"You're shitting us," Kevin said in a fascinated voice.

"Nope."

"The Endbringers are terrified of her?" he asked, indicating Taylor who had retaken her base form and was happily eating one of the dozen large pizzas they'd brought.

"We think so."

"To be honest, that part of it I can see," Randall commented, also stuffing his face. He chewed and swallowed, adding, "She terrifies practically everyone else, why not them? And that fucking gun terrifies everyone."

"Hey, it's a really cool design," Kevin protested mildly.

"Never said it wasn't. That doesn't mean it's not terrifying. It's got a nuke in it, man!"

"OK, fair point. But even so, this is sounding very strange."

"The Simurgh stopped the same second the wormhole came online," Lisa shrugged. "Exactly the same second. That's not a coincidence according to my own power. Add to that the way Leviathan is mucking around on the other side of the planet, and Behemoth has disappeared entirely… If it's a sneaky plan I can't work out the point. The evidence suggests they don't want to meet her."

He looked dubiously at the blonde girl. "Anything else?"

"The place Leviathan is circling is on the precise antipodal point from the center of the bay," Lisa added. "I checked. He's as far away as he can get in any direction. The Simurgh is in a high orbit, which takes her over us a hell of a long way out every few days. Like she wants to hide, but can't quite bring herself to completely do it. Checking up on us, perhaps."

"It would make more sense if she was in a geostationary orbit on the other side of the planet," he pointed out.

"OK, true, but she isn't. Even so, she's a hell of a long way away most of the time. And all of them went peculiar mere hours after Taylor gained her abilities. We're pretty sure at the exact moment I spotted her."

"That part is very worrying," he noted, reaching out for another slice of chicken and bacon pizza. "It implies that the Endbringers are either watching every Parahuman, or just the ones in Brockton Bay. I'm not sure which possibility is worse."

"I'm not happy about either one, to tell the truth," Amy commented. She jumped up and retrieved some more cans from the fridge, handing them around. "So what do you say?"

Randall finished the slice he was eating, then leaned forward in his chair, looking intently at the girl. "Let me see if I understand. You have a theory about the origin of powers you're trying to run an experiment on, to find out more data. But you don't want to tell us everything in case it alters the results?"

"Right. We can't do it properly double-blind, we don't have the resources or enough Parahumans who are in on the secret of the Family, but I think that if we let you figure out some of it for yourselves we'll get better results."

"And this experiment involves some form of unnatural biotinkery?" Randall asked.

Amy grinned, then nodded. "Exactly. I can reverse it if you decide you don't want it, there's no risk to you. I'll sweeten the deal with a symbiote each, and some of the more useful mods. Enhanced strength, reflexes, and toughness. A basic Brute package, around… Brute 3 or so, I'd say. That's about as far as I can go without significant changes which I'm still working on."

Randall looked thoughtful, then glanced at Kevin. The Tinker was thinking hard. On the face of it the idea sounded insane, much like the three girls were, but at the same time they'd all achieved incredible things recently. Not to mention he liked them. The worry about someone fiddling with his innards was offset by the fact it was Panacea, the widely acknowledged best healer in the world. Although no one except a very select group of people knew she was so much more.

"What are the modifications?" he asked after a short pause.

The healer smiled at him. "I told you about it when you met Ianthe for the first time. I call it a neural amplifier. It's a cluster of very dense neural tissue that goes at the base of the neck, adding a lot of processing capability which is needed to control one of the bioconstructs. I've successfully added in some changes that make learning new languages much easier as well, which is useful on its own. There are some other uses as well, but those are the main ones we're interested in at the moment."

"OK." He thought about it some more. "And what do you think will happen to our powers?"

"That's the part we want to find out. We know what we think happened to Lisa and me, but we need to find out if it's a coincidence, imagination, or a real thing. If it is real, it goes quite a long way to explaining some of the weirder things about powers."

"But we can't tell you what we think happened to them, until it happens to you. Or we might just get you imagining it," Taylor remarked, finishing the entire pizza she'd been working on, then looking speculatively at another one. "But it's nothing bad. Just… interesting."

He was still a little dubious, glancing at his long term friend, who seemed interested. "I can throw in some sensory upgrades as well if you want," Amy wheedled. "Better hearing, smell, eyesight…"

"Hey, I still want those, don't bogart the upgrades," Lisa said, poking the other girl.

"You'll get them the next time you get in Metis, I'll do the changes in a minute," Amy said, not looking away from the pair of minor villains.

"You do realize you're all completely mad, I hope," Kevin sighed. All three girls nodded, grinning in an eerily synced way. "It's catching, clearly. OK. Fine. You can have your wicked way with me."

Randall snickered, slapping his friend on the back. "I'm up for it."

"Great." Amy looked very pleased. "It won't take long. Hey, do either of you want a tail? I'm good at tails."

Kevin stared at her. She grinned, then turned to Taylor, who looked amused. Jumping up the girl spun around, both Kevin and Randall gaping at the reptilian tail she was suddenly sporting from the base of her spine, a very close match aside from color to the one Taylor had. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Still there.

"How the fuck did you do that?" he asked weakly, pointing at it.

"I've had it since before Ianthe, it was the first thing we tried," Amy giggled. "It was just hidden by a magic spell."

"Magic..." Kevin stared at her, then turned his head to look at Taylor, as she snickered in a muffled way. "That's what you said about your own tail."

"Same thing. It's pretty versatile."

"But magic?"

"I haven't told you everything about me," she said evenly. Lisa was now the one snickering.

"Trust me, she really hasn't," the blonde said with a sneaky grin. "It'll blow your mind. But I think we need to leave that until after the experiment. It's part of the whole weirdness thing we're trying to get to the bottom of."

"I… see," he said after a few seconds of thought. "Why do I have the feeling that I may regret this?"

"Common sense, man, common sense," Randall chuckled. "But in our case it's way too late for that." He looked around at the three females. "But when we've done this, both of us get to know the whole truth, right?"

"Fine by me," Taylor smiled widely. "You actually know most of it, just not the best bits. I think you'll like it."

"Now I'm really worried," Kevin muttered. "You're grinning like Satan again. Stop it before I lose my nerve."

The smile went back to having a normal number of teeth in it, Taylor laughing.

"Hey, how strong is strong, out of interest?" Randall asked, looking at Amy with interest. "For your Brute upgrade, I mean."

Instead of answering, she moved over to where her truck was parked near the roller doors, grabbed the front jacking points, and lifted the entire front end off the ground to chest level with one smooth motion. "Strong enough," she grinned over her shoulder as he and Kevin gaped. "I can dead-lift over a ton. I'd think you two will probably be able to beat that, you've got more leverage and larger bodies. It's pretty good so far, but it's not doing things the way normal Parahumans do, so there are some limitations a normal Brute doesn't have." She carefully lowered the vehicle to the ground again. "But at the same time I can do all sorts of other things as well. Some of them are really cool."

Walking back, she held up a hand and grew a razor-sharp knife in it. "Like this." She handed it to Kevin and sat down again, while he examined it curiously.

"Fucking amazing," he muttered. "Can I see your hand?"

She held it out obligingly, Studying it, he couldn't see any trace of anything abnormal. "That's incredibly impressive."

"Thanks."

"Why the tail, though?"

"It was a good test of most of the subsystems needed for the bioconstructs, it was interesting and fun, and I wanted to learn the Family style properly, which needs a tail," Amy explained. "Not to mention it's an interesting accessory. My best friend has one and I could hardly let her be the only one."

She grinned at him as Taylor giggled. Lisa rolled her eyes. "And both of them keep trying to persuade me as well. If I woke up one morning half-snake I wouldn't be entirely surprised. Annoyed, but not surprised."

"I always thought girls were weird, but this is sort of taking it a little far," Randall chuckled, shaking his head. They all smiled at the comment. "OK, so what do we do?"

"Igor?"

"Yeth, Mather," Taylor lisped, jumping to her feet then limping towards the middle of the room while waving her arms wildly. "Your table awaith your gloriouth thelf."

"And they won't knock off the damn Frankenstein jokes," Lisa sighed. Kevin watched with great amusement as Taylor quickly formed a table that looked like it would fit right in to any of the relevant movies. She gestured to it, smirking.

"If thir would walk thith way?"

"If I could walk that way..." he laughed. She grinned at him.

The knock on the back door made all of them freeze, even Taylor, who appeared quite surprised. She turned and regarded it, her head cocked, sniffed, then grinned again, looking curious and interested. "Get into Ianthe and Metis," she hissed in a very low voice to Lisa and Amy, who immediately headed for the workroom. Quickly dashing over to Amy's truck, she formed a thin box of EDM around it as the two villains watched, wondering what was going on. "Masks on, you guys. We have an interesting visitor."

Still speaking in a very low voice, she waited until both of them had their balaclavas back in place. The reptilian form of Ianthe came out of the workroom by that point, watching as Taylor shifted to Saurial and approached the door. The knock came again, giving the impression of someone trying to be discreet. 'Saurial' looked back at 'Ianthe', then 'Metis' who joined her fellow lizard, before opening the door.

Stepping aside, she gestured to the inside of the building. "Welcome, friend, to the Family retreat."

Everyone studied the petite cloaked form in the doorway, who seemed slightly taken aback.

Kevin exchanged a glance with Randall, who looked as puzzled as he was. They went back to watching, wondering what was going on.

Missy studied the DWU compound from the roof of a warehouse at a safe distance, sipping her coke. She had a healthy respect for the skills of the organization's security team, she'd heard a lot of things about it from a number of people over the years. There was a pretty good reason why the Merchants tended to steer clear of the place. While they weren't the enemy, she wanted to see the Family without anyone else knowing about it, just in case it got back to the Director.

If it did, she probably wouldn't be allowed to have any fun any more, which was the problem right now. She was enjoying her little quest and didn't want to have an angry ex-soldier shouting at her from behind her desk.

So, all in all, it was best if Director Piggot didn't find out. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt Missy, that was her thought.

'I think the BBFO office must be over there, from what I read on PHO,' the girl mused, kneeling on the roof to keep her silhouette away from the skyline. 'That's the main gate, the normal way would be… down the side there and into that little yard, maybe?'

She made the space between her elevated vantage point and the distant facility shrink, trying to do it in as small an area as possible to minimize the likelihood of anyone spotting the distortion. With only air between her and there, no living things of enough complexity to screw with her power, it was fairly easy although it needed a level of control she didn't try very much. Idly thinking that she needed to practice this technique more, she moved the other end of her warped space around fifty feet up over the compound, looking for any guards and any back entrance.

Spotting a number of people who were looking alertly around, she was even more impressed by how observant they obviously were. Even though most of them weren't standing out, she could see that between them they had pretty much the entire fence area visually covered. The E88 attack last month had probably annoyed them enough to step up security.

There were also several guards with dogs roaming the area, which was lit up with portable floodlights on generators in a number of places, even now that it was dark still having a surprisingly large number of people at work. She wondered if they kept going all night. There were certainly enough of them to run several shifts. Even from here she could see at least sixty people moving around the vast yard, and quite a few machines rumbling about the place.

'Can't go over the fence, they'd see it for sure,' she thought, studying the problem. 'No fence along the water side, but no way in there either unless you can swim in freezing water or have a boat. Plus too many people near the water. Hmm.'

After a moment, she scrambled back over the roof to the other side of the peak, staying low. Once again she started humming under her breath, this time the Bond theme. 'Licensed to sneak around,' she snickered internally. 'Although I bet Piggot would deny it. They always do in the movies.'

Wondering if she could get some spy gadgets, she looked around, then folded space to let her move to a warehouse a few hundred yards away from the water. She checked the area from the new vantage point. When she was sure no one had noticed, she repeated the process, jumping around the perimeter of the facility, which was a lot larger than she'd realized. Eventually she was on the other side, looking back at the warehouse she'd first been on in the distance. She could have gone straight across, of course, but the risk of discovery was too high.

'I'd lose my sneaky badge for that,' she giggled. 'OK. That must be the place over there. I think. So… all these warehouses and things along the water have doors on that side as well. Bet they do. If I can get to the back of it, maybe I can get in without anyone seeing.'

It seemed a plausible plan. There were far less people visible from this side of the facility. She could see lit windows in a taller building, some with people behind them, apparently in a dormitory of some sort. One room was lit by a flickering illumination from the biggest TV she'd ever seen, on which a fast-paced video game was playing, the black-haired boy sitting in front of it apparently shouting at his opponent. She watched for a moment, then looked for anyone else who might see her.

No one was visible, even when she checked with her remote scanning technique. Hopping to the next building along, she wrinkled her nose at the smell of old fish and ancient fires, wondering what the source of it was. Once again, she checked carefully, then peered down at the street seventy feet below her, pondering the right approach for a moment. She put the now-empty coke can down at her feet as she thought.

Having decided, she quickly double-checked, then snapped to the ground, diving into a shadowed doorway and waiting to see if anything happened. When there was no outcry, she looked around carefully, picked another dark spot down the street, then stepped from her current shadow to the new one.

In this way she proceeded down the potholed and disused road, ending up next to the water in the cover of a small tumble-down shack that seemed to contain a few ancient bits of fishing boat equipment. From here, right next to the water, which was lapping at the old timbers of a small wharf, she could see down the rear of the buildings on the other side of the chain-link fence separating the DWU area from the general docks. An old and rusty gate blocked the road that ran down the backs of the sheds between them and the water, to round the corner in the distance where the lights and activity in the main yard was just visible.

Waiting for another couple of minutes, she thoroughly checked for guards, finally spotting one man on the roof of the dormitory block who was carefully walking around, a radio in one gloved hand. He was keeping an eye on the main yard most of the time, but looked around in her direction regularly.

Impressed all over again, she waited for him to look away, then snapped to the top of the fence and immediately down into the shadows on the other side in a smooth move that took only seconds. Huddled in her cloak, she waited for the alarm to go up, smiling when nothing happened.

'The Cloak, secure in her mysterious abilities, triumphs yet again,' she thought, amusing herself.

She was having a hell of a lot of fun if nothing else, and refining some techniques she never really got to try. Mainly because Miss Militia wouldn't let her. She liked the older woman, but sometimes she was a real stick in the mud about cool ideas.

Shaking her head, Missy made sure her cloak covered everything, then moved in a series of short hops down the back of the buildings, trying to work out which was the right one. She heard a lot of dogs in one of the buildings, sounding excited, with a girl's voice commanding one of them to heel. By the sound of it, there were a lot of dogs. Possibly the person in there was the DWU dog handler?

It wasn't important at the moment, although she wanted to come back and have a look at some point. She liked dogs. Moving on, she finally found a likely candidate. Looking up at the building, she couldn't see any windows, only this single standard door, made of metal, with a large roller door like on a garage next to it. Putting her ear to it she listened carefully.

There was nothing audible from inside, but it might just be soundproofed really well. Or, perhaps, no one was home.

The only way to be sure was to knock and see what happened, she thought.

With a certain amount of excitement, she did exactly that, then pulled her hood down low and waited.

Nothing happened.

After a fairly long time, impatient, she knocked again, trying to be both loud enough to be heard inside, and quiet enough not to attract attention from outside.

The door suddenly opening took her by surprise since she hadn't heard anything to suggest someone was there. Standing inside was the familiar form of Saurial, who was grinning at her, not seeming too startled by her appearance. Before she could say anything, the lizard girl invited her in with a cheery gesture and comment.

Somewhat bemused, she walked inside. The door shut behind her.

"Now, don't tell me, let me work it out," Saurial said, coming back around to stand in front of her, inspecting her closely. Missy raised a hand, the reptilian cape shaking her head. "No, it's better if I figure it out for myself."

She lowered her hand again, wondering what the lizard-girl was doing, but amused even so.

"If you want to, sure," she rasped in her 'Cloak' voice. Saurial looked impressed. Behind her, Missy could see her cousins exchange glances, while at the table to one side, two guys in balaclavas were watching with faint grins. She wondered who they were, they seemed slightly familiar.

"Good voice," Saurial said, bending down a little to peer at her more closely. "Very good voice. Very mysterious, like Batman." She cocked her head. "You're not Batman, right?"

"No."

"OK. Just checking." She walked around Missy, studying her. "Not a Jawa?"

"Nope."

"All right. You'd be a long way from home, if you were. Hmm." Saurial thought for a while.

"Jedi?"

"No."

"Sith Lord?"

"No."

"Ah. A tough one. Vampire?"

"Definitely not."

"Huh. Highwayman? Or woman?"

"Nope."

"Disguised Ninja?"

"Um..." Missy considered the suggestion, finding it one worth pursuing one day. "Not really."

"Creepy thing from beyond the shadows, here trying to blend in?"

She shook her head, firmly suppressing a giggle. "No."

"Hey, I'm not judging, I like creepy things from beyond the shadows."

"You are a creepy thing from beyond the shadows," the smaller of the men at the table commented wryly. She looked over her shoulder at him, shrugging a little.

"I guess so. That would explain it." Returning her attention to Missy, who was very amused, Saurial thought some more, then snapped her fingers. "I know. You're Death."

"What?" Missy was somewhat startled by this suggestion, almost forgetting to use her mysterious voice.

"Sure. I've read human mythology. Death wears a long cloak, like you. It's probably really old as well." Saurial reached out and felt her sleeve. "This is really old. Nice material though. Raspy voice, check. Mysterious arrival without any warning, check. No visible person in the cloak..." She walked around Missy again, ending up in front of her once more. "Well, I can't see if you're a skeleton in there, but you're pulling off the invisible person bit really well."

"I..." Missy couldn't quite think how to respond.

"But… Something's missing," Saurial muttered, looking her up and down. "Aha! Scythe. Death carries a scythe. Or sometimes a sword, if you read the right myths, but in this area of the world, a scythe is more traditional. Have you lost yours?"

"Um..."

"No problem. Here, try this one." The lizard-girl handed Missy the horrifically sharp agricultural tool that had appeared in her hand. Taking it automatically, Missy looked up at the razor-sharp blade that was six inches over her head, then back at the smiling reptile, who seemed pleased.

"Perfect. Hey, guys? Death dropped by, but she forgot her scythe. Does this look about the right size?"

"Looks fine to me," Ianthe commented. She seemed a little doubtful. "Are you sure that's Death, though? From the human literature, I was expecting someone taller."

"She matches the description," Metis said thoughtfully, peering at Missy with glowing eyes. "Bit short, true, but she's got the cloak, the scythe, and the eerie voice. But why is she here? No one is dead."

"Yet," Saurial said smugly. "Perhaps one of us is doomed." She looked around at the others present. "Not it."

Both remaining reptiles and one of the men instantly said not it as quickly as possible, leaving the smaller of the men appearing annoyed. "Damn," he grumped. "I'm not ready to die. Come back later."

Missy stared at him, then the others. She looked up at the scythe in her hand again. Finally she sighed. "You really are very weird, all of you," she said in her normal voice.

"Hi, Vista," Saurial grinned as she lowered her hood. "Hey, did you see Death? She was here just now, but she must have left when you arrived. She had a scythe and everything."

"Like this one, per..." Missy shook the thing in her hand, only then realizing it wasn't there any more. "Oh, for god's sake," she mumbled. "You're worse than Clockblocker."

"I do what I can," Saurial laughed. "Nice to see you. What the hell are you doing sneaking around in a cloak, though? I mean, it's a nice cloak, but… Not exactly your normal look."

"I wanted to come and see you and I didn't want anyone knowing I did," she explained, a little embarrassed now. "The Director would probably blow a fuse. 'You're too young to be wandering around in the docks in the first place,'" she mimicked, pouting slightly. "'Never mind getting involved with those crazy reptiles. We have an image to uphold.'" She sighed heavily, while the others present all chuckled.

"A little frustrated with being a Ward, then?" Ianthe remarked.

"I like it, but sometimes I don't think anyone takes me seriously," she replied, looking over at the other lizard. "I mean, sure I know that Wards aren't supposed to be out on their own, there are rules and everything and mostly they're for good reasons, but no one lets me have any fun."

"Define fun," Saurial said, grinning.

"Well, being allowed to talk to you guys would be a good start," she replied. "But we're not supposed to interact except professionally, and we're not supposed to come see you here."

"Oooh, what a little rule-breaker," Metis snickered. "I like her."

"I'm not breaking the rules, I'm… bending them?" Missy tried, even as she said it knowing she wasn't entirely correct, and that the Director probably wouldn't see it that way even slightly. "I'm off duty anyway, no shifts until Sunday."

"Yet here you are in costume," Saurial pointed out. "As Vista, which could be seen as being official if you look at it the right way."

"Um… I guess that's true," she said in a small voice. "But I was bored, and I need some advice about something you're probably the only people who would understand."

The reptilian cape looked intrigued. "Advice? About what?"

"This," she said, pulling her notebook out of her inner cloak pocket and flipping it open to her latest drawing. She handed it to Saurial, who took it and looked at it with great interest, not the usual wincing and acting like there was something wrong with it that everyone else did. She raised one of her scaly eyebrows. Was it still an eyebrow if it didn't have any hair? Missy considered the concept for a second or two, then firmly pushed it away.

"Cool," Saurial said in a fascinated tone of voice. "That's not bad at all. How much of the math do you understand?"

"Not enough," Missy sighed. "I can't figure out where I'm going wrong. I can see it in here, but I can't quite draw it." She tapped the side of her head with a finger, feeling frustrated. "But I saw that incredibly neat thing you guys gave to Mr Hebert on his birthday and you obviously understand this sort of stuff."

Saurial nodded absently, rotating the notebook to look at it from a different angle, then tilting it to look across the page. "Nice work. Come and have some pizza and let's talk. It's still warm." Looking over at Metis, she added, "We forgot a microwave oven. We need one."

"I'll order one tonight," the larger reptile said, nodding. "Would you like a drink, Vista?"

"Sure, thanks," she replied, following Saurial over to the table. Hopping up on a chair she looked around with interest. "Coke if you have it. Neat building. Nicest lair I've ever seen."

Ianthe laughed, both young men chuckling as well. "I wouldn't quite call it a lair, it's more of an office, but thanks. We like it."

Metis came back with a cold can of Coke, putting it next to her, then sat on her tail nearby. Missy studied the feat, thinking it was a very good solution to not fitting into a normal chair, and convenient too. "Thank you," she said politely, popping the tab.

"We've got half a chicken and bacon left, a whole pepperoni with jalapenos, and a lot of random slices from several others," the taller man said as he pushed the stack of boxes towards her. She stared, shocked and instantly recognizing the voice.

"Shit! You're Über!"

Everyone looked at her, then him. "Oh my god, she's right!" Saurial cried, jumping to her feet from where she'd just sat down. She pointed at the man, who grinned at her. "How did you get in here, villain?"

"You opened the door when I knocked," Über replied mildly. "Then ate two of my pizzas."

"Oh, right, I forgot that part," Saurial snickered, sitting down again. Missy gaped at her, then Über, before looking at the other guy, who she realized must therefore be Leet.

"OK. Why are you guys hanging around with villains?" she asked suspiciously, inspecting everyone present very carefully. "That's a little strange."

"So are we," Ianthe pointed out. "At least according to PHO."

Missy waved this away with a gesture. "They're all nuts, worse than you guys are. But this is definitely not what I expected."

"If it's any weight off your mind, Vista, Leet and I are… sort of reforming," Über explained, smiling at her.

He had a nice smile.

And his voice was even better in real life than on the internet, she thought.

Still, he was, technically, a villain, even if neither he or his friend really seemed to try very hard. Even so, they'd caused a lot of trouble over the years. After a moment, she mentioned this, making him smile again.

He really had a nice smile, she thought as she propped her head on her hands and listened to his reply. "I could say we're sorry about that, which would be partly true, but also partly wrong," he said, shrugging. "We had our reasons for what we did. Good or bad, but we had them. Now, though…," he looked around at the three reptilian capes, then his partner, "we've got other reasons for doing different things. Hopefully we can make up for some of the past. And still have fun."

"OK," she smiled. It was like listening to a large cup of hot chocolate. After a moment, she shook her head, seeing that Saurial and her cousins were smirking at her, while Leet was looking amused. "I mean, all right, I guess I understand. Please don't be villains any more."

"We'll be… if not good, at least a little more responsible," Leet said. "Scout's honor."

"You were never a Scout," Über told his friend, who looked insulted as far as she could see under the balaclava.

"I was! I got sixteen merit badges. But they asked me to leave when I wanted to start a new one, they said it wasn't suitable for young teenagers."

"What was it?"

"Controlled demolition with improvised explosives," Leet replied, shaking his head sadly. "I worked up a complete list of suggested points, including safety briefings. But for some reason the Scout leader got all funny about it. Even demonstrating what could be done with the stuff in the Scout hut didn't change his mind." The young man seemed thoughtful, while Über started snickering. "Actually, thinking about it, he got even more peculiar at that point. Started running around shouting about hiding the evidence or something like that. I couldn't hear him very well, I forgot the ear protectors and it was pretty loud."

"So you failed your own safety protocols?" Über grinned.

"We all make mistakes," Leet replied archly. "I'm sure I could have worked out the bugs given a little more support from above."

Missy was now giggling quite a lot, finding them both very amusing. She relaxed, reaching for the nearest pizza box and exploring it with interest. "So why are you guys here, then?" she asked.

"They came over to hang out and eat pizza, and also help Metis and Ianthe with a little experiment," Saurial explained. She looked at the others. "You can do that in the workroom, if you want. I'll help Vista with her homework out here."

"What about the table?" Ianthe asked, nodding to the odd construction in the middle of the room that Missy had noticed when she came in. It looked like something out of a movie she'd seen.

"I'll make you a new one. I'll be back in a minute, Vista, OK?"

"Sure," the girl said, turning to watch while nibbling pizza. The lizard-girl got up and went over to the weird table, which promptly disappeared, then headed for the block of rooms on the other side of the building, going inside for a minute or so.

When she came out, she said to her cousins, "There you go. Have fun."

"Thanks, cousin," Ianthe smiled. She looked at Über and Leet. "Who's first?"

"Me, I guess," the former said, standing up and going after her. His friend watched, appearing slightly worried, but said nothing. Über and the two larger reptiles disappeared into the workroom, the door closing behind them. Wondering briefly what was going on, Missy looked to Saurial, who grinned at her, then picked up her notebook and studied the drawing again.

"How long have you been doing this?" she asked. The girl forgot about the others, leaning forward with excitement.

"A while. It was seeing those pictures on PHO that got me thinking. It sort of… made my power all interested? Something like that. I've been trying to draw what I can see in my head, but things don't seem to come out quite right, no matter what I do. There's all sorts of weird math involved as well which I don't really understand."

"That doesn't surprise me, it's pretty advanced," Saurial nodded, flipping through the notebook. "Some of it even we took a while to work out. Some members of the Family have been trying this sort of thing for a very long time and even so we learn new things all the time." She glanced at Missy. "Your power is about manipulating space, right? I remember when we first met you used it to get up on that roof."

"Yep. I'm pretty good at it, and recently I've been coming up with all sorts of new ideas for using it." She made a little gesture, then reached out and put her half-empty can on the computer bench on the other side of the room. Leet watched with an impressed air, while Saurial smiled. "Like that. I can't project the effect through anything living, or at least anything very complex, like more than an insect."

"Manton limit?" Leet queried.

"Yes. It's annoying, but might be a good thing as well. I could see how it might be bad making someone's head be a hundred feet from their neck."

The Tinker winced a little. "I'd have to agree with that," he replied faintly.

"What range do you have?" Saurial asked curiously. Missy debated with herself, looking at the other two, then shrugged. It wasn't like the information wasn't out there already.

"As far as I know, almost unlimited, except for the Manton thing. In theory, anyway. In practice line of sight is easy, doing it to things I can't see is more difficult the further away they are. But I can also use it to see places that aren't line of sight, by bending space around them. Like this." She formed a spatial distortion on the wall in front of them all which curved around to look at the top of the workroom, giving the effect that they were looking down on it from a few feet away.

Leet whistled. "That is pretty damn good, Vista."

"Shaker 9, you know," she grinned, buffing her fingernails on her cloak.

He nodded with a grin of his own.

"So, what are you hoping to achieve with this?" Saurial asked after a moment, indicating the notebook she'd put back on the table in front of her with a motion of a taloned finger. "Just curiosity, or do you think it will help with your powers?"

"Bit of both, I guess," Missy finally said after thinking the question over seriously. "It's bugging me because I just can't get it right, but I think it might let me work out new tricks as well."

"Fair enough. OK, I think the problem is that you don't have a background in fractional-dimensional math, although I also think your power is using something like that. Not exactly like we do, but near enough that the same techniques might help you. Look at this for a moment, I'll demonstrate what I mean."

Missy watched with fascination as the reptilian cape made a simple cube of what looked like black rock appear in her hand. "Right, this is a plain, boring three dimensional cube."

"OK."

"Now, if we add a fourth spatial dimension, we get a tessaract, or hypercube, everyone knows that. Like this." The cube warped in a remarkable manner, distorting into a shape that made Missy stare, engrossed. Leet made a peculiar sound, attracting her attention for a moment. He was gaping, his eyes squinting at the thing.

"Fuck me, how did you do that?" he breathed in shock.

"It's not hard when you know the trick," Saurial grinned. "Look, you can alter the dimensions between three and four and get some really weird effects..."

The cuboid writhed and twisted, making Missy grin. It was like watching the things in her head come to life. Leet was still squinting weirdly, massaging his forehead through his balaclava, but he seemed as fascinated as she was.

Settling in to watch as Saurial taught her some truly incredible new concepts complete with physical demonstrations, which she could even play with, Missy decided that her idea to come here was definitely the best one ever.