Chapter 2

Bliss sat in a bed in an empty room at the tower. She was crying. She had no past, no identity—how was she going to survive in this world?

Tech then knocked on the door with his elbow and walked in carrying a bunch of stuff. "I thought you could use some—" He cut himself off when he saw her crying. He quickly but carefully placed everything on the floor and then walked over to her, sitting on the bed next to her and putting his arms around her comfortingly. "What's wrong? Are you OK?"

"I'm fine, just a little woozy. No, I just…who am I?"

Tech gazed at her. He knew nothing about her but he could see how fragile she was—whether or not this was an outcome of the amnesia, however, was debatable until they found out who she really was. He could see what she was going through. He couldn't imagine living without even having a name. He scoffed at the thought; given what his name was, he'd never considered it something precious. However, she also currently had no family and that's something that truly was precious. He couldn't imagine life without his family.

Then again, the Loonatics were also his true family, and he just as well couldn't imagine life without them.

Tech then looked at their house guest in a new light. It was upon gazing into her amethyst tear-filled eyes that he truly saw his first thought of her: She's beautiful. "It's OK, we'll figure out who you are."

"With just a first name to go by—a common one at that? Do you have any idea how awful it is not even knowing who you are? What even happened to me? What put me in a year-long amnesia-causing coma? Who am I?!" She burst into tears.

Tech took her into his arms and let her sob into his shoulder, all the while pulling him ever closer.

She didn't know what her tears were doing…

Meanwhile…

Tress stared into a mirror, watching as Bliss poured herself into Tech. "Her tears lead me to her. Her blood will be her weakness."

Suddenly, the image in the mirror transformed into her reflection, which transformed into a reflection of a pale-skinned, dark-haired, dark-eyed man her age. "The Reflection deal is my thing."

Tress whirled around to find Dark Mirror standing in the corner.

"How'd you get in here?"

"Your back door is broken."

"No, it's not!"

"It is now." She smirked and started to storm off. "I needed a mirror to find someone. Now I know where she is. All I have to do is go there and kill her before she remembers who she is and what she can do."

"That might be a problem."

Tress looked at him. "What do you mean?"

He looked at the mirror. "The mirror shows you what you want it to see. I can make it see what you need to see." He waved his hand over the mirror and the image changed constantly to show the Loonatics at work. "These are the Loonatics, a team of superheroes trained specifically to fight people like us. They'll certainly slow you down if not simply stop you."

"You clearly don't know the power I hold." She whirled around and sent a wave of vines at him, pulling him into the wall. She traveled through the shadows to him in the blink of an eye and pinned him back, draining his life force from him on contact.

He pushed her off and pulled away. "You're afraid of her, that's why you hunt her; you want her gone before she could hurt you. But you were too late, weren't you?"

She stormed over and punched him, knocking him down so she grab him by the arm. "The next time you speak of her, you will feel pain beyond your fear-filled imagination of the Mirror Realm."

He pushed her off, this time throwing his sword at her and pinning her to the wall with it. "The Mirror Blade is the strength of that realm. Just like she stole the strength of yours—" He cut himself off. He'd spoken of her. Suddenly, the capture of her spell encased him and he fell to the ground, crying out in pain.

She got on top of him, dropping the Mirror Blade at his side. "I told you so."

He lay there, too weak to move.

She then reached over in his weak moment to grasp his arm again. "Now tell me everything you know about these Loonatics."

Suddenly, his eyes glazed over…

The next morning…

Bliss awoke slowly. She felt like she had never cried herself to sleep before but she sure had the night before. She gently forced herself to open her eyes and look at the clock at the bedside. 8:34. Pretty early to get up but she knew she couldn't possibly fall back asleep now. She groaned and pulled herself out of bed and off to the bathroom to get ready and dressed (in clothes Lexi had allowed her to borrow as soon as they were sure she was a compatible size).

She didn't realize that as soon as she was in the bathroom, a silver tiara that seemed to be wrapped in roses appeared in a gentle twinkle of light on the bedside table by the clock.

She emerged from the bathroom in a mini-skirt, boots, and a graphic tee, pulling her hair back in a scrunchie. She then noticed the tiara on her bed. She walked over and picked it up, examining it. She thought she saw a golden light about it but she sure didn't know what it was. Or how the tiara got there in the first place.

Meanwhile, in the conference room, Tech was showing the gang a file on the bad guy they'd been fighting. "This is Dark Mirror. Or, as he was known before the meteor, Blane Glass. He was a typical leave-me-alone-er type until he got his power. Odd thing is, I can't find any medical, occupational, or even birth records on this guy. Just residential. It's like he didn't even exist until he moved into that apartment building. Then the shockwave practically destroyed it and now he is…well, how he is now."

"So this guy seemingly came out of nowhere and now he's the strongest villain we've had to face since the Blanc catastrophe? Why?" Ace asked.

"I don't know. If I could get a DNA sample or something from him, I could easily discern his origins with the right methods. But what really gets me is what he stole from those stores when we got into the fight with him. He wasn't just taking all that silver stuff, he was mainly grabbing a bunch of…hand mirrors."

"You mean like what Duck is constantly keeping in his pocket?" Lexi smirked.

Duck was currently looking through one. He quickly put it away when he saw everyone looking at him. "What's your point?"

"My point is that there isn't one," Tech continued, "I can understand snatching a few silver things, particularly knives like he was using, but what self-respecting so-called super-villain would snatch something as mundane as a bunch of hand mirrors? And he seems to be singling in on specific ones, for that matter. If you're going to steal one particular item, why not take all you can get to make your mark like that?" He then started typing something. "Another thing. He's leveled it past stealing. This security tape is from a science lab, taken in the middle of the night."

A bunch of scientists were sitting around in the lab going over stuff when suddenly Dark Mirror stormed in and attacked them all, taking most of their research while someone he'd brought along started attacking everyone.

"Pause it, Tech," Lexi said, to which her coyote friend complied.

Dark Mirror's companion was a canine girl with a bent left ear, grayish-brown fur, semi-long blonde hair, violet eyes, and a beaten tail. She was arrayed in a black and red dress, blood red sandals, and a black headband with a grey bow with a white outline.

"Who is she?"

Ace then noticed something else Dark Mirror had brought along, something they had seen the day before. "And what is it with him and that sword?"

"Looks like someone's not the only one with a tricked-out sword," Duck commented.

Ace started to make a comeback then sighed. "Guys, there's something else we need to talk about. We can't chance having a civilian amnesiac in the tower at a time like this. We need to be out there looking for the other mutants and prepping for another attack by this Dark Mirror guy, not treating a girl who might be faking it to get to us and weaken us in our time of need. We can't trust someone we know nothing about—even if she doesn't know anything about herself in return—in a situation like this."

"Ace, I've been working on memory recovery," Tech said, "I think I can help her. And she might be able to help us."

"Or kill us!" Duck snapped back, "For all we know, she's an assassin sent to take us in our sleep!"

"Duck, she's been here a night already. I think that solution is out of the question."

"Well, whatever the case, we can't keep her here! She's too much of a liability to people like us!"

"I-hate-to-say-it-but-Duck's-right," Rev jumped in, "We-don't-know-anything-about-her-and-we-can't-ris k-keeping-her-here-at-a-time-like-this!"

"Got that right! We need her out!"

"Are you guys talking about me?"

Everyone turned to find Bliss standing in the doorway, the tiara in her hands and her eyes welling with tears once again.

Tech instantly rushed over to her. "It's not that…we didn't mean…"

Bliss just looked down, not willing for him to have to endure her sadness twice in the same 24-hour period. "It's OK. I really shouldn't be here."

Tech stopped her from walking off. "Hey, we can help you. Or at least try."

Bliss gave him a half-smile. "Guess that's why I'm here, huh? …well, not here right now 'here.' I just came to give this back to Lexi." She held up the tiara. "I think it's hers."

Lexi walked up and looked at it. "That's not mine. I've never seen it before."

Bliss looked at her and then at the tiara. "What? But it was in my room… Where did it come from?"