To Lyger 0: It certainly didn't vanish into thin air. But no character has actually seen it since it left Paris, and the disruptions to communication between Paris and the rest of the world (and between Europe and Africa) mean no one has been able to tell the heroes we've followed where it is.

Marius tugged at his "shock collar" irritably, reaching under the synthetic metal-and-plastic collar to scratch at the itchy skin underneath. The collar itself was lined on the inside with a synthetic fabric similar to fleece as a way to prevent chafing or irritation, but the fabric's initial softness had long since worn away following his months of confinement in La Santé Prison. When the collar had first been placed on him, he had tried to access his powers, to place the guard securing the collar under his control – only to be shocked when, for the first time in a year, that part of his brain was entirely silent. How had the Paris Police managed to find such a device? It was a question that had bothered him for the first month of his imprisonment, though it had since slipped into the background. This was his life now.

It was a bitter pill to swallow, when he had been only a few key targets away from complete control of Paris' underworld at the time of his arrest; had it not been for the bad luck of two Heroes of Paris finding him by accident, he might have already overthrown the shadowy Lynchpin.

He frowned, chafing at the collar, a constant reminder of his humiliation and arrest. Although, at least he was not alone in suffering such a fate. As he walked the prison halls, following a pair of guards toward the small recreation yard set aside for La Santé's Enhanced Prisoner Ward, he scanned the faces to either side through the cell bars. Papon, sitting sullenly in his cell, not looking at anyone or anything around him. Sauvage, standing at the bars of his cell, his sharpened teeth bared in a feral snarl. Rigaudeau, reclining on his cot and tossing a ball at the ceiling. And, of course, Agreste, doodling in that book of his as though he hadn't a care in the world.

"How far the great Hawk Moth has fallen," Marius sneered as he passed the final cell.

"No lower than you have fallen, Mallarmé," Agreste pointed out, not looking up from his drawing.

Marius scoffed, his eyes flashing maliciously. "Ah, but that is the difference between you and me. When they took your jewelry you lost your powers. Yet were they to remove my jewelry–" He tugged at the collar, raising an eyebrow meaningfully.

Agreste finally looked up, meeting his gaze. "That collar only came after you were arrested."

"I will see you in the yard, Agreste." Marius' mouth set in a thin line, glaring daggers at Agreste. Turning his attention away from Marius, however, Agreste returned to his drawing.

"Keep moving, Mallarmé," grunted one of the guards, nudging Marius in the shoulder with his baton. "We don't have all day."

"I'm going…" Marius shot an angry look at the guard but followed him down the corridor, stepping over a chunk of stone that had fallen from the ceiling two weeks earlier. When the Tarasque had stormed through Paris, it had come within meters of the wall encircling the prison yard. That morning was still engrained in Marius' mind. While sitting in the dining room after breakfast, Marius and the other prisoners had all watched on the television as the Beasts had merged together into the massive Tarasque. A dark-colored shape had caught Marius' eye just before the merging completed: though he couldn't be certain, it had looked like Night Bat, sailing through the air away from the Beast. On seeing that, the guards had tried to herd them back into their cells. The prisoners, however, had refused to move, sitting transfixed by the nonstop news coverage of the Creature, interspersed with stories from the Ladyblog about the various Heroes of Paris who had been arrayed against it. Then, after almost an hour of standing motionless, Tarasque had awoken and begun its inexorable march southward. The Beast had torn a path of destruction through their city, leaving death and devastation in its wake. The last news coverage before the television went dark had been of the evacuation portal just south of the Seine. The Heroes of Paris had fled from the city, leaving it to its fate. The Tarasque had entered the south side of the city and come almost straight for the prison. At that, the guards had been helpless to stop the prisoners from leaving the building and gathering in the yard to watch on as the Tarasque threw up huge clods of grass in the small park to the north and then crushed the restaurant across the street, uncontested by the swarm of superheroes that had been flying around its head all day. Its paw had brushed the prison wall, tearing a long gouge along the outside. Several of the prisoners had lost their balance and fallen to the ground from the tremors that accompanied its transit. Many more had begun coughing uncontrollably when the Tarasque bathed the prison yard with its breath. Only after it had been out of sight had the prisoners allowed themselves to be led back inside.

Not that there was much "inside" left to the prison. The Tarasque may not have directly stepped on the prison or struck it with its fire vision, but the vibrations of its steps had torn through the complex like waves on the ocean. An entire wing of the building had collapsed from the vibrations, so the guards had rearranged the prisoners into less space. All semblance of comfort had vanished overnight. And on top of that, every few days the lights would flicker on and off – clearly the power grid had been compromised, even more than the prison had been. And yet, in spite of the destruction and devastation outside, in spite of the utter breakdown of order evidenced by the dozens of new prisoners brought to the prison on a daily basis, Marius still remained in prison.

How far he had fallen since his arrest.

Finally the guards pushed the outside door open, and Marius blinked, shading his eyes with one hand as he walked out into the sunlight. The green smog that had blanketed Paris for a week after the Tarasque left had finally turned to a pale lime color – half the prisoners had spent at least a day retching because of it, though Marius had toughed it out. Outside in the yard, a tall pile of debris from the damaged wing had been pushed up against an internal wall to wait until it could be hauled off and disposed of, sitting high enough in the meantime that one could climb the debris pile all the way up to the roof. Marius furrowed his bows in thought. Several of the other prisoners were already in the yard, a few of them playing basketball or football while others stood or lounged near the debris pile. Marius slowly made his way across the yard, brushing his hand against one of the guards as he passed him. He closed his eyes, trying to access the part of himself that had been muted since the collar. The sun beat down on him, warm and welcoming. Something flickered near the back of his consciousness, and he paused near another lone prisoner. For months he had felt nothing. But now?

"You feel it, too, don't you?" asked Nouvel, his voice barely over a whisper.

Marius clenched his mouth tightly shut, forced himself to exhale, and opened his eyes, allowing a trace of a smile to appear on his face. "You, also?"

Nouvel nodded. "It comes and goes – ever since the Tarasque," he muttered, looking around the yard surreptitiously.

Marius glanced up at the closest guard, standing atop a tower just inside the wall. "Do you know what that means?"

"One of two things, or both at the same time," Nouvel replied, his face impassive as his eyes flickered over toward where another guard stood near the top of the debris pile. "Either it means that the collars are electrical, and the disruption to the grid has damaged them; or else that the control for the system is in the damaged wing."

Marius frowned, scanning the yard as it began to fill with prisoners. With the confusion and disruption caused by the Tarasqe, to say nothing of the destroyed wing, the prison had done away with the rigid segregation of male and female prisoners; a few of the women were just on their way out into the yard. Fournier was the first one through the doorway; she stumbled as the guard hit her in the shoulder with his baton, turning on him with a snarl and raising her one fist before thinking better of it and stalking across the yard away from him. Next out were Perrault, Moulin, and Sancouer. As they were settling in, Rigaudeau walked over to them and said something Marius couldn't hear. Moulin looked at Sancouer and scoffed before slapping Rigaudeau across the face. Rigaudeau clenched a fist and swung at Rigaudeau's head, only for the guard to shoot him with a taser before he could connect. While Rigaudeau twitched on the ground, Perrault spat furiously in his face before stalking away. Marius scoffed. All of them had been thrown into this prison by the Heroes of Paris and left to rot – and those with powers had been restrained by these collars. Not all were so powerful, but Nouvel – without the restraining collar… "You and I…" he mused, his voice barely above a whisper. "All the power we could need, yet we are stuck here in prison. And those so-called heroes who imprisoned us have all fled before the Tarasque with their tails between their legs."

"Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?" Nouvel picked up a pebble, which took on a glossy sheen as he rubbed it.

Dumont stopped right in front of them, a confused look on his face. "Um… that guard told me to talk to you…" He pointed back toward the door, and the guard gave Marius a curt nod.

Marius' eyes flashed and he smirked. "We were meant for far more than simply to rot in prison," he told his two companions. "With my power, I could control the world! Anyone and everyone was my tool!" He turned to Nouvel and Dumont. "You could transmute matter! And you – you can get into anywhere you wish, and you don't need a 'shock collar' to stop you. But as for the rest of us, our collars are not working anymore. The prison has sprung a leak, and the jailers flew the coop. Between the three of us, I think we can take the prison down and escape tonight. It's our time to strike!"

Dumont cocked his head, staring at Marius in horror. "Are you insane? They'll stop us!"

Nouvel smiled maliciously. "Who will stop us? You watched the TV – you saw the Heroes of Paris flee from Paris. They aren't here to stop us. And as for the police, they are far too busy worrying about everything outside the prison to worry about us. Haven't you noticed? We haven't seen any sign of the Paris Police since the Tarasque left – beyond the occasional stop to drop off a fresh batch of prisoners. It's just us and the guards."

"There is a power vacuum in Paris now," Marius announced firmly, "and I think it is high time for it to be filled."

Dumont shrugged dubiously. "So what are we going to do?"

Marius furrowed his brows in thought. "If you can get into the control room in the damaged wing tonight, you might be able to deactivate the collars," he mused. "Then I think Dynamus and I can get us out of here."

Glancing across the yard at the damaged wing and the tall pile of debris pushed up against it, Dumont frowned. "I can do it," he agreed, "but it will take some time."

"I can adjust that wall slightly," Nouvel told him, as the pebble in his hand crumbled to dust.

Marius nodded slowly and focused on the guard, though that part of his mind had gone silent once more. "I will buy you a few minutes to get in, but that may be all I can do until the collars are gone."

Dumont hummed. "Fine. What's the signal?"

"Wait for the lights to all turn off at once."