Sorry it's been a while. Grad school is continuing to be rough. On the bright side, I'm going to be switching programs soon, which shall hopefully make things less stressful so I can write more.

Dan woke to the bright light of reflected snow coming in his window and Ash's (surprisingly good, Dan begrudgingly admitted) voice singing the words to a song his groggy brain recognized from a musical he'd heard pre-Calamity. He tiptoed towards the source of the singing, not wanting to startle the Epic. He mostly believed Anna when she said Ash didn't want to harm anyone, but even the friendliest superpowered killing machine might react dangerously when caught off guard.

He rubbed his eyes. I should probably make sure she isn't causing any trouble down there, he thought. Not that there was much trouble she could get into downstairs, but still.

Dan tiptoed down the stairs, peering around the door into the room Ash was standing. She looked almost carefree in a way he had never seen in an Epic before, staring out the window at the snow that was falling gently from the sky.

His weight shifted almost imperceptibly, and a floorboard creaked. Ash spun around. Oh sparks, Dan thought. I'm going to die.

"How long?" Ash said, frozen in place.

"I just got here," Dan squeaked. "I swear."

"Did I wake you up?" Ash said. "If so, I'm really, really—"

"I was already up. Or dozing. Or—"

"I woke you up, didn't I," Ash said. "Sparks. I was trying to be quiet."

Dan shook his head. "Nope. Not a problem," he said quickly. "You're quite good."

"Actually good, or 'still scared I'm going to murder you' good?" Ash said. "Don't worry. I haven't used my powers since yesterday."

"Okay," Dan said, his voice a little more high pitched than he was intending. "I was being mostly honest? A couple of notes were a bit above your range, but it was good."

Ash swore, then put up her hand. "Don't worry, it's not you. First time with this voice, still trying to work out some of the kinks." She grew distant for a moment. "Julie never did sing much."

"Julie?" Dan said, before he could stop himself. Great move, Dan, ask the Epic who's being cagey about her past about something she's hiding. Maybe they'll write "complete slontze" on your gravestone.

Ash's face darkened. "Someone whose life I ruined. Though even that might be putting it lightly." She shook her head. Dan waited for her to say more, but she stood still, her eyes fixed at some faraway point in the distance.

Who are you? Dan thought. And did I make a terrible mistake by bringing you into our plan? Her regret seemed genuine, but who was to say it would be enough to keep her from repeating her mistakes? And worse, would she drag Anna down with her?

A sudden knock on the front door made Dan jump into the air. Ash spun around too, tensed and ready for a fight. Remembering their discussion yesterday, Dan's posture softened. "Ash?" he said. "I think it's just Anna."

"Right. I knew that," Ash said. "I jump when I'm happy to see someone. I swear."

"It's okay to be jumpy, Ash. Calamity knows I am," Dan said. "Thankfully, this time it's nothing to worry about." He went to answer the door. "Anna, do you know what time it is?"

"I know," Anna said, still out of breath from the ski journey over. "Sorry I'm late."

"It's eight in the morning."

Anna winced. "And you like sleeping in. Right."

"It's cool," Dan said with a smile. "This time."

"Sorry. There's a lot of stuff, and I wanted to get an early start."

"Speaking of" Ash put up air quotes. "'A lot of stuff'. Yesterday. I think we can all agree that can't happen again."

Anna shuddered. "Agreed. Though there has to be some better way of dealing with the darkness than running face first into a blizzard."

"It worked," Ash said.

"You nearly died."

Ash shrugged. "Probably not much of a loss." Anna gave Ash a look. "Though something I can see wanting to avoid happening in the future."

"I can check a few houses around town and make sure we know a few of them that have working stoves and firewood. That way, if you needed to run off again, you'd have somewhere to run off to," Dan said.

"Good idea. Though we're still screwed if I lose it in an enclosed space."

Dan winced. "Yeah."

Ash's eyes darted to the floor, then back up at Dan and Anna. "I have an idea, but I'm going to need to trust the two of you with some things I've never told anyone."

"According to you,we're dead anyway," Dan said bitterly. "Who are we going to tell?" He stopped. "Sorry. That was unfair. You can trust me."

"And me," Anna said.

"Thanks." Ash looked down at her shoes. "Okay, this still isn't exactly easy for me to say, but I need to do this." She cleared her throat. "First, if I—"she stopped, looking for the right word. "If I lose control of myself, do not let me touch you. Under any circumstances. Got it?"

Dan nodded vigorously.

"Why?" Anna said.

"It's a bad idea. And hopefully something that won't become relevant." Ash cleared her throat again. "Thing number two. The big one. If—"she broke off. "If you don't think you can get me back, I want you to shoot me."

"Ash, I—"Anna started.

"Isn't that going to be worse than useless?" Dan said. "You can heal. We've seen that."

"And that brings us back to the other thing I've never told anyone."

"Your weakness," Anna breathed. "Ash, are you sure?"

"Deadly sure." Ash closed her eyes. "Anna, the reason I did what I did in the woods, I'm not saying it was a smart thing, honestly it wasn't, but—I would rather die than go back to being the person I was."

She stopped, her words hanging in the air. "Anyway, you won't need to try very hard for my weakness."

"Okay, you're going to need to be a bit more specific than that. Are there some words we have to say? A certain color? Please don't say a certain weather unless that weather is 'snow'."

"No, no, and didn't I just use my powers in snow yesterday?" Ash said. "It's you."

"Me. Me specifically? That makes no sense. You've just met me."

"Both of you, actually. Though you're right," Ash said. "It's more complicated than that." She met Dan's eyes for the first time. "It's hope. Optimism might be another word. The ability to try the impossible because you think it just might work."

Anna looked at Dan and gave a wry smile. "I guess we might fit that description." She frowned, looking down at Ash's side, where her bandaged wound was.

"Yeah. The guy who shot me was that way too. Somehow." Ash's face fell. "He's probably not like that any more."

"How do we know you're telling the truth and won't just laugh in our face when we try it and it doesn't work?" Dan asked.

"Dan, we're not going to hurt her." Anna frowned. "Would arm-wrestling Dan also trigger it?"

Ash looked Dan up and down. "Even without my powers, I still have muscles."

Dan glared at Ash. "Rude," he said. "Though probably not wrong."

"Sorry," Ash said. "This is something you'll need to trust me on. And again, something that you'll probably never need to use. There's plenty of backup plans before we get to that point."

"I guess that's the best we can do." Though I'm still not thinking you're being entirely honest with us, Dan thought.

"Now, with that out of the way, is this the part where you two tell me how you're going to fight someone who can control the weather for hundreds of miles?"

Dan coughed. "Right. That part." Here it was. The point of no return. "Okay, I have to say beforehand that we're still missing a lot of intel, so there's probably going to be some stuff changing between now and when we actually put it into action, but overall, I don't think it's a bad plan."

Ash frowned. "You fill me with confidence," she said. "So what do you have?"

Dan cleared his throat. "Mostly a list of problems," he said.

"Chief being the unstoppable wall of wind he's got surrounding his palace." Anna sighed. "There is a window when we can get in, he needs to renew the storm every three weeks or so, but neither Dan nor I like the thought of going in blind. And—"she trailed off.

Ash winced. "You don't like your chances of making it to the next window."

"Winters are harsh here," Anna said. "That's just a fact of life. But with trade the way it is, and the fact we only have a few months before it starts getting cold again naturally, I don't know if there'll be anyone left after much more of this."

Dan took a breath inward. "Which brings us to the next part of the plan."

"Permafrost is unfortunately really paranoid about letting people past his wall," Anna said. "I've been trying to find a way in, since I'm the main repair person around here, but apparently he thinks that a bit more peace of mind is worth a leaky roof and no electricity."

"Ahh, the great Epic conundrum. One of them, anyway. Being actually able to enjoy the comforts of lording over other people means you need trust them not to poison your soup."

"Exactly," Dan said. "So the idea we had is that he might trust another Epic more."

"Whatever you're thinking, no."

"It won't be you," Dan said. "It'll be me."

Ash looked Dan up and down. "Okay, you are the best at hiding it I have ever seen."

"Not that way," Dan said. "Before—"He waved his arm around the general area. "Before this, I was a bio student. Worked at one of the labs at the university in town." Dan produced a small cube-shaped object from his pocket. "Our work was in electrical stimulation of metahuman-derived tissue cultures."

Ash made a face. "Huh?"

"Epic tech," Anna said.

"Anyway, during the—" Dan winced, memories of ruined buildings and a glowing figure standing above it all flashing in his head. "Accident that destroyed the lab, I managed to rescue one of the prototypes. It's nothing fancy, basically a laser with extra steps, but it's showy and pretty easy to hide from view." He put it in the palm of his hand, carefully concealing it with his thumb, and held it out like he was about to blast the wall. "Like so."

"Interesting," Ash said. She looked down. "Also, yeah, Epics do get tetchy when they find people trying to imitate their powers. I'm glad you're okay. As for the plan." She stopped, lost in thought. "I think there's a plan that won't get you killed horribly hiding in there somewhere, but there's a lot of things that have me worried."

Anna smiled. "Yeah, I'm not entirely sold on the infiltration part myself."

"That was the big one, yeah. To be perfectly honest, I've seen fluffy bunnies act more Epic-like than you, even if you do have your gizmo." Ash frowned. "Outside of Monty Python, I mean. Not to mention the fact that Permafrost is equally likely to think you're a threat as he is a potential ally. And even if you manage to pull that scam off—"She closed her eyes. "If you go through with that, you're going to have to do things that you can never take back."

Dan frowned. "I think it'll be worth it, if it means no other places will have to go through what we're going through. Though if you think we can avoid doing that, I'm definitely open to hear it." Anna nodded in agreement.

"You said your big problem with getting Anna in there was that Permafrost never needed anything fixed, right?" Anna nodded. "How about we give him something? Something so big he can't just put up with it?"

"Just to be clear," Dan said. "Are you suggesting we blow something up?"

Ash gave a grin the likes of which Dan had never seen on her normally somber face. "I mean, it doesn't have to be an explosion."