"This thing is really cool," Amy said happily, peering through her new telescope at the Rig, which was just visible on the horizon out Vicky's bedroom window.

The sisters had gone home after the event at Winslow, on the advice if not direct order of their aunt once the requirement for her healing and Vicky's abilities had vanished. Miss Militia had thanked them, and even Armsmaster had appeared quite approving, which was something that for some reason made them both quite pleased and a little amused.

Vicky had also been thanked again by the aircrew she'd saved from an unpleasant fate, the three men and one woman apparently rather impressed and definitely very relieved that they'd made it. Apparently her sister had some new fans, which she could easily understand.

Amy herself had been quite enjoying herself, all things considered, running around making sure everyone involved was fine. She'd offered to help with the contamination at the school when she'd overheard the CDC guys talking to one of the senior PRT staff on site, and they'd told her that they'd bear it in mind once they had a better idea of what exactly was in there. Again, she got the impression that her offer had been appreciated, which was nice. And it was completely unlike the normal hospital work, something that cheered her up. She'd been in a very good mood since dropping Victor, or thinking back on it, for some time before that, which somewhat puzzled her but was also a considerable relief from the low-level funk she'd found herself in more and more in the last few months.

Vicky's impulsiveness at absconding from school to poke into the Winslow situation, even though at the time she'd thought it was a bad idea, had actually turned out to be much more useful that it had initially seemed. And she'd gotten some nice toys out of it into the bargain...

She zoomed in, holding the device steady against her shoulder by the stock, and prodded various buttons on it. One of them made it make a faint sound then the image became rock-steady, clearing up to the point she could easily make out one of the PRT VTOL aircraft landing on the top deck. A little more work made the telescope zoom to the limit, at which point she could read the aircraft ID number with no effort, and make out the faces of the various people surrounding it. "Wow. Stabilized and everything." She prodded other buttons, watching as the view changed. "Night vision too. And I think this one is thermal imaging! Incredible. You've got to try this!"

Lowering it she looked over her shoulder, to where Vicky was poking through the other things they'd confiscated from Victor. The coil of rope had been put back in the bag, and the blonde was currently playing with a very high end butterfly knife, trying to flick the blade out and back in again. Amy winced at the result, which showed that her sister's invulnerability was the only thing saving her from losing a finger.

"Not like that," she sighed, putting the scope down having turned it off and walking over to her sister, then nabbing the knife from her hand.

"Hey!" Vicky said, surprised. "I was using that."

"Badly," Amy snarked, then got the right grip on the knife. She flipped her wrist, grinning at both the metallic clacking sound as the weapon unfolded, and at her sister's eyes widening. "This is how you do it." She quickly ran the thing through a series of opening and closing moves, ending up holding it in an overhand grip across her body.

"Holy… shit." Vicky gaped at her. "How in god's name do you know how to do that, Ames?"

Smirking at the other girl, Amy flipped the weapon open and closed again without looking at it, and replied, "One of the porters at the hospital is incredibly good with knives. I have a feeling he had a misspent youth. He showed me a few things a while ago when I was sort of down and he noticed. It's good practice to keep your hands flexible and your reflexes sharp."

"Amazing," the blonde girl muttered as Amy flicked the knife around some more, then closed it and dropped it into the bag. "Does mom know?"

Amy gave her sister a look. "What do you think?" she said dryly. "How would that go down?"

Vicky nodded slowly, her face sobering. "Yeah, I guess I see what you mean." She hugged Amy for a moment, making the brunette smile to herself. "Sorry, Ames."

"Not your fault, Vicky."

Releasing her, Vicky looked back into the bag, then picked up the knife again and examined it. "Maybe you should carry this just in case?"

"Why? If I'm close enough to a bad guy to stick a knife in him, which by the way is a horrible thing to do, trust me on that, I don't actually need a knife," Amy replied in a reasonable manner. "And if he's further away I can't get him anyway."

"Valid point," her sister nodded. "But you need to show me those tricks. They look really cool."

Amy grinned. "They do, right? Sure, I can do that." Both of them heard the front door open and close fairly loudly, causing her to wince and add, just before Carol shouted their names, "Later. I have a feeling Mom wants a word."

"I do believe you're right, my dear sister," Vicky said with a grimace and a small sigh. "Shall we?"

"May as well. At least Aunt Sarah and Uncle Neil are on our side." The two girls smiled at each other, metaphorically girded their loins, and went to do battle with the Dallon Dragon.


Brian looked up from the TV as Lisa came up the stairs in their base, then just stood at the top watching them with an odd smile, even for her, on her face. After a moment Alec also looked over, then exchanged a glance with him.

"Problem, Tats?" the smaller boy asked, almost sounding like he actually was interested.

Lisa kept watching them for a few more seconds before she seemed to reboot and walk over to the kitchen area, opening the fridge and pulling out a can of soda which she opened one-handed. The blonde girl sat down on one of the two stool they had there, sipping her drink. Brian inspected her closely. She looked pale, and her hair was a little damp like she'd washed it and not dried it properly, which was unusual. There were shadows under her eyes as if she hadn't slept properly for a while, which he knew wasn't the case.

Despite the signs of stress and tiredness, she still looked happy in a weird way. He was starting to get worried. While they'd been thrown together more by chance than anything else, on the whole he liked his teammates, even Rachel, who was hard work a lot of the time, and Alec, who was hard work all the time.

They only really had each other, except for him, and Aisha and his dad were… awkward. He'd found himself over the last few months coming to feel quite protective of his team and almost pseudo-family, so seeing the girl look so odd was concerning.

"A… kind of problem," she finally said, putting the half-empty can on the counter-top and staring at it. "And a solution at the same time. Kind of."

"Very precise," Alec snorted, sufficiently interested to pause the game they'd been playing and turn his attention fully to them. "Care to explain?"

"Unlike you to really care," she sniped.

He grinned. "Unlike you to look like the cat dragged you in through the cat-flap after a hard night out," the boy replied, not appearing offended in the slightest. Brian muffled a snicker, since it was largely true if unflattering.

Lisa sighed faintly, but seemed almost amused. Rachel came out of her room a moment later, heading for the fridge with determination, but paused to inspect the other girl.

"You look like shit," she said bluntly, then rummaged around for something to eat, coming up with some cold bacon which she started munching on.

"Thanks, Rachel, love you too," Lisa replied, shaking her head a little. "Everyone's here. Good."

"That sounds… ominous," Brian said a little uneasily.

"Depends on your point of view, I guess." Lisa picked up her can and took another drink of it, then held it between both hands and looked at them all. Eventually she seemed to come to a decision. "OK. I need to tell you guys something and I need you to listen carefully while I do. Leave the shouting to afterwards, all right?"

"Oh, great, she's going to tell us she's a mass murderer and is going to kill us all in our sleep," Alec immediately said.

"Only you, Alec," she shot back. "I like the other two."

He gave her a thumb's-up and smiled. Brian shook his head wearily, if those two got started they could keep this up for hours. "Just tell us, Lisa. Alec, shut up."

"Yes, mein boss," the other boy said, saluting him crisply, then slumping back onto the sofa and relaxing. "Proceed, Tats."

She took a breath. Then exhaled slowly. Brian tensed. This could be bad.

"Something happened a little while ago," she began. "Our boss is out of business."

There was a long pause, then Rachel and Alec both started talking loudly. "Quiet!" Brian roared, as Lisa just waited. "Shut up, guys. I want to hear what she's saying."

Somewhat reluctantly on Rachel's part, the strongly built girl glowering at both him and Lisa while eating some more bacon, they complied. He turned back to the blonde. "Explain, please?"

"We were working for Coil," she said calmly, the words making his stomach clench in shock. "He 'recruited' me at gunpoint and forced me to work for him, then set you guys up as a team with me. About three hours ago, the PRT got him. With some help that I still can't believe, actually, but yeah, he's fucked. I've spent the last two and a half hours hacking his entire system and making sure that any links with him were wiped."

They all stared at her in disbelief of varying levels.

"So we're out of a job. That's annoying. I'm no longer in danger of getting killed by a lunatic or his mercs, so that's good. While I was hacking him, I discovered that his base had a self destruct system that could have killed thousands of people if it went off. That's bad. I managed to disable it, then lock out any access to the fucking thing permanently. That's good. His mercs are still in his base and have enough weapons to fight a small war. That's bad." She took a breath as they gaped.

"I also discovered that he had a huge amount of information on other capes and their civilian identities and had set things up so he could easily release it to the public, the bastard. That's very bad. I erased it, just in case. That's good. Then I copied the rest of the data to a cloud storage service and anonymously sent the PRT the link to it, so they can fuck him over properly. That's not only good but amazingly satisfying."

Brian looked at Alec, who looked back, for once seeming not only totally invested in this bizarre conversation but totally taken aback. Rachel seemed so surprised that she'd forgotten to be angry.

"Holy shit," he finally managed to say, rather weakly.

"I know, right? It was worth nearly dying of an aneurysm to see the expression on that fucker's face," she smiled.

"Wait, what?" He snapped his attention back to her. "Aneurysm!? What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, I escaped brain damage by about that much," she replied, oddly serene about the words she was speaking as she held up a hand with finger and thumb almost touching. "Long story, I'll get around to that."

He was about to press for more details when Alec complained, "So we're out of work and broke?"

"We were working for a megalomaniacal super-villain who wanted to run the city if not the country, Alec," she patiently replied. "And liked to torture people for kicks from what I can work out. Not a good man. I hate his fucking guts, in fact. Not working for him is a plus, I promise. And likely to let us live a lot longer."

"Yeah, yeah, Bond villain bad, I get it." The brunet boy looked hard at her. "The point I'm making is, how are we going to get paid now?"

"He has a point, Lisa," Brian put in, still feeling bewildered and as a result not as angry as he somewhat suspected he should be. "I needed that job and the cash, for Aisha if nothing else."

"I need money for the dogs," Rachel growled, finishing her bacon and stealing Lisa's unfinished can of soda, then draining it before crushing the can in her hand and tossing it in the garbage.

Lisa's grin came back, very widely and very smugly. "Oh, did I forget to say that while I was in his computers, I also managed to completely drain his accounts and route the money through half a dozen places to launder it, so I now have nearly seventy percent of his entire fortune?"

Once again, everyone gaped at her in shock.

"It was quite a lot of money," she added helpfully.

They all exchanged a look. "How much?" Brian asked a little suspiciously.

She told him.

He fell over.

Then he stared in horror at her from the floor. "Oh, Jesus, we're going to get killed, you mad woman!" he whispered. "That's too much."

"Nope," she smirked. "Nothing left linking it to him, or us. I made sure of that. Got his online backups, faked orders to his mercs from him to erase the offline ones as part of a security sweep, everything. The service I used is untraceable and very expensive, but guaranteed. The money is clean. You are looking at a very wealthy woman, and I'm not even eighteen yet!"

She seemed, not surprisingly, extremely pleased with herself.

Slowly getting to his feet, he sat down again and just stared at the annoying girl with a mix of horror, awe, and sheer shock. When he glanced at Rachel and Alec, both of them were doing more or less the same thing.

"So what are you going to do for your next trick?" Alec finally asked.

"I'm not sure yet," she shrugged. "Not rob a bank or anything like that, which is probably what Coil would have had us do sooner or later. I never wanted to be a villain in the first place." She looked at them all. "I doubt you guys did either."

Brian shook his head, still rather numb from all the revelations. Alec seemed oddly thoughtful, and Rachel was still staring at Lisa. "Not really, no."

"What about us?" Rachel asked abruptly. "You got rich. Great. We didn't."

Lisa turned to her and her smug grin faded slightly. She inspected the other girl for a moment. Then she looked at the other two.

The grin came back with friends. "I wouldn't say that." She reached into her pocket and pulled out three filing cards, fanning them out in her hand. Plucking one free, she handed it to Rachel, then got up and gave the two boys each one of the remaining two. Brian looked at his while she sat beside him on the sofa.

"What the hell is this?" Rachel asked, sounding confused.

"The account details for your shares of the money," Lisa replied casually, leaning back and looking excessively content.

Brian looked back to the card, then to the irritating girl he suspected was genuinely a good friend despite her mannerisms. "Shares?" he echoed.

"Sure. We're a team, right? We might not have chosen to be, but that's how it worked out. All of us have relied on each other in some pretty strange and dangerous situations. We get on OK despite occasional issues." She shrugged. "I trust you guys about as much as I trust anyone, basically. And I'm many things, but I'm not someone who's going to stab the closest thing I have to friends in the back over money. There's more than enough to go around. Split four ways, we're all still filthy rich." She smirked at him as he looked back, stunned. "What's a few million here or there?"

"Jesus fucking Christ, Lisa," he managed to say after a long pause. Alec didn't seem able to even do that, and Rachel was staring at the other girl with the weirdest look on her face he'd ever seen.

"It'll take a few days for everything to settle down, and there should be some documents waiting for us at the bank by Friday. Debit cards, that sort of thing. All linked to an account that will get topped up from the interest on the main stash, in a way that makes it look completely legit. I even set it up to pay the tax automatically so the IRS should be happy. Those guys don't give a crap what the source of your income is as long as they get their cut." Lisa grinned again. "Basically, none of us need to work again if we don't want to. Just the interest on the capital is enough to live a life of luxury on if we don't go nuts."

He simply shook his head, awestruck all over again. She was a hideously effective person when she set her mind to something, he realized.

"So I can buy a bigger TV if I want?" Alec asked a little suspiciously.

Lisa looked rather obviously at the huge flat-screen TV that dominated most of the loft and raised an eyebrow at him. "If you really feel you need to, sure," she replied a little dubiously. "I have no idea where you'll put it, though. This place isn't that big."

"And why in god's name would you even need something bigger?" Brian asked absently, still inspecting the simple numbers on a piece of card that would change his life completely.

"Hey, they make bigger ones," Alec retorted. "So I want one."

"I've got money to look after the dogs?" Rachel put in, having apparently finally absorbed the new state of things. Lisa turned to her and nodded.

"You can look after all the dogs if you want," she replied with a smile. "I can help you set something up if you'd like."

Rachel looked at her, seeming a little bewildered, then after a few seconds smiled radiantly and nodded. "Thank you," she said quietly, in the most human expression of emotion Brian had ever seen from her.

"You're welcome," Lisa responded, seeming pleased and not in her normal smug manner.

"OK, OK," Brian eventually remarked, putting the card carefully in his pocket then waving his hands. "You've outdone yourself, and I can let the whole Coil thing go even though I'm not happy about it. But… What the fuck actually happened? How did the PRT get him? I'm missing something here."

"Oh, yes, you're missing a lot," she replied, suddenly looking very thoughtful and somewhat apprehensive. "I guess you guys haven't been watching the news?"

"Nope," Alec said, shaking his head. "Something good happen?"

"Did you hear a massive explosion around lunchtime, maybe?" she asked.

"Is that what it was?" Brian inquired, glancing at the other boy, who shrugged. "We had the game up pretty loud, but I thought I heard something odd. Not very close, though."

"Yeah. Huge boom, big mushroom cloud, some Tinker-tech thing of Leet's went up as far as I can find out. I missed it, I was unconscious on the floor in my apartment at the time, but I saw it on the news," the blonde girl confirmed. "It sort of started a gang war. The ABB and the E88 were getting into it, then Lung turned up and smashed things up around Winslow." She spent some ten minutes filling them all in on a whole series of ridiculously unlikely sounding events that seemed to revolve around reptilian capes of all things, and sucked in everyone from New Wave through the Protectorate to Dragon and the PRT.

Brian was completely befuddled by the whole story. Apparently they'd managed to miss some of the most important events in recent history which had taken place only a few miles away, and ended up capturing both the ABB capes and a significant number of the E88 ones, along with a lot of the latter's gang members.

"Panacea took out Victor?" he exclaimed when she got to that part.

"She did, yeah. That girl has been seriously underestimated," Lisa acknowledged, appearing somewhat disturbed. "Trust me, she's a hell of a lot more dangerous than people think she is. In fact, my power is suggesting she may be possibly the most dangerous cape in the entire city if not the country. Like, S class dangerous if she's really pushed."

Brian felt blood drain from his face. "S class?" he choked out. She nodded slowly.

"Oh, yes, really seriously fucking dangerous. A word of advice, don't piss her off. We wouldn't like her when she's angry."

There was silence in the loft for a moment.

"Fuck me. Take your eye off the ball and the entire world goes and changes when you're not looking," he finally complained, leaning back on the sofa and staring at the ceiling. "Lizards. I don't believe it."

She got up and retrieved the remote for the TV without saying anything, then changed to the local news channel.

All four of them watched, three with incredulity and Lisa with a thoughtful expression.

After about ten minutes, she quietly said, "Things are going to be very different from now on. I think we should just sit and watch carefully. I don't want to get in between them and anything they're after..."

All three of her team-mates nodded as one. It sounded like wise advice.


Alan looked up from staring at the table and thinking as the door opened, revealing Carol Dallon. She came in and sat down in the chair on the other side of the table as the door closed behind her, the PRT trooper who had admitted her pulling it shut. "Hello, Alan," the woman said, sounding worried and looking it too. "Have you spoken to Emma yet?"

"No," he said quietly, feeling bewildered and depressed. "They were still processing her along with the other two when I got here, because all that bizarre shit that happened at Winslow delayed things a lot. I've been going over the reports they let me see." He indicated the paperwork on the table in front of him. "Miss Militia dropped it off. She seems sympathetic, but..." He shrugged hopelessly. "They caught those girls red-handed, and Armsmaster recorded them as good as confessing to the whole damn thing. As much as I want to believe Emma had nothing to do with it, I can't." He put his head in his hands and tried to compose himself. "I don't understand what happened. What am I going to tell Zoe? Or Anne? How could Emma do this? And to Taylor, of all people? That girl is practically family, Emma's known her all her life! She used to call Danny 'Uncle Danny,' and now she's spent over a year torturing his poor daughter?!"

He raised his head to meet her eyes, the woman appearing sympathetic as well as worried. "What am I going to say to him? He's one of my closest friends, I've known the man since we were kids. How could this happen?"

"I don't know, Alan, but we're going to find out, trust me," she replied softly. "I remember Emma and she always struck me as a nice girl. I don't understand it either. Something must have happened to cause this, people don't change like that out of the blue." She picked up the main folder on the table and scanned the contents as he watched, her eyebrows going up now and then, and a frown steadily growing. "Oh, my god, this is..." Carol turned the page, then winced. "Christ."

Shaking her head, she put the folder down and looked at him. "I won't mince words, Alan. This is very bad. There's too much evidence to make it go away, and the potential issues at the school have attracted far too much attention. But I'll do what I can, I promise."

"Thank you," he said in a broken voice, feeling his entire world had fallen apart. "I just don't understand it," he said again.

"Neither do I," she replied, shaking her head again.

"I'm going to have to talk to Danny, apologize, try to help," he added, feeling more depressed than he'd ever been in his life.

Carol put her hand on his where it was lying on the table. "That can wait. From what my sister said, those bizarre reptilian capes took him and his daughter somewhere, and she's heard that they're safe. Leave it for now, we need to concentrate on Emma first. The Heberts will need to be talked to at some point, but not right this moment."

He opened his mouth to protest, then sighed and closed it again. She was probably right. But the guilt he felt over his oldest friend's daughter having had that done to her by his own was eating at him badly.

There was a tap on the door, then it opened to admit the PRT lieutenant who'd been handling him while the more senior staff were apparently in a series of meetings about the whole situation, which even he realized was larger than his own problems. "They're ready for you to talk to your daughter, Mr Barnes," the man said politely. "If you'll please follow me?"

Alan looked at Carol, who nodded, then stood. Doing likewise, he scooped up the paperwork and stuffed it back into the folder then handed it to the PRT man, who accepted it, before waving them out the door. Still feeling depressed and slightly detached from reality, he followed the man as he lead them both to meet his daughter who had apparently become someone he barely recognized, without him even noticing until it was far too late...



Once Thomas Calvert, over his protestations of innocence which not a single person present believed for a second, had been very securely manacled by Saurial using whatever method she had for producing unbreakable material from nowhere, Emily relaxed slightly. She watched as he was led off by a squad of the most trusted PRT troopers she had available, worrying about the comment that the lizard-girl had made about the fucking man having a number of moles in the organization. Bearing in mind his clearances, which she'd instantly revoked on the spot, it didn't surprise her that this would be the case. She issued orders that the entire staff was to be vetted to the highest level immediately and that anyone even slightly acting oddly was to be immediately restrained and questioned.

"There are a number of booby-traps in your computer systems too," Metis commented as the door closed behind the traitorous ex-PRT employee, a burly trooper on either arm pretty much carrying him out. "We can arrange to dig those out for you. Some of our people are really good with computers."

"Exceptionally so," Raptaur added with a small smile.

Emily stared at them all, then looked around the table. Everyone there was looking bemused, shocked, and worried. This made perfect sense, the entire situation was insane. And every question answered raised several more, made things even less sensible, and were rapidly driving her to want to dig out a bottle of the good whiskey and drink most of it, dialysis or no dialysis.

"I'm disinclined to allow you access to our computer systems," she said, feeling that the word was inadequate. 'Hell no,' was closer to what she wanted to say, but right now she couldn't quite bring herself to do so for some reason. She was still wondering if calling for a total M/S lockdown of the entire facility would actually be the more sensible thing to do, but at the same time, she was fairly sure it wouldn't really help.

Things had just gone… weird.

Even for Brockton Bay. And that was saying a hell of a lot, considering how this fucking city tended to work on a good day…

Retaking her seat, she winced a little as her back twinged, then fixed the three reptiles with a hard look. "I suppose thanks are in order as far as Calvert goes," she eventually said somewhat reluctantly. "I never liked that man, but I didn't expect… whatever that was."

"We're going to have to root out the rest of his people, here and in his base," Armsmaster put in, sounding thoughtful. "And we don't know where that actually is. Coil was known to employ a number of mercenaries armed with Tinker-tech weapons, and considering the access Calvert has had to our systems for literally years, he has undoubtedly put in countermeasures to many of our standard procedures." The Tinker looked at the lizards, adding, "Based on your description of his powers, it suggests he could well have simulated any number of methods he might be unmasked and come up with ways to defeat them all."

"Oh, he did that, definitely," Saurial nodded, smiling. "Unfortunately for him, we tend to break Thinker powers pretty badly for reasons we don't need to go into right now. So he couldn't see us coming and had no way to prepare for it."

"His base is in the supposedly uncompleted Endbringer shelter under the commercial district," Metis added.

"Oh, hell, that would be almost impregnable," Triumph said, making everyone look at him. "I know about those shelters, if the thing was even half-finished it will be a fortress."

"He finished it almost entirely," Saurial replied. "But that doesn't matter. We can get in easily, as my sister just demonstrated. They'll keep for now though. I doubt they even know he's gone and they won't find out for a while, so I'd suggest leaving it until later."

"You will also probably find that you've had some help from an interested party," Metis commented, looking somewhat smug. They switched their attention to the black lizard. "Let's just say that if you wait for a while, you'll find things on that front are somewhat easier than you might expect."

Emily looked at them all, then sighed heavily. "Oh, for god's sake, this is all completely ridiculous," she grumbled. "Every single thing you say makes it worse, too!"

Saurial merely smiled a little, her head cocked to the side as she watched them. Emily was beginning to really find that smile irritating.

"We're going to need to talk to the Heberts sooner rather than later," she said after a moment or two. "Coil or no Coil, that incident seems to be the root cause of all this insanity and we need to clear it up."

"We'll get to that in the end, Director," Saurial assured her. "The Heberts need to be left alone right now. They're safe at home and not going anywhere, you'll get a chance to discuss things with them, but not right now. We have other things to talk about first."

"Such as?" she asked suspiciously. "You mentioned Cauldron. That's an internet conspiracy theory, not a real thing."

Saurial tipped her head the other way and examined her closely.

Emily's heart sank.

"Isn't it?" she added weakly, feeling that things were only going to get worse.

Again.

The lizard's eyes moved to Battery, who was staring fixedly at her with a certain amount of strain present around her mouth under her visor.

"It's rather more real than that, Director," the reptilian cape said calmly, still looking at Battery, who didn't seem to be able to look away. "And I'm afraid that you're not going to like what we're going to tell you."

"Like I've liked anything else that's happened today," Emily sighed. She was, yet again, getting a sensation like she was waiting for the hammer to drop. From what she could see on the faces of the others present, everyone felt the same. Assault was looking between his wife and the reptiles with an unusually intense expression, and seemed confused and worried in equal amounts.

Saurial looked away from Battery after a few more seconds, the woman slumping slightly as if she'd suddenly relaxed. Or possibly given up, based on her body language. Returning her gaze to Emily the lizard-girl regarded her for a second, then produced a small box and flicked it across the table to her.

Emily slapped her hand down on it as it slid past, everyone watching with great interest. "What is this?" she asked, lifting her hand to study the container, which was about half the size of a matchbox.

"A prerequisite for us telling you more," Saurial replied.

Giving her a hard look, Emily carefully opened the box at arm's length, then peered inside rather cautiously. There was a small off-white oval about the size of a fingernail sitting inside on a protective foam sheet. "And this is?" she asked even more suspiciously as she examined it, then raised her eyes to Saurial's.

"That is a single-use universal healer," the lizard said, not looking away. Emily felt a surge of anger and opened her mouth. "No. Listen to me, and hear me, Emily Piggot," Saurial snapped. "You are physically disabled and for a number of somewhat ill-conceived reasons have refused to be healed, which could easily have been arranged at any point in the last several years via Panacea. I know why, I even understand it from your point of view, but events have moved past that now." Her voice was suddenly hard and commanding. Emily couldn't look away from that alien gaze.

"You are moments away from a massive heart attack and have been for months. I can literally smell it on you, leaving aside knowing that it happened to my Director Piggot only a few weeks from now in our timeline. If Panacea hadn't been only minutes away and called in by a doctor who did his duty, that Emily would have died. You are going to learn some things that will cause considerable stress if I explain more to you, and I'm not going to risk it if you don't get fixed." Saurial stared at her as she flushed. "If you want to find out more, you are going to get healed first. Either using that, or by Panacea, your choice. But it's non-negotiable."

There was an uncomfortable silence in the conference room for some seconds. Everyone was looking between the pair of them, Saurial's relatives simply watching quietly. Emily gazed at the lizard, who seemed content to just sit there and look back. After ten seconds or so, she looked down at the tiny thing in the box. "I have no idea whether you're telling me the truth about this fucking thing," she growled.

"I am," Saurial shrugged. "You can believe me or not. I can provide you with an entire PRT report from my world showing how they tested our healers and approved them. They're standard issue for all law enforcement organizations these days, and other emergency services, and in the longer term they'll end up in every home on the planet if we have anything to do with it. Those things have saved more lives than you'd believe. They're entirely safe, and if it's any help, aren't actually a Parahuman power. They're Family biotech. Another cousin invented them, and trust me when I say she is a very talented Biosculptor. Her designs always work."

She pointed at the thing with one taloned finger. "Use that, call for Panacea, or both. But until you do, I'm not going to give you more information and risk you stroking out on me or something. Sure, if you do, Metis will heal you up, but there's no reason other than stubborn bloody-mindedness for you to still be in this state and you damn well know it. Get over your hangups and fix yourself, you idiot."

Emily glared at her, furious, but in her heart knowing the fucking reptile had a point. As much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, her own prejudices against Parahumans were the reason she was as sick as she was. Panacea could indeed have healed her and undoubtedly would have done so if she'd requested it, but owing New Wave a favor was even more galling than allowing a Parahuman to use their powers on her in the first place.

"Director..." Miss Militia began. Emily held up a hand without looking at her, causing the woman to stop. Not looking away from Saurial, who was looking back intently, she thought hard.

"I don't like being spoken to like that," she said after a few seconds.

Saurial shrugged. "I'm aware of that, and I'm sorry, but I am also serious. You are in many ways an admirable person, but your hangups about capes are putting your life, and those under your command, at risk. For no good reason, really. I have a lot of respect for the Emily Piggot I know and as far as I can see you deserve much the same, but your attitude isn't doing you any favors. Ending up dead because you were too stubborn to accept help is a very silly way to go."

She smiled a little. "Just accept reality, use the healer, and we can move on. You're going to need to be in peak condition to deal with things that are going to happen soon."

"Oh, that just fills me with confidence," Emily groused, shaking her head. She looked around at the others. Most of those present were watching her with varying levels of concern, Miss Militia was looking rather more worried than that and inspecting the tiny bio-widget with great suspicion, and Armsmaster was looking intrigued. Of course.

"Fuck it." She made a decision that she hoped wasn't going to bite her in the ass and picked up the box. "How do I use it?"

This was probably a bad idea, but she had to know more, and the damn lizard seemed serious when she said she wasn't going to reveal anything else unless she accepted this thing. And, she thought, trying to take comfort from it, if they really were alien lizards from another world, in a real sense they weren't Parahumans at all…

Thus rationalized, and partly driven by a deep weariness about feeling so shit all the time, she followed the brief instructions that the reptilian girl gave her, placing the small thing on the back of her hand and pressing hard. Moments after it made a weird little squeaking sound, her hand went numb, then the low-level chronic pain she'd suffered ever since Ellisburg… went away.

She actually gasped in shock as for the first time in years nothing hurt. Armsmaster was pointing one of his instruments at her and appeared fascinated. Everyone else was staring. A few seconds later the numbness faded and sensation came back everywhere.

Emily assessed what her body was telling her.

Nothing at all hurt. In fact, she couldn't remember feeling this good since she was about twenty or so. Gently prodding her side, then poking harder, she noted that there was no pain, none of the internal distress she'd lived with constantly for longer than she liked to think about.

When she inspected her right hand, she saw that a paper cut she'd had on her ring finger from that morning had disappeared. A scar from a broken bottle on the palm of her hand was also missing.

"Christ," she mumbled, shocked at how well the bizarre thing had worked. "That's… unbelievable."

"My sister does very good work," Metis smiled.

"Impressive," Armsmaster commented, looking at the screen of his scanner. "You read as being in perfect health, Director. No signs of the injuries you formerly had are present, and both your kidneys appear to have regenerated in under thirty seconds. That is extraordinary, I doubt that even Panacea could do so much so rapidly." His voice sounded shocked.

"As Metis said, Ianthe is very good at what she does. Those things have been optimized to an amazing level," Raptaur said, appearing pleased. "You will find that you rapidly lose weight over the next couple of weeks until you reach an optimal point. After that your metabolism will revert to normal."

Emily was still tentatively poking herself in places that used to hurt but no longer did, in a kind of stunned wonder. Perhaps her decision wasn't so rash after all…

The lack of pain certainly made her mood improve. Although she still had a feeling of incipient doom, looking at the reptiles at the end of the table.

Eventually she got to grips with the fact that she appeared to be as healthy as she'd ever been and turned to Saurial. "Fine. Despite my reservations, I did what you demanded. Now, you hold up your end of the deal."

"Sure," Saurial smiled. She looked slowly around the table, ending up with her eyes on Emily again. "In nineteen eighty one, Earth was invaded by a hostile alien species, whose breeding cycle will result in the destruction of the planet and all alternate versions of it unless they can be stopped..." she began.

Everyone froze and stared at her in disbelief.

Emily Piggot suddenly realized that her feeling of incipient doom was vastly underestimating the situation, if this mad reptile was telling anything even close to the truth.

As she listened, she got the very unwelcome sensation that she was.


Thomas lay on the bed in his cell and stared blankly at the ceiling.

What the fuck had happened?

And how was he going to get out of it?


Sophia paced back and forth in the small room she was confined to, swearing almost constantly and thinking desperately how to fix this, while unconsciously tugging on the bracelets that fucking lizard had put on her wrists.

When she got out of here, a lot of people were going to be sorry.


Madison looked at her parents, then the lawyer they'd arrived with, all three adults appearing shocked by what the PRT woman had told them. She made her decision, tears in her eyes.

Then she started talking in low tones. Her parents looked more and more horrified and disappointed as time went on.



Carol turned to Alan as his daughter was led out of the interview room again, her red hair clashing horribly with the orange jumpsuit she was wearing. The man seemed stunned and appalled, which didn't surprise her at all.

When they were alone once more, she sighed. "The small good part about all that is that I think we can make a case for actions taken while her mind was disturbed. It's clearly accurate, and may work."

He nodded absently, still looking at the closed door.

She checked her notes one last time then shut the notebook and stood up. "Come on, Alan. We need to talk to your wife and discuss our next move."

Like an automaton, he stood too, then followed her out of the room.

As they headed down to the parking facility, Carol found herself grateful that her own daughters were, despite Vicky's best efforts, far less trouble than her poor colleague's youngest was. Listening to the rationalizations for her actions that Emma Barnes had produced, apparently fully believing them, made her feel ill.



In a completely different subset of reality, a phone rang.

When it was answered, the person who picked it up nodded thoughtfully to herself, asked a few pertinent questions, then disconnected, before calling some of her friends and Family.

They had work to do.