Crouching on the roof I stared down at the drug house.

I'd been out almost every night for the last week and a half tracking down Empire drug houses. I was getting better at being stealthy, and now that I could fly it was easier to follow people in cars as they went about their business.

Spending a week doing nothing but watching the coming and going of Empire thugs had made me impatient, but I'd promised Dad. I couldn't trust myself with Lung's power and Oni Lee would murder me before I even had a chance to react, and so I was avoiding ABB territory.

The Merchants would seem to be the easiest targets, but they didn't have many Capes, and I wasn't sure I wanted Skidmark's power. I wouldn't mind stealing Squealer's power, but Tinkers were hard to predict and she might well have something I couldn't deal with.

Even though the Empire had declared war on someone, they didn't know that I was the one who had attacked Rune. What they did have was a lot of Capes...capes who I wanted badly to take.

Whoever was cutting heads open would come after my other identity sooner or later, and I wanted to be ready to defend myself. It had occurred to me to hunt outside of Brockton Bay, but I didn't know how to find the Capes in other cities any better than I knew how to find them here.

I had decided that the best way to find Capes was to lure them to me. If I attacked enough of the Empires locations, eventually they would send Capes to deal with me. The scary thing was that they would likely send multiple Capes, and I wasn't sure I'd be able to deal with them.

With that in mind, I'd worked on plans for escape before I'd even attacked the first location. One of the lessons I was learning in Escrima training was to always have a route of escape planed out where ever you went.

I'd bought a nightvision scope before I'd started surveilling the Empire locations along with some other equipment.

When I was ready, I began attacking locations. I made sure to play the music before every encounter, knowing that word would get around and the fear they faced would make every one of them light up to my fear sense.

I was hoping that the thought of facing an unknown Cape would give whatever Cape attackers I was facing at least a little anxiety, but I wasn't counting on that.

I'd developed a strategy to attack the houses. Most of them had outside electrical boxes and shortly before I would commence my attack I would use Rune's powers to break into the boxes and I'd shut down all the power.

In the darkness that ensued, I'd telekinetically open my watch, which I'd hidden outside.

As people fired blindly, I'd go shadow and enter from the roof, which usually didn't have the kind of electrical lines that the walls did, and I'd launch the ball bearings. Even though I couldn't see any better in the darkness than they could, I always made sure my eyes had adjusted to the darkness while their eyes were still adjusting.

Even better, I didn't need to see because I could simply use my fear sense to locate them. I didn't even stumble over things in the dark because I simply shadowed through them.

In the darkness and confusion they didn't stand a chance.

This was the fourth night I was coming out, and I hadn't seen a single cape yet. I had dufflebags filled with thirty thousand dollars under my bed. Dad wanted to get a safe but thought that getting one might alert criminals that we had something worth stealing.

I'd made a discovery that was groundbreaking three nights ago.

The more fear I was feeding off, the better my other powers worked. Apparently the power I'd taken wasn't just about gaining strength through fear. It was about magnifying power. Since the skinhead hadn't had any other powers, strength was all that was enhanced.

I'd actually managed to telekinetically manipulate a fifth item, one more than my usual limit of four. It had been a house with an unusual number of people who were afraid and they had been more terrified than usual, but it had still happened.

It had huge implications for my other powers. The one time I could imagine where people would be the most terrified would be an Endbringer situation. Thousands of people being terrified to a degree I'd never experienced...I couldn't imagine how much power that would give me. If I was lucky, it might be enough.

However, it also made the fear even more alluring. Strength alone had been bad enough, but being able to have my other powers be more powerful or more versatile? It wouldn't take much for it to become an addiction.

Watching through the night vision goggles I decided that the people I was targeting had settled down enough for me to start my attack. They were watching the fuse box; apparently even racists could learn a thing or two, but they only had two guards, both of whom looked disinterested.

The problem with being a guard was that it was impossible to remain perfectly alert at all times. Humans weren't designed for that. Attention flagged, thoughts wandered and it didn't take long for people to stop being alert, especially those who were not trained soldiers.

These weren't.

I was laying crouching on the roof behind them, close enough that I could hear what they were saying. People tended not to look up, even people who were expecting Capes, and getting on the roof of the house had been easy flying in shadow form. In the darkness I was barely visible at all.

Switching to shadow form I dropped behind them. There wasn't much room, but I reached out and touched the back of their shirts; both were wearing hoodies because of the weather. Neither could feel me as I traced runes on the back of their jackets.

A moment later both hoodies constricted tightly. Rune's power was able to lift tons, so neither man had a change. They gagged and gasped for air and I watched dispassionately as they tried to grab for their guns only to have their arms tighten to their sides leaving them unable to move.

It didn't take long for them to fall unconscious. I turned them over telekinetically and zip tied them from behind.

I then turned to the electric junction box. Touching the lock on the outside, I snapped it open.

Hearing something snap behind me, I turned. I felt a massive explosion of pain in my solar plexus and I dropped to the ground. My legs felt like they were made out of lead and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't understand what was happening. Had I been shot? Had I been found by the Empire?

I strained to make myself look up, and I saw a pair of legs clad in dark blue spandex with a diamond print. Whoever it was was massively muscled, and before I could try to do anything they reached down and grabbed my shoulder with fingers that felt like a vice. I could feel my shoulder creaking, strained almost to the breaking point as he lifted me with one hand so that my feet dangled.

Still unable to catch my breath, I wasn't prepared for the punch to my ribs. I felt something fracture and break in my chest.

I clawed at him ineffectually, but I'd have had an easier time moving a truck. He was superhumanly strong and there was no fear I could feed on anywhere nearby to match him.

"Why did you do it?" he hissed. His blue face mask covered everything but his eyes, but even without being able to see his face I could tell he was trembling with rage.

I couldn't speak, still unable to breath, and he reached up and grabbed me by the throat. His hand began to tighten, and I clawed at his hand.

Suddenly I realized that I was going to die if I didn't do something. I scrabbled for my pepper spray and brought it up to his eyes, spraying him. I almost screamed as some of the spray blasted back on me. My face burned and I suddenly found it even harder to breathe, but he had it infinitely worse. I sprayed him directly in the eyes and I doubted his mask did much to filter the spray.

He let go of me and I fell to the ground gasping for breath. He staggered back, gagging and his eyes immediately swelling shut.

It was only a moment before he stood though, a murderous look in what I could see of his eyes.

He charged at me and I rolled. His fist went through the electrical box and all the lights went out.

I could feel fear suddenly sprouting from inside the building, and I gasped as I felt sudden strength flowing into by body. As damaged as I was, it wasn't much, but it was enough to rise to my feet. We only had moments before the men inside were out and shooting at us.

Switching to shadow form seemed like my only option, but my head was muggy and I couldn't concentrate enough to make the transition. I tried to dodge to the side when he grabbed for me again.

We were both staggering around like drunks, but I was the one who was more damaged. Even if neither of us had had powers I'd have been at a huge disadvantage simply as a matter of size. I grabbed for my baton and tried to smash it across his arm, but he didn't even seem to notice it. He went for my throat again.

I found myself choking and gasping for breath. People were coming, and they'd shoot us both. He'd survive but I wouldn't.

Grabbing his arm with both hands, I moved my fingers over the material of his costume. I tried to use it to pull him back telekinetically, but he was stronger than the material of his costume. His entire costume ripped away, leaving him standing in a face mask and in a pair of tighty whities.

I grabbed his arm again and I pulled.

His body seemed to shrivel right in front of me, going from a massively buff figure of a man to a scrawny boy who couldn't have been more than my age.

Suddenly I could feel every organ in my body. I knew instinctively how I could change them, heal them, make them better. It would take time, but the awareness was there.

He dropped to the ground, staring at his suddenly skinny arms even as I heard the sharp retorts of bullets.

I felt something pinging against my side, but I barely felt it. I turned to face the men who were firing at me and I leaped at them.

Even though I could still barely move I went flying through the air. I tried to be gentle, in part because it hurt to move, but the men I grabbed went flying, hitting the wall. There were five of them, and I dropped them in the space of half a minute.

It was still difficult to breathe, and I could sense more coming. Bending down was agony, but I managed to touch my shoes.

A moment later I returned. I grabbed the boy by one arm, and I flew up into the air. He gave an agonized scream as I undoubtedly pulled his arm out of its socket.

We went over the house, and as the men inside the building swarmed, I pulled the boy beneath me as we flew through the sky.

He kept screaming, so I landed in a park a half mile away. It was abandoned at this hour. As I dropped him he scrambled away.

"Why did you attack me?" I said. It was difficult to talk with my throat injured and bruised, and my voice sounded horse and weird.

"You killed Parian," he said. "Armsmaster warned me about you."

"What?" I asked flatly.

"The Protectorate has been quietly telling Capes about what happened to Rune and Parian," he said. "And Armsmaster told me personally that you were the best suspect."

My mind went blank for a moment. They thought that I had done...

"You've been attacking Empire safe houses for the last few days. I figured if I waited at one of them long enough I'd catch you."

"Now you've caught me," I growled. "What are you going to do?"

I felt angry at him. I was in pain and he'd attacked me without provocation. The fact that he seemed to think he was a hero would probably bother me later, but for the moment all I felt was anger.

Armsmaster has been nothing but a jerk to me from the very beginning.

"What did you do to me?" he asked. He stared at his thin arms. "It's all gone...I can't feel anything."

"I defended myself," I said.

"Is it going to come back?" he asked, staring up at me fearfully. "This is some kind of temporary Trump effect, right?"

I looked at him for a moment. His eyes were swollen it looked like he could barely see.

Slowly I shook my head.

"Are you going to kill me now?" he asked.

I leaned forward. "I do not attack the innocent. I do not murder helpless girls."

"And me?"

"You are foolish, but you have already paid the price. I will do nothing else to you."

It was a cold evening and he was already shivering uncontrollably. My pain had made it possible to ignore the face that he was mostly naked.

He was making a small sound. I winced as I leaned forward trying to understand what he was saying. I straightened suddenly as I realized that he was crying quietly.

"I will fly you somewhere closer to home," I said finally, uneasy.

As it turned out, carrying a nearly naked teenage boy bridal style through the air when you were in pain was incredibly awkward and embarrassing.

Returning home, I slipped through the back door. It took me almost a minute to concentrate enough to slip into my shadow form and when I did I felt a shock, almost like I'd been hit with icy water.

The pain was completely gone. In the thirty minutes I'd been experienced it apparently I'd lost track of just how much pain I was in. The freedom from pain was like a balm.

The moment I slipped back into my normal form on the other side, the pain came crashing back, more shocking than ever for the brief moment of relief.

I managed to float up the stairs to my room, carefully so as not to wake Dad.

Unzipping my hoodie, I found it difficult to move my arm well enough to slip my arm out of it. I knew that lifting my arms over my head enough to pull the undershirt off would be impossible, so I concentrated again and my clothes fell to the floor as I went shadow without them.

I stepped forward and the bulletproof vest thumped to the floor. I froze, but I didn't feel the anxiety from Dad I would have expected had he heard a thump from another part of the house in the middle of the night, so I relaxed.

Now that I no longer had adrenaline dulling my pain, it was growing worse, but I managed to bend enough to touch the vest and pull it from the pile of my clothes.

The plates on it were fractured and cratered, and I realized that it had probably saved my life. I'd been lucky that shards of ceramic hadn't pierced my side, puncturing my lung.

I looked closer and I saw that there was blood on the edges of the shards. I reached down and grimaced as I felt blood coming from my side. I coughed and felt agonizing pain.

Staggering back nude against my bed, I closed my eyes.

Whoever I had just taken power from had been able to control his body. That could be used for healing, I knew instinctively, although it wasn't automatic. He'd probably had time to practice, so I had to learn how to manage it on my own.

My world shrank to the interior of my body, to organs and parts I hadn't even known I had. The lungs and ribs were my first priority, and after that my shoulder and the inflammation from the pepper spray on my face. It was going to take some trial and error.

After a time I felt blessed oxygen flooding my body and I was finally able to take a deep breath. My mind cleared and everything started going faster. My bones knit and my traumatized muscles and tendons healed.

Once the injuries from the night healed I went ahead and healed the multitude of small injuries I'd suffered in Escrima training.

Opening my eyes, I realized that an hour had passed as I healed myself. I began to shake as I realized how close I had come to dying at the hands of a hero.

I'd been so confident that I could take on members of the Empire when a single hero had almost beaten me to death just by catching me by surprise. I'd been overconfident in my fear sense. He'd been sure he was invulnerable and so hadn't been afraid of me at all.

The funny thing was that now I probably could take them on. I was finally actually a brute. Staring at myself naked in the mirror I realized that I no longer had to keep the features I'd been displeased with.

I focused on my face, and the bones and the skin shifted. The flesh on my face pulled against my skull, making me look skeletal. The flesh changed as I further manipulated it.

The boy had made himself look huge and imposing.

I was going to use the same power to look like a horror. I no longer needed a mask, and from now on I didn't need protective clothing...except for goggles. Pepper spray was apparently still painful even with powers like these.

The boy had had a strange sort of touch telekinisis that replicated massive strength and made him tremendously tough. He also had biokinisis that let him change himself.

I was going to need both. For all I knew the boy was calling the Protectorate right now, telling them what I had done to him, and they apparently believed I had murdered two women on top of hat stealing powers from one of their Wards.

Everything rested on me getting stronger faster now. It was the only way I was going to survive.