Notes – Hellking666: As with Madison, I have no preconceived notion of romantic pairings for Sophia. In this particular case, her reactions weren't hinting at anything more specific than the fact that Brian is an attractive young man. And as far as Madison goes, brainwashing was definitely not the intention, as you'll see in this arc. Oh, and this arc should also attend to your remark that Emma had little to contribute plot-wise last time. ;)

Luan Mao: Glad you enjoyed that, and I'm not perfect with grammar but I do try. The people that help correct the mistakes I make are also wonderful for that.

Finally, as a general note, I would like you guys to know that the updates for this fic and for Atonement will slow down a bit as I try to split my attention between them and the new original online web serial I've started for myself, which will be focused on a teenage girl training in a mysterious otherworldly school to protect humanity from the monsters trying to invade the mundane world. If you are interested at all, you can find it by going to ceruleanscrawling dot wordpress dot com. If not, please continue to enjoy these fanfictions anyway.

7-01 – Emma

Monday, April 18th, 2011

Madison was in trouble. Madison and her family had been taken by the Merchants. Those were the only thoughts that I'd been able to hold in my head throughout my entire time-frozen jog back to where the brand spiffy new secret base that Tattletale had brought the rest of us to the night before. The Merchants had Madison and her family. I couldn't just leave that alone, even if we weren't talking.

I'd been forced to take several breaks on the way here thanks to my annoying need to breathe. It happened again near the mouth of the alley that led to the entrance. As time went back to normal, I half-stumbled onward, using a hand against the wall to catch and guide myself for a few steps.

Madison, Madison, have to help Madison. Have to help her family. Those words kept repeating themselves in my mind as I stumbled, nearly falling in my rush to get to the entrance. I was so focused on those thoughts that the fact I didn't need to use the entrance didn't even occur to me until I was right at the door. My hand reached for the hole to find the button, which raised the thought that I didn't need to use the button at all because I could just float through the door with my power. And that thought reminded me that I could have entered the building from any point, not just at the door itself.

That realization was enough to slow me down for a few seconds. I stood there, hand frozen mid-way to the button, thinking about just how crazy I'd look if I came bursting into the building shouting my head off about rescuing some old friend. Even if the other Undersiders had been the type to go about doing heroic deeds, they probably wouldn't listen to some red-faced lunatic wheezing and panting her way through a babbling, utterly incoherent explanation on why they should. So no, that definitely wasn't the way to convince them to help. And if I was going to save Madison and her family, I needed their help.

So I had to calm down. Which wasn't easy, considering the images that refused to stop running through my mind. My fear for what my old friend might be going through while I just stood there was almost overwhelming enough to drive me into a crazed panic again, but I balled my fists up and took several deep breaths. As hard as it was, as worthless as it made me feel, I forced myself to count to ten slowly.

Breathing out, then in again while my fists clenched tighter, I counted back down to one. "You won't help anyone," I said aloud to myself, "if your new teammates decide you're a psychopath."

"Eh," a voice spoke up from behind me. "I dunno, might make you fit in more, to tell you the truth."

Yelping as my heart hurled itself into the driver's seat of a race car and hit the gas, I spun toward the voice. Eyes wide from surprise, I blurted, "Alec!" Flushing at the sight of the pretty boy standing there with an eyebrow raised, I tried to catch my breath. "Don't do that, jeeze! Where'd you come from?"

That cocky little smirk returned as the boy shrugged. "Well, when a man and a woman like each other very much, because the man is an immoral manipulative narcissistic control freak and the woman looked real pretty in that waitress dress and didn't happen to be immune to emotion manipulation powers, they spend some time together and before you know it, a little baby pops out."

I blanched in spite of myself. "Right, uh, your dad's a... a cape? Wait, emotion manipulator. Does that-" The idea of who Alec's father might be filled my head all of a sudden and my eyes went wide.

"Fuck." Interrupting, Alec shook his head. "Probably shouldn't have said that. Never mind. Forget it."

Catching his expression, I nodded. "Okay, well, I guess the lesson is your father's just an amoral-"

"Immoral," he corrected absently, like he'd done it so many times he didn't even think about it anymore. "Amoral means you don't know the difference. Trust me, he knows." Something like a humorless, dark smile touched his face then. "He knows exactly what he's doing, Squirrel."

Blinking, I frowned uncertainly at the boy as he leaned casually against the nearby wall. "Squirrel?"

That easy, careless smile returned, replacing the dark look that had taken over his face since he had mentioned his father. "Sure. You know, you're always fidgety, you never stop looking everywhere, you keep disappearing to run around, even the hair." He gestured to my head. "Squirrel."

My mouth opened and then shut. I wasn't sure how I felt about that name, but something about it made me blush. For a moment, I'd almost forgotten why I was in such a hurry. Then I blurted, "Madison!"

It was Alec's turn to blink. "Uh, Denver? Richmond? Boise? Are we just naming state capitals? I'm going to have to start over if we are, cuz the only way I know them is with that Animaniacs song."

"No, no," I shook my head quickly. "My friend, my old friend, sort of..." Shaking off that confusion, I pressed on. "She and her parents were taken by the Merchants when they were abducting hostages."

Rather than look concerned, Alec's expression remained blank. "Sucks. What're you gonna do?"

"Save them," I answered firmly, without even thinking about it. "She was my friend, Alec. I have to help her. I was... sort of hoping not to do it by myself. I mean, I know we're not supposed to be heroes."

He nodded in confirmation. "Really not. Pretty much as far from heroes as you can get without getting into kill order territory. You'd be better off telling the Protectorate about it and letting them handle it."

"No!" The loud denial burst from me instantly. "I don't trust them, Alec. They don't care about anything except their image. Believe me, there's no point to depending on those guys to do anything."

He shrugged idly at that. "Not gonna argue with that. But you need more than a sob story if you want to convince the rest of us to stick our necks out for your friend. Like you said, we're not heroes."

Part of me wanted to blurt that he should help save those people because it was the right thing to do. But I stopped myself. That wasn't the right way to talk to Alec, or any of the others. They—we—were villains. Not the horrible, murdering kind, but at least thieves. I needed to offer them something in return. Closing my eyes, I lowered my head and thought about the problem for a few seconds before opening them to look back up. The boy was still standing there, watching me curiously before I spoke. "Okay, can you get the others and bring them up to meet in the umm," I thought about the description Tattletale had given of where all the rooms were in this place. "In the meeting room on the third floor?"

Regarding me for another moment before shrugging, Alec reached out to hit the button that would open the door. "You figure out how to get everyone on board with your daring rescue plan?"

"I hope so," I admitted. "Because even if you guys don't help me, I'll just have to do it by myself."

"One you versus all of the Merchants?" Alec shook his head. "Probably wouldn't get very far."

"I know," I acknowledged quietly. "But I don't care. I'm not abandoning my friend. Not again."


"Money." I spoke the single word loudly and clearly as soon as the rest of the team had come trudging into the rather elegant looking meeting room. It looked like something out of some Fortune 500 company. The wooden table in the middle of the room was long enough to fit seven chairs on each side of it. There was a projector in the middle that was pointed at the wall at one end where a screen was. At the opposite end, where the person running the meeting was supposed to be, there was a touch screen computer built into the table that was meant to control not only the projector and screen, but the room temperature, lights, the nearby windows, the door, and a bunch of other things I hadn't figured out yet.

Lisa, looking tired considering the early hour, yawned before frowning at me. "What money?"

Tyler, on the other hand, looked wide awake. She stretched out, hooking her arms behind her head while openly staring at me. "If you're looking for money, babe, we could set up one of those kissing booths like they had at the fairs. I'd be your first three hundred or so customers." She winked. "Of course, by then you'd be ruined for anyone else. But I promise, you would totally enjoy the process."

My face pinked slightly and I shook my head. "Not money for me, money for you guys."

"We get kissing booths too?" Alec put in with a grin. "How much are we charging for Tats? Because on one hand, I feel like those of us with more experience should charge more since we know what we're doing. But on the other hand, a kiss from her is probably worth more because of the rarity, you know?"

This was met with a high five from Tyler, while Lisa scowled at him. "No one's kissing anyone."

"Better not be," Rachel grunted from the other side of the room where she stood scratching the ears of one of her dogs. She had refused to sit at the table. "Or I'm leaving. Might just leave anyway, if you don't get to the point." This was said while she squinted directly at me. "What do you want?"

I breathed out before starting. "I want to rescue the people that the Merchants kidnapped." Before the protests could drown me out, I pressed on. "One of my friends, Madison, and her parents were taken. They're in trouble, and we have to help them." Quickly, I amended, "I mean, I have to help them. I know it's not any of your business. It's not. We're not heroes, and they're nothing to you. But she means something to me. We don't hang out anymore or anything, but... it's complicated. I can't let her down. Not now. So I'm going to help her. But if you guys help, I know how it can be worth your time."

"This is where that money thing comes in?" Lisa guessed, looking wide awake now as she studied me.

I nodded. "Exactly. The Merchants have money. They have supplies. They sell drugs and all kinds of other things. They have about as many capes as we do, but they have a lot of foot soldiers to move their product and bring in the moolah. And right now, they're not spread out. They're laying low, all clustered together wherever they've got the hostages. And that's going to be the most secure place the Merchants have. It's gonna be the place they think is the safest spot for anything they own. Which means-"

Lisa interrupted. "It'll be where they stash most of their funds too." She smiled faintly. "You want us to cripple the Merchants by yoinking their hostages and all their life savings."

Once again, I nodded. "To be divided evenly, among you guys. I'm doing this regardless, because I have to help Madison. So it's not fair that I get paid and get what I want too. I get to help my friend, and you guys get to divide the loot. Plus it'll mean we beat the Merchants, so people will stop, uhh..."

"Stop thinking we're yesterday's news," Tyler finished for me. "They already know that Grue switched sides. The Protectorate made that clear. So now they think we're gonna fade away without our leader."

"Right," I sighed. "So we have to show them that we're still here, that we still matter. We do that by beating the Merchants, taking all their resources, and releasing their hostages so that we don't drag the Protectorate down on top ofus. Then we'll have the reputation and the funds we need to do whatever we want to do from that point. This uhh, boss of yours," I nodded to Lisa. "He'll have to be impressed."

The other girl looked thoughtful for a moment, sitting back in her chair while she considered my words. "Hit the Merchants, steal their stash, and make the heroes look incompetent while we do their jobs for them? It'd make them look worse if they come after us too hard right after we save those hostages."

"Like I said before," I nodded toward Alec. "All they care about is their image. We tweak their nose in a way that they can't really come after us for without making themselves look even worse. And we get paid in the process, with money that the Merchants can't even report stolen."

"What do you guys think?" Lisa asked, looking toward the others.

From where he was leaning back in his chair, Alec replied. "Sure. The Merchants are losers, but they've got money. I like money. So let's take it away from them."

Tyler nodded in agreement. "I'm down for that. Rather do something interesting than just sit around, and that soundssuper interesting. So yeah, let's humiliate some Merchant creeps."

Everyone's eyes moved to Rachel, who stood there silently for a few long seconds. She wasn't looking at anyone, all of her attention seemingly focused on Brutus as she scratched behind his ears and ignored us.

Finally, she looked up and stared at me. "If you sell us out, or abandon us, or fuck this in any way just to help yourself, you're dead." Her tone was flat, her eyes hard as she glared. "Got it?"

I nodded without breaking her gaze. "I won't. I'm being up front with you guys. I want to save Madison, but we can also make money out of the deal. It'll be worth it, I promise."

She continued to glare at me for another few seconds before dropping her gaze with a muttered, "Whatever."

"Sounds like we're doing it then," Lisa straightened in her chair, looking toward me. "So what first, leader-lady?"

My mouth opened and then shut as I blinked at her. "Leader? What do you mean, leader?"

"This was your plan," she pointed out. "And you're the one that worked out how to talk to us and get everyone on board. Grue's gone, so we need someone to be in charge."

I shook my head quickly. "But that's you."

Lisa laughed. "Hell no. I'm not leadership material, Emma. That's not me. I'm Intel. I know how to push people's buttons, but I don't always know how or when to stop. And I'm not great at inspiring people and whatever else needs to be done. That's not me."

"But... but..." I protested, flustered. "I just joined you guys."

Shrugging, Lisa gestured around the room. "None of us fit the mold. Grue was the leader because he was good at it. You could be too, if you wanted to. You've been a leader before."

I flinched, blanching. "No. Not that kind of leader. I... I can't be that kind of leader."

"Then be a better one," she replied. "Your skill at leading has nothing to do with how you used it or who you led." Her eyes met mine. "We need a leader, Emma. That's you. Not me. Not Alec. Not Tyler. Not Rachel. You. You can do it. Try."

"But I-" I flushed, staring first at her and then at the others. "You guys are okay with this?"

"You betray us, I'll still kick your ass." Rachel shot back. "Don't care what you call yourself."

Tyler and Alec were nodding, looking unconcerned. Neither of them cared about being the leader, Rachel knew she couldn't do it, and Lisa had passed it off to me. There wasn't anyone else.

Swallowing, still feeling uneasy about the whole situation, I finally nodded. "Okay... I... just for now. We'll try it this time, for this mission. But if it doesn't work, we figure something else out. Okay?"

"Sure," Lisa nodded. "So like I said, what first, leader-lady?"

I still wasn't sure about all of this I definitely wasn't sure about this leader thing. It was too soon. But if Lisa wasn't going to take it, someone had to. And if it meant rescuing Madison from those drug-pushing creeps, I'd do it.

Biting my lip, I hesitated as more doubt filled me for a moment before I shoved it away. "First," I replied while straightening up. "We talk about what powers the Merchant capes have. Then we go over how to neutralize them."

Tyler raised her hand. "I've got a couple ideas about that."

"Great." The worry about Madison was still hanging over the back of my conscience, but I set it aside to focus on what was important. "Time to humiliate the Merchants."

Alec waved a hand. "You mean beyond the fact that they're Merchants?"

I snorted in spite of myself. "Yes, Alec, beyond the fact that they're Merchants."

"Wow," he shook his head in mock surprise. "That's a lot of humiliation."

"Yup," I nodded, smiling a little bit in spite of myself. "So let's get started."

7-02 – Sophia

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 (The day after Redshift was named leader of the Undersiders)

"I said I was sorry, okay? How many times do I have to say it?" The petulant voice contained just enough genuine remorse hidden behind the annoyance to stop me from slapping the girl it belonged to.

It was Aisha, of course. She stood there in Bryce's family's unused (up until recently) garage with her arms folded tightly against her chest, trying her best to stare me down. I was very nearly tempted to wish her luck with that, considering the people who had tried and failed at that already.

It was Tuesday evening, and around forty-eight hours had passed since the Merchants had escaped with their prisoners. That would have been bad enough as it was, but having seen Madison's parents on that bus made it worse. Plus there was the fact that, judging from the terse response text I'd gotten from Emma on the subject, Madison herself was likely there as well. Hell, judging from how the text had been phrased, I figured Emma blamed me for not saving them. She definitely hadn't been in the mood to chat. But then, she rarely was these days.

For once, I couldn't blame her. I should have been able to stop those assholes. I would have, if the girl standing in front of me hadn't run straight off and gotten herself hypnotized. Those people would be safe right now if Aisha had just listenedto me. I'd been so pissed off at the time that I'd barely been able to drag the girl back to Bryce's and then leave so that I wouldn't fucking strangle her.

Now, even with those two days of time to cool off, I was still almost at choking-level. It was taking all I had to clench my fists behind my back while I stood there staring at this girl. Inwardly, I just kept reminding myself that she hadn't known better. She was new. Part of me wanted to know why I was bothering to hold myself back. That part of me just wanted to blow off this whole operation for being the idiotic idea that it obviously was. Having a second cape identity? What the hell had I been thinking?

"Pfft, screw this." Aisha's face twisted up a little before she reached out to grab her jacket out of the hands of the two imps who were holding it out to her. She started for the door with a roll of her eyes.

"Wait, hey!" Bryce, who had been sitting out of the way in a wheeled desk chair that he had dragged out from somewhere, rolled into view. "Where're you going? We've still got shit to do tonight."

Nearing the door, Aisha spun back, her finger raised to point at me while her voice rose. "She's not doing anything. I know that look. I've seen it plenty of times, okay? That's the look people give when they give up. She just quit. She's already gone, dude. She's practically out the door already, halfway to whatever her better life is. point is, I'm not the first one quitting. Just the first one you can see."

I was offended, even though she was right. I had been ready to quit. I had been half a second from telling them both to screw off as I walked out the same door that Aisha was standing in front of. The words had been on the very tip of my tongue. And yet, even knowing the truth of that, hearing this girl say it made me angry. Who was she to accuse me of running out, of giving up. I didn't give up on things. I didn't surrender. I didn't freak out and act like everything was the end of the world. I wasn't...

"Aisha," I spoke abruptly, the words coming before I even knew what I was going to say. Anything to cut off that particular line of thought. "Stop. I'm not going anywhere. And neither are you."

Lip curling challengingly, Aisha put one hand on the door. "Yeah? And what if I go anyway, huh?"

"I'll drag you back," I informed her flatly. "And yes, I can do it. I'll drag you back here, and I'll keep dragging you back here until we talk this out so we can move the fuck on and get something done. Now get back in here, and sit down in that chair until I'm done talking." I pointed to a spot in the corner. "I'm gonna talk, you're gonna listen, and then we're going to move on with our fucking lives."

She glared at me, and I stared right back at her. It was a contest of wills, as the girl waited for me to break eye contact so she could dismiss me and storm out anyway. I knew exactly what she was doing. I'd done it plenty of times before. Fuck, it was really aggravating. Had the people who had been on the other side of this shit from me wanted to smack me as much as I wanted to smack this girl?

Finally, she shoved away from the door and went to the seat that I had indicated. Somehow, she managed to do so while making it simultaneously clear that this was her idea and that she wasn't happy about doing it. Which was, again, extremely familiar. Fuck, I was dealing with some kind of mini-me.

I was quiet after Aisha had sat down. The silence went on long enough for Bryce to start saying something, but I shut him up with a sharp gesture. I wasn't looking at either of them, I was just staring at the floor while I tried to think of what I was going to do, how I was going to deal with this.

Raising my gaze, I focused on Aisha. She was staring at me, arms folded again as she half-sat and half-lounged on the chair. Something, that guilt that I knew she felt, flickered in her eyes briefly before it was suppressed. She couldn't let herself show that guilt, because people would use it against her.

"You fucked up," I stated simply, refusing to sugar coat things at this point. I wasn't some cool teacher or amazing, inspirational person. I was just me. I was a fuck-up too. This was the best I could do.

That obviously defensive sneer returned and the girl started to straighten up. Before she could, I used one hand to shove her back down by the shoulder. "Say it," I ordered. "Say the words. You fucked up."

There was nothing for a few seconds. Then, glaring up at me, she slowly spoke. "I fucked up." I was listening for sarcasm, and it was there, though not as much as I would have thought. She felt bad.

"What did you fuck up?" I asked while staring down at her, keeping my voice as even as possible.

For a brief moment, there was a look of disbelief before she answered slowly, the sarcasm rising. "I fucked up saving those people from the Merchant cocksuckers that were kidnapping them.

Nodding once at that, I pushed on. "Right. Now how did you fuck up, exactly?"

Again, she didn't answer at first. The silence dragged on, but none of us were going anywhere anytime soon, and the girl finally muttered something under her breath. I cleared my throat expectantly, and she repeated herself a bit louder. "I ran off to attack that cocksucker instead of listening to you, okay?"

"It's far from okay," I replied sharply in spite of myself. Then I added, "Why did you fuck up?"

That one earned me a strange look. Her mouth opened, then shut as she thought about it for a second. We stared at one another while I prayed inwardly that my pretense at calm maturity would actually fool her. I couldn't let myself react or let her see in any way that I didn't know exactly what I was doing.

This time, when she spoke, the words were much less certain. "I dunno, because I'm impatient? Cuz I wanted to prove I could beat him myself. I didn't know what his powers were, okay? I thought I could take anyone from the Merchants. Come on, everyone knows they're a fucking joke."

"Just because they're morons and losers doesn't mean they're not dangerous," I said firmly, the words snapping reflexively out of my mouth. "Sometimes an idiot that doesn't fucking know any better is more dangerous than a genius who does. Does a brainless asshole driving his truck through a playground kill less kids just because he's a fucking retard? No, and an idiot with a power is dangerous regardless of how successful you think he is. Especially when you don't know what that power is."

She was squirming by that point, and I pushed on. "On more. Who did you fuck up?"

"Nobody?" The girl frowned uncertainly at me. "I wanted to fuck him up, but the asshole got away."

"Who," I rephrased after a second of thought, "got fucked because of your actions, Aisha?"

"Oh." She looked down, then back up again, shifting in the chair. "All those people, I guess."

Nodding once, I took the girl by the hand and yanked her up to her feet. "That's right. All those people that are with the Merchants now, they could be safe. They would have been safe, if you had listened."

The anger twisted up in Aisha's expression, warring against her obvious guilt. I saw it, I'd felt it myself. I knew the look and the feelings, and could almost mouth her retort word for word the instant she spoke it. "Fine, I get it. You want me to fuck off now?"

In spite of myself, I rolled my eyes. "No. I want you to listen. Now, and in the field. Pay attention. We will do better. We will make up for what happened, and next time, we will do this right. But only if you listen to me. Look, any other time, in here, when we're doing... I dunno, whatever, then you can fuck around. You can argue, you can tell me to screw myself. But when we're in the field, when there's people that need help, that are depending on us? That's when you listen. That's when you stop fucking around and pay attention. Not for me. Fuck me. For them. For those people that are trapped right now because you didn't listen before. Get it? When it really matters, when it counts, that's when you listen."

The words that were coming out of my mouth, I didn't know whose they were, but they didn't feel like mine. This didn't feel like me. I was accustomed to being on the other side of this lecture. This was a... very weird and sort of uncomfortable feeling. Still, I forced myself to stand there and stare at her. "I'm not going anywhere, Aisha, so stop assuming that I'm going to just because I'm pissed off. I can be pissed as fuck without leaving. I don't give up that easily. I'm not a quitter, and I don't fucking surrender to anybody. And neither do you. So we are going to do this the right way from now on, which means that you are going to listen to me when I tell you to wait next time. You got it?"

"Yeah, fine." The words were dismissive, but I saw the look on Aisha's face before she suppressed it.

"Say it all together," I instructed. "All of it. And remember it, every time we go out and do this shit."

Silence reigned for a few long seconds, and I was afraid that I'd overplayed my hand. But I wanted this to stick, and I knew how easy it had been for me to blow this sort of thing off after a few seconds. I knew for a fact how easy it was to ignore even something this important. Finally, she blew out a long breath before speaking in a quiet voice. "I fucked up because I didn't listen to you and ran off by myself. I fucked over a bunch of people that we could've helped if I'd listened. And I'm not going to fuck up like that again. Or, you know, I'll try not to. No promises." She shrugged, looking down.

I nodded. Fuck it, good enough. "Great. Now that that's out of the way, let's move on."

"Thank you, jeeze." Bryce cut in, clearly exasperated. "Enough with the freaking drama. Can we focus on something important now? Like, oh I dunno, maybe all the people calling in about some kind of disturbance at that new mall they've been building a few blocks from here."

"Disturbance?" I frowned at that. "What kind of disturbance?"

He shrugged at me. "Something about a big snake? You guys can handle that, right?"


"Fuck you, Bryce!" The crashing sound of a snake head the size of a god damn Buick slamming its way through a handful of half-assembled mall kiosks in its rush to reach me was a roar that drowned out my scream less than twenty minutes later. I kept running with Imp right beside me, that giant fucking snake coming after us faster than anything that size had any right to move. It just plowed through anything in its way.

We had gotten here, breaking into the mall easily enough considering it was still under construction. Imp and I hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary at first, as we crept as quietly as possible down the eerily empty mall corridor. For a few minutes, I'd thought that the construction workers who had abandoned the place had been hitting the drinks too hard. Seriously, a snake had scared them all off?

Then we had come around a corner and seen four people standing in the middle of what would eventually become the food court. One was a short woman who had been wearing a dark green kimono with a jade mask in the shape of a snake's head. Beside her had been another girl who was obviously younger even though I couldn't see either of their faces. I was guessing she was a year or two older than I was. Her costume consisted of something very close to samurai armor, a teal base suit with dark blue armor and padding over it. She wore a black metal mask with blue trim over the bottom half of her face, leaving everything from her eyes up exposed. At her hip, rather than a Japanese sword, was a rapier.

The third person standing there had been male. He was very tall, topping seven feet easily, and thin as a rail. He wore a black tuxedo with a white mask that covered from the top of his face down to his just above his mouth. It looked almost like that Phantom of the Opera mask, only it covered both sides.

Those three standing there had been interesting. But the fourth figure had been the one that made me curse. Because thefourth person standing in that corridor had been Oni Lee.

They had all seen us by that point. Oni Lee hadn't attacked. Instead, he'd said something about a test before his body had crumbled to dust, obviously having teleported away.

After that, the woman in the kimono with the snake mask had taken a step forward before... changing into the monster that was still right on my ass. That giant god damn monster had chased us through half the mall.

The problem was, we had run out of places to run. The end of the mall corridor was coming up, and there was nowhere else to go. I spun around to face the snake as it drew closer, staring at the massive fucking thing. It was pretty much too big for this place already, smashing through something new every time it moved. But none of that was slowing the damn thing down either.

"Bryce..." I said in a low voice while taking a final step back to bump up against the wall. "I think you're about to find out if these gloves of yours can electrify a fifty foot long snake. Gotta tell ya, I am not optimistic." That, or he was going to find out that I actually did have powers after all. I wasn't going to risk being eaten by Jormungandr, or letting Imp be eaten, just to keep my secret.

"C'mon, we can take this bitch." Six of Aisha's imps were gathered around her, made of cement, metal, plastic, silver, fire, and glass respectively. The fire imp darted forward and launched itself against the snake. It snapped at the thing, but drew back rather than risk swallowing the flames.

"See?" Beside me, Aisha pointed with one hand, and the rest of her imps went on the attack. "We can—oohhh shit!"

The snake had lost interest in the imps that were harassing it, and lunged forward straight at us. We dove away to either side just as that giant snake head plowed right through the wall with a violent crash. Now Aisha and I were trapped on opposite sides of that giant snake, which was still snapping at and trying to deal with the imps that were jumping all over it.

"You should surrender." The voice was quiet, polite and... actually sounded regretful. I looked up to see the samurai girl standing there with her sword drawn. "Please," she said then. "I really don't want to hurt you. But if I have to, I will."

I caught the barest glimpse of Aisha darting up a nearby stairwell with the tall, thin man hot on her heels before turning my attention back to the girl. "Joining up with Lung's gang, huh? Bad idea if you don't want to hurt people. What do you call yourself anyway?"

That regret was still there as the girl replied, "My name is Foil. And if I had a choice, I would have nothing to do with him. But I don't. So here we are."

"Yup," I replied neutrally. "Here we are. I don't suppose you'll surrender."

"No." She shook her head. "Will you?" When I shook my head in return, she sighed. "Then I'll have to hurt you."

I readied myself, waiting for the girl's approach. "You can try."

Flicking that rapier around a couple of times, Foil watched me for a second. There was calculation in her eyes. She was judging the best way to attack, taking her time to watch what I did.

Then, with almost no warning, she moved. That deceptively thin looking sword lashed out, and I was abruptly thrust into one of the most difficult fights I had ever experienced.

So much for this day going better.

7-03 – Taylor

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 (Same day as Sophia's fight with Foil)

The basketball arced through the air, clearly about to narrowly miss the rim and bounce off the backboard. Before it could, however, the pole that the hoop was attached to twisted itself, bending slightly sideways with a grinding noise so that the ball went cleanly through the hoop.

"Boom, headshot!" Mockshow's loudly triumphant, crowing voice filled the air. I was seeing things through her eyes for the moment, so I had a pretty good view of her flipping off the hoop with both hands. "That's right, bitch. Mockshow tells you to go in the net, you best do as you're told!"

"Oh come on!" Spitfire grabbed the ball from the ground and glared at me. Err, glared at Mockshow, rather. Even now that was weird to get used to. I had to keep changing my mindset about where my vision was originating from. It became especially awkward at times when my vision would change several times in short order, leaving me disoriented about whose eyes I was actually seeing through.

"You got a problem, Flamer?" Mockshow asked, clearly deliberately taunting the other girl. The feelings I sensed through her weren't really hostile, but rather amped up. She clearly took competition seriously, playing to win even if she wasn't really playing all that fair or within the spirit of the game.

It had been a couple days since the big showdown in Vegas, and Faultline had said that we needed to lay low for a bit. To that end, she had brought us to some big, out of the way cabin on the edge of a lake somewhere in Oregon. This so-called 'cabin' was bigger than my family's entire house was. Or rather... had been. It was an enormous structure, with enough bedrooms for everyone, even our newest member (and I was still surprised that my tenure as 'newest member' was as short as it had been), as well as a massive kitchen and attached dining room with enough space to feed at least fifteen people, a game room full of several pinball machines, a pool table, and another table that was obviously meant for playing cards at, a small theater room with enough reclining seats for more than a dozen people to watch the giant projection screen, and more. There was even a hot tub on the deck overlooking the lake, and, obviously, a basketball hoop. It was only a half-court thing, rather than a full one, but still. The place was completely ridiculous, and I felt awkward even being there. What had I done to deserve to crash in a place like this? It felt like any second the real owners were going to show up and kick us out.

Emily was spinning the ball in her hands while she continued to scowl at Mockshow. It was clear that she was trying to decide if making a fuss about the other girl using her power for this dumb little game was worth it or not. It was also equally clear that Mockshow had gambled on no one caring enough to object that stringently, though they had gambled the rest of the week's worth of dish duty on the game.

"Hold up," Mockshow turned abruptly, and I saw my own body in her gaze. It was slumped over a nearby picnic table next to Elle. "Yo, Taylor! Wherever your eyes are at right now, I hope you're paying attention. Lemme see P with the left hand and X with the right. You remember those? I'll check in a minute, as soon as these guys give up and accept their complete and total defeat."

Whatever else I could say about the younger girl aside, she was genuinely trying to teach me sign language so that I could communicate a little more easily. There had also been talk of getting me a phone app that would speak out the letters I typed, but I wanted a low-tech version too, just in case.

Hell, even the thought of simply having a phone, let alone apps for it, was strange. My dad had made it clear that he didn't want any cell phones in the house, after what had happened to Mom.

I shook off that thought at the feeling of Mockshow's teammate, Newter draping his arm over her shoulders while he addressed Spitfire. "So you girls gonna take the ball out? Or," he added with a teasing tone that somehow managed to make my face feel warm even though he wasn't even close to addressing me. "You could just forfeit. Dish duty for the rest of the week shouldn't be that bad."

"No chance." That came from Emily's teammate, the young woman with a curtain of red hair that we had gone to Vegas to rescue. She'd called herself Shamrock before, but during the course of driving up here, she had re-introduced herself as Payton. She'd also given some kind of grim, taunting smile every time she said the name, as if simply saying it aloud was some kind of great victory over someone.

I wasn't sure what was going on between Payton and Faultline, but the two of them had been talking a lot in the last couple of days. This was practically the first time they'd been separated, since Payton had stayed behind while Faultline and Gregor went into town to visit the store and stock up on supplies.

Plucking the ball out of Emily's hands, Payton spun it on a finger. "We still get one more shot." She kept the ball spinning on her finger, then let it drop into her palm before giving it a heave toward the ground just in front of Mockshow and Newter. I felt the girl's surprise, and saw her hands grab for the ball as it bounced up, filled with a jolt of triumph that she was about to win. The ball, however, spun sideways, narrowly brushing past her grasping fingers. She spun alongside Newter, staring as the ball flew up, crossed the entire distance to the basket, and then dropped neatly right through the net.

My vision jumped out of Mockshow then, and I was seeing through Emily's view while she laughed so hard she nearly fell over. Mockshow, not nearly as amused, was sputtering about cheating.

"Really?" Payton asked with a raised eyebrow after exchanging a quick high-five with the still giggling Emily. "You sure you wanna play that card?"

Mockshow's head tilted slightly like she was considering it, then she just grinned, like losing didn't really bother her allthat much. I knew it stung her, because I'd felt her competitiveness. But she took it well enough, simply replying as primly as possible, "I withdraw my objection."

Once again, my vision jumped, and I had an overhead view of the court. In one corner, I had a better view of the table where my body sat, staring off at nothing. Beside me was Elle, who was also staring off at nothing. One of her hands was busy tapping rhythmically at the table for some reason, while her other hand rested on my shoulder protectively. Every once in awhile, I could see her lips move, but she wasn't saying anything. Clearly Elle was in one of her other worlds, paying attention to something else.

I was tempted to focus on that so I could join her, but I had work to do. Specifically, I had to focus on my fingers. Slowly, painstakingly, I focused on putting them into the proper positions for the letters as far as I could remember. It would have been faster with the suit, of course, but I hadn't been using it all day as part of Faultline's instructions. I was supposed to practice moving myself without the suit's help. Even without Mockshow's tests, I would occasionally lift one of my hands, make a fist, or even just turn my head from side to side. It always took at least a minute, but even that was far better than the times that I'd been stuck with before she'd found me in the hospital. I was getting better. Not good by any stretch of the imagination, considering a sixty to ninety second delay in reaction was still an eternity for face to face communication. But it was genuine improvement in my average time.

Eventually, Mockshow crossed over to plop herself on the bench across from where Elle and I sat, grabbing a water bottle that was there to gulp from. After burping loudly, she finally looked at my hands. "Shit yeah, that's what I'm talking about. P and X, good job. See? People think you should learn the easy letters first. Fuck that, once you know the hard ones, the easy ones are cake. So you can learn the letters, then we'll get to words. Pretty soon we won't be able to shut you up without handcuffs."

Over the next forty seconds, I forced my left hand into giving a thumbs up. I could see sweat lining my brow, but it was agood kind of sweat. I hadn't done anything that, under almost any other circumstances, would have been considered remotely exerting or noteworthy. I'd just shaped my hands into two sign language letters, and lifted my thumb from my fist. Yet to me, it was everything. It was communication. It was me, actually communicating without the aid of a suit. I'd made the letters P and X because I had chosen to, and pretty soon I was going to be able to make every letter there was. Then I'd move on to words. I would be able to sign words and actually talk to the rest of my team.

The amount of anticipation and joy I felt at the very concept of such a thing was probably stupid. But before I could think too much about that, the sound of a car engine announced Faultline and Gregor's return. They were back from the store. Hopefully that meant it was time to see why we were really here, because I had a feeling it wasn't just a vacation.


"We are not here just for a vacation," Faultline announced fifteen minutes later after gathering everyone into the den. My vision was taking in the entire room once more, so I could see all of the many animal heads that covered the walls. There were also a handful of handsome leather couches, one of which my body was laying on. The place reminded me of the one and only time my parents and I had gone to one of those really expensive restaurants. I couldn't even remember now why we'd gone there. I'd been too little to really understand or appreciate it. But the waiting room before we'd been seated had had nice couches like this one. As I lay there, I barely recalled being on that similar couch as a child. I'd complained of being hungry, and Mom's hand had come down to stroke my hair as she promised that it wouldn't be much longer. I couldn't remember anything about the meal itself, but I remembered Mom's hand and her voice. It was one of those memories that I had clung to, one of the few involving my mother that hadn't been tarnished or ruined in some way, simply because Emma hadn't been involved in any way. It was a pleasant thought, and laying here reminded me of it.

"Pfft, you say that like it's some big surprise," Mockshow replied to Faultline's announcement. "Pretty sure Lucky Girl figured out that this wasn't a real vacation, and she just joined up like six seconds ago."

"It is a real vacation... sort of," Faultline corrected her. "It's just not only a vacation. We're up here for a reason, but that reason won't be relevant for a few days. In the meantime, we can train. But when we're not training, you can relax, breathe, and have a little bit of a break for awhile."

"What about the new girl?" Newter asked from where he was sitting, perched on the end of one of the other couches on the opposite side of the room. "Is she actually sticking around then?"

Three voices answered simultaneously and nearly identically. Two answers were yes, while the third was duh. The last answer came from Mockshow, the first yes from Shamrock, and the other from Elle, who sat beside me and laid a hand defensively over my shoulder while answering for me.

"I meant the newest new girl," Newter pointed out slowly. "But thanks for that reminder of how fast our little team is growing. We're so hot right now, I bet Alexandria's thinking of signing up."

Shamrock, sitting the wrong way in a wooden chair with her arms folded over the back of it, spoke up. "Yeah, I'm sticking around." Her eyes glanced away then while she muttered under her breath. "Might as well, since it's not like I've got anywhere else to go in this world."

A bunch of eyes, including my own invisible ones, instantly snapped over to focus completely on the red-haired girl. Newter was the first to speak. "I'm sorry, what was that about this world?" Fingers snapping abruptly, he jumped off the couch while pointing at her. "Wait, you are from Aleph, aren't you? I knew it! I knew you didn't know enough about this place."

Before Payton could respond to that, Faultline spoke up, her voice firm and professional, brooking no argument. "Yes, Shamrock is from another world. No, it's not Aleph. Yes, I know that's confusing. No, we aren't talking about it right now. Yes, I know that's not really fair. No, I don't particularly care. Yes, we will eventually discuss it. No, you are not to hound her about it. Does that address all of everyone's immediate questions? There are important things we need to talk about, but not right now. We'll get to them later, I promise. Right now, let's discuss the job and then take a break so you can spend this vacation doing more than just sitting in this room with your mouths hanging open."

She said something else, but I was too busy being in shock. Shamrock was from another world? That wasn't supposed to be possible. Even the connection between Aleph and our world wasn't a physical one. We could send data and information through, stuff like that, but not a person. And according to Faultline, she wasn't even from Aleph at all, but some other world altogether? Wow. Just... wow.

Then again... I stopped to consider the fact that Elle had access to dozens of small worlds all on her own. Thinking about it that way made this a little easier to understand and accept, though it was still a pretty huge deal.

"In any case," Faultline pressed on pointedly. "We have a client who has hired us for a real job. One where we actually get paid. So listen up. We'll go over the fine details later, but right now I want to give you the overview. The job is for Accord."

"Uggghhn," Newter groaned, dropping his head. "That guy is such a pain in the ass."

"I'm sure he thinks worse of you," Faultline pointed out. "And that's why I'll be the one dealing with him. None of you are to have any contact with that man. It's too easy for him to pitch a fit about some ridiculous mistake. Just leave it to me."

"Will do, Beaver," Newter replied with a crisp salute.

"Thank you!" Shamrock blurted then, snapping everyone's attention her way once again while she continued. "Thanks for using a reference from far enough back that I actually fucking understood it."

Gregor, seated in the corner behind the girl, chuckled. "It can be very difficult to follow the conversations when they rely so much upon shared experiences and knowledge, I am sure." Payton turned to look over her shoulder at him, smiling openly, and the big guy actually smiled back for a second.

Faultline continued. "The job that Accord has hired us for should be simple enough. One of the local hero groups in a city about fifty miles north is working on building something, a forcefield projector of some kind. Accord wants us to steal it from them and bring it to him. But he wants us to wait until it's finished, and that won't be for a few more days. Hence our vacation. We will, however, be going over the details of each and every member of this other group until all of you know them better than they know themselves. Then we'll talk about how we're going to beat them and steal this device."


An hour later, I was finally wearing my suit, using it to stretch my legs a bit with Elle following alongside me. Together, we walked slowly through this massive cabin while looking around at all the obviously ridiculously expensive furnishings.

I was also busy thinking about the mission that Faultline had described. It sounded like a simple enough. Yet it would also be the first time that I was genuinely and knowingly pitting myself against actual heroes.

I... wasn't sure how I felt about that. Yet after everything that Faultline and Elle had done for me, I felt a lot more loyalty toward them than I did to some concept of the law.

Besides, it wasn't like we were going to seriously hurt any of them or anything. We'd steal the forcefield device and get the hell out of there. That was it.

In the midst of my musings, I wandered past one of the closed doors on the second floor of the cabin. My panoptic vision caught a glimpse of a picture hanging inside the room that caught my attention, and I focused on it.

The painting was of a dark haired, stern looking woman and two little girls that looked to be about eleven or twelve. Both of the children were identical, and I could have sworn that one of them had to have been Faultline years and years ago. But... that didn't make sense. Wasn't this just some random cabin that she had rented for the week so we could hide out in style?

Before I could think too much about that, Elle spoke up. "Taylor?" Her voice was inquisitive, head tilted toward me as she waited to see what was wrong.

"Is something wrong?" That was Faultline, just coming into view of my wide-around vision.

Quickly, I made my head shake. The painting in that room wasn't any of my business, and I certainly wasn't going to ask her about it.

The woman regarded me for a few seconds, then lifted her hand to offer me the computer pad that she was holding. "Here, while you're using the suit, you might as well see if your father sent another e-mail so you can respond to him."

Directing my hands (or rather, the gloves that covered my hands) to accept the pad, I tapped several of the icons in quick succession until the e-mail that Faultline had set up for me came up. Dad had sent me a message, and I opened it before carefully reading through his rather extensive note.

Wow. So a lot of stuff had been going on in Brockton Bay, apparently. Dad had to tell me all about it, while also demanding more details about the car chase in Vegas. I'd already sent him a description of what had happened to him once in reply to about half a dozen increasingly frantic e-mails that had been waiting for me the first time I'd been able to look at them after all that had gone down, but apparently it wasn't enough. He wanted more specifics, a play by play, I guessed.

At the end of the message, Dad ended with a simple question. Taylor, he wrote, I still don't know if this was the best thing to do. Every hour of every day I wonder if I made a stupid mistake by trusting this Faultline woman. I don't want you to be in danger. I want you to be safe. But most of all, I want you to be happy. So tell me, and be honest, are you happy where you are? Are you happy with that group?

I didn't have to think about it. There was more that I was going to have to write. It would involve an extensive message. Maybe I'd get one of the others to help me give my dad the involved description of the car chase that he was looking for. But there was one thing I wanted to write immediately, one response to his last question that I needed to get down.

Yes, Dad. I carefully typed out.

I'm happy.

7-04 – Madison

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 (Same day as Sophia's fight with Foil)

"All right, that's it! I've had enough of your fucking bullshit!" Rune's shout filled the room. "I'm gonna rip your god damn spine out and make you fucking eat it, bitch!"

She then proceeded to do just that, leaving me dead on the ground while she paraded around my ruined corpse, waving for the crowd of supporters as they all cheered wildly for her victory.

"Aww, man," I groaned while tossing the controller down on the bed. "I thought I had you that time."

On the television screen in front of us, Rune's character proceeded to stomp down a couple of times on the body of the one that I had been controlling before the game jumped back to the menu for selecting new characters to run through the brutal and pretty damn gory fighting tournament that comprised the totality of what was somehow called the 'story' for this particular game.

"No chance, no way," Rune informed me flatly. "I kicked your ass and you know it. Just wanted to see if you learned anything at all by losing the last eighteen times. You did remember which character you were that time, right? Please tell me you at least remembered which character you were."

I promptly stuck my tongue out at her. "Oh come on, I nearly beat you and you know it. Why else would you have gotten so pissed off back there. You know, rargh fucking bullshit and so on?"

Something that felt like a smirk if I'd been able to see the girl's mouth crossed her face before she rolled her eyes. "Well, I did, didn't I? Just thought if I told you ahead of time, you might be able to block it."

Tilting my head curiously at that, I replied dryly. "I was unaware that I could block being fed my own spine after it's ripped out." Picking up the controller once more, I peered at it. "Which button is that?"

"Oh, you wanna know what button it is?" Rune grabbed the controller from my hand. "Right here. You probably missed it because it's the only button that doesn't make you surrender like a little bitch."

"Oh, is that what that button does?" I shot back. "See, you were hammering at it so much that I figured it was the 'whine because the girl that only picked up the game yesterday almost beat you' button."

Lifting her hand to point back at me, Rune started to speak before stopping as a noise like a snort escaped her. She coughed again, clearly hiding a snicker before sighing. "God damn it."

"And that would be a point for me?" I offered cheerfully while holding up a finger demonstratively.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. You'll break first next time" the other girl shot back. "Don't forget, I'm still winning. In that game," she nodded toward the screen. "And this one. I've made you crack up six times, you've only hit me five. So screw you." Her finger flicked against the visor that covered the top of my face. "I'm still kicking your ass."

"Pffft," I huffed and shook my head. "I'm telling you, that second time was a sneeze, not a laugh."

Rolling her eyes at that, Rune replied derisively. "Uh huh, sure. And they say villains cheat. You laughed and you know it." She turned the controller around and shoved it at me. "So suck it up, Kirby."

"Kirby?" I echoed, blinking at the name while I took the controller and proceeded to choose a new character entirely at random. It wasn't like I really had much of a chance either way.

"Sure, Kirby." Rune shrugged. "You know, cuz you suck up everything that gets in your way."

For a moment, I wondered how the girl would react if she knew how many other ways that name was appropriate. I did, after all, gain new skills after the aforementioned 'sucking', though I was never going to call it that. Still, it was disturbingly accurate, considering how little she knew about it.

This was probably the worst part about my captivity over the last couple of days. I'd expected awful conditions and horrible, racist, evil monsters that continually spouted awful, genocidal bullshit. Instead, I'd spent most of my days either with two girls that didn't seem at all like monsters on the surface. First there was Othala, the quiet, older girl who spent most of the time talking about old cartoons with me. We had actually chatted for about forty minutes early that day about Bugs freaking Bunny.

And when I wasn't being watched by Othala, it was Rune. My interactions with her mostly went like this one had. We had our little 'try to make the other person crack up' game that had just sort of naturally evolved out of our normal interaction, and it was... good. Fuck, it was fun. That was why this was the worst part. I kind of... liked both of them. In another life, in another situation, I would have liked to have been friends with Rune. She was funny, quick-witted, and almost disturbingly intelligent.

And yet, even then, those moments of racism would creep into the middle of otherwise normal conversations. We'd be talking something like Star Wars, and then Othala would say something like, "Good thing they didn't let the nigger that voiced Vader be under the mask when Luke took it off. Can you imagine that? Big dramatic moment, mask comes off, and it's a monkey under there?"

That was the thing though, I didn't get the sense that she said it to shock or offend me. She didn't even consider the fact that I would be offended. That idea absolutely never occurred to her. She was so accustomed to this kind of talk, so desensitized to it, that it was... it was normal to her.

Rune was similar, though with her it seemed even more random. She would be talking, and then these racist terms would just slip into her speech. A couple of times, I'd seen the girl stop after using one of those awful words. She'd just go silent like she was thinking about something, then move on without addressing it. The words, those horrible, racist terms just blurted out of her mouth sometimes in the middle of what would otherwise have been a pretty cool conversation. It was like talking to someone who would, occasionally and without warning, throw up in the middle of a sentence. Disgusting, and had a tendency to overshadow every other part of the interaction either waiting for it to come up, or awkwardly trying to ignore it afterward. The stench of the casual racism ruined everything else. "Fine, guess I'm Kirby," I finally replied with a shrug. "But I get to name you then."

Rune raised an eyebrow at that. "Right, and what name would you choose if I let that happen?"

Rolling my head from side to side, I gave a few humming noises while making a big show about thinking it through. "Hmm, okay, I know. The very best nickname for you is... Princess Glittertwinkle."

"I will fucking murder you," Rune vowed, pointing a finger at my chest. "Kaiser's plan can go to hell. You say that name out loud again and what I did to your character back there will seem like a picnic."

Grinning at that, I adopted an imperious tone. "Why, your subjects await your ruling, Princess Glitaaaack!" My words were interrupted as the other girl literally tackled me off of the bed. We hit the floor hard, and I rolled over to put myself on top of Rune for about half a second before she managed to kick out and force us to flip the other way. For a minute, we struggled that way, wrestling on the floor while she demanded that I promise to never, ever use that name again, and I kept repeating it over and over again every time she wasn't busy trying to choke me so that I couldn't.

With no warning, a strong hand abruptly grabbed my shoulder, while an unfamiliar voice hissed, "Stupid little bitch." I was shoved hard against the wall with enough force to knock the wind out of me. Immediately, more hands grabbed my arms and held me there. My vision cleared a moment later and I found myself staring at the costumed form of Crusader. Two of his ghosts was holding my arms to pin me in place against the wall, while the man himself jabbed a finger into my chest. "You just made a really stupid mistake, you ignorant little cunt. Maybe if we take off one of your hands, you'll learn a-"

"Get away from her!" The shout came from Rune, and I caught a glimpse of the girl brushing her hand over Crusader's armor before she made a thrusting gesture with it. The man was sent tumbling backwards to hit the opposite wall with a loud clang. Then she spun to face him, putting her back to me. "We were just fucking around, you stupid piece of shit! She wasn't attacking me! Call off the ghosts and let her go, you dumb son of a bitch, or I swear to god, I will make that god damn armor so tight it'll squeeze you out of the end like a tube of fucking toothpaste!"

The ghosts vanished a moment later, letting me stumble off the wall. As soon as they were gone, Rune released her hold over Crusader's armor, and he slumped forward as well. "Fuck, girl," he spat the words. "I was trying to help you out. Thought she jumped you or something. You don't have to get all crazy. Or did you forget that she's the enemy and weare on the same fucking team?"

For a second, Rune didn't say anything at all. In fact, I could have sworn she flinched a little bit, though it might have been my imagination. Either way, she eventually shook her head. "Yeah, and how long do you think Kaiser's gonna let you stay on the team if you end up killing our leverage, dumbass?"

"Like I said," he shot back. "I thought she was attacking you. Excuse me for giving a shit."

"What the hell do you want, anyway?" Rune demanded while folding her arms over her chest.

"Kaiser needs you to run an errand," the man replied. "I'm here to keep an eye on the prisoner."

That time, Rune definitely flinched. Her eyes darted to me and then to him again. "Where's Othala?"

"She's busy," he answered bluntly. "Since, you know, she has a life. Kaiser said she should be down here in about an hour. Why, you don't think I'm qualified to play babysitter for a few minutes?"

"I don't think you're qualified to do a lot of things," Rune shot back at him. "Including but not limited to electrical repair, electrical consumption, driving, operating heavy machinery, operating non-heavy machinery, management of a library card, cereal preparation and/or consumption, doorknob administration, or oxygen intake specialist. Babysitting is just right out the window. Which, if we're being honest, is probably where said baby would go if anyone was stupid enough to trust you with it."

A strangled snort escaped me by the end of that, and she pointed a hand at me before announcing. "And that's seven, bitch." Spinning on her heel, she strode to the door while advising, "Try taking a shower. Maybe by the time you're done, the company waiting for you will be a little less incompetent."


A heavy fist slammed against the bathroom door three times in rapid succession. "That's enough!" The annoyed voice of my current jailer called. "Out!"

I sighed in response, but didn't open my eyes. Standing there beneath the roaring shower, I was almost able to pretend that I was back home in the bathroom that I shared with my brother. Hell, even the angry voice demanding I hurry up was kind of familiar, come to think of it.

Reaching out, I turned off the shower so that Crusader would know that I wasn't ignoring him.

To be fair, I had taken Rune's advice, which meant that I had been in the shower for almost an hour by that point, according to the clock that sat above the bathroom mirror. I figured the man wouldn't really care, considering he knew I wasn't going anywhere as long as they had Laserdream, and while I was in the shower, he didn't have to try to have a conversation with me. Somehow, I doubted he was the type of guy that wanted to play video games. Nor would doing so have been as fun as Rune made them.

Looking down at the full tub that I was standing in thanks to the plug that I'd stuck in the drain, I focused on my power. The field around my skin came to life, sucking the water up into it, which disappearing quickly over those few seconds.

I repeated that a couple of times until all the water in the tub was gone before stepping out to the cold tile floor. Rather than touching the provided towel, I used my power one more time, drawing the field right up against my skin so that the water there was absorbed as well, leaving me dry.

I had been absorbing the water with every shower I'd taken in this place. It wasn't much, but I wanted as much water as I could manage to safely and secretly absorb when the opportunity to escape with Crystal presented itself. I may have been enjoying the time with Othala and Rune more than I would have thought, but the fact that I was a prisoner hadn't escaped me. Given the chance, I needed to get to Laserdream so that both of us could get the hell out of here. Which meant preparing every advantage I could get, even if that advantage was as simple as an hour's worth of shower water here and there.

After dressing quickly in my costume once again (which had started to smell before Othala had it washed the night before while I had taken another shower) and setting the visor back in place, I moved to the bathroom door. Sliding the chair away from where I had jammed it up against the knob before unlocking it (not that I expected the lock or the chair to stop Crusader if he was determined, but they made me feel better) and stepping out. "See? Still here, still a prisoner. Not Steve McQueening my way to freedom."

"Right, the Great Escape, Nazi's, hah. You're a real funny girl." Crusader sneered humorlessly. "Now shut up and sit down. I hear another word out of you and I'll pretend I didn't hear Kaiser say we couldn't gag you."

Before I could move, however, the door opened and Othala stood there in her red bodysuit and simple mask with the dark lenses covering her eyes.

"You can go now," she said to Crusader.

"You sure?" He asked casually. "I mean, you've been on guard duty a lot. You could take a break for a few hours. Isn't Victor fighting in the ring tonight?"

She gave a short nod. "It's fine, Kaiser set up the security feed so we can watch it in here. Go ahead, I know you'd rather be down there."

After another moment of hesitation, the man pointed at me. "You behave, and stop being such a smartass. It's gonna get you hurt." Heaving himself to his feet, he strode to the door and out, shutting it behind him.

"Are you okay?" Othala asked, rather bizarrely.

In response, I just stared at her for a moment before shaking my head. "Thanks for asking, but no. On the list of things that I am, 'okay' is pretty far down the list. Still kidnapped, still being held against my will, still being treated as a hostage to force my friend to do something for a bunch of Nazi supervillains. So no, I'm not really okay. But no, he didn't hurt me, if that's what you meant. And for the record, the fact that you feel nervous enough to ask that says loads about this whole situation."

The older girl flinched noticeably before reaching down to pick up the remote. Without speaking, she changed the channel a couple of times before settling on the security footage that she'd mentioned to Crusader.

The image on the screen was that of some kind of make-shift fighting tournament cage, coincidentally not too unlike the arena that the virtual characters Rune and I had been using had fought in. I could see a bunch of people, mostly men, gathered around the outside of the chainlink fence that encircled the cage, while a couple of masked guys stood facing each other in the middle.

"Victor won't fight until later," Othala informed me. "He fights the real warriors, the ones who prove themselves by getting past the riffraff."

"What is this?" I asked after a second.

"Initiation," she replied without looking away from the screen. "The new recruits for the Empire fight it out to determine their skill and thus their pecking order, then the best of them get a chance to fight someone like Victor or Stormtiger. They always lose, but the honor is in being allowed to try."

I had my doubts about that system, but the masked men in the cage were fighting already. One was a heavy-set man who had a solid foot over his smaller opponent. Both of them went after each other viciously, without much skill but with a ton of enthusiasm.

"Lots more anger in that one," Othala announced quietly, gesturing to the smaller figure.

"You sure?" I asked. "Cuz they both look pretty pissed to me. How is that stuff fun?"

She looked over at me, pausing. "It's... primal. Winning in a match like that is... it's a feeling that they will never forget. And yes, they're both angry, but that one is... even more. Trust me, after awhile, it's easy to tell where the most rage is coming from."

Together, the two of us watched the fight on the screen in silence for a few minutes. The men fought each other with vicious strikes, not seeming to pull anything at all. Finally, the smaller one managed to land a blow that put the bigger guy on the floor, and Victor, who was apparently refereeing the match, stepped in quickly to separate them. The bigger guy was pulled away, while Victor caught hold of the other one's wrist and hoisted it up above his head. After yelling something about champions, Victor slapped a hand against the left shoulder of the winner, near a scar that looked sort of like a lopsided turtle.

Whatever Victor had said, the crowd roared in approval, and the victorious Empire recruit held his arms high over his head, bloody fists clenched as he turned in a circle, basking in the applause.

But I wasn't paying attention to that. My gaze had locked onto that small part of the screen where Victor had smacked the other man on the back. The image had moved on, but my eyes hadn't moved from that single spot, that centimeter of screen where that scar had been. The horror of my realization muted any response I could have made. Logical thought had vanished from my mind.

A lopsided turtle scar. I knew it. I'd recognized it the very instant that it had appeared on the screen. I knew it almost as well as I knew the back of my hand. Hell, I was responsible for that scar, considering we'd been fighting when I had thrown the thing that gave it to him, so many years ago.

Trevor. My brother. That was his scar. That was him. It was him. He was there.

No... oh god... please... no.

7-05 – Sophia

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

The narrow blade of that sword came within an inch of my arm before I managed to jerk it out of the way while backpedaling a step. Christ, this girl was fast. She had gone from simply standing there, watching me with those calculating eyes to lashing out almost faster than I could react. A nanosecond slower reaction on my part and the fight might have been over literally as soon as it began.

Foil followed up the initial thrust with a quick jerk of the blade that brought it up and forward. I let the blade come, stepping forward as though moving into it, but turning my body sideways so that it could slide through the open space where I had been. One hand caught her extended wrist while my other hand caught her elbow, and I held them both to keep her stretched off balance while bringing my knee up toward her stomach. At the same time, my other foot was placed behind her ankle so that the blow from my knee would knock her backwards to trip over the other foot and hit the ground.

That was the idea anyway. Instead, Foil turned her hip into the blow, bringing her leg up to take my knee there instead of into her stomach. With her arm still held in both of my hands, she kicked out with her raised leg. It was my turn to recoil, blocking the kick with one arm. That left only one hand to hold onto her sword-arm, and she took instant advantage catching hold of my elbow, twisting slightly to make my grip on her wrist weaken, and then drove the elbow of her sword-arm back into my face.

Staggering backward from the blow, I grimaced. "You know, you're kind of perpetuating a stereotype here. Could you suck at fighting a little more? For the advancement of racial equity and all that shit."

Apparently not, because Foil came forward three quick steps before spinning into a full round house kick. I saw it coming and tried to twist away from blow, but it still took me across the face and sent me to the floor. I hit hard, rolling away to avoid her follow-up as she brought the blade down where my leg had just been. Throwing myself from a backwards roll, I cursed inwardly at myself. I should've just fucking glove-shocked the girl while I had the chance. Now I had to get my hands on her again.

My roll brought me to a pile of discarded construction supplies. I groped with one hand, closing it around a metal tube of some kind that was about an inch across and as long as my arm before heaving myself into a kip-up that brought me back to my feet with that bit of metal held out to protect myself from the actual sword that she was wielding. Yeah, this was really going to go well, I just knew it.

Without any more warning than there had been before, the girl stepped into a lunge, giving a quick thrust with that sword that seemed more a testing blow than anything. She was still feeling me out, and I had enough time to bring the metal pipe up to block the sword easily, smacking the blade aside.

Or I would have, except that as the pipe hit the sword, the blade cut right through it. The pipe that I had been holding was sheared in half just from hitting that sword as casually as Foil was obviously using it.

For a half-second, I just stared at the remainder of the pipe in my hand. Well shit then. And as if to make matters worse, the giant snake body to my left was starting to pull back out of the hole she had put herself through. So I was about to have even more company for this little brawl. Terrific.

"Hey!" I shouted to get Foil's attention. Not that I needed to, she stopped in mid-step, watching me warily. "What do you say we take this fight somewhere more private?" Before she could respond, I hurled what remained of the pipe at her before turning to sprint the other way, toward the nearby stairs that Imp and the man had gone up. Rather than actually use them, however, I used Bryce's boots to run straight up the wall, vaulting the railing to reach the second floor. "Bryce, how's Imp doing?" I asked while I had the chance. A quick glance back showed Foil coming up the stairs at a sprint.

"She's okay," he reported hurriedly. "I don't know what this guy does, but her imps seem immune to it. He's not happy though. I think he's calling for help. You need to get over there as soon as you can."

"Just tell me if she gets into too much trouble," I told him. Just as Foil reached the top of the stairs, I sprinted straight toward one of the half-finished stores nearby. I went right through the open doorway and found myself surrounded by naked mannequins and empty metal clothing racks, the circular kind that turned so you could examine all the different shirts that were supposed to be hung up on them without moving. At the back of the room was an open door that led into some kind of back room.

Once the store was full and open, they'd probably stock the kind of clothes that Emma and Madison would have gone gaga over. Instead, now it just felt creepy. The only lights came from the outside, casting shadows throughout the room. Not that it was a problem considering the night-vision that Bryce had built into the mask, and I kind of hoped that Foil didn't have the same kind of advantage.

She came into the store right after me, and I spun to kick the nearest clothing rack at her. It went crashing that way, and the girl hopped up and over it easily, coming straight for me before a second metal stand hurled that way made her drop beneath it, breaking up her charge.

I went in fast then, grabbed for the girl's arm again. This time I'd just use the shock-gloves like I should have to begin with. Unfortunately, she was still too quick. That blade went up, and I had to jerk away. But I turned my dodge into an attack, using the momentum and adrenaline to twist into a kick at the girl's side that she was forced to pull away from. She literally hopped backwards through one of the clothing racks just before my leg smacked into the metal bars with a clang. Then she shoved it forward, knocking me off balance. I nearly fell before catching myself an instant before the other girl thrust her sword through the open area of the rack itself, straight for my leg. The only thing I could do was grab the rack with one hand and give it a hard yank over and down. It collapsed, catching the girl's arm and dragging her down into my range as I lashed out to grab onto her while triggering the gloves.

An instant sooner, half an instant, and this fight could have been over. Somehow, the girl managed to yank her head a fraction of an inch away, and my grasping fingers closed over the clothing rack instead. The gauntlet shocked it, but both of us had managed to pull our way free of the thing by that point.

Still, electricity jumped visibly through the thing with a staccato burst, and I saw Foil flinch noticeably. Right, so she wasn't immune to electricity. Good to know. If I could get hold of her, I could end this fight. Unfortunately, if she got off a good hit with that sword that could cut straight through that metal pipe like it wasn't there, the fight would be over as well. And now she knew not to let me touch her.

For a second, we both crouched there, staring at each other through the dim light. For once, I was the first to react. Dropping backwards, I kicked out at the fallen metal rack, knocking it into the girl before catching hold of a second rack with my hand. Yanking it off balance, I gave the thing a hard shove, knocking it over. With a terrible clang, the second rack went crashing to the floor to slide into the first one. Foil was already moving, taking a step forward and coming down on the rack to vault herself over it and at me when she saw my hand grab the one that I had just tipped over. Her eyes seemed to take in the metal rack touching the one her foot had come down on as she started her leap. She tried to throw herself off of it, but wasn't quite fast enough. Some of the electricity channeled through both racks caught the girl and sent her to the floor with a cry, the sword dropping from her hand.

I came straight at her then, fast and hard before realizing my mistake. She hadn't just 'dropped' the sword to the ground. Instead, she had been tossing it from one hand to the other even as the electricity coursed through her. With her muscles spasming, she still managed to give a quick swipe with that blade at my incoming form. I'd seen what that blade could do, whatever it was, and had no desire to experience it myself. Thankfully, the room was dark enough that neither she (distracted as she had to be from that electricity) or Bryce should notice a very quick jump into shadow-form.

It should have been fine. The blade should have passed harmlessly through my slightly indistinct shape. Instead, I felt a shock of pain in the arm, as if the blade was cutting through actual skin and muscle as it passed through my shadow-form. The pain shocked me, and I cried out before hitting the ground.

"Hinder!" I heard Bryce's voice. "Are you all right? What happened? The view went all fuzzy for a second, like arm wasn't really there or... or something. Are you okay?"

I didn't answer at first, concentrating on the agony in my arm. That had hurt like a son of a bitch. I was on the floor, clutching my arm. My only solace was that Foil was down as well, twitching a little while she fought to get her muscles under control. But I was bleeding from the arm where that sword had cut right through the padding that Bryce had put into the coveralls. Even the relatively tiny graze that she'd managed to hit me with had gone through my defenses like paper, and now my arm felt a bit numb. It was harder to move than it should have been. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Her sword could cut through a metal pipe and my shadow-form like I wasn't even using it? God damn it, shit, shit.

I needed to end this, before she got off another hit like that, or an even worse one. If she did, I'd be fucking done. With that in mind, I lunged for the girl while she was still on one knee, recovering.

At least, I thought she was recovering. The instant I moved, however, Foil was turning toward me. That blade of hers lashed out, slicing neatly through the glove. I felt a little bit of pain, but not much.

The glove on the other hand, sparked once before going dead. She had aimed not to hurt me, but to disable one of the weapons that had hurt her, and she'd done it by luring me in. Fuck.

Left with only one usable glove, I set myself in front of the girl. "You know," I remarked, "for someone who doesn't want to fight, you're sure pretty good at it." Inwardly, I was raging. Not that good. She'd gotten lucky, her power was unfair, I hadn't been expecting this kind of fight, and on and on.

But no. This girl was good, and I had to acknowledge that if I was going to beat her. Or at least not lose. Maybe I couldn't win right now, but I could avoid losing. Part of me rebelled at that idea, wanting to throw myself blindly into this fight until I could smash this girl's face in to prove I was better.

I forced that part of myself down, watching the girl for another second while she eyed me as well. Her voice was quiet. "You never told me your name. Or the other girl's."

"Normandy. We're Normandy. And I'm called Hinder," I replied simply. "Let me show you why." With that, I gave a quick feint with my foot, then lunged with the still-working glove. Foil completely ignored the fake kick, blade focused on giving a quick slice toward the glove. Her timing and aim was perfect, slicing straight through the components of the weapon to send a couple sparks into the air as the electrical part of the glove died.

That might have pissed me off... if I hadn't been counting on it. I felt the pain of the sword barely glance across my hand as she disabled the glove, and was already moving. Lunging forward while the other girl was focused on that, I threw myself into a full front kick. My foot planted itself in Foil's chest, knocking her back two steps. Before she could recover, I twisted around into a follow up leaping spin-kick. That blow knocked her backwards, dropping the sword in the process as she fell through the doorway into the back room, tumbling head over heels. I had the satisfaction of hearing her yelp.

Before she could recover, I grabbed the door and slammed it shut. Then I grabbed the nearest clothing rack, wincing from the pain in my hand as I did so before shoving it up under the doorknob. Bracing the rack against the floor, I got it there just in time. A second later there was a bang as the girl hit the door from the other side. She hit it again a second later, but I was already moving. Reaching down, I grabbed her sword and ran out of the store while tucking it into my belt. "Bryce," I started. "Where's Imp-"

In mid-sentence, I nearly ran right into the girl in question. Imp was racing straight to where I had been, accompanied by three of her helpers. We almost collided before managing to stop right there on the upper walkway. "Are you all right?" I found myself asking the girl.

"Dude, I'm fine," she replied. "Whatever that jackass was trying to do, he couldn't affect my little buddies. They're still clobbering him, but Churching said you needed help."

I blinked at that, confused for a moment. "Churching?"

"You know," she gestured vaguely. "The British guy. Normandy? He is sort of the voice behind the radio and all?"

"... Churchill," I realized a second later. "You mean Churchill."

"Eh, whatever." Imp shrugged. "Churchill then. Better than Bryce. What happened to you?" She gestured to the blood over my hands and arm.

"Long story," I replied. "Actually, short story. Foil's a dangerous bitch. Now let's get out of here before that-"

Of course, that was the cue for the giant fucking snake had to slam its way up through the floor between us. I heard Imp cry out in surprise as we were both thrown in opposite directions before landing hard.

I lay there on my back, staring up as that massive snake twisted around, focused on Imp. Fuck, no. If it came after me, I could shift forms, but I couldn't get to Imp in time to get her out of the way! I tried to heave myself up, grabbing for the sword that I'd stolen from Foil in a desperate attempt to get the damn thing's attention. The fear that rose in me at the sudden certainty that I would be too late might have startled me if it hadn't been too all-consuming to let me consider its oddity.

Ignorant or heedless of my thoughts, the snake kept its focus on Imp, who was just rolling over. Its tongue flicked out a couple of times, and then it opened its mouth, starting its lunge while I shouted a warning to the other girl, my body seeming to move like we were underwater.

Then... a voice began to sing. The snake stopped in mid-lunge, freezing before its head cocked toward the sound of the singing. Granted, it was a really beautiful voice, but still.

I twisted a bit to look as well, and found an older girl standing there. Her dark hair was cut short, and she wore pretty grungy clothing. The jeans were heavily ripped and torn, while the shirt, advertising some underground band from Chicago of all places, was patched in a couple places. She wore a brown leather jacket over it that had clearly seen better days as well, and her boots had what looked like dried blood on them. She was also holding a pistol, keeping it aimed at the giant snake while she sang loudly and clearly. The snake, for her part, was completely entranced.

After singing for a few more seconds, the girl ordered in a loud voice. "Go to sleep!"

Instantly, the snake head dropped back through the hole it had created, and I heard the dull thud of the body collapsing below. At the same time, I could also feel myself starting to nod off a bit. It wasn't as immediate as the snake, but the tiredness was definitely there. My muscles relaxed, and I began to slump just before a hard smack across the face woke me up.

"Not you," the girl said flatly before nodding toward Imp. She was also clearly fighting the urge to drift off, though her little helpers were helping to keep her awake by poking and prodding at her.

"Damn it," she muttered. "Still working on only affecting certain people. Both of you stay awake."

Taking a moment to grab Imp and haul the girl to her feet, I stared at the new girl. "Who the hell are you?"

In reply, the girl pointed the gun toward the nearby floor to ceiling window and pulled the trigger. The bullet shattered the glass. "Muse," she answered simply as the sound of the gunshot faded. "Now there's two more capes coming up from the west entrance and another one coming in from the east. Plus the girl you locked in the closet is out, and the one that her... things were attacking got free. And that teleporting guy is around here somewhere, mostly watching. Think he's testing them."

I stared, counting in my head. "That's... more capes than Lung should have. Fuck, this was more than he should have. How many did he fucking recruit?!"

"No idea," the girl replied. "But they're coming. So either come with me, or stay and play with those guys some more." With that, she turned and ran to the opening she had made, leaping out to land on top of the tall construction vehicle parked there.

Imp and I exchanged glances. Then we turned and ran after the girl, jumping through the opening together to escape the mall. Each movement aggravated the pain in my hands and arm, but I had a feeling that pain would get a hell of a lot worse if we didn't move it.

I had no idea who this Muse was, but given the choice between going with her and staying in the place with the giant fucking snake and the girl who could hurt me even when I actually used my ability, I'd take my chances with the singer.

But seriously, what the fuck kind of cheating, broken-ass power let her hurt me in shadow-form?

Unfortunately, there were two even more important questions than that. Yesterday the ABB was down to Lung and Oni Lee. Now, according to this girl, he suddenly added not just the three new capes that we'd seen, but three more on top of that? So the first question was, what kind of move was Lung gathering all these new capes for?

And second, how much of the city would be left standing after he made it?

7-06 – Emma

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

"Tyrone just turned the corner on Fifteenth and Elwood. He should be coming your way, Redshift." Tattletale's voice alerted me through the earbuds that she'd provided that same afternoon. Apparently she had paid Leet to keep them after we'd rescued Uber, Bitch, and Regent. I wasn't entirely sure of how I felt about that, but she had sworn up and down that we were using a different channel than those guys did, so there shouldn't be a problem. I still had my doubts, but they worked for now.

Besides, Alec and his sister may have some weird and complicated relationship that I didn't understand, but after what she'd gone through to help get him out of prison I doubted she'd betray him so easily.

As casually as possible, I set down the cup of coffee that I had been enjoying while spending the past twenty minutes sitting in a local restaurant's outdoor patio. My eyes took in the view across the street, panning over various pedestrians until they singled out a single guy moving rather hurriedly. He was a fairly short, dark-skinned man, barely an inch or two taller than I was. His head was shaved, and he had a red lion tattoo down one arm. I couldn't make out the tattoo from there, but Tattletale had described it.

"Got him," I replied. Lisa had been following this guy for the last couple of blocks, since the moment he had finally emerged from his apartment. We hadn't known which way he would go, so I had set up at this cafe while Nimue had been window shopping in the opposite direction. Now, she and Regent were working their way back around to the nearest of four ambush sites we had picked out. I'd wanted to have at least six locations where we could jump the guy in case he went a different direction or there happened to be people in the way at one of the others, but only four had looked right.

Thankfully, while Tyrone's path wasn't taking him anywhere near the site that would have been my first choice to jump him, the secondary location he was heading in the direction of wasn't that bad either. Assuming he didn't make any last minute turns (and we were pretty sure we know the park that was his general destination, so he shouldn't), the place we had scouted out ahead of time should work just fine. Bitch was already there to make sure the area was clear of any witnesses or interruptions, and was using the extra time to play with her dogs. I'd planned it out that way, figuring the best way of working with Rachel was to leave her on her own as much as possible, in situations where she didn't have to do anything except wait around with her beloved animals. That way she didn't have to deal with people.

Rising from my seat, I dropped a ten dollar bill on the table to cover my coffee and the tip before starting to head out. I'd barely taken a step before my regular phone buzzed in my pocket. Out of habit more than anything, I took the phone to glance at the screen. Dad. He was calling for the fourth time that day. I'd answered once and given him some vague story about being busy with some friends and that I wouldn't be home for dinner before hanging up. Since then he'd called twice more. Three now.

Sighing, I hit the button to decline the call and shoved the phone back into my pocket. I didn't need to deal with any of that shit right now. Finding Madison and her family was more important.

"Well, at least I know you've been getting my calls now," a familiar voice spoke firmly in a tone that had, for most of my life, made me regret what I'd been doing when he used it. It was the voice that spoke of groundings, of no nights sleeping over with Taylor, of hours spent doing chores.

Cursing silently, I lifted my head and stared at the man blocking my way off the patio. "Hi, Dad."

"Emma, what are you doing?" He demanded before looking me up and down. "And what in the world do you think you're wearing? Are those shorts even your size, or did you get them out of the children's department?" His eyes were staring at me like he had no idea who I was. He was also dipping into his 'lawyer voice', the kind he used while conducting hostile interviews.

"Right now?" I replied. "I'm going out to meet some friends. Maybe we'll see a movie or something."

"Oh no you're not." Dad shook his head. "You're coming home, Emma. Look, your school called. They said you weren't in class at all today or the day before. They said you haven't turned in a homework assignment in the past two weeks. Emma, they said you're in danger of failing this whole semester!"

I stared at him, mouth opening and shutting. Damn it, damn it, I didn't need this right now! I was busy, I was trying to help Madison and her family. Why wouldn't he just leave me alone? Now he cared about how I was acting? Now he paid attention to what I was doing in school? Now?

Another thought struck me then. "How did you find me?" I asked before pulling the cell back out of my pocket. "Did you fucking track my phone?" I demanded, holding it tightly while staring at him.

"How else am I supposed to find out where my own daughter is?" He demanded, arms spread wide. "Emma, that's enough. Let's go. We're going home and you are going to draft a letter to every single one of your teachers, explaining why you need a little time to make up all of the work you've missed."

"No," I replied sharply while squeezing the phone even more tightly. "I told you, I'm busy."

"I'm sorry?" Dad's voice was full of disbelief. "I didn't say this was a negotiation. You're not spending time with your friends. We are going home and you are going to work on not failing high school."

For a second, I just stared at him. Then I pivoted on one foot and hurled the cell phone as hard as I could at the nearest wall. It broke apart with a loud crack, the pieces falling into the bushes.

Then I vaulted the nearby railing while my father grabbed for my arm and missed. He was shouting my name as I sprinted away from the cafe, his voice loud with a mixture of shock and anger, with just a little bit of desperation mixed in. I heard his footsteps behind me for about half a block while he shouted my name twice more, but I didn't look back. I just ran, dodging around a few people who stopped to look. Eventually, I turned a corner and found my way to an alley. As soon as I was out of sight of the street, I jumped into my time-stop. The second the world went red around me, I ran through the nearby building and back onto the street before sprinting to catch up with our target. Damn it, damn it, damn it, Dad. Why now? Why did you have to interrupt right then? The anger, confusion, and other emotions swirled within me while I ran for almost the entire length of time that I could hold my breath. Finally, just as I was starting to strain, I spotted Tyrone. He was still across the street, about half a block ahead of me. After seeing him, I quickly ran through the wall of a nearby building and found myself in the backroom of some kind of restaurant. There were boxes of hamburger and hot dog buns stacked up. After glancing around quickly to make sure no one was in sight, I released the time-freeze, took in a couple deep breaths, then used my comm. "I'm back on Tyrone."

"Oh does he ever wish that was true," Nimue replied. Her voice was as teasing as ever, giving no indication that she had even heard any of what had gone on between my father and me, though I knew she had. They had all heard it, since I didn't mute the earpiece. I'd been too surprised, and then emotional. They had all heard that entire altercation, even if none of them were saying anything.

Flushing slightly, I pressed on. "He's getting close. Nimue, Regent, are you guys in place yet?"

"Oh, we're so ready we can taste it." Nimue's voice was a purr in my earpiece. "How much longer?"

"We'll pass you in three minutes," I replied, taking another deep breath before jumping into my time-freeze once again. Plunging back out through the wall, I jogged across the street and passed the frozen form of Tyrone. At the nearest corner, I ducked around it and squeezed myself into the semi-hidden alcove of an apartment complex that we had, again, scouted out ahead of time. One more check to make sure no one was watching, and I unfroze time. Then I simply strolled down to the sidewalk and turned the corner to put myself directly in front of Tyrone's path.

"Man," Once again, Nimue spoke, her voice full of longing. "I wish I had Tyrone's job right now."

"Tyrone's job?" Tattletale echoed. "His job in this whole operation is to get captured."

"Correction," the other girl replied, "his job is to be distracted and then get captured. Totally worth it."

I was, naturally, the distraction that Tyler was referring to. The very same clothes that Dad had objected to were the ones that were going to help us make sure that Tyrone never saw our attack coming. The shorts were tight enough that it had been a bit of a pain to get into them.

Now, I walked ahead of the guy. Without even looking, I knew where his eyes had focused as we crossed the street. I deliberately strolled the way that some of the modeling people had taught me, swaying my hips just enough to draw attention to them without being too overt about it.

Once we reached the other side of the street, I slid a pen out of my pocket. Just after passing the alleyway next to a closed butcher's shop, I dropped the pen in front of me, trying to make it look like an accident. Cursing aloud, I bent down to grab the pen off the cement, lingering just a little.

The poor guy never saw what hit him. There was the sound of an electric jolt, followed by a yelp and a thud. I turned to look over my shoulder in time to see Regent and Nimue, both in costume, dragging the man into the alley together. Both spoke in concert, "You can stay right there if you want."

Rolling my eyes, I straightened up. Inwardly, I was just glad this had worked. We'd needed to get the man to stop right in front of that alley without looking up long enough for Regent to get close with his scepter. Looking down the street while whispering a thanks that the man hadn't simply gone around me, I saw Tattletale, out of costume, approach at a jog. She carried a backpack. "Are we clear?" I asked once she was close enough.

Nodding, Lisa passed me to head into the alley. "No one's following." She paused, then looked at me and lowered her voice. "Your father's still looking, but you lost him pretty thoroughly."

My mouth opened before shutting. All I could say was, "Good." Then I followed her into the alley. The back door into what had been the butcher's shop was open, as Nimue and Regent finished dragging the man inside. Lisa and I glanced at each other, then stepped through the door, closing it after us.

Reaching into the backpack she was carrying, Lisa tossed me my costume before taking out her own. The two of us changed quickly before making our way into the other room, where we could hear the man already bitching loudly and thoroughly. He was cursing up a storm, threatening a bunch of stuff that wasn't physically possible and some other stuff that I kind of had my doubts about.

Bitch was there, accompanied by all four of her dogs. They weren't powered up yet, since the four dogs on their own had been sufficient to chase any of the homeless people out of the building and make sure it stayed empty long enough for us to use it. We hadn't been sure which of our ambush sites we'd end up using, but all of them had the benefit of being easy for a handful of dogs to secure.

Our target was struggling to stand up from the metal chair he'd been deposited in, but every time he started to stand, Regent made a lazy gesture with his hand and the man fell right back down. The chair itself had been bolted to the floor, courtesy of Rachel while she had been waiting. "Motherfuckers!" He screamed. "You know what Skidmark's gonna do to you when he finds out you're fucking with the Merchants?! He'll take that scepter and he'll fuck all your asses with it! Then he'll make you all li-"

Tugging several ropes out of the top hat that she was holding in one hand, Nimue grinned while interrupting the man's ranting. "You know you're supposed to let us make our demands before you start promising all kinds of extra, bonus things."

The man halted his shouting for a second, staring at the girl in her sexy magician's outfit before trying to lunge off the chair once more. This time, instead of Regent knocking him back down, Bitch whistled sharply. At the sound, the dogs that had been sitting docile at her feet lunged up and started barking loudly as they came for the man, who shrieked while jerking backwards against the chair.

"Thanks, babe," Nimue nodded to the other girl before tossing out the handful of ropes she had been holding. Seemingly of their own accord, the ropes wrapped themselves around the man's chest and legs, securing him tightly to his seat so that he couldn't move. "Mmm, I do like someone who looks good in restraints," she teased, drawing the man's attention to her before giving him a tip of her top hat. "Maybe if you answer all our questions nice and quickly, we could find another way to use them."

While the man was still trying to figure out how to react to that, I nudged Tattletale. "Sure you don't need any help or anything?" I asked under my breath.

She gave me a vulpine smile and shook her head. "Don't worry. I've got this." Then she moved in front of the man, blocking his view of Nimue. "Good evening, Tyrone."

"How the fuck do you know my name?" The man demanded, jerking a bit in his chair as he looked around. "Wait, right, I know you bitches. Undersiders. What the fuck you messing with me for? You think you can get in on Merchant turf? You think you can roll up on us just cuz we're laying low for a few days, huh? You got another thing coming, bitch."

"How do we know your name?" Lisa considered for a moment before shaking her head. "Pretty sure you already know who sold you out, Tyrone. Do I really need to spell it out for you?"

The man was silent for a second before blurting, "Lenny?! That son of a bitch! That stupid son of a bitch! I told him I'd bring his fucking money! What'd you give him, huh? How much did that cocksucker take to point you to me?"

The truth was that we had no idea who this 'Lenny' was. We'd simply followed a low-level, nobody drug pusher the previous evening. He'd obviously had no idea where the Merchants would be keeping any of their prisoners, but he had been the first step. Nimue had lifted the creep's phone from his pocket without him noticing, and Tattletale had used her power to get past his password. Then it had been a simple matter to go through his text history and find the member of the Merchants that he reported to, the non-cape lieutenant that happened to be sitting right in front of us now. As far as we could tell, Tyrone was pretty high up in the Merchant structure, even if he wasn't a cape himself.

Tilting her head to the side after the man's outburst, Lisa smiled faintly. "Lenny figured out what was in his own best interest and what wasn't. Besides, are you really that surprised?"

"Fuck no," Tyrone spat at the floor, glaring at Tattletale. "You're that bitch that gets into people's heads, ain't ya? That what you did to Lenny? Well it ain't gonna work with me, cunt. Only one thing you could do with that mouth that'd convince me to tell you a god damn thing."

Rather than rise to that bait, Tattletale simply paused before asking the man, "Do you know where the Merchants are keeping the hostages they kidnapped?"

"Huh?" The man blurted. "Like I'd tell you!"

"Okay, yes you do." Nodding at that, Tattletale went on. "Are they being kept in the city?"

"Fuck you, stupid cunt!" Tyrone shouted.

"Yes," Lisa repeated with a pleased tone. "Thank you, Tyrone, you're being very cooperative. Now, are all the hostages alive and safe?" This time, the man said nothing at all. He just glared for a couple seconds. Still, the blonde girl waited before nodding. "Right, safe enough, maybe a few minor injuries."

"How the fuck would you know that?!" Tyrone demanded then. "What the hell kind of mind-reading bitch do you think you are?!"

"Let's play a game," Tattletale held a hand out, and Regent passed her a rolled up poster. When she unfurled it, the poster showed a street map of the city. "Tyrone, where are the Merchants keeping their prisoners?"

After asking that question, she moved her finger over the map slowly, starting in what we knew was generally considered Merchant territory. Her eyes were locked on the captured man, watching his reactions while she gradually traced her finger along the road. "Up this way? Hmm? No? That's kind of surprising, but okay. Then we're going down here? Oh, now we're getting warmer. Are they down here? This way? Huh, are you sure? Yeah, okay, this way then."

Through it all, Tyrone said nothing. His mouth was clamped shut and he kept shaking his head back and forth rapidly. Once in awhile, he would blurt a curse word.

"Up here?" Lisa tapped a part of the map. "Tyrone, are you sure they're keeping the prisoners up here? Okay then, if you insist." Straightening, she turned to me with her finger on the map. "There. The Merchants are keeping their hostages right there."

"Are you sure?" I asked quietly, glancing at the spot on the map.

Her response was a sly grin. "Of course I'm sure.

"Tyrone there told me everything I wanted to know."

7-07 – Taylor

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

The still tranquility of the lake was shattered by the sudden, loud squawk of an annoyed bird who had nearly been caught and dragged out of the sky by the soaring fishing line and hook.

"Oh jeeze!" Payton blurted, covering her mouth with one hand while her other hand clutched the fishing rod that had almost yanked the bird out of the sky. She'd been casting her line out into the lake from the edge of the rock and mud covered beach where she, Gregor, Elle, and I were. "Um, whoops."

My view had launched itself from Gregor to Payton at the sound of the bird's cry, and I watched through her eyes as she looked after the rapidly departing flying figure. "Sorry!" She called.

"He was unharmed," Gregor assured her while putting a hand on her shoulder. "Although I find myself curious as to how one with powers such as yours could come so close to accidentally doing such a thing."

"I... was distracted." The girl mumbled her reply. I felt embarrassment rush through Payton's mind that was centered almost entirely on the position of Gregor's hand. At first, I thought the emotion she felt when he touched her was disgust and indignant anger of my own rose up briefly. But no, that wasn't it. She was... huh, what was that emotion?

Realizing probably too late that I was prying, I tried to focus on moving my vision out of the girl and into an overhead view. It took me longer than I would have liked, but eventually I managed to switch vision modes. Now I could see the rest of this side of the beach and part of the lake where all four of our fishing lines were. Elle had tossed mine for me, then carefully set the rod itself in my hand. Obviously, if there was any kind of tug at the line someone else was going to have to do something with it since I wasn't plugged into the mobility suit, but it was the thought that counted. The point was to make me feel like I was participating, even if I couldn't move with anything even resembling speed.

It was Tuesday evening, and the sun was on its way down, casting its last rays over the water. The four of us had decided to come out and try fishing as a way of calming down and relaxing after what had ended up being an intense day of training. For all of Faultline's talk of vacation, she still worked her team hard for several hours a day. In my case, about half that time had been learning sign language while the other half had been simply repeatedly moving my arms without the aid of the suit. While the other team members had been running laps, lifting weights, and sparring, I had been sitting in the middle of the dock, repeatedly lifting and lowering my arm, stretching it from side to side, and so on.

My body was sitting in a simple, if kind of ugly looking green lawn chair, while Elle crouched beside me. Her own pole was set carefully against a large rock, and she was dutifully stacking more rocks into a small tower beside it for reasons that I couldn't begin to fathom. Her tongue poked slightly out of the corner of her mouth while she focused intently on her work, stacking those rocks carefully.

"So what's the deal with this whole White Company thing, anyway?" Payton asked after making sure that her own fishing line was properly set after her near-mishap. "Is Faultline meeting with their leader something bad?"

That's where Faultline was at the moment. After the day of training, she had informed us that she was meeting the White Company leader over dinner. And that was their actual leader, not just Frontier the field leader of the particular group we'd run into in Vegas, but their founder. Apparently the man wanted to chat about what had happened then.

"They have met before," Gregor informed her. "Their relationship is not particularly friendly, though it is not quite that of enemies either."

"Have they slept together?" Payton's voice was curious.

Gregor paused at that before shaking his head. "I do not know, but I do not believe so. Much of their relationship is unknown to me, but I believe it remains professional only."

Lifting her head, the red-haired girl asked, "She's gotta be annoyed though, right? I mean, if this guy's used all his old Protectorate contacts to build this huge international mercenary group. I looked it up, White Company employs three quarters of all successful mercenary capes that are based in North America and Europe. Everyone else is just small potatoes compared to them."

"He was a founding member of the Protectorate before splitting away from them to form White Company," Gregor reminded her. "He possesses a great many resources unavailable to most capes. Whatever bad blood there may be between him and Triumvirate for his defection, others within the Protectorate organization feel a strong loyalty to the man. Hero is still, after all, known as the greatest tinker in the world. His success is not a surprise."

"Yeah, well, I hope Faultline's meeting with him goes okay." Payton shook her head before focusing on where Elle and I were. "Hey, girls, what do you say we make a game out of this whole fishing thing? The two that catch the most fish before we stop wins?"

Elle was silent at first, gingerly setting a fifth fist-sized rock on top of the previous four before she spoke up abruptly. "Taylor?" Her tone was questioning, while she looked back toward my body.

With a thought, I projected my consciousness partly into Elle's mind. Not enough to be drawn into her other worlds quite yet, but enough that she could hear my thoughts. It was as easy to make happen with her as it was difficult to control any other time. Think we can catch more fish than they can?

"Uh huh," Elle answered aloud. I saw her hands carefully stacking a sixth rock on top of her makeshift stone tower. "If you want to." She very gently adjusted the rocks as the tower wobbled somewhat.

Okay, I gave a mental shrug. I've never really fished before, but sure. Let's kick the pants off them.

"Taylor says we will kick your pants," Elle informed Payton rather primly while looking up at her.

Laughing easily, the other girl raised an eyebrow at Elle. My subconscious tried to flinch and hiss at the sight of a pretty red-head laughing, but I shut it down as hard as I could. Payton wasn't Emma, and her laugh hadn't been mean-spirited. In fact, the girl had been doing pretty much all she could to make sure I was included in everything that we did. Hell, she'd gone out of her way to ask if Elle and I wanted to fish with her and Gregor while the rest of the team besides Faultline were watching a movie inside. She was about as far from Emma as it was possible to be, and I wasn't going to let my stupid subconscious ruin this evening.

"Well then," Payton announced. "For the glory of our pants, may the best fishing partners win."

Gregor shook his head, chuckling. "More competition," he spoke ruefully before shrugging. "Ah well."

So how are we doing this? I asked. You wanna take my line and I'll try to keep my attention on the fish in the water so you know where to cast? I don't think winning a fishing competition counts as combat.

Elle patted the top of her rock tower gingerly while answering with a single word, "Exploring."

I knew what she meant by that word. She wanted the two of us to go into one of her worlds together, the way we had been mapping them out ever since we found out that she could pull me in with her. I gave another mental shrug at that.Okay, I'm not sure how that helps us catch fish, but let's do it.

With another thought, I was no longer seeing through Elle's eyes. Instead, I was standing in the middle of what at first glance appeared to be a simple forest. A slightly closer look, however, revealed that the trunks of the trees themselves were actually a wildly diverse assortment of tall clocks of various shapes. Branches and leaves sprouted from the body of the clocks themselves, while the ongoing sound of their perfectly synced ticking gave the forest of clocks its own sort of heartbeat.

Even now, after doing this so many times in the past couple of weeks that it was second-nature, I was still amazed by the sights within Elle's other-worlds. Hell, the simple fact that I could even join her in them was absolutely amazing. Why? What was so special about me that I, out of everyone else, could actually go into the worlds that Elle did. She couldn't pull anyone else into these other worlds. Until I had come along, she had always been completely alone when her power forced her attention out here, incapable of expressing herself very well. She'd tried to pull other people in after figuring out what she could do with me, but it didn't work. Only I could jump into these worlds with Elle, and none of us could figure out why that was. What had I done to deserve to see such beautiful, astonishing sights? The two of us had explored volcanoes, glaciers, mountains, and even an entire empty city where the buildings were made of a glowing seashell type material. And yet every time we came in here, there was something new and exciting to see. And I had no idea why Iwas able to see them.

"Wow," I spoke slowly while turning in a circle to take in the entire sight. My eyes found Elle standing next to a tall Grandfather clock-tree. "I guess you never lose track of what time it is in this place."

Patting the clock beside her, Elle gave me a bright, cheerful smile and wave. "Hi, Taylor!" She sounded genuinely excited to see me in here again, practically bouncing while stepping forward to catch my hand. "Come on," she turned while pulling me on through the clock forest. "We have to catch the fish."

Laughing in spite of myself at her enthusiasm, I let myself be pulled that way, glancing around curiously as we passed dozens of woodland time-keepers. "So, Elle, do you have a plan about how to catch all those fish from in here, or are we just sort of winging it?"

"Plan," she assured me while continuing to jog through the forest. "But we have to find it." Her head shook ruefully. "I remember the clocks were near it, but I don't remember where it is."

"No problem," I replied while squeezing her hand. "We'll find it, but what exactly are we looking for?"

She told me, and I laughed in spite of myself. "Oh damn. That is definitely going to help us win."

Together, the two of us jogged through the forest. Several times, the leaves of the trees around us shifted to show a view of the outside world whenever Gregor or Payton addressed Elle. She gave a few distracted answers, but it was probably clear to them that she wasn't paying attention. Which, I suppose must have been made abundantly clear as soon as my body had vanished from its spot on the chair.

Eventually, we reached the edge of the forest of clocks. A roaring noise had gradually overtaken the sound of the ticking, and I figured out why immediately. Ahead there was a wide river that led to a waterfall cascading down over a cliff. Though waterfall was probably the wrong word, since whatever was flowing through this river and tumbling down the side of the mountain wasn't water at all. It was a bright, amethyst color, and looked somewhat thicker than water should have been. After glancing toward Elle, who nodded, I crouched down and touched the flowing liquid before cupping some of it in my hand and lifting it up. It was indeed thicker than water, and felt warm to my skin.

"Hit it," Elle instructed. She balled her fist up and punched the air before gesturing to the purple river.

Blinking at that, I shrugged before making a fist of my own. I punched the flowing liquid. As soon as I hit it, however, that part of the river solidified somewhat. It went from being flowing liquid to being an almost jello-like substance, then solidified further until my fist stopped entirely. The concussive force of my punch made the liquid solidify just enough to catch and slow my hand gently before returning to its liquid shape a couple of seconds later so that it could continue to flow around my hands.

"You see?" Elle smiled before smacking both of her open hands, palm down, against the liquid. Again, it solidified enough to stop her hands the instant they struck, then reverted to normal a second later.

"Damn, Elle," I tried to punch the liquid again before raising an eyebrow. "This stuff is pretty cool." I let the liquid play through my fingers a little before straightening. "Actually, it could be really useful."

"It could?" She asked, head tilting curiously at me while letting her fingers dance through the river.

I nodded. "Sure, some kind of ballistic protection gel like this? Does Faultline know about it?"

Her head shook absently. "I didn't think it was important. Anything I take out of here comes back when I stop using it anyway." Biting her lip, Elle added, "And I can't bring her in to show her the river."

"Well," I suggested, "Maybe I can carry some out with me." When the other girl just blinked curiously at me, I went on. "You bring my body in and send it out, right? So maybe I can carry something out with me when I go. Like..." I looked around. "I don't have anything to carry the liquid, but let's test it with this." Reaching down, I plucked up a single rock and showed it to her."When we go back out again, we'll see if I get to bring this with me and keep it." Then I hesitated as a thought struck me before showing the rock to her again. "Is that okay? I mean, all this stuff pretty much belongs to you, Elle. Do you mind if I take it out with me? We don't have to do any of this if you don't want to."

"It's mine," the blonde confirmed before setting her hand on my shoulder, squeezing a little bit while her smile brightened as she continued. "And you are my friend, Taylor. So it's yours too."

My mouth opened and then shut, my throat closing up a little as my attempt to speak failed. I looked away, blinking rapidly a couple of times to clear my vision. "Elle," I managed to get out before having to swallow hard past the lump in my throat. I tried again, but all I could say was a completely inadequate, "You are my friend. And I wish I'd met you a long time ago."

"So do I, Taylor." Her head bobbed in agreement before she pointed. "But we are not going to catch enough fish if we don't hurry. I remember it was past the purple jello river. We still have very far to go."

Looking down at the rock in my hand that had prompted all of that, I carefully tucked it into my pocket. For such a simple thing, I suddenly treasured it. Which was silly, really. It was just a rock after all, barely more than a pebble. There was nothing special about it whatsoever. Except that there was. It was special not for what it was, but because it was Elle'srock. And for me, that suddenly meant I wouldn't have traded it for all the money in the world. She was my friend, my real, true friend. That mattered more to me in that moment than anything else possibly could have.

"Right," I finally managed after pushing that rush of emotion down. I sniffed once before straightening while blinking my eyes to clear more dampness from them. "So let's go win this game, huh?"

Together, Elle and I backed up a few yards before sprinting forward. We ran right across the top of the river, the liquid solidifying under our pounding footsteps just long enough for us to take the next step. On the other side, we continued down a slope that eventually led to a wooden bridge across a wide chasm. Elle knew where she was going by that point, and over the next couple of hours she led me eventually to what looked like a lake similar to the one in the real world. This one, however, had a bunch of stone pillars sticking up out of the middle of it, with wide-rimmed bowls in the top roughly five feet across. They looked like giant stone birdbaths.

As the two of us stood on the edge of that lake, we could see the real-world reflected in its surface. Gregor was standing there, watching where Elle's body still knelt curiously. His voice warned, "You two may wish to hurry with whatever you are doing. We have captured five fish between us so far, and you have still captured none. "

Smirking in spite of myself, I looked toward the other girl. "So, you wanna tortoise the shit out of their rabbit?"

Grinning back at me, Elle bobbed her head once. "Yes. Let us be tortoises. And you are both a teenager and you fight very well, so you may be a teenage ninja tortoise."

My groan faded into a laugh. "Okay, okay. Let's do this."

With another nod, Elle focused beside me. One by one, the stone birdbath things vanished from where they were. Squinting at the image of the real world in the water, I could see the pillars rising gradually, one after another lifting out of the water there, right where Elle was aiming them.

"My turn," I waved a hand and then Elle focused on me. There was a slight feeling of disorientation, and then I was sitting back on the beach beside Payton and Gregor, who were staring out at the stone pillars. My vision was once again a wide-open view of everything around me, and all of us could see at least ten fish jumping and splashing in the top of the various water-filled stone bowls.

"There," Elle announced happily after rising to her feet. I noticed then that the stack of stones she had been making a couple hours earlier looked a lot like the things now rising out of the lake. "Are we counting them now?" She asked with a hint of a mischievous glint in her eyes.

After staring at the stone pillars for another moment, Payton slowly shook her head. "You know what?" She announced. "I think we're just going to assume you guys won."

"Yay!" Elle cheered. "We are ninja tortoises. Right, Taylor?"

"Ninja... tortoises?" Gregor echoed, his confusion readily apparent.

My hand finally obeyed the order I'd been sending it ever since my body had reappeared, slipping its way down to my pocket where I found the rock resting right where I had put it. I smiled, the gesture coming naturally to my face.

I didn't know what was going to happen when we did this mission that Faultline had signed us up for. I still hadn't figured out how I felt about the idea of stealing technology from a group of heroes just to give it to a known criminal. Part of me felt like I should have felt worse than I did about it, but I couldn't really find it in me to care all that much. After all that Faultline and the others had done for me, they mattered more to me than some idea of what was legal and what wasn't.

Yeah, Elle. I replied inwardly then after taking the time to make my hand lift itself into a gradual thumbs up. Ninja tortoises. You and me.

Because right or wrong, legal or illegal, when it came down to loyalty to the law or loyalty to my friends, I knew which one I'd choose at this point.

It wasn't even a question.

7-08 – Emma

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

"Pssst." Crouched behind the air conditioning vent on top of the motel roof, I hissed again quietly.

That time, the rifle-toting Merchant thug who had been leaning slightly off the roof to peer at the street below turned toward me. His gun came up to his shoulder while he took a step my way, then one more. "Who's there?" He demanded to know. "Fucking Dwayne, if you're screwing with me again, I swear-"

I froze time, letting the red haze come over my vision before rising from my hiding place. Trotting around the now-motionless man, I plucked the stun gun from my belt. Moving right up behind the guard, I positioned myself to set the weapon as close to him as I could. Then I restarted time and shoved the stun gun right up to his side while pressing the trigger. The man jerked instantly as the electricity coursed through him, his body seizing up before he started to collapse.

Freezing time again, I moved around to his front. He'd released the gun in the process of falling, and I put my hands near it before releasing my power. The rifle fell right into my hands, and I immediately used my power a third time. Taking a step back, I carefully set the rifle on the ground a safe distance away. As soon as I released it and stepped away, the gun was as frozen as everything else.

By then, the stunned guard was about halfway down. I moved back to him and positioned my hands near his coat. After taking a moment to brace myself, I released the time-freeze while simultaneously grabbing with my hands. My fingers caught hold of the man's coat just before he would have hit the ground hard. His weight yanked me off balance, but I was able to slow his fall so that he hit much more quietly than he would have. Between that and catching his gun, there had been almost no sound.

"Thanks," I whispered to the man while he twitched and spasmed. "I was afraid you'd fall off the roof completely if you didn't come closer. Can you imagine the racket that would've made?"

The man was still twitching, but I was able to get the gist of his response, which amounted to me doing anatomically impossible things to myself. Tutting, I rose and moved back to the rifle that I had set down. Lifting it up, I carefully examined the weapon. I didn't know a lot about guns, but this one looked nice. It had a scope and everything. I checked the chamber the way Tattletale had explained, then pointed it at the man. He had time to realize what I was doing before I pulled the trigger.

There was a whuff of air, and then the dart within the rifle shot out to smack the man in the leg. He jerked before groaning out loud as the energy left his body entirely. Then he was unconscious.

Using my com, I spoke quietly. "Good news, Tattletale. You were right about the gun he had. Tranquilizer rounds. Are-" I looked around once more to verify that no one else was up here on the roof, then reached down to take the man's radio from his belt. With the weapon and the radio in hand, I froze time before throwing myself off the roof. Gradually, I floated across the street away from the motel and toward the higher roof of the building across the street, where Tattletale herself was waiting.

Landing beside the other girl, I let time resume while continuing, "-you sure you can use it though?"

Lisa jumped a bit at my sudden appearance before squinting at me. "You enjoy doing that, don't you?"

I shrugged, smiling a little behind the mask. "Maybe a little bit. Seriously though, you can use this?"

She took the gun from me, checked it, then raised the rifle to peer through the scope at the motel below, scanning it over the lot where a handful of the Merchant thugs were moving around, calling threats and raunchy jokes to each other. "Yeah, I've got it. Thanks, now I can cover you guys from here."

This motel was where the Merchants were keeping their prisoners. It was one of those cheap, exterior-access places. The place was a three story affair shaped like a U, with the parking lot in the middle and the manager's office right at the base of it. There were stairways on both sides and both ends, and there were at least Merchants on every walkway in addition to the ones in the lot, most of them openly armed. The hostages were being kept in each of the guest rooms.

Nodding, I used my comm again. "Okay, let's go through it. Nimue, are you in position?"

"Babe," her reply came back immediately. "There's a whole lot of positions I could be in right now that would make you super-happy. You have no idea. But I suppose this one'll have to do for now."

"I'll, uhh, take that as a yes." Flushing slightly in spite of myself, I went on. "Regent are you... ready?"

"Ready to hear more about those positions, sure." I could hear the smirk in Regent's voice before he went on. "And yeah, sure, I'm where you wanted me to be too. Are we doing this or what?"

"Almost," I assured him before moving on. "Bitch? How close are you?"

"Close," came her short, grunted reply. There was a pause before she added hesitantly, "I think."

Wincing, I moved to the other side of the roof. If Rachel was nearby, I should be able to see her.

"There," Tattletale pointed from beside me, and my eyes found the girl in question just as she came around a corner. She'd only brought three of her dogs this time, leaving both of the new ones, the Dalmatian Phoebe and the bulldog Bentley behind. Rachel had said that she wasn't sure about their training just yet, especially around a bunch of probably panicked hostages. Actually, the words she'd used had been 'stupid useless fucking crybabies', but I'd gotten the gist of it.

The dogs weren't quite at their full size yet, but they were still pretty damn big. Bitch was leading them down the street, and I was about to confirm that she was right where she needed to be when a large figure abruptly appeared out of nowhere directly behind Rachel and between two of her dogs.

"Bitch!" I called over the comm as my eyes went wide. "Behind yo-"

She was already turning, even as the big man stretched both of his hands and one of his feet out. He kicked at one of the dogs while grabbing hold of the other two. As soon as he touched them, all three animals and the man himself vanished from sight, disappearing instantly.

"What the fuck," I blurted in shock. "That's not—the Merchants don't have..." I was floundering.

"They don't have one of those either," Tattletale pointed out as a figure moving at blurring speeds rushed straight at Rachel. We could barely make out the form before Bitch was hit hard enough to knock her to the ground. Lisa raised the rifle, but shook her head. "They're moving too fast, I'd miss."

Cursing, I leapt off the roof, letting myself fall for a second before using my power. That red glow came back, and I guided myself toward the ensuing brawl that was taking place within three blocks of the Merchant's motel base. What the hell was going on? The Merchants didn't have a teleporter or someone with super speed. Had they been recruiting? And if not, who the fuck were these people?

Landing on the ground, I saw Rachel frozen in the midst of lunging to her feet while throwing a wild, completely inaccurate punch about three feet to the side of where the other figure had moved to.

As for the second figure, it was definitely female. She was dressed like a ninja, with a black and blue color scheme. Her face was obscured by a black helmet with a visor and blue mesh covering her mouth.

I was going to have to breathe soon, so I hurried to set myself close to the speedster. Then I kicked out as hard as I could. At the last instant, I set time back to normal while hissing, "Get away from her!"

The girl may have been fast, but she wasn't that fast. My foot nailed her in the middle of the chest, knocking her to the ground with a surprised cry. Her figure blurred again as she rolled, and I used my own power just in time to see her frozen in mid-lunge toward me. Sidestepping, I put myself beside the girl and positioned my hands before releasing the freeze. My hands caught hold of her arm and I gave her a quick, hard yank that put her on the ground on her stomach before putting my knee into her back.

"Boy, you Merchants must've been real busy recruiting," I mused aloud before demanding, "Now where are the dogs?" I twisted her arm a little bit. "Where did that guy take them?"

Bitch was already rushing forward, foot raised to kick the girl in the face. Before she could, another figure leapt into her path. I caught a glimpse of gleaming gold before Bitch went tumbling to the ground. Then that gold figure put a foot on Rachel's back, effortlessly holding her in place just as a single dart from Tattletale's appropriated rifle rebounded harmlessly off her.

"Myriad, stop!" The figure beneath me called. "Everybody, stop! Just wait!"

The golden girl, Myriad apparently, froze. "Aevum?" She asked questioningly while frowning at me. Now that I had a better look at her, I saw that she really was gold. She wore no mask, and her entire body looked like the figurine mounted on top of a trophy.

"We're not Merchants," the figure beneath my knee announced. "And we're not working for them. Are you trying to say that you're not working with them either, Undersiders?"

I paused, glancing in the direction of Tattletale up on the far roof, "You know who we are?"

"Of course," the girl whose arm I was holding replied. "We pay attention to who the capes are in any city we go to. You're the Undersiders, and you lost your leader a few days ago when he switched sides. We figured that was when the rest of you joined up with the Merchants."

"We're not with them," I informed her. "We're robbing them and freeing their hostages."

"And we're here to free the hostages too," she replied carefully. "So could you let me go so that my teammates will relax a little bit and we can talk this out?"

After thinking about it for a second, I nodded and straightened up slowly, taking my knee off of the girl's back while releasing her arm. Then I stepped away from her while speaking to the golden girl. "Fine, let Bitch up then. And tell us where the dogs are before she tears one of your throats out."

Taking her foot off of Rachel, Myriad stepped away. "They're fine. Tag just teleported them out of the way so they wouldn't howl and let the Merchants know something was up."

The other girl, Aevum I supposed, picked herself up while adding, "He'll bring them back if you can keep them quiet."

Bitch started to snarl, but I interrupted in as firm a voice as I could manage. I didn't want Rachel to start another fight, but I didn't want her to think I was being too soft or just rolling over either. I had to show I was in charge. "Just bring them back. Let Bitch worry about not alerting everyone."

Aevum paused before nodding as she murmured something too quiet for me to hear. A moment later, all three of the dogs reappeared with the tall figure, who I now saw was wearing what looked like a SWAT outfit with the color scheme changed to green and white. He released the dogs and took a quick step back as they whirled on him, snarling furiously.

"Bitch," I spoke simply before nodding to them. "We can't let the Merchants know something's up."

She was practically snarling as much as the dogs were, but Rachel silenced them with a single word. With another word, the three massive animals positioned themselves around her and sat down.

Aevum paused, glancing to the giant dogs briefly before speaking, "Okay, now that that's settled. No, we're not here to help the Merchants. Like I said, we're here for the hostages. Well, to be specific, we're here for a specific girl that we think they're holding hostage, but we might as well free all of them."

I hesitated, thinking quickly. Mercenaries or bounty hunters from outside of the city, I realized. Probably hired by the PRT. "The mayor's niece," I said aloud. "She's the one you're looking for."

"Got it in one," the girl confirmed. "I'm Aevum, that's Myriad, and the guy is Tag." She gestured to her two companions before adding, "Paracosm and Entropy are nearby, but they should stay in position."

"Yeah, we've got a few of our own like that." I used my comm then. "You guys still good?" Tattletale, Nimue, and Regent confirmed that they were ready, and I nodded to Aevum. "We're good."

The other girl was quiet for a second before inclining her head. "Okay, so if we're both here to free the hostages, we should coordinate. Much better chance of pulling this off without anyone getting hurt if we're working together instead of getting in each other's way."

"No, fuck you," Rachel spat. "We wouldn't work with you if you-"

"Bitch," I interrupted, putting a hand on her shoulder. "There's more important things than fighting with these guys right now." She twisted her shoulder free while I added, "And if any of them come near you or your dogs again, you can do whatever you want to them."

She glared at me for a second before looking away while muttering that I was damn right she would. But she didn't object further, and her glare hadn't been nearly as hate-filled as I'd expected.

"Right," Tag spoke up, folding his arms over his chest. "Not touching the dogs, got it." Looking toward Aevum, he added, "So are we really working with these guys, boss?"

Instead of answering immediately, the girl continued to study me for a few seconds before speaking. "I guess the Undersiders have a leader after all." Then she nodded. "Let's talk about how we can do this together."

"Works for me," I replied simply. "But cross us and you'll regret it."


"Come one, come all!" Tyler's loud voice called from the center of the parking lot where she had just swept off her invisibility cloak to reveal herself. "Witness the awesome Nimue as she delights," she continued while stretching her arms out grandly, the cloak shimmering in one hand. "And amazes."

"It's that Undersider bitch!" One of the men blurted after they had recovered from the surprise of her unexpected entrance.

From where I was crouched on the roof of the motel, I saw Nimue shake her head at that as she replied, "Nah dude, that's the girl with the dogs. Honestly, you really should be able to tell us apart."

The thugs up on the walkways between motel rooms were already moving to see what was going on, while one of the guys below took a step closer to Nimue while yanking his pistol out of his waistband. "It's just one stupid cunt," he spat the words while taking aim. "Let's end her and get on with the party."

The man pulled the trigger, but just before he did, his hand jerked a little bit and his shot was sent off toward the ground. He tried again, only for his hand to twist the other way that time, throwing his aim off once more. "What the fuck?!" The man blurted, and I had to smile. Regent was clearly enjoying himself.

Stepping closer to the man, Nimue tutted regretfully. "A party? And I wasn't invited? Man, you do not know what you're missing." Tipping her top hat to him, she added, "There's not a single party I haven't improved. Not even that one for the purity, no fun times before marriage club." She was grinning without a hint of self-consciousness as she added, "Though the club president did have to resign and turn in her ring afterward."

Beside me, Aevum choked a little. "Is she serious?"

"You know what?" I answered honestly. "I can't tell anymore."

Regardless, Nimue definitely had everyone's attention by that point. The thug who had been shooting at her sneered. "You think you're hot stuff, huh?" His hand moved behind Tyler, grabbing at her backside. "We'll show you what a real party is."

Rather than jump, twist away, or do anything else to stop the man from groping her, Nimue just smiled. "Oh you poor little boy. Is that supposed to shock me? Because I have news for you." Holding up her hand, she showed him her empty palm before clasping it into a fist. "I'm the shocking one."

With that, there was a sudden jolt of electricity over Nimue's costume, and the man with his hand on her was thrown to the ground with a loud, high-pitched squeal.

Aevum started to rise at that, but I caught her arm. "Wait, not yet."

Below, one of the other thugs had lunged toward Nimue with a knife. She spun, flipping the hat off her head to her hand. The blade and most of the man's arm disappeared into the open end of the hat, just before she gave it a twist while simultaneously kicking out with her foot at the side of the man's knee. His leg was knocked out from under him, and the man fell, his trapped arm snapping in the process.

Pulling the hat free of the man's arm, his knife no longer held in his hand, Nimue proceeded to practically dance her way through several more of the thugs trying to attack her. A couple further back tried to use guns, but Regent was able to handle them without too much trouble.

From his spot on the ground where she had thrown him, one of the men blurted, "Fucking bitch!"

"Now see, I'm really starting to think that you guys aren't paying attention," the magician tinker lamented while pivoting toward the man. "One more time, I'm Nimue. This is how I make an entrance. Bitch's entrance is... well..." She gestured past them.

"Go, Bitch." I said into my comm. "You're on."

The men spun toward the rear of the lot nearest the manager's office in time to see three massive figures leap down from the middle of the roof where Rachel and her dogs had been positioning themselves while Nimue distracted everyone. Bitch was riding on Judas, and all three animals were enormous enough that their landing shook the ground around them before they let out a chorus of deafening howls.

"That," Nimue informed them. "Is how Bitch makes an entrance."

The giant dogs lunged into the crowd of men, who were taken entirely by surprise and were barely able to put up a fight. Meanwhile, Aevum spoke a single word and I saw Tag teleport not just one, but freaking half a dozen different versions of Myriad (apparently she could duplicate herself) onto each of the motel walkways. The Myriads quickly began to work their way through the guards there who were trying to focus on the fight below them.

"Guys in the corner," Aevum spoke up then, and I looked to see two men at the back of the lot. Both were using the decorative wall as cover while taking careful aim at the nearest dog with what looked like heavy duty rifles. She continued with, "Entropy, you're on."

As soon as she said it, one of the supposed Merchant thugs who had been hanging back out of the way swept his ratty old coat and hat off, revealing a figure in a modified race car driver jumpsuit and red mask. He put himself in the path of the gunmen just as they opened up with a hail of gunfire. All of it poured in toward Entropy, only for all of the bullets fly off into the sky as soon as they got anywhere near him.

Finally, the door of the manager's office flew open and two of the remaining Merchant capes, Benjamins and Skidmark, came rushing out. As they appeared, I nodded to Aevum while grabbing the backpack that had been sitting beside me. That was what the two of us had been waiting for. The other girl leapt from the roof to the railing below, then from there to the next railing, and then to the ground. All of it came in rapid succession. I, on the other hand, just froze time and descended to the ground.

Time started up again just in time for me to hear Skidmark bellow, "All right you donkey ass licking sperm stains! Settle the fuck down, or my boys here might just add a few holes to all our fucking hostages!" He gestured back toward where the men with the heavy rifles were. "Anyone moves and they open up on every room in this place, you dumbfucks!"

"Actually," Aevum spoke up from the direction that he had been gesturing. He spun around to find her standing over the now-unconscious thugs. "You might want to be the one that doesn't move, Ski-" She stopped, sighing. "Look, do you have a serious name? Because Skidmark has to be a mistake."

"You wanna see a mistake?" Skidmark recovered quickly from his surprise. "I'll show you a mistake."

He nodded toward Benjamins, and the other man lifted his hand to show the coin that he was holding. "You want th-"

"Tattletale," I spoke sharply. As soon as I did, there was the sound of something shooting past me, and Benjamins stopped in mid-sentence with one of the tranquilizer darts sticking out of his back. He blinked twice in confusion, then collapsed while muttering something about that not being fair.

"That's it, you stupid snot-swallowing incompetent little-" Skidmark began.

While he was talking, I froze time. Quickly pulling the backpack off my shoulders, I ran forward while unzipping it. Positioning myself in front of Skidmark and a few yards away, I reached into the open bag and tugged out a baseball. Rearing back, I threw it as hard as I could toward the man. It flew about a foot away from my hand before freezing in the air, the same as everything else.

I repeated that with about a dozen more balls, all aimed slightly differently and from all sides. The air was full of frozen baseballs when I finally stepped back and let time resume.

"-fucktards!" Skidmark finished, just as he was hit from all sides by all those balls hitting him like a dozen punches. He collapsed with a cry, the sudden assault taking him completely by surprise.

"Don't-" I started to say before freezing time. Running straight at the man, I kicked out hard and released my power just in time for my foot to nail the man right in the face. "-fucking move!"

And with that, it was over. Everyone who was still standing took one look at what had happened to their leader and the other cape that was with him, as well as the rest of their friends, and surrendered.


"Damn it!" I came out of the last motel room and shook my head. "They're not here."

Aevum, standing nearby, winced. "The ones you were looking for? Yeah, the Alcott girl isn't here either. How many hostages did you count?"

"Forty-six," I replied. When she nodded her agreement with that number, I turned to stalk into the lot.

Tattletale met me partway, a heavy bag already on her shoulder. In the distance, I could see Bitch, Regent, and Nimue loading up larger bags that the dogs would be carrying. "We need to go," Lisa informed me tersely. "Cops are on their way. Any luck?"

I shook my head and walked past her, kicking the trussed up Skidmark, who groaned in pain. "Hey, there's only forty-six hostages here. That's less than half of the ones you took. Where are the rest of them?"

Rolling onto his side, Skidmark sneered up at me, letting me see his yellowed and missing teeth. "Oh, the rest of 'em?" He asked, sounding smug. "You think we'd be stupid enough to keep 'em all in one fucking place? Hell naw, Greaser and Mush took the rest out of the city, just in case something like this happened. And before you ask, ain't none of us know where they are now. That's the whole fucking point. They're out of our reach, so we can't squeal to you or the cops. We get caught, and they, ahhh, negotiate for our release."

The sirens were nearly to us by that point as he finished, smug as ever, "And if the cops don't fucking let all of us go? Those hostages all fucking die."

7-09 – Madison

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

My fitful, fairly restless sleep was interrupted the next morning by a knock at the door of the room that doubled as my prison cell. The knock returned a few seconds later while I blearily blinked my eyes and tried to orient myself, before an unfamiliar yet polite voice spoke up. "Miss Archive? Are you decent?"

For a second, I stared at the door in disbelief. The memory of why I had been so upset the night before came rushing back, and I groaned. Trevor. Trevor had been involved with that stupid fight tournament. He'd been joining the Empire. My brother was a part of the Nazi Super-Club. No wonder my head hurt.

Shoving my way out of bed, I looked down at my costume before touching the simple ski mask that Othala had provided so that I could sleep without either uncovering my face or having to rest with that visor on all night long. Everything seemed to be in order so I walked toward the door with a sigh.

The thought had occurred to me, of course, to simply refuse to open it, or even to barricade the door. But that seemed less hero and more sullen little brat, and it probably wouldn't accomplish anything anyway. Somehow I shoving a chair in front of a door and sitting on the bed with my fingers in my ears would do anything except convince the Empire they had abducted a particularly tall five-year old.

Opening the door, I found myself facing a man with pure white skin. He held a tray laden down with breakfast food, and nodded courteously when he saw me. "Ah, good morning, Miss Archive. May I come in?" He indicated the tray in his hands. "Your food is still warm, and I would hate to lose that."

"Alabaster?" I remembered who the guy was while stepping back to let him in. Again, being stubborn and argumentative wouldn't accomplish anything. I needed them to think I was being as cooperative as I could. That was the only way that I was going to find a way to get the hell out of here. And I had to get the hell out before I could smack every ounce of idiot out of my brother. So, playing nice.

"You honor me with your knowledge of my identity, Miss Archive." Alabaster stepped into the room, crossing to the table in the corner to set the tray down. He didn't bother closing the door behind him. Why would he? It wasn't like I could go anywhere. Even if I escaped this place, I had no idea where Crystal was. I wouldn't be able to find her before they found out I left and... I shuddered at the thought.

"My apologies, for what they are worth, for condition and necessity of your imprisonment," the man spoke after setting the tray down. Pivoting on his heel to face me, he continued. "I hope that your eventual release has been made clear to you, and that you do not feel that this is a hopeless matter."

After gaping a bit at the strangely polite racist in spite of myself, I shook my head. "No, they... they made that pretty clear. We get to go home safe and sound after this, whatever it is, is over."

Alabaster gave a single, gracious nod before stepping away from the table. "If it were me, I might find myself doubting the sincerity of such an offer. Particularly if I could not assure myself of the safety of my fellow captive. With that in mind, would you like to speak with your teammate before you eat?" He asked that while producing a small cell phone from his belt and held it up.

My eyes widened at the offer and I gave a quick nod. "You'd let me talk to Laserdream?"

"Of course, Miss Archive." The man pressed a button on the phone while continuing. "There is no reason at all for us not to allow the two of you to speak, and your cooperation should be rewarded."

He spoke on the phone for a few seconds, telling the person on the other end what was going on.

At least his phone worked. I'd tried repeatedly to use either the phone that the Brigade had provided or my own, both of which had been safely stored away. Hell, I'd even tried to use that laptop that I had accidentally absorbed the same day this had all started. I'd used the cover of the bathroom to hide what I was doing. But neither device ever had any kind of connection, and I was sure that there was some kind of signal blocker over the building that the Empire's own electronics could get through. Clearly Kaiser had thought about the fact that I could spit out the things that I absorbed and had planned an appropriate counter-measure. That or the building simply always had an active signal jammer.

After taking a minute to reassure whoever he was talking to that this would be fine, Alabaster hit the speaker button and handed the phone to me. I took it and hesitated before speaking. "Laserdream?"

"Archive," Crystal's voice was like music, her relief obvious. "How are you doing? Are you okay?"

My mouth opened. Instinctively I wanted to tell her about Trevor, about what that fucking idiot had done. But I couldn't. Saying anything would put my brother in danger, no matter how polite Alabaster was acting. I had to remember that he was the bad guy. If he was really this chivalrous, decent person, he'd let us go. He may be nicer outwardly than someone like Crusader, but that didn't make him good.

"Archive?" Crystal spoke again, sounding a little more alarmed at my silence. "Are you all right?"

I shook myself and swallowed hard before replying, "Yeah, yes. They still haven't done anything that bad. You know, besides the whole kidnapping thing. Unless you count Rune killing me about seventy-three times in that fighting game she likes so much. That was kind of humiliating."

Poor Crystal was silent for a few seconds before speaking again. "Good. I... can't really say a lot about what they're having me do. I'm pretty sure they'll get pretty upset if I talk too much. But I think it's okay if I tell you it's almost done. Just hang in there and we'll get out of this. Don't rock the boat."

"That's my plan," I assured her while looking toward the patiently waiting Alabaster. "What about you? They're not hurting you or anything, are they? This thing they're making you do, it's not that bad?"

Again, she hesitated. "No, I mean I'm not completely sure. I don't know much about what it is, but they're not hurting me or anything. It's... draining, but I'm okay." There was something else to her voice, something she wasn't saying out loud, but I couldn't pick up on exactly what it was.

"Be careful," I told her quietly. "Don't go overboard. I'm okay here." I wasn't really. I desperately wanted to get the hell out of here so I could drag my brother home. But the last thing I wanted was for Crystal to overdo whatever she was doing and hurt herself. Or worse, try to escape and get killed.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." From the sound of Crystal's voice, she knew something was up. But neither of us could speak openly. "Keep your head down. This'll be over soon, I promise."

We spoke for another minute before the person on Crystal's end told her that was enough. After assuring me again that this wouldn't last too much longer, she disconnected. I looked at the phone for a moment before handing it back to Alabaster. "Thank you for letting me talk to her." I said quietly.

After clipping the phone back to his belt, the man nodded. "Of course. Now, I will leave you to your breakfast. I'm afraid there are pressing matters that require my attention. Miss Othala will be up within the next hour or two to sit with you until Rune fulfills her daily obligations to her school." He gave an actual bow then before leaving the room, adding, "If you require anything desperately, there will be a guard standing outside of this room. You need only knock and inform him."

Then he was gone, leaving me alone in this place. I stood there for a second, closing my eyes while murmuring under my breath, "Trevor, what the fuck is wrong with you?" Then I straightened, moving to the table. Even though I was too worried to be hungry, starving myself wouldn't accomplish anything. Sitting down, I picked up the fork and forced myself to start eating.

Besides, I couldn't exactly kick my brother's ass and drag him home by his ear on an empty stomach.


"So what made you decide to become a hero?"

It was later that afternoon, and I had been engrossed in my own thoughts for the past twenty minutes. Rune's voice interrupted my inner musings, and I blinked up uncertainly. "Err, what?"

"You heard me," the girl retorted. The black mask that covered the lower half of her face hid her expression, but her eyes were serious. "We already know that it takes trauma to make someone manifest powers. I told you about mine. I was in prison and I had to get out. So what kind of trauma did you go through and why'd it make you a hero instead of a villain? What's different about us?" She snorted then. "Besides the fact that I wasn't a nice person to begin with. Let me guess, you were this super nice, innocent little girl and someone tried to kill you or something. That about sum it up?"

I stared at her briefly, then laughed out loud. "Me? Nice?" I almost fell off the bed, though my laughter was more bitter than amused. It was laughter that came because I couldn't cry about it anymore. "No. No, I wasn't a nice person. Trust me, I belonged in jail just as much as you did. Maybe even more."

From her eyes, I could tell the girl was frowning. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I hesitated, part of me thinking that I should be evasive or something to avoid giving something away. Finally, I just sighed before speaking. "I was a bitch, Rune. Trust me, I... you want to know how bad I was before all this?" Swallowing, I shifted on the bed to face the other girl. "I was a bully."

"A bully?" Raising an eyebrow, Rune looked me up and down. "Of what, third graders?"

Flushing at that, I shook my head. "You don't have to be huge or strong to be a bully. Especially when all the teachers think you're this sweet, innocent little girl so they believe anything you say."

"Fair enough," Rune conceded. "Still, how bad of a bully could you have been to merit jail time?"

I didn't respond at first. Glancing away, I thought about my response for a second before speaking. "We put her in the hospital." My eyes closed and I couldn't help the shudder that escaped me. "You don't understand. I don't mean the usual 'ooh give me your lunch money or we'll beat you up.' It's worse than that. There were three of us and we... we tortured her. We spent a year and a half making her life miserable. We stole her homework, we made everyone else in school hate her, we ruined her projects, we spread rumors about her, we... we made her the most hated person in school. Nobody cared about her. She didn't have any friends or any support. Everyone was too scared of being the next target."

My throat had closed up by then, and I had to swallow hard to make myself continue. "It was evil, Rune. The things we did to her, the things we convinced other people to do... I can't even talk about it. And then we almost killed her. What we did, it hurt her pretty bad and she ended up in the hospital."

"What the fuck did she do to piss you off so much?" Rune asked while staring at me.

I shook my head in slow shame, looking away once more. My voice was soft. "Nothing. She used to be friends with one of us. Not me, another girl. Then the other girl became friends with the third one of us, and they started picking on this girl. I helped because... because I was bored. Because I liked being popular with them. Because it was fun and I didn't think of her as a real person. Because I was a spoiled, stupid, selfish little bitch. I did all of it and then she almost died."

There was silence for almost a minute before Rune spoke again. "So you feel guilty," she said slowly. "Guilt made you decide to become a hero? How's that working out for you so far?"

I shot a glance at her, then looked back down with a sigh. "I just want to help people. I know I can't really make up for what I did. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just trying to... to make sure other people don't suffer for no reason like she did. I can't fix it, but I can help fix other problems."

Again, Rune was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, the girl wasn't looking at me. "You really think it's that easy? You just act like an evil bitch for so long and then change your mind just like that?"

I snorted, shaking my head. "No, it's not easy. It's hard. But I made my choice. I didn't want to be that person anymore. I didn't want to be the kind of girl who could do that stuff. So I made myself change."

"It's not that simple!" Rune insisted, pushing herself up off of the bed before spinning to face me. "What about your friends? What about everyone around you that... that sees you that way? How did you ignore them? How did you change when the people you were closest to liked you the way you were?"

My mouth opened and then shut before I shook my head, choosing my words carefully. "It wasn't about what they wanted. It was about what I wanted. I wanted to be a better person. I wanted to change."

Shaking her head almost violently at me, Rune pivoted and strode to the door. She put her hand on the knob and then hesitated. With her back to me, she spoke quietly, her tone almost defeated. "You know how we're making this big point out of not letting you see our faces?"

I nodded slowly. "Yeah, that way I know I can go when this is over, because I don't know who you are." I left out the fact that I knew who Kaiser was.

"Right," turning toward me, hand still on the doorknob, Rune continued. "So what if you had a really important power, one that Kaiser used all the time. And what if he let you see his face, all our faces? What would you think then?"

I frowned at that. "I'd think I was never getting out of here. Why? Is this about Laserdream? Is she-"

"No," Rune replied, shaking her head. "It's not about her. I just..." She went silent before releasing the knob. Stepping away from the door, she faced me before speaking again. "What do you know about... Dinah Alcott?"

The name had barely left her mouth before the girl abruptly jerked. Her body spasmed while electricity danced over it, generated from her costume. She let out a strangled scream, then collapsed to the floor.

"Rune?!" I threw myself off the bed. "Rune, are you all right?! What-"

"My dear girl." The voice at the now-open door interrupted, and I looked up to see Kaiser standing there, a remote held in his hand. He pressed the button again, and more electricity coursed through Rune's body, making her shriek.

"I truly wish you hadn't said that name," Kaiser announced solemnly while Rune writhed on the floor in agony. "That makes all of this... much more complicated."

Interlude 7A – Seraph

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

The shattered remains of broken glass littered the bathroom sink and the surrounding floor, accompanied by scattered red droplets of blood that dripped down from the wall where Victoria Dallon stood with her fist still pressed against the wall where the mirror had been. Her shoulders were shaking violently, though she paid no attention to either that or the pain in her damaged hand. Her attention was far away, lost in the grief that had only seemed to grow stronger these past few days. Conscious thought and reason were washed away by the ocean of overwhelming rage that drove her to lash out.

A slightly detached part of her mind noted the sound of running footsteps as someone rushed up the stairs of her family's house, and then her cousin, Amy, was standing in the doorway. She took in the sight of Victoria standing there with her bleeding fist against the wall before wincing. "Vicky..."

"Oops." Even to herself, Victoria's voice was hoarse and rough. She swallowed hard, painfully forcing down the lump that had settled in her throat before trying again. "Suppose we need a new mirror now. Guess I fucked that up too." The words escaped her without conscious thought or consideration, and from the corner of her eye, she saw the stricken look that crossed Amy's face.

"Vicky..." Trailing off for a moment, Amy hesitated before stepping into the bathroom. Using her shoes, she carefully brushed the largest pile of glass out of the way before crossing to put a hand on Victoria's arm. Gently but firmly she tugged the other girl's hand away from the wall. "Come here."

Passively, Victoria let herself be guided out of the bathroom. Amy pulled her into the hall, then took one of her unattuned vials from a pocket before pressing a finger against the pudding-like substance inside. Then she lifted the vial toward Victoria's lips. "Drink this, Vicky. It'll help with your hand."

Part of Victoria wanted to ignore that, wanted to embrace the pain rather than run from it. She deserved it, deserved to feel that sharp agony. Yet the thought of resisting, of clinging to that deserved pain was accompanied by the thought of her mother. If Carol Dallon knew she was hurt, that she was refusing Amy's healing, she would start focusing on Victoria. And she couldn't. She couldn't worry about that too. Vicky loved her mother, but she also knew that she needed to focus on the others right now.

Taking the vial with her undamaged hand, the blonde girl forced herself to drink it, then slumped down against the wall. "Sorry," she said, her words flat and emotionless. "I thought I was the only one here."

"You were, for awhile," Amy admitted. "Carol brought your dad over to Aunt Becca and Uncle Donny's since they're better at convincing him to eat. And mom and dad are..." She swallowed hard. "They're still in their room. They haven't come out since the Travelers came up empty-handed."

That wasn't really fair, Victoria knew. The Travelers, who had been hired by Amy with the promise of having access to her healing whenever they needed it while they were in the city, hadn't come up completely empty-handed. They had located and freed almost half of the Merchants' hostages when the Brigade themselves hadn't been able to accomplish even that much despite the hours and hours spent scouring the city. The real problem was that the other half of those hostages, those who had not been found and now it seemed were impossible to locate, included Madison's family.

The thought made her want to punch another wall. The one thing that had seemed like something they could actually accomplish, saving poor Madison's family, and they had utterly failed. It wasn't fair. Even between the Brigade and that bounty hunter team, they still hadn't been able to find any sign of that second group of hostages. The only information they had was that they were being held 'outside of the city,' which didn't really narrow anything down at all. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack the size of... everything that wasn't Brockton Bay. Madison's family could be literally anywhere.

"What about Eric?" Victoria asked after looking down at her hand for a moment. The regenerative power granted by the Amy's vial had already closed up the wounds left by the glass, forcing the tiny bits of glass that had been caught there out of her skin and to the floor. "How's he doing?"

"Not good," Amy admitted. Her own face was still stained by tears. Crystal was... had been, Vicky reminded herself harshly, a big sister to Amy since the very moment that the adopted girl had been brought into their home. The two were so close to each other that Crystal had been the first one that Amy had come out with the truth about her sexuality to. And then, rather than make Amy out herself to her family alone, Crystal had explained that she sometimes thought about girls that way as well. The two of them had come out that way together, Amy as gay and Crystal as a little bit of both.

That was what Crystal meant to Amy. They were sisters, blood be damned, and Crystal had given Amy the confidence that she needed to come out with the truth about her sexuality, and even to pursue a relationship with Parian, whom they would later come to know as Sabah. That was the person that Amy had lost, and yet she was still here trying to take care of her cousin.

"I'm sorry," Victoria spoke quietly, her eyes closing. "I'm so sorry. You shouldn't be here. You can go."

"Hey, look." Amy's hand was on her chin, making her look up. Victoria opened her eyes to find the other girl staring intently at her. "What you said about fucking up, tell me you aren't blaming yourself."

Vicky's throat had closed up again, forcing her to shrug helplessly as words failed her. "Why not? It's my fault." Before Amy could object, she pressed on. "If I had done my job, my real job, everything would've been fine. You, Eric, Mom, Aunt Sarah, all of you keep trying to tell me to do battlefield control. I'm supposed to stay back and keep watch over what's going on, manipulate the field and keep the others safe. I'm supposed to think things through. I don't. I didn't. And look what happened."

"Vicky," Amy visibly flinched. "You can't do that. You can't just hold that blame. It's not your fault."

"Yeah," Victoria pulled her face away from Amy's hand and pushed herself to her feet. "I can. I do. I absolutely blame myself. If it wasn't for me being a gung-ho bitch who never thinks anything through and has to show off all the time, Crystal and Madison would still be alive. It is my fault."

Pushing herself up as well, Amy shook her head. "Please, Vicky, just stop. We have to-"

"I love you, Ames." Victoria interrupted. She had to, before Amy kept talking. "You're practically a sister to me, and you know it. You are. But I can't do this. I can't just sit here and talk about our feelings. That's not who I am. That's not... I can't... it's not me. I have to do something."

"What are you going to do?" Amy's voice was quiet, her eyes studying Victoria carefully.

For a moment, Victoria didn't answer. When she did, her voice was so soft that even she barely recognized it. "I don't know, Amy, but something has to change. I... have to change."


Two hours later, Victoria hovered in the sky high above the city. The solid-light hologram that kept her aloft was that of her old costume, though with white of her usual white and gold altered to black. Though subconsciously she realized that it had been too long since she had slept, the rage that fueled nearly every waking moment of her life since the moment she had realized what Kaiser had just done had driven her to leave the house. She hadn't told anyone, not even Amy, where she was going. Partly because she still didn't know. She'd just had to get out of there and actually do something.

Unfortunately, she had been gliding here through the sky and gazing down at the city for over an hour with no better idea of what that something was. For all that she was driven to act, Vicky was completely clueless as to what that act should be. It was all well and good to vow action and change, but what action? What change? What was she supposed to do? What could she do?

Lost in her grief, she almost missed them. Two figures scurrying through a side alley almost directly below her with the demeanor that she had long ago come to associate with people who were up to no good. Their furtive, careful movements drew her attention just before one of them tilted his head up. As with most criminals that had grown up into the world of capes, these men had been conditioned to look to the sky as well as all around them when checking to see if they were being followed.

Skinheads. Victoria had belatedly realized. The two were skinheads who wore the markings of low-level Empire thugs. She'd found them. After three days of fruitless searching for a gang that had completely gone to ground, and almost entirely by accident, she had finally spotted members of the Empire. Clearly whoever had given the order to go to ground and lay low to ride out the Brigade's retribution hadn't rescinded it yet, so what the hell were these assholes doing out here?

Just before the man's searching eyes would have found her, Victoria turned herself invisible. To be accurate, she created a hologram around herself that displayed the sky behind her, but it was good enough to fool the man. He gazed directly at her location for a few seconds before looking away to scan the rest of the sky. Finding nothing out of the ordinary, the man turned back to nod to his companion. The two of them passed through an unmarked door and into one of the nearby buildings.

Smiling humorlessly to herself, Victoria started to plummet toward the alley. Finally, she could have a little bit of cathartic stress relief by taking her anger out on people who actually deserved it.

Reaching the ground, she summoned a holographic copy of herself, positioning it right in front of the door. The thought of the looks that would be on the faces of those racist fuckbags when that door was kicked off its hinges by her hologram made her smile a little more. If she got lucky, maybe those stupid pieces of shit would even wet themselves if she pushed hard enough.

The foot of the hologram was already lashing out through the air when the realization of what she was doing stopped Victoria short. The hologram froze that way, its foot mere inches from kicking down that door. Her smile had faded, and Victoria found herself staring down at her own hands.

What was she doing? After everything she had said to Amy about needing to change, about how she had to be someone different, she had been about to do the exact same thing she always did: run right into trouble without even stopping to think about it. Nothing had changed, nothing was different. She was still crazy violent Victoria, who had to have a babysitter to stop her from doing stupid things like alert what might be an entire building full of Nazis after spending days searching for them.

If she kicked this door down, what would happen? She had no idea what was inside there, or how many Nazis she'd be dealing with. She didn't know if any of the capes were present, or if there were any innocent people that would suddenly become hostages. She knew nothing except that two men she was pretty damn sure were members of the Empire had gone in there. And she had been about to blow this, the only lead that she or anyone in the Brigade had had since that horrible night.

The hologram vanished, and Victoria turned away from the door. Reaching for her comm to call home, she belatedly realized another mistake she had made. The comm was sitting in her bedroom. She hadn't bothered to grab it before heading out. But she still had her phone at least. Quickly, she reached through the hologram of her armor to tug the device out of her pocket and scrolled down to find Amy's number. At that moment, however, the sound of footsteps drew her attention to the end of the alley.

Again, she rendered herself invisible via hologram, and watched as a third gang member came into view. This one was being even more careful than the first two had been. His gaze was flicking everywhere, and his hand was shoved deep into the pocket of his sweatshirt where Victoria could see the outline of a gun. He was clearly on edge and jumpy, his eyes moving to scan every bit of the alley before he continued into it. She was tempted to appear in front of the jackass just to hear him scream.

Yet, again, she stopped herself. Standing there, hidden by her hologram, Victoria took a step back to carry herself further away from the door that the man was approaching. His eyes darted toward the sound of her foot on the pavement, but after a moment he dismissed it and walked up to the door. There, he knocked twice, once, then three times before waiting for a few seconds. The sound of unlatching locks came, as well as a few beeps as an alarm was disconnected. The door was finally pushed open, and one of the men that Victoria had seen go into the building first held it open for the newcomer.

Something, something, she had to do something. But what? Not what she would normally do. Victoria's gaze scanned the alley until she spotted a trash can near the end of it. Focusing on that and thinking quickly, she summoned a new hologram. This one, rather than being a mighty warrior in armor, was a small, dirty looking cat. She sat the hologram next to the trash can, then shoved into it hard enough to knock the can over with a loud crash.

Instantly, the two men came away from the door. Guns had appeared in their hands, and were pointed at the source of the noise. Victoria made the cat bump into the can again so they could see it, then made it run right out of the alley before allowing it to vanish.

In the meantime, with the men away from the still-open door, she slipped as quietly as possible through and into the building beyond.

Victoria found herself standing in the back of some old office building that smelled like too much lemon-scented cleaning solution. It almost made her eyes water, and she had to blink a few times.

Stepping aside just in time to avoid the men that were coming back in, grumbling about stupid cats, Victoria watched as they strode down the hall. Biting her lip, she quickly followed them while silencing her phone. Her fingers flew rapidly over the keys as she sent a text to Amy with her location and a short description of what was going on.

One of the men ahead of her, the new one, was complaining. "I still don't see why they can't just tell us where to go. This whole teleportation shit always makes me nauseous."

"Keep complaining and you'll be more than nauseous," the other man warned. "You know why they do it this way. Us grunt nobodies don't get to know where the base is. We come here, get scanned to make sure we are who we say we are, then get teleported to where we need to be. So if we get caught or followed, the boss's secrets stay safe. Hell, why do you think your cell doesn't work in there? That jammer they've got stops your GPS from working so you can't figure out where you were later on."

"Yeah yeah, I get that they're fucking paranoid," the first man retorted. "My problem is, what about us? We're still out here on the streets with those self-righteous assholes, so what are we supposed to do?"

The other man shrugged. "Develop powers, I guess." He laughed. "Maybe we could get some kind of reward system going. Ice a dozen fags or kikes and you get to know where the big secret base is."

"That's funny," the first man replied with a slow grin. "I ain't never heard of a reward leading to a reward. Putting some of that trash in the gutter where it belongs, and learn some of those secrets? Sounds like a bonus both ways."

The two men laughed together, and Victoria's fury almost blew over. She found her hands clenching, the urge to manifest a sword and show these bastards just how much she could hurt them rising within her. How dare they?

Images of Madison and Crystal swam in her mind, and Victoria very nearly screamed her outrage. Yet she forced herself to keep it under control, thinking of the promise she had made. Change. Thinking things through. Focusing. She could destroy these few guys, or she could find out more about what they were doing and help her family get the revenge they deserved.

By that time, the two men had joined the third in a large room with what looked like an archway made out of black metal with buttons on the side. They all moved to stand in the arch while the one who had been waiting in the room asked, "What're they calling us in for anyway? Which prisoner started shit?"

"The rookie," one of the other men replied absently, already moving to press a button on the side of the metallic arch.

That drew a laugh from the other two, one of them shaking his head while retorting, "That little one? What'd she do, throw her bottle and cry about it?"

Shrugging, the man who had answered spoke in a cool tone, "Beats me. All I know is they're calling in reinforcements to help out. Sounds like they're having some big problem in there."

"Yeah, well if you ask me it's a complete waste of fucking time." The first man shook his head. "They should've just offed both of those Brigade cunts first chance they got. Hell, everyone already thinks they're dead, so what fucking difference does it make?"

Time should have stopped in that moment. The world itself should have frozen along with Victoria's brain. Instead, light from the teleportation arch enveloped the three men, and then they were gone. Yet she hardly noticed. Her mouth was open, the man's words ringing in her ears as she dismissed the hologram that had kept her invisible to them.

Seconds later, while she still stood there in shock, the door at the far end of the room was thrown open.

"Seraph?!" Panacea, Fleur, and Lightstar came rushing into the room. Their eyes found the metal arch, then Victoria herself, standing there without looking at any of them.

Aunt Becca came straight for her. "Seraph, are you all right? What's wrong? What..." She stopped short, staring at the tears on Victoria's face. "Oh my god... what happened?"

She couldn't speak at first. Her mouth moved, but no sound came. She tried again, forcing a single word out in a strained tone, the shock almost physically weighing on her chest.

"Alive..."

"What?" Fleur put her hands up on either of Victoria's shoulders. "What is it? Are you okay?"

"Alive..." The word came a little easier that time, and Victoria dismissed her mask entirely. Blinded as she was by the tears, she still managed to look up toward the other woman as she revealed the secret that she never would have discovered if she had just charged in the way she always had before.

"They're alive."

Interlude 7B – Anne

Monday, October 15th, 2004

"Taaaaaaylor, no, no, you've gotta put the eggs in first before you stir it!" The somewhat frantic voice of Anne Barnes's nine-year old younger sister Emma filled the kitchen alongside the sound of clanging pans and running water. "The eggs gotta stir up with the flour and stuff!"

Anne, standing just outside the kitchen itself, turned her attention toward the skinny little girl sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room with the large mixing bowl in her lap. Taylor Hebert waved the wooden spoon that she had been digging through the concoction while announcing, "I put one egg in first, and then I mix it up. And then I put another egg in and then I mix it up too. It's my special way."

Huffing the way that only overly-important children can manage, Emma grabbed an open book off of the counter and took three quick steps before plopping herself down next to the other girl. "But the book says you gotta add them both together!" She declared while pointing to the recipe in question. "See? What if you put the eggs in separate and then it goes all bad and stuff cuz you did it different?"

"Whatcha think is gonna happen, Em?" Taylor asked before grabbing the second egg off the floor next to herself. "Ya think it's gonna blow up if we don't do it just the way the book says? It's okay if we do our own way. That way they're Emma and Taylor cookies, not 'Just The Way The Book Said Cookies.'"

Folding her arms skeptically, Anne's little sister demanded, "What if we was making a nuclear reactor, huh, Taylor? Would you put the eggs in separate if we was doing that?"

Calmly cracking the remaining egg before emptying its contents into the mixing bowl, Taylor replied, "I don't think they put eggs in nuclear reactors, Emma." Leaning close, she stopped. "Wait a sec."

"What?" Shifting onto her knees, Emma peered at the bowl. "What happened? See, I told you not to."

"Shhh, shhh, can you hear that?" Taylor leaned closer to the bowl, setting it carefully on the floor. "Shhh," she whispered even more quietly. "Tick... tick... tick... You hear it, right?"

Emma shook her head, frowning uncertainly. "Nuh uh." Following Taylor's lead, she leaned closer.

"Tick... tick..." Taylor repeated, waiting for another moment while Emma tried to lean closer to the bowl. At the last second, she threw herself forward to tackle the other girl while shouting, "BOOM!" Crying out loudly as she was tackled, Emma fell over with Taylor on top of her. Kicking and squealing, she started to laugh as soon as the other girl's fingers found her sides. "No, no, Taylor, noooo! No tickle, no, stop it, stop iiiiiit!" Laughing as much as she was protesting, the girl narrowly missed kicking the bowl with her foot. "Oh god, oh god, stop it, stop it! Stoooaaahhhh Taaaaaaylor, not fair!"

Finally letting up, Taylor rolled off of Emma before bouncing to her feet, arms held triumphantly into the air. "Buh-boom, sneak attack!" She began to do a ridiculously silly dance then. "Oh yeah, oh yeah."

"You are such a dork." Emma informed the girl from her place on the floor after catching her breath.

Stopping her dance, Taylor tilted her head at Emma while asking, "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

Without hesitating, Emma replied with absolute certainty, "Good thing. I don't want you to change, Taylor. Even if you do put the eggs in wrong. You can put them in one at a time if you want to."

The other girl brightened at that. "Can I put in three eggs instead of two?"

Emma shook her head, voice dry. "Don't push it."

Taking that as her cue, Anne finally knocked on the doorjamb. "Hey guys, am I allowed in yet?"

"Nuh uh!" Emma denied, twisting around to shake her head. "We get to do all of it except put it in the oven! Mom said we could do all the rest of it as long as we let you do the oven stuff, Anne."

Laughing, Anne kept her hands raised in a sign of peace. "Easy there, captain. No one's trying to mutiny on your ship. Just let me know when you guys are ready for the hot stuff, okay?"

Before Emma could respond, Taylor called, "Thanks, we will!"

Giving both girls a thumbs up, Anne stepped away from the kitchen. She left the girls to their cookie preparations, the sound of their last two sentences reaching her before she moved out of earshot.

"I wish I had a sister," Taylor lamented.

"You do!" Emma informed her. "Me. I'll be your sister, Taylor. We can be the best sisters forever."

"Hey," Anne called from the doorway. "What about me? Do I get to be best sister?"

"Ehhh," Emma frowned at her, considering. "Maybe. D'ya think you can earn it?"


Wednesday, April 20th, 2011

Standing in her little sister's bedroom in the middle of the day, Anne stared at the unused bed. Her hand moved down to brush over the blanket while a long, low sigh escaped her.

Technically, Anne was supposed to be in class at that moment. But she had driven halfway to the school before turning around to come home. She couldn't do it. She couldn't go to school and pretend everything was okay. It hadn't been anywhere near okay for a very long time. The past couple of days were just an extension of the past few months, which themselves had been an extension of the past couple of years. Because everything, everything that had happened, came down to that afternoon almost two years earlier. That afternoon when Emma and their father had driven into that ABB trap.

Both had come home with little in the way of obvious external injuries aside from a few scrapes. Both had been broken by it in ways far more subtle. Their flesh was whole, but their minds were anything but. They had each, in their own way, been crippled by those events. Emma had become hard, had turned herself into the kind of person who didn't care about anyone else, who could laugh at the misfortune of others. The terror of what had nearly happened to her had destroyed the girl.

She should have seen that therapist. Their parents should have made her go, instead of offering it and then not following through. They should have had it out with her time and time again, long before things got to be as bad as they had gotten. Emma had desperately needed real help.

But Emma wasn't the only one who had come out of that alley a broken person. Their father, in his own way, had been just as damaged. His inability to help Emma, his complete helplessness in the face of the threats and insinuations that the ABB thugs had been hurling at her, had been more than he could take. The recognition that he had been utterly incapable of defending his youngest daughter, that if it had been up to him, he would have been forced to watch as they mutilated her or worse, had ruined him.

The truth was that he'd wanted so badly to prove that he could help Emma after all, that he'd made everything worse. He hadn't forced her to see the therapist because he didn't want her to associate him with making her relive what had happened. He didn't want her to remember how helpless he had been. He wanted to pretend that she really was getting past it, so he didn't push the therapy when he should have. And later on, as the next year and a half had continued, he'd ignored all the signs of her deterioration. He'd dismissed Emma's new obvious hatred of a girl that had been her best friend for so many years as the two of them simply growing up. He had ignored her mounting attitude and behavioral problems because he didn't want to believe the truth: that she was becoming an awful person and it was, in many ways, his own fault. And the more he ignored, the more he had to ignore.

Anne knew all that, because she wasn't as blind as some people thought. She paid attention. She had even talked to Taylor's father at the supermarket once, after everything had gone down. He hadn't said much, but from what he did say, and the other bits she had picked up on, Anne knew most of the story.

She'd wanted to help Emma, but she had no idea how. In these past few months, Anne had seen her sister spiral further and further. She wasn't the same person she had been before Taylor had ended up in the hospital, but she wasn't the person she had been two years earlier either. She was... different.

A massive part of that was their father's fault. Anne knew enough to understand that he had pulled strings to stop Emma and the other two from being punished for what they had done. And why not? It had been another way for him to show that he wasn't as helpless as he had been on that day. He may not have been able to protect Emma from the ABB, but he could protect her from her own consequences.

And now she was gone. Anne wasn't sure what had happened since her parents refused to talk about it, but she did know that Emma and their father had had yet another argument, and Emma hadn't come home that night. It had been more than twenty-four hours since she had set foot in their house.

But their father hadn't called the police. No, instead, he'd insisted that he could fix the problem, that he knew how to get through to Emma. He swore that he was going to take care of it.

Anne was terrified of what he could possibly be planning. Because so far, her father's ideas of how to get through to Emma had been pretty damn stupid.

Lost in her thoughts, Anne barely heard the front door open and shut. Eyes moving that way, she listened for a moment to what sounded like her father's voice. He was talking fast, in a way she recognized as being nervous. Then there was a lower, calmer voice that was obviously someone else.

Who the hell was he talking to? The other voice was male, so it wasn't their mother. Frowning, Anne hesitated. When the two voices drew nearer, she took a step back and put herself into Emma's closet, letting the door close most of the way while leaving a crack to see through. If pressed, she wouldn't have been able to say why she hid. It was an instinct that she couldn't explain.

"And you're sure this is premium product?" Her father was saying in his lawyer voice, though the way it shook slightly told Anne just how nervous the man really was. Whoever this guest of his was, it was someone important enough that Alan Barnes was almost petrified of him. Anne watched from her hiding place as her father came into view, standing right at the base of Emma's bed. He held a silver briefcase in one hand.

"I told you that it was," the second man spoke in a deep baritone, staying out of Anne's sight. "Do you believe I am lying?"

"No, no," her father assured the man quickly. "It's just that this is a lot of money, and I want to make sure I'm getting the very best. It has to be the best. Top tier level."

"It is the best that I have," the other man snapped. "Now I have indulged your request that we make this transfer within the bedroom of the child you have purchased the product for. It is sentimental and symbolic foolishness, but for I have done as you wished. We are here, and I have the product that you asked for. You will give me the money now, and I will give you what you have paid for and then leave. If you ask any more questions or delay any further, I will take the money for wasting my time and you will get nothing."

There was a moment of hesitation before Alan lifted the briefcase and held it out. A black-skinned hand took the case before extending a small glass vial. Her father grabbed it, and stood staring while the baritone voice wished him good day. The sound of departing footsteps followed by the opening and closing of the front door announced his departure. Still, Alan Barnes stood staring at the vial in his hand.

"Emma, baby," he said slowly. "Everything's going to be all right now. Everything's going to be fine."

Without thinking about what she was doing, Anne shoved the closet door open while demanding, "What the hell is that?"

Her father jumped, dropping the vial in the process. It fell unharmed to the carpeted floor. "Anne!" He blurted. "What are you—look what you almost made me do!" Taking a step forward, he bent for the vial.

Anne moved quicker. Lunging that way, she snatched the vial off the floor and looked at it. There was some kind of label on the glass with some writing on it, and a liquid inside that she couldn't identify. "What is this?"

"Anne, give it to me right now!" Alan snapped, his eyes wide. "You don't understand, that's for Emma. It can help her! It'll bring her back!"

Shaking her head back and forth, Anne blurted, "What the hell are you talking about? How is some kind of drug going to bring Emma home?"

"It's not a drug," Her father's head shook rapidly. "You don't understand, Anne. You just don't get it. That's... it's... it's power! It's power for Emma!" At Anne's disbelieving stare, he continued. "Don't you understand, baby? Emma's upset because of what happened, because she feels helpless again. That's why she's pushing us away. She's terrified that Soph—that someone is going to hurt her. So she's lashing out. But I can even the odds. I can give her power so she can protect herself from now on. That's what's in that vial. Powers. When she drinks it, she'll have them. She'll be a cape!"

"You... you're crazy." Anne realized aloud while staring at her father. "You're delusional. You can't get cape powers out of a vial. You can't buy them off the street like crack, Dad! Some guy sold you some shit in a bottle and you just want to get Emma to drink it?! You're insane!"

She pivoted on her heel, striding toward the door. "I'm throwing this shit down the sink."

"No!" Before Anne could get out of the room, her father lunged forward and caught her by the arm. "You can't do that! You don't understand, this will help her! It's what she needs, it's what she wants! This is how we can get Emma back to herself! I can help her this way!"

"Dad, let go!" Anne struggled with her father, but his grip was strong on her wrists. "Stop it! You can't give it to Emma! You can't!" They fought for control of the vial, and she shoved her thumb up against the lid to pop it open.

"You pour this out," Alan vowed while struggling to get his hand over the top of the vial, "and I will soak it back up again. You can't do anything to stop me from giving this to Emma, Anne."

Fighting for control of the vial for another moment, Anne closed her eyes briefly. She thought of her sister. She thought of that day all those years ago when Emma and Taylor had been making cookies. Half a decade later, and Emma's words came back to her. The other girl had asked if Anne thought she could earn the title of best sister.

"Yes." With the same word, she both corrected her father's claim that she couldn't stop him from giving the vial to Emma, and answered her sister from all those years earlier. "I can."

In one motion, Anne dipped her head down and opened her mouth. Twisting her hand hard, she poured the contents of the vial not onto the floor, but into her own mouth.

There was a scream of denial from her father, and then the world shattered around her.

Pain enveloped her, and then her mind was gone. She saw... things beyond her comprehension. Distorted shapes that made no sense, crystalline beings reaching an Earth-like planet and then...

Her eyes opened. The ceiling lay above her, and she was able to roll over and push herself up. In the corner of the room, her father was huddled, staring at her with wide eyes. His mouth moved, but the only sound that he made was a disbelieving, terrified whine.

Taking a step forward on legs that felt strangely unfamiliar, Anne caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning, she found herself facing the nightmare that had replaced her reflection.

She had grown several inches to just a hair under six feet, enough to rip through most of her clothes. What remained lay in shattered rags over her slightly taller figure. Her skin was covered in black metallic scales that glistened as if constantly damp. Between the obsidian scales were lines of glowing blue light. Her hands ended in long, sharp talons, and her feet had become clawed, like a bird of prey. Similarly, her face was slightly elongated, with a beak-like structure on the front, and eyes that were the same glowing blue as the lines between her scales.

Finally, on her back was not one, but two pairs of bat-like wings. The larger pair sat higher up on her shoulders, while the second set that were half that size began closer to her mid-section, with a bit of overlap between the two.

Her father was saying her name. He had found his feet by that point, and he repeated it, calling to her. Anne turned from the mirror. Her eyes found her father, and she felt rage, hot and almost uncontrollable well up inside of her.

She took three steps forward... then threw herself through the nearby window with a deafening crash. The glass shattered against her scales, and she unfurled both sets of wings.

In the next second, with her father's voice crying out after her, Anne was gone.