We found an almost unrecognizable Brockton Bay when I teleported us back from the Atlantic. The grid of torn up streets and cleaved skyscrapers looked like someone had thrown downtown into a blender, a mixture of giant hunks of concrete haphazardly strewn about, bent and twisted steel rebar, shattered glass, and spurting brown sewage. A fog of smog and smoke made it hard to see more than ten or so feet in front of you. Still I could make out the outline of two capes, floating around something.

A gray bubble came into view as I got closer, as did the two capes. Aegis. And Victoria. They were probing for weaknesses. Tattletale gave my arm a squeeze.

"It's not your faul-"

I flickered closer, got a better view of her face, refused to look away from the people I'd hurt by… By…

By my… Mis…

My chest hurt. Ached. Actually, my entire body hurt. My thoughts felt foggy, smoky, like they were being blocked by something.

Clockblocker and Kid Win rushed past me, scooped up Aegis in a hug, and the three of them all had a moment together.

Victoria kept floating around the gray bubble, almost like she hadn't realized we were here, as she watched Amy loop again, and again, and again.

I didn't know what to say. Victoria wasn't crying, she wasn't yelling or screaming, her face was blank. Anger would have been better. Even sorrow would have been better than the husk she'd become.

"It was my fault," I told Victoria.

"She thought I hated her," said Victoria emotionlessly, staring into the loop. "And maybe I did. On some level I always knew who you were, and I knew what kind of… It doesn't matter, does it? She's in there, and there's nothing anyone can do. It's done."

"Blame me," I said. "I'm the reason she's in there. It's my fault."

"She was terrified of fighting. Terrified of conflict," said Victoria. "I caused her to trigger."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I forced her into this."

Victoria didn't look from the bubble.

"She saved a lot of people," said Aegis. "She died a hero."

"She and Flechette took down Gray Boy," said Clockblocker.

"For good," said Tattletale. "They neutralized Glaistig Uaine's scariest power. We can start going after her again. We can go after all of the Slaughterhouse. It's only a matter of time until they're brought down. And that's thanks to Amy."

Victoria stared into the bubble.

"She asked out Flechette before the battle," said Tattletale. "She was turning things around. Figuring out how she could be a good person."

"It's done," said Victoria. "She's gone."

I walked up to the bubble. Frozen, like a solid. I applied a stamp to it, which shouldn't have been possible, but the bubble registered to my power as a surface, kind of. The inside though, wasn't there. Not opaque like a solid, not empty, it simply wasn't there. I couldn't sense Amy and Flechette, even though they were mere feet away, couldn't teleport them out. It was like they were in a different universe.

Could I teleport between earth aleph and earth bet, if I had active stamps in different universes? Was it possible, if I had just kept the stamp near them, that I'd have been able to teleport them out?

"Yes," said Tattletale. "Maybe? I can't say for sure, but my powers think so. But it doesn't matter. You didn't give up the stamp next to us willingly, you'd been sent flying, and if you didn't teleport to the Atlantic Portal you'd be dead, which still wouldn't have saved us from Gray Boy."

"I could've," I said. "If I'd replaced the stamp in the Atlantic, instead of the stamp next to all of you, I could've teleported back to the rest of you, and still been able to protect you from the Gray Boy. If I'd just been better, I could've saved everyone. It's my fault."

My words didn't reach Victoria. Didn't trigger any emotional response from her. I'm not sure that anything could anymore. Her world was as gray as Amy's.

Tattletale sighed. "The Middle-aged Fae went after Siberian. Do we follow her or go after Crawler?"

"Or do the sensible thing and skip out of town?" Asked Regent.

I gave one last look at the gray bubble. Recognized it for what it was. A mixture of arrogance and bad planning. I should have insisted on working with Trickster or Vista, and at least one mover, someone who could've made my best plans against Glaistig Uaine a reality. Instead I'd rushed in alone, and only survived because the rest of the Undersiders had bailed me out. It had cost me Amy, Flechette, and Brutus.

I had to be better.

"Alright," I said. "Let's go after Crawler. Free up the capes that are fighting him. We're going to need everyone, all working together, to take down the Queen."

Aegis joined us, Victoria didn't. She stayed, staring at the gray bubble, forever more. Broken. Broken like me, after… not after Emma had turned on me, not after the first month of bullying? The flute? When Juliet had pretended to be my friend? No. Later. Not even when Sophia had shoved me into the locker, it had been when nobody had helped me, when I realized that-

I'd caused that in somebody else, all because I hadn't been able to ge-

I'd make things right. Free them, somehow. But it wouldn't do anyone any good for me to keep ruminating, and let Glaistig Uaine beat me twice.

According to Tattletale, Crawler was attacking the PRT headquarters, which was hidden underneath an abandoned parking lot. We were only a few blocks away, but the travel was hard, after the battle.

They traversed by foot as they could, me flickering by their side, Aegis carrying us as he had to.

Downtown looked like it had been firebombed. The streets and sidewalks were littered with craters and holes straight that had drilled into the aquifer Brockton Bay had been built on top of. Muddy ponds full of piss and shit were bubbling over shattered streets. Even beyond that, the quickest route to HQ was blocked by a skyscraper that had toppled over, and the alternative routes to our left and right were choked out by fire.

But we were capes. We got to HQ just fine.

"Jesus Christ, she looks bad. How much time does she have left?" Asked a PRT Officer, as soon as we arrived at the entrance. "Scratch that, it doesn't matter, let's get her to Othala."

I let out a surprised squawk when the Officer scooped me into his muscular arms, and carried me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He made a series of random turns, each corner marked with a mannequin, each step urgent, until he found a room with a cape in a red skin tight bodysuit. He gently laid me on an examination table, blood from my wound smearing the sheet of protective paper.

"Shit," said Othala, her face growning paler and paler as she unwrapped the blood-soaked strip of cloth Tattletale had wrapped around my leg. "Shit, shit, shit. I just gave out a power to Trickster, so I can't give her a power for at least 30 seconds. And even after, I don't know how long it'll take to heal her."

"I'm fine," I said. "I'm not gonna die anytime soon, and I'm thinking clearly enough. I haven't gone into shock, I can still be useful."

"Half your fucking calf has been hacked off," said Othala. "You wrapped it, but didn't secure it. There's no bone connecting the top and bottom half, and barely any muscle. One wrong move and you'll tear an artery and bleed out in seconds."

Fine. Then I just wouldn't make a wrong move. I slid off the examination table, crawled to one of the chairs in the room, tried to tear off a chunk of its leg, failed pathetically, so I teleported it to the Atlantic Portal, put a stamp on my hand, flicked my wrist, and teleported the chair into the wall. It split off into three pieces, and I secured a straight piece which had once been part of the chair's leg, and tied it against the wound everyone was so worried about, making a perfectly workable splint.

"I'm good," I said, ignoring the blood gushing out of my calf. "Where's Crawler?"

"You cannot be serious," said Othala. "Half your leg is torn off. I'm surprised you're even still conscious."

I rolled my eyes. What a fucking drama queen. I should've known that a neonazi would be a total pain to work with. Apparently, if I wasn't in absolutely perfect condition she wouldn't give me medical clearance. Amy would never have done that, she had understood that in battle things got messy, and my team needed me out there with them.

"You need to find Panacea," said Othala. "Wherever she is. You're right, we do need you out there, we've lost too many, but my power isn't going to work fast enough to get you back into combat shape anytime soon. It would take hours for them to completely heal that big a wound. But maybe we can stabilize you and send you back out. Maybe ten minutes, but I don't know if they'll last that much longer."

"So it's not going well," said Aegis, the Undersiders by his side. "You can give out powers right?"

"Superstrength, superspeed, invincibility, regeneration, and flight," said Othala. "My regeneration is the weakest of the abilities, the invincibility is probably the strongest."

"Who've we lost?" Asked Clockblocker.

"Sere is dead," said Othala. "But I was able to stabilize Vista, Uber, and Leet before they lost too much blood. They're unconscious, and in a waiting room for Panacea. None of you have the firepower to turn the battle, the best thing you can do is go find Panacea and bring her here. And oh, Bitch, better late than never I suppose. Still better than Triumph."

Tattletale put a hand on her head- or well, a stump. "Great. Great. You didn't see a little girl with him did you?"

"What happened to your hand?"

"'Tis but a scratch," said Tattletale, giving the witless question all the consideration it deserved.

"A scratch? Your fucking thumb's gone."

"Is that really what we need to be worrying about?" Asked Tattletale. "God, Coil is such an incompetent douche! Fuck! Now I've got to deal with the goddam mayor, and…"

I tuned out Tattletale's insane ramblings, and focused on the problem at leg.

"Does superspeed come with sped up perception?" I asked.

"What?" Asked Othala. "You're getting regeneration, so it doesn't matter. Your wounds aren't a fucking joke, you're liable to pass out any second, and my power only works if you're conscious."

"Nope," said Tattletale. "Superspeed doesn't speed up your perception. Flight's your best option."

"Why are you encouraging her?" Asked Othala.

"You really want us to go into a fight with Crawler without Everywhere?" Asked Kid Win.

"Have you completely lost your mind?" Asked Clockblocker.

"What's wrong with you people?" Asked Othala.

"Haven't you heard?" Asked Tattletale, shooting her a vulpine smile. "We're the motherfucking Undersiders, and we run this motherfucking city!"

Othala didn't like that answer much.

We ignored the hysterical neonazi's meltdown, and formed a plan. And Othala did prove her worth when she gave me flight instead of wasting everyone's time with an unnecessary regeneration. A crew of PRT Officers led us down a hallway, took a right, down another hallway, to a stairway. Inside was Crawler, two sets of stairs below, slithering down, down, down.

He resembled a six legged beast the size of a van. His body was black and iridescent, covered in armor, and spines and bristling hair everywhere else. A hundred solid-black eyes ran along the entire length of his body. His four rear limbs had one large limb each that forked into scimitar-like claws, with multiple smaller sets of tentacles accompanying them. Bits of concrete boiled, sizzled, crumbled, from his acidic saliva.

I'd chosen the wrong power. I'd expected a more open area. Another mistake.

"Eidolon?" Asked a voice from below. Trickster. "Great. We fucking need you."

"Tag me in," I said.

Trickster swapped our positions.

"Fuck!" Trickster shouted from above. "It's just you guys."

I felt the same down below. Crawler snapped the neck of a griffon-like pterodactyl thing. And just like that it was just me and Miss Militia. A cloud of darkness blotted around Crawler. He stumbled downwards, wriggling closer and closer.

"Trickster," I shouted. "Swap with Miss Militia. She'll take out the stairways above us. Allow us to trap him in concrete."

And just like that I was standing next to another teleporter.

"Good thinking," said Trickster. "Which of your capes are most durable? We can swap with them and they can stall while I make another trip back to Oth-"

"No," I said. "You swap with Clockblocker. I'm taking down Crawler. Right here. Right now."

I'd had enough of this shit. I wanted to kill something.

"That's cute little girl," said Trickster. "But you're no Eidol-"

I stamped one of the walls, opened up a portal as big as I could make it, maybe the size of a van's tire. A geyser blasted Crawler back up the stairs, flattening them as he rolled. Tentacles on his legs grasped the edge of the stairwell, held on tight, secured him against a force of water strong enough that it could have flattened a semi truck. Salt water rushed down the stairs like the rapids in a flooded river.

I heard him cackling, pushing past the water.

I flew up past the raging currents, stamped the crumbling stairwell beneath him, and opened up a portal at point blank range of his tentacles. Didn't bother with small or subtle, I opened up geysers with water packing so much force they hit like steel. One. Two. Three. Four. More.

I let myself go all out in a way I'd never done before. These weren't warning shots. I wanted to kill him.

Crawler lost his grip on the stairwell, started to rise with the rest of the geyser, large enough that it could more aptly be compared to a volcanic explosion. A single tentacle burst from the torrent of water, wrapped around my waist.

I put a stamp on my waist, blasted the tentacle off me with a geyser, at the cost of the larger geyser which has been lifting Crawler. He took the respite to launch himself at me, his gaping mouth filled with mismatched fangs.

I threw a stamped golfball at him. He shot an acidic spitball right back at me. I opened up a portal on my palm, and blasted all that acid right back at him with another geyser. He tanked the blast, securing himself, and sending dozens of wriggling tentacles my way.

With a flick of my palm, my geyser bisected them. I touched back down, and opened up another, larger geyser in the stairwell he was standing, blasted him upwards.

Right into falling debris, setup by the stairwells Miss Militia had collapsed with her RPG.

"Why the fuck are you still here?" I asked Trickster, opening up a geyser from a new direction to dislodge Crawler once more. He kept on fucking latching onto things like a lamprey. "Where's Clockblocker?"

"Huh?" Said Trickster.

Crawler's tentacles caught me. Wrapped around me. I closed the portal, and teleported myself to the Atlantic, and back to Brockton.

Crawler had already secured a foothold. Rushed to Trickster. I opened up another portal, but Crawler seemed ready for it, and didn't slow.

So I teleported Trickster to the Atlantic and back to me.

"Clockblocker," I shouted at Trickster.

And just like that, my Clock in shining armor appeared. I handed him a stamped dime, grabbed a spool of string right off his waist, and flew straight at Crawler. If I froze him, the fight was won.

Crawler squirted some acid at me. Game. I smirked and stuck my right arm into the spray.

ooOoo

Clockblocker put Crawler and Everywhere on pause. A little statue of two of the craziest fucking capes he'd ever been around connected by a thin stream of acid and a single line of floating thread. He walked forward, steeled himself, and stuck his arm down Crawler's gullet. Getting deepthroated by Crawler was easily the grossest thing he'd ever done. Once he'd shoved his arm as far as it would go he dropped the stamped dime. He took a couple shaky breaths, pulled out his hand, metal on his costume steaming from droplets of acid which hadn't been clockblocked.

ooOoo

I opened up a portal on the dime, making the entire goddamn thing a fucking geyser, and let Crawler fill up like an overinflated water balloon as his acid covered me.

"Fuck," I heard from above. Trickster. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"NOT YET!" I bellowed, as my suit melted. His acid was powerful, but my portals worked faster. The acid had chewed through the suit, had ruined my sight, now was melting my skin, but it wouldn't start acting on flesh for at least thirty seconds. Even then it wouldn't be fatal for a few minutes. The battle was won if my teammates didn't blink first. "NOT YET!"

Crawler popped like a balloon, little bits of him exploding outwards. See the thing about changers like Crawler was that they were too heavy for me to teleport. But if I blew them up into little pieces, well I could teleport those just fine. So I finally gave Lung some company, and teleported bits of Crawler to join him in the bottom of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, a few bits of Crawler had escaped my initial teleportation.

Othala's flight power finally ran out. I fell just a few feet, but I felt my right foot give way. It laid a few inches from me, as a pool of blood and acid dispersed in about an inch of flowing saltwater. I stamped the foot, and threw it at Clockblocker.

"Finish the job," I said. It came out a little garbled though, an unfortunate circumstance at having my cheeks melted off. So I pointed at the bits of the regenerating bully.

Clockblocker did so, sprinting to the growing chunks of flesh. One. Two. Fuck the last piece was too big for me to teleport unless I got closer. I wriggled forward, bits of skin on my belly rubbing off on the coarse stone below me. Once in range, I teleported the last of Crawler to the bottom of the Atlantic.

"Regrow that," I said.

"Swap her," said Clockblocker, his words coming high and fast. "Swap her, swap her, swap her!"

Et tu, Clock? My one liner wasn't even that bad. At the very least, defeating Crawler should've earned me a courtesy laugh. Although he wasn't really all that, nothing compared to the Siberian or Glaistig Uaine, so maybe I didn't deserve a courtesy laugh. If I were actually good at this I'd be able to come up with better one liners.

Oh right, I was dying. That didn't change the fact that none of them had even bothered to so much as act like they liked my one liner. I couldn't just pretend to not notice that. It was like they didn't even care about me. I thought we were supposed to be friends.

Trickster teleported me back up to Othala.

Grue retched.

"I think can see her organs, neat."

Tattletale triggered the sprinkler, which maybe got some of the acid off me, then Othala gave me a regen power.

Oh I see. I'd been in shock. And I was starting to feel pain again. Not that much yet, but it was coming. Like the moments just after you stubbed your toe, I could tell this was really gonna suck.

Fuuuuuccccckkkkk.

I started screaming. It took about six minutes for me to stabilize. Three rotations of power wasted. Funny thing was I wasn't really hurting anymore. I wasn't really feeling much of anything, and I still couldn't see. I was pretty sure I had severe nerve damage.

"Alright," I said. "Trickster, the job's not over. We've got to go after Glaistig Uaine and the Siberian, and we can't beat them without your help."

"You cannot be serious," said Trickster.

"You're in no condition to fight," said Othala.

"I've been better," I said. "But I'm needed. I'm not sitting this out just because I'm a little hurt."

"The acid burned up your eyes so you can't see, and fucked up your skin, bleached parts of it, and your flesh hasn't fully grown back yet, so you look like a half-melted wax sculpture" said Othala. "You weren't a model before, but if you go out like this it becomes permanent, and you're not gonna be able to show your face around kids without traumatizing them. Not to mention you lost a fucking leg."

"A foot," I corrected, glad to have my cheeks back so I could communicate clearly. "Calf doesn't count as the leg."

"It does too," said Othala childishly.

"Thigh or it doesn't count," I said. "Right Tattletale?"

"Tis a mere flesh wound," said Tattletale. "She'll live."

"This seems a little irresponsible," said Aegis.

"You're saying that?" Asked Kid Win. "You?"

"I'm not that bad," said Aegis. Clockblocker looked at him sideways. "I mean, she can't even walk."

"But I can still move," I said. I demonstrated the flickering technique I'd learned in my fight with Glaistig Uaine, stamping the floor, teleporting to the Atlantic, and back to Brockton at the edge of my range, restamping the floor, and repeating the process. "Sure I have to crawl, but I can get around as fast as a low tier mover. My wound won't impede my ability to fight."

"I was skeptical when I heard about your recruitment," said Miss Militia. "But you've more than proven yourself, Everywhere. You've more than done your duty. Rest. We can handle things from here."

"No," I said. "We can do it, ma'am. We can beat them. The Siberian and Glaistig Uaine. We know how to take them down."

Miss Militia frowned. "And you're really okay with this? Her putting herself at risk like this?"

Grue shrugged. "What can you do?"

"I'm more concerned about the danger I'm in," said Regent. "Why is nobody concerned about my safety?"

"You don't recognize it anymore do you?" Asked Tattletale. "That's what a fucking hero looks like."

"But sometimes," said Miss Militia. "Heroes die. I'm making the call. You're not going back out there. Early in the battle against Crawler, we saw Legend flash through the sky. Eidolon will be here shortly. Share your intelligence, and I'll pass it along. You'll accomplish great things Everywhere, but only if you don't throw your life away first."

"I assure you that that won't happen," said Coil. He was wearing his director mask, not his parahuman one, presenting the face of Director Thomas Calvert. "Capes under my watch don't die."

"With all due respect," said Miss Militia, ice in her voice. "Sere would beg to differ."

"The capes that matter don't die," said Coil. "We've never been properly introduced have we? You know me… but not really. I've hidden the fact that I'm a cape. My power allows me to win. Always. And it uncovered a critical piece of information that needs to be passed to Alexandria."

"Tell us," said Miss Militia. "We can pass the message along."

"It's something I need to deliver myself," said Coil. "And I want Everywhere with us. Make no mistake, the Slaughterhouse will come after us. The Triumvirate's focus will be on Glaistig Uaine, leaving the rest of them free to wander. You couldn't handle Crawler; she could."

"She's a child," said Miss Militia. "What's the point of the PRT if we don't protect people like her?"

"All that is irrelevant," said Coil. "She's needed."

"I'm going," I said. Despite everything, I kinda liked working for Coil. For better or worse he understood me.

So we set off for our hunt. Coil, Miss Militia, Trickster, Aegis, Othala, Clockblocker, Kid Win, Bitch, Tattletale, Grue, and Regent. Tattletale led the way, using her power to sniff out the Slaughterhouse for extermination. Without sight, I couldn't identify landmarks or read signage so it was a little hard to tell where we were. Still, the buildings were getting smaller, the roads more worn down, so I had the feeling we were moving closer to the Docks, and had the general impression we were getting closer to the water.

"So," I said casually, as I teleported next to Clockblocker, moving at ten foot flickers. "I couldn't help but notice that none of you laughed or whooped at my one liner."

"Huh?" Was Clockblocker's response.

"My one liner," I said.

"She said, 'Regrow that'," said Regent. "It wasn't that funny, so I didn't laugh."

"I didn't hear you say anything," said Grue. "I was too focused on the fact that half your skin had melted off and you'd just thrown your fucking leg at Clockblocker."

"Foot," I corrected. "Calf doesn't count."

"I heard you, but I was more concerned about keeping you alive than pretending to laugh," said Tattletale.

"Sure," I said. As always, I could only trust Regent to be honest with me. "What do you think of, 'Ghost this!'"

"Is this really what we need to be worried about right now?" Asked Aegis. "We're about to go up against two of the five strongest parahumans on the planet."

"Meh, it's okay," said Tattletale. "But it's not really up to my standard. For you it should be fine."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked.

"That you should leave the jokes to the people who are actually funny," said Regent.

"Don't listen to them," said Clockblocker. "I like it."

"Then you'd better fucking laugh next time," I said.

Clockblocker glanced around. "Is she being seriou-"

"No," Grue choked out. "Not here…"

Bitch grabbed my hand, and pointed it out in front of me, but a bit to the left.

"We've got company," she whispered into my ear. "I'll do what I can. Be your eyes and ears."