To the Guest who posted a review on April 22—thank you SO much! Wow! Your compliments on my writing mean so much to me and I'm very happy to hear how much you've been enjoying the story.

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

"Tell us exactly what happened."

Captain Chromium paced back and forth behind the cluttered desk in his spacious office at Renegade Headquarters. The Dread Warden stood fidgeting next to one of the plush chairs, and Adrian stood looking out the window, his fingers constantly inching up toward the spot on his chest where Max knew his zipper tattoo was hidden—the secret compartment where the Sentinel's armor was stored.

Max was the only one who was sitting down, mostly because he was still too exhausted to do much more. His breathing was back to normal now, but his arms and legs still felt the way they had after his first day on the beach—when he'd been so excited to finally be able to experience the sand and the water that he'd completely forgotten his dads' admonitions to wear sunblock. The burns weren't agonizing like they'd been when he'd first come out of the fire, and he was supremely grateful to the Healer woman for helping with that. But the surface of his skin was still sore enough to make him wince every time he moved.

Max sighed, not really wanting to relive the day's trauma again. He'd already shared abbreviated versions of the story with Adrian, with three separate reporters, and with several curious civilians. But his dads hadn't heard the story yet, and he hadn't told anybody all the details—just that he'd been in the building, that Flamethrower had arrived and tried to kill him, and that a vigilante had arrived at the last moment to chase Flamethrower away and help him out of the building. At Maggie's request, he hadn't mentioned the fact that she'd been there. He'd wanted to—he'd wanted to explain how she saved his life, she and that vigilante girl she was apparently friends with. But he understood her reason for not wanting to be mentioned. Even if all he said was that he'd been with a friend, the media would be relentless. Who is this friend? Where are they now? Can we interview them too? It was better, for Maggie's sake, to leave her out of the story altogether.

At least out of the story he told the media. Max shifted in his chair, causing a sense of sharp discomfort in his upper back. Changing out of his singed clothing and into an oversized Renegades uniform had been one of the most uncomfortable experiences of his life.

"I… was in the Wlathorp building," he started.

"We know that much," said Hugh. "My question is, why were you in there? Hasn't that whole place been abandoned since the Age of Anarchy?"

Max nodded. "I was with—a friend. We were—" He faltered. What good reason did they have for being in an abandoned building?

He decided to stick with the truth, or at least part of it. "She had something… personal… to tell me, and we didn't want to be overheard. That's why we went in there. To…" He broke off, noticing that all three of his family members were giving him looks. "What?"

"So you went into an abandoned building… with a girl?" Simon asked. "Just… to talk?"

Max could feel his face flushing as red as his arms at what they all seemed to be implying. "Yes, just to talk! She—we didn't want to be overheard. It was private. Her—kind of private, not—it—it doesn't matter that it was a girl, okay? We were just in there talking."

"Okay," said Simon, holding his hands up in surrender. "That's fine. I was just asking."

"Anyway," Max continued, trying to make his face return to its normal color, which was difficult now that his brain had decided to remind him of that moment right before Flamethrower's arrival, the moment in which he'd gotten distracted by Maggie's lips and started seriously wondering what it would feel like to kiss her. "We were sitting by the window, talking, when Flamethrower arrived. He started shooting fire at us, and immediately got us trapped, and then he said…" He inhaled quickly. "He said he'd come for me, because… because I created the Supernova? Something like that? And something about showing true power…" The details were blurry; all he could remember was the heat, the suffocating smoke, the pain. And Maggie. Maggie being there despite Flamethrower telling her she could go. Maggie throwing objects at Flamethrower in an attempt to save Max's life.

"I don't remember exactly what he said, but he told my friend she could go. He would just kill me and she'd be the witness who would tell everybody how it happened, something like that. But she stayed and did everything she could to try to save me. He had me encased in a wall of fire." Max shuddered, remembering how it had felt to be trapped in there, knowing that at any moment, the flames were going to cover him completely and he was going to die a slow, excruciating death.

"She kept doing things to Flamethrower for as long as she could. Then… someone shot at Flamethrower, I think? I don't really remember much after that; I was almost passed out by then. But this vigilante showed up, and she got us both out of there and onto the street. She said the gunshot was what had alerted her that something was going on, and that she saw Flamethrower escaping, being chased by some other vigilante."

Hugh heaved a long, shuddering sigh. His invincible exterior didn't protect against emotional attacks—such as worrying about his youngest son, who'd already faced trauma after trauma after trauma. Max felt bad about the worry he caused his family, first by being the valuable and dangerous kid who could absorb powers, then by nearly dying a couple times when he was ten, and now by being the kid with no powers who frequently roamed the city alone, who had created the Supernova, and who had just almost died again. "The vigilante who saved you—did you get her name? Did you see where she went? I'd like to thank her."

Max shook his head. He'd heard Maggie call her by name, but his brain had still been in such a fog that he'd promptly forgotten what the name was. He found that he was almost relieved by this. He suspected that she might be part of Maggie's "family"—the former children's home prodigies who inhabited the old Starlight Theatre. For all he knew, she might be another criminal. Either way, he was pretty sure Maggie wouldn't want him giving away her identity.

"What about your friend?" Simon asked. "Which friend were you hanging out with? Is she okay?"

Max nodded. "She's fine."

"Where is she now?" Hugh asked. "Why didn't she come with us to Headquarters?"

"She went home," Max explained. "Didn't want her family to worry."

"Ah." Hugh nodded. "That makes sense." He frowned. "So Flamethrower said he was coming after you because you created the Supernova? Really?"

"Oh—yeah!" Max suddenly remembered the piece of information Maggie had given him. "And according to my friend, he used to be a Renegade!"

"Flamethrower used to be a Renegade?" Adrian sounded shocked.

Hugh looked deeply troubled. "How did your friend know this?"

"She—" Max hesitated. Telling them that she also used to be a Renegade would elicit questions about who she was, but he couldn't think of any other accurate way to portray the information. He couldn't say that she'd seen Flamethrower in uniform or with a patrol unit, since all she'd said was that she'd seen him at Headquarters a few times.

"My friend doesn't want any media attention," he prefaced. "That's why I didn't even mention that she was there when I talked to the reporters. So don't tell anyone this, but… you guys know her. She was a Renegade a few years back. She's Maggie—Magpie."

Both of his dads' eyebrows shot up in surprise, but Adrian just nodded, the hint of a smile crossing his face.

"Magpie?" Hugh asked. "You're friends with her now? For how long?"

"Couple weeks," Max mumbled. "Anyway, yeah, she said she'd seen him a few times at Headquarters back then. I was surprised, because I'd looked him up in the database before and hadn't gotten any Renegade results, but maybe he changed his alias?"

"Maybe," said Hugh, a frown still etched across his face. "I'll tell Flashpoint's team to run a more thorough search. I can't believe a Renegade would go so rogue…"

Adrian let out a short, humorless laugh. "Dad. Really? Just because someone chooses to be a Renegade doesn't automatically make them a morally upstanding person. Think about Genissa Clark and her team. They were only Renegades because they liked being in power." A thoughtful look overtook his face. "Max, what was it Flamethrower said about power again? And about the Supernova?"

Max screwed up his face, trying to remember. "Something about… about me being the creator of the Supernova, and… destroying all the true power in the world? Something like that?"

"So maybe," said Adrian, placing a hand on his chin and staring out the window again, though it didn't look like his gaze was actually focused out there. "Maybe he was like Frostbite's team, choosing to be a Renegade because he liked being able to exert power over people, but then as a result of the Supernova, power became more evenly distributed, and maybe he… wasn't happy with that? Maybe he's jealous?"

Slowly, Max nodded, processing his brother's words. "That makes sense, actually. Because all the sudden, everyone had superpowers, and we started treating people more equally rather than making a big deal out of the more 'super' superpowers, and the Renegades went through all those changes… we should look into the people he already killed, see if we can figure out his motives for targeting them specifically."

"And I'd like to speak with Magpie," Hugh added. "First of all, to thank her for trying to save your life, when she could've just left and saved her own skin. To be honest, I wouldn't have thought…" he trailed off, but Max suspected he knew what he'd been about to say, and it didn't sit well with him. Why is everyone so quick to assume the worst about Maggie? he thought, irritated. Everyone talks about her like she's some selfish, thieving crook. Which, to be fair, she was aiding and abetting someone who'd committed a crime, and he was ninety-eight percent sure she'd been the one to commit the recent burglary of the watch factory, but there was so much more to her than that. She'd taken the time back when she didn't even know him to help him find a gift for Simon in the pawn shop, and despite the abrasive manner in which she sometimes talked to people, she had a heart buried beneath her tough exterior. A good heart. Maggie was a good person deep down, and it wasn't her fault that she'd grown up without a family to take care of her and make her feel loved.

"Anyway," Hugh continued, breaking through Max's thoughts, which were suddenly racing as he remembered the information he'd learned from the document Maggie had shown him from the children's home. "I want to thank her for saving your life, and I want to ask her some questions about Flamethrower. Find out exactly what she remembers. Maybe she could come over for dinner sometime?"

"What?" Max jolted. "Over for dinner?"

"In a few days," Hugh elaborated. "Once you've both had time to recover. I certainly wouldn't ask her to do anything right now."

Max envisioned Maggie coming over to his house for dinner. He pictured bringing her upstairs to see his glass city, as he'd mentioned to her before. He imagined her sitting next to him in the breakfast nook, surrounded by his dads, Adrian, and—

Nova often joins us for dinner.

His heart started beating faster as he once again recalled the contents of the children's home document. Kingsborough Apartments. Nova had lived there as a child. Eleven months old. That's how old Nova's baby sister had been when she died—Nova had told him the story of her family's murders two years ago, and he'd never forgotten the details. The six-year-old's sister's whereabouts are unknown.

Was it a stretch? Was it a long shot to think that Nova's little sister and Maggie were the same person? Nova believed that her sister was dead, but the report had said that Captain Chromium himself had pronounced Maggie dead when he'd been on the scene of the crime. The only real flaw was the names of Maggie's parents, but that discrepancy seemed insignificant in the face of all the other evidence.

Max's mouth was dry. Captain Chromium was right in front of him. He could ask him—ask if he'd been there to investigate Nova's family's deaths, maybe, and what he remembered about that night. He could ask if he'd ever investigated a similar case, in the same building, with same-aged victims. He could get a solid confirmation, one way or the other, right now.

But his dad would want to know why he was asking, why all the sudden, out of the blue like that. And Max wasn't about to share this information with anybody, not just yet. Maggie and Nova would have to be the first people to know, of course. If the information was even true.

But it had to be, right? There were too many similarities for it to be a coincidence. They even looked alike. He remembered briefly mistaking Maggie for Nova the first time they'd met, and today, when he'd really stopped to pay attention, he'd seen resemblances to Nova in Maggie's face.

Max held back a grimace as he tried to imagine how they would react upon finding out. Maggie and Nova despised each other. What would they think when they found out they were sisters?

If they were sisters.

Which they had to be… right?

Hugh was speaking again, saying something about going to brief Kasumi and Tamaya on what had happened, and how Max should go down to one of the Renegade dorms and get some rest. Max barely paid attention as he was escorted to the elevator, the events and revelations of the day still swirling around in his mind. He realized that he was fighting off exhaustion with every step, and that he probably would fall asleep the moment he allowed his head to hit the pillow. The rest would be good for him. It was what he needed.

But when he woke up, he would immediately be doing some research. First on Flamethrower, because that was important. But after that, he'd be conducting some hefty searches on three names, at least two of which he suspected were fake: Charlie Pinkerton, and Craig and Josephine White.