Dragonfly, Interim.
By: Set3

Team Valiant had just arrived via one of Copy Cat's teleport cubes on a building high above the streets. The team looked around themselves quickly to ensure there were no surprises in their immediate area. With the rooftop secure, they moved to the edge to see what they were dealing with. The area had been cordoned off by the police shortly after the disturbance happened. Apparently, a super villain who had been responsible for kidnapping several Broadway musical groups had shown up and caused chaos in the street but haven't moved much beyond the area. With the villain's reported henchmen, the civilians that were caught up in this debacle needed help fast.

On reaching the edge of the roof, they surveyed the street. What the team saw was utterly bizarre.

"Oh my god," Copy Cat exclaimed in disbelief facepalming heavily.

A musical was going on the left side of the street. Presumably, some of the super villain's henchmen were dressed up in bug costumes and singing the same song, which appeared to be "In the dark of the night" from the Anastasia cartoon. On a loop.

"They are quite good," Dragonfly remarked out loud.

On the right side, a few dozen people were dressed in a sort of uniform consisting of blue overalls and yellow t-shirts and various types of goggles varied by the person.

"What are they doing?" Halt asked, referring to the group on the right.

Evangel quirked his head, "They appear to be stringing up various pieces of pork products," he answered plainly.

Halt furrowed his brow, "...Why?"

"This can't be happening..." Copy Cat cried out, still in disbelief, if not more so.

"What?" Halt asked, turning to her.

Copy Cat finally pulled her hand from her face, "Remember last month, we stopped that mad scientist that tried to take control of the world by destroying all the coffee beans?" she countered.

"Yyeeahhh..." Halt said slowly, "If memory serves, you wailed on the poor guy pretty hard once we got past his defenses."

"This is worse," Copy Cat replied, ignoring Dragonfly's stifled snort when she got what was happening.

"Sooo, what's going on here then?" Halt asked, still not getting it.

"Didn't you hear what the police said the super vilain was calling himself?"

"The Pundant, right?" Halt answered, "What's that got to do with this?"

It wasn't till we got here and I noticed the guy in question that it isn't 'The Pundant' but 'The Pun-Dant'" she explained emphasizing the space between the words.

"Sooo," Halt prodded further, still not getting it. Dragonfly was struggling not to laugh out loud at his obliviousness.

Copy Cat gestured wildly at the street below to the villain in question who occasionally joined in on the musical. He was wearing a deep/dark purple bodysuit with the word "Pun" in yellow on his front and followed by a dash and "dant" was splayed across his back. He had a utility belt on his waist and what looked like a collapsible bo staff strapped to his back. He was holding a futuristic-looking gun that he fired occasionally at random civilians hitting them with a beam of energy that engulfed them in a ball of light. When the light dissipated the civilian was trapped in a human-sized coffee cup.

"He bases his shtick on puns! His 'minions' are literally hamming it up while he's "mugging" random people," she spat it out as the team moved into action seeing said villain firing his gun off.

"Well," Dragonfly said in bemusement, "Bad puns aside, he's still causing a massive disturbance and kidnapped several people, and may be using unknown means of coercing them to help him. Let's finish this up quickly," Dragonfly said at last as she took off into the air. Dragonfly flew up and over above those in the street aiming for the Pun-Dant.

Evangel simply jumped to the street below, doing a tuck and roll onto his feet, both swords in hand as he ran forth. Copy Cat and Halt's descents were softened by an anti-gravity grenade that Copy Cat threw down ahead of the two that cushioned their fall.

As the team of heroes approached the mass of henchmen, the group noticed that the 'minions' were each dragging a tank with an oxygen mask. Each took a breath from the tanks occasionally. Copy Cat noticed that, as she got closer, each 'minion' was speaking Spanish. Augmented by the gas they've been breathing in, their voices were higher-pitched, giving them squeaky helium voices. It was almost funny, if not for...

When one of the 'minions' saw them approaching, he pointed them out while another almost lazily pulled an rpg onto his shoulder to take aim. It was evident that whatever gas he was breathing impaired his footing as, as soon as he fired, he fell back on his hindquarters as the rocket shot out. His aim wasn't sure as well as the rocket shot wide and sailed over the heroes' heads arcing til it hit a man hole cover. The heroes were equally surprised by the lazy shot as they were by, instead of a deafening explosion, there was only a loud "pop".

"Are they using airsoft toys?" Copy Cat wondered out loud.

"You want them to use actual explosives?" Halt shot back as he ducked prematurely when the one holding a rifle began shooting in their direction with plastic BB's. Putting his arm down, Halt straightened himself out, "I really should be thankful this guy isn't crazy enough to give doped up people real weapons, let's go already!" he muttered.

Copy Cat only smirked at his reaction, but, silently agreed with him and followed him as they made their way to the villian in charge.

Evangel was already upon the "minions", using the flat of his blades to knock the wind out of them while using the edge of them to slice the airsoft weapons in half just in case they did secretly prove to be deadlier than originally suspected.

Dragonfly decided to fly up higher to check out the area as it felt like things were going too easy. Something just didn't feel right.

The dancing singing minions seemed oblivious to the heroes as they approached and continued to sing and dance while the super villain in question was busy removing hinges from another door. Halt and Copy Cat were almost upon the villain when he abruptly turned around to join in his singing minions when he spied the two. He quickly pulled out his energy pistol and shot at them. Out of reflex, Copy Cat pushed Halt out of the way before getting hit by the beam herself, screaming in surprised as the energy enveloped her.

"Copy Cat!" Dragonfly shouted as she banked down landing beside her as the energy coalesced into a giant human-sized coffee cup. Dragonfly peered over the lip as Halt stood in the line of fire to brace against the villain's next attack. "Copy Cat! Are you ok?" she asked worriedly.

There was a moment of silence before a small voice trailed back, "Please don't tell anyone I got mugged, yeah, I'm ok. I just can't move," she answered in embarrassment.

Dragonfly couldn't help let out a quick chuckle as she turned away, "Ok, I'll get Evangel to cut you out soon, once I take care of the bad guy, that is. Halt, stay with her."

"I'm never going to live this down," Copy Cat muttered to herself quietly.

Dragonfly took flight again heading straight for the Pun-dant who was running away from them. Just before the beam would have hit Dragonfly, she pulled to the side where it hit Halt instead. Thanks to Halt's power, instead of being engulfed and trapped in a giant mug, the energy beam instead reversed course straight back to the villain who let go of the weapon as the energy swarmed over the weapon trapping it in its own sized coffee cup. The mugged weapon had barely hit the ground when the Pun-dant pulled the bo-staff from his back and readied himself for Dragonfly's attack.

Dragonfly pulled out her throwing knives and threw one, willing it to split apart into three. The Pun-dant batted them aside with surprising expertise considering everything so far. The throwing knife reappeared in its sheath as Dragonfly threw her other one in distraction readying herself to kick the villain. The Pun-dant stepped back as he batted the new knives aside and braced against Dragonfly having somehow anticipated her kick landing on the middle of his staff. Having finished her attack, Dragonfly took advantage of the Pun-dant's braced stance by pushing off his bo-staff landing in front of him by a few feet, already having both knives in hand as she stared him down.

She didn't have to wait long as he was already moving forward. There was a smirk on his face as he brought his staff above his head for a downward strike from above. Dragonfly heard him muttering something about raising the bar on heroes. Hearing this made Dragonfly let out a frustrated growl, that could be confused for a angry groan of frustration as she caught the bo-staff in mid swing.

"No more puns!" Dragonfly growled as she brought the staff in the crok of one arm while bringing the other one down onto the middle of the bo-staff breaking it in half. Without losing momentum, Dragonfly used the half still under her arm and used it to wallop the villain knocking him off his feet. As the two halves of the villain's bo-staff clattered around him. He slowly sat up in a daze for a few seconds before shaking his head and getting to his feet.

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good staff you can depend on in this city?" the Pun-dant asked. Dragonfly couldn't be sure if he was angry or not from the tone of his voice. "It took me nearly an hour! Twenty minutes of looking through the yellow pages of the phone book. Thirty seconds of realizing everyone who's anyone posts their stuff online. Five minutes of a google search. Ten minutes of looking for my phone because I keep misplacing the damn thing. And a seven minute conversation of telling the supplier of what I wanted and finally two minutes of finalizing payment!"

Dragonfly brought her fists up, forgoing her throwing knives, "With all the puns I had to endure up till now, I think I've more than paid the price of breaking your stuff!" she retorted running forward taking a swing at the Pun-dant. The Pun-dant expertly dodged her fists giving ground as she pressed her attack. The Pun-dant was completely on the defensive as Dragonfly kept punching at him and even threw in a few kicks as well. Despite this, Dragonfly was able to get a few through and with a cross-check with her right fist across his face she landed a left fist into his stomach. She then finished off with a knee to the face when he doubled over from the hit to the gut. Blood exploded from his nose as he fell over backwards to the ground.

"Wait!" he called out as he slowly got to his feet. He reached into his utility belt and pulled something out and unfolded it before gently placing it on his face. It turned out to be glasses. "You wouldn't hit a guy wearing glasses would you?" he asked shakily, a goofy grin on his face.

Dragonfly slowly took the few steps closer to the Pun-dant, "Oh Pun," she said softly as she gently pulled the glasses off his face, "You aren't wearing any," she stated as she drew back with the other and hit him again sending him flying back to the steps of a building entrance behind him. Surprisingly, the Pundant was still conscious. Dragonfly was only puzzled by this for just a moment before she groaned in realization, "You were rolling with my punches weren't you?" she asked him candidly.

The Pun-dant let out a small giggle, "You know it!" he said with a bloody smile.

Dragonfly sneered at that, "Since I've got you down there," she started as she looked over her shoulder seeing Halt rounding up the costumed henchmen while Evangel was cutting Copy Cat out of her mug, "Were you the one that kidnaped those Broadway actors and are they all here now?"

The Pun-dant laughed, "I always wanted a theme-song to play while I worked, don't you?"

"How did you brainwash them to do all that?"

He rubbed the back of his head before cracking his neck, "Just take off the band on their heads and they'll return to normal. It's not my style to do any lasting harm apart from my bad puns," he explained, the smirk never leaving his face.

"Just... What kind of person are you? Why would you do all this?" she asked waving at the scene behind her, "You can't seriously tell me it was all just for a bad joke!"

"While, I admit, I wasn't expecting the Spanish Inquisition..."

The Pun-dant was cut off by the door behind him suddenly swinging open to reveal three men clad in red robes. The leader of the trio wore a wide-brimmed red hat while another had an old pilots helmet on his head, the third was wearing a ski mask with the face cut out to show said face.

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" the one in front shouted.

The Pun-dant burst out laughing til he was crying, "I always wanted that to happen," he weased between tears and laughter.

Dragonfly's mouth hung open as she saw the trios shocked expressions on seeing her, "Who are they?" she demanded.

"College students," he answered, "It's surprising what you can get them to do when you pay off their student loans for them." Seeing suspicion creep up on her face he wave her off, "I only paid them to wait behind that door and come out and say the line, they have nothing to do with me beyond that. Hardly the beginnings of a criminal life I'm sure you'd agree."

As much as Dragonfly hated to agree, he was right. She wasn't going to condemn three kids for something so minor, even if this whole situation gave her a huge headache. She took a calming breath, "Okay, lets just rap this up," she said.

"When the reporters report on this," the Pun-dant started, pulling a red ribbon from his utility belt and tying it around his head. He then pulled on a hidden tread on his shoulder that removed the "-dant" from his back, "Call me: "The Crimson Pun"!" he said with his hand on his hips, a less dignified stance since he was still sitting on the ground.

Dragonfly looked nonplussed at him, "Punny, I'm calling you mud" she declared as she caught the cuffs Copy Cat threw to her.

Shortly after that the "Crimson Pun" was arrested and handed over to the police. The singing troupe were returned to normal just as the villain said. But, they were still sent off to get look over just in case. The same was done with the "minions". The "Spanish Inquisition" trio were given a stern talking to by the police but were otherwise released. After checking the area for anything lethal beyond another hidden bad pun, Team Valiant returned to base and began debriefing. Once that was done, each went their separate ways.

Halt was heading home after a quick grocery stop to a local mom n pop shop. As he was passing an alley he could hear sounds of a scuffle causing Halt to stop and listen. He could hear some one getting beaten up and inwardly sighed. "I suppose one more won't hurt," he said to himself as he place his grocery bag down by the wall, hoping that no one would take it in his absence despite how empty the street seemed at this time of night and quickly made his way down the alley. When he came around a corner, he saw two teenagers beating the ever loving hell out of a third. Halt grimaced as he stepped up behind the two, grabbing both by the back of the collars and yanked them back and threw them as hard as he could down the alley.

"I think it's time you two run home now, don't you think?" he said threateningly. The two teens eyed him disbelievingly before turning to each other and deciding running was the better idea. Halt turned to the kid that was still on his feet giving him a shocked look before turning to look after the other two. "You should probably make your way home too kid," he said more softly as he turned to head out the alley the way he came. He picked up his back of groceries, which thankfully were unmolested, and was on his way home again. Minutes later he stopped at a crosswalk waiting for the light to change when he heard the quick footsteps of someone running up behind him. Halt turned his head to see the kid he rescued in the alley so decided to fish out is cell thinking the kid wanted an autograph or a pic for his social media page. "What's one more?" he asked himself with a smile. He was flipping through the apps when he stiffened on feeling searing pain stab him in the back. He turned his head and saw the same teen with a wild look in his eyes as he felt him pull the knife out only to shove it back in again almost in the same spot. He dropped his groceries.

"It's all your fault!" the teen whispered hoarsely, "All I had to do was let them canonize me and they'd let me in their gang. Now," he stabbed Halt again, "They say I gotta kill you before I can get in," He stabbed again, "It's your fault I had to do this!" he shouted.

With one more knife in the back, Halt fell to the street on his back, he could feel the warm slickness of his blood puddling around him as he laid there. He looked up at the teen, he looked terrified. The teen turned to leave. Halt's hand shot out grabbing the kids ankle as hard as he could.

"Just one more put away," Halt thought. "Just one mor...," and he was gone.

Unbeknownst to the teen, Halt had activated a panic button on his phone after the kid stabbed him the first time. This would alert the rest of Team Valiant to his position. The team arrived too late for Halt unfortunately. What they saw on arriving was Halt. laying in a pool of his own blood with a literal death-grip on some teenage kid's ankle. When Copy Cat checked Halt's phone, she played back the audio while the teen was telling Dragonfly and Evangel of some crazy guy who jumped Halt and started stabbing him. He was in the middle of saying how he tried to go after the murderer when Halt reached out to stop him to save his life when the two heroes saw Copy Cat stiffen hearing the playback. She played the audio for the other two. The kid tried to run, but, Evangel quickly grabbed him and held onto him till the police arrived when Copy Cat called them. They recovered the knife the teen tried to ditch when he saw the heroes come up. Brief words were exchanged with the police when they finally arrived and Copy Cat gave them a copy of the audio recording of the kid admitting his guilt and a scan of Halt's body on a flash drive for more evidence. Once the police left with the teen in the back seat, the heroes recovered Halt's body and returned to base and discuss future plans to mourn the passing of their comrade.

---

Far above the earth, just behind the moon, a small ship blinked into existence from FTL. The small ships lone occupant looked over the readouts from its passive sensors. Seeing what it was looking for, the occupant smiled, "At last, I've found it!" the occupant remarked.

END

Dragonfly will return.

Tobias Marshal was following his partner, Phil Dunwhich, down the hall. Both were clad in swat gear, as they should be, as they are part of a larger team that was currently clearing out an old apartment building that housed a group of white supremacists. They had received a tip that they were going to carry out an attack on a local minority church. Not willing to take a risk, SWAT was called in. The building was quickly surrounded and after a quick fire fight at the immediate entrances, they had to clear each room and floor. Since it was such a large building they had to split off into two's as one of the suspects they took told them that there was a bomb somewhere inside. Time was of the essence hence splitting into two's to cover more ground faster.

Walking down the halls, the two came to a door to the left. Tobias posted by the door while Phil readied. On both nodded to the other that they were ready, Phil tried the door and opened it and entered with his MP5 at the ready as he entered. The room had seen better days as there was grim all over the walls and floor. The ceiling looked like it was starting to collapse in the corner. The only furniture in the room was the half rotted remains of a mattress, the spring wire frame clearly visible through the material. The immediate room clear, Phil turned to the only doorway, it's door had been broken off and laying on the floor beside it, and made his way to it. On reaching the doorway Phil could see that it led to an empty closet. Relaxing slightly, Phil left and told Tobias that the room was clear when a man bursts from the room knocking Phil forward. The man was too close for Tobias to accurately shoot the man without hitting his partner and elected to grab the man in a bear hug as his focus was still on Phil. Phil had quickly got up and made his way to the attacker. Tobias felt the man was about to jump up and use Tobias to brace himself to kick Phil as he came up. So Tobias dropped him and he fell to the floor hitting it hard stunning himself. Tobias quickly put a knee to the man's back pinning him to the floor as he pulled his cuffs out and secured the man.

"This is blue three, we got a suspect in custody," Phil said into his radio as he came to Tobias.

"Copy blue three, red two just found the explosives. Continue your sweep for any stragglers," control replied.

"Will do, blue three out," Phil replied.

Tobias got the man to his knees now that his hands were cuffed behind his back and got a look at him. Tobias had to laugh once he saw the man. He was completely shaved bald and had a tattoo of a swastika.

"You really went all out on the skinhead thing didn't you," Tobias goaded him.

"Fuck you man!" he shout back as he struggled against his binds. "Let me go! You know we gotta get rid of those filthy people from stealing our jobs and killing our kids. If we don't do anything to stop these leeches, how will?"

Tobias' lip quivered in anger, "Sure, and you're so nice and squeaky clean and live in the ritzy part of town. This is just your summer home right?" he prodded gesturing around the filthy hallway.

"Fuck you pig!" he shouted back.

"He's obviously gone to Harvard," Phil said with a laugh.

"Definitely a Pulitzer winner here," Tobias quipped as he got up. "Let's get the rest these assholes rounded up," he told Phil.

Several minutes later they cleared the floor having found two woman that the group had kidnapped and were using for sex. The women were rushed to the waiting ambulance to be treated for the abuse they suffered. At the end of the operation a total of eighteen had been taken into custody, seven of those were shot when the SWAT teams breached the building and two of them were killed from the firefight.

After the debriefing and following mountain of paperwork, Tobias and Phil had taken to a bar after work to celebrate their largely successful day.

"So," Phil started after taking a drink of his beer, "Are you sure that this'll be your last day on the force? I gotta tell you, I'm going to miss having you with me," he told Tobias as they clinked their glasses together.

"You're going to have to find someone else to watch your back when you forget to check behind the doors," he replied with a smirk.

Phil laughed at that, "Well, I had to give you something to do. So. What's this part-time.."

"Full-time job now," Tobias corrected.

Phil nodded, "..Full-time job that you have that you can't still work with me and the guys for?"

Tobias stared at his drink for a moment before shaking his head dismissively, "Sorry, I can't tell you since I'm not allowed to tell anyone, but I swear I can make a difference workin' in it," he told him.

Phil snuffed his nose at that, "Yeah well, just be sure to look me up once in awhile," Phil told him while holding up his glass for another toast to which Tobias answered in kind. "Now, lets get you the mother of all hangovers for tomorrow so you can realise the mistake you've made in leaving the force."

"I'll drink to that," Tobias said as he drank.

"You're going to have to," Phil laughed, drinking his own.

They sat at their table for another hour after which the went their separate ways.

On reaching home, Tobias tossed his keys on the table and locked the door before walking into his living room and turned on the TV to watch the news. As he listened to the news in the background. With a sigh, he wiped his face with his hands before he looked at the bracelet on his left wrist. There was a reason for his being vague. In his new job, that was part time up till now, he is a super hero, one of the developed.

His code-name is Dragon and part of a team called Valiant, a mid-level super hero team composed of himself and three other people. Copy Cat, Halt and Reflect, and Evangel.

Compared to his teammates, he was rather embarrassed on how he developed his powers. He didn't get hit with radiation or took some kind of chemical. He wasn't part of a super soldier program and he wasn't brilliant creating awesome technology. And he certainly didn't develop powers through surviving any tragic event. No, he developed powers through a small act of kindness. More specifically, he saved the life of a dragonfly. As it turned out, the spirit of all dragonflies took notice of him when he idly picked up a dragonfly when it stunned itself by hitting a cart by the entrance of a grocery store he was walking out of one day and set it in a safe place for it to recover.

Later that evening the spirit came to him telling him that she was touched by his kindness and humility as she told him that most would walk on without notice. And to show her appreciation to him, she bestowed the spiritual armor of the dragonfly to him. The armor was mostly black in color with metallic green accents where the light reflected off it. It hugged his body like a second skin and had smooth chitness design giving it an insect-like look and covered his entire body including his head. The helmet sort of reminded him of those old Kamen Rider shows he used to watch. The armor also came with weapons in the form of a pair of throwing knives. The armor couldn't allow him to fly, which confused him, but it enhanced his speed, reflexes, and strength to just beyond human levels.

Tobias smiled to himself as he looked at the bracelet which was how it looked when his armor was in its dormant state. He hadn't been able to remove it since he received it but didn't really want to anyways. He had put this gift to good use using it to fight super villains as well as the more standard criminals. He liked it and there seemed to be a lot less paperwork. A quick look at his clock on the TV told him that he should head for bed. While he didn't expect there to be a world crisis event, it still paid to be well rested as his experience in the SWAT unit showed him that exhaustion was as much a lethal enemy on the job as any bad guy with a gun. He shut everything down and headed for bed and was asleep minutes after his head hit the pillow.

The next morning Tobias was up and going through his morning routine and had gone out the door at his usual time and driving off to work. With one change. Instead of driving to the police station, he headed into the opposite direction heading to the headquarters for Valiant. After getting out of his car he headed for the building. On reaching the door he was met by a girl with long blond hair done up in a pony tail who looked to be seventeen years old.

"Good morning Dragon," she said to him with a cheerful smile.

Tobias smiled back, "Morning, Copy Cat," he answered using her code name in return as they both walked through the door.

Copy Cat was the team's resident tech head. She would often try to copy powers and other technology she comes across using technology she built herself. Her uniform consisted of a blue hairband that she wore that had a functional set of cybernetic cat ears that would twitch and turn to the slightest sound. A sleeveless blue shirt that seemed to be made of a glassy material with a circuit pattern instead of real fabric. Her fingerless gloves and cargo pants seemed to be made out of the same blue glassy material. The only exception to this was her goggles, although they had a glassy blue frame, which had orange colored lenses. To cap off her uniform, she carried a small satchel that was her first invention as well as her pride and joy. It had the same blue glassy look to it as well and had dimensional technology built into it. This allowed her to put pretty much anything she wanted to, regardless of size, into it. She got the idea from an old cartoon where a character would pull out an anvil that was twice the size of the character and copied it for her own use. She even included some sort of warping technology into it so the object would compact as it was it was put into her satchel. He had to laugh once, and was thankful it was harmless to humans, when she once shoved a villain into it when we had no other means of transporting him safely to a holding cell. The reason she looks seventeen is because of her first, and only, foray into bio-mechanical suits. Back when she was twenty-one she had seen a TV show where a character was wearing a suit that made them look like a completely different, and smaller, person. She then tried to replicate the effect by creating a bio-mechanical suit that looked like herself from when she was seventeen. Unfortunately, it seemed that she made a mistake and locked herself in the suit. Because of the way she designed it, simply trying to rip it wouldn't work. Even though she is a full-fledged adult she still, at times, acted like she was seventeen. In any case, she was an invaluable member to the team.

As the two walked through the lobby they bantered to one another when Halt and Reflect came walking out of the gym with a towel his shoulders.

"Hey Halt," Copy Cat greeted him as they passed.

"Morning Cat," he replied as he headed off to his room for a shower.

Halt and Reflect, or Halt as most people called him had no real uniform, usually sticking with a simple pair of jeans and a muscle shirt. His powers allowed him to stop energy before it hits him and bounce it back to it origin point. He was well fit and would often brag about his physique.

Tobias and Copy Cat were soon in the central control room which had a conference table with chairs around it as well as computers and TV screens that lined the walls. The TV's were set to various news channels, the computers were analysing police radio bands for possible super villain attacks or just regular criminals that were too well equipped for the regular police force. The two sat down at their separate computers and went through the logs to review potential new comers, both heroes and villains coming to the city.

"So where's Evangel?" Tobias asked.

Evangel didn't have a uniform per say but he always wore white clothing that seemed to make him look like an aristocrat from the last century. He also wore an incredably long white scarf that was wrapped loosely several times around his shoulders and the ends still fell to his waist. He carried a pair of swords at all times. If they weren't in his hands they were in sheaths that covered only the blades edge. No one in Valiant had ever seen him eat or drink and despite a few times the had camera's trained on him out of curiosity, they never saw him sleep either. His swords, so far, could cut through anything. Tobias thought that he was a speed booster as he was always able to block what ever came at him or moved out of the way just in time to avoid injury.

"He went on his vacation two days ago," Copy Cat answered.

"Oh," Tobias replied.

For three days each month, Evangel would disappear. They didn't know where he went and just considered it his vacation as he was always on duty otherwise.

Just then an alert sounded and Tobias flicked on the police radio.

"Send back-up, we have a mob here at the mall. Confirmed developed involvement. I repeat, a developed is instigating a riot! It's.." there was a female voice that cut off the officer and then the signal went dead.

Tobias switched off the speaker, Copy Cat had already got up and was heading to the door, Tobias ran after her. They ran to the roof where Halt was waiting, still soaking wet from his shower but otherwise dressed and ready.

Copy Cat pulled out a cube, a teleportation device, from her satchel and placed it on the ground between the three. The sides slid out providing a stable platform while the top raised up until it was just above everyone. Everyone stared at the erected post as it activated. From the team's perspective it looked like a cross fade you see on TV shows. One second, they were on the roof of their headquarters, and the next they were on the roof of the parking lot of the mall where the mob/riot was happening.

Not wasting any time Tobias willed his armor to activate and he was immediately clad from head to toe in chitiness armor and followed his team members to the mall's skylight to peer in for a look. What they saw was a mix of controlled chaos. The men were running around smashing storefront windows and raiding them of valuables. The women were alternating between fighting each other and bowing in one direction.

"Oh shit," Copy Cat swore as she saw who it was and went fishing in her satchel pulling out a pair of goggles and headphones and handing them to Halt. "It's Princess," she stated with distaste.

Princess is a woman who was so named because she had an obsession of looking like a princess. She dressed like one, more specifically like a Disney princess. She was a dangerous developed because her body produced an aura that drew everyone who looked at her to her. Even her voice had a hypnotic effect which made it very hard to fight her on her own. She would often go into large crowds before turning on her power to create an instant army of people to warship and do her bidding. Last year, she almost took over the city including half the team as well as other local heroes. It was thanks to Evangel, who seemed to be immune, and Copy Cat who had her gadgets to filter out the effects of Princess' powers. Tobias didn't have his armor active at the time she got him. Copy Cat was able to make enough earphone and goggles for all the heroes while Evangel ran interference. After Princess was defeated, all the heroes were embarrassed to realise that they were fighting with cat ears on their head.

As for the present, Princess was still building her power base in the mall and the mob of hypnotised hostages was still relatively small. Without further adieu, Copy Cat pulled a blue hula hoop out of her satchel and placed it on the skylight. The hoop sank into the skylight and after a flash, the glass inside the hula hoop disappeared. Tobias jumped down the hole first as he pulled out his throwing knives, making sure he held the pointed ends in his palms so he wouldn't hurt anyone more than he had to.

"Stop this Princess, before we have to," Tobias told her as Copy Cat and Halt landed behind him.

The woman gave them a dirty look but seemed largely disinterested before adding a scowl in Copy Cats direction. "Everyone," she called out. Everyone turned to her. "Please remove these unsightly peasants' heads from their bodies, your princess commands it," she told them with a gesture in the heroes direction. The crowed of people were instantly on them.

Tobias ducked as a man swung at him with a machete pilfered from a nearby sporting goods store while blocking a mop a janitor swung down at him. Tobias grabbed the mop and yanked on it pulling the janitor towards him off his feet and thrusts his fist into the janitors' stomach. He doubled over and was, for the moment, out of the fight. The man with the machete swung at him again while he block the strike with the flat of his knife while kicking another in the chest as he ran up to him. In one swift motion, Tobias wrapped his arm around and grabbed the machete away from the man and flung it up where it stuck in the ceiling. Tobias then grabbed the man and pulled him over his shoulders and threw him into a rushing crowd of people knocking them over like bowling pins. With his immediate area clear for the moment he spared a glance over to his team mates. Copy Cat had already pulled out an energy rifle with 'crowd control' written on the side and was firing at the mob when they got too close to her. Those hit by her rifle straight on were knocked to the floor while others that were grazed were sent spinning before hitting the floor. Halt had his own rifle, courtesy of Copy Cat he was sure, and was shooting it while physically knocking back the ones that made it past his shooting.

"Copy Cat," he called out as he kicked another back.

"What?" she asked, not taking her eyes off the mob of people trying to rush her.

"Go and take Princess and we'll cover you!" he told her.

"Kay," she shouted back as she kicked the legs out from under a woman that managed to get close. Copy cat fired a few more times before turning around and running towards Princess who was starting to look nervous.

On seeing Copy Cat running towards her Princess pulled two large men she kept as her guards in front of her as she grabbed some jewellery from the pile she had everyone collect for her and began to make a brake for it. Copy Cat ran after her firing her rifle as she went. She hesitated when she saw a police officer approach her and hit the floor as he shot at her. She fired back low hitting his legs, the officer spun head over heels before landing on his back in a daze. Copy Cat didn't waste any time and continued on. She eventually caught up with Princess who had ran into a dead end and was trying to open the locked door.

Hallway was empty so Copy Cat put her rifle away in her satchel but she held the bag in front of her in a taunting motion.

"Get away from me, your princess commands it," Princess cried in fear.

"Not going to happen Princess," Copy Cat replied as she swung her bag in front of her menacingly, "You've been a naughty little princess and you need a time out. Now, since I haven't had time to figure out a way to nullify your powers for transport, you're going to have to take a ride in the bag," she told her.

Princess screamed, "No please, I'll be good, I promise," she pleaded.

Copy Cat just shook her head like a parent disciplining a child, "We tried that last time remember? You tried to escape so now you have to get in the bag," she told her almost condesendly as she stepped closer.

Princess tried her best to back away as much as she could into the corner as she cried until in one swift motion Copy Cat swung the satchel over Princess' head and pushed it down. It was almost comical, in a scary sort of way, to see Princess' legs kicking from the opening of the bag until Copy Cat grabbed a foot and pushed them the rest of the way in and made her way back to her team mates where they had gone from fighting the crowd to helping them as they returned to normal now being out of sight and sound of Princess. Fortunately, most of the injuries were limited to bumps bruises and minor cuts. Some from team Valiant but most from Princess' doing. The worst was an old woman who'd broken her hip.

As the injured were looked over and treated, the police arrived with a specialised containment unit for Princess. When the police inquired about where the suspect was and Copy Cat simply held up her satchel and swung it slightly while giving them a knowing look with her cheshire grin. Without any further words, or any words for that matter, she walked over to the containment unit in the police van and closed the door, disappearing in the back. After a few minutes a muffled scream could be heard a few seconds later Copy Cat came back out making a show of dusting off her hands.

"So," Tobias urged, "Did she say why she attacked this time?"

"Apparently, she got wind that a store received a shipment of the Snow White re-release from Disney," she told them with an amused look on her face accompanied by a raised eyebrow, "She didn't want to wait or risk not getting a copy so she went on the warpath."

Halt scoffed at that, "She caused a riot because she wanted a movie that everyone has at the back of their closet?" Tobias nodded in agreement.

Copy Cat laughed as she agreed with the others before responding in a mock impression of Princess, "It's a digitally re-mastered blue-ray with over thirty hours of behind the scenes footage and running commentary of the director and lead animator," she said before circling her finger beside her head in the universal indication of crazy. Copy Cat pulled said blur-ray and handful of jewellery out of her satchel and handed them to one of the nearby police officers. "She screamed when I took the blue-ray away from her more than the jewellery. I swear, she's such a child," she said with a roll of her eyes.

Tobias raised an eyebrow at that, "Last week, you set up a complex set of dominos pieces to hit the snooze button on two of your alarm clocks," he chided her.

She responded by sticking her tongue out at him before breaking into a grin.

The trio laughed again before checking with the police for anything further and to ensure they were aware of the containment procedures needed for transporting Princess. Soon enough, they were back on top of the mall roof standing in the same spot were in when they arrived. As Tobias had his armor return to its dormant state Copy Cat pulled out another cube to teleport them back to their headquarters. After setting the coordinates, she programed the cube to self-destruct after it sent them back. Once she set it down it opened up and sent them back home and then began to rust before bursting into flames that burnt away to ashes, the hula hoop device they used to get through the skylight returned the empty space of glass before removing itself from the skylight and self-destructing as well.

On returning to the roof of their headquarters, Copy Cat knelt down to retrieve her device. Halt was already on his way inside and Tobias was about to say something to Copy Cat when he felt a sharp thump hit him in the back immediately followed by a bright light below his eyes.

Tobias looked down to see what caused the flash of light when his sight fell on his shadow. At first he couldn't place it why his shadow looked different until he noticed that the sun was shining through his chest. Perplexed, Tobias looked down at his chest and saw a few wisps of smoke leaving his chest. He reached up with a hand and was surprised to see that he could put his hand into his chest. Tobias then realised that the reason the sun carried through the chest of his shadow was because HE had a hole in his chest. His last thought before he collapsed was: "I thought something like this would hurt." And then his mind fell to darkness as he heard Copy Cat screaming.

Copy Cat looked up as she heard the discharge of energy just in time to see Tobias reaching a hand into the hole in his torso before he collapsed. Copy Cat then screamed out his name, not his code name, and caught him as he fell. She couldn't think, there wasn't any blood and when she tried to cover the hole with her hand, she couldn't quite bring herself to touch the fatal wound. She still screamed.

Halt was on his way back to the exercise room when he heard Copy Cat start screaming. When he turned around he saw that Dragon was on the ground and Copy Cat was screaming over him. Halt then looked up to see a man dressed in traditional Chinese garb standing atop a Chinese dragon with a canon of some sort strapped to his wrist.

"Drake," Halt spat out the man's name. A villain who had the power to create solid objects and illusions. He seemed to have a long-running personal grudge against his teammate Dragon simply because of his code name. Right now that didn't matter to Halt. Drake obviously hit Dragon and Copy Cat had gone into hysterics screaming and sobbing not seeming to notice the man aiming his canon in her direction. Seeing what was going to happen Halt ran and jumped over his team members, grabbing them both and bracing himself as he shielded them with his body. Drake fired his canon and Halt used his power causing the beam of energy to stop inches from hitting his body and reversing back into the canon causing it to explode injuring Drake as some shrapnel carved up his arm and some of his face. Drake fell back with a cry of pain before laughing.

"Now I shall claim the right to truly be called the Dragon," he said as he had the dragon he was riding carry him away.

It was at this moment that Copy cat regained her senses and jumped up as she reached into her satchel and pulled out a missile launcher that was a little too large for a normal person to carry. She had compensated for this by adding support struts and targeted Drake. When she got a lock she fired five missiles. Drake dodged the first two easily and formed a pair of Chinese swords to intercept the next two and had his dragon stop the last with its body to shield him. Copy Cat roared at this and pulled out and energy rifle and began firing haphazardly in Drake's direction. A few minutes later, Drake was out of sight. Copy Cat continued to fire until Halt grabbed the rifle from her. She turned to Halt with tears streaming down her face.

"He killed Dragon," she whispered weakly, her lip trembling.

Halt pulled her to him. He couldn't think of anything to say. And telling her that everything would be okay would just upset her. The short girl sobbed into Halt's chest soaking his shirt with her tears but he held her tight regardless until she pushed him away.

"M-maybe I can save him," she blubbered as she hurried over to Tobias' body, "Help me get him to my workshop. If we can get him there soon enough, maybe I can rig something up and bring him back," she cradled her head in her hands trying to think as she paced back in forth. Not seeing Halt moved, she turned to him, "Come on and help me, I can't carry him myself."

Halt hesitated until Copy Cap screamed at him to help her again. Halt wanted to tell her that there was no use and that Dragon was dead but he could see that Copy Cat was barely holding on. Still, Halt didn't like the thought of leaving Dragon's body out in the open and moved to pick his body up all the while Copy Cat was fretting over him. They went at a careful, but rushed pace, as they descended down into the building until they reached Copy Cat's workshop. As Halt carried Dragon's body in, Copy Cat rushed over to one of her work tables and brushed the projects she was working on off onto the floor, some of the devices fizzled as if to complain which went unnoticed by Copy Cat whose attention was squarely on Tobias that Halt was gently placing on the table.

Copy Cat went to his side and looked at him and was briefly disturbed that his eyes were still open. She closed her eyes to hold back a wave of sadness before opening them again and using her hand to close his. Dozens of thoughts ran through her mind at once as she considered what to do first. She couldn't just leave Tobias laying there with a hole in his chest but she had so many other things to do before that. His brain was already starved of oxygen minutes ago. She had to build something to stop his body from rotting. There was just too many things to do at once for her to decide which to start first. She began to pace again.

"Uh, Copy Cat?" Halt asked drawing her attention.

"What?!" she snapped looking him straight in the eye with a manic look in hers.

"Something's happening to his bracelet," He told her as he gestured down at the trinket as it appeared to grow up Tobias' arm, forming his armor.

"No!" Copy Cat cried out as she grabbed a jig saw and moved dead set on removing the armored clad arm from Tobias' body only to be stopped by Halt who grabbed the tool away from her and held her tightly. Copy Cat struggled against him and kicked at him wherever her heels could reach. Halt grimaced but held fast.

"Let me go," she ordered him as she continued to struggle, "I need to get it off him before.."

"You're not cutting his arm off," Halt told her forcefully, "This isn't like you, you're not thinking straight. How the hell is cutting his arm off going to bring him back?" he asked her trying to get her to see reason.

"Shut up," she shouted back. "The damn armor is magic. If it covers him up then I don't know what will happen and if I can't get it off him then I can't bring him back!" she cried before she finally went limp. She sobbed again, "I don't want to loose him," she cried.

Halt turned her around so he could look her in the eye. Her eyes were red from the crying and her face was slick with her tears as she continued to cry. The armor was now spreading across his chest as it moved down his torso and up to his head.

"For all we know, this is supposed to happen," he offered, although he didn't sound convinced himself. For all he knew, the armor was eating Dragon.

"I hope so," Copy Cat said listlessly, her senses seeming to return to her finally, "Because I won't be able to get it off him without losing him," she said dejectedly with a sniffle as the two watched the armor slowly swallow Tobias' body until it sealed him in completely. Copy Cat turned her head before it finished.

Tobias felt himself floating as he awoke, memories of his attack came back to him. While keeping his eyes closed he reached up with his hand and felt his chest. He was relieved to find that his chest was whole, he chuckled a little at his unintended pun, marveling slightly at how one added letter changed the entire meaning of a word. Despite himself, he felt incredably calm and peaceful. Slowly, he opened his eyes to find himself in a void. On noticing his surroundings though, the void shifted into a pleasant grassy shoreline to a large pond. It was the kind of setting where one would take a nap beside under the guise of lazily fishing. The sun is warm and the flitting of dragonflies about told Tobias where he is.

This was where he first met the spirit of all dragonflies. This is the ethereal planescape that she had summoned him too and given him his armor and powers.

Looking up behind him, he saw her standing on the small hill above him looking down at him with a warm, but concerned, smile. Just like last time, she appeared to be a human woman in her mid-twenties but the way she carried herself seemed to make her look much older. Clad in only a simple dress, she began walking down and sat down beside him as she took in their surroundings and held a finger out as a dragonfly landed on it briefly before flying off again, her smiling after it.

"It has been a long time since we have met like this," she told him with a guilty look.

"About four years or so, but I've been busy, so I couldn't come to visit anyways," he told her trying to lighten the mood.

She nodded, giving him a wry smile, "I have noticed. You have certainly put the gift I have given you to good use," she said before she grew sad, "I have brought you back here for a reason, Tobias," she said looking apprehensive.

Tobias looked off to the pond, "Does it have to do with my being attacked before coming here?" he inquired, although he already knew the answer.

With a sad smile she nodded her head again, "You were killed in that attack," she admitted, "Your soul would have moved on had it not been for my intervention," she explained as tears fell from her eyes, "There has been so much death at the hands of evil recently and continuously, so many I couldn't stop. So many kind souls perished," she touched Tobias' arm lightly as she looked into his eyes, "You have such a kind soul Tobias,"

Tobias grunted slightly and was about to protest when she put a finger over his lips to stop him from speaking.

"I might not have been able to save any of those that have perished, but I can save you," she told him.

Tobias didn't understand, there wasn't much you could do to fix a hole in the chest, "How?"

She then touched his chest where his injury occurred, "By giving a portion of myself to you. A small fraction of a sliver, any more would overwhelm you and what I gave is already too much," she explained as Tobias felt a warmth spread through his chest to the rest of his body from where she touched it. She smiled at him sadly, "Now, go and live, I can only ask that you forgive me for my selfishness," she said before looking off to the pond.

Tobias was about to ask her what she meant by that when he felt himself fall away from the idyllic scenery and the spirit woman back into darkness.

Copy Cat remained in her workshop next to the armored form of Dragon, Tobias, waiting anxiously for any change. After the armor encompassed Tobias' body, it reformed into a pod-like container. Solid and black, it prevented anyone from the outside from seeing in. And, much to Copy Cat's chargin, immune to the devices she had on hand to scan the internal structure of the pod. It had been eight hours since and Halt had long since left having grown both concerned of Copy Cat's unwavering vigil and bored of the stillness after the armor completed its shift into its current form. As Copy Cat paced around the pod, she'd pause to put an ear to it to hear the muted sounds of something shifting inside before going back to pacing. As she chewed on her nail, she briefly considered using one of her other devices to open it but with her fear of hurting Tobias and a promise she made to Halt to not use any weapons on it, she went back to pacing and chewing on the end of her thumb nail.

She stopped again to think of building a stronger scanning device to penetrate the shell when she heard a cracking sound. She turned to the pod to see a small crack on the top. Something, presumably Tobias, pushed up against the top making the crack slightly bigger.

Copy Cat ran to the door to yell down the hall to tell Halt that something was happening with Tobias' armored pod. Turning back, Copy Cat could see that the crack was large enough to see the Tobias' back. She was thankful that there wasn't any goo of any kind and grateful that from what she could see, Tobias' wound was healed. She wanted to help open the pod for him but wasn't sure what to do. Tobias' armor was magic based, and she long since learned that what's true for science was not true in the realm of magic. So all she could do was fidget and console herself that he seemed to be moving by himself. It was then as the more Tobias pushed out that Copy Cat notice that there wasn't a stich of clothing that she could see so far. So when Halt finally came in, she pushed him back out to get some of Tobias' spare clothes that he kept in the building.

Up until a few minutes ago Tobias felt like he was floating when he suddenly realised he was stuck curled up and couldn't move. It was so tight that he couldn't move his arms around to feel his surroundings. So he tried to push against his enclosure. He felt it give only slightly but it gave him the incentive to continue to try. Each time he pushed he could feel it give a little more. He kept going and just when he was about to collapse from exhaustion, he heard a crack and cool air flow over his back from where he must have broken it. Spurned by his success, he renewed his efforts and pushed again resting every few seconds. The crack was now large enough that fresh air reached his nose and he breathed in a lungful of fresh air. With a final push, at long last, he was free from his confines. Sitting upright he sucked in more air as he threw his arms to his sides to rid himself of the cluster phobia his confinement brought on.

A gasp drew his attention and he turned his head. Long dark hair fell in his vision, he quickly brushed it aside as he looked at Copy Cat who had a nervous look directed at him. He was about to say something while addressing his longer hair when he saw and felt something on his back. Twisting himself further looking over his shoulder to see a large pair of wings, more specifically, dragonfly wings. Tobias turned and looked over each shoulder and confirmed that the wings were attached to his back. He was further assured when he felt them twitch.

"What the hell?" inquired Tobias as he tried reaching back to feel them.

"Tobias?" Copy Cat asked unsure of who she was looking at.

"Yes," Tobias responded seeing her slowly put her hand in her satchel.

"If it's really you then what's my name? What's my real name?" she asked him. She was trying to hide it but Tobias could see the butt of a weapon she was ready to use just in case.

"Brenda, you're starting to scare me," Tobias said slowly, trying to calm her down.

It seemed to have work but she still had a worried look on her face, "That's really you Tobias?" she asked again as she put her weapon back in her satchel.

Tobias gave her a side-long grin, "I know I seem to have wings now but it's still me. I'm still Dragon. Just with wings, and longer hair now it seems," he said as he pulled at a lock of hair that had gotten in his face again.

"Tobias," Copy Cat started before correcting herself with a pained look, "Dragon, Those aren't the only things that changed on you," she told him cautiously.

"What do you..." Tobias started as he looked down at himself and was rendered speechless by what he saw. It was no longer his body that he saw. whether you could call it fortunate or unfortunate, his clothes had vanish affording him with a clear view of his body. He now had a slim well toned waist, thin feminine limbs, sizable breasts, and a woman's vagina. The only other thing that stood out was a large blue gemstone that was imbedded in his chest sitting in place where Drake's attack struck him.

Tobias' shocking discovery was interrupted when Halt returned muttering something as he opened the door before stopping in his tracks on seeing a naked woman with insect wings sitting in the pod made from Tobias' armor causing his jaw to drop. As Halt stood gaping, Copy Cat, Brenda, walked over to him and in one swift motion, grabbed the clothing he brought and pushed him back out the door and closed it in Halt's protesting face.

Brenda turned to Tobias and as she walked to him she quirked her head in thought before dropping the shirt from the bundle of clothes as she handed him the pants, "I don't think your shirt will fit you anymore, not with those wings of yours now. I suppose I have a tube top I can lend you. Although you're bigger up top than I am but it'll work as a bra till you get a real one," she said snarkly.

Tobias snatched the pants indignantly from her to cover his new bare skin. As he was about to stand up to get his pants on, the armor that made up the pod he was in began to shift. Tobias cried out in a rather girlish scream as he fell back down to his knees to steady himself. The armor then seemed to come alive as it was no longer one solid piece and flowed over Tobias' body like a liquid. It seemed to cover every square inch of his body save for most of his head. It crept up the back of his neck and flowed up behind his ears and over them coming forward where they met covering his forehead. The apparently living armor rippled for a second before solidifying.

Tobias stood up on the table looking down at the reformed armor that now encased his equally new body. As he raised his hands to see the changes he noticed, aside from the slim feminine arms and hands, he took further notice of his armor. It seemed to be even more form-fitting than before as well as having a more angular look. The fingertips of his gauntleted hands ended in deadly points. He checked his waist, getting distracted by his new bust line, and found he still had his throwing knives. When he picked one from its sleeve to test its balance, it felt the same as he remembered but there was something more he could feel, like trying to remember something on the edge of your mind. Replacing the knife back in its sleeve, he turned to Copy Cat who startled when she saw him looking at her.

"Hey Brenda," he said as he hopped down to the floor, "Can you get me a mirror please? I want to know what I look like."

Copy Cat finally snapped out of her stupor and gave him an annoyed flat look, "What makes you think I even have a mirror in here?" she asked him, crossing her arms.

Tobias raised an eyebrow, "I saw you put a kitchen sink in your satchel once just so you could pull it out for a joke," he said, "If you don't have one, then I'll go to the washroom and use that," he said as he started for the door.

As he passed Copy Cat, she grabbed his arm to stop him, "Wait," she said sounding defeated, "I have a full length mirror, just let me get it out," she said as she reached her hand into the satchel. Within the moment, she did indeed pull out a full length mirror and set it on the floor in front of Tobias.

Tobias stepped in front of the mirror and was immediately taken aback by what he saw. His reflection matched that of the spirit of all dragonflies. He had long straight raven black hair that reached the small of his back. His face was beautiful and youthful while at the same time showed a seductive maturity, the only thing missing was the presence that she projected. He could see that his body was fit even with the armor on. On his chest, just below his breasts (he swore that he'll never get used to referring to "his breasts") was a large blue gemstone. Noticing it from before his armor reformed over him so he could guess that the gemstone was now a part of his new body. His fingertips tingled when he touched it.

"Guess that was the part she was talking about," Tobias mumbled to himself.

"Looks like you're a D-cup," Brenda said as she crossed her arms in annoyance. "How come you get bigger breasts than me? You aren't even a real girl!"

Tobias sensed the jealous tone in her voice and decided to prod it by taking a pose showing off his new chest, "You don't think these are the indication of a real woman?"

Brenda's face swelled with anger, "Shut up!" she shouted turning her head, "And why are you so happy about losing your dick anyways? I thought you macho types would freak out having that happen."

Tobias frowned, "I'm not happy about suddenly transforming into a woman before waking up. It's probably a combination of my SWAT training and shock that's preventing me from freaking out right now. Also, there's this," he said pointing to the gemstone on his chest, "I can't really explain it but I have faith that the spirit of dragonflies meant well in doing this. She even apologised saying that if she did any more for me then I'd lose my soul. Or something to that effect, so if becoming a physical copy of her is all it takes to keep my life and soul, then I'll accept it," he said with a wave.

Brenda wanted to spout another insult but decided against it. At least for now. "So," she started as she Tobias a look up and down, "This is what the "spirit of all dragonflies" really looks like," she paused looking thoughtful, "If she's the spirit of ALL dragonflies then wouldn't that make her a god? Or goddess?"

Tobias smiled at that, "I asked her the same thing when she first introduced herself to me and she laughed at me and said that anyone calling themselves "gods" are full of themselves."

Brenda smiled at that, Tobias thought she was going to let out a smart aleck comment but was surprised when she rushed towards him and threw her arms around him and began sobbing. Tobias didn't know what to say so he just put his arms around her in return and held her gently while she cried.

"I couldn't do anything," Brenda blubbered into Tobias' shoulder, "When we teleported back, I barely notice Drake standing behind you and when he shot you..." she paused to wipe her runny nose, "I frozed. He shot you and I didn't do anything. If Halt wasn't there he would have got me too. I was useless and couldn't even stop him from getting away! What kind of a super hero am I that I let my team mate get killed in front of me and not stop the guy who killed him?" she cried.

Tobias held her more tightly to try and comfort her, "Shh, shh, it's ok. I'm still here see? Just a little different now," he told her gently.

Brenda shook her head, "No. No, it's not ok. I couldn't think of a way to bring you back. If it hadn't been for you spirit woman..." she trailed off into another sob. "I'm sorry," she said quietly holding Tobias tighter.

They stood there for a few minutes just holding each other in silence. A quiet knock on the door followed by Halt opening the door and poking his head in.

"Copy Cat?" he paused when he turned to Tobias giving him a questioning look, "Dragon?" he asked. Tobias nodded. Halt stared a him a moment longer before shaking his head deciding, for the moment, to accept Tobias' answer, "It seems that we made the news," he told them grimly before leaving assuming that they'd follow.

Brenda seemed to agree with his assessment and left her workshop and Tobias followed after, thankful that his new armor didn't come with a pair of heels like he'd known some of the lady hero's had with their uniforms. A minute later, they were in the control room where they were when the day started. Halt was sitting at a computer with a web page from a local news station pulled up, a paused video of a newscast was in the middle of the screen. Halt turned around to see if they were all there, on seeing them both looking over his shoulders he turned back and hit the play button.

The image of a male newscaster came to life, "Our top story today: This morning, after a notorious criminal "Princess" caused a riot at the local public mall. Turning patrons in the area into her willing subjects to pillage the establishments in the mall causing moderate property damage as well as minor injuries of those she took under her control. Half an hour later, Team Valiant arrived and made short work in subduing and capturing the villain. Unfortunately, it seems this may have been ruse as before this broadcast we have received an amateur video taken of team Valiant returning and being attacked by the equally notorious criminal "Drake". We will now play this unaltered," he said as the image switched over to a video taken by a low grade camera phone but was still good enough that you could tell who was who.

The video blurred a bit as the camera moved sharply before coming into focus on the helipad at the roof of the building. A lone figure could be seen standing on the opposite side of the helipad away from the roof access door.

The three instantly recognised the figure as Drake.

A second later, on the helipad, a cross fade wipe effect happened and the team appeared on the helipad. In the video, Halt instantly made his way to the roof access door. It was when Halt was halfway there that Drake raised his arm which had a weird cannon strapped to it and fired hitting Tobias' unarmored body in the back.

Tobias felt a twinge of pain in his chest when he saw that, he wasn't sure if it was real or just psychosomatic but he had his hand where the gemstone was anyway to massage the worry away.

Copy Cat screamed and fortunately, due to the crappy quality of the phone, you couldn't hear her scream out Tobias' name as she caught Dragon as he fell.

Brenda flinched and grabbed hold onto Tobias' arm when she saw that part.

Halt jumped in front of the two showing his back to Drake who fired again. The effect of Halt's power made it seem like the video was switched to reverse as the beam of energy reversed its flow and pulled back into the cannon and exploded, throwing Drake back and to the ground. Drake got up quickly and left on his Chinese dragon construct as Copy Cat got up and began shooting at Drake who quickly left afterwards. A second later, the video stopped playing and the male newscaster's face reappeared.

"Shortly after this video was sent in, we received a call from someone claiming to be Drake saying that he had killed the hero known as Dragon who is a member of team Valiant. Our experts have yet to identify the man who was killed in the video and our inquiries to the team have gone unanswered. Our next story, surviving officials of Boston have come under fire for deciding to cancel the Boston marathon in consideration for the attack on the city by Baron Nevermore. Both surviving residents and recurring attendees as well as a growing community have protested this decision and have stated that they will hold the marathon regardless of official's decision to cancel. We have approached some heroes on this matter and they responded that they will attend the Boston marathon should it continue as originally scheduled. A proponent for the marathon has said that they will not allow the attacks of super villains or terrorists sway them and will continue to attend the marathon as a sign of solidarity and remembrance to all those who've lost their lives."

Tobias stood back as he looked to Halt, "Ok, Drake was waiting for us, and?"

Halt just shushed him, saying that there was more in the video.

The male newscaster suddenly paused in mid-sentence, "This just in, the police transport carrying the earlier stated captured criminal, Princess, was attacked by Drake. Our sources say that after severely injuring several police officers, Drake freed Princess before leaving the area. Two of the five officers at the scene are now in critical condition in hospital."

Halt stopped the video and pushed back in his chair before turning to the two behind him, "We were set up. Princess was a diversion while Drake got set up to ambush us when we got back."

"That can't be right," Brenda protested, "If anyone tries to get in or on the building then they'd trip the security system."

"Either way," Tobias said while clenching his fists, "Someone's put a hit out on us and we need to find out who and why."

Copy Cat and Halt did a visual inspection of the buildings security systems and have made a shocking discovery that the system was indeed sabotaged. Someone, possibly Drake himself, used an energy weapon to destroy a junction in such a way that prevented the system from alerting Copy Cat.

Tobias himself, was in the gym learning the new limits of his female body. Having discovered that he was now more flexible and agile than before but found the trade-off of not being as strong as before. What upset him was that he couldn't figure out how to remove his new armor. As he stared at himself in the mirror of the gym, he took in the new features of his armor. He had no helmet but he did seem to have a tiara of some sort that covered his entire forehead that had one large gemstone in the middle and two smaller ones on either side, the gemstones being dark blue in color. He felt the edges of the tiara as they ran over his ears just under his hairline down to the back of his neck where it seemed to merge with the collar. He turned and looked at his back to the four dragonfly wings that adorned his back. He felt thankful that they didn't give the look of faerie wings. It was while he had turned to look at his side profile he saw a long insect tail-like thing protruding from above his rear. It looked like a long thick rod sectioned in insect scales. He tested moving it not sure if it was a part of him like his wings or just part of his armor. It did move to his command but it didn't flex like an animal tail, like a cat, but he could still move it with reasonable effort. Still, he couldn't move it enough to where he could sit comfortably in a chair which irked him somewhat, having already realised that even if he could turn off his armor his wings would prevent him from getting a decent nights sleep and with his new chest it limited his positions for sleeping.

Shrugging it off for now, he turned to the dummy targets set up at the other end that he, Copy Cat, and Halt used for target practice. He pulled his throwing knives out, one in each hand, aim his shot and threw the first knife. It spun through the air and hit the dummy center mass. A few seconds later, it disappeared before reappearing on his waist, an additional part to his original power, and he threw his second at the next. As it spun towards its target, the throwing knife suddenly split into three individual knives which all hit three separate dummies. Tobias was dumbfounded as he watched two of the knives disappear before the center one faded as well before showing up on his waist like the first one. He pulled them out again and looked at them, they had never done that before but decided that he liked this upgrade as he tried again intentionally willing both his knives to split again as he threw them. They both split again and two knives hit each of the dummies, two in the head and two in the center mass. He practiced this several more times until he was sure he was sure he could control this new power. He looked over his shoulders at his wings and flexed a muscle in his back causing them to twitch. He hadn't tried flying yet but with his "death" and the possibility of someone waiting for them, he wasn't in any hurry to learn yet.

Copy Cat and Halt returned from repairing the damage and reinforcing the system as well as adding more security nodes to cover the blind spots they found. When they started to discus their plans in what to do when an alert sounded. On checking the wireless, Copy Cat said that there was a bank robbery that had gone bad. With their current plans on hold, the three stood together, this time inside, while Copy Cat teleported them all to the roof top of a nearby building by the bank. The robbers were well armed but judging from their position on the opposite side of the street from the bank, the police showed up just as they were taking off. A ruined car pushed up against a spraying hydrant was evidence of that hypothesis. The three were immediately in action as one of the robbers fired a grenade launcher of all things causing one of the police cruisers to explode. Halt and Copy Cat landed by the police still shooting, Copy Cat pulling out an energy rifle and handed it to Halt before pulling another out for herself and began shooting, what ever it hit was instantly covered in frost. Tobias ran a little further along the roof top until he was behind the robbers where their attention was lax. As he dropped down, he threw his knives willing them to split. He hit one behind both knees causing him to drop. This, unfortunately, drew his companions attention causing him to hit just one other in the foot with one of his knives while the others struck harmlessly in the ground. As soon as he hit the ground he stayed low as he ran to the robbers as he pulled his knives out again throwing one, willing it to split to hit them in their hands to force them to drop their weapons. It worked. One of the two that turned to him got his head blown off from one of the police, distracting the second as he turned and ducked. Tobias used this to his advantage he closed the distance with a final push using his throwing knife in hand to push it into the robbers hand causing him to scream out as he let go with his shooting hand. Tobias finished up by throwing his fist in the robbers stomach causing him to double over and collapse. The final robber was able to turn his weapon on Tobias but he was hit by Copy Cat's rifle and was covered in frost after which he fell to the ground shivering. With the crisis over the police began to move in to arrest the robbers, with the exception to the dead one.

As the police put the robbers away and Copy Cat assuring one that the affects of her frost rifle were temporary, Tobias' eyes darted around feeling a little paranoid, rightfully so considering the circumstances, and was surprised when one officer came up to congratulate him.

"Thanks miss, I heard about what happened to Dragon. I'm sorry to hear about it, he did a lot of good for the city."

Tobias didn't know what to say. Even though he knew that some hero's have come back from the dead like Ms. Miracle and more recently Circuit but he wasn't sure how everyone would react if he told the public that he was Dragon. No, it would be best for now to let everyone believe that he really was dead.

"Yeah, I never thought that would happen," he told him honestly.

The officer nodded, "So what's your name?" he asked giving Tobias a determined look.

Tobias looked over his shoulder, one of his wings caught his attention, and turned back to the officer, "Dragonfly, my name is Dragonfly," he told him.

The officer shook his hand, "Good to meet you Dragonfly. I hope you do team Valiant proud," he said before helping collect evidence.

"Me too," Tobias said, returning to his own team. They returned to the roof and teleported back to their base. Thankfully, no one was waiting to off them when they returned. Though that didn't stop everyone from checking the entire building from top to bottom. Having been satisfied that everything was unchanged, they went their separate ways. Copy Cat to her workshop, Halt to the gym, and Tobias went to the room he used when he had to stay over.

He sat down on his bed silently swearing the fact that until he turned off his armor he would be unable to use any chair with a backrest. It had been a long day and he didn't want to dwell on his assassination, feeling another twinge in his chest, he decided to call it a night. Deciding to leave the covers as they were, he laid on his side feeling foreign parts of his body shift from his new breasts to his long hair to even his wings. He briefly tried sleeping on his front but the uncomfortable squishiness of his breasts changed his mind for him and fell asleep an hour later on his side.

It was around midnight when he woke up with a kink in his neck, grumbling as he got up to stretch. As he walked down the hall, he noticed that the lights were off yet he could see everything clearly if marred by a ghostly after image over everything. Tobias looked down at his hands, seeing the same but slightly different ghost after image over them as well.

"Weird," he thought as he looked at his surroundings, more specifically the ghostly after images, "It's like an aura or something," he noted as he looked around seeing patches of after images along the floor like footprints. It seemed that every time he turned around there was something new he discovered about his new body. Once again he had to admit that the spirit woman who saved him was right about what little she gave him would be too much for him to handle. He was still avoiding his body and focusing on his armor and new abilities. He'd seen some newly developed get overwhelmed by their powers and got consumed by them either turning to crime or just flat out destroyed themselves. He hoped that last part didn't happen to him, it wasn't pretty when that happened. Deciding he had enough of this ghost vision, he went back to his room deciding that he worked enough of his kinks out to sleep again. Another fitful hour and he was asleep again.

The next day Tobias woke up with another kink in his neck along with a stiff shoulder where he then walked down to the kitchen where a sleepy Brenda was sitting at the table drinking from a coffee pot with one hand and working on a half-built device of some sort with the other.

"So, what are you building?" Tobias asked her.

Without looking up from the device she replied, "It's a new containment unit for developed criminals like Princess that use hypnotic effects," she explained as she drank from the pot, "This way we won't have to worry about chasing after them and potentially risking more civilians."

Tobias nodded in agreement before giving her a smirk, "You do realise that you're drinking from the coffee pot right?"

Brenda looked at the pot for a moment before registering what it truly was, "Oh. I was wondering why I didn't need to refill it," she said before taking another drink.

Tobias chuckled at that while he got his breakfast ready, he scowled at the chair by the table before he turned it around to sit on it sideways. They both sat in silence, Tobias eating his breakfast and Brenda working on her device while drinking from her coffee pot.

Not ten minutes later did Brenda look up at Tobias as if noticing him for the first time that morning, "Are you still wearing that armor?"

Tobias looked down at himself sheepishly, "Yeah, I haven't figured out how to turn it off yet. And there aren't any clips or anything I can undo to take it off either," he pulled back a lock of hair that got in his face behind his ear.

Brenda sat agape at him, "You mean to say you haven't had a bath or anything since the day you were..." she trailed off looking guilty.

"Magic armor," he said quickly to get her mind off that sore subject, "Just one of the advantages over normal gear," he said with a weak smile.

"I could have made something like that too but I'd still feel icky at the end of the day."

Tobias chuckled at her saying "icky". It was little things like that that made people believe she was the younger than she really was.

"So... What happens now if you need to use the bathroom? It's not like magic armor comes equipped with depends right?"

Tobias stopped eating, "I've... never thought about that," realising that he hadn't felt the need to but Brenda's question made him not want to tempt fate. "I think I'm done with breakfast," he said as he got up and left the kitchen.

He returned to his room and went to the attached bathroom. He might not be able to wash his body but he could still wash his face and hair. As he washed he took note of how silky and smooth his hair is, not to mention long. The skin on his face felt soft as well. When he was done, he had a hell off a time drying his long hair. The towel he normally used to dry himself off with had gone wet and his hair was still damp. Deciding to let his hair air dry he went back into his bedroom and sat down on the floor crossing his legs. As he sat up straight, he closed his eyes as he began to concentrate. It was obvious that his armor was different now, both in appearance and ability. When he first got his armor it had been so effortless to use it, from its weapons to simply turning it off and on. If he was going to master both his armor and his body, he'd have to start now. Especially if there was someone gunning for them.

Shoving that thought aside for now he cleared his mind again and focused on his center while steadying his breathing. Ten minutes later he could feel a tingling in his chest where the gemstone sat, a second later he felt something leave him while simultaneously feeling his mind and awareness expand to the whole bedroom. Even with his eyes closed, it was like he could see his bedroom from several different view points. He looked at himself from one of these viewpoints to see the ghostly after image over himself. He moved closer to himself while looking at his room from the others seeing more ghostly markers. He wasn't sure why but it felt like the markers were made by him from when he went about his business like he really was leaving a part of himself behind as if to prove he had been there. As the view point he used to get a closer look at himself got closer, he started to hear the flicker of wings coming towards him. This startled him enough that he opened his eyes to see what it was and saw a dragonfly flying towards him. He fell to the side as it darted away. He got dizzy for a moment from seeing things now from four different view points including his own. He steadied himself and closed his eyes again till the dizziness went away then slowly opened his eyes again. As he looked about himself he could see a total of three dragonflies flitting about. When he stared at them with his altered vision he noticed that the after image they had matched his own. As if they were a part of him, like three small bits of his soul he sent out. As a test, he mentally commanded them to land in front of him and was pleasantly surprised to see them do so right where he wanted them to. With them all facing him he reached out to one with his hand and as he touched it he felt a tingle, it then flashed before disappearing towards his hand. Tobias felt a rush of something flow up his hand and arm as he watched it vanish feeling something return to him. He willed the other two to return to him and felt two more rushes of energy as they did so.

With a quick breath he looked down at his armored body, "Ok, I can send out soul sprites in the form of dragonflies now too," he said to himself as he sat up straight again and closed his eyes. "Now if I can only turn this damn armor off," he mumbled as he steadied his breathing and concentrated again.

It took him two hours to find the mental switch that would allow him to shut off his armor. It felt like an unused muscle as it took him another hour to slowly flex it. As he did so he could feel his armor shift around his body, slowly receding to its dormant state. At long last, he was sitting naked on the floor of his bedroom.

Tobias breathed slowly as he opened his eyes once more and looked down at his bare breasts. It was the second time he saw them in all their bare glory. As much as he hated to admit it, they were nice and full and round with the right amount of bounce when he moved, which caused him to blush furiously. He then check his wrist for the bracelet, the dormant form his armor took, but was surprised to see it not there. He franticly searched the floor around him looking for it. He got on his hands and knees looking for it and was in such a frenzy searching that he hadn't heard the knocking on his door.

A now fully awake Brenda had gone to check on Tobias. Having heard some sounds coming from his room, she knocked on the door. A few more knocks later and no response but still hearing various sounds behind the door, she became concerned and decided to enter.

"Sorry for just barging in but you didn't answer and I heard these noises in here and..." she was meet by a naked woman with long black hair and large dragonfly wings growing out of her back currently looking under the bed. Her shapely butt was pointed straight at Brenda much to her embarrassment. This had Brenda caught, like a deer in the headlight, she was unable to form a coherent thought and did the only thing that got her back in motion.

She booted the woman's butt so that it was no longer pointing at her.

Tobias fell over in a start, stunned from the sudden impact from behind. He rubbed his backside as he turned around angrily, "Who the... Oh. What do you need Brenda?"

Brenda, still mortified, held her hand in front of her face, "First, put on some clothes first," she pleaded.

Tobias finally realised his bare self and ran for his dresser, deciding to forgo underwear since they probably wouldn't fit him anymore anyways and pulled out a pair of sweatpants he used for training and slipped them on. He then looked for a shirt and pulled out a white t-shirt but was met with a problem. There wasn't any way to pull them over his wings.

"Damn it," he spat before turning around to Brenda while holding his shirt up to cover his breasts, "Um, it seems that I'll need a different kind of shirt to wear that'll be compatible with these damn wings," he sighed with annoyance. The wings seemed to flick in defiant response which caused Tobias to growl as he looked at them.

Brenda, relieved that her friend was, mostly, dressed again stared at Tobias and his wings. They certainly would limit his clothing options. She thought for a minute, he would have to wear something of hers until he could get his own. But she didn't have anything that would fit him except for... she looked down, a sad look on her face before covering it up with a false smile.

"Come with me, I think I have something you could use for now," she told him. "Hold onto your shirt for now though," she added as she saw him about to drop the article of clothing.

Tobias blushed as he brought the shirt back up and held it over his chest as he followed. They soon reached her room and entered. Brenda went to her closet and began digging through it. She eventually pulled out a large box from the back and set it on the bed as she sat down beside it. She placed a hand on the lid almost longingly as a look of nostalgia fell over her face. She then opened it and first pulled out a package and threw it at Tobias.

"Here, you'll need these since your underwear won't fit you anymore. Don't worry, I never had a chance to wear them myself," she said as a pained look flashed across her face as she continued her search through the box.

This hadn't gone unnoticed by Tobias and grew concerned, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she answered as she wiped a tear away, "These are just my old clothes, emphasis on "old"," she gave a weak smile. "These were the cloths I had before I got stuck looking like this," she said as she gestured down at herself.

Tobias' eyes widen at that, he knew that she had unintentionally trapped herself looking like a seventeen year old girl. But he never thought she was ever homesick from the way she acted most of the time, she just didn't strike him as the person to hold onto things like that.

She eventually pulled out a black top with a low back, enough for his wings to clear, "This is a wrap around. You basically put it on like a jacket and clip it in front," she paused wistfully, "This was one of my favorites. I wish that I could still fit it, but you need it more," she said before handing it to Tobias to try on.

Tobias had already pulled the panties and was slipping his sweatpants back on when he grabbed the top. Just like she said, he was able top put it on like a jacket as he pushed his arms through the sleeves and then pulled one side around covering his breasts and found a loop to keep it in place. He pulled the other around that also went over his breasts and fastened the clasps keeping it in place. It still showed off his mid drift.

"That should keep your "girls" in place until you can get a real bra. I'd lend you one of mine but you look larger than even the old me," she told him.

Tobias blushed again as he tested the top by moving his arms and rolling his shoulders, The top was indeed "tight" enough to keep him in place. He even jumped once feeling his breast bounce embarrassed slightly at the alien sensation.

"So, what were you looking for before I came anyways?" Brenda asked looking a little sheepish.

Tobias blushed yet again, convinced his cheeks were going to become burned in a permanent red, "I was looking for my bracelet. It's what my armor looks like when it's in its dormant state," he explained as he held up his wrist for emphasis.

Brenda blinked, "You mean that necklace and belt aren't it?

"Uh," Tobias started as he looked down at himself. Sure enough he could see what looked to be a necklace that went down his chest. He lifted his top to see the obsidian links as it traveled down between his breasts where it seemed to connect to the gemstone in his chest. "So I can't take it off, " He thought to himself as he poked at it but was unable to move it. Like the gemstone, it too was embedded in his body. Deciding to leave it for now, he bent over to look over his chest to check his waist. He twisted and turned, trying to get an angle but couldn't quite get a decent view.

Brenda giggled before she could bring a hand up to stifle it. At Tobias' glare she gave him a playful smile as she pointed to the large mirror over her vanity table. Tobias huffed then growled at himself for what he considered a very feminine reaction as he stepped over to the mirror and focused on the area around his waist. Like his necklace, his "belt" seemed to be made of the same obsidian material and just like his necklace, the belt was firmly attached to his body and immovable.

"This is new as well," he said out loud to himself, "I hope this is the last of the surprises," he said at last.

"There is one thing I'm wondering," Brenda started.

Tobias gave her a questioning look that prompted her to continue.

"You've had those wings for well over a day and I haven't seen you use them at all. Not even when we jumped down from the roof top to stop those bank robbers. Do they work? Or are they just for show?" she asked curiously.

"I.. don't know," he answered truthfully. He never had wings with his old armor and couldn't fly before but now that he had them, and with Brenda's questioning, he was more than curious now and wanted to try them out. But it was too dangerous to go outside just to see if he could fly, not with what happened the other day.

As if sensing his concern Brenda got up and started walking out of her room while dragging Tobias with her, "Come on, you can use my training room," she told him as they went to her workshop.

When they arrived, Brenda continued to pull Tobias over to a door standing well away from the wall that had wires and other tech in it. "This was the prototype for my bag. It doesn't have the near infinite space my bag has but is more than big enough for just training and weapons testing," she explained as she open the door. When they walked in, Tobias could see that it was indeed huge. At Tobias' star struck wonderment Brenda grinned, "It's about three square kilometers in here. Big enough to see what you can do."

Tobias nodded and looked up and around the artificial room and then back over his shoulder at his wings, "Let's see what you can do," he said to himself as he willed himself up into the air.

His feet remained firmly planted on the ground.

"Er," he started embarrassed, "Looks like flying is a little harder than it looks."

Brenda chuckled, "That's why I like tech. Jet packs are easy, turn it on and boost the throttle," she bragged.

"Har de har har," Tobias replied as he closed his eyes and focused, feeling for the new muscles that would move his wings. Finding them was easy but it took him nearly fifteen minutes of testing them to getting use to them where he didn't have to think about them as much. Another ten minutes of moving them into the right way where his wings could provide lift. Once he was ready he looked up again, took in a breath, and flapped his wings.

Instead of a gentle lift like he was expecting he shot up at incredible speed that caused him to immediately break his focus and sent him tumbling to the ground. Rubbing his arm and shoulder as he got up, he gave Brenda a glare as she laughed at him.

"And a point goes to the jet pack," Brenda stated as she got her breath.

"Jet packs run out of gas," Tobias shot back. Brenda shrugged but didn't say anything, she kept a grin on her face though.

Tobias stretched before getting a determined look on his face. He prepped himself again now knowing just how easy it was to fall out of the sky. Again, he flapped his wings and shot off into the air. He was a kilometer up from the ground before he stopped and glided a short distance before twitching his wings causing him to slide sideways before he continued forward. As he flew, it was becoming clear that he couldn't hover but he could glide a short distance before needing to flap his wings again. Once he was sure of his lower limits, he decided to see what he was capable of and poured on the speed. Soon he was doing sharp loop de loops, and barrel rolls that would put the best fighter jets to shame and he was able to change directions on a dime practically. He looked down at Brenda below who was waving her hand excitedly and cheering him on. He smiled down at her and pushed himself faster still.

It wasn't long after that that he felt cooped up in the room they were in. All of the sudden, three square kilometers seemed all too small. Tobias felt that he reached the limits that Brenda's training room could provide so he turned back and landed down in front of Brenda who ran over to him, throwing her arms around him still excited from his aerobatics display and gave him a peck on the cheek. Tobias was surprised by the sign of affection as she pulled back looking into his eyes. She surprised him again when she leaned forward again kissing him passionately full on the lips. The kiss lasted for several seconds before Brenda pulled away once more with a look of lust in her eyes as she looked at him waiting for his response.

Tobias stepped back, still reeling from the kiss, "...Brenda..."

"I know that I look like a teenager and you probably think I'm just having a school girl crush but," Brenda started as she crossed her arms holding herself as she looked down at her feet, an air of apprehension about her, "I've had feelings for you ever since we started working together. I didn't act on them because I was afraid I'd make you feel like a pervert since I look like a teenager." She gave a weak laugh, "How funny is that? I'm twenty nine years old and I'm afraid that I'd make you look like a cradle-robber."

Tobias tried to protest but she continued.

"Since I knew that no one would accept my feelings for you, I was fine with just being your friend, but when Drake shot you..." he voice broke as she held back a shudder, "...And when you fell... Everything broke in me. I saw you die before you fell into my arms and I just couldn't go on without telling you what I feel about you. It was so bad that I was willing to maim you when your armor started to grow. If Halt didn't stop me when he did... You'd still be dead and I'd still be broken." She shuddered again as tears fell down her face, "I was so happy when I realised that you came back that I almost went back to just playing your friend again. But with the possibility of someone directly attacking us, things are just going to get more dangerous," she looked up at him in the eyes with determination, "I lost my first chance to tell you. I'm not wasting my second chance. Dragon, Tobias, I love you!" she exclaimed.

Tobias took a step back, being understandably taken aback by Brenda's confession. Brenda winced at Tobias' reaction but didn't shy away. Instead, she stepped forward reaching out for Tobias' hand and grasping it in hers.

"I'm sorry, but I'd rather face this awkwardness then not let you know how I feel," she said looking into his eyes.

The two shared a moment of silence looking at one another until Tobias made a face before speaking up.

"I'm really sorry, but I'm still not used to this new body of mine and I really need to go before I pee myself," he admitted with a look of deep embarrassment and to a lesser extent, shame.

Brenda looked like she was about to get angry at first. But then she broke into a grin before letting out a stream giggles before laughing.. As she tried to bring herself back in check she waved him off to do his business vowing vengeance for ruining her moment and confession. Tobias promised that he'd make it up to her as he hurried out the door of her training room.

On reaching the closest bathroom, Tobias swore to himself, still ashamed of himself for leaving the way he did, swore again as he saw the limited room around the toilet. Tobias looked at his winks wishing they were a part of his armor as well. With the insistence from his crotch increasing he growled to himself as he twisted his wings so they pointed up as he turned around and dropped his pants and underwear. It was a very uncomfortable position for him to sit in and he still had to lean forward as he couldn't point his wings straight up. He considered having a custom bathroom built to accommodate his new anatomy. But that will have to wait as he pulled his hair around so not to accidentally sit on it and without further need, he released his hold on his bladder. He sighed with relief at the familiar start as the urine came out of him and immediately noticed the lack of the follow up sensation of his former penis would provide. This lack of sensation was what finally pushed him over the edge and he broke down crying.

First, he got shot in the back, and then he lost everything. He lost his body, his identity, and replaced it all with completely different things. He had wings, as much as he hated to admit it he now had a lush female body. Something that he was never supposed to have, at least not in this life time. One hand groped a breast while the other grasped the gemstone in his chest.

"Can I even consider myself a guy anymore?" he asked himself. He, or she as she had to admit now, looked down at her legs seeing her knees were together like most women would do when sitting down. This caused her to let out another sob as she continued to bawl. Tobias tried to fight back the tears by cursing at herself to remember her training and take it like a man. It didn't work and she fell deeper into her new found depression. She wasn't a man anymore and she began to think that she wasn't even Tobias anymore either. Was she really just a copy of the spirit of all dragonflies that thought she was Tobias? She didn't know anymore. She put her head in her hands and continued to sob.

A few minutes later there was a knock on the door.

"Shit!" Tobias spat, she didn't want to talk to anyone right now.

There was a moment of silence followed by another knock, "Tobias? Is everything ok in there?" Brenda called out.

"Leave me alone!" Tobias called back a little bit more harshly than she meant but meant what she said still the same.

She heard the knob turn and swore to herself for forgetting to lock the door. Brenda slowly opened the door and poked her head in and saw Tobias sitting on the toilet leaning forward and hugging herself, red eyed from crying. Seeing this, she let herself in and walked over to her and knelt down in front while putting a reassuring hand on Tobias' knee.

"Are you sure Tobias?" she asked, worry was evident on her face.

"Don't call me that!" Tobias snapped, "I'm not Tobias, not anymore. He died, I know because I felt him die. I'm just a part of the spirit of dragonflies using what's left of his body and memories," she told Brenda bitterly.

Brenda suddenly slapped her hard enough to force Tobias' head to turn to the side.

As Tobias turned back, a hand on her now reddening cheek, she saw Brenda staring her down with the angriest look on her face softened only by a quivering lower lip.

"Don't you EVER say anything like that to me again," she told her in a low steady voice. She grabbed Tobias' shoulders to push her further upright but a sharp yelp of pain from Tobias from having her wings pushed further than they were able to and let go. She instead grabbed Tobias' head and forced her to look her in the face and eyes. "You are Tobias," she assured her, "Yes, you look different. Yes, you're a woman now and I can't imagine what that's like switching genders but I do know what it's like to lose one's identity. I've been stuck at age seventeen for the last eight years, you don't think that screws with someone's mind more than once?" Tobias tried to shake herself away but Brenda help firm, "You are ALIVE. You have been given a second chance, use it to do some more good in the world. Don't waste it on thinking about what was lost. Believe me, it's not worth it."

Brenda's words seemed to finally reach Tobias and bring him out of his self-pity and identity crisis as she looked into Brenda's eyes taking strength from the determination in them.

"I'm sorry," Tobias said finally in a shaky voice, "I guess it all just hit me when I went," she said sheepishly, "Either way, I don't think it'd be right to refer to me as a guy anymore with all things considered," she said as she gestured down at herself.

Brenda gave a short laugh as she stood up, "Yeah, I can't even call you butch with your figure," she said as she moved back to the door, "When you're done, why don't you come to my workshop and I'll do a scan on you so you can at least know everything about your new body. No surprises right?" she called over her shoulder as she closed the door behind her.

Now that she was alone and long since relieved herself she began cleaning up, remembering vaguely from somewhere that you had to wipe from front to back to prevent infection. She wasn't sure if this was true or not, but she thought it was better safe than sorry.

"God has a terrible sense of humor, putting an asshole next to a vagina," she grumbled as she wiped. After she was finished and pulled her pants back up, she washed her hands and left for Brenda's workshop.

On entering, she saw that Brenda was back in her uniform standing by a table, a large glass screen stood behind her. On seeing Tobias walk in she smiled and patted a spot on the table, "Hop on," she said while waving a wand-like stick with her other hand. Tobias did so sitting on the table and Brenda waved the wand over her and looked over her shoulder as the glass screen started displaying data on Tobias' new body.

"Well," Brenda started, "From my scans so far, You are one hundred percent a woman," she declared. "With all the pros and cons that come with it," she added.

Tobias' slumped her shoulders at that, "Great," she said unenthusiastically, she was hoping Brenda would find something that would allow her to change back to her real self, or at least become a guy again.

"Yeah," Brenda continued still looking at the data, "Monthly periods, multiple orgasms if you can swing it, and sexual discrimination to some degree for decades to come."

"Okay, I get it," Tobias said with exasperation.

Brenda smiled at her in a way that told her she was only teasing, "I'm just pulling your leg Tobias. Aside from the periods, it's not that bad," she assured her as she moved around the table and began waving the wand over Tobias' wings, starting where they grew out of her back and out from there over each wing in turn.

"The muscles in your back, while oddly placed for the wings, are incredibly packed with muscle tissue. That probably explains why you can fly so fast," she explained. Tobias thought she heard her muttering about her being lucky and something else about back problems. "Your wings are really weird," she said as she reached a hand out to feel one of the lower wings that twitched when she touched it batting her hand away. Brenda swore as her wing hurt her hand when it batted it away. "Anyways, they're made of some kind of organic material that seems to make it as tough, if not tougher than frontline tank armor, yet they're so light and flexible. And if I may say so, they sting like a bitch with even a light love tap like the one you just gave me," she said as she shook her hand again. Tobias could only shrug with a half-hearted guilty smile, she didn't mean to twitch her wings to her touch at all. It was just a reflex that happened before she even knew it had.

"Still," Tobias mused, "I'm thankful that I don't have that damn tail all the time," she said remembering the annoyance it presented before she turned her armor off.

"I bet," Brenda agreed with a nod, "In any case, I'm going to have to rebuild the bathrooms for you so you don't have to sit down all painful and awkwardly."

Tobias agreed at that, remembering the brief moment of pain from when Brenda tried to sit her up straight.

Brenda just smiled as she waved the scanner wand over Tobias' "necklace" and "belt". After looking over the data she grimaced, "The material your new gear is made of the same stuff your original bracelet was. And unfortunately, magic being nowhere near my speciality, I have no idea what the stuff is made of," she gave a shrug, "But if it works, who am I to argue?" She then set the scanning wand down, "All that aside, there's one thing we still haven't addressed yet," she said in a matter of fact tone of voice.

Tobias gave a wry smile, "Yeah, we still need to find out why Drake and Princess are working together and who else is working with them."

Brenda looked on, "There is that," she agreed before turning back to Tobias like she was about to drop an obvious secret, "It's your name," she said finally.

Tobias quirked her head in confusion, "What, Dragonfly? It just kind of came to me and seems more appropriate now considering my new looks and powers."

Brenda gave her a deadpanned look, "It's not your codename, awesome choice by the way, It's your real name. Sorry to say it, but you don't look like a Tobias anymore," she told her apologetically.

"Hey! My mom gave me that name," she said defensively.

"And it's a really good name too," she said throwing her hands up in her own defense, "It's just not a name you'd normally see attached to a woman," she explained.

As much as she hated to admit it, Brenda was right. If not now, the subject would come up later and if she were to let everyone believe that her original self was indeed dead, than she'll need to come up with something other than Tobias. "Okay, what would you suggest?"

Brenda thought for a moment, "We could shorten you name to Tobi with an i. Like Bobbi or Toni," she offered.

Tobias grimaced, "That's a little too close. I don't think anyone will put two and two together but it still feels wrong to me. I'm a new person now and my name should reflect that." She thought about it for a minute momentarily distracted by the unconscious flutter of her wings. "I think I'll go by Lucy now. It's one of my mom's middle names. What do you think?" she asked Brenda.

Brenda looked like she was thinking it over in her head before speaking, "... Lucy Marshal. It has a certain ring to it," she said at last approvingly.

Tobias, now Lucy, breathed a sigh in relief still feeling her psyche being rather fragile still. "'Kay, from this point on, I'm Lucy," she said with a half-hearted smile. "At least until I find a way to become a guy again," she added in an equally half-hearted attempt to hold out hope to return back, at least someday in the future.

An awkward silence followed between the two until the newly named Lucy coughed, "Lets go and tell Halt about my new name."

Brenda agreed eagerly, "Yeah, it'd be good to spread some good news in as many days." And they both left the workshop together.

The two made their way to the gym expecting Halt to be working out there like he usually was but were surprised to see the gym empty. With nothing else to do, the two ladies decided to go to the control room to check on any sightings of Drake and Princess. When they got there, Halt was sitting at one of the computers working so diligently that he hadn't noticed the two enter.

Lucy coughed to get Halt's attention, "Hey halt, what are you working on?"

"I'm looking through local forums and other information that would tell us when and why Drake, or Dragon if we're accepting his self-proclaimed declaration, and Princess are working together. So far, I haven't found anything, let alone who else might be working with them," he said without looking away from the screen. A minute later he leaned back in his chair and wiped his tired eyes, he finally looked up at the two. "Also, we got several more calls from various news and gossip agencies asking to confirm the footage of Dragon's attack by Drake." he looked annoyed as he said the last part.

The two women were downtrodden at the news and reminder until Brenda perked up with a clap of her hands to distract the others, "Oh!," she started to tell Halt as she grabbed Lucy's arm, "We were talking and came up with a new name for our newly minted girl. Not only is she Dragonfly when she's hero-ing it up, when it's just us in private you can call her Lucy."

Lucy felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment when Halt looked at her for a minute after which he shrugged in acceptance and turned back to the computer. "So, if we can't find what's going on with these two then how are we going to find them and stop them?"

Lucy looked over Halt's shoulder at the data he compiled to see if there was anything he missed. He was thorough and had looked into everything she would have thought of except...

"It's a long shot but there may be one lead we can still follow up on," she said at last, turning to the two staring at her expectantly.

"What?" Brenda urged. Halt continued his stare waiting for her to explain herself.

Lucy grimaced, "The Fireman," she said at last, "He's been out of the game for eight years now, but he still hears things from the super villain community and since he's still one community probation it shouldn't be too hard to get anything out of him. He's been cooperative ever since he left jail," she told them.

The other two made their own comments about trusting information from a known super villain, let alone an ex-convict. But with the sparse trail already cold, they had no choice but to check with this lead.

With nothing further to discuss on the subject Halt got up from his chair while Brenda reached into her satchel for one of her teleport cubes. As she was pulling one out Lucy held her arm still to which Brenda gave her a perplexed look.

"We should only use those for emergencies when lives are at stake. And we risk leaving ourselves open to attack when ever we use them and right now, we need every advantage we can get. Even if it takes a little longer. Brenda was about to argue but stopped and paused before closing her mouth and pulling her hand out of her satchel empty.

"'Kay then, I guess we're driving then," Brenda said as she turned around and walked off towards their bases underground garage, Halt and Lucy following close behind.

On getting to the team's vehicle, a converted military APC, Lucy stopped short of getting in with the others remembering her new unusual anatomy as she glanced at her wings that twitched in annoyance. "I guess I'll have to fly," Lucy said as she stepped down from the hatch. Brenda gave her a worried look, obviously wanting to protest her decision but accepted. She grabbed something from a compartment and tossed it to Lucy. It was an earpiece to keep in contact with them. Brenda told her to stay safe before she closed the hatch. Lucy stepped back as the APC started up and drove to the ramp that would take it to ground level. Lucy, herself, willed her armor to grow over her body. A second later she was flying just above the ground up the same ramp and out into the open air.

Half-expecting to be attacked again she flew as fast as she could up into the air until she was well above the city. Having lost sight of her team's transport, lowered her altitude until she was close enough to see the vehicle but not so low as to distract other drivers on the road. Once she settled into the right height she found that flying in the real world was infinitely different than the static environment of Copy Cat's personal training room. Wind buffeted her about, which in itself, wasn't too difficult for her but it did toss her long hair about in her face whenever she slowed down to glide a short distance before she flapped her wings again for forward momentum and continued flight.

As the APC continued driving through traffic, Dragonfly had to fly in large circles over them to keep at their slow pace. While she flew in circles she switched on her ghost vision and the world around her bursts into such amazing colors that would put even Los Angeles to shame. Every light she could see seemed to be connected to people he could see on the ground or a random animal. It was beautiful. "Wow," she stated awestricken.

"What's that?" came Copy Cat's voice over her ear piece.

"Hmm? Oh, I was just using one of my new powers. It's a weird new vision that lets me sort of see after images that people and animals leave behind. Like a ghost vision or something," she told her.

"Sounds trippy," she replied, "Wish I was up there. Driving on the ground is BORING!"

Dragonfly grinned to herself as she looked down at the APC, "Don't worry, you guys are almost at the factory," she assured them.

About ten minutes later, Copy Cat and Halt finally arrived. Dragonfly, instead of landing normally, Dragonfly dive-bombed her way to the ground before pulling up at the last moment to land softly on her feet. While she walked over to her teammates Copy Cat came up to her and put her hand on her hips in a displeasure that only a teen of her apparent age could muster.

"You said we were close! A ten minute drive does not mean close to me," she then crossed her arms before braking into a grin, "That landing was pretty sweet though," she commentated. She then leaned in close to Dragonfly before whispering, "Don't think I've forgotten our discussion earlier. I still expect an answer from you."

"I didn't forget," Dragonfly said quickly while throwing her hands up in surrender.

"You better not," she said with a playful shove to Dragonfly's shoulder, "And this time, there won't be any interruptions like last time," she added with a smirk.

Halt quirked an eye, "What is she talking about?"

Dragonfly squirmed as she remembered the embarrassing memory, "Nothing," she told him flatly as she turned to the building before them, "Let's get in and talk to the Fireman already! We still have targets on our backs so we can't waste time right now," she said as she started to the building. Halt looked to Copy Cat for answers but she only gave him a knowing smile before following after Dragonfly.

Watching the two walk ahead of him, Halt shook his head before muttering, "Women," catching himself as he said it remembering that Dragonfly was originally the Dragon little more than a day ago. Deciding to leave it for now before he started getting a headache trying to figure out the technicalities. He quickly caught up with the two as they entered the building.

When they got inside, they were met by a secretary sitting behind a desk taking calls. After a minute of processing calls before she looked up and did a double-take at the team of heroes standing in front of her, "D-do you have an appointment?" she asked demurely, trying to remain professional, friendly smile and all.

Copy Cat walked up to the desk placing one hand on the desk, lightly tapping her fingers, "Yeah, we're here to see the Fireman. So please tell us where he is and we'll be on our way."

The secretary frowned, "I'm sorry, but we can't divulge the names of our employees let alone whether they work here or not," she said flatly, "Especially to little girls," she added before going back to her computer.

Copy Cat's fingers twitched as she turned her head to the secretary with a very fake, but very scary, smile on her face, "Excuse me?" she asked sweetly.

Before things could escalate any further, Dragonfly pulled her back, "Gerald Birtch is an ex-criminal who is still under probation. That means if any law enforcement officer, including a recognised developed super hero team, then he will have to dispose himself to said law enforcement. We are Team Valiant, a recognised developed super hero group, and we want to talk to Gerald Birtch. If it makes it any easier, he is not a suspect in the investigation we are conducting. We just want to talk to him," she assured the secretary. The secretary hesitated a few moments before acquiescing and giving them the directions to where he was working.

As they were walking down the hall Copy Cat lean close and whispered, "How'd you know to say all that?" she asked, clearly amazed.

Dragonfly smiled as she whispered back, "Several years on the force, even as a SWAT and you pick up a few things that can come in handy."

Her response seemed to answer her question, for now at least. As they walked past offices and lab rooms as well as a few chemical storage rooms, Dragonfly brought up everything in her mind that she could remember about the Fireman. According from what she saw of his rap sheet when she was still on the force, "And still a guy," she thought. The Fireman started life off as a serial arsonists, starting fires at various places and causing large property damage, fortunately for him, there were no deaths injuries from his acts of property damage. It was when he was setting fire to a chemical factory, the very one they were in ironically, that he got his powers. He had set a firebomb to one of the small storage tanks but accidentally set it off early before he could get safely away breaking open the tank and bathing him in the chemicals stored within, and thanks to the firebomb he had set himself on fire as well. It was after his release from his lengthy stay in hospital that he discovered his developed abilities to conjure and control fire. Even though he could control fire with almost impunity, he wasn't immune to the ill-effects of that being in close proximity to fire. Thusly, his original costume had him look like a fire fighter. It was a dark red in color with yellow flames patterned on his pants and the bottom of his coat with the addition of satanic symbols within the flame patterns to add to his villain look. Aside from the aesthetic look of his costume, he had also had kevlar and trauma plates inserted in his costume to give him protection against firearms and other physical abuse he was sure to come across. The total affect made him look bigger and also spooky appearance further enhanced by his ability to summon and control fire.

Despite all this, and his natural tendency to arson and destruction of property, it seemed he went out of his way to avoid hurting civilians. It was during a fight with a hero that he had accidentally set fire to a building that had people inside it while fighting said hero. According to his testimony after his arrest, he stopped to use his powers to put out the fire while moving it away from the trapped people. IT was during this time that the hero knocked him out. Fortunately the fires on the building were almost out and the hero was able to get the people out unharmed. Gerald's lawyer pointed out the fact that he never used his powers on people except for defense and was able to get a slightly smaller sentence. The Fire man became a model inmate while in jail and got out on parole with good behavior. Ironically enough, he was hired be the same company that owned the chemical factory he had tried to firebomb that gave him his powers. He now makes a living by using his powers to dispose of waste chemicals produce by the plant.

"There is something I've been wondering about," Copy Cat said curiously as the walked down the hallway.

"What's that?" Dragonfly asked.

"If the Fireman is no longer a super villain, then how would he know what would go on in the criminal underworld?" she asked, an accusatory note in her voice showed to suggest that she believed he was still involved somehow.

"He was one of the first super villains in the city," Halt answered, "There's been a few thugs and what not who view him like a grandfather. They'd come and tell him what they did or are going to do as if seeking approval, like measuring themselves up to a bar he set back in the day," he explained.

Copy Cat smirked as she gave a snort, "How can these guys be so stupid? Don't they know that he's an ex-villain who's in contact with the police regularly?"

Dragonfly smiled at this letting out her own chuckle, "They know, and the active super villain's don't tell him any of their plans obviously. But every now and again some mugger or vandal come to him and tells him what they did, then they get a selfie with him, and them he tells the police. Sometimes, if we're lucky, a henchman to a super villain will tell him what they're doing and then we get alerted and hit the bad guys before they get to set up their plans."

Copy Cat accepted the explanation but still muttered something under her breath about not believing someone being that stupid.

It was a minute after the discussion that the trio finally arrived at their destination and entered a room where the Fireman and another technician were working. the technician was sitting at a computer while the Fireman was standing in front of a window that looked into a sealed room where a vat of green viscos fluid sat in the middle.

Gerald, the Fireman, was holding his hands out towards the sealed room, "Please wait a moment. If I don't do this right, I could accidentally blow it up if I don't get the ignition temperature right," he told the three without turning to them. He was wearing his costume but it look starkly different. The most notable change was that the satanic symbols on his costume were gone now and his fire fighter suit looked slimmer now, possibly having removed the Kevlar and trauma plated armor. He had a look of concentration as he still held his hands out, then suddenly splayed his hands and the vat lite up like a roman candle with green smoke bellowing out the top and earie flames licking from the rim. After a minute, it died down and extinguished, the vat now empty but the room now had a green mist hanging about. The fireman gestured to the technician at the computer who type something in which caused a hissing sound in the mist-filled room as oxygen was pumped into it. When the hissing sound stopped the Fireman snapped his fingers and the entire room flashed as it was completely engulfed in flames. A few seconds later when the flames exhausted it's fuel of oxygen leaving the room now looking clear.

The Fireman put his hands on his hips as he gave a short grunt, satisfied on a job well done and then turned to the heroes, "Sorry for making you wait. I had a feeling that I'd be seeing you since that video of Dragon's death they showed the other day. My condolences by the way, he was a great hero," he said as he pulled his fireman's hat and mask off revealing his scared face and shaved bald head. The were patches of different colored skin. One ear looked like it was melted while the other was completely missing. Thanks his unfortunate accident that gave him his powers, he was truly a frightening sight, which may have contributed to his choice of costume.

"Holy shit, what happened to you?" Copy Cat blurted out before clapping her hands over her mouth, too late to hold her words in check.

Gerald only gave a faint chuckle and waved her off to assure he didn't take any offence, "Let's just say that the old saying: if you play with fire, you will get burned, fell on deaf ears for me on the night in question," he said with what looked like a smile but was hard to tell with one side of his lip curled already before becoming more serious, "Now, about what you're all here for. I've been wracking my brain trying to think of what I heard. Nothing recent came to mind but after that broadcast, I suddenly remember something a mugger mentioned while he was telling me about his score in the park," he started. "He told me that a man in a business suit was asking around about the local super villains."

Dragonfly shifted in her stance, "Why didn't you tell your parole officer about this?"

Gerald looked at her seeming to appraise her position on the team, not quite sure about her since she seemed to be new to team Valiant but continued regardless.

"Because all I had was circumstantial evidence about a guy asking around about super villains. I was waiting to see if any more news would come, expecting some new villain checking the waters to muscle his way in but I haven't heard anything further. I can give you the name of the mugger who talked to this person. He shouldn't be too hard as I told my parole officer about him and he's in jail now."

The team grimaced in their own way, the tip Gerald gave them wasn't much, but it was a step in the right direction and were thankful for it. As Dragonfly was getting the name of the mugger, Copy Cat received an alert. Putting her hand to her headband, the lenses of her goggles flashed as information scrolled over them. She stiffened.

"Guys, we gotta move," she told them urgently as she reached into her satchel and pulled out a teleportation cube.

"What's wrong?" Halt asked before Dragonfly could.

"There's a group of super villains attacking on main street," she told them, "Drake and Princess are there as well."

No further words were needed. They will stop the bad guys and get much needed answers from Drake. As they stepped into range around the cube Dragonfly briefly wondered what she would do to Drake once she forced him to surrender.

And then the cube transported them.

They materialised on the roof of a relatively short building adjacent to the city's main street that ran through the heart of office and business buildings. Even though they hadn't taken a look there was no mistaking the sounds of chaos down below at the street level with shouting and what could be assumed some one throwing around vehicles onto other ones judging from the sudden groaning and smashing of metal.

While Copy Cat was fishing out goggles and earphones for Halt, Dragonfly decided to try her new powers to get a discreet look down below. She formed two dragonfly sprites and sent them down to street level. Closing her eyes, she focused on the visual input from her sprites. The sight of the streets match the sounds they heard when they arrived. Practically every vehicle on the street were smashed, overturned, on fire, or just smoking from having finished burning. Dragonfly was shocked to see bodies in several of them as well as littering the road and sidewalks. It was then she saw that not all civilians were killed. There was a whole crowd, or more accurately a mob, of people that were running around smashing what ever they could find that was still undamaged and beating one another to bloody pulps. As much as Dragonfly wanted to jump in to stop them, she forced herself to remain still as she had her sprites look for the instigators of this death and chaos. It didn't take her long to find them.

She found four villains just past the unruly mob of people not seeming concerned about anything at all and appeared to be waiting for something.

"Or some one," she thought to herself grimly.

Drake, refusing to call him Dragon, stood amidst three dozen animated Tara kata warrior statues, no doubt conjured by Drake. With that many conjured, it was likely that only two or three of them were solid. The Tara kata warriors stood at attention surrounding Drake who himself made no move in participating in the destruction of the street. He only looked around as if he were waiting for something. Princess was nearby sitting in an office chair pilfered from a business nearby. She was surrounded by a crowd of people she placed under her control as well as what looked to be robotic forest animals like small birds, doe's and rabbits. Princess herself looked bored out of her mind and seemed to have a group of people acting out some sort of play for her.

When she turned her attention to the third that she spotted some one that made her stiffen as she felt a chill run up her spine. There, conducting a dissection on some one was the infamous villain know as "Idle Hands". He was a man who met and exceeded every definition of the term "mad scientist". He was more than willing to get his hands dirty to the point that a few years ago, shortly after his appearance, he removed his own hands and replaced them with robotic clawed facsimiles. It was public rumour that he did so without any form of anesthetic. He was a man who'd build terrible weapons for other villains and erratic nations just for fun, so he says himself. If he was here, then whatever that was going on here was far more dangerous than just Drake and Princess teaming up with a third unknown member. The last one she noticed was a brute of a man, standing at eight feet tall, it looked like he was covered in flat pieces of stones, the sharp edges of which pointed out from his skin. His name is Shale. He is incredably strong and combined with the way his stone skin creates a natural defense/offense, engaging him in hand to hand combat was like willingly giving yourself road rash while hitting a brick wall. A relatively local muscle for hire, he was the only one who was still tearing up the street by throwing vehicles around into the nearby buildings and where ever else he seemed to fancy.

Dragonfly relayed the information she spied to Copy Cat and Halt. Both were grim as she told them of who was down there. Both stiffened themselves when she told them about Idle Hands but kept their composure. Both voiced their concern for so many civilians still in harms way. Dragonfly had to agree with that concern. Like her companions, she'd have rather found a way to separate the civilians from their enemy but with princess involved it was impossible. The longer Princess was on the loose, the more people she'll put at risk. As much as she'd hate to admit it, they had to go now before just one part of this threat would take over the city.

"We have to go now," Dragonfly told them, "Before this gets worse." As she moved to the edge of the building Copy Cat stopped her, turning back she could her see pulling something out of her satchel. It was a pair of goggles and head phones.

"I'm not sure if you're still immune to Princess' powers without your old helmet, but just in case, you should take these," she said as she handed them to her.

Dragonfly put a hand to the gemstones on her tiara. Some of her gauntleted hand brushing some of her nose and face. She felt a brief smile on her face and felt immediately guilty for it in consideration for what was happening down below. She took the small items gratefully, "Thanks," she told her friend as she pulled them on. "Any word from Evangel?" she asked off handed, he was actually overdue to return from where ever he was at.

Copy Cat shook her head, "I tried calling home base while you were looking around..." she gave a listless shrug, "He didn't answer." She then reached into her satchel, "On the bright side," she said as she pulled out an over-sized hammer that glowed with a blue energy, "I've been itching for a bad brick to test out my grav hammer on."

Dragonfly gave a small smile as she turned to her team mates, "Ok, here's the plan: Copy Cat will test out her new toy on the brick down there. Take him out or keep him down long enough so we can get the civilians out of the danger zone. I will fly in and carry Princess out of the area and immobilize her, maybe leave her on top of a high building somewhere. Halt, I hate to do this to you, but I want you to defend and escort the civilians out. Get them out the quickest way or keep the bad guys attention on you while the civilians get out. It's not going to be pretty but I'll be as quick as I can in dealing with Princess and come back to help you take Drake and Idle Hands down."

Copy Cat nodded with an eager grin as she shifted her grip on her hammer. Halt still looked grim, "What should we do if it doesn't go as plan?" he asked.

Dragonfly let out a concerned breath, "If we can't contain the brick and get Princess out as well then we will have to do all we can to keep the bad guys on us and away from the civilians that are still under Princess' control." She grimaced as she added, "If a civilian attacks you, try and be gentle and knock them out where they won't get hurt," she said, not sounding convinced herself that it would be as easy as she put it but it was the best she could come up with at the moment. Gritting her teeth she turned back to the edge, "Copy Cat and I will go first to keep their attention on us. Every one ready?" she asked. The other two nodded and with everything that's been said Dragonfly flew off into the air while Copy Cat made a running leap off the side, her glowing hammer at the ready.

As Copy Cat lept off the building her landing point was as she measured to be right on top of Shale, who was picking up the back half of a car to throw it down the street. Halfway to her landing spot, she pulled the glowing hammer back behind her and swung it forward as she was right on top of Shale who was getting ready to throw. When her hammer touched the scrap that Shale was holding the glow from the hammer erupted into a field of energy that enveloped Shale in a bubble. Once fully encapsulated, Shale was forced to the ground with the scrap of metal falling on top of him pinning him there as the gravity inside the bubble was magnified by eight times the norm. Copy Cat knelt on the shaft of the hammer making sure to keep watch on her trapped foe as well as to draw the others attention to her.

Dragonfly flew in from another direction heading straight for Princess. Just as she was getting ready to scoop Princess up, the robot animals jumped up between them hitting Dragonfly sending her off course. She was able to stabilize her flight to avoid the group of people that were amusing Princess and landed behind them. The people that were entertaining Princess immediately stopped and were beginning to gather around the grounded hero while she growled as she got to her feet.

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy," she grumbled and readied her knives, making sure to hold onto the bladed ends as she prepared to fight the brainwashed civilians, grimacing having to do so.

Princess adjusted herself in her chair as she eyed Dragonfly with contempt, "You look like a bug," she said coolly.

"And you look like a spoiled bitch," Dragonfly called back to which Princess narrowed her eyes and sneered.

"I hate bugs," she declared, "My subjects, kill this bug and receive a reward, your Princess demands it," she commanded with a gesture. Instantly, what ever reserve the crowd of people had was gone as they stormed forward with rabid abandon followed by Drake and his minions. Shale Face was still trapped under Copy Cat's grav hammer but was slowly getting to his knees.

Dragonfly stepped back avoiding a middle-aged man who swung at her with a bat. As the bat hit the ground missing Dragonfly, she hit the handle just above the man's hands knocking it from his grip. She then followed up by placing a hand to the man's chest and used her strength to push the man away sending flying over to the group of people, knocking some back on their rears. The small group quickly scrambled back to thier feet while blocking others that were running nearby. Seizing the moment, she barreled through the crowd knocking people over and out of the way hoping that she could get to Princess. Without her, this brainwashed army would be freed and they could focus on the real villains.

She was a few dozen feet as she continued to push her way through when she looked passed the mob and saw Idle Hands stepping up in front of the robot animals that were still guarding Princess. He still had a maniacal grin as he brought his clawed hands up, his "fingers" twitched with eager anticipation.

"If you're so eager to face us then I'll just have to carve my way through aallll these poor empty headed people," he taunted as he placed one hand around a woman's neck that stood in front of him, a few droplets of blood fell down from under his claws as he turned back to Dragonfly, "What say you hero?" he asked in a playful tone, "If you want so desperately want to face us then I'll have to cut a few of these..." he paused thinking of the right word, "...Road blocks down. After all, nobody cares about the minions so we may as well move to the fight everyone wants to see. And I confess, I'm eager to see what you can do too." His grip tightened slightly on the woman's neck.

Dragonfly frozed. There was no way she could move fast enough to save Idle Hands' hostage. With reluctance, and hope that her retreat would dissuade Idle Hands from killing the woman, she flew off backwards over to Drake. When she looked over her shoulder she let out a sigh of relief when Idle Hands tossed the woman aside who got back up a moment later.

Dragonfly landed in front of Drake separated by several dozen of his Tara kata warriors. Dragonfly felt much more confident in fighting Drake, more so since he only had illusions and constructs to protect him.

"Your armor looks familiar," Drake said to her as he stood making no effort to move. "Were you my adversaries' protégé?"

Dragonfly's upper lip quivered as she tightened her grip on her throwing knives, "You could say that," her voice trembled slightly in anger, "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Dragon." She glared at her killer, "And I certainly wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for you 'Drake'," she said emphasising the man's name knowing that it would get a reaction out of him.

It worked.

Drake's previous calm poise demeanor of self assurance fell to one of pure hatred.

"That name that you THIEF of a mentor bestowed on me no longer holds its chains on me. The title of Dragon is once again mine as it has been my ancestors before me!" Without anything further to say, he conjured a Chinese style sword in his hand and stood ready. But he made no move towards Dragonfly and gestured with his other hand, three of his Tara kata clay warriors advanced on her.

Dragonfly stepped back and readied to throw one of her knives while holding the other in defence just in case. She was far enough back that she could hit two of the clay warriors. It was a gamble as just one could only be solid or none of them and she would have wasted tossing her knife and not have it for defence if Drake chose to rush her. Deciding to throw her knife, she aimed for the one directly in front of Drake and the one off to the left. The one to the left dispelled into nothingness as soon as her split knife touched it, the other struck the other solidly dead center in the chest. The clay warrior shuddered and fell away in a whisp of smoke as it dispelled. Dragonfly's eyes widen in horror. The Tara kata warrior wasn't an illusion without substance or a solid construct. It hid inside itself a woman who was now bleeding from the knife she just threw into her chest.

"No!" she cried out and with a burst of speed, aided by her wings, practically flew over to the woman that had now fallen to the ground in a heap. She knelt down on her knees forgetting about her surroundings and did what she could to stem the bleeding.

Copy Cat was still perched on her grav hammer focusing on covering Halt with her stun rifle against the mob of people that tried getting around behind him as well as keeping Idle Hands busy by shooting at him as well. She was so engrossed in this that she jumped when she heard a crash below her, she glanced down to see that Shale finally got the large scrap of car off of himself and was slowly getting to his feet and reaching up to her.

"Oh, no you don't," Copy Cat chided as she reached down to the hammer, her fingers danced over the interface to change the parameters inside the bubble. Shale suddenly lurched up before falling back to his knees then raising slightly before falling back to the ground as the gravity inside the switched between 5x to15x normal gravity in random succession.

However, Shale would not let this stop him and he slowly got up, adapting to the rapid changes that was holding him down, using the 'lighter' shifts of gravity to get to his feet and reached up with a large hand and wrapped it around the head of the grav hammer. Copy Cat barely had time to swear as she jumped from her perch as Shale crushed the device causing the field to explode, throwing Copy Cat to the other side of the street closer to Idle Hands. Shale roared at having been contained in such a way and since Copy Cat was no longer nearby, he decided to take his anger out on Dragonfly for now and marched his way over.

"I'll teach you heroes to insult me like that," he growled gruffly as he stomped over to his still distracted target.

Dragonfly barely acknowledged the explosion and Drake was just inside her attention as she continued to do what she could for the woman she injured. Since Drake himself and his forces seemed content on watching her trying to save the woman. They didn't need to do anything anyway as Shale was almost apon the two.

When the hulking humanoid of sharp rocks stood over them he wound back to throw a punch, hurried footsteps could be heard running up behind them, Shale's massive fist was three feet from contact of obliterating the undefended hero and the injured woman to be stopped by the flat edge of Evangel's blade. The pressure wave from the punch hitting the sword washed around the swordsman and was felt by Dragonfly who looked up for the first time noticing the danger she was still in. Evangel, for his part made it seem effortless as he held one of his blade over his shoulder, continuing to fight Shale as he tried pushing against blade before reeling back his other fist. Having glanced this over his shoulder Evangel pulled the handle of his sword forward, Shale's fist slide up and he was thrown off balance as the whole flat of the blade smacked the underside of Shale's arm. Evangel twisted around and used the flat side of his other sword hitting his off-kilter opponent on the side of his head and sending him sprawling to the street, face first. Ironically, Shale would have had some bad road rash had it not been for his rocky skin.

With Shale momentarily stunned, Evangel turned to Dragonfly, as usual his face devoid of emotion, "I'll take care of this one. The police have cordoned off the area in a five block radius, take the woman and get her to one of the checkpoints, an ambulance should be waiting. Now go!" he told her as he turned back to Shale who was once again getting back to his feet.

Dragonfly looked to the woman in her arms for a moment before getting up and hefting her in her arms so she could carry her, "No one dies today," she said with determination as she flew off into the air away from the mob and fight that was still continuing. It didn't take her long to see the checkpoint, the street was full of police cars fire trucks and most importantly, several ambulances. She landed as gently as she could by an ambulance where the paramedics ran the short few steps over to her with a stretcher that Dragonfly once again placed the woman as gently as she could onto. The paramedics gave he a once over before rushing her into the back of the ambulance and took off once the doors were closed. Dragonfly gave a silent prayer before turning to a policeman and updated him on the situation making it clear that Drake was using his powers to disguise some of the hostages as his constructs and illusions as well as Princess being there turning the people into her willing army. The officer nodded saying that they won't put any strike teams in.

Dragonfly nodded, and without further time wasted, flew off back to her team. When she returned, she could see Evangel fighting both Shale and Drake. Halt was still doing his best knocking out the mob of people that surrounded him, and Copy Cat was now using a futuristic-looking battle ax with a short handle as she fought against Idle Hands and several of Princess' guarding animal robots.

Dragonfly could see one of the robots had circled around Copy Cat to attack her from behind while she was still focused on the other robots and the crazed super villain and dived down pouring on the speed readying her knives. On closing to thirty feet she let her knives fly, letting them split into six spinning blades. With the precision she had long mastered, all but one of the blades struck the robotic deer, one buried deep into its neck while the other four struck the joints where the limbs met the body. One limb was nearly severed as it fell to the ground in a shower of sparks, Dragonfly landed soon after just behind Copy Cat as she pulled out her reformed throwing knives from her waist ready to back her team mate up.

Idle Hands jumped back on seeing her arrive and, with his ever-present predatory smile, wandered over to Princess standing behind her still sitting in her chair, he caressed the top of the chair with his clawed hands and bent down to one side near Princess' ear while Copy Cat and Dragonfly were still busy with the robots.

"My dear Princess, I think it would be time to show them your new royal knight, yes?" he prodded.

Princess tilted her head while touching a finger to her chin in thought for a second before showing an evil smile towards the heroes, "Yes, it is time to have my knight teach these peasants a lesson for defying me," she turned face Idle Hands, "You make a great royal advisor, I should add you to my court."

Idle Hands grinned wider, "You flatter me, my dear Princess, I am not worthy to council some one of your grace," he said.

To anyone else they could hear the sarcasm overshadow the words but in Princess' pompous mind, Idle Hands sounded genuinely humbling and pleadfull to her ears. Princess smiled pleasantly as she decided to be gracious to the man, "Very well, but my offer stands." She then put her hand to an earpiece in her ear and spoke into it, "Come to me my knight. Your Princess commands it."

Immediately following Princess' order a woman dropped out from the sky and landed in front of Princess in a gust of wind bent down to one knee awaiting Princess' further command.

"Rise," she told the woman.

The woman shifted to her feet in a smooth motion revealing her ebony dark-skin origin. She was wearing a dark gold colored body suit that covered her from the neck down and had a violet jagged streak that ran from just under her right arm down across her chest to the left of her hip. Her costume was a modified, highly stylized, glide suit used by cliff jumpers where the 'wings' looked more like a cape than wings on the suit. Her hair was short and bleached a gold color and was done up in cornrows. An old vertical scar over her right eye which itself was slightly discolored from the other. Both Copy Cat and Dragonfly recognised instantly. Her name is Windscar.

And she is a hero.

Windscar was one of the solo heroes in the city. And a very powerful one at that. Her powers allowed her to control air with such finesse that she could hit you with a punch of hurricane wind or use her precision control to use the air like a cutting tool. The two felt a chill seeing the hero clearly under Princess' control and looked at each other in worry.

"My knight," Princess started as she pointed to Dragonfly with a look of distaste, "Kill that insect, your Princess commands it," she ordered.

"Yes Princess," Windscar said without hesitation as she turned to Dragonfly.

Dragonfly backed up away from Copy Cat, "I'll take to the air and get Windscar out of range of Princess. You keep trying to get her contained. When I get back, if she's still here, I'll help Halt with the people."

"Just hurry," Copy Cat replied as she rolled one man over her shoulders that rushed her. Idle Hands, for his part had began skipping over to where the fight between Evangel Shale and Drake intent in joining their fight.

Dragonfly didn't respond as she pushed several people back into a rush of others knocking them over to get enough space to flap her wings and get airborne. Fortunately, the few seconds reprieve were more than enough and she was high above everyone only pausing to look back at Windscar to gauge what she would do.

Windscar gave her a look of contempt and anger as loose dirt and debris swirled around her by a sudden wind. As the wind got stronger she opened her arms allowing the wind to catch under her glide wings lifting her up into the air. With a gust that bowled over several others nearby she was up in the air and chasing after Dragonfly.

Dragonfly flew as fast as she could while still keeping Windscar close enough to keep her attention on her. She lead her on until they were three miles out from the battle when she looked back at Windscar and was surprised to see that she was still following her with the same determined murderous look.

"How the hell?.." Dragonfly muttered to herself. They were well outside of the influence that Princess would have had on her. She didn't have much more time to think on this as Windscar gestured at her and she was suddenly hit by a sledgehammer of air causing her to tumble through the air for a few seconds. Getting her barrings again she straightened out and flew farther away hoping to break Princess' connection with Windscar.

"Windscar, you got to fight her! Don't let Princess control you and make you do something you'd regret!" she called out before getting hit by another sledgehammer of air.

"I will kill as many insects as my Princess commands as she sees fit," she called back gesturing at Dragonfly again hitting her with air again.

Dragonfly grimaced. "Why is she still under her control?" she wondered as she flew up and around in an attempt to avoid her attacks. But how can you avoid something you can't see? It was then that she felt her lungs start to burn. It was as if she couldn't get enough air into her. She looked back behind her to Windscar who was still behind her, her hand was outstretched towards Dragonfly, and she knew exactly why she was having trouble breathing. Windscar was literally pulling the air from her lungs. Dragonfly had to come up with something fast as she was already starting to feel light-headed. It wouldn't be much longer until she fell unconscious, and hitting the ground from this height the wrong way would undoubtedly kill her.

Her mind racing and falling into panic being unable to breath. By sheer survival instinct, maybe, she spawned a sprite and sent it directly into Windscar's face. The distraction more then served its purpose as Windscar smacked herself in the face to get the sprite away which in turn released her hold on Dragonfly allowing her to suck in much lungful of the much needed air.

It was during this brief respite that she saw through the eyes of her sprite and noticed something strange. She could see a small white mist-like aura that was enveloping Windscar, which Dragonfly assumed was her using her powers to keep herself flying, but there was another haze pink in color that surrounded her as well and trailed off back into the city in a thin line. Out of curiosity, she sent her sprite to follow the trail and avoided another sledgehammer of air that Windscar sent at her. With her altered vision, she was able to see when Windscar used her powers.

She flew off again with Windscar in tow as it were, determined to kill her, and attacking her with more sledgehammers of air and what she swore were attacks to cut her limbs off but thankfully her armor protected her against that kind of attack. Dragonfly grimaced. While Windscar had no problems attacking her, she was more than reluctant to return the favor. It was slowly turning into the first time Princess took over the city. As she flew she looked back at Windscar to see that she was getting ready to pull the air from her lungs again. She gritted her teeth as she saw Windscar's aura slowly leech up at her. There had to be something that she could do. As she turned she noticed that the aura didn't turn with her as fast and seemed to disperse a little before chasing after her.

"That's it!" she thought. If she made her movements random enough then Windscar wouldn't be able to use her powers on her effectively if at all. She spawned another dragonfly sprite to watch the both of them from a far enough distance so she wouldn't have to keep looking back. With three sets of eyes now, all in different locations, she was starting to feel dizzy but pushed through it. Through the eyes of her second sprite she could see the way she was flying and the realisation hit her instantly. She was flying like a bird or a plane, which in itself was fine for everyday flying, but in combat like this... It was time for her to fly like her namesake suggests.

"Besides," she said with a grin at last, "If both Princess and Windscar were calling me an insect, then I may as well fly like one," she stated as she caught Windscar off-guard by suddenly flying sideways and stopping long enough to let Windscar soar by with a sharp expletive. Dragonfly smiled at that and flew after her.

Windscar slowed down and turned around to face Dragonfly ready to fight again. Dragonfly carried on past and spun while using her taloned hands to slash through Windscars' right wing, tearing large holes in it causing Windscar to lose stable control of her flight. Windscar had to use more of her power just to keep stable and compensate for her shredded wing.

"You insect, how dare you!" Windscar spat as she swept her arm at Dragonfly hitting her with a wall of wind.

Dragonfly tumbled through the air but quickly caught herself. She dodged to the side as another wall of air was thrown at her while she looked through the eyes of her first sprite. It had made its way back to the fight that was still going on where the trail her sprite followed split, one path leading to Princess, the other larger path had spread out all over reaching all those affected by Princess' power before continuing on to a secluded building several blocks away from where the fighting was taking place. Outside the police cordon. She had to find out who was pulling the strings and had her sprite follow the path onwards. Distracted she was hit by another wall of air by Windscar sending her tumbling through the air.

Shaking her head to clear the wooziness from her head, she turned to her opponent, "Okay," she said to herself, "Let's get back to it."

And Dragonfly flew right at Windscar.

Meanwhile the rest of Team Valiant were still fighting.

Halt had knocked back another group of people and stepped back himself to catch his breath. Thanks to Copy Cats weaponry he was able to hold the crowd back, but they kept coming. It surprised him that the stun rifle he used had actually ran out of power. All he had now was a pair of stun wands that Copy Cat managed to toss to him in her own short respite in fighting Princess' robot animals and other people under her control.

"Something's wrong," Halt thought. This "mob" of people was just too organised. It just wasn't Princess' style. She preferred to just give her victims a basic command and leave them to their own devices to carry out her command. But right now, these people were attacking in coordinated waves wearing him out but for some reason not overwhelming him. If they had attacked as a mob then this fight would've been over long ago, with him either dead or under Princess' control.

"Who's controlling all of you?" he asked. The next wave came in while another group pulled back the ones he knocked out. He readied his stun batons for another fight. "Who's pulling the strings?" he asked as he rushed forward again. There had to be some way to free these people, there was always a way.

Copy Cat was running around between her own mob of people, her short handled battle ax had turned into a small shield and she was using it to stun people with electrical shocks. Some were knocked unconscious getting in the way of others behind them. She gave a quick glance to Princess and almost spared herself a smile as, for the moment, her robot guards were out of the way and gave her a clear shot. Copy Cat spun around another person that rush her and in one smooth motion she pulled out a stun gun from her satchel and aimed it at Princess. Just before she pulled the trigger, the gun vanish from her hand.

"What the?" she asked perplexed but couldn't put anymore thought into it as she ducked as a woman swung something at her head. "There's a teleporter here somewhere," she called into her earpiece to her team mates. There were some swears of acknowledgement from Dragonfly and Halt.

The teleporter in question was a man by the name of Danny Whirste. He was standing well away from the fight but still close enough to blend in with the crowd. He was a small time thug whose been convicted several times and suspected of several more incidents of turning otherwise peaceful protests into violent riots costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage as well as numerous severe injuries and related deaths. He looked at the gun in his hand hefting its weight.

"Sorry luv, we can't have that now," he said to himself as he raised the weapon aiming it at Copy Cat, "Cheers luv," he said in farewell as he pulled the trigger. The gun sparked, giving him a shock before falling apart in pieces. Danny shook his hand out, "Bugger that! No fair luv," he swore as he looked at the apparent teen, completely oblivious of his own underhandedness just moments ago. Shrugging it off he turned to see how Shale and Drake or Dragon or whatever he wanted to be called now. The 'hero' Evangel was fighting the two off quite successfully even with Idle Hands joining in. "Maybe I should make things a little more fun, right?" he said with a smile as he pulled out a mechanical gauntlet. "Let's see if the mad doctor's contraption works as advertised." He slipped the device on and concentrated. Danny's power wasn't strong enough to allow him to teleport small objects to himself as long as he was in a certain distance and he could see what he was taking. The glove that Idle Hands built for him was suppose to enhance his ability. So with that in mind, he reached out with his gloved hand and concentrated on taking one of Evangel's swords.

As Evangel fought the trio of villains he seemed to know which of Drake's Tara kata constructs were just that or had brainwashed civilians inside. He destroyed the pure constructs and knocked the disguised ones out and away from the fight. He ran at the three ducking under Drakes sword swipe and used his sword to block Idle Hands' claws as he ran pass straight at Shale who was using a parking meter as a bat to try and hit him. Evangel shifted his stance as he aimed to block Shale's attack with one sword and to cut the same arm off with the other. Seeing this, Danny focused on the sword that was going to cut Shale's arm.

"The bugger better appreciate this," Danny said to himself as he used his power.

As he intended, Evangel smacked Shale's fist to the side with his right and was already bringing it into position to parry Drake's own sword while he swung down with his left sword. Just before the sword made contact with Shale's arm it vanished from his grip.

Danny fell to his knees in exhaustion, his head pounding, "Blimey," was all he could say as he panted recovering from the unexpected drain.

Evangel seemed to freeze for half a second before moving in a flurry of motion again. Spinning around hitting Shale in the side with his remaining sword somehow able to force Shale off of his feet and send him flying through the air towards the brick wall of a building. Drake was unfortunately too close and got caught by Shale's flying body. It may have been sheer luck or by Evangel's design that the two villains hit the wall in such an angle where Shale's head hit the wall saving him from crushing Drake who was stuck under him, Drake himself was only had the wind knocked out of him when he hit the wall but was trapped under Shale's stunned body when he collapsed on top of him.

With the two disabled for the moment Evangel turned bringing his sword up to defend against Idle Hands' raking claws. As the claws scraped down the length of the sword Evangel gave him a left hook across the jaw dropping the mad man to the ground. With the immediate threats out of the way Evangel turned staring directly at Danny and began a swift march towards him. More Tara kata warriors approached him, he fended them off easily knocking those that contained people to the ground and running his sword through the empty constructs bisecting them at the waist before they vanished.

By this time Danny had recovered enough to look up and was startled to see Evangel walking straight for him. "Oh bugger," he grumbled. The damn sword gave away his position. "That'll show me to help some one else," he muttered as he glanced around for something to defend himself with. The sword itself felt too heavy and unwieldy for him to use and he wasn't an idiot to think he could use a sword effectively against some one who fights with swords 24/7. He saw a police officer near Princess and smiled at seeing the gun he had in its holster. Smiling at this he reached out with his hand and the pistol materialised in it. "Sorry luv, but you got more than enough nutters to keep you safe," he said as he brought the gun around and aimed it Evangel firing off several rounds. Evangel deflected them all effortlessly with his sword, sending the third bullet right back into the muzzle of the pistol causing it to jerk back painfully in Danny's hand. Danny swore dropping the gun and shoving his pained hand under his armpit, still for some reason holding onto Evangel's sword that he teleported. "Bugger, that hurts you twat!" he shouted. When he looked up Evangel stood before him a look of moderate anger on his previously emotionless face. Danny fell back a step in surprise and started to bring the sword in his hand up in defense but frozed when Evangel put his free hand around his throat.

"Let me show you what will happen if you continue with this decision," Evangel told him coldly. His eyes started to glow until a bright light shot out into Danny's own eyes.

Danny couldn't move. When the light hit his eyes images flash through his mind, too many and too fast, and yet he could comprehend every single one in all their horror. He could see a monster destroying the city killing everyone then move on to the closest town or city to do the same. He saw heroes try and fight it but fell to its fury. He saw governments trying to destroy the monster, nuking it multiple times but it still lived, still killed, still moved on. Everywhere it went there was death. Heroes and villains banding together to fight it, dead. The entire armies of the whole world, dead. Every person who lived on the planet, dead. The entire Earth and everyone who ever lived on it, dead. They were all dead and it was all his fault. His hand that held Evangel's sword, white knuckled from gripping so tightly, relaxed. Evangel released him from his power and grip and picked up his dropped sword and turn back to resume his fight with Shale and Drake. Danny fell to the ground, no longer seeing the disturbing images, he took his first breath since Evangel grabbed him and screamed. He kept screaming, pausing only to breath before screaming some more. Until finally he curled up into a ball whimpering.

While Evangel made his way back, Halt was fighting yet another wave of hypnotised civilians. He was ragged at this point and beginning to be unsteady on his feet. His movements were slowing down considerably and when he swung one of the stun batons at a man aiming to hit him in the side of the chest but he saw him coming and pulled back causing Halt to miss by inches. The baton carried on it unobstructed course where it hit a teen aged girl in the side of her head. As her head went sideways something fell to the ground.

"No!" the teenager screamed as she grasped her ear searching for something, "I can't hear my Princess' voice any more. Where is it?" She dropped to the ground on her hands and knees searching for something until she found a Bluetooth ear piece and quickly shoved it back in. Her brief moment of content was short lived as she pulled it out and looked at it before going into hysterics, "It's not working! I can't hear her voice, the stupid thing is broken! I..." she paused as if waking up from a trance as she looked around at the chaos as if for the first time. "Wha-what's going on, what's happening?" A man, still under Princess' control grabbed her arm and began pulling her back into the crowd of people towards Princess no doubt to bring her back under her control directly.

As the girl struggled against the man, Halt dropped one of his stun batons and grabbed the girls free hand and started to pull her back while swinging his one baton at the others also trying to pull the girl back, "Let her go!" he called out. But in his exhausted state he was already losing ground and the girl was slipping from his grasp. He suddenly stiffened when he felt a jolt in his back and he was suddenly full of energy. Turning back he saw a woman had pick up the stun baton he'd dropped earlier and was trying to use it on him. He smiled at that. Part of his power that he'd intentionally left out of the public eye is that he keeps part of the energy he reflects back, just enough to recover to full strength. He didn't get any stronger but going from tired and worn out to fresh faced was quite an advantage to him. Shrugging off the bruises that still affected him he made a sweep with his stun baton knocking several to the ground and reasserted his grip on the girls hand and gave her a strong tug finally freeing her from the man. The girl's wrist was probably going to hurt for a while but she was free now. Halt pulled her a distance away from the crowd and pushed her away down towards the empty street, "Run! I'll hold them back for you to escape. Just keep running down the street and you'll reach a police blockade, they'll keep you safe," he told her as he clotheslined a well muscled man and using his baton to stun another that tried to get by him. The girl hesitated before turning off and running down the street. Glancing back and seeing the girl was gone Halt rushed ahead knocking several off their feet, he then knelt down and started yanking the earpieces out of the ears of anyone he could reach. He then turned to the comm in his own ear, "Every one listen up! Some how the bad guys are using a device to extend Princess' powers. It's some sort of Bluetooth in their ears. Pull then out and they'll be released from Princess' control." There were a few grunts of acknowledgement telling Halt all he needed. He moved on to the next group of people to do the same and free them too.

Dragonfly was flying a distance from Windscar trying to think of what to do when she heard Halt's message. The two had done a number on each other fighting back and forth. Dragonfly could swear she was seeing things in double thanks to how many times Windscar had hit her with solid air but gave her share as well her glide wings were practically in tatters and she was barely able to stay airborne. It was at this point that Dragonfly wasn't sure what to do. If she cut Windscar's wings, he would fall straight to the ground, powers or no. And she wasn't sure if Windscar, in her brainwashed state, would allow her to save her. But with Halt's message, there was another option. She pulled out one of her knives and threw it hoping that she aimed right. The knife spun through the air heading to the earpiece she finally noticed on Windscar who dodged to the side well before the knife would hit when it suddenly split forming a second knife that surprised her. Before she could react to the new blade it had already struck through the earpiece in its miniature camera.

"NOOO!" Windscar screamed as she reached after the broken parts as they fell to the ground far below. A second later she blinked in confusion aware of her surroundings for the first time. And no longer using her powers to keep herself aloft she began to fall. She tried to catch herself but the renewed gust had torn her already tattered glide wings to rags and she continued to fall.

"Shit," Dragonfly muttered as she flew after her to catch her. However, this wasn't needed as once Windscar got her bearings she pulled on a hidden cord at her shoulder which deployed a parachute. With a minor push of her powers she was able to maintain her altitude. She took a breath to slow her heartbeat before looking up at Dragonfly.

"Ok, what the hell happened to my gear, why am I up here, and who the hell are you?" she asked in rapid-fire questions, a hint of accusation in her voice as she looked at Dragonfly as she came in beside her.

"I fought you, Princess took control of you, and I'm Dragonfly a member of team Valiant," she answered each in order.

Windscar bit her lip before cursing herself, "Fuck! I should've known better." She then took another moment to look around herself. "How could I 've been still under her control if I'm all the way up here? I don't even know what direction she's in."

Dragonfly grimaced, "The bad guys had some kind of headset that's somehow expanding Princess' powers," she explained, "I don't know how it works but..." she was distracted by her sprite finally reaching the end of the trail. She had her sprite fly in through the open window to see a largely empty room that had what looked to be a large computer tower hooked up to some sort of helmet attached to some one who was sitting in a lazy boy. She instantly recognised the person sitting in the chair as he was on the list of person of interest for the government wanted list. His name is Remote and he had the power to assume control over anything that operates by remote control. He's on the wanted list for suspicion of taking control of several military drones and crashing them in the middle east as well as several suspicious auto accidents of high-profile people in the US. It was obvious that the machine he was hooked up to was enhancing his powers to allow him to control all the brainwashed people.

"I just found out how they're doing it. It's Remote, he's using some kind of machine to help him control the people," she told her.

Windscar just nodded at that, "Great, now we just have to get to him and make him release everyone, any ideas how?"

"Yeah," Dragonfly replied, "He's alone and it's the machine he's attached to that letting him control the people. So, destroy the machine and free the people. Remote's easy to deal with on his own," she explained.

"Sounds like a plan," Windscar stated, "Lead the way and lets stop him!"

"Actually," Dragonfly started, "I need to get back to my team. They're facing four villains down there, not counting everyone under Princess' control, they're a little outnumbered right now." She then turned her head not wanting to show the hatred on her face, "Besides, I have a bone to pick with Drake."

Windscar was perplexed, "Well, I can't go with you since Princess might brain wash me again, so how am I going to find Remote if you don't show me where he is?"

Dragonfly produced another sprite, "This will show you where he is," she said simply before banking away back to the fight.

Windscar looked after Dragonfly for a minute before following the little sprite, "I hope you don't take things too far," she said wistfully. She had heard of what happened to Dragon and if this new girl Dragonfly was taking his death personally... She shook her head only hoping that everything worked out for the best. There were still brainwashed civilians that needed to be taken care of and if what Dragonfly said was true then this would be the fastest way to do it. And with that she used her power to increase her speed.

Dragonfly was now in sight of the battle still going on and she could see Evangel fighting Shale and Drake. Halt was slowly freeing the civilians and she could see a slow trickle of people leaving the area. Copy Cat was doing the same using her small futuristic-looking shield that seemed to have a Taser function and hitting the controlled people on the side of the head with it which seemed to overload the earpieces they wore, she also was just pulling the devices straight out when she was able to. She was doing this all while fighting the robot animals that Princess was controlling.

When she looked back to Drake, her fists clenched involuntary in anger. She could also feel an uncomfortable warmth in her chest where the gemstone sat. Ignoring it for now she flew forward at increasing speeds right at Drake.

"Evangel! Move out of the way now!" she shouted. At the last second Evangel ducked out of the way and pushed into Shale knocking him back as Dragonfly plowed into Drake sending him flying several feet and hitting the ground hard actually flipping once. Dragonfly pulled herself back landing where she hit Drake and waited for him to get up, her knives at the ready.

Drake got up slowly until he was standing straight up. He paused a moment to wipe the road rash on his cheek as well as check the popped stiches in his arm before he looked up at Dragonfly with a look of derision on his face. "You have a lot of determination for some one I have never fought before young one," he said before forming a sword construct and shifting into a ready stance and stood waiting.

Dragonfly let out a growl before rushing forward, throwing one of her knives whole thrusting the other ahead of her. Drake deflected the tossed knife with his sword while in the same motion brought it up to parry her thrust to his gut. When they were close enough Drake used his sword to hold Dragonfly's knife in place lest he carve it up her abdomen while he had his free hand grabbed Dragonfly's empty hand as it reached for the reformed knife in its sheath bringing each other in point blank for spitting distance. "In what manner have I deserved this determination girl?"

"Do you really need to ask after what you did!" she accused as she tugged her hand free and used her wings to pull herself back a few feet avoiding the slash of his sword. She threw a knife again willing it to split into three. Drake deflected one with his sword he dodged another aimed at the top of his chest by ducking to the side and lifted his right foot to avoid it getting skewered by the third. All of this had set Drake off balance and Dragonfly took advantage and rushed forward again. Dragonfly grabbed the bottom of Drake's hand that was holding his sword and used her knife to drive it into his leg on the side above the knee. Drake gave out a satisfying scream of pain as he clutched his leg with his free hand. He then swung his sword down. Dragonfly was about to tuck and roll behind but stopped short as she realised that her wings would trip her up. She swore to herself as she brought her arms up to cover her unprotected head. She was going to have to trust her armor.

"Let's clip your wings first girl," he said angrily as he swung down aiming for two of her wings at the base of her back. When his sword came down the response from her wings was akin to a ball in a pinball machine hitting the bumpers. When his sword hit the two wings, they hit back smacking his sword to the side hitting the other two which batted back. The sudden unexpected reaction caused Drake to wrench something in his wrist forcing him to drop his sword. The construct vanished as soon as it hit the ground. Not wasting the chance she got up and grabbed both his wrists and twisted until she felt something snap under her grip. Drake screamed in pain again but he had enough focus to kick her away from him with a force that surprised her.

"You bitch!" he shouted as he stared at his arms, now unable to hold anything. A dozen or so Tara kata warriors vanished, some revealing people underneath them. "You'll pay for that dearly girl." The look in his eyes showed one of absolute hatred and murderous intent.

Dragonfly had seen this look twice before, once when they first fought when she was still Dragon and the last fight they had before he put a hole in her chest. "Oh, I'm going to do more than that after what you did to Dragon you coward!" she spat back as she pulled the knives from her sheathes to get ready for another round. She was sure that she wouldn't have to worry about him brandishing a weapon again after what she just did but he was still dangerous. She should have done more to make him suffer than just breaking his wrists. "There will be plenty of time for that yet," she thought to herself enjoying the dark thoughts that danced through her mind in revenge for her murder. The uncomfortable warmth produced by the gemstone in her chest grew into a noticeable burning pain as in answer to her dark thoughts.

As Drake pooled his power the remaining Tara kata warriors disappeared leaving emptiness in their place and a hand-full of people previously disguised. Two eight feet long Chinese dragons, each letting out a low roar at Dragonfly as they half-walked/half-flew (or floated?) towards her, their mouths open wide ready to bite. Drake had encased himself in traditional Chinese warrior armor the grieves and hands of the armor were modified to compensate for his broken wrists giving the visual effect of elongated forearms and larger hands. He then produced a spear and held it in an aggressive stance. "I look forward to doing the same to you as I had that thief. I want to see the life drain from your eyes as I run my spear through your heart," he spat, his upper lip quivered in barely controlled rage.

"Like I'm going to give you a second chance to do that," Dragonfly responded with equal resolve as she flew up into the air to draw Drake's dragons away. They followed after her.

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Evangel and Shale were still fighting one another. Evangel was running around and dodging Shale's fists and thrown objects while he removed the earpieces from the controlled people and got them out of harms way and returned to harass and keep Shale's attention solely on him. Shale went to punch him but Evangel countered by slapping it aside with the flat of his blade.

Shale stood back getting frustrated. "Stop dancing around and stand still you pansy," he goaded, "I heard you were tough. I'm almost embarrassed to put you down. Not much for braggin' rights if your this soft," he prodded further. He then stormed forward ready to throw another punch.

Evangel gave a small smile, "If I fought at my best then you would have fallen when we first met," he began to run forward as well, "How about a taste then?" he said as he brought his sword above is head readying a downward strike.

As the blade came down, Shale grinned, "Got-ya!" he then shifted and grabbed the sword in mid-swing. He then started laughing, "So, this is the sword I've always heard about? It's more like a butter knife if you ask me. These'll never cut me," he stated as he laughed some more.

Evangel only gave an amused grunt in response before shifting his grip. His sword sank into Shale's hand by an inch. Shale stopped laughing and looked at his hand in surprise as he saw blood dripping down the edge of Evangel's sword from his hand, "This is the first time since you developed that you have seen you own blood is it not?" Evangel queried.

Shale took several steps back staring at his hand in shock not believing the deep cut through the palm unable to say anything at the blood seeping from his grey rocky skin. His eyes darted to a few nearby brain-washed hostages wondering if he could use one as a shield or toss a few to distract the hero so he could get away.

"Attempt to touch any innocents here and I will ensure you fail to do so," Evangel warned.

Before Shale could respond in any fashion the controlled people around them suddenly started screaming and shouting at suddenly being in the middle of a superhero battle and began running away from the heroes and villains. With his only means of escape running away Shale breathed a contemptuous sigh of defeat and raised his hands in defeat, his head drooping, "Fuck it, you win," he mumbled. Evangel nodded and gestured for him to sit down. He did so belligerently. With nothing to restrain him Evangel had to stand watch while his teammates continued their own fight.

Copy Cat was thankful that the people seemed to break free of their mind control and run off to safety. She was even more thankful that Princess didn't seemed to notice and was fixated squarely on her and was too busy controlling the robotic animals. Copy Cat guessed she was more then a little vindictive about sticking her in her satchel. She was currently facing off with a robot deer. And now, with the civilians out of the way she can finally go on the offensive. With her other hand she grabbed the bottom half of the handle of her shield pulling out a full length futuristic sword. She then pushed a button on her shield turning it back into its battle ax form. She finally slid the hilt of the sword into the top of the handle of her battle ax creating a new unique weapon. The deer robot charged her. She eyed the sharp pointed hooves as she stepped to the side and slashed it with her weapon across its side where it sparked angrily and fell to the ground jerking in spastic motions, it internal mechanisms damaged. With the last of the big robots out of the way she turned back to Princess who was still sitting in her chair. Copy Cat took a step forward but was thrown off her feet when an oversized robotic hare jumped out of no where and grabbed her sword in it mouth tearing it from her hand and knocking her off balance. When she steadied her stance Copy Cat could see Princess was clapping her hands gleefully and giggling like a little girl bouncing up and down in her chair.

"Oh, I am sick of your little princess shit you fucking bitch!" Copy Cat swore as she reached into her satchel for another weapon and pulled out an energy pistol and fired it at Princess. She in turn threw her hands up in defense and several of the robot animals jumped in front to protect her successfully guarding her from Copy Cat's fire.

When Princess brought her arms back down and realised she was unharmed she laughed again in snobbish superiority, "You do realise, as your Princess, that you should throw yourself down at my feet and beg for my forgiveness for all my subjects to see."

Copy Cat smiled at that, "You were so stuck up in yourself that you missed your 'subjects' running off on you. So much for your 'kingdom'," she prodded.

Princess looked around herself suddenly aware that aside from the robot "forest" animals, she was alone. She began breathing heavily until she let out a scream of anger then pointed straight at Copy Cat, "YOU," she shrieked, "You will bring everyone back and serve me at my feet now!," she screamed petulantly standing up from her chair and stomping her foot to empathise her point.

Copy Cat shook at her head as she brought her gun up again, "I don't think so 'Princess'," she responded with a smirk and fired again.

Princess had her robots block her shot again while sending several flying bird robots at her. Copy Cat shot at the robot birds as they dived bombed her reducing several to small scraps of metal. She wished that she still had her ax sword but the damn robot still had it and was sitting next to Princess behind her small army of woodland robots. As she shot at the birds several cut her arms with their small feet when she tried batting them away. Eventually she got the last one by winging it, watching it smash into the ground in angry sparks letting out a puff of smoke. With the birds out of the way she began shooting at Princess again but the robot animals kept getting in the way. Growing frustrated at the impasse Copy Cat tried to think, what she needed was a distraction, but what? When it came to her she reached into her satchel again to pull out what she had in mind while keeping Princess occupied.

Princess was getting more than angry at this point. That commoner bitch Copy Cat was shooting at her again. Her of all people, "Doesn't she know you're not supposed to shot at princess'?," she thought. When the shooting stopped she lowered her arms to see what she would do when she saw a flash of silver metal coming at her. She instinctively put her hands up to protect herself again, her robot pets jumping in to keep her safe. She heard a light metal on metal ding. This puzzled her and when her line of sight was clear she looked down at the ground to see what it was and saw... A stainless steel sink. "A sink? You threw a SINK at me?" Princess asked incredulously still staring at the fixture when se felt something bap her on the back of her head. Before she could turn around, her vision was awash in blue energy and immediately after she fell away from the world.

With Princess out of the way Copy Cat made short work with the rest of the robot animals with another weapon she pulled out of her satchel. Now that the area was clear she put the weapon back in her satchel and walked up to the device she had built earlier and picked it up. The device was a small ball with the bottom half the same color as her trade mark glossy blue and te top half white making the ball look slightly like a poke ball. She pushed a button on the side and the white side of the ball turned clear revealing a black and white colored Princess standing in a stone bedroom that would be able to fit in any castle you would see in a Disney movie.

"Yeah I did," Copy Cat answered with a satisfied smirk as she put the ball in her satchel and walked away, "And Dragonfly thought I put that in there as a joke," she said to herself with a grin. She walked over to Evangel and pulled out some specialised restraints for Shale. Once she was finished Halt came walking up and handed the stun baton back to Copy Cat.

"I got all the civilians are out of the area," he reported, "So how's everything here?"

"Great!" Copy Cat chirped, "I caught a Princess, no chance of her evolving ever," she joked and nodded to Evangel, "And Evangel has Shale here sitting pretty like a kindergartener art project," she quipped. Shale glared at her but didn't say anything.

"And I see that some one knocked out Idle Hands," Halt stated in satisfaction. Copy Cat nodded at that while pulling out another set of restraints and fit them over his wrists. Halt then looked around, "Where's Dragonfly?" seeing their lack of response he began to worry, "Is she still fighting Drake?"

Copy Cat looked up in the sky, "... Yeah," she responded quietly.

Meanwhile, up in the sky above them Dragonfly was in the midst of fighting off on of Drake's dragon constructs. The serpentine creature had its body wrapped around Dragonfly preventing her from flying herself. The dragon snapped at her trying to bite her, a tough job as one arm was partly in the wrapping of the reptilian's body. Also unfortunate her trapped arm was the one holding her knife, the other was trapped in its sheath irretrievable with the dragons body in the way. It was bad enough that she had to fight of the dragon that was trying to bit her head off but the situation was made worse by Drake, who was riding the other dragon would occasionally fly close enough to try squering her with his spear. When he pulled away the dragon wrapped around her darted its head at her again with its sharp-toothed jaw opened wide. Dragonfly threw her arm in the way and the monster bite down hard on it. She let out a gasp as she felt the strength of the bite through her armored appendage, not enough to feel pain but still more than a noticeable pressure baring down.

Seeing her immobilized Drake threw his spear, aiming for her head. Seeing this in time she flapped her wings hard enough to shift her position and was lucky enough to catch the spear with her trapped arm. The dragon biting her other arm let go and drew back for another strike. As it launched forward again Dragonfly, in two quick motions, transferred the spear from her trapped arm to her free hand and used the spear to drive it up through the dragon's head using its own momentum against itself. The dragon fell silent and relaxed its grip on her, the spear tip could be seen poking out the back of its head and it faded back into nothingness freeing her completely.

Now flying under her own power again she turned to Drake seeing that he created a bow with a quiver of arrows and was tacking aim at her. She zipped to the side as an arrow passed by where her head was a moment earlier and returned the gesture by throwing her knives at him willing them to split into six, tree hitting the dragon her was riding and the other three hitting him in the shoulders. While each knife hit their target they each bounced off the hard armor much to her annoyance. She dodged another arrow. Deciding to end this now she moved forward and threw both her knives again having them split to keep Drake off balance. As she approached Drake was able to shoot two more arrows which she dodged easily. When she was close enough Drake had his dragon swing its head up to both block and bite her. Not deterred she flew around the monster surprising Drake as she plowed into him knocking him from his mount, both surprising and winding him. Even in mid air the two developed continued to fight each other hand to hand, Dragonfly using her wings to increase their speed towards the ground and punching him to direct Drake's falling trajectory. As they got close to street level Dragonfly hit Drake once more in the side of Drake's face before pulling away. Drake hit a car, caving in the roof, and bounced off it before hitting the ground with a dull thud. The dragon that was following them down disappeared as well as the armor that he was wearing.

Dragonfly touched down in front of Drake's unconscious form and knelt down grabbing his shirt pulling him up into a loose sitting position. Drake's head dangled back like a puppet with its strings cut but let out a low moan.

The action made Dragonfly's face furrow in anger, "Still alive, huh Drake?" she asked in contempt as she brought her other arm up with her taloned hand pointing straight out in preparation to run it through the man's chest, "Let's fix that. At least I have the decency to do it in front of you," she spat.

"Dragonfly stop!" Copy Cat cried out, running over and stopping Dragonfly just before she did the deed. "This isn't how we do things, this isn't you."

Dragonfly looked up at her seeing the desperate worried look on her face then turned back to Drake and saw what she was about to do. She let him go and stepped away suddenly afraid of herself, the uncomfortable pain she felt around the gemstone in her chest cooled to a pleasant warmth as she hugged herself. Tears fell down her cheeks, "Thank you," she said quietly as she turned and walked away not trusting herself near Drake again. "Cuff him please," she asked as she walked back to her other team members. Copy Cat did so.

Soon enough the team were back together waiting for the police to come and take care of the villains. They were tired and worn out from the battle Dragonfly herself was understandably frazzled about what she almost did and if Copy Cat hadn't stopped her. Dragonfly shuddered at the thought not wanting to think about it.

It was almost startling how calm and quiet everything was now that the battle was over, the silence only broken by a fire hydrant that was knock over with the sound of water splashing the ground as it fell.

They then heard the sound of a low giggle that slowly increased in volume until it broke into a full on laugh. The members of team Valiant turned to see Idle Hands on his feet still laughing at them as his claws of his 'hands' bent backwards each claw producing a cutting tool that cut off his restraints.

"It's too soon to end this now," he said with a look of glee on his face. He then snapped his claws producing a clicking sound, "I still have a toy I want to show off and more of you still need to die anyways so there's still time for fun," he said as an object fell from the sky hitting the ground with enough force to form a crater in the pavement of the road. When the dust cleared a humanoid shape stepped out of the crater revealing it to be an eleven foot tall robotic minotaur.

"BEHOLD!" Idle Hands declared, "I call it my 'Tantamount robot'," he said with glee and another giggle in his voice.

The robot opened it mouth showing a maw of sharp teeth. A glow in its mouth grew in brilliance. This action set off warning bells in Dragonfly's mind.

"Scatter!" she shouted pushing Copy Cat away, the others broke into action and darted away.

A Brilliant laser beam shot out hitting where they stood before. This fight wasn't over yet.

The laser beam kicked up a cloud of dust as it streaked along the ground at the group of heroes already diving out of the way. Dragonfly hit the ground hard having barely pushed Copy Cat out of the way as well. Coughing from the dust she looked back at where they had been standing moments before. When the dust cleared she saw what was left of Shale. The beam had cut a swath right up the middle of Shale's body. From the bottom of his waist up to his head there was a slot the width of the beam of empty space, with most of his head gone he was obviously dead. Dragonfly breathed a sigh of regret at not thinking to save him despite his illegal profession. "No one deserved to die like that," she thought.

Idle Hands only laughed at the sight, "Two down, more to go, two down more to go," he sang as he began to move his claws like he was conducting an orchestra and spun around in place in a small dance.

Dragonfly growled wishing he'd shut up when she heard Copy Cat call out.

"Hey, Jack Ass!"

Dragonfly turned to her seeing Copy Cat standing in front of an overturned van with what looked like a bazooka over her shoulder. What caught Dragonfly's attention was that Copy Cat's uniform. All the colors were reversed. The glossy blue was now a glossy orange. The previous orange lenses in her goggles were now blue, even the formerly black circuit lines in her uniform were now white. And for a reason that Dragonfly knew, Copy Cat's hair had changed from blond to black.

"Let's see how you damn robot stands up to this," she shouted with a hint of arrogance in her voice as she hoisted the weapon on her shoulder. Idle Hands just stood there still waving his claws to his invisible orchestra, waiting. Copy Cat pulled the trigger. The missile inside jumped out of its tube but its rocket cut out which left the missile to drop to the ground a few feet in front of her, a dud. Copy Cat looked down at the dead missile and could only say the one thing that came to mind, "Ah fuck!"

Idle Hands giggled at this, "Oh the poor sweet hero's abilities fail her, such is to be expected when one copies what they don't understand themselves. A mistake you'll never learn from I'm afraid," he chided as he gestured towards her. His robot them brought an arm up, pointing it at her, which opened up revealing a harpoon-like launcher in it. The robot fired the metal rod which pulled a length of steel cable behind it striking Copy Cat in the shoulder making her cry out in pain as it threw her from her feet and pinned her to the van behind her. Idle Hands gave a predatory smile, "I always love the crescendo," he said as he conducted his orchestra, first gesturing up with both claws then straight at Copy Cat. On doing so, strings of electricity danced down the cable to the harpoon and into Copy Cat's body. She screamed out in horrifying pain before slumping down hanging limply from the harpoon. The rest of the team made no move towards the large robot or the villain controlling it. Idle Hands laughed at the sight, "Three have fallen, more to..." he was interrupted when Copy Cat suddenly awoke, still held in place by the harpoon.

"Oh, the pain. The torment of the final moments of life taunt me so, I ask for the lady death to embrace me in her loving arms to deliver me peace forever more," she spouted trying to make it sound like Shakespeare, failing horribly, and began to make drawn-out gagging noises. All of which thoroughly confused the mad villain enough that he paused in conducting his imaginary orchestra.

Dragonfly could barely suppress her smirk as she spared a glance at where Copy Cat originally stood and saw two different colored cubes. One was the gold transport cube and the other was a small blue colored cube that had small mirrors in it, a holographic projection cube currently projecting the faux image of Copy Cat pinned to the van, still giving its death gasps in a cartoonish fashion. Without warning, an energy beam shot out from behind them over their heads striking the minotaur robot in the head. The robot swayed as the lights went out in it head and the glow in its mouth faded to black and seemed to shut down.

Two blocks away the real Copy Cat was laying on an abandon bus holding a large EMP rifle that she just fired. She was thankful her decoy worked. The rifle took too much time to charge and it was too unwieldy to hit a moving target. Now, with the "Tantamount robot" out of commission, her team can move in on Idle Hands and subdue him without any further destruction.

Idle Hands gave an aggravated sigh, "I hate when a sour note sounds in my symphony," he snapped his claws and the robot reactivated, its eyes blinked on again and its maw glowed again, "Kill the girl," he ordered as he pointed to Copy Cat, who in turn muttered an "Oh shit!" before rolling off the bus just as the beam sliced through the bus from bottom to top destroying her EMP rifle in a small but fiery explosion.

The rest of the team were already in action as Dragonfly and Evangel made for the robot while Halt ran for Idle Hands. Seeing Halt approach Idle Hands gestured to him and the robot turned towards the hero and fired its laser from its maw. Instead of dodging out of the way Halt stood fast and let it hit him and used his powers. He felt the energy of the bean wash over his front and then felt it pull away, going back the way it came right back into the mouth of the minotaur robot. The effect of this reversal was immediate as its head promptly exploded leaving what remains to look like a melted twisted flower of blackened metal. The robot slumped to its knees and fell dark again.

Dragonfly allowed herself a silent cheer before turning to Idle Hands, "You robot it destroyed, your allies are in custody," she looked back at Shale before adding quietly, "Or dead by your own hands," she turned back to face the mad man, "You have no one left to shove in front of you. Now, give up!" she ordered.

Idle Hands only shook his head bemusedly, "Oh, I have much to put between all of you and myself," he said cryptically. He then snapped his claws again and the robot shuddered and got back to its metal hooves. The twisted metal petals that were left of its head came alive like living tentacles as they wrapped back into a ball on its shoulders. The metal ball then reformed, producing details like horns while a lump protruded from its front becoming a bovine muzzle. In seconds, much to the heroes' astonishment, the robot was fully repaired and active again.

"Halt! Same plan as before," Dragonfly told him as she and Evangel made for the robot again to which Halt nodded and ran after the villain again.

Idle Hands took a few steps back, "Ah ah aahhh," he chided tauntingly, "If any of you take me down before my Tantamount stops for the final time then it will blow itself up in a most inconvenient place," he teased. "Besides, while I like what my Tantamount can do, I've taken a shine to you dear boy," he said referring to Halt, "So many heroes have such troubling abilities and yours would do well to stave off a good deal of them," he cocked his head to the side with a crocked smile, "I think I'll have you." On his last statement the robot opened up its chest revealing some one inside, or more horrifyingly the top half of some one. A woman with shoulder length brown hair and what was left of her was wearing a costume red and light grey with grey metal armor on her shoulders and forearms. A piece of machinery attached to wear her waist ended look out of place from the rest of her. At one point the woman looked like she was young, some where in her twenties, as well as at one time would have beautiful. Now she looked like a living corpse, her skin was discolored and sunken in showing her bones underneath. Small cables were attached at various points on her arms and torso. She was truly a nightmarish appearance, made worse that all of team Valiant recognised the woman. She was Lodestone, a former member of the Protectorate, who was killed by her former partner turned rogue Warper. And Idle Hands had her body all this time.

"Oh my god," was all Dragonfly could say as the robot unceremoniously dumped the woman's remains and rand down on Halt. Even though Dragonfly and Evangel moved into action the robot was already on Halt grabbing him and forcing him into itself and shutting him inside. "Fuck," Dragonfly cursed, this had just got a whole lot worse.

"Wonderful, Wonderful," Idle Hands exclaimed happily in earnest, "Oh, having something that can control metal is quite useful, but considering how many of you heroes use energy to fight having him powering my Tantamount robot would be ever so much better," he stated with glee. "So much fun, so much fun," he sang over and over.

Dragonfly gritted her teeth. The situation was getting worse. She was fighting with a still unfamiliar body, one of her team mates were now trapped inside this damn robot through some means adding to its defences, and seeing the mutilated remains of a hero she respected used in such a way really put her on edge. "Evangel," she called out, "I'll distract them and you cut Halt out of that thing!" she ordered. "And one more thing," she added before Evangel started off, "Once you get Halt out of that thing destroy it! Leave nothing left," she demanded. Evangel looked at her a moment before making his way to the robot, "Of course," he said calmly.

With that Dragonfly took to the air flying over the robot throwing her knives at it which had little effect as they bounce off the armor. She had thought of targeting the joints but wasn't sure if they'd carry through and injure Halt as well, something she didn't want to do, but her job was just to distract the robot anyways and give Evangel an opening. It worked, the minotaur was looking up at her. Taking his queue, Evangel moved in slashing at it up the front pulling his sword back so as not to cut too deep leaving a large gash behind in the armor. This immediately got the robots attention and Evangel had just enough time to bring his blades in front of himself as the robot punched him sending him flying back. Evangel flipped himself as he flew through the air where he landed in a crouching position on the side of a building lightly jumping off it and landing gently back on the ground before running off towards the robot again. Dragonfly continued to throw her knives at the robot which were having less an effect than before. With very little else in ranged attacks in her disposal she dive-bombed the robot by flying from high up and at the last minute flipping around to use her legs to kick it and push herself off back into the air again. This seemed to work in keeping the robot off balance and Evangel was able to get another swipe in with both his swords and back away before it could hit him again. This back and forth between the two seemed to be working as the robot was slowing down as more gashes were added over its body exposing wires and other machinery formally hidden behind the armor.

Things were starting to look up from Dragonfly's point of view when she spied Copy Cat, the real Copy Cat, coming from the other side of the street, she must have used another teleport cube to surprise Idle Hands and the robot from behind. Her thoughts were proven right as she was holding another energy rifle. Her eyes widen as she saw her aiming it at the robot.

"No, Copy Cat, wait!" Dragonfly cried out but it was already too late and Copy Cat fired a burst of energy at the robot. On hitting the robot the round bounced back. Fortunately Copy Cat had already shifted her stance enough that the round didn't go back up through the barrel of her weapon but it did hit it in the middle blowing it in half and knocking Copy Cat to the ground, looking dazed.

Idle Hands turned to her, "Are you another copy?" he asked before breaking into a fit of giggles, "The Copy Cat has a copy who's a copy of Copy Cat in every way but one," he gestured towards her and his robot minotaur turned around and opened its arm ready to fire another steel rod, "The copy of Copy Cat is meant to die but if I kill the original does that mean Copy Cat was the copy and the copy was the original? But, if Copy Cat's name holds the word copy in it, does that mean there was never an original Copy Cat to begin with?" Idle Hands mused in a dizzying way only he could follow. "And if there is no original Copy Cat to begin with, then if I destroyed the copy of Copy Cat does that mean I never killed anyone at all? Let's find out," he said at last and with a flick of his claw and the robot fired the steel rod that towed a long cable behind it.

Dragonfly cried out, too far away to intercept the rod and too far again to move Copy Cat out of dangers way. A sudden strong gust of wind picked up sending a car door flying through the air striking the rod knocking it off course enough to bury itself in the ground in front of Copy Cat rather than in her. Down from the sky arrived Windscar lead by the two sprites Dragonfly left her. "You have no idea how grateful I am," Dragonfly said in relief to Windscar as she reabsorbed her sprites.

"Don't worry about it," she replied as she landed and unclipped herself from her parachute and used her powers to send it over to the robot entangling it, "Although, if you really want to repay me later you can get me the materials so I can replace two parachutes and my glide suit that you shredded. That stuff's not cheap you know," she quip.

"Deal," Dragonfly replied.

"I'll hold you to that. Now, let's break a robot, stop the crazy and call it a day. Not necessarily in that order," she said with a not so friendly smile.

"About that," Dragonfly started, "The robot has Halt inside it and it's using his powers somehow, according to the mad doctor, if we take him down before we destroy the robot then there's a chance he might have the robot blow up and kill us as well as any number of people still in the city. He was kind of vague on how big of an explosion but I don't want to risk it unless absolutely necessary," she explained. Copy Cat had come up to them during catching her explanation.

"If that thing is using Halt's powers then that cuts a lot of what I can do. Most of my gear has energy of some sort and the rest is lethal explosives that I don't want to use while he's in there, at least not directly," she said as she rummaged through her satchel and grimaced, "Should have thought to build some EMP grenades at some point. Although with Halt's powers I'm not sure if it would work anyways."

"I might have a way to peel that thing apart," Windscar answered although looking a bit hesitant, "It takes a lot of concentration, so I'll need someone to watch my back while I do this."

"You were flying, hitting me with walls of air and pulling the air from my lungs while you were brainwashed, just how much more concentration do you need?" Dragonfly asked wryly.

"Using wind to manipulate small grains of sand to act like a buzz saw takes a lot of focus. The first time I did this was back when I was a kid in juvi and just developed. I tried cutting the bars on my cell so I could get out. I didn't see my "room mate" come at me till after she tried cutting my eye out," she said touching the scar over her eye, "Now, shut up. This is harder since I have to use my powers to keep the thing still while I cut it open."

Dragonfly gave her a look, "Just focus on the chest piece. With that open then we can pull Halt out easily," she told her as she called over to Evangel, who was still fighting the large robot dodging and weaving while getting one strike in, to step back and get out of Windscar's way. Evangel ducked under a fist as it tried to hit him. He then stood up and brought one sword down in an overhand slash down the middle of its chest while using the other as a shield when the minotaur robot recovered and hit him with his other fist sending him flying back. He twisted through the air where he finally landed on his feet skidding several feet back.

With Evangel out of the way Windscar held up both hands towards the robot, one open-palmed and the other pointing at it. Immediately, the wind picked up kicking up lose sand and gravel from the ground as well as debris from wrecked cars and cement from destroyed pieces of sidewalk, all of which began swirling around the robot. Whenever it tried to move its arms or its whole body out of the torrent of wind buffeting about it large pieces of debris would smack the limbs back in place. A grinding sound could be heard as the sand and grit scraped along the metal skin of the minotaur robot slowly increasing in intensity where the top layer of paint was already coming off revealing the shiny silver metal underneath. Idle Hands seemed more amused by this than anything and began dancing in a circle giving the heroes obvious looks whenever he turned in their direction, making it clear he had full control of the situation as he hummed some random tune to himself.

The madman's display was getting on Dragonfly's nerves. She wanted to, in the worst way, fly over there and beat that smug attitude of his out of him but with that lingering threat of the robot blowing up... She turned to Windscar, "How long is it going to take?"

Windscar's already displayed frown deepened, "It's not as easy as it looks. I'm holding the thing in place and using whatever's around to cut through the skin of this thing," she spared Dragonfly a quick glare before bringing her full focus back to the robot, "And before you ask, the joints are covered in a mesh, the sand just gets caught in it and won't cut it. I can switch over to trying to open up the slashes Evangel already made but we may as well let him get back at it. That armor's tough as hell," she said with a note of disappointment at herself.

Dragonfly sneered at seeing Idle Hands watch them with a cheshire grin and waved "innocently" at her when he saw her looking at him. Dragonfly growled at that before a thought occurred to her and she let an unfriendly smile show back at him confusing him as she turned back to Windscar, "We've been going at this all wrong," she told her as she called Evangel over to them, she continued when he was close enough without having to raise her voice too loud. "Keep doing what you're doing Windscar but, instead of trying to cut through that armor use your powers to gum up the insides. Evangel, turn that thing into a sieve, with all that sand going through it'll be sure to screw up its circuits by damaging them or causing static charge. Either way it'll go down," she explained. Evangel nodded and turned to engage the robot as it disentangled itself finally from Windscar's parachute. Windscar, for her part, released her hold on the robot allowing it to move more freely as she now focused on moving all the dirt she kicked up to enter the holes Evangel had cut and was about to add.

Idle Hands scowled at their new strategy but quickly covered it up with another of his frequent predatory grins as he went back to conducting his imaginary orchestra. "Now it may not seem like it but I do fight fair. I could have easily made a virus that could eat the human body from the inside out as a plague to wipe out a good deal of the population on Earth, but I don't and you now whyyy?" he asked as he did a twirl spinning in place, "Because it's NOT SPORTING!" he shouted as he produced a gun from under his lab coat and pointed it at Windscar.

Dragonfly reacted instantly grabbing Copy Cat who was in the line of fire behind her so she could both her and Windscar as she turned her back to Idle Hands and ducked her head just before several shots rang out. The first four shots bounced harmlessly off her armored backside like she thought they would. The final shot was the lucky bastard as she felt a sudden jab of pain in her back, "Ah fuckfuck shitshitshit," she swore out as she jerked back feeling the muscles in her back cramp up in the worst charlie horse she had ever felt up till now. Her top left wing was pointed at an odd angle from her other wings. The bullet had hit the wing at the joint where it lead into her back under the more flexible portion of her armor. Thankfully, it didn't cause any permanent damage but damn if it hurt like a son of a bitch!

Over with the robot, Evangel was doing is best, striking the robot without risking harm to Halt who was still trapped inside. With the assistance from Windscar the two were able to disable the minotaur's mouth laser. As the robot took a swipe at Evangel, he ducked under it and stepped around slashing at its back. In response, the robot turned around but not to hit Evangel. But to open its forearm and fire the steel rod at Evangel point-blank at him. Evangel, once again, was able to bring both swords up to block just as the rod was fired sending him airborne and flying off several city blocks away.

"Fuck," both Copy Cat and Dragonfly gritted seeing their heavy hitter go flying off.

Windscar herself only grimaced as she finally dropped her arms in exhaustion, "I'm sorry, I can't go any longer, all I'm doing now is clogging the holes," she said as she took another breath. The robot turned back around and raised another arm to fire at them. "Look out!" Windscar shouted as she waved her arm and hit it with a massive wall of air knocking it off its feet where it landed hard on its back. On that, a large crack could be heard as its chest opened slightly.

Seeing this, Dragonfly wanted to pry it open but didn't have any means. Her knives weren't long enough to do the job. She was growing frustrated until she spied the unusual sword/ax weapon that Copy Cat lost earlier. Without hesitation she flew over to the weapon, still feeling the effects of the charlie-horse, and picked it up and flew over to the robot that was just sitting up as it got up and drove the length of the sword part, from top to bottom, down through the open chest piece and began trying to pry it open. The metal groaned and creaked on protest as she continued as she did her best to also pin the robots arms with her legs.

Idle Hands looked bemused, "Oh look, the little bug lady is trying to save her teammate. While I hope she realises that she's playing with a bug zapper," he teased as he gestured. The robot's skin became electrified and started shocking Dragonfly.

She cried out in pain as the electricity ran up her arms but remained where she was. Despite the increasing pain she was receiving she refused to let go and used the pain to drive her forward. She wasn't going to let what happened to her happen to anyone else on her team. A second later the robot finally shoved her off to the side. However this only help, combined with her persistence, the chest opened finally if only slightly, show a ragged Halt inside. Dragonfly got up shortly after still shaking from the effects of the electricity running through her and glanced to Copy Cat, "Get ready," she told her. Copy Cat nodded though not quite sure what she meant but had a hand in her satchel anyways. With her teammates acknowledgement Dragonfly flew straight at the robot. With both hands on either piece of the opening pried it open fully revealing Halt underneath. He looked like hell. He was half conscious and there were a few wires sticking out of his body. "Dragon..," he mumbled as he briefly recognised her before his head drooped. A dark look fell over Dragonfly's face as she remove the wires from Halt's body and pulled him free and flew back and away. She didn't need to tell Copy Cat anything as she was already in action and pulled out a heavy energy rifle and fired it into the still open torso of the robot which in turn exploded in a much satisfying fireball before the remaining pieces fell over in a smouldering ruin.

With the robot finally destroyed, Dragonfly left Halt in Windscar's care as she and Copy Cat turned to Idle Hands standing there with a stoic look on his face as he turned to leave but saw Evangel running up the street where he was going to leave.

"Alright," he said in resignation but still had a cocky look on his face, "I give up," he said as his claws suddenly detached from his wrists in a puff of pressurised smoke. Once his claws hit the ground he deliberately stomped on them wrecking them, a single claw twitched in protest before stopping as Idle Hands raised his now stumped arms in surrender.

Copy Cat's lip quivered as she growled in anger, "You 'give up'?" she accused threatening to bring her rifle on him.

Idle Hands only shrugged, "I'm crazy, not stupid," he answered like it was the most obvious thing to say.

Copy Cat's face darkened as she put her rifle away as she stomped up to Idle Hands and punched him across the jaw with enough force to send the villain on his ass. "You're damn lucky team Valiant doesn't kill," she hissed as she pulled out some new restraints that would secure the villain.

With the robot destroyed and all the villains secured, Copy Cat lead Windscar over to where she kept Drake and Danny both of whom she bolted to the side of the building.

While they waited for the police to arrive with transport for villains Dragonfly turned to Drake, "Listen Drake," she said stressing his name much to his derision, "Which of you was it that put this whole thing together? I know all of you are lone wolfs and don't work with other villains so who's the leader here?"

Drake spat at her, "All I care about is that I have killed the one who stole my name. You'll get nothing else from me," he said with a self righteous grin.

Before anyone else could react to his statement Idle Hands started giggling again and when everyone's attention was on him he spoke out in a sing-song voice, "I know who it i-iss," he said with a toothy grin.

"No, don't tell them anything," Drake cried out.

The villain's reaction to the other sparked Dragonfly's interest so she walked over to Idle Hands and lifted him up by one hand by the collar of his lab coat, "Tell me what you know," she ordered him in a low voice.

Idle Hands didn't react to the painful way she pick him up but answered her question with a grin, "A month ago, a man came to town with a plan most foul and promises for all. He promised the Princess a court, Danny wanted infamy, remote wanted money, so humdrum a reason. And 'Drake' a name he desired." he said in a childish way, not quite a sing-songy voice.

"And what did he promise you?" Dragonfly asked, her eyes narrowed.

"He came to me with a tongue of silver but it didn't matter. When I knew the chaos of his plans I freely offered my skills. Providing machines to enhance powers and provide a means for vengeance. He even told me what you want to knnnow next."

"And what is that?"

Idle Hands leaned forward as much as he could, his grin became predatory, "Where. He. Is," he stated softly.

Dragonfly's eyes widened momentarily before narrowing again, "Tell me," she ordered in a dark tone. Idle Hands, after a short laugh told her where he was waiting, after which she dropped the madman to the ground where he stumbled a bit before falling back on his ass.

As she relayed the information to her teammates the police arrived along with several ambulances, one loading Halt into it before driving off as the police gathered the villains into the police transport. Remote was already waiting for his partners in crime.

"I'm going after him," Dragonfly told her teammates and Windscar, "I can get there faster than anyone else right now and it would be very bad if he got away," she told them as she was getting ready to fly off. Before she did so Copy Cat stopped her.

"Dragonfly wait," she said as she pulled out a set of restraints from her satchel and handed it to her, "Bring him back alive. He answers to the justice system, not us. We are not jury and executioners understand?" she asked with a worried look in her eyes.

Dragonfly took the restraints and looped them over one of the handles of her knives without having anywhere else to store it. "Of course I'll bring him back. Why would you say something like that?" she asked confused.

Copy Cat pursed her lips in worry before answering, "Did you already forget what you were about to do before I stopped you?"

Dragonfly stopped herself, she looked up into the air for a second before looking back into Copy Cat's eyes, "I'll just bring him in," she promised her.

Copy Cat stared at her for a moment before nodding and letting go of her arm.

With some final reassurance Dragonfly flapped her wings and was instantly off into the air and headed in the direction of the place where the unknown person was apparently waiting. The place in question was and abandon storehouse in the outskirts of the suburbs of the city. When she arrived she touched down in the parking lot of the storehouse surprised of how calm everything seemed. This set her off in overdrive as she expected something worse. With frayed nerves and a knife in hand she entered the building through the main door. On entering she could see that the building had been made into a sort of living space. She could see the influence of such as one section was full of Disney merchandise while another was a work bench with half finished robot animals. But what drew her attention squarely was a man sitting behind a desk you would see in an office building for a high executive.

The man was a stark contrast to everything else. He was clean shaven with short-cropped light brown hair and was smartly dressed in a business suit. Seeing her enter he stood up and walked around the desk, "Hello," he greeted her, "My name is Jacob Hyers, and you are?" he asked almost gentlemanly. This put Dragonfly off, not expecting this situation from some one who orchestrated the murder of a super hero and several innocent bystanders.

"I go by Dragonfly," she told him deftly, "Am I safe to assume that you are responsible for everything that happened in the city?" she asked accusingly.

"I am," he replied. He then reached into his coat and pulled out a gun making sure to hold it in a way to make it impossible to shoot it safely and placed it on the desk behind him. "Would it surprise you to know that professionally, I work as a psychiatrist for a living?"

Dragonfly quirked her head at this wondering why he brought this up, let alone where he was going with this.

"It's true," he said simply as he sat on the edge of his desk away from where he set the gun down. "And would you like to know what else? I am a base-line human," he stated with amusement. "I, a base-line human, convinced a group of developed villains to kill, or at least try to kill, a super hero team. What do you think of that?" he asked. Before she could say anything he spoke anyways, "Perhaps I should give you some reason, personal history you could say, as to why I did what I have. I am, to put it simply, a sociopath. I have personally killed several dozen people before now," he revealed, showing no shame in what he just said.

"You're a shrink and you kill people?" Dragonfly asked incredously, "How do you live with yourself? Do you make victims out of your patients too?" She had, without her notice or meaning to, pulled one of her knives out.

The man frowned, "I keep my personal and professional lives separate I'll have you know. No patient of mine has ever suffered at my hands and have actually gone on to quite productive lives," he stated with pride in his voice, "One of my former patients is a highly successful celebrity who used to be a self-destructive hoarder before coming to me for help," he told her as if that would convince the hero. It didn't. "The problem I had," he went on explaining, "Is that as one becomes what could be called a serial killer it gets harder to feel that special rush one gets from that first kill. So, I guess at this point I should just stop refering myself in the third person as it seems to be getting silly at this point since you have no idea what I'm talking about on the personal level. Where was I? Oh yes, as time goes on it becomes less special and I feel less and less. It got so humdrum that, before I had my epiphany I had kidnapped over a dozen people and placed them in a building that was a complete death trap, like those humourless Saw movies. Imagine my surprise when one of the people I had kidnaped turned out to be a developed super hero. I believe her name was Foreshadow."

Dragonfly stiffened on hearing the name. Foreshadow was another local hero that she had approached months back when she was still just Dragon. She dressed as a ninja and was trained one as well. Her powers were surface telepathy or being a deep empath which allowed her to pick up surface thoughts and intentions from people around her. Combined with her ninja training, she was a potent fighter. A little over a month ago she had been found dead, in costume, with a bullet between her eyes. A manhunt had gone on for weeks for her killer but there was so little evidence that it quickly became a cold case despite Tobias' attempts to influence the homicide department to continue. Now she was standing in front of her killer who freely admitted to the deed. Dark thoughts began to swim around her mind about what she wanted to do to the monster. The gemstone in her chest began to feel like it was burning again. He continued.

"She revealed her identity to the others so that they'd trust her so she could lead them out safely. And she almost did had I not been waiting with a gun in each hand at the final door. I waited thinking intently that I wasn't going to shoot anyone with the gun in my left hand. She believed what I thought and walked through the door. She barely saw the gun I held before I fired. I finished off the others quickly and found where Foreshadow kept her suit. I put her in it and dumped her near the park. I was quite surprised by the effects afterwards. There was the usual stars and stripes funeral," he said with a dismissive wave, "But after that, something wonderful happened. Regular everyday people who lived around the park where I dumped the woman's body formed a neighborhood watch reducing crime in the area to the lowest levels they have ever been. Kids were picking up trash and cleaning up the area. Seeing those actions made me realise something. The human race had become lazy and the reason for that was because of people like you," he said pointing at Dragonfly, "You and others like you. All of you 'developed' heroes and villains have reduced the human race to stagnation. It was so simple that I laughed for hours when it came to me. Why should any base-line human do anything for themselves when a developed 'hero' would do it for them? An alien invasion, the worlds military will sit back and let the 'heroes' and the more territorial villains would take care of them. The police well stand back not bothering to arrest a developed villain, letting the 'hero' do the work for them. Ever since I witnessed what happened at the park I looked elsewhere. Boston has made a remarkable recovery since a few heroes and villains died. I had come to the conclusion that all developed will have to die if the human race is to break its stagnation." He paused to look at the gun he had placed on the table, "I killed her with that gun," he told her with a sly smile as he stood up from sitting on the side of the desk but walked away from it. "It was surprisingly easy to manipulate the local developed villains. A single match as it were. The death of a hero to start things off," he let out a small chuckle, "You and your friends were supposed to kill the villains in retaliation, I was almost certain that fool Drake was going to die first. But I'm relatively new at this so it is not unexpected for things to start slow," he went on.

Dragonfly spied the gun on the table and after a few quick steps she was close to the table and picked up the pistol, holding it in her hands, "This is the gun that killed Foreshadow," she thought to herself as she looked towards Jacob and thought of how he had also killed her through Drake. Her hands clenched in anger. "This man was directly responsible for killing her and Foreshadow as well as many innocent bystanders with his own hand. She had to stop him. There was no other choice. If she just arrested him he could escape to kill more innocent people. With a burning fury she raised the gun in her hand and aimed it at the man. She gasped as the pain in her chest became excruciating causing her to stager. This only seemed to spurn her on as she renewed her efforts to end this monsters retched life.

Just as she was about to pull the trigger she heard a voice in her minds eye cry out, "STOP!" it pleaded. Dragonfly did momentarily as she recognised the voice of the spirit woman.

Dragonfly blinked as she brought the gun up again, "I'm sorry but he has to die," she told the voice.

Again she was stopped by the spirit woman's voice, "Don't do it," she cried out to her, "I have seen the kindness in your soul. Don't let him take it."

Dragonfly was barely standing to the pain in her chest, "I have to do this now," she responded in quiet resolve, tears running down her face.

"Look at him," the spirit woman told her.

Confused Dragonfly blinked, "I am."

"Look at him," the spirit woman told her more firmly.

For a moment, Dragonfly didn't understand before she finally switch to her altered vision and was shocked at what she saw. A sickly inky black cloud was coming out of Jacob straight towards her. He was doing something to her she realised. With a thought she produced a sprite to have it intercept the cloud. When that happened her knees buckled and she would have fallen had she not grabbed on to the desk for support as all the hate and fury suddenly left her. She could still feel it through her sprite but she was under control of it and held it between them. She was confused as she thought the man said he was base-line but now that she could think clearly she knew what he wanted her to do.

"You want me to kill you," she said at last surprised and shocked. "Why would you want me to kill you?"

His smile grew, "What would it look like if a developed 'hero' killed a base-line human that offered no resistance?" he countered, "Either way, kill me now or send me to jail, eventually, my legacy will prevail." he said simply. "Dying here, I'll be a martyr. Going to jail, I will start over. And become a symbol as a base-line human that saved the human race by convincing the developed to kill themselves."

Dragonfly put the gun back down on the table, "No," she said flatly. "You're not going to be either. I can see what you are now and like it or not, you are developed."

Jacob's eyes widen and he looked off as if to review his memories at her declaration until he refocused on her again with a look of hatred on his face, "No," he countered, "There's no way I'm like one of you filthy developed," he spat. "I'm smarter than you developed, that's how I was able to convince the villains to follow me. Princess had daddy issues, Drake was obsessed with his family honor, that's how I was able to manipulate them," at this point he was practically foaming at the mouth, "They were all so weak minded!" he shouted. "And after I kill you it won't matter," he said as he dove for the gun on the table. A futile gesture as Dragonfly was between him and it and se caught him and quickly dispatched him, knocking him out.

The pain in her chest had cooled since she had broken free from the crumpled man's influence. But even still, she wished she could do so much more to him for what he had done, "You're lucky I'm not that kind of person," she told the unconscious man as she picked him up to take him back to the authorities. He had a lot to answer for.

Epilogue:

Of the one hundred and twenty-three people that were taken hostage by the group of villains that day, a total of thirty-four were killed. Team Valiant recovered Lodestone's remains and turned it over to the Protectorate so they could give the fallen hero's loved ones final closure. Halt recovered from his ordeal rather quickly. Drake, Idle Hands, Princess, Remote, and Jacob once his developed powers and previous actions came to light, were all intured in Mount Prometheus. Danny was remanded to an asylum for treatment and care as was no longer willing to make his own decisions mumbling that his decision killed everyone.

Dragonfly had visited the woman she injured while she was in hospital for treatment and physiotherapy in the weeks following. Her husband had initially insisted on suing Dragonfly but was chastised to silence by his wife who insisted that Dragonfly saved her. Dragonfly blushed at the praise feeling that she didn't deserve the praise but couldn't object the heartfelt thanks from their five year old daughter thanking for saving her mom.

About a month later after the events that changed Lucy's life, she walked through the lobby of their base to meet with their liaison to the local police forces. She had since had her long hair braided into one long pony tail to keep it under control while she flew or fought. She smiled as she approached the man waiting just inside the door. She smiled on approaching the man as he was her former partner.

"Hello Mr. Dunwhich, welcome to the headquarters of team Valiant," she greeted him shaking his hand.

"Please, just call me Phil," he told her with a bashful wave. He looked around the lobby, "I never imagined that you guys would be set up in a former police station," he added in appreciation.

"It seemed appropriate at the time, I've been told," she said happy at his approval. "If you'll come with me, I'll show you to your new office," she said turning around. As she glanced over her shoulder she caught Phil looking up her backside who in turned blushed and became flustered when he realised he was found out. Lucy smiled at his response. "I have heard from Tobias that you were quite the handful," she said making conversation and smiling to herself at her private joke.

"Hey, I've had to pull his ass out of the fire more than a few times," he responded hotly but playful, "I don't know if he ever told you, but he had a nasty habit of not checking behind doors when we go to clear a room," he said slyly.

Lucy stopped mid-stride and turned on her heels forcing Phil to back up to avoid her wings as he was following so close, "Actually, he said the same about you," she told him with a smile and a quirked an eyebrow in challenging his claim.

"Yeah," he admitted rubbing the back of his neck admitting the truth, "I owe him more than a few times," he said with a wistful smile thinking of the good times they had. "It's a shame that he got killed," he added with a pained look.

Lucy looked down at the floor, "Yeah," she agreed quietly, "I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for him," she said feeling the sting of tears in her eyes threatening to come forth.

"Me too," Phil agreed looking off again.

Lucy managed to compose herself and pointed to the door beside them, "This is where you'll be working. I've heard it used to be the former dispatch room but don't worry, its since been remodeled so don't worry about being stuck in the corner surrounded by old equipment," she assured him. "If you need any help you can call for Evangel or Halt and they should be able to set you up if you get stuck. I have to go see Copy Cat about something," she told him and left after he gave her his thanks.

After making her way to Copy Cat's work shop she saw Brenda there, out of uniform like her, standing there looking at her with a dazzling smile as she sauntered over to her and grabbed her hand and lead her out of her workshop and down the hall with barely a, "Come on" said. Soon enough, they were standing in front of a door to the washroom. Lucy noticed that the MEN/WOMEN's sign had been replaced with a dragonfly sign instead. Lucy looked at Brenda's cheshire grin as she gestured for her to enter. Rolling her eyes she pushed open the door and found the room had been gutted and redone with a single toilet sitting in the middle of the room. "Oh god," Lucy said wholly embarrassed feeling her face go beet red. She knew she should have expected something like this but she wasn't expecting what could only be described as a literal porcelain throne.

"Try it out," Brenda told her plainly.

"What?" Lucy asked in surprised almost screaming the name but Brenda only turned around.

"You heard me," she chastise, "You still owe me a talk and I don't want any interruptions. So, sit down, do your thing and meet me back in my workshop," she said over her shoulder as she walked out the door.

Lucy sputtered a moment but deflated in defeat as she turned to the toilet in defeat. Much to both her relief and embarrassment it was far more comfortable than what she had been using till then. So after she cleaned herself and washed her hands and returned to Brenda's workshop where she was waiting for her by the door to her personal training room.

"Well? How was it?" she asked Lucy. Lucy herself felt her face burn in embarrassment as she admitted it was more comfortable. "So," Brenda started, "About what we were talking about. You know my feelings for you still haven't changed. I still love you," she looked down bashfully, "What do you feel about me?" she asked timidly looking up with her eyes at Lucy.

Lucy stared at the apparent seventeen year old girl before her as she thought about her. She knew that she enjoyed her company and they were able to speak candidly with each other. And while she knew that Brenda was far older than how she looked, her appearance was the only thing that held her back when she was still Tobias. But now after everything that's happened and with Brenda's admission of her love for her even though she's changed so much. And Lucy had to admit that she did have feelings for Brenda. She had almost died, in fact she had died, and she had to admit that life was even more precious and delicate now. All this told her that she should cherish everything she had because there was no telling when everything would be taken away. She looked at Brenda, who was still looking unsure of the situation and opened her mouth to speak, "I love you too," she told her meaning every word.

The most beautiful smile came on Brenda's face as she reached out for Lucy's hand and pulled her with her into her training room, which seemed to become much smaller then when she was in there last but was still pretty large and looked like a bedroom with a full sized bed and romantic mood lighting. Once they were inside the door closed and disappeared behind them.

"Where did the door go?" Lucy asked, a little concerned.

"I locked the door," Brenda answered, "For the next two hours we're both locked in here. Don't worry though, if something happens and they need our help, I left instructions for them to open the door if they need to but I don't want any interruption," she said seductively as she kissed Lucy with a deep unreserved passion. Lucy felt her body respond pleasantly to the kiss.

"How's this going to work?" she started to ask, "My wings don't exactly make bed play comfortable."

Brenda gave her a knowing smile before saying, "Gravity off." And the two started to float off from the ground as she embraced Lucy.

Lucy started to protest again, "But how does th-oohh," she moaned suddenly as Brenda rubbed a leg under her vagina. "Maybe this will work," Lucy thought absently as she went in to kiss Brenda.

Two hours wasn't enough for the new couple.