Happy One Year to this fic!


Warning: Unreliable Narrator. Shadow Stalker's really fucked up.

So, for those who haven't quite picked up on things: Amy Dallon is no longer into Vicky. As far as this story is concerned, that's an unintended interaction between Fragile One yelling "love me" at everyone and Shaper keyboard smashing in Amy's brainmeats to get her to "produce [DATA], dammit!" and got cleared out once Shaper died and Amy started becoming a god.

Furthermore, I have no plans for Vicky/Taylor/Amy, since I'm really just dipping my toe in the waters of writing romance and I don't feel comfortable enough with it to delve into polyamory yet, not to mention the issues I have with writing Vicky/Amy in a world where they were raised as sisters. I might write a oneshot in an AU where that's not the case, but as far as it stands I have no plans to indulge this ship. That shouldn't stop anyone who wants to write an omake or their own story, it's just a warning that I have no plans to write it myself.

Also, I'm taking some liberties with Mouse's array of Grab-Bag powers. More at the end.

Anyone who finds the RWBY reference gets an internet cookie! ( :: )


Sophia Hess was not having a particularly good week, she thought as she was brooding on top of the Fortress Construction headquarters (a squat building not far from the Docks).

Firstly, she'd completely failed to track down Volur ever since the damn Simurgh attack. To be completely fair, that wasn't entirely on her, given that no one else had been able to find the woman except for her one stint on the Boardwalk where she took out two Empire capes, easy as breathing, and scared Hookwolf off with his tail between his legs, but it still stung that she'd failed regardless of how much (or how little) personal responsibility she held for the damn situation.

Still, the delay wasn't all bad, since it had given her time to brainstorm some of what they could do to Hebert once she'd swayed Volur to her perspective. Between Volur's impressive firepower (both literal and metaphorical) and her own infiltrative ability, she was sure that they'd be able to have at least a little fun with the bint before they were either caught or finished her off.

Thinking of the worm brought the vindictive high she was feeling down and replaced it with the bitter burn of rage. Somehow, she'd let her persecution complex get away from her and had actually fucking snitched, and more's the pity, she'd actually gotten someone important to buy into that shit.

The lawsuit she was harping on about was bullshit, plain and simple, but damn if it wasn't a pain in the ass that it had forced Sophia to all but abandon her civilian identity, an especially heavy blow after having lost her fellow predator in Emma to the damn police, of all people.

As much as she wanted to rescue her mentee, she couldn't, not given that most police officers carried Tasers and their unfortunate habit of being Empire sympathizers on the side. She'd be dead or worse, captured, before she got to Emma, let alone escaping.

Hopefully, she'd be dealt with soon, either by Sophia or by someone else, someone who had heard the rumors about Glory Girl's "prurient interest" in Hebert and decided to do something about it.

As much as she hated the Empire, she would be willing to mostly forgive them if they ended up being the ones to put Hebert down (mostly being with the caveat that she was going to shoot the one who ended up doing the deed, just a little bit). Even if the girl did have ice powers, so what? It wasn't like a little ice was going to stop Crusader, or Hookwolf, and it sure as shit wouldn't stand up to even just a gangbanger with a gun.

Still, she was feeling the pain from losing Piggy's protection. As much as she hated to admit it, she'd grown to rely on both her new mask, to know where was safe to phase through, and Armsmaster to supply her the tranqs she needed to do quiet takedowns for interrogation, and having to dodge the Protectorate and PRT patrols was a pain in the ass, even if she knew intellectually that it wasn't so much that Piggy had sent them to hunt her as the forced disavowal that that damn judge had shoved down her throat meant she was fair game again, and she couldn't afford to go away again until after she'd dealt with that damn worm.

"Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in," drawled an almost bored-sounding voice behind her.

Sophia spun, crossbow snapping up even as she cursed the loss of peripheral vision compared to her Wards mask that the older hockey mask she'd been forced to use left her with. Even so, she was more than capable of recognizing the top hat and mask of Trickster, hands clasped behind his back.

"You got five seconds to tell me what the fuck you want with me before I ventilate you, you P. T. Barnum-ass clown," she said, finger already on the finger of her hand crossbow.

"Not me, per se," he replied, "but my current employer would like to see about getting you on his side."

"Who's that?"

"If you don't mind, I'll let him introduce himself." Abruptly, her crossbow was replaced with a tablet computer, showing a black morph suit with a hissing snake on the head.

"Good evening, Shadow Stalker. I won't waste too much time on pleasantries. I am… shall we say, running a false flag operation on behalf of PRT ENE, and was hoping you'd be willing to work with me until such time as we have the opportunity to… shall I say, come in out of the cold and retake our place among the heroes."

That… honestly, it made more sense than it should. Given his relatively quiet presence in the Downtown area (mostly resisting the Empire 88), Coil hadn't really been fingered in any major crimes, and between that and the fact that she'd almost never heard Piggy launch into one of her infamous diatribes against him, nor had she heard of anyone else who had, and she could believe it.

"...Fine. I'm in, but I want two things."

"I will do my best within reason."

"I wanna work with Volur, and I want to have free reign against Taylor Hebert."

"I have operatives seeking out Volur for recruitment as we speak, and as for the second… so long as you ensure that nothing untowards falls back onto my organization, I have no issue with any indiscretions you may indulge in, so long as it is on your off time."

"Great. When do I start?"

"Whenever you feel is proper," said Coil.

"Excellent. In that case, let's talk finding Volur. I've been thinking about reaching out to Quarrel, since they've been seen fighting together, to see if…"


Mina Byron wasn't sure what, exactly, she was expecting from this particular Tuesday, aside from maybe going out for groceries (they were running low on both milk and cereal) and being a general pain in the ass for the Butcher (she knew she couldn't afford to kill him as he'd been trying to do to her, but she could annoy him by fucking with his capes and his weed).

As such, she could be forgiven for her response when motherfucking Revel dropped through an open window in the shitty one-room apartment they were using.

Namely, she nailed her in the head with the closest thing at the time (a rolled up newspaper), which caused an oddly satisfying "bonk" noise that she noticed that her power produced sometimes.

"My apologies for the impropriety," said the probably-Chinese hero, "but I needs must speak with thee."

"Call ahead next time," said Mina, flicking a surgical mask at her face in such a manner that it stuck, loops hooking around her ears as she finally turned to face the other woman. "What the fuck do you want?"

"I have been charged with finding a successor to the mighty Jiutian Xuannü, and you are the superior candidate," she said.

"Who?" asked Mina, tapping her fingers on the knife on her thigh in a not entirely subtle threat.

"The Dark Lady, mistress of war, magic, and life," said Revel. She moved the hand that wasn't holding her lantern in an arcane pattern and a bow- no, a yumi, Mina recognized it from the shape- appeared in said hand.

"That's very- hold on a moment, why the fuck are you using a Japanese weapon as a symbol for a Chinese goddess?" asked Mina, who'd had a relatively intensive education in Asian culture that wasn't just limited to the Japanese of her heritage before she had joined the Teeth from a number of old ladies who had unfortunately not survived the period before Lung's ABB stood to prevent a repeat of Kaiser's initial rampage after inheriting the Empire 88 from his deceased father.

"My role is not to speculate as to the thoughts of the gods, it is only-"

"I asked," said Quarrel, "because if I decide to go along with your… premise, I need to understand the why of things from something as close to the horse's mouth as possible, and you're currently the best I have, unless your goddess is alive and kicking."

"She is not, although Odin's heir might be more appropriate to ask given her role in the pantheon to come, or the Coyote, as despite his… disposition… he is genuinely knowledgeable about the gods." At Mina's glare, Revel continued. "But, had I to offer a guess… I would conjecture that it may be that she knew who her successor would be, and chose this symbol to distill her power into in order to better connect with you."

Mina sighed. "As good an explanation as any, I guess. So, what do I have to do to hook up with this god of yours?" She didn't really buy what Revel was selling, but at this point humoring the hero who could deal appreciable damage to Crawler wasn't particularly onerous, and if push came to shove, she was confident that she could subdue the woman without killing her.

"Merely take hold of your implement and all will be revealed to you." Revel held the yumi out to Mina.

"Fine, twist my arm," sighed the archer, who subsequently reached out and took hold of the weapon.

With no transition whatsoever, Mina abruptly found herself standing atop a structure of worn stone, vaguely resembling a battlement, clad in what looked like Mongolian-style lamellar armor. Off the sides of the structure she could see a forest, and a moment later she recognized the structure as the Great Wall of China.

"Breathtaking, isn't it?" Mina whirled on the voice to see a Chinese woman clad in a red silk dress with various colors of feathers serving as accents.

"I suppose…" Quarrel trailed off.

A long moment of silence, somewhere between contemplative and awkward, passed.

"So, Revel wasn't lying?"

"...Not directly. She did omit a number of things, both from her own ignorance and because she didn't consider it her role to tell you, but a great deal of it is related to the more intuitive aspects of our nature as gods."

Quarrel pressed her lips together. "What are the nonintuitive things I need to know that I can't find out on my own?"

"The golden man, Zion, is an existential threat to the planet. In the absence of external factors, the end of the world would come within the decade, but the fact that we gods are taking an active role in the world once again has disrupted that prediction. You have also been working with another god, since Volur is Odin's heir and likely to be… a leader among you, given what the man is likely to pass down both in power and in domain. And… Death's specter hangs over your city. Someone- or something- deranged, with domain over death, has their eye set on your city. Be wary."

"I have so many questions," said Mina.

"We have not the time for them. If Odin's heir doesn't know the answers already, they will be able to learn and share them with you."

"I suppose that's fair. What now?"

"Now? Now you become a god. My apologies, this is the… expedited version, and speed comes with pain in these things."

Mina's response was cut off by her entire body seizing up in agony as a sensation not unlike what she imagined being electrocuted while being dipped in lava crawled up her legs.

She wasn't sure how long it took before the pain passed and left her back in the run-down apartment she was sharing with Vista, still holding the yumi, with Revel's hand retreating from the weapon.

She felt… well, setting aside the lingering ache, she felt really good, to the point where she'd be concerned if she didn't know that it wasn't a result of Spree spiking the punch with morphine again.

She also felt… something, she wasn't sure what, and given what Jiutian Xuannü was known for, she thought it was a good idea to save the testing for somewhere isolated and… private.

"Was there anything else you were here for, or did you just want to drop an existential crisis on my ass and leave without leaving cab fare on the dresser?"

"The inso- ahem. No, that was all," said Revel.

"In that case, have a nice day." Mina opened the door, and Revel stalked out, quite obviously irritated at her needling.

She let the door swing shut, then jumped at Missy's call of "Mina? Who was that?"

Mina sighed. She had a decent amount of fast talking to do about why she hadn't gotten Missy an autograph from one of her favorite Protectorate heroes, after all.


"Are you ready to return to your fight?" asked Coyote.

"Inasmuch as it can be called a fight, given how we've been harrying them for the past week or so," said Mouse Protector, leaving a mark on the ground off to the side of the highway just in case.

Over the past week, between the two of them, they'd managed to kill Mannequin, Shatterbird, Winter, Hatchet Face, and Burnscar, and they'd managed to lure Crawler into a trap to the point where his adaptation had forced him to remain immobile. They'd figure something out for him later, but for now, they had the golden opportunity with only three members left (albeit the most dangerous three).

"Just remember, there can be no-"

"No victory in strength, I remember," said Mouse Protector, rolling her eyes. "You've only said it about a dozen times so far this week."

"It bears repeating," said Coyote. "I'll be ready to step in if you need it," he continued.

"Hopefully I won't need it," Mouse replied.

"Hope in one hand, spit in the other," said the ancient quadruped. "Go on, get going."

"Aye aye, cap'n!" She offered him a jaunty salute with her sword (not blunted, for once), and vanished with her signature squeaking noise.

She reappeared on top of the school bus that the three more well-known members of the Nine were riding in, then (with a little help from her clustermate's power heating up her sword) stabbed the blade straight down and through the thin sheet metal of the bus, spinning in a circle rapidly enough to carve a hole big enouth drop down into the main compartment, the cutout rapidly flaking away into nothingness as she stood and hefted her no-longer-glowing sword.

"Halt, in the name of all that is cheesy and delicious!" she cried, brandishing the no-longer-glowing blade at the three capes as she left a mark on the floor.

"You again?" asked Jack Slash, looking up at Mouse through the rearview mirror.

"Indeed, evildoer! I have come to stop your reign of terror once and for all!"

Despite her cheesy lines and focus on Jack Slash, she was acutely aware of the position of both Bonesaw and the Siberian, since the power that enhanced her coordination and proprioception also allowed her to sort of hook herself into the proprioceptive senses of people around her.

As such, when the monochromatic murderer reached out for her, she knew exactly where the deadly fingers were, and she twisted around the reaching arm to lay her finger on the Siberian's nose with a "Boop!"

As she did so, she pushed her main power, leaving a mark on both the Siberian and the asshole in the pedo-van following them. That done, she winked, and with a squeaked "Be right back, villain and villainesses!", she vanished in a squeak, reappearing kneeling on William Manton's upper legs.

Given that the man's view out his windshield was abruptly obscured by a cramped six and a half feet of armored Mover, which crashed onto his unprepared legs, he could be forgiven for his reaction being the mistake of jerking the wheel off the road.

Mouse Protector felt as the mark she had left on the Siberian disintegrated with the projection. She likewise, through her extended proprioception, felt the Siberian materialize in the passenger seat of the van, clawed nails already aimed for her head.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), the ear-marked hilt of Mouse's sword was already punching through Manton's eye, and the Siberian vanished before its fingers got within a foot of her head.

She squeaked back to the bus before the van could crash properly, not bothering to wipe the gore off her sword's hilt. Mentally, she checked the cooldown on the entropic side of her empowerment ability and winced when she realized she'd need to stall for almost twenty seconds in order to use it again. On one hand, it was very useful for a dynamic entry, but on the other she needed it to make sure Bonesaw didn't leave any nasty surprises behind.

So, she did what she did best: run her mouth. "Sorry about that, you just had this old man in a white van following you and I thought I should deal with him before he became a problem, you know? Wouldn't want to run the risk of seeing what he wants with little miss over here," she said, jerking her chin to indicate Bonesaw.

Jack Slash narrowed his eyes at her. "What do you mean, old man in a white van?"

"Well, you know, the kind of man who goes around offering unsuspecting children candy if they just come with him to his unmarked white van. I must say, I prefer cheese, but apparently it works for some people. I could never understand the appeal of all that sugary stuff, blech. Where was I?"

"Unmarked white van," chirped Bonesaw.

"Right. Unmarked white van." She felt as the cooldown ticked down to nothing, but decided to wait to take action all at once. "Well, after I saw that, I just had to take action, to protect all the little mice out there. So, I, ah… shall I say, stopped the van." She stroked the chin of her helmet in a pensive manner, eyes darting out the windshield to make sure she got the timing right. "It's weird, though. Why in the world would the Siberian try to interfere with that?"

In the split second where both capes were surprised by the implications of that, Mouse struck.

Her left hand charged a throwing dagger with lightning, and she hurled it towards the front of the bus in such a way to slam through the brake lines and also jolt the bus' steering just enough to take it off the road. Her other hand heated her sword up again, and in one long stride, she was close enough to cleave through Bonesaw's head in one firm downward swing, leaving the body to flake away in cinders and ashes.

Then, she teleported back to her mark near Coyote just in time to watch as the bus, with all the momentum of the highway speeds it was traveling at.

She didn't relax until she was close enough to the wreckage to both see Jack Slash's corpse (with his head pulped by a branch) and make sure that the two members of the Nine were gone from her proprioception.

The Slaughterhouse Nine were dead.


Victoria Dallon was not, as some people would accuse her, a person who was overly focused on fashion.

Don't get her wrong, she knew her way around fashion better than your average person, at least in her oh-so-humble estimation.

Still, it wasn't for fashion's sake.

No, she'd been living with Carol Dallon for too long to not learn from the woman's dedication to presentation, which was compounded by both the way that Carol had taught her to act ("with behavior befitting a hero- someone is always watching after all" echoed in her head for the thousandth time) and also the way that her power drew attention to her while also leaving people's perceptions theirs enough to pick out every flaw of hers.

So, presentation.

It was almost a defense mechanism, in a way, which was sad given how much she had seen fashion as a way to unwind from the pressure of being the kid of a known hero family before her Trigger.

Even if she wasn't as enthusiastic about dressing up in general anymore, the first date she was having with Taylor was an exception. Much like she had before her first date with Dean, she went a little higher end than her usual, with a burgundy asymmetrical skirt (longer in the back, with pockets) and leggings, a decent shirt under her favorite pale green sweater, and a pinkish-reddish scarf that Aunt Jess had knitted for her back in 2006.

"How do I look?" she asked Amy (since, even if her mother or father were in town instead of… whatever weird publicity event they had decided to attend in Boston with Aunt Sarah and Uncle Neil, she wouldn't have trusted their judgment on fashion, given that her mother hadn't worn anything vaguely in the same ballpark that she was thinking since before the turn of the century and even before his deterioration, her father hadn't ever had an eye for fashion).

"It looks like a decent 'going out to eat' outfit," she replied, looking up from her book only briefly. "Have fun, don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"No promises," said Vicky, strolling out the door with butterflies in her stomach.

Fortunately, the drive over to Taylor's house gave her enough time to settle her own nerves before she could make too much of a fool of herself by remembering that, regardless of how competent Taylor was in a fight, she was still a teenage girl, not unlike Victoria herself.

"Have her back by ten!" were her father's parting words as Taylor walked out in a cream-colored blouse and black slacks.

Taylor's first words as she got into the car were "Did you hear that Mouse Protector called in the bounty on the entire Slaughterhouse Nine?"

Vicky blinked. "What the fuck?"

"Yeah, no, she went to PRT Detroit with video footage of her killing all of them except for Crawler, and then grabbed Horizon to blow him up and split his bounty." Taylor frowned. "Legend went on TV at two PM to announce it, it was great. You really didn't hear about it? I thought you finished school at lunch."

"I mean, on one hand, yes, but on the other hand I spent my afternoon on patrol and getting ready for our date." Vicky shrugged, pulling away from the Hebert house.

The drive to the restaurant (a decent Italian place that Clockblocker, of all people, had recommended to her as a solid date spot back when she was with Dean) was filled with light conversation mostly focused on Mouse Protector and her exploits, and Victoria found herself falling into a comfortable banter with Taylor not long before arriving.

"Look," said Vicky, standing up from inside the cramped sedan, "I don't know what to tell you except that the Tom and Jerry crossover with Mouse Protector's House of Mouse was the single best crossover in recent history!"

"Lies and slander," Taylor shot back. "The Looney Tunes crossover was clearly superior, and anyone who can't acknowledge that needs to go back and rewatch the episode."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," said Victoria flippantly. "I forgive you for your cinematic sin."

"How gracious of you," replied Taylor, sarcasm dripping off the words in such quantity it threatened to outmatch Amy's past feats of speechcraft.

The conversation stopped for a time as the potential couple were seated at a relatively isolated table for two and perused the menus.

Once the waiter was gone, Vicky leaned in. "So," she asked, "how are you doing with the lawsuit handled and all?"

"Okay, I guess?" Taylor shrugged. "I'm still waiting on a transfer to some other school, so I'm mostly working on stuff for my side job, but I'm mostly keeping busy."

"Don't keep too busy," said Vicky. "Speaking of, thanks for what you said to Amy last week. I think it really helped her, and she's been slowing down her hours at the hospital for once."

Taylor frowned. "What do you mean?"

"She's been working herself to burnout since she got her power, pretty much," replied Vicky. "Mom's had something to do with it, I think, but given her power I think she's developed a savior complex."

"I noticed that, based on how much time she spends in the hospital." Taylor paused. "Not to be rude, but she needs a hobby. Or a girlfriend."

"Hmm… You know, you have a point. Maybe if I can convince Flechette to give it a try…" Vicky trailed off.

The two incognito capes set the heavy subjects aside for the rest of dinner in favor of some of the standard "get to know you" things that had been skipped over in favor of cape combat, and when that was exhausted they transitioned to a discussion of literature.

"...not saying that Frankenstein's Monster isn't the victim, I'm just saying that after he got rejected he did some pretty abominable stuff to the people in Victor's life," said Taylor, gesticulating broadly as she led Victoria out of the restaurant.

"And what I'm trying to say is that all of that stems from how Victor made him and interacted with him afterwards," replied Vicky with no small degree of heat in her voice.

"Not getting a girlfriend isn't an acceptable reason to go on a murderous rampage," Taylor said, almost as if explaining something to a six-year-old, "and-"

Taylor's point was interrupted by a blaring alarm from Vicky's pocket, which caused the blonde to pale and she rip the seam of her pocket as she went for her phone.

"Shit," she said, looking up at Taylor. "Amy just hit her panic button."

"Go," said Taylor, flicking a rune at Vicky. "I'll catch up."

"Thanks," said the blonde, immediately pushing off the concrete hard enough that cracks spiderwebbed across the sidewalk, grateful for the speed boost Taylor had given her as she beelined for her house.

After a mere three minutes, she arrived at her house to find the front door caved in, barely paying attention to the man in the top hat pushing a girl in a wheelchair around the corner of the street.

"God damn it," she snarled, zipping upstairs to see Amy's room devastated, almost as if it had been the host of a battle between two Brutes with claws, before turning for her room. They couldn't afford to let this stand, not after the adults of New Wave had insisted on accepting that Kaiser hadn't ordered that street tough to kill Aunt Jess and that the year he had spent in prison was enough punishment.

He had been accepted into the Empire with open arms after that.

Victoria emerged from her room in the white and gold of Glory Girl, with all the righteous fury of the Norse goddess whose power she had inherited pressing out through her aura.

Whoever had decided to kidnap Panacea was about to have the worst night of their life, and possibly their last.


Genesis wasn't sure what to think of the situation she found herself in.

Ever since the Simurgh had torn them through the portal from Earth Aleph, they hadn't ever really had the chance to stop and think about… well, anything, really. First, it was getting out of Madison, then it was trying to find a place in Earth Bet, and somewhere along the way that had bled into the desperate search for a way to undo the changes Noelle's power had done to her body before it killed all of them.

The fact that Cody had been the first of them to have their restraint fail them under the stress was… expected, but him making it over a year before he let his growing disdain for Krouse overwhelm his rational thinking was honestly astounding.

She supposed she couldn't fault Krouse for taking the drastic solution after Cody's clones almost breached containment on Noelle in one of her… moods (she'd thanked her lucky stars that Luke was close enough that he could deal with them before they caused too much damage), even if she felt that letting Accord sell him to the Yangban was a little much.

Still, that didn't make it any easier to bear. The issue with Cody was just one more issue tossed on the pile, of rushed evacuations and abandoned belongings, and it just made her tired.

Now wasn't that ironic. Before… Madison, she'd been a full-on insomniac on top of being a paraplegic, showing up to the gaming club meetings bleary-eyed and strung out on caffeine to prevent her body from giving out on her because half the time she couldn't sleep until three, four in the morning, even if it hadn't always worked. Now, she could sleep any time she wanted, escaping into another body in her dreams, but when she woke up she still felt tired, as if she'd only had a two-hour nap instead of spending ten hours outside her body.

In the privacy of her own mind, she thought her power might have been the issue, but she didn't want to give up the freedom it represented, even for a night.

And now they were crossing another line, something else to weigh on their shoulders, all for the chance to save Noelle.

Normally, everyone knew not to fuck with the healers, even above and beyond the normal rules of decorum for cape conduct. When they'd been in San Diego, they did their best to work around Scapegoat's rules, even shelling out for a healing session with the boy. It didn't work, with the goat-masked Ward collapsing and screaming about stars with tentacles or some such, and only a timely intervention by Krouse prevented his death by Noelle's pissed-off lower half.

And yet they were still kidnapping Panacea for Coil.

She didn't know why their boss wanted the mousy healer, aside from in order to try and use her power to help Noelle, and the selfish part of her that wanted all of this to just be over, damn it won out, so she didn't bother to find out.

"You ready?" asked Kro- Trickster, Trickster in the field, his voice softer than it was for everyone except for Noelle.

"Ready or not," she sighed, "the show goes on regardless."

Trickster laughed bitterly at that. "Yeah, that it does."

He backed away from her slightly, to give her space to use her power, and she closed her eyes.

Using her power was… well, her brain interpreted the information from it in a character creation screen. Sliders for everything, and a whole library of prebuilt models for her to tweak and manifest.

For this, she chose one of the ones she'd used in the past: an eight-foot-tall, winged draconic creature, with enough strength to handle getting through locked doors and a soporific breath potent enough to stun most brutes.

She hit the button in the odd interface that signified doneness, and in a rush of vertigo, she was standing in front of her body, looking down at it.

That was always her least favorite part of using her power: looking at herself like this never failed to rub in how weak she was without her power, weak and tired, emphasized by the serenity she saw on her own sleeping face.

She turned back to Trickster and nodded, then leapt over the house they were sitting behind and the street separating them from their target, landing on the concrete walkway in front of the Dallon residence hard enough to shake the flowerpots on each side of said walkway.

The door didn't last very long against her enhanced strength, and soon enough she was tromping up the stairs to the bedrooms.

She slammed herself bodily into the door to the room they'd been told was Panacea's to see the healer standing ready in the middle of the room, phone flashing red on the dresser behind her.

"You made a mistake," she said, hurling herself forwards with clawed, taloned hands to gouge into Genesis' scaly flesh, exploiting the secret Master's moment of surprise for all it was worth.

Unfortunately for Panacea, the combat instincts baked into this form were more than capable of handling the attack, and two swift blows broke her arms and stunned her long enough for Genesis to activate her soporific breath.

Panacea wobbled, then fell forwards right into Genesis' arms, and as her last words before unconsciousness claimed her, she slurred out "Oh, so that's how you do it."

Genesis scooped up the sleeping hero, then booked it out of the house. As much as she'd love to rely on Coil's assurances that the parents were out of town and Glory Girl was indisposed, she'd been through enough nightmare missions to know that intel wasn't always trustworthy, and she didn't want to tally too long.

That turned out to be the right choice, as not long after she rounded the corner she saw Glory Girl flash through the air towards her house.

She didn't rush, per se, but she definitely was a little hastier than before in getting to the transport Coil had provided them.

That didn't spell the end of the mission- Panacea had stirred multiple times on the twenty-minute drive back to Coil's base, requiring a fresh dose of her sleep gas every time (and a carefully moderated one, to avoid catching the rest of the denizens of the car in it) to keep her out for the count.

They returned to Coil's base only seconds behind a second van, out of which spilled Shadow Stalker carrying a reedy man in navy blue pajamas with a receding hairline over her shoulder.

The Breaker rubbed her the wrong way- she'd heard some rumors that she was on the run after a particularly inventive form of attempted murder, and was only working with Coil for his contacts in the PRT to get her crime swept under the rug, and she was arrogant and dismissive of anyone she didn't see as "strong".

Still, she'd work with her if Coil said so, for Noelle's sake if nothing else.

Fortunately, they were going to different areas of the base- Shadow Stalker was going down to the holding cells, while they were heading to a conference room nearby the vault Noelle was being kept in.

They arrived to both Coil and the rest of the Travelers in the room.

"Any issues?" asked Mars.

"Clean op," replied Trickster. "Only complication is that Panacea's got some kinda weird Changer power that lets her grow claws, Genesis had to break her arms in order to deal with it."

"An acceptable price," said Coil. "I have it on good authority that she has had an encounter with a Trump that altered her powers recently, which among other things lets her heal herself."

"Okay, cool. So… what's the plan for her?" Krouse asked.

"First, we test her power on a smaller part of the whole." Coil lifted a steel box onto the table, then opened it to reveal a chunk of Noelle's lower body that was still pulsating slightly. "Then, we go from there."

They stood around in an awkward silence until Panacea started stirring again, and this time Genesis didn't blast her with the soporific breath again.

"Greetings, miss Dallon. I have a job for you…"


And that's that!

Come yell at me about this fic on the gay wormfic discord server: https (:) (/) (/) gaylor (remove spaces and parentheses)

Current Horny Jail denizens: Siberian, Manton, Hemorrhagia, Quarrel, Ratnick, Revel. Manton and Siberian were killed in Horny Jail, and Quarrel was let out after she hit Revel.

For anyone curious, the Nine hadn't taken Ravager yet because they wanted to grab Mouse Protector first and then, when Ravager tried to pay them on delivery, they'd snatch her too.

I haven't put too much thought into who Mouse's clustermates are beyond like a side thought for a vague "energy weapons Tinker" for her empowerment power. Speaking of the empowerment power, it has three different options, which all have their own cooldowns: a fire-based one which enhances cutting power and disintegrates the stuff it cuts (with the shortest cooldown), the lightning one which passes through a lot of defenses on its way to its target (with a cooldown of a couple minutes), and a hard-light enhancement that works best with edged weapons by sort of projecting an additional weapons surface above the weapon which can create monomolecular edges (with the longest cooldown, to the point where it wouldn't be useful twice even in long fights, but it lasts longer than the other two).

I think that Genesis' power is really interesting, now that I've actually taken a look at it, and I might want to write something involving it in the future. We'll see.

For those wondering what Coil's other timeline looked like, Shadow Stalker switched targets with Genesis and Trickster. The Travelers picked up Danny Hebert, but Shadow Stalker couldn't handle Amelia and he closed the timeline after she disconnected Sophia's Corona Pollentia from the rest of her brain, essentially permanently shutting down her power unless Amy (or like Bonesaw or some other Trump) decides to turn it back on. Then, Glory Girl hit the transport intended for her, and from there he dropped the timeline.

I might take a bit of a step back from this fic for the next couple weeks- my muse is focusing on another idea I had so first chapter soon, maybe. We'll see.

That's about it, so read, review, enjoy, and have a nice day!