The trip to the PRT took just a heartbeat, and then the group was standing in the secure Lobby.

"Armsmaster and Director Piggot would probably want to talk to you and your daughter, Ms. Sato." Battery gestured. "If you'll come this…"

"We can go with you," Jim said.

Claire nodded when a voice broke into the discussion. "No, you have far more important things to do than play tour guide."

Merlin, Jim thought.

"This is—" Claire started up, but Merlin overrode her.

"The decision has already been made, has it not?" He glanced at Ann. "Unless you wish to confront the Empire or Elite, alone?"

"Ann fought them!" Kim said coming to her sister's defense.

"Yes. Hopefully she's here to learn how to do things with less… punching." Merlin stared at Ann. "How well would the Trollhunter have done against that overgrown lizard if he'd just charged forth by himself, I wonder?"

"Right!" Jim said, pasting a smile on his face. "Well, obviously Merlin is far too busy to keep talking so we'll be off right away, and if you need to talk to us later before you make a decision we'll be here while Merlin is in his lab—" As Jim quickly walked off, the elder wizard rolling his eyes as he followed them. Behind them, Jim saw Battery mouth "Thank you."

"Merlin," Claire hissed. "We're trying to be nice to Ann—"

"Being nice to a fool is generally a waste of time," Merlin said. "At least not until they're willing to listen."

Jim shook his head. There was no sense in arguing. "So where are we going?"

Merlin opened the door to his lab, and then when the two entered, he spoke to the empty air.

"Door to Cauldron." As they passed through Merlin kept speaking.

"I have done some research, but my ability to post-cog the agents or passengers, as Cauldron calls the sub-entities, is limited. You have a greater gift in that area, probably due to your greater empathy. I seldom cried during movies, after all."

"She can't do many," Jim said. Claire didn't cry a lot and seeing the total wreck she had been reduced to… "You can't—"

"Well, I'll just inform all the endless lives the Entities will snuff out that Ms. Nunez can't be bothered."

Jim growled, a deep, warning sound.

"Jim," Claire said. "It's alright. I… Have some ideas on how I can deal with this."

"I hope you do, but we do have some issues," Merlin said as they entered the conference room. Doctor Mother and Contessa were there, along with Eidolon.

"What issues?" Jim asked.

"Eidolon's powers have been fading," Contessa said. "He is a blind spot, but we thought we could kill two birds with one stone."

"Wait, you think Eidolon can fight Scion?"

"Fighting Scion isn't the goal," Merlin said. "But there are other enemies than Scion."

"The Endbringers." Contessa nodded. "You've already saw the damage they can do."

Jim went still as the unwelcome memories of the scent of rot (disturbingly pleasant for his trollish instincts), and the memories of the silent streets ran through his mind.

Claire put one hand on his arm. "Jim?"

"It's okay."

"But that's not the main reason," Contessa continued. "While we hope you might be able to find a reason, the fact is that the fewer people we work with the less chance of a… breach."

"And to prepare you for what you must do, at some point." Merlin nodded at Claire. "Undertake the infinitely more dangerous path of examining some of the powers that Scion distributed. Powers that may very well have links that could warn him about you."

Jim stared at Eidolon, who looked back impassively. Jim had seen him fighting Leviathan and of all the capes, he'd been the mightiest, even counting Alexandria and Legend. "Your powers…"

"Once, I probably could have protected New Orleans alone," the man said, his voice oddly normal. "I've often wondered if the Endbringers were waiting if they knew that I might become weaker…"

Jim frowned. That would make sense, but it would also mean that they were… A lot smarter than most assumed.

But then, nobody knows anything about the Endbringers…

"Right," Claire said. "I'm going to try to look, but things might get weird. Please don't, um, lash out and kill us."

"I've had my power longer than you've been alive," Eidolon said. "I have full control over it."

"A moment," Contessa said. She pulled out a small handgun. "Door to—" a string of coordinates followed and a tiny portal opened. Contessa fired three shots. The portal closed and she put the gun down.

"What—what was that?" Jim asked in a shocked tone.

"Path to preventing the assassination of the President," she said.

"Oh." Jim's voice was small. He wondered if it was a threat, or if she really didn't understand what showing off the ability to open holes in the air and shoot through them implied.

Or maybe it was a threat, but not hers. Her power's.

"You may continue."

Claire nodded, and Eidolon sat down as she took a seat in front of him. "Okay… Here we go." Claire reached out and tendrils of energy linked them…

God, I wish I could do that. The last two times Claire had touched the products of an entity, she'd been driven into hysteria. If Jim could…

But he couldn't, so he'd wait.

Claire closed her eyes and pushed. There wasn't any other word for it. Postcognition was one of the 'personal' talents. Which meant that there weren't a lot of cut and dried ways to handle it, especially since Claire's abilities had been… forced open by Morganna.

But when she pushed in…

She'd expected memories of previous, murdered, civilizations. A sad monument to what had been…

She'd steeled herself against that.

But she hadn't expected this. It was vast…

And sterile. No memories. There was what felt like a powerful node, linked to other nodes, the powers coming and going.

Is that how he picks powers?

But it was… cold. Reactive. She got no sense of… Self about it.

Like a computer. Push button, get result. Claire looked around. Some of the nodes were, for want of a better word… empty.

Okay, so maybe they have limited—of course they do. Don't be stupid Claire. If powers didn't have any limits, they wouldn't be looking for a way to live forever.

She reached out and tugged at a link. There was a thrumming sound, as one node grew in size, another shrinking.

Okay, so…She could tell that the oldest, biggest powers looked drained. Withered.

What if I… she looked around and frowned. Some of his nodes looked… abandoned. Like they'd never been used. She dove to one, putting out her hand and touching the great crystalline node. She pushed her mind into it and…

A sense of great heat, great gravity. Tiny forms living on the surface of a neutron star. No memories were recorded, there was no sense of sapience, but the power was one that had been part of their existence, allowing them to survive, keeping memories and sentience safe within tiny, immensely heavy bodies. But animal bodies, like earth before intelligent life had come to it.

Is that why I don't get any sense of story? These were animals? How would the entities do what Claire had seen them do on a world with no sapient beings? Maybe they hadn't. Maybe they'd just stopped long enough to strip the world of its life and all of its tomorrows.

Whatever Gabriel had said… it was hard not to hate them. Darcie's aunt had died from cancer, and sitting in church, a sobbing Darcie between her parents, just in front of Claire and Mary… Claire had developed hatred enough for the disease, no matter how soulless it was.

She shook her head and pressed forward. If he's not using it… oh, I hope I don't blow everything up. She pushed. Like she'd taken some limiters off of Builder's powers.

Moments later the node touched some of the withered nodes and energy started flowing into them. It was big, powerful, and Claire bet it would be a long time before it was exh—

She stopped. Trailing away from Eidolon's main node were lines that went to… strange…

They're like, far away. Moving. But… Claire followed the lines. She stared at them, twenty or so, floating. Three were pulsing. One large, heavy, one small, fluid, but bouncing around, and one that…

She reached out and touched it.

INTEREST.

Claire snatched her hand back. "Are you… Are you another cape?"

NEGATION.

"What are you?"

MODIFIERPREDICTORCONTROLLERBUILDERDESTROYERSTRANFORMATCONFLICTENGIN—

"Stop it!" Claire screamed. There was so much information pouring into, she couldn't—it stopped and she stared. Now that she looked, the node wasn't one—it was dozens of nodes, tightly packed together. Like a…

Person? No. People only have one power. Well, except for Eidolon, and there's only one of him…

Unless there were others? Hiding? Maybe when she asked 'cape' they thought she meant normal capes.

One way to find out. "Do you have a body?"

AFFIRMATION.

"What if… could you talk to us, now?"

NEGATION. KING ADMINISTRATOR RESTRICTION.

Who…"Who is that?"

FORBIDDEN.

Claire winced at the power of that statement.

"Can… Can you move?"

AFFIRMATION.

"Then maybe you could come and see us? We're open capes, and if you're like Eidolon you could do some good."

CONSIDERATION. AGREEMENT.

"Good." Claire smiled, as much as you could when you were sort of disembodied. "I…" I'd better quit while I'm ahead. "I'll be waiting. If you can't find us, just ask the PRT or drop by Arcadia at lunch. We're always there. You have a way to let us know who you are?"

AGREEMENT. AMUSEMENT. The presence withdrew. For a moment, the fast-moving one bounced up to Claire and she got a sense of… Amused challenge from it? It also felt… Claire didn't know how, but there was a sense of water about it, like the ocean on a stormy day. But then it pulled back, hovering next to the largest node. That node just seemed to seethe with energy.

There were larger ones in the cluster behind it, but they seemed to be oddly quiet.

Then Claire pulled out. Time to see if I managed to help Eidolon.

Jim waited as Claire closed her eyes. Nothing happened for the longest time. Then suddenly, Eidolon's eyes flared open, and he raised a hand, a blazing globe appearing in it.

"That's…" Doctor Mother stared.

"Yes." Eidolon snuffed the light out. "A self-contained fusion envelope. I barely used it when I first had it—too destructive and then when I needed it I lost it. Now I have it again. What did she do?"

"I—"

And then Claire gave a deep gasp and opened her eyes. "You have a strange power." She said. She started gesturing. "It's not so much one, not like Builder's, as it is a bunch. Some were withered, and one you would never use was intact, so I tried to…"

"You succeeded," Eidolon said. He snuffed out his power and put his hand on Claire's shoulder. "I—I cannot thank you enough. I've dedicated my life to helping people… It's my legacy, instead of having children or a family. You've helped give us hope and… well purpose."

"Is it now?" Merlin said. Jim looked at the wizard, but he said nothing else.

Claire shook her head. "But you were connected to some other…I think parahumans, maybe, sort of, but if they were they were closer to you than Builder's power."

"People like me?" Eidolon asked. "Nobody else has a power like this…"

"But they might be hiding." Claire shrugged. "I got a sense that they… well they didn't want to talk to you. Maybe they're worried. So I asked them if they wanted to meet us and yeah."

"That's good. Contessa?" Doctor Mother gestured at Contessa.

The woman shook her head. "They're too close to Eidolon's blindspot and combined with the issues I have in pathing this… magic I can't say."

"Well," Doctor Mother said. "We'll have to wait."

"Excellent," Merlin said. "Claire and Jim have to go back and convince a certain bull-headed parahuman to join the Wards and I believe I will speak to you, Sir Eidolon, while I observe your powers. After all, if I'm one of the Triumvirate, it's past time I went on a patrol, wouldn't you agree?"

Eidolon flexed one arm and nodded, a sharp gesture.

"I agree entirely," he said.