Taylor peered at the damage to the bridge support a little sheepishly. She'd hit it harder than she'd thought, pretty much full on, leaving a somewhat comical imprint of her upper body and arms in the concrete with cracks radiating out from it. The overall effect was more like something from a cartoon than anything else.

"How the hell fast were you going you crazy lizard?" The jocular comment came from beside her, making her glance at the city infrastructure worker who was staring at the same thing she was, smiling in an impressed but mildly annoyed fashion. "And why aren't you splashed all over the place?"

She snickered a little ruefully. "Pretty quick. Couple of hundred miles an hour I'd say. I might have been a little overenthusiastic. Good thing I'm tough."

"I'll say so," the man, a middle aged Latino guy called Enrico, chuckled. He and a companion had been there when she arrived a minute or so ago, checking the damage. She'd met him once before while wandering around as Saurial, a few weeks back, when he was inspecting the results of something the E88 had done that had trashed some traffic lights. She'd taken the opportunity to introduce herself, feeling it was best to be polite to the people who actually did the work.

"Sorry about that," she replied. "I'll fix it. And the road. And that other road." Looking around, she winced a little. "And the bank."

By now he was grinning broadly. "Had fun, did we?" he asked wryly.

"So much fun," she laughed. "Although that initial learning curve is a little steep. I should have headed out over the bay, but I had some steering issues at first and by the time I got that sorted out I was kind of committed to this direction. I'm just glad I didn't hit anything softer."

"Like people," he pointed out.

She winced again. "Yeah. Not my best bit of judgment. Oh, well, no real harm done except to my pride and I know what not to do next time."

"The tourists got a nice little treat as well," he said, looking over at a group of people who were watching them and holding up cameras. "Probably put enough money into the city to cover the damage anyway. May even have made a profit. Perhaps you should smash your face into things more often."

Taylor grinned, shaking her head a little. "Might not be the best idea. There have to be easier ways to attract tourists. I think the Mayor would start to get kind of annoyed eventually."

"Oh, I don't know, old Roy has a strange sense of humor," Enrico commented, still smiling. "Glad I voted for him. And even with this sort of thing, I'm happy to have you scaly weirdos around, the amount of damage has gone down a lot in the last few weeks, and the amount of decent work has gone up."

"Thanks," she said, smiling. "I think. Right, better sort this out."

Jumping over the wall beside the road, she landed on the side of the abutment and scuttled up it until she was next to the amusingly shaped depression, quickly filling it in with newly generated material, and checking for deeper damage in the process. It was only the surface that had suffered, the concrete was old and crumbling anyway. If anything her repair improved it. Looking around, then up, she spotted another crack that wasn't anything to do with her, it looked years old, so she climbed up and fixed that one as well.

By the time she was done, she'd repaired eight more, leaving the support far better off than it had been before. Dropping back down she went back to the city worker, who'd been taking photos of her work from the ground with a digital camera. "Not bad," he noted, nodding approvingly. "If you ever get bored doing whatever it is you're doing, I can find a lot of other damage like that which could do with patching up. That thing has needed work for at least three years but the city couldn't afford it."

"Hmm." She considered the statement thoughtfully, looking back at the overpass, then around at the scenery. "I wouldn't want to take work away from you guys."

"Don't worry, you wouldn't be," he replied, his companion coming over from their truck with a clipboard, on which he was making notes, then listening curiously. "A lot of the damage is stuff that's almost impossible to repair normally anyway. From what I could see you can do it easily. Better to have it done and not have something collapse than worry about a job the city can't pay us to do right now in the first place. And you're union, no one will mind."

His coworker nodded, looking amused. "Not our union, but the DWU and the city workers go way back. Your guys and ours have each others backs."

"Good to know," Taylor smiled, pleased at the remark. "Sure. Get a list to the DWU and I'll have a look at it. We can work out the most important ones and do them first. I was planning on fixing up the roads around our place soon anyway, they're terrible."

"Too dangerous to go there for years," Enrico sighed. "Not to mention with the limited funds, things that the rich people use get fixed first. Even though they could pay for it themselves, of course. Medhall alone spends more money on entertainment in a year than six months of the road repair fund for the entire city."

"Not ideal," she said after a moment, wondering how accurate that was, but suspecting he wasn't wrong.

"Nope. But that's the way the world works. Always has done, probably always will do. The rest of us just get on with it." He shrugged. "Life, you know."

"I do, I think." She smiled at him. "Different backgrounds but some things are the same."

Looking around again, she pointed. "I'd better go fix that hole in the road, then go and apologize for the buildings and sort them out too. Nice to meet you guys."

"Likewise, Saurial. See you around."

"I expect so. Get me that list when you have some time."

"Will do." Both of them shook her hand, then got back in the public works truck and pulled out onto the road, driving off.

'Nice to know that even with me fucking up like this no one seems too mad about it,' she smiled internally.

"You're polite and helpful, and fix things afterwards, not to mention apologize," the Varga said, sounding amused. "That goes a long way towards smoothing over ruffled feathers, especially as it's quite unusual. From what I've seen most Parahumans tend to cause damage then leave, which is obviously irritating to people who need to clean up after them."

'Good point. Although I'd better be more careful, anyone will have a limit to how much they'll take before they have enough. I can't make a habit of this. If nothing else Dad will get very sarcastic,' she noted as she looked both ways for a reasonable gap in the traffic, then dashed over to the new pothole she'd made earlier. It only took a few seconds to fill it in, then she headed toward the first slightly chipped building, outside which she could see several people pointing up at the hole and looking somewhat peeved.

Putting her best apologetic smile on, she approached to sort things out, the people turning to watch her, looking a rather funny mix of apprehensive and curious.

"I'm going out again, Mom, I was going to see a friend about some homework," Missy said as she came into the kitchen. Her mother glanced at her, looked at her father who was making a cup of coffee, pointedly only the one, then shrugged.

"Be back at a sensible hour, please," she requested. "You may be a cape but you're also only thirteen. Barely."

"I know, Mom," Missy replied, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "I'll be fine, my friends aren't going to hurt me, and I can take care of myself."

"Less of the attitude, young lady," her mother snapped. "I saw that. Don't roll your eyes at me."

"I didn't" she protested, slightly guiltily.

"You were thinking about it, I know you, Missy. Call if you're going to be later than nine."

"OK." Turning, she headed to the door of the kitchen.

"Do you need any money?" her father asked as he put sugar in his coffee. "You might want a snack."

She groaned a little under her breath. Food was the last thing on her mind. "I'm fine, Dad, I have enough. See you later."

"Be careful," he advised as he stirred his coffee, then walked past her to the living room. She watched him go, looked back at her mother who had turned around in a dismissive manner, sighed very faintly, and left the house. Wishing the entire time they'd just sit down and talk rationally.

At least today they weren't shouting at each other with her in the middle. Those days sucked.

Shortly thereafter she was completely invisible and several hundred feet up, standing on the ground, a concept that still amused her. Turning on the spot she looked around, seeing if anything interesting was going on locally. The day had cleared up nicely just after lunch, having rained earlier. She could have sworn that she'd heard thunder half an hour ago but now it looked like it was going to be a nice if chilly afternoon. At this altitude the wind was fairly strong but not enough to be a problem, and inside her Saurial-upgraded cloak she was fine.

Not spotting anything particularly in need of the aid of Cloak, she shrugged, then headed rapidly downtown, towards the shore line. She'd cross over the Boardwalk, have a look around in case anyone was causing trouble, definitely not get any more doughnuts, the mere thought making her stomach roil, swing around the PRT building, then head along the shore towards the DWU and see if Saurial and the others were around. She wanted to talk to them again and this was probably the last time she'd be able to get away for a while, having to go back on duty first thing tomorrow. Missy didn't want to waste the opportunity to learn more Family arts and about her own abilities.

Considering the effect of one intensive study session, what would a few more do?

Grinning to herself, she skated along, humming happily.

'She's like Q from James Bond, only better,' the girl thought with respectful amusement. 'Gadgets all over the place and she just makes them from nothing. So cool. Bet the PRT would freak if they realized how good she was at that sort of thing. Except Armsmaster, he really likes them all.'

It was obvious to her having overheard the Tinker talk to Dragon about Raptaur a couple of times when they didn't keep their voices down. Her hearing was very good anyway and with her abilities she could listen to a conversation half-way across the city without even looking, no problems, especially if it was line of sight. Generally she didn't, of course, being a fairly honest girl, and wasn't going to pry into things she had no need to know, but if they were in public and she was close by…

She was curious, and always eager to learn.

Missy sort of liked Armsmaster. He wasn't someone you could joke around with, he just looked mildly confused then took some notes, but at the same time if you asked a question he gave an answer without commenting on your age or gender. Even if the answer was 'I cannot answer that' for whatever reason, it wasn't in a way that left you feeling bad about it. He treated everyone the same, pretty much, and was normally polite as well, if a bit abrupt. His grasp on the social niceties was more or less nonexistent, although to be fair to him he knew it and tried his best.

She'd heard people thought he was arrogant and had a large ego, which she could see reasons for, but at the same time, she felt that a lot of the arrogance was him simply being confident in his own abilities. The ego thing was at least partially part of the same outlook, he knew how good he was and got frustrated when people questioned his expertise. He was smart enough that most other people probably annoyed him a little when they didn't see something he thought was obvious.

That was her opinion on it anyway. He was one of the few people in the whole place who didn't treat her like she couldn't cut it. Most others, even Miss Militia, who otherwise was a really nice person, tended to act like the mere fact she was a barely teenaged girl meant she was fragile and had to be protected from everything. It frustrated her no end, as she'd said to Saurial and her friends, since she was damn sure she could probably take practically any of them in a fight.

And that was before Saurial showed her how to do all the cool new tricks! Now…

She grinned darkly. 'I almost wish I could show them,' she snickered. 'Bet they'd take me more seriously if I stomped the entire E88, or the PRT. I bet I could, too.'

Shaking her head, she muttered, "No, bad thoughts, mustn't take over the city." This made her giggle again.

But back on her original thought, she'd heard Armsmaster talking about Raptaur in a way that was more genuinely respectful than she'd heard him talk about anyone other than Dragon, who was clearly much more than just a friend. She liked the Canadian as well, the woman always had a kind word whenever she met her, and often a joke. Dragon had a very good sense of humor.

In fact, she got the feeling that the female Tinker was highly amused by a lot of the current Family activity, even if as confused as much as everyone else was most of the time.

Missy wondered if Dragon would also go and talk to Saurial and her friends at some point. It seemed like the sort of thing she'd do. She was friendly, just like them, and had compatible taste in her armor theme. Even her cape name fitted in perfectly.

Passing over the tourist areas, she paused and looked down, then moved on more slowly. There were lots of people hanging around, even with the chilly weather, quite a few of them obviously out to look for capes. She spotted a group taking photos of a freeway bridge pylon of all things, standing in the road going under it and getting honked at by annoyed drivers.

Wondering what the hell people wanted photos of that sort of thing for, she shrugged and kept going. She stopped when she saw Glory Girl, in civilian clothes, coming out of a shop on the Boardwalk in the company of someone she recognized immediately, feeling a pang go through her.

Dean was smiling at his girlfriend, making Missy feel a little irritated. She knew full well that the girl was a decent person, but at the same time she couldn't help but feel jealous.

He never looked at her like that.

Intellectually she knew it was because he was not only involved with someone else, pretty seriously despite the arguments, but was also nearly five years older than her. Emotionally, she couldn't help it. She liked him. And she wanted him to return that like.

Watching them from a safe distance, she saw him look around, shrug, and move on after the Dallon girl, who was chattering away about shiny things. With a slight face of distaste she let the eavesdropping link fade and sighed a little.

Maybe she should ask Saurial for her advice. A neutral viewpoint, and to be honest you probably couldn't get much more neutral than someone she thought wasn't even the same species as her, might help.

Not to mention, she mused, looking back after Dean, she'd met Über the other day. Now, him…

She abruptly grinned. His voice was way better than Dean's was. Seriously, the guy could get a job doing voice-overs for Hollywood, no sweat. And he was taller, and better built, and a much better fighter, and funny, and didn't seem to look down on her at all, ironic considering how much taller than her he was, and…

Shaking her head slightly, she pulled herself out the slight daze she'd fallen into. The man was still technically a villain, probably about ten years older than her, and associated with the Family, which wouldn't make either her parents or Director Piggot happy if they knew she was hanging around him and his friend. At all.

Still… She wouldn't mind talking to him again, just to hear that voice. Caramel and marshmallows in chocolate, when he focused on you.

"Hee hee," she giggled faintly, shivering at the memory.

A girl could dream, right? Nothing was going to happen, it was even less likely than with Dean, she was way too young and wasn't even sure what happened with a boyfriend, but it was still fun to think about.

Smiling to herself, she resumed her high-altitude walk, aiming at the PRT building as a landmark. Swing around that, have a look around for anything interesting, then head towards the Docks, new friends, and possibly something interesting to learn.

Dean glanced around again, not paying all that much attention to Vicky, who was expressing interest about a dress in a shop window beside him.

He could have sworn he'd felt Missy in the area, but he couldn't see her anywhere in the direction her emotional output was coming from. If he didn't know better he'd have said it was from almost directly above him but that would have put it over the middle of the Boardwalk, where there were no buildings. Clearly that wasn't possible, so it seemed he was mistaken. That sometimes happened with large crowds like the significant number of people wandering around the shopping areas at the moment.

'Odd, though. I know her signature really well, I'd have thought I'd be able to get it right.' He peered upwards just in case, but as he expected saw nothing. Just empty air. 'Weird. It felt like Missy being jealous again, then annoyed, then amused and a little… strange. I wonder what that was about?'

Shaking his head he dismissed the thought. The contact had been faint and was now gone, so it was most likely his mistake for some reason. He'd keep an eye out just in case it was something, but it probably wasn't. These days, strange things happened on a daily basis, so even if it was real, it was probably something to do with the Family.

Dean sighed faintly. 'The Family. Who are one girl. Who has somehow now managed to be up to three of them at the same fucking time. I give up. I have no fucking idea any more and I don't care, as long as she doesn't come after me.'

Life had been so much simpler before Taylor fucking Hebert had come into his life. Even though he quite liked her, having had that heart to heart talk with her and Amy a while ago, she still terrified him in a very deep way.

Probably best just to keep his distance and try not to get involved, for his own sanity.

Which was being strained by the fact that he was certain he'd seen her as Saurial zoom overhead at some preposterous speed a while ago, which had worrying implications. If she'd figured out how to fly now…

'Leave some powers for the rest of us, Taylor,' he thought, almost amused. She was nothing if not unpredictable. Predictably so.

"Hey, are you paying attention, Dean?" Vicky said sharply, waving a hand past his face. "I said, I like this one, I wonder if they have it in my size?"

He grinned at her, taking the hint and letting his slightly confused worry fall away. "Let's see, shall we?" he replied.

"We shall indeed, dear Dean." She hooked her arm around his and towed him into the shop fast enough to make him yelp in surprise.

"Vicky! Don't pull it off!"

"Wimp."

"No, just not a Brute."

"But a pretty one."

Their voices disappeared into the shop, the two or three passers-by who had recognized the blonde and had been surreptitiously watching moving on.

Dragon looked at the Endbringer tracking log, not particularly surprised to see that Leviathan had been zooming around the Indian ocean in the relevant matching pattern they'd established happened whenever a member of the Family left the city. The difference this time was that his initial move was several seconds late from the point their radar had tracked Saurial going supersonic off the coast.

For a moment she amused herself thinking that it showed the Endbringer had been taken by surprise and was gaping in horrified shock. He'd certainly left with alacrity after that, moving at a stupidly high speed across the ocean floor, probably leaving some impressive gouges in it. He certainly didn't want to be any closer to them than he could manage.

Behemoth was still noticeable by his complete absence, no seismic evidence of him at all. Wherever he was, he was being very quiet.

She had a momentary thought that perhaps he'd disappeared back to whatever hellhole had spawned him in the first place, but knew that was unlikely. He was still around, somewhere, just keeping his head down.

Turning her attention to the telescopic system tracking the Simurgh, she inspected the feed. The creature had changed orbit again, moving further out and changing the inclination so she was positioned almost directly over the middle of the Atlantic, and was currently dormant. Going back through the automatic recordings she picked a point about a minute before Colin and Ethan had seen Saurial the first time, then reviewed it from there.

It was quite enlightening. The Simurgh had been just above the horizon from their point of view and had very abruptly snapped out of dormancy, unfurling her wings enough to uncover her face, which was turned towards Brockton Bay again. It was very difficult to be certain, but the normally creepily serene expression on the statue-like visage looked just a tiny bit less serene. Inspecting a still closely, Dragon finally decided that the underlying expression, what there was of it, was a complex mix of worry, raw fear, and… hope?

'That is beyond odd,' she mused, looking at another frame from a couple of seconds later. The Endbringer was definitely tracking Saurial's flight, slowly rotating to face the hypersonic reptile, then as she turned around, rotating back the other way. When the lizard landed, the creature looked just the tiniest bit relieved, before suddenly shifting orbital plane at high velocity, then going back into a dormant state with one last look in the direction of the city.

Puzzling over the whole thing in the privacy of her CPU, the AI spent some time trying to resolve all the data she had on the entire relationship between the Family, the Endbringers, and Eidolon. So far she couldn't work out the exact link. There was, in her mind, definitely one between the latter two parties, but the involvement of the former still eluded her beyond the fact that there was something there.

Wondering if Metis had come to any conclusions of her own, she decided that she would have to pay the BBFO offices a visit soon. She needed to talk to Raptaur and Leet anyway about another contract for his wormhole technology, and update both of them on her progress with the tricorder and the audio inducer, both of which were showing promise. It was enough to make her want to see some of his other inventions, her analysis of his technology was extremely interesting. It was remarkably clean and neat, quite unlike any other Tinker's output, except possibly Colin's.

Switching back to the live view for one last look at the orbiting Endbringer, she mentally twitched in shock when she saw that the damn thing had unfurled again, and was looking directly at her.

Of course, it wasn't, she realized after a few microseconds of surprise. It was looking at the telescope, which was situated on top of a mountain in Quebec. But the instant impression she got was definitely that it was looking at her specifically, as if it knew she was watching it. The effect was somewhat weird.

Zooming in on the camera a little, she watched the face of the Simurgh. The Endbringer kept looking at the telescope, or at least in the exact direction of the telescope from her current position, as she swung around the planet. After sixty-three seconds, the thing made a tiny expression of what Dragon would swear was amused resignation, before going blank-faced once more, the wings folding around it. Seconds later it was for all visible indications entirely inert again.

Pondering the odd occurrence for a while, Dragon thought to check the access logs to see who else was watching the feed.

Weirdly enough, that exact period corresponded with the point that both she and Metis, who was in the wormhole facility, had both been watching the live view. The Simurgh had gone dormant again the moment the Family member logged off.

'That is...' She tried to come up with the right word. 'Unusual,' was all she could think. It wasn't really enough, but it fitted as well as anything else did. Curious, she checked to see what else Metis had done, finding without surprise that she'd replicated Dragon's own research almost exactly. They were clearly looking for the same thing.

'I definitely need to talk to them soon,' she decided.

Disconnecting from the Endbringer system, she went back to her work on the Leet inventions, while on the other side of the room Colin worked on an upgrade for his halberd. She found it nice being around him, they didn't need to speak to each other to feel a level of companionship that she suspected neither one felt around anyone else.

Sooner or later she was going to have to go back to Vancouver, but she wasn't in any great hurry.

Benny watched as the tall thin man looked at the crates they'd carefully unpacked into room 6-A, which was lined with some weird gray metal that was so slick under his curious finger he wasn't entirely sure he was actually touching it. Probably some sort of Tinker thing, which proved that Mr Hebert's organization had real resources.

The other man, Mark, a very fit blond guy who was obviously ex-military, was opening each box in turn and checking the contents, without letting Benny or Rudy see what was in them. He'd still caught a glance, though, the dark shine of gunmetal showing what was most likely present. Boss Hebert had glanced thoughtfully at him when he'd shifted position in an unconscious attempt to get a better view, making him freeze and sweat for a moment. The assessing gaze stayed on his face for a few seconds, then went back to the security man, who looked pleased.

Rudy, standing next to him, stepped hard on his foot when the man in charge wasn't watching, making him suppress a yelp of pain.

"Everything's here, boss," the blond man said, closing the last crate. "Tony came through for us."

"Good. I'll have to send him a thank-you gift of some sort," Mr Hebert said, sounding approving. "Make sure everything is counted out and locked up." He looked over at the door which was suddenly occluded by a remarkably large and extremely dangerous looking black guy, who inspected Benny and Rudy closely, then turned to the other two present.

"New toys turned up then, Padrone?" he rumbled in a deep voice. Mr Hebert sighed a little but didn't seem angry.

"Yes, we'll need to get the security squad trained up on everything. We'll also need more people as backup."

"I'll find some," the man said. He looked at the security man, who nodded. "We have a few people in mind. Brian for one, and maybe his friend Alec. Their talents could be handy."

"Keep it discreet, but talk to them. Have them come see me, too."

"Got it."

The Hebert man turned to Benny and his colleague. "You guys look tired, you must have been driving for hours. Go with Zephron here, you can get something to eat and relax for a while. Thank you for your efforts." He pulled a couple of envelopes out of his pocket and handed them each one. "A little extra with our thanks."

Benny took his envelope, well practiced fingers letting him know there was at least a thousand bucks in it. He nodded respectfully, putting it away, as did Rudy. "Thank you, Sir," he replied.

"Zephron, make sure they get a thermos of coffee each when they leave as well, OK?"

"Sure thing, Padrone," the huge man smiled. "Come on, boys. Food here is good."

"The water bottles in the truck are yours as well," Rudy put in. "Better we don't have anything in it on the way back, it makes more sense."

"We'll unload it for you," Mr Hebert told him. He glanced at Mark, who left the room, raising a radio to his mouth on the way. "Have a good trip back, give your people our thanks."

"We will," Rudy replied. They left the room as well, following the Zephron guy towards the gate. On the way they passed a very solidly built young woman of about sixteen or seventeen, who was in the middle of a pack of half a dozen dogs, all of them trotting along in perfect formation. They were clearly well trained. The girl jogged past, whistling sharply at one of the dogs when it paused to look at them. The animal looked mildly guilty somehow and hurried after her.

Zephron nodded to the girl, who nodded back, a tiny hint of a smile coming and going, before she passed. Benny turned his head to watch her go, thinking she looked familiar for some reason. It wasn't until they were in the cafeteria a while later, eating some actually very good food in the company of their minder, that he remembered where he'd seen her before. On the news a couple of years back.

The fact that Boss Hebert's organization openly had a Parahuman who was wanted for murder wandering around the place implied all sorts of things…

One very big one being that they had serious pull and probably not a lot to worry about from the local authorities. And that it would be an extremely poor idea to mention the presence of Rachel Lindt to anyone.

A look at Zephron made it obvious to him that the big man had been watching him closely, having somehow picked up on his train of thought. Zephron raised an eyebrow a tiny amount. Benny shook his head in an equally tiny motion, getting an approving look back, before the other man resumed eating.

No, he wasn't going to do, say, or as far as he could manage, think, anything that was going to raise the ire of the DWU and their boss. Whatever they were into, he wanted none of it. The fact that no one had heard of them outside this city meant they were more dangerous than he'd expected.

They might not like witnesses, for example. It would explain a lot...

Plain old smuggling was fine by him. It was probably more conducive to long life.

Mind you, their cafeteria was really good.