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).

The Rig.

Emily hoped that something really bad hadn't happened the night before, something that seemed likely when she found Miss Militia waiting for her arrival that morning. The only thing that gave her any hope was the fact that she hadn't been woken up, which normally should happen for any A rank or higher emergency.

"What happened?" She grumbled out, nodding to her office as she walked past the costumed hero.

Militia got the hint, of course, and fell into step with her as they made their way through the halls.

"Magus pulled a girl out of school locker last night," Miss Militia said.

Emily blinked, as that didn't sound like an issue worth waiting for her to arrive, "And what did he do for his next trick? Rescue a cat from a tree?"

"The locker was filled with biohazard material and she'd been locked in it since first session yesterday morning."

The dry delivery actually staggered Emily as she stopped and turned to stair.

"All day?" She asked, getting a nod. "packed with biohazardous material?"

"Rotting used tampons, feces covered toilet paper, various other things not yet identified," Miss militia confirmed.

"Was school… cancelled yesterday for some reason?" Emily demanded, trying to figure out how this was actually possible.

Miss Militia just shook her head.

"And no one let her out? All DAY?" Piggot's temper was rapidly resulting in a blood boil and visibly rising blood pressure.

"That is consistent with her statement and the police investigation, yes."

"What school?" Emily demanded, her voice losing all inflection as her rising temper just flatlined in an instant.

"Winslow."

"Of course it would be," She grumbled. At least this insanity didn't happen at Arcadia, where most of the Wards were. "Get Shadow Stalker in, I want to know what she knows."

"She'll be in school now," Miss Militia said. "Can't pull her out without a reason."

Emily grumbled, but nodded, "Fine. Pick her up after school, bring her straight here. Who's the principal at Winslow?"

"Blackwell, Ma'am."

"Fine. Start with her. In my office, in an hour. No excuses."

"I'll make the call."

"Did anything else happen last night?" Emily asked with some trepidation, sensing that Miss Militia wasn't done.

"I spoke with Magus," Militia confirmed. "I can second Assault's opinion of the young man. Talented, cheerful, competent… and, possibly a Tinker."

That caused Emily to pause, "A tink… of course, that would explain the power range, wouldn't it?"

"Possibly, though he defines himself as an Artificer," Miss Militia said with a slight smile.

"Of course he does," Emily sighed. "We'll add that to the threat assessment, but no recruiting attempts even so. Not until we have a better psych evaluation and thinker support."

"Understood, however I took a little initiative…"

Emily shot Militia a side eye as they arrived at her office an she let them both in, walking around to take a seat behind her desk.

"Do I want to know?" She asked archly.

"Nothing crazy," Miss Militia promised with that damnable eye crinkle smile of hers. "I merely offered some minor material support if he wanted to come in for power testing."

Emily stared.

"And he accepted?" She finally blurted, honestly shocked.

Miss Militia tipped her head, "To be precise, after pointing out that he was well aware of his own powers, he said that he'd be wiling to show us a bit of what he can do, if we really wanted him to."

"Lovely," Emily sighed. "Well better than nothing, I suppose. What did you offer?"

"Some materials he needed to connect his communications device to the cell network," Miss Militia replied.

"That's it?" Emily was surprised. "No weapon? Exotic power reactor? Some other insanely dangerous project? Just a communications link?"

"That's all."

"Huh. There is something off about this one."

Xander had once again spent the night, what remained of it, out on the old tanker that was blocking the mouth of the bay. A few wards setup around the perimeter had given him some measure of comfort, and he added a few more splashes of comfort to the place, including tearing out an old Captain's chair from the bridge and moving it to a place that sat overlooking the sea, and currently the sunrise, to the East.

He lounged there, thinking on the events of the previous night.

Taylor had certainly shown signs of accidental magic, but the sheer power of that first burst that took him out of the sky both concerned and intrigued him.

That was more than I would expect from any magical child, it was almost on par with a directed assault rather than an undirected magical outburst.

There were differences, though, and he could recognize the lack of intent in the burst that clearly defined it as undirected.

Still… there was something in it…

He sank into his occlumency skill, the real world wavering away as Xander immersed himself into the mental one.

Xander easily located the traces of obliviation that had removed memories of the event from his mind, his defenses had managed to cut it off before it had gone on to fully remove even the traces of the obliviation itself. That left him knowing that something had been taken from him, but not what it was exactly.

Memory removal was a tricky thing, though, and he knew from experience that it was generally impossible to fully remove memories… however, the sooner you got to it, the easier that it would be to accomplish, and this removal had been accomplished almost immediately after the experience.

Obliviators could only wish to get to witnesses this fast…

Frustrated, he found that while there were traces to be followed, they weren't much.

Sighing as he came out of the meditation trance, Xander stretched out on the chair as he considered his options. Full recovery would appear to be impossible, but with time he expected that he'd be able to get at least partial recovery of the memories in question.

The really interesting thing was what hadn't been erased, however.

It wasn't undirected magic after all.

What he'd assumed to be accidental magic on the part of Taylor had turned out to have two components. The emotional burst of accidental magic that he'd detected… and another one pushing the first, but stripped of the emotional content completely.

He'd never seen that before… or, nearly so. His own wands and some of his gear stripped emotional content from magic, which was one of the things that made him such a threat to the Magical forces he'd faced in the wars back home. Someone armed with his gear could strike from the shadows and fade away, leaving no trace that could be matched to a magical signature.

If he'd wanted to be an Assassin, he'd have been the terror of the Magical Nations.

More a terror than I am already, at least, Xander thought with a mental and physical smirk.

The stripping of emotional content indicated an artificer at play, he decided. Someone powerful, though, because they were clearly doing things on a level he'd rarely encountered… and only in upper power level universes.

That matched with what Mxyzptlik had said, though.

We have a major player in the area, someone who could easily fit in with any of the upper powered universes… but not a Pantheon. The Gods, or HellGods, would never strip their magic like this. Their egos wouldn't allow it.

Pulling all emotional content from the magic like this essentially anonymized the source. Gods depended too deeply on worship, on their every action screaming I Did This!

So… not a Pantheon. But what the hell does that leave?

Unfortunately, he wasn't likely to figure it out anytime soon, so Xander reluctantly set that aside as he got to his feet and debated his next actions.

He would be staying close to Brockton Bay for a while, that was now a given. Even if he could leave and head home, that wouldn't be happening. He'd accepted Mr Hebert's gratitude and sealed the Life Debt between them, albeit reluctantly. If the man had only accepted his assurances… however, the man was one with both latent magic and a strong sense of personal honor.

Most believed that a life debt was a one way obligation. The person who had been saved owed the savior.

That really wasn't how it worked.

In many ways, by stepping in, Xander had taken responsibility for the life he'd saved. Certainly, the Heberts now owed him a debt… but he too was bound. Everything Taylor did from this point forth was on his balance sheet.

With that debt sealed, Xander was going to have to hang around and make sure that she had some guidance with the new abilities she'd likely acquired. At least enough to ensure that anything she did was because she chose to do it and not because she was so untrained as to not have any choices.

Never have had an apprentice before, he thought. Might be fun.

The Rig.

Emily Piggot was fuming, what she'd learned about the issues at Winslow were beyond the pale… though, honestly, she was so inured to the depths of depravity people could sink to that it only just tipped the needle in her case. That, of course, was no small feat given how much it took to do just that these days. It wasn't enough to infuriate her, however.

No, what was pushing her over the edge was the sheer level of incompetence that the Principle of the school had apparently showed over the last few years. Well, that and the fact that as best she could tell from all the available evidence, it wasn't her jurisdiction.

She sighed and flipped the folder closed, looking up at Miss Militia who had sat in on the meeting with Principle Blackwell.

"As disgusting as this is, I'm not seeing any hint of a Parahuman involvement beyond Magus' rescue last night," She grumbled.

"I have to reluctantly agree," Hannah replied wearily.

For a woman who didn't sleep any longer, thanks to her power, the fact that Emily could see the weariness in her spoke volumes.

"As much as I would like to lead the charge to bring that… woman… down myself," Emily sighed, "It's not our jurisdiction. I'm going to have to flip it back over to the BBPD."

Hannah nodded in agreement, "I believe we can be reasonably certain that they'll give it its due attention."

Emily snorted in somewhat dark amusement.

A young white girl abused to that degree, blown up now to the level of local news? It was unlikely it would be covered up, that was true. The Empire alone would likely ensure that, they didn't even need to pin it on any given minority. As long as there was no evidence to the contrary, they would make up the story they wanted and run with it.

Well, it was now out of her hands, for better or worse. She flipped the folder open again, signed off on returning the case to the jurisdiction of the BBPD and then let it fall shut once more. With that action she dropped the file into the outbox and looked over to the second in command of the local Protectorate.

"What's next?"

"Hellhound raided a dogfight last night," Hannah said.

"Casualties?"

"Injuries among the audience were light, two men we believe to be dog trainers were hurt pretty badly."

Piggot snorted.

Trainers. That was a polite way of saying abusive fucks.

She just nodded, though. "Deaths?"

"None we know of."

"File it, forget it." She ordered.

"Yes Ma'am."

Hannah dropped that file into a pile without looking twice at it. It would be on Hellhounds record, if she were brought in, but they wouldn't bother adding any priority to her capture over it.

"Anything else?"

"No, it was a quiet night," Hannah said.

Emily laughed sharply, "Only for Brockton Bay. Two Parahuman events, albeit it one being a straightforward rescue, would be headline news in most cities."

Hannah nodded, knowing that was true.

"I'll order our Agents to a higher state of alert," Emily decided. "The Empire will certainly be looking to save face if Hellhound blackened their eyes last night. The incident at Winslow may give them the excuse to distract people, we'll have to be ready."

"I'll pass it along to the Protectorate," Hannah said. "We'll step up patrols, try to keep things quiet."

"Except for the wards," Emily warned, "Restrict them to secure patrols, well away from Empire territory."

"Of course."

Emily sighed, "Hopefully this won't trigger the gang war we've been expecting."

Hannah shrugged, "It doesn't directly involve the ABB, so we can probably keep it from exploding into all out war in the streets. Hellhound may be a pain for the Empire, or Hookwolf at least, but she isn't going to be a rallying point for the rest."

Emily nodded, but was grim, "No, but Hebert might be if they really want to push it. Well, that side of things is up to the police now."

This damn city.

Xander flew easily over the city, eyes scanning the population below with both his eyeballs and his enhancement glasses. The city had seen better days, to be sure, enough of the damage he was seeing having clearly been the results of incidents years in the past. Around the docks was the worst, while it was almost respectable around the commercial core.

There was no sign of the big box stores that he'd come to be accustomed to back home and in both of the other universes he'd recently visited. The lack of global infrastructure would explain that, of course. No chance of running anything like S-Mart if you couldn't count on a global logistics, that was for sure.

The local Parahumans with mover related powers might offset some of that, but there was no chance in hell that they'd be able to make up for the loss of millions of tons of daily shipping.

That wasn't really his concern at the moment, though.

He dropped from the sky in front of the hospital, ignoring more of the looks aimed his way, and nodding politely to the officer who was eyeing him cautiously.

"Hello officer, just dropping in to check on the patient I brought in last night," Xander said easily.

The officer relaxed marginally, his hand moving away from his pistol. "Magus, right?"

"That's right, no issues with me visiting?"

"Just no powers in the hospital if you can," The officer quirked a smile at him.

Xander snorted, "No worries. My powers don't play well with electronics if I'm not being very careful. Unless lives are at risk, I won't do squat."

"Thank you, Sir," The Officer said, nodding slightly as he stepped back and Xander passed him.

He walked up to the front desk, smiling affably at the nurse who was barely paying any attention to him as she worked. He waited until she had a moment, then just asked whether Taylor Hebert was available for visitors. He got a confirmation and directions to the room, with a number to go with it this time.

That made things easier, since he wasn't sure he could remember how to get there. The night before he'd moved in quite a rush, after all.

At the door he paused and knocked softly.

There was a pause before a soft, strained voice responded.

"Come in."

Taylor looked up as the door opened, her eyes widened as she recognized the Cape from the night before as he stepped in. He glanced her over briefly before looking over to her father and smiling pleasantly.

"Ah, Mr Hebert, a pleasure to see you again."

"Um, yes of course… Mr Magus?"

"Just call me Xander," The Cape, Magus, said cheerfully. "I'm not one to stand on formalities. Your local cape culture is quaint and amusing, but I'm really not into it."

Her Dad looked confused, but nodded affably, "Of course, well… Xander. Uh, what brings you by, if I might ask?"

"Of course, really I just stopped by to check up on Taylor here," Xander said casually as he slipped a… stick? Into his hand from… somewhere? "May I?"

Her Dad looked confused as the Cape gestured to his stick as though asking permission for… what?

"Uh… sure, I guess?"

Xander instantly flicked his wand out, carefully putting muffliato charms on every surface of the room.

"There, we'll be secure now," He said, satisfied, as he slipped his wand away.

"Secure?" Taylor blurted, eyes wide.

"From any eavesdropping, whether electronic or even someone listening in at the door," Xander told her. "Just a simple privacy charm, don't worry it's not harmful."

"Why did you feel the need for that?" Danny asked sternly, rising from his seat.

"Just looking to protect Taylor here," Xander said with a nod to the bed ridden girl.

"M… me?" She squeaked, eyes somehow widening more.

"You remember what happened last night?"

"In the Locker? No, she doesn't," Danny said bluntly.

Xander just looked at Taylor.

"You mean here," She said, "When I woke up."

He nodded.

"I won't tell anyone!" She blurted, panicking. "I swear, I won't tell anyone! Please don't hurt…"

Danny, upon hearing his daughter's panicked voice, didn't even pause to think. He just charged, intent on removing the threat even as Taylor threw out her hands.

Xander felt the magic surge building and stepped into Danny's charge, grabbing him and twisting around as the burst of magic erupted from Taylor right toward them both.

"Protego!"

The shimmering shield snapped into place just in time to stop the blast a few inches from Danny and Xander.

"Easy now," Xander said warningly, speaking to both of them. "This isn't about that. I'm not here to hurt you, Taylor. If I wanted to do that, I would have handled it last night."

Taylor was barely listening, if she heard him at all. Instead, she was staring in shock at her hands.

"I… how?"

"Taylor?"

Xander rose back up, helping Danny to his feet. The balding man pulled away, eyeing Xander distrustfully but looked more toward his daughter.

"Taylor, are you… ok?"

"She's fine," Xander answered. "Just a panic attack, though I honestly don't know what set it off. I didn't do anything bad last night…?"

She whispered something he couldn't quite pick out.

"Huh?" Xander cocked his head, "Sorry didn't catch that?"

"You need to speak up, little owl," Danny said, torn between being concerned about the Cape and both amused and worried by his daughter's hesitance.

"He mastered people, Dad."

Danny shot Xander a look, taking an involuntary step back.

"Mastered?" Xander asked, frowning before his expression cleared, "Ah. Power classification, yes I read about those. Technically, I suppose that's true. It was very mild though, just to protect you from having your powers revealed."

"Her… powers?"

Xander smiled ruefully at Danny, "Magic and electronics don't always play well together. It wasn't a short that blew out the machine last night, it was Taylor."

"Magic."

"Call it whatever you like," Xander shrugged, now well familiarized with the locals' reaction to the word magic. "You have powers, and like I said, local cape culture is not something I care about, but you might, so I covered your little accident. That's the good news."

Danny stiffened, "What's the bad?"

"She needs training, or it'll keep happening." Xander said heavily. "Not sure how it happened, I've not yet seen anyone else with powers like mine locally… but I know the signs. Where I'm from, a school would have snapped her up when she turned eleven, just to ensure that she wasn't a threat to people around her."

"A… threat?"

"It's not that big a deal, but until you're trained up a bit, your power will act to protect you. That's not a bad thing, but it can't always tell a real threat from just a scare," Xander explained. "A little training will teach you how to channel it better."

"I… I'm a Cape?" Taylor blinked uncertainly.

"Eh," Xander waggled his hand. "You have powers. Technically, by local culture I think that makes you a Parahuman. You're not a Cape until you put underwear on the outside of your clothes and go out looking for criminals to beat up."

Taylor shot him a wide eyed look that was a hilarious mixture of horror and censure, while Danny choked as he tried to keep from laughing.

"Dad!"

"Sorry, Little Owl," Danny told her. "Your mother once explained the difference pretty close to that."

She sighed, looking much put upon.

"How does she get this… training?" Danny asked growing serious again. "You mentioned a school? I've never heard of a Parahuman school, unless you mean one of the facilities for people with out of control powers… if that's what you mean…"

His fist was coming up slowly, clenched tight until the skin around the knuckles was bone white.

"Don't know about any of those," Xander waved him off casually. "And no, my schools are… too far away to be an option. If I'm right about her powers, which we'll test out to be sure, I'll provide training as well as whatever supplies she needs."

Danny glared at him, eyes narrowed, "She is my daughter, Mr Magus. I don't need charity, and offers like that always have strings."

"My culture is quite firm on certain matters, Mr Hebert," Xander said. "An Apprentice is the responsibility of the Master. This is not charity, nor is it anything inappropriate if that's your concern. It's just practical. Training someone in my powers means that everything they do with it, is on my ledger, so to speak."

"I… don't know about this."

"You can think about it, but seriously," Xander said earnestly. "The first time she panics in public, it's not going to go well."

Danny blanched white, and Taylor had wide eyes and a look of concern on her face.

"Besides, with the way this world is going, she's going to want the power backing her up before long," Xander shook his head. "Some of you people are crazy here."

"You keep talking like that…" Taylor said slowly. "Like you're not from here?"

Xander smirked at her, "I do, don't I?"

"Where are you from?"

"Would you believe that you're the first person here to ask that?" He complained. "I mean, I'm not being subtle about it or anything."

Danny tensed, "Earth… Aleph?"

"Read about that, but no. Quite a bit farther out," Xander said. "We don't use your naming convention. Most universes have their own, once they discover alternate realities. Most call themselves from variation of Earth Prime or whatever… Did Aleph discover you guys? I was wondering how you got saddled with the name Bet?"

Danny shrugged, slightly dazed, "I don't know."

"Eh, maybe I'll find out later. Not that it's the weirdest thing I've run into," Xander admitted. "Last universe I was in called themselves Earth 616. I still haven't got a clue where they came up with that number."

"But you're… from an alternate Earth? Seriously?" Taylor asked, shocked. "And we have similar powers?"

"Yeah, that one is throwing me too," Xander admitted with a frown. "I do not know how that happened. How I found you… you threw out a surge of magical energy last night, knocked me right out of the sky… but there was something… inhuman mixed in too. Never felt anything like it."

Danny bristled, "If you're accusing my daughter of…"

Xander just shook his head, waving off the concern, "If anything I'm more worried about her. I don't know where Parahuman powers come from, but some of the signs I've seen are similar to Contracted powers… and that's… concerning."

"Contracted?" Taylor asked, confused.

Danny just looked scornful, "Don't try to sell me that bullshit about Parahumans being in league with the devil or demons or whatever…"

"No, no, nothing like that," Xander said. "If it were that, I'd have already spotted it. Infernal contracts are not hard to spot once you start looking for them. Plus, no one can be forced into an Infernal Contract… you have to sign off your soul willingly and while they can trick you, they can't put you under duress. No, this is… more of a Planar thing. I don't know for sure, as I said, I just know that whatever the source… it's inhuman, powerful, and…"

Xander frowned, shaking his head.

"And?" Taylor prompted, curious.

Xander sighed, "And… kinda stupid… maybe? I don't know how to describe it. The feeling was… I don't know, it's just strange. I don't know enough to say yet."

His phone beeped, causing him to draw it out and flick through the notifications.

"Ah, the PRT has put together the samples I asked for so they could do their little testing procedures," He said before looking back to them. "Think about what I said, I'll check in with you later. Taylor, try to remain calm. No panic attacks, alright?"

She nodded, looking chagrined.

Xander looked at Danny firmly, handing him a card. "Here, my number's on it. If anything happens, call me immediately. Sometimes, putting things back to rights after accidental magical outbursts can be time sensitive. Don't hesitate."

Danny took the card, looking like it might bite him, but nodded after a moment.

"Alright, get better, Taylor… I'll see you both later." He said, waving as he left.