Disclaimer is in chapter 1. So apparently Tenhawk has resumed posting fanfiction on one of his own sites ( t . evancurrie . ca ) and on patre on (username tenhawk).

Vicky glared at the other Parahuman, irritated by the question, "I'm perfectly fine, thank you very much."

Honestly, she was a little chilled at the moment. Her powers didn't come with a built in heater exactly, though her shield did happen to provide a decent amount of insulation. She wasn't about to give an unknown like this Magus that information, however.

"What brings you to Brockton Bay," She asked, tilted her head, "or are you a new Trigger?"

"Trigger?" He looked at her, almost bemusedly. "Can't say I am, exactly. I developed my abilities starting when I was eleven."

Vicky breathed out, shocked by that statement.

"Sorry to hear that," She said sincerely. "Children… well, they shouldn't have to deal with a trigger."

He waved off her apology, "I didn't trigger as you would think of things. My people just come into their power young and begin formal education at eleven."

That made her blink.

"Y… your people?"

"I'm not from around here," He said. "Born in California."

"That's not that far away, and it doesn't explain the 'your people' comment," She said, glaring through narrowed eyes.

"I know," He grinned at her.

Vicky blew out an annoyed breath, puffing her hair out of her face. "Fine, have it your way. What's with the feather duster?"

"It's… traditional to have a pet, you might say," Magus told her simply. "Kripky and I go back a ways, there are memories attached."

"Cryptic," Vicky said, sighing, but she relaxed marginally since there didn't seem to be any sign of violence from the other man.

Taking a moment, she evaluated him. He wasn't much older than her, Vicky decided, maybe in his early twenties at most, but he looked more like late teens… just, there was something in the eyes. She'd seen it before, always in more experienced Capes.

It wasn't confidence, practically every cape had that by some measure, whether real of falsified. It was deeper than that, like he'd reached a point where he didn't need to worry about whether he was confident, if that made any sense to anyone other than her.

"Don't tell anyone," He mock whispered, "but being cryptic is how we wizards get our kicks."

That brought an involuntary laugh to her after which she ruefully shook her head, "Wizard, huh? Brockton Bay always gets the crazy ones. Let me guess, big fan of Myrddin? Wrong city."

"Well, I have been known to swear by Merlin's name, oddly I know a lot of people who do," Magus just grinned, "but I'm afraid I don't know anyone named Myrddin exactly. A Cape with a penchant for both the classics and the dramatics, I would guess?"

"That would be one way of putting things," She said, rolling her eyes. "I… oh, hell. One second…"

The chirp of her communicator insistently beeping in her ear caused Vicky to break off and put a finger up to her ear.

"Glory Girl here, yeah I'm good. The bird seems to belong to the new Cape in town, Magus. We're just talking. No, no threat. Bravo Twelve Niner, Mako Sierra. Cool, thanks Vista."

Interesting. She's young to be that comfortable using panic codes… not that she sounds panicky. Xander thought as he listened in to Glory Girl's side of the conversation.

During the war, both of them, they'd needed to use codes like that for fear of the Imperius. It was tricky, since they had to be designed such that they couldn't be given while under a spell. It made things irritating, much of the time, but would really save your ass when it counted.

For a young heroine type to be casually dropping that kind of code had some implications that he didn't like the sound of.

For the moment, though, Xander just filed it away for later. He had more important things to comment on, after all.

"Glory Girl? Seriously?" he asked dryly, his lips playing at a smile. "Was Wonder Wench taken?"

Oh, that got him a look.

"watch it buster," She scowled, though he could see a bit of humor dancing in her eyes.

Whatever else, she can take a joke. Lord knows, Buffy couldn't at first.

She sighed, "I suppose I should ask you, since the PRT is going to ask me, so what brings you to the Bay?"

Xander just shrugged, "Passing through, honestly. Probably head on out in a few days, once I get some things together."

"Almost sorry to hear that, after your debut last night I wanted to see what happened when you ran into the Empire capes," Glory Girl chuckled.

Xander scowled, turning his head slightly to scan the city around them.

"Tempting," He admitted. "The idea of stomping a bunch of Super Nazies into the dirt is more tempting than I think you can imagine…"

"So sure that you'd be doing the stomping?" She asked him archly. "The Empire has been a thorn in the Bay's side since before I was born."

Xander shrugged again, "What can I say? I'm a confident boy."

"Well, you're certainly that. That was good work last night, by the way," She complimented him. "I checked the police report as well as the post on PHO, they censored the video but I was able to tell that you did that take down clean. I don't know if you even looked. Combat Thinker?"

"Didn't have to look, and… Combat what now?"

"Thinker. You know, a Parahuman with enhanced mental abilities?" She seemed confused.

"I've been accused of a lot of things before, but never that. I have been called Mental though, does that count?"

Glory Girl barely held back a giggle, and glared at him like it was his fault that she had to do so. Xander just winked at her and grinned.

"Fine, keep your secrets," She huffed. "I just wanted to figure out what was up with the big bird flying around the city anyway. Fair warning, though, the Protectorate will be a little more insistent in their questions than I am."

"They can insist all they want," Xander simply laughed. "I'll tell them what I want to, and not one bit more. Say, as a local, think you could point me to a few things?"

"Such as?"

"Shopping, for one, I need to find a few things before I move on."

"What kind of things?"

"Spices, exotic ones," He said, "odds and ends, that sort of thing."

"Sure," She said, "Why not? I'll let the PRT know not to send any heroes charging in to save the day, though, nothing worse than a shopping trip getting busted up because someone saw a parahuman they didn't recognize and called the PRT. Don't ask me how I know."

Xander found himself honestly surprised at the relative lack of availability for many of the spices he needed. The basics were in stock, of course, though they did seem a little pricey by his measure of things, but a lot of the less common and more exotic variety were either out of stock or simply weren't stocked to begin with.

This might make getting home a tad more complicated.

"Something wrong?" Glory Girl asked from a short distance off.

The young superhero had opted to follow him around a bit, mostly out of idle curiosity as best he could tell, though Xander supposed that she was probably being tracked by her communications system and, thus, so was he. For the moment, though, he honestly didn't care.

"This is the best place in town for spices and such?" He asked, skeptically, "Really?"

"Why? What's wrong with it?" She asked, looking honestly confused.

Xander couldn't help but roll his eyes.

"For one, there's basically no Saffron in the Saffron, the Long Pepper is just black pepper with artificial sweetener added, and the grains of paradise are basically the same thing… black papper, sweetener, and some floral herbs," Xander shook his head. "And that's just the stuff that's supposedly in stock. There's tons of stuff just completely missing."

Glory Girl frowned, tilting her head as she looked over everything.

"Really? I mean," She shrugged, "I don't see anything obvious missing…"

Xander groaned, rubbing his forehead.

"Sadly, young man," an elderly Asian man behind the counter, who had clearly overheard, spoke up, "Few of your generation even know that the missing spices exist. Are you certain about the Peppers and Saffron, however?"

Xander nodded firmly, "Absolutely."

"I knew that shipment was late for a reason," The old man spat. "blasted gang probably lifted the spices for Lung."

"Someone's inhaling this stuff?" Xander gaped briefly, before hearing a rather unladylike snort from behind him.

By the time he turned, though, Glory Girl had schooled her expression and was clearly daring him to comment on it. Xander had learned well enough, dealing with Buffy, not to walk into that trap.

"Lung is the name of our beloved warlord and beneficent protector," The old man said, putting just enough emphasis on his words to push his true meaning across. "His Cape name, at least."

"Lung?" Xander thought about it, before blinking, "Ah right, Dragon. Cute. So the local dragon stole your spices? He a foodie or something?"

"Quite possibly, I suppose, however they are incredibly expensive as well," The old man sighed, glaring at his wall of spices. "To the right people, that was thousands of dollars of stock."

Xander whistled, he'd known that they were relatively rare and all, but that was a bit extreme in a modern America.

"Why?" He asked, shaking his head. "They should be pricey, sure, but not on par with precious metals gram for gram."

"Leviathan," The old man spat on the ground, literally spat on the ground at the mention of the name.

"That's one of your Endbringers, right?" Xander asked, glancing back to Glory Girl, who was a little pale but also looking at him in distinct confusion.

"you don't know Leviathan? Where are you from?"

"California," Xander said casually. "Sleepy little town called Sunnydale."

"Not knowing about Leviathan isn't sleepy, Magus," Glory Girl said, "It's comatose."

Xander just shrugged.

"If you say so, how'd Leviathan crank up the price on spices?"

"Shipping by sea has become rather more dangerous, at least in perception," The old man sighed, "And Leviathan has specifically targeted many key ports over the years, leaving shipping backlogged for months, years, even more so."

"Well damn," Xander grumbled. "Might take me a little longer than I expected to be moving along then. I'm assuming that these spices are available in their native countries?"

"Of course."

"Good enough, I'll pop over and get what I need," Xander decided, gathering up a few of the things he had found and setting them on the counter. "In the meantime, I'll take these."

"Very good," The man said, ringing him up.

Xander rounded up the total and waved off the change, thanking the man for the information before taking his bag and heading out of the store and onto the boardwalk.

"Pop over?" Glory Girl asked as she followed along behind him, drifting a few inches off the ground. "How are you planning on managing that?"

"I've been to India, Japan, the whole shebang. I should be able to apparate over from memory, though I'll have to be careful about it," Xander answered truthfully, not caring about hiding anything, though it did suddenly occur to him that he really should confirm that there wasn't a Wizarding World in this dimension.

Crap, been getting too used to not having to hide. Going to have to nip that in the bud before I get home for sure. He thought with a grimace. Shouldn't be a problem here, though, even if there are wizards, I'd lay money on them not sticking their heads out of whatever hole they've buried themselves in. Not with beasts like this Leviathan running around… causing that much destruction? If there were wizards locally, and they could kill it, it would be dead. If they couldn't… Most wizards probably would have moved in with the Goblins to get away.

Xander snickered at that thought, stuffy pure bloods bunking in the tunnels with the Goblins. Of course, in reality, they'd probably have lain siege until the Goblins starved out, wiped them out, and then moved in… but that wasn't nearly as funny to consider.

"When you say… apparate, you mean…?" Glory Girl blinked furiously.

"Teleport?" Xander shrugged, "That or Portkey… that's less teleporting and more hypersonic travel via tornado. Pretty sure a portkey was the inspiration for the Wizard of Oz, thinking about it…"

Xander felt an itch at the back of his brain and twisted around, looking for the source, only to find Glory Girl staring at him with her jaw hanging down.

"Are you… trying to…" Xander tilted his head from one side to another, attempting to work out what the feeling was and how to describe it, "Are you trying to do something to my mind?"

"What? No! Oh… shoot," She stammered out, the feeling going away in a moment. "Sorry. Shaker field, part of my powers I don't have great control over."

"Huh. Weird feeling," Xander admitted after a moment, "Kinda like you were giving my mental shields a hug. Next time, try for a massage… Maybe I'll let you in."

She blushed bright red as he winked at her.

And an instant later the itch was back, only this time it felt more like claws digging into his shields and running down them like nails on a chalkboard.

Yikes, that's some power right there, Xander thought idly as he examined the mental assault he was under.

He didn't think that she was actually intending to attack him, from her body language she was pissed off but holding back, a lot like Buffy might when he pushed her buttons. For all that, however, her power… it had to be her power, after all… was vicious and pissed off.

"Potent," He said aloud, nodding as he walked around the girl, examining her briefly before glancing aside to see others pulling instinctively away from her, terror in their expressions. "And you're broadcasting. Impressive power."

In an instant it was gone, and the young superhero was looking embarrassed and guilty.

"Damn power," She muttered under her breath, "I'm sorry, it got away from me."

Xander winced, shaking his head, "No control?"

"Some, but it acts out if I lose my temper or just get emotional," Glory Girl said. "It sucks."

"I can imagine," Xander said.

And he could. There was a reason why children needed proper training to handle their magical power, especially as they got older. Emotional magic was dangerous at the best of times, and could be utterly lethal with shockingly little intent if an untrained witch or wizard lost emotional control.

"What control methods do you practice?" He asked idly, more curious than anything.

She looked at him, confused, "Control methods?"

The complete lack of any hint of understanding in her voice made Xander want to swear.

"Seriously?" Was all said aloud.

"I don't know what you're talking about," She objected, looking confused.

"You seriously don't do training in how to control your powers?"

"Of course we do," Glory Girl rolled her eyes. "We do all kinds of power testing after we trigger, learning the limits, but powers aren't something you just grind at until you get better."

"They're… not?"

"No. Most capes have pretty much instinctive control over their powers and what they can do almost from the moment they trigger. They do learn more about them as they go along, but powers don't just change because you work out," Glory Girl scoffed. "There's decades of research proving that."

This is a very strange world, Xander thought, making a mental note to look into those claims for himself.

"Very curious," He said softly. "This is a strange world indeed."

Glory Girl shot him a look, "What was that?"

"Nothing," Xander said, head turning sharply as he felt… something along the edge of his legilimency range. "Hang on a sec, would you?"

Glory Girl frowned, about to ask him why, then she heard a scream from down the street and spotted a grungy looking man bolting in their direction while someone screamed at his back.

"Mugger," She muttered, lifting into the air. "I've got this."

"No need," Xander said, dropping his wand into his hand and flicking it casually.

A red bolt lanced out from it, curving through the air to miss a couple gawkers who'd stumbled into his direct line of sight, and struck the mugger dead on in the chest. He just stopped running and collapsed, his momentum carrying him forward to the ground where he hit in a painful looking crumple.

Glory Girl stared.

"You didn't… kill him did you?" She asked.

"Just a stunner," Xander said, walking toward the fallen man. "Don't suppose this guy is that Empire AT-AT guy?"

She blinked, following him, "What? I mean, no, I doubt it. Looks more like a Merchant. And it's Empire Eighty Eight, not whatever it is you just said."

"You call em what you want, I'll do the same," He shrugged as he got to the man.

Kicking him over onto his back, Xander revealed the stolen bag along with a filthy looking knife that he booted casually away.

"Accio weapons," He said with a gesture, pulling another two blades, a rusted looking revolver, and what looked like an old, and probably rotting, blackjack.

A gesture sent them to ons side in a pile as he heard Glory Girl on the radio or phone or whatever she was using again.

"Vista, Glory Girl. Yeah, Mugger on the Boardwalk, mind sending the cops. No, just me and Magus, the mugger looks like a Merchant but not one of their capes. Thanks."

She disconnected and turned back to Xander, "Magus, the police will be by shortly. How long will he be out?"

"Few minutes, less than half an hour with how I hit him," Xander shrugged, eyes on a puffing woman running up to them. "Your bag, Ma'am?"

"Y… yes," The woman gasped, bending over and breathing deeply as she looked to Glory Girl, "thank you so much."

"Don't look at me, I was going to beat him purple," Glory Girl grinned, "Magus here put him down before I could, though."

"Magus…?" The woman looked over to Xander, who just smiled and waved. "No mask?"

"And cover up this face? Perish the thought," Xander told her, hand over his heart.

Glory Girl snorted, but only after turning purple trying not to, and the woman laughed a little more easily, though she still shot him confused looks.

"The police will be here shortly, Ma'am," Glory Girl said, glaring at Xander from the corner of her eye, "would you mind waiting so you can give a statement?"

"Of course," She nodded in understanding before glaring down at the man on the ground, "Anything to get him off the streets for a little while at least."

"He might wind up in the lockup for a decent amount of time," Glory Girl said with an annoyed shrug, "Merchants don't have much pull, and I doubt any of them will care enough to break him out."

"Hmmm…" Xander flicked his wand at the pile of weapons curiously, "revelio."

The woman and Glory Girl fell back a step as the weapons began to glow different colors.

"What are you doing?" Glory Girl asked.

"Just checking something," Xander said. "The knife has blood on it. Human… and… revelio… not his. That gun doesn't look like it can fire, but the blackjack… yeah, blood and bits of skull bone and I do believe some brain matter."

"Oh ew!" Glory Girl reacted before thinking, taking a step back, then frowned before stepping in again, "You think he's killed someone?"

"I think the cops should do lab tests on the knife and blackjack," Xander replied. "Might be able to close a couple cold cases."

She nodded grimly, "I'll let them know. They'll want a statement from you too…"

"I can hang around," Xander shrugged.

"good."