Of Heroes And Villains: The Ties That Bind By Minikisa An assassin. A fallen hero. An unlikely meeting. The road to redemption is long and hard and filled with explosives.

Waking up felt bizarre.

It wasn’t the slow drift into consciousness or a sudden awakening. It was like stepping from one room to another, yet she also felt strangely refreshed for it.

Caroline groaned when the voices instantly started whispering to her, and shook her head to clear it. Her neck felt stiff, and her muscles protested her every movement as she pushed herself to stand up, using the wall she’d been leaning against for balance.

Her pants felt painfully tight. Her gaze dropped down.

Wonderful.

She didn’t think abandoned factories came equipped with cold showers.

If she ignored it, surely it would go away on its own. Right? Right.

She half-stumbled to the small storage room she had used for interrogation, rubbing her forehead as she strove to ignore both the voices and the throbbing.

The voices were bearable today. Not an overwhelming roar, but a low murmur that nonetheless made it hard to think. Perhaps her meditation in that place with his instructions had helped, or perhaps she was cracking under the strain and it had all just been a really fucking weird dream.

One way to find out.

Caroline pushed open the door, meeting some resistance as she was pushing against the rubble and the various metal instruments strewn on the floor. She absently flipped the light switch, turning on a dim, flickering bulb, and then started searching the wreckage for the bracelet he’d worn.

It took her a few minutes to find it wedged between the gurney and a fissure in the floor, and she turned it over thoughtfully.

Then she closed it around her wrist. The metal instantly molded itself to her tan skin.

Silence.

Beautiful silence.

Caroline exhaled in relief, closing her eyes.

He had told her about the power suppressor in her dream, advising her to use it if she needed it, but keep it to a minimum since it would interfere with her learning control.

So the dream had been real.

She sat on the floor, leaning against the overturned gurney, and gazed at her sinewy arm, tracing the metal edges of the bracelet. It was a sleek, custom model she didn’t recognize as one of the commercially available power suppressors. So that was how he had evaded her scan.

Caroline wondered why he wore it.

It was not all that unusual – some mutants simply never learned to control their powers and went through life wearing a chain like this. Granted, the tech had been improving steadily to allow for mobility, but the early models had been true prisons. Yet if he had no control, he would not be so confident in his ability to teach it to someone else.

So did he wear it to evade power scans like hers, in order to take others by surprise?

That pointed to a highly devious nature.

Her lips thinned. She still had no idea just how much of what he told her was true. Yes, she had… felt like he told the truth, but he had the ability to manipulate minds, and she was highly unskilled with that selfsame power. Perhaps he knew exactly how to fool his own powers.

Perhaps Ian was not safe at all.

She examined what she knew from all angles.

What he told her about only her being able to undo the body swap rang true. It would explain why he’d approached her nicely. He needed her. Meaning he would be more or less reliable in teaching her control, since it was in his own self-interest, and she could use that.

As for Ian’s safety…

Caroline would wait and see. She still had Executioner with his ear to the ground, and she would leave it that way. It never hurt to cover all the bases; he might still uncover a plot of some sort.

Some might call Caroline paranoid.

Well, paranoia was entirely warranted when one worked for an organization in which people quite literally stabbed each other in the back when angling for promotions. When she looked back to her early career, before she had achieved what she now knew to be an entirely appropriate level of caution, she counted six separate occasions where misplaced trust would have killed her if dumb luck had not intervened. And that was assuming numbers weren’t an elaborate hoax perpetrated by mathematicians.

Caroline’s position in the Order was in the comfortable mid-range, and she worked hard to keep it that way. High enough to be mostly independent, yet low enough not to attract the attention of ambitious young assassins seeking to take her place.

To see true paranoia, one had to look to the highest strata of the Order.

There it was considered common courtesy to not make sudden movements.

Ever.

Radiance had once seen a man impaled with two dozen pikes just for sneezing in their presence.


***


People stared at Caroline as she passed through the streets.

The glances were fleeting, often accompanied by a mocking smirk, and she did not like them one bit. At first she thought it was because she was wearing yesterday’s clothes, which were rather dusty and worse for wear. But when she ducked into the first shop she passed and bought some plain, yet clean clothes, she still drew looks. Then she realized it was her posture.

Her hip was swaying.

With gritted teeth she forced herself to stand straighter and walk stiffly, and that seemed to do the trick. After that, the only glances she drew were the occasional appreciative gazes from women.

Caroline had never been one of those operatives who had to get close to a target via assuming a role, but she had to master that art now. After a while she stopped focusing on the way she walked, just letting muscle memory take over. She’d figure this out.

This was the first time she had true mental clarity since she’d woken in this body yesterday, allowing her thoughts to drift and assess her situation.

She suddenly came to a halt in the middle of a busy intersection.

Radiance raised her hand to her throat, where her mentor had burned the Order’s seal into her skin after her first kill.

Since she’d been deemed a flight risk with her powers, it held a tracking spell. Desertion would mean certain death for her.

This body didn’t have it.

Her eyes widened when she realized that, should she adapt to this form, she’d be free.


***


Caroline was tiny.

PsyKick gazed at himself in the mirror, his small body entirely swallowed by his old shirt. It was practically a nightgown, falling way past his generous hips. He tugged at it halfheartedly, the rough material scraping his sensitive nipples.

He needed a bra. And pants that wouldn’t immediately slide off.

Perhaps he could borrow some of Mistress Diane’s clothes, since he estimated they were close in height, but the thought of wearing the skimpy outfits she favored made him queasy. Sure, he liked seeing them on her, but on him?

No, there was a line. And there was no way he would ever wear hotpants or miniskirts.

His stomach growled.

As tempting as the thought of hiding from Shade’s wrath was, PsyKick really did not want to stay in his room all day. He’d been locked up in small spaces long enough to last him a lifetime.

He slung on the smallest pair of jeans he had, fastening it with a belt – he had to poke an additional hole through the leather to make that possible – and descended down the stairs.

PsyKick froze at the threshold to the kitchen.

Kara was sitting at the table, calmly sharpening a very big and shiny blade, evidently expecting him. She looked up and her blank expression briefly turned into a pained grimace at the sight of him. Or at the sight of Caroline. Maybe both.

“Sit,” she said, and he hesitantly did.

There was a very long uncomfortable silence, broken only by the whetstone grinding over the metal. Then Kara calmly laid the stone on the table, inspecting her work.

“I’m sorry,” she said to the sword, and he looked up when he realized she was addressing him. “For the way I acted yesterday. You didn’t deserve it.”

PsyKick fidgeted uncomfortably. Why exactly she felt the need to bring large tools of impalement to an apology was beyond him. Then again, Shade was exactly the kind of person whose security blanket might be a deadly weapon. “It’s fine,” he mumbled. “I understand that it was painful for you.”

Kara nodded slowly, still not looking at him. “I’m going to find Caroline,” she said. “And then we’ll also get you back into your proper body.”

PsyKick contemplated how to tell her what he’d done last night. He did not think she would be happy to hear that Caroline was planning to never see her again. He still had time to convince Caroline of a different course of action, so maybe it was best to say nothing at all and spare his friend that pain entirely…?

“Until then,” Kara continued on, oblivious, and turned her piercing blue gaze directly on him. “That’s my sister’s body you’re wearing. Do not even think about touching her or I will know.”

She casually rammed the blade into the table.

And PsyKick realized that despite being a woman, Shade still very much had brother instincts.