"My patrol of the area didn't turn up any parahumans, though with the level of damage I'm seeing there were definitely some here," Velocity spoke. "As for the source of all the commotion, that would be the building over there. Abandoned factory turned into an underground casino by the ABB."

"You said no parahumans, did you run into any non-parahumans of interest?" Miss Militia asked. She and her van of PRT troopers had arrived at the scene just as I had quietly descended down a fire escape. Sounded like she getting a report from Velocity as the two superheroes stood on the sidewalk, just outside of the alleyway I was currently in.

"No gang members, saw a couple people that were probably customers of this place getting into their vehicles over that way," Velocity gestured in the direction. "Didn't seem worth it to try and haul them in for illegal gambling, charges wouldn't have stuck and that's not our jurisdiction anyway."

"True, but we could have asked them about the cape fight," Miss Militia said gently.

Velocity shook his head. "Nah. They weren't going to tell us which capes were fighting at the illegal venue they were at gambling in. Be too close to admitting to a crime."

"So no witnesses then, guess we'll have to rely on what evidence was left behind and deduction. You said there were definitely parahumans here, what makes you sure?"

"Well-" Velocity began before I decided to interrupted him.

"I'm a witness. I can tell you what…happened."

I had thought I'd been nervous when I met the unknown capes earlier, that was nothing compared to meeting people I knew to be heroes. Velocity and Miss Militia. But there was an additional layer of nervousness of top of that, I was about to confess to helping criminals. I really didn't want to go to jail over this. The two capes turned around to look at me. I couldn't help but notice Miss Militia's weapon had shifted around to tommy gun.

I then discovered something interesting about my physiology. Despite the fact that it took time to speak, I was still capable of blurting things out that I hadn't meant to say. "You aren't gonna attack me…are you?"

I noticed that caused a shift in both of the heroes' body language. There weren't many reasons why somebody would ask that question, and I inwardly cringed at what thoughts must be going through their heads. They were probably really suspicious of me now.

Miss Militia asked, "Why would you think we would attack you?"

I stepped forward so that the street lights were illuminating my form.

"Oh" slipped out of Velocity before Miss Militia elbowed him in the ribs. He quickly recovered. "Er, what I mean is just because you're a cape with an unusual appearance doesn't mean we'll attack you.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to…say it. I'm just ner-vous."

"It's alright," Miss Militia said reassuringly. "We aren't going to hurt you, I'm Miss Militia and this is Velocity. We're heroes with the local Protectorate Branch. We're like police officers that focus on protecting people from those with powers that would abuse them."

That was an odd way to introduce yourself. Why was she explaining things so simply? I wasn't a kindergartener. Did she think my slow speech pattern mean I was also slow mentally?

"I know who you both are." I let out a nervous chuckle and raised an arm. As I did so my stump shifted around until it resembled a hand pointing, which I aimed at Miss Militia. "I actually went as you…a couple years ago for Hallo-ween." I can't believe I just said that. The only way this could get more embarrassing was if Armsmaster showed up and I admitted that I used to have a pair of his themed underpants.

I saw Miss Militia's eyes widen, in surprise maybe, for a split second before they crinkled which I think meant she was smiling. "Do you have a cape name picked out? What should we call you for the rest of the conversation?" she asked kindly.

Ugh, people kept asking me that, I really needed to make a decision.

I moved my arm to run my hand through my hair but stopped when I realized that I didn't have any hair. "I haven't picked...one out yet. I had a coup-le ideas but couldn't…decide which one I like-d. Can I use…Abnormal as…a placeholder…until I make up my mind?"

"That works, just don't wait too long or the placeholder will probably become permanent. If not by the PRT then by the media or by posters on the PHO forums," Velocity said.

"Forum posters have come up...with cape names that...stuck?" I asked in surprise.

"Ever heard of Chubster?" Velocity was grinning when he said it. I couldn't tell if he was messing with me or not.

"So…" Miss Militia let it hang in the air for a second to let us realize we were getting off track. "You said you saw what happened?"

"I had a really…bad day so I decided to cheer my-self up by spending a few hours to-night playing around with my powers. I was travell-ing around the Docks when I spotted a bunch of pe-ople leaving the building in a real hurry. Figured I'd hang out…and see what was going on. That was when Oni Lee showed up."

Velocity and Miss Militia both seemed to lean forward at the mention of the duplicating parahuman.

"I couldn't make out every-thing he was saying, most of it wasn't english. But I could tell that he planned on killing somebody. Since I read online that Oni Lee likes to act like a suicide…bomber and that he didn't care about inn-ocent people getting caught in his blasts I jumped in to stop him."

Velocity started to say something, it sounded like a curse, but he caught himself. Miss Militia spoke instead. "You attacked Oni Lee? Your heart was in the right place but you have to know that he's extremely dangerous."

"Well yea, but that's what heroes do, right? Stop bad guys from…hurting people. I mean, I wasn't planning on being a hero this early. I'm still learn-ing the extent of my powers. But people were in danger and I couldn't just do…nothing."

"Alright, so you decided to go in to stop Oni Lee. How did that go?"

"Really well! He didn't hurt me…and I shot him three times in the leg with some bullets I er, uh…I got from some of the gang bangers' guns. After that he took off."

"You not only fought Oni Lee but you drove him off? Without getting injured? I'm impressed," Velocity said. And he sounded impressed too. I just got a genuine compliment from a hero, I wanted to preen.

"What happened then?" Miss Militia asked.

"After that some capes came out of the casino. I didn't think about it at the time but they were prob-ably robbing it. They thanked me for getting rid of…Oni Lee and then they left." I decided to leave out the part of me following them and then talking with them on the roof. It's not lying really, I'm just not telling them frivolous information, yea that's it.

"What did the capes look like?"

"They rode three big do-monstrous things. The one who spoke to me was dressed in black with a skull motorcycle…helmet. There was also a blond chick in purple, a guy in a…renaissance outfit, and a girl in a dog mask."

"That sounds like Hellhound and Grue, I'm unfamiliar with the other two, " Velocity commented.

"That would be Tattletale and Regent. They're a new group called the Undersiders, tend to limit their crimes to smash and grabs, usually target other villains or suspected criminals, and always get away quick. Haven't done anything especially newsworthy for Brockton Bay yet," Miss Militia said.

A group of teenage capes repeatedly steal money from supervillians and don't get caught and that isn't newsworthy? Really? That says something about this city but I'm not sure what.

"So then what happened?"

"They left. I left too but decided to circle back when I saw Velocity and a PRT van go by."

With my story seemingly concluded, Velocity spoke. "Alright, thank you for telling us that Abnormal. You saved us a lot of trouble. I'm going to check with the troopers, see if they've found anything."

Miss Militia watched him go before turning back to me. "Well, now that that is out of the way, anything you wanted to talk about?"

"Er, what do you mean?"

Miss Militia gave a small shrug. "It's not every day I meet a new cape in this city, especially one with heroic tendencies. You stopped Oni Lee when you didn't have to involve yourself, have you considered joining the Wards?"

I wondered how she knew I was under eighteen.

It was my turn to shrug. "I deal with enough teenage BS at school. I use my powers….to get away from that."

When it became clear I wasn't going to elaborate Miss Militia spoke, "You don't have to join right away. You could stop by headquarters to meet the Wards to see if you'd get along with them. Or I could arrange for you to do some joint patrols with a Ward or two through the city if you would like."

I'd rather just avoid any government related capes for the time being but outright refusal would probably be a little suspicious. "The second one sounds doable."

Miss Militia's eyes crinkled again. Yea, I'm thinking that must signify that she's smiling.

"Does this Saturday work? Gallant and Vista are starting a patrol at the south end of the Boardwalk at noon. You could meet up with them there."

It was late Thursday, or probably early Friday by now. That would give me a day to plan out how I was going to answer the questions that might come up about me or my powers.

"Saturday works."

As I flew home I reflected on the night I had had.

I'd fought Oni Lee and beat him. I talked with some villains and didn't fight them. I met two heroes of the Protectorate and they set up a play date for me with two Wards.

It could have gone better, could have gone worse, could have gone a lot worse.

There was no doubt in my mind that if I had let it slip to Miss Militia that I could summon self-aware, amoral demons that the night would have turned out very differently. She had probably assumed that Ivan was my powers but if I ever had Dwiergus make me a new suit that would raise a whole bunch of questions. I might be able to pass it off as Ivan's shapeshifting ability but that could come back to bite me if I got into a situation where I need to be able to change and no longer could. Plus if my new form wasn't eggplant-purple with a slime texture I'd have a hard time claiming I'd shifted into it.

It's funny, I had met one of my childhood heroes and I hadn't fangirled, hadn't put my foot in my mouth (with the one exception early on), but the thing I was most pleased with was that as the conversation had gone on I had managed to get my speech under control so I wasn't pausing as I waited on my bubbles to form.

I should ask Malcanthet for advice for how to handle the Wards. She was very good at manipulating people, she'd probably have a mulplite ideas as to how to steer the conversation away from dangerous topics. I'd do that tomorrow, maybe during lunch. Right now I needed to get home and go to sleep. I needed to be able to wake up in time for school.

I finished up the day's assignment in Mrs. Knott's class in just fifteen minutes (as usual) so I had the rest of the class to surf the Internet. I decided to check to see if there was anything online about the fight last night.

Only one of the local news sites had anything, just a short blurb about the PRT and Protectorate had been dispatched to the Docks to investigate a possible parahuman fight. I guess they hadn't given an official press release yet so the media wasn't going to report anything. Checking the Brockton Bay section of the PHO forums turned up two things. Evidently, someone had snagged a cell phone video of my fight with Oni Lee. It was from street level and pretty far away, I guess one of the guys that had fled from the casino had decided to stick around for a little while.

After spending far too long waiting for the video to load on Winslow's archaic computer, I watched it with a combination of dread and glee. I couldn't make out a ton of details at this distance but the part where I took out all the gang members with one sweep of my arm looked straight up awesome. The urge to poke the student next to me was strong, I really wanted to tell someone that that was me, to brag about what I had done. I managed to clamp down on that, quite frankly, ridiculously stupid urge. Did not need to out myself right after my debut.

Most of the comments were fairly positive. Oni Lee wasn't a popular villain so I was getting a lot of praise for fighting him but the conversation had quickly diverted from that topic to the far more interesting subject of everyone wondering who I was. I thought about posting something but realized two things: I still didn't have a cape name picked out and I was logged in on my real PHO account on a school computer during school hours, that would almost certainly be traced back to me.

After I read all the comments in that thread I clicked over to the second post that had turned up in my search. Oddly enough, it ended up being in the 'Connections' section of the forum.

Bubbles,

Owe you one. Would like to repay the favor. Meet?

Tt.

Huh, Tattletale had said they would be in touch when they left last night but I wasn't expecting them to use PHO as the method of communication. Though, now that I thought about it, how else would they have done it? I didn't own a cell phone, didn't have business cards like some capes, I wasn't summoned by the commissioner of the police via a spotlight on the roof.

Still, there was a chance this wasn't directed at me. I logged out of my PHO account and quickly created a new one with a bunch of fake information. I typed out a reply message.

Bubbles here, would like to meet but want proof you are Tt. Will reciprocate if needed.

I clicked over to some national news site in another tab and started reading an article about Endbringer cults when I saw I had already received a response.

Proof? We met after you got rid of the creepy guy that reminded me of a japanese demon. Last night you didn't talk until G asked your name. Good enough? Want to meet same place as last night? Does 3 work? School should be out by then.

Well that was fast, must have the PHO app on a smartphone. Based on the message I was as confident as I could be that this was Tattletale.

The comment about school gave me pause though. Was Tattletale a high schooler? She was a supervillain that had robbed an ABB casino but she still had to worry about truancy? That just struck me as bizarre. Like if I found out Armsmaster had a part time job working as an auto-mechanic or something.

For supervillains they had seemed like nice people, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to at least see what they wanted. I quickly sent a reply message just as the bell signalling the end of class rang.

Works for me, see you then.

Climbing up a vertical wall by pulling myself along on my belly was an event I never thought I'd experience. I wasn't really on my stomach, my body shape at the moment was akin to a ball of pseudopods, but I perceived the part touching the wall as my torso so that's what it felt like. I got the idea when I came home from school and saw a slug climbing up the side of the house. It wasn't as quick as jumping but it was still fun to play around with and Ivan always liked it when I came up with new ideas to test.

As I approached the lip of the roof, I lashed out with one of my tendrils and grabbed onto the air conditioner that was mounted on top of the building and pulled my bulk up and over.

Standing by the stairwell were three teenager supervillians...sort of. From the neck up they looked exactly like they had last night, like professional capes. That image was ruined somewhat by the fact that now they were all in street clothes. It was a weird look.

"Hello," I burbled as I took a more humanoid shape. "Where's the other one?"

"Bitch isn't what I would call a 'people person' so we told her we'd handle this," Grue answered.

Man, without all the leather covering him up he's showing off some serious muscles. Not Graz'zt level muscle but still nice to look at.

"Nice to meet you…I still don't have a cape name though."

Grue nodded. "No worries, not a major sticking point."

"So should we just continue calling you Bubbles then?" Tattletale asked with a grin.

"Ugh, please don't. I told Miss Militia to call me Abnormal last night, let's just go with that."

I could tell from his body language that Regent was shocked. "You talked to Miss Militia last night?"

I shrugged. "Why wouldn't I? I didn't commit any crimes."

Regent seemed to think about it for a few seconds and then shrugged in agreement. "Okay, yeah good point."

"As to the reason we asked you here..." Grue trailed off and Tattletale picked up in his spot.

"We wanted to give you this as thanks for helping us out!"

Tattletale pulled a lunchbox from a book bag that had been resting at her feet. She held it out but didn't walk towards me. I think she wanted me to walk over to their side of the roof but these were supervillains so I was still going to play it safe. I stretched my arm out until I could take the lunchbox from her grasp.

"A early era Protectorate Alexandria lunchbox? Where did you get this? And how'd you know I was a fan?" I asked as my arm retracted.

Tattletale had a vulpine grin on her face. "I'm psychic, but that's not the point. Open it."

"No," I said firmly as I set the lunchbox down. "The only reason I came here was because you all were nice enough to me last night that I didn't want to be rude, but if you're going to lie to me I can just leave."

"What are you talking about?" Grue asked as he glanced at Tattletale while her face fell.

"She knows I'm not psychic...how does she-you've met a psychic and their powers didn't work on you!"

"Wait, seriously?" Regent asked. "You've met someone that could read minds?"

While I debated whether or not to answer him, Tattletale spoke up. "Alright, I'm sorry for lying to you. I'm not really psychic, my power is practically close enough that I like to pretend because it keeps people off balance. I won't go into the specifics right now but yea, I can't actually read anybody's mind."

Grue slapped the front of his helmet in lieu of a facepalm. "Damn it Tattletale, this was not how I wanted this to go."

"I know, sorry."

"Okay, let's start over. Can we do that?" When I nodded Grue continued. "Hi, I'm Grue, that's Tattletale who is not as smart as she likes to think she is, and that's Regent. We wanted to thank you for your help last night so there is a present inside the lunchbox. If you don't trust us enough to open it, we can talk to get to know one another a bit better, if you'd like."

"Well you've been straight with me, I'll open it." Rather than bend over and pick up the lunchbox I extended an arm from my leg to grab it, and then slide the arm up my body until it was in place to merge with my left arm.

I opened the lunchbox to see rolls of cash. I didn't know how much there was but there was more than I'd ever seen in person.

"A thousand dollars," Tattletale supplied.

Not filthy rich level money, but it was still a good chunk of change, especially to a teenager like me. I was honestly speechless.

"We knew there weren't any parahumans at the casino last night. We had planned to do a quick get-in-get-out scheme. But the guards put up more of a fight than we thought and that delayed us enough for Oni Lee to show up. He's not unbeatable if you plan for it, but we had planned to be out of there before he showed up…" Grue sounded embarrassed as he spoke, like it was a personal failing of his that things hadn't gone perfectly. "So you saved us from getting bogged down in a fight that might have gone on long enough that we might have still been there when the Protectorate showed up."

I finally found my voice. "So you're just giving me this stolen money, no strings attached, as a thank you?"

Grue shifted his stance uneasily. "It's stolen yes, but we stole it from criminals so it's not that bad."

"Anyway," Tattletale said. "We wanted to give you the money, exchange pleasantries, maybe get to know each other, and come to an agreement on what we're going to do going forward."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked as I noticed Grue and Regent were looking at Lisa oddly.

"Look, we're criminals. No denying that. But we're not bad guys. Lung, Oni Lee, Heartbreaker, those are the bad guys. We're just a group of people running around playing a high stakes game of cops and robbers. We don't seriously hurt people, we're just having fun, blowing off steam. And we're necessary!"

"Necessary?" I scoffed. "This I have to hear."

"Take a cape that just got his powers, doesn't matter how amazingingly strong those powers are, and throw him against an Endbringer. He's practically guaranteed to die. But if he had a chance to train, to use his powers in situations that required a lot of focus and effort, before going up against, say the Slaughterhouse 9, well now his odds are looking up. Not great, but better. We're providing a valuable service for the Wards and Protectorate. Free training."

It sounded like justification after the fact, but Tattletale said it was such conviction I almost wanted to believe her.

"You don't believe me, understandable. But then tell me this. Why is there a three strikes rule when it comes to most capes? Why are guy like Uber and Leet put in prisons that are easy to escape from rather than specially designed cells? It's because the good guys know all this too."

I knew there had to be a different explanation for what Tattletale was saying, but I couldn't think of it.

"Anyway, my point being, we're criminals but we aren't super duper Evil with a capital E. Meanwhile, you're someone that wants to be a hero. At some point in the future we're probably going to be on opposing sides in a dispute. We'd certainly prefer not to fight you so we wanted to see if we could come to some kind of agreement."

"You want me to ignore you guys when you commit crimes?" I asked incredulously.

"I didn't say that," Tattletale quickly countered. "I said come to some kind of agreement. Maybe we don't target certain parts of the city. Or maybe we stop what we're doing and run when you show up and you make it look like you're chasing us before we juuuuust manage to escape. I'm open to ideas."

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable with any of that…"

"Hey it's cool, we're not forcing you. Just trying to get along with a cape that's done right by us so far."

Damn, this would be so much easier if they were jerks about it. Now I felt a little bad.

"How long have you been a cape anyway, couple of months?"

"Yea, why?"

Tattletale pulled a piece of paper and a pen out from her bookbag and wrote something down. "Here, this is my phone number. Gimmie a call if you have any questions about cape stuff, I need to explain the unwritten rules to you at some point. Or if you just want someone to talk to. It'd be nice to hang out with another girl once in awhile."

"What, you don't like talking to Bitch?" Regent asked. I could practically hear his grin.

Tattletale stuck her tongue out at him.

"I'm sorry how this turned out," Grue said. And he did sound genuinely regretful. "Still, I'm glad we're at least leaving on pleasant terms?"

He ended the last sentence in a question, clearly leaving it open for me to agree or disagree. They had been nothing but honest up with me, outside of Tattletale's one lie.

I was hit with a rather uncomfortable epiphany. Considering some of my friends are 'super duper Evil with a capital E' it would be rather hypocritical of me to get too bent out of shape with these guys. Come to think of it, maybe hanging out with some comparatively normal (albeit criminal) people would do me some good.

"Yea, I'm not cool with you guys committing crimes or anything but I'm not going to report you. And I maybe wouldn't mind hanging out outside of costume….actually that reminds me, why did you guys show up like this? If all you wanted was to thank me, you could have done it looking at bit more...official."

The three villains glanced between one another uncomfortably before Tattletale spoke. "It was our way of showing you that we're being honest. We figured you wouldn't think this meeting was a trap if we were in our civvies. Less chance of us trying to fight you if we're not in costume, right?"

"Okay, I guess that makes sense." It didn't seem like the whole truth but I decided not to press the issue.

"So we don't have any plans the rest of the day-"

"Speak for yourself lady, I wanted to do a Mario Kart marathon when we went back."

"We don't have any important plans," Tattletale continued without pause. I was beginning to catch on to the group's dynamics. Regent was involved in a lot of teasing, either giving or receiving it, and it all seemed to be good natured. "Were you planning on leaving or did you want to join us for a trip around the Boardwalk? Probably just be window shopping and then get some food at Fugly Bob's."

I considered it but finally shook my head. "I appreciate it, but no. I wouldn't mind it...just not yet. I'm not ready."

Tattletale nodded. "It's fine, don't worry about. You've got my number, we can schedule a lunch date if you'd like, just us girls." She paused and then grinned at me. "Or I can bring the eye candy along, whichever."

Regent and Grue looked each other and then at Tattletale. If I had a face it would have turned red with embarrassment.

"Idon'tknowI'llcallyoulaterokaybye."

With that I jumped off the roof, making sure to aim for the drain hole cover by the sidewalk. Hopefully I wouldn't land with too loud of a splat.