"Why do we have to do this again!" the female voice was annoyed.

Jim wanted to plug his ears.

"We should be dealing with crime, doing patrols, not just going to…" Missy huffed, "A school."

"Vista," Carlos said. "You know why."

Missy folded her arms. "We didn't have anything to do with it."

"You're right," Carlos said. "We didn't. Maybe we should have. And we did cover for a few of her missed patrols, which means…"

"That they're checking us to make certain we really didn't know about it," Dennis said. Next to him, Chris glumly nodded as he finished putting on his armor.

"Especially since," Carlos continued. "Sophia's… assault happened a while after we'd covered for her once or twice." The team leader shook his head. "If we hadn't, if we'd all taken our concerns to Piggot, as a group, something could have been done before it blew up."

"As if they would have listened," Missy said.

"We'll never know," Jim replied. He hadn't been there for the first few events, but even so…

Carlos and Dean are feeling guilty. You didn't need to be a mind reader to know that. When they'd been finally informed of what had happened, Carlos had been horrified, and accepted all blame.

Director Piggot had refused to accept that. She and Armsmaster had mentioned that it was partially their fault, due to "insufficient supervision."

Jim winced at that memory. Yeah, the adults saying they're sorry, they thought you could handle it, but it turned out you couldn't…

Not good. The fact that everything they were doing right now was being covered under the PRT's discretion, with nothing being written down in their records about the why didn't make it feel much better, and Jim's records wouldn't matter when he got back home. Carlos was supposed to graduate to the Protectorate and Jim had a feeling he was wondering if they really were going to be scrubbed, or if there'd be a little handwritten note from Director Piggot in them.

So now Sophia was gone, in juvie, and Carlos was asking Console for permission to breathe, he was second guessing himself so much.

"Right," Claire said as she put her helmet on. "But we can have fun here as well."

Missy looked deeply skeptical. "How?"

"By having fun with people who don't know what happened and just want to see their heroes," Claire said. With that, the doors opened and the Wards went valiantly to battle at James Patterson Elementary School.

"Now, we must merely align the manacurrents," Merlin said, staring at the gleaming yellow gem in his workshop. Colin snorted. Merlin said nothing, merely focusing on his work, as gleaming currents of greenish gold light seemed to swirl around it.

"I am detecting an unusual quantum flux," Colin said.

"Merely the byproduct of my magic. The core of it is more involved with the soul, and that, your instruments would never be able to detect." The beams of energy combined, glowing brightly, and then with a flash and hum, vanished to reveal the gem, how softly glowing.

"And the Trollhunter will be able to endure the light." Merlin frowned. "Endure, but not enjoy. It will not be a pain, so much as an… itch. The sun's presence is not simply that of physical light, but metaphysical essence, a reminder of the ancient oaths that granted the day to man and the night to trolls."

"You… believe that?" Colin asked. "You seem logical and yet…"

"And yet I gibber at the moon and wave my hand with a trembling motion. Obviously, not at all logical, not like your powers."

"Parahuman powers are well documented, even if they are not understo—"

"Really? A woman who can make guns? Guns of any complexity, so long as they are not… Tinkertech, and yet cannot use that same power to create a bicycle?" Merlin snorted. "A boy who can stop time, a girl who can bend space, a… Tinker who can make anything, but never perfect it so it doesn't blow up in his face? Were I not aware that there was no magic here, I would wonder if you were all apprentices who had dug around in your master's closet."

"And what am I, then?" Colin asked, gritting his teeth.

Merlin looked at him and nodded. "Someone who has moved beyond what this… gift offered you. Your fighting skill is the result of practice and developed skill. I can respect that, because no man should ever be content with what the universe offered him… well unless he was content with it to begin with."

Merlin put the gem in the box and nodded. "Now, let us discuss other matters while we await your wards to return from their purgatory. This technique you have for predicting the moves of your enemy interests me…"

Colin nodded. Merlin might be insane and difficult to deal with, but he was intelligent.

Kenji stood, bursting with pride. He was here, with some of the other school kids who were being inducted into the ABB. Lung wasn't here, but that was fine. One of his lieutenants was.

"Right," the man said. He hadn't offered them his name. "You will take this car, and drive to Boston." He gestured at the oblong packets in the trunk. "If they go missing, or if anyone samples them, you get to talk to Lung and the Oni, understand?"

Kenji nodded.

"Good. Don't fuck this up. Now get out of here."

With that, Kenji and the three others were piling in the car and starting the motor. They had enough money for food and they'd be driving in shifts.

This is great! I'm really part of the ABB now. Let his sister talk about college and school and kissing up to all the people that called her a slant behind her back. Kenji was going to forge his own path.