Author's Note: The Title Page has a note or two from me, and also the prologue. Please read both before you continue.

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Chapter 01
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Ohm Wire stuck the landing after hopping a stone wall with an iron gate at the top. She made it. It was damn near a shame there was no audience present to congratulate her on the performance, but that came with the territory of scouting the outskirts of town at night, even somewhere as lively as Paragon.

Her visor, designed by Mortar Mage to tolerate interference from electricity or radiation while still keeping in touch with the League, displayed a message. The message came from her informant, a hacker called Joule_SAIkatsu15:

“You got excited at making it inside of a graveyard, didn’t you?”

“Cemetery,” Ohm Wire teased back. The words she whispered registered within the visor’s system, which typed and sent it back to her still-mysterious ally.

“Fine, you made an excited entrance inside of a cemetery.”

“Better. Besides, we only live once . . . usually.” Ohm Wire decidedly put the rest of that thought behind her as she moved forward, using the grave markers as cover in case her information was correct.

Not three moments later, there was an unusual glow from deep within the cemetery, and Ohm Wire knew that not only was there in fact a disturbance going on here, but she knew which way to go rather than meandering through such an enormous plot of land in the dark. The only big question remaining was what had happened to the security around here? This cemetery, meant for heroes in general, was supposed to be well-guarded.

She hurried toward the glow, careful not to draw too much attention to herself just yet.

“Careful, Ohmie,” read the next message from the hacker as Ohm Wire got closer still. She huffed. In the past few months, she gathered that either her hacker friend had a detached, almost non-existent personality, or her secret ally—no one else in the Dallevan League knew about Joule_SAIkatsi15 any more than she told them, which wasn’t much—was just detached when they made contact with one another.

Either way, “Ohmie” was the only hint at life on the other side. Kyra, or Ohm Wire, thought it cute enough to let it go. For now.

Ohm Wire got close enough now that she could see a few figures. One man charged two others with the dirty work of pulling something out of a hole in the ground.

Grave robbers. she thought to herself.

There were rumors and reports—also rice binging rap battle contests on a popular music television channel—that mentioned grave robbers across the country, and that the grave robbers had moved into Paragon lately. It sounded like a bigger operation, though in the shadows, but it appeared that Ohm Wire found the men responsible.

Since her body could produce a number of electrical fields with a few various effects, Ohm Wire chose and used the one to wrap herself in that bent most light. It wasn’t perfect, but most people couldn’t see her if they weren’t looking.

The casket had barely slid steadily onto higher ground when Ohm Wire charged. She tackled the man in charge, and let a set of metal claws spring from one of her wristbands. Their tips barely touched the man’s neck once he was on the grass.

“I don’t think the dead like being disturbed,” said Ohm Wire. “Especially not at this ungodly hour.”

However, as uncomfortable as the man sounded and looked, he said, “Oh look. I was wondering when one of you Paragon City folk were going to show up.”

“Blame it on a bad bowl of rice.”

“On a bad bowl of...? What?”

Those poor rappers; they had to finish their battle on the toilet because they ate too much.

Just then, the two diggers attacked Ohm Wire from behind with their shovels. She turned in time, however, and cut the spade from its wooden handle on one of the shovels. Her other set of claws came alive.

She spent a good moment unarming both men while trying not to think too much about the tiki masks they were wearing on top of their black, skin-tight outfits. The two men only moaned and groaned as they attacked about as efficiently as a pair of heavily inebriated amateurs, and got up again in a way that wasn’t normal by any standard.

If it wasn’t for the basic movements, the fact that such a thing wasn’t exactly possible—which was saying a lot in a city that had seen aliens, demons, ghosts, magic, superpowers, and a disco club in the 90s—and also that they weren’t going for her brains, Ohm Wire would have sworn that she was fighting a pair of zombies.

The third man, who wore no mask to cover his gaunt features and bore a marginally better fashion sense, got up as well, and laughed.

Ohm Wire backed off from the fight in time to see more figures entering the light. Two more men; they looked and walked like the third, unmasked man. And they spoke in unison with the same voice, “You are in over your head, hero.”

The triplets raised their hands. Ohm Wire took a defensive stance, what little she had since her fighting style was more dance oriented rather than pure martial arts based. Their hands glowed an eerie shade of green.

With a jolt, Ohm Wire flew backward through the air. Tried as she might, there was no way to control where she was going, so she did the one thing her instinct could come up with. She enveloped herself in a defensive field of electricity. Then she hit something, and the world exploded around her in a tidal wave of sparks.

Cingeteyrn’s copies faded as they approached him, and his dry smile mocked the foolish girl who now sat and cooked in the distance.

“Time to go,” he said to his minions.

Long ago, they had been men and women. They had perhaps been a dozen of them, but no more. Now, they simply served. The body they took tonight might become like him, or like a part of them. The next couple of days would tell.

The servants grabbed the casket, and Cingeteyrn activated the device he carried. A mixture of lights took them away from this place.

Soon, he thought, they would be whole again. Then they would find their way home, and destroy it in their image.

Ohm Wire kicked away something that was heavy, she wasn’t sure what, and she coughed. The burning smells assaulting her nose were a little much, as was her headache. If that were a simple electric shock, it would have tickled at most, but it was more than that. She crashed into the side of the funeral home through its power generator.

Clenching her arms to ward off the cold sensation catching up with her, Ohm Wire walked to where those men were. They were gone, and they somehow took the casket just as quickly.

She swore a number of profanities to herself by the time the hacker got through on her visor system.

“Are you OK?” asked Joule_SAIkatsu.

“I will be, I hope,” she responded.

“You hope? What happened?”

“Sparked a relationship with a new supervillain. Or villains. They took off with a body.”

“That’s not good. Any idea whose body it is?”

“Checking now. You’ll see it when I do.”

Ohm Wire walked to the grave, and looked upon the stone. It was dirty and tilted from the upheaval of dirt, but she could make out the name. However, before she did, the hacker already reacted. “Oh no.”

“I need to tell the others,” Ohm Wire said.

Mary didn’t always work this late, but the last person she needed to meet was only ever available when most parents went to sleep, save heroes and villains as the city was known for. After this last talk, she knew.

She knew why another kid had run off to make a name as either a hero or a villain, and they died without the parent ever knowing until now.

Now she knew why her list of parents she needed to inform was still so long after a few months of being at this second job.

That was what Mary did when she wasn’t coaching gym classes at Steel Canyon Intermediate, saving lives as the hero Adamast Cross, or dating her wonderful girlfriend. Sometimes, Mary wondered if she was wearing herself thin, but at least she knew now why her job was so difficult.

Some parents worked multiple jobs to support their child, hardly making enough time to know that the same kid might have superpowers, or that the kid in question was sneaking off to be one of the capes practically flooding the city. The kid would die, and the same parent would continue to know nothing.

Maryann buried her head in her hands because she was tired. If it wasn’t for this last case, she might have been out herself, spending time with her girlfriend, who was also a hero.

There was a knock on the door. After midnight? Either it was someone she knew who was looking for her, or Mary had to suppose she had it coming for leaving a light on at this hour. She called out that the door was open.

So, someone opened it. It was a woman who could pass for Mary’s sister. No, it was her sister. Mary had not seen her since she—back when Mary was a man, and longer ago still by many years—left home. As the woman drew closer, her identity became clearer to Mary, who remained seated at her desk.

“Hello,” said Jackie. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I’m looking for someone. A man who was a costumed hero before a woman took his place. I need to know what happened to him. Oh, you look so much like him.”

“Like David, you mean,” Mary replied, trying to hold her contempt for the other woman.

“Yes, David Curry. Did you know him? Is he still around?”

If Jackie couldn’t put it together, then Mary wasn’t about to tell her that birds flew, or fish swam. “I know the name, and the face. What brings you here from Arizona? It’s a long way from home.”

“I needed to know if he was still around. I needed to leave him a message. To say sorry, and goodbye. If I cannot be forgiven by the Lord above, then hopefully by my brother. Please, help me.”

“We don’t generally look for the living unless it’s to contact the relatives of the recently deceased.”

“Yes? Yes.” Jackie quivered. “There’s a good chance I’m about to die. I was hoping to find David, or someone who can contact him, that I gave my life. Our aunt and uncle got me this far, but they won’t tell me more than this. So, please, help me.”

For the first time in a while, Mary admitted something to herself. As much as she loathed her highly religious sister, she did not want the woman to die. It nearly drove her to a grimace as Maryann continued to ask questions. No longer as Maryann Curry the city employee, but as Maryann with a secret identity that her sister somehow knew about.

Mary said, “What do you mean you might die? If you want my help, then I’ll need to know.”

Jackie responded in a quivering mess, “You’ve heard of the issues being suffered at the power plant?”

“I have. For the last few days, working crews could barely contain whatever it is that’s going on, but at least we still have power generators around the city for major operations.”

The lamp flickered, and Maryann eyed it briefly. As a city employee, she was allowed more than this one light while some people out there suffered without electricity because they couldn’t afford a basic generator and fuel, but she refused the additional lights as much as she could get away with, unlike the mayor and a number of businessmen who burned through their limited power supply like candy. At least some of the millionaires and major businesses had the good sense to help other people with generators of their own.

She continued to explain, “For the last forty-eight hours, Mayor Oldman has sent heroes in one by one to investigate, but they’ve continued to vanish. A wiser human being would send a whole team, risks be damned.”

“I’m the next person to go in,” Jackie said solemnly.

“What? I heard he was only sending in heroes. All of them volunteers, yes, but every one of them with a rank of 8 or higher.” That had ensured that volunteers would at least have superpowers, for the little good it would have done. One villain even went in, it turned out only after the man had vanished like the heroes.

Then Jackie engulfed her body in a suit of ice half as thick as Adamast Cross could produce when David had left his hometown for Paragon. Once again, Mary learned something new that she wasn't expecting.

“Your powers finally manifested,” Mary said.

“They’re horrible,” said Jackie. “They’re an affront to God, and I’m giving my life in hopes of forgiveness for whatever I did wrong.”

“You did nothing wrong!” Don’t step on religion’s toes, Mary. Don’t do it. “This is a part of who we are. It is a part of our design, like our bole-colored eyes. There is neither shame nor sin to being able to do what we can do, only in what we do with it, you ass.”

“Stop it! I just want to do what’s right.”

“And you think anyone would be happy if you died because you threw your life away? Which is right, adding to those flames, or putting them to rest with the aide of others?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Jackie fell to her knees, her ice armor still up.

Mary brought up her own ice armor as she stood and walked around the desk, kneeled, and at last hugged her sister for the first time in longer than she could remember. Through two layers of ice, she shared her warmth with a woman she had spent decades despising.

“You’re not alone,” she said to her sister, “and you don’t have to be.”

“David.” Jackie gasped.

“Not for four months now.”

“No, I mean, David-Mary-whatever? What’s that?”

Mary let her eyes follow the direction that her sister was pointing. There was an armlet wrapped around a secondary desk lamp. While the lamp was off, the light on the armlet was flashing red.

Someone in the League had some really bad news.