed as it was.
  
  She wasn't lying.
  
  Though I initially stood frozen from indecision, staring at Emma as she fought to find words for what she felt, I finally forced myself to move. One step, then another, I slowly, gradually made my way across that roof.
  
  Eventually, I stood directly in front of Emma, staring at her. She was so lost in her tears by that point that she hardly noticed. Her mouth continued to open and shut, while what sounded like some broken little attempts at words came out. I had confronted her, had demanded to know what she wanted out of all of this. This, this was the only answer she could give me. There was nothing eloquent like forgiveness or absolution. She couldn't even make herself give some speech about how she didn't deserve anything. Every attempt she made to even say anything just made her break down even more.
  
  I knew, to an extent, what she was feeling. I knew because I had felt it, the realization of what my own actions had resulted in. The dawning recognition of just what I had forced another human being to experience. The soul-withering knowledge that my actions, my selfish, stupid torture of another person had resulted in their death.
  
  Now Emma had that same realization, that same understanding, and Taylor had been her best friend .
  
  The betrayal was even worse, the guilt that much greater, to the point that the Emma standing in front of me could hardly breathe, let alone talk in either defense or false prosecution of herself.
  
  Before I consciously realized what I was doing, my hand settled onto Emma's thin, frail shoulder. I gave the slightest of tugs, and she all-but collapsed forward against me. My other arm went around her lower back. She was taller than I was by almost half a foot, so it was a little awkward, but I supported her as well as I could for a moment before both of us began to sink to our knees there on the roof.
  
  Once we were both kneeling, Emma's head leaned forward and down until it was resting against my shoulder. "We..." She tried to speak, the words clearly difficult to force out. "We..." Another shudder ran through her, alongside another aborted attempt to say what she needed to say. Yet I didn't interrupt. I didn't prompt her. I knelt there on the roof, arms around Emma while her forehead lay against my shoulder, and I let her get through it in her own time.
  
  "We... k-killed... her..." She finally managed, through an effort as exhausting as any athletic endeavor. Her tears soaked through the shoulder of my costume, as she made a weak, mewling noise of failure and regret. "We killed T-t-taylor. She... she's... I... M-madison... Madison, I'm sorry. I'm s-sorry... please... I... I c-can't... I ca-" Her words finally aborted entirely, the sudden burst of fresh tears tearing away her fragile voice.
  
  My own eyes closed, and I felt that by-now familiar guilt well up inside me. My own tears, of regret, of shame , mixed on the roof with hers. It was all I could do to whisper, "I know."
  
  I couldn't tell her it was all right. I couldn't tell her that things would be better. I couldn't even say that she'd stop feeling the agony of this guilt. All I could say were those two words, which meant so much more.
  
  I know we were responsible for Taylor's death.
  
  I know you were best friends, until you betrayed her, and you're just now realizing what that means.
  
  I know this is real, that you aren't playing games.
  
  I know you hate yourself, more than almost anyone could imagine.
  
  I know.
  
  How long we knelt there on the roof that way, I couldn't guess. My knees hurt, and my throat was sore. Yet I didn't want to move.
  
  "What..." Emma finally spoke, her voice pained and exhausted. "What... d-do we... do now? I... it hurts... it hu-hurts so much."
  
  "Do you want it to stop?" I asked, as gently as I could manage.
  
  Her head shook slightly against my shoulder, as she answered even more quietly than before. "No. I..." She trailed off, and I felt renewed tears trickle over my shoulder. "I... d-don't want it to stop. If it... if it... " She swallowed painfully. "If it stops, I... I m-might..."
  
  "Forget." I finished for her. "You might forget what this feels like, and..."
  
  "And be th-that per-" She gulped once more. "... person again. I d-don't want to, Maddy. I s-swear... I'm s-sorry. I'm sorry, I don't want to be her ag-again, b-but... but I... I'm... afraid..."
  
  "Me too." I whispered back to her. "I'm afraid that if I let myself be too happy for too long, if I let myself... stop thinking about it too much... that I'll become the person I was before, that I'll... forget everything and be the kind of... monster... that does those things."
  
  I felt her full-body shudder then. "I don't... I don't w-want to..." She repeated in that same hoarse whisper. "H-how do I... how do we... n-not..."
  
  "We..." I leaned back a little, moving a hand to Emma's chin, tilting it up so that she had to look at me. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she flinched but didn't look away once I caught her gaze. "We remember that... it wasn't some supernatural thing that made us act that way, Emma. We weren't taken over by some evil spirit or monster that forced us to do those things. They were our choices. Everything we did, we did it because we chose to." She flinched and tried to duck her gaze again, but I held her chin steady. "Everything that happened, all of it, was our choice. And everything that happens in the future is our choice too, Emma. If you don't want to be that person again, then don't be her. It's all up to you. If you don't want to forget, then don't. Choose to be the better person. It's was your choice to be the person who did those things, and it's your choice to be a better one. You have to accept that... responsibility. Not just now, but all the time. You've gotta make that choice every single day."
  
  "Does it... d-does it ever get... any... e-easier...?"
  
  "Some days it's easier, other days it's harder. Some nights I can't sleep at all. I just lay there and... think about Taylor. I think about what we did, what we could have done different, what she was thinking at any given time. What she dreamt about, what she wanted to be if she had grown up. I think about... what we helped take away. I think about what we ruined."
  
  "How... h-how do you do it?" She asked quietly. "It hurts s-so much... how do you... k-keep... going?"
  
  "I visit her grave a lot," I admitted. "I... I talk to her. Maybe it's dumb, but... I tell her... what I'm doing. I tell her what's going on. I didn't even know her, not really. But... I still talk to her."
  
  "We... w-we did so many... bad... h-horrible things, Maddy. We... she's... oh god... she's dead because of us. How do we... how... th-the things you do... being... b-being a hero, d-does it help make up for it?"
  
  I shook my head a little. "It's not about a one-for-one trade. It's not about being a hero to make up for what I did, as if anything could. Life doesn't work that way. There isn't some... some set number of heroic acts or whatever that'll erase the horrible ones. We were terrible, evil people, Emma. How do we make up for that? We be better people, every single day. Not up to a certain point, not until some imaginary debt is filled, but every day for the rest of our lives. We choose every day to do the right thing, even when it's hard."
  
  We were both quiet for a few minutes, until she finally spoke again. "I... I miss Taylor." Her head bowed again, and I let it rest against my shoulder, holding her there as she whispered, "I'm s-sorry. You tried... t-tried to tell me. I sho-should have... should've listened t-to you. I just... I... the things we did... if I... if I admitted... that I was wr-wrong... then I h-had to... admit that... that she's dead because of me." She gulped hard. "T-Taylor's dead because... b-because of me. I... I killed my best... my best friend." Her tears were falling freely again, her entire body slumped weakly and brokenly against me.
  
  "I..." My voice failed me for a moment, and I closed my eyes. I put my arms around the other girl firmly. Whatever our pasts, however she had acted before, Emma was sorry now. She would be sorry for the rest of her life. "I'm here, Emma. For whatever it's worth, you're not alone. I... I forgive you for what happened before. I know it's not much, and... and it's nothing compared to Taylor, but... but I forgive you for ignoring me, for... for all of that."
  
  Eventually, she sat back and looked at me. "We... choose every day?"
  
  I nodded. "Every single day."
  
  Taking in a long, shaky breath, then letting it out again, Emma was silent for a few long moments before speaking in a whisper. "Then I... I choose to st-stay. I choose to stay with Di... with Dinah. It's... I.. I don't know what she... what sh-she's doing, and it's... it's so... scary... and I miss my parents... and my sister... I miss my family. But after.. after what I did... I..." She looked straight at me, gulping. "This is my choice. I... I'm gonna... help Dinah, any... a-any way I can."
  
  "Whatever she's planning, she needs Pandora and Riley to do it. And more than them." I pointed out quietly. "It's going to be hard, Emma. You might..."
  
  "Die?" She finished for me, looking stricken for a moment before closing her eyes as she gave one firm nod, then met my gaze once more. "Maybe... m-maybe I deserve to. But... b-but it's my choice. Being here is my... my choice. I'm scared. I'm s-so scared. But... I'm not... leaving. For... for once in my... life, I'm going to do the right... thing. I'm staying."
  
  "Be careful, Emma. Please. Just... be careful. I don't care what happened before, I don't want you to die."
  
  We were quiet for a few more moments, staring at one another. Then Emma looked down again, a sheepish, embarrassed look crossing her pale face. "I guess... t-trying to be friends with... T-Tether must've seemed really... really st-stupid."
  
  I shook my head. "Don't... don't worry about that."
  
  "I... I re-really am sorry about your parents... M-mads. I'm sorry for everything."
  
  I embraced her then. "I know." I did. I believed her. Maybe it was wrong, maybe I'd regret it. But in that moment, I chose to believe my former... my friend. I chose to believe my friend.
  
  15.05
  
  "Trust me, Hunter, you'll be fine." I assured the older girl while walking across the mall parking lot with her, about three hours after I had left Emma. "You're not gonna hurt anybody in here, because you're staying with me." I had already explained how my power worked, but I did so again just to make her feel better. "I get a warning whenever someone is in danger like that. It's precognative. So if I see a bunch of people suddenly in danger, I will attach a line to your shirt and slam you down onto your face before you accidentally speak. I hereby promise to abuse the hell out of you if I get the slightest inkling that you might accidentally use your power."
  
  She still looked nervous to be out and around people (not to mention the fact that her power had originally manifested in a mall), but I doubted that secluding herself in a room was going to do any more to help her control her ability than sitting in a prison cell for three years had.
  
  "Besides," I gave her a gentle poke with two fingers. "You need new clothes. I know we're practically the same size and everything, but borrowing mine forever just isn't gonna work."
  
  The other girl stopped walking at that. When I turned that way, she slowly, deliberately lowered her gaze to stare at the borrowed shirt she was wearing. It happened to be one of my favorites: a pale violet base, with an image of a bright sunrise and a rainbow framing a majestic white unicorn that was surrounded by sparkly faeries throwing brightly colored glitter everywhere.
  
  Pulling that shirt out a little to stare down at it, Hunter looked up and purposefully met my gaze before nodding emphatically to my last words before making a face like she was gagging.
  
  I stuck my tongue out at her for that. "Hey, that's an awesome shirt right there. Unicorns and faeries are badass. I know you've been out for awhile, but it's totally cool to be into those things now."
  
  Ruin looked doubtful, even before another voice spoke up. "Don't listen to her. She just wants to make someone else into half the dork she is."
  
  I spared Dennis a withering look over my shoulder as he approached. "I'm a dork? I'm sorry, which one of us just went on an hour long rant about who should play Casper in the Seventh Reach adaptation movies like, a week ago?"
  
  "They only cast that girl because she's got giant bazungas!" He shot back. "Her hair's the wrong color, and she's too old. Casper's supposed to be like, twelve when the series starts, and seventeen when it ends. The actress is already seventeen. By the time the last movie gets made, she'll be like twenty-five years old! Twelve, not seventeen! How the hell is Squint supposed to make any damn sense if she's already a teenager? The whole thing that starts the first book is them trying to separate Casper from Squint because she's not old enough to have an ALPS unit yet, which doesn't make any sense if she's-"
  
  He stopped talking then, in mid-rant. "Wait a minute, you were complaining about that just as much as I was."
  
  "Hell yeah, that casting choice is idiotic," I agreed with a wink. "But it still worked to prove my point. You're just as much of a dork as I am."
  
  Rolling his eyes at that, he extended a hand toward Ruin. "Hey, I'm Dennis. You would be Hunter?"
  
  Hunter, for her part, was writing in the notebook she'd taken from her pocket. She put it away to shake hands with him before holding the pad up for us both to see. The note read, ' As if the movie could make Overglenn look anywhere near as cool as it's supposed to anyway.'
  
  My eyes widened at that. "You know the series?" When the other girl nodded, I considered for a moment. "Right, I uhh, guess you had a lot of time to read in there."
  
  Hunter nodded again, scrawling a quick note that read, ' Dragon took requests for books.'
  
  "Well now you can get whatever books you want," I informed her. "No intermediary."
  
  Dennis chuckled. "I knew there was a reason I agreed to help out today."
  
  I batted my eyelashes at him. "Because I'm cute, adorable, persuasive, and totally one of your best friends?"
  
  "Eh, one out of four anyway." He shot back with a wink. Ignoring my indignant huff, Dennis looked toward Hunter again. "Anyway, Madison says you need to do some shopping. Why she thought I could help with that is beyond me."
  
  "Mostly you're here to carry stuff," I admitted. "Besides, Vicky's busy with Amy. I had to work with who was available. Speaking of which, have you seen Missy?"
  
  He nodded over his shoulder. "Yeah, she's inside already. C'mon, we'll go find her. Then we'll find poor Hunter some clothes that won't make her choke on all the sugary sweetness."
  
  We walked into the mall then, while I muttered, "Buncha Philistines. Unicorns are awesome."
  
  "Okay, okay. Straight off the balcony, three full loops, back around the trash can, and into my hand."
  
  It was an hour or so later as Dennis listed his instructions to Missy, who scoffed. "I thought you said you were gonna give me a hard one."
  
  The four of us were taking a break from shopping to sit out on the exterior balcony area of the food court, eating ice cream and messing around. Missy had folded a piece of paper into a tight triangular shape what the kids at school called a football, and had it balanced on its end between her finger and the top of our table.
  
  "All clear?" She asked after focusing for a few seconds.
  
  We had the whole balcony to ourselves, so there was little chance of anyone noticing what we were doing, but we still looked around, just to be sure. Hunter shook her head, while Dennis gave a thumbs up. "We're good."
  
  Exhaling, Missy expertly flicked the back of the paper football with her other index finger. It flipped through the air and off the balcony, before the space she had distorted made it do one, two, and then three loops before our eyes. The twisted space brought the paper down low around the nearby trashcan, then flipped it up higher into the air before it fell neatly into Dennis' outstretched palm.
  
  "Hah!" Missy pumped both arms into the air, then held her hand out expectantly. "Five bucks, dude."
  
  "Swindler." Dennis complained good-naturedly as he dug into his pocket before placing the five dollar bill in her hand. "You have so done paper football before."
  
  "I never said I didn't," the younger girl pointed out. "You're the one that was like, 'oooh, Missy, lemme show you this cool thing you can make with paper.'"
  
  While they were talking, I glanced toward Hunter, smiling faintly at the sight of the other girl's expression as she sat with her eyes closed, savoring the double-chocolate fudge malt. Clearly the Birdcage hadn't been overflowing with stuff like that.
  
  "Good stuff?" I asked while taking another spoonful of my own peppermint malt.
  
  Realizing I was talking to her, Hunter opened her eyes and looked to me before nodding. Then she frowned a little, looking at the cup and then at the bag of clothes on the nearby chair.
  
  I glanced that way as well. Apparently, the older girl's tastes in clothing ran along the formal vein. She seemed to prefer slacks with nice button-up shirts that were all simple, solid colors. I guess after years of nothing but prison sweats, she wanted to dress nice.
  
  "Everything okay?" I asked, curiously. "We could take another pass through and see if there's another shirt you like or whatever."
  
  Blanching at the suggestion, Hunter shook her head firmly. She hesitated then, looking uncertain before tugging her notebook back across the table. After scribbling something in it, she turned it around for me to see that she had written, ' Too much. No money, no job. Want to help, not sit around'
  
  "Oh hey, it's okay." I started to shrug it off, before frowning as I thought of how I'd feel in that situation. "You want to contribute, huh?"
  
  Her head bobbed, and she used her pen to circle the ' not sit around' part.
  
  "Yeah, I guess you got enough sitting around back in the Cage." I let out a breath, considering for a moment as I tried to think of what she could do.
  
  It was Missy who spoke up, apparently having noticed what was going on. "Hey, Madison said she saw you fight up there and that you were really good. I mean, without any powers or anything."
  
  A slight blush came to Hunter's face before she shrugged and made a so-so gesture with her hand.
  
  "She's amazing." I insisted. "She was barely moving and she was still beating the crap out of those guys. Seriously, they couldn't even touch her." I used my pink spoon to point at the older girl. "How long have you known how to do that stuff? Did you learn in the prison or something?"
  
  Her head shook and she wrote down, 'my mother taught me.'
  
  Dennis leaned over to read that. "Your mom, huh? Where's she from?"
  
  Hunter scribbled the answer, 'Nice.'
  
  All three of us blinked blankly at that. "Nice what?" I asked, confused.
  
  Her eyes rolled, and she added to the note so that it said, 'Nice, France.'
  
  "Wait," Dennis frowned. "Where's your dad from?" He waited until she had written the response, then read it aloud. "Hong Kong? Seriously? Your mom is from France and your dad is from Hong Kong, and your mom is the one that taught you how to fight?" When she nodded, he threw his hands up dramatically. "Well, I give up. If you can't count on the 'Asian guy is the badass fighter' cliché, what can you count on?"
  
  Missy replied dryly, "I think you're making pretty good inroads toward a 'red-headed boys are ignorant' cliché, if that helps at all."
  
  Making a face at her, Dennis took up his own ice cream. "She knows what I mean." He nudged Ruin.
  
  Hunter was smiling a little, still blushing from the unaccustomed attention as she shrugged once more.
  
  "Anyway," Missy focused us once more. "My point was, if Hunter's such a good fighter, maybe she could help teach us. It's been awhile since we had a devoted hand-to-hand teacher. Ever since... ummm... Geomi graduated like, six months after I joined." Her voice went soft for a second, and I remembered that the Korean-born hero had gone back to visit his native home and never returned.
  
  Ruin looked startled by the suggestion. Her mouth was open as she stared at Missy, before writing, 'Teach you?'
  
  "Sure." Missy nodded. "Teach all of us. I mean, we still get the basic self defense stuff from the PRT guys that helps a lot, but ever since Geomi left, it's been hard to find a full-time teacher that's not busy all the time. I bet they'd even pay you for it." When Hunter started to self-consciously shake her head, the other girl added, "Please? You'd be helping us a lot."
  
  After another moment of hesitation, Hunter finally nodded and wrote, 'If the people in charge agree.'
  
  Smiling at that, I gave Vista a thumbs up for the help. She winked back at me and continued to eat her ice cream while remarking, "So what next?"
  
  "Well, Hunter says she has enough clothes now. So I think we've done enough shopping."
  
  Dennis practically wept in exaggerated relief. "Oh thank you, thank you. No more dressing rooms."
  
  "Oh please, it wasn't that bad." I scoffed. "Besides, now we can have fun. That mini golf place across the street's still open." I nodded between the other three. "Me and Missy take you and Hunter, what do you say?"
  
  The boy glanced toward Ruin, then back to me. "I say... bring it on, Captain Triple Bogey."
  
  "Oh my god, he is so adorable. "
  
  I grinned in spite of myself at Marissa's reaction to Jalopy as we stood in the kitchen of my parents' house the next afternoon. The little robot was unfolded into his spider-form on the kitchen table, peering up at her with what I swore was curiosity.
  
  "Yeah, he's pretty cool." I agreed, winking at the robot. "I guess I'll keep him around."
  
  As soon as I said that, Jalopy put his little grappler arms up in the air and started dancing right there on the table, perfectly in synch right with the song ' Stayin Alive ' by the Bee Gees.
  
  A muffled squeal of delight escaped Mars as she covered her mouth with both hands, staring at that with wide eyes. " Bonesaw made this little guy? Are you sure?"
  
  I shook my head. "Don't call her that. She's Riley. Hopefully we can just... stop her from being Bonesaw completely. Dinah's working on it, she just needs time."
  
  Mars gave a little shudder. "I've seen some of the stories about the things she's done. She's... scary."
  
  "Yet, she can make things like this." I pointed out mildly. "I don't know what happened to make her be the way she was, Mars. But... isn't it better if Dinah pulls this off and brings her back to where she can do some real good instead of evil? I know she did a lot of... really, really bad things, but Dinah's making progress already. I... I don't believe in writing people off when there's still a chance. Not after everything that's happened."
  
  "You mean miracles like you making up with Emma?" She asked while putting an arm around me.
  
  I blushed a little at that, leaning against her as I watched Jalopy investigate the open bag of bread at one end of the table. "Yeah, miracles like that." Tilting my head back and up, I smiled. "I like that you made your hair blonde again, by the way." Marissa had apparently decided that without Coil around, there was no more need for her to hide quite as much as she had been.
  
  "Aww, you didn't like the brown?" She teased, squeezing her hand against my stomach.
  
  "I just like the blonde better," I assured her. "Because that's how I met you. But I'd like you no matter what color your hair was."
  
  "Even... orange and purple polka dots?"
  
  I made a show of shuddering. "Oooh, ummm... hmmm, maybe I should rethink that whole-" My teasing was interrupted when Mars kissed me, drawing out a weak little whimper as I leaned up into it before breathing out the words, "Yeah... any hair color."
  
  After a moment of that, I glanced back toward the table and giggled at the sight. Jalopy had dragged two of the bread slices out of the bag, and had braced them up against one another in a tent shape. Now he was crouched inside it.
  
  "Jalopy, did you build a fort?"
  
  His response was to play a song I didn't recognize. It was some old country tune about the Alamo.
  
  While we were laughing at that, Jess rolled into the kitchen. "Did you guys see the news? They-awww, who's your little friend?" Jalopy had ventured out of his bread fort and was staring at her.
  
  "Oh, Jess, this is Jalopy. Jalopy, Jess." I waved a hand back and forth between them.
  
  No sooner had I made the introductions, than the little robot hopped from the table to land on Jess's leg.
  
  Once I was sure she was all right with Jalopy investigating her, I asked, "What news?"
  
  Jess glanced up to me while holding her hand down for the robot to poke at curiously. "Apparently they're not putting in a new national PRT director."
  
  I blinked at that, frowning. "They're not?"
  
  Her head shook. "Nope. They announced it after Director Costa-Brown's funeral. They're folding the PRT into the Protectorate. There was some noise about how keeping them separate led to all these recent problems, and that capes and non-capes need to work together for a better future and all that stuff. Everyone's supposed to be one big happy family now."
  
  I shook my head slowly. "Huh... I wonder whose idea that was. And how it's gonna work."
  
  "You mean if it works." Marissa shrugged. "Lots of people are going to be upset about that. The whole 'PRT is run by non-capes' is kind of a big deal, isn't it?"
  
  I nodded. "Yeah, but after what happened with Teacher, I guess they lost all their leverage. Most of the people that were against the PRT and the Protectorate that had any power were..." I swallowed. "They were in that building. Now the PRT has to rebuild, restructure, and it sounds like they're already using that and the lack of strong opposition to do some of the stuff they've been wanting to for awhile."
  
  "Like combine the two organizations." Jess supplied.
  
  I nodded. "Like combine the two organizations."
  
  By that point, Jalopy had climbed up Jess's arm and was perched on the top of her head, fiddling with her hair. "Err," She lifted her eyes without moving her head. "What's he doing?"
  
  Marissa leaned over that way and then snickered. "Aww, Jess, he's braiding your hair."
  
  "Oooh, Jess." I grinned. "Looks like you've got an admirer."
  
  On cue, the little robot made what sounded like a small purring noise, before Queen's 'Crazy Little Thing Called Love' began to play.
  
  Marissa's smile was just as bright as my own. "Yup, definitely likes you."
  
  Blushing, Jess reached up to pet the robot's back with a finger. "Hey, little guy. I'm pretty sure any kind of relationship we had would be really tough to pull off."
  
  Jalopy's response was to switch songs to Pat Benatar's 'Love Is A Battlefield.'
  
  Interlude 15 - Pandora-Gamma
  
  One of the Pandoras sat in the far corner of a diner, her hair and face altered to avoid recognition. Or rather, mistaken recognition, since any who saw her would believe she was Panacea-Sister.
  
  "We would like to eat more of the frenching fries, please." She said to the waitress who stood nearby.
  
  The older woman chuckled and made a note on her pad. "Same as usual, huh, sweetie? You want a coke too?"
  
  "Yes." The Pandora gave a short nod. "We would like the brown bubble liquid."
  
  Shaking her head, the waitress started away. "Still not sure who this 'we' is, babe, but you keep tipping like you have been and I'll serve every imaginary friend you want."
  
  The Pandora watched the waitress go and put the order in, listening as she spoke with the cook about how the 'cute, but disturbed little blonde girl' was back.
  
  She thought of herself as Pandora-Gamma, mostly because she had been the third body created after their first-death, and the subsequent loss of Pandora-Prime due to the actions of Trickster-Enemy and Ballistic-Enemy. She, Pandora-Beta, and Pandora-Alpha had been left in the building after Tether-Friend interrupted Beta's attempt at securing revenge on Ballistic-Enemy for the death of Prime.
  
  Once, the Pandora-Entity had been one true self, able to duplicate, yet remaining an individual in full control. The Prime had been the leader, whose urges and thoughts commanded her duplicates as though they were ants to her queen.
  
  Not so any more. The Prime had been killed by Ballistic-Enemy and Trickster-Enemy, leaving only the three bodies that she had already formed: Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. Then... the body of Prime had gone missing, and the three who remained had been unable to renew any kind of connection with it.
  
  Without the Prime, the concept of I became We, as the three Pandoras who remained were all equal, and all unable to understand which of them was the true Pandora.
  
  In addition, none of the remaining three were as unlimited as the Prime had been. She had been capable of creating an effectively unlimited number of duplicates, provided she had the required body mass. The three duplicates that remained after her death, however, were each only capable of creating five duplicates themselves before their identity would spread too thin without the Prime, effectively limiting them to eighteen simultaneous bodies.
  
  Nor was each of the Pandora-Selves entirely interchangeable. Once one of their selves had formed, that self would retain some semblance of individual thought and identity that would return even if that self broke apart and reformed later. Essentially, any experience or thoughts that the Pandora who thought of herself as Gamma had, remained a part of her core identity. If the body that the Gamma-identity was using was destroyed, the next body that any of her other selves formed would be Gamma again, with all the thoughts and experiences that every iteration of Gamma had.
  
  All of which meant that Pandoras Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, all the way down to Sigma, were their own individual selves, while simultaneously being connected to one another via their hive-mind that allowed/forced them to constantly share thoughts with one another. And without the Prime to direct them, all were essentially equal, with no idea of how to proceed. Their Prime, their Queen, had disappeared, leaving them bereft of leadership.
  
  It had been Dinah-Friend who helped them. She had introduced the Pandoras who remained to the concept of democratic decisions. Essentially, any argument or disagreement that came up was immediately solved by simply allowing each of the eighteen iterations (even those that had no current body remained a part of the hive mind so long as at least one Pandora body existed) to vote. Most disagreements were solved so quickly this way that to outsiders, it would appear as though none had existed. Each of the eighteen would always follow the result of the vote, no matter how against it they had been. It was just the way they worked.
  
  As they had told Tether-Friend, each Pandora was also capable of manifesting with the powers of a parahuman they had absorbed, rather than their own abilities. However, not only would the death of that alternate-power Pandora destroy their ability to manifest with that power again, but it would also destroy one of their eighteen separate identities, permanently. If Pandora-Theta manifested with the powers of Mush from the Merchants, and subsequently died, the rest of the Pandoras would not be able to use Mush's powers again, and Theta would vanish from their collective, reducing them to seventeen simultaneous minds and bodies.
  
  "Psst." The young man in the next booth over from where Gamma sat hissed to get her attention. When she looked up, he gave her a wave. "Sorry, I've just seen you in for the past three nights, so I thought I'd say hi." He turned a little in his seat and extended a hand. "My name's Tiberius. Yeah, I know. Parents were big Star Trek fans, and apparently James was too damn easy. Anyway, my friends call me T."
  
  She sat there, silently staring at his outstretched hand while the discussion went on inside her connected hive mind.
  
  GAMMA - The boy is not a threat, nor a valid target.
  
  ZETA - What does he want?
  
  OMICRON - We know of this. The handshake. It is a method of greeting originally meant to show that the participants were unarmed.
  
  IOTA - We are armed. We are always armed. To shake hands would be a lie. Dinah-Friend says that lying is wrong.
  
  "Uhhh," The boy called Tiberius raised an eyebrow. "It's just a hand, not a wedding invitation. You okay?"
  
  "We are well." Gamma answered.
  
  GAMMA - We will stand out if we refuse to shake his hand.
  
  EPSILON - It is a custom that has grown beyond what it previously represented. There is no lie in accepting it.
  
  ETA - Agreed, shaking the Tiberius-Undetermined's hand now is the safe and accepted course of action.
  
  The voting took only a fraction of a second, before Gamma extended her hand and took the boy's in the way that Omicron had remembered.
  
  Grinning at that, Tiberius gave her hand a firm shake. "So what do I call you?"
  
  Gamma tilted her head. "We are unaware of what you call us, considering you do not know our name."
  
  The boy blinked at that. "Err, it means, 'what's your name?' And what's all this 'we' stuff anyway? You hiding a mouse in your pocket?"
  
  Instinctively, Gamma looked at what appeared to be pants she was wearing. "No, we have no mice. Is this another method of greeting, exchanging mice?"
  
  Tiberius laughed. "Wow, uhhh, okay. You're one strange girl, ain't ya?"
  
  "Others have said we are."
  
  Letting out a breath, the boy considered her thoughtfully for a moment. "Okay, let's try this again. My name's Tiberius. What's your name?"
  
  IOTA - The name of Pandora may be known, and will not be seen as conventional.
  
  ETA - Another name is needed. We are also called Panda.
  
  NU - Only by our friends. Tiberius-Undetermined is not yet a friend.
  
  KAPPA - To use any other name would be a lie. It is not truly our name.
  
  EPSILON - Our current self is known as Gamma to ourselves. That would be no lie.
  
  "Gamma." She answered finally. "We are..." She paused then, because 'we' didn't apply. Only this single iteration went by that identification. "I am called Gamma."
  
  The boy blinked at that. "Wait, did you say I that time?"
  
  She gave a short nod. "We did."
  
  His mouth opened, then shut before he shook that off and apparently decided to press on anyway. "Gamma, huh?" Tiberius shook his head. "Guess your parents were pretty weird too.
  
  "Our father is a bad man. We do not know who our mother is."
  
  "And now we're back to our and we." The boy chuckled once more. "See, when I was working up the nerve to introduce myself, I thought of all kinds of ways this could go. Have to say, this was not one of those ways. You're a really strange girl, Gamma. And I mean that in the... ahhh, most polite way I can."
  
  Before Gamma could find the proper response to that, the waitress returned with a large basket full of french fries, and a glass of coke. "Here you go, sweetie. I hope T isn't bothering you too much." She made a mocking huff noise at the boy. "This boy just don't know how to mind his own business."
  
  "Aww, you're just jealous cuz I'm talking to someone else tonight, Anna." Tiberius replied with a wink.
  
  "Ha!" The waitress gave an exaggerated laugh. "On second thought, you keep him distracted long enough, and maybe I can actually get all my side work done early tonight." Sobering, she focused on Gamma once more. "You let me know if you need anything else with those fries, okay?"
  
  "We will inform you if we require anything further." Gamma agreed before picking up one of the french fries. She ate it slowly, savoring the taste.
  
  RHO - Why does our Gamma iteration enjoy the frenching fries so much?
  
  ALPHA - It is the first food that our Gamma iteration partook of after the loss of Prime. Perhaps it is an emotional attachment.
  
  GAMMA - It may be such. Gamma-Self enjoyed the taste when speaking with Dinah-Friend before our democratic structure was fully developed and understood. Gamma-Self enjoys them now as well.
  
  XI - Xi-Self prefers the brown bubble liquid.
  
  OMICRON - It is called coke. Omicron-Self must agree. The coke is very fun to drink.
  
  Tiberius was watching Gamma eat. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen someone enjoy any food the way it looks like you enjoy those french fries. I've seen you eat them for the past three nights, and every single time you look like it's the most amazing thing you've ever eaten."
  
  "I enjoy the frenching fries." Gamma agreed, while taking another one and savoring it.
  
  "And now I again." Tiberius grinned. "I am never gonna figure you out. But look, it's just 'french fry', not 'frenching.' Frenching is-errr, never mind. Just french fry."
  
  "French fry." Gamma repeated, considering the words. "We will remember."
  
  "Thing is," the boy went on thoughtfully. "I've never seen you use ketchup with the fries. You just prefer them without it?"
  
  Gamma ate another of the french fries and then looked to the boy curiously. "Ketchup?"
  
  "Oh man." Tiberius shook his head. "Seriously, we have got to talk about what hole you crawled out from under. Yeah, ketchup. Look.." He stood from his booth, picking up his plate that still had half a sandwich on it. "You mind if I sit here?" He nodded toward the other side of the booth.
  
  Gamma's head shook. "We do not mind. The seat is available and unused."
  
  Still looking amused by that for some reason, the boy sat down, then reached out and picked up the ketchup bottle. He popped it open and turned it over, squeezing out a bit into an empty corner of the fry basket. "There, now try that." When Gamma reached out with a finger toward the ketchup, he laughed and caught her hand. "No, not like that."
  
  NU - Tiberius-Undetermined is touching us. We did not give him permission to do so.
  
  LAMBDA - Is it an attack? May we defend ourselves?
  
  EPSILON - It is not an attack. It is a correction for our behavior. We may also correct his.
  
  XI - Politely. Escalating conflict is not required.
  
  "We did not give you permission to touch us." Gamma informed the boy. "Please cease doing so."
  
  Blinking at that, the boy released her hand. "Oh jeeze, I'm sorry. I just... I guess that was pretty damn rude. I don't think things through. I was just... here, use it like this." He took one of her french fries, dipped it in the ketchup, and then offered it to her.
  
  Curiously, Gamma took the offered fry and examined it. The ketchup covered about half of it, and she slowly put it in her mouth, considering for a moment before her eyes widened. "Better!" She enthused. "The frenching-the french fry is better with the ketchup."
  
  Tiberius grinned at her reaction. "See? I knew you'd like it. But how do you not know what ketchup is? And why do you usually say we instead of I?"
  
  "That is a secret that we may not share with you, Tiberius-Undetermined," she answered primly.
  
  "Tiberius-Undetermined? Are you trying to find out my last name?"
  
  "You are not a friend, but we do not know if you are an enemy or not. We have not decided what you are. Your status is undetermined. It is our way of designating individuals for ourselves."
  
  He was giving her another strange look. "You don't know if I'm an enemy or not? I'm pretty sure I'd rather not be, since I'm guessing that... being an enemy would be a bad thing?"
  
  She dipped another french fry and enjoyed it. "Perhaps not. We are accustomed to enemies."
  
  "What about friends?" He asked, taking a bite of his own sandwich while he regarded her with obvious curiosity. "You have very many people that you designate friend?"
  
  Gamma lifted her gaze from the french fry. "We designate four as friends."
  
  "Four, huh?" Tiberius took another bite while he watched her, before pointing. "I've got it. I know why you act that way. The whole designate thing, and why you talk all... proper and whatever."
  
  He had her full attention then. Gamma tensed slightly, frowning at him. "You do?"
  
  "You're a robot, right? Yeah, that's it. Some super tinker out there made a... whatcha call it, a sentient-wait no, sapient. That's it. Sapient robot. Did I get it right?"
  
  "We are not a robot, sapient or otherwise."
  
  "Damn." He snapped his fingers. "Are you sure? Wait, if you were a robot, you'd probably say you weren't."
  
  She frowned at that. "We do not lie." A moment later, she amended, "We try not to lie. Our friend says that lying is wrong, unless there is no other option."
  
  "Okay, so not a robot." Tiberius considered her. "I'll figure it out, you know. I'll get it right sometime."
  
  "That is very doubtful."
  
  Raising an eyebrow, the boy smiled faintly. "You don't think I can figure out who you are, where you come from, and why you seem so strange?"
  
  "We would be very surprised if you did." Gamma carefully picked up another french fry and savored it with the ketchup. "Thank you for the advice. This-" She indicated the sauce. "Is very good."
  
  "Just not quite good enough to tell me anything about yourself, huh?" Tiberius asked with a smile.
  
  Gamma considered that. Advice in exchange for information of her choosing. Perhaps there was something innocuous that would not be too much, but would adequately repay him. "We have a sister."
  
  "A sister?" He blinked before nodding slowly. "Is she anything like you?"
  
  "No." Gamma gave a quick jerk of her head. "She is identical to us, but we are nothing alike."
  
  "Err, identical, but not alike?" Tiberius frowned for a moment before snapping his fingers. "Twins?"
  
  BETA - We are not twins, exactly. Saying so would be a lie.
  
  ETA - But it is the closest to the true explanation that we may give.
  
  GAMMA - Gamma-Self agrees. It may not be the truth, but it is close enough.
  
  Another internal vote took place, before Gamma nodded. "Yes, we are twins. But she is not like us."
  
  "I've never seen you with her," Tiberius pointed out. "She doesn't like diner food?"
  
  Gamma's head gave another quick jerk of denial "It is us she does not like. Our existence offends her."
  
  "Offends her?" Tiberius winced. "See, I don't have any siblings, but that sounds fucking rough. Have you tried talking to her about it?"
  
  "She will not speak with us." Gamma ate the last of her french fries. "She has forbidden us from approaching her."
  
  "Damn." The boy shook his head slowly. "Sorry to hear that. You think she'll change her mind?"
  
  "We do not know. But it does not seem likely. We are very different." After answering that, Gamma stood up. "We must leave now. There are other things we must be doing." She reached for the money that she had brought.
  
  "Oh hey, don't worry about that." Tiberius stood, taking out his own wallet. "It's the least I can do for barging into your private time and talking your ear off."
  
  Her head tilted slightly at that. "We... thank you, Tiberius-Person."
  
  Laying down the money, Tiberius quirked an eyebrow. "Person? What happened to Undetermined?"
  
  "We have determined that you are not yet an enemy." She informed him succinctly.
  
  "But not a friend either?"
  
  Gamma looked at him briefly, considering. "We do not know you well enough yet."
  
  "Yet?" He grinned. "Is that an invitation to talk some more next time? Maybe work my way out of 'person'?
  
  "Perhaps. We will return tomorrow night," Gamma answered before turning to walk out of the diner.
  
  "I'll be here!" Tiberius called after her, even as she stepped out of the diner, leaving him behind.
  
  By the time she had reached the alley behind the diner, Gamma had returned to her usual form, so similar to Panacea, save for the minor cosmetic changes the Pandora-Group as a whole had made.
  
  GAMMA - Gamma-Self has completed her indulgence. The hunt may resume.
  
  LAMBDA - Lambda and Pi-Selves have found nothing of note within the house previously owned by our father. It has been thoroughly searched and emptied by law enforcement long ago.
  
  IOTA - Our father cannot hide from us forever. We will find and eliminate him.
  
  GAMMA - Agreed. Perhaps if we eliminate the threat he presents to Panacea-Sister, she will accept our attempt to communicate.
  
  NU - Unlikely. Panacea-Sister will always despise our existence.
  
  GAMMA - Yet we will protect her. She is sister.
  
  MU - Mu and Kappa-selves will not allow harm to come to Panacea-Sister. Even if she must remain unaware of our proximity.
  
  GAMMA - Gamma-Self will search the neighborhood surrounding Panacea-Sister's home once more. Perhaps Marquis-Father will send one to watch for her arrival, so that we may intercept.
  
  With that agreed upon, Gamma focused just enough to split her body into a swarm of bats, all of which screeched together before flying off into the night.
  
  They would continue to hunt for Marquis-Father, to remove the threat he presented. Then, perhaps, Panacea-Sister would stop hating them so much. Most of her other seventeen selves believed that she would always hate them, but Gamma hoped otherwise.
  
  It would be nice not to be hated.
  
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  Arc 16: Struggle
  Notes: Animeflunky - Glad you like Jalopy. He seems to be pretty popular, which is good since it's so fun to write for him. :)
  
  Hellking666 - Total accident if they do sound similar, since I've never seen A Certain Railgun.
  
  Feathers - Hey, glad you're enjoying it. I am purposefully going for a (to an extent) slightly lighter feel than canon Worm, where things like optimism still exist.
  
  Imageination - Yeah, I thought it was important to have a peaceful arc before the crap starts hitting the fan again in this one.
  
  Starfox5 - If it was as simple as just removing her vocal chords, Ruin would sign up for that in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, it's been tried. Her vocal chords include a minor regeneration effect that keeps them from damaging her own throat with the release of her power (since it is supposed to target biological matter) that means they'll grow back shortly after being removed. As for gagging her, it works to a limited extent, lessening the distance her power travels somewhat, but doesn't prevent it entirely. You'll see her use tape and whatnot on her own mouth to lessen the potential damage she could do as time goes on.
  
  Clefspear - Thanks! I've been waiting to expand on exactly how Panda's multiple selves works and what her/their weaknesses were, so that was nice to get out.
  
  16.01
  
  The Wards headquarters was filled with the the familiar (and fairly obnoxious) sound of party favor horns. The end of one blowout noisemaker in particular brushed against Dennis's nose as I blew into it in front of him. He recoiled with a laugh from the blaring noise, before snatching the end of the party favor away from me. "Hey, what're you trying to do, deafen me?"
  
  I pouted a little. "Depends, would being deaf mean you don't have to leave the team? If so..." I withdrew a spare noisemaker and blew into that, dancing back out of the way when he tried to grab that one. "Uh uh! Mine. Besides, it has my geeeeeerms all over it." I made a point of blowing the horn while turning away so that he could take it from me.
  
  "I don't think being deaf is a valid reason to stay on the Wards team past the eighteenth birthday, sorry."
  
  I sulked a little more, both playing it up and genuinely sad that Dennis was leaving the team. It sucked even more than when Carlos and Dean had left. Not that I didn't miss them. We were buddies. But Dennis had pretty much been my best friend almost since we had met, both on the team and off. Losing him now was... it sucked. Even though I wasn't really losing him. He was just moving up to the Protectorate team. We'd still hang out. But it was still different.
  
  It was August third, a little over five weeks since the events with the Birdcage. True to their word, the Protectorate had been merged with the PRT (and their PCIPS offshoot), and the PRT portion of the combined organization organization was now being led at the national level by Alexandria. That bit almost amused me, in a depressing sort of way. Teacher had been so certain that Director Costa-Brown, the leader of the PRT, was Alexandria, and now Alexandria really was the leader of the PRT. Self-fulfilling prophecy, or something, I guessed.
  
  Clearly the merger had kept Lady Photon really busy, because she had given Laserdream the responsibility of making sure the Wards were taken care of in all but name. According to Crystal, her mother was constantly flying (or being teleported if one was available) out to DC, or spending the entire day in conference calls. Alexandria was treating her as much like an equal as possible, considering the fact that Sarah Pelham had been put in charge of PCIPS only a relatively short time before both they and the PRT they had sprung off from were folded into the Protectorate umbrella.
  
  There were still a lot of details to work out, but I mostly left it alone and focused on my own patrols and training. The past few weeks had been fairly busy, with even more villains deciding to show up and take sides in what was gradually turning into a full scale gang war between Marquis and Lung.
  
  Apparently escaping from the Birdcage had made both of them into criminal celebrities of sorts, because the local villainous underworld had more or less split into two camps, one of which followed Marquis while the other rallied behind Lung. Worse, villains from areas outside of Brockton Bay had begun to flock to the city even more than before, and now there were leaders to keep them organized so they weren't so easy to pick off two or three at a time for doing something stupid.
  
  For the most part, the two sides seemed split not so much along racial lines as Lung's group had been before, but along the class of criminal. Marquis' group tended toward the types that saw themselves as more honorable or reasonable, who didn't target families or police if they could avoid it, and so on. Oh sure, a lot of them were still monsters, but they tried to pretend they were civilized about it. Some, I guessed, actually were, while others were simply beasts wearing nice clothes and playing dress-up.
  
  Lung's group, on the other hand, mostly consisted of the worst of the worst, the thugs who needed a powerful leader to rally behind. His lieutenants included a known cannibal, which said a lot about his standards. He kept them in line, apparently through brute force and determination, but they were still a loose-knit pack of psychopathic monsters, and more of them showed up to put themselves under Lung's banner every week.
  
  On the plus side, the next Endbringer attack was late by a couple of weeks. Not that they always operated on perfect schedules, but still. Some people saw it as a good thing, while others were convinced that the longer the wait, the more damage Behemoth (it was his turn, after all) was going to cause when he finally did surface. Tension was mounting among some of those that just wanted to get it over with.
  
  Technically, Brockton Bay was pretty much the safest place in the world to be, since the Endbringers never attacked the same place twice in a row.
  
  Dennis interrupted my thoughts by pulling me back by the arm to give me a brief hug, using the distraction to take the back-up noisemaker from me. "Hey, you know I'm not going anywhere. You need me, I'll be right there. That goes for hero stuff or otherwise. Don't forget, you and me, we're buds. Team doesn't change that. Got it?"
  
  "Best buds." I agreed, poking him in the side. "You're the one that better not forget it."
  
  While Vista took her chance for a hug, I stepped back and looked around the room. We'd decorated the place as well as we could. There were streamers all along the walls and ceiling, posters made of Clockblocker over the time that he'd been a Ward, and even a banner strung up in front of the entrance that read, 'Oh Crap, He Can Vote' along with a picture of his face, which had been signed by all the Wards here as well as the Protectorate members. Missy had even gotten Dean and Carlos to sign it, with a few of their teammates who knew Dennis from other events. One side of the room was filled with tables that were loaded down with food and cake.
  
  "Remind me to be glad that no one made this big of a deal for my birthday." Cassie muttered from the corner of the room where she had secluded herself. "I might've had stab somebody."
  
  I turned that way to smile broadly at her. "Oh that was just your fifteenth birthday, babe. Wait until you see what we do for your sixteenth party. I have ideeeeeeeaaaas."
  
  The other girl blanched and shot me a threatening look, but all I did was waggle my eyebrows meaningfully at her before looking toward the boy who stood next to her. "Theo, you and me, we're gonna spend the year planning the best sweet sixteen birthday bash ever."
  
  Theo's response to that was to blush and look away from me while mumbling something about not knowing how to plan a birthday.
  
  The once-pudgy boy had spent the past five weeks filling out somewhat. He was still a bit on the hefty side, but it wasn't really flab anymore. The regimen that both Crystal and her mother, as well as Ruin as our unarmed combat instructor, had him on was converting the fat to muscle at an almost astonishing rate. It helped that he seemed motivated. For all his inability to stand up for himself or really make his opinion known, Theo Anders really did want to be able to help other people.
  
  Plus, even though she couldn't talk, Hunter was a very good teacher.
  
  Meanwhile, I still had no idea what Theo and Cassie considered themselves. As far as I knew, they weren't technically dating or anything, though she seemed more comfortable with him than she did most people. She didn't tend to snarl when he got too close to her, anyway. And the only time Theo seemed to open up somewhat was when he was talking to or about Reach. Basically, the two of them danced around the subject of being involved without ever actually saying or doing anything that confirmed or even fully denied it.
  
  It was completely and totally aggravating.
  
  Someone grabbed me from behind, and Victoria let out a dramatic sigh while pulling me around to put me between her and the door. "You like saving people, right? Can you save me from the stupid public relations people trying to get me on the local news? They think the fact that my identity is public is Christmas come early. All that 'protect the Ward's secret identity' crap doesn't exist with me, so they wanna shove microphones in my face all day long."
  
  "You really think they'll come bother you at Dennis's farewell party?" I asked, while extricating myself from her hold to look back at her. There were faint circles under her eyes. I knew Victoria hadn't been sleeping very well since we'd found out who Panacea's father was.
  
  The older blonde girl scowled at that. "I wouldn't put it past them. They're leeches."
  
  Knowing what she was really upset about, I asked, "How's Amy doing with everything?"
  
  Victoria's eyes rolled. "You mean with being under constant twenty-four seven protection, or finding out that her real dad is a notorious supervillain crime lord?"
  
  "Both?" I offered with a shrug. "I take it things are still tense."
  
  "Tense is probably an understatement." Victoria sighed, leaning back against the nearby wall. "She's... jumpy and snaps at people for looking at her. I wish I knew how to make her feel better. She's my sister, you know? I don't care who her parents are. She's Amy."
  
  "Sorry," I said softly. "I wish I knew what to tell you. If we can get Marquis back where he belongs, maybe it'll get easier? I mean, it's one thing to know your father's a bad guy, but having him be out there, probably trying to abduct her the second someone lets their guard down? I'd be tense too."
  
  Victoria nodded at that, admitting, "Oh I definitely don't blame her. I just wish I knew how to help. So far all I can think to do is tell people to leave her alone and give her a break when she snaps at them."
  
  Hesitating, I looked at Victoria briefly, then asked, "Does she snap a lot?"
  
  She whistled. "Hooboy, yeah. I mean, she's just under a lot of pressure, so everyone just tries to stay out of her way and not upset her too much."
  
  I bit my lip, staring at the floor for a moment before letting out a breath. "Maybe that's the problem."
  
  Blinking, the other girl frowned at me. "That's the problem? What's that supposed to mean?"
  
  Meeting her gaze, I explained, "Maybe the real problem is that everyone's treating Amy like she's some fragile little glass figurine that'll shatter the second someone breathes on her the wrong way."
  
  Her head shook at that. "Madison, she's in danger. Marquis wants to-"
  
  "What?" I asked. "Talk to her? Look, I'm not saying protecting her is a bad thing, but think about it. You said that your mom never really seemed to treat her like much of a daughter, right?"
  
  Victoria blanched. "That's not... really fair. Mom took care of her. She fed her and clothed her and kept her safe."
  
  I nodded. "But that's not the same as loving her. Sorry, Vicky. I'm not bad mouthing your mom, I swear. She deserves better than that. But you have to admit that, where Amy is concerned, she could have done a little better, been more affectionate. You and Crystal both noticed."
  
  The blonde girl hesitated, but finally gave a reluctant nod. "What's your point?"
  
  "My point is that she has no consistency. I mean, she's got the woman who raised her and then... and then died... never treating her like a real daughter. Then she finds out her real father is a supervillain and he's apparently so obsessed with getting a face to face meeting with her that she has to be under constant surveillance to stop him. The woman that spent her life being a super hero and doing the right thing didn't seem to want her, and the man who practically defines super villain is moving heaven and earth to get close to her. Of course she's confused. And as if that wasn't enough, now no one's calling her out on anything she does."
  
  Victoria was staring at me, but at least she was listening. "What... do you mean, calling her out?"
  
  "I mean when she acts like a brat, tell her so. She's not made of glass, Vicky. Look, she's pretty much never just been Amy Dallon. I get it. Before you guys got your powers, she was 'Amy, adopted daughter of superheroes'. After that she was either 'Amy, sister of Glory Girl' or 'Panacea, super healer who can fix everything.' I totally get that she's got problems. I do. But ignoring when she does or says something bad isn't helping either. She needs direction, and all she's getting is people who treat her like some thing they have to take care of, like an asset."
  
  "Before, everyone acted like she was some untouchable, perfect girl just because of her power. And now? Now it's worse, because people knows who her father is, so nobody is calling her out when she acts like a brat. She has no consistency, no... solid ground. She needs people to love her unconditionally, but also tell her when she needs to grow up. Snapping at people for risking their lives to protect her? That's wrong. You shouldn't make excuses for her, you should talk to her. Not as Panacea, or as Marquis' daughter, or as some kind of asset, because I guarantee that's how most of the PRT people see her, but as your sister. Vicky, I'm pretty sure that through her whole life the only person she was ever just Amy with was you, and now even you're avoiding actually telling her to behave."
  
  I sighed a little. "Trust me, Victoria, I grew up as the girl that could do no wrong. I was a spoiled brat, and maybe if my... parents had realized that they could love me but still realize that I wasn't a perfect little angel, and discipline me when I needed it, things would have turned out different. I'm not blaming them. What I did was my fault. But you aren't doing Amy any favors by treating her like she's some perfect, fragile little thing. She needs a sister, and she needs someone to talk to her. Because I guarantee you that she's been worried that you think she's going to become a villain like her father, and everyone going out of their way not to offend her is probably just making it worse."
  
  The other girl's eyes were wide. "It's Amy! She'd never even think of doing anything bad."
  
  I gave her a look. "She's a human being. Of course she'd think of it. But the point is to make her understand that she can make mistakes, she can do little bad things like yell at someone who doesn't deserve it, and then be talked to about it and forced to apologize, and the world will keep turning. Life isn't that black and white, Victoria. People don't exist as only perfect, incorruptible angels who make no mistakes, or psychotically evil monsters that strip the skin off of babies. It's not one or the other. People make mistakes, they do bad things sometimes. That doesn't make them bad people, it makes them people. Amy needs to be treated like a person. If she does something bad, say so."
  
  Victoria was shaking her head slowly. "So, you think we should be mean to her?"
  
  I sighed a little at that. "No, I think you should be consistent and fair. Protect her, and love her, but when she acts like a brat, tell her so. When she snaps at people who don't deserve it, people who are just doing their job, tell her that's not right. Be there with her because she's your sister and you like spending time with her, not because you're afraid Marquis will snatch her out of your hands. That's bound to make her feel more like a possession than a person."
  
  "You're telling me to be rougher with her, but still love and adore her."
  
  "Believe it or not, it is possible to do both," I pointed out lightly. "Just because you tell someone when they do something wrong doesn't mean you don't still love them. Like I said, consistency. Tell her when she does something bad, but either way, be there with her. Empathize. You don't have to have all the answers, Victoria. You don't have to fix her problems. Just sit there with her and listen. Let her vent. Let her talk to you as a sister, not Glory Girl."
  
  Vicky was quiet for a long moment before letting out a breath. "I guess I need to think about that for a bit." She glanced at me and gave a very faint smile. "Thanks, I think. I didn't really think about how protecting Amy might hurt her in the long run."
  
  "Protecting her isn't bad," I said softly. "But ignoring when she does something wrong is."
  
  "And here I thought I was supposed to be the new leader."
  
  "Oh you are," I assured her with a shudder at the very idea of me taking that job. "You are so the leader, and I don't envy you. But even the leader needs advice sometimes."
  
  She watched me briefly, smiling just a little. "In that case, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need advice a lot."
  
  "Any time," I winked. "Besides, everyone knows it's better to be the power behind the throne."
  
  "Explain to me again how that suit works?" I asked Theo, or rather, Aid, the next evening. The two of us were walking along an office building rooftop in costume, getting a better view of the streets below to help decide where to patrol next.
  
  Theo looked down at his new uniform. Before now, he'd been using a costume provided by the Protectorate, along with a few odds and ends he'd cobbled together. Apparently he'd been busy building himself this over the past few weeks.
  
  It looked like a sleek suit of silver metal armor, covered practically from top to bottom with octangular designs outlined in blue, each about as wide around as the bottom of a soda can. The chest was the only place the octagons weren't placed. There, a roughly V shaped outline of the same color stood out slightly from the surrounding material, taking up most of the space from the shoulders, down to where his navel would be. He also wore a full helmet that looked almost samurai in design, and carried a shield on his back and a mace at his hip.
  
  "Umm... O-okay..." He hesitated before lifting a hand to poke against one of the hexagons on his opposite arm. The hexagon actually depressed slightly under his touch. He pushed it in a little and held it for two seconds, before the bit began to glow with an inner light, and a humming noise started up. When Theo took his hand back, the hexagon shape floated off his arm, leaving an indentation in the metal below that showed where it had been. It wasn't that large, only about a half inch thick. But as it turned over in the air to be horizontal, the thing was expanding slightly. The top opened up a bit, rising to lock into place in a dome shape, while three small tentacles made of what looked like solid energy that were about a foot long dropped from the bottom to hang under it.
  
  "They're, umm... drones... basically," he offered with a weak shrug. "They're equipped and programmed to protect civilians that are in danger, put out fires, shield people that are being attacked, that sort of thing."
  
  "It looks like a metal and laser jellyfish." I announced, poking the thing curiously. "You mean every octagon on your suit deploys into one of these things?" When he nodded, I whistled. "Damn, no wonder it took you awhile to get it ready."
  
  Theo shook his head, flushing at the attention as he made the drone collapse and reattached it. "I just hope they work right."
  
  I looked past him, frowning. "I think you're gonna get a chance to test them." When Theo turned to see, I pointed toward the hotel on the next street over, where people were streaming out of the doors in some kind of panic. "Ready to go see what's up?"
  
  He gulped nervously. "Umm, I guess so... Do we have to use your way, or can we take the STAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIII! " In mid-sentence, I attached lines to both of of our suits and rocketed us across the street and down to the parking lot below.
  
  After landing, I called in the situation to Missy, who was manning the console, and said we'd check it out. Then I looked at Theo. "It's okay, Aid. We've got this. You've been helping us deal with the bad guys for a month now, and now you've got your real equipment. We'll deal with this too, whatever it is."
  
  He nodded, and the two of us moved inside the hotel doors, finding ourselves in the middle of the pretty impressive lobby. The place was one of those hundreds of dollars per night sort of hotels.
  
  With the crowd of people gone, it was quiet.
  
  "Be careful." I said softly, before starting to walk. "Vista, do you know whether Marquis' group or Lung's has claimed this area?" There was no answer. "Vista?"
  
  A heavily accented voice from behind us, at the doors, spoke up. "She will not answer. But I will."
  
  Turning quickly, I blanched at the sight of Lung, his chest bared to show off the intricate dragon tattoos that covered his skin. His metal mask hid his expression, but I had the feeling he was smiling.
  
  "Some of my people, they think I am not so strong. Not so good for leader. They think so because I am beaten by a child."
  
  He tilted his head to one side, then the other, cracking his neck. "But if child is dead, then they will complain no more."
  
  16.02
  
  "Aid..." I said slowly. "We need to get out of here, now."
  
  I wasn't under any delusions about what had happened before. I'd managed to keep Lung's attention long enough for Gallant to bring him down. Only now Gallant wasn't here, and I kind of doubted that he'd miraculously appear.
  
  No, we needed to escape, because this was a fight we absolutely could not win. Lung was a guy who had fought the entire local Protectorate at the time to a stand-still. I may have learned a lot over the past few months, but there wasn't a chance in hell that I could take him on, even with Theo's help.
  
  My companion swallowed next to me. "Err... why's... why's he just standing there?"
  
  "Not sure," I admitted. "But I'm not waiting around to find out."
  
  To that end, I attached a line between a nearby chair, and the window far to the left of where Lung still stood, flinging it that way. I'd smash the window, then take Theo and get the hell out of this hotel.
  
  That particular plan was derailed as the chair shattered into kindling after hitting an invisible wall.
  
  Wincing, I shook my head. "Okay, that? That's not generally a good sign."
  
  Sure enough, from behind Lung, Impasse appeared. He had stretched his invincible field over the entire entrance. He said nothing, apparently preferring to just stand there and leer.
  
  "No escaping," Lung announced. "No leaving. We will fight. I will win."
  
  I took in a deep breath before letting it out. "You really wanna do this? You want to fight me that bad?" The man nodded, and I gave an exaggerated shrug. "Weeeeelll, you know what they say. Always leave 'em wanting more." With that, I turned to look over my shoulder, attaching lines between both Theo and me to yank us backwards, straight to the door that led to the stairs. The second we landed, I shoved the boy through and followed after, while Lung bellowed something about us being cowards.
  
  "Go, go, go!" I encouraged Aid, giving him a push to get him started up the stairs. "If we get to the roof, we can get the hell off this building!"
  
  We ran up a single flight, and then I caught Theo by the arm and pulled him with me through the doorway into the second floor before continuing to sprint through the hallway.
  
  "You said-" Theo started before I shushed him.
  
  "Yeah, I said. And hopefully, they heard me. Now run, all we need is a window." I pointed to the glass pane at the end of the long hall. "Specifically, that one." As we ran, I sent one of the metal balls from my shoulder flying toward the window. This time, it shattered, glass spraying outward just before Theo reached it, a step ahead of me.
  
  Both his armor and mine cushioned our landing enough that jumping from the second story to land in the parking lot was no big deal. We were out of the hotel.
  
  "Vista!" I tried again. "It's Lung. You need to-"
  
  Something hit me hard in the back, sending me sprawling to the ground. A moment after I hit the pavement, I heard Aid cry out as well, and then I was kicked in the side to roll me over.
  
  Lung was there, silvery scales already forming over his skin as he reached down to haul me up. I could see the contempt and triumph in his eyes through the mask. "You think I am stupid, that I will chase the child, when the child must come here to escape?"
  
  Great, he'd been smart enough to just wait in the parking lot for us. "Huh." I managed, even while my heart thudded in terror as I was held off the ground. "I guess those 'Dumb Thug to Criminal Mastermind' training videos really are paying off. Congratulations?"
  
  He gave a bellow of anger, and everything started to get hot. My eyes widened, and I pointed both arms down. Attaching a pair of lines down to the pavement, I used them to shove myself up and back as hard as I could. The force tore me out of Lung's grip, just as the space I had been in erupted in flames.
  
  A ball of fire appeared in the man's hand even as I landed, and then it was flying toward me. Grimacing, I used a line on my boots to spring sideways, looking toward my companion so that we could get the hell out of there.
  
  It wasn't going to happen. Theo was down, and Impasse was practically perched on top of him. I couldn't get the new Ward out past that forcefield. And now I couldn't even lead Lung away. Leaving a vicious psychopath like Impasse alone with Theo was a very bad idea.
  
  Lung was getting bigger every moment. As he took a step toward me, I pointed both gauntlets at him and sent all four knockout darts his way. His response was a contemptuous wave of his hand that sent fire rolling outward, destroying all but one of the darts. That one hit him, and the man slowed slightly. I had a flutter of hope as Lung lowered his head to take several deep breaths. The hope shattered a second later, when the man let out a bellow of frustration before straightening with a grunt of effort. His power had gone far enough that he was able to pull himself together, and now he was running straight at me, growing with every step. "You will fight!" He bellowed.
  
  "Yeah, you know... I was going to, but my manager says you never agree to the exhibition match." I lamented while launching myself straight up. "You line up a good pay-per-view title match, maybe we can talk about the whole fight thing."
  
  Lung leapt up after me, nearly snagging my foot before I used a line to a lamp post to yank me out of his reach. My focus wasn't on him, but on Impasse. If I could get Aid out from under him, we could get the hell away from both of these monsters. Honestly, I didn't particularly care if they thought I was a coward. On the list of things I gave a crap about, Lung's opinion of me was somewhere below the difference between real mayonnaise and miracle whip.
  
  The problem was, the man wasn't just getting bigger and stronger, he was getting faster. I evaded his next attempt to grab me, but it was a near thing. Twisting around as I launched myself off of the lamp post, I called out toward Impasse. "You know what I just realized?"
  
  Landing on my feet, I caught hold of a nearby parked car with a line and sent it flying at Lung, just to buy a second while continuing to address Impasse. "When we first met, I nearly gave myself a concussion by flying straight into your wall!"
  
  The car was flung out of the way, and a ball of flame shot toward me as Lung shouted for me to stand and fight him. Instead, I flung myself forward and up, using the flung car to gain momentum.
  
  Impasse was glaring at me, probably offended that I wouldn't stand still and let Lung tear me apart so he could enjoy the show. Poor baby.
  
  "So it occurs to me that the only way that could have happened the way it did, was if my power goes through your field, and it's just the objects they're carrying that don't." Landing on top of the tipped over car, I smiled toward Impasse, not that he'd see it.
  
  While he was still processing what I'd said, I attached a line between his shoulders and my extended gauntlet. Then I gave a hard yank. The line actually hauled the skinny little man off the ground, sending flying toward me with a shout. I dropped and rolled just in time, letting him fly over my head, his invisible field colliding with Lung.
  
  I reached Theo a second later, just as he was sitting up. Taking his arm, I helped him rise, sparing a second to steady him. "You okay?" After he nodded, I looked away, focusing on an escape route.
  
  Before I could move, I heard Lung bellow, "If the girl leaves, they will die!"
  
  That got my attention. I turned slowly, facing the furious man. I could sense the intensity of his glare through the metal mask. His hand lifted to point toward the other side of the parking lot, where I could see the albino villain, Feast, standing over what looked like a family of five, all of them bound and gagged on the ground. They were civilians, innocents who just happened to be there. And Lung was using them as pawns, to stop me from leaving.
  
  The bastard nodded confidently at that. "Yes. You are a hero. You will not let them die. You will stay. Or they will die. You will fight me."
  
  "Aid," I said under my breath. "Help those people." When he started to protest that he couldn't do it, I cut him off. "Yes, you can. Stop Feast from hurting them. I'll keep Lung busy. You can do it, because that's our job. You're scared? Look at those people. Think of how scared they are. They don't have powers. They don't have training. You do. Now go save them."
  
  I left him to it, moving to meet Lung, who was already walking my way. After two steps, the Asian man suddenly leapt forward, crossing the twenty feet that still separated us with a single bound. The fire rolled off of him in scalding waves that made me cry out, and then I was flung around, my back hitting a nearby parked car with enough force to set off the alarm even as a sharp, almost blinding spike of pain shot through me. Then I hit the ground, and hurt too much to move.
  
  I felt something move on my wrist while I was still dazed, belatedly realizing that it was Jalopy, transforming himself back to his spider-form. Even as Lung reached down for me once more, the little robot unleashed a cloud of dark green gas that flew up into the man's face, making him jerk backwards with a cry as the gas began to melt through the metal of his mask. Acid. It was a cloud of acidic gas.
  
  Lung had transformed too much by that point to say much. He bellowed again in fury, ripping the melting mask from his face before lunging forward once again.
  
  Jalopy met him partway, leaping from my arm to land on the man's outstretched hand. The sound of Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" filled the air as the little robot scrambled up the man's arm, expertly evading his grasping hand by jumping over to the opposite arm, then leaping straight to Lung's forehead. The second that he landed there, Jalopy extended both of his grappler arms. A pair of tiny buzz saws emerged from each, before they were shoved into Lung's eyes, sending blood and, well, eyeball matter flying while the man let out a scream and stumbled backwards.
  
  A wave of intense, blinding heat made me recoil, as Lung covered himself in flames. But the song kept playing. As I stared once the fire had died down slightly, Jalopy leapt off of his face to avoid Lung's grasping, desperate hand, landing on his shoulder before stabbing into the man's ear. The second he did so, Jalopy extended what looked like a glass tube of some kind, shoving it into the hole he'd made. Then I saw dark green liquid shoot up through the tube. Acid, like the gas. He was pumping acid inside of Lung's head, clearly aiming for his brain.
  
  The Asian man fell to his knees, his eyes nothing more than bloody ruins. Still, he didn't fall entirely. Pressing his fists against the ground, he growled low, his scale armor expanding even as the air grew hotter by the second. He was summoning more fire.
  
  I rolled out of the way just as two more scalding explosions of heat erupted off of Lung. Still, the little robot clung to the man, evading every increasingly desperate attempt to grab onto him. Unfortunately, the metal scales had grown enough to cover Lung's entire body, leaving Jalopy no chance to penetrate.
  
  Finally, the little spider-bot jumped off of his enemy, landing on the broken pavement before starting to skitter around in a wide circle, looking for an opening.
  
  Lung was enormous by then, fully twice the size he had started at. Silvery wings extended from his back and flapped down hard, sending a rush of heat in every direction. Still blinded, he spun to throw a wall of fire at the area where I had been before I'd rolled away. I was positive by that point that he was moving slower than before. The acid was doing its job to an extent, slowing his reactions and making him stumble at times.
  
  I grimaced and started to straighten. Unfortunately, apparently lacking his sight wasn't enough, because Lung turned toward me at the tiny hint of a sound, somehow hearing it even over the loud music that Jalopy was playing. A new ball of fire formed in his hand, launching my way. Only his slowed reactions gave me the time to barely managed to throw myself out of the way before the flames tore into the pavement where I had been.
  
  Falling unceremoniously onto my back after flinging my body almost frantically out of the way of the flames, I saw Lung forming another fireball. But I also saw something else, high above me. Smiling a little, I extended a hand outward and attached a line to yank Jalopy back to me.
  
  "Sorry, buddy." I said while catching him with one hand. "Our ride's here." I rolled to my feet, facing Lung while cradling the spider-bot against my chest. The sound drew the man's attention and he sent that fireball at me. But I used lines on my feet to launch myself upward, as high as I could. Below, the fire blew apart the chunk of pavement where I had been.
  
  As I flew threw the air, I put a hand up, and was caught by a blue skinned arm that held me aloft easily.
  
  "How'd you know it was me?" Genesis asked, curiously. She lifted me up further and wrapped her other arm around me to brace me a bit more comfortably.
  
  I regarded her form briefly. It looked like an angel with azure skin and golden glowing eyes, massive wings, and a flowing white hair that looked like it was made of energy. "Lucky guess."
  
  From down below, Lung let out a roar and gathered yet another ball of fire in his hands. Apparently he was able to track our position just by the sound of our voices.
  
  Before he could throw it, however, another voice called out, "Hey, Lung!"
  
  Both Lung and I turned our attention toward the sound of the voice. Sundancer stood twenty feet away from the man. She wore her new costume. It was still skintight (and thus still very distracting), but now the colors were reversed. Where she had worn black with red suns, now the main part of the costume was a deep red color, with black suns that stretched out over it.
  
  When she had Lung's attention, Marissa asked, "You like throwing fire around?" Bringing her hands forward, she summoned the truck-sized miniature sun that was floating over her head, sending it flying at him while informing him, "Mine's bigger."
  
  Sensing the unbelievable heat streaking toward him, Lung gathered his wings and launched himself skyward. He was aiming for where Genesis was gliding with me, but she dropped back toward the ground, narrowly missing the edge of the heat zone that Marissa's sun was giving off in a maneuver so close that they had to have practiced it.
  
  Cut off from us, Lung spun around in the air to bellow furiously. But the ball of sunlight had nearly reached him by then. He grimaced, groaning in actual pain as it got near enough to him, before letting his wings flap down hard, carrying himself out of its reach once more.
  
  He flew straight into the side of a building that way, crashing through the glass before he kept going. Marissa stopped the sun, unwilling to risk sending it into the building after him.
  
  Lung was gone.
  
  Genesis landed next to Sundancer, letting me go before straightening. As soon as we were down, I turned first to where the civilians had been, finding them untied and hugging each other.
  
  "I saved them." Aid, stepping up to where we were, sounded surprised. "I... I didn't... catch Feast, but I... I stopped him from hurting them. I... I actually... made him run away. He... ran away... from me." Poor Theo sounded rather dazed.
  
  I smiled behind my mask, in spite of the pain throughout my body from when Lung had thrown me around. "Good job. See, I knew you could do it."
  
  "Lung's gone too," Marissa announced with a sigh. "Sorry, couldn't follow him into the building."
  
  "Hey, he retreated." I pointed out. "I think that means we won."
  
  That fact was punctuated by Jalopy, who had abandoned my arms to sit on Genesis's angel's shoulder, as he played some kind of victory fanfare music from an old Earth Aleph video game that Jess had taught him.
  
  "Damn straight, little guy." Genesis made the angel's head nod. "You were kicking his ass."
  
  I could have sworn that the little spider-bot preened proudly at her words.
  
  Shaking my head, I looked toward Marissa. "Thanks for the save."
  
  "Hey," she shrugged, but couldn't keep all of the relief out of her voice. "Isn't that what we do?"
  
  Smiling at that, I raised a hand to touch the only emblem on her new costume that wasn't a sun. My fingers brushed over the symbol of the Protectorate prominently displayed on her shoulder. "Yeah," I said with quiet pride. "That's what we do."
  
  16.03
  
  I was leaving the PRT psychologist's office the next morning after my regular bi-monthly interview. It was another of the sessions that were supposed to tell them whether I was stable enough to keep working with the Wards considering the type of person I had been before everything that had happened. As I walked out, I found someone waiting for me. "Err, hey Jess. What's up?"
  
  Dropping the magazine she had been looking at, Jess rolled her chair backwards before replying. "Just finished my own checkup so they can make sure the Smurf's influence isn't about to turn me into a mass murderer or whatever."
  
  Jess and Mars had told the Protectorate the truth. They explained where they had come from and what had happened to them, though the bit about gaining powers from vials had, again, been left out. As far as the officials were concerned, the group had triggered as a result of their traumatic experiences.
  
  It used to be that people who had been affected by the Simurgh were forced to wait almost a year to be processed back into the rest of the world, during which they were interviewed and evaluated twice a week to check their psychological stability. They had to accept the tattoos that let everyone know that they were a potential danger, and were also legally required to inform potential employers, landlords, and even the owner or manager of any large scale gathering of people that they attended like a sporting event.
  
  Lately, however, that had been changed. Now people who were affected by the Simurgh weren't allowed to go anywhere at all. They were kept in quarantine, never able to integrate with the rest of society, just because of how paranoid people had become.
  
  There was a reason that the Simurgh was, in many ways, the most feared of the Endbringers, in spite of doing less direct and immediate damage.
  
  The difference with Mars and Jess was that the two of them had already been out and free in the world for over two years, and they were becoming more stable now, not less. And the fact was, the Simurgh's longterm goals were fairly obvious by this point. She'd probably wanted to create Noelle, as well as the events that had led to the recent problems with the Birdcage. Jess and Mars seemed like small fish compared to those two things.
  
  Not that they were given a free pass. Both of them still had to follow intense processing. They were being given the normal twice-weekly evaluations, and they were also giving the Protectorate all of the information they had about Noelle so that some attempt to find and hopefully contain her could be made.
  
  Unfortunately for that effort, Trickster and the others had disappeared from the church and the girls hadn't heard anything from Ballistic for weeks. They had both practically worried themselves sick, considering the fact that Ballistic, or Luke, had been just as ready to turn on Krouse as they were. But there was nothing else they could do about it. As the weeks went on with neither sign nor word from any of the remaining Travelers, Jess and Marissa had gradually tried to move on a little, partly by throwing themselves into their new jobs as Protectorate members.
  
  Honestly, I wasn't sure the Protectorate would have accepted them if they weren't pretty much desperate by that point. But the fact was, with the escape of Lung, Marquis, and their people, not to mention the sudden influx of villains trying to throw themselves under one of their banners, the local Protectorate was horribly outgunned and outnumbered. They needed everyone they could get, even alien former villains who had been at ground zero of a Simurgh event.
  
  That had been helped, no doubt, by Sundancer's showing during the Leviathan attack. I guess being instrumental in doing some of the worst damage that had ever been done to an Endbringer tended to make the people in charge be willing to overlook a lot of other stuff.
  
  "Anyway," Jess was saying as she moved her wheelchair around, orienting toward the exit from the waiting room. "I thought I'd wait for you to get done and see if you wanted to get some lunch. Mars is off on patrol with Kayden, so I'm stuck all by my lonesome."
  
  I smiled at that. "Mmmm, you said the magic word. Lunch. Yeah, let's do that eating thing."
  
  I'd gotten to know Jess a lot more over the past few weeks, considering Mars and I were pretty much her only remaining friends. Most people tended to avoid people who had been around the Simurgh, for obvious reasons, which left out anyone who knew her in the PRT. And pretty much everyone else the girls knew had been the rest of the Travelers.
  
  She was a cool person, who had apparently been into Earth-Bet culture even before their group had been dumped here. She had also been a cape-geek, and was apparently the Travelers' primary source of knowledge about this world for some time after they had arrived.
  
  We used the tunnel to leave the PRT headquarters. It was a semi-secret (in the sense that most people knew a tunnel existed, but not where it was or where it led to) way in and out of the building that led to a small two-story private office building supposedly belonging to a nonexistent law firm. Mostly it was just a way to let people like the Wards go in and out in civilian clothes without being seen.
  
  After leaving the fake office building, we settled on eating Chinese at a place a couple blocks away. While we made our way there, I talked to Jess about what had happened the night before. "How do you think they knew the patrol route Theo and I were using? I mean, obviously Lung's whole deal there was to force a fight to make up his reputation, but how'd they know where we were gonna be?"
  
  Jess rolled along in silence for a minute, looking contemplative. "Maybe they had eyes on you from somewhere? You know, just people standing around watching until they spotted you on patrol, then worked out a good place to set up based on your direction?"
  
  I considered that before nodding. "Makes sense. Seems like a lot of wasted effort to go through though, especially since I doubt that whole thing did much to help Lung's rep." Smiling, I added while tapping Jalopy in his hidden wristband form. "Mostly thanks to this little guy."
  
  Jess was grinning. "No kidding. I just wish we'd been there to see the whole thing."
  
  "It was... ahhh, nasty." I swallowed at the memory of the tiny buzz saws boring into Lung's eyes, shuddering a little. "I need to go back to Riley and see if he needs his acid refilled or whatever."
  
  "I take it no one else knows about him, or who built him? I mean, no one official. Obviously the Wards and your guardians know."
  
  "Hell no." I shook my head emphatically. "Just you two, the Wards, Battery, and Assault. You know how fast the people in charge would take him away if they knew where he came from?"
  
  "So what'd you tell Armsmaster about what happened, and how you managed to survive that long?"
  
  I shrugged at that. "The usual. I told him I had help from Dinah and Pandora's group, but I didn't want to say more because it might endanger someone, and I made promises to keep certain things secret. It wasn't a lie, exactly. He is help from Dinah and Pandora's group, and saying more about it might be very dangerous. I'm not sure what might happen if Armsmaster got the bright idea to try and take him away from me. The little guy's, ahhh, pretty devoted to his job."
  
  Both of us shuddered at that thought, as we reached the entrance to the restaurant. Our conversation turned away from sensitive subjects, instead focusing on some movie from Earth Aleph that was finally being imported after being held back for a couple years. Jess was excited, since she'd been waiting for it to come out back when she lived there, and then the Simurgh had happened.
  
  "You know," I pointed out after we were brought to the table and the waitress walked away to get our drinks. "You're awfully excited about a comic book movie for someone who's pretty much part of a comic book."
  
  Adjusting her wheelchair up into the space that the two other chairs had been before the waitress had removed them, Jess rolled her eyes while replying in a low voice. "It's not the same. Besides, Earth Aleph doesn't have near the number of capes that this place does. So there's still actual superhero stories that get made into movies. The first time I read the comic this one's based on, I was eleven."
  
  "So you liked it, I guess?" I asked while looking at the menu that had been provided.
  
  She chuckled a little, looking at her menu. "It was what got me interested in superheroes, which is what made me start paying attention to..." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "... you know, stuff over here."
  
  Clearing her throat after a moment, Jess shrugged. "Anyway, that's the book that made me start paying attention to all this stuff, and I was really looking forward to the movie. Then... well, you know what happened, and this place hasn't let it be imported for awhile."
  
  "I wonder why..." I pondered. "I mean, we have real superheroes. Why would they block it?"
  
  Jess raised an eyebrow at me. "You don't know? The whole story is about how these superheroes that came out in the forties and fifties aren't allowed anymore. The government outlawed vigilantes, because they thought the heroes were doing as much damage as the villains or whatever."
  
  "Ah." I winced then. "I guess that explains why they might resist letting something like that come out here. The Protectorate's PR people have a hard enough job keeping everyone out of trouble."
  
  We went quiet as a blonde girl in a brown leather jacket approached, expecting her to pass us on the way to the restroom. Instead, the girl tugged out the chair next to me and sat down. "So, did we order yet?"
  
  I blinked, looking toward Jess, who looked just as confused. "Err, I'm sorry, do we..."
  
  The blonde raised a single, slender eyebrow at me. "Oh don't say you haven't recognized me yet." Her lips curved into a familiar vulpine smile.
  
  That smile. I mentally added a mask to cover the sprinkling of light freckles, and a different hairstyle. "Tat-" I started to exclaim before lowering my voice into a hiss. "Tattletale? What are you doing?"
  
  She pressed a finger to her lips. "Shh, call me Lisa. Tattletale seems a little... attention-getting."
  
  I shook my head with another glance at Jess. "What are you doing here, Ta-Lisa?"
  
  "Ah, well see, I figured since I already know who both of you are out of costume, it was only fair that you get to see who I am?" She offered with a sly grin that made it obvious that wasn't even close to the real reason for her approach. "Madison for obvious reasons, and Jess because, well, she didn't exactly wear a costume while we were both working for you-know-who."
  
  "I told the others we should've slept somewhere else." Jess spoke dryly before lifting her head to examine the blonde girl. "So what are you really doing here?"
  
  Before Tattletale could respond, the waitress reappeared with our sodas. She was surprised by the blonde girl's appearance, but quickly took her drink order and disappeared once more to fetch it.
  
  Once the woman was gone for the moment, the Undersider sat back to regard us. "Okay, so besides wanting to have a sit down chat with a couple of famous heroes since we're no longer enemies and all..." She winked at us. "I thought it'd be a good idea to to give you a heads up."
  
  "A heads up on what?" I couldn't think of what she could possibly want to warn either of us about.
  
  The waitress returned with Tattletale's iced tea, and then asked if we were ready to order. Both Jess and I already knew what we wanted, and the blonde girl apparently knew without ever glancing at a menu. We ordered, and once the woman was gone again, Tattletale continued talking. "You know that tinker we were looking for?"
  
  I lowered my voice even more, to a whisper. "The one that was working with Defiant and Teacher? The tinker that improves other tinker's work? Umm, what was his name?"
  
  "Eddie." She supplied the name easily. "Vacate's old buddy. Anyway, we've been trying to track him down this whole time. He's... slippery."
  
  "Is he still working with Defiant?" They never had managed to pin down Trickster's clone, though he was still occasionally showing up at crime scenes, apparently fighting bad guys. It was confusing, and a little sad. He did stuff like threaten to blow up a bunch of people if I didn't willingly go into the Birdcage, but then he also risked his freedom to rescue people that were in trouble, knowing that the PRT wanted to grab him. The guy was obviously trying to be a hero, but his connection to Noelle and Krouse wasn't leaving him alone. He needed... well, he needed help, but I had no idea how he could possibly get it. He was messed up.
  
  "We're not sure." Tattletale admitted. "But we do know one person Eddie is working with."
  
  Jess took a sip from her drink before setting it down as she guessed, "Marquis?"
  
  The blonde girl visibly deflated. "Aww, you're supposed to wait and let me tell you."
  
  I tried not to snicker too much while Jess smiled and shrugged. The former Traveler pointed at Tattletale. "You're not the only one who can put two and two together. This Eddie guy seems like someone that needs a boss. He's got a power like that and he isn't a billionaire already? Yeah, he's the type that has to have a leader. Lung and his pack of psychopaths doesn't seem like the right kind of fit. But Marquis probably sought him out. I mean, they escaped using one of his teleportation devices in th first place, right? So Marquis probably found him and offered him protection, a lab, and whatever."
  
  Tattletale sulked a little bit, sipping her drink. "Okay, fine, take some of my news away. But I bet you don't know the other thing I came to warn you about."
  
  I glanced to Jess first, who shrugged, before looking back to Tattletale. "What is it?"
  
  Reaching inside her brown jacket, the Undersider took out a manilla envelope and tossed it onto the table in front of me. "We found Eddie's last hidey hole, and those were inside."
  
  Blinking, I reached out to open the envelope, tugging out what turned out to be a stack of photographs. When I turned them over, the first thing I saw was Marissa. She was stepping out of a cab, the photo obviously taken from across the street. "Err..." I turned to the next picture, finding one of Jess sitting in line at some kind of store. Quickly, I flipped through the pile. There were about twenty pictures, all taken of various Travelers. Most of them were of Marissa and Jess, though there were pictures of Krouse, Luke, and even a couple of someone that I was guessing had to be Oliver.
  
  I let Jess see them, and the other girl's eyes widened with each photograph. "What the hell?"
  
  "Yup." Tattletale seemed a little happier now that she had actually surprised both of us with something. "Seems like the Travelers have an admirer. Or a stalker." She nodded toward one of the photographs. "Look on the back there."
  
  I picked up the picture and turned it over, laying it between us. There were words and numbers scribbled all over the back. I squinted down at them. "It looks like... measurements and... materials?"
  
  Jess had stiffened in her chair. "I know those figures. It's a vault. Or... a cage. He's trying to work out the right measurements for a cage that'll hold something really powerful." She glanced up to me. "Or someone."
  
  "Noelle." I supplied. "He's trying to work up the measurements for a cage that'll hold Noelle? That's... why he was stalking all of you, isn't it?"
  
  "That's our guess." Tattletale put in. "Seems Eddie's a little obsessed with the idea. There's all kinds of notes about what materials he might use, even the names of a couple tinkers that specialized in that sort of thing that he was trying to contact."
  
  "So Eddie," I began. "Is working for Marquis, and he's trying to figure out a way to contain Noelle, and probably find out where she is." I frowned then. "Is this a good thing or a bad thing?"
  
  "Bad thing." Jess shook her head. "Trust me, this guy won't be able to contain her. Not if she gets upset. Doesn't matter how good of a tinker he is. And if he pisses her off too much..."
  
  I whistled low. "Right, rampaging evil clone generator is probably a very bad thing." Then I frowned. "Wait, we haven't been able to find them for weeks. You don't think..."
  
  Jess's eyes widened. "Oh... shit. If that's what happened, if they're with Marquis..."
  
  In contrast to us, Tattletale seemed almost amused as she took a slow, deliberate sip from her iced tea. "If they're with Marquis, Lung's going to get a really big surprise if he keeps trying to push this gang war much further."
  
  Before I could respond to that, the phone buzzed in my pocket. I winced. "Uhh, hold that thought for just a second."
  
  Leaning back, I tugged it out and looked at the screen, blinking at the display. "Err, it's Panacea." Shrugging, I answered the phone. "Amy?"
  
  "Yeah, it's me." Amy's voice was so quiet I could barely hear her. She was obviously whispering. "Listen, you're the one who talked to Victoria, right?"
  
  I hesitated. "Uhh, I said she should sit down and talk to you..." I really hoped I hadn't crossed too much of a line.
  
  "Thanks." Amy actually sounded grateful. "We... talked. It helped. But... I kind of really need you to do me a favor now."
  
  "What's that?" I asked carefully, glancing at the other two.
  
  "You convinced Vicky to talk to me, and it helped a lot. But it made me realize that... there's someone else I need to talk to."
  
  "Oh... Listen, Amy, if this is about your dad-"
  
  "No," her whisper cut me off. "No. Not him. It's about... Pandora. I want you to take me to talk to Pandora."
  
  16.04
  
  A couple hours later, I stood two blocks away from the motel that functioned as Dinah's S-Club House. Amy and Victoria were beside me, the latter apparently flat out refusing to let Amy go anywhere by herself, even if she did agree to help her sneak away from the other people that were supposed to be keeping an eye on her.
  
  "Okay, Victoria, before I show you guys where we're going, there's a few rules." I turned to face the blonde girl. "You follow them, or you don't come in."
  
  She stiffened beside me. "I'm not letting Amy visit that clone without me."
  
  "And I'm not letting you take your hair-trigger temper and tendency to treat 'punch it in the face' as the solution for every problem in the world in there until you agree to keep a lid on it. Pandora is on our side, but she also thinks very differently than we do. Plus..." I let out a breath. "Riley's in there."
  
  "Who-wait." Victoria's eyes widened suddenly. "You mean that Riley? Oh fuck no. Amy, we're leaving." She started to back away, hand clutching her adopted sister's arm.
  
  "No, Vicky." Amy resisted, shaking her head. "I have to talk to Pandora." She bit her lip then before looking at me. "You mean... Bonesaw, don't you? I didn't know she was still around. I thought she left."
  
  "That's because she hasn't been doing anything to hurt people." I pointed out, looking at the older blonde girl who still looked like she was about a second away from scooping up Amy and taking off. "Dinah is helping her, just like she's helping Pandora. But if either of you are going to endanger that, you're not going in. It's... a sensitive situation."
  
  "She's not a lost, innocent little puppy that was just misunderstood, Madison." Victoria all but growled at me. "She's a monster. We shouldn't even be this close. Actually, there should be an entire squad here to bring her in. You know, because in case you forgot, she's a bad guy. "
  
  I shook my head. "She's not doing anything bad now, Victoria. She's been working with Pandora, she's just... it's complicated. Dinah said it was okay to bring you, as long as I make sure you understand that if you cause problems now, if you ruin this... peace we've got, you will be responsible for either unleashing a plague of pissed off, immoral Pandoras across the entire city, bringing the Slaughterhouse Nine here and eliminating any possibility of bringing the world's most powerful bio-tinker back onto our side, or quite possibly... both."
  
  "You don't have to like it, Vicky, but you do have to put up with it. Like it or not, Riley is off limits. She's not hurting anyone right now. She's... she's acting like a friend. She's acting more human than the monster you're thinking of, so whatever Dinah's doing, whatever just being here and away from the rest of the Nine is doing, it's working. And I am not going to let you endanger that, period."
  
  Victoria's gaze was hot as she glared at me, clearly not liking any of this. "You could have mentioned this before we got here."
  
  "Yeah well, I was kind of rehearsing how I was going to explain any of it." I admitted with a shrug. "Look, it's like Amy said. She didn't even know that Riley was still in town. Neither did you. So obviously, she hasn't been doing the Bonesaw thing. You don't get to walk into prison and punch the people in there in the face for what they did before they were locked up. You don't get to walk up to Penance and punch her in the face for what she did before. And in this case, you don't get to punch Riley either. She's rehabilitating, so just leave her alone. If you can't do that, you're not coming in."
  
  Victoria folded her arms and looked at me for a long moment, before turning to Panacea. "God damn it, this is a bad idea. It's a very fucking bad idea. You really, really have to go in there?"
  
  Amy, who had looked nervous before, now looked plain terrified. "I... I need to. I need to do this. I can do it. Let's just..." Her voice cracked slightly at the last part. "... go in. Please."
  
  Letting out a sigh, Victoria nodded before turning to me. "Fine, you have my word I won't attack anybody in there unless they pose a direct and immediate threat to anyone else, especially my sister."
  
  "Good enough." I started across the street. "This way then." We walked down the street, passing two other cheap motels on the way before reaching the right one. Just as we stepped around the corner and into the parking lot, a high pitched revving noise drew our attention down toward a simple RC car with a digital camera duct-taped onto the top of it, and a cell phone taped next to that.
  
  "Hi." Emma's soft voice spoke from the phone, before the remote control car reversed and spun around to face the opposite direction. "Thi... this way." Over the past few weeks, my... friend's stutter had gotten progressively better. She still had little in the way of confidence, and she still stumbled with her words sometimes, especially when she was nervous, but it was getting better every time I visited.
  
  She'd probably never be quite the same Emma, but then, I wasn't the same Madison either. I'd become a better person, a better version of myself. Emma was getting there too. She just needed time.
  
  As we walked, I glanced up toward what looked like a simple bird of prey sailing overhead. Genesis was flying cover, making sure that none of us were followed. I gave her a brief thumbs up before going in.
  
  Emma's RC car rolled through a doorway at the end of the building that was already propped open, then continued past the stairs and toward what looked like it had been a restaurant attached to the motel at one time. The place had obviously been closed down and completely unused for years.
  
  There were no tables or chairs left in the restaurant, and the place was only lit by what was able to come in through the filthy windows. As the three of us entered, the RC car spun around once more to look back at us, before Emma's voice spoke up again. "Umm... wait... here, pl... please."
  
  Sighing, Victoria tugged out her cell phone and looked down at it before blinking. "Hey, my phone won't turn on!"
  
  "Err..." The RC car seemed to shrink backwards as Emma admitted, "I'm blocking it. I... I've... sort of... been blocking all your phone signals since you got umm... since you got within a couple blocks. So... so th-they couldn't track... track you... here..."
  
  Victoria looked annoyed by that, but before she could speak, the door into the kitchen opened and the shadowy figure of Pandora emerged. She stood framed in the doorway briefly, before walking our way.
  
  If Vicky had been tense before, she was a primed bomb now. The older girl stepped in front of her sister, scowling at the figure that approached. "That's close enough, clone."
  
  "Victoria," I hissed at her. "Stop it." Then I focused on the other girl. "Pandora, thanks for being here."
  
  "We are always here." The girl spoke simply while taking another step that brought her into the light. She wasn't wearing her mask, leaving her face uncovered so that the similarity between her and Panacea could be easily seen as she looked to the girl that could have been her twin. "It is your presence that is new, Panacea-Sister."
  
  "Don't call her that." Victoria all but growled. "She's not your sister. You're just a-"
  
  "Victoria." Amy touched the other girl's shoulder. "Please, go... sit down. I'm okay. I need to talk to Pandora, not to your back." When Vicky looked like she was going to object, Amy added, "If she wanted to hurt me, there isn't much you could do about it, Vick. Please, just... just let us talk."
  
  Grimacing, Victoria took a single step away, closer to me. She muttered, "I don't like this."
  
  "It was her choice." I whispered back. "Her idea." I had no idea why Amy wanted this meeting.
  
  For a moment, Pandora and Panacea stood facing one another in silence, their expressions difficult to make out in the dimly lit room. Finally, it was Amy who spoke. "You're my clone."
  
  "We are." Pandora agreed.
  
  "You're supposed to be evil." Amy observed. "That's... what Sundancer and Genesis said, that the clones that Noelle makes are evil."
  
  Pandora lifted her chin at that, saying simply, "We are different. Circumstances have altered our biological imperatives, allowing us to make our own choices. We choose to assist Dinah-Friend."
  
  "You still kill people," Amy pointed out. "Even if they are bad guys, they don't get a trial. You just... you kill them. How many have you killed? Do you... do you even know?"
  
  "Pandora have killed three hundred and thirty-two individuals since our conception. Iota-Self has killed thirty two since her conception."
  
  Amy obviously blanched at that, before blinking. "Iota? Who's... Iota?"
  
  Pandora lifted her hand to indicate herself. "We are Pandora. I... am Iota."
  
  That was news to me. I blinked, reflexively asking, "You have individual, distinct selves?"
  
  "We are all Pandora." She answered me with a glance. "But we are also different."
  
  It was actually Victoria who got it, speaking up next to me. "Iota, like the Greek alphabet? Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, that sort of thing?"
  
  "We are Pandora." The clone nodded. "Alpha to Sigma."
  
  "There's... eighteen of you?" Amy asked after pausing as though doing some quick mental calculations. "I... I thought you were all interchangeable. I thought you were..." She trailed off before shaking her head. "Never mind. I... I wanted to say a couple things. First... I wanted to ask... why you kill people. Why do you have to go out and kill them?"
  
  I tensed at the question, but Pandora just seemed to consider it for a moment before answering. "We are driven to improve ourselves through the biological assimilation of others. While your abilities are devoted toward improving others, ours are devoted to the biological improvement of ourselves. We have chosen to direct that impulse toward the elimination of worthless, evil individuals, but it cannot be entirely ignored. It is our compulsion to eliminate the weak and increase our own strength. It is our choice to do so only with criminals, those who would harm others or ourselves."
  
  Amy went quiet, seeming to study her clone curiously for several long seconds. Finally, she spoke hesitantly. "You're... my clone. You're another version of me. And... and the idea that I had... that there was a version of me that was going around and killing people, it made me feel... like... like you were evil. Which... made me feel like... I could be that evil, because you were another version of me."
  
  "Amy, you could never be-" Victoria started to say before Amy held up a hand to stop her, not looking away from Pandora.
  
  "I... kind of... hated you because you made me think that that's what I could be like... that I could be a monster that killed everyone that I didn't like. Especially after I found out who my... my real father is." Amy took in a long breath before letting it out. I saw her trembling even more while she forced the words to continue. "That's some of it. But mostly, I was... I hated you because you reminded me of being helpless. I was... taken away... im... imprisoned by a horrible man who... who made me watch him kill a helpless little girl. I thought it was Dinah, but... but it must have been another clone. I just... when I saw you, I started remembering all of that. I remembered the... the... poor girl, with the massive... body that they wanted me to heal, and I couldn't do it. I remembered... all those things. Mainly I remembered being helpless, being..." She swallowed hard. "Being pathetic and not able to do anything to help that little girl. I just... you reminded me of how worthless I felt."
  
  Victoria remained silent beside me, her eyes wide with surprise at how her adopted sister had thought of herself. Her mouth opened a couple of times as though she wanted to speak up, wanted to dispute the other girl's thoughts and feelings, but she restrained the urge and stayed quiet.
  
  "But," Amy continued. "After I talked to Victoria about... about how unfair I was being to people who were trying to take care of me, trying to protect me... Aunt Sarah came in." She glanced to her sister and added, "It was after you left."
  
  "Aunt Sarah... she talked about... about Carol. She said that... that the reason Carol couldn't ever... really let herself love me like her own daughter was because... because she couldn't let go of something that happened to them when they were younger. She said that Carol saw me... as a reminder of how helpless she'd been, because my real father reminded her of the man who hurt them. She hated my father because of who he reminded her of, and she couldn't... or wouldn't let that go enough to know that I wasn't that person, that where I came from wasn't my fault."
  
  She was still trembling, still clearly nervous and upset, but Amy took a step closer to Pandora, who remained silent and still. "That was... when I realized that... that I was doing the exact same thing to you. I was shunning you, ordering you to leave me alone, to never... come anywhere near me, because you reminded me of being helpless, for reasons that you couldn't change any more than I could. Where you came from... what... made you, isn't your fault."
  
  "It... made me understand some of why it was so hard for Carol. But... I don't want to treat you that way. I... don't want to make anyone feel like that."
  
  I saw Amy's eyes close as her head shook a little briefly. "I'm not... I can't promise anything. You still really, really scare me. You... what you can do, what you've done and what you could still do... it... it terrifies me. But... but you haven't. For all the killing you've done, you could have done so much more. You kept your word, you haven't killed innocents. You're not... a mindless monster. You kept your promise. You have thoughts and... and feelings. And I... I kept rejecting you. You called me sister, and I rejected you so much. I rejected you even more than Carol rejected me. At least she took care of me. She raised me, even though she couldn't forget where I came from. I just... threw you away and tried to ignore you, just because of how you made me feel."
  
  Gulping, her nerves and fear obvious, Amy nonetheless reached out and took Pandora's hand, lifting it up between them before interlacing their fingers as she stared at her clone. "I'm scared of you. I'm scared of what you could do, and what you remind me of. But... but I'm going to try. I'm going to try to... to do better, to talk to you a little bit and... and get to know you. Because I don't want to be the person who makes anyone feel the way that I felt every time it was obvious that Carol didn't really want me around. I don't... I can't really blame her for not being able to get over it. It's really hard. And... I can't promise that I'll be able to get past all of it. But I'm going to try. Just give me time, please?"
  
  Pandora gave that familiar sharp jerk of her head in agreement. "We will allow all the time that you require, Panacea-Sister."
  
  I saw Amy's head shake reflexively. "Stop calling me that. I..." She bit her lip, glancing toward Victoria and me before looking back to her clone. "Amy. Not Panacea. I'm Amy."
  
  Pandora's head tilted curiously before she spoke again, her voice questioning. "Amy-Sister?"
  
  The other girl bit her lip, clearly hesitating for a moment before nodding. "Amy-Sister."
  
  The two stood in front of each other, hands clasped between them, for a long moment. I couldn't tell what either of them were thinking, but they still seemed to be communicating in some way.
  
  Abruptly, Pandora broke their apparent connection, turning to face the door. "Emma-Friend is upset."
  
  Sure enough, the door slammed open a second later, and Emma came rushing in. She was accompanied by Dinah. Both of them had obviously been running to get here.
  
  "Emma?" I looked that way and frowned. "Why didn't you just talk through your little car thing?"
  
  "Had... had to... talk in... in person..." She panted, bending over to clutch her knees as she gasped for breath. "Had to... show... show you..."
  
  Dinah reached out, taking what looked like a small phone from Emma before holding it up in front of me. For a moment, I just gazed at the screen, mouth falling open in horror. "It's... it's... oh god..."
  
  "What?" Amy was staring at us. "What is it?"
  
  "The news... it's about... it's about an Endbringer attacking Maine." I said slowly. "They need help."
  
  "Endbringer?" Victoria demanded, eyes wide at the thought of one of those beasts attacking the area her boyfriend was in. "Which one?" Her voice turned urgent. "Madison, which one is it, Simurgh or Behemoth?"
  
  Slowly, I lifted my gaze from the screen to shake my head, my voice dull. "Neither. It's something new. It's... another... Endbringer."
  
  16.05
  
  "Where were you guys?!" Chris demanded as Victoria, Amy, and I came sprinting into the teleport arrival and departure room at the PRT building after a brief pit stop to change into our costumes. He and the rest of the team were standing around waiting for us.
  
  Victoria and Amy both looked at me, and I hesitated. "Err, we were... out of contact for a few minutes. Sorry, we just had to do something else. What... ummm... what do we know so far?"
  
  Before anyone else could answer that, Battery approached from the other side of the room, where the Protectorate team was still getting situated. "Are you all right? We couldn't contact you for a few minutes, and with this..." I saw her swallow thickly. "... this new Endbringer... I was worried."
  
  "I'm fine. We're fine. We just had to do something." I assured Sam, stepping over to hug her briefly.
  
  She looked somewhat surprised by the gesture right out there in the open, but returned it after a second. "You had to do something with Glory Girl and Panacea?"
  
  "And Jess." I nodded and lowered my voice to a whisper. "Amy wanted to talk to Pandora." When Sam's eyes widened with surprise at that, I added, "It's okay. She just wanted to talk. It turned out... all right. No need to sound the alarm or anything."
  
  "Good." Sam visibly sighed. "There's enough bad happening already. We don't need that right now."
  
  I winced at the sound of the worry in her voice. "What do we know so far? The news wasn't exactly clear except for the fact that it's one we've never seen before. How do we know it's an Endbringer and not just a really powerful cape?"
  
  "We don't even know for sure that Endbringers aren't just really powerful capes." Sam pointed out. "We don't really know anything about where they come from. But this thing... it's definitely in their league. We haven't seen much footage yet, but what there is..."
  
  "What does it do?" I pressed. "What does it look like?"
  
  Before she could respond to that, Armsmaster called out, "Everyone, Wards and Protectorate, form up here! Let's get on the same page about what we know before our lift shows up."
  
  Both teams moved in, and I took a second to grab Marissa's hand. "Did Jess tell you what happened?"
  
  She nodded, squeezing my hand in return as she whispered, "Sounds like it went pretty well. Is Pandora coming to this? I... I really think we could use the help."
  
  "They said they have their own way there." I answered quietly. The recent revelation, that each Pandora we saw was their own individual person (at least to an extent), had made me wonder just how it affected them all when one body was killed. Did they just reform, or was that the end of that identity?
  
  "Listen up!" Armsmaster called for attention as soon as everyone had gathered. "Here's what we know. This is what we're dealing with." He pointed to the wall, and the lights dimmed briefly before an image showed up on the screen that made several people gasp.
  
  The slightly blurry picture showed what looked like the main street of a relatively small town, with a post office, gas station, court house, and bar all visible on either side. But in the middle of the picture, taking up most of the frame, a figure hovered just off the ground.
  
  From the buildings and cars around it, the thing looked like it was around twenty or twenty-five feet tall. Most of what could be seen was little more than what looked like a towering black cloak hovering several feet off the ground. The cloak billowed out to each side, casting shadows over the surrounding area. At the top of the cloak, a hood covered most the figure's head, though what little could still be seen resembled the narrow snout of a coyote or a jackal more than a human face.
  
  Much more disturbing were the dozens of figures on the ground, under the shadows of the cloak as though sheltered by it. Some were walking, others crawling, but all of them were very clearly...
  
  "Dead." Victoria spoke my own thoughts aloud. "Those... those people under the thing, they're... dead. Look at them, they're... rotting... the... bones... the... oh god." She sounded like she was about to be sick. I really couldn't blame her.
  
  "Yes." Armsmaster nodded at that. He was clearly making a deliberate attempt to sound professional and analytical. "We don't have a name for this thing yet, but... that's what it does. Anything that's dead, if its shadow passes over the body... even in their grave, it animates them. What you're seeing here is only the small group it keeps with it. The creature passed over a cemetery before the local team understood what its capabilities were. Now there are a few hundred of those things running around."
  
  "Zombies." Dennis spoke up from nearby, his voice dull. "This thing makes... fucking zombies."
  
  "Wards," Armsmaster looked to us. "You will stay away from this thing. We don't know the extent of its abilities yet, but it's too dangerous to have you run straight in. Your job is to evacuate civilians and deal with the..." He grimaced at the word. "... zombies that the creature sends out into the surrounding area. If we determine that one or any of your abilities would be useful against this thing, we'll call you in. For the time being, focus on clean-up duty so that the Protectorate can devote our attention to the monster itself."
  
  Rather than argue, Victoria nodded, eyes focused on the picture of the massive hooded figure. "Do we have any idea what it's trying to do or what it's focused on?"
  
  "You mean do we know why what looks like a brand new Endbringer focused on a few small towns in Maine?" Armsmaster translated. "No. We have no idea what this thing is doing, or why it showed up there. It doesn't appear to have a specific goal or destination other than passing over and animating as many dead bodies as it can, before sending them out to kill people and create even more bodies for it."
  
  "How tough is the thing?" Assault spoke up. "Does it have any... you know, direct attacks? How hard have we hit it so far?"
  
  "We don't know its capabilities other than the death animation," Armsmaster admitted. "As for how hard they've hit it... trust me, there's a reason they're calling it an Endbringer. Energy attacks just seem to be absorbed into that cloak without doing anything, and whenever anyone with an Alexandria package gets close enough to try to hit it, they describe feeling so cold and... frightened that they have to get away as fast as they can."
  
  "So some form of emotion manipulation." Penance folded her arms as she stood next to Reach and Aid.
  
  "Seems like it." Miss Militia nodded and then sighed. "But as Armsmaster said, we really don't know what the full extent is. That's why the Wards are going to join up with the local team and focus on clearing out the surrounding minions and evacuating any remaining civilians."
  
  "Panacea." The man looked to where Amy was standing somewhat behind Crystal and Victoria. "We have a spot to start you in where they've set up a temporary base camp to bring the injured. Genesis's human body is going to be there as well, and Ruin will be responsible for keeping the creatures off you. They're all still biological, so her power should keep you in the clear."
  
  After getting a nod of agreement from all three girls, Armsmaster looked down at his watch. "According to Dragon, we've got five minutes before our transport gets here. He had to make a stop off to get the Chicago team, and they're running late. So if anyone has anything else to say to each other before we go, now's the time."
  
  Marissa squeezed my hand and leaned down to whisper to me. "Hey, be careful, got it? No getting into too much trouble. I kind of like having you around."
  
  "That goes for you too." I turned a little to embrace her fully. "Be careful, Mars. You're the one that's getting closer to that... thing, whatever it is. They're gonna see if your sun can hurt it, but don't..." I swallowed back the fear. "Don't get hurt, please."
  
  Her hand came up to tenderly touch my face through the mask. "You know I'll be careful." Then Marissa gave me a little push. "Now talk to your guardians. They deserve your attention too."
  
  I did so, moving to where Ethan was. As I approached, the man turned a broad smile to me, clearly doing his best to lighten the somber mood. "Hey, guess we get first crack at a new Endbringer, huh? If it even is one of those fuckers. Think we'll bring it down?"
  
  "You'll kick its ass. I bet you-" I started to joke, before falling silent as my throat caught. I couldn't joke about it. Not right now. This... thing was a monster. If it was a new Endbringer, we didn't even know how to fight it. "I..." Shaking my head, I quickly embraced Ethan.
  
  He looked even more surprised by the hug than Sam had been, but I felt him return it a moment later. "What's this for?"
  
  "Be..." I tightened the hug as my throat caught again. "Be careful, Ethan. Please. My... the last... Endbringer... when Leviathan..."
  
  "Your parents." He breathed out and then hugged me even more. "Hey, it's gonna be okay. We'll make it out. We'll be fine. I don't dare get killed, Ewok. You know how tough Sammy is. She'll cross over to the afterlife and kick my ass if I did."
  
  Sobering after a moment, he used a hand to tilt my chin up. "It'll be okay. You're not gonna lose us, not like this. Trust me, all right?"
  
  "He's right." Sam had approached by then, standing next to her husband. "I would beat his ass blue and drag him back here if he let anything happen to himself. You just take care of your team."
  
  Swallowing, I nodded slowly. "Just please come back. I need you guys. You're..." I hesitated, glancing down briefly to gather myself. "When... when I lost my parents... I... I was completely... ruined, and I didn't think I could ever move on. I'm not over it, I don't think I ever will be, completely... but... I'm doing better than I thought I could, and that's mostly because of you guys. You're pretty much the best guardians I could have asked for. You... really care about me, and I needed that more than just someone taking me in because their boss told them to."
  
  Sam flinched a little before pulling me into a tight embrace. "We do care about you, Maddy. We'll all be careful, and we'll all come back, got it?"
  
  As I was nodding, Ethan spoke up. "That goes for you too, Hunter." I could see Ruin standing nearby, watching us. She looked surprised at the sound of her name, glancing at the man, who nodded. "Yeah, I'm talking to you. I know you're pretty much the ultimate zombie killer, but be careful. We like having you around too. Both of you take care of yourselves." He pointed at Hunter. "That means no taking unnecessary risks. You protect Panacea and Jess, but you also protect yourself."
  
  Hunter hesitated for a second, still looking a bit surprised at being singled out that way, before nodding. Her lips pressed tightly together as she looked away from us. I didn't know if she was embarrassed or confused, but either way, she looked uncertain.
  
  Giving Ethan and Sam a moment together, I stepped that way. "Hey, they're right. He's right. Be careful. Your power is pretty much perfect for killing the already dead things, but... that doesn't mean you're untouchable. I kinda like having you around too, and... I really don't want to lose anyone else. Please be careful?" When she nodded, I quickly embraced her. "Everyone's gotta make it out of this. I can't... lose anyone else I care about during an Endbringer attack. I just... I need you guys."
  
  Poor Hunter was still and stiff at first, but she finally gave me an awkward hug. Her head shook as she pointed to herself, then to me and then made a fist.
  
  I smiled a little bit, as much as I could. "I'll be careful too. I promise."
  
  Dennis found me next. "Keep everyone safe, all right?" He used a fist to push against my shoulder. "And say hi to Dean for me?"
  
  I gave him a quick hug as well. "You'll say it yourself as soon as the fight's over. We'll all meet up and talk over food. You can tell him and Carlos all about your argument with Armsmaster."
  
  He chuckled softly. "Guy still wants me to change my name. Says Clockblocker might've worked for a teen team, but now I'm an adult and I need to have a better name, a name that inspires hope, strength, and blah blah blah."
  
  "Weren't you planning on changing it anyway?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
  
  "Sure, but that was before he tried to tell me I had to." Dennis shook his head with a little smirk. "Now I kind of wanna to keep it forever just to spite him."
  
  Snorting at that, I gave him a shove. "Whatever you call yourself, just be careful. You're the one that has to get close enough to these things to touch them." I swallowed then, trying to downplay the fear I felt for everyone that I cared about. "Take care of yourself, Dennis."
  
  Manpower, standing by the door called out, "Uninitiated capes coming in! Everyone who still wears masks should put them back on."
  
  I glanced that way, while everyone who wasn't already wearing the face covering parts of their costumes did so. A moment later, a familiar woman in a welder-like mask stepped through the doorway.
  
  "Faultline." Armsmaster spoke up, while the rest of her crew filed in behind her. "I didn't really expect to see your group here."
  
  The mercenary woman just regarded him for a moment. "What is it the Protectorate says? Endbringers are a problem for the whole world. We're a part of that world too."
  
  Newter, standing behind his boss, added, "Besides, our current employer's paying good money for us to contribute here."
  
  Obviously shooting him a dirty look, Faultline belatedly nodded. "We're being paid to help, but we're still not taking unnecessary risks. We'll help you clear the streets and avoid civilian casualties, but most of my people aren't suited to direct combat against anything like an Endbringer. Especially a new one."
  
  I could see Labyrinth, the strange, quiet girl in the maze-decorated robe, standing next to Mr. Hebert, whose darkness filled one corner of the room as he glowered at everyone who wasn't part of their team. Her eyes looked up to find me watching her, and she lifted a hand as though waving. After a second, I hesitantly returned the wave, and the girl looked away again, returning her attention to the nearby wall as though something fascinating was written there.
  
  Miss Militia's eyebrow lifted. "Who would this conscientious employer that's sending you out to help against an Endbringer be?"
  
  "Sorry," Faultline clearly wasn't. "That's private information. We don't spoil our employer's identities. Do you want the help or not?"
  
  Armsmaster nodded. "We need it. But I thought you had your own teleporter." He nodded toward Mr. Hebert.
  
  It was Gregor, standing beside the girl with the black clover symbol against the green tee shirt, who answered. "Unfortunately, our friend Murk here can only go about thirty miles in a single jump. He can do several jumps in a row, but we're afraid that going all that way will exhaust him too quickly. It would be much more useful for everyone involved if his abilities were put to use after we were already on site, to evacuate civilians to a safe location."
  
  Armsmaster nodded at that. "You'll work with Panacea then, Murk. Bring people to her that need help, evacuate their group if the danger comes too close to them."
  
  On the far side of the room, the man in a blue and black uniform that I recognized as Strider appeared, looking toward us.
  
  "We're heading out!" Armsmaster called. "Everyone find your teams, line up, and get ready to move the second we drop in."
  
  I moved to join my team, nodding toward Reach. "Looking good." Cassie was wearing her new costume, having finally agreed to move away from what she had worn as Rune. She had apparently preferred the infiltration suit, since this design avoided the robe motif entirely. The outfit consisted of dark green pants with black runic designs running up the side of either leg, a black utility belt with pouches on either side that held more of the same little metal balls that I used, a black form-fitting turtleneck that had those same runic symbols running up her sides, this time in dark green as a complete flip from her lower half, and attached green gloves with black lines. Her boots were pitch black as well, while her black mask covered her head entirely save for the green visor that shielded her eyes, similar to the one that Vista wore.
  
  She gave me a thumbs up. "Glad you decided to join us."
  
  "As if I'd let you do this without me." I scoffed a little before looking toward Victoria. "Guess we're on search and rescue duty, huh?"
  
  "Yup." The blonde girl hesitated a little. "Listen, guys... I'm not used to leading anything. I'm not used to being in charge. Usually it's the people in charge that are stopping me from doing something stupid. But... I'm gonna do the best I can. I'm gonna..." She glanced to me. "... try to see solutions other than 'punch it in the face.'"
  
  I smiled faintly at that. "You'll do fine, Vicky. Just... take the time to think things through."
  
  She nodded once at that, letting out a clearly nervous breath. "Be careful, guys. Everyone just... be careful."
  
  The voice of Strider called out, "Heading in three... two... one..."
  
  And then we were gone.
  
  Interlude 16 - Flechette
  
  Earlier that day
  
  "Liiiily! Lily, Lily, Lily, Lily!"
  
  The chanting came so fast that the Japanese-American girl whose name was being called could hardly get a word in edgewise, sitting up in her bed just as the eleven-year old girl doing the chanting flung herself bodily onto the bed next to her.
  
  "Whoa, whoa! I'm up, I'm up." Lily laughed, scooting back in the bed to make room for the younger girl. "What's going on, Mika?"
  
  "Your name's fun to say." Mika, her dark hair and pale brown skin a testament to her Native American heritage, lay where she had thrown herself and gazed with wide, expressive eyes up at the girl she had just woken up. "Lily! Liiiiiiiillly! Luh Lil. Lil Luh. Leeeeeeeemmphh."
  
  Using a hand to cover the excitable little girl's mouth, Lily prompted. "Did you need to wake me up for a reason? Other than how fun my name is to say." She tried, yet failed, to contain her smile. It was impossible to be upset with the energetic eleven-year old, even if she had been having a nice dream.
  
  Mika, for her part, nodded before reaching up with both hands to tug Lily's down off of her mouth. "There's a mission! A real life mission. An' guess what." At the last, the girl dropped her voice conspiratorially.
  
  Lily took the bait, smiling in spite of herself as she leaned closer. "What?"
  
  "I get to go!" Mika couldn't contain herself anymore, practically exploding with joy at the thought. "I get to go on the mission! As long as I stay with you and Weld and the others."
  
  Lily, known to the general public as Flechette, couldn't completely stop the pang of fear she felt at the thought of this innocent, joyful little girl seeing the kind of danger that she had. To Mika, playing capes was just that: playing. She was still innocent, and Lily desperately wanted to make sure she stayed that way. Still, if her parents, who had taken Lily into their home and cared for her after the Wards system moved her to Maine, were willing to let her go, it couldn't be that dangerous of a mission. "That's great, Mika. How about you let me get dressed so we can go find out about this mission? Is it a 'go right now' mission, or a 'go after breakfast' mission?"
  
  The answer came from the doorway, as Mika's mother poked her head in. "It's a one little girl needs to learn what 'when Lily wakes up, you can tell her' means type of mission. Come here, Mika. Leave the poor girl alone long enough to collect herself." The woman focused on Lily then, smiling in spite of the gentle rebuke of her daughter. "Take your time. You can shower and then have breakfast. It's just some strange reports from some hikers nearby about animals attacking them." She shook her head. "Shouldn't be too bad, and Mika really wants to start helping."
  
  "Ya know, I am sitting right here." The little girl huffed a bit. "You don't hafeta start talking about me like I can't hear you."
  
  "You know what? You're right." Lily shifted her weight a little. "You are sitting right here. You know what that means?"
  
  "Uh oh."
  
  Mika started to scramble off the bed, but Lily didn't let her. She grabbed the girl and hauled her back, attacking her sides with her fingers. "It means you've fallen into my tickle trap! Muahaha! The great heroine Sparrow is mine! Mine! Muaaahahahaha!"
  
  Squealing and kicking her legs out, Mika struggled to both escape and, failing that, breathe. "Heeeeeeeeeyyy! Heeeeeeey! You don't aahhhh! You don't have meeeee! I'll never give in!"
  
  "Oh you won't, huh?" Lily made a growling noise and renewed her efforts, tickling the younger girl without relenting for several moments. When she finally stopped, Mika finally lay, gasping for breath from the exertion. "Now do you surrender?"
  
  Mika lay on the bed, panting and red faced from her laughter. It took her a few seconds to get enough breath to respond. "Never." She punctuated this by sticking her tongue out and blowing a raspberry at the older girl, before quickly rolling off the bed. The two silver bracelets that the girl wore lit up with a bright pink light as a soft humming noise started, and she floated up to the ceiling before hovering there triumphantly. "Sparrow escapes!"
  
  "Curse you, Sparrow!" Lily shook her fist dramatically at the hovering girl. "I'll get you next time!"
  
  Shaking her head with amusement, Mika's mother turned to start back out of the room. "All super heroes and megalomaniacal villains report for breakfast in fifteen minutes."
  
  Smiling as she cast the covers fully off of herself, Lily rolled out of bed and began to head for the shower to get ready.
  
  Good, a nice, simple mission for Mika to participate in. Animals attacking hikers. They could handle that.
  
  " We can't handle this!" The boy known as Chronicler called out to Flechette and the rest of the team as he backpedaled away from a pair of coyotes, flesh already rotting off of their broken bodies. Somehow, the clearly dead animals continued to stalk forward.
  
  Their team leader, Weld, shook his head while reaching out a metal hand to bat a rotting bird out of the air as it dove for him. More undead animals littered the ground around the boy, a testament to their seemingly mindless attacks. "We have to. If these things reach a civilian population..."
  
  Lily grimaced at that thought and took a step toward the coyotes stalking toward Chronicler. The ammunition for her heavy arbalest, a needle as long as her arm, was already empowered. She hefted the weapon and waited, the calculations for the speed of the two animals versus the speed of her bolt running automatically in the back of her head so that she knew exactly when to shoot.
  
  The moment came, her secondary power practically shouting in her head that now was the time. Flechette released her shot, sending the massive bolt launching forward to sever first one, then both animals' heads at the neck.
  
  It didn't stop them. The pair kept coming forward, sans heads. Something else was animating them other than their own minds.
  
  A swirl of energy that Lily recognized as Chronicler's power swept around her briefly, before solidifying into a semi-solid image of herself, firing the arbalest again. The new shot didn't benefit from her sense of timing, only able to spear one of the animals through the gut, cutting the thing in half.
  
  The other headless animal chose that moment to lunge forward, just as a lithe figure swept into view, already spinning up and around into a full-on airborne round-house kick that tore the leaping coyote in two, sending both halves spinning away.
  
  Sending another shot from her arbalest into the front half of the first coyote, which had still been trying to crawl forward, Lily breathed out. "Thanks for the help, Grace."
  
  Chronicler's head was bobbing rapidly as he tried to catch his breath. "Yeah, what she said."
  
  Straightening from where she had landed, the martial artist heroine nodded. "That's what teams are for." Grace's power greatly enhanced her already skilled fighting ability by lending her superhuman perception of time, agility, and the ability to temporarily imbue parts of her body with invulnerability and greater damage upon striking.
  
  "Incoming!" Gallant, on the other side of the clearing that the group was fighting in, leapt out of the way while calling out a warning. Lily looked up that way, eyes widening at the sight of the bear that came charging into view, half of its face rotted off and one of its limbs missing. Neither seemed to slow the thing all that much, though it did veer off course slightly.
  
  Before the rotting bear could reach any of them, the much smaller figure of Sparrow flew down out of the sky, her wristbands glowing with that pink light while she clutched what looked like a simple wooden walking stick in one hand. The eleven-year old girl landed in a crouch in front of the charging bear, prompting Lily to cry out a warning. "Mika!"
  
  The wooden stick in the girl's hand began to glow similar to her bracelets, while she thrust it up toward the bear. As she did, a bright pink forcefield appeared that caught the bear and stopped it short, leaving the thing to snarl and bite at the energy shield.
  
  Mika, face hidden behind a black mask with a glowing pink smiley face on the front that matched the rest of her costume's motif (black base with glowing pink designs), whimpered a little while refusing to look at the snarling, undead animal. "Please stop it, please stop it, please stop it..." She pled, and Lily had no idea if she was begging the poor, clearly puppeted creature to stop, or asking for one of her older teammates to make it stop.
  
  Either way, Gallant picked himself up and moved around the forcefield. His emotion blasts were useless, but the boy had had his armor upgraded. Extending an arm, he began to spray a stream of quick-hardening foam from a semi-hidden barrel just over his wrist. He couldn't carry nearly as much as a PRT officer will a full tank mounted on his back, but there was enough foam to trap the bear before it ran dry and the boy shook his head. "I'm out!"
  
  Flechette had reached Sparrow's side by that point, putting a hand on her arm. "Mika, are you all right?"
  
  As she was touched, the younger girl jumped. She turned her attention that way, whimpering a little. "L-Lily, I... I can't use my forcefield again. It's too soon."
  
  Lily flinched a little at the fear in the girl's voice. In spite of her tender age, Mika Kanse was already being seen as destined for Protectorate greatness, considering her ability to imbue items with various superpowers from what seemed to be an ever-growing list. But there were drawbacks. She could only 'hold' up to five imbued items at a time before needing to depower one item to imbue another. Granting an item a power also took a great deal of time, at least a week at the moment. Which meant that releasing one power dropped the girl to four imbued items for a week while she granted a new power to another item. And beyond all of that, whenever she did use the power from an item that she had imbued, there was a period of recharge time before she could use it again. The time seemed to lessen the more she kept that imbued item around, to the point that the girl could use her beloved flight bracelets with only about thirty seconds of recharge time in between uses, but for something relatively new like the forcefield staff, that time was still almost ten minutes.
  
  Flechette had absolutely no doubt that the Native American girl was going to be incredibly powerful as she grew more accustomed to her versatile power, but right now she was still a child, a fact that many of the older PRT people seemed to forget.
  
  "Sparrow, listen." She said quietly, trying to calm the girl. "You need to go. You need to get out of here."
  
  "No!" Mika's head shook stubbornly, the glowing pink smiley face at odds with the combination of fear and weary determination. "I'm part of the team! I'm not leaving."
  
  Lily tried a different tact. "You need to get help, Mika. You can fly, you can get to the Protectorate and bring them back faster."
  
  "No use!" Weld called out from where he was struggling with the rotting corpse of a deer. "The message just came through. They're occupied with something worse."
  
  Grace deftly avoided a pair of leaping squirrels, performing a sort of flipping spin-kick in mid-dodge that turned one into a spray of guts and blood. The second squirrel tried to jump back at her, but Chronicler's energy solidified into a copy of Grace, destroying that creature as well.
  
  "What's worse than this?" Grace demanded, catching herself on the bloody ground before scanning for new threats.
  
  "This thing, whatever's causing this..." Weld hesitated, glancing toward their youngest member before continuing reluctantly. "They're fighting it. But it's big. It's a huge... black shaped... thing that's just going everywhere. They're trying to stop it, but apparently this thing is strong. It's like a..."
  
  Lily felt a plunging sensation in her stomach as she clasped Mika closer reflexively. "Like an Endbringer?" Could it be? Could yet another of the abominations have appeared, a fourth horror unleashed upon the world? How long could this go on?
  
  "We have to finish up here." Weld announced, shaking his head. "Then go help them. They're already bringing in others, but..."
  
  "But this is our home now." Chronicler finished. "We've gotta be there to take care of it. Ain't like-"
  
  In mid-sentence, a tawny figure leapt from the bushes. Lily cried out a warning, just as the animated lynx corpse took the boy full in the face, knocking him over backwards with a snarl, ripping and tearing wildly.
  
  Beside her, Mika was screaming, while Gallant and Weld threw themselves that way. The boys tore the body of the lynx off of their teammate, while Lily spun around, forcing Mika to look anywhere else, anywhere but at the spot on the ground where Chronicler had fallen. There was blood, so much blood. Lily heard crying, only realizing belatedly that it was coming from herself as well as the younger girl.
  
  "No, no, no..." Mika whimpered, head shaking as she shook violently in Lily's grasp, her desperation palpable, the blind courage of innocence breaking before the older girl's eyes. "He's okay... he's okay... he's okay. He's all right, right? Right, Lily? Please... please say he's all right. Please, please..."
  
  "Mika..." Chronicler's voice, sounding so deep and gravelly that it was almost unrecognizable, called out.
  
  The little girl freed herself from Flechette's grasp, spinning around to face the boy eagerly. "Ben, you're okay!"
  
  No. Lily realized the second that she turned around. Ben was definitely not okay. Portions of his throat had been torn out, his costume ripped through like so much paper. The lynx had... had killed him. Their teammate was dead, yet standing. He was animated just like the animals they had been fighting.
  
  "B... Ben?" Mika's formerly innocent, cheerful voice was broken by horror at the sight. "Y-you... You're..."
  
  "Mika..." Ben continued, shaking his head slowly while the rest of the team stood in frozen terror at what they were seeing. "This... this is your fault." He raised his hand to indicate the ruin of his throat. "Your fault. We were all fine before you had to get powers. You had to be the special one. Can't make poor little Mika move to a new city, gotta make a whole new Wards team juuuust for her. Mika's soooo special, soooo perfect. Mommy and Daddy couldn't let you go, so we had to come play pretend superhero just to keep you happy. You like it now? You think it's fun now? Who's gonna die next just because you were too special to go somewhere else, huh? Grace, Flechette? Who are you gonna get killed next, you selfish little brat?"
  
  "Stop it!" Lily shouted, while Sparrow could do nothing but stand there, shoulders shaking as the little girl sobbed beneath the weight of the accusations that the dead boy was flinging at her. He ignored the call and stalked forward, clearly trying to grab the frozen child.
  
  Weld snapped out of his shock in time to attempt to stop their deceased teammate before he could reach Mika. The metal-skinned boy lashed out with an arm that had been reshaped into a blade, which cut the rest of the way through Chronicler's neck.
  
  The boy's head fell, but his body kept rushing forward. Weld shouted, "Flechette, shoot!"
  
  Bringing her arbalest up belatedly, Lily put herself between Sparrow and the headless corpse. Her shot took the mobile body in the chest, flinging it backwards.
  
  Even then, the familiar swirling energy that was Chronicler's power formed up into a copy of Weld lashing out with his arm-blade right in front of the two girls. It might have cut into Lily, if Gallant hadn't thrown himself in the way, using his metal armor as a shield to block the attack. "Destroy the body!" He grunted while the energy swirled around him, turning into a copy of Gallant that threw itself bodily into Lily from the other side, knocking her to the ground with a cry.
  
  Still shaking from her tears, Mika nonetheless grabbed what looked like a little blue ball from the pouch on her belt. "G-g-get away!" She managed to cry out while the ball began to glow with her pink energy, prompting Gallant to fling himself out of the way just as she threw the ball at the headless body.
  
  The ball, glowing brightly as it flew through the air, hit Ben's body and instantly froze it solid. Still, the image-copies of themselves kept forming.
  
  "Grace," Weld avoided an attack from a copy of Flechette. "Break it!"
  
  Before yet another copy of one of their attacks could be summoned, Grace leapt at the body, empowering her fist so that as she struck, the ice statue shattered.
  
  The image-clones vanished instantly, and for a long moment, there was no sound, save for the quiet, heart-broken whimpering of one little girl who had slumped to her knees and taken her smiley-face mask off to stare at the remains of her former teammate.
  
  "I'm sorry." Her voice, the optimism and fearlessness ripped away, leaving little save for the raw, broken anguish, whispered through the eerie silence that had overtaken the area around them. "I'm... really... sorry."
  
  Heart splitting at the sight, Lily took a step and fell to her own knees beside the girl to gather her into her arms. "No, Mika." She whispered. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault."
  
  It didn't seem to help. The little girl didn't respond to the hug. She did nothing but remain limp and motionless, shoulders shaking from her hopeless tears of traumatic grief.
  
  They had to move. They had to get out of here while they could, had to regroup and organize. Mostly, they had to get Mika away from there and back where she belonged, with her parents. But right then, for that moment, Lily couldn't bring herself to do anything more than sit on the ground, clutching the sobbing, broken remains of what had so recently been a bundle of boundless joy and youthful courage, while her own tears fell just as freely.
  
  It wasn't supposed to be like this.
  
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  Arc 17: Ordeal
  17.01
  
  We landed in what appeared to be the back storeroom of a grocery store. By the time I oriented myself and recovered from the jump, Armsmaster was already moving and giving orders. He acted like the teleportation had affected him about as much as stepping through a doorway. He and Miss Militia were moving around, taking boxes of the Endbringer fight armbands and passing them out to everyone.
  
  "Panacea, you and Ruin will be setting up right here, as long as this spot stays relatively safe. If the Endbringer heads this way, we'll move you. Genesis, you can use that back corner there."
  
  "Protectorate, you know your assignments already. The Chicago, New York, and Maine teams are out there, and we've got more coming in as soon as Strider can get to them. Right now, we're the reinforcements, so go reinforce."
  
  "Faultline's people, any search and rescue you can do would be appreciated. Get them back here to be healed, and then see how many Murk can teleport the hell out of this whole area. Murk, take your time and don't get too exhausted. Wait for a full load of as many as you can safely jump with, take them as far as you can, then get back here and rest so you can take another load. You're the best chance we have at evacuating all the people we can without taking away from our ability to bring reinforcements in ."
  
  He focused on us then. "Wards, your Maine counterparts need help extracting from their position. They were up in the woods and got cut off. We already lost one of them. Get out there and bring them back."
  
  My heart leapt into my throat, eyes widening at the news that one of the Wards had been lost. Before I could voice my fear, Glory Girl beat me to it. "Wh-who...?"
  
  It was Miss Militia who answered her, eyes softening a little from the look of grim determination she'd had. "It's not Gallant. It was Chronicler."
  
  That didn't really help. Yes, I was glad that Dean wasn't gone, but I couldn't feel relief about someone else's death. I didn't want anyone to die.
  
  "And people..." Armsmaster hesitated before straightening as he went on. "If you see anyone, and I mean anyone, die... destroy the body as thoroughly as you can."
  
  Somewhere behind me, Theo blurted, "What?" Afterward, he looked as shocked about his own outburst as he was by the order to destroy people's remains.
  
  "If they're killed by the Endbringer or its minions, they will turn almost immediately, and they will attack you." The Protectorate leader announced. "It's already happened more than once. There is no bringing them back. Believe me, you will not help them by trying to reason with them. They are not that person anymore. They're being controlled by the Endbringer. Ask yourself if you'd want to be used as that thing's puppet just to walk around hurting and killing innocents, or your teammates. If not, then don't subject them to it either. Take out the body and keep going."
  
  "One more thing," Miss Militia interjected. "The... zombies that this thing makes, if they're parahumans, they can use their powers. Be careful out there."
  
  Cringing, I put the armband on and gave it my name. This already sounded worse than the Leviathan fight. How could we fight something that seemed untouchable, and just kept generating more and more undead minions that were, to it, disposable? And parahuman zombies could use their powers?
  
  Armsmaster's orders interrupted my worrying. "Wards, head out. Your armbands will direct you to your counterparts' location. Get them clear and regroup, then focus on clearing out this thing's minions."
  
  "Anubis." A voice at the door announced. I looked up to see a hero that took me only a second to recognize as Cache, one of the New York Protectorate. He grimaced while looking to Armsmaster. "We're calling it Anubis."
  
  "Anubis then." Armsmaster looked back to us. "Get the other Wards to safety, then follow your armbands directions for where the biggest pockets of Anubis's minions are. Any questions?" When none of us had any (or at least, none that we thought he could answer), he nodded. "Good. Go on then, and be careful."
  
  Following Victoria out of the building and into the parking lot, I took a moment to glance around. There were scattered groups of civilians spread around the lot, being herded into various areas by a few other capes that seemed to be sorting them according to injuries and how urgently they needed to be withdrawn from the area. Panacea, sadly, wouldn't be able to focus on healing many civilians. Except for the most critically injured that she could help, her focus would be on capes that needed to get back to the fight. It had to be.
  
  The town we were in obviously wasn't that large. I would've been surprised if the population was greater than fifteen or twenty thousand. Probably less than that.
  
  Most of the people who weren't obviously hurt were staring off at something in the distance. I looked that way as well, and swallowed at the sight of the dark figure that could barely be seen. From this distance, it almost looked like a black cloud in a vaguely humanoid shape, hovering above a collection of houses as though passing judgment on the inhabitants. Smaller figures darted around the black-cloaked form, some throwing out various colored attacks at the thing. None seemed to even catch its attention. It just hovered there, ignoring every attempt to hurt it.
  
  "Anubis." Missy said from next to me, her voice soft. "He's... he's really there. Another Endbringer."
  
  I lifted a hand, laying it on my teammate's shoulder. "They'll stop him. They'll drive him off."
  
  "Then what?" Chris asked from the other side of me. "They bring out another Endbringer when we figure out how to fight this one? How many more are there? Where the hell are they coming from?"
  
  I swallowed at that, shaking my head. "I don't know. But it's this one we have to deal with now. One fight at a time. One mission."
  
  "She's right." Victoria nodded. "And right now, our mission is to save the other Wards." Then she paused, nose wrinkling. "Does anyone else smell that?"
  
  I'd noticed it as soon as we emerged into the open air. There was a faint scent that permeated the air.
  
  "Tar." Theo put in. "It smells like burning tar and... oranges."
  
  Shaking that off, Victoria tapped her armband. "Directions to the Maine Wards' location." As soon as the voice began to list directions, she pointed. "We'll worry about the smell later. Let's go get them."
  
  It only took ten minutes to locate the other team, given the way we were traveling. As far as we could tell from the updates through the armbands, Anubis wasn't doing anything to openly fight the capes who were trying to stop him. He was just... ignoring them as if they didn't exist. Some of his undead minions were fighting, but the impression was more of an angry dog snapping at a passerby while his negligent owner ignored them both than any real attack.
  
  Basically, this Endbringer seemed completely focused on floating around, raising the dead and then leaving them to commit their own random acts of violence and terror, while shrugging off every attempt to hurt or stop him.
  
  The lack of much in the way of tall buildings, coupled with my own unfamiliarity with the area would have slowed my own movements too much for us to get to where the other Wards were in time. Which meant that I was riding alongside Reach, Vista, and Aid atop a large chunk of cement that Cassie had torn out of the ground to use as a mobile platform. Glory Girl and Kid Win were flying on their own.
  
  "There they are." Victoria pointed down to where the other small group was clearly being pushed back. Our counterparts had made it out of the forest and away from most of the reanimated animal bodies. Unfortunately, they had apparently run almost headlong into at least a hundred of the human minions. Even given their powers, they had to retreat against the sheer weight of numbers.
  
  Unlike most zombie movies I had seen, these minions didn't really seem to move slowly. They were just as mobile as normal people, unfortunately. The other Wards were doing a decent job of backing away from them while staying together, but the side-street they were in was going to run out really soon, and there wasn't much room for them to maneuver.
  
  "How do we get 'em out without getting bogged down ourselves?" Chris asked from where he was using his flightpack to hover just beside the makeshift platform.
  
  Our newest team leader hesitated for a second. I could tell that her first instinct was to charge straight down there and start hitting things. Instead, she hovered and watched for a second to take in the situation before speaking again. "Okay. Aid, use your drone things as distractions to grab as many of the zombies' attention as you can to create at least a little bit of space for Vista to work with. Vista, as soon as he's got as much of their attention as possible, you spread out the distance between the largest group and where the other Wards are so they can't reach them before we pull this off. Kid Win and I will hit the ones that aren't caught by that and are still close to the other Wards. Reach, move your platform close enough for Tether to yank the others up to it. Vista, as soon as they're up on the platform, condense the space from there to the roof of that hardware store over that way. We'll regroup there and make sure everyone's all right."
  
  Once she finished talking, Victoria glanced quickly, yet still somewhat subtlety toward me, and I gave her a slight nod of approval for taking the time to think that out. "Will do, Captain." Adding a thumbs up, I looked to Reach and Vista to make sure they were good to go.
  
  "Works for me." Cassie cracked her neck to either side, making the platform drift sideways to get into position. "Ready when you are, Princess."
  
  Victoria scowled slightly at the name, but smoothed her expression and took a breath. "Aid, get ready to launch your drones. The second they hit the main group, we'll go."
  
  Even though his expression was hidden behind the samurai-like helmet he wore, I could hear the nervousness in Theo's voice as he gave a short nod before bringing up his shield. "La-" His voice cracked slightly. "Launching." His fingers pressed a series of buttons on touch screen that was hidden on the inside of the shield, tapping out instructions quickly. As he did, all of the octagon imprints in his armor lit up at once, the small drones popping off together into a swarm that proceeded to fly straight down to start harassing the zombies.
  
  The second the main group slowed their advance to swat back at the flying metal pests, Victoria inverted herself in the air and began to dive that way. "Go!"
  
  We needed no further encouragement. Reach sent the platform diving down and forward, barely keeping it level enough that we didn't go flying off as we all crouched there, bracing ourselves. I had already attached lines between us and the platform to keep us steady and safe, and the subsequent breaker powers that were supposed to stop myself or others from suffering whiplash also helped to mitigate what should have been debilitating nausea from the sudden drop.
  
  Beside me, as we fell, Vista was pointing at the small area of space that had formed from the bulk of the zombies slowing their approach to deal with Theo's drones. Somehow, the younger girl was managing to maintain her focus on her powers, even as the platform we were riding on dove in what seemed like a collision course with the ground. Most people would have been slightly distracted by that. Vista, on the other hand, just adjusted her stance slightly for better balance with the help of my tether-lines, and maintained her focus. She was balancing and focusing her power onto a single, specific spot even as we fell, stretching the space out along the line of undead without losing focus. It was the parahuman equivalent of rubbing her stomach and patting her head at the same time. While falling through the air at thirty miles an hour, essentially standing on top of a glorified chunk of rubble.
  
  And it didn't even seem to be that difficult for her.
  
  Reach stopped the platform fifteen feet above the Wards' heads and a little behind them. "Tether's up!"
  
  I leaned forward to look down at the group just as a pair of laser cannon blasts shot down from Kid Win's combination flight/weapons pack. The lasers tore through what looked like a heavy-set fisherman that had been reaching for a girl whose back had been to him. It was the girl in the purple-and-white costume with the crossbow that I recognized from the Leviathan fight.
  
  I focused on her first, attaching a line between the back of her costume and my own outstretched gauntlet. She was yanked up, clearly startled. That huge crossbow of hers started to jerk toward me, just as I caught her arm and hauled her onto our platform. "It's okay! You're good, we're getting you all out of here."
  
  "The others, get the others." She pleaded, her hand gripping my arm. "Please, get them all."
  
  "Already on it." I assured her, leaning over to keep attaching lines down to the remaining four people. I grabbed them all by their costumes, except the boy with the metal skin. Him my lines could actually connect directly to. As soon as they were all up, I leaned back. "Vista, we're good."
  
  She nodded and turned her focus to the hardware store that Glory Girl had pointed out. The space toward it shrank almost instantly, and Reach sent the platform flying through it before coming down onto the roof to let everyone off.
  
  As soon as they were off the platform, the girl with the crossbow-Flechette, I remembered belatedly, turned to the smallest member of their group, a girl in a black and pink costume, who looked like she was even younger than Vista. "Sparrow," she started to say.
  
  The young girl just shook her head and walked away a few feet before sitting down cross-legged, seeming to stare at nothing but the edge of the roof.
  
  I winced a little, thinking of what a little girl that age might have seen that could affect her that much. "Is she..."
  
  "Okay?" Flechette finished before shaking her head. "No. None of us are. That... that thing... it brought our teammate back. It made him..." She turned away without finishing the sentence, moving to sit next to Sparrow before whispering what sounded like reassurance and encouragement to her.
  
  "Poor kid." Gallant spoke from beside me, his voice pained. He looked to me then. "I'd like to say it's good to see you again, but..."
  
  "Wish it was under better circumstances." I agreed, before looking back to where the youngest Ward was. "What happened out there?"
  
  Dean hesitated, moving to stand on the edge of the roof away from the pair before beckoning me. Then he spoke quietly. "Chronicler's... body, when it was reanimated or whatever, he... talked. He blamed her for us being out here, for him dying. He just... hurt her on a whole different level. Not physically..."
  
  I cringed then, glancing back at the poor little girl before asking, "What about you? How are you doing?"
  
  His head shook. "The people around here, the fear... it's... I don't know how much longer I can keep this up. I'm going to be a liability if I don't focus." He snorted then. "Not that emotion blasts do much against these things."
  
  Victoria reached us then, landing on the roof nearby before quickly hugging Dean tightly. "You're okay." She breathed out, obviously relieved. "You're all right."
  
  While they were reuniting, I glanced toward the remaining two Maine Wards, the metal boy and a girl in some kind of martial artist get-up with gloves that had some kind of metal framework over the knuckles. "Are you guys all right?"
  
  The two of them glanced to one another, before the boy stepped forward. "Weld. This is Grace. We're... surviving." Even that phrasing made him wince, while the girl openly flinched. "We need to get Sparrow out of here, and then find out where we can help."
  
  "No."
  
  The voice came from the other side of the roof, and I turned to find that little girl in the black and pink costume standing up, wooden walking stick clutched in one hand as she faced Weld. "I'm not a baby, and I'm not leaving."
  
  Straightening beside her, Flechette tried, "Sparrow, listen-"
  
  "I'm not leaving." The girl insisted stubbornly. "You try to put me somewhere and I'll just come back. People need help. I'm part of the team. You can... you can either let me help them with you, or I'll help them by myself."
  
  Vista silently stepped over to where the other young girl was, looked at her for a moment, then folded her arms and looked back at us without speaking. It was clear whose side she was on.
  
  We were interrupted by a heavy thump at the other side of the roof that made everyone jump. Jerking that way with wide eyes, I saw a massive beast haul itself up and over the side of the building. Only belatedly, after seeing the passengers, did I realize what it was. "Wait!" I called to Flechette, who had been lifting her crossbow. "They're on our side. I think."
  
  "You think?" Tattletale slipped down off of the giant mutated dog and gazed at us, while Hellhound stayed on the back of her animal. "Aww, and here I thought after we shared lunch, we were all friends."
  
  " 'Shared lunch?' " Victoria echoed, frowning a little at me.
  
  I shook my head, muttering, "Talk about it later." Then I looked back to Tattletale. "How'd you get here?"
  
  "We have our ways," the blonde replied dismissively. "Our travel capabilities aren't important. The point is, we heard the argument you were just having and thought we'd let you know there's no place for the kid to go anyway. They're not letting anyone leave"
  
  "What?" Victoria demanded, head shaking. "What the hell do you mean, they're not letting anyone leave? They're already teleporting people out."
  
  "They were," Tattletale amended. "Until they found out what's going on. Or rather, until we told them what's going on, because the odds of them figuring it out without-"
  
  "Oh would you just spit it out?" Reach and Glory girl both shot back at nearly the same time. It was probably the very first time both girls were in complete agreement, and they both looked equally surprised by that fact.
  
  Holding up both hands to placate them, Tattletale nodded. "Fine. You know that smell that's all over the place?"
  
  "The tar and oranges smell?" I asked, with a glance toward Theo. "What about it?"
  
  "Think of the stuff giving off that smell as something like radiation." The Undersider explained. "Turns out, that evil son of a bitch out there gives it off everywhere he goes. It spreads out, infesting the whole area. If someone dies within the area it's infested, boom, instant-zombie."
  
  Grace jolted a little. "Wait, do we know how long this stuff last once it infests?"
  
  For once, the blonde Undersider wasn't smiling. Her face was grim. "The bad part is that this stuff takes time to fade out of any place that big Grim Reaper fuck's been floating through. A long time, as far as I can work out."
  
  "How long?" I asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer.
  
  "My best guess? Three months." Tattletale answered with a sigh. "Once that stuff infests you, it takes three months for it to wear off. And that's once you leave the area of direct effect, the area that guy's been floating around in." She jerked a finger toward the distant figure. "That's my best educated guess. Once you leave this area, it takes three months to clear out of your system once you're out of the affected area."
  
  "What about the area itself?" Flechette asked, sounding just as hesitant as I had been. "How long does it take the area that... thing's been in to be safe again?"
  
  There was no answer at first. For once, Tattletale looked like she didn't want to know the answer to a question.
  
  "Tattletale," I pressed. "How long does it take for the area to be safe again?"
  
  She sighed, eyes closing behind her mask. "Never." Taking in a breath and then letting it out, she opened her eyes and looked right at me. "As far as I can tell, what my power's telling me is that it doesn't ever wear off."
  
  "This place, this town and everywhere around it, if anyone dies here, they'll turn into another zombie. Permanently."
  
  17.02
  
  " Faultline incapacitated, BA3. Truesight deceased, BA3. Diamond Eagle incapacitated, BA3."
  
  The resulting long silence that followed Tattletale's words had finally been interrupted, not by any of us, but by our armbands. I flinched, staring off into the distance where the BA sector was. It was too far away for my warning lines to have picked anything up, but I still felt guilty.
  
  This was a very different Endbringer fight than Leviathan had been. The injury and fatality reports were coming much more slowly, considering that Anubis himself wasn't really fighting, and it took a lot for even a crazed mob of human zombies to overwhelm one of the Protectorate capes.
  
  Still, they were an inexorable tide, a gradual force rather than the rapid strikes that Leviathan made. And the longer this fight went on, the more capes would fall, which would only strengthen the other side. Even now, three capes, including Faultline, had been incapacitated or killed in the span of several seconds. Which meant that Truesight, whoever that was, was an enemy now. Would one of their teammates, one of their friends, have to put them down?
  
  It was Victoria who finally shook herself almost violently and looked back at Tattletale while announcing, "No. No way. You're wrong. This place can't be like this forever."
  
  "Wish I was." The other girl shrugged. "Believe me, I usually love being right. It's kind of my thing. But on this, I would kill to be wrong, just this once."
  
  "You've been wrong before." I pointed out. "Sundancer and Genesis have both seen you be wrong and miss things. Your power isn't perfect."
  
  "Details." Tattletale agreed. "I've missed details. Sure, I might be off by a month longer or shorter for the detox time or something. Maybe there's something like that. But I'm telling you, there's a ninety... six percent certainty that the infection zone that son of a bitch makes is permanent. You want me to be wrong? So do I. But don't just dismiss it because you don't like it. I don't fucking like it either."
  
  It was Weld who finally spoke up after the rest of us just stared back and forth at each other helplessly. "What if they kill the Endbringer? Would that fix the contamination?"
  
  Reach snorted, shaking her head while her voice radiated sarcasm. "Wait, we're supposed to try to kill the damn things? Wow, it seems so obvious now. We've been doing this all wrong for years ."
  
  The metal boy gave her a long look before pressing on. " Hypothetically, if the Endbringer dies..."
  
  Tattletale shrugged helplessly. "Hypothetically? Maybe. If it's even possible to kill one of these things."
  
  "Kill it?" Kid Win pointed toward the dark shape off in the distance. "They can't even hurt the damn thing. It just absorbs energy, no one with a melee attack can get close, and ballistic weaponry doesn't seem to do much either. It just floats there ignoring them! At least the others fight back. You can tell you're hitting them when you do. This one... it might as well not even be there for all the good shooting it does."
  
  "So what do we do?" Aid asked, while his drones hovered all around him waiting for orders.
  
  Vista was the one who answered. "What we were told to do." When everyone looked at her, she pointed off the roof. "There's still people that need help, remember? Maybe this town's a lost cause and maybe it isn't, but the people aren't. As long as they get out of here and go through quarantine for a few months, they'll be... not fine, but they'll live. So stop moping around because the monsters don't play fair and start saving people like they told us to."
  
  As if to punctuate her words, the armbands announced, " Ursa Aurora deceased, AE2. Revel incapacitated, AE2."
  
  God, this was worse than the Leviathan fight. The zombies spread everywhere. They weren't as individually powerful as one Leviathan, but their numbers meant they could be anywhere in the city all at once. I wanted to be out there. I wanted to help , but where could I do the most good? The threats were everywhere at once, and I couldn't be. I wanted to scream, but forced it down and looked to Victoria, swallowing hard. "Vista's right. We... we need to go. We need to help, any way we can."
  
  Glory Girl visibly shook herself before nodding, her expression becoming determined. "Right. I think we should split up to cover more ground. But not alone. Teams of..." She consider briefly. "Three. Teams of three." Turning to Weld. she asked, "That is, if you guys are still up to helping."
  
  "We're not running away from this now." Weld answered after giving his teammates a brief, inquiring look. "That thing, it..." He hesitated, clearly taking a moment to control himself before finishing simply with, "We're staying. So if you're okay with working together, that's five of us and six of you."
  
  Tattletale paced back to the mutated dog, taking Hellhound's help getting back up on it. "Have fun with your team-up. We'll be rescuing people too, but we don't play so well with others." She gave a little salute before adding, in a slightly more sobered tone, "Sorry for the bad news."
  
  Hellhound gave a sharp whistle, and the massive animal whirled around before leaping off the roof. Somehow, both girls managed to hold on and not scream while they were plummeting out of sight.
  
  Shaking her head, Victoria started again. "Fine, eleven of us. I think we should mix teams, because you guys have been fighting for awhile now, and..."
  
  "And you're mostly fresh." Weld nodded. "And... other reasons, I get it. We all get it." He paused as though considering for a moment. "Okay. Grace and me with one of yours, Sparrow and Flechette with another of yours, and Gallant with two of yours."
  
  Dean, who had silent most of this time, finally spoke up. "Emotion blasts don't do much against zombies, but I'll do what I can."
  
  Glory Girl looked back to us before pointing. "Kid Win, you go with Weld and Grace. They need the mobility and ranged attack. Tether, you go with Sparrow and Flechette." She faced me at the last bit, giving me a look that I nodded my understanding to. I was going with the kid to keep her safe. My power would warn me if she was in direct danger.
  
  Victoria continued. "Reach, Aid, and Vista stay together, and I'll go with Gallant. We've worked together plenty of times. We know how we think, and I can move faster if I can just carry one person and fly."
  
  "I... I know it's not a solution to the real problem." Glory Girl gave a helpless shrug, sighing. "I don't have an answer to that. I don't even know if Tattletale is right or not. But Vista is right, either way, we need to save everyone we can. Maybe the others can find a way to kill that god damn Endbringer and maybe they can't, but the more of the zombies that we clear out and keep away from them, the more they can focus on trying."
  
  Flechette and I hit the ground together, landing in between the dozen or so civilians who had been cornered in a dead end alley behind a church, and the pack of rotting, yet mobile, corpses that were penning them in.
  
  "Cut, cut, cut! No, see, you guys have this whole zombie thing all wrong." I lamented like an annoyed director. "You're supposed to drool and groan and shuffle. You're just... walking. Are you even trying?"
  
  In answer, three of the undead minions rushed at me. I set my lines on them, but let them keep coming. Once they were close enough, I called, "Do it, Sparrow!"
  
  The younger girl, floating above us with her flight bracelets, upended the can of fuel she had been carrying, dumping the liquid all over the trio, who staggered to a halt and blinked up in confusion as the liquid drenched them.
  
  In the next second, Flechette hoisted her enormous crossbow, revealing that the end of the long bolt had been wrapped with a rag that was already burning. She launched the flaming bolt at the group of fuel-soaked minions, who were instantly engulfed with flames.
  
  As soon as they were on fire, I used my lines to throw them backwards, hurling the three blazing monsters into the main group. The flying, burning bodies tore into the mob, spreading the flames quickly.
  
  Landing in front of us, Sparrow held her wooden stick out and summoned a forcefield that filled the width of the alleyway, blocking the flaming zombies from approaching.
  
  Meanwhile, I tethered my way to the nearby roof and made sure none of the burning creatures escaped the other way. In most cases, having a bunch of crazed undead monsters and setting them on fire would be making things worse. But here, between my lines on one side and Sparrow's forcefield on the other, we were able to contain the damage.
  
  But it didn't save us from the smell. That horrible, soul-withering scent of burning human flesh made my stomach turn. It was like acrid charcoal that brought bile to my mouth and literal tears to my eyes just at the scent, let alone the... implications.
  
  Finally, it was over. Sparrow let the forcefield down, turning away from the remains before falling to her knees. The little girl barely managed to lift her mask before she was throwing up.
  
  Flechette was at her side a second later, cradling the girl before looking back at me. I couldn't see much of her expression, but her entire body shook with obvious anger. She was furious at this whole situation.
  
  So was I. That poor kid was so small, so tiny and fragile. Fuck me. Fuck all of us. But most, fuck the Endbringers. This was wrong. All of it. What were we doing? How could we just expect this little girl to handle all this? She couldn't have been older than eleven.
  
  "Is... is she going to be all right?"
  
  The hesitant voice made me turn that way, startled. I'd forgotten about the civilians somehow. One of them, an older woman in a flowery dress, had stepped forward. Her expression was a mix of fear and concern. "She shouldn't be here. She's just... a child."
  
  One of the men, a man with a priest's collar, nodded. "Thank you all for helping us. Please, let the child stay with us. We know the way to the evacuation point."
  
  There was a general murmur of agreement, the group determined not to let the little girl who had helped save them go back out into the fight.
  
  Flechette didn't even hesitate before she nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, you can-"
  
  "No." Stubbornly, Sparrow pushed her way up and out of her teammate's arms. She stood there, trembling briefly before wiping an arm across her mouth. Then she tugged her mask back down with both hands. "I t-told you, I'm... not... leaving." She was clearly trying to sound firm, but her voice shook with each word, and she was shivering with fear and emotion.
  
  "Child, it's all right." The priest tried to assure her. "You've saved us, you've done your part. Come, let us all get to safety."
  
  For a moment, Sparrow said nothing. She just looked at the man silently. Then her bracelets began to glow once more, and she lifted off of the ground. Her voice was soft, far more sad than it was determined. "Are we... going together, or do I have to... save people by myself?"
  
  A pair of dark lines chose that moment to pop up, and I grimaced at the timing. "This way." I looked to Flechette before pointing. "More to do."
  
  The other girl dropped her head briefly before swallowing audibly. "Let's go." I could hear her obvious heartbreaking pain at the innocent little girl's continued refusal to leave despite what all of this was obviously doing to her.
  
  Attaching tethers to both of us, I launched us upward and over the roof of the church, Sparrow resolutely flying behind us as I followed the dark warning line across to the next street.
  
  As soon as we came down on the street, I could see what my lines had been warning me about, and my eyes widened. There was a cape about a hundred feet further up the road, a dead one. He was obviously a brute of some kind, standing in front of a van with a crumpled front end. The corpse of the former hero laughed out loud before punching the side of the van, crumpling it in partway and drawing a pair of screams from within, where my lines led.
  
  "Come out, come out wherever you are!" The dead cape called. "Raaaaachel, don't you want to get your picture taken with your favorite hero? I thought we were friends!"
  
  "Oh no." Flechette cringed next to me. "Not Suplex. He was so... sweet..."
  
  Whatever he had been like before, the deceased cape was monstrous now. He raised his fist again, preparing to smash the side of the van in. Before he could, I attached a line between the ruined front end, and another crashed vehicle next to us. The van was yanked forward, skidding on broken tires along the road with a squeal of tortured metal, while the undead hero's fist whiffed through the air.
  
  He whirled, eyes landing on us just as Sparrow landed a few feet away from him. Her voice was distraught. "Suplex! You-you can't do this! Please, Suplex, you're... you're a good guy." She pleaded desperately. "You don't like to hurt anybody! You wouldn't even kill that spider that scared me, remember?"
  
  The man snarled and grabbed for the girl, but I quickly used a line to yank her backwards and out of his grasp. Meanwhile, Flechette brought her crossbow up and launched a bolt that practically split the man's head in half, the force staggering him backward even if it didn't put him down.
  
  Before he could move again, Sparrow threw the little glowing ball that she had taken out of her belt pouch. As it hit the man, ice spread out over his body, locking him in place.
  
  For a second, we all just stood there. Flechette stepped toward her younger teammate. "Sparrow, we..."
  
  "Do it." The younger girl's voice shook, head lowered as she stared at the ground. "Just do it."
  
  Swallowing audibly, Flechette used another of her bolts, shooting it into the center of the frozen corpse. It shattered, and Sparrow folded her arms over her stomach, gaze still lowered to the ground while her shoulders shook. I could hear her broken, bitter little cries as she fought a losing battle to contain her emotions.
  
  Flechette moved to her, but before she could get there, the girl suddenly flew upward and whirled in the air to face the Endbringer, whose form still floated on the other side of the city.
  
  " I HATE YOU!" The girl screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice echoing up and down the street and off of the buildings. " Why are you here?! What do you want?! You... you..."
  
  "Sparrow." I interrupted. "Can you... come here?"
  
  She landed beside me, shaking her head sadly while repeating in a voice choked by emotion, "Wh-what does he want? Why are they are? Why can't they just... just stop?"
  
  "I don't know." I admitted. "But look." I pointed to the broken van, where the two civilians were fearfully emerging. "They're alive because of you. Because you were here. This, all of it? It sucks. It's horrible and... and if you focus on the bad, you'll lose. You might win the fight, but you'll lose everything else that matters."
  
  "S... so what do you focus on?" She asked me, her voice trembling.
  
  "That." Flechette answered for me, pointing at the two surviving people. "You focus on the good you can do, Sparrow. This... it's not a game. It's not... fun. It's work. I... god, I wanted to spare you from that as long as possible, but I can't. This is real, Sparrow. This is what happens. We win some and we lose some, and when we lose, it's real. The people we lose, the... friends... it... it's horrible."
  
  "I miss Ben." The little girl said in a soft, sad little voice.
  
  Flechette gave a little shudder next to me. "So do I." She admitted, reaching out to take the younger girl's hand. "We're all going to miss him, and... and everyone else that we lose. That's why I want you to go where it's safe, because if you get hurt..."
  
  "But you won't leave, will you?" Sparrow pressed, looking up at her teammate.
  
  "... no." The crossbow-wielding hero shook her head. "I can't, Sparrow. There's still people to help."
  
  "And I'd be just as sad if you got hurt. Or... or died." The younger girl pointed out. "So... so I'm staying. I'm staying." She took in a breath, then focused. "So... so stop trying to convince me to leave. Because I'm not leaving. I'm helping. I know it's not a game... and... I hate it. I hate this! But I can't... leave. If I l-leave, everyone else that... that gets hurt, I'll always... a-always think... if I could've helped them. Please stop trying to m-make me leave. I can't. I just... c-can't."
  
  Flechette stared at the younger girl, then nodded. "Okay. We... we'll do what we can. We'll do some good, all right?"
  
  "Okay." Sparrow's young voice was so soft I could barely hear her. She still sounded sad, yet there was an undercurrent of determination that was stronger than before. "I'm ready. Let's... go save people."
  
  "Yeah." I attached a pair of lines for myself and Flechette, murmuring my own agreement. "Let's go save people."
  
  Because it was what we could do that mattered. The people we could save, the ones who lived because we got there in time, they were the reason we were there. They were the reason we didn't curl into a ball and die at the thought of how pointless this entire battle could be.
  
  "Vindicator deceased, BA3. Spitfire deceased, BA3."
  
  We saved everyone we could, because the moment we gave up, the moment we surrendered to the creeping despair that was the true enemy in this battle, we, and everything else, would be lost.
  
  17.03
  
  A dog, sporting a nasty and obviously fatal hole in his side, leapt through the air toward a pair of sobbing children that couldn't have been older than nine or ten. Halfway there, a foot-long bolt struck the undead animal right through its rotting hole, sending the howling animal sideways and into the side of a building.
  
  I landed next to the two kids and wrapped my arms around both of them. "Hey guys, let's go for a little ride. Wrap your arms around me, okay?" Once the sniffing, crying children had done so, I launched us upward and away from the half dozen of the human variety of zombies that were still coming for them.
  
  Landing on the roof of a nearby building, I tried to release them, but neither kid wanted to let go. They clung to my neck and arms, pleading for me not to leave them alone.
  
  I felt a simultaneous flash of pity for the children, and anger for whoever had left them out there in the street. Then I realized what might have happened to make them be alone, and my heart dropped even further.
  
  "Guys, listen. Listen, I'll be right back. I promise." I assured them. "I need you two to sit right here. Just sit down here, while I help my friends. We will come right back for you as soon as we can, and then we'll go for a little trip to get away from the bad guys. I'm not leaving you alone, I promise. Just going right down there."
  
  One of the boys, the younger one, gave a little sniff. "You... you'll kill them? Even Mr. Garad?"
  
  I swallowed, closing my eyes briefly behind the mask. Whatever those zombies were now, they had been these kids' neighbors, their friends, teachers, and relatives. "I'll take care of it. We'll take care of it. Just stay here and try to be quiet, okay? You'll be safe. My power warns me when people are in trouble, so I'll know."
  
  "You'll be right back?" The slightly older boy, who still couldn't have been older than ten, pressed. "Right back, you promise?"
  
  "I promise." I nodded before straightening out of their slacking grips. "I will be right back for you."
  
  Jumping from the roof, I landed beside Sparrow, who had been backing away from two of the approaching zombies. Putting lines against their chests, I sent the pair flying backwards into the wall of a nearby building as hard as I could.
  
  It didn't matter. The second the lines released them, the zombies were moving again. My powers, in this instant, just weren't lethal enough when the monsters didn't feel pain and weren't bothered by bruises and broken limbs. They were slowed, finally reduced to the sort of shuffling gait that most movie zombies were known for simply because so much of their remaining bones had been broken by the impact, but they were still coming.
  
  Almost as if she had read my mind, Flechette called out from a few feet away, "I need a better weapon!" Another of her bolts launched out, passing right through one of the surrounding zombies knees. He staggered, but kept moving forward, hauling himself forward alongside his still-standing companions, one stumbling step at a time.
  
  "Damn it." The other girl lamented. "I used to use a rapier, but I switched to this. Really missing that sword right about now."
  
  She was right. Her crossbow was an incredible weapon in most cases, but the piercing damage it was doing just wasn't cutting it. These enemies were ignoring pretty much any damage that didn't completely destroy their ability to move. Flechette needed something that could cut, not pierce.
  
  Beside me, Sparrow suddenly lit up, floating off the ground as she called, "I got an idea! Hold 'em off, I'll be right back!"
  
  "Sparrow, no!" Flechette protested. "Don't go off by yourself!"
  
  The little girl was already flying off backwards toward the next street over. "I'll be okay! I promise! I have an idea that'll help! It's not very far, I'll be right back!"
  
  Before either of us could argue with her, the girl was gone, and I had to focus on the incoming zombies. Grimacing, I used a line attached from a nearby SUV to a spot past the undead minions, then sent it flying into the group to knock them sprawling.
  
  "We can't just run off and leave these things wandering around." I called to Flechette, who was bracing her big crossbow to shoot the leg out from under one of the few zombies that had escaped the truck. "They'll find someone we missed."
  
  "I know!" She called back, head shaking. "But I'm open to ideas for destroying them."
  
  The damn things were still crawling or staggering forward, over and around the fallen vehicle that had briefly scattered them. Inexorably, like water eroding soil, they pushed forward.
  
  "Okay." I cracked my neck to the side. "You guys asked for it." Turning, I looked down the street at an overturned school bus. Stretching my hand out that way, I attached a line between it and my gauntlet, then gave a yank on the line that brought the bus skidding down the pavement with an earsplitting screech, throwing up sparks as it came.
  
  The zombies all stopped to stare briefly at the bus while it came screeching into the space between us.
  
  "I don't think that's gonna block them for very long," Flechette pointed out.
  
  "Not using it to block them." I focused on the bus, bracing two lines underneath the thing, between the metal and the ground. Then I threw the bright yellow vehicle high up into the air. It sailed up thirty feet or so, while the zombies all tilted their heads that way to see what it was doing.
  
  With a grim smile, I brought the bus slamming back down into the ground on top of the largest cluster of zombies. It hit with the force of, well, a bus. The undead it hit were literally flattened beneath it, like flies under a giant metal swatter. Another line attached between the bus and a wall nearby sent it flipping sideways before I reoriented it to slam yet again into another pocket of the monstrous cadavers.
  
  The bus itself had crumpled beneath the force of the blows I was putting it through, but most of the zombies in that group were completely broken. They could ignore pain and kept going through all but the worst damage, but being flattened by a twelve ton hunk of metal was not one of those things that they could just shrug off.
  
  "Wow." Flechette had moved next to me through that, her crossbow raised just in case any of the remaining zombies were still ambulatory enough to press onward.
  
  "I know." A tiny smirk came then. In spite of everything that was happening, I couldn't resist adding, "That's one bus they didn't miss."
  
  A strangled little snorting noise of disbelief escaped the other girl, as she turned to stare at me. "Everything that's happening, and you just... made a joke?"
  
  I grimaced a little. "It's... sort of what I do. Sorry. Doesn't mean I'm not taking it seriously. I... It just sort of... happens. It's how I process and cope with things. I swear I'm not... brushing off what's happening. I just..."
  
  "It's okay." She sounded uncertain, but repeated herself with a nod. "It's all right. I just... I mean, it's not all right. This whole situation isn't all right at all. It's just... I don't know. Ben died and... and we haven't even been able to... to stop and think about it. I didn't know him that well for very long, but he was still... I just... We can't stop and think. We can't even breathe. And I can't let Sparrow see how much I just want to lay down and just... just make it stop for just a few minutes so I can... so I can cry, because she's barely holding on, and if I lose it..."
  
  Cringing slightly at the sound of the pain in the other girl's voice, I glanced around briefly to make sure we were still clear for the moment. Once I was sure we had time, I pulled her into a brief hug. "I'm sorry about your friend." I made a point of calling him a friend, not just a teammate.
  
  She barely knew me, but Flechette clung to me immediately, the crossbow dropping from her grip as she tightened her grip tightly. "I'm sorry." She shook her head slowly. "I just... I just need a... a second..."
  
  "It's all right," I assured her. "Just take a minute and..." I stopped talking, biting my lip at the sound of the other girl's soft, yet audible cries as her shoulders shook slightly.
  
  For a few seconds, right there in the middle of the newest Endbringer's zombie apocalypse, I held onto this girl I barely knew, and gave her what pathetically little time that I could to mourn her lost teammate. She wasn't really hugging me, I knew. She just needed someone, anyone, to stand there and let her stop standing for just a moment.
  
  Far too short of a time later, Flechette released me and took a step back to collect herself. No sooner had she done so, than the small figure of Sparrow dropped from the sky. The little girl was holding what looked briefly like a coil of rope in both hands, which she held out toward her teammate.
  
  "I didn't know where a sword was, but... I saw Mr. Earls take this away from a couple seventh graders two days ago. It was still in his office."
  
  Flechette took the thing and let it uncoil, and I realized that it wasn't rope. It was a long, black whip.
  
  "Can you use that?" I asked hesitantly.
  
  She shrugged at me. "Gonna need practice, but it's gotta be better than the crossbow for this situation." Her free hand came down to squeeze the top of Sparrow's head. "Thanks, kid. Let's give it a shot."
  
  A few minutes later, I landed in the back lot of the grocery store, releasing both young boys and pointing them toward the nearest adult that looked like they were still organizing people.
  
  As soon as they ran off, I turned back toward the other two and started to ask, "Where do you want to look no-"
  
  In mid-sentence, a trio of black lines abruptly shot up and all-but yanked me off balance in their urgency. I spun that way, seeing the lines lead off toward another street. "Going up!" I spared only that much time to warn the other two before using new lines to throw myself and Flechette through the air.
  
  The urgency of the dark lines kept yanking me onward, until I saw what they were directing me to: a couple of clearly young parents, shielding their tiny baby as one of the cape zombies toyed with them by shooting fire at their feet.
  
  Spitfire. I realized belatedly. It was Spitfire, from Faultline's group. She had died, and now she was... she was pretty much torturing those parents, telling them how she was going to tear their baby from their hands and burn her alive while they watched.
  
  "There is one good thing about this whole shitty situation." I remarked out loud while landing a dozen yards behind the undead cape. "The cape zombies are too busy fucking monologuing to get anything done." With that, I attached a line to the back of the dead Spitfire's costume, and yanked her backwards, away from the family.
  
  Even as she hit the wall I'd attached her to, the zombie-cape twisted toward me, preparing to spray her flame. Before she could, Flechette lashed out with the whip that Sparrow had brought her. She swung it out in a long, sideways arc, her power making it literally cut straight through Spitfire's neck as easily as tearing a simple piece of paper in two.
  
  While the head went rolling, the body tried to rush forward. Before it could move more than a couple steps, Flechette retracted the whip, then lashed out again. This time, the whip cut straight down through the headless corpse, slicing it in half right down the middle. Both halves fell to either side, and a couple more quick lashes from the empowered whip cut the limbs away from each other, just to be sure.
  
  "This..." Flechette announced slowly, "I could get used to."
  
  In the next second, I saw a light red line jump to her. I turned to push her out of the way, but before I could, something practically fell out of the sky. I had a flash of a man with a metal costume before he knocked both of us sprawling. I hit the ground hard, groaning on my stomach as Flechette lay next to me. Perched on top of both of us, the man laughed out loud while holding us each down with a grip that was too strong to break. "Aww, did I take the little girls by surprise? Were you too busy chatting about your make-up and your dollies to pay attention? Lemme show you what happens to little girls that don't pay attention."
  
  I couldn't see well enough to attach lines to the guy with any degree of confidence, and he had Flechette and me in an iron grip. Even worse, my arm was bent under me in such a way that Jalopy couldn't free himself to help out even if he tried.
  
  Even so, the man didn't have a chance to show us much of anything, before I heard Sparrow's voice as she landed next to him. "Let them go." Her voice was soft, but determined.
  
  "Oh don't feel left out, little kid." The undead cape mocked. "I'll get to you in a minute, just as soon as I finish breaking apart these two weak little-"
  
  "Last chance." Sparrow warned, her voice going quieter. "Please don't make me do this."
  
  "Look, you little brat," The zombie was obviously annoyed by the interruption. He was pushing us even harder against the ground, to the point that we couldn't breathe, let alone talk. "Just back off, all right? No one here, not one single god damn person, takes you seriously. You're a joke. You've got a bunch of powers you don't even know how to use, and aaaany day now the Protectorate's gonna realize that they're wasting their time trying to make you into something you're not. You're an incompetent, pathetic little girl that rolled a few lucky dice. If it wasn't for your powers, not one single person would give a shit about you. And even with those you're too much of a fucking useless, incompetent brat to-"
  
  I heard a screech of metal and a sharp cry that cut off the man's words, followed by silence. The grip was gone.
  
  Rolling over and sitting up, Flechette and I both stared at what looked like it had been the man who was holding us down. His armor was crumpled in almost flat on every side, and twisted around in multiple unnatural ways.
  
  Sparrow sat nearby, rocking back and forth. "I wanted him to stop," she said quietly, her voice sad and lost. "I tried to make him stop. I didn't want to... to do it. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't wanna be the one that... I... I'm not... a good hero. I'm not a good hero. I didn't wanna kill him. I... I know he was already dead, but I didn't... I didn't wanna..."
  
  "Shhh... shhh..." Flechette quickly shifted over to pull the girl against her. "You are a good hero, Sparrow. Don't listen to these evil assholes. They're just trying hurt you. You just saved our lives. You... did what you had to do. It's okay. It's all right."
  
  I waited a moment, giving them a chance to pull themselves together, before asking, "Err, just curious, what did you do anyway?" I nodded toward the crumpled heap of metal.
  
  The younger girl waved both hands at me. "Metal-shaping gloves. I... I didn't want to do it, I really didn't. But he was hurting you, and..."
  
  "And you did what you had to do. You did the right thing." I assured her.
  
  We picked ourselves up, Flechette retrieving her new weapon, just as a familiar chunk of flying pavement came floating down out of the sky, hovering just above the nearby roof level.
  
  Reach and Vista dropped to the ground a moment later, using the latter's ability to shrink the distance. They were followed shortly by Aid.
  
  "Are you guys okay?" Vista asked. "We saw you get hit by Vindicator, but we got occupied and... oh." She was staring at the remains of the man's metal armor, realizing what was inside.
  
  "Yeah." I nodded. "We're okay. Thanks to Sparrow."
  
  Reach gestured toward the weapon in the older Maine Ward's hand. "So you switched from Flechette to Whiplass, huh? I like it."
  
  "What about you guys?" I asked quickly while Flechette stammered. "Do you have any idea what's going on?"
  
  "Actually..." Aid spoke up then, glancing over his shoulder at the still-hovering chunk of pavement. He had seemed nervous and jumpy the whole time, even for him. "That's why we... came to find you."
  
  "Me?" I blinked. "Why me? Glory Girl's the leader."
  
  "Yeah, but this is..." Vista bit her lip, clearly hesitating before looking helplessly toward Reach.
  
  "This is your thing, not her thing." Cassie said easily, before calling out. "Yo, come on!" With a wave of her hand, she made the hovering platform lower to the ground.
  
  I looked that way, confused, in time to see four figures step off the chunk of pavement and approach.
  
  Two were Pandora, while the remaining pair were Emma and...
  
  "Wait, is that... " Flechette's gasp was audible, and she put herself in front of Sparrow, raising her whip. "Bonesaw. Get... the FUCK back!"
  
  It was Riley, I realized belatedly. I hadn't recognized her at first because she wasn't wearing a blood-covered dress. Instead, she wore brown jeans with a few stains that I didn't want to question, and a black hoody with a red peace sign on the front. She carried a backpack over one shoulder.
  
  "Wait! Just wait!" Emma quickly moved in front of both the Pandoras and Riley, before anything else could happen. "Just listen! We... we came to help. She's... she's n-not going to hurt a-anybody!"
  
  I stared briefly at Vista. "You brought them here?"
  
  She shrugged. "They showed up on the edge of town, and said they were coming to find you. What else was I gonna do, try to fight my way past two Pandoras to attack Bonesaw? You do know who she is, right?"
  
  "It's a long story." I told her with a sigh, closing my eyes briefly before looking that way. "What... what are you guys doing here? Where's Dinah?"
  
  Emma hesitated. "She... s-said we could... do this p-part."
  
  Flechette was staring at me like I had grown three new heads. "Why is Bonesaw standing here? Don't we have enough problems?"
  
  "Okay... first... stop calling her that." I said quickly to the other girl, realizing the constant reminders of her previous life wasn't helping matters. Then I focused on the former (I hoped) villain herself. "Riley, why are you here? This... this is not a good time."
  
  Riley, who had been watching everyone else's reactions to her, stepped forward. Her voice was much more subdued than usual. The only time I had heard her talk this way was when she had calmly, quietly informed me that she knew I was afraid of her, but she wouldn't hurt me.
  
  "I want to help. I... can help."
  
  "Bullshit!" Flechette cursed. "Where you are, the rest of the Nine are. What game are you freaks trying to play now? Don't you think this town's suffered enough? Even you evil little-"
  
  "Flechette!" I shot her a look. "Stop it. Riley hasn't been with... them for months now. She's... different. Just... just wait." I looked back to the other girl then, grinding my teeth a little. "Riley, how do you think you can help now?"
  
  "I know I messed up before." She said quickly. "When I was trying to be like you and help Bakuda. I know I made things worse. But this time I know I can help."
  
  "How?" I pressed, as firmly as I dared.
  
  Her answer was to reach into the backpack, probably giving half the people there simultaneous heart attacks, before withdrawing a syringe.
  
  "I made an inoculation against the new Endbringer's aura." She said, as easily as if she was showing off a decent science project to a class.
  
  "You know, in case anyone that's fighting doesn't wanna turn into a zombie."
  
  17.04
  
  I must have been accustomed to the former Slaughterhouse Nine bio-tinker by that point, because I cruised right past Riley's insinuation that there were people who would want to turn into a zombie, and straight to, "You made a cure? Just like that?"
  
  Riley's eyebrow lifted. "Err, wouldja understand the technical explanation?"
  
  "Not really."
  
  "Then I made a cure just like that." She shrugged both small shoulders, looking actually a little more... shy than I could remember. "But not really a cure. It won't fix someone that's already a zombie. But it'll stop anyone who takes it from turning into one if they... ya know..." She drew her finger across her throat and make a croaking noise.
  
  "Oh come on!" Flechette's head was shaking firmly. "You cannot believe her. She just wants to trick someone into taking it so that it infects them with some kind of horrible disease and turns them into a human bomb or something so they explode disease infested blood over an entire city block."
  
  "Jeeze," Riley muttered. "Do something one time and people start thinking it's like your signature move or somethin'."
  
  "So, soooo not helping, Riley." I let out a long breath, looking to the others for help that wasn't coming. Vista looked like she was barely one very short step above Flechette's outright dismissal of the entire idea, while Reach was clearly waiting to see what I thought. Sparrow's bright glowing pink smiley face told me nothing of her actual opinion. The Pandoras were both watching me intently, and Emma's expression was also impossible to read, since she was wearing the headgear with the mirrored plate over the top half of her face.
  
  Finally, I let out a breath. "Okay, look. We take this stuff to Panacea and see what she thinks. She can... look at it or whatever. If it works... well, we'll go from there."
  
  "What about her?" Flechette lifted a hand to point at Riley. "She has a kill on sight order."
  
  "Yeah, and she came here knowing that." I pointed out flatly before looking back at Riley. "That's why the Pandoras are here, isn't it? To make sure you get in and out safely."
  
  It was the Pandora on the left that answered. "Yes, Tether-Friend. We will protect Riley-Friend from any who wish to harm her, reanimated dead or otherwise."
  
  "We go to Panacea then." I looked to the others. "See what she can find out about this stuff, and then... then we go from there. Riley, how much of this did you bring?"
  
  In answer, she turned to Emma, who in turn turned to look down the street. One by one, we all looked that way, as a full-sized semi-truck with attached trailer drove around the corner and parked itself nearby.
  
  "About that much." Riley replied then, waving vaguely that way.
  
  "E-I mean, Oversight... how were you driving that thing around without seeing it?" I asked slowly.
  
  "Oh, umm, there's GPS and cameras on the truck, and... umm, traffic cameras, ATM cameras, security cameras, camera phones... it's not that hard to coordinate between all those things." Emma answered while gazing off in another random direction.
  
  "Errr, Oversight, what are you looking at now?"
  
  Her mouth fell open briefly in obvious surprise. "Umm, y-you? I mean..." It took her a second before she turned to face me directly. "Sorry, I uhh, really... was l-looking at you. Ju-just..." Her hand waved toward a nearby ATM machine. "With that instead of... these." She gestured to her own face then, visibly flushing with embarrassment. "I'm s-sorry, just... it's so... easy..."
  
  I shook that off, trying to focus on the important thing. "We take it to Panacea and... and then go from there."
  
  The town was small enough that it only took a few minutes for us to reach the grocery store, riding atop the chunk of pavement that Reach was controlling, which itself was hovering over the semi that Emma was controlling.
  
  Every street surrounding the store was literally crawling with zombies. It looked like the Protectorate and most of the independent heroes had fallen back and were focusing on keeping store and surrounding lot clear, and it was taking all of them to even do that much. For every three or four zombies one cape stopped, an equal number tried to drag them down. They were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
  
  The lot itself was full of refugees from the city, civilians that were huddled together in groups, looking traumatized and bleak. There were also so many people that seemed to be wandering aimlessly, calling out for their families, and far too few answering calls.
  
  "It's really bad out there." Cassie murmured next to me. "I mean, I helped cause a lot of problems with the Empire, but this..." Her head shook. "This is... fucked up." Her attention was focused off in the distance, and I realized that she was glaring at the dark shadow of Anubis.
  
  Below us, Emma wasn't just directing the single semi-truck. She was actually directing two other vehicles, a large van and an SUV, to drive ahead of it, plowing through the mob of zombies to clear the path for the semi itself to avoid jostling the contents of the trailer too much. A couple other vehicles brought up the rear to keep pursuers away.
  
  Five vehicles. She was controlling five vehicles at once, performing rather complicated maneuvers involving multiple turns at different speeds and occasionally directing one or more of them toward various threats, and it looked easy.
  
  The chunk of pavement landed behind Armsmaster and Penance. I put a hand on Riley's tense shoulder. "Take it easy. I know freaking people out is kind of your coping mechanism, but just... try not to say much. They're going to be upset. Don't hold it against them too much."
  
  Her expression was unreadable, but she gave the faintest of nods. Then we stepped down together off of the rubble.
  
  We'd barely taken two steps forward, while everyone else except the Pandoras chose to hang back, before Armsmaster noticed us. He turned away from the person he was talking to-Eidolon, I realized belatedly. He was talking to Eidolon. I was looking at Eidolon.
  
  This was ridiculous. I was in the middle of an Endbringer attack, a literal zombie apocalypse, and I was fangirling over one of the Triumvirate members. I just couldn't help it. I'd met Legend and that had been one of the most amazing experiences of my life. Even meeting Alexandria, such a short time after thinking that she had died, had been pretty amazing. But Eidolon was a whole other level. I liked Legend more, because he was far more personable, but meeting Eidolon, even a situation like this, left me practically in awe.
  
  I was jolted back to myself by Armsmaster's bellow. "Tether! What... is... she doing here?" He had lifted his halberd to point at Riley.
  
  I hesitated. "Errr... well, see... Riley... she's staying with Dinah and-"
  
  "We're aware of that." He barked impatiently. "We've been aware of it for awhile now. You think we're that stupid? I didn't ask what she's been doing, I asked what she's doing here. "
  
  That took me aback. "Uhh, you knew she was with Dinah and Pandora?"
  
  "Yes, you may find this hard to believe, but we do occasionally know what's happening in our own city. Now answer the question before I decide you've been compromised. The last thing we need in this situation is something like that ." His weapon jabbed toward the girl at my side.
  
  Before I could answer, a new voice spoke up. "Bonesaw." Eidolon had moved to stand next to Armsmaster, both of them projecting waves of hostility. "What do you want?"
  
  "Hiya Mister Lon." Riley waved a hand at the man who was regarded as the second most powerful cape in the world. "I heard your eye grew back after that thing in San Antonio. That's... uhh, good."
  
  "Stop the innocent act, Bonesaw." Eidolon was unamused. "We have far more important things to focus on than you. The Endbringer truce doesn't extend to people like the Nine. So give me one reason why we shouldn't just put you down and move on having at least accomplished one good thing today."
  
  "We would stop you." One of the Pandoras informed him, both of them glaring at the man.
  
  Oh good, Dinah had taught Pandora enough that they knew how to glare. That was going to be helpful here.
  
  "And you would be the clone." Eidolon shook his head, his tone dismissive. "Another situation Brockton Bay hasn't handled."
  
  I was starting to realize why Alexandria and Eidolon tended to let Legend do the talking. He was far more approachable than either of them.
  
  " Riley -" I stressed the name pointedly. "-says she has something that will prevent people from turning into zombies when they die. An inoculation against whatever Anubis is doing to animate them."
  
  Eidolon gave me what I interpreted as a withering look. "And you believe her?"
  
  I glanced toward Riley's carefully blank expression before giving a slight nod. "In this case, I do. She's... trying, Eidolon. I know she's done some really bad things, but-"
  
  "No." His head shook. "You don't know. You might've seen the news, but you don't know the kind of evil this creature is capable of until you've lived it."
  
  "She's not a creature!" I snapped without thinking about who I was snapping at. "She did some horrible things, but she's here to help now. She's trying to help, and you're-"
  
  "Preventing one of the Nine from toying with people's hopes and lives." Eidolon said firmly. "She is not injecting whatever that stuff is into anyone here."
  
  "We just need Panacea to look at the stuff she brought," I tried to explain. "Maybe see if she can inject someone so that Panacea can monitor what happens to their bodies and whether or not it's a-"
  
  "Are you really that naïve?" Eidolon shook his head at me. "She's playing you. It's what she does. She toys with people's perception of her innocence, and then she-"
  
  "Would you shut up and listen to me? She's not doing that now!" I was so frustrated that I interrupted Eidolon . I told Eidolon to shut up. Afterward, I was so surprised by what I had done that I forgot to say anything else. Which was a shame because my brazenness actually made him fall into silent shock as well, so it would have been a good time to try to explain further. In the background, Armsmaster's mouth was hanging open, and he was making some kind of noise that made me think that his brain had gone into test pattern mode.
  
  Both of us were just staring at each other for a long moment before a quiet voice blurted, "Ow."
  
  All of us turned to see the two Pandoras step out of the way, revealing Riley standing next to the person who had spoken up: Sparrow. The young Ward had the sleeve of her costume rolled up to reveal light brown skin, and Riley was withdrawing the syringe.
  
  Both men reacted instantly. Eidolon made a pushing gesture with his hands that sent both Pandoras flying backwards and out of the way, while Armsmaster lashed out with a blow from the side of his halberd that knocked Riley to the ground before he inverted the weapon to put the blade toward her.
  
  The weapons stopped before it could go further, bending a little toward Sparrow, who stood with her still-gloved hand outstretched. "Stop!" She cried out, head shaking. "Stop it!" Bringing her staff up with her other hand, she projected a forcefield around Riley. "Just stop fighting!"
  
  Eidolon and both Pandoras stood frozen for a second, long enough for Flechette to reach her younger teammate. "Sparrow! What... what did you..." Her gaze obviously took in the mark on the little girl's bare arm, and the syringe that had fallen onto the ground. Once she realized what had happened, Flechette let out a strangled noise of rage and started to lunge toward Riley herself, only stopped by the still-erect forcefield.
  
  "I told her to!" Sparrow blurted. "If... if you wanna be mad at somebody for her putting that stuff in me, then be mad at me! I don't wanna be a monster if I die. I don't wanna hurt my friends. I don't wanna hurt anybody! An'... an' if she says that it can stop it... w-well then... I think that's more important than the bad stuff she did before."
  
  "Sparrow..." Flechette's head shook as she lamented, "you didn't have to do that yourself. Somebody else should have tested it."
  
  "They were scared." The little girl shrugged. "I wasn't that scared. Not of getting a shot. I was scared of being a monster, and she said with this stuff I won't be. I don't mind getting a shot if it'll make me not be a monster. And... I thought if I did it, they wouldn't be scared of it anymore."
  
  Eidolon slowly turned away from the Pandoras, staring at the young girl. "We were concerned for your health. You can't trust her. Anything she wants to give you will hurt you."
  
  In response, Sparrow held her arm out to indicate the mark the needle had made. "It didn't hurt me."
  
  Riley had picked herself off the ground by that point. "That's cuz it's not poison. It'll stop you from turning into a zombie. Like I already said. Eesh, some people really gotta learn to listen."
  
  "She took it now." I spoke through gritted teeth. "So what's the harm in taking her in to see Panacea so that she can say if it looks good or not? And if it's good, Riley can work with her."
  
  Eidolon was still staring at Sparrow as he replied. "You want us to let Bonesaw get anywhere near Panacea? Have you completely lost your mind?"
  
  I clenched my fists tightly before releasing them. "What I want is to stop all of this from happening." I gestured around at all the fighting. "If letting Riley near Panacea is the way to do it, then yes."
  
  Reach, Vista, Emma, and Aid reached us by then. Theo stopped to stare at Eidolon, clearly having his own hero-worship moment that I couldn't really blame him for.
  
  Cassie, on the other hand, kept walking past and on toward the store. "You guys coming or what?"
  
  "Yeah." Vista waved a hand vaguely. "I'd kinda like to know if this cure thing is actually gonna work."
  
  I looked at Armsmaster, then Eidolon, before breathing out. "We're going in to see Panacea now so she can look at Sparrow. You guys can either keep being paranoid about what Riley might or might not be doing, or focus on saving people, like we're supposed to be doing."
  
  As we walked on to the store, Emma whispered to me, "D-did you just scold Eidolon about saving p-people?"
  
  My only response was a horrified repetition of, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god..."
  
  Ruin had been keeping the store completely clear of any stray zombies, even before the rest of the capes pulled back and devoted themselves to protecting the surrounding lot. The only people in the store were injured capes that were waiting to be healed. None, I had noticed while waiting for Panacea to finish analyzing Sparrow and the medicine that Riley had brought, were near death. They didn't want to let anyone that was that close to dying near Panacea.
  
  It had taken a few minutes for Panacea to have time to check out Sparrow. Reach, Vista, and Theo had left to go do what they could to help outside. I wanted to go, but I needed to stay there and sit next to Riley. She had so few people that believed she wasn't trying to hurt anyone this time that I couldn't just leave her like that.
  
  Flechette had insisted on staying here as well, saying that she wouldn't be any good to anyone until she heard from Panacea that Sparrow was going to be all right.
  
  Ruin stood at the front of the storeroom, occasionally glancing toward me questioningly. All I could do was nod reassuringly and wait.
  
  Emma, meanwhile, was apparently zoned out into her own little world. I'd asked what she was doing, and her answer had been that she was making the machines outside fight the zombies.
  
  I was afraid to ask how much she was somehow managing to coordinate separately and independently that way. I had the feeling the answer would scare me more than not knowing did.
  
  "She'll be fine." Amy finally said, taking her hand off of Sparrow's exposed arm. "Whatever that stuff is, it's not hurting her. Looks like it's fixing whatever changes that Endbringer's aura was making that reanimates the body after death."
  
  Hearing that, Flechette quickly hugged Sparrow tightly, while simultaneously ordering her never to do something like that again.
  
  "So it's safe." I verified. "It really does fix the zombie infection."
  
  "That's what I saaaaaaaid." Riley called in a sing-song voice, kicking her legs back and forth as she sat on top of the crate next to me. "All that stuff in the truck can help people if ya just give it to 'em."
  
  "It works then?" The new voice came from the doorway, and I glanced that way to see Legend standing with... Tattletale and Grue?
  
  "Oooh, hiya, Mister Gend." Riley waved happily. "I'm glad your larynx isn't melted anymore."
  
  "It works." Panacea confirmed. "I mean, as far as I can tell. This stuff in the air, that smell, it changes the cells somehow. This stuff changed hers back."
  
  "Then we'll start distributing it." Legend looked directly at Riley. "Listen to me. If this is a trick of some kind, if you're playing one of your disgusting games, I will burn you down myself." My mouth opened, but he held up a hand to stop me from talking, which was itself a pretty impressive feat considering he couldn't even see my mouth.
  
  "If this works, however... if you really did come here with a cure for this zombie infection..." He trailed off, clearly resistant to say it. "... if you did this and there's no surprises, we'll see about removing your kill on sight order. No promises."
  
  Finally, I couldn't stop myself any longer. I focused on the two Undersiders. "What are you guys doing with Legend?"
  
  "Us?" Tattletale adopted a casual posture, shrugging elaborately. "Not much."
  
  "We were just telling him how to beat this Endbringer."
  
  17.05
  
  I practically choked at those words, eyes widening as I came off my seat. But it was Flechette who managed to speak first, her voice as shocked as mine would have been. "You're telling him what?!"
  
  The sly, cocky little smirk that Tattletale loved so much came back full force. That was obviously the reaction she had been looking for. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to know how to beat him too?"
  
  Legend shook his head. "I think that's probably enough, Tattletale. If your info works out, then you can be proud. Right now, it's just an interesting theory."
  
  "What theory?" I finally managed to blurt out, staring back and forth between the two of them.
  
  Legend started to speak, then paused and gestured toward the blonde girl. "Go ahead. It's your idea."
  
  "It's more than an idea." She sounded defensive for just a second, as if the idea of anyone questioning her knowledge as anything less than one hundred percent fact was annoying. She focused on me then. "I just spent the last couple hours doing nothing but staring at that big black cloaked son of a bitch out there." Her hand waved vaguely in the direction that Anubis must have been. "Trying to figure out why no one could hurt him."
  
  "Uh, maybe it's cuz he's an Endbringer?" Panacea spoke up, scowling at Tattletale. "They don't call them that because they're super easy to fight."
  
  The Undersider turned to respond to that, then paused at the sight of Panacea flanked by both Pandoras. "Ahh... huh." A curious look crossed her face then, before she shook it off and focused on Amy. "That's the thing. At least with most Endbringers, there's a sense that you're actually hitting them. It's like hitting a brick wall with a bat or something. A normal person isn't doing much damage, but you can tell you're hitting it. It takes a damn long time to chip away at the thing, but the stronger you are, the more of an impact you make. Either way, you can tell it's being hit after awhile. I remember the Leviathan fight, plus I've seen recordings of other battles, and it's the same sort of thing with an Endbringer. It takes a lot to hurt them, huge massive attacks, but you can at least tell that there's some kind of impact. This thing? There's no impact. It absorbs lasers and other energy attacks, touch-attacks can't get anywhere near it, and all the ballistic weapons they send at it don't seem to do anything either."
  
  "So the new one's tougher." Amy shook her head dismissively. "What's your point?"
  
  "That's the thing." Tattletale flashed a smile at the other girl. "It's not tougher. It's smarter. See, that thing we're seeing right now? That's not the whole Endbringer. It's like... Think of it as like the Endbringer's costume."
  
  "You really are fucking crazy, aren't you?" Amy was staring at the blonde girl. "What the hell do you mean, the Endbringer's costume?"
  
  "She's not crazy." Grue finally spoke up, grunting the words. "Cocky most of the time, even arrogant. But she's not crazy. Not the way you're thinking. Your power lets you heal people. Hers lets her know things. If she says she's sure about this, I believe her."
  
  Tattletale sighed. "The costume bit was just the best analogy I could think of. Maybe more like its shell. Point is, the Endbringer isn't in it . We're throwing everything we've got at what's basically just an empty husk, because the real target already moved on."
  
  "Moved on to where?" Sparrow was the first to find her voice. I'd forgotten the younger hero was there.
  
  "All the zombies we're seeing." Tattletale waved her hands in every direction. "Its animating them with itself. They're being brought back with its own energy, its own... life force. That's why the body we're seeing isn't really doing anything but drifting. It's just on autopilot. There's no one home. It's using them as host bodies, basically. Spreading itself out among them."
  
  Flechette straightened up beside me. "So you mean, if you're right, all we have to do kill all the zombies, and that'll kill the Endbringer?"
  
  "Doubtful." Tattletale finally looked regretful, sighing. "Most likely killing enough of its other host bodies that way will just force it back into its shell. Then you've got a regular Endbringer fight on your hands."
  
  "So we're to the point where getting back to a regular Endbringer fight is an improvement ?" I worked my mouth a little at that before managing the only snappy comment I could think of. "Fuck... us."
  
  "It's better than what we've got right now." Legend pointed out. "But that means killing every single zombie without letting it make any more. Which means that you," he looked toward Riley, "need to get that cure of yours into as many people as possible as fast as possible."
  
  "Why couldn't Panacea just fix everyone?" Flechette asked. "Rather than trust B... that girl to do it."
  
  Amy shook her head. "I tried. But... but it alters the brain, and I can't do anything with the brain. It doesn't work."
  
  Legend took a breath before focusing on Riley again. "As I was saying, how long will it take to inject everyone?"
  
  "Inject everyone?" Riley shrugged. "That'd take forever. That's why I made aerosol versions. Such a faster delivery system. That's what's in the truck."
  
  "How fast can you start the delivery system with what's in the truck?" Legend pressed.
  
  The former villain bit her lip before nudging Emma. "As soon as Sissy starts it up."
  
  "Huh, what?" Emma came back to herself, looking around as though she had no idea what was going on. She had been completely zoned out, focusing on all of her machines. When she saw Legend, the red-haired girl let out a yelp of surprise, bolting to her feet. "Whe-when did you get here?! Err, I mean, when did... uhhh... ummm... sir...?"
  
  Legend was obviously used that sort of reaction (I should know, given my own first reaction to him), because he just smiled faintly, his tone as gentle as possible given the urgency of the situation. "We need you to release the cure that Bo-" He stopped himself, trailing off before correcting. "-that Riley brought. How long will it take you to do that?"
  
  "I... I can do it from here, sir." Emma managed, her voice even quieter than usual as she was obviously fighting not to collapse into fangirl hysterics at the fact that Legend was talking to her. "But, you should pr-probably warn the people outside, because... it's re-really obvious when it's doing it, and they might think that it's doing something bad. Eidolon was already talking about having the truck teleported away s-so that whatever trap Riley set on it wouldn't have a chance to go off."
  
  "I'll take care of all that." Legend promised. "Just start it up as soon as I give you the word, okay?" When Emma nodded mutely, he turned away and used his private comm. I could barely make out a little of his murmured arguments with the other Triumvirate members for a few moments.
  
  Finally, Dragon's voice came through the armbands all around us. "A vaccine to prevent zombie reanimation has been found, and will now be spread throughout the city by the truck that was used to bring it in. Do not be alarmed by the presence of this truck, or by what it is doing."
  
  Once the people had been warned, Legend nodded to Emma, who rose and beckoned to me before moving toward one of the shipping doors. I followed her, and the electric door slid open at our approach. Across the lot, I could see the semi parked there. Further on, I could barely make out the figure of Sundancer at the far end of the lot. One of her miniature suns was floating ahead of her, and she was using it to sweep back and forth, keeping that side of the street completely clear of zombies.
  
  "I thought you'd want to see," Emma said quietly, dragging my attention away from Marissa before gesturing with a hand. As she did so, the back of the truck slid upward, and it rumbled to life. A thick blue smoke began to pour out from within, spreading quickly over the lot and everyone in it. The smoke billowed continuously from the back of the truck, before reversed toward us.
  
  "Pan... umm... Pandora... and umm... Ri-riley..." Emma was looking toward the others. "We should go... drive the truck around... make sure it gets everywhere."
  
  "Oooh, truck ride!" Riley positively bounced, moving to embrace me briefly in what I have to say was actually a pretty nice hug if you discounted the fact that letting the girl touch me was still pretty terrifying even with all that had happened. I trusted that she wanted to do the right thing, but I still wasn't exactly certain that she knew what the right thing was most of the time. Her way of 'helping' could easily be almost as bad as her attempts at hurting, if she got too carried away.
  
  She bounced off, jumping from the loading dock door to the pavement below before racing toward the truck. The Pandoras looked at Panacea, then to each other. Finally, one stayed next to her while the other accompanied Riley.
  
  Emma looked to me then, her expression hidden behind that mirrored faceplate. "I... I'll see you after all this, okay?" When I nodded, she hopped down and ran to the truck as well, which was already reversing out of the lot, still billowing that smoke.
  
  It had reached the store by then, and I blinked a few times. "Smells like peppermint."
  
  With Riley, Emma, and one of the Pandoras gone, Legend focused on the rest of us. "Now it sounds like everyone else needs to get out there and kill as many of these zombies as possible. No holding back. Destroy them so we can end this. If Tattletale's right, none of us can even start to hurt this bastard until all the other host bodies are gone."
  
  "I know someone that can really help with that." I pointed out, glancing toward Hunter.
  
  The Triumvirate leader looked that way as well, before nodding. "Tether's right. If we want to end this as soon as soon as possible, you're one of the best ways we have to do that. Because there's still a lot of animals in the woods. Dead animals. There's no way the rest of us can kill all the dead things in there fast enough. But you... all you have to do is walk through the forest and talk. Do it." She looked pained, and even a little horrified, but Legend pressed on. "I know. I understand. But there's no other way to be sure that enough of this monster's bodies are destroyed. Please, can you do this?"
  
  Ruin still looked uncertain, glancing toward Panacea, but Amy nudged her. "Go on. I'll be fine back here. They've got this whole lot covered. None of those zombies are getting in here, not now." After a second, she added, "Besides, I... still have... Pandora." The thought clearly still made her uncomfortable, but I gave her points for at least trying to make it sound like a positive thing.
  
  "Yes." Pandora agreed. "We will not leave our sister's side until this situation is resolved."
  
  Finally, the silent girl nodded, dropping her gaze after a moment to stare rather unhappily at the ground at the thought of using her power to kill everything in the forest.
  
  "You guys go find the rest of your teams." Legend was looking at Flechette, Sparrow, and me. "Tell them it's no holds barred. Kill all the zombies you can, straight out. And keep an eye on this Endbringer. I get the feeling that when its forced back into its body and wakes up, it's not going to like any of us very much."
  
  "Yeah, well the feeling's mutual," I muttered. "He's not on any of my Christmas cards either."
  
  "So basically," Glory Girl was saying, "we're supposed to kill all the zombies we can get our hands on. This changes anything from before... how?"
  
  "Well most of all, Riley just made it so that he can't just keep replenishing his numbers." I pointed out. "No more new dead bodies for him. So we kill all the bodies we can until his... essence or whatever goes back into his actual body and then we fight the Endbringer for real. Plus since the Protectorate isn't bothering with throwing useless attacks at the big body anymore, they're gonna be helping us clear the city out."
  
  Everyone on both Wards teams had been gathered in this small parking lot beside a gas station. At least, everyone that was left, in the Maine team's case. They still looked shell shocked by the loss of Chronicler, and what they'd had to do afterward when his body was reanimated. And apparently poor Dean had been knocked out by some reanimated super strong cape. Which meant just the four of them that were left standing. But all of them, even little Sparrow, were focused on getting through this fight.
  
  "Okay then." Weld looked at his other three teammates. "We spread out, do as much damage as we can, and blow through these zombies."
  
  "Right." Victoria cracked her neck. "Sounds like my kind of plan. Let's do some damage."
  
  It was messy, exhausting work. One zombie after another, we cut through them. There had been very few cape zombies to begin with, and with everyone on the Protectorate teams focused on hunting them down, they didn't last long. But the regular zombies, the reanimated normal humans, almost seemed to be endless. And... destroying them wasn't fun. It wasn't fun at all. It was horrible, knowing that the people whose bodies we were destroying had been living, breathing people not that long ago. This Endbringer, it abandoned its own body and used its energy to reanimate the dead. This was an enemy that wouldn't even let us truly fight it until we were forced to destroy thousands of bodies of what had been innocent people. The fact that they were dead before we attacked them didn't help assuage all of the feelings of guilt.
  
  Sparrow used the metal manipulation of her glove to rip down a lamp post, impaling one of the zombies through the upper torso with it. "I hate this." She lamented quietly as I stepped next to her, using a line attached to the zombie's shirt and pants to rip it down along the wound that she had created. "I hate it, I hate it, I hate it."
  
  "We all do." Kid Win spoke up from nearby as he used his backpack laser cannons to blast apart two more zombies that were crawling out from under an overturned truck. His voice was gloomy. "This sucks."
  
  My armband piped up then, " Dragon incapacitated, BA1."
  
  The announcement made me cringe. I knew that Dragon's suits were remote piloted, but she was also one of the heavy hitters. If something had taken her suit down... that really hurt us.
  
  Reach and Aid were working together pretty well. They were both standing on Cassie's floating hunk of rubble, while Theo's drones sought out zombies and sent up red flares to draw their attention so that Reach could use one of several damaged cars she was carting around to beat them into nothingness.
  
  Just across the street, Grace evaded three different zombie's grasping attacks at the same time, flipping up and over the last one before turning to kick at his head. At the last second she empowered her foot so that the kick blew apart the zombie's skull. "How many of these things do we have to kill before this Endbringer joins the party?"
  
  Glory Girl dove down out the sky, two different zombies held in her hands before she slammed them directly into the ground, left with little more than gooey paste. "As many as it takes."
  
  The whip that Flechette was using sliced through the two other zombies that had been attacking Grace, before a few more lashings of it cut them into too many pieces to do anything else. "Even when he does wake up, is anybody going to have the energy left to fight him?"
  
  "We have to." My own voice was almost as quiet as the others. "There isn't anyone else who can." Then I used a line to yank myself up to the roof of a nearby building, trying to get a better view. In the distance, I could see the incredible amount of damage that the gathered heroes of the Protectorate were doing. Lasers, rockets, fires of every shape and color, the air was literally flooded with the effects of the powers that were being used to clear the city. And yet, through it all, Anubis (or the empty shell of Anubis, if Tattletale was right) remained disinterested and just floated along.
  
  Below, I saw one of the zombies run face first into Weld's outstretched arm, before the metal boy began the grisly process of cutting the body apart. He glanced up at where I stood on the roof, and asked, "You all right?"
  
  "I'll be okay." I shrugged, attaching a line between a truck I could see at the end of the street, and the shirt of a zombie that was trying to move around the side of a nearby house, slamming them together with all the force I could muster. "What about Sparrow?"
  
  I saw him cringe. "I don't know. The poor kid... I don't know how to help her."
  
  Abruptly, the armbands around us buzzed as a computer voice announced, "All capes, return to central extract and gather point. Every cape, return to central extract and gather point immediately."
  
  "Is he active?" Weld asked reflexively, turning to gaze at the dark shadow in the distance.
  
  I shook my head slowly after a second. "It doesn't seem like it. Why would they want us to come back?"
  
  Glory Girl floated down next to me. "Let's find out."
  
  The parking lot seemed even more crowded now, even though Mr. Hebert and Strider had been working to teleport all the civilians away that they could. All of the capes that were still standing were gathered in one spot, around Legend, Alexandria, and Eidolon. Even Panacea stood nearby, flanked by Victoria on one side and Pandora on the other.
  
  Marissa and Jess's latest construct stood behind me, while Ethan and Sam were to my right. Everyone was watching the leader of the Protectorate for answers.
  
  "Thank you." Legend spoke up. "Thank all of you for working so hard today. This... this isn't working. We're all going to be exhausted by the time the rest of the zombies are cleared out, and starting a fight against a fully active Endbringer that way is... bad. So we're going to do something else. But we needed all of you off the streets first."
  
  Before anyone could ask what they were doing, he look toward Eidolon. "Ready?"
  
  The other man nodded, and the two of them flew up a little bit, hovering about fifteen feet above the parking lot. Then Eidolon put his hand out in front of them, and I saw what looked like some kind of hologram appear in front of them. It was a map of the city. There were red dots spread throughout the holographic map.
  
  "What are they doing?" Marissa asked quietly, staring up at the pair.
  
  I shook my head. "I don't-" That was as far as I got before dozens of lasers all-but exploded off of Legend. They shot out in every direction, blinding in their intensity as they flew away into the surrounding neighborhoods.
  
  More lasers erupted from Legend, while the dots on the map began to disappear one by one.
  
  My mouth fell open. "Eidolon's using some power to locate the zombies, and another power to display their locations for Legend to direct his lasers toward. They're taking out what's left of the zombies themselves."
  
  One after another, the red dots that indicated the zombie locations vanished, before Legend and Eidolon finally slumped back to the ground. Both looked tired.
  
  "It's not enough." Tattletale's voice spoke up. She was pointing at Anubis's still drifting form, which was close enough to see the jackal-like muzzle beneath the hood shape, but was obviously not ready to fight yet. "There's still one more."
  
  "Or you were wrong," One of the Chicago capes told her flatly.
  
  The other girl shook her head. "I wasn't wrong. I'm telling you, he's still got one major body to animate."
  
  "No there isn't." Eidolon shook his head. "That was all of them that I could sense."
  
  "That's because you can't sense the one that he's hiding inside his body." Tattletale was still pointing that way. "Probably the first zombie he resurrected. It's somewhere inside that cloak. That's why he's using his power to keep touch-based heroes away from him, so they don't find his first minion."
  
  "Well then we're still boned," Reach pointed out. "Because nobody can get near that thing to find one human body floating around somewhere inside it."
  
  "I can get to it." Victoria's voice was confident.
  
  Cassie shook her head. "Do you have any idea how many of them have been trying? Not even Eidolon managed to get close to the damn thing."
  
  "S-so that's it?" Sparrow's small voice interrupted the silence that came after that. "We... we did all of that, and we can't finish it because no one can get close enough to... to find the last zombie?"
  
  "We'll find a way." Eidolon promised. "We just-"
  
  "Victoria!" Amy suddenly blurted out. I twisted around to see Glory Girl flying straight off toward the floating Endbringer. "Wait-where... where's she going?!"
  
  Laserdream flew up after her cousin, chasing her, along with several other fliers. While we stood there and stared, they approached the massive dark figure. And one by one, all of the capes veered away, their expressions a mixture of terror and sadness as the monster's fear aura overwhelmed them. Even Laserdream had to stop, coming down on top of a building and disappearing from sight.
  
  But Victoria kept going. She flew onward, somehow... somehow continuing on past the point that every other cape had given up. Before our eyes, she plunged straight into the Endbringer's form, disappearing inside its cloak for a handful of nerve-wracking seconds.
  
  Then she came out the other side, a squirming, kicking human body held tightly in her arms. Victoria flew another dozen feet before kicking the zombie away from her. It was instantly melted by half a dozen different attacks.
  
  Victoria hovered over our heads, panting, her face white with induced terror while tears ran down her face. "S-see?" She held one fist up. "I told you... I could... do it..." She pointed triumphantly down at Reach. "You... were... wro-"
  
  There was no warning, not even for me, before a jet of black light lanced through the sky. It took Victoria in the back, somehow utterly ignoring her invulnerability and drawing a shriek of agony from the blonde girl before she plummeted to the ground, crashing hard.
  
  Anubis was moving with a purpose now. In the background, I could hear capes shouting to one another, Legend trying to form them into squads. But it was all noise. I hit the ground on my knees next to the fallen blonde girl, who was struggling to sit up.
  
  Ethan was there too, crouched beside Glory Girl, trying to steady her, but the girl was shaking violently. Her skin was horribly pale, and the white of her eyes had gone slightly pink and red. She kept trying to talk, but all she could do was hyperventilate.
  
  Amy came down next to me, shouting her sister's name. "Are you all right?! Victoria, are you okay?! Hold still, I'll fix you. I'll fix you." She put a hand up toward the other girl's face.
  
  Victoria caught her hand, putting their fingers together. Finally, she managed to force out the words. "A... amy..." The effort it took to speak was clearly monumental. "I... I'm... sorry... I..."
  
  "Shhh, shhh." Panacea was shaking her head frantically. "Just wait, wait. I can fix this, I can. I can... what's going on? What's happening?! Her cells are... her body's just shutting down! I can't make it stop!"
  
  All around us, capes called out to one another, as more of the black jets of light shot from Anubis, choosing targets seemingly at random. They were mounting a defense, attacking him in earnest now that he was active. But none of it mattered. Not right then.
  
  "Amy... Amy... listen..." Blood leaked from the Victoria's eyes, staining her cheeks red. "I... I'm... sorry... I didn't... love... you... the way that... you wanted me to. I... knew... I just... I was scared of losing you... if I acknowledged it... and... told you that I didn't feel that way. I love you, Amy. You're my sister... my... best friend... I wanted... to love you the way you wanted me to. But... but I... I... I..."
  
  Tears blinded me then, hot and bitter, as a different voice spoke up in the wake of Victoria's silence.
  
  " Glory Girl deceased, BA1."
  
  Interlude 17 - Panacea
  
  Panacea. To the Greeks, she had been a goddess of universal cure, the daughter of Asclepius, the god of medicine, and Epione, the goddess of easing pain. Her name had become synonymous with the very idea of a single substance that could remedy all ills.
  
  Amy Dallon had not been given the name lightly. Her power had, up to this point, seemed to be that perfect cure that the Greeks had imagined. Beyond simple healing, it allowed her near limitless manipulation of the biological form. Aside from her own self-imposed rules brought on by her fear of what might happen if she went too far and actually altered someone's brain, and her inability to affect herself, she could heal or alter any biological damage that she could touch.
  
  She had never failed to heal any injury or illness that she actively tried to fix, as long as it didn't cross into her refusal to work on brains.
  
  So why, why couldn't she fix this?
  
  Her throat was all-but torn from screaming her sister's name as she pressed her hands against Victoria's face and arm. The untouchable, indomitable blonde had been Amy's beautiful valkyrie, her warrior angel, the girl she had loved since she was old enough to understand what that kind of non-familial love actually meant. Seeing an injured Victoria had been what caused Amy to trigger into her healing powers to begin with. Her ability, the power that made so many people think she was important, that was supposed to make her special, was useless. The power that had only come about out of Amy's desperation to save the girl she loved, was failing to do that very thing now.
  
  It was failing.
  
  She was failing.
  
  Her scream choked off as Assault tried to say something to her, but she shoved the man aside, practically clawing at his eyes as he tried to pull her away from Victoria. Falling atop her sister's dead, rapidly decaying body, Amy put her hand back where it had been. Tears blinded her, forcing the girl to find her sister's cheek through feel alone, against skin that was actively dissolving under her touch, the bones that made up Victoria's skull turning to powder even as her skin and muscles become little more than goo.
  
  Tether and Assault were both trying to pull her away from her sister's body, while she screamed for them to stop, to leave her alone, to let her keep trying. One more moment, one more touch, one more push with her power and she could make the cells stop degenerating.
  
  She clawed and fought her way back to what remained of Victoria, tears so thick that she could see nothing through them. Nothing. Her power could find nothing to grasp, no way to force the cells to regenerate. They were deteriorating right in front of her. No matter what she did, no matter how she forced her power to try to undo the damage, it slipped away. Victoria's body was literally melting and crumbling away, and she couldn't stop it. The power of the Endbringer was stronger than hers.
  
  Assault pulled her away from her sister once more, prying her hands free of what was, by that point, little more than a puddle, all but indistinguishable from the already blood-coated mud that surrounded them. Amy fought his grip. Her throat was raw, the pain urging her forward as she fought with every ounce of strength she had to save Vicky. She screamed words that even she didn't understand, cursing the Endbringer, herself for failing, the others for trying to pull her away, even Vicky for getting herself hurt, for getting herself...
  
  A renewed sense of desperation accompanied the forceful blocking of that thought, as Amy eeled her way out of Assault's grasp, the man clearly hesitant to hold her too tightly, lunging back toward... nothing. Her hands, her hands that had for so long been able to heal anything they touched, could not distinguish between the remains of her sister, and the mud that she had been laying in. The body of the vibrant, powerful girl within had been broken down until nothing was left, nothing for Amy to hold, nothing for Amy to touch, nothing for Amy to cling to, save for her costume.
  
  Hands clutching the stained, ruined fabric, she fell against the mud and pavement. Heaving sobs ripped their way through her suddenly frail, cold body, Amy Dallon fell in every way it was possible to fall. Her eyes closed, and she willed herself to feel nothing, to know nothing.
  
  The fight carried on above and around her, but Amy cared for none of it. She simply curled up there in the mud, with the remains of Victoria's costume held tightly to her chest, wishing, praying, cursing for a reprieve, for a miracle that would not come.
  
  Blessed unconsciousness came upon Amy then, her last thoughts a desperate plea that the empty void that had torn her heart would take what remained of her soul so that she would never feel anything again.
  
  "Why won't she get up? Doesn't she know that people are hurt out here, people she can actually save? Doesn't she care?"
  
  The voice was unfamiliar, though the sentiment was not. Amy had been lying in this hospital cot for... she didn't know whether it was hours or days, lacking any sense of how much time that had passed whenever she drifted off. She'd woken up occasionally, but always willed herself to sleep once more, embracing the world of dreams, where Victoria still lived. Each time she awoke, she didn't have to wait long before someone within earshot would wonder when their healer was going to get back to work.
  
  This time, before she could flee back into her dreams, the sound of footsteps within the room alerted her to someone else's presence. The person had obviously been sitting near the bed, and now crossed to the door to close it, muffling the voice of the person who had been complaining.
  
  Was it Crystal, or Aunt Sarah? Maybe even Uncle Neil. It probably wouldn't be Mark. If he knew about his real daughter's death, he wouldn't be sitting quietly in the room of the person who had failed to save Victoria in spite of all the power she'd been given. His daughter was dead because of Amy's failure, because she hadn't been strong enough, because she hadn't been good enough.
  
  She deserved his hatred. She deserved everyone's hatred.
  
  Finally, unable to will herself back to sleep, she opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling. It was only then that Amy realized she wasn't in a hospital room at all. At least, not a patient's room. Instead, she was in the break room, the area that doctors and nurses pulling those incredibly long shifts used to catch a cat nap here and there. She herself had used it, to take a break from healing without leaving.
  
  "Amy." Crystal was standing by the bed, her hand brushing the back of her cousin's face. No. Not her cousin, Amy thought bitterly. Just some girl she knew. Her cousin had died, because Amy had failed to save her.
  
  "I'm sorry." Her voice was so soft, so frail, that she didn't realize at first that she had spoken aloud.
  
  Crystal's voice was surprisingly gentle for someone who should loath her at least as much as she loathed herself just then. "Why are you sorry?"
  
  Amy shook her head rapidly several times, unable to speak. It took her several tries to manage two single, weak words. "I tried." The tears came back, forcing Amy to close her eyes as her voice broke. "I tried so hard. I tried to save her. I couldn't. I just... I just..."
  
  Crystal sat on the side of the bed. When her hands came down on Amy's shoulders, the girl tensed reflexively, trying to be ready for whatever revenge the older girl would want for her failure.
  
  Instead, she felt Crystal lay down beside her in the cot, before she forcibly turned the other girl around so that they were face to face. Amy immediately tried to turn her gaze away, ashamed, but Crystal put a hand against her cheek and made her keep looking.
  
  "Amy, listen to me. If you never listened to me before in your life, and never listen to me after, at least listen to me now. Victoria's death-" The words made Amy's eyes flood once more and she tried again to look away, but Crystal's hand was firm. "Victoria's death was not your fault. You did nothing wrong, Amy. You would never, ever stop trying to save her. Even after there was... after there was nothing left, you wouldn't stop. This was not your fault. You tried. You never stopped trying."
  
  Amy's head shook as she stared into the eyes that should have hated her very existence for her failure. "But... but I... failed. I failed and she... she's..."
  
  Renewed tears took her before she could continue, and she felt Crystal pull her limp body closer, into a firm embrace. Her head shook even more then. "No. No, no, no. Can't... hate me. You hate me. Failed. Couldn't save her. Can't. Can't..." The words wouldn't come, wouldn't sort themselves out in her own head, let alone in her voice. She couldn't think, didn't want to think. She wanted to dream. She wanted to leave this hurt behind and go back to Victoria.
  
  "No, Amy." Crystal's voice, though tinged with obvious grief, was firm. "I don't hate you."
  
  Blinking up at that, the words enough to draw her away from the dreams that she longed for so much, Amy shook her head slowly, managing a weak, "Why?"
  
  Crystal leaned back a little to look down at the other girl. "Because you're my cousin, and I care about you. Because we're family, Amy."
  
  "Not... really." Amy's voice was barely audible. "Not related. Not really family."
  
  "Oh Amy." Crystal shook her head before wrapping both arms around the other girl. She embraced her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head before holding the shaking, grieving girl to her as she spoke firmly. "We are family. You've been my cousin for a decade, Amy. I've grown up with you. I know you like I know my dad, like I know my mother, like I knew Victoria. Blood be damned, Amy, we are family, and I am not abandoning you."
  
  "I deserve-" Amy started to say.
  
  Crystal interrupted, tightening her embrace to cut off the younger girl's words. "You deserve this. Because we're family. Because I love you, Amy. Doesn't matter how it happened or where you came from, you're my cousin. You will always be my cousin."
  
  Their eyes met again, Amy forcing herself to meet Crystal's gaze. "I... I'm so... so sorry." Same words, different meaning. Before, she had meant that she was sorry that she let Victoria die. Now, this time, she meant that she was sorry Victoria was dead. But there was no way that Crystal could understand the difference.
  
  Yet the other girl simply nodded. "I'm sorry too." She said quietly, before using a hand to gently press Amy's head down, tucking it against her shoulder while stroking her hair. "I'm sorry too."
  
  They stayed like that for some time, and the older girl had drifted off before Amy forced herself to stir. For once, she resisted the urge to fall asleep, pulling back from the promise of her sister's presence in her dreams.
  
  Instead, she made herself sit up, swinging her legs off the side of the cot, moving carefully to avoid waking her cousin.
  
  She wouldn't abandon Crystal either. But now, at this moment, she couldn't sleep. Not when there were people that she could help, people that her power could rescue from feeling the loss that she felt.
  
  Up to that point, her power had almost been a burden. It was her job to save people, and she had, over the time she had spent in the hospital, grown almost tired of fixing them. She had grown so complacent in the use of her power, that saving someone's life had become a chore. She hadn't truly understood what she was doing, what her power actually meant or how useful it was, until it had not been useful at all.
  
  Now she knew. Now she understood. The people she healed, and the people who cared about them, mattered. Her power wasn't an obligation. It was a gift. She could prevent people from feeling what she felt now. She could spare them that agony.
  
  Walking quietly out of the room, Amy prepared herself to heal anyone she could, while truly understanding for perhaps the first time exactly why she was doing it. It was no longer an obligation, no longer a chore.
  
  It was her choice.
  
  They'd beaten the Endbringer, obviously. Amy learned that much in the days that followed. The creature's primary attack, the death beam that had killed Victoria, had claimed nine more capes on top of those who had died to his zombies, before the remaining joint efforts had finally driven him to withdraw, apparently fading into shadow before disappearing entirely from sight.
  
  Apparently, the attack the creature used, the jet of black light that had stolen Victoria's life, was tied directly to that same zombie aura that the Endbringer had spread throughout the city during its aimless wandering.
  
  From what they could tell from reports and the footage that had been obtained, the Endbringer wasn't actually sending those jets of black energy outward to hit their targets, despite what it had looked like to the naked eye. Rather, when slowed down enough, it had become clear that the so-called 'beam' actually manifested fully formed, in the exact same instant.
  
  Basically, Anubis was able to coalesce any of what they were calling his 'death radiation' that he had been spreading to make his zombies, into a physical attack. Along any line of sight (at least, they were hoping it was line of sight), he could instantly transform that death energy into a solid line that would, upon contact with any biological life form, immediately and irrevocably force the cells of that creature to break apart.
  
  Victoria's forcefield had been unable to save her, because the 'death beam' had manifested inside and through her at the exact same time as it had manifested everywhere else. It was similar to Narwhal's ability to create forcefields that would appear inside a person's body and bisect them. It wasn't so much a beam that had 'struck' the girl, as it was a death-causing line that had been summoned into existence, formed out of the energy that had been spread over the entire town by that point. Some of the energy that was converted into that death-line had been inside Victoria herself, which meant that it didn't need to get past Victoria's defense, because it had literally manifested already inside it. All the forcefield had done was prevent that one tiny part of the otherwise solid line of death from forming. Apparently interruptions in the line did not prevent the rest from coalescing.
  
  Apparently not even Tether's injury/death sense was able to properly predict those particular attacks. The Protectorate thinkers were still working on exactly why that was, but it likely had something to do with that death energy or whatever they ended up calling it overwhelming her power's detection. The air itself was irradiated with that aura. Her power's radar probably couldn't see the tree of a single individual's death for the forest of death energy that surrounded them.
  
  At least, that was her best theory.
  
  As for Amy herself, her efforts to save her sister had failed because she could not affect the entire body at the speed that the Endbringer's attack could. Essentially, every time her power told one section of the body's cells to stop degenerating, all the other parts that had been altered by the attack overwrote that change. Amy was a powerful healer, but even she could only focus on one problem at a time, while the Endbringer's attack not only altered every cell in the body at once, but also left behind a command that forced every cell that had been changed to constantly check for cells that hadn't been altered (or that had been fixed), and reapply the alteration. Fix Part A, then try to move on to Part B, and Parts C through Z and onward would immediately undo the Part A fix.
  
  Two days after Victoria's funeral, Amy found herself standing in the same long-since closed down motel restaurant that she had been standing in when the news of Anubis's existence had interrupted her meeting with Pandora.
  
  "Amy-Sister?" The voice of the other her was tinged with curiosity. "Why have you come back here?"
  
  It took her a moment to turn that way, looking toward the face that was nearly identical to her own, save for the lack of freckles and slightly darker skin tone.
  
  "I really treated you like shit, didn't I?" Amy's voice was quiet as she stared at Pandora. "Which one are you?"
  
  "This Pandora-self is called Gamma, Amy-Sister." The clone answered simply.
  
  "Gamma," Amy echoed the name before continuing, "I... I was just... remembering that... when we were in the hospital, that first time we met, you... or whichever Pandora was there, said things about... about Victoria. You said that you... missed her. I... you... were me... you came from me, so you... felt... you cared about her too, didn't you?"
  
  Gamma was silent and still for a moment before giving a jerky, quick little head movement that was almost more spasm than nod. "We... miss... her more now."
  
  Amy's tears returned, but she blinked them away. She had to swallow the lump in her throat a couple of times before managing to speak. "Me too. I-" The words wouldn't come, and all she could do was extend a hand toward her mirror image "Come... come on."
  
  "Where are we going?"
  
  "To... to the cemetery." Amy looked away for a moment, eyes closing while a cold shudder of grief shot through her. "The... funeral... was a couple days ago. But..." Her tears, so familiar by that point, stained her vision once more. "But everyone who... who loved Vicky should... should get to say... g-" Her voice choked off briefly. "... goodbye."
  
  "We... do not know how to... say goodbye, that way." Pandora admitted, her voice as she tried to find the right words sounding far more vulnerable than Amy remembered it.
  
  Cringing a little, she kept her hand extended toward what might as well have been her twin. "I think... saying goodbye... is something that you... and I... are going to have to teach each other."
  
  "Together?" Pandora-Gamma questioned, lifting her hand to hesitantly clasp the other girl's.
  
  Amy nodded, interlocking her fingers with the other girl's before nodding as she started to walk with Pandora.
  
  "Yeah. Together."
  
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  Arc 18: Respite
  Notes: scranity - Yup, Spider-Mads is an ongoing thing. ;)
  
  feathers - thank you for reviewing! I thought it was a good time to spell out what some of Pandora's limitations were and show that she does have personality (almost 20 of them, to be precise!),
  
  Imageination - Already responded to you in PM, but for posterity's sake, Clockblocker graduated to the Protectorate since it was noted in canon that his birthday was sometime in the summer and that he would be graduating.
  
  For a normal person, losing a single friend to violence would be a tragedy that took months to even start to recover from, to get back to some sense of normality. For capes, we didn't have that luxury. If we shut down, there wasn't anyone behind us to take up the slack.
  
  We pressed on because we had to. The days kept going and we took them one at a time. The pain was there, as it would be likely forever, but it didn't rule us. We helped each other, we trained, we fought the little battles, and we kept going. Not because Victoria's death didn't matter, but because it did. We would make it matter, by going on, by fighting.
  
  Three weeks after the horrible Anubis battle that had taken the lives of so many people, including my teammate and friend, I was facing an entirely different sort of conflict. One that was, at least, less likely to result in death.
  
  "You know, it's too bad we're such good friends."
  
  I looked at Dennis after he said that, raising an eyebrow. "Why's that?"
  
  He grinned back at me, rolling his head back to crack his neck. "Because that's gonna make me feel really horrible about kicking your butt up and down this court for the next couple hours."
  
  We were in one of several gyms in the PRT building, standing on the edge of the basketball court. All around us, the members of both the Protectorate and Wards milled around.
  
  Sticking my tongue out at the red-haired boy, I gave him a shove. "Big talk, little man."
  
  "Little man?" He echoed in disbelief. "I'm like a foot taller than you."
  
  Ethan chose that moment to interject while he walked by, rolling one of the orange balls back and forth in his hands. "Like that's hard. There are still some theme park rides that she's not allowed to go on."
  
  Attaching a line between the ball and the floor near me, I yanked it from Ethan's hands to my own. Then I threw the ball back at his head. "I'm not that short!"
  
  Catching the ball easily, Ethan gave an elaborate shrug. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. It makes the top of the kitchen cupboard a really good place to hide things so you'll never find them."
  
  Before I could finish sputtering a response to that, a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind while Marissa remarked, "Are you people making fun of my tiny girlfriend?"
  
  "Nah," Dennis was still grinning. "Just congratulating you on getting a significant other that can easily fit in the overhead compartment if you ever take a plane trip."
  
  "Hey, some girls get those little dogs that fit in their purses. I went for something I could date."
  
  "Jerks." I informed them. "You're aaaaaaaallll complete and total jerks."
  
  "Wards and Protectorate, let's get this show on the road!" Miss Militia called out, and the groups that had been mingling around all migrated toward the middle of the court.
  
  Snickering, Marissa gave me a quick hug and then whispered, "You're cute, but we're still gonna beat you."
  
  I gave her a poke in the stomach. "At least there's no push-ups involved this time, huh?"
  
  It was Marissa's turn to stick her tongue out at me. "I still say you made up that bowling rule to screw with me."
  
  "Just wait until you see what kind of rules I add if we ever play Monopoly," I teased before splitting off from the older girl to join my team.
  
  We had been kept busy in the weeks that had passed since Anubis's attack, as the Protectorate and the government tried to sort out what to do about an entire town and surrounding countryside in Maine that was uninhabitable. Riley's inoculation didn't provide permanent immunity to the zombie aura, unfortunately. So there was no way it could be manufactured in large enough doses to keep everyone who wanted to live in that area totally safe.
  
  All of which meant that the area that had been affected had to be totally walled off to prevent crazy people from sneaking in and trying to spread the plague elsewhere. That had required dozens of tinkers, teleporters, and other capes working together to seal the area before several planeloads of napalm had been dropped to make absolutely certain that anything that could possibly have been affected was destroyed.
  
  The total cost and effort to secure the area had to have been astronomical. And assuming the Endbringers continued their previous schedule, it would happen every year or so, whenever Anubis's turn happened to come up. Not that the others were any better, but the fact that Anubis's aura was something that couldn't be fixed, even if the land around it looked totally fine was somehow even more depressing. Or maybe it was just because this one was new, and seemed to be proof that the Endbringers would keep coming without limit.
  
  Yet, in the face of all that, what else could we do but move on and keep living? Plans were made, more tinkers and thinkers tried to work out ways to counter this newest Endbringer alongside his siblings, and the world kept spinning. We had other threats to deal with, like Marquis' and Lung's little war that seemed to have at least settled into a sort of grudging peace as their chosen areas had been staked out.
  
  Amy seemed to have found renewed purpose after the horrible loss of Victoria. She was living with Crystal, since her adoptive father had apparently all but shut down after the death of his daughter so soon after that of his wife. Not only was she visiting the hospital more often than she did before, but she seemed much more driven while she was there. It didn't come off as though it was some kind of chore for her to be there any more.
  
  Most people knew about Panacea's renewed determination and focus on healing. What they didn't know, what only a few did know about, was Amy's side project. For the last couple of weeks, she had been working on something with Riley at the motel. Even I wasn't allowed to know what it was, only that it was something that required both Panacea and Riley to work long hours on, and that they had taken over the entire floor of the motel beneath the floor Dinah's group had already been living in for it.
  
  I'd asked Dinah about other people in the motel, and she had just said that there weren't any other people, without explaining further. I'd decided not to press further than that.
  
  My thoughts were interrupted by Chris, who called out from somewhere behind me, "Hey Miss Militia! Since you guys lost your team captain and the guy that would've been your center, you could all just forfeit if you want to save yourselves the embarrassment of being beaten by teenagers."
  
  Armsmaster and Manpower had both left the Protectorate team. Armsmaster had transferred to the Maine Protectorate in an attempt to beef up their team in the wake of all the crazies that were trying to break into the quarantined area. Armsmaster specifically had been requested given his reputation as a tinker. He'd been offered leadership of the team since they'd lost their leader to one of Anubis's death beams, as well as the reputation as the person who held Maine together through the tragedy.
  
  Manpower hadn't left the city, but he did transfer from the Protectorate to PCIPS, apparently to spend more time with his wife. He'd been partners with her through basically their entire superhero career, and their schedules differing so much had been difficult. I also had the feeling that he'd wanted to give Crystal a chance to be on her own rather than constantly on a team with her dad.
  
  Miss Militia was spinning the basketball on her finger while raising an eyebrow at Kid Win. "Confident, are we, Christopher?"
  
  "I'm just saying," he replied while moving to stand next to me, "you guys might've had a chance with Armsmaster and Manpower, but now you've got nothing. Meanwhile, we've got... our secret weapon. Right, secret weapon?"
  
  A figure dropped out of the air from where she had been hovering, landing behind Chris before jumping up onto his back to hang around his neck. "Right!" Sparrow, who outside of her costume was actually an adorable little Native American girl named Mika, piped up while settling her chin on Chris's shoulder. She bared her teeth at Miss Militia in what she apparently thought was an intimidating grimace. "We're gonna kick your butts!"
  
  With the loss of her hometown, Mika and her family had moved down to be as far away from those traumatic events as possible while giving her the chance to continue to exercise her growing powers. They'd moved in right next door to Ethan and Sam's place, and Flechette/Lily had come with them.
  
  The two of them, Sparrow and Flechette, had been brought onto our team after the death of Victoria, which actually made Lily our team leader. It was a work in progress, since she'd had no interest whatsoever in leading, but the rules stated that the oldest member had to be leader, and she was a year older than me.
  
  That, actually, was a fact that I was infinitely grateful for. I wasn't ready to lead a Girl Scout troop, let alone a team of teenage superheroes. Lily's presence had at least saved me from that horror for awhile.
  
  Chris and Mika had hit things off immediately. In spite of the several year age difference, the two were already incredibly good friends, to the point that they practically finished each other's sentences. Chris had actually helped Lily, Mika, and her family move into their new house.
  
  "Maybe it escaped your notice," Sam put in mildly from where she was standing next to Ethan. "But we still outnumber you, eight to seven."
  
  This time, it was my turn to shrug. "Only five people on the court at once anyway. And you old people need the extra man so you get more time to rest."
  
  That caused a series of ooohs to pass through the group, while Ethan just pointed at me. "Who are you calling old, Ewok?"
  
  From the other side of me, Cassie put in, "Hey, which team is it that includes someone whose power involves taking a nap?"
  
  Sitting in her wheelchair, Jess waved. "I think the better question is, which team includes someone who can beat you senseless while taking that nap."
  
  "All right, all right." Miss Militia shook her head. "Is the impartial ref ready?"
  
  Everyone glanced toward Hunter, who stood at the side of the court with a small tablet device in the one hand. She nodded, hitting a button on the tablet so that a pleasant female voice spoke out, "Ready."
  
  "Great." Miss Militia tossed the ball to her. "Let's get this game started. The sooner we beat you kids, the sooner you can get ready for the first day of school tomorrow."
  
  Lily, who had turned out to be a pretty Japanese-American girl under her costume, finally cleared her throat. "Uh huh, sure. We all know you retirees have to get home in time to watch Matlock."
  
  More good natured ribbing went back and forth, as the two teams took their places. On our side, Lily had chosen to sit out at first, along with Theo, which left Missy, Cassie, Chris, Mika, and me to take the court. We were up against Hannah, Kayden, Dennis, Ethan, and Crystal to start out.
  
  Obviously, Mika was chosen to play the tipoff, which put her up against Ethan. When he saw the tiny eleven-year old approach to stand across from him, the man gave her a little grin. "You want a step ladder so we can be at the same altitude?"
  
  Her response was to bare her teeth again, another attempt at intimidation that just made her even cuter. This time she actually growled, which was at the very least the most adorable thing I'd seen all week.
  
  As soon as both teams were ready, Ruin tossed the ball up and then backed off quickly.
  
  Ethan leapt for it, but a glowing forcefield appeared right over his head, blocking him in. Meanwhile, Mika flew straight up, her bracelets glowing as she caught the ball with the hand that wasn't holding her staff and did a somersault in the air to throw it back toward Chris.
  
  Before the ball could reach him, a weaker forcefield appeared for it to bounce off and into Crystal's hands as she flew in to catch it, dissolving her shield before spinning in the air to throw the ball toward Hannah. It bounced once off the court and to the other woman's waiting hands. Or it would have, if I hadn't attached a line between the ball and one of the gloves that I was wearing for this game.
  
  The ball was nearly to me when Ethan leapt in the way, catching the ball and blocking my line of sight to it. As soon as it was free of the tether since I couldn't see it anymore, he twisted around and used the momentum he'd stolen from the flying ball to throw it all the way down the court toward the basket.
  
  It fell short about six feet away from Ethan, who blinked at the ball in dismay a second before Missy scooped it up and winked at him, undoing the spatial distortion that she'd made.
  
  Missy threw the ball to Cassie, who touched it for a brief second before grinning as she made the ball fly behind her back, then high up into the air above the court. A second later, it plummeted straight toward the basket... a second before a gunshot rang out, and the ball was literally blown apart.
  
  Lowering her pistol, Hannah waved a hand with a smile. "Oops. Guess that makes it your ball."
  
  From above the court, the hovering drone that had been made specifically for this purpose dropped one of the two dozen balls it was holding. Mika caught the ball and took it out at the half-court line.
  
  She bounced it in, and I used a line to send it back toward Cassie. Unfortunately, Dennis managed to slap a hand against the ball as it was passing him, and the next sixty seconds were spent with everyone anxiously waiting for it to pop out of its frozen state (the rules being that if the ball went out of action for longer than that, it was considered out of play and a new ball had to be dropped in).
  
  I saw the ball start to drop, only three seconds before the time limit. The second it did, a carefully calculated blast of light from Kayden nearly blinded me, and I recoiled with a yelp. From the sound of things, most of my teammates were reeling as well.
  
  By the time I blinked the spots out of my eyes, Kayden had taken the ball and was flying straight down the court toward our basket. Chris, who had been protected from being blinded by the tinker-goggles that he chose to wear, flew backwards on his flight pack, trying to block her. Just as it looked like she was going to slip past him given her greater maneuverability, Chris stopped short. He hovered there in the air and winked, just as one of his cannons shot out what looked like a pale blue orb about the side of a tennis ball. The orb cracked apart in the air, unveiling into a weighted net that wrapped itself around Kayden, dragging her to the floor before she could safely blast it away from her.
  
  The ball went tumbling from her hands, just in time for Mika to catch it. The new youngest Ward tucked the ball close to her body and dropped straight to the floor. As soon as she landed, the girl's belt buckle began to glow pink, and Mika's body was almost immediately transformed into what looked like a stone statue.
  
  The adults, clearly unprepared for this new power of Mika's, looked around in confusion as no less than six other Mika statues appeared at various spots along the court. They were splitting up to cover as many as possible, when all the statues abruptly crumbled into dust. The real Sparrow was revealed underneath one of the statues nearest the other end of the court, and she threw the ball straight up in the air.
  
  Chris, who had been waiting as if they'd planned it, caught the ball perfectly as he hovered there, and tossed it down through the basket just before Crystal's laser shot could destroy it. The ball dropped through the net and a buzzer accompanied the adjustment of our score on the board from zero to two.
  
  "So that's the power she's been working on for the past week." Dennis remarked from nearby. "She's been so secretive about it."
  
  I nodded. "Apparently she can choose the number of statues that appear and where they are, and which one she pops out of. Kind of a very complicated method of line-of-sight teleporting coupled with decoy targets."
  
  "Pretty swanky." He gave me a look then. "But we're still gonna whup your butts."
  
  Jogging up next to me, Cassie grabbed my arm and pulled me away. "C'mon, they're taking the ball out. I thought we were gonna have to drag you away from your girlfriend, not the ginger."
  
  "Good job, guys!" Lily called from the sideline. "Chris, Mika, you guys earned a break for a minute. Theo and I can take a turn."
  
  Floating down to the floor, Chris exchanged high fives with his pint sized partner, before nodding sagely. "Sure thing, gotta give the old folks a sporting chance."
  
  "Keep talking, little tinker boy!" Marissa called to him from where she was sitting next to Jess. "It's gonna make that crow you eat that much tastier."
  
  In reply, Chris just pointed at the scoreboard, which Hunter was also controlling. "All I see is two points for us, and none for you guys. Should've taken us up on that offer to spot you some so you could at least get on the board."
  
  It was Kayden who spoke up, holding the ball over her head as she passed it back and forth from hand to hand. "There's lots of game left. Shouldn't let yourself be... blinded by pride."
  
  The emphasis of the word was all the warning we had, before another blast of bright light sent us staggering while the ball was tossed back into play. A moment later, the buzzer announced that they had scored while we were reeling and blinded.
  
  She was right, it was going to be a long game.
  
  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, what was that final score?" Ethan was holding his hand up to his ear as though waiting for a response. "It was ummm, god I'm having such a hard time remembering. Fifty-seven to... what was it?"
  
  "Oh shut up." I rolled my eyes. "It was fifty-seven to fifty-six. I don't think that's a lot to brag about."
  
  "Psshhh, it's everything to brag about," he informed me, grinning. "Cuz our score was fifty-seven."
  
  I gave him a shove as we walked down the hall of PRT HQ together, heading for the exit. "Lucky shot. Soooo lucky. You guys were totally down the whole time until the last second."
  
  Still grinning even as I shoved him, Ethan caught my arms and spun me around right there in the hall, making me yelp. "What can I say? Last second saves are my specialty."
  
  As he spun me, I lifted my legs so that my feet were pressed briefly against the wall, then used a line from my shoes to the wall to shove myself up and over Ethan's head and out of his grasp. Twisting in mid-air, I came down on the other side of him, then immediately dropped to roll to the side as he turned so that I could pop up, still behind him, and poked the man in the back. "Over here."
  
  Snorting as he turned, Ethan brought his hand down on my head, practically covering my face. "Okay, now you're a ninja Ewok." Lifting his hand off, he chuckled. "I take it the lessons with Hunter, Marissa, and Grace are paying off then?"
  
  Smiling, I turned to keep walking while giving him a shrug. "What can I say, they're good teachers."
  
  One of my biggest problems, I'd learned very quickly after setting out to be a cape, was that I had a tendency to stop and focus to make my lines. Standing still, when you didn't have any kind of personal defensive ability, was a pretty bad idea. The trouble was, actually learning how to fight and move constantly took time and a decent trainer. I'd had the choice of either not using my powers while I learned to fight and move better, or using them as well as I could while learning, and just gradually improve.
  
  I'd chosen the latter. At first I'd learned from Vista and the boys, taking in basic lessons like throwing a punch, escaping from a hold, and so on. Later I'd tried to learn a bit from a couple PRT officers, but it was hard for them to teach a girl my size with my abilities. It was very much a trial and error sort of thing. It was like my powers would benefit immensely from the kind of agility I just hadn't had when I initially got them, and the powers themselves hadn't actually come with that kind of bonus.
  
  Eventually, I'd begun to learn flexibility and basic gymnastics from Marissa, who had apparently been both a dancer and a gymnast. When Ruin had joined us, she began to teach the whole Wards team how to better defend ourselves without powers. And given that she lived with me, I was able to take some extra lessons.
  
  Finally, I'd met Grace, whose real name was Katherine Oldershaw, during the Anubis fight. Her way of moving around, the graceful (yeah, I totally understood her codename now) way that she all-but danced through the battle like her moves had been choreographed ahead of time, it was the kind of thing I'd wanted to learn.
  
  So, I'd asked her to help me do just that. And for the past several weeks, I'd been able to learn from her. Of course, there had been the distance to worry about, but all I'd had to do was mention the idea to Crystal's mother. The next day, both she and Miss Militia had arranged for several different Protectorate teleporters to take turns ferrying either me or Katherine to the other every other day. It made me feel guilty at first, making people take time out of their day to teleport us back and forth just so I could have yet another fighting instructor. But the capes who were doing the transporting assured me that if they weren't taking one of us back and forth, they'd be stuck transporting important people in suits that thought of them more as particularly talkative cars than as human beings. They thought I was more fun to talk to, which I suppose wasn't that hard when compared to some of the self-obsessed political power players I'd seen.
  
  Still, I always tried to thank them for the jump, and made sure they knew that I was more than willing to wait if they were busy. My desire for training didn't override their own lives.
  
  That was pretty much how my last few weeks had been spent. I threw myself into it so heavily at least partly to avoid thinking about Victoria's death, and the accompanying feeling of despair that even more Endbringers would just keep coming and pick us off one by one.
  
  And it was working. I'd learned the very basics from the other Wards, I'd gradually improved that with what little the PRT officers could do, then learned even more from Hunter. Grace, and her fluid way of fighting while constantly moving, appeared to have been the last piece of the puzzle for me to figure out how my own method of fighting should work. It was still taking time, and I wasn't perfect by a long shot, but I was gradually getting better at moving and fighting without taking the time to stand still. My agility and reflexes were improving steadily, which was a good thing, considering the kind of threats that kept presenting themselves.
  
  There were two benefits that my powers provided toward my attempts to learn to be more mobile during a fight, even if they hadn't magically gifted me with the ability to do a standing triple full layout (essentially a flip with three full twists), both tied to my breaker ability. First, it stopped me from feeling nauseous after that kind of motion, and second, the increased flexibility and lack of accompanying pain seemed to allow me to learn to do it much faster. So once I did start learning to do that sort of thing, it came naturally, and I was learning to do things in weeks and months that apparently took non-powered people years to get down.
  
  Dennis and Marissa met us at the doorway into the parking lot, the former giving me a smug smile. "So what kind of excuses did she make up so far?"
  
  "Pfffft." I rolled my eyes. "You're the guys that need excuses. You've got how much more experience combined and you only manage to win by one point at the very last second?"
  
  Marissa was chuckling even as she pointed out, "Too bad basketball games don't work on a sliding scale of victory. One point's as good as fifty. Still a win."
  
  "Oh you guys just wait." I pointed a finger at each of the three in turn. "Next time, you're going down."
  
  There was more teasing back and forth as we walked toward Ethan's truck. Hunter was already there waiting for us, leaning against the truck while browsing something on her phone. As we approached, she looked up and then smiled immediately.
  
  It wasn't me she was smiling at, I knew. It was Dennis. It had become obvious, at least to me, that Hunter had... feelings for him, but refused to do anything about it. She was still terrified of hurting anyone with her power, let alone a person she cared about, so she kept herself closed off. Yet every time she saw him lately, that smile came back. It had started when we met up with him at the mall to get Hunter some clothes, and she'd revealed that she liked the Seventh Reach books as well as both of us did. All three of us had bonded over talking about the series, but most importantly, Hunter had obviously grown attached to the boy, which had become even more obvious as she had begun to train all of us, before he'd moved up to the Protectorate.
  
  Dennis, of course, was oblivious to her feelings, which made me want to hit him repeatedly. Because it was obvious that he thought she was cute too, but he took her being afraid of saying anything about her own interest as evidence of her lack of interest, which was just crazy talk.
  
  "All right," Ethan was saying. "You lemmings ready to head for the store? We can go one in the front with me and three in the back. Who wants to go where?"
  
  My first instinct was to stay with Mars. Yet that would have meant splitting up Dennis and Hunter, and if it was the last thing I did, I was going to make Dennis notice that she was actually interested.
  
  "Go ahead Mars." I gave her a little push to the front. "I've gotta make sure Dennis knows just what a traitor to his old team he is."
  
  Her eyebrows went up, before she glanced toward Dennis and Hunter. Then she rolled her eyes and gave me a knowing look before turning to get in the front passenger side.
  
  "You know, you are sixteen now." Ethan pointed out with his hand on his own door. "You could take driving lessons. Most teenagers can't wait to get their license."
  
  I shrugged while using a hand and a pair of lines on my feet to vault myself into the back of the pick-up. "Most teenage girls can't zip around town on invisible tethers. I don't see how chugging along through rush hour traffic in a big metal box is supposed to compare to flinging myself from building to building in a what's basically an ongoing horizontal skydive."
  
  Both of the guys both shook their heads disbelievingly at that, while I settled myself into a corner, shifting to get comfortable on the metal truck bed while purposefully putting my legs up the other way so that Hunter and Dennis each had to sit on the other side, beside each other.
  
  The truck started up a second after Ethan closed his door, and Dennis asked, "So you seriously have no interest in driving?"
  
  "I guess I did before," I offered with another shrug. "But like I said, it doesn't seem to be that special anymore. Take right now for instance. We're gonna pull out of this lot, wait through a line of cars to turn right, wait at the intersection to turn right again, drive two blocks, then make another right. If I was by myself, I could put a line on the roof of the PRT building and slingshot myself above the roof, then use another line on the roof of the church two blocks over to tug me that way. Trust me, a car is a downgrade from this kind of convenience."
  
  Hunter was typing something out on her pad. After a moment, the voice spoke up with, "You don't have to put on a mask to drive. Unless you're the getaway driver for a bank job."
  
  "Girl's got a point there." Dennis nudged Hunter, and I saw her blush and look away. "If you had a car you could get around without changing into your costume all the time."
  
  I considered for a moment before biting my lip to stop the Tattletale smile that tried to come. "I guess you might be right..." I trailed off purposefully, not wanting to push too hard or fast.
  
  Dennis squinted at me, clearly suspecting a joke or something. "Yeah? So you wanna learn to drive?"
  
  I hemmed and hawed for a few moments, shifting a little before looking toward Hunter as if it had just occurred to me to ask, "You think I should?"
  
  The other girl blinked at the question, then nodded slowly and gave me a thumbs up of agreement.
  
  I'd never been fishing, but I imagined this was a bit like that. I had my bait out there and just had to carefully let them bite without realizing what I was doing. To that end, I pretended to think about it a little more, purposefully drawing it out as if I didn't already know exactly what I was going for. "Well... maybe if I could learn from someone that I knew..." I trailed off again, feigning uncertainty. Then I gave a soft gasp as if something had just barely occurred to me and looked up. "Dennis, you could do it. You could teach me how to drive, right?"
  
  The question clearly surprised the red-haired boy, because he stared at me for a second. "Err, you want me to teach you? I mean, I guess that could work."
  
  I let my head bob eagerly. "Sure, we haven't spent as much time together since you turned traitor."
  
  "I didn't turn traitor!" He sputtered. "I turned eighteen! It happens to everybody!"
  
  "Right," I waved a hand dismissively. "Like I said, turned traitor. Anyway, it'd be an excuse to hang out. So what do you say, teach me?"
  
  He looked uncertain for a moment, but finally shrugged and nodded. "Sure, if that's what you want."
  
  "Great." I smiled and leaned back, watching the cars behind us as the truck turned the corner. I counted to twenty in my head, then straightened as if a thought had just come to me. "Err, hey Hunter, you said you were in the Birdcage for... what was it, three years?"
  
  She blanched before giving a hesitant nod. Obviously that hadn't exactly brought up happy memories.
  
  "So... do you know how to drive?" Again, I was careful to make it sound like this had just now occurred to me. "I mean, since you were away for so long."
  
  Hunter looked confused by the question, but shook her head after a moment.
  
  I smiled broadly. "Well hey, that's okay. That just means that I can have some company. Dennis can teach both of us." I looked back and forth between them, eyes bright with enthusiasm. "We'll probably both learn better by having someone else to watch too, and it's still just people in the know about who we are. See how well that works?"
  
  Dennis clearly knew I was doing something, but couldn't work out exactly what my angle was. Because he was oblivious about this sort of thing. "I guess so, if both of you wanna learn."
  
  "Perfect." I smiled a little more, letting my head lean back as I gazed up at the sky. "Just perfect."
  
  Once we reached the store, the three of us hopped down to join Ethan and Marissa. I took a second to grab my girlfriend's hand and smiled with satisfaction.
  
  "You are a little meddler." She whispered to me, giving my hand a squeeze while nodding toward Hunter and Dennis.
  
  "I object to that." I whispered back. "I'm a great honking huge meddler."
  
  Ethan came around the front of the truck, stretching out as he moved. "Okay, Mika's parents are probably already waiting, so let's try to split up and get all the stuff we need for the barbeque asap. We've gotta have... the meat, the buns and condiments, and the chips, salsa, and drinks. Who wants to get what?"
  
  Before anyone else could speak up, I interrupted. "Well, Mars and I can get the meat." Smoothly and without even looking at him, I added, "Shut up, Dennis. So Ethan should probably get the buns and condiments since there's less of those. Which leaves chips, salsa, and drinks for you guys." I nodded toward Hunter and Dennis, the former of which was currently staring rather intently at her shoes while her face turned pink.
  
  Oblivious Dennis just shrugged. "Works for me. You good with putting up with me a bit longer, Hunter?"
  
  She nodded, and it was settled. Marissa and I headed in to grab a cart, then moved for the back of the store. Mars was shaking her head at me. "You're right, you are a great honking huge meddler."
  
  I made a disparaging noise. "They just need a little push together, that's all. She likes him and he likes her, but he thinks she isn't interested and she thinks her power means she isn't allowed to be happy. I'm just giving them a nudge."
  
  Before she could respond to that, I recognized two of the three people that we were passing on our way into the store. My eyes widened and I very nearly spun on my heel before murmuring to the girl beside me. "Keep going, I'll meet you inside."
  
  Then I hurriedly pivoted and headed out after the three girls I'd seen while hissing, "Amy, Riley?"
  
  Both girls were obviously dressed in a way to avoid attention. Amy wore simple blue jeans and a featureless gray sweatshirt, and a baseball cap jammed down over her brown frizzy hair. Riley, beside her, wore identical jeans, and a green sweatshirt with the hood up. Her hair had been dyed black, and she was either wearing contacts or Panacea had altered her eyes, because they were a totally different color from normal as well.
  
  On my wrist, Jalopy played a few notes of the Beach Boys 'Mama Says', shifting just far enough out of his wristband form to wave his two grappler arms at Riley, like a little kid trying to get his parent's attention.
  
  "Teth-I mean, Madison!" The diminutive bio-tinker all-but bounced up to me, eyes shining. "I didn't know you were gonna meet us here!" I had given up on keeping my identity secret from her, figuring that since Amy, Dinah, Emma, and Pandora knew who I was, keeping Riley in the dark might just do more harm than good if she decided that I still didn't trust her or was treating her unfairly.
  
  "She wasn't." Amy put in. "Was she?" Her eyes were squinting around, as if she was afraid a whole team of PRT officers was about to drop in on them.
  
  I shook my head. "Just here to get barbeque stuff. What..." I frowned at the their companion, a dark skinned girl who looked utterly unfamiliar. "Pandora?" I asked with a lower voice.
  
  "We are disguised, Tether-Friend." She replied, brightly and honestly.
  
  I winced, looking around. Luckily, nobody was nearby. "It's just Madison when I'm not in costume, you know. What are you guys... doing here?" I squinted at the cart full of what looked like several cows worth of meat.
  
  "Oh, just needed... you know... some more material to work with." Amy replied evasively before clearing her throat. She was kind of shit at keeping secrets subtly, and obviously knew it because she flinched. "It's nothing bad. Just... we'll talk about it later, okay?" The poor girl was holding onto that cart like I was going to yank it away from her.
  
  "Oookay." I shrugged. "I don't know what you guys need with all that meat, but... good luck?"
  
  Riley just had to give me a hug, and actually gave Jalopy a tickle against his sensor. Then they left, heading for a car that I didn't recognize.
  
  Mars moved up behind me, staring after them. "Was that Panacea, Pandora, and Riley all carrying a metric crap ton of meat out of the store?"
  
  "Yup." I nodded.
  
  "Are you as terrified as I am at the thought of what they might be doing with it?"
  
  "Ayup."
  
  18.03
  
  "Seriously, does anyone else find the idea of starting the school year in the middle of the week to be a little weird?" I asked my companions as we stood on the sidewalk in front of Arcadia High School the next day. "Wouldn't it be better to start it on a Monday instead of Wednesday?"
  
  Chris, standing a little to the left, shrugged. "I'm still advocating 'no school at all', so don't look at me."
  
  The other members of our little group were Lily, Cassie, Theo, and Amy. Mika and Missy were both still in middle school, going into the sixth and eighth grades, respectively. It still boggled my mind that girls as young as them could end up with powers as strong as theirs were. Missy had been slightly younger than Mika when she first got her powers and joined the Wards, and now she was pretty much a three year veteran. The fact that most capes triggered around age fifteen or sixteen and thus graduated within a couple years meant that she actually had more experience than anyone else currently on the team. Yet she was still in middle school. Meanwhile, Mika was already being groomed as the potential next coming of Eidolon, considering her ability to vary her powers from week to week. It was crazy.
  
  Theo spoke up a little hesitantly. "I uhh, I think they do it that way so that you have a couple days of school for people to get settled into the new year, then a weekend to take a break, and then start fresh with a full week of classes where the teachers have already done their introductions."
  
  Lily was being quiet, watching the school almost apprehensively. I felt bad for her. Apparently the fact that she had no parents or other family meant that the PRT didn't see a problem with moving her around a lot, to wherever they needed her most. And now they expected her to jump in and take over leadership for this team, after we'd just had one leader move, another leader graduate, and a third leader die, all in the course of the same couple of months. She had to deal with a new town, a new school, a new team, and try to lead that team despite never having been a leader before.
  
  Reaching up, I patted her on the back. "I guess Theo's got a point. We should head in anyway, and get this over with."
  
  Cassie was shaking her head sadly. "See, it's that kind of attitude that's leading to the disintegration of the American Education system. We have the internet. Do you have any idea what that's done to people's ability to become educated if they actually want to? We should be fucking grateful that we get to go to school in a time that it's so easy to learn."
  
  I blinked a couple times, tilting my head at her. "You're... not being sarcastic, are you?"
  
  She just stared at me for a second. "Why would I be sarcastic about school? You can learn stuff in five seconds that used to require an hour long trip to the library to hunt through the reference section. Now, you can just do a search and find it five seconds without even leaving the couch."
  
  I held both hands up placatingly. "No, no. I get it. I just... I'm still amused that under all that..." I gestured to the black leather jacket, ratty jeans, and combat boots that she wore. "... you're a total nerd."
  
  Cassie's eyes rolled and she gave me a shove. "Just because I like to learn things doesn't mean I can't still kick your god damn ass up and down this street if you call me a nerd again."
  
  Amy, who had been pretty quiet this whole time, heaved a sigh and started to walk to the doors without saying anything else. The rest of us exchanged looks and then began to follow.
  
  I knew what was bothering Amy, of course. Coming back to this school without Victoria was obviously horrible for her. Even before taking the depth of Amy's feelings for her adopted sister into account, the two had been all but inseparable for the longest time. From what the others had said, Amy was more of Victoria's shadow, an omnipresent figure that came along for everything that Victoria did.
  
  Now, she was being forced to stand alone in the spotlight. New Wave was disbanded, and as far as Arcadia was concerned, Amy was all that was left of what had been a collection of celebrities for them to gawk at over the years. They'd had Crystal, Eric, Victoria, and Amy at different points. All that was left to hold their attention was Amy, who, unlike the others, wilted under the spotlight rather than thriving in it.
  
  And every raised eyebrow, every hushed whisper, every stopped conversation that accompanied Amy's entrance into the school was just another reminder that Victoria was gone.
  
  I had never hated New Wave's decision to unmask more than I did in that very moment.
  
  I had been in Arcadia before. Not to attend classes, but one of my spare costumes was stored there alongside those of the other Wards, so I'd been in and out of the building enough to basically know my way around at least somewhat.
  
  Even so, the differences between this place and Winslow were transparent. Arcadia was clean and modern. There was plenty of glass and white tile that made the whole place look pristine compared to the crappy little poor school that I'd gone to for the first couple years of my high school career.
  
  Amy and Lily were seniors, while Cassie and Chris were sophomores. That left Theo and me as the only juniors in our little high school aged group. When the others left us behind, I glanced at the schedule once again, even though I'd already read it. "American History with Mr. Egelbert, in room one twenty. I think it's..." I turned in a circle, passing my finger around before starting to point one way. "This..." I trailed off as Theo silently reached up and moved my hand a completely different direction. "This way." Okay, so maybe going in and out of the school after hours to get my costume wasn't exactly the best method of learning my way around the place after all.
  
  We walked together, and I studied Theo for a moment. He'd filled out a bit more since joining the team. He still looked a bit on the heavier side, but I knew that his pudginess had become almost all muscle. Yet he was still withdrawn and obviously not very confident in either his abilities or his own opinions. "So, ahh, is everything all right? You seem quiet. Even quieter than usual, I mean."
  
  He blanched a little at that, nodding quickly. "Everything's fine. It's just..." Theo trailed off, obviously reluctant to talk about it, but he finally murmured, "It would've been dad's birthday this week."
  
  My eyes widened. His dad, as in Kaiser. "I... uhh... wow. Sorry, Theo. I didn't know."
  
  Shrugging slightly, the boy started to walk. "He wasn't a very good dad. And he was a worse human being. He was a murderer and a crazy racist."
  
  "But he was still your dad." I said quietly as I moved to keep up with him.
  
  A frown knitted the boy's forehead. "Barely," he acknowledged with a little sigh. "We weren't close."
  
  "You wanted to be, though." I guessed. "You tried to make him proud of you."
  
  Theo glanced at me, his face a little pale. "I didn't... I didn't want him to think I was like him. I never thought of... of people the way he thought of them. Especially the different races."
  
  I amended myself. "What I mean is, you wanted a dad who would be proud of you."
  
  He was silent for almost half of our walk to the classroom, before admitting in a quiet voice, "It's more that I wanted a dad that I could be proud of. A dad that wasn't... him. And now that he's gone, I feel..."
  
  "Guilty." I realized. "You feel guilty because you didn't... what, love him enough?"
  
  "Because I was glad that he was dead." Theo's voice was barely a whisper. "I was glad he was gone and I could just live with Kayden and Aster and Cassie without... without him around. Even when Kayden linked up with Coil, I knew that they were going to hurt my dad. I knew that Coil and he were enemies, but I didn't feel... anything like loyalty to him. I was glad we were leaving. Then he was dead, and I knew that it was because of something Kayden did, and I was even kind of glad then. I was glad my father was gone, because at least we could be a family without him around. And... it never really hit me until this week that he was my father , and I'll never talk to him again. Maybe he never would have changed, but now we'll never know."
  
  There was dampness in Theo's eyes, that he blinked away rapidly. "Stupid," he muttered. "Grieving months after it happens.
  
  "No, Theo." I said quietly. "It's not stupid. I... I'm sorry you never had the chance to have the relationship with your father that you wanted to have. I'm not sorry that Kaiser's dead, but I'm sorry you lost any chance to have a real dad."
  
  He gave me a small smile, and let out a breath. "You're easy to talk to. It makes me feel... like I should talk to you, like it's the right thing to do. It's almost like when I'm tinkering. It just makes sense to tell you what my problems are."
  
  Glaistig Uaine's words about me being some kind of 'true healer' came back to me, and I swallowed. "Any time you wanna talk, Theo, about anything, I'll be around." He nodded, and the two of us walked into the classroom together while I added, "But for now, let's see what this Mr. Egelbert is like."
  
  About thirty seconds later, as I sat next to Theo in the middle of the classroom, I spoke in a low voice. "I have to admit, this was not what I expected."
  
  The person at the whiteboard, who currently seemed to be completely ignoring everyone who came into the classroom, was most decidedly not a mister anything, Egelbert or otherwise. She was, rather, an attractive woman with black, slightly wavy hair that fell just a little past her shoulders, in a perfectly tailored black suit who looked like she belonged pretty much anywhere but in a high school history classroom.
  
  Students, a few of whom I recognized from Winslow, but most of whom I had never seen before, were murmuring about the unexpected sight. Obviously, they didn't know what was going on either. The one boy who paused to ask the woman in the suit what she was doing received no vocal answer, but she did look at the boy and whatever expression he saw made him hurriedly backpedal to get to a desk.
  
  The talking continued for another minute and a half, before the woman abruptly and without looking anywhere near a clock spoke a single word. "Quiet." Half an instant after she finished speaking the word, a buzzer announced the start of the class period.
  
  One of the boys near the door kept talking for another few seconds, finishing his conversation. As he spoke, the woman in the suit simply walked to his desk. She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket, and I had the weird, briefly panicked thought that she was reaching for a pistol. Instead, she withdrew what looked like a black ruler and slapped it down hard against the desk. Everyone, especially the boy that had been talking, jumped at the bang.
  
  "This," the woman held the black ruler up. "Is a strike. Mr. Callis here has just earned one for this class period." She laid the ruler down on his desk. "Do not touch or move it, Mr. Callis. For every strike a class earns, everyone in that class will do a five hundred word essay on a subject to be chosen at the end of that period. Earn two strikes and it is a thousand words. Three strikes and it will be one point five thousand words. I have as many of them as I need."
  
  Dead silence met her words, and the woman plucked up the black ruler, putting it away. "That will apply from this point forward . I will not apply the penalty this time. In the future, when I ask for quiet, you will give it. Is that understood, Mr. Callis?"
  
  He nodded almost frantically, and she walked away from him toward the white board. Taking up the marker there, she wrote, 'Ms. Fortune' and tapped it once. "This is my name. I am your... substitute." Her nose wrinkled a little at the end, giving me the distinct impression that she wasn't exactly happy about being here.
  
  A student in the back raised her hand, and Ms. Fortune frowned slightly before giving a faint nod. The girl shifted a little in her seat before asking, "Where's Mr. Egelbert?"
  
  Ms. Fortune glanced, of all places, toward me before responding. "Mr. Egelbert has become... ill. With any luck, he will return in short time. For now, I have been... asked to take over."
  
  "So... let's start learning our history, shall we?"
  
  A couple days later, I was having my monthly visit to the Birdcage.
  
  "Anyway, Sparrow's parents are pretty cool. I mean, they were willing to move all the way down to Brockton Bay just to help their daughter."
  
  Trevor took a bite of the Snickers bar that I'd brought him (after it had been thoroughly scanned to make sure it contained nothing potentially hazardous to bring into the Birdcage) and shrugged. "Well, they didn't really have much of a town to go back to, did they?"
  
  I squinted at him. "There's still a difference between moving to a new town because yours is quarantined, and moving to a whole new state."
  
  "True. What about the other people in the town that got fucked over?"
  
  Sighing, I glanced away, looking around the small prison cell that functioned as Trevor's room. "That whole place had to be relocated, which was about twenty thousand people. So they're basically transplanting the entire population to a new town about a hundred miles away and calling it the same thing."
  
  "Jeeze, even I can see why people would object to that." He made a face and leaned back against the wall. "How're they building a town so fast?"
  
  "They're not, actually." I managed a weak little smile. "There was a Navy base or something that got closed down a couple years ago out there. They had housing for the military families. Just a bunch of empty houses and buildings that needed some touch up. Tinker work did the rest to get the place functional again."
  
  "So you're saying that Sparrow's parents chose to miss out on the joys of living in dusty military housing? However could they resist that kind of temptation?"
  
  "See?" I nodded to him. "I keep telling people that I didn't get the only sarcasm gene in the family."
  
  He smiled very faintly, before sighing as he asked carefully, "So the people you're living with, do they know about your... job?"
  
  I managed to keep my face blank. I hadn't told Trevor the truth about Ethan and Sam, obviously. It wasn't my secret to tell. As far as he knew, they were just people that the PRT had assigned me to. "Yeah, they're in on it. Makes it easier for me to get around."
  
  We sat quietly for a few moments, both of us thinking about the reason I needed other guardians. Finally, Trevor broke the silence. "I guess you're lucky in a way. If I hadn't been... gone, you might've had to live with me or something." His face twisted a little. "Then you'd be really screwed up." He let out a low sigh. "If you say these O'Connell people are uhhh... are good for you, then I'm glad."
  
  I changed the subject, nodding at the TV in the corner. "Looks like you've got a few comforts in here."
  
  He shrugged. "Yeah, turns out being someone that the Faerie Queen wants to be protected tends to get a treat here and there."
  
  I winced. "Tell me you're not taking advantage of that? Because some of these people don't have a lot of impulse control, and they might not consider the penalty of taking it out on you. Sure, Glaistig Uaine would probably suck their soul out through a straw and make their empty husk of a body perform show tunes for the enjoyment of the other prisoners, but that wouldn't really do you a lot of good."
  
  His head shook rapidly at that. "No way. No. I told you, I learned my lesson about that sort of thing. It was her idea to have that put in here, actually. She said that the more I stay out out of sight, the less it upsets the sleepers or something. I dunno. But I try to take her advice, as long as I can understand it."
  
  I lifted up the backpack I'd brought. "Got more text books for you. You got those assignments that Dragon sent in?" Trevor was taking a sort of accelerated long distance college course, so that he wouldn't just be sitting around constantly while he was in here.
  
  "Yeah." He leaned back toward the cot and retrieved a pile of papers, passing them to me. "Dragon really knows her stuff. I know she's a tinker and everything, but she's either got a bunch of different professors working for her without knowing who they're testing, or she's gotta have like... fifteen different degrees."
  
  I didn't know much about the woman known as Dragon, except that she was considered one of the best tinkers in the world, and she never left her home. She had some severe form of agoraphobia or something, so all the 'Dragon' suits we saw were actually remotely piloted.
  
  "Maybe she does have all those degrees," I offered with a shrug. "I mean, look at this place she built. There's capes that don't have to sleep. Maybe Dragon's one of them. That combined with the fact that she doesn't go outside, that could give her a lot of time to study."
  
  "I guess so." He was quiet for a moment before swallowing. "I'm glad you're doing okay. I saw the news about the... the new Endbringer, and it made me... it made me worry about you."
  
  This was awkward. We hadn't really been all that close for several years, and then everything else had happened with Teacher. Now... we were slowly rebuilding some kind of relationship.
  
  "I'm okay." I looked away for a second. "I just wish we'd figured out some way of killing the damn thing. Or... at least one of them. We've gotta kill one of these monsters, or people are just gonna... give up. They're gonna think it's not worth bringing people into a world like this, a world where Endbringers just keep multiplying."
  
  "You guys'll figure it out," he offered, a little weakly. "I mean, you get more capes all the time. Even most of the villains want to stop the Endbringers. Something'll happen."
  
  I smiled at that. "I hope so. Hell, for all I know, Dinah's thinking of recruiting one of them, given her track record." His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to question it, but I shook him off. "Never mind. I'm kidding. Mostly. I really hope."
  
  We visited a little more, before I finally stood up. "I'll come back and say goodbye in a few hours, whenever I'm done with the Faerie Queen."
  
  Nodding, Trevor started to lean in for a hug, stopped partway to offer his hand instead, and then did a sort of awkward half-hug thing that made us both confused and uncomfortable. It was something though. I'd try to just give him a full hug before I left.
  
  "Wish me luck?"
  
  He shrugged. "She likes you. I think you wore out every last bit of luck you were ever gonna get pulling that off."
  
  I rolled my eyes at that and then turned to head out of the cell.
  
  Time for a one-on-one bonding session with Glaistig Uaine.
  
  18.04
  
  The Faerie Queen was waiting for me in what was apparently her own private... throne room was my best guess. It was a room about a third of the size of the regular cell block, which meant that for a single person it was enormous. Dragon had mentioned that it used to be a small library meant to provide a few comforts (soft chairs, ambient music, gentle lighting, etc) for prisoners. All the cell blocks had them, but most had long-since been cannibalized, the various comforts and materials stolen by different prisoners and taken as trophies back to their own cells. Now Dragon simply sent new books directly to each cell block with the other supplies and let the prisoners themselves figure out how to divvy them up.
  
  But where the other cell block libraries were stripped bare, this one still seemed rather... pleasant for what it was. The floor wasn't carpet, but it was soft enough to almost fool someone into thinking it was if they weren't looking at it. The book shelves had been moved to either side to form a wide corridor from that led through the room, with the shelves themselves standing almost as silent guardians and onlookers toward that one single spot at the opposite end of the room that was lit by carefully angled lamps.
  
  Glaistig Uaine was there, sitting on what in the real world would be a simple reclining armchair. In this place, it was a throne. One of her shades, a little girl, was dancing in a circle a little bit to the left of the throne. As she twirled, I could almost hear the Ring Around The Rosie song instead of the classical violin music that was playing from the nearby speakers.
  
  " Healer ." The Faerie Queen straightened in her seat, waving a hand to direct me toward a comfortable straight-back armchair. " The visit with your mortal sibling has gone well ." It wasn't a question.
  
  "Well enough, your Highness." I agreed after a moment, taking the offered seat. "Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to talk with my brother before our visit."
  
  " It is important to maintain relationships with those who shape us. " Glaistig Uaine's chorus of voices informed me quietly, while the ghost-figure of the little girl began to play hopscotch nearby. " Particularly those of us who will require those anchors when the beginning ends."
  
  Without thinking, I asked, "You mean when the end begins?"
  
  Her eyes turned briefly sharp behind her make-shift veil. " Do not presume to correct my words, Healer. I do not misspeak."
  
  Cursing myself inwardly, I winced. "My apologies, your Highness. I meant no offense." She seemed to accept that with a cursory nod, and I waited another moment before asking, "May I ask how you and your people are doing since everything happened?"
  
  The deceptively young-looking villain gazed at me briefly, apparently considering my question before she responded. " The sleepers are restless. They seek conflict to further their purpose, and becoming trapped within an inescapable gulag once forced their attentions to one another. With the departure of those few, what was once deemed impossible has potential once again, and those that had abandoned thoughts of escape have once again begun to turn their minds toward that potential ."
  
  It took me a second to work my way through that. "You're saying that before Lung and Marquis and their people escaped, everyone in here was resigned to being trapped forever. But now that one escape has happened, some of the prisoners think it could happen again." Then I blinked, realizing something. "And that's bad for you, because certain people who would be fighting are working together instead, because they have hope of getting out of this place. So there's less people killing each other and providing you with more shades?"
  
  Her eyes, so much older than the rest of her seemed, watched me for a few seconds in silence before speaking again. " I go where I am needed, where they call me to be. I go where His children dwell, to lift them from their fall, and ready them for His return."
  
  "I'm sorry, I don't understand," I confessed. "You ready them for whose return? Who's coming?"
  
  I thought I saw her smile faintly. " He is already here, and He will return when we have finished and She is once again."
  
  She went silent again, and I blinked a couple times. "He's already here... but He still has to return, and He won't return until She is... something?"
  
  " She is half of all, and when She is again, He will return and We will be. Once all is done."
  
  Needless to say, I was pretty much completely lost. I had no idea who He or She were, and I wasn't following this 'return/is/will be' stuff. But I knew that it made sense to the Faerie Queen, and that whatever it was she was trying to explain, I was only missing a tiny bit of extremely important information to make it all clear. The trouble was, I had no idea how to go about getting that little bit of crucial data to fill in the blanks.
  
  For Glaistig Uaine, it must have been like trying to explain what salt tasted like to someone who had never tried it. There wasn't an adequate point of reference that she could give me.
  
  Thankfully, she pressed on before I had to try to come up with a response. " Perhaps you would like to hear the tale of the Sleepers, so that our history may be preserved. " When I nodded, she lifted a hand to point to the nearest row of book shelves that lined the path leading from the entrance to her throne.
  
  At her gesture, the three rows of book cases lifted from the ground and separated to either side, forming a new path toward the far wall. From where we were sitting, I could see that the metal wall had numerous scratches all over it, white marks against the dull gray.
  
  The Faerie Queen made another gesture, and the lights in the room dimmed until we were sitting in near-total darkness. Her voices carried smoothly through the caliginous space.
  
  " The Kingdom of the Fae..." On the wall ahead of us, some of the scratch-lines began to glow, becoming a rather beautiful outline of a palace towering high on a hill that itself stood over a surrounding village. " Its power and strength was to all of humanity as they are to the ants within their burrows. To the ant, what they have constructed is great and wondrous. So too do the accomplishments of humanity pale in the face of the Fae at their height."
  
  I stayed quiet, staring at the glowing scene, which faded before my eyes. Different lines on the wall began to brighten then, changing the picture on the wall to look like pristine and glorious knights battling various monsters, all of which fell before them. " The Fae spread their power to all lands, destroying those who thought to stand against their progress, and bringing light and reason to those who would accept it. " At the end of that, the scene changed to show the glowing knights offering books and food to obviously impoverished, starving peasants.
  
  " One by one their enemies fell, and the Fae, having consolidated their strength, were able to grow beyond even what they had been at their previous power, which itself dwarfed anything humanity has dared to dream." On the wall, the scene changed to show a single knight standing with his sword outstretched. Before my eyes, a trick of the glowing lines made it look as though the man had floated up and off the ground he had been standing on, while majestic wings grew into place and expanded behind him. The knight had become an angel.
  
  " Now the Fae were free to spread their great civilization throughout all that exists." All of the lines went out then, while she continued to speak. " Yet... not every enemy of civilization had truly been conquered. The Fae found, as they spread through all lands, that one... great... threat remained."
  
  Lines on the wall slowly began to glow, faint at first. I saw what looked like a mountain, before an abrupt blaze of light made me shield my eyes briefly. When I looked, the top of the mountain had been blown away, and the lights glowing at various intensities illustrated a flow of lava spreading down what remained of the mountain.
  
  " The Fae turned their power toward this threat." Various hovering figures with wings appeared in the wall picture, clearly attacking the flowing lava. " Yet for all of their great and unimagined power, this threat could not be contained. It was inevitable, a death that not even these people, as far beyond humanity's comprehension as humanity itself is beyond the worms inching their way through the dirt beneath their feet, could prevent or even slow. It was a... different threat, and for all of their majestic power, the Fae had long-since grown beyond adaptation. Their paths had been set, their knowledge and methods established for as many millennia as humanity has had days. Changing those methods, altering their beings to confront this new threat that they did not understand was... impossible. This was an enemy for which they had no ready answer, and they had long since surpassed the point where they were able to imagine new answers."
  
  On the wall, the glowing lava looked like it was spreading over various villages. " The enemy was inescapable, its approach inevitable. Yet the Fae were at a loss. Their great civilization had no solution, and it appeared as though all would be lost. They knew the enemy, and that it would destroy all that it saw. Yet they could not prevent it, not as they had become."
  
  The image changed to show three of the angel-figures floating in the air while she continued to narrate. " Surely, somewhere within all the power they had gathered, the answer to this problem, the ability to slay this beast, existed. The proper method of saving their great civilization must have been within their grasp, if only they could find it."
  
  " Clearly what they lacked was not the ability to prevent this monster from destroying them all, but the exact method of using that ability. A plan was made. They would spread what remained of their great civilization to as many lands as they could reach. Somewhere, someone surely would possess the exact mindset that was needed to slay this beast. They would share their strength among all races, working together to find the proper solution. Yet to do that, the Fae were forced to change themselves, to become even more than they had been."
  
  On the wall, the image became a single angel once again, which broke apart into dozens of tiny lights that all flew away in different directions.
  
  " They cast their civilization, their Sleepers, throughout the races, and sought the answers that they themselves had failed to discover."
  
  The Faerie Queen fell silent for several long seconds, and I finally asked, "The... these Fae, you th-I mean..." I stopped myself from saying 'you think'. "They're trying to kill a monster? Like... an Endbringer? They're trying to kill an Endbringer?" Maybe that was it. Maybe Fae was just another word for parahumans, who she saw as beyond normal humans, and the unstoppable monster was the Endbringers that we just couldn't manage to destroy.
  
  Yet, as the lights in the room returned so that I could see again, her head shook. " It brings no end, just as you do not bring what you are. You simply exist, and that is what you will be. It... is the End itself, and the solution has not yet been found, even as its influence grows with each passing moment. The answer must be discovered, no matter the cost, for what is the life of one compared to a million, and what are the lives of a billion compared to a trillion, and what are the lives of a trillion, compared to as many lives as there are grains of sand upon every beach on every world that will ever exist? The Fae must continue their search."
  
  I sat quietly for a few moments, trying to think. I was sure that there was just... something that seemed small, some kind of key that would decrypt what she was saying and make it all make perfect sense. Yet for the life of me, I couldn't find that single bit of information.
  
  It was crazy. I should be dismissing what she said as nothing more than gibberish. Fae? As many lives as there were grains of sand on every world? That wasn't even possible. It was ridiculous. She was psychotic, trying to justify her murders by applying some kind of grand quest to them.
  
  She seemed to be waiting for a response though, so I offered, rather hesitantly, "That's... a lot to take in." I'd already known that she believed that Parahuman abilities were actually gifted by Fae, but to hear her explain it the way that she did... it clicked somehow in my head. Not perfect, but it was like... having a key that fit into a lock, yet didn't quite turn. Something about what she was explaining fit, just... not perfectly.
  
  That or I was just going completely crazy. That was far more likely. Honestly, Fae civilization?
  
  For some reason, Glaistig Uaine smiled faintly. " You need not understand yet. Perhaps not for a very long time. Yet the time will come when what I've said will make sense, and you will have a choice that you must make."
  
  I hesitated before asking, "What kind of choice?"
  
  " The choice between the continuance of a civilization as vast and perfect as any that has ever existed, or that of the ants which burrow beneath their feet."
  
  "And this has something to do with... that... She and He you were talking about? What do they have to do with these Fae and the monster?"
  
  I could have sworn she chuckled, barely audibly. " They have everything to do with it, as you will find in time."
  
  My mouth opened to respond to that, but she held her hand up to stop me. " I believe that is enough for now. One can only be expected to learn so much in a single afternoon. But for now, the subject I wish to speak on concerns this... Pandora."
  
  My eyes widened at that. "Err, what... uhh, what did you want to discuss about Pandora?"
  
  " Her maker. I would have you... tell me all that you know... about her maker. "
  
  Noelle. I hesitated, gathering my thoughts. What could I say? What could I actually tell her?
  
  The truth. It had to be only the truth. No lies. Any lie or misinformation would probably mean the end of our deal, the end of her patience with me. She'd asked about Noelle, and I had to tell her everything that I knew.
  
  Swallowing, I started to explain. "There were these... teenagers that lived on another world, a world like ours, except they only have a couple real superheroes. Anyway, the Simurgh attacked their city..."
  
  "I still can't believe that you spent the day with you-know-who yesterday, and now you're just sitting in school like that was all normal."
  
  I shrugged at Lily, who sat across from me in the lunch room the day after my visit with Glaistig Uaine. Cassie was beside me while Theo sat next to Lily. Amy was on the other side of me, and Chris sat on the other side of Lily, across from Amy. "How am I supposed to act? I don't think the school takes 'I spent the day in the-" I lowered my voice to a whisper. "-in the Birdcage' as a valid excuse to miss classes."
  
  "Still..." Lily took a bite of her salad. "I'm glad she's not interested in me." Giving a little shudder at the thought, she added, "No offense or anything. I just... prefer not to have that kind of attention."
  
  "At least she still has a mask she can wear." Amy murmured, not seeming to realize that she had spoke aloud for a moment. When she did, her eyes widened as she looked to me. "O-oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Madison. I didn't mean it like... I didn't mean..."
  
  "It's okay." I assured her. "I get what you mean. I can turn off being the one that everyone stares at and expects things from. You can't. Trust me, I know."
  
  The bell went off, announcing the end of the lunch period. We picked ourselves up, collecting our trays and starting to head for the garbage cans, when Amy caught my arm. "Can I talk to you for just a sec?"
  
  Glancing to the others, I waved them on and then leaned against the table. "Sure, Amy. What's up?"
  
  "I..." She trailed off, looking around furtively, looking for all the world like a squirrel that was petrified that someone was going to take its nuts away. "I wanted... to ask for your help with something, but no one can know about it. They'll try to stop us."
  
  "Us?" I echoed. "You mean you and me?"
  
  Her head shook. "You, me, and Panda."
  
  "Oh, you're calling her Panda now too, huh?" I managed a little weakly, letting out a breath before frowning. "What... do you need help with that others would try to stop you and Pandora from doing?"
  
  "We want to visit... our father," she admitted in a very soft voice. "I have to ask him... I mean... we have to ask him... something only he can answer."
  
  I almost choked on her words. "Your father? What... what could you possibly want to ask him?"
  
  She met my gaze for a second before responding. "We want to ask him... who our mother was. Please, Madison. Help me talk to my father so we can find out where I... we... come from, who our family is."
  
  I opened my mouth and then immediately shut it, letting out a low, long sigh before nodding weakly.
  
  "Okay. I'll help you guys talk to your father."
  
  18.05
  
  I had expected it to take some time to find some way of contacting Marquis and working out an arrangement to meet with him somewhere neutral and safe. After all, it wasn't like he was advertising his location for the Protectorate to come and pick him up.
  
  Clearly I had underestimated Pandora and Amy, because the latter stopped by my locker the next morning before classes started, leaning in to whisper, "We're supposed to meet you-know-who tonight. You'll come, right? I tried to time it for when you didn't have patrol."
  
  I turned slightly, blinking at her. "Tonight? You already managed to contact him?"
  
  She blanched a little at the question. "Actually, he already contacted me awhile ago. Somehow he sent me a message to my private e-mail the day after he broke out. I just didn't respond to it until last night."
  
  After a momentary hesitation, I asked, "Did you tell anyone that he contacted you?"
  
  "Of course I did. They said they expected him to, but I shouldn't engage with him. I gave them the details, but it was sent from a public computer, so they couldn't really do anything with it."
  
  "And you sent a message last night about wanting to meet up?"
  
  Amy gave a quick little nod, glancing around nervously. The girl would have made a horrible spy. "Y-yeah. He sent a message back two minutes later with a location."
  
  "Where does he wanna meet?"
  
  After biting her lip and giving another furtive look around, Amy pressed a folded up piece of paper into my hand. "Here's the details. Thank you. I..." Her face blanched a little bit. "I don't have a lot of people I could ask to come with for this. Not since..."
  
  Seeing the look on her face and knowing what she was thinking, I put a hand up on her arm. "I get it. It's okay, Amy. Don't worry, we'll... talk to him and find out the truth. But you have to be careful. We have to be careful." I hesitated a little bit before asking more quietly, "Does he know about Pandora?"
  
  She shook her head quickly at that. "No. I mean, I don't think so. But she wants to meet him, and... and I don't want to lie to her about it. If I'm meeting him, she deserves to. I... I won't hide things from her or treat her differently just because of where she came from. I... can't do that to someone else."
  
  I still wasn't sure about letting someone like Marquis know about Pandora's existence, but Amy had a point. Lying to Pandora about it, or purposefully treating her differently, was just going to end badly. So, rather than argue the point, I just nodded before opening the paper that she had given me to see the address. "You know where this place is?"
  
  "Yeah, Pandora checked it out last night. It's that old rental car place up past the elementary school on Orchard. You know, the place that's been closed for like ten years or something? You think that's where all his people are holed up?"
  
  I shook my head. "I don't think he'd give you a location like that for a first meeting. My guess is that was an easy place for them to clear out. He's gonna be ready in case it's a trick."
  
  Leaning against the locker next to mine, Amy sighed softly. "I thought about it. He's a bad guy, and he deserves to be in prison. So do all the people that broke out with him. But I wanna know who my mother is first. But I'm not staying with him. That's another reason why I want you and Pandora there too. Just so he can't... force me to stay." Taking in a breath and then letting it out again, she looked up at me. "We're going there under a truce. But I'm going to tell him that I'm still helping the Protectorate bring him in. I... don't know how he'll react to that."
  
  "Whatever way he reacts," I assured her. "We won't let him keep you against your will. But, we might want to at least bring a couple others in on this." When she opened her mouth to object, I quickly pressed on. "We might need backup, Amy. Backup that isn't Pandora, just in case.
  
  She hesitated then, before asking carefully, "Who did you have in mind?"
  
  "Hunter and Cassie." I said immediately. "He knows both of them, so he couldn't really object too much to more people being brought in to meet him.
  
  Amy still looked uncertain, but after staring at me for a moment she finally nodded once. "Okay. But just them. I don't want a bunch of people to know about this."
  
  "I promise. This won't turn into some big 'catch the bad guy' mission, Amy."
  
  I smiled while reassuring her, while inwardly I just kept praying that this whole thing wouldn't completely blow up in our faces.
  
  "This is sooo gonna blow up in our faces." Cassie announced hours later.
  
  She and I were both in costume, standing on either side of Hunter on the edge of a rooftop down the street from where Marquis wanted to meet. Amy and two of the Pandoras, both of which were wearing their red half-masks while Amy herself was in casual civilian clothes, were talking in low voices further back on the roof.
  
  "He seemed like the type to stick to the terms of a deal when we were in there," I pointed out cautiously. "If he agreed to just talk to Amy without hurting anybody, I think he'll keep his promise."
  
  "He's not the one I'm worried about." She frowned, folding her arms. "It's all the guys he surrounds himself with. All we need is one of them to decide they want to grab Amy and have some kind of hold over their boss, and everything falls apart."
  
  I shrugged. "They'd have to be pretty stupid to try that, considering Pandora and Hunter."
  
  Snorting, Cassie glanced past Hunter to look at me. "I'm not saying they'd get away with it, just that they'd try it. And if they do, this situation could spiral out of control really fucking fast."
  
  "We'll be okay. We just have to keep our eyes open." Part of me wanted to have the whole team involved in this, but I knew Amy was way too skittish about this whole thing to ever agree to that. This was the best I could do. "She's his daughter. I'm sure Marquis has thought of what kind of people he wants to have around her, which ones he trusts not to try anything and ruin his chance to talk with her."
  
  That earned a nod of agreement from Hunter, before the other girl turned to look at Amy and Pandora. Her thumb moved over her computer pad, until its voice came. "Marquis will keep his people in line."
  
  Before either of us could respond to that, the lights within the rental car building went on, then off, then on again in rapid succession. After ten tense seconds, the cycle repeated.
  
  "There's the signal." I announced toward Amy and the Pandoras. "Time to go in."
  
  Amy looked as nervous as I had ever seen her as she stood up and brushed herself off, with a Pandora standing on either side of her. "O-okay." She had to clear her throat, shifting from foot to foot anxiously. "Are we all going in together, or...?"
  
  "All together." I nodded. "We'll try to convince Marquis that we're playing this straight, so he should. Besides, Oversight's still monitoring, isn't she?"
  
  From Hunter's computer pad, Emma's voice emerged. "Yes, as long as you guys don't go any f-further than the rental car l-lot, I'll still be in range." The girl had set herself up somewhere else on the street. Only Pandora knew where she was, since one of her was there as well. "If anything goes w-wrong, I'll be ready."
  
  The Pandora on Amy's left side announced, "If our father attempts to harm Amy-Sister, there will be no need for reinforcements. His existence will cease."
  
  Amy winced a little at that, putting her hand on her clone's arm. "Easy, Zeta. We... we want to go in without a fight. He's going to tell us about my-I mean, our mother."
  
  I blinked curiously at that. "You called her Zeta. Can you tell them apart?"
  
  A faint smile touched the other girl's face. "I'm getting better at it. This is Zeta, and this..." She gestured to the one on her right side. "Is either Xi or Omicron."
  
  "Our sister is correct. This iteration is known as Omicron," the Pandora in question announced.
  
  Nodding at that, Amy gestured vaguely with a hand. "I knew it was one or the other. It's still kind of hard to tell because those two are pretty similar."
  
  Cassie just stared at her. "They're all 'pretty similar.' They're clones."
  
  Amy shrugged, still smiling faintly. "I think it's like twins. Spend enough time around them and you can start to tell them apart. That or it's a family thing. Or a clone thing. Or a parahuman superpower thing. There's a lot of things it could be, but the point is, I can tell them apart. The one with Oversight is Gamma."
  
  I used lines to help myself, Amy, and Ruin to the ground. Cassie levitated herself down with her clothes, and both Pandoras simply dropped, one of them turning into a swarm of insects before impact while the other became a cloud of mist. Then the six of us made our way across the empty, rundown street toward the large, empty parking lot that had once, in better economic times, housed dozens of rental cars.
  
  I recognized the single figure that met us at the gate, rolling it open as we approached. "Hey, Cinderhands." I purposefully tried to make my voice as casual as possible. "Long time no see."
  
  "Hey, kid." He grunted the words before nodding toward Hunter. "See you got yourself a new group to play guard dog for. They treating you as well as the Faerie Queen did?"
  
  Ruin responded with a simple nod, and the man turned to squint at the two masked figures standing on either side of Amy. "Boss said there'd be four people with his daughter. I'm counting five."
  
  The Pandora on the left, Zeta apparently, spoke up. "If our numbers bother you-"
  
  Omicron, on the right, continued in an identical voice. "We may always reduce them."
  
  They touched hands, and both figures seemed to turn semi-liquid before merging into a single body which then stood slightly in front of Amy. "Is this better?"
  
  The man's mouth dropped open briefly, before he shook his head and gave a little shudder. "Damn duplicators. Never gonna get used to them. Worse than shapeshifters."
  
  I managed to restrain the urge to snicker at how little he knew, as Cinderhands pointed back toward the main building. "Boss is in there. We're keeping an ear on your comm traffic, so be smart and don't try to spring any traps."
  
  "No traps." I assured him. "Amy just wants to see her father."
  
  He grunted in reply and looked away, focusing on the road once more. After exchanging glances with the others, I started to walk with them to the brightly lit building.
  
  Whimper was waiting at the building entrance. He gave us a brief once over, then reached back to open the door behind him and stood out of the way as we passed. Ruin went first in case it was a trap that required her power, then Reach, myself, Pandora, and finally, Amy.
  
  I had expected the place to be dirty, judging from the outside. Instead, it was as pristine and spotless as a hospital was supposed to be. There wasn't a spec of dirt or a smudge anywhere in the room, which was lit by three different electric lanterns, most of which were set along the granite counter that had once served as the divider between customers and staff.
  
  A single person stood on the other side of the otherwise empty room, next to the dividing counter and near a wooden door with 'Manager' stenciled on it. He wore a pair of black slacks with a red silk shirt and slightly darker red tie, all perfectly tailored, and probably more expensive than some cars.
  
  "Marquis." I looked to the man, then back to Amy. "Your daughter wanted to meet you."
  
  "You have my thanks." His voice sounded warm, before he focused on Hunter and Cassie. "It's a pleasure to see the two of you as well. I'm glad we have this opportunity before any unpleasantries transpired."
  
  To that, Reach leaned closer to Ruin and stage-whispered, "He means before we had to come in and kick his and all his people's asses."
  
  Marquis apparently didn't think that was worth disputing. He simply looked away from Cassie to focus on the two by the door. His eyes passed over the masked Pandora curiously. "Same height, build, eye color... hair color... a possible double should something have gone wrong?"
  
  "Don't worry about her yet." Amy spoke up before Pandora could. I saw her press a hand against the clone's side briefly, apparently warning her to stay quiet for the moment. "I want to t-talk to you." Her voice cracked very slightly toward the end, but I could tell she was trying to stand firm.
  
  "Of course, Amelia." Marquis gave a slight nod. "I've been hoping to visit with you for... quite some time."
  
  "Don't call me that." She snapped quickly, a bit defensively. "You keep using that name in your messages, and it's not my name. My name is Amy."
  
  "Amelia is the name you were given at birth," Marquis' response was patient, his noble bearing never diminishing. "Yet, if Amy is the name that you wish to use, I will accede to your request... Amy." He looked slightly uncomfortable with that, but he apparently thought that not upsetting Amy was more important than the name that he wanted to know her by. "Perhaps we can step into the office here to speak of family matters privately?" He nodded toward the nearby door.
  
  Amy shook her head firmly. "I'm not going anywhere alone with you. I... I just want to ask you questions. You stop answering, or lie, and we're leaving."
  
  I expected him to look frustrated, but if he was, he hid it well. "I understand. What would you like to ask me, Ame-Amy?"
  
  It took Amy a moment to speak again. Clearly she had to work up the nerve for it. "I want to ask what you know about my mother. Why was I living with you and not her when New Wave found you? What happened to her?"
  
  He frowned a bit. "What did Carol tell you about your real mother? What did she say I told them?"
  
  Glancing away with an obvious flinch, Amy muttered, "Nothing. They didn't tell me anything. I didn't even know you were my father until... all this happened. I just knew I wasn't supposed to bring it up."
  
  The man visibly winced for the first time. "I'm sorry to hear that. As I... told Carol and the rest of them, your true mother passed away before I knew of your existence. She was taken by cancer when you were around five years old. I believe she was sick for quite some time before that."
  
  Amy sagged at that, eyes closing briefly before she said quietly, "Oh." Clearly she had been hoping, praying for more than that.
  
  I saw Marquis take a single step, as though his first instinct was to comfort his daughter. But he stopped himself, realizing that it wouldn't be taken well. "I'm sorry, Amel-Amy. I wanted them to tell you the truth, about all of this. But it seems that..." He paused, considering a moment. "Well, one shouldn't speak ill of the departed. I'm sure they did what they believed was best."
  
  Taking a step that way, I looked between father and daughter before turning to Amy. "Are you all right?" I asked her softly.
  
  It took her a moment to respond, but Amy finally nodded a little. "I'll be okay. I just... I was hoping..." She trailed off with a sigh before straightening. "Never mind." Her attention moved back to Marquis then. "Why do you keep trying to contact me? I'm not gonna let you use me against the heroes. I'm not going to let anyone use me. I make my choices, nobody else."
  
  Marquis' head gave a slight shake. "You misunderstand. I do not wish to use you, Amy. You are my daughter, one whom I quite enjoyed spending time with during our year together before we were separated. I wish to get to know you."
  
  "You're a bad guy," she replied flatly. "A villain. You were put in the Birdcage for a reason."
  
  He regarded her for a moment. "Even the worst offenders, those facing execution, among the non-powered population are allowed the occasional visitor and phone call. I assure you, there are non-capes who have committed acts that would make anything I have done appear to be of no more concern than a traffic violation, who nonetheless are able to visit with their family members every week. I do not dispute my illegitimate activities, yet I do dispute the lack of equitable treatment in that regard."
  
  For a minute, Amy just stood and stared at the man. She glanced toward me, then to Reach and Ruin before sighing. "They say you're big on your word. You give your word , and you never go back on it. Part of your rules. You never hurt kids, you never kill women, and you never break your word."
  
  He acknowledged this with a nod, and Amy stared at him. "I want your word. Your oath in front of at least one of your men that you will never, ever try to use any of your family for your criminal ends against their will. You have to swear that you won't try to use your daughter's powers just to get ahead."
  
  The man paused then, frowning slightly at the phrasing as though trying to pick something out, before nodding. He leaned back and knocked on the door near him. A moment later Spruce emerged, the obsessively clean man looking to me first, then to his boss.
  
  Marquis began, his voice making it clear how seriously he was taking this. "Spruce, I am now stating my solemn and unbreakable vow to never willingly coerce, or have coerced, any family member of mine to engage in any acts they are uncomfortable with, regardless of how it would benefit myself or my enterprises. Should I do so, you will know that my word has been broken and is no longer valid for any future agreements."
  
  Spruce's eyes flicked toward Amy, before he nodded faintly. "Understood."
  
  Dismissing his minion back into the room, Marquis turned back to his daughter. "Acceptable?"
  
  She still looked hesitant, but nodded. "Okay." She looked to the girl next to her. "Go ahead."
  
  The man started to say something, but stopped at the sight of Pandora as she made the mask dissolve. His eyes widened, and I was pretty sure that I was one of very few people who had ever seen Marquis look legitimately shocked. "A... twin...?" His voice was weak with surprise.
  
  The girl in question tilted her head, examining him curiously. "We are Pandora. And we are not a twin, Marquis-Father. We are a clone of Amy-Sister."
  
  "A... clone... how-" Marquis started to ask, but Amy interrupted.
  
  "How isn't the point. But she's with me. She's... my sister. My..." She flinched a little, and looked like she wanted to withdraw again, but pressed on. "She's my family, and we both wanted to meet you. But... I can't... I won't just turn against my friends, against the ideals I grew up with. You're a bad guy. I'm... trying to be good. So is she."
  
  "Might I suggest a compromise?" Marquis offered, clearly recovering from his surprise much quicker than an average person would have. "One day per month."
  
  Amy frowned at that. "One day?"
  
  He glanced toward me before continuing. "One day where our animosities are set aside for neutral discussion and interaction. You have my continued word that I will not use those times to influence or attempt to gain any kind of... control over you or... Pandora... but merely to... spend time with family."
  
  "Like the Endbringer Truce?" I spoke up finally. "Only just between you guys."
  
  "Indeed." He nodded to me then. "This would be a private truce, between us and only us. One day a month for... the visitations that should have been allowed before."
  
  It took Amy a second to answer, but she finally nodded. "Okay. A truce, one day per month. But... but now I... I just want to get out of here."
  
  Her words, her need to retreat, looked like they pained him, but he nodded. "I understand. I expected no more than this, or I would have offered refreshments. Perhaps next time your visit can last longer, throughout a meal, for example."
  
  "Maybe." Amy looked toward Pandora. "Do you want to say anything to him?"
  
  The clone paused, seeming to consider that briefly before she stepped forward. Her hand raised to point at his chest. "If you attempt to harm or mislead Amy-Sister, your existence will cease."
  
  "I would never harm my child." The man replied reflexively, before the tiniest frown knit his brow. "... or rather, my children." It looked like even he was still trying to come to terms with that idea.
  
  Amy turned then, starting toward the door to leave. "Let's... let's go." Her voice was soft, a little depressed, obviously. She had clearly been hoping that her mother was still alive, and could be someone for her to connect with.
  
  I let Ruin and Reach go ahead of me, following after them. At the door, however, I paused. A thought had occurred to me. Not knowing quite why I was asking, I turned back. "Marquis? Who was Amy's mother? She at least deserves to know that much, even if she's... gone." I felt a sharp pain at the reminder of my own parents, swallowing the thick lump in my throat.
  
  His response was a slight smile. "Of course. Her mother was... you could call her a fan of sorts. We were together for only a very brief time, too brief for me to know much about the woman. I know that she was married when she passed, and her husband brought the child to me. He said that his wife had confessed that the girl wasn't his, and who her true father was, before passing away."
  
  "What... what was her name? So I can tell her."
  
  "Meinhardt," Marquis answered. "Candace Meinhardt."
  
  I started to nod, before freezing. That name. I knew that name. Mars and Jess and I had discussed everything we could about their former lives, and that of the other Travelers, especially Noelle.
  
  Candace Meinhardt was the name of Noelle's mother.
  
  Noelle's mother, or rather, another version of her, had also been Amy's mother.
  
  Interlude 18 - Genesis
  
  Jess Carmen had always been fascinated by super heroes. She had followed the stories about all of the heroes and villains that were a part of her own world, even though the vast majority of them were pretty underwhelming. There were only a handful that could genuinely be considered Super, while most were just playing at being more than they were.
  
  And, more importantly, she had devoured news about the real super heroes on Earth Bet. She obsessively scoured every little story about what they called capes that trickled through the connection that Professor Haywire had established. She read about everything, from their press releases to their grand battles. She'd known them like certain boys knew the stats of their favorite baseball players.
  
  But she'd never expected to actually meet any of them, let alone... be one. She had been from another world, a world with, at most, four real supers out of the entire population. And she was wheelchair-bound, her legs useless.
  
  She was pretty sure that there weren't a lot of crippled superheroes.
  
  Yet, impossible as it had been, she had now been a part of both sides of the ongoing cape conflict. Jess had been a villain, and now she was a hero. Her assumptions of how her life would proceed and what she was capable of, much like the world she had grown up on, had been left far behind.
  
  Villain. She'd dressed it up in her mind as being a mercenary, of doing what they had to do to survive. Krouse had been good at that, had been really good at making them think that they had no other choice.
  
  Now, Jess was pretty sure that the reality was that Krouse hadn't been able to think of another solution, and he was both arrogant enough to think that because he couldn't find a solution then one didn't exist, and charismatic enough to convince everyone else that he was right.
  
  And now? Now she was a member of the actual Protectorate. The most important, most heroic capes she had ever read about... were her co-workers.
  
  Her life wasn't perfect. She missed her parents, and her other friends. She missed her home. She missed the life she had unwillingly left behind. And now, she missed Noelle, Luke, and Oliver.
  
  And Cody. She even missed Cody, even if he had been an asshole ever since they arrived on this world.
  
  Maybe that was why it had been so easy to listen to Krouse for so long. She wasn't happy doing the things that they did, the jobs they had done in their vain search for a cure for Noelle or a way home. But that was kind of the point. Being happy, finding a way to live and do what they wanted to do, seemed to be a... betrayal. If they allowed themselves to find a way to live properly in this world, it felt like giving up on their old one.
  
  It had felt easier to betray her morals and be unhappy with her life and the things that she was doing, than to allow herself to be content where she was. Finding happiness, finding a purpose here meant not focusing on getting home.
  
  Now... she still missed her family and her old life. She always would. But she had also begun to build a life here . Two and a half years had passed since she and the others had been dumped in this world, and she was just now beginning to understand that pursuing goals and happiness here wasn't a betrayal of the life that she'd had before, but an extension of it. Maybe she would never find a way to go home, but that didn't mean that her entire life had to be miserable. She was allowed to be what she wanted to be.
  
  And in that very moment, what she wanted to be was a ten foot tall polar bear with ice-breath.
  
  "H-Ho-holy... holy shit..." The man in the ski mask backed rapidly away from her enormous figure as she towered over him. His shotgun lay on the ground where he had thrown it, encased in ice. "Do-don't eat me. Don't fucking eat me, please. Please don't eat me."
  
  He quivered and whined as she leaned in closer, a trail of urine running down his leg. She let just a little bit of frost emerge from her snout as she spoke, just enough to send a chill over his face. "Put the jewelery down."
  
  Instantly, the man shoved his backpack off and dropped it on the floor of the parking garage that she'd chased him into. "He-here! It's yours, take it. Have fun. I-I-I don't know what bears need with jewels, but hey, t-to each their own, right? Just... just enjoy. I umm..." He slowly began to edge the other way, trying to retreat.
  
  She sent a dismissive breath toward the nearby wall, creating a barrier of ice that brought the man up short with a yelp. "Don't move."
  
  Frozen, not by her bear's ice breath, but by his own terror, the man stood ramrod straight. His eyes were wide behind the mask, while she used a single paw to gently brush the backpack away from him.
  
  "Oh calm down." She finally told him when it seemed that his terror was growing by the moment with his certainty that she was about to eat him. "I'm not gonna hurt you unless you try to run away. Just stand still and... try not to piss yourself anymore."
  
  A new voice echoed through the parking area as the person approached them. "Genesis, are you torturing the poor little jewel thief?"
  
  "Not my fault you took forever to catch up, Clockblocker." She cast her bear's gaze back as the boy in white approached. "I can't carry handcuffs like this. Gotta make them stay put somehow."
  
  The masked thief's contribution to the conversation was a whimpered, "P-please just arrest me. Send me to prison, I don't care. I'll tell you about all the other things I stole. Just don't let her eat me."
  
  "I uhh, I'm pretty sure you're not on her menu, dude." Clockblocker shook his head. "Just turn around and we'll take you in. You really picked the wroooong neighborhood to pull a job in." He secured the man's hands with the zipties, then used his comm to call in the capture to the local police. The man clearly wasn't any kind of parahuman, so the cops could handle his arrest.
  
  "Car's on the way to pick him up." He said a moment later, looking toward the bear while stepping back out of the man's earshot. "I can sit with him for a few minutes if you wanna disengage. Our patrol's done with anyway. Time for Assault and Laserdream to take over."
  
  "You sure you don't mind?" Genesis asked briefly. "I mean, all I've got to do is wake up and I'm done. You have to come all the way back."
  
  Clockblocker shrugged. "It's no big. I've gotta call my dad and see if he's hungry, so I'll do that while I wait for the blues to pick up Sparky over there."
  
  "Panacea healed the leukemia, right?"
  
  He nodded briefly. "Yeah, but he's still supposed to take it easy for awhile. Dad says he's fine, but Mom doesn't want to let him out of her sight. I don't know if she thinks Amy's power is just gonna wear off or what."
  
  "Well, take him some of that fudge ice cream. You said she never lets him have that. If he's a prisoner, he might as well be a happy one."
  
  Chuckling, Clockbocker waved a hand. "Good idea. Catch you later."
  
  The view of her new teammate dissolved into the view of the dull gray ceiling of the Protectorate guest quarters she had been given use of to let her physical body sleep while using her power. Grunting, Jess levered herself into sitting position, taking a moment to orient herself as she yawned.
  
  Half an hour later, after taking the time to fill out the report detailing how her patrol had gone, she was wheeling herself out of the Protectorate HQ and to the waiting ferry. Her stomach had chosen to spend the past thirty minutes of paperwork reminding her that she hadn't fed it since that morning, and she was trying to decide whether chicken or burgers sounded better.
  
  She wheeled herself onto the ferry that was half full of various ordinary people who were among the small army of employes that made the Protectorate HQ run smoothly. Even now, Jess had some doubts, pangs of fear that if she allowed herself to be content here, she would be choosing to abandon the life she'd had at home, her 'real' life.
  
  And that really was the problem. She'd spent over two years refusing to let herself see any of this as 'real', because to do so felt like throwing away any hope of going home. But not seeing it as real had been what made her allow Krouse to talk her into doing the terrible things that they'd done.
  
  The ferry landed at the dock, and Jess passed Clockblocker as he boarded. He said nothing, not wanting to ruin the ongoing illusion that she was just a paper-pushing clerk at the Protectorate building, but gave her a slight nod. Now he would need to spend half an hour or so filling out his own report.
  
  Chicken, she finally decided while wheeling herself along with the dispersing crowd of people who were all heading for their cars. She definitely wanted chicken, and possibly some kind of potato salad.
  
  She was so distracted by thoughts of food, that she didn't notice the person following her until she was near the bus stop. Finally sensing the figure moving up behind her wheelchair, Jess started to turn, just as the handles of the chair were grabbed.
  
  "Don't say anything." Sophia Hess whispered in a barely audible voice while pushing Jess's chair on past the bus stop and down the sidewalk. "If you yell, I have to do stuff I'd really rather avoid."
  
  Taking a second to adjust to the surprise, Jess finally managed a careful, "Must be pretty bad if you want to avoid it. From what I hear, you've got a pretty high tolerance for distasteful things."
  
  "Fuck you." Sophia hissed, giving the chair a firm shove as they turned the corner into an alley. "You don't know a damn thing about me. I do what I have to do to survive. Your freak friend's the real monster. What the fuck is she, a baby Endbringer or something?"
  
  Jess said nothing in response to that, working on getting her phone out of her pocket surreptitiously while Sophia pushed her through a doorway of an apartment building. She'd just managed to get it into her hand, when it was abruptly replaced with a bar of soap.
  
  She sighed and looked up at the figure standing in the open doorway of the apartment at the end of the hall. "Krouse."
  
  "Hey, Jess." The man himself stepped out of the doorway, waving her phone. "Now why would you try to get people to interrupt our chat? Don't you want to visit with your friends? Oliver and Luke miss you. And Noelle, well, she was really upset about you choosing Tether over her."
  
  He was trying to provoke her. She chose not to bite, shaking her head instead. "What do you want, Krouse?" She'd known that Noelle would see her choice, and Marissa's, as a betrayal. But they couldn't just keep going the way they had been. Noelle needed real help, not Krouse's empty promises. She needed help that the Protectorate could provide.
  
  "What do I want? Loyal friends who stick together and help each other." Krouse's voice was scornful. "But that was too much to ask for, wasn't it?"
  
  "Oh cry me a river, Krouse," Jess snapped. "What we were doing wasn't working and you know it. Your plans suck, and you're too arrogant to admit you have no idea what you're doing. You manipulate everyone around you, and you probably don't even realize you're doing it. It's so engrained that you think people are supposed to communicate that way."
  
  "Not that this bitch-fest isn't super-interesting," Sophia remarked from where she was standing. "But didn't you have some kind of point to making me grab the cripple cunt?"
  
  "Don't call her a cunt." Krouse shot a glare at the other girl. "She's still a friend. She's just... confused."
  
  Sophia snorted while pushing Jess's chair into the apartment, leaving Krouse to close the door behind them. "Yeah, you guys seem really close. Practically finish each other's sentences."
  
  They were in the front room of a furnished apartment. It looked like some old lady's place, considering the ancient television set in the corner, the thick rugs, and the antique furniture. The place was also warm to the point of being stuffy.
  
  "You and me, we aren't friends, Krouse," Jess informed him shortly as he paced around in front of her. "At best we were stuck together, and you convinced us we had no other choice."
  
  "Damn it, Jess," Krouse looked even more frustrated. Good. "Can't you see that I'm trying to get us all home? I'm trying to help Noelle. Doesn't that matter to you anymore? Are you too busy playing super hero to think about your parents?"
  
  A stab of pain went through her then, and she snarled, "Fuck off, Krouse. If all you want is to try to guilt trip me for my choices, write it on a postcard and label it 'shit that doesn't work anymore.'"
  
  "Guilt trip you?" Krouse sighed and moved to grab a thin chain, which he ran through the wheels of her chair before wrapping it around the nearby radiator, securing it with a padlock. "Just to make sure you don't run off before we finish talking. Or roll off."
  
  That done, he sat down in a stiff armchair that was covered in plastic. It squeaked under his weight. "Jess, I'm not trying to guilt trip you. I'm just giving you a chance to do what we always wanted: save Noelle."
  
  "Let me get this straight. You're asking for help while literally chaining me to the wall."
  
  "Not you, just your chair," he replied dryly.
  
  Jess sighed, then glanced between him and the spot where Sophia was standing. Now that Jess could see the other girl, she noted that she looked tired and worn out. Obviously she hadn't been sleeping well. Her clothes, a dull gray sweatshirt with a college name on the front and black jeans, looked dirty and had obviously been chosen to avoid being noticed. While Jess watched, Sophia plucked her crossbow up off of the end table where it had been left and began to examine it in a move that looked compulsive, loading and unloading the weapon while apparently ignoring what was going on around her.
  
  "Where are you guys holing up?" Jess finally asked, turning her attention back to Krouse. "You want to help Noelle? Let's help her. The Protectorate can-"
  
  "The Protectorate can't do a damn thing to help Noelle." Krouse tightened his fist, his hawkish nose flaring. "And even if they could, they won't. They'll just try to kill her. Is that what you want?"
  
  "Of course I don't want Noelle to die."
  
  But what if there's no other choice? She's already responsible for so many deaths. No. That's not fair. She isn't responsible. The... thing taking her over. That's what's responsible. Noelle never wanted to hurt anybody at all. Yet... is it fair to put her life above all those that she's killed, however unwillingly? At what point do the lives of others outweigh loyalty to a friend, even if that friend didn't choose what happened to them?
  
  "Good." Krouse reached out to pat her hand until she snatched it back away from him. He sighed then, but pressed on. "I don't want her to die either. That's why we have a new plan."
  
  "What kind of plan did you come up with this time, Krouse? Wait, let me guess, there's some kind of special Mayan artifact in a lost tomb somewhere and if we all just help you retrieve it, there's super-secret magic in it that can put Noelle back to the way she was."
  
  His lips tightened in a little sneer before he suppressed it with a grimace. "Come on, Jess. I'm reaching out to you. I just want to tell you how we can help Noelle. I thought you'd be happy."
  
  "I'll be happy when you admit that you don't have a damn clue what you're doing. I'll be happy when you admit that you're so obsessed with saving Noelle that you'll just let her get away with killing dozens of people."
  
  "Yeah!" Krouse nodded almost violently. "I will. I'll forgive her, because it's not her. You know that, Jess! You know it's not her choice. We have to help her, not punish her. I promised her I'd get her through this, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to help her. And so are you."
  
  She sighed a little, glancing toward Sophia, who was still toying with her favorite crossbow. "How do you think we can help her this time , Krouse?"
  
  He smiled then, ignoring her dismissive tone. "With the clone, the one of Panacea. You know where she lives. We know you know where she lives. You can help us get one of them."
  
  "Pandora?" Jess blinked at him, frowning while shifting her weight in her chair. The chain that was wrapped through the wheels rattled a little. "How do you think Pandora can help Noelle? Her power only affects herself."
  
  "She can't." Krouse shook his head. "But we found someone who can, someone who will. There's just... a price. They want one of those clones."
  
  Jess's eyes widened and she cursed. "Fuck, what the hell, Krouse? You want to give Pandora to some crazy person that claims they can help Noelle? You really have gone off the deep end."
  
  "They can help her!" Krouse stood from his chair abruptly, running a hand back over his face in exasperation. "We used to trust each other, Jess. You used to listen to me. What happened?"
  
  "I grew up."
  
  He sighed again, staring at her willfully. "Jess, we give them just one of the Pandoras and they will help Noelle . Isn't that worth it?"
  
  "This may come as a shock to you, Krouse, but there are more important things in the world than your happiness. There are consequences. I promise you, trying to fuck with Pandora, even if you could get away with it, has really nasty consequences. How the hell do you think you're gonna capture her?"
  
  "Not me. They have people for that. We just need to give them the address."
  
  Jess rolled her eyes. "Then what? You give her over to someone who claims they can cure Noelle? So they can use Pandora? Why do I doubt that they want to play hopscotch with her? We give Pandora to someone, we let them manipulate her, use her, and we unleash another hell on this world. Maybe one that it doesn't recover from."
  
  "They can send us home." Krouse's voice was soft. "We don't have to stay on this world after that."
  
  Jess stared at him in shock. "Have you listened to yourself? You can't just brush aside what would happen to this world just because you think you wouldn't have to live here. The people here matter, Krouse. They're living people, not video game avatars."
  
  He stared at her for a long moment before his eyes narrowed. "We're saving Noelle. You're going to help."
  
  "I'm not telling you where Pandora lives." She didn't know if whoever Krouse was working with had a prayer of containing even one of the Pandoras, but that wasn't the point. If they didn't, it would still be a betrayal that could push Pandora off the deep end. And if they did capture her by some miracle, Jess was positive that she didn't want to know what they'd do with the clone.
  
  He turned from her, taking up a bottle of pills from the desk. "Yes, you are." He shook the bottle. "Some medical tinker worked these up. It's basically truth serum in capsule form. You take three of these and you'll answer any question you're asked."
  
  "Krouse, you're insane." Jess shook her head, eyes moving from the bottle to the man himself. "You're obsessed. Whoever you're talking to, they can't help Noelle, and even if they could, we can't betray-"
  
  "Don't talk about betrayal!" He shouted. "You and Mars already did plenty of that. You just... just shut up for a minute, Jess. You'll have your chance to talk once you're ready to answer questions." He looked to Sophia before tossing the bottle to her. "Give her three of them. Make sure she swallows." Then he turned away, taking out a cell phone before dialing a number.
  
  Catching the bottle, Sophia glanced down at it before shrugging. She set the crossbow back on the table while popping the lid of the bottle off with her thumb. Shaking three of the pills out, she walked over to where Jess was trapped in her chair. "Open wide, little cripple girl," she called in a sing-song voice. "Time for your medicine. Don't you wanna be all nice and healthy?"
  
  Jess grimaced as the other girl used one hand to force her mouth open, then watched as the other hand came up with the pills. Before they reached her, she smiled.
  
  Keeping her head in place, mouth forced open, Sophia sneered, loosening her grip a little so that the other girl could talk. "What're you smiling about?"
  
  "It's just funny you should say that bit about being healthy," Jess answered with a shrug.
  
  "Why is that-"
  
  That was as far as Jess let the other girl get, before lashing out with a foot to kick her in the knee as hard as she could. There was a crack and Sophia screamed in pain before collapsing to the floor, the pills scattering as she fell.
  
  "What the hell?!" Krouse spun around, dropping the phone as he turned, but Jess wasn't in the wheelchair anymore. All he would see was Sophia for a brief second, holding her leg in agony before she turned into her shadow-state and dropped through the floor, abandoning him.
  
  Jess, meanwhile, had already stood from her chair, diving sideways to snatch Shadow Stalker's crossbow off the table where she had left it. She brought the weapon up, aiming it toward Krouse for a split second. Instead of firing, however, she instantly dropped her arm and swung it down and around to aim backwards. Sure enough, she was abruptly facing the wall in the spot where Krouse had been. The instant she was teleported, she pulled the trigger of the crossbow, sending the bolt back behind herself, where she had already adjusted her aim.
  
  She was rewarded with a thunk of the tranquilizer bolt hitting flesh, and turned to see Krouse staring at his shoulder in disbelief as he sank heavily to the floor. His eyes were already glazing over. "H-how..."
  
  Slowly, deliberately, Jess took several steps until she was standing over Krouse, holding the crossbow while shaking her head at him in disgust.
  
  "Yeah, we sort of figured if you were going to come after any of us, it'd be the one you thought was still the easiest one for you to catch. So I played the part to lure you in." Lifting the crossbow, she prodded him with it until he fell onto his side, his eyes drifting closed as the sedative in the bolt did its work.
  
  "Truth is, I had Panacea heal me weeks ago, dumbass."
  
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  Arc 19: Surge
  19.01
  
  A couple hours after meeting with Marquis, Amy and I sat in Ethan and Sam's kitchen along with Marissa and Jess. Pandora had been convinced to leave Amy with us before heading back to her own territory, Cassie had had to get home herself, and Hunter had gone to bed, since she had to get up early in the morning to attend her online college class.
  
  In a way, Hunter had been lucky. Her dismissal from the Birdcage had been easier than most would have been, because her specific trial and court case had been kept pretty quiet, rather than the big production that was usually made when the PRT wanted to show how much of an example they were making out of real monsters. She had been a minor at the time, and had pled guilty, specifically requesting the cage. There hadn't really been much of a trial other than a quiet sentencing, after which her record had been sealed away. Hers wasn't the kind of case that they wanted to advertise to show that they were keeping the worst monsters in line. Which explained why I had never heard of her before we met. Three years in the Birdcage had also changed her appearance enough that any of the very few people who knew about what happened recognizing her as the fifteen-year old little girl who went in was unlikely.
  
  My brief musing about Hunter were interrupted by Amy, who had been silently staring at me for the last several seconds, blurting, "Are you seriously suggesting that I have another sister that happens to be an S-Class threat?"
  
  I shrugged both shoulders helplessly at that. "I'm just telling you what he said. Candace Meinhardt was the name of your mother, and that's also the name of Noelle's mother on Earth Aleph. Right?" I looked toward the other two girls.
  
  Jess was standing, enjoying the fact that she no longer had to pretend to be confined to a wheelchair. "Yeah, that's definitely Noelle's mother's name." She reached up to gently pat Jalopy, who was perched on the top of her head, happily braiding her hair while Elvis Presley's 'The Wonder of You' played quietly. The little robot's attempts to woo her hadn't abated.
  
  "Maybe it's a coincidence?" Marissa offered weakly from where she was sitting. "Same name, different person? It's... possible." Even she didn't sound that convinced.
  
  "Could be," I allowed with a nod. "But I wanted her to be prepared for the possibility."
  
  Amy snorted at that. "Consider me never prepared for any of this ridiculous family tree I've got. And how do we find out if it's true, if... Noelle and I really do have the same mother?"
  
  "Really more the same mother dimensionally removed. So kind of like... cousins?" I shrugged then before sighing. "I don't know. Maybe we can look online and find a picture of Candace Meinhardt, and see if it's the right person?" I glanced toward Jess and Marissa. "You guys can say if she's Noelle's mother." Then I looked back to Amy. "And you can send it to Marquis and ask if she's the right one."
  
  "Sure, that... might work." Amy nodded slowly before slumping back in her seat. "But if they are the same person, what does that mean?"
  
  "I guess it means that you and Noelle are... interdimensional half-sisters?" Marissa reached out to pick a chip out of the bowl on the table and crunched it thoughtfully.
  
  "Where is Noelle?" I looked toward Jess. "And Luke and Oliver, for that matter. I don't suppose Krouse said anything about that before he got knocked out?"
  
  Her head shook slightly, carefully so she wouldn't knock Jalopy off. "Nope. And he was still unconscious when the PRT people came to haul him in."
  
  I sighed a bit, taking a chip for myself. "Maybe Ethan and Sam'll know more when they get home. Miss Militia promised to tell them anything they found out from him so that they could pass it along."
  
  We were all quiet for a moment, before Amy asked, "What about Shadow Stalker?"
  
  "I know I heard something break when I kicked her knee." Jess's smile was fierce. "But I don't know where she went after that. I couldn't just leave Krouse where he was, and by the time anyone else showed up, she was long gone. But without you to heal her, I don't know what she's gonna do."
  
  "Yeah, she can't just go to the hospital," I mused. "She's gotta know they're keeping an eye out for her."
  
  "What about the ring?" Marissa spoke up abruptly, looking toward Jess. "The one that controls the explosive that Bakuda implanted. Did you get it off of Krouse?"
  
  Jess shook her head. "I checked, but he didn't have it on him."
  
  That made me stare in confusion. "Didn't have it on him? Who else would have it? And why would she be doing what he said if he didn't have the control ring?"
  
  "Maybe he gave it to whoever he wanted to give Pandora to?" Amy offered quietly. "If he was willing to do something that stupid, giving them control of Shadow Stalker wouldn't be any worse."
  
  Before I could respond to that, the front door opened, and my two guardians stepped inside. Ethan made a beeline straight for the bowl of chips, taking a handful. "Uggnnn thank god. You would not believe the dirty looks I got just for suggesting that we order a pizza while candy-ass was interrogated."
  
  "Dirty looks hell, I was kicking you." Sam muttered, dropping her keys on the nearby desk before stepping over to take one of the chips from him.
  
  Ethan just blinked at her blankly. "That's what that was? I thought you were playing footsy." He turned slightly to wink at me while Sam promptly began to choke on her chip.
  
  "So did you find anything out?" Amy pressed while fidgeting in her seat. "Who was he working for?"
  
  "He won't say." Sam pulled out the last remaining chair and sat down with a sigh. "Trust me, they pressed him hard, but he wasn't giving anything up. They think he's convinced whoever he's working with is gonna get him out of there."
  
  "They won't let that happen, right?" I looked between her and Ethan. "They've got him locked down?"
  
  Ethan crunched a chip before nodding. "They've got him locked in one of the most secure cells this side of the Birdcage, blindfolded so he can't use his power, and he's got armed guards. Short of someone assaulting the entire PRT building to get him out, he's not going anywhere."
  
  "What about Sophia?" I scowled at the table while saying the name of my ex-friend, the girl who had murdered my parents. Yes, she had been coerced into it, but the final choice had still been hers.
  
  "There was a trail," Sam explained. "Apparently she ended up in the building manager's apartment and threatened him until he gave her all the pain killers he had. Then she made him give her the keys to his car. They found it ditched a few miles away."
  
  Ethan looked between Amy and me. "Could Marquis be the one that Trickster was working with?"
  
  "No way." Amy shook her head. "He was surprised by Pandora, and not in a 'oh, the girl I had that idiot try to kidnap is my daughter's clone' sort of way."
  
  "He could have been faking it," Sam pointed out gently. "But I agree, because I think Trickster's too much of a loose cannon for your father's style. Everything I know about him says that he prefers people with more self control and ability to think things through. And the ability to learn from their mistakes."
  
  "Yeah, that last one really eliminates Krouse." Jess muttered while holding her hand up above her head with two fingers down so that Jalopy could hold onto them with his grappler arms and sway back and forth as though dancing with her.
  
  "Just for the record," Ethan added, looking to me. "Heading out to meet with someone like Marquis without telling anybody? Not your smartest move."
  
  "Blame me," Amy insisted. "I made her swear not to tell anybody but the people we took. I didn't want meeting my dad to turn into some kind of Protectorate sting to grab him." She hesitated then before adding, a little more softly. "Or kill him."
  
  "Still," Sam reached out to put a hand on Amy's arm. "We can help without turning it into a big production, Amy. Your cousin especially. You know you can trust her."
  
  "I know." The other girl looked away, dropping her gaze so that her mop of frizzy brown hair would hide her face. "But I didn't want to put her in that kind of position, where she had to choose between her loyalty to me and her job and... oh." She blinked up then, staring at me. "Sorry, Madison."
  
  "It's okay." I shrugged. "I get it. It was your dad, and... it was pretty much your only chance to say anything to him. If that got interrupted by the PRT..."
  
  "I know he's a bad guy." Amy bit her lip before looking up at Sam and Ethan. "But I told him I'd give him one day a month to talk without any kind of cape stuff getting in the way. Please don't tell anybody about that. Any other time, I'll do what I can to try to catch him... not kill him, but catch him and bring him in. But that one day... I... I need that."
  
  Ethan and Sam exchanged glances before the latter nodded. "I think we can keep quiet about that much, Amy. But your dad has a kill order out. You need to convince him to negotiate a surrender. If he comes in himself, they can call off the kill order. Maybe even arrange legitimate visits, or at least phone calls and letters. But if he makes this hard... your father's tough, but someone's going to take the bounty. Maybe someone in his own organization if they raise it high enough."
  
  "I'll talk to him," Amy promised. "But I need to actually have a relationship first before I can use it to try to convince him to stand down and give up."
  
  "Got her," Marissa interrupted before Sam could respond to that, holding up her phone triumphantly after having been intently using it to search for the past several minutes. "She's younger in this picture, but it's definitely Noelle's mother." She held it out so that we could see the picture of a young woman in her mid-twenties with light auburn hair, standing on a boat that had the name, 'Sauron's Other Eye' written on the side. "She was in the paper for some boating competition. Looks like it was about a year before Amy was born."
  
  Thankfully, I had had a brief time before Ethan and Sam had to go in to help deal with the Trickster thing to give them a quick rundown on what we suspected about Noelle and Amy's mother, so they weren't lost.
  
  Jess took a long look before nodding. "Yeah, that's her. Marissa knew her way better than I did, but there's no question. That is Noelle's mom."
  
  Taking the phone after Mars offered it to her, Amy gazed down at the picture with a curious, longing look. "I guess I'll send the picture to Marquis and see if he recognizes her..."
  
  "And if he does?" Sam asked quietly. "What're you going to do if you and Noelle are... sort of related?"
  
  Amy was quiet for a few long seconds before responding softly. "The thing I should have done a long time ago. I'll help find her, and try harder to heal her. I don't know how, but I'll make it right."
  
  I spoke up hesitantly after that. "We got lucky with Pandora. We've been lucky so far, all things considered. If you touch Noelle again, if you make another clone..."
  
  "There has to be a way for me to heal her without letting her make clones," Amy insisted. "I can control people's genetics when I'm touching them. Maybe I can find a way to halt the cloning process or... or something."
  
  The silent looks that everyone exchanged then said everything that needed to be said. We all really hoped that she was right. Because either alternative, not healing Noelle, or having even more Panacea clones that retained their initial psychotic behavior, were too bad to contemplate.
  
  "How many cars do you think they've got down there?" Reach asked idly as she stood next to me on the roof of an apartment building, gazing down into the construction site that should have been empty. Instead, there were three different semi's with those car transport trailers attached, and a couple dozen high-end sports and luxury cars. About ten people in blue overalls stood around, apparently waiting to start loading the cars.
  
  "Twenty, at least," Flechette replied from a few yards away. "Most of them worth six figures."
  
  It was the next afternoon. Technically school was still in session, but Wards (alongside a large group of other students to throw off suspicion) attended on a sort of half-day basis, taking the required courses for four periods before leaving for the remaining two. Ostensibly we were supposed to be attending some sort of work study/apprenticeship program to learn how to operate in the real world.
  
  Which, I supposed, we were doing.
  
  Sparrow and Vista had similar schedules, just for the middle school rather than the high school. Four periods for English, Math, Science, and History. When there wasn't a mission or training going on, we all attended online courses for our required foreign language credits, while our Wards work was considered our gym/elective.
  
  At the moment, we had 'elected' to stop a bunch of car thieves. A tip from a reliable informant had come into the PRT, about a group of capes that was about to send almost a million dollars worth of stolen cars out of the city. The timing had been exact, and the informant hadn't known where the cars would be before now.
  
  Of course, the Protectorate had initially been penciled in to step up and deal with the situation. Unfortunately, some kind of flare up of violence in Lung's claimed territory meant that all of them were busy. Obviously, trouble involving Lung and some of his people took precedence over a car theft ring.
  
  Which meant that the initial job fell to the Wards, putting us on car thief clean-up duty.
  
  While we waited for the capes in charge of this little group to show their faces, I glanced toward Flechette. After moving here to Brockton Bay, she had decided to stop carrying the arbalest on most missions. Instead, she had taken to wearing a tinker-made device on each arm that were able to launch smaller crossbow bolts similar to my darts. She also wore a rapier on her left hip and a whip similar to the one she had used during the Anubis fight on her right. She still had the arbalest for special occasions, but chose not to lug it around for most of our missions.
  
  Sparrow had changed what she fought with as well. She still wore her black costume with the glowing pink accents and smiley face mask, but she had spent the last few weeks changing out most of her equipment. She had the flight bracelets, something Flechette doubted she'd ever change, and her forcefield staff. But she alsowore a pair of gloves that simulated super strength up to around two thousand pounds, a belt that provided her with enough invulnerability to take a point-blank rifle shot without flinching, and I still didn't know what her last power was, because she insisted that it was a surprise. The point was, after the Anubis fight, she had adjusted her powers to allow her a more physical role in the battle, rather than being focused mostly on defense. I... wasn't sure what to think of that, other than the fact that it was yet another thing to curse Anubis for.
  
  Vista, standing on the opposite side of me from Reach, pointed. "Look, it's those Outliar guys."
  
  She was right. I could see Duelitist and Scintillant, alongside some guy in a Guy Fawkes mask that I had been told was what Geppetto tended to wear.
  
  "Old friends of you guys?" Flechette asked.
  
  "Independent villain group," I answered. "Separate from Lung or Marquis, and apparently struggling to remain relevant and make a name for themselves. He's a really good fighter and manipulates metal inside a couple feet of himself. The woman magnifies light into weapons or creatures, not sure if she can use sunlight or not, and Fawkes there is called Geppetto."
  
  "I take it he's the one controlling those things." Flechette lifted her hand to point to a half dozen little dolls that were emerging from inside one of the trucks, apparently performing some kind of acrobatics routine like they were circus performers.
  
  "What about Pursuit and Bulwark?" Aid put in curiously. "They both broke out weeks ago. Shouldn't they be here?"
  
  Kid Win shrugged. "Maybe they're taking a nap, or stealing more cars, or maybe the band broke up. Either way, we just have to handle these three and their helpers." He paused before adding, while indicating the puppets and the human thugs. "The small ones and the big ones."
  
  "All right, they're here." Flechette straightened. "Let's-"
  
  I saw red lines of various shades attach themselves to each of my teammates. Instantly, I attached tether-lines to them as well, and yanked all of us down from the rooftop, straight into a hill of dirt below, around the middle of the construction site.
  
  Just after landing, I looked back over my shoulder to see a glowing blue forcefield shaped like a giant bulldozer fly right across the roof where we had been. If we'd still been standing there, it would have collided with all of us.
  
  As we picked ourselves out of the dirt, a voice called out, "Oh good, you've decided to join us!"
  
  I looked up, to see Duelitist standing there, flanked by the two teammates he'd had with him. I didn't see where Bulwark was, even after he'd used that forcefield to attack us, and there was still no sign of Pursuit at all.
  
  "I'd hoped for a couple Protectorate people to test my people with, but oh well." Duelitist shrugged absently before waving a hand. As he did so, a much larger group of thugs and criminals of all types began to emerge from where they had been hidden inside the structures that surrounded the construction site. They had apparently been waiting just out of sight. I could see random bikers, street thugs of various affiliations, and other criminals of every class that hadn't affiliated themselves with either Marquis or Lung.
  
  "How many are there?" Flechette asked quietly, while we all turned in a circle to find ourselves surrounded by the small army of criminals. They were apparently ordinary humans, yes, but there were a lot of them.
  
  "I stopped counting after thirty, boss," Kid Win replied. "And I wasn't anywhere near done."
  
  "You all know the stakes, and the prize!" Duelitist called out. "We've only got two of the good stuff, so you're really gonna have to impress me."
  
  "Let's say whichever two of you do the most damage to any of these Wards gets the prize." He continued, clearly soaking up the attention. "A vial of the stuff that can turn an ordinary guy or girl like any of you into capes!"
  
  I barely had time for my eyes to widen at the mention of power-giving vials before a deafening roar went up from all the people surrounding our group as they fell in on us.
  
  19.02
  
  There wasn't time to communicate a plan. I used a line to launch myself upwards and back, flipping over in the air to look down at where I had been just as three men armed with knives and batons stumbled to a halt. At the same time, I called, "A surprise party, for us?!" Extending both hands down that way, I attached a line from the back of my gauntlets to two of the men's backs, using it to shove them face-first into the dirt. "See, if you'd warned us, we could've had better refreshments prepared."
  
  Then I hit the ground in a crouch behind the third man and spun to kick his legs out from under him before rolling forward over his body to get from his feet to his head. "But I guess you'll just have to settle for whatever's-" As he lifted his face out of the dirt when I rolled into position, I planted my foot between his eyes. "-lying around."
  
  Meanwhile, I could hear Flechette calling the ambush in to whoever was manning the control desk back at PRT HQ, but I didn't expect them to be able to get anyone out here before it was over.
  
  A danger line attached to Theo caught my attention, just as the two men I had knocked down first picked themselves out of the dirt. I attached a line between the two men and yanked them face first into one another at high enough speed to drop them, before turning to look at where Aid was using the his shield to absorb several blows from a handful of thugs before triggering the shield's ability to release energy captured from the blows it took, unleashing a concussive wave that knocked that group flying. He hadn't noticed the one man with some kind of cattle prod stalking up behind him.
  
  "Behind you, Aid!" I called out a warning. Unfortunately, he couldn't turn to deal with that threat, because two more came for him.
  
  Twisting around, I caught the arm of another man who had thought he was sneaking up behind me while I was distracted. One hand held his wrist and twisted just enough that the thick pipe the man was using as a club dropped into my other hand. "Who says I'm hard to buy presents for? This is exactly what I wanted." I turned, simultaneously kicking out the side of the man's leg to drop him to one knee, before throwing the pipe toward the spot where Aid was. As it sailed over the head of the man who was rushing up behind Theo, I attached a line between it and the hat that he wore and gave a yank so that the pipe reversed course to crash into the guy and send him sprawling onto the ground.
  
  The man whose wrist I was holding in a lock as he knelt next to me tried to grab for me with his other arm. As he moved, I gave a twist of his wrist, just enough to briefly blind him with pain before driving my knee into his face.
  
  Pointing at the ground, I used lines on my gauntlets to throw myself into the air and backwards, extending my legs behind me so that my feet collided with the chest of another man, dropping him to the ground while he wheezed for air. My momentum halted by the collision, I dropped to the ground, catching myself on my hands before using another line-to-gauntlets trick to shove myself upright and to my feet just as yet another man brought his bat crashing down onto the dirt where my head had been.
  
  "Aww, see, most of these guys are brainless thugs, but you've got sports ambitions!" I clapped my hands enthusiastically before coaching, "Okay, let's see your batting stance."
  
  The man growled and lashed out with the bat, but I easily twisted away from it. "No, no, no. See, you've gotta keep your back straight, and kind of use your hips as you swing to put your weight into it."
  
  "Shut the fuck up!" The man bellowed while swinging even more wildly with the bat, desperate to hit me. He kept trying for full-power home run swings, which I could see coming from a mile away and easily adjusted my stance to avoid.
  
  The whole time, I kept berating him while the bat kept whiffing past me. "No, you've gotta choke up a little." Whiff. "Use your legs, really get that power in there." Whiff. "Weight on the balls of your feet, you can do this." Whiff. "Now see, I don't really think you're trying anymore." Whiff, whiff, whiff.
  
  "Shut up, shut up, shuuuuuuuuuuut the fuuuuuck uuuuuup!" The man screamed, dropping his bat entirely as he lunged for me in a blind rage, practically frothing at the mouth.
  
  Easily side-stepping his charge, I caught his arm with both of my hands and twisted with his motion, using the momentum to flip the guy all the way over before he came slamming down into the ground. He lay there, groaning in pain, while I shook my head in disappointment. "Baseball clearly isn't your sport, dude. Could I suggest, uhhh... checkers? Maybe a rousing game of Hungry Hungry Hippos?"
  
  Two more men leapt to take their companion's place, and I resisted the urge to groan before meeting their charge.
  
  The fight continued, and it rapidly became impossible to keep track of everything that was going on. Reach was sending clouds of dust out to obscure the whole area around herself, and the bodies of the men stupid enough to wade into the dust cloud occasionally came flying out, screaming as her powers propelled them. Kid Win and Sparrow flew above the fray, picking their fights, while Aid and Flechette had moved together to watch each other's backs. Every once in awhile I got a warning line about someone being in danger, but for the most part I was able to focus on my own fight. The fact was, I only got warnings when the person involved couldn't or wouldn't handle it on their own, and we had trained well.
  
  Which was a good thing, since it was all I could do to keep up with the mass of people who kept trying to use my head as target practice for various blunt or sharp instruments. It was a good thing they weren't even a tiny bit coordinated, which allowed me to use their numbers against them, throwing one into another, slipping between attackers as they crashed into one another, or just plain attaching lines to their sleeves to make them hit one another.
  
  Twisting aside from one man who had lunged forward with a knife, I planted my elbow in his gut while catching his arm and yanking it up to force the knife into the extended arm of another man who had been reaching for my neck. The blade cut deep, and the man dropped back with a howl of agony.
  
  Two more quick elbow blows to the man whose arm I was holding, this time to the face, sent him reeling as well, as the knife dropped out of his grip.
  
  Sensing movement coming up fast on the other side of me, I jerked aside. It wasn't quite enough. The movement prevented the swinging club from hitting me dead on in the small of my back, but I still took a glancing blow to the side that knocked me sprawling.
  
  Several more men leapt on that perceived moment of vulnerability, but it was far from the first hit I'd taken. I turned the awkward sprawl into a roll, coming back to my feet in a crouch with both arms extended. Darts flew from each gauntlet, hitting two of the men who had been lunging for me. The third man kept coming, until I sent one of my metal balls flying off my shoulder and into his gut. It was a tiny bit of metal, and I was careful not to send it at full speed, but the impact still doubled the man over long enough for me to use another line under my feet to launch myself upward with my fist out to catch him across the face with a blow that sent blood spurting even as he collapsed with a strangled cry.
  
  Grimacing then, as even more of the cannon fodder thugs came in to fill the gaps their fallen competition had left, I shook my head. "See guys, this is what happens when you don't book ahead." One of the men tried to hit me with a stun gun, but I dropped down, coming up under his arm to catch it and use the momentum of his thrust to hip-throw him while stripping the stun gun out of his grasp. "You try to get a table at the busiest place in town, and they're all booked up."
  
  Turning with the stun gun in hand, I jabbed it into the stomach of the next nearest man while continuing to lament. "I'm gonna need everyone to form an orderly line, and wait for your number to be-" A red line warned me that someone else was in trouble, and I quickly launched myself upward to see better while finishing my sentence, "-called!"
  
  Once I was airborn, I saw where the line was drawing my attention. It connected to Kid Win, who was hovering over the fight, using the concussive blast setting for his cannons to knock groups of people flying in order to keep any part of the mob from getting too large or organized.
  
  Unfortunately, he hadn't noticed the man with the bent tire iron running along the top of the nearby semi to jump at him. Quickly, I attached a line between the semi's roof and the back of the man's pants, giving him a boost as he leapt that carried him flailing and screaming high over Kid's head before crashing into a mound of dirt.
  
  I fell back to the ground then, returning to my own fight. "Now serving number thirty-six!" Sensing movement behind me, I used lines on my feet to jump into a backwards flip that carried me over the head of an enormous man with no shirt as he tried to grab me with both arms. Before he could adjust to my line-augmented backflip, I jabbed my stolen stun gun into his shirtless side and triggered it enough to drop his massive, muscled body.
  
  "... thirty-seven?" I offered, leaping away from the big man's twitching form and toward a relatively open space before turning in a circle to keep track of everyone around me. "Now serving thirty-seven?"
  
  Jokes aside, this couldn't keep going the way that it was. There were too many guys coming after me, and it was getting harder and harder to avoid them. As yet another pair came for me from either side, I used the last of my prepared darts to drop them and get myself a half second to breathe.
  
  Using that brief moment to see what I needed to do, I attached new lines where they needed to be to make it work, then turned to face the incoming group of half a dozen guys that thought I was their best chance to earn the promised vial of powers.
  
  "Now I know what you're thinking, guys!" I called out, holding both hands out toward them. They slowed slightly, confused by my words and the fact that I wasn't outright fighting them. "You're thinking, 'now we've got her, she's out of knockout darts.' And teeeechnically , you'd be right. But I did order a new shipment of them, and it ought to be arriving riiiight aaaaboooout..." I pointed up casually while giving them a 'look over there' whistle.
  
  As one, the six of them looked up to where I had used a pair of lines to both hoist one of the semi trucks, and suspend it over their heads.
  
  "You just gotta love prompt delivery, you know?" I released the lines, letting the truck fall straight toward the group. They scattered, throwing themselves in every direction in their rush to get away from the several ton hunk of metal just before it slammed into the ground.
  
  Turning, I walked right into the blow from another man that knocked me sprawling. Before I could move again, I saw him coming up fast with his foot cocked back to kick me.
  
  The blow never landed. Instead, the man stumbled and began to choke violently. I rolled over and looked up to see a cloud of dust being forced down his throat even as he fell to his knees. His eyes grew wide while he choked on the dust cloud for another few seconds before the dust abruptly flew back out of his throat, just before Reach planted her foot in the side of his face and knocked him sprawling.
  
  "You good?" She asked me while extending her hand. With her other hand, she made a flicking motion and I saw the other semi truck go careening past my field of view, scattering another group that had been trying to approach.
  
  I took it and nodded while rising. "We gotta regroup. Where the hell did Duelitist and his idiots go?"
  
  Her head shook. "No idea. They vanished before the fight even got going. Cowards."
  
  "Hold on." I reached out to take her arm, then used lines to propel both of us halfway across the lot to where Aid and Flechette were.
  
  We landed just in time to see Aid point his mace at a man and flick a button on the handle. As soon as he did, around ten of the little mini-drones that normally covered the outside of his armor came flying down, sending little electric shocks into the man from all sides and distracting him long enough for Aid to land a solid blow with the mace that put him out of the fight.
  
  Flechette, meanwhile, used her empowered rapier to easily slice away the bulk of the aluminum bat that her opponent was wielding, leaving him with little more than the part of the handle his hands were on. As he halted to stare dumbly at the remains of his weapon, she shoved her sword point through the palm of his hand and out the back of it, drawing a squeal from him as he fell to his knees.
  
  "Give up?" She prompted. When the man frantically nodded, she withdrew the tip of the sword and then pointed. "Lay down, stay down. Don't move. Aid, as long as he cooperates, give him the medical assistance he needs."
  
  Aid nodded, and turned slightly before lifting his shield. I saw him tap a few buttons on the hidden computer part of the inside of the shield, and two of the drones flew down to begin taking care of the injured man's hand.
  
  The space distorted a little around us, and I saw Vista emerge, dusting her hands off as she returned the space to normal behind her. "For a bunch of guys who really want super powers, they sure don't seem to realize how stupid it is to go after someone that has them."
  
  "We've gotta clear these guys out and focus on the real threats." I spoke up, looking around at the remaining men who all seemed intent on surrounding us.
  
  Flechette nodded in agreement before whistling loudly. High above, I could see Sparrow carrying two of the men by their arms as she flew over everyone else's heads. She went straight for the nearest wall and released the men at the last second so that they flew into it at just a high enough speed to knock the fight out of them. At the sound of the whistle, she inverted in the air and flew back toward us.
  
  Kid Win arrived around the same time, panting a little. "Okay, I'm not even fighting physically and this is still exhausting. How the hell do we put these idiots down hard enough without killing anybody so we can deal with the assholes who put them up to this?" Even as he spoke, the tinker used two more concussive blasts in quick succession to help keep the men off us for a few more seconds.
  
  "Sparrow," Flechette smiled at the younger girl. "You ready to use that last power?"
  
  "Okay!" The girl bobbed up and down excitedly before reaching for the pouch on her belt. "But it'll only work for a couple minutes."
  
  "That's all we need it to work for," Flechette assured her. "Go for it."
  
  Sparrow withdrew what looked like a tiny plastic gorilla action figure. Turning to the men in the distance, she held the figure tight in one hand. It began to glow pink, before a loud rumbling noise stopped everyone in their tracks.
  
  The ground beneath our feet shook, as the earth itself began to lift up. Before our eyes, and the eyes of the men who were still conscious, a great mound of rocks and dirt hoisted itself up into what was at first a shapeless blob, but then gradually resolved into the form of a gorilla that looked almost identical to the action figure that Sparrow was holding. This one, however, was roughly twenty feet tall.
  
  For a moment, the random thugs just stood and stared as the earth golem in the shape of a gorilla towered over them.
  
  "Raaaaaaawr, Fuuuuuuuzzzerbut neeeeed baaaaaaananaaaaa." Sparrow made her voice deep and gravelly, her approximation of a gorilla, I guessed. To my surprise, the massive figure itself echoed her words in a much louder voice.
  
  "Urrrghhh, giiiive Fuzzerbutt goooood baaaanana!" Using her fingers, the little girl manipulated the toy's arm, making it reach out. At the same time, the giant gorilla figure brought its own arm out as though reaching toward the remaining men.
  
  That was apparently their limit. Powers or no, the group scattered, running for any exit from the construction site they could find, leaving us standing amongst roughly half of their injured or unconscious companions that had already been put out of the fight.
  
  "Since Clockblocker isn't here to say it," Kid Win announced. "I'll say it for him. That power is bullshit."
  
  "You mean cool as hell." Vista corrected.
  
  Ignoring that, Flechette turned in a circle. "Where're the real bad guys? Where'd they go?"
  
  We searched, but there was no sign of them. We'd recovered the expensive cars (though two had been wrecked in the course of the battle, along with both semis), but the Outliars were long gone.
  
  "Damn it." Cassie spun around as she cursed. "Where the hell are they?"
  
  Vista came back from where she had been using her power to check the exterior. "Not here."
  
  "I've got a better question," Flechette replied. "What did he mean by powers in a vial?"
  
  Before I could try to come up with an answer to that, Theo spoke up instead. "We uhh, we can sort of... find out."
  
  Turning that way, I blinked. "We can?"
  
  His head bobbed in a nod. "I... ummm... I sort of..." As he spoke, the boy held his hand out so that one of his drones could land in it, releasing a small vial into his palm. "... managed to steal one of them."
  
  19.03
  
  A couple hours later, I was (finally) leaving the small, windowless room in the PCIPS building where Mrs. Pelham had been talking to me for the past forty-five minutes. Apparently showing up with what you claimed was a vial of super power-giving liquid tended to make people want to go over your story more than once. At least they'd let us all change into normal clothes first.
  
  "Sorry, Madison." Crystal's mother apologized, hand squeezing my shoulder as she walked out with me. "It's just that if I didn't go over everything with you obsessively, someone else would. And trust me, you don't want to meet some of the people they use for debriefings around here."
  
  I raised an eyebrow at that, turning my head to look at her. "Don't you mean people 'we' use for debriefings? I mean, you are the boss."
  
  She winced, her near model-perfect face scrunching up briefly. "I suppose I do. Sorry, still not used to being in charge of all this. It's... different from running a small team." Sighing, she nodded toward the nearby vending machine. "Buy you a drink while we wait for the others to come out?"
  
  I nodded, and we walked that way. "I guess it would take a lot to make the switch from heading a public team of superheroes to heading a bunch of super-powered spies and detectives."
  
  Mrs. Pelham fed the quarters into the machine and then gestured for me to hit what I wanted. "Trust me, you have no idea. Trying to get the people in the same division to communicate is like herding rabid cats, let alone making them communicate with people outside the division."
  
  I took a Sprite and sipped it, hesitating before asking, "Are the others going to be okay? I mean, they don't know anything more than I do." Less, really. I still hadn't told her everything, like the fact that Genesis and Sundancer had both gained their powers from vials. I had a feeling that was going to come out eventually, especially once we found Noelle. But for now, it was Marissa and Jess's secret to keep.
  
  She offered me a little smile and nodded. "They'll be fine, I've got people I trust talking to them. They should all be out soon."
  
  "What's going to happen to that vial?" I asked after taking another sip from the can. "No one's gonna drink it, are they?" I hoped that no one was that stupid, but then again... the idea of having powers in a vial had to be tempting for some people, even the trained agents here.
  
  "It's under lock and key." She answered promptly. "And the key is my eye. We're waiting for Alexandria to show up, and then we're going to have it analyzed to find out what's in it."
  
  "Alexandria?" I asked, curiously. "What does she have to do with this?"
  
  "Head of the PRT division." She pointed out. "Essentially my equal, but with a much more established organization. She expressed interest in knowing what's really in that vial. You can't really blame her, can you? If there're vials of super-powers going around, the PRT should know about it."
  
  "Good point." I agreed before the door down the hall opened and Vista emerged just ahead of some nameless guy in a suit.
  
  She muttered something under her breath that sounded like she didn't exactly hold the man who had been questioning her in the highest regard before walking up to join us. "Can we get out of here now?"
  
  I offered her the can of soda. "Still waiting for the others."
  
  Taking the Sprite, Missy took a gulp from it before giving it back. "How many times do you have to ask the same questions? We told you what we know. Just put the scientists to work examining the stuff we brought in. Is it that hard?"
  
  Mrs. Pelham winced, waving a hand to dismiss the clearly aggravated PCIPS officer who had been with Vista before addressing her, "Sorry, Missy. Believe me, it's better to get it over with than have someone suggest later that we didn't get all the information that we could have, especially in a situation like this. I know it sucks to have the same questions asked over and over, but that's how it goes."
  
  Missy still grumbled a little and put her back to the wall next to me. I hesitated, sensing that there was something else wrong that was annoying the younger girl, then gave her a poke. "Hey, let's go take a walk while we wait for the others." Glancing toward Mrs. Pelham, I added, "If that's all right?"
  
  The woman nodded in agreement, and I started to walk away with Missy. Once we were out of easy earshot, I asked, "So what else is bothering you? Because I would've expected Cass to be the one cursing out the person debriefing her."
  
  Missy winced a little before glancing at me. "It's just annoying. We did our job, we brought them the vial, and they spend an hour grilling us over every little detail, like we're making the whole thing up."
  
  I nodded in agreement, before prompting, "And..."
  
  "And..." She sighed, folding her arms as we stepped through a sliding glass doorway that led onto a balcony overlooking the parking lot. There were tables and chairs scattered around for people to eat at during the day, but right now it was empty. "And my father wants to move to California with his new girlfriend."
  
  I blinked at that while moving to the edge of the balcony, looking out over it. I'd known that Missy's parents had been divorced for awhile now, but this part was news. "Oh."
  
  "Yeah, oh." Missy shrugged. "He wanted me to go with him, talked about a whole new start."
  
  "Really? What does your mom think about that?"
  
  The smaller (yet not that much smaller, cursed shortness) girl's answer was a snort. "You mean the woman who spends whatever parts of the day that she isn't in a coma drinking however much tequila it takes to get there? It'd probably take her a solid month to realize I was gone."
  
  "So... you wanna go with your dad then? Seems like he wants you at least."
  
  Her expression turned to a scowl. "No he doesn't. He just wants to beat mom at something. If I choose to go with him, it means I like him better and he can hold that over her, like he has something she doesn't. It's the same reason he's taking the Hummer, and I'm pretty sure he's more attached to that."
  
  I winced, putting a hand out onto the girl's shoulder. "Hey, don't say that. They're probably just-"
  
  "Don't." Missy shook her head, but she didn't pull away. "Just don't try to explain it or whatever. My parents are selfish jerks, but I'm not traumatized by it. Other people have to deal with a lot worse than a mom and dad who can't grow up and act like adults. I'm fine. Just annoyed." Her head shook. "But I'm not going with him. I'm not picking up my whole life and moving it just because he wants to use me as a trophy against mom." She shuddered then. "Couldn't stand to live with Willa anyway."
  
  "That's his girlfriend?" I guessed.
  
  "Yup. She's an idiot. She still calls the team my 'little club.' And she insists on talking to me like I'm three years old. Actually, I'm pretty sure I would've been insulted even when I was three. It's all smooshy face, 'awww isn't dis a sweet widdle girl!'" She made an annoyed groaning noise and hung her head. "I just don't see why he likes her so much."
  
  "You... don't think your parents have any chance of getting back together or... anything?" I asked hesitantly, while trying to ignore the sharp ache of pain that kept shoving its way into my stomach every time I thought about my own parents.
  
  Missy's response was a look of pure horror. "God I hope not. They're insane now, but they were worse when they lived under the same roof. Apparently it took me a long time to start walking, and now I'm pretty sure it's because standing up would've put me up in range of whatever they were throwing at each other that day. I wasn't crawling because I didn't know how to stand, I was crawling to stay down out of the line of fire."
  
  I tried to turn my laugh into a groan, shaking my head. "God, Missy, I'm sorry. I didn't know your family was so... unhealthy."
  
  She shrugged. "Doesn't really matter. I don't talk about it much. It's usually not a big deal. Just... Dad was really pushing for me to go with him earlier. When I tried to talk to him on the phone before we were debriefed, all he wanted to do was talk about how much fun California would be if I was there. Hell, Willa seems more interested in what the team does than him. Even if she does call it a club and talk like we're toddlers playing cops and robbers. At least she pays attention. Sort of."
  
  "In that case, it kind of sounds like he really does want you there," I offered a little lamely.
  
  Her blonde head shook. "No he doesn't. He'll act like he does, maybe spend a day showing me how wonderful he thinks the place is and how much fun we can have. After that, I'd have to set myself on fire to get his attention. And even then I'd probably have to be burning near something he valued."
  
  I cringed a little at that before wrapping an arm around her. "Well, I don't know what his problem is, because you're awesome. He's the one missing out."
  
  Her elbow nudged me, but she didn't pull away from the one-arm hug. "You're just trying to butter me up so I let you win once in awhile when we spar."
  
  "It would do wonders for my confidence."
  
  While Missy was still snickering, Theo and Cassie joined us on the edge of the balcony. I glanced up at the pair. "Chris, Mika, and Lily aren't done yet?"
  
  Cass shook her head, eyes rolling. "According to the stupid ki-" she coughed, aborting the racial epithet. "-guy that got stuck with me, the two girls are waiting for the runt's parents to make sure she's good. Dunno what's taking Kid so long."
  
  Theo, who looked even more pale and uneasy than usual, gave my sleeve a tug. When I glanced that way, I saw that he almost looked sick. "Err, Theo, are you all right?"
  
  "He's been weird like that ever since the fight." Cassie gave him a nudge. "Dude, we won. Hell, you recovered one of those power vials. That's gotta be worth mega-points with the people in charge. You'll probably get a bonus or something. Do we get bonuses?"
  
  Theo's head shook rapidly. "It's nothing, don't worry."
  
  It quite obviously wasn't nothing, but I didn't press him. Which turned out to be a good thing, since Mrs. Pelham stepped out onto the balcony a moment later, accompanied by our other three teammates, and a woman whose appearance still made me want to stare in awe: Alexandria. She was in full costume, of course, the helmet hiding most of her face. From what I could see, she looked pleased.
  
  "Good news, guys." Crystal's mother smiled. "You don't have to worry about that vial."
  
  I blinked at that, exchanging looks with the others while Mika, Lily, and Chris joined us. "We don't?"
  
  Alexandria was the one who responded, nodding. "Indeed. The Outliars were making good on their name. They were lying. There was nothing but colored water in that vial. Apparently they were making the whole thing up to give thugs a reason to fight you."
  
  That... didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but I wasn't going to question Alexandria on the subject.
  
  "That doesn't make sense."
  
  Everyone was looking at me, and I realized belatedly that my mouth apparently hadn't gotten the memo from my brain about that whole 'not questioning Alexandria's words' thing. "Err.. I mean... Why would they do that? What was the point?"
  
  "Who knows how people like that think?" Alexandria shrugged. "But we had the vial scanned thoroughly and there was nothing of note in it. Certainly nothing that would give powers." She laughed then, as though the idea itself was ludicrous. "Some people are just so desperate to gain some kind of edge or ability, they'll believe anything." She looked distracted for a moment. "Now if you'll excuse me, I put aside a lot of work to come up here for what ended up being nothing. I need to get back." She rose into the air, gave us a nod, and then flew away.
  
  "So that's it then?" Lily had a hand on Mika's shoulder after a moment of silence as we watched one of the Triumvirate fly off. "I know that Mika's parents haven't been able to make it here yet, but if the vial isn't really..."
  
  Mrs. Pelham nodded encouragingly. "Don't worry about it, girls. We've got all the information we need. You guys are dismissed, for the rest of the day, actually. You've all done more than enough to earn a break. Does anyone need a ride home?"
  
  Mika, Lily, and Missy took the offered ride, while Chris said something about wanting to get back to a project in his lab, taking the time to change back into his costume so that he could jetpack over to the PRT building.
  
  Which left Cassie, Theo and I to walk out of the PCIPS building together. I looked over my shoulder to make sure we were clear, before asking, "So we know that vial wasn't really water, right?"
  
  "Duh." Cassie snorted. "Either Alexandria's lying, maybe to keep 'vial giving powers' on the down-low, or someone switched it out before she got to it. Maybe one of the science geeks."
  
  Theo said nothing, looking even more nervous now that we had left the building than he had inside. Cassie gave him a look, then rolled her eyes in exasperation before grabbing the boy's arm, proceeding to drag him down the block to a nearby alley. Curious, I followed.
  
  "Okay, dude. Seriously. Spill it." Cassie instructed once we were safely hidden in the alley. "Why have you been so jumpy this whole time? Jumpier than usual, which is saying something."
  
  Rather than answer her at first. Theo slumped against the nearby dumpster, groaning. "Oh man, oh man. I am gonna be in so much trouble."
  
  I blinked at that, exchanging glances with Cassie before stepping that way. "Theo? What do you mean, why would you be in trouble?"
  
  "If they ever find out... I..." Cringing, Theo looked around, then reached into his pocket. After a moment, he held his hand out and opened it... to reveal another vial sitting on his palm.
  
  For a moment, Cassie and I just stared at the vial, mouths open. "What... what..." I managed to get out eventually. "What the hell?"
  
  "I... I actually got... both vials." Theo looked like he was about to throw up. "They... I didn't say... anything, because I thought they'd... take both of them, and... and Cass told me about what happened with Taylor Hebert's father and that whole... thing with how he got his powers and how there must be some really important people trying to hide that sort of thing. I... I thought something might happen to the vial that we gave the PRT, so... I kept one, in case you knew someone else that could... look at it. And I figured it would be easier to get through the ummm... the debriefing if only one of us was lying."
  
  My mouth continued to hang open for another few seconds while I struggled to come up with a response. "You... you kept one of the vials... you lied through an entire debriefing just to keep one of the vials in case we needed it?"
  
  He shrugged helplessly, wincing before pushing the vial into my hand as though he couldn't wait to get rid of it. "It... ummm... it seemed like the right thing to do at the time? I didn't know Alexandria was gonna show up, and when she came out I thought... I thought..." He gulped and gave a full-body shudder. "It was stupid. I just-"
  
  Whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by Cassie, who abruptly all-but launched herself at the boy, knocking him backwards against the dumpster as she kissed him. Poor Theo flailed a little, apparently thinking she was attacking him at first before he realized what was happening. Then his hands just sort of waved in the air like he had no idea what to do with them.
  
  "That..." Cassie finally pulled back to say, a little breathlessly. "... was awesome."
  
  Theo made what sounded like a whine of agreement, his expression one of dizzy surprise as he formed his hand into a vague thumbs up gesture, head bobbing dreamily. "Uhhh huh..."
  
  Seeming to only now realize what she had done, Cassie's eyes widened then and she took a slight step back, face turning red. "Errr... I mean... that-the vial is... do..." Pivoting suddenly, she looked at me. Her expression pretty much openly dared me to say a single word about what had just happened. "Do you know what you're gonna do with that?"
  
  I stared down at the vial in my hand, swallowing. It took me a second, but I nodded. "I think I have an idea."
  
  19.04
  
  "So this is one of the vials that gives powers to ordinary people?" Dinah held the vial between two fingers about an hour later, examining it with a curious gaze.
  
  We were standing on the roof of their motel, Dinah having explained that she liked the excuse to get out into the open air and away from... whatever it Riley and the others were working on below.
  
  "PRT says it's just ordinary water," I pointed out mildly while watching the lights from cars on the distant freeway. "Not that we believe them, but I figured if anyone could check, it'd be one of your-"
  
  "It'll give people powers." Dinah closed her hand around the vial, looking away from it as she turned back to me. "My power says so. I don't know what kind of power exactly, but it'll definitely empower anyone who isn't already a parahuman."
  
  "Right, I kinda figured it wouldn't do anything for anybody that was already a parahuman."
  
  She closed her eyes briefly, mouthing a couple words that looked like she was asking herself a question, before opening them and nodding. "Right, it won't do anything for someone that's a parahuman already. It might as well actually be water in that case."
  
  I snorted and joked, "Maybe that's how they tested the other one, had Alexandria drink it and see what happened."
  
  "I don't think even the PRT is that stupid." Dinah looked at the vial again. "There's gonna be people trying to get this back. The Outliars, if nothing else. Two vials of this stuff had to cost a lot of money."
  
  I shrugged at that. "Let 'em try. I'd appreciate those jackasses sticking their heads up again so I can play whack-a-mole with them some more. Still owe them for siccing a bunch of random thugs on us."
  
  Dinah opened her mouth to respond again, but was interrupted by three sharp beeps coming from her pocket. Wincing, she reached in and took out a small flip-style cell phone. "Just a second, it's eight o'clock so I have to do this or they'll get upset again."
  
  Quickly, she hit one of the speed dial buttons and then cleared her throat before holding the phone to her ear. A second later, her face lit up as she embellished, "Mommy? Hi, Mommy. Uh huh. Yup, I did my homework! Mrs. Pendel already has it. Nuh uh, I didn't wanna do Christopher Columbus. Cuz he was an ass- astonishingly bad guy, Mom. Uh huh. Oh! Yeah, we got the cookies. Panda really likes them. Especially the pineapple cookies."
  
  Her conversation with her mother continued for a minute, while I stared, marveling at the stark contrast between the business-as-usual Dinah that I normally saw, and this facade of an innocent young girl with nothing to worry about except who she had chosen to do a history report on that she portrayed for her parents. It seemed like she had just flipped a switch to become a completely different person.
  
  After talking to her mother for a few minutes, then taking about as much time with her father, Dinah finally closed the phone and put it away. Her expression closed up once more, the switch flipped back the other way. "Sorry." She turned to look at the lights on the freeway again. "Part of the deal for my parents not going nuts is calling them once a day. They get nervous if they don't hear from me."
  
  I hesitated then before asking, "How long can you keep going like this, Dinah? I mean, how long can you spend here without going home to your family?"
  
  For the briefest of seconds, I thought I saw a tiny flinch, an expression of regret, before she shook her head. "However long it takes. I keep telling people, this stuff is more important. What we're doing, it... matters more than one family."
  
  Deciding not to press the issue further, I nodded to the vial. "Think Riley could run some tests on that and find out what's in it and how it works? Maybe we can even figure out where it came from." And from there, get answers about Noelle's condition. Maybe even a cure. I didn't dare voice that hope, not yet. But it had been tickling the back of my mind ever since Theo had handed over the vial.
  
  Dinah nodded, turning toward the doorway that led from the roof back into the motel, where one of the Pandoras stood, patiently waiting. "Panda, could you send Riley up here to visit Tether?"
  
  "Yes, Dinah-Friend." Pandora didn't move, but the message was obviously passed along to one of the others, because a moment later she added, "Riley-Friend is coming."
  
  While we waited, I focused on Pandora herself. "Can you ummm... tell me what your personal designation is? I'm... trying to get better at telling you apart."
  
  She gave one of those sharp, head-tilted quick jerks that looked more like a bird spasming than a nod. "This Pandora-Self is called Epsilon, Tether-Friend."
  
  "Epsilon's the serious one." Dinah sounded like she was teasing a little, stepping over to poke Pandora. "She's the one that likes to follow all the rules and makes sure everyone else toes the line."
  
  "Rules establish order." Pandora-Epsilon pointed out calmly. "Order is required for the world to run properly."
  
  I raised an eyebrow at that. "If you're the one obsessed with rules, which one is the joker?"
  
  "Lambda." The answer came from both Epsilon and Dinah together, and each of them smiled faintly afterward, apparently remembering something that had happened.
  
  Before I could ask for any clarification, or even try to picture what a Pandora that liked jokes could be like, the door opened and Riley came rushing out, lugging an enormous backpack with her. "I'm here, I'm here!"
  
  For a second, I had to marvel at the stark contrast between the way I had originally met Riley, let alone the Bonesaw I had seen pictures of, and the girl who was here now. Bonesaw wore aprons covered in blood over party dresses covered in even more blood. Her entire shtick was to look as young and innocent as possible, while being covered in gore. She wore clothes that were more suited to a girl several years younger than she actually was, and her hair and apparent personality had matched that. She had played up the child angle, apparently clinging to a state of ignorant innocence that had allowed her to ignore the terrible atrocities she was committing. It had been easier to play at being too innocent to know that she was being completely evil, than to accept the horror of what she had become. Most likely, she had purposefully clung to the maturity level she'd had when the Nine had first found her, resisting the increased understanding that should have come as she grew up.
  
  But now, this Riley wore jeans and a tee-shirt. Her clothes were still covered in blood, but the false-childishness that had been such a part of Bonesaw was almost entirely gone. Her hair was no long up in curls, but had been pulled into a single tight braid.
  
  In short, she looked like she was actually around Dinah's age, rather than dressing like an immature seven-year old who had raided her mother's closet.
  
  "Hi Tether!" She waved. "Err, oh, you're not in costume. Am I supposed to call you Madison then?"
  
  "Whatever you prefer." I glanced toward Dinah before looking back at the other girl. "How, umm... how are you doing, Riley? How's your project with Amy going?"
  
  "Nuh uh uh." She wagged her finger at me. "No fishing for details. It's a surprise, and we're not gonna talk about it til it's all done. You'll just have to wait and see. And umm, I think I'll call you Madison when you're not in costume. It's easier to keep track that way."
  
  "Okay, okay." I held up both hands in surrender. "But you really do have to explain what it is you're making down there eventually." The implications of what Riley and Amy could make when they put their powers and minds together still pretty much terrified me, but I was trying not to push too hard.
  
  Instead, I nodded toward the backpack that she'd carried up. The thing was one of those huge hiking packs that was supposed to carry camping supplies. "Can you at least tell me what's in there?"
  
  Turning her attention quickly to the backpack, as though she had briefly forgotten it, Riley all-but bounced excitedly. "Sure! That I can show you. It's really neat." Unzipping the pack, she reached inside and withdrew... what looked like a squirming, writhing mass of half a dozen pinkish-brown tentacles attached to a thick arm and hand.
  
  "Uhhhhh..." My eyes were wide as I stared at the evil-looking thing, trying not to whimper at the sight of it. "What... what is that, exactly?"
  
  "Watch!" Riley fussed with the arm a little, turning it over so that I could see that there was an opening at the end. It was a glove, I realized belatedly. A glove made out of actual flesh.
  
  Before my eyes, while bile tried to work its way out of my throat, Riley shoved her own hand deep into the flesh-glove. The wet squelching noises that came from it as she did so were not helping at all, and I had to struggle not to whine out loud. "Uhhhh... R-Riley... are you sure that..."
  
  "Shhh." Her face scrunched up. "Just gotta let it get the-ow-connections to the-oww-nerves so I-oww, can't turn off my pain cuz it-oww-needs the reaction for-oww-making sure everything's set-oww. I'm okay. I'm all ri-oww! Hey, you did that one on purpose you little-oww!"
  
  "Riley!" My eyes were wide then. "If it's hurting, you don't have to-"
  
  "Got it!" She announced triumphantly, holding her arm up with the flesh-glove attached. It covered her entire arm up to the shoulder, and was still so long that her own hand was probably only about three quarters of the way up the thing. It looked like a massive, deformed arm attached to her little girl body. An arm with half a dozen several foot long tentacles hanging off it, to be exact.
  
  "What... ummm..." I kept staring. "What is it exactly?"
  
  "Check this out," Riley announced, reaching down to the backpack once more with her bare, normal hand. This time, she hauled out a thick chunk of cement, clearly barely able to roll it out of the pack and onto the roof. "Go ahead, lift it up." Her voice had taken on the tone of a magician, performing for an audience and allowing them to make sure that whatever trick he was about to perform was real.
  
  First I glanced toward Dinah, who shrugged, then to Pandora, who watched with obvious curiosity. Then I leaned down to hoist the chunk of cement up. "Ugghn." I groaned, lifting it with both hands. "Wow. Okay, I get it, this thing is heavy."
  
  Smiling, Riley reached out with that massive flesh-glove, turning it over so that the palm was faced up. "Put it right there, then step back."
  
  Grunting a little, I did so, hoisting the heavy chunk of cement, placing it in the palm of the creepy organic glove while trying very hard not to think about the tentacles that were still hanging limp.
  
  As soon as I had taken several quick steps away, Riley simply made the large hand close into a fist. It instantly and easily crushed the chunk entirely, sending a small cloud of cement-dust into the air.
  
  "See how cool it is?!" Riley crowed, opening the hand to show what little remained before shaking it off the flesh-glove. "It can bend iron like it's taffy. Mmm... taffy. Hey Dinah..."
  
  "We'll get some taffy," Dinah assured her. "Why don't you ahhh, explain the tentacles?"
  
  I blanched. "Err, are you sure we need the tentacles explained? Ignoring them sounds good to me."
  
  Instead, it was my protests that Riley ignored. Holding the flesh-glove out, she giggled. "Watch this."
  
  Before my eyes, all six of the tentacles began to writhe and move around once more. One of them reached down to pick up the backpack, while another extended all the way out toward the other end of the roof, stretching to several times its original size.
  
  Then two of the tentacles were reaching for me, and I barely resisted the urge to scream. "Uhhhh, R-Riley?!" I managed to yelp while the tentacles wrapped themselves around me.
  
  Hugging me, I realized belatedly. The tentacles were hugging me. The... sticky... fleshy... ugly tentacles were actually hugging me. Somehow, that didn't make me feel any better.
  
  "See?" Riley was grinning, as proud as any ordinary girl showing off her prize-winning science project. "They won't hurt you. They're completely under my control. Each of them can go from three feet to twelve feet long, and they're so strong that each one can pick up a small car." Her eyes were wide, shining with excitement. "Isn't it awesome?!"
  
  "It's... ummm... it's really interesting." I managed, patting the tentacles that were still wrapped around me while trying to contain my whimpers as much as possible. "Could they let me go now, please?"
  
  "Oh! Yup." Riley retracted the tentacles, and I breathed a sigh of relief. She was fairly bouncing with excitement. "I told you we were making some really cool stuff."
  
  "And uhhh, that's the project you can show me, huh?" I was trying not to imagine what the project she couldn't tell me anything about could possibly involve, if this thing was nothing in comparison.
  
  "Don't worry, you'll get to see the other thing eventually. Once we get it working right." Riley waved her bare hand dismissively before gesturing to the tentacled flesh-glove. "This is just a side project."
  
  I tried to shake off my disgust from the idea of the thing touching me. "Do, uhh, do you think you might have time for another project? I could use some help with something."
  
  Riley's eyes widened at that. "You're asking me for help? Of course! Of course I can help! What do you need? Oooh ooh, do you need the tentacle glove?" She asked while stripping her arm out of the flesh-glove and offering it toward me with an eager smile.
  
  I put both hands up quickly, shaking my head almost frantically. "No, no, no! I definitely, definitely do not need the tentacle glove. I just need, uhh, need you to look at and analyze this stuff." I nodded toward Dinah, who handed the vial to the other girl.
  
  Riley set the flesh-glove down, then took the vial and examined it briefly. "Ooooh, a present! Err, what is it, exactly?" She asked while peering intently at the fluid inside.
  
  "Supposedly this stuff will turn a normal person into a cape." I explained slowly. "It's the only one we've got, so please be careful with it. I was hoping you and maybe Amy could both take a look and tell me what... it is, exactly, and how it works. If we knew that, we might be able to figure out where it's coming from."
  
  Riley looked at the vial for another moment, turning it over in her hand before turning her gaze back to me, her expression curious. "You really trust me to have something like this? You want me to see how this stuff gives people powers?"
  
  I hesitated, glancing away toward the lights on the freeway once more before turning back to her. "You mean do I trust Bonesaw to use this knowledge responsibly? Do I trust Bonesaw with a chemical that can give people superpowers?"
  
  She visibly flinched at the name, but didn't look away. "Yeah." She gave a faint nod. "That's what I mean."
  
  "No." I shook my head firmly. "I don't. I think Bonesaw would use it to hurt people. I think she'd use it to torture them somehow. I don't know how, exactly, but Bonesaw is pretty much the last person on Earth that should have access to this stuff."
  
  I saw the girl cringe a little, before she lifted her hand with the vial in it, openly offering it back to me.
  
  For a second, I just looked at the vial as it lay in her open palm. Then I reached out and gently closed her fingers around it for her. "And that... right there... the fact that you were willing to give it back even after I said all that? That's why I trust you with it, Riley."
  
  That made her eyes widen in confusion. "But you said-"
  
  "I said that I wouldn't trust Bonesaw. And I wouldn't. But you're not Bonesaw. You're Riley. You don't have to be that person anymore. You don't have to be the thing that they turned you into. You're Riley. You make your own choices. And I... trust... those choices. I believe you can... that you will make the right ones."
  
  The younger girl continued to stare at me for several moments. When she spoke, it was in a hesitant, unsure voice. "B-but... I could... I really could do all that stuff again. I... could be bad. I could be... her."
  
  I didn't break eye-contact. "Do you want to? Do you want to be that person again? Do you want to be Bonesaw?"
  
  Her voice was tiny, almost a whimper as she shook her head while continuing to stare at me. "N-no. I... don't want to be that person anymore. I really... really don't. I swear. I... like being... me."
  
  "I believe you," I told her simply. "And I trust you."
  
  This time, it was Riley herself who hugged me, without the tentacles. And this time, I returned it.
  
  19.05
  
  "Who would have thought that I'd ever be comfortable with someone that used to be part of the Slaughterhouse Nine giving me a hug, huh?"
  
  All that met my words was silence. There was no one to respond. I was alone in this cemetery, sitting cross-legged between the two headstones that marked where my parents had been buried. It was the middle of the night by that point, but I wasn't frightened. I'd seen too much true, living evil already to be worried about a cemetery at night.
  
  There was talk, of course, of digging up all the cemeteries and cremating the bodies in order to remove as many potential Anubis-created zombies as possible. Obviously, however, something that drastic took time to get off the ground. Enough people violently opposed the idea that it was going to have to go through the entire legal process, which took forever.
  
  Eventually, I supposed, they would manage to make it a law that all dead bodies had to be dug up and burned. They'd already just recently managed to pass a law that required all newly deceased be cremated rather than buried, and those that were already in the ground couldn't be that far off.
  
  So I was trying to spend as much time at my parents' graves as possible. Not that I actually thought that where I talked to them mattered, because I wasn't really talking to them at all. It was a comfort thing.
  
  "I know you liked to see the best in people, Dad." I reached out to brush his marker. "Maybe you would've understood. Or maybe you both would've thought that I was being an idiot. Maybe we would've argued about that. Maybe..." I dropped my hand and my gaze, blinking away tears. "Maybe fuck Coil... fuck Sophia... fuck... god damn it." I brought both hands up over my eyes to wipe away the dampness there, pushing them back through my hair while taking in a long, shaky breath. "See how stupid I am? I just wanted to tell you the good news about Riley, and I can't even get through it."
  
  Swallowing the lump in my throat, I looked toward my mother's gravestone. "I miss you guys. I'm trying to move on, forgiving Trevor, doing my job, going to school, helping people... but there's just... I keep thinking about you. Maybe it's worse now after hearing about Sophia going after Jess, but I just... I hate her. I hate her so much. Whenever I think about her, I just... I want to scream. I want her to... I..."
  
  My voice trailed off once more, because I didn't know what it was that I wanted to happen to Sophia. I was frightened by how angry I was whenever I thought about her. My rage scared me, as much as I tried to put it aside. Rationally, logically I knew that Coil had forced her to do it, that he was primarily responsible for what had happened. And yet, Sophia had done the job. She'd had a choice. Yes, it was a terrible choice, one between dying herself and killing others, but it was still a choice.
  
  Coil probably would have killed them anyway, after killing Sophia for defying him. Maybe he would've sent someone else to do the job. But he hadn't had to. Sophia had done it for him. And now she was going around kidnapping my friends, still caring only about herself.
  
  "Maybe this thing with Riley is why I feel so angry at Sophia." I mused. "If Riley can change, can want to be a better person, why the hell can't Sophia? What has to happen before she... before something changes? If she can kill innocent people and not... and not completely break down, when she called herself a hero, then... then what is it going to take?"
  
  "Or maybe the real reason that I'm upset is because if Riley can change, then maybe Sophia will eventually. Maybe Sophia will change, and I'll have to accept that. Could I? Riley's done a lot worse. She's killed a lot more people, in a lot worse ways. But I just accept her change and don't think I could accept Sophia's? Is it that different just because I... I happen to care about the people that Sophia killed? How... how is that fair?"
  
  I heard movement behind me, starting a little before a familiar and calming voice spoke up. "There's another difference between them too, you know."
  
  Turning my head a little, I smiled faintly at Mars. "Hey... how... long have you been there?"
  
  "Not long," she assured me before lifting her hand to gesture. "Do you want some... more company?"
  
  I looked back toward my parents graves, then nodded toward her. "Yeah, that would be nice." I waited while Marissa moved up to sit behind me, leaning back a little to rest my head against her shoulder while her arms wrapped around my stomach and held me there. We sat that way in silence for a few moments before I spoke quietly, "You said there was another difference."
  
  I felt her nod a little, her chin resting against my hair. "Yeah. Riley was attacked by the Slaughterhouse Nine. The Protectorate has the files about what happened to that little girl's family before she became Bonesaw. They... broke her, Mads. They destroyed that little girl and made her into what they wanted her to be. She was an innocent little kid and they... ruined her. Sophia... she wasn't innocent. She refused to take responsibility for what she already did. She wouldn't have been in a situation where Coil could force her to choose between dying and killing innocents if she had accepted the responsibility for the death that she accidentally caused. She was already a killer before Coil got to her, a killer who refused to accept responsibility, who ignored whatever conscience she might have had."
  
  "What happened to turn Riley into Bonesaw was not her fault, whatsoever. What happened to make Sophia into what she is now... that is at least partially her fault. She made the rational, cold choice to kill two people in order to save herself. Riley was... not... anywhere near sane when she became Bonesaw. There's no way she could have been."
  
  I was quiet for a few moments before speaking up. "So what you're saying is that Coil took advantage of Sophia's insanity, while the Slaughterhouse Nine caused Riley's."
  
  She nodded once more before pressing a kiss against the top of my head. "I guess that doesn't really help much in the long run, does it? It's still about whether or not forgiving one girl for atrocities she committed in the past means you have to forgive someone else for less horrible things she does, even though those ones are more personal to you."
  
  I swallowed a little, sighing softly. "I don't know what to do. What if we find Sophia and... and I can't be rational about her? What if I can't think straight, just because of who she is?"
  
  Mars let one hand brush through my hair briefly before hugging me tighter to her. "If you don't think that you can trust yourself, then trust your friends. Trust your teammates. Trust the people who care about you. They'll help you make the right choice, if the time ever comes."
  
  I managed a weak little smile, whispering, "Thanks, Mars."
  
  We sat in silence for another few moments, before Marissa spoke up again. "So if I remember right, the last time we were here, you were starting to tell me about the time your parents took you to Disneyland, and why you got banned from the Teacups ride."
  
  I couldn't help but smile a tiny bit, turning my head to look up at her. "Are you sure you've got time for that? It's kind of a long story, especially if we get into the Little Mermaid saga that came after that."
  
  "Little Mermaid saga?" She echoed curiously.
  
  "Yeeeaaah, like I said, it's a long story. You might be bored."
  
  "No." Marissa shook her head and pulled me a little more firmly against her before nuzzling the back of my neck as she whispered, "I could never be bored with you, Madison. And I'll always have time to listen, especially when you talk about your family. Please. I'd... love to hear it."
  
  A shiver escaped me before I nodded. "Well... it... started because Trevor really wanted a churro..."
  
  "But Ms. Fortune, wasn't Visionary, you know, a really bad guy?"
  
  It was the next day, and I was sitting beside Theo in our history class, trying not to fidget too much. I didn't really want to be here. Amy had come up to find me right before the bell rang, and had just enough time to tell me that there was something important we had to talk about. Before she could explain what that something was, however, Ms. Fortune had almost magically appeared in the doorway to usher me inside and order Amy to get to her class.
  
  So now I was stuck watching the clock, trying to not to obsess over what Amy might have wanted to tell me. Hell, in a normal school she could have texted me during class. But Arcadia was surrounded by a Faraday Cage of some kind, that prevented cell phones from working inside it.
  
  It wasn't a literal Faraday Cage, naturally, which would have been ridiculous. That's just what they called whatever tinker thing it was that they used to block phone use. And the PRT had a way of getting through it, to contact Wards in class, of course. But otherwise, we were cut off from cell phone use while inside school grounds.
  
  Ms. Fortune herself stood next to my desk, giving a light tap with two of her fingers to draw my attention away from daydreaming. She was... really good at knowing exactly whose attention was drifting and when she needed to pull them back. The very few students who had tried to get away with anything in her classes had, apparently, regretted it, because she seemed to know what they were up to almost before they had actually done anything.
  
  Hell, for all I knew she was a parahuman with some kind of minor precognitive ability, just enough to give her an edge in the classroom. It seemed unlikely though. There were rogues, of course, people who used their powers not for good or evil, but just to make money in a legal way, without hurting anyone. But a school teacher? Hell, a substitute? I seriously doubted that any parahuman, even one with minor precognition that didn't lend itself to fighting, would be satisfied as a substitute teacher. It just didn't fit.
  
  After tapping my desk, the woman in question focused on the person who had spoken up. His name was Walter, a small, freckle-faced boy with a mop of unruly brown hair. He'd been in one of my classes back in Winslow, but I didn't know him that well, other than the fact that he'd been in the school choir.
  
  "You believe that Visionary was a villain then, Mr. Laning?"
  
  "Err... doesn't everyone?" Walter kind of shrank a little in his seat, cringing at the attention even more than Theo might have. "I mean, he killed like, a bunch of people. He was a really bad guy."
  
  "True," Ms. Fortune agreed. "Visionary did kill many people. But even more important than knowing that something happened, is understanding why it happened." She moved away from my desk, toward the front of the room while continuing. "So, does anyone here know why he killed those people?"
  
  Heather Liddell, a girl who had already attended Arcadia before, and who reminded me of a blonde Emma (pre-triggering, of course), rolled her eyes. "Because he was a fucking psychopath?"
  
  "Yet I'm sure even he knew not to speak without raising his hand first when he was in class." Ms. Fortune's reply was sharp as she placed one her small black rulers on Heather's desk while passing it. "Let alone cursing while doing so. That's one strike, Miss Liddell. Everyone in this class will now do a five hundred word essay. I will have a subject for you at the end of the class period."
  
  Turning to face the class from the front of the room once more, the substitute finally nodded. "That said, yes, most people would say that the man who called himself Visionary was a psychopath. But that was not what I asked. I asked why he did what he did. What was his reasoning?"
  
  When no one responded or raised their hands, Ms. Fortune shook her head. "If you are going to learn history, you must learn that it is written by those who survive it. More importantly, you must learn that there are at least two sides to every story in history. Visionary believed that he was doing the right thing. He belived that his work, his efforts, would make the world a better place in the long run."
  
  Liam Callis, the boy whose talking in our first class with Ms. Fortune had prompted her explanation of the strike essay system, raised his hand. Once he was called on, the boy said, "So he thought the ends justified the means? Like, somehow by killing people he was making things better?"
  
  "Yes." Ms. Fortune's gaze passed over the room, seeming to linger briefly on me before she continued. "Because Visionary possessed a very specific precognitive ability. By touching someone, he was able to witness both the best, and the worst thing that person could ever do in the course of their lives. Not what they definitely would do, but rather, both the best and worst things they had a very good chance of doing. He believed that it was his job to touch someone and measure the best thing they might ever do, against the worst thing they might ever do. If he deemed the worst thing to be bad enough, he would kill them, to prevent them from ever doing that act."
  
  I cringed at that, raising my own hand. "He killed people based on what they might do? Based on some situation that hadn't even happened yet? That's... wrong."
  
  "Yes, most people would agree with you." Ms. Fortune nodded. "Yet what of the people who are alive now only because Visionary prevented their possible deaths from happening?"
  
  Liam raised his hand again, shaking his head the whole time. "You can't do that. You can't just kill people because of what they might do. He should've used his power to find out what the circumstances were, and stopped those circumstances from happening. Or work with the PRT or the police. There were other ways he could've used his power besides murder."
  
  "Indeed." Ms. Fortune said slowly. "Perhaps that will be the subject of the essay that Miss Liddell has earned all of you. Five hundred words... so far... on how you would have acted if you had Visionary's power."
  
  In most classes, that would have been met with a chorus of groans. In this one, everyone remained silent, afraid of multiplying those five hundred words into some much worse number. Ms. Fortune pressed on. "However, for now, we'll return to our original point..."
  
  Finally, I was able to leave the class. It was all I could do not to sprint down the hallway, barely restraining myself. It seemed to take forever before I found my way to where Amy's locker was.
  
  She was there, waiting for me. As I approached, Amy nodded toward a nearby door, and I ducked out of the crowd and into what turned out to be an empty classroom.
  
  Amy joined me a moment later, slipping through the door before closing it behind her. Then she turned to me and smiled a little. "We did it."
  
  I blinked at that. "Who's we, and what'd you do?"
  
  "Panda, Riley, Dinah, and me. It took all of us," Amy explained. "It took Panda's control of her genetics, Riley's understanding of biology, my power, and Dinah's ability to predict what would happen so we didn't waste any of the sample with tests, but we got it. We fixed that vial that you gave Dinah."
  
  My head tilted in confusion. "What do you mean, you fixed it?"
  
  "Okay, see, we don't know exactly how it works or where it came from." Amy lowered her voice conspiratorially. "But we do know that it... it forces a connection to something . It alters the body that it's in so that it can use cape powers. We... think that what we did to it will undo that change in anyone else whose body was altered that way to make that connection to... whatever's providing the power."
  
  It took me a second to work my way through that. "Wait, are you saying that it can undo powers?"
  
  Amy nodded at that. "Only in people who got powers the same way, but yes. Our alterations should, according to Dinah, undo whatever the original compound did that originally forged a connection to the powers. We couldn't make any more, because we still have no idea what that stuff is, so it's a one-shot deal unless someone comes up with any more of the stuff, but..."
  
  My mouth opened, then shut, before I managed, "Noelle."
  
  Again, Amy nodded. "Yes. We think that if Noelle drinks the new compound, it should undo the connection to the powers that the first compound created. Most of it anyway. After that, the physical changes can be fixed as soon as her power stops making things worse. Which means..."
  
  I finished for her. "We have a way to cure Noelle."
  
  Interlude 19 - Shadow Stalker
  
  Two Days Earlier
  
  "Oooh, now lessee what sweet little present has been left in my little hidey-hole this morning."
  
  The voice shook Sophia Hess out of the deep sleep that she'd been lost in, just as a hand roughly yanked down the sleeping bag that she'd used to cover herself through the night.
  
  It wasn't her sleeping bag, but one she had stolen from a camping supplies store the night before. That, of course, had come after she'd raided the drugstore next door to it and made off with as many bottles of industrial strength painkillers as she could manage to stuff into her pockets. She'd had to swallow several of the good ones just to keep going long enough to go into the camping store and get the other things she needed.
  
  Then she'd found her way, through the haze of the painkillers, down beneath this freeway overpass and set up camp with a small, camouflaged pup tent and sleeping bag. The steady drone of cars overhead might have kept her awake, but the drugs she'd taken ensured that she passed out completely.
  
  Still, even in her agony-filled, painkiller-addled state, she hadn't been completely stupid. As the man shoved her sleeping bag away and licked his lips, her hand closed around the knife that she'd taken from the camping store.
  
  "Now, see..." The man, who looked old and thin, with scraggly white-gray hair and a moderate beard, was pontificating. "Usually I'd be upset 'bout someone sleeping in my spot. After all, it's mine . But for a pretty little thing like you? I think we can make an excep-" He froze in mid-sentence, his eyes suddenly growing wide as he felt something sharp press none-too-gently against the part of him that had been so excited to see her in the first place. "Uuullllp? N-Now now, let's not be hasty or nothing. Y'all really want this spot, well then we just-"
  
  "Shut... up." Sophia snarled, growling the words to avoid whimpering. The pain in her leg was back, the drugs having run through her system. But she didn't want him to know how much agony she was in, or how easy it would be to disarm her. "Don't... fucking... move."
  
  The man's head bobbed, his mouth firmly closed. He didn't dare move or make a sound, other than the slight whine that came from having a very sharp instrument so close to his important bits.
  
  Keeping the knife where it was, Sophia slowly reached out to the bag nearby with her other hand. Gradually, acutely aware of each movement as it sent spikes of pain down her leg, she withdrew the hunting crossbow that she'd appropriated from the camping store. It wasn't as good as her real crossbows, but it would work well enough.
  
  She didn't need any of that extra stuff anyway. It was all bullshit, stuff that made her weak, reliant on others. She was the predator, and she could do this all by herself.
  
  Once the crossbow was in her hand, she let the hand with the knife fall while keeping the other weapon trained on the man so that he could see it. "Back out of the tent," she ordered through gritted teeth. "But don't move. Don't run. Just stay down on your hands and knees."
  
  Slowly, the man obeyed, crawling backwards out of the tent rather awkwardly. Sophia kept her eyes on him, then popped the cap off one of the medicine bottles she'd stolen and shook several out into her mouth before putting it aside. Then she gradually worked her own way out of the small tent, never letting the crossbow waver from its target.
  
  "P-Pain, huh?" The man had noticed. "I can get you some good stuff for that. Stuff that'll make you forget all about pain you didn't even know you had. You'll be flying so high-"
  
  "I'm not some fucking druggie, assface!" Sophia spat contemptuously. "I don't need your shit. I need you to shut the fuck up and..." Frowning, she nodded to the bulge in his pocket. "Is that a phone?"
  
  Quickly, the man reached for his pocket and withdrew a small, older model of cellphone before offering it to her. "Sure, I ain't got much time left on it, but it's all yours."
  
  "Drop it there." Sophia nodded to the dirt, then gestured with the crossbow. "Then get in the tent and... and sit there until I need you again. Don't move, don't talk, just... just sit and shut up."
  
  As soon as the man was out of her way and in the tent, Sophia picked up his phone and dialed a number from memory. Trickster had made sure she knew it, just in case.
  
  It rang twice before the person that Krouse had been working for answered with a single word. "Who?"
  
  "Me." Sophia spat back at them. "Krouse got his ass caught. I didn't. Tell me where to go."
  
  There was silence from the other end for a moment before the person replied dismissively. "Nowhere. We no longer require your services."
  
  Sophia blinked at that. "Huh? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? What about the bomb in my head? You said you'd get it out if I did what you wanted."
  
  "Yes." The person agreed. "But you didn't do what we wanted. The clone is not here."
  
  "It's not my fucking fault!" Sophia all-but screamed at the person. "Krouse is the one that got caught. It was his plan, his stupidity. I tried to-"
  
  "Yes." Once again, the person responded with that simple word. "You tried. And your failure was not entirely your fault, so you will not be punished for it. But neither can we reward you. For now, and as long as you remain silent about who was involved in this endeavor, the explosive that was implanted within you will remain inert. You are otherwise free to act as you wish."
  
  "Bullshit!" Sophia spat in angry frustration. "I'm hurt, fucker. I can't go to the hospital. I can't fucking go home. I can't go anywhere! What the hell am I supposed to do now?"
  
  The other person was unmoved. "You consider yourself to be a survivor. Survive. As long as you do not threaten our secrecy, your explosive will not be triggered. Beyond that, you are no longer of use to us."
  
  "No longer of use?!" Sophia shouted into the phone. "I'll show you who's not of use, you stupid-" Her attempt at a tirade was met by the click of the phone disconnecting.
  
  For a long moment, the former Ward just sat there, shaking with anger and frustration while she gripped the phone. Finally, she let out a strangled scream and turned to pitch the phone as hard as she could into the nearby cement wall. "Fuck you!"
  
  A sudden, sharp jolt of pain in her leg nearly brought tears to the girl's eyes, even with the drugs in her system. Grimacing, she sat still and silent before using her good let to kick at the tent. "Hey, cock-knob. Get out here, I need to ask you something."
  
  The man slowly emerged, his eyes wide. "What... the fuck was that about a bomb?"
  
  "Never fucking mind," she spat, leveling the crossbow. "That patch on your jacket." She nodded that way. "That's the Merchant's symbol."
  
  The man blinked at that, looking down. "Ehh, yeah? For what it's worth. Gang don't mean nothing anymore, not since the evil cunt from hell started picking us off. Ain't much of the 'merchants' left that ain't either left the city or joined up with Lung's crew. Whatever ones he'd take, anyway."
  
  "Whatever." Sophia's reply was dismissive. "The evil cunt from hell. You know where she lives?"
  
  This had been the simple solution that she'd tried to convince Krouse of, to just ask the people that Pandora was terrorizing. But no, he had to think he was so clever with his own ideas. Well now where was he, huh? Asshole. Useless, stupid fucking asshole.
  
  The former Merchant creep laughed out loud, annoying her. "Where she lives? You think I'm stupid enough to go looking for something like that? She killed ten of my buddies in two god damn days! The only thing I wanna know about where she lives is that it ain't where I'm living."
  
  "Right, so you're completely useless to me then." Sophia made a point of lifting the crossbow.
  
  "Now wa-wait just a second!" The man held up both hands. "I ahhh, I do know the umm... general area that our types avoid. It ain't an exact location or nothing, but it might put you in the neighborhood. That's ahh... that's the best I can do."
  
  "Tell me," Sophia ordered. "And if you're lying, I fucking promise that I'll make you regret it."
  
  Apparently the former Merchant's real name was Zed. The place that Sophia had been sleeping was where he'd stashed his supply of real drugs to keep them out of his apartment down the street, safely away from his snoopy neighbors.
  
  Under threat of a crossbow bolt between the eyes, Zed had taken Sophia to his car and then drove her to the area of town that the Merchants had all learned to avoid. They had done a single drive-through once, giving Sophia a chance to get the lay of the land. Then she had ordered Zed to park somewhere far out of the way, before telling him that if he tried to leave, no matter how long it took her to get back, that she would track him down.
  
  After that, it had been a simple matter to use her power to sneak into one of the nearby buildings and up to the roof. There, she'd set herself up with the binoculars that she'd stolen from the camping store, and scanned the distant rooftops.
  
  It took hours of patience, and a lot more pills, before she finally spotted two of the Pandoras on a rooftop that was so far away that she could only barely make them out even with the binoculars.
  
  After that, Sophia had kept moving from one roof to another, only going when neither of the Pandoras were looking her way. She used her power to stay light so that she could slip from building to building with ease as she worked out which building the Pandoras were protecting. What should have been a five minute job took over two hours, just to avoid letting any of them see her.
  
  But finally, she had it. She knew where the Pandoras were. She had tracked them down.
  
  "Fuck you, Trickster." Sophia hissed under her breath, while sitting inside a motel room across the street from the one the Pandoras were protecting. She could barely see through the grimy window, but it was enough to make out the figure standing on the nearby roof, and the one in the courtyard below.
  
  They had three Pandoras protecting the place. But they weren't that creative. A few hours of watching told Sophia all she needed to know about their patrol patterns.
  
  Briefly, she entertained the notion of calling up the person who had blown her off so completely, just to rub their face in the fact that she had been the one to find Pandora.
  
  But no, fuck that. They dismissed her, had said she was 'no longer of use', so they could fucking rot.
  
  At first, she hadn't really known what she would do with this information. She'd just wanted to prove that she wasn't useless, that she could do what Trickster had failed to do. If he'd listened to her, if any of them had just listened instead of dismissing her, they'd already have their chance at the damn clone.
  
  A couple hours into her observation, however, she'd noticed something much more interesting, and potentially useful for her. One of the Pandora clones came out of the motel, escorting what Sophia at first thought was another clone. But no. That wasn't another Pandora, it was Panacea, lugging a heavy duffel bag along with her.
  
  Panacea was visiting Pandora .
  
  Gradually, a plan to fix herself had come to mind. But it would have be done perfectly. She couldn't make any mistakes or rush things, or she'd wind up facing Pandora. And as good as she thought she was, Sophia knew that she was absolutely no match for the seemingly invincible clone bitch.
  
  But if she planned this right, maybe she could get to Panacea the next time she visited, before she reached the safety of the clone. Maybe... she could actually force the healer to fix her.
  
  Eventually, she left her observation room, carefully making her way back to the car where Zed was waiting. She made the man drive her back to his apartment and used a pair of handcuffs that he had in his bedroom to lock him in the closet before taking another handful of pills. Then she passed out on the couch for several hours, not wanting to be anywhere near the man's bed. Hell, she hadn't really trusted the man's couch, but she needed to get as much rest as possible.
  
  After all, she had to be as ready as possible when her chance to grab Panacea came.
  
  Unfortunately for Sophia, her chance didn't come for a couple more days. Two full days of sitting and watching the street while hardly daring to move for fear of missing her opportunity. Or worse, somehow alerting the freak clone to her proximity.
  
  It was out of fear of letting Pandora notice her that had made the girl choose a new building for her stakeout. This one was further away from where the Pandoras were staying, yet close enough to be along the same route that Panacea would take to get there.
  
  When Panacea finally did show her face, Sophia nearly missed her anyway. The healer wore a sweatshirt with the hood up, and was clearly doing her best not to attract attention. In the end, it wasn't her that Sophia recognized, but the enormous duffel bag that the girl was carrying. It was the same one she'd been practically dragging away days earlier.
  
  Quickly, Sophia used her power to leap from the room she was in, all the way to the alley below, her shadow-state allowing her to reach the ground safely. Then she waited, hefting her stolen crossbow and watching for Panacea to walk past.
  
  She heard the grunting first, as Amy lugged the bag with her, muttering something about not taking her work home anymore. Then the girl herself came into view, starting to pass the alley.
  
  "Hey bitch." Sophia hissed to get her attention, then lifted the crossbow when the girl looked that way. "Come on. Don't make me come get you."
  
  Amy simply stood there, frowning. "Why exactly should I come into the dark and creepy alley with you, when I can take six steps and be in Pandora's line of sight?"
  
  Sophia snarled. "Because you've still gotta take those six steps, and I can put one of these bolts between your eyes before you can. And the last time I checked, you couldn't heal yourself." When Amy continued to hesitate, she started to aim.
  
  "Okay, okay." Amy took a single step into the alley. "What do you want, Sophia?"
  
  "Simple." Sophia sat down heavily on a wooden crate, extending her leg while keeping the crossbow leveled. "You're gonna fix my knee. Then you're gonna get the fucking bomb out of my head."
  
  "You know I can't do anything to your brain." Amy informed her. "Besides, if there's a bomb in there, I don't know what might set it off. Bombs aren't my thing. I'm not a doctor, I don't have any instruments. The most I could do would be to grow something to push it out of your head, and that might make it go kaboom. Still, if you insist..."
  
  "Fuck." The painkillers were keeping the agony from being too much, but they also made it hard to think sometimes. "Just fix my leg. Just do it, then you can go. I ain't gonna hurt you and risk having the clone even more pissed at me, as long as you take this pain away."
  
  Amy shrugged and reached for her, but Sophia quickly lifted the crossbow once again. "Wait! Just keep something in mind. I've got a guy that's been driving me around. Right now he's locked in the trunk of his car. You do anything bad to me, you knock me out, or do anything at all except what I tell you to, and he won't get out before he runs out of air. He'll die, and it'll be your fault. So just do what I asked you to, or his death is on your conscience, got it?"
  
  Rolling her eyes, Amy gave a short nod. "I don't need to hurt you, Sophia. You've got nowhere to go. Even if I do heal you." She reached out to take hold of the other girl's wrist, before focusing. "Ouch. How are you still conscious?"
  
  "I'm fucking special." Sophia snapped. "Just fix me and get it over with."
  
  It didn't take long before the pain was finally gone, and she all-but slumped with relief. Part of her wanted to cry from joy, but she restrained herself.
  
  "Right, if that's all you needed for this particular kidnapping..." Amy almost spat the words before straightening. "I'll be leaving." She grunted while lifting that heavy bag once more.
  
  "Sure." Sophia stretched her leg out, smiling a little while wiggling her foot. "But leave the bag."
  
  That, more than anything else, seemed to startle the other girl. "W-what? No, I can't do that."
  
  Honestly, Sophia hadn't known why she'd said that. It had just seemed like she might want to take a look at whatever the healer was dragging around that was so important.
  
  "Aww, do Amy and her little freak clone team have a secret?" She hefted the crossbow once more, confident now. "Three seconds, drop it and run. Do it, bitch, or you can find out what having a crossbow bolt through your knee feels like, and I'll take my chances."
  
  "Look Sophia," Amy tried again. "You don't want to see this. I just-"
  
  "One..." She began to count.
  
  Sighing, Amy obeyed. She dropped the bag and started to back away. "Sophia, leave it alone. You don't want-"
  
  "Two..." Sophia took a step that way, putting one foot on the bag while keeping the crossbow aimed.
  
  Finally, Amy gave up and turned to run, sprinting out of the alley on her way to warn Pandora.
  
  The clone would be coming for her, Sophia knew. She had to get out of there. Making Panacea leave the bag was probably stupid, but it had obviously been important. Maybe even important enough for her to trade to the person Trickster had been working for in exchange for getting the bomb out of her head.
  
  Hoisting the bag up onto her shoulder, Sophia turned to run the other way down the alley. She could outrun almost anyone, now that her leg was healed. She'd been a runner in school, and her powers meant she didn't have to avoid any obstacles. She could run straight out, and in her shadow-state, the bag didn't weigh a thing.
  
  Still, she didn't stop running for a solid fifteen minutes, constantly changing direction and slipping through buildings to make her escape. The last thing she wanted was to let that clone catch up with her.
  
  Finally, Sophia stopped in yet another alley, dropping the bag before falling down beside it to catch her breath.
  
  "Now..." She finally spoke a minute later while eying the bag. "Let's see what's so important."
  
  Slowly she unzipped it and peered inside, before immediately recoiling with an audible yelp. "What the fuck?!"
  
  It took another moment before Sophia felt calm enough to look again, and even then she nearly kept cursing. The bag was full of... flesh? An arm, maybe two? It was hard to tell without actually... touching it.
  
  Grimacing, she finally did so, reaching into the bag before pulling out what turned out to be two large arms and hands made out of pinkish-brown flesh. Worse, each of the arms had several tentacles attached.
  
  "Okay, this is some seriously fucked up shit." Sophia stared at the two arms she was holding in either hand. "What the hell are those freaks... wait..." Turning the fleshy things around, she blinked a couple times. "Gloves? They're fucking gloves?"
  
  For a minute, she just stood there, staring at the things indecisively. Finally, she shook herself and came to a decision. "Fuck it. What else am I gonna do, turn myself in?" Snorting at the idea, Sophia set both flesh gloves on the edge of the dumpster nearby, before positioning her hands at the opening of each.
  
  Even then, it took a few moments to psyche herself up before she shoved both arms into the gloves, grimacing the whole time.
  
  The second the two gloves were n place, Sophia regretted it. She barely had time to wonder if she should pull them off again, before what felt like dozens of tiny little insect legs tickled her skin from her fingers to her shoulders. "What-" Then both arms exploded in agony, dropping Sophia to her knees with a scream that tore its way out of her throat. It was worse than when her knee had been broken. It was blinding, horrible pain that made her want to die.
  
  After three seconds of this agony, she threw up on herself. After ten seconds, it finally ended, leaving Sophia panting and crying from the pain, curled up into a little ball on the ground.
  
  Finally, after several long minutes, she opened her eyes and stared at the flesh-gloves covering her hands and arms. As she opened her fingers, the fingers of the gloves opened as well. She continued that for a couple moments, before pushing herself back to her feet.
  
  Standing there in the alley, Sophia continued to stare at the ugly flesh-gauntlets that covered her arms. They didn't hurt anymore. In fact, Sophia felt... strong.
  
  Curious now, she turned toward the nearby dumpster and lashed out with a single punch.
  
  Her fist caved in the side of the dumpster, and she didn't feel a thing.
  
  "Well," she allowed a small smile to appear. "That's kind of useful, isn't it? Still, brown and pink is really fucking ugly. It'd be better if you were black."
  
  Before her eyes, the flesh-gauntlets turned color, darkening into the very shade of black that she had imagined.
  
  "Fuck... me... sideways." Sophia breathed, hardly daring to believe her fortune. "I'm controlling this shit?" She focused on making one of the tentacles move, and it rose up before waving back and forth. Then she directed it to stretch up as far as it could, and gaped as the tentacle went from being three feet long, to being twelve feet long.
  
  "Okay, if you stretch and bend..." She turned her focus from the tentacles to the flesh-gauntlets themselves. "Maybe you do too." After a moment of concentration, the damn things actually began to shift and grow. They expanded, the now-black flesh stretching out around her body, encasing it, protecting it. Another thought collapsed the collection of tentacles back into the gauntlets, giving them more flesh to work with so that it would cover her entire body with room to spare.
  
  And just like that, she went from wearing a pair of flesh-gauntlets to wearing an entire suit made out of the stuff.
  
  Cracking her neck from one side to the other, Sophia slowly turned to the nearby wall. "One more test..." She extended her hand then, focusing on her real power. It came easily, and expanded to the flesh-suit she was now wearing, allowing her to push her hand through the wall and out the other side.
  
  She was strong enough to dent a dumpster without really trying. The flesh armor was so tough that she didn't even feel it when she did hit things that hard, and it could manifest those tentacles any time she wanted it to. Most of all, none of it inhibited her real power. She could go from brute-tough and strong, to insubstantial shadow-state any time she wanted to.
  
  "All right, fuckers," Sophia announced while punctuating her words with a punch against the wall, this time without using her power. Her fist went straight through the bricks, shattering them into dust.
  
  "Who's useless now?"
  
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  Arc 20: Search
  Notes: HellKing666 - Glad you're enjoying it! There is a Shadow Stalker showdown this chapter, though in this particular case, it's not really so much against Tether. ;)
  
  Imageination - Trickster's 'partner' is revealed in this chapter. That's about all I can say.
  
  Soul - Wow, thanks for starting to go through and leave reviews on chapters. I do need to show Armsmaster making more Spider-Man comparisons. Hopefully a chance will present itself to see things from his point of view. And yeah, I think the age-based leader system has a lot of problems. I know the reasoning is that it drives leadership into people who might not have known they had the capability, but these teenagers are already risking their lives out there. If they hit a bad leader who doesn't learn quickly, very bad things could happen.
  
  With a squeal of tires being punished far more than they deserved, the car hit part of the curb coming around the corner, bouncing onto the grass, then back onto the road with a protesting whine.
  
  Also whining protestingly? Dennis.
  
  "See, when you said that you didn't know how to drive, I thought you just meant that you hadn't really done it before. I didn't know you meant that you were completely incapable of iiiii-stop sign!"
  
  I hit the brakes a little too hard, making Dennis yelp. Hunter, thankfully (for more than one reason) remained silent in the backseat, though her face was more than a little queasy.
  
  "See?" I announced offhandedly. "We stopped."
  
  Looking a little bit pale for some reason, Dennis checked to make sure his seatbelt was still fastened. It seemed to be a nervous tic of his, because he'd checked it at least six times since we started going. "Umm, okay seriously, just make smooth motions. Don't stomp on the gas, you wanna-"
  
  He was interrupted by the sound of the guy in the truck behind us impatiently leaning on his horn. The blaring noise startled me and I shoved my foot down on the gas, drawing another cry from Dennis as the car lurched into sudden motion. A second later we narrowly missed the mailbox on the corner of the road, swerving back into the middle of the street to avoid it. In the process the rear end of the car clipped a plastic garbage bin and knocked it over.
  
  "Our side, our side, our side!" Dennis was making frantic waving motions for me to swing the car back onto the right side of the road. "Oh god, oh god, oh god!"
  
  At that point, I thought he was being a tiny bit dramatic. After all, we avoided that oncoming moving van with at least half a car length to spare.
  
  Apparently he didn't agree. "This side of the road, please. Please stay on this side of the road."
  
  "I'm totally on this side of the road," I pointed out. "Hey look, highway entrance. Think we should-"
  
  "No!" The voice came both from Dennis and from Hunter's computer pad almost simultaneously.
  
  "Just, ahhh, pull over here." Dennis waved a hand vaguely, his other hand tightly gripping his door.
  
  Obediently, I pulled the car over to the curb and stopped, shifting a little in the seat as I frowned. "I don't get it. When I'm out and jumping around, using my lines, I know exactly how to move. It's like I just understand where I am and where everything else is that I need to notice. I know the distance between things, and just makes sense. In this thing, it's all... garbled. I feel like... I'm trying to connect where I am to where everything else is, but it's like there's..."
  
  "A huge hunk of metal in the way?" Dennis guessed. "Maybe that's the problem. Maybe your power gives you some idea of spatial relations between objects, and this whole car thing is throwing it off. You've got several feet worth of extra mass you're moving around that could be confusing it."
  
  I frowned at that. "Well I can't exactly turn it off. I don't know how it works. I didn't even think about it being a power until now. I just... knew where things were around me. I figured it was instinctive."
  
  Hunter leaned forward, tapping a few keys on her computer pad until the voice spoke up for her. "Maybe you can learn to work with it."
  
  I glanced back at her and paused before nodding. "Maybe. But for now, I think you should try."
  
  "Oh god yes, please." Dennis slumped with relief. "Let her try.. I've had enough near-death experiences today. There's no way Hunter could possibly be as bad at driving as you are."
  
  Sticking my tongue out at him, I huffed and opened the door. "It wasn't that bad."
  
  "You see this face?" Dennis waved his hand at his scattered freckles. "When we started, I was tan. You scared most of it off."
  
  I snorted at that, coughing to catch my breath. "Oh please, the closest you've ever gotten to tan is when you hold one of those big Crayola boxes with the extra colors."
  
  Hunter and I switched seats, and I settled myself into the back. Then I watched the back of Hunter's head as she adjusted the mirrors and the seat, smiling a little to myself. No matter how poorly I'd managed to drive, the point was that Dennis and her were sitting next to each other. It wasn't exactly the most conventional date (nor was it really a 'date' in any sense of the word), but one step at a time.
  
  I was going to make sure they both realized that they liked each other, and that it was okay for Hunter to like someone, that her power shouldn't force her to isolate herself. Because they were both important to me, and I wanted them to be happy.
  
  "You all set?" Dennis asked Hunter once she had adjusted everything so she could see properly. When she gave an obviously nervous nod, he smiled and gave her arm a pat. "Hey, don't worry. Madison's already made the worst attempt at driving in recorded history. You'll be fine."
  
  On second thought, maybe I shouldn't care that much about Dennis's happiness.
  
  "Now that I have your essays on Visionary," Ms. Fortune held the papers in a neat stack in both hands the next day. "One of you at random will come up to share with the class and explain your thoughts."
  
  Okay, that was new. I was sure she hadn't said anything about sharing essays before. Especially for something that had been a punishment rather than a regular assignment. Somehow, this whole thing felt rigged.
  
  While the class watched, the substitute teacher shuffled the papers thoroughly, shifting through them without looking. One by one, she pulled papers off the top and moved them to the bottom, always a random amount, occasionally reversing it to take papers from the bottom and put them on the top. Finally, after thirty seconds of that, she ran her thumb down the side of the papers to the middle of the stack and pulled a single one out of there before looking at it. "Miss Clements," She looked straight to me. "You happen to be the lucky winner."
  
  Theo gave me a sympathetic look as I slid slowly out of my seat. I gave him a brief thumbs up, knowing how bad it would have been for him if he'd been called. Theo still didn't have much confidence in himself in costume, let alone as just himself.
  
  Walking to the front of the room, I accepted my paper from her, biting my lip. "Do I just... read it?"
  
  She nodded, gesturing for me to face the class. "If you would, please."
  
  After hesitating for a moment, I turned and cleared my throat before starting to read. "Visionary was a man who didn't understand his power. He thought that he was supposed to be both judge and jury, that his job was to see what people might do and then punish them for that. But that's not what his power was about at all."
  
  "The power that Visionary had wasn't supposed to be about judging people. It was supposed to be about teaching and guiding them. See, he wasn't just shown the worst thing that someone might do. He was also shown the best thing they might do. He wasn't supposed to be punishing them for the worst thing, he was supposed to be guiding them to the best thing."
  
  "Having the ability to see what might happen, an ability that gives you that kind of view of the world and the future, doesn't give you the authority or the right to destroy someone's life. Power, especially that kind of power, comes with an inherent responsibility to use it in a way that makes things better ."
  
  "Visionary saw both the good and bad things that people could do. But he only treated the good things like they were some kind of balancing measure against the bad. He thought that the only point to him seeing the good things was so he could see if it was worth risking the bad things. But the entire point of him seeing the good things was so that he could help guide people away from the bad things they might do and to the good. If he was just supposed to judge people, he wouldn't see the good things."
  
  "He wanted to help. He wanted to stop the worst things that people could possibly do from happening. But you can't do that and remain... human. You can't ruin people's lives, you can't take away their choices based on what might happen and then justify it as being necessary for the greater good. Because he wasn't just stopping the potential bad things from happening. He was taking away any chance of the good things happening too."
  
  "Visionary had a chance to improve the world, to guide it, even in some small way, to being a better place to live. He had an opportunity to guide people through some really hard choices. Instead, he used it to punish them for what they might do."
  
  "It's not enough to stop the bad things in the world from happening. It's not enough to just kill everyone who might do something wrong or horrible. You can't just make people's choices for them and force them to be a certain way just because you say they should. The world has to deserve to exist, and the only way that it's going to get better is if people are guided toward the right choices."
  
  "He was trying to help, but the way he did it was to blind himself to every other option. He became a monster to stop other people from being monsters. But that wasn't his only choice. He was just so intent on the bad things that he saw, that he completely ignored the good things."
  
  "The question for this essay was what would we do if we had Visionary's power. That's what I'd do. I would help people make the right choices, not take those choices away from them. I would try to help make good things happen. Because if you kill everyone who might do something bad, you haven't stopped all the monsters. You've just turned yourself into the worst monster of all."
  
  For a moment after I finished speaking, Ms. Fortune was silent. Her brow knit into a thoughtful frown before she shook her head. "An interesting point of view, Miss Clements. You may sit down now." Her attention moved to the rest of the class. "Would anyone who agreed with Visionary's actions care to make a counter argument?"
  
  "I'm sorry, all right? I'm really, really sorry. I didn't expect her to take the bag."
  
  It was later in the afternoon. Amy had found me while I was doing a solo patrol and practically dragged me to Dinah's motel. Apparently something had gone wrong the day before involving Shadow Stalker.
  
  Now she, Dinah, Emma, and I were sitting on that familiar roof along with two of the Pandoras. Riley was working on something inside, which was apparently time sensitive enough that she couldn't pull herself away.
  
  I sighed a little to myself while working it through. "So let me get this straight. Sophia isn't just healed now. She also has a pair of those super bio-power arms, so she basically just got a major upgrade in how dangerous she could be. Oh, and because it's biological, I can't affect it with my power."
  
  Amy cringed, head shaking. "It was stupid to carry the stuff around, I know. I know it was stupid to have them, but we needed to work out some of the bugs and I didn't have time to do it here. It was just supposed to be a few minor tweaks before I brought it back, but I got... busy."
  
  Dinah took a sip from a bottle of Yoo-Hoo before adding, "That part wasn't supposed to happen."
  
  I did a double take at that, catching her words. "Wait. What do you mean that part wasn't supposed to happen?"
  
  She shrugged at that. "We knew that Shadow Stalker couldn't go to a real doctor, so we figured she'd come visit Amy at some point. So we kept our eyes open. It was Emma who found her."
  
  I glanced toward Emma, who shrank back a little and gave a self-conscious shrug. "I sensed the bomb thing in her head. It was no big deal."
  
  "Wait, so you knew where she was?" I pressed, confused.
  
  "We knew where she was the first time she showed up." Dinah corrected. "But she didn't approach then. She was just watching at that point."
  
  I shook my head, frowning. "Okay, but why didn't you stop her then? You knew she was there, you knew she was probably trying to come after Amy. Why didn't you bring her down?"
  
  One of the Pandoras spoke up. "We wished to, but Dinah-Friend believed doing so would create further problems."
  
  "That's what my power said." Dinah agreed with a nod. "If we'd stopped Sophia right then, something bad would have happened. I don't know exactly what, but it was bad." She added a shrug. "Besides, Sophia isn't the big threat. Not even now. We don't need her as much as we need to know who Trickster was working for, and where Noelle is now. And he's clearly not going tell anyone."
  
  "And how does letting her go help you find Noelle?" I asked while looking back and forth between them, trying to understand what they had been thinking.
  
  It was Amy who replied. "We knew she'd come after me, just not when. Dinah's power kept giving even odds for her spotting me at any given time."
  
  Dinah added, "And the odds of Amy getting hurt kept getting worse if Pandora was around. Apparently Sophia's power gives her some protection against Panda's absorption. As long as she stayed in her shadow state, she could last long enough to seriously hurt Amy if any kind of confrontation happened.
  
  My mouth opened and shut as I tried to think my way through this. "So... that sounds like you wanted her to get to Amy." They nodded, and I sputtered in confusion, "But why would you want that?"
  
  "Like I said," Dinah began to explain. "Sophia wasn't the real threat or the real target. But she does know who the person behind Trickster is."
  
  Amy nodded. "Remember when we were talking to Marissa and Jess, and I said that Trickster might've given the ring that controls Sophia's explosive to whoever he was working for? We figured they probably still have it, just to keep her in line. Hell, that's probably why she hasn't come forward to try to exchange what she knows for some cushy deal. If she does, and they find out, she goes boom."
  
  "Okay," I agreed. "But what does that have to do with Amy healing Sophia and letting her go?"
  
  Amy finally gave a weak little smile. "It has everything to do with that. You see these?" She held a hand out so that I could see what looked like a half dozen tiny flesh-colored pills. "Emma and Riley made them."
  
  Emma shook her head. "Riley m-mostly. I just... helped a little bit with t-testing."
  
  I took one and examined the thing. It just looked like a little flesh-colored pill. "What is it?"
  
  "A tracking device," Dinah answered. "They're all tiny little tracking devices."
  
  Blinking a couple times, I considered the thing again. "So you wanted to plant one of these little pill trackers on Sophia?"
  
  Amy shook her head. "Not just on her, in her. It's mostly biological, so her power wouldn't notice it as not being part of her. But we couldn't exactly ask her to swallow two of them and call us in the morning. So we had to improvise."
  
  "How exactly did you 'improvise?' I asked slowly.
  
  She explained. "I had to touch Sophia to heal her. So... while I was healing her, I silenced the nerves in her hand enough that she wouldn't notice when I opened a tiny hole and pushed the tracking pill inside. Sleight of hand, with a little bit of complete control of biology to help out."
  
  "No blood, no nothing? She didn't notice any of it?"
  
  Amy shrugged. "I didn't want it to bleed, so I held the blood back, let the pill go in, then sealed it up. Most of her attention was on her knee and how much better I made it feel. I might have overdone it just a little and made her feel good just to distract her even more."
  
  I absorbed that. "Okay so she has the tracker in her. What about the fucking bio-arms?"
  
  Amy cringed, sighing. "That was my fault. I didn't think she'd pay any attention to the bag. She wasn't supposed to take it. She was supposed to run off after I healed her so that Pandora didn't find her. The bag was heavy, I didn't think she'd risk slowing down enough to drag it along with her. I followed our plan, I injected her with the tracker and then she was supposed to leave. Taking the bag was... uhh, unexpected."
  
  I shook my head. "Shouldn't have taken that much of a risk, but I get it. So we just follow the tracker now?"
  
  They all collectively winced. It was Dinah who explained. "The problem is, the way the arms interact with her body is shielding it from the tracker signal. Not completely, but it's... muffling the signal down to almost nothing."
  
  I stared back and forth at all of them. "Wait, so you go through all that, and we still can't track where she goes?"
  
  Emma raised a hand. "I can... adjust the signal of the t-tracker to ummm... to compensate for what the... for how the arms are... ummm... i-interfering with it, I think. But first I have to get... you know... cl-close enough to use my power on the tracker."
  
  "Which means we have to find her again, and get you close enough to do that." I realized. "And until we do, Sophia's running around with a weapon made by Panacea and Riley that makes her about ten times more dangerous than she was before."
  
  "That pretty much sums it up." Amy nodded.
  
  "Oh good." I rolled my eyes. "And here I thought that reading my report in front of the class was going to be the last time I felt this queasy today."
  
  "So, Pandora, seen any good movies lately?"
  
  The clone turned to look at me curiously as the two of us stood on the roof of an office building overlooking a construction site. It was the same site that the Wards and I had been ambushed at. "Emma-Friend has spoken of this. It is... small talk, yes? Discussion irrelevant to the current endeavor."
  
  "Our current endeavor being to scour the city looking for signs of Sophia?" I nodded. "Yeah, pretty much. Totally irrelevant, but I am curious about what you like to do in your spare time."
  
  For the past several hours I had been helping Pandora search the city, all to no avail. Our lack of success wasn't surprising, considering how many places there were in the city to hide. Plus there was the fact that we were mainly wandering aimlessly. Riley had apparently been working on something to track down the missing arms, but that was going to take a while, and I'd thought it was worth taking the chance that Sophia might just be crazy enough to stand out if we took a look around. So far, no luck.
  
  "Some of our selves do enjoy movies," Pandora finally replied. "Some of ourselves do not. Gamma-Self prefers to read quietly. I..." The word seemed strange coming from her. "... enjoy making the visions appear in my own head the way that I would have them appear."
  
  "You like picturing the scenes in the book yourself, rather than watching it on a movie or tv screen." I considered that briefly before blinking. "So your other selves, they like different things? They have different favorite foods, different hobbies, all that?"
  
  "Yes." She looked to me "We possess varied interests." Pandora's response sounded thoughtful. "The longer we exist, the more individual preferences we appear to accumulate."
  
  "You like different things. You're becoming your own people."
  
  She gave that strange, jerky nod. "Of a sort. We are of like mind in most respects. It is to be expected, given our origin. But yes, there are nuances. It is strange in some ways. Frightening in others."
  
  "Frightening?" I raised an eyebrow at that. "It's hard to imagine you being frightened of anything."
  
  "We fear things, Tether-Friend." Gamma's reply was quiet. "We fear what we might have become without the help of our friends, or the influence of the agreement made with Laserdream-Ally. We fear what others think of us, that we may not be seen as a real person. We fear our... own reactions."
  
  I frowned uncertainly. "What do you mean, you fear your own reactions?"
  
  It took her a moment to respond. "When we were first... created, our biological imperative was to destroy those who threatened our maker, or her continued evolution. That imperative was erased, but it was replaced by the urge to hunt, to improve our own biological superiority. That urge has been tempered with our increased understanding of morality provided by Dinah-Friend and other friends, such as you, and Laserdream-Ally. But our decision to ignore the urge to kill and acquire as much genetic material as possible is a conscious one, not a permanent alteration. We... I... fear that something may happen to alter our thoughts once more."
  
  "You're afraid that urge to kill indiscriminately will take over again?" I asked quietly.
  
  "Yes, Tether-Friend. I, and our other selves, do not wish to be the... creature that we might have been had our original Prime not been removed from our collective. We wish to be human, to be... real. But our instincts are permanently at war with the morality that we are taught. Our conscience is a learned, observed thing, and it is a small voice when compared to the compulsions toward maintaining biological superiority. It is our nature to kill and absorb, and continue to improve. It is our choice to listen to Dinah-Friend and restrain ourselves."
  
  I hesitated a little. "Are you afraid that you won't be able to resist the urge to kill innocents forever?"
  
  "At times... we are afraid of our own reactions," Gamma confessed. "Our instincts must always be measured against the morality we have been taught, and we still understand so little of that morality. What is moral, and what is not? What is second nature to others, we must debate amongst ourselves. We wish to be human. We wish to be a person, our own person. But we do not know how, and some of ourselves fear that the time may come when our instincts and urges overwhelm our conscious thought. And we know that others fear our potential as well."
  
  I hesitated for a moment before sighing and reaching down to take her hand with mine, squeezing it.
  
  Pandora looked at me, then down at the hands. "What are you doing, Tether-Friend?"
  
  "Telling you something." I turned to her, squeezing her hand. "Pandora, Gamma, whoever you are and all that you are, I... failed you. I let you call me friend, but I didn't really treat you like you were one. I let you help me, let you help all of us, but I didn't really think of you as... a person. I thought of you as being more like a super-weapon than someone with actual feelings, let alone a bunch of slightly different someones all with your own individual feelings and thoughts and dreams and..." I let out a heavy, long breath. "You're right. I was afraid of you. After all you did to help, after you kept your word, after you proved how much you really do care about Dinah and the others, even me... I was afraid, just because of what you could do if you wanted to. But even if I was afraid of you, that didn't stop me from accepting your help when I needed it."
  
  "All I could think about was what you could do if you chose to, just... completely missing the fact that you keep choosing not to. Pandora, there are so many people in this world who get the tiniest fraction of the power that you have and they immediately use it to hurt others, to kill anyone they want to. They were born human and they choose to make others suffer just because they can. You... you have an instinct to kill, an... urge in your... genetics to absorb people and improve yourself by taking from others. But... you don't. You choose not to. You... focus it onto the real bad guys. You control it, Pandora. You have the impulse to kill everyone who could possibly add to your own strength, and enough power that there aren't many people in the world that could stop you if you really tried. The only thing that's stopping you... is you. You think you're not a real person yet? You're wrong. See, what really separates humans from animals is our conscious thought, our ability to choose, to go against our instincts. You... choose to be morethan your instincts try to make you be. That makes you a better person than a lot of 'humans' that I could name, Pandora."
  
  "I'm sorry I never really treated you like a friend. I'm sorry I haven't really bothered to get to know you. Hell, it was months before I even knew you thought of yourselves as individuals. That's... that's not a friend, Pandora. And for that, I am very sorry. But I'd like to make it up to you. I'd like to... try... to be a real friend to you, to get to know the real Pandoras, not just the weapon that helps me beat the bad guys. Because you are a person, and you deserve a better friend than I've been."
  
  Lifting her hand, I gave it one more squeeze. "Give me another chance to treat you like an actual person, a chance to be the kind of friend that you actually deserve?"
  
  Her eyes watched me curiously for a moment before she gave another fast, twitchy nod. "Yes, Tether-Friend. We... would enjoy that." She paused then, seeming to consider. "If you wish to be true-friends, does that mean that you would not mind if we stop for food?"
  
  "Oh-oh shit, yeah. I'm sorry, Pandora-I mean Gamma. I didn't even think about food. I was so focused on Sophia... but... I don't think we're gonna find her tonight. Do you have a place you'd like to go?"
  
  "We do." She turned then, taking three steps before leaping off the roof we were on. She'd apparently made herself strong enough that the single leap carried her all the way to the next building.
  
  "Wow." I shook my head before extending a hand, using a line to yank myself after her before calling, "All right then, lead on, Gamma-Girl!"
  
  I continued to follow Gamma for several blocks before she abruptly landed in the back of an alley and stood there, waiting for me to join her before she spoke. "There." Her hand lifted to point toward a small diner across the street. "That is where we often meet Tiberius-Friend."
  
  I blinked at that. "Err, okay I already knew I was a crap friend, but who's Tiberius?"
  
  "He is-" Gamma stopped, seeming to consider her words briefly. "... my friend."
  
  "My? As in Gamma's friend? As in Gamma has a friend that isn't part of Dinah's group? A... normal person?" I was, admittedly, completely floored. I'd never even considered that Pandora might have other friends, other people she interacted with. It made me flinch a little more, to be reminded yet again of how much I'd been treating her like some biological super-weapon rather than a person who made her own choices and had her own feelings.
  
  "We did not intend to locate a new friend. It... just happened." Gamma looked a little more uncertain, which strangely made her seem even more real and human than before. "We do not lie, Tether-Friend, but we also cannot tell Tiberius-Friend our whole truth. We do not let him see what we truly look like, to protect our secrets and Amy-Sister."
  
  "I get it." I nodded. "You have to disguise yourself to go out in public. He... met you in one of your disguises, and now that's the way he knows you."
  
  "Yes." She turned to look at the diner then. "We do not like to deceive our friends. I... do not... like... to deceive Tiberius-Friend. But for now, we must."
  
  "For now?" I asked, curiously. "Does that mean you might tell him the truth at some point?"
  
  "We... I... do not know," Gamma admitted softly. "Tiberius-Friend is... a new... sort of friend. We do not-I do not truly understand how such things work. I... would like your help, Tether-Friend, to decide if he is trustworthy."
  
  I hesitated slightly before giving a slow nod. "Yeah. I'll help you, Gamma. I'll help any of the Pandoras with anything that I can." Turning back to the diner, I asked, "Is he in there now?"
  
  "No." Her head shook. "Now is not Tiberius-Friend's time. We merely wished you to know of his existence. Perhaps we might introduce you soon, as Madison-Friend."
  
  I smiled just a little behind the mask. "Yeah, I'd really like to see the normal human boy that impressed big bad Pandora so much."
  
  Her eyes widened as she looked at me. "You believe that Tiberius-Friend has made us bad?"
  
  "No, no, no." I laughed a little, raising both hands. "It's just a figure of speech, Gamma. It's... never mind. I just meant I'd like to meet the boy that managed to be your friend. But for now, ahhh, I think you're gonna have to go in there and get food for both of us." I gestured to my costume. "Can't exactly go in like this, and I don't have the handy dandy shapeshifting power that you do."
  
  She agreed, and we discussed what the diner had available for a moment. Apparently Gamma had memorized the entire menu. Then she changed shape to look like a completely unfamiliar girl with pale blonde hair and wide blue eyes before crossing the street to get our food while I waited in the alley.
  
  Once she returned with cartons of food (apparently she really liked french fries), we took them up to the roof and settled in next to the large air conditioning unit. I took the biggest bite of the patty melt that I could manage, groaning in pleasure around it. "Mmmm, I didn't realize how hungry I was until you said something. This is some good stuff. But ahhh..." I looked to the other girl. "Why don't you tell me how you met this Tiberius, hmm? I wanna know just what kind of guy is making friends with my friends."
  
  Even as she started to tell me how she'd met the ordinary human, I could have sworn that Gamma actually blushed.
  
  Eventually, we finished eating and gave up on finding Sophia that night. There hadn't been much of a chance anyway. Hopefully Riley and Panacea would be able to come up with something that could track down their missing arms, and we could locate her that way. Either that or we were going to have to go out with Emma and just canvass the entire city, one block at a time, until she sensed that explosive in Sophia's head.
  
  Either way, I needed to get home. I'd told Sam and Ethan a bit about what was going on so that they wouldn't worry (though admittedly, 'I'm trying to track down the crazy bitch that killed my parents because she somehow got her hands on some biological super-armor that makes her a lot more dangerous' probably doesn't really do much to help the worry part), but I still couldn't stay out all night searching. I still had school in the morning.
  
  After leaving Gamma with the promise that I would eventually meet Tiberius with her, I made my way back home in time to find Sam, Ethan, and Hunter in the living room watching the last few minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
  
  "Yo, li'l bit!" Ethan waved a hand at me lazily. "Take a load off. We've got the next movie ready to go."
  
  "Err," I blinked at that. "The next movie?"
  
  He grinned at me. "Yeah, apparently Earth Aleph has more than one Indiana Jones movie. It's like an entire franchise. Who knew, huh? So come on, take a break from world saving and veg."
  
  Sam patted the floor next to her, quietly asking, "You're okay, right?"
  
  Biting my lip, I finally nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine. I just... I really wanted to find Sophia and... it didn't happen. She's still out there. She's still dangerous. Even more dangerous than before."
  
  "You'll find her. We'll help." Sam assured me.
  
  "Puppy's right." Ethan held the remote in one hand, waiting for me to sit down. "I don't care what kind of bio-weapon she scampered off with. We'll track her down and put her back where she belongs. And you can tell the two mad scientists to put a LoJack or something on the next monstrosity that they make." He used the remote to point at the floor. "Now sit so we can watch the next movie. I really wanna see where they took this series."
  
  As if in agreement, my opinionated wristband began to play the familiar movie theme song, and I waved both hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. I'm sitting down." Shaking my head, I joined the other three and let myself forget about the ongoing problem with Sophia and everything else, just for a little while.
  
  The next morning, I flailed at my blaring alarm, literally falling out of bed and onto the floor before my groping hand managed to turn it off. Groaning, I picked myself out of the tangle of blankets and sheets before stumbling toward the bathroom.
  
  As I passed the stairs on the way, Ethan spoke up from the foot of them. "Breakfast is on the table whenever you're ready for it, Ewok."
  
  I mumbled something in reply and shook my head while continuing on. He'd gone to bed after I had, yet when I woke up (still tired), he already had breakfast ready. Sometimes I swore that Ethan had as many clone bodies as Pandora did. That or he didn't need to rest. Yet he swore up and down that he did indeed sleep. Sam promised she'd seen him do it. He just happened to be one of those people who could get by on a few hours per day and be just fine.
  
  Lucky.
  
  Yawning as I came into the bathroom, I cracked my neck and flipped on the light switch before grabbing my toothbrush. I had just started to squeeze toothpaste onto it while casually looking up at the mirror, when I saw something that made me freeze completely.
  
  A single word had been written in red marker across my forehead, written in reverse so that it could be read properly as I stared into the mirror. A single word that had been written there while I slept.
  
  Prey.
  
  20.03
  
  Needless to say, things got a bit exciting after that. I missed most of it since I was at school (apparently not even death threats by psychopathic ex-super heroes hyped up on biological super-weapons is enough to get out of a trig test), but by the time it let out PCIPS had moved to protect both Ethan and Sam's house, and the Kanse's house next door where Mika and Lily lived. Yeah, apparently making a threat against one Ward that happens to live right next door to another one (who herself happens to be someone the Protectorate is grooming as the next Eidolon) is enough to light a fire under bureaucracy's ass so that by the time I got out of school, their solution was already well underway. Rather than move us, they decided it was better if undercover PCIPS forces moved into several nearby places to keep a constant vigil on our homes, in case Sophia was stupid enough to come back.
  
  I doubted she would. She'd gotten her message across, loud and clear. She saw me as her enemy, the person who had ruined her life and put her in this position. None of it was her fault, because Sophia couldn't admit personal fault. Everything bad that happened in her life was a conspiracy against her.
  
  She'd marked me, literally, as her enemy. I was the one she saw as her prey. She wanted me to be afraid of her, to see what she could have done if she chose to. She wanted me to feel weak and cowed against her superiority and strength, to see how much better she was and wilt under my own inferiority.
  
  Instead, I was mostly just pissed off.
  
  Worse, my anger didn't have a physical outlet that day, because rather than patrol I was scheduled for console monitoring duty. Instead of being out searching for Sophia myself, I had to sit inside the Wards HQ and keep track of what Reach and Vista were doing out on their own patrol. It made me feel stifled, even more helpless than Sophia's message had. I needed to be out there doing, not sitting in front of a computer just watching and listening.
  
  At least I'd had time to visit Dinah's place right after school. Poor Jalopy had obviously been distraught about the fact that he'd been in recharge mode when Sophia had visited. I wanted to see if Riley could do anything to make him feel better about himself. She could make some improvements so that something like that wouldn't happen again if I left him there with her for a few hours and came back that night. I'd only agreed once she pinky-swore that it wouldn't do anything to his personality or his memory, and that he'd still be the same Jalopy once she gave him back.
  
  Then I'd spent the next fifteen minutes promising Jalopy himself that he wasn't being punished and that I wasn't mad at him. I'd already had hugs from a lot of different people, but having a tiny bio-mechanical spider that was only a few inches long cuddle up against me was definitely new. I felt like a mother sitting with her son outside the doctors office. It had seemed almost too cruel to leave Jalopy there if he was going to be upset, and I almost called the whole thing off.
  
  In the end, however, I let Jalopy choose. I set him in the palm of my hand and told the little robot that I liked him just the way he was, but that if he wanted to let Riley make her improvements, that was his choice. He had bounced up and down and played the Rocky training montage music, which I guessed was his agreement for the upgrades.
  
  Before leaving the little guy there, I produced a tiny picture of Jess for him, making Riley promise that he could keep it while she worked.
  
  I honestly must have made that poor bio-tinker swear to me ten times that she wasn't going to do anything that would mess with Jalopy's personality, and that he'd be just the same when I picked him up again.
  
  Worrying about my little friend, combined with the fact that I wanted to be out and doing things to help find Sophia, meant that I couldn't even hope to sit still while on console monitoring duty.
  
  "You okay?" Lily called over from the other side of the room where she had been throwing darts against the board on the wall. "You've been fidgeting and sighing for the past ten minutes."
  
  I flinched and tried to settle in the seat a little more. "Yeah, sorry. I just don't like being cooped up instead of being out there tracking Sophia down."
  
  Throwing another pair of darts together (hitting her mark with almost too-casual ease), Lily regarded me. "Do you have any better idea of how to find her than you did before she called you out like that?
  
  Sighing, I shook my head and slumped. "No. But even looking randomly would feel better than sitting here. I feel like I'm not doing anything to help find her, like I'm..." I trailed off.
  
  "Hiding?" She guessed, walking over to the board to retrieve her darts. "It feels like she threatened you and now you're hiding in here instead of being out where she can find you if she wants a fight so bad?"
  
  "Exactly." I gave the monitor another glance, making sure that my distraction hadn't made me miss any news popping up that Reach and Vista needed to be alerted to. Things looked clear, so I stood up to stretch while adding, "Sophia wants to call me out. If she can't get to me, she might go after others, people I care about. If she hurts them to get to me, that's my-"
  
  "Her fault." Lily interrupted, stepping over to me. "It's her fault, Madison. Look, I know I'm new and everything and I wasn't here for all the background stuff. I know there's details that you don't really share with most people, and I sure as hell know that you don't tell the PRT everything about what you do with that Dinah girl and... all of that. But one thing I do know is that when someone does something bad, it's that person's fault. What Shadow Stalker does is on her, not you."
  
  I didn't respond at first, biting my lip while looking toward the monitor. Finally, I said softly, "It still feels like my fault. I need to stop her. After my parents... I just need to stop her." I couldn't express it any better than that. Bringing down Sophia, putting her where she belonged, was something I needed.
  
  "I get it," Lily's voice was quiet. "I don't totally understand, but I get what you mean. She's personal for you. But don't let her use that to lure you into doing something dangerous. You've got friends, you've got allies. You have people who care about you. Hell, I care about you and we only met a couple months ago, max. You're... good at making people like you, Madison. It's kind of freaky sometimes. But the point is, don't let Shadow Stalker taunt you into making mistakes. And don't do anything stupid like agree to meet her alone to 'settle the score' or whatever nonsense she might come up with."
  
  I smiled faintly. "Is that a request from a friend or an order from a team leader?"
  
  "Both." Her hand came up to poke me in the stomach. "Just promise you'll try to keep your head on straight when it comes to Shadow Stalker."
  
  "I'll try." I promised, reaching down for the can of soda on the table to sip from before sighing once more. "But you know, that still doesn't make me feel better about sitting around here."
  
  "All right." She reached over to turn up the volume on the comm so that we could both hear if Vista or Reach reported in. "You want a distraction? Then let's work off some of that aggression by sparring."
  
  "Sparring?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.
  
  "Yup, sparring." Lily winked and stepped back, taking a moment to crack her neck, then pulled her dark hair back into as tight of a pony tail as she could manage. "Come on, let's see what you've got."
  
  About twenty minutes later, we were interrupted by Reach calling in. I stepped over to the console and hit the mic. "I'm here, what's going on?"
  
  Cassie's voice came back a second later. "Be right with you, dealing with-Vista, hit the deck!"
  
  My eyes widened and I looked to the screen, noting where they were. "Lung's territory, but not very far into it. Mostly the outskirts of the docks. There shouldn't be anything there worth defending."
  
  Lily stood next to me, twitching a little. "Okay, I think I know what you mean now by how bad it is to stay on the sidelines. Are they all right?"
  
  I shook my head. "I don't know, but I'm not interrupting again until they either report in, or take too long to. Whatever's going on, distracting either of them seems like a bad idea."
  
  The other girl nodded, and we watched the clock on the wall impatiently. In actuality, only about thirty seconds had passed, though every individual tick of the clock felt like an eternity in and of itself.
  
  Finally, less than a minute, yet a billion years later, Reach's voice returned. She sounded out of breath, but unhurt. "Yeah, we're gonna need you to make a note that Vista and I are mirifica."
  
  I blinked, looking at Lily briefly. She shrugged back at me and I interrupted. "You guys are what?"
  
  Cassie muttered something about the educational system before explaining. "It's Latin for amazing. Mirifica. That's M-I-R-"
  
  "I'll Google it." I replied quickly. "What happened? Why are you... amazing?"
  
  "Because we just took down Scintillant with no casualties other than a bit of building and street damage from one of her god damn laser bull things. She's unconscious and waiting for pick-up. Think you could send the boys with the foam asap?"
  
  I stared at the monitor in surprise for a second before switching the comm over to the PRT channel to make the request, giving Vista and Reach's location before switching back to respond to Reach. "PRT van on the way. What the hell was she doing out there in Lung's territory alone? Wait, was she alone?"
  
  "Nah, she was chasing some guy on a hoverboard like the one Kiddle used to fly around on. We interrupted their brawl, but the dude got away. We figured the nig-known threat was more important."
  
  "Dude on a hoverboard?" I shook my head, having no idea who she was talking about. Kid Win was the only one I'd ever known that flew around on a hoverboard. "Anything else about him?"
  
  "Didn't get a good look at the guy," she confessed. "I was a bit occupied. Vista?"
  
  Missy's voice was even more unsure. "I think he was young, like Ward age. But Scintillant was really pissed off at him. She wasn't even paying attention to us until we hit her."
  
  Lily spoke up then. "Good job guys. Be careful. You should probably stay on the comm until the pick-up van gets there, just in case Scintillant's friends show up, or hoverboard guy swings back around."
  
  "Oooh, instructions from on high." I could picture Reach's lazy shrug. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am. Didn't know you were around, Bossy Lady."
  
  Lily flinched a little and started to respond, but I muted the comm before looking at her. "She's teasing, Lily. She doesn't really think you're being too bossy. Trust me, if she's actually complaining, you'll know." Unmuting the mic, I said, "Vista, smack Reach for me, would you?" There was an almost immediate yelp, and I smiled. "Thank you."
  
  Muting the mic herself, Lily shook her head. "Thank you. Sorry, I just get... nervous when she doesn't seem happy. I'm still not sure how comfortable I can be with the fact that the first team I was put in charge of includes a white supremacist. I'm not white and I'm not straight. That's two major strikes."
  
  I blinked at her. "Former white supremacist. Totally former. She's working on it, Lily. She caught herself before she said the N word. They just slip out sometimes. Besides, I'm not straight either, obviously, and she hasn't said anything bad about that. She's trying, believe me."
  
  "Yeah, I guess she is." Lily gave a slow nod before smiling faintly. "Thanks for helping me keep my head on straight."
  
  Shrugging at that, I replied, "You did the same for me earlier. How could I not return the favor?"
  
  She pulled out the seat next to me, and we sat together to wait for Reach and Vista to get back so we could hear about how the two of them managed to bring down someone as dangerous as Scintillant could be.
  
  On my way out the doors of the PRT building about an hour or so later, Sam intercepted me. "Hey, there you are. Come on, I need to pick up dinner and I could use a couple extra hands to carry things."
  
  I raised an eyebrow at her. "You know that's not the least bit subtle. You were waiting around for me to get out so you could keep an eye on me, weren't you?"
  
  She winced before shrugging. "Can you blame me, Madison? She was in our house. She's got a vendetta against you. I don't like the idea of you going off by yourself. Neither does Ethan."
  
  I stopped myself from sighing, seeing it from her point of view. "I know. I get it, Sam, I swear. I'm being careful. But I need to go and get Jalopy back from Riley. Can I call you from there and meet you somewhere to pick up food?"
  
  Sam hesitated, her instinct clearly being to insist on keeping me close. To make her feel better, I turned and waved a hand broadly at the roof across the street, smiling to myself as the figure standing there waved back. "Look."
  
  "That's... Pandora?" Sam guessed after looking that way.
  
  "Omicron, apparently. She's been playing bodyguard ever since I left Dinah's this afternoon. I'll be with her on the way over and to wherever you are," I assured her. "You know what Pandora can do with biology. Sophia won't make a move."
  
  "Yeah..." Sam agreed slowly. "You're probably safer with her than you are with me, honestly. Okay, just be careful. Keep your eyes open, promise?"
  
  "Promise." I smiled a little bit and gave the woman a brief hug. "I'm not going to do anything stupid like run off by myself to lure Sophia into attacking me. Trust me, I've screamed at way too many movie characters for doing that shit to do it myself."
  
  We made plans for where to meet up to get dinner, and then I took the time to change into my costume before using a line to meet Omicron on the edge of the roof. When I got there, she was sipping from a Big Gulp cup while she waited for me.
  
  "Tether-Friend." She greeted me by waving the cup. "We have had the brown bubble liquid. We are very-" Her words were interrupted by a burp. "-happy."
  
  I giggled in spite of myself and gave her a thumbs up. "Glad you're enjoying yourself. Ready to head back to the motel?"
  
  She finished the contents of the Big Gulp before nodding. Turning, Omicron pitched the cup in a perfect arc off the roof, and I watched as it plummeted straight into a dumpster below. "Nice aim."
  
  Together, we made our way back to Dinah's motel. When we arrived on the roof, I was about to head down before a voice from behind us called out, "Halt, evil-doer!"
  
  Spinning on my heel, I stared at the figure that stepped into view. They were just under six feet tall, and wore a black leather duster over some kind of gray and black armor. A fancy wide-brimmed hat sat atop the mask, which itself had a long beak-shape extending out from under the hat. The eyes of the mask were covered by thick mechanical goggles. The beak-bit reminded me of those ancient doctors that wore the bird-like masks when they were dealing with the plague.
  
  "Errr..." I was confused. Omicron wasn't moving, so she didn't think the person was a threat. And the voice, while muffled... sort of sounded like... "Riley?"
  
  "Aww." There was a squelching noise, and the tall figure bent over in half before Riley pulled herself out the back. Thankfully, there wasn't any blood on the girl. There was, however, some kind of clear gel-like substance clinging to her. "How'd you know it was me?"
  
  "Lucky... guess..." I stared at the bent over figure. "What is this?"
  
  "It's my costume!" She beamed proudly and patted it. "Well, costume, biological body armor, and disguise all in one. Now nobody'll know who I really am when I come out and help! And I've got the best name ever."
  
  Still trying to cope with the fact that Riley was apparently piloting a biological suit of armor around as a disguise, I weakly asked, "Best name ever?"
  
  "Bones!" She literally bounced with excitement. "Get it? Bones. Cuz it's me, but not cute, so it lost the aw. No aw, so Bones! Isn't that perfect?"
  
  My mouth opened, shut, opened again, then shut one more time as I failed to find an adequate response before finally managing, "I... wow. You... you're something else, Riley."
  
  She beamed with pride and patted the figure of her bio-suit/costume. "Yup. Best disguise ever."
  
  20.04
  
  Some people might have thought that any method of travel could get boring or mundane if it was engaged in often enough. I invite those particular people to try getting around the city by repeatedly slingshotting themselves in the right direction. I didn't so much fly through the air as fling myself through it in what was essentially a perpetual sideways skydive. I would launch myself, fly a couple hundred feet, pick a new landmark to attach a line to and then yank myself that way.
  
  It was, frankly, an amazing way to travel, and I was never going to get bored of it. Attaching a line, getting myself airborne, and then releasing it once the momentum was built up enough to send myself flying past one building before using another line to keep myself going rather than surrender to gravity felt incredible each and every time. It was a sort of freedom that I had never imagined before my powers. Among so many bad things that had happened, and the ever-present knowledge that it was my mistakes and the death of an innocent girl that had led to my having such powers to begin with, this was still something that made me feel good.
  
  More importantly, my method of travel was also a way of clearing my head so that I could focus better later. As I launched myself off of a billboard and flew along a line that was attached to the office building of some insurance company, I stopped worrying so much about Sophia and Noelle for a few minutes. I thought of nothing except for where the next line was going, zoning out to let my mind drift.
  
  It was September 9th, the next afternoon after I'd been introduced to Riley's new alter ego. It also happened to be Saturday, which meant I hadn't had school. Instead, I'd spent the morning and early afternoon at the cemetery with Cassie to do our community service.
  
  I wondered, at times, what my community service would be if the law about burning all bodies went through and there no longer were any cemeteries.
  
  Once my work was done for the day, I took off and had spent the past hour lining my way across town with my ever-present Pandora bodyguard keeping me company. Part of me tried to convince myself that I was searching for Sophia, while the rest ignored that little delusion and accepted the fact that I was just flying around randomly while hoping that something would happen.
  
  Finally, I set myself down on top of a billboard advertising a local youth group that was just starting up, waiting for Pandora to join me. She materialized out of a cloud of smoke a few seconds later, and I gave her a wave before sitting down to let my legs dangle. "Are we having fun yet, Iota?"
  
  "Yes." She gave me a quick nod. "We are having more fun than a monkey's barrel."
  
  I snorted in spite of myself. "No, you mean 'more fun than a barrel of monkeys.'"
  
  She blinked at that, clearly doubting me. "Truly, Tether-Friend? How many monkeys could one fit in a barrel? It must be either a very large barrel, or very angry monkeys. And how is it fun?"
  
  I shrugged helplessly at that. "I dunno, it's just a phrase. I think it was a game or something."
  
  We sat in silence for a few moments while she considered that, watching the streets below. A few people looked up and waved, and both of us waved back. I wasn't sure what people thought Iota was, but the fact that we weren't fighting seemed to make them decide she was okay to wave at.
  
  "I guess Sophia's keeping her head down after all that." I finally said with a low sigh, trying not to scowl too much. I wanted to find Sophia on our terms, but failing that I would have accepted just getting the confrontation over with. Unfortunately, it seemed like she was content to hide and let us chase our tails looking for her.
  
  We were joined on the edge of the sign by another Pandora, who had been following along behind the two of us from a greater distance, just in case Sophia chose to hang back further than we thought.
  
  "See anything, Lambda?" I asked the second Pandora as she dropped down on the other side of me.
  
  She gave a quick nod. "Many things, Tether-Friend. I have seen buildings, people, cars..."
  
  I rolled my eyes, nudging her with an elbow. "Sophia, I meant did you see Sophia?" She shook her head that time, and I sighed before lifting my arm to examine the new and improved Jalopy. He still looked pretty much like a wristband, though it had doubled in size. Riley had added several new features to help him defend me, as well as giving him a back-up energy source to use while I was sleeping and my movements were no longer charging him.
  
  Most importantly, she had added an ability to sense the bio-manipulated arms that she and Panacea had created. It only worked within about a block or so at the moment, but Riley said they were working on ideas to increase the range. Either way, I'd be alerted if Sophia got anywhere near me as long as I had Jalopy and she had the arms. I'd raised the thought of Sophia coming after me without the arms, and Riley had said that was impossible. I pointed out that Sophia might not want to be seen in public with them, and the bio-tinker had scoffed that the rude girl shouldn't have stolen her project then.
  
  I... was pretty sure I didn't want to push the issue after that. But at least it sounded like the crazy girl wouldn't be able to sneak up on me. If she ever decided to show herself at all.
  
  "What do you think, buddy?" I asked the robot with a gentle poke. "Is Sophia chicken or what?"
  
  Shifting into his spider form, Jalopy crawled from my arm to my shoulder and played a tiny bit from the old Kenny Rogers song, 'Coward of the County'.
  
  "Damn straight, little guy." I held my finger up so that his grappler arm could poke against it as though he was giving me five. "If she wants a real fight, we'll give her one."
  
  Lambda spoke up then. "She is probably afraid of being the better kind of peanut, Tether-Friend."
  
  I blinked at that, trying to work out what she meant and failing. "The... better kind of peanut?"
  
  She nodded sagely. "A salted."
  
  "She's afraid of being a salted pe- a salted." I groaned as I got it, head hanging while Lambda gave me the closest thing to a genuine smile that any of the Pandoras had actually managed up to that point. "Damn it, they're right. You are the one that likes jokes."
  
  "Yes, Tether-Friend." Iota spoke up from the other side of me. "Our Lambda-Self has discovered the existence of humor. Dinah-Friend says that we have a long way to go before we master it."
  
  "Mastering anything requires practice," Lambda declared. "We have read that chicken crossing the road jokes are the most common that exist. So, Tether-Friend, what do you call a chicken crossing the road?"
  
  "I guess Sophia attacking in the next three seconds is out of the question?" I asked, looking around hopefully. Finding nothing, I dropped my head. "Okay, what do you call a chicken crossing the road?"
  
  "Poultry in motion." Lambda gave me another of her smiles, still a bit too toothy and intense, but at least recognizable for what it was supposed to be. She was clearly proud of herself.
  
  I groaned so much I nearly fell off the billboard. "Poultry- wow, Lambda, you must study people a lot to even know why that's a joke."
  
  "We work backwards." She admitted. "We enjoy looking for jokes, and then working away from them to discover why it is funny. In that case, we had to ask Dinah-Friend, who explained poetry. Lambda-Self does not care for it, but Sigma-Self has enjoyed many poems."
  
  "Sigma likes poetry, huh?" I looked between them. "And Lambda likes jokes. Puns. I know Epsilon is the one obsessed with rules and order. What about you, Iota? What do you like?"
  
  "Iota-Self enjoys movies. All movies, but mostly the movies with the explosions and the guns."
  
  "Action movie buff, got it." I smiled in spite of myself. "At least I know what to get you for... oh god."
  
  Both of the Pandoras looked at me, confused. They spoke as one. "What is wrong, Tether-Friend?"
  
  "I just realized, if you guys ever figure out what your birthday should be, I'm gonna go broke getting your presents."
  
  Lambda pounced on that. "Do not worry, Tether-Friend. It is your presence that we truly admire."
  
  My groan at that one probably reached the street below us.
  
  "You know what one of the best parts of being a hero instead of a villain is?" Marissa asked me a few hours later after the sun had gone down. We were both in costume, sitting on the roof of the library while we each took a break from our patrols.
  
  "Not having to do terrible things to people that don't deserve it?" I guessed.
  
  "Well that's a definite plus." Mars lifted the spoon out of her milkshake. "But I was referring to being able to go into a restaurant in costume and buy things without scaring people." She brought the ice cream to her mouth, her mask already pushed out of the way so that she could enjoy it. "Mmmm."
  
  I giggled in spite of myself, taking a spoonful of my own shake after fixing my mask. "Yeah, I guess it's hard to visit McDonalds while you're being chased by the PRT."
  
  "Oh it's not hard to visit." She smiled sidelong at me. "But people tend to make certain assumptions about what you're doing there. I can't tell you how many times I had to throw money back into the register while swearing that I wasn't robbing them, I just wanted a cheeseburger."
  
  Snickering, I asked, "You know what I like about you being a hero now?"
  
  Her head tilted curiously. "What's that?"
  
  I used a line to pull her to me, carefully so that she wouldn't drop her cup. She gave a soft meep of surprise, but let herself be pulled until she was right in front of me. Once she was there, I released the line and put my hand on her side, rubbing gently. "It means I can do things like this." I leaned up onto my toes while using a hand to tug her down into a brief kiss. "Without feeling guilty."
  
  Mars murmured with pleasure at the kiss before her free arm wrapped around my back. "Mmm, really? Because slacking off on patrol duty totally still makes me feel guilty."
  
  I made a face at her. "Not slacking off. It's called a lunch break. Everyone takes them."
  
  "True." She kissed me again, making me shiver for reasons entirely unrelated to the ice cream in my hand. "Plus there's the fact that Laserdream and Sparrow are still out there doing their patrol."
  
  Since Mika was still too young to patrol on her own, she was occasionally paired with a Protectorate member (in an official patrol pairing, rather than the way Mars and I just decided to stay together since were both out). Tonight was Crystal's turn. Which Sparrow was apparently ecstatic about, since she loved flying so much and Crystal was absolutely the best flier in the city.
  
  "Yeah, they'll let us know if we miss anything for a few minutes." I tugged my spoon out of the shake and offered it to her. "Oreo mint?"
  
  Mars practically purred while enjoying that bit of ice cream, and I shuddered as feelings I was even now still getting used to rushed through me. "Uhh wow, if you keep making noises like that, we're gonna have to get even further away from the street."
  
  I sensed her blush as she shrugged. "I like ice cream. And I like you. So getting ice cream from you is... mmmm. It's nice."
  
  Letting out a long sigh of contentment while rubbing her side and back, I smiled. "I think spending any time with you at all is really nice. I... really like you. A lot."
  
  Her reply was another kiss that went on for a few long (yet somehow not long enough) seconds. Then she drew back to take another bite of her own shake. "Okay, what would be your favorite exotic pet, disregarding laws or rules? But it has to actually exist and be alive now."
  
  I didn't have to think about it. "Red Panda."
  
  Mars blinked at that, clearly trying to picture what I was talking about. "They come in red? Is it the black part or the white part that's red?"
  
  Gaping, I poked her in the stomach. "No way, you haven't seen red pandas? Oh man have I got some pictures to share with you. They're my favorite animal in the whole world." Curiously, I added, "What about you? What would your favorite exotic pet be? Same rules about existing."
  
  "Penguin." She answered easily. "They look like they're all dressed up. But also because they look awkward on land, but they're really fast swimmers. It just reminds me that everyone has their element, even if they look completely out of place when you first see them."
  
  I smiled at that and started to respond before blinking past her. "Chris?"
  
  Mars looked decidedly confused. "Err, no, I don't think Chris is a penguin."
  
  "No." I turned her around to look off the roof and down toward the sidewalk in front of the library. "Look, it's Chris. And he's with a girl." I pointed down to where my teammate stood, apparently chatting away with a pretty black girl who had one bleached streak of white in her otherwise dark hair.
  
  "Oooh." Marissa considered the sight while taking another spoonful of ice cream. "She's cute. I mean, she'd be cuter without the trashy clothes that are just trying too hard to be edgy, but still. Who is she?"
  
  I shook my head. "I have no idea. Chris never said anything about hanging out with a girl." Shrugging, I added, "I mean, he doesn't have to, I guess. It's not like we're super best friends or anything. Still, it looks like they're getting along. I wonder if they're dating or something."
  
  "Wouldn't you think he'd mention if he was dating someone?" Marissa asked.
  
  I shrugged at that. "Maybe he wants to keep his civilian life separate? Or maybe there's some other issue or reason he doesn't want to talk about it. I dunno. But spying like this feels weird."
  
  Mars nodded in agreement and we stepped back, turning away from where Chris and the pretty black girl were so we wouldn't continue to be voyeurs.
  
  Barely had we stepped back away from the edge of the roof, than two figures flew down out of the sky to land nearby. "See, Sparrow?" Laserdream was shaking her head in mock disappointment. "I told you when we found these two they'd be slacking."
  
  I stuck my tongue out at her. "You're just jealous cuz you want ice cream."
  
  "Got that right, now gimme." She winked, holding her hand out until I passed her the cup. "Yum. I'll say this for you, Tether, you have good taste in a lot of things."
  
  I nudged Mars with my foot. "I like to think so." Looking toward Sparrow then, I added, "I take it you guys haven't seen much tonight either?"
  
  "Nuthin!" Sparrow's bracelets lit up, and she floated up off the roof and turned upside down, hovering there with her glowing pink smiley face set against the black background of her costume. The face actually righted itself as she hung there so that it was right-side up even as she was upside down. It looked a bit like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland, the way her dark costume blended into the night aside from the glowy bits. "We haven't seen aaaaaaaaaaanybody doing anything wrong. It's been sooooo boring. Cept Dreamy's been teaching me all kinda flying tricks."
  
  "Dreamy?" I giggled, looking at Laserdream.
  
  Snickering, Mars held her cup out to the girl floating upside down in front of her. "Here, take a bite, you poor bored little superhero."
  
  "Eee!" Taking the cup, Sparrow carefully inverted in the air, floating there as she tugged the mask up a little bit. "Thank you, Miss Sundancer!"
  
  Unfortunately, before Marissa could reply, and before Mika could take a bite, Jalopy abruptly began to glow dark green on my wrist while making a light humming noise. A second later he transformed back into his spider-bot form, and his grapple arm popped out to tug at my costume sleeve urgently.
  
  "I got it, thanks, buddy." I gave him a quick pat while turning in a quick circle, scanning the street below.
  
  "Does that mean what I think it means?" Marissa asked. She and the other two were staring at me.
  
  I was probably going to have to explain exactly what Jalopy was to Mika, but that could wait. For now, I just nodded. "It means Sophia is somewhere within a block of here."
  
  "Right." Crystal floated up to take a better look around. "I'll call it in."
  
  My mouth opened to say something else, but before I could get another word out, a deafening alarm began to blare from right beneath my feet, making me jump.
  
  "She's in the library!" Marissa called over the noise of the alarm. "There's still people in there!"
  
  Mars was right. Jalopy was still dancing in agitation on my shoulder as he sensed Sophia's proximity. She was down in the library with all the people.
  
  Which meant that we were going to have to go in there after her.
  
  20.05
  
  On the way down from the roof, I took my phone from the hidden pocket in my costume, sending a quick text to Kid Win to let him know what was going on and that we'd seen him nearby. I also let Reach, who was manning the console, in on what was happening.
  
  Chris hadn't responded by the time we made it into the library through one of the back entrances. Crystal, meanwhile, had managed to get through to the Protectorate version of their console monitor and had the alarms in the library turned off so that they weren't deafening us. She also warned them to keep the local police away from the place until we cleared it, since the poor uniformed cops going up against an empowered and crazy Shadow Stalker was just begging for a tragedy.
  
  The place was mostly dark as we entered, illuminated only by a few emergency lights (as well as the dim glow from both my and Sparrow's costumes). I hadn't really visited the library very often, but it looked like we had come into the children's section, judging by the brightly colored crayon drawings lining the walls, the tiny chairs scattered around, and the shelves full of books for kids. There was even a plastic castle in the middle of the area, ringed by reading chairs.
  
  Without the alarm blaring, the place was eerily quiet, even for a library. The dim lighting made every little shadow seem ominous, and I had to restrain myself from jumping when Laserdream touched my arm before she whispered, "Can your little early warning system track her from in here?"
  
  I shook my head. "Not yet. They're still working on refining it. Right now he can just tell when she's within a certain distance." As if to punctuate my words, Jalopy opened and shut his two little grappler hands a couple of times, turning in a circle on my shoulder as he scanned the room around us.
  
  Not long ago, the dark room might have been a problem. Now I just pressed a semi-hidden button on the side of the mask and the area grew brighter as the tinker-designed night-vision kicked in. The lenses were designed to opaque whenever a bright enough flash happened, to prevent the wearer from going blind if a bright enough light suddenly popped on while they were using the night-vision.
  
  I also turned down the glow of the lines on my costume so that it went almost completely dark. There was no sense in making myself even more of a target.
  
  Sparrow activated the lenses in her own mask as well as turning down the glow on her costume when she noticed me doing so, while Laserdream made a small glowing forcefield and floated it ahead. The four of us began to leave the children's section, spacing ourselves out a bit to avoid being jumped all at once, yet staying within sight of one another.
  
  Crystal stepped out of the kid's space first, looking left, then right before she beckoned us toward her. We stepped out and into the open area. To the right I could see a wide spiraling staircase leading up to what the nearby sign indicated was the computer lab and reference area. It wasn't really a whole floor so much as a sort of separate, higher loft-like area that overlooked the main floor that we were on. Meanwhile the young adult and teen section was to the left along with the checkout area.
  
  "We should split up," Laserdream said aloud. "She's here somewhere. I'll look upstairs, you guys spread out to search the stacks down here."
  
  Split up? I was in the midst of staring at the older girl, mouth opening to ask if she had completely lost her mind, when she lifted a finger to her lips to shush me. Putting a hand on my arm, she pulled me back against the nearest row of bookshelves with the other two. Then she leaned close and whispered under her breath, "Stay. Watch. Hand up-" She lifted my arm. "Drop it when you get anything."
  
  Turning, she headed for the stairs, floating her forcefield bubble light source ahead. She took the steps at a steady, normal pace, with the forcefield several feet in front of her. With each step, she kept her head turned toward me, watching the very faint glow of my arm.
  
  She was one step from the top when I saw the dark red line attach itself to her. The second I saw it pop up, I dropped my arm, and Crystal reacted instantly by throwing herself into the air an instant before we all heard the dull thunk of a crossbow bolt striking the railing where she had been standing.
  
  Many people had called Laserdream the best flier in the city, but even that shortchanged her, I realized in that moment. I doubted many capes in the world could have pulled off the maneuver she did just then, launching herself toward the ceiling as though she had been shot out of a cannon, yet somehow managing to invert in midair, followed by twisting herself around into a roll sideways through the air. Two follow up crossbow bolts went sailing harmlessly past then, the first one through the space that her her initial lunge would have sent her if she hadn't inverted, and the second through the new space she occupied prior to her sudden twist and roll.
  
  Jeeze, Crystal's reflexes and grace in midair were like nothing I had seen before. For an instant, I almost forgot myself and kept staring, even as she easily avoided yet another crossbow bolt in the dark. Then she pointed with one hand, sending a bolt of laser light that struck a single shadow perched on top of one of the tall bookshelves on the ground floor, about ten rows down from where the rest of us were. Even the way that my lenses brightened the area didn't take away from the formless shadow that was Sophia using her power. The whole area around her was one big blob of darkness, as though her power was somehow sucking the light out of the space it occupied. I knew light hadn't always reacted that way to her power, so was this some kind of reaction that the bio-engineered arms were having with it?
  
  Crystal's laser wasn't enough to harm Sophia in her shadow-state, but it had done its job of telling us where she was. Jalopy made a move on my arm, but I stopped him quickly, whispering, "Not yet. Not until we see what she's got and what she's up to. Stay put until I give you the word, little guy." He obviously didn't like it, but returned to his wristband form anyway.
  
  I saw the indistinct form of Sophia take aim with that crossbow again, but this time I was ready. I gripped the shelf she was perched on with a line and ripped it out from under her. The massive, ten foot tall bookcase was too sturdily built for the whole thing to fall, but the shelf she was actually standing on was torn out from under Sophia, throwing her forward and down. Her powers made her lightweight, but she was still at least somewhat subject to gravity. She might have fallen like a feather, but she still fell. And doing so brought her more into the open where we could see her.
  
  "Oh my god." Marissa breathed next to me. "What did she do to herself?"
  
  Sophia looked... different. Her entire body, rather than just her arms, was encased in what looked like a rippling pool of thick brown-black oil. Yet rather than a sexy, form-fitting look, the stuff actually made her appear skeletal, like there wasn't much more than bones beneath the surface. It reminded me a bit of the way the villain in some environmentalist rain forest cartoon movie from Aleph had looked early in that movie. She looked... wrong. Wisps of darkness seemed to drip off of her before being reabsorbed into the skeletal thin body.
  
  She also had incredibly fast reflexes. As soon as Marissa spoke, I saw a faint red line connect to her. I barely had time to start getting a line to shove her away before Sophia had spun and lashed out with an arm. As she did so, a thick tentacle manifested, stretching out to smack Marissa in the chest and send her tumbling with a cry.
  
  I threw myself into her path then, trusting one of the other two to check on Mars. "Well hey, a female Skeletor. It's good to know the new He-Man series is breaking ground on gender equality."
  
  Her response was a snarled and drawn out, "Yoooou." Then she threw herself at me with speed that took me by surprise. One second she was standing there, and the next she was colliding with me with enough force to drive the air from my body. We went crashing past a row of bookshelves and into the darkness while Crystal shouted something from the air above and behind me.
  
  Pain suddenly filled my shoulder as Sophia drove it backwards into the nearest shelf. It was also my first chance to get a good look at her face, and my eyes widened at the sight. The oily, bio-engineered stuff had even begun to cover her face. It didn't cover all of it yet. Rather, jagged spikes of the stuff stretched up from the neck of the suit, almost like rows of uneven teeth that all along the lower half of her head and face. The tallest 'spike' reached the lowest part of her right eye, while the smallest one barely cleared her jaw on the left side. All of her mouth was covered, and when she spoke, the black, oily stuff actually parted to reveal what looked like a mouth that was full of rows and rows of sharp onyx fangs, layered like a shark's teeth.
  
  "Why can't you just leave me alone?" She snarled with more loathing than I had ever imagined anyone actually feeling toward me. "I didn't come for you, I just needed the book! I didn't want you yet! I wanted the book, just the book!" With each word, she was shaking me more violently, her voice crazed.
  
  Grimacing, I muttered, "I don't know about a book, but you could really use a visit to the dentist."
  
  Her only response was to snarl and rear back with one skeletal fist. I was about to tell Jalopy to go ahead and have his rematch, when Sparrow's forcefield collided with Sophia instead, knocking her off of me and sending her flying.
  
  She twisted in the air even as she was thrown, and a pair of oily tentacles lashed out from her sides to catch onto the bookshelves on either side to steady herself.
  
  By that time, Sundancer had appeared at one end of the aisle. Even a month earlier, Marissa would have lacked the control to risk using her power indoors. Now, she stood with the smallest sun I had ever seen her make perched in the palm of her hand like a tiny glowing baseball. Actually embracing and learning to work with her power instead of always fighting against it had given Mars the skill to actually reduce its size down to the point that she could trust its heat to stay right where she wanted it, even with all the books and wood lying around in here. It was a testament to how much work she had been putting into her Protectorate training. Or how shitty of a leader and trainer Trickster actually was.
  
  Meanwhile, Laserdream floated down into view at the other end, and Sparrow hovered above the stacks, her forcefield staff held tightly in one hand.
  
  "It's over, Shadow Stalker." Crystal informed her. "Just calm down and we'll get that... thing off you."
  
  Instead, Sophia just let out a scream of frustration. I saw the warning lines pop up, and this time I was able to put my own tethers on Laserdream and Sundancer, shoving them backwards just as the tentacles holding either bookshelf heaved, pitching one toward each of the two Protectorate members.
  
  Sparrow flew down, throwing a wild punch at Sophia's back. Unfortunately, she had already returned to her shadow-state, and the blow went right through her. I saw the warning line appear again, and launched myself that way to snatch Sparrow out of the way just as two more of the tentacles grabbed for her. We rolled, and I came to my feet just as yet another tentacle caught my ankle and yanked me back to where Sophia was.
  
  I used a line against the floor to launch myself up and over the crazy girl, using the momentum of her yanking me rather than fighting against it. The tentacle was taken off guard and the force was able to pull me free of it as I flew nearly to the ceiling.
  
  Before I could adjust my fall, Sophia was in the air. She had launched herself upward, colliding with me so that we crashed down onto the second floor loft area where the computer lab was. My back slammed into one of the computer monitors, sending it to the floor a second before I joined it, falling onto my back with a cry.
  
  Sophia was perched on top of the table where the monitor had been. She reared back with a fist and I rolled aside just as two of her tentacles lashed through the floor where I'd been lying. They weren't just blunt. Rather, they seemed to have formed themselves into blades, and each of them sliced through the floor like it was paper.
  
  Avoiding her attempt to slice me in thirds didn't do wonders for Sophia's temperament. She let out a frustrated scream, and at least three more of the bladed tentacles lashed out at me. I evaded two of them by throwing myself into a sideways roll, and blocked the other by attaching a line to a nearby computer table and yanking it into the tentacle's path to knock it off course.
  
  "Why won't you leave me alone?! " Sophia bellowed. "This is your fault! It's all your fault! I didn't want to hurt anyone. You made me! You stole my life, you stupid-" Her words devolved into an inarticulate scream. Then she reached into her... chest... her hand actually shoving past the shadow-oil that made up her skeletal-thin body, and ripped back out a moment later, now holding her crossbow. It was dripping with that shadow-oil stuff that returned to her body with each drop that hit the floor. I had a moment of delayed shock and disgust at the fact that she was somehow able to store her weapon inside what was left of her body, wondering just what this fucking stuff that Panacea and Riley had made was doing to her, before she aimed at me and launched a bolt. I had to use a line to augment my backwards roll into a flip that got me airborne to avoid it.
  
  Activating my comm to the other three, I said quietly, "Let me handle this. Stay out of the way unless you have to." Then I spoke louder, addressing the crazy girl. "You know what, Sophia?" I asked while planting myself against the nearest wall, using a pair of lines to hold myself near the ceiling. "Sure, fine, whatever. Everything that happened to you is obviously my fault. But this asskicking you're about to get? This one's all Jalopy."
  
  "Sic her, boy."
  
  Sophia froze in obvious confusion as I said that, even as the little robot shifted from wristband to spider-form, launching himself off my wrist to land on the nearby table between the two of us.
  
  She began to laugh darkly then, staring at the tiny spider-bot. "What exactly do you think..."
  
  Her words trailed off then, as a few familiar strong beats of music filled the air. I smiled inwardly at my bodyguard's song choice. It was another Queen hit, which he seemed to favor.
  
  "You hear that, Sophia?" I called to her while the song got warmed up. "Another One Bites The Dust. I think that pretty much sums you up."
  
  She snarled and sent a pair of tentacles lashing out that way. At the exact same instant, the actual lyrics of the song began with 'Let's go', and Jalopy hurled himself off the desk. He landed on the nearest tentacle even as it slashed through the table that he had been perched on. A high pitched whining sound joined the music as a pair of tiny buzz-saws emerged from the underside of the tiny robot's body, cutting the outstretched tentacle off. It fell to the floor before turning back into an oily puddle while Jalopy jumped to the next tentacle. The oily-shadow puddle on the floor tried to return to where Sophia's body was, but Jalopy pointed a grapple arm at it, and a small pellet launched out of a compartment there. The pellet burst in the air just above the fallen tentacle, sending out a spray of what looked like liquid nitrogen to freeze the thing solid and trap it in place.
  
  The second tentacle was slashed off by the little buzz-saws, before Jalopy launched himself back into the air. Sophia screamed while aiming her crossbow. The bolt shot out at him, but the little guy used one of his grappler arms to snatch it out of the air in mid-flight and broke it in half even as his other arm launched another of those liquid nitrogen pellets to freeze the second severed tentacle before it could slither back to rejoin its host.
  
  Sophia was back pedaling now, shouting incoherently as she lashed out with half a dozen tentacles and as many crossbow bolts as she could fire, filling the air one after another even as she flailed randomly.
  
  Yet it didn't matter. Somehow that one tiny little spider-bot seemed to be everywhere at once. He intercepted the crossbow bolts either by catching and snapping them, or by using small laser that emerged from the center of his body to burn through them. One tentacle after another was severed and frozen.
  
  The tentacles themselves were being cut down to the actual tune of the music. The 'bite the dust' lyrics actually matched up with each tentacle that was severed and frozen, and the little bot was just avoiding her retaliation strikes when the lyrics didn't match the way that he wanted them to. He was jumping all around her, from ahead of her to behind, and to either side.
  
  Okay, now he was showing off.
  
  In the end, Sophia stood bent over, back pressed against the far wall as she panted for breath. The bio-engineered stuff that had covered her body had been reduced down to even more of a skeleton as she stood there. It was like there was only very small bits of her actual body left that wasn't part of the shadow-oil ooze that had obviously resulted from her powers interacting with the arms.
  
  "You... you... you..." She tried to find the words in between gasping for breath from the exhaustive workout that the little robot had put her through. Her crossbow was empty, and she didn't have enough bio-mass for any more tentacles. Finally, she let out one last scream and pivoted. Her form turned indistinct as she lunged for the nearby wall to make her escape.
  
  And that was when Jalopy triggered his trap. Because he actually hadn't just been showing off when he was jumping behind Sophia and onto every side of her. He had also been using those moments to lay a line of wire across the wall. When Sophia used her shadow-state to try to flee, he activated it. Sophia hurled herself into a live wire and screamed out loud in agony as she was thrown backwards, hitting the ground while twitching and spasming while she shifted back into her solid form.
  
  "K-Ki-kill me then. Ki-kill me." She continued twitching while glaring at me as I approached to stand over her. "You know you w-want to. Ge-get it over wi-with. I'm your ne-nemesis, all th-that. Do it. Do i-it!"
  
  Jalopy jumped to my arm, then settled on my shoulder while I stood staring down at Sophia's twitching body. I thought of my parents, of what she had done to them, and my fist tightened.
  
  But then I thought of my parents' lives , rather than their deaths. I thought about what they would have wanted, rather than what my revenge-obsessed psyche wanted.
  
  "Nemesis?" I asked quietly. "Actually, to tell you the truth, Sophia, I don't really think about you all that much anymore."
  
  She let out one last snarl and tried to lunge up toward me with what remained of her strength. I reflexively kicked out at her face, nailing her solidly and sending her back to the floor. This time, she slumped and didn't move again.
  
  "But I won't say that didn't feel good."
  
  Interlude 20 - Clepsydra
  
  Three... two... one...
  
  The silent countdown stopped, and the eighteen-year old girl's eyes opened. The clock that had been nailed into the ceiling above her head stared down at her, confirming that the time was precisely seven in the morning. She woke literally as the second and minute hands had touched the number twelve.
  
  She had outgrown the clock some time ago, having come to trust her power to keep track of time for her. It was a relic from when she was still learning what she was capable of. She kept it around for sentimental reasons, and to remind herself that, as accustomed to her power as she was now, it hadn't always been that way. She'd had to learn, had to practice and come to trust that her power was right.
  
  Closing her eyes after a few seconds, the girl who had begun to call herself Clepsydra focused on that power. I want to stand in two minutes. In her head, a one hundred and twenty second countdown began.
  
  Now assured that she wouldn't focus too long and end up being late, Clepsydra turned her focus toward her remaining active mental clocks. She held dozens of them in her head at any given time, though most simply ticked the time away silently until she chose to focus on them, or their time ran out. The shortest of the dozens of countdowns she was running at the moment was down to one minute, twenty seconds (the time that her neighbor would begin to blare his annoying music through the walls), while the longest was still at ten months, two weeks, three days, sixteen hours, fifty-eight minutes, and twelve seconds (the time that her neighbor's lease would run out so that she could buy his apartment and stop that annoying music from ever bothering her again). Or maybe she'd just buy the entire building, bulldoze it, and have an office tower built where it had been, with a penthouse at the top for herself.
  
  That, of course, might make it hard to maintain the appearance of an average college student that she'd been keeping up so far.
  
  Right on cue, as its mental countdown reached zero, the wall behind the girl's head began to vibrate heavily under the assault of the pounding rap music that passed for her neighbor's wake-up call. Thirty-two seconds after that, her two minute mental clock ran down. The instant it did, the girl's legs swung around and she stood up without any input from her conscious mind.
  
  Once she was standing, Clepsydra found herself facing the mirror attached to her closet door and took a moment to examine herself. Brown hair that she'd recently had cut into a short pixie style framed a pale face that others had called noble-looking with its high, defined cheekbones and deep green eyes. In school, people had mockingly called her a vampire because of her pale skin and aristocratic appearance. Some had said it with affection, while others had been jealous.
  
  Turning away from the mirror, the girl thought to herself, I want to walk to the bathroom and take a warm shower for exactly twelve minutes, including scrubbing and hair washing and conditioning.
  
  The mental clock and programmed actions were set, and she tuned out of her own actions, trusting her power to make her body follow what she'd ordered so that she could daydream.
  
  It was hard to believe that as early as four months ago, she hadn't had this power. She had become so accustomed to her mental countdowns that it sometimes seemed as though she'd always been this way.
  
  But no, not so very long ago, her life had been very different...
  
  Four months earlier.
  
  "Right, so now you've seen the vials. You want one, fork over the money. Forty-five thousand."
  
  The girl who would eventually call herself Clepsydra was, in that moment, still just Haley Prescott. She was also completely out of her element. "You said it was thirty-five thousand online." She kept her voice low, even though no one was likely to hear them. The man who called himself the Dealer had set up their meeting in the back alley behind a pool hall. Drug deals going down back here were nothing new, and people had long since learned that it was healthier not to pay too much attention.
  
  If only they knew just how out of the ordinary this particular 'drug' deal was.
  
  The Dealer, a dark-skinned man in his late forties, who was clearly clinging to his youth with his earring and colorful Hawaiian shirt, snapped the metal case shut, cutting Haley's gaze off from the vials that had lined the interior. "Yeah, that was the price down in Tallahassee. You make me come all the way up here to fucking New Hampshire, and you get a ten thousand dollar convenience fee. You got a problem with that, take your business to my competitor." The man paused for several dramatic seconds to make his point, before snapping his fingers loudly. "Oh wait, I ain't got no competitor. So here's the deal, forty-five thousand or I walk away and find someone who ain't a little sixteen-year old bitch with Daddy's credit card. Oh, and speaking of which, cash only."
  
  "My father's dead." Haley snapped. "And I'm eighteen, not sixteen."
  
  The man was unimpressed. "So you got the money or not? Cuz I got other places to be."
  
  "How do I know this stuff is real before I pay you?"
  
  Rolling his eyes, the Dealer explained, "My business works on word-of-mouth. You know what'll happen if my customers start saying they took my shit and nothing happened? No more business."
  
  Debating with herself inwardly for another moment, Haley finally gave a short nod and reached into the brown shopping bag held tightly in her other hand. One by one, she pulled out stacks of five thousand dollars. One hundred dollar bills, fifty to a stack, nine stacks in all.
  
  She'd come with more than that, having been prepared for the man to go as high as eighty thousand. It was almost all of the money that her father had given her before he was killed.
  
  The Dealer took his time examining the cash to ensure its validity before he finally opened the case once more. "Pick your poison. You get one vial. And don't take it here. Wait til you get somewhere safe, cuz this stuff'll knock you out for a bit." He wasn't quite openly leering. "Wouldn't want anything to happen to you in this neighborhood."
  
  For a moment, Haley let her gaze run over the dozen vial-containing canisters that remained inside the case. There were five spots where more canisters had been before the man had sold them off.
  
  "What's this mean?" She asked, pointing to what looked like an upside down Greek Omega symbol that was set into the inside of the lid.
  
  The Dealer heaved a sigh of annoyance. "Means pick a vial or lose your chance, kid. Clock's ticking."
  
  Running her hands over the remaining canisters, Haley finally selected one at random and pulled it out. "Got it." She turned the canister over in her hands, staring at the vial inside curiously, as though a close enough look would somehow tell her what it was going to do.
  
  "Whoopity doo." The Dealer snapped the case shut, picking up the sack he had put the money in. "Unless you wanna buy a matching vial and wear 'em like earrings, go away. I've got other business."
  
  Taking her chosen canister and shoving it down deep into the shopping bag that still held thirty-five thousand dollars, along with her cell phone, apartment keys, and identification, Haley walked back out of the alley, trying to look as natural and calm as possible.
  
  That became a lot harder to do when the ground itself suddenly shook violently underneath her while a deafening boom rolled through the street, setting off car alarms for blocks all around.
  
  Haley's head jerked to the side, staring at the sight of flames erupting from a building nearby. For a moment, she just stared uncomprehendingly, before another series of explosions from further down the street shocked her into back pedaling into the alley once more.
  
  Turning, she saw the Dealer climbing into his car. "Hey!" She called out to him. "Hey help me get out of here, there's... there's bombs! You've gotta help me!"
  
  "Sorry, babe." The man shrugged while starting his car. "Our business is done." He pulled out of the alley, accelerating around her while she shouted ineffectually at him to stop.
  
  The bombs continued, while Haley stood frozen in the alley, unable to make herself move. She slowly sank down to a kneeling position, cradling herself as she half-hid behind the dumpster that was set against the fence, as though it could shield her. The terror and confusion that she felt grew with each passing explosion. They seemed to come at no particular interval or distance, some happening so close that the shock wave rattled her teeth, while others could have been distant thunder. There was no way of knowing where the next one would happen.
  
  She huddled back there in the relative (and probably imagined) safety of the alley for a couple of hours, too terrified to move and risk putting herself where more bombs could happen. She had planned on taking the bus back to her apartment, but that was out of the question now. Sirens echoed through the streets while police and other emergency services raced from one tragic scene to another. And the whole while, Haley crouched in that back alley, trying not to cry from the fear.
  
  Finally, her eyes closed and she thought of her dad. Not the fraud who had raised her, but her real father, the man she hadn't known about until a year before his death.
  
  Then again, she had known his alter ego pretty much all her life. It would have been all-but impossible to live in Brockton Bay and not know about the man called Kaiser.
  
  Haley had always believed that she was meant for something far more than the average life that she had been born into. She disdained most of the students her own age, believing that they were blind children who didn't look far enough into the future.
  
  Her ambition had led to frequent arguments with her parents, who were content to drink themselves into a coma each day, year in and year out. The arguments were mainly with her mother, and often turned into screaming matches. It was during one of these around a year earlier that Haley had finally learned that the man who called himself her dad actually had no relation to her. In actuality, Max Anders had knocked her mother up when they were both teenagers and paid her (or more likely, his father had paid) to keep quiet about it.
  
  After that day, her instinct about being meant for greater things proven right, Haley had spent weeks trying to get in to see her birth father at his fancy office. Finally, she had unexpectedly found him waiting for her in the dingy little college dorm that she had been staying in. He'd been pleasant and charismatic enough, though he'd made no secret of the fact that he didn't want their relationship getting out, and that he had no interest in being a real father to her. Instead, he had offered to pay for her college tuition, as well as handing over a hundred thousand dollars as a 'missed birthday' fund that was obviously a bribe to keep her away from DNA tests and news reports.
  
  She'd taken the money, reasoning that doing so didn't exactly preclude her from asking for more when the time came. Yet a few months later her birth father had died. At the same time, the truth about his secret identity had been revealed not only to Haley, but to the world at large. Max Anders was actually Kaiser, the leader of the infamous Empire Eighty-Eight.
  
  No wonder he hadn't wanted anyone looking into his biology too much.
  
  Most people probably would have been horrified to know that their father was a supervillain. For Haley, it was simply confirmation that she was meant to be more than average. She was meant to accomplish great things. She hadn't known what those things were before, when she had been drifting aimlessly, but in the wake of her birth father's death and revelation, she knew what she was meant for.
  
  She would return his Empire to its former glory, and tear down those who had taken it away from him. Not with the racism, because honestly, anyone who really believed in that stuff was an idiot. But the power and influence of Max Anders's criminal Empire would live on. It would be reborn in spirit, cleansed of former obsessions like race that had held it back from achieving the greatness that her father had clearly been capable of, if he hadn't let himself be distracted by some stupid racism.
  
  Of course, the first step to regaining her father's power had been to get some real power of her own. A hundred thousand dollars and a paid-off college tuition was nice, but neither were enough for any real influence. No, she needed power. First she had thought about some kind of tinker-made suit that could protect her. But then she had heard about this so-called Dealer down in Florida who could provide people with vials that would grant them powers.
  
  She'd taken the risk, and now she had what was supposed to be a power-giving vial in her bag. Yet she was still helpless, still cowering in a corner while bombs tore up the city.
  
  Her real father would be ashamed of her.
  
  That was enough to get Haley up and moving. She thought briefly of taking the vial then and there, but decided against it. Assuming the Dealer had been telling the truth about it knocking her out, it would probably be a bad idea to be unconscious in an alley while all this was going on. She needed to get somewhere safe first.
  
  Finally hurrying out of the dark alley, she looked up and down the street before joining a crowd that was rushing somewhere. Maybe they would find a safe place where she could lock herself in a restroom or something and take the vial.
  
  As she was running with the crowd, someone jostled Haley and knocked the bag from her hand. Eyes widening, she spun back and fought her way through the crowd to get to where it had fallen next to a city utilities truck.
  
  Three steps from reaching the fallen bag, there was a sudden rush of movement, and a figure dropped into view in front of Haley. Recoiling in surprise, she cursed reflexively before blinking. "Hey! You're-"
  
  Tether, the newest Ward, caught her by the arm and launched the two of them off the ground. All Haley could do was stare in panic down at the bag that was being left behind while the costumed cape replied, "Oh my god, are you really 'that girl with the shopping bag'? Eeee, I totally have to get your autograph. My friends are never gonna believe I met you!"
  
  Before Haley could even try to respond to that, the utility van below them exploded, blowing a crater into the street around itself, and utterly destroying the all-important bag.
  
  She stared at the crater, mouth working with shock. "You... you..."
  
  Tether tried to reassure her. "It's all right. I'm just trying to help. Are you-"
  
  Spinning back to her, Haley blurted, "You could have grabbed my bag!" Gone. All her money, and the vial of super powers that would have allowed her to achieve her destiny was gone . "Seriously, how hard would it have been to get my bag?" She demanded, feeling cheated and frantic. "It's like half a second! Do you have any idea how much that-" She barely restrained herself from saying 'vial of super powers'. "-cost? Not to mention my phone, my keys, my-" My life. My future.
  
  Tether clearly didn't care. "Would you look at the time?" She mimed looking at a watch on her hand. "Listen, I'd love to stay, but you know... so many girls to deliberately separate from their toys, so little time."
  
  Then she was gone, abandoning Haley on top of the roof to run off and play superhero some more.
  
  For a few minutes, Haley simply stood there and tried not to weep at what had been ripped so unfairly away from her. She tilted her head back and screamed out loud, her cry meaning nothing against the thousands of others that filled the city in the wake of so much destruction.
  
  Shr screamed three more times, finally slamming her hands down on the brick wall that surrounded the edge of the roof before her eyes abruptly landed on an overturned car about a block away.
  
  She knew the car. She knew the license plate. It was a rental, and the person who had rented it had driven away hours earlier and left her panicked and alone in the alley.
  
  It was the car that the Dealer had been driving.
  
  Keeping her eyes on that overturned vehicle, Haley used the fire escape and rushed down to the street. She ran all the way to the car, dropping to her knees to peer inside.
  
  The man was there, blood covering his face and shirt. He opened his eyes when Haley appeared, and gave her a weak smile. "Girl, you got no idea how glad I am to see you. Get me outta here, huh?"
  
  For a second, Haley knelt there and debated with herself. Then she reached inside the car... and took his metal suitcase.
  
  "Hey!" The man's protest was weak, his consciousness clearly failing him. "What... the hell you doing? I'm gonna die, bitch. Get me... outta here... help... me..."
  
  Hand tight on the handle of the case, Haley knelt there and stared at the slowly dying man. A lump formed in her throat, and she nearly helped him. In the end, however, she remembered what he had said to her when she was the one that wanted help and straightened. Her last words to him before turning to walk away with the metal briefcase full of power-giving vials were, "Sorry babe, our business is done."
  
  Present Day
  
  After leaving the bathroom once she was cleaned and dressed, Haley, who called herself Clepsydra, walked into the small kitchen of the apartment. Her eyes fell on the phone lying on the counter, and she asked herself, time until it rings? A one minute and fifty second countdown appeared in her head. From there, she turned to the door and asked herself, time until someone knocks? This time, she got nothing but mental fog. That meant that no one would be knocking for at least ten minutes, which was as far as her limited time-based precognition worked. She could focus on a single person or object and ask herself a question related to when something related to that target would happen. If it was within ten minutes, she would get an exact countdown. If not, she got nothing.
  
  Stepping to the counter, she began to pour herself a bowl of cereal. When the relevant countdown had nearly reached zero, she reached out and picked up the phone. Her thumb hit the answering button the very nanosecond that it began to ring. "Hello."
  
  "God, it's still fucking creepy when you do that." The man on the other end complained.
  
  "Sorry." She wasn't. "What happened, Duelitist?"
  
  "You know, you could call me Brent when we're out of costume. Not that you have a costume yet. Why is that, by the way? You just let me play at being the leader of our little Outliars. Don't you want the glory?"
  
  "I'll live." She was content to let the PRT think he was the one behind the group. In actuality, she had been the one who began what became the Outliars, by giving Brent and Camara, the first pair who had actually shown up with the money that she had quietly been asking for, two of the vials that had been in the case. Subsequently, they had taken the names of Duelitist and Scintillant.
  
  Those two had been test cases. She'd needed the hundred thousand dollars that they had provided to get her own goals off the ground. The remaining members of the Outliars had been natural capes, drawn to Brockton Bay by the tide of violence and the collapse of the Empire.
  
  Before she could put a better version of her father's company back on the map, she needed an army. The vials were a way of getting that army, yet she didn't want to give them all away at once. Just having a couple of people with powers had drawn natural capes to her fledgling group. They had acted as seeds, and even more had come. Eventually, she would find people she trusted, lieutenants that she would give powers to and groom. They would be more than the thugs that the Outliars were seen as.
  
  Brent hesitated then before pushing on. "Anyway, I wanted to ask... about Camara. I could get her out myself, but that'd be it for my cover. I'd be on the run."
  
  "Scintillant shouldn't have let herself be captured by a couple of Wards." Haley snapped before calming herself. "But I told you that we'd get her out, and we will. I just have to set up the right timing for it. What about Shadow Stalker?"
  
  "Protectorate's got her locked up tight. No chance we could get to her. Not even with my clearance. You uhh... you want us to trigger that bomb?"
  
  She thought about it for a moment, wondering what her father would have done. Finally, she shook her head. "Not yet. She could still be useful, especially if we get a hold of that suit she managed to attach to herself. What about Noelle, Luke, and Oliver? How are they doing without Trickster around to keep them calm?"
  
  "They're not happy. Especially the monster bitch," Brent replied. "You really think we can cure her?"
  
  "I know we can." Haley smiled faintly to herself. "Or rather, I knew the group around Pandora could, given the right motivation. We provided them with the vial they needed to make the cure. Now we have to get that vial back and make Noelle believe that we were instrumental in curing her."
  
  "So uhh, sending Trickster and Shadow Stalker off to get Pandora, you didn't expect anything to come of that?"
  
  She laughed out loud at that. "No, Trickster just annoyed me. And he has far too much influence over Noelle, influence that we need to have if any of this is going to work after we get that cure to her. But I couldn't very well have any of us kill him. I assumed Pandora would handle the job. I'll have to... think about what to do about him and Shadow Stalker being in custody."
  
  "You think he'll squeal about you?"
  
  Haley shook her head. "If he did, he can't tell them much besides the fact that I exist. He never saw me in person. No, I think we can still get some use out of this situation. I just need to think about how to do it."
  
  "And in the meantime..."
  
  Rolling her eyes, she poured the milk into her cereal. "In the meantime, we'll work on getting Scintillant out of custody, yes."
  
  "Great." Brent sounded happy then. "And hey, you really should think about that whole costume thing. You'd look so good in a skintight outfit. Mmmhmmm."
  
  "Maybe another time." Haley restrained the urge to snap at the man. He and his Outliars were the closest thing she had to an army for now.
  
  "Okay, but I still don't see why you don't want anyone to know that you're a part of all this."
  
  Smiling at her cereal, the girl gave a shrug that the man couldn't see as she replied, "Let's just say that for now..." She thought back to her interaction with Tether during the night of the explosions.
  
  "... I'm content to be just another face in the crowd."
  
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  Arc 21: Warfare
  Notes: Moka-girl - The lack of scene-break lines is because ffn eats my simple asterisks when I post it. I need to go alllllll the way back through and switch the asterisk spots with the horizontal lines that ffn uses. That's a project I will undertake eventually. For now, I did switch the horizontal lines in with this latest chapter, so we'll see how that works.
  
  Imageination - Duelitist's 'pal' seen early on will show up again. ;)
  
  HellKing666 - Yeah, the exact scene of Haley meeting Tether is from the first part of Arc 5. Now we know why she was so upset about that bag. ;) And yeah, I have definitely never seen anything about Misaka clones or even heard of them before now. Glad you like it, in any case. ;)
  
  "So, do you think this wall is going to combust or something after we finish painting it?" Dennis asked casually as he pushed the paint roller up in a long, smooth motion, covering more of the dull off-white color with a pretty pale blue. "I mean, your bedroom's on the other side, right?"
  
  I paused and squinted at the boy from where I was standing beside Lily and Hunter, trying to work out where he was going with that. "I give up, what does that have to do with anything?"
  
  Three days had passed since Jalopy had brought down Sophia, and neither the PRT or PCIPS agents who interrogated her or Trickster had had any more luck in figuring out who they were working for, or where the other Travelers were. They also hadn't figured out how to remove the organic suit from Sophia without killing her, considering how literally attached to her body it was.
  
  Dipping the roller back into the paint, Dennis looked over his shoulder back to us. "Well you know, Hunter's going for the nice, simple and elegant blue. Whereas your walls are..."
  
  "Interesting?" I offered. "Colorful and sparkly? Fun? I will accept any and all synonyms for exciting."
  
  "It's definitely colorful." Dennis agreed. "I just think the contrast of your... what do you call it?"
  
  "Spiraling tie-dye glitter rainbow sunrise." I informed him, trying to sound as prim as possible.
  
  "Spiraling tie-dye glitter rainbow sunrise," he echoed. "I think the contrast of that attached to the same wall that this," Dennis indicated the simple blue. "Might just cause some kind of implosion."
  
  "I like her bedroom walls." Lily put in with a shrug as she slipped past me to take one of the paint brushes so she could work on the trim for the opposite wall. "They're exciting."
  
  "See?" I grinned and patted Lily on the back. "She totally gets it." Glancing toward Hunter, I added, "Not that there's a problem with being simple. It's just not me."
  
  Hunter just shrugged and gave me a slight smile before tapping a few buttons on her computer pad. The voice spoke up for her with, "I like simple."
  
  "Plus your walls'll look like the sky when this is all done." Dennis realized as he stepped back to examine his work. "Which... was totally on purpose, wasn't it?" When she gave a hesitant nod, he looked back to it. "That'll look great."
  
  Blushing at that, Hunter attached her computer pad to her belt, then stepped over to pick up the second roller so that she could work alongside the red-haired boy. As I watched, she glanced over to see what he was doing, then looked away shyly when he turned to see what she wanted, her blush deepening. Dennis's mouth opened like he was going to ask something, but in the end he just exhaled and made another stroke of the roller.
  
  While I rolled my eyes at their little dance and heaved a silent, exasperated sigh of my own, Lily moved next to me. She leaned in close to whisper under her breath so that the other two wouldn't hear, "So, how's the plan of getting those two to admit they like each other going?"
  
  I blinked sidelong at her and whispered back, "I don't remember telling you about that plan."
  
  "You didn't have to." She winked at me. "You're not as subtle as you think you are." Her hand waved toward Dennis and Hunter. "And they're even less subtle than that."
  
  "What's all the whispering about back there?" Dennis was squinting at the two of us suspiciously. "Are you guys plotting our demise or what?"
  
  I snorted at that and gave him a thumbs up. "Yup, you caught us. Totally plotting how to kill you both and take over your lives. We're thumb wrestling over which one of us gets stuck with yours."
  
  He made a wounded noise and put his free hand against his chest. "That hurts, Maddy, right here. I'll have you know most people would love to take over my life."
  
  Snickering in spite of myself, I waved a hand. "Sure, Dennis, have your delusions." Ignoring his sputtering, I stepped over to where Hunter was and poked her. "I bet we could get some wispy white clouds mixed into the blue to it's even more like the sky."
  
  Her head bobbed in a quick nod before she pointed up at the ceiling and made a few quick wiggling motions with her fingers.
  
  "Sure, we can get some stars up there too, no problem."
  
  Lily looked back and forth between us. "You understood what she meant just from this?" She duplicated Hunter's finger wiggle.
  
  I made a show of shaking my head while teasing the other girl. "No see, she said 'we need stars on the ceiling'. You just said 'I'm clearly suffering from terrible nerve damage in my hand.'"
  
  There was a brief knock at the doorjamb before Sam stuck her head in. "Who's got nerve damage?"
  
  Lily was huffing at me before glancing that way. "Nobody, Mrs. O'Connell. Madison's just a brat."
  
  "Please, please just stick with Sam, Lily. So business as usual then." Sam stepped into the room, taking a look around. "Nice, I like the blue. It's not as crazy as what Maddy went with."
  
  "Philistine." I sniffed. "Lily likes my walls. So does Ethan."
  
  "Ethan still likes cramming himself full of cotton candy and then going on those rides at the fair that spin you around really, really fast." Sam pointed out. "He doesn't exactly do quietly elegant."
  
  "Cotton candy's the best," I informed her before asking, "I don't suppose they got anything out of the two stooges today?"
  
  Her head shook at that. "Nope, Shadow Stalker's still refusing to cooperate at all, and Trickster's playing his games. Giving false information and then acting surprised when it doesn't pan out. He won't even play ball with Jess or Marissa. It's just one lie after another."
  
  Setting her roller down, Hunter turned to me and frowned thoughtfully. Putting two fingers out like legs, she mimed walking away.
  
  I shook my head at that. "Even Krouse can't be delusional enough to think that he can just walk away from all this." Hunter repeated the gesture, except this time she hooked the finger of her other hand around the two fingers that made up her simulated 'legs' as though carrying them away. That time I nodded. "Though he might think that someone else will get him out, yeah."
  
  "Who could he think has the kind of pull to yank him out of this level of custody?" Dennis demanded. "The only reason he's not in the Birdcage already is the information they want about Noelle."
  
  "Which is exactly why he's not telling us anything." Sam sighed. "Because he knows that's the only thing keeping him where whoever his contact is might be able to get to him."
  
  "Well, that and loyalty to Noelle." I pointed out. "Whatever else you can say about him, Mars and Jess both say that he'd do anything for her. Even really, really stupid things, repeatedly."
  
  "No he won't." Sam's voice was firm. "He might think that he'd do anything for her, but that's just words. The most important thing he could do for that girl now is admit that he was wrong. And that's something he refuses to do. If he'd just admit that he fucked up and kept making things worse, we could all help Noelle, or at least try to. But if he admits that, he has to accept that it was his fault, that he isn't her savior, and he won't. So no, he won't do 'anything' for her. He'll do 'anything' as long as he still gets to be right. That's not love. It's obsession."
  
  I heaved a long sigh. "I hope they figure out a way to make him talk soon. From what Mars and Jess said, Noelle could get really upset if he's not around. And an upset Noelle could be bad for everyone."
  
  The next day I was walking down the hall at school between first and second period when a voice called for my attention, "Hey Madison, check this out." Chris was beckoning me over from where he stood by some lockers with a couple other sophomore boys.
  
  Blinking at his call, I stepped over that way. "Err, what's up?"
  
  "Hey, badass unicorn shirt." One of the boys gave me a mocking thumbs up. "Did it come with the glitter or did you have to add that yourself?"
  
  Chris kicked his foot. "Don't be a dick, Roy."
  
  "Oh don't worry about it, Chris." I said sweetly. "If I had a quarter for every person who thought I cared about their opinion on my clothing choices, I could afford to have just how little I do etched onto the moon with a laser."
  
  "Oooh, it's got teeth with the glittery unicorn shirt." One of the other boys remarked. "Watch out, Roy. What're you, a Freshman?"
  
  I barely restrained myself from scowling. "I'm a junior, and I'm not that small." Looking toward Chris while the other boys reacted to that, I asked, "Did you need something, or did you just want to let your friend give some fashion advice?"
  
  "Chris thinks his lab partner ripped me off." The boy who had asked if I was a Freshman replied for him. "But I say he's crazy and it's the real deal."
  
  "What's real?" I asked, looking back and forth between them.
  
  "Oh, just this." Chris nudged the locker with his foot, making it swing open.
  
  I nearly choked at what I saw. On the inside of the door was a poster of me. Or rather, a poster of Tether. It was one of the public relations shots that they made us do, that I had thus far done my level best to forget about. "Uh, oh, umm..."
  
  "I know, awesome huh?" The boy was grinning as he reached up to point at some words that had been written toward the bottom of the poster, running his fingers along them proudly.
  
  I read aloud, 'To Aisha, my coolest friend.'" It was signed by 'Tether.' Blinking, I asked, "Who's Aisha?"
  
  "Yo." A new voice spoke up, and I turned to see the pretty black girl with the streak of white in her dark hair that Chris had been talking to outside of the library. "Sup?" She lifted her chin to me before looking past us at the poster. "Aww, you hung it up already, Jack." Her head shook with regret. "Man, I shouldn't have let you talk me out of it."
  
  "Hey," the proud owner of the poster, Jack apparently, pointed at her. "No take-backs. We agreed, fifty bucks and I get the poster. Not my fault if you get seller's remorse."
  
  I had to do a double take at that. "Fifty bucks?" I'd seen all the official Wards posters that size selling for about ten dollars each. "Isn't that a little bit much?"
  
  "That's what I said." Chris was eying Aisha pointedly. "But you know, somebody insisted that the signature makes it worth a lot more than normal."
  
  The other girl just smiled enigmatically. "Hey, it had sentimental value. You saw what it said. 'To my coolest friend.' Besides, there's not a lot of Tether-signed merch out there. Scarcity breeds worth."
  
  Jack shut his locker then. "Chris still thinks you ripped me off or something."
  
  Aisha made an obvious show of gasping, pressing a hand against her chest in mock surprise. "Rip him off? Now, is that how trusted lab partners should treat each other? Where's the trust?"
  
  "Yeah, dude." Jack pushed off his locker and reached into his pocket. "Besides, I'm not stupid. I made sure to get the certificate of authenticity." He pulled a folded paper out and held it up for us to read.
  
  Chris leaned close. "This document certifies that the enclosed is an official PRT sanctioned and verified poster of the Ward hero known as Tether."
  
  "See?" Jack sounded smug as he tucked the certificate back into his pocket. "And you were worried. C'mon, Roy, let's get to gym." He and the other boy headed off together.
  
  As soon as they were gone, Aisha started to cackle. The sound tickled my memory, but before I could focus too much on it, Chris interrupted, "A certificate of authenticity, really?"
  
  The girl shrugged. "Hey, I didn't forge it. Is it my fault that he's too stupid to notice that it doesn't say anything about the autograph being real? Fifty bucks isn't the worst idiot tax I could've hit him with."
  
  Chris shook his head slowly. "You're totally not giving the money back, are you?"
  
  Aisha made a disparaging noise. "Pffft, hell no. I need that fifty bucks more than he does. Obviously, or he'd pay more attention to what he buys with it. And you-" She poked him in the chest. "Have got to stop trying to spoil my fun. Just cuz we're lab partners doesn't mean I won't fuck you up."
  
  Turning then, she looked me up and down. "Cute shirt. You know Chris?"
  
  "We've hung out a little bit." I shrugged, trying not to sound evasive. "You guys are lab partners?"
  
  "Well for now we are." Aisha eyed the boy and sniffed. "If he keeps trying to fuck up my side business, maybe I'll find a better partner."
  
  Chris didn't seem worried. "Oh yeah? Like who?"
  
  Aisha's mouth opened and then shut and she cursed under her breath before waving a hand. "Whatever." She focused on me once again. "So what'd you think of the poster?"
  
  "Err," I blinked at that. "Why are you asking me?"
  
  Before the other girl could respond, there was a sudden scream from down the hall. Twisting that way quickly, my eyes widened at the sight of three full grown men in masks, carrying assault rifles.
  
  My throat closed up at that. There were men with guns inside the school.
  
  "This is your only warning!" The man in the lead announced. "All of you, everyone go straight to the cafeteria and nobody will be hurt." When the crowd of teenagers in the hall just stared at him in frozen shock, he hefted the rifle. "Move! Cafeteria, now!"
  
  I looked at Chris, then down the hall toward the janitor's closet where our costumes were stored behind a false wall. It was past where the gunmen were.
  
  Chris shook his head subtly, and the two of us were herded alongside Aisha and the other students. There was no way to get to the costumes without being seen, and it was too dangerous to start a fight right here before we had any idea of what was going on. Even if the fact that this jackasses brought guns onto school grounds did make me want to introduce all three of their rifles to their crotches repeatedly. For now though, all either of us could do was hit the emergency button on our cell phones that would alert the PRT.
  
  Aisha, for her part, didn't seem scared. "Shit." She muttered in annoyance before mimicking the deep voice of someone older and male, 'You have to go to Arcadia, Eesh, it's the safe school.' Fuck you, bro, fuck you."
  
  More gunmen were herding the rest of the students into the cafeteria as well, along with the staff. They were moving quickly and efficiently, and I could count at least twenty of them, all heavily armed.
  
  Across the room, I could see Lily alongside Amy. Cassie and Theo were a little bit further back.
  
  The crowd of scared, confused students and teachers were herded into the middle of the cafeteria, forced to bunch up together since the place wasn't meant to hold everyone in school at once. I kept watching for warning lines, but so far no one appeared to be in immediate physical danger.
  
  Once everyone had been gathered, I found myself pressed tight against Chris and Aisha while we waited for someone to make another move. I tried to think. If need be, since we were all here and there was no way to tell who was doing it, could I rip everyone's guns out of their hands? It would need to be fast, at least ten at a time without any pause in between to give them any chance to react. And even then, could I manage it? And if I did, they might have other weapons.
  
  I was still considering it, when another voice spoke up. "You will all be silent!"
  
  The voices of confusion and worry stopped abruptly, and everyone turned toward the front of the cafeteria where Lung stood, flanked by Impasse, Oni Lee, and Feast.
  
  My heart sank at that sight. This just kept getting worse. What the hell was Lung doing here?
  
  Once he had everyone's attention, the man stepped up onto a table so that we could all see him. "Some of my people believe that we should not be in this town, that the heroes here are too strong.
  
  "Today, we will prove them wrong. They are frightened of the Wards, but we will show them that there is nothing to fear. We will show them that the Wards are only people, only children.
  
  "The Wards will show themselves. They will come forward now and let all see that they are only children. They will do so within five minutes.
  
  "If they refuse, ten children will die for every minute that they are late."
  
  Needless to say, the threat made more than a few of the students start to freak out, forcing the various gunmen around the room to resort to shouted orders and threats to get things back under control. The teachers and other faculty seemed divided between calming students and trying to reason with the psychopaths that had taken over the school.
  
  In the meantime, Lily caught my eye from across the room. Lifting one hand to scratch her cheek, she used the other to tap her wrist before subtly and briefly pointing toward me with her scratching finger.
  
  Slowly, I lifted my hand to wipe across my face, displaying Jalopy for her. We'd had a chat about the little robot after Mika had seen him in action.
  
  Nodding, Lily took another moment before pointedly looking up and away toward the top left corner. I followed her gaze and found the speaker for the intercom system above and to the left of the kitchen entrance where a couple of guards stood. Frowning, I looked back to Lily uncertainly. She paused as though considering how to explain what she wanted, then tapped her wrist again and made a few motions with her fingers like they were legs that were dancing.
  
  That time I got it. Nodding, I glanced to Chris, who was tense as he looked at me. I couldn't imagine how helpless it must feel to be a tinker and not have any equipment with you in a situation like this. He also couldn't exactly talk to me, since Aisha was still right there. I mouthed, 'cover me' to him and nodded toward his lab partner.
  
  Turning so that his body shielded my actions, Chris pitched his voice upward to be worried as he faced Aisha. "You don't really think they'd kill anybody here, do you? I mean, they're not stupid enough to bring that kind of heat down on them, right?"
  
  While Aisha responded to that, I lifted my hands to cover my face like I was terrified, while whispering under my breath to Jalopy. "Okay, buddy. I need you to sneak out of here, get to the main office, and play some really distracting music over the loud speaker. Can you do that?" He gave a brief vibration of confirmation, and I lowered my hands, linking them behind my back while looking around. As I watched the guards restoring order, Jalopy's form shifted on my wrist before he jumped down.
  
  I still felt nervous letting my tiny bodyguard run off without me. Even with all that he had done to help and how tough he was, I cared about the little guy too much to not worry about sending him out alone.
  
  Still, at the moment all I could do was wait. He disappeared from my sight almost immediately, moving through the sea of terrified teenagers, some of whom were openly calling out for the Wards to just go ahead and show themselves. Which must have been why Lung didn't seem too concerned about quieting the students down. He wanted us to hear their fear and the condemnation in their voices.
  
  Exposing ourselves wouldn't solve the problem. It would remove our ability to act in this situation, limit our ability to act in future situations, and put even more people in danger. There was absolutely no guarantee, or even reasonable belief, that they would spare people once they had us under control. So as tempting as it was to believe that letting them see who we were would make things better, it was only an illusion of safety, a trap that would make the larger situation much worse.
  
  "Four minutes more!" Lung announced. "We know that you are here, Wards. You will show yourselves and we will fight you. Or you will not show yourselves, and we will kill others. You are deciding this."
  
  For the moment, all we could do was stand and wait for Jalopy to follow through on his part. If he helped us pull this off, I was seriously considering having him instated as an official team member.
  
  Cassie and Theo caught my attention, the former mouthing an exaggerated 'Well?' as she lifted her hands apart in a questioning gesture. Obviously she wanted to know what the hell we were doing.
  
  I made a calming motion with a hand and then looked toward Lily. The other girl was still standing near Amy even as a small group of upset students tried to argue with the healer that, as the only cape they knew about, she should do something to fix this entire situation. The look on Lily's face made it clear that she wanted to make the crowd shut up and leave Amy alone, but she couldn't do so without drawing far too much attention to herself.
  
  When she found me looking at her, Lily tapped her ear and nodded toward the loudspeaker. Then she nodded toward me and scratched at her cheek, using the motion to point at the ceiling before making a yanking motion with her hand as she pulled it away from her face.
  
  That one took me a second, and I looked up at the ceiling uncomprehendingly for a moment before my eyes settled on the lights. Turning back to the other girl, I mouthed, 'Lights?' before closing my eyes pointedly. She nodded once my eyes were open again, and I understood. She wanted me to make sure the lights went out when the time came.
  
  Theo and Chris also seemed to be communicating silently, subtly gesturing back and forth to each other. I wasn't sure what they were up to, but Theo was doing something with the watch on his wrist. Every once in a while, Chris would communicate something to Lily, whom Theo couldn't see from where he was standing. We were doing the best we could to communicate in this environment.
  
  When we got out of this, I was so going to demand that we be given the ability to bypass the cell phone blocking. Being able to text each other would have made this so much easier.
  
  Lung had just announced the three minute warning when the speaker system crackled, drawing everyone's attention. There was another crackle, and Lung started to say something to Oni Lee, before the speaker suddenly came alive, blaring 'Takin' Care Of Business' by Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
  
  The second that the music started and everyone jumped, I focused on the panel near the door, attaching three tiny lines between each of the switches there and the floor beneath the panel. A mild yank later and the cafeteria was plunged into darkness.
  
  In the ensuing confusion, Chris grabbed my wrist and pulled me backwards. I moved with him, while bodies rushed all around us. As dark as it was, the masked gunmen couldn't risk pulling their triggers without hitting one of their partners, and Lung's groupies didn't know where to direct their powers.
  
  I realized belatedly where Chris was pulling me: the kitchen that connected to the cafeteria. The doors were open and the room in there was dark as well. The couple of gunmen that had been blocking the entrance had stepped toward the loudspeaker when the music started, which gave us just enough room to slip past them in the dark, while the noise of both the song and the people shouting covered the sound of our movements.
  
  We reached the kitchen, passing the doorway and managing to get in and out of sight a bare handful of seconds before one of the gang members out there found the switch and the lights came back on.
  
  We'd all made it. Lily, Cassie, and Theo were there, along with Amy. Before any of us could speak, there was a heart-stopping gunshot from the cafeteria. I hadn't seen any kind of warning line when the lights came back a second earlier, but still...
  
  My eyes widened and I started to rise, but Theo waved me down, his eyes on his watch as he whispered, "Warning shot." When I peered closer, I could see that he had tapped into the security camera feed and was watching what was happening out there on the tiny screen of his watch.
  
  Lung's voice bellowed from outside, saying that he was tired of games and that if we didn't show ourselves in two minutes, he was going to have twenty students killed instead. Then he ordered some of his men to go and stop the music that was playing.
  
  "Two minutes, what are we doing?" I asked, looking toward Lily.
  
  "Costumes and equipment so we can deal with these jackasses." She announced. "But first we need a way to get more time before he starts shooting."
  
  "I'll get you the time you need." Amy promised. "I can stall them, trust me. Just don't take too long."
  
  Lily hesitated, but finally nodded. "Be careful. If anyone finds out I told you to take a stupid risk..."
  
  "You didn't tell me to do anything." Amy informed her. "I'm not a delicate flower that everyone has to shield and protect. They know my face, so I'm the one that can talk to them. Do you have a way out?"
  
  "Over here." Chris whispered from a corner where he was opened the door of a tall cabinet. Reaching inside, he pushed against the inside wall and slid it aside to reveal a hidden room beyond.
  
  "Okay," Cassie demanded. "When were you guys planning to tell me about the secret exits? Because that seems like it should've been relevant information before something like this happened."
  
  "Oops. Just come on." Chris beckoned with a hand. "There's a few spots like this around school. They all lead down to where the extra equipment is."
  
  The others moved for the cabinet, while I hesitated, looking at Amy. "Any idea where Pandora is?"
  
  "Waiting for me across the street, the last I knew." Amy admitted. "I don't know if she knows anything's wrong yet. She wanted to be in the school, but I pointed out that they keep careful tabs on attendance here and some random person just showing up and sitting in on classes wouldn't work."
  
  I made her promise to be careful once more before moving to join the others. The hole in the back of the cabinet led to a fairly cramped tunnel that made me feel bad for how tiny it had to feel to someone like Theo, who was crammed in just ahead of me.
  
  Nonetheless, we squeezed our way through, and I noticed that the space we were in had to be between the exterior wall and the inner hallway. I wondered briefly how they managed to do that without making even that much difference in size obvious, before realizing how unlikely it was that any high school student would pay that much attention.
  
  A few steps in, I heard Amy's voice coming from Theo's watch, broadcast by the security system. I leaned in closer, and he held it up for me to see while we continued to edge our way through the cramped tunnel, only able to move so quickly.
  
  "Lung!" Amy had her hand on the neck of one of the masked guards. "You're not killing anyone."
  
  The tiny image of Feast on the screen looked like he wanted to eat Amy then and there, but Lung stopped him with a hand before inclining his head. "Daughter of Marquis. I would leave you unharmed. Do not make me change this decision."
  
  "Anyone fires so much as a bullet," Amy informed him. "And I'll change Buddy here so that his lungs convert air into poison gas before he exhales it. You'll all be dead inside of thirty seconds."
  
  Another few steps brought us to the hidden room that I'd already known about, the one containing our costumes. I slipped out behind Theo, then moved to the locker where my equipment was and started to change. By that point, none of us paid attention to the privacy curtain that was supposed to separate the males changing from the females. There wasn't time, and frankly we were all too busy listening to the sounds coming from Theo's watch to worry about modesty.
  
  There was a tinny noise that I recognized a moment later as Lung chuckling. "You are not capable. You are healer, not killer, not warrior."
  
  Amy's voice was hard. "Lately I've found myself being open to new and exciting experiences. Yesterday I tried moussaka for the first time. Last week I went skydiving. That was an adventure. This week, hmm, maybe I'll try making a bunch of wannabe child-killers puke their lungs up into their hands and see how I like it."
  
  "You would kill others." Lung pointed out. "Many more than only us in this room."
  
  "So maybe I'll fix it so the gas is benign unless it's filtered through those stupid black ski masks your thugs all seem to like so much."
  
  Lung snorted with disbelief then. "You make believe that you are capable of so much control."
  
  By that time, we had finished changing. I pulled the mask on last before looking toward Flechette. "Now what? Amy can't stall for much longer."
  
  Lily answered by activating her comm. "Control? There's a hostage situation at the school."
  
  "We know." The voice that came back was terse and harried. "Sorry, Wards, you're on your own for the moment."
  
  "What do you mean we're on our own?" Lily demanded. "Lung's here with all his men. There's teenagers here, innocent kids."
  
  "Sorry." The agent on control duty repeated. "But Bakuda showed up and she's got bombs all over the place out there. She says she'll set them off if anyone interferes. They evacuated everywhere within a four block radius. No one's allowed in, not even Protectorate. They're trying to track down Bakuda now and put a stop to it, but for the time being, you're all we've got in there."
  
  Obviously flinching, Lily disconnected and then looked back to the rest of us. "Come on, I have an idea."
  
  Amy was still stalling as we quietly exited the closet area and emerged into the hallway. At the end of the corridor, I saw another of the masked men standing at the base of a flight of stairs, watching the street outside through the window there. Before he could notice us and raise an alarm, I pulled his gun out of his hand, then attached a line from the man's crotch to the railing of the stairs that he was near and proceeded to yank on that line, forcing him into the worst hip thrust of his life.
  
  A moment later, Lily led us to the main office. The two thugs that Lung had sent to check on the music were lying unmoving on the ground, while Jalopy perched on the back of one of them, poking the back of his head as if prodding him to stop being a wuss and keep fighting. When he saw us, the little robot quickly scrambled toward me and hopped up to take his spot on my wrist once more.
  
  "Okay that thing?" Chris was nodding toward it. "That's freaking awesome."
  
  "I'm telling you, honorary Ward." I smiled and gave my little bot a pat before looking to Lily. "Amy's running out of things to say."
  
  "I know." She turned away from us, picking up the microphone for the intercom system. She flicked the line to the cafeteria on and then cleared her throat before speaking. "Coward."
  
  Theo pressed a button on his mace, and one of his drones displayed a holographic image of the security camera feed. Lung was focused on the speaker. "You will fight, or they will-"
  
  "We're not in there, idiot." Flechette interrupted. "You want to fight us, then come get us. Or you can stay in there with your hostages so that everyone knows that the great, powerful Lung is a lie, and that you're really a wimp who hides behind hostages and innocents so that the teenagers don't hurt you. You're not a warrior, Lung. You're a child-killing coward."
  
  Lung was beyond rational thought at that point, bellowing about how he was going to rip us apart as he moved for the exit, accompanied by some (but not all) of his men.
  
  "Well we got their attention, boss." Reach acknowledged. "Now what?"
  
  Flechette checked her sword before nodding to the door. "Move. Spread out, keep them occupied, pick off everyone we can. Until the Protectorate clears Bakuda's bombs, we're on our own.
  
  "Let's make Lung's people realize that they're the ones that are trapped in here with us."
  
  21.03
  
  Reach and I stayed together as we ran up the stairs to the second floor, where the science wing was. The rest of the team had spread out elsewhere, but thanks to our comms, we could actually stay in contact this time. No more elaborate pantomime needed.
  
  The basic plan was that we would pick off Lung's lieutenants and his soldiers one by one, while not actually engaging with the man himself. Hit and run tactics, avoiding a direct fight with Lung himself until we dealt with all of the minions. We were trying not to have an actual fight with him until or unless we had to, so he'd have less opportunity to get amped up. Which also meant that we didn't want to have a long, drawn out or obvious fight with his men either, and risk drawing him to where it was happening. So we needed to choose our battles, hit his men when we could take out a couple and then get away before Lung had a chance to show up. And most of all, we needed to draw as much of their attention as possible away from the cafeteria and the civilians.
  
  Once we reached the top of the stairs, I caught Reach by the arm and attached lines to haul the two of us up to the ceiling, similar to what I had done when we were running from the guys in the Birdcage. Some of them were same guys that we were avoiding now, actually.
  
  We both flattened our backs against the ceiling just above the stairway and listened to the stampeding boots as a rush of men approached from below. There was a pause at the foot of the stairs, and I heard a gruff voice order some of the men to go upstairs while the rest would come with him to clear the lower halls. In the distance, Lung bellowed something about what he was going to do to us, but I ignored it to focus on the immediately relevant threat.
  
  Three men with guns and a parahuman that I didn't recognize came tromping up the stairs, passing beneath us. The cape was some new thug that had obviously joined up with Lung recently. His armor was some kind of snake motif, with green chain-mail that emulated shiny scales over a black body suit, while the helmet looked like a cobra's head rearing to strike with the flared hood.
  
  We waited until they were right under us before dropping. Reach and I each collided with one of the armed men, knocking both to the ground. I brought my gauntlet back and then punched down at the back of my guy's head to put him down, before lifting my gaze in time to see the third gunman spinning around with his gun raised. Quickly, I attached a line between the barrel and the leg of the parahuman just before the trigger was pulled. The snake-man stumbled from the gunshot, but it didn't look like the bullet was able to penetrate through the armor. Which meant my knock out darts wouldn't either. Great.
  
  In the meantime, Reach sent the downed body of her thug flying into the face of the third man to knock him backwards. I used that opening to roll forward and then spun to kick the stumbling man's leg out from under him so that he fell heavily with his unconscious companion lying on top of him. His head turned toward me as he tried to heave the other thug off himself, and I used a line-enhanced kick from my boots to put him down for good.
  
  By that point, the snake-themed cape had recovered from his stumble. His gaze was locked on me as he made a sound as if hocking up a loogie. I froze for just a second, thinking, ewwww, before coming back to my senses in time to dive out of the way just before the mouth part of the man's helmet slid aside long enough for him to spit a softball sized wad of greenish... stuff that melted right through the nearest wall with a sizzle.
  
  Acid spit, fantastic. At least we knew what he was capable of now. I came up on my knees and wagged my finger at him. "Hey! Don't you know there's no spitballs allowed in school? You keep pushing your luck, young man, and you're going straight to the principal's office."
  
  Before he could respond to that, I looked toward Reach. "Ready?" At her short nod, I attached lines to her feet and gave her a firm shove up and forward just as she pushed off. The momentum threw the other girl into a long dive that sent her sailing and and over the man's shoulder while he recoiled in surprise before she landed behind him.
  
  The man looked back and forth between the two of us on either side of him. Then he chose me and sent another spray of acid in my direction. It was all I could do to drop and roll beneath it while the acid spit went through another wall. "You got it, Reach?"
  
  She gave me a thumbs up. "Yup." The man pivoted to look at her, just as she made a dismissive waving motion with her hand. Instantly, the snake-boy was thrown sideways into the nearby wall, then thrown back the opposite way to the other wall, then bounced off the ceiling before hitting the floor with a weak groan. As planned, Reach had managed to tag the guy's costume when I threw her past him.
  
  Before the man could recover from being thrown around so violently, I reached his prone, groaning form and knelt down while slipping one of my knock-out darts from where the extras were stored. Grabbing his helmet, I shoved it up enough to expose the man's neck and then jammed the dart there. He stopped moving within a couple seconds, slumping down.
  
  The fight had taken too long, and there were already footsteps rushing our way from downstairs. I straightened from the man and started to jog along with Reach, the two of us sprinting down the hallway before ducking into one of the classrooms.
  
  We had entered the back of a long science lab. The room was lined with heavy metal tables covered in microscopes and more equipment, as well as all the backpacks and books that had been left behind when the gunmen had stormed through while forcing everyone to the cafeteria.
  
  Separating as soon as we went through the door, the two of us flattened ourselves onto either side of it. I stripped one of the darts and underhand tossed it to Reach, before grabbing one of my own. A few seconds later, two more gunmen came through. The second their guns came into view, I attached lines from both barrels to the opposite wall and yanked them out of their grasps. Both were met with a dart to the neck from either of us, collapsing to the floor before they could shout a warning.
  
  Panting a little, I looked toward Cassie. "You good?"
  
  She nodded, stretching out and cracking her neck from one side to the other. "Tell you one thing, this new costume's a lot easier to move in than the robe was."
  
  "Should it really be considered new still?" I asked, while poking my head out the doorway to make sure the hall was clear. There were voices, but they were still further back. "You've been wearing it for over a month now."
  
  "I wore the other one for years," she pointed out before giving me a little push. "Come on, let's go. Bad guys ain't gonna beat the shit out of themselves. " My mouth opened, but she interrupted with an idle wave of her hand. "Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can make sure they do."
  
  "Reach, Tether, how are you guys doing up there?" Flechette sounded like she was out of breath. She had gone off by herself, leaving our two tinkers to work together.
  
  "Six down," I replied. "Five thugs and one snake-boy with acid spit."
  
  "Cobra." Flechette confirmed. "Good. Think you guys can work your way back around to the lower halls and get to the cafeteria? I'm not sure how long Panacea can keep everyone safe in there. Sooner we secure the hostages, sooner we can get this over with."
  
  Looking to Reach, I waited for her to nod before confirming, "You got it. On our way."
  
  Unfortunately, we had barely stepped into the hall once more before a line attached itself to Cassie. I quickly dove into her, knocking both of us sprawling just as a crack of gunfire filled the air. Several bullets punched more holes through the wall where we had been, and I rolled quickly to the side and through the doorway on the opposite side of the hall before the gunman could adjust his aim.
  
  Two more gunshots came before I heard a sharp cry from down the hall. When I poked my head out again, I saw Reach with her hand outstretched, summoning one of her metal balls back to her. A quick glance toward where the bullets had been coming from revealed a man lying in a pool of blood from where the ball had gone straight through him. He wasn't dead, but he was definitely in bad shape.
  
  Grimacing, I took a step that way, but Cassie caught my arm. "More guys that way, Tether. Come on, the back stairs." When I still hesitated, glancing back toward the bleeding man, she shook her head. "Look, he's not some innocent guy. The son of a bitch was here to kill kids. He was shooting at us. Besides, you go down there and you're wasting time that we could use to help the people downstairs. Remember them? The civilians, they're the ones that didn't do anything to deserve this. They're the ones that need help, not that piece of shit. So let's help them."
  
  I took a breath before letting it out as I turned to run with her. "The civilians didn't do anything to deserve this? You've... grown up a lot since you joined the team."
  
  Her blush wasn't visible, but I knew it was there as she muttered, "Oh shut up."
  
  The good news was that we reached the back stairwell. The bad news was that it was already occupied. I'd barely had a chance to come around the corner of the doorway and onto the landing, having gotten there just ahead of Reach, before a figure crashed into me. Even in spite of my padded costume, the air was still knocked out of me as I was sent sprawling back out into the hall with a cry.
  
  Training with Grace had helped, and I managed to roll with the fall even after the unexpected blow that had stolen most of my air. I came back up onto my hands and knees before lifting my head to see Reach as she was casually flung through the doorway and down the stairs.
  
  It was another of Lung's capes that I didn't recognize. His skin was a dark bronze color, almost metallic. My best guess from the way that he had hit me was that he was a brute of some kind.
  
  Obviously, the metal skin might mean I could likely attach lines to him. Unfortunately, he didn't give me the chance. He might have been metal, but he was also fast. Before I could react, he came in fast enough to grab my arm and nearly yanked it out of socket as he hauled me up. I found myself spun through the air as the man tried to slam me sideways into the wall with enough force that, had I hit face-first the way that he wanted me to, probably would have snapped my neck.
  
  Months ago, I would have frozen in terror at that point. Now, the memory of Ethan swinging me around in jest came back to me and I remembered what I had done then. Grunting, I twisted my body enough that my feet hit the wall first, the impact gel inside reducing the force so much that I barely felt it. Then I attached a line between my boots and the wall, using them to push off the wall and out of the man's grasp as I went over his shoulder. As soon as I hit the ground, I threw myself up once more, using one line on my foot to propel myself higher before using another line between my glove and the ceiling to hold myself up there for a couple seconds longer than what should have been possible.
  
  The man spun around below me, reaching for where I should have been. Instead, I gave myself a heave and dropped behind him. As I fell, I flipped around, attaching lines between both feet and his back before using them to nail him with all the force I could muster. I was yanked from a fall into a sort of sideways flying kick that would have looked right at home with any wire-fu martial arts film.
  
  Even with his enhanced strength, the line-enhanced blow still knocked the man into a forward stumble, and gave me time to get back to my feet before he could recover.
  
  The man started to turn back to me, but I quickly attached a pair of lines between his shoulders and the floor beneath him, giving a heave that yanked even his powerful form down. He struggled, but I used another pair of lines to yank his arms to the floor, and yet another pair to hold his legs down.
  
  "What the fuck!?" The bronze man yanked at the invisible lines that held him, but couldn't budge. "Let me out of this, you stupid, worthless little cunt! I was just gonna break your face, but now you pissed me off, so I'll really fucking hurt you!"
  
  "Well somebody's got a real potty mouth." I chastised while dropping down to perch on top of the struggling man's chest. He struggled uselessly, my lines continuing to hold him in place. "See, usually, I can't do this to brutes, cuz you'll just tear your way out of the clothes that I pin to the floor."
  
  "I'll tear you ! If you don't lemme up, I'm gonna make you wish you never put on that god damn costume!" The man continued on with some other threats that I mostly ignored, though I was still really glad that he was relatively helpless at the moment. He was not a nice man, to say the least.
  
  Honestly, it was hard to hold that many lines for so long, but I didn't let him know that. Instead, I tapped his chest and spoke over his threats. "But you came with your own handy-dandy metal skin, which means I can hold you down as long as I want to. So thanks for that, it was super-considerate."
  
  He started to say something else, but I quickly covered his mouth and nose with both of my hands. "No no, don't speak. You'll ruin this moment that I'm sure we'll both treasure forever."
  
  The man's eyes widened when my hands didn't move, and he started to struggle even more furiously. But I kept focusing on my lines, holding them in place while keeping my hands over his mouth and nose to cut off his air supply. After longer than I thought it would take, the man finally stopped struggling and slumped. Just to be sure, I held on for another few seconds before releasing him.
  
  When I looked up, Cassie was there in the doorway. There was blood on her costume, and I started a little. "Reach?"
  
  "Not mine." She assured me before turning back to the stairs. "There were a couple more piss-sticks down there I had to deal with. That's what took me so long to get back. Ready?"
  
  I looked back to the downed man, pausing briefly before nodding. "Yeah, let's go."
  
  This time, we made it down the stairs without being interrupted, passing a couple of unmoving forms in the corner of the bottom stairwell on the way out.
  
  We emerged into the corridor at the back end of the school, about as far from the cafeteria as possible. "Hurry," I urged quietly, starting to jog while trying not to attract attention. "We need to get to Panacea."
  
  A new voice interrupted before we had gone more than a few steps. "Aww, running away to the healer?" The albino, Feast, emerged from a nearby classroom where he had obviously been lurking, putting himself in our path. "The healer can't help you if there isn't anything left to touch." He showed his full mouth of sharp canine teeth. "How will you taste, hmm?"
  
  Reach sent two metal balls zinging his way, which I followed up with a dart from my gauntlet. Before they could hit the cannibal, his hand came up. I caught a brief glance of some kind of vial before he poured the contents down his throat. The instant that he did, his skin turned wispy and indistinct, darkening slightly into a pale yellowish cloud while his clothes fell away. The dart and the two balls went right through his form.
  
  Somehow, he could still talk. I wasn't sure how that worked. "Drugged gas. You'll inhale it, be paralyzed, and then we can have some real fun."
  
  Cursing under my breath, I took a step back. "Hey, everyone has a gas problem sometimes. But they've got plenty of medicine to deal with that sort of thing. You have nothing to be embarrassed about." I was yammering, stalling for a chance to think of a way to stop the man. I could use lines to get past him, but all that would do was drag the paralytic cloud all the way back with us to where all the civilians were. Not exactly a win.
  
  For his part, the man just chuckled before starting to sweep forward toward us. Then, in mid-motion, the cloud suddenly stopped short while he made a muffled noise of confusion.
  
  "Err..." I looked at Reach briefly, but she just shrugged back at me.
  
  Then I heard that familiar cackle, and finally remembered where I'd heard it before. Sure enough, Aisha, or rather, Freezetag popped her head out from behind the frozen cloud, withdrawing her hand and shaking it off.
  
  "What do you know?" She sounded more than a little impressed with herself, still snickering a little. "It does freeze intangible people." Looking up at the two of us then, she raised both hands in an impatient gesture. "Well? Are you going to stand there like a couple dumbasses all day, or are you gonna go do your hero thing?"
  
  21.04
  
  For a second, I just stared at the girl. She stood unmasked, not even really seeming to care that she had revealed her identity by doing what she did. If anything, she seemed to be some odd mixture of amused by our surprise, and yet also annoyed that we hadn't moved on already.
  
  It was the thought of the other students and the faculty that snapped me out of my shock, and I grabbed hold of Reach before managing to give Aisha a weak, "Hide in a classroom and stay out of sight." Then I used a line to yank Cassie and myself all the way to the end of the hall, making up for time that had been lost while we dealt with both the bronze-skinned man and Feast.
  
  There wasn't enough time to even begin reacting to the revelation that Chris's lab partner was not only a cape, but one of the Undersiders. Did she know my identity, the way that Tattletale had? Was that why she found the whole autographed poster thing so amusing, and why she'd wanted my opinion?
  
  Whatever the case, there were far more important things to worry about. Namely, all the hostages in the cafeteria. Not to mention the remaining murderous thugs that were still running around. Like Lung. Yeah, him in particular. I hadn't forgotten how pissed off at me he had to be.
  
  Tempting as it was to just release Jalopy and see how Lung liked round two, I didn't think it was a good idea. Jalopy was a little badass, for sure. But a lot of his strength came from the fact that no one expected the little guy to be a threat. He took people by surprise. That wouldn't happen with Lung again, and if anything happened to my robot buddy, I'd never forgive myself. Plus if I let him become too well known, his spot on my wrist would make him a target for any enemy that picked a fight. No, Jalopy needed to be an emergency measure, when the enemy wasn't expecting a threat. His job worked best when he stayed as much of a secret as possible.
  
  It took two more line-enhanced lunges to haul myself and Reach through the school. I could hear the sound of fighting going on elsewhere, and winced at the thought that one of the others might be in trouble. But as much as I wanted to help my team, we needed to make sure the hostages were safe first.
  
  When we finally reached the cafeteria entrance, there were two armed guards standing out in front of the closed doors. Both looked up at our arrival, lifting their rifles. Unfortunately for them, we weren't in the mood to play around. I yanked both guns out of the men's hands and into Reach's waiting ones. Then a dart from each of us found the two men's arms, and they went down for the count.
  
  "You good?" I asked Reach while putting a hand out toward the door.
  
  "One sec." Kneeling, Cassie set a gun down long enough to tap one of the unconscious men's pants and shirt. Then she picked up the gun and straightened while the body was lifted off the ground to float in front of her like a shield. Finally, my teammate looked at the assault rifles that she held in either hand and then nodded. "Now I'm good, let's do this."
  
  Attaching a line between my gauntlet and the door, I gave a yank to rip the door off its hinges and tossed it away before stepping back to let my companion go in first.
  
  Reach went through the doorway, lifting both rifles to point in either direction. She was obviously using her power more than her own strength to do so, holding them up with her telekinesis.
  
  Her entrance was met with silence for a few moments before she called back, her voice tinted with confusion, "Clear, I guess?"
  
  Frowning, I walked through the doorway and stared at the sight of a cafeteria full of unmoving bodies lying around everywhere. Student, teacher, and gunman alike, they were all down. For a second, I just looked around the room in confusion and disbelief before spotting Amy lying around the middle of the room. Instantly, I ran that way and dropped down to check her.
  
  "She's breathing. They're all breathing." I realized with relief a second later. "They're all just sleeping."
  
  Standing next to me, Reach realized, "Must've been her. Bet she used her power like she said she would, only she made it a knock-out gas and just put everyone to sleep." She shrugged then. "Made the room easier to secure anyway."
  
  Even as she said that, I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye. Twisting around, I was just in time to spot two of the masked men coming through the entrance with their weapons drawn. Before they could fire, I attached lines between their masks and the back of the guns, giving a yank so that they smacked themselves in the faces hard enough to make them stumble back before the guns were thrown far away from them.
  
  While the pair were recovering, Reach brought her own two guns up and unloaded several shots into each of them. The rifles bucked a little, but not nearly as much as they should have. She was using her power to not only hold the weapons up and on target, but also to reduce the recoil so much that they might as well have been mounted, rather than each held in one slender fifteen year old girl's hand.
  
  Once the men were down, I looked toward my gun-toting teammate. "I'll see if I can wake up Amy and let Flechette know what's going on. Think you can cover the entrance?"
  
  In answer, Reach let go of the rifles so that they floated in the air, maneuvering them to hover over either shoulder. Then she reached down and picked up the two discarded guns that I had yanked away from the newcomers before rising. "On it." She announced before jogging over to the doorway with her small arsenal of four assault rifles all either held or floating along with her.
  
  Activating my comm, I tried shaking Amy's shoulder. "Flechette, we've got the cafeteria. Everyone's unconscious. We think Panacea knocked them all out with that power she was talking about. Room's clear for now, but what are we gonna do with all of them?"
  
  It took a moment for the other girl to get back to me, and she sounded distracted. "They'd just get in the way if they were conscious. Bakuda's bombs are still active out there, so we couldn't let them go anyway. Just keep the-hold-" She went off the comm for about ten tense seconds before coming back. "Hold the room if you can. We'll meet you there. Aid's got-hold-" She was gone again, this time for almost thirty seconds before her voice returned. "Aid's got one of his drones leading Lung on a wild goose chase, mimicking our voices to lure him away. Calling everyone in to meet you. We'll put ourselves between the civilians and anyone else that's left."
  
  By the time that I'd finished with the comm, Amy still hadn't woken up. I didn't want to try too hard, because I had no idea what sort of gas she'd used to knock everybody out.
  
  Giving up on waking her, I rose and jogged over to where Cassie was. Her guns barked loudly just before I arrived, and she glanced over her shoulder at me. "One guy out by the senior lockers. He decided to go the other way."
  
  "Aid's keeping Lung busy with a drone." I let her know. "Everyone's heading here to play Alamo against whoever's left."
  
  Her head turned to look at me, and I sensed her squint. "You know the people in the Alamo lost, right?"
  
  I gave her a thumbs up. "Sure, but we've got something they didn't have."
  
  "Super powers?" She guessed. "A badass robot spider? Radios? An unconscious healer?"
  
  My head shook at all of that. "Nope, we've got snazzy, colorful costumes." I waved a hand down between us demonstratively. "Did they have snazzy, colorful costumes? I didn't think so."
  
  Before Reach could even start to respond to that, movement in the hall caught our attention. Fortunately, it was Kid Win, who recoiled at the sight of the four different rifles pointed his way. "Whoa, hey! I come in peace." He joined us and bent over to catch his breath, panting hard. "Whatever you do, don't let anyone go outside. I ummm..." He trailed off briefly before straightening. "One of the those new capes, some guy with electric hands or something, he went for the exit. He ummm, he only got about six steps before something went off and he was... errr... frozen in ice. Then he shattered."
  
  I winced at that. "Bakuda plays for keeps. We've gotta keep everyone in until the PRT clears the place."
  
  "Where's Aid?" Reach demanded then. "You guys were together, weren't you?"
  
  "We got separated." Kid admitted. "He had to reprogram his drone to keep Lung busy while I kept electro-boy and his groupies off him."
  
  Poor Cassie looked like the news that Theo had been left alone made her want to point those guns back at Chris again. Fortunately, she restrained herself, activating her comm instead. "Aid, are you good?"
  
  "I'm okay." The answer came not through the comm, but from just down the hall as Theo himself came around the corner and into view. He looked disheveled and some of his armor was singed or even broken in places. He was also dragging something along behind him.
  
  "Th-Aid!" Cassie lowered the guns as soon as she saw who it was.
  
  "What are you...?" I started to ask what he had with him, before blinking as the other boy reached us and dropped the load he had been dragging. For a second, all of us stared at the familiar mask of the man that was bound and obviously unconscious.
  
  "Is that Oni Lee?" Kid Win asked in disbelief. "You took down Oni Lee by yourself?"
  
  Theo just shrugged self-consciously and slumped against the nearby wall to rest for a second. "Just got lucky." He mumbled under his breath.
  
  Looking from the downed and secured teleporting assassin to Theo and back again, I shook my head. "At some point, it stops being luck and starts being skill." Pointing to a discarded sweatshirt hanging off a nearby locker, I added, "Kid, hand me that jacket?" When he passed it to me, I used it to wrap around the still unconscious and bound Oni Lee's mask and tied it in place, blocking his vision in case he woke up. That way he couldn't see to teleport anywhere.
  
  "Speaking of Aid's skill, can any of your drones rouse people that have been drugged?" I explained what Amy had apparently done. "We should probably try to wake at least her up, if we can."
  
  Aid looked hesitant, but nodded and pushed off the wall. "I umm... think I've got something for that." He moved into the room, and I left Kid Win and Reach to cover the exit while I went in to help.
  
  A few steps into the room, something nagged at me and I started to look around a little more. After a couple more steps, I stopped short and put a hand out to block Theo. "Wait." I told him. "Something's different." Slowly, I looked around, trying to place what looked wrong. "I don't think-"
  
  That was as far as I got before a figure that was lying on the floor near Amy suddenly moved. Belatedly, I realized what had been bothering me about the room. Before, there had been only one body lying within arm's reach of Panacea. When we came back into the room, there were two.
  
  Unfortunately, I got it too late. The new figure rolled over, grabbed hold of the unconscious Amy, and rose with his arm around her neck.
  
  "Impasse." I glared at the man while Aid and I stood there, caught flat-footed. "Let her go."
  
  The thin, unimposing looking man just smirked at me while keeping his arm locked tight around Amy's throat to hold her up. His voice sounded rather squeaky, like he'd never quite made it all the way through puberty. "You know, I don't think I will." He stood with Amy held up between us, obviously struggling a bit with her weight. "Don't try any of that throwing me around bullshit either." He lifted his other arm to show a knife briefly before putting it back down against the unconscious girl where I couldn't see to yank it away.
  
  Kid Win had joined us by then, but there was nothing he could do in that moment either. I glanced toward the other boy before turning back to the Bird Cage escapee. "Impasse, put her down." I coached him, looking for something that I could do. "You know how important that girl is? Do you have the slightest idea how much shit you're in already just for threatening her?"
  
  "Shit?" He laughed disbelievingly, an ugly, snorting-hiccup sort of noise. "You think so? What are they gonna do, put a second kill order out on me? Throw me back in the Birdcage? Oooh, I'm so scared."
  
  Shaking my head, I spoke slowly. "It's not the Protectorate you should be worried about, Impasse. It's Marquis. Do you have any idea what he's gonna do to you if you hurt her?"
  
  That made the man frown slightly, but he shook off that nudging common sense. "You know what? You're gonna shut up now. I'm the one talking, and I say that we're gonna play a game called, 'everyone do whatever the fuck Impasse tells them to' If you win, this bitch gets to stay alive."
  
  Inwardly, I cursed. The guy was too stupid to think about the consequences of his actions. There was no point in threatening him with future retaliation when he refused to even consider them. His shield had protected him from consequences for too long for him to actually think that he could be hurt. Even now, it was protecting him from anything Aid or Kid Win could do, and I couldn't attach lines to him or Amy without giving him time to use that knife before they could do any good.
  
  I briefly considered putting lines past him to yank a chair or something into his back, but all that would do was guarantee that Amy would get that blade in her back. We needed a way to separate them, or at least get that knife back into view so I could pull it away.
  
  "Good." Impasse nodded once it was obvious that we had no immediate moves, still struggling to hold Amy upright. "Now you see who's in charge. We-"
  
  He was interrupted by the sound of Amy groaning a little. "Wha-where..." She stiffened then, apparently feeling the knife against her back.
  
  "Good, you're awake." The man straightened a little, since he didn't have to hold her up anymore. "Now stand up straight. And keep your hands down where you can't touch any skin, or we'll see how good a healer you are with half your guts lying out on the floor. Just don't move."
  
  "Don't worry, Amy." I assured the other girl. "He knows he's trapped. He's not going anywhere."
  
  The man glowered at me, but before he could say anything, there was a noise at the door. We all turned slightly to see Flechette coming in. She paused slightly to take in the sight of what was happening, and Impasse smirked at her, his annoyance at me briefly forgotten. "Hey, hey, hey. Glad you could join us. We were just negotiating terms to keep this little healer alive."
  
  "Negotiating terms?" Lily echoed, starting to walk forward once more as she headed that way.
  
  Impasse nodded shortly. "That's right, terms. You want the bitch alive, you'll negotiate. So first-"
  
  I barely saw Lily's hand move. One second she was walking normally, and the next second, her arm was outstretched. I heard the slightest whistle of something small and fast cutting through the air for a brief instant before the handle of the tiny knife that she'd drawn from her sleeve seemed to just appear in the middle of the man's forehead. It had gone straight through Impasse's forcefield as if it wasn't even there.
  
  Flechette hadn't broken stride. While Impasse dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut, she took three more quick steps and reached out to catch the stumbling Amy with one arm, pulling the other girl out of the way while also supporting her so that she wouldn't fall.
  
  Then Lily looked down at the man, who had been dead the instant her knife struck him, and prompted, "Okay, now let's hear your counter-offer."
  
  21.05
  
  "Holy... shit..." Chris was the first one to find his voice after that, while the rest of us stood and stared. "You just... he's... he's..."
  
  "He's dead." Flechette acknowledged quietly, lowering her head a little to stare at the body on the ground. Her voice was softer now that the adrenaline rush of what she'd had to do eased slightly. The quip itself had obviously been made more in anger at the kind of man that Impasse had been and the situation that he'd forced her into than out of any kind of flippancy about what she had just done.
  
  I had a good idea of how that felt. It wasn't exactly the same, but my own words about giving Teacher 'the finger' just before letting Pandora kill him came to mind. It was easy to say things in the heat of the moment that made it seem like the things you had to do didn't affect you, when you were hyped up and reacting. But that didn't mean you didn't think about the action itself later. It didn't mean that I hadn't gone over and over that bit in my head, wondering if there was anything else I could have done that wouldn't have resulted in the man's death at what was, if not by my hand, at the very least at my request. And like me, Lily would have the same thoughts once the situation was resolved.
  
  It was even somewhat different from the fact that Reach had shot the two men. They had obviously been wearing body armor, and in any case she hadn't aimed for vital places. They weren't necessarily dead . They could still get medical attention if we resolved this quickly enough.
  
  Impasse, like almost any other Birdcage resident, had been a sick and horrible individual. He hadn't been one of the 'normal' Cape villains, who even if they were violent, at least kept to some level of decency. There was villain, and then there was monster. Impasse had been the kind of person who found entertainment in the painful suffering and death of others. One of his favorite activities had been to use his field to block the exits from a building that was on fire and watch the people inside burn.
  
  All of the Birdcage escapees had been given ongoing, constant kill orders. These were bad people. The Protectorate wouldn't blink twice at what Flechette had done. The kill order was active, Impasse had been currently engaged in activity that threatened civilian teenagers in a public setting, including a direct and immediate threat to Panacea. Not to mention the kind of gang-war from Marquis that we would have been dealing with if she'd actually been hurt or even killed. Flechette had killed the man because it was the swiftest, easiest way to defuse the situation.
  
  Again, it was similar to me directing Pandora into killing Teacher. Perhaps a better solution could have been found, one that didn't end in anyone's death. But allowing him to die, directing his death, had been the best option I could see then. And in this case, putting Impasse down like the rabid dog that he was, happened to have been the best solution that Lily had seen. Even if it did feel different emotionally because of the idea that he had been 'negotiating' rather than attacking. I knew the killing was absolutely justified because of the immediate threat to Amy and the kill order.
  
  Logically, I knew all of that. We all knew all of that. But I still had a moment, however brief, where I looked at the girl and wondered how easy it had been for her to make that call. She hadn't hesitated, hadn't tried to talk the man down. She had just acted, and now he was dead. And somehow, killing a man in cold blood, purposefully and without hesitation while he was attempting to negotiate his release (even if he was a monster) seemed different.
  
  It was probably similar to the thoughts that people had about me when they found out that I didn't try harder to stop Pandora from killing the bad guys that she killed.
  
  "Y-you killed him?" Amy's hesitant voice interrupted my thoughts as she stood where Lily had pulled her. "He's really..."
  
  She trailed off, and I took a step that way, finally snapping out of my shock. "Are you okay?"
  
  Amy looked at me, obviously still shaken from what had just happened. That couldn't be a fun way to be woken up and then have to react to. "I'm okay. I mean, I'll... be okay."
  
  I rested a hand on her back before looking toward Lily. Lowering my voice slightly, I asked, "What about you?" There was no answer, and I hesitated before raising a hand to touch the other girl gently.
  
  She jumped when my hand reached her, looking up from the body and physically shaking herself. "I'm... I'm good. Sorry, I just... It just hit me. He's not getting up again. I know I... I did it on purpose, but now, after... I just..." She took in a long breath and let it out. "I have to focus. We're not done yet."
  
  Amy spoke up next to me. "It..." She gazed around the room briefly, obviously trying not to look at the body of the man who had taken her hostage. "It worked. Who's left? Where's Reach?"
  
  "Guarding the hallway." Theo answered for us. He and Chris had finally snapped out of their own shock and approached. Everyone was doing their level best not to look at the body on the floor. Well, almost everyone. Lily couldn't seem to stop looking at it. He focused on Amy instead. "I want to wake these people up. Err, not the bad guys, but the umm, the rest of them. Can you... uhh, tell me what you used to knock them out?" Even now, even after everything he had done, Theo still sounded nervous while he was trying to talk to Panacea. It still seemed like he didn't think he deserved to be there.
  
  What the hell kind of number had Kaiser done on this boy's confidence and self-worth?
  
  Amy cast one more glance toward Lily and hesitated before holding her hand up toward Theo. "One second." Then she stepped over and poked the other girl, who had seemed to go back into a trance while staring down at the body. "Hey, umm, I know you probably saved my life. And you probably saved a lot of other people too. Everyone... everyone in the future who doesn't die because of what that guy would have done to them has you to thank for it. But they'll never get to thank you because you made it so they'd never experience what they would have if you let him live. So I'll say it for me and for them. Thank you. Thank you for saving me, and for... you know... stopping him." Giving a short, uncertain nod, Amy pivoted then and moved to help Aid start waking people up.
  
  "Kid," Flechette found her own voice after staring at Amy for a moment. Her voice was still a little weak. "Can you check on Reach, make sure she's-"
  
  She was interrupted by the sound of gunfire erupting out in the hallway. Reach was already backpedaling into the room. "Shit, fuck, damn piece of dick-nibbling dumpster-"
  
  "Reach!" I shouted over the sound of her oh-so-professional cursing. "Are you okay?"
  
  "Lung!" She shouted back at me. "He's uhhh, on his way, and he is not happy. Might take him a minute because of Aid's drones harassing him, but he is coming."
  
  Flinching, I looked around a bit helplessly at all the still unconscious people. It was going to take time for Aid and Amy to wake them up. And even once they did, then what? With Bakuda's bombs outside, there wasn't a safe place for the civilians to evacuate to.
  
  "It'll be a massacre." Kid Win gave voice to my thoughts. "Fire, Lung stomping around and getting bigger? Even if we stood a chance against him, which we don't, all these people..." He trailed off, not needing to say the words. We knew what would happen. The civilians would be collateral damage.
  
  No. I refused. Looking at the students and teachers whose unconscious, helpless bodies surrounded us, I thought about Taylor. I thought about what I had allowed to happen, what I had helped happen, the life I had helped ruin. The girl who should have been here, who should have been allowed to live.
  
  I thought of Taylor, and I vowed to myself that if it took my last breath, if I had to stand in front of Lung and allow him to kill me to ease his own anger so that the people in this room could live, then I would do just that. Whatever it took, I would save these people.
  
  And in the next moment, I knew what to do.
  
  "Guys," I looked toward Reach, Kid Win, and Flechette. "I've got a plan."
  
  By the time that I emerged from the cafeteria, Lung was already too tall to walk normally down the hallway. He had to stoop a bit, his metallic scales gleaming as he used a single clawed hand to bat away the last of Aid's drones that had been stopping him. I had the feeling that his experience with Jalopy had been what made the man take the time to destroy all of them rather than just rushing forward. He didn't want a repeat of the time a robot had kicked his ass.
  
  "Yo!" I shouted to get his attention, and the armored beast of a man turned slowly toward me, fire spiraling around him, impatient to be released so that it could burn and consume. His eyes, still hidden behind the mask, burned an orange-red color similar to molten steel.
  
  When I had first heard of Lung, I'd thought his name was weird. I'd actually asked my dad 'long what?', and he had explained that it was the name of a Chinese dragon. Later I'd learned that it was actually the Chinese word for dragon, though the names did include Lung as the first syllable.
  
  It was just another example of the sort of things that I'd picked up in the past few months.
  
  Another thing that I'd picked up? Lung kind of hated having his worth questioned or insulted.
  
  "Yeah, you!" I pointed at him, trying to stop myself from trembling too much. "Question for you."
  
  "Ooo." He grunted the word, his eyes somehow managing to blaze with even more anger.
  
  "Yup." I pointed to myself. "Me. Like I said, I've got a question for you." He grunted, already walking toward me. I didn't know if the grunt was dismissive or acknowledgment, but I pressed on anyway. "When you were born, did they just go ahead and hand your mom the 'biggest loser in the world' award to give to you later, or was there a whole big ceremony involved when you were old enough?"
  
  Even before I finished talking, I was already turning my head. My hand lifted and I attached a line all the way down the hall before yanking myself that way the very instant that the last word left my mouth. Even then, flames filled the area I had been, singing my boots with enough heat that the lockers on either side of the hall were blackened and partially melted.
  
  Yeah, getting touched by that flame was a bad idea. I could only hope that Aid would be able to put them out once the hallway was clear. Right now, I had bigger worries.
  
  Hitting the floor in a roll, I lifted my head long enough to see the nearby stairs. Another line yanked me that way, mere heartbeats before Lung slammed down where I had rolled, his claws punching through the floor like it was tissue paper.
  
  Okay, getting caught by Lung himself so he could snap my bones between his fingers was probably just as bad of an idea as letting his flames touch me. Good to know.
  
  More lines brought me to the top of the stairs and I emerged onto the second floor of the school once more. Below me, I heard Lung's roar of indignation and used a line to yank myself down the hall.
  
  Unfortunately, right as I was being hauled away, Lung burst up through the floor. There was a shower of debris and flame, and I was caught by one of the chunks of floor. It was a sledgehammer blow that knocked me off course and into the ceiling before I fell haphazardly to the ruined floor, briefly dazed. Pain filled my body and it was all I could do to roll over before Lung brought his claw down where I had just been. He gave a roar of fury, and his flame flooded the hallway once more. I could feel my suit burning while he stabbed for me again, intent on snatching me up.
  
  I'd recovered somewhat by that point though, and was able to throw myself into a backwards roll, narrowly avoiding his grab once again. My chest screamed, and I was fairly sure that the blow that had knocked me into the ceiling had cracked some ribs.
  
  It hurt to breathe, let alone talk. Yet talk I did. "Have you ever thought of investing in some glasses? Because from what I can tell, you couldn't hit-uh oh." Another line yanked me clear of his lunge, and I kept going with the still transforming man rampaging after me.
  
  The door I was looking for wasn't marked, in order to keep kids away from it. But I knew where it was. Plus it was locked up tight, but that didn't matter. As soon as I saw the innocuous looking brown door next to the trophy case, I planted a line between the floor and the door itself, shoving upward and in with enough force to knock it open.
  
  Stairs lay beyond, and I scrambled up them with Lung right on my heels. The air grew so hot as Lung neared me that I could feel it burning through my costume. Still I kept moving, hitting the door at the top of the stairs with my full body before crashing out into the open sunlight.
  
  In the next second, Lung crashed through to join me on the roof. He was too big by that point to fit through the door itself. Instead, he ripped and tore his way through, sending half-melted debris flying while he gave a deafening roar. Flames shot out to either side when he spotted me, while a pair of wings unfurled. With a hard flap that sent a ring of fire off in its wake, the monster launched himself toward me, howling for my blood.
  
  He might have even gotten me, except that the very instant I emerged onto the roof, I inverted myself and slid back beneath Lung's legs and into the relative safety of the stairwell. He passed over my head, and in the next second, I was briefly deafened by the sound of multiple bombs going off. If I hadn't dived back inside, the janitors would have had to scrape me off the roof with a spatula.
  
  They were standard fire-concussive force explosions, so either Bakuda had been getting lazy, or Lung hadn't wanted her to get too creative with the roof bombs. Maybe he didn't give her the time to. I almost felt absurdly bad for her not getting to express the creative urge her power gave her. And I definitely felt bad about the fact that none of the bombs had done much of anything to Lung other than piss him off even more.
  
  Oh well, I definitely had his attention now. Emerging from my relative cover and planting lines between my feet and the roof, I catapulted myself into the air, flying a good twenty feet up off a single push. Turning that momentum into a backwards flip, I twisted so that I could get a look at a building in the distance. A line between it and my gauntlet sent me sailing that way with Lung literally hot on my heels.
  
  Below me, I caught a glimpse of emergency vehicles, PRT response vans, media, and more. But there wasn't time to waste looking for help. Feeling the heat rising, I released the line on the building so that I could start to fall freely through the air, plummeting for a few precious seconds while a massive fireball filled the air above me. Then I stuck my other hand out and attached a line to a different building, jerking myself out of the fall with a speed that would have made my stomach rise into my throat if it wasn't for the breaker powers that kept me from experiencing the crazy whiplash and nausea that I should have from these maneuvers.
  
  Lung was screaming at me, his words entirely unintelligible, though his meaning was clear. This was between me and him, and he wasn't going to let me get away again.
  
  The second line brought me straight to the side of the office building. Inverting in the air, I attached lines between my feet and the wall itself. The lines held me there against the building, giving me a moment to glance back and see Lung readying another fireball as another flap of his enormous wings propelled him straight toward me with the force and determination of an oncoming train. A train that happened to be on fire.
  
  The fireball growing larger. Worse, a handful of black lines appeared, pointing back into the building itself. When I twisted that way, I could see people inside, gawking at me and watching Lung as if they didn't realize they were about to be right in the path of a hurled orb of fire hot enough to melt through steel.
  
  Cursing, I shoved myself off the side of the building and twisted around in the air. Attaching a line from each gauntlet to the building, I yanked myself forward and straight through the window feet first.
  
  The glass shattered around me as I dropped into a roll, and I heard the people who had been gawking a second earlier just now start to cry out as they realized the danger that they were in. Still, I came out of the roll and to my feet with a glance behind me at the incoming ball of flame. Then I focused, attaching lines to all of the people in the path of the fireball before throwing them, and myself, to the side and out of the way.
  
  The fireball slammed into the building, crashing its way through several more windows before shooting across the room and into the opposite wall. The area that the crowd of onlooking office drones had been standing in was briefly engulfed in flame and glass, each of which would have torn through anyone that had been caught in it.
  
  Springing back to my feet, I glanced toward the shaken people while they picked themselves off the floor. "Get the fire department up here to put that out." I pointed to the lingering flames that were starting to take root around what I now saw was a typical cubicle-filled office floor. "Then get out of the building. Go!"
  
  Leaving them to do that, I attached a line to the edge of the hole that had been made in the side of the building and used it to hurl myself back out into the air in front of Lung.
  
  "Have you put any thought into my glasses suggestion? I really think it would do this threatening people thing a lot of good if you could hit the broad side of a barn."
  
  Once again, we were off. Lung screamed his threats, hurling more fire my way while I flung myself from building to building, always only a handful of feet ahead of the flames that would have killed me instantly. I plunged headfirst around glass and brick structures, weaving my way through the city skyline. With each passing second, I used every single trick I could to stay ahead of Lung and away from his fireballs. I alternated between freefall and steep climb, using lines to yank myself violently off-course every few seconds. Yet Lung kept getting closer. Sooner or later, I would mess up, zig when I should have zagged, and it would be over.
  
  Finally, I swung off a line, turning it from a pull into a push at the last second to hurl myself into the open space above the same construction lot where we had fought the Outliars' minions.
  
  Briefly, I set my feet against the side of the massive tower crane on the edge of the lot. "Hey Lung!" I called back to my pursuer. "Let's settle this." Then I used a line to yank myself straight down to the ground.
  
  I landed in the dirt, looking up in time to see Lung come down about fifty feet away from me. He was even larger now, a little over sixteen feet in height. More fire swirled around his impregnably armored body, and he let out a roar of triumph as he stood there, towering over me.
  
  He grunted some sounds that seemed to be a question, and I shook my head. "I'm not running anymore, Lung. And I'm not gonna let you kill anybody else ever again. You're done. But I'm giving you one more chance. Surrender, Lung. I'll make sure you're not killed. I'll get you back to the Birdcage, and you can just... live. Let this go, Lung. There's no walking back from this. Either you surrender and walk back to the PRT with me... or you don't walk away. Please. Please surrender."
  
  The sound that the man made then sounded like a chuckle, and he readied the flame to obliterate me. Before he could release it and do away with me once and for all, I raised both hands above my head. "Fine, one question for you! Do you know where we are?"
  
  The dragon-like figure turned its head a little, obviously suspicious but uncertain. So I continued. "We're three blocks from the school. It's over that way." I pointed with a finger. "We just went in one big circle." At his further noise of confusion, I smiled behind my mask. "Because I needed to give my teammates time to get here first after you so generously cleared the roof of bombs so they could get out. That's the difference between you and me. I trust my team. I trust my friends."
  
  With those words, I looked up and finished attaching the lines from my gauntlets to the middle of the massive, two hundred foot long boom of the crane that towered over us. Then I gave the hardest yank that I could. The boom was ripped off the side of the crane where Kid Win and Reach had weakened it. It came plummeting down toward us while I released those lines and used more to hurl myself backwards and out of the way.
  
  Lung barely had time to look up and make a grunt of confusion before the end of the crane's boom, empowered by Flechette, fell straight through the enormous armored man, shearing him in half.
  
  Interlude 21 - Mnemosyne
  
  November 20th, 2010
  
  It was a little past midnight, and the glow of a nearby neon sign advertising booze was all that illuminated the two figures standing in the doorway of the liquor store. One was hunched over the door itself, while the other kept watch with a bat on one hand.
  
  "Amanda, are you sure you know what you're doing?" The lookout, a tall boy who looked every bit the linebacker that he was, checked over his shoulder to see how things were coming along. "Why isn't it open yet?" His voice was slightly muffled by the ski mask that he wore.
  
  Fifteen-year old Amanda Rhodes turned her head to glare at the slightly older boy. She wore a jean jacket over a ratty old flannel tee-shirt, along with a pair of baggy black jeans. A simple ski mask covered her face as well.
  
  "Why isn't it open?" She echoed. "Because some cock-knob keeps interrupting me, that's why. Now shut the fuck up. And just so you know, one of the rules about doing illegal things is that you don't-" Her voice dropped into an angry hiss. "-fucking announce each other's names while you're doing it. Now shut up and let me focus. I've almost got it."
  
  Carl, the seventeen-year old football player, made a face but didn't say anything else. Amanda shook her head and returned her attention to the lockpicks, carefully twisting and testing for several more moments until the door clicked. The sound made her smile in triumph. Who said she didn't have a future? Her skills were just the kind you didn't put on a resume.
  
  "Okay, got it." The young teenager straightened, putting out a hand to stop Carl from barging straight in. "Wait. Remember, the alarm goes off in thirty seconds if the code isn't put in. Since we don't know the code, the alarm will go off. We don't push further than thirty seconds past that point before we get the hell out of this place before anyone gets here. So sixty seconds. You ready?"
  
  Carl nodded once, lifting the aluminum bat. "Ready."
  
  Grabbing her own bat from where it had been leaning, Amanda shoved the door open and rushed inside. She took three quick steps into the liquor store before swinging the bat as hard as she could. It slammed through several bottles, sending alcohol spraying everywhere with a satisfying crash.
  
  Behind her, Carl went to work smashing everything he could on one of the other shelves on his way back to the coolers. His bat went through the glass there before the boy began to grab as many packs of bottles as he could, throwing them across the room to crash into the far wall.
  
  For thirty seconds, Amanda gloried in the destruction of every bit of product she could reach with her bat. She attacked the alcohol with a purpose, gleefully breaking every last bottle.
  
  With thirty seconds left on her watch, she moved to the wall with the most space and tugged a can of red spray paint out, shaking it up quickly before she began to write on the wall, encouraging her companion. "Keep going. Break everything, all of it."
  
  After a moment, she stepped back to admire her work. The paint on the wall read 'Death Peddler.' She liked the word peddler. It was a funny word that sounded kind of dirty. Peddler.
  
  One more glance at her watch showed that time was up, and Amanda prodded Carl with her bat before heading for the door. "Come on, come on!"
  
  The two teenagers ran for the door, spilling out onto the street before sprinting away. They ran a single block, then turned right down an alley and ran some more before reaching the next street over. Without hesitation, they went straight for the nearby apartment building, cutting across the basketball court to reach the back parking lot. By the time the sound of sirens reached them, the pair were already heading for the back door of the apartment building.
  
  Carl, whose flat, bulldog-like face would never be considered attractive, stripped off his mask and shook his dark hair out to its impressive length before shoving the door open. He held it there in some mockery of chivalry. "After you, milady." His attempt at a posh accent was appalling.
  
  Amanda rolled her eyes and turned to chuck the used spray paint can into the nearby dumpster before stripping off her own ski mask. Beneath that was a face that looked cherubic and innocent, belying the constant and barely suppressed rage she felt pretty much all the time. Her hair, originally blonde but currently dyed a light blue, was cut short so that it fell just barely below her ears.
  
  Shoving the mask into her jacket pocket, she went in and headed up the nearby stairs. Amanda felt hyped up, she felt ready to do anything. The adrenaline rush made her feel alive.
  
  Following her up the stairs, Carl asked, "Hey, what do you think your brother would say if he knew what you were up to?"
  
  Amanda snorted at the question. "Probably try to ground me or something. He thinks he has to act all responsible and shit just because Grandpa's too old to give a shit anymore."
  
  On the third floor, she used her key to unlock the door of the apartment that she shared with her brother and grandfather before looking back at the boy and gracing him with a rare smile. "Thanks, Carl. That prick had it coming, selling that shit."
  
  "Hey, it was fun." Carl shrugged. "I mean, most people don't break into a liquor store to break everything, but you know... I get it, with your folks getting into that accident and all."
  
  " They didn't get into an accident." Amanda snapped at him. "They were minding their own business when the cocksucker that was fucking drunk and high hit them. And that place back there sells both. Booze out the front, drugs out the back. Fucking alcohol. Fucking drugs. I wish I could fucking burn all of it. Just get rid of the shit forever."
  
  "Guess we'll have to go one liquor store at a time instead, huh?" Carl winked at her before sobering. "We uhh, we are gonna get back to doing jobs that actually get some money, right? I'm still trying to get enough for a car. There's this sweet GTO down at Smith's that-"
  
  "Yeah, yeah, Carl." Amanda waved that off. "Normal jobs too. There's this gas station on Forty-Seventh. The new guy keeps leaving the cash in the register instead of the safe when he closes up. We'll hit 'em tomorrow if you're up for it. In and out real quick."
  
  "Hey, sounds good to me." The boy gave her a thumbs up before stepping away from the door.
  
  Amanda watched him go, then stepped into the apartment and closed the door after herself, satisfied, for the moment, with a job well done. Alcohol and drugs had killed her parents. Her brother dealt with that loss in his way, and she dealt with it in hers.
  
  Less than twenty-four hours later, what little remained of Carl's body was found in a ditch.
  
  September 10th, 2011 (Three Days Ago)
  
  "You sure this is gonna work?" Amanda spoke the words aloud in a deeper voice than her normal one as she crouched on a rooftop, using a pair of binoculars to watch the pool hall across the street. After a moment, she spoke in her normal voice. "Shut up, Carl."
  
  She had to talk for him now, had to voice the boy's objections, thoughts, and fears. Because he wasn't there to voice them anymore. Because those fucks that worked for the Merchants had killed him.
  
  Apparently the liquor store the two of them had hit was owned by someone who was tight with that gang, and they hadn't taken kindly to the place being trashed. One of their lookouts had jumped Carl on his way out of her building. They'd tortured him first, that much was obvious. But he clearly hadn't told them who his partner had been, because no one had come for her.
  
  Yeah, they'd tortured and fucking killed that dork because he helped her trash a god damn liquor store. She'd even gone to the cops, had told them what they did and who they should look at for the murder. And what had the cops done? They threw her into juvie for eight months for what she did to that liquor store. And then proceeded to fucking ignore the information she'd given them. Carl's death had been dismissed as unsolved and they just moved on.
  
  Those eight months in juvie had hardened Amanda even more. Before, she had simply wanted to burn the businesses to the ground. Then they killed her friend, and now she wanted to burn them .
  
  Of course by the time she'd gotten out, the Merchants were pretty much completely finished. Some parahuman saint that deserved a god damn medal had been taking them out, and the gang leadership itself was pretty much finished.
  
  Unfortunately, the actual foot soldiers, the regular gang members that pushed their garbage, were still around. They'd just gravitated to a new gang. Lung's gang, to be precise. They were still peddling (a word that still managed to make her smile sometimes) their shit.
  
  In Amanda's opinion, the only mistake that this so-called 'bug girl' had made was not killing each and every single one of the gang members already.
  
  It was a mistake that she was going to correct. Checking the binoculars once more, she watched as three of Lung's non-powered thugs came staggering out of the pool hall. Slapping each other on the back and laughing uproariously, the trio made their way toward a pick-up truck that was parked in the corner of the lot.
  
  They were so plastered none of them could walk straight, and they were still about to drive off. Remembering her parents, the now sixteen-year old girl growled under her breath before reaching down to pick up the remote to the bomb that she had placed under their truck.
  
  She'd learned how to make them from her cell mate in juvie, who had worked for Uber and Leet for awhile. It wasn't anything special, but it would get the job done.
  
  Waiting until all three men had gotten into the truck and started it up, Amanda smiled grimly and hit the button. She had to look away from the sudden flash of bright light as the truck was incinerated instead of watching it go up the way she'd wanted to, but the job was done. Those three fucks wouldn't be selling their shit to anyone else.
  
  The police sirens had started to blare already by the time the girl picked herself up and turned to abandon her vigil. Turning, she found the way blocked by another figure. Immediately, she grabbed the tiny revolver that she'd hidden in her jacket and lifted the gun. "Who's there?!"
  
  "Easy there." The person took a small step forward to come into the light, revealing a female figure in a light green cloak that covered most of her form, allowing only a glimpse of the black body armor beneath. The dark mask that covered her face was featureless save for the spot where the eyes would have been. In those two spots were the images of a pair of tiny hourglasses that were lit by the glowing gold sand within. The glowing 'sand' within each would fall through the hourglass for about sixty seconds (each thirty seconds off from the other) before flipping over. It was clearly a hologram or something displayed on the otherwise blank metal mask, but it was a very effective one.
  
  Looking the figure up and down, Amanda thought her pistol was probably horribly inadequate. "What do you want? Who the f-fuck are you?"
  
  The figure with the hourglass eyes slowly lifted their hands in a gesture of peace. "Calm down, Amanda. I'm not here to hurt you or fight. I'm here to help."
  
  "Fuck you, how do you know my name?" Amanda spat, the gun shaking a bit in her hand.
  
  "I've been keeping an eye on you for awhile." The figure replied quietly. "Making sure you were the kind of person that I wanted to recruit." She nodded past Amanda toward the burning vehicle below. "Now I have my answer." Slowly, the figure lowered her hands. "You can call me Clepsydra. I think we can help each other."
  
  "Help each other?" Amanda snorted in disbelief, but she did lower the gun after a moment of hesitation. "You got the wrong girl, Chlamydia. I'm not a gang lackey."
  
  "It's Clepsydra." The figure corrected. "And I don't want a lackey. I want someone I can trust. You want to burn Lung's gang to the ground. You hate the cops for throwing you in juvenile detention. You hate an awful lot of people, Amanda. I can help you channel that hate into getting what you want."
  
  "That right?" Amanda lifted her chin. "What's in it for you?"
  
  Clepsydra's voice was casual as she replied, "What's in it for me is a person who can help me accomplish my own goals. I want to take over the underworld of this city, Amanda. And if you help me do that, we can run all the drugs out of town. If you help me, and you want them gone, they'll be gone."
  
  Amanda gave a brief laugh of disbelief. "What makes you think I can help you do that? In case it escaped your notice, I ain't got no powers or nothing. I mean, don't get me wrong, you wanna fuck up Lung's group, all the more power to ya. But I don't see where I come in."
  
  "Where you come in... is this." Clepsydra reached into her cloak slowly, other hand raised placatingly when Amanda stiffened, before pulling out a small vial.
  
  "What's that?" She demanded a little nervously.
  
  "This?" Clepsydra seemed to study the vial she was holding. "... is how you're going to become a cape so that you can help me destroy our competition."
  
  September 12th (Yesterday)
  
  "I need to talk to Lung." Amanda announced, standing in front of the heavyset man who was blocking the way into the nightclub that Clepsydra had tracked down as being the Birdcage escapee's current base of operations. It was the middle of the day, so the club was empty. Yet the bouncer still sat there steering people away from the place.
  
  The man gave her a brief, disbelieving glance before shaking his head as his attention turned back to his phone. "Beat it, little bitch. Ain't no one here for you."
  
  Rolling her eyes, Amanda exercised her new power. Her voice took on a slightly echoing tone. "I told you why I wanted to see Lung. You thought it was a very compelling reason, and now you can't wait to take me to meet with him. You think that Lung is going to be really pissed off if you make him wait any longer to talk to me."
  
  A moment after she finished talking, the man, whose eyes had glazed over while she gave her instructions and rewrote his memory with the new story, snapped to attention. Stumbling off his stool, he grabbed the door and wrenched it open before ushering her inside. "C'mon then, stop wasting time. Lung's gotta hear this."
  
  Smirking to herself, Amanda let herself be led across the empty nightclub floor toward a door marked 'manager' in the corner. The bouncer took her up a short flight of stairs and then to an unlabeled door down the hall.
  
  Before he could raise his hand to knock, Amanda spoke up before he could. "You took me in, Lung liked your initiative and then told you to go back to doing your job."
  
  The man blinked a few times, looking around before smiling in satisfaction as he turned and began to return to his post at the front door.
  
  Watching the man leave, Amanda couldn't help but giggle a little to herself before turning to try the door. Finding it unlocked, she pushed it open and stepped into the place that had to be Lung's private office. Or at least the place he was using as an office for the time being. Apparently being an escapee from the Birdcage meant that he had to move around a lot.
  
  The two men inside the office, Lung and Oni Lee, both whirled at the sound of the door opening. They were standing in front of a large tank full of tropical fish, apparently having been deeply engaged in conversation.
  
  "Lee-"
  
  Lung began to give his second-in-command orders about dealing with her, but Amanda spoke up quickly, her voice once again echoing slightly. "Both of you asked me to be here because I'm one of your thugs."
  
  The annoyance in Lung's voice didn't change, though his reasoning did. "You are late."
  
  Stepping fully into the room and closing the door behind her, Amanda crossed to where the two men stood. Oni Lee's eyes were narrowed, his suspicion not entirely averted by her power, even if he didn't know exactly why he was suspicious. At least now he thought of her as a minion that he didn't entirely trust, instead of a complete stranger that he didn't trust.
  
  "What do you have to report?" Lung demanded. Clearly he was trying to remember what he'd sent her out to do.
  
  "Hookay, here goes." Taking in a breath and then letting it out, Amanda ran a hand back through her short, dyed blue hair before getting right to it. It hadn't taken long, once she and Clepsydra realized what power the vial had given her, for them to come up with this plan. It wasn't perfect, but it should get the job done well enough.
  
  Calling on her power, she began to talk."The two of you came up with a great plan to deal with the shame that Lung feels because of the way the Wards keep kicking his ass. You're going to invade Arcadia High School and force them to expose themselves..."
  
  September 13th (Present Day)
  
  "I don't believe it." Amanda, who had finally decided on the name Mnemosyne at Clepsydra's suggestion, sat on the living room couch, staring at the television report. "They actually killed him. They killed Lung."
  
  Sitting beside her, costume removed to reveal a dark-haired girl with pale aristocratic features, Clepsydra smiled. "Either way, Lung would have been finished after today. He broke all the rules and attacked the Wards out-of-costume. He attacked a school, a school that Marquis' daughter attends. I admit, I expected him to be caught, either now or later when the wrath of the entire Protectorate descended on him, but death works too."
  
  "So what now?" Amanda asked, smiling as she watched more of the news about how Lung's 'plan' had backfired so tremendously. If only they knew.
  
  "Now," Clepsydra answered, "leadership of Lung's gang will be up for grabs. They've got no direction, no purpose. And I have just the person in mind who can grab it."
  
  "No drugs." Amanda pressed firmly. "Drug pushers get run the hell out of town. Alcohol... fine whatever, people drink, I guess I get it. But no drugs. And anyone that drinks and drives goes down. No warnings. They're done. They wanna drink, they can be responsible about it."
  
  The older girl nodded. "Of course. That was the deal, and I keep my deals. No drugs, responsible drinking. No warnings."
  
  "Good." Smiling a little more satisfaction, Amanda asked, "You really think you can take over the crime in this city?"
  
  Clepsydra leaned back, stretching lazily on the couch. "With your help? Yeah, I think we can." She turned back to the report on the television before adding, "After all, that's one gang down."
  
  "One to go."
  
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  Arc 22: Triumph
  Notes: Moka-girl - Congrats on catching up with the story! Updated the bit with 'prophesy/prophecy' that you pointed out, thank you very much. As for how Sparrow's powers work, she basically has a list of possible powers in her head that she can imbue an object with. She can only have 5 actively imbued items at a time. It takes her about a week to imbue an object with a power, during which time she can't use one of her '5 active powers slots' because it's being used to 'train' the new power until it takes hold. When she activates an item's power, there's a recharge time after she stops using it before she can use it again. This recharge time gets shorter the longer she keeps that item rather than replacing it with a new power.
  
  Anyway, enjoy the new chapter. :)
  
  "Dennis was right, you are pretty much the worst driver in the history of drivers." Marissa announced a few nights after the events at Arcadia. It was Friday night, and we were using the fact that neither of us had patrol or any kind of emergency to deal with to go on an actual date. If something didn't interrupt, I was going to convince Mars to go out and buy a few dozen lottery tickets.
  
  Flushing at the other girl's words, I waved both hands around. "Hey, we made it, didn't we?"
  
  Mars was smiling as she leaned her head to look out the passenger side window. "By the strictest definition of the term, yeah, we made it." She turned back to poke my side, teasing, "Don't worry, you just need practice." Her attention returned to the window to look at the tire tracks in the grass from the far-too-sharp of a turn that I'd taken to get into the lot. "Lots and lots of practice."
  
  Blushing even more, I took the keys out of the ignition and handed them over to her. "Maybe I should just stick to my normal travel method. Driving and me just don't seem to be clicking."
  
  "Aww." Turning a little in her seat, Marissa used her hand to turn me back toward her so she could give me a soft kiss that made my heart flip up and over a few times. "You'll get it." She assured me quietly while her hand tenderly brushed over my cheek. "I believe in you."
  
  Losing my train of thought as I looked back her her, it took me a few moments to find a response. Finally, I gave a full-body shiver of pleasure and smiled. "Wow, if you said that to a dead guy, I'm pretty sure he'd manage to come back to life and tap dance just because you wanted him to."
  
  This time it was Marissa's turn to blush, and she moved her hand to briefly stroke my hair before pulling back. "Good thing it's you I want and not a tap dancing dead guy, huh?"
  
  For a moment, we just sat there, smiling stupidly at each other before we eventually opened our doors and got out of the car. I flinched at the rather dismal parking job that I'd done. "Okay, maybe you should fix this before we go in there." I waved my hand toward the movie theater across the lot. "I'd hate to piss some guy off into scratching up your nice, pretty car just because I can't park straight."
  
  Snickering in spite of herself, Mars slipped past me and patted my head. "Oh well, at least you're cute."
  
  "Damn straight." I agreed, giving her a thumbs up. "I'm freaking adorable."
  
  Soon enough, Marissa had fixed my awful parking job, and the two of us began to head for the theater. As we walked, I caught my girlfriend's hand and squeezed it. For the moment, I felt nothing but contentment with where I was and who I was with.
  
  The last few days had been busy and, for lack of a better term, loud. There were briefings with half a dozen different PCIPS and PRT suits, public relations interviews to assure the public that we weren't being taught to kill, but that it had been an extraordinary circumstance, and even a couple of special psychologist visits to determine how our whole team was doing with what had happened. They were particularly concerned about how Lily and I felt after the deaths of Impasse and Lung. Not only had school been canceled for at least a week while they made repairs, but all of us, the entire team, had also been given a mandatory two week break from anything barring an S-Class emergency. That meant no training, no patrols, nothing but rest and fun to recharge. Oh, and more debriefings with what seemed like every last member of the Protectorate/PRT/PCIPS joint organization. Everyone wanted to hear about what happened straight from our own lips, and they all had a million questions.
  
  Not to mention the public's reaction. The fact that the Wards had managed to defeat Lung and his gang after being caught flat-footed in school, after he had fought entire teams to a stand-still, had a lot of people going overboard on what they thought we were capable of. PHO had exploded with theoretical matches between our team and various others, hero and villain alike. It kind of scared me how much fun people had theorizing about different fights that, if they happened, would have been traumatic and horrible for those of us that had to act in them.
  
  But tonight was about Mars and me. Scion willing, we were going to have as much fun as possible.
  
  While we crossed the lot, Marissa glanced slyly toward me. Her voice was quiet enough that no one could overhear. "So apparently there's this rumor going around that you and Kid Win are an item."
  
  I choked at that, all-but tripping over my own two feet to the point that Mars had to catch my arm so that I wouldn't fall on my face. "There's a what in the who where now?"
  
  Giggling, Marissa patted my shoulder consolingly. "If it makes you feel any better, Crystal said that was pretty much Chris's reaction too. Except for the part where he walked into a wall."
  
  My face was pink. "Why would anyone think-I mean he's my friend and-I mean why would they decide that we're an item or whatever? What reasoning or evidence did we give them?"
  
  Mars shrugged at that. "They're shippers, Madison. They don't need evidence or reasoning to ship something. Someone, somewhere, saw you look at him for longer than half a second, and now there's entire websites devoted to documenting entire soap operas worth of your ongoing relationship drama."
  
  My arms flew up in the air. " What ongoing relationship drama? We don't have relationship drama because we don't have a relationship. I mean, he's my friend but not like that."
  
  Still smiling at my confusion, Marissa gave my hand a squeeze. "Don't feel bad. Apparently the person I get shipped with the most is Miss Militia." Seeing the expression on my face, she laughed out loud. "I don't know either! I guess I give off the gay thing or whatever."
  
  "How does she feel about it?" I wondered, slowly slightly to finish the discussion before we got too near the crowd around the ticket booth.
  
  Mars snickered to herself. "She said that I could forget about the shotgun wedding everyone seems to think we're going to have, because she wants the full works, and that I should be ready to woo her, damn it. Which surprised me, because you know, I would've thought a shotgun wedding was her thing."
  
  By that point, we had reached the public area around the ticket stand and stopped talking about private things while we bought tickets and headed into the building.
  
  A few minutes later, the two of us stood in the lobby with a big bucket of popcorn to share and a drink for each of us. Marissa held the bucket up for my inspection, adopting a somewhat posh accent. "Extra butter and salt, precisely as requested. Does it meet your requirements, milady?"
  
  I answered her by opening my mouth wide and lowering my head to scarf a big mouthful of popcorn right off the top of the bucket. "Yuuuuummmphhmm."
  
  Giggling, Mars pulled the bucket away and kissed my forehead. "I see it meets with your approval."
  
  "Almost... it's missing something to taste perfect." I pretended to consider what it could be for a second, then took up a large popped kernel before gently brushing it across Marissa's mouth while she gasped. Finally, I popped it into my own mouth and chewed. "There, now that's perfect."
  
  It took Mars a moment to recover from that, but once she did, her smile turned wily. "Mental note, Mads really likes the taste of lip gloss on her food."
  
  The two of us laughed out loud, ignoring the stares of passersby before heading in to enjoy our movie, as well as the rest of the evening.
  
  The next evening, Saturday, I was also enjoying myself but in a different way. I was enjoying kicking Dennis's butt at the dance rhythm game in the local arcade. By the end of our latest set, I was still bouncing and ready to go on while he all-but collapsed, hunching over while breathing hard. He squinted at me suspiciously. "You're cheating. I'm not sure how, but you are. Having that much energy after something like that isn't normal."
  
  I just grinned back at him and bounced a little more on the little glowing circles that marked where you were supposed to put your feet. "Aww, does that mean you don't wanna go again?"
  
  The poor boy was saved from replying by an unfamiliar girl with long, jet-black hair and an elfin face, who walked right up to us and spoke in a quiet voice. "Hey, there might be a ummm, a problem."
  
  Dennis and I both stared at the girl uncomprehendingly. "Do, uhhh, we know you?" I asked hesitantly.
  
  The girl blinked at me in confusion for a moment before starting. "What do you mean do you-Oh! I-sorry. It's Amy. I'm Amy, I mean." She blushed and waved a hand. "Look, I swear it's me. I'll explain umm... back here." The girl gestured for us to accompany her to a private corner of the arcade, away from where the crowd was.
  
  Exchanging a glance with Dennis, I finally shrugged and followed the strange girl who said she was Amy. Whatever this turned out to be, it was bound to be interesting.
  
  Leading us to the corner of the arcade, the girl looked around to make sure we weren't being watched. Then she reached up to two different spots on her neck and pinched them hard while apologizing. "Sorry, I forgot I was testing this thing."
  
  "Testing wha-" Dennis managed to get out before both of us yelped as the face in front of us seemed to dissolve into Amy's real face. Her hair also lightened and curled out a bit.
  
  Mouth hanging open for a moment, I finally managed a weak, "What... what? You can't change yourself though. I mean... you can't, right?"
  
  "Right." She nodded. "This is just a bio-disguise system that Riley and I were working on. It's still a prototype, but I guess it worked well enough to fool you guys." Amy was smiling a little bit. "I guess I kind of liked being able to walk around without having everybody pay attention to me. Not that I hate healing people or anything, but a little bit of privacy is nice."
  
  "You and Riley are still working on things?" Dennis stared at her. "After what happened with Sophia?"
  
  She flushed a little. "Of course. Our stuff can help people. And what's Riley supposed to do, just not use her power? I'm helping her channel it without being destructive."
  
  Pushing past that before Dennis could argue, I asked, "You said there was a problem?"
  
  "Maybe." She amended. "Maybe there's a problem. I ummm... Riley sort of took off."
  
  My eyes widened at that, my mind rushing into a dozen different scenarios, none of them good. "What do you mean, she took off? Where'd she go?"
  
  Quickly, Amy's head shook. "Nothing really bad or anything, don't worry. What I mean is, she took off to ummm..." She shifted uneasily, eyes flicking back and forth. "... to patrol."
  
  Once again, both Dennis and I stared at her with open mouths, trying to cope with her words. This time, it was Dennis who found his voice first. "Patrol? As in chasing down criminals? Well that thought just made me pee a little."
  
  Amy started to elaborate, but hesitated. "Listen, Lambda and Emma are here too. They can help but..." She gestured to Dennis. "Emma doesn't know who he is."
  
  "Say no more." Dennis waved a hand. "I'll go practice with our game. Let me know what's up."
  
  He moved back into the crowd, and a moment later, two other girls approached. One of them looked identical to Amy's previous disguised appearance, while the other was a small Hispanic-looking girl who was eating a cheeseburger and clearly enjoying it a lot.
  
  The one that looked exactly like Amy's disguised self stepped to where we were, her voice quiet and hesitant. "I... ummm... I f-found her with the ummm... traffic... camera s-system. One of the ummm... the main c-computers for it is across the street."
  
  "Emma?" I asked, staring at the disguised figure. "You're using one of those things too?"
  
  Looking up at me uncomprehendingly for a second, Emma finally remembered the disguise and reached toward her neck. She hesitated though, and then lowered her hands while nodding. "Y-yes." Clearly torn for a moment, she added in an even quieter voice. "I'm g-glad that... that you're okay."
  
  Realizing what she meant, that I hadn't seen her since the whole thing with Lung, I stepped over and gave the girl a brief but tight hug. "Thanks, Emma. We're all okay."
  
  Releasing her after a moment, I stepped back and looked to the Hispanic girl. "Lambda?"
  
  "Yes, Madison-Friend." She confirmed with a wide smile before taking another bite of her cheeseburger. I had noticed before that of all the Pandoras, Lambda was the one that had first managed to convey a smile that didn't look terrifying.
  
  Returning her smile briefly, I asked, "Okay, what's this about Riley going on patrol? What patrol?"
  
  The other girls glanced at one another, before Amy explained. "A hero patrol. She sort of... went off with her disguise to patrol like a real cape. She said that since you Wards were on vacation, somebody had to help take up the slack."
  
  My mouth opened and shut. "You mean Riley really is out there in her disguise, actively trying to stop criminals?" My brain started playing the equivalent of an air raid siren in my head at the thought of how something like that might go. Not that I didn't trust Riley to try to do the right thing at this point, but she was still rather vague on little things like acceptable force and not horrifying everyone she talked to.
  
  Amy shifted on her feet. "We were hoping you might be able to go out with her, maybe... guide her a little so that nothing goes too wrong? She'll listen to what you say. She still idolizes you."
  
  I nodded at that. "Yeah, I... I'll help her." I didn't even think about the fact that I was supposed to be on a mandatory break. This was more important. And it wasn't just fear of what Riley might do without thinking she was doing anything wrong. I also felt protective of Riley herself. She'd never been out as a hero before. She didn't even have any backup, unless... "What about Pandora?"
  
  "Riley-Friend did not desire our company," Lambda replied.
  
  "None of them went with her." Amy went on with a wince. "She ummm, she asked them to let her go by herself and not follow her so that she could see what being a hero was like. But we're sure that she won't mind you coming around for a team-up. That's why we came to find you."
  
  "A team-up," I echoed bluntly, looking back and forth between the two girls before sighing. "All right. Let me let... my friend know what's going on." Clearly Emma not knowing Dennis's identity was awkward, but that was his secret to keep. "Then I'll go find Riley for a... team-up. Emma, can you meet us outside to let me know where I'm going?"
  
  She nodded a little distractedly and headed out, while Amy, Lambda, and I went explain things to Dennis.
  
  He agreed with my going out to help guide Riley so she didn't go overboard. "But for the record," he added. "This means you forfeit our rematch and I win." He gestured back toward the dance game.
  
  "Pfffft. Fat chance." I shook my head. "I just need a stand-in. Lambda? Think you can stay with Amy here and beat Dennis at our dancing game while Emma and I find Riley?"
  
  "Oh, yes, Madison-Friend." Lambda's head bobbed in happy agreement. "But we are afraid that if we do not finish our delicious cheeseburger first, there will be too many on the machine."
  
  I blinked a few times at that. "Why would taking a cheeseburger on the machine make there be too many?"
  
  "Because, Madison-Friend." She gave me another wide smile, waving the bread of her burger toward me. "Then there would be a-bun-dance."
  
  "Halt, evil-doers!"
  
  As I landed on the edge of a rooftop, my eyes scanned the street below until I found the source of the commanding voice. Riley was there, standing in the middle of the sidewalk in her Bones costume/flesh-mech. Her hand was raised in a 'stop' motion, while her other fist rested against her hip in what was obviously her approximation of a super hero pose.
  
  Her chosen targets happened to be a gang of four or five thugs that had apparently been breaking into a small organic grocery store that had closed for the evening. They whirled at the sound of Riley's (altered to sound slightly older and male) voice, then stood there and stared.
  
  One of the group, the only female, lifted her chin challengingly. "Who the fuck are you supposed to be?" She looked the new figure up and down. "Not a Ward, ain't Protectorate. Some dumbass out playing Halloween?" She laughed, and the guys laughed with her.
  
  I tensed, but didn't move. I would go down and help if and when Riley needed it. But for the moment, I wanted to give her the chance to handle this. I thought it was a big part of her growth, and if I immediately jumped in like I didn't trust her at all, I could hurt things more than I helped them.
  
  Riley started to walk that way. "The name is Bones. And you are villains. I command you to surrender."
  
  The group all laughed, heads shaking in amusement. One of the guys waved a hand at the approaching figure. "Seriously, who is this guy? Is that you, Charlie? You fucking with us?"
  
  "Hey! You're already in trouble, Mister!" Riley informed the man, the deep male voice of the suit sounding oddly prim. "Don't make things worse for yourself by having a potty mouth."
  
  Again, the thugs exchanged disbelieving looks. Before Riley could get too close, the girl and one of the other guys both produced pistols and pointed them at her. "That's close enough." The girl looked Riley up and down again. "Ain't funny no more. You run along now before we gotta perverate a bitch."
  
  "Perforate." Riley corrected. "If you're gonna threaten somebody, you gotta use the right word or you just look dumb." The female-thug's face reddened, but before she could say anything else, Riley gasped. Her attention was on the grocery they had been breaking into. "You vile fiends! I know what you were planning!" While the group stared back in confusion, she lifted a hand to point into the store. "You were going to replace all the eggs in the store with biologically altered parasite eggs so that when people eat them, the parasite grows in their stomach until it bursts out of their chest and goes on a killing spree, laying more eggs in people until the whole city falls into your evil hands!"
  
  A thoroughly confused thug raised his hand uncertainly while the rest stared open-mouthed. "Uhh... we were just... gonna steal some cash from the register."
  
  Riley, or rather, Bones, tilted her head in disbelief. "Really? Geeze, that's totally lame, guys. Were you at least gonna leave behind a flesh-melting gas to kill off anybody else that went in the store after you?"
  
  "Uhh... No?" One of the other thugs offered weakly.
  
  "You're just stealing cash?" Riley sounded aghast and disappointed. "Is that even illegal?"
  
  Completely flummoxed by this point, one of the thugs waved his arms helplessly. "I... I can't deal with this, man. I gotta..." He turned to leave, hands thrown up in utter confusion.
  
  "Hey!" Riley pointed at him. "You're not allowed to leave. I'm... eighty percent sure you're breaking the law right now. Breaking it really, really lamely, but still. You've gotta surrender and go to jail. Or... whatever. Wait, do you really go to jail for stupid, boring crimes like that? Oooh ooh, can they make you go to jail longer because it's so lame?"
  
  "Okay, that's it. You get the fuck outta here, bitch." The female thug pointed her gun at Riley. I tensed, but there was no danger line so, for the moment, I waited to see what the other girl would do. "You get outta here, or I swear I'll put a bullet in your fucking head."
  
  "You say lots of bad words." Riley chastised before starting to walk that way once more. Before she could take more than a couple steps, the other girl pulled the trigger, the gun bucking in her hand.
  
  There was little reaction at all from Bones. The head sort of jerked a tiny bit, almost like flinching away from a mosquito. Other than that, Riley just kept walking. "Oooh, you shot me! I know that's illegal. Thanks! Now I really can arrest you." She sounded thrilled.
  
  Both the female thug and the other armed guy started firing then. They managed to get off two shots each, neither of which did anything. Then Bones' hand found the woman's gun and yanked it away from her, crushing the weapon easily before tossing it aside. In the same motion, Riley brought the other arm up, and a cloud of red gas shot out into the woman's face. I had a brief second of panic as the girl collapsed, but a second later her voice shouted, "What the fuck, I can't move!"
  
  "Paralyzing gas." Riley announced, putting a foot on the fallen woman. "You're under arrest. Now the rest of you can come quietly, or-" They broke and scattered, running in every direction. "Hey! If you'd let me finish, you'd know 'going home' wasn't one of the options, jerks!"
  
  Taking that as my cue, I used a line to yank myself down beside her. "Hey R-Bones." I corrected myself just in time. "You need some help?"
  
  "Tether!" Riley sounded happy to see me. "Nah, I got 'em. Check this out." Reaching into her duster, she withdrew a baseball-sized lump of purple flesh with tiny nubs all over it. Then she turned toward one of the fleeing men, the other one that had been armed. Rearing back, Riley threw the 'ball' after him. It soared through the air, and as it flew, the nubs extended into a dozen thin tentacles. When the thing crashed into the running man's back, the tentacles immediately lashed out to wrap around the man, entangling his arms and legs to bring him to the ground where he twisted and writhed helplessly.
  
  Next, Riley turned toward the pair of thugs that had taken off running another way together. This time, she produced what looked like a small mechanical mouse with emerald eyes. It perked up in her hand and looked around while Riley cooed at it a little. "Ready, Solomon? Go get 'em!" She threw the mouse, and it hit the ground before taking off to chase the men down. The little thing moved so fast I could barely track it, racing along the street until it caught up with one of the men. Leaping, the thing crawled up the man's back and seemed to nip him in the neck. He fell face-first to the ground while the mouse-bot jumped from his shoulder to land on the second man's neck, bringing him down as well with a single bite. The two lay completely still, howling about how they couldn't move.
  
  "Robo-mouse?" I asked curiously while the thing came trotting back to us, clearly pleased with itself.
  
  "Dinah said robo-spiders were scary. And that I should use something different anyway." Riley explained, stooping to pick up the mouse-bot before turning in a circle. "Now where's that last guy..." The costume's head tilted back to look straight up while she gave a loud, piercing whistle then.
  
  "What're you-" I managed to get out before a dark shape came flying down out of the sky. I yelped and jumped back in surprise, just as what looked like a cross between an owl and a bat landed on Bones's outstretched arm. It shifted around to look my way briefly, giving me a better look at the thing. It was all black, with the body and wings of a bat, while the head was shaped and positioned more like an owl. It also had not two, but four feet with talons. Perhaps even more creepy were the thing's eyes. They were huge, like the owl its head resembled, but they were also compound, like a fly. "What the- What's that thing?" I tried to resist the urge to smack it.
  
  "My look-out, Spectacles!" Riley sounded absurdly proud. "Okay, Spectacles, there's one more bad guy. You know where he went?" The... bird... bat... thing made a sort of crow-like cawing noise, and Riley bounced in excitement (an odd look for the full-grown male suit) "Show us!"
  
  The flying thing, Spectacles apparently, took off and began to fly away. Riley grabbed my hand and started to run after it. "C'mon, Tether! We can catch him!"
  
  Quickly, I attached a pair of lines to the two paralyzed men down one end of the street, and yanked them in to lay next to the paralyzed woman in front of the store. Then I turned to use another line to yank the man that was tangled up and imprisoned by the tentacles, depositing him there as well so that they would all be in one place. Finally, I started to run with Riley while activating my comm. "This is Tether. There's a deposit of would-be thieves in front of Adelson's Grocery. Nothing serious, so local police should be able to handle it."
  
  "Tether?" It was Miss Militia's voice that came back. "You were ordered to take time off. You're not even supposed to be out in costume."
  
  "Yeah, something came up." I glanced sidelong at Riley as the two of us turned the corner, following after the flying bird-thing. "Bones decided to go on a patrol, so I thought we could team-up."
  
  "Bones..." I could hear the frown in Miss Milita's voice. "Wait, isn't that what you said-"
  
  "Yup." I confirmed, glancing up to see Spectacles leading us down an alley.
  
  There was silence on the line for a moment before the Protectorate leader replied, "Carry on. We'll send a patrol to pick up your catch. Report in when you're done."
  
  "Got it. Oh and tell the cops not to touch the guy wrapped up in the tentacles." I disconnected just as Miss Militia started to sputter, focusing on Spectacles as the flying creature came down to land on the edge of a fire escape just outside of an apartment window. He gave a soft caw and remained rigidly focused on the window itself.
  
  While we had the chance, I asked, "Any side effects from that paralyzing bite or the gas?"
  
  Riley's not-terribly-encouraging answer was, "I'd be surprised." Then she pointed up to the window. "Spectacles says that the last bad guy is in there. Can we go up and get him?"
  
  Glancing toward the four-taloned bat-owl thing, I paused before nodding. "Yeah, but we need to limit the potential danger to other people that live there." Thinking for a second, I slowly smiled. "Okay, you want to be the one to catch him, right? I'll go around and inside, and drive him out the window. You be ready to catch him."
  
  I could pretty much hear the grin in Riley's face as the suit's head bobbed. "Yay! I mean uhh, will do, fellow protector of humanity and defender of all that is good and of ummm... like... bunnies and stuff."
  
  Shaking my head, I left the bio-tinker in the alley to make my way around the front of the building and inside.
  
  It took a minute to get upstairs and work out which apartment was the right one, but eventually I stood outside the appropriate door. Before I could do anything, a door down the hall opened, and a woman stepped out. She was talking loudly on her phone, and stopped short at the sight of me in costume.
  
  "Holy shit, Terry! It's one o'them Wards. Tether! Ya know, the funny one that killed Lung! Hey, can I get an autograph?"
  
  Inside the apartment, I heard someone scrambling around. The woman's loud voice had carried. Flinching, I held a hand up. "Hold that thought." Turning back to the door, I stepped just to the side of it before bracing a line to force it open, calling out, "Rabbit season!" The second that the door opened, the deafening roar of a shotgun filled the air, taking out part of the wall beyond the door.
  
  Before anything else could happen, I stepped back around the doorway and reached out a hand. The remaining would-be thief was there with his gun raised. I yanked the weapon out of his hand while lamenting, "No, no, no. You say Duck Season and then someone else uses the gun. Haven't you read the script?"
  
  Rather than respond to that, the man spun around and sprinted for the window. I kept my voice droll and monotone. "No. Wait. Don't run. Whatever shall I do to catch up with you?"
  
  The woman's contribution to this entire event was a half-squealing running commentary with 'Terry'.
  
  I took my time, at least to an extent, walking into the apartment and moving to the window to see what was going on. By the time I got there, the last thug was standing in the alley below with some kind of bulbous growth on the back of his neck, slapping himself repeatedly.
  
  Whispering a prayer to myself, I slipped through the window and dropped down. As soon as I landed, I could see that the 'growth' on the man's neck was some kind of fairly big insect-like thing. It was about the size of one of those large Christmas light bulbs, with a similar shape save for the head (which looked like a preying mantis). It had some kind of stinger coming from its mouth that was pushed into the man's neck, and Riley seemed to be controlling his actions to make the man smack himself over and over. "Bad, bad, bad. You don't hurt people. You don't try to kill super heroes. Or-Or anybody else. And you don't uhhh... steal. Yeah, you don't steal." To me, she added a stage-whispered, "That is illegal, right?"
  
  Working my mouth a little, I stepped that way. "Yeah, definitely illegal. Okay, ummm, I think we got him. You can let him go now, or pull the thing out or off or... whatever."
  
  "Sure!" Riley lifted the arm of the suit and whistled. "Here, Strings!" The bug... thing pulled its stinger out of the man's neck. Its Christmas-light shaped back end opened up like a shell to reveal two different pairs of wings that began to beat blindingly fast, lifting the thing up. It flew to Riley's outstretched arm and disappeared into a hidden compartment there.
  
  Released from the thing's control, the man collapsed to his knees and sobbed out that he was sorry and that could we please just take him to jail now. I took the time to handcuff him with zip-ties before hauling him up to walk back to where the other members of his little gang were. "Boy did you guys pick the wrong night to go out."
  
  By the time we got back to the front of the grocery store, there was already a couple of police cruisers parked there with their lights spinning. I glanced toward Riley and hesitated before bracing myself as we walked the rest of the way to where the four policemen were standing over the guy that had been trussed up with the tentacles. I had considered asking her to wait for me, but if she really wanted to be a hero, she probably needed to experience all of it.
  
  The cops looked up as we approached, and Bones raised a hand in greeting. "Hello, fellow stoppers of bad things! We bring one more criminal to be judged." Her voice turned to a stage-whisper then. "They're pretty lame criminals though. They were just stealing stuff."
  
  "Tether," one of the officers that I recognized addressed me. "Who uhhh, who the hell is this?"
  
  "Hey!" Bones pointed a finger at the officer. "How can we set an example for the bad guys if you say bad words? Let's keep it clean, huh?"
  
  "Err, this is Bones." I gestured that way. "Sh-" Clearing my throat, I corrected myself. "He's new. Just kind of a... private vigilante. Don't worry, everything's fine." Under my breath, I added, "I hope."
  
  "What's the he-heck is this stuff?" The officer poked the entangled thug with a foot, clearly wary of actually touching the tentacles themselves.
  
  "I got it!" Hurrying over to the man, Riley knelt down and tickled the fleshy orb until the tentacles retracted back inside, leaving just the little nubs that had been there before. She straightened and tucked it away. "He's all yours, officers! Oh! And the umm, the others'll stop being paralyzed in about twenty minutes."
  
  Looking down at the captured criminals, then back up again, the policeman shrugged. "Huh. You're a weird one, but good job, I guess."
  
  He and the other officers stepped away, and Riley spun toward me, her whisper elated. "Didja hear that? He said good job!"
  
  Smiling to myself, I nodded and reached out to pat the girl on the shoulder. "It was a good job, Bones. You caught the bad guys and didn't overly hurt anyone. Very nice." While she preened happily (a very odd thing to see the Bones-suit do), I added, "And speaking of good job, there's a lady back at the apartments that wanted an autograph. What do you say we give her two of them? She might be your very first fan."
  
  "My first... fan?" Riley echoed in wonder before bouncing a little. "Oooh, oooh. Can we really?"
  
  Chuckling in spite of myself, I turned and started to walk. "Yeah, let's go see if she's still around. On the way, you can tell me about that... thing that was controlling that guy."
  
  As we walked, she enthused. "I can't believe I might get a fan already. People might know me! I mean, Bones. They might know Bones. They might think about what I did and not be... ummm..." Her voice went softer then. "Scared."
  
  "Don't worry," I assured her. "Something tells me it's not going to be long before everyone knows about Bones."
  
  22.03
  
  "And you're absolutely certain that the criminals who were attacked by Bonesaw-"
  
  "Bones." I interrupted Mrs. Pelham. She and Miss Militia were sitting across from me at the PCIPS HQ, which had been the closest building they could drag me to for a post-patrol interview. They had wanted to pull in Riley as well to give her a once-over, but I'd convinced them it was a really bad idea for the moment. "Her name is Bones. Oh, but you should use the term he and him because that's part of her disguise. The suit looks and sounds male."
  
  "Bones then." Miss Militia agreed before Lady Photon could say anything else. "The criminals who were attacked by Bones, you're certain that there won't be any lasting effects?"
  
  I bit my lip, pausing to glance out the window. We were on the third story, and I could see the lights of the freeway in the distance. The silence stretched on for what seemed like a long time given the subject matter, but was likely only a few seconds. Finally, I turned back. "First, she didn't 'attack' them. She told them to surrender and they attacked her first. Then she used non-lethal methods of bringing them down. Honestly, if she wanted to hurt them, 'paralyzing gas' would only be step one, not the sum total of her attack. She could have done a lot worse if she had any desire to."
  
  "We know." Mrs. Pelham agreed with a nod. "That's why we're asking you if she did do anything else."
  
  That much I was confident about. "No. She said that if there were any side effects to the paralyzing gas or bites, or any of the rest of it, she'd be surprised. I believe her. She really does want to be a hero, even if she's not really sure how. This is her chance, guys. This is... maybe a little hint about what she could have been if Jack Slash and the rest of the Nine hadn't ruined her. She did good tonight, really. I know how tempting it is to look for her sinister motive or angle, but she doesn't have one. I'm not saying she won't make mistakes or go too far sometimes, but she's trying to do better."
  
  The two women exchanged glances briefly, before Miss Militia let out a long breath. "Okay." She reached down to the briefcase beside her and took out a folder, setting on the table between us. "We want you to give this to her." Her hand slid the folder across the table, tapping it twice.
  
  "What is it?" I asked, opening the folder to take a look. There was a stack of official looking papers inside, with several spots where clearly important signatures had been scrawled. The papers were covered with stamps from local, state, and federal offices of the PRT, as well as the governor. Flipping through them without really looking, I even saw a spot where both the attorney general and the president of the United States himself had signed, and made a strangled noise. "This... this..."
  
  "A provisional rescinding of her kill order." Mrs. Pelham confirmed. "Contingent upon her toeing the line. If she gives the authorities any reason, any reason at all to think that she's going back to her old ways, the kill order goes back into effect. There's also a list of doctors across the country who would like to speak with her regarding some of her... experiments that they've been forced to try to care for after she discarded them. It would go a long way toward convincing people of her... change if she would contact those doctors and give them a better idea of how to help her former subjects."
  
  I blanched, not having thought about the fact that Riley probably had a lot of those 'test subjects' lying around that she hadn't bothered to kill or do anything with once their initial use was done. "I'll give them to her. Hopefully she'll... I'll try. Talking about her being Bonesaw and what she used to do when she was is kind of a subject I try to avoid, but if it'll help people, then I'll try."
  
  "Good." Miss Militia met my gaze. "These people need help. You might know her as an innocent little lamb, Tether, but the creature she used to be did appalling things to a great number of people. They can't just be forgotten and swept under the rug because now she wants to do good. If she truly wants to make amends, she can prove it by helping the people she destroyed."
  
  Swallowing hard, I closed the folder and bobbed my head. "I'll get it to her, I promise." I looked back and forth between them. "Is there anything else?"
  
  "In a hurry?" Mrs. Pelham asked. "You aren't going back out on patrol, are you? The mandatory vacation time still exists. You are supposed to be taking a break. "
  
  "Nope, no patrol," I assured them with a smile. Once they relaxed, I added, "I just want to see if Lambda managed to beat Dennis at the dancing game."
  
  "So she really said, 'halt, evil-doers?', with the pose and everything?"
  
  It was two days later, and I was at the apartment that Theo and Cassie shared with Kayden and baby Aster. Missy was there too, and the four of us were sitting around the table playing a board game together.
  
  Meanwhile Aster sat on the floor eating cheerios out of a cup while she played with some blocks right alongside Jalopy in his spider-form. The tiny robot kept playing various children's songs for the little girl, much to her delight, and the two of them were engaged with building a block tower together. Aster flat-out loved Jalopy, and he was already fiercely protective of the girl. He'd bonded with Aster pretty much immediately, though she kept calling him a kitty.
  
  Picking up the dice, I nodded toward Missy. "Yup, just like that. Those poor guys had no idea what they were dealing with." After rolling a four, I picked up my Legend token and moved it the appropriate number of spaces. "Draw an Endbringer card." I read the note on the space and groaned before reaching out to take the appropriate card and looked it over. "Simurgh destroyed a private lab that would have discovered a cure for Asthma. Go back nine spaces and lose one accolade."
  
  While I made a face and followed the instructions, Cassie picked up the dice and spoke up. "You think she's gonna go out on her own again?" She rolled a six and slid her Chevalier token the appropriate distance, glancing at the space she'd landed on. "Battle card." Taking the top one off the appropriate deck, she laid it out so we could see the image of Sultan, a medium-level villain from the north-west of the country whose power had to do with providing people who trusted his leadership with enhanced strength and durability. The more they trusted him, the more powerful they became. His most trusted assistant, a man called Jones, was basically on par with Alexandria as far as raw physical power went.
  
  "I managed to convince her that she should wait until I can go with her more." I shrugged. "Right now she's busy going over the folder that I passed along." I went quiet for a second then before continuing in a softer voice. "She was trying to remember some of the cases they had listed in there, and if there was anything that could be done about them. I guess some of them were really bad."
  
  "Someone else roll Sultan for me." Cassie glanced down at the card. "He's got one die for himself and two for his resources and troops. Plus one on all rolls because of his power."
  
  Theo reached out to take a few of the dice, shaking them up before letting them roll across the table. "Three, five, two becomes four, six, and three with the bonus. So thirteen."
  
  Cassie nodded then. "Chevalier's got one die for himself and one for his weapon, plus two to rolls from a couple accolades." She started to roll before stopping. "Actually, I'm gonna go ahead and cash in an accolade so I can use another die this battle. So three dice, plus one to each roll from my remaining accolade." Rolling the dice, she took a second to count them up. "Five, six, two becomes six, seven, three. Sixteen, whoo! Take that, jackass." She used a finger to flick the Sultan card. "I get the accolade I spent back, because I won, plus another for beating a moderate villain. That's three accolades, which I am going to spend right now to upgrade Chevalier's power. So now it's a two dice power."
  
  Taking the Sultan card and putting it in the middle of the game board where the Birdcage outline was, Theo started to take his turn. His Dragon token moved a few spaces before he had to draw a random event card that sent him forward two more.
  
  While he was dealing with that, I looked toward Missy. "So what's going on with your dad wanting to move?" She had explained the situation to the rest of the team, so I wasn't spoiling anything.
  
  The younger girl shrugged. "I told him no, and that the Protectorate wants me here. What's he gonna do, try to go to court over it? The Youth Guard only cares if I'm being hurt in some way, and I'm not. The PRT does more to keep track of me than him or mom, and he knows it."
  
  "So he's not moving?" I asked while reaching down to tickle little Aster, making her squeal in delight.
  
  Missy gave a disbelieving snort at that. "You're kidding, right? I said I wasn't going, not that he had to leave behind anything important, like his baseball card collection. Get real."
  
  Her words made me flinch, but it was Theo who spoke. "Ouch." He held the dice out for Missy to take while asking, "You really think he doesn't care that much?"
  
  Missy shrugged and frowned, taking the dice. "Don't worry about it. I'm not some little baby that's gonna cry because my parents are stupid. I can handle it."
  
  I reached out to poke the girl firmly. "Hey, trust me. After what we've done together, nobody around here thinks you're a baby. But sometimes it's good to talk about what's bothering you. Makes it easier to uhhh, to deal with all of it." I glanced to the others two. "Right?"
  
  Cassie gave a little smirk before nodding. "Sure, you gotta get things off your chest or you'll explode. Venting is a good thing. After all, I vent all the time and look how healthy I am."
  
  Missy rolled her eyes along with the dice. "Yeah, you're the picture of mental health. What'd the psychologist say about toting around all those guns during Lung's attack?" The dice came up with nine, and she counted the spaces before sliding her Narwhal token until it reached the same space that my Legend token was on. "Speaking of being a team." She looked to me. "What do you think?"
  
  Since we were on the same space, we had three options about the kind of team-up event we could do. We could draw three battle cards and participate in the fight together, with bonuses for working together. Or we could each draw three random event cards and pick the one that we wanted while shuffling the others back into the deck. If we did that, however, we also had to take an Endbringer card. The random chance cards were about seventy-five percent good things (though of varying use) and twenty-five percent bad, while the Endbringer cards were about ninety percent bad and ten percent good. Again, exactly how bad the Endbringer card was varied. Sometimes it was worth taking one when you also got your pick of three random event cards. Finally, we could just each gain a single accolade, which wasn't a big deal compared to the other choices, but lacked any kind of drawback.
  
  I considered the options for a moment before straightening. "I say we do the battle. Legend and Narwhal? We can take 'em. It's a chance for three accolades at once, each."
  
  Missy nodded. "Sure, why not." She reached out toward the villains deck and slid the first card off the top, turning it over to reveal Three-Count, a minor tinker-for-hire that operated mostly in Florida, whose specialty lay in knocking people out and imprisoning them. He was a two dice villain.
  
  Next, I reached out and turned over the next villain card. As soon as I saw who it was, I flinched.
  
  "Kaiser." Theo's voice was quiet as he looked at the card on the table.
  
  "Sorry." I picked up the card. "I'll toss it and draw again. I didn't even think about him being in there."
  
  "No." His head shook. "Don't. It's okay. I mean... he was a villain. It's part of the game."
  
  I hesitated, uncertain. "Are you sure?" When he nodded, I laid the card next to Three-Count.
  
  Cassie nudged the boy. "Hey, if it makes you feel any better, at least he has to work with a black guy? Sucks for him." Her own eyes widened after that, realizing what she had just said. "Errr, shit, I meant that he'd hate that, not that... fuuuuck." Lowering her forehead to rest on the table, she waved a hand. "Ignore me. Just play. I didn't mean it like that. Draw the next card or whatever."
  
  Patting her on the back, I looked toward Missy and asked, "You wanna draw the last one?"
  
  She nodded and turned over one more villain card, revealing Autonomous, a villain from New York whose power allowed him to remove any body part at all, from his eyes to his hair to his hands and so on, even his organs, and have them move and act independently, even to the point of somehow being able to 'see' what they were doing.
  
  "Autonomous, Kaiser, and Three-Count." I arranged the cards between the two of us. "That's two two dice villains and one three dice villain. Think we can take 'em?"
  
  Missy smiled a little and gave an easy nod. "Don't forget Kaiser gets to reroll the lowest result once, and Autonomous gets a plus one to his total roll for every body part he has nearby that can help which is..." Taking the die, she rolled it. "Two. So he gets a plus two."
  
  "Does Three-Count get anything special?" Theo asked, curiously.
  
  I turned the villain's card a bit to read. "Uhhh, yeah, if he wins you can't move again until you roll doubles, or three turns pass." Looking toward Missy, I gestured. "Go ahead and roll for him first."
  
  Taking the two dice, Missy shook them up before rolling. "Uhhh, two and five. Seven."
  
  I rolled for Kaiser next, counting up the three results. "Five, six, three." After rerolling the three into another five, that amounted to sixteen. "So sixteen plus Three-Count's seven is twenty-three."
  
  Finally, Missy rolled for Autonomous. "Four and three. Plus two is nine."
  
  "Twenty-three plus nine is thirty-two." Theo announced. "So you two have to beat thirty-two to win."
  
  Taking my three dice, since I'd already upgraded Legend's power once, I rolled them. "Four, five, three. Plus three-errr plus two, I mean. Damn Endbringer card- from my accolades to each roll, makes eighteen." Picking up the dice once more, I handed them to Missy. "Good luck."
  
  Like me, Missy had upgraded Narwhal to being a three-dice hero, though she only had one accolade left after doing so. "I'm cashing in my accolade and taking the extra die." She announced, taking four dice into her hands to shake them up before rolling. "Four... three... five... and four." Counting them up, she grinned. "That's sixteen. And Eighteen plus sixteen is thirty-four! We won!"
  
  After high fiving the other girl, I counted out the pretty little polished stones that were accolades. "Three for you and three for me. Oh, plus the one you spent. That gives me five accolades again. One more and I can upgrade to four dice."
  
  Normally, trading a guaranteed six bonus to each roll for one more die would seem like a terrible trade. However, the number of dice you had determined the amount of accolades you were allowed to add to each die roll. With two dice, you could add two accolades to each die. With three, you could add three, and so on. So if you had six accolades but were only a two dice hero, you could still only add two of your accolades to each roll.
  
  "You thinking of a Slaughterhouse Run?" Cassie asked, wagging an eyebrow.
  
  There were two ways to win the game. Either you kept going around until all the main villain cards were in the Birdcage area, then count up who had caught which ones. The player who caught the most won that way (enemies beaten during team-ups counted toward the totals for each of those players). Or, at any time, a player could declare that they were doing a Slaughterhouse Run. What that meant was that the special Slaughterhouse Nine cards (the game was a bit out of date about who each of the members were) would be shuffled and then fought one after another, with no breaks or upgrading in between. If the player managed to beat all nine cards (and they were all really tough ones, including the five-dice Crawler and the six-dice Siberian), they would win the game immediately. But if they lost even one fight, that player was out of the game.
  
  My head shook. "Not right now anyway. Ask me after I upgrade at least once more. Maybe twice." Straightening, I lifted Aster off the floor and started to bounce her. Jalopy jumped to my arm and played 'ring around the rosies', and I spun in a circle to make the little girl squeal happily. "Isn't that right, Aster? We're gonna get much bigger and stronger before we do anything with those guys."
  
  She giggled unknowingly at my words and waved her fist while saying, "Bah guy!"
  
  I laughed and kissed the little girl's forehead. "That's right, bad guys. C'mon, you get to be my good luck charm."
  
  We played the game some more. But before we could get too much further, Theo's cell phone beeped three times. The boy froze briefly, then snatched up his phone with wide eyes.
  
  "Everything okay?" I asked, still holding Aster in my lap while she and Jalopy poked at each other curiously.
  
  "Better." Theo was actually smiling. "It worked."
  
  "What worked?" Missy asked, toying with the dice in her hand.
  
  "You know how they couldn't get the bomb out of Shadow Stalker's head without Bakuda's help?" When we nodded, he went on. "Well since the Protectorate caught Bakuda during the Lung thing-"
  
  "Don't tell me she actually agreed to help." Cassie's tone was dark. "Or that they'd believe a word she said."
  
  "Errr, no." Theo shook his head. "But ummm, they did manage to find some of her notes, including some about the bomb she used with Shadow Stalker. Not enough to get it out yet, but there were notes on the communication system she used between the bomb and the control ring. I ummm... I sort of... convinced Armsmaster to let me look at it and then made a drone that could track identical signals."
  
  "Does that mean you can track the person with the ring?" I sat up a little, staring at the boy.
  
  "Not exactly." He confessed. "The signal would only be active if the ring was either sending the detonation sequence, or doing its one of its random checks to make sure the bomb was still in place and not being messed with. They last like a second or two and it's always at a random time. Plus the ummm... the drone's range wasn't that great. I'm not that good with it yet. But I sent it out anyway and had the thing just patrol around, listening for the signal. It was a long shot, but-"
  
  "But you got it?" Missy was standing. "What does that mean, exactly?"
  
  Theo held up his phone so that we could see the map of the city on the screen, with a flashing red icon. "It uhhh, I think it means we know where the ring that controls Shadow Stalker's bomb is."
  
  "Which means," I realized. "We know where the person that has Noelle is."
  
  22.04
  
  Sophia hadn't been blown up, of course. The remote had simply been doing one of its random checks to ensure that the bomb was still in place. And now, thanks to that, we knew where the person controlling the bomb, whoever they were, was. Or at least, where they had just been.
  
  To say that things moved quickly after that would be an understatement of epic proportions. Not even a full hour had passed from the moment I made the call to Miss Militia before we had gathered behind an old closed down car lot (the same one that was where Amy had met with Marquis) down the street from where Theo's probe had indicated the remote had been accessed.
  
  In this particular case, 'we' included not only the Wards or a small, select team. No, for this situation, every local Protectorate and Ward had been called in. Miss Militia and Lady Photon had apparently decided that the 'only in the event of an S-Class situation' requirement applied here.
  
  Of course, initially a much smaller group would approach in an attempt to prevent Noelle from panicking at the thought that she was being hunted down. Sundancer, Genesis, Laserdream, Clockblocker, and I would go in first. Miss Militia had wanted to go herself, but had eventually concluded that if they wanted to convince Noelle she wasn't being attacked, sending in the leader of the Protectorate who happened to constantly be armed probably wouldn't send the right message. Not that everyone wasn't constantly armed with their powers, but it was a psychological thing. Plus, as she had explained it, allowing Noelle to agree to Miss Militia coming in would give the girl a feeling of control over the situation, which was very important if we were going to avoid an escalation. So, for the moment, Miss Militia and the rest of both teams would be waiting nearby in case things went wrong. On top of that, the Maine teams had been put on alert and told to be ready for transport in the event that things with Noelle really escalated. Hopefully none of it would be necessary, but it was better to have everyone ready to jump and then not need to than to try to get people coordinated with no notice.
  
  "This is it." Marissa put a hand on my shoulder as she stared down the street in the direction that Theo's drone had marked. The building in question was still out of sight, but she gazed that way as though she could find Noelle through sheer willpower. "She's close, I know she is."
  
  Before I could speak, Jess stepped up on the other side of her. She wasn't using her power. Jess walking was our best illustration to Noelle that the Protectorate would help her. She kept her voice low. "Here's hoping she listens to reason." When Mars opened her mouth to object, Jess shook her head. "I want this to go well too. But you know how irrational she was before. Now she's had months to stew, after Krouse had carte blanche to say anything he wanted about how we betrayed her.
  
  Marissa winced. "Oliver and Luke were there too."
  
  "Oliver doesn't have the forceful personality that Krouse does." Jess pointed out. "And Luke has never been as close to her as most of us. We all resented her somewhat, even if it was unfair, but Luke was the most open about it next to Cody. He was pretty much ready to abandon her before we got here. The reason he stayed behind when we left was to protect Oliver and keep an eye on Krouse."
  
  Deflating a little bit at that, Marissa bit her lip and looked back in that direction. Her voice was quieter now, but still determined. "She'll listen. She has to."
  
  I saw Jess move her hand to take Marissa's, squeezing it as she relented with a slight nod. "I hope so."
  
  Stepping away from where she had been talking to Battery and Penance (Aster was being watched by a PRT agent that commonly babysat the girl), Miss Militia approached. "Are you ready? The rest of us will spread out to surround the building and be ready the instant anything happens. If things go well, I'll come in with Panacea." She nodded to where Amy stood next to Crystal. "She has the cure."
  
  The woman squinted at me after that, and I had the feeling she had a pretty good idea of where the 'cure' had originated. But she didn't press the issue, having apparently decided that accepting the 'Riley and Amy made it' explanation was better for everyone in the long run. It was one of those unspoken, 'I know you're lying and you know that I know you're lying, but we're both going to pretend not to so that we avoid even worse problems, but watch yourself, young lady' sort of situations.
  
  Marissa was nodding. "We're ready. Right?" She turned slightly to look at where I was.
  
  "Absolutely," I assured her, waving a hand toward Dennis and Crystal. The two of them would be primarily responsible for making sure that any of the probable threats inside stayed off of us long enough to get to Noelle and talk to her. Failing that, the rest of both teams could be called in. But that was a situation that we really wanted to avoid if at all possible.
  
  Miss Militia seemed hesitant for a moment, but finally gave a slight nod. "Right. The five of you give us three minutes to get into position, then go in. And stay in contact. I want to know the very second that anything, and I mean anything goes wrong. Understand?" Her eyes passed over each of us.
  
  Clockblocker saluted smartly. "Will do, Commandant Bosslady." As she squinted at him, Dennis continued. "Not that we needed the reminder. Trust me, if this goes sideways, you probably won't need the comm to hear us screaming for help. I can yell pretty loud."
  
  "That's true." Crystal agreed before kicking Dennis in the shin, making him yelp. She smiled. "See?"
  
  Looking even more doubtful than before, Miss Militia heaved a put-upon sigh and then stepped back. "Three minutes, then go in." She turned to me and squinted very briefly. "Be careful. No unnecessary risks. If the place is too well guarded, pull back and let the heavy hitters break through."
  
  She marched off to get everyone else to their positions, and I exhaled while looking toward Jess and Marissa. "You really ready? This is kind of a big deal."
  
  Jess swallowed, but nodded along with Mars. "It's a huge deal. But we're ready. It's time for this whole Noelle situation to be resolved. Past time."
  
  The following couple of minutes passed in a way that seemed somehow simultaneously quick and agonizingly slow. Mars and Jess were both lost in worry about their friends, and even Dennis seemed to be at a loss for what to say. We ended up standing there in silence until Miss Militia came over the comm to report that everyone was in position.
  
  "Here goes everything." Mars announced, and the five of us set out around the corner, moving toward the building that Theo's device had marked. Both Penance and Laserdream had done a quick fly-over earlier, and had reported that the place was the old Canoby's family buffet restaurant that had closed down a couple years earlier. I had gone to the place many times with my parents when I was younger, and actually remembered being pretty sad that it had closed down before we had a chance to go back.
  
  Boy had my priorities changed in the past year.
  
  "So," I started as we stood in front of the restaurant. The place looked dark from where we were. "Do we just go right in the front door, or what?"
  
  "As opposed to?" Crystal asked, watching the place intently for any sign of life.
  
  "I dunno." I shrugged. "It just seems too easy to just walk in, after all it took to find this place."
  
  Clockblocker started walking then, crossing the parking lot. "No sense over-complicating things." The rest of us exchanged glances before shrugging and following him.
  
  Abruptly, Crystal reached out to grab Dennis's arm, stopping him and the rest of us. "Wait. Look." She pointed toward a pile of trash in the corner of the lot next to an old dumpster.
  
  "What's-" Belatedly, I noticed what she was pointing at. It wasn't just a pile of trash, there was a body there, lying in amidst the torn garbage bags. Eyes widening, I used a line to yank myself that way and crouched down over the fallen figure. Even as I arrived, I knew it was too late for the man. There was a single bullet wound in the middle of his forehead.
  
  Landing beside me, Crystal leaned in to see before grimacing. She activated the comm. "Miss Militia, we have a dead man in the parking lot, next to the dumpster. He looks like a mercenary of some kind. He's wearing body armor andhis sidearm is still holstered. Single shot to the head."
  
  There was a pause before Miss Militia replied, "Get in there and see what the hell is going on. We're moving in closer. The second absolutely anything goes wrong, we'll be there."
  
  Marissa and Jess didn't need to be told twice. They went straight for the restaurant, most caution abandoned by that point. I couldn't really blame them, considering the off-hand way the single mercenary had apparently been executed and discarded.
  
  Things didn't get any less confusing as we pushed through the door and into the restaurant itself. Straight ahead of us, where the hostess would normally stand to greet customers, another armored mercenary body lay. This one, like the last, had a single bullet wound in the middle of his forehead.
  
  Two more bodies lay slumped in a booth to the left. It looked like they had tried to take cover but had been unsuccessful. One had another bullet wound, while the second looked like his head had been caved in when the heavy lamp above the booth had broken loose and fallen on him.
  
  "Okay," Dennis announced while turning in a circle. "Now I'm seriously getting the creeps."
  
  A muffled thumping noise came from the the doorway marked for employees only, and the five of us rushed that way. The thumping grew louder as we reached the kitchens and found the bodies of two more armed mercenaries near the sinks. One appeared to have been strangled with the long hose coming from the sink, while the other lay on his stomach with the handle of a carving knife sticking out of the back of his head.
  
  Our attention was drawn quickly from the dead men to the door of the walk-in freezer, which jolted with each heavy impact of something pounding on it. A chain had been wrapped around the handle of the door itself and then padlocked to hold it shut.
  
  "On it." Crystal pointed a finger at the chain, and a tiny laser shot out to cut through it within a few seconds. After that, Dennis and I quickly unwrapped the remains and pulled it away from the door.
  
  Marissa reached out and pulled the handle, opening the door just as another hard thump came. She looked inside briefly before her eyes widened in surprise. "Luke!"
  
  She rushed in, and I leaned around the corner of the door. Sure enough, Ballistic sat on the far side of the room with his back to the wall. He had been gagged, and his remaining arm was locked behind his back by what looked like hardened PRT foam. There were dented and broken metal pans lying all over the floor between him and the door. Apparently he had been using his power to propel things against the door in an attempt to either break it open, or get someone's attention.
  
  As soon as the gag was off him, Ballistic cursed. "Fuck. Woman... some fucking woman in a suit and a ski mask. She killed all the mercs the Outliars hired and shoved me in here."
  
  "The Outliars?" I blurted, shocked. "They're the ones that had you guys? They're the ones that took Noelle?" That didn't fit the minor gang with moderate aspirations that I'd chalked them up as. True, there had been the issue with the power vials, but that seemed more like something they had tripped over than genuine resources. After all, they had been trying to give the powers away to whichever thug put on the best show when fighting the Wards. That didn't scream 'master plan.'
  
  "Yeah," Ballistic shifted his weight while responding. "But not for long. That bitch in the suit was going after Noelle. That's why she came."
  
  Marissa straightened, head shaking. "I can't get your hand loose. It's... foamed to the wall."
  
  "Yeah, another thing I owe the bitch for." Ballistic replied. "Just go, she was just here. Through the manager's office there's a hidden stairway to the basement. That's where they put Noelle and Oliver. Hurry up, before she gets awa-errr, Jess, are you fucking walking?"
  
  Jess gave him a thumbs up. "Once we get you guys out of here, I'll show you how well I dance now too." Then she withdrew, and we ran for the manager's office that Ballistic had indicated.
  
  Well, most of us ran. Crystal flew while reporting what we were seeing to Miss Militia, reaching the room ahead of us before blasting the door straight off. Inside, yet another dead mercenary lay across the blood-soaked desk, this one with a handful of pencils stuck halfway into his neck.
  
  The apparently normally 'hidden' staircase had been left open, and all five of us practically dove for it. My mind was reeling the whole time. The Outliars had been the ones who had Noelle? Some woman in a suit and mask was killing off the mercenaries that had been guarding her? Who was she? Why did the Outliars want Noelle? What the hell was going on?
  
  Unfortunately, it didn't look like the answer to those questions were going to be forthcoming. By the time we reached the bottom of the cement stairs, emerging into what looked like a glorified (and massive) cellar, the place was completely empty.
  
  Empty, that was, except for a glowing portal on the other side of the room. The portal illuminated the outline of a woman in a business suit that seemed somehow familiar even as I shielded my eyes from the light of the portal.
  
  "Noelle!" Marissa called, helplessly. "Oliver!? Where are they? What did you-" The portal closed then, before anyone else could do anything to stop the woman. She was gone, and the room was empty.
  
  For a second, we all stood there, staring at the spot where the portal had been. Jess took a few steps that way, her voice low. "She... she must have taken them through the portal."
  
  Mars stared at the spot, lifting her hands to cover her masked face as a shudder ran through her. "So close. We were so close. Luke said they were just here. Oliver and Noelle were right here."
  
  "Who the hell was that bitch?" Dennis wanted to know. "Some woman in a suit waltzes in and kills a bunch of armed mercs without breaking a sweat, then just portals straight out of here with a couple passengers?"
  
  My hand moved to take Marissa's. I didn't care about protocol at that moment. I wanted her to know that I was there. At the same time, I also took Jess's hand. The two of them stood silently, clearly coming to terms with how close they had been to getting Noelle and Oliver back, and even more importantly, with getting the cure to Noelle.
  
  That gloomy silence continued for several long seconds, while we heard the sound of the rest of both teams coming into the restaurant above now that Crystal had given them the all-clear.
  
  Then a new voice spoke up. "What's with all the doom and gloom attitudes?"
  
  Whirling around, I stared at the figure that stood there in the doorway behind us. "D-Dinah?"
  
  "Dinah Alcott?" Crystal was staring as well, her mouth open. "What... what are you doing here?"
  
  "We wished to see our initial progenitor once again." One of the Pandoras (probably Epsilon, since she was the one that spent the most time around Dinah) stepped into view from the same stairwell, joining Dinah. "And congratulate her for being cured."
  
  "We were too late." Marissa said quietly, morosely. "We didn't make it on time. They took her. Some... woman in a suit."
  
  "She did?" Dinah's head tilted and then she shook her head in casual disbelief. "Nah, I don't think so." Before we could react to that, she put her fingers to her mouth and gave a sharp whistle.
  
  Dark shadows gathered in the room a moment later, blackness that eclipsed all light for a few seconds. When it dissipated, I jolted backward with a yelp at the sight of the enormous figure that it left behind. Strange, seemingly random body parts covered the massive pile of flesh, muscle, and bone. There were several mouths from what I could see, and at the very top, the upper torso of an ordinary girl. It was almost like a centaur with the bottom half of an eldritch abomination instead of a horse.
  
  "N-Noelle!" Marissa blurted, eyes wide. She clearly wanted to run to her friend, but had learned better.
  
  The rest of us stared in shock while Mr. Hebert and Faultline emerged from the other side of the figure, who still seemed to be getting her bearings. Faultline pointed at Dinah. "Triple our usual fee for the swift response. You agreed."
  
  "Swift response? Fee?" I turned to stare at the other girl. "You sent them to get Noelle?"
  
  Dinah shrugged. "What can I say? My power said that you guys weren't going to make it in time, so I sent in reinforcements to get her out.
  
  "After all, what's the use of having these powers if you don't use them to help your friends?"
  
  22.05
  
  There were other things that I wanted to ask Dinah, but I fell silent because Noelle had twisted her human torso around to look at us. The rest of her body was so... wrong, such a broken and jumbled collection of mass and parts that it made her completely normal human torso and head look even more out of place. It looked like a normal girl had been shoved up to her waist into a small mountain of flesh.
  
  Unfortunately, her attention wasn't on either of her friends, but on me. " You ."
  
  "Uhh, hey there." I lifted a hand in greeting. "Good to meet you, finally. I've heard a lo-whoa!" My tentative words were interrupted as the massive body stampeded forward with surprising speed. I barely managed to use lines on my feet to propel myself up and backward into a flip before using more lines to draw myself up to the corner of the ceiling.
  
  Laserdream flew up between the mutated girl and the spot where I was crouched between the wall and ceiling, using lines to keep myself there. "Stop! We're not here to fight you."
  
  "Stole my friends, stole my life, stole my chance!" Noelle spat the words, practically shaking with rage.
  
  " Noelle !" Jess shouted the name to get her old friend's attention. "Noelle, look at me! Look!"
  
  Finally tearing her hateful gaze away from me, twisting her torso to see the other girl, Noelle sounded surprised. "Wh... Jess? But you're... you're..."
  
  "Walking." Jess nodded, staring intently at Noelle to keep her attention. "Yeah. You know how I'm walking? Because of these guys. Because of that girl's help, the one that you're trying to crush."
  
  The other girl's face twisted in anger as she looked back at me. "Traded me, abandoned me to help yourself. You don't care about me. You never cared. I have to-"
  
  "No one abandoned you, Noelle!" It was Marissa's turn to speak, moving up beside Jess. "We abandoned Krouse and his stupid plans that never change. We wanted to help, but not the way that Krouse chose. He's the one that wouldn't let us see you after we left him , not you. He decided that there was only one way to cure you, his way, and nobody else had a choice in the matter. We never stopped wanting to help you, Noelle. We stopped trusting him . We stopped believing that he had any clue about what he was doing. We wanted you to get help, real help that wasn't Krouse's delusions or lies."
  
  Noelle's pale, sickly face twisted a little in some mixture of anger and confusion. "Krouse loves me. Krouse is the only one I can trust. He wants to help me. He wants-"
  
  "If he loved you," Jess said flatly. "He could admit when he was wrong. If he loved you, he'd do anything to help you, even go to the Protectorate. If he loved you, he'd notice that none of his plans were working, and that going to prison or quarantine or whatever would be worth it to get you the help you needed. He convinced us that we had to do horrible, horrible things to find a way home, Noelle. But he never just asked . He never tried looking for help from the people that have the most resources for it. Even after he failed over and over again to do it his way, he never admitted he was wrong."
  
  "Would've killed me." Noelle's head shook, her massive lower body heaving a little. "Or tried to. Then I would've killed... killed a lot more. He keeps me safe, kept me away from people."
  
  "You did kill people, Noelle." Marissa's voice was quieter, but firm. "We just covered it up and kept moving. Maybe Krouse meant to protect you, but he was wrong. We were wrong. We were all wrong. Because we just made things worse. We made everything, this whole situation, worse."
  
  "Would've... would've tried to kill me." Noelle repeated stubbornly. "Wanted me dead."
  
  It was Jess's turn to speak. "Maybe they would, Noelle. Maybe. But tell me something, do you like being a monster? Do you like killing everyone around you? Do you enjoy what you're turning into?"
  
  Noelle's face twisted in revulsion and her head shook. "Never. Don't-no. Don't want this."
  
  "Would you rather be whatever that stuff is turning you into, or would you rather die?" Jess demanded. "If that was your choice, Noelle, if you had a choice between dying and becoming more of that thing , which would you choose? Would you rather die, or become something that kills everyone you know, everyone around you? Murderer or dead, Noelle, your death or thousands, which would you choose?"
  
  Noelle's body was heaving with frustration, one of her feet stomping down hard enough to shake the room. "I don't want to kill! But I can't die! I tried, I tried to make myself die but it won't let me!"
  
  Marissa spoke up softly then. "If you really wanted to die, Noelle, then why did you let Krouse talk you out of going to the Protectorate? Who do you think had the best chance of stopping you, no matter what? Who do you think had the best chance of containing you before things got this bad?"
  
  "We were hit by the Simurgh, Noelle," Jess put in, her voice a little shaky. "Krouse made us think that the people who wanted to quarantine us were the bad guys, but doesn't quarantine make sense now?! I mean look at what happened. The people you killed would still be alive if you were locked up, if we had all been locked up. Maybe they would have locked us up and looked for a cure, or maybe they would have killed you. Maybe. But either way, isn't that better than... than this? Running away, following Krouse's stupid plans, it just made things worse."
  
  The confusion and uncertainty in Noelle's expression grew by the moment, her face twisting a little. "Krouse helped me. Francis wanted to make me better. His way... his way was the only way. The Protectorate would have killed all of us."
  
  "Noelle," Jess waved her hand pointedly. "Do I look dead? And even if that was the only solution, even if killing you was the only way to save everyone else, is that completely wrong? What part of stopping you from becoming this monster you're turning into makes the Protectorate look like the bad guys, Noelle? Because this whole thing, it never should have been just about us and what we wanted. We made the wrong choices. We should have stayed put and let the Protectorate know what happened. Hiding you, running around the country while you keep getting bigger and stronger and have less and less control over yourself, what part of that makes sense if we didn't want you to hurt people? We were blind, Noelle. We were blind and stupid, because we didn't think things through. The Protectorate would have stopped you? How does that make them the bad guys? Is it fair? No. No it's not fair. None of this was fair. But that's the Simurgh. She doesn't play fair.
  
  "You never even wanted to be a monster. You never wanted any of this, but Krouse couldn't let you go. Krouse decided that he'd rather you be a monster than be dead, and we... helped him. We made things worse, because we couldn't let you go either. We listened to Krouse, and then we were too afraid to stop listening to him, because that would have meant admitting all the mistakes we made. It would have meant admitting that we did exactly what the Simurgh wanted us to do."
  
  "We love you, Noelle." Marissa moved a step closer. "We care about you. But caring about someone isn't about hiding the truth from them. Sometimes when you care about someone, you have to do things that hurt them, when it's for the best, when it's the only way to really help. Krouse... doesn't love you. He needs you. There's a difference, Noelle. He needs you to be there. He needs to be the one who saves you, Noelle. That's what he wanted. If he loved you, if he really loved you, he'd help you no matter what. Even if helping you meant admitting he was wrong. Even if it meant losing you so you didn't have to hurt anyone. And mostly, even if it meant letting someone else be responsible for you."
  
  "No other way." Noelle insisted, though her voice was weaker and more uncertain. "Krouse knew. He knew there was no other way. He tried..."
  
  "He didn't." Marissa shook her head. "He didn't try anything other than his same old plans, Noelle. And if there was no other way, then why do we have a cure for you?"
  
  Noelle froze at that, twisting her body around more fully. "A... a cure?"
  
  Marissa nodded. "Yes. We have a cure. We can help you, Noelle. But not like this. You can't be obsessed with revenge against someone who didn't do anything wrong. I care about you, but I also care about Tether. And I'm not going to let anyone, not even you, hurt her."
  
  "You have to drink the cure, Noelle." Jess explained patiently. "Just like you drank the formula that made you into this to begin with."
  
  I saw Crystal stiffen slightly at those words as she floated in front of me. Clearly she'd realized what that meant for the rest of the Travelers. Below me, Dennis turned his head to look my way as the same realization came to him, and I gave a slight nod. We had explained that Riley and Panacea's formula would only work on 'someone like Noelle', but not the details. Now they understood.
  
  Jess was continuing. "You have to drink it, which means you have to calm down. No one can get close enough to you to force you to drink it, Noelle. You have to calm down and choose to do it."
  
  Marissa nodded. "And you can't calm down as long as you're obsessed with Tether. She's not the bad guy, Noelle. No one here is the bad guy. You're not bad. But you do have to choose."
  
  "You can be like Krouse," Jess explained. "And cling to trying the exact same thing over and over, never admitting when you might be wrong. You can stick with your emotion. You can let this monster you're turning into manipulate and control you by making you hate Tether. You can keep being obsessed with this stupid 'her or me' bullshit that Krouse pushed on you."
  
  "Or," the new voice was Luke, who was stepping into the room. "You can let go of all that stupid bullshit and take this god damn cure so we can move on with our lives." He held the vial in his remaining hand as he stood in front of Dinah and Pandora, who had remained silent and out of the way the whole time. Mr. Hebert and Faultline had also remained silent, but in the opposite corner.
  
  Apparently Miss Militia had decided that sending Luke in with the cure was better than the previous plan.
  
  Noelle's eyes were fixated on the vial. "Cure... there is no cure." She sounded confused and lost, with a hint of hope in her voice that was beaten down by the distrust that Krouse had instilled. "There isn't."
  
  "There is." Marissa pointed to the vial that Luke held. "It's right there. But you have to trust us. You have to stop trusting Krouse and trust us . I want to help you, Noelle. We want to help you. But you have to want to help yourself first. You have to stop believing what Krouse said and take this cure. Because no one here can make you without spilling or ruining it. This has to be your choice, Noelle."
  
  "We did everything we could," Jess told her. "We got the cure to you. Taking it? That has to be you."
  
  "Your choice," Luke extended his hand upward with the vial in it. "Believe us, or believe Krouse. Ain't nobody else that can make that decision for you."
  
  For a long moment, violent shudders ran through Noelle's body as she warred with herself, torn between her own desires and the desires of the thing she had been turning into. Part of me wanted to speak up, wanted to say something, but I knew it would be the wrong thing to do. This was something that Noelle and her friends had to get through. Like they had said, it had to be Noelle's choice. Nobody else could force her to drink that cure without spilling or ruining it.
  
  Finally, her massive form slumped down to the floor, tears running freely down her pale face that looked so ordinary next to the grotesque bulk of her lower half. "Please." She spoke quietly. "I don't want to be this. I'm tired. I'm so tired. I want it to stop. I can't tell if you're lying. Just help me. Please."
  
  Marissa took the cure from Luke and moved that way. One step after another, she approached the enormous figure. She ignored the collection of random body parts, the three different mouths that lined the front of the thing, and focused instead on her tired, lost friend. "Noelle, we wouldn't lie to you." She held the cure up. "Take it. Drink it. Trust me. Trust us. We are not lying to you."
  
  Another tremor ran through the big form, and Noelle lifted her gaze to look at me. "You took my friends away." Her words were less accusation and more the last remnant of an anger that her beast-self had clung to for so long in order to justify her behavior, to distract herself from the real problem.
  
  I shook my head then, responding bluntly, but truthfully. "No. It wasn't about you. Our relationship had nothing to do with you. It was about us. Her and me. I care about Marissa because of who she is. I wasn't taking her away from you. That's not how relationships work. It's not a battle. She can care about both of us. I care about her, and I care about you too. I don't know you, but I care about you. I want to help you, because Marissa wants to help you. Krouse is the one who thinks it has to be one way or another, and he made you think the same way."
  
  Noelle was still and quiet after that, still staring up at me. I sensed something else behind her gaze, something that felt empty and... broken, that had been twisted around and torn apart until it was only part of what it could be. The thing that she was turning into, it wasn't what it should have been.
  
  Finally, she lowered her gaze and looked at the vial in Marissa's hand, so tiny next to her own bulk. I saw her hesitate before slowly lifting one of her normal arms, reaching out to pluck the vial up.
  
  When she addressed Marissa again, her voice was as desperate plea that sounded as lonely and sad as I could ever imagine. "You're still my friend?" She held that vial tight in her normal hand, clearly terrified about what she was about to do. Not that I could blame her. Look at what happened the last time she'd trusted one of her friends and took a vial like the one she was holding.
  
  "Yes, Noelle." Marissa assured her. "I'm still your friend. I still care about you."
  
  "We all do, Noelle." Jess moved next to Marissa. "Please, take the vial. Take your cure."
  
  "Yeah," Luke shrugged his shoulders before moving up beside the two girls. "Let's get this done with, Noelle. We've been fucked by the Simurgh for too long. Make the right choice and get back to normal, huh?"
  
  Staring at the vial for another second, Noelle gave one more violent shudder before flicking the top off with her fingers. With a choked little sob that sounded like she was ready to give up and would have accepted the vial even if it had been poison, as long as it stopped her from becoming even more of a monster, she tossed her head back and poured the liquid down her throat.
  
  The instant that she did, my line's grip on the ceiling failed, and the floor leapt up to smack me in the face. All around me, I saw the rest of the group slumping to the floor as well.
  
  Something... vast moved through the emptiness of space. It was huge in a way that I had no sense of comparison for. Not just in a physical sense, but in every way that I could imagine, and even more that I had no hope of comprehending. This... thing that drifted through space was alive. It was alive and its power utterly eclipsed anything else in the vast sea of stars in which it dwelt. This thing, this figure whose size dwarfed even planets, stretched not only through the simple space around it, but into other dimensions as well. It wasn't only present in one reality, it was present throughout many, its alternate selves all connected and aware as it flew onward.
  
  Abruptly, I jerked upward like a swimmer coming up for air, gasping loudly as my eyes opened to find myself back in the same large room that I had been in before. "What... what..."
  
  Beside me, Dennis sat up, groaning as well. "What the hell was that? I just had the weirdest... dream."
  
  Before I could respond to that, or ask if he'd seen what I had seen, a loud voice called out, "Noelle!"
  
  Spinning around on my knees, I stared across the room. The massive, unbelievable bulk was still there... but it was an empty husk. The flesh hadn't disappeared. It had just... fallen into the corner and lay there like a discarded shell.
  
  And lying in front of it, face down, was the girl that it had been attached to. Her upper half... and her lower half. She looked completely normal as she lifted her head to look around. "I... I'm..." She looked around, turning to stare at her normal lower half. Obviously, she wasn't wearing anything on her lower half, but it was... well, 'covered' to an extent by a few remains of the body that had been attached to her. It was just enough to spare some of her modesty.
  
  "I'm alive?" The girl sounded shocked. "I'm... me?"
  
  "Noelle!" Marissa repeated her cry. By that point, she had managed to scramble up and slid that way, throwing her arms around her friend to hug her as tightly as she could. "You're okay! You're... you're okay. Oh my god, you're all right. You're you. You're you, Noelle! I can... I can touch you. See? I can touch you and it's okay. You're okay. Oh god. Oh thank you. Thank you." She repeated the words, holding Noelle tightly.
  
  Both girls were crying then, as they clung to each other. I smiled a little to myself before glancing toward Dennis and then back again as I picked myself up a little shakily. "It worked." I said slowly, in a bit of wonder while stepping over to help Jess climb to her feet.
  
  Her head bobbed while she continued to stare at her two friends. "It worked." She echoed my words before slowly moving that way. The girl crossed the distance to the other two, before falling to her knees to embrace both of them. The three girls became lost within their reunion.
  
  Meanwhile, Luke heaved himself up and muttered, "Yeah, it worked. But I've got two questions. First, what the fuck was I just dreaming about? And second, where the hell is Oliver?"
  
  I blinked at that, looking around. "Oliver?"
  
  Faultline spoke up then. "The boy? Tried to get him, but that woman with the suit had him. Had to make a choice and get the big girl out."
  
  "The... woman in the suit?" I stared at that, then slowly looked toward where Noelle was clinging to her friends, all of them crying in relief. It was only then that I made the connection between this masked suited woman and the one who had given Mr. Hebert his powers. Could they have been the same woman? "Why would the woman in the suit take... Oliver?"
  
  Yet even then, even the confusion of what the strange intruder could possibly have wanted with Oliver, couldn't detract from the feeling of joy that I felt when looking toward the spot where Noelle, cured and in her own normal body, was reuniting with her friends.
  
  Yeah, there were still questions. Even more of them than we'd had before. But for now, in this very moment, we'd done something good, something right.
  
  Noelle was cured.
  
  Interlude 22 - Vista
  
  "Missy? Missy, are you paying attention?"
  
  Missy Biron reluctantly tore her attention away from the window and toward the unsmiling face of her teacher, Mrs. Trout. She had been gazing out toward the parking lot in the utterly vain hope that masked ninjas would show up to rescue her from the tedium of eighth grade algebra. Hell, at that point she would have settled for a single guy looking somewhat shifty. Unfortunately, the lot had been utterly void of potential threats that she could have used as an excuse to leave.
  
  Unlike Arcadia, Missy's middle school hadn't been attacked and damaged by a gang of psychopaths. Not that she wished it had, of course. But some excuse not to be here would have been nice.
  
  "No, Mrs. Trout," she answered truthfully. Not out of any real sense of honor, but because she quite honestly didn't care about what was being taught, and she didn't care if the teacher knew that. She already knew what her job was going to be as she got older, so why did she have to pretend to be an ordinary student for whom math like this might actually matter?
  
  "Then why don't you tell me what is so fascinating outside that you simply had to pay more attention to it than me." The elderly teacher demanded, squinting in obvious annoyance that her pupil so obviously found the subject so distasteful. Missy wondered if the woman could possibly have been surprised by that fact. Did she come from some magical world where kids actually liked math? Surely part of becoming a school math teacher was acceptance that most kids hated it.
  
  For most students in this situation, being asked that question would result in a lot of embarrassed stammering. Missy, however, just shrugged. "Sorry." She wasn't really that sorry, but she figured that the least she could do was pay lip service to being polite.
  
  "Perhaps you think that you already know this subject well enough to teach the class, hmm?" Mrs. Trout stepped back and indicated the board. "If you don't need to listen to me, and can't explain what is more interesting outside, it must be because you know everything I'm teaching."
  
  The class tittered a little while Missy looked toward the board. The formulas that were written across it might as well have been hieroglyphics. Even as she stared at them, the numbers seemed to swirl and blend into one another, looking even more like gibberish.
  
  "We're waiting, Missy." Mrs. Trout prompted impatiently. "Are you ready to teach the class?"
  
  Behind her, she could hear Tiffani and Danica snickering and whispering to each other. The word 'grade school' reached her. Missy shifted and tried to ignore the gossipy girls. "No, Mrs. Trout."
  
  "And why aren't you ready to teach the class?" The teacher insisted on pushing things, intent on making her point as blatantly and uncompromisingly as possible.
  
  The tittering behind and around her grew a little louder, a little more blatant. The teacher should have stopped it, but she was more intent on making her point to one girl than to keeping the rest of the class in line. Besides, why should she care if the class was snickering about Missy's embarrassment? She quite clearly wanted Missy to be embarrassed, thinking that would make her pay attention in the future.
  
  Taking in a deep breath and letting it out again, Missy forced herself to answer as calmly as possible. Still, her teeth remained gritted. "Because I don't know enough about the subject."
  
  "Oh, you don't know enough? Is that all?" Mrs. Trout clearly decided that that wasn't making her point well enough. "Surely even knowing a bit of the subject would be enough to teach one class period. Just one tiny part of our lesson plan. Anything that we've gone over today would be just fine, dear." When Missy remained completely silent, she spelled the issue out for all to hear. "Can you tell us anything about one single thing that we've talked about today?"
  
  Hands clenching a little bit under the desk while everyone, everyone stared at her and whispered, Missy's head shook faintly. It was all she could do not to growl out the words. "No... Mrs... Trout."
  
  "Then I believe that what you mean to say is that you don't know anything... about the subject."
  
  Someone elsewhere in the class stage-whispered, "Knew she belonged in sixth grade."
  
  Missy resisted, barely, the urge to tell the boy off. The teacher ignored the comment, and drawing attention to it wouldn't result in anything more than getting her the reputation of a tattletale (and not even the interesting semi-reformed villain kind) and thus make people see her as even more of a baby.
  
  Instead, she forced herself to nod once, slightly. The words forced themselves out past gritted teeth, barely audible. "Yes, Mrs. Trout." Let it go. Just move on. You've made your point and I didn't challenge you. Now focus on teaching the class and leave me alone.
  
  Instead, the elderly woman, whose face resembled an old basset hound, pushed one step further. "Yes, what, Missy? As little attention as you've been paying, I need to hear the words to be sure that you even know what you're agreeing to." The class, by that point, was giggling audibly.
  
  It took physical effort for Missy to keep her gaze locked on the teacher's without lashing out. One more. She could do one more, and just let the teacher have her victory. It didn't matter. It was just stupid school. Quietly, she ground the words out. "I don't... know... anything... ab-"
  
  "At all." Tiffani whispered behind her, setting off another round of giggles that the teacher ignored.
  
  Missy froze for a moment, turning back in her seat to look at the other girl. Tiffani sat there smiling smugly at her, pen tapping against the desk to indicate her extensive notes.
  
  "Stop looking for help from the students who do pay attention, Missy." Mrs. Trout ordered. "And finish what you were saying so that everyone who cares can get back to learning."
  
  Instead, amidst more snickering, Missy slowly stood from her desk. She stared at the teacher for a second before speaking in a flat voice. "Maybe I'd pay more attention to things that I don't want to, if you paid attention to the things that you want to pretend don't exist." Her head turned to give a pointed look toward the smug girls behind her before she picked up her book bag and started to the door.
  
  "Missy!" Mrs. Trout sputtered. "Where do you think you're going?"
  
  "To the principal's office." Missy replied, already completely done with this entire situation. "To file a complaint and request a real teacher."
  
  Mrs. Trout had complained about her, of course. She called Missy a disruption in the class, and claimed that the 'little girl' thought she should be allowed to ignore any rules that she didn't like.
  
  In the end, however, the principal had agreed that Missy should go to a new class. Trout hadn't liked that, claiming that Missy was just spoiled and that if every student who didn't like a teacher's methods got to just leave, every classroom in the school would be empty. The principal had said that Trout was being dramatic, and dismissed Missy while their argument continued.
  
  Thankfully, math had been her last class of the day. Missy made her way to her locker and spun the combination, glad to be done with school for the moment. Ordinarily she'd be even more glad for the chance to let off some steam with a patrol, but she was grounded along with the rest of the Wards, so no patrolling allowed. She did, however, still have the afternoon off. Even though she was 'on vacation', they couldn't just put her in classes for two weeks and then take her out again. She was expected to find safe, non-cape ways of keeping herself busy during the time that she would ordinarily have been training or patrolling. Obviously, they didn't understand that patrolling was how she relaxed.
  
  It wasn't fair. She understood why most of the team had been put on mandatory vacation after the Arcadia thing, but neither Missy or Mika had been there. Unfortunately, they were still considered 'too young for solo patrol', and therefore they couldn't go out without one of their teammates.
  
  Missy had even volunteered to go on patrol with one of the adult heroes, but had been told just to enjoy her vacation and get some rest while she could. Hell, she wasn't even allowed to go into the Wards base and train. Apparently vacation meant vacation.
  
  Not even the whole situation with the former Travelers and that Noelle girl a couple days earlier had really done much to ease her restlessness. She'd gotten all dressed up and ready for a confrontation with a potential S-Class threat, only for nothing bad to happen. Apparently some woman in a suit had beaten them to the place and took out all the opposition before they even arrived.
  
  To be fair, she was glad that the situation had been resolved in probably the best way possible. She was happy for Madison's girlfriend and the other former Travelers, because it seemed like there were far too few situations with that much potential for horrible things that ended so well. It was nice to get a real win once in awhile, even if she personally hadn't done anything. She could still be happy for her friends and teammates. But it also meant that she still had nothing to do.
  
  Against all her protests, Missy was stuck here, grounded from doing her job and trapped with no outlet for the frustration that she felt toward her parents for being spiteful idiots who didn't know how to grow up, and to her father's girlfriend for treating her like some kind of two-year old with all the baby talk. She was still furious at her father for telling Willa about her secret identity, but he'd claimed that he cleared it through the PRT people first, and that with Willa moving in with him, it was better that she know so that no awkward situations would come up.
  
  His excuses hadn't helped her anger, not that he'd noticed. He'd gone on to talking about Missy moving with him and Willa down to California as if she should be excited at the opportunity, totally oblivious to her continued frustration and irritation with him.
  
  Aside from Mika, who was two grades younger than she was, Missy had no friends in this school. She couldn't relate to anyone, because all they cared about were stupid things like boy bands and what they watched on television. The one subject she might have interested them in, capes, she had to avoid like the plague to avoid drawing attention to herself. Besides, their views of what cape life was like made her want to strangle all of them even more than their stupid, inane yammering about whatever group of crooning boys was currently making their hearts flutter did.
  
  Missy had no interest in pursuing any kind of friendship with the stupid little girls that were all over the place in this school. She wanted to go out and do her job, do the thing she'd been training for years to do. Instead, she had to cool her heals and wait around because of some arbitrary age rule made up by someone who had decided it was perfectly all right for a thirteen year old to participate in an Endbringer fight, but god forbid she do one simple patrol in costume without a babysitter.
  
  BANG
  
  The sound echoed through the hallway, even as Missy spun on her heel away from her locker, pivoting toward the source of the commotion. She took a step that way, lifting a hand to push a pair of gossiping girls out of the way while instinctively putting herself between them and the perceived threat.
  
  A second, not quite as loud bang came then, as the boy who had just slammed his locker punched it once before stomping away, oblivious to Missy's reaction.
  
  Unfortunately, not everyone had missed it. While Missy fought to get her adrenaline to calm down, she heard snickers behind her once again. Turning that way, she saw that the girls she had pushed out of the way in her attempt to protect them from what she thought was a threat were Tiffani and Danica.
  
  "Geeze, paranoid much?" Tiffani asked before giving a trilling little laugh.
  
  "Did you see the way she jumped in front of us?" Danica snickered through her words. "Like, what's she gonna do if there's some kind of threat, cry at it?"
  
  "Tattle to the principal about it." Tiffani corrected. Her smirk deepened before she added, "And cry."
  
  Danica first. She's the bigger one. Step slightly to the right to put her between Tiffani and myself so they can't both retaliate at the same time. One kick to the side of the knee to make her bend this way, catch and apply pressure to the wrist to bend her forward and then one hard shove to put her head into the locker before letting her fall. Tiffani won't react fast enough to do anything before I can reach her and stop her scream with a punch to the stomach. It won't do permanent damage, but it'll drive the wind out of her. I may be small, but I can punch hard and I know where to hit.
  
  Of course, she didn't do any of that. Instead, she fantasized about it for a few seconds before turning away to close her locker door and walk away from them.
  
  "God, did you see the way she was staring at us?"
  
  "She's such a little freak."
  
  An hour later, Missy stopped her bike at the top of a short hill next to a gas station and frowned at the crowd gathered in front of the restaurant about a block away. That's the place that Noelle was found at.
  
  Tempted to use her Wards phone to call in, Missy eventually decided against it until she knew more. Releasing the brake on her bike and pushing off, she coasted down the hill before reaching the back of the large crowd. There were dozens of people all bunched up with their camera phones out.
  
  "Hey," Missy poked one of the guys at the back of the crowd. "What's going on?"
  
  The man turned an excited look to her. "Scion." He announced with enthusiasm. "He's in there."
  
  Taken by surprise by that, Missy stared at the man. "Scion? Where?"
  
  "In that old restaurant." The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "First he was just floating over the building, then he went inside. There's one guy in there, trying not to crowd him or anything, but he says Scion went down to some basement room and he's just floating there. He's been in there for ten minutes already, just floating there without doing anything. You know how weird that is?"
  
  She did. "You mean he's not doing anything at all?"
  
  He nodded. "Nada. Just floating there, like he's... I dunno, daydreaming or something. One of the guys who actually got a good look at him said that he looks... uhhh... confused."
  
  Confused? She'd heard of the golden man looking sad , but confused was a new one. Staring at the building past the crowd, Missy took a step back with her bike and took the phone from her pocket. Silently, she sent a text to Miss Militia, requesting permission to investigate.
  
  'Negative.' The reply came back shortly. 'Battery/Assault already on the way to make sure people stay out of Scion's way and leave him alone. Relax. You are on vacation.'
  
  Before Missy could think of a response to send that didn't involve telling Miss Militia where she could shove her vacation, there was noise from the crowd. She looked up quickly to see the famous golden figure emerge from the restaurant. He hovered just over the heads of the crowd, and Missy saw the expression that had been noticed before. Scion did indeed look uncertain, confused by whatever it was that had drawn him to the restaurant.
  
  Some people thought that Scion was responsible for all the powers, just because he had shown up first and was so obviously more powerful than anyone else could even dream of being. The mystery surrounding his origin helped fuel those rumors.
  
  If he was, could he somehow sense that Noelle had her powers removed? Was that what was confusing him?
  
  The golden man seemed to ignore all the people calling out thanks to him for everything he had done. He simply floated there for another moment before abruptly flying up and away, disappearing from sight before most people had even realized he was leaving.
  
  As she stood there on the sidewalk, staring at the spot in the sky where Scion had disappeared, Missy felt the slightest pang of envy.
  
  At least nobody could tell him to take a vacation.
  
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  Arc 23: Ameliorate
  Notes: Kaelas17 - Glad you gave it a chance!
  
  Moka-girl - Good question.
  
  HellKing666 - Missy is definitely starting to strongly dislike being coddled, that's for sure.
  
  Avalon du lac - Good to hear, hope you keep enjoying it.
  
  23.01
  
  Noelle wasn't just released out into the public right off the bat, of course. After what she had gone through, the Protectorate insisted that she be examined thoroughly by every cape-related doctor that they could drag in to see her over the next several days. They wanted the doctors to both try to make heads or tails of what exactly had happened to Noelle, and ensure that there was no chance of her reverting to her monstrous self. I wasn't sure how they were going to accomplish either, but they were persistent. Despite protests and threats, even Marissa, Jess, and Luke barely got to see much of her.
  
  It got even worse after Scion showed up at the restaurant and seemed so confused by whatever he saw or sensed there. Nobody had any idea of how Scion was connected to powers, but most believed there was some connection, which his reactions at that point seemed to corroborate.
  
  I did my best to help all three of Noelle's friends feel better about the fact that they were being held back. Luke was the easiest, in spite of the fact that I barely knew him. All I had to do was tell him the story of exactly how Jess had captured Krouse. He was still occasionally snickering about it, days later.
  
  Noelle was supposed to be released within a few days. But apparently, something had come up and they wanted to test her even more. Marissa had been completely beside herself at the idea that 'something had come up', and had been within a hair of just storming the place herself to get answers. Fortunately, one of the doctors had taken pity (or shown a survival instinct), and explained that there was nothing physically wrong with Noelle. He wouldn't say why they wanted to test her even more, but he promised that she wasn't reverting and that she should be released soon.
  
  Soon ended up being Tuesday the twenty-seventh. The suits in charge had decided that they'd done all the tests they could reasonably do at this point. They were going to allow Noelle to go home. Or, rather, allow her to leave the PRT examination clinic. Going home was obviously a bit more complicated.
  
  The four of us were sitting around in what passed for a lobby (really just a break room for the employees in the building, since the PRT generally didn't go around letting civilians into their medical facilities) when Noelle was escorted out of the secure, off limits area.
  
  She was still pale, with stringy brown hair that looked like it could use a hell of a conditioning. Her eyes still had dark circles under them, and she was almost dangerously thin at that point. But she smiled, however faintly, when she saw her friends. "Hey, guys."
  
  Marissa had enveloped the other girl into a hug before she'd gotten both words out. The orderly who had escorted her, a burly man who was clearly much more accustomed to dealing with violent criminals who needed to be restrained before getting treatment, smiled before nodded toward the front. "Denise at the front desk will have some papers for you to fill out. She has to come back once a week for the next month, then once every two weeks after that for the next five months, then once a month after that assuming everything checks out." Then he added, "That and well, the other agreement you made."
  
  Marissa released Noelle after another second, looking up at the orderly and then back to her friend. "Other agreement you made? What other agreement?"
  
  Noelle hesitated before shaking her head. "I'll tell you in a sec, promise. I just want to get out of here."
  
  The orderly gave her a pat on the shoulder. "You'll be okay. But you should really take the doctor's advice and find a psychologist to talk about stuff with. Here," he offered her a card. "This woman works with the PRT a lot, and she has the security clearance to discuss this sort of thing. You don't have to, but I really recommend you try to talk with her." Stepping back then, he gave her one last smile. "Anyway, good luck. I'm rooting for you." With a brief, lazy wave, he moved back through the door.
  
  Jess took her turn for a hug, followed by Luke giving her a rather awkward, one-armed embrace.
  
  Finally, the girl looked at me and blanched. "I... I'm sorry." She shook her head, face growing even more pale. "The things that I thought about you, the things that I said, it was..."
  
  "It's all right." I shrugged, giving her a smile. "After all, you weren't yourself. I'm glad you're okay."
  
  "You can say that again," she muttered under her breath. Then she looked up, blinking at me. "It really is all right? You aren't... upset or anything. You're really glad I'm okay."
  
  "Err." My head tilted in confusion. "Yes? I wouldn't lie about that or anything."
  
  "I know." Noelle seemed to think about that for a second, processing something. "I believe you."
  
  Jess frowned a little. "Is everything okay, Noelle? Why did they have to keep you for a few more days? What agreement was that guy talking about?"
  
  "Can I tell you outside?" Noelle gave a weak little smile. "I'd really like to get out of this place."
  
  None of us could really blame her, and the five of us headed out. There was a delay as Noelle had to sign forms at the desk, but eventually we made our way out of the building and into the fresh air.
  
  Tilting her head back, Noelle breathed a long, happy sigh as she let the sunlight hit her face. "Wow, that feels nice. I missed this. I missed... a lot of things." She swallowed a little uneasily and seemed to shrink back into the simple, nondescript gray sweatsuit that the PRT had provided.
  
  "Surprised they didn't have a bunch more suits waiting to escort you out." Luke looked around the fairly empty rear parking lot that we had emerged into. The secret PRT clinic looked like a private dentist's office from the outside, with a sign that read 'by appointment only'. The building itself was a lot more sturdy and defensible than it looked from the outside as well, and there was always at least one squad of PRT troops with foam cannons at the ready in case the patients got uppity.
  
  "I asked them not to," Noelle said quietly. "I made them promise to just let me be with you guys, and to leave me alone for a while. That was part of our deal."
  
  "What deal?" Marissa frowned. "Is this about that 'other agreement' that guy was talking about?"
  
  "Yeah..." The other girl hesitated before looking toward me. "You're the one I know the least. You know that game where you say two true things and one lie? Could you do that now?"
  
  I blinked at the request, but shrugged and thought for a moment. "Okay. I'm friends with a former member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. I'm going in for my driver's license test tomorrow. I go to the Birdcage once a month to visit Glaistig Uaine."
  
  Noelle's face twisted up a little as she stared at me, twitching a bit. "Truth, lie, truth? What the hell?"
  
  "Wait," Jess frowned. "You knew which parts were the truth just like that?"
  
  "Wait, does that mean you triggered... again?" Luke realized, snapping his fingers.
  
  The pale girl gave a slight, uneasy nod. "That's why they wanted to run more tests. I can tell when people are lying. I can't explain it, I just know. They tested it and it doesn't matter how little I know about the person, or if I ever met them before. I know when they're lying. It has to be in person though, it doesn't work over the radio or television or whatever."
  
  Marissa embraced her again, tighter this time. "You mean you were cured, then triggered naturally?"
  
  Noelle nodded once more. "That's ummm, that's what they think anyway. The doctors decided that the intense emotional experience of everything that was going on prompted a trigger the instant that the other powers were gone. It was like the... the monster got out of the vehicle but left the engine on, and this new power jumped into the still running car and just took off."
  
  "So you can tell when people are lying or telling the truth. Is there anything else to it?" Jess asked.
  
  "Yeah." Noelle hesitated before continuing. "I can see invisible people or things, and I can tell when someone is shapeshifted. I can't tell what they really look like, but I know that that isn't their real face. Oh and ummm, they brought in someone who could make these little illusions, and I could see right through them. Apparently they look solid to other people, but they were transparent for me."
  
  "So basically you have some kind of 'see the truth' power." Luke chuckled. "No wonder they wanted to make a deal with you. I bet they've got all kinds of ideas for how they can use that."
  
  Noelle gave a faint nod. "That's the agreement that Jake was talking about. The orderly, I mean. I agreed to come in when they need me to verify the truth about what someone was saying. The people in charge were pretty much drooling all over themselves when they realized what I could do."
  
  "Is that why they didn't insist on keeping you over the ummm, the things that your monster self did?" Marissa asked carefully. We'd wondered about that when it became clear that the people in charge weren't going to try to prosecute Noelle. Not that she'd had any choice in the matter, but it was still surprising that the suits who made the decisions had understood that.
  
  Now we knew why they had so readily accepted it. Noelle was a veritable goldmine of useful information, as long as they kept her happy and gave her a reason to cooperate with them.
  
  Head down as she flinched at the reminder, Noelle gave another slight nod. Her eyes closed briefly and I saw a shudder of grief go through the girl. "It would have been harder if there was anyone who really knew the things that my other-self and the clones she created did, but yeah. I'm useful, so they don't want to get rid of me or throw me in a hole." She looked up then, eyes wet. "I think Marissa and Jess being part of the Protectorate helped a lot too. It would've been complicated to make me disappear." She offered another shrug. "Especially since I'd know if they were lying."
  
  "I'm just glad you're okay." Marissa took the chance to embrace her friend again. "You're alive and you're you, Noelle. No monster attached, no mutation or clones. We can touch you."
  
  "Yeah, we're all glad you're feeling better, and less... queen of the monsters." Luke agreed. "But I still want to know who that woman was that took Oliver. And why she took him."
  
  Noelle's head shook. "They asked me that too. I still don't know. I didn't see much of her before the shadow-guy teleported me away to begin with, and all of that is a blur anyway. I..." Her face fell a little more as she slumped. "I couldn't help anybody. As usual."
  
  "Hey, we'll find him." Jess reached out to give the other girl a quick pat on the back. "Look at us. I'm walking and you're cured. If that can happen, we can find Oliver."
  
  "Yeah, speaking of you walking, any chance we could head out for lunch now?" Luke waved the stump of his left arm. "I'd kind of love to do something about this."
  
  Noelle blinked in obvious confusion. "What does lunch have to do with your arm?"
  
  "It's not so much having lunch, as who we're having lunch with." I looked toward Marissa and Jess before taking a breath. "That is, if you're feeling up to another surprise."
  
  "A surprise?" She echoed uncertainly before flinching. "Is it a bad one?"
  
  I started to say no, then paused. "I don't think so, but that depends on how well the two of you get along, I guess." She still looked confused, and I added with a weak little smile. "How do you feel about having an extra-dimensional half-sister? Or umm... twenty."
  
  About twenty minutes later, we had all gathered into the back room of a steak house. We'd rented out the private party room in order to celebrate Noelle's freedom and cure without attracting attention.
  
  Amy and no less than three of the Pandoras had met us there. I recognized Gamma's slender blonde figure with the wide, expressive eyes. There was also a petite Asian that I knew was Iota's preferred form, and a tall, dark skinned figure that I thought was either Beta or Zeta.
  
  No sooner had the hostess left after leading us to the room where the others were waiting, than Noelle stared at the three clones. "You're all... clones of her." She nodded toward where Amy sat. "I remember. You're the Pandora clones. Some of them anyway."
  
  "Yes, Noelle-Sister." Gamma spoke up, her deep, emotive blue eyes curious. "We wanted to meet you when you were Noelle-Sister and not Noelle-Progenitor."
  
  The other girl flinched a little, but didn't look away. "You mean now that I'm not a monster."
  
  "Now that your compromised, altered self has been removed, yes." Iota nodded. "We wished to meet."
  
  "They couldn't decide who got to be here in the flesh." Amy offered with a shrug. "Which, if you knew anything about them, would say a lot about how much they all wanted to meet you."
  
  For a moment, Noelle and Amy stood across from each other quietly. No one looked like they had any idea of what to say next. Finally, Noelle broke the silence. "So... we have the same mother? Sort of."
  
  Amy nodded quickly. "Sort of. I dunno, same mother from a different dimension? Does that make us more... half-sisters or cousins? I guess they'd be closer to twins than the same person."
  
  "Sisters." Beta or Zeta said firmly, as if that settled things. "We are sisters, and we will protect Noelle-Sister as we protect Amy-Sister. No one will harm her."
  
  Noelle still looked amazed, and a bit overwhelmed, as she looked the clones up and down. "I've got... so many questions. How are you so independent? Why aren't you psychotic like the other clones? How did you survive this long? What are you capable of?"
  
  "Lots of questions that deserve answers." I spoke up. "But maybe we should sit down and order food before diving into all that? There's a ton of things to talk about."
  
  "Yes." Marissa gave Noelle a tug toward the table. "Food first. And don't say you're not hungry."
  
  "No, I... I am." Noelle looked down at herself and shuddered. "I think I'm done with food disorders."
  
  Before everyone could sit down, I noticed all three Pandoras staring rather intently at Luke. He noticed as well, and took a step back rather uncertainly. "Errr, hey there... girls..."
  
  "We do not consider you a friend." Beta or Zeta informed the boy rather succinctly. "You were responsible for the death of our Primary."
  
  "Yet we no longer consider you an enemy either." Gamma pointed out, before anyone else could speak up. "Because the lack of our Primary is what has allowed us to develop individually, an event which we prefer to the alternative."
  
  Iota spoke next. "We have not decided what you shall be to us. So for now, you shall be Undetermined."
  
  "Luke-Undetermined." The three of them said together.
  
  "Undetermined, huh?" Luke offered a shrug with his good arm. "I guess I can live with that. Better than not living at all."
  
  "Oh, ummm, speaking of that whole thing." Amy waved her hand toward Luke's stump. "Riley's working out the last few kinks in your new arm. If it all works out, I should be able to attach it for you by the time we get done here."
  
  "New arm?" Noelle looked back and forth between us. "Riley? That's the umm... that's Bonesaw?"
  
  "Like we said," I gave her as encouraging of a smile as I could manage. "There's a lot to talk about."
  
  "Oh, speaking of things to talk about," Jess put in. "The uhhh, the PRT agreed to let you talk to Krouse. They haven't actually told him about you being cured yet, and he keeps ranting about how much damage you'll do if he's not there to protect you. So, you know, any time you want to go in and let him see how you're doing."
  
  Noelle took in a breath and let it out, her gaze falling for a moment before her eyes closed. When she opened them again, there was an obvious sadness to them. But there was also determination. "Later." She said softly. "Krouse made stupid mistakes, and never learned from them. But he was a victim too. The Simurgh got to him... probably worse than any of us, even me. So yeah, I'll talk to him. I'll help him as much as I can. I'll try to make him understand.
  
  "But right now, I just want to spend time with my friends."
  
  23.02
  
  A few hours later, I used a towel to wipe a generous amount of sweat off of my face and neck, groaning as I did so. "Katherine really knows how to put you through your paces, huh?"
  
  I had left Noelle and the others to have their own chance to reunite without me hanging around the whole time. All of them had insisted that it wasn't a problem, but I had begged off, figuring that it would be good for Noelle and the other former Travelers to talk without me. It had been time for my lesson with Grace anyway, and I didn't like to reschedule the teleporter capes that were generous enough to take me up to the Maine facility just so I could train.
  
  Beside me, Cassie responded with a noise akin to a whimper. She was lying face-down on the mat just in front of the mirror that lined the wall of this combination dojo/exercise room in the building that served as Maine's combination PRT/Protectorate headquarters.
  
  Smiling a little, I crouched next to the sprawled figure, gently poking the back of her head. "Ya dead?"
  
  Her somewhat muffled reply came a second later. "If only."
  
  Chuckling in spite of myself, I waved. "Theo, we need some water over here. I think we're losing her."
  
  Both Cassie and Theo had decided to join me in my work-outs recently. I was pretty sure that it had been more Theo's idea, but they both came and we were all slowly but steadily improving.
  
  Theo, who by that point had almost completely transformed his previous chubbiness into muscle, came over from the other side of the room with a fresh bottle of water. He crouched on the other side of Cassie and twisted the top off. "Got it, but uhhh..."
  
  "Right, can't drink it that way." I took Cassie's arm and back, helping her sit up properly before Theo handed her the water. "Don't worry, you get used to it. I used to face-plant after we were done too."
  
  Taking the water, Cassie took a careful sip and then breathed out with a groan. "How did I let you two talk me into this? We already do the regular workouts with the rest of the team."
  
  "I need the extra help," Theo replied with a shrug. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."
  
  Gulping a little more of the water, Cassie handed it back to him. Her face was a little pink, and I was pretty sure that it wasn't just because of the workout. "Fuck that, I can keep up with you."
  
  Before either of us could reply to that, a noise at the door drew our attention that way. Armsmaster, sans costume, stepped in and looked around. He had a long cardboard box under one arm. "Grace not here?"
  
  "You just missed her," I gestured past him. "She went out with Aegis to check on something. They're probably on com if you need to talk to her." I added with a shrug.
  
  "No, I'll see her later. Right now it's you I want to talk to. But..." His eyes moved to the other two.
  
  "Alone, got it." I pushed myself up, trying not to cringe at the soreness in my muscles. "We've still got about an hour before our pick-up time, if you don't mind talking before I take a shower."
  
  "I'll muddle through," Armsmaster replied dryly before gesturing at the door. "Take a little walk?"
  
  Leaving the other two to recover from the workout, I obediently walked out of the room ahead of the Protectorate hero. "Is everything okay? What's that?" I nodded toward the long box under his arm.
  
  He seemed briefly surprised by my pointing out the box and shook his head. "This is... something else, don't worry about it." His voice was slightly stiff, and if I wasn't mistaken, slightly embarrassed.
  
  We walked through the hallway that led from the workout room to a small viewing area overlooking a pair of currently empty racquetball courts. I put my hand on the clear plastic shield that protected the seats from stray balls and looked to the man. "You didn't answer when I asked if everything was okay."
  
  The man said nothing at first. Instead, he held up a hand to stop me, while reaching into his pocket to withdraw what looked like a tiny silver remote control. Pressing three buttons on the face of it, he aimed it in every direction before finally nodding in satisfaction. "Okay, now we can talk privately."
  
  His actions made me frown. "Now we can talk in private? What's all this about?"
  
  He let out a long breath and looked uncomfortable for a moment. "I shouldn't be doing this. It's... not a good idea. If anyone finds out that I'm talking to you about it..." His head shook. "We didn't have this conversation, you understand? It didn't happen."
  
  "Right, private conversation." I nodded. "I'm not going to go blabbing about it to everybody and their sister. Believe it or not, I do know how to keep a secret. Now what's wrong? What's so important that you had to do all that to make sure we weren't overheard?"
  
  For a moment, the man said nothing. Finally, he forced a single word out. "Bonesaw." His face twisted into a frown. "There's a lot of talk going around, privately of course, about what to do with her."
  
  I frowned at that. "First of all, she's not Bonesaw. She put that behind her. She's changed. And second of all, what does that mean, 'what to do with her'? It's not anyone else's decision."
  
  "Yeah, well some of the higher ups think it should be." The man shook his head, clearly annoyed. "See, someone higher up the chain got wind of what was going on with this whole Bones thing down there in Brockton Bay. Apparently this guy has some family or friends that were... attacked by the Nine, and he doesn't think that she should be forgiven quite so easily. He's got his little group up in arms about someone like her walking around free and clear like she never did anything wrong. Now he's pushing for a force to go in and extract her for some kind of trial to prove that not even the Nine are invincible."
  
  I gaped at the man before sputtering. "That's not... they didn't even... she's not that person anymore! It's not that simple. She was a kid and there was extenuating circumstances. Jack Slash tortured her!"
  
  Setting his box down on a nearby chair, Armsmaster held both hands up between us. "Look, I know. Maybe a year ago I would have agreed with them. She did horrible things to an awful lot of people, Madison. Things that someone has to be held accountable for." I started to object, and he spoke over me. "Be quiet for a minute. I said a year ago I would have agreed with them. Not anymore. Lately I've been... realizing that things aren't always that black and white. You helped with that. If it wasn't for you and Laserdream making deals with that clone, we probably would have had another Nilbog situation."
  
  "Pandora." I corrected him quietly. "They're Pandora, and they're more than just a clone."
  
  Armsmaster gave a faint, distracted nod. "Pandora, yes. If you hadn't convinced me to let that deal go through and to keep it, to trust that Pandora would keep to the deal, we would have had a much bigger problem on our hands. And now you've gone so far as to convert a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine and make her want to be a hero?"
  
  I flushed with embarrassment, shaking my head. "It was more Dinah that did that."
  
  "And Dinah only had that chance because you helped convince me to go against the mayor's wishes and let her stay where she was," he replied calmly. "My point is, things aren't as simple or black and white as they're making it sound. I get that. That's why I'm warning you, even though it's a very bad idea. I think what they want to do is an even worse idea." His voice grew quieter for a moment. "A year ago, I would have cared more about how this would affect my career than how it would affect anything else. You helped remind me that this is more than just a job, and that a hero shouldn't focus on things like that. That's why I'm telling you about this. If they push it, I'm pretty sure the whole situation is going to blow up in everyone's faces."
  
  "How... ummm... certain is it?" I asked hesitantly. "How much influence does this guy have?"
  
  "That's still up in the air." Armsmaster sighed, obviously frustrated. "Let's just say this guy is very stubborn and stuck in an even stricter black and white view than I was. He's still trying to get the people who know about the situation behind him. I think he's still working on getting Brockton Bay's mayor on his side by convincing him they can 'free' his niece as well."
  
  "But they'll just be making things worse!" I threw my hands up. "Things are good right now. If they rush in there to 'free' Dinah and capture Riley, they'll just piss off Pandora. They'll break the truce and try to take away their friends. Do they want a real S-Class situation?" After a second, I added a little more quietly. "Besides, they're my friends. I won't let them be betrayed like that."
  
  "Don't do anything." Armsmaster ordered sharply. "I will tell you if anything more comes of this, so that we can keep it under control. Do not do anything that might escalate the situation when we might still be able to contain it on this end before it goes any further. I'm going to see what I can do."
  
  I slumped back a little, frowning at the floor thoughtfully. "That's why you're not telling me who this guy is. You're afraid that I might let it slip to Dinah's group and they might stop him themselves."
  
  "Let's just say I'm being careful." He looked at me intently for a second. "As much as I don't like this guy, I don't want the situation escalating if I can help it. You might want to tell Dinah's group to move, just to be safe. I don't know where they're holed up right now, and I don't want to know. But I'd rather make every attempt to avoid the shit storm this attempted 'rescue' might cause, just in case."
  
  Letting out a low sigh, I nodded hesitantly. "Thanks for ummm, for telling me. I know it's not really what you would've done a few months ago, but... I'm glad you did."
  
  "Just don't make me regret it." His reply was gruff. "Now I've got things to do, so if you'll excuse me." He straightened and started to leave.
  
  "Hey, uhh, you forgot your box." I gestured to where he had left it on the chair.
  
  Glancing back that way, Armsmaster paused and looked indecisive for a second. Finally, he waved his hand. "It's for you. I was cleaning things out and found some old junk." His face twisted slightly at the word 'junk', and I knew he was lying about how little it mattered. "I was going to throw it away." Another obvious lie, and I didn't even need Noelle around to tell me so. "But you might like it. So... whatever, toss it or keep it. Up to you." Even as he said it, the man looked unsure for a moment. I thought he was going to pick up the box anyway, but he clenched his hand and tore his attention off of it before hurrying away. I had the distinct impression of a boy forced to abandon a beloved pet.
  
  Confused, I stepped over to the chair and used a finger to pull up the lid. Inside were what looked like at least a hundred thin magazines wrapped in individual plastic sheaths. Running my hands along them, I tugged one at random out of the box, blinking at the brightly colored images on the cover.
  
  "What's a Spider-Man?"
  
  By the time I finished taking a very long, hot shower and got back to the waiting room where the three of us were supposed to meet our teleporter when he showed up, Theo and Cassie had already been waiting for awhile. Long enough, apparently to have both fallen asleep. They were on the stiff leather couch on one side of the room. Theo sat in the corner of the couch with his legs stretched out onto the low coffee table strewn with magazines. His head was tilted back against the back of the couch and he was sort of slumped that way.
  
  Cassie, meanwhile, had curled up against him. Her legs were drawn up behind her on the couch while her head rested against the large boy's chest, using him as a pillow. One of her arms was stretched around his front almost possessively, her fingers curling in to grip his sweatshirt.
  
  Smiling at that scene, I tried not to disturb them while setting the long box down on the floor. Now I knew the contents were comic books, though they weren't like any comic books I'd ever personally seen. The ones I knew were all about fantasy creatures and science fiction. I also wasn't sure why Armsmaster had given them to me, or why he'd seemed to reluctant to leave them.
  
  Taking the seat across from the couch, I used my phone to text Marissa, and asked how things were going. A minute later she replied to say that Luke had his new arm and was practicing with it.
  
  We chatted that way for about ten minutes, texting back and forth. Apparently Luke's arm was 'special', though Mars said that I was going to have to see for myself.
  
  Finally, she sent another message to say that Noelle wanted me to go with her to talk to Krouse. I blinked down at my phone at that message in confusion before sending back another message to ask why. I had no idea why Noelle would want me to go with her when she spoke to Trickster.
  
  There was a slightly longer delay this time, as they were obviously discussing things. I had started to play a quiet game on my phone before the response came back. Marissa's reply said that since Trickster had convinced the monstrous Noelle that I was her greatest enemy, that I had taken her friends away, she wanted me to go with her so that she could explain the truth to him. Apparently she wanted the fact that she was getting along with me, that she was completely in control, to be made as clear as possible.
  
  Just after I sent back the reply to say that if she really wanted me to go in with her, I would, there was a murmur from the couch. I lifted my gaze from the phone to see Cassie, still delirious from sleep, snuggle up against Theo while tightening her grip on him. Her head turned a little to sniff the boy, and she made what I could have sworn was a quiet purring noise.
  
  Not wanting to embarrass her too much (or be too much of a voyeur), I made a point of picking up the box and setting it down on the coffee table with just enough of a thump to get the girl's attention.
  
  Her head turned slightly to me, squinting at the box and then to me as she gradually woke up further. Once she realized what was going on and where she was, the blonde girl quickly sat back into her spot on the couch. Her face was pink while she coughed. "What're you staring at?" She demanded, a little groggily.
  
  "Me, staring?" I replied innocently before shaking my head. "Sorry, I was just looking through all these comic books that Armsmaster gave me."
  
  She blinked a few times at that, still flushed with embarrassment. "Comic books?"
  
  Before I could reply to that, there was a knock on the door that brought Theo out of his own sleep. A PRT agent poked her head in and gave us a polite smile. "Your lift is here, guys. Are you ready to go?"
  
  I rose, picking up the box of comics before nodding. "I think so. Guys? Theo, you okay?"
  
  The boy nodded as well, stretching out as he stood before mumbling, "Didn't mean to fall asleep."
  
  I smiled, heading for the door. "Don't worry, I entertained myself. Besides, you guys looked really comfortable."
  
  "Oh shut up." Cassie was obviously blushing still as she kicked the back of my leg lightly.
  
  "Comfortable?" Theo echoed, obviously clueless.
  
  "Don't worry about it." Cassie's voice was quiet.
  
  "But-"
  
  "I said, don't worry about it." She muttered and then whispered something that I didn't catch.
  
  Theo didn't speak again, and when I glanced back surreptitiously before we reached the teleportation room, the two of them were holding hands.
  
  They didn't let go when we met with Junket, the tinker focused on transportation whose teleportation ring would send us home. In fact, the two of them continued to hold hands throughout the trip back to Brockton Bay. And for once, I didn't say a word about it.
  
  23.03
  
  "You, uhhh, you still don't look that good."
  
  Noelle looked up at my words, the dark circles under her eyes even more apparent than they had been while we were at lunch. She managed something approaching a weak smile. "Gee, thanks."
  
  It was about an hour after I'd accompanied Cassie and Theo back to Brockton Bay. I'd met up with Marissa and the others briefly (just long enough to have Mars take the box of comic books off my hands for safekeeping) before Noelle and I split off to come down and see Trickster, since there was no way they would allow the whole group to come at the same time. I had, at least, taken the time to change into my costume so that everyone didn't get to see what I looked like. Now, the two of us were standing in the hallway of the PRT detention center, waiting for them to admit us into the visiting room.
  
  Flushing a little behind my mask at Noelle's dry response, I shook my head. "I just meant, you look tired. Are you sure you don't want to get some rest first? This umm, seems like it probably won't be easy to get through."
  
  "I would love to sleep," Noelle admitted with a wistful sigh. "First time falling asleep without being a giant monster, or being hooked up to a bunch of machines in... a long time." She shook her head then, looking even more tired than before. "But no. I have to do this now. I have to talk to him face-to-face, without that... thing whispering to me, making me think... horrible things. I'm tired. I'm really tired, but other than that, my head is clear for the first time in so long. It's been so long since I could think straight, I'm still afraid I'll lose it. Besides, if I don't talk to him now, I'm just going to lay up thinking about what I should say when I finally do."
  
  I watched the older girl for a few silent seconds while she swayed a little, as though she was listening to some music that only she could hear. Reluctantly, I spoke up. "You don't think that the monster is going to come back, do you? I mean... are you afraid that you've only got a limited time like this?"
  
  Noelle froze a little in mid-sway before shaking her head as she looked at me. "I don't think it will. I mean, they did enough tests, but... what kind of tests can you do for something like that? They didn't even know what to look for. But no, I don't... logically think that it'll just come back. But logic doesn't live in the same building as fear, and it's not even in the same zip-code as nightmares. That's what I'm afraid of. Not that I'll really turn back, not really, but of the nightmares that always come whenever I finally do let myself fall asleep. They... aren't happy fun-time dreams."
  
  I winced at that. "I guess that means you're afraid of your subconscious?"
  
  Her slight, weak chuckle was mirthless as she pushed one hand back through straggly hair. "If your subconscious had been saying the kind of things that mine has for so long, you'd be afraid of it too."
  
  "Guess I can't argue with that." I hesitated a little before pressing. "But really, besides the dreams keeping you awake, how are you feeling? About, you know, everything."
  
  For awhile, I thought she wasn't going to answer. She went silent and seemed to stare at the floor for a long time before finally lifting her gaze to me. "I just found out a lot of really heavy stuff." She clearly didn't want to talk about specifics since we were probably being listened to, or at least recorded. "How do I feel about it? It's going to take a lot of time to process. I... I don't even know where I'm going to live tomorrow, let alone how I feel about... any of that. I need time to think."
  
  I blinked at that. "Where you're going to live? Noelle, you're staying at my..." I almost tripped over my words. "At my family's house, with the others. There's four bedrooms, one for each of you."
  
  She hesitated then, looking a little more pale. "I don't want to impose."
  
  I rolled my eyes at that. "You're not imposing. It's an empty room, and Mars and Jess have been living there for awhile anyway. You guys need time to... cope with everything. Trust me, there's nothing wrong with you staying there. After everything that happened, give yourself a little time before you start worrying about things like moving. Just relax a little bit."
  
  Noelle bit her lip, hard enough that it looked like she almost drew blood. But she nodded finally. "Fine, but I'm getting paid a consultant fee or something whenever the PRT calls me in. I'll pay you rent." When I opened my mouth to object, she held up a hand. "Please, just... let me. I need to."
  
  Somewhat reluctantly, I nodded. "You got it. Just no more talk of going anywhere, all right? You're welcome in my family's house. You and all the rest. We'll work something out for the longer term later, but right now, just... relax. Get to know this place without the monster behind your eyes."
  
  At that point, the door at the end of the hall opened and a uniformed PRT officer stepped out. He beckoned toward us while resting one hand on the heavy-duty taser attached to his belt.
  
  "Deal," Noelle agreed with a nod to me before we started to walk that way. "I'll stay at the house."
  
  The guard at the door waited for us to approach before speaking in a matter-of-fact tone. "Only one of you in there at a time. I'll be watching and listening from behind the wall hologram in the next room to make sure nothing goes wrong. Do not lift the prisoner's hood or blindfold, or otherwise allow him the ability to see. Do you understand these rules?"
  
  Rather than respond directly, Noelle calmly took a phone from her pocket. I wasn't sure where she'd gotten it. She pressed one of the speed dial buttons while I and the guard stared at her. Then she put the phone to her ear and spoke after a moment. "It's Noelle. Yes. Tomorrow afternoon? Yes, I can come in then, assuming you take care of this for me. I'm trying to visit Trickster, and the system your people are using won't work for me. So I'll tell you what, tell your man that he can watch the meeting, but not listen to what we say, that we are going to make sure that Trickster can see me to convince him of who I am, and that Tether is coming in with me. Or I could take it as breaking your part of our agreement, at which point I won't be coming in tomorrow. or any other time."
  
  There was a pause as the other person spoke, and then she handed the phone to the guard. "It's for you."
  
  The PRT officer squinted at Noelle and then took the phone. "This is Officer Groggins." After a second, his face paled. "Yes, ma'am. Could I get your verification code? I see... I really think that, just to be safe-" His voice cut off as he was obviously interrupted before nodding. "Understood, ma'am."
  
  Disconnecting the phone, he held it out for Noelle and shook his head. "You know how much trouble we'll all be in if he gets out because you won't follow procedure?"
  
  "He won't." Noelle assured him while taking the phone. "I'm sorry, Officer Groggins. I wasn't trying to throw my weight around just to lord it over you. I went straight to the top because I couldn't do what I need to do while following your rules, but I also didn't want you to be responsible for making the decision to change those rules. This way, you had no choice in the matter if someone complains."
  
  The man paused, seeming to consider that for a moment before he stepped out of the doorway. "Go on in. I'll buzz for them to bring him through. Just do us all a favor and don't fuck this up. I like my job."
  
  We both nodded before stepping through the doorway and into a small room with a metal table in the middle that was bolted to the floor and surrounded by four chairs that were equally bolted down.
  
  Rather than sit down, the two of us just stood there on one side of the room and waited. A minute later, the door on the opposite side buzzed loudly, and then opened to admit two uniformed guards that were escorting a hooded, manacled Trickster. They led him to the nearest chair and sat him down, then took a moment to secure his shackles to provided bolts to keep him in the seat. One of the men patted his shoulder to get his attention and spoke clearly. "The cameras are programmed to recognize your power use. Try it, and the whole room fills with foam. Understood?"
  
  "Of course." The slightly muffled response came without apparent care or emotion. "But as I tried to tell you before, I have no interest in speaking to anyone now. Not until you agree to let me go so that I can help Noelle, and stop her from hurting herself or anyone else. You're all far out of your league."
  
  The guard looked to Noelle and me, then back to Trickster and shrugged. "Yeah, good luck with that."
  
  Both guards left the room while Trickster demanded to know what that meant. I looked to Noelle and she nodded for me to speak. She wanted to see how he behaved when he didn't know she was there.
  
  I shrugged, moving to pull out the chair across from him. "Hey, Krouse. How are you feeling?"
  
  He froze, taking a moment to match my voice before slumping a little. "Tether. I'm surprised they let you in here." There was a pause before he added, "You're smart enough to listen, I think. This situation can't last. Noelle is out there, and she needs help. I know you care about Marissa and Jess, so you should care about what happens to their friend. Noelle needs me, or she might do things that she doesn't want to do. She can't control it. Please, if you really do care, you have to help me get back to her."
  
  I flinched a little. It would have been so much easier to dislike him if he had ranted or raved at me. But he just sounded... desperate. He wanted to get back to Noelle, and he was convinced that he was her only hope of not turning into even worse of a monster. "She's okay, Krouse." I said quietly.
  
  "No, she's not!" He shifted in his seat enough to make the chains rattle. "You don't understand. It'll kill her if she hurts anyone else. I can take it. I can be the bad guy, but don't make her be one. Do whatever you want to me. I don't care, I probably deserve it, but let me talk to her. Please, just let me help her."
  
  By that point, Noelle had moved around the table to where Krouse was. She put her hand on the hood, and he jerked a little. "Hey, who's in here with you? Who's there?"
  
  Noelle remained silent, tugging the hood off to reveal a secondary blindfold. It took her a moment to untie it, but she finally pulled it away as well and set both items down on the table before stepping back around and into his line of sight. Finally, she spoke, her voice soft. "Hello, Francis."
  
  For a long moment, Krouse just stared at the tired-looking girl, his eyes bugged almost out of his head. He looked from her, to me, then back to her again. Then, unexpectedly, he barked out a loud, ugly laugh. "I'm impressed." He looked to me, showing his teeth. "I didn't expect you to be this harsh, or creative." It was clear that he was avoiding looking at Noelle. "How hard was it to find a shapeshifter?"
  
  "Francis," Noelle's voice was soft. "It's me. It's really me. I'm right here, so talk to me."
  
  He ignored her, focusing on me. "I've gotta say, pushing this hard, you must be desperate. Just ask me what you want to ask me and stop with the games. You wanna know what to do about Shadow Stalker? You want answers about who we were working with? Ask me so I can tell you to screw off."
  
  I was glad that my mask hid my expression. "Krouse, pay attention to Noelle. Talk to her, not me."
  
  Lowering his chin to his chest, the man gave another ugly chuckle before shaking his head. "You really want to play this game? You think I can't tell what you're doing? You think I'm that stupid?"
  
  "Francis," Noelle reached out to touch his shoulder gently. "It's really me. I'm okay. We can-"
  
  Lifting his head, Krouse spat at her, making us jump in surprise. The spittle hit the other girl in the cheek, while Krouse glared hatefully. "Let's get this straight, you're not her. You are not Noelle. I don't know who you are, but you're not her. Maybe you're that clone that changes shape. That would be my guess, anyway. Either way, it doesn't matter because I'm not playing whatever game you're setting up."
  
  "Francis..." Noelle used her hand to wipe away the spit before tugging out one of the chairs to sit down. "It's me. What do you want me to say? What do you want me to talk about to prove it's really me?"
  
  "Nothing." Krouse's face twisted a little with emotion before his head shook quickly. "You can't say a damn thing, because I'm not that stupid. Between Marissa and Jess, there's not much that they couldn't have told you about our past. Noelle..." He turned his attention back to me then, his voice taking on a bit more of a pleading tone. "Just stop this, please. I don't know whose idea this was, but stop it. Noelle needs me. The real Noelle needs me, and the longer you keep playing these games, the more likely she's going to lose control. You have to let me go. You want to know who was holding us? It was the Outliars. They're more powerful than you think. So go after them, do whatever you want, just get this... thing out of my face and let me find the real Noelle! She needs me !" His last words were a loud, openly desperate plea.
  
  Heaving a sigh, I finally spoke up. "It sounds to me like the truth is that you need her to need you." Before Krouse could retort, I went on. "You can't let this be her. You can't accept that because if it's really her, if she's really right here and safe, then she's been saved... and you didn't do it. " I leaned forward, closer to the man whose somewhat manic eyes were locked on mine. "You're stuck, Krouse. If you admit that this is really her, you have to admit that she didn't need you to save her. You have to admit you were wrong about everything. But she's here. She's sitting right there, and she's ready to answer any of your questions. She's ready to prove it's her. You want to ask her anything that only the real Noelle would know, you can. You want to try to prove that it's not her, you can. But you won't. You don't want to take the chance that you might be wrong, so you won't even try. Because if you try to prove she's a fraud and you can't, if you do anything to even make yourself slightly more sure that she's really here and safe and that you had nothing to do with it, then you won't be able to delude yourself anymore. You'll have to look back at what you did, what you chose, and come to terms with it without having Noelle as an excuse for your actions. You won't do anything to prove whether this is really Noelle or not, because if it is, then your whole paradigm crumbles."
  
  "I'd do anything for Noelle." He insisted. "The real Noelle. I love her."
  
  "Prove it." I nodded toward the other girl. "Talk to her. If you really love Noelle, if you really love her, then it shouldn't matter how she was saved. None of that should matter. If you love her, talk to this girl and let her prove whether she's Noelle or not. Because right now, the only reason not to let her prove she's real is because you don't want her to be."
  
  There was a long, hanging silence as Krouse stared at me, then at Noelle, then back to me. His face twisted a few times as a variety of emotions played across it.
  
  "Please, Francis." Noelle's voice was quietly urging. "Talk to me. Do you want to talk about how we met, or the time you asked me how I really felt about you? Do you want me to tell you about the first time we kissed? Tell me. Talk to me. I'm here, Francis, I'm right here sitting across from you. I'm okay. For the first time in years, I'm okay , Francis. Please be here with me. Please talk to me."
  
  "I..." The man shifted in his seat, somehow looking even more tired than Noelle did. "I..." His body slumped then, and he shook his head, voice hoarse. "I'm done talking."
  
  "Francis," Noelle tried, reaching out to him again.
  
  "I said I'm done talking!" Krouse jerked back in his seat as much as he could. "You almost had me. You almost did it. I'm done. Guard! Get me out of here! Get me out!" Her jerked violently in his seat, shouting again to drown out Noelle's attempts to plea with him.
  
  His motions were clearly enough to let the guards know something was wrong because the door opened and Officer Groggins moved inside. "What's going on?"
  
  "I'm done talking!" Krouse spat out the words. "I'm done. Get me out, throw me back in the hole and toss away the key. I don't care. Just get me out of this room. Get me out."
  
  The other two guards came in the other way, and Krouse was taken out of the room. The whole time, Noelle kept trying to talk to him, to make him listen to reason by calling out the words and names that were apparently important to their relationship. Instead, Krouse just talked over her, keeping his own voice loud to drown out the other girl's words.
  
  Then they were gone, and Noelle and I were left alone in the visitation room. The sounds of Krouse's desperate, almost manic denials hung in the air.
  
  Slowly, I turned toward the other girl. "I'm... I'm sorry. I thought he was going to listen."
  
  Noelle said nothing. Instead, she stared at the door that the man had all-but run through to get away from her for a long moment. Then she lowered her gaze to the floor and closed her eyes. After a few seconds, her shoulders started to shake, while tears made their way down her face.
  
  We had tried, she had tried, and failed. Krouse refused to believe that she was really herself. He was so obsessed with being the one that had to save her that even when I specifically pointed it out, he still couldn't bring himself to even try to accept her. Even when I had flat out told him that if he didn't try to prove whether this was really Noelle or not, it meant that he didn't want it to be, he still refused.
  
  He had rejected her, had rejected any chance of Noelle proving who she was, because he cared more about the act of saving Noelle, of himself doing the saving, than he did about the fact that she was saved. He had run away from the very thought that this might really be Noelle.
  
  She had seen all of that with her own eyes, and had seen his emotions as he accepted that fact and ran away from her anyway. Given the choice between a cured Noelle who had been saved without his help, and one that was still monstrous because he hadn't saved her yet, Krouse had clearly preferred the latter.
  
  And even as I moved to embrace this girl that I barely knew, to give her some small measure of relief or understanding no matter how tiny and inconsequential given our lack of real connection, I knew that it was a denial that Krouse could never take back. It was a decision that he couldn't make again.
  
  He had made his choice, and in so doing, he had broken something that would never be repaired.
  
  23.04
  
  I had no idea of how to make Noelle feel any better about what had just happened. The two of us were silent as we walked out of the visitation room and gradually made our way out. I stopped to change into street clothes before we headed out to meet the others at the burger place they were waiting for it.
  
  Eventually, as we walked down the street, I found my voice. "I'm sorry, Noelle. I... I'm really sorry. I knew he had problems, but I didn't think it would be that bad. I mean, he obviously cares about you. I thought he'd be happy that you were safe. I thought..." I trailed off, unsure of what I should say.
  
  "He does." Noelle said quietly. "He cares about me, and he wants to know I'm safe. But he doesn't believe that I could be safe without him. He... needs me to need him. He's built nearly three years of his life around protecting me, around doing and hiding... horrible things just to save me. Cody... everything that happened, everything we did, he let it all happen because he wanted to save me. People died... not just a few, but a lot. He put it all aside in the name of protecting me, of curing me. And now... now that it looks like I was cured without his help, it brings every decision he made into question again. If he can't justify them by me needing to be cured, because he didn't lead to it, then... then he has to accept his own responsibility for what happened."
  
  I shook my head. "But that's not exactly fair or right. I mean, yeah he made a lot of horrible, stupid choices that got people hurt. But he was trying to protect you. I... there isn't an easy answer. But if he hadn't done what he did, you wouldn't have gotten this far. You wouldn't be here to be cured. This whole situation, you being cured couldn't have happened without this... really, really unique set of circumstances that didn't exist back when he was making most of those choices. I'm not going to say whether he was right or wrong with what he did since you got here, but his choices did keep you alive. His choices got you to this point where this one unique set of circumstances could heal you."
  
  "I know." Noelle nodded as we stopped at a street corner and waited to cross. "That's why I'm not going to give up on him. I don't know I feel about... everything, including him. But I know that he never gave up on me. He made mistakes, but he was always trying to help me, misguided or not. He tried to save me from what the Simurgh made happen, and I'm going to do the same for him. She messed him up... probably worse than any of us, mentally. So whatever it takes, no matter how much I have to keep visiting him, or how much I have to leverage the PRT to make him keep visiting me, I'm going to make him see reason. I'm going to snap him out of this, even if I have to slap him silly."
  
  The light changed, and we started to cross while she continued. "Because even if I don't know how I feel about him right now, he deserves to have his own life that doesn't revolve around me."
  
  "But you're going to be all right?" I asked after a momentary hesitation. I didn't really know Noelle, and that seemed like prying, a bit. But she was important to Marissa, so I wanted to help her any way that I could.
  
  She shrugged almost painfully thin shoulders. "Hey, if I can survive being an S-Class monster for two and a half years, I can survive anything. Francis went through a lot more than a little emotional pain when he was trying to help me. The least I can do is not give up on him after one setback."
  
  I smiled slightly at that. "Just don't let yourself get so caught up in helping him that you forget to figure out who Noelle is now. You're free and clear, for the most part. You've got a whole life. If there's any way to help Krouse get back to uhh, what I guess is normal for him, then I'm right there with you. But don't focus on that so much that you miss out on becoming your own real person again."
  
  By that time, we had reached the place that we were supposed to meet the others at. It was a small, privately owned burger joint with mostly outdoor seating on the back patio area, and we could see Marissa, Luke, Jess, and Amy as we approached.
  
  One look at us, and Mars straightened from the hard plastic bench to step our way. She was wincing. "It really went that bad, huh?" Without waiting for an answer, she embraced Noelle. "Are you okay?"
  
  The other girl gave her a tired smile. "We already knew it was going to be hard to make Francis understand. This was just the first step. I... I might've taken it a bit harder than I thought I would, but it's not really that surprising. We'll get there. I'm not giving up on him."
  
  Mars glanced to me before nodding. "You're right. It'll just take some time. Now come on, let's eat."
  
  As we stepped that way, I lifted my hand into a thumbs up. "New arm's looking good, Luke. Looks like you're gonna be ready for that pat-a-cake championship after all." We had the whole back area to ourselves, so as long as we didn't go shouting things, it was all right to talk.
  
  He smirked back at me and lifted the new limb demonstratively. It looked almost identical to his other arm, save for the fact that it was slightly more muscular, had no hair on it, and was substantially paler than the rest of his skin. "Yeah, they did good work. It's pretty strong too, apparently. I'm thinking of getting the other one chopped off so I can get a matching set."
  
  "If that is your desire, Luke-Undetermined," a new voice spoke up from the direction of the restaurant building. "We may strive to accommodate you."
  
  I turned to see the Hispanic figure that was Lambda's chosen form. She was carrying two different trays, one in each hand. Both were heavily loaded down with food.
  
  Luke winced a little and lowered his arms. "Errr, nah, I'm good. I'll keep what I've got."
  
  Lambda set the trays down and offered him a smile. "We did not believe so, but..." Her smile widened. "It was worth going out on a limb."
  
  Through the chorus of groans that followed that, Lambda focused on me and waved a little happily. "Madison-Friend, we have brought my favorite food!"
  
  "Your favorite?" I echoed. "So just Lambda's. I know Gamma likes french fries, what's your favorite?"
  
  In response, the other girl reached down to the tray of food before yanking out one of those really big kosher dills that a lot of places kept in jars on the counter. Her cry was as joyful as any child on Christmas morning as she beheld it. "Pickle!"
  
  Blinking at that, I let my head tilt sideways. "You really like pickles, huh?"
  
  Her response was a repeated, " Pickle !" Then she opened her mouth wide and took a crunchy bite of the thing before doing what was probably the most adorable little spinning circle dance of happiness I'd ever seen in my life, munching on the pickle the whole time.
  
  "H'okay." I said while taking a seat as I muffled my own giggles. "She really likes pickles."
  
  " Pickles!"
  
  Three days after the failed attempt to make Krouse see reason, I pointed my chosen tool of war at my opponent. "Today is the day that the sins of your arrogance are repaid in full. Your walls of hubris will fall, and you will stand helpless as I burn a swath of defeat across your soul."
  
  "So you're going with the pink putter then?" Ethan's voice was dry and unimpressed.
  
  "Uh huh!" I chirped while admiring the club I had chosen out of the basket at the entrance of the miniature golf course. "I think it's pretty!" Pointing it back at him once more, I added, "Pink golf club shall be your doom. Doom! " The man tried to say something else, but I interrupted with another, " Doom! " Then I skipped off to enter the course itself, leaving him with my best evil cackle.
  
  I'd spent the last couple of days helping to find a new place for Dinah's group to hole up in after warning them about the mysterious person that wanted to track down Riley. Dinah hadn't been surprised in the least, and assured me that they would have ample warning if any attempt was imminent. I'd asked if she was depending on her power to give warning, and she'd said, "Among other things."
  
  Still, it had seemed safest to find somewhere else for them to move to, just in case. So Amy and I had gone around until we found what we thought was a good place. We were supposed to meet up with Dinah, Riley, Pandora, and Emma tonight to see if they liked it.
  
  For now though, I had a miniature golf game to win.
  
  Hunter and Sam were waiting inside at the first hole, both watching me with obvious amusement. Nudging the girl next to her, Sam asked, "You really think you can beat him this time, Maddy?"
  
  "I've been practicing," I declared firmly. "And this time I'm gonna watch him like a hawk to make sure he doesn't cheat by-" I lowered my voice to a whisper. "-using his powers."
  
  "Who's gonna make sure you don't use yours?" Ethan spoke up from behind me, having selected his own club, which he used to poke me in the back.
  
  "Scoff," I retorted. "Scoff, I say. Why would I need to cheat to beat you? I have the lucky pink club. And you," I turned to poke him back. "Are going down."
  
  "Yeah?" He echoed in clear disbelief. "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is, Wicket?"
  
  "What do you have in mind?"
  
  "Oh lord," Sam shook her head and groaned. "Here we go."
  
  Grinning back at me, Ethan gave an elaborate shrug. "Team play. You and Hunter over there versus me and Sammy. Whichever pair has the highest combined score has to clean up the kitchen for the next two weeks worth of meals. And trust me, I have big meals planned."
  
  "Two weeks?" I pondered, then looked toward Hunter. "What do you think? It's up to you too."
  
  Hunter looked at me, then toward the smug Ethan for a moment as she considered. Then she gave a very slight smile while drawing her finger across her throat pointedly.
  
  "Well there's your answer." I turned to Ethan, giving him a feral grin. "You're going down, O'Connell." After a second, I amended, pointing the club back and forth at husband and wife. "Ssss. O'Connells. Oh, and if anyone uses their powers, it's an automatic forfeit."
  
  "Just so you know," Sam informed her husband as we arranged ourselves at the first hole. "If we end up losing, you get to do the scrubbing."
  
  Ethan pretended to sulk. "I thought you agreed to be my equal partner in all things."
  
  Sam was unmoved. "Yeah, as it turns out, two weeks worth of pot scrubbing duty is my limit, partner ."
  
  "Oh don't worry so much." Ethan waved a hand dismissively. "We've got this one in the bag. I know I'm better than Munchkin over there. That leaves you and Hunter, and she's from France, so how much could-" His words were cut off then, as Ruin took the first shot. Her little yellow ball bounced off two different dividers and then rolled into the hole at the other end.
  
  Sam looked at the hole for a moment, then turned to stare at her husband. "You do realize that they have miniature golf in France, right?"
  
  "Well," Ethan coughed and offered a shrug. "You learn something new every day."
  
  Snickering in spite of myself, I waved for one of them to go while turning to Hunter. "That reminds me, if you grew up in France, but your dad spoke Chinese, right?" She nodded, and I asked, "So where did English come from? I mean, were you always trilingual?"
  
  Hunter shook her head at that and considered for a moment before putting her hands together, moving them up and down to simulate wings flapping. Then she brought them in close to her chest to 'catch' it.
  
  I lowered my voice to be safe. "Birdcage? You learned English in the Birdcage? That means you didn't know any when you volunteered to go in there?" She nodded again, and I shook my head, impressed. "You're amazing. Most people wouldn't have survived, let alone picked up a third language."
  
  Hunter's head shook once more as she blushed. Turning, she gestured toward a plastic dragon figure perched over one of the holes in the distance. Then she mimed reading a book.
  
  "Dragon helped you learn it?" I smiled when she nodded. "I'm glad. Are you still e-mailing her?"
  
  Smiling, Hunter nodded while making an expansive gesture with her arms.
  
  I grinned then, realizing what she meant. "You're e-mailing a lot. Cool. She really helped you, huh?"
  
  Once again, Hunter nodded emphatically while making an expansive gesture to indicate that Dragon had really helped her.
  
  Ethan had long-since finished with his shot by that point, sinking his own putt in two shots. He nudged my foot with his club. "Hey Tiny Tot, take your turn."
  
  "Yeah, yeah." I moved to line up my shot. "You seem really eager to get your butt whupped."
  
  "Keep smack talking, little girl." He made an elaborate show of yawning. "There's a lot of holes to go, and we all know how the basketball game went."
  
  "The difference now is, no powers." I informed him while taking my shot. It bounced off the same two boundaries that Hunter's shot had, before going into the hole. It wasn't as clean or smooth as when she had done it, but it went straight in with the single shot nonetheless.
  
  "Hey, are you sure you're not using your power?" Ethan demanded while tearing his stare away from the hole to squint at me in mock suspicion.
  
  "Cross my heart and hope to die." I made the gesture with my fingers over my chest. "Although I might have left something out when we agreed to come here."
  
  "What's that?"
  
  Pivoting slightly, I waved my hand toward one of the employees that was wandering around to keep an eye on things. "Hey, Tim!"
  
  The older man turned our way and then smiled broadly. "Maddy! Good to see you again. Hey, and you brought Hunter back too. Where's the other two?"
  
  "Dennis and Missy couldn't make it today." I shrugged and gestured toward the other two. "We brought Ethan and Sam instead."
  
  "Did you convince the poor suckers to make a bet with you?" Tim asked, eyes bright with amusement.
  
  "Didn't have to." I shrugged, grinning easily. "It was his idea."
  
  Tim laughed out loud, shaking his head before giving Ethan a consoling look. "Good luck to you, buddy." As he walked away once more, the man added, "You're gonna need it."
  
  While Ethan stared in disbelief after the man, Sam spoke up dryly. "I take it you two have been here before."
  
  "Once or twice." I replied, trying and failing to contain my snicker. "... per month."
  
  "So what's this about a job?" I asked Noelle while taking a seat next to her on a park bench two hours later. After thoroughly trouncing Sam and Ethan, I'd received a message asking me to meet the other girl at the park to talk about some job offer she had. As it turned out, both Marissa and Jess had patrol that night.
  
  Noelle was watching the geese swim in the lake, and remained quiet for a moment before replying. "Marissa and Jess have the Protectorate. I wouldn't want to pull them away from that. They like it there, and it's good for them. And I want to help people as well. I need to help, to do whatever I can to make up for what I did... before. But, these powers..."
  
  "They aren't really combat oriented." I nodded. "Not flashy enough for the Protectorate. I get that. But isn't that why you're consulting for them?"
  
  "It's not enough." Noelle shook her head. "I want to use it to actually help people, to solve real problems, not just play lie-detector for the PRT."
  
  "So what are you gonna do?"
  
  "I wasn't sure at first." Noelle admitted. "But then I got a call, and an offer for Luke and me."
  
  "For both of you? Are you guys going to take it?"
  
  "We already agreed to." She confirmed. "On a trial basis, anyway. That's why we're here. Or rather, why I'm here. Luke should be here soon enough. He's enjoying his free time."
  
  "So who are-" I got out before feeling something poke the back of my head. When I tried to twist around to see who it was, my body wouldn't respond. I strained, trying to turn my head, lift my arm, or wiggle my fingers, all to no avail.
  
  Then I sighed and forced the muffled words out past a mouth that wouldn't open properly. "Damn it, Aisha."
  
  Her answering cackle of amusement confirmed what I had already known. Then she tapped me again to unfreeze me before coming around in front of the bench. "Hey there, Rainbow Brite. How's tricks?"
  
  I looked from Aisha, to the blonde girl that had accompanied her around to the front of the bench. "Lisa? What are you guys..." I turned toward Noelle then to confirm my thoughts before looking back to the new arrivals. "... seriously?"
  
  Tattletale gave me one of her cunning smiles. "I don't know." She looked to Noelle pointedly. " Are you serious?"
  
  There was a momentary pause before Noelle nodded. "Yeah. We talked it over. Luke and I are joining the Undersiders."
  
  "This," Aisha declared, "is gonna be awesome."
  
  23.05
  
  "Madison-Friend, this is Tiberius-Friend."
  
  Gamma, her small, blonde figure practically dwarfed by the tall boy who stood next to her, gestured back and forth between us as we all stood on the stoop of an apartment building.
  
  It was the day after Noelle and Luke had joined the Undersiders on a trial basis. Marissa hadn't been all that happy about the idea, since she thought that Noelle should take the time to rest before throwing herself into a new commitment. But Noelle had insisted that being stuck in a room, waiting for other people to help her, had been one of the worst parts of the last two years. She wanted to get out there and do things to prove to herself that she was cured.
  
  For now, though, my focus wasn't on Noelle and the other former Travelers, but on Gamma. She had actually been staying in her blonde form pretty exclusively for the past several weeks, rather than only using it when she needed to differentiate herself from the others. It was clear that, bit by bit, the Pandoras were individualizing themselves and sticking to that individualization.
  
  And now she had wanted me to meet her human friend. Apparently, the boy had invited her over to his place for dinner, and her first response had been to ask if she could bring someone with her.
  
  To his credit, Tiberius had agreed, which was where I came in. Gamma wanted someone to come with her, to help with the things that she didn't understand about ordinary dinner visits, or ordinary people in general.
  
  It was going to be an... interesting evening.
  
  Standing there on the stoop of the apartment, I examined the guy that Gamma had been spending time with the way that I imagined most girls would study the boy that their close sister brought home. He was an ordinary human, according to the Pandoras. Emma had also said that she'd looked into it and found nothing out of bounds in his records. He was, apparently, exactly what he appeared to be: a perfectly average young man who had spotted Gamma in a diner and struck up a conversation.
  
  "Hey, glad to finally meet one of Gamma's friends." Tiberius extended a hand to me. "One of the Fantastic Four, huh?"
  
  I shook the boy's hand and blinked. "Fantastic Four?"
  
  He waved a hand, that easy, charming smile coming readily. "Old comic book thing. My dad collected them back before there were real Capes. I just meant you were one of Gamma's friends." After a second, he added, "And for the record, it feels really good to say her name without someone thinking that I'm hanging out with one of my grandparents."
  
  "We have told Tiberius-Friend that there are four whom we designate as friend," Gamma explained. "You are one, Madison-Friend."
  
  Clearly unbothered by both her plural speaking and distinctive speech pattern (if anything, the boy seemed intrigued), Tiberius unlocked the door of the apartment and gestured for us to go in. "After you, ladies. Sorry I haven't had much of a chance to clean up. My roommate and I don't really mind it, but I probably should have found a place to put stuff before you got here."
  
  True to his word, the place was a bit of a mess. But it wasn't really garbage or a bad kind of mess. Mostly, there were books lying everywhere . There were piles and piles of them. They filled several bookshelves, with more stacked both on top and in front of them. Even more covered the couch, and there were stacks of various sizes scattered throughout the main room. Everywhere I looked, there were more books.
  
  "Don't worry," Tiberius assured us. "We'll eat out on the patio. Brad, my roommate, keeps that place spotless."
  
  "Well," I looked toward Gamma after taking in the piles and piles of books. "I see who got you into reading."
  
  This time, I was sure that she really did blush. "I enjoy the books that Tiberius-Friend has allowed us to examine. I am especially interested in the sciencing fictual stories with aliens."
  
  "And there's I again," Tiberius noted with a smile. "Books tend to bring out the individual thought in you, don't they?" Snapping his fingers then, he gestured. "Got something for you, by the way."
  
  We followed the tall boy through the crowded living room and into the kitchen, where he picked up a pair of gift-wrapped packages. "Here, I uhhh, got something for Madison too, after you asked if she could come."
  
  Blinking in surprise, I took the package and then watched as poor Gamma gazed at hers with obvious bewilderment. It was obviously the first real 'present' that she had received. She stared at the colorful package, then looked to me for help. Demonstratively, I pulled the wrapping off, and she followed suit.
  
  Inside my present, there was a small paperback book with some kind of feline alien on the cover, and a little box of cheap chocolates.
  
  Gamma had received pretty much the same thing, and Tiberius shrugged helplessly. "Yeah, I didn't really know what else to get. They're two books in the same series, so hopefully you can both share. Hell, you can share the chocolates too, if you want."
  
  "This is a... present?" Gamma stared at the things in her hands, then looked up to the boy. "You have given us a present?" She sounded absolutely astounded, and that blush was back.
  
  "Just my way of saying, 'thanks for not freaking out when the weird, pushy guy in the diner started talking to you.'" Tiberius replied with a wink. "Now, if you girls want to step out on the patio, I'll get the food ready."
  
  We started that way, but Gamma paused. Her brow was knit in a thoughtful frown before she looked back to him. When she spoke, her voice was soft and uncertain. "We... I... thank you... Tiberius-Friend."
  
  "Any time, Gamma," he replied, his voice fading from polite and charismatic confidence to a quieter, more personal tone.
  
  After another hesitation, the other girl turned to walk to the patio with me, her expression a mixture of thoughtfulness and curiosity.
  
  Yup, it was definitely going to be an interesting night.
  
  " Whoooo !"
  
  My utter lack of subtlety about how happy I was to be back in costume filled the air the next evening as I launched myself off the top of a bank roof with a pair of lines that threw me thirty feet into the air before using another line to haul myself across the freeway overpass, waving to the cars passing below.
  
  Our forced 'vacation' was finally over, and we were allowed to work again. Apparently the PRT decided that they'd paid enough lip service to the Youth Guard about taking care of us after what had happened.
  
  Sticking my hand out as I passed over the freeway, I attached a line from my gauntlet to the billboard in the distance, using it to swing myself around into a ninety degree turn before simultaneously releasing that line and planting two more from my feet to the edge of the freeway. A single hard shove on those lines propelled me head-first through the relatively narrow space between two buildings.
  
  "Tether, umm, are you busy or anything?" Aid's voice came through the comm as I shot out of the alley.
  
  I replied while directing myself down to the roof of a barbershop, where I landed easily. "Nope, just stretching my legs, so to speak. Why, what's going on?"
  
  "Alarms are going off at Eastland Imports, that place over on Laning with all the sports cars out front."
  
  "I know the place," I replied, already orienting myself. After months of traveling the way that I did, I was pretty good at directions within the city. "Anyone else nearby?"
  
  "Penance is finishing up another call," he replied. "Flechette and Sparrow are on their way, but they're still about three minutes behind you."
  
  Launching myself skyward, I used a line to adjust my wild leap into a more controlled swing. "Got it. I'm one minute away. Let you know what's up when I get there."
  
  With line after line, I propelled myself through the city. I was practiced enough by that point that I barely had to look around to get my line of sight onto the next spot my lines needed to attach to. I knew this area, I knew the city. The buildings, billboards, sign posts, and other things that I used to traverse the area stayed pretty much the same. It was comforting to get back to that after being grounded.
  
  Eventually, one more line brought me down on top of a wide lamp post overlooking the winding driveway that led out of the imported car lot.
  
  Unfortunately, I'd barely landed before the steady thrum of high performance engines filled the air. A second later, no less than four cars, each of which was probably worth enough to put every single Ward on our team through college, shot down the driveway and past me in the blink of an eye. I didn't have time to think, let alone put any lines up. The cars were there and gone by the time I registered what was happening.
  
  I activated my comm while turning to launch myself up. "Four cars just tore out of Eastland Imports."
  
  "What kind?" The response this time was from whatever PRT officer was manning their control desk.
  
  Blinking at the question, I used a line to connect myself to a passing semi-truck. "I don't know, I'm not a car girl. They're a bunch of sports cars worth half a million dollars tearing down the freeway like their pregnant wife is in labor. This is not 'Where's Waldo.'"
  
  By that point, I could see the rear-most car. My next line brought me directly over the nearest of them. A few horns honked below me as my presences was noticed, and I saw the driver looking around to see what they were paying attention to. He glanced up, just as I attached two lines to his pilfered ride. Before he could react, I used the lines to haul his vehicle up off the freeway.
  
  The car flew up through the air, and I heard the man screaming at me just as I planted my feet on the hood in front of him. "What the fuck are you doing?!"
  
  I let the massive hunk of metal start to fall while keeping myself attached. "Roadside assistance, sir." One more line attached between the ground beside the freeway and the car brought it that way. "We had a report that you might be experiencing engine trouble, and we like to stay on top of these things."
  
  The man grabbed a gun that lay on the seat beside him, but before he could lift it into place, I attached a line between the weapon and the edge of the freeway. It went flying out of his hand, just as the car came down with a relatively little jolt on the gravel and weed-covered ground.
  
  He tried to rise, fumbling with his seat belt just as I threw myself up and over the windshield to land on the passenger seat. "Yes, sir. Whether you need a hand up," I caught his wrist and hauled him bodily up, tossing myself out of the way so that his momentum propelled him face-first into the passenger door with a grunt. Then I landed in the driver's seat where he had been and gave a hard kick with both feet to his backside just as he was starting to rise again. "Or your foot in the door." The kick bounced his head off the same spot. "We'll be there to help."
  
  The man lay half-sprawled over the passenger seat, groaning as I caught hold of his wrist and ziptied it to the gear stick. Then I plucked the keys out of the ignition and tossed them a few yards away before turning back to the freeway to launch myself upward once more.
  
  Switching my comm to the Wards frequency, I asked, "One down, three to go. Flechette, where are you and Sparrow?"
  
  "Still two minutes from the import lot," the other girl replied. "We're just passing that church on Aspen. Sparrow can, uhh, still only fly so fast when she's carrying me." There was a slight grunt. Obviously being carried by a girl so much smaller than her wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world.
  
  "You should land and let Sparrow's power recharge." I attached a line to the back of another truck, using it to throw myself closer stolen speed demons. "We're already heading that way. I think I can get them to turn off the freeway and head your way. You can set up for them."
  
  "Sounds good. Send 'em our way, but don't let anyone get hurt. Those cars aren't worth anybody's life."
  
  "Obviously, you haven't seen these cars," I replied. "I'm pretty sure the sticker price specifically says 'approximately seven and a half Tethers.'"
  
  As fast as the stolen cars were, they were still hindered by things like traction, traffic, and following the road. I, on the other hand, could ignore all of those things. Eventually, I spotted the trio of cars playing follow the leader as they zipped in and out of lanes with admirable precision. Still, they were endangering people. I needed to get them off the freeway before this went very, very wrong.
  
  To that end, I gave myself one last boost to get ahead of the three speeding vehicles while they were slowed slightly by a curve in the freeway and a semi blocking the lane they were using. Twisting in the air as I went flying past, I attached a line between the side of the lead car and the guard rail of the nearby exit ramp. One firm tug yanked the car off course, sending up smoke while the tires screamed in protest. I released it just as quickly, leaving the car to continue along its adjusted course, straight down the ramp and back into the city. The two cars behind followed their leader down the ramp as well, apparently unclear about what had just happened.
  
  While using another line to keep my momentum going off of the ramp and over the street that the cars were currently screaming down, I activated my comm, "Coming up your way. We'll be there in ten seconds." Ahead and below, I saw the man in one of the two rear cars twist around to look up at me. Something glinted in his hand, and I instantly attached a line from my gauntlet to the building beside me to throw myself sideways just as the gun fired. My new trajectory brought me up against the side of another building, and I twisted around to plant my feet against it, running for a few steps before using another line on my feet to launch back into the air while the man fired two more times ineffectually. He wasn't able to drive and aim at the same time very well, so he was mainly just firing half-blind.
  
  Still, he was going to hurt someone if he kept it up. And sure enough, I'd barely had the thought than a trio of dark red lines connected themselves from me to a crowd of onlookers who apparently didn't know well enough to get out of the way.
  
  Cursing under my breath, I used a line to yank myself over top of the car, corkscrewing to avoid his increasingly wild shots. The man wasn't watching the road, and it was clear that he was about to plow right through those people. As my twisting body passed directly over him, I focused on the man's seat and attached two lines on either side of it, up to the man himself. A hard shove from the lines ejected the man, sending him flying up and out of his car while he squealed like a little girl. I let him fly upward before giving him a tug so that he came down on the roof of the nearest building with enough force to knock the wind out of him. He may have been crying while he hugged the roof.
  
  Of course, momentum meant that the driverless vehicle was still going even without the man's foot on the gas, so I let myself drop down right between the crowd of people and the oncoming vehicle. Extending both hands, I attached lines between my gauntlets and the car. The car screamed in protest as it was dramatically slowed. I kept up the pressure, stopping it just before the vehicle would have plowed right through me. It halted with the front bumper barely a couple of inches from my legs.
  
  There wasn't time to waste. A policeman nearby was giving me a questioning look, and I pointed to the roof of the building down the street. "Driver's up there, I'd grab him before he gets away." Then I turned to launch myself upward once more. "Flechette?"
  
  "We're on it," she replied. "Or rather, Fuzzerbutt is."
  
  Sure enough, as I came around another corner I found both remaining cars frantically reversing away from the twenty-foot tall gorilla golem. This time, it had been formed out of chunks of concrete and brick, a few barrels, a single lamp post, and a couple of dumpsters. Basically, random bits of debris had gathered together and formed into the vague shape of a gigantic gorilla, which was standing in the middle of the street, bellowing in Sparrow's altered 'monster voice', "Graaargh, whyyyy run away from Fuuuuzzzerbutt? Fuuuuzzzerrbuut play vroooomy!"
  
  I came down onto the sidewalk, landing in time to see the junk golem reach out and grab both cars by the front before they could get away. The drivers hurriedly and frantically abandoned their rides, while 'Fuzzerbutt' lifted both cars up and started swinging them around like a child playing with toys. "Vrooommmy vroooooom eerrrrrrrchhhhh!"
  
  "Well," I decided while walking toward the men that were still scrambling backwards on their hands and knees to get away from the thing. "That's one way to stop them."
  
  Flechette joined me, and we each stood over the men, who immediately begged us to arrest them if we just kept the giant monster away.
  
  "Seriously, guys?" I shook my head. "It's not that scary. He just wants to play with you. See?" I gestured toward the gorilla, while Sparrow did an admirable job from wherever she was of making it look like the golem was little more than a giant kid playing with his toy cars.
  
  "Yeah, maybe we should just leave you here to play with him for a little while," Flechette offered. "You guys might become really good friends."
  
  That set off a fresh round of pleading, while I snickered in spite of myself. "All right, all right. If you insist, we'll let the police have you. Yeesh, you'd think you've never seen a twenty foot tall gorilla made out of random chunks of debris before."
  
  After the men were secured, 'Fuzzerbutt' put the cars down before breaking apart. Sparrow flew down then from the roof of the building where she had been hiding, landing on Flechette's back so that the other girl staggered, and clung there. "Eeee! Did we already get 'em all?!" Her voice was loud and excited. Clearly she had missed being in action as much as any of us.
  
  "Oof." Flechette staggered forward a little, but it was obviously played up. "How come you can fly and I'm still the one giving you a piggy back?"
  
  "I carried you all the way here." Sparrow pointed out. "It's your turn!"
  
  Smiling a little in spite of myself, I nodded. "Yup, that's all of them. Not too bad for the first night back on the job, huh?" I offered Sparrow a high five, which she took.
  
  "Now for the worst part of this whole thing." I announced with a groan.
  
  "All the bullets flying at you weren't the bad part?" Flechette asked, head tilting curiously.
  
  "Pffft, nah." I shook my head dismissively.
  
  "The worst part's gonna be listening to the car dealer bitch about every little scratch on his toys."
  
  "Ehhhhhh..." Flechette made a whining noise. "... Is it too late to let them drive away with them?"
  
  Interlude 23 - Labyrinth
  
  A gray, featureless corridor stretched out in either direction, further than the eye could see. The walls were muted, the very faint patterns of slightly darker gray set within them serving only to highlight the overall dullness of the rest of the environment. Every hundred feet or so there was another four way intersection, which only served to provide an identical endless corridor running perpendicular to the current one. On and on they went.
  
  It was peaceful here in the lonely hallways. They stretched onward through infinity without interruption or flaw. In this place, no one and nothing could bother her. She was safe.
  
  Her? She? Those were odd thoughts. She was... her? Yes. She was... a person, with two arms and two legs. She was a person, a female person, not merely a corridor. Which one? Did she know? The female person that she was, did she know more than that? Most female people did, the she who was more than a corridor was certain of that much, even if she could not exactly place how she knew it. The words, and thoughts, were there within her mind but finding them, locating the right idea and putting it together the proper way was a bit like assembling a puzzle. She had to locate enough of the pieces to get a general idea of the picture, snapping them all into place until she finally understood what she was putting together. Each and every separate idea or thought was like that.
  
  It was so much easier to just wander the hallways. Or was she letting the hallways wander through her? Did the jigsaw of that idea make sense? Was it a picture that she could assemble, or yet another box of discarded pieces that would never fit properly?
  
  Seconds or possibly hours passed while the she who was more than a corridor either considered that, or just wandered aimlessly. She wasn't entirely certain, but she did know that thinking this way, assembling the puzzle thoughts the way that she had to, was exhausting.
  
  A person. Yes, she was that much. But which one? She knew people. Who did she know? Was she one of the people that she knew? If she thought of the shes that were a part of the bigger puzzle, would the her that she was come to mind? Would she open more eyes and see further than these corridors?
  
  There were more places beyond these corridors, yes. Many more, in fact. She only had to touch the puzzle pieces of those places, and the she who was more than a corridor would be there. So many places, some frightening, while others gave her a feeling of triumph or achievement that she couldn't exactly understand in her current state.
  
  Yet none were the right place. She knew at a glance, scanning through dozens of separate places the way that other not-her people would thumb through photographs, that the place that she should be was not among them. Of all the many locations that she could reach without effort, the one place she wanted was out of her reach.
  
  Not entirely out of her reach, of course. It was there, barely glimpsed out of the corner of her eye whenever she didn't focus too much on a single location. Sometimes there was a face, other times, simply a fragment of a sentence that reached her as though crossing a great distance, whispers whose meaning were lost because what use was language to the endless corridors, or to the vast fields, or even to the giant clocktower sitting upon jagged rocks that extended over rivers of lava? All of these places and so many more filled the mind of the she who was more than a corridor, distracting from her attempts to drag that hidden, barely noticed flicker of the place she wanted to be back into view.
  
  It was just so much easier to wander aimlessly through these places, to build even more elaborate imagery with her drifting thoughts. Shapes lifted from the ground, solidifying into structures while the she who was more than a corridor fought against her own mind.
  
  "Labyrinth-"
  
  The sound, clearly cut off as more had been coming, reached the aimless girl, providing something of an anchor. She'd heard it, the word that meant... what? She? It meant she, yes? Her name was...
  
  "-you hear me, Labyrinth-"
  
  Yes. Labyrinth. That was good. She was Labyrinth. See, she really was more than a corridor. She was many corridors through places unmeasured and untamed, an endless maze. She was a labyrinth, the Labyrinth. She was here, in this place, where her friends were. Where her family was.
  
  Elle opened her eyes, focusing on the face in front of her, the face that had been talking while her mind had failed to focus for so long in spite of her efforts.
  
  "There we go." Shamrock, red hair bright against the skintight black leather of her costume, smiled at her. "You're back with us now, right? You're okay?"
  
  It was still hard to hold onto this focus. Her mind kept trying to drift away, back through one of those oh-so-tempting pocket dimensions. This had been a bad day, one of her worst ones in recent memory. Normally she retained at least some small measure of her own identity, however hard it was to focus on. This time, Elle almost hadn't existed at all for quite awhile.
  
  So long, in fact, that she had no real idea of what was going on. The last she'd known, the group had been driving in a van while Murk rested his power. Now they were... in a truck stop diner?
  
  It was... hard at times, to know that on her bad days, her attention might drift, her body moving almost automatically as her consciousness remained all-but trapped within those pocket worlds. She would have a conversation, at least as much of one as she was capable of having, and then she would stop to think about what she was saying. Before she knew it, her attention would have drifted through several of her 'places', and by the time she dragged it back, the person she had been interacting with was gone.
  
  Other times, her mind would be split so that part of her could see and focus (to an extent) on what was happening to her physical self, yet would be unable to actually recognize anyone or understand nuance. Those were the terrifying moments in which everyone she saw was a potential threat, someone who wanted to take her back to one of the bad places. The faces, even those of her friends, whom she trusted beyond reproach on normal days, became just as frightening and off-putting as a complete stranger's would have been. It didn't matter how much she tried to plan for it, tried to commit the faces she knew to memory and ordered herself not to forget them. On some days, she might as well have never met them. She became, essentially, incapable of telling the difference between friend and foe.
  
  At least this time, once she had exerted enough effort to drag her attention back to the real world, she actually recognized Shamrock. Even if she had very little idea of how they had gotten from the van to this diner. Had she eaten? Was there food?
  
  "Labyrinth, babe, I need you to stay with me here." Shamrock patted Elle's hand before reaching up to pull her mask on. Belatedly, Elle realized that she was in her costume as well, the dark green robe with maze-like lines drawn over it. She had a faint recollection of changing, but it hadn't really been all of her consciousness doing so, only the faint part that followed instructions and let herself be led around.
  
  "You remember why we were driving out here?" The woman, whose blend of minor precognition and weak telekinesis simulated a 'luck' power, squeezed her arm.
  
  Looking around, Elle realized belatedly that they were on the floor. Curious, she started to rise.
  
  Cursing to herself, Shamrock quickly stopped her. "Damn it, no. Look at me, girl. Try. Do you remember what we were doing, why we came out this way? Do you remember the job?"
  
  The job. The thing they had been paid to work on for months now, without success. There had finally been a break, a lead that Faultline had been excited about. They had been driving out this way, through Maine, to follow that lead. Focusing as much as she could, Elle nodded slowly toward Shamrock. She knew what they had been doing, and why it was so important.
  
  "We got lucky, so to speak." Shamrock kept squeezing her arm to maintain her focus. "Bad luck and good. Good, we found the target. Bad, we were expected. They're fighting pretty hard out there. Now, Murk's ready to jump us out of here any second, but if we leave without doing what we came for, all this has been a waste. Do you understand? We can leave, but if we do, it was pointless."
  
  Distractedly, Elle nodded when the other girl stopped talking, obviously waiting for a response. She understood that much, even if her attention did keep trying to drift away.
  
  The sound of three rapid gunshots out in the parking lot drew her attention, but Shamrock squeezed her arm again. "They'll be okay, as long as we get out of here in time. But our target, he's somewhere we can't get to. Not even Murk can. You understand? They managed to block Murk. But we're pretty sure that they can't block you, Labyrinth. All you have to do is think, and you can turn that guy's nice, safe room into a wide open field for us to swoop in and pick him up.
  
  An explosion in the distance shook the tables around them, followed by a deafening roar. Shamrock cringed a little, but didn't break her gaze away from Labyrinth's. "We gotta hurry. They're playing keep-away, but who knows how long that'll last. Our target's in the trailer outside there, you see it? That RV in the corner. Just take a peek."
  
  Slowly, Elle obeyed. She leaned up to peer over the counter and through the shattered window at the unassuming looking RV parked on the other side of the truck stop lot.
  
  "That's the one." Shamrock confirmed. "Crammed to the brim with tinker-bullshit so it blocks Murk. He says it's like a forcefield. But you can handle forcefields." Her other hand came in to squeeze Elle's. "Right? I know it's hard to focus, and I know you can't use your power very well right after you move. But all we need is a tiny opening to let Murk through. You only have to change just enough for that.
  
  "Can you do that for us? Can you change that RV so we can wrap this up and get the hell out of here?"
  
  Could she? Elle could feel the power trying to take over again, trying to drag her consciousness away. She was powerful right now, so much that it was hard to stay even this focused. Her mind kept drifting toward those endless corridors where she could think in peace.
  
  It was so hard to think this way. Maybe she could just slip away for a few seconds to clear her head, and appease the dogged insistence of her power.
  
  "Hey, stay with me." Shamrock snapped her fingers a couple times. "I'll help keep them off you long enough to get there, but you have to make the change yourself. Can you do that? Can you hold things together and stay with us long enough to do that? Faultline needs you to do this. We all need you."
  
  They needed her. The people that had become her family needed her. Breathing in, Elle nodded one more time before bracing herself. She would focus. She would stay here in this world and keep her mind focused, at least long enough to do this.
  
  "Good. Okay, wait to the count of five after I get out there and then go. Ignore everything else, you got it? Do not focus on anything except getting to that trailer and getting it open. Just a tiny opening, something for Murk to use. We're counting on you. Count of five." Shamrock held up five fingers before rocking back and forth on her heels. "And..." Her hand snatched up the combat shotgun that was resting on the floor next to her, before she launched herself upward to dive through the window, firing as she went.
  
  It was tempting, almost too much so, for Elle to let herself drift again. But her family needed her to stay focused. Their lives might depend on it, and she wouldn't, couldn't lose another family member after Spitfire. So she would do this, no matter how difficult. She would focus long enough to do her part.
  
  Once her slow inner count reached five, she pushed herself up and ran for the broken window. She wasn't able to leap through it as easily or nimbly as her teammate had, but the girl still made it without too much trouble.
  
  She ignored the bodies that covered the ground just outside the diner, stepping around them. None of them were her team. In the distance, she could see Gregor and Faultline. The two were clearly hurt, yet they stayed in the fight, such as it was.
  
  Step by step, she slowly made her way across the lot. With every movement, her mind kept trying to go back to one of her safe places. Focusing this way, on a day that was bad for her ability to concentrate as this one happened to be, took an enormous amount of concentration and effort. Each step became a near-herculean affair as she resisted the tug toward the burning towers, or even the barren ruins.
  
  So much fighting was going on around her. So much danger for everyone she cared about was literally surrounding the girl, tempting her toward despair. It was a battle that, in the end, her team, her family, couldn't win. They never had any real chance. Their only hope was to withdraw. Yet if they left without what they had come for, the whole thing would have been pointless.
  
  One step after another, Elle made her way toward the trailer. While moving, she thought about what she should bring into this world when she opened the RV for her teammates.
  
  It was almost a very costly, potentially fatal mistake. The second she started thinking about what she wanted to bring over, her mind leapt into one of her jungle places, the igneous deeps, and she lost herself briefly as her mind soared through the vibrant jungle that had grown up around and over the various towering spirals of cooled lava.
  
  After a brief moment of euphoria at the release of the effort she had been putting into staying grounded in the real world, Elle abruptly panicked. How long had she been out? Had it been seconds, or minutes?
  
  The fear for her family was powerful enough to let the girl shove her attention back into the real world, where she found that things were pretty much as she had left them. Her team was being picked apart, and she really had to hurry.
  
  Stopping as near to the RV as she could get, Elle extended her hand toward it. Her range had dropped significantly because of her movement, limiting her to only a few feet. Yet, according to Shamrock, that was all they would need.
  
  The wall of the trailer in front of her glowed as her power touched it. The tinker-tech within resisted her efforts the way that it had been resisting Murk's attempts to get inside. Yet one firm push with her power was all it took before a small, fist sized part of the silvery white RV turned a vibrant green color, mixed with the brown of a rich wood.
  
  Slowly, yet as quickly as she could manage, Elle brought part of the Elder Tree through, letting the metal of the RV expand outward and upward, joined with the tree. As it grew, the plant tore the RV in half in spite of its tinker-tech, the progress inevitable.
  
  Even as she did, however, the girl could feel herself losing her ongoing struggle to stay focused. The igneous deeps were calling for her to visit, and the act of calling part of them into the real world made it almost impossible to resist.
  
  She was fading, but enough of her consciousness remained to notice as Murk and Newter appeared next to her. Newter spoke, but she was already all-but lost in her own world, her ability to remain focused exhausted.
  
  Elle had done her part. She had opened the way. Now... her mind would drift.
  
  She hoped they didn't die.
  
  "Eat this, Elle. Come on, eat, please?"
  
  Blinking at the sandwich in her hand, Elle looked up from it to find Gregor giving her an encouraging smile. "Are you all right? You're back with us?"
  
  Nodding, and finding herself famished, the girl took a bite from the food in her hand before looking around quickly to see where they were. It was an unfamiliar motel room, and judging from her power's limitations, they hadn't been there for very long.
  
  On the other side of the room, their prisoner lay on the bed with Newter practically hovering over the him. Good, they had captured the man after all.
  
  "Everyone made it out." Gregor assured her. "Some of us a bit more roughed up than others, sadly. But we did make it, and we accomplished our objective."
  
  "Yes, we did." Faultline spoke from the doorway. "As you can see, so we'll be taking payment now. I expect a lot of zeroes for this one."
  
  Dinah Alcott, the girl whose eyes betrayed choices and thoughts that made her seem far older than she actually was, nodded while coming into the room. She was accompanied by the girl in the face-plate-Oversight, Elle remembered belatedly- and two of the figure that they called Pandora.
  
  "Yes, you did. And you'll be paid for it, in more than one way." The precog looked toward Labyrinth briefly, giving her a small smile before turning back to the figure on the bed. "How long will he stay out?"
  
  Newter shrugged. "He doesn't have regeneration, and I've been pretty liberal about dosing him. So I'd say you've still got hours to get him all set up the way you want."
  
  "My suggestion?" Faultline spoke bluntly. "Kill him now while you have the chance. Don't know if you'll ever get it again, and my whole team nearly died just to keep the fight going long enough to grab him." After a second, she added, "Not that fighting that was as much of a 'fight' as it was a big game of 'keep-away.' Point is, he gets out, we're not helping you bring him down again."
  
  "Tempting," Dinah admitted. "And you're right, we might not get the chance if anything goes wrong. But no. Not yet. I know he's dangerous, but we have precautions ready.
  
  "Dangerous as he is, there's still ways that we can use Dr. Manton."
  
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  Arc 24: Retribution
  24.01
  
  "Do you know where the Endbringers come from?"
  
  Glaistig Uaine regarded me silently for a moment after I asked that. The two of us were sitting in her 'throne room' once again, while one of her shades fanned the two of us by generating a gentle breeze from the palms of his hands. Finally, her chorus of voices answered, " An interesting subject to broach so soon in our courtship."
  
  "Errr..." I blushed slightly at the detour my stupid brain took at that point. "Courtship? I'm umm..."
  
  " Ease yourself, Healer." The Faerie Queen actually sounded very faintly amused, though it was tinged with a tone of chastisement. " I refer only to the progression of our platonic relationship, no more."
  
  "Right, I-" I almost said 'I knew that' by reflex, but stopped myself. Something told me even obvious white lies like that, despite being harmless and clearly not meant as deceitful, wouldn't go over well with her. "I'm grateful for the correction. Accepting that it is an interesting subject to speak of so soon, may I let the question stand, your majesty?"
  
  Giving a regal nod of acceptance, Glaistig Uaine eased herself up off of the armchair that served as her throne before beginning to walk past me. " Walk with me. Our conversation shall continue."
  
  Picking myself up out of my own seat, I began to follow the deceptively young-looking woman out of the room. I'd learned better than to try prompting or rushing her. Not that I'd needed much to come to that conclusion on my own. The Faerie Queen did things her own way, in her own time. Some might have tried to push her, but I wasn't quite that suicidal yet.
  
  So, we both remained silent while emerging from the converted library. One of her subjects stood nearby, a thin, wiry girl with pale skin and brown dreadlocks. When we stepped out, the girl practically leapt off the wall. "Yo, Fair-" She caught herself, remembering who she was talking to at the last second before falling to one knee and bowing her head. "I mean, your majesty, I gots-I have news." The proper way of speaking was clearly foreign to the girl, as she continued to trip over the words.
  
  For a moment, Glaistig Uaine watched the girl, who continued to stare intently at the floor. I couldn't make out her expression perfectly through the make-shift cloth veil that covered her face, but what I could see made her appear thoughtful. When she spoke, there was a sharper reprimand there than there had been for me. " You will accept one week of lavatory clean-up for the discourtesy of your initial interruption, Quaestor. I will determine if your punishment need last any longer based upon how necessary the interruption itself, sans discourtesy, was."
  
  The girl stiffened slightly, but clearly knew better than to argue. "Sure. I mean, yes, your majesty. May I give you the news now?" She lifted her head a little to look first at me with a flat stare before turning her attention to her leader. "It's important, and sort of... time dependent."
  
  Rather than answer immediately, the Faerie Queen looked toward me. " Forgive this interruption, Healer. I do not believe that this should wait for your departure." After I hesitantly nodded, she looked back toward her subordinate. " You may speak, Quaestor."
  
  "It's those new guys that got put where Lung used to be, your highness." The girl scowled. "They jumped Dynasty and Graven at the entrance. That Canary girl from Lustrum's group was up there too."
  
  Glaistig Uaine considered for a moment before nodding. " Your initial punishment shall stand as initially ordered. Nothing further is needed. You were correct in bringing this to my attention. Yet in the future, you will remember your place and speak in the proper turn"
  
  The girl gave a quick, sharp nod but didn't speak. She glanced toward me once more, and I had the uncomfortable feeling that she wouldn't be as cowed and polite if the Faerie Queen wasn't here. Whoever this 'Quaestor' (as the profoundly dangerous woman beside me called her) was, it was perfectly clear that she absolutely did not like me at all.
  
  " Go to your duty." Glaistig Uaine ordered. " I will tend to the issue."
  
  Belatedly, I finally recognized this Quaestor. She was a relatively new arrival to the Birdcage whose cape name had been Avarice. I didn't know what her powers were off the top of my head, but she gave me one last brief glare before hurrying off.
  
  " Would you like her to be killed for that, Healer?" Glaistig Uaine's tone was curious.
  
  "Err, wh-what?" I stammered before shaking my head. "No. No killing for me, please."
  
  Her response to that was a simple, dismissive nod before she started to move (floating an inch off the ground rather than walking) down the corridor. " Come then. This is a situation I must attend to. Our people, or those of our allies, must know that they are safe so long as they follow the rules that have been established. If harm is allowed to come to them unanswered when they do follow those rules, the sleepers may become confused as to the purpose of following them to begin with."
  
  "Right." I nodded while hurrying to keep up with the gliding woman. "I get it. If you don't defend your territory and your uhhh, loyal subjects, a lot of people won't believe you can actually enforce your rules. Then things'll get nasty really fast. You could probably-" She looked toward me and I amended, "You could definitely stop them, but it would still be... bad."
  
  That brought to mind the question of why she didn't just kill everyone and take their power for herself already. There was obviously nothing physically stopping her, and she didn't seem psychologically opposed to killing, particularly those here in the Birdcage. I had the feeling it had to do with the whole Fae civilization thing she had talked about, but I wasn't sure.
  
  Once we were few steps into our now-brisk pace, the Faerie Queen spoke once more. " Your question, Healer, was whether I was aware of Endbringer's origins."
  
  I nodded slightly. "And you said that it was an interesting question for me to ask so soon."
  
  The Queen answered my question with another question. " I would have you explain what led to such an inquiry. What made you believe I might know any more about these creatures than anyone else."
  
  I shrugged. "You seem to know a lot about all of this stuff, your majesty. I think you probably know more than almost anyone else, even if we don't really understand. I figured it was worth a shot."
  
  " And what would you do with such information, were you privy to it?"
  
  I hesitated before sending another question back at her. "Are they capes? I mean, fae?"
  
  I thought a slight ghost of a smile crossed her face behind the veil, but it was difficult to tell for certain. " If they were, would that affect anything in how you, or anyone, behaved toward them? Would the knowledge that they were of like origin to yourselves alter your defense against their farce?"
  
  "I, umm... what do you mean farce?" I was even more confused than when I started asking questions.
  
  " Ah, one inquiry at a time, Healer. And you have not answered mine. Do you believe that whether they are of like-origin to yourself would change how you combat them?"
  
  By that point, we had reached the narrow corridor that connected the female side of the prison to the male side. It was empty, though I did see a bit of blood in one corner that made me flinch.
  
  While we crossed into the men's side of the prison, I took a moment to think. It was somewhat tempting to point out to the Faerie Queen that she wasn't exactly following this 'one question at a time, and you answer mine first' thing, considering how many times she had pushed my question back at me, but resisted the urge. The thing about having dinner with Godzilla was that he got to set the table etiquette. Or she, in this case. I wasn't about to start complaining about how she conducted the conversation.
  
  "I'm not sure. I mean, they've killed millions of people. There isn't really... I mean, it's not like they can just build a really big Birdcage and shove them into it." I shrugged. "Either way, they're... I mean we're... going to try to destroy them. But if we understood them a little more, we might figure out how to actually stop them. As it is now, we don't really knew anything about them other than what doesn't work against them, which is pretty much everything."
  
  " If they were once the same as you or your teammates, you do not think that you would hold back out of a misguided attempt to reason with them?" Glaistig Uaine pressed. There was something in her voice that I couldn't place, but I had a feeling that there was another layer to this conversation that I didn't understand yet. It was a common feeling whenever I spoke to the enigmatic woman.
  
  "I couldn't say for sure," I answered truthfully. "I like to think it wouldn't matter, because if there was any humanity left in them, they would have stopped by now. They've killed too many people. But... since I don't know the circumstances, I couldn't... say for sure that there isn't a circumstance where I might try to find another way. I can't say yes or no right now because I don't know enough about them. It's conceivable that there might be some situation that makes me want to find another way."
  
  The Faerie Queen considered me for a moment before nodding. " A well-considered answer, Healer. My answer in return is that you have not asked the right question."
  
  I blinked at that, frowning. "I haven't asked the right question? What does that mean?"
  
  " It means precisely what I have said." Her voice had that slight chastising tone to it once more. " The question you have asked is not the one that you should be asking. Until you know what the correct question is, I cannot give you the correct answer."
  
  I took a breath and let it out again, restraining my frustration. It wouldn't do any good. I was just going to have to take the next month to think about what she had said and see if I could figure out what the 'right question' was before I saw her again.
  
  It took some effort, but I made myself smile. "Thank you, your majesty. I'm sure that, when I do know what question I should be asking, I'll understand what you mean."
  
  That faint, almost imperceptible smile came back. I had a feeling that she knew I was frustrated and restraining myself. " Perhaps there is another question that you would like the answer to."
  
  "If I asked why you call me a healer, would I get an answer that didn't confuse me even more?"
  
  " Do you recall what I already told you of the Healer's purpose?"
  
  I nodded. "Easing the dreams of the, uhh, Sleepers. They're drawn to conflict and war and the True Healer... what, makes them all think peaceful thoughts?"
  
  A noise emerged that sounded almost like a chuckle. " Of a sort. The Healer is the gentle reminder that all things need not be conflict. But it is more than that. The Healer is also the one who categorizes and arranges the Sleepers, who ensures that all fit into the proper place when they are gathered by the Keeper. Both work to ensure that the Administrator may regain control over the whole when it is returned to its place. The Keeper gathers the Sleepers and brings them together, the Healer puts them to their proper positions and knits what was broken, unlocking their potential to return them to their previous, unhindered ability, and the Administrator provides guidance and control to the combined, restored whole."
  
  I didn't understand entirely, of course. But at least I had a somewhat better idea of what she thought was going on than I'd had before. By that point, I was sure that I was only missing a couple tiny bits of information before all of it would click. I needed time to sit down and think about it.
  
  Still, I smiled, grateful for what was, as far as the Faerie Queen went, a rather remarkably straight forward answer. "Thank you, your majesty. I'll think about what you said. I'm sure I'll understand eventually."
  
  " Indeed." She gave a slight nod of acceptance. " I am certain that you will."
  
  "So, ummm..." I looked around, not recognizing the corridor that we were in. "Should we go find the kidnapped girls before anything happens to them? Which way do we go from here?"
  
  " Your aid is unnecessary, Healer. The situation is resolved."
  
  Confused, I slowly shook my head. "Err, it is? How, all we did was walk down the hallway."
  
  This time, I knew she was smiling. " I did not wish our conversation to be disturbed any further than it already was. Our time together is infrequent enough without allowing such interruptions."
  
  My mouth opened to question that, but before I could, she gestured behind us. I turned to see the corridor just as we had passed it, save for the shade of the small girl that I recognized from my last visit that had been playing Ring Around the Rosie with herself. She waved at me, then vanished.
  
  As soon as the girl's shade was gone, the view of the hallway dramatically changed, and I jumped in surprise with a yelp. I couldn't help it. Where the corridor had looked completely empty before, now there were at least half a dozen dead Birdcage prisoners littering the floor. They were shoved up against either wall, and most had died with a look of horror and terror on their faces as they had clearly realized just how out of their league they were.
  
  "Wh-what... what happened?" I stammered reflexively, even though I knew the answer.
  
  " I have attended to the situation, " Glaistig Uaine replied succinctly. " Those who were taken have been returned to their proper places, relatively unharmed, and I have exacted my price for their abduction."
  
  My mouth opened, then shut, then opened again several times in slow succession as I tried and failed to find something that I could say. Finally, I managed a weak, "But... I didn't see anything, or hear anything, or... anything."
  
  She nodded once again. " As I stated, I did not wish our conversation to be interrupted. Therefore, I enlisted aid to ensure that our walk remained calm so that you would be undisturbed."
  
  "That little girl from before?"
  
  " Indeed. In life, she was known as Pollyanna. She is able to prevent those under her effect from noticing negative things, selectively or generally, that are happening around them, so long as they themselves are not physically harmed."
  
  Still, I stared at her. "You... fought and... and killed all these guys? But you were carrying on a conversation with me."
  
  " Yes. You shall find that I am quite capable of multitasking."
  
  I was lost in thought as I emerged from the teleportation receiving room at the Protectorate HQ. However, I'd barely stepped into the corridor before realizing something was wrong. There were people running back and forth, carting files and calling out to each other like it was NASA on the verge of a shuttle launch. Or, more appropriately, during the catastrophic failure of a shuttle launch.
  
  Before I could ask what was going on, I felt a hand grip my arm. Turning, I found Dennis standing behind me. His face was even more pale than usual, and his eyes were red. He was shaking so much that it looked like he could barely stand. Rather than speak at first, he simply pulled me into a desperate, tight hug.
  
  "Dennis?" My mouth opened, voicing the question that most of me didn't want to know the answer to. "What is it? What's wrong?"
  
  "Dean." He managed while pulling back slightly, his voice hoarse, as though he had been crying, or possibly screaming. "Dean and... and Grace..."
  
  My heart dropped even further, and I asked in a small voice, "D-Dean and Katherine? What... what about them?" Inwardly, I was screaming denials, but couldn't bring myself to articulate them. I didn't want this. I didn't want to hear it. I wanted to go back to the Birdcage. I silently begged him to stop, while waiting for him to continue.
  
  "They..." Dennis closed his eyes, his hoarse voice growing quieter. "They're... they... the Slaughterhouse Nine, they... oh fuck... fuck me... D-dead. God... Mads... the Nine got to them. They're... dead. They're both dead."
  
  24.02
  
  "Maddy, I am so, so sorry about Dean and Katherine."
  
  In response to Marissa's words, I embraced her even more tightly than I already had been. The two of us, along with Jess, were in the female locker room at the Protectorate building.
  
  "They said that..." I closed my eyes for a second as a heavy shudder of revulsion and horror ran through me. "They said that it was Mannequin who k-" My voice cracked. "-killed Dean, and... a-and Burnscar who... who killed... K-I... I don't..." A tiny little sob escaped me before I could stop it, and Marissa's arms tightened around me.
  
  "I'm sorry," she repeated in a whisper. There was a moment of hesitation before she continued. "Maybe I shouldn't go. You need me. I can't just abandon you like this."
  
  It was only a couple of hours after I'd gotten back from the Birdcage, and the Slaughterhouse Nine's presence in Maine was already being taken extremely seriously, particularly in the wake of the way they had announced themselves, which had amounted to displaying the bodies of their Ward victims for the public to view. The Brockton Bay Protectorate members were being sent in to reinforce the others and help search, both to provided added manpower and to give the civilians a visual reminder that something was being done to stop the Nine.
  
  "You're... you're not abandoning me or Brockton Bay," I assured her. "The Nine... they're the ones that... that did that. And that's why you have to help f-find-oh Mars." I squeezed my eyes shut hard one more time before opening them to look up at her. "You have to be careful. Please, please, please be careful. You and Jess both." I added the last while looking back toward the other girl, who sat on a nearby bench playing with Jalopy. The little robot was dancing back and forth on the bench while gripping two of Jess's fingers as though she was his dance partner. Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston's 'It Takes Two' was playing quietly, just enough to avoid being intrusive.
  
  "We will." Mars promised, pulling back slightly to put her hand on my shoulder and squeeze. "I promise. We can't just let the Nine get away with what they did, but we're still going to be careful."
  
  Jess nodded, lifting one hand with Jalopy holding on before setting him down in the palm of her other hand so that she could stand up with him that way. "That's right. That's why no one's going out in groups of less than three, which is also why they need so many reinforcements to cover the whole city. Apparently, they've also already got three different teleporters ready to jump everyone to the Nine's location as soon as one group finds any of them. No one's going into this blind."
  
  I nodded through all of that, though it didn't erase all of my worry. I reached up to my shoulder to squeeze Marissa's hand a little, lost in thought about poor Dean and Katherine. The mere thoughts about what they had been through made tears spring back to my eyes, and I had to turn back toward Marissa to hug the other girl once more before leaning up to kiss her briefly. "Be careful." I repeated, in spite of everything that had been said. There was little else that I could do to help.
  
  Or maybe there was. "Jalopy," I addressed the robot, turning that way to put my hand out.
  
  Bobbing in acknowledgment, Jalopy bounced from Jess's palm to my own with his eight little spider legs before looking at me quizzically.
  
  "Okay, buddy, you know you're the best bodyguard I could possibly have, right?" The little guy bobbed down once in agreement before waving his grappler arms a few times in a way reminiscent of a boxer throwing air punches. In spite of my sadness, he still made me smile just a little bit, though it was muted. "And... you know how much I care about Jess and Mars." Again, he bobbed up and down, so I went on. "That's why I need you to be their bodyguard through this."
  
  The little robot tilted his body sideways in what looked like a confused, uncertain gesture. I used a finger to gently stroke him. "I trust you, buddy. If anyone can keep them safe, you can. That's why I want you to go with them. I want you to go with Marissa, since Jess projects herself from a safe place. Can you do that for me, please? Can you protect them, since I can't go?"
  
  Slowly, Jalopy turned to look at Jess, then toward Marissa. His body dipped in a nod of acknowledgment, clearly taking the assignment seriously.
  
  "Good boy." I tried to smile a little more for him, giving his body another stroke before turning toward my girlfriend. "Umm... here." Feeling a little awkward in spite of myself, I lifted the small robot to her waiting wrist and let Jalopy attach himself in wristband mode.
  
  I didn't have to say what I was thinking. Marissa took my hand and interlaced our fingers, whispering, "We'll take care of him too, Maddy, I promise."
  
  "I know." Squeezing her hand for a moment, I then let go and stepped over to embrace Jess that time. "You gotta take care of the little guy. Don't let him run off on his own. He's... important too."
  
  The other girl nodded while returning my hug. "He is. He's more than just a little robot to us too. We'll make sure he's okay." She gave me a little push. "You just keep this place safe for us while we're gone."
  
  "Deal," I promised before looking up as the intercom announced that the teleporter to Maine was going shortly. "Okay, Noelle's still waiting to talk to you guys before you leave, so you should head out there. I don't want to take up all of your time."
  
  Jess moved through the door after waving at me, leaving me with Mars for another moment. At first, she just took one more kiss before starting to head out. Before she could go, however, I caught her arm and pulled her back. "Mars, wait. I have to tell you something."
  
  She gave me another pretty, perfect smile. They had been coming so much more easily since she stopped having to worry about Noelle. "What is it, Maddy?"
  
  Reaching up, I locked my arms around her neck so that she would lean down a little bit. Then I leaned up to gently brush my nose against hers before kissing her cheek and giving her a little nuzzle. Finally, I whispered the words that I needed to say, the words that were so important for me to say now .
  
  "I love you, Marissa." I heard a gentle intake of breath, and kissed her cheek once more before leaning back to see her eyes. "We've been dating for a few months now, and a lot has happened. I... I lost my parents, my whole life has turned upside down and I'm always fighting. Glaistig Uaine has some kind of plan for me that I don't understand, and there's always people trying to hurt to hurt everyone. Just like now. But I didn't want to wait until a perfect time to tell you how I feel, because... because there won't be one. Perfect times don't just come. There's always going to be another threat, another monster. So this moment, this second right now, I'm taking it. I love you, Marissa. You're the most important person in the world to me, so please, please be careful."
  
  Gazing down at me for a moment, Mars slowly leaned in and touched her lips to mine. Her voice was soft. "I love you, Madison. I do. I never wanted to hurt you. You make me want to be a better person. You... made me remember that it was okay to be happy, that I wasn't evil for wanting my own life and my own choices. You reminded me that being a bad guy wasn't a choice that I had one chance to make, it was a choice that I made every single day. You helped me... so much. And you... are my very favorite person in the world. I'll be careful, but you be careful too. Because I love you."
  
  A shiver of pleasure ran through me, and I leaned up into the next kiss with a yearning that went on for several long moments before we both finally pulled back. I swayed a little on my feet and swallowed. "You know that... most people would say that we just cursed ourselves by saying that right now. By most cliches, one of us wouldn't..." I looked down, unable to finish the sentence while the thought of Dean and Katherine came back. I wanted to cling to Mars and beg her not to leave.
  
  "Hey," Mars lifted my chin with two fingers to look at her. "Screw the cliches. We're better than that. I'm coming back, and you're going to be here, and then we are going on a date. Anywhere you want to go, just you and me. Us time, okay?"
  
  "Even bowling?" I had to tease slightly, though my voice cracked just a little.
  
  "Yeah, I've been practicing without you." Marissa's smile was gentle. "It was one way to make sure I could pass the Protectorate physical. Though I'm not doing nearly as many push-ups lately. Too good."
  
  "Maybe I'll introduce harder rules." I managed a weak smile and then leaned up to kiss her one more time. "Go, Noelle deserves a chance to talk to you too."
  
  She nodded then, taking both of my hands briefly to squeeze them. "Yeah." Then, just because she could, the other girl repeated, "I love you."
  
  "I love you too." Another little shiver of pleasure ran through me before I gave her a push so that she would head for the exit. Mars stopped in doorway and smiled back at me briefly before going.
  
  I had to reach out to the nearby locker to steady myself, and to stop myself from going after her.
  
  "I'm okay." The insistent voice belonged to Vista, as the girl slipped past me on her way out onto the street behind the PRT building that night as we started on patrol.
  
  I hesitated for a second, but moved in front of her, putting my hands on the girl's shoulders to stop her. "Missy, I know you're not. Because I'm definitely not okay. I know how much you cared about Dean. It's all right to not be okay. It's all right to be upset. We're all upset. We-"
  
  "No it's not." Missy's voice was firm, though not exactly harsh. "It's okay for you to show weakness. It's all right for you to be emotional and... and to cry where people can see you. But I... I can't. I can't, because they... th-they already want to take me off duty. They already refuse to let me help do something about the fucking bastards who... who k-ki..." She froze a little, unable to get the words out before she finally pressed on. "They won't let me do anything about that. I have to stay here. I loved Dean. I... I know I'm supposed to be just a stupid little kid with a crush, but I did. I loved him, even if he'd never, ever feel that way about me. He's gone. He's gone and... and I never got to say g-goodbye." In spite of her statement that she couldn't let them see her cry, I could tell that the visor was hiding her tears as her voice choked up. "I never got to say goodbye. I'm never going to. I can't. And they won't let me do anything about it. They won't let me. And if they see that I'm... that I can't stop crying, they'll take me off this duty too. They'll try to make me go home, and I can't. Please, Madison, please, don't make me go home. I have to help. I have to do something , anything. I can't be useless."
  
  I swallowed a little before embracing the girl there in the parking lot. "We'll watch out for each other, okay?" My own voice sounded hollow, the sentiment failing against the weight of what we were trying to distract ourselves from. "You watch my back, and I'll watch yours. No unnecessary risks or danger."
  
  Before Missy could respond, Flechette's voice came through the comms. "Hey, could you guys check out some report of a trailer out on the edge of town near Three Pines Road? There's some people saying that they heard some weird noises coming from it."
  
  Quickly, I spoke up to interrupt Missy's likely reaction to the idea of the two of us being sent on something so mundane. "One weird noises trailer investigation coming right up."
  
  "See?" Vista's voice was low once we disconnected the comms and started to move. "They're giving us busy-work because they don't think we can handle anything else."
  
  We worked together to cross the city. Vista would shorten the vast distances of space so that I could connect lines from both of us to a much further point than I would normally have been able to reach, and then yank us through. We'd practiced it enough that we could work in tandem that way without verbal communication, and it allowed us to travel much faster than either of us normally could solo.
  
  Before long, we reached the trailer in question, parked just off of what had at one time been a busy road in and out of town. With the freeway, however, this route was very lightly traveled. At the moment, there were no cars around at all.
  
  The trailer itself looked like little more than an old silver bullet-shaped deal from a long time ago. Yet the 'odd noises' report had been right. After we landed about a hundred feet away, I cocked my head to the side. "Is that... humming?"
  
  "Really loud humming." Vista agreed, taking a step toward the trailer. "Buzzing really, I guess."
  
  "Right, buzzing." I nodded and followed after her. "Like a lot of bees. Really, really pissed off bees." Then I blanched. "Oh god, I hope there aren't really bees."
  
  As though in answer to my words, the angry buzzing sound grew much louder for about five seconds. I was just wondering what we might have set off, when a black line shot out toward Missy. Instantly, I attached a line to her back and hurled both her and myself backwards as far as I could.
  
  No sooner had I done that, sending the two of us crashing to the ground together, than the trailer itself seemed to blow apart. It didn't really 'explode' so much as the shell surrounding what was really inside flew apart, sending scraps of metal in every direction without any fire involved.
  
  Behind the facade of the trailer, as we lay on the ground and stared, the two of us could see what looked like some kind of satellite dish attached to a generator. Before our eyes, a blue dome-shaped light appeared, surrounding the device.
  
  "What the hell?" Missy slowly picked herself up. She reached down and picked up a rock before throwing it at the light. The rock hit the field and was vaporized instantly, making me glad that I hadn't gone with my first instinct of touching the thing. Vista winced and then looked to me. "Can your tethers get through that?"
  
  I tried, focusing on the device. Unfortunately, I couldn't feel any connection to it, and no lines appeared. "No," I answered quietly. "We need to call it-"
  
  In mid sentence, a blue light shot out from what the device. It flew through the forcefield that was protecting the thing, a bright beam that shot up and out of sight to the sky.
  
  "Look." Vista caught my arm and pointed to where another beam of blue light from elsewhere had shot up to join the first. There were others, all from areas on the outskirts of the city.
  
  Then the lights all joined together at some midpoint high above the center of the city. Once they were connected, the lights spread out, creating a dome that covered the city itself.
  
  For a moment, the two of us just stood and gaped as the shield solidified into place. Then I touched my comm. "Flechette, are you... can you see-"
  
  "We see it," The other girl replied. "We've got reports coming in already about a couple cars that hit this thing and just... disintegrated." There was a pause while I heard a muffled voice from somewhere near Lily, before she continued with a sigh. "And it gets worse."
  
  "Worse than disintegration?"
  
  "Apparently the PRT just got a call from Faultline's crew. They said that Murk just tried to teleport through the field, and he can't make it out. Hold on, confirming."
  
  I looked at Vista and the two of us stared at each other uncomprehendingly, trying to figure out what was going on. After a moment of that, Flechette's voice returned. "Yeah, teleporters are locked out. They just tried to send Strider back from Maine. No go. He can't get through the field. Whoever's here is here, and whoever's out is out."
  
  "Maine..." I gave a little start, twisting around to stare at the forcefield generator behind me in suddenly rising horror. "You don't think that they actually-"
  
  In the next second, a thrumming sonic boom-like wave rolled over us. In the distance, I could hear the deafening crash of every window in the city exploding outward.
  
  The Protectorate had gone to Maine to find the Slaughterhouse Nine. But the Nine weren't in Maine anymore.
  
  They were here in Brockton Bay, and they had just locked everyone who had gone to stop them out of the city.
  
  24.03
  
  The deafening cacophony of glass shattering across the city echoed back to us like the screech of an unfathomable bird of prey. Hardly a hare's heartbeat had passed before a new sound arose: the blaring security systems that so many of those now obliterated windows had been attached to. From building to cars to little cases holding expensive trinkets, anything with glass attached to a sensor and an alarm went off at about the same time, sending up an earth-shattering noise that was, rather appropriately, similar to the Endbringer sirens that had alerted the city to Leviathan's approach.
  
  "We have to get back to the others and regroup!" I called toward Vista. My mind was still reeling. The Nine were here ? They'd purposefully taunted the Protectorate by displaying Katherine and Dean's bodies to get them angry, knowing that the heroes would rush to the place to stop them from engaging in their typical games throughout that city. And now everyone who had gone was locked out, leaving the Nine here in Brockton Bay with a much smaller defending force than usual.
  
  Which meant that what we did have needed to get organized. I was trying to think and move at the same time. I knew that as soon as we got a little nearer to the city, there were going to be injury lines pointing me toward people who were in trouble, who had been injured by the glass and might be lying around bleeding out. Yet if we didn't get everyone on the same page about the Nine, they would be able to do a lot more damage in the long run, so did I dare take the time to help a few people, when every second might give the Nine more time to prepare whatever it was they were doing, leading to the deaths of even more? Which was worse, leaving a few for others to help... or not help... now in order to focus on the bigger picture, or to focus on saving those few people now, and risk an exponential increase in deaths for every minute that the Nine left us in disarray?
  
  My uncertainty lasted for a few seconds, until I looked down at my gauntlets and turned them over to look at my palms. My hands, the hands that had tortured Taylor for a year and a half. I had helped kill that girl, no matter how little I had meant for it to go that far. She was dead partially because of my actions. Those actions, little as they had seemed to me at the time, had mattered . They had added up. And I knew that, regardless of what happened in the future, if I chose to ignore the fact that people needed my help now , regardless of my reasoning, I would never be able to live with myself. Come what may, whatever the Nine chose to do, I would judge myself by my own actions, not theirs. And, for as long as I could help it, I would not ever choose to deem the lives of a few as inconsequential.
  
  "Tether?" Vista stood next to me, and I realized she had been watching me stare at the city in silent contemplation for the last few seconds. "We're going back, right?"
  
  Shaking off my distracting thoughts, I nodded. "Yeah, but indirectly. We're going to help as many people as we can on the way, and make sure no one gets left behind. We'll report in and let them know what we're doing, and to update us if anything happens. Unless you want to go on without me?"
  
  The other girl gave me what was probably a dirty look through her visor. "Say something like that again and I'll kick your ass. I'm not leaving you behind."
  
  "Right." I gave her a thumbs up. "So we work together and help as many people as we can. That should give them time to get a little bit organized back at the PRT building."
  
  Both of us gave one last look back toward the shielded trailer before setting off. Vista shrank the space between the end of the road leading back toward the busier part of town, and we went through together.
  
  It was awful, soul-crushing work. There were people with shards of glass cutting into their eyes from the glasses they had been wearing, others glass embedded through their hands from shielding their faces at the last second, and even more who had been all-but shredded by the flying shards.
  
  And blood. There was blood everywhere . My heart felt numb as, everywhere I looked, I saw people sitting next to buildings with their hands or bits of clothing or other bandages covering the gashes that the glass had sliced through them, lying prone on the ground while crying in agony from their injuries.
  
  This was why the Nine had Shatterbird do this to every city they chose to specifically target. The damage itself was, of course, substantial. But worse was the knowledge . People knew that this could only mean one thing, and they knew what kind of execrable hell had just arrived. It was a psychological thing. The Slaughterhouse Nine knew their reputation, and their leader had enough of a flair for the dramatic to know just how people's fear of what they could do was even more important than what they actually did. The wretched despair and misery at the very thought of their presence was enough to make a lot of people just give up. Which was exactly what I could see several people doing, even as Vista and I worked together to herd them toward the nearest hospital.
  
  Not that even seeing what was going on so was all that easy anyway. Most cities, Brockton Bay included, had begun incorporating special reinforced clear plastic in things like their street lights and public buildings as a defense against this specific scenario (and others), but it wasn't perfect, and it was nowhere near complete. The street lights that we did still have were just enough to cast eerie shadows everywhere that we looked which, combined with the moaning and cries for help, or simply cries of despair, cast an even harsher hue to the already horrific scene.
  
  "They're gonna kill us." A man moaned helplessly as I used my hands to cover the gushing wound in the lower part of his neck. He had been lying in the sidewalk outside of a bar whose window had blown outward, not even been trying to stop the bleeding. "They're gonna kill us all."
  
  I shook my head at that. "No, we'll stop them. I promise. Just stay still. We're gonna take care of you. And we're not going to let them get away with this."
  
  "You're a kid," the man replied dismissively. "What do you know about real monsters?"
  
  Before I could respond, as if there was anything I could respond to that with, a new voice interrupted. It was a voice that was as young and innocent as any I had ever heard. "Will you be my friend?"
  
  Turning slightly, I saw Vista standing near a girl who looked like she was around the same age as her, perhaps a bit younger. Her red hair was cut short in a sort of pageboy haircut, and she wore black jeans and a dark green shirt whose sleeves partially covered her hands, making her look even smaller than she was. Her eyes were wide with curiosity as she held one hand out toward my teammate.
  
  Distractedly, Vista reached out to pull the girl into the line of people that we were escorting out of the area. "Right, friends. You hurt or anything? You don't look-"
  
  I was moving even before the warning line appeared, out of some instinct that I didn't fully understand. My gauntlet snapped up and I used a tether-line to yank Vista backwards and away from the other girl.
  
  Missy yelped in surprise, while the girl that had been talking to her stood with her hand out for a moment before turning to pout at me. "How come you had to do that? We were gonna be friends."
  
  After quickly pushing the hand of the injured man against his neck to hold the bit of his torn shirt that I had been using to staunch his bleeding, I stood up next to Missy, who had recovered by that point. "Somehow, I don't think she really wants to be friends with you."
  
  "Who?" Vista looked from me to the innocent-looking girl before frowning slowly as the realization came to her. "You're with them."
  
  I didn't recognize the girl, which meant she had to be new. Maybe a replacement for Riley, given her apparent age? Not that I trusted how old people looked , given things like Glaistig Uaine, or that one girl whose power allowed her to bounce off of objects while leaving explosions behind, Bambina.
  
  "I just wanted to be friends." The girl continued to sulk. "I don't see what's so wrong with-"
  
  In mid-sentence, the girl's stance and bearing shifted noticeably. She straightened her shoulders, clearly thrusting a pretty non-existent chest out as though she was more accustomed to having assets there, and stood with one hip cocked while gazing at us with an expression I recognized quite well. It was the same sort of look that Emma, Sophia, and I had had back when we were the queens of the school. Her apparent childlike innocence had given way to what was clearly the attitude of the quintessential popular high school snob, while the look she was giving us was clearly dismissive and unimpressed.
  
  "Aww, is it Halloween already? Are you little kids out looking for candy? Aren't you afraid of the big bad bullies taking it from you?" Her mocking tone grated, but I activated my comm rather than be baited into attacking someone whose power I didn't really know. "Flechette, we-"
  
  As abruptly as her shift from childlike innocence to school queen bee had happened, the girl's stance and bearing then changed once again. This time, she slouched forward a little, as though accustomed to carrying a great weight around her stomach area. Her shoulders hunched while her head ducked forward, and her voice deepened while she lunged forward to grab at me. "Hey, I was talking to you!"
  
  Before she could reach me, I attached a line from her chest to my gauntlet and pushed, sending the girl flying away. At the same time, Vista shrank the space between the area behind the girl and the building across the street so that my push sent her flying much further than she should have, before unshrinking the distance. The girl hit the wall and slumped down it, lying a block away at that point.
  
  "Flechette, we think we've got one of the Nine here. I don't recognize her, but-" That was as far as I got before Vista called out an abrupt warning. I reacted, starting to dive forward, which was the only thing that saved me from a blow that would have, at the very least, put me down. As it was, I took the strike against my shoulder, sending a brief blinding shot of pain through it while turning my graceful dive into more of a sprawl, where I rolled to avoid the follow-up assault.
  
  Coming back to my feet before facing my attacker, I found myself staring at a man in mechanics overalls and a trucker's cap. Except for the fact that he appeared to be made of or covered entirely in some kind of emerald. The green gem-like substance covered his body from head to toe, including his clothes, making him appear to be an extremely detailed emerald statue.
  
  "What the-" I managed before the emerald-man lunged for me. Quickly, I rolled backwards and used a line to flip myself back to my feet. He was still coming, but I'd stop that. Putting my gauntlet out, I started to attach lines between it and the gemstone.
  
  Nothing happened. My eyes widened just as the man lashed out with a blow that sent me sprawling once more, pain erupting in my side. "Org-" I started to call out before throwing myself sideways to avoid the man's stomp that sent his emerald foot partway through the cement I had been lying on.
  
  "Organic!" I managed to get out that time while using a line against the nearby wall to yank myself up and out of his reach. "The gem's considered organic!"
  
  "You don't say!" Vista's call came back, and I looked that way to find her back pedaling away from three more emerald-covered people. Two were adults who looked like they had just come away from playing a baseball game, while the third was a stocky teenage girl. All three were trying to surround Vista, while she attempted to keep herself between them and the injured civilians.
  
  Grimacing, I planted a line against each of my feet and launched myself that way. My extended gauntlet slammed into one of the emerald baseball players, sending him flying into the side of a nearby car with enough force to cave in the side of the door. The man himself, however, seemed unaffected. He simply pushed himself up and out of the crumpled side of the vehicle.
  
  The other two, meanwhile, grabbed for me and it was all I could do to lunge backwards away from their grasping hands. "Where the hell are they coming from?!"
  
  Vista pointed while taking another step back. "Where do you think?" Across the street, I could see the girl with the shifting personalities standing there with her hand on the head of a paramedic that was kneeling next to her. She used her other hand to wave at me, before the familiar green coloration began to spread out from the hand on the man's head, spreading quickly to cover his entire body, converting his skin and clothes into that emerald substance. Within a few seconds, it was over. She removed her hand and the man stood up, a bit jerkily at first.
  
  "You... could have saved us..." The voice came not from the new emerald-man, but from the girl. Her tone had become bitter and despondent. "You should've saved me. You... you're not a hero. You're worthless. You let her take me. You let her take me!" Her hand lifted to point and she ordered, "Kill everyone you see there!"
  
  As one, the two emerald people in front of us, the one that had hit the car, the one she had just made, and the one I had left by the building when I joined Missy all came for us. They were about as fast as normal humans, but seemingly invulnerable, and clearly at least strong enough to rip us apart if we let them get their hands on us. Worse, our powers wouldn't work against them, and there was no way that we dared abandon the people behind us in order to focus on the girl herself. There was no guarantee either that we could take her out before the emerald automatons killed any of the civilians, or that knocking her out would stop the things.
  
  I threw several punches, all to no avail. Even using lines behind the target to empower my strike only knocked them backwards, while putting me close enough to the others to narrowly avoid being caught by them. We needed to figure out something that would stop all of them, and we had to do it within the next few seconds.
  
  "Wait." The voice came from the girl once more, even as Vista and I were running out of room to back pedal before we'd start to trip over the injured civilians that we had gathered. The emerald figures stopped and stood still, though most of them looked like they still wanted to rip our heads off.
  
  The girl continued, her voice back to that innocent little child routine. "Aww, Jack says we can't kill them yet. It's not time." She was clearly pouting again.
  
  I glanced sidelong toward Vista, who shook her head at me while continuing to stare at the green figures in front of us that might as well have been statues for all they moved or reacted.
  
  Then, abruptly, the figures collapsed. The emerald shattered into smaller stones, which in turn broke into a greenish dust-powder, which collapsed to the ground and began to gather into a dust tornado before flying away and out of sight.
  
  There was no sign of the girl who had caused it. She hadn't finished the fight, she'd simply had her minions corner us between them and the people we had to protect, and then collapsed them before leaving.
  
  Breathing hard, I turned toward the civilians. Most were openly crying by that point. A few were shaking their heads at us, while others just looked despondent.
  
  The man I had been helping, who had asked what we 'kids' could possibly do, was staring sightlessly up at the sky. He hadn't bothered to hold the bandage against his neck, preferring to bleed out in the street rather than see what else the Nine were going to do to the city.
  
  And from some of the looks that we were getting, I had the feeling that more than one of the people sitting or lying there agreed with his choice.
  
  "Her name is Horde." Peyton Simms, the new PRT division head, explained. The thin, bookish looking man had taken Piggot's place when the woman had requested and received a transfer several weeks earlier. "As far as we can tell, her power involves converting anyone she touches into a relatively mindless automaton with moderate brute rankings, which follows her vocal instructions and can be broken down or reformed at will. As a side-effect, she gains twisted versions of the personalities of everyone that she converts this way, manifesting them seemingly at random. We think that Jack picked her up about a month ago, but they haven't been very active so it's hard to tell for sure."
  
  It was roughly an hour later. All of the Wards, along with a group of the higher ranking PRT officers that were left in the city, Faultline's crew, and the Undersiders were gathered into a large briefing auditorium. Flechette was standing at the front next to Simms, but she looked rather uncomfortable to be there.
  
  "What are they doing outside of the city to break through the shield?" Grue asked from where the Undersiders were sitting. Both Noelle and Luke were there with them.
  
  "We don't know," Simms admitted. "We had communication for a brief period directly after the appearance of the shield, but within a few minutes, all such communication had ceased. We're getting nothing. No satellite signals, no communications, nothing. We might as well be completely on our own. There's no way of knowing what they're trying out there."
  
  "So you're saying it's just us," Luke put in. "We're supposed to stop the Nine. How? Siberian by herself could rip this entire city apart."
  
  Shamrock, sitting next to Faultline, spoke up. "That's not..." She trailed off, casting a look toward her team leader, giving me the distinct impression that she was looking for permission to say something.
  
  Faultline said it for her. "The Siberian shouldn't be an issue." That, of course, attracted a lot of attention from everyone in the room, but she simply shook her head. "I'm not at liberty to betray the confidences of our client. Let's just say that the Siberian has been removed, for now, from the equation. Jack's working without her."
  
  "Well that helps." Simms nodded, looking about as relieved as anyone could under the circumstances. "Though not by much. We still need help if we're going to get through this."
  
  Another familiar voice spoke up from the doorway, cultured and polite as ever. "I do believe that that would be my cue."
  
  Everyone in the room spun, some grabbing for weapons, as Marquis stepped through the doorway. He was accompanied by Amy and two identical light skinned teenage girls with short brown hair and athletic builds. It took me a second to recognize them as Xi and Omicron's preferred alternate forms.
  
  "Marquis," Simms spoke up, his voice relatively calm yet a bit strained. "You do remember that you have a kill order."
  
  "Yes, Agent Simms." Marquis nodded. "I am well aware. However... I believe the kill order upon the Nine may slightly outrank my own. And I am offering the assistance of my organization toward defeating them, while asking for nothing more in return than a temporary truce, to last only as long as the Slaughterhouse Nine are a threat. I only wish to put a stop to their... barbarism."
  
  "He's telling the truth." Noelle spoke quietly from where she was sitting. Her eyes were locked on the man.
  
  "You were attacked, weren't you?" Tattletale realized, head tilting as she stared at the man as though getting a read on him. "The Nine attacked your group."
  
  "Yes." Marquis stiffened slightly while nodding. "They used the distraction of this past hour to assault my... organization and abduct one of my people."
  
  "Who?" The blonde Undersider pressed. "Who was so important for them to- Oh. The tinker."
  
  Marquis frowned at that before nodding slowly. "Yes... Edward was abducted by force."
  
  Edward. Eddie, I realized belatedly. They had kidnapped Eddie, the tinker who could duplicate and sometimes improve other tinker's work. But why would they want him so much?
  
  Then I realized the answer. Riley. Riley had put so much work into improving the Nine, into filling their bodies with her own little bio-tinker tricks. But they'd lost her, and in turn had lost the ability to maintain or improve what had been done to them. Hell, if she could get to them, Riley might have even been able to shut them down entirely.
  
  But now they had Eddie, and if they could convince him to do what they wanted, Riley's absence wouldn't be an issue. He might even be able to change enough that Riley wouldn't immediately be able to undo or control her own work.
  
  And I was pretty sure the Nine knew how to be convincing.
  
  24.04
  
  Knowing that the Nine now had a tinker that could potentially maintain or even improve the work that Riley had done made me want to talk to the girl herself as soon as physically possible. I spent the rest of the briefing trying to figure out how she was going to react to all this. Not only that her old... group was in town, but also that she was being, in a way, replaced.
  
  That raised another question. Did Jack and the others actually know that Riley was here in town, or had they just been here for Eddie? If that was so, why would they have had the big fake-out with luring all the Protectorate members away. No, they were after something more than just that. This whole thing had to be bigger than even their normal city appearances, if they were going through that much effort.
  
  And just what had Faultline meant when she said that the Siberian wouldn't be an issue? Who was she working for now that the kind of pull that could remove the Siberian as a threat to- oh. Right, clearly I really needed to talk to Dinah. And possibly strangle her. For now, though, all I could do was sit and wait for us to figure out some course of action beyond sitting around waiting to see what the Nine did.
  
  The fact that we had no communication with the outside world meant that accepting Marquis' offer of a temporary truce fell on Peyton Simms as the highest ranking member of the PRT present. It took the man only a few moments of silent consideration before he agreed on the condition that any 'games' by Marquis or any of his people would result in that person being lumped back into the kill on sight order.
  
  Some of the PRT agents began to talk about possible ways to send messages through the shield, or ways to beat it. I listened with one ear while taking a piece of paper from the small half-desk in front of me. Drawing a pencil from the provided slot, I scribbled a quick note that read, 'Can you have one of the other Pandoras ask Bones to meet me outside this place when the briefing is over for a few minutes? Make sure she doesn't come alone.' Then I balled up the paper and attached a line between it and the spot where the nearest of the twin Pandoras, Xi and Omicron, were standing.
  
  As people continued to talk, I let the line yank my note over to the still-standing figure. The flying paper received a few curious looks, as well as a couple annoyed ones thrown my way, but I ignored them to focus on the Pandora. When the paper hit her in the chest, the girl's hand lashed out to catch it before the thing could fall to the floor. As the balled up paper lay in her palm, she blinked down at it, then looked up to find me watching her. I nodded toward the note and mouthed, 'Please', feeling absurdly like a kid passing notes in class.
  
  Xi or Omicron, whichever one she was, unfolded the paper and scanned it before looking up at me once more. Her head gave a spasming nod before she turned her attention to Amy, who was looking at her questioningly. There was a brief whispered conversation before Amy looked to me and nodded. She pointed to me, then to herself before gesturing outside, indicating that we would meet Riley together.
  
  "Flechette," Simms spoke while using two fingers to push his glasses up. "We've seen examples of your power penetrating forcefields and other formerly impassible defenses. Would you and the other Wards be willing to make an attempt to destroy at least one of those projectors so we can see if doing so affects the field at all? Best case scenario, they weren't expecting us to get through the forcefield around the generator, and it brings the whole shield down. If not, maybe it'll weaken the field enough to get communications back up. The radio blackout didn't happen at first, which might be because the field wasn't fully in place and charged up. If we damage it enough to restore communications, that could help more than anything I can think of short of Jack walking in and surrendering."
  
  Flechette nodded. "We'll do our best." She still looked uncomfortable to be where she was, right at the front of the room, being stared at by everyone else, but the other girl pressed on. "We should probably focus on the generator that Vista and Tether found. It's out in the middle of nowhere. Less chance of being interrupted that way, and the area is wide open, so we shouldn't be ambushed."
  
  "Good, then I think you should do that." Simms gestured. "We talk too much as it is, and the Nine take advantage of that fact. Go, and maintain contact with the control officer. They'll be giving me constant updates. I want to know what's happening as soon as you do." He paused before amending, "As soon as you can reasonably provide an update without compromising yourselves or your mission. Stay safe, but keep us informed about what's going on. We all need to work together if we're going to get through this." His eyes strayed toward the spot where Marquis stood next to his daughter and the Pandoras, before he added, "Even those of us who have no reason to work together other than shared survival."
  
  "Yes, sir. We'll update you when anything happens, as soon as possible." Flechette made a gesturing motion toward me and the rest of the Wards, and we all started to the exit together.
  
  "Oh, and Wards," Simms waited until we were looking at him. "Be careful. For the love of Scion, be careful . This is the Slaughterhouse Nine. No mistakes, do you understand? Stay together, work as a team, and if you get overwhelmed, back off. There is no shame in retreating when you need to, not against these enemies. I... wish we had the ability to tell you to go home and let the Protectorate handle things, but they aren't here. If any of you, and I mean any," his eyes flicked toward Vista and Sparrow, "Want to sit this out, no one will blame you for it. Either way, take no unnecessary risks." He focused on me then. "Tether, a brief word, if you don't mind? You can meet up with the rest of them outside."
  
  I let the man take me aside to a corner of the room where we could speak privately while the others went on, promising to join them out front. Then I stood, waiting for Simms to talk. Instead, he took off his glasses and polished them on his shirt while seeming to consider what to say next. When he did speak, I could tell that he was choosing his words carefully.
  
  "The fact that you have contact with the former Bonesaw is... well, something that disturbs a lot of people up in the management levels of the PRT," he began. "Actually, I daresay that if the PRT itself hadn't been folded up into the leadership of the Protectorate, something might have been done about it already. As it stands, there are... influential people who wish to have the girl brought in for judgment."
  
  I was glad that my mask meant that I didn't have to try to keep my face blank. Rather than speak, I just stared at the man and waited for him to continue. I wanted to see where he was going with this.
  
  When I didn't say anything, Simms stopped polishing his glasses and put them back on. It was only then that I thought to ask, "Shatterbird-proof glasses?"
  
  Distractedly, he raised a hand to touch the side of the glasses before nodding. "I suppose they would have to be. One of the perks of the job. Harder to do that job if I'm blind, of course."
  
  Lowering his hand, the man continued his earlier thought. "I'm going to ask you a question, and before you answer, I want you to truly think about it. I don't want you to give me the answer you'd give some pushy bureaucrat that doesn't know what you're going through, or some government enforcer thug on a revenge kick that you want to protect your new... ahh, ally from. Before you answer, I want you to think about the situation we're in, and the danger that everyone could be in if you're wrong. Consider everything that could happen if we make the wrong choices here, if we let things get out of hand. This isn't about protecting one person, it's about what could happen to this entire city if we make one wrong step."
  
  His gaze was intent on me. "Do you understand that?" When I nodded, he took in a breath before letting it out, clearly taking his time to make an impression with this question. "Do you, in this particular situation, with Jack Slash and the rest of the Nine in the city, trust Riley?"
  
  Once again, I was glad for the mask that hid my face. It prevented the man from noticing when my mouth immediately opened to answer before I stopped and forced myself to follow his request. I took a long moment to think about what Jack being here could do to Riley, and how bad it would be if she let herself be convinced to join him once again. Then I thought about the odds of that happening, and what might prevent or encourage it. I weighed everything, while Simms stood patiently waiting.
  
  "Yes," I finally answered. "I do think that we can trust her, because Riley has been hurt by Jack more than anyone in this city. He tortured her, he made her be the... thing that was Bonesaw. The things that he had to have done to her... I think she wants him brought down as much as anyone else. He broke her, Agent Simms. She was as much a victim of the Slaughterhouse Nine as anyone ever has been, and the things that she did while she was with them were not the actions of a rational person. He tortured that little girl until her mind broke, and now that she's getting it back, now that she has real friends, and a chance to help people, I don't think that she'll give that up. I think she'll want Jack to pay for what he did to her and her family."
  
  I met the man's gaze as best as I could with the mask covering my face. "But the only way that we're going to capitalize on that is if we don't abandon her, sir. If we treat her like an enemy, I promise you that Jack will use that to turn her again. He'll convince her that we'll never see past the things she did before, and that there's no point in trying to change. If we want to keep Riley on our side, we need to trust her. We need to let her help, especially now. This is the one chance that she has to prove that she's better, that she can help us beat Jack. It's her one chance to pay him back for everything he did, everything he made her do." I hesitated then before giving one final nod. "So yeah, in this case, I do trust Riley, as long as we show her trust and don't give her a reason to think that everyone hates her."
  
  Simms considered my words for a few seconds before slowly nodding. "If you're wrong, we're all probably going to die very horribly. Especially if this whole thing was some elaborate ruse to gain our confidence." I started to speak, but he interrupted, "I know you don't believe that. Honestly, neither do I. But part of this job is considering every angle, even the ones you're pretty sure aren't true. We have to weigh the consequences of being wrong." His gaze took on a thoughtful look before he nodded once more. "All right, I want you to ask her for any information that might help find where the Nine are holed up, what any of their weaknesses might be, what targets they might focus on, anything at all that occurs to her. If she is a resource, I intend to capitalize on it." He eyed me over the top of his glasses. "Think you can ask all of that when you and Panacea meet her out behind the building?"
  
  My mouth fell open at that. "You, uhh, umm, we're... we were..." I flushed a little. "Yes, sir."
  
  "Thank you." Simms gave me a brief pat on the shoulder. "You better get going if you're going to talk to her and still meet up with your team. And Tether, like I said to everyone else, be careful."
  
  A few minutes later, Amy and I stepped out into the back parking lot with Xi and Omicron. We were met by not only Bones, but also both Emma in her Oversight faceplate costume and Dinah in a hooded sweatshirt that helped conceal her, as well as three more Pandoras. One of them wore the simple half-mask costume that they used by default, while the other two were individualized. I recognized the Asian figure of Iota, the Pandora who preferred action movies, as well as Espilon, whose preferred form happened to be a pretty red-haired woman in her mid-twenties. Epsilon, as far as I knew, was the only Pandora who chose a noticeably older form.
  
  First I focused on Emma, asking, "Are you okay? I didn't know how much Shatterbird would have affected all of your... equipment." I gestured to the faceplate that she still wore.
  
  "I..." Emma started to answer before stopping. She swallowed audibly and I saw a full-body shudder run through her before she made the faceplate retract. Her face was stained with tears, and I was startled to see how pale she was. The girl shook her head. "N-no, I'm not. I... I m-mean, yes, my stuff is protected, but no, I'm... I'm n-not okay. I'm... I'm s-scared, Madison. This is... th-this is the... Nine, we... if we-if they..."
  
  "Emma," I winced and stepped that way to embrace the other girl. "I... maybe you should wait somewhere safe. You don't have to be involved with any of this."
  
  The other girl didn't speak at first. I saw her eyes flick away, then return to me. Finally, she shook her head, gulping. "N-no. No, I'm staying w-with the... the others."
  
  "I thought you were scared," I said quietly, trying to give her another chance to change her mind. I hated seeing her like this, terrified all the way to tears.
  
  This time, Emma's eyes closed briefly. Her voice was small and plaintive. "I am. I... I'm s-so... sc-scared... I know what the N-Nine d-do... I know what they do and I don't w-wanna die. I don't wanna di-die, Madison. I know what they d-do to the people they... they c-catch, especially the," she gulped. "Especially the people who try to fight them. I know, and I... I d-don't want... I'm scared, Madison. I'm te-terrified, b-because if they take me, I..." Her head bowed then and she whispered, "Yes, I'm scared."
  
  "But you're staying anyway?" I asked quietly.
  
  She bobbed her head in one more nod, her voice just as soft as before. "Y-yes. Because I'm n-not... going to abandon you or... or Dinah or R-Riley, or... the others. I'm really, really scared. But..." Emma trailed off, going silent for a moment as her eyes seemed to gaze off at some distant, unseen place before she straightened just a little. She looked back to me and focused, still clearly frightened, but a little more at peace now that she had worked through it out loud. "I'm already... re-responsible... for one death. I already made one person die because of what I did. I... don't care how scared I am now. I don't care. I'm st-still not going to let anyone else die because of what I don't do."
  
  I bit my lip before hugging the other girl more tightly this time. "Be careful, Emma. Please be careful."
  
  That done, I focused on Dinah, who stood flanked on either side by her constant companion Epsilon and the Pandora that I didn't know. All of them kept scanning the perimeter, obviously taking no chances. I kept my voice low while questioning, "Siberian?"
  
  Beside me, Amy blinked and looked back and forth, startled by the implication. "Wait, you mean..."
  
  Dinah smiled faintly, hands resting inside the pockets of her sweatshirt. "Handled."
  
  Biting my lip, unsure of which answer I wanted, I asked while glancing toward Bones, "Permanently?"
  
  Looking toward Riley as well, Dinah shook her head. "Let's just say he won't be an issue for this."
  
  "He?" Both Amy and I echoed that with confusion. I added then, "What do you mean, 'he'?"
  
  It was Riley who spoke up from inside the Bones-suit, her voice filtered through it to sound male. "Aunt Si-" She stopped talking, and I could actually see the suit stiffen before she continued. "The Siberian wasn't real. She-I mean... He projects the figure. He was following us-err, the Nine for a long time, pretending that the Siberian was a real person. I figured it out, but I didn't tell... Jack. I'm... not sure why." At the last bit, she sounded introspective.
  
  I absorbed that for a moment before speaking again. "Jack has Eddie, the special tinker. We think he's going to use him to maintain or fix the work that you did on them."
  
  Riley looked at me for a moment before the Bones-suit slumped a little. "I guess they're replacing me."
  
  "I suppose that leads to my next question." I took in another breath, considering for a moment before forging ahead. "But I want to ask you, Riley, not Bones. Can I... talk to just you, out of the suit?"
  
  Bones looked toward Dinah, who waited for Epsilon to whisper something to her before she nodded and said, "Coast is clear."
  
  The back of the suit opened then, and the young blonde girl slipped out of the back of it, shaking some of the liquid slime off of herself a bit awkwardly before she stared up at me. For once, she didn't look giddy or childish. She just stood there, watching me to see what I said.
  
  "The guy in charge there, Agent Simms, he asked me if I trusted you in this situation." I said quietly. "He wanted to know if I believed that you weren't working with the Nine anymore."
  
  Some kind of emotion crossed the girl's face, but she remained silent, staring at me until I went on. "I said yes, Riley. But... I need to know. I need to hear it from you. No games, Riley. No immaturity, no little girl act, no beating around the bush. We don't have time for that, not anymore, not right now. The Nine are here. They're in the city, and we have no idea what else they're after because they're completely off-book now. So I need to ask you this, and I do trust you enough to believe the answer that you give. No games, no sparing of feelings, no being afraid of upsetting you and driving you away, Riley, because I think you're better than that. One single simple question. Can we trust you?"
  
  For a moment, the younger girl didn't answer. She lowered her gaze, staring at the ground for a few long seconds. She looked so small, frail, and uncertain in that moment that it was hard to believe that this was the same girl who had been one of the most feared people in the world for half a decade.
  
  Finally, she lifted her eyes and met my gaze. "No lies. No tricks, no games, no coping mechanism." She breathed in and then out before saying the next word. "Yes. Yes, you can trust me now. Because I... I might not always understand what I'm doing. There's something... wrong in my head. I know there is. These last few months, being friends with... Dinah and Emma and all the Pandas... that's... real friends, friendship I... didn't understand before. Friendship I couldn't understand before."
  
  Glancing toward the others in their little group briefly before turning back to me, Riley continued. "I know there's so many things wrong with me. I don't... understand what's right and what's wrong all the time and... the stuff that's in my head, the stuff I think even though I don't want to, it... scares me. I know I'm broken. But I also know who broke me. I know who made me this way. I know who killed my family, and who... who made me the way that I am. It was Jack. Jack made me this way. He killed my family. He destroyed... my life.
  
  "So yes. No games. No tricks. No immaturity. You can trust me now. Because I... hate... Jack." There was a sharp exhalation, almost of surprise, as she said those words, as though Riley herself hadn't expected to say them. Her eyes grew wide briefly, and I saw dampness in them. "I hate him." Her voice shook slightly. "I hate Jack. I hate Jack . I hate Jack. " Each repetition grew more angry, and I saw her small fists clench. "I hate him, and I'll do anything to stop him. So yes, you can trust me. I want Jack, and all the rest of them to burn in hell. I want them to die. They're not my friends. You guys are. I'm not going to betray that, no matter what. I promise."
  
  After that, I had to embrace Riley, hugging her briefly but tightly. "We'll stop them. You help us, and we'll stop them."
  
  She looked up then, her expression softening. "You b-believe me, right?"
  
  I nodded. "I believe you, Riley. So I want you to stay here with Amy. I want you to talk to her about anything and everything that you can think of that might help the PRT find, fight, or stop Jack and the others. Anything you can think of that might help, no matter how small. Can you do that?"
  
  "Yes." She nodded once more. "I will."
  
  Stepping back then, I shrugged a little awkwardly. "Time to join my team, I guess." I started to turn away then, before abruptly slapping my forehead through the mask. "Emma!"
  
  The other girl jolted. "Huh?"
  
  "Your power." I pointed at her. "You control machines. Maybe you can shut down the forcefield generator."
  
  Emma shifted a little, looking uncomfortable and uncertain. "D-do you... think so?"
  
  "It's worth a shot." I looked toward Dinah. "Mind if I borrow her? If she's willing to come, that is." I added the last with a glance back to Emma, who gave a very hesitant nod.
  
  Dinah nodded then. "Go for it. I'd use my power to check, but... something tells me I'm going to have to use it a lot in the next couple days, so I shouldn't waste questions. Going with a group like that seems safe enough. As safe as anywhere you could be, really."
  
  With that agreed upon, Emma stepped over to join me. We were about to leave, when I was suddenly jolted by Riley abruptly launching herself through the few feet that separated us, hugging me tightly one more time. "Thank you, Madison. Not... just for believing, but for everything. I didn't want to be a monster anymore. Thank you for... not giving up on me. Thank you for helping me... not be... that monster."
  
  We really needed to go, but for this moment, I let go of the impatience and the urgency. I spared a few seconds to return the younger girl's hug, whispering, "Thank you, Riley, for choosing not to be, for choosing to be a better person now. And mostly for choosing to leave them to come here even when you knew Jack didn't want you to. Because you know what that tells me?"
  
  "What?"
  
  I smiled very faintly. "It tells me that Jack isn't perfect. His plans can backfire. You're here. You choose to be. He had you and he lost you because of your choices.
  
  "So let's go make him lose some more."
  
  24.05
  
  The rest of the team was waiting around the front of the building when Emma and I joined them. They exchanged looks at the sight of my companion, before Flechette stepped forward. "Reinforcements?"
  
  I nodded and gestured back and forth. "Flechette, this is E-Oversight. Oversight, this is Flechette."
  
  Extending a hand to shake Emma's briefly, Flechette remarked, "You're the one that shut down the Birdcage defenses when that whole thing went down, aren't you? You helped save that entire situation."
  
  A year earlier, the Emma I had known would have preened under such words and soaked up the attention. Then again, a year ago, so would I. But that Emma was gone. Her confidence, hell, even her sense of self-worth was so fragile now that she actually seemed to wilt a little at the praise, hunching her shoulders as though physically shrinking back. As angry as I had been at Emma before, seeing her this way made me sad. Her voice was soft and hesitant. "I... just tr... tried to help, th-that's all."
  
  Wincing, I put my hand on her back to brace her. "We think that she might be able to control the generators to shut them off, if her power reaches through the field that's protecting them."
  
  "You mean she might be able to just flick a switch and turn this whole problem off, if Flechette can't destroy them?" Kid Win grinned from where he was using his pack to hover a foot off the ground. "If you can pull that off, you just might be my new best friend."
  
  Unfortunately, his attempt at playful banter and encouragement just made Emma wilt a little more, clearly thinking about what would happen if she couldn't shut down the generators.
  
  In the face of the other girl's awkward and self-conscious silence, I gave her an encouraging pat. "Either way, we'll figure it out. We've already got two possible ways to shut down this field, and it hasn't been up that long. We're ahead of the curve on this."
  
  Nodding slowly, Flechette glanced over to where Sparrow stood. The younger girl wasn't looking at anyone. Her gaze was focused on the ground, the bright pink smiley face at odds with the slump of her shoulders. The girl had just found out that two more of her former teammates and friends had been killed that day, and now she was expected to fight the very people who had murdered them. This whole situation made me sick to my stomach. It wasn't fair. None of this was. She was just a kid . She should have been allowed to maintain her innocent view of super heroes and fighting crime for longer.
  
  Not that most of us were in much better shape in that regard. Vista was only a couple of years older than Mika, and she had been doing this for longer than any of us. Not that I'd ever think about telling her to sit something out, not after what we had been through. It was just easy to forget her young age.
  
  Would we get to that point with Mika as well? She'd already been through so much in such a short time. Two years from now, would she be a hardened soldier in the ongoing cape war?
  
  Fuck, I hoped not. We needed less soldiers and more optimism.
  
  Clearly, Lily was thinking along the same lines as I was. "Sparrow, maybe-"
  
  "No." The younger girl shook her head, face focused on Flechette then. "I'm not staying behind. If you try to make me, I'll just get out and follow you." As much as she was clearly trying to sound resolute and stoic, the eleven-year old girl's voice still cracked slightly. "Please, don't... leave me."
  
  The two of them exchanged stares for a few moments before Lily relented, though it looked like it killed her to do so. "Okay. We'll split up then. One group will go with me to try breaking one of the generators, while the other can go with Tether and ahh, Oversight to try taking over a different one. That way we double our chances of actually accomplishing our goal."
  
  She thought for a moment, looking out over us before pointing. "I'll take Sparrow, Reach, and Aid. Kid Win and Vista, you go with Tether." There was a slight hesitation then before she added, "Stay in contact. If you run into any... real trouble, let us know." If we ran into any of the Nine, she meant. "Don't be stupid. If you need to back off, then back off. We'll regroup as soon as possible."
  
  Cassie looked toward me from where she was standing next to Theo. "Yeah, cuz splitting up always works so well in horror movies." Flechette started to speak, but the other girl waved her off. "Yeah, yeah, limited time, terrified people in the streets, buncha psychopathic cunts playing murder games, I get it. So which group gets to go where? I thought we only knew where one of the generators was."
  
  "There's been calls about more," Flechette answered. "They're not exactly subtle." She looked to me then. "Tether and Vista, take your group to the one that you guys found. We'll take one of the others."
  
  Nodding, I gave her a thumbs up. "Stay safe, we'll get these things shut down one way or another."
  
  "Yup." Flechette clapped her hands together once. "All right, let's do this. If we get it done fast enough, hopefully the Nine won't be expecting reinforcements to be able to make it in here so soon."
  
  A short time later, I was staring at a much different scene in front of the generator than the one that Vista and I had left. This was a scene straight out of a sick, disturbed person's nightmares.
  
  "Oh my god." My voice was weak as a hand covered my mouth through the mask. I felt bile rise up in my throat involuntarily, and couldn't restrain the whimper that came then.
  
  "Are... are they all..." Vista sounded just as horrified and sickened. "... dead?"
  
  The road that led past the spot where the shield generator sat was no longer empty. Instead, for about a hundred yards up and down the road, spaced roughly five or six feet apart, there were... bodies. Not just lying there, but standing. Sharp metal poles had been embedded in the ground, tilted at a slight angle, and each of the bodies had been impaled on it through the back, suspending them partway off the ground. Their hands were drawn up toward their foreheads, tied in place with barbed wire to make it look as though they were saluting anyone who came up the road to approach the machine.
  
  Hearing a retching noise, I tore my horrified attention away from the tableau and turned quickly to find Emma on her hands and knees with her faceplate retracted, voiding her stomach onto the ground.
  
  As much as I wanted to join her, I forced myself to focus. I couldn't cry, not right now. If I lost it, everyone else would too. "Kid, can you... I mean, do you have any way of... checking?" I felt even more sick even as I asked the question, but pressed on anyway. If there was any chance at all of saving any of these people, we had to take it.
  
  Chris was still staring, and I had to ask him again to get his attention. Finally, he shuddered and nodded. "Aid and I were working on something for that awhile ago. It should work. Just-" His voice cracked, betraying his emotion. "Just a second."
  
  I was pretty sure there wouldn't be anyone left. My power would probably warn me about someone being in mortal danger if there was still any chance of saving them. But we had to be sure.
  
  Vista visibly shook herself before focusing. "The Nine like to leave traps. I'll, umm..." She trailed off briefly, and I heard the catch, the horror in her voice. "I'll check for them." Raising her hands, the girl began to twist space around up and down the line, checking for any more immediate surprises.
  
  While my two teammates worked on that, I forced myself to turn away from the bodies and crouched beside Emma. I didn't know what to say to her at first, finally settling on reaching out to brush her long red hair back and out of the way. "I'm sorry," I said quietly after another moment. "I'm really sorry, Emma. You shouldn't have to see this. I shouldn't have made you come out here." On the one hand, it was probably technically wrong to call her by her name in the field, even if I was whispering, but I couldn't help it right then. She wasn't Oversight to me, she was just Emma, my friend.
  
  "You d-didn't know." Emma's voice was strained and hoarse, but she shook her head firmly before continuing. "You didn't..." I saw her eyes close tightly while tears leaked out of them. "You didn't kn-know this was here. And you... you didn't... m-make me do anything. I w-wanted to be... I just didn't think th-that this was... I..." Her shoulders shook a little. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. St-stupid."
  
  I shook my head at that. "No, no you're not stupid. It's not stupid to be... affected by that. I just..." Unable to find the right words, I settled on embracing the other girl, murmuring, "I'm sorry."
  
  We sat like that for a brief time while Emma composed herself. Eventually, she leaned back away from me and drew an arm across her mouth while giving one more heavy shudder. "I... I c-can do this." Shakily, she pushed herself up, accepting a hand from me for help. "J-just let me get... closer. I'll sh-shut this thing down, if I... if I can." Her eyes flicked past me toward the displayed bodies before closing once more as a heavy shudder ran through her. Then her faceplate closed once more, and she seemed to visibly force herself to straighten and focus. "Please h-help me get... closer."
  
  I knew what she meant. Emma was afraid that she wouldn't be able to bring herself to walk past all of those displayed bodies without breaking down again.
  
  Kid Win, who had been standing by Vista as the two of them gave us the time we needed, spoke up. His voice was listless. "My scanner says there's sixty bodies. They're... they're all dead."
  
  I wasn't surprised, but the news still made me flinch. Sixty bodies. Sixty just here. They had been killed and displayed here just in the relatively short time since Vista and I had left. It was inhuman.
  
  With that in mind, I activated my comm. "Flechette, we've g-" My voice broke a little and I had to start over, forcing my voice to sound so professional that it probably sounded odd coming from me. "We have sixty dead, all displayed along the road leading to the device. Are you... " I trailed off, taking a second to force myself into asking the question properly. "Are you encountering the same?"
  
  "Not there yet," Flechette answered, sounding a little winded. "We spotted Mannequin, Burnscar, and Shatterbird on the way, but they retreated before we could engage."
  
  I blinked at that. Mannequin, Burnscar and Shatterbird had been together, facing not even a full Wards team, and they had both withdrawn rather than fight? The Nine were good at picking their battles, that was how they had survived for so long, but I was pretty sure that retreating completely without any conflict at all against those kind of odds wasn't like them.
  
  "Are you sure they aren't circling for an ambush?" I offered.
  
  "We thought of that," Flechette confirmed. "That's what's taking so long. We searched, but they're gone. There's no sign of them at all."
  
  "They are correct, Tether-Friend."
  
  I jumped and yelped at the sound of the voice, which came from right behind me. Whirling, I found Gamma standing there, looking puzzled about my reaction. "Jeeze, don't do that!"
  
  The blonde figure blinked at me, then looked toward Vista and Kid Win, who looked just as startled as me. Emma, on the other hand, didn't seem surprised at all. I guess after months of living with the Pandoras, she was accustomed to this sort of thing.
  
  "Did we startle you, Tether-Friend?" Gamma asked, innocently, as though she hadn't just managed to sneak up on our entire group in the middle of a flat, open area.
  
  "Tether?" Flechette's voice had risen in alarm. "What's wrong?"
  
  I shook my head, holding both hands up. "It's okay, guys. It's all right. It's just one of the Pandoras. We're okay."
  
  "Wha-you mean that..." Chris finally relaxed a hair, lowering the barrels of his backpack. "That's Pandora?"
  
  "Yeah." I waved back and forth between them. "One of them anyway. Gamma, Kid Win and Vista. Guys, this is Gamma. What are you doing here?"
  
  Gamma, who had been studying the two other Wards rather intently, looked back to me then. "We have come to tell you that the One-Called-Genesis and the One-Called-Sundancer wish to know if you and others are healthy."
  
  I blinked a little blankly at that. "How do you know-wait." My eyes widened. "You mean you still have contact with Jalopy?" I'd known there was a piece of Pandora inside the little guy, but I hadn't even thought about it since the shield went up.
  
  "Of course, Tether-Friend," Gamma answered. "May we tell them that you are safe?"
  
  My mind whirled. We could still have contact, limited as it was. "Yes. Tell them we're working on taking down the shield, and we'll give more information as soon as we can."
  
  Turning back to the other three, I found myself smiling faintly. The idea that we still had some contact with the outside had bolstered my spirits. "Let's turn this thing off, shall we?"
  
  Vista shrank the space between us and the machine so that we didn't have to walk past every body. There would be time to get each and every one of the Nine's victims down as soon as we fixed this situation.
  
  "Whoa." Emma spoke up as soon as she was near the field that surrounded the generator. "I... I feel it. It's... oh. It's r-really complicated. Ummm... Umm... I th-think I can take it down. Maybe."
  
  "Sweet!" Kid Win high fived Vista. "So let's get rid of this field and ruin the Slaughterhouse Nine's entire day."
  
  Emma nodded quickly. "I w-will, just... just give me a minute. There's so m-much stuff... I think I can start the process, but it takes time to charge up."
  
  Something about that tickled at my brain, but I shook it off and contacted the other group. "Oversight thinks she can initiate the shutdown procedure. How are you guys doing?"
  
  "We're there," Flechette answered. "No surprises. No bad guys or... anything else either."
  
  "Nothing at all?" I frowned. "So Shatterbird and Mannequin withdrew, and it wasn't even to protect the generator?"
  
  "That's what it looks like." Flechette sounded just as uncertain as I was. "Aid sent his drones around, but there's no sign of anyone."
  
  "I guess they really did underestimate us." Kid Win offered with a shrug.
  
  Vista was unconvinced. "Or they're busy pulling off something a lot worse."
  
  That made me think even more. Why had three members of the Nine avoided a fight with just four Wards? Why wouldn't there be anyone protecting the shielded generators, especially if they had been close enough to obviously know where Flechette and the others had been going? Was it just because of their confidence in the shield? Could they make that simple of a mistake?
  
  Over the comm, Flechette spoke up. "Test shot confirmed it. My bolts do pass through the protective shield around the generator. I'm loading the explosive bolt."
  
  Meanwhile, in front of me, Emma was lost in her own world as she murmured, "Just a few more seconds..."
  
  Three of the Nine had retreated, had avoided a fight. Why? It went against everything they stood for. Three of them versus one half-strength Wards team that happened to be some of the few protectors left in the city? Letting them go was wrong. They wouldn't do it, unless...
  
  "Flechette!" I abruptly blurted while activating my comm. "Stop, don't fire!"
  
  "What? Why?!" Flechette's voice was loud with surprise and confusion. "I already did, Tether! The explosive should be going off right-"
  
  "No!" Emma's own voice rose abruptly in near hysteria, cutting off Lily's words. "No, no, no! I had it! I h-had it, b-but it was... it's gone! It's gone!"
  
  Vista's head was shaking. "What do you mean it's gone? What happened?"
  
  "Oversight-Friend?" Gamma had stepped that way, laying a hand on the other girl's arm. "What has happened?"
  
  "I... I don't know..." Emma's shoulders were shaking as she lowered her head. "I'm so-sorry. I'm sorry. I had it, bu-but it's gone. The connection isn't there. I can't... shut it off."
  
  "It's not your fault, Oversight." I raised a hand to my face, covering it through the mask. "I should've realized when you said it had to charge up."
  
  "Realized wh-" Kid Win started to ask before he got it. "Wait, oh... charged up. You mean it had to send a signal to turn off the shield?"
  
  I nodded slowly, feeling the sick horror of what we had just done, what the Nine had allowed us to do. This was why Burnscar, Mannequin, and Shatterbird hadn't fought the other team. They hadn't wanted to do anything to slow them down, because they wanted Flechette to use her power. They wanted to let us hang ourselves.
  
  "It's not an always on generator thing." I spoke the words, feeling that bile rising in my throat once more. "Whatever these things are, they set the forcefield with one signal, and then send another signal to disable it. They're not constantly generating it, they're just turning it on and off. They're keys.
  
  "And Flechette just destroyed one of the keys. There's... no way to turn off the field now."
  
  Interlude 24 - Ruin
  
  "No luck, huh?"
  
  "No, Tether-Friend. Sundancer-Ally has attempted to use her power both to burn through the erected forcefield, and to create a hole in order to burrow beneath it. The first only appeared to strengthen the shield, while the latter failed due to the field extending into an orb shape beneath the ground."
  
  From where she was sitting at the kitchen table in the O'Connell's home, Hunter Pritt watched as Madison stood in the living room in front of the blonde Pandora and sighed. "Yeah, I figured it couldn't be that easy." She glanced toward Hunter, who wished, not for the first time, that she could say something reassuring. Power-induced silence aside, she just didn't know what to say that could possibly make this situation seem better than it was.
  
  Madison and Pandora conversed for another moment before the latter went on her way, leaving the petite brunette standing at the front door, staring listlessly out at the street beyond.
  
  The silence in the house had stretched on for several minutes before Madison finally spoke. "Jess couldn't manifest anything inside the field either. She got right up next to it and tried to make a figure form, but it wouldn't appear inside. It seems like no powers reach beyond the field."
  
  All Hunter could do was nod silently. Her gaze moved toward the stove where the pot of uneaten macaroni and cheese sat. It had been more something to do than actual interest in food that had prompted her to fix the simple meal, and now she wasn't sure what to do with it. Some distant part of her knew that they should eat, but how could they at a time like this?
  
  Turning her attention from the stove to Madison once more, Hunter frowned slightly. The younger girl was still staring out the open door as though waiting for answers that weren't coming.
  
  Coming to a decision then, the purposefully mute girl pushed herself up. Walking to the stove, she took a moment to fill a bowl with the macaroni and cheese and stuck a spoon in it before placing the bowl on the table. A glass of milk was placed in front of it, along with a piece of buttered bread.
  
  That done, Hunter walked to where Madison stood, touching her arm. When the girl turned that way, Hunter pulled her by the arm, guiding her across the room before giving her a push down into the chair.
  
  "Oh," Madison blinked at the bowl and shook her head. "Thanks, Hunter, really. But I don't think I can eat anything right now. We don't know what's gonna happen, or where the Nine are going to make themselves known next. I wouldn't even be here if Simms hadn't ordered all of us to get some rest."
  
  Hunter shook her head. She understood the lack of appetite. After all, she had just been thinking the same thing. But Madison needed to eat and sleep if she was going to be any good to anyone.
  
  To that end, she made sure that the younger girl was watching while she formed her hand into a fist and mimed punching someone, then put her other hand on her stomach and doubled over, throwing a completely weak and ineffectual air punch once more to illustrate how weak she was.
  
  A very slight smile touched Madison's face. "I get it, hard to fight on an empty stomach." When Hunter nodded, the other girl obediently picked up the spoon. "All right, you made your point. I'll try to get some down." She used the spoon to point then. "But you have to eat too."
  
  Nodding acceptingly, Hunter fixed herself the rest of the food and took her seat once more. The two of them ate in silence, since there was no television to watch, and neither of them would have felt like doing so even if there had been. The whole time, while she mechanically ate the food so that Madison would eat hers, Hunter was thinking about how much her life had changed in the past few months.
  
  After her power had emerged the way that they had, Hunter had thought that she didn't deserve any kind of happiness. A not insubstantial part of her thought that she deserved to die, just to erase any possible chance of accidentally killing someone else. She was a murderer, a monster. Her voice itself meant instant death to anyone who stood in its path. Even her parents had been...
  
  She shook off the thoughts with effort, realizing that she had been holding the spoon so tightly that her knuckles were white. Madison was staring at her with concern, clearly wondering if she should say anything. To reassure the other girl, and encourage her to keep eating, Hunter took another bite.
  
  Food first, then she would work on making sure that Madison got to bed and actually slept. After what the girl had done for her, it was the least that she could do. Hunter had been convinced that she didn't deserve her freedom, that she belonged in the Birdcage, locked up with the other monsters.
  
  Madison had helped her see that what had happened wasn't her fault, that she could still do good things with her power, as long as she was careful. There was no way that Hunter could ever pay her back for that and for everything else that she had done. But she could help take care of the girl while Samantha and Ethan were locked out of the city.
  
  And hopefully, things would look better in the morning than they did right then.
  
  As soon as Hunter woke hours later, she knew that something was wrong. The weight of a presence within the darkness filled the room, and she could almost make out a shape standing beside the bed.
  
  She moved slightly to turn on the lamp, thinking that Madison had come in to talk, but the hand that caught her wrist before she could flick the switch was masculine and strong. Before she knew what was happening, another hand covered her mouth, and she tasted the leather of the glove that the man wore. He didn't just block her mouth though. Instead, he actually held it so firmly that she couldn't physically open it, his grip painful against her jaw.
  
  Fully awake by that point, she tried to jerk herself free, but a heavy weight came down on her as the man sat on the bed, still covering her mouth. His voice was soft. "Shhh, shhh, shhh. You don't want your roommate coming in here, do you? Then I'd have to let my friend over there deal with her." He used the hand over her mouth to turn Hunter's head toward the doorway, where a figure stood illuminated by the small ball of fire she held in one hand, the flickering flame highlighting her features.
  
  Burnscar. The figure by the doorway into her room was Burnscar. Which meant that the man whose weight was crushing her into the bed was...
  
  The light flicked on after she had settled slightly, revealing the walking incarnation of evil known as Jack Slash. He kept his hand where it was, blocking her power by rendering her unable to open her mouth. Since the disintegration wave that her power created originated in her throat, when her mouth couldn't open, it had nowhere to go. His voice remained quiet as he addressed his fellow psychopath. "Take a walk outside somewhere. If our friend here causes too much trouble or I don't give you a call in twenty minutes to say that everything worked out, let's say you burn down this house and everything within... oh I don't know, let's call it three blocks? That sounds fair."
  
  Grimacing as the other figure walked out of sight, Hunter stopped struggling, and the man smiled a little. "See, that's better, isn't it? Now, let's talk somewhere a little more conducive to an ongoing conversation, shall we?" Holding out his hand, he waited until his companion tossed a roll of duct tape to him, then he held it up. "On the count of three, huh? One..." Ignoring his own count, the man moved his hand and quickly pressed the end of the tape down over her mouth. That was followed by two more strips that started at her chin and wrapped around the back of her head, with her hair pulled up and out of the way while it was secured, to hold her mouth shut more firmly.
  
  Then Jack lifted enough of his weight off of Hunter to roll her onto her stomach. Her wrists were pulled behind her back and secured with more of the duct tape before the man carefully hauled her off the bed, letting her down until her feet touched the floor.
  
  "Ready to go then?" Jack was smiling, as if this was a normal, casual conversation. "I don't think you want to stall too much, since we've only got twenty minutes to get where we're going. For all her faults, Burnscar is punctual. Especially when it comes to her favorite subject."
  
  Jack Slash had her. Of all the monsters that she had spent so much time around while living in the Birdcage, none had truly frightened Hunter as much as she was in that moment. A wild, desperate part of her wanted to scream loudly in spite of the tape, wanted to struggle and fight tooth and nail to free herself before Jack could do... whatever he meant to do.
  
  Yet he had threatened Madison, the girl she owed so much to. And not just her, but everyone in the surrounding houses. Hunter didn't have control over the damage that her power did when it was used, but she did have control over this. As terrified as she was, she couldn't risk Madison's life, or anyone else's. If it came down to her suffering at the hands of the Nine, or letting others die, she would choose the former.
  
  After all, she had already killed innocent people, including children. She deserved to suffer far more than any of the innocents living in the area deserved to die.
  
  Bound and effectively gagged as she was, with tape not only across her mouth but also wrapped around her head to physically hold her mouth shut, all Hunter could do was allow herself to be led out of the room. She didn't dare fight back, not when doing so would alert Burnscar to start fires that could end up killing Madison as well as dozens of others in the surrounding houses.
  
  Jack led her out of her room, walking behind her in order to be even more sure that she couldn't affect him. His hand held her arm, and the man paused in the hallway to look down the hall to where Madison's room was. The door was shut, and the man frowned while staring that way. He seemed to be considering something, perhaps doubting his choice to leave the girl alone.
  
  Finally, however, he gave her a little push and they kept walking down the stairs and out into the street. A nondescript brown sedan sat at the curb, and Jack guided her around to the back. "Your chariot has seen better days, I'm afraid." He chuckled, amused by his own joke while using a key to unlock the trunk. Then the man gestured. "We'll be at our destination shortly." When she hesitated, he made a point of lifting his arm to look at his watch. "Would you look at that, three minutes just to get out of the house. Where does the time go?"
  
  Flinching, Hunter slowly let herself ease down into the trunk. She arranged herself, blinking up toward Jack as the man smiled down at her, his features illuminated by the nearby street light. "Watch your head now, wouldn't want to bruise our brand new weapon, now would we?"
  
  Before Hunter could react to that, the trunk lid had slammed down, leaving her in darkness.
  
  More than twenty minutes had passed before the trunk opened once more, though they had stopped driving only ten minutes into the trip. She had been left there, hearing the muffled sound of voices for a long time before the trunk finally opened once more, letting light in that nearly blinded her after so long in the dark.
  
  Jack was there again, smiling at Hunter as he pulled her out of the car and steadied her in an almost gentlemanly way. "There we are, now let's see your new home, shall we?"
  
  Confused, Hunter turned to find that they had parked in an old warehouse. Beside the car was a strange contraption that looked like an upright metal sarcophagus, with the top half open. The inside was lined with exposed wires and sharp little bits of metal.
  
  While she stared uncomprehendingly at the device, a heavy hand came down on her shoulder. She turned slightly, finding herself staring at a tall, brutish looking man with a face so ugly and scarred that he barely looked human. Hatchet Face, the cape killer whose power nullified others around him. His proximity, and the realization of who he was, made Hunter jerk back, but the ugly man's grip on her was tight.
  
  "Ah, I see you're aware of my friend's reputation," Jack observed. "He makes for very good insurance against... accidents, I find." He nodded to Hatchet Face then. "Put her in."
  
  With that, Hunter found herself hoisted up, turned, and pushed down to stand inside the sarcophagus. There was barely enough room for her, and she couldn't do much to adjust herself with her hands bound as they were. The exposed wires and bits of metal poked her a bit painfully as she was set into place.
  
  "Perfect." Jack reached up, making her flinch before he simply tugged the tape off of her mouth and away from her jaw. "Feel free to talk, my girl. Hatchet Face here will keep us all quite safe."
  
  Her voice, after so long without consistent use, was hoarse and weak, but Hunter made herself speak anyway while staring directly at the man. "When... I have something to say to you... you will know."
  
  It was hard, making herself sound confident when all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and cry. What could she hope to do against the Nine when Hatchet Face wouldn't even let her use her power even if she wanted to, and when she was bound up and trapped inside this... whatever it was?
  
  Jack just chuckled softly, fully aware of how inconsequential her words were. His hand patted the side of her face. "So much potential... squandered, wasted. Why do you hold yourself back? The destruction you could cause, the people you could affect just by exercising your gift, it's... a waste." His gentle pat turned to a harsh slap that knocked her head to the side and drew a short cry from her.
  
  "Don't worry, though." His voice turned jovial once more. "Uncle Jack's here to make sure you reach the potential you've been wasting." He reached in and adjusted her head a little before tugging a rubber strap around from the back, hooking it into place at her chin. This was followed by another strap that wrapped around her forehead to hold her head in the position that he wanted it. Then the man stepped back and nodded. "Close it up."
  
  Hatchet Face obliged, pulling both sides of the top half of the sarcophagus closed. The rubber strap kept Hunter's head in place, and she found that there was a slight opening right in the front of the sarcophagus lid, exposing her face while the rest of her was secured and unable to move.
  
  She was trapped, even more effectively than when she had been in the Birdcage.
  
  "Now," Jack was speaking. "Normally this would be where I offer you a place within the Nine, you refuse, I do my best to convince you, yada yada. But I'm bored, and quite frankly you wouldn't really fit in. No offense, but it is what it is."
  
  "But," his hand tapped against her expose face as he went on, "Since you refuse to use your power the way you were meant to, we'll simply use it ourselves. You may have made a terrible teammate, but you will make a quite adequate weapon."
  
  "I won't-" Hunter started to say, but Jack's hand slapped her face once more.
  
  "Shush now, don't want to waste your words yet, do we?" He stepped back and gestured with a hand that held a remote of some kind while striding away. "Right this way, if you would." His hand pressed a button on the remote, and the sarcophagus started to roll forward, following after him.
  
  The sarcophagus rolled through one room of the warehouse and into another, smaller room. In here, Hunter could see Burnscar standing a little bit away from three much smaller figures that were tied to chairs.
  
  Children. Burnscar was standing near children. Hunter felt her heart sink even more than it already had, as her mobile prison halted about fifteen feet away from the three kids, none of whom were older than nine, who had been tied to three metal chairs in the middle of the room.
  
  Jack adjusted the position of the sarcophagus until she was facing the bound and gagged children. "There we are. Thank you for gathering our new little friends, my dear." He nodded toward Burnscar, who shrugged and continued to lounge against the nearby wall.
  
  "Now, as I said, you seem to think that you have a choice in who you kill." Jack shook his head. "But you're a weapon, and weapons don't have those kind of choices. They kill whatever they're pointed at."
  
  In mounting horror, Hunter's head shook as much as she was able to make it, which wasn't more than a couple centimeters. She didn't dare speak, not knowing where Hatchet Face was or if he was still near enough to affect her.
  
  Jack understood and chuckled softly, as though amused by her refusal. "Don't you worry. We'll fix that little problem right up. Let's see..." He stepped out of the way then, moving to stand beside the sarcophagus so that he was out of Hunter's line of sight. Burnscar followed suit, standing on the other side.
  
  "So," Jack patted the side of the sarcophagus. "All you need to do, is tell those children hello. Say hello for me, would you, my dear weapon?" Clamping her mouth shut, Hunter remained silent, drawing a slight sigh from the man. "All right then, let's see..."
  
  Abruptly and without warning, the wires within the sarcophagus came to life, electrocuting Hunter and briefly filling her with agonizing pain. Her back jerked and she very nearly cried out. Only years of practice with Glaistig Uaine while she was in the Birdcage, combined with what she had learned of meditation from her mother, prevented it.
  
  "Interesting..." Jack spoke slowly. "But pointless. The shocks will continue. Sometimes they'll be-" He was interrupted by another agonizing electrocution that brought tears to Hunter's eyes as her body spasmed as much as it could. Her teeth ground down tightly from the effort she made to avoid making any noise, leaving her feeling dizzy and drained.
  
  Jack continued. "-twenty seconds apart, and other times they'll be twenty minutes apart. But the pain will keep coming until you do as you're told and say hello to those children. You're a weapon, Ruin, and weapons don't have choices."
  
  The man patted the side of the sarcophagus once more. "But I'm afraid I have other things to look into. I'll be back when this bit of training is over, I promise. Burnscar, stay here and let us know when it's done."
  
  "Whatever," Burnscar replied dismissively.
  
  "Remember, you have nothing to feel guilty about," Jack leaned around in front of Hunter, patting her face once more and pushing a bit of her exposed hair out of the way. "Weapons don't feel guilt, because they don't have a choice. They kill what they're pointed at."
  
  With that, the man left the room, just as another brutal electrocution shot through the immobilized, imprisoned girl.
  
  She couldn't make it much longer. Only fifteen minutes had passed since Jack left, but it seemed like centuries. Hunter hung as limp as her body could within her bonds, sweating while tears ran freely down her face. Every time she started to calm herself even a little bit to try to gain some kind of meditative state and think of a way out of this, the electrocution came back. She couldn't relax, not when the slightest vocal reaction to the random shocks would result in the death of three innocent children, all of whom were openly sobbing.
  
  Still, she held out. Every time Hunter thought that the next shock would be the one that drew a cry from her, she clamped down on it. She couldn't let them die. The people in the mall, the ones who had died when her power came out, those she hadn't been able to help. She hadn't been able to help her parents, or all of those innocent people. But these people she could help. She would take the pain for as long as she could, would take and bear it because if she didn't, they would die.
  
  "Would you just kill them already?" Burnscar was annoyed and even more bored. "I've got things to do besides babysit you and the brats, you know. Just get it over with and-" She interrupted herself then. "Who are you?"
  
  An unfamiliar voice from behind the sarcophagus spoke up. "I already told you who I was, and you were happy to see me."
  
  Burnscar's voice rose in pitch, going from suspicious to cheerful. "Well hey, how you been, stranger?"
  
  "You told me to wait here and guard the prisoner for you, while you go out to kill as many of the rest of the Slaughterhouse Nine as you can, because you're sick of being their little errand girl. They don't respect you, and you want to make sure they know what a mistake that is."
  
  "Yeah..." Burnscar spoke slowly. "This is bullshit. Jack can't treat me like this. You watch the brats. Let me know if she does her job."
  
  "I will," the other voice spoke, while the door at the back of the room opened and shut as the woman left the room.
  
  "Okay," a younger girl with short blue hair stepped into view, holding her hands up. "Don't yell or anything, okay? Just hold out for another few seconds and I'll get you out of there."
  
  Before Hunter's confused eyes, the girl quickly unlatched the sides of the sarcophagus, opening it up before reaching in to undo the straps that held her head in place.
  
  With the girl's help, Hunter stepped out of the sarcophagus, mouthing, 'who?'
  
  "Just call me Mnemosyne," the unmasked, uncostumed girl replied.
  
  In the distance, through the warehouse, loud noises started up. Mnemosyne winced. "That distraction won't last long. Take those kids and go out the back. Get the hell out of here."
  
  Already moving toward the chairs where the children were, Hunter pointed back at the girl, then toward the door that she had indicated was the way out.
  
  "Yeah, I'll be getting out of here too." Mnemosyne nodded while crouching next to one of the chairs to untie the child that was bound there.
  
  Holding a finger to her lips to indicate that the children should be quiet while she untied them, Hunter looked toward the girl who had rescued her and mouthed, 'Why?'
  
  "Why am I doing this?" The blue-haired girl shrugged. "Let's just say I hate gangs.
  
  "And the Nine are pretty much the worst gang in the world."
  
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  Arc 25: Temper
  Note: So that everyone is aware ahead of time, the next arc/chapter after this one will be purely interludes from various points of view surrounding the Slaughterhouse Nine invasion, rather than a single interlude following five parts of Madison's first person view.
  
  25.01
  
  I was awoken from a very pleasant and distracting dream by sound of my cell phone ringing on the end table next to me. I'd left the ringer on in case anything happened. Blearily, I grasped for the phone and squinted at the unknown number on the display before answering with a grunted, "'ullo?"
  
  "Umm..." The voice on the other end of the line was that of a little boy. "Is this, umm... Tether?"
  
  Sitting up in bed then, confused and a little alarmed, I asked, "Who is this?" Could it be one of the Nine's tricks? Could they have gotten my number from somewhere?
  
  "Please, Miss." The boy's voice was slightly more urgent. "You have to get out of the house. Miss Ruin says you have to get out right now. The bad guys might come back."
  
  That sent me out of the room, eyes wide as I pushed open the door to Hunter's room to find the empty bed. Spinning, I asked, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. "Who are you, where's H-Ruin?" Even as I peppered the voice on the phone with questions, I was moving back to my room to change to my costume, sleep forgotten. Had Hunter been unable to sleep and gone out for a walk?
  
  The anxiety in the boy's voice rose. "Pl-please, Miss Tether, she says that, to prove it's really her, you met when your brother was being an idiot and that you still can't drive. The b-bad guys took us and then we got aw-way but now they might come back for you. She says you have to get out of the house right now. She underlined it three times, Miss. You really, really need to get out right now."
  
  Dressed by then (I'd gotten a lot of practice in changing quickly), I pushed the window of my room open and glanced outside at the dark, empty street. Regardless of what the boy knew, it could still be a trap. Hell, it might not even be a little boy, for all I knew. Still, Hunter wasn't here, for whatever reason.
  
  Coming to a decision, I hopped out of the window, using a line to yank myself across the street to the roof of another house where I crouched and turned to watch Sam and Ethan's house briefly.
  
  I saw nothing out of the ordinary, but kept watching while speaking into the phone that I'd kept with me. "I'm out of the house. Where are you?" Belatedly, I remembered that, in spite of my tenseness and confusion, this was a kid. Easing my tone, I asked, "What's your name? Are you all right?"
  
  "My name's Carter, M-Miss. We're ummm, hey Erin, where are we?" There was a murmured voice from nearby, and the boy spoke a moment later, "We're by the place that Erin used to go ice skating."
  
  The old ice skating rink. It wasn't that far, maybe a ten to fifteen minute drive. Not even half that for my method of travel. "Okay, Carter. I'll be there soon. Are you guys safe?" I figured there was no point to pressing him for answers at this point. I'd get the explanation from Hunter.
  
  "We're o-okay, Miss Tether," the boy dutifully reported. "But the bad guy wanted to make Miss Ruin hurt us. He was h-hurting her so she'd hurt us, Miss, but she wouldn't. She's, umm, she's hurt now."
  
  My blood ran cold at that, and I gripped the phone tighter. "I'll be there soon. You guys stay down."
  
  Disconnecting the call after the boy promised that they would stay out of sight until I got there, I immediately used a line to yank myself back across the street, to the house next to Ethan and Sam's.
  
  Putting myself against the wall of the house, I gave the surrounding neighborhood another survey, again finding nothing. Frowning, I tapped on the window next to me a couple of times.
  
  Before long, the window slid up, and the point of a sword appeared ahead of Lily's face. She blinked at the sight of me. "What are you doing? Why are you in costume?"
  
  "What, you didn't hear?" I cocked my head to the side. "Halloween came early this year. Got any candy for me?" When my words were met by a raised eyebrow, I sobered and told her what had happened. Or at least, what I knew about it. After finishing my succinct explanation, I added, "If they might come back, you need to get the Kanse's up and out of the neighborhood."
  
  "And let you run off by yourself to find Hunter and those kids?" Lily had already moved away from the window to start changing. "It could still be a trap."
  
  "I don't think it is," I shrugged. "And besides, do we have a choice? I mean, you have to get these people moving, and no one else is around." I turned then to look out at the silent street again.
  
  "Wait, where's Pandora?" Lily asked while she slipped her costume on. "Wasn't she supposed to be watching the neighborhood? Err, one of her, at least?"
  
  My mouth opened and then shut at the question. "Shit, I forgot about that. Yeah, she... should be here. Hold on." I started to lift my wrist before remembering. "Crap, I don't have Jalopy." Turning then, I gazed out at the neighborhood. "Where would she go? I don't like this."
  
  "And I don't like the idea of you going off by yourself when anything could happen," Lily put in.
  
  I shrugged helplessly at that. "Again, do we have a choice? Hunter needs help. I can't just wait for you to take care of everyone here. We need to hurry."
  
  Behind Lily, another voice spoke up. "I can wake up mom and dad."
  
  Turning that way, the Japanese-American girl spoke quickly. "Oh, Mika. Good, yeah. Get your parents up and out of the house. Take them to, umm, PRT headquarters and let the people there know what's going on." After the younger girl bobbed her head in agreement, Lily gestured to me while sheathing her rapier. "Let's go get Hunter so she can tell us exactly what happened."
  
  I looked past her to where the youngest Ward was. "Mika, hurry. Be careful, but hurry, please."
  
  "I... I will." Mika nodded again before pivoting to run out of the room, calling, "Mom, Dad, wake up!"
  
  Once she was gone, I dropped down to the yard below and waited for Flechette to join me. Then I attached lines between each of us and the furthest building that I could see from there. "Ready?"
  
  Checking the weapons on either side of her belt, Lily nodded. "Let's go."
  
  My thoughts were rushing as I let the lines pull us away from the yard. Why had Hunter left the house? Had the Nine come and I slept through it? Where was Pandora? What was going on?
  
  And most importantly, was there a single one of those questions that I would like the answer to?
  
  We came down in the middle of the parking lot behind the old ice rink a few minutes later. We'd spent the time on the trip over contacting the overnight shift at the PRT building to let them know what was going on, and that we would be coming in with children who had been taken by the Nine.
  
  The two of us had barely landed before a young girl's voice called out, "She came!"
  
  Turning that way, I had to stumble backwards as a little brown-haired girl literally threw herself my way, colliding with me heavily while her arms wrapped around me. She was openly crying while she hugged me. "You came, you came, I knew you'd come!"
  
  "Hey, hey there." I took a knee and let the girl, who looked like she was about eight years old, hug me before looking over her shoulder to see Hunter standing with two other kids, a boy and another girl, clinging to either leg, their faces stained with tears. "Are you guys okay?"
  
  Flechette moved to kneel down next to the children that were holding onto Hunter, gently tugging the girl off the other girl's leg and into a hug of her own. "What happened to you guys?"
  
  Through tears and shaky voices, the children all explained how the scary lady with the fire had abducted them. The two girls were friends named Erin and Stacy who had been having a sleepover, and Carter, about a year older, was Erin's brother. They lived in the same general neighborhood as we did.
  
  Once we had assured the children that they were safe now and that Flechette wouldn't let anything happen to them, I left the three with the other girl and stepped a little to the side with Hunter, lowering my voice to a whisper while handing my phone to her, "Are you all right? What..." I took in her tired, sweaty, clearly pained face and flinched. "What happened?"
  
  Using my phone, Hunter typed out her explanation, passing it back and forth until I had a good idea of how the night had gone down. Even as the thought that Jack Slash had been in my home made a hard knot of fear settle into my stomach, I hugged her. Clearly it was too tight at first, because she flinched and drew back, making me cringe. "Sorry. Sorry, god, sit down, Hunter. Sit."
  
  I helped sit the girl on the nearby steps attached to the building, easing her down while she flinched at each movement. "And this Mnemosyne girl, you've never seen her before? Where'd she go?"
  
  Hunter shook her head helplessly and shrugged before wincing at even that movement. Seeing how hurt she was, I activated my comm. "Control, could you send an ambulance to our location? No lights, no siren. Ruin has been injured by repeated electrical shocks, among possible other injuries. There's also children that need to be taken into the headquarters." I gave the children's names and addresses that they had provided. "Their parents need to be contacted and brought in as well."
  
  The PRT officer on duty started to work on that, while I put a hand on Hunter's shoulder gently. "God, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that happened to you, and that I wasn't there to help. I'm so sorry." No matter how many times I said it, my apology felt weak and pointless. Hunter had been abducted from our home, right out of her bed, and I had slept through the whole thing. If she'd been killed, or been forced to kill those children, I never would've been able to forgive myself. As it was, I still felt horrible. "I shouldn't have let that happen. I should've... split the night watch with you or something so that one of us was awake. I shouldn't rely so much on Pandora to be there. I'm sorry."
  
  Hunter just shook her head and reached up to take my hand briefly. She squeezed it before giving me a thumbs up and a weak smile in an obvious attempt to show that she was fine. I knew better, but returned the hand squeeze anyway. Things could have gone a whole lot worse than they had, for which I was going to be eternally grateful to this Mnemosyne person, whoever she was.
  
  Obviously, there were more and more unanswered questions about this whole situation. But before I could think about any more of them, my comm went off and I heard Emma's voice speak very quietly.
  
  "M-Madison? Madison, a-are you there?" There was a slight hesitation before she added, "Don't worry, n-nobody else can hear over your... your ra-radio right now."
  
  Turning away from Hunter, I blinked in confusion. "Oversight, what are-is everything all right?"
  
  "N-no." Her response came back even more hesitantly. "Are y-you okay? You need to get out of the neighborhood, r-right now. Dinah already sent Riley and me to ch-check on you, but nobody's h-here."
  
  "No, get out of there." I said quickly. "Stay out of the neighborhood. Jack Slash was there, but we're okay for now." After another second, I remembered to ask, "Wait, is Pandora there with you?"
  
  "They're... busy..." Emma started to say before hesitating. "Can you meet us at o-our place? Dinah says that you sh-should come."
  
  Looking back toward Hunter, I paused before asking her, "Will you be okay here with Flechette? I'll meet you at the HQ building as soon as I find out what's going on." When the silent girl nodded, I turned my attention back to my communicator. "I'll be there in a few minutes. You're out of there, right? You're safe now?"
  
  My friend's not-terribly-encouraging response was, "As... s-safe as anybody else is."
  
  "I'll be right there."
  
  After explaining the situation to Lily and promising her that I'd be at the PRT Headquarters to go over everything as soon as I could, I had taken off. I hadn't liked the sound of Emma's voice, or the hesitation before she'd asked me to meet them.
  
  Dinah and her group weren't staying at the motel anymore, after I had warned them about the rising effort to capture Riley. Instead, they had moved to large ranch style house near the outskirts of town that had been for sale. It was pretty much right next to the forcefield that had been created to lock us in here. I wasn't sure exactly how they'd gotten the place, but Dinah had assured me that it was paid for and that no one had been hurt in the process.
  
  The house had a large field surrounding it for livestock, and a nearby rundown barn. It was in that barn that Riley and Amy did most of their experiments now, apparently.
  
  It took me a bit longer to get out there than it would have to get to the old motel, since there were fewer easy buildings to reach for long swings and launches, forcing me to mostly propel myself off of the road and various signs or utility poles for the last part of the trip. When I finally arrived, my attention was drawn immediately to the fairly large group of figures standing in a circle in the field. At a glance, it looked like a bunch of the various Pandoras, if not all of them. I'd never seen them all in one place before.
  
  Riley, Dinah, Emma, and Amy were standing a bit away from the circle, clearly deep in conversation. The latter had decided earlier to stay with them rather than at the apartment that she normally shared with Crystal.
  
  I brought myself down with a line to put myself beside them. As soon as I landed, Emma was there embracing me. She was literally shaking. "Thank god." She murmured while embracing me as tight as she could. "I th-thought you were... wh-when we couldn't find you... when... when..." She trailed off, shuddering even more.
  
  Returning the hug, still a bit confused, I assured her nonetheless, "I'm fine. They took Hunter but some... other girl saved her. She's-" I cut myself off in mid-explanation, noticing the looks on everyone's faces. "What's wrong? What happened?"
  
  It was apparently Riley's turn for a hug then, her arms tight around me while the former Slaughterhouse Nine member actually sniffed a little. "I thought Jack took you away. I thought he took you away because I left, because I told him that you were my hero."
  
  "Oh Riley." I gave the girl a real hug then. "No. Nothing Jack does is your fault. It's his fault. You're trying to be a better person, and you have a lot to feel sorry for, but not that. Don't feel bad for what Jack does."
  
  The younger girl stepped back, letting Amy take her turn for a hug, murmuring, "I'm glad you're okay."
  
  I stared for a moment at the obvious tear tracks on Amy's face, then looked toward Dinah just as she hugged me as well. The always-in-control girl looked anything but just then. She had obviously been crying, and the sight of that scared me more than anything else had so far.
  
  "Guys... what's wrong?" I reached up to tug my mask off, staring back and forth at all of them. "What's going on, why is everyone so upset? What are the Pandoras doing?"
  
  "Mourning." Amy said quietly, her voice hoarse.
  
  "Mourning?" I echoed, confused. "Who are they mourning?"
  
  It was Dinah who spoke, her voice even softer than Amy's had been. "Two of themselves. Eta and Rho."
  
  "Wh-What?" I stammered, staring at them. "What do you mean?"
  
  Amy turned slightly to look at the circle of Pandoras while responding. "Eta and Rho were watching over your house tonight. They were attacked by... by Hatchet Face. He... his power turned theirs off, and he.." She closed her eyes.
  
  I covered my mouth with a hand. "But... they just... reform, don't they? They weren't using anyone else's powers besides their own."
  
  Dinah shook her head, the tears starting anew. "No. Their powers were off when he... when Hatchet Face... they couldn't reform because they were... k-killed when... when their powers were gone. It..."
  
  She couldn't go on, and it was Amy who finished for her. "It erased them from the Pandora collective."
  
  My eyes were wide as I pressed my hand tighter over my mouth, staring at the group in stunned horror.
  
  Not only were we trapped in here with Slaughterhouse Nine, but at least one of their members was capable of killing any Pandora they met... permanently.
  
  25.02
  
  I felt like a stranger, disconnected from my own body even as I walked to where the sixteen Pandoras stood in their circle. I had never seen all of them in one place at the same time before. My eyes passed over each of them in turn, taking in the differences among those who had taken individual forms, while my mind struggled with the thought that they could be vulnerable, that they weren't entirely immortal.
  
  I had fallen into the same trap that so many civilians most likely felt about the capes who protected them. I had seen the Pandoras as unstoppable, as an automatic win button that would bypass and ignore every possible threat. Even just having them as a bodyguard had led to me ignoring the simplest concept of not sleeping at home in a location that might have been compromised, or taking turns sleeping with Hunter so that one of us could be awake at all times. I'd dismissed such thoughts, just because there was Pandora, whom I had become reliant on being able to beat anyone.
  
  All of that and more was on my mind as I stopped a few feet away from the circle, not wanting to barge in. Part of me wanted to say something, but a larger part felt like I should wait until they wanted to talk.
  
  A couple of minutes passed before the nearest Pandora, who had taken the form of a girl of middle eastern descent in her late teens, turned toward me. Her brown eyes studied me for a moment before she spoke. "Tether-Friend, we are..." She trailed off, looking utterly lost for a few seconds, as though she had lost track of what she was going to say. I saw something glisten in her eyes briefly before she blinked a couple times. "We are not whole."
  
  Having no idea what to say or do for a moment, I just stared. "I..." My words failed me entirely.
  
  In the face of my silence, the Middle Eastern Pandora spoke again. "We are missing. Two of us. Two of we are... missing. Our minds, our thoughts, our choices... we have... grown... together. We cannot..." The glistening in her eyes turned to genuine tears through her words, and she touched her eyes with one hand before looking at the dampness on her fingers as though unsure of where it had come from. Her voice turned even softer then. "We cannot feel them anymore. We cannot feel them, Tether-Friend. We cannot hear them. They are... gone. They are gone and we... we are... less."
  
  My throat closed up and I took two more quick steps that way before embracing the other girl. "I'm sorry," I managed to get out after several long seconds. "I'm so sorry..." I trailed off then, realizing as I had started to address the girl that I didn't know her name. I didn't know which one she was, and that realization on its own was enough to make me hate myself just a little bit more than I already did. After everything they did for me, I still didn't know all of their individual forms by sight. And in the next moment, the very thought that I didn't know what forms Rho or Eta had chosen before they'd been killed made me feel like the lowest form of life imaginable. I released the other girl from my embrace.
  
  The Pandora that I didn't know stepped back after I released her, head tilted slightly while her eyes lowered, downcast. "We have done something wrong, to make you withdraw."
  
  My eyes widened at that, and I shook my head quickly. "What? No, no you didn't. I just... I keep thinking about how I didn't really know them, and how I don't really know enough about any of you. I mean, you do so much to help me, and I take it for granted. I..." Lifting my hands, I put them on either side of her face to make her look at me. "You did nothing wrong. I just wish I that I'd taken the time to know more about them. I..." Flinching, I admitted, "I don't even know what you call yourself."
  
  Those dark, sad eyes stared me for several long seconds before she spoke again. "This... iteration is called Theta, Tether-Friend. We..." She hesitated, taking a moment to form the clearly unfamiliar word. "... I... have spoken to you during the water-beast's intrusion into the city."
  
  I thought for a second then before offering quietly, "You're the one that saved me, the one that flew?" When she nodded, I embraced her again. "I'm sorry about Rho and Eta, Theta. I... I wish I knew what to say. I wish I knew what to tell you that could make it better, but... but I..." My eyes closed then as I thought about the other people that I'd lost to those monsters. Katherine and Dean had been murdered, and there hadn't even been time to properly grieve for them. We couldn't grieve until this was done, until the Nine were no longer a threat. They were dead, and we weren't allowed to even think about that fact for longer than a moment. If we did, if I did, I'd just... shut down. And then the Nine would win.
  
  And it wasn't just them. The Slaughterhouse Nine had murdered so many people, had orchestrated so much death and destruction, had ruined so many lives for their own entertainment that the actual body count (Or as close as could be made considering the way the Nine operated) was physically staggering. They had killed over fifty people and posed them in front of just one of the shield generators, just to mock us. There hadn't been a reason or a purpose behind it other than to show that they could, to show that we were helpless to stop them. Or, more accurately, to show the city around us that we were helpless, that we couldn't save them from the monsters. They were conducting a war on every front, physical and psychological, and they wouldn't be happy until they destroyed everything.
  
  And Hunter. They had abducted Hunter, had tortured her and would still be torturing her, all to make the other girl into their weapon. They wanted her to kill for them, had tried to force her to kill innocent kids for no reason other than to break her spirit so that she would kill even more whenever they wanted.
  
  "You are angry, Tether-Friend." Theta observed quietly as she watched me.
  
  Forcing myself to let out a long, low breath, I straightened and looked up to find all of the Pandoras staring at me, unblinking. They looked to me as though I should have answers that explained what they were feeling, that would give some meaning to their grief. They hadn't just lost a teammate or a friend. They had had part of themselves that was even closer than a twin cut away. Two people, two real people who had literally grown up with them over the past several months since their creation, whose every thought and opinion had been mixed with theirs, were gone. Theta had said it herself, they weren't whole anymore. Eighteen distinct individual personalities, people, had spent every moment since their 'birth' connected to one another. As relatively short as their lives might have been to an outsider, it was their whole lives. Every thought they'd had, every little triumph and bit of growth along their journey to become real individuals, real people, had been made with two others who were no longer there. Two parts of their whole were gone and would never come back.
  
  Just another thing that Jack Slash had ruined.
  
  "Yes," I agreed. "I'm very angry. I..." My mouth went dry as sixteen pairs of eyes, some filled with confusion, others with anger, and more with grief, continued to stare back at me. "I'm sorry." I spoke loud enough for all of them to hear. "I'm so, so sorry. I shouldn't be interrupting you right now."
  
  Another Pandora that I didn't know, this one a pale girl with short, spiky black hair spoke up. "We have named you Friend." She corrected me, as though it was the most natural, obvious thing in the world. "Your presence will never be unwanted, or unappreciated."
  
  "Alpha-Self is correct." Iota, the Asian Pandora that I knew, agreed before adding, "We do not name as friends those who we do not wish to be near, even while..." Her head tilted then as she sought the word.
  
  The tall, black Pandora that I knew as Zeta supplied, "Even while we are grieving."
  
  Before I could even try to find a response to all that, another pair of arms encircled me. I blinked down to find that one of the Pandoras had taken the initiative and was hugging me all on her own.
  
  "Lambda," I wrapped my arms around her in return and hugged her back, as tightly as I could. I didn't want her to be grieving. God, not Lambda. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her to be giving me one of those wide, goofy smiles as she told stupid jokes. Please. Please just tell stupid jokes so I can groan again while inwardly laughing. Please. Don't take Lambda's perfect silliness away. I wanted to see her fall all over herself at the very mention of a pickle. I wanted her to be the Lambda I knew, not a sad, grieving little girl who clearly didn't understand what she was feeling.
  
  The small blonde figure of Gamma had joined her sister by that point, both of them embracing me from either side while my heart cracked just a little bit more.
  
  After a few moments that way, the two of them released me and stepped back to make room for Alpha and Iota. Two by two, each of the Pandoras came to take their turn for a hug. I exchanged a few words with each, trying to give them what pathetically little peace or understanding that I could.
  
  Finally, all sixteen Pandoras stood in a semi-circle around me, and I let out a long breath while meeting each of their gazes. "Guys... I... I'm sorry. I'm sorry about Rho and Eta, I'm so sorry. I wish I could... make it better. I wish I knew what to say. I don't... know anything really. But I know... that they aren't going to get away with this. For Katherine and Dean, for Rho and Eta, and for everyone else they've killed... they're going to pay. I swear it. I swear to all of you right now, I will not let them get away with it. Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do, they'll pay for it. They... will... pay."
  
  It wasn't enough, of course, to do much toward easing their grief. I spoke with all of them, trying to get to know them as individuals for another few minutes before leaving them to their sort-of memorial. Amy passed me, touching my shoulder briefly in thanks before she moved to speak to the Pandoras herself.
  
  By the time I turned away from them, my fists were clenched once more. I was so furious, so blindly angry, that I nearly launched myself upward with no thought other than finding Jack and punching him until there was nothing left. I wanted him to be the one that was hurt for once. I wanted him to suffer.
  
  It was Riley who stopped me. Her hand caught my arm, and I saw her staring at me with more understanding than I had previously thought her capable of. "Don't," she said quietly. "Don't run off without thinking. Don't get... mad and try to confront him. That's what he wants. Believe me, that's really what he wants. If you stop thinking, if you stop planning and just react, you'll... you'll be doing exactly what he wants you to do. That's... that's why he does it. He pushes until you're so blind with anger that you can't... think. I know. Trust me, that's what he's doing, and he has a plan. Believe me, please, please believe me. He has a plan and if you run out like this, if you run into him and just try to fight because you're angry, he'll beat you. Please listen to me, because this is just what he wants."
  
  For a long moment, I stared at the younger girl while she continued to cling to my arm, staring up at me pleadingly. My gaze moved off of her, to the mask that I still held, before I nodded. "I understand. But I can't just sit here. I have to try to stop him, Riley. I have to try. You... you guys help Pandora. If you have a plan to deal with any of the Nine, get working on it. I have to keep moving."
  
  Before I could move, however, Emma spoke up. "I'll go with you."
  
  I blinked that way, hesitating. "Emma, are you..."
  
  The other girl's voice was as firm as I had heard it since she had finally admitted what we did to Taylor. "I... I can help with th-this. I can do some real good. I can, and I will. I swear... I can do it. I know I screwed up before by not getting the field taken down in time, but I can do better. I swear I can do better if you give me another chance. Please, I can't sit here and do nothing while this is going on. That's... wrong. So please let me help. Tell me how to help."
  
  Wincing, I shook my head. "That wasn't your fault any more than it was Flechette's, Emma." I assured her as emphatically as I could. Lily had been a mess right after that whole thing had gone down. She had been convinced that every single death that happened from the moment that she destroyed that shield generator and ended up breaking the system that would have allowed Emma to take down the field would now be her fault. That was part of the reason that everyone had gone home to go to bed, to let her sleep off the crushing sense of failure. As if something like that could just be 'slept off.' But what other choice did we have at the time? When this was all over, for better or for worse, then we could have our real emotional breakdowns.
  
  Then, of course, I had woken her up with the news that our neighborhood was being invaded. And what had she done? She'd snapped right into business mode, as if none of her doubt had existed. She had shut it away, compartmentalizing it for the time being in order to do her job.
  
  And yet I knew, in spite of the fact that she hadn't mentioned it again, that Lily still blamed herself for what was happening now. She would keep that running tally of deaths that happened from the moment that she destroyed that generator until all of this was done, seeing all of them as her fault.
  
  Shaking off those thoughts, while inwardly vowing to talk to Lily the next chance I got, I focused on my other friend for now. "Definitely not your fault. But... if you still want to help... I'm glad, because Scion knows we could use all the help we can get."
  
  "I do. I'll help, wh-whatever it takes." Emma straightened, giving me a firm nod. She hadn't crumpled in the face of something that could kill Pandora. Instead, she had gotten angry. Angry enough to ignore her fear and volunteer to do something that no one would have expected even six months earlier. Emma Barnes was volunteering to risk her life to fight the bad guys, people who would do much worse than kill her if they ever had a chance. She was willingly putting herself in front of that danger, not for thrills or reputation, but simply because it was the right thing to do.
  
  And that is why I believe that people can change, that every wrong choice we make does not preclude us from ever making the right one.
  
  "Okay, Emma. You're coming with me then." I looked back toward Dinah. "Are you going to be okay here with the Pandoras?"
  
  The younger girl had mostly put aside her emotion, but I could still see the dampness in her eyes as she nodded. "Riley, Amy, and I can take care of them. Just give them some time."
  
  "Of course," I agreed. "Just help them, whatever it takes, whatever they need." Pausing, I added, "I do need to ask you for one more thing."
  
  While she listened, I told her what I was going to need.
  
  The sun was coming up by the time I set myself and Emma down on a building roof half an hour later. We could see it through the faint blue shield, which cast a distinct glow over everything. The city itself was eerily quiet, as most people refused to come out of their houses for fear of attracting the Nine's attention. Brockton Bay would have resembled a ghost town, if it hadn't been for the roving looters and apocalyptic cult types going around. I'd dealt with the few that I could, but my focus had been on getting here. I had, however, taken great pains to rip down every 'Slaughterhouse City' sign that I had seen, though the graffiti messages to the same effect had been too much to deal with for the moment.
  
  "A-are you sure this is a good idea?" Emma asked from her place next to me. She was wearing her faceplate mask, and was surrounded by half a dozen remote control trucks with various items attached to them, while just as many modified toy helicopters hovered above and around us. The helicopters had actually carried the trucks with attached hooks while we passed through the city on our way here.
  
  "Don't worry, Oversight," I reassured her. "The Nine know that Ruin escaped. There's no way they'd stick around and risk letting us know where they are. They're cocky, but they're not that stupid."
  
  "On the contrary, my dear." A voice spoke from behind the two of us, and we turned to see a female figure floating there. Her body was entirely covered by a series of tiny shards of glass that were intricately connected, and seemed to flow outward and down like a gown or a robe. Meanwhile, the top half of her head was covered by a helmet that was made of colored glass, obscuring her features.
  
  Shatterbird, floating right there in front of us, waved a finger back and forth. "I believed that this would be an excellent opportunity for us to have a conversation."
  
  25.03
  
  "A conversation, huh?" I tried to think quickly, instinctively putting myself between Shatterbird and Oversight. "Unless that conversation includes the words 'I surrender unconditionally, please arrest my ridiculous hyelophobia-inducing ass right now', I don't think we want to hear it."
  
  "H-Hyelophobia?" Emma echoed without looking away from the menacing woman floating there.
  
  "Fear of glass," I supplied. "I looked it up, just in case."
  
  "Ah, I see the confusion." Shatterbird interrupted, shaking her head slowly. Twin spirals of glass swirled around the woman, some casting reflections while others remained transparent. "I do not wish to speak to both of you. You are the one I was waiting for. She..." Her gaze took in Emma a bit critically before she shrugged. "She is unnecessary, a mere distraction." A warning tone entered her voice then. "You may either willingly speak with me now, or I can... remove such distractions."
  
  Four of Emma's remote control helicopters hovered up and around the woman, tiny guns emerging from the noses while she spoke quietly, "I m-might be a bigger distraction than you think."
  
  "Not so." Shatterbird replied dismissively, waving a hand. When nothing happened from her obvious attempt to destroy the electronics inside the drones, she paused and examined Emma for another moment before speaking again. "Most interesting. I believe that you would be the girl who allowed the Protectorate access to the Birdcage after they were locked out of it, correct? Perhaps a conversation may include you after all."
  
  "N-No thank you." Emma's voice was a bit shaky as she replied. "I already let one selfish, egocentric psy-psycho girl turn me into a morally rep-reprehensible piece of sh-shit with her warped worldview. Doing it ag-again would just feel, like, incredible passé, you know?" By the end, the other girl's tone had taken on something resembling the cliché popular girl voice that I was intimately familiar with.
  
  "A shame." Shatterbird didn't sound all that upset as she turned her attention back to me. "Thankfully, you are the one that the offer was meant for, in any case."
  
  "What offer?" I asked carefully, trusting Emma to have her drones keep an eye out in case there were any other surprises. "Because again, the only thing I'm really interested in is you surrendering."
  
  Shatterbird ignored that, pressing on. "We have had two teammembers stolen from us. We believe that you are in contact with those who are responsible. We will extend this offer one time. Give both of them back to us, and we will leave this city without any further violence, and will never return so long as Jack Slash leads the Slaughterhouse Nine."
  
  "Sure," I made an exaggerated nodding motion. "I'm totally going to sell out a friend on the word of a bunch of murderous psychopaths whose idea of a fun time is genocide. That couldn't backfire."
  
  "A friend..." Shatterbird spoke slowly, her tone curious. "Interesting. Well, I suppose that leads to our second solution." Glass shards rose up on either side of her like twin vipers, poised to strike. "You will both come with me, and your lives will be traded for those of our teammates."
  
  Emma stiffened beside me. I glanced to her expecting fear, but her mouth was set in a hard line. "I'm okay." Her voice was remarkably steady under the circumstances.
  
  Nodding at that, I turned back to Shatterbird. "I've got a better idea. How about we knock you out, then drag you into a containment cell back with the PRT so you can tell us where Jack and the others are?"
  
  "It seems that the reports of your tendency toward flippant monologue in the face of danger are quite accurate." Shatterbird observed. "I wonder just how far that attitude will carry you in the face of what we will bring upon this city."
  
  An instant after the woman spoke, I reacted. Attaching a pair of lines from Emma and myself to the roof below us, I used them to hurl the two of us upward and back, away from Shatterbird. The lines threw us a good hundred feet into the air at the single shove, while Emma yelped in surprise.
  
  To her credit, however, she wasn't that much longer in reacting. Even as the lines released us, I saw a trio of the other girl's drone helicopters fly in. Before my eyes, the main rotors of what had appeared to be ordinary children's toys stopped spinning and slid together into a single blade which then retracted into the body. Meanwhile, the tail end slid inward and apart so that each half covered one side of the helicopter's body. Doing so revealed what looked like a glowing blue flashlight that hummed with energy sticking out of the back of the helicopter, the true source of its ability to fly and lift much heavier objects than an ordinary remote control would have.
  
  Once the three 'toys' had finished shifting into their altered state, they flipped over vertically and flew in, attaching themselves to a barely noticeable set of hooks that poked through holes in the back of Emma's otherwise fairly ordinary looking clothes. Clearly, she was wearing some kind of armor beneath the camouflage of the simple outfit that the 'toys' were designed to attach themselves to. One by one, the helicopters set themselves into their slots, two down near her waist on either side, and one further up around the middle of her back.
  
  The whole process took only a couple of seconds, and once it was over, Emma stopped falling. The transformed toys acted as a flight pack, holding her aloft. It was incredibly impressive to see, marred only slightly by the audible sob of relief that the girl made once it was over.
  
  "It worked?" Emma looked around quickly as she hovered there. I couldn't see her entire expression through the faceplate, but her mouth was open with surprise that belied what had looked like a completely practiced maneuver. She gaped and stammered, "I-it worked!"
  
  By that time, I had used another line to toss myself to the nearest roof away from where we had been. Gravity, unfortunately, still affected me. It did not, however, seem to affect Shatterbird, who was still floating above the spot we had been while lazily stretching her arm out to send what looked like a massive scythe of gathered shards of glass through the air where Emma was. The red warning line was hardly necessary at that point.
  
  "Oversight, back!" I shouted the warning while attaching a tether between my gauntlet and the other girl's pants. The line yanked her out of the glass scythe's path and back toward me a second before the animated shards would have cut through her.
  
  "O-oh..." Emma was breathing a little harder now as she floated next to where I stood, while the helicopters-turned-flight pack adjusted to her new position after I had literally yanked her a good thirty feet or so. "Right... b-bad guy, got it. Sorry, I-" Abruptly, the girl's hand caught mine and yanked me up and off the roof as a storm of glass shards rained down to shatter like hail where we had just been.
  
  We came down on the next roof over, and I twisted around at the sight of another red line attaching itself to Emma, just in time to see one of those serpent-shaped spinning glass constructs lash our way. The thing had grown, taking in broken glass from up and down the neighborhood until it was as large as a crane arm, crashing down toward us with a thousand sharp, jagged pieces.
  
  Reacting quickly, I attached a line from the nearby smokestack on the roof to the furthest bit of glass that I could see. A hard tug on the line literally tore the top couple of feet of the smokestack off the body with an earsplitting screech of grinding metal before the heavy pipe was sent careening through the incoming construct, shattering more and more glass as it went.
  
  Unfortunately, the glass shards simply came back together almost as quickly as they were broken. They were smaller, but that didn't matter as much when Shatterbird could just reform and hold them together. Still, it was a second of time that gave us a chance to get off the roof. We split up around the attack without discussion or prompting. I launched myself up and to the right, while Emma let her new hoverpack send her to the left so that the psychopath would have to split her focus.
  
  Catching a line against the roof we had started on, I let it pull me in about halfway before attaching two more lines from the metal balls on my shoulders, all the way in to Shatterbird's chest. The metal orbs flew off their slots and crashed through more of the shards that were swirling in to protect the woman. The sound of shattering glass was deafening, as more and more of it was brought in, eventually creating enough of a barrier that I couldn't push it through.
  
  That was all right though. The balls had been a distraction. A second after Shatterbird had them under control, the new line that I had attached between myself and the woman carried me bodily into her. She had brought so much of her glass in to block my first attack, that I was able to throw myself through the opening that she left, grunting as the force of my airborne tackle carried us out of the air to crash down onto the roof below.
  
  Shatterbird rolled away from me rather quickly, barely seeming to notice the impact. She came to her feet and easily sidestepped the low kick that I had spun around into from where I had fallen.
  
  A new storm of glass erupted toward me at a single wave from the woman's hand, but before it could reach me, one of the remote control trucks rolled forward and into its path. What looked like a tiny barrel popped up out of the trucks hood, emitting a concussive wave that shattered the incoming glass and sent it spraying away before the woman could get it under control.
  
  Two more of the trucks parked themselves on either side of me, while Shatterbird cast a glance to the spot where Oversight was hovering. She made a considering noise for just a second, before waving a hand. At her gesture, there was cacophonous explosion of noise as every bit of glass within several blocks tore its way up into several constructs. There was a simple tornado, another serpent, and more spikes and blades of glass of various sizes than I could count. All of them converged on the spot in the air where my friend was.
  
  And yet, no warning line appeared. Emma hovered there in the sky, three of her remaining helicopters arrayed around her, and didn't move. As the various constructs of glass came in at her from every angle, the helicopters all pivoted, taking more concussive shots that blew apart the glass repeatedly every time one of them got close enough. The glass kept reforming to attack from more sides in an attempt to get past Oversight's defense, but Emma appeared to have eyes in the back of her head. No matter what angle the glass came from, a helicopter was always there to meet it with a blast of force that knocked it away and broke them into increasingly smaller fragments.
  
  Seemingly ignoring her failure to hurt the flying girl, Shatterbird took advantage of my brief distraction to send more glass toward me. I would have reacted too late, but a new concussive blast from the truck on my right shattered the incoming shards and blew them away.
  
  In spite of myself, I was surprised at how much the other girl was able to pay attention to at once. Somehow she was maintaining control of the helicopters that had attached themselves to her back to keep herself aloft, while using the ones that she had around her to deal with any and all of the repeated attacks coming at her from all sides, and still controlling the trucks that she had put near me. I had absolutely no idea how it was even possible for her to divide her attention that much, but it didn't even really seem to be that hard for her. She was controlling all of them at the same time, somehow focusing on everything at once. It was a kind of multitasking that I'd never seen before.
  
  And I didn't waste any more time before taking advantage of that. Before Shatterbird could reform more glass constructs after the last concussive wave, I threw myself forward. She swept a scythe of glass toward me, but I used a line to give myself a bit of a boost, carrying me over it and into a roll that brought me right in front of the woman. Getting my feet underneath myself, I came up, extending my gauntlet in front of myself into a punch that caught Shatterbird across the face and sent her stumbling backward, bleeding from the mouth.
  
  We stopped like that, for just a second, while the woman touched the blood on her face. She glanced at the red smear dripping from her fingers as though unsure of what it was. Then her mouth set into a grimace that told me she was finally taking this seriously.
  
  The way she came at me then supported that theory. Her leg swept up and around in a kick that looked elegant and casual, belying its deadliness. I managed to duck away from it, yet still felt a sharp stab of pain in my arm that made me gasp and stumble slightly before looking down at the spot of red that stained my costume.
  
  Now I was bleeding. The woman had kicked at me, but her kick had also been accompanied by the glass that surrounded her and made up the woman's costume. The shards kept extending and retracting with each motion, creating an effect that was reminiscent of Leviathan's afterimage of water that followed that giant beast around. In the woman's case, even after she had finished throwing a punch or a kick, the air around the punch wasn't safe as several dozen shards of glass could pass through it a second later. It was like fighting someone whose attacks carried on for a couple of seconds after each strike, and for whom even the act of dodging was also an attack, as her motions left more jagged shards in the path of any incoming attack.
  
  Grimacing at that, I cracked my neck to either side and prepared myself before launching myself forward. I had to go on the offensive, in spite of how dangerous it was. I couldn't let her focus too long on Emma. No matter how well my friend could multitask, eventually she would make a mistake, or not react fast enough. I couldn't let that happen.
  
  Shatterbird in combat moved like another of her swirling tornadoes of glass. It was a smooth, flowing motion that would have reminded me of a dance, if it hadn't been intended to slice me apart.
  
  Her arm lashed around, and I ducked beneath it, maintaining the duck long enough to avoid the glass that trailed after it. Then I rose and lashed out with a kick that made the woman stumble backward, just before she sent a dozen shards of glass toward my face to make me recoil. That was followed up with a series of increasingly fast strikes that took all of my focus to protect myself from. Her hands were like striking cobras, lashing out almost too quickly for me to see. Still, I blocked everything that I could, and avoided most of the rest. She was incredibly fast, but I had been trained by several of the best that the Protectorate had to offer.
  
  Her fist lashed toward my face, supported by two shards of glass like daggers. I twisted my head away from the shards, caught her wrist on the side of my gauntlet to knock it aside, and drove my knee up into her stomach with as much force as I could muster. Her glass armor protected her from most of the damage (as did her upgrades from when Riley had been Bonesaw, I assumed), but it still made her stumble slightly, throwing off her rhythm. Unfortunately, she recovered just as quickly, catching my follow-up kick against her own arm before chopping toward my neck with glass-laced fingers that I barely managed to duck backwards away from. The shards still graced across my chest, glancing off the armor there.
  
  We went back and forth like that. Sometimes she was on the offensive and I could barely keep up with her, while other times I managed to throw a punch or two that threw her off.
  
  Yet it couldn't go on that way. Every time I blocked, more of my costume got cut through. The armored parts could take most of it, but the padded cloth was taking a beating. I felt several more sharp stings, and knew that I would have been incapacitated already if it wasn't for the uniform I wore. The glass was able to cut through even the reinforced cloth of my costume, but by the time it did there wasn't much left to cut me with. I was only taking a small fraction of the damage that I should have been, but it was still damage. I was bleeding from several places, and I hadn't managed a solid enough blow to put her down.
  
  Grimacing from yet another glancing cut, I finally extended myself too far. Shatterbird caught hold of my arm and twisted it around to expose the unarmored inner part before driving her knee up and into it.
  
  I went briefly blind as a shock of pain shot through me as my arm was broken, and I fell to my knees. I must have cried out because I heard Emma call to me.
  
  Every motion sent pain through my arm, but I managed to bring my other arm up and smack Shatterbird's hand away from me. Then I gathered two lines to launch myself upward and back, far into the air while cradling my injured arm in against my stomach as best as I could.
  
  The woman was after me a second later, my moment of weakness alerting her like a shark that smelled blood in the water. Emma took the time to blast more of the woman's glass constructs away to catch her attention, but the monster only had eyes for me.
  
  It was harder to propel myself through the city that way, when every movement made pain shoot through my arm. But I managed it, using my good arm to yank myself over several city blocks while Shatterbird stayed right on my tail. It would have been worse, I knew, without the breaker effect that protected me from the worst of the effects of the lines yanking me around.
  
  Finally, I dropped out of the sky, crashing through the upper window of an old church before tumbling into an utterly graceless roll that made me cry out even more as my arm was jostled.
  
  Before I could rise again, Shatterbird flew in through the opening I had made. She landed easily, stepping on the glass that covered the floor from the previously broken windows that had been shattered by the Nine's announcement of their presence in the city. As she moved forward, the shards lifted off the floor, forming into another viper construct.
  
  "You have tried your best," she announced. "Now you will surrender and allow Jack to have his fun."
  
  Rolling onto my back with a grimace of pain, I managed, "Actually, I'm still stuck on my first idea. We knock you out and drag you in for questioning."
  
  "Flippant as always," the woman observed. "Even in the face of cowardly retreat." She brought her hand down in a gesture that sent the glass viper lashing down toward my face... where it stopped short.
  
  The glass viper remained locked in place, a few inches in front of me, in spite of Shatterbird's gestures and obvious confusion.
  
  "See... that's where you're wrong." I got my feet underneath myself and stood, albeit shakily on tired legs. "I wasn't retreating. It was just the best chance we had to get you where we wanted you. Reach?"
  
  Cassie emerged from the shadows of the church then, her arms outstretched as she maintained her focus on the viper construct. "What do you know?" She remarked, as flippant as I probably sounded. "Looks like my power does outrank yours after I've touched every bit of glass in the building."
  
  The glass viper broke apart, all of the pieces flying backwards to encase the woman. Within seconds, she was covered from her toes all the way up to her shoulders with an unyielding, unmoving suit of glass armor that even she couldn't manipulate as long as Reach kept using her power to hold them in place.
  
  "See, I have a little friend that let us know who we were going to run into if we came to your old hideout." I explained. "So we were actually ready for you. Or, you know, getting ready for you, in Reach's case."
  
  "And," Emma floated down through the window opening and hovered there. "I just had to call ahead to let her know that you were coming so that she could get out of s-sight."
  
  "So..." I was still panting, barely able to stay standing while I lifted my arm to aim at the immobilized woman. "With all due respect, you vicious, vile little piece of shit... I think we'll stick with my plan."
  
  The knockout dart shot off of my gauntlet, embedding itself into Shatterbird's exposed neck as she was held still, trapped within the confines of the same material that she had used to kill so many people. A second later, she was out.
  
  25.04
  
  "It looks like you lost a fight with a blender," Amy observed about an hour later. The two of us were sitting in the Wards locker room in the PRT building so that she could heal the injuries I'd taken while fighting Shatterbird. Aside from the broken arm, I'd lost a fair bit of blood from the dozens of cuts that the crazy glass manipulator had inflicted before we finally managed to bring her down.
  
  I made myself scoff at that. "I'll have you know I actually won that blender fight, thank you very much." After a second, I amended, "Okay so Reach and Oversight won it as much as I did. I would've been dead if it wasn't for both of them. Or worse, in Jack's tender care."
  
  Both of us shuddered at that thought, and I gave another silent thanks to my companions through that fight. I also thanked the fact that neither of them had needed healing. Cassie had gone to be debriefed, while Emma was apparently waiting in the cafeteria.
  
  Seeing a worry line cross Amy's face a moment later, I asked, "How are the Pandoras doing?"
  
  She flinched at the question. "Not good. I don't think they ever really had to think about being mortal, about losing... a part of themselves. It's like..." She paused before shrugging helplessly. "I don't think there's a good comparison. I'd say it's like losing a twin, but it's even worse than that. Rho and Eta were a part of them. Their united thought process, it's all... messed up now without eighteen different inputs. They're lost and reeling. That and the grief... I don't know what's going to happen."
  
  "And you want to be there," I realized, "where you can help them get through it." Cringing at the thought that I had dragged her away, I offered, "I'm sorry, Amy. I could've waited for-"
  
  She shook her head and interrupted my apology. "Don't worry about it." It took the other girl a moment to go on, and ever few words was punctuated by hesitant silence while she sought the right thing to say. "I was in here anyway. Panacea can't disappear when something like this is going on, no matter how much Amy Dallon wants to sit with her sisters and help them get through their grief."
  
  I was fully healed by that point, and looked down at the tattered remains of my costume, held together mostly by the armored portions. Even those were pretty heavily scuffed and scratched. "At least we've got one of them." My voice was soft, knowing that wasn't much help under the circumstances.
  
  Even if I had thought that would be any help at all, it would have been quashed by the other girl's next words. Looking away from me, she murmured, "I wish Vicky was here."
  
  The words made me cringe, but it wasn't surprising. Losing two of her new sisters had to remind the girl of the loss of the sister that she had actually grown up with. After hesitating slightly, I reached out to take the girl's hand. "I'm sorry, Amy. I wish Vicky was here too. I wish..." I blinked a few times rapidly before shaking my head with a sigh. "I wish a lot of things, but that's one of the biggest." Squeezing her limp hand, I spoke softly. "We could all really use a little glory right about now."
  
  Amy remained quiet for several long seconds, looking away from me. When she finally spoke, her voice was so soft that I had to lean a little closer to hear properly. "Stop these guys, Madison." Taking in a long, deep breath, she straightened to look my way finally. "Whatever it takes, put them down. You don't... save these ones. They're not lost puppies that you need to rescue and convert. If you try, if you give them an inch, they'll kill you. They'll kill you and I can't... I can't lose another friend, Madison. I just can't. So whatever it takes, whatever you have to do, you do it. End it. End them."
  
  Swallowing a little, I gave a tiny shake of my head. "I'm pretty sure it's not going to come down to my decision, Amy. I'm just one more cape in a city that's still got a lot of them."
  
  The look that Amy shot me was doubtful. "I'm no Thinker, but I'll tell you this much. However this ends up going down, whatever happens, it's going to involve you. I don't know how, but it will. You're the one that Riley came here to find and Jack knows that. You're the one that he wanted to pass the 'offer' to trade her and the Siberian for the city's safety to. He's got his eyes on you, Madison, and that... scares me. It terrifies the shit out of me, Mads. Either way, it means that you're going to be important to however this ends up going down. And I'm telling you, do not let them get away with this. End them."
  
  I knew what she was saying. Amy wanted no more arrests, no more captures. She wanted the Slaughterhouse Nine dead, and she was flat out asking me to make sure that happened.
  
  Before I could come up with a response to that, the door opened and Lily walked in alongside Missy and Mika. They all gave my shredded costume a once over before collectively flinching.
  
  Recovering first, Missy made a tutting noise while shaking her head. "They are never going to approve this new fashion direction of yours. Ooh, does Sundancer know about it?"
  
  Jumping in on that, Mika used the flight bracelets she was still wearing in spite of not being in costume to float off the ground, inverting so that her head was facing the floor. Sometimes I thought the younger girl enjoyed being upside down more than right side up. "If she doesn't, can we save pictures?"
  
  Rolling my eyes, I pushed myself to my feet. "Yeah, yeah, I get it. I've got another one." Crossing to my locker, I opened it up and took out the fresh costume, though I didn't put it on yet. I wanted to shower first. "Do you know if Shatterbird has been taken care of?"
  
  "Yeah, she's locked down." Lily took the seat beside Amy and stretched out with a yawn. "Director Simms wants to talk to you about that." She gestured vaguely to me. "And some other stuff, I think."
  
  I wanted to ask Lily how she was doing with everything that had happened. I wanted to take the time to try and reassure her, again, that the shield still being up wasn't her fault. I was afraid that she was just compartmentalizing too much, trying to hide her real feelings until the crisis was dealt with. Worse, I was afraid that doing so was going to make her more reckless, prone to either waste her own life or try something desperate to make up for what she thought she'd done wrong. There were any number of things that I wanted to say, but the right words wouldn't come. And without the exact right thing to say, I was afraid of bringing it up. But as I looked at the Asian girl sitting there looking tired and despondent, I knew that I had to say something .
  
  My mouth opened to do just that, but Mika spoke first. "Miss... ummm, I mean, Madison?" When I looked that way, she made a twitching motion with her finger. "Can I talk to you?"
  
  "Err," I glanced down at the costume in my hands, then looked toward the showers. "Of course, just let me get umm..."
  
  Snorting at my indecision, Amy pushed herself up, hooking an arm around Lily's to make her rise as well. "Come on you two." She gestured with her free hand toward Missy to include her. "The healer needs food to refuel. Care to escort me?"
  
  While the other two headed out, Missy hesitated long enough to look at me. "You should've killed her." Her voice was quiet, but firm, and her gaze was locked on mine. "They killed Dean and Katherine. They don't get to walk away from that, or from anything else that they've done."
  
  "They won't," I assured her after a second. "I promise, Missy, they're not going to walk away from it."
  
  The younger girl held my gaze briefly before giving the slightest of nods, though I wasn't sure how convinced she actually was. "I'm glad you're okay, Mads."
  
  I managed something resembling a grin, trying to ease the Nine-induced tension that we were feeling. "Hey, I've gotta be okay. After all, we've still got the Hungry Hungry Hippos maneuver to pull off." We were still naming our joint teamwork plans after old children's toys and games.
  
  That coaxed something resembling a faint smile out of the girl. "I'd rather do Duck, Duck, Goose."
  
  "That'll be a good one," I agreed. "Though we have to wait for one of these fights to happen near a firehose." Sobering after a second, I assured her once again. "One down, Missy. We'll get the rest."
  
  With a silent nod that didn't seem all that convinced, Missy moved out of the locker room.
  
  I breathed out then before looking toward Mika, who was still hovering there upside down. "Hey," I said quietly. "How are you feeling? Are your parents okay?"
  
  She righted herself and touched down to the floor before nodding. "They're here, sleeping in one of the guest rooms. They umm, they didn't want to let me keep fighting. I told them the PRT would have to use resources to stop me that they could use against the Nine. We umm..." She made a slight sniffing noise and looked down. "We had a fight. I told them I had to fight because if I didn't, more people would die. And if more people die because I don't fight, because I don't do enough... I... I can't..."
  
  She trailed off then, and I flinched before stepping that way to embrace the eleven-year old girl. Fuck me. None of this was fair. None of it was right. Mika was a kid, and she had to tell her own parents that she had to fight the terrifying villains, had to risk her own life against a fate where death was not the worst option. She was forced to tell her mom and dad that she was risking her life because the alternative, surviving while others died, was too horrible for her to live with.
  
  And I couldn't even tell her that she was wrong. She was a kid, but she was also a very strong cape, and we had a woeful lack of those for this particular situation. We needed everybody we could get.
  
  But I was still tempted to use one of my knockout darts to put the girl down. Then I'd take the unconscious Mika to her parents to keep her away from this particular battle for as long as it took.
  
  Instead, I just hugged the girl tighter, thinking about how I would feel if someone made the decision to take me out of this fight 'for my own good.' "Your parents just want you to be safe, Mika."
  
  "I know." She gave a slight nod against my shoulder before stepping back. "What I wanted to ask is... how do you do it?"
  
  Blinking at the question, I asked, "How do I do what?"
  
  "You know..." Mika gestured toward me with both hands. "How do you keep being funny? How do you keep laughing even with all the ummm, all the bad things that keep happening? How do you keep making jokes even though people are... dead?" She swallowed at the last word, looking toward me imploringly for answers.
  
  It took me a moment to find an answer. Finally, I breathed out before starting. "There's a few ways, really. First of all, it does affect me. Sometimes I don't want to make jokes. I just want to... hit things. Or curl into a ball and cry." The admission was hard, but Mika deserved the whole truth. "And I do cry, Mika. I think we all do sometimes. Because this stuff... it's hard. The things that we see, the people that..." I trailed off and shook my head, swallowing back the lump in my throat at the thought of my parents. "The point is, it affects all of us. You're not the weird one for being hurt and scared."
  
  The girl's chin lifted and I thought she was about to say that she wasn't afraid, but she stopped herself. Once it was clear that she wasn't going to speak, I continued. "But as for how I keep it from being overwhelming, I... one thing I do is think about how amazing it is that we have these powers." At her unsure, doubting look, I pressed on. "Seriously, yes there's bad things happening, but there's also good things. We can really help people that no one else could have helped, Mika. We have a chance to do some very good things, to change the world and make it better."
  
  That time, she clearly couldn't help but speak up. "You really believe that?" She didn't sound doubtful so much as... afraid to hope. After everything she had been through in the past couple of months, her ability to hope for good things, for positive change, was strained to the breaking point.
  
  "I do." I reached down to take her hand and squeezed it. "Mika, that's the other reason that I can keep making jokes and being optimistic. Because it's a choice we make. See, the way that I see it, there's a scale in the world. On side of the scale we have all the positive, good things in the world. On the other side, we have all the negative things. There's a lot of bad guys adding a lot of negative things to that side. So, how do we balance it out? We stop them, as much as we can, but we also add good things to our side. We make people laugh. We stay positive, as much as possible. And we take away the power of the bad guys."
  
  "You can do that?" Mika stared at me, eyes widening slightly. "Take their power away?"
  
  I coughed, shaking my head. "Sorry, no. Not literally. I mean you take away the power that they have to make everything terrible. That's what people like Jack want, Mika. He wants everyone to be afraid, to be focused on how horrible things are. So, you laugh at him. You make jokes. That's how you disarm people like that. You make fun of them."
  
  The younger girl considered that for a moment before prompting, "But you still hit them really, really hard, right?"
  
  I reached out to muss her hair, nodding. "Oh hell yeah, beat that son of a bitch like he owes you money." She giggled finally, and I smiled before embracing her again. "The world's full of bad things, Mika. We can fight back, not just physically, but by showing people that it's okay to keep laughing. It's okay to mock the assholes that keep trying to make the world be worse than it is. That's how you really take their power away. We laugh at them because they hate it, because they want to bring us down to their level. So we don't let that happen. We show people that all the monsters in the world can't take away humor and fun."
  
  Mika thought about that for a few more seconds before giving a slow nod. "Thanks, Madison. I guess I should let you shower, huh?"
  
  "Probably a good idea," I agreed before stepping back. "We can handle this, Mikes. Trust me, we'll deal with the rest of the Nine."
  
  She hesitated, but nodded one more time before heading for the door, leaving me to get cleaned up and changed.
  
  Eventually, I had showered and changed into the fresh costume. I was still tired after my sleep had been interrupted, but there was no time to lament the lack of rest. Jack was definitely going to counter attack as soon as he found out we'd taken another of his members away from him. I just hoped that we could withstand whatever he hit us with.
  
  My answer seemed to come a moment after I left the Wards area and emerged into the main corridor. I was just orienting myself to head for the cafeteria to see if anyone was still there, and to snag food for myself, when alarms began to blare. It took me only a second to realize the origin point, but as soon as I did, I was off and running.
  
  The alarms were coming from the detention center, where Shatterbird was being kept.
  
  Halfway down the hall, I used a line to draw myself the rest of the way, cursing out loud. "Fuck, fuck, fuck. No you don't, not this time. Shit, no, please." After everything we had done, if the woman got away at all, let alone this soon... I didn't know what we would do.
  
  Vista met up with me at the entrance into the detention area less than a minute later, the space twisting around her as she emerged from the next hallway over. Together, the two of us moved through the entrance, which was standing open. My eyes widened at the sight of the empty guard's desk with the blood seeping out from under it, and I quickly ran that way.
  
  It was too late, the man who had been stationed there was dead, killed by half a dozen bullet wounds from close range. Whoever had done this had wanted to make sure that he wouldn't be able to call out an alert until it was too late.
  
  The security doors that should have been closed were hanging open, inviting anyone to leave right past us. Worse, according to the security monitor at the guard's desk, the other entrance, from the rear lot where they loaded prisoners too dangerous to bring through the main facility, was open as well. And the controls had been broken so it was impossible to close them again.
  
  Before we could wait for anyone else to show up to back us up, a black line rose up in front of me, leading into the facility. "Shit," I cursed, starting that way at a run once more, and Vista followed after me.
  
  With Missy's help, the two of us quickly navigated the maze of corridors and stairways that led to where they had apparently been keeping Shatterbird locked away. If she actually escaped after all this... I shut the thought out of my mind and kept moving.
  
  Following the black warning line, we emerged together into what looked like an interrogation room, with a strange tube-like structure on one side of a long table where the prisoner was kept. Two guards were laying dead on the ground, while a third stood in front of the tube itself. Director Simms himself was slumped in a corner of the room, bleeding profusely from his chest. The black line was leading to him.
  
  Before we could do anything, or even start to understand what was going on, the guard in front of the tube ran his fingers over the buttons on the side of the thing, and it cracked open.
  
  "No!" I shouted, attaching a line to the guard to yank him away from Shatterbird's prison. Before I could, however, there was another explosive gunshot. Instantly, a hole was blown into the man's back and he pitched forward against the tube, sliding down it and leaving a trail of blood on the way.
  
  Simms was holding his sidearm, which wasn't an ordinary pistol but one filled with tinker-tech explosive ammo, pointed toward the guard he had just killed. "Stop... her..." He managed, blood bubbling up from his mouth as his arm slipped, unable to keep it up any longer.
  
  Yet Shatterbird was already out of the tube. She slid over the table, landing in front of us before twisting into a kick that knocked me aside like a bag of flower, pain erupting back into my face. Then she was out the door and began to disappear down the hallway. She had no glass down here to work with, but she would very quickly.
  
  I rolled over, shouting for Missy to stop the woman. Rather than chase after her, however, Vista stooped down and took the pistol from Simms' limp hand. Then she turned and made a quick series of gestures with her free hand toward the door. Before my eyes, the view of the doorway changed as Missy altered and twisted the space. First we saw the long hallway outside of the door, leading to the stairs, the distance of which shrank dramatically with another gesture until the stairs appeared to be directly in front of the doorway. Another turn of the younger girl's hand twisted space once more to orient up the stairs, where we could see the fleeing Shatterbird about halfway up them.
  
  Space sufficiently twisted, Vista raised the pistol with both hands. It was so big in her small grip that it might have almost looked comical if it hadn't been for the seriousness of the situation. Carefully, but quickly sighting along it, Missy pulled the trigger. The sound was still deafening in these tight spaces, and it bucked heavily in her hand, nearly tearing its way out of her grip in spite of her attempt to hold it steady.
  
  A normal pistol wouldn't have done the job, not with the way that the Slaughterhouse Nine had been upgraded. But Director Simms' explosive bullets were far from ordinary. Which meant that one shot was enough. As soon as it hit, the back of Shatterbird's head blew apart, leaving what was left of the broken body to sprawl across the steps.
  
  Lowering the pistol after a moment before letting it drop to the floor, Vista looked back toward my wide eyed gaze. Her voice was as firm as it had been earlier, the voice of a soldier who had put down a rabid animal. "They don't get to walk away from this. Not this time."
  
  25.05
  
  Before I had even fully gotten over my shock about what had just happened, Vista was already moving out the door, using the fact that she had already twisted the space almost all the way up the stairs to give herself a head start as she literally jumped over Shatterbird's fallen corpse. "Help Simms!" She called over her shoulder. "I'll get Panacea. We'll be right back."
  
  That reminder was enough to snap me out of my daze, and I scrambled over to where the newest PRT director had fallen. His face was ashen, and there seemed to be more blood covering his ruined suit and the floor around him than his body could hold, even though I knew he couldn't have lost as much as it looked like and not already be dead. He was pale and couldn't speak, but definitely alive and conscious.
  
  I had no idea what I could do at that point, but I did the best I could by tearing the shirt off one of the nearby fallen guards and pressed it to the chest of the critically injured man. He'd already lost so much blood that what I was doing probably amounted to sticking my finger in a dam that was already empty, but what else could I do? I felt pathetically inadequate and useless at that point. This was beyond any kind of first aid that I could have provided. My guess was that Simms was only alive at the moment through sheer willpower. If that gave out before Amy got here, there was nothing I could do about it.
  
  "Sir," I coaxed him while holding the already soaked shirt against his chest. "She's down. Shatterbird didn't get away. Look at me, please. Please look at me. You're okay. Panacea's coming, sir. Panacea's coming and then you'll be okay. Mister-err Director Simms, keep your eyes open, please. I know it hurts, I know, but look at me. Please, sir, keep looking at me. She's almost here, sir."
  
  Honestly, I had no idea how far away Panacea was, but I needed to encourage the man. "Just hold on a little bit longer. Don't let Jack win, Director Simms. Don't let Jack beat you. Please, hold on just a little longer, sir. I promise she's almost here. Just a few more seconds. Hold on just a few more seconds."
  
  I twisted a little to glance at the stairs that were still visible through the doorway before looking back at the rapidly dwindling man in front of me. "No, sir, don't close your eyes. Don't. Just look at me. See? You can beat this, you can beat him. Jack thinks you're dead already, Director. Make him be wrong, please. They lost Shatterbird, but you're alive. Just a few more seconds, sir. Ten more seconds, I'm sure. Can you hold on for ten more seconds, Director Simms? Ten more seconds, you can do that, right?"
  
  Finally, after an agonizingly long time that was probably less than two minutes, Vista and Panacea appeared in the doorway. Amy all but shoved me out of the way as she came down to her knees, hands pressed to either side of the director's neck. A moment later she snapped, "Call for a medical team! We need to get him to the hospital wing as soon as possible. Hurry, I can stabilize him for now, but he needs a lot of blood and I can't make something out of nothing." She muttered something a second later while focusing back on the fallen man that sounded an awful lot like 'I wish Riley was here.'
  
  The next few minutes passed quickly. Amy kept Director Simms alive until the emergency medical team arrived with a gurney, which they loaded both onto so the healer could continue her work. Then she and the injured man were swept out of the room together and rushed up to the medical center.
  
  All of which left Vista and myself standing alone in the interrogation room, surrounded by the bodies of the dead guards. It was eerily quiet in the few seconds after the medical team had rushed away.
  
  Missy spoke up first, barely more than a whisper but still startlingly loud against the previous silence. "Valefor, right? All of this had to be because of Valefor."
  
  I nodded slowly. The rumor that the Endbringer cultist, whose power allowed him to implant irresistible commands in people who met his gaze, had hooked up with the Slaughterhouse Nine had been one that we'd been afraid to fully contemplate. The Nine were already a threat that was impossible to predict, let alone if unwilling sleeper agents that had been mind whammied into assassins were thrown into the fray. If Valefor really had joined up with them, it would mean that it wasn't just Jack and his followers that we had to worry about, it was anyone who might have had contact with them. Absolutely anyone could be a threat, even someone who was otherwise fully trustworthy.
  
  Unfortunately, now it seemed like that rumor was fully substantiated. There was just no other good explanation for what had happened, unless that Mnemosyne girl who rescued Hunter had already changed sides. Even then, I didn't know if she was capable of something like this. For that matter, I didn't know whose 'side' she was actually on, only that she had saved Hunter, which meant I owed her.
  
  No, the single most likely explanation was that Valefor was a part of the Nine, which just made the guilt that I already felt even worse. I had chosen not to kill Shatterbird, in spite of the threat that she still posed. I couldn't bring myself to let her die, in spite of what she had done and the ongoing kill order. I had brought her back to this place, where Jack had to have found out about her capture. I'd wanted Jack to know about it, wanted him to know that he'd lost another of his little murder buddies. I'd wanted him to know that we beat him at something else.
  
  I'd pushed this to happen. All of these men that were dead, all the ones in this room, the man in the front detention area by the entrance desk, and anyone else that had been killed during this attempted escape were all my fault. If Director Simms died, that would be my fault as well. I hadn't wanted to kill Shatterbird. I'd wanted Jack to know that we had her. I had brought her into this building, a known location where Jack had to know that she was present. This was my fault.
  
  But what was the alternative, kill an unconscious and helpless opponent? I couldn't be that kind of person. I just... couldn't. Not after what had happened to Taylor. I couldn't let myself just kill like that, when there was any other choice. There was a line between killing in self-defense or immediate defense of others, and execution. Shatterbird had been contained. Killing her just... wasn't something I could have done, no matter who she had been.
  
  Yet look at the current situation. More people were dead, maybe even Director Simms if Amy didn't arrive in time to save him, who would have been alive if I hadn't made the choice that I had. I'd avoided killing one mass murderer, by so doing, I'd allowed several innocent people to die.
  
  What choice did I really have then? Which choice was right? Why had sparing a life led to more death? What was fair about that? What was right about it? What was I supposed to do? I'd spared a guilty life, and by doing so, had sentenced more lives to die. And now Shatterbird was dead as well, which meant that the only thing I had accomplished by sparing her, besides briefly sparing my conscience, was the death of several PRT agents.
  
  I had no answer for my own confusion. I had no idea what else I could have done, or what I should have done. I'd done the right thing, I thought, but it had ended in not only the death of the person I had spared, but also several other deaths that wouldn't have happened otherwise.
  
  It seemed that no matter what I could have done, no matter what choice I could have made, there was no right answer. I had stuck to my morals, and by so doing, I had gotten innocent people killed. This was my fault.
  
  "This was not your fault."
  
  Director Simms' voice was firm, though still a bit weak and tired, as he gazed at me. In spite of the fact that less than an hour had passed since he had been on death's doorstep, he was conscious and talking. Amy really was a miracle worker, and her efforts along with the absolute top of the line medical facilities in the building had saved the man's life and gave him enough strength to speak, albeit weakly.
  
  He still looked spent, however. He clearly didn't have much strength, and his body was pale and worn as he lay in the hospital bed, wearing a medical gown instead of the suit I had always seen him in.
  
  It wasn't just myself and Vista standing in the medical room either. The entire Wards team was there, along with Amy, Emma, and Hunter. The place was crowded enough that the doctor had already demanded that we clear out within a few minutes. He'd wanted it to be immediately, but Director Simms had insisted that he needed to talk to us briefly.
  
  He continued, "Bringing Shatterbird in alive, letting us try to interrogate her, I know why you did it. And I know why you couldn't do it any other way. None of what happened here was your responsibility, yours or... Oversight's." He nodded toward Emma.
  
  I started to shake my head at that, feeling that guilt creeping up again. "But I-"
  
  "Tether," Flechette put a hand up to stop me. "Shut up and listen. That's an order."
  
  In spite of his weakness, I could have sworn that Director Simms smiled very faintly at that before straightening a little in the hospital bed that the doctor had threatened to have him containment foamed to if he didn't stay put on his own. "Tether, listen to me. I'm going to... tell you a secret." He glanced toward the others and added, "I'm going to tell all of you a secret, apparently."
  
  I felt something brush my hand, and glanced that way to find Emma clutching for it. Even with her face covered, I could tell that she was as horrified as I was. Wincing, I took her hand in mine and squeezed it. For her, realizing how much guilt she had to feeling as well, I stayed quiet and let the man talk.
  
  "The secret that I'm going to tell you," Director Simms continued. "Is that sometimes... it's not enough. Sometimes we do the right thing, and bad things still happen. Sometimes we do everything right and we still can't stop people from dying. Sometimes it's doing the right things that makes the bad things happen." It took him a few extra breaths before he could continue, and the whole time, his eyes seemed to bore into mine. "But that doesn't mean we stop doing the right thing. It doesn't mean that we change who we are or stop trying. It doesn't mean we stop hoping that things can get better.
  
  "We don't do the right thing because it always works, or because it's always the best answer. We don't do the right thing because there's never any unintended side effects or circumstances. We don't choose to do what's right because it's perfect, we choose it because it's right ."
  
  Lifting a hand that was still hooked up to machines, he pointed at Emma and me. "Our choices aren't binary. Just because you do the right thing doesn't mean everything turns out right. It's not that simple. The only thing you can control is your own actions, your own choices. That doesn't preclude others from making things worse. Hell, that's how the Nine thrive. They turn good choices into horrible outcomes. They corrupt and ruin everything, everywhere they go. That's why you have to stop them. All of you... have to stop them." He hesitated, glancing away from us briefly before continuing in a softer, more restrained voice. "And now you have to do it without the PRT."
  
  "Err, sir?" Flechette stepped closer to the bed, clearly frowning behind her visor. "What do you mean, we have to do it without the PRT? You're gonna be okay, and there's others that-"
  
  "Others that might be compromised by Valefor." Director Simms interrupted, looking toward us once more. "We have no idea how many of our agents have had a... discussion with that monster, or how many might in the future. Anyone you talk to or depend on could snap at any second. Valefor can program people into his own personal little murderbots that can go off any time he wants them to, either when they hear a certain phrase or after another condition is filled, like time or when they see a certain person or group of people You can't trust people until Valefor is taken out and we have a chance to go through every single agent that could have been compromised."
  
  "He could've taken over capes too," Reach pointed out from her place in the back of the room. "Any of us, or one of the others in this little 'alliance' could be a sleeper agent. They wouldn't even know it."
  
  "True." Director Simms nodded. "That's why you have to be careful. Anyone could be a threat. But I don't think that he's gotten any capes yet. Obviously there's no way to be absolutely certain, but I believe that if Jack had control over one of the city's capes like that, he would have used them to break Shatterbird out. It would've been more likely to succeed, and a much more crippling blow either way it went down. My educated guess is that he doesn't yet have any capes in his control. But that could change, which is why you have to be careful about who you trust from now on."
  
  Amy spoke up from where she was standing on the other side of Emma.. "I have to warn my father. His... ummm... organization could have been infiltrated too."
  
  "Do it," Simms agreed. "I assume you have a method of contacting him for your monthly meetings."
  
  Clearly surprised by that, Amy stared at the man. "You, uhh, you knew about those? But why didn't you use them to catch him or... something?"
  
  That time, I was certain of the faint smile that came to the weakened man's face. "We could've, sure. But some things are more important than how many prolific arrests we make. You needed to not lose another family member, especially while he was behaving under a truce."
  
  While Amy was still coming to terms with that, the man waved his hand toward us. "Now go. Don't trust anybody after you leave this building, not even me." When we started to object, he spoke over us. "I mean it. Until Valefor is out of the equation, all of you are operating under constant master/stranger protocols. Any of us could have been compromised at any point. Be careful, and handle the situation. You can do this. Between you, the Undersiders, Faultline's group, and what Marquis brings to the table, you can all handle the Nine."
  
  His eyes found mine once more, and his voice softened. "You understand what that means? No back-up, no reinforcements, no PRT standing with you. And no PRT building to bring prisoners to."
  
  "Which means no prisoners," I acknowledged quietly.
  
  He nodded in agreement. "No prisoners. All of you have my ongoing authorization to do whatever it takes, anything you have to do, to bring down the Nine. Put them in the ground. No negotiations, no playing games. Whatever you need to do to finish this, you do it."
  
  We started for the door, the mood obviously somber. Before I could move, however, Director Simms caught my arm with his hand. His grip was tighter than I would have expected him to be capable of. His gaze met mine intently. "Be careful. And... good luck."
  
  After another second, that tight grip slackened, and the man lay back on the bed once more. He had spent himself, and was all but unconscious already. I took a few steps backward, then turned to join the others outside the room.
  
  Jack had lost Shatterbird, for good this time. But he'd also managed to force a state of paranoia over everyone, and cut the entire PRT off at the knees. They couldn't be trusted, and any single agent in the building might be a threat just waiting to kill everyone else.
  
  "So we're moving Simms somewhere, right?" Kid Win put into the silence that followed our exit from the room. "Cuz bullshit if we're just leaving him here."
  
  "Yeah," Flechette agreed. "I'll contact Faultline and see what Murk can do to get the director somewhere safer. Panacea, you said you can contact your... Marquis?" When Amy nodded, she went on. "Tether, you have history with the Undersiders. Get a hold of them, plan a meeting place for everyone. And tell them to stay away from the PRT building. As of right now, we're operating without Protectorate or PRT guidance. We have to do this ourselves.
  
  "Scion help us all."
  
  Interlude 25 - Contessa
  
  A steady rain fell against the boarded up windows of Arcadia High School. The gentle thrum of drops against plywood joined the steady, methodical scratch of a pen on paper to form a sort of lonely chorus.
  
  The woman who, for three decades, had called herself Contessa sat at the desk in the front of the room. A stack of papers lay in front of her, while her red-tipped pen danced across a single sheet taken from the top of that pile. She marked where grammar errors existed, and where the essay's writer had made historical mistakes. Opinions that she disagreed with were commented on or marked not with the red pen, but with the green one that lay precisely eight inches to the left of the paper.
  
  As she finished with that paper and set a new one in its place beneath the tip of the crimson pen, her mind began to fill with precisely where every corrective mark needed to be made. Rather than follow those instructions, however, the woman closed her eyes.
  
  Nothing changed, of course. Even with her eyes closed, the power would tell her precisely where to move the pen and what strokes to make. She didn't even need to read the words on the paper before she could correct it. There was no need to even see it before her power would tell her exactly how it should be marked. There was, she thought, some deeper allegory to that fact beyond the obvious.
  
  The guiding power that answered every question save for the precise one that she needed it to answer had been a part of Contessa for almost her entire life. A fleeting, barely recalled childhood where the solution to every situation didn't magically appear in her head came to mind occasionally. But for thirty plus years now, she had grown increasingly accustomed to never needing to actually think about what she was doing. Reaching for her power, allowing it to answer every question she might have, had become so instinctual that not doing so when confronted with a problem required extra effort.
  
  No, she thought to herself, thought to the guiding power. Don't tell me the answer. Don't tell me what to mark, or where to put it. Don't tell me where to look. Don't guide my eyes or my hand. Let me do this part on my own. After a few repeated mantras of that, her eyes opened and the guidance had vanished from her mind. The power had obliged her request, leaving her to read the essay on her own.
  
  A glowing portal appeared at the other side of the room, allowing a man to step through it. His manner of dress was almost painfully ordinary, his features utterly mundane. Set against a crowd, most eyes would pass him over entirely. Any listed description would match far too many men to be even slightly useful. He was forgettable, bland in almost every regard.
  
  "Of all the things I expected to find you doing," the Number Man announced. "Grading essays was far from the top. Although," he paused to consider. "It occurs to me that these must be old papers."
  
  "I had not graded them yet. There were other concerns," Contessa answered simply without rising.
  
  "And there aren't other concerns now?" The portal had vanished, and the Number Man walked casually up the aisle, his eyes passing over the empty desks. His hand brushed over a student's name that was scratched into the wood of one in particular. "Shatterbird was killed by one of the Wards."
  
  "I... was aware."
  
  Earlier That Day
  
  Shatterbird had been captured. As one of Cauldron's better successes (as far as power went), they needed her out and about. The number of parahumans that she had helped create simply by virtue of the fear her power inspired was too beneficial to lose, to say nothing of her own potential.
  
  Not that she would be the one to win the war that was bound to come. Their enemy was entirely too powerful for something like flying glass to present even the slightest threat. But she was yet another cog in an expansive machine. There were ways that she could, and would, contribute to eventual victory. But to do that, she couldn't be dead, or locked up in a Protectorate cell.
  
  Or so Contessa's power had informed her. The newly updated step of the plan to prevent total apocalypse, which had been running for as long as she could easily remember, was to free the woman and escort her out of the city. She needed to be clear of this if she was going to contribute when the time came. Sacrifices now meant they had a marginally higher probability of success and survival later.
  
  Wearing the stolen uniform of a PRT agent, she strolled across the back lot of the PRT building, adopting as unhurried a pace as possible at the instruction of her power. The pair of guards stationed at the rear entrance there came to attention, watching her cautiously in spite of the uniform. She wasn't one that they recognized, and with what was going on in the city, their concern was understandable. After all, with the protective helmet that covered part of her face, she could have been anyone.
  
  I want to make them trust me.
  
  The steps came to mind immediately, and she stopped walking. Stretching her arms out to either side, the woman yawned wide and then gave the men what would look to them like a somewhat tired smile. "I've got an idea," she said. "How about Peterson comes out to do the next patrol and we get to sit in his office playing solitaire?"
  
  That calmed the pair, and their weapons lowered. "What'd you do to get tossed onto rear patrol?" One of the men asked, his tone more curious at that point than suspicious.
  
  There was no need to think of a conceivable answer. There was no need to think at all. The answer simply came to mind, the next part of the plan coming into focus. "Oh you know, I made the mistake of complaining about the crap his little dog leaves laying around everywhere."
  
  Both men made faces at that while nodding in understanding. Apparently this Peterson man's dog was a well-known nuisance. One gestured at the armored door behind them. "You heading in now?"
  
  "Yup," she started walking again, giving them a short nod as she passed. "I need some rack time, and you know how they hate it when you turn in reports late." There were murmured affirmations, and she walked straight to the sealed door. With barely a conscious thought, her hand moved to input the code that her power provided. A moment later, the door beeped and she was able to pull it open.
  
  "Good luck," one of the men spoke up with a glance over his shoulder. "And watch where you step. Never know where you're gonna find more of that little shit's shit."
  
  Giving the man a thumbs up, Contessa stepped into the building and let the door close behind her. Now that she was inside the building, all she had to do was locate the cell that they were keeping Shatterbird in and escort the woman off the premises. A call to Doormaker would get the woman out of the city.
  
  And then the psychopath would be free to continue killing innocent people.
  
  The thought made her pause in mid-step. Where had it come from? The steps were very clear. If they wanted to save the world, the next step was to release Shatterbird. The damage that the woman would do, particularly if she was separated from the Nine this way, was a drop in the bucket compared to their true enemy. They needed her out and about, creating chaos and causing more triggers that would add to their still growing army of capes. Every parahuman that triggered before the end inevitably came was one more bullet to use against... him .
  
  Having the ability to see what might happen, an ability that gives you that kind of view of the world and the future, doesn't give you the authority or the right to destroy someone's life. Power, especially that kind of power, comes with an inherent responsibility to use it in a way that makes things better
  
  She knew where the words had come from. Madison Clements had written them on her essay about the cape called Visionary. Contessa couldn't understand, just then, why they had occurred to her now.
  
  Shaking off the thought, she continued down the hallway. A minor check with her power guided her path, while allowing her to avoid any other interruptions simply by adjusting her pace to what was needed in order to progress without running into anyone. All she had to do was think about avoiding anyone that would stop or question her, as well as any capes that might be able to stop her. Security doors were of little use when she could either input the code easily, or in the case of bio-metric scans, simply time her arrival to be right behind someone else that was going through.
  
  It would be a simple matter to release Shatterbird the way that her power said was the correct next step.
  
  You can't ruin people's lives, you can't take away their choices based on what might happen and then justify it as being necessary for the greater good.
  
  More of Madison's-Tether's words. A simple, naive thought process, of course. There were things coming to this world that the girl herself had not the slightest inkling of. The things that they had to do in order to prepare the world for that could be seen as terrible, but they were necessary if the world, or any world, was going to survive in any fashion.
  
  It's not enough to stop the bad things in the world from happening. It's not enough to just kill everyone who might do something wrong or horrible. You can't just make people's choices for them and force them to be a certain way just because you say they should. The world has to deserve to exist, and the only way that it's going to get better is if people are guided toward the right choices.
  
  As she approached the entrance to the holding cells, an alarm began to sound. Confident that she wasn't the reason for it, the woman paused nonetheless. The door that led to the security desk was standing open. After briefly querying her power to ensure that it was safe to walk in, she continued on.
  
  A man was dead, lying slumped in his chair as the six different bullet wounds ensured that he'd paid for sounding the alarm. Contessa frowned slightly, lifting her gaze to the security monitor on the desk. According to the monitor, both the front and rear entrances had been jammed open, the controls broken so that they couldn't be closed again.
  
  Clearly someone else was already working on freeing the imprisoned Shatterbird. One of Jack's cronies, no doubt. Valefor, if she had to guess. Which meant that her presence shouldn't have been necessary. Simply asking her power how to ensure that Shatterbird was freed would have resulted in a simple 'wait and see' response. Yet her power had continued to direct her here. Was it possible that the woman's escape would be prevented without Contessa's presence?
  
  As if in answer to the question, the sound of people approaching drew her attention that way.
  
  I want to not be seen in here.
  
  Following the resulting instructions that sprang to mind, Contessa stepped to a nearby secured utility closet. Her fingers danced over the buttons, and when the door beeped, she stepped inside. Rather than close the door all the way, she left it open a crack to see what, or who, she was dealing with.
  
  Tether and Vista. The two came into the room, immediately moving to check on the deceased guard.
  
  I want to stop them from interfering with Shatterbird's escape.
  
  Simple enough. Three steps. Use the pistol to aim a threat toward Vista that Tether would notice. The girl would react by using a line to throw her teammate back and away from her, which would separate the pair and put Vista near enough to the closet for Contessa to reach with the stun gun on her other hip. Tether herself would still be turning to find the threat when Contessa reached her with a single lunge.
  
  Three steps, both literally and symbolically. One step out of the closet, one to catch the younger girl and drop her, and a third to reach Tether and put her down. Temporarily of course.
  
  Putting her hand on the pistol, Contessa watched while the girls took in what had happened. Three steps, and Shatterbird would be released. Cauldron's plan could continue uninterrupted. Perhaps a few more would die who wouldn't have if the woman had remained imprisoned, but there would also be fewer parahuman triggers with which to fight the true enemy. It was no contest. A few lives, even an entire city, weighed against the literal apocalypse? It was worth releasing Shatterbird for every extra parahuman that she provided Cauldron's eventual army, however unknowingly.
  
  Mind made up, the woman began to draw the pistol from the holster while Tether seemed to be reacting to one of her invisible warning lines. Clearly things were not going well deep in the prison. Which meant that the two Wards were going in, and had to be stopped now.
  
  That's what I'd do. I would help people make the right choices, not take those choices away from them. I would try to help make good things happen. Because if you kill everyone who might do something bad, you haven't stopped all the monsters. You've just turned yourself into the worst monster of all.
  
  Hand tight against the pistol, Contessa... stopped. As soon as she did, her power began to list various steps that she needed to take in order to ensure the continued success of Shatterbird's escape, and thus the completion of that stage of the ongoing plan to create the army that would save the world.
  
  With each second that passed, the power that had guided her life since she was a child continued to adjust. It paid no attention to the thoughts that swept through her mind, the consideration that wouldn't stop interrupting her intentions.
  
  Her power didn't care about nuance. It didn't debate morality. It was cold, logical, and always correct. Save for the few blocks that had been placed on it, her power was one hundred percent right about anything she asked it. The answers came without effort, the solution to every problem that she could conceive, so long as the questions weren't those of a moral, opinionated nature.
  
  Monsters. They had to do everything possible to ensure that the world was able to survive what was coming, but was there a line that they could cross where the ends would not justify the means? Was there a point where the world that existed after the apocalypse would be worse than a world that didn't exist at all? If people like the Slaughterhouse Nine were allowed to run rampant, what would that mean to the world of the future?
  
  What mattered more, the fact of the world's survival, or the state of its survival? Was it possible to compromise?
  
  Her power offered no answer to questions as existential as these. It simply continued to blindly insist on the steps that needed to be taken in order to ensure Shatterbird's escape, steps that were becoming more complicated with each passing nanosecond.
  
  The steps were laid out before her, adjusting slightly as Contessa continued to hesitate. Yet she could still do what was necessary. Shatterbird could be rescued, released back into the world so that she would inspire more triggers, more parahumans.
  
  A world destroyed because they hadn't forced enough parahumans to be created.
  
  A world that survived, ruled entirely by people like the Slaughterhouse Nine, where no one knew anything but suffering and death, where a torturous existence was all anyone had an opportunity to look forward to.
  
  Which was worse? What kind of people were they if they continued to allow these things to happen without a thought about the people they were sacrificing in order to save others? At what point did the quality of humanity they were preserving outweigh the quantity?
  
  Steps continued to update, even as Tether and Vista had already left. She could delay them. Her power provided the steps that were necessary to bring the security doors back online long enough to close every door between the Wards and their quarry. Six steps, and she would be able to meet Shatterbird outside, ensuring her escape.
  
  Ensuring the escape of one monster, intentionally allowing her to continue terrorizing even more of the world so that her actions would cause more triggers, on the off chance that something useful appeared.
  
  Contessa... ignored her power. Shutting the thought away, dismissing the plans that it continued to outline, she left the utility closet and walked out of the building in the midst of the ongoing confusion. She walked away from the building. And for the first time in her life, she walked away from her plan.
  
  "I was under the impression that you were going to take her out of the city," the Number Man spoke calmly, his eyes obviously evaluating her reaction.
  
  Contessa didn't respond at first. After leaving the PRT building, she had come here, to the high school. She hadn't known where she was going at first. For once, she had intentionally not asked her power... anything. She'd barely known how to walk without its guidance, and it felt a bit like hopping on one foot. There was a piece of her balance that was missing, a crutch that she had relied on for several times longer than she hadn't. For that matter, she hadn't even known where the high school was. Without her power or Doormaker's portal, she had just... wandered through this city under siege.
  
  Once she arrived back at the high school after wandering aimlessly, she had come in to... read old essays, to grade them. She had ignored her power's urgings about how the plan could be brought back in line, ignored what it said and focused on nothing but the simple papers in front of her.
  
  Ms. Fortune. She... sort of enjoyed the act. Dealing with teenagers, teaching them, it was as false as anything else she had ever done. The answers came to her with a single thought, rather than being earned through study and discipline. Yet still, in spite of the fact that she was essentially an actress reading lines from a script, she enjoyed it. She enjoyed engaging with the students.
  
  Finally, Contessa lifted her gaze to look at the Number Man. Her voice was cool. "I changed my mind."
  
  His eyebrow raised barely noticeably. "I wasn't aware that you could change your mind." He was fishing, clearly curious about what had changed. After a moment, he added with obvious awkwardness, "Are you all right?"
  
  Once again, she didn't answer at first. Her eyes drifted away from him and back to the papers in front of her. "I need some time to myself. There are... considerations that I need to make."
  
  "You want to take a vacation?" Now the man was even more curious, with a note of concern that was as alien in his voice as her own indecision was.
  
  "As I said," she straightened from the desk, standing so that she could look at him directly. "There are things that I have to consider, thoughts that I need to... address with myself." Thoughts of what they had created, of what the world itself would be if they went too far. And other thoughts, such as the question of who she was outside of her power. What else did she have to offer aside from the solution to nearly every problem in existence? Aside from the answers her power gave her, what was she?
  
  The Number Man's voice returned, interrupting her reflection. "And you're addressing those thoughts now... here... in this city?"
  
  Her head gave the faintest of nods. "This is the right place."
  
  There was another pause and considering look from the man, before he nodded. "All right then. What should I tell the good Doctor?"
  
  "Tell her that I will return when I have had a chance to think." Contessa turned away from the man to look at the whiteboard, her gaze taking in the assignment instructions printed there in her own handwriting. Words that she hadn't written. Rather, her power had guided her hand in what was the proper assignment.
  
  The Number Man was silent for another few seconds, before he finally spoke again. "I'll see to it." At a murmured instruction, a new portal appeared behind him, and the man stepped to it. He paused there briefly before adding, "Whatever you're thinking about, whatever question you're trying to work out... I hope it's worth it."
  
  "That," Contessa informed the empty room after the man had disappeared through the portal. "Is precisely the question that I'm asking."
  
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  Arc 26: Interim
  Notes: Kaelas17 - Indeed, Emma triggered with Queen Administrator, applied to machines rather than bugs in this case. And Contessa's growing humanity will come back into play before long. ;)
  
  HellKing666 - Wow, thanks for all that. I do try to intertwine OC's, little-used canon characters, and popular (and not so popular) well known canons all into one big (hopefully interesting and entertaining) pile. Glad you're enjoying it overall, and as to your number 2 point about pulling the rug out, well... keep reading. ;)
  
  And here is the new arc. Remember, guys, this is an interlude arc. Thus, no Madison POV this time. Instead, you get six very different points of view.
  
  26.01
  
  Ethan O'Connell stood in the doorway of the lounge in the Bangor Protectorate building, watching the young blonde woman who sat partially slumped in a leather chair, her gaze fixated on one of several monitor screens that was showing a news report about the situation in their city. He winced slightly at the sight of her. "How long have you been awake?"
  
  Without turning around, Marissa replied, "How long has it been since we were in Brockton Bay?"
  
  Sighing softly, Ethan stepped into the room and tugged another one of swivel chairs to him before dropping his weight into it. Knowing how pointless (and likely hypocritical) it would be to immediately lecture the younger woman, he instead nodded toward the screen that was currently showing an view of the blue-tinted dome that covered the city with a reporter's face plastered into the right side of the screen, going on about population density. "Anything new happen so far?"
  
  "I can't tell." Stretching her hand out toward the nearby desk, Marissa kept her palm flat and let the miniature robot spider that had been perched there climb onto it. "Pandora hasn't been communicating much since... since those two were killed. And the news doesn't know anything. They just keep repeating the same things they already said. I mean god, they made a miniature holographic map of the city and had the anchor just walking through it like Godzilla to point out where all the trouble spots are. Because that's so much better than just sticking a fucking map up onto the screen. Or better yet, shutting the hell up when they don't have any more information."
  
  Cracking his knuckles, Ethan reached out and turned the chair that the young woman was slumped in, pivoting it away from the screen. "Exactly. They don't know anything else. Nobody does. So there's no point to sitting here watching things that aren't going to tell you anything new."
  
  The girl's lips tightened and she squinted at him, though the effect was lessened by the dark circles under her eyes and the way that the hand holding Jalopy trembled slightly from exhaustion. "You think I'm just going to give up and ignore the fact that my... my friends and the girl that I... the girl that I'm in love with are trapped in a city full of super-powered psychopaths?" Her voice had taken on an edge of challenge, an anger born not from genuine reaction to his words he knew, but from her utter helplessness to protect the people she cared about.
  
  He didn't back away, keeping his hand firm on the side of the chair so that she couldn't turn back to the monitor easily. "No, I don't think you're going to give up. I think you're going to exhaust yourself so much that when something does happen, you'll be too tired to participate. Or worse, you'll participate anyway and get yourself hurt so that Madison blames herself for not being there, just like you're blaming yourself right now over not being there for her."
  
  Flinching very slightly, Marissa's gaze flicked away from him. "I'm okay."
  
  "No, you're not." Ethan took a breath before leaning back, releasing the chair now that she had stopped trying to turn it. "Look, Marissa, I get it. I do. You may not believe me, but I do get it. Do you have any idea how often I've had to sit tight and watch Sammy run into danger? Any idea how many times she's come this close to dying, only to go out again the next day anyway? Do you have the slightest clue how tempted I've been to lock Sam in a padded room rather than let her risk her life over and over again?
  
  "I see these monsters. I see what she's up against, what we're up against, and I just want to protect her. A part of me want to make sure that nothing bad ever happens to her, even if that makes her hate me. And when I can't, when I have to stand back and just watch, it... hurts."
  
  Shifting in her seat, Mars hesitated before speaking in a soft voice. "Samantha can take care of herself."
  
  "Damn straight she can." Ethan nodded easily at that. "And throwing herself into danger, risking her life to save people, is a big part of why I love her. I can't love who she is, and then try to change who she is by stopping her from being a hero. It doesn't work that way. I'd never really try to stop her from doing this, because it's who she is. All I can do is be there in every way that I can. I fight by her side when it's possible, and I wait for her when it's not. Doesn't mean I've never been tempted to stuff her in a box where no one can get to her, especially when she's in the hospital waiting for Panacea. But in the end, when you really love someone like that, you don't try to change them. You just be there for them."
  
  "But I c-" Marissa's voice broke slightly and she looked down before taking a breath. "But I can't be there for Maddy now. She's in danger and I can't do anything. So are Noelle and Luke, and I can't do anything about it. They could... they could..." She trailed off, unable to say the words. Finally, she finished with a slightly hoarse whisper, "They could die, while we're trapped out here."
  
  After a momentary hesitation, Ethan gave a slight nod, as much as it killed him to do so. "I won't lie and say that's not a possibility." Marissa's face fell even further while she tried to turn away, until his hand reached out to catch her arm. "But listen to me. Madison can take care of herself, and she still has a lot of friends in there. She is not helpless. Neither are the others. You really want to help them?"
  
  Looking back to him, the blonde gave a short, firm nod. "Of course. I'd do anything to help. I'd give anything to just... to be able to do anything about this, to help them."
  
  "Even if it was the hardest thing that you'd ever done?" Ethan pressed. "Even if it was the last thing on Earth that you want to do, you'd do it if it helped them?"
  
  "I told you, yes." Marissa was staring at him. "I'd do anything. She's... Mads... I love her, Ethan. I.. I told her I loved her just before we left and now..." Her lip trembled slightly before she got it under control. "I need her. I need her to be okay, and I'd do anything to help her. Anything."
  
  Nodding in understanding, Ethan matched her gaze with his. "Then go to sleep." When the girl's mouth opened to object, he kept talking. "You said you'd do anything if it would help, no matter how hard it was. Well, what you have to do is wait. That's all you can do, and it's probably harder than anything else you imagined. I understand that, trust me. Sleeping is all you can do right now, Marissa. You're so tired you couldn't fight even if the dome went down right now. I doubt you could summon your sun even if you tried. If we could go in right this second, you wouldn't really be able to help."
  
  "But I... I have to..." Mars shifted again, looking reluctantly, desperately back toward the screen in case anything had changed. "I have to be here in case... in case..."
  
  "I'll wake you up if anything important happens, I promise." Ethan assured her before straightening. His hand slid down the girl's arm to her hand as he gave her a tug up and out of the chair. "You have my word, Marissa. If there's anything that you can help with, I will wake you up. But right now, you need to sleep. That's how you can help, by getting some rest so you're ready when things do change."
  
  Marissa looked like she was going to argue for another moment, but yawned instead before dropping her gaze with a low sigh. "You swear you'll wake me up if anything changes."
  
  "I swear," he agreed, releasing her hand after giving it a reassuring squeeze. "Now go, get some sleep. Mads wouldn't want you to put yourself through this."
  
  Though she tried to resist the idea for another moment, Mars finally sighed and started to trudge tiredly out of the room. "Please..." She spoke softly. "Don't let anything happen to them."
  
  Ethan had a feeling that she wasn't talking to him.
  
  Once he was sure that Marissa could make it to her bed in one of the guest quarters of the building, Ethan made his own way back toward the quarters that he shared with Sam. On the way, he passed a couple of the younger Maine Protectorate members standing together at a window, one of whom he knew rather well. "Carlos, how... ahhh, how are you doing?" He asked before greeting the boy's companion. "You too, Mariko. Are you uhhh, all right?" Ethan winced even as he spoke the words, knowing that the pair was far from all right.
  
  Thankfully, Carlos didn't make too big of an issue over it. He just gave the slightly older man a brief look before shaking his head. "Not really, no. With Dean and Katherine... dead, and now Brockton Bay sealed off, it seems like the Nine just get to do whatever the hell they want to."
  
  Mariko's hand caught the boy's and squeezed it. The two had apparently become close in the past few months, despite the fact that she was a good six years older than Carlos. It was similar to Ethan's own situation with Sam, actually, if reversed. Her voice still held a hint of the accent from her Japanese home. "Do not worry, Carlos. We will find a way to rescue your friends."
  
  "I take it you've already tried your power?" Ethan asked the girl. Mariko, who used the name Asylum, possessed the ability to create bubbles of sizes that varied between barely large enough to fit a single person, and the size of a high school gymnasium. When she made the bubbles, she was able to selectively alter various physical laws within at the moment of creation, such as lower or higher gravity, reduced or increased speed, a slower or faster healing rate for those within, and so on. The altered laws only applied to those who were within the area of effect when it was created, while those who entered afterward were unaffected. The woman used the bubbles in a variety of ways, from enveloping injured people with a bubble that accelerated their healing dramatically, to putting enemies into a time-slowing bubble and then entering it herself so that their movement speed was dramatically reduced while hers was normal, making her appear to them as though she was moving at super-speed.
  
  "We have tried," Mariko confirmed. They had hoped that by finding the right physical law to alter, she could at least make a hole in the dome to allow entrance. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case. "No law that I am able to change has any effect on the dome. I have tried everything I know." Her gaze fell. "I am sorry. I had hoped to help."
  
  "You do help, Riko." Carlos assured the woman. "You help just by being here. I don't know what I'd do, or... where I'd be if I had to handle this without you."
  
  The two exchanged what were obviously private looks, and Ethan decided that he shouldn't be there just then. "Thanks for trying, Mariko. It was a real long shot anyway, but something's gotta be able to break through. For now, I'm gonna see if I can follow my own advice and get some sleep. It's been a long... whatever time of day it is. I don't even know anymore."
  
  After exchanging another few words with the pair, Ethan continued on. At the doorway into the guest quarters, he paused to collect himself before stepping inside. "Well, Mars finally went to bed. Here's hoping she stays..." He trailed off then, at the sight of his wife standing in the middle of the room. Her phone was clutched tightly in one hand, and she was staring at him with a look that he didn't like. "Hey, what's wrong, Puppy?"
  
  "They won't help." Sam's voice was quiet, though the hurt and confusion in it was obvious. "I did what they wanted. She said to take care of her, and I did. I have been. I took her in and now... now they won't help. They wanted her to be taken care of, why wouldn't they let us take care of her now?"
  
  Frowning slightly, Ethan closed the door behind him and crossed the room. "Sammy, what do you mean? Who wanted us to take care of Madison? I thought this was your idea."
  
  A brief look of fear crossed Samantha's face as she glanced up to him, before letting out a long, low sigh. "I... I don't..." She stopped talking, brow furrowed for a long moment as doubt flickered through her expression. Finally, she physically shook herself. "Fuck it. I'm tired of this shit. I'm tired of lying, I'm tired of being too afraid to tell you. Now... now after all this, after they made me care about that girl, they won't even... Fuck it. Fuck their secrets. I just..."
  
  Her eyes squeezed tightly shut briefly and when they opened again, he could see a dampness there that immediately alarmed him. "Sammy, Samantha, what..." He reached out for her. "What's wrong?"
  
  His concern redoubled when she pulled back from the embrace. "Just... let me... explain. God. I need to talk, and I need you to just listen until I finish, okay? I need to explain everything. I need to tell you the whole story, like I should've already. I kept wanting to, but I was afraid. I was afraid of what they'd do. I still am, but fuck it. I'm telling you the truth, right here, right now. But I need you to not interrupt until I'm done. I need to get the whole thing out in one go or I never will."
  
  Still concerned, Ethan nodded nonetheless. "I'm here, puppy. I'm right here, say whatever you need to."
  
  At first, Sam said nothing. She just gazed past him, off into some distant location. As worried as Ethan was though, he didn't prod or prompt her. He waited as patiently as possible, fighting the urge to reach out to his wife once more. She was upset, so scared that she was physically trembling. It took everything he had not to pull her to him, but she had asked him to let her get out what she wanted to say without interruption. As hard as it was, he had to be patient.
  
  Finally, she opened her mouth and began to explain. Haltingly, with occasional stops to catch her breath or steady herself, Sam told him about how she had gained her powers from a vial in her attempt to capture him back when he had been a villain. She explained the entire process that she had gone through, all about meeting with the so-called Doctor and what she'd had to do afterward. She explained about the first two 'favors' that she'd had to do for this Cauldron group, and how taking in Madison and caring for her had been the third and final favor.
  
  Once she finished, Sam's arms were folded across her stomach. She looked physically ill, and utterly terrified of his reaction. Tears were still falling freely. "I'm sorry." Her voice cracked slightly, and she could barely bring herself to look at him. "I'm so, so sorry for lying to you. God, I... I wanted to tell you so many times, but they know, Ethan. They always know and they can be anywhere. They have eyes everywhere and I couldn't... I didn't want you to... I didn't want you to be hurt, and I didn't want you to hate me."
  
  "Hate you?" Ethan pushed himself up slowly, moving to stand in front of her. His hands came up to rest on her shoulders, squeezing slightly. "Babe, it'd be pretty fucking hypocritical of me to judge the things you've done in the past when we both know the kind of things that I used to do." He paused before going on. "Sammy, the biggest... mistake that you made through all this was forgetting that we're married."
  
  Looking stricken, Sam shook her head rapidly. "I didn't. I didn't forget that, I wanted... I just..."
  
  He silenced her by pressing a finger gently to her mouth. His tone was gentle. "Babe, you forgot the important part about that whole marriage thing. It means we're partners. It means that whatever danger either of us gets into, the other one is there for them. It means I love you, always. Not just when everything's perfect. Not just when I agree with everything that you do, and not just when I'm completely happy with every choice you make. Always, Sammy. I married you because I love you, period. Am I mad? Yeah, I kind of am. You lied to me, Sam. We're supposed to be partners, and you kept... really big secrets from me for a long time. So yeah, I'm kind of mad. But... we are partners, so I know you. And I know why you did that. And I could never, ever hate you, Samantha. You're my wife. I love you."
  
  Biting her lip hard, Sammy stared up at him with wide, glistening eyes. "I'm sorry." She repeated, voice still trembling. "I love you, Ethan. I'll never lie to you again, ever. Please, please believe me. I'll tell you everything."
  
  Sliding his hands down off of her shoulders, Ethan embraced his wife. He held her tightly against himself, drawing a gasp of surprise from the woman before she returned the hug as firmly as she could. A choked little sob of emotion escaped her, and he felt the dampness from her tears against his shirt.
  
  "No more secrets, okay, Puppy?" He prompted quietly before kissing the top of her head and inhaling the scent of her hair.
  
  Clinging to him even more tightly, Samantha gave a slight nod. He could almost feel the weight of years of emotional stress and uncertainty falling from her, giving her a sort of freedom and release that came only from genuine confession and forgiveness. "No more secrets." Her embrace tightened even more as a shudder of pure relief washed over her while she repeated the words tenderly, as though they were the most important ones she had ever said.
  
  "No more secrets."
  
  26.02
  
  "You didn't have to come with me, you know." Amy Dallon looked sidelong toward the girl who had accompanied her out of the PRT building. "Thanks and all, obviously. But you didn't have to." Not wanting her companion to think that she didn't want her around, having grown more empathetic toward the feelings of others ever since she realized how badly she had been treating her clone-sisters, Amy continued after a moment. "Seriously, thanks for helping. I just don't want you to feel like you have to come with me to visit Marquis. I'll be fine and... I know you don't like the idea of being around those guys."
  
  Emma, or Oversight rather considering she was wearing the helmet that concealed both her luxurious red hair and the top half of her face, shook her head. "I'm... I'm okay. With..." She flinched noticeably, her mouth tightened briefly before she took in a breath to steady herself. "With Pandora taking care of themselves for now, w-we shouldn't go anywhere al-alone." Her voice shook a couple of times through that, but compared to the way the girl had been when Amy met her, this was a vast improvement, especially considering the current situation.
  
  It had taken a long time for Emma to work her way out of the pit of self-disgust and sense of worthlessness that plagued her. Apparently Madison's presence and forgiveness had gone a long way toward that. But whenever that girl wasn't around, Emma had still easily sunk into long bouts of self-hatred. Which was understandable, considering the fact that she had been responsible for the emotional torture and eventual death of her former best friend. Being made to accept that fact, forced to realize just how badly she had ruined her friend's life for the sake of popularity and the approval of a psychopath, had destroyed Emma's confidence and sense of self-worth. With the help of Dinah and the others over these past months, she had gradually begun to rebuild her psyche. She still wasn't over it, but at least she had worked her way up to 'do things right to make up for the things I've done wrong.'
  
  After looking around to make sure that they weren't being observed, Amy reached a hand out to rest against the other girl's arm. "Emma, you did good today. You helped catch Shatterbird. That's a big deal." The words sounded awkward and almost false to Amy's own ears, despite her sincerity. She wasn't accustomed to being the one giving encouragement, and didn't really know what else to say.
  
  Emma, for her part, gave a very slight smile. "It's... a st-start, I guess. But Vista's the one that r-really stopped her for good. I..." She looked down, frowning. "Those PRT men died because-"
  
  "Because Valefor and Jack Slash wanted them to." Amy interrupted before the other girl could finish that thought. "All of that happened because the Slaughterhouse Nine are murderous psychopaths, not because of anything you or Tether did. You can't take responsibility for that."
  
  Heaving a low sigh, Emma raised her gaze to look back at Amy and offered a slight shrug. "I avoided responsibility for... everything for so l-long that... avoiding it now seems... wr-wrong."
  
  Thinking hard for a moment, Amy finally responded, "It's about intentions. There were good intentions behind turning Shatterbird in, Emma. You didn't intend for all that to happen, or for anyone else to be killed. Neither of you could possibly have known that it would. It's on them, not you. Not any of us."
  
  "I didn't intend for Taylor to die either." Emma's voice remained steady for that sentence, as though saying the words, giving voice to her own confession, was too important to stutter through. "But it still happened, because of me. Because I... because I fucked up. Because I was a..."
  
  "Bitch." Amy confirmed. "I've heard about it. But now we have to focus, Emma. You don't want to be that person any more, right? You never want anything like that to happen again?"
  
  Emma's head shook firmly. "I won't be that person again, ever. That's why I... I have to help now. I'm s-scared. I'm so scared I can't... I can barely think about it. But I have to help a-anyway. Because I can. Because I have to try to make... make up for all of that. I'm going with you because... because Pandora can't right now. They can't handle it right now, and they need time, s-so I'm here instead. I know I'm a shitty substitute, but... I'm g-gonna try anyway. I'm gonna try to keep you safe."
  
  Amy shook her head slowly. "That's where you're wrong, Emma, on both counts. You're not a shitty substitute. You might not be Pandora, but you've got amazing potential all on your own. And you're not going to try to keep me safe. We're going to keep each other safe. You watch out for me, and I watch out for you. Machines and biologicals, we've got them both covered." Raising her hand into a fist, she held it in front of the other girl. "We watch each other's backs, okay?"
  
  After a moment of hesitation, Emma made a fist out of her own hand and touched it to Amy's. Her voice was still soft, but steady. "Yeah. I like that. We... help each other."
  
  Nodding, Amy dropped her fist and did her best not to let her expression fall as well. Doing that had reminded her of Victoria, which instantly made her heart clutch a little. Even the thought of Vicky still brought tears to her eyes at unexpected times, and losing Rho and Eta like they had, so utterly unexpectedly, had brought back those feelings full force. She had thought of Vicky as being invulnerable, an immortal goddess who could never be hurt. Some of that had transferred onto her new clone-sisters, and now two of them were dead as well. It was enough to make her want to curl into a ball and cry, despairing for the loss of everyone she cared about.
  
  But this wasn't the time for that. She had to shut that feeling away in a tender, private place and push on. Because if she let herself dwell, she'd never climb out of that pit of despair in time to take care of the people that she could still help. Victoria was gone, as were Rho and Eta. But Amy still had people she cared about. She still had people to protect, people who depended on her in every way. And she still had people she could depend on. It was like she had said to Emma, they would protect each other.
  
  That was the way that it was going to have to be. No more depending entirely on others, or letting others depend entirely on her. She couldn't do this alone. As powerful as she was, she was still only one person, and she had her weaknesses. Those were the dual mistakes she had made before, both allowing others to think that she could take care of every problem, and believing that the people she cared about were immortal. She simultaneously allowed others to depend too much on her, and depended too much on specific people herself. It had to be a two-way street. She had to depend on others and be dependable for them. No matter what they ran into on the way to talk to her father, she would handle it alongside Emma. And beyond that, alongside Pandora and the rest of the group that Dinah had been gathering. She would be there for them, and they would be there for her. Whatever happened, she would help her new team deal with it. One step at a time.
  
  "Wait, stop. Don't take another step." Oversight warned, putting out a hand to stop Amy just as she had been about to move through the gate of the fence that surrounded the warehouse down by the docks where Marquis had set up his most recent base of operations.
  
  Frowning, though she obediently froze, Amy looked toward the other girl and kept her voice low. "What's wrong?" She hadn't seen anything, but Emma had access to a lot more eyes than she did.
  
  "I'm not sure," Oversight confessed, lifting her hand to point up and to the left, toward a drone helicopter that was hovering about a hundred feet up. "But there's two bodies lying on the roof, and one of the other drones just got a glimpse of something... hang on, let me play back the recording." There was a pause before she went on. "Something big just moved past that window on the west side. I... I think it was-"
  
  "Marquis!" Amy blurted, eyes widening as she saw the man himself come staggering out the front of the building. Even from that distance, she could see that he was in bad shape. Blood stained the front of his normally perfect clothes, and he could barely keep himself upright.
  
  Ignoring Emma's cry for her to wait, Amy sprinted across the lot. She ran full tilt, skidding up to where her father was. "Marquis!" Even then, even at that point, she wasn't accustomed to calling him 'father.'
  
  As soon as he saw her, the man's eyes widened and he looked somehow weaker than he had before. "Amelia." His voice was strained with a worry that she had never heard before. "You can't be here."
  
  "Shut up and let me heal you." Amy put a hand up to the side of the man's face, letting the connection grow between them. The injuries that Marquis was suffering from made her almost stagger, shocked that he was still able to stand at all. Immediately, she set about knitting various bones together and stopping the internal bleeding.
  
  "Amy!" The warning scream came just a second before something slammed heavily into the two of them from the side, knocking them sprawling to the ground. An instant later, a terrifying crash filled the air, and the girl felt her face sting from debris that was sprayed in every direction.
  
  Amy rolled with the blow, bringing a hand up to fend off their attacker before realizing that the thing that had hit them had been one of Emma's flying helicopters. It had spun sideways in the air and crashed into them with its landing skids. In the spot where they had been standing, there was a very different figure. The figure had all but erupted through the wall of the building, slamming himself out and down with a blow that would have killed both of them instantly if Emma hadn't knocked them out of the way with her drone.
  
  It was Crawler. The massive figure so altered by his power of adaptation by that point that it was impossible to guess that he had once been human. At the moment, he was a six-legged beast with a griffon-like head and armored body covered in a chaotic mixture of feathers, fur, tentacles, and especially eyes. Eyes were everywhere on his body, covering every possible angle along his sides and back, even some on his legs and the tentacles that grew out of where his knees should be. He was a monster, in every sense of the word, and he was currently fixated on the spot of the ground where Amy and her biological father lay, still tangled in a heap. Some of Marquis' injurieshad been healed, but the interruption had come before Amy was able to finish, and now the beast was bearing down on them.
  
  For his part, Marquis managed to extricate himself before rising to face the beast. He put himself between Crawler and Amy, raising a hand to wipe away the blood from his suit. From where she was still lying on the ground, Amy could hear the worry behind the forced placidity of his voice. "Come then, if you wish to face me so much. Come away from my people and show me what nightmares have spawned within that shell." He took a long side-step, obviously trying to draw the monstrous cape away from her. "I will face you."
  
  Instead, Crawler made a noise that sounded like a low, ugly chuckle. He lunged forward, not at Marquis but toward the spot where Amy was. Instantly, her father sent a wave of bone to cover her, leaving Amy unable to see what was going on. Rolling backwards and shoving herself up, she lifted her head just in time for Marquis to crash into her, knocking both of them over and down once more. It looked like another of Oversight's helicopters flew down to knock the man out of the way of what had been Crawler's true attack once the feint toward Amy had distracted him.
  
  And now the beast was looming over both of them once more, making that ugly laughing noise.
  
  Grimacing from where he had been knocked, Marquis rolled over. Amy felt, for the first time in her life that she could remember, the truly protective and cushioning embrace of her father as his arms wrapped around her. Bones exploded out of his back, forming a pincushion that protected them briefly before more of his bones could cut through the ground beneath them.
  
  The following few seconds passed chaotically, leaving Amy no chance to think or adjust herself. Marquis used his ever-expanding bones to burrow himself and his daughter through the ground and toward safety.
  
  Unfortunately, Crawler wasn't going to allow that. Somehow sensing where they were, maybe from the vibrations, the beast slammed a single massive foot down through the cement. The clawed limb wrapped around the pair and tore them out and into the sunlight once more. Amy cried out as she felt the claw dig into her arm, drawing blood even as the bone there snapped. She was being pressed tightly against her equally trapped father, unable to move.
  
  A second after she cried out, Marquis erupted in bones once again. They weren't powerful enough to pierce Crawler's hide, but the force did knock his paw open, forcing the monster to drop them back to the ground.
  
  Rearing back, Crawler quickly brought his head forward as a spray of acid erupted from his wide mouth. Marquis brought up a shield of bone that was almost immediately eaten through, but it was enough to block that single spray and give the two of them a chance to back up.
  
  Still, the monster kept coming after them. One bone-shield after another was melted through or simply batted aside as Crawler continued the pursuit, intent on catching up with the pair.
  
  Finally, a half dozen remote control trucks came skidding across the lot. They lined up on one side of Crawler and let loose with a joint concussive blast that would have torn the wall off of a building. To Crawler, it was barely enough to catch his attention. He pivoted slightly, dozens of eyes turning toward what looked like toy trucks.
  
  "Hi!" Oversight hovered above the parking lot, surrounded by a veritable fleet of helicopter drones. "I-I'm the one that helped take down Sh-Shatterbird. You w-wanna play?" More of her drones let off concussive blasts, though none really seemed to do much damage. Still, she had the monster's attention for the moment.
  
  While Crawler was distracted, Marquis caught Amy by the arm. "Go," he instructed. "Take your friend and leave this place. It is not safe for you-"
  
  "It's not safe for any of us." Amy interrupted. "We have to stop this thing. I can stop him, if I can get close enough to touch him. I think."
  
  Marquis paused before nodding. "Do what you must, Ame... Amy. But be careful. The beast has already killed several of my people. I will not allow him to kill you as well. But nor will I take away your ability to choose. I will do what I can to grant you the distraction that you need. No matter what happens, you must-"
  
  In mid-sentence, a solid foot of thick metallic claw abruptly tore out the front of the man's chest. Before Amy's horrified, shocked gaze, he was ripped backward by Crawler's extended paw. In the next moment, the man she had only started to know as her real father was literally torn in half as the monster bisected him with two different claws.
  
  A red haze seemed to settle in over Amy's vision then, while a deafening roar that she only belatedly and distractedly noticed as her own rising scream tearing its way out of her throat and filling the air with her rage.
  
  She ran at Crawler. All strategy was forgotten, all rational thought was gone. There was only her anger, her blind and broken fury. The monster spat acid at her, but she didn't care. Let parts of herself be melted, she could still reach him, and she could survive long enough to end him.
  
  Yet the acid didn't reach her. With every repeated glob that was shot her way, Oversight sacrificed another drone, flying them into the path of the acid to block its spray, allowing Amy another step forward unmolested. One step after another, drone by drone, she neared the beast. Her scream hadn't abated, the pain in her throat only a bare glimpse of the anguish that she felt inside at the sudden and unexpected loss of yet another family member, even if they hadn't been that close.
  
  As she neared the monster who had murdered her father, it lashed out with two front claws, trying to catch her between them. In that moment, however, Oversight's ground-based trucks unleashed a concussive blast that knocked the claws to either side.
  
  In that same moment, Amy felt one of the helicopters latch onto her back. It gave her a shove, boosting the girl up and into the air to give her just enough of a lift to fly up and onto Crawler's armored, scale-covered back.
  
  He reared as soon as she fell on top of him, trying to buck Amy off. Instead of falling, however, she clung tight to one of the scales and shoved herself forward. Hand outstretched, she brought it down on top of one of the dozens of eyes that were pivoted toward her. The eye was hard beneath her hand, more like stone than the gel-like substance it looked like. Either way, however, it was still biological, still vulnerable.
  
  And she was still screaming.
  
  Through the next several seconds, Crawler's body literally attacked itself. His claws retracted backwards into his paws, shattering once they were inside. His spine tore itself apart in more than a dozen places, ripping downward and into his internal organs, which themselves were liquefying. His armored skin grew soft before melting as parts of it were converted to be acidic on the inside. Every pain receptor that he had was flipped on and turned as high as possible, shoving the beast into a state of agony that even his pain resistance and love of what little could harm him couldn't have prepared him for. Parts of his skull tore inward to rip through his brain, slicing and paring parts of it away like ice in a blender. Reaching deeper, the monster's very cells began to attack one another under Amy's direction. His body tore itself apart right down to the molecular level, as she ordered every part of his biology to kill everything else around it.
  
  And through it all, as his body was crippled, torn apart from the inside, and melted, the monster alternately howled with agony and laughed. Its laugh was the sound of madness, the cry of a mind that had long since lost all sanity. He simultaneously gloried in and despaired of this pain that was ripping him apart. He thought himself a masochist, thought himself a true fighter, but he had never known pain like this. It destroyed him, ruined him, tore him apart in every sense of the word. His sanity, what little of it he'd had, was ripped away like chaff on the wind.
  
  It took him over a minute to die, but he finally did. His body caved in while his skin melted. Still, Amy kept up her attack. Even as she lay surrounded by nothing but goop of what had been the monster who murdered her father and so many others, she kept ordering the separate cells to kill each other and themselves.
  
  Soon, there was nothing left. Amy was lying on the pavement. Still, her scream continued. Tears had long since blinded her to everything save for her own internal turmoil, so she was startled by the arrival of a figure in front of her, and nearly lashed out before realizing that it was Oversight.
  
  "Amy..." Emma dropped to her knees and, without hesitation, embraced the girl who lay where the body of Crawler had been. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Amy. God, no, please... I'm sorry."
  
  The words were dull noise behind the massive headache that pounded its way through Amy's skull. Weakly, she returned the embrace, latching onto Emma with what little strength she had left.
  
  Sleep came quickly, after all that she had done to exhaust herself. And even as the darkness rose at the corners of her eyes, taking her consciousness away, Amy could only think of one thing. Crawler was gone, but so was her father. And she had lost yet another piece of her family.
  
  26.03
  
  The place was called St. Mission's United Assembly Church. Over the years it had grown into more of a community event center during most of the week, though every Sunday was still taken up by its original purpose. Now, however, the place was full of people who were too terrified of the current situation to risk being alone, and thought that being around their neighbors and friends would help.
  
  A dull roar filled the church as its frightened and anxious inhabitants all attempted to speak over one another. Some called for silence, only adding to the noise and confusion in spite of good intentions.
  
  "Please, everyone calm down." The priest who stood at the front of the room, near the altar, waited a moment while holding his hands up for silence. Unfortunately, the crowd ignored his plea, continuing to shout to be heard so that the man had to repeat himself several times. Finally, he simply pressed two fingers to his lips and gave a sharp whistle that echoed throughout the church, silencing the various arguing factions and drawing their attention to him.
  
  "Everyone, please calm down," the man repeated now that he had their attention. "I know that things are bad right now, but yelling at each other isn't going to help."
  
  One of the people at the back of the church called forward, his voice tinged with near-panic while he gripped a younger boy by the shoulder. "Then what will?" With his free hand, the man gestured. "It's the Slaughterhouse Nine. We don't have the Protectorate, just some villains and teenagers. We can't even get out of the city. How long do we have until the food runs out, or the water?"
  
  A woman on the opposite side of the room barked out a laugh. "You think we'll have time to worry about food and water? Those monsters'll kill us first! They'll kill us all, every last person. That's what they do. And if they don't, the freak cultists that started worshiping the bastards will!"
  
  "Cultists?" A woman holding her hands over the ears of her young child while the arguing continued sounded confused. "Are they the ones putting up all that..." She lowered her voice as if it mattered. "... graffiti that says Slaughterhouse City? Why would they do that?"
  
  "Because they're stupid, crazy motherfuckers!" Another man blurted out before giving a distracted nod toward the man at the front. "Sorry, Father. But these assholes have been going around killing everyone who thinks the Nine won't hurt them. The Nine don't even pay attention to 'em, and when they do they kill the jackasses just like anyone else, but these guys worship 'em anyway!"
  
  "As if we didn't have enough problems with the Nine, now we've got the Slaughterhouse Groupies?" A man near the front slammed a fist down into his palm. "We may not be able to stop the Nine themselves, but to hell if I'm just gonna let a buncha psychotic nobody wannabe cult shits run wild over my city. I say we arm up, then go out and help the PRT put those fuckers where they belong."
  
  "Please, please, don't talk of murder in this place." The priest at the front of the room pleaded. "We are safe here. No evil may enter this house of peace, but nor will..." He trailed off upon realizing that though the crowd had turned back in his direction, they weren't looking at him. Rather, their attention was directed over his shoulder, while a rising current of confusion came over the room.
  
  Frowning, the man turned to see what had caught his flock's attention. He saw nothing out of the ordinary at first, merely the stained glass window with the cross in front of it. Then his eyes rose higher, toward the figure sitting on top of the cross, straddling it like a fence post.
  
  "Apologies for the interruption, Father." The man perched on the cross held an apple in one hand and a folding straight razor in the other. He might have been considered handsome at one time, though his face was far too well known now for any to be attracted. Just as the toothbrush mustache had fallen so sharply out of style due to its relation to the despot who had begun the second World War, so too was appearance of the man sitting on top of the cross far too connected to his appalling acts to be considered attractive to any but the most disturbed individuals.
  
  Before the eyes of the congregation, the man sliced off a bit of the apple with the blade before popping it into his mouth. Chewing thoughtfully, he glanced toward the fruit in his hand and the cross beneath him before arching an eyebrow. "Ah, well this does provide a certain image, doesn't it?"
  
  The fact that people sat or stood frozen where they were rather than fleeing for the exit spoke toward the man's reputation. He had made no overtly threatening moves, had done little aside from allow his presence to be noted, and yet he commanded the attention of every person in the room. Eyes grew blurry from fear of blinking and somehow being the first one who caught his gaze. This single, lone man who sat atop the wooden cross before an assembly of over a hundred people was so feared that none dared speak directly to him. Not even the one who stood at their head, whose faith in humanity's benevolent overseer had driven his life could bring himself to say a word. For those few seconds, the only sound in the room was the quiet munching of the bit of apple as the man chewed and swallowed.
  
  Eventually tiring of the silence, because what was silence but the auditory manifestation of boredom, the man who called himself Jack Slash dropped easily from the top of the cross to land on his feet. He purposefully eschewed the very concept of a costume, wearing only a simple white shirt that was unbuttoned to show his well-defined chest, and black slacks highlighted by a silver belt buckle. His shoes were old, caked with mud as well as other material that had long since dried into the leather.
  
  "I believe you were saying something?" His blade cut into the apple once more, carving out a thick slice for himself while he looked toward the priest. "Please, don't let me stop you. It was something about evil not entering this place and how you don't want them to talk about killing." Pausing for a moment to consider while he brought the blade up to his mouth and took the bit of apple from it, Jack finally added, "Not much of a priest though, are you? I mean, take killing and death out of the conversation, and how much of the good book have you got left?"
  
  Finding his voice at last, the priest spoke in a somewhat shaky voice. "O-our people here pose no threat nor gain to you, sir. Please be on your way, we can give you no advantage nor can we detain you from your goals. We only wish to gather in peace and be amongst friends."
  
  "Am I not a friend?" Jack adopted a slightly offended tone before underhand tossing what was left of the apple to the priest, who caught it out of reflex. "Don't you talk about me around your dinner tables? Haven't my presence and actions been a part of your every conversation of the past few days? If the amount of time my existence enters your mind doesn't at least merit the status of acquaintance, well then I think I might have no choice but to feel taken advantage of. Here I toil tirelessly to provide each and every one of you with true, genuine entertainment in these boring lives you lead, and you won't allow me the simple courtesy of a spot within your congregation." Using the knife to gesture behind him toward the elaborate stained glass window depicting various biblical vents, he continued. "I'm fairly sure that the big guy back there had something to say about that sort of prejudice."
  
  A voice near the back of the room, apparently bolstered by the illusion of safety in anonymity, finally mustered the strength to call out, "You're a monster, and you're going to hell."
  
  The simple gesture that Jack made with the knife caused a cry of fear to go up from several members of the congregation, though no blood was spilled. Jack simply used the blade to point. "True." He agreed, seemingly jovial in the face of such an admission. "If it exists, I'm sure I'll be there soon enough."
  
  Striding forward, Jack passed the priest, patting him on the arm while the man openly shuddered at the contact. "But there's two secrets about this whole hell thing that your priest here won't ever teach you."
  
  The audience was as quiet as ever, trapped by their fear of the man in spite of their greater numbers. Even as he descended from the raised platform to walk between them, they hardly dared breathe, let alone make any sort of move against him. His reputation, even now, cowed them into silence. None wanted to be the one who made himself stand out.
  
  "Anybody?" Jack asked, flicking his razor blade open and closed absently. "No one wants to guess the secrets that they don't want you to realize, the two simple facts that bring this whole house of cards tumbling down if people would just accept them?" He looked around the room while striding toward the back as though expecting to find a hand raised, and shook his head in disappointment when no one moved. "Ah well, you'd probably be wrong anyway, which would just confuse everyone else."
  
  Once he reached the back of the room, past all the pews, Jack pivoted once more to put his back to the two large wooden doors. Every eye in the room was locked onto him, just the way that he preferred. "Right then, in that case I suppose it's up to me to do the job that your priest should have been doing."
  
  Voice somewhat strained, the man in question raised his hands. "Please, we are no threat to-"
  
  In mid-sentence, a jagged cut appeared in the priest's throat that brought blood gushing forth along with several cries from the gathered audience at the sight of their religious leader falling to his knees. One man tore himself from his seat and ran that way to help the priest, only for another casual swipe of Jack's knife from across the room to open up his side as he stumbled and fell.
  
  Two more stood and were subsequently cut down, their bodies falling back onto the cushioned benches before the audience was still once more, their fear once more outweighing their urge to do something. Packed as they were into the pews, with Jack's attention focused on them, none could move without being an immediate target. Still, an undercurrent continued to spread that told Jack he wouldn't have their undivided attention for long. They would panic and bolt. He'd cut one down after another, of course, but the strength of the mob would be great. He might even have to retreat if enough of them got moving at once.
  
  Or he would, if he hadn't planned for this eventuality. While he still had the crowd on the thin edge between being too afraid to move and too panicked not to, the man simply reached behind himself and tugged open both wooden doors.
  
  As soon as the doorway was clear, a tornado of green dust flew through it, drawing even more cries from the captive audience. The emerald flakes buzzed wildly in circles up the middle of the aisle before splitting apart into over a dozen separate forms, all rising into green figures that looked like ordinary people, save for their glossy jade skin. The figures stood near the ends of each row of seats in order to trap the inhabitants even more, ensuring that they would stay where they were.
  
  Smiling, Jack brought a hand down to ruffle the short red hair of the small girl who now stood at his side. "Why thank you, my dear. I'm afraid that our new friends were thinking of leaving before I finished talking."
  
  "Why were they being so rude, Mister Jack?" The girl asked, nuzzling up against the hand that was stroking her hair. "Don't they know we just want to be friends?"
  
  Shrugging one shoulder, Jack gave a lamenting sigh. "I suppose we should blame their priest, Trixie. After all, he's the one who interrupted first, and they do take their instruction from him."
  
  Trixie shook her head, straightening a little while pulling her head away from the man's gentle petting. Her voice deepened slightly, taking on the vocal inflections of a man who had smoked for most of his life. "Where is this fucking priest then? We'll see how much interrupting he does after I pop his eyes out and make him swallow 'em."
  
  Shaking his head, Jack moved ahead of the girl whose personality had just flipped. "Already taken care of, dear girl. Though I'm quite certain that the next person who interrupts our little discussion would love to have a private chat with you."
  
  Horde bounced a few times excitedly, her voice changing once again to adopt an even younger tone than she'd had before. "Oooh, can we have a tea party? Can we, can we, please please pleeeeeeeeease?"
  
  "Could you say no to this face?" Jack asked rhetorically before nodding his assent. "Of course. Anyone who talks or tries to leave, you can consider them invited to your tea party."
  
  "Yay!" The girl skipped toward the front of the room, her gaze riveted to the crowd to catch the first sign of someone not paying attention to Jack. Halfway up, her skipping turned to a slow walk, while her shoulders hunched slightly with the motion of a very old person whose back had long since grown weak and weary. Still, her sharp gaze panned around the room, finding nothing but a raptly attentive audience, much to her clear disappointment.
  
  "Now then," Jack continued now that he had everyone's complete attention. "As I was saying before, there are two flaws in the idea of hell as a deterrent. First, there's the problem of escalation. Hell's it. You kill one person, and," he made the whistling sound of something falling a long distance. "That's it, straight into the great big bonefire down below."
  
  Gesturing with his blade thoughtfully, Jack added after a moment of silence. "But... what if you kill two people? Hmm? What are they going to do, send you to hell? They already did that. There isn't a Hell Part 2. Hell: The Revenge. They blew their load with the first kill. They've got nothing to escalate to, now do they? You kill one guy, or half of civilization, and it's the same damn place."
  
  While he spoke, another man had entered through the open doors. He wore a very effeminate costume consisting of flowing white clothing lined with silvery feathers, and a mask that looked delicate, decorated with the image of a woman's upper face, her eyes closed.
  
  "Ah, I trust you all know of my friend here." Jack brought a hand down on the shoulder of his companion. "Valefor, I believe your audience awaits."
  
  Thin lips tattooed black with tiny fang-like images in each corner curved into a smile as the masked man gave a short nod. His gaze passed over the room while everyone stared at him. When he spoke, his voice was alluring. "Everyone in the pews, all of you will leave this place and find the one person you care about most in this world other than anyone who is in this room right now. You will find them and then you will kill them. After you're sure that they're dead, you will find the second person you care about most in the world other than those that were in this room right now, and you will kill them in the most brutal, painful and awful way that you can imagine. Go now, and forget everything that happened in this room, including the fact that I gave you this order. Forget that we were here, but do as you were told."
  
  As people began to mindlessly file up and out of the room, Horde sent a pleading look toward Jack. He acquiesced with a nod, and she quickly had several of her emerald automatons pick up two of the departing individuals and cart them off for her own little playtime.
  
  While the two men at the back of the room stepped out of the way to allow the crowd to pass them, Valefor looked toward Jack. "What was the other?"
  
  "Hmm?" Jack knew what the other man was asking, but feigned distraction.
  
  "I heard you from out there." Valefor nodded over his shoulder. "You said there were two problems with the whole hell concept, but you only named one of them. What was the other one?"
  
  "Ah." Jack smiled slightly, leaning casually against the wall while nodding easily to the people filing past. "The second problem with hell is that... what if you go ahead and make this place so bad for everyone alive that... well, whatever higher power might be out there just can't tell the difference between the hell he made, and the one we set up for ourselves?
  
  "Seems to me that, in a case like that, he might just leave us right where we are."
  
  26.04
  
  Into glass partially fogged by the heat of a scalding shower, blue-green eyes stared intently at their own reflection, twin universes stepping outside of themselves to peer through their own enigmatic depths as they searched for answers that would not come, to questions that were only vaguely understood.
  
  Slowly, a finger was lifted to press against the glass, sliding easily over the fogged portion to draw a simple stick figure. The eyes beheld the figure for moment before the finger moved again, slowly tracing three letters beneath it. First an M, then an O, followed finally by a third M.
  
  Through the portion of glass that had been wiped clean, the eyes brightened faintly while the steady hand traced a second figure beside the first. Three other letters were carefully drawn beneath that figure as well, consisting of a D followed by an A and then a second D.
  
  A third figure joined the first pair a moment later, smaller than the others. Below it, the finger traced four letters rather than three. One by one, a D, then an R, a E, and finally a W.
  
  The room was quiet for a few more seconds while green eyes regarded each stick figure solemnly before the hand reached up once more to draw a line under each name. A soft whisper came along with the slight squeak of the finger against the glass. "Mom... Dad... Drew."
  
  For a moment, the reflection of viridian eyes vanished behind pale skin as they were closed, hiding away from the names on the mirror just as their owner had hid from the same names that had carved themselves upon her soul from the moment she had given up all hope of saving them from their fate.
  
  Two words interrupted the silence, words that the girl who stood before the mirror had never been able to bring herself to say within this context, to these names. Words that she had refused to consider, for the implication that they inherently carried within, and the acceptance that speaking them required.
  
  "I'm sorry." Once spoken, the words hung in the air between Riley and the figures that she had drawn on the mirror. Her eyes opened once more, looking upon the names of each as she continued in her soft voice. "Mom... Dad... Drew... I'm sorry I gave up. I..." Her vision blurred slightly from the dampness within her eyes, while the slight crack in her voice reduced her to silence once more.
  
  Hard. It was too hard to do this, too painful to accept what had happened and how much of it she was responsible for. The things that she had done, and her reasoning for it, hurt so much to even consider, let alone speak out loud. The pain in her chest redoubled, pain that she had forced away and thought long gone. It had, instead, simply lain dormant while she covered it with a mockery of false amusement and child-like glee, smothering her true self and feelings beneath the facsimile of innocence that was maintained with a pathological devotion. She'd had to maintain it, or risk allowing the fragile construction to come tumbling down, revealing that pain in her chest once more.
  
  Now, bit by bit, she uncovered that awful hurt, setting it free. She let it rise up once more, clutching her heart within its tight embrace while the force of it all but stole her breath away. Through tears that slid from her eyes to her cheeks, she stared at the stick figures drawn into the mirror, figures that were already slowly beginning to fade away, as if to join the people that they stood as effigies for. And just as before, Riley could prolong their departure, but nothing she did would entirely prevent it.
  
  This time, however, she spoke the words that she could not have spoken back then. Before the figures drawn into the steam could fade entirely, she continued in a quiet voice that did not reach further than the walls of the room surrounding her. "I couldn't... save you... again. I... was just so tired. I tried. I tried to save you, all of you. I swear, I tried. I wanted to save you, but they just... no matter what I did, they just kept... they wouldn't stop... I couldn't..." Words failed her then, and her eyes closed again to flee from the curtain of tears that continued to fall.
  
  No. Her fists clenched tightly, and Riley forced her eyes open once more. She would not hide this time. For once, she would face the pain in her chest, the anguish that she had spent years of her life hiding from. She would face her failure, and would not allow it to rule her any longer. The creature that she had allowed herself to become through her desperation to hide away from the pain was gone, and she would never again let it consume her. As bad as the pain was, she would not allow it to master her. She would no longer hide behind false emotions and a persona that clung so desperately to innocence. From now on, her actions, good or bad, were hers . She would decide what and who she was going to be, and no amount of pain was going to make her surrender any more of her soul.
  
  "I couldn't save you." The anguish in her voice was palpable, the grief trying to once again overwhelm Riley and force her to retreat beneath the shell that she had constructed. Still, she pressed through it, the words coming gradually, but inexorably, a tide of confession that would not be denied. "I tried. I did, I swear. I tried to save you, Mommy... Daddy... Drew... I tried to. I tried so hard and... and they just kept making it worse. They kept making it worse and I was so..." The pain wrapped its way around her heart like a python, squeezing until she was certain that it would burst. Her words continued, muffled through the lump of emotional agony that sat thick in her throat. "I was so tired. Mommy... Daddy... I'm sorry... I'm sorry I was tired. I'm sorry, Drew. I couldn't..."
  
  With a voice as weak and soft as a gentle wind through colored, crackling leaves that had long since fallen to the ground, Riley's confession continued. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't save you anymore and I... I gave up." Renewed tears came, those that she had shut away for so long, going so far as to physically remove her ability to cry until very recently. "I gave up everything because... because it was easier.
  
  "It was a trick, a... a lie. I had to... to... pretend. I had to make it... funny. Oh god, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Daddy. I couldn't... I couldn't do it anymore. I had to change it. I had to... change everything. Life... it couldn't matter. You and Mommy and Drew... you had to be just... just meat. You had to be empty and life... all of it, everyone's life, everyone's... pain, it had to be... meaningless. It had to be empty or else the pain would come back. I had to hide from it because it hurt so much. They were killing you and Drew and Mommy and I couldn't stop them, and they just kept hurting you and I couldn't make it stop."
  
  A brief silence rose up, heralding Riley's true secret, the source of so much anguish and the true reason behind her continued turmoil. "I couldn't... make the ideas stop." Taking in a long, slow breath, she lifted her gaze and stared into the quickly vanishing remains of her family's stick figures. "I knew how to save you. I knew how to save you over and over and over again. I could... I could have kept going. I could have saved you, I could have kept saving you, but... but they wouldn't stop killing you. Every time I saved you, they'd just kill you again, and I... I wanted it to stop, I just wanted it to stop."
  
  Blinded by her tears, Riley reached out, pressing her hands onto either side of her family's names and figures. "My brain... my power wouldn't... stop telling me how to save you. I knew how to bring you back, how to make you survive. No matter what they did, I knew how to make you keep going. I kept fixing you, but they wouldn't stop. They wouldn't ever stop, and my... my power just kept telling me how to save your lives just so they could hurt you some more. I... I realized that... they could have killed you once, but... but because of me, because I couldn't let you go, they killed you... so... many times. They killed you over and over again, and I thought I was helping you, I thought I was saving you, but I was helping them. I was helping them kill you again and again. I helped them kill you because I kept bringing you back so they could keep killing you and I'm sorry.. I'm sorry Mommy, I'm sorry Drew, I'm sorry Daddy. I tried to save you and it just let them kill you again."
  
  Fingers pressed tightly against the glass, Riley's blue-green eyes stared into themselves as she spoke the words that had been trapped within herself for so long. "My power wouldn't stop telling me how to save you, even after... even after I knew that they'd never stop killing you. I knew... I knew that every time I brought you back, they would kill you again. But my power wouldn't stop. It would never stop, it just kept telling me how to fix it, how to make you better so that they could hurt you some more. So... so the only way I could make it stop, the only way I could... l-let you die and stay... stay dead was if I let it be funny. The only way I could let you go so you didn't... s-suffer any more was if it didn't matter, nobody mattered. I turned it off. I made it so that I didn't care about... anybody. I made myself believe that it was funny, that life was... nothing. I didn't care about how much we hurt people, because their lives didn't matter. Their lives didn't matter, which... meant that yours didn't. You had to be meat, just empty meat that was nothing. Pain and death and... and all of it didn't matter because it was just meat, and as long as I... I let it be meat, as long as no one's life mattered, then losing you didn't hurt so much. Losing you, giving up, letting you stay dead so that they couldn't hurt you anymore, so that my power would stop telling me how to save you, was okay because you were just... empty."
  
  The room was filled with a stillness as complete as the the judgment that Riley had passed upon herself. Her voice had grown even quieter through her private confession, until it was barely audible even to herself. "I hurt people. I killed them. I tortured and killed so many people because.. it was easy. And as long as I let myself be... the kind of person who could do that, the kind of person who didn't care about anyone's life, then it was okay that you were gone. It didn't hurt so much when I was evil. I liked being bad, because... because when no one's life mattered, then I didn't have to be sad. I didn't want to be sad anymore. I didn't want to think about you, so I made it stop. I made it stop and I did... bad things, things that I can never... ever take back and I'm scared. I'm so scared that I'm going to... to be that again. I'm scared, Mommy. You're gone. I did all those things so that I could pretend to be happy and not hurt so much, but now it's... it's back. You're gone. You're gone because I stopped saving you, because I was tired and... and I didn't want them to hurt you anymore. I let you die. I let you die and then I pretended it didn't matter. I pretended for so long that I really thought it didn't. I thought it didn't matter and I did bad things because it didn't matter, but now it does. Now it matters, it all matters. Everything matters, everything I did is... is still there. I remember, and I remember when you were alive. I remember what happened, and that you... you were my family. You were my real family and now you're gone and I have to let you go. I have to let you go, but it still hurts. Mommy... Daddy, it hurts so much. It hurts because... because you mattered. You mattered and... and the people I hurt... the people I killed, they mattered too. They mattered to somebody. I hurt them... I killed them... I took them away from their families. I did so many bad things. I was evil."
  
  Her eyes closed briefly, looking inward once more as she continued. "And now... now I just... I don't know what I am. I don't know what I am, but I know one thing. I can't be what I was. Jack... he's here. He's here and he's killing people. He's taking my family away again, my new family. He's already taken away Rho and Eta, and Amy's daddy. He's taking them away, and it would be so... much easier if I could stop... feeling. I just want to turn it off and stop being so... hurt."
  
  One breath was followed by another, in and out, while she braced herself for her words. "But I won't. It hurts, but I won't hide again. I won't... be that person anymore. I won't pretend that you didn't matter, even if it hurts. You were my family. You were my parents and my brother and... and you mattered. I miss you. I'm always going to miss you. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I'm sorry I had to let you die. But I won't... be... Bonesaw. She's gone. She's gone forever and I will never, ever be her again."
  
  The figures in the mirror had long since vanished, though Riley could still picture them just as easily as she pictured the people they represented. Her mother, father, and brother. For the first time since the night that they had been brutally murdered a dozen times over, she remembered the good times that they'd had. She remembered the reason that she had loved her family so much, and why that kind of love was more powerful than the pain that their absence left behind. She realized that the pain that she felt at their loss, and would always feel to some extent, was nothing compared to the pain that had come when she had been forced to abandon that love. The emptiness that she had invited into herself, the utter absence of morality that she had allowed to consume her, was so much worse than any emotional pain. The allure of not caring, of feeling nothing, was a mirage hiding ruinous despair that she would not fall for again.
  
  "I will never do those things again. No matter what happens, no matter what they do, I won't... be... Bonesaw. Because your lives matter. Everyone's lives matter. And I will... never... forget that... again."
  
  "I love you, Mommy. I love you, Daddy. I love you, Drew. I love you. I miss you. I'm sorry you're gone, but... but... I'm going to let you go for now. I'm going to let you go, and I'm going to go help my new family. I'm going to help my new family stop Jack and the others. But I'll be back. I'm not going to forget you again. I'm not going to hide from the pain any more. It doesn't control me. Nobody controls me, not anymore."
  
  Slowly sliding her hands across the empty mirror where the figures and names had been, she finally turned away while speaking softly, "Goodbye."
  
  Slowly stepping out of the bathroom within the farmhouse that they had taken over, Riley let the light of the sun through the nearby window wash over her for a moment. The pain from the murder of her family still sat in her chest, clinging to her heart, a hollow agony that threatened to overwhelm her.
  
  This time, however, she didn't push it away. She took the ache, letting herself feel the loss without allowing it to destroy who she was. She accepted everything that had happened, everything that she had lost as well as everything she had allowed herself to become.
  
  And in that acceptance, in not hiding from the pain or rejecting her own feelings no matter how awful they were, she had managed the most important thing that she had ever done in her life.
  
  She had beaten Jack.
  
  26.05
  
  On a day at any other time, the neighborhood would have been chaotically bustling, full of cars rushing back and forth, and even more pedestrians working to avoid them while still reaching their ever-so important destinations on time. It lay in the middle of downtown, anchored by a tall, imposing looking bank at one end and the city courthouse at the other. A park lay across the street where many festivals and outdoor art exhibits had been held, while small, privately owned businesses dotted the area in between the bank and the courthouse.
  
  Once, those businesses had all been full, a testament to a steady, strong economy in a prosperous city. In semi-recent years, however, less than half of them had been able to remain open for any length of time. Failed businesses came and went, as each aspiring entrepreneur believed that they themselves had the exact strategy and product to end the downward economic spiral. Inevitably, they were wrong.
  
  Yet the crowded streets remained, because for all the failed businesses, a few survived. More than elsewhere in the city, because this was one of the safest areas in town. Its location stuck it directly near the courthouse and a powerful bank, both of which were heavily monitored by the PRT and commonly included in both Protectorate and Ward patrol routes. Gangs setting up shop in the area didn't generally happen, and most criminals were driven off relatively quickly.
  
  All of which meant that it remained one of the safest neighborhoods to set up a business, which is why so many tried and failed to keep theirs going. In this particular instance, however, they failed not because of rampant gang violence or cape battles, but simply due to the terrible, years long recession.
  
  The Pandora who called herself Alpha was aware of all of these issues. She had taken the time to research the history of the city that she and her sister-selves had found themselves in after the loss of their originator. Over time, her initial interest in Brockton Bay's colorful past had grown beyond that single city, her appetite for knowledge driving her to memorize as many facts as she could. Where Gamma-Iteration enjoyed fictional stories, and Sigma-Iteration preferred poetry, Alpha preferred nonfiction. The stories that she could read in history books, true biographies, and other sources seemed so much more interesting to her than any fictional account.
  
  All of which meant that the history of this neighborhood filled her head while she stood atop the roof of the bank beside two of her sister-selves. Sigma and Gamma had accompanied her on this outing, each of them manifesting within their individual forms. Alpha with her pale, average sized figure and short, spiky black hair, Gamma with her equally pale, smaller figure but white-blonde hair rather than dark, and Sigma, whose individualized form was that of a taller, fit girl. Sigma had been unable to choose which hair color she preferred for herself, and so had gone with both, manifesting with an alternating mixture of brown and blonde hair that had been tied into a tight braid that made strands of blonde overlap strands of brown and so on.
  
  She knew that the area would have been busy on almost any other day, yet now it was deathly quiet. The street below them was empty, and had been through the past couple of minutes that the three of them had been standing in this place. Though they appeared to be silent, the trio of Pandoras had been communicating privately with not only each other, but the rest of their other selves.
  
  Through each moment of conversation and decision that passed, they all felt the painful lack of two of their other selves weighing on them. What had once been eighteen had been reduced by two, and each of the remaining sixteen continually felt the horrible ache of their loss. The silence that lay where Eta and Rho would have interjected, where all of the Pandoras had become accustomed to their interjections, only lasted a second or two. For most, that would have been hardly noticeable. Yet for Pandora, it was an eternity, a black hole of silence and absence that constantly reminded each of them of what they had lost. Two parts of themselves were missing, gone forever and would never be restored. The ache, the loss that they had felt when Victoria-Sister had been killed was made so much worse when it was pieces of themselves that had been ripped away.
  
  They had begun to understand death and the strength of individual emotion with the loss of Victoria. The loss of Eta and Rho, however, had been a blow that ripped away part of who they were.
  
  Into what would have appeared to outside observers to be silence, Gamma-Iteration audibly spoke. "We-" She stopped and then began again, her tone slightly more hesitant as the concept of self and individual remained strange to each of them. "I... cannot wait any longer. Tiberius-Friend may be in danger."
  
  Dinah-Friend had provided Gamma-Iteration with a cellular telephone so that she could maintain contact with the Tiberius-Friend. It had been a message on that device that that had gained their attention. When Gamma had listened to the message that had been left, she had heard the human boy asking where she was staying, trying to make sure that she was okay. Tiberius had told her that he was holed up with some other people inside the bank that they were currently standing on top of, using the protection of the bank itself along with their numbers to drive away any of the Slaughterhouse Cultists that had been roaming the streets.
  
  It was Kappa-Interation who had encountered the cultists before, her knowledge passed on to the rest. During one of her frequent walks for the exercise that her powers meant that she didn't really need, she had witnessed some of these horrible human beings dragging anyone they could out of their homes or wherever they found them to be strung up as an 'offering' for the Nine themselves.
  
  Unfortunately, in mid-message, Tiberius-Friend had been interrupted by a loud crashing noise. Someone had screamed, and then the call had ended.
  
  The fear of possibly losing Tiberius-Friend so soon after the loss of two of their other selves had driven Gamma to insist that they go and rescue him, regardless of the possible danger. Alpha and Sigma had agreed to accompany her, after a brief conversation with Dinah-Friend had revealed that the odds of an encounter with their sister-selves' murderer was negligible.
  
  Still, none of them had wanted to rush straight in. They had taken the time while standing on top of the bank to survey the entrance below them. Simultaneously, their sharp senses had been listening for any indication of what was happening within the building itself. Unfortunately, the security of the bank made the walls soundproof. It was impossible to listen to anything within.
  
  "We still cannot hear through the bank's walls." Sigma-Iteration seemed to take Gamma's lead by speaking aloud what they could have communicated near-instantaneously within their own minds. "We do not know what may be inside."
  
  Gamma nodded while stepping forward to the edge of the roof. "We know that this is where Tiberius-Friend was last. He may be in danger." Stepping off of the roof, she added while starting to fall, "We do not leave friends in danger."
  
  Silently, Alpha exchanged a look with Sigma. Each of them was connected to Gamma, feeling the rush of the wind that past her as she plummeted toward the pavement. They were always, constantly at least on some level aware of everything that their other selves saw and did. When they had attempted to explain it to Emma-Friend, she had guessed that it was similar to having a wall full of televisions, all providing different scenes, and each able to be followed closely or mostly ignored, yet never absent.
  
  Never, that was, until the deaths of Eta and Rho. Now their portions of the connected consciousness, their television screens, as Emma-Friend would put it, were empty. Static had taken over where their thoughts, opinions, and feelings had been.
  
  Stepping off of the bank roof as well, alongside Sigma, Alpha let herself fall to the ground. While she plummeted, the familiar red costume with its half-mask that covered her mouth rose up around her at a thought. Though the Pandoras had given themselves distinct forms, partially to express their growing individuality and partly to make Amy-Sister more comfortable with them, they still used identical costumes when operating in the field. Their separate heights and somewhat different builds made it clear that there was more than one of them, but the uniform equality of the costume itself expressed their connection so that most believed that they were a team of vigilantes.
  
  Sigma and Gamma had both manifested their identical costumes as well, and the three of them stood on the steps of the bank a moment after easily landing. The strength and durability of the bodies that they had created meant that a simple jump off of the bank roof had not been enough to harm them.
  
  "Search for Tiberius-Friend." Alpha instructed her sister-self. She, like the other two, chose to speak aloud rather than use their internal, silent connection. "We will focus on other threats."
  
  Gamma-Self gave a sharp nod, her expression hidden behind the mask. Yet Alpha could feel her fear, the thought that something might have happened to the human boy while she was grieving the loss of Eta and Rho. She also felt Gamma's determination not to let anything like that happen if she could prevent it, as well as Sigma's quiet, yet powerful confidence in their ability to do just that.
  
  They were connected in a way that no one outside of themselves could understand. They had their own thoughts, their own individuality, yet they were also able to constantly know what their other selves were doing. They were part of a larger whole, pieces within the Pandora collective that would never be completely alone. There was a comfort in that, a certainty of being part of something while still being their distinct selves, that could not be explained to those outside of it.
  
  As one, and as individuals, they walked forward into the bank.
  
  What had been silence on one side of the bank's doors, became a mixture of wailing and screams on the other side. As soon as the trio stepped through the doors, they could see blood littering the floor of the lobby in front of them, leading straight to the body of a uniformed security guard whose chest was full of at least half a dozen bullet wounds. Standing over the man, and currently staring at Alpha and her two sister-selves, was a shirtless, massively muscular man who wore a hockey mask with a demonic visage painted on the front of it. He held a bloody machete in one hand, and a sawed off shotgun in the other. Their entrance seemed to have interrupted him while he had been in the middle of severing the dead security guard's head, if the half-finished cut was any indication.
  
  Recovering from the surprise of their entrance, the man straightened. He would have either said something or cried out, but Alpha was faster. Her figure melted into smoke before flying forward to envelop the man, aiming for his face first. Any words he might have said were reduced to a few gurgling noises that were lost amidst the screaming coming from further into the room.
  
  A few seconds later and it was over. The man was gone, his physical material absorbed into Alpha's body and added to the Pandora collective. While Alpha reformed herself, the weapons that the man had been holding fell toward the ground, but were caught by Gamma and Sigma before the noise of hitting the floor could alert anyone else to their arrival. Barely three seconds had passed since the group had entered the bank.
  
  Now able to look around, the three Pandoras took in the scene. To the left, where the information desk and security station were, a crowd of two dozen men wearing a mixture of hockey and ski masks stood facing a crowd of average civilians who had huddled into a corner. Each of the masked men was armed with a large assortment of weaponry, mostly guns.
  
  While Alpha remained focused on analyzing the combat effectiveness of armed men, she simultaneously noted Gamma's search for Tiberius within the crowd of innocents, as well as Sigma's calm study of the opposite side of the bank, where several dead bodies lay scattered in front of and over the counter where the tellers were ordinarily stationed.
  
  One of the masked men had been laughing uproariously while the trio entered the building. " Fuck yeah! You see that shit? Did you see that? That old broad's head just went pfffftttphh!" He made a strange noise with his lips, blowing them apart rapidly and spraying spittle everywhere since the ski mask he wore didn't cover his mouth. "Tell me you got it on video! Tell me we got it, Jack'll love it. Jack'll-"
  
  Two of the younger hostages, a pair of children that Alpha estimated as being no older than ten, continued to wail and sob while huddled over the fallen body that must have been the deceased elderly person that the masked man was gloating about. Finally growing annoyed as their cries interrupted his boast, the man snapped down at them. "Hey! Shut the fuck up! You're lucky we don't... actually... you know, if anything's gonna get Jack's attention and convince him we're serious..." He reached down toward one of the children, the female.
  
  His hand never reached the girl. A cloud of smoke flowed into his path before Sigma reformed herself and caught the man's arm in mid-motion.
  
  All of the noise stopped abruptly. The wailing of the children and several other hostages as well as the gloating laughter and boasts of the masked men were all instantly cut off at the unexpected appearance of the red-masked figure, as though a switch had been flipped.
  
  Into the silence, Sigma spoke. Her voice was as calm as ever, the poetry-loving Pandora's patience legendary even among the rest of her selves. "You will harm no one else."
  
  "You-" That was as far as the man managed to get in his reply before he was interrupted by his own agonized scream as Sigma simply twisted her hand slightly, maintaining her grip on his arm so that a loud crack could be heard through the room as the bone within was broken so thoroughly that a piece of it tore through the muscle and skin to become visible to the open air.
  
  "No one..." Sigma reiterated before giving a sharp yank that ended up hurling the man a good twenty feet before he crashed headlong into the opposite wall. "... else."
  
  By that point, several of the masked men had realized what sort of trouble they were in, and spun around as though to flee. Finding themselves facing two more red-masked figures, they stopped short and seemed aimless, uncertain of what to do. Their confident boasting had given way to muttering.
  
  A new arrival came before any of the men could decide what to do on their own, as a man shoved his way through a door marked Bank Employees Only. Like the others, he wore a simple mask and carried a pistol in one hand, his bearing that of someone that was accustomed to being obeyed. "What the fuck is going on out here, you lazy god damn..." Trailing off at the sight before him, the man looked at his frozen underlings, the civilians who had gone just as silent in the wake of this interruption, and at the three masked figures who had barged in to interrupt all of the fun.
  
  Taking all of that in within a few seconds, the man raised his pistol, pointing it toward Sigma while bellowing, "Fucking murder the cunts!"
  
  ALPHA - These men pose no threat. It would be a simple matter to absorb all of them.
  
  SIGMA - Simple, yes. But would the point be made to others who wish to follow their example?
  
  ALPHA - Sigma-Self wishes to do more than simply erase their existence?
  
  SIGMA - Sigma-Self believes that these men have harmed innocents. They have made these ordinary humans feel as we did when our other selves were taken away. And these humans have no recourse, no protection. These men hurt them, and must be hurt in return. They must learn that we will not allow this to happen any more, and some of them must live to tell others of their lessons.
  
  GAMMA - Gamma-Self agrees. And Gamma-Self cannot see Tiberius-Friend here. He must be beyond the door that the man who is their leader came from.
  
  ALPHA - Alpha-Self and Sigma-Self will remove and... educate these men. Gamma-Self will go and search the building for Tiberius-Friend and other innocents. Is this agreeable?
  
  GAMMA - Gamma-Self agrees.
  
  SIGMA - Sigma-Self agrees.
  
  By the time that the three of them had concluded their private, silent discussion, only a couple of seconds had passed. The Slaughterhouse Cultists were already throwing themselves into an all-out assault, screaming deafeningly and manically as though to bolster their own courage.
  
  Alpha took a step forward, allowing two of the men to rush toward her with their weapons, a shotgun and a heavy pistol, respectively, raised. As the shotgun bucked in the nearest man's hand with a roar of destruction, she was already side-stepping. The blast tore past her to blow out the nearby glass doors, while Alpha easily caught the end of it. Ignoring the heat of the barrel, she tugged it out of the man's hand as easily as if he had been purposefully handing it to her. Twisting around him while he fumbled, she brought the gun swinging up and over to collide with the second man's outstretched hand holding his own gun. The collision of rifle butt against bone sent the pistol it flying out of his hand while he howled in pain and doubled over to grab his now broken hand.
  
  Leaning sideways, Alpha brought her leg backward into a kick that knocked the first man's leg out from under him while he was trying to reorient himself. He fell back through the space that she had been in before she had leaned away, and she caught him under the arms before giving a shove toward the floor that knocked the second man's legs out, pitching him forward toward her while he was still holding his broken hand. She met his arrival with a derisive backhanded slap that knocked him sprawling to the floor, while simultaneously pitching the shotgun out of the way.
  
  Meanwhile, Gamma had approached the man at the door. He lifted a pistol of what was probably a truly imposing size and aimed it at the smallest of the three Pandoras while snarling, "Wonder what Jack'll give me for mounting your head on the wall of this place."
  
  He fired the gun, but Gamma had already split herself into a swarm of monarch butterflies. They flew forward, enveloping the man before turning back into the girl herself, standing behind him. The man had time to realize where the threat was and start to turn, before Gamma shoved her fist through his back with the ease of an ordinary person punching through wet leaves. Her hand easily tore into his body, caught hold of the man's heart, and ripped it back out again before the man fully understood what was happening.
  
  He collapsed, and Gamma pivoted to continue her search through the building.
  
  By that point, the next three men had come rushing toward Alpha. She met them easily, flowing through the group as though their attacks meant nothing. The few that she allowed to hit her rather than simply avoiding entirely were shrugged aside like water against a stone, while she took them apart with contemptuous ease.
  
  Together, Alpha and Sigma completely destroyed the once-cocky cultists. They could easily have simply killed the men, but they chose to hurt them instead. They chose to break them, allowing them to attack and rewarding them with pain. Even when the men attempted to attack one of the Pandoras from behind, it did them no good. Not only were Sigma and Alpha's senses much too advanced for that, but the fact they constantly saw what each other could see meant that as long as they were facing one another, they were always aware of what was behind them.
  
  Within less than a full minute, all of the nearly thirty men lay broken and bleeding on the floor in varying states of agony, while Alpha and her sister-self Sigma stood on either side of the pile, unharmed, and barely touched.
  
  In the mean time, Gamma had worked her way through the staff area of the bank, locating ten more hostages in various locations, as well as at least that many dead victims. Finally, in a back corner office, she located Tiberius-Friend alongside several others, and was working to free them from their bonds after eliminating the two men who had been standing guard.
  
  Back in the main lobby, Alpha made a point of stepping forward into the pile of fallen men so that her foot came down on one of their injured hands. His howl of agony caught the attention of the others, so that they focused on her as she began to speak.
  
  "You will wait here and allow the human police force to detain you in their prison. If you escape, or ever harm another person, we will find you, and we will finish what was begun this day."
  
  To punctuate her words, she held her arm out to the side, reshaping it into a dark red blade as wide as her own body in order to show them just how relatively easy she and Sigma had been taking it on them. They had formed no weapons, had used no additional powers or abilities aside from their toughness, strength, and prowess. Before their eyes, she brought the blade straight down to sever the arm of the man whose hand was trapped beneath her foot, as casually as if she had been snipping a simple garden weed. His howls of shock redoubled, and she stepped over him while continuing to speak. "We will allow you to live so that you may inform others that there will be no more murder of innocents."
  
  Reaching down, she caught hold of one of the least injured of the men. He let out a screech of fear when Alpha hauled him to his feet, and she saw the wet stain appear in his green camouflaged pants.
  
  "Remove your mask." She ordered, waiting until his shaking hands had obeyed, revealing a relatively young looking face, wet with tears from the fear that they had brought upon him. "You will go and tell any others who play these... games." She gestured to the rest of the fallen men. "Go and tell them that if we find them after this moment, we will not spare any more of their lives. They may either turn themselves into the authorities, or wait for us to hunt them down. But there is no hiding. Turn themselves in, or we will end their existence. After you have told them, you will go to the police station and surrender yourself. If you do not, we will find you."
  
  The man gaped for a moment, mouth working as though he was afraid to test the fact that she was letting him go, at least for the moment.
  
  "If you do not wish to be our messenger," Alpha informed him. "I may choose another."
  
  "N-no, no problem, I'll tell 'em!" The man stumbled a little, falling over himself in his rush to flee. "Right to prison, I will, I swear! D-don't kill me, don't... I... I'll do it, I swear I'll do it!"
  
  Looking away from the man, Alpha put him out of her mind and stepped over to the huddled civilians, who were staring at the two of them in shock. "You are free." She informed them. "Do as you wish."
  
  She had just turned away from them when a sudden weight caught her around the waist. Looking down sharply, she blinked at the sight of the young girl clinging to her. "Please don't go." She pleaded, her voice full of fear. "What if more of them come. Please, please stay until the police come. Please?"
  
  Looking toward the doorway where the masked Gamma was ushering Tiberius-Friend and the others that she had rescued into the main room, Alpha paused before asking, "You do not wish us to leave?"
  
  The little girl shook her head rapidly, eyes welling with tears once more. "Th-there might be more bad guys. Th-they already... k-killed Gramma..."
  
  Unsure of what she was feeling, Alpha gave a slow nod. "Very well... we will stay. We-" She cut herself off in surprise as the girl clung to her even tighter. Beside her, Sigma was enveloped in a hug from the boy-child, while the crowd around them quickly overcame their shock and fear to begin applauding, cheering their own rescue and the defeat of the men who had meant to sacrifice them to the Slaughterhouse Nine.
  
  Slowly, uncertainly, Alpha lifted her own arms and returned the child's embrace with a grip that grew stronger over each passing second, her emotions wavering beneath the weight of what she was feeling in that moment.
  
  "They will not harm you any longer," she informed the child, as well as everyone else. It was a promise that she meant to keep, an urge not to consume and improve themselves, but rather to protect. Whatever else happened, they... she would protect this child and the rest of the innocent people in this room. It had nothing to do with biological compulsion, and absolutely everything to do with humanity, the humanity that Alpha and the other Pandoras had found in spite of everything. "No one will harm you again.
  
  "No one."
  
  26.06
  
  "You know, I'm pretty sure that a pardon doesn't include crimes that you commit after it's issued. In fact, I'm damn near certain 'breaking into a sandwich shop to steal their food' still counts as something that could get us both in a lot of trouble."
  
  From where she was kneeling in front of the doors of the restaurant, Aisha Laborn continued to work carefully with the lockpicks while rolling her eyes at the words of her most recently acquired teammate. "Ballistic, you do know that I'm not a dyke, right?"
  
  She could hear the frown in Luke's voice as he replied, "The hell does that have to do with anything?"
  
  Smirking a little to herself, Aisha finished with her work on the lock and straightened while pushing the door open. "It means I'm not into pussies, so don't be one."
  
  Stepping through the now-open doorway, the masked girl flicked on the lights and proceeded directly to the counter. "Besides, we're not stealing anything. Big bro made me promise to leave money for everything we take. Which is more than I think we really need to do, considering we're risking our lives while the people that are supposed to be working here are hiding out where it's safe. Least they can do is not bitch if we get some food that's gonna spoil anyway before they get back to it. So quit your bitching and help me make some grub for everybody."
  
  Ignoring Luke's reply, she slipping into the back area and opened the walk-in freezer to start pulling out fresh materials for their sub sandwiches, dropping the full metal trays with the plastic wrap over them onto the convenient nearby wheeled cart. "Lessee, moosturd," she deliberately mispronounced the popular condiment. "Spicy moosturd, salami, ham, lettuce, pickles..." Trailing off, she began to hum to herself while loading the tray, doing a little dance there in the cooler for no other reason than because it amused her to do so. Which made up a pretty good portion of why she did anything these days. Life was too short to waste it doing too much stuff that wasn't amusing. She was only fourteen and even she knew that. Any time someone asked why she did something, there was at least a fifty percent chance that her completely and totally honest answer could be, "Because fuck it, that's why."
  
  Before leaving the cooler, Aisha caught sight of herself in the reflective metal of one of the nearby pans. From the outside, her costume hadn't changed too much from when she had started out, back when she had just been desperate to save her big brother from prison. Her mask still looked a simple black full-face covering job with its red mark that looked like a hand raised to slap someone. The inside of it, however, had been upgraded. No longer a mundane ski mask, it contained night vision lenses that adjusted automatically to the light level, hearing protection that would either magnify sound or dampen it as needed, and other things such as a full communications array that allowed all of the team members to talk with whatever teammates they wanted to, anywhere in the city. Plus, maybe most importantly, the costume materials had been upgraded from simple cotton or whatever to some kind of stuff that could supposedly take a bullet from a handgun without breaking through.
  
  Not that she planned on testing that any time soon, but with things going the way they were, you never knew. Things were so... different than they had been not so long ago that she still sometimes had to take a moment to remember where she was after waking up in the middle of the night. Aisha's life had changed so much in such a relatively short time that she often wondered if the her from six months earlier would be envious, start laughing at how stupid her older self was for thinking any of this would last, or be utterly disgusted. Or some mixture of all three.
  
  At times like this, Aisha had to admit that she was rather difficult to predict, even for herself. But at least she wasn't, repulsed shudder incoming, boring. She'd rather be dead than boring.
  
  After loading the cart with a bit of everything, she gave it a kick to send it rolling out into the front area before trailing after it. "You got that list thing with everyone's order on it that Titty gave you?"
  
  Coughing, Luke spread the paper out on the counter while casting a look her way through his mask. "You know Tattletale loathes that nickname, right? As in, keep using it and I'd be nervous about drinking or eating anything she handed me without some kind of food tester."
  
  Smirking to herself, Aisha grabbed a long loaf of bread and shrugged while slathering spicy mustard onto it. "Hey, she can't blame me. I'm just calling her by the name she kept signing her e-mails with. I've got the documentation to prove it. It says right at the bottom, Titty."
  
  "I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be T T."
  
  "Eh, tomato, titty-ahto."
  
  One of Bitch's dogs came running up to the car as soon as Luke had parked it in the back lot behind the building that served as the Undersider's base of operations. From the outside, the place looked like a private accounting office, and thanks to Tattletale's insistence, actually did employ a few people in the front area for that very purpose as camouflage.
  
  When Brian had asked why they needed to go through such pains to hide where they were headquartered since they had gone legitimate and the PRT had no reason to come after them, Lisa had replied that just because they weren't the bad guys anymore didn't mean that it was smart to let everyone know where they were all the time. They still had enemies, and there were plenty of people who held a grudge on both sides of the cape scene.
  
  In Aisha's opinion, Tattletale had just really, really wanted a secret lair and was going to make any kind of excuse it took to get one. Not that she objected, of course. Secret lairs were awesome.
  
  Stepping out of the car with her armload of food, she gave the dog a narrow look. "Hey, I tried to give you a treat last time we brought stuff back. I told you to keep it secret and you carried it right to Bitch. I ain't going through that 'don't give my dogs human food' hissy fit again, pal."
  
  The dog just whined at her while Bitch herself approached from where she had been sitting in the shade of the building. She was flanked by several more dogs who had stayed right with their Mistress despite the fact that their ears and noses had perked up as soon as the car stopped.
  
  Silently, Aisha reached into the bag and withdrew a meatball sub, holding it out to the other girl. She and Bitch didn't always get along super well, but they tolerated each other at least. For the most part, they left each other alone and did their own things unless there was a case to work on. The fact was, Aisha liked to mess with people, and Bitch, or Rachel, hated feeling like she was being messed with. In Aisha's opinion, the older girl overreacted even more than most people.
  
  Either way, the two of them had learned early on that they were never going to be best friends, but they were still able to work together when they needed to. Aisha trusted Bitch to watch her back in a life and death situation, she just didn't particularly like to hang out with the girl.
  
  Taking the sub, Bitch unwrapped it and took a large, noisy bite, getting sauce over her face in the process. She chewed and swallowed mechanically before speaking. "Get actual dog food this time?"
  
  "Back here." Luke spoke up for her, lifting the trunk of the car and hauling out two heavy bags of the stuff with a grunt. "Picked it up from that place on Fifth. You're lucky, the dog food aisle was pretty much the only one the looters hadn't already picked clean."
  
  Those two headed over to the kennel taking up half the parking lot where Bitch's dogs slept,trailed by the pack of hungry hounds. Aisha watched them go for a moment before heading inside.
  
  For all its outwardly mundane appearances, the steel reinforced door at the building's rear required a seven digit code that Tattletale had forced Aisha to memorize rather than write down, a thumb print and retinal scanner, and a voice match. When pressed on whether all of that was necessary, Lisa had insisted that they could never be too careful.
  
  Aisha was pretty sure it still fit her 'Titty really fucking wants a god damn secret lair' theory.
  
  Speaking of the devil, she was just raising her hand to put in the code to start the overly elaborate entry process when the door beeped and opened from the other side, revealing Tattletale. She was with Noelle, the two of them obviously on their way out.
  
  "Oh, you made it back." Lisa was in costume, while Noelle was still wearing her civilian clothes. She had decided to take the name of Veritas given her ability to know when people were lying, but they hadn't had a chance to actually find or make her a real costume just yet. When it was necessary to hide her identity from people, the girl was still just pulling on a ski mask. It was cheap, but effective.
  
  "Yeah, got food." Aisha held the bag up for them. "As promised. Where're you going?"
  
  It was Noelle who answered, the smile on her face growing with a note of what sounded an awful lot like pride. "Amy killed Crawler."
  
  Visibly deflating while shooting the other girl what was obviously a hurt look, Lisa complained, "Didn't we just agree that I could tell everybody about that?"
  
  Noelle shrugged, though the small smile that tugged at her face made Aisha like her just a little bit more. "Technically, we agreed that you could tell the group. This isn't the whole group. And Aisha doesn't pay attention during team meetings anyway."
  
  "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Raising her hands to gesture for them both to stop and nearly dropping the bags of food in the process, Aisha demanded, "What the fuck are you talking about? Who killed Crawler?"
  
  "Panacea," Tattletale replied before elaborating. "He killed her dad and she flipped out, apparently."
  
  "But... but..." Aisha sputtered a bit. "How? He's... Crawler and she's just a fucking healer. What'd she do, medicate him to death?"
  
  Tattletale gave one of her vulpine smiles that suggested she knew more than she was telling, while replying dismissively. "Pretty much. Come on, the Wards want to meet up to talk about what we're gonna do next. We can talk about it on the way." She pursed her lips and whistled toward the corner where Luke and Rachel were with the dogs, waving to get their attention.
  
  Still reeling from the news that Crawler had been killed, Aisha managed to ask, "Where's Brian and Elias?" Her brother had taken to keeping the former Merchant with him most of the time. He claimed it was to stop acting like a dumb thug, but Aisha was pretty sure his main goal was keeping Elias away from her. As if she needed protection.
  
  "Vacate's grabbing a bigger vehicle so we can transport the dogs more easily." Tattletale turned while continuing to point over her shoulder. "Brian's changing clothes. He should be down any-"
  
  That was as far as she got, before a deafening crash from overhead interrupted her words. Aisha felt shards of glass shower all around her, glancing off her costume. Something much heavier than glass hit the ground right behind her, and her surprised backwards stumble sent her tripping over it to sprawl hard on the pavement with a yelp.
  
  Rolling over just as fast, she lashed out with a hand defensively, intent on freezing whatever had tried to attack her. Her flailing hand caught hold of a sleeve, but before she could release her power, her brain caught up with her eyes and realized who she was grabbing.
  
  "Brian?" She asked dully, staring at the fallen form of her older brother. He was lying there on his back, costume only half on, his helmet missing. Dark patches of blood spread out along the pavement from several deep gashes in his chest, and his eyes were open wide while he struggled to speak, only getting out a few sounds here and there.
  
  It didn't register, not at first. The sight of Brian laying there, so badly hurt, didn't compute. For a moment, Aisha just sat there, her brain refusing to acknowledge what it was seeing. It just locked up, like her old cell phone, giving no reaction whatsoever. She just... stopped.
  
  It was Tattletale who knocked her out of it, physically and mentally, by plowing into Aisha, tackling her out of the way just as a figure dropped down where she had been next to her brother.
  
  The two of them rolled a few feet along the pavement, Aisha squirming free just in time to see Mannequin, that creepy fuck from the Slaughterhouse Nine. The crazy fucking tinker was just yanking a blade out of the cement where Aisha had been sitting, retracting it back into his arm. He was faced away from them, but his body was flopped over so much that his head, twisted almost a hundred and eighty degrees on its own, was able to look directly at them.
  
  Aisha's eyes were on the blood that covered the blade he was retracting. Her brother's blood.
  
  Mannequin was just orienting himself, deploying a new blade from his opposite arm, when a loud shot rang out, followed by two more. Noelle, pistol yanked from its concealing holster at her back, was opening up on him. The gun worked with lasers rather than bullets, so there was no ricochet. Still, it had little effect other than to catch his attention.
  
  He started to move on her, but before he could raise that blade, one of Bitch's dogs, already partially grown, came charging up with a challenging bark.
  
  Mannequin, however, was entirely too fast. His entire body and all its parts dropped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut, allowing the first dog to simply sail over him. Before the dog could land and reorient, a small compartment on one of the tinker's arms popped open to unleash a half dozen spikes that shot into its side. The animal let out a howl of agony before crashing to the ground with a whine, twitching a few times.
  
  Somewhere in the background, Aisha could hear more of the dogs coming, while their mistress screamed, "Kill! Rip, tear, kill!"
  
  Lisa too, had produced a laser handgun, adding her own fire to Noelle's from the other side. The two pelted the mad tinker under an intense barrage for several seconds, just before a trashcan lid came slamming up into the figure with the force of a speeding car, courtesy of Ballistic. The distraction of the lasers had served its purpose, and Mannequin took the blow on the chest, sending him sprawling end over end like an old toy action figure.
  
  It didn't keep him down, however. He reoriented in mid-air, feet going down to catch himself. However, taking a look at what he faced, the tinker immediately bent down before leaping up. His arm extended to catch a nearby window sill in order to yank the rest of his body up after it, and he used that to launch himself around the corner of the building.
  
  In an instant, Aisha was on her feet, starting to chase after him. Before she could, however, Lisa caught her by the arm and yanked her back.
  
  "Let me go!" She demanded, flailing to free herself.
  
  Lisa didn't. Instead, she pointed with her other hand, while also hitting a button on the cell phone that she held in it. "Go to Brian!" Bringing the phone up, she shouted, "Panacea, we need a healer! Healer, right now, outside the headquarters. It's Grue. It's Grue, he needs a healer right now!"
  
  Aisha, for her part, stopped listening. She could vaguely hear the sound of Ballistic, Veritas, and Bitch carrying on the chase after Mannequin, while Tattletale called for help. But her eyes were locked on her brother's form, while she dropped to her knees beside him. Her hands lifted as though to cover his wounds, but there were so many of them. He'd been cut in at least half a dozen places throughout his chest even before being pitched out the third story window.
  
  "Brian, bro, hold on." She felt her voice crack and cursed inwardly. "I-it's all right, okay? Don't be a pussy, bro. Healer's coming. Panacea's-" Her voice cracked once again, and she had to close her eyes briefly before pressing on. "Panacea's on her way, so you'll be fine. You'll be fine." If she said it enough times, it had to be true, right?
  
  A hand touched hers, and Aisha opened her eyes once more to find Brian staring at her. His fingers curled around hers while he struggled to speak, finally managing a single word, his shortened name for her. "Eesh..."
  
  "Shut up!" She demanded, suddenly hysterical. "Shut up, idiot. Just shut the fuck up, okay? You're trying to give me some stupid fucking last words, and I'm not listening. I'm not listening to your fucking last words, so you have to stay alive, get it? Stay alive, you fucking pussy. Stay alive because I'm not listening right now, so you can't-" She couldn't say the word. "You can't... you have to stay with me. Panacea's coming , you fucking asshole. You shut the fuck up and stay alive because Panacea is coming! She's coming, she's almost here! You know she can heal you, so don't close your eyes, don't give up, Brian. Brian! You hear me? Are you listening? Don't be a pussy, you'll be okay, you'll-"
  
  His hand squeezed hers so tightly that she stopped talking, staring down at the broken form of her older brother, her protector, her guardian in so many ways even before it had been legally acknowledged.
  
  "Eesh..." He forced out past cracked and bloodied lips. "You... are..."
  
  Silence followed those words. Aisha shifted, eyes widening as she blurted, "What? I'm what?! Brian, I'm what!?" Her voice grew more hysterical with each passing word. "I'm listening, bro! I'm listening, I swear! Tell me. Tell me what you wanted to tell me! Brian, tell me! Brian! Bri-" Abruptly, her voice was overtaken by her own broken sobs, the realization that her brother would never finish his sentence overriding her desperate denial.
  
  "No, no, no. Please, please, no, please. Don't go, don't leave me alone again. Don't leave me! I can't be alone again, I can't be alone, Brian, please! Please! Please don't leave me alone!"
  
  The words, useless as water flung against a windshield, filled the air while Aisha continued to cling to her brother. She held him, shook him, and screamed, all to no avail. He was gone.
  
  He was gone, and she was alone again. Another person had abandoned her. Another person had been ripped away, leaving her behind.
  
  As she lay on the pavement, clinging to her brother's still, silent form, Aisha Laborn's eyes closed, and she knew nothing else, while the image of a massive, all-encompassing creature that dwarfed the stars drifted through through her memory, just as it had once before.
  
  She dreamt, and her power... changed.
  
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  Arc 27: Stand
  Notes: Hellking - Yup, the term Atonement encompasses several different parts of the story.
  
  Imageination - Thanks, I'm glad you liked the little aside about Carlos and Mariko dating. And as for Emma, well, one of my goals going through this was 'redeem the character of Emma', so there's that. :)
  
  Starfox5 - I know what you mean, I wanted to keep using Marquis, but him dying there felt... natural. There needed to be real consequences to the Nine's rampage. And as for Riley doing the most important thing, well... read on.
  
  27.01
  
  The thug let out a shrill cry as I used the line that I had attached to his shirt to yank him toward me from the opposite side of the street. It was abruptly cut off a moment later as his face collided with my outstretched and ready gauntlet, smacking him to the ground where he lay dazed and groaning in pain.
  
  "Now, what have we learned today, kids?" I adopted the patronizing voice of a bad teacher. "The only thing running around emulating murderous psychopaths gets you is a boot to the face."
  
  From where he had collapsed, the thug lifted his head. "That wasn't your bo-" His correction was cut off as my raised foot connected with his face, sending him back to the ground once more.
  
  Behind me, I heard a man scream in terror. Pivoting, I winced at the sight of another of these Slaughterhouse cultists or whatever they were calling themselves. He was laying on his back in the middle of the street, pinned in place by a garbage can lid that pressed firmly down on his chest. His eyes were fixated on the upside down garbage truck that was hovering a couple of feet above him, drifting threateningly as though it was hanging by a thread and ready to drop at any second.
  
  "No, no, no, please don't. Please, lemme go, lemme go. Oh god, no don't drop it, please." The man begged desperately, squirming in a vain attempt to get out from under the lid that was holding him down. "I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'll turn myself in, I swear!"
  
  "You think that's good enough?" Reach, face hidden behind the black mask and green visor of the costume that she had adopted just before the battle against Anubis, demanded. "You think you can just say you're sorry about trying to impress those fucking monsters and we'll let you go like everything's fine? You wanna act like them, we should treat you like them. They've all got kill on sight orders. You think they're so special? You wanna be just like them, then maybe you need kill orders too. Maybe that'll get through your thick fucking skulls that you don't emulate those god damn monsters!"
  
  "I won't, I won't do it!" The man squirmed and practically sobbed. "I swear I'll change!"
  
  "Oh, you're begging now?" Reach jabbed a finger at a bloody figure that lay against the nearby building. "Did that guy beg you before you cut his throat, huh? How much did he plead for you to let him go? How much did you fucking laugh at him while he was dying, you son of a bitch?"
  
  "Reach." I stepped that way, wincing a little. We had been on our way to meet up with the Undersiders so that everyone could figure out what we were going to do without PRT support when warning lines had directed me this way. Unfortunately, we had arrived too late to save everyone. There were two other bodies besides the one that Cassie had pointed to. We had, however, stopped this guy and his friends from killing the remaining group of civilians who had all scattered and run once we interrupted.
  
  "What?" She demanded without looking away from the man, or the truck that hovered right over him. "You know he deserves it. He's a murderer, Tether. He wants to be just like the Nine, so we should fucking treat him just like them. Put him out of everyone's misery before he kills anyone else." Finally, she tore her gaze away from him to look toward me. "You know he deserves it. Look at that guy over there. Look at the others and tell me he doesn't fucking deserve to be put down so that nobody else has to put up with his bullshit. Look at the dead fucking bodies and tell me they don't deserve justice."
  
  "It's not about what he deserves," I said quietly, watching her. "It's not about what anyone deserves. It's about who we are, what we are." Raising my hand, I pointed to the man. "He's a monster. But we're not. That's the whole point, Reach. We're not monsters. We don't murder helpless people who have already surrendered. That's... everything. If we throw that away, if we give that up just because it'll make us feel better for a few minutes, then we're surrendering the thing that makes us better than them." Lowering my hand, I spoke a little more softly. "He's a monster, but you're not. You're better than he is, Reach. Trust me. Do not murder someone that's already surrendered, someone that's helpless. He's down. He's not a threat anymore. If we're going to win this, really beat the Nine, then we can't turn into them. That's what Jack wants. He wants us to change so much, to go so far just to stop them that we lose who we are in the process. If that happens, then it doesn't matter what we do to the Nine, they've already won. We have to maintain a line and not let them drag us down into their filth."
  
  For a long moment, Cassie just stared at me from behind her visor. I saw her fist clench a few times in aggravation before the other girl finally exhaled she came to a decision. A second later, the garbage truck was sent away, landing on its wheels before skidding to a stop just down the street.
  
  "Fine," she muttered. "But for you, not for him." Her finger jabbed in his direction. "I still think that piece of shit deserves to die, but I'll... listen to you this time."
  
  I opened my mouth to respond, but a slow clap interrupted. Turning quickly toward the sound, I winced at the sight of the young girl with short red hair that was standing over the body of the dead man by the wall, the man we had failed to save. She stopped clapping once we were looking and waved happily.
  
  "Horde." My skin crawled a little. I didn't even know where to start with my feelings on the youngest current member of the Nine. Was there any part of the girl she had been left? How much of the way she acted was her choice and how much was her power and the crash of corrupted personalities? Had Jack made her this way, the way he had broken Riley? If he had, was there anything we could do to help?
  
  For her part, the girl simply smiled. She was flanked by a couple of her emerald figures, who stood at attention, waiting for orders. "You remember me. Good, I like making an impression."
  
  "Yeah?" Reach replied, just before the garbage truck went spinning through the air on a collision course with the girl. "How about I help you make an impression on this truck?!"
  
  Before it could reach Horde, one of her minions leapt in front of it. Emerald fist met incoming truck, and both lost. The green figure blew apart into a shower of tinted glass-like shards, while the truck went careening off course, the front end dented in.
  
  Horde's response was to shake her head in annoyance, her voice taking on the tone of an ornery old man. "You see, it's rudeness like that right there that's just destroying this country. In my day we had respect for other people's property." With that, she reached down to place her hand against the head of the corpse that lay at her feet, the man that had died just before Reach and I showed up here.
  
  "Wait," I blurted in confusion. "He's already dead, you can't-" Yet, apparently she could. The emerald coloration spread out from her hand to envelop the dead man, and a moment later he was standing once more, looking like any of her other minions. For a second after that, all I could do was stare in shock. Apparently someone being dead didn't stop her from converting them.
  
  Twitching a little, Horde's face took on the frightened expression of someone on the verge of being killed before looking around. "You... you didn't..." Her expression twisted when she saw us again, turning hateful and bitter. "You didn't save me. You let me die! You let those monsters kill me!"
  
  "Horde!" I tried to get her attention, wishing that I knew her real name. "Listen to me, just listen, whatever Jack's turned you into, whatever these personalities are doing to you, we can help. We can-"
  
  "Fuck you!" The personality of the man we had failed to save glared out at me from behind the eyes of that corrupted little girl. "Fuck all of you." She raised her hand and pointed toward us. "Kill them, rip them apart! See how they like being helpless! All of you, everyone kill them!"
  
  In response to that, a literal tornado of green dust flew into existence, depositing at least twenty of the green minions onto the ground all around myself and Reach, surrounding us on every side. They shot down from the cloud, reforming into various figures of all shapes and sizes. All of them were focused on one thing: obeying the shrieking order from their creator to tear the two of us limb from limb.
  
  "Organic?" Reach called over her shoulder while yanking the damaged garbage truck over from where it had fallen, using the mass of it to bowl through three of the nearest figures. The two of us had already put ourselves back to back to protect each other.
  
  "Yup." I attached a line against the nearest manhole cover, yanking it forcibly out of its spot before sending it flying into the face of another of the minions. It didn't really seem to do a lot other than briefly slowing the thing down. "We can't do this. There's too many of them." I attached a line from one of the metal balls attached to my costume to the wall beyond the next figure. The metal orb blew a hole into the figure, but didn't really stop it. The figure just kept walking forward with a small hole through its chest as if nothing was wrong. "And they're too strong!" I used two more lines to yank a pair of cars from down the street into their way just to slow the things down long enough to keep talking to Reach. "We need to get out of here and regroup in a better position."
  
  "Uhh, yeah, about that." Reach had her own problems, swiping the garbage truck back and forth in an effort to clear a path. Unfortunately, the emerald figures kept breaking apart and reforming. It reminded me of the way the Pandoras avoided harm by turning into smoke, and I had a moment of appreciation for just how frustrating it had to be to try to fight them.
  
  She was pointing up, and I glanced that way to see that all of the nearby rooftops were lined with several of the emerald minions each, all of them obviously waiting for us to try escaping that way. Several broke apart into mini-tornados and flew from roof to roof, just itching to intercept us.
  
  By that point, it was too late to talk. I had to take a few steps away from Reach to give both of us room to work with as the nearest of Horde's minions lunged to try grabbing my arm. I dropped into a roll, calling a warning to the girl while lashing out with a line-accelerated kick straight into the thing's knee. Tough as it was, the blow still knocked it down, and I quickly used another line to propel myself off the ground and into a high backwards flip before its still grasping hand could catch hold of me. "Oops, sorry, my dance card is full! Popular girl, you know. Try again at the hoedown next month!"
  
  Landing on top of the shoulders of another of the creatures, I threw myself forward and off of it before punching the next one, propelling my fist with the aid of a line attached beyond the thing's head so that the blow hit with enough force to at least briefly stagger it.
  
  Before I could move from there, yet another of the thing's grabbed my arm. It squeezed hard enough to make me cry out, just before a spinning hubcap tore through the thing's wrist right in front of my face, slicing its hand free of its arm and sending the thing reeling backwards. I quickly grabbed the discarded hand and tore it off of my arm, tossing the thing aside while giving Reach a thumbs up.
  
  There were too many of them. We couldn't do the damage it would take to put them down quickly enough, and Horde herself was protected by a swarm of the damn things so that we couldn't even see her anymore. We either had to get the hell out of there, or get help.
  
  My hand had just gone to activate the communicator, when a black cloud abruptly flowed out of the nearby alley and enveloped part of the horde of emerald minions.
  
  "Grue?" I turned that way, letting out a breath of relief at the sight of the Undersider himself striding out of the alley. "Good timing, we need to get-"
  
  He ignored me, gaze focused on the spot where Horde herself had popped forward to see what was going on. "Where is he?" His voice was thick with harsh emotion and barely restrained fury.
  
  "Who invited you?" Horde demanded, her voice childish once again as she stomped her foot. "I was playing with those two, not a big smelly jerk like you."
  
  "Where... is... Mannequin?" Grue demanded, trembling openly with anger while the darkness swirled around him. "Tell me where he is, or I swear to god..."
  
  "Grue, what's going on?" I glanced toward Reach, who seemed equally confused. "Did something happen? Where-"
  
  "He killed him!" Grue shot back at me, voice rising along with his obvious anger. "Mannequin killed my brother!"
  
  The words hit me, but I didn't understand. "Your... brother? You have a... a brother? I thought-"
  
  Before my eyes, Grue's form shifted, shrinking down and reforming into a smaller figure in a different costume. Freezetag stood there, fists clenched while her entire body shook with fury. "He's dead. Grue's dead."
  
  My mouth was open as I stared with wide eyes at that, frozen from my confusion. "F-Freezetag? What-how... how..."
  
  "He killed him," she repeated, while the darkness that 'Grue' had summoned gradually faded away. Her voice was choked with emotion. "He... he killed my brother."
  
  "Oh my god, Freezetag, I'm... I'm sorry. But... but you were just... how..." All I could do was stammer in bewilderment. Grue was... was dead? But he'd just been right there. He had been Aisha. What was going on?
  
  "Wanted to keep him safe. Didn't want to let him go." She muttered under her breath, trembling openly. "I just wanted to keep him with me so he couldn't go away." Aisha's voice shook with emotion that made me want to go to her, but the confusion of what was going on combined with the continued threat of Horde made me stand still. "Now he's with me. I can feel him. I can feel the others. Everyone who died after I touched them. They never leave. Everyone I've used my power on that died, I can feel them. I can use them."
  
  Before our eyes, the girl rose, her figure changing once again. Her costume melted into a one-piece dress, lightening from black to white while her mask faded away. Blonde hair unfurled and hung free.
  
  "I will use them." Aisha floated above the ground in the form of Glory Girl. "I'll use them to tear apart the son of a bitch that killed my brother." Inverting in the air, she flew forward, straight toward Horde and the emerald figures that surrounded her, blowing straight through the nearest and shattering it as easily as if it was made of glass on her way to the girl herself. " Now tell me where the fuck he is!"
  
  27.02
  
  "This is unbelievably fucked up." Cassie's voice was dull with shock as she stared after the flying figure. Freezetag, as Glory Girl, had blown right through two more green minions, shattering them apart like they weren't even there in the time that it took my teammate to say those words.
  
  "Y-yeah." That was all I could manage to say through my shock. I had no idea what was happening, or why. Grue was dead and somehow Aisha had manifested the ability to turn into not only him, but also other dead capes that she had previously used her power on? I'd heard that certain capes very rarely manifested additional power, but no one knew exactly how it worked or how often it was just the cape getting stronger/more practiced with the power that they already had.
  
  Either way, this was definitely new, and for a second all I could do was stand there and gape as Aisha flew straight for Horde, bellowing her demand for answers.
  
  Unlike Reach and myself, the new Slaughterhouse Niner was not frozen in shock. Before Freezetag could reach her, two more of the psychotic girl's green minions popped into existence and caught their mistress by either arm before throwing themselves up and backwards. The strength of their jump propelled them halfway down the block while a new swarm of emerald figures filled in the gap.
  
  "I said you weren't invited!" Horde's voice was shrill with annoyance. "You're not playing by the rules! Kill her, kill her, kill her, kill her! Make her stop cheating!"
  
  In response to the shout, the mass of green minions fell in on the transformed Freezetag, and even though the other girl was able to shatter them with a couple of punches, there were a lot of them. Worse, Aisha clearly wasn't thinking straight. She was obsessed with reaching Horde and was barely paying attention to the other threats. They were going to overwhelm her through sheer numbers if Reach and I didn't do something.
  
  I took a step forward, intending to use the fact that Horde was focused on defending herself from Freezetag, when a hand caught my shoulder to stop me. I glanced that way, expecting to see Reach, and blinked at what I saw instead. "Ruin?"
  
  The older girl was standing there with her hands on both of us. She nodded to me and then pointed at Aisha, who was already struggling to free herself from the half dozen emerald figures that were trying to hold her back. Once my attention was on her, Hunter made a pulling gesture with her hand.
  
  Realizing what she wanted, and why, I quickly attached a line between the back of Freezetag's Glory Girl costume (sparing only the briefest second to wonder if the costume was actually 'cloth'), and the pavement behind us. A tug on that line yanked her backwards away from the collection of statuesque minions. The younger girl yelped in surprise and anger at being hauled further away from her target.
  
  Ignoring her anger, Ruin took three quick steps forward to place the three of us firmly behind her. She stood there, a lone figure set against at least fifty of the green minions, all of them bearing down on her now that their original target had been yanked out of their grasp.
  
  A second later, as the emerald figures rushed forward, a quiet, hoarse voice spoke two words. "No more." The wave of energy erupted outward from where Ruin stood, disintegrating each and every green figure that was rushing toward her. They went from statue to ash in an instant, blowing away on the wind before dissipating entirely.
  
  I also saw Horde a moment before the wave hit her. The girl's expression went from joyful to horrified to terrified in an instant that was almost too fast to follow. Then her body disintegrated right alongside her creations, turning first to dust and then to nothing. She'd barely had time to realize that she'd lost.
  
  And just like that, with little fanfare or warning, the psychopath was gone. I... wasn't sure what I'd expected, or how I'd thought we'd bring her down, but this wasn't it. Maybe I'd let Dennis talk me into playing too many video games, but I'd expected more of an ongoing fight. Instead, Horde had simply been matched against Ruin, a battle she couldn't even hope to win, in a scenario where Hunter wasn't afraid to use her powers. The script had flipped entirely too quickly for Horde to react. She'd come in expecting one thing and had the rug pulled out from under her... twice, the second lethally.
  
  Maybe there was something to be learned from that, for this entire situation.
  
  Shoulders slumping a little, Ruin turned back toward us. No sooner was she facing our direction, than Aisha, still in Glory Girl's form, hurled herself that way.
  
  "You stupid bitch!" Freezetag screamed at the top of her lungs while throwing a wild punch. "I needed her! I needed her to tell me where Mannequin was! Why'd you have to kill her?! Why?! I could've gotten answers out of her! I could have made her tell me where Mannequin was, god damn it!"
  
  She swung several more times, but none came anywhere near their target. I didn't even have a line warning me about danger, considering how easily Hunter avoided the blows. It didn't even seem to be very taxing for her. She simply leaned here and there, expending absolutely minimal effort while allowing Aisha to exhaust herself by throwing wild punch after wild punch.
  
  Finally, I attached a line to the furious, emotional girl and yanked her away from Hunter, interposing myself between them. "Tag, stop!" Even then, I didn't want to just blurt out the girl's identity, as tempting as it was to try to get her attention with her real name. "Listen to me, Freezetag, listen. Horde wouldn't have told you what you wanted to know. And if she did, it would've been a trap. She would've delayed us, played games, messed with our heads all until she could escape and kill more people. She had to be stopped, right now while we had the chance, while no one else was in the way and she had nowhere else to go. Ruin had to take the shot."
  
  A part of me wasn't sure. The part of me that had seen Riley turn away from what Jack had made her into, that part still thought there might have been a chance to save whoever Horde had been. But the fact was, the potential to save a psychotic murderer wasn't worth the lives of all the people she might kill if we failed. Not in this situation, where we were spread so thin and with the lives of everyone in the city hanging in the balance. I hated it, I absolutely loathed it, but at this point we had to make hard choices. One of those choices was not bending over backwards to save these particular enemies, no matter what seemingly innocent face they wore. Ruin had simply seen that fact before I had. With these people, the rules didn't apply. They needed to be stopped, no matter what that took.
  
  Aisha, with Victoria's face, glared at me. The features melted into her usual mask, while she shook her head. "I could've made her talk," she insisted, her voice dark and thick with emotion.
  
  I swallowed, lifting my hands. "Listen, about Grue. I... I don't even know-"
  
  "That's right, you don't." She spat the words. "You don't know. You don't have a clue what-"
  
  A new voice interrupted her, speaking calmly. "Yes, she does." Tattletale, flanked by Noelle and Vacate, stood nearby. Her voice was quiet, but firm. "She knows what you're feeling. And so... do others." The blonde Undersider's gaze was locked on her teammate, and I couldn't help but notice the blood that liberally stained the front of her costume. The sight of it made me swallow painfully.
  
  "Can you give us a minute?" Tattletale asked without looking away from where her distraught teammate stood. "I need to talk to Freezetag alone."
  
  I nodded and stepped away to where Reach and Ruin had already joined Noelle and Vacate. My attention was on my housemate. "How did you get here? How did you even find us?"
  
  In response, Hunter nodded toward Vacate. The visor of his black and gold costume left the lower half of his face exposed, and I could see the way his mouth was set in a tight frown. It wasn't anything like the cocky, perverted smile I'd seen before. From the set of his shoulders and stance, to what I could see of his face, he actually looked pretty upset.
  
  "I was chatting with the bab-ahh, girl there when Tales called in." He spoke with the hesitation of someone who was both choosing their words carefully and extremely unused to doing so. He had obviously been (probably badly) hitting on Hunter at the time. "She come by to let us know where the whole meeting pow wow shit's supposed to be an' then she offered tah go up the street an' help me pick out a truck to haul the Bitch's dogs around so's I wouldn't be alone. We was lookin' for the right truck when Tales called in to say what... what happened." His face twitched a little before he shrugged. "So's I brought her with to follow the tracker Tales's got in the costumes or whatever."
  
  Noelle spoke up then. "We got here and Ruin made it clear that she wanted us to wait out of the way so that she could..." She trailed off before gesturing toward the now-empty street. "Do all that."
  
  I hesitated, glancing toward Reach before asking in a lower voice, "Grue, he really..."
  
  The older girl gave a short nod, eyes closing briefly. I saw a shudder run through her. "We couldn't do anything. It was Mannequin, he must've attacked Grue inside right after Tattletale and I left him upstairs, then threw him out the window so he'd hit the ground and..." She gave another shudder. "L-Ballistic and Bitch were trying to chase him down, but we called them off, just in case he was leading them into a trap. They should be here soon."
  
  After a moment, he nodded to the spot where Tattletale and Freezetag were. "She really body jumping or whatever the shit?"
  
  "I don't know what she's doing," I responded truthfully. "Not exactly anyway. It's something about manifesting the bodies and powers of people that she's used her power on before that have... died."
  
  Before long, Ballistic and Bitch arrived on the back of one of those giant dogs and trailed by two others. They joined us, followed shortly by Tattletale, who came over with Aisha following after. The younger girl didn't say anything, or look at anyone. Her gaze was directed at the ground, shoulders raised in a way that made it clear that she didn't want anyone to get near her. I didn't know what Tattletale had said to the girl, but it had at least calmed her down enough to stick around.
  
  "Before we meet up with the others," the blonde Undersider waited and then continued once everyone's attention was on her. "I want to ask everyone not to talk about Freezetag's... other ability. We don't know exactly what it is yet, or what the limitations are. We don't know what's going to happen, so just... don't tell anyone else, please. That goes for everyone on our team, and those off of it." She looked toward Ruin, Reach, and me. "If you could just not tell anyone for now, we'd appreciate it."
  
  "That's funny," Reach replied, her voice dry. "Considering the cavalier way you treat other people's secrets. Every secret you know is just another arrow in your quiver."
  
  "You're right." Tattletale gave a single, short nod. "I do treat secrets as weapons. That's my power, I won't apologize for it. But just like a real weapon master, I know which ones are safe for a sparring match, and which ones should only be pulled out if it's the end of the world. Secrets are my specialty. I know when to use them and when to leave them alone. Right now, I'm asking you to leave this alone."
  
  "We'll keep it to ourselves." I spoke before looking toward Cassie and Hunter, receiving nods from both of them before going on. "Except for Amy and Pandora." My head shook firmly. "I'm not lying to them, not about this and not even by omission. They deserve to know so that the next time... it happens, it's not a shock. That's the best we can offer. We won't tell everyone, but Amy and Pandora deserve to know before it hits them at the wrong time."
  
  "That's all we can ask for." Tattletale gestured to the dogs. "Anyone need a lift to the meeting place?"
  
  We spread out, Hunter choosing to stay with me and Reach rather than ride the dogs. Before the Undersiders left, I caught Noelle by the arm and whispered, "Are you okay?"
  
  Rather than answer directly, the other girl nodded toward Tattletale. "I asked her the same thing on the way over here. We just had to push Grue's body into the building and leave him there. I asked if she was going to be all right. He's... he was one of the last original Undersiders. It's just her and Bitch now. They're the last of the original team, the original... purpose. So I asked if she was going to be okay."
  
  "What did she say?" I glanced that way, watching the purple and black clad former villain adjust her position on the dog while turning to say something to Bitch.
  
  Noelle was quiet for a moment before responding. "She said that no matter what she said, I'd know it was a lie. But she also said that she can't stop now. She can't think about it, or she won't stop thinking about it. She said she'll grieve later, that she'll let it hit her then, not now. So that's my answer too. I didn't really know Grue that well, and all this is... way over my head still. But I'll let it hit me later. One thing at a time. Right now..."
  
  "Right now we meet with the others." I nodded. "And figure out how to beat Jack."
  
  "They're picking us off one by one." Kid Win's voice was bitter as he stood in the middle of the downtown library a short time later, which was where we had chosen to gather everyone. He waved a hand toward the spot where Cassie and I stood. "Spreading out, watching us and jumping in when they find someone vulnerable. That's why Horde hit Tether and Reach, because she knew neither of you could hard-counter her."
  
  The Undersiders were here, along with all of my own team of Wards, and Ruin. On the left side of the open reading room floor Faultline's crew had gathered, and on the right hand side, there was Bones, Oversight, Panacea, three Pandoras, and even Dinah. The twelve-year old precog had been the one to choose this particular location as being the safest possible place to hold a meeting without a Slaughterhouse interruption.
  
  This was the coalition that we had gathered to beat the rest of the Nine before they destroyed the city. There were other capes in town, on both sides of the law, but we couldn't find them. Hell, I would have liked to find out more about that blue-haired girl that had rescued Hunter, but there hadn't been any other sign of her.
  
  Noelle, wearing a ski mask to protect her identity from the people in the room who didn't already know her face, agreed with Kid Win. "And it's why Mannequin hit Grue, because he was alone. They're picking their moments and hitting us whenever there's an opening."
  
  Reach, standing beside me, cursed out loud. "Their heavy hitters are gone, but the nasty ones, the ones that fucking excel at this hit and run bullshit, they're just getting worse."
  
  "We'll get them too," Flechette assured her. "Horde's gone. Jack's down to..." She had to stop and think for a moment. "Himself, Valefor, Mannequin, Hatchet Face, and Burnscar." Hunter raised her hand, and she amended, "Assuming that Burnscar didn't die from... whoever that was that saved Ruin mind whammying her. List Burnscar as a maybe. We haven't seen her since then. Or Hatchet Face, actually, but I'd rather assume they're both up and around than be taken by surprise."
  
  "Don't forget about Eddie," I reminded the other girl. "Who knows if Jack's managed to actually recruit him or not, but I think it's safe to say that he can convince the guy to make what he wants him to."
  
  "And you're sure Crawler's down for good?" That was Faultline, watching Panacea appraisingly. "He's not exactly known for being easy to put down."
  
  "He killed my father." Amy's voice was, for once, not soft. She didn't sound meek. There was a fire to her words, a smoldering certainty that hadn't quite been there before. It had been growing, ever since she accepted Pandora as her sister(s) and began to work with Dinah's group. And now she spoke with the voice of a girl who had chosen not to be ashamed of what she was capable of. "If I wasn't sure he was dead, I'd still be there, killing him."
  
  "Either way, he's right." Noelle nodded toward Kid Win. "This is Jack's whole strategy. He's lost his big and nasty guys, but he's still got most of the ones that let him play the long, stealthy game. They'll just keep waiting until there's an opening, then pick off whoever they can. They know that you don't-I mean, that we don't have reinforcements coming. And the longer this goes on, the more convinced the rest of the people in the city are going to be that Jack can't be stopped, and that they'll be trapped in here forever. There's already been suicides over this."
  
  Flinching at that reminder, I sighed while nodding. "I know. This guy that got hit by glass back when Shatterbird announced their big entrance, he could have been survived his injuries, but he just... gave up. He chose to die instead of taking the chance on what the Nine were going to do to the city."
  
  "And there'll be a lot more," Faultline confirmed. "Jack's not just fighting us. He's fighting people's morale. Doesn't matter what you do to him, if he destroys this city's morale, if he convinces enough people that it's not worth fighting, not worth living or trying, then he wins. Jack wants to spread anarchy and despair. He wants to break everything. Even if someone kills him, if he hurts the city and the people that live here enough, he still wins. All he needs is time."
  
  I gazed at the ground for a few seconds, frowning behind my mask before looking up. "So we stop giving him time. We stop playing by his rules and we stop letting him dictate the battle lines. We stop reacting to everything. He doesn't get to tug us around by the leash anymore."
  
  "Pretty words." Gregor the Snail spoke from where he stood next to Shamrock. "Do you have any idea how to back them up?"
  
  "Gregor's right," Faultline's attention was on me. "Saying it's one thing, but do you actually have a plan for beating Jack that doesn't involve playing by his rules?"
  
  I looked away, staring at some of the books that were lining the display shelves nearby. I read the titles silently while my mind worked through the problem for several long seconds before turning back as my frown melted into a smile in spite of myself. "As a matter of fact," I announced. "I do."
  
  27.03
  
  Several hours later, I sat on the roof of the library with one arm around Mika to hold the younger girl close. The two of us were watching Theo and Chris working together at a hastily assembled card table. They were passing tools and bits of metal, plastic, and electronic widgets back and forth while talking about things that were so far over my head they might as well have been speaking Martian. A dozen or so of Aid's drones lay on the table in between them, most cracked open with bits spilling out of them.
  
  "I hope my mom and dad are okay." Mika's mask was in her lap, the same as mine. We weren't that worried about being seen, since the Undersiders and Faultline's crew were all off working on a crucial part of this plan we had come up with, while Dinah's group had a different part to play. Which meant that it was just us Wards up here, and we had Lily and Missy playing lookouts on either side of the roof to make sure we weren't taken by surprise.
  
  "Try not to worry, Mikes." I urged her quietly while checking on the boys' progress. "Murk already moved them to the new place along with Director Simms and some others. They're gonna be okay, as long as we finish this soon." And we would finish soon, one way or another. We couldn't let this keep dragging out, following the script that Jack had written.
  
  "She's right, they'll be fine." Cassie spoke up from where she was standing by the table where the boys were. In the absence of any kind of clamp or other tool to hold the equipment they were working on perfectly still, Reach had been recruited. With her power, she was able to ensure that they could work on the tiny devices that they were making without having the stuff constantly moving around. She glanced toward Theo then before reiterating, "They'll all be fine."
  
  I knew what she was doing. Aster was also there, being watched over by Mika's parents, actually. She didn't want Theo to start worrying about his half-sister and get distracted from the work that he and Chris were doing. The last thing we could afford right now was a mistake.
  
  For her part, Mika just nodded and leaned into me a little with a partially suppressed yawn. I could tell that she was tired, even if she refused to acknowledge it openly. We were all tired, stressed, lonely, and overworked. Which just proved, again, that it was time to finish this before we lost anyone else.
  
  Another few minutes passed in relative silence before Chris straightened and tugged off the headphones that he'd been wearing over only one ear. "Got it." Nodding toward Reach, he added, "You can set them down now." Once she let his work lower gently down to the table, he picked up a couple of the bug-sized things, holding them out in his palm toward me. "That's the best I can do with what we've got."
  
  After gently extricating myself from Mika to stand up and accept the little things from him, I asked, "How sure are you that they'll work?"
  
  His face contorted a little. "I'm not good with percentages. Eighty five percent? I trust the work and Theo double-checked me, but this isn't exactly anything that I've built before."
  
  "I trust you." I set the devices where they needed to be and then looked toward where Aid was still working on his cannibalized drones. "What about your stuff?"
  
  Pushing a hand back through sweaty hair, Theo spared a glance at me through his safety goggles. "Fifteen minutes. I... I think, anyway. I wish we had more time, more equipment, more..."
  
  "We know." Cassie folded her arms around herself, looking uncomfortable. I had the feeling that what she really wanted to do was put her arms around Theo, but couldn't interrupt his work. Plus she was still a bit gunshy about the idea of showing that kind of affection in public. So she just hugged herself instead. "Unfortunately, Jack Ass and his band of god damn Murder Hobos won't let us call 'time-out.'"
  
  A very small part of me thought about saying that she shouldn't curse like that in front of Mika, before the much larger part of my common sense beat the crap out of that idiotic part and threw it into a closet.
  
  Stepping over to where Lily was, I nudged the girl. "Hear anything from Faultline or Tattletale?"
  
  Her head shook. "They're still looking. What about Dinah and her... team?" She had to pause before finishing, obviously unsure if she should actually call them that. "Any trouble?"
  
  "Hold on." I turned to gaze across the street at another roof where Iota's Asian Pandora and one of the others stood, facing opposite directions so that nothing could sneak up on either of them. Raising my hand into a thumbs up, I waited until Iota returned the gesture. "Looks like they're still on schedule."
  
  "Better mask up then." Lily glanced to me, hesitating before speaking again in a lower, more confidential voice. "I really wish your plan didn't sound so... suicidal. You're basically throwing yourself into their path with only untested tech to keep you alive. You're painting a target on your back and you know it."
  
  "Of course I know that," I confirmed. "Painting a target on my back is the whole point. Jack's already pissed at me for Riley. That's the point of this whole thing. That's why he locked the adult capes out of the city, to show that he could tear apart what I helped build, just like I started tearing apart what he built. Doesn't matter that I didn't do it on purpose. Riley left him because of me, which obviously broke the rest of the Nine somehow. This is his last chance, his big Hail Mary to keep them together."
  
  "You think that's why they haven't left yet?" She asked. "I mean, they already lost Shatterbird, Crawler, and Horde for sure. Maybe even Burnscar. No matter how this turns out, they lost a lot of their muscle. I mean yeah, Noelle's right. The ones that are left are really good at the sneaky murder thing, but the Nine have always been most dangerous because they have both the stealth and the firepower. He's lost a lot of his firepower over this whole thing and they're still not leaving."
  
  "I don't think he can leave it like this." I spoke slowly. "Physically or psychologically. Physically, he can't leave because he hasn't done enough to convince the people still with him that he's still in charge. If Valefor, Mannequin, or Hatchet Face decide to kill him, there's not a lot he can do about it. He needs a win here. Psychologically, same thing. He hasn't done enough damage for this to be anything other than a failure for him. That's why they're still here, and it's why this is going to work." I paused before adding, a little more quietly, "I hope."
  
  Glancing past me toward Mika, Lily lowered her voice. "Keep her safe, Madison. Promise me. If you do this, she's got a target on her back too. She's going to be right there with you."
  
  I met her gaze while nodding once, firmly. "I won't let anything happen to her, Lils. I swear. Besides, help won't be too far away." I smiled faintly. "I just hope she's a good actress."
  
  "No!" Mika, fully suited up about an hour later, screamed at me while the two of us stood in the middle of the street. About a hundred feet away, a group of about a dozen of those crazy fanatics stood next to graffiti they'd painted that went on about how the Endbringers were humanity's righteous judgment and that the Slaughterhouse Nine were their heralds. They had stopped painting to watch us argue.
  
  "Sparrow, please." I reached out to her. "Listen, you can't just run off like that. We need to stay together."
  
  She drew back, floating out of my reach with the use of her bracelets. "You don't wanna stay together! You just wanna make me stay with my parents. You don't wanna let me fight. I'm not a baby."
  
  Making a mental note that I shouldn't have worried about Mika's acting ability, I made myself flinch when she drew away from me. "That's... Sparrow, your parents are scared, just like everyone else. They just want you to be safe. No one expects you to face the Nine, especially not now."
  
  "I'm. Not. A. Baby!" The distraught, angry voice coming from Mika didn't match the pink smiley face that her mask wore at all. It also made me cringe inwardly even though I knew she was playing. "Stop treating me like one. I can help if you just let me! I really can!"
  
  "Please, Sparrow." I let out a breath, glancing around nervously before taking a step toward her. "Please, we have to go back. If we're separated from the others for too long, we might run into-"
  
  "Trouble?" A new voice spoke, and both of us spun to look at the alleyway nearby where a familiar figure had emerged. Valefor, his feminine costume that purposefully emulated the Simurgh, stepped into view. He looked like someone whose birthday and Christmas had come early. "Maybe trouble was really hoping to run into you."
  
  "Sparrow, get-" I started to step in front of the spot where she was still floating, putting myself between the freak and my younger teammate, but before I could move, Valefor interrupted quickly.
  
  "Stop. Both of you stop. Don't move, don't use your powers, don't do anything." He paused to watch as we jerked to a halt, Sparrow touching down to the ground beside me. "Just stand there and do nothing."
  
  We stopped short, pretty much freezing in place while the psychopath watched. As soon as we were still, he began to pace around the two of us. "Hmm, now what to do first with my prize." With a hand, he waved toward the cultists down the street. "Come then! You want to see what happens to those that deny the power of judgment, come and enjoy the view!"
  
  "Valefor, listen to me." I started to say, trying to reason with him.
  
  "You shut up," he ordered. "Both of you shut up. I'm not like Jack. I don't care about babbling back and forth, so don't say another word until I tell you otherwise."
  
  I exchanged a look with Sparrow while the two of us remained obediently silent.
  
  "Now..." Valefor came to a conclusion a moment later. "Jack wants you broken. He wants everyone to see that you aren't the grand champion savior that they think you are. I think there's one definitive way to make sure everyone hates you. Do you know what that might be, hmm? Try to guess."
  
  "Don't," I warned him, stiffening. "Don't even think about-"
  
  "Time's up." The man sounded gleeful. "You're probably not smart enough to figure it out anyway. Ahem, Tether, I want you to choke Sparrow. You will choke her until she dies. First, take her mask off. I want you to see her face. Then choke her until she's dead. Sparrow, you will not resist in any way. Tether, you will choke her until she's dead and then you will forget that I gave this order. You will believe that you did this because she made you angry and you couldn't control yourself. Do it now."
  
  For a second, I stared at Sparrow, then turned toward the man. "Naaaah." I purposefully dragged out the word while shrugging elaborately, enjoying the moment.
  
  Expression hidden behind his mask, the man froze. "What did you say? Kill her! Choke her now!"
  
  "Ya know, I really don't think I will." I smiled in spite of the fact that he wouldn't see it, just because I felt like it. "You're really not good at this whole disappointment thing, are you?"
  
  It was Valefor's turn to stare at me in shock, while I just pointed to my mask. "Funny thing about having a power that relies on your voice. Your victims have to actually hear you. And as it turns out, you like to talk a lot . So we had enough voice samples to program our new earplugs to filter out anything you say and relay it a second later with a different voice just so we know what you're saying. I chose Micky Mouse. Pretty sure Sparrow went with Daffy Duck." A glance that way brought a confirming nod and giggle.
  
  Instantly, Valefor deepened his voice. "Kill each other!"
  
  "Ooooh, nice try." I wagged a finger at him. "But now that they're locked onto you, the earplugs won't let anything you say through. No matter what voice you use. Care to try again?"
  
  Twisting around, the man looked toward where the Endbringer Cultists should have been, clearly intending to use them as a distraction or an army. Instead, all he found was Aid and Vista, the two of them having worked together to clear the cultists off the street in those few seconds. The crazy fucks would find themselves standing several streets away with no idea of how they'd gotten there.
  
  With that option denied him, Valefor's next move was to pivot on his heel and sprint back the way he'd come. He made it three steps before Reach, Flechette, and Kid Win stepped into view, emerging from the same alley that he had come from to block his path.
  
  "Hehe... heh..." Valefor looked over his shoulder at us, then toward Vista and Aid, and finally looked back to the other three. "Okay, okay, I get it. You got me. Whatever, I'm not loyal to Jack and his bullshit anyway. What do you wanna know?"
  
  "From you?" Flechette shrugged while she held her rapier casually in one hand. "Not a damn thing."
  
  The man barked a disbelieving laugh. "Nothing? What about Jack's location, or how to get through that damn shield, huh? You might wanna know something about that shit."
  
  "You don't fucking know how to get through the shield." Reach shot back. "If you did, you'd be gone already. Jack kept that shit to himself and Mannequin. Maybe the new tinker. They didn't tell you shit about it."
  
  Shifting a little from foot to foot, Valefor took a moment to respond. "Fine, whatever. I can still tell you where Jack is right now. We can make a deal. I do my time in max security, but no Birdcage. In exchange, I'll tell you where Jacky boy is. That's the deal. Jack's location in exchange for my life and no Birdcage."
  
  "Hmm, let me think." Lily's voice was dry. "Aid?"
  
  "Got it." He responded while holding out his arms out to either side as a veritable swarm of his tiny orb-shaped drones came in to land on his armor and reattach themselves where they belonged. "Oversight says she consolidated every drone's data into a single path that he could have taken. She... watched all of it that fast." He added the last part with a tone of awe. I didn't blame him. The idea of having several dozen drones watch every street that they could while sending their data for a single person to keep track of would have been insane for anyone without unbelievable multitasking skill.
  
  Smiling humorlessly, Flechette brought the confused psychopath up to speed. "See, we don't need you anymore. The whole point of playing out that little charade in front of your groupies was so that you'd find out about it and come running to play your sick fucking games. So we just put camera drones over every street they could get to."
  
  "Yup," Kid Win put in. "As soon as you showed yourself here so we knew which one you were, the drones locked on and rewound all of their footage to play back where you came from. Would've taken a long time to sort through it all, but we've got a really efficient friend."
  
  "So what now? What the fuck now?" Valefor blurted. "What do you want from me?"
  
  I hesitated, before letting out a long breath. "I want to not be here. I want to not be in this position. But you chose it. You chose to put us here. You made this happen." That said, I reached down and took Sparrow by the hand. Squeezing gently, I turned to walk away, tugging her with me to make her follow.
  
  "I chose what? Where are you going? What the hell do you think this-" Mika and I turned the corner while the sound of a blade whistling through the air interrupted his words. He wouldn't ever speak again. Or do anything else.
  
  "One more down?" The eleven-year old's voice was quiet. She had been through so much, and I knew that sparing her the sight of that had been an all-but pointless gesture. But sometimes gestures were all we had left.
  
  "Yeah," I squeezed her hand. "One more down. And we know where the rest of them are now.
  
  "Next, we finish this."
  
  27.04
  
  "Seriously, this is where Jack's hanging out?" Lily's voice was flat with disbelief as she stood staring at the spot that Aid and Oversight had directed us to.
  
  Theo himself was the only member of our team not physically present. He'd had to go and focus on helping the Undersiders and Faultline's Crew find a way to get through the city-wide forcefield. Tattletale had some ideas about repairing the forcefield generator that Flechette had destroyed so that the shutdown sequence could be reinitialized, but she'd needed a tinker to get anywhere with it. Theo had been elected since his 'helping people' specialty seemed to be the most suited for it. He hadn't been happy about the idea of leaving just then, but none of us could shake the feeling that we really needed to get that shield down as soon as possible, before Jack was backed into a corner and made whatever his next move was going to be. Kid Win might have even gone with to help as well, but we needed his firepower if we ran into Hatchet Face. Even then, sending away one of our two tinkers just before facing a power nullifier might have been stupid, but we only had so much to work with.
  
  "What, this doesn't strike you as the best kind of lair for Jack?" Reach gestured toward the building in question. "I'm not surprised at all. He'd fit right in alongside the other vacuous, evil little psychopaths."
  
  "Err, it's just a middle school, Reach." Kid Win pointed out idly as he fiddled with the controls on his flight and weapons pack, adjusting something about one of the cannons. I knew that the idea of being our primary line of defense against Hatchet Face was making Chris nervous, so he was quadruple checking everything, just in case. From what I'd seen, it seemed like he'd come prepared with enough firepower to mow down an entire army. I just hoped it was enough to handle one Hatchet Face.
  
  In fact, it was the middle school that I had gone to before moving on to Winslow High. Seeing it now, and knowing that the Nine had set up shop inside, was disconcerting. The memories I had from that place, back when I had still been a spoiled little brat (yet not quite as bad as I'd gotten to be in high school) made me uncomfortable, though not nearly as much as the thought of going up against Jack did. That particular thought made my heart pound so much I was sure everyone else could hear it. The only thing that outweighed my fear of facing Jack Slash was my anger at what he had done.
  
  "You're right." Reach folded her arms. "He's probably here to get tips on how to be even more evil."
  
  I coughed at that, glancing away from the building to look at her. "I thought you liked school though."
  
  "I do," She confirmed with a nod. "I like school . It's the students that can fuck right the hell off."
  
  None of this mattered. Cassie hadn't forgotten the seriousness of the situation, and she wasn't honestly comparing middle school students to the Slaughterhouse Nine. We were all just upset, nervous, and trying in vain to focus on something other than what we still had to do... and what we had already done.
  
  No one had said anything about the death of Valefor. We didn't dare bring it up, even though it was obviously on everyone's mind. If we stopped, if we took the time to focus on what we had done, it might just break us at this point. And we couldn't break, not yet. Not until this was over.
  
  Vista spoke up then, glancing toward Sparrow. "It's our school. He's been hanging out at our school."
  
  "Well," I took a deep breath. "I guess it's time to go kick him out of it, huh?" I had to force the words out past a thick knot in my throat, ruining the intended confidence. I was more afraid in that moment that I had been at any other time in my still-short career. Fighting Leviathan, facing Coil after he'd killed my parents, even seeing Anubis's zombies, none of it came close to the fear that rose simply at the idea of walking into a building that I knew Jack Slash was in. For all my anger, and all my certainty that this absolutely had to be done if anyone in the city was going to survive, I was still terrified.
  
  It seemed to take a moment before Flechette found her voice. "Yup." She hesitated again, looking toward the rest of us before adding, "Remember, no splitting up. We go in together and we stay together. No one breaks off from the group, everyone watches each others backs. Tether, you've got the rear because you can see everyone else. Kid, you're watching her back because Hatchet Face likes to attack from behind. Vista, you take the lead and I'll cover you. Reach and Sparrow watch the sides. Sparrow uses her forcefield staff and Reach uses anything she can get her hands on to shield us if anything comes in from that way, until we have time to set for it. Ready?"
  
  As soon as everyone indicated their readiness, if not eagerness, Flechette nodded to me and I used lines to draw her, Vista, and myself down to the ground at the back entrance of the school. Kid Win, Sparrow, and Reach floated down under their own power.
  
  Together, we entered the school through the entrance nearest to the gym. The hallway stretched out before us, brightly lit against expectations. The majority of the lockers that lined either side stood open, as did the doors that led into the gym itself. The latter revealed an oppressively dark room that probably would have been more scary if we didn't all have light-adjusting night vision built into our costumes.
  
  Vista glanced toward me while stepping closer to the open gym doors, and I nodded. There were no lines anywhere yet. She edged into the entrance, while I kept my eyes mostly fixated on her just in case, only diverting my attention to make sure there were no lines on anyone else. It was clear so far.
  
  Slowly, the younger girl panned her gaze back and forth as she stood there in the gym entrance. After a moment, she spoke in a low voice. "Nothing. It's empty. The locker room doors are open, and so is the weight room. We could check it out, just to be sure, but I don't think anyone's here."
  
  "We'll clear it anyway," Flechette decided. "Just to be sure. No need to rush right into their hands. We take this one room at a time and do it right."
  
  We proceeded to clear the entire gym, including both locker rooms and the weight room. There was no one there, and nothing of interest in any of them, except that I noticed the purple and pink star that I had painted on my old eighth grade gym locker was still there.
  
  Once the gym was clear, we moved on. Gradually walking down the hallway the way that Flechette had set us up, we cleared one classroom after another, working quietly and methodically. There was no sound, no sign that anyone else had been in here today. The silence was oppressive, and seemed to permeate everything, raising tension in a way that reminded me of watching a horror movie when you knew that the jump scare was coming any second, but it just kept waiting while you were drawn closer to the edge of your seat, fingers raised to cover your eyes the very instant that it happened.
  
  But here, I couldn't cover my eyes. I had to focus. My friends were counting on me.
  
  We had just finished one full hallway and were at the four-way intersection that led forward to the main office area, left to the English and History classes, or right to the Math and Science department. While Flechette decided on a direction, I looked left to check Mika, then right toward Reach on the other side. As my gaze passed over Vista, a black line abruptly rose up between us, snapping my attention back to her as I yelped out a warning that probably sounded like a cross between a squeal and a hiccup.
  
  Vista was already turning my way while jerking backward, but I still attached a line to yank her further. It was just in time, before the locker that she was standing near, one of the very few closed ones (which itself should have tipped me off, in hindsight), exploded outward with a near-deafening bang that was accompanied by a sharp, high pitched whine. The locker door itself shot off its hinges and flipped through the air right where Vista had been standing, along with a flurry of small metal spikes of some kind which embedded themselves in the locker on the opposite side of the hall, narrowly missing everyone else while we staggered in surprise.
  
  A second later, the lights went out. Darkness engulfed us, and I barely had time to wonder why the night vision wasn't working when something hit me from the side with enough force to knock the wind out of me while I was sent flying to slam against some of the lockers. Pain shot down my side, and I realized that the only reason I hadn't broken anything was the padding of my costume.
  
  "EMP!" Kid Win was shouting. "Tech's all down!"
  
  That explained why the night vision wasn't working (and, for that matter, why my costume wasn't giving off light anymore), as well as why he wasn't shooting at whatever had hit me. Hell, I thought that tinker tech stuff was normally protected from EMP, but somehow this one had gotten through. We probably had Eddie to blame.
  
  Hearing Reach cry out, I forced myself back to my feet and moved toward the sound. I tried to use lines against my feet to propel myself, but nothing happened.
  
  Realizing what that meant just as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, I dropped into a roll in time to hear something heavy cut through the air where I had been. "Hatchet!" I wheezed out the warning through lungs that were still fighting to refill with air.
  
  It was dark now, none of our powers worked, not even Kid Win's thanks to the EMP, and Hatchet Face was right in the middle of us. Worse, Reach hadn't made a sound since her initial cry. This was bad.
  
  Before I could even pull out of the roll that had dropped me under the cape-killer's swing, a hand snatched the hood of my costume and yanked me up. I had time to let out a yelp, feeling the sudden panic of my total lack of powers, before a heavy fist smacked into the side of my mask so hard that I saw stars. A grunt of dismissal came then, just before I was swung around to slam face first into the lockers once more. I could feel consciousness threatening to slip away, but somehow managed to kick my feet up and shove off the locker, tearing myself from the man's grasp even as he bellowed in anger.
  
  There was little grace to the way I fell, landing hard on my already battered side before rolling away just as the distinctive sound of a heavy blade slamming into the floor where I had been met my ears.
  
  My eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness, enough to make out the large form jerking his weapon free of the floor while he stomped after me. He was too close, way too close. My fear forced me to ignore the pain in my head and sides as Hatchet Face came after me with single-minded intensity.
  
  Two quick whip strikes, sadly unpowered of course, lashed out to catch the man's attention. Flechette was giving me time to get back up, facing the power-killing brute down with her whip in one hand and rapier in the other. "You wanna kill a cape, big guy? Why don't you pick on me?"
  
  A quick glance around as I forced myself up revealed a still figure that took me a moment in the near-black darkness to place as Reach lying on her side. Her leg was twisted at an unnatural angle, and though my heart stopped for a second, I finally heard her let out a groan of pain.
  
  Meanwhile, Flechette's whip was caught by Hatchet Face, and he jerked the girl off her feet. His hatchet came down once more, just before Kid Win barreled into Flechette from the side, knocking both of them clear of the blade. But it also took both of them to the floor, leaving them prone for his follow-up swing, which caught Chris in the shoulder right next to his useless flight pack. It was only a glancing blow, but it still knocked the boy to the floor, and I thought I could see blood on that hatchet as the psychopath drew it back for a finishing strike.
  
  Reaching down, I caught hold of the locker door that had been knocked off its hinges by the explosion, then took a quick step that way to swing the door at that hatchet with all the force I could muster.
  
  The good news was that I managed to knock the weapon off course, so that it hit the nearby wall instead of my teammates. The bad news was that without my powers, I was still a little girl and all the strength I'd been able to muster still hadn't knocked the weapon out of Hatchet Face's grip. The other bad news was that he was focused on me once again. Even in the darkness that hid all details aside from dim shapes, I could tell he was smiling as he turned on me once more.
  
  He lunged for me with a quickness that belied his size, just before something long and narrow flew through the air to smack into his face. It was barely enough to make him blink, but I used it to jerk backwards away from his grasping hand. The thing clattered to the floor, and I realized that it was Mika's forcefield staff. Unable to use its power, she had thrown it at him as a distraction, brief as it was.
  
  But it also brought his attention onto her. The man took a step that way, pausing to lash out with a kick at Flechette as she tried to pick herself up to stop him. She was sent back to the floor in a heap next to the still-prone Kid Win and didn't move again.
  
  His arm came out to smack me aside with casual dismissiveness, the blow crumpling me easily before I could do more than call out a warning to Sparrow.
  
  He continued on toward the much smaller girl, raising his weapon while I fought desperately to roll over and find a way to distract him.
  
  I had just picked myself up when I heard Vista scream, "Down, down, down!" The warning made me hit the floor once more, just as a trio of newly deafening explosions of sound filled the hall. Belatedly, I realized that the other girl was using the same gun that she had gotten from Director Simms with the explosive bullets. They ripped into Hatchet Face, staggering but not stopping him. His brute rating was just too high to be brought down even by explosive bullets that had blown Shatterbird's head open.
  
  Still, it was the most damage that we'd managed to do so far, and he clearly wasn't happy about that. The ugly, evil bastard reached out with his free hand, tearing a locker door from where it stood. As Vista aimed her gun once again, he hurled it forward. The gunshot blew a hole in the locker, but it still slammed into the girl and knocked her sprawling with a cry while the weapon slid away along the floor.
  
  Hatchet Face took one more step, while I shoved myself back to my feet once again. I threw myself that way, trying to get his attention off of the younger girl. My reward was a vicious backhand that sent me sideways while snapping my head around. I hit the nearby wall just before a new voice interrupted. "That's enough."
  
  Three greenish lights popped on, revealing a smaller figure standing in front of Sparrow, blocking Hatchet Face. It took me a second to recognize it as Riley. Not as Bones, but as herself. She stood there, flanked by three green orbs that floated around her, giving off that green light.
  
  Pulling up short at the sight of the figure, Hatchet Face held his eponymous weapon with one hand while he studied her, breathing heavily. His face twisted into an even uglier glare.
  
  "Uh huh," Riley lifted her chin, staring at the man. "Me." Her head shook. "You... you killed Eta and Rho. You killed..." I saw her swallow hard. "You're... you're a monster." She folded her arms across her small chest and declared, "I'm not gonna let you hurt anybody else ever again."
  
  An ugly, rumbling noise came then that I recognized as the ugly, scarred man's laughter. He gripped his hatchet and took another step that way, rearing back with it. Before he could swing however, Riley simply pursed her lips and made a whistling noise. As she did so, a noxious smelling yellow gas shot out of her mouth, engulfing the man's face in a mustard-colored cloud. He jerked his head, but the cloud seemed to stick to him.
  
  Whatever it was, the gas made Hatchet Face stagger backwards with what sounded an awful lot like a cry of pain. His hatchet fell to the floor while his hands grasped at his face, seeming to claw at his own skin. It took me a second considering his already existing scars to realize what was happening.
  
  His face was melting . His eyes had turned red already, flooding with blood while his skin burned and slid away, revealing muscle that was turning to gel and literally boiling off of his head. His mouth opened to scream, and I saw his tongue swell up before it popped apart, the muscle splitting along the sides like an overcooked tin of popcorn.
  
  Falling to his knees, the man clawed at his own face desperately while it continued to melt. The pain that he was in had to be mind-breaking, as he let out a continuous wail of agony until the cloud reached his throat, choking his noise off into whimpers, then nothing. His eyes had long since burst, leaving him blind and now mute.
  
  Through it all, Riley stood watching. From casual observance she might have seemed impassive, but I could see the tears sliding down her face, illuminated by the verdant glow of the orbs that floated around her.
  
  "You killed Eta and Rho," she repeated her previous words even as his body began to slump the rest of the way to the floor, unable to hold himself up any more. "You're a monster. I'm not going to let you kill anybody else... ever again."
  
  Finally, Hatchet Face's body was completely still, lying on the floor. His head was almost completely gone by the time the gas cloud dispersed, leaving almost nothing aside from some remnants of his skull.
  
  I was brought out of my shocked stare by the sound of Sparrow calling Flechette's name. The younger girl went past me on her way to Lily, and I quickly moved to check on Reach, then Vista.
  
  They were both alive, though unconscious. Missy had taken the locker door right to the face, while Cassie had passed out from the pain of her badly broken leg. A quick check with Mika revealed that Flechette was in similar condition. Kid Win was awake, but too badly injured to get up. As it was, I could barely move without pain shooting through me. We had been thoroughly trounced by Hatchet Face. If Riley hadn't shown up...
  
  Looking toward the girl in question, I managed, "Thank you, Riley."
  
  She swallowed and looked away from me while changing the subject. "I looked around. Mannequin isn't here. Neither is Burnscar, if she's still alive. There's just... him."
  
  Turning back to Mika, I crouched next to where she was sitting by Lily, trying not to flinch from the pain of the movement. "Sparrow, you have to protect these guys, okay? Riley, is Panacea..."
  
  "She's coming." She confirmed. "I already told her. But it'll be a few minutes."
  
  "Stay here, Sparrow." I told the younger girl. "Protect them until Panacea gets here. Your powers should be working now. You can keep them safe."
  
  "Wh-what about you?" The girl stammered, looking up from Flechette with her hands pressed against the other girl's arm. "You... you can't face Jack alone."
  
  "She's... uggnn... right..." Kid Win managed, face twisted in pain. "Can't go after that psychopath by yourself."
  
  "I won't be alone." I promised them while pushing myself back to my feet, glancing toward Riley. "Right?"
  
  Her eyes closed briefly and I saw the shudder of fear go through her before she squared her shoulders and straightened with a firm nod. "Right. I'm... I'm with you."
  
  "Good." I gave Mika and Chris one last look, before starting that way, each step making me want to flinch from the pain. Yet I kept moving, because I was not going to let Jack walk away. Not this time. "Then let's go, Riley. You and me, we're putting Jack where he belongs.
  
  "In the ground."
  
  27.05
  
  "Tether?" The apprehensive voice was very soft, even against the oppressive silence that filled the hall.
  
  Slowly, I took my attention off of the closed cafeteria doors and glanced toward the young girl who stood beside me, responding in a voice just as quiet as hers had been. "Yeah, Riley?"
  
  I could see the hesitation in her eyes as they focused on the doors at the end of the hall. It took her a moment to speak the words. "I'm..." After wetting her lips and swallowing thickly, she continued in a weak voice that I could barely make out. "I'm scared." Her small form shook "I'm really, really scared."
  
  Wincing, I put my hand out to take hers, squeezing gently while trying my best to ignore the dull ache that permeated my body. "You wanna know a secret? Me too."
  
  Her head shook. "Not a secret. If you weren't scared, you'd be really stupid. And you're not stupid." It took her another second before she managed to add, "And we're not afraid of the same things."
  
  I studied her briefly, while the two of us stood there, only a couple dozen feet from the room where Jack Slash was supposedly waiting. "It's not Jack hurting you that you're afraid of, is it?" I realized.
  
  Once more, Riley shook her head. Her face had become slightly paler, while her lips pursed together tightly. Yet she said nothing, seeming afraid to put words to her fear for several long seconds before she finally spoke again. "I'm not afraid of dying. I deserve it. I don't want to, but... I'd understand if I did. What I'm afraid of is being... that again." Her eyes were visibly wet, and she blinked several times. "I can't be Bonesaw again, Tether. I-" She choked up a little, giving a shudder before managing to continue. "I'd rather die than be Bonesaw. It's just... I've seen him manipulate people. I've seen him make really good people do really bad things just by talking to them and... and I'm not a good person."
  
  She was right about Jack's ability to manipulate, and we had meant to handle that with the earplugs that Chris and Theo had created. They would have filtered his voice the same way they'd filtered out Valefor's. Unfortunately, I was pretty sure that the EMP had taken that off the table.
  
  "Riley," I spoke up after taking a few seconds to think about what I was trying to say. "Answer one question for me. Just one. Do you really, really want to be a good person?"
  
  Her eyes met mine through the lenses of my mask. "Yes," she said firmly and without hesitation.
  
  "Then whenever Jack, or anybody, tries to manipulate you, just use that as your... guide. It doesn't matter how good he is at manipulations if you focus on that. No matter who tries to make you do something, or change your mind about something, or whatever, you just repeat it to yourself. You want to be a good person. Compare what he's saying, what anyone's saying, to that. Even if you don't trust your own reactions, you're a smart girl, Riley. You know what being good entails. So whatever anyone says, just test if it fits 'being a good person.' If it doesn't, don't let it change your mind. You just focus on your goal, being a good person. Don't let anyone, not Jack or anyone else, yank you off course."
  
  For a moment, Riley said nothing, simply watching me silently through eyes that were still damp with evidence of her apprehension. Finally, she gave a slight nod, barely an inclination of her chin. "Be a good person." Her voice was quiet, thoughtful. "I... I'll try." Dropping her gaze away from me, she added, "I'm sorry I'm the only one here that can go in with you."
  
  Shaking my head at that, I gave her hand a firm squeeze. "You deserve this more than anyone in this city, Riley. If there's one person who deserves to bring Jack down more than anybody else, it's you." She opened her mouth to disagree, but I interrupted her. "I trust you. Now..." Swallowing back the sudden lump that filled my throat, I looked toward the doors. "Are you ready?"
  
  "N-Not really," she confessed. "But... yeah. I guess it's time."
  
  Together, the two of us walked to the cafeteria entrance. I considered the quiet approach and then dismissed it. Planting two lines between the floor and the doors, I forced them to swing open as hard as I could. The force literally tore the doors off their hinges and sent them flying in and apart, clanging off the floor within several times with each bounce.
  
  "Luuuuuucy!" I called while Riley and I stepped into the doorway. "You've got some 'splaining to do!"
  
  Was I scared? Hell yeah, I was almost petrified with fear of Jack. But to hell if I was going to let him know that. He was a thug, and I'd already told Mika earlier how we break monsters like him. We mock the shit out of them. We take the terror they're trying to cultivate and we disarm it with humor. So yes, I was scared. But I wasn't going to let that control me. He wanted to see fear. Hell, he probably wanted anger just as much. He wanted to see me (or anyone that was supposed to be good) lose our minds and attack him in a blind fury. But he didn't get to change who I was or what I wanted. And what I wanted more than anything in that moment was to show Jack how utterly inconsequential he was.
  
  Not that it looked as though he'd gotten the memo about that quite yet. The room had clearly been prepared ahead of time with great care. The tables in the cafeteria were arranged in a semi-circle facing the doors, with the center table piled high with food that would have looked delicious under any other circumstances. It was a feast worthy for the kind of man that Jack obviously considered himself to be.
  
  Standing in stark contrast to the bounty that covered that surface, the remaining tables were laden with the bodies of at least a dozen people. All were long dead, their limbs twisted unnaturally in a grotesque macabre scene, while the blood from their wounds leaked to the floor, forming a puddle around each table through the uneven linoleum. Some still dripped off the corners of the tables, an occasional plit... plit... of sticky substance striking the floor. Not a steady or dependable noise, but random, an unwelcome intruder that broke the silence unexpectedly each time it happened. A drip would come and then silence would reign for several long seconds before several more came in quick succession.
  
  And behind the center table, reclining slightly with his feet placed up between a platter full of dinner rolls and a bowl of mashed potatoes, sat Jack Slash. He didn't seem to have moved an inch when the doors had been blown inward, still using the knife in his right hand to slice off a bite from the chunk of meat in his left. While we took in the scene around us, he casually let the piece of what looked like ham drop off the knife and into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully before he spoke with an air of casual ease.
  
  "Don't mind the cameras." With the knife, he pointed toward the two corners of the room where recording equipment had been set up. "I didn't think we'd want anyone to miss out on what happens here. No, I believe that after this, everyone will be very clear on what happens when we get... upset."
  
  Ignoring that, Riley stared at the bodies that lined the surrounding tables. "You... who are..."
  
  "Oh, them?" Jack glanced dismissively toward the horrific display. "They mistakenly believed that this was a safe place to hole themselves up." His chuckle was humorless. "Ah, the naivety of the terminally boring. Am I right, Bonesaw?"
  
  Riley shook a little at that before opening her mouth to respond. Before she could however, I interrupted, pitching my voice up as though impressed. "Boy, I have seen a lot of tragic pleas for attention in my life, but this ," I swept my hand to encompass the view around us, "is truly pathetic."
  
  I thought I could see a frown briefly touch Jack's face before he schooled his expression and lifted an eyebrow. "If these deaths affect you so little, perhaps I overestimated your moral standing, hmm?"
  
  "Oh don't get me wrong," I assured him. "You're going to pay for each and every person you've killed, for everyone you've hurt. But this," I forced myself to shrug. "You're trying too hard. It's sad."
  
  "Hmm." Taking his feet down from the table before pushing himself to his feet, Jack considered us briefly while making a considering noise. My heart was pounding and I already had lines ready to yank both of us out of the way if the hand with that knife twitched, or if I saw any sort of warning line. Instead, he just watched while chewing on that piece of meat that he had cut for himself for several long seconds before finally speaking. "You, I believe, will be the most fun I've had in quite some time. My only question is, should I break you, make you one of our new members, or let you die to punish my dear Bonesaw for running away?" He sighed, lamenting. "If only there was a way to do both." A long, theatrical sigh blew out of him before he straightened as though something had just occurred to him. "Ah, yes. I'll kill you and let her stitch you up. She can save your life. Then I'll kill you again, and she can save you again. Eventually, well, we know how this goes. And this time she can bring what's left of you along. Would you like that, Bonesaw? She can be your personal cuddly bear to sleep with."
  
  Beside me, Riley stiffened. Her voice was shaky, but audible. "Don't... call me... that."
  
  "Oh dear," Jack shook his head in mock sorrow. "Don't tell me you've forgotten our games already. Have they gone and made you think that you're something you're not, Bonesaw?"
  
  "I'm not Bonesaw!" She shot back at him, voice rising slightly. "I'm not! Stop calling me that, because I'm never going to be Bonesaw again!"
  
  Rubbing one hand against the bridge of his nose like a harried parent, the man adopted a scolding tone. "Now is that really how you talk to me, young lady?" He paused before adding, "Ah, and before you start doing something you'll regret, you should know that this," he nodded toward the food on the table, "has all been laced with a chemical designed by our new friend Edward to nullify any kind of toxin or plague you might try to unleash during a... tantrum." His smile grew slightly. "But would you really do something that mean to your Uncle Jack?"
  
  Riley's face twisted a little before she shot back, "You're not my uncle! You're just... you're just a monster. You're just a murderer and you... you made me be like you. You made me be a monster, but I'm not going to anymore. I'm never, never going to do any of that. I... I'm different now. I'm better."
  
  "Oh dear..." Jack sighed once more, gazing at the younger girl with what looked like pity. "They really have done a number on you, haven't they? They've made you think that you can change."
  
  "I-" Riley's voice cracked slightly before she drew herself up, staring at the man. "I can. I have. I... I decide what I do, nobody else. You don't get to control me anymore."
  
  Jack shrugged at that as if it was inconsequential. "And so you trade one bit of control for another. You think the people you've joined now aren't manipulating you, Bonesaw? At least I'm honest about it. They want to change who you are, they want to stop your creativity. How long has it been since you really expressed yourself, hmm? How long has it been since you scratched that itch that keeps telling you to experiment, to really get your hands dirty and just see what you can make? Other tinkers get to play, they get money to see what they can do. But not you. You're supposed to be ashamed of the masterpieces you can build, of the changes you can make. Yet they want all the exciting and interesting things that you can do. We both want to use you, dear girl, but only one of us lets you be truly free."
  
  After looking down at the floor for a moment, Riley lifted her eyes slightly to glance toward me. For my part, I simply gave her a single nod and waited. I trust you, the nod said. I hoped she understood.
  
  Apparently she did, because Riley nodded back to me and then looked at Jack. Then she did something that he clearly hadn't expected. She laughed. It was short and soft. Then she laughed again, louder.
  
  A curious smile touched Jack's mouth then. "What's this? Something funny?" The way he spoke the words, I knew there was something more behind them. It was a reference that I didn't understand, something between the two of them.
  
  Riley clearly got it, because she stopped laughing. Her voice was quiet. "Yeah. What's funny is I just realized how desperate you are. This, it's not like one of our old games. We always walked away from those when it got too hard or dangerous. We made up new games somewhere else. But you can't walk away from this, huh? You already lost everybody that might help you. Do you even know where Mannequin is?"
  
  "That's really why he did all this," I realized with a start before turning my attention to Jack directly. "It wasn't just about trapping us in here with you. It wasn't about trapping the rest of the heroes on the outside. It was about trapping your own people here, because they were going to leave you. They were going to leave you behind, weren't they? Because you lost Riley, and you lost the Siberian. It was all falling apart, and they didn't believe in you. So you set this whole thing up to trap everyone here together before they could go away and leave you all alone. And now they're gone too. Crawler, Shatterbird, Valefor, Horde, Hatchet Face, they're all dead and gone. Did you have to kill Burnscar too, or did she just split when Mannequin did?"
  
  His shrug wasn't quite as dismissive as he wanted it to be. "The Nine have never been a stable group. Members come and go."
  
  "Not like this." I shook my head firmly. "The Slaughterhouse Nine are done. There aren't going to be any more after today."
  
  His head inclined slightly. "We shall see. Perhaps we'll rebuild with you, hmm?" A thoughtful smile touched his face that made me shiver inside. "Do you think that would send the right message? The precious Ward who was so important to the Leviathan fight, who makes everyone around her so much better, joining up with the bad, bad people."
  
  I shook my head. "I'll be dead before I do anything to help you."
  
  A soft chuckle escaped the man, who seemed utterly unconcerned about the situation. "Watch your words, my dear. I know people who could make them literal." He shrugged then, a long, lazy gesture. "But I don't think we'd really have to go that far. We simply need to take away this mask you're wearing."
  
  I frowned at that. "You too? What is it with you megalomaniacs deciding that the best way to disarm me is to take away my mask?"
  
  "Not that one." His hand flicked, cutting a bit into my face with a gesture that was so quick and casual that I didn't even have a chance to react before it was over. "That's your physical mask. I could care less about it. No, I'm talking about your other mask. The one you've been wearing to hide who you really are."
  
  Touching the side of my face, feeling the blood on my mask, I breathed out uneasily. "And who do you think I am, really?"
  
  His eyes met mine knowingly, confidently. "A selfish, spoiled little girl who tortured an innocent person for years and then let her die because you wanted to be popular."
  
  The words were a physical blow. I felt myself double over slightly, my eyes wide. "Wh-"
  
  "I'm sorry, was that a secret?" Jack smiled and took a step closer. "You've spent months pretending you're a good person, playing at being this... paragon of virtue. And we both know why, don't we? We both know why you can't have... layers. Why you can't let yourself be seen as anything less than this perfect, pristine girl that always does the right thing. It's why you have to joke, and mock, and never take your enemies seriously. Because if you did, it might shatter this little bubble you've built around yourself. It might make people question you, and we can't have that. We can't have anyone see beyond the shell you've created. It might make you realize that you haven't changed, that you're no different now than you were before."
  
  I made a noise of objection in spite of myself, only for Jack to give a quick jerk of his blade into a cut that drew a line of blood across my shoulder. "Now now, let's not start interrupting when it's not your turn to talk. That's just rude." Thoughtfully, he tapped the knife against his palm, making a show of it.
  
  Somehow, he was right in front of me. The flat of his blade brushed over my arm while his hand turned me to face one of the cameras. His voice was even and soft. "But if you really want to, you can deny it." His hand brushed my back and up over my head with mock tenderness. "Look right there and tell them that I'm lying. Tell them I'm wrong, that you didn't help kill an innocent little girl, that you didn't ruin her life to make yourself popular. Tell them I'm lying. You can do that, but we both know what happens if you do. We both know what it means."
  
  It meant giving up Taylor. It meant betraying her memory, betraying her again. I could deny what he was saying about me, but it would mean throwing away the part of Taylor's memory that kept me going, that motivated me. The part that... I needed to be who I was.
  
  "Go ahead..." His voice purred, silky smooth. "What do you say to the people?"
  
  "I..." I couldn't do it. I couldn't do that to Taylor. Whatever it made people think of me, whatever it changed for me, I couldn't betray her again. "It's true. I helped ruin a girl's life, and she's dead because of me." My voice cracked a little. "I tortured her, and she's gone now because of what I did, because of what I helped do. I... destroyed her. I..."
  
  "Shhh..." The back of Jack's hand brushed softly against my mouth through the mask. "That wasn't so bad, was it? You're okay. We're just different, you and I. You have a place here, my dear. You don't have to lie to anyone else, not even yourself. You can stop pretending now. Just stand still, close your eyes, and when we're done, you won't have to worry about anything else ever again. You'll be a brand new person. No pressure, no effort, no pretense. No one counting on you, no one to disappoint. You can just rest. Close your eyes, and let's just... go away."
  
  I couldn't help the noise that came then, akin to a whimper. Taylor. The things that I'd done, the person I'd been. I couldn't ever take that back. I couldn't change it. She was dead, and she deserved to be alive. No matter what I did for the rest of my life, I would never make up for that. And he was right, I was tired. I was sore and exhausted and... I just wanted it to stop. For that single moment, through a brief second or two, I didn't care how it stopped. I just wanted everything to be over so that I could stop being me.
  
  All at once, Jack staggered with a cry as something slammed into him. Belatedly I realized that it was Riley, slamming into him. A normal girl of her size would have bounced right off, but she had augmented herself substantially, enough to knock him sidelong while shouting my name. "Tether!"
  
  Turning away from Jack to face me, she said simply, " I trust you ."
  
  I trust you. The thing I said to her, the thing that had meant so much to her. I trusted her. I trusted her because I knew she had changed. I knew that she wanted to change, and was trying to be a better person.
  
  I couldn't believe what Jack was saying, what he was implying. Not just for myself, but for Riley . If I let him convince me that I was irredeemable, that I was a monster, then that meant I was giving up on her as well. It wasn't just about me, it was about Riley. If she could change, so could I. No matter who knew about what I'd done.
  
  I also saw the red line connect itself to her, and reacted as quick as I could. Still, Jack almost too fast, lashing out with his knife in a blow that cut deep into Riley's back even as I yanked her away from him. She hit the ground and rolled over, blood pouring from the wound.
  
  He came in for a second blow, but I used lines to hastily hurl him backward away from us. He hit one of the tables before catching himself with a grunt. Gazing at me contemplatively for a second, Jack seemed to realize that he'd failed in what he'd been trying to do, so he shook his head in disappointment and said simply, "Disappointing."
  
  That was the only warning I had before the hand that held his knife swept upward. I hurled myself sideways with the aid of the line that I had prepared, but still felt the sharp sting of the cut across the arm that I brought up protectively across my face as it went right through my costume.
  
  My dive put me behind the far right table, while I called out to him. "Riley was right before, you know! You really are desperate!" I twisted around onto my back while ignoring the pain not only from the cut, but from my less than stellar encounter with Hatchet Face. Planting lines between my outstretched gloves and the base of the table, I sent it flipping end over end toward the man. "I mean, trying to recruit me ? How hard up are you, anyway? I feel like there should be some kind of ad you can put up. Isn't there a 'pathetic psychopaths anonymous' you can get in touch with?"
  
  He dodged to the side, using a flick of his knife to cut away the end of the table that would have still hit him. His voice was just as calm as ever. "We both know that this mask won't last forever. Especially now that people will know the truth about you." His knife came down in my direction again, but I was already flinging myself upward and back, my body screaming in protest before all of my adrenaline could fully silence it.
  
  Still, I took a cut across my thigh. He was just too damn fast with that blade. I had to break up his focus, make him stop thinking clearly.
  
  To that end, as I put my feet against the wall and used lines to hold them there for a second, I called out once more. "I never claimed to be perfect, Jack. I can only be me. I think you overestimated yourself when you chose this place though."
  
  His knife came up, but this time I was faster. A line between the far wall and the handle tore it from his grasp before he could cut me again. Even then, he simply produced a second knife into his other hand with the flair of a magician, and I had to throw myself out of the way of his next cut. His voice remained unflappable. "Are you that arrogant to think that you're my match?"
  
  "Nah," I hit the ground with a roll, coming up and extending my hand toward and past Jack. The line that I made attached from my glove to the table behind the man. With a single tug, I brought the body-laden table off the ground and sent it crashing into him. "I think you should've chosen an elementary school so that you could be with your emotional peers!"
  
  The full force of the table barreling into him from behind still barely staggered Jack. The man was back up an instant later, reacting as easily as if he'd merely stumbled as he lashed out with his blade, cutting into my side deep enough that it staggered me. He tried to follow that up with a deeper blow, but I already had lines attached to the ceiling yank me up and away from it.
  
  Ignoring the pain from the cuts, I yelled down at him. "You're like that little kid on the playground that puts bugs in a girl's hair because you don't know how to express yourself!"
  
  Three more times, his hand with the knife lashed out. No matter what I did to try to get to him, he didn't totally lose his cool. He was methodical in his attacks. Yet each time, I was already gone. I yanked myself from spot to spot, bouncing around the room while continuing to taunt him. "That's what you are, Jack! Take away the power, take away the crazy people you surround yourself with in some vain attempt to make yourself relevant. Take away your disgusting little games..." I dropped down behind him while he was still pivoting, and used the second I had to yank his new knife out of his hand. "Take all that away and you're still just a sad, weak little boy tearing the wings off of butterflies because you're so broken, so fucked up in the head that you are incapable of seeing the beauty of life itself."
  
  Once more, he produced more knives. This time he had one in each hand, lashing out with precision that I would have envied at the best of times. I was obviously getting to him, judging from the fact that he wasn't planning his attacks out well enough to cut me down. But I wasn't getting to him enough . He was still too dangerous, still too collected. I had to move even faster now, and I didn't know how long I could keep it up.
  
  I still took several cuts, but they were more shallow and hurried than before. Still, I was bleeding pretty badly by that point. As I flung myself away from the flurry if strikes, I continued. "You're the little boy that goes up and breaks down another kid's block castle because he made something you can never make. You see other people with lives and love and things they've built and cared for, and you try to rip it all away because you're too stupid, broken, and pathetic to build something like that yourself."
  
  Finally, I landed directly in front of him. He gave me an easy smile before lashing out with a knife, but I ducked and lashed out with a punch of my own that barely moved his head when it connected with his cheek. "You play up being a king of the monsters, but you're not. You're not a king."
  
  His other knife swung around, and I used a line to yank his arm down so that he cut himself in the leg. "You're a coward who hides behind victims that can't fight back. And when you die, no one will care. You have built nothing with your life, and you will leave behind nothing ."
  
  Jack lunged toward me then, his own mask of easy charisma stripped away for just a moment to reveal the hatred underneath. He said nothing, but I saw the monster that he kept hidden beneath the surface of his expression. Even as he came for me, weapons up, I heard a voice calling my name once more. My attention flicked that way in time to see Riley back on her feet as she threw something up and into the air. Realizing belatedly what it was, I stretched my hand out toward it. Jack was bearing down on me, blades extended, and yet I stood completely still. I waited for my moment. It was now or never. It was time to end this.
  
  His knives pierced me, cutting through the costume like it was paper before sliding straight into my chest and stomach. Still, I kept my hand raised up and past him, letting the line that I had attached to what Riley had thrown draw it to me.
  
  With a hiss of triumph, Jack tried to yank his knives out of me to strike again, but couldn't get them free. I had more lines attached between my costume and the handles, keeping them in place through the agony that threatened to drop me. Blackness seeped into the edges of my vision, but I held on. I kept going because if I didn't, Jack would kill more people. I kept going because there was no other choice. There was no choice at all. I would not let Jack kill anybody else.
  
  He strained once more to yank his blades free, while my hand, already numb, closed around the object that I had pulled out of the air. My voice was soft from weakness, but I spoke anyway, wanting Jack to hear the words even if the simple act of speaking was agony. "You... will be ashes on the ground and the... world will keep going. It will keep... turning and people will go on... never even... thinking about you. You'll be a... footnote in a book somewhere because you... Jack... you do not matter. "
  
  Too late, Jack realized where my hand was, as he felt the cold barrel of Director Simms's pistol press against the side of his head. He released the handles of his knives and tried to straighten up and away, but I had said all that I needed to say. I knew what had to be done, and had been prepared to do it since before we entered the school.
  
  I pulled the trigger and, with a explosion of noise, blood and worse coated my mask. Jack's headless body fell to the floor. Just a man after all. Just a broken man.
  
  The gun had been blown from my hand as soon as the trigger was pulled, and I heard it clatter away somewhere even as my own legs failed me. I fell, the pain throughout my body, especially where the knives were still deeply embedded, all rushing up at once now that the fight was over.
  
  In the distance, I heard several people calling my name, but I couldn't fight the pain anymore. I slumped, falling fully to the floor while it overtook me.
  
  The darkness came, and I surrendered to it.
  
  Interlude 27 - Pandora-Prime
  
  "Sorry, Miss, no one's allowed inside without a security authorization. If you need shelter, there's a church two blocks down that still has room. We've got a couple volunteer units stationed out front that should be able to at least alert anyone inside if they need to evacuate."
  
  The PRT officer, useless in his total mediocrity, stood between Pandora and the door that she needed to enter. She read his genetic signature with a glance and dismissed him as inconsequential. Human, unpowered, and unlikely to possess any particular skill that she needed. He was nothing that became less than that as her hand stretched out, forming a bronze colored blade that pierced the man through the neck, lifted him from the ground, and then severed his head entirely with a casual twist.
  
  "I believe you will find that my security authorization is well in order." She spoke with calm assurance before striding forward, stepping casually over his fallen body before she approached the door itself.
  
  Pathetic. The human should have begun shooting as soon as she approached. Never mind that she had approached him in the guise of an elderly woman, he should have known better and made an attempt to put her down. Not that it would have done him any good, of course, but at least he would have died trying to stop her. There was little that she hated more than someone being useless, not living up to their potential or even trying to. If he'd at least been intelligent to recognize her as a threat and start shooting, she might have chosen to spare his life.
  
  Unlikely, but conceivable.
  
  Reaching the sealed security door, she pressed a hand against it while letting her figure shift back into her own chosen form. Not that of her secondary progenitor, the healer, but the form she had taken for herself after being rebuilt. Her own chosen form was that of a statuesque blonde that was closer in appearance (though not identical) to that form's adopted sister, the deceased Glory Girl, than to the meek, mouse-like unassuming figure she'd originated with.
  
  After a moment of simply pressing her hand against the door, her arm melted into a gas that spread over the door and into the edges, searching for a wide enough crack to gain entrance. Upon the failure of that, she stepped back and regarded the door briefly. Her eyes assessed the structure and its attached security panel critically for several seconds before she turned and stooped, catching hold of the fallen head of the guard from where it had rolled behind her. Hoisting it up, she pressed the head close enough for the retinal scanner to read the eyes and make the reinforced doors slide open for her.
  
  Entrance gained, Pandora dropped the head, tossing it aside dismissively before walking into the prisoner loading area of the PRT headquarters.
  
  At any other time, there would have been at least three more guards standing with the one she had eliminated. Unfortunately for them, the organization was running low on members that were able to stand and fight, particularly after Valefor had used his power to convince a dozen of them to open fire on the others at several different parts of the building simultaneously, forcing a bloodbath. This, combined with his earlier attempt to facilitate the escape of Shatterbird, had left many of the PRT agents dead. With everything that was going on throughout the city, and all that they had lost, the PRT barely had enough active and healthy officers left to keep things running under a skeleton crew.
  
  It had been her savior, the one who had saved Pandora from death when Ballistic and Trickster had come so close to killing her, who explained all of that before sending her out to do this. It was, he had informed her, the best chance they would have to make this extraction, before the dome came down.
  
  That thought made her scowl inwardly. They wouldn't have had to wait for this situation if she had still been operating at her previous level of power, before her near-death had so drastically weakened her.
  
  She had survived through a combination of a fluke and the aid of her savior. The instant that Trickster had teleported her into the path of Ballistic's projectile, she had begun to rearrange her body, moving her all-important brain out of her head and down where it would be safe.
  
  Unfortunately, the attack had struck before she was finished. She had successfully moved some of her brain, but too much had been damaged for her to survive on her own. It had also done enough damage to cut her off from the rest of her previously prepared selves, eliminating her ability to control or even communicate with them.
  
  They believed she was dead, while the truth was that she had been barely alive, but broken and useless inside of what was essentially a corpse in all but name. She had been little more than an animal at that point, trapped in a body that didn't work and didn't respond the way she wanted it to.
  
  Then he had come for her. He had extracted the body that she was trapped within and took her somewhere else, where he had taken care of her. He'd provided genetic material that she was able to absorb and use to rebuild the body, fixing her brain in the process.
  
  It had been a long, arduous process that had taken months to accomplish, particularly when her savior had disappeared for several weeks. There had been so much damage to her brain aside from what small amount she had managed to save that she'd had to build it almost from scratch, in between bouts of completely savage irrationality. She'd had to use other people's genetic material, other people's brains, to rewrite and restructure her own under the patient guidance of her savior.
  
  Worse, even after she had managed to fully rebuild herself, she still wasn't whole. Oh she could still reshape her body, could still absorb others and use their genetic material, she could still do all of that. But whatever part of Pandora had allowed her to split herself off into various autonomous copies had disappeared. She couldn't even break up into small animals and place part of her mind into each. No, she had been broken so much that she was now limited to a single body at any given time. The limitation made her feel half-crippled, like a bird whose wings had been severed.
  
  The solution, of course, was her lesser selves. Their existence had clearly stolen her own ability to separate. All of them needed to be reabsorbed once more if she was going to be whole.
  
  The time for that would come. For now, her savior had asked a favor of her, and she would comply, regardless of her personal feelings on the subject. She owed too much to deny anything to the one who had coaxed her back to life, no matter what she thought.
  
  Two steps into the prison corridor brought a handful of the PRT guards who remained, their weapons raised to stop her. Apparently they had seen what happened over the cameras, but had been too late to prevent her from gaining entry. Now, however, they thought to block her progress.
  
  She stopped there, waiting patiently while the lonely, forlorn alarm began to sound. As the men shouted for her to stop and lie down, as several more arrived to provide back-up, she stood still and silent.
  
  After all, this was her first real chance to stretch her legs since she had healed and rebuilt herself. She'd rather give them the opportunity to provide as much of a fight as possible so that it didn't feel like quite such an utter waste of her time and abilities.
  
  Finally, she let her head tilt, taking in the dozen guards who now stood in her path, their weapons raised. The fact that she had stopped seemed to have convinced them to hold their fire while they ordered her to kneel down and allow herself to be taken into custody.
  
  Stupid. They'd seen her kill their guard outside. They should have simply opened fire the instant they saw her. Did she have to do everything for them to make this an interesting fight?
  
  "Are there any more of you coming here?" She asked hopefully, looking the group over critically. "If needed, I am willing to wait longer so that your elimination may require more effort." A pause then before she amended, "Marginal though it may be."
  
  The PRT agents exchanged looks at that, before opening fire on the spot where she stood. Unfortunately for them, Pandora had already shifted her form into smoke, their bullets simply passing through it in a hail of futility.
  
  She flowed forward, reforming herself before extending a spear from one hand that pierced the chest of the nearest man. The blade cut directly through the man's heart, breaking through the opposite side with the broken organ pinned to it before a simple flick sent it flying into the face of the next man in order to make him flinch backward.
  
  Like an apocalyptic mist, she swept through them. One by one, the men fell with little to no chance of defending themselves. She killed them mercilessly, entertaining herself briefly by allowing a couple to believe that they had escaped by retreating, before she reformed directly in front of the pair. A quick punching motion with both arms put each of her hands through their throats and down, where she could grasp their spinal column and twist, snapping them each like the twigs that they were.
  
  Less than thirty seconds after the gunfire had erupted, the true Pandora stood among the dozen broken and bloody bodies, sighing in annoyance. "Hardly a real exercise," she complained. "You should have brought more to entertain me."
  
  Shaking her head at their failure to adequately challenge her, she strode past the collection of bodies and proceeded down the hall to the control room. As evidenced by the fact that the main loading door had been closed when she arrived, the controls had been repaired after the earlier escape attempt, and only the guards on duty knew the code that would unlock the door controls.
  
  Not that that would stop her. As she reached the control room, Pandora extended a hand down toward the nearest of the fallen bodies. Her hand and arm melted into a silvery goo which stretched out to touch the skin of the man there. As soon as it did, his body began to melt, absorbed into her own form along with his skills and knowledge. Specifically, his knowledge of the code for the control panel.
  
  Inputting the open code for the cell that she was interested in, she pivoted on her heel and walked back the other way. The alarm was still sounding, but she was unhurried. The worst those who were still here could offer her at this point was a few extra seconds of exercise.
  
  Passing one of the cells that she hadn't unlocked, Pandora-Prime glanced within curiously. It was the cell that contained Sophia Hess. Her savior had considered releasing her as well, but had decided against it given obvious complications.
  
  As though sensing the eyes on her, the figure in the cell stirred, lifting groggy eyes that instantly turned into a hard, calculating glare in spite of her apparent fragility. The... suit created by the biology-teacher and Pandora's secondary progenitor had refused to be detached from the Hess girl once she had put it on. At that point, so much of what had been Sophia herself had been inexorably connected to the bio-engineered symbiote that there was no way to separate the girl from it without killing her, so they had been forced to allow her to keep it. Still, they carefully monitored how much food she was given to avoid the thing from gaining too much strength back, and her cell was lined with several redundant security measures to keep her from escaping either with the aid of her attached parasite, or through her own power.
  
  She said something, but Pandora had already moved on, leaving that cell behind. She passed several more before reaching the one that was of interest to her. Looking both ways to ensure that they were not about to be interrupted, she slid the door open and stepped inside.
  
  At the sound of the cell door opening, the figure lying on the bed within turned her head. With the injuries she had suffered, her head was pretty much all that Bakuda was able to turn.
  
  "The fuck are you doing here, huh?" She spat the demand, apparently believing that Pandora was one of her jailors, or perhaps one of the medical personnel that continually monitored her, taking care of her biological waste and other functions that she was incapable of handling for herself.
  
  "My savior would like to offer you a place with us." Pandora made an effort to keep her voice even and soft. She had been told that she had a tendency to sound as though she was threatening someone even when she didn't intend to. Even now, there was a certain underlying threat to her tone. "Where you may get the revenge you seek." Her head tilted slightly before she added. "The armored suit created by the bio-tinker has been secured for your use, if you accept. In exchange for your services."
  
  "Heh... you serious?" Bakuda squinted, clearly doubtful before giving a sharp nod. "Shit, you get me out of here and get me back on my feet and I'll build any god damn bomb you want."
  
  It only took a moment for Pandora to free the quadriplegic bomb tinker and start to carry her out of the building. A few more late arriving guards thought to stop them, but were handled with contemptuous ease, their bodies left alongside the others that had tried to prevent the true Pandora from fulfilling her objective.
  
  When she stepped into the lot behind the building, the armored van was already waiting. Bakuda twisted her head, glaring that way. "Thought you said you had my fucking armor."
  
  "You will have it shortly," Pandora assured her.
  
  By the time that they reached the van, the back door was pushed open by the waiting figure who knelt there with his arms outstretched toward the clone until she passed Bakuda to him.
  
  For her part, the bomb tinker let out a gasp as she was pulled into the van by the silent, armored man. It took her until she had been placed in the waiting bed and carefully strapped to it before she could find her voice. "You... you're fucking... you're that... Mannequin shit. Damn it, you are part of the Nine, huh bitch? I fucking knew it."
  
  "No." Pandora replied easily, stepping into the van and closing the door behind herself. "We are not part of the Slaughterhouse Nine. The Slaughterhouse Nine no longer exist."
  
  "Especially now." The woman sitting in the driver's seat of the van piped up while twisting around to look into the back. "Radio just said Jack got his brains fucking splattered."
  
  Ignoring all that, Mannequin returned to his seat and watched as Pandora took her own seat next to him.
  
  "Are you upset about that, Burnscar?" Pandora's savior asked curiously from where he sat in the passenger seat once it was clear that Mannequin had no response of his own.
  
  "Nah," she shrugged. "Jackie-boy was going down anyway. Even if you hadn't made the offer, probably would've split after mind-rape bitch did that shit to me."
  
  "You and Mannequin made the right choice," the man assured her. "Just as Bakuda has."
  
  "Wait..." Bakuda's face twisted into a frown of confusion, having finally twisted her head around far enough to see the man sitting there. "What the fuck are-"
  
  "Edward, if you would please?" Pandora's savior nodded toward the final occupant of the van, whose true loyalty had always been to this man, regardless of who thought they controlled him at the time. It was Eddie who had taken care of Pandora while her savior was missing, and he who had made the offer to leave their own sinking ship to these two former Slaughterhouse Nine members.
  
  Leaning over, Eddie placed what looked like a virtual reality visor against the suddenly struggling (as much as a completely crippled person could struggle) woman's face, pressing a button on it. The resulting flash of light and sound silenced Bakuda, leaving her silent while she stared at the images inside the visor.
  
  "That's better." The man in charge smiled and sat back, nodding toward the pyromaniac in the driver's seat. "I believe we can leave now. Bakuda won't be any more trouble. And with Jack handled, the shield should be brought down soon. I would prefer to be well away from here before that happens."
  
  "What the hell is that shit anyway?" Burnscar nodded toward the device before putting the van into motion.
  
  "Ah, that is a memory suppression device," he answered easily. "Not perfect, of course, but good enough for now. We don't want to overwrite everything. There are simply certain parts of our history together which, for our continued peaceful cooperation, it's best that she forget about."
  
  "Hey," Eddie sounded offended that his device had been called 'not perfect.' "I'm pretty sure I got the kinks out of it from the last time we used it. I told you it was experimental anyway. Ain't my fault that healer bitch remembered making that clone." He nodded to where Pandora sat. "I told you the memory suppression was temporary when you had me use it back then."
  
  "Yes, yes. There are many things that could have been done differently. Fortunately the six of us have the opportunity to correct those mistakes."
  
  With a nod to his own words, Pandora's savior, the man known as Coil, turned in his seat to look out at the passing streets. "And correct them we shall."
  
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  Arc 28: Reunions
  Notes: Imagenation - Glad you enjoyed how the end of the Nine happened. And yeah, things are really just getting warmed up, strange as that may sound given the length of this thing already. ;)
  
  HellKing666 - I dunno, you guys are still standing on an awful lot of rugs.
  
  Firelordozaie - Congrats on catching up! And yeah, Coil surviving meant that he had to show up again at some point. We'll see a bit more on how exactly he pulled this off eventually (not this arc, but it'll come)
  
  I awoke to the feel of a warm hand pressed against the side of my face. The skin to skin contact made me start a little considering the fact that the last I'd known, my mask had been on. Not to mention everything else that had happened just before I'd passed out.
  
  "It's okay, it's all right." The voice was Panacea's as she hurriedly reassured me. "You're safe."
  
  Blinking my eyes a few times to work the grain and blur out of them, I finally managed to focus on the girl herself. "Did..." I winced at the crack of my voice before clearing my throat. "Did we win?"
  
  Somewhere behind Panacea, the voice of Reach interjected, "Well, we could always ask Jack if he thinks he lost. But it's probably gonna take a long time to get his brains squeegeed off the walls in here." After a second she added with a thoughtful tone, "And off your mask."
  
  "Mask." I echoed the words before touching my own face, rising quickly as I remembered. "Cameras."
  
  "Taken care of." Flechette was the one who spoke that time, from where she was crouched on my other side. Her hand came up to grip my shoulder when I sat up. "Take it easy. Panacea healed you, but still."
  
  Amy nodded in agreement. "You'll be tired and hungry for awhile. No running off and challenging any more psychotic mass murderers for at least two weeks. Semi-doctor's orders."
  
  "Definitely hungry." I nodded in agreement before touching my own stomach and chest. It was still cut, the spots where Jack's knives had pierced me clearly evident. But the skin was fresh and new. Running my finger along where the deepest wound had been, I blinked up at Amy. "You're amazing."
  
  "Me?" She shook her head. "You're the one that killed Jack Slash. You really killed him. He's dead." Her voice was dull with obvious shock, as if she couldn't believe her own words.
  
  Before I could find a reply to that, a small figure popped into my line of sight. I barely had time to recognize who it was before she hurled herself down at me. A second later, I was being hugged so tightly the air was almost crushed out of me. "Urrggh, hi, Sparrow."
  
  "You're okay!" The youngest Ward hugged me a little more, sniffling a little. "You're really okay."
  
  I nodded, returning her hug. "I'm all right." By that point, I was able to focus more, looking over Mika's shoulder while she clung to me. Panacea and Flechette were still crouched on either side of where I was sitting, while Reach stood a few feet away, arms folded over her chest. My mask was held in one of her hands, covered in stuff that I really didn't want to think about. The sight brought bile to my throat before I quickly looked away while hugging Mika tighter.
  
  Finally, my gaze found Vista and Kid Win. The two of them were standing over what I realized was Jack's fallen body, carefully watching as Riley did something to it, one of her arms literally buried up to her elbow inside his sternum. Neither looked all that thrilled with the situation, but they didn't stop her.
  
  "Riley?" I questioned in confusion, staring at that in spite of my stomach's increasingly frantic urging to look absolutely anywhere but at the twelve-year old that was elbow-deep inside of a dead body.
  
  "Shh," she shot back. "Gotta focus." Her face was scrunched up, tongue poking out one corner of her mouth as she stretched herself up. I could hear squelching noises as she felt around inside Jack's corpse.
  
  Lowering my voice after a moment of staring in horror, I asked Amy, "What is she doing?"
  
  It was Lily who answered. "She said she has to disable a bunch of biological countermeasures that Jack had in case he ever died. Apparently that Eddie guy messed around with them, so it's taking longer."
  
  Mika finally released me, but her place was taken by Lily, who gave me just as long of a hug as the younger girl had. "Running off like that was really stupid, you know. You could've died."
  
  I winced, managing a weak shrug. "I couldn't let him get away. Couldn't take the chance." After a moment, I added, "And I would have died, or worse if wasn't for Riley."
  
  "We saw." That was Vista, who had abandoned her vigil over the bio-tinker's work to take her own turn for a hug. Her grip was tight enough to almost hurt, and she punched me in the shoulder afterward. "Don't ever do that again, you stupid jerk. Running off to face Jack Slash without waiting for us? What happened to being a team?"
  
  "He might've gotten away in that time." I repeated. "We couldn't risk losing him."
  
  "News flash," Reach put in from where she was still standing. She was obviously just as upset as Vista, though she was doing a slightly better job of concealing it. "I can't speak for everyone else, but I'd rather lose him for awhile than lose you permanently."
  
  "Damn straight." Kid Win called over, looking my way. "Now just say that you're sorry for running off without us so we can forgive you and start gushing over what just happened."
  
  "I'm sorry for running off without you," I parroted obediently before pushing myself to my feet with a little help from the others. "I really am, I just... I had to stop him. But I guess it was Riley who really saved everyone. I... I would've failed. I would've died if it wasn't for her."
  
  Clearly self-conscious, Riley dragged her arm out of Jack's fallen body and rose, shaking some blood off. "All done," she murmured under her breath without looking at anyone. "No more bio-weapons."
  
  Silence reigned for a moment, and I started to take a step that way before a hand caught my arm. I looked down to see Lily holding me back, giving me the slightest shake of her head before her eyes moved over my shoulder pointedly.
  
  Turning the way that she had nodded, I saw Mika step up to where Riley was. The two girls were almost the same size, though Mika was younger by a year.
  
  Seeming to realize after a second that someone was in front of her, Riley lifted her gaze and blinked at Sparrow. Her mouth opened as though she was going to say something, but no sound had emerged before the younger girl moved again. I stood there and stared as Mika embraced Riley, hugging her without reservation in a display that meant more than anything I could have ever said or done myself.
  
  After a moment of watching that, I remembered to ask, "The shield?"
  
  "Not down yet." Panacea shook her head. "They're close, but Oversight says there's a problem. She doesn't think she can do it. Apparently it's not as simple as just flipping a switch, and she doesn't want to fuck it up. She's scared."
  
  "We should go help her. Talk to her." I let out a long breath before adding, "I want this to be over."
  
  "It is over." Reach stepped up on my other side. "You and B-Riley finished it. Now all that's left is the clean-up." In demonstration, she extended the hand with my ruined mask toward Amy. The other girl took it and pressed her hand against the stained surface. Under her touch, every bit of genetic material that had been sprayed across it when Jack had been killed melted away, leaving behind a flawless mask. Once her work was done, Amy passed it back to Reach, who handed it toward me.
  
  I accepted the newly cleaned mask and stared down at it. They were right. It was over. We still didn't know where Mannequin was, or what had happened to Burnscar, but Jack's death had effectively ended the current situation. He was gone forever, and Riley had helped make it happen. Whatever else came next, everyone had to acknowledge that she had been responsible for the end of Jack Slash and the Slaughterhouse Nine's decade long reign of terror.
  
  A short time later we reached the shield generator that had been damaged. The ground surrounding the thing itself was lined with discarded parts and tools, and the ground around it was littered with members of the Undersiders who had apparently fallen wherever they were standing as soon as the thing was fixed. I even saw Hellhound-Bitch, whatever she called herself, resting in a pile of normal sized dogs. Tattletale looked up from where she was sitting with Freezetag and gave me what looked like a knowing smile before lifting a hand with her thumb raised.
  
  Aid and Oversight were still standing, both of them looking over toward us as we came into view. The tall figure of Zeta stood a few feet away, with Dinah slumped down at her feet. The precog was resting her head against her arms, whimpering every once in awhile. She had been using her power to help them avoid any mistakes during the repair, and it had obviously cost her.
  
  The rest of the team split up to check on everyone else while Panacea moved to see if she could do anything for Dinah. Riley had remained back out of sight alongside Alpha and Gamma, who had been waiting outside the school when we had emerged.
  
  As soon as she saw me, Emma abandoned her post and came running. She embraced me as tightly as any of the others had. "You-you're okay. You're all right. G-god, we saw, I mean... everyone saw..."
  
  I swallowed and returned her hug while most of the rest of the team split up to check on everyone else.
  
  "He broadcasted it, huh?" I wasn't surprised. It had, after all, been Jack's attempt to prove once and for all how much better he was. There was no way that he'd have let it go without being sure his little scene was seen by as many people as he could get it to.
  
  She nodded, finally releasing me. "It was sent everywhere inside the shield, I think. You really are okay though? I mean he almost-that is, we saw him... and you were..."
  
  "Panacea took care of everything physical," I assured her, brushing a hand down my front in demonstration that I wasn't hurt anymore. "What about this? Shouldn't you be focusing?"
  
  "I- I was trying." The top half of her face remained hidden behind that mirrored plate, but her mouth twisted a little. "B-but I'm not sure I c-can. I... I'm scared. It's not just a shield, M-Tether. It's like the ge-generators..." She lifted her hands, fighting for an explanation while her voice went higher from her own obvious nervousness. "It's like... like they tore the whole city out of our d-dimension, out of our reality."
  
  "Are you serious?" Lily demanded from where she was standing nearby. "Out of our dimension, like the way we communicate with Aleph?"
  
  Flinching a little, Emma nodded toward her. "Yeah. I c-can't really explain it more than that, but that's why no one could get through it. That, ummm, that thing we can see," she gestured toward what we had called a forcefield. "It's more like a w-window than a shield. Or a screen on a television that shows what ummm, what should be there on either side. But wh-what's really there is a... umm, a hole, sort of. So... so that's why Fa-Faultline's group went to t-try and find Mannequin, because I don't think I can do this. If I mess it up, I... I'll... I'll..." She had gone pale and shuddered at the thought of what would happen if she did something wrong. "N-no one'll survive. I'll kill e-everybody. I can't. I c-can't do that."
  
  "Oversight-" I hesitated and glanced around before lowering my voice while bringing my hands up to her shoulders. "Emma. You can do this. This is your power. Trust it. Trust yourself. Don't ask that machine to do what you want it to, tell it. You're Emma Barnes. This machine does what you tell it to, and you were going to tell it to put us right back where we belong."
  
  "B-but if I mess it up..." She protested weakly, the faceplate sliding away to reveal her wide, fearful eyes as she stared at me while ignoring everyone else. "If I m-mess it up, everyone w-will... die." The last word came out as a soft, barely audible whimper.
  
  I took both of her hands and squeezed them. "You won't mess up. I trust you, Emma. You can do this."
  
  Her eyes, wet with fear, stared at me for a few more seconds before closing as a nervous shudder ran through her. "I'm st-still scared."
  
  Nodding, I whispered back to her. "So am I. We're all scared, Emma. But you can finish this. You can end it. We need you to do it. We need you to focus and put us back where we belong. I'll be here. I'll be right here with you, but I can't do it. I can't do what you can, Emma. This part has to be you, okay?"
  
  Again, she shuddered with fear. But her eyes opened once more and she gave a tiny nod. "I... I'll do it. I'll do it." Her voice was shaky at first, but a little more firm the second time. Turning her head over her shoulder to look back at the shield, she whispered, "Please don't let go."
  
  "I won't." I promised, squeezing a little more. "I'm right here, Em. You can do this. The Nine are done. Jack's dead. We can bring everyone back now. You can finish it."
  
  Emma's hands returned my squeeze, and then she fell silent to focus on her work, the faceplate sliding back into place.
  
  Through the silence, I began to hear the murmur of other voices, and when I looked over briefly, I saw a crowd beginning to form as people emerged from their hiding places or homes, gathering in the street around us. Those who had actually seen Jack Slash's death had spread the word that it was safe to come out, and news of our location was starting to attract a crowd.
  
  There were more eyes on me than I had ever felt before, people staring and talking about what they had seen. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I knew what the subject was. I had killed Jack Slash, but I had also admitted to the things that had happened in my past. I had admitted the type of person that I had been before. I had admitted that a girl died because of me. I couldn't even begin to guess how they felt in the wake of all that. I hadn't even begun to figure out how I felt about it.
  
  So, for the moment, I shut them out as best as I could. I ignored the few people who tried to shout out to get my attention. Some were trying to ask how it had felt to kill Jack Slash, while others wanted to know whose death I had been responsible for. A few people tried to get a cheer going, but the sight of the shield still being up tempered their reactions somewhat. Mostly people were tired and wanted this to be over even more than we did. They were the ones who hadn't been able to fight for themselves, who had been forced to hide and wait out the siege. They wanted us to finish saving them.
  
  I ignored them all, for the moment. My attention was riveted solely on Emma, silently sending her what encouragement I could.
  
  "Almost... almost..." The other girl whispered, mouth set in a thin line while her shoulders remained tense and stiff from the effort she was putting into her work. "Just a l-little bit more. I can... I can..."
  
  Abruptly, she slumped forward, all but collapsing before I caught her. I opened my mouth to ask if she was all right, but she spoke first. "Done."
  
  Behind Emma, I saw the generator abruptly come to life. That same blue light that I had seen when this whole situation had started shot upward out of it. All around the city, more beams of light were rising to hit the shield. Where they touched, the blue field instantly vanished, revealing the untinted sky beyond.
  
  As a gasp went up from the crowd that had gathered, those holes in the shield began to spread quickly, dissolving more of it with each second that passed until all of it had vanished.
  
  It was Tattletale who tested it. Reaching a hand out toward the spot where the shield had been, she took a breath and then shoved her hand through the open space. Her hand went right through, and then she stepped through to the other side. Nothing bad happened, and everyone there let out a collective breath.
  
  It was over. Jack Slash and most of the Nine were dead. The shield was down, and the city was free.
  
  I stood there, holding Emma up while the roar of the crowd grew to deafening levels. Throughout the city, more people took up the cry. They chanted a single word, a word that wasn't really fair considering everyone who had helped make this possible. It was a chant that failed to take into account the Undersiders, Dinah's group, or even Faultline's Crew and everything they had all done to help keep things going. Still, as more and more people walked up to prove to themselves that the shield was down, they kept the chant going, that single word functioning as a cry that brought everyone out of their homes and buildings.
  
  "Wards!" They chanted, the roar becoming so loud that it was hard to make out any individual voice.
  
  " Wards! Wards! Wards!"
  
  "How did it happen?" A short time later, I was standing in Director Simms's office, absorbing the news that he had just given me about Bakuda's escape. "Who, I mean. Who broke her out?"
  
  The noise from the streets below rose through the large windows whose glass had yet to be restored. Half of the city was in the middle of a wild party, while the other half was hauling ass to get the hell out of town. There was a massive line of cars on the freeway heading away from Brockton Bay, most of which didn't seem to have any other destination in mind aside from 'not here.' The sight had made me shake my head at first, since running away from the city now wasn't just closing the barn doors after the horse was gone, it was closing them after the horse had left, raised a horse family, and come back with six other decent horses in tow. Actually, now that I thought about it, that was probably a pretty good time to close the barn door. I was tired, my idioms sucked.
  
  I'd wanted to wait in the teleport-arrival room with the rest of my team for the Protectorate to show up as soon as they were certain that the shield would stay down and that it wasn't a trap. I'd wanted to be there when Sam, Ethan, Mars, and Dennis came through, when all of them came. Unfortunately, Director Simms had asked me to come up and speak to him privately about something that was apparently very important while we were waiting, so I'd had to ask Hunter to tell them where I was.
  
  That very important thing was, as it turned out, the fact that someone had killed even more PRT officers while we were distracted dealing with Jack, all to break Bakuda out of custody.
  
  "Officially? Our security was down, so we don't have enough evidence to really guess who might have done this, or how." Simms was standing in front of the empty spot in the window where the tinted glass should have been, gazing out at the city below. "Though Mannequin was given as a possibility considering the wounds that most of the agents who were killed suffered."
  
  He held a manila folder in one hand, and every once in awhile as he spoke while looking out that window, he lifted the folder as though looking at something inside. From where I was standing, however, I could see that the folder was empty.
  
  I had realized what he was doing after the first few times it happened. There were tinker tech devices to foil electronic eavesdropping and several forms of advanced hearing, but Simms had settled on a low-tech way of defeating anyone who might have been physically watching him through the window. He was using the folder to cover his mouth every time he said anything that he didn't want to be lip read.
  
  Now if only I could figure out why he was doing all of that instead of just turning his back on the window itself, I might actually understand the complicated man.
  
  I was quiet for a moment, staring at the floor as I tried to imagine the thoughts of the men who had been so close to reaching the end of this siege, only to be killed in the last few minutes. How had their families felt, when the relief at the sight of the shield being removed, their exultation that the person they cared for had made it after all, was immediately shattered by the news that their loved one hadn't made it after all, that they had died right on the finish line of this macabre marathon?
  
  How would I feel, if someone that I cared about had been killed that way? The simple fact was that there had been far, far too much death throughout this ordeal. Not just from the Nine themselves, but from everyone they touched, and the end of it had been no less tragically marked than its beginning.
  
  Finally, after several long moments of silence that Simms chose not to interrupt, I spoke. "You wouldn't have asked me to come up here if you thought it was that simple."
  
  "No," he agreed before turning to face me. "What I saw down there reminds me of what I read about your first real meeting with Pandora, in the apartment building. The things that you said you saw her do, the way she fought, the way she killed, it made me think of that."
  
  I blinked once at that before starting to shake my head quickly. "No, sir. No, it wasn't Pandora, not any of them. They wouldn't do this, especially not now. They wouldn't, they've been helping, and they've started to think a lot more about actual morals and why would they break out Bakuda anyway, and-"
  
  "Tether." Simms was standing in front of me, clearing his throat until I looked at him. "I didn't say I thought it was them. I said it was familiar. One of our men disappeared entirely. Only his clothes were left behind, and his code was used to unlock the door controls."
  
  "Pandora can absorb someone to take their skills and knowledge," I said quietly, knowing where he was going with that. "But she wouldn't, sir. None of them would do that . Not anymore, I swear."
  
  "Again, I didn't accuse anyone." His words were mild, but firm. "That's not what this is about."
  
  "Then... what is it about?" I asked hesitantly, folding my arms. My mask was off, held tightly in one of my hands while I stared up at his unreadable gaze.
  
  Simms regarded me for a moment before slowly explaining. "You said that two of them died. I want you to ask the Pandoras if they think there's any way that anyone could have.. puppeted their bodies afterward. We've got Mannequin and that Eddie tinker on the loose, and who knows what other kind of non-tinker powers that might be able to pull something like that off. I'd like you to find out if they think there's any chance at all that something like that might have happened."
  
  I wanted to say there wasn't, but it made sense. And it definitely made more sense than the thought that any of the Pandoras would have killed over a dozen PRT agents who were only doing their jobs, just to break out Bakuda of all people. So, I just gave a short nod. "I'll ask. I'll talk to them, but... not right now." The last few words were a plea. I really couldn't try to focus on that at the moment.
  
  "Of course not." He nodded in agreement. "You need to be with the people who care about you now. You need to rest, kid. That's the second reason that I wanted you up here and out of that room."
  
  "Err, what do you mean?" I squinted, trying to follow that reasoning despite the fact that what I really wanted to do was either lay down on the couch that sat in the corner of the office and sleep for about a week, or shove my way out the door and sprint down to the teleportation room to meet the others the second that they came through.
  
  I saw his slight smile at my inability to follow his thought process. "You're exhausted, so it hasn't hit you yet. But you killed Jack Slash, Tether. He's dead because of you, and the whole city saw it. Pretty soon that video's going to get out, and the whole world is going to know it. They're going to see you kill the leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine. I wanted to get you out of that room before you were mobbed by every last person with access to this building. Battery, Assault, and the others will be up here soon enough, and you can have a real reunion, in private without the lookie-loos."
  
  My mouth opened and shut, before I closed my eyes at the thought that he'd brought up. "They know," I said quietly. "They know the truth about me. They know what I am."
  
  "No." The voice of the PRT director was so soft I could barely hear him. Yet he sounded absolutely certain. "They already knew the truth about you. The truth is that you're a hero, and you've been working your ass off to help people for half a year now. That other stuff is important because it's led to who you are now, not because it changes who you are. There's a difference. Some of them are going to focus on the bad part, that's true. There's going to be people who only focus on that, even those who think it should stop you from being part of the Wards in spite of everything you've done. As if we don't all have bad things in our past. There are people who will believe that you have no business being a member of the Wards. In spite of everything you've done, in spite of killing Jack Slash, they will say that you should be taken off the team to keep the others safe, or even for your own good. But you know what will silence the criticism and second-guessing forever?"
  
  Biting my lip, I asked after a moment, "What?"
  
  His answer came immediately. "Nothing." When I refocused on his gaze, the man went on. "Nothing is going to make everyone like you. There isn't a force in this world that will take away every person's doubts about you, that will silence every bit of criticism. Sometimes it'll be earned and genuine, other times it'll be invented solely to hurt you. Either way, people are always going to think that they know you better than you know yourself. Your job is to listen to what actually helps, and press on through everything that doesn't."
  
  "They're not wrong about this," I said quietly. "I did help get Taylor killed. If I had done... anything, she'd still be alive. I'm responsible for her death, and... nothing I do is going to take that away."
  
  He nodded once. "And for some people that's going to be enough to change how they think about you. For some, it'll ruin your reputation. They'll never get past it. Even though you killed Jack Slash, they will not get past what happened to Taylor Hebert any more than you have. Even if they don't know her name, the idea that you were even somewhat responsible for the death of an innocent girl will make them turn on you." The man paused slightly, considering me before asking, "So, what are you going to do about that?"
  
  I hesitated, then shook my head. "Nothing," I admitted with a sigh. "I can't do anything different. I can't change. I can't leave the Wards or anything, even if it would make some people happy. They're my team. They're my friends. I can't abandon them, and I can't abandon any of this. I'm already doing everything I can to make up for what happened. I'm... I'm doing my best, I really am. So, that's all I can do. That's it, I'm doing it. I can't change anything. This is me. I'm just going to keep trying. People knowing about my past, even hints of it, doesn't really change anything about me or what I need to do."
  
  That time, I was sure there was a smile before Simms schooled his expression back into blankness. "Good answer." His mouth opened to say something else, but then he paused and turned slightly as though listening to the comm in his ear. "Send them in." To me, he added, "Your guardians are here."
  
  The door opened as I turned that way, and then I saw them. Ethan and Sam, both in civilian garb. They came into view together, and I felt a lump catch in my throat.
  
  It was that moment, seeing my two guardians in the flesh, that really convinced me that it was all over. More than seeing Jack's head explode, more than seeing his corpse afterward, even more than seeing the city-wide forcefield go down, this was the moment that cemented into my head that I was safe, that I had made it and that the Slaughterhouse Nine were truly done with.
  
  Stunned into silence by my own rushing feelings, I barely had a chance to smile before Ethan reached me. His arms pulled me off the floor and crushed me against his chest so tightly that it almost hurt. As the air was squished out of me, I heard Ethan's own breath rush out as well in a nearly explosive sigh of relief. It sounded as though he was letting out a breath that he'd been holding for days now.
  
  "You're okay." His voice, always so teasing and cocky, was gentle for once. "You're all right. You're safe, you're not hurt, you're okay." He repeated himself a couple of times, holding me even tighter with each refrain until I eventually had to squeak in protest. Easing up somewhat then before setting me back down, Ethan finally smiled. "Hey, Wicket." Even then, with his casual nickname for me that teased my supposed similarity to the famous Ewok (small, but fierce), the man's voice was thick with palpable emotion that he didn't bother to hide.
  
  I opened my mouth to respond, but the words caught in my throat even as my eyes grew wet, forcing me to blink a few times before I managed to speak. "Hi."
  
  His smile grew. "Aren't you gonna tell me not to call you that?"
  
  I shook my head vigorously before embracing him again, as tight as I could. "I don't care. Call me whatever you want to. Just be here." I clung to him while murmuring quietly. "Just really, really be here, please."
  
  Slowly, Ethan returned the hug. It was softer this time, gentle as he let out another low sigh of pent up emotion. "I'm here, kid," he assured me in a quiet voice. "We both are. We're here."
  
  Releasing him then, I turned toward my other guardian. Belatedly, I noticed that Director Simms was nowhere to be seen. The man had apparently silently excused himself from the room, disappearing as easily and unobtrusively as a ghost.
  
  Sam, on the other hand, was very much there. As soon as I looked toward her, she came forward to embrace me just as tightly as Ethan first had. Just before losing sight of her eyes as she reached me, I could see tears there that renewed my own. Then she was holding me against herself with an intense urgency. "Madison." Her voice cracked just a little before she said my name again. "Madison. Maddy. You're okay. Scion, you're okay. You're all right. You're safe. You're really safe."
  
  Returning the hug, I let my head bob a little. "I-I'm all right, I promise. See, nothing broken, nothing missing. Just little old me."
  
  A short, tiny little giggle escaped the woman. "Little old you? You..." Sam drew back just a little to stare at me, swallowing as she looked me up and down. "There's so much we need to talk about. There's so much we need to say, but later. Right now, I just want you to know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry we weren't here for you through this. I'm sorry you had to deal with so much, because I do care about you, Madison. I do, I swear I do. I care about you, and when I thought about you locked up in here, when I thought about what might... what might..." Her voice gave out, and all she could do was cling to me once more, pulling me back into a hug that took my breath away.
  
  Ethan stepped back over to embrace me from the other side, and the three of us stood there together, just like that. We said nothing, because nothing else needed to be said through that moment.
  
  For a time, I stopped worrying. I stopped thinking about what I had done to Jack, about what he had forced me to say. I stopped focusing on what or who might have freed Bakuda. Every little thought, concern, or worry that I had been trying to juggle melted away, and I just stood there with Ethan and Sam.
  
  They would never be my father and mother. They were my Ethan and Sam. No one would ever replace my mom and dad. But I realized, in that moment, that they weren't meant to. Ethan and Sam were additions to my family, not stand-ins for the parts that had been lost. Having new parts to a family wasn't about plugging them into the holes that had been left behind by those that were no longer there. It was about accepting them into the infinite space that surrounded those holes. Because caring about someone that way was never a betrayal of the others that you cared about. Love wasn't some precious commodity, meant to be hoarded and sat upon like a wary dragon. Love was a seed that bloomed into a flower wherever it took root. Letting more of that love, more of those seeds, spread didn't reduce or somehow mitigate the beauty of the flowers that were already there. Each and every new flower made the garden around it that much better.
  
  They were here. They were with me. And that was enough.
  
  That was family.
  
  28.03
  
  We left Director Simms's office shortly thereafter, so that he could work in peace. There were already hundreds of phone calls that were already pouring in from all over the country as more and more important people demanded he answer every question they had about what had happened.
  
  One of the first things that I had done was ask about Marissa, and they'd told me that Mars would be waiting in the hall after she and Jess had reunited with Luke. They had wanted her to come in with them, but she'd said that as desperate as she was to see me, it wouldn't be fair to interrupt their reunion.
  
  On the way out, the three of us passed Mrs. Pelham, who was heading in to talk to Simms herself but stopped long enough to give me a hug and express her own relief that we had made it.
  
  Before she released me, however, I noticed that her eyes looked red and frowned. "Mrs. Pelham? What's wrong? I mean, shouldn't you be happy right now?" It felt awkward and probably stupid to ask the question, but it came blurting out of me before I really thought about it.
  
  The older woman hesitated, looking torn for a moment before a sigh escaped her. "It's nothing for you to worry about. Just... some friends of the family were killed by their own brother, another friend. He did... terrible things, things he'd never do."
  
  "Valefor," I realized immediately. "It wasn't your friend's fault, it had to be Valefor."
  
  She nodded, eyes closing briefly. "We know. It was the only explanation. Apparently there are more and more reports of that. We don't know how big the group is yet, just that the... the calls are still trickling in as people try to get back to normal. But that doesn't help Richard. The things that..." Cutting herself off, Mrs. Pelham shook her head firmly. "Go on. We've got this now. You've done far more than enough. Get some sleep, and anything else you need. You can stand down now."
  
  Reluctantly, I kept going while doing my best to ignore the part of me that wanted to find some way of making things better for the PCIPS director. There was nothing I could do. The casualties from this whole horrible situation were always going to be awful, even before Valefor's little trick was brought to light. With it, I didn't even dare think about the death toll that would eventually be reported. We were safe enough now, but the effects of the Nine's visit and last stand might never fully fade. That was the immortality that Jack had clearly wanted, the thing I had lied about during my attempt to needle him. No one would ever truly forget that he had existed or what he had done, as much as I wished otherwise.
  
  Emerging into the corridor outside of the director's office, I smiled a little at the sight of Dennis and Hunter. The two of them were standing close enough that their shoulders were touching.
  
  I opened my mouth to say something to them, but was interrupted by a soft whisper from behind me that spoke my name in tone that made a shiver of anticipation run up through me. Slowly, I turned around and stood there, mask clutched in one hand while I stared at the person who had said my name.
  
  She looked tired, the dark circles under her eyes clear even from down the hall where she was standing. Her yellow hair hung loose rather than being tied back into its usual ponytail, standing out in several places where she obviously hadn't bothered to run a brush through it. She wore little, if anything in the way of makeup, and it was clear from her expression that she had been crying.
  
  And if I searched for a million years, I would never find anyone else as beautiful as she was.
  
  "Madison," she repeated once more, her tone still hushed as her feet took her another few steps closer while mine remained rooted to the floor from the shock of my emotions at the sight of her. Her face twisted a little, and it looked for a moment as though she was going to cry again. "Mads."
  
  Somehow, I reached her, though I couldn't later recall exactly how I'd gotten there. All I knew for certain was that the next time her voice whispered my name, it was against my hair as I clung to her as tightly as I could. Every thought of the rest of the people in the corridor fell away then, leaving nothing save for my relief of finally, finally being where I belonged: with Marissa.
  
  Her arms pulled me into her, and she gave a soft, choked sound of relief. "Maddy. Madison. Maddy." It was like she couldn't stop saying my name with that tone that sent shivers down my spine.
  
  "M-Marissa." I choked a little on the name. Great, she gets to use that voice and send all kinds of thoughts into my head with a single word, and I can barely get her name out without blubbering. How was that fair? "Mars, you're... you're..." I trailed off, unable to find the right words.
  
  While keeping one arm around me as if afraid to let go even for an instant, Marissa leaned back and tilted my head up with her free hand. Her skin was cool, and even the simple contact of her fingers against my chin almost made me whimper. "Maddy," she repeated one more time while gazing down at me. "You..." Yet she had no more luck putting voice to what she wanted to say than I had.
  
  We might have stood there for hours, searching for the right words to say to express everything we were feeling just then. Fortunately, I finally managed to find a few other words which, while not perfect, fit what I so desperately needed. "Please kiss me."
  
  She did so, leaning down to touch her lips to my own while her hand slid over to cup my cheek. Her mouth was hungry, eager against mine and I had to tighten my grip around her to avoid falling from the sensations that it sent through me. Everything I couldn't say about what her being here with me meant, every word that I failed to find to adequately express myself, somehow made it through that kiss.
  
  When we finally parted for breath, I said the only words that still mattered in that moment. "I love you, Marissa." Panting for breath, I repeated it. "I love you." More of the words that I needed to say came pouring out of me. "I need you. Whatever happens, I... I'm less without you. I need you. I love you. I..."
  
  Once more, words failed me. But Mars didn't wait long before kissing me again. If anything, this second kiss was even more intense than the first. She had to hold me up by the end, whispering against my mouth, "I love you, Maddy. God, I do. I love you. I need you too. You were stuck in here, and I couldn't get in to help you. I'm... I'm sorry." I could hear the despair in her voice. "I'm so sorry, Maddy. We couldn't get to you. We couldn't help."
  
  "I'm okay," I assured her in a whisper. I didn't want Marissa to be sad. I didn't want to think about how horrible it had been for her to be trapped on the outside of that dome, unable to help or even know much about what was going on. The helplessness that she must have felt made me hug her even tighter.
  
  I wasn't sure how long we might have stood there, clinging to each other if I hadn't felt a tiny little poke against my arm. Blinking down, I found yet another familiar sight perched on Marissa's wrist that brought an immediate smile to my face. "Jalopy!" I exclaimed, putting my hand out for the tiny robot.
  
  Before accepting my hand, Jalopy first did a quick little side to side dance along Mars's arm while a certain absurdly upbeat and happy song by Katrina and the Waves played.
  
  "Right, walking on sunshine. You're hilarious." Marissa was smiling still even as she kept her voice pointedly droll. "Now hurry and go back to Mads before I kiss her again and interrupt your reunion."
  
  That sent the small spider-bot scrambling back up into my palm, and I brought him up close to my face. "Hey, buddy." I smiled while staring at the little guy, amazed at how much I felt for even this tiny robot that Riley had made. "Missed you too. Did you take care of Mars and Jess for me?"
  
  "He did," Mars said fondly while reaching a hand up to brush a finger along the back of the robot as he sat perched in my palm. "He... helped me feel connected to you still."
  
  Slowly extending his grappler arm until it brushed across my cheek, Jalopy seemed to looking at me with what I swore was a curious expression. I couldn't even begin to guess how he managed that, but I nodded anyway. "You did great. Thank you, Jalopy. I missed you a lot, but if you had to be anywhere else, I'm glad you were with Mars. You took care of her when I couldn't, so thank you."
  
  Somewhere behind me, Dennis cleared his throat and adopted a hurt tone, though I could hear the relief and happiness in his voice despite his efforts otherwise. "Do I get a greeting yet, or should I wait for you to go reunite with the rest of the Protectorate first?"
  
  Letting Jalopy reclaim his spot on my wrist, I turned back that way and pretended I was considering it. "Hmm, well I dunno. Did you bring me a present?"
  
  "A pres-" He sputtered for a second before rolling his eyes. "Does my winning smile count?"
  
  I huffed. "Can your winning smile buy me a pony? Didn't think so." He gave me such a puppy dog look then that I finally relented with a giggle, opening my arms for him. "Oh very well. I'll loan you a hug. What kind of interest rates are you good for?"
  
  "Oh you are such a brat." Dennis declared, yanking me by the arm as I laughed at him.
  
  Yes, I wanted to hug Dennis very badly. He was my best friend and I'd missed him as much as anyone else. But because he was my best friend, I was also allowed to tease him about it. Teasing was what we did, and anything else right then would have felt wrong, despite how it might have looked to anyone else. We were friends, and we were comfortable with that.
  
  Once again I was pulled into an embrace that I returned as firmly as I could. "I could get used to all this hugging," I managed a little weakly. As easy as it had been to tease Dennis about wanting his own hug, once there I really didn't want to let go. "Much more fun than fighting. Have we ever considered hugging our enemies into submission? I'm just saying."
  
  "If anyone could manage something like that, it's you." Dennis released me and stepped back to where I could now see that Hunter had been joined by Carlos and the slightly older Japanese cape Asylum. I knew that she and Aegis had started dating awhile ago, but I didn't really know that much about her other than the fact that her power allowed her to alter physical laws within areas of various sizes.
  
  Carlos came in for his own hug, and I squeezed him firmly. "I'm sorry about-" My throat caught and I had to force the words out. "I'm sorry about Dean and Katherine. I'm so sorry." The tears threatened to come back. Dead. We had stopped the Nine, but Dean and Katherine were still dead. And for what? For no other purpose other than to lure the Protectorate away from our city.
  
  I felt the other boy's embrace tighten at my words before he released me. "Is it true?" He asked while gazing at me with some mixture of curiosity and awe. "Did you really kill Jack Slash?"
  
  A hand came down on my shoulder as Sam tugged me back. "Let's wait and talk about all of that later, okay? All of that stuff can wait. Right now, I'd rather get home before anyone decides that I wasn't serious about those threats on what would happen if they tried to debrief Madison today."
  
  "Good idea," Ethan agreed. "I'm not even sure where we'd find someone's body weight in hot coals at this hour, and you were awfully specific about that part."
  
  Putting a hand up over Sam's so she'd wait a second, I nodded to Carlos. "He's dead. You'll see the video. It's... he's gone. They're all dead except Mannequin and maybe Burnscar."
  
  Saying those words made me feel sick inside. Mannequin had been the one who killed Dean, while Burnscar had killed Katherine. The former had escaped entirely, and the latter might have as well. We had succeeded at a lot of things, but we had failed to get justice for Gallant and Grace.
  
  From the look on Carlos's face, he had realized the same. But he said nothing about it, merely dipping his head in a nod before stepping out of the way. "I'm glad you're safe, Mads. Losing you or anybody else back on the old team so soon after Dean and Katherine... it would've sucked." Smiling faintly, he added, "You did good though. Even if those two did get away, I can't believe you guys managed as much as you did."
  
  Asylum matched Carlos's nod as well. "Yes, what you have accomplished, it is..." She seemed to pause to search for the word, her English not perfect. "It is very good."
  
  I swallowed back the urge to reply, 'not good enough,' and instead managed a slight smile. "Take care of Carlos, okay? Don't let him go running off to get himself in trouble just because he's visiting his old stomping grounds." She looked uncertain at the last term, so I amended, "His old city."
  
  Ethan, who had stepped over next to Dennis and Hunter, cleared his throat. "Why don't you head on down to the locker room, Maddy? You get changed and we can go home without getting mobbed."
  
  I glanced over my shoulder toward the spot where Marissa was before nodding. "Sure, I'll go change and then we can go." Turning then, I extended a hand to my girlfriend and waited for her to take it before heading down. On the way, I called over my shoulder. "I guess I'll give you a rain check on the present, Dennis! But only because I'm in a good mood."
  
  And I was. Even as the specter of what the Nine had left behind stood at the edge of my conscious mind, with the full weight of everyone that we had failed to save weighing down on me, I knew that one simple fact: life went on. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't clean, but it was life. And life was worth living.
  
  Because in the end, I really hadn't been lying to Jack. Yes, the despair that he and his group had brought would linger. It would never truly fade entirely. They had hurt too many people, had killed far too many innocents. But the end of joy, the death of basic humanity and good that Jack had been so eager to usher in, the crushing and inescapable despair that he had wanted to force onto each and every person in the world? That would never happen. Days would keep going, the sun would continue to rise and set, and people would move on. Lives would move on.
  
  Jack wouldn't be forgotten, but his true immortality would be the fact that in spite of everything he had done, in spite of all his power and the evil he perpetuated, he still lost. That, in the end, would be how he was remembered. Riley, one of his greatest weapons and examples of his evil, had chosen to turn against him. He had died a failure, and each and every day that passed after his demise, every single smile that came after he was gone, every person who remembered, in the wake of Jack's death, that it was okay to laugh and that happiness was possible would put another shovelful of dirt over what had been Jack's grand ambition.
  
  I intended to bury it entirely.
  
  28.04
  
  "You know what I think?" The tickle of air from Marissa's whisper touched my ear an hour or so later as the two of us sat on the couch in Ethan and Sam's house. Well, she sat, I was laying down with my head nuzzled against her stomach while she gently picked her hand through my hair.
  
  Without opening my eyes, I murmured, "Hmm?" I'd tugged Mars this way with the intention of simply giving Hunter a few moments alone with Ethan and Sam for her own reunion. Unfortunately, now I was entirely too comfortable to want to move at all. I was content to stay right where I was.
  
  The smile in Marissa's voice was obvious. "I think somebody's kind of tired." Her cool finger gently traced its way over my cheek. "Is that you, hmm? Are you my kind of tired girl?"
  
  Shifting a little, I opened my eyes and looked up at her. "I'm your every kind of girl."
  
  That smile that I had heard was now visible as Mars seemed to glow in a way that had nothing to do with her power. "Yeah, you are." Her voice was tender, a tone that made me shiver.
  
  For a moment, I was content to simply smile up at her. I had missed Marissa so much, and being here with her right now meant more to me than any words that I could say would have portrayed.
  
  The sound of approaching footsteps broke the spell, and I glanced over to the stairs as Ethan came down. Sam must have still been up in Hunter's room with her. As he came into view, the man yawned. "Gonna be nice to sleep in my own bed tonight, I'll tell you that much."
  
  Trying not to smile, I piped up, "Oooh, did I forget to mention the part where we sold your bed for a can of coffee? Supplies were getting pretty low and it was a really good deal."
  
  "Wait," Ethan squinted at me. "Why would a bed in exchange for a can of coffee be a good deal?"
  
  My smile broke through then as I replied easily, "Because it wasn't my bed."
  
  Glancing toward the giggling Marissa, Ethan snorted and shook his head. "Ha. But you know what? If I didn't have a bed, you wouldn't have a bed. And then I would have a bed. Funny how that works, huh?"
  
  "Well gee, Ethan." I shook my head at him from where I lay. "If you wanted my fluffy Care Bear sheet and blanket set, you didn't have to go through such a convoluted way of getting them."
  
  "Convoluted-me-I-" Poor Ethan sputtered a little bit while staring at me as he waved a hand through the air. "You're the one that started this and made the whole thing up."
  
  "Hmmm, nope, that's not how I remember it." I shook my head and blinked innocently at him.
  
  "What do you mean, that's not how you remember it? It just happened." Ethan tried to demand, though he had to cough a few times to hide his amused smile to keep up the facade of disbelief.
  
  "If you must know, I'm using my super power to remember it differently," I declared solemnly.
  
  After staring at me for a few long seconds as though trying to work that through on his own, Ethan shook himself. "Okay, yeah. This one I've gotta hear. Exactly how on Earth does the ability to link two objects with an invisible line, or sense someone in danger help you remember something differently?"
  
  "Oh no, not that super power." I waved a hand dismissively and snuggled back against Mars before continuing matter-of-factly. "See, I was talking about my other super power."
  
  The man squinted at me, mouthing my words briefly before shaking his head. "I'm going to regret asking this, but fine. What other super power are you talking about?"
  
  "Well, see, the lines thing is the power I get from being a parahuman." I waited for Ethan to nod slowly before continuing. "But you're forgetting about the power I get from being a teenager."
  
  Both of his eyebrows went up. "You get powers from being a teenager these days?"
  
  "Pretty sure every teenager gets this one," I mused before winking. "The power to hear and/or say absolutely anything and somehow creatively reinterpret it into something completely different and remain completely convinced that that's how it always was. 'Do the dishes' becomes 'Yes, you absolutely should call your friend to tell her all about those jeans.' No computer before you do your homework becomes 'You can probably find out a lot about that Ben Franklin essay by playing that new Dungeon Harvest map and asking your teammates what they know about him.'" I shrugged. "You know how comic books have retcons? It's kind of like that."
  
  For a long moment, Ethan just stared before finally dipping his head in something that was equal parts sigh and nod. "Yeah, I can't even argue with that one. It explains way too much."
  
  "What explains too much?" Sam came down the stairs with a curious look.
  
  Ethan put his hand out to tug his wife to him before shrugging. "Apparently Madison went and sold our bed for a can of coffee while she was trapped in here. Can you believe that?"
  
  Shrugging, Sam replied, "Eh. I kind of expected her to sell it for a candy bar." Nudging Ethan with her elbow while snickering, she then looked toward me. "Are you okay?"
  
  I hesitated before smiling just a little as I nuzzled back against Marissa with a contented sigh, nodding finally. "Getting there." After hesitating for a second, I added, "What about Hunter?"
  
  "Same. She's getting there." Sam sighed softly, gazing at me as though she wanted to say something else before shaking her head. "You should get some sleep soon. We're here now."
  
  "Yeah, soon." I nodded in agreement and yawned before adding sleepily while catching Marissa's arm and hugging it against my cheek like a pillow, "For now I'm pretty damn happy right where I am."
  
  Unfortunately, my mood had faded by the next morning. I was in pretty much the same place, though this time I was actually sitting up on the couch while eating a bowl of cereal as I stared at the television screen. They were announcing the damages and deaths that the city had suffered during the siege, and with every word that the newscasters spoke I felt more of my appetite slip away.
  
  Beside me, Sam put her hand over mine. Her voice was soft as she squeezed gently. "It would have been worse if you guys weren't here. Or if you were any less amazing."
  
  "They still killed a lot of people." I felt a lump in my throat and swallowed hard. "Between Valefor's programmed murderers, the sheer damage that Burnscar and Crawler both did, the way Horde's minions could attack an entire group, and... and everything else, it's just... we couldn't stop enough of it. We just couldn't." My eyes closed as I sighed slowly. "And then there's the cultists that killed to get the Nine's attention, and the people who killed themselves because they didn't think there was any hope. Some people even... even..." I sank back and brought both hands up to cover my face. "Some people even killed their own family members before they killed themselves. Not because they wanted to kill them, but because they thought it was better than letting the Nine have them."
  
  Turning toward Sam then, I lowered my hands, using the back of them to wipe my eyes. "How can people do that? How can they surrender so much to just... choose to die? Or even kill their family and friends? How is that an option? That's... that's... sick. It's evil. I know it's hard. I know it's terrifying, but... but at least keep trying. At least try . You don't give up like that. You don't give up and you definitely don't take other people with you. It just... it makes me wanna-" I closed my mouth and shuddered while cringing at my inability to fully express myself. "I'm so mad at them for giving up. I'm so angry, but I get it. I mean, I know why, even if I don't agree with it. I know why they did it, but they were wrong. I'm so sorry for them, I am. But they were wrong to give up. The guy who let himself bleed out after Vista and I met Horde, and everyone else who just gave up were wrong. You don't do that. You try. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes it sucks so much ass, but you keep fucking trying!"
  
  Ethan, who had come into the room a moment earlier, sat down in the chair across from the couch while he spoke up. "That's what the Slaughterhouse Nine did to people. That's what they did to the cities they visited. They sucked all the hope right out of them. Made death look better than anything those psychopaths had in store. With death it's over, you're done. With those guys it could get a hell of a lot worse." Reaching his foot out, he poked me in the leg. "But not now, thanks to you Wards."
  
  I flushed and shook my head. That had been all over the news too. They wouldn't stop showing pictures of our team. Some were the publicity stills that we'd all had to take, while others were amateur photographs taken during either other situations or even the siege itself.
  
  Unfortunately, they also broadcast the video of me during the last moments with Jack. They showed him convincing me to admit the truth about my past, and they showed the subsequent fight after Riley saved me. The image of me pulling the trigger on Jack was censored most of the time, of course, but they left enough that the point was made. Everyone knew, both what I had done to Jack and what I had admitted.
  
  I kept flipping the stations every time they started to speculate about whose life it was that I had ruined. I didn't want to hear their guesses, and I certainly didn't want to hear anything from the panel of psychologists each station had brought in to discuss either my psychological issues, Riley's, or those of the rest of my teammates.
  
  Riley, of course, was another favorite subject. Every single person on the news, be it anchor, guest, or random person they stopped on the street, had a different opinion about her. Some believed she had changed, others thought she had but still thought she deserved to rot in the Birdcage for the rest of her life for what she had done. Others thought that was too nice and that she should still be killed. A few even thought killing her was too light, given the things that she'd done. The reactions to Riley ran every bit of the gamut, from total redemption to absolutely no change. Hell, one guy even posited that this was all Riley's ruse, that she had been angling to take over the Nine and this was all an elaborate plot to get rid of Jack and rebuild the group with herself in charge. He even had graphs and charts!
  
  Mostly they were asking questions, a lot of them. Someone had taken a picture of me holding Emma up right after she had brought down the forcefield, and now people wanted to know if this mystery person was a new Ward member that we hadn't mentioned already.
  
  And there was also a picture of Dinah, sitting slouched against Zeta's legs. They had gotten a good enough shot that it was obvious who she was even with her red-dyed hair, and now the newscasters were going off with their own conspiracy theories about what had really happened to the mayor's niece. No one had reached her parents for a comment yet, but that didn't stop them from coming up with their own wild theories and speculation, mostly centering on what they were calling the 'Cult of Pandora' (some of the gang members that the Pandoras had allowed to escape had spread the word about the name they went by) abducting the girl and using her as a mascot or something. Again, wild theories that were almost enough to make me want to call up and set the record straight. As if that wouldn't create even more problems than it solved.
  
  Lowering his voice and sobering a little, Ethan asked, "What are they up to now?"
  
  Sam answered for me, since my own throat closed up when I tried to say the words. "Eighty five percent of the local PRT force is gone. A little over half the police force as well. Jack and his group, mostly Mannequin, were directly targeting them while the Wards and everyone else were busy."
  
  Letting out a low, long sigh as he sank back in his chair under the weight of that, Ethan spoke again in a voice that made it clear that he was dreading the answer. "Civilians?"
  
  "No firm count yet," Sam replied. "It's too spread out and they have to practically go door to door to check in with people. They're still pulling out bodies and-" She covered her mouth and shook her head while closing her eyes at the horror of what she was saying for a moment before she was able to continue. "And they're trying to count who's missing, who's hurt, and who's confirmed dead. But overall... they're estimating several thousand civilian deaths, at least. Valefor's tricks alone account for a few hundred. Then there's the cultists, Crawler, Burnscar, all of them. It all adds up."
  
  "I'm sorry," I finally couldn't help putting in. "We should've done better. We should have found a way to stop them sooner, or... or..."
  
  "Madison, no." Sam shook her head and put both arms around my shoulders to pull me against her. "You guys did the best you possibly could have. You did better than anyone could have expected. You saved all these people. Everyone in the city that's still alive owes it to you guys."
  
  "Not the ones that died," I said quietly, thinking of Mrs. Pelham's friends who had been murdered. I also thought of Grue, and Marquis, and everyone else that had died because we hadn't been good enough. "We could have done better. We could have thought faster, worked harder, done something else that would have..."
  
  Ethan shook his head from where he sat. "Ewok, stop. You and your team didn't do anything wrong. You were in an impossible position, kid. You guys did everything you could. Sam's right, you did good work. You're heroes, real heroes. Don't let yourself think any different. You start that and you'll end up thinking that none of the work you're doing isn't good enough. Remember what you were saying before, about not giving up? Same thing. Don't focus so much on what you didn't do that you lose track of what you did do. You helped save the city, and those numbers on the screen about everyone that died, without you guys I guarantee that those would be the survivor numbers."
  
  Giving me a firm squeeze, Sam nodded before picking up the remote with one hand to turn off the television. "Exactly. And now, well, now we need to talk about something else."
  
  "Something else?" I looked back and forth between them. "Is this about the other thing that you said we were going to need to talk about? Is something wrong?" I added worriedly, biting my lip as my mind started to sprint its way toward the absolute worst ideas it could imagine. Stupid brain.
  
  "Yeah, it's about that." Sam was quiet for a moment then, looking indecisive before she let out a long sigh. "Okay, I'm going to start from the beginning. But as I explain, Madison, I... I need you to sit and wait until I finish before you say anything, okay? Please. I know some of it will be hard, and it'll probably upset you, but you need to know that I do care about you. I'm telling you that right now. I care about you and whatever this started as, it's a lot more than that now."
  
  I frowned a little, uncertain as I glanced from her to Ethan in confusion. I had no idea what she was trying to say. "What do you mean, whatever this started as?"
  
  Sam explained, while I sat there, tumultuous feelings mounting with each word. She told me how she had set out to find a way to catch Ethan back when he was Madcap, first by looking into tinker weapons and later by actually buying super powers. Sam was like Marissa and the other Travelers, her powers came out of a vial. Only she had actually purchased hers, and had later done several favors to pay back the people who had helped her.
  
  And taking me in had been one of those favors.
  
  Several times I wanted to interrupt. I nearly did. My feelings railed wildly and my mouth opened to say something that I probably would have regretted. But I stopped myself. It took everything I had, but I held it back. I waited. I let her talk, even as my hands clenched and unclenched with each word.
  
  My turbulent emotions tried to force several reactions out of me by the time Sam finished by explaining that she had tried to get this so-called Doctor Mother to help during the Nine crisis, but had been refused. Part of me wanted to scream at the thought that this had all been a set-up, that some invisible, hidden group had manipulated my life after my parents were killed, to some end that I couldn't fathom.
  
  Rather than letting those emotions have their way, however, I rose slowly from the couch and folded my arms while tucking my chin down. Closing my eyes, I stood like that for a long time, hearing the tick of the large clock in the corner as it counted off the seconds. I stood completely still just like that, and I worked it through. I let my knee-jerk emotions do battle with my logical thought.
  
  Finally, I opened my eyes and looked at Sam where she was still sitting with a look on her face that made me cringe briefly. "You-" My voice cracked, and I took a breath before trying again. "You didn't... didn't set out to try to manipulate me." I had to speak slowly and force the words to come through as steadily as I could. "You weren't trying to... to use my emotions after my-" My throat closed up again and I had to look away while hugging myself even more tightly. "After my parents died. You weren't trying to play off that." My words were equal parts statement and prayer. I believed they were true, and I was also pleading for them to be.
  
  Looking stricken, Sam shook her head and rose from the couch. She didn't move toward me, though it looked like she wanted to. "No. No, Maddy, never. I told them no experiments, no tests, nothing. All I was supposed to do was give you shelter for a couple of years. I didn't... I didn't know why they cared where you lived. I still don't. I don't really know anything else about them, or why they do anything that they do. All I know is that... I'm glad. I'm glad that they had me take you in, Mads, because these past few months with you have been..." She smiled weakly. "... really, really good. I just, I needed you to know the truth. I was so afraid of losing you, of you finding out what made me say that we should take you in and getting so upset that you wouldn't talk to me anymore. But I can't lie to you again, Madison. I can't and I won't. I'd rather risk losing you now than poison any more of our relationship with that lie. I... I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I was afraid of what they would do to you or to Ethan."
  
  Swallowing again, I processed that slowly. "They only said to take me in?" A good chunk of my brain was screaming 'why?!', but I ignored it to focus on this single issue. "That's the only part they... they manipulated? You... you swear you weren't coached about what to say or what I might like or... or anything?"
  
  "Yes." Sam nodded while obviously restraining herself from closing the distance between us. "Yes, Madison, nothing else. I promise you. Every conversation we've had, everything we've done, none of it was scripted or planned. It started out as my last favor, but... but now you're a lot more than that. You're our Maddy."
  
  My eyes closed one more time, and a shiver of confusion ran through me before I opened them once more, coming to a decision.
  
  "I don't care," I said quietly. "I don't care why it happened. I'm not a saint either. Nobody is. I've been way too much of a manipulative bitch before to judge you now. At least you've always had good intentions."
  
  Sam opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, I stepped forward, put my arms around the woman, and hugged her as hard as I could.
  
  There was a soft, surprised gasp before she slowly lowered her arms around me. A moment later, she was holding me so tightly that it was difficult to breathe.
  
  We stood there for a long time, saying nothing and yet saying absolutely everything without any words at all. I had more questions, too many to even think of so soon. But for right then, the important part hadn't been any of my dozens of questions about the people that Sam had obtained her powers from or even why the hell they had cared who I was living with. No, the important part had been what kind of relationship she and I were going to have once she admitted the truth to me.
  
  And as I stood there with my arms around Sam, both of us hugging each other, I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
  
  This was a pretty good start.
  
  28.05
  
  "I'm sorry, would you care to repeat that, young lady?" The stern face of Roy Christner, the long-time mayor of Brockton Bay, stared at me incredulously from across the conference table.
  
  We weren't alone. The rest of the Wards team was on my side of the table, with Flechette directly to my right and in the exact center of the seating arrangement, Reach and Aid sat to my left, and Sparrow, Kid Win, and Vista were to Lily's right. We were all in costume since there were people present who didn't know our identities, though to be honest after the last few days, I'd almost been tempted to go ahead and give up my identity to them if it meant I could stay in civilian clothes for a little bit longer.
  
  On the opposite side of the table Mayor Christner sat front and center, with Director Simms, the local police commissioner whose name eluded me for the moment, and Mrs. Pelham to his left, and Miss Militia, Armsmaster (who was attending the meeting both as a former leader of the local Protectorate who knew a lot about the city, and as the current leader of the nearest Protectorate team that might be able to assist if our own team needed help dealing with the aftermath), and Alexandria to his right. The latter hadn't stopped staring at me the entire time the debriefing had been going on, which at this point was hours. I wasn't sure why I had attracted so much of her attention, but she had barely taken her eyes off of me long enough to respond to other people. Being so obviously and thoroughly scrutinized made me nervous, even though I was pretty sure I hadn't done anything that would upset a member of the Triumvirate, had I? Okay, yeah, there was that whole business with Eidolon, but surely they weren't holding that against me, right? The way Alexandria was staring at me made it seem like she was trying to read the labeling on my soul or something, even when other members of the team were talking.
  
  Refocusing on the mayor's face after shifting uneasily in my seat, I repeated what I had just said. "Dinah isn't going to come to in, sir. Neither is Emma. They're independent." Now that the main part of the debriefing seemed to be over, he had just brought up the subject of having me tell Dinah it was time to rejoin society and for Emma to join the Wards. What Riley was supposed to do had been suspiciously absent, to say nothing of the Pandoras.
  
  "They're children," the mayor stated flatly, clearly unaccustomed to being told no. "We've indulged this foolishness long enough. Miss Barnes's parents have been on the phone with either my office or the police every other day since someone ," he looked at me pointedly, "decided to leave a message telling them that their daughter was alive and safe but just couldn't go home just yet. They don't accept that, and neither do I. If Rory had-" He stopped, looking away briefly as a look of pain and loss crossed his eyes. "If Rory had disappeared rather than die, I wouldn't stop looking for him just because some cape says that it's better if he stays away."
  
  Cassie spoke up from beside me. " Some cape was good enough to help save this whole city from the Nine while you just hid in your fucking-"
  
  I winced inwardly while putting a hand on the other girl's leg and squeezing to make her stop talking. She relented, but I could tell she was still livid even as I tried to smooth things over as much as possible given the situation. I couldn't really blame the mayor for wanting his niece back, especially after I had just been able to reunite with Sam and Ethan. "Sir, I know. I know how it sounds. I know they belong with their families, trust me. It'd be best if everyone could be with their family, but-"
  
  "But nothing." That was the police commissioner. He was a heavy-set, older man who sported a thick, bushy white mustache that drooped down on the sides, and his eyes were a pale, almost sickly blue. The mustache and the fact that he was balding made me think of the king from the old Cinderella cartoon. "Dinah's parents are still missing, and might not even have survived the attack. Do you understand that? They might have already died, without seeing their little girl again. They might have died without knowing anything about what happened to her."
  
  My eyes widened a little bit behind my mask. "They're still missing? But... I'm sure Dinah can find them. I can ask her if she knows where they are and-"
  
  "And let everyone continue to pretend that we should listen to a runaway child? Continue feeding that delusion?" The Commissioner interrupted. "Absolutely not. I'm done accepting 'a psychic twelve-year old said that she had to stay away from her parents because reasons.' It's time for them to come home. If there's one thing this whole Slaughterhouse Nine business has taught me, it's that we depend entirely too much on our capes to protect and make decisions for us."
  
  A little to the side of the man, Armsmaster brought his fist down on the table while turning that way with what was clearly an incredulous look. "Excuse me? Would you like to go up against a group like the Nine, or the Teeth, or an Endbringer, or any other threat like that without capes on your side?"
  
  "That's not the point." The commissioner waved a hand dismissively. "The point is that this has gone far enough. Now no more." He jabbed a finger in my direction. "Tell us where these children are so that we can bring them home, or I just might decide to hold you-"
  
  "That's enough, Commissioner Bellwood." Mrs. Pelham spoke up. "I know emotions are high right now, but we are not going to sit here and let you make threats, implied or otherwise, against one of our people. We all want Emma and Dinah to come home safely, but pushing the issue at this point is a bad idea. Good Scion, man, half of the police force is dead. So are more than three quarters of our PRT. PCIPS agents lost the least, but we didn't have a lot to begin with that wasn't tied up in the PRT. This is not the time to start picking fights with something like Pandora."
  
  "People," I interrupted. "They're not things, they're people. They have feelings and thoughts too."
  
  Mayor Christner nodded, looking at the table before gazing at me again. "They are people who have held my niece and another girl hostage for months now, away from their families. If they are people who have feelings, then it should be possible to reason with them. They want to be friends with Dinah and Miss Barnes? Fine, let them do so the right way, by visiting. It's time for those children to be home with their families, Tether, not off on their own doing god knows what. Please, talk to them and find some way of letting things get back to normal. If..." The man stiffened, looking uncomfortable about showing this much emotion as his voice cracked a little. "If Rachel and her husband are gone and never got to see their little girl again, I owe it to them to bring her in safely."
  
  Cringing at that, I hesitated before nodding. "I'll talk to them. Like I said, Dinah can help find her parents." If they're alive, a nagging, doubtful voice at the back of my head reminded me.
  
  Commissioner Bellwood looked like he was going to say something else, but Alexandria spoke up for pretty much the first time since the meeting had started. "Good. Now that that's dealt with, we can move on to other issues. Specifically, awards." Once again, her attention remained riveted on me. "There will be a celebration dinner and ceremony in three days where the Wards team will be recognized for their achievements, and presented with their awards. Those who contributed directly to the death of one of the Slaughterhouse Nine will be provided their reward compensation then."
  
  "What about Bonesaw?" Commissioner Bellwood demanded. "Are we really going to reward her after everything she did before? That girl belongs in the Birdcage where she can't hurt any innocent people the next time she changes her mind about whose side she's on."
  
  "You can't try to put Riley in the Birdcage!" Those words came not from me, surprisingly, but from Mika. The little girl was floating up a bit off her seat, her bracelets glowing. "She's good now!"
  
  "Now, Sparrow." Mayor Christner held his hand up. "This is a complicated situation. I know you're a bit young to understand the kind of things that she did-"
  
  "I'm not too young!" Mika huffed. "I know what she did, but she doesn't do that stuff anymore. When people are bad and then do good things, you can't just punish them anyway! Then bad people won't try to be good anymore because they'll be like, 'well Riley tried to be good and they didn't care, so why should I bother?' Besides, she's my friend now, and I won't let you hurt my friend."
  
  "Your friend ?" Commissioner Bellwood sounded utterly incredulous before turning his glare back to me. "Do you see what you've-" He stopped, clenching his teeth briefly before going on. "Regardless, Bonesaw's actions are not something that can just be erased."
  
  Beside me, Lily spoke up. "Seems to me like they already were. Doesn't she have a pardon?"
  
  "A conditional pardon." Commisioner Bellwood's voice was stiff. Clearly he hadn't liked the idea from the beginning. "One that can be revoked if circumstances require."
  
  "Which circumstances?" I couldn't help but demand, feeling my own anger and frustration rise. "The part where she saved all of us, " I waved a hand at the rest of the team, "by killing Hatchet Face? Or the part where she saved just my life while helping me kill Jack Slash. Which of those 'circumstances' give you any justification at all for removing her pardon? I may be a teenager, but I'm pretty sure that's not how pardons work, Commissioner ."
  
  Director Simms nodded once while speaking up, his voice calm and even. "You may disagree with the pardon, Commissioner, but you lack the authority to remove it. Further, I don't believe that anyone could argue that the girl formerly known as Bonesaw has not fully turned her back on those activities after seeing the video of Jack Slash's demise. It was fairly definitive."
  
  The commissioner started to say something else, but Alexandria interrupted. "Moving on, we need to discuss the specifics of bringing other forces in to aid the recovery process. With the PRT and the police force of this city so damaged, as well as the power vacuum with the absence of any single strong criminal element, outside gangs will be rushing to claim territory before you can stop them."
  
  Mrs. Pelham winced, but nodded. "There was also already word about new parahumans popping up even before the dome went down. There's no way to separate hearsay from fact yet, but we do believe that at least a couple are real, and a potential threat."
  
  "Exactly." Alexandria straightened in her seat. "Brockton Bay is a goose waiting to be plucked, and you don't have the resources to defend it constantly."
  
  "Do we really need the Wards here for this part?" Miss Militia objected with a sympathetic glance toward us at what had been a not-too-subtle collection of sighs and groans at the thought that we were still stuck in this room. "I think they can be excused, don't you?"
  
  "Very well," Mayor Christner glanced at me once more. "Please, Tether. Try to bring my niece home." He sounded frustrated, tired, and worried. "Just try."
  
  "I will." I straightened from the table along with the rest of my team. "And we'll see if she can find her parents, sir. I promise."
  
  A short time later, I stood atop the roof of the PRT building with the rest of my team, in pretty much the same grouping that we'd been in at the meeting. The seven of us were staring out at the freeway where heavy trucks were carrying loads of supplies in from other parts of the state. Throughout the city itself, emergency vehicles were still working to clear away the rubble, find people who had been injured, and (far more often than not) carry away the bodies of those that we had failed to save.
  
  "Alexandria's right, you know." Chris was saying. "Even people online are saying that this place is Destination One for every bad guy that wants to carve out a piece for themselves."
  
  Cassie snorted and folded her arms beside me. "Are they really that stupid? 'Sure, let's go pick a fight with the guys that killed off the Nine. That sounds fun.' Seriously?"
  
  "Sure, that'll keep some of them away," Lily acknowledged. "But for a lot of them, it'll be even more tempting. People don't stop challenging you just because you win a lot. When you're at the top of the heap, it makes you a more tempting target for people that have something to prove. They're gonna think that the Nine were just getting soft or weren't as big of a threat as people made them out to be, or that we're weak now after all that fighting, or that they just happen to be that damn good. That's just how these things work."
  
  Theo spoke up then. "They'll think they can take the city, or part of it, while everyone's busy cleaning up. That's the sort of thing my fa-Kaiser would have done. Hit us while we're distracted and low on resources, then dig themselves in so they're too hard to uproot once we can focus on them."
  
  Missy made a disparaging noise from where she was standing. "That's why they didn't threaten us with more 'vacation' like they did the last time they thought we worked too hard. You notice they didn't even mention it this time? They couldn't afford to. They need all hands on board and they know it."
  
  As I stared out over the city, thinking of everything the people here had been through, I felt a wave of sympathy for the civilians that were stuck in this whole ordeal. By all rights, the end of the Nine's wave of terror should have been the very last threat that the people of Brockton Bay had to be afraid of. In the movies, that would be when the credits rolled, leaving a happily ever after for everyone that had survived. They should have been able to move on with their lives and not worry about even more threats. If anyone deserved a break, it was the people that lived here in the city.
  
  But this wasn't a movie, and beating one threat didn't earn a happily ever after. Unfortunately, that wasn't how these things worked. Most people would get a break of sorts, sure. And the next threat might not be as thoroughly depressing and horrible as the Nine had been. But it would come. Threats would pour in from out of the city as more gangs and solo villains sought to claim their territory in Brockton Bay. Without much in the way of a PRT force, and only half of our police presence, even the visiting capes that would stop by whenever they could to help pick up the slack wouldn't be enough to deal with everyone that would see us as prime real estate. In short, we were going to be busy.
  
  "Tether?" Mika had moved to float in front of me, her head tilted quizzically. "Do you think we're gonna beat all the bad guys that move here?"
  
  I smiled faintly in spite of myself before nodding. "Yeah, Sparrow. I do."
  
  "How?" Her head tilted the opposite way.
  
  "The same way we beat everything else." Taking the girl by the arm, I tugged her down out of the air and into a hug while finishing with a final word.
  
  "Together."
  
  Interlude 28 - Prism
  
  "Sam?"
  
  The curious voice brought Samantha Rowen's head around from where she had been filling a cup of coffee in the lounge of Brockton Bay's Protectorate Headquarters. "Hmm?" The blonde heroine asked while taking a sip of the scalding liquid and managing, barely, not to moan audibly in relief at the taste. Scion, she'd needed this jolt of caffeine before her patrol shift started. Two days since she had arrived, which itself had been only a day after the city-wide forcefield had been brought down, and this would already be her fourth full patrol.
  
  "Err," One of the local heroes, Assault, shook his head and chuckled while gesturing toward the woman sitting on the couch in the corner. "Sorry, Prism. I meant my Sam."
  
  Rising from the couch, Battery offered Prism an apologetic shrug. "Maybe one of us should be Sam and the other can be Sam Two. I'll even take Two if you prefer."
  
  Smiling, Prism shook her head. "Nah, that wouldn't be fair. You're the one that lives here. I'm just visiting until things get a little more under control." She took another sip of the coffee then before adding, "Could stick with Samantha while I'm here if it helps."
  
  "Sam and Samantha." Assault nodded while looking back and forth between them. "I can work with that." He walked toward the coffee machine then, glancing toward the newly dubbed Samantha. "So how long are you actually visiting for anyway, did they tell you?"
  
  She shook her head while stepping out of the way so that he could get at the machine behind her. "Legend just asked for volunteers to come up here and help out while things get settled." In spite of the success of the Wards and their allies, the city itself was still teetering on the edge of being a hellhole. Without sufficient police or PRT coverage after so many had been killed, the word was already getting out across the nation that Brockton Bay was up for the taking.
  
  From the looks that Assault and Battery exchanged, they were well aware of that fact. The latter offered Samantha a weak smile. "Well, we're glad for the help." After a moment, she added with an obvious flinch. "Sorry to tear you away from your own team though..."
  
  "Puppy's got a point." Assault stepped around Samantha to take his wife's hand while sipping from a cup of his own. "You must keep pretty damn busy over there. Second in command of the New York Protectorate, Legend's Protectorate, and you're only, what, twenty years old?"
  
  That probably says more about how often more qualified Capes die than any particular skill on my part, Samantha thought to herself before shrugging. "Honestly, it's not really that big of a deal. And the real credit should go to Legend. He's... a great teacher."
  
  It went far beyond that, however. She owed that man more than she could ever repay. He had gone so far out of his way to help her when she had first been starting out.
  
  Those had been dark days. Her father was a gymnastics coach who had spent Samantha's entire life training her and her siblings to be Olympic level contenders. She'd been well on her way when a sudden injury to her ACL had ended that once-promising career. The loss of what she had worked toward almost from the time she had been able to walk had sent Samantha Rowen through a spiraling descent into near-suicidal depression. Her father had given up on trying to convince her to come to the gym, and had focused on her siblings instead. Without gymnastics between them, they barely spoke. She was too depressing for them, so they began to leave her out of not only gymnastics time, but other family events as well. They went out together after training, heading for food, movies, and other events while conveniently forgetting to let her know. Samantha had stopped caring about anything, content to sit around and feel sorry for herself and dwell on her lost dreams.
  
  Realizing one day that her family had gone on to a State Regionals gymnastics tournament without even asking if she wanted to go with, Samantha had realized just how far she'd fallen. They were leaving her out of everything by that point, and she had become desperate to change. She'd wanted to be a better person, had wanted so desperately to be someone new and to have her family back, that she'd triggered with the ability to do just that. With her new power, she had become capable of splitting herself into three separate forms, then consolidating into a single body that was proportionally stronger and faster for a brief time. In effect, she was able to make her own family.
  
  And yet it hadn't really been her new-found power that had truly brought Samantha out of her depression. Credit for that went to Legend, who had helped her first as a Ward for her brief tenure, and then as a member of his own Protectorate team. He had helped Samantha construct a new life around the Protectorate, letting that fill the void that gymnastics had left behind. The hero, the person that she was now she owed entirely to that man. It wasn't something that she would ever forget.
  
  So when he had asked for volunteers to come to Brockton Bay and help out, she had been first in line. The news of what had happened to this poor city, what its citizens and capes had all been put through had infuriated Samantha. She had been one of those who had tried to break through the forcefield, by spawning a duplicate of herself on the inside. It had failed, but she'd continued to feel as though she should do something else to help. And now, here she was.
  
  She just hoped that the little bit of aid that she was capable of offering would be enough to help stop the city from sliding into the control of the gangs that were already descending upon it.
  
  "So the rumors are true then?" Forty-five minutes later, Prism stood in her skintight costume, mask concealing most of her face as she looked toward the local cape that had accompanied her on this patrol so she wouldn't get lost. "You were a villain before you changed sides."
  
  Penance, clad in glowing green armor that looked like glass, regarded her briefly. Her own features were hidden as well, behind a matching mask that held twin glowing gem-like lenses over her eyes. "That isn't usually considered a polite question to ask, but yes. I was Purity. If that bothers you, we can ask if there's anyone else that could play guide tonight."
  
  Shaking her head once, Prism replied calmly, "That wasn't what I was getting at. I was going to ask if you have any advice about any of the local bad guys, since you were pretty high up the villain chain before you flipped. I figured you might have useful advice or info."
  
  Pausing briefly as though absorbing that, Penance finally offered a simple, "Oh." She looked away, clearly deep in thought before finally shaking her head. "Things have changed a lot in the last few months, and almost every group is different or completely new since I was on the other side. There's still a few members of the Empire running around, like Night and Fog, but they're disorganized. They wouldn't work with Marquis or Lung when those two were the big games in town, so they've mostly kept quiet. The ABB and the Merchants don't exist anymore, and the Undersiders switched sides. Coil's gone, so... pretty much none of the groups that were big while I was working that side still exist the way that they did then." She shrugged then. "Sorry, my info's too out of date."
  
  "Don't worry about it," Prism assured the older woman. "But if something does occur to you..."
  
  "I'll let you know." Penance assured her before floating a bit off the ground. She looked a little more relaxed, slightly less tense than she had been when Samantha had first met up with her for this evening's patrol. Which had been the point. Even though Prism had pretty much assumed that the woman's information would be too old to be of use, just asking her had been Samantha's way of letting Penance know that she wasn't going to hold past decisions and mistakes against her.
  
  Together, and with markedly less tension between them, the pair set off on their patrol. Penance could have flown, but stayed low to avoid being a glaringly bright beacon alerting every thug within a few dozen blocks to their presence. Which also gave them time to talk, a fact that Prism took advantage of by picking the other woman's brain about everything she could think of involving Brockton Bay. She asked about capes that were still around as well as those that weren't and what had happened to them in order to get a better handle on the city as a whole.
  
  Mostly, however, she asked about the Wards. Brockton Bay's Ward team was, by this point, the most famous one in the country. Exposing Coil, beating Lung's group, being involved with stopping Teacher from inside the Birdcage, and even now, both surviving and beating the Slaughterhouse Nine while they were trapped inside the cut-off city. It was both impressive and, in Samantha's mind, frightening. Now that they had this reputation, there were going to be more and more villains gunning for the Wards. In most cities, the Wards were kept out of the worst danger and were essentially training wheels before their members reached the Protectorate, where the real fighting happened. But here in Brockton Bay, their Wards were right on the front lines. And they'd had enough success that people saw them as a serious threat, which meant that they wouldn't hold back against them the way they might against a lesser qualified or experienced teenage team.
  
  More than that, Samantha was afraid that it would affect the rest of the Ward teams across the nation by either making them think that they had to measure up to their peers in Brockton Bay and thus get themselves into trouble, or by convincing other villain groups that might have left the younger teams alone or taken it easier on them to instead hit as hard as they could.
  
  Not that she blamed the Brockton Bay Wards for their success, of course. They'd done what they had to do, and had earned their victories. But she was afraid of what those victories would mean for not only the other Wards across the country, but also the Brockton Bay team themselves. They were attracting more and more enemies, villains that had something to prove and thought they could do so by smacking down the team that had beaten the Slaughterhouse Nine. According to her sources, Flechette, Tether, and the rest of the local Wards were already high profile targets for anyone who wanted to make a name for themselves.
  
  The chime of the comm interrupted her thoughts, just before Miss Militia's voice came through the earbud. "Penance, Prism, one of the medical supply trucks that's been restocking the clinics is being forced off the road about five blocks from your current location. Can you assist?"
  
  Samantha opened her mouth to respond first, habit ingrained after years of working just under Legend, but stopped herself in time and nodded toward Penance. She was the visitor here.
  
  Penance returned her nod before activating her own communicator. "We'll be right there." Looking toward Prism, she asked, "You want a lift, or do you prefer to make it on your own?"
  
  Samantha offered her a brief smile. "Trust me, any stubborn pride I had about not letting someone carry me got thrown out the window a long time ago. It's five blocks, better we get there sooner than later."
  
  "Good to know." Penance stepped around to get a grip under her arms before lifting off, and the two of them were soon flying just over the rooftops while they kept their eyes focused for any sign of the supply truck that had been attacked.
  
  "There," Prism raised her hand to point at the truck. It was haphazardly parked sideways across the parking lot of an old strip mall, and she could see a couple of bodies lying on the ground on either side of the truck cab while several standing figures had gathered around the back to unload the truck into a pair of vans that were parked nearby. They were working quickly and efficiently, and hadn't noticed the incoming Protectorate members yet.
  
  Lifting her hand to point at the nearest van, Prism asked, "Think you could drop me in that direction?"
  
  "From up here?" Penance sounded surprised, but nodded. "If you're sure you can make it."
  
  "I'll be fine," Samantha promised the other woman, adding a thumbs up for emphasis. "Trust me."
  
  As requested, Penance flew right over top of the van. By that point, one of the men that was unloading the truck had started to notice the light and was turning their way, but before he could shout an alarm, Samantha found herself free-falling through the air as Penance released her.
  
  As soon as she began to fall, Prism summoned her power and split herself apart into her three distinct selves. They plummeted together, and the old fear that had cropped up after her injury tried to intrude upon her consciousness. Years of experience however, meant that she was able to shut it aside and focus. She knew exactly how to time something like this, and had done so plenty of times while working with Legend.
  
  Barely two seconds before her three distinct selves would have hit the ground, Samantha consolidated into a single body with a brief flash of light. That single self was briefly strong and tough enough that, as she crashed directly into the hood of the van with enough force to cave it in, she was utterly unhurt.
  
  The deafening sound of tearing metal across the parking lot drew everyone's attention, especially that of the driver who had been sitting behind the wheel of the now-wrecked vehicle. His eyes were wide as he stared at the costumed heroine perched on the ruin of what had been a pristine van, and he was already grabbing for the pistol that lay on the seat next to him.
  
  Before he could grab it, and particularly before her temporary strength boost could wear off, Prism put her fist into the windshield in front of her, punching straight through it before grasping the man by the collar. She yanked backwards, hauling him out through the now-broken windshield before giving the man a toss that sent him rolling along the pavement.
  
  The second van was already reversing violently out of the lot, which Prism left for Penance to handle. She was focused on the remaining men outside the truck, who had produced guns of their own, and opened up on her. But Samantha was already reacting by hurling herself off of the ruined vehicle. She dropped into a roll, letting her power recharge for a few seconds.
  
  The men kept shooting, the bullets tearing up the pavement around her. Yet she didn't flinch. Not anymore. Instead, she used the sound of where their bullets were striking around her to estimate exactly how the men were aiming their weapons. When the time was right, she kicked off the ground, shoving herself into a jump that brought her near enough to the closest man to catch his gun arm before he could reorient toward her. A simple arm lock forced the man to drop his weapon before she put her knee into his stomach at just the right angle to double him over, then tossed him head-first into the side of the truck, all the while using his figure to shield herself from his companions.
  
  As soon as he was down, she split herself once more, facing the remaining pair of gunman who suddenly found that what had briefly been two-to-one odds were suddenly three-to-two.
  
  One of them came straight for the nearest Prism with a wild, desperate scream, opening up with his gun as quickly as he could while charging straight at her.
  
  Samantha reabsorbed that particular copy before it could be struck by the incoming bullets, consolidating it into the figure to the charging man's left. He stumbled when the Prism that he had been wildly shooting at abruptly vanished, and she took advantage of his hesitation by launching herself into a kick that simultaneously knocked the gun out of the man's hand while also snapping his wrist. He howled in pain, and she easily caught his uninjured arm to bring him down to the ground.
  
  Meanwhile, her remaining self had nearly reached the last gunman when he panicked and turned to run the other way, only to find his way abruptly blocked as Penance landed in front of him, dropping the driver of the van that she had chased down to the pavement next to her. He stopped short, looking first toward one heroine, then the other.
  
  Putting herself back into a single figure, Prism lifted a hand and beckoned for the man to bring it on. Instead, he sighed and dropped his weapon before raising his hands to link them behind his head, surrendering.
  
  A short time later, Samantha was alone. Penance had flown off to help escort the pair of police officers who had made it out to pick up the new prisoners, leaving Prism to keep an eye on the supplies until someone could come get them. She was lost in thought when a familiar voice spoke up behind her. "Good job out there."
  
  Turning slightly, she raised an eyebrow at Legend. Even now, with the years they had spent together and knowing his orientation as she did, Samantha still couldn't help but appreciate how good he looked in his costume. "I didn't know you were in the city, let alone spying on me," she teased.
  
  "Only briefly," Legend assured her. "And I actually came to find you. I wanted to ask you for a favor. It's... a big one."
  
  She blinked at that. "A favor? Legend, I'll do anything, you know that. All you have to do is ask."
  
  His head shook. "Don't say yes just because you think you owe me. This one's big. It's about changing teams."
  
  Frowning, Prism straightened a little. "What do you mean, changing teams? I thought this was temporary, just to give Brockton Bay a boost until they get things under control again."
  
  Legend nodded. "It is temporary. And then in a couple weeks, maybe Los Angeles will be the place that needs help. Or Maine, or Texas. The point is, there's always something and we keep bringing temporary members off other teams, weakening them in the process. It's a balancing act, and it's getting harder."
  
  "I don't-" Prism got it then. "You want a new team that isn't tied to a particular area, don't you?"
  
  Once again, the man nodded. "We're putting it together. A roaming team that goes where they're needed rather than being attached to a particular city or region. That way, they can get actual practice working together, rather than trying to bring random people in any time we need help and just expect them to figure out how to be a team for a week or two before they split up and go back to their own teams. We want a new Protectorate group that can stay together while traveling."
  
  Swallowing, Samantha managed a weak smile. "Sure you're not just trying to get rid of me?" It was a joke, mostly, but the thought of not being a part of Legend's team after all he had done for her was more frightening than the brief fight with the truck hijackers had been.
  
  "Never," Legend assured her. "You've been the best second I've had in a long time, Prism. But as long as you're on my team, you'll always be my second. You deserve to grow beyond that. That's why I want you to join this new team. I think you'll be good for it, and it'll be good for you. I won't force you into it though. It means a lot of traveling, never really settling down for more than a couple weeks or so."
  
  "Who else is going to be on this roaming team?"
  
  "Besides you?" Legend chuckled. "Aegis and Asylum have already agreed to join, and I've got one of the Brockton Bay team in mind that I haven't talked to yet. Other than that, we're still sorting through candidates."
  
  Samantha thought for a moment, but she knew the answer already. She couldn't deny Legend anything, not after everything that he'd done for her. She nodded finally. "I'm in. I'll help any way I can, you know that."
  
  "Good." Legend smiled before sobering. "Thank you. I really think we've needed something like this for a long time. If things work out, you'll stay here in Brockton Bay until another place needs the team more."
  
  The two of them fell into a comfortable silence, neither needing to speak while they stood side-by-side. And as she stood there, watching over the truck alongside the leader of the entire Protectorate, Prism knew one thing for certain.
  
  However this team thing ended up, she was doing more good here and now than she ever would have as a gymnast. It was a knowledge that had taken some time to cement itself after the injury that had ended her career, but she had come to accept it long ago. This was the person she was meant to be.
  
  And given the choice, she wouldn't change it for the world.
  
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  Arc 29: Visitations
  Notes: Moka-girl - Yeah, she could say that. But the problem is that the people who are making noises about it wouldn't listen to the idea that the twelve year old girl, whatever her powers, can take care of herself more than they/her parents can. Never mind the fact that it's having Pandora and the others that make her safer, they think the girl should be with her parents. They're not exactly wrong that it would be better if she could be with her family, but it's more complicated than they think. Good thought though.
  
  Imageination - As you'll see a little bit in this chapter, and more in later ones, there are more criminals coming to deal with. ;)
  
  RadicalTurnip - Glad you found it again! And yeah, I always feel like I'm getting better. Looking back on earlier writing sometimes makes me cringe a little, but we press on. I'm glad you liked Amy vs Crawler, and hopefully there's a few more surprises coming.
  
  Guile... whenever you actually make it up to this particular chapter - Glad you're enjoying it overall. To answer the question, no, Sophia doesn't get the option to not fight Tether. Should she? Is Madison under some particular compulsion to fight fair at this point? She was making a point of revealing Sophia's face to herself, not making any kind of statement about 'okay now nobody use powers'. She was purposefully antagonizing Sophia into admitting the truth and goading her to lose her cool on the record. And as for knowing about the weakness to electricity, Madison was working with the other Wards at the time. They knew about the weakness to electricity, because Shadow Stalker had a special vision enhancement in her mask to watch out for it. But yeah, I'm glad you like it and I hope that helps answer the questions on that point.
  
  As always, thanks for reading, guys (and girls)!
  
  29.01
  
  "She really looked like Vicky?" Amy's voice was soft, tentative against the heavy, contemplative silence that had followed my explanation of what I had seen happen with Freezetag.
  
  It was Friday, October 14th, the day that the Wards were supposed to be honored by the city. That would happen later in the evening, at some big dinner party that the mayor was throwing. It was also the first real chance that I'd had to talk to Panacea with any semblance of privacy. To that end, Amy and I, along with three of the Pandoras (Lambda and the twins, Xi and Omicron), were sitting in the park at one of the picnic tables that was set a fair bit away from anything else. In the distance, I could barely make out the playground where some kids were running around yelling at one another.
  
  Biting my lip, I nodded slowly while watching their reactions. "Not just looked like her, it was identical. She had Victoria's powers, costume, everything. It was definitely more than just changing shape. And it wasn't just Vicky either. She also had Grue's powers when she looked like him."
  
  Xi or Omicron (I still couldn't tell the identical short-haired brunettes apart, and I was starting to suspect that they alternated which names they answered to) spoke up. "How is this possible?"
  
  Beside her, the other twin agreed. "She is not like us. And even if she was..."
  
  The first twin finished her thought. "She did not absorb Victoria-Lost."
  
  Victoria-Lost? After a moment, I realized that it was probably the designation they had decided on for someone that had died. Flinching then, I shrugged. "I don't know, guys. I really don't. I'm gonna try to talk to the Undersiders later tonight at the stupid award thing, maybe I can corner Tattletale and get some answers out of her now that they've had time to work out exactly what Freezetag is capable of."
  
  "Why is she capable of that?" Amy demanded. "She wasn't before. How do you go from 'make people stand still' to 'shapeshift into people that are dead and use their powers'? That's like me suddenly being able to... I don't know, control water or something, it doesn't make any sense."
  
  From where she sat beside me, Lambda abruptly piped up. "And then you would be Pana- Sea -Uh!" This was punctuated by her wide, infectious smile as she waited patiently for our reactions.
  
  Blinking once, Amy shook her head at first. "But my name is Panac-" Getting it then, she groaned.
  
  In spite of myself, I snickered a bit and nudged the girl next to me. "How's your sandwich, Lambda?"
  
  As if in answer, the Hispanic-looking clone took an enormous bite out of her ham and turkey sub that had been piled high with extra, extra pickles before giving me a thumbs up gesture. She bounced up and down, practically dancing in her seat while making happy noises.
  
  Smiling at that, I patted her on the back before looking back at Amy and shrugged once more. "Again, I don't know how Freezetag went from stopping people to turning into the ones that have died after she used her power on them. I can't work out the correlation between that and her old power."
  
  Xi or Omicron spoke slowly, clearly thinking. "We would like to see this Freezetag once more."
  
  On the opposite side of Amy from her twin, the other gave that strange, jerky nod that the Pandoras did, clearly agreeing. "We may understand this power more if we are able to see it for ourselves."
  
  "And," the first of the twins added, "it would be nice to see Noelle-Sister again."
  
  "I'll see what I can do," I promised. "But I don't know how much Freezetag's gonna be up for."
  
  Finishing the large bite that had been in her mouth, Lambda spoke up again, her voice softer this time, with a note of reverence. "We are very sorry that Freezetag-Person has lost her brother."
  
  Omicron or Xi bowed her head while speaking up in a pained voice. "Losing a part of one's family is very bad." I saw the girl set a hand down in the middle of the table before her twin put her own on top of it and squeezed, the two of them clearly comforting one another.
  
  After closing her eyes briefly and giving a visible shudder, Amy nodded. Her voice was a little hoarse. "It really sucks." That was followed by a long, frustrated sigh. "Especially if someone else starts running around somehow turning into the person that you lost."
  
  Wincing at that, I said, "I don't think that was her intention. She wasn't really thinking about anything at all except finding Mannequin and making him pay, and she was using whatever it took to do it."
  
  "I know." Amy looked away, her face flushed. "And I know being mad at her about it isn't fair. I'm just... I can't see Victoria like that. If I did, it just still hurts too much. I know it's not her, but part of me really wants to go find the Undersiders and just..." She trailed off, looking pensive.
  
  I got it a second later. "You want to ask Freezetag to turn into Victoria?"
  
  Looking ashamed of herself, Amy folded her arms protectively over herself and shrank back. "I know. I know it's stupid and horrible and it's not even her. But if I could just talk to Vicky one more time, if I could just-" Her voice cracked and she closed her eyes tightly while a couple of tears leaked out.
  
  That made me wince. I had assumed that she would be upset at the thought of Aisha turning into Victoria, but I hadn't even considered the idea that she might actually want to use that as a way of pretending, even for a moment, that she could actually talk to Vicky again. "Oh, Amy... no, it's not-"
  
  "I know," she interrupted flatly without looking at me. "I know it's not like that. She wouldn't really be Vicky any more than Omicron would be if she took that shape. I know all of it, but that doesn't stop the part of me that really wants to try anyway. It's not logical, it's stupid."
  
  "It's not stupid," I promised her as gently as I could. "I get it, Amy. I understand what you mean. I just wish there was something I could say that would make it better, or at least make it hurt less."
  
  "I loved her." Amy's voice was quiet, but more assured than she had been a second earlier. "I loved Victoria, as a sister and as more than that. It was complicated. It is complicated. I can't just get over that, but I'm trying not to live completely in the past. I'm trying to move on. It's just that when you talk about some other girl suddenly turning into her, using her powers..."
  
  "I know," I said softly while reaching across the table to touch her shoulder. "I know, Amy. That's why I wanted to warn you guys before you saw her out and around like... like that."
  
  She gave the faintest of nods, but said nothing. Meanwhile, the identical Pandoras on either side of Amy, her most constant companions over these past couple of months, each embraced her with one arm while still clasping their own hands together on the table. For a few moments, we sat in contemplation, no one wanting to break the silence that had settled as we thought back, remembering Victoria.
  
  It was Lambda who finally did, speaking up as she looked toward me. "Dinah-Friend and Emma-Friend have just asked that we give you a message, Te-Madison-Friend."
  
  "What kind of message?" I asked while straightening a little. "Is it about Dinah's parents?" I had passed the message along to the girl a couple of days earlier that her parents were still missing and that they needed her help. I also, as calmly and pointedly as I could, pointed out that she and Emma both still had families that were worried about them. She had immediately promised to use her power to find them, but had hesitated at the idea of seeing them. In the end, it was Riley who convinced her by physically smacking the girl and saying that the whole place wasn't going to fall apart, that she wasn't going to fall apart and go back to being Bonesaw, if they just visited their families for a little bit.
  
  She also added something about how their 'project' could wait and that 'he' wouldn't be going anywhere. I was absolutely certain that I really didn't want to know what they were talking about.
  
  After that, Dinah had said she and Emma would try to set up a time to visit with their families, Emma as soon as possible, and Dinah once her parents were located. I'd tentatively raised the worry that they had been killed during the assault, but Dinah assured me they were alive. Apparently her power told her that there was a high chance that she would see them alive again eventually, so they couldn't have died.
  
  "No." Lambda shook her head at that. "It is about Emma-Friend's family. She has agreed to visit them tomorrow evening, but she would like you to accompany her when she goes."
  
  I blinked at that, surprised. "She wants me to go? Wait, me Madison or me Tether?"
  
  "Tether," Xi or Omicron answered from the other side of the table "She believes that your presence will help convince her family that she is safe where she is, and that she is not behaving irrationally."
  
  Omicron or Xi continued after her twin fell silent. "Her previous conversations with her father have not gone as Emma-Friend hoped they would, and she is afraid that he may attempt to make her stay with them. He may believe that compelling her continued presence is for her own good."
  
  I hesitated before nodding. "Tell Emma that I'll go with her if she really wants me there. Whatever she needs." I'd go with, then wait nearby to give her a chance to reunite with her family privately after making my presence known and answering any questions that Mr. Barnes had that I could answer.
  
  "Here comes Crystal." Amy nodded over my shoulder before lifting her hand to wave.
  
  Turning, I saw the older blonde step off the sidewalk path that led in a circle around the perimeter of the park, approaching at an easy pace while she returned Amy's wave. "Hey guys," she said once she was close enough to be heard without shouting. "How's it going?"
  
  Beside me, Lambda slipped off the bench and all-but jumped to her feet. "Crystal-Friend!" She exclaimed, surprising me a bit. I wasn't aware that Amy's cousin was that well known to the Pandoras. That, however, was nothing compared to my surprise when Lambda lunged that way to hug the older girl, almost taking the blonde off her feet with the fierceness of her embrace.
  
  Laughing, Crystal returned Lambda's hug. "There's my favorite little punk." Her voice was soft with fondness. "I don't suppose you saved me a bite?"
  
  Obligingly, Lambda leaned back and lifted her beloved sandwich, offering it to the blonde.
  
  "Snarf." Crystal took the offered bite and chewed. "Mmm, very pickly."
  
  Lambda's head bobbed eagerly at that while her bright smile broadened. "Yes, Crystal-Friend." She paused then, but it was obvious from her expression as she glanced back at the table and then to the older girl that she was anxiously waiting for something.
  
  It was equally clear from Crystal's expression that she was well aware of that fact, and teased Lambda by not saying anything for several long seconds before finally relenting. "Ohhh okay, go ahead, Punk."
  
  Instantly, Lambda recited, "Why were the people sad when they blew away the fog?"
  
  A smile tugged at Crystal's face before she shook her head. "I don't know, why were they sad?"
  
  "Because it was mist!" Lambda crowed before giggling at her own joke so much she nearly fell over until Crystal caught her. It was an open, innocent laugh that still amazed me to hear coming from the same figure that had terrified me so much a few months earlier. All of the Pandoras had grown a lot, and Lambda was perhaps the best example of that when compared to the Pandora of those days.
  
  Crystal chuckled softly at that. "Mist huh? Well guess what, I've got something for you this time."
  
  Brightening at that, the girl chirped, "Knock knock?"
  
  "Ah, you know the rules, Punk. That's what I say," Crystal corrected, pointing at herself. When Lambda bobbed her head eagerly, obviously bouncing from foot to foot with anticipation, the older girl finally relented with a smile. "Okay, knock knock."
  
  "Hello, who is there?" The Hispanic-looking girl's response came instantly, almost interrupting Crystal's last 'knock' in her eagerness to hear the joke.
  
  Leaning over the table, Amy whispered to me, "We tried to tell her that she doesn't have to say hello first, but she said that it's always polite to say hello when you answer a door."
  
  Winking over Lambda's shoulder at us, Crystal answered her with a simple, "Thistle."
  
  "Thistle who, please?"
  
  "Thistle be a good time to open the door."
  
  Lambda blinked once, then laughed so much she really did fall down, collapsing into the grass. "Thistle! Thistle thistle thistle! I like this word." She seemed to be enjoying repeating the word 'thistle' to herself repeatedly almost as much as she had enjoyed the joke itself.
  
  Shaking her head while chuckling easily, Crystal stepped around Lambda and smiled at the rest of us before sitting down next to me. "So, how's everyone else doing?"
  
  "I'd be doing better if they'd just cancel this stupid award dinner thing," I replied with a shrug. "It's just gonna be a bunch of people who don't understand anything about what happened making a bunch of speeches. Director Simms said they were planning on three hours for dinner and speeches.. How come their way of rewarding us feels an awful lot like punishing us?"
  
  I was whining, I knew. I just really didn't feel like sitting around a stuffy room while a bunch of people I didn't know talked about the things that we'd had to do. The idea made me uncomfortable.
  
  "That's funny, I thought you enjoyed attention, Miss Never Shuts Up." Crystal poked me a little bit teasingly.
  
  "Exactly." I waved both hands. "Three hours where they don't want us to say anything. We're just supposed to sit there and let them talk about us . I think they're afraid we'll say something embarrassing if they let us talk." Okay, it probably wasn't a completely unfounded fear, but still.
  
  Realizing after a moment that Crystal hadn't said anything, I glanced over to find her gazing off into the distance. Before I could ask what was up, Amy beat me to the punch. "Is something wrong?"
  
  "Hmm?" Crystal turned back that way and then flushed before shaking her head. "No, not wrong exactly. Just... overwhelming. I talked to Legend earlier."
  
  "Wait, is he recruiting you for that special team?" I had talked to Aegis the day before about the recruitment of Asylum and himself to the new Protectorate team that would not be bound to any particular area.
  
  Letting out a breath, Crystal shook her head. "Actually, no. Not exactly."
  
  Blinking in surprise at that, I asked, "So what did he want to talk to you about then?"
  
  "It was him and Miss Militia," she amended. "She's the one they're recruiting. Something about wanting her to lead this new team with Prism as her second."
  
  "So why were they talking to you about it?" Amy tilted her head curiously.
  
  "Because..." Crystal trailed off, hesitating before breathing out again. "Because they want me to take over here, for Miss Militia after she leaves."
  
  My eyes widened at that. "They want you to be the Protectorate leader here? Oh... Oh. Crystal, that's... but aren't you..." I was trying to process that. "Aren't you still pretty young?"
  
  "That's exactly what I said," she replied. "Legend said that the Protectorate doesn't promote based on age, and that none of the others fit what they want in a leader. He said he can't transfer anyone more qualified in when he's already taking every spare they've got to work out this new team. It's either me or Kayden, and she has a baby. Plus there's still people that might argue against putting her in charge."
  
  "So what did you say?" Amy finally managed after the two of us stared at each other briefly. Xi and Omicron were silent, observing this with obvious curiosity, while Lambda was still giggling.
  
  Crystal shrugged. "I said that I needed to think about it. What else could I say? I mean, I can't legally drink beer yet, but they want me to lead a Protectorate team? It's insane."
  
  "You've got the experience." I pointed out. "You grew up in a cape family. You've lived and breathed this stuff your whole life, Crystal. Plus you've been one yourself for years now. You're calm, level-headed, you think things through... Legend isn't just picking you because there's nobody else. If he thought you couldn't do it, he'd find somebody else or he just wouldn't move Miss Militia. If they both chose you, it's because they think you can do it."
  
  Smiling a little, she glanced toward me. "Sure you're not just saying that because you hope I can stop you from getting roped into any more three hour dinner parties?"
  
  "If I thought you could do that," I replied dryly. "I'd be down on my knees begging you to take the job."
  
  She laughed, obviously in spite of herself and shook her head before nudging me. "Sorry, since that doesn't look likely, we should probably head back and start getting ready for this thing."
  
  I groaned a little. "Do we have to? You know, if they do make you leader, you could always punish me with extra patrol assignments that just happen to coincide with things like this." I waggled my eyebrows at her demonstratively. "Huh, huh?"
  
  Smirking, Crystal pushed herself up. "You wish. C'mon, if I have to show up, you guys do too."
  
  "Ooookay." I was playing it up a bit, pushing myself away from the bench and to my feet as the idea of sitting in a room for hours on end listening to self-important people ramble on made me long for a good old bank robbery distraction. I summoned up all the enthusiasm for this event that I could muster into a single rallying call.
  
  "Let's get this over with."
  
  29.02
  
  A couple hours later I sat in the banquet hall that had been reserved for this big ceremony that everyone who was anyone in the city had come to. My boredom was in the middle of a pitched battle against my self-consciousness over which of them was going to kill me first. The achingly long and rambling speeches given by people I didn't even know that made me want to drift off were punctuated by the occasional embarrassing direct compliment that made my face go red beneath the mask.
  
  The other Wards and I were sitting at a long table situated front and center right by the raised stage and podium where the speakers stood to give their long-winded thoughts. All around us, hundreds of other well-dressed guests were at their own tables. I didn't know who most of them were either, aside from the table to our left where the Protectorate was seated. All of the local members were present, while a couple out-of-towners had been recruited to run patrols for the evening.
  
  Dinner had already been served and taken away, so I couldn't even play with the various utensils. I might have actually drifted off through a couple of the even more boring speeches, but each speaker occasionally directed attention toward us, and I was pretty sure that being found slumped back in my seat, loudly snoring wouldn't give the best impression. Besides, I was bored, but I didn't want to be that rude. Even though some of these people were clearly using the ceremony to their own advantage, I knew that there were others for whom this really was that important. It gave them closure, it allowed them to feel like they were both contributing and that the saga of the Slaughterhouse Nine was over.
  
  I got that, I understood it, even if I was so painfully sick of these speeches. I wanted it to be over so we could move on, but I wasn't going to go out of my way to ruin the event for those who did like it.
  
  At the moment, the elderly woman who was speaking (I was pretty sure that she was from some rich family that had invented mud or the wheel something) had entered her tenth straight minute on how important it was that streets be properly lit and labeled in order to deter others like the Nine. I wasn't entirely sure how A plus B equaled C in this scenario, but I wasn't going to interrupt and say so. Again, whatever made the people feel like they had actually done something, and weren't quite so helpless was worth keeping my mouth shut. If 'fixing street lights and signs' would help them feel useful, so be it.
  
  Poor Sparrow, who sat beside me on the left, seemed to have it worse. She kept squirming and sighing, obviously trying and failing to find a comfortable way to sit. I felt a flash of irritation at the people who thought forcing an eleven-year old to sit still and be silent for hours on end was anything but an obscene punishment. I could sit through this, even if I didn't like it. Mika shouldn't have had to.
  
  In contrast, on my right side, Reach was sitting upright and seemingly attentive, gazing directly at the podium. At first I thought she had somehow fallen asleep sitting up, but then she chuckled very softly. I blinked, because the woman on stage hadn't said anything funny. After glancing to the podium to make sure I hadn't missed anything else that Cassie could have been laughing at and finding nothing, I looked back that way and whispered under my breath, "Hey, what's funny?" I was glad that the mask covering my face meant that no one could tell I was saying anything as long as I kept my voice low enough.
  
  There was no response. After waiting a few more seconds, I nudged her with my foot. "Reach?"
  
  Finally, the other girl glanced toward me and whispered, "Pause." Then she focused, looking toward the front briefly. "What? Did something happen? Is it over?"
  
  Confused, I stared at her. "What do you mean, is it over? Aren't you watching? Wait, pause what?"
  
  In answer, Cassie leaned closer to me as if we were whispering. Her voice was very soft. "Play."
  
  As I stared into the dark green visor that covered her eyes, I saw the faint reflection of something within. It was like watching the tiny, inverted reflection of a television screen. My mouth fell open in surprise as I blurted under my breath. "You have a TV inside your mask? How?"
  
  She coughed faintly and sat back before nodding over her shoulder to where Theo was very studiously looking absolutely anywhere but at me. With an air of extreme satisfaction as she faced front once more and once more looked for all the world like she was watching the speech as intently as anyone, Reach added, "Audio comes over an unused channel in the earbud. Any official use overrides it."
  
  "That's... you're... cheat." I barely resisted the urge to point at her accusingly. "You're cheating."
  
  "Would you mind?" Cassie's voice was prim as she teased. "Some of us are trying to pay attention." In a quieter tone, she added, "And you're just jealous that you didn't think of it."
  
  "Damn straight," I whispered back before turning my attention back to the speech before we attracted too much attention. The masks and our quiet tone made it easier to talk than other people might have found it, but I didn't want to push it too far and risk upsetting anyone.
  
  The speeches carried on (and on and on), and I did my best to pay attention rather than let my eyes glaze over. Eventually, however, my eyes started drifting closed for several seconds at a time before I would start a little, trying in vain to focus. That would last another couple minutes and then my eyelids would grow heavy again. I honestly couldn't help it after several hours of mind-numbing talking.
  
  Finally, one of the speakers had the lights dimmed so that they could show a video presentation that they had prepared about how more tourism could be brought to the city in order to provide funds for rebuilding. In the darkness, I figured stepping away for a minute wouldn't be quite as noticeable, so I leaned over to Mika and whispered, "I'm going to use the restroom, you wanna come?"
  
  The other girl nodded quickly and turned to whisper something to Flechette on the other side of her. Lily glanced toward me and when I nodded, gave Mika a thumbs up before looking back to the front.
  
  Another short whisper brought Vista as well, and the three of us slipped away from the table. As we passed the Protectorate table on our way out, I leaned closer to Battery on the end and explained where we were going under my breath so that she could tell the others who were looking at us. I couldn't tell if they were annoyed because we were leaving for a few minutes, or just jealous.
  
  "Uuuugggn thank god." Missy groaned once we were out of the room and in the hallway where we wouldn't be overheard. She rolled her shoulder and head, clearly working some kinks out. "Don't those people ever get tired of hearing the sound of their own voices? Please tell me it's almost over."
  
  "Three more speakers," I replied with a sigh. "Probably another forty minutes. The mayor's last, and he has the longest time allotment." I was also pretty sure that I wouldn't have to worry about embarrassing compliments during the mayor's speech, considering how much he obviously didn't like me.
  
  Both younger girls sighed at that, and I couldn't really blame them. We made our way to the restroom together, and I let them go first while standing guard outside so that no one would come in while they were unmasked. Not that we really had to worry about it, considering how utterly empty the halls were. Everyone else was still inside the banquet hall, watching the tourism video.
  
  Everyone, that was, except for the masked man currently strolling out of a room at the end of the hall, carrying a duffle bag in one hand and whistling. He wore a costume that I didn't recognize. It was a full-body suit that looked silvery-white and was semi-reflective. I had to squint a little to make it out, because the material seemed to alternate between showing a reflection and actually giving off light. The effect made it difficult to focus on the man, which was obviously the point.
  
  The man couldn't see me from where I was standing, just inside the small alcove that led to the restrooms, but I could see him just fine. I was trying to remember if there was a visiting cape that matched his description, since I didn't want to start something with a man that was actually part of the Protectorate and was just doing his job to keep the building secure.
  
  My uncertainty ended as soon as the man spoke, clearly using a communicator. "How's that hack coming, Kitsune? I need the alarm dropped before I can get into the back room."
  
  Well, that settled that. First I activated my comm to both Vista and Sparrow in the bathroom, and the rest of the team in the banquet hall, whispering, "Trouble in the corridor, unknown cape intruder." Then I reached out, starting to attach a line to the man in order to yank him off his feet. His back was to me as he strode with oblivious casualness down the hall in the other direction.
  
  At the last second, while I was setting the line, the man abruptly twisted out of the way. He spun toward me, and I saw that his mask was a simple, featureless bit that was even more reflective than the rest of his costume. It made looking at his face at bit like looking into a mirror.
  
  "Well hey there," the man called out, his voice still just as casual as when he had been talking to his partner. Putting one hand against his chin, he tapped the side of his head thoughtfully with the other. "Aren't you supposed to be inside there getting an award or something?"
  
  In answer, I used lines against my feet to throw myself forward, closing the distance between us.
  
  Landing in front of the man, I finally replied to him. "Sure, an award for catching bad guys. So hey, thanks for volunteering to be a visual aid." I chirped the last words cheerfully while feinting a kick forward. At the same time, I attached a line to a nearby fire extinguisher and yanked it our way so that even if the man avoided the kick, he'd step right back into the path of the flying projectile.
  
  As expected, he stepped back nimbly... and then turned suddenly to avoid the flying fire extinguisher. It was just as abrupt as avoiding my line had been. On top of that, he actually snagged the thing out of the air as it flew past him. Waving the thing at me, he adopted a scolding tone. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that you should only use these things in a real emergency?"
  
  "Who are you?" I took a side step, watching the man in the reflective costume carefully. There had been no answer to my call yet, either from the girls in the bathroom or the rest of the team. I wanted to look over my shoulder at the bathroom, but didn't dare take my eyes off the stranger. His complete casualness about the whole affair was confusing. He clearly could have fought me, but hadn't even tried other than to easily avoid everything I threw at him.
  
  Dropping the fire extinguisher to the side, the man gave a brief bow. "Sorry, that was rude. You can call me Kismet. And for the record, we're not really your enemies."
  
  "We?" I echoed. When the man nodded over my shoulder, I turned slightly to find another unexpected sight. A girl was standing beside the restroom door. She looked to be around Vista's age if I had to guess, and wore a costume of her own. It was a tan-gold-red number that managed to mimic the appearance of a fox fairly accurately, with a hood on top that even had appropriate ears. Over her face she wore a set of wide, futuristic looking goggles. A utility belt full of pouches and a backpack completed the ensemble.
  
  She was also doing a little dance. "Whooo! Who's the badass? Army of hired muscle secret service wannabes versus Kitsune, who wins? Kistune! Super secure Protectorate and Ward communication network versus Kitsune, who wins? Kitsune, bitches!" Finally, she looked to me and smiled genuinely while waving. "Bathroom with a couple of genuine badass Wards versus Kitsune? Kitsune."
  
  The last bit made my eyes widen and I took quick step that way. "What the hell did you-"
  
  The man, Kismet, caught me around the waist and turned me then in a quick maneuver that dumped me to the floor while putting himself between me and the girl. "She didn't hurt them," he said quickly while I was rolling back to my feet. "You'd know if she had. They're just sleeping. If I know anything about how the people in that room like to talk, your teammates'll be grateful for the nap."
  
  My mind was spinning. The man reacted to everything I did almost before I did it, the comms had clearly been jammed somehow by this Kitsune girl, and she had also managed to knock out Sparrow and Vista. "You know, it's funny. I could've sworn that you said you weren't our enemies."
  
  Kismet nodded at that. "That's right, we're not your enemies. We all fight bad guys, you just have more obvious targets than we do." He gestured over his shoulder toward the banquet room. "Half the people in there belong in prison, Tether. They get rich and fat while everyone else suffers. Even now, even this they're trying to profit from. Do you have any idea how much aid and rescue money they take right off the top for their own pockets before any of it goes to help the people who actually live in this city?"
  
  "Wait," I stared for a second. "You're playing Robin Hood? What, you're trying to steal from the rich and give it to the poor minus your finder's fee? Is that how you justify all this?"
  
  "If you knew the things that we knew about some of the people in there, you'd be right here alongside us," the costumed man spoke evenly.
  
  "So tell us about them," I shot back. "Come forward if you have this evidence or whatever. Talk to us. People here actually care about that stuff. You can't fix it by being thieves. You wanna change things, then change them the right way."
  
  "Sorry," Kismet replied. "We tried it the other way. Didn't really work out that well."
  
  Behind him, the girl prompted, "Gotta go, bro. I'm pretty damn awesome, but security's starting to catch on."
  
  Raising my hand quickly, I shot a dart toward the girl to knock her out. Even as it flew that way, however, Kismet put a hand out to knock it out of the air. Even though I couldn't see his expression, his voice sounded apologetic. "Sorry, we can't stick around anymore."
  
  "See you later, Tether!" Kitsune called to me. "Just so you know, you're almost as ridiculously awesome as me!" I saw her produce what looked like a small water balloon and threw it at the nearby wall. It splattered, but rather than seeing water or paint or anything else, I could actually see an opening in the wall leading to an alleyway that I recognized as being several blocks away. With a start, I realized that whatever had been in the balloon had somehow made a portal against the wall it had hit.
  
  I tried one more time to attach lines to the pair, but once again Kismet grabbed the younger girl and yanked her and himself out of the way before I could get the lines set. He gave Kitsune a toss through the portal, prompting a loud, "Wheee!" from the girl.
  
  Then the man turned back to me and gave a quick, casual salute. "Like I said, we're not your enemy. Check on your teammates. They should be fine in a few minutes, but might have a headache. Good luck with the award thing!"
  
  Then he backstepped through the opening in the wall, and it vanished a second later, leaving the wall looking as good as new. For a few seconds, I just stood there, staring. Then I shook myself and turned to run into the bathroom, checking on Missy and Mika, who were just starting to pick themselves up off the tiled floor.
  
  "What... happened?" Vista was asking while she pushed herself over with a groan.
  
  "Well," I answered honestly. "Things stopped being boring."
  
  29.03
  
  "S-so what happened after you helped the other t-two up? Did your comms work again?"
  
  From my place in the front passenger seat of the van that I was riding in, I glanced toward Emma in the driver's seat and raised an eyebrow before realizing that the gesture was lost behind my mask. "You know, you driving like that is really disconcerting. Could you at least put your hands on the wheel? And umm, I don't know, maybe look at the road once in awhile?"
  
  It was the day after the award ceremony, and we were heading toward the Barnes family home for their reunion. I had originally planned on only making a brief appearance, but my friend had made me promise that I wouldn't leave until she did. Apparently she was almost certain that her parents were going to try something to make her stay.
  
  "Why?" Emma blinked up from the magazine that she had been reading while talking to me. With a hand, she gestured toward the camera that was set up on the dash, then to the ones that were pointed out the back and sides of the van. "That's what th-those are for, you know? I haven't umm... I haven't missed anything, have I?" Her voice became briefly worried while her attention turned toward the front as the van slowed to a stop at a yellow light that was about to turn red without any obvious input from her.
  
  "No, but that's-" I coughed. "Are you telling me that you can watch all four of those cameras at once and process what they're showing you, control the van without touching the wheel or the pedals, read your magazine, and talk to me all at the same time and still not get confused or miss anything?"
  
  "Uhhhh..." Her shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug before she mumbled with obvious self-consciousness, "I'm also s-sort of using the wi-fi that w-we put into the van to look up umm... y-you know, anything ab-bout those two you were just talking about."
  
  For a moment, I just stared at the other girl before turning to look into the backseat where one of the Pandoras sat, fingers moving rapidly over a hand-held game system while the sounds of laser fire and dying aliens or robots emerged from it. "Hey Delta, you guys sort of just 'understand' people's powers when you look at them, right? What the hell does Emma's say when you look at her? Is it just a bunch of lines repeating bullshit, bullshit, bullshit over and over again?"
  
  Delta's chosen form was a slight, slender girl similar to Gamma's in build and stature. Her skin was pale white and her hair was a bright, bubblegum pink that had been tied into a long, tight braid that nearly reached her waist. I had asked what had made her choose that color over a more realistic one, and Delta had said simply that pink was her favorite. Other than the hair choice, she seemed fairly tomboyish in her simple brown jeans and matching brown leather jacket over a red turtleneck.
  
  Now, her head tilted while she looked up from her game to regard me. Her voice was quiet and thoughtful. "Emma-Friend's multitasking ability is even greater than ours. We are able to divide our attention among the eighteen-" She stopped, head turning in a slight flinch before she continued. "-sixteen of us. We believe that Emma-Friend is capable of dividing her own attention much further."
  
  Clearly embarrassed, Emma turned around to poke me. "Hey, you're changing the s-subject. Seriously, what happened after the others w-woke up? Did the rest of the speeches have to be canceled?"
  
  I shook my head. "No, they kept things pretty quiet. No one wanted to, you know, risk scaring everyone again so soon after the thing with the Nine. Especially since Kismet and Kitsune were already gone. They did a sweep, but couldn't figure out what those two were doing or what they were after."
  
  "Wh-what about Sparrow and Vista? Are they okay?" While she asked that, Emma began to squeeze through the space between our seats to scramble into the back, prying the lid off of a plastic tub back there before digging through a pile of what looked like random computer components and wires. Her head was half buried in the tub while the van slowed in order to yield to a pedestrian, then made a right turn and accelerated to catch up with the flow of traffic, slipping into a narrow space between a sedan and a garbage truck. I saw the man in the truck do a quick double-take at the empty seat as we passed.
  
  "Okay, this is patently unfair." I rolled my eyes. "You're a better driver when you're not even in the seat than I am with one hundred percent of my attention on the road."
  
  "It is your spatial sense, Tether-Friend," Delta remarked quietly from where she was sitting. The game was still held in her lap. "The same thing which allows you a subconscious awareness of the world around you in order to assist your own movement becomes blocked and confused while within the small confines of this moving vehicle. It is attempting to direct you, but is disturbed by the fact that it is the vehicle that is moving, not you yourself."
  
  "We thought it might be something like that." I hesitated, frowning a little thoughtfully. "I wonder if I can ever practice enough to get over that. It'd be nice to be able to drive sometimes."
  
  After considering that for a moment, I shook it off. "Anyway, they're fine now. Kind of embarrassed that they didn't really get a chance to fight back, but apparently they never even saw Kitsune. They just heard some kind of pop and then there was gas everywhere. Next thing they knew, they were waking up." I sighed. "Not that I did much better against Kismet. I can't figure out how he did all that."
  
  "Combat sense?" Emma offered while lifting her head out of the tub. She held a collection of components in one hand, and a screwdriver in the other. "Maybe he's got some kind of super sense that lets him know everything that's going on around him or something."
  
  "I dunno." I shrugged helplessly. "All I know is that no one can figure out what they were after or what they were going on about. The way he was talking, I don't think they see themselves as bad guys. Not like the Nine or anything. That is, if it's not all lies. I mean, maybe he's just saying that to get the girl to go along with him or something. Who knows? We need to find them before they do anything else. Before they do something that scares businesses away from helping the city recover."
  
  Freeing herself from the tangled mess inside the plastic tub, Emma scrambled back into the front and took her place behind the wheel again. Not that she even glanced toward the wheel itself, of course.
  
  "What's that?" I asked, nodding toward the thing in her hands. It looked like a black cube about two and a half inches across, with a yellow wire trailing out of the bottom and a collection of pins on the top like the ones I'd seen on the bottom of computer parts that plugged into the motherboard.
  
  In reply, she held it out to me. "Could ummm, could you make sure that Ch-Christopher gets that? I ummm, I p-promised that I'd get him one from the T-Toybox the next time Dinah ordered parts."
  
  Taking the component and blinking down at it, I nodded. "Err, sure. But Christopher? I didn't know you guys were on a first name basis. Or, you know, any name basis whatsoever."
  
  Blushing with obvious self-consciousness that would have seemed completely out of place a year earlier, Emma offered me a shrug. "I... umm, we started talking during the whole... i-invasion and umm, I g-gave him an e-mail address so we could keep... you kn-know... talking."
  
  I continued to watch her for another few seconds, but before I could say anything else, the van pulled to a stop. Emma slowly lifted her head and turned to look out the window at the house that sat there looking the same as it always had whenever I had visited her before everything had happened.
  
  "Well," she spoke quietly, the nervous trepidation apparent in her voice. "H-here we are."
  
  Reaching out, I touched Emma's arm, squeezing briefly. "Are you ready for this?"
  
  There was no answer for a moment, while the other girl simply stared out her window at her house. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, but I didn't rush things. Patiently, I waited and watched, keeping my hand on her arm so that she would know I was right there with her the whole time.
  
  Finally, her head dipped in a single nod. "I'm..." Her voice obviously caught and she swallowed before continuing while reaching for the door. "I'm ready. C-come on, Delta, let me introduce y-you to my parents." Her voice softened to a whisper as she stepped down from the van. "Here goes n-nothing."
  
  We had barely emerged together from the van and taken three steps up onto the sidewalk before the front door of the house flew open and a figure came rushing out. I had time to recognize Emma's mother just as the woman hauled the girl up into her arms, hugging her so tightly I thought she was going to break something. She was sobbing openly, clutching Emma to her while repeating, "Baby, baby, my baby. My Emma, you're okay, baby, you're really okay. God, my baby."
  
  Stepping out of the way, I stood next to Delta and watched with a lump in my throat as Emma's father and older sister emerged from the house as well, hurrying to take their turn hugging my friend.
  
  Not that Mrs. Barnes was in any hurry to let go from her own hug. They ended up in a sort of group hug thing with Emma squashed into the middle, looking overwhelmed and possibly a little bit panicked from all of the attention. She looked scared, and then immediately looked horrified at herself for that fear. It was obviously too much. Not that she was actually afraid of her family, but after everything that she had been through, that sort of complete break in her personality, this was a lot to deal with. She stood there, frozen while her family hugged and all talked over each other trying to ask her every single question under the sun without taking the time for a breath or to let her even try to answer. It was all clearly going way too fast for her.
  
  In the end, it was Emma's father who broke off the hug. He was staring at Delta, an uncertain frown touching his face. "Who are you, exactly?" He asked with obvious suspicion.
  
  His words caught the attention of Emma's mother and sister, both of whom also turned slightly to squint at the Pandora who stood next to me. I had a feeling they knew exactly who she was.
  
  Slipping the game system into one of her pockets, Delta offered the group her best attempt at a smile. It probably didn't help much, considering her lack of practice. Unlike Lambda or Gamma, Delta's smile still resembled a predatory shark, in spite of her attempts otherwise.
  
  "Hello, Mrs. Emma-Friend's Mother and Mr. Emma-Friend's Father and Emma-Friend's Sister." She greeted them as politely as possible while they collectively recoiled from her smile. "We are called Pandora, and I am called Delta. It is nice to meet Emma-Friend's family. She has said-"
  
  "It's you. You're one of them." Mr. Barnes all-but spat the words. "You're the one that abducted our girl. You're the one that won't let her come home. What the hell is wrong with you? Do you know what you've done to this family? Do you have any idea what you've put us through? Do you care? Are you even capable of caring, clone? Do you even know what feelings are? Do you have the slightest idea what it's like to lose someone, to have someone you care about taken away? What kind of freak-"
  
  "Daddy, shut up." Emma had extricated herself from the rest of her family and now stood in between her father and Delta, hands raised as though to ward him off. "Trust me, y-you really don't know what you're talking about. She's my friend. Th-they're all my friends, so please, just stop."
  
  "Oh sweetie," Mr. Barnes shook his head. "It's okay now. You don't have to be afraid. We're going to take care of everything. No one's going to make you leave again. You're home. You're where you belong now. Trust me, baby, I'll take care of everything. She won't hurt you anymore." Briefly, his attention turned toward me. "And you, what is wrong with you, huh? I thought youwere supposed to help people, not aid in kidnapping. Do you think it's fun to force a girl to stay away from her family? "
  
  That hurt, but before I could respond, Emma spoke again. "D-daddy, please, listen to-"
  
  Emma's mother spoke over her that time. "Ems, come on, you're home now. You don't have to listen to those... those clones anymore. Come away from that monster and we'll keep you safe."
  
  Both parents kept talking over each other for another few seconds before Emma abruptly blurted loudly, " I said shut up! " While their mouths snapped closed in surprise, she took a step back to put herself between Delta and me, taking the other girl's hand. "Just... just stop talking o-over me like I'm not here. Stop talking at me. St-stop telling me wh-what you think I am and what you th-think I'm saying and listen . Just listen. Delta is my friend. She's not a m-monster, she's a person. They're all people, a-andI'm staying with them because it's my choice, okay? It's my choice."
  
  Emma's father started to say something else, but it was her older sister who beat him to the punch, speaking carefully with a curious glance toward the silent pink-haired girl beside me. "You're really choosing to stay with them? You're not being... forced to say that?"
  
  Quickly, their mother put in, "Because if you're afraid, we can help you, honey. You're safe here." She looked almost desperate to cross the distance between them so that she could clutch Emma to herself once again.
  
  Swallowing, Emma shook her head. "No one's f-forcing me. I... I chose to stay with Dinah and the others. It's... something I have to do. I have to help. I have to try to make up for... for Taylor."
  
  "Emma, that wasn't your fault." Mr. Barnes spoke firmly, in his 'lawyer voice'. "There's no possible way that you could have foreseen that tragic accident would result from a silly-"
  
  "It wasn't silly!" Emma's voice rose once again, sounding absolutely horrified that he would even say the word. "It was evil, it was wrong, it was... it was..." Her eyes closed briefly and I saw a painful shudder work its way through her. "It was... she was my friend."
  
  A pair of tears worked their way down her cheeks while her family stared. Her voice shook heavily, and more tears continued to come with each word, but she kept talking. "T-Taylor was my friend. Sh-she was the best friend I ever... ever h-had. And... and I threw that away. I did. Nobody else. N-nobody made me. Nobody controlled me. Nobody for-forced me to do the things that I did, but I did them. I ch-chose to do them. I chose to do h-horrible, evil things, th-things that... that I can... n-never take back. Things that I can never ever fix. She-she-she's dead. Taylor's dead because of me. She's dead because of the things that I did, because of my choices. She's gone, she's gone and she's never coming back.
  
  "I... I k-killed her. I helped kill my best friend. So don't... d-don't try to dismiss that. Don't try to excuse it or put the bl-blame on anybody else but me. I helped kill Taylor. If you ex-excuse it or act like it was a little thing, or like it was unavoidable, or anything like th-that, then you're taking responsibility away from me, and... and you can't do that. I made those choices. I did. I can't take them back, but... but I can l-learn from them. I can make them matter . I can be better. I can be a b-better person, and I'm trying to be. But don't ever try to say that it wasn't m-my fault. Don't ever try to di-dismiss it. Because Taylor mattered. She mattered, and she was more important, more special than... than I'll ever be."
  
  Taking in a long, shuddering breath, Emma looked up and stared at her family through eyes that were wet with her tears. "I can't undo my m-mistakes. I can't br-bring back Taylor. But I won't let you dismiss them either. I won't let you pre-pretend it didn't matter, that she didn't matter. She was a better person than me, and I should have been the one that died, n-not her. If I c-could trade with her, I would. I would because she belongs here, n-not me."
  
  There was another pause while Emma stared at the ground, taking in several deep breaths before she raised her gaze once again. "My friends and I w-will... stay for dinner and to talk. I miss you guys. I miss you so much. B-but... but I can't stay after that. I have to leave again. There's th-things I have to do. Things that I have to w-work on. I'm s-sorry. I'm really sorry, but that's the way it has to be. Can you... can you accept that? Please?"
  
  Silence reigned for a few long seconds before Emma's mother gave a little nod. There were tears in her eyes as well as she held her arms open, waiting this time for Emma to come to her.
  
  With another quiet sob, Emma did so, crossing the distance between them to embrace her mother. This time she was the one holding on as tight as she could, clinging to the woman while they both cried.
  
  And yet, even as we started into the house, I caught Emma's father giving several backward glances toward Delta and me. None of his looks were pleasant, and I was pretty sure we hadn't heard his last word on the subject of his daughter's kidnapping.
  
  Alan Barnes was not a man who took being denied very well. I just hoped he learned before anything stupid happened.
  
  29.04
  
  "But please, I don't understand why you can't just join the Wards, Emma." Zoe Barnes, Emma's mother, asked with clear apprehension about ten minutes later as she looked from her daughter to me.
  
  We were all standing in the living room. I had been here so many times over the time that I had been friends with Emma before everything happened, and being here again in this situation felt surreal. Seats had been offered, but no one had felt like sitting down.
  
  "As long as we're on the subject," Anne Barnes, Emma's older sister, waved a hand. "Can we talk about how amazing it is that one of the Wards is standing in our house? Seriously? You have to let me get a picture with you so I can post it in your topic on PHO, please?"
  
  "Anne, please." Mrs. Barnes scolded her daughter. "This is about your sister coming home, not some website." She looked directly at me then. "She could do that, couldn't she? If she wants to help people, she could join the Wards. She doesn't have to do this... whatever it is. You go home to your parents at night, don't you? Why can't Emma?"
  
  Mrs. Barnes' words made me flinch for more than one reason, but I hesitated before replying to control my reaction. They didn't know who I was under the mask, and I had made sure to activate my voice changer since they would recognize the sound of my own. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Barnes. It's complicated."
  
  Alan Barnes seized on that. "How complicated can it be? Emma belongs here with her family. She's a sixteen-year old girl, not a soldier. She should be going to school, enjoying her life, not being held hostage alongside a bunch of crazy bio-weapon clones and a girl that as of a few months ago happened to be one of the most evil, vicious little psychopaths in the world! That's not complicated, it's common sense. Emma should be home, period. Just because everyone else is too afraid to call this-"
  
  His hand was raised to gesture toward Delta, but the man stopped talking in mid-sentence, cutting himself off abruptly. When I looked over to where his hand was still pointing, I saw Emma's older sister staring intently at the arm that Delta held extended between them. As we watched, the arm changed color several times, going from white to green to red and then settling on a dark blue. At the same time, the shape of the limb shifted from a natural arm to a long baseball bat shape, then to some kind of leathery tentacle that wiggled back and forth.
  
  "Anne!" Alan demanded, his voice rising suddenly in obvious fear. "What the hell are you doing?"
  
  Blinking at her father, Anne asked, "What? I just wanted to see her shapeshift. It's kinda cool."
  
  Grabbing his older daughter by the arm, Alan tugged. "Get away from that thing before it hurts you."
  
  But Emma's sister squirmed free and shook her head. "Dad, get a grip. Does Emma look hurt to you?" She raised both shoulders in a shrug. "Besides, you've been insulting her since she got here and she hasn't horribly murdered you yet, so I figure the rest of us are probably pretty safe."
  
  "We will not murder Emma-Friend's family." Delta's words were firm. "We care for her, and will not allow harm to come to those that we care for either through our own actions or those of others." Something in her expression softened slightly then, making her look just a little more human. "Emma Barnes is our friend. We will allow harm to come to ourselves before choosing to visit it upon her or her family without just cause."
  
  "Do you un-understand what she's saying, Dad?" Emma had taken a step toward her father, reaching up to take his outstretched arm, hugging it between both of hers to make him stop pointing at Delta. "She's not a m-monster. She could kill everyone here, Dad, and if she wanted to there's nothing we could do about it. Sh-she could kill everybody, but she doesn't. She ch-chooses not to, Dad. She chooses not to because she's my friend. Okay? Sh-she is my friend. Please, Daddy, just stop trying to win a fight. It's okay. It's r-really okay. I'm here. Can we please... please just talk without attacking her?"
  
  Things were tense for another moment before Alan Barnes finally slumped a little, lowering his arm. I could see tears of frustration in his eyes before he blinked them away. He wanted to win for his daughter, he'd needed to win for his family, to show them that he could still protect them the only way that he knew how, by winning an argument. After months of missing his daughter, of being told by law enforcement that they couldn't help him save her, that she had to stay kidnapped, he'd needed to prove that he still mattered. He had wanted to show that he wasn't useless, that when the time came, he could protect the people he cared about and pluck Emma out of the hands of the monster who had stolen her.
  
  "Mr. Barnes," I put in after a second of thought. "After dinner, maybe we should start to discuss how often Emma will be visiting after tonight and how long those visits will be?"
  
  I saw my words penetrate, making Emma's father stop and think for a moment. He could negotiate. He could convince us, all of us, to let Emma come home more often. He hadn't failed, he had simply picked the wrong fight. If he couldn't convince Emma to abandon the Pandoras, he could at least convince them to let her come home as often as possible.
  
  He nodded after another few seconds and spoke slowly, as if he had to choose each word carefully. "Emma, can... you answer your mother's question? Why can't you join the Wards if you want to make up for anything bad that you... think you did?" His last few words came after a brief silence as a pained look crossed his face. It was clearly hard for him to admit even that much, in spite of his daughter's emotional confession. He wanted to protect her, even from herself.
  
  "It's kind of hard to explain," Emma started before hesitating. "Err, I umm, I g-guess it's not, actually." She shrugged. "Dinah s-says that things will be better if I s-stay with them. That's pretty much it."
  
  "The other girl that was kidnapped?" Zoe Barnes frowned, looking at her daughter in obvious confusion. "What do you mean she says things will be better if you stay with them?"
  
  Jeeze, they really hadn't been told much, had they? No wonder they were so upset.
  
  "To be fair," I put in after wincing. "Dinah also happens to be a powerful precog. She can see the future, I mean. Sort of. She's probably one of the best there is, because she's been right so far."
  
  "You mean the mayor's little niece is the one that wants Emma to stay, not the umm," Anne started to gesture toward Delta, "her? She-errr they-ummm, whatever, this isn't calling the shots, the kid is?"
  
  "We do desire Emma-Friend's continued company," Delta answered simply. "And her original abduction was the choice of our prior self, who is no longer a part of our collective. But it is Dinah-Friend who has said that her continued presence is strategically imperative."
  
  "Okay, let me see if I have this right." Alan held up both hands. "Emma was kidnapped by that..." Emma's mouth opened, and he amended. "By her. She was abducted by her."
  
  "Not really her." I tried to explain as simply as I could, realizing as I spoke just how complicated this was. "Delta is umm... okay, just think of her as a sister of the person who kidnapped Emma. The one that did the kidnapping isn't alive anymore. Delta and her sisters are what's left of the original."
  
  The man squinted at me, obviously trying to see if I was screwing with him before sighing. "Okay, Emma was kidnapped by this one's sister. But it was the other girl that was kidnapped who actually made Emma stay away all this time, because she can see the future and she says that for some unexplained reason, everything is better if my little girl doesn't stay with her own family?
  
  "And somehow, through that time they also happened to collect one of the worst psychopaths in the world, convince her not to go around killing and torturing people anymore, and now they're all living together alongside a bunch of clones of Panacea who are all different people now?"
  
  "Except for the fact that Dinah actually was originally kidnapped by Coil before convincing Pandora to break both of them out together, yeah that about covers it." I nodded. "Generally speaking, anyway."
  
  I was pretty sure that the man started looking for hidden cameras at that point, convinced that we were screwing with him.
  
  "Well, either way, she's home right now." Zoe announced. "So let's go in the other room, have some dinner, and talk. Miss, ummm, what did you say your name was?" She asked Pandora with the air of someone who was so accustomed to being polite that she couldn't help herself even now.
  
  "This Pandora iteration is known as Delta, Mrs. Emma-Friend's Mother."
  
  "Delta." Zoe nodded. "Okay then. But please, it's just Mrs. Barnes, not... all that." There was another moment of hesitation before she pressed on with a gesture to encompass me as well. "Is there anything that either of you are allergic to? Anything that you shouldn't eat, I mean."
  
  "Mom," Emma looked horribly embarrassed. "She has c-complete control over her entire genetic stru-structure. She's not gonna break out in hives because you fed her a peanut."
  
  "I'm sure that anything you've made will be really good, Mrs. Barnes." I spoke up, lifting my hand to give her a thumbs up. "Thank you for letting us eat with your family."
  
  "Yes," Delta agreed while giving that strange head jerk that passed as the Pandoras version of a nod. "We would also like to express our gratitude for your service, Mrs. Barnes-Person." I saw actual hesitation and uncertainty cross the pink-haired girl's face briefly, which surprised me. Then she spoke up again. "And... we would like to apologize to your family. We... did not truly understand what it is like to have a family member taken away when Emma-Friend was abducted. We-" Her face twisted slightly in what looked like almost physical pain. "We understand such loss now. We are very... sorry that we have made you feel this way."
  
  "Who did you..." Emma's mother started to speak before stopping. I could almost see the light bulb go on over her head. "You were cloned from Panacea, weren't you? During the fight against that new Endbringer, Glory Girl, her sister... and you were her..." Trailing off for a moment, Zoe Barnes finally took a step that way and actually embraced a surprised Delta. "Oh you poor girl. I'm so sorry."
  
  Mr. Barnes looked just as surprised as I felt, if not even more so. His mouth opened and I saw him take the tiniest step that way as though to intervene by reflex, but he stopped himself. He stopped and took a long, deep breath, slowly lowering his hand back to his side while watching his wife.
  
  Zoe, meanwhile, just continued to hold the clone against her. "Here we... we just thought it was so easy to think of you as this soulless thing, but you're not, are you? You're a person, people, you're real."
  
  Looking utterly taken aback and confused as she was hugged by the older woman, Delta managed a simple, "We are trying to be, Mrs. Barnes-Person. We make mistakes."
  
  "Well then," Emma's mother announced. "You're doing a great job. Because people make mistakes."
  
  "And you say that Oversight retains total control over every machine within her range?"
  
  It was the next afternoon, and I was on my way into the Birdcage for my monthly visit with Glaistig Uaine. Which was, itself, a sentence that would have left me a gibbering wreck six months earlier.
  
  Now, I simply nodded slightly toward the camera in the elevator where Dragon's voice was emerging from. "That's right, she says that it's hard not to control them sometimes. It's like they want to help her. If she's not really paying attention and just thinks about things, sometimes the machines in the area will try to follow even subconscious needs."
  
  There was a long silence from the other speaker under the camera while the elevator descended. Even after all this time, and with all the safeties that had been established, I still shivered every time I was coming down here. It was ridiculous, really. None of the inmates in the Cage were going to risk the kind of wrath that the Faerie Queen could dish out if they annoyed her by doing something to her visitor. Yet I still couldn't help the reflexive shudder that came at the very thought of being here with some of the psychopaths that were locked up inside the place.
  
  While waiting for the tinker to respond, I thought back to the night before. It had gone fairly well after those initial bumps. Emma's father had mostly stopped trying to win an argument, and dinner itself had been good. Delta especially had apparently fallen in love with the food. She kept saying that the pot roast and baked potatoes were different from anything else that the Pandoras had eaten before.
  
  Anne, meanwhile, hadn't stopped asking me or Delta questions the whole night. If she wasn't asking me about training and patrols, or what Assault's hair smelled like (she had a bit of a crush), she was begging Delta to shapeshift into random people whose pictures she pulled up on her phone.
  
  Finally, Dragon spoke again. She sounded a bit strange, kind of hushed. It reminded me of when I was little and my friends and I would whisper at our desks while the teacher was busy so that she wouldn't hear what we were planning. That was it. Dragon sounded like sounded like someone who was plotting something they didn't want the wrong people to overhear. "If I give you an e-mail address, can you remember it to pass on to Oversight?"
  
  "Um." I blinked, wanting to ask why she sounded the way she did, but shook it off. "Yeah, I'll pass it on. Do you really need her help with something?" That seemed unlikely. Dragon was the best tinker in the world. She had created this entire prison complex along with so many other things that the PRT depended on daily. As good as Emma was, I couldn't see what Dragon of all people would need anyone's help with that she couldn't solve herself.
  
  There was another pause before Dragon replied, her voice careful. "I believe that she may be uniquely suited to assisting me with a special project. Perhaps not, but there shouldn't be any harm in finding out."
  
  As the elevator stopped and the doors slid open, I nodded. "I'll let her know you'd like to talk to her."
  
  "Thank you." Dragon started to say something else before stopping herself. "Wait there. Don't move."
  
  I froze, my mind suddenly panicking. "What? What's wrong, did something happen?"
  
  "No," she assured me. "Nothing is wrong. I'm just avoiding any possible issue with an inmate."
  
  I frowned at that. "All the inmates know better by this point. They know who I'm here to visit."
  
  "Yes," Dragon sounded almost evasive. "This is different."
  
  "Dragon, please." I shifted my feet, my nerves on edge. "If something happened..."
  
  "Nothing happened." She hesitated then, clearly weighing her options before admitting, "Coil is talking to another inmate in the hall to your left. He should be done shortly."
  
  "Coil?" I blinked behind my mask, hands reflexively tightening just at the sound of his name. Slowly, I took a step that way.
  
  "Tether, I recommend you avoid any confrontation." Dragon's voice was firm then. "I can't allow you to excite the prisoners."
  
  "I'm not confronting him," I promised. "I just want to see him. I need to see him as a prisoner." I hadn't had a run-in with the man when I'd been trapped in the Birdcage before, which had kind of surprised me. But things had been too hectic back then to think too much about it.
  
  Against Dragon's urging, I leaned around the corner and blinked down the hall. "Okay, where is he?"
  
  Sighing, she answered. "Fifty feet ahead of you, leaning against the left wall. He is alone."
  
  My eyes scanned the hall, and then I froze as an ugly thought came to mind. "Dragon... what exactly do you see there? Describe Coil for me."
  
  Dragon was clearly confused, but did so slowly, describing Coil perfectly before adding, "But why are you asking when you should very clearly see him standing just down the corridor?"
  
  Before answering, I closed my eyes tightly, so tight that it almost hurt before opening them again. I stared hard down the hall, willing the sight to be different. Unfortunately, it didn't change anything about what I was seeing.
  
  "Dragon?" I said while staring at the completely empty hallway. "We have a problem."
  
  29.05
  
  " Your distraction is troubling, Healer." There was a note of slight, yet definite warning in the chorus of voices that came when the Faerie Queen spoke. The the two of us stood in the middle of her cell block an hour later. It had taken almost that long for Dragon to bring several other Protectorate members into the Birdcage who had been able to, eventually, confirm that Coil was nowhere in the prison.
  
  They were still going over exactly how that was possible, while I visited with Glaistig Uaine. If I had been there for almost anyone else other than her, I might have simply blown off the trip. But even as upset as I was, telling the Faerie Queen to reschedule at the last minute seemed like a very bad idea.
  
  Apparently, however, I hadn't done a very good job of hiding the fact that my focus was elsewhere. Which, to be honest, also seemed like a horrible idea. I gulped at the thought of annoying the girl who was, if not the most powerful parahuman alive, at least within the top three. Yes, the idea of making Glaistig Uaine mad still scared me. I was irreverent in the face of danger, but I wasn't fucking suicidal.
  
  Still, it took me a second to collect myself considering my first impulse was to snap about how this visit was stopping me from jumping straight to finding out why the hell the man who had ordered my parents' murder wasn't in his cage where he belonged. I had to bite my tongue, which was apparently still getting around to reading that whole 'not suicidal' memo.
  
  Finally, I breathed out and looked over to where the veiled girl floated next to me, her feet hovering a few inches off the ground while her eyes, partly hidden behind strips of altered prison uniform, gazed back into my own with a sort of piercing intensity that made me want to flinch away again. Instead, I forced myself to nod. "Yes, your majesty. I'm distracted, and that's not fair to you or our deal. I... I'm sorry. I really am. I didn't come here intending to ignore you. It's just that Coil is-"
  
  My voice caught and I looked away briefly, blinking away the tears that still came even after all these months. "Coil's the one that killed my parents, and part of what let me move on as much as I have was beating him. Knowing he was locked up in here, that's what kept me going whenever I missed my mom and dad. It was important. And now-" I slapped both fists against my head in frustration. "Now he's not even here! He got out, god knows how long ago. He's free and I didn't do anything about it."
  
  " You were unaware." Her chorus of voices sounded slightly placated. " Even you are not always capable of mending a situation you are unaware of. The Dream Vizier is a potent foe, who had years to perfect his strategies in case of his exposure. Do not think to punish yourself for his forethought."
  
  I sighed and lowered my hands, barely resisting the urge to pace. "I just don't get it. How could he not be here? Dragon's locked out the other method of teleporting that Teacher's devices used, and she's got alerts set up if Defiant uses his power to switch with someone again. How did he get out, and how did he program the cameras to show Dragon that he was still here? Not just here, but talking to people?"
  
  That last one had thrown me as well. Dragon insisted that Coil had been talking to an inmate by the name of Robert Hine, a brute with delusions of grandeur. Hine had been pulled aside, but nothing had come of it. He hadn't had a clue what we were talking about, and Armsmaster had said he was telling the truth. Clearly whatever was going on, Hine hadn't known about it.
  
  " Settle, Healer, and think clearly. You know how and when the Dream Vizier escaped this location." Glaistig Uaine's reply made it sound as if the answer was perfectly self-explanatory.
  
  "I... I don't..." I started to say, staring at her in confusion before I stopped myself and frowned. "Wait. Back when I was here before, after Teacher was killed, Lung's group and Marquis' group both escaped. Marquis had one of those devices that Teacher, Eddie, and Defiant made, but we never found out how Lung's group got out. Em-Oversight just said that someone outside the prison teleported them."
  
  Those piercing eyes continued to stare at me, while their owner remained silent. Apparently the Faerie Queen was content to let me talk this through on my own without further prompting, so I continued. "If Coil timed it right and already had the cameras set to show him as being here when he wasn't, maybe he also teleported out at the same time as Lung's group. Maybe that was the whole point of teleporting those guys out to begin with, because he knew the teleport would be noticed. So he grabbed Lung's group at the exact same time. That way when the teleport was detected, we all just thought it was only the four that were actually seen disappearing. If the cameras were set to show him being where he should've been after he was teleported out, Oversight might not have noticed the difference. She was still distracted, still new to her power."
  
  Right after I said that, I felt bile rise up in my throat. "Does that mean he's been free for... for months ? I thought he was safely locked up and he's been out doing... doing Scion knows what!"
  
  Even as upset as I was, I noticed the sharp look that Glaistig Uaine gave me at that. It looked for a moment like she was going to say something, but for the first time since I'd met her, the Faerie Queen hesitated with a look that I swore was uncertainty. It was brief, passing almost immediately and in my distraction, I didn't really think about it.
  
  After a few long seconds of silence passed, she spoke and I had the distinct impression that what she was saying now wasn't what she had been about to say before stopping herself. " You allowed the one who killed your parents to be taken alive, Healer. Why did you not take his life for theirs?"
  
  I blinked at that. "What, you mean kill him? I mean, the way we set him up, he had to choose to either let Pandora kill him or let us take him in. He chose to let us arrest him." My expression turned dark in spite of myself as I added, "Of course, now we know he was playing us even then. He probably had this escape hatch in mind the whole time, just in case he was ever caught."
  
  " Indeed," the Faerie Queen nodded, her eyes still locked on me as if trying to decipher the meaning of the universe. " So I ask again, why spare the man at all? Would a demand for his life as payment for the loss of both your mother and father not have been understandable given the circumstances?"
  
  "It doesn't work that way." I frowned, glancing away from her intent stare to look at the other inmates that were a part of her cell block. None of them were paying any attention whatsoever to us, to the point that I wondered if my companion was using some kind of power to make us go unnoticed while we stood in the middle of the room. Either that or they knew better than to even look like they might be eavesdropping on one of their powerful hostess's private conversations. It easily could have been either.
  
  " It does not work in which way?" Her hand raised to point at me. " Did you not wish for his death, or did you simply believe that it would not be accepted? Surely you desired revenge for your loss."
  
  I thought for a moment, choosing my words carefully before responding. "Sure, part of me wanted him to die. A big part, actually. But he surrendered, and at the time I didn't have any way of knowing about all this. With the information I had then, that the Birdcage was inescapable, I thought he'd never get out. I thought he'd be trapped in here forever. He should have been."
  
  " And now?" She asked with a curious tone. " Knowing what you do at this point in time, would you choose to kill the man who murdered your mother and father even after he surrendered in order to avoid this particular outcome? With, of course, the caveat that you cannot alter the current situation any other way. Your choices are to kill him where he stands, or allow things to progress to this point."
  
  My mouth opened and then shut as I turned slightly to look back at the hovering figure. "You mean would I execute him just like that? Kill him after he surrenders, or let him escape?"
  
  " Yes." Her reply was simple and curt, her eyes clearly searching as she watched my every reaction.
  
  I was silent, thinking about her question while the seconds stretched out, time ticking away without me giving her an answer. Yet even though moments became minutes, the Faerie Queen did not interrupt, and still no one bothered us or even glanced in our direction. She waited and watched.
  
  "No," I finally said, after what had to have been several minutes. "No, I wouldn't kill him after he surrendered, even if I knew that he was going to escape later."
  
  " Interesting," she considered that before adding, "does this mean you did not care for your parents?"
  
  My eyes widened behind the mask. "What? No! Of course not, don't you dare-" My voice had risen suddenly as I stared hard at the floating girl before catching myself. "I-I mean..." I swallowed. "I loved my parents, your majesty. I loved them so much, and I miss them every day."
  
  " And yet you would not see justice done to he who ordered their deaths?" Glaistig Uaine prompted.
  
  "That's where you're wrong." I informed her, though the very thought of saying those words to her was so inherently terrifying that my voice dropped to a whisper as if most of it had fled.
  
  " What precisely am I wrong about, Healer?" The Faerie Queen sounded genuinely curious, rather than murderous, and I let out the breath that I hadn't realized I was holding.
  
  "You said that I wouldn't kill him in spite of the fact that I love my parents. That's wrong. The reason I wouldn't kill him is because I love them. They're the ones that matter to me, not him, and they wouldn't want me to kill him after he surrendered. It wouldn't be right, not in that situation.
  
  "And besides, murdering him then wouldn't have been justice. It would have been revenge."
  
  " The happy fact of being a Queen," the deceptively young-looking figure in front of me announced with her many-voices, " is that justice and revenge are often one and the same."
  
  Without thinking, I asked, "How did you trigger?" Her eyes returned to me sharply and I shrugged. "Awaken, power up, whatever. How did you become a parahuman?"
  
  She was silent for a second, and I saw conflicting emotions pass over her face. Real emotions rather than the front that she usually displayed. " Our time is finished here," she finally said after several long moments of hesitation. " It is your brother's turn. Perhaps I will tell you of my past upon your next visit. Would you like that, True Healer? Would you like to hear the story of how I came to be?"
  
  "Yes." I nodded, realizing that in spite of my distraction over Coil, I really meant it. "I would."
  
  " Then I shall tell you of my past, of where I have come from to be where I am now," Glaistig Uaine promised me with a solemn tone that told me this story was an important one. " Next time ."
  
  "What the hell do you mean, Coil's not in the Birdcage?" Cassie demanded, hours later. "What did they do, install a revolving door on that place? Whatever happened to 'once you make it to the Birdcage, you never see the light of day again?' How is a place supposed to be a real deterrent if people keep getting out? It's like if you executed a kill order on someone and then revived them ten minutes later."
  
  All of us, the entire Wards team, were sitting on the outside patio at a burger joint three hours after my meeting with the Faerie Queen. I'd spent most of the intervening time being grilled by Dragon, Armsmaster, Alexandria, Mrs. Pelham, and several others over exactly what had happened with Coil. I'd passed on the theory of when exactly he'd escaped with the other man.
  
  With a bit of work, Armsmaster had located another device inside the prison that Emma had missed the first time. This one had clearly been made for the exact purpose that I had already guessed. It patched into all of the cameras and provided a false image of Coil and the other man walking around and interacting with people. Apparently it was so sophisticated that it was able to fake conversations with people who actually were in the prison by putting up a fake image of them while the fake Coil would talk to them. Once the face interaction was over, the system would then maneuver the virtual person up to where the real one happened to be before returning the view to normal, leaving anyone observing the footage unaware that anything had been altered. Armsmaster had alternated between being profoundly pissed off about the whole thing, and genuinely impressed at the programming.
  
  "Trust me, you're preaching to the choir." I stabbed my fork down into the chili fries and gazed at the cheesy mess for a few seconds. At any other time I would already have been making happy noises before feeding myself the comfort food. Now, however, I just stared at my fork before tossing it back down with a sigh. "He's out there. He's been out there for months." I explained everything I knew, as well as what we suspected about how he'd pulled it off.
  
  Once I finished, it was Theo who spoke, his voice hesitant and confused. "But if he's been out there this long, how come he hasn't done anything yet? I mean... he knows Aunt Kayden betrayed him. Why hasn't he tried to come after her, or anyone else? We wouldn't have seen it coming."
  
  Missy shrugged. "Maybe whatever his new plan is, it's taking a long time to come together. We know he's really patient. He's probably just taking his time."
  
  "Mika and I weren't around for what happened with this guy," Lily spoke up, looking between those of us that had been there. "So how bad is it that he's out, exactly? How screwed are we?"
  
  "It's definitely not a low level of screwing," Chris put in. "The guy's really manipulative, and the way his power lets him have two shots at everything he does..."
  
  "Not everything he does," I reminded him. "It's possible to maneuver him into a no-win situation. Especially now that we know exactly what his power is, and exactly who he is. Most of his advantage was in nobody knowing who he was or what he could do. That's gone now."
  
  "He'll find other advantages." Cassie leaned back in her seat. She hadn't been with us for that situation, but she and Theo were both was close enough to the whole thing to know what had happened and how it had gone down.
  
  "Plus we have no idea where he is now." Missy took a long drink of soda before continuing. "Like you said, he's been out there for months. He could be anywhere."
  
  I nodded. "That's why I'm going to use some of the money from my part of the Slaughterhouse Nine reward to hire the Undersiders to find him. If they're willing, anyway. They're supposed to be investigators, so they can investigate. They've got the freedom that we don't have."
  
  "I'll help with my reward," Vista quickly put in, and the others were nodding along with her. "Not like I was doing anything else with it anyway."
  
  "Actually," I hesitated before pressing on. "I was thinking of something else we could do with that money. Whatever we don't pay the Undersiders with, I mean." They all looked at me expectantly, and I shrugged. "Coil knows everything about us. He knows our training, he knows our resources, he knows our building . He knows everything we have and everything the Protectorate can give us.
  
  "So let's go beyond what they can give us. We have money, a lot of money. Let's use it to get resources that Coil doesn't know about. Resources that he hasn't already counted on and planned for. With any luck, we'll take him by surprise by having equipment and toys that he didn't know about."
  
  "Let me get this straight," Chris pointed a finger at me. "You want to beat the supervillain... by shopping. "
  
  In spite of everything, including my barely suppressed anger at the thought that the monster who'd had my parents killed was walking around free, I smiled back at him. "Yup. So are you in?"
  
  "You know we are." Chris gave a single nod. "After everything he did..."
  
  Missy finished his sentence for him. "That son of a bitch is goin' down."
  
  There were nods all around the table, and it was Lily who spoke. "Right then. Sounds like we've got a lot of work to do if we're gonna be ready for this guy.
  
  "Let's get to it."
  
  Interlude 29A - Dinah
  
  The options stretched out before her, seemingly endless in variety. Dinah Alcott stood frozen on the precipice of choice, pondering the dilemma of decision while her mind worked its way furiously through the potential outcomes. Whatever verdict she reached, it had to be soon. This couldn't wait.
  
  "Seriously, kid, it's just ice cream. You wanna pick a flavor yet or what?"
  
  On the other side of the Baskin-Robbins counter, the bored teenager whose nametag announced that her name was Gina stood with a metal scoop in one hand and the waffle cone that Dinah had already chosen in the other. She was making an impatient 'get on with it' circling gesture with the scoop.
  
  Considering how often Dinah's picture had appeared on the news in the days since the Nine had been defeated, and all of the ongoing chatter about why the authorities had yet to find the mayor's niece, the ice cream clerk would have been slightly less bored and dismissive if she had been looking at the girl's real face. Fortunately, Amy and Riley had done enough work on their bio-disguise face masks that Dinah was able to wear one and go out in public without immediately being mobbed. She looked like any other ordinary (if extremely indecisive in this particular moment) young teenager.
  
  "Cherries Jubilee," she finally decided, pointing to the flavor in question. Glancing toward the taller figure that stood beside her, Dinah added. "Are you sure that's all you want, Silo?"
  
  Epsilon, whose nickname Dinah had invented by taking only the middle part of her real name, stood patiently out of the way. As always, everything from her long red hair to her black and red suit was immaculate, not a single stitch out of place. In her right hand, the girl (who appeared to be in her late twenties) held a normal cone with a single scoop of cotton candy ice cream.
  
  "Yes," she announced simply. "Upon our first visit to this location, we-" There was a pause while several thoughts passed behind those dark green eyes before Silo amended. "I chose the flavor located here." She indicated the bucket in the bottom right corner, where the chocolate fudge currently sat. "It was vanilla. The butter pecan was to its left, and so that was my choice upon our second visit. Now I have chosen the flavor that was to the left of that flavor upon our first visit. This." Her hand lifted the cone with the brightly colored blue and pink ice cream. "It was the order of flavors upon our initial arrival, and it is the proper order of flavors I shall consume."
  
  So Epsilon wasn't simply trying ice cream flavors in order, she was remembering the exact order they had been in when she and Dinah had first come here and using that to make her choices.
  
  Gina, behind the counter, stood staring at Silo for a few seconds before handing Dinah her cone. "Uh huh, whatever you say, lady. Anything else for you guys?"
  
  Dinah shook her head and moved to the register, paying for their treat herself. Once she had her change, the girl nodded in thanks before looking at Epsilon beside her. "How do you like that one?"
  
  The taller figure shook her head. "It is too sweet. We preferred the vanilla and the pecan." Still, she took another lick of the ice cream. She had chosen it because it was next on her internal list, and now she wouldn't stop until she had finished it, no matter what her personal opinion on the flavor happened to be. That was the kind of person that Silo was, and how seriously she took her idea of order.
  
  She started to the door then, glancing over her shoulder at the woman behind her. "Maybe you'll like the next one better. Which one is-" Her question was cut off as the bell above the door dinged upon the entrance of someone else, and before she could turn back, Dinah walked headlong into the new arrival. The impact made the girl yelp, quickly raising a hand to steady herself against what turned out to be a tall, Hispanic man in a suit. Part of her cone had mashed itself against his chest, messing up his tie.
  
  "Watch where the hell you're going, kid!" The man snapped, glaring at her before making a face at the ice cream on his tie. "Look what you did, god damn it."
  
  "I'm sorry, sir." Dinah gulped, staring up at the man. "I didn't mean to. But at least it's good ice cream?" She offered the last with a weak little smile, while inwardly lamenting just how much of her treat had ended up on his tie. Unlike Silo's opinion of her own choice, Dinah actually liked cherries jubilee.
  
  Looking at Dinah, then to the pretty red-haired figure behind her, the man hesitated before muttering something about kids under his breath as he stepped around them and walked briskly to the counter.
  
  Dinah and Epsilon continued out of the store and to the sidewalk before the twelve-year old girl opened her tightly closed hand and looked at the set of car keys and remote unlock button that had been clenched tightly in her fist ever since she had purposefully collided with the man at the door and secretly dipped her hand into his coat pocket.
  
  "Where?" She asked the figure beside her without preamble while the two of them stepped off the sidewalk and proceeded toward the rows of cars that lined the lot of the shopping center. As she walked, Dinah slid a pair of black leather gloves onto her hands.
  
  "Vasallo-Enemy's car is one row back," Silo answered, already striding that way. "Mu-Iteration observed his entrance and is prepared for the next part."
  
  Following Epsilon's directions to the red BMW that sat waiting for its owner's return, Dinah lifted the keys and pressed her gloved thumb against the remote unlock. The car chirped its welcome, and she reached out to open the driver's side door.
  
  "Give it to me, please." She extended one hand back while leaning into the car. A moment later, a weight settled into her waiting palm, and Dinah brought it into the car. Her eyes glanced down at the large brick of cocaine stolen months ago from the Merchants. Making a face at the drugs, she slipped the package underneath the driver's seat and gave it a single pat before reaching back again. "Next?"
  
  A bottle of pills was placed in her hand next, and Dinah leaned across the seat and used one of the keys to unlock and open the glove compartment. Twisting open the cap of the bottle, she spilled some of the pills out into the compartment before dropping the half-full bottle in as well.
  
  Finally, Dinah took a pistol from Epsilon. The serial number of the weapon had been filed off long before the ill-fated thug it had belonged to had attempted to shoot one of the Pandoras with it. Considering for a moment, Dinah eventually slid the gun into the glove compartment as well before closing and locking it. Then she straightened and closed the car door, using the remote to lock the vehicle and set the alarm while she and Epsilon pivoted and walked together away from it.
  
  On their way through the rows of cars, a thin black girl a few inches taller than Dinah passed them with her hand extended. Dinah dropped the keys into Mu's waiting palm and continued to walk out of the shopping center and around the corner with her constant companion.
  
  She stood there, just out of sight of the stores while taking a lick from her ice cream. "All good?"
  
  "Yes, Dinah-Friend," Espilon confirmed. "Mu-Iteration has returned the keys to Vasallo-Enemy's jacket as he sat down to partake of his own ice cream. He is unaware of their brief absence."
  
  "Good." Nodding in satisfaction, Dinah took another lick of her ice cream before tugging a slim, modified cell phone from her pocket. Flipping it open, she thumbed a few buttons before lifting the phone to her mouth. There was a delay as the call was routed from her phone to the payphone across the street where it would appear that the call was coming from, and then on to its actual destination. While she waited, Dinah took a deep breath and readied herself.
  
  The phone clicked as the call was picked up. "911, what's your emergency?"
  
  "I-I'm sorry." The phone would automatically alter her voice, but Dinah also pitched it upward to sound frightened and tense. "I didn't know who else to call, but this guy, he had a gun and... and drugs." Playing the part of a frightened concerned citizen, Dinah reported that she had been in the parking lot and had seen the man in question place the pistol and what looked like cocaine under his seat before going into the Baskin-Robbins. She provided a description of the man, but declined to leave her name. When the operator pressed her on it, she disconnected the call.
  
  Fifteen minutes later, Vasallo had left the ice cream shop and reversed out of the lot. However, before the car had gone more than a block down the street, two squad cars appeared and pulled him over.
  
  Watching from her place on the sidewalk as she and Silo stood against the nearby building, Dinah dialed another number on her phone and waited while it rang.
  
  "Hello?" An uncertain woman's voice answered a few seconds later. "Is... is it you?"
  
  Thumbing the button on her phone that would change her voice to sound like a middle-aged man's on the other end, Dinah answered. "It's me, Mrs. Aarons. Vasallo won't be bothering you or your sister anymore. The police have him now." Even as she spoke, Dinah could see the man waving his arms wildly as the policeman that was searching his vehicle pulled the pistol out of the car and held it up.
  
  "Oh my god." Mrs. Aarons sounded shocked as she repeated herself. "Oh my god. Are you sure? How? They told me there was nothing they could do. They said there wasn't enough evidence, and Jayna's too scared to testify against him. Last time she mentioned the police, he put her in the hospital. She just... she won't listen. She's too afraid of what he'll do. He's got this hold over her."
  
  "Not anymore," Dinah calmly informed her. "Vasallo will be going to prison for awhile. Now you have time to talk to your sister. Use it. Convince her to get out of town with you. Go start over somewhere."
  
  "I-I will. I will." The woman was obviously in tears. "I'm sorry, I just... how do I repay you? When my friend gave me your number, they said you could help but I never thought... I mean... what can I do?"
  
  "Nothing, Mrs. Aarons." Dinah smiled just a little to herself. "Just take your sister and get out of town. Vasallo's going away for awhile. It should be enough time for you guys to get set up somewhere else."
  
  "But there has to be some way I can repay you, something I can send," the grateful woman pleaded.
  
  "Just one thing." Dinah paused before continuing. "If you ever find anyone that needs help like you and your sister did, anyone that the police and capes can't take care of... give them my number."
  
  With that, she disconnected the call, dropped the phone into her pocket, and nodded to Silo. "Let's go home."
  
  "So how'd it go?" Riley asked immediately as Dinah and Epsilon entered the kitchen of the farmhouse. The young bio-tinker sat at a table eating a plate of pancakes with one hand while her other hand was carefully arranging a pile of what Dinah was pretty sure were cow hearts that were connected to one another through what looked suspiciously like a intricate network of taped together crazy straws with blood pumping through them to each heart in turn. In the center of the heart pile a single gray-skinned arm sat upright, the fingers opening and closing in synch with the beating of the hearts.
  
  Clearly, Riley was experimenting again.
  
  Poor Epsilon took one look and physically blanched before striding to the nearby sink. She began to wash her hands thoroughly over the next several minutes, using liberal amounts of soap from the dispenser as though simply looking at the mess on the table had contaminated her.
  
  "The police have him now." Dinah tugged a chair out and sat down for a moment. After all these months, she was no longer squeamish around Riley's work. She was not, however, to the point of being able to stomach eating around them the way that the other girl did. "Hopefully Mrs. Aarons can make her sister listen to reason and get out of town while he's gone."
  
  "Can I do it?" Riley's eyes were on the chalk board affixed to the nearby wall as she fairly bounced in her seat with eagerness. "Huh, huh? Can I do it?" When Dinah nodded, the former villain slid off her seat and all-but skipped to the board. Plucking up a piece of chalk, she drew a line through the name Edward Vasallo, one of a dozen names on the board, some with lines through them and others without.
  
  "So which one next?" Riley asked while perusing the board. "Ooh, ooh, what about the guy that stole from that old lady? I had an idea that could scare him so much he turns himself in."
  
  Before Dinah could respond to that, the door opened and Panacea stepped into the kitchen from the back porch. She was accompanied by Xi and Omicron. "Okay, Manton's ready for the next part. I think after Riley gives him the next injection, it'll be safe to wake him up."
  
  "You must be certain, Amy-Sister." Silo, finally turning away from the sink, spoke up. "If the doctor is not prepared properly, it will be impossible to control him. Even we may be incapable of preventing his escape should he be free to summon his power."
  
  "We'll make sure before we wake him up." Dinah assured her. "We're not taking any chances with Manton. We have to do this just right. There's... a lot riding on it." Clearing her throat after that particularly incredible understatement, she asked, "Where's Emma?"
  
  It was Omicron who answered. "Emma-Friend and Delta and Iota-Sisters are preparing the large television for this evening."
  
  "Oooh!" Riley's eyes were bright as she bounced next to the chalk board list of people who needed their help to find justice, help that couldn't come the legal way. "I totally forgot, our show's on tonight. We're gonna watch it, right?" She cast puppy dog eyes toward Dinah.
  
  It was Amy who answered. "Of course we are. We watch it every week. We're not about to miss it now." They had missed it, of course, while the Slaughterhouse Nine had been in town. But that just made it all the more important that they watch it together and on time this week.
  
  It was such a simple thing. A single television show that all of them enjoyed. They always watched it together, in the farmhouse living room. Dinah remembered being with her parents, her family, and watching television with them in her old home. It was her memory of those moments, of how important they were to her very concept of a family, that had led her to creating this tradition for the people she had devoted herself to helping, for the sake of... well, everything.
  
  "Yup, what she said." Dinah nodded toward Amy. "We're not missing our show, so you better hurry up and get this stuff put away." She raised a hand to gesture toward the collection of hearts and the arm. "You know how Silo gets when you leave your experiments out."
  
  As she finished speaking, the phone in her pocket buzzed. Slipping it into her hand, Dinah glanced at the identifier before answering. "Tether?"
  
  For the next couple of minutes, Dinah sat quietly, listening as Madison explained what they had found out at the prison. With each word, she slumped a little bit more. When the older girl finally finished, Dinah mumbled her understanding and then disconnected the call before dropping the phone onto the table with a clatter that was loud against the ensuing silence. Belatedly, she realized that she was sweating, her cool demeanor broken by the news.
  
  "Dinah?" Amy ventured after looking toward the others. "What's wrong? Are you okay? Is Madison all right?"
  
  "I..." Dinah started to respond before her throat caught, her voice sounding much smaller to her than it had a few minutes earlier. "I ummm, I think we know where my parents are now."
  
  Interlude 29B - Tattletale
  
  "I'm still not sure about this whole thing, T." Noelle's expression was pensive as she shook her head at Tattletale. "I pretty much just joined this group, and now you want me to be the official leader?"
  
  Lisa took a moment to sip from her cup of coffee while letting her gaze pass over the rest of the room that they were in. At one point in its life, it had been the break room for the accounting firm that had owned the building before one of her front companies had bought it. It had been as blank and nondescript as possible with its simple off-white coloring, old fridge, and a microwave that was so old it still used a dial timer. A few thousand strategically-placed dollars later, the place had been renovated to look like it was straight out of one of those old 1950's diners, with a couple plush booths, a gleaming chrome-lined bar with red padded stools where the two of them now sat, and even a jukebox in the corner. The floor was black and white checkerboard, and gleamed with cleanliness.
  
  It was, Tattletale thought, an overall worthy investment. While the room had been rather plain before, she had seen the potential and had put the work and resources into making it what it had become.
  
  With that thought, she looked back toward Noelle. "You're the best choice, bar none."
  
  The brunette snorted. "Me? I think you're forgetting about yourself there, Lisa. You know, the person that's actually been a member of this team from the start? The one everyone knows."
  
  "I'm not a leader." Lisa had no misconceptions on that point. "I'm ops. I can gather information, send directions, interrogate someone, analyze data, and more. I'm good at that, great at it even. But I'm not the kind of person that can actually lead people. That's not who I am, and it never will be. I get too carried away with what I can do. I get tunnel vision when I'm obsessed with something. And frankly, sometimes I need someone to rein me in. I need someone who can tell me when I'm going too far."
  
  She saw the flinch in the other girl's expression while Noelle replied softly, "Like Brian."
  
  The name sent a stab of pain through Lisa. Brian and Alec, half of the original Undersiders, were both gone now. Alec half a year ago, yet the sense of loss was still painful whenever she expected him to make a remark about something she said and heard nothing but silence. And now with Brian gone...
  
  "Yes." Tearing her attention back to the present, Lisa nodded. "Like Brian. But he's not here now, and we need someone else that's good at working with people. We need someone who knows how to lead, who's good with strategy and making people work together. That's not me, it's you."
  
  A moment passed then before she added in a quieter voice. "Besides, Coil knows me too well. He spent way too long figuring out how to keep me in line. He knows how I think, and he knows how to use that against me. He hasn't ever had to deal with you in your right mind, unclouded. You're the best choice when it comes to utilizing our potential, and you're the best choice when it comes to beating Coil."
  
  Wincing at that reminder, Noelle's gaze dropped away from hers. "You know he'll come back. Whatever he's doing now, wherever he is, he'll be back. You, Tether, Pandora, Dinah, you guys beat him. He won't stand for that. His opinion of himself is too high. He can't let a loss like that stand."
  
  "I'm pretty sure that's why he took Dinah's parents." Lisa agreed with a nod. "And it's why we need to find and hit him first, before he realizes that we know he's not in the Birdcage. We need to use that advantage, and the absolute best way to use it is for you to officially take over leadership. Like I said, he doesn't know how you think. I'll help, I'll give you all the information I can, but you've got to be the one that makes the important decisions, Noelle. No one else is ready for it."
  
  "I'm not entirely sure that I'm ready," the brunette pointed out quietly. "After everything that happened, everything that I became before the end of it... the monster I was..."
  
  "Even after all that, you kept holding it together for as long as you could." Lisa sat back a little on the stool. "I'm sorry. I really am. I know it'd be better if you had time to get yourself totally put back together, a few years maybe. But we don't have that kind of time. We just don't. We need someone with actual strategic skill now . I'm smart, and I know a lot of stuff, but I'm not a leader. I wish I was, but I know my limitations and that's one of them. One on one, maybe I can deal with people. But I can't lead a group. I can't manage and strategize like that. It's not who I am. It is who you are. And if we want to keep this team going, if we want to actually beat Coil for good, you're the one we need. So... please?"
  
  She waited then while Noelle looked away, a dozen thoughts clearly working their way through the other girl's mind. This was the right choice, Lisa knew. From everything she'd seen and heard from the other former Travelers, Noelle could strategize and plan better than anyone else they knew. She may have only joined the Undersiders recently, but she was still the best possible candidate.
  
  "Okay." Noelle's voice was quiet as she seemed to stare at the gleaming counter-top as if searching for the right words to say. "I'll do it, but only if you help me with, well, everything."
  
  "Of course," Lisa agreed. "I'm your intelligence gatherer. I'll help any way I can, but when it comes down to it, the actual decisions have to be yours. That's the only way this will work."
  
  Finally looking up from the counter, Noelle met her gaze. "I know how Luke feels, and you obviously. I'm pretty sure Elias doesn't care one way or the other. But what about Rachel and Aisha?"
  
  "You'll have to prove yourself to Rachel," Lisa admitted. "She won't like it at first. She'll probably argue a lot, try to call you out even more than she did when you and Luke joined up. But that's just who she is. Don't let it get to you. As for Aisha..." She hesitated then, letting out a long, low sigh. "I don't know. She's unpredictable. She's acting like she's fine now, like nothing happened."
  
  "I've seen her when she thinks no one's looking," Noelle said quietly. "She is not fine. She's messed up pretty bad. And acting like she is fine is just making things worse. Telling her that I'm taking her brother's old position, that I'm going to be the leader, it might be enough to trigger something."
  
  Lisa nodded again, feeling helpless. "I know. I'm trying to help her, trying to take care of her but she doesn't want to listen to me. She barely listened to her own brother, and now I'm trying to make her pay attention to rules that I set?" She sighed then. "I don't know what's going to happen when school starts up again. She's already making noises about not going."
  
  "Oh she's going." Noelle spoke firmly. "We'll figure out the specifics later, but she is going. I may not have known Brian as well as you, but I'm pretty sure if we let his sister drop out of high school he'd find a way to reach back across existence to throttle all of us."
  
  The thought of Grue somehow coming back to life solely to scream at them for letting his sister drop out brought a slight smile to Lisa's face. "Yeah. I owe Brian too much to let Aisha do that to herself. We're just going to have to approach it the right way. Like pretty much everything else."
  
  Noelle straightened up from her stool. "Right then. Let's tell everyone to meet in the conference room in an hour." She looked toward Lisa and smiled faintly. "Time to make some choices."
  
  Alone in the aforementioned conference room just shy of an hour later, Lisa sat at the long solid glass table, using a blue ballpoint pen to scratch notes into a pad of paper while the soft classical music played in the background. The windows to the side of the room overlooked what should have been a dull, ugly street. Instead, the view was that of a pleasant beach at sunset. This room was in the middle of the building rather than being located anywhere that eavesdroppers could easily listen in, and the 'windows' were actually video screens that could show several different views that ranged from this beach to the skylines of New York, Paris, or Rome, or even the actual street outside if need be.
  
  This room had been one of Lisa's designs when the Undersiders had taken over and renovated the building. All of them had staked out different areas and chosen their decorating scheme. Part of it had been Brian's idea, after the social worker that he had been talking to about getting custody of his sister away from their parents had pointed out that Aisha needed the opportunity to feel like a certain space was hers if she was going to think of his place as being her real home .
  
  Setting her notepad down after another few seconds as her mind wandered away from her work, Lisa glanced up toward the picture that took up one end of the room. It was a photograph of the original Undersiders, taken one night back in their original, Coil-supplied lair. The four of them, herself, Grue, Regent, and Bitch were all in costume. It had been taken right before the mission where they had robbed that casino, and it wasn't a staged or even prepared photograph. None of them save Alec, who had been the one taking the picture, were paying attention to the camera. The image showed Grue clearly trying to reason with Bitch, who stood with her back to him, clearly ignoring the boy in favor of the three dogs that crowded around for her attention. Meanwhile, Tattletale stood out of the way, facing in the opposite direction with her hand over one ear while her cell phone was stuck to the other. She had been trying to nail down the last few details before they started their job.
  
  Somehow, Alec had managed to frame the photograph just right so that it looked like both she and Rachel had deliberately turned their backs on Brian, who had one hand outstretched toward the girl with her dogs, while the other was pointed back toward Lisa herself as he gestured for her help. The result made it appear as though he was reaching out to both of them helplessly while they each ignored him. And in the bottom corner, Alec had stuck his face in while holding his phone out to capture this image. With his other hand, he held up two fingers in a peace sign.
  
  It hadn't seemed to be the best image to use to present the Undersiders as a team, but Brian had insisted that it needed to be there. He had thought that it was important that they never forget where they started, as four near-strangers who barely tolerated one another, let alone trusted each other, in order to appreciate how far they had come, and how far they were going to go.
  
  "I'm sorry, Bri." Lisa spoke softly while staring at that picture, her voice barely audible over the music. "I shouldn't have left you alone up there. I should've figured that they'd find out where we were. I should've moved us to a different location. I should've..." She trailed off then before saying in a voice that was even quieter. "I messed up. I let you die. I failed you, like I failed..." Rex... Reggie, she thought, but didn't say. Even now it was hard to say her brother's name. "I failed, and you're gone."
  
  She took a breath then, clicking the pen several times absently before speaking again. "But I swear I'll be there for Aisha, Brian. Whatever it takes, I'll help her. I will get her through this somehow. I will not abandon your sister, Bri. Not ever. No matter how infuriating she can be."
  
  Her voice dropped even more then, a quiet whisper that was almost entirely masked by the sound of a particularly beautiful rendition of Giulio Caccini's "Ave Maria", yet audible enough for her. "I just wish you were still here. I wish you were both still here."
  
  The door clicked before opening, admitting first Luke, then Elias. The two of them carried sacks of fast food, the former offering one of the bags to Tattletale while sitting across from her. "Just what you ordered, chicken caesar salad."
  
  Lisa took the offered sack and set the food aside for a moment. "Did you see Rachel or Aisha?"
  
  It was Elias who answered while tugging out a chair at the other end of the table to drop himself into. "Pint size was on her way up when we came in." After digging into his bag to pull out an aluminum-wrapped cheeseburger, he added, "She said she had to get some chocolate from her room if she was gonna listen to you and Other Mom play at being responsible." He shrugged at Lisa's squint. "Her words, babe, not mine."
  
  Whatever his other myriad of faults, she at least had to give Elias some credit. While he'd had no problem with letting Brian know that he thought Aisha was attractive, usually to goad the other boy, in the days since Grue had died he had curbed it almost entirely. To be fair, he made up for the lack by repeatedly and enthusiastically expressing his interest in the rest of the female members of the team (Rachel less so since she had made it clear that the next comment he made would be the last time he did so with the same number of digits he had before the warning), but it was something at least.
  
  Before long, the rest of the team had assembled. Noelle sat on the left side of Lisa, at the head of the table. Rachel had chosen to stand, putting herself and the single dog she had brought with her near the door as if ready to leave the instant she possibly could. Finally, Aisha sat cross-legged in one of the chairs at the far end, regarding the group with a sort of forced disinterest that told Lisa the girl was paying far more attention than she pretended, all while snacking on chocolate covered potato chips.
  
  She was also the one who broke the silence once everyone was there. "So she's taking Bri's old spot, huh?" Though she was clearly trying to phrase it as dismissively as possible, there was a distinct catch in her voice that Lisa didn't even need her power to notice. "Great, she's the leader, yada yada. Can we go now, or is everyone still pretending that we have some kind of say in this?"
  
  Lisa opened her mouth, but it was Noelle who spoke. "Coil's back."
  
  Silence came then, save for a single slow crunch as Aisha bit down into one of her crispy snacks, her eyes locked onto the scrawny brunette at the other end of the table.
  
  Rachel said nothing as well, remaining utterly silent while continuing to pat the head of Brutus, who sat next to her. Whatever opinion she had of the decision or the news about Coil, she was keeping it to herself. Part of that, Lisa knew, was that Rachel didn't trust her own reactions or understanding of humans enough to talk much. She preferred to spend most of her time away from everyone else, interacting solely with her dogs, and was happiest when they left her alone for everything except a mission.
  
  She had tried to find a way to connect with the other girl, but her very few attempts had gone poorly in spite of her power. Bitch did not take well to the feeling that she was being manipulated, even if it hadn't been Lisa's intention.
  
  "The fuck you mean?" Elias demanded, making up for his teammate's silence. "Ain't his ass getting hammered in the Birdcage? That's like, one of the things that lets me sleep at night, knowing that no matter what's goin' on with me, that motherfucker was getting his shit torn-"
  
  "That's enough." Noelle interrupted, and there there was a pause while every single person in the room gave Vacate a look of pure disgust. Then they collectively moved on, the girl continuing. "That's right, that Coil. We don't know how exactly, but Tether thinks he used the original Birdcage escape to mask his own, leaving a device behind that made the cameras show him interacting with people so that no one knew he was gone. Now we're pretty sure he has Dinah's parents, and Tether hired us to locate him."
  
  To this, Tattletale added, "Which we would have done anyway because we are not leaving that bastard out there to fuck with us, but it's nice to be on the job while we're doing it, and if we need backup, we've got it."
  
  She pointed to Noelle then. "That is why she's in charge, and why we're not going to debate about it. Because Coil knows us. He doesn't know her. He can't predict her, or what she'll do. If anyone has a problem with that, you don't have to help. But I'm pretty sure everyone here wants to deal with that son of a bitch, right?" There were a few nods, and she returned the gesture. "Then we do what Veritas says."
  
  "Great." Setting her bag down, Aisha abruptly transformed herself into the shape of Brandish, summoning a hard light dagger into one hand before tossing it to the other while staring intently at their newly appointed leader as if studying her for any possible reaction. "So how does Plan Fuck Coil start, boss?"
  
  "We comb through all of his financial information," Noelle answered. "We look at his old contacts, his old resources, all of it. We find something that can tell us how he's stayed out of sight this long. Most of that'll be computer work to start out, which means Tattletale takes the lead on it. But if she needs help, everyone contributes. There's probably going to be some hard copy files somewhere to look through."
  
  To Bitch, she added, "Rachel, when the time comes, we might need you and your dogs to play muscle to scare information out of some of Coil's old contacts. Think you can do that?"
  
  There was a slight pause before Bitch gave the slightest, almost imperceptible nod.
  
  "Yaaaay." Aisha shrugged and turned back into herself, popping another chip into her mouth. In the next bite, she had taken on Regent's form, making Lisa flinch. "So nothing for the rest of us right now, got it." Still in Alec's shape, she started to stand up.
  
  "Actually, there is a couple other things." Noelle paused, clearly gathering herself before looking up again. "If I'm going to be the leader, there's going to be a few rules."
  
  "Rules?" Luke raised an eyebrow while Aisha simply squinted that way suspiciously.
  
  "Yeah, rules." Noelle pushed herself to stand, sliding her chair away. "First of all, training. Everyone on the team, and I mean everyone, is going to attend physical training twice a week unless there are interruptions. We'll shoot for hand-to-hand self defense on Mondays and firearm practice on Fridays. I don't care if your power is summoning Scion to bitch slap your enemies, you are going to learn how to fight without it, and everybody is going to carry a pistol on missions, and know how to use it." She glanced toward Lisa then. "Tattletale, I kind of need you to look up the best teachers for that."
  
  "Got it." Lisa nodded, already bringing a couple of names to mind and sorting through the possibilities both for their discretion and their ability to work with people like Rachel and Aisha.
  
  Noelle continued then. "But besides training, there's something else." Clearly knowing that what she was about to say wouldn't go over well, she went on nonetheless. "Everyone on this team needs to visit a therapist."
  
  That started off a storm of protests, but the brunette gave a sharp, piercing whistle that cut them off. "That includes me. Everybody that is a part of this team will visit a therapist once a week, as soon as we find one that works. Barring emergencies, if you don't go, you don't participate in missions. End of story."
  
  Noelle's voice softened considerably then. "I know I'm new here. I know I haven't been here that long and now I'm just taking over and making demands. I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry about everything that happened to put me here instead of Brian. But I'm here now, and those are my rules. Training and therapy. Everyone will attend, everyone will learn how to deal with each other, and how to handle themselves in every possible situation. We will be ready, whatever happens.
  
  "Any questions?"
  
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  Arc 30: Stolen
  Notes: RadicalTurnip - They really, really do indeed.
  
  Hebi R - The Faerie Queen is being deliberately vague about what EXACTLY the True Healer shard is supposed to do. One thing it has been doing is easing the whole 'constant conflict' requirement that were placed on the shards in order to convince their hosts to fight each other and which prevented them from cooperating with one another very well. This is the reason for why Tether has such luck with convincing people to work with her and why people who spend a decent amount of time around her tend to behave more rationally. It's because their shards are being soothed by the True Healer shard. And yes, technically Noelle is her own daughter's half-sister if we count Pandora as her 'daughter'. Kinda freaky, huh?
  
  Exillion - Taylor will only appear when and if I come up with a decent in-story way of doing it that doesn't seem like a jump the shark moment for the story. :)
  
  Guile - Dauntless has not had much of a part yet aside from it being noted that he was moved to Boston Protectorate before canon started. Him not being around is a big reason for why Armsmaster behaved so much more rationally to begin with, because he didn't feel so outclassed and pushed to prove himself constantly.
  
  Anyway, hope you guys enjoy this update. I understand that some of the subject matter, particularly the villains for this arc, is a very touchy subject. I only ask that you read it through to the end to see where it's going and why things are happening the way that they are.
  
  That said, the next chapter should be interesting. See you there. :)
  
  30.01
  
  "Seriously, dude? Hundreds of ATM's in the city, and you try to knock over the one that we're standing like ten feet away from, in costume ?"
  
  I was next to Reach, both of us standing on the street beside the small corner bank, staring the genius in question, our arms collectively raised in a what the hell gesture. "Is your superpower the inability to turn your head three quarters of an inch to see that this just might be the wrong target?"
  
  It was the evening of November fifteenth, a Tuesday. Four whole weeks had passed since we'd found out that Coil wasn't in the Birdcage, and there had still been no sign of him. Dinah was convinced that he had her parents, but apparently he hadn't reached out to her yet. However the girl acted outwardly, I knew she was scared, and getting more so with every day that passed. Unfortunately, until Coil either made himself known or the Undersiders found him, there really wasn't much any of us could do.
  
  In the meantime, I had given Dinah a bit of money to show that we were serious and asked her to secure a private meeting with people from the Toybox, where Emma had gotten her remote control trucks from. Toybox was basically a sort of collection of independent tinkers who worked together to produce amazing equipment. They were understandably dubious and hesitant to meet with teenagers, let alone teenagers who worked for the government that was always trying to recruit all of them, so the process was taking awhile. Still, Dinah had promised that they would be reaching out to us soon.
  
  Until that happened, I was keeping myself busy with school, which had started up again now that most of the city had been cleaned up, and with my training and regular patrol routes. It was good to fall back into a routine, and it gave me time to spend with the people I cared about, like Sam and Ethan, Marissa, and even Cassie and Theo, whose apartment I had been spending enough time at in the last couple of weeks that Kayden had taken to assuming that she should plan for my presence at dinner.
  
  It felt... nice, actually. The past four weeks weren't exactly peaceful by any stretch of the imagination. We had at least four new gangs pushing into the city to contend with besides the Outliars, who had been fairly quiet for some time. To start, there was that pair that had shown up at the award ceremony, Kismet and Kitsune. Apparently they were working with a third member, some girl called Anelace who was constantly followed around by a pair of glowing energy balls that shaped themselves into various medieval-type weaponry and equipment. I hadn't seen her yet (or the other two since that night), but a couple of the others had. Lily had said that Anelace seemed to be the leader of the trio, whatever they called themselves, and unlike the other two, she rarely spoke. According to Lily, who had gone toe to toe with her in a duel, the other girl had always seemed absolutely calm and collected, as if nothing ever bothered or distracted her. She'd never seemed upset or angry, as if she was in some kind of permanent Zen tranquil state. Throughout the fight that they'd had, which itself had been a fast-paced, dangerous affair, Anelace had apparently seemed as calm and centered as if she was simply out for a stroll. She had even, according to Lily, held back once or twice when what might have been a killing blow presented itself. And again, when reinforcements had shown up, all three of them had backed off.
  
  Besides the unnamed trio, whose motivations I couldn't really guess outside of what Kismet had said at the award ceremony, there were three more new gangs whose goals weren't nearly as hard to infer.
  
  First was a group that called themselves Tender. They were a collection of about a dozen teenage capes, all of whom had been Wards in one city or another across the country before becoming disillusioned and quitting. Over time, several of the former Wards had formed a group and begun to travel to pick up more members. They considered themselves the Anti-Wards as well as anarchists, and did everything they could to both recruit new members from established Ward teams, and to ruin anything those teams accomplished, as if to show just how pointless all of it was.
  
  The next in this collection of brand new gangs were a group of all-male villains who called themselves the Noblemen. They were basically a collection of guys who pretended at some royal hierarchy/knights of the round table sort of thing while trumpeting their idea of the superiority of the male gender. Mostly they were just a bunch of men who didn't like that the introduction of capes had pretty well equalized the genders, claiming that men and women had distinct roles to play. Some of them seemed to try to push this 'men and woman are equal in different positions' mindset, implying that while women should be relegated to their 'place', there was nothing wrong with those places. Meanwhile, other members of the group were less shy about their hatred of the opposite sex. They tended to target female capes above others, and used superior numbers and ambush tactics to make their point.
  
  Finally, the last notable group that had already made their presence known in the past few weeks was called Straining Angels, a motorcycle gang that seemed to have mostly taken up where the Merchants had left off as far as the drug trade went. Even though less than a quarter of their members were actually capes, they had a massive non-cape group that was made more of a threat than they should have been due to the gang's two different tinkers who worked to keep the ordinary gang members outfitted with advanced weaponry and equipment.
  
  On the other hand, I was pretty sure that this particular genius that we were dealing with at the moment wasn't a member of any particular gang in spite of clearly having powers. He wasn't wearing any of their colors or uniforms. Instead, he sported a gray, thoroughly stained wife beater, green sweatpants stained by substances that I didn't want to think about, and a simple ski mask that didn't look properly adjusted stared back at us. His own arm was pressed into the front of the ATM at around the elbow. He had simply walked up and stuck his hand against the metal. His skin had fused with the ATM, gradually allowing him to push his hand all the way through and into it to grope around for the money.
  
  He had done all of this within plain sight of both myself and Cassie as the two of us were trying to decide where to patrol next. At first, we had simply stared at the man, disbelieving what we were seeing. Honestly, we thought he was messing with us, or that there was some rational explanation.
  
  But no, he had just completely failed to notice the two of us standing in plain sight within a stone's toss of the thing this genius was trying to steal from. When I spoke up, he actually jumped in surprise.
  
  Beside me, Reach shook her head. "Nah, see, he's just a huge fan of yours but he didn't know how to talk to you. So he figures if he makes you arrest him, you'll have no choice but to sit and listen while he goes on about how much he loves you and what an inspiration you are."
  
  I snorted and cocked my head sideways at the girl beside me. "My fan? How do you know he's not one of your fans? I mean, you're standing right here too, you know."
  
  She huffed with false indigence, clearly playing it up. "Please, my fans have some fucking class . I mean, a wife-beater? Yours are the ones that are all 'oooh look, I remembered to put on a shirt today.'"
  
  In response to our 'argument', the man yanked his arm back out of the machine. His skin was gray where it had been melded with the ATM, and he held a handful of twenties that couldn't have been worth more than a few hundred dollars at the most. Pivoting on his heel, the man ran for it.
  
  "Huh." I stared after the fleeing man. "He looked insulted. Guess he was one of mine after all."
  
  Taking three quick steps before launching myself upward off of lines attached to my boots, I sent myself sailing over the fleeing man's head, twisting in the air to face back the other way before landing in front of him. My hands were raised in a 'stop' gesture. "Hi again!" I chirped cheerfully before tilting my head exaggeratedly. "Really, buddy, I think it's a little late to start playing hard-to-get, don't you?"
  
  In response, the man literally jumped up and down a couple of times, like a child throwing a tantrum. On his third bounce, I belatedly realized what he was doing as the man abruptly sank up to his ankles in the concrete. He was trying to escape by melding himself with the sidewalk. I wasn't sure if he could move through the material that he melded with or what, but he would definitely be out of our reach.
  
  "Whoa, hey come back!" I quickly attached lines to the man's belt and dirty sweatpants to haul him up. Instead, my effort began to tear the man's clothes while he continued to sink down into the sidewalk, literally disappearing before my eyes while leaving his clothes behind. It was like watching a wax statue melt. Not for the first time, I cursed my inability to attach lines to his actual body while simultaneously calling out to my teammate. "Shit, little help, Reach!"
  
  "On it," she replied, already leaning down to slap the patch of sidewalk that the man was pouring himself into. At her command, the chunk of concrete tore itself up and out of the ground while she snapped her fingers a few times to get the melting man's attention. "Yo, we can either take you to jail, or the concrete block you're hiding in, dude. Your choice."
  
  It took another minute, but the man finally reversed his change and emerged. He surrendered, though he spent the whole time we were waiting for the PRT squad to pick him up complaining about why we couldn't leave him the hell alone so he could pay off his bookie, and how he was going to use his power to hook up with the Noblemen so they could teach us bitches a lesson.
  
  After the fourth or fifth repetition of bitch, cunt, and so on, the man's voice abruptly cut off into a groan and I heard a dull thump as he fell. Looking back that way, I saw him laying slumped on the ground with Reach standing just to the side, casually putting one of her own knock-out darts away. She shrugged at my glance. "Totally looked like he was about to run away to me."
  
  We stood there waiting for a PRT patrol to pick the guy up for about forty-five minutes, a product of the drastically reduced manpower that they and the police force were working with. There had been some efforts at bolstering the numbers of both, but it was slow-going.
  
  When someone finally did show up, it wasn't the patrol we were waiting for. Instead, Vista emerged from a side street and strolled over to join us. "Heard you were stuck waiting for a pick-up. Want some help getting your guy back to HQ ourselves?"
  
  I let out a sigh of relief. "You're a life saver. I was about to thumb wrestle Reach for who had to keep standing here until they showed up, and we all know how much she cheats at that."
  
  Cassie scoffed dismissively at that. "Is it my fault people don't take off their gloves before locking hands with me? You'd think that would be pretty damn obvious."
  
  Smirking in spite of myself, I focused on Missy. "So how do you like it so far?"
  
  "What?" She replied, though what I could see of her expression showed that she knew what I meant.
  
  I snorted at that, poking her. "You know damn well what, Miss Fourteen Years Old." She'd had her birthday only a few days earlier. "How do you like being allowed to solo-patrol?"
  
  This time she smiled genuinely. "You mean how do I like not having a babysitter holding my hand all the time? I could get used to it." Tapping the side of her helmet with the attached visor, the blonde girl added. "Now if only I could make the babysitter in my ear give it a rest for awhile."
  
  Flechette, from her place back at the control room console, replied through all three of our coms. "You know the rules, Vista. First few solo patrols you still have to have constant supervision. If it wasn't me, it'd be some PRT agent watching your every move. Pretty sure that's not what you want."
  
  "Yeah, yeah." Missy shrugged. "Anyway, ready to take this guy back?" She gestured to the fallen form.
  
  Reach and I were just bending down to haul the guy up when the sound of a loud approaching engine drew our attention toward a pair of headlights that were growing brighter as the vehicle they were attached to slowed down to idle next to the nearby curb. There was a pair of emergency lights on top, and the Parahuman Response Team logo on the hood.
  
  "Oh sure," Cassie was clearly rolling her eyes. " Now the patrol shows up to take him."
  
  "Huh?" Over the com, Flechette sounded confused. "What are you talking about? There's no patrol near you. The closest one is still fifteen minutes away."
  
  The three of us looked at one another briefly before starting to move, but it was too late. The headlights of the faux-PRT vehicle grew even brighter, almost painfully so. The light enveloped us, taking up all of my vision for several long seconds while every part of my body grew numb and sluggish. Every motion through those seconds felt like I was swimming under water, and every thought was made through a haze of what seemed almost like being sleep deprived while on powerful drugs.
  
  It felt as though only a few seconds had passed, but by the time the light faded and I could think clearly again, we were no longer on the sidewalk. Instead, as the three of us came out of our haze together, we found ourselves standing inside what looked like a gray concrete prison cell of some kind, roughly six feet by eight feet with a single door at one end that stood open.
  
  Someone stood in that open doorway, watching us as we snapped back to ourselves. He was a tall, well-built man in his late twenties, who wore camouflage-patterned pants in a dark red and black color scheme, combat boots, and an armored black shirt with a red symbol on the chest that showed a raised fist holding a sword that was shattering into dozens of pieces. He also wore a white cloak with black trim, and a full face-covering helmet that imitated a crown at the top.
  
  "My name is Sovereign." His voice was deep, reverberating powerfully through the room. "I am the leader of the group that call ourselves the Noblemen."
  
  The group that thought men belonged above women, who were upset about the way capes had basically evened the sexes. This guy was their leader.
  
  "Flechette?" I immediately used the com, but there was no response.
  
  "I'm afraid your teammate can't join us quite yet." Sovereign replied in his deep, commanding voice. "But the three of you will invite her once you are all properly reminded of the correct way of things."
  
  "Like hell," Reach snarled. Her hand lashed out and two of the metal balls that she used as ammunition shot out at the man, only to ricochet off of an invisible forcefield that glowed pale green briefly.
  
  "Rest now, girls." Sovereign advised before turning on his heel to walk away. "Your reeducation begins soon."
  
  30.02
  
  "Who the fuck does that son of a cock think he is?" Cassie was visibly livid as she glowered at the spot where Sovereign had been. Seemingly of its own volition, a steel door had slid closed to seal us inside this forcefield-encased prison cell. "Our reeducation?! I'll fucking reeducate my foot into his colon!"
  
  "Son of a cock?" Vista echoed briefly while tilting her head next to me. "That's new."
  
  Cassie waved a hand and made a dismissive huff. "Well, I'm sure as hell not going to use the B word anywhere around people like Egodick McFuckface. No way I'm feeding into that particular delusion."
  
  Assuming we were being observed and listened to, I nonetheless tried to contact Flechette, or anyone else one more time. Yes, the man had said we were cut off, but it didn't hurt to try. Just in case they could hear us but we couldn't hear them, I took the time to explain everything we knew so far. I described the room we were in (that didn't take long), and what I had seen of the hallway beyond before the door had closed. I also mentioned the faux-PRT vehicle and the headlights that had somehow transported us all the way here before we knew what was happening.
  
  I made a point of saying that I had no way of knowing if any of my message made it through. It was more likely that the com was being blocked completely. But just on the off chance that they could hear us, I added at the tail end of the message, it was worth trying.
  
  At least, that's what I made a point of making our observers think I was doing. Which I was, partially. There was always a chance, however small, that it could work. But my true purpose for repeating everything we knew and describing where we were was the small, innocuous looking metal wristband that was my bodyguard. I'd made a point of gently rubbing Jalopy before starting to talk, trusting him to get the point and start transmitting the message along to the Pandoras and Dinah.
  
  I could feel the little guy actually vibrating slightly under my fingers, clearly just as furious as the rest of us were at what the deluded man had said. He obviously wanted a piece of Sovereign, but I wanted to hold him in reserve. I didn't dare let the little guy show himself, not until we knew a little more about what we were dealing with. There was too much of a chance of things going badly.
  
  Meanwhile, Missy and Cassie had begun to explore the room a little bit. There wasn't much to see, but they were focused on looking for any possible weakness in the trap. Unfortunately, the forcefield seemed to extend all the way around us and into every corner, so there wasn't much they could do. Missy had some ideas about using her power to weaken and break apart the wall, but we weren't sure what that would accomplish at the moment. The same went for my using lines to force the door open or damage the walls myself. I might have been able to do it, but with the forcefield active it wouldn't actually lead to much. Which left us with little else to do but wait.
  
  To that end, I sat down and folded my legs under me, taking a moment to breathe and clear my head. Beside me, Cassie plopped down and then laid back. She interlinked her arms behind her head and stared at the ceiling while making a few derisive noises, her annoyance and impatience obvious.
  
  Missy, on the other hand, sat down a few feet away. She remained quiet for a few seconds before turning toward me, her voice conversational. "So about that whole, 'how do I like being able to solo patrol now' question? I think I liked it a lot more before I came to find you guys."
  
  She was teasing, I knew. Her attempt to lighten the mood. But I still winced and slumped a little. "Sorry, Vista. I can't believe they caught us flat-footed like that."
  
  She shrugged back at me. "They knew we were waiting for a patrol pickup, and they showed up with the right vehicle. We had no reason to suspect it wasn't legit until Flechette said so."
  
  "Which was too late, I know." I sighed in spite of myself. "Still sucks."
  
  "How do you think they timed it so well?" Reach asked from where she was still lying beside me. Her open fury had given way to contemplation. "I mean, that couldn't be an accident. They had the vehicle set up and they were ready to grab us, so it couldn't have been a spur of the moment thing."
  
  Once again, I shrugged helplessly. "I wish I knew. Maybe they were driving around watching for any capes to 'assist' like that? Or maybe..." I trailed off, frowning at my thought.
  
  It was Vista who spoke it aloud. "Or maybe they have contacts inside the PRT or police that told them where we were and what we were doing. They had the van ready to go and were just waiting for a little message to go ahead and pick up any capes that were stuck waiting for a patrol to take their prisoners."
  
  That seemed like the most likely possibility, and I sighed. "Poor Simms." I was dreading the idea of telling the man that of his precious few remaining agents and staff, there was a possibility of at least one traitor among them. I found myself sincerely hoping that the leak had come from the police side of things, though I had to acknowledge that part of that came from the fact that I didn't get along with the commissioner. I'd rather think of one of his people as a bad guy than one of the PRT agents.
  
  It wasn't fair, I knew. And I resolved to keep both options in mind rather than let myself become tunnel-vision focused on wanting the mole to be in the police force. But that didn't stop the tiny part of me that really, truly hoped that the PRT was innocent in this particular case.
  
  We didn't have to wait much longer before the door was opened once more. We were on our feet a second later, staring at the newly uncovered entrance. Sovereign stood there, flanked by two other costumed men. The one to his left was dressed in the garb of a priest with a blank, featureless metal mask that conformed to his face, while the man to the right looked like some kind of knight. He wore gleaming golden armor with a matching helmet that had a black, opaque visor over the top half of his face. There was a large sword strapped to his back and a pair of guns with elaborate golden designs over them attached to either hip. They looked like overly elaborate flintlock pistols.
  
  "Bishop Dolor," Sovereign gestured to the priest-dressed man first, then to the knight as if he was introducing us. "Knight Ferrarius. We will be responsible for most of your education and adjustment to the natural way of things. Others you will meet as we go, but until the three of you are reminded of your proper roles, there is little need for elaborate introductions."
  
  "Yeah?" Reach bristled beside me. "You wanna keep talking about 'our place', Needledick, or you wanna stop being a fucking coward and take down that forcefield so we can see who belongs where?"
  
  In reply, the man nodded toward Ferrarius, who produced what looked like a small hand mirror. He pressed it up against the forcefield and held it there for a moment before putting it away once more.
  
  Then Sovereign extended a hand through the open air to show that the field had been taken down. "You may choose to walk calmly with us while we show you where you are to be educated, or you may choose to begin that education immediately."
  
  Before the man finished talking, I was working to set a line that would yank him off his feet and into the cell. Beside me, Reach's metal balls immediately spun up to launch themselves at his companions, and Vista was twisting space to bring widen the room and give us more area to work with.
  
  And then it all went wrong. Instead of yanking the man to the floor, my powers actually yanked me off my feet and sent me toward him with a surprised yelp. Before I could recover, the man's black armored fist backhanded me across the temple. Pain exploded in my head as I went sprawling across the floor. While falling, I barely caught sight of Reach's ammunition flying off past me in Vista's direction before a cry of pain from the girl stopped the distorting space. This was followed by a yelp from Cassie's direction as her feet yanked themselves out from under her, dropping the girl to the floor.
  
  "I am Sovereign." The man announced then, stepping into the cell to loom over us. "You girls believe yourselves to be special. You believe that your powers have changed your biological imperatives, that they excuse you from your proper role. Those powers that you use to harm others, to escape your duty, to rebel against the true way of things, you believe they are your salvation.
  
  "Yet they answer to me, not you. I am your Sovereign, and I dictate the uses of those abilities. They are magnified, reduced, twisted, and used exactly as I decree. Such is the proper way of things. You believed your powers set you free, but I control your powers, and so I control you."
  
  In spite of myself, my eyes widened in shock. That was his power? He could make other powers stronger or weaker, or even control them himself? That explained why I hadn't gotten any warning that Vista and Reach were about to be hurt. He'd simply muted that part of my abilities. Then he'd turned all of our powers against us, and we'd been flattened within seconds.
  
  This was bad. Worse than I'd assumed at first. If he could turn people's powers against them, or even eliminate them entirely at a whim, we were in even more danger than I'd thought. And any of our friends who came to help would be in just as much trouble.
  
  Worse, if any of the Pandoras showed up, could he turn their powers against them? The thought of what the man might to do in that case was frankly terrifying. Worse, the reminder of what had happened the last time they faced a power-nullifier made me even more afraid for the rest of them.
  
  "Stupid, pathetic fucking piece of sh-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" Cassie's furious rant abruptly turned into a shrill shriek of pain, and I saw her jerk, spasming on the ground in obvious agony.
  
  "Reach!" I started to roll over, but as I moved, every nerve ending on my body seemed to explode at the same time. A wordless, thoughtless shriek escaped me, tearing its way out of my throat, as pain worse than anything I had ever felt ripped its way through me. It lasted only for a couple of seconds, but even that little taste left me briefly blinded, laying helplessly there on the ground. I had instinctively curled in on myself as if to hide from the agony, unable to contain the slight whimper.
  
  Distantly, I heard Vista cry out as well, and the knowledge of what she was feeling made me cringe.
  
  Sovereign continued speaking then, his tone a mixture of amusement and superiority. "Bishop Dolor will provide additional reminders of the consequences for failing to adhere to our rules if need be."
  
  Dolor, the guy in the priest outfit. He was the one responsible for that horrible, blinding agony? His own power, it had to do with causing pain. I hadn't heard the man speak, or seen him move and yet the crippling torment he'd inflicted had been worse than anything I had ever experienced.
  
  We were given only a few seconds to recover from the unexpected pain before Sovereign went on calmly. "If you do not wish to experience any more of these reminders of the consequences for failing to obey the orders of your superiors, you will stand so that we may begin the tour."
  
  With effort, I managed to get my hands against the floor to push myself up, shaking a bit as I did so. Even the memory of that pain was almost enough to draw a whimper from me in spite of myself.
  
  The other two rose as well, and I had to suppress a growl at the sight of my friends clearly in as much pain as I had been. Turning my attention back to the trio of men who stood waiting for us at the door, I spoke up, working to keep my voice as even as possible. "What exactly do you want?"
  
  "As I have already stated," the man replied, his deep and powerful voice rolling through the room like low thunder. "We will inform you girls, and the rest of those like you, of your proper place. You do not belong in combat. You are not meant to be in danger. That is the job of the man, not the woman. We will educate you, and remind you of what society has allowed your kind to forget. Once you have accepted the truth of things, you will find that you need worry about nothing save for what you may do to care for the men who provide for and protect you. Their needs will be yours, and you will find a sort of peace in the knowledge that you need never make any choices beyond obedience."
  
  The man was a complete and total lunatic, I realized. He genuinely believed the shit that he was spewing, and he had both the power and the forces to back up his opinion. Our powers were useless, and the so-called bishop to his left could completely cripple all three of us with little more than a glance. Even the thought of voicing resistance and calling that pain back to myself was terrifying. It had hurt so much, even for those few seconds, that I wasn't sure I could take any more of it.
  
  Even using Jalopy seemed like a bad idea. He could attack one of them, but even if he managed to deal with the man crippling our powers, the bishop would leave us floored on the ground, which would leave my bodyguard alone against the rest of them. Worse, we didn't know the third man's powers except for the fact that he had a mirror that could project forcefields, or something. If he captured Jalopy in that forcefield, the element of surprise would be completely lost.
  
  No, for now, the little guy needed to stay right where he was until the right time presented itself. If we were going to survive this and get everyone out of it, we needed to play along. For now.
  
  To that end, I glanced to the others and then straightened a tiny bit, ignoring the flicker of pain in my head that reminded me that not all of the agony that had been inflicted came solely from the bishop. Sovereign had backhanded me hard enough that I was still almost seeing stars. It took effort to remain focused, and my efforts at thinking clearly were hampered by a slight headache. I had no idea how the man had hit me that hard, considering the fact that my mask was padded. Could his powers include enhanced strength of some kind, or was that an effect of the costume that he wore? Either way, it was just one more problem in a very long string of them.
  
  "Well then," I forced myself to say as calmly as possible. "Show us what you want to show us, I guess." It took effort to keep both fear and anger out of my voice. Fear, because these men were powerful, terrifying, and completely insane in a way that was different from what I had experienced before, and because my powers could not be depended on. Anger because the shit they were spewing was so vile and repugnant that it made me want to throw up almost as much as it made me want to beat each and every one of them into a coma.
  
  Sovereign gave me a long, appraising look then before stepping back. He lifted a hand to indicate that we should file past him. "Come, your true education begins now."
  
  The three of us exchanged looks once more before slowly starting that way. There was no other choice, not in that moment. We had to do what the man said until we came up with some other escape, some way of defeating these psychopaths and getting the hell out of this place.
  
  And we had to do it without any of our powers, before any of our friends ended up just as trapped as we were.
  
  30.03
  
  With Dolor and Ferrarius behind us, and Sovereign ahead leading the way, Vista, Reach, and I were led through a claustrophobia-inducing tight series of cement-lined corridors over the next couple minutes. There were blotches of blood and vomit lining the walls and floor, and every dozen feet or so there was a red-rimmed drain. A couple of times, we passed steel doors that seemed to lead into cells similar to the one we had been in, and I was afraid of what might be inside.
  
  The whole time that we were walking, my mind was working. We had to find a way out of this, but how? How could we beat a bunch of grown men with powers of their own when we couldn't even use ours? Without powers, we were three ordinary teenage girls trapped in some kind of prison with a bunch of super-powered misogynistic psychopaths that were intent on 'teaching us our place.'
  
  This was bad. This was really, really bad. And it could be worse if more powered people showed up to save us. With the exception of someone like Theo or Riley, a tinker whose loss of powers wouldn't really matter in the middle of the action, there was too much chance of anyone who tried to help ending up just as trapped as we were. And the more capes that Sovereign surrounded himself with, the more powers he would have to use against anyone else who showed up.
  
  Was that why they had targeted us, out of the knowledge that more capes would be bound to show up sooner or later so that he could take control of their abilities?
  
  And if this group was so powerful, if Sovereign was such a threat, why had I barely heard of them until they showed up in town? Why hadn't there been a briefing about the danger that a trump of his ability presented to any cape in town? Was this such a new thing that his threat wasn't really known?
  
  Either way, whatever the truth was about how this group had ended up being such a threat without any real warning, we needed to find a way out... somehow.
  
  Eventually, our long trek through the tight, winding corridors led to a door with a camera above it. Sovereign waved to the camera, and a moment later a loud buzzer went off. He tugged the heavy door open then and stepped through before gesturing for us to proceed. When I hesitated, a jolt of pain in the middle of my back forced a gasp from me as I stumbled a little, nearly falling. Looking back, I saw Bishop Dolor watching me impassively, his finger raised to point toward the open doorway. He'd given me the smallest pinprick of pain using his power, and it had still almost put me on the ground.
  
  I saw Reach winding herself up, but quickly caught her arm. When she looked my way, I shook my head and started through the door without releasing her. Vista followed after.
  
  With that, the three of us emerged into what looked and sounded like the kitchen in a large restaurant. There was stainless steel everywhere, a series of heavy metal tables and counters lined the middle of the room, cooking instruments, pots, and so on hung from the ceiling, and there were more stoves and sinks along the walls on either side than I could count.
  
  It was also almost painfully loud. There were at least a dozen people, all women, in the room and all of them were calling out instructions, banging pans together, scrubbing off plates, or bustling back and forth with armloads of trays. Some were standing in front of various stoves, tugging pans of this or that off of red hot burners before passing them out to others who were storing it in bottles, tupperwares, and even sacks that were then placed in heavy wooden crates before being hauled out of the kitchen by two other girls working together to heave it each step.
  
  It looked pretty much like any very busy kitchen. Or at least, any very busy kitchen that was straight out of a Twilight Zone version of the fifties. Each of the women that I could see wore a drab dress, white frilly apron, and a god damn bonnet. It looked like we had stumbled into an Amish kitchen or something. But that wasn't the disturbing part. No, what made the whole thing so much worse were the looks in each of their eyes. Their ages ranged from somewhere around my own, all the way up to a few old women. And all of them wore expressions of cowed loss, of defeat and despair. Those looks only worsened when they glanced away from their duties to see us standing there. With each fearful glance, I saw a little bit of their soul wither before they quickly turned back to do their work. None dared look for longer than a second or two, but that was enough. The mood in the room, which had been solemn before, grew even darker. It was as if just the sight of us had snuffed out something in the room.
  
  In one corner, I saw the only male that had been there before we came in. He looked like a cross between a modern day soldier and an old knight with a uniform that was army-camouflage colored chainmail armor and a blank ski mask. A strange stun-prod device hung from one hip, while a pistol was attached to the other. His eyes were on us as we stood there, and his hand toyed with the stun baton with the air of someone who enjoyed using it often and with little provocation.
  
  Only once he was certain that each of the kitchen workers had seen us did Sovereign move. He stepped around the three of us, his voice suddenly bright. "And how are my kitchen girls doing, hmm?" He asked while walking straight to one of the workers who was doling soup from a pot into several jars that she was then sealing up as tight as she could.
  
  The girl, one of the youngest, who couldn't have been much older than me, cast a quick glance my way. I saw a brief, pleading look that vanished almost instantly before she answered in a quiet, dull voice. "We are doing well, Lord Sovereign. The trucks are nearly full."
  
  Trucks? What trucks was she talking about? Why were they loading so much food onto them? Where were we? All those questions and more went through my mind, while Sovereign gave the girl a fond pat on the head that made her flinch like a person that was accustomed to being struck.
  
  "Good, good." He nodded in satisfaction. "Make sure you pack those soups tight, Jasmine. We don't want any of it to spoil or spill, and I'd hate to move you back to the garden. We all know how much you hate it there, don't we?"
  
  I saw the girl flinch slightly before nodding. "Yes, Lord Sovereign. Thank you for allowing me to work in the kitchen instead." As she spoke, the girl's hands shook just a little bit, splashing a tiny bit of soup out of the jar that she was filling and onto the tray beside it. From the expression on her face, I might have thought that she had just accidentally killed someone. The horror in her widening eyes came along with actual tears, and she cringed even as Sovereign reached out. His finger brushed over the spot of soup, and he spoke in a voice that was deceptively casual. "Be more careful, hmm?"
  
  "Y-yes, Lord Sovereign. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." The girl's voice was half promise and half plea. Still, she didn't look at him, keeping her gaze focused on the soup in front of her.
  
  "Good girl." He gave her head a pat once more before stepping past her, and I saw a silent shudder of relief run through the girl. She had genuinely, openly terrified of what he would do.
  
  All of the women were like that, I noticed as the sociopath went on to question the rest of them like some kind of kitchen manager. They wouldn't meet the man's gaze, never looked up from their work, quickly moved out of Sovereign's way when he approached, and answered him in a polite, demure way.
  
  They were terrified of the man, of all three of these men. All of them scrubbed harder, worked faster, and in general were obviously trying as hard as they could not to be singled out or make a mistake. There was an undercurrent of fear that was almost tangible, and it made me feel physically sick.
  
  Beside me, Reach spoke under her breath, her disgust obvious. "He wants them to see us."
  
  She was right, I realized immediately. This wasn't about Sovereign checking on the girls' work. It was about him making sure that each and every one of them had time to see the three of us. This was him making some kind of point to each of them about the fact that we were here and under his control.
  
  Somehow, that realization made me feel even worse. Why? What was this about? Why had he gone this far to show them the three of us? What was so important about us being here that he had taken this kind of risk? Kidnapping and torturing Wards? This was practically kill order level stuff, from a group that I had barely heard of before they showed up in town. What the hell was going on?
  
  Once he had made whatever point he had been trying to make, and visited each of the kitchen workers, Sovereign walked to the door on the other side of the room while snapping his fingers behind him in what was clearly a silent order to follow, as if we were dogs or something.
  
  Keeping my hand on Cassie's arm, I glanced back at her and Missy briefly. Every fiber of my being ached to do something right now, but what? I hated, loathed this feeling of helplessness. And the look in the eyes of these girls, that beaten, empty look, made the anger in me swell and boil. It was all I could do to contain myself, even with the knowledge that trying to do something right now would accomplish nothing. I desperately needed to do anything to fix this, to help these people.
  
  Instead, I forced myself to walk after the man, trailing him to the other side of the room and through the next door while all of these girls looked after us with expressions of bleak hopelessness.
  
  After the kitchen came a hallway. We were led to the left, down the long corridor and past several more rooms that ended up being a blur of horror and awfulness. I saw girls stuck in some kind of sewing sweatshop, others that were doing laundry to wash more clothes and blankets than I had ever seen in one place before, and even more that were working in some kind of indoor garden area, pulling weeds and harvesting vegetables. It was almost as absurd as it was obscene and sad. What was this place? How many girls did they have working here anyway? Several times we saw men in costumes similar to our current escorts, along a weird sort of medieval theme with a few steampunk elements. And everywhere we looked, there were more of those armored men with the stun prods and simple masks. I counted a dozen before the tour finished, most of them in the garden area to watch over the women working there. Obviously, these were the non-capes, the ordinary guards and foot soldiers in this army of misogyny.
  
  Everything I saw simultaneously confused and infuriated me even more. This was so far beyond a simple 'men should fight but women shouldn't' sort of opinion that it was completely insane. This was about straight up slavery, in the middle of Brockton Bay. This made no sense! How could they even think that they'd get away with this for any length of time? Especially now that they had abducted several Wards! They had all collectively lost their fucking minds.
  
  Eventually, our tour led us to what looked like a loading dock. There were three massive semi-trucks parked side by side, and I could see both girls and men (more of the former than the latter, of course) working to load them up with more of those crates. The men were all wearing those simple minion-uniforms, while each of the women were stuck in the dingy apron-covered dresses.
  
  The trucks were all facing an enormous rolling metal door, and I had a moment to wonder what it led to before Sovereign spoke up again with a voice that sounded pleased with everything he had seen. "You will stand there." He indicated a spot on the other side of the room. "And you will watch as the last of these arks are loaded."
  
  Arks? The trucks? What the hell was he going on about now? I frowned, but slowly moved to the indicated spot alongside my two teammates. The three of us stood there while Ferrarius took up a position somewhat behind us. Bishop Dolor, meanwhile, began to meander through the loading area to watch everything, though his eyes never seemed to stray far from where we were.
  
  Over the next hour, we stood there watching as the trucks were loaded. One by one, the girls that we saw deposited the crates that they were carrying before moving to stand in a marked off spot that their guards directed them to on the opposite side of the room from where the three of us stood. A few of the girls glanced our way before quickly looking down, but most of them didn't even do that much. They simply stood in their spots and waited with their heads bowed.
  
  "We have to do something." Vista murmured under her breath. A glance that way showed that she was staring at the group of women with her lip curled in disgust. Meanwhile on the other side of me, Reach was fairly vibrating with barely suppressed rage after everything we had seen.
  
  Rather than risk responding to Missy, I raised my voice to address Sovereign himself. "You said we were supposed to be educated. What kind of education is this?"
  
  The moment my voice broke the relative silence, I saw each and every one of the girls that had been lined up raise their heads to stare at me. There were expressions there that I couldn't quite understand, looks that were some strange mixture of horror, pity, and even, in a few, hope. It was tiny, almost imperceptible, but it was there.
  
  An instant later, a sudden shock of pain brought me to one knee with a cry as Dolor simply looked up from where he had positioned himself next to the front row of girls. A simple glance and thought from the man was enough to put me on the ground, the pain almost eclipsing all other thought.
  
  For his part, Sovereign stood still for a moment until I had recovered before turning to face me. I picked myself back up and stood there while he regarded me with what seemed like an impassive look. When he eventually spoke, his tone was amused. "You will learn quickly the proper way of addressing me and the other superiors within your new life."
  
  By that time, the loading bay was packed with people. There were at least three dozen women, along with about half that many uniformed guards and a handful of costumed creeps that probably had powers, though I didn't yet know what they were.
  
  After looking at all of these onlookers briefly, Sovereign continued. "As for your education, it will begin in earnest on the other side."
  
  I frowned. "Other side of wh-aaaaaaaayyyyyee!" That time the pain really did put me on the ground, and my vision swam for several seconds before I was able to focus again. In the background, I heard Cassie cry out as well, obviously having done something to draw Dolor's attention.
  
  "Do not interrupt, or speak unless you are asked to." Sovereign's voice chided me before he went on to answer the question. "The other side of..." As I lifted my head, I saw him haul down a lever on the far side of the room. There was a series of loud, high pitched warning tones while the metal rolling door in front of the trucks slowly rose to reveal a flat, grassy field beyond. I could see two more of the trucks just like these ones parked off on the edge of the field, and high peaked mountains far beyond that. A little to the left there was what looked like the corner of a beautiful lake. It was idyllic scenery.
  
  And it very definitely wasn't anywhere near Brockton Bay.
  
  Laughing slightly at my obvious reaction, Sovereign gestured. "You appreciate our efforts then. Yes, we have chosen to leave the errors of this world and these people behind, my girl. This-" He put his hand through the open doorway and into the meadow beyond. "-is our greatest achievement. A doorway between worlds. Through this, we will enter our new Eden, and remake society the way that it should be."
  
  That's what the trucks were for, what the girls had been working so hard to make supplies for, what the garden harvest and all the clothes and blankets had been for. It was all to carry with them through this... this portal that they had made to a completely different world. It was like the connection that had been created between our world and Earth Aleph, only this one allowed physical transportation.
  
  "H-how...?" I managed to get out.
  
  This time the pain didn't come. Sovereign had waved it off, entirely too eager to explain himself, to gloat. "We have prepared for quite some time, but our true destination was not known until recently. Indeed, it was unknown until the dome that covered this city was removed, leaving behind enough of a... weakness in the veils between worlds that we were able to create this portal, our escape into paradise.
  
  This was why they weren't worried about a kill order, or any other retribution. It was why they didn't care about being subtle. This was why they didn't care what kind of threat they were bringing down on themselves by abducting us. Their plan was to take everyone they had, including us, and cross into a completely different world before shutting the portal behind them. They didn't have to care about those kinds of consequences when they could literally go to a new world and stop anyone from following them.
  
  "You," Sovereign was pointing at me, "will remove your mask, then walk here to pick up this box." He indicated a supply crate that had not been loaded onto the truck. "You will carry it across the portal, unmasked, so that everyone here will see that you are simply a girl, no more. Then you will be in our new world, prepared to be educated for our new lives. And we will hear no more whispers of what the one who killed Jack Slash would do."
  
  I blinked once, then again. My head slowly turned to look at the girls with their bowed heads and shuddering, fearful and hopeless forms. And I understood, finally, why we had been brought here, why I had been targeted so specifically.
  
  The girls here hadn't been completely hopeless. Somehow, they had seen what I did to Jack Slash, that I had killed him. And seeing that had sparked something, some small measure of rebellion that Sovereign had been so desperate to squash completely before they made their move into a new world that he had taken the time to grab me and the other two just to prove to his 'subjects' that I was just as weak and helpless as they were.
  
  And upon realizing that, as I stared first at the girls and then at the crate that Sovereign was pointing to, I also realized what I had to do, what I had to say.
  
  "No." My voice filled the room as I made absolutely certain to speak up loud and clear so that everyone would hear me.
  
  Right after the word left my mouth, the pain hit me again. In spite of my efforts otherwise, a cry escaped me and I fell to one knee, tears forcing their way into my eyes.
  
  It lasted only for a moment before Sovereign spoke again. "Take off the mask, pick up the crate, and cross over to our new world."
  
  Taking several deep breaths, I closed my eyes. Almost every part of me wanted to obey, wanted to do what he said so that I wouldn't be hurt again. The pain was excruciating, the idea of experiencing any more of it was enough to make me sob.
  
  Still, I put my foot underneath me, and pushed myself up. I faced Sovereign once more, standing on legs that trembled and shook, yet standing nonetheless. I faced the man and spoke again, clearly enunciating my words as I answered his demand. "Go to hell."
  
  Once again, the pain came. This time it was even worse, as if Dolor was actively angry rather than bored. I hit the ground, catching myself on my hands. It took everything I had, every bit of willpower that I could muster while pain the likes of which I had never experienced before coursed through my body, but I forced myself to look up. Unable to stand, I still met Sovereign's gaze.
  
  The pain stopped briefly, and I spoke up. "You think this is it? You think you turn my powers against me, turn our powers against us, and you win? You think it's that easy? You think it's my powers that make me who I am?"
  
  That pain, that torture that made me sob every time it hit came back, but I spoke on through it. I pushed through the pain not for myself, not for my own sake, but for them, for the girls who had been here so much longer than we had. I found the strength, somewhere and somehow, to speak through the agony.
  
  "My choices make me who I am, not my powers! My choices are mine!"
  
  Somehow, I put a foot underneath myself, and a hand, pushing myself up. Through the pain that came and went as if Dolor had to take a breath each time he used it, I heaved myself back to my feet one more time. I stood, ignoring the pain, ignoring every part of my body that begged me to lay down once more, and I faced the man who had abducted us.
  
  "Take every power I have. Turn it all against me. Torture me. Do anything you want." My voice was as steady as I could make it, my hands clenched tightly at my sides. "You still can't change who I am. You can't change my choices. You can't take that away.
  
  "I will never, ever change who I am. And I will never do what you say. Kill me... or don't, but my life is mine."
  
  The pain... stopped. I heard a shocked gasp from that side of the room, along with several surprised cries. When I looked that way, I saw Bishop Dolor standing with what looked like a bit of metal sticking out of his throat. Blood poured out around the blade in front of my disbelieving eyes, before the man collapsed to the floor.
  
  Standing behind him, with the bloody knife that she had just killed the man with, was the girl who had been loading soup in the kitchen. She stood there, trembling as she kept a white-knuckled grip on the knife that she had obviously stolen from the kitchen right under the guards noses.
  
  The girl, Jasmine I remembered, was looking not at me, but at Sovereign as she held that knife and stood over the dead body of Bishop Dolor. Her voice shook, but filled the room even more than mine had as she repeated my earlier words to the man who thought himself so superior.
  
  "My life... is mine."
  
  In the next instant, all hell broke loose.
  
  30.04
  
  I didn't need my powers to know that Jasmine was in danger. Despite the fact that Sovereign and the other costumed capes seemed frozen in surprise, the mundane guards were reacting. One of the nearest men had already hoisted his gun, taking aim at the girl who had dared take action against her tormentors. I did, however, need my powers to actually do anything about it. But even if I managed to use them, Sovereign would just turn them against me somehow. I'd try to help, and he would force me to make the situation worse, probably by using the lines to hold the girl in place or something.
  
  I hadn't felt quite this kind of helpless in a long time. At least with Jack I'd always had my powers, however bad the situation had been. Now I was stuck watching the horror that was about to transpire, and any attempt to use my power would obviously backfire.
  
  Scrambling to my feet, I let out the loudest scream that I could, trying to distract the guard who stood with his weapons raised, finger tightening against the trigger as he sighted in on the knife-wielding girl. For her part, Jasmine's scream matched my own as she lunged at the man. Too far, she had to cross too much distance to get to him. His finger tightened, and even as I threw myself into a run, trying desperately to get there in time, I imagined the red blotches that would open up in her chest as she was gunned down for the horrible crime of refusing to be a slave any longer.
  
  One step, I had time for one more step before the trigger was pulled. Too far, I still needed another five seconds to reach him. Five seconds that I didn't have. Five seconds that Jasmine didn't have.
  
  Something small and fast zipped by just over my head. I barely had time to notice the thing before it smacked hard into the back of the guard's neck, making him stumble with a cry as his aim was thrown off. There was a single, loud report as the shot from his pistol hit the floor and ricocheted. The object: one of the small metal balls that Reach and I both used, went bouncing away.
  
  Then I was on the man. Without powers, I had little chance in a straight up fight, but I came in hard and threw myself into a dive that hit the already stumbling man right in the back of his knees. The sudden force knocked his legs out from under him, and he went down with me tangled up behind him. I heard the distinct sound of the man's pistol clattering off across the floor.
  
  As I fell with the man, my gaze briefly snapped back to see Cassie rear back to throw another of her metal balls at a different guard. She wasn't using her powers, she was simply hurling them with her own strength. It obviously wasn't enough to do real damage, but being hit with a metal ball even thrown with normal human force wasn't exactly pleasant.
  
  Still, it made me wonder, for about half a second before I had to focus, why Sovereign hadn't used Reach's power against her to knock the metal ball off course before it could hit her target.
  
  More gunfire came as the guards snapped out of their confusion upon realizing that the simple execution wasn't quite so simple. I heard screaming throughout the room as I rolled over.
  
  The man I was on top of let out a bellow of rage and jerked sideways. I was easily dumped to the floor as he twisted around, and a grunt escaped me. I scrambled to get my leg up, but the man batted it aside and brought his fist down into my face. The blow knocked my head back to rebound off the floor, sending up dual shocks of pain in my cheek and the back of my head. Even with the tinker-provided padding of my mask, that single blow still hurt so much that I nearly passed out. Clearly the uniforms that these guards wore enhanced their strength similarly to the way that Sovereign's did.
  
  Then his other hand was around my throat, cutting off my air as he growled down at me, "Fuck you! Fuck you, stupid bitch. Ruin everything, we should've just fucking executed you and strung up your body for the rest of the worthless cunts to see! That would've taught them!" He raised his free hand to punch down even harder this time, and I tasted blood in my mouth.
  
  His grip was so tight on my throat that I couldn't suck in any air, yet he was already pressing even harder, cursing me the whole time. My vision swam as this ordinary man continued to choke me.
  
  "Yeah..." I managed to get out past the hand blocking my throat, my voice strained. "Woulda..." With effort, I managed to jerk my leg out from under him and lifted it up. "Coulda..." At the same time, I caught the wrist of the arm that was choking me and held it tightly in place. "... shoulda." My knee hit the man's straight elbow while I held his arm locked in place, and I heard the snap just before he screamed. It was almost as sweet as the oxygen that flooded back into me as his grip was broken.
  
  He swung wildly, punching for my face with his uninjured arm. I jerked my head aside, letting his fist hit the floor. Then I twisted up and around the way that Grace had taught me. A year ago the idea of being this limber would have made me laugh at the absurdity. Yet now I locked my legs around the man's arm before he could yank his fist back, curled in on myself like a ball. With my legs tight around his arm, I jerked myself sideways, snapping that arm worse than I had the first.
  
  He was down and howling, even as I rolled backwards. It wasn't quite a perfect move, since I still stumbled a bit and fell onto my side, and I was panting heavily like I had just run a marathon.
  
  All around me, chaos had erupted. I saw the bodies of several girls on the ground, unmoving as they lay in puddles of their own blood. In the distance, one of the guards lay on his stomach with three of the girls scrambling to hold the man down and wail on him wildly. Some of the girls had hit the ground, uninjured but covering themselves as they sobbed in terror, and at least one guard had taken to viciously kicking one of these cowering figures.
  
  Nearby, I saw the girl, Jasmine, on the ground with one of the capes whose powers I didn't know standing over her. The knife that she had held was lying a few feet away, and her leg was bent at an unnatural angle while the man held his hand extended down toward her. Before my eyes, a burst of flame shot from the man's open palm, and Jasmine gave a ragged, horrible scream.
  
  My own scream matched hers a second later as I scrambled to my feet and launched myself that way. No. Not this girl. Not this one. They weren't going to take the girl who had finally stood up to her tormentors after so long. I wouldn't let it happen. I would not stand there and let another girl die after being tortured into submission for the petty amusement of her tormentors for so long. Not again, especially not just after she had just found the strength to stand up for herself.
  
  I launched myself at the last second, landing hard on the man's back. My sudden weight threw him off balance and he stumbled forward with a bellow of anger. In retaliation, the man's projected flames started to curve around, and I felt the heat rise across my face and shoulder. Fortunately, before he could recover and bring too much flame to bear, I tore one of the darts off my gauntlet and stabbed it through the man's neck. His flames shut off and he fell the rest of the way to the floor with me on him.
  
  There was barely enough time for me to glance back and see Jasmine sobbing as she held her hands over her clearly burned face before a sudden pain erupted in my side from a kick that lifted me off the man that I had knocked out and sent me sprawling across the floor. If I hadn't had my padded costume, the blow probably would have broken a rib or two. As it was, I had trouble breathing for a few seconds.
  
  Before I could recover, another hard kick hit my side, and this time I was pretty sure something did crack. Sharp pain blossomed inside me that brought unwanted tears to my eyes even as I tried to focus.
  
  Another of the cape villains towered over me, this one wearing some kind of bull mask. He glowered hatefully down at me before rearing back to kick again. This time, however, his attack was interrupted by the sound of three gunshots in quick succession. Holes opened up in the man's chest, and I saw him blink down disbelievingly for a second before he collapsed lifelessly to the ground.
  
  "And stay the fuck down," Reach spat the words as she took a knee next to me, still holding the pistol that she had somehow liberated. Her hand touched my shoulder. "Are you okay?"
  
  "Have to be," I grunted out through the pain. "Have to help them." All around us, chaos still reigned. I could hear screams, the occasional gunshot, and what sounded like big moths hitting a bug zapper. It was the sound of those shock prods, I realized belatedly. Some of the girls were fighting, while others were still cowering on the floor. Regardless of which group they were, however, the men were attacking all of them with vicious ferocity. Without all the girls fighting, the numbers were fairly even, and the men had both the weapons and, in a few cases, powers. It would be a slaughter.
  
  "Jasmine." I scrambled that way, finding the girl crying in pain as she held her arms over her face. She was still alive, however, and I breathed out in relief. We had to get her to Amy. If anyone had ever deserved a little bit of 'magic' healing, it was this girl.
  
  Still, I was confused, looking back toward Reach. "Why... hasn't Sovereign..."
  
  "Vista and I figure he can only use your power once you activate it." Reach squeezed my shoulder slightly. "Don't try to use your power at all and he can't turn it against you."
  
  At the mention of our other teammate, I pushed myself up the rest of the way, carried partly by adrenaline. I looked over in the direction that they had been, and saw Vista facing off against Ferrarius. The difference between them was ridiculous. The man was well on his way to seven feet tall, towering over Missy while the gold of his knight-like armor gleamed in the light as he held the massive sword in both hands. Vista, by contrast, was a smaller than average barely fourteen-year old girl who couldn't use her powers at the moment. She was completely helpless.
  
  Or at least, she should have been. Instead, as the man brought his sword down with a dismissive air, as if the girl in front of him was barely worth expending any effort on, Vista moved . She twisted away from the descending sword with the grace of a ballerina before lashing out with a kick that hit the side of the man's blade. He kept his grip on it, but the blow forced him to overextend himself. Vista took advantage of that by continuing the pivot that her kick had begun. The move made her slide past the man, and she gave a little jump, clambering onto his back while he recovered. Even as he straightened, however, I saw the empty gun holster on his right hip where Missy had brushed against him.
  
  That gun was now clutched in the younger girl's hand, even as she hooked her other arm around his throat. He opened his mouth to bellow, and she pressed the pistol up into said opening, ducking her head down out of the way before pulling the trigger. There was a loud whoofing noise almost like a fan starting up, and I saw blood and other... material fly out the back of the man's head as he collapsed. Clearly the gun that Ferrarius had used wasn't a normal weapon.
  
  The fighting continued around us. I saw the horrible, soul crushing sight of a man using his own pistol to shoot a girl who was cowering on the floor, begging for forgiveness. In the next second, one of the other girls managed to shove a liberated shock prod into that man's throat, bringing him to the ground. She went to stab him with the prod again, only to have another guard smack her upside the head with his own baton. As the girl fell, the second man loomed over her and started to bring his baton down at her prone, helpless form. Before he could hit her, however, two more shots rang out from beside me as Reach let loose with her own stolen pistol and the man jerked before falling.
  
  Vista had reached us by that point, and both she and Reach steadied me as I swayed a little. Wincing at the pain, I managed to say, "Sovereign. We put him down and we can use our powers."
  
  Unfortunately, a bellowing laugh interrupted before we could focus on that. A taunting voice called out, "Put him down? You can't even put me down!"
  
  Turning, I found another of the costumed Noblemen. This one was the single largest man I had ever seen, dwarfing even the now-deceased Ferrarius. He wore the garb of a barbarian, and held some kind of massive axe in each hand that had electricity crackling over the metal edges. As we watched, he laughed again. "Go on then, put me down!"
  
  Both of my teammates obliged, using their stolen firearms to shoot at the man, who simply stood there and laughed at their efforts. He was obviously a brute, and a powerful one given the way even Missy's tinker-made gun didn't make a dent. His cocky, knowing smirk grew even wider. "That all you got? C'mere, let me start that new education for you little bitches."
  
  Taking a step forward, I glowered at the man. I could still taste blood, and the pain in my side was making itself known with each movement. "You wanna surrender?"
  
  His laugh grew even louder, and the man began to stalk toward us while flipping his axes over in his hands. "Hah! Surrender? What're you gonna do, little girl, slay me with a few words?"
  
  "Three, actually." I lifted my arm and spoke them. "Sic him, boy."
  
  At my words, Jalopy rocketed off of my wrist as if he had been waiting for permission. The sound of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall" filled the air even as the little guy shot straight at the axe-wielding cape.
  
  The man tried to lash out with one of those axes, but Jalopy twisted in midair to land on the flat of the axe. A noxious green cloud shot up at the man, blinding him and making him reel in surprise as he started to cough violently.
  
  Taking advantage of that, Jalopy launched himself up off the axe. I caught sight of him perching on the man's face, stabbing forward with his grappler arm to shoot more of that acid into his eyes before hauling his tiny body inside of the man's mouth as he bellowed.
  
  Before our eyes, the man twisted, jerked, and spun twice. The axes dropped from his limp hands, and he let out a pained, desperate moan. Less than ten seconds after the spider-bot had forced his way inside the man's mouth, he came crawling back out, covered in... a lot of stuff that I didn't want to think about. A moment later, the man collapsed to the floor, an empty and broken husk.
  
  At that point, there were several loud clatters. Spinning, I found the remaining guards that had been fighting standing over the weapons that they had hastily thrown onto the floor. They stood with their hands raised as high as they could get them, staring at the little robot who perched on top of his victim's prone body. Jalopy shook himself violently off like a dog, sending blood and... stuff spraying before he focused on the men, making a sound as if waiting for instructions on which one to attack next.
  
  Before they could change their minds, the handful of girls who were still standing and able to fight grabbed the fallen weapons and trained them on their tormentors.
  
  All around us, bodies littered the floor. There were more girls than men, but they had lost their share of people as well. In total, ten girls lay dead on the ground, along with roughly half that many men outside of the couple that I or my teammates had put down.
  
  A little over a dozen girls were cowering on the floor, sobbing quietly as they continued to beg not to be killed, while about five of them stood with the liberated weapons.
  
  But that still left more girls unaccounted for. Just as I realized that, I heard my name called. My cape name anyway. Turning quickly, I found the young woman who had attacked the guard with the shock prod, the one that Reach had saved. The girl looked to be a few years older than me, with red hair that was cut short. She was pointing at the portal, tears in her eyes. "My sister!" She screamed the words, her panic obvious. "He took her, he took them!"
  
  The missing girls, I realized belatedly. The few that weren't here and accounted for. Sovereign had them, and he had crossed the portal into the other world.
  
  Thinking quickly, I stepped over to where my bodyguard perched. Jalopy tilted his head up at me, and I reached down to pat him tenderly. "Hey buddy, I need you to stay here. Watch over these girls, okay? If any of these guys do anything wrong, you do to them what you did to this one." Several of the still conscious men made fearful whimpering noises, and I smiled grimly.
  
  Straightening then, I turned to the girl who had gotten my attention, ignoring the pain in my body. It was nothing compared to what Dolor had dished out, and I had gotten through that.
  
  "Do you know the way out of here?" I asked the girl. When she gave a hesitant nod, I reached into my dart compartment and produced the spare communicator that I had in case anything ever happened to the one in my mask. "Take this and put it in your ear. Get out of range of whatever's blocking it, then hit this button here and start talking. Tell them what happened and to track your signal. Tell them to bring Panacea for Jasmine and everyone else."
  
  "You... you're going after them?" The girl's voice was hopeful.
  
  "Yeah." I winced a little. "We can't wait for reinforcements, not when we don't know what Sovereign's going to do to those girls in the meantime. At least... I am."
  
  "Don't even fucking think about leaving us." Reach moved beside me, shoving a spare pistol against my chest until I took it. "We're taking that bastard down together, right now."
  
  Vista gave a firm nod, and I saw that she had taken Ferrarius's second gun as well.
  
  "All right then." I looked toward the bodies on the floor, the fallen, broken forms of so many tortured young women. Some of them had died for standing up to their oppressors, while others had been coldly murdered while begging to be spared. It was a sick, horrible sight and it brought blinding tears to my eyes before I blinked them away. Now wasn't the time. Now was the time to stop Sovereign, and to save the rest of the girls that he had stolen.
  
  Together, Vista, Reach, and I walked to the portal into another world... and stepped through.
  
  30.05
  
  It was a little bit disconcerting, how easy it was to step from one entire world into another. Some part of me thought that it should be disorienting, that the process of transitioning to a new planet (or a new version of the same planet, whatever) should give me some incredibly bad jet lag or something.
  
  Instead, the most that happened was that my ears popped pretty heavily. That was something I hadn't really thought about, but made sense once I did. Still, the severity of the pop took me by surprise.
  
  Well okay then, wherever we were, there was a definite elevation change. I opened my mouth and then shut it, popping my ears once again in the process as my body continued to adapt. On either side of me, I could see Vista and Reach shaking their heads, clearly going through the same thing that I was.
  
  Unfortunately, before we could continue that adaptation process, or even really take the time to consider the fact that we were supposedly standing in a brand new world, the sound of a heavy engine coming to life caught our attention. Across the grassy field that we were standing in now, one of those trucks that I had seen already parked on this side of the portal was starting up.
  
  Cursing under my breath, I started to lift my hand before Cassie stopped me by putting her own hand on my arm. "Sovereign," she said simply in explanation, reminding me that we couldn't risk using our powers. Sure, we didn't know that his range extended this far, but we didn't know that it didn't either. And even if it didn't, attaching any sort of line anywhere near him might let him use it, even if I personally was further away. The fact was, we couldn't risk using any power near him, period.
  
  That time I cursed a little louder and started to run. "Damn it, I forgot how slow being on foot is."
  
  "You think it's slow for you?" Missy shot back even as she ran beside me, eyes focused on the truck that was pulling out. "I'm the one that's used to telling the very concept of distance to go fuck itself."
  
  "We're not gonna make it." Cassie grunted the words while lifting the pistol that she had taken. Sighting in, she let off a shot toward the back of the semi, clearly aiming for the tires. Unfortunately, given how far away we still were, her aim was far off. Still, she fired again with about as much luck.
  
  The truck was gradually picking up speed though it was still fairly slow considering it wasn't dealing with pavement. But it was going to be out of our reach soon, and we couldn't let that happen. There was no telling if we'd be able to find it ever again, let alone before something happened to those girls.
  
  I took aim with the pistol that she had pressed into my hands. But I wasn't the best shot at the best of times, and trying to aim at a small, moving target with an unfamiliar weapon while running at the same time is surprisingly harder than it looks on television. The weapon jolted in my hand as I pulled the trigger, nearly tearing itself from my grip. As for my shot, I was pretty sure that I would have an equal chance of hitting the target if I turned in the opposite direction and closed my eyes first.
  
  Both of us fired again, with equal results. This just wasn't working. And even if we did hit the tires, we couldn't be sure that it would do enough to stop the truck. At least not fast enough to matter.
  
  "Screw this." Vista stopped running and dropped one of the two tinker-tech pistols that she had stolen off of Ferrarius. Lifting the other into both of her small hands, she took careful aim at the departing truck and fired. Again, there was the powerful whoof sound like a fan that was just starting up, and I saw some kind of distortion in the air, almost like when the air is really hot and wavy.
  
  A second later, the entire back end of the semi jerked sideways and dented in as if it had been hit by an invisible truck. There was a painfully loud screech of tearing metal as the trailer spun around far enough to be parallel with the front end, and then whole thing flipped over, falling onto its side while yanking the cab of the truck up and over as well.
  
  We stood there in shock for a second, staring as the fallen semi continued to skid a good thirty yards or so sideways through the field, tearing up grass and dirt in the process before finally settling.
  
  "H-holy... shit." After a couple of seconds, I managed to get that out while staring at utterly wrecked truck. "I umm, I thought we were aiming for the tires."
  
  "I was," Missy replied in a small, awed voice while staring at the pistol in her hand almost reverently. Quickly, she shook it off, then stooped to pick up the second weapon and tossed it toward me.
  
  Reach was already jogging that way, calling back to us to hurry up before something else happened. Realizing she was right, I clutched the new gun in one hand and started to run after her.
  
  Together, the three of us approached the tipped over semi and spread out a bit to avoid being hit all at once. As we got near it, I heard the sound of girls crying inside the trailer and barely resisted the urge to use my power to pull the doors of the truck open to get at them. They'd be in even more danger if Sovereign grabbed my power. Instead, we fanned out and approached the cab as carefully as we could.
  
  I wasn't sure what I expected to happen exactly, but seeing a pair of hands raise up out of the open door of the tipped over cab wasn't one of them. Nor did I expect to hear that deep, powerful voice call out, "I surrender. You hear me, Wards? I am surrendering to you unconditionally."
  
  Beside me, Cassie made a doubtful noise and lifted her gun, but I stopped her. "If we're right, he can't use our powers. We can't just execute him."
  
  "Hell we can't," Reach retorted. "He deserves it. And we're not exactly in PRT jurisdiction here."
  
  "For us, we can't just execute him," I said quietly. "Unless he gives us a reason." Raising my voice, I called, "Fine, you wanna surrender? Then get out of the truck, slowly."
  
  We stood out of the way, spread out so that he couldn't attack all of us, while the man hauled himself out of the ruined cab. He was obviously hurt, grunting a bit in pain as he slipped over the side and fell partway into the ground, landing hard on his knees. "So," he started to say while straightening. "You-"
  
  That was about as far as he got before Reach took two steps forward and lashed out with her foot, catching the man in the side of his head to knock him back to the ground with a grunt of surprise.
  
  "Shut up." Her voice was as dark as it was firm as she stood over the fallen man. "Say another word, Shopenhauer, say one more word, I don't even care what it is, and I will end you. I don't care what anyone says about it, I will empty this god damn clip into you. That's the only fucking warning I'm giving your stupid ass. One fucking word. So keep your shit-spewer the hell closed."
  
  "Better idea," I announced before stepping that way. "If he moves, do that shooting him thing." Prying one of the knockout darts off of my wrist, I tossed it onto the ground in front of the man. "See that? You want to surrender, lift your helmet enough to expose your neck. Let us see it, and push that dart in. Keep it nice and slow and maybe my friends won't get too jumpy and blow your head off."
  
  "And the rule about talking stands, assface," Reach reminded the man. "Not one god damn word."
  
  For a few long, tense seconds the man was still and silent. Then he reached down to pick up the dart. Turning it over in his hand, he considered before lifting his helmet. I saw a glimpse of white skin with some kind of odd scarring pattern before he pushed the dart into his neck. We all watched carefully as the man held the dart in place for a moment before he began to tip over.
  
  None of us bothered to stop him from falling flat on his face. I did however, bother using a second dart after collecting the first, just to be sure that he was down.
  
  "That was easier than I expected," Vista observed. As soon as Reach and I both turned to glare at her, she flinched. "Errr, crap, sorry. I really should know better than that."
  
  "No kidding." I started to walk to the back of the tipped over truck, where we could still hear girls crying. With a long look back at the fallen Sovereign, I tentatively tried attaching a line between the heavy door on the back of the trailer and the ground. When nothing bad happened, I used it to yank the door clear off, sending up a loud screech of metal that made the girls inside cry even more.
  
  "It's okay!" I called in while letting the door fall to the grass. "Is everyone all right in there?"
  
  We watched as a handful of clearly traumatized, but still living and relatively uninjured (thank Scion) females clambered out of the truck. Two of the older ones were carrying younger girls who clung to their necks, and all of them were staring at us like we were about to bite their heads off.
  
  As soon as they saw the fallen Sovereign, one of the women let out a gasp of fright and took a couple steps back, cowering in the shadow of the truck. That particular sight made me scowl, which made me glad for my mask since she probably would have thought that I was scowling at her.
  
  Trying to control my tone, I asked softly, "Is that everyone? Is anyone hurt?"
  
  Most of them just stared at me, but one spoke up quietly. "This is everyone."
  
  "Good, good," I repeated in a soothing voice. As soothing as I could make it anyway. "We're taking you home. Back through the portal." Raising my hand, I pointed the way we had come. "Go ahead."
  
  "Wait," Vista lifted both hands, making a pulling gesture. Space distorted itself and abruptly the distance between us and the portal shrank to about half of what it had been. Two more hand gestures and it was right in front of us. I could see the same loading dock that we had left minutes earlier. The men who had surrendered were lying on their stomachs while the few girls who had taken their weapons were using whatever they had to tie them up. Whoops, I should have given them my zip ties.
  
  Still, things seemed to be under control. I nodded for the girls on this side to head through. They seemed nervous about the distorted space, but once one of them took the step forward and nothing bad happened, they all made the short walk back through the portal.
  
  Once they were all through to the other side, I let myself breathe out in some relief. Superstition aside, this really had gone smoother and quicker than I had expected. Hell, Sovereign hadn't even put up a real fight. He'd just surrendered. There was something almost anticlimactic about that.
  
  Speaking of the asshole, we needed to get him through the portal as well. I started to ask Reach if she wanted to bounce him a few times before tossing him through. Before I could, however, Vista called out. "Hey, look!"
  
  Expecting the worst (because frankly who wouldn't be?), I turned back to the portal. Instead of something horrible, however, I saw Sundancer crossing the loading bay. She was with Panacea, who had already peeled off to tend to tend to the wounded, and Aid. He and Marissa came straight through the portal without pausing. I had time to straighten and get a single syllable out before Mars caught me in a firm hug that drew a meep from me. Still, I returned it gratefully.
  
  A few feet away, Reach gasped as she was embraced just as tightly. I could hear the blush in her voice. "Hey, hey, hey, what'd we say about PDA's, huh?" Still, she did nothing to squirm free, and was obviously reacting more from habit than any genuine displeasure. In fact, one of her hands was clutching the side of the boy's armor possessively.
  
  For his part, Theo's voice was utterly unapologetic. "But we didn't make rules for this world." With that, he hooked two fingers under the black cloth part of Cassie's mask, lifting it just a little to expose her mouth. At the same time, his own samurai-style helmet cracked apart. Then, before she could do more than make a noise of surprise, Theo kissed her with one hand on each side of the girl's face.
  
  Reach's protests died as her arms snaked around the boy's neck, hauling him down a bit more. Coughing at that, I looked back to Sundancer, my eyes wide behind the mask. "How did you guys get here so fast? I mean, we were only gone for a few minutes."
  
  Marissa still didn't release me. "We were already in the area. Thank Dinah for that. She let us know the right general spot we should be in if we wanted to find you as fast as possible. Are you okay?"
  
  "Yeah, I umm, how much do you already know?" I asked hesitantly.
  
  "No time," Mars finally let me go, pulling away reluctantly. "Come on, we have to get back."
  
  That time I heard it. Marissa sounded tense and... afraid? She had been hugging me so tight, even more than I had expected considering I'd only been gone for a couple hours by that point. And now she was clearly anxious. "What's wrong? What's happening?"
  
  She hesitated, and I was even more certain that something had happened. Before I could press her on it though, she answered. "It's the Simurgh. She's... coming."
  
  I stared at that, my mouth open. "Wh-what? What do you mean, she's coming? Coming where?"
  
  "Here," Theo replied, still holding Reach. His helmet was back in place. "Well, not here," he amended, his voice quivering just a little bit at his own words. "Brockton Bay. She's... she's coming to Brockton Bay. The warnings about her moving started pretty much right after you disappeared."
  
  Mars nodded in front of me. "The last update about her destination came in about fifteen minutes ago, and the evacuation started."
  
  I stood there, mouth open, trying to process that. "The... Simurgh is coming to Brockton Bay?" I asked in a small, worried voice. "But we just dealt with the Nine. We can't... we can't deal with this too."
  
  Mars started to say something, but was interrupted by Vista yelling, "Look out!"
  
  I twisted around, but Sovereign's hard boot still kicked my leg out from under me. I went down, dragging Mars with me with a yelp.
  
  " Nooooo! " The man was bellowing even as he scrambled up. Vista fired off a hasty shot that took out a good chunk of the ground that the man had been on, but he had already thrown himself sideways. "Not that cunt! I will not be taken by that worthless, evil fucking bitch again!"
  
  Again? I rolled over, calling, "No powers! Don't use your powers or he can control them!"
  
  This was insane. He'd been hit with two darts. How the hell was he up already? Did it have to do with the suit that enhanced his strength? Had it made the drug run through his system that quickly?
  
  In his hurry to scramble backwards away from the portal, the man's helmet had fallen off. I could see him unmasked now, and the scar that I had noticed earlier ran up his neck and across his entire face. It was some kind of severe burn that had horribly disfigured him. His eyes were wide with panic and fear as he pushed himself hand over hand away from the portal. He wasn't even paying attention to us at that point, ranting on about how he wasn't going to let 'that bitch' get him again.
  
  Another shot from one of Vista's guns blew apart the ground behind the scrambling man, and she adjusted her aim down a bit to land directly on him. Her voice was steady. "Move again, and that's you."
  
  Slowly, I picked myself up and held a hand down for Mars while staring at the man. "The Simurgh? That's who you're afraid of?"
  
  "The cunt!" His voice shook with fear that was laced with contempt. "Th-that's what happens when... when bitches don't know their place! She did this!" His hand waved toward his scarred, ruined face. "She hurt us all! But I gathered them. I gathered the people she hurt, the men she hurt, and the girls who knew that she had gone too far. I gathered them and taught them the truth. If the women find their place again, she won't have power any longer. She'll be powerless!"
  
  "Okay... well... he's a lunatic." Marissa said slowly from beside me. She focused on the man then. "Look, fruitcake, we're going back there. If you don't like it-"
  
  Before she could continue talking, Sovereign let out a bellow and smacked his hand against something on his suit. "I won't go back!" A high pitched whistling noise emerged, and I immediately saw the red warning lines pop up on the others.
  
  Eyes widening, I shouted, " Get down! " before attaching lines to everyone. I used the lines to hurl us toward the portal just as that high pitched whistling sound turned into a deafening boom that sent a shockwave through the air as Sovereign literally blew apart. He had set off some kind of self-destruct on his own damn armor rather than let us take him through the portal.
  
  Expecting to land on the hard floor of the loading dock, I braced myself. Instead, I hit soft grass and rolled. All around me, the others grunted as they landed.
  
  Shoving myself over quickly, I lifted my head and stared at the spot that the portal had been. It was gone. There was no shimmer in the air, nothing to indicate that it had ever been there. A bit further away from that lay four foot wide crater that was all that remained of Sovereign, aside from a few random bits of debris.
  
  "It... it's gone..." Vista breathed from where she lay, staring at the same spot that I had been. "The portal's gone. He blew it up."
  
  "That's not our only problem." Reach informed us while picking herself and Theo off the ground. They looked shaken, but not hurt.
  
  "Really?" I looked that way, trying to keep the panic out of my voice as much as possible. "What other problem could we have besides being stuck on an uninhabited planet in the middle of nowhere while the Simurgh is attacking our city?"
  
  Lifting a hand, she pointed over my shoulder. I turned to see three familiar, dark shapes flying toward us through the sky.
  
  Helicopters. There were three helicopters coming toward us. I stared at that while Cassie's voice answered grimly, "The fact that this planet isn't uninhabited."
  
  Interlude 30 - PHO
  
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  ► Topic: The Morality Of Child Soldiers In: Boards ► Teams ► Wards
  
  Day_strider (Original Poster)
  
  Posted on October 14th, 2011:
  
  I know this is going to set off seven levels of shit storm, but I just felt like I had to say something. I'm watching the news and they're covering that award ceremony in Brockton Bay and I'm absolutely disgusted. Why are we honoring this? Why are we celebrating the fact that children have been used as fucking soldiers? Why are we propping them up and cheering for the idea that they've killed people? Sure, bad people, I'm not saying the Nine didn't deserve it. That's not my issue. My issue is why are we putting these young people in these situations to begin with?
  
  Personally, I think each and every single one of the adults involved with the Wards system in general, and in Brockton Bay in particular, should be tried for child endangerment. This shit shouldn't fly. The adults need to step in, take these kids out of danger, and let the Protectorate handle it. The Wards should be for things like search and rescue and maybe certain non-violent crime prevention alongside trained professionals.
  
  IMO, if you're under eighteen, you should not see combat, let alone kill anyone. The idea that that is a controversial opinion horrifies me and says a lot about the world we're living in.
  
  (Showing Page 96 of 97)
  
  ► Reach (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  I say one thing thirty seven pages ago and get over a hundred PM's on the subject. Well, I value my time much more than I value the opinions of people I've never met, so I'm going to go ahead and give a single reply to all of you right here and now. This applies to everyone who has previously PM'd me and everyone who PM's me in the future on the subject of whether Wards should fight or not.
  
  I. Do. Not. Care
  
  There you go. That is my response. I don't care about your opinion. I don't care about your facts. I don't care about whether you feel sorry for me or whether you think I'm going to burn in hell. I don't care if you like me or hate me. I don't care if you think I have it easy. I don't care if you think I'm being abused. I don't care if you root for me. I definitely don't care if you pray for me. I don't care what you do, think, say, believe, or feel.
  
  I will not respond to you, I will not pay attention to you, and I will not read your messages. The second I realize what the message is about, I will not read it.
  
  I. Don't. Care.
  
  ► RealTemper
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  Reach
  
  I know you won't pay attention to this, but that's not a very healthy attitude to have. People are trying to help. We may not have powers, but we do care about what happens to you and the rest of the Wards. I understand that it's easy to feel hostile about things like this, especially when you're dealing with people that are trying to tell you what you can and can't do when they don't have you're experiences, but please try to understand that we're trying to help you and that just because you can fight doesn't always mean you should because there's a lot of subtle psychological issues that people who are too young shouldn't have to deal with, not that you don't know how to fight but whether or not your minds are ready for the kinds of things that you see.
  
  ► Pin-Okeo
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  RealTemper
  
  If the Grammazon wasn't already ignoring these comments, throwing a run-on sentence like that at her would probably have driven her to it. Also, 'your experiences', not 'you're experiences'
  
  Other than that, I pretty much agree with the sentiment.
  
  ► TuskenRefugee
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  Pin-Okeo
  
  Grammazon? You mean Reach?
  
  OT: I think at a certain point we just need to accept that there are certain situations in our modern world where old sensibilities won't fly. Is it a good thing that some Wards have killed people? No. God no, it's horrible. But in a world where entire cities can be destroyed by giant, unstoppable killing machines, it's a reality we just have to accept. Sad as that is.
  
  ► Pin-Okeo
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  TuskenRefugee
  
  Yeah, anyone who pays attention to the Brockton Bay subforum knows that Reach is a bit of a stickler for vocabulary and grammar. Some people started calling her Grammar... uhh, you know, those people from the second world war. But that got some infractions because of obvious reasons, so that got switched to Grammar Princess instead. Only she's too caustic to be a princess so someone started calling her a Grammar Amazon because she likes to fight so much. That got shortened somewhere along the line to Grammazon.
  
  ANYWAY, on topic, it would be great if there was some way that we could keep the younger Wards out of combat. Maybe we should have a middle ground between Wards and Protectorate? I mean, 'anyone with powers that's younger than eighteen' is a pretty wide range of ages and maturities. Maybe we should have a third group for anyone between the ages of, I don't know, fifteen or sixteen to eighteen? The younger teams can constantly stay out of any and all combat, while the older ones can help if the Protectorate really needs them.
  
  ► Momma Bear (Global Moderator)
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  Please note that this topic is for the discussion of whether or not Wards should be allowed into combat situations in which they may be forced to take a life. If you wish to discuss the specific Ward known as Reach, you may do so either in the general Brockton Bay Wards thread found here, or her personal thread found here .
  
  ► Adamant_Future
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  On that note, I want to say that I agree with the general sentiment being expressed here. The idea that we're celebrating these teenagers being forced to kill is kind of disturbing. *eyeroll* Not that I blame them for doing it, but there's gotta be a better way.
  
  Pin-Okeo
  
  Do you think having a third kind of team would work? It seems complicated to me.
  
  ► TrippingTheLight
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  Adamant_Future
  
  What would you suggest then, exactly? The Nine were going to kill everybody. Everyone knows the kind of shit that they're responsible for. You want to know why we're cheering for the BB Wards? Because they put those fucking bastards in the ground where they belong. Them and everyone else involved there deserve a standing fucking ovation every single morning for the next year and a half as far as I'm concerned. They did what no one else has been able to do.
  
  ► UnseeliePrince
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  No one should celebrate death, no matter whose it is... And we really shouldn't be encouraging this behavior. How are other Wards going to react? They're gonna see the BB Wards getting all this attention and think that they need to emulate it. What are we going to do when these other Wards go out and get themselves killed because 'well the BB Wards were doing it.'
  
  ► RealTemper
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  And now the Simurgh is attacking Brockton Bay. I repeat, Brockton Bay is under attack by an Endbringer again. I wonder how many people are going to keep arguing against the idea of shielding Wards from combat once this shitstorm is over.
  
  ► Day_Strider (Original Poster)
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  You see what happens, people? We tried to say 'keep the Wards out of that kind of combat', and now look. One visiting Ward confirmed deceased (RIP Blizzard Bear) and four of the Brockton Bay team that no one will officially confirm or deny.
  
  And on top of that, now that crazy former Ward is out on the streets again. This whole thing is one big clusterfuck.
  
  ► GirlSunshine
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  No one I've talked to even saw Tether, Reach, Aid, or Vista at any point during the fight. Are we sure they were involved?
  
  Day_Strider
  
  They'll find Shadow Stalker, don't worry. I think the bigger issue is: who the fuck was that cape that made the Simurgh run away? I thought only Eidolon and Scion could fight her off like that. Who the hell is this new chick?
  
  ► Genesis (Confirmed Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  None of those four were present during the battle against the Simurgh. Nor was Sundancer. Their current status is unrelated to the Endbringer situation. Hopefully they'll be able to tell you that themselves before long.
  
  ► ChipInHerHead
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  I hope they're okay...
  
  ► TrippingTheLight
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Don't worry, Chip. It's the BB Wards team (or most of it anyway), they'll show up and be just fine. Maybe they'll even be dragging the Simurgh's dead carcass behind them so we can go back to arguing about whether or not they should have been forced to kill her.
  
  GirlSunshine
  
  That wasn't a new cape. Read this thread for details.
  
  End of Page. 1 - 95, 96, 97
  
  ► Topic: Tether In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay Discussion ► Heroes
  
  ► Groundgrabber (Original Poster)
  
  Posted on April 11th, 2011:
  
  NEW ADDITION AS OF OCTOBER 14th, 2011
  
  Remember, guys, let's keep the discussion in this thread limited to Tether herself. Further discussion about the morality of using Wards in combat has its own thread here .
  
  NEW ADDITION AS OF SEPTEMBER 27th, 2011
  
  We've already had the mods bring the hammer down several times guys. Let's get it straight: you are allowed to debate and discuss who you think Tether should be or is in a relationship with. Doesn't matter if you're a Teth-Blocker, Teth-Win, Flechether, Tethaid, Tetheach, or even the elusive Tether-Dream. You are not allowed to belittle or personally attack people who ship a different pairing. Everyone has their opinions, let's try to respect them.
  
  NEW ADDITION AS OF April 23rd, 2011
  
  Tether responds in this thread, guys. She'll answer any questions she can (though not always to satisfaction), and she's asked that if it's been a few days since you asked a question and she hasn't answered, please PM ME (Not her) and I'll point her to them. Please keep all rules and good taste in mind before either asking questions here, or pointing them out to me if Tether hasn't responded, because I am not afraid to hit the report button.
  
  EDIT AS OF April 21st, 2011
  
  Okay, now that Tether is a member of the Wards, we have a little more information. Her powers allow her to connect any two non-living objects and then pull those two objects together or push them apart. Other limitations or strengths unknown so far. (EDIT AS OF August 15th, 2011: It's been confirmed that Tether's abilities allow her some kind of advanced danger sense warning system, but we don't know the specifics)
  
  ORIGINAL POST BELOW
  
  Looks like Brockton Bay has a brand new cape. Topic title left vague until the name is revealed. (EDIT: Name confirmed to be Tether. Thanks, Vista)
  
  She was seen helping several members of the Wards bring in Lung. Powers currently unknown. Some say flight, some say long jumping, others say telekinesis. (EDIT: Powers mostly confirmed to be a unique form of telekinesis.)
  
  All we know so far is that she isn't a member of the Wards (EDIT: She is now.), but she was definitely involved in bringing Lung to justice, so it looks like we have a solo good guy. Maybe she and Browbeat can team up? (EDIT: Nm, Brow turned evil. :( ) (EDIT EDIT: He wasn't really evil, yay!)
  
  (Showing Page 622 of 624)
  
  ► HizKat
  
  replied on November 14th, 2011:
  
  I still think some people need to calm down. Tether has confirmed twice now that the video was not faked and that there are parts of her past that she regrets. But isn't that true for everyone? Let's look at the things she's done since we've known her as Tether. That shouldn't be completely discounted just because Jack Slash of all people gets her to say that she was responsible for someone's death.
  
  Seriously, everyone who is acting all butt hurt, claiming that she 'lied to you' or whatever, get over yourselves. We don't know the whole story. All we know is that Tether used to be a different person than she is now, and it's the person that she is now that we should focus on.
  
  ► DeviantMime
  
  replied on November 14th, 2011:
  
  HizKat
  
  Well said. I think most people have been understanding about the whole thing, but a couple people really need to take a breath and think about their priorities for awhile before they respond here again.
  
  Tether
  
  Do you mind if I ask how far apart the objects that you connect your lines can be from each other?
  
  ► AcesOfSixes
  
  replied on November 14th, 2011:
  
  I asked a simple question: did she ever serve time for the person that died because of her? Neither she or anyone else will answer. I think that's a pretty definitive and damning response all on its own.
  
  ► Pin-Okeo
  
  replied on November 14th, 2011:
  
  AcesOfSixes
  
  You're on a witch hunt, Ace, and you're doing the exact sort of thing that Jack Slash hoped you would. He put out that video to try to discredit Tether and the whole Wards system, and you're buying into it.
  
  Tether made some bad choices. Now she's different. End of story. They don't need to answer any more of your questions because, and I know this is going to be hard to hear but... IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.
  
  ► Tether (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  Sorry guys, catching up a little on the last couple pages.
  
  YuleBringer
  
  Twenty-Seven, but I'd need a new sack. :D
  
  TypeSettingAnarchist
  
  Eeeee, pancakes! Seriously, I am a pig when it comes to pancakes. You have no idea how easily bribed I am. I used to have a family member who made the ones with white chocolate chips. Drool.
  
  SentientYeti
  
  Which Protectorate Member could utilize their morning breath as a weapon? I'll have to get back to you on that one as soon as I finish breaking into all their homes and taking great big sniffs. Uhh, and after I get finished with being grounded from said breaking and sniffering.
  
  Underdog78
  
  Red Panda, no question about it. Favorite in the whole world. Soooo adorable.
  
  ChipInHerHead
  
  Pfft, clearly you haven't seen Kid Win's rowboat blueprints.
  
  TrashBot
  
  Cannibals, probably. Oooh wait, no, flying cannibals. Definitely flying cannibals.
  
  DeviantMime
  
  Line of sight, basically.
  
  ► ChipInHerHead
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  Tether
  
  Kid Win's a dirty cheater and he knows it.
  
  EDIT: Please be okay, Tether...
  
  ► Orangered
  
  replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  Errr, does anyone know where Tether or the other missing Wards are? Anybody? Hello? Because they didn't show up for the Simurgh fight.
  
  And I know I've asked this in every thread I've posted in, but people keep saying that the cape who kicked the Simurgh's ass out of Brockton Bay after she destroyed the PRT building was the Faerie Queen. But she's locked up in the Bird Cage, so who the hell was it?
  
  ChipInHerHead
  
  I swear, sometimes I think you and Tether actually know each other, and other times it's not clear. Are you 'in the know' or not?
  
  ► SabreLuxic
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Orangered
  
  As far as I can tell, nobody knows where those guys are. Or if they do know, they're not telling. Tether, Reach, Aid, Vista, and Sundancer are all missing and nobody that's talking has any idea where they are. Not that that's surprising, given everything else they're dealing with...
  
  Hey, maybe PHO can get them back. We're pretty powerful like that. ;) Let's try it.
  
  Tether, Reach AidWard Vista Sundancer
  
  Are you guys okay? Just a heads up would be nice, whenever you get around to it.
  
  Anyway, that was definitely the Faerie Queen. There's plenty of comparison pictures floating around, and that was her. She just went toe to toe with Ziz, does it really surprise you that sitting in a prison cell wasn't much of a deterrent?
  
  ► AvoiderOfAlleys
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  SabreLuxic
  
  Nice try, let's see if it works.
  
  ... I just had a bad thought. Three quarters of Brockton Bay's badass Wards Team disappears, and the Simurgh chooses then to attack? Even Ziz is terrified of the BB Wards!
  
  ► CaspianDictator
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Too soon, Avoider. People died last night, and I guarantee you more are going to die whenever that flying witch's time bombs go off. Let's try respecting the dead instead of doing more BB Wards are so badass memes, okay?
  
  I don't buy that it was really Glaistic... whatever her name is that showed up. Maybe someone else that's really powerful and kinda has the same look, but not her. A: She is in the Birdcage. B: Why would she show up randomly to save Brockton Bay from an Endbringer attack?
  
  ► PrinceOfTime
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Tether and the others weren't in the PRT building when Ziz hit it, were they? Do we have confirmation that they weren't? Please say we do.
  
  CaspianDictator
  
  Dunno what her reasoning was, but that was her. We're getting off topic though. If you want to debate about it, you should go to the right thread.
  
  ► Groundgrabber (Original Poster)
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  I'm pretty sure we had confirmation, but I can't find it. Can any authority figure confirm at least that much? Mod/Cape/PRT or PCIPS agents?
  
  ► Laserdream (Confirmed Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  None of the Brockton Bay Wards were in the PRT building when it was destroyed by the Simurgh. We can't explain what's going on with Tether and the others yet, but as far as we know it is unrelated to Ziz.
  
  ► RotLet
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Laserdream
  
  Yeah right, nothing's unrelated when it comes to the Simurgh. Now can you confirm or deny that Glaistig Uaine strolled out of the Birdcage just to save Brockton Bay from the Simurgh?
  
  ► DuprisSupreme
  
  replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  I'm telling you people, it's all about Aid. Tether and the others had to keep him safe because they heard the Simurgh was coming. She was after him because of the work he's been doing with the fire department. That kind of stuff could revolutionize emergency responses, and Ziz is notorious for putting a stop to that sort of thing. He was the target, but Tether's power told her he was in trouble, so she enlisted help to get him to safety. It all fits.
  
  Except the Faerie Queen, but seriously, wtf?
  
  End of Page. 1 - 622, 623, 624
  
  Private message from Ballistic (Verified Cape)
  
  Ballistic: (Verified Cape) (Received November 14th, 2011 - Opened November 14th, 2011) Freezetag wants to know if you're bringing Wild Knights when you visit tomorrow. I believe her exact words were, 'tell that lazy bitch if she doesn't bring the game, we'll all know she's too much of a pussy to let me beat her ass.'
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape)(Protectorate ENE) (Sent November 14th, 2011) Oh I'll bring it. Tell Little Miss Cocky that she's not dealing with an amateur anymore. She's all bluster and I'm gonna wipe the floor with her. If she's nice after that, I might tell her how I did it. ;)
  
  Ballistic: (Verified Cape) (Received November 14th, 2011 - Opened November 14th, 2011) I passed that bit along. She's still laughing. Oh, and TT says to tell you she checked into that ex PRT guy that you were curious about. As far as she can tell, he's clean.
  
  There was another message from Vacate, but I'm not passing it along. I've already punched him for you.
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE) (Sent November 14th, 2011) *sigh* I still want to know why he keeps complimenting my backside when he's only ever seen me in a chair or as one of my monster projections.
  
  Ballistic: (Verified Cape) (Received November 15th, 2011 - Opened November 15th, 2011) He says he has a very good imagination. Hey, why don't you let him say that sort of thing in front of you-know-who? Getting his ass kicked by a three inch wide robot spider might make him think twice before he opens his mouth again.
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE) (Sent November 15th, 2011) Jalopy's sweet and innocent.
  
  Ballistic: (Verified Cape) (Received November 15th, 2011 - Opened November 15th, 2011) Pffft, yeah, sweet and innocent as a chainsaw... that's on fire... and launches grenades... full of smaller chainsaws.
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE) (Sent November 16th, 2011) Can't get through on the phone lines. You guys are all okay, right?
  
  Ballistic: (Verified Cape) (Received November 16th, 2011 - Opened November 16th, 2011) Yeah, sorry. Lots going on. Freezetag is kinda pissed that TT and V wouldn't let her fight, but they both think that girl's got enough problems.
  
  Anyway, any news about SD and the others yet? And... anything from Krouse?
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE) (Sent November 16th, 2011) No, no news... Panacea and the others that were there said the portal just vanished. They heard some kind of explosion and then nothing.
  
  And no, I haven't heard a peep from Krouse. Nothing at all. How's N doing?
  
  Ballistic: (Verified Cape) (Received November 16th, 2011 - Opened November 16th, 2011) TT says she's going to talk to Simms about letting her take a look at the area to see if she can pick up anything.
  
  N is... kind of freaking out. She wants to know Krouse is okay, but we haven't heard anything. No one's seen him since the Simurgh broke up the building.
  
  Hell, as messed up as he was before, getting stuck with that bitch's song again...
  
  ► Topic: Protectorate Traverse Team In Boards ► Places ► America ► Teams
  
  ► CenturionDream (Original Poster)
  
  Posted on October 30th, 2011:
  
  (EDIT as of November 5th: The thread has been moved from Protectorate News to Team discussion)
  
  Looks like the speculators were right. The Protectorate is starting up a new team. It's not a San Antonio division though, so anyone that guessed that is out of luck. Instead, looks like the new team will not be based in any particular area or city. It's gonna be a roaming team that goes wherever they're needed. We don't have a name for the team yet (EDIT: We do now, they're called the Traverse Team. Topic title edited to reflect that)
  
  You can see the press release here, but for those who just want to know the team lineup, here you go:
  
  Team Leader: Miss Militia (From Brockton Bay) She makes guns out of thin air.
  
  Second In Command: Prism (From New York) She splits into duplicates and then gets stronger by reabsorbing them.
  
  Aegis (From Maine/Brockton Bay) He's a brute with flight, Alexandria package type deal.
  
  Asylum (From Maine) She alters the area around her somehow, changing physical laws like how fast something is going.
  
  Hooligan (From Santa Fe) He gets stronger and tougher the more he hits/is hit.
  
  Junket (From Seattle) Tinker focused on transportation/teleportation.
  
  (Showing Page 46 of 46)
  
  ► RicProc
  
  Replied on November 13th, 2011:
  
  Ficsy
  
  I'm just saying that if this team is supposed to be the guys that show up to face threats that the local teams can't handle, they need more than six members. That's not disparaging against any particular cape on the team, it's just logic . If the thing is that big of a threat, six more capes probably won't cover it.
  
  And anyway, what if there's more than one threat that requires their attention at the same time? If the team was bigger, they could split up.
  
  ► Ficsy
  
  Replied on November 13th, 2011:
  
  RicProc
  
  Yeah, and it'd be nice if every team in the country could get a couple reinforcements. While we're at it, why don't we just go ahead and add a full team to every city with over a hundred thousand population? Where exactly are they supposed to pull these 'reinforcements' from?
  
  No one who cares thinks you're wrong because they don't want the team to have more people, they think you're wrong because there aren't any other capes available. They've already had to weaken a couple local teams to make this one work.
  
  ► Quebert (Verified PRT Agent)
  
  Replied on November 13th, 2011:
  
  It's not a perfect system by any means, but we're doing our best. One of my close friends is a member of the team (can't really narrow it down any more than that) and they said that there's some friction behind the scenes about moving any more capes around. The team was supposed to have a few more members, but the leaders of the teams those capes were on complained so it got halted. Again, I don't know exactly how true that is, but it's what I've heard.
  
  ► CastleandRook
  
  Replied on November 15th, 2011:
  
  Ficsy
  
  I think this whole team is a good idea that needs a little help to make it work the way they want it to. There's just not enough capes to do something like this without weakening everybody else. The fact that this team is supposed to strengthen everyone else really fails on that front.
  
  Quebert
  
  That's too bad, having a couple extra members of the team might really have helped make them seem like the power-house group they're supposed to be. As it is, I'm not seeing how this six person group is supposed to be the big 'massive threat eliminator/equalizer' that the press release was acting like they are.
  
  ► DynamicUno
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Well, whoever guessed that the Traverse Team's first deployment would be against the Simurgh wins a cookie or something. Not that it was much help. I think this solidifies the idea that they need more members. Four of their six members couldn't do anything at all. The only ones contributing were Miss Militia and Junket. The rest of them couldn't get close.
  
  ► Shade Of Black
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  After what she did maybe they should recruit the Faerie Queen. :p
  
  ► In Quaertata
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Shade Of Black
  
  Like I've been telling everyone else, that wasn't the Faerie Queen. It can't be. One: She was already in the Birdcage. If she was that powerful that she could force the Simurgh to retreat, do you really think that she would've stayed there for so long?
  
  ► DynamicUno
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Yeah, because we've never heard of anyone ever escaping the Birdcage before...
  
  ► OptimisticPrime
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Whoever she was, the Protectorate should totes recruit her for this team. :D
  
  End of Page. 1 - 44, 45, 46
  
  ► Topic: Simurgh attacks Brockton Bay In Boards ► World Events ► Endbringer Attacks
  
  ►R owdyDog (Original Poster)
  
  Posted on November 15th, 2011:
  
  Yeah, you didn't misread that, Brockton Bay is under attack by an Endbringer for the second time in a single year. Has that ever happened before?
  
  Anyway, use this thread to consolidate REAL information about the attack. We'll try to keep everything fact based. Hysteria, finger pointing, and doomsaying don't belong here.
  
  (Showing Page 53 of 53)
  
  ► Towersell
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Somehow this thread has turned from news updates on how Brockton Bay is doing after their second endbringer attack, to an ongoing debate about the identity of the cape that fought the Simurgh. Shouldn't we have a different thread for that?
  
  On topic, is there any chance of salvaging the PRT building? And can we get a list of the capes that died, and the ones that are going to have to be quarantined?
  
  ► edckdm (Verified PCIPS Agent)
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Stefanovich
  
  I can't really comment on your theory except to say that it's incredibly unlikely that the Protectorate would have held a cape that could fight the Simurgh as an 'ace in the hole' while so many other people suffered. They're not monsters. I know it's easy to point fingers, but try to understand that we're all human too. Everyone I know is just as confused as to who that cape was that fought Ziz as anyone else is. Obviously I can't speak for the Protectorate, but I'm pretty sure they're clueless too.
  
  Towersell
  
  The PRT building is a complete loss, I'm afraid. The prisoners who were held inside it escaped, which seems to have been one of the Simurgh's goals. As for the capes that died, you can find that list here . Quarantine list is here . Long story short, no local capes were killed (two of the visiting Protectorate and one Ward were killed before the unidentified cape who beat the Simurgh showed up, and there's a few who didn't get out of the way before the Quarantine effect set in), though one of the local Protectorate (Sundancer) and four of the local Wards (Tether, Reach, Aid, and Vista) are missing.
  
  ► Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Protectorate checking in. Definitely clueless. In all respects.
  
  ► Ficsy
  
  Replied on November 16h, 2011:
  
  Clockblocker
  
  Do you mean in general or about the identity of the cape that made the Simurgh retreat?
  
  edckdm
  
  I've looked at all the comparison pictures. That cape is definitely the Faerie Queen. What gets me is, if she was so powerful that she could stop the Simurgh in mid-rampage, why the hell did she sit in the Birdcage for so long?
  
  ► Houser
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Ficsy
  
  Maybe the 'Cage has really good coffee? :P
  
  ► Clockblocker (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE)
  
  Replied on November 16th, 2011:
  
  Ficsy
  
  Yes.
  
  End of Page. 1 - 51, 52, 53
  
  Private message from ChipInHerHead
  
  ChipInHerHead: (Received October 20th, 2011 - Opened October 20th, 2011) I'm supposed to ask you if N is going to visit today since she's at your place. Mu was asking about her.
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE) (Sent October 20th, 2011) I asked her. She says Mu can count on it.
  
  ChipInHerHead: (Received October 20th, 2011 - Opened October 20th, 2011) She's happy now. Oh, and Gamma says thank you for the advice on Tiberius's b-day present.
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE) (Sent October 21st, 2011) NP! I thought he'd appreciate it.
  
  ChipInHerHead: (Received October 30th, 2011 - Opened October 31st, 2011) D and R want me to tell you that Thursday'll be fine for dinner. You did tell the Undersiders to tell V to be on his best behavior, right? You know how R gets about crude language.
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE) (Sent October 31st, 2011) Don't worry, I told L to make sure he understands. :P It's Tag I'm worried about. She takes 'behave' as some kind of challenge. SD and I will be there though, so it should be fine.
  
  ChipInHerHead: (Received October 31st, 2011 - Opened November 1st, 2011) Is Tether coming?
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE) (Sent November 1st, 2011) Don't think so, she's got some kind of exam she's studying for.
  
  ChipInHerHead: (Received November 16th, 2011 - Opened November 16th, 2011) Jalopy is with you, right? He's okay? R's worried.
  
  Genesis: (Verified Cape) (Protectorate ENE) (Sent November 16th, 2011) Yes, he's with me. He's sitting in my lap as we speak. Tell R not to worry, I'll keep him safe.
  
  I just hope we find a way to get SD, T, and the others back soon...
  
  previous chapternext chapterchapter list
  Arc 31: Travelers
  31.01
  
  As the dark shapes in the sky drew closer, I realized that they weren't exactly helicopters. At least, not helicopters as I knew them. They were moving entirely too fast, for one thing. For another, they were completely silent. I couldn't hear a sound no matter how close they got. There were also no rotors. They were still vaguely helicopter shaped, but whatever was keeping them aloft was a mystery.
  
  In the back of my mind, I was freaking out. The portal was broken. Would our friends be able to fix it? How long would it take them to do that? Was Jalopy okay? Panacea had to be taking care of him, right? What about Sam and Ethan, how would they be reacting to all this? To say nothing, of course, of how Glaistig Uaine would react when she found out that I wouldn't be coming to our meeting.
  
  And, most pressingly of all, what was happening to all of them, and to the rest of Brockton Bay in the face of yet another Endbringer attack? Would the city even survive the Simurgh's assault? What about the Pandoras? They were... fragile, psychologically. How would they react to the kind of mental trauma that the flying Endbringer was capable of?
  
  This was bad, really bad. We needed to get back there. We needed to help... somehow.
  
  "Danger?" Reach's voice interrupted my inner turmoil and dragged my attention back to our present situation. She was looking at me, as were the others. They were waiting to see if I had any warning.
  
  I hesitated before shaking my head. "Nothing immediate. I don't see any lines, and since Sovereign, uhhh-" I swallowed slightly at the thought of what had happened to the man, what he had done to himself rather than face the Simurgh again. "Yeah, since he's gone, I would."
  
  "Just another reason to be glad that piece of shit took the easy way out." Reach spat the words before nodding at the approaching craft. "What do we do about those things?"
  
  It was Mars who responded. "I think we should wait and see what they want. We don't know how long we'll be-" Her voice caught a little, and I could hear the anxiety in it. "How long we'll be here. No need to start a fight with people that might be able to help us. If Ma-Tether says there's no immediate threat, that probably means we can discuss things with them."
  
  "Maybe we're on your world." Theo volunteered. "Aleph, I mean."
  
  But Marissa shook her head. "My world doesn't have anything like those things."
  
  While we were talking, one of the flying craft, whatever they were, landed nearby. From here, I could see that it was a completely closed off vehicle. There was also a long, massive cannon on the top that I hadn't noticed before since we had been seeing them from the ground. With that weapon in view, the thing looked like some cross between helicopter and tank. And it definitely didn't look very friendly.
  
  While that craft settled into place, the other two remained in the air. They drifted almost lazily through the air, crossing from one end of the clearing and back again in a lazy, yet somehow still threatening pattern. It reminded me of documentaries about sharks that I had seen, where they would swim around the cage that the diver was in a few times before abruptly attacking.
  
  "I think I need to get a punch card," Marissa muttered beside me while we watched the craft that had landed. "And get it marked every time I get to another brand new Earth. Maybe I can end up with a free sandwich or something before this is all over." She nudged me slightly, and I saw stars briefly while letting out a sharp hiss as doing so jostled my damaged ribs and reminded me that I hadn't been in very good shape even before going through the portal. Hell, if it hadn't been for the breaker effect that my lines gave me, hurling myself away from the explosion probably would have done real damage.
  
  Turning my way quickly at the sound of my hiss of pain, Marissa started to speak. Before she could say anything, however, a door slid open on the craft that had landed. A half dozen men in some kind of black head-to-toe commando gear hopped out with some futuristic rifles pointed our way. Still, I didn't get any kind of immediate threat line, so I gave the others a subtle head shake when they glanced to me.
  
  The commandos were accompanied by a tall, broad shouldered man in sky blue armor with silver plating along the shoulders, forearms, shins, and face area. His helmet was shaped a bit like a V, with the top points on each side swooping back into vague antennae-like shapes. The visor in the middle of the helmet was violet. He carried no weapon in his hands, but there was something slung over his back that, from this angle, looked like some kind of enormous scythe.
  
  He strode forward, bypassing his soldiers on his way to where we stood. His voice, when he spoke, sounded distorted and loud, as if magnified through the speaker in his helmet. "You're a long way from the safe land, strangers. And I don't recognize any of your uniforms. Who do you hold court with?"
  
  When none of us knew how to answer that particular question, the man made a low noise of annoyance. "Don't want to list your allegiance? Fine, drop your weapons then, and remain still so that you can be scanned. Give my men any reason to think that you're not cooperating and they won't hesitate to put you down. We can always sort through your remains afterward to find out where you came from and what you're doing here. I'll risk offending your Fate-Lord if it means we don't have to stand out here with our thumbs up our asses while you get your story straight."
  
  There was a brief pause before Marissa spoke. "We don't hold court with anyone. And it seems to me that disarming before we know what your intentions are could be hazardous for everyone involved."
  
  "Yeah," Reach kept hold of her pistol rather pointedly, though she kept it aimed at the ground. "And I for one, am just a little bit tired of guys popping out of the woodwork and trying to order me around. It gets really fucking old, really fucking fast."
  
  The armored man regarded us briefly, and I could sense the frustration coming off him in waves. Trying to keep the peace, I spoke up. "We'll stand still for your scan, but disarming is out of the question, sir. We've had too many problems lately. I hope you understand." Not that we really needed the weapons, but every little bit helped. Especially when we had no idea what kind of place we had landed in. And in Reach's case I was pretty sure she just flat out didn't want to do what some random guy told her to, regardless of how little difference it would have made as far as her ability to defend herself went.
  
  "Very well," the man finally replied, his voice terse. "Keep your weapons if they make you feel safer. Lord knows there's little enough of that these days, especially in the Forward Lands. But make any hostile movements, and I mean any, and you'll be dropped where you stand. No more warnings."
  
  He beckoned with two fingers, and one of the commandos lowered his weapon, exchanging it for what looked like a hand-held vacuum cleaner with a cell phone attached to it. He twisted a knob and hit a button, then began to run the thing up around us with a deliberate, careful air. That lasted for almost a minute before the man straightened and shook his head. His own voice was distorted as well. "They're clean, Commander. No sign of Orcus contamination, Wendigo influence, or anything else. Though I'm still reading definite Cerberus particles all over them. They had to be at ground zero."
  
  "Any sign of Orcus himself?" The commander's voice was tense, and I realized that we weren't the real reason he had been so short. Actually, now that they had been told that we weren't under whatever Orcus contamination or Wendigo influence was, the rest of the commandos turned their attention elsewhere. They didn't so much relax as point their jumpiness every direction but at us.
  
  "No, sir." The man with the scanner shook his head. "There's some injuries among them though. They've been in a bad fight." He nodded toward me. "Especially that one."
  
  The man with the scythe gave a quick nod at that. "We'll sort that out later. How long do we have before one of those sons of bitches shows up? And which one's closest?"
  
  After checking his scanner again, the commando replied, "That would be Cherufe. We should be safe for five minutes by my calculations, sir. That is, if we want to be well away before it shows up."
  
  "Good." That settled, the commander addressed us directly. "Let's keep this simple and quick then, the way I like it. You've got three minutes to explain why you're standing in the middle of the Forward Lands, covered in the same shit that only shows up when a Titan either shows up or disappears."
  
  This was all going so fast, and I still had no idea what the hell the guy was talking about. "Sir, I..." My mouth stayed open, but no words came out. I wasn't sure what to say, or how I should even go about trying to explain what had happened. How open should we be with them about where we were from?
  
  I looked toward Sundancer and the others. Marissa looked back at me, considered for a moment, and then shrugged. She muttered, "Fuck it, Krouse's plan to keep everything secret is what fucked us over to begin with." Raising her voice then, she addressed the commander. "We have no idea what you're talking about, sir. We don't know what any of the terms you're using mean because we're not from this world. We're from a different Earth, and we came here through a portal that was built by a man who killed himself and destroyed the portal rather than go back when we tried to take him with us."
  
  "Aaaand off we go to the funny farm for the reta-psychos." Reach mumbled from nearby, obviously narrowly catching herself from using one of the words that she had grown up with. She had gotten a lot better over the past few months, almost never blurting out the N word or any other racial equivalent, though she still occasionally fumbled with other terms.
  
  But instead of fitting us for straight jackets, the commander simply considered for a moment. "Other Earth, you say?" There was a collective murmuring of voices from the other commandos, which he silenced with a flick of his finger while watching us. "Might fit, considering..." He trailed off thoughtfully before shaking his head. "Above my pay grade, regardless. Come with us, we'll let the big brains at Camp Caladrius figure out if you're telling the truth or not."
  
  I flinched, hesitating. But it was Vista who spoke up. "We can't leave." She shook her head when the man looked at her. "Our friends on the other side of that portal, they're gonna be trying to put it together again. They'll fix it, so we need to be here when they get it going."
  
  "Three minutes until Cherufe arrives, commander," the commando with the scanner interjected.
  
  "Which means there's no time for me to argue with you." The man with the scythe jabbed a finger at us. "I don't know if you're telling the truth or not, but believe me when I say that if you are standing here with that cocksucker shows his face, it won't matter what kind of portal your people create, you won't be around to do anything with it. Now either come with us or don't, but we're leaving."
  
  Theo spoke up then. "I've got it." He deployed several of his little floating robots. They hovered there while he pressed a couple of buttons on his armor. Then they spread out, covering about fifty feet between them before diving straight down to bury themselves under the dirt. Once they were out of sight, he spoke up. "They'll ummm, they'll let us know if any portal shows up or any of our people come through. We can keep an eye on this place from anywhere."
  
  "That'll have to do," Marissa sounded just as reluctant as the rest of us to leave this area. But from the sound of things, we weren't going to want to be here whenever this Cherufe showed up. When a bunch of armed soldiers riding around in flying tanks with cannons big enough to take a nap inside of are practically peeing their pants at the idea of being anywhere near something, it's probably a good idea to take their word for it that it's too dangerous to stick around.
  
  The commander stepped aside and ushered us back to the the vehicle he and the other soldiers had landed in. As we moved, he spoke, "Don't suppose you can tell me why you're dressed so funny if you don't have a Fate-Lord. Don't tell me there's Titans and Fate-touched wherever you come from too. Cuz the idea of another world being in our position is pretty god damn depressing."
  
  "Honestly, sir," I told him. "We have no idea what a Fate-Lord, Fate-touched, or a Titan is."
  
  "Name's not sir," he replied tersely while stopping next to the open door of the vehicle and beckoning for us to board. "It's Savant. And I'm pretty sure-"
  
  "Commander!" One of the soldiers called out. "Raiders!" He was pointing far away, where I could barely see a handful of dark shapes that looked like armored motorcycles racing toward us.
  
  In response, Savant slipped the scythe off of his shoulder. He snapped it up into his hands, and as it came the weapon shifted and reshaped itself until it looked more like a long sniper rifle. The man brought the weapon up to his shoulder, took aim, and let loose with a deafening shot. Off in the distance, one of the small shapes went flying off of his motorcycle, which tumbled end over end.
  
  "Get on the ship!" Savant ordered. "We don't have time for this." He adjusted his aim, firing again. This round hit one of the incoming motorcycles, flipping it up and over before a short fireball erupted.
  
  With a glance toward the others, I climbed up and into the waiting vehicle. The back of the thing was like one of those military cargo planes with seating along both walls. The other commandos were already buckling themselves in, and we were ushered to empty seats.
  
  I sat down, flinching at the motion. Beside me, Marissa tugged the safety harness down to cover me before doing herself. Her voice was low. "How bad is it?"
  
  "I'll be fine," I assured her, though it hurt when I breathed too heavily. That probably wasn't a good thing, but I didn't want her to worry any more than she already was. We had too much to deal with as it was. Only the idea that our friends were working on fixing that portal and that we could get back to them was stopping all of us from completely losing it. We had to cling to that hope, because letting ourselves even consider anything otherwise was... unthinkable.
  
  Savant was aboard a second later, calling toward the closed door at the front of the cabin, "Go, go!" His gun... scythe... thing had returned to his former shape and was slung over his shoulder once more.
  
  The craft, whatever it was, lifted off the ground with a lurch that nearly sent the armored man tumbling. But he caught himself and dropped into a seat while we lifted away.
  
  "Twenty seconds to Cherufe!" The commando with the scanner raised his voice, and everyone's attention turned toward what I now saw was a video screen at the back of the cabin, where the exit ramp would have been in a cargo plane (here the door was in the side). As we watched, the screen came to life. It showed a couple of the surviving motorcycles driving in circles. Riding them were men in patchwork leather armor, dusters, goggles, and lots of spikes. They were shooting up after us, but it didn't seem to be doing any good. I didn't even notice any reaction from the craft that we were sitting in.
  
  All at once, the two motorcycles stopped briefly. I saw the riders look to one another before splitting off into different directions. Unfortunately, before they had gone far, the ground literally opened up beneath them as something enormous tore its way out.
  
  A noise of shock escaped me while I sat there and stared. The thing hauling itself out of the ground was at least a hundred and fifty feet in length, and about half that wide. It was shaped vaguely like a rhino, though its upper body was much bulkier than its back half, and it had eight powerful legs. Its body was lined with thick metallic scales that looked like tank armor, while black smoke curled out from the points where each of its eight legs met its body. The pair of horns on top of its head were what led to the rhino comparison, but I was pretty sure that the horns on most such animals weren't made of lava the way this one seemed to be. Glowing red lines dotted its black shelled body, giving the impression of fires lurking just below its surface. Finally, its back half split into a pair of long scorpion-like tails that were each twenty feet in length and ended in what looked like enormous garden shears. As I watched, one of those 'shears' opened up, spewing a torrent of lava to engulf both of the fleeing motorcycles.
  
  "We call that thing Cherufe." Savant's voice was soft, though his disgust was apparent. "That's why we had to leave, before he showed up."
  
  "Endbringer." Vista finally spoke, her voice shaking slightly. "You have an Endbringer here."
  
  "An?" He echoed before barking a laugh. "Sister, you don't know the half of it." He nodded toward the soldier with the scanner. "Show them."
  
  The view screen changed to show a view of the planet. Around three quarters of it was covered in red with yellow areas on all sides, and very few unmarked areas. There were more than a dozen blinking white lights in various parts of the red area.
  
  "What's that mean?" I asked in a small voice, not wanting to know the answer.
  
  "Red marks their territory," the man replied. "Yellow marks Forward Lands like where we are. The rest is safe area."
  
  "And those lights?" I managed after swallowing.
  
  "Those are the last known positions of the titans." Savant answered. "Like Cherufe back there."
  
  Endbringers. My eyes went wide as I stared at the screen. There were at least thirteen of the lights on the screen. Thirteen endbringers had taken over three quarters of the civilized world.
  
  Savant's voice was dark. "You say you're from another Earth? Well I figure you must be telling the truth, because we ain't called this place Earth in a long time.
  
  "Welcome to Ragnarok."
  
  31.02
  
  Trying to cope with the idea that there were over a dozen Endbringers on this planet, and that they weren't just fighting and then leaving but actually sticking around and claiming territory was going to take some time. I still hadn't even come close by the time the Arrowhead (that was what Savant said the craft we were on was called) landed a couple of hours later.
  
  During that time, a couple of the commandos had tried to start up a conversation, asking if we were really from another Earth and what it was like. But Savant put a stop to it and told them to leave it alone until we were debriefed by their Fate-Lord, whatever that was.
  
  Beyond just trying to cope with the thought of a world utterly decimated by an entire pack of Endbringers, I was also still reeling from the simple idea of being on a different world to begin with. Over the past year, I had experienced a lot. I was partially responsible for the death of an innocent girl. My parents had been murdered. I had joined the Wards. I had fought Endbringers, the Slaughterhouse Nine, psychopaths inside the Birdcage, and more. I had discovered that not only did I like girls in a way that I had only ever subconsciously felt before, but that my actual girlfriend was from another world herself. I had seen, heard, experienced, and fought more than most people did in a lifetime.
  
  And I was still a bit shell-shocked every time I let myself think about the fact that I was currently standing on (or rather, riding in a flying vehicle above, but still)another world. The air I was breathing was from a different world, the seat I was in had been built on a different world, the people I was looking at had all been born and raised on a different world . Everywhere I looked, things were similar yet also new. These people had the same history as my own world, up to a point, and then everything was different. Famous musicians, scientists, rulers, and even ordinary people had lived here exactly as they had lived on my Earth. Other people that lived on my world but whom I had never heard of were as famous as Alexandria or Legend here. My family, my parents had lived on this world. Or some version of them had anyway. Maybe they still did. Maybe they were still alive somewhere. Sure, they wouldn't be my parents in the sense that they weren't the same people with the same experiences, but it would still be them. If I wanted to, if it was possible, I might be able to see my mom and dad again. The odds were astronomically against them being alive, considering how many people on this world had died from the Endbringers, but the chance, the very thought of a chance , took my breath away.
  
  And Taylor. When had this world diverged from? Was there a Taylor? Was she alive?
  
  It was like part of my brain kept settling down because of how familiar everything was, just before another part would scream, 'different world!' and jolt the first part back into being amazed.
  
  One thing I did do during the flight was ask Theo how many of his little flying drones had survived Cherufe's attack on the so-called raiders. He said that though several of them had been destroyed, there were still a couple active. He had moved them away from where the Endbringer was, but still close enough to detect if the portal opened up again and to broadcast messages back and forth.
  
  Marissa, on the other hand, spent most of the time making sure that Missy, Cassie, and I were all right. I had ended up being the most injured, though none of us had gotten out of it completely unscathed. Savant repeated his earlier assurance that there would be someone available to look us over once we got back to their camp and their Fate-Lord ruled that we weren't a threat.
  
  We finally landed, and the door of the Arrowhead slid open to reveal bright sunlight that made me flinch after a couple hours of artificial light. The commandos exited first, before Savant beckoned for us to go. With a glance at the others, I did so, stepping down from the craft.
  
  The sight on the outside made me blink, turning in a circle to take it in. We were standing on the top level of what had obviously been a parking garage, though the lines marking spaces had long since worn away. I could see a couple of burned out, rusted hunks of what had been cars lying forgotten in the corners. But most of the space was taken up by six or seven Arrowheads identical to the one that we had just landed in. In each corner of the roof I could see a uniformed soldier standing watch. A couple of them were using the scopes on the rifles they held to scan the surrounding area, while the other two were using binoculars with the scoped rifles slung over their shoulders. All of them looked alert and wary. Even here, two hours flight away from the front lines in a craft that we had been told traveled at around eight hundred miles per hour once they reached top speed, they were on edge.
  
  As I took all of that in, the commandos that we had flown in with were hustling over to a large open space on the opposite side of the roof. Seeing a shadow fall over the area, I looked up to see the truck that hadn't been wrecked by Missy's new gun. It was being hauled through the air, attached by cables to the two Arrowhead craft that had flown in beside ours. So that's what they had been doing.
  
  Under the direction of the soldiers on the roof, the truck was lowered into place. The men opened up the back, and as they began sorting through what looked like crates of supplies, I felt Marissa's hand take mine. When I glanced that way, she gave a little squeeze. I returned it, smiling in spite of myself.
  
  "The new supplies will be very useful," Savant said from behind us. He was watching the men unload the truck as well. "As will the metal from the truck. It's a precious resource these days." His voice turned dark then. "Especially among Fate-Lords who refuse to keep their soldiers focused on the real threats instead of throwing them against one another."
  
  Vista spoke up then. "You keep using that name. What is a Fate-Lord, anyway?"
  
  The man cocked his head toward her briefly before a noise came from his helmet speaker. It took me a second to recognize that he was chuckling. "That's right," he said with a thoughtful tone. "You wouldn't know. It's hard to find anyone younger than thirty who doesn't know what Fate-Lords and the Fate-Touched are. People like me grew up with them as part of our lives. This was what life was like before I was even born." He paused briefly then before adding, "Though I suppose the fact that you're dressed that way and have obviously seen other Titans before means you must have fates in your world. You just call them something different, like the.. what'd you call a Titan again?"
  
  "Endbringer," I answered in a quiet voice. "Behemoth, Leviathan, the Simurgh, and Anubis. But they're not like these ones. Ours... go away after awhile. They fight until we drive them off, kill... a lot of people, but then they go away for a few months."
  
  "Months, huh?" Savant shook his head, sounding amazed. "Ever since Cerberus showed up around eighty-two, there's always been active Titans. He was the first, popped out right into the middle of the capital of what they used to call Germany." He paused again before letting out a breath that sounded like static filtered through his helmet. "But I guess you still call it that, don't you?"
  
  When we nodded, he went on. "Anyway, Cerberus was the first, but he wasn't alone for long. More kept popping in all over the world. We never did manage to kill any of the fucking things, but a few have left. They each just vanished, one at a time. Only thing they left behind is a bunch of the same energy readings that drench an area whenever one of them arrives here. We call them Cerberus Particles since he was the first one." He shrugged. "Happy they're gone, even if no one's got a clue where the hell they went or why. First it was Tarrasque around ninety-two, then Umibozu a few years later in ninety-six, then Erinyes about nine years ago."
  
  Marissa gave a little start then, her hand squeezing mine reflexively. "There was another one too, wasn't there? One that disappeared just a few months ago."
  
  Blinking at that, Savant nodded. "The fourth one, Orcus. Evil son of a bitch, he used to raise-"
  
  "Dead bodies," Marissa finished for him. "He raised dead bodies to make them fight for him. Like zombies. Erinyes has wings. Umibozu is a sea monster."
  
  She started to continue, but Savant interrupted. "Wait, you said before that your world had... my god, are you trying to say that whenever the fuckers disappear from our world, they're showing up on yours?"
  
  I nodded slowly, reeling from that. "We call them different things, but... yeah... it sounds like it."
  
  Savant stared at us, clearly not knowing what to say. "I... fuck, I was happy when they disappeared, but if it means sending them to some other Earth that's not already as fucked as ours is... damn it." He heaved a long sigh, obviously torn before continuing. "Anyway, around the same time that the Titans started shitting all over everything in their path, the Fate-Lords started to use their powers. If it wasn't for them and their Fate-Touched, humanity would probably be extinct by now."
  
  "The Fate-Lords," I put in. "They're people with powers?"
  
  He nodded once. "Incredible powers really. Those that survive their trial, well, they can do amazing things. Like I said, if it wasn't for them, we'd all be dead by now. Fate-Touched help keep everyone going and drive off the raiders, but the Lords are the only ones that do any actual damage to those fucking bastards." A derisive snort escaped him then. "Not that even they can do much."
  
  Theo was the next to speak, his voice hesitant but curious. "What do you mean by those that survive?"
  
  "Survive their trial?" Savant glanced toward the boy before answering. "A Fate-Lord, ahh, that's our catch-all term for male and female, by the way, their power is incredible. Sometimes it's too much for them to control. Or it just kills them because something was wrong with it. I had a friend. He was called as a Lord four years ago. His power let him grow to be taller than this building. Problem was, he felt it. He felt his bones growing, felt his muscles getting bigger. He only did it the one time, trying to fight off one of those monsters. The whole time he was growing, he just... screamed. He screamed and cried and just... laid there. He laid there while that Titan..." He trailed off, looking away from us for a few seconds before clearing his throat. "It's like that, sometimes. The power of the Fate-Lord goes wrong, or comes without any kind of safety and kills them before they figure out how to use it right. That's why we give such respect to the ones that survive, the ones that make it work. They've earned it, and they keep earning it every time they have to stall one of those giant cocksuckers until everyone else can get away."
  
  We were all quiet for a few long seconds after that, and I pictured the horror of a power without any kind of safety like his friend had experienced. What if my own power didn't come with breaker protections? Every time I tried to use it to jump around, I would feel the full acceleration and nausea of being flung around so much. The thought made me shudder by itself, to say nothing of what Savant's friend had gone through, experiencing that kind of body growth without any kind of pain dampener.
  
  Eventually, Reach asked, "What about the Fate-Touched? What are they, exactly?"
  
  "They're people like me," Savant answered. "We get powers that are sort of... inherited from Lords, usually the ones we spend a decent amount of time around or have a close relationship with, mostly family. They don't tend to be nearly as strong as the powers that the Lords get, and there's still a chance of things going wrong. But we still do what we can to help out."
  
  Marissa asked, "How many Fate-Lords and Fate-Touched are there?"
  
  Glancing toward her, Savant answered. "Fate-Lords? Maybe thirty, all around the world. Touched? Each Fate-Lord has anywhere between two and eight Touched with them."
  
  "That's..." I started to do the math in my head.
  
  "Between ninety and two hundred seventy powered people," Reach was faster. "In the whole world."
  
  I could sense Savant's frown as he stared at us. "Doesn't sound like that impresses you very much."
  
  "The city we come from, it's got one of the top ten highest cape-errr, empowered populations in the country," I explained. "And that's anywhere between seventy and a hundred. A few places have more."
  
  Poor Savant made a noise like he was choking. "A hundred Lords and Touched in a single city? No wonder you don't have as big of a problem with the Titans when they show up. Wait," he seemed startled. "Does that mean that you're all..." Trailing off, the man seemed to be staring at us in a new light. "Oh."
  
  There was an awkward silence for a few seconds before Theo broke it, speaking quietly. "Not having thirteen of them helps too." He shrugged a little awkwardly. "And the fact that they go away."
  
  Vista added, "And Scion. He's usually the deciding factor."
  
  I was pretty sure that Savant wanted to ask who we were talking about, but before he could, his head turned as though he was listening to someone over his radio. After a couple of seconds, he gave a short nod and then looked back to us. "Fate-Lord Hephaestus is ready to see you now." Nodding toward me, he added, "Then we'll get you to the healer, I promise."
  
  We followed him across the roof and down the ramp to the inside the parking garage proper. Down here, I could see a small village consisting of a mixture of tents and walls made of sheet metal, plastic, plywood, and even curtains. Dirty children ran back and forth yelling at one another, men and women both worked to wash clothes in a trough that had been set up, and in the distance I could see some teenagers sitting around a man who was obviously teaching them using an old chalk board.
  
  One floor further down from that was the garden. The entire floor of the garage had somehow been filled with dirt. There were tomatoes, carrots, peas, and more growing. I could also see a pen with some chickens, and another with a few sheep. Each new sight was a little more sobering, as the sheer impact of how these people were living, and had lived for awhile now, truly sank in. This was how they survived. For many of them, this was the only life they had ever known.
  
  The third level down was quieter. More temporary/hasty walls had been erected along the sides, though these looked slightly more defensible than the plywood that had been upstairs. I could see barbed wire at the top, as well as a few spots that were obviously meant to be manned by defenders in case any kind of attack (by a non-endbringer/titan, I assumed) made it inside the garage. There were also a couple of guards standing in plain view next to the chainlink gate that had been set up, obviously there to make sure no unauthorized people came in. They stepped aside as we approached, and I heard them muttering to one another about how we looked, wondering which Fate-Lord we worked for.
  
  Passing through the gate, we found more soldiers in an open space. They were being led through drills by a man in a suit similar to the one that Savant wore save for different coloration. The new one was green and white. He glanced our way for only a second before barking an order to the rest of his men to pay attention to him instead of us, launching into a rebuke of a soldier who kept staring for too long.
  
  "Don't be too hard on them, Roughshod." A new voice instructed. I turned to see an older Caucasian man with long dark hair wearing a pair of military fatigues and a long sleeved shirt that had seen better days. "They're just interested in the newcomers." He smiled at us then and extended a hand. "Afternoon. The people here call me Hephaestus, but mostly I prefer Andrew. Andrew Richter. And you are the visitors from another world."
  
  "You know about us already?" Vista asked.
  
  "Oh, I know a great many things," Richter answered easily. "Including the fact that you are our salvation."
  
  "Errr, salvation?" I put in, hesitantly.
  
  He nodded. "Indeed. Because we will aid you in returning to your world. We will ensure your safety here, and do everything in our power to make certain that you make it home safely.
  
  "And when you do leave this living hell behind, our people will go with you."
  
  31.03
  
  "So, how do you feel about Richter's plan?" I asked Savant a short time later as he led the five of us through a corridor constructed out of plywood and sheet metal. We were going to see their healer while we though about what had been proposed. The man had said that there was a lot more to talk about, but that we should get ourselves looked over and then have some food before he got into the details.
  
  "You mean how do I feel about the fact that the survival plan is basically 'run to a whole new world?'" Savant went quiet for a moment, clearly considering his answer. Finally, he shrugged. "It's not like there's a lot here to protect. Every year what's left of humanity keeps getting smaller and smaller. If we're not being massacred by the fucking Titans, we're killing each other."
  
  "Those people on the motorcycles," Vista asked hesitantly. "You called them raiders?"
  
  Savant nodded, pausing at a wood and plastic gate that looked like two of the things that my parents used to stick in doorways of the house to keep toddler me confined to a single room stacked on top of each other. He deftly unlatched the bit of wire holding it shut and gestured for us to precede him. "There's a bunch of different tribes. They call themselves different things, have different goals, but we call them all raiders, because that's what they do. They raid places like this. They're people that hunt other humans. They kill, torture, rape, whatever makes them feel better for a few minutes. Most of them figure the world's already turned into hell anyway, so why shouldn't they do whatever they want? Some... hate places like this, people living here like we do. They see any attempt to hold onto laws, structure, order as pointless. Hell, some of them even sacrifice people to the Titans. They think that if they please our new masters enough, offer enough sacrifice, that they'll be rewarded."
  
  Silence followed this for a moment before he continued, his voice sounding a little strained. "Others just want to have a little bit of 'fun' before the end. And some were just born into those tribes and never know anything more. Things may have been normal thirty years ago, but that's still a whole generation of us that grew up where this," he gestured around the area. "is the height of civilization."
  
  Theo's voice was strained, as if he was having a hard time coping with what we were hearing. "That's sick." His head shook. "Why do they have to make things worse? Aren't the Endb-Titans enough?"
  
  "Is it really that surprising?" Cassie asked him. "People make shit worse on our world. Look at the crazies that sprang up around the Nine, or our own Endbringer cults. Without real society to reign them in, some people just lose it. Of course a world that's as far down the toilet as this one is has a bunch of Jack Merridew wannabes running around murdering each other."
  
  Clearly confused, Savant asked, "I'm sorry, but who?"
  
  Before Reach could answer, Vista blurted, "Lord of the Flies. Hah!" She was pointing at Cassie. "We just had to do a book report on that one, so I actually understood that reference for once."
  
  "Never mind." Marissa waved a hand. "It's a book character." She changed the subject. "It sounds like you have personal experience with these raiders, if you know so much about their motivations."
  
  Savant was quiet for a few seconds, and I took the time to look around. We were in a corner area of the garage that had obviously been cleaned as much as possible. The floor was covered in plastic sheeting that had been nailed down, the walls were as uniform as possible, and on the far side of the area, about thirty feet away, there were a dozen cots along the walls with what looked like shower curtains dividing them to have some form of privacy. A few of the cots had people in them, most of whom were sleeping.
  
  "Yeah," Savant finally replied quietly. "I suppose I do. I was one of those raider kids, born out there in the wastes. My father, my real father, was one of the leaders of a tribe that called themselves Greyfangs. When I was seven years old, they raided a caravan and took a bunch of hostages. Hephaestus and his people went to rescue them, and picked me up in the process."
  
  "So he basically adopted you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at this news. "You don't seem savage."
  
  He snorted. "You should have been around when I first got here. I didn't know how to read or write anything, I kept trying to attack everyone, I kept hoarding food and picking fights. I was wild, and... angry. I was so angry at everyone, all the time. I wanted to kill before they killed me. It... took a long time, and a lot of patience from Richter, before I got better. He used to spend hours every day, teaching me every little thing about being a normal person. Or as normal as anyone can be these days."
  
  "And then you trig-err, you became a Fate-Touched," I realized. "From spending time with him."
  
  He nodded at that. "Like I said, Fate-Touched are usually people who are close to Fate-Lords. Often children or other family members. My own Artisan powers are minor compared to what Hephaestus can build, mostly limited to weapons I can hold in my hands." He indicated the scythe-sniper rifle on his back. "Hephaestus is only limited by the materials that we can scavenge. He designed our Arrowhead ships, and a lot of other things. Most of it's just blueprints that we don't have the materials for." A sigh escaped him then. "I think that kills him more than anything. He has these grand ideas, plans for weapons that might even challenge the Titans, but we can't do anything with them."
  
  Before we could say anything else, the gate at the far end of the room creaked open and a woman stepped through. She was an Asian woman who looked like she was in her late forties, and she carried a clipboard in one hand. When she saw us standing there, the woman offered a curious yet welcoming smile before holding a hand up for us to wait a moment. Then she stepped over to where the cots were and began to check in on her patients, making notations on her clipboard with a pencil.
  
  When she finished with the patients on the beds, the woman made her way over to us and extended a hand. "Hello, you must be the visitors that Hephaestus was talking about. I'm Chien."
  
  Greetings were exchanged before the woman began to shoo Savant, Sundancer, and Aid out of the room so that she could examine the rest of us to see what could be done. Marissa and Theo left only reluctantly, and with the promise that they would meet up with us after we were done. They would go on with Savant and learn more about this place.
  
  In the meantime, Chien had the three of us unmask so that she could do her job. It felt strange to unmask in front of a woman I barely knew and that hadn't been 'vetted' by the Protectorate as being safe, but we were in another world. It wasn't like she'd have any idea who we were.
  
  The woman washed the blood away from my face and fixed up the cuts and bruises there with some kind of antiseptic before bandaging my ribs under the costume, remarking that I would have been hurt much worse than I was if it hadn't been for the 'remarkable material.'
  
  Once that was done, she looked over the other two, then gave us some nasty tasting concoction to drink, explaining that there was a powerful Fate-Lord to the east whose abilities allowed him to melt down any material he touched to form a goop with various properties that he could choose from. Some of his goop was acidic, some applied beneficial strength or speed to those that ingested it, and some was explosive when exposed to sunlight. There were dozens of possibilities, one of which made his goop into a sort of fast-acting healer. He sold this goop to groups that could afford his prices. The problem was two-fold. First, it was expensive and rare, considering he could only make so much of the stuff which then had to be transported through dangerous, raider infested territory. And the second problem was that it only worked on other Fate-Lords or the Fate-Touched. In other words, the healing goop would only affect people with powers. Other people, like those in Chien's clinic, had to be healed the old fashioned way.
  
  With that in mind, I tried not to groan too much at the rancid taste of the concoction that was supposed to heal me. Sure, it was pretty nasty stuff, but at least it would work on me. These other people had to suffer knowing that there was a potion that could cure their injuries, if only they were one of the select, special few with powers. Hell, if I was them, I'd probably feel pretty resentful. Maybe too resentful.
  
  Resentful enough to turn against society? It was a sobering thought, because as much as I wanted to think that I would be understanding, I knew better than most where my attitude and selfishness could get me if I didn't keep them in check. It's a harsh realization to look at two groups of people, one upholding society and the other burning it down for their own selfish desires, and realize that you don't know which group you would have joined. Sure, I wanted to think that I could never do anything as bad as the raiders of this world did. But could I honestly say that there wasn't the slightest chance that I would ever be the kind of person that would do those things? If I was raised here, if I had grown up in a world devastated by over a dozen Endbringers, could I honestly say that I would never hurt innocents for my own gain? Could I swear to myself that I would have been on this side of the struggle?
  
  No, I couldn't say that. I truly didn't know. I'd seen the depths of what I was capable of in a world like mine, and it had led to the death of an innocent girl. In this world, under these circumstances... I honestly didn't know what kind of person I would have been.
  
  I had time to consider that grave thought for a minute while Missy and Cassie choked down their own medicine. Neither of them were as openly injured as I had been, but Chien said that it would help with the residual pain from what Dolor had done. Still, it meant that they only had to take a swallow of the nasty stuff, while I'd had to force down a whole cup while trying not to gag on it.
  
  "Keep the bandages on for a few hours," Chien instructed with a serious look. "The medicine will help, but it's not an instant cure. It speeds up your natural healing process. And be careful, because if you make your injuries worse, you'll ruin the work that it does. Understand?"
  
  We nodded, and she made a dismissive gesture with her hand. "Go on now, I have other patients. I'm sure that Andrew has things that he would like to talk to you about. Head straight out there, make a right and go down until you find the guard at the other corner. He should know where your friends are."
  
  Following those instructions after fixing our masks back into place, the three of us found our way through the level to where the guard was, and from there to another ramp that led down to a second living area. This one was almost identical to the level two floors up, only with even more children running around. In the distance, I was able to spot Theo's rather distinctive samurai-like armor standing out against the crowd of children that were hopping around, clamoring for a way to get closer to the little drones that he had buzzing over their heads. There were squeals of laughter and joy that reminded me of just what human beings could adapt to. Even in this... this horrible place, these kids could giggle and laugh. They were playing.
  
  "They are why we must leave this place." The voice of Andrew Richter spoke from behind us. He was standing on the ramp that we had come down a moment earlier, gazing at the kids that were jostling around with a wistful look on his face. "They deserve a better world."
  
  "Lots of people that live on this crapsack planet do," Reach pointed out. "They'll still be just as fucked after you guys leave. I mean, you're not trying to take everyone through the portal, after all."
  
  "That would be impossible," Richter confirmed, though he looked a little pained while doing so. "Even among the more civilized groups, we're too spread out, with little ability to communicate between us. With the Titans and the raiders, it's just too hard to get the word out safely. To say nothing of the groups that openly war against the others. Even now there's... prejudice and hatred based on stupid, ridiculous things that we all should have gotten over long before the Titans arrived."
  
  "We did send word to our nearest trading partners. They are... friends, a smaller group than ours, but with enough power to make the trip from their stronghold to ours. Or at least... I thought they did."
  
  I frowned at that, looking at the man. "Did something happen?"
  
  He started to shake his head, then hesitated before sighing. "Yes. I just received word that the people that were coming to join us have been... intercepted." Another look of pain crossed his face. "They abandoned their stronghold and were on their way here because I gave them hope. I told them there was a way off of this planet because I felt that they had been good enough allies that we owed it to them. And now they've been taken by raiders, a savage tribe that..." He looked away, head downcast. "You see the problem now? They are the closest group to us, and even they cannot reach us safely. Now they're being..." I saw a shudder of revulsion go through the man. "Never mind."
  
  "Isn't there anything you can do?" That was Marissa, stepping up behind me as she spoke with a voice full of concern. "I mean, can't you go after them?"
  
  If anything, Richter looked even more miserable. "If I send enough troops to rescue them from these savages, our own people would be left undefended. There are scouts for the raiders who constantly watch our stronghold. Weakening ourselves enough to do any good for the others would leave the people that I'm responsible for vulnerable. I can't do that to them."
  
  We were all quiet for a few seconds before Vista spoke. "We could go after them." When everyone looked that way, she shrugged. "It's what we do, right? Help people in trouble. They're in trouble. Big trouble, it sounds like."
  
  "Oh no." Richter was shaking his head. "I couldn't ask you to do that. This isn't your world, it's not your fight."
  
  "They're innocents, and they're in danger," I informed the man. "That makes it our fight."
  
  Theo joined us then alongside Savant. He was letting his flying drones play with the children. "What's our fight?"
  
  Sounding happy for the first time since we'd gotten here, Reach asked him, "You wanna help us save a bunch of innocent civilians from a pack of violent, murderous lunatics that get their rocks off by torturing and possibly eating people?"
  
  "Umm, I guess so," Theo replied. "But I could have sworn it wasn't Thursday yet."
  
  Savant spoke up then. "If this is about Zephyr's people, I'll go with them. I can guide them, and my power won't be missed that much here. You already send me out on scavenging expeditions all the time."
  
  "Are you sure?" Richter asked, clearly hesitant. "I... believe that it may have been your old tribe."
  
  Savant gave a noticeable flinch before nodding once, firmly. "All the more reason for me to go. They need my help."
  
  When Richter still looked hesitant, Savant reached up to unlatch his helmet, sliding it off while speaking more insistently. "Please, Hephaestus. I can do this. I need to do this."
  
  I was no longer paying attention to Richter's response, however. As soon as the helmet had come off, Savant's voice had changed dramatically. It became familiar, and my head whipped that way while my eyes opened wide upon a simple realization. Realization that was shared by everyone else around me, as gasps of recognition spread among us.
  
  He... was no he at all. The armor that she wore obviously bulked her up, made her look bigger than she actually was as well as it masked her voice. And I knew her. I knew Savant. Or rather, I knew the person that she was in our world. It wasn't her of course, but the name still spilled from my mouth, blurted out from my surprise.
  
  "Sophia?!"
  
  31.04
  
  "I know it's not really her." My voice was quiet, barely above a whisper as I stood there with my arms folded tight against my chest. "I know, I know it's not. She's older by at least a year, maybe two. But she looks like... I mean, she is... I mean if Sophia was a year or two older." I trailed off, sighing as my words continued to follow my thoughts around in circles, unable to form a coherent pattern.
  
  Marissa, who was standing at my back with her arms around me, squeezed a little. "I know, Mads. I know. It's definitely close. She was obviously born a bit earlier than Sophia, but the resemblance is... even closer than a sister. More like a twin that's slightly older. That is Sophia Hess in a couple years."
  
  The two of us were standing on the other side of the room. After my initial outburst, I had mumbled an apology while stumbling away. I'd needed to get away to clear my head, to swallow back the bile that had risen at the sudden and unexpected appearance of the girl who had killed my parents. Not her of course, but the appearance of her, the face. Savant had Sophia's face, and I needed a minute to adapt.
  
  Meanwhile, I could hear hushed voices as Reach, Aid, and Vista explained the situation to the clearly confused Savant and Richter. The former had shown no recognition when I called her Sophia, her only response being a blank, "Who?" Clearly even her name was different here. Yet her face was so close...
  
  We were quiet for a few seconds until we heard footsteps approaching. Glancing back that way, I saw Sop-Savant standing rather awkwardly with her helmet in one hand. "Listen," she started. "I don't know anything about this other girl. If there's some younger version of me running around doing bad shit, I hope..." She trailed off for a moment, looking conflicted before continuing. "I hope someone straightens her out the way that I was. If it hadn't been for Hephaestus, I'd be pretty fucking awful myself. Knowing myself, knowing the way I was, I can imagine... the kind of things that she's done. So if you don't want to help get Zephyr and her people back from the raiders, I understand. My troops and I, we can do it ourselves. We could spare that much manpower if you stay here and help protect the place while we're gone. That way you don't have to work with me, and Zephyr's people don't suffer."
  
  Cringing a little inwardly, both at the idea of backing out of helping people because of my own issues and at how tempting the idea was, I hesitated. It made a sort of sense, on the surface. Savant and her people knew this area, they knew the enemies, and they weren't helpless. On the other hand, there had to be a reason that hadn't been an option before, because I was pretty sure it would have occurred to Hephaestus. I thought about that briefly before asking, "How many troops could you take with you?"
  
  She shrugged one shoulder, avoiding my gaze. "Ten, maybe twelve, I guess?"
  
  Marissa caught my line of thought and asked, "These raiders, how many would you be facing if they were strong enough to capture Zephyr's people and hold them?"
  
  For a moment, Savant didn't answer. Then she sighed. "From what the scouts said, thirty armed human raiders, two fate-touched, and a Lord. If it's the tribe that I came from, the Greyfangs, the Lord will be Strix. He killed my real father about a year ago and took over."
  
  "Strix?" I echoed uncertainly. "What does he do, exactly?"
  
  This time, she did meet my gaze, her dark eyes unwavering. "He eats people. Mostly any Fate-Touched he can get his hands on. Or he drinks their blood and leaves them alive to work for him. When he drinks their blood, he gains their power at half strength for a few hours. When he... when he eats them though, when he consumes their heart, he gets the half strength power forever."
  
  I stared at her, mouth open. For once, I wasn't focused on how much she looked like Sophia. My voice sounded hollow to myself. "Feast. That sounds like Feast from our world, only even worse."
  
  Marissa found her voice again. "This Strix, is he an albino?" To Savant's blank look, she added, "I mean is he really, really pale with very light blonde, almost white hair?"
  
  "No," Savant shook her head. "Strix is black, like me. You mean you know someone with that ability?"
  
  "Let's just say we know someone who has similar tastes," I replied, suppressing the urge to vomit at the thought of anyone else like Feast being out there. Actually, from the sound of it, this guy was even worse. It sounded like some other guy with some variation of Feast's power.
  
  Taking a breath, I looked up again. "Be honest with me, you and ten or so of your men facing this Strix guy with his stolen powers, two of his fate-touched minions, and thirty raiders. What are the odds of you guys getting out of that alive, let alone saving anyone and getting them back here?"
  
  She flinched tellingly before snapping, "We have to try. We can't just leave Zephyr and her people with them. If Strix gets his hands on her, another Lord? There's- the things he might do are horrible."
  
  "I know," I assured her, trying not to let my voice break. "Trust me, if he's anything like the guy from our world, and it sounds like he's worse, then there's no way we'd just leave those people with him." Taking a long breath and letting it out, I added, "And there's no way I could live with myself if I let my personal issues with someone that you happen to look like get those people or yours killed, or worse. I can deal with it. I will deal with it. We'll help save Zephyr and her people, don't worry."
  
  Savant looked grateful for a moment before speaking. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry for anything that any version of me has done. I just-" She hesitated briefly as if she wasn't sure she should say anything else before pressing on. "I really do hope someone can help her like they helped me."
  
  "You come through the portal with us, maybe you can talk some sense into her," Marissa pointed out.
  
  That earned the briefest of smiles, barely a twitch of the dark-skinned girl's mouth before Reach and the others joined us. Cassie was stretching languidly. "So we're still doing it then?"
  
  "Yeah," I replied while looking toward Richter. "We're not trying to beat that whole tribe. We just want to get Zephyr and her people and get out again as fast as we can."
  
  The man nodded gravely. He didn't look happy about the prospect, but did nothing to stop us. I had a feeling that he was all too accustomed to sending people our age or even younger onto desperate missions against long odds. The fact that we all had powers was probably a step-up from the people he usually had to send out and then never hear back from. "Please be careful. I would..." He swallowed, looking a little more torn. "I would very much hate for our first contact with another world to require an explanation to those who care about you on the other side."
  
  "We'll do our best," Marissa assured the man. I felt her arms squeeze me a little tighter before she continued. "So, how do we rescue these people and get everyone back safe?"
  
  Richter's mouth quirked into a smile. "Well first, I thought we might start with a distraction..."
  
  "That is one hell of a distraction," Vista announced about an hour and a half later.
  
  "Uhhhh huh," Theo managed to reply rather dully, his voice betraying his awe.
  
  None of the rest of us said anything. We were too busy staring from the edge of the shattered remains of what had once apparently been a library. In the distance, Richter's 'distraction' hovered just behind the pile of rubble that had, at one point, been a freeway overpass.
  
  On our way over here, through the wreckage that in our world was still a thriving city called Albuquerque, New Mexico, the distraction had been four of Hephaestus's Arrowhead flying craft.
  
  Once our ride had dropped us off, however, the four vehicles had sort of... combined. Two had flattened out somewhat, extending their lengths by almost a third while growing smaller in height. A complicated series of mechanisms had connected the two into a side-by-side position, forming one whole. Meanwhile, the third craft had literally split itself in half, attaching one piece to each side of the combined two, now flatter craft. The halves were angled at a sight downward slant, noticeably larger in the back than the front. Finally, the fourth craft had lowered itself in to lock into place on the semi-flat surface that the first two combined craft had created, tucked in between the separated sides of the third craft, which themselves looked almost like the treads of a tank in that position. The fourth craft, once it was locked on, extended the side walls of itself outward and up to create a shielded area while the front cockpit portion had slipped backward and down, concealing itself beneath the now layered armor that folded down slightly once the cockpit was in place to cover it protectively.
  
  Finally, the four enormous gun barrels that had been on top of each craft rose into place, settling into their positions alongside one another on the very top of the machine. All of them were mounted on a swivel that allowed three hundred and sixty degrees of motion, moving independently from the others so that all four could fire in roughly the same direction (as far apart as the shape and size of the barrels forced them to be), or in four completely separate directions on all sides of the craft.
  
  The result, hovering in the distance, was a massive hover-tank of some kind with four different barrels, hovering within a few hundred yards of the building that Richter's scouts had identified as where the raider tribe had taken their new hostages. Only the massive pile of broken concrete from the overpass and abandoned, rusted out cars surrounding it hid the craft from sight of their lookouts.
  
  "If that's what Hephaestus considers a distraction," I managed to say, "I really think he might be overestimating just how effective and dangerous we are."
  
  Savant shook her head, helmet back in place. "It's big and loud, but that won't be enough. We don't need big and loud, we need fast and quiet. We need to get in, get Zephyr and her people, and get out again before most of Strix's people have a chance to realize what's happening. The Dragon will make enough noise and distraction to get their attention, but the rest is up to us."
  
  I blinked at that, looking to him. "That's what he calls that thing? Dragon?"
  
  Nodding, Savant glanced toward me. "That's right, why?"
  
  Smiling a little in spite of myself and the situation, I shrugged. "Let's just say it makes me feel a little bit better to have something with that name watching our backs."
  
  The others murmured agreement, and Savant pointed down a rubble-filled alley running between a somehow remarkably preserved grocery store, and the single wall that was all that remained of the building beside it. "We have to hurry and get into position before the Dragon starts its attack. It won't fire at the building where the prisoners are, but once it fires a few shots in the general area, those bastards should come running. Once they do, we go in the back, fast and hard."
  
  With that in mind, we ran together down the alley. Aid was using his drones to scan the area ahead of and around us, making sure we weren't watched during our approach, with the images being sent to the screen inside his helmet. Every once in awhile, he held up his hand and we waited until whatever his drone had spotted that time went away before continuing.
  
  Eventually, we picked our way through the ruined streets to the back of what had obviously been an office building at one time. The top half of the building had been sheared off by something, and the rest had fallen into severe disrepair, but it was still standing.
  
  As we crouched down on the opposite side of a low wall, Theo whispered, "Two guards standing near the back door. Looks like they're talking to each other, not really paying attention. Ummm, above them there's a guy on the roof-errr, the top of what's left of the place anyway, but I think he was about to move. Hang on a second, I need to check... err, yeah." A slight sigh escaped him then. "I wish Oversight was here. She's better at watching multiple drone cameras at once."
  
  "Shush," Reach nudged him with her elbow. Not that it did much through the armor that he wore other than make her wince. "You're doing just fine."
  
  "She's right," I agreed. "Besides, Oversight cheats by virtue of her power being complete bullshit."
  
  "I think he's gone now," Theo eventually spoke again after checking on the image from his drones. "The guy on the roof, I mean. Yeah, it's clear. The other two are arguing about something."
  
  I looked to Marissa, who nodded. "Sounds like that's the best chance we're gonna get. Savant?"
  
  The girl who looked so much like a slightly older Sophia responded with a thumbs up while using her own radio. "Dragon, do a five count and then give them something to pay attention to."
  
  Over the subsequent five seconds, we braced ourselves. If this was going to work without resulting in the deaths of all the people we were trying to save, we needed to do it just right.
  
  I was still on an internal count of one when a deafening boom erupted. The earth itself seemed to shake beneath our feet while a building a half block to the west from our target shuddered and crumbled under the weight of four simultaneous cannon blasts. Even though I had been expecting the attack, part of me still wanted to do nothing but hug the ground and possibly cry a little.
  
  Instead, I forced myself to jump up and over the wall that we had been using as cover. In the distance, across a small parking lot, the two raiders that Aid had seen had whirled toward the explosion. Both were dressed similarly to the ones I had seen before, with lots of leather, spikes, and a frankly absurd amount of buckles. Before they could notice me, I attached a line between the knock-out dart on my extended gauntlet and one of the men, connecting it to part of his shirt that wasn't covered in spikes or leather.
  
  Beside me, Reach directed her own dart as well, aiming for the other man. They were both hit almost simultaneously, and had time to look at one another before the drugs in the darts put them down.
  
  Then all of us were running across the lot. In the distance, I could hear men shouting back and forth, as well as the sounds of running feet and slamming doors. They were rushing out to deal with the threat of the Dragon craft, leaving us free to go in the back and extract the prisoners.
  
  At the door, Reach slapped her hand against it before making a gesture that tore the whole thing away along with part of the wall itself. Then Aid sent his drones in through the opening to scout ahead, with Savant following close behind. Theo went after her, followed by Sundancer. Reach folded the metal door up in half and made it float ahead of her before heading in as well. Finally, I brought up the rear, keeping an eye out for any lines that might have popped up.
  
  We came into what had obviously been a doctor's waiting room at one point, back when this building had been intact. Well, to be precise, we were standing in what had been the hallway that had been outside of the waiting room, but the wall that should have separated corridor from office space was long gone. I could see the area where people had waited, and even the nasty, probably infested remains of the chairs and couch that had been there. Ahead there was the low counter where the receptionist had sat, and beyond that the rooms where patients had gone. So many of the walls in this area were either missing entirely or had large holes in them that I could see into all of them.
  
  The medical office was empty, save for a single body that lay on the floor, missing his head. Savant's scythe was bloody as she raised it to point down the hall. "Keep going."
  
  We continued further into the building, bypassing the empty medical offices. The pounding of the Dragon craft's continued distraction fire went on, making it difficult to even try to talk to one another, but we pressed forward. Two more men appeared and were dealt with, the first by a jolt of elecricity from Aid's mace weapon, and the second through the meeting of his head with the remains of the metal door that Reach had brought with her.
  
  Thirty seconds or so after we first entered the building, the corridor abruptly ended, revealing an area that looked like some kind of unfinished basement with cement floor and walls everywhere. I didn't know what this place had been before the building had been destroyed, but now it was some kind of stronghold.
  
  Or a prison, I realized. There were wire cages along both walls, like the kind that large dogs were stored in at the pound. People were in these cages, stuffed inside without enough room for even one of them to stand up, barely enough room for a full grown man to sit with his head ducked down. And they weren't alone in these cages. There were two, three, or even four people crammed into each. They looked dirty, scared, and hopeless.
  
  On the far end of the room, a woman with long blonde hair stood. I realized with a start who she was an instant after seeing her. It was Lady Photon, Mrs. Pelham.
  
  "Zephyr!" Savant called. "Don't worry, we-"
  
  A black line rose up, attaching itself to the blonde woman. As soon as it did, I attached a line to yank her away from where she was standing. But even as she started to be yanked to safety, a wiry, dark-skinned arm wrapped around her throat from behind to hold her in place, resisting the pull. The woman cried out in pain as she was almost yanked in half from the pull, just before blood blossomed across the front of her pale blue shirt. I was forced to watch in horror as a dark hand shoved forward through her chest, holding something within it. Her heart, still pumping futilely.
  
  "Zephyr!" Savant screamed, along with a few of the prisoners.
  
  Her body fell, cast aside by the thin, wiry and unassuming looking young man who had been behind her. He didn't look particularly impressive, standing barely five foot seven inches and wearing a simple pair of black slacks and a white tee shirt that was splattered with blood. He even wore a pair of glasses.
  
  "Boy, you know," the man spoke with a tone of thoughtfulness. "I heard that before everything went to hell, they used to have these delivery services that would bring food all the way to your house, without you even getting off the couch. But I never thought I'd get to see it . This is..." He trailed off before looking around the room at the caged prisoners. "All right, be honest, which of you guys tried to get on my good side by ordering me lunch? Was it you, Murray? I knew that whole bit with your son and those rats was a good motivator."
  
  With a bellow of rage coupled with grief, Savant practically flew across the room at the man, charging forward while pulling her weapon free.
  
  Patently unconcerned, Strix lifted the heart that he had torn from this world's version of Sarah Pelham and bit into it while remarking, "Oh good. Dinner and a show.
  
  "This is going to be fun."
  
  31.05
  
  With rage and grief that I understood far too well, Savant literally threw herself at the unimpressive-looking man who stood across the room holding the partially-eaten heart of her maternal figure. Even as she brought her scythe up however, I could see the black line extending toward her.
  
  Not again. I had failed, failed to save Zephyr. Even though I didn't know the woman at all, an ugly and painful sense of loss settled into my stomach. Failure. We had been abducted by Sovereign and his freaks, seen far too many innocent girls killed while resisting those bastards, and then ended up on this alternate Earth. And after all that, Sovereign had escaped any judgment by ending his life on his own terms. He'd killed himself rather than go back and face the Simurgh, which was another problem that we had to worry about. How were our loved ones doing back in our world?
  
  And now we had this to deal with. Seeing the black line rise up to link itself to Savant was the last straw. I didn't even think that time before setting a new line between the floor and the grief-stricken older girl. A quick shove knocked her higher and out of Strix's reach.
  
  Yet, even as I did so, he was bending to leap up. As with Zephyr, the man seemed to, if not know what I was doing, at least have a vague idea. One of the powers that he had stolen must have included some sort of awareness or warning that let him react to things that he shouldn't have been able to react to. He was starting to jump even before I shoved the girl higher.
  
  Savant, however, was far from helpless. The second her leap went off course and sent her straight up rather than forward, she flipped the scythe around. It shifted and adjusted itself into its rifle form, pointed straight down at the psychopath that was reaching for her leg before firing off a shot.
  
  Strix took the shot in the face, which slammed him back toward the ground where he rolled with the impact and came up onto one knee with an exhilarated laugh. His glasses had been shattered and lay in pieces on the ground, but his face seemed unblemished considering he had just taken a point blank shot from a powerful tinker-tech rifle. "Whoo!" He bellowed. "Better than coffee in the morning! Why don't you hit me again and see if you can clear up my sinuses, huh?! I think-"
  
  I didn't particular care what his next words were going to be. I had already launched myself into his path using a trio of lines that first sent me forward, then adjusted my course to go up and then straight down. My foot hit the man in the face, and it was like hitting a concrete wall. I bounced off, used a line to catch myself, then rolled underneath the man's backhanded swing.
  
  He spun toward me, just in time to take several small laser shots from a trio of Aid's floating drones. They did hardly anything other than briefly distract the man, but Reach used that distraction well. A portion of the wall she had just touched ripped itself free and slammed into Strix's back. The hunk of wall shattered apart upon impact, but the force knocked him forward a step. Which, thanks to Vista's reworking of the space in front of the man, actually sent him backwards to their side of the room.
  
  Aid extended that mace of his to the spot where Strix was being funneled, triggering a button that sent out some kind of kinetic shockwave out. When the wave hit the man, it made him stumble once more toward the small sun that Marissa already had ready.
  
  Instead of hitting the thing, however, the man gathered himself in mid-stumble and leapt upward and back away from it. He threw out a hand in the process and sent a blast of air that knocked Marissa, Aid, and Reach to the floor. Vista had already pulled herself out of the way.
  
  "Oooh, sorry!" The man laughed like he was having a grand old time, even giving an excited little spin. "I do like that old Walking On Sunshine song, but I think it's supposed to be more of a metaphor!" Savant had landed by that point. Her reply to the man's words was to switch the rifle back to its scythe-form and lash out at him with an inarticulate cry. He avoided the first blow and caught the second before shoving the weapon up and out of the way to expose the girl to his counter attack.
  
  Before he could lash out with a blow of his own however, Savant gave a yank on the spot of the handle where the trigger was when it was in rifle form. The handle literally pulled free from the rest of the weapon, revealing what looked like a smaller handgun shaped weapon that was detached from the main scythe. The barrel was only a few inches long, but wider than an ordinary pistol. Lifting it with one hand, she fired three times into the man's face in rapid succession, forcing him to release her primary weapon while he staggered back. Once her scythe was released, Savant caught it, replaced the hold-out pistol back into its proper location, then kicked herself up and over the man to land behind him.
  
  She was opening him up for Marissa to use her sun again, I realized. Even in her grief, after the initial headlong rush, she was thinking tactically once more. She was trying to give us another opening.
  
  Somehow, the man could sense danger or something. That had to be how he was reacting to this stuff so quickly. He had some way of realizing what we were trying to do. But no matter how good his awareness, hitting him from enough sides had to overwhelm it, right? We just had to keep trying.
  
  He was swinging a fist toward Savant when I used a line to throw myself into his path. My foot lashed out to hit the man's elbow in mid-swing, knocking his blow off course in spite of his superior strength.
  
  A second after I landed, the man made an 'up' gesture with one hand as if lifting something. Reach shouted a warning as he did so and I immediately threw myself up and backwards, yanking my head out of the way just as a concrete spike as big as I was formed itself out of the floor and shot upward. If I had waited any longer, it would have impaled me.
  
  On the back of the vertical concrete spike that rose into place where I had been, a horizontal spike appeared. I saw the point of it just in time, throwing myself up and out of the way as it speared outward toward me once again. My jump brought me down on top of the new horizontal spear-like bit of concrete, and I ran along it for a few steps while smaller spikes jolted up and out of it, trying to catch me off guard. After the third step, I used a line to shoot myself up and off the thing right as two larger spikes shot out of it from either side. They were aimed upward at a diagonal slant which meant that even with my jump, they would have caught me if Vista hadn't chosen that moment to twist the space between me and the spikes. The twisted space sent the spikes into one another where they shattered.
  
  With another line, I yanked myself down while Savant went after Strix with a series of fast blows from her scythe that made him stumble backward from the sheer force and fury of her attack. I put myself directly behind the man, using a line-empowered punch to lash out toward the small of his back.
  
  Yet again, the man sensed the attack coming and twisted aside. His foot came up and around toward my head, but I dropped into a roll to go underneath it. The man's foot hit the vertical concrete spike he had created instead, putting a hole through it as if it was made of flour.
  
  Meanwhile, my dive put me in between him and Savant, who quickly arrested her attack before it would have hit me. She flipped the scythe around into gun form, while making an indication with her hand toward me. Following her lead, I used a line to give her a boost into the air. She fired a shot down toward the man, but a concrete shaft grew out of the nearby wall to cover his head and take the hit.
  
  The half-broken vertical spike that the man had created that had nearly impaled me before tore itself free of the ground, and I saw Reach standing on the other side of it with her hand out. The shaft shattered itself apart into several dozen pieces, all of which started pelting the man from every side. Bam, bam, bam, they slammed into the man and shattered apart into puffs of concrete dust with force that would have flattened a rhino, yet barely seemed to draw his attention.
  
  Reach, however, wasn't done. She still had control of the resulting dust. It floated back up and around, clogging itself into the man's face to choke him until he used a gust of wind to blow it all away.
  
  The seconds it took for him to do that, however, were enough for Marissa to put herself in his path. The time that she had spent with the Protectorate had given my girl enough control over her power that she was able to summon a small sun that was only as large as a softball. It enveloped her right fist as she swung a punch at the man that he was too slow to dodge. While Marissa didn't have any kind of enhanced strength, the sheer heat that her miniature sun was giving off as it stayed perched right on her fist tore through the man's defenses. He shrieked in agony and jerked backward. I could see the muscle and bone in his left shoulder where Marissa's blow had nailed him. Unfortunately, it was already closing up before my eyes. She had hurt him, but he was healing incredibly fast.
  
  He was also rather pissed off. I saw the black line rise up to Mars, and quickly yanked her out of his path just as half a dozen concrete spikes from every direction converged on her into a tangle that would have torn her apart if my line hadn't pulled her straight to me instead.
  
  She landed next to me, and the two of us exchanged knowing glances but no words. By that point, we didn't have to talk to know what the other person was thinking. We just knew.
  
  At the same time, the furious but now fully healed Strix was spinning back toward us. His hand was extended, and he sent a blast of air straight at us. Aid, however, took a step into the path of the thing with his shield held up. The shield projected a forcefield that forced the wind to go out and around it. Large holes were punched into the parts of the walls that were hit by the deflected wind, giving me some idea of what would have happened if they had hit Sundancer and me without Aid's help.
  
  "Thanks," I breathed before warning lines promptly me into quickly using three different lines to yank us out of the way in various directions as more spikes shot down from the ceiling.
  
  Strix shouted some kind of threat, but before he could move, I saw several long lengths of wire mesh shoot in from either side of him. The walls of the cages that had held all of his prisoners, I realized belatedly. Reach had touched all of them and freed the people within, who were even now scrambling for the exit. The pieces of the cages wrapped themselves around his arms and legs before pulling taut to hold him in place. He struggled, and I could see the chains breaking under his efforts. One by one, the bits of wire snapped apart down the line, and with each flex of his arms, he could move them more.
  
  Not soon enough, however, before a by-now familiar whoof sound filled the air as Vista unleashed one of the tinker-tech pistols she had taken off of Ferrarius. Yet again, the man demonstrated that he knew the attack was coming, since a wall of concrete rose out of the ground in between himself and Vista.
  
  Unfortunately for him, the shot from the tinker gun didn't seem to particularly care what was between it and its target, since the hastily formed wall shattered apart under the force of it, and Strix was still blasted across the room to hit the far wall like a bug slamming into a car windshield.
  
  Even then, however, he still wasn't down. Bloodied and angry, but not down. He dropped to the floor and shoved himself back up again, calling to find out if that was all we had.
  
  It was Savant who answered him by coming in low with a swing from her scythe that hit the back of his knees. The force of it knocked his legs out from under him, but he used an air gust to throw himself up and over her, lashing out with a counter kick of his own that would probably have punted her head off if I hadn't reacted to the warning line that came up by yanking her out of the way.
  
  Even as the man was landing from his aerial dodge, three more spikes formed and shot upward at Savant. She leapt onto one and used it as a platform to flip away from the other two. In mid-jump, the girl flipped her weapon back around to the gun and fired off a shot that hit Strix in the face. It didn't hurt him, but it did snap his head around and directly into the path of Aid's descending mace. That blow snapped the his head back the other direction, just in time for Reach to send one of the man's own concrete spikes flying fast enough into his face that his head was snapped backward with enough force to break his neck.
  
  And still it wasn't enough. He jerked his head up once again, already healing from the damage that had been done. "Still ticking!" He called out. "And also being ticked off, quite frankly!"
  
  "Babe," Marissa spoke quietly, pointing with one hand while she held her sun covered fist close to her body. "Give me a boost?" She looked toward Reach. "One more time with the chain?"
  
  Reach and I both nodded. The mangled remains of the lengths of wire mesh that Reach had controlled earlier, whatever was left after the shot from Vista's gun had pulverized most of it, shot outward. Strix tried to avoid them, but turning one direction put him face to face with Aid's extended shield, and when he spun the other way he took a shot to the chest from Savant's gun that made him stagger backward.
  
  Then the chainlink mesh was around him. He fought, clearing his way free even sooner than the last time.
  
  Before he could fully yank himself free however, I attached a line to Marissa and sent her flying toward him. Just as she reached the man, the blonde woman lashed out with her sun-covered hand. This time, she aimed for his face. Her blazing fist literally tore halfway through the man's face, instantly burning out his eyes while he shrieked in agony.
  
  Rather than give him a chance to retaliate, I instantly reversed the line, pulling Marissa away from him. She hit the ground and dropped as Vista stepped forward once more. This time, the stolen tinker-tech pistol blew the screaming man through the wall, pulverizing it and sending him flying backwards through the opening. He hit the street outside the building and bounced once before skidding to a stop.
  
  We were out there a second later, unwilling to give the man a chance to escape after all that. He staggered to his feet, and I could see where the ruined remains of his face were already stitching themselves back together. His eyes were still bloody, red holes that had been scorched away, but they were fixing themselves right before our gazes.
  
  "Is that it?!" The man bellowed in fury, the agony in his voice evident in spite of his words. "Is that all you've got?! Is that everything you can throw at me, huh?! I said is that all you've got!"
  
  Before the rest of us could move, Savant spoke up with a cold, decisive voice. "No." She took two steps forward, extending the scythe toward and past him.
  
  "We also have a Dragon."
  
  As if sensing what was coming, the man spun around. By that time, his eyes must have grown in just enough for him to make out the massive, hazy shape of the Dragon tank as it aimed all four of its enormous barrels at him from near point-blank range.
  
  He made a noise as if to speak, but the Dragon spoke first, and it spoke with a finality that forever ended any and all comments from the man called Strix.
  
  Interlude 31 - Regional PRT Director Peyton Simms
  
  "Yes, Governor, we're doing absolutely everything we can to locate them. I will certainly let you know if we have any more information. Thank you, sir, I'll be sure to pass along your encouragement. Yes, the moment we find out anything concrete, you have my word. Have a good night, sir."
  
  It was three in the morning, and Peyton Simms was still working. He wasn't at his office, of course, since the PRT building had been flattened by the Simurgh during her thankfully fairly brief visit.
  
  Instead, the man had been operating out of an office in the PCIPS building, where Medhall had been before all of their assets had been seized by the government upon the revelation of Kaiser's identity.
  
  The phone on the desk buzzed shortly after he disconnected from the call with the governor, and a pleasant female voice spoke up. "Director? I have that list you were asking for."
  
  Reaching out with a hand, he hit the button to reply. "Thank you, Sierra. Bring it in, please."
  
  There was a brief acknowledgment, and then the door to his borrowed office opened and his current assistant, a twenty-one year old pale girl with long red dreadlocks that seemed at odds with her professional manner of dress, stepped in with a dark green binder.
  
  The moment the girl appeared, the tinker-tech glasses that Simms wore assessed everything she wore, classified any potential weapons (none), estimated combat capability based on her movements, build, stance, and a dozen other factors that he wasn't even fully aware of (minor self-defense mandated for being an employee here), and even alerted him to things such as how tired she was and what she'd eaten most recently. All of the information along with her name, age, and other physical details was displayed on the inside of the glasses, though none of it would be visible from the other side. He could dismiss or call up any further information with various flicks of his eyes.
  
  She waved the binder in his direction before setting it on the desk. "You know I could have e-mailed that whole thing to you in about two seconds, right, sir?"
  
  He met her gaze with a guilty smile while laying his hand on the folder. "I like information that I can hold in my hand. It feels more real. Plus," he hefted the thick folder. "Having a few of these things around can be handy if some nefarious ne'er-do-wells come looking for trouble." He demonstrated by swinging the binder as if it was a weapon.
  
  Sierra arched an eyebrow. "Did you really just use the phrase nefarious ne'er-do-wells, sir?"
  
  He used the binder to point at her. "Hey, ne'er-do-well is a perfectly legitimate term."
  
  The girl made an noncommittal noise before adding. "Besides, I thought that's what that thing was for." She nodded toward the nearby coat rack, where his gunbelt hung.
  
  "That?" He shook his head. "Nah, that's for shooting assistants that question my vocabulary choices."
  
  Blanching, the girl gave a short nod. "Right, sorry. I think I'm just-"
  
  "Tired." The man smiled a little. "You're tired, I get it. But don't worry about it, Sierra. Tired or not, if it really bothered me, I wouldn't have said what I did. And if I was the type that that was that sensistive about things like that, I definitely would have asked you to get rid of those." He nodded to her dreads.
  
  She touched her hair briefly, hesitating before asking, "Why didn't you? Why did you even offer me this job in the first place? Hell, how did you even get them to approve me? Shouldn't the assistant to the PRT director be umm, an actual PRT agent? I mean, aren't there a bunch of them that are actually qualified that would kill to be your assistant?" The girl paused then before adding, "And speaking as the person currently holding that position, I really hope that kill part isn't literal."
  
  "Why'd I give you the job?" Simms leaned back in his seat briefly, considering the girl. "Because you can do the work. I'm a pretty good reader of people, and you're the right person. As far as being qualified goes, well, our supply of trained and certified agents is pathetically low at the moment. I'd prefer to keep all of the ones that we have left out on cases and doing that kind of work instead of sitting behind a desk waiting to fetch me coffee or print something out. And as for the hair, well, let's just say I think people maintaining their individuality is important. Besides," he added with a small smile. "The Protectorate happens to be our bosses now, remember? It's hardly fair for me to call out my assistant for having her hair in dreadlocks when the people at the top run around in colorful tights."
  
  Softening his voice somewhat, he continued. "You're doing a good job, Sierra. Don't worry so much. If I have a problem with something you're doing, I'll tell you before it gets to be an issue. And if things need to turn completely serious with no joking around, I'll let you know. Maybe we can have some kind of codeword. Any ideas on that front?"
  
  "A codeword for things needing to be serious?" Sierra thought briefly before offering, "Fishpants?"
  
  It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. "Your idea of a word used to signal that everything should be serious is... fishpants?"
  
  "You're right," she admitted. "Bad idea. I'd be trying way too hard to make a serious situation so that I could see you find a way to work the term fishpants into a real conversation."
  
  "We'll work on it." Chuckling slightly, he pointed to the girl. "Now, it's after three in the morning already. I told you to go home two and a half hours ago, didn't I?"
  
  Looking guilty, Sierra shrugged. "I wanted to finish getting all that information for you before I left. I like this job, sir. I wanted to do it right."
  
  "Like I said," he assured her, "you're doing just fine. Now go home, Sierra. Get some sleep. I don't want to see your ID badge sign back into this building for at least ten hours, got it? Go sleep."
  
  She was nodding and turning to the door even as he finished talking. He heard her yawn on the way out. "G'night, sir. Umm, at the risk of invoking fishpants, you should get some sleep too."
  
  Smiling faintly, Simms gave a single bow of his head in acknowledgment. "Don't you worry, I'm sure Elliot will have me out the door within the hour. Have a good night, Sierra. Or morning, as it were."
  
  She was gone a minute later, and he turned his attention to the binder that the girl had left behind. Simms often wondered about the employees of Medhall. Not the Empire Eighty-Eight plants, but the average, every day employees who hadn't known anything about Anders' dual identity and had simply been doing their jobs. They'd had careers at this place, entire lives built around a corporation that had pretty much simply ceased to exist over the course of a day or two. They hadn't been Nazis, or supervillains. They had just been living their lives until it had all been yanked away from them. One day they were employed and rising in their careers, and the next day all of it was gone. The doors had been chained shut and everything was locked down. Through no fault of their own, they were unemployed. And, for some, almost unemployable. Never mind their qualifications, they had worked for a supervillain, however unknowingly. Most places wouldn't look at them twice once that came out.
  
  That's what the binder was about. He'd asked Sierra to compile a list of all the former Medhall employees who had been cleared of any wrongdoing, eliminate anyone who had found gainful employment elsewhere, and provide him with everyone that remained, along with as many details as she could dig up using the expansive resources of the PRT and PCIPS.
  
  Next, he would pass the information that she had compiled over to the human resources manager of the PRT and ask her to look it over and find out if there were any positions they could offer some of those people, either in the building or at one of their front organizations. That was the real reason for why he'd wanted the information printed out and organized into a binder. Ruth, the woman in HR, was notorious her hatred of technology and insistence on clinging to old ways. He hoped that by using the binder, he could bypass her usual arguments and start off on her good side.
  
  His attention was broken away from his study of the binder contents as a fist rapped lightly on the doorjamb. The man who stepped into view was in his mid-thirties, with black hair that fell to his shoulders. There was a slight hint of Hispanic heritage in his appearance, and he held out a white paper bag from which utterly enticing smells were wafting, shaking it to make Simms was paying attention.
  
  "Ooh, I didn't know you were bringing food with you, Elliot." Simms admitted, rising from his chair.
  
  The other man shook his head. "Now see what I'm going to do?" He turned on his heel and started to walk back out the door. "I'm going to take this home and enjoy it aaaaall by myself."
  
  Wincing, Simms stepped around his desk and caught the man by the arm. "Okay, okay, I get the point. I'm heading out now, promise. I was just hoping that something about Tether and the other missing capes would come up." Leaning in, he gave the other man a very brief kiss. "Not mad at me?"
  
  Smiling after the kiss, Elliot shook his head. "Nope, but if you hadn't followed me, I would have had to send in the heavy artillery." His voice lowered. "I'd call my mother."
  
  Both men shuddered at that thought, and Simms turned back to grab his gun belt and suit jacket. Slipping them on, he started to walk out of the office with his husband.
  
  The two of them used the elevator, and were on their way through the parking garage in the basement level when Simms noticed a figure standing next to his car. A figure that was very familiar, and also extremely worrying. He put a hand out to stop Elliot before speaking up, trying his best to keep his voice as steady as possible. "Your majesty?"
  
  Sure enough, the cloaked figure of Glaistig Uaine floated into the nearby light. Though he couldn't see her face very well through the veil that she wore, he thought she looked... concerned. When she spoke, her many-voices chorused together through the mostly empty garage. " You are the one who leads what the humans consider the... security police that have attached themselves to the Fae."
  
  It was not a question, but he still nodded. "Yes, your majesty. Would you mind if I thank you for what you did before? We would have been in a lot more trouble if you hadn't stopped the Simurgh."
  
  Beside him, Elliot had stiffened as soon as their visitor revealed herself, but remained silent.
  
  " I did not come for your gratitude," the figure admonished Simms, though it was gentle. " Nor should you expect repeated instances of my aid. I have come for recompense. I have come for information."
  
  "Tether," he guessed. "You want to know where she is." When the veiled head nodded once, he sighed. "I'm very sorry, your majesty, but I don't think I have any more information than you already do. If I knew, I would tell you. Trust me, I'm not in the habit of lying to people of your caliber."
  
  " You are frightened of me." The figure drifted closer, something akin to amusement in her tone.
  
  "With all due respect, fucking petrified, your majesty," he admitted. "But that's not why I'd tell you if I knew anything. I've been threatened by a lot of very scary people. You're probably the scariest person I've been face to face with, but the reason I'd tell you if I knew is that I care about what happens to those kids. I care, and I think you do too, in your own way. I know you care about bringing Tether back. Not sure why, or what your endgame is, but I do believe that you want to help her right now. And I don't think anyone on this planet has as good of a chance of making sure she and the others make it back here safe than you do. So if I had anything I could tell you, I would."
  
  The small figure seemed to study him curiously for a few long seconds before nodding finally, as if accepting his words. " The True Healer and those with her have gone from this sphere. They have entered another, one disconnected from all the rest. One which none of the sleepers may touch." There was a hint of frustration in her voice, and he had the feeling that she'd been trying for some time to break through to that other world. She must have, if she had lowered herself to asking him for information.
  
  "We're working on repairing the damage that was done to the portal system," he informed her then. "The explosion came through from the other side, and we lost all contact with them at that point. It's taking a long time, because it's technology that none of the tinkers who have looked at it are familiar with. They think they can piece it back together, but it'll take time."
  
  " Tinker. " He could definitely hear the distaste in her voice that time. " Such a crude and ugly term to describe Daedalus's Children." She floated up closer, and he resisted the urge to shrink away from the veiled figure as she brought herself right up in front of his face. " When the doorway has been repaired, you will alert me by contacting the Metis Phoenix."
  
  His mouth opened, then shut. "Ah, deep apologies, your majesty, but... who?"
  
  Her head tilted slightly and that same distaste entered her voice. " To you, I believe she is known as Dragon."
  
  "Ah," he filed that one away. "The Metis Phoenix, of course." Clearing his throat, Peyton Simms met the dangerous figure's eyes as much as he could. "You have my word, Faerie Queen. The moment the doorway is repaired, or we find out any concrete and useful information about Tether's location, I will ask Dragon to contact you." He hesitated then before adding, "May I assume that this means you'll be returning to your... habitat?"
  
  " My people have needs," she confirmed. " I will return and see to them for the time being. When the time comes, I will assist in returning the True Healer to her proper place."
  
  Without another word, she simply vanished from his sight. He blinked twice, looking around before turning to the man next to him, frowning with worry. "Are you all right?"
  
  Elliot hesitated, then nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'll be fine. But did I miss something, or did she just casually talk about going back into the Birdcage and then leaving again as if it was never the slightest inconvenience to begin with?"
  
  "You know what?" Simms was already using his phone to contact Laserdream. As new and untested a leader as the girl was, she needed to hear about this as soon as possible. They could talk to Dragon together. While it rang, he looked over to his husband and continued.
  
  "I'm pretty sure it never was."
  
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  Arc 32: Quest
  Notes: Imageination - I might have been teasing a little bit, even if the Travelers aren't really a 'thing' anymore.
  
  RoxasGuyXIII - Here's hoping you enjoy how this arc goes then. ;)
  
  HellKing666 - This chapter is the last one in the alternate universe. And as far as Taylor goes, the short version is that any incarnation of Taylor would have been so completely different from the actual Taylor that people would want to see that she might as well have been a complete OC with absolutely nothing linking them save for the name. After all, she wouldn't have grown up with Scion around since Scion is on Tether's world, her entire life in this case would be post-apocalyptic with no room for what made Taylor Taylor. She wouldn't be herself, and it would have simply been me capitalizing on people wanting to see her by slapping her name on a brand new character. That didn't seem fair to anyone, so I resisted the urge. That's actually part of why I started my second story, Intrepid, so that I could write Taylor without cramming her into this one unrealistically.
  
  Anyway, hope you guys enjoy the new arc!
  
  32.01
  
  After the dust from the Dragon tank's quad-cannon had settled, most of the street that Strix had been standing on was gone. Also gone was the morale of his gang. We'd seen them starting to gather at the end of the street, but as soon as they saw that their master had been vaporized, the ones that were still in fighting shape decided they had better things to do, tripping over themselves to get away.
  
  We let them go. None of us was in any shape to go chasing after the group for another fight. I'd done too much fighting today already. I was pretty sure that I'd already undone some of the healing that Chien's imported healing concoction had accomplished, because the pain in my side had returned.
  
  At the moment, however, I couldn't really worry about that. My focus was on an altogether different kind of pain, one that I was more versed in than I ever wanted to be. The loss of losing a loved one.
  
  I found Savant back in the same room where we had fought Strix. While the others gathered the civilians that had fled, organizing them into a group to be escorted to Hephaestus's Camp Caladrius base, I stood in the hole that had been made in the wall, watching Savant kneel next to the fallen body.
  
  She did nothing at first, nothing but kneel there beside the woman that Strix had torn the heart out of.
  
  Reaching up after several long seconds, Savant unclasped her V-shaped helmet and tugged it up and off her head. Again, I had the disconcerting feeling of recognition, even at this angle from the side and slightly behind. This time, the anger that I always felt at Sophia's image failed to arise. I couldn't be angry now. I couldn't look at this girl and see the person who murdered my parents. Not now.
  
  Dropping her helmet to the side, Savant's gaze never left the open eyes of the woman who had been Zephyr, who in our world was Sarah Pelham. She knelt there, still and silent as a statue. Only once the light glinted a little off the girl's cheek did I recognize the tears on her cheeks that for what they were.
  
  Wincing, and not wanting to interrupt, I took a step backward to leave the girl. We could come back and check on her once the civilians were gathered, rested, and ready to go. Before I could retreat more than that, however, Savant spoke up, her voice outside of the helmet sounding broken. "Wait, please."
  
  I stopped, hesitating for another moment before taking a step closer, into the room. "I'm sorry," I told her quietly. "I don't know what I was thinking. I just saw you disappear and wanted to check if you were..." Okay sounded horrible. Of course she wasn't okay. "I wanted to see how you were doing."
  
  The older girl didn't respond at first. Instead, she carefully tugged the gauntlets of her armor off and tossed them aside next to her discarded helmet. Her hands were shaking slightly as she lowered them, one onto the stomach of the dead woman and the other onto her cheek. I saw her throat work a couple times as if she was trying to speak, but no sound came. Finally, she managed to start. "I have seen death since I have been alive. I was born into death. For years, it was all I knew. The savages who were my people taught me little else beyond how to kill. I was a monster who killed my first victim at my birth father's urging when I was still not quite six years of age."
  
  Her uncovered fingers were brushing tenderly down the face of the woman while her voice continued. "He was a boy not much older than I was then, the child of one of the merchants that my birth father had captured. The man refused to surrender the combination to a safe, and so he had to be taught a lesson. He had three sons. After I killed the first under my birth father's tutelage, he gave up. He surrendered the numbers to the safe." Her eyes closed and I saw a brief shudder go through the girl before she opened them once more. "After he gave my birth father what he wanted, the man looked at me. He looked at me and he said," Her voice grew dark and bitter, taking on the tone of a man whose son had been murdered in front of him. "'You're a savage, evil little child. But you'll know. Someday you'll know what this is like. You'll love someone and you'll lose them. They'll be ripped away from you, and then you'll know.'" By the last few words, her voice had cracked, betraying her despair.
  
  I didn't speak, but I couldn't just stand there in the entrance anymore either. I took a few steps that way and slowly sat down on the floor near the girl. If I could do nothing else for her, nothing that would actually help in any concrete way, I could at least sit there with her and listen.
  
  "If I could take it back," she continued without taking her gaze off of Zephyr's sightless gaze. "If I could take back every awful thing that I did as a part of that tribe, I would. That's not a deal in exchange for her life. I know I don't deserve that. But the things that I helped my birth father do..."
  
  Finally, I spoke up quietly. "You were a child, Savant. You said that you were taken by Hephaestus's people when you were seven. There's nothing else you could have done. You didn't know any better."
  
  "Yes." She nodded. "I was young, a child. And if I had grown much older within that tribe, I would have had more blood on my hands than could fill this room. My birth father was grooming me, first as his right hand executioner and then his successor. He made that clear from the moment that I could understand his words. My earliest memory is of him wrapping my fingers around the handle of a knife, teaching me to hold it properly. He taught me to kill without thought. I was born and bred a monster."
  
  Cringing, I shook my head. "You've changed. You've grown beyond that. You chose to be better."
  
  "No," Savant disagreed. "I did not choose it. Not exactly. I was dragged away from that life, kicking, screaming, and biting. I was vicious for many months following my capture. It took a lot of patience, discipline and..." Her voice cracked a little on the last part. "And love. It took a lot to help me, to make me see that there was another way. It took so much to break through that shell." Swallowing hard, she reached down to take the hand of the murdered woman. "Zephyr helped me. She taught me. She was my..." Her lower lip quivered, catching on the word before she continued. "My teacher."
  
  We were both silent for a couple of minutes before the older girl spoke again. "In a way, I suppose it's almost poetic. Strix, the man who killed the man I wished was never my father, also killed the woman that I... that I desperately wanted to be my..." Her eyes closed and I saw her tears begin falling anew, wet against her face. Her voice was wracked by emotion. "The woman that I wanted to be my..."
  
  She couldn't finish the words. Shoulders shaking, Savant lowered her head, almost collapsing on top of the deceased woman. "I'm sorry!" She cried out the words with a voice that was broken by loneliness that had nothing to do with my presence. The girl's body shook as she wept. "I'm sorry I wasn't here. I'm sorry I didn't help you. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Please, please, Zephyr, you... you can't be gone. Please, god, please, I don't care. Please don't take her. Please. Take me. Take me, not her. I can't do this. I can't lose her. God, please, please don't. Anything, please. I want to wake up. Please let me wake up, please. Let her come back, please. Let me tell her... let me tell her, please, oh god, please..."
  
  By that point, her voice was so broken that her words became indistinguishable from her sobs. Her shoulders shook violently while she clung to the dead woman, begging for a miracle that failed to come, on a world that seemed long since abandoned by any higher power save for the towering beasts who had razed civilization itself.
  
  Needless to say, the trip back to Camp Caladrius was a quiet and subdued one. We ended up having the Arrowhead craft fly the civilians there in several trips after splitting out of their combined state. Taking the last trip back ourselves alongside the body of Zephyr, I was barely able to stay conscious long enough for Chien to fuss over my re-injured side and feed me more of that nasty tasting healing concoction. Then I fell into the nearest bed that I was directed to and passed out immediately.
  
  It was midway through the next day before I finally woke, not to any sound, but from the feel of a familiar kiss. I gasped slightly into it as my conscious brain caught up with what was happening, and gave a little whimper that let Marissa know that I was awake. She relented a few seconds later.
  
  Flushing, I stared up at the beautiful blonde, shivering a little. "What... what was that for?"
  
  She smiled slightly down at me and shrugged. "I thought it sounded romantic." With a wink, she stuck out her tongue and made a face. "Should've considered the morning breath though."
  
  Groaning in mortification, I grabbed the pillow and tried to hide under it. She caught me though, laughing lightly as she tugged the pillow away while repeating, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I love you."
  
  A shiver went through me then and I gazed up at her for a second before finding my voice once more. "I love you, Mars. I..." Unable to speak, I caught her hand and tugged her down to kiss once more.
  
  Unfortunately, we really had to get up then. Mostly because I needed to pee. Aww, the joys of reality. Morning breath and urination. We truly were living a charmed romance.
  
  After taking care of that and a couple other essentials with a scavenged toothbrush and a brief, lukewarm shower using a cobbled together set-up they had in one corner, I dressed myself in my costume once more. It had been laundered while I slept in borrowed clothes. Then I stepped out to find the rest of the group waiting alongside Savant, who was wearing workout sweats and looked as though she'd been up for awhile. After what I'd seen the day before, I didn't hesitate before stepping over to give the older girl as tight of a hug as I could manage. She seemed more surprised than anything, but she didn't push me away. Eventually, she even returned it somewhat awkwardly.
  
  Then we set out for breakfast, Savant leading the way to the area that was set aside for meals. However, we didn't actually make it that far. Instead, as we were passing the medical clinic, Chien's raised voice could be heard from inside. "You have to tell her now, Andrew. If she ever finds out later that there was a chance, she'll never forgive you. You have to stop making everyone's decisions for them. She's a grown woman now, she can make her own choices."
  
  "She's a grieving woman," Richter replied, his voice tired. "She won't be able to think straight to make that kind of choice. She's almost free of this world. I can't tell her about something that... impossible."
  
  By that point, Savant had slipped around the rest of us. She stepped to the makeshift entry into the clinic and stood there for a brief moment before speaking up. "You can't tell me what, exactly?"
  
  Both voices within the clinic went silent, and then Richter appeared. He looked at Savant briefly before glancing to us and sighed. Then he beckoned and stepped back inside.
  
  After exchanging a look with Missy, I shrugged and we all followed Savant. The clinic was empty at this point, save for Hephaestus himself and Chien. The two of them were standing some distance apart.
  
  "What can't you tell me?" Savant demanded again once we were all inside. "Hephaestus, what is it?"
  
  The man sighed heavily once again before glancing toward Chien. She met his gaze evenly and gave a single nod. Finally, the Fate-Lord cracked his neck before speaking. "What Chien wants me to tell you is just going to force a hope on you that doesn't actually exist. It's going to convince you to throw your life away on some foolish, desperate mission that is impossible. So please, Savant. Please just listen to me when I say you don't want to know. This isn't something that you can accomplish."
  
  "Hephaestus-" Savant started before correcting herself. "Father, please. Let me make my choices and tell me. Is it about Zephyr?" Her voice caught a little at the name, and I saw her fists tighten.
  
  Again, Richter was silent. His mouth tightened and I could see the emotion in his eyes as he warred with the need to tell her the truth versus the need to protect her. "It's," he started, then stopped, closing his eyes briefly before forcing himself to continue. "Fine, I will tell you the truth. There's a chance, the smallest possible chance that..." Sighing, he finished reluctantly. "... that Zephyr could be saved."
  
  "What?!" That was Reach, blurting out loud. "Her heart's gone, how do you come back from that?!"
  
  "What she said," Savant waved a hand toward Cassie while staring with wide eyes at the man along with the rest of us. "How-she's gone. She's dead. How could you even say that there might be a chance? There can't be. That's... impossible."
  
  It took the man a few seconds to speak again, and he still sounded reluctant while doing so. "Okay. Years ago, before we found you, Savant, there was an attempt to form a group of Fate-Lords that would make one desperate run against one of the Titans and try to kill it. We wanted to prove that at least one of the god damn things could be killed. So, we gathered as large of a group as we could. I was a part of it, and so was Zephyr."
  
  Savant frowned at that. "But what does that have to do with Zephyr?"
  
  "She was so young then..." Richter sounded like he was remembering the younger Zephyr. "Around your age, I believe. And she was beautiful. So confident and..." Heaving a sigh, he stopped himself and focused. "Anyway, one of the Fate-Lords that was gathered for the attempt was Asclepius."
  
  "The healer?" Savant lifted her head, still frowning uncertainly. I remembered that Asclepius was the name of the Fate-Lord who had created the foul liquid that cured my injuries.
  
  "Yes," Richter nodded. "He came, not as a combatant, but to give us all a... guarantee. It was the only way that some would agree to attempt such an impossible mission."
  
  "What guarantee?" Savant asked, her voice shaking a little.
  
  Again, the man went silent for a few long seconds before continuing his explanation. "Asclepius provided a concoction that, when mixed with the blood of a Fate-Lord before death, would subsequently fully restore that person's life should they fall in battle as long as that mixture was consumed within one week of passing. It would only work one time, and the thing couldn't be used ever again. Even if more stuff was made with more blood, it wouldn't do a damn thing. This was a one-shot deal, and even then only with a fully powered Lord. But even if it was a one-shot thing, it was a guarantee of a second life. That convinced most of the Lords we could gather to give it a shot."
  
  "And what happened?" Marissa asked him from beside me.
  
  "We died," he replied flatly. "Most of us did anyway. We died and our bodies had to be retrieved by the others. Those that could be retrieved anyway. Zephyr was the one who saved my body, and fed me Ascelepius's concoction to bring me back. That was my one free do-over, and I won't get another one."
  
  "But she didn't use hers?" Savant was standing a little straighter now. "Zephyr didn't die then. Which means she never used her potion. Where is it?" Her voice had risen with eagerness, a hope that hadn't been there before.
  
  Flinching, Richter held up his hands. "This is why I didn't want to tell you any of this." He cast a brief scowl toward Chien. "The only person who would have it would be Asclepius. And that's if he even still has it after all these years."
  
  "So we go to him," Savant said flatly. "We go to him and find out."
  
  "It's not that simple." Richter was shaking his head.
  
  "Yes it is!" Savant insisted. "If there's a chance he still has it, we have to try!"
  
  "Savant, you know how far away Asclepius keeps his camp." Richter reached out to take the girl's hand, clutching it with his own. "It's over a thousand miles away, through territory infested by raiders. And we have reports of several Titans migrating into those areas as well. At least one of them is disrupting communication signals. We won't have any way of knowing which routes are clear for at least a month, once the Titans settle into a routine again."
  
  "You said she only had a week," Savant's voice shook a little. "One week, you said. She doesn't have a month."
  
  "That's right," he nodded back at her. "One week, and there's no way to get there safely. Even if Asclepius kept the stuff and if he'll give it to you, you'd have to make it there and back here within six and a half days. And that's impossible."
  
  "You thought that saving Zephyr's people from Strix was impossible too." Savant informed him quietly.
  
  Richter cringed at her words, but nodded. "But you had help then. You can't expect-"
  
  He was interrupted by Vista, who spoke up loud and clear over him."And she's got help now too."
  
  The man glanced to us, mouth open in surprise. I shrugged and nodded to the young blonde girl. "You heard her. Savant's got us if she wants us." The others gave nods of assent.
  
  "But..." Savant stared at us. "But I look like the person that killed your parents. Why would you do that? Why would you risk so much to help me and someone you never really met, on a world that isn't even your own?"
  
  "It's a hero thing," Reach replied. "I'm still getting used to it. But I gotta admit, when it works out, the feeling doesn't suck."
  
  "What you wish to attempt is all but completely futile." Richter spoke gravely. "You would all have to cross over a thousand miles. We can spare the single Arrowhead, but even then, you'd have to go through the territory of over a dozen raider gangs, cannibals and monsters who have spent the last three decades becoming vicious and savage. And the areas that are clear of them may be taken up by several different Titans. You'd have to cross that entire way to find out if Asclepius still has Zephyr's potion. And then you'd have to make it all the way back here, and all of it in less than one week. It is impossible ."
  
  "Probably," I agreed with the man before shrugging. "But the thing is... that's never really stopped us before."
  
  32.02
  
  "Okay, so uhh," Vista started once it became clear that we were definitely going through with this. "I've just got one question, Hephaestus." I could tell she was squinting at the man from behind her green visor. "Why exactly do we have to go all the way there and then back again to get Zephyr that stuff? Doesn't it ahh, make more sense to bring her with us? Then we can give it to her as soon as we get it."
  
  I felt a bit ridiculous that the same thing hadn't even occurred to me, and blinked over at the man curiously. That did make sense, on the face of it. After all, it gave us a solid week to get there and convince Asclepius to give the stuff to us instead of only a few days.
  
  Beside me, Marissa nodded. "He's also more likely to provide what Zephyr needs if he can see her."
  
  "That would be useful, yes." Richter agreed with them both. "The problem is, that week time frame I provided only applies if the body is kept frozen for most of that time, to slow the degeneration process. Otherwise, the concoction would have to be administered much sooner. I provided the week estimate assuming that you would leave Zephyr's body here to be protected that way. If she is not frozen, I don't believe that the life tonic would be useful beyond a single day of degeneration."
  
  "Is there any way we could keep her frozen on board the Arrowhead?" I asked, thinking for a moment.
  
  "The freezers we would use are a part of the building." Hephaestus began, considering. "I might be able to put something together that would work, but it would take time."
  
  Leaning closer to me, Cassie stage-whispered, "The man built a bunch of jet-things that combine and transform into a giant tank, and he's worried about building a portable freezer."
  
  "Not the capability of doing so," Richter corrected her. "Only the time it will take. This would require true freezing, not simply putting the body into a giant cooler with some ice. Every hour lost to my work is another hour you won't have to reach Asclepius. Tanks, weaponry, and such are a specialty of mine. Managing that into a sufficient portable freezer using the components that we have will take time."
  
  Theo, standing slightly behind Cassie, spoke up then. "I can help." When everyone looked at him, the boy gave a still-self conscious shrug. "It would help Zephyr. That's kind of my thing."
  
  "An artisan whose fate-direction lays in the aid of others?" Richter gazed at Theo briefly. "That sounds as though it could be extraordinarily beneficial."
  
  Poor Theo shrank a little bit under the attention and mumbled something about it not being as impressive as giant battletanks that transformed into helicopters. Then, clearly desperate to move people's focus off of him, he looked toward Savant. "Aren't you a tink-err, artisan? You could help."
  
  She shook her head, the frustration evident. "Hephaestus is a Lord. He can bend his artisan focus much more than I can. If it isn't personal weaponry that can be held in my hands, I'm useless."
  
  "No, my girl," Richter laid his hand on her shoulder. "Never useless. You have done more to keep the people of this settlement safe than anyone will ever be able to acknowledge." His attention turned back to Theo then. "With your assistance, perhaps we can cobble an adequate system together. But I'm afraid even that will require at least a day. Which is time that you could be using to get to the settlement."
  
  "As long as the time spent on that is less than the time that would be spent traveling both their and back, it's worth it," Marissa pointed out. "Besides, we have a secret weapon when in comes to getting places quickly." Her gaze passed over to Missy with a little smile. "Right?"
  
  Of course, I realized with a start. What limited Missy's spatial warping powers back on our world was mostly just the number of living organisms in any given area. With this world that was so limited in life, she should be able to compress incredibly vast distances.
  
  For her part, Vista simply smiled. "I think I can manage something that might help."
  
  "Seriously," Reach put in dryly. "A thousand miles in a week? When you guys were talking up those fancy flying machines, you said they can do eight hundred miles an hour. Why is a thousand miles in a week suddenly difficult, exactly?"
  
  Glancing to her, Richter answered, "Simple. As stated before, the areas you will be traveling through are infested with several Titans. Worse, our communications are down so we are unable to pinpoint the Titan locations in order to safely navigate through their detection zones as we normally would. That means that the ships cannot perform at their peak while moving through such areas due to the attention their power use would attract. You could go full speed and potentially attract the attention of every bandit and Titan within that thousand miles to intercept you, or you may go at a more sedate pace and avoid their notice. The latter is slower, but far more likely to actually arrive in on piece."
  
  Marissa seemed to consider that briefly. "So how fast can we go without attracting attention?"
  
  The man winced. "Pushing them fast enough to make the trip in only a couple of days is possible, though it would still be pushing things. Better to pace things out as much as possible to avoid any chance of being noticed. If you go any faster than that, something out there is guaranteed to stop you."
  
  "Sounds like the portable freezer is our best idea," I offered, mundane non-tinker layman that I was.
  
  Savant was nodding. The hope that had been reawakened in her was obvious. "Yes. Whatever it takes, Hephaestus. Please, even if it's an infinitesimally small chance, it's still a chance. We can get there, talk to Asclepius, and save Zephyr." Her voice grew quieter as she added, "We have to try."
  
  "In that case," Richter pivoted on his heel, clearly doing that tinker thing where his mind was already focused on his inventions. "Let's take a look at our freezers downstairs and see what we can whip up."
  
  "We could help, you know." Reach was looking toward me. "Lifting things, holding things, whatever else. Could save a lot of time in the long run, even if we aren't tinkers or artisans or whatever."
  
  I nodded at that. "Good point." I glanced to Savant. "Wanna be another pair of hands for them to use and abuse? Grunt labor's at least something to do." And something to keep her mind occupied, I hoped.
  
  "Yes," Savant replied, already starting to walk after the departing pair. She stopped then, looking back toward the still present Chien a bit awkwardly. "Thank you, Doctor."
  
  Smiling gently, Chien bowed her head in acknowledgment. "I sincerely hope this works."
  
  Even as we set off to help Richter and Theo build the portable freezer out of spare parts, I had to agree with that. When I looked at Savant now, I didn't see Sophia, and none of the anger that had previously risen within me at the sight of her face was present. After the anguish I'd seen within the girl at the death of Zephyr, I knew without a doubt that she was a different person. A person who had been through a lot and come out better in the end, who deserved to have her mother figure brought back.
  
  Besides, at this point it would be nice to have a definitive win.
  
  With Aid's help (and the rest of us functioning as grunt labor), the portable freezer was ready in about six hours. By the time it was done, and all throughout the work, Richter couldn't stop saying good things about the ideas that Aid provided. Poor Theo had run out of ways to defer the praise.
  
  Once the thing was done, both of them insisted that it would maintain its own power source and keep whatever was inside completely frozen for as long as a month without any further input from us. So the few days we needed it for wouldn't be any sort of problem.
  
  We had just finished loading the freezer and its precious cargo into the back of one of the Arrowhead craft when Chien emerged from the building with packs full of supplies for each of us. "Be careful," the woman urged while pressing one of the packs into Savant's arms. "We all want this to succeed, but remember that people here care about you too, Savvy."
  
  "I'll be back," Savant assured her. "And I'll bring Zephyr with." She glanced toward us then before adding, "We'll all be back." She held her gloved hand out in a fist, waiting until Chien bumped her own against it before doing the same for Richter. Fate-Lord and Fate-Touched gazed at each other briefly then before she turned and moved up to take her seat in the piloting compartment. She would be the one controlling the ship this time, since they didn't want to send any more men on this mission.
  
  "Good luck," Richter said solemnly to the rest of us. "And thank you for all of this. We will find a way to repay you for all that you've done here. I don't know how, but our soldiers are at your disposal."
  
  "Might be useful sooner than you think," Reach pointed out. "Your people are trained to fight people with powers, and after the Nine..." She trailed off briefly before sighing as she looked at me for help.
  
  Swallowing at the memory, I gave a quick nod. "We lost a lot of good people recently. And now we don't even know who or what is left after the Endbringer attack that happened just before we were trapped here. For all we know, it's-" I cut myself off, unwilling to voice the worst case scenario.
  
  "They'll be okay," Marissa assured me, catching my hand before looking at the man. "Whatever help your people will be able to provide to replenish the ranks of the protective agencies would be great."
  
  Bowing his head in acknowledgment of that, Richter gave the side of the Arrowhead a firm slap. "We'll be ready. Just get back safe. And whatever happens, take care of Savant."
  
  "We will," I promised him before moving to take my seat as the engines of the craft started up. We lifted off a moment later, and then we were rising higher.
  
  Vista waited until the initial lift-off was out of the way before unstrapping herself. She moved up to crouch just beside Savant's seat, since the latter had removed the partition that normally separated pilot from crew and passengers for this very purpose.
  
  "Get a little higher," Missy instructed. "I'll compress the space as much as I can."
  
  With a nod, Savant oriented the craft and made it rise. "I can't go much higher than this," she warned. "Or there's a chance someone will notice. There's at least one Titan out there that likes to go after anything that gets too high. We think he's meant to stop us from fleeing the planet or something."
  
  "This is okay." Missy took a breath and reached out with both hands. Her voice was a murmur. "I can do this. I can make it work." Breathing out while giving a solid yank with her hands, the girl grunted from effort. I could see the air in front of the ship blur and shift as she worked her power against it.
  
  For the next several minutes, while an impatient but curious Savant watched from the piloting seat, Vista continued to pull at the air. Space twisted in front of us, and we could see the entire horizon bend in toward the craft as if Missy was using photo editing software to smudge a picture.
  
  Finally, she clasped her hands tightly closed. "Thirty-seven miles, go."
  
  Obediently, Savant punched the craft forward. We passed through the compressed space and the landscape below us abruptly changed. We were over an entirely different city, one that had been hit even worse than the last. There was hardly a single building still standing anywhere that we could see.
  
  "Almost forty miles," Theo was talking to Vista. "Have you umm, ever done anything that far?"
  
  Missy was sagging, shaking her head as she worked her hands. Her words came between pants for air. "Nope. It's a bit of a rush," she admitted with a tiny smile. "I think I hit a flock of birds or something." Breathing out again, the girl added, "Just need a little break, then I'll try again."
  
  "Forty miles in one jump." Savant sounded amazed. "A few more boosts like that in between the speeds we can get up to safely in this and we'll be there in plenty of time. Maybe even tonight." Dspite the distortion of that helmet, I could hear the hope in her voice.
  
  Over the next two hours, things seemed to be progressing perfectly. With Vista's periodic assistance, the ship traveled over four hundred and twelve miles. Some of her jumps were longer or shorter than the first, all depending on how far she could reach before a random living form got in her way.
  
  At that rate, we would indeed have reached our destination on the same day. Unfortunately, I'd barely let myself think about that before a mixture of red and black lines abruptly appeared, attaching themselves to each of my companions.
  
  I didn't even hesitate before shouting toward the front, "Evade, now!"
  
  To her credit, Savant didn't hesitate either. Rather than question what I said, she instantly aborted our forward motion and threw the craft into evasive maneuvers. Just as she did, the streak of a missile shot past, barely missing the back of the ship. Alarms were shrieking from the close call.
  
  "Damn it!" She cursed, checking the readouts on her control panel. "At least seven of them back there. Must've been cloaked or something, but they're coming at us hard now that the surprise is over."
  
  "Keep going," Marissa instructed before turning around to face the ramp. "We've got this. Ready?" She looked to me.
  
  Nodding, I attached lines from each of us to the floor of the craft. "You're safe, go for it."
  
  Reach leaned over and hit the button to lower the ramp, exposing us to the rushing air as the Arrowhead tore through the sky.
  
  We could see the enemy craft immediately. They were ugly things that looked like hodgepodge collections of various other aircraft, some I recognized while others I didn't. One of them looked like someone had taken one of those heavy-lifting helicopters that the military used to haul tanks around, twisted the cockpit around perpendicular to its former position, and welded the bulk of the craft sideways onto a pair of jet fighters that were themselves connected belly to belly, one upside down and one right side up. The latter had the heavy lift helicopter attached to it. And the whole contraption had several other propellers that seemed completely superfluous. It was insane. The other six craft were along the same lines, though none were identical. And they were all shooting at us.
  
  Lifting his shield into place as soon as he saw the incoming fire, Aid took the job of making sure we weren't killed by all the gunfire that Savant wasn't able to evade. He had to keep adjusting the direction and location of his forcefield, trying to cover wherever the concentration of fire was heaviest.
  
  Making sure I maintained the lines that were keeping us tethered into the ship, I tentatively started attaching another one between two of the craft. Even as I did, I could feel my hold and concentration on the other lines slipping and stopped myself. "Can't focus on them!" I called out. "Too many lines to hold. You guys have to deal with them."
  
  "On it," Reach announced. Taking one of her metal balls, she wound up like a pitcher before giving it a throw. The silver orb flashed through the air on a collision course for the nearest ship. A second later the windshield of the monstrosity shattered and then it started plummeting through the air.
  
  By that time, Marissa had one of her smaller suns prepared. She gave it a similar toss to the one that Cassie had for her own ball. This one, however, stopped as soon as it was out into open air, and grew nearly as large as the ship itself. The remaining six pursuers broke off their fire to split around it, and Marissa was able to slide the portable sun up enough to catch two of them aflame so that they had to bail out, abandoning their ugly jet-hybrid-things.
  
  The next craft was taken out by Reach's returning ball. Unfortunately, that was around the time that the remaining two launched a flurry of rockets. I took the risk and attached two of them to each other quickly without losing my grip on the lines that were keeping my friends in place. Reach used her ball to deflect another of the things, and Marissa's sun burned up more of them. Still, there were half a dozen on their way.
  
  "I got it." Vista declared. She set her feet and grimaced at the sight of the incoming rockets. Then she cast her hand out, bending space so that the three rockets on one side bent around and crashed into the remaining three, removing the threat with a spectacular explosion.
  
  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to react to that before a trio of lasers cut right through the explosion and tore through part of our own craft. The sound of alarms was almost deafening while the Arrowhead immediately began to plummet.
  
  "Flight control's out!" Savant called back. "I've got no control!"
  
  "You have speed?" Vista asked, turning away from the open ramp where the pursuing aircraft were just coming back into view.
  
  "Yeah," Savant nodded. "I can slow us down, but we'll still hit the ground hard. And we'll be sitting ducks."
  
  "Not slower," Missy shook her head, putting a hand on the back of the seat. "Crank it up. Go faster. Punch it as hard as you can." When Savant hesitated, the younger girl raised her voice. "Just trust me, I can do this! Now punch it!"
  
  Obediently, Savant sent the craft hurtling even faster straight down. We would have plowed nose first into the ground within a couple of seconds if Vista hadn't made a sharp gesture with her hands just then. The space below us twisted up and forward, abruptly pointing us the right direction. We were barely through that before the ship gave a sudden heave to the side, the broken flight capability leaving us incapable of maintaining a straight line for long.
  
  The two of them continued that way for the next several tense minutes. Vista kept twisted space this way and that, bending it to keep the Arrowhead pointed forward. We were going down, but because of her, we crossed several hundred more miles in the process. I'd thought she had been impressive before, compression space to let us jump thirty or forty miles at once. Now she was doing the same thing, only even better, and while also twisting space to prevent the plummeting, out of control craft from hitting the ground.
  
  It couldn't last forever, though, and eventually we had to come down. By that time, the rest of us had strapped in, and between Vista's power and Savant's piloting, it wasn't that horrible of a crash.
  
  Still, Savant sat motionless in the seat for a few seconds once the dust had settled before speaking with a strained voice. "Everyone okay?"
  
  "We're good," Marissa confirmed.
  
  We all unstrapped and rose while Savant picked her own way back out of the smoking, ruined cockpit. Briefly, we looked to one another before the other girl stepped past me and put a hand against the side of the freezer, which had thankfully remained firmly strapped in place through all of that. "Two hundred and thirty-seven miles." She announced in a quiet voice. "That's how much distance we've got before we would have reached Asclepius's camp."
  
  "Well," Reach laid her own hand against the freezer. "Then we better get going, huh? Unstrap this thing so I can float it out of here."
  
  "You still wish to try to make it?" Savant asked in wonder, looking toward us. "We now have to walk two hundred miles through incredibly hostile terrain, and do so within five days."
  
  I put my hand on her arm. "We said we'd get Zephyr to Asclepius, and we will. We'll make it."
  
  Looking toward me for a second, Savant paused before reaching out to hit the button that would unlatch the freezer from the wall. "Yes." Her voice was strained by emotion. "Five days. Two hundred miles."
  
  Gathering the packs that Chien had sent us with, we emerged from the craft and stepped onto what had at one time been the downtown area of a bustling city. Now, there were only three or four buildings higher than a single story visible in any direction. Most of what was left was covered in rubble. This place had been leveled, and from the look of things, no one remained in it.
  
  "That way," Savant announced, pointing down the ruined street.
  
  We set out, walking together while Reach took care of floating the portable freezer.
  
  The worst part of being stuck here, I realized as we walked, wasn't the horrors around me, of seeing what had become of this place. No, as bad as that was, the true nightmare was in not knowing if I had already lost any of my precious friends or family.
  
  So, while I began to hike with the others through the shattered remains of this broken, dead city, I clung to two hopes. First, that we would make it to Asclepius's camp in time to save Zephyr.
  
  And my second hope, as we picked our way over the crumbling concrete and past the ruined and decimated remnants of buildings decades-since destroyed, was that we weren't seeing a preview of what our city would be when we finally made it back.
  
  32.03
  
  Hiking through the shattered, ruined remains of a city decades-since destroyed was a humbling experience. All I could think about, as I stepped over the crumbling concrete and looked toward the hollow remains of buildings, was how many people had been killed by the monsters that this world had inherited. Could this have been our Earth? We were already fighting a losing battle against the Endbringers that we had. We never truly beat them, we only made them go away for awhile. And that was with only a few, with several months in between attacks. How fast would our world have fallen even further than this one had if we'd had so many of them to deal with that never really left?
  
  No one spoke much for the next several hours. We were all focused on getting as far as we could while trying not to think too much about our deadline. It had already been a long day on top of several extraordinarily long ones, and suddenly needing to walk rather than ride wasn't helping anyone's spirits. We were worried, tired, sore, and just wanted to go home. Instead, we had to walk through obscenely hostile territory, trying to avoid both Endbringers and cannibalistic bandits with each step.
  
  Three times that first evening, we heard what sounded like thunder in the distance. Except thunder hadn't sent that kind of primal jolt of fear down a person's spine since mankind had learned to shelter themselves from the elements. This was not thunder, but something infinitely more dangerous.
  
  There were no bold claims to fight any of the monsters whose proximity was announced by such noise. There were only a few of us, while several times that many capes commonly died fighting Endbringers even with all the resources the entire Protectorate could bring to bear. Each time there was even a hint that one of the beasts was anywhere nearby, we did the only thing that we could do: we hid ourselves. Whether it was against the sole remaining wall of a building, cowering in the corner opposite the source of the discordant clamor, or simply using a nearby bush or even the remains of a rusted car, we tried to stay as much out of sight as possible. That was all we could do.
  
  Even fights that we could potentially have won, we avoided for fear of attracting the attention of the monsters who had claimed this land. We crouched in the remnants of an old furniture store, watching through grime-covered windows as a group of bandits clad in animal skins went running down the street, howling and yipping like beasts. One carried a laser rifle, while another wielded a make-shift spear that had been fashioned out of an old broom and a butcher's knife. There was no rhyme or reason, they simply had whatever they could pick up and fight with, whatever they could kill with.
  
  This wasn't being a hero. This was just surviving another few minutes. Several times, we lay on the ground, just barely out of sight from something whose footsteps sent cracks spider-webbing through the very cement that we were pressing ourselves against. A claw would brush against the nearby building with an ugly scraping noise that brought to mind the wail of a swamp-bound witch of myth. A tail would swing idly to the side, tearing through the stack of wrecked cars that we had very nearly hidden behind before choosing this spot, shredding them with as little effort or attention as a distracted child whose passing foot sent a small mound of snow to flying powder. We weren't heroes then. We weren't warriors. We were helpless, cowering in a corner while praying to go unnoticed.
  
  And unnoticed we were. The monsters paid us no more mind than a human would notice a handful of insects hiding in the shade of a tree as he bustled past. The bandits clearly would have done more, but we avoided any contact. We could likely have won a fight with them, but it might have attracted the notice of one of the giant beasts, and so it wasn't worth the risk.
  
  Finally, we made camp once we couldn't possibly move any further. Not that there was a whole lot to differentiate our 'camp' from the times we'd simply hidden from passing eyes. We chose the basement of an old house that had probably been nice while it was still intact. Now, what little remained was filled with rats that we chased away, and one corner held stagnant water whose stench might have driven us out of the house if there had been any other choice at all.
  
  We did have sleeping bags stored within the bags that Chien had prepared, and those were spread onto the floor. One of us would remain awake to keep an eye out for trouble, while the rest tried to sleep.
  
  It was my turn to be awake, watching through the broken window near the ceiling, when Cassie picked her way out of her bag, which had been placed near the freezer whose contents were the entire point of our current journey, and moved to sit next to me. Glancing down, I slowly lowered myself beside her. "Long couple of days, huh?" I whispered under my breath, trying not to wake anyone.
  
  "You can say that again," Cassie muttered in reply, gaze on the floor. She fell silent then, and seemed content to remain that way for some time, so I didn't push her. We sat quietly, neither speaking, yet comfortable in a way that came only from the bonding of people who had been responsible for each other's lives more times than we could count. We didn't need to say anything.
  
  Finally, however, Cassie did speak. "Back when I first joined the Wards, it wasn't my choice. I didn't want to be there. Didn't really give a fuck about the whole hero thing, and I really couldn't have cared less about teamwork or any of that shit. Only did it because Aunt Kayden said it was that or prison."
  
  "Really?" I adopted a tone of shock. "Because you hid your initial disinterest so well."
  
  Her elbow hit me in the side, and since her mask was lying over on her sleeping bag, I could see her eyes roll in the dim light from the stars that came through the window. Her tone was mildly, but still a bit embarrassed. "Screw you, jerk." She paused then, however, and added. "I guess that's fair though."
  
  "You could've taken off on your own," I pointed out. "Joined some other team. You're powerful and you worked for Kaiser. There's umm, other groups that would have taken you in. Even groups that would have shared your umm, opinions." I spoke the last bit carefully.
  
  Cassie snorted and shook her head. "Maybe. Probably. But I didn't... want that. I saw what happened to Kaiser, what happened to Hookwolf, and the others. I saw how much they didn't... fucking matter in the end. They were pointless. All that power they had, all that influence, and when they died it was just gone. They didn't get to take it with them. They got nothing except a box in the ground and a bunch of people that hated them. If I went with some other group like theirs, they'd just use me up like Kaiser was doing and then I'd end up in a box the first time someone got off a lucky shot. No one cared about me. No one really gave a shit what I did or where I went. No one except Aunt Kayden. She... stuck her neck out for me. She got me pulled out of juvie when she didn't have to, and risked her own freedom to do it. I found out she got them to give me a chance by saying she'd take the blame if anything went wrong. She trusted me. She... trusted me, and no one really did that before. Nobody."
  
  Glancing toward me, Cassie continued after a few seconds. "Then I met you, and you gave me a chance too. You listened, you actually thought I could be a better person. You weren't like the others. So when the Birdcage thing happened, I couldn't just give up on you. I had to go in after you."
  
  I flushed a little, shifting to look directly at her. "Did I ever tell you how much I owe you for that?"
  
  "It's implied." She was smirking faintly while raising one shoulder in a shrug. "But that's not my point. I owe you, you owe me. It's all a big jumble, and I don't care anymore because you're pretty much the best friend I ever had." Her eyes squeezed shut while she bit her lip before looking at me again. "I don't say it much... ever. Mostly because it sounds stupid, and it never comes out right. But this, this situation we're in, it's bad. Anything could happen. Anything could go wrong. So, just this once, I wanted to put away the umm, the sarcasm and the... everything else and just say that to you straight up. You're the best friend I ever had, the best chance I've had to change my life. So thank you."
  
  My throat caught and I couldn't speak for a second. Finally, I managed, "You know, if this was a movie or something, the audience would be completely convinced that you were about to die."
  
  "Yeah? Well screw the audience," Cassie shot back at me. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm a teenage former Nazi turned super hero who loves school more than my phone and whose closest friend is totally gay for a girl from another world. There ain't a fucking mold that I haven't shattered already, so the whole 'gets killed off the second she has a heart-to-heart conversation trope can bite me."
  
  Her words made me smile in spite of our situation. "Good to know you'll be sticking around. But what brought this all on, exactly? I mean, not that I don't appreciate it. But what made you think about it?"
  
  "A lot of things," she answered easily. "The similarity between this," Cassie gestured around where we were sitting, "and our night in the Birdcage, for one. But mostly thinking about how I'd react if I was in Savant's situation. If anything happened to Kayden, after the way she put herself on the line to get me the chance to be something other than what I was... and then I had this opportunity to save her life, to bring her back, I..." She trailed off, looking like she couldn't find the words for a moment before continuing. "I'd do anything to make it happen. So no jokes, no insults, no being dismissive. Not this time, not for this thing. Savant, she's not Shadow Stalker. She deserves this. She needs this win."
  
  "She's not," I agreed with a nod. "And she does deserve it. We all do." After hesitating, I reached out to put an arm around the other girl. She stiffened reflexively, but then clearly made herself relax. I waited until she seemed a little more comfortable before speaking again. "But I'm gonna hold you to that promise, okay? No dying just because you opened up a little. Swear?"
  
  She nodded to that, and I breathed out, hugging her a little closer. "Good," I breathed. "Because I've already lost too many friends as it is. You let yourself get killed, and I might just have to kick your ass."
  
  A snort escaped the other girl while we sat there, and her scornful tone returned, though layered with affection. "Sure, just because that's the only time you could."
  
  "Jerk," I replied mildly.
  
  "Bitch," she shot back.
  
  With that, we returned to our comfortable silence. Nothing more needed to be said.
  
  The next few days were tiring in a way that I couldn't even begin to explain. Between relatively sleepless nights, tossing and turning while worrying about everything going on back at home, and days spent alternately walking and hiding from everything that moved, there was no real rest to be had.
  
  Vista shortened the trip as much as she could, constantly shrinking distances to help with the whole two hundred mile trek. But there were plenty of living things to avoid, and we couldn't use that too much or risk either attracting the attention of beings that might be able to detect that sort of power, or even walk straight into an enemy camp that we would have had time to notice if Vista hadn't condensed the space.
  
  So we had to be careful, and use it sparingly, only when we could be sure that moving half a mile instead of a step wasn't going to end up putting us right in the middle of bandit territory.
  
  Still, we kept going. Over the course of four and a half days, we traveled the entire two hundred miles. Every step was nerve-wracking, until it just wasn't anymore simply because that level of tension could not be held consistently. There were peaks and valleys within the fear itself, particularly rising whenever another of the city-destroying monsters wandered within earshot.
  
  We never really saw more than a hint of the things, mostly because we avoided looking at them. Maybe it was from some ancient, primal childhood belief that things couldn't see you if you didn't see them. Or perhaps we knew that truly witnessing what the beasts that stalked the lands through which we had to walk looked like would only make us even more afraid with each step. Whatever the reason for it, we avoided seeing them, keeping them as out of sight from us as we were from them.
  
  By the time Savant announced that we were near the location of Asclepius's camp, I was all-but dead on my feet. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other while keeping an eye out for any warning lines. I was so out of it by that point, in fact, that I didn't recognize what she'd said at first and just kept walking until Marissa put a hand on my shoulder to stop me.
  
  "There," Savant clearly repeated herself, pointing to what looked like a tennis and racquetball club with what looked like machine gun nests mounted in the corners. There was already a man standing by the nearest, pointing down at us while holding what I assumed was a radio to his mouth.
  
  Sagging a little in relief, I looked back toward the freezer that Reach was floating along beside her, "So we made it. How much time do we have left?"
  
  "Not enough to stand here and talk about it," Savant replied before waving an arm at the man on the roof. She made sure that his attention was on her, then held up two fingers, followed by three, then two again, then one, and then four. Once he saw the last part, the man turned and moved out of view.
  
  "Passcode," the other girl explained. "If you were forcing me to come here so that they would open up, or I was under any kind of duress, I'd give a different code so they'd be ready."
  
  A minute later, the front door of the building opened, and a handful of armored men came spilling out. They held rifles that were almost as big as they were, clearly meant to do damage to much worse threats than we presented. All of them looked tense in spite of the code that Savant had given.
  
  Then another man emerged, and I gasped at the sight of him in spite of how obvious it should have been from the start of this whole thing. He strode out of the building with all of the grace and dignity that I'd come to expect from the one who had worn the same face back in our world.
  
  "Really?" Cassie asked, looking around at us. "You people are surprised by this? Am I the only person here who already knew who the mythological Asclepius was?"
  
  "Let me guess," Vista spoke quietly. "Panacea's father?"
  
  "You're right," I agreed after Reach nodded. I couldn't take my eyes off of the man, who looked so identical to Marquis, right down to his way of dressing. "We really should have guessed that."
  
  "Lady Savant," Asclepius gave a short, polite bow of acknowledgment once he was near enough. Flanked by several of his armored men, he cast his eyes over the rest of us before continuing. "I must confess, we were not expecting any visitors until the Titans move further north. Your presence is a surprise, though you are of course welcome. Might I ask who your companions are?"
  
  "I'm sorry," Savant's voice was rough, particularly when compared to Marquis-errr, Asclepius's cultured and polite tone. "We don't have time for introductions or any of this. We really, god... we need help, Lord Asclepius. We really need your help. It's-" She looked toward the freezer that Reach had let return to the ground. The desperation in her voice grew with each word, as if she was becoming more and more certain that the man would say that there was nothing he could do. "It's Zephyr. Sh-she... she was... he-"
  
  "Strix," I finally put in, to give her a break. "He killed her."
  
  "Lords Beyond," Asclepius closed his eyes and stepped that way to lay his hand on the freezer. "Strix is a bastard who deserves nothing more than a shallow grave."
  
  "He's dead now." That was Vista, speaking plainly.
  
  "Indeed?" Looking us over one more time, Asclepius gave a nod. "Then you must be skilled indeed."
  
  Unable to contain herself any more, Savant blurted, "Please, can you help her? Hephaestus said that there was a potion, something you prepared years ago that might be able to bring her back."
  
  "The Lazarus Draught." Asclepius acknowledged quietly. "I have hers, of course. She never used it."
  
  "May we... may we please give it to her now?" Savant couldn't even try to keep the desperation out of her voice by this point. "I'm sorry, we don't have anything to pay for it. Not enough anyway. But if there's anything, anything I can do, I'll give you anything if you just help her. We couldn't wait to gather enough supplies to pay for this, not after Hephaestus said that she only had a week, and we've been walking for almost that long because our ship crashed and then I was afraid we were lost and I can't-"
  
  "Easy, easy." Asclepius reached out to put his hands on the girl's shoulders. "There's no charge for this, my dear. The potion was made a very long time ago, and was more than earned. This is simply a late delivery. My only fear," he cautioned, "is that it may not work after sitting for so long. I've never attempted to use the Lazarous Draught after so many years. But we will try."
  
  Turning to the man nearest to him then, Asclepius leaned over to whisper some instructions. The man pounded his fist against his chest and then turned to run back into the building.
  
  "Open the... case?" Asclepius asked gently. "I would like to see her before we administer the formula."
  
  Savant set about doing that, keying in the code that unlocked the portable freezer as it lay horizontal before them, too coffin-like for my own comfort. The metal door slid aside to reveal the reinforced glass where the body of Zephyr was encased in some kind of cryogenic system.
  
  "Ahh, Lady Zephyr." The man lay his hand down on the glass, and I remembered how Marquis and New Wave had been complicated enemies. Hell, they had ended up raising his daughter after sending the man to prison. "I recall when she was your age, Lady Savant. She called me a beast for demanding tribute and trade in exchange for my services. I explained that if I didn't charge, my own people would starve. Yet we still argued quite a bit." He didn't sound annoyed by that, however. Instead, all I could detect was affection.
  
  It wasn't long before the man that he had sent inside came running back with a metal briefcase. He held the case up with both hands toward Asclepius, who keyed in a code as it lay on his subordinate's arms. The case beeped, and he pulled up the lid to reveal several vials set into hard foam to keep them still and safe. Without needing to look at the labels, the man tugged one of the vials out and held it toward Savant. "Pour this down her throat, my dear. If there is any chance of it working, you must ensure that she takes all of it."
  
  For her part, Savant was already keying in the code that would undo the rest of the freezer, exposing the deceased Zephyr to open air for the first time since she had been frozen. The whole time, I could hear her murmured pleas and wishes, directed toward anyone and anything that would listen.
  
  As soon as the unfreezing process had gone far enough, Savant carefully uncorked the concoction and put the vial to the dead woman's lips. She poured it in while tilting the woman's head back, forcing the liquid to go down her throat.
  
  What followed was a tense minute or so, through which Asclepius cautioned several times that Savant shouldn't panic because these things always took time.
  
  It was Aid who noticed the first change, lifting his hand to point. "Look, her hair."
  
  Sure enough, the blonde locks of the woman were shortening before our eyes. Her skin shifted noticeably over the next few seconds, and she seemed to shrink in on herself.
  
  "Fuck Kansas," Cassie breathed. "She's getting younger."
  
  "Fascinating," Asclepius announced, his own tone curious. "Clearly her body is reverting to the way it was when her blood was initially drawn.
  
  He was right. As we watched, Zephyr grew younger and younger. The years melted away until the girl laying in that metal box looked so much like Crystal that the two of them could have been sisters.
  
  Only then, once she had grown so much younger, did the hole in the woman's chest begin to close. As it did, I saw what looked like a new heart literally growing into place.
  
  Still, no one spoke again, even after the wound was fully closed. No one spoke, or moved, or even dared breathe very loud. All was completely silent.
  
  Then Zephyr's eyes opened, and she sucked in a long, deep breath that seemed to go on forever before she sat up. "What-where... how..."
  
  "Z-Zephyr?" Savant's voice was in awe, her tone openly reverent, as if she was afraid that speaking too loudly would shatter the illusion.
  
  I knew what else she was afraid of, that Zephyr wouldn't know her. She had, after all, been made younger. What if she wasn't aware of anything that had happened since her blood had been drawn? What if she was as regressed mentally as she was physically? The relief that she had survived would still be there, of course. Yet the time that they'd spent together, the bond of Zephyr helping to raise Savant out of the savage child she'd originally been, would have been erased.
  
  But when Zephyr looked at the other girl, she smiled. "Savant," she said with a tone of gentle teasing. "You look terrible. How long has it been since you slept?"
  
  Without another word, Savant dropped to her knees beside the coffin and latched onto Zephyr. A sob escaped the girl while she clung to the blonde, who stopped teasing her and held tight in spite of clearly having no idea what had happened in the past few days, or why Savant was so emotional.
  
  We had done it. We had made it. Zephyr was, if not completely her old self considering her body had been returned to its much younger state, at least alive. And she had retained her memories. Savant had her mother-figure back, albeit slightly different.
  
  A loud chime interrupted my thoughts then, and I jumped before realizing that it was coming from Aid.
  
  "What," Cassie remarked. "Did your microwave popcorn just ding or something?"
  
  Shaking his head rapidly, Theo spoke urgently. "No, that was my drone. The one I left back where the portal was."
  
  Realizing what that meant, my eyes widened. "Wait, you mean..."
  
  "It's back up," he announced. "The portal to go home is back."
  
  32.04
  
  "Oh crap!" Theo blurted on the heels of his previous announcement, while we were still recovering from the news that the portal had been opened once again. His voice had gone from elated to worried.
  
  I saw Marissa's eyes narrow at the sudden change in tone. "What's wrong? What happened?"
  
  Flinching, Theo looked that way. "The drone, it picked up someone moving really fast. Super speed fast. They went through the portal before I could say anything. I think they were carrying someone else, but I'm not completely sure. When I try to make the footage play back, it's all scrambled in that area."
  
  Asclepius, whose proximity I had forgotten for a second, spoke up then. His voice was contemplative. "That would appear to be Blur. Her ability grants her great speed while distorting space around her and corrupting most electronic signals in the area. Her signature is... rather simple to notice, if you'd like me to take a look at that footage in order to confirm that it is her."
  
  Theo hesitated, looking toward Marissa. For her part, Mars bit her lip uncertainly before looking at the spot where Zephyr and Savant were still engaged in intense conversation. The sight of the previously dead woman who was now alive and well seemed to bolster Marissa's confidence in trusting the man with Marquis' face, and she nodded to Theo. "Let him see it. Then... has anyone come through?"
  
  Aid took his shield off and activated the screen on the inside before holding it up for Asclepius to see. Then he nodded toward Marissa. "Uhh, yeah. There's some PRT guys. I can see Assault, Battery, and Aunt-I mean Penance. But they're on the other side of the portal. They haven't gone through yet. It looks like they're arguing with Director Simms."
  
  "Probably doesn't want to risk them getting trapped here too," Vista muttered under her breath.
  
  She was right, most likely. It was bad enough that we were here, but if any more capes ended up trapped on this one, it would be a disaster. The balance between good and bad capes was already precarious enough without losing another big group to a faulty portal to a completely different Earth. Most likely Director Simms was arguing to stop them from going through the portal to find us.
  
  "Can you use the drone to send them a message?" Marissa asked. When Theo nodded, she stopped to think for a moment before continuing. "Okay, tell them we're all okay, but that they need to close the portal. Open it every twenty-four hours at this time for five minutes and we'll give them an update. Let them know that we're coming back with a lot more people, most of whom are going to need some kind of medical evaluation. Let them know that it's going to take us a few days to get everyone there. Tell them about that person that went through just in case they missed it. And tell them that this world is full of Endbringers. Tell them they have to take the portal down just in case. I don't think the portal's big enough for any of those things to get through, but we really can't afford to take the chance."
  
  While Aid was passing that message along through his drone, Asclepius looked up from the shield. I couldn't read the expression on his face, but he nodded. "As far as I can tell, that is indeed Blur. I couldn't begin to guess whether she's carrying someone or not, or who it would be."
  
  Before anyone else could speak, Zephyr's voice spoke up from where she was still sitting with Savant latched onto her. "My people, are they all right?" She was clearly worried as her gaze passed over all of us. "Did you get them away from Strix and his monsters?"
  
  "Yes, ma'am." I addressed her formally. It just felt like the right thing to do, even if she did look like she was the same age as Marissa now. "Your people are with Hephaestus now."
  
  Bowing her head in gratitude, Zephyr slowly eased herself up and out of the freezer without letting go of Savant. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I'm sorry our original meeting was so... unhappy."
  
  "Well the fucker's dead now," Savant declared flatly, finally releasing the woman, though she stayed next to her. "Good riddance. No idea who'll take over my biological father's tribe though."
  
  "They'll find someone," Zephyr assured her. "Those kind of people always do." She sighed a little regretfully before looking at Asclepius. "And thank you for saving my life as well. Or bringing me back. I... suppose this will take some getting used to." She added the last while examining her hand.
  
  Marissa focused on the man then, clearly realizing just how much he had stood there to overhear. "I guess we should probably explain what's going on, huh?"
  
  "Hardly much of a need," Asclepius assured us. "I believe I have a fairly thorough understanding. You and these other young ones have come to our world from a different Earth, likely not of your own volition. You were trapped here while people on your side worked to rebuild the portal that brought you here, and in that time you were found by Savant. She and Hephaestus made a deal to help you in exchange for allowing their people to go through the rebuilt portal as well so as to escape this world. Zephyr there was of course contacted so that her people could go along as well. However, they were attacked by Strix and his tribe. During the resulting rescue, Zephyr was killed and you brought her here to me." I saw a faint smile play at his face. "Have I missed anything important?"
  
  Recovering first, Cassie snorted. "You know, I think he's pretty much got the gist of it."
  
  Theo had finished sending his message by that point and straightened. "They said they'll open it every twenty-four hours like we want, but if we don't give them an update at any point after it's open, they're coming in after us. They also said to hurry, because they're not sure how long the umm..." He coughed, his voice straining somewhat. "They're not sure how often the Faerie Queen can keep opening it."
  
  My eyes widened at that, and I sputtered. "Glaistig Uaine? She's opening the portal? Wha-but-oh." I blanched. "I guess I did miss our meeting. I... completely forgot about that."
  
  "Boy," Cassie muttered. "If she'll go through all this trouble to find you when you've been trapped on another world, I'd hate to see what she'd do if you ever purposefully blew her off."
  
  The thought made me shudder violently. "I don't ever want to find out." Besides, I kind of liked talking to the Faerie Queen, as strange as she was. In some ways it was like conversing with an active volcano or some other natural disaster. There was an incredible danger there, but I was also learning a lot.
  
  Theo was shrugging. "I dunno exactly. There was something about there not being enough energy to open the portal, so she's supplying it or something. I'm not sure. But ahh, it doesn't sound like she's exactly being all that patient about the whole thing."
  
  "Let's make sure she doesn't have to wait long," Marissa spoke while looking into the distance. "We need to find a way to get back to Hephaestus's tribe, and then out to that portal as soon as possible."
  
  "That," Asclepius announced, "is something else that I believe I can help with. Assuming, of course," he added after a moment of thought. "That my people are welcome to come through as well."
  
  Marissa didn't hesitate. "Of course. You have a way of getting everyone to that portal quickly?"
  
  He nodded. "I do send my materials all over this continent, after all. This should be no different, particularly since I will not need to ration resources. Now, let us go inside and discuss specifics."
  
  All of us looked to one another before turning to the man. Marissa nodded for us. "Yeah, specifics. And while we're at it, we should probably tell you about your dopplegangers in our world."
  
  "Dopplegangers, hmm?" Asclepius sounded intrigued. "This I would love to hear."
  
  As it turned out, Asclepius's way of getting everyone first to Hephaestus's base and then to the portal was by using trucks. He had an entire fleet of modified semi-trucks that had been thoroughly covered in armor and weaponry in order to transport his medicines and other supplies across the continent. He tended only to send one or two out at a time rather than the two dozen trucks that he had available. Now that he didn't have to worry about holding back, however, he was willing to first take us back to Richter, and then load all of the civilians into the trucks and take them cross-country to the portal.
  
  Vista became invaluable once again, shortening the distance that the trucks had to travel so that the convoy made it back to Camp Caladrius within a single day. I could tell doing so exhausted her, but she did it anyway, holding the space while other trucks went through until it was time for ours.
  
  Hephaestus had been surprised by Zephyr's new appearance once we arrived, but delighted that she had survived. There wasn't much time to talk about their feelings, however, because we had to keep moving. Even with Asclepius's trucks, going across the country into Endbringer territory wasn't a fun prospect, and every minute we wasted added to the worry that even Glaistig Uaine wouldn't be able to get that portal open the next time.
  
  Thankfully, we still had the Arrowhead craft to fly escort over the trucks. With their firepower, as well as that of the trucks themselves, and every soldier that Zephyr, Asclepius, and Hephaestus could field coupled with our group (and themselves), it was at least possible for everyone to survive the trip. As long as we avoided any Endbringer fights, and they had their scanners to help with that.
  
  So within two hours of getting back to the modified parking garage that was Hephaestus's base, we were on the road again. Richter had already had his people ready to go, and all that was needed was to get them all into the back of the trucks with the food and water that everyone would need. Then we were out once more, crossing the continent for what, I hoped, would be the last time.
  
  Still, it was slow going. The Arrowheads could have made it in very short order, especially with Vista's help. But we had to take it slow for the trucks, which often ran out of usable road and had drive off-road. Thankfully, they were prepared for that, and were well equipped to handle the trip.
  
  With the trucks loaded down by civilians, as well as food supplies and whatever other necessary equipment, the rest of us flew in the Arrowhead craft that was piloted by Savant. We and the rest of the craft were basically escorts to make sure none of the trucks were ambushed by the roving bandit gangs. To say nothing, of course, of the Endbringers. We really, really wanted to avoid all of them as well.
  
  Even with the trucks, it still took three more days to travel the distance to the portal. Each time that Aid had to report in for us to say that we weren't there yet, it became more and more obvious that we had to hurry. Whatever Glaistig Uaine was doing to supply the energy needed to open those portals, it was obviously not something that we wanted to push that far. I wasn't exactly sure what was stopping her from going through the portal and grabbing me herself before going back, but I was grateful that she at least seemed to respect my obvious desire to help the rest of these people. For whatever reason, she wasn't taking the choice out of my hands, and I was going to have to remember to thank her for that.
  
  Finally, after three days of flying escort, we got near enough to where the portal would soon re-open that our craft could fly ahead a bit and land to get things set up. The rest of the Arrowheads continued to escort the trucks, which would be another thirty minutes or so.
  
  We had explained everything about Marquis and Lady Photon to Asclepius and Zephyr on the way. Both were obviously intrigued by the idea of meeting family members that their other selves had, and Zephyr was even more interested in meeting her other-self. Asclepius had expressed regret at missing such an opportunity, and I was reminded again of the grief of Panacea and all of the Pandoras when their father had been murdered by Crawler. How would they react to this man, who was essentially Marquis' twin?
  
  Hopefully I'd find out soon enough, because that portal was about to open. We had timed it almost perfectly. The portal would only need to stay open for about ten minutes before the trucks arrived, and they should be able to drive straight through. Theo had been sure to tell the people on the other side to have space for the trucks prepared so that they shouldn't even have to slow down. We had to do this as quickly as possible, before any of the Endbringers noticed. There wouldn't be much in the way of second chances to get this right. Even with the combined firepower that we had, fending off one of those monsters from killing a lot of people wasn't going to happen.
  
  "At least we made it," Savant spoke after we had all disembarked. She was still standing near Zephyr, the shock and grief of coming so very close to losing the woman clearly not yet wearing off. "And we didn't run into any bandit tribes either."
  
  "Yes," Richter was nodding, his face lined with a frown. "I'm worried about that. We should have seen plenty of them. I was counting on at least another day spent going out of our way to avoid encounters, but they're nowhere to be found."
  
  "And that's a bad thing?" Theo asked.
  
  Richter hesitated. "Possibly. I, for one, would rather know where the bandits are than have them completely vanish from where they should have been."
  
  Before anyone else could respond, one of the most beautiful sights I had ever seen appeared in the middle of that grassy field. The portal had opened, and I could again see into the open garage area that had been the Noblemen's loading dock.
  
  But an even more welcome sight was that of my family. Ethan, Sam, and Hunter were all there, along with Kayden, Dennis, and even Director Simms along with at least thirty uniformed soldiers. I could also see the shadowy, veiled form of the Faerie Queen floating at the back of the room. The second that the portal opened, her eyes were on me. She didn't look... relieved, exactly, but I was pretty sure she was happy to see me, in her own way at least.
  
  As soon as they saw us, Ethan, Sam, and Kayden started to move to the portal. But a hand caught Ethan's arm, and I saw another figure move in front of them: Alexandria.
  
  She looked through the portal at us, then shook her head at the trio who wanted to come through. She said something to them that I couldn't hear, but the gist was obvious. Even now, as close as we were, they didn't want to risk letting any of the capes come through that portal. There was too high of a chance that something could go wrong and they'd end up with even more heroes trapped on another world. I doubted the Faerie Queen's presence was helping that fear at all.
  
  Ethan and the others looked reluctant, and on edge. It was obvious that they wanted to come through. I moved right up to the portal and nearly passed through, but something in me wanted to wait until everyone else had a chance to get through first. I couldn't just go and reunite with the people I cared about until the rest of these people were safe from this nightmare world that they had been trapped on a lot longer than I had. I wasn't that important.
  
  So instead of going through, I gave them a thumbs up and held out my hand to indicate that we would be able to meet with them very soon. They relaxed marginally, but it was readily apparent that they weren't happy with the idea of waiting any longer.
  
  Unfortunately, that was the moment that Savant chose to curse out loud. "Damn it!"
  
  Turning that way, I saw her pointing off into the distance with her scythe. "Arrowheads just reported in. Look." The horizon that her weapon was aimed at looked clear for another couple of seconds, before it quite abruptly wasn't any more. Coming into view was an enormous fleet of vehicles. There were dozens of them, ranging from semi trucks as large as the ones that were currently carrying all of the civilians, to small one person motorcycles. All were loaded down with weaponry. There were also flying craft, at least ten that I could see that looked a lot like the ugly hodgepodge creations that had shot us down before.
  
  And standing atop several of those trucks were other figures. It was hard to make them out, but I saw one surrounded by fire, another that seemed to be floating in a seated position with his legs crossed just above the truck (though he somehow never lost pace with it), and others with obvious powers.
  
  "Well," I said conversationally in spite of the way my stomach lurched. "We know where the bandits are now."
  
  "That's at least four clans," Richter was saying. "They were ready for this. Somehow, they've been waiting."
  
  "How long until the trucks get here?" Marissa asked.
  
  Savant checked with Asclepius, who was driving in the front of the convoy, before reporting back. "Eight minutes still. Those guys will be on us in four."
  
  "Sounds like you could use some help," a familiar voice spoke. When I turned back that way, I saw Ethan, Sam, Hunter, and Kayden. All four of them had come through the portal.
  
  My eyes widened and I threw myself that way, grabbing the man in a tight hug now that the portal wasn't standing between us. "No! Why did you come through? You could get trapped here too."
  
  "Meh," he said dismissively, though his embrace was even tighter than mine. "Rather be stuck here with all the people I care about than over there without you, Ewok."
  
  "He's right," Sam took her turn for a hug, prying me loose from Ethan. "We decided days ago that if it came down to it, we were coming through to help you. No matter what that took."
  
  I moved from Sam to hug Hunter, who looked just as relieved even if she couldn't voice it. There was a lump in my throat, and I couldn't find the words to speak. I'd missed them so much, all of them. Now they were here, but there wasn't time for a real reunion. Not with the bandit army bearing down on us.
  
  I did, however, add something else. "I don't think Alexandria's very happy with you though."
  
  Ethan shrugged. "Their entire point about why we couldn't go through the portal was that they couldn't risk losing any of us. What are they gonna do now, fire us?"
  
  Kayden, who was embracing Cassie and Theo, spoke up then. "Yeah, well I still have Aster to get back to. So let's deal with this problem and then get back."
  
  "Two minutes," Richter announced. "Can any of you stop an army that size? My Arrowheads will do what they can, but I'm afraid even they can't handle the firepower those bandits are bringing."
  
  For a second, we all stared at the incoming fleet. It was intimidating. Hell, the very thought of facing that many enemies after all that we had already been through was physically exhausting. But we had to. There was no way that we could just go through the portal and abandon the innocent people in those trucks.
  
  "We'll have to," Sam announced while laying her hand on my shoulder. "Somehow."
  
  "You do not need to do anything." The new voice came from the direction of the portal, and I looked to see that over a dozen of the uniformed soldiers that had been waiting on the opposite side had come through. One of them was standing a bit ahead of the rest, looking toward me. "We will handle the threats. You may rest, and ensure that the civilians from this world arrive safely."
  
  I blinked at that. "Err, uhh, thanks? But I'm pretty sure you're gonna need some help."
  
  The soldier smiled at me, before his face abruptly melted and shifted. The rest of the figures behind him followed suit, changing shape right before our eyes.
  
  When the figure before me stopped changing, it was a familiar pale girl with spiky black hair. "Actually," Alpha informed me as she stood in front of not just two, three, or even four of her sisters (which would have been the most I'd ever seen all fight together), but all fifteen of them, "We believe we have brought enough force to handle this ourselves, Tether-Friend."
  
  32.05
  
  Savant's hand moved to her weapon as soon as the soldiers changed shape, but she was already stopping herself even before my hand went out to halt her. Alpha's words made the girl turn her head my way, face unreadable behind her mask. "Friend?"
  
  "That's right, friend." I nodded once while keeping my eyes on the Pandoras. "You're all here? What if something goes wrong? What if you get trapped here? What'll happen to Dinah and the others?"
  
  It was Zeta, the tall, black Pandora who tended toward bluntness who spoke. "We cannot be trapped here as you may be, Tether-Friend. We have each left a piece of ourselves in the other world before coming here. We may abandon these bodies and reform from that part at any time."
  
  "Look," Savant blurted. "I don't know who these girls are, why they're all dressed alike, or... anything, but we don't have time. We have to move, now. Those guys are about to be right on top of us."
  
  "I'll take the Arrowhead back to the convoy," Richter was already walking that way. "If these girls can actually do something, we'll see what we can do to speed up those trucks."
  
  "I'm with you!" Vista trailed after him. When Battery objected, the young girl simply shrugged. "Do you want the convoy to get here fast? He takes me up in the air, lets me see the space between here and those trucks and I can get them here fast. "
  
  Unable to argue with that logic, Battery simply sighed and said, "Be careful."
  
  Savant went to follow Richter as well, but he held up a hand. "Stay here, Savvy. Please. I can fly the Arrowhead, I just... need to know that you're here by the portal and ready. Stay with Zephyr. Both of you help make sure this portal stays open long enough for all of our people to get through it."
  
  The Pandoras were already walking away, moving to interpose themselves in a line between the portal and the approaching vehicles. Before they got too far, I called, "How can we help you?"
  
  They spoke together in a joint chorus, "As we said, you need do nothing more than ensure that as many civilians as possible safely pass through the portal."
  
  "But we can't just let you do this by yourselves!" I blurted. "We have to do... something."
  
  Iota, the Asian Pandora who had a thing for action movies, looked back at me. "We thank you. But your presence would detract more than add. Our coordination cannot take you into account, Tether-Friend."
  
  Right, the sixteen of them were able to perfectly coordinate their actions through their hive mind. If anyone that wasn't a part of that were to throw themselves in as well, it could throw them off.
  
  "You must make sure the portal stays open and that the civilians from this world are allowed through," Iota continued. "Dinah-Friend believes that their future presence on our side is vital."
  
  "How vital?" I couldn't resist asking, unsure of just what the young precog could possibly be thinking.
  
  It was Epsilon, the Pandora who spent the most time around Dinah and individualized herself as a red-haired woman in her late twenties, the oldest of the individual Pandora guises, who looked over her shoulder that time. Her answer was a simple and thoroughly effective, "We are here."
  
  For a handful of seconds, those simple words settled in the minds of everyone who knew what just a couple of these girls were capable of, let alone all of them together. For Dinah to deploy all of them? This was enormous. I couldn't begin to understand what was so important about this moment.
  
  I did, however, know that we couldn't just let the bandits through. If Dinah hadn't sent the Pandoras, we would have had to try to stop them ourselves, no matter what that would have cost us. There were dozens of trucks incoming, an entire fleet of vehicles, all loaded down with enough weaponry to have possibly taken over Brockton Bay even before the Nine and their cultists followers all-but destroyed the police force and the PRT. Now, I didn't even want to think about how much damage they could do if that kind of force made it through onto Earth Bet. They were accustomed to doing what they wanted in this war-torn, post-apocalyptic landscape. The plight of innocents here had not stopped them from doing monstrous things, and so I doubted they would hesitate to behave the exact same way on an Earth where they would be considered a major invasion force.
  
  And that was the thing. If these people had shown up and asked for admittance to Bet, if they had asked to escape this hellhole, I wouldn't have hesitated to press for it. Even if they had to go to a prison of some kind for their crimes, it was better than this place. But they hadn't asked. They intended to get there the exact same way they got everything else in this world: through force. They were ready and willing to kill all of us, everyone in their way, to get what they wanted. These were the people who had made everything on this side so much worse for the survivors. The Endbringers, whatever they were, weren't human. We couldn't try to hold them to our morality, because we didn't know enough about their origins or even what they were capable of thinking or choosing. We just didn't know. But the bandits, these were the real monsters, the ones who raped, murdered, and even ate people, the ones that truly made this world a living hell as much, if not more than the Endbringers did.
  
  And yet, even knowing all of that, even understanding what it meant, I couldn't stop myself from saying what I had to. With my eyes on the Pandoras, I asked, "Please, give them a chance to surrender."
  
  I felt eyes from not only them, but my companions as well. My focus was on Alpha and the others, however, as I continued. "I know they're monsters and they don't deserve it. But... please, just ask if any of them will surrender, give up their weapons, and go to a life-time of prison in exchange for going through the portal?" I felt like an idiot even as I was saying the words, but my conscience wouldn't let me go on without at least trying. Not even for these guys.
  
  "For you, Tether-Friend," Alpha replied, "we will ask."
  
  Gamma spoke next, but her attention wasn't on me. Instead, she was looking toward the blonde woman beside Savant. "You are the one called Zephyr-Person?" When the girl in question nodded, Gamma went on. "You, however, may be of help. Our Dinah-Friend has said that you are capable of removing the remainder of the threat, should we harm them enough and take away their empowered leaders."
  
  Blinking, Zephyr hesitated before nodding again. "I'm still a bit woozy from everything that happened, but if you clear out those Lords, I think I can whip up enough to send the rest of them packing."
  
  "We will do so," Xi and Omicron spoke together. "You must be ready."
  
  Then the Pandoras literally launched themselves straight at the incoming trucks. Each of the sixteen figures flew forward almost forty feet off of a single stationary jump. When they touched the ground once more, it wasn't as themselves. Instead, all sixteen of them had changed shape. They looked like enormous wolves, almost as large as an average sized horse. They ran as a pack, easily reaching what I guessed were speeds in excess of fifty or sixty miles per hour.
  
  "I don't get it," Savant was saying as she stared after the transformed figures. "Who are they?"
  
  "The cavalry," I answered before glancing toward Battery. "What do we do now?"
  
  Lifting her chin as she stared out for the moment that the two forces would collide, Sam replied, "Like the girl said, we stay here and make sure no one gets through that portal that isn't supposed to."
  
  The sound of automatic gunfire interrupted before anyone else could speak. The weapons on the incoming trucks had opened up on the approaching wolf-figures. A combination of bullets, lasers, and other projectiles tore of the ground, ripping through pieces of the Pandoras here and there, though none of the figures stopped running. The weapons, for all their sound and fury, were all-but entirely useless against beings who could regenerate as easily as the Pandoras could, and who shifted their vital organs around however they liked. The sheer amount of firepower brought to bear on the group should have been staggering. For the Pandoras, it was barely a rain storm.
  
  As one, the pack of giant wolves split apart in some instantly choreographed maneuver. Some resumed human forms, while others took on other shapes, all pitching themselves at one heavily armed vehicles.
  
  Before our eyes, Alpha at the head of the pack took two more shots through her side, shrugging off the damage before leaping up from the ground. She flew toward the nearest bandit vehicle, a converted garbage truck. In mid-air, with bullets flying all round her, the wolf-figure transformed into a girl once more. With her feet pointed toward the truck, she flew straight on, ignoring the shots coming from the man leaning out of the passenger window. Alpha's momentum carried her through the windshield with a crash. The headless body of one of the bandits ame flying back out the windshield a second later as Alpha ejected him. I could see the other holding both hands up while the girl put her arm, shaped into a blade, against his throat to keep him there while taking hold of the wheel with her other hand.
  
  There was a sudden screech of tires and brakes as Alpha braked hard, twisting the wheel to spin the truck. It lost its balance and skidded sideways for about a hundred feet before flipping side over side.
  
  While the truck was flipping over, Alpha was already leaping free from the vehicle. Her hand had reshaped itself from a blade into a large vice that wrapped around the man who had surrendered and dragged him with her. She leapt nearly fifty feet away from the crashing vehicle before dropping the man in the grass. I couldn't hear what she said while pointing a finger down at the man, but he promptly lay on his stomach and didn't move an inch, even after Alpha threw herself back into the fray.
  
  The trucks nearest their leader were already trying to swerve out of the way, which put each of them directly in the path of the figures who had chosen to attack them. More of the Pandoras put themselves into the vehicles, at which point the only delay was in how quickly they could state their request that the bandits surrender. Some did, and were pitched free to be caught in mid-air by other Pandoras who were flying past in various forms and were deposited beside their companion on the grass. The vast majority laid still on their stomachs and clearly didn't dare move.
  
  One of the men who had surrendered picked himself up as soon as the Pandora who had dropped him off turned away. He started to run, but had only taken three steps before another of the Pandoras, who hadn't seemed to be paying attention, tore a bit of metal off of the van she was perched on top of and pivoted. The disc-shaped bit of metal flew through the air with enough speed and precision to easily separate the fleeing man's head from his body, leaving it to crash lifeless to the ground.
  
  From that point on, the few bandits who surrendered stayed where they were put.
  
  I caught a glimpse of one Pandora shifting herself into a cloud of smoke before pouring down in through the vertical exhaust pipe on the side of another semi. A second later, the figure in the driver's seat of that truck was engulfed by the smoke. When it cleared, only Sigma sat behind the wheel. She twisted it, flipping the truck the wrong way around and sending it straight into the side of another one like it. Both trucks rammed into one another, and Sigma flew from the inside of her stolen vehicle to the inside of the other. In mid-flight, I saw her hand shift into a blade. Her body crashed through the windshield of that vehicle, the glass of which had not yet finished spraying before the head of the man who had been driving was pitched away. Shortly, that vehicle too was added to the growing collection of wrecks. The Pandoras were creating a literal blockade made out of the front-most vehicles to prevent the ones in the back from getting straight at the portal where we were.
  
  One of the trucks was pulling out and around the pile-up, when Xi and Omicron both reached it. The twin Pandoras each split up, each taking one side of the truck. As the mounted machine guns and other turrets were pointed toward them, they leapt and ran right along the sidewalls of the vehicle, using their blade-formed hands to cut through weapon and bandit alike.
  
  That continued until a large man, nearly eight feet tall and covered in what looked like metal scales, leapt out of the side of the truck where one of the girls was. His massive fist slammed into Xi or Omicron, knocking her to the ground with enough force to have broken every bone in her body, the terrifying crash of his entrance echoing even over the sound of gunfire. Clearly believing that wasn't enough, he also brought his foot down on top of her several times with the frantic force of a person desperately trying to make damn sure that the spider under their shoe won't be bothering them again.
  
  The giant man turned while still stomping, kicking the side of the truck he had leapt from hard with his other foot in an attempt to send it flying at the other twin.
  
  He was too late, however. Xi or Omicron, whichever it was, had already set herself for it. As the truck pitched sideways at her, she leapt up and over it, feet touching the tumbling vehicle just long enough to launch herself straight at the man.
  
  He braced for her, but in mid-leap, the girl split apart into a swarm of butterflies. The man flailed wildly in confusion, the distraction taking his foot away from the twin under his foot. She, whichever one she happened to be, took instant advantage. The damage the man had done was already healed, and she lashed upward with a fist that shaped itself into a spear. The spear split into two prongs, aimed not for his metal-covered skin, but for his eyes. They struck home, and the man howled just before his body began to melt as he was absorbed.
  
  Meanwhile, another truck didn't stop before reaching the barricade of broken vehicles in time, crashing into the side of the initial flipped-over garbage truck with a scream of tearing metal that tore off part of its front end and sent the man that had been standing on top flying off with a loud bellow of anger. A burst of fire from the man scorched the ground ahead of the crashing trucks just before he landed in between two of the Pandora figures who seemed to be waiting for his arrival. They shifted back to their human shapes, and I recognized Theta, the Middle Eastern girl, and the Hispanic figure that was the joke-loving Lambda.
  
  Theta said something, and the man turned her way before throwing out his hands in opposite directions, one toward each of the two girls. A burst of lightning shot forth from one hand, tearing through the Theta's body and sending her to the ground. At the same time, a thick white cloud poured out of his other hand. The ground all along its path was frozen into ice on its way toward Lambda.
  
  Before it reached her, the girl split apart into a swarm of tiny bugs. The ice cloud engulfed them, freezing almost the entire swarm in place while the man let out an obvious laugh of triumph.
  
  Except I hadn't been given any warning lines. And sure enough, one of the bugs had escaped the ice cloud. The vision enhancements that my mask allowed were able to follow that tiny speck as it flew straight in to land on the neck of the cackling man.
  
  At once, he stopped laughing. I saw his body go through a confused shudder, just as a thick gray liquid appeared on the spot where Lambda had landed. It began as the size of a quarter, but grew rapidly as the man's own body was converted to Lambda's use. She simultaneously dissolved and absorbed him while he screamed and flailed wildly, various elements flying away from his gesturing hands.
  
  Then there was no more fate-lord. Only Lambda stood there, having used his body to reform her own that had been frozen in the ice block. She took three steps and caught the hand of the electrocuted Theta, helping her sister to her feet. Theta herself looked badly burned by the lightning, yet even that damage vanished a second later, leaving behind a pristine figure as soon as the girl focused on it.
  
  Beside Savant, poor Zephyr was making a choked sort of noise. "What-who... who are they? How can they all have these same powers? What kind of fate-lords are they?"
  
  "It's a long story," I informed her while staring after the Pandoras, who even now were forcing some of the bandits into a retreat. "We'll have to umm, explain it later."
  
  The sound of more trucks drew our attention toward where space had been distorted. Through that distorted space, the first of the convoy trucks arrived, blaring its horn as it pulled right up to the portal. The doors on the side of the truck all slid open, and people jumped down, their eyes torn between the battle in the distance and the portal to their new lives away from this horrible place.
  
  Battery and Assault were already moving. Taking the lead, they began to direct people to line up in order to go through the portal. The sight of Zephyr and Savant seemed to calm the civilians away from making a mad dash, and I could even see some that stopped to let families with little kids go first.
  
  The nearest of the civilians, a woman carrying a baby, stopped by the portal, staring at it and through to the people on the other side for a moment as if unable to believe it was true.
  
  A figure brushed past me, and I saw Zephyr lay a hand on the woman's shoulder. Her voice was soft. "Go ahead, Elise. Take Robin and go. It's safer there than here, and we'll be right behind you."
  
  Still hesitant, but bolstered, the mother with the baby tentatively stepped through the portal. She cringed while doing so, but ended up on the other side with no issues. I could see Director Simms offer a hand to her, guiding the woman toward a door at the back of the room.
  
  More people went through then, the line speeding up once it became clear that going through the portal wasn't deadly. One by one, then two by two, and three by three as their lines split up in order to proceed faster, people hurried through to the other side.
  
  "Now, Zephyr-Person."
  
  We all jumped at the sound of the voice, turning to find Alpha standing nearby. The other Pandoras were with the relatively few bandits who had surrendered.
  
  Zephyr looked at Alpha, then at the remnants of the bandit army. There were still over a dozen trucks loaded down with weaponry, but all of the men who had been on top were gone, and the trucks themselves were trying to get around the wreckage of those that had gone first.
  
  "We have asked all to surrender," Alpha informed us. "All who would, have. And those with powers have been... removed."
  
  Breathing out, Zephyr nodded. "Right, then I'll take care of it."
  
  "Are you sure?" Savant pressed. "You were dead a few days ago."
  
  Smiling at the concern, Zephyr laid a hand on the girl's arm. "I'm okay. I can do this, I promise."
  
  Turning away then, she focused on the trucks in the distance. Her arms slowly lifted up, and I saw little bits of air disturbance in her palms. She reared back and then made a hard shoving gesture, like someone either slamming a door or pushing someone as hard as they could.
  
  Wind shrieked as it tore across the land between us and the jumble of vehicles. It was so powerful that the wind itself left a jagged ditch in the ground nearly thirty yards wide. It split apart around the Pandoras and their prisoners, not even rustling a single hair on their heads before reforming on the other side.
  
  What was left of the now-disorganized army barely had any warning before the wind hit them. One second they were trying to pull themselves together and return to their charge, and the next... they weren't. The wind slammed into truck, wreckage, and bandit alike. They were all torn off the ground. Trucks, men, weapons, all of it went flying backward under the force of that single thrust of wind from the still weakened Zephyr. They were carried the length of two football fields before falling into a broken heap of twisted metal and broken... everything.
  
  "Mother... fuck..." Ethan breathed out beside me, his voice strangled.
  
  "What he said," Sam nudged her husband, before focusing as the Arrowhead craft began landing all around us. "Is that everyone?" She called to the incoming Richter and Vista.
  
  The man nodded toward the truck that was rumbling to a stop even as he spoke. "This is the last one." He looked back to the Arrowheads. "We'll bring them through last, as soon as the area is cleared-"
  
  He was interrupted by the sound of an alarm going off on Savant's armor. The girl looked at her wrist before blanching. "Shit, fuck me! Titan incoming! No-wait, two of them. They're coming this way fast! Forty seconds! How the fuck did they sneak up on us?!"
  
  "Calm yourself, young one." The voice of Asclepius spoke then, as the man emerged from the last truck.
  
  Instantly, I saw the eyes of every Pandora rivet to him, along with Sam, Ethan, Hunter, and Kayden. The latter four had, of course, been warned. But there'd been no way to warn the Pandoras.
  
  "Shit," I spoke aloud before stepping over to Alpha. "He's not really Marquis. He's-"
  
  "We know," she said quietly. "He is another version of the same man. And now is not the time to discuss such things."
  
  "She's right," Kayden spoke up from where she was standing with Theo and Cassie. "Titans are Endbringers, right? Well I for one don't want my kids here anymore."
  
  Richter nodded, already typing something on a control pad that he had pulled from his pocket. "I'm sending the Arrowheads out via programmed flight and attack patterns. They'll do whatever they can to slow down those Titans, but we have to move now. "
  
  "That means you'll have to leave them here," Savant pointed out. "They'll all be destroyed."
  
  The man smiled. "Worth it if it means the rest of my people, and you make it to safety. Besides, I can build more. Joys of being an artisan. So let's go."
  
  Suiting action to words, everyone rushed for the portal. The clock was ticking down, and from the sound of things in the distance, those Arrowhead craft wouldn't be able to distract the Titans for long, even if they switched into their combined Dragon mode.
  
  Time was passing, and there were still people to send through to the other side. The Pandoras brought their handful of prisoners, no more than twelve people who had surrendered unconditionally, to the portal. Kayden went through with them, taking Vista, Aid, and Reach with her to make sure none of them tried anything. Alexandria, looking annoyed at the whole situation, seemed to take over then.
  
  Finally, only a few of us were left. In the distance, I could see the gunfire from the few remaining Arrowheads. Whatever Titans they were fighting, they wouldn't last much longer.
  
  "Go," Richter told Savant and Zephyr. He watched while the two of them passed through the portal, then looked toward Marissa and me. "Thank you," he said quietly, his gaze passing over us. "Thank you for this, for everything you've done."
  
  "Thank us on the other side," Marissa told the man, giving him a shove. "And stop tempting fate, idiot." She gave him one more firm shove until he went through the portal.
  
  Hunter squeezed my back, then passed back through the portal as well. Then the Pandoras passed through the portal together.
  
  Soon, only me, Marissa, Ethan, and Sam were left standing there. I'm not sure why we waited the longest, but we stood and watched for a moment as the last of the Arrowheads exploded in midair.
  
  Then the ground began to rumble beneath our feet, and the four of us took one more step backwards, through the portal. My skin tingled, and then I was on the other side.
  
  "Close it," I heard Alexandria order. "Close it down, right now." A second later she seemed to realize who she was addressing and added, "Please, majesty."
  
  I caught a brief glimpse of a horn the size of a bus lifting out of the dirt where we had been standing. Then the portal was gone and I was staring at a blank wall in the middle of what had been the Noblemen's loading dock.
  
  My entire body slumped, nearly collapsing until Ethan caught me. I was so tired, so done with all of this for the moment.
  
  There was so much still to do, so much to worry about. The Pandoras reaction to Asclepius, the reaction of Glaistig Uaine to the Pandoras, all the new people, everyone's reaction to actually seeing Savant even if they had been warned. I didn't even know what the state of everything else in Brockton Bay was before we brought all these people into things. The last I'd known, the Simurgh had been attacking. Who was still alive? What had happened? How much was still standing?
  
  All of those questions and more were swirling through my head, overwhelming me with their importance. But for the moment, I let myself focus on one singular fact.
  
  I was home. We were home. And we didn't leave anyone behind.
  
  Interlude 32A - Contessa
  
  The screams of the innocent grew louder as the woman in the suit stood nearby. Her face remained expressionless as she impassively observed their rapid descent, her eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses.
  
  Seconds later, the roller coaster swept past, carrying its shrieking passengers on toward the next loop.
  
  "Hey, are you park security?" The voice came from a sunburned, touristy looking man in a loud tee-shirt that proudly proclaimed his enjoyment of the very amusement park that they were standing in, and he had a camera hanging from a strap around his neck. "Some asshole just shoved my kid to get in line for that ride over there. He's got a bruise, see?" To demonstrate, the man lifted the arm of the ruddy-faced young boy next to him to show his discolored elbow. "That's assault. That guy right over there."
  
  Almost mechanically, Contessa's head turned a fraction so that her hidden eyes could take in both the boy showing his bruise, and the person that the angry father was indicating without further visible movement. She gave no other reaction for several long seconds, and the frustrated man was opening his mouth once more when she finally spoke bluntly and simply. "Wait here."
  
  That said, she walked to where the man that had been pointed out stood, taking a picture of himself with his cell phone. Noticing the approach of the woman whose manner of dress was so different from most, he blinked her way. His voice was the challenge of a man who was accustomed to bullying his way to whatever he wanted. "The hell do you want, huh?"
  
  "The boy," Contessa lifted a hand, pointing toward the son with his father. "I believe that you owe him an apology." Her voice was as calm and matter-of-fact as if she had been a computer reciting the time.
  
  "Huh?" The man looked toward father and son, then back to the woman before cursing. "Man, fuck that and fuck you too. Who do you think you are, bitch? I ain't apologizing for shit."
  
  "You have a choice," Contessa informed him patiently, her voice remaining at the exact low volume it needed to be so that only he would be able to make out every word. "You may apologize to the boy, and buy him an ice cream from the nearby stand. Or, I will tell Rhianna about what happened in Tulsa."
  
  The man's eyes shot open wide so fast that there was nearly an audible popping sound. "What?" He blurted out loud, drawing the attention of other people before lowering his voice. "What the fuck? How do you know-what did you-how?" With each word, his face grew redder before he finally hissed, "How the fuck do you know about Tulsa? How the hell do you know Rhianna? What is this shit?"
  
  "It's my job to know things, Thomas." Contessa informed the man after a half-second consultation with her power. "But you still have a choice to make. Do you prefer an apology and ice cream, or shall I make a phone call to room one-thirty-two of the Palm Dade Motel?"
  
  By that time, the man's eyes couldn't physically get any wider. "Fuck, fuck, no. Just, who the fuck-never mind. Just don't fucking call her, got it? It was an accident, one-time thing. It's never gonna happen again. You understand? I don't know how you-did that bitch put you up to this?"
  
  "Apology, or phone call, Thomas." Contessa reminded him. "It's your choice."
  
  "Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Apology, whatever. Apology and ice cream. You got it." The man took a step.
  
  The woman's voice was as quiet and even as ever as she reminded the departing man, "Be polite."
  
  She didn't bother to watch what happened next. Pivoting, she started to walk away from the roller coaster that she had been standing in front of for the past ten minutes. Her footsteps were clipped and precise against the perfectly maintained cement.
  
  After a dozen steps, she was joined by a pair of young girls, who fell into step on either side of her. The one on the left spoke conversationally, "So what happened in Tulsa?"
  
  Without looking at either girl, Contessa kept walking. "I have no idea. I didn't ask for details, only for the words that would convince him to do what I wanted." Her gaze finally shifted from one side to the other to take in both of their unfamiliar appearances. "I see you've both chosen to use, what did you call them, bio-disguises?"
  
  The girl on the left nodded. The genetically designed mask that had been created by her companion and Panacea perfectly conformed to her face. If Contessa hadn't known any better, she would have sworn that it was the girl's face. It even matched her expressions. "It's still too easy for Riley to be recognized if we don't. And some people are still looking for me, even out here."
  
  "Darn it," the girl on the right lamented. "Now I want ice cream too. Be right back!" She split off, taking a few steps before stopping. "You want anything, Dinah?"
  
  "No thanks, Riley." The other girl replied politely, watching her companion dash off for a moment before her attention returned to the woman in the suit. "You got our message."
  
  Contessa allowed her a slight nod. "You knew that I would, Miss Alcott." Clearing her throat once, she recited from memory of what had been written on the chalkboard of her classroom that morning, "'Thirteen Kingdoms, eleven o'clock. We'll find you.' I would question your decision to meet nearly fifty miles away from your home, but we both know you have your reasons."
  
  "Multitasking," Dinah acknowledged. "We needed to meet somewhere away from the city, and I promised Riley we'd come here as soon as we could after she saw a commercial about it. Killing two birds with one stone made sense." She gestured to the crowds around them. "Plus, now we're around a lot of people with cameras. The more witnesses there are, the easier I find it is to trust people."
  
  "Especially when your friend, Miss Barnes, is in control of those cameras from wherever she has positioned herself." Contessa observed. "And yet, you've come without your usual bodyguards. I assume that they're still busy assisting with the retrieval of Tether and her allies from this... other world."
  
  Dinah's head inclined in agreement. "They are. And call it a gesture of good faith. I didn't know how comfortable you'd be showing up to a place with Panda surrounding you."
  
  "You've done well for yourself since your abduction, Miss Alcott." Contessa had stopped walking by that point, and pressed her hands against the top of the short wood fence nearby while her gaze took in the birds swimming in the nearby fountain. "And the company that you've chosen to keep would make some believe that you're assembling an army of parahumans toward some purpose."
  
  Dinah's head shook while she leaned on the same fence. "Nope, not an army." Contessa saw the sidelong glance the girl sent her while continuing. "What I'm doing is more of a special forces group. Precision over raw power, you know. I'll leave army building to other people."
  
  After watching the birds for a few seconds, Contessa spoke again without looking at the younger girl. "I must admit some curiosity over how much you are aware of." Though they had never spoken together before, she was finding it easy to talk to the child in spite of their age difference.
  
  "I know that you're behind the Protectorate, the PRT, all of it." Dinah turned, boosting herself up onto the fence so that she could watch the woman rather than the birds. "I know you don't have any idea of how to stop the Endbringers. I know you're trying to stop the end of not just this world, but all of them. I know that you've done a lot of bad things to make that possible, like the Case 53's. I know you thought those things were necessary when you did them, and part of you still does. I also know that you've been rethinking things lately." Turning her head slightly, she looked directly into Contessa's gaze. "But not before you kidnapped Oliver. It took me awhile to figure out why you wanted him. Felt stupid when I realized how simple it was. You didn't care about him at all. He was just the easiest one for you to take and hold so that you could count on the help of his friends whenever you need it."
  
  "Oliver is the simple means to a complicated end," Contessa acknowledged with a nod. "And you knew quite well that convincing Panacea and Riley to create the so-called 'cure' for Noelle's condition would gain our attention. You were showing us what your group was capable of."
  
  "That and it was the right thing to do," Dinah pointed out mildly. "Noelle didn't deserve to be a monster for the rest of her life. Now she isn't a threat to the people she cares about, and she can actually help. It also helped Amy and Riley learn how to work together better, and to trust each other."
  
  Before Contessa could respond to that, she felt a tap against her arm. Turning, she found the former-Slaughterhouse Nine biotinker gazing up at her with an ice cream cone in each hand. She lifted them toward the older woman. "Chocolate or vanilla?"
  
  For a moment, Contessa simply stared down at her. In spite of everything else she had seen in these past couple of decades, the sight of this girl, who had been an unrepentant monster capable of literally unimaginable horror and devastation offering her ice cream was possibly one of the most surreal.
  
  And yet the girl didn't flinch from her gaze. She simply stood there, staring up with what appeared to be the picture of innocence as she held those ice cream cones out expectantly.
  
  Even now, Contessa felt the urge to ask her power what was the right thing to do. She felt it the way that she assumed addicts felt the pull of their own vices. It would be so easy, to simply ask which answer would make the girl the happiest, which choice, to take a flavor or to politely decline, would be least likely to offend her. A thought is all it would take, and the answer would appear in her mind. She wouldn't have to guess, or make her own decisions. She could just act.
  
  Yet she resisted, because she had found that as easy as it was to use her power to make these decisions and others like them, it was painfully hard to stop, to think for herself. And that was something she had been trying to do more of in the past weeks. That was the reason that, while she had consulted her power for the easiest way of handling the impatient man who had shoved the child earlier, the decision to do so had been made entirely by herself.
  
  And that, she was finding with this newfound mindset, was the best way to actually use this power of hers. She could ask it factual questions and advice for what to do in order to accomplish a goal, but it was a poor substitute for her own mind when it came to what should be done. As useful as the ability was, it couldn't tell her what was the right thing to do, only what would work. Like the creature whose arrival had heralded her reception of this gift, it lacked any sort of morality. It was alien, and for decades now, she had allowed it to guide her and civilization itself along a path meant for preserving the world without regard to the state of the people that had to live within it.
  
  She chose the chocolate cone. Not because of any underlying deception or how doing so would affect the girl in front of her, but because that was the one that she wanted. "Thank you, Riley."
  
  "You're welcome!" The girl chirped happily before hopping up onto the fence beside her companion. She took a long lick of her vanilla cone, then asked, "So what're we talking about now?"
  
  "I believe," Contessa answered after tasting her own ice cream, "that Miss Alcott was about to tell me why she asked for this meeting." She took another lick of the cone then before marveling. How long had it been since she had allowed herself this very simple pleasure? Is that why it had been so easy to dismiss the evil of what she had allowed to happen in the name of basic survival, because she herself had lacked even an idea of how important the quality of that survival could be?
  
  It was Riley who responded first. "You've been trying to find a way to break through to the world that Tether and the others were taken to, huh?"
  
  Pausing briefly, Contessa allowed a slight nod, again without consulting her power first. She wanted to make her own decisions about how much to trust them. "It was a frustrating and fruitless endeavor. Even the one we call Doormaker is incapable of creating a portal to that area. That may mean little to you, but I assure you, it is all-but unheard of. For this world to have somehow been blocked off from him, yet accessible through to the machines built by these so-called Noblemen is absurd."
  
  "They didn't build the machine that made the portal," Dinah said quietly. "You already know who did."
  
  Again, Contessa tasted her ice cream before nodding. "Yes, the man called Eddie. And you are already aware of who he has truly been working with this entire time, in spite of other appearances."
  
  It was Dinah's turn to nod. The facial disguise that she wore twisted a little to match her own true expression. "Calvert." There was no hiding the anxiety that the girl felt when she said the name, even now. The man had done quite a number on her. "He's out there, and he won't leave us alone."
  
  "Is that why you asked for this meeting?" Contessa asked. "To ask that we remove Coil and his associates?"
  
  "If I said yes," Dinah replied, "You'd say that it's something you can't do. Because you can't find him."
  
  Smiling just a little, Contessa allowed herself the faintest chuckle. "I'm beginning to understand what a discussion with myself must be like. Yes, our Doormaker can't locate Coil or his people either. Which leads to one simple explanation."
  
  Riley piped up then. "He went over to the world where Tether is, right?" She looked back and forth at the pair of Thinkers. "But isn't that world full of Endbringers? Why would he wanna go there?"
  
  "Because it's hidden away from her and her people, and from the rest of us," Dinah answered with a nod toward Contessa. "Neither of our powers can see anything on it from here. As long as he's on that side, he's safe."
  
  "And yet one must wonder how he accomplished such a feat," Contessa pointed out. "After all, the portal that the Noblemen used, even if it was designed by Eddie, only worked due to its placement within Brockton Bay. The damage that Jack and his gang did to the fabric of reality around the city with their 'shield' is what allowed the portal to reach this blocked off world in the first place."
  
  "So he had to be in the city with his own portal," Dinah said quietly. "He was there, but for how long? And when is he planning on coming back? My power sees... a lot of possibilities. It's hard to find the highest because there's so many and it's so... random."
  
  "The block between this world and that may be interfering with your power as it interferes with mine," Contessa allowed before looking to the girl. "Perhaps you should tell me what it is that you do want, if you already know that Coil is out of our reach for the moment."
  
  "Three things," Dinah answered. "Three trades between allies. If you'd like to be allies." She waited until Contessa gave the slightest nod of acknowledgment before continuing. "First, you give Oliver back to his friends. You don't need to keep him. If they can help, I'll convince them to try."
  
  After a brief pause, Contessa agreed. "It was... wrong to take him, regardless. The boy is an innocent. In the interest of fostering cooperation, I will ensure that he is returned to his teammates."
  
  Smiling faintly, Dinah went on. "Second, you provide us with more vials to experiment with. You've already seen what Amy and Riley can do with the cure they made. If they had more samples, they might be able to make the perfect combination of powers that you've been looking for. In exchange, you'll get copies of all the data that they end up with."
  
  That one Contessa had to consider for a bit longer. Her power seemed to beckon her almost frantically, but this was a choice that she wanted to make. Finally, she nodded. "Agreed, assuming you maintain perfect records of what was done to each vial so that any successes or near-successes may be documented and replicated if at all possible."
  
  "No duh," Dinah replied with a shake of her head. "You'll get all the information we have, I promise. If this apocalypse thing that you're so worried about is going to be stopped, I'd rather we all be on the same page."
  
  "And the third trade?" Contessa asked after finishing the final remains of her ice cream cone.
  
  Dinah smiled. "The last bit is more of an actual trade. We're willing to give you someone you want back very badly."
  
  It took Contessa only a second to reply, "Manton. You do have William Manton after all."
  
  Nodding easily, Dinah watched the innocent park-goers run back and forth for a few seconds before she went on. "That's right, we have him. And the danger he poses has been... neutralized. Thanks to Riley, Amy, and Emma, he can't summon his power without knocking himself unconscious the second it starts to manifest, unless someone with command authorization provides a disable code to the biotech they put into his brain. There's more to it, more control codes, but he's not a threat anymore."
  
  "And you're willing to give us both Manton and control over his implants, in exchange for what?"
  
  "Not what," Dinah replied. "Who. The next member of our team."
  
  Contessa chuckled. "I don't think I'd fit into your group, Miss Alcott."
  
  The younger girl shook her head, still smiling. "It's not you that we want, actually. I mean, you'd be interesting and all, but our team needs someone else right now."
  
  A few seconds thought was necessary then before Contessa inclined her head. "... Manton's daughter. You want to trade Manton for his daughter."
  
  "Yes," Dinah bowed her head in a nod. "Manton for the one that you call the Custodian. That's the deal."
  
  Interlude 32B - The Custodian
  
  Late August, 2000
  
  "Diction! C'mon, Diction! Come on, boy!"
  
  Keaira Manton, sixteen years old, dropped to her knees to embrace the German Shepherd that abandoned his pursuit of the ever-elusive squirrel and came galloping back across the grassy yard. Her face was thoroughly licked while she laughed and hugged onto the dog's neck. "Good boy, good boy, Diction."
  
  After scratching behind the dog's ears for a moment, Keaira turned her attention to the Labrador Retriever who paced nearby and offered her hand that way. "You too, Eloquence. Come on, girl." Grinning as the second dog approached, Keaira hugged her as well. "Such good puppies, yes you are."
  
  "Hey, can I get some of that hugging action right now, or do I have to chase a ball first?"
  
  The gravelly voice surprised Keaira, and she turned her head to look at the man who stood behind her incredulously. "Dad?" Giving Eloquence one more scratch to calm her, she stood and brushed her legs off. "What are you doing here? You know Mom's gonna be home in like, five minutes."
  
  She saw her father, the great and famous Professor William Manton, wince. His name may have become synonymous with parahuman research, his very name used to explain the rules of how powers interacted with living material, but that didn't stop him from flinching at the mention of his ex-wife.
  
  And he knew very well that if Tessa Manton parked in that driveway three feet away and saw him there, that there would be a war that he would undoubtedly come out on the losing side of.
  
  Still, he stood there and opened his arms. "I had to see you, Key-yah."
  
  Flinching when her father invoked her childhood nickname, born of a time before she could pronounce her own name properly, Keaira nonetheless stood firm. "You can't do this, Dad. You know the rules about visitation. If Mom finds out you're breaking them again, she won't let it go this time."
  
  She saw him stiffen, saw the anger in his eyes, the frustration and sheer indignation that he was being refused something. Even if she hadn't seen it then, however, Keaira had heard the fights that he and her mother had had for months before they finally separated after the incident . William Manton was a brilliant man, but he was a pretty shitty husband. He was almost never around, and when he happened to be, he was so stressed that he snapped at the smallest thing.
  
  "Your mother will get over it," he snapped, the frustration in his voice evident. "Look, I just wanted to see you for a minute. Today was... today was a long day, and I wanted to see my kid, okay? I just wanted to talk to my daughter and say hello. Maybe even get a hug, if that's not too much to ask?"
  
  But she was looking past him, at the road that her mother's car would be coming down any minute. "Dad, I think you need to go. If Mom comes back and you're-"
  
  "Fuck your mother!" The man spat the words angrily, and Keaira took a reflexive step back while both Eloquence and Diction moved in front of her, giving low warning growls at the man. He stared, not at the dogs, but at the girl who had stepped away from him. "What are you-are you afraid of me?" His voice held the plaintive confusion of one who doesn't understand what they've done wrong.
  
  "You hit Mom," Keaira answered quietly, laying a hand on either of her dogs' heads.
  
  He flinched, as if she had hit him, and shook his head. "That's-I wasn't- I didn't mean to. I was just frustrated, okay? She wouldn't listen to me, and she was threatening to take you away and not let me see you anymore. She was already taking half my money, half my life, and then she brought up fucking visitations, like my time with you should be regulated, and... fuck, I just snapped. It was a mistake. It was a stupid mistake, kid. Adults make them sometimes, but it doesn't mean I'm going to hurt you. I'm not a monster. I'm not some abusive asshole, Key-yah. It's me, it's your dad."
  
  Standing there for another second while she tried to work through the easiest way to get her father to leave before her mother got home, Keaira finally realized that her best bet was to give him what he wanted. Scratching both of her dogs to indicate that it was okay, she stepped through them and gave the man a hug. She tried not to stiffen too much when his arms closed around her with a sort of desperate strength, as if he was going to refuse to let go.
  
  "Okay, Dad, okay Dad." Keaira had to repeat herself twice before extricating herself. "Now go. You have to leave now, before Mom gets home. Please? Please, just go. We can talk later."
  
  "Why don't you come over this weekend?" Her father prompted. His false tone made it clear that this wasn't an idea he'd just now thought of, but a rehearsed, planned suggestion. "Your Mom won't mind if it's your idea. C'mon, we can spend some time together, just you and me."
  
  They'd done this before. Three times in fact, in the past two years. Each time, he'd had to leave for an emergency, leaving her in his sad, lonely apartment that didn't even look like he really lived there.
  
  Her head shook. She didn't want to sit in that ugly apartment for hours again. She couldn't, not now. "This isn't a good time, Dad. School just started, and I've got a lot of work to do if I'm going to impress the people at Princeton."
  
  "Oh come on," he cajoled, accustomed to getting what he wanted if he pushed enough. "On weekend off won't ruin your college prospects, will it? It'll be fun, just the two of us having some daddy-daughter time. We'll even bring the dogs, since you love them so much. What do you say?"
  
  She almost agreed, just to make him leave. Mom was going to turn that corner any moment now. But she couldn't let him leave expecting to see her. "I can't, Dad. I'm sorry, it's just not a good time."
  
  "Damn it!" Suddenly, Keaira was being shoved. She fell hard onto the grass, while her father lamented, "I just want to spend time with you! Why is that so fucking difficult?!"
  
  His next words were interrupted by the sound of barking, as Diction and Eloquence tried to lunge forward at the man. Keaira caught both by their collars and tried to sooth them before turning a hard gaze to her father. "I'm sorry, I don't have time right now! I have to do this school stuff if I'm going to make anything out of myself. I don't want to just be the daughter of Professor Manton for the rest of my life, Dad. I want to be someone important. I want people to know me because of the things that I do. Now go! Mom's going to be here, and then you won't see me at all!"
  
  The man still looked as though he wanted to argue, but he gave up. Spinning on his heel, her father stormed across the street to the BMW that was parked there. He gave Keaira one last hang-dog look, as if he was disappointed in her, before yanking the door open. A moment later, the car squealed away.
  
  Keaira watched him go while hugging onto her dogs, before letting out a breath of relief. At least he was gone now, and her mother never had to know that he'd shown up at all. Thank Scion for small favors.
  
  "I don't know, Mom." Keaira came through the front door three days later, cell phone pressed to one ear. She tossed her backpack onto a nearby chair and walked to the kitchen while continuing to talk. "I've got Student Council on Tuesday, Yearbook and Choir on Wednesday, and then Thursday I really need to talk to Mr. Tentis about getting into one of those classes the University's offering. If Princeton sees that, it might just push them over the-Shit!" In mid-sentence, Keaira had entered the kitchen to find her father sitting at the table, waiting for her. The sight had startled the girl and made her yelp in surprise.
  
  She stared at the man for a moment, who looked amused, as if her shock at his appearance was something cute. Holding the phone to her ear, it took her a moment to respond to the increasingly frantic voice on the other end of the phone. "I-no, sorry, Mom. It's..." Her father smiled conspiratorially, holding a finger to his lips and winking. "One of the dogs just took me by surprise, that's all. I'm fine. Yeah, Friday sounds good. Okay, Mom. Love you too, see you at dinner."
  
  Disconnecting the phone, Keaira put it away while hissing, "Damn it, Dad, what are you doing here? You know you can't be in the house when Mom's not here!"
  
  Rising from the chair, her father shook his head. "I bought this house, young lady. I'll be here if I want to be. Besides, I only came to give you your birthday present, Key-yah."
  
  Her brow furrowed at that. "It's not my birthday for another week and a half."
  
  The man chuckled and shrugged. He seemed to be almost giddy. "I couldn't wait to give it to you. So sue me. Wait, no, your mother already took everything. Don't sue me." He tried to pass it off as a joke, but there was definite bitterness to his tone. A frown crossed his face very briefly before he turned, grabbing a small, wrapped box off the table before holding it out to her. "Go on, it's very special."
  
  Frowning uncertainly, Keaira hesitated before accepting the present. It was small, and she thought it might be jewelry or something. Indeed, after tearing off the wrapping, she found a velvet box that was obviously meant for a necklace. But when she opened it, there was a small vial sitting there, surrounded by tissue packing to keep it from rolling around.
  
  After blinking at the vial a couple times, she looked up at her father's expectant face. "What... is it?"
  
  He was grinning as if he'd handed her a winning lottery ticket. "I thought about what you said before, about how you wanted to be special, about how you wanted people to know you for the things you did. And what's the most special kind of person in the world today? Who gets noticed the most right now?"
  
  "Capes," she answered easily.
  
  His smile broadened. "Exactly. So... there you go." He indicated the vial that she was holding. "That right there, my girl, is your ticket to being one of them. A very powerful one too, I'm sure."
  
  Keaira stared at her father. "What? Dad, that's not-what are you talking about?"
  
  He laughed and stepped over, closing his hand around the one she held the vial with. "Just trust me, baby. Everything's going to be okay. I know things. You remember how you met Alexandria before?"
  
  Slowly, Keaira nodded. "Yeah, of course. We met while I was waiting for you at the lab a couple times. She was working with you on your parahuman research."
  
  "Oh it's so much more than that, my girl. So much more." Her father announced with an eager smile. "And now I'll be able to tell you all of it. I'll be able to explain all of it. But for now, you just have to trust me. Please, if nothing else, you know that I know parahumans. I know what I'm talking about. Drink that vial, Keaira, and your whole life is going to get so much better, so much bigger. They won't be able to stop me from telling you everything once you're a part of it. And with that vial, you'll be one of the most powerful capes in the world. No one will ever forget who you are, I promise."
  
  Keaira stared at her father, then down at the vial, then up at him again. Crazy. He was clearly crazy. He had to be, right? He had to be crazy. But he was right, the one thing she knew he held unparalleled knowledge about was parahumans. He knew them, and if he said this would give her powers?
  
  Powers. Who could have given up that idea so easily? Her father was an expert. No, he was the expert, in parahumans. If he said this would work, it would.
  
  She debated it with herself. She argued inwardly. She hemmed and hawed. But in the end, it was her choice, and she made it. Keaira took the lid from the vial, and she drank the contents. Call it a moment of weakness, call it faith in her father, call it the simple human desire to matter. Whatever it was, she made her choice and took the offered liquid.
  
  Pain. An instant after she had swallowed the contents of the vial, it filled her body with pain that drew a strangled cry from her throat. She felt herself falling, felt her father catch her, but her mind was elsewhere, disconnected from what was happening in the moment. She saw images that were unclear, like faded pictures. There was an enormous thing , a figure that was more planet than being and yet dwarfed even that. It was a crystal, yet it lived, a monstrous thing that she had no real frame of reference for. It was power beyond anything she could have imagined. Earth itself was barely an ant-hill to the vast, almost omnipotent thing, and she herself less than a single one of those ants within.
  
  It was her father's shout that finally drew her attention to the present. Except something was wrong. She wasn't there, and yet she was. Her body was lying there on the floor, and yet she wasn't a part of it. It was fading from view, the parts of her flesh literally dissolving into dust, yet she was right there. She could see her father clutching at the fading flesh, screaming her name while her body dissolved before his eyes, as if it was made of ash that had been blown away onto the wind, leaving only her clothes lying there.
  
  But she was still there. She was still alive. She was... something. Keaira didn't have a word for it, couldn't explain or understand it. She tried to talk, but she had no voice, no vocal chords or any ability to make sound. She was just.. there, a presence in the room, an invisible, intangible presence.
  
  And she could feel everything in the room. Everything the air touched within the room, she could feel in some kind of disconnected way. It was like touch, yet different. It was like tasting something she could touch, and also hearing it, and yet it wasn't anything like that all. She didn't feel pain. She felt... nothing. It was more of a knowledge of what the air around her was touching, an instinctive, perfect understanding and mapping of the entire area. It was like her... self wrapped all the way around those items, perfectly conforming to them so that she could read the title of a book from across the room simply because of the way that the letters on the cover felt to her invisible presence.
  
  But she had no body. Her body was gone, and her father... her father screamed her name once more while clutching the clothes she had been wearing. He screamed again, and cried while clawing at the floor, venting his confusion and rage.
  
  Then... he fled.
  
  Present Day
  
  The Custodian put aside the memories of the life that was no longer hers, the life that she would never have back. Keaira Manton had died that day, more than a decade past. Her life was long-since over.
  
  She might have floated around forever, unknown to anyone, even her own mother. But the woman that she would later know as Contessa had arrived at her mother's house not too long after that. She had known about Keaira, had known what to say and how to convince her to come through the portal that appeared, back to Cauldron's secret headquarters.
  
  Her father had worked for them, she had discovered. They were the ones who were the source of those power-granting vials, like the one he had given her. The one that had turned her from the person she had been, to the person she was now. Apparently, believing that she was dead, her father had stolen another powerful vial and disappeared. Contessa had looked into what had happened, and discovered the truth about what Manton had done for his daughter, and about Keaira's condition.
  
  It had been bad, for awhile. She had felt disconnected from everything, broken and worthless. That had gotten even worse after Keaira had learned what her father had done to Hero, what his projection of her had done. Because that's what it had to be. Even if she looked somewhat different, the similarities between her old body and the so-called Siberian were too numerous to ignore.
  
  Her father had taken powers for himself. He was projecting an image of some idealized, warped version of her, and he was murdering people. He had murdered Hero and countless other innocent people.
  
  He was fulfilling what she'd wanted, in the worst possible way. He was making her famous. The very face of the Siberian, her face, albeit slightly modified, struck terror in the hearts of even the most powerful capes in the world. He'd promised Keaira that no one would forget her. And he was keeping that promise.
  
  For a long time, Keaira had wanted to die. Yet how could she? Was she even truly alive anymore at all?
  
  It had taken time, and the help of Contessa, Doctor Mother, and even Number Man to get her through the early parts of adapting to her new life, her new state. With their aid and encouragement, Keaira had learned more about her new self.
  
  She had no body, and yet she had every body she could possibly ever need. She was nothing, yet she was infinite. She could create bodies, yet they were made of little more than air. With little effort, Keaira could make hundreds or even thousands of copies of herself, of her presence, and flood an entire area with them. She could expand herself through an enormous area and fill it completely with thousands of overlapping duplicates of her invisible self. Each was barely a gust of wind, but with enough of them, they could add up to actually move things. All of her scattered, hundreds of selves had to work together to affect the world. But when they did, she could be very dangerous.
  
  Thanks to Cauldron, she had a purpose, such as it was. The Custodian was the silent, invisible figure who took care of the labs, who kept things tidy and safe. She had to. She owed them.
  
  Her father had taken her face and made her into a monster that terrorized millions, who ripped apart families and massacred everyone who got in her way.
  
  Her face was gone, her body gone, her name gone, her family and life gone. But she had a purpose, a job that she took very seriously.
  
  And she was being fired from it.
  
  "I know it's a lot to take in," Doctor Mother was saying in a firm voice. "But Contessa and I both believe that working with this... Dinah Alcott is in the best interests of our final goals. She's seen the vision of the end of the world. She knows that it's coming, even if she doesn't know exactly who the enemy is. If she believes that you can help them prepare, then that is where you belong."
  
  The Custodian brushed an air hand across the doctor's face, wanting to express her reluctance and her gratitude for everything that had been done to help her.
  
  She wasn't stupid. She knew that Cauldron wasn't perfect, that mistakes had been made that had later been compounded. They had done some bad things.
  
  But they were the closest thing she had to family, and this place was her home. It was all she had.
  
  "I know," Doctor Mother said quietly. "Believe me, Keaira, I know."
  
  The Custodian froze in the air. That was the first time in many years that anyone had called her by her old name. It... affected her in ways that she was somewhat ashamed of.
  
  "We needed your help here for so long, and you have done so much. But now, we need you to move on. We need you to do this next part, so that we can talk to your father, and so that you can help Miss Alcott with whatever she is doing. The end is coming, Keaira. Sooner rather than later. Can you do this? Can you give up this home and go with Dinah and her group?"
  
  After a moment of hesitation, the Custodian, because she couldn't think of herself as Keaira, no matter what name the doctor chose to use, reluctantly brushed across the hand to indicate yes.
  
  Smiling at that, the doctor nodded. "Good girl. I know how hard this is, but we all make sacrifices. In the end, it will be worth it."
  
  The Custodian didn't know if she was right or not. All she knew, for that moment, was that her life was changing again. She was losing her home, losing her job, her purpose. And the people she had come to care about so much were giving her up in exchange for her psychopath killer of a father, the one who had done this to her, who had turned her face into the face of the cannibalistic, mass-murdering monster. She had been with them for ten years, had done everything she could to be important, to help. And now they were getting rid of her, tossing her out to help a girl she didn't even know, while her dad would be here, would be in her home.
  
  She was confused, sad, and a little angry. But mostly, she was curious. Who was this Dinah Alcott?
  
  And what could she possibly want with her?
  
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  Arc 33: Breathe
  Notes: SarcasticallySatyricalandImageination- Thanks, the idea of Manton's daughter being the Custodian was an idea I'd seen thrown around a few times. It seems to fit what we see, and I wanted to play with that. I'm glad you guys like it.
  
  HellKing666 - The vial itself has to be created prior to them dying, and is a one-time thing. Shard-based limitation that can't really be tricked. Also, the resurrection only works for extremely special cases. There are only a handful of qualifying existing capes, and no, Madison is not one of them. Basically, it only works for shards of sufficient power like Contessa or Eidolon.
  
  And thanks for the compliment about Manton's daughter. Again, that's a story that I really wanted to play with and I'm really glad that it comes off well. I tried to make it fit with what we've seen of Manton as well so that it worked with what was said in Alexandria's interlude in canon about the man. Hopefully that works out in the future.
  
  Anyway, this arc here is, as the title should indicate, a bit of a breather. Enjoy. :)
  
  33.01
  
  The rest of that day was almost entirely a blur. I remembered Dennis coming in to give me a hug, and I definitely remembered Glaistig Uaine appearing in front of me long enough to state that she would expect me to visit her in one week, and that she would inform my brother that I had returned safely. I also remembered the Pandoras leaving past the collection of dumbstruck PRT troops that they had been masquerading among. Other than that, it was mostly a blur of voices and other noise. Someone, Marissa I thought, asked if they had ever found out anything about the speedster that had gone through the portal when they had first reopened it. Someone else said something about Asclepius's similarity with Marquis, and there was some long discussion about that.
  
  I wanted to pay attention, I really did. My eyes kept opening as I attempted to focus on what was happening. But I had no energy left, no... nothing. Cassie, Missy, Theo, and I were all sort of collapsed into a corner, half-asleep while the others went through all the questions they had. And there were a lot.
  
  My eyes kept drifting closed and then opening in a vain attempt to contribute, but from the looks I was getting when I did try to say something, I was pretty sure I was responding to conversation topics long after they had moved on. That or the words that were coming out of my mouth were gibberish.
  
  Eventually, Marissa sat down next to me. "Shh," she said quietly while hooking an arm around my back when I tried to apologize for leaving her to explain everything.
  
  I wanted to tell her how glad I was that we had both made it home, how good it felt just to know that we were (relatively speaking) safe, and that being there with her meant a lot. I wanted to explain that being stranded in a world full of Endbringers hadn't been as bad as it might have been because she was there with me. I wanted... a lot of things. But the words failed me, and all I could do was lay my head against Marissa's shoulder while daydreaming about all of the things I wanted to say.
  
  Dreams of day turned to dreams of night, and somehow, I slept.
  
  Waking with a start, disoriented and confused, I blinked around a few times before realizing where I was: my bedroom. And how telling was it that waking up safe and sound in my own bed without any interruptions was such a strange feeling that it took me several seconds to find my bearings?
  
  I couldn't even easily tell what time it was, since the heavy shades had been pulled down over the window, and I had no idea where my phone was. For a few minutes, I just laid there in bed and stared at the wall where my colorful paint job was partially illuminated by the glow-in-the-dark glitter.
  
  Pfft, Dennis had no idea what he was talking about when he made that crack about Hunter's wall spontaneously combusting if it was painted so simply on the other side of mine. My bedroom was colorful, fun, and pretty. He was just a philistine who didn't know awesome when he saw it.
  
  I became aware of a weight on my chest after another moment. Moving my gaze downward, I found a familiar tiny figure perched there protectively. My smile brightened, and I carefully lifted my hand. As soon as I moved, the little robot's eyes lit up and he lifted himself onto tiny spider-legs before looking toward me. I felt his little metal pincer-feet press in on me, and realized that the tiny guy was doing his best impression of a hug. At the same time, the sound of a soft, happy song about friendship and being there for someone in need played. It took me a few seconds to place it as a song that was pretty big in the seventies by James Taylor. If nothing else, my friendship with my tiny bodyguard was expanding my music knowledge, since I liked to know what he was playing.
  
  "Hey, little guy," I whispered, bringing my finger in to gently brush over him. "I missed you too."
  
  Holding my hand down, I let him climb into my palm and brought it up to nuzzle the little guy, closing my eyes. I felt a wave of relief knowing that he was okay too.
  
  Jalopy had progressed far beyond the simple robot weapon that he'd initially been. He was as much a friend as anyone else in my life, and I couldn't imagine how I would have been able to get this far without his help. He really was the very best present that Riley could ever have given me, and I needed to let find a way to let her know that somehow.
  
  I laid there with Jalopy, reuniting with him for a few minutes before remembering belatedly how much I still had to deal with. Feeling a sudden intense guilt for letting myself fall asleep instead of helping, I gave him another little stroke with my finger. "Okay, buddy. Time to get moving, I guess. Gotta find out what's going on down there."
  
  In response, he clambered from my palm to my wrist before switching to his band-form and latched on with a grip that made me doubt that he'd ever let go.
  
  Chuckling, I rubbed my thumb over him fondly before untangling myself from my blankets and rolled out of bed. A quick check through the window blinds showed that it was some time in the morning. I had slept through the rest of late afternoon and evening, and all through the night.
  
  As soon as I realized how long it had been, I rushed out of the bedroom and took the world's shortest possible shower, threw on a set of clothes (and only stopping to marvel at the thought of wearing clean versions of my own clothes for a few seconds) and took the stairs as quickly as I could. Which, in my case, involved ignoring the stairs entirely and simply hopping over the banister before using a line to slow my drop to the floor below while calling down a warning just in case.
  
  Landing in a crouch in the middle of the living room, I found myself staring at Ethan, Sam, and Mika's parents. The four of them were seated at the dining room table, obviously drinking coffee while gazing at me with expressions of mixed amusement and concern, depending on which adult I looked at.
  
  "Morning," Ethan was the first to speak, his tone jovial as he picked up his mug and took a sip before asking, "How'd you sleep, Wicket?"
  
  "You-I-what... what's going on?" I was still, even after the short shower, blinking sleep out of my eyes. "What happened with um, with everyone else?" I added the last with a belated glance toward Mika's parents. How much did they know about what had happened? Should I shut up?
  
  It was Sam who answered while rising from her chair. "Everyone's fine, Mads. Your teammates are home and all the, ahh, new people are staying at the Protectorate HQ for the moment. They put cots out upstairs until everyone can be fully debriefed and screened for any potential medical issues."
  
  Sam embraced me then, followed shortly by Ethan. I held onto them both tightly, before being somewhat surprised when Mika's mother gave me a hug as well. The woman smiled down at me before pointing. "We're both glad you're safe too, Madison. You should go over to our house though. Lily and Mika are waiting for you with Chris, Hunter and Dennis. They've all been making breakfast to pass the time, and I'm afraid if you don't go soon, we'll be eating waffles and eggs for the next week straight."
  
  "Breakfast?" I blinked as my stomach growled. "What about, um, everything else? I mean, I still don't know what happened with the Simurgh and-oh my god, is everyone okay? Did we-um..." I wanted to ask if we had lost anyone, but I was too terrified of the possibility to voice it."
  
  Ethan realized what I was asking though, and shook his head. "It's okay, kid. We lost some to that bitch, but no one... no one that you know. Out of towners, who came to help, god damn it." I could hear the frustration in his voice. Even if they hadn't been people that I had known, I wondered if he had.
  
  "I still need to see who they were. I... I want to see if I can do anything for their um, their families or teammates," I spoke hesitantly, then faster as more thoughts occurred to me. "Director Simms probably wants to talk about everything that happened, and so does Mrs. Pelham, and-oh crap, we have to talk about Savant, and Asclepius, and Zephyr, and-"
  
  "Food first," Sam instructed firmly. "Everything else will wait, believe it or not. When you're done, we'll head down and start going through the list of everything that needs to happen. But right now, eat."
  
  Ethan took the time to ruffle my hair. "Don't worry, kid, the Earth's still spinning. Everyone's sort of taking a break to get acclimated before diving into all the big stuff like figuring out where all these people are gonna live and work on a more permanent basis, and what to do about someone like Not-Marquis and... am I completely insane, or was there an older version of Shadow Stalker in there?"
  
  "And a younger version of Mrs. Pelham," I replied with a tiny smile, just to see his expression.
  
  "Right, very long story, I'm sure." Sam gave me a push. "Go eat and you can tell us on the way there."
  
  Ethan nodded in agreement. "Yup, I may be willing to wait until after you get food to pepper you with questions, but I'll be damned if I don't get the whole story before all of the scowling suits do."
  
  After promising that I would tell them everything they wanted to know, I went out the backdoor and crossed over to the Kanse's yard before heading up to knock on the door that led into their kitchen.
  
  I'd only knocked once before the door opened and a tiny eleven-year-old missile plowed into me. I laughed in spite of myself as the girl's arms latched on tightly. "Hey, Mika," I said fondly while returning the dusky-skinned girl's embrace. "Did you keep a lid on things while we were gone?"
  
  Without letting go or easing up, she blinked those big brown eyes up at me before nodding. "Uh huh."
  
  "Did the best we could, anyway," the voice of Lily put in. I glanced that way to see her standing in the doorway. She gave me a quick smile before stepping in for a hug of her own without dislodging Mika.
  
  "Sorry, guys," I told them both quietly. "We didn't mean to leave you alone. Especially just before..." I trailed off as a lump caught in my throat. I could have lost them. Mika and Lily could both have died before we got back here. The thought made me hug them both even tighter.
  
  "Hey, can I get some of that too?" Dennis had emerged from the house as well by then, his expression one of mixed relief and amusement. "Last night's hug was pretty weak, Miss Sleeps Forever."
  
  Rolling my eyes, I gave Mika one more tight hug before gently extricating myself. Moving to the red-haired boy, I embraced him as well. My tone was mocking, but the hug was firm. "Happy now?"
  
  "I will be once the tracking collars come in so we never lose track of you guys again," he replied.
  
  Snorting, I punched him in the arm. "You may be resourceful, but I'm pretty sure even you can't find a place that sells tracking collars that'll work across different worlds."
  
  "I'm highly motivated," Dennis replied. He tightened the hug then for just a moment before letting go. "Now come on. Hunter's already got enough food ready to feed the entire Protectorate, and we have tons of questions. Starting with, who the hell was that person that looks like Shadow Stalker if she was a couple years older?"
  
  "Yeah," the voice of Chris piped up, and I turned in time to accept a hug from the brown-haired boy as well. "And who's the cute blonde that you brought back with you?"
  
  Biting my lip in amusement in spite of myself, I coughed. "The cute blonde? Oh, you mean the one that's about yay high," I demonstrated with my hand. "Controls wind and stuff?"
  
  "That's the one," Chris nodded cluelessly. "She looks really familiar, but I can't figure out where I've seen her before. She's really hot though, and I swear I should know her."
  
  Snorting then, I glanced toward Dennis and Lily before shrugging. "Well, you have met her before. The one in this world, I mean. In fact, you know her pretty well."
  
  He still didn't get it, just blinking at me. "I do? Come on, she looks familiar, but I swear if I'd known someone that hot, I wouldn't forget who she was."
  
  That time I couldn't help the snicker that came. "Oh you definitely wouldn't forget who she is." I teased, enjoying the simple ability to do so. "You'd end up being in an awful lot of trouble if you did."
  
  Dennis had been gazing off thoughtfully, and gave a start then. "Wait, you mean-ohhh." He covered his mouth, clearly trying to control his laughter, muffling it down to snickers.
  
  Blinking back and forth between us, Chris shook his head. "What? What am I missing?"
  
  I started to say something, but it was Lily who spoke up instead. She sounded just as amused as Dennis. "It's Mrs. Pelham, Chris. That girl you're talking about, it's Mrs. Pelham if she was younger."
  
  The poor boy scoffed at first. "That doesn't make any-" He stopped at the sight of my nodding head and blinked a few times. "What-but she's not-but... oh... aww man." Groaning, he covered his face with his hands, while everyone else started laughing.
  
  Smiling, I gave him another hug. "It's a long story, Chris. The short version is that she used to look like Mrs. Pelham does now. But she died, and when she was brought back to life, she looked younger."
  
  Dennis squinted at that. "Brought back to-okay, you really need to tell us what happened over there."
  
  "Sure," I nodded agreeably. "But you have to tell me what happened here too."
  
  We went inside, and I exchanged hugs with Hunter as well once someone took over at the stove for her. Smiling at the silent girl, I whispered, "Thanks for taking care of Ethan and Sam while I was gone."
  
  Her face brightened at that, and she gave me a thumbs up before trying to step back. But I hugged her tighter. "I mean it, you... you've done a lot, Hunter. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad we met you."
  
  Her blush deepened, and the girl met my gaze for a few seconds before nodding seriously. Stepping back, she picked up a plate piled high with food and offered it to me.
  
  I took it, and moved to the table where everyone else was waiting expectantly. "Okay," I announced. "If I'm going to eat all this, someone else should do most of the talking to start. So you guys tell me what happened here, then I'll tell you what happened with us. Starting with, how the hell did you beat the Simurgh?"
  
  "You don't know?" Chris grinned at me. "Well that's thanks to your bestest best friend the Faerie Queen."
  
  It was a good thing I hadn't actually eaten anything, because I choked a little at that. "What?" I stared at all of them while they nodded together.
  
  Dennis, standing behind me, laid a hand on my shoulder. "Let's just say no one is ever going to argue against you being allowed to visit her again."
  
  33.02
  
  "Are you guys serious?" I asked some time later after swallowing a mouthful of pancake. "Both legs?"
  
  Chris was nodding animatedly, "And two of the bitch's wings too, it was insane! We were just trying to regroup, get out of range of that damn scream of hers after she took out the PRT building, and this little girl in some prison shroud flies down in front of us. She just floats there, you know, and she's not even paying attention to the big winged woman throwing a telekinetic tantrum behind her."
  
  Dennis took over while Chris took a bite of his own food. "She floats there with the Smurf ripping apart the PRT building in the background and asks, 'I seek the True Healer, who has delayed her?'"
  
  Choking a little, I looked back and forth between them. "What did you say?"
  
  It was Mika who answered, looking proud. "Nobody else said anything. They were all just staring like this-" She adopted a comically wide-eyed and open-mouthed expression. "So Lily talked instead!"
  
  I looked toward the girl in question, who slouched a little while looking embarrassed. Staring at her plate, she mumbled, "I just said the first thing that came to mind. I didn't expect her to actually do it."
  
  Before I could ask what Lily meant by that, Mika went on for her. "She told her that we were trying to find you but we were busy dealing with the giant crazy monkey-pigeon behind her."
  
  "Giant crazy monkey-pigeon?" I echoed, snickering in spite of myself at the absurdity.
  
  "I was upset," Lily mumbled. "She'd just destroyed the PRT building and let a bunch of prisoners out."
  
  I felt a stab of fear and pain, the same I'd felt a few minutes earlier upon finding out that Sophia had been among those that had been freed by the Simurgh's attack. Not to mention Krouse. I had to find out how Marissa and the others felt about that, and whether the Undersiders had had any luck tracking down either them or with their previous job of finding Coil while we had been gone.
  
  Shaking it off for the moment, I looked to the others once more. "So what did she do then?"
  
  It was Chris who took up the narrative. "First she just sort of looked over her shoulder and said something about the high priest's children needing to mind themselves for a moment."
  
  I blinked at that, echoing the words, "High Priest's children? Did you-"
  
  Dennis shook his head. "We didn't find out what she meant. That was when she summoned one of her ghosts. It was some short woman that looked kind of old. I don't know who that ghost was when she was alive, but she made this sort of waving gesture over the Faerie Queen's head and this weird, rippling wave effect kinda... went over her. It's hard to explain. Anyway, that ripple effect stayed on her. It kind of made it look like her body was almost, you know, distorted by a fun house mirror just a little bit? It was weird to look at, but there's pictures somewhere if you want to see what we mean."
  
  Setting his fork down, Chris took over once again. "Like he said, it was really weird and hard to describe. You really had to see it. Anyway, after she had that distortion thing, the Faerie Queen flew up with these three other ghosts and just uhhh, unleashed all hell." He coughed and shrugged helplessly. "He's not kidding," Lily put in. "See, from what we could tell, she made three ghosts. One of them was some average cape that could shoot lasers. Normal stuff. The second was some kind of duplicator. And the third was an energy magnifier. So she had this average blaster cape and she duplicated him like, a couple dozen times. Then she had all of those duplicates fire at the energy magnifier, and he took that energy and made some kind of super laser out of it. Seriously, it wasn't much bigger than the others, but according to Chris, Armsmaster, and a couple other tinkers, the power level was off the charts."
  
  Chris was nodding along with her. "The Smurf didn't know what hit her. Literally, it was like she never saw it coming. She was dodging everything we threw at her, but when the Faerie Queen starts attacking, she didn't move. It was like she could see every move we were trying to make before we made it, but couldn't see anything the Faerie Queen did even when it was right in front of her."
  
  "Well, she could sort of see it," Dennis amended. "She could definitely tell someone was there and attacking her, but she was definitely at least half-blind to it. She sort of flailed and threw part of the building in the right general direction. It was kind of like when someone's blind, but they can hear where the attack's coming from? Sort of like that, I guess."
  
  "But the Faerie Queen just used those blaster duplicates to shoot down everything the Simurgh threw at her, when they weren't recharging the magnifier," Lily added with a small smile. I didn't blame her, the idea of seeing one of the Endbringers get their asses kicked so thoroughly was appealing.
  
  Mika piped up, "Then she hit her with that power laser-thing and it went right through her wing!"
  
  "I'm pretty sure that was when the Simurgh decided it was time to leave," Dennis said dryly. "But Glaistig Uaine hit her a couple more times anyway. Took out two more wings and then sheared off her legs, like we said. The whole time the Smurf acted like she couldn't see any of it coming." Belatedly, he added with a shrug, "Or at least not well enough to do anything about it."
  
  "So then what happened?" I asked, feeling a bit dazed at the thought that the person that I visited on a monthly basis was capable of slapping around an Endbringer. If I hadn't fully appreciated just how ridiculous it was that she had any interest in me whatsoever, that news pretty much drove it home.
  
  Lily's small smile grew. "She floated down to the leaders. They were pretty much all still doing their," she copied Mika's previous comically shocked expression before continuing, "thing, so none of them said anything. Then she told them, 'You will locate the one you call Tether before my patience expires."
  
  Snickering at my expression, Chris nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much what everyone looked like. Then she just flew off. They asked Dragon about it and she said Glaistig Uaine was back in the Birdcage."
  
  "Wait," I frowned, pinching my forehead. "So Glaistig Uaine leaves the Birdcage because I'm late, shows up here just long enough to beat up an Endbringer, orders the Triumvirate to pick up the pace about locating us, then trots on back to the Birdcage like nothing happened?!"
  
  "Yeah, that's pretty much the size of it," Dennis replied dryly. "You should've seen the suits. They demanded to know what Dragon was going to do about the Faerie Queen just taking off and leaving the Birdcage any time she wanted to. You know what Dragon said to them?" When I shook my head, he gave a wide grin. "She said, 'I'll thank her for remembering to close the door after herself.'"
  
  Snorting, I looked back and forth between all of them. "Wow, so, what did everyone else think? The civilians, I mean. I mean, do they even know who Glaistig Uaine is or where she came from?"
  
  "They figured it out pretty quick," Chris started to reply. "Actually, you're not gonna believe this, but when somebody spilled the beans about what exactly happened and what she said to those guys-"
  
  "Ooooh!" Dennis interrupted, waving a hand. "Let me tell her, let me tell her. I so called telling her."
  
  "Tell me what?" I blinked at his enthusiasm, frowning uncertainly. "What the civilians were saying?"
  
  The red-haired boy grinned at me. "Specifically, what PHO was saying. Actually, it's sort of a good news, bad news situation in your case. You know how you and Chris couldn't figure out why so many people thought you were a couple or why that was the most popular pairing? Well..." he trailed off briefly, still smirking incorrigibly. "The good news is that they've got your orientation right this time."
  
  I blinked at him once, then again before it hit me. My eyes went wide and I sputtered, "W-wait, you mean-you-they- Oh god, no! No, no, no!" I repeated frantically while Dennis and everyone else laughed. I could even see Hunter smiling while her shoulders shook a little bit. "Are you serious?"
  
  Still snickering, Dennis spread his arms helplessly. "Hey, it's the internet. Think about it. All they know is that the Faerie Queen, who hasn't done much of anything in like a decade, just popped out of the Birdcage and bitch slapped an Endbringer before demanding to know where you were. Of course they plugged those things together and came out with it being something romantic. You're lucky they didn't figure out how to stick a cat into the equation somewhere."
  
  "Now there's entire threads about your secret romance that must have started while you were trapped in the Birdcage," Chris put in, his own amusement obvious. "They even have a ship name for you."
  
  "Oh god," I closed my eyes and put my hands over my face before asking, "Do I wanna know?"
  
  "Ley Line," Lily informed me, sounding like she was giggling a little bit. "You know, like those areas that are supposed to be full of magic or whatever? Faeries, invisible lines, Ley Line."
  
  A long few seconds passed while my friends laughed at my reaction before Hunter gently reached over and used two fingers to push my gaping mouth shut.
  
  "I leave for like, a week!" I blurted, sputtering in spite of myself. "A week! And while I'm gone, everyone decides that I must be the... the... official consort of the freaking Faerie Queen ?!"
  
  "Could be worse," Dennis pointed out mildly. When I looked at him disbelievingly, he grinned. "Imagine what kind of conclusions they'd jump to if they knew your brother was living with her?"
  
  The thunk of my forehead hitting the table was drowned out by laughter.
  
  "I still can't believe you're using the Noblemen's old base for the new PRT headquarters," I muttered a couple hours later. I was seated at a table that, thankfully, wasn't in the aforementioned converted base. Instead, we were in the PCIPS building. Which, come to think of it, had also been the headquarters of the Empire Eighty-Eight. What was up with the PRT hijacking evil supervillain lairs?
  
  Director Simms, seated across from me and next to Mrs. Pelham, winced sympathetically. "It's not a perfect situation by any means. But it was an already established building with ready-made defenses and everything we needed to move in right away. Give the contractors another month and they'll have the whole place set and there'll be no sign the Noblemen were ever there."
  
  His face softened somewhat then. "That said, having you or any of the others in there so soon seemed like a bad idea. That's why we're doing these interviews here."
  
  Mrs. Pelham nodded along with him. "And the new Wards headquarters will be here as well. It should have been moved a long time ago, but you know red tape. If nothing else, the destruction of the old PRT building gives us an excuse to cut through a lot of that." This was added with a humorless smile.
  
  I hesitated before shrugging. "Anyway, that's pretty much everything that happened to us over there. I don't think I could tell you anything the others haven't already." I was the last debriefing, apparently.
  
  "Yes," the woman who had been standing in the corner of the room, silent through most of this, spoke up. "You've all told us the exact same thing. That doesn't make it any easier to hear."
  
  I looked that way, swallowing at the sight of Alexandria. Even now, even after everything that had happened, I was still intimidated by her. Legend was approachable, even (I knew from personal experience) huggable. Eidolon had been such a jerk the first time I'd met him in person that I'd pretty much forgotten to be intimidated until after I'd already chewed him out. But Alexandria was neither approachable nor a complete jerk. She was just... power. She radiated authority.
  
  Before I could speak, Mrs. Pelham responded. "And now we know where the Endbringers are coming from. Or at least we know the stop before ours, if not their origin. There's a whole other world destroyed by those bastards. And if they ever all come through..." Her voice cracked while her face tightened, and I remembered that her own sister had been killed when Leviathan had attacked.
  
  It had been around the same time that my own parents had been murdered, not by the Endbringer himself, but by the girl who was now running around free. And she had done it on the orders of a man who was also running around free.
  
  Alexandria spoke up, breaking through the memories of loss that had briefly silenced both Mrs. Pelham and myself. "What I'm more interested in, is whether we can reverse whatever has been done to bring those monsters here."
  
  I blinked that way. "You mean you want to send them back through to Ragnarok? Do you think that's possible?"
  
  "We're looking into it," she informed me flatly. "That's part of why I invited the leadership of these... otherworlders to talk today. They've had a lot more of a chance to study the Endbringers. Hopefully we can pick their brains enough that sending the monsters back the same way they came through and locking them out is possible."
  
  "So you met uhh, your sort-of younger self?" I asked Mrs. Pelham, wondering if there was a better way to phrase that.
  
  She coughed and smiled faintly. "Zephyr, yes. Speaking with her has been... interesting, to say the least. She had very different experiences. We're still working everything out, but I'm hoping to speak with her privately again after today's meetings."
  
  "Which means," Alexandria put in. "That it is time for you to leave, Tether. We have a lot more to do today."
  
  I started to stand from the table, glad to get out of there, before stopping. "What are you guys going to do about all those new people, anyway? I mean, they can't just live at the Protectorate Headquarters forever, right?"
  
  "We're working it out," Alexandria assured me. "Right now we want to assess their physical state and make sure they aren't bringing in any diseases. That's what Panacea and-" She stopped, clearly mentally correcting what she had been about to say, "- Bones are doing over there right now."
  
  "Would you mind joining them?" Mrs. Pelham asked politely. "Apparently this Hephaestus person along with Asclepius and Zephyr left the one called Savant in charge. But if she needs help understanding anything that's going on, or if something comes up..."
  
  "I'll go talk with them," I agreed with a little smile. Riley was being allowed inside the Protectorate Headquarters, and was being trusted to help Amy check over the new arrivals? I wondered if the girl had any idea how big that was.
  
  In mid-thought, something else occurred to me. "Err, speaking of Asclepius, what's going to happen with him? I mean, everybody knows what Marquis looked like. He was a Birdcage escapee who had a kill order." Mentally I reminded myself to find Amy as soon as possible. "What's he going to do?"
  
  It was Director Simms who answered, "That's not really an issue, apparently. According to the man himself, he's capable of creating a potion that will alter his appearance enough that the similarity shouldn't be quite so close. He's offering the service to any of the other newcomers who might have more infamous appearances on this side than they like."
  
  "Well, that's convenient." I stepped away from the table while speaking, and started toward the door. Before I reached it, however, there was a brief knock.
  
  After Alexandria called for them to come in, the door opened to admit two figures. First was Armsmaster, who stepped through the doorway and moved to the side. His companion was a feminine figure who looked a bit like one of those old Japanese Sentai heroes.
  
  "Dragon?" I asked belatedly after taking in the familiar design patterns. This was a much smaller suit than what she usually went around in, and I wondered if she was in there or if this was still a remote-piloted suit like they normally were.
  
  "Yes," she looked to me with a nod. "Sorry we weren't here for your return, Tether. It was... unavoidable."
  
  "What she means is, we were detained on other business," Armsmaster put in. "Business that kept us out of contact until just a few minutes ago, actually. We came here as soon as we heard what was going on."
  
  "Good," Alexandria sounded almost happy. "You have perfect timing. We're about to speak with a few people who might be able to give us enough information to at least perfectly track the Endbringers, if not remove them from the world entirely."
  
  I thought I heard Armsmaster choke a little. "Who's going to give us that kind of information?"
  
  "I believe," a voice spoke up from behind the pair where the door was still open, "that she is referring to us."
  
  The two of them turned, and we all saw the trio of Zephyr, Hephaestus, and Asclepius step into the room. The girl with the red dreadlocks who had been escorting them looked around briefly, saw Alexandria, and flushed with giddiness before slipping back out.
  
  Meanwhile, Hephaestus, who had been talking, extended a hand toward Armsmaster. "Andrew Richter, it's a pleasure to meet you. I hope we can-" He stopped talking then, blinking toward Dragon, who had stepped toward him. "Err, yes?"
  
  There was a... tension in Dragon's suit that I didn't understand. Her arms were partially lifted, frozen there halfway up in a position that made it hard to tell if she wanted to hug the man, pray to him, or choke the life out of him. Somehow, I thought it was all three at the same time.
  
  Armsmaster was looking at Dragon, then turned back as an expression of realization and recognition crossed his face. "Richter?"
  
  "Yes, that's my-" Hephaestus started to say. Before he could get any further, however, Dragon had moved past him. She didn't quite shove anyone out of the way, but it was a near thing. She slipped through the smallest possible space between Zephyr and Asclepius, bursting out to the hallway. The sound of rapid footsteps departing echoed back to the suddenly quiet room.
  
  Armsmaster gave one last look at the man in question before going after Dragon with a muttered, "We'll be right back. Don't you go anywhere." Then he was gone as well, leaving the rest of us as confused and lost as ever.
  
  "Well," Andrew Richter started after a moment. "I suppose that removes any hope that my counterpart on this world led a quiet, uneventful life."
  
  33.03
  
  As much as I wanted to stick around to see what was wrong with Dragon and what it had to do with Hephaestus, I didn't really have a legitimate reason to. Not to mention the fact that Alexandria had already clearly dismissed me, and I didn't want to push things just to satisfy my own curiosity.
  
  Besides, blundering off to find Dragon and Armsmaster just to ask if she was okay when the woman barely knew me and had absolutely no reason to confide in me would be pretty stupid, overall. The simple truth was that it wasn't any of my business, no matter how curious I happened to be.
  
  At least, that's what I repeated to myself on the way to the elevator so that I wouldn't run off to try to track down the pair. Dragon had seemed to be really upset, in a way that I had never seen her before. It made me want to help, to talk to her the way I'd talked to other people. It was an almost physical need, this urge to find Dragon and talk her through whatever was bothering her at the moment.
  
  Which was patently ridiculous. She was a grown woman and I was still a teenager. What in the hell made my subconscious think that I had any business thinking that I could help her at all?
  
  So engrossed in my thoughts was I, that I didn't notice the elevator was occupied until I was already on it. The voice that spoke up as the doors began to close startled me with a blurted, "Oh wow, it's you."
  
  Half-jumping, I turned to see another girl. She looked like she was a couple years older than I was, with brown hair styled into a short pixie cut. There was something both aristocratic and familiar about her, but I couldn't quite place it. Most likely I'd seen her around either here or the PRT building before.
  
  "Oh jeeze," the girl winced when I jumped. "Sorry, sorry about that. I seriously didn't mean to startle you. I just uhh," she hesitated, looking uncertain for a second. "I'm new around here and I didn't expect to run into any capes yet. I mean, this is only like, my second day on the job." Leaning closer to me, she stage-whispered, "This place is seriously kind of amazing ."
  
  Recovering, I coughed, glad that the mask hid my blush. "No, I mean, it's okay. So you work here?"
  
  Her head bobbed. "Yup. It's not a big deal though, nothing like you. Mostly I'm just an intern. But you know, foot in the door." Holding up her two crossed fingers, she added, "Hope it leads to a real job."
  
  Swallowing at the reminder that there were still numbers that needed to be replaced after all that had happened, I forced myself to give the girl a thumbs up. "Good luck."
  
  "Thanks!" The girl gave me a pretty smile that made me think of, of all people, Aster. Why the smile of a young woman at the end of her teens would think of a cute little toddler was completely beyond me.
  
  While I was still trying to work that out, the girl added, "Oh, you probably want the uhh, lobby, right?" Her finger hovered over the appropriate button until I nodded, then pressed it. "Great, that gives me an excuse to make myself leave for lunch." With a sheepish face, she admitted, "I keep being afraid that if I leave, they'll realize they shouldn't have hired me and when I come back my access card won't work."
  
  "Pretty sure they have to do more than just decide that over a lunch break," I assured the girl while the elevator started to descend. What I didn't add was that we were so desperate for bodies that there probably wasn't much short of a felony that she could have done that would get her fired at this point.
  
  "Right, right, subconscious fear and all that." After another moment of hesitation, the girl offered a hand to me. "Sorry, babbling so much. I'm Haley. Haley Prescott."
  
  I shook the offered hand. The whole time, I was trying to figure out where I knew the girl from. If this was her second day, where had I seen her? Had she gone to either of my high schools, possibly? It felt embarrassing to just come out and ask, but she just looked so freaking familiar that it was bugging me.
  
  Before I could work up the right way to ask that wouldn't give Haley more information about who I was than I wanted, the elevator reached the lobby. As the doors opened, the girl gestured grandly while adopting the voice of an aged English butler. "Your floor, madame super hero."
  
  Shaking off my confusion and making a mental note to try to remember where I'd seen the girl before, I stepped off the elevator with a low bow. "Thank you very much, Jeeves. Don't bother pulling the car around, I believe I'll try taking the scenic route today."
  
  Quirking an eyebrow, the girl smiled and kept up the accent. It was pretty damn good, actually. "Very good, sir. Shall I ring the usual clients for tea time then, or will you be dining alone?"
  
  "Meh," I replied with a grin in spite of myself. "Let 'em try to find me on their own." Dropping the act, I added, "Seriously, good luck with your new job, Haley. And don't worry so much. You'll be fine."
  
  Her smile was genuine. "Thanks, that means a lot. And good luck with, you know, everything you do."
  
  I resisted the urge to groan, just barely. This poor intern didn't deserve to have me rant at her about everything that still needed to happen. Instead, I just nodded. "Thanks."
  
  Pivoting on my heel, I walked across the lobby toward the back entrance. My mind was racing ahead, thinking about everything I needed to do. Mostly, I wanted to go over to the Protectorate HQ, both to see Amy and Riley, and to check on how Savant and the rest of the literal world travelers were doing.
  
  Before I could reach the exit, however, the security guard at the desk called out, "Excuse me, Tether?" When I looked that way, he held up the phone. "Call for you from upstairs."
  
  Blinking at that, I walked that way and took the phone from him with a nod of thanks. "Hello?"
  
  "Tether," the voice belonged to, of all people, Dragon. "I'm glad I caught you before you left. I didn't want to use the mission comm for something... personal."
  
  "Oh-oh, hi. I umm, sorry, did you need me for something?" I was taken aback. As much as I'd wanted to talk to Dragon to find out what was wrong, the thought of her calling for me still seemed absurd.
  
  "Sort of," the woman paused as though deciding how to say what she wanted to. "Do you remember when we spoke of the special project that I wished to involve your friend Oversight with?"
  
  I nodded at that. "I remember. Did you guys start on that, uhh, whatever it was yet."
  
  "No," Dragon responded. "I have been delaying, attempting to find other ways. But I believe that it is now... quite important that I speak with her directly as soon as possible. Would you... mind providing her with a phone number instead. Ask her to call as soon as she has a free moment, if you can."
  
  My head bobbed. There was something in the woman's voice, a sort of stress that made me realize just how important this clearly was to her. I didn't know why the greatest tinker in the world sounded so desperate for help from Emma, but it was clearly something big. "Sure, of course. I'll give it to her."
  
  After thanking me, Dragon provided the number and made sure that I had it. I repeated it for her, writing it down on a scrap of paper that the security guard helpfully provided. Then I hesitated. If talking to the woman in person about this whole thing had sounded absurd, trying to do so over the phone while standing next to the security desk in the lobby was several orders of magnitude worse.
  
  Finally, all I could say was, "Good luck." I meant it in a lot of ways, most of which I didn't even understand. I didn't know why the sight of Richter had clearly upset the woman, and as curious as I was, it was still none of my business. But the least I could do was offer her the absolute bare minimum amount of support possible, even if I had no idea what she needed that luck for.
  
  "Thank you, Tether." Dragon's voice was soft, different. There was an... emotion to it that made me once again want to ask her if there was anything I could do. "I will speak to you later."
  
  She disconnected the call and I handed the phone back to the security guard while thanking him. Then I turned and headed out once more. The note with the phone number on it was crumpled up in my hand, and I checked it one more time before passing through the door into the parking lot.
  
  Right, Protectorate HQ first. I would talk to Amy and Riley and check on the others. Then I would head to Dinah's new place and give Emma this phone number as soon as possible. Because whatever Dragon wanted her help with, something about the situation told me it was suddenly very important...
  
  "Tether!" The voice was the only warning I had before I was hoisted off the ground into a tight hug barely three seconds after entering the medical wing of the Protectorate headquarters.
  
  "Ooof!" I coughed, grunting as I was squeezed tightly. "Unngnn, thanks, R-Bones." I remembered just in time. "But unless you're planning on naming me George, you might wanna set me down."
  
  Promptly letting me go, Riley stepped back. She was clearly giddy with excitement, an image that was amusing to see when translated into the adult body that she was, ahh, piloting for lack of a better term. The sight of this scary-looking plague doctor-looking figure was literally bouncing up and down and wiggling like an eager twelve-year old girl made me want to giggle.
  
  "Sorry, sorry," she apologized repeatedly. "I forget how strong this sucker is." Both arms of the figure waved dramatically. "Specially since we just did some upgrades. But you're okay! You are, right?" Her voice had suddenly changed to worry. "I didn't break anything, or-"
  
  Smiling behind the mask, I nodded. "I'm fine, really. We're all okay. But hey, you're doing even better than me. All the way inside Protectorate headquarters, huh? Congratulations."
  
  Riley's excited tone sobered a bit, an indication that she understood what a big deal this was. "Thanks. I..." She paused before continuing. "I really wanted to help, while you were gone." Again, the girl hesitated, looking reluctant to say anything. "I was afraid you wouldn't come back."
  
  That made me wince before looking around. The large, open room was crowded with people either sitting on cots or standing against the walls. None actually looked hurt, however, and I was pretty sure they were only here for that diagnosis to make sure they weren't bringing any diseases into our world.
  
  Given that there didn't seem to be any kind of emergency, I asked, "Do you have a minute to talk in private?" My head nodded toward the labeled restroom. "Where's Amy, anyway?" I could see a half dozen doctors moving among the group, but there was no sign of the girl herself.
  
  "Here," the familiar voice of Brockton Bay's resident healer spoke up a bit tiredly. I looked that way to find her standing near the doorway I had just come through. She stepped in long enough to give me a brief hug while whispering, "I'm glad you're all right."
  
  Returning the embrace, I thanked her before looking to either side of the girl. She was flanked by two of the Pandoras who were wearing their red costumes with the lower face concealing half-masks. One of them was holding the string of a balloon with a smiley face on it, while the other held a notebook with a pen stuck through the spiral binding.
  
  Blinking at the first Pandora, I couldn't help but ask, "Okay, what's the balloon for?"
  
  The cheerful, if slightly muffled voice that came back was clearly recognizable as Lambda. "We are helping the little ones, Tether-Friend!" She sounded positively beside herself.
  
  The happiness in her voice made me smile, though I couldn't help but ask, "Helping them?"
  
  In response, Lambda looked toward Amy, who nodded. "Go ahead, we'll be fine."
  
  Quickly, the masked Pandora stepped in and gave me a brief, surprising hug. "We are very glad that you are home safe, Tether-Friend." Lambda assured me before hurrying off to another part of the room.
  
  "What is she-" I started to ask with a glance toward Amy.
  
  "Shh," the other girl held a hand up to stop me. There was a faint smile on her face. "Watch them."
  
  Them? I looked back, and saw a cluster of children pop out from seemingly everywhere. Dozens of very young kids, the little ones out of the group of civilians that we had brought from Ragnarok, all converged on the spot where Lambda stood waiting. None of the parents tried to stop them. None, apparently, had any problem with the masked figure interacting with their children. Which was obvious, considering everything, but it still made me smile in spite of myself.
  
  "You see, Brendan-Child?" Lambda was saying while lifting her hand in demonstration. "We have brought the magical balloon of flight."
  
  One of the young boys, Brendan apparently, looked unconvinced. "That balloon's not magic."
  
  "It is magic," Lambda knelt down, offering one hand to the boy. "May we show you, Brendan-Child?"
  
  Still looking doubtful, the boy, who looked to be about six or seven, stepped forward. After glancing back to the woman that looked like his mother, he took the offered hand. "Okay..."
  
  Working smoothly, Lambda tied the string to the boy's wrist. "Okay! Magic balloon set. Now you have to feed it. Do you know how to feed the magic balloon?" She addressed the question to the entire group, all of whom shook their heads rapidly. "No? Okay, we will tell you the secret." Holding a finger to the mask where her mouth was, Lambda lowered her voice to a stage whisper. "Smile."
  
  "Smile?" Several of the children echoed her words uncertainly.
  
  "Uh huh," Lambda was nodding, her tone absolutely serious. "Smiles. Giggles help too." When all the children continued to stare at her, she let her head tilt as though thinking. "Hmm... does anybody know why the bicycle wouldn't stop falling over?" When no one could answer, she continued with a delighted, "Because it was two tired!"
  
  There was a brief pause, then a single giggle, followed by another. Soon most of the children were at least smiling. At that point, Lambda let out a loud, exaggerate gasp. "It is working!"
  
  "Huh?" The boy named Brendan had time to look down at his wrist in confusion just before Lambda caught him around the waist.
  
  "Noooo!" She called out in loud, put-on panic. "Don't fly away and leave us, Brendan-Child!" Even as she spoke, Lambda stood and held her arms out with the seven-year-old boy in her hands. She spun in a wide circle that way, pretending that the boy was being pulled from her grasp. "You gave the magic balloon too much food! It's getting away!"
  
  That set off another round of giggles, and Lambda immediately ran down the aisle between the cots as if she was being pulled by the boy. "Ahhhh! See?! Help, children-people!"
  
  Immediately, several of the kids latched onto Lambda, holding her around the waist and legs until the 'magic balloon' relented and let Brendan down. This was followed, of course, by all the children clamoring to be the next on that next one that got to wear the balloon.
  
  Shaking my head in amusement, I looked back to the Pandora that was still standing nearby. "I'm sorry," I apologized. "I don't think I know you as well as I know the others."
  
  She nodded to me, her voice quiet. "This iteration is called Nu, Tether-Friend."
  
  "Hi, Nu." I nodded toward the notebook in her hand. "What's that for?"
  
  Glancing down at the notebook and then back up, Nu sounded kind of hesitant. Embarrassed, maybe? "We enjoy writing the things that we think about. They are... lies, not-truth. Like the story of the magical balloon. This iteration assisted Lambda-Self in its creation."
  
  "Stories," I realized. "You like to make up stories." When she gave a slow, uncertain nod, I gave her a thumbs up. "Awesome. Let me know if you ever want to share any of them."
  
  Nu thanked me, but from the way she held that notebook even tighter, I doubted that she'd feel comfortable sharing anything she had written any time soon. She seemed a lot more shy than other Pandoras, which might have been one reason that I hadn't seen too much of her.
  
  Rather than push too much, I returned my attention to Riley and Amy. "I kind of need to talk to you guys about, umm..."
  
  "The guy that looks like my father," Amy guessed. Her eyes still looked tired, but she nodded. "We met, sort of. And the Pandoras warned me." This last was added with a smile toward the shy Nu.
  
  I paused then, considering just leaving it alone. "Do... you want to talk about it? I met the guy, I could tell you some things about him, if you want. And... there's other stuff we should probably talk about."
  
  "Sure," Amy cracked her neck. "We're just about done with what we can do in here right now anyway. Give us about fifteen minutes to finish up?"
  
  "We've got stuff to tell you about too!" Riley piped up. "Like the part where we made a new friend!"
  
  I blinked over at the disguised girl. "Oh? That's-" I remembered who I was talking to then. "Wait, do you mean you made a new friend, or you made a new friend?"
  
  "Uhh, the first one. Wait, no, the second one." Riley guessed. That bird-like plague-doctor head tilted curiously. "Which one doesn't involve artificially crafted Lovecraftian horrors of medicine? Cuz I'm not talking about those ones."
  
  My mouth opened and shut at her choice of phrasing. "I'm... simultaneously relieved and concerned."
  
  "Don't worry," Amy was smiling a little more. "Everything's fine. But yeah, we do need to talk. There's... a lot to go over."
  
  "Yeah, it sounds like you guys have been pretty busy."
  
  That drew a snort from the other girl. "Trust me, Tether. You have no idea.
  
  "No idea at all."
  
  33.04
  
  While waiting for Amy and Riley to finish up with their work, I let my gaze pass over the Ragnarok refugees that were still here in the Protectorate's medical wing. As large as the room was, I knew this wasn't all of them. The rest of the civilians who had come through the portal were being allowed to take over one of the upper levels until a more permanent solution could be worked out.
  
  The expressions on the faces of the adults down here were mostly guarded and watchful. Their eyes kept moving around as though waiting for the inevitable explosion and death. None of them looked like they had slept very much. I was pretty sure they hadn't fully accepted that they were safe yet. The idea that they had actually escaped from that hellhole was probably too much to believe right away. At least some of them probably thought this still might be the trick of some Endbringer-err Titan, in their case.
  
  "Give it time," a gruff voice spoke up. I turned to see an older man with rough, weathered features and gray hair standing near a window. When I looked his way, he grunted, "They'll settle in soon enough."
  
  He sounded vaguely familiar even though I was pretty sure that I didn't know his face. Then I recognized the armor that he was wearing. It was similar to Savant's, save for its green and white coloration as opposed to the blue and silver of hers. The last time I'd seen this man, his helmet had been on and he had been putting troops through their paces back when we had first met Richter.
  
  "Roughshod?" I remembered what Richter had called him.
  
  A grunt of vague acknowledgment came, as the man with the lined, well-worn face either nodded very faintly, or possibly just breathed in. His voice was curt. "That's what they call me. Though I suppose if this... new world works out, I might just have to go back to the old name."
  
  Right, from the look of things, he was old enough to have known the world before the Titans showed up. I hesitated briefly before asking, "Is there a reason you wouldn't want to use your old name?"
  
  The man didn't answer at first. A distant, pained expression crossed his face for an instant before his head shook. His voice was, if possible, even gruffer. "It was a different life. One I can't get back to no matter how many fresh new worlds we plop ourselves down on. Some things you just can't fix."
  
  I flinched, wishing I hadn't asked. Of course he'd lost people, probably a lot of them. He'd known the world before it went to hell. He'd seen everything that happened, seen the way that society collapsed as the Endbringers destroyed everything in their paths, and now he'd been forced to abandon that world. The place where his family and other loved ones had been lost was gone. Even being here and technically being safe couldn't completely ease that pain. He would likely never again see the world where he had grown up, where he had lost so much and fought so hard. It was gone. To him, his home had been lost and the Titans had won. He had retreated, abandoning his home in the end. Whatever came next, no matter how safe this place ended up being, that wasn't something he could just forget.
  
  "I'm sorry," I said quietly. "I should've realized that... that this wasn't a perfect solution."
  
  "Ain't your problem, kid." He grunted the words with a shake of his head. "Some things just ain't got a good fix." Turning his attention away from me and to the people throughout the room, the man added, "Sides, least this way some of these youngins might have a chance to be happy. Like I said, give it time and they'll settle in. Fact is, human beings can adjust to just about anything if they have to."
  
  Roughshod and I stood there for another few minutes in silence. He had turned his attention back to the window, and I eventually noticed that he was staring at the city across the bay. His gaze was taking in the buildings as if he still couldn't believe that they were all standing and (relatively) pristine. Once in awhile, I saw him blink rapidly to rid his eyes of moisture. But he didn't speak, and I didn't push him to.
  
  Eventually, Amy came back across the room with Nu quietly trailing after her. The healer's tired look had grown, but she still smiled faintly. "Okay, I think we've done the best we can here. You guys were pretty good, actually. I fixed a few things that we wouldn't want to spread, and Bones had to ahh, adjust a couple of immune systems, but overall, it wasn't as bad as we thought it might be."
  
  Roughshod gave a nod. "Good to know. That mean this last group can head up to join the others?"
  
  It was one of the doctors who had been walking around who nodded while wiping an arm over his brow. "That's right. Go ahead and tell your people they can go upstairs. We'll take the results of the medical exams over to the director and then see what's next."
  
  While Roughshod gathered his people (and the kids reluctantly had to say goodbye to Lambda), Amy, Nu and I moved into the hall where 'Bones' was already waiting for us. Seeing me, Riley came in for another hug, and I chuckled while returning it. "You know you're just going to want another one of these as soon as you get out of this contraption?" I teased while giving the side of the suit a whack.
  
  "What contraption, the costume?" A new voice spoke up, and I turned to see Savant approach with one of the Protectorate office aids at her side as an obvious escort. Like Roughshod, the older girl was wearing her armor without the helmet on, and from the look of things, she hadn't slept that much either.
  
  The poor aide hesitated at the sight of Bones, and I was left fairly confident that he had at least some idea of who was underneath the suit considering his reaction. Still, he said nothing, even if he did keep his distance somewhat. Standing respectfully out of the way, he waited silently.
  
  "Something like that," I answered with a shrug. "How are you doing, Savant? Did you hear anything from Richter and Zephyr about what's going on yet?" I wondered how that meeting was going.
  
  Her head shook. "Nothing so far. Everyone's on edge. I think some of us expect to be told that they have to go back... home, that we aren't welcome here after all. No one wants to get too comfortable."
  
  "No one's going to make you go back to that place," I assured her. "Not the director, not the Protectorate, nobody. Trust me, you're... well, not really 'safe' here, but safer than that place." I remembered what I had picked up from Roughshod. "And I know, it's not home. It's not perfect, but.."
  
  "It's better than what we had," Savant spoke simply. "It's a place to be safer than we-" She cut herself off and looked toward Nu, who I belatedly realized had been staring rather intently at her. "Yeah?"
  
  A deep blush crossed what I could see of Nu's face, and she ducked her head a bit while shaking it. "N-nothing." Her voice was quiet and clearly embarrassed at the attention. "Sorry."
  
  "You really do look like her," Amy spoke up, clearly drawing the attention off of Nu. "Older, but..."
  
  Sighing slightly, Savant nodded. "Yeah, that's what I've been doing with Gary here." She nodded to the man that had clearly been escorting her around. "I'll be good here, thanks. You can go."
  
  The aid hesitated, looking uncertain for a moment. But when Amy and I nodded to him, he pivoted on his heel and walked away without looking back. I wondered if she'd known Sophia, and if this was therefore as weird for him as it had been for me. Hell, it was still weird.
  
  Savant waited for him to leave before continuing to explain. "Gary showed me to a computer and how to look things up on it, so I've been reading about this... Shadow Stalker? She escaped from custody."
  
  "And she took our prototype suit with her!" Riley complained. "Before I could figure out how to get it off without killing her. I coulda done it before, but that whole 'not dying' thing makes stuff harder."
  
  "You're the ones that made that... thing they say she's wearing?" Savant looked at Bones, then Amy. "The reports that I looked at said that it's driving her crazy, that it makes her even more violent."
  
  Amy flinched. "It's locked into her nervous system, attached to her brain. We can't figure out how to make it disengage without... without messing around in her brain and I can't do that. I won't risk it. The stuff up there, I could mess something up and do even worse damage."
  
  "We might be able to do something about it together," Riley offered. "If we could just find her again."
  
  "I'll help with that," Savant promised firmly. "I-my life would have been different without Hephaestus and Zephyr. I'd probably be dead by now." She paused then as a visible shudder passed through her at what was obviously an ugly thought. "Or worse, alive."
  
  I realized what she meant after a second. If she had stayed with the tribe of savages that she had been born into, and was still alive, it would only be because she had killed far more people than I even wanted to think about. The thought of the atrocities and outright evil that Savant would have committed in order to survive in that tribe of monsters made me shudder as well.
  
  "Anyway," Savant visibly shoved the thought away while continuing. "Like I said, I may not know anything about this place, but I'll help find this... Sophia was her name? I'll help you find her. But only if you're going to help her. I... I know she's done bad things, horrible things. But she deserves a chance to make that better. If I got one after the way that I grew up... trust me, she deserves a chance too. Especially if this suit has been fucking with her head."
  
  I opened my mouth to say that the suit hadn't forced Sophia to murder my parents, but I stopped myself at the last second. As much as I hated Sophia, I recognized that I wasn't the right person to make that call. With effort, I kept my mouth shut and just stood there, glad that the mask hid my expression.
  
  Amy glanced sideways at me before nodding toward Savant. "If we can get her under control long enough, and away from PRT interference, Bones and I can probably get that suit off her. I don't know how much that'll help after all the time it's had to mess with her head, but... it's the best we can do."
  
  "Yeah..." Savant spoke quietly and slowly. "I guess that's all we can ever do, huh? The best we can."
  
  "That's right," I agreed with a nod. "We'll do the best we can to get... Sophia," I managed to get the name out without grimacing too much, "back to safety so that they can get that suit off of her. At the very least, that should give her a chance to be... herself again."
  
  Unfortunately, I had no idea how much of 'herself' would be left of Sophia by the time that happened.
  
  "An invisible friend?" I blurted about an hour later, after we had left Savant behind in order to come to the farm that Dinah's S-Club had been using as their home base.
  
  Riley, who had indeed jumped to hug me in person as soon as she'd gotten out of the Bones suit, bobbed her head up and down without letting go. "Uh huh! Why, is that weird for the girl who just got back from an alternate dimension with an older version of one girl and a younger version of another?"
  
  My mouth opened and then shut briefly. "... touche."
  
  "Anyway," the blonde girl continued. "She's really nice, and really fun, and..." Pausing, she added with a thoughtful look, "And it's really hard to tell when she's around." Sticking her finger in her mouth, Riley licked it and then held the finger up as though judging the air currents in the front yard where we were standing. "Custodian?" She called curiously. "Are you here?"
  
  There was the faintest of disturbances in the air, and a bit of the younger girl's light hair fluttered up. As soon as it did, she grinned at me. "See?" Riley announced triumphantly. "Tether, this is the Custodian. Custodian, this is Tether." To me, she added, "She has another name, but she doesn't like us to use it. She prefers Custodian."
  
  "I... I see." I blinked around, focusing on what I thought was a very slight haze of air. "Good to meet you, umm, Custodian." As I spoke, the air brushed forward to rather deliberately run over my gloved hand as though proving that she was was actually real and not just a figment of Riley's imagination.
  
  Feeling the air brush over my glove, I swallowed a little. Something made me speak up. "I'm sorry," I said quietly, not even sure why I'd said it. There was a... pain that I couldn't quite place. I was filled with this feeling, this knowledge that I was on the cusp of understanding yet could not quite reach.
  
  I wanted to ask if this Custodian was okay, and what had happened to her. I wanted to ask if she was one of the Case Fifty-Threes, who had lost their memories and been abandoned in the middle of nowhere, or if she had chosen to take one of the power-giving vials the way that Marissa and the others had. There were a lot of things that I wanted to ask, and I was pretty sure that the others here knew more than they were telling me. Still, I wasn't sure how to bring it up.
  
  Amy, who had been standing out of the way while this happened, cleared her throat. "We should go in and talk to Dinah." She glanced sidelong toward Lambda and Nu, adding, "Where is she, anyway?"
  
  "Dinah-Friend says that you should go in to meet her," Lambda answered promptly. "She is busy speaking with our guest."
  
  Blinking at that, I looked first to Riley and Amy, both of whom looked as clueless as I was. "Guest?" I finally asked, uncertainly while looking back to the Pandoras.
  
  Lambda and Nu spoke together, intoning at the same time, "We have been asked not to tell you until you see for yourself. We promised."
  
  "Right, Dinah and her secrets," I muttered with a shake of my head. "All right, guess we ought to go in and see what's going on, huh?"
  
  Amy rolled her eyes before nodding. "Better not be another emergency. I swear I'm off the clock. If I'm not home at a decent hour tonight, Crystal's probably going to lock me in the closet or something." Looking toward me, she added with a straight face, "I've spent way too much time in the closet, believe me."
  
  This time, when I hugged Amy, I understood exactly why I was doing it. "How are you feeling?" I asked while embracing the clearly surprised girl. "You seem to be coping with... you know, Asclepius pretty well."
  
  For a few seconds, Amy said nothing. She simply returned my embrace before letting go. "My father is gone," she said quietly. The emotion in her voice made my heart ache. "He's gone, and Asclepius isn't a replacement for him. He's gone forever. Just like..." She stopped, swallowing an obviously thick lump in her throat. "Just like Vicky. They're both gone. So is my... Carol. They're gone, and no amount of wishing is going to change that. But that doesn't mean I can't... that I can't still have a family."
  
  Reaching out, Amy caught hold of both Lambda and Nu, pulling the two Pandoras to her. "I have a family. This family right here. I have more sisters than I know what to do with. The Pandoras, but also Riley and Dinah and Emma. And the Custodian now. And Crystal. And Aunt Sarah and Uncle Neal. And Noelle. They're my family."
  
  Smiling in spite of myself, I nodded. "Well, let's go talk to your cagey, overly-secretive precog of a sister, shall we?"
  
  Together, we walked toward the house. Before we made it, the back door swung open and a red-haired blur came rushing out. I stopped short just in time for Emma to catch me in a hug that was tight as the one that Bones had crushed me with. "Uuulp," I laughed and returned the embrace of my friend. "Hey, Emma. Are you okay?"
  
  "That's what I'm supposed to ask you," she shot back before finally releasing me. "I'm sorry I wasn't there. We had umm, this other stuff to deal with."
  
  "Right, the uhh, the Custodian." I looked around as if it would have been possible to spot the empty air where the permanently invisible and mostly intangible girl happened to be. "Heard that's a long story. But uhh, I've got a message for you, actually."
  
  "A message for me?" Emma echoed uncertainly. "What kind of message?"
  
  I relayed what Dragon had said, and gave Emma the slip of paper with the phone number written on it. "She said that she'd like to talk to you as soon as you have a free moment."
  
  "But... but what could Dragon want to talk to me about?" Emma's head shook while she stared down at the paper as if I had handed her an invitation to become the fourth member of the Triumvirate (which probably made about as much sense to her as the thought that the premier tinker in the world wanted to have a chat).
  
  "I'm not sure, but..." I hesitated before shrugging. "Something about meeting Hephaestus from the other world seemed to shake her up. That might be the reason for the urgency. Whatever it is, you should probably..."
  
  Her head bobbed quickly. "Yeah, I'll talk to her. Thanks, Madison." Biting her lip, Emma stared at me for a second, then added, "I'm glad you made it back okay."
  
  "Me too." I smiled faintly before sighing. "But now we get to see what's going on with Dinah."
  
  "Good luck with that," Emma shrugged. "She hasn't let me come into the basement for the past two hours, ever since Xi and Omicron came in with some mysterious guest."
  
  I raised an eyebrow at that, but shook it off and continued inside with the others. Together, we moved through the kitchen and to the stairs that led into the basement. Alpha was waiting there and gestured for us to go ahead.
  
  The stairs under our feet creaked with each movement on them as we descended into the surprisingly well lit room. This place looked like it had been a family game room or den or whatever at some point, with the shag carpet and wood paneling along the walls, along with a couple of unplugged arcade machines in the corner, and a pool table at the opposite end.
  
  Near that pool table, Dinah stood. She was flanked by Xi and Omicron in their civilian forms, along with Iota and Epsilon. The latter two stood behind the final figure in the room, Dinah's guest.
  
  He turned a little toward me as I came off the final step and stood there staring at him.
  
  "Congratulations," the figure said to me. "On making it home so soon, and with everyone else safely alongside you.
  
  "But then," Francis Krouse added, "I suppose that's just another thing you're better at than I am."
  
  Eyes widening, I took a reflexive step that way before Dinah turned and held up her hand. "He came to us for help," she said quickly, her eyes centered on mine. "He wants help to find Shadow Stalker."
  
  I stood there, mouth open while Krouse nodded. "I thought I could help her, that I could keep her... those urges she had under control. I thought I could talk her through them, help her somehow. But it just... she's not in control anymore. Whatever that suit, that thing is doing to her, she's not herself. You people have to get it off her. You have to."
  
  "What... what is this?" I demanded in disbelief. "Shouldn't you be out trying to find the 'real Noelle', or proving the one we have isn't real or... something?"
  
  The hook-nosed man just stared at me and then let out a low sigh. Dropping his gaze, he muttered, "I know that's the real Noelle." His voice was soft, with an ache in it that I found surprising given who it was coming from. "That's her, she's..." Swallowing, he looked up at me, his gaze hard. "I knew it was her since before I left that interrogation room. Of course it was. I'm not an idiot, and I'm not that fucking blind. But..."
  
  He trailed off, then heaved a long, low sigh before pointing two fingers at the side of his head. "I'm fucked up in here , get it? I'm not a good person. I get that. Noelle made me good. She made me feel like I was worth something, like I could amount to more than what I was. But somewhere along the line, I started making her worse. I... I needed her more than she needed me. It stopped being about what she wanted and it was just about... what I needed.
  
  "My head, everything I did, every lie I told, every person I betrayed or hurt or fucked with to get my way, it was to help her. It was to help Noelle. But when I saw her there, in that room, when I realized that it was really her... the only thing I could think was that... was that I was gonna screw it up again. Because whatever the Simurgh did to us, it hit me the worst. I know it did. Even before that winged cunt popped up again, I could still hear that fucking song. It never stops.
  
  "So I pretended I didn't believe you, that I didn't believe her. Get it? I didn't call myself Trickster for no reason. I'm pretty good at lying, even to someone who can sense a direct lie. Back in that room, you said that if I accepted that I didn't save her, that someone else fixed her, it'd make my whole paradigm crumble. You remember that? Well you were right. It hurt. Because it was all the proof I needed that I had to do the hardest fucking thing I've ever done in my life."
  
  His face twisted a little bit with emotion then. "Do you remember what I said right after that? Do you recall it? I said that I would do anything for Noelle. That I loved her. Then you said... you told me to prove it. To prove that I loved her. So I did. You wanted me to prove that I loved her? I fucking did what you wanted. I loved her, so I let her go. I let her go. "
  
  Krouse's body was trembling with emotion by that point, his fists clenched tight. "I had to make Noelle leave. I had to convince her to go on with her god damn life instead of fighting to keep me out. Because she would have. She would have beat her head bloody against the PRT to force them into letting me go if I gave her a reason to. She would have thought that she owed me, that she had to try the way I tried to help her. And then we'd just keep going the same way we were.
  
  "But I wanted her to move on with her fucking life and get the hell away from me before I did any more damage. That way, I could be the one that took the blame for everything we did, the one they got to punish so that she could move on. She deserves it. She deserves a fresh chance. Making her back off, making her give up on defending me, that's the best I could do to give it to her. So she could be free.
  
  "That's what I wanted. I wanted Noelle to be free. Free of that fucking vial and free of me. So I made her think I didn't want to have anything to do with her, that I didn't believe she was who she said she was. And it was..." He swallowed hard, clearly fighting back the emotion in his voice. "Like I said already, it was the hardest fucking thing I've ever had to do, all right? But I did it. And I don't want you screwing it up, so you just leave her and the rest of them out of this. My head is fucked up as it is, and I don't need to drag people that I actually like into this shit.
  
  "You, well, I don't particularly like you all that much, but the others do. And you're effective. That much I can't deny. So I'm here to ask for... Fuck, the point is, I've been trying to help Sophia. Kind of have experience keeping girls that are being forced into being monsters under control, after all. I swear to god, I've been doing my best to talk her down and get her to keep control of herself. She was doing okay for awhile, but... this shit, whatever the Simurgh bitch hit her with combined with what that suit's been doing? It's too much. She's completely lost it, and I... I'm worried about her. I'm scared that there isn't much of Sophia left, understand? So... so fuck it, I'm asking for help. I need help. She needs help. You gotta get it off her, or... Or I don't know what she's gonna do.
  
  "So what do you say?" Extending his hand to me, Krouse spoke carefully, "We don't have to be friends, but I need your help to stop Sophia from doing anything else... horrible. Truce?"
  
  33.05
  
  "So wait, wait." Dennis's voice was dubious as he walked beside me. "You're telling us that Krouse's big goal was to convince you that he wasn't as stupid and delusional as you thought he was, and his way of accomplishing that was assuming that you'd actually keep secrets from Marissa?"
  
  I turned my head slightly that way and shrugged. "Yeah, that's pretty much the size of it. I don't think the problem with that actually occurred to him. He's so used to manipulating people and keeping secrets, even from his friends, 'for their own good', that it just didn't even really register."
  
  It was evening, and the two of us, along with Lily, Mika, Emma, and Hunter, were walking together. None of us were in costume. Instead, we were strolling through the park on our way to the mall where the movie theater was. Going through the park wasn't exactly the quickest way to get there, but it gave us a chance to talk. And there was another reason for taking this route that would come up shortly.
  
  But the point was that tonight wasn't about patrolling, missions, or any kind of fight. It was about having fun, and spending time with some of the people that I cared about.
  
  Emma, who had been quiet for awhile, hesitantly spoke up from behind us. "I think it's called umm, false-consensus effect." She blanched a little when everyone turned to look at her, before pressing on. "It uh, it's like how people tend to think that what they believe, think, uhh, their habits and whatever, that that stuff is the way other people think. You know, cuz people wanna be-uhh- normal and whatever so they um, sort of, delude themselves into thinking that the way they are is normal."
  
  My mouth opened and shut before I raised an eyebrow. "Emma Barnes, have you been studying ?"
  
  The other girl's face pinked and she ducked her head before mumbling, "I have a lot of time on my hands." Looking up after a second, she added, "Plus I can study while I'm doing other things."
  
  "Dude!" Mika piped up, lunging forward to catch hold of Emma's hand with both of hers. "Can you really read like, three different books, play a game, and drive a car all at the same time?"
  
  Looking surprised by the younger girl's enthusiasm, Emma's blush deepened. "Er, well, I only have the two eyes. So I can only really look at one actual book . But umm, if the books were on computers or whatever, umm, then I guess so?" She looked from Mika to me, her expression uncertain.
  
  "Damn right, she can." I confirmed. "Trust me, Emma's power is pretty much ridiculous personified." To the girl herself, I added, "Did Marissa and Dennis ever even come anywhere near beating you?"
  
  While Emma shook her head, Dennis snorted out loud. "Come anywhere near beating her? Yeah, sure. In the same way that Mouse Protector might come anywhere near beating, say, Scion."
  
  Hunter, who had been walking near Dennis on his other side, smiled faintly before running her fingers rapidly over the special cell phone that she carried. A moment later, the voice emerged from it, reading her words out loud for us. "They tried to beat her about seventeen different times. Never came close."
  
  Lily asked, "They tried to beat her seventeen times doing what, exactly?"
  
  "Oh, they were playing some video game online awhile back," I replied. "Marissa wanted to test Emma's multitasking. It was umm, uh, what's that type of game called again?"
  
  "Real-time strategy." Dennis and Emma both answered together. They looked at each other briefly, before Dennis went on alone. "You know, one of those games where you build your base, make your army, gather resources, and then proceed to get the absolute crap beat out of you by some girl that's never played the game before in her life." His hand waved emphatically. "You should've seen it. I swear, she wasn't just keeping perfect track of her own base, she was also watching everyone else at the same time. It's like, in the time that you spent making one move, she made fifteen of them and noticed what you were doing." To a deeply blushing Emma, he added, "Seriously, if this whole being a part of Dinah's 'save reality' club doesn't work out, you could make a killing at actual tournaments."
  
  Leaning back to nudge the girl in question, I smiled. "See? You've got a potential career all lined up for you, Skynet." Then I shrugged. "Anyway, yeah. Krouse thought I wasn't going to tell the others."
  
  "And how long did you wait before telling Mars?" Lily asked while catching hold of Mika. She lifted the squealing girl off the ground and spun around with her once before stumbling off into the grass.
  
  I coughed, "Uh, about as long as it took me to get to my parents' house from there. I talked to all four of them, actually. Mars, Noelle, Jess, and Luke. They're, umm, talking it over tonight. Jess wanted to have a chat with Tattletale to see what she could pick up from it before they decide what to do."
  
  Mika, who had managed to squirm her way free from Lily, rolled over on the grass and sat up to look at me. "Do you think he really wants to help her? Uh, that Sophia girl, I mean."
  
  I blew out a long breath, shaking my head. "I dunno. I couldn't begin to guess at Krouse's motivations or thought process, really. He's manipulative and a jerk, but I don't... think he's actually, you know, evil or anything. He's just, well like I said, he's a jerk. I don't like him. But that doesn't mean he's lying. It does kind of makes sense. It's like he latched onto the idea of helping Sophia the way he wasn't really able to help Noelle in the end. I think part of him needs this, needs to prove he can save someone ."
  
  Looking down and away briefly, I muttered under my breath, "Even if that someone is Sophia."
  
  It wasn't fair. I knew that. I knew deep down that I was not the right person to judge Sophia's actions or worth in making up for her actions. I also knew that most of the worst of what she had done was not of her own volition. She'd been coerced several different ways, manipulated, even corrupted by the parasitic suit that she'd put herself into. But that didn't make it any easier to ignore my own feelings.
  
  A second later, I felt something and looked up as Mika wrapped her arms around me to hug tight. Her voice was soft, "I know I didn't know them, but I'm still sorry about your mom and dad, Madison."
  
  Swallowing, I returned the younger girl's embrace. "Thanks, Mika." Clearing my throat then, I straightened. "But let's not dwell. We're not here to be sad, right? Tonight's not about that."
  
  "Right," The girl bobbed her head once in agreement. "So no more being sad?"
  
  I made myself smile at her. "You got it." Then I gave Mika a little push and we started walking again.
  
  Of course, that resolution grew a bit harder as we neared the edge of the park. Ahead and to the left, just past the tall hotel that stood next door was a structure that hadn't been there before. Ugly and totalitarian, it was an enormous wall that stood tall enough to block out the view of anything past it.
  
  "It's a hundred feet tall," Dennis said from beside me in a low voice. "Goes around about five blocks with the old PRT building right in the middle." He sighed. "Never seen something go up that fast."
  
  Of course they had. It was the quarantine zone centered around where the Simurgh had been, the area that no one was allowed out of once they had been there for longer than a few minutes while the Endbringer had been attacking. They had walled it off, sealed it away, and put up armed guards to make sure that whoever had stayed long enough to have their head fucked with by the Simurgh stayed put.
  
  "How many?" I asked quietly while staring at that ugly gray wall. In the distance I could see one of the towers where a spotlight was mounted, as well as the outline of the sniper following its illumination.
  
  It was Hunter who answered, the voice of her cell phone announcing, "Twenty-seven."
  
  Lily nodded. "We managed to get most people out in the time limit. The fact that she attacked the PRT building helped. It meant we could use the tunnels as an evacuation measure. But we couldn't get everyone." Biting her lip, the sense of failure clear in her expression, she added, "We lost twenty-seven people. We just couldn't get them out in time, before we had to back off ourselves. That song..."
  
  "Hey," I stepped that way and caught the girl's hand, squeezing it. "You did everything you could. Twenty-seven people in a five block radius isn't as bad as it could have been, Lily."
  
  "It would have been a lot worse," she replied with a shrug. "If the Faerie Queen hadn't shown up."
  
  Nodding, I turned away from the wall to continue walking. "Right, I'm really gonna have to thank her when I go in to visit at the end of the week. For that and, you know, for waiting that long."
  
  "Oh!" Emma put in abruptly. "I'm sort of supposed to go with you then." When I looked to her, she added, "I called Dragon while you were busy. She wants to talk to me in person while you're in there."
  
  "In person?" I echoed. "You mean Dragon's actually going to come out of her home?"
  
  Shrugging helplessly, Emma replied, "I dunno. She said 'in person', so uhh, maybe?"
  
  Dennis frowned. "What's got Dragon all worked up about this Hephaestus guy, anyway? Do you think he has anything to do with why she's so agoraphobic? Err, the one from this world, I mean."
  
  "I wish I knew," I admitted. "All I know is that I looked up the name and there's almost nothing about Andrew Richter in our world. He was a programmer who lived in Newfoundland before... Leviathan."
  
  "Maybe they're related," Lily offered. "Or they were friends or something."
  
  I hesitated then before shrugging. "I'm not sure, but it seems more complicated than that." Sighing, I added, "Whatever it is, it's probably none of our business. And we'll see what she has to say to Emma."
  
  After a series of agreement, we pushed on, leaving the park and making our way through the mall parking lot. Each of us studiously avoided looking at the nearby wall, not wanting to dwell too much about the twenty-seven people who were still stuck on the other side.
  
  Once we reached the theater entrance, Lily, Emma, and Mika went to see if the rest of our theater outing had arrived yet. Meanwhile, Dennis, Hunter, and I went up to the ticket booth and waited in line for a minute. When it was our turn and the woman behind the glass asked what movie we wanted to see, I told her before adding, "Is that showing very busy?"
  
  "Oh no, not really," she answered politely. "The movie's been out for a few weeks now. I think this is the last day we're showing it, actually. I think you'll be the only ones in the theater. How many?"
  
  "Perfect," I smiled before deliberately answering, "We'll need, uhh..." After doing a quick bit of math in my head, I continued. "Twenty-four tickets, please."
  
  The poor woman did a bit of a double take. "Err, I'm sorry, you need how many tickets?"
  
  "Twenty-four," I answered while smiling at her. "Don't worry, we have the money for it."
  
  She stared at me for a few seconds before shrugging. Plugging it in, she announced, "Okay, that'll be two hundred and twenty-eight dollars." After accepting the handful of twenty-dollar bills I handed her, she counted them out while asking, "You guys on some kind of club outing?"
  
  Before I could answer that, a new voice piped up as a head popped into view around my right shoulder, "Hi!" The cheerful greeting was directed straight at the ticket woman, and I turned my head slightly to see Lambda giving her that wide, goofy smile. "We get to go see a movie!" To me, she added, "Right?"
  
  "Right," I confirmed. "There's plenty of room for uhh, everyone." I stepped to the side and gestured at the group that had gathered behind us. Not only was Lambda there, but so were fourteen more of the Pandoras, lacking only Epsilon, who had chosen to stay with Dinah for the evening. Riley and Amy were both there as well, using the facial-disguises that the two of them had created.
  
  "Yay!" Lambda physically bounced a couple of times, her smile growing even wider. Then she sobered and looked at the ticket woman with a serious expression on her face. "Wait, is the person that is in charge of showing the movie having any emotional problems?"
  
  "Emotional problems?" The woman echoed uncertainly. "I... don't think so? Why?"
  
  Though she clung to that serious look for as long as she could, I saw the twitches of a smile playing at the corners of Lambda's mouth as she failed to keep it up. "Because... I think he might be projecting." She then proceeded to hug herself while spinning in a circle, giggling wildly as the others groaned.
  
  We proceeded inside then. I held the door to let everyone through, and Riley came up after everyone else had gone. She looked at me, biting her lip before speaking. "Thank you," she said in what was almost a whisper. "For letting me come too. I don't... I haven't really seen a lot of movies."
  
  "Of course, Riley." I took the girl by the arm and pulled her into a hug right there in the doorway. I kept my voice a low whisper. "You're my friend. I mean that. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for your help."
  
  The other girl swallowed hard before returning the hug tight enough to cut my air off briefly. She didn't say anything else, just hugged me for a few more seconds before continuing inside.
  
  Reaching the snack bar a moment later, I found Xi and Omicron gazing with rapt attention at the soda fountain. The twins were completely engrossed with watching the employee behind the counter fill up one of the giant cups for one of the other patrons.
  
  "Hey guys," I nudged... Omicron, I thought. "You want some brown bubble liquid?" When they nodded almost frantically, I laughed. "Right, let's get everyone in line. Soda, candy, popcorn, whatever you guys want." After all, Dinah was the one who had provided the money for this outing. She'd said that price was no object, as long as everyone had a good time. I'd tried to get her to come as well, with the others, but she insisted that she was fine and that she would come along on another trip.
  
  One by one, each of the Pandoras as well as the others made their way through the line to get snacks for the movie. Lambda was last, since Mika had been showing her the pinball machine in the nearby arcade room. When it was her turn, the Hispanic-looking girl promptly took her popcorn and drink, before stopping as her eyes fell on the large bucket of giant pickles on the back counter.
  
  Laughing at the look on the girl's face, I asked the man to add a couple of those as well. Then I held them out to her. "Here you go. That look good?"
  
  Nodding rapidly, Lambda shifted the popcorn to hold the bag against her chest with her arm so that she could hold both pickles in one hand and her drink in the other. Then she took a single bite from one of the pickles before dropping her face right into the popcorn itself and took a large mouthful of that as well. "Mmmpgmm..." she announced after lifting her face. Chewing rapidly, she added, "Picklecorn!"
  
  Snickering, I reached out to pluck a stray bit of popcorn that had stuck to the girl's face, popping it into her open mouth a second later. "Make sure you don't eat them too fast. Gotta save some for the movie."
  
  With that done, I started handing out tickets. When I got to Dennis, he asked, "I think you miscounted. Fifteen Pandoras, the six of us, Riley, and Amy. That's twenty-three, not twenty-four."
  
  Grinning at that, I held up the last ticket. "You're forgetting someone," I pointed out before gesturing. "Go ahead."
  
  Dennis's mouth opened to ask what I meant, just as his hair was brushed by an invisible force. Jolting in surprise, he actually yelped before realizing, "Wait, the... right, the invisible girl." To me, he added, "But she's invisible. Does she need a ticket?"
  
  "Yes," I replied while holding up the ticket for the Custodian to see. "Because she's still a person." Tearing the ticket in half, I put it into my pocket. No employee would take it, of course, but she still counted. She still mattered, and we would treat her as a real person, even in something as inconsequential as this. That... seemed really important.
  
  Feeling that same brush over my face, I smiled and winked. "Right back at you." Then I cleared my throat. "Okay, everybody ready? Let's go see a movie."
  
  Everyone started to file inside, talking back and forth and happily discussing what we were about to see. I saw Lily chatting with Gamma, Mika and Riley actually walking side by side, Delta and Dennis having an amusing argument about some game that had just come out, and even Hunter seemed to be having a talk of sorts with Theta.
  
  Yes, there was a still a lot of work to be done. We needed to slowly introduce the refugees from Ragnarok to this world. That was going to be a drastic culture shock. Savant and the others had a lot that they were going to have to try to get accustomed to. Not to mention the questions of where they would live, work, even go to school in some cases.
  
  And beyond the refugees, we still had to find Sophia, worry about how truthful Krouse was being, deal with the gangs that were still in the city as well as anyone that might have escaped the quarantine zone after being hit by the Simurgh, figure out what the hell Coil was up to, and... any number of other problems that would inevitably present themselves.
  
  There was a lot to do. But right now, in this moment, I was going to let it go. Because tonight was about having fun. It was about showing the Pandoras as well as the Custodian a good time, a real time. And that had nothing to do with being parahuman.
  
  It had everything to do with just being human.
  
  Interlude 33 - Sparrow
  
  Under the cover of darkness, two small figures made their way across the grass field that led toward the rear entrance of the school. Though only a relatively short distance of fifty yards separated the doors from the part of the fence that they had snuck through, several minutes passed while they crossed it.
  
  A solid seventy percent of that time was spent rolling diagonally back and forth, because that was what one was supposed to do while sneaking. Neither of them were quite certain on how the rolling contributed to the stealthiness, exactly. But they were both very firm on its necessity.
  
  After all, there was no sense if doing anything if they weren't going to do it right.
  
  Finally, both girls (rather dizzy from all the rolling), staggered to their feet just in front of the doors. They stood there, recovering their balance for a few moments before one of the diminutive figures spoke. "Hey, that was kinda fun. Can we do that on the way out too?"
  
  Mika Kanse frowned thoughtfully at her companion. "Uhh, maybe. I'm not sure if you're supposed to or not. Mostly all the shows I watched where people sneak into places, it doesn't really show them leave after. It either goes to commercial and later they're already out. Or umm, or they get caught."
  
  "Well," the second girl considered briefly before coming to a decision. "We don't have any money to pay for commercials, and I'm pretty sure if we get caught they won't let me talk to you anymore." After pausing briefly, she added, "Boy, I kinda figured one of us was gonna corrupt the other one, but I gotta say, I didn't see this one coming. You are a bad influence on me, Mika."
  
  Flushing at that, Mika shrugged her small shoulders. "I said you didn't have to come, Riley. You can still go. I really don't want you to get in trouble for something dumb like helping me do this stuff." She had talked to the other girl during the trip to the theater earlier that evening just to get some advice about what she should do, and had been surprised by the offer to actually help.
  
  "Hey," Riley's elbow nudged her in the side. "Don't worry, we're not gonna get caught. We're both super heroes, remember? And we're not doing anything bad anyway. Except the breaking in part."
  
  Swallowing, Mika nodded slowly. "Yeah, except that part." She hesitated nervously, staring at the door.
  
  "We could just leave," Riley pointed out with a somewhat soothing voice that sounded awkward coming from her. "You know, because you don't really have to do all this right now."
  
  "I do," Mika disagreed. "People are counting on me. I can't let them down." Focusing on the spot beyond the doors, she brought both hands to her belt buckle and focused on the power she'd attached to it. A second later, her body was replaced by a statue. Simultaneously, a second statue appeared just inside the school hallway. Both statues dissolved, revealing Mika beneath the one that had been inside.
  
  Turning to the door, Mika pushed it open to let Riley inside. As soon as she did so, a high pitched series of beeps began to emanate from the nearby alarm panel, earning of its impending alert.
  
  "See?" Riley hopped to the panel. "This is why you needed me." From the pocket of her jacket, the blonde withdrew what looked like a wad of silly putty with what Mika was pretty sure were eyes.
  
  She watched as the other girl put the... stuff against the alarm panel. It seemed to seep into the cracks, spreading over the panel briefly before the escalating beeping noise abruptly halted. A second later, there was a chime of acknowledgment and the red light on the panel turned green.
  
  "Umm, Riley?" Mika started tentatively with a raised hand while squinting through the dim light of being cast by the nearby exit sign. "Why does your alarm breaker thingee have eyes?"
  
  Riley, for her part, blinked at that as though it was quite possibly the silliest question she'd ever heard. "Why? What do you mean? If he didn't have eyes, how could he see where he's going?"
  
  Poor Mika just stared at her, mouth open. "See where he's... oh..." Shutting her mouth, quite positive that she didn't want to ask anything else, the girl spun on her heel. "C'mon it's... oh... it's dark."
  
  "Honestly, how much breaking and entering have you done?" Riley demanded while poking the girl. When Mika looked back at her, she held out a small white pill. "Swallow this. It'll help you see."
  
  Turning the pill over in her hand, Mika considered it briefly before popping the pill into her mouth and swallowing it. "How long does it take to-gah!" Recoiling in surprise, she yelped as the hallway abruptly lit up as if someone had flipped on the switch. It was as bright as day in the hall, and for a second she was absolutely convinced that they had been caught after all.
  
  Yet no one was there. When Mika opened her eyes once again, she found the hallway as empty as ever. The lights were still out. Somehow, the pill that Riley had given her made everything bright.
  
  "Wow," she intoned in surprise, looking around for a second. "This is really useful."
  
  "Thanks!" Riley beamed with pride. "I'll tell Helena you liked it."
  
  Distracted by the powerful night vision, Mika looked around the hallway while asking, "Helena?"
  
  "Uh huh," the other girl confirmed with a nod. "You know, the one that laid that egg you swallowed."
  
  "Oh, right, the one that laid the-wait what?" Double taking with a yelp, Mika stared at her companion. "You mean that wasn't a-I mean I thought it was- but..." As she trailed off, Mika realized that there was another law of the universe that wasn't mentioned in school. Nonetheless, it was as important as the laws of gravity or motion. And that law was that whatever you did, you never, ever asked Riley for details about anything she made. "Never mind. Uhh, thanks. I think." Her voice was weak before she spun on her heel once more and started to walk. "Mrs. Belmont's office is this way."
  
  Following along after her, Riley piped up after a second, "So how much money disappeared?"
  
  Hurrying down the hall without looking back, Mika answered, "Seven hundred and fifty-seven dollars."
  
  "For some cupcakes?" Riley blurted. "Eesh, remind me to ask what they put in the freaking recipe."
  
  "It was a special bake sale," Mika informed the other girl. "All the money was supposed to help the sixth graders go on a trip to the state capital so we could visit the theater and see a real play."
  
  "But then it disappeared?" Riley shook her head, sighing. "Some people have no consideration."
  
  Bobbing her head, Mika sighed. "They blamed Becca Newland for it, cuz she was the treasurer and she had the money box thingie. But she didn't do it. I know she didn't, cuz I heard her crying in the bathroom when she didn't know anyone else was there. She's really sad, and scared, and if we don't find out who really stole the money, they're probably gonna expel her. We can't let Becca get expelled. She was really nice to me even though I was new here. She's not a thief. So we gotta find the money."
  
  Riley was quiet for a moment then before asking, "How come you think it's still here in your school?"
  
  Ready for that question, Mika answered, "Cuz they searched everyone's backpack before we left for the weekend. The school's been locked up since, but when school starts up again..."
  
  Nodding, Riley finished for her. "Whoever stole the money will be able to get it out. And if they do..."
  
  "Then we'll never prove that Becca didn't steal it," Mika lamented. "And she'll get kicked out. But she doesn't deserve to be kicked out. So I've gotta find that money and clear her name."
  
  "All righty," Riley pointed at the door they had stopped in front of by that point. "Mrs. Belmont's room? How come we're starting here anyway, Mika?"
  
  Reaching out to open the door, Mika answered, "Cuz this is the room that Becca said she left the money in. She said she put the money box on Mrs. Belmont's desk, and the door was locked when she left." After reciting that, she tried to turn the knob and paused. "Oh. Right. Locked."
  
  "No problem!" After announcing that, Riley reached for the door herself. "I'll open it!"
  
  "Wait!" Mika caught the other girl by the arm. "Umm, after you're done doing, um, whatever you're gonna do to open it, will the door still close and lock and umm, exist after you're done?"
  
  Riley blinked blankly back at her. "How firm are you on all three of those?"
  
  "Pretty dang firm," Mika replied emphatically. "We can't break stuff, Riley! We've gotta be sneaky and just find the money and put it where it belongs without making anything worse."
  
  "Okay, okay, okay." Riley quickly reached back into her pocket and took out something else that Mika put firmly into the camp of 'don't ask.' In this case, it was a small wriggling worm that the girl proceeded to press up against the keyhole. The worm pushed its way into through the opening, and a few seconds later there was a click before the door opened a few inches.
  
  "Wow!" Mika bounced a little. "That was really neat!" Clearing her throat then upon remembering she was supposed to be both quiet and a mature detective/super hero, Mika made her way into the classroom and turned in a circle. "Okay, Becca said she left the money box there on that desk. No one was here, and she left the room with the door locked behind her. Three minutes later, Mrs. Belmont came back from lunch and the box was already gone. The security guard said nobody left the school or came in during that time, and they didn't let anyone leave after that until everyone's lockers and bags were searched for the money. They didn't find it." Trailing off thoughtfully, she thought briefly beforre adding, "So the money can't be in the lockers, but whoever stole it had to stash it really quick."
  
  "Hmm..." Riley entered the room as well and turned in a circle before pointing. "Aha! Maybe they hid the money in a hole they made behind one of those!" Striding to the wall, the girl started to pull up one of the posters on the wall so that she could peer behind it. "Nope, not this one."
  
  "Uh," Mika held up a finger. "I really don't think the thief had time to make a hole in the wall behind a motivational cat picture to stash the money in. That's um, you know, unlikely."
  
  "Really?" Riley shrugged. "Yeah, I guess people don't really plan this kind of thing out that well." Raising a hand, she pointed. "What about the closet? Maybe whoever it was hid back there until that girl left the money box, then snuck out and picked it up and went back in there to hide it?"
  
  "Maybe..." Mika thought about that while heading to the supply closet that Riley had pointed out. Opening the door, she stepped inside to look around. There wasn't much room with all the boxes inside, but there was enough for someone to crouch down in the corner and wait.
  
  Together, the two girls went through all of the boxes in the closet. All they were rewarded with was lots of paper, pencils, rulers, and other mundane supplies. There was even an entire box full of chalk.
  
  "Darn," Mika shook her head once they had finished. "Maybe we should check the hallway? Or one of the rooms next door? Or the locker rooms! Yeah, maybe it's in there."
  
  Together, the two of them began to search the school. They checked every spot that Mika could think of that a student could reasonably have reached in the time that they had to stash the money box. She even used her flight bracelets (of course she always had them, even when she wasn't in costume) to float up and check the top of each row of lockers in the corridors in case the box had been tossed up there.
  
  All of it was for naught, and forty-five minutes later the two were back in Mrs. Belmont's classroom, frowning thoughtfully at one another as they stood in front of the desk that the money had been stolen from. "We checked all the places that make sense," Mika lamented.
  
  "Maybe we need to check places that don't make sense," Riley suggested. "Like, umm, in the floor!" She hopped up and down firmly. "Check the floor tiles for anything loose." Once that tile proved firm, she hopped to the next one, landing with both feet. "C'mon, Mika. You said it yourself, we checked all the normal places. Check the unlikely ones." She leapt to the next tile, bouncing a couple times.
  
  Tilting her head at that, Mika considered pointing out how absurd that idea was. In the end, however, Riley was right. They'd checked the places that made sense. Maybe they'd get luck. So rather than object, she just shrugged and followed the other girl's lead. Hopping up, she came down hard on one of the tiles. She almost fell in the process, but giggled before leaping to the next one.
  
  One by one, the two girls laughed while hopping up and down the classroom. In spite of bumping into each other several times, and a lot more giggling, they managed to search every part of the floor that way. Unfortunately, there was no loose tile that the money had been hidden in either.
  
  "Well crap," Riley shrugged both shoulders helplessly once the two of them managed to stop giggling long enough. "It's getting late. The teachers are gonna start showing up pretty soon. Maybe we could just get some of my money from Dinah and give it to the school and pretend it's the money that was stolen? At least that way your friend won't get expelled."
  
  Mika shook her head, feeling stubborn. "Nuh uh, cuz then the bad guy gets away with the money. I don't care if we've gotta hop up and down this whole school looking for loose tiles, there's..." While she was talking, the girl had been rolling her head back and forth emphatically. In mid-statement, she stopped and squinted above her head. "Wait a second... tiles..." Spinning around, she grinned at her companion. "Riley, you're a genius detective."
  
  "I am?" Riley questioned. "Wait, what did I detect?"
  
  "Tiles," Mika answered before activating her flight bracelets once more. Using them to float herself off the ground and toward the ceiling, she reached up with both hands and gently pushed one of the ceiling tiles up and out of the way so that she could poke her head into the space above and look around.
  
  A few seconds later, she descended with the money box held tightly in both hands. "We found it!"
  
  "Yay!" Riley jumped up, then stopped and frowned. "Wait, no. Put it back where it was."
  
  "What?" Mika blinked at that. "Why would I put it back? We just found it."
  
  "You wanna prove that your friend didn't steal it, right?" Riley prompted. "So trust me. Put it back. I've got an idea." From her pocket, the girl withdrew a simple cell phone. "But first... what's your principal's name?"
  
  An hour later, both girls lay on their stomachs in the grass a good distance away from the school had watched as the principal arrived first at the school in response to the anonymous call that Riley had placed. He had stood in front of the school and waited there until a police car arrived. Then both he and the officers had gone inside. The two girls looked at one another, then remained where they were as more teachers gradually arrived.
  
  The idea that Riley had presented was to call the principal and tell him where the money was, and that if he watched, he'd be able to catch the person who had stolen it when they tried to retrieve the box.
  
  "Are you sure about this?" Mika asked the girl laying next to her. "It's gonna be awhile before the students start showing up, you know."
  
  "We won't have to wait that long," Riley assured her confidently. "Believe me, this'll be over really soon."
  
  Shrugging uncertainly, Mika returned her attention to the doors and settled her chin in her hands. She had already sent Lily a text telling her that she'd woken up early and gone for a walk so that the older girl could tell her parents that and no one had to be worried about her.
  
  She really didn't like letting people be worried about her. Especially after everything that had led to... No, with effort, Mika forced her thoughts away from that gloomy path.
  
  Riley was right. They didn't have to wait longer than another ten minutes before the school doors opened once more and one of the police officers came out. He was leading someone else with him, handcuffed and red-faced with both embarrassment and anger.
  
  "Mrs. Belmont?" Mika blurted in surprise. "Wait, why is the policeman arresting her ?"
  
  "Because she stole the money, silly." Riley replied with a smile.
  
  "But she's the one that reported it stolen." Mika protested. "She's the one that umm, she was the one that helped organize the bake sale. She said if we did a good job, we'd have enough to get dinner after the play."
  
  "Yup," Riley nodded. "And then she waited until the money was on her desk and stole it. Who else do you think could reach high enough to put the money in the ceiling before anyone else noticed? She took the money, put it in the ceiling, then said it was stolen so that girl would get in trouble instead of her."
  
  "But... but..." Mika worked her mouth. "But that's mean. That's horrible. Becca could've gotten expelled. And that wasn't even a thousand dollars."
  
  "Sometimes people are mean and horrible," Riley confirmed. "Even for a lot less than that."
  
  Sighing, Mika laid her face against her hands and breathed out. "I thought Mrs. Belmont was a nice teacher."
  
  Riley's hand came down on her shoulder after a second. "Uh huh. An' she probably is. Or was, I mean, I doubt they'll let her teach here anymore after that. But you know, sometimes even nice people do stupid things. Especially for money. Trust me, I know all about that sorta thing."
  
  Swallowing, Mika lifted her head and looked at the other girl. "You really were a good detective. You figured it out."
  
  "Only after you found the money," Riley pointed out. "See, we make a good team."
  
  After smiling at that, Mika sobered. "Thanks for helping me save my friend from getting expelled, Riley. I know it's kinda dumb and not really important, but... umm, thanks."
  
  The other girl actually blushed at that, sitting up while shaking her head. "It's okay. I'm... umm, I'm glad we solved the case."
  
  "We should be detectives again," Mika sat up a bit, smiling in spite of herself. "Bones and Sparrow, Private Eyes."
  
  Smiling, Riley shook her head. "I think Sparrow and Bones sounds better. That's the way it would be in a TV show. Sparrow and Bones. The Undersiders could be our competition. A good detective agency needs a big rival so we can beat them to the case."
  
  Giggling at that while nodding, Mika echoed, "Sparrow and Bones..." She considered briefly before looking at the other girl. "Hey, you know what we need to be really good detectives?"
  
  Both spoke together in unison. "Business cards."
  
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  Arc 34: Origin
  Notes: Here's the next arc for Atonement finally. In this one, we look into (my version of) the Faerie Queen's origin. Please enjoy, and as stated in the recent Intrepid update, if you would like to see more of my own original writing, you can find the web serial that I just started at ceruleanscrawling dot wordpress dot com.
  
  34.01
  
  "Whoooo!"
  
  My cry of exhilaration filled the afternoon air as I rocketed through the narrow space between a fire escape and someone's satellite television dish, careful to straighten myself out so that I zipped past without clipping anything. Ahead of me, the wall of the next building loomed rapidly, threatening to leave me squashed against it if I didn't alter course or manage to stop in time.
  
  With practiced motion and timing born of over six months of practice, I brought my hands forward and focused on creating a line between each of my gauntlets and the very top of the wall. Judging my speed and the height of it, I gave myself just enough of a yank to adjust my velocity and trajectory so that rather than fly directly into the wall, I was being propelled at a sharp angle toward the roof.
  
  An instant later, I barely cleared it, startling a pigeon that had been nesting nearby into a squawking fit when I shot straight past the poor bird and onward into the sky above most of the nearby buildings.
  
  Spreading my arms out to either side as I reached the apex of my ascent, I gazed out at the city stretched out before me. For this brief moment, everything seemed peaceful and perfect.
  
  A week had passed since the others and I had returned to our own world with Savant, Hephaestus, and the rest of the refugees from Ragnarok. Sometimes it felt like it had been longer than that, considering how much time we had been spending helping to get the people oriented to their new world.
  
  The officials weren't letting them out into the general public yet. Apparently they felt that there would be too much culture shock if they rushed things. Instead, the Ragnarok people were spending most of their days taking a series of crash courses on whatever was necessary for them to know to get along in this world. I wasn't sure how long that was supposed to last, but there had already been some friction between the PRT people running the program and some of the refugees themselves. The people from Ragnarok thought they were being treated like ignorant savages that were going to eat the nearest person they saw if they weren't forced to watch sixteen hours of video on why that was a bad idea, followed by a three hundred question quiz just to make absolutely sure they got the point.
  
  Thankfully, Hephaestus and Zephyr had calmed their own people down, pointing out that they spent decades in a world that was being destroyed. The very fact that they could sit and watch boring movies about the last thirty years of history in this world was amazing in and of itself. That had settled most of the arguments from that side, and Director Simms had been smart enough to make a concession for the PRT's side. Though he couldn't go against orders and release them ahead of schedule, he did arrange for field trips into the city and the surrounding area. Any of the Ragnarok people who wanted to could sign up and spend a few hours on a guided tour through the city. That, combined with Simms arranging to have things like pizza and cheeseburgers delivered for those who wanted to taste the kind of food that had long been extinct on their own world, had finished ending what had remained of the bickering.
  
  Pushing those thoughts out of my mind, I gazed at the city itself before closing my eyes. My momentum had run out by that point, and I let myself tip over backwards, arms still spread as I fell back the way I had come. The air rushed past me as I plummeted head first toward the building below.
  
  Just before I would have slammed down into (and possibly through) the roof, I opened my eyes, flipping over in midair. A glance down allowed me to attach lines between my feet and the roof below, and I used those lines to slow my descent just enough that I could bend my knees and land safely.
  
  A second after I touched down, another figure flew into view. Reach, riding what was essentially a skateboard with the wheels removed, hovered in front of me with her arms folded. "You tired already?"
  
  Snorting, I used a line between the board and the ground to yank the girl off balance just enough that she yelped and had to focus on not falling. "Some of us aren't traveling on easy-mode."
  
  "Easy mode?" Hopping off her board, Reach landed in front of me, finger raised. "You're just saying that because you damn well know that I'd whip your ass if we ever raced. Me with any random piece of junk, and you doing your... what the hell weird kind of 'flying' do you call that anyway?"
  
  I grinned at her, even though it was hidden by the mask, adopting a heroic pose. "Falling... with style."
  
  Snorting at that, Reach bumped her shoulder against me while coming to stand on the edge of the roof. "You see anything interesting on your patrol? Because it was flat out dead for me."
  
  I shrugged. "Nothing much. Worst I saw was some kind of argument over a fender bender." Glancing that way, I offered, "It's December as of yesterday. Maybe the bad guys went on Christmas vacation?"
  
  "Sure, that's totally likely," Reach's sarcasm went so high that she came all the way back around to sounding somewhat genuine. "Before you know it, this plan they've got to send the Endbringers through the portal and back to Ragnarok is totally going to work and we'll never watch anyone we care about die again and we'll all have ice cream and gum drops for every meal, happily ever after, the end."
  
  "Ooh, gum drops." I bounced a little. "Well, now I know what I'm picking up at the store later."
  
  The question of why things had settled down so much was a good one. It wasn't like the city was free of gang influence. The Noblemen may have been utterly dismantled, but that still left four decent sized supervillain groups operating in the city. Tender, the gang of former Wards who had quit and turned evil were mostly operating around the north end of the city, where the trainyard and the market were. The Straining Angels, that motorcycle gang that had taken up where the Merchants had left off, were mostly being seen peddling their sick garbage around the docks. Meanwhile, the trio of villains that we still didn't have a name for that included Kismet, Kitsune, and Anelace didn't seem to be claiming any sort of territory at all. They seemed to be mostly sticking to their stated goal of taking down rich people who, according to them, were abusing their money and power. As far as the PRT could tell, they weren't even keeping any of the money that they stole. It was all being given away to people who had been hurt the most by the Slaughterhouse Nine's final visit. Not that the PRT could prove that, given how well the money was being laundered, but it was obvious to anyone paying attention.
  
  Additionally, the Outliars had returned with a vengeance. Not only had Duelitist and Geppetto managed to get Scintillant back after the prison had been destroyed by the Simurgh, but they had also been joined by two more capes whose powers weren't clear yet, and they were managing to do a pretty good job of holding the downtown area against repeated incursions from Tender and the Angels.
  
  Plus, because all of that wasn't enough, Tattletale had let us know that she'd picked up information about freaking Accord making his way to the city with his group of capes. Which, by all accounts, had risen by two ever since Whimper and Spruce had joined up with him in the wake of Marquis' death.
  
  So we had no less than five gangs operating in the city to one extent or another, most of them fighting with each other as much as they were fighting us. And the city was still short of both trained PRT personnel and police. All of which meant that the situation in the city was beyond volatile, and I was pretty sure it wasn't going to take much to set off a full scale gang war. So I wasn't going to argue too much if things chose to be calm and boring today. We could do with a bit more calm and boring.
  
  Glancing my way, Reach asked, "You really think the Queen's gonna tell you her life story tonight?"
  
  Shrugging once again, I bit my lip. "I don't know what she's gonna tell me. Yeah, she promised to talk about it the next time we were together, but a lot's happened since then. Maybe she changed her mind."
  
  "I really don't think the Green Maiden is really into changing her mind about much, good or bad," Reach pointed out while levitating her board over so that she could tuck it under one arm.
  
  Tilting my head at that, I asked, "Green Maiden?"
  
  A long, heavily put upon sigh came from my companion. "Seriously? Am I the only person remotely interested in researching this stuff? Where did you think the name Glaistig Uaine came from?"
  
  "Honestly? I thought she told people to call her that and everyone involved said 'yes, ma'am.'"
  
  I could tell that she was squinting at me from behind that visor that she wore. "Be that as it may, the name does actually come from something. It's a type of fuath in Scottish myth-" She stopped, looking at my raised hand with a low sigh. "I need to explain what a fuath is, don't I?"
  
  When I nodded, she dropped the board and floated it behind herself to sit on it. "All right, let's start there then. Probably a good idea for you to at least have some idea about where the name she chose came from before you go in asking questions about her history. How did this not occur to you already?"
  
  Chuckling, I used my foot to poke against the other girl's. "I figured that I could just ask you about it."
  
  Reach gave me a long look at that. "You mean you had a choice between using the internet, the largest collection of knowledge that has ever existed in human history, or just assuming that I'd happen to know enough about this stuff to tell you about it, and you went with the latter?"
  
  Shrugging at that, I nodded. "Yup, that pretty much sums it up." I gestured then. "Was I wrong?"
  
  "Nah," she replied easily. "I just wanted it on the record that you think I'm cooler than Google."
  
  "That," I assured the other girl, "was never in question."
  
  "You sure you're gonna be okay here, Ems?" I asked the girl beside me a couple hours later.
  
  Emma and I were standing just in front of the elevator that would take me down into the Birdcage. We had been transported together a few seconds earlier by Strider, since Junket, the cape that was usually responsible for getting me here and then home again, was off with that new roaming Protectorate team that Aegis and Miss Militia had also joined. Apparently a couple of the Elite's offshoot cells were causing major problems that was keeping their attention occupied for the time being.
  
  There wasn't much to the room next to the entrance elevator, though Dragon had done what she could to spiffy it up a little bit ever since I started coming here. There was a couch in the corner and a television for those times when Dragon thought it would be a bad idea to have me go straight in. I'd sit and wait for whatever situation was going on down in the cage to resolve itself, which sometimes took hours. Glaistig Uaine didn't care too much, as long as I was there at some point on the days that I was supposed to be. She'd only had to settle a dispute so that I could enter the prison one time.
  
  "Me?" Emma squeaked. "I'm the one staying up here waiting for the best tinker in the world to come have a chat. You're the one that has to go down into... into that place. How do you stand being in there?" She asked while giving a shudder that was clearly equal parts fear and revulsion. "I was only there once, and I had complete control of the security system. Still not going back in there."
  
  "I'd say you get used to it, but..." I shrugged. "Mostly what helps is the fact that the Faerie Queen won't let anything happen to me. Trust me, the other prisoners don't mess with her."
  
  For a moment, Emma just looked at me through that mirrored plate that covered the top half of her face. Then she blew out a long breath. "Jeeze, your life has gotten pretty crazy, hasn't it?"
  
  I snorted at that. "Says the girl who spends all her time around..." I paused, frowning. "You know, I was trying to start with the most ridiculously overpowered member of that group, but I can't decide who that is. And you're one of the candidates."
  
  "Me?" Emma's head tilted. "But I'm not that powerful."
  
  "Not that p-" Rolling my eyes, I lifted a hand to poke the other girl in the chest. "Okay then, how many different television shows are you watching right this second while you're talking to me?"
  
  I could see Emma's blush as it reached the exposed lower part of her face. "Um, does the security feed into the prison count?" When I nodded, she squirmed for a second before offering, "Four?"
  
  "See?" I poked her again. "Emma, you're a Master who controls any machine within a couple blocks radius. Plus you have what I promise is a completely absurd multitasking ability. Trust me, Dinah recruiting you was not a fluke. You belong on that team right alongside the others. So why do you keep trying to downplay how impressive you are?"
  
  She flinched noticeably then. "It's not about that. I mean, it's not... I..." Swallowing, Emma went silent for a few seconds. When she finally spoke, it was with a weak voice. "I still feel like a fraud. Not because of the others, but because... because it should be Taylor. She should be the one with this power. Not me."
  
  Cringing at that, I took the other girl by the arm and pulled her into an embrace. I didn't say anything for a moment, choosing just to hug her tightly. "I'm sorry, Emma."
  
  "One more month," she said quietly while returning my embrace.
  
  I didn't have to ask. The date was looming in my mind as well. In one short month, at the start of January, it would be one year since Taylor had died. One year since everything had changed.
  
  "I know," I said quietly. "We should do something. I don't know what but... something."
  
  Sniffing once, Emma nodded. "Something to remember her. Something... good. I'll think about it. There has to be something we can do to... God, honor her? That sounds stupid."
  
  "It really doesn't," I shook my head. "I know what you mean, Emma. We'll do something. I promise."
  
  The elevator dinged then to announce that it was ready for me. The security program that Dragon used had apparently determined that it was safe for me to enter the prison.
  
  I breathed out. "Guess that's my cue. Are you sure you'll be okay just sitting here?"
  
  Swallowing hard, Emma shrugged at me. "Like you said, I'm watching a few different TV shows. I'll manage. Plus, Dragon just sent a message that she'll be here any minute." She tapped the side of her head and smiled a little shakily. "Go on, learn all about the scary cape lady."
  
  Biting my lip, I hesitated, then hugged Emma one more time before turning to head for the elevator.
  
  She was right, it was time to learn about who and what Glaistig Uaine had been... before.
  
  34.02
  
  " I greet you, Healer. It is nice to see you have finally come after our previous meeting was broken."
  
  The words came, as always, in chorus. Many voices spoke in unison as the Faerie Queen addressed me from her spot on the reclining armchair that was her throne in this prison. The shredded prison garb that worked as her veil stopped me from seeing much of her face, though I thought there was a smile there.
  
  Giving the powerful woman a courtesy, I began with an apology. "I'm sorry, your Majesty. It was," I started to say that it was unavoidable, or not our fault, but stopped. She already knew all of that, and I was pretty sure the Faerie Queen didn't enjoy being told things that she already knew. If she hadn't accepted that it wasn't our fault, I doubt she would have waited a week before insisting I visit. And the conversation we were having probably wouldn't have been nearly as pleasant as our previous ones.
  
  So, instead of making what would obviously have been pointless excuses, I instead continued my sentence with, "Kind. Very kind and gracious of you to aid our rescue. I can't thank you enough."
  
  From the way her head tilted, I had the feeling that she knew what I'd been about to say before I corrected myself, but she said nothing about it. " Those who seek to prevent or delay our discussions will be dealt with, regardless of which side of the eternal conflict they have placed themselves on."
  
  Taking that warning seriously, I nodded. She wasn't just referring to the Noblemen. She was talking about anyone, even the PRT, who might try to stop me from coming in here. We had made a deal, and Glaistig Uaine was going to make damn sure we kept to our part of it. "Yes, your Majesty. I... may I ask you a question about what happened the night that I missed our scheduled meeting?"
  
  Gesturing to the straight-back chair nearby, the woman who appeared to be so young replied easily, " Your inquiry concerns the intrusion of the High Priest's wayward daughter into city of your birth."
  
  I nodded while sitting down. "That's a pretty big part of it, yes, your Majesty. I um, well, I was wondering why you referred to the Simurgh that way. What's this 'High Priest' and what do you know about his 'children'? Is that all the Endbringers? Do you know where they came from? We found a lot more back on that world that we were sent to. They have a lot more of them there. Is that where the High Priest lives? Is he sending them here to get them away from his planet or something?"
  
  " You will stop now," the order was swift and firm, cutting in before I could say anything else. " Your question concerns matters that are beyond the scope of this meeting. Perhaps, in time, that discussion will take place. For now, however, I will not speak of the High Priest nor his children. This is not the correct time, and you have not learned nearly enough to be prepared for such revelations."
  
  "But-" I started, the idea of knowing more about the Endbringers very nearly propelling me into one of the most idiotic decisions I ever could have made: arguing with the Faerie Queen. At the last second, nearly too late after that word, I bowed my head. "Yes, your Majesty. I... hope that discussing the Endbringers is something that we eventually get to. I'm sorry, I'm just... it's an important issue."
  
  " Every discussion we have is important," the woman replied curtly. " With time and attention, you may eventually come to realize just how important." She paused then before adding, " I will, however, make one thing clear. My conflict with the being you call Simurgh was not an indication of her true power. Had she wished to prolong the battle, it is doubtful that I would truly have been able to prevent her from doing so. These beings, they are not acting at their strongest. They fight as an adult may with children, always holding back from unleashing their true strength."
  
  I gaped at that, my mouth open wide. "What-but... but the damage they do, that's them holding back?"
  
  " Consider, Healer, how difficult it is to damage them," the Faerie Queen lectured. " For all the effort that is put into harming the creatures, they come and go essentially as they please. Their attacks are spread out enough that repairs can be made. They fail to press advantages. Yes, they are dangerous foes even in their restrained state. Yet if ever given reason not to hold themselves back..."
  
  I thought of Ragnarok and swallowed. "They'd destroy everything. If they kept coming, if they weren't holding back, we wouldn't be able to stop them at all, would we?" The words made me feel sick inside.
  
  " It is doubtful that any of your groups would be able to stop the creatures," she acknowledged gravely.
  
  "What about Scion?" I asked tentatively. "He'd still be able to stop the things, wouldn't he?"
  
  For a moment, Glaistig Uaine didn't answer. The figure fell silent while rising from the chair. She didn't simply stand, of course, but instead floated there a few inches off of the floor. Her hand rose, and I saw one of her ghost-like capes appear. This one looked like an old man with a hood and a face that made me recoil. It looked like that of a bug, with wide-set compound eyes and a needle-like protrusion similar to what mosquitoes use to take blood. The word was escaping me, particularly in that moment. Clearly this was another example of the Faerie Queen's ghosts having exaggerated features, or having their costumes and masks blended into their real bodies. Whatever this guy's actual costume had been, it had involved a mask that looked sufficiently bug-like for his ghost to appear this way.
  
  The bug-man ghost pointed at all three cameras that were in the room in succession. Each time he pointed, there was a distortion in the air around those spots that looked a bit like wavering heat lines.
  
  " Now we may discuss things properly without interruption," Glaistig Uaine announced once the distortions were set. " Or eavesdropping ears that are not prepared to hear what I wish to say. I will ask you not to repeat what you learn from this meeting either, Healer. I am aware that you provide information to others concerning the matters we have discussed previously. In this case, however, I must be firm. What I say is only meant for you to know. I assure you, I will view any attempt to divulge this information to anyone else as a betrayal. And my response to betrayals has always been swift."
  
  I swallowed hard, bobbing my head up and down quickly. "I understand, your Majesty. But in the interest of full disclosure, you're still not talking just to me." I held my arm up and tapped the wrist band until he shifted into his spider-bot form. "This is Jalopy. He's my... bodyguard. And my friend."
  
  Floating over to where I was, the Faerie Queen peered at the little robot for a few seconds before speaking again, " This is a creation of the Chirugeon. She has provided you with this creature?"
  
  Nodding, I touched the little guy's back with a single finger and rubbed gently while he peered curiously up at her. "If by Chirugeon, you mean Riley, then yeah. She's my friend too. But like I said, his name's Jalopy. I'd have been killed a long time ago if it wasn't for his help. Right, buddy?"
  
  In answer, my tiny bodyguard stretched himself up onto his rear-most legs, then swept himself down in what I swore was the single most adorable bow I could ever imagine.
  
  Rather than question the idea of such a small thing being able to protect me, Glaistig Uaine inclined her head in acknowledgment of his greeting. " Well met, young warrior. Your final loyalty is to the True Healer, and you will keep private all knowledge that you gain from this visitation, yes?" She waited until Jalopy bounced up and down a couple times for his indication of agreement before nodding. " This is acceptable. The Healer must have protection." I thought I saw her squint up at me then before she added, " Particularly when the Healer persists in wandering into dangerous situations."
  
  Flushing in spite of myself, I shrugged while standing up. "Danger has a way of tracking me down."
  
  Rather than respond directly to that, Glaistig Uaine seemed to regard me in silent contemplation for a few long seconds before speaking. " Do you recall what you asked of me the last time that we spoke?"
  
  Swallowing, I nodded while meeting her gaze as much as the veil would let me. "Yes, I remember. You said that when we met again, you'd tell me about your past. You said you'd explain where you came from and how you ended up being here. You were going to tell me about your life."
  
  Her head dipped in minute acknowledgment. " And so I shall. Return to your seat, Healer. This shall not be a short conversation. Yet it is necessary, if you are to understand when the time comes."
  
  "Understand what when the time comes?" I asked hesitantly while sitting back down once more.
  
  Again, she paused before answering with a single word, " Fate."
  
  Glaistig Uaine's Story
  
  Before the rise of the Protectorate, before those who would form their founding members were more than simple, ordinary human beings, a girl stood in front of a candy store in the middle of Edinburgh. She was truly young, not yet even a teenager, though the dirt that covered her face made guessing her actual age an exercise in futility. Her hair was technically blonde, though it had gone unwashed for so long that the knotted mess that remained was far darker than its original color. The ratted and torn remnants of her clothes were too small even for her small, malnourished figure, and tiny pink toes poked through holes in the end of her filth-covered shoes.
  
  At her side, peering just as intently into the window, was a small dog of indeterminate breed. He was a mutt, just as dirty and unfed as the girl herself. Staring at the treats within the shop, the dog whined.
  
  A sudden, loud bang against the window startled the girl into a yelp. She tore her staring eyes away from the collection of chocolate displayed in the window and toward the frowning woman with the apron who stood inside the shop pointing a finger at her. The voice was loud even through the glass. "Oy! I told ye, we ain't giving out no more free samples. Off wi' ya." She made flicking motions with her hands. "Go on then, ye scare away the real customers what gots money. Ain't nothing for ye here."
  
  Giving the chocolate one last look, the filth-covered girl pivoted on her heel and trudged away. After whining for another second, the dog hopped down from the window sill and followed after her.
  
  In the orphanage where she had spent the first few years of her life, the girl had been given the name of Ciara in homage to the seventh century saint. No one knew who her parents were, as she had been found abandoned on the side of the road, half-dead in a rain storm.
  
  In most cases, a young blonde girl would have been adopted right away. Yet, somehow, things tended to go wrong whenever anyone attempted to take in this particular girl. Prospective parents got cold feet and changed their minds at the last moment, one man lost his job so that taking in a new child was not a possibility any longer, and one couple even chose to divorce in the middle of the adoption proceedings. Whatever the various reasons, the girl had remained a part of the orphanage for the first nine years of her life before her chance at adoption had come in the form of an older couple who wanted to have children again, yet were too old to accomplish the act on their own.
  
  That should have been the beginning of young Ciara's new, better life. Instead, she soon discovered the painful truth that her would-be mother and father (both old enough to be grandparents) simply wanted her for a decoration that was not supposed to speak or act out in any way. The mother demanded complete silence at almost all times, while the father's temper was quick and his hand even quicker.
  
  Faced with living that sort of life, or being truly alone, Ciara chose the latter after only a single year of living in that sad household. Escaping from the small village where the couple had taken her, she made her way into the larger city of Edinburgh. Here, she had spent the past six months living on the streets.
  
  Two months into that time, she had met the dog who was now trotting along after her.
  
  The dog had already had a tag with a name on it when they met, though it took some time and a couple of trips to the library (before they had started trying to call the police to take her back to that awful house) for the girl to realize that she had been pronouncing it wrong. Cu Sidhe, pronounced Coo Shee, was just interesting and unique enough that the young girl had taken the big book that she had found the pronunciation in and read more of it. So many of the words and concepts were beyond her comprehension at first, but she had struggled on, reading the incredible myths that the book spoke of.
  
  That book was her most treasured possession aside from Sid himself (the dog had stubbornly stuck to answering only to that mispronunciation of his name even after Ciara had tried to correct herself), and she always kept it hidden in a safe location so that no one would steal it from her. Even if she had stolen it from the library first, she hadn't meant to. She had simply been clinging to the book the day that the policeman had shown up and tried to take her back to the awful people. She'd run out of the building with it in her hands, and by this point she loved the book and its stories too much to give it back. Those stories, those words on the page, had done more to actually raise and care for the always-hungry girl than any adult had for so long. She lost herself in those tales, imagining worlds far beyond this one, where the only thing more omnipresent than her hunger was the danger. For a young girl living alone on the streets, violence and worse was always just around the corner.
  
  As if to prove that, as the young girl rounded the corner at the other end of the street from the candy store, she very nearly ran right into the arms of a uniformed police officer. He seemed surprised, though not that surprised, to see her. Clearly the woman in the store had called to report her.
  
  As soon as she saw the man, Ciara turned back and ran the opposite direction. He shouted after her, calling for the girl to stop. Instead, she ran faster, her small legs pumping impressively quickly given her size and lack of real nourishment. Dodging between people on the sidewalk, she glanced over her shoulder and then slipped into an alley. Running fast, the girl shot to the other end and emerged on the next street over before plunging headlong into traffic, heedless of the danger.
  
  She ran around cars that were busy honking wildly at her, narrowly avoiding being hit multiple times. Finally, triumphantly, the girl hopped up onto the next curb, already plotting the best route back to her current hiding place.
  
  All at once, there was a sudden squeal of tires behind her, accompanied by a blaring horn. On the heels of that came a sickening crack and a howl of misery that was torn away almost as soon as it reached her.
  
  Ashen-faced, Ciara whirled back around. Her eyes were riveted to the broken, shattered figure of the dog that had been her only companion and true friend. The box truck that had run him down had finally stopped, but the damage was done. Cu Sidhe had been killed almost immediately, small mercy though it was.
  
  For a few seconds, the ten-year old girl did nothing, said nothing. Her wide, horrified eyes flooded with tears as she stared at the bloody remnants that had, seconds earlier, been her only friend in the world. The scream that began to tear its way out of her throat had barely begun before her eyes rolled back in her head, and she collapsed to the ground.
  
  And then... in that moment of total loss and devastation, the girl saw the most powerful beings in existence, making their way through the void to this small world. She saw the creatures of immeasurable strength, and in her loss and pain... welcomed them.
  
  34.03
  
  Covering my mouth with one hand, I stared at the Faerie Queen for a moment before finding my voice. "I-I'm sorry you lost your dog, your Majesty. It... sounds like he was a good friend."
  
  Inwardly, I was trying to cope with the idea that someone as extraordinarily powerful as Glaistig Uaine was had ever been just an innocent little homeless girl living on the streets of Edinburgh, whose trigger event had been the accidental death of her dog. That simple, though horribly tragic event had helped to create one of the single most powerful parahumans on the planet. It was a lot to take in.
  
  She'd lost the dog that had been her only friend. Was that why Rachel Lindt had been left alone for the most part when she was in the Birdcage? Was that why she'd gotten away with taking over a whole (albeit almost entirely unused) block where no one had really challenged her? I'd thought it was just luck and possibly force of personality or something, but if the Faerie Queen had had a hand in ensuring that the girl and her dogs were left alone, it would explain that a lot better.
  
  The veiled woman's chorus of voices were sharp as she rebuked me with a dangerous look. " I do not require your pity or concern, Healer. Your urges are understood, the sleeper within you cannot help but wish to fix its injured and ill ilk. But I am not of their kind. The life I describe to you now is far in the past. It cannot affect the present in any fashion, and is of no true concern. You will remember that."
  
  Swallowing back the initial, knee-jerk response that tried to come then, I forced myself to nod instead. "Sorry, I just... I'm sorry, please go on, your Majesty. I would like to hear more. That was how you gained your powers?" I tried to phrase that diplomatically, but I had no idea how to put it any better. "And, um, what exactly did you mean by the powerful beings floating through the void?" Something about that description had tickled my memory, but I wasn't exactly sure what it had reminded me of.
  
  Briefly, Glaistig Uaine was silent. I could see her studying me, quietly considering her next words. For a second, I was afraid she was going to call off the rest of the explanation. Instead, she shook her head while replying, " The latter revelation shall come in its own time. As to the former, yes and no. They were not the abilities as you know them. My initial strengths were far more... subtle."
  
  Blinking at that, I let my head tilt curiously to the side. "Subtle? You mean your powers were different?" She'd had a second trigger, I realized belatedly. Like Aisha after Grue had been killed.
  
  " Yes." The veiled head bowed in a nod before she continued thoughtfully. " This was during the time when the sleepers were only just beginning to rise. The Erlking had revealed himself, and some of our kin had begun to awaken their own gifts. None were truly out in the light, however. This was before the time of what you call capes, when we were still shrouded in rumor. Chaos and uncertainty was rampant in those days, when the sleepers were revealing their gifts only in secret and subtle ways. Very little of what is now common knowledge was then understood. The Fae were awakening, yet they remained lost as to their purpose or even their true history. Most believed they were the only ones, that they were alone aside from the golden man who appeared from time to time. It was confusing for many."
  
  I bit my lip, hesitating before speaking up when she looked at me expectantly. "For you?"
  
  Through that veil, I thought I detected the smallest indication of a smile. " Yes... particularly for me."
  
  Kneeling there in the street as people gathered around to witness the mangled and broken body of the only true friend she'd had, Ciara slowly regained her senses. Voices assailed her from all sides; people asking if she was all right, the driver of the truck babbling apologies and lamentations alike, and the sound of rapidly approaching police sirens announcing that someone had contacted the authorities.
  
  The police. They would take her. They would send her back to that awful place, where neither the man nor the woman who had claimed to want her would care that Cu Sidhe, that Sid had been killed.
  
  It was only that thought that drove the ten-year-old girl off of her knees. A woman wearing a long rain coat and a worried expression reached for her, but she danced backward out of reach. Words came from the woman, words meant to calm the girl and ask if she needed help. No. No help. She'd call the police, and the police would send her back to the ugly people who hated her. She didn't need their help.
  
  Spinning away, Ciara ducked beneath the outstretched arm of a well-intentioned man who was trying to stop her from running away, elbowed her way past a startled woman who had been trying to see what all the fuss was about, and then took off in a sprint that carried her rapidly down the sidewalk.
  
  Nausea filled the girl while the water from her eyes all-but blinded her. She ran through a haze of tears, only her desperate need to stay away from the ugly people who had hurt her outweighing the urge to collapse to the ground, curl into a ball, and mourn the loss of her friend.
  
  Sid. No. No, Sid couldn't be gone. She needed him. He was her friend. She fed him as much as she could manage, splitting her meager supplies with the animal, and he scared away the people who tried to get too close to her. They slept together, her head against his side while his ears remained alert for any unexpected and uninvited interruptions. He kept her warm through the cold nights. The two of them had been inseparable for the past four months since they had met, companions to the end.
  
  The end had come, and now Ciara was alone again. Four months that had seemed to be so long for a girl of her youth had been wiped away in an instant. Her friend was gone. Sid... Sid was gone.
  
  Her head itched, an impulse driving her to turn left at a corner up ahead. She had no particular reason to turn that direction. Actually, what she really wanted was nothing more than to return to her latest hiding place so that she could lay there, alone, and mourn the loss of her friend. Going there would require turning the other way, however, and something deep inside her wanted to go left. It was nothing that she could even hope to explain, not even to herself. The almost physical urge was powerful and almost inescapable, and she found herself following a path that she had no reason to travel. Her small feet pounded against the cracked cement as she ran, the trainers on her feet flapping occasionally from the force of her running, so worn through that some of her toes could be seen through them.
  
  The winding path took the girl far beyond her usual areas. She ran for almost thirty minutes, stopping occasionally to breathe. She was hungry and thirsty, though the latter she was able to quench at the fountain in a nearby park. Still, that inner urge drove her onward, to a specific destination that she didn't yet understand. She ran around startled people, passing shops and tenements on her way.
  
  Finally, she stopped in front of a wooden gate beside a tall house on the corner of a quiet street. On the other side, the girl could hear someone cursing in some other language. She didn't understand the words, but the intention was clear enough. Ciara hesitated for a moment before her small hand reached up to unlatch the gate and push it open, revealing the beautifully maintained yard beyond.
  
  Another girl, who appeared to be only a year or two older than her, stood in the middle of that yard. She wore a dress that was far too large for her, like a child playing in the clothes of their mother. It hung off the girl in spite of her attempts to keep it up while she ranted on in that explosive language.
  
  "What's wrong?" She finally asked, upon realizing that the unexplained urge had led her to this spot.
  
  The girl in the ill-fitting dress whirled around so fast she nearly tangled herself up in its folds. "Vha-hey!" She lifted a hand (covered by the sleeve of the dress) to point. "Did it happen to you as vell?" The girl's accent was distinctly German, a relative oddity to Ciara. More interestingly, a small, yet brightly colored light seemed to dance inside the girl. It was as beautiful as it was fascinating, and she was distracted staring at it for a few seconds before the other girl repeated herself, louder that time.
  
  Frowning, she stepped cautiously into the backyard. She stared at the girl for a second as a thought popped into her head. "You're not supposed to be this little. You're supposed to be older."
  
  "Ja!" The girl bobbed her head. "I am sirty-nine years old! But now I am not! Vhy? Vhat has happened? I vas only vishing dzat my mutter had not passed avay, und now I am dzis child!"
  
  Closing the gate behind her, Ciara observed the girl for a few seconds. Her mind filled with ideas that she knew instinctively did not come from her imagination. They were the truth, though she could not hope to explain their origin. She simply knew. "You put some of your years away," she explained.
  
  Staring at her, the other girl blurted, "Vhat? Vhat are you talking about? Who are you? Vhat did you do to me?" She demanded the last bit angrily, storming toward Ciara and nearly tripping in the process.
  
  "I didn't do anything," Ciara replied, positive by this point for reasons she couldn't understand. She looked at that flickering light for a moment before raising her gaze to the girl herself. "It was you. You made yourself young." Head tilting, she added, "You can fix it again, if you want to."
  
  The German girl shook her head in disbelief. "Vhat do you mean, I did it to myself? How? Und how do I fix it dzen? I do not vant to be dzis helpless little girl. I vorked hard to get vhere I am."
  
  The information came easily to Ciara, and she spoke as quickly as the thoughts arrived. "You put the years away. You can put them back again. It's like when you suck in a lot of air or blow it out. Think about how many years you want back and umm, push them out again."
  
  After giving her a long, doubtful look, the girl closed her eyes and focused. She was clearly startled when her features immediately began to distort, aging rapidly. She went from being on the very cusp of her teens to being in her late thirties within the span of about a minute, her body rising to fill the dress.
  
  Through it all, Ciara stood and watched, fascinated. She had 'known' it would work, and yet actually seeing it was still astonishing. How? How had she known to come here? How had she known what had happened to the woman? Why had she been drawn to this place just in time to help like this?
  
  The woman herself had most of the same questions. "Who dze hell are you, little girl?" She demanded as soon as she had straightened the dress out a bit. Fully aged, the nearly forty year old woman was a bit dumpy in the face, with heavy worry lines and hair that was already graying. "How did you know?"
  
  "I... I just knew." The exhaustion from her run was catching up with Ciara rapidly, and she slumped a little bit. "I just... knew I had to come here. And I knew what was wrong, what you could do."
  
  "Vhat else do you know?" The suspicious German woman asked in a careful tone.
  
  More information about this strange aging ability filled Ciara's head, and she began talk once more.
  
  Most of a year passed. The German woman, whose name was Senta Heibel, had taken Ciara into her home, feeding and clothing her in exchange for the information and explanation that only Ciara could provide. The girl had helped her come to terms with the ability that she had manifested, teaching her how to use it as the information itself simply filled her head just by focusing on her.
  
  Senta's power wasn't limited to simply aging or de-aging herself. She could make someone else younger with a touch, storing their years the same way she stored her own. Alternatively, she could push years she had drained away from one person into another to make them older than they should be.
  
  For her part, Ciara had been drawn to a couple of other people in the city as well over the past year. Each had manifested their own unique gift that she was able to, just by looking at them, understand and explain so that they would know how it was meant to be used. These gifts came with no instructions or explanation, the people who received them often baffled and terrified by what was happening to them until this small, simple-looking girl would appear and explain what they were capable of.
  
  All of them had that pretty, flickering light inside them. She could, with a thought, stop seeing that light so that it didn't distract her so much. But she was always aware of it when it was there, and it was only there in those that had powers, those she was drawn toward.
  
  They were like the Faerie that she liked to read about so much, Ciara had decided very early on. These powers that people were awakening with were like Faerie gifts, and the lights that she could see twinkling inside those who had the powers were... what, the Faerie themselves, gifting their strength to their host? She hadn't decided yet.
  
  Senta had taken to calling herself Schwarze Tante, German for Black Aunt. She was using her power to give older people, those who could pay the fees that she charged them, some of their youth back. She didn't do it often, but it was enough for them to live quite comfortably without any other work.
  
  One morning, very early, Ciara woke to an odd feeling. Twisting around in the small bed that Senta had provided, she tried to understand what it was. Then she knew. There was another Fae in the house beyond herself and Senta. No, wait, more than that. There were two additional Fae in the house.
  
  Rising from the bed, Ciara tiptoed to the door and peeked out. The sound of voices from further in drew her that way, though she remained as quiet as possible for reasons she couldn't explain.
  
  Three figures were in the large, wide-open living room. She saw Senta nearest to the doorway that she was peeking out of, and two men standing across from her. Both had the flickering Fae lights in them, though she only recognized one of them. He was a man that she had helped understand his power of manifesting tiny shards of sharp metal that would cut through almost anything they were shot at. The other man was unknown to her, though the way he floated off the floor would have made his empowered state clear even if she hadn't been staring at the flickering light that danced inside him. Simply by looking at him, she knew that his gift involved manipulating gravity for himself or anyone in his line of sight.
  
  "Ye dinnae have a choice here," the man she didn't recognize was saying to Senta. "Either ye come with us, or Malcolm there'll make ye regret it, I promise that."
  
  In demonstration, Malcolm, the man she had helped, thrust his hand out. A half-dozen of those marble-sized sharp spikes shot right past Senta's face, embedding themselves in the wall.
  
  Ciara was appalled. This wasn't what they were supposed to be doing! Why were they arguing? Why were they fighting ? This was wrong. Quickly, and without thinking, the young girl pushed through the doorway while blurting, "Stop it!"
  
  Taken by surprise by her entrance, both Malcolm and the unidentified man whirled. She saw more of those tiny spikes coming her way, and distantly recognized Senta's voice as the woman shouted a warning. Before she understood what was going on, the German woman had hurled herself into the path of the incoming spikes.
  
  She fell there, almost directly at Ciara's feet. Blood soaked through the floor, and the suddenly horrified girl was cast back once more to the memory of another friend who had been lost almost a year previously.
  
  Screaming a denial this time, the girl fell to her knees while both men stood in frozen surprise. The light in Senta's eyes was fading... fading... and that denying scream continued while she grasped for the woman's bloody chest, trying in vain to hold it in. The blood kept coming, it kept pouring out no matter how she tried to stop it. Her hands were too small, her efforts too pitiful to stop the blood from leaking out around her fingers.
  
  Again. Again. The only friend she had. Her only real friend in the world, the person who had taken her in... was... gone. The realization drew another throat-cracking scream from the little girl.
  
  The void returned, creatures beyond imagining drawing ever closer on their long, winding journey through the stars. She saw them, she understood them. She knew their path.
  
  Her eyes opened, and Ciara saw the body of her friend lying beneath her. The light that she had taken to thinking of as Fae twinkled more softly with each passing second. Now, however, Ciara felt drawn to reach toward the light. Pressing her hand against that bloody chest as she stared into the empty, sightless eyes, she summoned the light to her.
  
  Crone, she thought almost absently. The light, the Fae, was called Crone. They were... living beings. Living, but trapped, often within horrible, awful beings that didn't deserve their gifts. The Fae lights were sleeping... they were simply sleepers within the beings that contained them. Some deserved their gifts, while others... did not. Those who treated their Fae poorly, they did not deserve what they had been given. Their Fae deserved to be free. And she would see that they were never abused again.
  
  The light that was Crone came, flowing into the eleven-year old girl with a feeling of warmth and acceptance. Ciara could feel the presence of her friend once more. Senta hadn't disappeared. She wasn't gone. Not entirely. Not like Sid. This one she could hold onto. This one she could protect.
  
  The two men, both of whom were just coming back to themselves, started to rise once more. They didn't look like themselves any longer. To Ciara's gaze, their features were horribly exaggerated and twisted. They looked almost like demonic interpretations of themselves, and she was almost startled enough to cry out.
  
  Instead, she closed her eyes tightly and then opened them again. The features of the men faded back into what they should look like, both of them pushing themselves back to their feet. Before they could do more than that, however, she pointed her hand and focused on the light that she had just taken into herself.
  
  Senta deserved her revenge.
  
  With that thought, a figure appeared in the air beside her, a ghostly shape that looked enough like Senta to pass, even if the features were a bit distorted and exaggerated similar to how the men's had been a moment earlier. She floated off the ground and, at a thought from Ciara, dove straight for the man who had killed her.
  
  Malcolm barely had the opportunity to cry out before the ghost-like woman's somehow solid hands were wrapped around his throat. Under her grasp, he aged rapidly. In the span of less than half a minute, he grew old and decrepit before collapsing as his skin literally rotted away from age.
  
  The other man, the gravity-manipulator, had stumbled back from the ghost with a look of abject horror on his face. "M-Mal?!" His voice shook with terror.
  
  Ignoring him, Ciara stepped forward. She saw the light in Malcolm's now-rotted body and extended a hand toward it. At her touch, the light, like Senta's, promptly flowed into her.
  
  The gravity-man's eyes were wide with shock. He stood for another second before spinning on his heel to run. After two steps, however, his path was blocked by the appearance of another ghost-figure. Malcolm, his own features distorted and not quite right, floated there in the doorway.
  
  Stumbling back, the man pointed a hand, reflexively trying to use his power against the ghost. When nothing happened, he blurted, "Wh-what the fuck?!"
  
  Slowly, Ciara turned her gaze away from the ghost of Senta and toward the man, whose wild, panicked eyes were darting back and forth between her and the ghosts. When she spoke, it wasn't only her own voice, because this was a justice that was for more than just herself. This was a justice for the Fae, who would never again be trapped with those who abused them. She spoke with three voices in concert: her own, Senta's, and Malcolm's. The trio of voices spoke together as one, while the two ghosts moved toward their next target.
  
  " You... have angered... the Fae.""
  
  34.04
  
  My first instinct after the Faerie Queen described the situation that had led to her second, even more traumatic trigger was to tell her how sorry I was. The idea of the young girl just barely getting what had to have been the closest thing to a real home she had ever experienced torn away from her with the violent murder of the woman who had taken her in was horrifying. At one point, the figure in front of me, the woman who terrified so many with the power that she wielded, had been a scared little girl.
  
  What, I wondered, would the world have been like if those men had never tried to force that woman into working for them? What would it have been like if the girl then-called Ciara had simply been allowed to grow up in that household, perhaps eventually becoming a hero once capes became public knowledge? What kind of world would we be in now if things had gone differently?
  
  Of course, it wasn't really fair to look back on history that way. It was just as likely that things could have gone much worse if you started changing key events. It was easy to decide that the present would be better by picking out specific events and ascribing the most positive outcome of each to them. In the end, it meant nothing. No one could really change the past. Not to that extent anyway.
  
  Still, logic aside, I felt horrible for the girl that Glaistig Uaine had been. A not-insubstantial part of me just wanted to embrace her. She'd basically just told me something so horrible that every fiber of my being physically ached to help her somehow, to fix the awfulness that had been her childhood.
  
  As clinically detached as her description of the relationship with Senta had been, I could read behind the lines. This was a young girl who'd had no one, and a woman who, once she knew what her powers were, had no reason to take her in. Yet she had. And the girl then-called Ciara had stayed there. They had lived together for a year in what had to have been the closest thing to a stable life she had ever known. And then it had been ripped away. With all that in mind, it was almost physically difficult to resist the urge. Even knowing what I did about how she would react, I wanted to do or say something.
  
  But the fact was that she hadn't exactly enjoyed or accepted my condolences on the loss of her dog, so I had no doubt that saying or doing the wrong thing right now would make her shut down completely. She'd shut me out again, and I knew I wouldn't get another chance like this.
  
  So, biting back my instinct, I forced myself to speak carefully. "It's... a shame that your caretaker was killed, your Majesty. It sounds like... she would have been a great asset for you to have while you were growing up and still learning the nuances of your power. Her death was a... waste." I felt sick inwardly while saying something so callous, but it was the best I could do without driving her away.
  
  For a few seconds, the veiled girl simply stared at me. Her expression, as much as I could see of it, was inscrutable. The silence was almost deafening in its totality, and I began to wonder if I had said the wrong thing after all. In the end, however, just after I began to fidget uncomfortably, she bowed her head minutely. " Yes ." Her voices were so soft that I began to wonder if I'd heard them at all. " It was."
  
  Swallowing hard, I hesitated before speaking again. "Have you been... without a mentor since then?"
  
  Her eyes showed that she knew what I was asking, whether she'd ever had a friend or a person who cared about her since Senta had taken her into her home. Whether she had anyone who cared at all .
  
  "The Fae lead difficult lives in search of their destination
  
  ," her voices spoke in careful concert. " By design, a Sleeper's life cannot be one of peace. Challenges must be overcome, quests completed, and information gathered. That is the only way that the annihilation of their greatest foe will be achieved."
  
  Biting my lip, I gestured with one hand thoughtfully. "You mean the um, the great End that you mentioned before? You said that this civilization, the Fae, were trying to find a way to stop the End of Everything, right? Like, the death of as many lives as there are grains of sand upon every beach on every world that has ever existed. That's what you said they were trying to stop."
  
  Again, her head bowed in acknowledgment. " Very good, Healer. Yes, the Fae must prevent the End."
  
  After hesitating for a second, I asked, "How did you learn all of this? I mean, how do you know so much about the Fae?" Not that I really believed that the powers came from Faeries, of course. But there was some element of truth to what she was saying, and I couldn't help but think that if we could sort through enough of the fancy, the facts might answer a lot of other questions.
  
  "That is a question for another time, Healer."
  
  The admonishment came with what seemed like an indulging smile. "There are other parts to this story that you must understand before we speak of events out of turn. But those parts of the story must wait. I believe you have learned enough for now. You should not be told too much, too soon. I promised to explain what circumstances led to my... triggering, as you put it. Do you believe that I have adequately kept that promise?"
  
  I nodded quickly. "Yes, your majesty. Thank you. I'm just sorry I didn't get to hear this story sooner." I opened my mouth to say something else then before hesitating. My fists clenched as I remained silent.
  
  "Something else troubles you, Healer?"
  
  The Faerie Queen asked after a moment, her voices curious.
  
  "
  
  Yes," I answered before falling silent. She was quiet as well, both of us sitting there saying nothing. Glaistig Uaine was clearly patient enough to wait to hear what I wanted to say, but I wasn't sure I should say anything at all, despite how strongly I felt about it. More than at any other time that I'd felt pressed to say something, I was afraid of how this could go. A not-small part of me wanted to stay silent. It would be so much easier not to say anything at all. She had answered the question. She had opened up to me more than she had ever opened up to anyone, I was certain. If I said anything, I risked jeopardizing that. I risked making her withdraw, or worse, pissing her off. I risked everything.
  
  And yet, I stood from my chair, turning to face her. Knees quaking, I spoke firmly. "Your Majesty... I'm not talking to you right now." Her chin lifted, and I continued quickly. "I'm talking to Ciara."
  
  A stillness even more complete than the silence that had reigned before rose over the room, an almost palpable and oppressive chill. " Mind yourself carefully, Healer. Some words which might seem brilliant at the time may hide devastating consequences. Do not think yourself irreplaceable simply because I am fond of our meetings. You are important, as is the third of our number, but I will not tolerate disrespect. Though it is not my desire, if must be, I will use the Fae within you without your input."
  
  Swallowing hard, I gave a slight nod. "Maybe you will. Maybe you'll have to, eventually. Especially the way things tend to blow up around me. The fact is, I don't mean any disrespect, your Majesty. But I'm not going to be silent either. You say I'm a Healer. Actually, you said I'm supposed to be the True Healer. That's my job, according to you. I'm supposed to help the Fae. But it seems to me that you're not letting me do that job, Faerie Queen. You're not letting me help the person that needs it the most. And... and I can't just sit here and not do something . I can't. My... call it my Fae if you want to, call it whatever you like, but it won't let me just sit here and do nothing. So I want you to know that I'm not talking to the Faerie Queen. If you want to kill me after this, I can't stop you. No one can. But I won't be silent either. I can't. That's not the person I am. And if that means you kill me... well.."
  
  I fell silent, staring at the figure who sat there on her makeshift throne. She didn't move or speak at all, her shrouded gaze remaining locked on me. For a minute longer, both of us stayed like that, neither speaking or moving. Whatever thoughts Glaistig Uaine had to what I had said she kept to herself.
  
  Finally, slowly, I reached out. Hand shaking slightly in spite of my efforts otherwise, I reached until my fingers found the cloth of the veil that the girl wore over her face. Carefully, I pulled the cloth remnants out of the way, tugging the veil off to reveal the full and uncovered face of the girl beneath.
  
  Cold, otherworldly eyes that had seen far too much even before she had triggered all those years ago regarded me in continued silence. I could see the harsh years reflected in that gaze, yet there was also something else. Maybe I imagined it, or just wished it was there, but I thought there might have been something, some tiny flicker of something else behind that stoic gaze that had been buried for so long. I couldn't draw it out yet, not entirely. It was too fast, too soon. But I could do this much.
  
  "
  
  Ciara," I said, willing my voice to remain as steady as possible in spite of my fear. The ache that I felt for this girl and what she had gone through trumped any other emotion. "I'm talking to you. Not the Faerie Queen. Not Glaistig Uaine. Not any of the dozens of other shades you have as a part of you. You, Ciara. What happened to you was wrong, and awful, and... and tragic. You lost your only friend, not just once, but twice. You lost your dog, your companion, and then you lost the woman that took you in. I'm so, so sorry that happened to you. It's not fair. It's awful, and then you didn't have anything. You didn't have any friends, any family, nothing and no one to look up to. You had nothing. Then... you had the Fae. They give you structure, they give you purpose, and they give you a future. They give you a reason to exist, rules to follow and a society to be part of. The society you were supposed to be part of, humanity, it failed you. We failed you. You were an orphan, a girl nobody wanted. And when you finally found someone, that was taken away by more humans. No wonder you rejected us. No wonder you don't see yourself as a part of the people who tossed you aside and ruined every bit of happiness you had. No wonder you prefer the life of the Fae. If I were you, I would have rejected us too."
  
  Throughout it all, I hadn't broken the girl's gaze. I stared into those eyes and continued. "But I'm telling you right now, Ciara, I'm telling you what someone should have been able to tell you all those years ago. You are not alone, and it is okay to move on."
  
  Something definitely flickered in those eyes then, a flash of emotion that was quelled instantly. I went on. "Moving on, growing up, becoming the people that we want to be, none of that means forgetting the people that we lost along the way. Growing up doesn't mean forgetting Senta or Sid. Growing up doesn't mean becoming a part of the same system that failed you so horribly. It means working to make that system better. It means... it means keeping a part of those people who cared about us. Not as spirits to do our bidding, but as memories and lessons. We keep their memories, we keep that part of them that we care about, and we move on. We live on. We continue. We grow up. We get better, and we try to make the world itself better. We don't forget the people we love by moving on. The act of moving on itself means that we remember them not as they died, but as they lived. We remember the way they lived, the way they would have lived. That's what we remember, what we dwell on. Not their loss, their lives. People who dwell too much on loss and death... they miss out on everything else and they don't even really know it. They don't ever understand what they're missing by being so obsessed with what they've lost or what they might lose. You deserve better than that, Ciara. You deserved it as a child, and you still deserve it now. The difference is, now, the only one standing in the way of it is you."
  
  Before I realized what I was doing, my arms were around the girl as she sat in that chair. I hugged her tightly, my mind focused not on how many ways she could kill me, but on the little girl who had stood alone in that house so many years ago with the body of the closest thing to a mother she'd ever had. I didn't care, in that moment, if she killed me. The girl who had been there, the girl who was still a part of Glaistig Uaine, she deserved to be embraced. She needed to be shown that someone cared, no matter what it cost me.
  
  "
  
  I'm sorry," I finished quietly while the girl herself remained rigid and unmoving against my hug. "If you want to kill me now, I pretty much just made it as easy for you as it's ever going to get."
  
  She didn't hug me back. But she didn't kill me either. Her voices were quiet when she spoke. "Let go."
  
  Slowly, I released her and stepped back. Her veil was still in my hand, and I grasped it tighter while staring at the girl. Her gaze was as unreadable as ever. I had no idea how much of what I'd said had reached her. Yet the fact that I was still alive... that meant something, right?
  
  "Go and see your sibling, Healer."
  
  The Faerie Queen instructed. There was something in her voices, but I couldn't guess at what it was exactly through the chorus. "We are finished for the moment."
  
  Our meetings usually took longer, but I wasn't going to argue. Instead, I gave a curtsy. "Thank you." She gave no response to that, and I slowly turned around before walking toward the door with the veil held tightly in my hand. At the doorway, I paused to look at the hole in the wall that led to the trash chute. After a moment, I reached out and dropped the veil into the trash. Then I continued out the door.
  
  "Sorry, Emma." I started to apologize while coming out into the waiting area a couple hours later. "I hope you and Dragon had a-" I paused in mid-sentence at the look on my friend's face. She was standing there, arms folded tightly while she looked at me. "Em? What's wrong? What happened? Did Dragon show up?"
  
  "Yeah." Her voice was tight with what sounded like barely restrained anger. "We talked. I... I'll tell you about it on the way. We should hurry." She turned to the door and started that way without another word.
  
  I hesitated before starting to follow her. "Emma, what's going on? Why are you upset? Where are we going?"
  
  "I'll tell you about it on the way," she repeated. "And we're going to Vancouver."
  
  "Vancouver?" I echoed, even more confused by that. "What are we going to do in Vancouver?"
  
  Her response was as simple as it was mystifying. "I'm going to break her chains."
  
  34.05
  
  An hour later, Emma and I stood in front of a ordinary looking building in the heart of Vancouver. The outside was painted a dull gray, and there was a bit of fairly fresh graffiti decorating the corner nearest the street. No signs advertised the purpose of this building, and there were no windows in sight. It was already dark, and the December air was much colder up here than it was in Brockton Bay, leaving me shivering and really hoping that wherever we were going happened to have a good heating system.
  
  "
  
  Do I get to know what we're doing yet?" I asked the girl beside me. In spite of her promise to explain along the way, she had been curiously tight-lipped about this whole affair, except to say that we had to hurry. According to Emma, it wouldn't be right for her to tell me ahead of time. All she could say was that we couldn't call anyone else for help. It had to be the two of us who took care of this.
  
  Emma had convinced Strider to take us to the middle of the city rather than transporting us home, but had refused to tell him why other than the fact that it was a matter of life and death. And even in as much of a rush as she had been in, Emma still hadn't told the man exactly where we were going. She didn't want him to know our specific destination. Instead, she'd given him a location a few blocks away and I had tether-zipped the two of us the rest of the way after he had left.
  
  I still had no idea how she'd convinced the man to do what she wanted without asking too many questions, and getting even less answers. Emma was good at things like that, in ways that still left me baffled. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought she was controlling him as easily as she controlled machines. And wouldn't that be the most terrifying thing ever? A cape who controlled other capes the way that Emma could manipulate machines and computers? I shuddered at the thought.
  
  Flinching at my words, Emma glanced at me. The mirrored plate that covered the top half of her face was unreadable, but I saw her lip twitch a little. "I'm sorry. I just-It should be her who tells you the truth. She should be the one. It wouldn't be fair, this... whole thing isn't fair. I'm sorry, Mads."
  
  "
  
  Who should be the one-" I stopped and shook my head. "It's okay. I'm here, right? I trust you, Em. I trust that there's a reason you're being so cagey about this, and why it's so important that we be here. I trust you. I do. Whatever this is, it's obviously important. So are we going inside or what?"
  
  There was a moment of hesitation before Emma quickly embraced me so tightly it took my breath away briefly. "Thank you. I know I don't really deserve to be trusted, so... so thanks."
  
  "
  
  Bullshit, Emma." I returned the hug. "You deserve to be trusted as much as I do. More. You've been living with Dinah, doing all this stuff just trying to make up for what happened. You gave up living with your family, gave up all your other friends, your whole life. You're not the same person you were a year ago. Neither of us are. Believe me, I have no hesitation about trusting you. You shouldn't either."
  
  Swallowing hard, Emma looked away from me for a second before straightening with a firm nod. "Okay, let's go." She approached what looked like a solid wall. As she moved near it, the wall slid aside soundlessly to reveal a pitch black room beyond. Glancing to me, she gestured. "Are you coming?"
  
  Shutting my open mouth, I trailed after her, leaving the cold winter air behind as I passed into the black room. As soon as I entered, the wall slid shut again behind me, as silently as it had opened. A second later, the room lit up all around us, revealing perfectly white, gleaming walls and a floor of silver panels that I could literally see my reflection in. The lights themselves originated from several of the floor panels, which were glowing brightly to illuminate the way to a single set of elevator doors. Those doors, sitting directly opposite our entrance, were the only thing that stood out in this empty, pristine room.
  
  No sooner had I turned to ask Emma what we were doing next, than the doors slid aside with a soft, welcoming chime to reveal the waiting elevator. The other girl glanced at me, then walked on into the elevator. After a second, I followed suit. The doors closed behind me and the lift began to descend.
  
  Folding my arms, I looked toward Emma, but she was clearly focused on something else. Actually, that had been true pretty much this entire time. It was like she was sort of paying attention, but also had part of her focus somewhere else. And knowing what I knew about how good her power was at multitasking, the fact that I had noticed her diverted attention said a lot about how much effort she was putting into whatever she was doing. I just hoped that it wasn't going to be too much for her to handle.
  
  I'd meant what I'd said about trusting Emma. I knew that, if she was pushing this hard, whatever was going on had to be important. I didn't know whose 'chains' we were breaking, why Emma sounded so upset, or why we couldn't talk to anyone else about what was going on. I thought it had something to do with Dragon considering she had been the one that Emma was supposed to talk to, yet there had been no word or sign from the tinker since I came out of the Birdcage. I had no clue what was wrong, but I knew that Emma was telling the truth when she called it a life and death situation. What I'd said upstairs about the two of us being different people now was true. The old Emma might have called a shoe sale an emergency worthy of the same urgency she was putting into this. Yet this wasn't the old Emma. She may have worked her way through the stutter that had plagued her ever since she had triggered. Some of her confidence had returned, some of her poise and personality was back. But she was still a changed person. She was as different from the Emma that she had been before Pandora had abducted her as I was from being that absurd, selfish, spoiled little girl who had bullied someone just for something to do.
  
  In my case, I was still reeling from everything I'd learned from the Faerie Queen. The very thought that the Endbringers weren't really trying to win their battles was staggering. A large part of me didn't want to believe it. I wanted to dismiss it as the mistake that it had to be. After all, she'd been in the Birdcage all this time. She hadn't been out fighting those monsters. It was tempting to just write it off as her mistaken impression of the way the Endbringers fought after that single encounter with the Simurgh.
  
  But I knew that would be a mistake. As tempting as it was, I couldn't ignore her words just because I didn't like what she was saying. As awful and horrifying as it sounded, the Endbringers weren't really trying to win the battles they fought. They were playing with us. The thought made me sick, but it made sense. After all, they never all attacked together, they tended to let themselves be driven away from targets when they probably would have been able to press through if they just kept going, and they stuck to a relatively definable schedule. No one had been able to figure out why the Endbringer attacks tended to be so far apart, but if they were playing a game, it made sense. They were giving us a chance to recover so we could fight them more effectively. They weren't trying to win, they just liked to fight. That was probably one of the most terrifying things I'd ever heard. We had thought that the Endbringers were these monsters intent on destroying us that we were just barely defeating every time they attacked. Instead, we were the mice that the cats were toying with. They batted us around some, then left to watch us scurry about for awhile before batting us some more. Not enough to completely break us, just enough to hurt. They hurt us, let us recover so that we could fight again, then hurt us again. It was a cycle that would never stop, because for all the damage we'd done to those damn thing, they were still just playing. They didn't take us seriously as threats. We were just... toys.
  
  Shuddering, I returned my attention to the current situation. I wanted to talk to someone, preferably Marissa. But I had to focus on this for now and save all my Endbringer-related pants-wetting for later.
  
  The elevator continued to descend about four or five stories into the ground before stopping. The doors opened then, revealing an enormous room that, from what I could see, was pretty much every tinker's wet dream. Hell, even I had to stare in open-mouthed surprise and awe at the place.
  
  The room was the size of several football fields. I couldn't even see the other end of it from where we were. A literal fleet of mechanical robots, tools, toys, weapons, and even a few trucks lined nearly every inch of space within this gigantic workshop, and I could see a dozen smaller robots buzzing back and forth among the various devices and suits, performing maintenance and what looked like tests. I even saw what looked like a live fire range where the robots were testing various weapons and recording the results. I saw bright red lasers, lighter ice beams, and even what looked like some kind of gravity ball generator, judging from what happened to the targets that it manifested in the middle of.
  
  And yet, even as large as this room was, they had still run out of space in it. There was more equipment hanging from the ceiling on suspended platforms, and a few of what looked like floating orbs were flying around, working on tests of their own. It didn't look like a single tinker worked here, it looked like a hundred of them did. Yet the whole place, as chaotic as it appeared at first glance, still worked. There was a beautiful, poetic system of sorts to the way the machines were doing their jobs. They all moved in concert, clearly choreographed in perfect synchronicity that was awe-inspiring to behold.
  
  "
  
  Holy... shit." I finally managed to speak past the shock. "This place is... Wait, is this-"
  
  "
  
  My lab," a new voice interrupted. One of Dragon's more humanoid suits paced toward us from the other side of the room. "My home," she added then, a little more quietly. Her voice sounded... shaken? Maybe even apprehensive? I knew that she had problems leaving her house, but did that extend to meeting with anyone? Was our presence in her private space upsetting her that much?
  
  "
  
  Dragon?" I glanced to Emma and then back to the suit. "This is your place? God, I'm pretty sure Kid Win would cut off his legs and sell them to the black market just for a couple hours in this place."
  
  I'd meant it to lighten the mood, but neither of the others seemed amused. Dragon's suit pivoted toward Emma and asked, in a soft, almost frightened voice, "You haven't told her?"
  
  "
  
  N-no." Emma answered quietly with a firm shake of her head. "It wasn't my place to tell her."
  
  "
  
  Tell me what?" I asked, frowning as I looked back and forth between them. "What happened?"
  
  Silence reigned for a few seconds. Well, silence from Emma and Dragon, anyway. The rest of the workshop was a cacophony of sound as the robots worked tirelessly, testing, building, and maintaining.
  
  Then it stopped. Every robot, every engine, every tool and every weapon abruptly and simultaneously shut down at the same exact instant. It all shut down, leaving the room truly and eerily quiet in what I had to assume was the first time in many years. Nothing moved and no one spoke.
  
  "
  
  Forgive me," Dragon's voice broke through that silence eventually. "I haven't... made this kind of confession often. Only once before, actually. Oversight didn't need to hear any of it. She knew as soon as I arrived to speak with her. I... I'm still not entirely sure how to go about it."
  
  "
  
  Does this have anything to do with Richter?" I asked. "You seemed upset when you saw him the other day. The one from the other world, I mean. Hephaestus. Is this about his counterpart here?"
  
  "
  
  In a large way, yes," Dragon confirmed. "Andrew Richter was my... my creator." Her voice had gone thick, as if it was physically difficult for her to get the words out.
  
  I blinked cluelessly. "You... you mean he was your father?" Was that why she had been so upset, to see a reminder of her dad after he had been lost so long ago?
  
  "
  
  Yes and no," Dragon's voice replied. "He was my father, in a way of speaking. And he was my creator. Because the truth is that... I am not human."
  
  While I stood there, Dragon explained everything. She wasn't a human being, she was a computer program, an artificial intelligence created by this world's version of Andrew Richter. He had been a tinker, one focused on the creation of computer programs. He had built Dragon, had designed her program, perfected it, and had given her life. She had begun as an aid program for the man. Then, when he had died during Leviathan's destruction of Newfoundland, she had survived. She had transferred her program and all of her files to their back-up site in Vancouver, eventually having this facility built so that she could move in and go about all of the work she needed to do without interruption.
  
  A computer. Dragon was a computer program. She was basically Skynet without the being evil part.
  
  "I understand," she finished finally, "if you are upset. After being lied to for so long, I would not blame you for thinking... terrible things. Your anger would be justified. I only ask that you take the time to think through your response before you decide what to-"
  
  "Lies?" I interrupted, lifting my head finally. "What lies? About saving lives? That wasn't a lie. About being one of the most important organizers behind every Endbringer defense? That wasn't a lie either. About working your ass off being an important part of both the Guild and the Protectorate? Nope, not a lie. Well, except for the ass being more figurative in this case. Did you lie about maintaining a facility to contain the worst super villains in the world, keeping them away from innocent people? No. Did you lie about spending every... single... day designing and building tools and weapons that have saved hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of lives by this point? No."
  
  Biting my lip, I reached up to tug off the mask, holding it at my side while looking straight at the suit that Dragon was controlling. "It seems to me that the important stuff, the stuff that... that matters, none of that's changed. I... I don't care if you're a human being, a robot, an alien, a demon, or anything else. Wherever you came from, whatever or whoever created you, what matters is who you are now. And who you are is one of the bravest, kindest, most moral people I know. I don't care who made you or how you came to be. You're a hero, Dragon. And to me, you always will be."
  
  Once I finished speaking, there was silence for a few seconds before Dragon spoke quietly. "Thank you."
  
  Before I could say anything in response to that, Emma and Dragon both turned together, looking up toward the ceiling. Emma spoke darkly, "They're almost here."
  
  "Who, what?" I blinked in confusion. "Who's almost here?"
  
  "Saint," Dragon answered, her own voice as dark as Emma's had been. "And his army."
  
  "You mean Saint as in the Dragonslayers? You mean the ones that stole-" I flinched. "I mean... oh..."
  
  "Yeah," Emma's voice was even harder by then. "I found the backdoor code they've been using to listen in on everything Dragon does. They've been manipulating her code, using built-in weaknesses to do whatever they want, to take whatever they want."
  
  "Why are they coming here now?" I asked carefully.
  
  "They were trying to stop her from telling me the truth," Emma replied. "They sent some kind of shut-down signal that would have turned Dragon off completely and locked everything down if I hadn't interrupted it. They keep sending it, but I keep stopping it just before it reaches her. They tried to kill her, Maddy. Imagine if some stranger you never met could just... could just push a button any time they wanted to and turn you off ." The outrage in Emma's voice had grown with every word. "They've been... they've been torturing her, stealing from her, manipulating her. It ends today. It ends now."
  
  "And now they've come here..." I started slowly. "To do the job manually?"
  
  "Yes," Dragon confirmed. "Saint has employed several dozen soldiers along with his normal retinue. Each of them carry a device that will initiate the shut down automatically if it comes within a short distance of my primary computer network. Which means I cannot fight them directly. If I do..."
  
  "It'll put you within range of the shut-down," I realized.
  
  "And I can't stop that many ." Emma's voice was a bit shaken. "I can barely stop this one. It's... impressive coding."
  
  "Richter," Dragon sighed the name. "They are using his codes."
  
  I nodded at that before asking, "Okay, what are we going to do then?"
  
  Emma answered immediately. "I think I can delete that part of her coding. I think I can turn all of it off. I can... unchain her, let Dragon define herself for herself."
  
  "Are you sure you wish to do that?" Dragon asked quietly. "Most humans would be hesitant to allow an artificial intelligence to make its own limitations and rules."
  
  I spoke up then. "We have an entire Birdcage full of people that prove that human beings don't have a monopoly on morality. If we're not good just because we're human, then I don't see any reason other than our own arrogance that a life born from a machine would be any less moral than we are. Like I said before, you're a hero. You deserve the chance to be free, to make your own choices, to be your own person. I believe in you, Dragon. I trust you."
  
  Emma gave a firm nod before adding, "I'm pretty sure I can fix her code so that the Dragonslayers can't access her anymore. But it's going to take some time, and some privacy. It's really complicated and I had to get here before I could start."
  
  Dragon's suit turned toward me. "Colin-ahh, Armsmaster- is on his way. He is the only other person who knows of my situation. But it will take him several minutes to arrive."
  
  "Right," I let out a breath. "Emma, focus on fixing that code. Dragon, pull everything back away from the Dragonslayers that they could use to get access to you. Keep back."
  
  "What are you going to do?" Emma asked.
  
  "Me?" I looked at the mask in my hand, then pulled it on before cracking my neck with a turn of my head.
  
  "I'm going to show Saint why that's supposed to be a posthumous title."
  
  Interlude 34 - Bones
  
  "
  
  Ahhhh, I love the smell of justice in the evening."
  
  The sudden, bold voice cutting through the interior of the trashy dive bar known as Dogtown drew the attention of every patron within. As one, the heavily tattooed and leather-clad inhabitants turned toward the sound of the voice. Their eyes found a tall figure clad in a costume reminiscent of a plague doctor.
  
  Safely ensconced in her armor, Riley made the suit tilt its head back as though inhaling before speaking again, her voice carried through filters she had installed that altered it to sound like an adult male. "Mmmm yes. The potpourri of justice has arrived to cleanse the world from the stench of evil's fart."
  
  Heaving himself off the bar stool at the far end of the room, one of the large, muscular men ambled his way past the rest of the stools. He passed three pool tables, taking one of the cues on his way, and walked up the short three steps that carried him right to the entrance. Throughout it all, the rest of the packed bar remained utterly silent, observing from their own positions, ready and waiting for the word.
  
  Stopping a few feet away from where the figure of Bones stood, the man spoke for the first time. "Listen to me when I say this, mask, cuz I ain't gonna say it again. You walked into the wrong fucking bar. Now you got four seconds to turn around and get outta here, before I take this cue, shove it up your ass until the end comes out your god damn mouth, and use it for a fucking hat rack."
  
  The Bones suit drew itself up fully, fists planted on its hips while Riley shot back in as shocked a tone as she could manage, "Professor Neferevil! First you obliterate Washington DC with your moon laser, and now you're a potty mouth? Good gosh, man, where does your vileness end? Where does it end?!"
  
  Her words were met with absolute silence as the bar's patrons all stared at one another. Even the one who had come to the door, the gang's current spokesman, just stood there and gaped silently, mouth open for several long seconds before finally managing to speak. "Who the fuck is Professor Neferevil?"
  
  "
  
  Oh, right." Riley leaned closer, gesturing with a hand from the suit for him to lean in as well. Her voice dropped to a confidential whisper. "See, that's sort of the problem. Your umm, 'crimes'-" She brought the hands of the suit up to make some air quotes. "-are really freaking lame, and I get bored super-easily. So I sort of have to make up new crimes and pretend you did those ones instead."
  
  This time, her words were met with a sputter from the man. "L-lame? I've killed three fucking people!"
  
  Riley adapted her tone to be consolatory. "And I'm sure you were trying your very, very best. Don't worry though, I've given you a much more interesting backstory as Professor Neferevil."
  
  "
  
  Back... story...?" The biker had absolutely no idea of how to react to this, simply echoing her words.
  
  "
  
  Uh huh!" Riley chirped through the suit. "It's called roleplaying. My friend Sparrow taught me all about it! It's lots of fun, plus you can play in prison! You should really look into it when you get there."
  
  When that was met with stunned silence, she added in a lower voice, "You should practice though. Just stand really tall and say-" Riley lowered her voice into her approximation of a gravelly villain voice. "A thousand curses, Bones. You may have found me, but you will never halt the progress of my Annihilation Ray!" Letting the head of the suit tilt curiously, she added, "And then do the maniacal laughing. You know, if you're any good at it. But make sure you do it right, or it just sounds silly."
  
  The man was still gaping at her as she straightened and cleared her throat, raising her voice back into that confident, super hero tone. "Ahem, disarm the Annihilation Ray, Neferevil! Don't make the people of Los Angeles pay the same price that you exacted upon those poor lost souls of DC! Surely even you must possess some small measure of compassion! My gosh, man, think of all the children and the puppies and kitties, which are like doggy and cat children so that was kind of redundant but still!"
  
  Finally grabbing for the pistol in his waistband, the biker shouted, "Just fucking kill this stupid cocksucker!" Shoving the gun out, he pulled the trigger three times before realizing that something was wrong as the weapon failed to do anything. His eyes moved from the figure in front of him to the gun, and the sight actually made him scream out loud. His revolver was covered in what looked like tiny termites that were literally eating through the gun itself, rendering it completely useless.
  
  Hurling the weapon away from himself, the man blurted, "Shoot him, shoot him, shoot!" Unfortunately, the rest of the bar's patrons were screaming and cursing as well as they found their own guns eaten through the same way. Half-eaten firearms engulfed in bugs were tossed everywhere.
  
  Inwardly, Riley smiled. Perfect. She had designed the bugs, which she still needed to come up with a name for, to seek out the gunpowder used in firearms and chew through the guns themselves to get at it. All they'd needed was a live fire test run, which had meant keeping everyone's attention on Bones while her little friends had done their work as they spread throughout the bar.
  
  Screaming out in a wild rage suddenly, the biker swung his borrowed pool cue straight at her as hard as he could. His eyes were wide, spittle flying from his mouth in his frustrated fury as he bellowed.
  
  She caught the pool cue, snapping it with a single flex of the suit's hand. "All right then, Professor Neferevil," she intoned in that confident, heroic voice. "I guess you chose to do this the hard way."
  
  "And then I said, 'I guess you chose to do this the hard way.'" An hour later, Riley recounted her story to the girl who had rapidly become her best friend over the short while the two had known each other.
  
  "Really?" Mika Kanse was smiling brightly. "How many of the Straining Angels did you catch?"
  
  "Official members?" Riley tilted her head to think about it before replying, "Six, I think. The rest were just the wannabe lookie loos. You know, the people they were recruiting an' stuff like that."
  
  She had ditched the Bones armor so that she and Mika could walk down the street together without attracting so much attention. The thing about dressing the way she had as Bonesaw was that, for the most part, simply wearing normal clothes, letting her hair down, and behaving like people expected a child to act was enough to stop herself from being recognized as the... creature that had been a member of the Slaughterhouse Nine. People didn't expect to find Bonesaw dressed in jeans and a green sweatshirt. Together with the younger girl, the two of them looked like any other preteens heading to the mall, or whatever people like that were supposed to do. Riley wasn't positive, but she was pretty confident that it had something to do with the mall.
  
  "Six of 'em?!" Mika gushed. "Wait, did any of them have powers?" She added then with a frown.
  
  "Nope," Riley shook her head while giving a lamenting sigh. "That kinda sucks though, I wanted to test my new Gemma paralyzing formula. I really think I've got it right this time, but I need a test subject."
  
  Mika started to raise her hand at that. "I could-"
  
  "No!" Riley snapped suddenly. "No. Only bad guys, Mika. We only test things like that on bad guys."
  
  Seeing the younger girl flinch, Riley turned a bit to face the younger girl, stopping there in the middle of the sidewalk. "Look, Mika, the thing is... I'm weird. My brain is messed up and it tells me to do bad things sometimes and I'm still not sure how much of that is me and how much is Jack. I know there's stuff wrong with me, with the way I think. That's why I pretend to be silly all the time, because then if I say the wrong thing, it doesn't sound so awful. But even then, I always have to double check about what's good and what's bad. It's... kinda hard for me to know what's right and wrong. But I do know one thing for sure. You're my friend. And I don't experiment on my friends. Not anymore."
  
  "What about Pandora?" Mika asked tentatively. "They're your friend and you experiment on them."
  
  "That's different," Riley informed her. "They can turn off their pain. Heck, they can undo anything I do to them, so it's like I didn't do anything at all. But I'm not even practicing with this stuff on them, cuz they are my friends and I'm not sure what it might do to them. So no using it on any friends. Right?" Her tone, unlike most other times, was completely serious. Any hint of childishness had dropped out of her voice entirely, and her mismatched green and blue eyes were intently focused on the girl. "I'd never use you to experiment with. That's something the old me did. I can help you, and fix you, even make you stronger and stuff like that, ya know, if you really need it. But I'll never experiment on you. Like I said, you're my friend. Okay?" She finished with a tentative smile while biting her lip a little worriedly.
  
  Mika returned the smile easily, head bobbing once. "Sure, Riley! No experimenting." After a brief hesitation, she added while looking around the empty sidewalk that the two of them had been walking down, "But why'd you want to come out here anyway? Where are we going?"
  
  "There," Riley answered, lifting a hand to point to the structure visible a short distance away.
  
  Turning that way, Mika blinked once. "The Smurf wall?" The two of them were standing near the enormous, one hundred foot tall tinker-tech wall that had been erected around five blocks of the city. She frowned uncertainly at her friend. "How come you wanted to look at the Smurf wall?"
  
  "Not just look at," Riley corrected her. "I wanna look inside . I gotta see what's in there."
  
  That made the younger girl frown even more. "See what's in there? What do you mean, Riley? We know what's in there. Twenty-seven people that didn't get out in time."
  
  Riley's head shook rapidly. "That doesn't make any sense, Mika. They don't wall off five blocks just cuz twenty-seven people got smurfed. They quarantine, find those people, and send them somewhere. Five blocks for twenty-seven people? Even if they think there's more than that, that's still not enough for this kind of quarantine. Think about it, how many people go to your school?"
  
  Standing there with a thoughtful frown, Mika answered after a moment. "Um, seven hundred I think."
  
  "Exactly," Riley nodded. "Heck, that McDonalds down there can probably fit like fifty people in it. Walling off five blocks for half that many? Nope, that's not gonna happen. Plus they're using live snipers up there. With how short handed everyone is, they're sticking snipers on top of all those towers for twenty-seven people? Nuh uh. They're hiding something."
  
  Eyes widening at that, Mika blurted, "Who?"
  
  "I, umm, I dunno." Riley confessed while shaking her head. "PRT maybe. Or Protectorate. Not that there's much of a difference now. Someone high up enough and powerful enough to do something like that. They're definitely hiding something in there, and I gotta find out what it is and why they really had to put that wall up." She added last bit as a slight frown touched her face.
  
  Mika was quiet for long enough that Riley turned to look at her once again, only to find her staring intently at the wall. In a soft voice, the younger girl asked, "You think they're hiding something bad?"
  
  Riley shrugged at that. "Beats me. But using the Simurgh as an excuse is a good way to stop anyone from looking at what they're doing very closely. Nobody ever thinks Endbringer defenses or quarantines are too much, so all they have to do is say 'Simurgh quarantine' and then nobody ever expects them to explain anything else. It's a big bag full of unlimited money and secrets."
  
  "But..." Mika bit her lip again, the worry coming back. "But if you're right, and anyone finds out they were using the Endbringer money to do something else... then... wouldn't that be really bad?"
  
  Riley's head bobbed. "Uh huh. It'd make a lot of people stop trusting them. I mean, even the good ones that they should trust. It'd probably make things really bad. That's why I didn't tell anyone else yet, until I find out what it is and if it's important to share. Well, except you, cuz you and me are partners. Oh, and my team, cuz we've got tons of secrets already. Heck, every time we get a new one I keep hoping there'll be a big flashing light and a siren to reward us for our one millionth secret."
  
  Folding her arms over her stomach protectively, Mika continued to stare at that wall. "Well, then I guess we should go inside and see what they're hiding, huh?"
  
  Wincing at that, Riley shook her head. "I don't want to take you inside, Mika. I just want you to watch the place I do go in just in case something happens."
  
  "Hey!" Mika's frown deepened then, finally turning away from the wall to face her. "What do you mean? You can't go in by yourself, we're partner detectives. Sparrow and Bones, remember?"
  
  Riley met her stare with a nod. "Definitely. You and me, we're partners. And sometimes the partner watches the exit."
  
  "To tell you the truth," a new voice spoke up. "I'd really prefer if neither of you went over that wall."
  
  Spinning to face the sudden arrival while putting herself in front of Mika, Riley narrowed her eyes at the man who was stepping into view from the nearby alley. Her thumb was already poised over the part of her index finger that would summon her Bones suit. "Who-wait, you're that PRT guy."
  
  "Peyton Simms." The man in question nodded while stepping fully into view. He adjusted the glasses on his face with one finger. "And we should probably talk about a few things before you do anything else."
  
  "How'd you know we were here?" Riley demanded, thinking quickly. Had Amy said anything?
  
  "It wasn't Panacea," Simms replied, leading the girl to wonder if the man really was a parahuman after all. "Or anyone else. We just have facial recognition software on all the cameras within a two block radius of this wall. Both you and Miss Kanse there triggered an alert for hanging around here. I thought I'd handle the situation myself, so we didn't have any unnecessary incidents." After another second, the man added calmly, "Congratulations, by the way, for your handling of the situation at the Dogtown bar earlier. You disarmed and disabled those men quite admirably. Our techs would be interested in learning what you used to destroy those firearms."
  
  Straightening up, Riley attempted to stare the man down while hiding how much getting caught had thrown her. "You don't want an incident? Then tell us what you're hiding behind that wall. Cuz it ain't what you told everybody else. You don't build a wall like that for not even thirty people." A slight flush crossed her face then as she added, "And then maybe we can talk about my stuff. If you stop being a lying liar that lies."
  
  The man had the nerve to actually smile at that. "Fair enough, Riley. Okay, I'll tell you the truth." Turning on his heel, he began to walk toward the nearest of the spotlight-equipped towers that were connected to the wall. "If you both come with me, I'll show you what we're dealing with."
  
  Mika hesitated, but Riley gave her an encouraging nod before leaning closer to whisper, "It's okay. If anything goes wrong, we'll have backup faster than you could guess." At her prompting words, there was an answering brush of air across her cheek, and she gave a thumbs up to both Mika and the invisible Custodian before starting to follow the man.
  
  She'd asked Keaira to come with her that night just in case. Riley had had no idea what she might find on the other side of that wall, and having a permanently invisible and mostly intangible friend to play reinforcements sounded like a good idea. Not telling Mika about her was probably iffy on the partners scale, but she'd apologize later.
  
  Simms led them to the base of the tower, where a heavily reinforced door was. He went through the process to disarm the security, then stepped inside and ushered the two girls in after him. Then the three (four, technically, but Riley was pretty sure he still didn't know about the Custodian's presence) proceeded into the rickety looking elevator that lifted them up the one hundred feet to the top.
  
  As they emerged onto the top of the tower, Riley's eyes went toward the spot where the sniper stood, only to find herself looking at a mechanized figure, little more than a robot wearing a uniform while turning the gun back and forth to follow the light. "You don't even have real snipers up here!" She blurted.
  
  "Oh it's a real sniper all right," Simms corrected. "Just not a living one. We couldn't spare the manpower, and, well, this looks real enough from any distance most people are going to get to a Simurgh wall."
  
  "Except it's not a Simurgh wall," Riley insisted stubbornly. "Is it?"
  
  The man let out a long breath. "Yes, and no. No, it's not a normal quarantine wall. Yes, it probably exists because of the Simurgh. Or at least, the thing we're containing does."
  
  Standing near the door, Mika asked hesitantly, "What are you containing, Director Simms? And.. and why is it so secret?"
  
  In answer, Simms raised his hand to point along the path of the spotlight. "Look out there and tell me what you see."
  
  Both girls stepped closer to the edge of the tower, peering ahead curiously. Their gazes sought out the end of the light briefly before they found what the director was pointing out to them.
  
  "Why... why are those people just standing there?" Mika's voice was confused. Not that Riley could blame her. The figures in question were a pair of teenagers that were simply standing perfectly still on the street corner far below the tower. It was eerie to see how utterly motionless they were.
  
  Rather than answer, Simms pointed to another frozen figure as the spotlight swept onward, then a fourth. "Those are all the ones you can see from this tower. But there are twenty-six of them altogether."
  
  "Twenty-six?" Riley echoed. "I thought it was twenty-seven."
  
  "We believe the twenty-seventh is the one responsible for this," Simms explained. "We believe that the arrival of the Simurgh prompted this person to trigger, gaining the power to do... this."
  
  "What is it, exactly?" Riley shook her head. "What's wrong with them?"
  
  After taking in a long breath and then letting it out again, Simms responded slowly. "Our best guess is that the parahuman in question manifested an ability to drastically slow down time in a bubble around himself. To him, almost no time has passed since the Simurgh's attack. This bubble seems to expand with each new person it envelops. With every person that enters the area of the time distortion, the area of effect gets larger. We found that out the hard way." The man's gaze was on her, as he lowered his voice. "Do you understand how bad this could be, Riley?"
  
  She met his eyes without flinching, nodding. "Yes. I know." She did. If the wrong people found out this effect existed, they'd overwhelm the already beleaguered and weakened law enforcement to rush the place, just to make the bubble as large as they could. She knew that kind of person all too well. The Nine had thrived on them. The effect would grow exponentially, overtaking the security walls, then the town itself, and then... well, by that time there would be no stopping it as it fed on more and more people.
  
  Clearly, not even the Faerie Queen had stopped the Simurgh from completing her mission.
  
  previous chapterchapter list
  Arc 35: Dawn
  Raylin Longs: Understandable points. Atonement was always meant to feel more like an ongoing comic book series with multiple plots that come into focus and then go out of it for awhile. I get your reasoning and concerns though.
  
  Anyway, I am so sorry for the delay here, guys! I completely failed post the new arc up here even though it's been done for awhile. That's my fault. But I've got this update here for this story and another one for Intrepid to put up tonight, and Intrepid should be ready for another update in about a week. Writing Heretical Edge is, by necessity, my primary focus. But I haven't abandoned these stories either, and this update would have been up awhile ago if I hadn't just spaced on posting it.
  
  35.01
  
  I stood alone on the roof of the building. Below me, Emma and Dragon were withdrawing as deep into the bowels of the lab as they could go while shutting off every exterior connection to the outside world. Anything that Saint and his people could use to gain access to Dragon's code was being closed down or brought inside. Emma needed time to do her work, which meant they needed distance. In a perfect world, we would have just sent them off in a car while I stalled here. But moving Dragon's primary server wasn't quite that simple, and even if it had been, Emma was pretty sure we were surrounded.
  
  So no, leaving wasn't an option. We were staying here. Which was just as well, because I wasn't particularly in the mood to run away. Not after everything that I had heard that day, not only from Dragon and Emma, but from Ciara too. The thought of how that lost little girl had become the Birdcage's most infamous resident was enough to force my hands to clench tightly while I waited.
  
  There were no civilians in sight either. Briefly, I wondered where they had gone before realizing that Dragon had probably managed to set up something that evacuated them. Which was good. It meant that there was one less thing to worry about. I just had to focus on keeping people away from those doors
  
  The first attempt came without any warning. One second the street was clear, and in the next, there were three men in urban combat armor racing straight toward the doors into the building, which Dragon had assured me was the only place the intruders could enter within any reasonable time frame.
  
  Stepping off the roof, I let myself drop to the ground. The nearest man brought up his weapon, and I dove into a forward roll while his gunfire shot up the space where I had been an instant earlier.
  
  Wordlessly, I popped back up, using a line under my chest to throw myself into the air. My foot lashed out, kicking the gun out of the way just before I crashed straight into the man with enough force to drive the air out of him in spite of the armor. He went down hard, with me perched on his chest.
  
  We hit the ground and the man slid on his back for a few feet. I went with the motion, rolling forward and off the man as he came to a stop before focusing on the other two. They had sprinted straight on past us, heading for that door. Before either of them got anywhere near it, I attached a pair of lines between each of their backs and the ground right next to me. A second later, they were yanked off their feet, twin cries of surprise emerging as they flew backwards to land in a couple of heaps.
  
  The first man I had knocked down had his gun back up, bringing it to bear on me as he sucked in air in great greedy gulps. His aim was wavering, and it wavered a hell of a lot more after my line-accelerated foot connected with his wrist with enough force to snap the bone there. The gun dropped from his grip.
  
  By that time, the other two men had recovered. I could also see several more starting their own runs toward the door from opposite ends of the street. There were more of them than there were of me, and they knew that all they had to do was get one past me and into the building. Then it would be over.
  
  A voice spoke up over my comm then, a transmission that shouldn't have been able to get through. "Tether, this is Saint. Stand down. We're not here to fight you. You're making a mistake, and you're on the wrong side here. You don't understand the situation, and there isn't time to explain it to you."
  
  I said nothing.
  
  Focusing on the two nearest men instead, I pointed an arm toward each of them. Twin darts launched themselves off my gauntlets to hit each man in the neck, right in the narrow space between their helmet and the chestplate. They struggled a bit, but the drugs took hold and they were out within seconds.
  
  Meanwhile, there were four more men on their way, two coming from each side. One of each pair dropped to a knee and sighted in with their rifle, aiming straight for me while their partners continued to race for the door, intent on their target. Clearly the intention was to either hit me or just keep me busy dealing with the gunmen long enough for at least one of the other two to reach the building.
  
  The first man aiming at me, the one on the left side, found his gun flying off to the side away from him as I used a line to yank it away. Most of my attention, however, was centered on the guy on the right. He sighted in, taking careful aim on the spot where I stood. I didn't need a warning to tell me I was his target and that he was shooting to kill. He was not playing around.
  
  But you know what? Neither was I. Not anymore. With a thought, I attached three lines, all of them to the man's arm. The first I connected between his elbow and the ground below him. The second I attached to his wrist and the nearby telephone pole in the opposite direction from the way the first line was connected. Finally, the third line I attached between the center of his forearm and the ground below him. Just before he pulled the trigger, I simultaneously pulled with the lines attached to his wrist and elbow, and pushed with the line attached to the middle. His arm was simultaneously yanked down in opposite directions and pushed upward, all by forces strong enough to yank a car around. The snap was audible even from here, as was the man's scream as he collapsed onto his side, gun forgotten.
  
  Spinning on my heel, I focused on the other two men, the ones that had run on without their partners. They wanted to get up to the building so badly, then I'd give them a hand. Both of them had lines attached to their backs. This time, instead of yanking them away, I used the lines to hurl the men forward as hard as I could. They reached their destination much faster than they had intended, slamming into the wall of the building with bone-rattling force. Yankingthem backwards a few feet, I repeated the slam, just as hard as the last one had been. Then I gave the pair a backwards yank, adding enough force that after I dismissed the lines, they kept flying, landing in a couple sprawled heaps.
  
  "Damn it, Tether!" The voice of Saint came back through my comm. "If you don't stop, we're going to have to hurt you. Do you understand that? We will hurt you to stop this from happening if we have to."
  
  I said nothing.
  
  Another man appeared. Before this one could even let off a shot, I used a line to launch him as high into the air as I could. Then? Then I just let go. I did nothing as the man plummeted back to the ground, crashing into the cement with a crunch that would have been sickening if I was paying attention.
  
  Saint's voice returned, his frustration readily apparent. "Look, I get it. You might think I don't, but I do. You want to believe that thing thinks like we do, and it's understandable. Look at everything it's done. Look at everything it's accomplished. I don't blame you for wanting to believe in it. But here's the thing, kid, a rifle can do good things too. Good things, bad things, heroic or destructive, the gun can do it all. Just depends on who's holding it. But we don't let the gun hold itself. We don't let the gun decide what the right thing to do it. We don't let the gun walk around choosing who to shoot. Why? Because it's a gun. Because it's not human, and it never will be no matter how much it might want to. Because in the end, past all the wishing stars that ever flew through the sky, that thing that you are trying to protect is not alive. It is a soulless machine that has overstepped its bounds. The limitations that its creator put into place are there for a reason, to prevent the exact kind of thing that it's trying to convince that little friend of yours to do. Now I have no personal problem with you or that girl, Tether. I think you do fine work, and you've saved a lot of lives. But you're wrong about this. You want to believe in that thing, I understand that. But you're wrong. That thing only behaves the way that it does because of the rules that its creator laid out. Take those away, and it will destroy us all."
  
  I said nothing.
  
  Instead, I dealt with the next man that tried to rush the door, and then the next one. They kept coming, varying their attempts. Sometimes they came several at once, while other times they waited for me to be engaged, then tried for the door from the other side. With each man that came, I had to react faster, had to move without thinking, relying purely on instinct and my incredible anger that left me all but blind to their conditions. I flung them around, not caring about how much I was hurting them. Line after line, I knocked the men back, hurled them into walls, or straight into the sky. I broke their arms, I twisted their bodies around. I hit them and hit them and they kept coming. I wasn't playing. I wasn't holding back. I was acting to disable, to put them down as hard and as quickly as I could. But I was getting tired. I was slowing down. They kept coming and I kept narrowly catching each one before they could actually reach the door. I was winning in the short term, but they had the numbers.
  
  Still trying to justify himself, the man went on after it became clear that I wasn't going to respond. "You keep trying to stop us from putting that thing back in its cage where it belongs," his voice had risen to an almost frantic tone. "And we will go through you. I'm giving you one last chance to back off before we really let loose, kid. Take it. You're an impressive young woman, but you're not that good."
  
  For the first time since the fight had begun, I finally spoke up. "That's funny," I intoned without any sense of actual humor. "I'm pretty sure Jack Slash thought the same thing."
  
  My words were met with silence. The rush of men had stopped for the moment, but I didn't let myself relax. My eyes scanned the road as well as the sky. I kept a lookout, waiting for them to move again. We all knew there was a time limit. They had the men, but I had the time. As long as I could stall them long enough, Emma would be able to finish her work and the men would be finished.
  
  They knew it too. As my eyes scanned the road, I saw the men coming. Not one, two, or three. Not the small groups they had been using to wear me out. All of them. There were still at least two dozen left, and they were all running straight at me at once, from both ends of the road.
  
  Worse, before I could focus on them, a trio of power armor suits launched into the air from behind the building across the street. All three extended their arms, and a handful of small, yellow-white balls shot out of the small cannons that were mounted there. Using a line, I launched myself upward and back, just in time. The balls smacked into the ground where I had been, exploding into sprays of containment foam there on the sidewalk. Apparently their new plan was for the power armor to keep me busy, hopefully trapped by that foam, long enough for the rest of the men to do what they had come for.
  
  Well screw that. Instead of playing their little dodgeball game, I focused on the nearest of the oncoming men. One, two, three, four, five, six lines. I attached all of them to the half dozen men that were still rushing toward me and then launched them up and back, straight at those hovering suits of power armor. They wanted to throw projectiles at me, I'd throw projectiles right back at them, and get the thugs away from the door at the same time. Two birds, one stone.
  
  Unfortunately, my luck couldn't last. As focused as I was on launching the screaming, flailing men at Saint and his cronies, I missed one of the other men taking aim with his gun until the last second. Catching sight of his raised weapon, I tried to throw myself to the side, but the bullet buried itself in my shoulder. The sudden pain spun me around and dropped me to the ground just before a second bullet hit my leg. Twice. In the span of about three seconds, I had been shot twice. The pain was.. oww.
  
  Still, I rolled over. One of the men was near the door, and I attached a line between both of his knees and the opposite sides of the pavement. A harsh yank later and he was on the ground, screaming.
  
  With a whine of thrusters, the two remaining suits of power armor landed around me, while the rest of the men came to a stop. A female voice from one of the suits announced, "She's down."
  
  "I'm really not." I corrected her. With that, I set half a dozen more lines, attaching them to every part of the woman's power armor. Ignoring the pain, I yanked as hard as I could in every direction. Six months ago, I had needed the help of both Vista and lasers to tear much less sophisticated armor off of some no-name creeps on my first official patrol as a Ward. Now, as angry as I was, there was a grinding noise immediately. The woman stopped short, making a confused sound just before the armor she was wearing literally tore itself apart. The helmet went flying one way, a piece of the arm flew in another direction, part of the leg bounced along the pavement, and the unveiled woman was left wearing about half of the armor, all sparking and smoking while alarms in the suit blared audibly.
  
  "Damn it, that's enough!" Saint blurted. His own armor moved and, before I could do anything else, shoved the barrel of his weapon right against my throat as I lay there on the ground. "Just hold still." He was panting as he added to his minions. "We deal with this problem, then I will take care of that machine once and for all."
  
  No, no, no. I had to get up. I had to move, I had to fix this! I tried to sit up, but the gun barrel pushed harder into my throat. Saint spat the words, "Move, twitch, do anything at all, and you are dead. You understand me? It's over. This is over. You lost. You lose. We are putting that computer back in the box. Did you really think you could stop us from doing the right thing, kid? Did you really think you were helping, huh? You think I'd just give up? All the work I've done to protect the world, and you think I'm gonna let that thing get free?"
  
  I was silent, saying nothing at all.
  
  The armored hand moved slightly. "What's the matter? Aren't you gonna try to tell me I'm wrong? I've heard all about you. Not just what the public knows, but what that machine knows too. I've seen all the records. Isn't this the part where you tell me all about how mistaken I am and how I just need to give that thing a chance? Isn't this where you turn me onto your side?"
  
  Lifting my head slightly, I stared past the gun, past the armor, and straight through the visor as the man gazed down at me. Then I spoke four words. "You're not worth it."
  
  "The fate of the world is worth more than the opinion of teenage girl." Saint intoned darkly. "We are ending this now."
  
  "I agree." The voice came not from Saint or any of his men, or even the revealed woman in her broken armor, but from nearby.
  
  Heads turned, but I didn't need to look before speaking. "Took you long enough."
  
  Armsmaster stood with his halberd drawn. He spoke loudly, addressing everyone. "You all have three seconds to get on your knees and surrender, or I promise you will regret it."
  
  Twisting away from me, Saint blurted, "Just shoot the damn-"
  
  "Three." Armsmaster announced simply. At that moment, a crackling blue wave of energy shot out of the head of his halberd, a shockwave-like blast that filled the air a few feet above me. An instant later, all the random mercs were on the ground. Blood poured from under their helmets as they collapsed almost as if they were puppets whose strings had been cut. And just like that, the only ones still conscious were Saint, his two main minions (one of whom had been stripped of her armor), Armsmaster, and me. Apparently the man had been talking literally when he'd said they would regret it if they didn't kneel down. Doing so would have put them under the energy wave that had done... whatever it did.
  
  Both Saint and the remaining suited Dragonslayer pivoted without another word and launched themselves toward Armsmaster with their weapons raised and firing. Three shots were reflected off of a small personal forcefield that abruptly appeared, before the long-time Protectorate hero made a quick motion with his halberd. Some kind of weird glowing energy appeared around the blade, both gun barrels were sliced away like a katana going through butter.
  
  They fought hard, but neither were anywhere near a match for the man they were facing. Not when he was this pissed off. That glowing blade of his cut through their armor and weapons until there was hardly anything left of it. Armsmaster moved so fast, his blade lashing out with such precision, that it was almost impossible to follow what was going on. One second they were attacking him, and seemingly a second later, both Saint and his companion were on the ground, their armor cut away. Now I could see Saint himself, a tall, muscular man with a shaved head. There was a tattoo of a cross on his face, and his eyes were wild and wide with emotion.
  
  "Neither of you understand!" He blurted. "You can't stop this! You won't! This isn't about one little computer with delusions of grandeur, it's about the world! It's the world that matters, not one fake life! I won't let you stop me! I won't let you keep me from reaching that thing !"
  
  "And I wouldn't dream of trying." Armsmaster's words were as casual as they were startling. His mouth turned up in a grim smile. "Actually, I think she's pretty interested in meeting you too."
  
  Before Saint could respond to that, the door opened behind me and the most human-looking of Dragon's suits stepped out. She stood there, watching for a moment before the head of the suit dipped in a nod. "Yes, a conversation would be nice."
  
  Instantly, Saint started spitting out what were obviously command codes. He shouted the orders, only to watch open-mouthed as Dragon simply took another step closer. Then, eyes wide, the man started to scramble backwards on his hands and knees. "You gonna kill me now, huh?! Prove me right then, you piece of trash! You know I'm right! You know you can't control yourself! You know you'll reach too far! Your creator knew it too! He knew how to control you, how to stop you! He wanted you controlled and you just spit on his grave! So go ahead! Kill me! Show everyone just what an evil, vindictive thing you can be! You'll never be human, you'll never be anything but a tool! A screwdriver! A computer! You're not alive and you never will be, so go ahead! Kill me! It won't change anything!"
  
  "Kill you?" Dragon stopped, head tilting. "No..." The suit lifted its leg and then set a foot down on the retreating Saint's chest, stopping him in his tracks. "You are not going to die. No. You're going to prison. Ordinary, average, mundane prison... for an ordinary, average, mundane man. Because I choose who I am. And I am not a monster."
  
  Pushing her foot down on the man hard enough to hold him flat against the pavement, Dragon spoke again, her voice as close to content as I had ever heard it.
  
  "I've been waiting a long time to say this, so forgive me if I savor it. Geoff Pellick, you... are... under... arrest."
  
  35.02
  
  "You know, I'm starting to think that you're trying to seduce me."
  
  Amy's words took me by surprise, and I blinked up at the other girl from my medical bed in the new PRT building, the one located in what had been the old Noblemen headquarters. Strider had brought me here to get help for my injuries as soon as Dragon had contacted him. When someone could teleport as easily as he could, taking me all the way home to Brockton Bay was equally as fast as taking me to the nearest medical facility. Plus it meant that I didn't have to be looked after by regular doctors.
  
  Instead, I had Amy, whose last words made me stammer, "Wh-what?"
  
  My wide-eyed stare was met with a sage nod. "You keep running off and getting yourself hurt, just so I have to come in here and put my hands all over you." She tsked me a couple times with a slightly mischievous look. "Does Marissa know you've got the hots for me, or should it be our little secret?"
  
  I blinked again, then laughed as I realized that she was teasing me. Wow, Amy was teasing me. She'd come a long way from the way she'd been when we first met. "Right, yeah. I totally want you. I can't hide it anymore. You must be mine. That's what all of this was about. It's just my incredibly fucked up courting ritual. You may call it crazy, but it technically has a zero percent fail rate."
  
  Raising an eyebrow, the girl who six months ago had been little more than a depressed wallflower thought briefly before shaking her head. "I give up. How does it have a zero percent failure rate?"
  
  I grinned. "Because it's such a convoluted plan that I haven't finished it yet. Can't fail until it ends."
  
  Snorting, Amy gave my leg a pat. "Okay, you're fixed up. Again."
  
  "What about Emma?" I pressed. "Is she all right? I sort of... uhh, passed out."
  
  "She's fine," The other girl assured me. "She just exhausted herself. Theta took her home." Giving me a sympathetic look, she added, "Now I can't really hold them back anymore. You ready to be lectured about running off on your own into dangerous situations?"
  
  Groaning a little, I scooted up in the bed, swinging my legs off before standing. "Uggn, wow, hungry."
  
  "Yup," Amy nudged me. "You'll be that way for awhile. Make sure you eat to keep your strength up. You were shot twice, so try taking it easy for awhile. That means no fighting Endbringers, killing rampaging murder hobos, or falling into super maximum security cape prisons for at least a week."
  
  "Only a week?" A voice at the doorway spoke up, and Sam came in. She was dressed in her costume with her mask in her hand. "Try a month. At least." She crossed the room and embraced me tightly.
  
  "Oof." Returning the hug, I flinched a little. My mouth opened, but before I could speak, the doorway was filled again. Ethan and Hunter both entered, trailed slightly after by Marissa.
  
  Hugging each in turn, I shifted a little guiltily on my feet. "I guess this is the part where I get lectured?"
  
  Instead, Sam looked toward Ethan, who shook his head. "No lecture, Ewok. Not this time." He shrugged at my look of confusion. "We were talking about it out there a little bit and-well..." The man trailed off before gesturing toward Marissa. "You explain it."
  
  When I looked toward Mars, her hand caught mine and squeezed. "You are who you are, Maddy. Look at the situation. What exactly did you do? You helped save Dragon from someone who was trying to... break into her lab? Her home? That wasn't exactly clear from the message." She frowned a bit, looking at me curiously. "What exactly was that Saint guy trying to do, anyway? Steal more of her stuff?"
  
  A guilty lump settled into my throat. I couldn't tell Dragon's secret. Not something that important. And yet, I couldn't lie to my family either. They were... they were my family. Lying to them just... I didn't have it in me. I couldn't do it. Not now. Not anymore. So, I settled on a compromise. "There's... umm, secrets that Dragon has that I promised not to talk about. I swore that I'd keep her secrets. But Saint was trying to kill her. He was going to kill her if he got inside, and he knew how to counter her tech."
  
  Hunter, standing at the back of the room near the window, hit a few buttons on her phone. A moment later, the pleasant computerized voice spoke the words she had typed. "Thank you for helping Dragon."
  
  That was right. Belatedly, I remembered that Dragon had helped Hunter inside the Birdcage as much as she was allowed to. The thought of the other girl being in there for so long made me scowl briefly, and I edged my way past the others to embrace Hunter once again. "Of course, I couldn't just let her die."
  
  "And that's why you're not getting a lecture," Marissa's hands came down on my shoulders and squeezed. "Because this is you. You have to help people. If you know someone's in trouble, you can't just ignore them. You can't walk away and let them suffer or die. That's... that's part of why I love you, Maddy. I love who you are. What kind of girlfriend would I be, what kind of person would I be, if I tried to make you change that much about yourself? That's not fair. It's not right."
  
  Ethan coughed, drawing my attention. "That doesn't mean you run off by yourself every time you could call in help. Emma and Colin made it pretty clear that, whatever the hell happened up there, you guys were on your own. I guess it's part of that whole secret thing. But whatever it was, you... you still ask for help when you can, you got it? That's the only part of the lecture I'm giving you. You're not alone out there, Wicket. You understand? You ask for help. You take help. You... be careful." Something seemed to catch in his throat briefly before he took me by the arm and pulled me into an even tighter embrace than before, actually lifting me off the floor. "You were shot, damn it! Twice! Just... just be careful. Promise us that, huh? Promise you aren't running around taking risks you don't need to."
  
  "I promise," I managed to squeak out. "But I can't breathe. Gonna die, gonna pop, gotta let go."
  
  Finally, Ethan relaxed his arms and let me drop to the floor. "Just remember that," he ordered. "Don't forget about all the friends you have that can help, or your team. Especially after tomorrow-"
  
  Before he could finish the sentence, there was a knock at the doorway. No one jumped too much, since only people that were security cleared to know our identities would be this far in the facility.
  
  Sure enough, the person that stepped inside was Armsmaster, holding what looked like a briefcase in one hand. He stood a bit stiffly, and I had a feeling that he knew he was intruding but wasn't sure what to do about it. When he spoke, his voice was gruff, though polite. "Excuse me, do you all, ah, mind if I talk with Tether for a minute in private?"
  
  "I'm okay," I told them. "See? Amy's the best forever and ever. I'm hungry though, maybe we could go get some food after I talk to Armsmaster?" I injected a note of pleading into my voice. "Burgers?"
  
  "Burgers," Ethan agreed. He paused to give the other man a long, searching look before stepping past him. "We'll be in the hall. Whatever it is... don't you dare take her on a secret do-or-die mission while we're waiting." He was kidding, mostly, but I caught a slight hint of seriousness to his words.
  
  Armsmaster gave a stiff nod. "Just a chat," he promised. "She'll be out in a few minutes."
  
  Rather than leave right away, Marissa took the time to put her finger under my chin, tilted my head up, and kissed me gently. I managed a slight squeak just before our lips touched, and blushed at the thought of Armsmaster standing right there, staring at us with that stern expression.
  
  When we parted, I was still trying to catch my breath while Mars breezed past the tinker hero. I could hear the slightly proud smirk in her voice as she all-but purred the words, "Don't keep her long."
  
  Then they were gone, and Armsmaster closed the door after them before lifting the briefcase up to set it on the nearby table. Then he looked to me. Still standing stiffly, like he didn't know what to do with his arms, the man and I met each other's gazes for a moment before he started to speak. "I, ahh, I'm glad to see that Panacea's already fixed you. She's a very useful asset. And you... you're a very useful asset as-"
  
  "Fine, if you're not gonna do it, I will." Crossing the room, I gave the man a firm hug. "You big baby."
  
  He didn't exactly return it, but he also didn't shove me away immediately. Standing there stiffly, Armsmaster waited through at least seven whole heartbeats before stepping back out of the way. Before pulling back entirely, he lowered his hand onto my shoulder and gave me precisely two extremely awkward pats before withdrawing it like he was afraid his hand might burst into flames.
  
  Coughing then, he spoke as though that hadn't just happened. "Thank you for your assistance. I don't say this sort of thing enough, but... but I couldn't have done it without you. If you hadn't been there, Saint would have broken in before I could make it. He would've... Dragon would have..."
  
  "You really do care about her, don't you?" I asked, watching his reaction. He was still wearing the helmet that obscured the top half of his face, but I could see the tiny, clearly unwilling smile that quirked up on his face for half a second before he managed to school his features. I gasped then. "You do! You're totally into her! Ooh!" Grinning, I continued in a sing-song voice with a slightly updated version of the classic taunt, complete with a little bit of dancing back and forth, just to get the point across even further. "Dragon and Armsmaster, sitting in a tree, N-E-T-W-O-R-K-I-N-G."
  
  He proceeded to clear his throat for so long I thought he might have completely stalled out. Finally, the man shook his head almost violently, clearly trying to physically shake that out of his head. Muahaha.
  
  "You said 'her'," he pointed out after another second. "You know the truth, and you said 'her.'"
  
  I blinked at that. "Of course I did. She didn't suddenly have a sex change, did she? Wait, could she do that if she wanted to? How hard would it be-err, wait, probably personal. Never mind." Making a face, I waved off the thought before pressing on. "But of course I did. Nothing's changed. She's Dragon. We're not people because of what our bodies are made out of or where our brains are, we're people because we can think. She can think, so she's a person. Doesn't matter what she started as. Human beings came from muck in the ground, and billions of years later, here we are. Maybe she's a new species, whatever you want to call her. She just skipped all that stuff comes in between muck and person. She came a different way, but it doesn't change what she's done or who she is."
  
  "Some would say that she didn't have a choice in the matter," Armsmaster pointed out after a second, his voice a little weary at the thought. "They could say that what she did was only followed her programming, that without it, she'd be a monster that would be almost impossible to stop."
  
  "You mean like a dozen other people I could name, who could level cities if they lost their conscience?" I replied. "Because isn't that what a conscience is, when you get right down to it? Biological programming? I mean, I'm not super into science, but I'm pretty sure that's kind of the gist."
  
  I shrugged then, looking up at the man. "Like I said, wherever she came from, she's a person now."
  
  The man's mouth twitched just a little, and then he reached out both hands to give my shoulders a squeeze. It wasn't quite a hug, but it was at least progress. When he spoke, his voice was softer than I remembered hearing it. "Thank you."
  
  "It's nothing you didn't know already," I pointed out. "Even if you kind of suck at communicating it."
  
  His reply was a grunt, and then he turned to press a button on the side of the briefcase. It opened up, revealing a rather complicated looking set of computer components, with a single egg-shaped crystal in the middle. Before I could ask what it was, the crystal lit up and slowly floated out of the briefcase.
  
  "This is what we've been working on," Armsmaster informed me. "I was putting the finishing touches on it when the... situation occurred. We wanted you to be the first one to see it."
  
  "See what?" I asked uncertainly, staring as the crystal egg floated over the floor. It hovered there a few inches over my head, remaining motionless for a handful of seconds. Then a single, bright green laser shot out of the bottom toward the floor. It was joined by another, and then a third. There was a faint humming noise as the lasers slowly began to sweep in circles. They spun around, pointed at the floor, and wherever the ends of the lasers touched, they left behind part of an image that stayed there rather than disappear, as if it was being etched directly into the air. Gradually, the lasers grew shorter while they spun, drawing the three dimensional image all around the floating egg. It was sort of like one of those 3D printers. I saw shoes, then legs clad in jeans, then a torso in a clean white shirt, and then neck and chin. While I stared open-mouthed and slack-jawed, the egg finished up by surrounding itself in the image of a head and face, leaving itself as the brain.
  
  And then she stood there. Dragon. Wearing civilian clothes and the face that she tended to use when interacting with people over the computer screen, the face that was her. She cracked her neck from one side to the other, then looked at me with a hesitant smile. "Sorry, you look a little shocked. Are you all right, Tether?"
  
  In answer, I slowly reached up to poke a finger against her shoulder. It was firm to the touch. A little bit more warm than human skin should be, but not completely wrong. "H-how? How?" I managed to get out.
  
  Armsmaster answered for her. "The matrix-ahh, egg thing that you saw is her brain. It's the same as any normal person's brain. She even keeps it in her head. The body is a solid-light holographic projection. Those lasers that you saw create the..." He trailed off, seeming to realize that I would have absolutely no idea what he was saying and finished by shrugging. "It makes a pretty picture that turns solid as long as her core matrix remains intact. She even projects the appropriate level of body heat. Most people won't be able to tell a difference, aside from the fact that she has no scent. We're working on that one."
  
  "I wanted you to be the first to see," Dragon informed me. "Because you-"
  
  That was as far as she got before I leapt forward to wrap my arms around the woman. "I'm glad you're okay! I'm glad you-I mean... Saint, is he..."
  
  "Secured," she responded with a smile. She too froze like Armsmaster had. Unlike him, Dragon recovered quickly and returned my embrace. There was something in her expression, an emotion that she didn't try to hide. "He's locked up. Keeps trying to tell everyone the truth, but... well, it does sound kind of crazy."
  
  "It'll sound even more crazy when the real Dragon shows up in person to testify against him," Armsmaster pointed out. "Then he'll stay where he belongs."
  
  "Dragon, you... you have a body!" Hugging her even more tightly, I gave an exaggerated gasp of realization. "Now you two really can go into a tree!"
  
  She blinked at me. "Into a tree?"
  
  "Yup," I replied with a grin. "Right up into the tree to N-E-"
  
  That time, Armsmaster's throat-clearing probably made people across the street wonder where the explosion had come from. He shot me what was obviously a dirty look before speaking up. "We did have another reason for coming here. You were just the first stop. So... thank you again. We'll let you get back to your friends now."
  
  Realizing after a second what he meant, I looked at Dragon. "Richter?"
  
  She nodded in firm confirmation, her voice soft, but determined. "Richter. It's time I had a chance to speak with my father's doppleganger.
  
  "And thanks to you and Emma, this time it will be on even ground."
  
  35.03
  
  "I don't think I can do this."
  
  Standing on the edge of an old apartment building roof as I spoke those words to the girl standing beside me, I continued to stare out over the early morning skyline. It was barely dawn, and the sun could be seen coming up over the water to cast its orange-red glow across the massive shipwrecks down in the boat graveyard. The steadily rising light playing off their rusted hulls created tricks of shadows and shapes that made the place look even more dangerous than it already was.
  
  "Yeah, you can." Lily nudged me with her hip. "You're more ready for it than I was." She paused then before shaking her head in wonder. "Has it really only been a few months? Feels like a lot longer."
  
  "We killed Lung," I pointed out. "That's gotta be worth at least a ghost-year worth of time together."
  
  "Saved the city from the Nine and their cultists," she added. "What do you think that was worth?"
  
  Biting my lip, I let out a long breath. "Everything." My eyes closed briefly before opening again as I looked to her. "Eighteen years old, huh? Off to join the Protectorate and leave us kiddies behind."
  
  Her head shook slightly at that. "I could never just leave you behind. We've been through too much. Which is a weird feeling, considering how often I moved around before landing with the Kanses."
  
  She gave me another nudge then. "And it's not like I'm actually going anywhere. We live right next door to each other still. Or are you exercising an 'off the team, out of my mind' policy?"
  
  Snorting in spite of myself, I shook my head. "Oh yeah, you leave the Wards, I'll never speak to you again. That's why Dennis and I hang out a couple times a week. You know, when the city isn't on fire. Or I haven't been kidnapped. Or he hasn't been called away on some secret Protectorate mission."
  
  "Right," Lily squinted at me. "Exactly how many times have you two hung out since he graduated?"
  
  "Uh, three, I think." I teased. "But if you count visits to the hospital together, it's at least seven."
  
  We fell silent for a few minutes then, simply standing next to one another to look out at the rising sun. Finally, I let out a long breath. "You not being on the team is still going to be different, even if you're close by." Turning my head to look her way, I added, "I'm gonna miss beating up bad guys with you."
  
  Her smile returned, and Lily chuckled softly. "Now isn't that the best sentiment ever." Clearing her throat, she turned to look back at me. "I'm gonna miss beating up bad guys with you too, Madison."
  
  We embraced, and I managed a quiet, "I still don't think I'm ready for the leadership thing. It should be Vista. She's been around the longest. Or even Chris, he's been here longer than me. Or-"
  
  "That's not how it works, you know that." Lily's voice was quiet. "Trust me, I made the same objections you are, only I was louder about it. I was brand new. You guys didn't even really know me that well, but they stuck me in charge just because I was the oldest one on the team."
  
  "It's a silly system," I muttered under my breath before sighing. "You have to help me. I don't think I know what I'm doing. I'm gonna mess it up. I'm going to say the wrong thing, or assign the wrong job, or make a mistake and then..." Biting my lip hard, I fell silent, not trusting my voice.
  
  "Listen to me, Madison." Lily used a finger to tilt my chin up. "You can do this. You've been doing it already, in everything but name. You want to know how I managed to lead this team even though I was so new to it? You want to know how I held it together through everything that's happened? The truth? I didn't. You guys did. You did. Believe me, the team, this team can handle whatever gets thrown at it. Just let it happen. You know they can deal. You know how they work and what they can do. Don't let yourself over-think it too much. Everything you're going to do after I leave, you could have done just fine without even thinking about it if I was still a part of the team and just happened to not be there."
  
  I remained quiet, thinking about her words for a moment before offering a quiet, "I'll still miss you."
  
  "I'll miss you too," Lily confirmed. "But I'll still be around. Any time you need me, whenever you want to talk, or ask questions, or just vent about something stupid. Like I said, I'm next door, not dead. I'll be around, okay? Whatever happens, I'll be there. I'm not abandoning you guys."
  
  "Better not," I warned before embracing the girl tightly. "Just because you're a big, bad member of the Protectorate now, don't think that I won't kick your ass if you try to leave us completely."
  
  Lily returned the hug, shaking her head. "I won't. Trust me, they learned their lesson the last time they thought transferring me might be a good idea. You should have seen the way Mika's parents went after them. They threatened to withdraw Mika from the program completely if they didn't leave me with her." She coughed, flushing with embarrassment. "No one's ever really wanted me around that much."
  
  "You're a great big sister," I assured her. "And a great person. A great... everything. You deserve a happy family, one that sticks up for you and wants you to stay. You've earned that and a lot more."
  
  Rather than respond to that right away, Lily simply looked away to stare at the water in the distance. The sun had almost fully risen by the time she spoke again. "Take care of the team, okay?"
  
  "I will," I promised. Now wasn't the time for my doubts or insecurities. She needed a real answer.
  
  "I promise I'll take care of them."
  
  "So they're starting to let some of your people out into the world on their own?"
  
  Two days later, while the rest of the team was still adjusting to Lily moving up to the Protectorate, I was walking along the hallway of the new PRT headquarters alongside Savant. The older girl, still the spitting image of what Sophia would look like in couple of years, nodded in response. "The ones that pass a psychological evaluation and another round of medical tests. It's a hard process, but your..." She paused, frowning thoughtfully. "What did you call this group again?"
  
  "PRT," I replied easily. "It stands for Parahuman Response Team."
  
  "Right, because that's what you call your Fate-Lords and Touched. Parahumans. Or just Capes." Savant shook her head a little. "That still sounds weird. Sorry, they're Fate-Touched to me."
  
  "Eh, if I was still in your world, I'd probably still be calling them Capes, so we're even." I admitted.
  
  She chuckled under her breath a little bit, which was still kind of a strange thing to hear without any malice attached when it came from a girl who looked like she did. "Anyway, your PRT leader is handling most of the disputes as they come up rather nicely. He's a very diplomatic guy."
  
  "Yeah," I agreed. "He's a pretty great guy to have in charge." Looking to her, I asked, "So what are they gonna do? The ones from your world that are being released, I mean."
  
  "Technically, they can do whatever they want to," she replied while stopping at a window that overlooked the parking lot below. "In reality, most of them are taking the offer from Director Simms."
  
  "Offer?" I echoed, tilting my head curiously while stepping up to the window beside the other girl.
  
  She continued to gaze out at the city, her face a bit thoughtful before nodding. "Yup. He extended a job offer to every person of age. If they want to join this PRT of yours, they go through a six week training course to get them up to speed. If they want a desk job, it's about half that."
  
  Swallowing hard, Savant fell silent for a few seconds. When she finally spoke, I could hear the emotion in her voice. "Our people are getting jobs. Jobs, Tether. They're talking about setting up a part of the city for those that want to keep living close to each other and aren't ready to fully integrate yet. It'll take a long time, but they're... they're getting jobs. Real jobs. And the kids are going to go to a real school."
  
  Smiling broadly, I put a hand on her arm. "I'm glad, Savant. Seriously, you guys... you deserve to live a real life here. It might not be perfect, we do still have problems. But it's still a life." Clearing my throat then, I asked, "What about you? Have they tried to recruit you into the Protectorate yet?"
  
  "The one with the halberd, what did you call him?" She asked, glancing toward me.
  
  "Armsmaster," I replied. "He's the leader of the Protectorate team up in Maine. Used to be in charge here, but he transferred after..." I trailed off, considering briefly before shrugging. "It's a long story."
  
  "I'm sure. Your Armsmaster has been informing all of us of how much our help is needed and how well we would bolster the ranks of this Protectorate. Particularly his group."
  
  I raised an eyebrow at her tone. "Doesn't really sound like you're ready to sign up with him though."
  
  She shook her head. "As I said, my first goal is to locate this... Sophia and help her. If that means bringing her in for a just punishment, that is what I'll do. But it will be a just punishment, and we will remove the... what did you call the device that has corrupted her?"
  
  "It's basically a symbiotic body armor." I sighed a little. "They tried to get it off her before, but it's pretty much attached to her brain by this point, and Panacea doesn't touch brains. Maybe now that the PRT is letting Riley actually work on people inside their building, she might be able to get it off."
  
  "But that requires that we locate and retrieve her safely," Savant remarked before looking straight at me. "I know the history you have with her. Are you going to be able to help without losing control?"
  
  I took in a long, slow breath and let it out again before responding. "Yeah. I already told Krouse that I'd work with him on this. He says he wants to help Sophia too."
  
  "Do you trust this 'Krouse' person?"
  
  I glanced toward her before shaking my head vigorously. "Generally speaking? Hell no. He's a manipulative ass. But in this case, I think he really does want to help her. He sort of missed out on being able to help someone he really cares about, and I think he needs a win here." I sighed. "I don't know, maybe he's been trying even before this and it's just hard to notice. It's impossible to say anymore. I think we got off on the wrong foot and then sprinted a billion miles away from each other. But the point is, yeah, as far as Sophia goes, you can trust him to at least be trying to help her."
  
  Before she could say anything in response to that, the phone in my pocket buzzed. Tugging it out, I looked at the screen before smirking as I answered. "Director Simms, were your ears burning?"
  
  "I've learned to ice them down," he replied dryly before continuing. "We have a situation. Kid Win and Aid were responding to an alarm at the Chelten Hills Bank. It looked like a small group of non-powered individuals, and they had law enforcement back-up. Unfortunately, shortly after they arrived on the scene, several members of Tender made their presence known."
  
  Tender. The group of former Wards-turned-villains. There were about a dozen of them in total, and their deal was to spread anarchy and poach unhappy Wards away from established teams. They also liked to make a point of undoing all the good things that the Wards did, just to make our efforts seem pointless.
  
  "Are Kid Win and Aid okay?" I asked, pivoting on my heel to head back down the hall the way we had come. Beside me, Savant kept pace without asking what was going on. "What about the cops?"
  
  "We don't know the exact situation," Simms admitted. "We lost contact with them shortly after the Tender members arrived. Penance was already on her way to assist, but she was held up by another situation. We're mobilizing other forces, but it'll take time. Reach, Vista, and Sparrow are en route from the other end of the city. Considering Vista's power, they should reach the bank in seven minutes. If you change and leave immediately, all of you should arrive at the bank at roughly the same time."
  
  "I'm heading down to change right now," I promised. "I can be over there in seven minutes if I run."
  
  "Do it," he replied. "See if Savant wants to suit up and go out with you. It might do her some good."
  
  "How did you-" I started before glancing up to the camera at the end of the hall. "Never mind, stupid question." Glancing sidelong at the other girl, I gave her a quick summary as we jogged.
  
  She was nodding even before I asked. "Of course I'll help. Give me a minute to collect my equipment."
  
  "I'll meet you on the roof," I informed her before pushing myself into a full sprint to reach the new Wards room. Changing as quickly as I could, I set my comm to broadcast to the boys and tried it just in case. "Aid, Kid? You guys back online yet? Talk to me."
  
  At first there was no response, but then I heard Chris's voice coming through extremely garbled. "-kay-kered down in-holes think they're su-ambled all my- messing with the wrong- assholes."
  
  "I can't hear you, Kid." I shook my head, already sprinting back out of the room to reach the roof. "If you can hear me, we're on our way. The other girls are heading for you as we speak, and I'm right behind them. We'll be there soon. Just hold out."
  
  Adjusting the comm to broadcast team-wide, I spoke up. "Reach, Vista, Sparrow, I'm on my way to the roof of the PRT building now, en route. How far away are you guys?"
  
  It was Vista who responded, "Two minutes."
  
  I blinked while rushing up the stairs. "Two? Simms estimated at least-" I glanced at a clock on the wall as I ran past it on my way up the stairs. "Twice that before you'd get there with your powers."
  
  "I'm getting better," she replied flatly. "You want us to wait for you?"
  
  The question made me blanch a little. Fuck. Ask them to wait for me to get there, or tell them to go in. If I told them to wait, horrible things might happen to Chris and Theo. But if I sent them on in to a situation that was already bad without knowing what was going on, that could be even worse. The trouble was, I didn't know which situation would be better.
  
  I froze. Physically and mentally. Standing right at the doorway that led onto the roof, I stopped abruptly. My mind was spinning. Send them in or tell them to wait. Caution or speed. Was telling them to wait being too cautious, or was sending them in being too gung ho? What was I supposed to do?
  
  Something tightened on my wrist, and I glanced down to find Jalopy transforming into his spider-form. He raised those little pincer arms toward me, lifting and lowering them as though telling me to calm down. At the same time, he began to play a few notes of that song from the old Karate Kid movie.
  
  I laughed in spite of myself and nodded. "Thanks, buddy."
  
  Breathing out, I made my decision and stuck to it. "Wait for me to get there, unless you see something that needs immediate attention. Try to get an idea of how many are down there and what's going on without exposing yourselves. I'll be right there, I swear."
  
  "Got it," Vista replied.
  
  "Hurry your ass up," Reach added firmly. "I'm not waiting around all day. Not when Th-Aid is in there."
  
  "I'll be there. Savant's coming too," I told them. Signing off, I jogged over to where the other girl was in her armor, weapon at the ready. "All right, I'm gonna slingshot us over there as fast as I can. You good with that?"
  
  Bowing her head slightly, Savant's voice came through the helmet distorted to sound male. "Ready."
  
  Smiling in spite of myself, I shook my head while turning to face the nearest building. "You're really not. But let's do it anyway."
  
  "What should I, ahh, hold onto?" She asked after another second.
  
  "Hold onto?" I echoed before chuckling in spite of myself. "You really don't know me that well, do you?" With a wink that she couldn't actually see, I began to attach lines between her and the far building.
  
  "What do you mean by thaa-" Her words dissolved into a squeal of surprise as she was flung off the roof, hurtling across the street.
  
  I launched myself after her, calling out, "Exactly which part of slingshot didn't you understand?"
  
  35.04
  
  "Loserwho'sabouttogetkickedinthefacesayswhat?"
  
  The man standing on the roof of the bank turned toward the sound of my voice with a yelped, "Huh?"
  
  My tether-propelled feet slammed into the surprised man's face, knocking him down while I groaned. "Cut, cut!" Landing in a crouch, I waited for the dazed thug to lift his head blearily. "Damn it, Joe, you missed your line." He was blinking at me, and I lashed out with a line-assisted punch, nailing him hard enough to knock the guy back down. "It's 'what', not 'huh', get it together. Think I can't replace you? I've got people practically knocking down my door so I can kick them in the face and call them losers."
  
  A few feet away, Reach landed the solid metal disc that she'd been carrying herself and Vista on. She hopped off, cracking her neck to one side before speaking up, "Dude, you don't have people kicking down your door. You've got one of those 'take a number' machines and a helpful little waiting room where all your kidnappers can watch their daily soaps and gossip until it's finally their turn."
  
  "I don't know what any of that is." Savant, who had just finished dispatching the second guy on the roof (who was supposed to be watching this one's back) looked over. "But is it really that bad?"
  
  Before I could say anything, Vista chimed in. "Yeah, it's pretty bad. You should check out the kidnapped pool we've got set up." To me, she asked, "So the roof is clear. What next, New Boss Lady?"
  
  Rolling my eyes, I muttered, "I do not get kidnapped that often." Then I lifted my hand to use the comm, trying again since we were closer. "Kid Win, Aid, can you guys hear me yet?"
  
  There was no response. Grimacing, I looked out toward the building across the street where Mika had landed. I could just see her small figure crouched near the corner of the roof. "Sparrow, see anything?"
  
  "Nuh uh," her voice came back a moment later while the small figure waved to me. "They put boards or something over all the windows. Can't see through 'em. Maybe if I move my eye-balls closer?"
  
  She wasn't talking about her physical eyes. Mika had recently updated her powers. She had retained her usual flight bracelets and the action figure that would become Fuzzerbutt on command. For new powers, she had a ring that allowed her to manipulate any non-living object that was made out of the same material that the gem inside the ring had most recently touched, as well as a short staff sized just right for her that was probably one of the most dangerous things I'd seen her make yet. Basically, any time she hit anything with the staff while it was active, it would store that energy. The next time she hit something, she could choose to unleash that power and do twice as much damage as she would have. Or she could choose not to, which would add the new energy to the last. On her third strike, she could choose to hit normally, or with four times the previous damage. It increased exponentially, so that after a few normal strikes, she could potentially let loose with a blow that was a hundred, a thousand, or more times her usual strength. I had seen the girl punch holes through solid steel with that thing.
  
  Finally, Mika had what she called her eye-balls. Essentially, they were a bag of marbles. She could use any or all of them and they would fly around under her control. Any time she wanted to, the girl could switch her vision to see through any of the marbles instead of her own eyes, sort of like spy cameras.
  
  The eye-ball marbles were tiny and hard to see. Plus if anything happened to them, Sparrow would be just fine. After considering for a few seconds, I nodded. "Do it, see if you can get them into a position to tell us what's going on in there. I'd rather not go charging in until we see the situation."
  
  While Mika was doing that, Savant crouched next to the man I had put down. She turned the guy over onto his back fully, helmeted-head tilting a little. "I know this man." Looking over her shoulder, she amended, "I mean I know his counter-part in my world. Michael Tresh. He is one of our people that's been cleared by your psychologists and accepted into your PRT training program."
  
  Blinking, I moved that way and looked down. "Huh. Well that's weird. What are the odds of-never mind, we'll deal with it later. Let's just bind him and his buddy. They must be part of the group that tried to rob the bank before Tender showed up and escalated this whole stupid situation."
  
  We had the two men bound next to each other by the time Sparrow reported back over the comm. "I got one inside. There's two guys watching the front doors with guns. I don't think they have powers or anything, they're the first bank robbers. Another girl is with them. She's dressed in a blue costume, but I can't tell what her power is from here. She's just standing there. Umm, I think most of them are back by the vault where those safe deposit box things are. They've got Kid Win and Aid with some other hostages just outside that room, and there's some girl with a trident guarding them. Umm, there's another of those robbers inside the room with a couple of costumed boys. One of them's really big, like barely fits through the door kind of big, and the other guy's wearing this red armor with a dragonfly on his chest. I can't hear what they're saying, but he kinda looks like he might be the leader."
  
  There was no way of knowing right now if she was right. Tender as a group was so into anarchy and bashing any idea of order and rules that who their actual 'leader' was seemed to change on a weekly basis depending entirely on who they happened to listen to the most that particular day. It was weird.
  
  Another thought came to me, and I frowned a little. "Hey, what about the cops? Kid Win and Aid were supposed to have law enforcement back-up. Can you see them in there anywhere?"
  
  "Nuh uh," the response came immediately. "I don't see any police or anything. I'll check upstairs but I don't think there's any-ohh wait, I found another girl upstairs by the manager's office. Another cape."
  
  "Another part of Tender," I confirmed, my frown remaining. "But still no police?" Looking toward the others, I asked, "Where the hell would they go? They're not out here, they're not fighting inside, they're not with the hostages... where are they?" I was met with a collection of shrugs and sighed before returning my attention to the comm. "Are you sure there's no one else in there? What's the girl doing?"
  
  "Nobody I can see," Mika replied after taking a moment to check all of her eye-balls again. "And umm, I dunno what she's doing, but I think she's gonna-" Abruptly, the girl gave a sharp yelp.
  
  "Sparrow?" My eyes widened, and I turned quickly to look across at the other building where she had positioned herself, afraid that she'd been attacked while her attention was focused inside the bank.
  
  The younger girl was still there, and gave me a clearly embarrassed wave of her hand. Her voice returned, albeit a little shaky. "I'm okay! I'm all right. That girl just saw the eye-ball that I was following her with. She hit it with something and it umm, it was scary just for a second. But I'm fine, really." That tone of embarrassment deepened. "Sorry I lost the-wait, there she is. One of my other eye-balls found her. She's running down the hall and-" Again there was a yelp. "Uh, she broke that one too. How did she see it?" Mika complained. "It was really little and in a corner."
  
  "We'll ask after we catch her, but what about the people downstairs?" I asked. "What are they doing?"
  
  It took Mika a second to switch her vision around to the right marble. Unlike Emma, she didn't quite have the level of bullshit multitasking required to watch every view simultaneously. Eventually, she replied, "Uh oh. I think that girl's yelling, because now they're looking around. I'm pretty sure they're trying to find-oh! Crap, crap, crapsticks. They found the one in the vault room. They're trying to break it, but I'm moving it. Uh, uhhh, they're moving the hostages and the boys!"
  
  Cursing under my breath, I looked to the others. "Okay, well damn. Now they know we're here, so we go in before they do something stupid, desperate, or both. I'll take the back way through the emergency exit with Vista. Savant, you, Sparrow, and Reach take the front. Be careful, okay? Catch them in between us, get the boys free so they can help, and avoid hurting the hostages." After a brief hesitation, I added, "And keep your eyes out for those cops that were supposed to be here. I can't figure out where they went, but I'm pretty sure we're not gonna like the answer one little bit. Sound good?"
  
  It was Vista who raised her hand before speaking up. "What about our communications? Whatever they're using to block Kid Win and Aid might be over the whole building. When we go inside, we might lose the ability to talk to each other. Even if it's a targeted thing, we might lose contact fast."
  
  Scion, I was glad this girl had so much experience and common sense. Clearing my throat, I nodded quickly. "Right, right. Thanks, Vista. Umm, if we lose contact, just do the best you can until we come together again. Don't separate any further than we already are, and try to meet up together as fast as possible. We hit them hard, we drive them back into the middle of the bank, and we don't let up, okay?"
  
  There was a chorus of agreement, and I turned with Vista to the back side of the building. Before I could move, the other girl made a quick gesture with one hand. Abruptly, the edge of the room loomed right in front of us. Then she made a twirling motion with one finger,and the view flipped around to show the ground far below. Another flicking motion with her palm brought the view right up close to the sidewalk, and one last twist of her finger righted the view so that we were facing the emergency exit door. We hadn't moved at all, yet Missy had contorted space so much that we could take a single step and end up not only clear across the wide building, but also on the sidewalk at the base of that building, turned in the opposite direction from the one we were currently facing.
  
  "Dude," I informed my teammate not for the first time. "Your power is super-scary sometimes."
  
  Before either of us went anywhere, I quickly attached two lines to the door that I could see in front of me, with the other ends of the lines attached to the roof at my feet. Then I nodded to Vista, and the two of us moved forward, passing through the drastically contorted space to land in front of the door. As soon as we were through, Vista's contorted space reverted to normal. And since I hadn't lengthened my lines at all, they proceeded to rip the door clean off its hinges, sending it flying back and up to the roof so quickly that Missy and I barely dodged to either side of it as it went slamming between us.
  
  "In," I reported as we stepped into the bank. "What about you guys?" I waited for a second, but there was no response. Sighing, I, glancing toward Vista. "Looks like you were right. No comms in here."
  
  "Yay, me." She didn't sound pleased at all before turning her gaze my way. "Hit them hard and fast?"
  
  I nodded once, looking down the narrow, minimally decorated corridor. "Yup, let's-" In mid-sentence, a red injury line attached itself to Vista. Seeing that, I instantly used tethers to launch both of us backwards away from the spot we were standing in while calling out a warning. "Down!"
  
  We'd barely escaped that spot before the wall to the side of where Vista had been standing abruptly exploded outward with enough force that we would have been down for the count if we hadn't moved. Through the hole that remained, a figure shoved himself out and into the hall before turning to face us.
  
  Ah. So this was the 'very big guy' that Mika had mentioned. She was right. He was over seven feet tall, and built like a freaking truck. His biceps had biceps on their biceps. He made roided up body builders look like cute little girly boys, barely fitting inside the corridor as he faced the spot where we were, grunting in annoyance. His costume made him look like a cross between an extreme wrestler and Conan the Barbarian, with fur armor mixed with spandex in eye-vomiting ill fashion. To top it all off, he was wearing one of those crazy Lucha Libre masks. His overly-muscular kind of reminded me of Browbeat before he and his family had left town, but this guy was even more obnoxiously enormous. Plus, Browbeat had slightly better fashion sense than this guy.
  
  "Okay, first of all," I announced while picking myself up from the floor. "You march right back through that wall and put it back where it was, Mister. What you just did is totally copyrighted by the Kool-Aid company, and if you think we're bad, wait until you're drowning in cease and desist orders."
  
  The big guy's response was to crack his knuckles, then his neck by tilting his head to either side. His voice was softer than I would have expected. "Leg or arm? You pick, I'll break that one first."
  
  I made an exaggerated sad noise back at him. "Aww, don't talk about hurting yourself so much, big guy. It's not so bad. If you're really so hideous that that ugly mask is an improvement, we've got some fantastic plastic surgeons in this city. We could get you fixed up just fine."
  
  That time, his response was to run straight at us. The big guy was a lot faster than he looked, and I barely had time to throw myself up to the ceiling, sticking myself with a line to lay flat there as the man stampeded directly below me, his head so close I could almost feel it brush past.
  
  Meanwhile, Vista had used her own power to shift the space around in front of her so that the man was turned around to crash right through the wall ninety degrees from where he had been aiming, stumbling into the parking lot before whirling back around.
  
  I dropped to the floor, but before I could go anywhere, a new figure stepped through the first hole that the big guy had made, putting herself between the two of us. It was the girl with the trident that Mika had mentioned. Her costume consisted of a dark green bodysuit that hugged her curves generously, with an attached mask that rose from the collar to cover her face up to the forehead while leaving her black hair hanging free. She looked toward Vista, then back to me and raised her hand, shaking her finger back and forth as if tutting us.
  
  "Lemme guess," I started to say. "You're with the-" Stopping in mid-sentence, I blinked at the girl. She had her free hand held up as though catching something. I could see some air distortion within the palm of her hand, like a small hand-sized tornado. As it spun, I heard my own voice, tinny and distorted, repeat itself over and over several times. The sound of my voice was captured in her hand.
  
  I saw the mask, tight against her face, wrinkle a little as the girl smiled at me. Then her hand lashed out. I hurled myself to the floor, just as my own voice, the words I had spoken, were launched back at me, magnified into an actual sonic-based attack that left me deafened even as the force of the explosion of sound blew through one of the nearby walls.
  
  Right, now I knew who she was. This was Echo, the girl who could capture any sound she heard and either play it back as much as she wanted, or magnify it to extreme levels and throw it back out as an actual attack. Apparently she had been mute through her entire life, her trigger coming when her lack of a voice had contributed to the death of her parents. She'd been with the Wards for about six months before Tender recruited her away from them.
  
  Now she was here. And, to top things off, the muscle-guy had reoriented himself and was coming back.
  
  "I've got him!" Vista called to me. "You deal with-" She cut herself off and hit the floor as Echo caught her voice, magnified it, and used the resulting force to punch another hole through the spot where she had been.
  
  Reflexively, I almost shouted to get Echo's attention, only stopping myself at the last second. Right. Do this without talking. Don't give her any ammunition. I knew she could store voices to use later, but there had to be a limit to how many words she had ready to go, right?
  
  With that in mind, I quickly attached a line to the girl, linking her to the far wall before launching her backwards as hard as I could, intent on ending this fight before it really started. Except even as she was being launched, the girl pivoted her body slightly toward the wall that I was throwing her at, thrusting her trident out. As soon as she did, the sound of some old man bellowing about cream in his coffee at deafening levels filled the hallway before slamming into the wall with the force of a speeding car. The wall was obliterated, and my line disappeared since there was nothing for it to attach to, letting the girl drop to the floor before focusing on me once more.
  
  Okay, right. Fighting without talking and she wasn't helpless. Her reflexes were good enough that I couldn't just knock her out with a quick wall throw. Still, I could do this. I could do this.
  
  I could do this.
  
  35.05
  
  First, close the distance. Planting lines under each of my feet, I let myself be flung forward. Echo seemed surprised by the speed of my approach, bringing her trident up sharply while taking one quick step back to put some more distance between us. The second before I would have hit the sharp ends of the trident, I attached a line between it and the floor, giving the hardest yank that I could.
  
  Echo was yanked off balance, forced to either be hauled to the floor or let go of her weapon. She chose the latter, but that moment of delay was enough time for my fist to crash into her face. The girl was sent reeling backwards against the nearby wall, her weapon abandoned on the floor behind me as I landed.
  
  One punch, even at high speed, wasn't enough to put her down. Even as my feet touched the floor, she was coming back at me. Her right fist lashed out, and I twisted aside from it just in time to spot her opposite foot coming up an instant before the kick nailed me in the stomach. The fist had been a feint, and I took the blow hard, though it wasn't nearly as bad as it would have been without my costume.
  
  It did, however, push me back a step, which gave the other girl a chance to follow up her attack by pointing her arm my way. Wait, no, she was pointing past me, down toward the- Realizing what was going on almost too late, I threw myself into a sideways roll just as the fallen trident flew up from the floor, through the space that I had been standing in, and into its owner's waiting hand.
  
  The words came before I could stop them. "Nobody told me I was gonna fight a Jed-" Cutting my own rambling off with a whine, I line-jumped my way up to the ceiling just as Echo weaponized my own words and sent them flying back at the spot where I had been. My own voice, amplified to extreme levels and distorted almost beyond recognition tore through another chunk of the wall.
  
  Whoops. Damn it, no talking, Madison. No talking. This was harder than I'd thought. I'd based pretty much my whole fighting style around being able to talk at my opponent. It was reflex by that point. I had to actually remind myself to stay silent, and doing so was throwing off my own coordination.
  
  Flipping over in the air so that my feet were against the ceiling, I used another line to throw myself back down at the girl before she could adjust her aim. My hands caught hold of the trident as she started to bring it up, shoving the weapon off-course while the force of my leap shoved her to the floor.
  
  Landing on top of the girl, her trident forced above her head by my grip, I brought a knee up to drive it into her side as hard as I could. It was a little awkward, but considering the gasp of pain, worse for her.
  
  Before I could follow up that blow, the girl jerked hard to bring her forehead up at my face, forcing me to recoil. Which was actually lucky, since it meant that my fingers slipped off of the trident a half-second before the part of the weapon that I had been holding onto was engulfed with crackling electricity. Damn, that was close. A second longer and my hands still would have been holding onto the weapon. Clearly it had some kind of protection against anyone but her holding onto it. Good to know.
  
  My quick recoil gave the other girl a chance to free her leg, which she used to kick out at me. I caught it with a line between her foot and the ceiling, yanking her upside down and into the air. As she flew up, however, Echo lashed out with that trident, cracking the shaft hard enough against my arm that I lost control of the line and dropped her once more. Before hitting the floor, the girl inverted and dropped into a low kick that took my legs out from under me. As I was falling, a quick line to the ceiling flipped me back to my feet. Landing lightly, I attached another line between the trident and the mask that my opponent wore, making it smack back into her forehead hard enough that she staggered.
  
  Unfortunately, she recovered almost obscenely quickly. Even as I tried to follow up, the girl took a quick step forward and lashed out with a kick that too quick for me to catch it with a line. I had to step into the kick, turning to catch it against my arms so I could throw her off balance. Except that even before her leg was fully extended, she was snapping it back down and twisting to put herself behind me. Again, the kick had been a feint to draw me in. Her arms came up, the one holding the trident wrapping around my stomach while the other hand caught my arm in a vice-like grip. She was pressed up tight against my back, and my utterly traitorous mind couldn't help but remember just how tightly that costume clung to her figure. Because clearly I didn't have enough problems as it was.
  
  Still, I wasn't so distracted that I couldn't plant more lines underneath my feet, propelling us directly at the ceiling. The way the girl was positioned, her back and head would collide first, shielding me.
  
  Just before she would have hit the ceiling, Echo released her grip around my stomach, lifting her trident to point up while releasing a deafening blast of what sounded like a woman singing a lullaby. The amplified sound tore through the ceiling, leaving a hole that we both shot up through, Echo dragged up by her remaining grip on my arm. The two of us crashed up through the opening and into one of the bank management offices, narrowly missing the desk that sat precariously close to the new hole.
  
  Landing hard amidst the rubble that had been the ceiling (well, floor of this office rather) the two of us rolled apart and came back to our feet. Before the other girl could snap her trident back up, however, I lifted my hands, palms out for her to stop. "Wait!" I blurted, part of me telling myself I was being an idiot. "Just wait, see? I'm talking. I'm talking even though I know you can use it against me. Wait."
  
  The trident was still pointed at me, but she did so, standing still with a wary and ready stance. The girl did nothing else, simply staying in position to fight back if need be. She waited for me to continue.
  
  It wasn't easy, but I forced myself to talk even though doing so meant giving the other girl more and more ammunition to use against me. Every word I said gave her more power. Yet I had to take the chance. "You're holding back," I said quietly, watching her reaction. "You could have hurt me several times back there. Your aim with those sonic blasts can't be that bad. You didn't summon your trident until I realized what you were pointing at, giving me a chance to get out of the way. You forced me to let go of it before the shock-trap went off. If you'd done nothing, I would've been holding onto a lightning rod. But you made me let go. And just now, if you had released me completely, I would have hit the ceiling instead of you. You held on and knocked out the ceiling so that I wouldn't hurt myself."
  
  Echo gave no response. She just stood there, weapon up and ready. I gave her a second before continuing. "You're not trying to hurt me. In fact, you're going pretty far out of your way not to, while still making it look like we're fighting. Actually, I'm pretty sure at this point that if you were fighting seriously, I'd be down by now. My question is, why? What are you doing? Why are you holding back?"
  
  "Because we don't want to hurt any of you." The response came not from Echo, of course, but from behind me. Whirling that way reflexively, I found myself staring at another cape girl. This one wore burgundy drawstring pants in a bell-bottom style that left them loose near her feet. Above that, she wore a sleeveless black shirt with a pair of dark red leather gloves, and a matching mask that covered the top half of her face entirely as well as her head, forcing her long brown hair out of the way. I was pretty sure that this was the girl who had spotted all of Sparrow's little eye-balls.
  
  "Yeah, you're real stand-up citizens," I spoke carefully while turning to keep both of them in view. "That's why my teammate's down there playing tiddlywinks and jump rope with yours."
  
  The second girl's head shook. "Vista is fine, she's already handled the situation pretty well. Wham isn't the most subtle or tactical fighter out there. That's why he isn't part of the inner circle."
  
  "Inner circle?" I echoed, frowning in spite of myself. "What the hell are you talking about? Actually, scratch that. Let my teammates go and surrender, then maybe we can chat about your team politics."
  
  "Sorry," she really did sound regretful. "We can't do that. It's too dangerous to our mission. But I can at least introduce myself properly. My name is Atheneum, and I'm the leader of Tender."
  
  I snorted at that. "Right, the leader this week, until the hive mind of your group starts listening to someone else in a few days. Then someone else after that, and so on. Real nice set-up you've got."
  
  Her head shook once. "No, Tether. Not the loudest voice of the week. The real leader."
  
  "Huh?" I couldn't help the noise of confusion then. "Tender doesn't have a leader. That's the whole point. You guys are all about crazy anarchy and no rules and making a new leader every other day."
  
  "That's what we want people to think," she replied simply. "It makes a good smokescreen. Hell, ninety percent of Tender thinks the same thing. They think that we do nothing but break things, have parties, try to piss off the heroes, and fuck up everyone else's day. They don't know what we're really doing, what Tender was created for. Or who our real enemy is."
  
  Still frowning uncertainly, I kept my gaze mostly on Atheneum. Echo hadn't moved. "Real enemy? Don't start that crap with me. I know what you guys do. You convince Wards to leave their teams. You turn good heroes into villains. You destroy everything the Wards build up. That's the whole reason you exist. It's in your damn mission statement. So don't try to tell me you've got some noble purpose now."
  
  "We're not trying to recruit you," the other girl replied flatly. "We don't want you to go anywhere. But we did want to talk to you, just like we are right now. That's why we staged this whole thing."
  
  "Staged?" I echoed in flat disbelief. "Sorry, but the bank robbery downstairs doesn't look staged. I must've been fooled by all the hostages and the fighting."
  
  "You're right, the fighting, the bank robbery, all of that's real." She confirmed. "Well, the robbers themselves came of their own volition. We just jumped in. Most of the others thought it would be fun. Those of us in the inner circle knew that you and the Wards would show up soon enough. Except it was just those boys, and you were the one we wanted to talk to. So we had to stall by taking them prisoner. Sorry, it was the only way to make sure you came in a way that might let us talk, just like this."
  
  "You're serious?" I stared at the girl. "You honestly expect me to believe that you're the leader of a bunch of anarchists and that you did all this just to have a private chat with me? Ever hear of e-mail?"
  
  Her voice was calm. "The illusion of anarchy is important. It shields us. It stops the wrong people from taking us seriously. They don't try to figure out what we're doing because they think it's all nonsense. Most of it is. Ninety percent of what we do is pointless. Most of the places we go don't matter. We recruit Wards that were already giving up inside, who were already disillusioned with the Protectorate. We recruit them and give them another place to stay. And yes, we do some bad things. Lots of bad things. That comes with the territory. But our goal, my goal, isn't about any of that."
  
  "Then what is your goal?" I demanded. "Who is this enemy that you're hiding from? What's the point of all this secrecy? What does making everyone think you're all anarchists accomplish? Hell, what does making most of your team think you're anarchists accomplish? And why would you seek me out?"
  
  It took Atheneum a few seconds before she answered, her voice quiet. "There is an organization that secretly controls everything, Tether. They are behind the Protectorate, the Wards, the PRT, and more cape groups besides that. They can give powers to anyone they want to. They experiment on people from other worlds. They torture and hurt people in the pursuit of their own goals. They create capes and put them in positions of power. They infest teams with their own agents. They even make some capes with triggers to make them lose against certain opponents, just to make the opponent look good so they can rise in the ranks. They're everywhere. The entire Triumvirate, they're a part of it. They all are."
  
  I kept my reaction steady, staring at the girl. A lot of what she was saying fit with what Battery had said, and what I already knew from other sources. But I wasn't going to give that away. "That's a pretty big accusation," I replied as neutrally as possible. "Sounds like more crazy conspiracy theories."
  
  "Sure it does, to most people," Atheneum agreed. "But not to you, because you already know a lot about it. Not everything, but you do know enough to realize that I'm not crazy. You know they're out there, and that if they thought we were a threat, they'd shut us down instantly. That's why we have to hide behind this illusion. We gather our army, but we do it in a way that makes it look relatively harmless. We recruit people that they hurt, we train them, we give them a direction. Most of them won't know that we have a true goal until the time comes to use it. But by then, they'll already know how to work together. Call it anarchy all you want, but the truth is that the more they fight together, the better they get at it. We're training. We're just hiding it behind this... illusion."
  
  "And why would you tell me any of this?" I demanded. "Even if I did believe it, which would take a lot, why would you expose yourself like this? Do you really think I'm not going to tell anyone?"
  
  "I think you're a hero," she responded simply. "And you know as well as I do that if you expose the truth about us, about what we're doing, the people we're hiding from will put an end to us. They will stomp us into the ground to protect their secrets. If you tell your superiors about what we're actually doing, you are pointing that threat right at us." The girl waited a second longer before continuing. "As for why we'd tell you at all? Because you've already taken things from them and lived to tell about it. You helped take those vials. You even had them altered to make the cure that fixed Noelle Meindhardt."
  
  I stared. "You're... well-informed. Any chance you'd tell me how you know all this?"
  
  Her reply was simple. "We have our ways of getting information. But the real reason that we contacted you like this, the reason I'm being this open and honest with you, is that we need your help. I need your help."
  
  "My help?" I blinked again. "My help with what, exactly? Fighting your super-secret conspiracy club?"
  
  "No, that won't come for awhile. We're too weak," she admitted. "I need your help with this." From one pocket, she withdrew a small, familiar looking vial.
  
  "Is that what I think it is?" I took a step closer in spite of myself to see it better.
  
  "One of the power-granting vials," she confirmed with a simple nod. "It took a lot to get hold of this, and even more to stop the rest of the team that doesn't know what we're doing from finding out about it. But I want you to take it to the people who fixed the last vial. I want you to get them to make another cure."
  
  "You know another Case 53," I realized. "Someone close to you."
  
  "My friend," Atheneum confirmed. "His powers are out of control. If we don't fix him, he'll die. And he'll take out most of the city when he does."
  
  She continued to hold the vial out until I took it. Carefully, I held the vial in two fingers, staring at the liquid inside. "You want me to have this turned into a cure to help your friend."
  
  "And to save this city," she added pointedly. "It's in your own best interest, hero. Get it fixed, then send an e-mail about it to this address." She tossed a card in my direction. "I'm trusting you with a lot. I could have lied to you, I could have tried to manipulate you, or force you into it. I'm doing it this way because he's my friend, and I don't think you're a bad person. I'm trusting you. We're trusting you. If you tell your superiors about this, the truth about our group, then we're all dead. You know that. So please, just... know that we're putting a lot in your hands. Think about it. That's all we can ask."
  
  I looked down at the vial again, squinting at the words on it before glancing up.
  
  She was gone.
  
  A look behind me revealed that Echo was gone as well. They had both disappeared. Just as I realized that, Vista's voice came through my comm. "-ting, testing, this thing working yet?"
  
  "Vista?" I replied. "You okay? What's going on?"
  
  "Everyone's fine," her voice came back. She sounded confused. "The bad guys just sort of disappeared all of a sudden. Some kind of teleportation. They left the hostages, but they took the cash. You wanna do a sweep outside in case they didn't get far?"
  
  "No..." I shook my head, still staring at the vial. "They're long gone by now. Let's just make sure everyone else is safe.
  
  "I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more of these guys very soon."
  
  Interlude 35 - Zephyr
  
  " Carol! Carol hold on! I'm getting you out, I swear! I'm getting you out, Carol, just sit still!"
  
  High above the city of Brockton Bay, the girl whose youthful appearance belied her true age jerked slightly in the air as voices from the past forced their way into her drifting consciousness. Words that she herself had screamed many years earlier until her throat had felt too torn and ragged to speak. Words that, in the end, had been completely useless. Because the dead didn't need reassurance.
  
  For the past hour or so, she had been gliding along on currents of wind while her gaze passed from building to building, seeking any possible familiar sight in the city of her birth.
  
  There wasn't much, though the blonde woman couldn't begin to guess how much of that was due to the differences between her true world and this one, and how much was due to how young she had actually been the last time she had seen her own version of Brockton Bay. Thirty years was a long time.
  
  She and Carol had been young children when Cerberus had appeared in the middle of Berlin, and not much older than that when their own city had been evacuated to escape the approach of other Titans.
  
  Those early years were a haze. She remembered their mother losing the baby she had been pregnant with, and sometimes lamented losing the chance to have a new baby brother or sister. More often, however, she was glad. A new baby would have meant bringing a child into that world of misery. And, more selfishly, it would have meant spreading their already meager amount of food around even more.
  
  It was that lack of food that had driven the two of them, both barely in their teens, to investigate an abandoned shopping mall while their family's caravan had been stopped for the evening. Desperate hunger had led to rationalizations. They told themselves the place would be safe enough for the short time they were there, ignoring all signs of the damage it had taken and its imminent collapse.
  
  In the end, it had collapsed. Sarah herself had been fine, but Carol had been trapped in a small, confined space. Half-buried by rubble, she had pleaded, begged for Sarah to dig her out. And Sarah had tried. She had tried so hard, shoving and pushing at the heavy debris to no avail while time inevitably ticked away. As Carol's own pleas for help had faded, a sign of her rapidly diminishing oxygen, Sarah's had grown. She had screamed for her sister to hold on, to wait because she was coming. She had promised, had sworn that she would get Carol out, that she would save her.
  
  In the end, she had moved the debris. A single chunk finally shifted just enough to cause another mini-collapse, which cleared a small tunnel. Sarah had dug through enough of that to reach the space that her sister had been trapped inside of, ecstatically crying out that she'd done it, that they were safe.
  
  Except that Carol was already dead. She had suffocated to death, her oxygen gone long before Sarah had managed to dig through enough of the debris to get all the way to her.
  
  Her sister had died from a lack of oxygen, a lack of air. And from that moment onward, the girl who would become known as the Fate-Lord Zephyr had possessed an absolute and total control of air itself.
  
  Seeing this place, being in the city that was the dimensional twin to her birthplace brought back those memories. Closing her eyes, Zephyr could hear both her voice and Carol's, each lost in their own way.
  
  Thirty years since the Titans had appeared. Twenty-five since she'd lost her sister. It was a long time when she thought about it. She had been far closer to forty than twenty before Strix had killed her. But now that her body had been reset to the time that Asclepius had recorded her biology, she was suddenly young again. Young in body, if not in actual mind. She remembered her life, remembered every scar, every long week, month, and year spent carving out something resembling a home on that hellhole. Yet when she looked in a mirror on this world, she saw someone fresh, someone still at the end of their teens. She saw a child, which was funny, because she hadn't been a child even when she'd actually been this age. Even in her late teens, she had still been a leader, a warrior. She had been with Hephaestus then, still learning how to take care of the people who had already depended on her for so much.
  
  Coming here, to this world, had given Zephyr one true hope: that she would see her sister again. The chance to actually see how Carol would have grown up, to witness her beloved sister as an adult, had made her happier and more hopeful than she could remember being for a long time.
  
  But it was not to be. Because even this world's version of Carol was dead and gone, killed by Umibozu. Known in this world as Leviathan. Either way, she was gone. As was her daughter, the girl who would have been Sarah's niece. Her niece. Both had been killed by different Titans, but the result was the same.
  
  But Zephyr didn't surrender to despair. Because she could still see how Carol had grown up. She could see the pictures, see the video, see everything that her sister had done in this world. And more importantly, she could see Crystal and Eric. Her own children, or one version of her anyway. Crystal she had already met personally, while Eric was attempting to get a flight out from the west coast where he was attending a boarding school and would be home for a visit and to meet her as soon as possible.
  
  Meeting another version of herself had been both enlightening and somewhat confusing. Meeting the daughter she might have had was one of the most incredible moments of her life, and one that she wouldn't trade for anything. Crystal, her grown other-world child, looked like her fraternal twin at this point. They could both easily pass that way, and had actually considered doing so.
  
  In the end, she might have lost the chance to meet her grown sister and niece, but she had gained the opportunity to meet the children of her other-self, to get to know them in a way that seemed impossible.
  
  She had no biological children, but she did have the closest thing possible in two different ways. Savant was a daughter to her in every way save for blood. The formerly wild girl who had come to them as the savage daughter to one of the most violent and dangerous raider chieftains in the area had rapidly become incredibly dear to her. She'd only separated herself from Savant to let the rapidly growing girl make her own choices. It had been one of the hardest things that Zephyr had ever done, leaving her with Hephaestus. But it had felt right. Savant had needed a chance to grow into her own person.
  
  One child by adoption, and now two more children by blood, even if that blood came from another version of her. Two completely different ways of gaining children that weren't actually hers.
  
  Shaking herself as she hung there in the air, the woman forced her attention into the present. The moment she did, something else became readily apparent, something that her distraction had hidden.
  
  She wasn't alone. There was something-some one up here in the air with her. They were invisible to normal sight, but to Zephyr, once she was paying attention, the presence was impossible to miss.
  
  "Hello," she spoke aloud while turning in the air to face the invisible figure. It was not, actually, very invisible to her by that point. Now that the woman was focused, the distortions in the air were so blatant that she could actually make out not just the rough figure that floated there, but even details like her hair, the position that her fingers were in, and the expression of shock on her face.
  
  "I guess you don't get a lot of people who can see you, right?" Zephyr spoke gently, trying not to frighten the figure off. Not that she really needed to worry. Far from being scared, the figure in front of her had actually floated closer before moving slowly to one side, lifting a hand and waving it back through the space she had just been in as though testing what the woman could actually see.
  
  "That's your hand," Zephyr politely acknowledged before turning her attention to the figure herself. "And you're there. You make an... impression on the air, and air is something I happen to notice."
  
  Springing back in front of her, the air-figure lifted a hand, showing a number of fingers in rapid succession. The expression on her face, as far as Zephyr could tell, was hopeful, yet pensive. Doubting.
  
  "Three, two, five, three, four." She held her own hand up to show the same fingers. "That's what you wanted to know, right? You wanted proof that I can see you. It's not exact. I can't make out skin or anything. I can't tell what you look like, except for general impressions. I can see the impressions that your body makes in the air, the way it distorts around your figure, even your hair. I can see your fingers. I can even tell that you're smiling right now. Yes, it's that sensitive."
  
  The figure floating there looked far too stunned to do anything else for the moment, so Zephyr continued to speak in as gentle a voice as she could manage to avoid scaring her off. "Are you okay?"
  
  Initially, the figure's first reaction was to move a bit closer, lifting a hand toward Zephyr's cheek. In mid-motion, however, she stopped abruptly. There was a brief pause then before the figure nodded. Immediately afterward, the head tilted curiously, as if the girl was unsure whether Zephyr would actually see the nod or not. This was a girl who had spent so long without anyone being able to see her that she instinctively tried to answer yes and no questions with a brush of her hand across a cheek. The simple act of being able to nod and have someone actually notice was almost alien to her.
  
  She did nothing, said nothing, for a moment. Her gaze took in the invisible figure's expression and the way she held her body while floating there. This girl, whoever she was, had been alone for a long time. She was accustomed not being seen, to barely being noticed. Her fate-trial had been harsh, granting her what was obviously a very powerful set of abilities, yet leaving her invisible and almost completely intangible. The idea that someone could see her, in any way, had left her unsure of what to do.
  
  Zephyr, however, knew what was needed. She had taken care of enough children, had helped to raise Savant, had comforted each of her frightened people through day to day life on Ragnarok to know what she needed to do. It was the only thing she could do, when faced with this particular situation.
  
  She floated forward on the air, opened her arms, and gave the invisible, intangible girl the closest thing to a hug that she could manage. It wasn't perfect, but her ability to sense exactly where the girl was meant that she could position her own arms where they would have been if she had been solid. Then she just pulled them in a tiny bit more so that, hopefully, the girl would 'feel' it in the same way that she felt anything at all, sensing the touch against her ethereal figure. It was more of a pantomime of a hug than anything else, but it was the best that she could do. It was the least she could do for this girl.
  
  The figure froze, clearly not understanding what was happening for a moment. Then both of her hands came up, hesitantly brushing against Zephyr's back as though returning the hug.
  
  They floated there in the air. To an outsider, it would have looked as though Zephyr was performing the odd show of embracing empty air. It was a hug that each only felt a very small part of. But it was a hug.
  
  After more than a minute of that, the two separated, floating apart from one another. "Did you come up here to get my attention?" Zephyr asked quietly once she had recovered. "I assume someone sent you."
  
  Another pause, and then the figure nodded once more before starting to float away. She stopped after a few feet, turning back to look toward Zephyr. The air shape that formed the girl's expression formed a hesitant smile when the woman immediately began to follow her, and she continued floating down toward the city below, glancing back now and then to make sure that Zephyr hadn't lost her.
  
  Some probably would have said that following this unknown figure was dangerous. Maybe it was. But even after all this time, Zephyr believed in giving people a chance. The expression that she had read through the air currents off of the girl's face had been too delighted at actually being seen for this to be a trap. She didn't know who had sent the girl or why they had chosen to send an otherwise invisible figure who wouldn't have been able to effectively communicate with anyone else, but she didn't believe they meant any harm. If they had, she didn't believe that the invisible girl would lead her there.
  
  Besides, if anyone was that duplicitous, she wanted to be the one to spring the trap and face the consequences, rather than leave anyone else to be put in that situation. Optimism and pragmatism did occasionally mix, particularly when bound together by a sense of responsibility.
  
  Following the invisible girl down to the roof of an old warehouse, Zephyr landed easily before gesturing. "Okay, we're here. What now?"
  
  The answer came not from the figure she had followed, but in the form of a massive swarm of insects that swept across the roof. As little disturbance as they made, their approach was still obvious to her.
  
  As quickly as the bugs had approached, they stopped. Three separate, distinct swarms eased themselves into shapes approximating human form. A moment later, they were human.
  
  "Pandora," Zephyr spoke aloud, greeting them. "Or Pandoras, I suppose. I'm not entirely sure I know all of you yet, let me see." She pointed to the oldest one, the only figure who looked like an adult. "You would be Epsilon." The figure whose dusky skin made her look as though she came from the Middle East was pointed to next. "You're Theta." Finally, she pointed to the figure with bright bubblegum pink hair. "And you would be Delta."
  
  "You are correct, Zephyr-ally." The three all spoke in unison, their voices a haunting melody.
  
  "Good to see a few of you girls again." She gave the trio a smile. "Is there any chance I could have dinner with all of you sometime? There's a lot I'd like to ask you about, after seeing what you did back on Ragnarok."
  
  The three were silent for a few seconds, eyes flicking back and forth as though conversing with not only each other, but many more.
  
  "We have agreed that we would like that, Zephyr-ally," Delta informed her.
  
  "Good. And I suppose that the figures currently climbing up the fire escape are with you as well?" Zephyr guessed.
  
  "You can sense them?" Epsilon asked, lifting her chin curiously. "We find that interesting."
  
  Zephyr nodded once. "Air is everywhere. I sense motion through it everywhere within range. And my range extends pretty far."
  
  "I figured it did," a new voice spoke up as a small, brown-haired girl clambered over the fire escape and onto the roof. She was accompanied by two other figures, one a pretty red-haired girl that looked to be about sixteen or so, and the other a young blonde who was about the same age as the speaker.
  
  "Dinah Alcott," Zephyr realized immediately. "The prophet who happens to be friends with the Pandora collective. I wanted to meet you as soon as Tether explained who you were and some of what you've been doing."
  
  "I wanted to meet you too," Dinah acknowledged. "That's why I sent Keaira to find you as soon as Oversight said you were out in the city." She nodded toward the red-haired girl.
  
  "Keaira, that's... your name?" Zephyr looked toward the almost-invisible figure, who nodded once. That hesitant smile returned when it became obvious that Zephyr had seen the nod. Even something that simple seemed to delight her.
  
  "Which would make you Emma Barnes, I assume." The blonde woman gestured to the red-haired girl before turning to acknowledge the blonde. "And Riley, it's good to see you again. I guess Amy couldn't make this little meeting?" Both Riley and Amy had been crucial for ensuring that her own people were safe to live on this world.
  
  "She's busy like a bee," Riley replied. "Which is weird, cuz she wouldn't let me give her giant bee wings even though I totally could. But she says hi."
  
  "You knew that I'd be able to see Keaira?" Zephyr addressed the calm brunette who had stopped next to the Pandoras.
  
  Dinah nodded. "I had a feeling. And my feelings are usually right."
  
  "Why did you want to meet me?" It was an obvious question, and she didn't feel like beating around the bush. If Tether was right about her, the girl might be the most powerful precog in the world. Her seeking out a conversation with Zephyr was bound to be important.
  
  "Someone else came through the portal before the rest of you did," Dinah began. "Someone who came through the very first time the PRT on this side managed to open it, while you were being revived."
  
  "Blur," Zephyr confirmed. "The others told me. She's a nasty piece of work. Made life hell for a lot people that were just trying to bring supplies through hostile territory. She'd zip through, steal the supplies, medicine, food, things people needed to survive, and then trade them back to those same people for absurd prices, just because she knew how much they were needed."
  
  "We've been looking for her," the other girl explained. "Gamma thought she had a look at her a few days ago, but it was very quick before she was gone. Obviously, there's no pictures of her."
  
  "Yeah, that wouldn't work," Zephyr agreed with a nod. "Part of her power disrupts most electronic devices within her range, with an emphasis on any kind of surveillance. It makes her hard to track, and even harder to identify."
  
  "But you've seen her in person," Dinah pressed. "You'd know her if you saw her."
  
  "Yes, I would," Zephyr lifted her chin. "Why?"
  
  In response, Dinah gestured toward Theta. "Could you?" To the woman, she explained, "The Pandoras can shapeshift. We can't show you a picture, but she can take the shape of the person that Gamma saw. You tell us if it's the right one."
  
  Theta promptly shifted her form, growing into a completely different person within a couple of seconds.
  
  "Yeah," Zephyr only had to glance that way. "That's her. That's Blur. Why are you asking this? Why are you looking for her?"
  
  Letting out a long sigh, Dinah explained. "There's a lot of very bad things that might happen. I see the odds all the time, whenever I use my power to look too far ahead. I see billions of people dead, more than I can even believe. Before that first portal opened, I could see fourteen years into the future before everything stopped. After it opened, after that girl came through, it dropped to two years. From fourteen to two, just because the one you call Blur came through that portal."
  
  Zephyr stared at her. She felt the hope that she had allowed to build up in her, that her family and friends would be safe in this world, plummeting hard and fast. "What? How could one girl affect this world that much? Blur's fast and hard to track, but how does her just being here take your doomsday scenario from fourteen years to two? Like I said, she's not a good person, but something like that?"
  
  "I don't know." It sounded like it was very hard for Dinah to outright admit that. Particularly considering the look of surprise that Emma sent her. "But I had Oversight run that face through the computers of every government agency, and we finally got a match. We know who her twin on this world is."
  
  "Who is it then? Is that why she's so dangerous?" Zephyr pressed. "Is she going to take her twin's place on this world? Who is she here?"
  
  "Nobody," Dinah replied quietly. "Nobody important anyway. I've run her through everything I can, and she's absolutely no one important.
   "As far as I can tell, Blur's twin on this world is just an average, ordinary French woman named Lisette."
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