Sarah picked up the phone with a look at her sister. Both Dallons were in her living room along with her own husband and they'd spent an hour or so discussing the request that Amy had passed along from Metis, and thence from Armsmaster. Now, dialing, she waited patiently. "Miss Militia," the other person said when the call was picked up. "How can I help you, Lady Photon?"

"We've received a request via Amy and Metis that the Protectorate is interested in our help," she replied politely. "We've discussed it and we're open to the idea. Perhaps we should meet to go over it in more detail?"

"Yes, that's certainly a good idea," the military-themed cape said after a short pause. "Hold on for a second, please, I need to ask someone something." The line went quiet for a little while. "OK, sorry about that. Would it be convenient if I came to your house in approximately half an hour?"

Sarah looked around the room, putting her finger over the mic. "Half an hour?" she said quietly. Everyone nodded. Removing her finger, she said more loudly, "That's fine, we'll be waiting for you."

"Thank you. I'll see you soon." Sarah disconnected and put her phone back in her pocket.

"OK, she's coming here to talk about it. We're all agreed we'll do it?"

"I think that if we can come to the same arrangement as before to do the work via the DWU and BBFO, there's no reason not to," Neil commented. "We made some easy money, not to mention made out like bandits with the new costumes, which are amazing. The DWU liked us, the city was grateful, and even the PRT seemed fairly pleased. We've got a lot of good publicity out of the entire thing aside from anything else. And if we can help take down Coil, while getting paid for it, why not?"

Mark nodded thoughtfully. Carol looked slightly dubious still, but Sarah could tell she wasn't actually against it in principle. "Carol? Everyone else seems up for it. What do you think?"

The other woman appeared mildly uncertain, then shook her head once and made a gesture of resignation. "I can't help but feel that I should be able to come up with a reason not to, on general principles, but I can't. I agree, it sounds like a sensible idea from several viewpoints. The money only being one of them. I would much prefer to be paid via BBFO, though, I don't want us to be directly indebted to the PRT."

"Fair enough, neither do I," Sarah commented. "And I'm sure Director Piggot is no more keen on the idea than you are. BBFO is a good intermediary which keeps everything neat."

They discussed the currently limited amount of information they had on the entire operation until the Protectorate cape turned up, her motorcycle grumbling into silence outside the Pelham's house. Once she was settled in the living room with a cup of tea, she began explaining what New Wave would be required to do, how things were planned to go, and the timescale. It gave everyone something to think about but in the end they were happy that it all seemed entirely possible.

Colin looked around the table in his lab. Present were Dragon, Legend, the entire local Protectorate cape contingent, three extremely highly vetted and well trusted PRT lieutenants, and Emily, making the room feel smaller than ideal. However they had little choice at the moment since for something this sensitive he didn't trust anywhere else other than the BBFO office.

"I think that covers everything we have for you until now," he finished. "Dragon's equipment is arriving very early tomorrow morning. It will take her, myself, and a small team of specialists most of the day to do a parallel install. We'll have it ready by the point we're also ready to begin the assault on Calvert's base. As soon as we turn off the entire system the raid can begin. While the raid is proceeding my team will be transferring control to the new system, entirely disconnecting the old one from everything, and isolating it for later analysis. We expect that we can use the opportunity to locate any more agents he has hidden in our midst during the process."

"Lady Photon contacted me this morning and requested a meeting," Hannah put in as he finished. "Metis asked Amy Dallon to mention we wanted to use New Wave as backup. They've agreed to everything we require, only asking that BBFO be the official go-between."

"Fine with me," Emily remarked, nodding. "It makes the paperwork vastly easier if nothing else."

"They feel the same way."

"What about the explosive problem?" Ethan queried.

"Metis claimed that Ianthe would be amply able to come up with countermeasures. I expect we'll learn what those are when we meet, but I have little doubt that she was being truthful," Colin replied. "I'll contact her soon to arrange a meeting at the BBFO office later this evening. After that, I'll be very busy as will Dragon getting things ready for the hardware and software changeover. I suggest a short further meeting at BBFO just before the raid, to coordinate all parties and make sure we all know our places and tasks."

"And I have to go and see the Mayor," Emily sighed. She glanced at Rory, who was listening with interest. "Is your father in a good mood at the moment?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he smiled. "He has been for a while. Although he's not going to be too pleased about having to shut down the entire center of the city for a few hours, but if you explain the reasons to him, he'll go along with it."

"Your father is a pain in the ass," she muttered.

He looked amused. "It's not impossible he's said the same thing about you. Ma'am."

She gave him a look which made his smile shrink suddenly. "I feel I didn't need to hear that, Mr Christner. Although I am unsurprised." Ethan was now grinning, winking at the younger man when the director took her eyes off him, Colin noticed. Turning to him, she instructed, "Call Metis, arrange the meeting."

"As you wish, Director," he replied, reaching out to the phone on the table. He hit a quick-dial number and they waited. The phone rang a couple of times, then was answered.

"BBFO, Metis speaking."

"Hello, Metis," he said at the sound of the familiar deep voice. "This is Armsmaster. I'm here with Director Piggot and our colleagues, we've been discussing the upcoming mutual project. I was calling to ask if we could arrange a meeting with your Family for later this evening."

"Hello, Armsmaster. Of course, that's not a problem. I'm the only one here at the moment but I'm expecting Saurial, Ianthe, and Raptaur to turn up later. We've been expecting your call, and we've discussed the details of the project quite a lot. We believe we see some solutions to your requirements."

"Excellent," he replied, pleased that she understood the need to be discreet without mentioning it. "What time would suit you?"

"I would suggest that you arrive at six, if that's all right with you and the Director. That will give us time to finish off some other work, and make sure we have enough chairs."

He looked at Emily, who was listening carefully. She nodded. "That would work for us. There will be," he looked around the table, "twelve people coming with me."

"Fine, that's not a problem. I'll notify the DWU to expect you. You know where to go. I have also passed on word to New Wave through Amy, hopefully you'll hear from them soon."

"We've already done so," Hannah said.

"Ah, Miss Militia. Hello to you as well. OK, that's good. I'd suggest it would be sensible to bring them as well, or at least a representative."

"I'll call Lady Photon and arrange it," his friend said. "Can you accommodate so many people?"

"Easily," the big lizard replied with a chuckle. "You've seen our facility, it's a decent size. We'll move the table out and make some more chairs, there won't be any problems. We look forward to seeing you."

"Thank you, Metis," he said, reaching out to disconnect the call.

When he'd done so, he glanced at the Director, who was making some notes. "Do you wish to use my facilities to call the Mayor?"

"I'll go and see him personally, I think this needs to be face to face," she said, then looked up from her writing. "I don't need to go into enough detail to be worried about security. And if I do, for whatever reason, we'll need to both go somewhere more secure than his office."

"His office is actually extremely secure, Ma'am," Triumph said. "He got some experts a friend of his recommended in some time ago to fit the place with more anti-surveillance gear than you'd believe. It's probably better secured than the Oval Office in most ways."

She looked mildly surprised, but nodded. "Useful information, thank you. Even so, I'm reluctant to talk about this outside somewhere we can guarantee Coil's people can't get to." She looked around the table, a forbidding expression crossing her face. "Understand this. I do not want to let that bastard slip through our fingers. No one discusses any of this outside a known good secure zone, which is here, the BBFO office, and that's it. We have no idea how much of the system Coil can still access and there's no point in taking chances. Understood?"

There was a wave of nods around the table. Legend was looking thoughtful and intense, the others were similarly thinking hard about the entire operation.

"In that case, meeting adjourned for now," she went on. "We'll get together again at six at the BBFO office. For anyone who hasn't been there before, be polite to the DWU people, they take their privacy and security at least as seriously as we do, and they have some very heavy backup. Don't start anything." She looked around at them all. "Dismissed."

Everyone stood up, Dragon and Legend moving to the side, as the others left his lab. Colin watched them go, closing the door when the last person was out. Director Piggot was looking very thoughtful and like a woman with a mission.

"She's looking forward to this, I think," Legend commented mildly when they were alone.

"That was definitely the look of someone who is going to be much happier when this is all over," Dragon agreed.

"We all will be," Colin said. "I am very worried about how Coil managed to get so deeply embedded into our systems, and can't help but wonder how far that embedding went. He had years to work on this. Logically he's likely to have some sort of backup plan for if he gets discovered, most likely more than one. I'm not happy about the thought that something might get triggered when we bring the system down for a reboot."

"All we can do is go through everything as carefully as possible, hope for the best, and prepare for the worst," Legend noted. "Even if there is a backup we miss, with good planning and preparation we'll be ready to deal with it. And I trust the pair of you to find that sort of thing in the first place."

"Thank you, sir," Colin replied. "Unfortunately, neither of us can completely guarantee we've found everything, although we're confident we've discovered the bulk of the traps. The rest, even if they exist, should be rendered harmless when the computers are shut down."

"Unless there's a dead-man switch somewhere which relies on that exact scenario," Dragon pointed out.

"Indeed. But all we can really do in that case is be ready to deal with it," he nodded. "If it's too deeply hidden to find after all the time we've spent so far, we won't find it by Sunday morning unless someone gets lucky. But there's hopefully a limited amount of damage such a trap could do. We've swept for explosives, toxins, everything we could think of and all our facilities are clean."

"Well, I suppose we keep working on it, but other than that, we just have to proceed as planned," Legend sighed. "I still find the idea that one of our own could go that bad upsetting. And that he got away with it for so long. However," he shrugged a little, "better late than never." Looking at the clock, he added, "I have to go and talk to someone, so I'll leave you to it. I'll see you at the BBFO office."

He left and Dragon and Colin were soon heavily engaged in planning the assault to take place over the weekend.

"We didn't arrange a session for today," Mandy said as they stood just outside the school in a group.

"No, sorry, the Mayor's thing sort of threw my scheduling off," Taylor apologized. She was watching Amy's face, which was going through some interesting if tiny changes as her friend in turn watched her secondary aspect, back to being what was becoming one of her favorite forms, the small dragon. This was sitting on her own shoulder, one hand propped on an ear, making faces at Amy and the occasional slightly rude gesture. It amused both her and the Varga to see how long they could keep it up before Amy snapped and said something about it.

Right now she was fixing them both with a deadly glare and gritting her teeth, the sound faintly audible above the students surrounding them and making Eric look around with a puzzled expression. "What's that weird sound?" he said. "Sort of a crunching noise."

"No idea," she shrugged. "Termites in the walls, maybe?"

Everyone other than her or Amy looked suspiciously at the building for a moment.

Amy glared harder.

Taylor winked at her.

So did the tiny dragon.

"It's a bit last minute now," she went on, as they all looked back to her and Amy's expression smoothed out rapidly. "Why don't we do it tomorrow? I'm free."

"Me too," Lucy said. Eric thought for a moment then nodded.

"I can do that."

Rich and Mandy both agreed too. Taylor looked around, then called to Vicky, who was huddled with Dennis again, both of them snickering in a manner that boded ill for one Michael Shea, known prankster and official rival of Dennis. "Hey, Vicky? We missed today, you up for getting together tomorrow for some math and movies?"

The blonde jumped guiltily at her call and looked over her shoulder, then smiled. "Sure, I can make it. Afternoon or morning?" she called back.

"Afternoon, around two or so?" Taylor looked around at her friends all of whom nodded. "Around two."

"Sounds good. I'll get some snacks as well this time." Vicky looked pleased. Taylor waved to her, she went back to her plotting, and Taylor turned back to the others.

"There we go. Mustn't lose momentum after all."

They all looked pleased. "Thanks, Taylor," Mandy said gratefully. "You really wouldn't believe how much your tutoring is helping my math, and it's a lot of fun as well."

Her other friends all made similar comments. Even Amy nodded although she was also giving her a stare that made her think the healer wanted a private word at some point. Which she found funny.

"OK, see you tomorrow, then," Lucy smiled, as she and the other girl headed off. Eric gave them a wave, smiled at the remaining ones, and also left in a different direction.

"Sounds good," Rich said, a satisfied expression on his face. "See you around." He went over to talk to some other friends, then left with them. Taylor and Amy stood next to each other watching, then turned to study Vicky and Dennis, who were now bent over a book in which the latter was writing while the former made suggestions.

"Get off my shoulder," Amy snarled.

Taylor's mini-dragon aspect, which was indeed sitting on her left shoulder, tickling her ear with a long tongue, smirked then vanished. Taylor's primary aspect snickered. Amy's only aspect turned and gave her a long even look, sighed, and headed for her truck. "Come on, you danger to sane people everywhere. We need to talk."

When they reached her vehicle, Amy didn't even blink at the velociraptor, wearing a leather jacket and a cap sitting backwards on its head with a cigarette in the corner of its mouth, lounging against it while toying with a baseball bat. She merely waiting with aggrieved patience until Taylor relented and dissipated it. "Stop watching old movies," she grumbled, getting in and putting her seat-belt on.

Following suit, Taylor was giggling so hard she missed with the tongue of the belt clip twice before she managed to lock it in place.

"Got it out of your system yet?" Amy asked with heavy sarcasm as they drove off.

"Pretty much," Taylor replied, still grinning.

"Going to stoke the prank war I can guarantee Dennis and Vicky are plotting? And Mike as well, he's worse than Dennis. Did you see his expression? He was more than happy to take the excuse you gave him after an unconvincing denial."

"Nope, my part in that is done." Taylor shrugged. "It wasn't deliberate, honest. I was just sort of amusing myself toward them for the prank they pulled on The Amy. She's one of my closest friends, you know, and such an insult couldn't go unchallenged."

"That was weeks ago."

"Revenge, best served cold, that sort of thing," she explained.

Amy sighed, shaking her head, but the corner of her mouth was twitching even so. "I wonder about you at times."

"Times?"

"Times I'm awake." Her friend snickered. "Then I tend to dream about it as well."

"Oh, that's nice, you dream about me." Taylor leaned towards her companion and put an arm around her. "Besties?"

"Get off me you scaly nutcase," Amy growled, pushing her away with one hand. "I'm trying to drive." Sitting back in her seat, Taylor laughed. Her friend did as well a moment later.

"Oh, god, that was… ridiculous," the other girl snickered. "A mini-Saurial riding a cat… Just insane. No one would ever believe it. I can hardly believe it." She glanced at Taylor, who was watching her with a grin. "Why the sudden pranks in school?"

Shrugging, Taylor tried to think of the best way to explain. After a few seconds, she said, "It's a combination of things, I think. Part of it is that my last couple of years have been so shit in every way. Since things changed, it's been… better, definitely, a huge relief, certainly. The Varga, Dad coming back from where he'd been heading as a result, getting out of fucking Winslow, meeting you and Lisa and everyone else..." She rubbed her face with her hands, suddenly feeling a little tired. "Difficult to explain in some ways. I went from someone who was, and I don't want Dad to hear this, very close to killing myself..."

Amy looked at her sharply, then gained a thoughtful look, over the appalled one. Taylor shrugged absently.

"True. Not any more of course, but that sort of relentless shit takes it out of you. And it just got worse and worse and worse with no end in sight. God knows what would have happened if it wasn't for that fucking locker 'prank'," here she made viciously ironic finger quotes, as Amy gritted her teeth and looked furious for a moment, "or as I like to think of it, attempted murder. Which I'm pretty sure is how the law would actually look at it, in fact."

Her friend nodded. "Definitely. Perhaps manslaughter at the least, but I'm sure a good lawyer could make a case for negligent homicide if not worse."

"Not that it would have done me any good if I'd died, though, right?" Taylor propped her head on her hand and put her elbow on the door, gesturing tiredly. "If it wasn't for a whole string of ridiculous things, I could have died, been crippled for life, had a psychotic break, god knows what. Or possibly even Triggered, I guess, if the Varga hadn't come along." She peered out at the scenery, toying with her hair with the other hand. In her head, the Varga himself was silently listening but she could feel his sorrow for her, and the deep anger he still had over the entire situation.

"Sometimes I wonder what that would have been like? What power I'd have gotten?" She shrugged again. "Not important, and I'll never know. What happened was the stupidly, insanely unlikely best possible option, no thanks to Sophia, Emma, Madison, or any of their little minions. Or the rest of that whole fucking school, for the most part. I lucked out like I still can't believe and ended up with a whole mess of powers that are just stupidly over the top. You know about that, and you know how much I have to hold back against everyone. Christ, I could take Alexandria, Eidolon, Legend, you name it. I did take Eidolon and I had Alexandria at my mercy. I didn't ask for this, I never really wanted this amount of power, but I'm stuck with it forever."

She glanced at Amy, adding quickly, "Not that I mind in the least, it's the best thing that could ever have happened to me. But the point is, it was a complete one in a billion fluke. And the one thing it definitely does is make sure that my life will never be normal, in any way at all. That's fine, I love my life now, but like I said, I went from someone who was bullied, tormented, and very close to suicidal to someone who is loved, protected, able to do pretty much anything I want to do, and has a lot of really close friends, in only two and a bit months. I missed out on the entire high school thing, I never went to friend's houses, I didn't get involved in any of the normal teenager stuff. I was too busy just being depressed, and keeping my head down in the desperate hope that today would finally be the day that they stopped. And maybe I'd get Emma back, although that hope died a long time ago and it's never coming back."

With a shake of her head, she idly manifested the mini-dragon, the Varga immediately taking control and resting his head on her shoulder as she stroked him. Amy looked at her again, but said nothing. They just drove in silence for a while.

"I guess what I'm trying to say, badly, is that when we worked out this sort of trick," she motioned to the small dragon draped over the back of the seat, "it gave me an opportunity to do some of the things I missed out on. Like prank people. I saw it happen all the time even in Winslow, friends playing little practical jokes on each other that weren't nasty and malicious! God, you wouldn't believe how much happier I'd have been if that was all I'd had to deal with. Trust me, from personal experience there's one hell of a gulf between what those bitches did and what Dennis or Mike do. If nothing else, their tricks are funny even to the people they play them on, and they pick their targets carefully to avoid any real damage. Your sister too, she's got a great sense of humor, and so do most of the people in Arcadia. They're a lot better adjusted than people in Winslow, believe me."

"I think I understand," Amy finally said. She was gripping the steering wheel much more tightly than required, causing it to audibly creak under the strain. "And I'm stifling the sudden urge to make a Sophia-seeking plague and let it go near the PRT building."

"Don't go evil, Amy," Taylor smiled. "It's beneath a member of the Family. As is Sophia, and her friends. But thanks for the thought."

"I am perfectly happy to eat her if you wish, Taylor," the Varga said through the dragonlet, somehow managing to have his voice much deeper than it should have been which was peculiarly worrying. "In this form, it would take some time. Which is yet another reason to do it."

She giggled, stroking his back. "That's probably not appropriate, my friend, but I appreciate the thought. I don't want to think about Sophia, or Emma, or any of them. My revenge is knowing I win and they'll never know, thanks to you." She looked at Amy. "All of you."

"You don't need to thank me, Taylor," her friend replied. "You saved me as much as I helped save you. It wasn't nearly as bad with me as it was in your case, I think, but it was heading somewhere horrible even so. Without you and that demonic mad thing in your head, I suspect it would have ended badly sooner or later." She shivered slightly. "I can forgive any number of ridiculous practical jokes for that."

Taylor smiled at her friend. "Great. Sorry about teasing you like that but you're one of the few people I actually could do it to. And the expression on your face was hilarious… I still have a couple more in mind, but I'll save them for a good time."

Amy looked hard at her. "You do realize I'll have to retaliate at some point?"

"Go right ahead," Taylor grinned. "I'm curious to see what you come up with. Make it impressive."

"I will. Very impressive."

"Wonderful."

They shared a snicker, before Amy concentrated on driving again. After a while, Taylor asked, "You don't think I went too far at school?"

Amy snorted. "No. It was nothing like as much chaos as Dennis alone can produce when he puts his mind to it. And Mike can top him no trouble. Don't worry, even if they knew who did it, no one except perhaps the teachers would be that upset, you'd probably get congratulated for livening things up for a while. Although I'm pretty damn sure that things are going to get odd for the next couple of weeks, even without your help, now that you've kicked things off."

"Oops."

Her friend chuckled. "It's overdue, aside from that thing with me Dennis has been restraining himself for long enough that people were getting paranoid. Probably best to stay out of it, though, he doesn't actually need your help and your particular brand of craziness might make it bad enough that the National Guard got called out."

Taylor put her head on the seat rest, grinning. "I'm pretty much done now. I just couldn't resist. I have a couple of ideas for Kevin and Randall, which should be amusing, but other than that I'll be good."

"Out of interest, why did you put a little purple lizard hand print of all things on Vicky's book? I can understand implicating Dennis, that's just common sense, but it seems slightly odd."

"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" Taylor shrugged with a smirk. "Don't know, really. It just came to me as a possibility since I'd seen her with that pad dozens of times. I was tempted to make a little stamp and leave it on Dennis's desk with my hand print on it but thought that might be pushing things too much."

"She had a weird look when she spotted it," Amy remarked thoughtfully. "She's been strange, or stranger than usual, for a week or so now. I wonder why?"

"No idea. Has anything unusual happened to her?"

"Not that I know of, although there was that thing where she got distracted and flew into a building. Mom wasn't happy about it." Amy grinned. "Very loudly not happy about it."

Giggling, Taylor looked at her, then back out the window. "Hope she's OK. We can ask her tomorrow, maybe there's something I can do to help."

Amy looked suddenly amused. "You could invite Saurial along, that would make Lucy's day..."

"Hey, not a bad idea." Taylor considered it. "Yeah, let's do that, but keep it a surprise. I bet she'll love it."

"And you'll be grinning on the inside the entire time, right?" Her friend gave her a significant look.

"Like you won't be too," she snickered. "I bet you really want to be able to do this as well."

"So fucking much," Amy sighed. "You get all the best powers."

"Yours are amazing too, and I suspect with some careful thought you can probably do something really cool I can't, or even something that I can," Taylor told her honestly. "I'm waiting to see what you come up with next. So far you sure haven't disappointed me."

"OK, enough complimenting each other. How the hell did you do that?" The other girl indicated the Varga-occupied second aspect which was now watching the traffic go past. The tiny dragon winked at her.

"Cool, isn't it?" Taylor said.

"Very. Immensely, in fact. But I'm really puzzled about..." Amy suddenly got a thoughtful look, then stared at the dragon for a moment. "Ah. Sneaky."

"Worked it out?"

"It's all one body, so you're not actually shifting to a smaller size at all, right?" the healer responded, seeming enlightened.

"Basically." Taylor explained the process and how she'd literally dreamed it up, and all the things she'd done that morning at breakfast.

"That is fucking remarkable," Amy finally said when she finished, again looking envious. "So very cool. Lisa is going to fall over again, probably. Especially if you show her a microshoggoth."

"So you don't think I should?"

"I didn't say that, now, did I?" her friend grinned. "Just make sure I can watch."

Both girls laughed again. "Oh, god, think what Lucy would do if she saw you like that?" Amy suddenly said, making Taylor giggle. "She'd go nuts!"

"Vista probably would too."

"That's a point, will she detect your spacial link?"

Taylor thought about the question, glancing at the Varga-dragon, before shrugging. "I'm… not sure. The method we're using isn't quite what she does, although it's using some of the things I worked out from watching her do her thing, so maybe, maybe not. I guess we'll have to wait and see."

Amy nodded, moving out around a slow vehicle. A little later, when they'd turned onto the road to the Docks, she abruptly looked startled, then thoughtful, then at Taylor. "Purple ink."

"Hmm?"

"Purple ink. From Vicky's pad."

Her friend just looked at her, making her sigh. "I just realized that you used the same ink that was on your hand on Vicky's book and Dennis's. So you took it with you through a teleport. But you couldn't do that yesterday, so that means you worked it out."

Taylor was amused and pleased her friend had noticed. "Yep."

"How?"

"It's pretty interesting and not as hard as we thought it would be. Varga is the one who really figured out the main part. Basically, since it's all me, no matter how many aspects I have, there's a common reference point. We can anchor a spacial fold to that and use it to put things in, and take them out again, using any aspect. Sort of like that thing that Circus is supposed to do in a way."

"You made a stuff-space pocket?!" Amy looked envious all over again. "I absolutely have to learn Varga magic at some point."

"That's more or less true," Taylor grinned. "When we do the new aspect and switch from one to the other, it turned out to be possible to sort of move anything on one aspect into the pocket, then back out again onto the other aspect. The ink was a bit difficult since it wasn't actually a single discrete object like a phone or coins would be. There's some tricky math involved and we're still working on optimizing it but it seems to work."

"So for all intents and purposes you really can teleport now?"

"Yep. Only for about a mile and a half max right now, but I can do it pretty quickly over and over again." She explained their trip around the city, practicing, the night before. "We made it about forty miles in a straight line from where we started in less than a minute, and I bet we can speed that up. Nothing like what Strider can do, or most other teleporters, but it's way better than nothing and should be very useful."

"And unlike Vista, you don't get blocked by living creatures, I guess, since you're not Manton limited," Amy noted.

"That's true. We found that you can't really open the link to somewhere that's already occupied by something, or at least it's much harder to do it, so that's not a problem either. I won't be accidentally appearing in solid rock. I mean, I could survive it, but I bet the bang would be impressive and there's no point wasting all that rock." Taylor looked pleased with herself as Amy laughed.

"I really am envious of that entire trick," she sighed, but in a good-humored fashion. "Demons get all the cool powers."

"We do indeed, Amy," the Varga nodded wisely. "As is right and proper."

"Quiet, you, you're just a bad influence on everyone around you," Amy replied, grinning.

"I am a demon. That's what we do." He looked very amused.

"So I've noticed." Amy glanced at Taylor. "You can give your dad a dragon ride now and even teleport him around the place, I guess. That should be an impressive way for the DWU boss to arrive at a meeting."

They looked at each other, then all three started laughing wildly. In her head, Taylor was already working out the best way to bring that up to her father.

Danny read the email again, thought hard for some time, then very carefully wrote a reply. He looked over at Lisa, who had come in a while ago and was reading through some of the renewal program documentation with interest. "Looks like I'll be out of town next week, Wednesday and Thursday. Try not to let our scaly friends wreck the city while I'm away."

She chuckled, turning to him. "I'll do my best. Are you leaving me in charge, then?"

"Jesus, no!" he said, although he was grinning. "I'll be leaving someone responsible in charge. Kurt, I think."

"Not Zephron?"

"He'd have everyone singing the Hebert Anthem by the time I got back," Danny sighed, making her snicker. "No, I think Kurt can handle it. Be nice to him, he's an old friend."

"I'll see what I can do to help," she smiled. "Where are you going?"

"New Jersey," he replied, looking back at his screen, then closing the email program. "To have a conversation I should have had years ago."

The blonde girl studied him, before slowly nodding. "OK. I understand."

He was sure she did. "Thanks."

"No problem."

She returned to reading the document and he went on to other work.

Vicky looked at Chris, who had sighed unhappily for the third time in as many minutes, while he stared at the textbook on the table next to him. She, Dennis, Chris, and Dean had all decided to have a burger after school and were currently sitting in Fugly's, food in front of them and herself and the red-headed boy with their heads together working on a plan for a prank on Mike. They had a list of half a dozen and were going through the pros and cons of each in turn. One of the cons, of course, being that some of them would be difficult to pull off without being caught, which sort of defeated the entire purpose.

They wanted something where everyone knew who did it, but no one could prove anything. Especially Mike.

It would be easy enough using their powers, of course, but that was fraught with problems, not the least of which being that their respective abilities were well known. She had little to worry about aside from her mother and the school staff, but they didn't want to give Dennis away, and Clockblocker's time stop ability was much too distinctive to risk using. So they'd have to do it the hard way. They'd just been trying to work out where to get two trained ferrets when she'd noticed Chris's despondency.

Dean, who was eating his burger and listening to them plot with a visible sense of mild disapproval mixed with occasional smiles, also turned to his friend. "What's up this time?" he asked. "You're… not happy." He didn't say what was obvious, that he could detect the emotion the other boy was emitting, but they all understood.

"It's this fucking dyscalculia," Chris muttered, leafing through the book, then closing it with a bang. "It's so frustrating! I just can't get this. Everyone else seems to but I can't understand half of it no matter what I try."

"That class not working out?"

"Not really." He slumped back in his seat, picking up his milkshake and desultorily sucking on the straw. Removing it from his mouth, he gestured with the cup. "It's meant for people who are just bad at math. What I have is worse than bad. I don't think the teachers really know how to deal with it, although I have to give them credit, they're trying."

"Isn't there some sort of specialist help you could get?" Vicky asked sympathetically. "I mean, you were only officially diagnosed with it about two years ago, I know, but surely in that time someone could have found an expert who knows how to help you."

"I've talked to half a dozen experts since then," he sighed. "Problem is that dyscalculia is a newish sort of diagnosis and there isn't much dedicated aid for it in the system yet, everyone is different anyway, and according to them I need one to one tutoring on some things. I can't see how that would actually help if I can't understand the basic stuff." He put the now-empty cup down with a look of irritation. "Adding is easy enough if I have time, subtraction is a pain in the ass, and long division…? I try to follow the rules and get a different answer every damn time."

"It took me a long time to be good at it," she replied.

"But at least you got it," he retorted. "I'm nearly sixteen years old and there are kindergarten kids who are better at basic math than I am. That's not something I'm proud of."

He ate a few fries, scowling at the book as if it was about to go for his throat. Vicky reached over and picked it up, flipping through it curiously. It was a basic arithmetic primer, she saw, with a number of exercises in it that were unusual compared to the sort of thing she remembered from years ago. They seemed intended to help fix basic concepts in the mind of the student. "Arcadia is at least trying, though," she pointed out. "So they haven't given up."

"No, they haven't. Some of the teachers are genuinely trying really hard. It's not their fault, it's a big place and there are a lot of kids there, and not enough teachers to spare one to do nothing but teach me something everyone else learned ten years ago."

"Not everyone, or you wouldn't have twenty people in that class," she pointed out.

"OK, not everyone, then. Most people." He shrugged. "Still more than can be accommodated individually. And I don't have all that long left in school, but I'll never get into college with grades like this. And it's not like Mom and Dad can afford the sort of private tuition I need, we're well off but not rich. Special needs experts don't come cheap."

He picked up his burger and took a bite out of it, returning the remains to the plate. When he'd swallowed, he added, "Not to mention that there's no guarantee it would help in the first place. I've read all the teacher guidelines and other stuff I can find on the web about it and most of it says that this is something you have to deal with really early. No one knew what my problem was until I was fourteen or so, they just thought I was slow."

"Maybe you are," Dennis commented with a smile. "I mean, sometimes I have to explain a joke to you. No normal person would need that."

Chris threw a fry at him, which he caught in his mouth, then grinned. The Tinker did as well for a moment. His friend was obviously trying to cheer him up. "That's because your jokes aren't funny half the time."

"Says you."

"Yes. Says me. And Carlos, and Dean, and Vicky, and..."

Dennis sighed mournfully. "No appreciation for the art of the joke, you people. Philistines."

Vicky giggled while the others all smiled. "You're a weird little person, Dennis," she said.

"But you love me anyway, right, Vicky?" he replied, leaning his head on her shoulder and looking up at her with big eyes. She pushed him off, laughing.

"Stop that, you're just embarrassing yourself."

"No, I'm fine with it. The problem must be you," he grinned.

"Weird. I said it before, and I meant it."

"Maybe. But that doesn't help Chris, and we still don't know where to get the ferrets from." He frowned in thought. Dean watched him, then shook his head.

"I think the ferret prank might be a little hard to pull off," he said. "Try again."

Dennis looked mildly disappointed but nodded. "Probably right. Damn. I was looking forward to his expression." With a sigh he crossed out one of the items in the small notebook he was holding. "Come on, Vicky, think harder. We need a good one."

She was thinking, but for the moment about something other than their plot. "Hey, I wonder if Taylor could help you. She's brilliant with math and is really good at teaching."

"Taylor?" Dean and Chris both said the name simultaneously. Dean, for some peculiar reason, looked a little worried for a moment, she noticed, wondering why. Chris looked puzzled.

"Why do you think she could help?," the latter asked.

Vicky replied, "She helped me, and Mandy, we were both pretty crap at algebra and calculus but only a few hours with her showed us some things we'd never thought of. Amy and the others weren't as bad, but they've all improved as well. I bet our group ends up with higher grades in math than we would have otherwise by a big margin, all because of her. Maybe she can do something for more basic skills."

Now the boy was looking somewhat dubious. "You think? Algebra is one thing, basic mathematical operations are something else."

"It's worth a try, though, right? Maybe it won't help, maybe it will. But if nothing else is helping you enough what do you have to lose?" Vicky grinned at him. "Worst case you get some snacks and can watch a movie or two in good company. Best case, maybe she can figure out something to help you. She's smart and helpful, I bet she'd agree to at least try."

She held up her phone. "We're going over tomorrow afternoon. Want me to call her and ask her if you can come too?"

He thought about it, eating some more fries, then shrugged. "Why not? What's the worst that could happen? I could do with something different, it's driving me nuts."

"OK." She quickly scrolled through her contacts one handed, found the right number, and hit dial. The others listened as she had a short conversation. When she hung up, she turned back to him. "There we go. She said she was happy to at least give it a shot. And to bring some more chips."

"Thanks, Vicky," he said with a small smile. "I don't know if it'll help, but you're right, it's worth a try."

"Great, you've helped Chris. In the mean-time, I have been working on something important," Dennis cut in. "We need a bag of flour, ten feet of rope, a small fish, six marbles, a toothpick, and some glue."

They all looked at him, then each other. "A fish?" Dean asked in the tones of someone who really doesn't want to know the answer, but can't help asking. "What the hell do you need a fish for?"

"To bribe the cat with, obviously," Dennis said, rolling his eyes. "Try to keep up."

He began explaining, which shortly had them all shooting his latest plan down in flames, but kept them entertained.