They scattered.

It wasn't selfishness. Well, it wasn't entirely selfishness. The sad fact of running from a flying brick -assuming you were running because fighting wasn't an option- was that if you didn't have a handy smokescreen like Brian could toss up, then your best option was to give them too many targets to chase and hope to confuse them.

The brief glance she'd gotten did reassure Lisa that Taylor was sticking with Rachel, but she'd been more concerned with picking the most likely door to be unlocked and hurling herself towards it.

Fortunately the neighbourhood they were in gave her plenty of options even without the time to pick a lock. One door in particular leapt out at her as especially worn and-

door unmaintained, building unmaintained, building weathered, lock non-functional

-her power confirmed the choice.

With her hood flapping freely behind her, Lisa sprinted for the goal. Looking back would only slow her down. She just had to hope that there wasn't an angry superhero bearing down on her defenceless back.

kraaash

"Do you have to repay the city for this kind of damage?" Shouted Alec from somewhere behind her.

...It was a character flaw, but Lisa never had been good at resisting her curiosity just to save herself.

It was just a quick peek over her shoulder, and she was mere feet from the door. Luckily she didn't get a face full of fist for her troubles. However Alec looked to be having much less luck with that.

Where everyone else had sprinted for cover, Alec was barely jogging, all the while looking backwards and making the occasional gesture to divert Glory Girl's flight into the nearest hard surface. He was either covering their escape, or just enjoying the humiliation he was heaping on the self-righteous cow. Or both.

It looked almost one-sided. Alec walking backwards at an unhurried pace, the superheroine -still holding that damn bag- continually failing to charge at him. Lisa knew the truth though, knew the limits on Alec's power for this kind of thing.

Already his free arm was limp and twitching slightly. He disguised it well with his lazy posture, but she saw through him.

At the very same moment, she saw something just as worrying. The forgotten Dallon sister was crouched at the mouth of the alley, no great distance from where she had treated the Bad Boy, and she was holding her phone.

Lisa could recite the response times for most of the city by heart. In the middle of the day, right out in the open like this? They weren't nearly long enough.

She could rush Panacea while Alec held off her sister. Stop her making the call, maybe even take her hostage while they neutralised the greater threat. It was risky but-

kerkrash

This time she saw the pieces too late.

Glory Girl skidding through the surface of the road towards one of the few cars that dared to park around here. Alec moving to the side, angling towards an open street door. The car coming between them...but it wasn't like the hero was going to throw a car at someone she didn't know to be a Brute, even she wouldn't go that far.

Except there was another option that he hadn't considered and which Glory Girl, grabbing a crumpled handful of the car's door, clearly had. She tore it off with a growl and began to move.

"Regent get down!" Lisa warned, too late.

Alexandria junior came around the side of the car fast, Alec raised the same lazy hand that he had every other time and then she threw the car door at him.

He still got her, but her meeting with the ground was accompanied by an awful crak as her ballistic frisbee spun right into his outstretched arm. Alec crumpled with a thin scream, curling around his -definitely broken- arm. Glory Girl rose into the air, triumph written on her face as she looked down on her fallen enemy.

Even as she reached beneath her hoodie and yanked her gun from its holster, Lisa was considering targeting Panacea instead. It was probably the smarter play. Distance reduced threat, but if she got off a good first shot then she could play the sharpshooter and try to hold her hostage that way.

She was still considering the better idea while she sighted on the most aggravating part of Glory Girl, braced for the noise and squeezed the trigger. Once. Twice. Thrice.

Panacea dove for cover and a neat little grouping of holes appeared in the side of the paper bag that Glory Girl was clinging to. It swung easily with the impacts, which combined with how she was keeping a hold of it to give Lisa a pretty good idea of what was inside. More importantly, the trio of gunshots had most definitely drawn Glory Girl's attention, though she didn't seem to have noticed the damage to her purchases yet.

She put on the half-sneer of every girl who ever thought her face was too pretty for a proper one. Instead of speaking she just looked down at Lisa with pitying eyes, like she was a considering a mouse that had drawn the attention of an eagle.

'Bitch please, I was wearing that mask when you still thought boys were icky.'

Lisa nodded to her freshly ventilated bag, "There aren't many reasons for a rich girl to be shopping this far from prying eyes, and there's only one shop around here that sells any kind of clothes."

The effect her words had on the other cape was beautiful. Her entire body froze and her face became the staging ground for a war between humiliation, fury and disbelief. Honestly Lisa wanted to steal her expression and keep it in her pocket and take it out when she needed a pick me up, or at least to take a picture of it.

'Time to really piss her off.'

"Tell me Glory Hole, is it Stanfield's birthday? Or are you just trying to get him to buy you some even bigger tits?"

Fury won the war for control of Glory Girl's face, she opened her mouth but Lisa interrupted her with an ineffective shot to the chest. Starting to back towards the door as she continued.

"I guess you won't mind the bullet holes either way."

Lisa grinned as the other girl finally realised what the ignored gunfire had hit, jerking the bag to eye level and checking inside it.

Judging by the way she dropped it, there was no salvaging the contents.

"Woops," Lisa said with mock innocence, "I was just trying to help. A little less fabric can only impro-"

"Arrgggghhhh!" Unimaginative, as battle cries went, but still terrifying even without the wave of induced terror that almost swept Lisa off her feet.

'T-time to go.'

Glory Girl charged.

Lisa spun on her heel and ran for the door, comforting herself that at least Alec had gotten off the street during her distraction. It was barely three steps before she slammed into the door, barely managing to marshal her shaking fingers and twist the handle in time to shoot through it instead of bouncing off.

Mould hung thick in the air, almost choking her on her first breath of it. An old office building. She was in an entrance corridor. Reception desk ahead. Doors to either side of her. Both slightly ajar. Cry of rage getting closer far too fast.

Kicking out at the door to her left, Lisa dove to the right. Even as she bodily knocked the door open she was grabbing the handle to keep it from hitting the wall. Then with the angry scream sounding just a few feet away she swung it back the other way, leaving it just slightly ajar. Absently she reached her free hand into a certain well-secured pouch on her belt and brushed her fingers over the contents. Over her only option if this didn't work.

Then the street door exploded from its frame in a bang that almost made her run despite herself. Not helped by the aura of fear and the sudden presence of an avenging angel out for blood and separated from her by a mere inch of cheap and rotted wood which would splinter if she even looked at it too hard.

'No. No. That's her aura talking. Calm. Caaalm.'

It was cliché, but the moments really did stretch into eternity as she huddled against the door. Hoping against hope that her plan would work.

Then the sound of more property damage announced that Glory Girl had taken the left door. She began to yell challenges as she went. Her shouts for Lisa to, "Come out and get what's coming to you!" moving further and further away, until finally Lisa felt comfortable slipping back through the door.

For the final step in her plan Lisa turned her back on the office building altogether, and stepped back out onto the street.

Jogging quietly across the street, she was just considering what a moron her opponent had turned out to be when her roaming gaze fell upon Amelia Dallon.

'...I forgot you were still out here.'

The healer shouted for her sister and Lisa found herself running for her life again.

At least she had a decent head start this time.

Another alley looked promising, three doors were visible and-

slightly worn

purposefully damaged

extremely worn

-Lisa went for the second, kicking it open and ducking inside. This time she was in a stairwell, one that went up and down from where she stood-

apartment building, apartments on upper floors, access to fire escape, access to roof, -'What about down'- access to sewer, locked access to sewer, chained access to

-She went up, making it to the third floor before a distant impact shook the floor beneath her.

'No time to go for the roof.'

Recalling where the next alleyway had been, Lisa dashed for a door. Simultaneously she pulled a couple of delicate metal rods from the side of her gloves. Ducking to the level of the lock, it yielded to her in mere seconds and she stayed low as she opened it, darted through, and closed it again all in the span of a breath.

It was the usual mess of filth and exposed walls, a few places missing floorboards as well. Ignoring all of it she went for the window on the West-most side of the apartment and yanked it open. Outside was a fire escape that she wasted no time clambering onto, and across the alleyway was its mirror image. The gap was just a few feet, no big deal-

three storey drop, likely fatal, certain to incapacitate, likely due to multiple broken

She vaulted the railing and leapt before she could think better of it.

There was a heart-stopping moment of weightlessness where the other side looked a thousand miles away, then she crashed into the metal rail and her poor bruised chest screamed at her. Adrenalin let her ignore it, let her haul herself up and over and break the window. A flick of the lock and she could open it and drop to the floor inside.

It was quiet inside this apartment, which probably meant she was safe. She didn't wait around to find out.

The door wasn't even locked and after a little exploring her power told her all about an access corridor that connected this place to three more apartment buildings. She tumbled down the stairs to the right floor, picked the padlock and didn't stop running until she was into the last building the cramped passage touched.

This one was almost classy. If you looked past the damage to everything. In fact it didn't seem so much like an apartment building, more of a-

hotel

-that.

Which meant that there was a whole bunch of keys just waiting for someone with super-intuition to find them stashed in a box beneath the floorboards behind the reception desk. Lisa glanced at the floorplan, grinned and grabbed the key labelled dining room. Then she flipped the box end over end, sending keys flying everywhere and rendering it almost impossible to figure out which one she'd taken.

It was on the second floor and in a moment of melancholy as she reached its threshold, Lisa realised that it might have been beautiful once.

Her imagination filled in the absent wallpaper and carpet with something tasteful, it repaired the broken windows and filled the empty space with a table much like the one they hatched their plans over. The result made her wish she could have seen the room before the Docks became what they had.

'It would have been bright...probably tacky though, not like I'm imagining. Doilies and cat print wallpaper.'

Shaking off the feeling, she found the door out of the dining room that she was looking for and let a smug smile cross her face.

The explosion of glass that sent her diving for cover in the doorway wiped it right off. Then she began to hear the sirens. And then she got a good look at what had broken the glass.

Glory Girl looked pissed.

Lisa drew her gun.

The hero snorted and took a very threatening step closer. So Lisa did the only thing she could think of and put the smug smile back on her face. Then she made it about a hundred and ten percent smugger, and pointed her gun at the windows.

Confidence did its job and the other girl paused in her advance.

"What the fuck are you smiling about scumbag?

"Oh nothing." 'I really hope this works.' "Just imagining the news tomorrow."

"Me too. How's 'Under-fuck beaten senseless' for a headline?"

"I was thinking something more like, 'Glory Girl Fails Fan.'"

"Oh, so you're a fan? That's pretty disgusting."

She was about to run out of patience and just attack, so Lisa nodded to the building across the street and launched her bluff. "I'm not your fan. The little girl squatting across the street on the other hand..."

While the confusion was still plain to see, Lisa buried her bluff in information.

"Her name is Sarah. She's been homeless for almost a year and she's had to do some bad things to get by, but she's still a good girl at heart. Of course she doesn't look up to heroes like she used to. Not after they didn't save her Mom from cancer, or stop her Dad from taking his grief out on her afterwards. Until she finally ran away and ended up cold and hungry and alone."

Confusion was turning to sadness, the other girl leant ever so slightly forward as the story took hold of her. Which was Lisa's cue to hit one of the biggest buttons her opponent had.

"All except for you of course."

Her ego.

"You were her favourite hero before, and the only one she still likes. She's even wearing one of your t-shirts right now. It's a bit dirty but then she is too. Can't wash in buildings without utilities."

"Bullshit, how could you know any of that?" Glory Girl rebelled against the lie, physically drawing back from it.

"How did I know about that lingerie you bought? How do I know-"

white, red, gold, green, emerald green

"-that your favourite colour is green. The same shade as your boyfriend's eyes. Kind of emeraldy."

'Thank you gossip magazine covers. That's twice you've saved my life.'

"I'm a good shot, Vicky. And I know just where to aim. How do you think-"

wants to attack me, wants to injure me, needs sister to heal me, needs to call sister, can't call sister

"-I hit your phone?"

Even with the hints from her power that one had been a gamble. Not enough time to be sure.

So when the other blonde sagged in place, Lisa barely kept from laughing in relief.

"I'm aiming right at her heart. By the time you get your sister to her it'll be too late."

Then before Glory Girl could think too much about her story, Lisa began to squeeze the trigger.

"No!"

'Gotcha...not that I'm feeling great about it.'

"No, please."

"Please what?"

"Please don't pull the trigger you fucking psycho fuck!"

"Oh what would the papers say if they heard you talking like that? Probably nicer things then they'll say if you don't fly back out that window in the next three seconds."

Glory Girl shot out the window without another word, heading straight for the building where Lisa's imaginary hostage was waiting to be saved. Which bought her maybe ten seconds, twenty tops.

Barely one had passed before she was halfway across the room and pulling open her most secure pouch. Bringing it to her mouth, she bit the little wire hoop and removed the pin with a jerk of her head. Now the time limit was a lot less than ten.

Dropping it behind her, she yanked open her targeted door and found a utility closet.

Without slowing down she hurled herself at the back wall. A prayer on her lips that she hadn't lead her power wrong. That she'd read the floorplan right.

Water damaged plaster crumbled around her and she suddenly had a long dark metal shaft yawning beneath her.

Grabbing for the ladder at the back of it, Lisa set her boots to the outer edges of it, then carefully loosened the grip of her hands. Her stomach rose as she accelerated into the darkness, quickly losing sight of even the ladder.

A flash of light changed that for an instant, then the shaft shook and roared and she almost lost her grip on the ladder. A few pings above her spoke of shrapnel that had made it inside, thankfully staying high above her.

Continuing her descent into the dark, Lisa grinned wide and proud. Recognising the age of the building; realising that it had been converted from something else; noticing the too thick section of wall that went right up the building. None of it had been her power.

Sure she'd used it to confirm, but it was still her own mind that had brought her into the old smuggling tunnels. It wasn't often that she got that kind of satisfaction.

ambient noise increasing, nearing bottom of shaft

'Thank you power.' For once it wasn't a sarcastic thought. Lisa tightened her grip and slowed to a stop just a few rungs from the bottom. Then she pulled out a flashlight and set off down the narrow tunnel at a light jog.

With the state of that hotel, the grenade would definitely have collapsed the room. They wouldn't find her quickly...but with more heroes in the area it was still only a matter of time.

The downside of the tunnels was that Lisa had no idea how to even start finding the others. Of course she could just try to leave without them but that was more of a last resort than a starting point. No she needed to find a way back above ground, then figure out the most likely route for each of them to take.

Passing a side tunnel, Lisa glanced down it without bothering to turn her flashlight beam and promptly yelped in terror at the sight of two deep red eyes shining out of the darkness. Spinning clumsily she was still fumbling for her gun when the light illuminated a huge black...dog...

"Taylor!"

A happy bark confirmed her suspicions. Then another bark followed, then three quick barks and a sort of howl that she knew her power could interpret if necessary. For the sake of saving what use she had left of it, Lisa opted to flick off her flashlight and say, "I think I'll understand you better as a human."

One very strange sound later, Taylor's voice came from the darkness where the dog had stood, "A-are you alright?!"

"Woah, calm down." Lisa was caught off guard by the fervour in Taylor's voice, "I'm no worse than I was when I woke up."

The sigh of relief that Taylor replied with started a knot of worry forming in Lisa's gut.

"Why were you so worried?"

"We found Alec and his arm was really badly hurt. He said you lead that lunatic off to save him."

Lisa breathed her own internal sigh of relief. No new injuries.

"Alec said that? I'm not sure I believe that." She said wryly.

"Um, well he mostly swore a lot and tried not to look at his arm. But he said enough for me to put it together. I was scared that, that she might have hurt you like she did that guy." It wasn't just worry in her voice. There was anger in there as well. The same sudden fury that Lisa had seen when she almost destroyed the television a few nights ago.

"Well I'm feeling fine. She couldn't lay a finger on me."

"It was really brave of you." The anger had vanished again and Lisa fumbled for a reply to the honest admiration she heard.

'What am I supposed to say to that?'

She eventually settled for, "So you know where the others are then? Because I think meeting up is a good idea."

"Ah, yeah. My dad...he liked to tell me stories about these tunnels. I've even been down here once or twice in the areas closer to where he..."

Stepping forward and slinging an arm around her shoulders might have been a bit uncomfortable with only one of them being dressed, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

With a deep breath Taylor ducked away from her arm. Then there was that noise again and the clik clik of her claws on the cement as she lead the way into the dark.