Atonement

by CeruleanSlane

Taylor died in the locker. In her guilt, Madison triggered instead and became a superhero, to make up for her mistakes. Seen first on spacebattles, archived here for easier reading and for other people to find.

10. Arc 10: Trials

Notes: Starfox – Yeah, Mads does have sympathy toward the whole redemption thing. And yup, Trevor will come back into play eventually. :) Glad you like the creepiness and Dinah's little side story.

Kine X – Believe it or not, I didn't catch that. At least it wasn't all of the Nine? ;)

jaredpowers1 – Wow, thank you. You're amazingly kind, and I so appreciate the encouragement. Using a character who wasn't given much development was definitely purposeful on my part. It let me write her pretty much however I wanted. Anyway, I hope you continue to enjoy the story.

That last bit goes for everyone. I hope you like what you read.

10.01

The dew on the early morning grass was damp and cool against my bare toes. I wiggled them a little and stretched, standing in the backyard of my parents' home while gazing up at the lightly clouded sky. Somewhere over in the next yard, birds sang back and forth to one another, while the faint sound of cartoons from the house on the opposite side reached me through their open back door.

A pair of arms enveloped me from behind, and I felt a soft kiss against the top of my head, before a voice asked, "So... what are we, exactly?"

Hearing Marissa's question made me turn my head slightly to look at her. "Ummm... human?" I teased.

She rolled her eyes and dug her fingers into my sides, tickling me briefly just to make me yelp. "You know what I mean, imp."

"I'm... I'm not sure." I answered honestly. "I... I had a boyfriend a couple of times, but it was never really serious. Just one of those... 'eh, everyone else has one' sort of things. But I never... I never thought I was a ummm..."

"That you liked girls," Marissa supplied.

I nodded. "Yeah, that. I never really thought that until I met you. Maybe I'm just Marsexual." I offered with a giggle. "Cuz I really do like you. A lot. Kissing is really nice."

"I like you too, Mads." The other girl returned my smile, hugging me tighter against her from behind. "I guess it's kind of easier for me. I knew I was... in love with a girl for a long time."

That was one thing I didn't even have to hesitate on. "Noelle." I said confidently. "You were in love with Noelle."

Her head bobbed a little. "Was it that obvious?"

"To me it was."

A soft sigh escaped her, before she let me go. Then Marissa turned me around to face her. "I wanna tell you something, okay?" When I nodded, she went on. "Whatever this is, whatever we have, you are not a consolation prize. I like you because you're you. I mean, you make me laugh. You make me think. I can talk to you for hours and feel like it was only a few minutes. I... I was in love with Noelle, but I don't think she ever returned those feelings. Not the way I wanted her to, anyway."

Biting my lip, I shifted on my feet a little before asking, "What if she did? Now, I mean. What if she came up to find you and said she wanted you back?"

Mars regarded me for a long moment, considering the question honestly before answering. "I would help her in any way that I could. I would do whatever I could do to make her feel better, to keep her safe, or to make her happy... that didn't involve leaving you." Her hand cupped my cheek. "You're the one thing that made me like living here, the one person that made being stuck in this world kind of... worth it. I would do anything for Noelle... as a friend. But I choose you. I think I... chose you when I left the others, when I couldn't do what they wanted me to do anymore. Noelle was—is... I don't know, she was my best friend. And I still want to help her. I want to make her better. Because she's my friend."

I nodded slowly at that. "I want to help Noelle too. But I don't think Trickster will tell us where she is, or let us get anywhere near them. Even if we did know how to fix her. Because if Panacea couldn't do it..." I sighed low and slumped.

Marissa's hand on my face brushed lightly down my cheek. "One bit at a time. I've been talking to Jess over our private e-mails. She's getting there. But don't forget, it's Thursday. Which means..."

I groaned out loud. "Cemetery day." Because it was now summer (they had basically given up on getting us back in school before vacation started, so my career at Arcadia High would begin with the Fall semester), they had moved my cemetery community service to Thursdays so that I could work with the team on Saturdays.

"I'll pack you a lunch." Mars promised, her eyes bright with amusement.

"Thanks." I returned her smile, before blinking. "I don't think I ever answered your question, about what we are."

She nodded slowly, watching me. "I guess you're right."

Feeling suddenly self-conscious, I shifted my weight, fidgeting at the ground with my bare feet. "I umm... I guess I'd kind of like if... if you were my... ummm... if we could be... I mean... I know it's..." I trailed off before whispering, "Girlfriends?"

Her answer was to kiss me, very gently, before whispering, "I'd like that."

"What the fuck kind of unfair rule is 'no powers'?" Cassie complained, glaring at the trowel in her hand that she was supposed to use to dig up weeds. "Gimme a box of these things and ten minutes and I'll have every weed in this whole fucking cemetery knocked out with my power."

They had given Reach the same punishment I had gotten, only hers was two years community service instead of one. It meant that she had started working in the cemetery with me pretty much the exact same time that the boys had finished up their punishment.

"I think that's kind of the point," I offered with a shrug. "It's supposed to be a punishment, if you can do it easily, it's not really a punishment.

"Meh." The former villain shrugged. "What kind of anti-Nazi lesson is breaking our backs doing yardwork supposed to impart anyway? If Kaiser wanted to make sure someone didn't do something he didn't like, he was a lot more direct about it."

I raised an eyebrow. "Yeeeaaah, it's probably a good thing that we don't take management advice from the megalomaniac racist supervillain."

"Hey," she replied. "Say what you will about Uncle Max's politics and proclivities, he did run a successful business. There's a lot to admire about someone like that." Cassie nodded sagely while I stared at her for several seconds, before she leaned up to stage-whisper, "I'm fucking with you." Leaning back again, she shrugged. "Kaiser was an asshole. I didn't call him Uncle Max. Do you have any idea what he would've done if I did? God, you're almost as easy as the rest of them."

In spite of myself, I snorted. "Wait, what do you mean, the rest of them?"

Cassie shrugged. "Oh, I just had Clock and Kid totally convinced that Hookwolf was a father figure to me and that seeing him die completely traumatized me. They were talking about how even if Aunt Kayden was lying, at least she killed that jackass. I put on the puppy dog eyes and acted all sad and they all but tripped over themselves trying to apologize. It was hilarious."

I raised an eyebrow at that. "You're kind of manipulative, aren't you?"

She waved it off. "I told them the truth before anything else happened. I just wanted to see the looks on their faces, that's all."

"So... you were hanging out with Dennis and Chris?" I asked, hesitantly.

Her shoulders raised in a shrug. "I wouldn't really call it 'hanging out'. I was taking some stupid psychological evaluation tests at the PRT building, and when I got done, I felt like hitting some stuff. So I went down to find the gym, and the two of them were already there."

Tugging her by the sleeve, I walked to the first batch of weeds that we were supposed to dig out. Then I knelt down and pulled the work gloves on, before starting to work the trowel into the dirt.

After a moment, in spite of her earlier complaints, Cassie got down and started to help. "So let me ask you something. I thought that Shadow Stalker cunt got taken out because she killed that Sophia Hess girl. But according to the others, Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker. Also, she's apparently not dead. What's up with that?"

I let out a heavy sigh. "It's kind of a long story."

Cassie shrugged at that, pointing out, "I'm not going anywhere for awhile, are you?" She dug the trowel deep under a week demonstratively.

Conceding the point, I worked my gloved fingers under the weed that I had been working at, yanking it up as I started to explain how things had gotten to this point.

Eventually, it was time to put the tools away and go check out with the groundskeeper so that he could verify our work. The two of us were walking, each carrying one of those simple white buckets full of the weeds we had pulled, along with our gloves and tools. We were hot, sweaty, and we both wanted to get out of there.

"Hey, uhh, hold up a minute." I said as we passed Taylor's grave. "I... have to do something."

Cassie's gaze moved from me to the grave, then back again. "That her?" When I nodded, she gestured. "Whatever, do what you gotta do." Seeming to realize belatedly that she might have sounded too nice and could lose her edgy reputation, she added, "Just don't take too long. I really need a hot shower to get this shit off."

Shaking my head, I set the bucket down and walked up to the grave. "Hey, Taylor." I said quietly, crouching down to look at the stone marker. "I know I said that I'd find your dad for you, that I'd figure out what happened. I wish I had better news, but... I just don't know where to look. It's been so long, and even though people know he's not Coil now, he's still really famous. Someone should've seen him, reported him, by now. But there's been nothing. No news at all. I thought maybe... he might have been Defiant, but that doesn't make sense, because Defiant showed up before your dad... triggered."

Sighing, I reached out to brush a finger down the name on the gravestone. "I swear, Taylor, I swear I'll do whatever it takes to find your dad and help him. I can't... I can't help you anymore. But I'll do what I can for your dad. If he's-" My eyes watered and I glanced away, briefly. "If he's still alive... I'll find him and I'll help him."

I was starting to rise, not wanting to make Cassie wait too long, when I heard the other girl shout, "Hey, behind you!"

Spinning so fast I almost fell over, I found... darkness. At first I thought the sun had somehow gone down while I wasn't looking, because it looked like night had come. Everything was dark. I could see Reach in the distance, but it might as well have been the middle of the night.

Then the darkness drew back and solidified in front of me, becoming a humanoid shape rather than an all-encompassing blackness. It looked like a man made out of near-physical shadows. A familiar man at that.

"M-Mr. Hebert?" I stammered, staring at the pitch-black figure, whose form was still wispy and unclear. His face looked like it was made of smoke, and the edges of his figure were insubstantial, like vapor.

He floated there for a moment, before reaching his hand out toward me. "My daughter." His voice sounded painful, like he was talking through shards of glass. "You... you helped... you hurt her. You hurt my daughter."

I froze, my mouth hanging open in shock. "Mr... Mr. H-Hebert, li-listen. Listen... th-this... y-you..."

Where words failed me, they did not fail him. The man's anger was clearly erupting, his voice becoming even harder to understand. "You... you come here... you come here and taunt her, taunt my daughter after she's... she's..." Unable to speak the words, the shadow-man let out a loud bellow of fury and started to swoop in toward my frozen form.

Before he reached me, one of the buckets full of weeds and tools shot through his head, making the smoke-figure drift apart. It didn't really seem to hurt him, but he did turn that way, just as Cassie threw herself through his form to tackle me away from him. "Move!" She shouted in my ear as we hit the ground. "Move move move!"

Shaking off the shock, I tried to scramble to my feet alongside her. "I have to talk to him! It's Taylor's father! I have to tell him what happened, that I'm not... that-"

"Doesn't seem like he's interested in talking!" She retorted, pulling herself up. "Seems more like he's supremely pissed off!"

We were both on our feet, and I pivoted to back pedal. "I have to try!"

"God damn it," Cassie muttered before putting herself next to me. To her credit, she didn't take off without me. "Hey! Hey temper tantrum dude! Listen to what she's gotta tell you, man!"

Instead, Mr. Hebert swooped toward us, his entire form expanding once more. He went from a humanoid figure to a wide blanket of darkness that surrounded, enveloped, and then enclosed us. I could see nothing, not even Cassie right next to me. I felt weightless, insubstantial, lost, and adrift.

Then, suddenly, I felt the ground rush up and smack into me. It hurt, and I groaned, rolling over and away from Reach, who was groaning as well. "Uggnnn..." I moaned before slowly lifting my head. "What..." We were in the back of some kind of abandoned gas station, judging from the rows of shelves and the counter at the front. The windows were boarded up.

"Welcome." The voice took me by surprise, and I jerked that way, staring at what turned out to be an obese bald man (so bald that he lacked even eyebrows or lashes), whose skin was so pale that I thought I could see his actual organs and skeleton through it. His face was dotted with hard little crusty spiral growths.

Still, as ugly as the man looked, his smile seemed genuine. "I trust that you aren't too hurt?"

"You..." I stared. "You're... Gregor the Snail."

"Please," the man corrected. "Call me Gregor."

"What the fuck are we doing here?" Cassie demanded, having situated herself by then. She sat next to me, staring at the heavy man.

A new voice answered her. "No idea what you're doing here. We thought Murk was only grabbing the other one."

Turning, I found myself looking at a woman wearing what looked like a welding mask, and a costume that was equal parts dress and riot gear. Not that her appearance should have surprised me. If Gregor the Snail was there, of course the mercenary leader was. "Faultline?" I stammered, still wondering if I should pretend to be completely innocent, as if I had no powers, or if they already knew who I was. For the moment, I would play dumb. "Y-you're Faultline, the... the mercenary."

"That's right." She nodded. "And you... are Madison Clements."

"What..." I swallowed uneasily. "What are we doing here? Where's... Mr. Hebert?"

As if in answer to my question, the shadows around the edge of the room coalesced into the man's shape, who glared at me hatefully. "My daughter..."

"Easy, Murk." Faultline held a hand out. "I told you we'd find out the truth about what happened to your girl if you helped us rescue Shamrock, and we will." She focused on me again. "So like the man said, girl, let's talk about Taylor Hebert."

10.02

Beside me, Cassie's eyes rolled. "Like she has to answer to you, you-"

"Cassie." I said quietly. "It's all right. I'll talk to them." Turning to give the other girl a pointed look, I added, "not like we have a lot of choice with all these capes around." I prayed she'd take the hint. They thought we were normal. I had to believe that, otherwise they would have had more than just Gregor watching us when we first showed up. And we likely would have been bound in some way by now.

Or not, considering that Mr. Hebert had apparently teleported us here.

Mr. Hebert. Taylor's dad. My heart sank as I saw the hate in his eyes.

"Let's start with the basic stuff." Faultline said. "Just to see how much you're willing to admit to."

"She'll admit to nothing." Mr. Hebert's harsh, glass-grinding voice spat. "She mocks my daughter's grave, taunts her ghost with the fact that Ta—Taylor is dead, and her punishment was... was community service!" The last two words came out as a bellow that sent darkness drifting over the room.

"Murk, we spoke about this." Faultline said calmly. "We agreed that she would have a chance to speak, remember? She's a girl just like your daughter, not a monster. You said that you wanted to hear her words, that you needed us to keep you calm so that you wouldn't... blow up. I'm telling you now, calm down. Let the girl speak, hear what she has to say." She indicated me then. "Kid, if you have anything to say, I suggest you say it."

I looked at Mr. Hebert, not at the mercenary woman. "Mr. Hebert... I... I'll talk to you. I'll talk to you, but not anybody else. Please, sir. I can't go anywhere, and I wouldn't try. I've been-" I swallowed. "I've been looking for you, sir. I'm not going to try to run away now. If you want to talk, I'm here. I'm right here. But not with everyone else here. This isn't for them. It's not... a game, and it's not a show. We don't need an audience."

Gregor spoke up. "If it will help, we can take the other young lady to have some food."

Cassie glared back at him. "Right, like I'm gonna just leave her by herself with some guy that's so pissed off he might-"

I interrupted her. "It's okay, Cassie. Go with them. I... I need to talk to Mr. Hebert alone."

She gave me a doubtful look, and I spent a moment wondering where this loyalty had come from. But the girl finally shrugged as if annoyed by the entire situation and turned to walk away, following Gregor.

"Can you handle this, Murk?" Faultline asked Taylor's father.

The shadow-figure hesitated, then nodded. "I want to hear her words." His gravelly voice intoned. "I want to hear what excuses she gives, what reasoning the courts could possibly have for... for not caring about my daughter's death."

Faultline looked between us for a moment, before nodding. "We'll be outside."

Then she left, and the two of us were alone. I stood there, facing the man whose daughter I had helped drive to her grave, the silence between us stretching on, until I knew that I had to speak.

The familiar dampness tried to come to my eyes, but I blinked it away forcefully, taking in a long breath that turned into a bit of a shudder when I let it out. "Taylor dying... It was-" My throat closed up, the words failing to come for a second. I wanted to close my eyes, wanted so desperately to stop looking into the hate-filled fury that was Mr. Hebert's gaze. "It was my fault. I could have-" Again, it became hard to speak past the lump in my throat. My hand pressed against the cracked floor beneath me before I gradually pushed myself to my feet, standing to face the man.

"I could have stopped Sophia. I could have told someone what she was doing. I... I made your daughter's life... miserable. I spent a year and a half... torturing her emotionally, psychologically... and saying nothing when Sophia hurt her physically. I thought... I thought it was funny. I liked... " My hands clenched at my sides from the sheer effort of not looking away. The man's anger was only growing with every word, but I kept going. I had to keep going. "I liked... the... power... I liked that she was afraid of us. I liked the popularity. Sophia... is damaged, crazy person. I don't... I don't know what's wrong with her, why she's... the way she is. I don't..."

Now I couldn't hold back the tears. They came unbidden, against every effort I put toward stopping them, blurring my vision, though I continued to stare directly at the man. "I do know... what was wrong with me." Swallowing past the thick lump in my throat, I continued in a soft voice. "... Nothing. There was nothing wrong with me, nothing to cloud my judgment and nothing to point the blame at. It was me. Every..." My mouth worked a few times, the tears threatening to blind me before I blinked rapidly, trying to see through them, while my voice shook with each word. "E-every... thing I did, every bad thing, it was all me. They were all my choices."

"So if you're looking for excuses, or for... or for reasons, I can't... give you any that you'll like. I knew... what Sophia was planning that day. I knew, and I didn't stop her. I didn't want to do it. I... I helped find the tampons. I..." The image of Taylor being shoved into the locker, of us walking away, of me looking back and hesitating for a split second, came to mind. In that moment, I had very nearly decided to let Taylor out of the locker. I almost did. If I had followed my instinct, if I had stepped back there and opened the locker so that she could get out... or even said something to a teacher, what would that have changed? What would have been different?

Would my parents still be alive?

"Mr. Hebert..." I met the man's gaze, "I know that Taylor dying was the worst day of your life. I know that because it was the second worst day of my life. The worst day of my life... was when I found out that my parents were dead. And then... later... I found out that the person who killed them... was Sophia. So... so Mr. Hebert, when I tell you that I wish that I had stopped Sophia then... I... I could not... possibly... given... given a million years... find a way to mean it more than I do right now. Taylor... dying... was my fault... because I could have stopped it. My parents... dying... was my fault... because if I had stopped Sophia before... if I had done something before... If I had cared before... then my parents would still be alive."

"I don't have any way to make it better, Mr. Hebert. I can't bring Taylor back, I swear to you that I... I wish I could, and every... every day since it happened, since Taylor died, I've wished that I could. I wished that I could take everything back. But I can't. All I can do... all I'm doing, is trying to be a better person than I was back then. You think that it didn't affect me... but it did. The person I was then, the person that... did those things... that's not who I am now."

"I know that doesn't take your pain away, because it doesn't take mine away, and she's your daughter. All I can say, Mr. Hebert... is that I will never, ever forget your daughter. Her life mattered. I... I will never become that person again. I will never let myself be the person that would would let someone die. My life... whatever it becomes... wherever I go and whatever I do... I will never forget Taylor."

My voice turned even softer then. "I don't go to Taylor's grave to taunt her, sir. I would never mock her, not now. Not after everything. I go to... to talk to her. Sometimes I just... talk about the day, other times I talk about how I was trying to find you, trying to find a way to help you. Sometimes... I apologize. I tell her how sorry I am, how... how much I wish that we could have... that things had been different. But it's never enough. It will never, ever be enough."

"You have every right to hate me, Mr. Hebert. But if you think I don't care, that Taylor's death is a joke, then you're wrong. Because nothing has shaped my life as much as that... as that choice did, because I care. It matters to me. She matters to me."

"I can't bring your daughter back, sir. I can't undo what I did. All I can do... is say... for whatever... whatever little it might matter... that I'm sorry. I am..." I choked a little more. "I am so... sorry."

For a long moment, after I finished speaking, there was no response. There was no relief from the man whose daughter I had helped to destroy. There was no visible acceptance of my words. The hate in his eyes had gradually turned to something worse: resignation and grief. The power of hating me, of focusing on his anger at the injustice, had, even if only for a brief time, softened his despair.

He still hated me. Of that I was certain. He hated me because of what I had helped do to his daughter, and no amount of apologies or words were going to magically erase that.

In a way, my being apologetic, my sorrow, had hurt him worse than if I had been flippant. It wasn't that he didn't believe my words, it was that he did believe them, and it didn't really help. I was sorry, but my being sorry wasn't going to help bring his daughter back. It wasn't going to repair his shattered life.

"Why...?" He finally said, his voice cracking even more than usual. His voice lacked its earlier fire, and was now just... broken. "Why did you take my Taylor away? Why? She... never hurt you. She'd never..."

My eyes closed finally, tears running down my face. I had no more words. I had no answer for him, even if I had been able to make myself speak. What else could I say? I had said it all. I wasn't the monster that some part of him had wanted me to be. Yes, I still felt grief about what happened to Taylor. I always would. But I had used that grief to change my life, to become better than I had been. I didn't hate myself. I hated who I had been, but I wasn't that person anymore. I grieved because of the waste, the utter waste, that had been Taylor's death. I grieved because of my former stupidity. But I did not hate the person that I had become, only what had necessitated it.

When I opened my eyes again, the figure was gone. Mr. Hebert had left, saying nothing, doing nothing. It was all he could do, all that I had left him. He hated me, maybe he would always hate me. But he knew the truth now. He knew that I was sorry, that Taylor's death had affected me.

For what pathetically little good it did him now.

After another moment, the door into the gas station opened, and I saw someone that looked even more odd than Gregor had. He was maybe a year older than I was, with orange skin that was made even more apparent by his lack of shirt, and red hair that looked damp. He had some kind of upside down omega symbol tattoo on his chest. His eyes were pale blue, looking rather amused. "Your little friend's pretty funny, you know? Where'd you find her?"

It took me a second to deal with the rather sudden mood whiplash. My hands went up to wipe away the tears from my eyes, and I took a deep, shuddering breath before focusing on the newcomer.

Newter, that was what he called himself. I stared for a second, but caught myself before too long. "I... we met through the program." I just didn't say which program, leaving him to assume I meant the community service. I suppose, in a way, Ihad met Cassie through a certain kind of community service.

"Figures, the fun ones are always crazy." He lamented. "Come on then, Faultline says we should feed you since we kidnapped you."

"Yeah... about that..." I started. "How long has Mr. Hebert been with you guys? I've umm... been looking for him."

"You and everyone else." Newter replied. "Murk, that's the name he prefers now, he joined up with us right after that whole business about him being Coil came out. Or more to the point, we tracked him down because we thought he might have... other sorts of answers." His hand reflexively came up to brush his chest where the tattoo was before sighing. "Anyway, let's go. The others are waiting."

I followed Newter out of the gas station, and toward the large, wide open doors of the attached mechanic garage. Inside was a table positively laden with food, next to an outdoor grill where girl in a red and black costume, gas mask lying next to her, stood cooking hamburgers. Cassie was there, already finishing up what looked like her second burger as she sat across the table from Faultline, Gregor, and a young woman who was wearing a green tee shirt that had a black clover symbol on the front.

In the far corner of the garage, another girl with platinum-white blonde hair, wearing a dark green robe with the design of a maze on it, stood facing the wall. The floor of the garage for about five feet around her wasn't floor at all, but grass, while the wall she was facing looked like something out of a Tim Burton movie with all the jagged edges and spikes.

Before I could stare for too long, Faultline looked up. "Okay, well, Murk says to send you back home." She paused. "Those weren't his precise words, but that's the gist. So, eat up, and we'll find you a ride."

"What about the same way we got here." Cassie pointed out after pushing her plate away.

Faultline just looked at her. "Apparently Murk doesn't really feel like spending more time around Madison here. And when he gets upset, he tends to lose track of where he's aiming his teleportation anyway. That's why you both hit the ground so hard when you... arrived."

The girl in the clover shirt nodded. "Upset as he is right now, you might end up popping out thirty feet or so off the ground."

After considering that for a moment, Cassie shrugged. "Car it is then." Her eyes brightened. "Can I drive?"

Gregor regarded her. "You are taking this entire... being abducted by notorious supervillains rather... well."

Cassie's response was a dry, "I've been desensitized by all the violence on TV."

"Indeed..." Gregor looked thoughtful, but said nothing else. Instead, he turned to me. "Our food is yours, my dear kidnappee."

"I'm not..." I shuddered a little as the remnants of torn up emotions went through me again. "I'm not really hungry." Biting my lip, I focused on Faultline. "Why did you think that Mr. Hebert would know something about whatever you were... looking into?" I glanced toward Newter and his tattoo.

The woman gave a little sigh. "Newter, please try to keep secrets better." I had a feeling that this wasn't the first, nor the last time that she would make that same request. Then she focused on me. "Better you not ask any other questions. It's dangerous. Just sit, and as soon as we're done, we'll get you home and you can forget about all of this."

As unlikely as that was, I just stared at the woman. A moment later, Newter waved his hand dismissively. "Oh calm down. Who're they gonna tell? And who'd believe them anyway? No way anyone pays attention. They'll just think they're crazy. Some story about a woman popping out of nowhere, giving away vials full of superpowers?"

"NEWTER!" Faultline had half-stood from her seat, but what she said to him next, I didn't hear. I was in too much shock.

Woman giving away vials of superpowers. Vials like... like Marissa had taken? Mr. Hebert wasn't... a natural parahuman?

What... the... hell?

10.03

"So are you gonna tell me what all that was about?" Cassie pressed as the two of us stood in the alley just behind the back lot of PRT headquarters. My shock had apparently been mistaken for general surprise at the very idea that man-made powers could exist, rather than actual recognition. Faultline had warned us multiple times that the people they were dealing with were dangerous, and not to go blabbing our heads off about what we heard.

At least she hadn't really threatened us. That said a lot for her group, considering they were, ostensibly, villains. Or at least, mercenaries who tended to work for villains.

Part of me had wanted to refuse to leave without talking to Mr. Hebert again, to try to convince him to come back. But I had known both how useless it would have been to argue with the mercenary leader (and possibly dangerous to them continuing to think of us as normal teenagers), and how equally useless it would have been to try talking to Mr. Hebert, even if I did miraculously get past Faultline. Not to mention that if I expressed too much interest in talking to the man after what Newter had said, they might figure out that I knew something else.

At least now I knew where to look for him, when I had something to say.

For a moment while Cassie stood, staring at me, I hesitated before shrugging. "You know what it was about. Taylor's dad joined Faultline's Crew, and somehow he found out that I had something to do with his daughter's death. He was angry and he wanted-"

"Fuck you." Cassie's tone was mild, at odds with her casual cursing. "You know what I mean. They said that bit about the woman giving him powers, and your eyes got all huge. It wasn't a complete surprise either. You know something."

My mouth opened to deny it, but then I hesitated. I didn't want to burn any bridges with the other girl. She was prickly enough as it was, and the fact that she was expressing an interest in what I was doing... well, it meant something, and I didn't want to throw that away. So I chose my words carefully. "I might know something. But I promised someone else that I wouldn't talk about it without their permission. If... if I figure out more, and if you can help, or whatever... then I promise I'll talk to you about it. I'm not gonna lie and say I don't know what you're talking about, but I can't say what it is yet either. Can you accept that?"

The girl stared back at me for a long moment, before shrugging. She looked away and started to walk through the parking lot and on toward the back doors while muttering, "Sure, whatever."

I stood there by myself for another few moments, processing in private. If Mr. Hebert had been given his powers, by some woman 'popping up out of nowhere', then what did that mean? What did any of it mean? Who was the woman, and would she know what was wrong with Noelle? If I could get a description of the woman from Mr. Hebert, or...

My train of thought was interrupted by a light red line that popped up, connected to Cassie. Eyes widening, I quickly attached a line between the ground next to me and the backside of her pants, giving a sharp pull backwards while calling out. "Look out!"

She fell back with a cry, barely a second before a blonde blur dove out the sky and slammed into the pavement right where she had been. I barely had time to process who it was, before Victoria spun around to stalk toward the fallen girl, bellowing, "Where is she?!"

"Up your ass." Cassie shot back while running her hand all along the ground. Every bit of dirt and dust that she touched flew up against Victoria's face, forming a briefly obscuring cloud, while the other girl rolled backwards and to her feet. "You wanna go, bitch? Let's go when you're not jumping me from behind."

"Victoria!" I ran that way, eyes wide. "What the hell are you doing?"

The super-strong girl had been raising her fist when my voice penetrated. She blinked, turning toward me. "Madison?" She asked with clear confusion, looking from me to Cassie and back again. "You... disappeared. You never checked out of your community service, and there were buckets and tools everywhere. I thought..."

Reach glared daggers at the older girl. "We were both kidnapped. But of course, I'm the one that must have attacked her.You found me out. My master god damn plan was to go through all this bullshit, have to stare at your fucking face every damn day, and wait until I was doing yardwork with her." She gestured back toward me. "Just so I could kidnap her, andthen walk right back into the headquarters of the people I abducted her away from. However did you break through my brilliant strategy?"

"Cassie." I started to say, though I did give Victoria a dirty look first. "It's not-"

"Forget it." Shaking her head, the girl pointed at Victoria. "You're lucky that first hit didn't land, Princess. This conversation wouldn't be over if it had." Then she started to stalk away.

I sighed, staring at Glory Girl. "If you keep treating her like a criminal at every drop of a hat, she's going to start thinking that she has no other choice other than being a criminal."

"She is a criminal, remember?" Victoria shot back. "She was Junior Miss Nazi."

"Was." I replied. "She's not now. She's part of the team, Victoria. She's trying to change, but if you keep coming after her every single time you get the slightest semblance of an excuse, she's not going to stay. She joined the Empire because they treated her like family. If we keep attacking her, all she's going to see is that one side treated her well, and the other side keeps blaming her for everything that goes wrong."

For a moment, Victoria just stared back at me, indecision running through her eyes. Finally, she sighed and waved it off. "Anyway, where were you? What happened? Everyone's out looking."

I hesitated before sighing. "Can we go inside and talk about it?" Gesturing to my dirty clothes, I pointed out, "I was really hoping I could shower and change before getting into any of it."

We walked back through the lot and into the doors, just in time for me to find myself abruptly yanked forward off of my feet with a yelp, and into an embrace. "Madison! You're okay. You're all right."

I recognized the identity of the person currently threatening to squeeze my insides out like toothpaste then. "Sam?"

Battery let me go, though her hands remained on my shoulders as though assuring herself that I was there. "When you disappeared, we thought... I mean... you..."

Before she could go on, I found myself turned around and then pulled into another hug, this time from Ethan. The normally jovial, irreverent man actually embraced me without reservation. "Good." He said. "Good."

Blinking, confused, I looked back and forth between the pair that had become my legal guardians. "You were... worried about me?"

The two of them glanced to each other and then back to me. Ethan gave my shoulder a light pop with his fist. "Of course we were worried about you! You just disappeared. And after..."

He trailed off, blanching, and Samantha took up his explanation. "After what we knew about..." She lowered her voice a little. "About Bonesaw being a 'fan', we thought..."

I gulped at the thought, a chill running through me. "You thought she took us?"

"She didn't, right? You're okay? You're... you're all right?" Ethan still looked like he was eying me, checking for surgical trauma.

"I—I'm fine." I told them. "It wasn't her, it... you... you guys were really upset?" I was still trying to come to terms with that fact.

"Why wouldn't we be?" Sam asked, her hand taking mine. "You're our... I mean you're..."

Still confused, I said rather blankly, "But you just took me in because the Protectorate needed someone to watch over a Ward so that I didn't have to explain things to some random foster family or whatever."

For some reason, Sam looked like I had slapped her. Ethan, however, shook his head. "Hey, no. We chose to take care of you. That was our choice, not some rule or whatever. We weren't following some no-name suit's orders. We wanted to, kid. You were our choice, nobody else's."

I saw Sam shudder a little, before she spoke. "When we thought that Bonesaw took you, what she might... do..."

"It wasn't her." I repeated. My voice was a little dull, while I tried to comprehend what they were saying. I'd been assuming that, while we did get along, that this was little more than a job to them. Taking care of me, keeping me fed and sheltered... hell, I spent a couple nights a week back at my parents' home, and they hadn't complained. I'd thought that was because they didn't really care about what I was doing as long as I was technically safe, but... but this was real, true worry. They had been afraid for me, relieved when I had shown up.

They... cared about me.

"Well, who was it? What happened?" Sam pressed. She still looked pale at the very thought that Bonesaw had taken me, and I realized just how afraid she had been.

Swallowing, I said, a little numbly, "It was... it was Mr. Hebert."

That made them both stop, staring at me. "What?" Ethan asked.

"Wait, so he is a bad guy?" Victoria asked from somewhere behind me. "Can I get a scoresheet or something? I'm having a hard time keeping track of who's on what side."

"No, he's not a bad guy." I said quickly, before hesitating. "I mean... well technically he might sort of be since he's working with Faultline's Crew, but-"

"He's what?" Ethan's eyes widened, and he let out a chuckle. "Are you telling me that the guy that everyone was looking for back when they thought he was Coil... was with Faultline the whole time?" When I nodded, he laughed a little louder. "No wonder she refused every offer to pay her people to look for him. She said something about a conflict of interest."

"Well, apparently she wasn't lying about that." I replied with a shrug, making Ethan chuckle even more.

"Wait," Victoria piped up. "You guys were trying to hire Faultline's Crew to find Hebert?"

"Not us personally." Sam's head shook. "We were just supposed to pass along the message from higher up. Above our paygrade. But Faultline refused the job, and now we know why."

"So what happened, exactly?" Ethan pressed.

I hesitated, before lifting my arm to gesture at myself. "Can I go get cleaned up in the Wards showers before we talk about that? I mean, it's nothing that won't keep for a few minutes. Mr. Hebert has powers, he triggered, and now he's working for Faultline's Crew. The... specifics I'd rather talk about after I'm out of these clothes and feel more human."

Both of them nodded, and Battery squeezed my hand one more time. "We really do care about what happens to you." She said quietly, with a certain emphasis that I didn't fully understand.

I went to take my shower finally, soaking under the near-scalding water while I kept running through things in my head. If Mr. Hebert had been given powers by the same method that Marissa had gotten hers, then he might know something that could lead to the person or the place that the powers had originally come from. Hell, even just the fact that he'd actually, apparently, seen a woman give him the power vial was more information than the Travelers had before.

But how could we get that information out of Mr. Hebert with how he obviously, and for good reason, felt about me? I refused to do anything to hurt the man, not after everything else that had happened, even if he had joined up with a group that worked for known and dangerous villains.

That meant that someone else was going to have to talk to him. Sundancer had been a Traveler, who were also known mercenaries. Maybe Faultline would discuss thing with her, if I could somehow put the two of them together?

By the time that I was cleaned and dressed again, I had a probable plan. I would tell Marissa about Mr. Hebert, and let her get in contact with Faultline, if possible. If she had to, she could say that she had a civilian friend that had told her about the vial thing, since Faultline was likely going to draw a connection between the two girls that Newter had talked too much to, and some other girl somehow randomly showing up and knowing about it.

I started out of the Wards room, passing Missy doing some kind of project on the computer. As I walked by, the younger girl looked up, pushing away from the computer to face me. "I—I heard you were kidnapped by Faultline. Are you okay?"

"I'm good, I just... it was Taylor's father. He's got... powers and he's working with them now." I said slowly. "He wanted to talk about what happened to Taylor. He wanted... closure."

"Did you give it to him?" She asked after a second.

I sighed, shaking my head. "I don't think so. I don't know if he's ever going to get 'closure'. But... we talked. Or I talked and he listened. Now he doesn't want anything to do with me." After a second, I added, "Cassie was abducted too."

The other girl flinched a little before shrugging. "I... yeah, I guess."

"It's not her fault that they sent Dean and Carlos away, Missy." I told her. "One thing doesn't have anything to do with the other. If we didn't have her, we'd just have one less person."

"She was a bad guy." Missy protested.

"Was." I said firmly. "She was a bad guy. We have to give her a chance. She's here for a reason, right? Just... just try not to hate her so much. She's trying... sort of. You're kind of a big deal in the Wards, Missy. You've been here longer than the rest of us. If you start... if you try to accept her, maybe the others will too."

A long, heavy sigh escaped my younger teammate, before she nodded. "I'll... try to give it a chance."

"Thanks." I smiled. "Maybe just start with being worried about both of us when we disappear?" When Missy nodded, I turned to head out. Time to go upstairs and explain, as much as I could, about what had happened.

As I walked, I couldn't stop wondering, what was so special about Mr. Hebert? Why did he have to gain powers right then, at that exact moment?

And most importantly, who was the woman who had given them to him?

10.04

Cassie and I were both debriefed about what had happened. We told them what we knew. Or, most of it anyway. By mutual, silent agreement, we left out the bit about Mr. Hebert getting his powers out of a vial.

I had two main reasons for that. First, I wanted to talk to Marissa. The 'powers from a bottle' thing affected her more than anyone in the Protectorate. That was if they even believed the idea was anything more than the ravings of a delusional man. And my second reason for not talking about it was simple. Somehow, the woman who had done this, assuming she existed, had popped into a house and out again not only under the Protectorate's noses, but under Coil's as well. That, added to the fact that she, apparently, could give people powers, meant that she was probably one of the most powerful and dangerous people in the world.

And no one knew about her.

I wasn't stupid. Something like this didn't stay secret because nobody ever noticed and tried to say something. It stayed secret because people made it stay secret. So if I started blabbing, the most that was likely to happen was that this dangerous woman, who had already illustrated the ability to come and go as she pleased, would target me, or the people that I had told.

So, I said nothing about it. For now.

Once they were done with us, I was walking out of the building ahead of Ethan and Sam. I was using my phone to text Marissa, telling her that we needed to talk about 'those canisters', purposefully being vague enough that only she would know what I meant if anyone saw either of our phones. Call me paranoid, but, well, I was paranoid.

Just after I sent the message, Ethan called out from behind me, "Hey, Shortstuff!"

Blinking, I turned that way. "Me?"

"Yeah, you." Pointing to his truck on the other side of the parking lot, Ethan went on. "We've got an idea, let's cram into the truck and go to the store."

Looking back and forth between both of them, I hesitated. On the one hand, I really wanted to talk to Marissa about what I'd found out. But on the other hand, Ethan and Sam were obviously excited about whatever idea they had, and after our... bit of bonding earlier, I didn't want to dismiss them out of hand.

Finally, I glanced down at my phone and sent a follow-up message, letting Marissa know that I'd talk to her in a couple hours. Then I nodded and began to head for the truck while remarking, "Just so you know, if this is your plan to get rid of me, stores don't take returns on sixteen-year-old merchandise."

"Damn." Ethan snapped his fingers, coming up on the other side of the truck to unlock it. "What about exchanges? I do have my eye on a nice wall-mounted flat screen."

As we piled in, I saw Sam stretch a rubber band against her finger and snap it across the distance to hit Ethan in the arm, making him yelp. She nudged me then, winking. "I do that when he's a jerk. I'll give you a supply of them."

"On the plus side," the man pointed out while pocketing the projectile, "my rubber band collection is coming along nicely."

"That's what he thinks," Sam stage-whispered to me. "I just raid his stash to resupply my ammo."

We drove to the store, though neither of them said what we were going for. It wasn't until we were walking in, that Ethan's hand came down on my shoulder. "So, Sammy and I were talking, and it seems like... you still feel like a guest at home."

Biting my lip, I looked between them. "I... ummm..."

"It's okay," Sam assured me. "But we want you to feel like... like it's your place too. You know... you can have friends over, even if they're not in on the whole hero thing. Just let us know so that we don't come around with... work clothes on or whatever." She said the last part carefully, clearly not wanting to babble about costumes right in the store entrance.

I shrugged at that. "Pretty much all my friends are... part of the group." I said, equally carefully.

"Either way," Ethan put in. "It's your place too, funsize."

"If you keep making fun of how small I am," I shot back. "I'm gonna ask Sam for her rubberbands."

Smirking, Ethan waved off the threat. "Sure you are, Little Bit. Anyway, we want you to have your space. That room you're staying in, it's not just like a motel room or a sleepover. It's your room for as long as you'll take it."

Sam took up the explanation then. "So, we thought we'd come here and let you pick out whatever you want to make ityour space. Paint, furniture, wallpaper, posters, blinds, whatever. We'll toss everything else and spend one of the next couple days setting up the room the way you want it."

My mouth worked a little, as I stared. "You... I... you didn't have to..." I couldn't find the words.

Ethan nudged me a little. "Just say we're awesome and let's go get you some wallpaper that says, 'Madison'. I'm thinking of a bunch of the munchkins from Wizard of Oz. You know, your people."

Scowling, I threw a punch at him, while he snickered and danced back, grabbing a shopping cart to use as a shield.

Later that night, I was standing outside of Sam and Ethan's room, hesitating. He was off on patrol, but Sam was in there, using her computer. I fidgeted uncertainly for another moment or two, before reaching out to knock on the doorjam as I stepped into view.

Sam closed down what looked like a messaging program, turning the chair around to face me. "Hey, everything all right? Sorry that Ethan had to ahhh, work, but we'll get your stuff set up asap."

"It's okay," I said quickly. "You guys didn't have to do all that. I mean, thanks... I just... that's not what I came here about."

Raising an eyebrow, Sam indicated the recliner next to the closet. "What's up?"

I took the offered seat, drawing my legs up to wrap my arms around them. "I guess I sort of need... advice?"

"What kind of advice?" Sam asked, curiously.

Hesitating, I felt the blush come up while resting my chin against my knees. "Umm... dating... advice?"

"Dating?" Sam actually grinned a little at that and leaned forward conspiratorially. "Who's the lucky guy you're dating? Anyone we know?"

Somehow managing to blush deeper, I pressed my face against my knees and mumbled into them.

The reaction made Sam smile even more, and she reached out a finger to poke me in the leg. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. Did you say, mmgghgul?"

Shivering, I slowly lifted my chin so that I could talk. A glance at the woman's face made me almost bury my own again, but I finally managed, "It's a girl."

Taken by surprise, Sam blinked a couple times. "A girl? You mean you're—I mean..." she trailed off then, adjusting. "Wow. I... had no idea. I mean," she added quickly, "obviously it's not a problem or anything. I just... wow."

"Neither did I." Shrugging as I admitted that, I went on. "Not until I met her. Well, not when we met, but... sort of... I... Oh god." Blushing furiously, I buried my face against my legs, mumbling, "Forget it, forget I said anything."

Sam's hand found mine. "Hey, it's okay. It's all right. This is a... new development?"

"Pretty new." I nodded. "I wasn't sure... how to talk about it, or who to ask for advice. It's... really complicated. I'm just not sure what else to do, how to... to date anyone seriously, let alone a girl, let alone..." I trailed off, sighing.

Squeezing my hand, Sam used her other to tilt my head up so that I'd look at her. "Hey, it can't be that complicated. Look at me. I started out trying to arrest Ethan, and now we're married. I got involved with a villain. Okay, former villain, but you know. How messed up could your situation be?"

My mouth opened and then shut as I stared at her. Finally, all I could manage was a weak, "You'd be surprised."

"What's in this thing we supposed to be protecting, anyway?" Vista asked over the com the next evening.

From where I stood, on the edge of a warehouse roof, I could see the younger girl across the empty parking lot, standing next to the security guard shack at the gate.

Clockblocker responded from his place somewhere on the far side of the building, where he and Reach were. "Just some tinker stuff the mayor wanted protected. They didn't exactly share a lot of details beyond 'be here and don't let it get stolen'."

"We're just back-up anyway." I pointed out. "Penance and Laserdream are doing the real work." The two older heroes were escorting the truck from the edge of the city limits all the way to the warehouse. We were just supposed to wait there and stand guard while the truck was unloaded so that the Protectorate members could go back to their real patrol.

On the opposite corner of the roof from me, Glory Girl replied, "Crystal said she saw soldiers on the truck. Whatever it is, it's not a normal delivery."

"Could've told you that." Kid Win, somewhere high above all of us on his jetpack-thing, spoke up. "They don't have two Protectorate people escort a truck all the way to a warehouse that's protected by the entire Wards team for toilet paper and televisions."

While waiting, I thought back to the conversation with Battery the night before. I'd told her most of what I could about Marissa, leaving out the parts about being from another world, and how they'd gotten their powers. I told her that Sundancer had been trying to help her friend, and that she had pulled away from her group. I explained everything about how we'd met, how I'd recognized her during the first encounter with Pandora, and how we'd started hanging out.

To my surprise, Sam didn't suggest that I leave well enough alone. She gave some advice about coaxing Marissa (not that she knew the name) to come forward so that she could apply for a pardon, as well as some general guidance about dating anyone in general, and a former villain specifically.

I knew that getting Marissa pardoned was going to be difficult, considering the hoops that we were going to have to carefully navigate surrounding her origin, but I was hoping there would be a way to manage it. I'd kind of like to be able to talk about my... my girlfriend with others. Hell, even thinking of Marissa as my girlfriend still made me want to sigh a little dreamily.

Seeing headlights, I was pulled out of my musings. "Incoming."

The truck pulled into the lot, while the two Protectorate members flew overhead. Crystal glided down to talk to her cousin for a minute, while Penance landed on the ground next to Clockblocker and Reach.

For a moment, I watched as the truck turned around and backed up to the warehouse doors. Then the soldiers hopped out and began to unload what looked like heavy wooden pallets piled high with crates onto a waiting forklift.

Crystal came up next to me a moment later. "I don't suppose you've heard from Pandora or Dinah since the last time?"

I blinked at that, glancing toward the older girl. "Err, no. Why?"

She sighed, shrugging. "The mayor's getting really upset about the lack of any news on his niece. And her parents are... well, you passing along the 'don't worry about me' message didn't exactly make them stop worrying. I was hoping you had a way to contact them so that Dinah would at least talk to her parents directly. Otherwise... otherwise they might do something stupid."

Thinking of the finger that Pandora had given me, which was wrapped up and sitting in the bottom of my backpack at home (I had been assured repeatedly by the clone that it wouldn't go bad, which was somehow even creepier than if it did), I slowly nodded. "I think I can get a message to her."

"Good." Crystal let out a breath of relief. "Try to tell her to contact her parents somehow, because they're kind of going out of their minds." When I nodded, she put her hand on my shoulder. "Are you doing all right?"

Biting my lip, glad that my mask hid my blanch, I shrugged. "I'm... getting there. One day at a time. Battery says they still haven't tracked down Trevor, which is weird, given their resources."

"They'll find him." Crystal assured me. "We'll find him. Even if we have to go door-to-door."

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that." I managed to chuckle softly. "Though he'd probably appreciate the attention from a cute superhero."

Somehow, I'd managed to make Laserdream blush. She floated up, gesturing. "Yeah, yeah. I better get going. Don't want to keep Penance waiting. Try to get a hold of Dinah as soon as you can?"

I nodded again, and the other girl took off.

It took another twenty minutes for the soldiers to finish unloading the truck. Victoria had joined me by then, gazing down at the vehicle. "Great, so we're all dressed up and waiting out here for nothing. Just another boring-"

Five different voices, including my own, rose together as every other member of the team shouted (most through the com),"DON'T SAY IT!"

Barely three seconds later, while Victoria was still recovering, I saw three black lines leading down to the trio of soldiers who were standing around the front of the delivery truck. "Damn it, incoming!" I called out while attaching lines to each of the three to yank them up and away from the vehicle.

As soon as I did that, there was a sudden explosion just under the front end of the truck that flipped the vehicle up end-over-end, sending flames and smoke shooting into the air while the vehicle crashed onto its side.

I yanked the soldiers that were in the air all the way to the roof, letting them tumble down behind us while giving Glory Girl a look. "You had to say it. You hadto say it. We were this close." I held my fingers up a short distance apart.

She rolled her eyes. "You're too superstitious. Now let's go kick ass." She pointed toward some kind of figure that was now standing where the truck had been. It was hard to make out through the smoke. Floating up off the roof, she began to dive toward the ground where the explosion had happened.

Kid Win was coming down on his pack, while Vista approached from the other side of the lot. Reach and Clockblocker were coming up from the side of the building, the former floating on a manhole cover.

Abruptly, I saw red lines of varying intensity stretch out to each of them. Eyes widening, I focused on grabbing all five with my own tethers, yanking them out of the way, just as a handful of long black metal... coils flung themselves out toward Kid, Vista, and Glory Girl. At the same time, a red sphere about the size of a baseball shot straight at the spot where Reach and Clockblocker had been, exploding into a spray of acid that began to melt through the surrounding cement.

Unfortunately, I hadn't predicted the metal tentacle thing that was coming for me. It shot up the entire distance to the roof, snatched hold of my arm with a pair of strong pincers, and yanked me off my perch before flinging me end over end toward the far fence. As I fell, I oriented just enough to attach a line to the pavement, redirecting my descent and slowing it.

That worked for a second before my eyes caught sight of blue orb flying toward me. Grimacing, I reversed my fall into a push. A second later, the blue orb exploded, and the concussive force of that one hurtled me backwards to hit the tall chainlink fence hard enough that I slumped to the ground, groaning.

By that point, the smoke had cleared, and I could see the attacker. "Bakuda?" I managed, staring.

The bomb-tinker was encased in some kind of hard shell cocoon. It was dark red, and left nothing but her face exposed, her eyes covered with goggles. Four heavy legs made of the same material stretched slightly upward and out, then down to the ground to support the cocoon structure, reminding me of a praying mantis. In the front 'chest' area, there were what looked like a pair of metal cannons. Where her shoulders would be a pair of telescoping black metal tentacles stretched out, matched by another pair of tentacles about halfway down each side. Finally, two more tentacles stretched out from the back of the cocoon.

Hearing me say her name, Bakuda twisted around to face me, the praying mantis-like legs skittering quickly. She lifted one tentacle, and I saw it extend, the end reshaping from a pincer into a barrel, before she launched another of those explosive orbs at me, this one yellow. I barely managed to fling myself upward on a line before the yellow orb blew apart into a burst of razor blades that tore through the fence I'd been next to.

"Thought I was gone, huh?!" The crazy bomb-maker shouted, while each of her tentacles reshaped into barrels, launching more projectiles in each direction. "Guess what? I'm still here, assholes!"

10.05

"Tentacles and cannon boobs?!" Clockblocker yelped, taking cover behind the wall of the building. "Seriously? Whose idea was it to give Bakuda tentacles and cannon boobs?! I feel like there should be someone we can submit a complaint to!"

"At least now we know what you-know-who was doing with her." Kid Win pointed out, while coming down close enough to orient his backpack's cannons onto the opposing tinker. A pair of dark blue, almost black, laser beams as wide around as my fist shot out of the cannons and toward the woman, but she used a tentacle to block them, seemingly taking little in the way of damage.

I had to get back up, but my back hurt where I'd smacked into the fence, to say nothing of the general pain throughout my body from the force of the concussive bomb. My costume had protected me from the worst of it, but that still left enough pain that it was difficult to focus. My vision kept blurring every time a wave of pain went through my back. Still, I was pretty sure it was just bruised.

Blinking through the bleariness in my eyes, I forced myself to straighten once more, while Glory Girl flew down and caught hold of one of the tentacles. "Gimme two seconds to wrap this bitch up into a nice little present-" The blonde girl managed, just before the tentacle whipped downward with her still attached, slamming into the pavement with enough force to put a Victoria-sized hole in it, before whipping back upward, flinging the girl off and into the sky.

At least there hadn't been any lines, so I knew that Victoria wasn't really hurt. Probably dazed, but not hurt. Thank god.

As I saw Bakuda orienting toward Vista, I forced myself to stand, taking two steps before steadying myself. When the armored-tinker launched two more bombs toward the younger girl, I immediately attached lines between each of them and one of the tentacles.

"Sorry, Bakuda!" I called out. "But when you don't attach proper postage, your package gets-" The bombs exploded into sprays of green acid. "-returned to sender!"

She turned toward me, a tentacle swiping out low and very fast. I didn't have the advantage of advance warning that I had with others, so it nearly took my legs out from under me before I managed to catch part of the tentacle with a line and pin it to the ground. At which point, the tentacle simply extended another dozen feet in length so that the part of it that was pinned was meaningless, before continuing to whip around, colliding with my side and pitching me sideways while a fresh burst of pain.

Landing hard on my other side, my attention was broken, so Bakuda's tentacle was freed. I heard Clockblocker shout something, before Vista took a knee at my side. "Are you okay?" She asked. One of those bombs came flying in our direction, and she quickly twisted the space to send it flying off another direction.

"Mmmgood." I mumbled. "Can you twist up those tentacles?"

Vista made a face, shaking her head. "There's something organic inside them. I can't affect them. Which means she's got this huge bubble around her that I can't get through, since those tentacles keep whipping around everywhere."

Across the lot, the flaming hunk of wreckage that was the delivery truck abruptly went flying through the air toward Bakuda, as Reach took her hand away from it. The ruined vehicle slammed into the tinker with enough force to crumple the entire front half of the truck in on itself. Bakuda just crossed two tentacles in front of herself, like a person blocking with their arms, and barely moved. Those tentacles were strong enough that the full force of the truck-blow hardly affected them.

Two tentacles lashed out toward Reach, while another picked up the broken remains of the truck and flung it upward toward the hovering Kid Win. Cassie flew backwards on her manhole cover, narrowly escaping the grasping tentacles, while Chris managed to evade by rising out of reach. Apparently, even though the tentacles could extend, they did have limits to their length.

Almost at the same time, one of the back tentacles focused on Clockblocker, who was attempting to come up behind Bakuda. That tentacle reshaped itself into a barrel before it began to launch several grenades in rapid succession, forcing Dennis to take cover again and curse through the com. "I can't get close! It's like she's got eyes in the back of her head."

"Knowing you-know-who, she probably does." Victoria replied, coming back down out of the sky. This time, she flew down close enough to get Bakuda's attention, batted aside the tentacle that reached for her, weathered the explosive force of the bomb that was launched her way from one of the chest cannons, and then flew in fast and hard to kick at the woman's exposed face. Bakuda managed to twist aside at the last second, but the kick still knocked her over and sent her skidding along the ground.

It did not, unfortunately, seem to slow her down very much. Two of the tentacles drove into the ground to lever the body up once more, those four praying mantis legs getting their footing, while each of the remaining tentacles flew into a frenzy, launching those damn explosives in every direction.

Vista drew the space up behind the two of us, and we moved back out of reach of the yellow and white bombs that were sent our way.

I shook my head. "We can't get close to her. The face is her weak spot, but we can't get to it. I can't even attach lines to her shell. It's like the whole thing is organic somehow. I can get her tentacles, but there's no way I can attach enough lines to hold all of them, down the entire length."

"Lucky you." Clockblocker replied with a grimace. I could see him peeking around the corner of what was left of the badly damaged wall. "I can't even get close enough to do anything."

"I can redirect the bombs if I see them." Vista put in. "But that's about it."

"There's too many god damn tentacles!" Reach complained. "Anything I send at her she blocks, no matter what direction I hit her from."

"If that shell's organic, it's no kind of organic I've ever seen." Kid Win said, his cannons launching a flurry of shots that only managed to get Bakuda's attention, before he had to evade her counter-attack. "I've hit it with a full barrage and it's barely singed."

"No." Reach surprisingly replied. "You're hurting it, I saw the holes. And the dent from when Princess kicked her. The shell's tough, but not invulnerable, it just heals and reshapes really fucking fast."

"If Reach was a better telekinetic," Glory Girl put in. "She could wrap those tentacles into a bow and we could all go get some food. But no, she's gotta get close enough to touch the damn things, so she's useless."

The reaction was immediate. Reach flew out from behind cover, crouched low on her flying manhole cover. "Don't-" She started, jumping up off of her hovering platform as a tentacle swatted at her, before landing back on it on the other side of the attack. "Call-" She dove at the ground as another tentacle launched a bomb at her, releasing a metal ball bearing from her hand that shot toward the incoming explosive to knock it off course. "Me-" Her hand slapped the ground at Bakuda's feet, at which point a chunk of pavement about fifteen feet across and four feet thick literally tore itself up out of the ground with the bomb-tinker standing on it, flinging itself and her at the warehouse wall with enough force to blow through it. "Useless!"

There were rumblings from inside the warehouse, where Bakuda was reorienting herself. We could hear her curses.

"Guys." I managed to pick myself up, wincing at the pain. My back was killing me, my arm kept sending its own stabbing pain to remind me it existed, and it hurt to breathe too deep. "We can stop her, but we have to do it together. No arguing or bitching."

"You've got an idea?" Clockblocker asked.

I looked at the hole that Bakuda had made when she went flying through it, listening to her approach as she ranted about what she was going to do to us. "Yeah." I said quietly. "I've got an idea."

By the time that Bakuda emerged from the warehouse, stomping back out into the ruined parking lot with her tentacles waving threateningly, I was the only person she found. She stopped, smiling gloatingly as she stared at me.

"So," The mad-tinker chuckled. "Give the Wards a little bit of a fight, and they all run away."

I let my head tilt while making a pitying noise. "Aww, getting your ass kicked and thrown through a wall must've messed up your eyesight. I'm still here."

Glowering at me, Bakuda stalked closer. "So you were too stupid to run while you could."

"Meh," I replied, waving a hand dismissively. "They got bored of waiting for you to collect yourself. I'll meet up with them after I finish dealing with you."

"I sure hope you know what you're doing." Chris muttered through the com, while Bakuda's face turned almost as red as her shell from her anger.

In response, I murmured. "Just make sure you guys do your parts. I'll be fine." I hope. A quiet voice added in the back of my head before I could banish it.

Unable to depend on warning lines, I had to focus on watching Bakuda and her multiple arms as closely as I could. The second that one of them drove forward toward me, I attached a line between my extended arm and the roof of the warehouse, letting it yank me away from the grasping tentacle while calling down to her. "So which did you like better, being Lung's bitch or being Coil's bitch?"

I barely let myself land on the roof before instantly launching myself skyward without taking time to look. It was a good thing I did, since two of the tentacles blew through the edge of the roof and wall where I would have been standing.

Twisting around in the air to see the tinker as she launched two different explosives up toward me, I quickly used a line that stretched between the pair of flying orbs and used it to push them as far apart as I could, so that each exploded far away from me. Then I used another line to yank myself back down to the ground, ignoring the stab of pain that went through my side when I landed and nearly took my breath away.

"That all you got?" I asked. "Cuz I told the others you might actually put up a fight if there was only one of us. So far, not impressed."

Lucky me, that got her full attention. Another pair of explosives shot my way, along with no less than three tentacles. I attached a line between the very end of one of the tentacles and the furthest of the explosives, so that when it whipped around, it knocked both out of the air. Then I leapt, attaching a pair of lines between my feet and a point about midway down the nearest tentacle so that I was pulled in to land on it, and held there by the lines that kept my boots secured to it.

Instantly, my dinner threatened to tear its way out of my stomach, as I was flung up and around from Bakuda attempting to shake me off. It didn't work, my lines were too firmly attached between myself and the tentacle. But it did make me queasy. At least my breaker abilities meant that I didn't get whiplash too bad.

Seeing one of the other tentacles lashing down toward me, I caught it with a line that was attached between it and the tentacle I was standing on, then leapt off of it and sideways just in time for the two metal coils to be yanked against each other.

Rolling as I hit the ground to avoid the two tentacles that drove themselves through the cement where I had been, I quickly reached out a hand toward another part of the pavement and let the line pull me along the ground and out of Bakuda's nearest reach, while maintaining my focus on the other line that was keeping the first two metal arms pinned together.

"I sure hope you guys are ready." I muttered as I picked myself up. "Cuz I don't know how much longer I can-" My words were interrupted as blinding pain erupted in my side. One of the tentacles had finally caught me, sending me crashing to the ground on my already injured arm and drawing a cry of pain from me.

The tentacle caught hold of my boot, yanking me up and sending me flying at the damaged brick wall. Grimacing, I barely managed to use a line to slow my approach just enough that the blow as I hit didn't immediately break me. It still sent waves of agony through my body, while my vision threatened to black out.

Then I was being flung toward the ground, and I crossed my arms protectively in front of my face while trying to stop myself with another line. Unfortunately, I couldn't focus on it quickly enough, and the pain as I was brought down hard into the broken pavement drove the air from my lungs, and I could feel the shattering pain as several bones snapped from the force of the impact.

I was lying in a crumpled heap, barely conscious, while Bakuda stood over me. One of her tentacles turned me over, and she grinned. "So who's the bitch now?" She demanded.

Trying to suck in enough air to breathe, I barely managed to wheeze, "I dunno about bitch..." I sucked in more air, shuddering in pain that only my adrenaline was preventing from overwhelming me entirely. "But you are easily distracted."

Before Bakuda could react to that, Kid Win came flying down on his jetpack, presenting her with a target. "Hey!" He called out to her. "Weren't you supposed to be good with bombs? Cuz so far, not impressed."

Twisting that way, the armored-tinker growled and launched two different grenades from her chest barrels. "You want impressive, try this!"

The explosives arced through the air toward Kid... then twisted around and down back through the air that Vista had taken the time to reshape, exploding against Bakuda's back with enough force to actually knock her sprawling to the ground.

She used a tentacle to push herself up, while lashing out with another. The tentacle was redirected, Vista's work again, to smack herself in the side of the head, narrowly missing her face.

The fact was, Vista hadn't been able to work on the space around Bakuda while the woman had been waving her tentacles through it. But I had distracted her long enough, kept her attention solely on me and therefore not waving wildly through the air at everyone else for enough time, that the younger girl had finally been able to shape the space the way she wanted it. After that, all I'd had to do was maneuver Bakuda into position.

Oww. Lucky me.

With Bakuda disoriented, another figure flew straight down out of the sky above her head. Two figures, actually. Glory Girl carried Reach, holding the other girl close to her chest as they dropped rapidly. By the time Bakuda finally noticed them, they were almost on top of her.

The second she was near enough, Reach put both arms out to either side, slapping the metal arms that extended from Bakuda's back.

In retaliation, the bomb-tinker twisted around to lash out with one of her other tentacles, while launching a bomb from another. Victoria swung an arm to knock the tentacle aside, then turned her back on the explosive to protect Reach from the blast before flying up and away.

The two tentacles that Cassie had touched immediately stretched themselves out to their full length and curved around toward the guard shack. As they did so, Clockblocker emerged and slapped his hands against them while activating his power.

Both metal arms were instantly frozen in time. Unfortunately, it didn't freeze the rest of her. I was too dizzy and sore to wonder how that was possible. They did, however, pin the bomb-tinker in place, those two arms fully extended and frozen.

Kid Win flew in a circle, goading her into trying to shoot him through the space that Vista had trapped. Glory Girl and Reach flew in the opposite direction, waiting for any opening to get near enough to touch more tentacles and give them to Clockblocker.

Bakuda let out a bellow of frustration, yanking a bit against her time-frozen tentacles to no avail. "Let... me... go!" She screamed. A second later, another of the tentacles moved up, pointing at her own back, and released an acid explosive that ate through the shell where the tentacles were attached. The shell burned away within seconds, revealing badly burned flesh, while the bomb-maker screamed in agony.

It did, however, burn through the part of her body that the tentacles were attached to, allowing the villain to yank herself free. She had to abandon the two frozen tentacles, and she was clearly in as much agony as I was from the way she'd been forced to acid-bomb herself.

Panting, growling in fury, Bakuda turned in a circle, taking in the sight of everyone around her. Then she brought her remaining tentacles in close to her body, pointed the ends outward, and launched a white explosive orb from each of them.

The new bombs exploded into bursts of light and sound that made everyone recoil, partially blinded. By the time we recovered, there was a deep hole in the ground, and Bakuda was gone. Somehow, she had tunneled away in that time.

At least she didn't get what she came for, and we'd taken two of her tentacles away. We'd hurt her, or rather, forced her to hurt herself.

Clockblocker reached my side a second later, accompanied by Vista. "Tether, you okay?"

I went through all the effort of managing a smile while the others landed, before realizing that the work was wasted since they couldn't see my face anyway. "I..." I managed, trying to make my hand form into a thumbs up. It wasn't cooperating. "I'm... fi..."

Darkness took me then, as my consciousness fled.

Interlude 10 – Tattletale

"Make a corridor on the count of three." Lisa instructed her newest teammate, while she kept an eye on the uniformed State Patrol officer approaching the gate of the massive fence that she and the rest of the team were crouched on the far side of. A camera buzzed above them as it turned to survey the street in the opposite direction, but it couldn't pivot down, and the camera at the other end of the fence that could have seen them wouldn't turn their way for another thirty seconds.

"One..." She watched as the officer punched in the security code, waving tiredly at the gate camera. "Two..." The gate clicked and began to open to admit the man. "Three."

Beside her, Vacate, real name, Elias Anders, raised his arm and waited until she, Grue, and Freezetag put their hands against him before creating the time-freeze tunnel. It stretched beyond the now-frozen officer, through the open gate, and straight on toward a dark part of the grounds, near a rose garden.

Together, the four remaining Undersiders jogged down the tunnel, slipping carefully past the frozen state trooper and through the open gate until they reached the far end of what Vacate had been able to make.

There, they crouched. Brian, otherwise known as Grue, pointed up and to the left, where a camera was frozen in mid-pan. "Are you sure this is gonna work?"

"It's dark out here." Tattletale replied. "The cameras are relying on heat signatures. Blanket us in darkness every time it points our way and we'll be fine. All we need is a straight shot at the back door and I can get us inside.

"Still don't see why Vacate can't just pop us there." Freezetag idly muttered.

"Fuck, girl, like I said before," the boy himself replied, "I can't go making corridors over and over. It's like I got this set distance of how much tunnel I can make before it runs out and gots to recharge. That was a long tunnel just to get us inside these grounds. Gimme a few minutes before you jump on my ass about making another one. A man's gotta take some time to regroup, you know? It's like just after-"

"That's enough." Grue interrupted. Lisa could hear the annoyance in his voice. He was edgy. They'd lost Bitch, and then lost Regent. Grue and herself were the only 'original' Undersiders left, not counting his little sister Aisha/Freezetag, who had joined a couple of months earlier. Vacate was still fairly new, having joined right before the Leviathan fight, and they hadn't quite fully 'meshed' as a team yet.

But they were getting there.

The darkness from the older boy poured out and created a wall between the Undersiders and the camera. Then Vacate dropped the tunnel, bringing everything back into normal time. If anyone had been near enough, they would have noticed the patch of space that was much darker than everything around it. Fortunately (by design), none of the guards were facing the right direction, or were too far away.

Nodding to Grue, Tattletale started to lead the way, down the length of the massive, sprawling grounds. The four of them jogged quickly, keeping the cloud of darkness between them and the constantly moving cameras until they reached a small orchard of apple and plum trees. There, they crouched once more. Grue, as the only person who could see through the cloud that was stopping the cameras from noticing them, held up his hand. "Ready to go again, Vacate?"

The other boy took a few breaths, leaning his head from one side to the other to crack his neck. "Hells yeah, I'm good to go, baby."

Once again, they held onto the boy. Grue held his free hand up and waited, watching the nearest camera through his darkness until it was safe, and then dropped his hand. As soon as he did, the darkness fell away, revealing the rest of the grounds to them, as well as one of the back doors of the mansion.

The second he could see properly, Elias used his power to make another corridor appear, all the way across the grounds and up to the doors, before sagging a little. "Long... fucking... tunnels." He complained. "Y'all motherfuckers need smaller backyards."

"This isn't exactly a normal sized property, you know." Tattletale pointed out mildly.

He just grinned at her. "I wasn't complaining 'bout your backyard, sweets."

Repressing the urge to shudder at the very thought of becoming intimate with anyone, let alone someone like Vacate, and getting to know every last one of his secrets, Tattletale managed to simply smile faintly and shake her head. "Eyes on the prize, skeevy."

That only encouraged him. "I thought that's what I was doing." Vacate replied, smiling incorrigibly until Grue used a hand to firmly turn him around and pull him along through the tunnel. "Oww! Hey, I'm going, I'm going. Yeesh, ain't nobody here 'preciates me."

The tunnel led the Undersiders straight to the door. Tattletale waited until Elias took down the tunnel, and then put her hand up against the keypad. Her fingers danced over the buttons, but the pad buzzed its denial.

"I thought you could get through this thing." Grue hissed.

"I can." She replied calmly, putting more numbers in. "I have to get the wrong code a time or two before my power can tell me what was wrong about it."

This time, the pad beeped an affirmative, and she tugged the door open. "Let's go."

Once they were inside, Freezetag and Grue took the lead. The whole group already knew the exact path they were taking. They'd been over it enough times.

Making their way through the truly massive kitchen with its three different stoves, they were nearly out when the door ahead of them opened. Another uniformed officer walked into view, a half-second before his head was enveloped in Grue's darkness. Then Freezetag smacked her hand against the man's side, freezing him with his hand in mid-motion toward the radio on his shoulder.

After Grue released the darkness, Tattletale reached up, carefully plucking the man's radio away without touching him. It could come in handy.

Then she looked at him. "How many other guards in the house?"

Barely able to move his lips, the guard mumbled, "Noh eelling ooh." He didn't have to. Lisa opened the floodgate of her power and let it do the work.

Worried: his partner just went upstairs and won't be coming back down until he finishes his patrol, which takes another ten minutes. The rest of the guards are outside and have no reason to come in, unless he can get a message to them somehow.

"Right, only you and one other guy, got it." Turning off her power, Tattletale mimed patting the confused man on the cheek without actually touching him, then slipped around his body to move on with the others. "We're clear all the way to the office. Ten minutes before his partner comes down."

They continued through the mansion with more confidence then. There was still a chance of running into the building's normal inhabitants or staff, but the potential problems were greatly reduced.

Eventually, the four of them reached their destination. Stopping outside of the closed door, Lisa glanced back at the others to make sure they were ready, then pushed the door open and stepped through.

The handsome, older man at the desk in the office that they stepped into was typing rapidly on his computer. He wore glasses, Lisa noted, unlike his public appearances.

"I told you, Bart," the man said without looking up. "You don't have to ask me if you want to make a sandwich. I don't care what that bear of a sergeant of yours says. I've got plenty of-" Finally looking up, the man froze at the sight of the four costumed criminals. Then his hand grabbed for the phone on his desk, but Grue covered his face in darkness so that his hand missed the grab, and Lisa moved forward in the interim to take the phone away.

When the darkness was dismissed, the man had stood up and backed against the wall. He glowered at them. "How dare you break into my home."

"Well, you know, it's only your home until you lose the next election, Governor Randall." Lisa pointed out with a smile. She was opening up her power again, letting it take in everything it could about the man.

Afraid, glancing upward as though looking through the ceiling. His children were upstairs, the ones who still lived with them anyway.

Cautiously hopeful look to his eyes. He didn't believe that this group was all that violent, but why had they broken into his home?

Briefly indignant look. Where was his security? Were they doing their jobs or not?

Pained expression: She was right, the next election was going to be tough. He'd probably manage a squeaker, but it would be close.

"You're the Undersiders, correct? From Brockton Bay." Governor Richard Randall gazed at them. "I hope you realize that attacking me is going to take you from smalltime, straight to the Bird Cage."

Tattletale just shook her head. "Attacking you? We're not attacking you, Governor. In fact, didn't you hear? We've become very useful lately. Helping deal with Leviathan, getting rid of Calvert before he caused the state any more embarrassment..."

Grateful look that lasted only for a second: Anyone who helped fight an Endbringer was brave (or possibly suicidal), and they had contributed to the city's rescue. Really hopes that being the leader of the state during that successful attack helps in this next election, in addition to all of his gratitude for the low casualties.

Fearful grimace. Do they know about Calvert? They can't possibly. It wasn't his fault!

Frowning, the governor looked between them. "Are you trying to tell me that you snuck past my security and broke into my home as upstanding citizens?" His voice was incredulous.

"Funny you should mention that, Governor." Tattletale replied, giving the man her best vulpine smile. "After all, that cuts right to the chase of why we're here."

The man frowned, processing that for a moment. Then he got it, shaking his head. "No. Absolutely not."

"Yup." Tattletale informed him. "We're here because you're going to issue a blanket pardon for all of us, excusing us for every crime we've committed up to this point."

"You're insane." The governor spat. "Why would I do that?"

Desperately holding on to hope. Maybe they think they have leverage of some other kind. Maybe they're fishing. Maybe they don't really know anything.

Cutting the man's hope off at the knees, Tattletale airily replied, "Oh, I dunno, maybe because you don't want anyone to find out about the close, personal relationship you had with the man who broke the Endbringer truce to kill the parents of the hero who was pretty much single-handedly responsible for keeping the fatalities as low as they were." She made a few disappointed tutting sounds. "I don't think that'd go over very well with the voters, Governor."

Her smile turned a little pitying then. "I'm afraid Calvert kept detailed records and evidence, Governor. Recordings of your phone conversations, all the deals you two made while you were getting him set up into his position as head of the fancy new Parahuman Investigations team in exchange for aaaaalll that money he gave you for your campaign."

Governor Randall sputtered indignantly, his eyes wide. "I had no idea that he was Coil! I didn't know what the hell else he was up to."
Truth, to a certain extent. The governor was willing to deal with dirty money, but he thought that Calvert was just dishonest and shady, not the monster he ended up being.

"You never thought he was an angel either." Tattletale pointed out, before shrugging. "Anyway, you really think the voters are going to care? Think you'll ever be elected as a high school treasurer, let alone Governor, once this gets out?"

For a moment, the man remained stubborn. Then he sighed and relented. "Fine. Four pardons in exchange for your silence."

"Five, dickface." Freezetag interjected. "You're pardoning Bitch too."

"I can't let the Lindt girl out of prison." Randall protested. "She's in the Birdcage. There's no coming out of there."

"Let us worry about getting her out." Tattletale told the man, letting him believe they had a plan even though she had absolutely no clue how they were going about doing that, yet. "Either way, she gets the pardon. Even if she can't be free, you're gonna clear her name just like you're clearing ours."

It took another few minutes to hammer out the details, including the fact that the governor was going to have to get the President to sign off on a pardon concerning the actual bank robbery. He was urged to be convincing on the subject.

Tattletale kept one eye on the clock, until it was time for the guard upstairs to start heading down. Then she set a burner phone down on the desk. "Make sure your guards don't report that we were here." She instructed the man. "And call on the first number in that phone when the pardons are handled. Trust me, we'll know if you try to jerk us around. And if you do..."

"You'll ruin me." The governor sighed. "I get it. Just get out of my house."

They did,leaving much the way they had come. Before too long, the group was changing out of their costumes in the corner of a parking garage about three blocks from the governor's mansion, the girls changing on one side of the van they had driven up here in, while the boys changed on the other side.

"Can't believe that shit worked." Elias slumped back into his seat as soon as everyone had piled into the van. "Free and clear. We're really gonna be free and clear."

Brian, in the driver's seat, pulled the van out of the lot. "You really think we can pull off this new business idea of yours, Lisa? I need the money, and the legitimacy, if..." He glanced toward the backseat, where Aisha was already focused on some game on her phone. Brian wanted custody of his little sister. Not just for a weekend or whenever his estranged mother didn't want her, but permanently. To do that, he needed money, preferably honest money.

"It will." Lisa promised him, reaching into her pocket before withdrawing a small object. "I even had cards made up already, just so you could all see them." She held the card out for the older boy to see.

Glancing at the card in the light from the nearby streetlamp, Brian chuckled. "You think anyone's gonna take us seriously?"

Taking the card back, Lisa nodded. "We'll make them take us seriously." She said quietly while looking at the card in the palm of her hand.

It was an embossed, very professional looking card. In the top middle of the card there was an eye symbol similar to the one on the chest of her costume. Spreading out from the eye and forming a border along the edges of the card was a wispy line of black that imitated Grue's darkness. Two hands, similar to the symbol for Freezetag, were on either side of the card, while a long, vaguely rounded rectangle spread from one end to the other, forming a sort of inner border and providing the symbol for Vacate's tunnels.

In the middle of the card was a phone number and an address. And above that, the most important part. It read:Undersiders – Parahuman Detective Agency.