-------------
Chapter 28
-------------

Fireworks blazed the sky on the night of the 31st. Most of Paragon City thought nothing of it, or at least nothing out of the ordinary. However, they were close to the prison on multiple sides, and no one official had approved of the display.

By the end of the night, five were dead, four of them guards and the other a prisoner. The mayor had to call in Walter, who brought two of his own people along to investigate the scene. Pixeletta was one of them. She and Walter walked to the entrance where Psi Wizard was waiting for them with his phone in hand.

“Waiting long?” asked Walter.

“Not exactly,” Psi Wizard replied. “My brother sent a message saying that his patient is showing signs of recovery. He estimates that a good time for me to visit would be the end of February.”

Pixeletta said, “I still don’t understand. Why can’t you both just heal her or read her mind, or something?”

“Imagine a small cut without a means to heal on its own. Worse yet, imagine a broken bone sticking out of the skin.”

“Ew.”

“Sorry. The point I’m trying to make is that, try as we might to realign the worst blows to a person’s mental condition, it still requires time to heal. Doubly so if you want someone’s memories to remain intact. If you go digging and prodding inside when something is so vulnerable, then you may end up making additional holes or messes. So the reason is time. She needs lots of time.”

They fell silent as they entered the building and checked with the clerk standing behind a window. Pixeletta guessed that it was bulletproof. The trio was led by an officer down a couple of corridors to a room where they found a familiar sight. There was a hole in the ground, and its edges had been singed.

“It’s just like at the mental health facility,” remarked Walter. “I take it, officer, that the tunnel was blocked off down below?”

“Yes, sir,” said the officer. “You know who’s done this, then?”

“Oh, we have our suspicions. This would explain why the mayor was keen on summoning us to take a look. I’m afraid this isn’t to get out to anyone.”

“That’s what I’ve been told a couple times already.”

“Good, good. Do you know yet how far the tunnel, or its blockage, goes?”

“Not yet. We were told that the investigator would handle it.”

Walter nodded and pulled something out of his side pocket. It looked like a toy mouse, probably of Mortar Mage’s making. He activated it and dropped the mouse into the hole.

While he reached into his other pocket, Walter said, “I’m going to wait here with this device a friend of ours made. Why don’t you show my colleagues to the cell belonging to the prisoner who was . . . kidnapped, was it? Killed?”

The officer said, “You have seen this, then. Yeah, come along. The body was kept where it was found, and magically preserved, in case of any bombs or the like. Plus, the mayor didn’t want us touching the prisoner yet, regardless of whether he was booby-trapped or not. Something about you lot needing to see him for yourselves. I’m sorry to ask, but one of you looks a little young to be looking at dead bodies, let alone running around being a hero.”

Pixeletta said, “I get that a lot. What was the prisoner’s name?”

“Oh, right. It was Leon Penne.”

She stopped walking, falling back behind Psi Wizard and the officer.

“Is something wrong?” the officer asked.

“Leon Penne?” asked Pixeletta.

“That’s correct. Why? Was he connected to your previous investigations thus far?”

“No. No, he’s just someone I encountered once.”

“You’re lucky to be alive, from the sound of it. He wasn’t known for letting people see him unless it was part of some underground deal. From what I heard, he tried to kill a little boy, but an electrical storm appeared out of nowhere and knocked Penne unconscious. He was treated for burns and arrested. I don’t know what happened to the boy.”

“It wasn’t a boy, and you’re welcome.” She realized that her tone had become sour, and she didn’t care.

Psi Wizard said, “I think we should be pressing on. Pixeletta, are you going to be OK?”

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go.”

Moments later, they reached Penne’s cell. There were crystals and runes for what looked to be—according to a description Mortar Mage had once given Pixeletta—a rudimentary spell for slowing time in a small space to a screeching halt. It had been his way of saying he knew a few basics and related concepts for time magic, but he never bothered with it an ample amount, unlike some of his colleagues around the world. His reason was something to do with temptation being too great once he’d started.

Honestly, Pixeletta considered what would happen to the universe if Mortar started tinkering with time magic.

She kneeled beside the cell, careful not to disturb the spell in effect.

Pixeletta still remembered that day in September when she had received the shot that gave her superpowers. It was supposed to be a dose of estrogen. The powers were supposed to have gone to the dead man now laying on the floor before her.

From the looks of things, someone came in and shot an arrow into Leon Penne’s neck, killing him instantly. Something was etched along the sides of the arrow, but she could not make it out from this distance.

“Any chance we can get a closer look?” she asked.

“Right,” said the officer, “I’m opening the door now. Since you’re down there, would you mind removing one of those crystals?”

Pixeletta grabbed the one nearest to her. Icy cold vibrations reached her skin through the gloves she was wearing. And then the vibrations were gone in an instant. The surrounding field of arcane energy vanished as well. Remembering the possibility of a bomb, Pixeletta felt the air in the room for anything electric, but there were no devices within the cell.

She crept forward to look at the etchings on the arrow. “I’m fairly certain we’re safe of anything like a bomb. I don’t feel any electrical currents, big or small, though it wouldn’t hurt to have a more thorough eye on this. Also, these markings on the arrow here are shaped like a row of tiny spiders on either side.”

Psi Wizard said, “That’s another confirmation as to whom is behind this. I see that the arrow hit his main arteries. I can’t find any other arrow in this room, which means this was done in one shot. This is the sort of aim you’d expect from an Order assassin, but the arrow and method of entry both suggest it wasn’t them.”

“Order what-now?”

“I’ll tell you later. Not a happy story.”

“So then, that just leaves one big question just mooning us from the other side of the room. Why did they go after Penne?”

“That’s a good question,” said Walter.

Pixeletta and Psi Wizard turned to find that he had caught up with them.

Walter said, “I’m going to have to do some digging to see what ties he had, friendly or otherwise, with the Arachne Regime.”

The officer was taken aback by the mention of that group of villains.

Psi Wizard said, “What did you find?”

“Oh, just a bother. It looked like the tunnel they dug split off into two directions before Mortar’s mouse reached the end of the rocks used to seal it,” Walter explained. “It looks like they’re still taking precautions to keep us from finding them, which means we need to step up our game in order to find out what they’re up to.”

“Then we hope something turns up that we can use before they drop another clue on us that turns out being too late.”

“It’s alright, officer. Once I’m done taking a few pictures, you can finally have this scene cleared away.” Walter prepared his phone and proceeded immediately with takings shots from different angles.

Judy sat at the dining room table while eating a chocolate covered banana. Her mom walked in, having come home from an odd shift at work. Mai rarely came home at this hour of the early evening, as it was usually before Judy got off from school or after she’d gone to bed for the night.

“Hey there, baby girl,” Mai said.

“Hi, Mom,” Judy responded.

“How was your day?”

“It most mostly short. I ended up taking a short tour of the prison because someone broke into it last night. Not the Asylum, but the non-powered one.”

“Oh, no. Did they take anything? Anyone?”

Her mom finished setting her stuff down, and gave Judy her full attention now. She often tried to get Judy to open up about her time as a hero, but Judy was never sure if it would bore her or if she would let on too much information. The latter was usually the bigger risk.

Judy said, “They killed someone and left, apparently. One of the inmates.”

“Damn, that’s never good, even if some of those inmates are beyond rehabilitation.”

“It was Leon Penne. I don’t know if you heard of him.”

“I have on few occasions. The last of which was when he tried to kill you at your endo appointment, remember?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot that I’d told you about that.”

“Any ideas who killed him?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure I should be talking about it.”

“Come on, Judy. If you can’t talk to me about it, then who can you tell?”

"The founding members of the League, for one." Judy didn’t mean to sound like she did with that comment.

"You're being a smart-ass. Fine, if you don't want to confide in me what this is all about then I won't even bother."

Judy braced herself against judgment that, really, was just blocking the door without any show of going in or out. She did need to tell someone this. Could she really trust her mother with this level of information?

“It was someone working for the Arachne Regime. We suspect it might be connected somehow to a man named Harvey Stone since he was broken out of the mental health facility the same way a few months ago.”

Color drained from her mom’s face.

“Mom?”