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

-------------
Chapter 01
-------------

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grave robbers. she thought to herself.

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

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

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

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

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

“Blame it on a bad bowl of rice.”

“On a bad bowl of...? What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Time to go,” he said to his minions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you OK?” asked Joule_SAIkatsu.

“I will be, I hope,” she responded.

“You hope? What happened?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Your powers finally manifested,” Mary said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“David.” Jackie gasped.

“Not for four months now.”

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

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

Someone in the League had some really bad news.

-------------
Chapter 02
-------------

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid! I shouldn’t have let her go out alone tonight,” Mary said, walking into the mansion where the League was based. Her sister followed. “Computer, we have company. Please grant access to my sister Jackie.”

“Right away,” spoke the computer in the same feminine voice it had since their last base. It scanned Jackie and ringed while the sisters made their way through the mansion.

In the meeting room, Walter, their man in charge, was drinking coffee; Jeff, dressed as War Lagoon, was reading out of a thick binder; Warren was running around, switching off between computers and putting on his costume as Mortar Mage. Jackie averted her eyes upon seeing Mortar’s brief nudity.

“Where is she?” Mary asked.

Walter said, “In the next room. Wyatt’s examining her.”

Wyatt? Mary hadn’t seen him or his wife in a few weeks since they had taken off for a vacation. She would have to ask about Tatiana, but that could wait. Mary stormed the kitchen, which Wyatt was using to examine Ohm Wire. The man was a pediatrician by trade, but he was still a good doctor in general.

“How is she?” Mary asked.

While the doctor lipped for Mary to ask Kyra herself, Ohm Wire said, “I could be better. I just bit off more than I could chew. But if someone could let me say—“

She squeaked when Mary hugged her tightly.

“Kyra’s healthy as far as I can tell,” said Wyatt, “but I would advise against doing anything crazy for a day or two.”

“Crazy’s kind of part of the job description, Wyatt,” said Mary.

“That’s why Tatiana and I left for a little while. Though, she still gets up in the wee hours of the night to pick out baby items from one of our many catalogs littering the living room. It’s looking more catastrophic by the day since the two of you moved out. At least the baby hasn’t needed too much womb service lately.”

Maryann and Kyra moaned, as did Jackie.

“Oh hello, I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure,” the doctor said to Jackie, extending his hand to her.

“Wyatt, Jackie. Jackie, Wyatt.” Mary introduced with a couple waves of her hand.

“Your sister?”

“The one and only. Don’t worry, she won’t bite.”

“Given your history . . .”

“She’s not a vampire, or a succubus.” Mary looked at Jackie. “Long story.”

Jackie nodded with a heavy dose of uncertainty washed all over her face. Any second, Mary thought, Jackie was going to run into the night screaming that her sister really was evil incarnate. However, she did no such thing.

“Can I please explain what happened, now?!” Kyra’s arms flailed as she tried so hard to make herself known. “We’ve got a grave digger problem.” She paused when Jackie grunted in disgust. “I stumbled upon them tonight after my informant pointed the way. They overpowered me, left me for dead without realizing that a lightning bolt can’t kill me.”

“You did what you could,” Mary tried to console her.

“I’m not sure I did. That poor girl. I failed her.”

“Failed who?”

“Judy. Those assholes took her body.”

The kitchen had a full audience now as the others filtered through the door, and it was dead quiet. Mortar Mage’s face contorted between shock and anger, while Walter and War Lagoon frowned.

Mortar asked, “Would you be able describe what these grave robbers look like?”

“Sure. A couple of them looked like S&M rejects with tiki masks. The man who led them wore no mask, but he . . . they? . . . wore a dark trench coat over dress pants and a casual t-shirt. I didn’t catch his name, their name. I don’t even know. The three of them looked so much alike.”

“We’ll find them, don’t you worry about it. No one exhumes our friend’s body without a damn good reason, and even still without a good pummeling.”

“Thanks, Warren.”

“No problem. Now, I may not be the doctor here, but you should get some sleep.”

Mary said, “Meanwhile, we’ve got another problem. My sister volunteered to be the next hero at the power plant. I think it’s time we went beyond the mayor’s authority.” Short pause. “Again. I swear I’m done with that guy.”

“The power plant will be heavily guarded, so that might be a problem,” said Walter. “Even teleporters can’t get in there for some reason.”

Everyone who knew Mortar looked at him before he could say anything, his heels rocking back and forth upon the wave of attention. Jackie caught on quickly and looked his way as well. He exhaled heavily with a light smile, and turned back toward the garage, where he had a workshop for devices and low-level spells that still had a habit of exploding things.

Jackie said, “Was that a sigh of ‘yeah, I got something,’ or a sigh of ‘go fuck yourself?’”

Everyone else in the room said, “A bit of both.”

After using one of the restrooms, Maryann came across her sister at the foot of some stairs. Jackie was drinking tea, judging by the color and scent of what she had in her cup. Mary sat down next to her.

“Hey,” Mary said to her sister.

Jackie huffed through her nose. “I think this is the most you’ve said to me in the last nine or ten years.”

“Things change.”

“Like God-given body parts.”

“Like peoples’ genders and beliefs. Paragon’s really had it out for the former lately. You said our aunt and uncle sent you my way, right? Were they the ones who told you about me being Adamast Cross?”

“No, they weren’t.” Jackie took a sip of tea when her hands stopped jittering. “I still remember when your powers first manifested.”

“As do I. I try not to think of the scorn I got from you that day.” They had a hard enough time getting along before that, but that moment sealed the deal forever and left David with nothing kind to say or think or feel about his sister.

“Because I thought the Lord’s way was the only way, or I thought that was it. I don’t know anymore. Am I wrong?”

“I couldn’t tell you, Jackie. I’ve met all sorts of people and seen enough things to question everything, including my own beliefs. You might too for as long as you’re here in town.”

“I’m not sure I could take it. I don’t even know how I’m still breathing after my ice powers manifested. Especially after Mom and Dad disowned me. I dropped nursing school and came to Paragon hoping to sacrifice myself, to make things right, and maybe make sense of it all. I’m such a mess.”

“That’s why you can’t sleep?” Mary asked.

“God, no. I just have trouble sleeping in a stranger’s home.”

“So did I when I moved in with our aunt and uncle. I thought no one was stranger than them until I met these guys. And now they’re all my family. I still visit and talk to our aunt and uncle sometimes, but they understand that I have a life now.”

“They must have been surprised when you changed.”

“About as much so as when they learned about my ice powers.”

“So, not at all?”

“Nope. They even gave me a stern talking to for running off without telling them anything when my change happened, but they were far from surprised, and I’ve yet to figure out why that is. Now I live with Kyra, and we sometimes come over for dinner. I'm still not sure I trust their meatloaf.”

The last note earned a chortle from her sister.

Jackie finished her tea and set it down. She and Mary sat in silence for a time while the rest of the League did their thing. War Lagoon went back out on patrol, this time with Psi Wizard now that Wyatt was back and wearing his hero uniform. Kyra played cards with Walter. Tatiana was at home, trying to sleep as much as her pregnancy would allow. Mortar Mage was doing . . . something; no one knew what exactly.

“I do hope he didn’t get sidetracked,” stated Mary. Her sister looked at her curiously. “Mortar Mage has a habit of getting sidetracked easily.”

“You really think he can help me?” asked Jackie.

“I’m sure he can. He’ll probably have the perfect solution to the power plant problem. Then, while Walter figures out the master plan to beat these grave diggers, and we’ll be able to enjoy a nice warm plate of waffles and call it another week in Paragon. You’ll see, there’s totally nothing to worry about.”

The Arachne Regime shall rise again. The Arachne Regime stands supreme!

This was the chant and battle cry of several men and women, many of whom sat in attendance inside of a hall with unpolished, wooden beams, black cloth along the sides, and concrete flooring. It looked like the mess hall in a war camp, and these men and women were always ready to go to war to claim power over Paragon and then the world.

As far as they knew, half of the room consisted of new recruits to their cause. One such recruit shifted and listened with limited patience as someone, possibly the head honcho or someone close to it, crossed the stage.

“Welcome, everyone,” said the man without any lack of confidence, though his enthusiasm was underplayed. “I have gathered you all here this morning because our time approaches. We have suffered a great many trials in the past, and half as many setbacks, but now we are stronger. Wiser. We know better than to stand in the open when the community of misled heroes is ready to strike like a foolhardy child against a garden variety of spider. We may have lost great leaders, but, in time we will rule—“

The impatient recruit yawned audibly and stretched, interrupting the speaker. To nearly everyone in the hall, she looked like another average woman. However, the recruit removed her gold and green wristband in the course of the distracting stretch, and she became a he before everyone’s eyes. On top of that, he let his superpowers do their thing.

“Bored now!” exclaimed Trash Knuckle just before he got up and used one neighboring recruit to pile drive into another. He had only begun to thrash everyone in sight, and Trash Knuckle flew at the speaker that he cut off only a moment ago.

Oh yeah. Now this was more his style.

-------------
Chapter 03
-------------

Outside of the safety barricade around the Paragon Power Plant, news crews gathered at first light; even if that first light was a guard lighting up a cigarette.

They found and practically bombarded Diamond Grace when she arrived on the scene. Their questions were numerous and difficult to pick out, but Diamond Grace answered what she could while making her way to the barricade.

“We heard you were assigned this mission last night; what took you so long to come down here?” “Miss Diamond Grace, how will you succeed where others have failed?” “What do you think you’ll find in there?”

“The seventh time is the charm,” said Diamond Grace. “And I am blessed, because I’m going in, but not truly alone. Now excuse me, I have a city to save.”

The reporters called after her, but she kept going, passing the guards and the barricade. They handed her a reader and a radiation suit just in case, they told her. She never once asked what it was for. Instead, she nodded and carried on.

Once she got inside, Diamond Grace took a deep breath. Dealing with reporters was more harrowing than she had ever imagined. Now was the moment of truth. She pulled out a handful of tiny devices, each shaped like a disc and the size of her thumb, and got to work applying them to a wall.

They were arranged in an ovular shape long enough to compensate most men that she knew back home in Arizona, if this indeed worked like a doorway like Mortar Mage said it would.

She activated the two-way earphone she was wearing, and spoke, “Knock-knock, come on in.”

A second later, she heard Mortar’s voice through the earpiece, “Roger that. Stand clear, and thanks for the invite.”

The wall between the discs glowed a number of colors including silver and violet. Adamast Cross and Ohm Wire stepped through the wall, challenging everything that Jackie believed for the majority of her life. The glowing stopped, but Diamond Grace was assured that they could contact the outside world at any time as long as the discs were in place.

“Is this everyone?” she asked.

Walter’s voice answered through the earpiece, “Mortar and I are monitoring the situation from here. Everyone else is asleep or at work. That just leaves the three of you, ladies.”

“Ohm Wire’s visor can record video for us,” explained Mortar. “However, these broadcasts will push the amount of power that this connection takes, so we’ll have to keep it down until you spot something for us to analyze. The last thing we need is to create an unstable rift in the middle of a power plant that is already suffering mysterious issues.”

“This thing could do that?” the new heroine inquired.

“It shouldn’t, given the calculations I made and doubled down on, but I’m obligated to list potential warnings or concerns ever since a few harmless incidents.”

“Harmless incidents. Really?”

With a ring of the doorbell, Walter entered the foyer to open the front entrance. He had asked Warren about having a butler or maid around for things like this, given only the size of the house, but Warren told him that the place was already . . . crowded, for a lack of a better word.

He grasped the knob, twisted, and pulled it back. Walter was greeted by a woman’s backside as she began to tug on a trunk twice her size.

“Long time no see, Walter,” said Mai. She stopped a moment so that she and Walter could exchange casual pecks on each cheek. “I was starting to wonder if I’d ever catch you.”

“Yes, I heard that you were storing some things in the attic. Cleaning house?”

“I’m selling it. It’s been years since . . . you know, and I need to move on. It’s amazing that I haven’t set fire to the place yet. This morning, I was vacuuming my daughter’s room when I ended up staring at the poster on her wall for a half hour, reminiscing about the past. So, that’s going up with the rest of our collection of hero memorabilia at least until I’ve settled into my new place. I had thought about a storage unit, but that’s asking for trouble in a city like ours.”

“Right, I suppose it’s hard to sell a house when you’re staring at a single wall the entire time. Harder still when Judy provided us all with so many memories. Listen, we’re actually in the middle of something big right now, but if you want I can help you get your things up the stairs.”

“I think I can manage,” Mai said, still moving with her trunk in hand.

“Are you sure?”

“I only packed what I could carry.”

Never mind the fact that the trunk looked like it would still have been heavy if it was empty. What did Mai have in there, one of Warren’s gravity reduction devices?

Walter said, “Well, let me know if you change your mind, or if you just want a cup of coffee or tea. By all means, drop by to say hi. I’m sure everyone would like that.”

He left her for the kitchen to grab a cup for himself. It was going to be a while before Walter had the chance to sleep. Maybe he should pick up power naps like Jeff. No, he had no idea how his friend had managed it so well for so long, and Walter wasn’t about to try it.

Dear, oh dear.

“There doesn’t appear to be anyone in here,” said Diamond Grace. She walked with the others toward the middle, but what they were could hardly be called a line. They ventured closer and closer to the plant’s reactor, but there was no sign of life.

Not even a decorative plant, or a cockroach.

Ohm Wire said, “My visor’s only picking up heightened amounts of radiation.”

“Only?” said Adamast Cross.

“It’s not lethal if we don’t stay here long. At least, that’s what my informant tells me.”

“Your informant is contacting you through your visor?”

“It’s either that or my phone. Somehow, I don’t think we’d get good service in here.”

The two siblings glanced and nodded at one another, and the trek continued down the corridors. It took a little more than five minutes before they reached the door to the reactor. The door was ajar.

“Ohm Wire?” said Adamast Cross.

“It’s the same.” Ohm Wire didn’t sound too sure of herself, or maybe she was confused. “The readings in there are just like the corridors we’ve been walking in. Something else, too.”

“Something else?” asked Mortar over their earpieces. “What do you mean? Oh. Oh wow, that’s interesting. They’re all the wrong kind of waves. So that means the radiation in there isn’t coming from the reactor. Tell your informant they have a good eye.”

“She says thanks, Mortar. Will this radiation hurt us?”

“If you’re out of there in the next ten minutes, and someone treats you with some basic medicine, then you won’t suffer long-term effects. Still, be careful.”

Adamast pinched her brow then. “She’s already gone in. Well, I guess we better fo—“

Ohm Wire shrieked. In a panic, Adamast Cross ran in after her, and then Diamond Grace followed. Diamond Grace wasted no time spotting the source of the other heroine’s reaction. There was a flaming, glowing, skeletal figure melded with the reactor.

The figure moved his head, and spoke: “It’s been a while, Ohm Wire. I see you’ve brought some friends.”

“Who is this?” Diamond Grace asked.

“The name, young lady, is Ghost Fracture. I was the leader of Nightmare’s Militia, or Soldiers; it was all the same. Ohm Wire here was one of my brightest recruits. Oh, we had such fun doing what was right in the islands forgotten by law. Didn’t we?”

“And now look at you. Payment for a sinner?” After Diamond Grace said that, her sister muttered her name. Her first name, in front of this villain!

“Something like that. I suppose this was a long time coming before I was caught and punished for breaking away. They don’t forgive runaways, even ones like me who were supposed to have died. Especially when we cause trouble for their return.”

“Whose return?” asked Ohm Wire.

Mortar Mage watched the computer screen intently with Walter looking over his shoulder. He had the next computer console digging up everything it could on Ghost Fracture and Nightmare’s Militia. He was sure he’d heard a good deal about them before, but references for himself and others never hurt.

Ohm Wire asked, “Whose return?”

Ghost Fracture said, “The Vanquishiri Bahitians.”

“No. No, no, no.” Mortar repeated himself with growing fear and fury. It wasn’t possible.

“They’re raising soldiers from your dead, using only the parts they can salvage from one of their rituals. I rejected their first ritual to have one of them inside me, and my soul survived. Then they used a second to torture my soul and strip me of all bindings to my flesh so that I might become one of their soldiers. I got away because I was one of the lucky ones. I was the only lucky one. Imagine what they’ll do to every person who came here before you.”

“No!” Mortar slid everything off of one table in a rage. “You tell him that’s impossible. You tell that man we couldn’t be standing if it was.” He barely heard, and promptly ignored, Walter whispering his name.

“So then they found me. Made an example of me so they could lure their victims. They are here, and we can do nothing other than hope our deaths will be the end.”

“Tell him!”

“Calm down, Mortar.” Walter rested a hand on his shoulder. “Calm down.”

Mortar Mage shoved the hand away, and stormed out of the mansion. He had to go somewhere. He had to be sure.

Ohm Wire rubbed her ear after all of the shouting.

Adamast Cross said, “So, how do we undo all of this? How do we save you and fix the plant’s reactor?”

“You don’t.” Ghost Fracture was nothing if not frank, and maybe a little creepy.

“See, that’s not going to work for us. We need to save the world. It’s kinda what we do.”

“Then save it. But, in order to do so, you will have to finish me. Then, and only then, will your city stand a chance to live another day.”

Everyone moved uneasily who was able to move. Not only was killing difficult, but it was considered a major violation of being a hero. There was no news media recording this, unless the mysterious hacker was accounted for, but that didn’t make the idea of taking a life seem any less wrong.

Diamond Grace said, “You understand what you’re asking, right?”

Ghost Fracture responded, “This is coming from a woman who came here to die herself. Oh, they know about you, and they expect you to run because they don’t care, or that you'll fall into their trap as you flee. They think themselves so high and mighty because they can sense people, and one of them even sees so far ahead. They think they have everything they need now, but they did not count on one thing. You have allies, dangerous ones who are difficult to predict. To me, this means they’ve already lost, but you must shut this core down and let me go.”

“God has a plan for us all. A time and place.”

“I no longer remember when my time was. It came, it went, and here I am ages later.”

“If I may interrupt,” said a woman’s voice over the earpiece.

“Who’s this?” Ohm Wire asked into it, even holding her ear and turning her head so that Ghost Fracture could see that she wasn’t talking to him.

“This is someone who knows a thing or two about taking a life, except, in my case it was out of bitter rage. For you, it will be like pulling the plug on someone who died already. I know it’s not much easier, but please, for the sake of the city and the millions of lives in it, do what he asks. Let a troubled man rest.”

“What about the heroes’ taboo?”

“It was put in place so we wouldn’t get carried away like I did six years ago, to keep us from turning villainous. It was put in place to protect people who only think in terms of black and white. This is one exception to the rule, as terrible as it might be. I would not wish this decision on anyone, but it stands before you. To this day I do not know if I’d have chosen any different.”

“It’s you, isn’t it? You’re Sw—“

“I’ve said too much already. Thank you for listening to me. Good bye, and good luck.”

Ohm Wire was stunned. A hero thought to have been long gone was on their frequency just as sure as there was a hacker on Ohm Wire’s visor. Were the hero and hacker the same person, or was the League just vulnerable? It raised too many questions for her to begin to tackle.

Meanwhile, Ghost Fracture continued to hover inside of the reactor’s edge. Ohm Wire and Adamast each took a number of lives in the past that the news media and law authorities never learned about, but circumstances were different then. They had no control over what they were doing. And the man who helped Ohm Wire start her career was suffering, primed to become unstable at any moment and blow a hole where the city now stood.

“How do we turn this thing off? How do we put you to rest?” Ohm Wire spoke with more calm than she ever knew she had in her.

Diamond Grace held onto her ice armor and grasped the handle on one of two levers. Her sister took the other, and Ohm Wire positioned herself near the turbines that siphoned the energy from the reactor.

“Ready when you are,” said Ohm Wire.

“On my mark,” Adamast said, more grim than Jackie had ever known her sibling to be. She wasn’t frightened, not angry – just carrying a heavy weight like it needed to be done and she was the person for the job.

Oh, dear sister, what demons have you faced?

“. . . Two . . . Three!” The siblings pushed against their respective levers, though Adamast Cross started first.

The lever resisted and vibrated as Diamond Grace pushed it, inch by inch, toward the ground. Flashes of light accompanied crashing sounds, and she saw waves of electricity flow through Ohm Wire. The turbines were discharging energy like Ghost Fracture said would happen even though they were shutting it down.

She kept pushing, feeling like the lever’s reach went far longer than it really did. She knew there was only another foot to go, but it might as well have been the full length of the room they were in.

But then that foot became inches, and inches became a finger’s width. Finally, the lever clicked into place.

Ohm Wire yelled and glowed from the sheer amount of energy she had in her. Adamast started toward her, but Ohm Wire held out a hand to stop her. Then the younger heroine ran out of the room.

Seconds later, Diamond Grace heard an explosion that sounded like an entire room made from glass had shattered in an instant.

Mai stood outside the door with her hand over her mouth. She was fighting her eyes’ urge to flood the hallway already, but hearing Adamast Cross and Walter shouting Ohm Wire’s moniker struck her in the chest.

She hoped against whatever odds there were. Ohm Wire was as old as her daughter would have been, and was a nice girl from what Mai could tell.

“I’m alright,” Ohm Wire’s voice struggled. “I had to find somewhere safe to release that energy.”

“Don’t worry me like that!” Adamast said, tears weighing down on her voice.

“We’re heroes, love. I can’t make any promises.”

Mai walked away then. She held her tears until she was in her car. Mai realized she would sob the entire drive home, but she didn’t care. She had already seen and heard too much to care.

-------------
Chapter 04
-------------

Mortar Mage ran into the lab as fast as he could. Someone with both teleportation and super speed couldn’t move fast enough, he thought. If what he feared most was true then there was never such a thing as fast enough.

One of the lab’s rooms was a holding area for a series of freezing tubes. Mortar saw that the tanks were in one piece, and that they continued to hold all of the androids within them, one in each corner of the room. He let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“The world lives another day,” he said. His hand rested on one of the tanks – the only one with a female android. “One more day.”

Kyra examined her visor while she say on the couch back at the mansion. “This thing is so fried. I think I’m going to need a new one now. That earpiece is gone too.”

The voice-type registered on her phone, which sat by her lap, and barely a moment passed before her informant sent a response.

“Understood. Be careful in the future.”

That was when Jackie and Mary walked into the room. Mary said, “Are you sure you won’t stay a while? I know we haven’t been the best siblings in the past, but it’s actually good to see you.”

Jackie shook her head with a faint smile. “I need some time to myself to think. I might stay in town for a couple days or more depending on how I feel, but this is your gig. Your life and burden.”

“I really wish you wouldn’t put it that way.”

“I know. Do me a favor? Find yourself a good man.”

Kyra had been telling her the same thing lately, but Maryann insisted on staying only with her, and then whining on a couple nights when Kyra was the only one to finish. Kyra loved Mary, but her girlfriend needed something that Kyra couldn’t give her, even with the toys that she refused to use on her lover.

Still, Jackie had some serious gall saying such a thing in front of her.

“I can’t do that,” said Mary. “I love Kyra.”

“You mean to tell me you don’t want to settle down and raise a family someday?” asked Jackie.

“I mean, um . . .”

“Or to feel the warm embrace of a man every morning?”

If Mary were any redder, Kyra would have sworn that her lover had turned back into a succubus. She was kind of cute when she was speechless.

Finally, Kyra cleared her throat and gave Jackie a stern look.

“She does love you,” said Jackie. “It’s not what I would have pictured, but don’t you dare lose her.” She glanced back and forth between Kyra and Mary. “Either of you. Things really are different now, aren’t they?”

“More than I can say,” said Mary.

“Well then, sister, take care of yourself. You know how to find me until I leave town.”

“And you know how to reach me after that.”

Jackie hugged Mary first, then stood over Kyra for a moment with one eye examining Kyra like some misbehaved puppy. Without warning, Jackie knelt down and hugged Kyra.

“You want her to do it as much as I do, don’t you?” Jackie whispered.

“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” replied Kyra.

Jackie whispered one more thing more silently into Kyra’s ear, then stood up and said “Family weakness” all the while rubbing Kyra’s scalp with one hand. Kyra was too surprised and bewildered at the idea of every woman in Mary’s family having the same sensitive, vulnerable g-spot, or that Jackie would share it so candidly, to notice the woman leaving.

“What?” Kyra asked to an emptying room.

At some point, Warren entered the room, and it looked like Walter was about to give him some harsh words of his own.

Kyra, however, said to Warren, “Dude, what . . . the fuck?”

“Look, I’m sorry for throwing a fit and running off like that.” Warren was trying to explain calmly without giving too much away. Who would believe him if he told the entire truth? “Ghost Fracture said something impossible, and I freaked.”

Walter said, “The Vanquished something or other?”

“The Vanquishiri Bahitians. Gods, dangerous ones, outlawed by their own pantheons. They were responsible for many massacres, including one that should have destroyed the Earth. You won’t find any record of them. Not here.”

“You know about them.”

“Because . . . It’s because I . . . Damn it, does no one believe me?”

Maryann said, “We’re listening, Warren, but I don’t think you’re telling us everything. It’s hard to believe someone who’s holding back on the truth. Is this something you heard growing up in foster care?”

“No.”

“Is it something written by one of your journal’s authors?”

“Of course not. Mary, please stop. It’s hard enough even saying what I have. I heard this from my father.”

The few Leaguers present said nothing for a time. It was clear that Walter, Mary and Kyra were processing what Warren just told them.

Since the League reunited a few months ago, Warren only ever mentioned once that he met his parents, and even then with only a couple people in the room. It was all part of a longer tale no one would believe, so he acquiesced to running a major publication, putting together gadgets that outranked anything on the market, and saving lives.

“Your father,” Mary repeated. “You told me long ago you never met the man, and didn’t feel the need to find him. I think, maybe, you mentioned meeting him once in a sleep deprived craze.”

After a wince, Warren explained, “I met him about a year after we all split up. Him and my mother both. They were looking for me, hoping I was safe, curious to see how bright I was or how I was getting along in life, wanting so much to undo the fact that they gave me up. But they had to. There was a war going on, and that was no place to raise a child. Especially not a quarter god like me.”

“We’re not laughing.”

“I’m not joking! Or gloating about my ability. My father is a demigod, and my mother is a stubborn, mortal woman from the Victorian Era. The flow of time means so little in that place, the eternal realm, but no one there tampers with it here. There’d be consequences if they did.”

“Hey, wait a minute,” said Kyra. “We have gods and demigods here, or at least people claiming to be that way.”

“Some of them might very well be related. Immortality’s a trick from their own anti-flow of time. Their powers are matched by our own, though some are definitely stronger than we are. They still breathe, bleed, and die like any human being under ‘normal’ circumstances.”

“These Vanquishiri you spoke of, what about them?”

“If my father was correct, then every last one was either cast into the end of the universe or sentenced to countless eternities in imprisonment, but even he suspected that a few got away somehow. He couldn’t prove it, so he said nothing for certain, being the scientist that he is.”

Walter said, “We should speak with him.”

“Ah, we can’t. My folks are on the other side along with the vast majority of gods and goddesses still duking it out. We’d have to open the seal that separates us, and that would be catastrophic. This entire planet would turn to oblivion, and it would cause a chain reaction with the rest of our universe, as well as theirs.”

“So, there’s no proof.”

“There is. Do you know that crater north of Siren’s Gauntlet at the edge of city limits? That isn’t a crater. Not exactly.”

“A bite in the ground?” inquired Devon, who was interviewing a man that had surveyed the mysterious crater. It had taken a long time to track this man down.

The two of them stood around a cluttered table beneath the only light in the room. The windows were covered up for more privacy and darkness than the blinds provided.

The geologist said, “Yes, something like a bite. Look here at these papers. Here, at a crater, mass is moved in a number of directions because of the force of impact. This bite mark, however, is more like something chewed into our world, and took off with the mass into the unknown before it could take another. We were about to investigate further when we ran out of funding all out of nowhere. Then the others turned up dead or missing like one of those bizarre, fictional mysteries with the cover-ups.”

“Like a conspiracy, you mean.”

“Yes, that’s it.”

This, on one hand, made Devon think the man was a bit of a quack. However, he then thought about that letter he had received.

He then asked, “Do the initials W and M mean anything to you?”

Everyone nodded at Warren like some sort of madman. Warren said, “I knew it. This is why I didn’t tell you guys anything since we reunited.”

Walter said, “Look , Warren . . . Mortar . . . we might not be sure if we believe you. You haven’t exactly been one to lie to us in the past. For that matter, you’re not known for emotional outbursts like we saw or heard this morning. I just want to be sure you’ll have it under control in the future.”

“You have my word.”

“Good, because I think it’s lunch time.”

“I’m buying.”

“As long as you didn’t build it, I think my intestines can manage.”

Their laughter was short-lived when there was a knock on the nearby window. Warren barely recognized the man flying diagonally outside of the second story window.

“Hey, are we deciding on lunch now? I’m hungry.” Trash Knuckle, of course.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of any more help,” said the geologist.

“That’s alright,” replied Devon. “I’m closer to the truth now than I ever really thought possible. I just wish I knew who this person was that contacted me.”

A new man stepped into the light with heavy footsteps. He was dressed like a ranking soldier from ancient Rome, and his build and posture only made him look more serious rather than some joke cosplayer. Upon seeing him, however, Devon whipped his head around, looking for possible points of entry amidst the shadows.

There were none.

“Perhaps I can help,” said the alleged Roman.

“Who is this?” questioned the geologist, reaching into the drawer beneath the table. “How did you get in here? Have you come for me like you did the others?”

“Now, now, is this any way to treat a guest? Your lack of clout is the only reason you live.”

The geologist had a pistol, and he wasted no time firing it. The gun was emptied, and the soldier stood there shocked. Then he choked.

“I don’t believe it,” said the soldier. “Someone still has one of those revolvers lying around.” Now he was brushing off the bullets that crushed against his armor and skin. “What is this, the dark ages? Wait, no, I enjoyed the dark ages. It’s really too bad you’ve decided to die. Our mercy only goes so far.”

With more agility than Devon was capable of, the soldier lashed out and snapped the geologist’s neck in a single motion. The soldier dropped the limp body from his hand, and turned his gaze toward Devon, who was backing away and searching frantically for the door by patting down the wall.

“It would appear that you are looking for answers.” The soldier grinned.

“Go ahead. Kill me then. Surely someone else will find out the truth.”

“You are not a fighter. Besides, we’re not interested in covering up the truth. Not from you pitiful mortal, anyway. Come. It is time you learned more than any mortal has the right to know. If you still want the truth of what happened after that, then you can have it and die when the time comes. Or, if you wish, I can kill you right here and be on my way. It won’t matter to us in the end. What will be, death now or death later?”

-------------
Chapter 05
-------------

Takeout boxes stuffed with Thai food caked the tables on either side of the room. Warren alternated between eating his food and examining the bracelet that Trash Knuckle handed him. It was golden with a set of green jewels embedded in it. Their strange had ally found it while raiding one of the last pocket dimensions belonging to a band of evil mystics, which was now powerless. It was strange that they would have had this.

“You said this turns you into a beautiful woman?” Warren asked.

“That’s what it did when I put it on. What? What else was I going to do with a nice trinket that I found lying around?” The big man, often regarded by law and media alike as a villain, was as unapologetic as ever.

“Well, thanks for handing it over. It’s good to know you have the good sense not to just run off with it.”

“I only returned it because I didn’t want it. Besides, I almost ran off to join those Arachne twerps, but those guys were pathetic.”

Mary spoke with a dry tone, “I had a feeling that was your work. Something about the barely conscious ones crying about a bad odor.” She paused for a beat. “Wait a minute, how did you even get so close without your stink aura? You didn’t completely fall for them like you did for us, did you?”

Trash Knuckle laughed. “Funny thing about that, I don’t really know. I put that thing on, and suddenly people wanted to be close to me.”

“Plays with all of the senses,” Warren murmured, “or possibly abilities. I have some ideas for this thing, but I need to run some tests. Would you be interested in helping out with that?”

“Sorry, but Trash Knuckle doesn’t work very well with the science stuff. The last time I tried an experiment, my high school burned to the ground in the middle of a snowy winter. North Dakota still doesn’t want me coming back. Not that that stopped me when I found another of those crazy realms belonging to the Circle’s demons. I took some pictures of me busting some heads and wrecking that odd structure of theirs if you want to see them.”

“That’s quite alright. At least we know that the Circle won’t be causing too much trouble any time soon.”

Four months ago, the League and Trash Knuckle had faced a massive force consisting of mages, demons, and evil spirits. They won because they took out an arch demon as well as a temple that acted as the generator for evil spirits. It sounded to Warren like Trash Knuckle had found another of those temples and obliterated it on his own.

Trash Knuckle was often called a villain, but the worst he had ever done was pick fights with numerous heroes and villains, and cause more in property damage than the average villain. The guy had even picked a fight with Captain Patriot once, and hearing Trash Knuckle’s side of the story was exhausting. Still, the League did try to keep their distance when possible, including sending Trash Knuckle out to take down bad guys and making it sound like an opportunity for the man to throw a party.

Sooner or later, they were going to run out of targets and excuses.

“I like you guys, but I’m actually thinking of moving to another country.” Or Trash Knuckle could give everyone a surprising left hook.

In another example of the universe’s love for great timing, Warren heard a ring coming from Mary’s phone. She had just received a text message, and Mary went to see who it was. She rolled her eyes at the message, and returned to her seat next to Kyra.

“Who was it?” asked Kyra.

“Oh, just a friend,” Mary responded.

“You have friends outside of the League?”

“Besides a couple of our mothers, your own included? Not many, apparently.”

Trash Knuckle crammed a container’s worth of food into his mouth before belching, and he said, “It’s time to go. Thanks for the food. Let me know if you want to party sometime in the next couple weeks.”

He left out the window, and flew off. Meanwhile, the ladies were still enjoying an inane conversation about their contact lists.

“Go on, tell me who your mystery friend is.”

“You first.”

“Come on.”

“No you.”

Warren swallowed his current bite of food, and said, “Computer, how is that wall project doing?”

“Project thirty-seven, project forty-two, or project one hundred. Eighteen?”

“The sound barrier one.”

“Project thirty-seven is 100% collected. And. 0% constructed.”

“Excuse me, everyone, I have some work to do.”

“Whatever happened to that one hero you kept running into a while back?”

“Stop it.”

“Saelum Blaster? Ha, you’re blushing!”

“You’re sleeping on the couch tonight.”

"What couch?"

Hockey masks with bird feathers sticking out of the sides. That had to be a new one, as far as Adamast could tell.

There was a group of shoplifters and burglars working one street at night. Saelum Blaster had been doing his detective work, and waited for the criminals to strike here tonight. Adamast Cross came along by invitation.

Both heroes flanked the burglars who were outside. At the first shop she passed, Adamast stomped on the main entrance using her ice powers, and it created a blockade to stop the one man still inside. This allowed her to swing a good number of punches and kicks into the outdoor crowd of bad guys without anyone getting away.

At the second shop, she was faced with a big guy who looked like tonight was the only exercise he got all year. Adamast would have felt sorry for him if not for his poor life choices. Also unlucky for the big guy: Adamast had super strength to go with her ice powers. This was just the first time she used it all evening.

She picked up the big guy, and then hurled him at the duo of gun-wielding crooks aiming at Saelum from behind.

Saelum and Adamast met halfway, and tucked into the alley once they saw that the bad guys were all unconscious. Then they kissed passionately, Adamast wrapping one leg up against Saelum’s side.

“Hi,” she said to him with much of her breath stolen just now. “Whoa, and hello to you too.”

The man’s bulge was daring, tonight. Saelum said, “I want you.”

“I know you do, but you know I can’t. Even that kiss, we’re not supposed to get this far.”

“These mixed signals can drive a guy mad, you know. You say you can’t, but you’re still all over me.”

Adamast got back down to both feet on the ground. Reluctantly! She had been trying to keep their friendship as just that for a few months, and it fondled fate every time they were together like this. So then she lifted up on her toes and kissed Saelum on the cheek like she had originally intended.

“How’s that for mixed signals?” she asked.

“How’s a loaf of bread in a bakery?” he quipped back.

“Now that you mention it, I could go for a cinnamon roll and some tea.”

“There’s no hope for you.”

“Says a man who knows my history and still wants me.” She smirked at him, then turned her head when the familiar red and blue lights came. The police finally arrived. “Come on, let’s go grab something to eat and drink.”

“Can I have a moment to let this thing die down a bit?”

“Spandex, dude!”

Sometimes they went out for a drink together. Ohm Wire once or twice called them lame, jokingly, for loving tea as much as they did. Adamast offered to introduce her to some of her favorite brews sometime, but she declined.

“So you never told me where you work,” Saelum said while they sat in a corner of the Escapist. Barely anyone else was in the establishment, and the few that were were other heroes minding their own business at the moment.

Adamast finished swallowing some tea, and considered stuffing her mouth with more food to put off answering for a moment. “We’re still in costume, and in public.”

“I doubt anyone’s listening, given where we are.” He indicated with one hand the corner of the establishment at which they sat, and the few other people present were far enough away to require listening devices or super hearing.

“Famous last words. The next thing you know, some space pirate rocking a cybernetic parrot, with the manliest beard ever of its own, uses the information to brainwash little children into eating sugar-glazed kale for breakfast, and the parents are so confused they gladly turn over the world, forcing us to listen to the worst music artists to come down from another planet’s Canada. Then we’re unable to do anything about it but quip endlessly about who used the last of the toilet paper until the end of time.”

“OK, 'What?' and secondly, I’m pretty sure at least one of our Canadian ‘singers’ already came from another world.”

“Yeah, you might be right about her.” Adamast brought the tea cup up to her lips.

“I work at Founder’s Creek Intermediate.”

Cue the spit-take; poor Saelum. Adamast handed him some napkins, and said, “I’m sorry. I work at Steel Canyon as one of the gym teachers.”

“How did I miss that?” Saelum continued to look amused by her while he wiped the tea from his face.

“Which subject do you teach?”

“A man’s got to keep some secrets. Besides, this means a certain someone with the last name of Curry could receive some flowers from a secret admirer.”

“Nice detective work, Mr. Sullivan.” Her saying that certainly surprised him. Adamast held up her head with her palm, her elbow based on the remarkably sturdy table that she swore was smaller than her skirt.

“You found that out. And said it in public.”

“It’s a good thing only heroes come in here, and this place is nearly empty.”

Saelum’s face contorted with some level of thought. “Touché!” He slouched back in his seat while Adamast ate her roll. It took a moment for him to say anything again. “I teach basic levels of French and Spanish. It’s a fun gig, even if I rarely see the same students both semesters, and none of them really signed up for it.”

“Note to self: send sexy French maid who speaks nothing but Spanish.”

“Hey.”

“Sorry, old habit. Working with the League doesn’t help.”

“How did you join them, anyways?”

“I auditioned for it six years ago, the middle of next month. I thought it was odd that someone would put up paper flyers around town advertising openings for a super group, so I figured, ‘What the heck?’ I almost didn’t make it on time. A villain hijacked a school bus full of children, and I had to take care of it instead of going straight to the auditions between classes.”

“You couldn’t skip class?”

“It was my last year of college. I figured it was bad enough that I was taking time off of studying to save lives around the city.”

“You graduated college at the age of twenty?”

“Bachelor’s and all.”

“Impressive. Now you’re in charge of a bunch of kids’ physical education.”

“Among other things. I’m so glad we’re still on Summer break right now, because next week I’m going to be exhausted. So, what about you? When did you start doing the hero thing?”

“Over a year ago. I had a student whom I kept having to confiscate comics from, so I looked at them and thought, ‘Why not?’”

“Your student never suspected anything?”

“The kid is now my arch nemesis with a volcanic lair on the moon and a death ray aimed at my house if I fail any of his friends in class, or forget to feed his fifty foot hamster with a peg leg.” His eyes were rolled back, and his tone was dry.

But it was the pure absurdity that made Adamast laugh.

Sensual moans and other sounds echoed through the hallway, which seemed to tilt one way or the other with every step Mary took toward her room. She heard a man and a woman beyond her own door, and feared what she might find when she opened it.

Yet, it had to be done, and she turned the knob without another thought. The man grunted then. Mary recognized him right when his grunting became a scream, and his body began to deteriorate beneath the other woman. The man who looked like Saelum was gone, dust, and the other woman turned her wicked stare toward Maryann.

She had horns and ashen hair, but her features were otherwise similar to Mary’s. She knew this woman.

“Hello, Maryann,” said the succubus.

Fear hit Mary so hard that she sat up in a sweat. Suddenly, she was in her bed, awake after a bad dream. Mary bent and hugged her legs, and heaved into them before looking over at Kyra, who was asleep and had her back turned tonight.

Mary loved Kyra too much, and hoped she would never lose her. Damn her confused feelings, and damn the amount of teasing Kyra did with her lately.

She lied back down on her side. Mary kissed her girlfriend on the neck, laying an arm over Kyra’s side.

-------------
Chapter 06
-------------

“Hey, Walter, you got a minute?” War Lagoon stood on a rooftop with a pair of night vision binoculars at his eyes, and one leg leaning on the raised ledge.

Walter’s voice came through the earpiece. “Sure, buddy, what’s up? You’re not planning to leave town, are you?”

“No, why would you think I am?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I’ve just been hearing from a lot of people lately who say they’re leaving Paragon soon. All of them in the last five days.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that. I was actually going to ask you if you were going to attend that Event charity on Friday. That’s all.”

“That’s coming up already? I must be losing track of time or something. And, to answer your question, I haven’t decided yet. I just heard that Mr. Reynolds will be there, so who knows? Maybe it’ll be interesting, maybe it won’t. I know Warren said he won’t be going because he’ll be too busy trying to get some of his major projects up and running. Still, though, it would be nice to settle the bet that he and I have.”

“What bet would that be?”

“Whether or not Mr. Reynolds is actually a hero. Not to get into specifics, but I’ve been telling Warren he’s wrong for the last few months. The loser pays a hundred dollars.”

“You’re both insane. There’s no way I’m risking a hundred dollars to prove something that’s none of my business. Wait, hold on, what do we have here?”

War Lagoon spotted a villain appearing atop a police station. This villain was high on the wanted list, and it was known that a couple of his buddies were being held at a couple different police stations.

“Walter, if you don’t hear from me in the next half hour, let everyone know I found Mega Tone.”

“And if I do hear back from you?” Walter asked.

“Then you can tell them I beat Mega Tone, and went to grab some breakfast before heading back to bed. Over and out.”

He put away the binoculars, and flew toward the villain, who had just punched a hole in the station’s rooftop using nothing more than concentrated sound waves.

Mega Tone spotted him, and unleashed sonic waves toward the incoming War Lagoon. The hero barely noticed this in time to open a dark hole in the air between himself and the sonic waves. The waves howled as they entered the hole, and the hole shook like it could barely contain the force of the attack.

The dark hole vanished on command, and War Lagoon could see the villain again, who looked as if he were stunned by something that hit him. That was good; it meant the second hole opened just fine behind Mega Tone and sent his own attack back at him.

War Lagoon continued to fly toward the villain. This time, now that he was close enough and the other man was recovering from hitting himself, War Lagoon fired off several short blasts of shadow energy through his fists. A good number of blasts hit Mega Tone before the villain came to his senses and brought up a forcefield of sound waves.

Ceasing his ranged attack of choice, War Lagoon settled for landing on the same roof as the villain remained standing.

“This doesn’t concern you,” said Mega Tone.

“It never does, but I also can’t have you causing any more trouble.” War Lagoon was often regarded as the most stern of the Dallevan League’s members, and those words were no exception to his reputation.

“Then I have no choice but to kill you.”

War Lagoon lifted his arms like he was picking up something of considerable weight. Then, a dark portal opened beneath Mega Tone, and equally murky tentacles shot up through it to bind the villain.

Mega Tone swiped and screamed at the vines, but half of them still grabbed him by the arms and legs. The villain tried one more time to hit War Lagoon with supersonic waves, but one tentacle caught him like a fish hook. Mega Tone was pulled back onto the roof where he was too bound to move, and positioned in such a way that his powers could not hurt anything that wasn’t directly above him.

The police officers arrived then, and they cuffed the villain with power suppressors. The two who went in did so carefully, uncertain if the shadow tentacles would affect them as well, but War Lagoon and an older officer assured them that they were safe.

When it was done, War Lagoon flew off.

It was dawn, and he needed to take one of his power naps after breakfast was done. Just another Wednesday morning, he thought.

Then he spotted her. A woman half as dark-skinned as War Lagoon stood on top of a shorter building in the Talos district, compared to the skyscrapers. Her hair and ankle-length dress blew in the light wind. War Lagoon saw her smiling glare a split second before she turned into a silhouette and then vanished completely.

“OK . . .” said War Lagoon. “Walter, I have good news and bad news.”

Walter spoke with his usual accepting voice, “Oh good, we’re always shopping for more bad news these days.”

“Mega Tone is down, that’s the good news. But, just now, I saw someone I never thought we’d see again.”

“Who might that be?”

“Do you remember that woman we met at the end of our first night as a task force?”

“Oh yes, the alleged medium.”

“Yes, her. I’m hoping it’s just nothing or some pure coincidence, but we both know how I feel about coincidences. Otherwise, this could be a bad sign of things to come.”

“Dear, oh dear. So now what?”

“Now, I’m going to go home to sleep for the next couple hours. I have to meet a new client at work today, so we’ll talk later. If she turns up, you can let me know.”

“You got it. Sleep well, and good morning.”

Devon was shoved upon entry to the underground temple somewhere in the northeastern outskirts of Paragon City. All around him, he saw rows of slouching people who all wore black skintight outfits and light-colored tiki masks.

He heard a thud beside him, and knew that it was the body of the dead geologist.

Another man appeared, dressed almost normal. He asked, “Nervaeus, what is the meaning of this?”

“I need not answer to you, Cingeteyrn,” said the overpowered soldier. “Where is she?”

“She does not wish to be disturbed.”

“She loathes the fools she surrounds herself with,” said a raspy-yet-feminine voice from somewhere out of Devon’s sight. Everyone looked toward the top of the temple, and a robed, bent figure appeared there. “It would appear you’ve brought company. And a living guest. Just when I got done examining the new body.”

“Does that mean you approve of the girl I found?”

“Yes. For once, you’ve proven yourself useful, Cingeteyrn.”

She defied her frail body, and glided down the steps on one side of the temple. The woman first examined the dead geologist for a moment. Then she kicked the body toward the bizarrely dressed minions, followed by pointing and grunting toward the body. The minions carried the body away as if they understood that.

“Foot soldiers,” she said, “so useful when you say so little to them. Now, for you, mortal. Tell me, would you believe this body belonged to a woman in her thirties some five years ago?”

The woman pulled down her hood, revealing a few strands of gray hair, which was the only hair she had. Her body was wilted worse than someone who spent a hundred and twenty years smoking.

“I honestly don’t know what to believe,” Devon said.

“A fair answer,” said the woman. “These bodies are lasting less and less because I can never seem to find one that is compatible. But, that has changed. Tomorrow night, everything will be ready, and this body you see before you will be replaced. Finally, I shall have beauty to go with my boundless knowledge, and it will last longer than you could ever dream to.”

“Why am I even here?”

“You are a seeker of knowledge, are you not? Yes, those men and women we took were as well, but we needed them for our other purposes at the time. You? Your quest to know the truth will be our platform from which we shall rise again in the world, and spread discord across this forsaken plane. Now, what is it you seek? What truth do you wish to uncover?”

“The same as those scientists, I think.”

“Oh no. See, they sought paychecks and answers regarding what caused a single crater. A match can cause a scorch mark, and they sought the head of the match. You seek the one who held it as it burned. You seek to know why it was held there, because somehow nobody remembers the arsonist who was taken away in plain sight. Does that sound about right?”

“That’s exactly right. How much do you know?”

“It is a gap in my knowledge. I do not like such gaps. But I know how to find the answer. After tomorrow night, I will help you so we will both know. Until then, you are our guest. You will be treated as such, only without the ability to leave. If you should try anything, though, then you're dead with nothing learned, nothing gained.”

“Lady, you are the closest I’ve been to knowing something far greater than myself. I’m not going anywhere.”

“We already are greater than you. And my name . . . is Vidnyanta.”

-------------
Chapter 07
-------------

Adamast Cross reached the Peregrine Beach district for the umpteenth time in her life. Every time she came here now, she thought someone else from her love life, past or present, was going to show up and complicate things.

She stopped short of the police barricade ahead. Did she really just include Saelum Blaster when thinking about her love life?

Shaking her head at herself, Adamast slipped under the yellow tape and was greeted by a few officers on her way to the house they were guarding. The houses in the Peregrine area were stacked side by side, so it was more like the police were guarding a flight of steps going up to their waists, and the door atop it. Some officers were likely behind this residence as well.

The inside of the house had little illumination, with or without the portable lights that the police and one of the other heroes brought in. The windows were boarded off from the inside, so the sun was hardly coming through. Two male heroes were standing by a cluttered table and a gun that had fallen on the floor, one of the better lit spaces in the house.

One of them, with crazy, white hair and goggles to go along with his one cybernetic arm and one biological arm, looked Adamast Cross’s way. He waved with his human hand, his left one. His other one had a thin monitor sticking out of its underside.

“Hey, look who it is!” exclaimed Dock.

His buddy, and practical partner in crime, Bucht, faced Adamast with a snide expression at first that turned into a grin. “Well, well.”

“What brings you around here? We haven't seen you since before your transformation.”

Adamast Cross said, “Oh, you know. I was just in the area after Mortar handed me something of his and said that you two might be around. When I saw the barricade outside, I had a feeling that this is where I’d find you two.”

“Mortar sent you this way? Too bad he didn’t come as well.”

“He’s been busy. So, what have we got here?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. There’s hardly any sign of struggle aside from the gun and the bullets. The door was locked when the police arrived. The windows were blocked off. No one saw the owner of this residence leave after neighbors heard the gunshots.”

“Sounds like some sort of portal or teleportation.”

“It’ll probably take too long, even with this thing,” Dock pointed at his screen, “to calculate the bullet trajectories, and process all of the fingerprints and hair follicles.”

“Plus anything else we might find,” Bucht said.

“Yes, anything else we might find. Adamast, you said Mortar Mage gave you something before sending you our way?”

She pulled out a strange device from a small pouch she kept on her backside, hidden away between her matching skirt and cape. Adamast Cross showed it to the other heroes, and Dock put a hand out. The screen retracted and disappeared inside his closing arm.

“Oh, yes! I love his little inventions,” Dock said.

Adamast said, “You’ve no idea how weird that sounds, do you?” She let Dock take and examine the device.

“Nah, he’s always come through for me in a pinch. You always make it sound like one of his inventions might level the entire city. What’s the worst he’s done?”

“In recent memory?” Cause a blackout. Blow up a mountain, perhaps. “I’m not sure even I believe it sometimes.”

Dock set the device on the ground and pressed a button. “There, now to see what this thing’s supposed to do.”

“You’re testing that in here? You do know we’re surrounded by dry wood, and Mortar loves fire, right?”

Bucht said, “Tell you what, Adamast; if it’s anything to worry about I’ll buy you your favorite drink. If it’s nothing, then you’re buying.”

“You’re waging beer over a house burning down.”

“A beer versus whatever sissy drink you’ve been enjoying these days.”

A blue light engulfed the room and dimmed. Numbers and figures etched in the air around the trio. Dock brought his screen back out, presumably to record everything.

“I suppose it’s a good thing we didn’t shake on it,” Adamast said. "I'd hate to have to drink you under the table."

For a moment, it looked like the table had a bright, light blue shadow going out by what Adamast would call a hair. A gun of the same color appeared and shot several silent rounds at a target. The bullets bounced off of the target and landed where the real ones now lay. The figure holding the gun jerked its head and fell against the table, where the blue shadow merged with the real object. The shadow of the gun joined its partner in reality as well after dropping separately from the second figure’s vanishing body.

The target, a second figure, that was shot at vanished. Everyone in the room turned their attention to a third figure, who backed into a wall and sidled against it toward the door before it too vanished.

“Damn,” said Bucht and Adamast Cross.

Dock said, “I wonder how admissible something like this would be in court. Mortar outdid himself with this little device. If this is accurate it could save us countless hours or days of work in any crime scene.”

The full scenario played again. This time, everyone could see a vague representation of the figures’ faces. Once the second play-through was finished, Dock collected and turned off the device.

“I’ll have to compare this with whatever the lab folks find when they’re done examining everything.” One forensic investigator gave Dock a thumb up for appreciation. “While I wait on that, I’ll have to run a face diagnostic on those three men. I know I’ll have seen at least one of them before, knowing my luck. Could you tell Mortar I’m borrowing this, and thanks for me?”

“Sure thing,” Adamast said.

The heroes headed for the door, where their conversation continued.

Bucht said, “Did you see the new hero that’s in town? Diamond Grace? She looks like she has similar powers from you. Same hair color, too.”

Adamast replied, “Also the same eyes, and the same parents.”

“Oh, you have a sister! Is she available?”

“That depends. Is your ass available for one of my boots? Besides, I couldn’t really tell you. She’s going through a bit of a rough time right now, and has been taking time off from nurse school because of it. She’s a big enough girl to make her own decisions, though.”

Jackie stretched as she sat up in bed, in the middle of the early afternoon. Her clothes were on the other side of the hotel room. Her instincts were telling her to freak out, to run and scream bloody murder for what she had done.

Instead, she turned and leaned on the big man lying in bed with her.

He said, “Wow, lady, I don’t think I had a night that wild in a long time.”

“I’m pretty sure we went past the whole morning,” Jackie cooed.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d consider kidnapping you when I leave for Europe in a week.”

“Promise?”

In fact, what reason she had left was banging on the window outside, demanding to come back in. There was only one thing she was letting inside that moment, and it looked like her new lover was up for giving it to her.

“On second thought, I don’t think I’ll risk it,” said Bucht as the trio entered the street.

Adamast said, “Good choice.”

Dock chuckled. “So, what about you, Adamast Cross? I remember hearing that you were dating a cute young lady shortly before your big change, that she turned out being a villain, and now she's one of the good guys." She had to go through a long process for that, even. "Likewise, we’ve been hearing rumors that you’re seeing a stud of a man.”

“I really don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

“Oh, come on. What would it hurt to be a little social? Bucht here seems to think that you’re with that Saelum Blaster guy, but that can’t be right.”

Bucht said, “You’re only saying that because you want him for yourself.”

“Hardly anyone dresses like that, and is still able to be straight. You should see the hot fanfic I once wrote about . . .” Dock cut off when Bucht cleared his throat. “Fine! I, on the other hand, think you’re with Ohm Wire.”

“You put a bet on it, didn’t you?” Adamast had to ask.

“There may or may not have been a wager brought up when we were talking to the police lieutenant that Bucht sometimes flirts with. What was her name again, Bucht?”

“If you must know, then I’m seeing both of them, and I’m at different stages with each one. There. Happy?”

She looked at both men defiantly, but, deep down inside, Adamast was screaming at what she just admitted regarding Saelum. What was she thinking?

Dock pulled down his goggles with one finger. “Dude, save some for the rest of us.” His goggles returned upward.

Bucht asked, “Is he really a generic dunce like everyone thinks he is?”

“No,” Adamast sighed, “he’s just emulating the Captain Patriot comics.”

“But does he kiss like the Captain Patriot in the comics?”

“There’s no way I’m ever answering . . . that. What?”

Out in the back of the crowd outside, there was a man with a gaunt face looking at the trio of heroes. The man turned and walked away, but Adamast Cross gave pursuit upon recognizing him. She slipped through the crowd in a hurry and tried to catch up.

He was gone. Maybe she was seeing things. Adamast hoped she was seeing things.

Dock and Bucht arrived seconds later. The former said, “What was that all about?”

“I thought I saw someone,” Adamast said, “someone dangerous who shouldn’t even be here.” There was real trouble if he was.

-------------
Chapter 08
-------------

“Hey there, Warren!” Tatiana strutted into the room, not caring that her pregnancy was definitely showing after five months or more. In fact, she might have been damn proud of the baby now growing inside of her.

Wyatt walked in with her, carrying a box. He said, “Hey Warren. Did we miss anything?”

Warren hugged Tatiana and Wyatt. “So much to say all at once. Is that box for me?”

“We found it on the front doorstep. We weren’t sure if you felt boxed in enough already or not. Ow.” Tatiana had smacked Wyatt up the backside of his head.

“Those delivery guys were supposed to at least ring the bell. Thanks for this; it’s the last part I needed to complete something of mine. So, Tatiana, questions. Lots of questions.”

“Shoot,” said Tatiana. “But ask me on the way to the kitchen. I need some juice right now.”

“OK, so when’s the baby due? Do you know what gender yet? How’s your ‘coffee girl’ and ‘expecting mother’ life away from all of the heroics? And did you really just teleport us to the kitchen when it was less than fifteen feet away?”

“We’re leaving it a mystery, but the baby will be due four months from this Sunday.” She opened a bottle of apple juice and gulped down half of it. “Oh, I miss going out and kicking some bad guy ass, but life has been pretty calm when my baby isn’t trying to imitate my martial arts moves. Though, I have had a few customers I wish my baby would jump out and beat the living snot out of them.”

“And the teleportation?”

“Because I felt like it. The doctor says to keep it down, so I only do it when I really need to be somewhere. She also confirmed what you told me months ago, so I don’t need to worry about my child mutating from nanomachines like I did several years ago; not unless another satellite drops on them.” She took another drink. The apple juice was fully drained in an instant, with zero chance of survival. “So, how’s your love life been?”

Warren sighed and said, “Same girlfriend as before. It’s still proving difficult to introduce her to everyone, but we’re trying. Believe it or not, the last woman I had to turn down was Mary’s sister.”

“Nuh-uh! Wyatt didn’t tell me this.”

Warren was walking by the guest bedroom when Jackie called out. “Hey, science-magician guy, I have a very important question for you. Which do you like more, mine or Mary’s?” She was pulling up her shirt and bra so Warren could see her breasts in all their glory.

“Uhh . . .”

“. . . so I was a perfect gentleman, and told her that I was already seeing that movie with the woman of my dreams.”

Tatiana laughed and said, “Wow. Wyatt told me she was some sort of hardcore religious woman.”

“She was, still might be, but I think she broke when her faith was tested by her own superpowers. It’s a shame, really. At least she looked like she was recovering and becoming a new woman by the time she left here.”

“I wish her good luck. What are you working on now?”

“Several things, as usual. I’m soundproofing some of the walls around here; I just got done with a couple areas including the two guest bedrooms.”

“Ooh, Wyatt and I should check that out, just like the last time you soundproofed our base’s walls. What else?”

“I’m rebuilding that contraption that I had made a few months ago – the one that caused as much trouble as it solved. This time, I have all the right parts instead of makeshift ones, so I can do it right, and even add a few features.”

“These features aren’t going to kill us, are they?” She smirked toward Warren.

“My inventions are never that bad. What’s with everyone? Wait, don’t answer that. So, other than that, the only other big projects involve helping someone with a cryogenics issue, and perfecting something that would negate world-wide power suppression for a time.”

Wyatt asked, “You can do that?”

“Mary could when she was a succubus. I’m trying to work off of my limited readings from that day, but they’re not enough. I might have to track down a couple powerful succubi and run some tests. That will have to wait a little bit, I’m afraid.”

“Is it because of the current crisis, whatever it is?”

“That’s right. It looks like I’m going to have to put my gadgets and battle magic to good use again, but it’s too early to tell.”

“That’s why Walter called me in, I think. I came here early thinking more people were around so we could visit.”

All three of them sat or stood around the room in awkward silence. Even though Mortar Mage and Psi Wizard had similarities in their monikers, they were perhaps unable to relate when it came to so many other things. Wyatt was a psychic; one who preferred and specialized in working with emotions and healing energy, but a psychic nonetheless. Psychics made Warren uneasy, with the one exception being the man before him.

Tatiana said, “Since we have time to kill, would you mind if Wyatt and I check out one of the guest bedrooms like we did for the old base?”

“Sure,” said Warren.

She forced a few laughs, and then Tatiana guided Wyatt toward the foyer, apparently not realizing that there was another stairway closer nearby. Either that, or she was leaving.

Once the couple was out of sight, Warren called out, “After the stairs, it’s the second door on the left!”

Tatiana and Wyatt each said their thanks, with their steps up the stairs echoing behind them.

“Alright then,” said Warren to himself, “if that’s not going to change, then I guess I better focus and get this thing done before the others show up.”

He opened the newly delivered package, and retrieved the final component.

Wordless chanting and the swaying foot soldiers added to the ominous atmosphere that Devon witness as he entered the main chamber to witness the ritual. In the middle of the temple was the altar, upon which there were the bones and hair of a young woman.

“You should feel honored,” said Nervaeus, who entered after Devon did. “Our soldiers here are usually the closest mortals come to seeing this ritual.”

“The closest? What do you mean?” asked Devon.

“Take that other mortal I found you with. He’s in this room. Standing there, and there, and possibly over there. Or maybe he’s anywhere.”

“Be careful, Nervaeus,” said Cingeteyrn. Devon had no idea when or where he entered. “Someone might get the idea that this mortal can be omnipresent. It matters not where the pieces have gone, for the soldiers simply are.”

“Mind your own affairs. You have the lady to accompany.”

“So I do.” He smiled, stretching his gaunt features, and vanished like evaporating water.

Seconds later, Cingeteyrn appeared again, this time with Vidnyanta by his side. Judging by her show of strength earlier, she did not need to be walked to the altar, but Cingeteyrn remained like a man lending his pride and joy to another.

“Damn theatrics,” mumbled Nervaeus.

Vidnyanta stood over the bones, and raised a goblet. “Tonight,” she declared, “I take this body, perished before her time, for my own. So begins the ritual.”

Then she drank from the goblet.

“You’re doing what?” repeated Mary. “Warren, when you first built that thing, you knocked out the power in several city blocks.”

Warren said, “I know, but it’ll be different this time. I made upgrades to make it more stable, and have been ordering the correct parts. Remember? Nothing’s exploded or gone crazy in the tests that I’ve run since then.”

“That we know of.” Kyra chimed in with Mary in unison.

“All I have to do is flip the switch, and we can spot every metahuman and mage in an area around the city, and measure their power. We can use this to find any villain or missing hero, assuming we know how every mutant or magic user measures to one another in terms of power. It’s kind of like seeing a forest for the first time, and needing to record every plant. It’s still a process, but here we go. On the count of three. One, two, three!” Warren flipped the main switch on the scanner.

. . . And absolutely nothing happened. Mary wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or scared. After her recent nightmare and the face she had seen in the city crowd earlier, she wanted it to be a relief.

“Perfect! Now, let’s access the computer, and—“

He was interrupted by the lights flickering around the room. Before anyone could speak up about it, the lights went out.

“Warren,” said everyone.

He replied, “That wasn’t me, I don’t think.” The lights turned on again. “There, see? We’re good to go, and it appears that the computer didn’t shut . . . off.” The lights went out again.

Then back on.

Then off again.

“Look!” Kyra shouted, pointing out the window. The whole city was affected, regardless of whether the buildings had generators or relied on the power grid.

Every computer, phone, or computer-controlled set of lights appeared to be hacked. Messages began to appear that made little to no sense to anyone.

Within one bank, a small gang was attempting a heist when the lights turned on and off, both inside and outside of the building. They panicked, and half of them scrambled, tripping the alarms on their way out.

In Talos, the bustling skyscraper district, the lights switched on and off. People, in their confusion, collided with one another in their cars. Along the front and back of a trio of towers, the lights began to spell out “LIGHTS GO ON” and “LIGHTS GO OUT” alternatively.

Some message scrolling boards changed to read, “I can hear you,” or “It’s so cold here.”

A few buildings around the city, which had large television monitors for people to see from across the street, were affected as well. Their regular programming glitched out, and was replaced with a recording of women dancing a Bon Odori.

Mai, walking home from work, spotted the Japanese dancers on one screen. She sent one hand up to her mouth, and thought once again of the little girl she had lost.

No one minded the single plume of green light in the distance, where someone was working dangerous magic. The phenomenon within the city stole away far too much attention for it to be noticed by anyone close enough to see it.

Moments into the phenomenon, a bloodcurdling scream belonging to a woman sounded throughout the entire Paragon area. It shattered numerous windows near the center of the city, and even caused yet another building in the disfigured Faultline district to crumple.

As the scream echoed and faded, the lights continued to change amidst the night-fallen city.

Soundproof walls. Wonderful, glorious, soundproof walls! Tatiana moaned in ecstasy as her husband continued to thrust deeper and deeper into her straddling body. She could barely breathe. Barely think. She didn’t want to, because she felt so good.

The lights outside, and above them, were going in and out.

“Déjà vu. Déjà vu! DEEE-JJAAAA VVUUUUUUU…!” She said, losing what was left of her mind to a second climax.

Electrical discharges startled everyone in the room. Warren exclaimed, “Whoa!” and took a step back from the computer screens while shielding his face with an arm.

Kyra asked, “What’s happening?”

“There’s an unnaturally high current,” Warren explained. “I need to get closer so I can investigate the source. Jeff, could you give me a little help with that power of yours?”

Jeff raised his arms as if to use his darkness powers on the computer screens, but one last surge blasted its way out of them, like a white hot knife through black cloth. The whole room went dark after that.

The whole city went dark.

All it left was the sound of a girl weeping. It wasn’t Kyra. She looked around in the darkness, though she realized how futile that was.

“Mary, are you alright?” Kyra asked.

“I’m fine,” said Mary. “You?”

“Yeah. Jeff?”

Jeff replied, “No problems here. But, if you two are fine, then who’s . . . ?”

Kyra looked in the direction of the crying girl, who she could not see at first. “Warren?” The lights turned back on, however, and the sight was even more confusing. An unconscious Warren lay on the ground. On top of him was a woman with dark brown, nearly black, hair, a mild tone to her skin, and a slant in her eyes.

Her face was largely hidden as the mysterious, naked woman heaved and cried into Warren’s chest.

Jeff let down his crossed arms, and Mary said, “It can’t be.”

The young woman stood up, her head low, and her scraggly shoulder-length hair covering half of her facial features. “Ohmie,” she said, “Jeffers, Mary; help me.” She had taken a step closer, but collapsed like a lifeless doll.

Mary was the one to catch her with her quick reflexes.

-------------
Chapter 09
-------------

Vidnyanta’s old body fell and diminished until it was nothing more than a heap of dust and cloth. Such was the fate of powerless mortals. Her new body, however, opened from its fetal position, and she felt so strong. So chilly.

She got off the altar table, and two foot soldiers slipped a fresh robe upon her, one that was worthy of a goddess, and designed like the ancient Egyptians should have depicted her, even if her body and face did not match her original body. They had been fools to bar her from the pantheon, and now she had a new body to get back at the world whenever she pleased for the next couple centuries, not that the world had that long.

Once the robe was closed properly, Vidnyanta said, “My knowledge is boundless, my strength is great, and all shall kneel.”

Everyone in the room kneeled except for the other two Vanquishiri. The trio of gods was complete. Now, only one thing stood before their reign of discord and death upon the realm of mortals.

As she came upon that thought, she became aware of another presence in the world, or more specifically in the Paragon City area. It was an impossible presence. She decided that thinking too long about it would have been a distraction; especially since the doom of the world and its universe would sort all things out in the end. No, what she needed to do instead was fill the gap in her knowledge while the final preparations were being made. She had foreseen this quest for an answer, and it annoyed her that she would not know what the answer was. If the answer was somehow tied to the impossible presence, then so be it.

“Come, Devon,” she said. “Let us find your truth.”

The world hurt like a pile of bricks, or maybe that was just his head. Warren scowled either way as he sat up. Memory realigned itself, and he gathered that he was hit by something supernatural.

Where was everyone? Warren could hear them in the next room.

That moment, he found a book on the ground that looked as though it had been burned. He reached for it, using magic to try and protect the book’s remains, but it perished on the ground before him.

He scrambled through his things to find a few monitoring devices before heading outside.

“Call her mom?” asked Mary. “What are we going to say? ‘Someone appeared who looks like your daughter. She might be back from the dead, but we can’t say for sure?’ I don’t see that working very well, Jeff.”

Jeff said, “No, but Mai has the right to know.”

They were interrupted by footsteps coming down the stairs, and by Tatiana asking, “What’s all this racket about?”

The few people who were downstairs and conscious squirmed, barely saying hi to Tatiana and Wyatt as they finally came down to join everyone. Mary was certain she knew what the two of them were doing upstairs, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she averted her eyes toward the young woman sleeping on the couch with nothing more than a blanket over her.

Wyatt said, “Well, this is grim, whatever it is. Who do we have on the couch?”

“Oh my god,” said Tatiana suddenly, seeing the woman there. She carefully brushed aside some of the woman’s hair, and pulled down the blanket enough to get a better look at her face. “Judy. But, what . . . how . . . whaeyayuh . . . .”

The tears and confusion flooded her voice.

Just then, the door to the room Warren had been using as the downstairs office slammed open. He walked into the living room sporting a case in one hand, and his forehead in the other.

“Not to alarm anyone,” he said, “but I think we have a visitor.”

“And the award for understatement of the evening goes to . . .” said Kyra.

Mary said, “Damn it, Warren.”

Warren followed everyone’s gazes until he found Judy. She was a few years older than when they saw her last, but there was no mistaking Judy’s appearance. Warren set his case down beside the couch, and rested a hand on top of Judy’s forehead.

She moved then. Judy coughed and inhaled deeply, and opened her eyes.

There was a moment of silence and uncertainty.

“I can feel you, all of you,” said Judy. She lifted her upper body. “Everyone looks older now. Why do I feel so different? And why am I naked?” With a deep blush, she used her arms to cover her breasts. “Holy crap, they’re huge!”

Tatiana said “They’re not that big, sweety.”

Simultaneously, Mary said, “Not as big as mine.”

“Right, so,” said Warren, “I’m going to need to run a few tests on you. Would you feel more comfortable holding up that blanket, or would you like someone to get you a shirt to wear?”

“What kind of tests are you going to run?” asked Judy

“Heartbeat , body integrity, things like that. It won’t take long, and it shouldn’t hurt.”

“You say shouldn’t, and I say there’s a chance.”

“Nothing more than a pinch. Nothing’s going to blow up or shut down, I promise.”

“Then can I get a shirt please?”

Kyra hurried to her with something in her hand. It was a folded shirt that she kept in her purse in case of emergencies.

“Here you go. I think you’re close enough to my size.” Kyra spoke kindly.

Judy said, “Thank you, Ohmie.”

“Please, call me Kyra. How do you know the name Ohmie, anyways?”

“It just comes to me. It’s like I remember talking to you, but I was asleep somewhere cold for so long. I remember hearing Mortar’s voice while I slept, asking me if I could hear him. I remember making observations about the old base before it collapsed. I remember you, eating alone on top of a table. But, again, I was asleep. What does it all mean?”

“Here.” Kyra helped Judy slip her shirt on while using her own body to hide Judy’s top from everyone. Meanwhile, the blanket continued to cover everything below Judy’s waist. Then Kyra rested her hands on Judy’s shoulders. “You’re home now. We’re here for you.”

Kyra splashed her face with more water. She half wanted to hide away in another bathroom to do this, but she picked the bathroom sink on the other side of the mansion instead. She needed time alone; she thought she did.

“Are you doing alright, sweety?” asked Tatiana. She stood at the closed entrance to the bathroom. Some privacy.

“I’m fine,” Kyra lied.

“No, you’re not.”

“It’s complicated.”

“You might want to try me on that.”

“That won’t mean it’s less complicated.” Kyra shut off the water with a sigh. “She was dead. For the past few months, I’ve tried to be my own hero, without living in her shadow. I had my own informant and everything. Then she comes back, and I learn that my informant all this time might have been her. I’m glad she’s back, if it’s really her, but what’s that make me?”

“Have you tried sending your informant any messages?”

Kyra showed off her phone. There had been no new, incoming messages since yesterday when Kyra’s mom had texted a picture with the words “Thinking of you.”

Tatiana said, “Damn. Well, sweety, let me tell you what. There’s only one you, and only one Judy. No matter how alike the two of you get, you need to remember that. Just do what you know or feel is right.”

“You’re right, but it doesn’t change how I feel.”

“It’s like your emotions have been winded, right? Imagine how everyone else feels right now. Jeff even hit the bar; he never does that. Warren and Wyatt are barely keeping it together examining Judy. Mary is trying frantically to get ahold of Walter, who we haven’t heard from since this morning.”

“Yesterday morning.”

“You know what I mean. The point I’m making is this. Something impossible has happened, and everyone is coping as best we can because this thing throws what we knew and felt under the bus. You’re not alone, and you don’t need to be. We’ll all get over this together.”

“You seem like you have it together.”

“Are you kidding me? I want to kick and scream and run away somewhere, but my baby is already threatening to kick my ass if I tried. So I’m talking to you for both of us. Now, can I ask you an important question?”

“Yes.”

“Why the fuck are you trying to hook up the love of your life with someone else?”

“I’m not. I just . . . She needs more than I alone can give her, and I want her to be happy. Is that so wrong?”

“Open relationships aren’t for everyone, sweety. Ask yourself if you’re really trying to give Mary your all before you give her up to someone else. I’d hate to see you two split apart because she got more from someone else.”

Kyra opened her mouth to respond to that defiantly, but then her phone buzzed. She checked it swiftly.

“It’s the boys. They’re calling a conference.”

“Is everyone ready? Good.” Warren stood by a holographic projector.

“Still no sign of our fearless leader?” asked Tatiana.

Mary said, “Nope.”

“He’ll turn up. Give him five years.”

Warren cleared his throat. “First things first, our guest is actually who she appears to be. That’s putting it in simple terms. Now, you might be asking how it is that she’s back, or why she looks like she’s twenty rather than fifteen. I’m still looking into that, but I think we can suffice to say that she’d have been twenty anyhow under better circumstances. As to how she came back, well, that is where things got tricky, like a rare alignment of forces at work.

“As some of you might recall, there was a mysterious file on the base computer that moved here with us. I had been unable to access it in the last few months, but it wasn’t harming anything more than the amount of space we had on the base’s main computer. Inside that file was a fragment, left behind by someone who’d been emotionally broken at the time, and she didn’t even realize what she was doing.”

“Judy’s just a fragment now?” asked Jeff, who had a drink in hand.

“Not exactly. This brings me to a more recent event – the grave robbery. Someone dug up and took her body.”

“What?!” exclaimed Tatiana.

Judy shifted uncomfortably.

Warren went on, “A couple days ago, a villain told us in his final moments that someone calling themselves the Vanquishiri was coming. While scanning our friend here, I found trace elements of powerful soul magic. Someone was working with her remains at the precise moment that I turned on the new scanning console. Somehow, the base called out to a tormented soul, it reunited with the fragment, and Judy was able to use her power to leap out of the computer rather than stay at the source of the magic.”

The projector animated a large portion of this for everyone to see. It paused on the outline of a human system.

“She is alive again,” said Warren, “but it is not a perfect revival. It is uncertain how long she can stay awake, whether or not she can use her powers at will like before, or anything. So that leaves us, not just as Leaguers but as a family, to watch over Judy and help her when she needs it. When we know that she won’t keel over without warning, or explode in a sudden burst of electricity, we can contact her mother. However, if we wish to stabilize her, then we’ll need to find her remains, and reunite Judy with herself.”

“I can’t see my mom yet?” asked Judy.

“I’m sorry, Judy. I really am. I’m not sure your mother can take the emotional blow right now, whether we can succeed to stabilize you or not. I don’t want to get her hopes up that you’re here for good.”

“Permission to swear?”

“Please do” and “Go ahead” filled the room.

Judy said, “This shit fucking sucks harder than anything else that can be thrown at me, not discounting rusted buckets of bloody piss. I can’t see my mom, I’m scared, I don’t even remember how the fuck I died, and some sons of bitches out there are fucking me over for some unknown reason. Fucking damn it!”

She slammed her body toward the couch, and Mary caught her. Just then, the front door could be heard opening and closing. Walter called out, and entered the room. Mary pulled the blanket over Judy.

Tatiana said to him, “Where the hell have you been?”

-------------
Chapter 10
-------------

As to that, I have a long tale as to why I was held up. My story begins around eleven a.m., about five minutes after I got off the phone with Wyatt. I was in the downtown Steel Canyon area on other business that had been concluded for the day when I placed the call, and I was walking to where I usually catch a taxi.

Walter strolled across the round walkway where countless other people walked. He stopped, and some people screamed, when a van pulled up behind him with a screech.

Two men in ski masks hopped out while the third stayed behind the wheel. Walter saw what was happening, and he let his cane turn from a simple walking stick to a single baton for warding off his attackers. He hadn’t brought his firearm, and still didn’t think he would have needed it.

He swung and twirled the cane about, and dodged around the two men whenever they tried to attack him. All he needed was another hit or two, and just one of them was going down. But then, something stung him in the back of the neck. Walter reached for the tiny projectile that hit him while his consciousness started to slip away.

Both men tackled him, and the world went dark.

When it came to tying people to chairs, there were two classes of people. One that actually learned the ropes, so to speak, and knew how to face their victim toward the back of the chair with both the arms and legs secured.

Then there were Hollywood types, blind followers, and morons who only tied one pair of limbs while seating the victim forward. Walter decided to count this one a blessing when he awoke, because that meant less work in escaping when he was ready.

“Hey, man, he’s waking up,” said one of the three captors.

Coming to, I decided at first that the best course of action would be to fish my captors for information. Little did I know that this wouldn’t take long if I wanted it to.

“For a banker, you sure can put up a fight,” said the first man.

Walter said, “I’m not a banker.”

“We’re not stupid, you know,” said the second man.

“Yeah, man,” started the third, “why else would anyone walk through Steel Canyon’s central plaza wearing a suit and standing tall like you do?”

Resisting a grimace, Walter said, “Plenty of people do that.”

“Besides, we were told that the banker we’re looking for would be crossing the plaza when you did.”

“Told by whom, exactly?”

The first man said, “Whoa, this guy says ‘whom!’ He has to be some kind of genius.”

“He’s a banker,” said the second man, “Of course he’s going to use words we don’t understand.”

“Dear, oh dear. I’m afraid this isn’t getting us anywhere. What would you need to abduct a banker for anyhow?”

“Because, man, you can help us out. We got this crazy parking ticket and we want to turn it in for something better. Like, you know, the next big game at Reynolds Stadium.”

“The next big game, you say?” Walter’s voice and demeanor leaned on the incredulous.

One of the gentlemen—at this point, it no longer mattered who to Walter—responded, “Yeah, an upgrade. For the price of parking in this city, the three of us can score great seats. You can hook us up, right, or was it that we were going to ransom him for the cash?”

“Do you want to know something?” asked Walter. He budged his bound arms up against the backside of the chair, and lifted his legs. “No. I sat here trying to be accommodating, but I’m out. Here I was; curious as to what you were up to, and yet I would rather interrogate a lawn while I’ve gone without sleep for a few days. No, thank you! You boys will need to carry on this farce without me.”

Walter managed to climb out of the chair, and continued to storm toward a work table with some tools on it. He ignored the stunned faces staring at him while Walter patted the table with his hands behind his back. He grabbed a tool that looked sharp enough to undo the rope around his wrists, and walked toward the door.

“Hey, wait, what about our tickets?” asked one man.

“Frankly, boys,” said Walter, “you should count yourselves lucky that you haven’t been shot. Do the world a favor and join the damn workforce. Also, don’t reproduce. Ever.”

Once on the other side, Walter closed the door and spotted the keys hanging from the knob. He gave the knob a jiggle without turning the key too hard. Something told him that actually locking the door wouldn't be necessary.

He said, “I’ll be back in a few hours to unlock the door. Until then, I suggest you gentlemen think long and hard about where you went wrong. It might do you some good.”

Walter turned toward the exit. It was a short stairway of concrete steps leading up into a day-lit world. He barely made a few steps outside when Walter ran into a young woman, and it took him a moment to realize that she had been running toward the building that he had come out of.

“Oh, it’s you,” said the young woman, regaining the balance and composure she lost during their collision. “How did you break loose? No, that’s not important. I’m glad you’re safe. My father and I need your help.”

“And who might you be?” asked Walter.

“My name’s Gemma. My father owns a local security company, and he needs help with the loan on our business. It’s come under fire by neighboring mafia families, and we’re hoping we can at least reason with you so that we can keep working.”

“Who do you think I am?”

“You’re the banker, aren’t you? You’re wearing a suit, and you walked out of that same bank branch. Who else could you be?”

“Not a banker at all, actually. In fact, I don’t normally do business with that bank. Today’s just been full of surprises, hasn’t it?”

“Oh, shit. I’m so sorry. If you’re not the banker in charge of that place, then I guess I should find him now.”

Gemma curtsied and turned away from Walter, allowing him a better look at the large sniper rifle strapped to her back. She was walking away when Walter’s conscience kicked itself and forced him to call out to her.

“Wait. You said something about neighboring mafia families?”

“It’s nothing. Really. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Mafia families are hardly ever nothing, Miss Gemma. If it’s anything I can handle, I’d be happy to help.”

“What are you? Some kind of hero?”

“Something like that. The name’s Walter Dallevan. Maybe you’ve heard of me, or the supergroup I run.”

“I can’t say I have.”

Her answer stunned him. It took him a moment to find his next words. “That’s unfortunate, because we’ve done so much good over the years. No matter, no matter. If you need help, then I’d be happy to oblige far more than any banker you’ll meet. I just have one question before I do. What’s with the rifle?”

Gemma twisted her shoulder forward to get a better look at the gun on her back. “What, this? It’s how I tranquilize targets from a distance.”

“And no one’s tried to stop you from carrying it around town?”

“Strangely no. I’ve been toting this rifle around for a couple months now, and no one has even asked me about it until now. I’m a pretty good shot with it, too.”

“So were you aiming for me earlier?”

“What? Oh no. I was aiming for the other men you were fighting, but you were moving around so much. I thought I had a good shot, but you jumped in the path of that dart at the last possible second.”

“You could have gone for the driver.”

Walter noted the deer-in-the-headlights look on Gemma’s face. The thought apparently hadn’t crossed her mind, however obvious, until he pointed it out. Her lip twitched. Walter walked to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s OK,” he said. “We all make mistakes. Consider yourself lucky that no one was harmed, and learn from it. Now, shall we get going?”

“Yes, let’s go. We can start by meeting my father, or anyone else if you like.”

“Let’s first go back to where I was abducted. I’m going to need something from there. Then, we can meet with your father. Come along.”

I took note of the brick building I’d come out of, and its address, as the two of us departed. I was lucky to find my walking stick in one piece where I had left it, and doubly so to find an officer nearby. I told the officer where to find those three men. Then Gemma and I were off to meet her father. Fine fellow, trusting, and let us in with hardly any wait.

“Ah, Gemma, my principessa,” he said as they entered his office that was located in a laundromat basement. “I see you have brought a banker. Where’s the other one?”

“Not a banker, I’m afraid,” said Walter. “The name is Walter Dallevan. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Dallevan, Dallevan. Circus ringmaster, wasn’t it?”

“Close, actually. I run a supergroup full of heroes, and am in the business of helping anyone I can. I understand you are having trouble involving your own business?”

“It’s true. I have been receiving notices from mob families, many of which I’ve never seen or heard of before in my life. They’ve been telling me this neighborhood is taken. Half of them claim to be the ones protecting it.”

Walter said, “I see. I take it this neighborhood doesn’t receive much attention from actual law authorities these days, then?”

“Not unless you count the heroes who show up just to beat up villains or random gang members to a bloody pulp. Then, to top it all off, the bank we were trusting with our business has been making it progressively more difficult to get the loan and proper paperwork needed for a headquarters in our own building. It’s hard running a security company from a basement of any kind, let alone somewhere as hot and noisy as the shop upstairs.”

“That could mean a number of things. I can check it out and solve most of those things in a day, of course.”

“For how much?” the gentleman asked.

“How much?!”

“Mr. Dallevan, my family isn’t so well-off since my father came here from Italy. The most valuable thing we have is a family heirloom we can never lose like we did its sister some years ago. I was lucky to rent this room from one of his close friends. But, if you can help me, I can pay you anything if it’s within reason.”

“A fine notion, I can assure you, but that won’t be necessary. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to see about the bank trouble. It was a pleasure, Gemma, and to you as well . . . I’m sorry. I forgot to ask your name.”

“It’s Emilio Batticelli. Wait, Gemma?”

Gemma, who had set down her rifle during the short conversation, was strapping it back over her shoulder and walking to Walter.

“What?” she asked. “You said you can help us, and I’m going to join you.”

Walter said, “They will probably confiscate your weapon when we get there.”

“I’ll let you know then if I care. Let’s go.”

Being as unable to turn down help as I am whenever it’s offered, I led my traveling companion to the Damascus National Bank in Steel Canyon. Gemma pouted when the security asked her to leave her sniper rifle with them, but she relented and walked with me to the elevator.

He used the bottom of his cane to press the elevator button after one guard turned the key on the same panel. Walter walked in, and Gemma followed.

“You only brought the cane to press buttons, didn’t you?” Gemma asked.

Walter said, “Just the one.”

“I hate you.”

The door closed.

Moments later, they entered the top floor of the bank’s main offices and walked toward the back. The security flagged them down to stop them, but Walter opened the doors anyway and let himself in.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked the man behind the desk. He was not alone, between two larger gentleman and a skinny one. “It’s you!”

“Hello, Mr. Fierro,” Walter said without skipping a beat, “I’ve come to have an urgent word with you. Yes, yes, I know I was here earlier to settle a nasty sort of business downstairs, but this is new business.” He pressed the tip of his cane against one larger man’s nose before the man could get up from his rather comfortable seat. “And you will find that I do not take new business lightly, especially when it involves visiting the same place twice in one day.”

Mr. Fierro looked over at his secretary and nodded. “You can leave us. Now, Dallevan, wasn’t it? What do I owe the honor?”

“I’m here because there appears to be a misunderstanding regarding a man and his new business – a security company.”

“A security company? What does that have to do with me?”

“I’m talking about the legitimate business that moved in on these gentlemen’s turf, and how I overheard a reference to their boss sending his associates to pay you a visit at this hour when I was tending to the matter downstairs. You can thank one of the men guarding the door.”

Gemma said, “Wait, seriously?”

“Normally I’m not one to deal directly with mafia affairs here in the main of Paragon City. Much too droll for my tastes, you see, but when it steps in the way of my own business, you can be sure of the consequences.”

“Is that a threat?” asked one of the men around the room.

“It’s a statement, one that needs to be made clear. Competition is good for business, you know. If your game is one of protection, then let the Batticelli family operate under your radar, or I will loose every legal loophole to take you down. If that’s not enough, I know plenty of heroes and villains alike who would be happy to give another mob family the boot. Do I make myself clear?”

The two mobsters not pinned down by Walter’s cane were now standing and pointing their guns at him. The third one reached for his, but Walter pressed his cane harder into the man’s nose.

He sighed. Why did the muscle of any organization always choose to do things the hard way?

With a quick jab of his cane into the first man’s face, Walter dove below waist level and swung his cane up at the hand of the second. He followed it up by bringing the cane down on the man’s shoulder and swinging down to sweep it behind the man’s knees.

Walter readied himself for the third man, becoming increasingly aware that the first was getting up already. He danced a fencer’s dance with his cane while trying to avoid being shot by anyone’s gun. Therefore, disarming all three men took precedent over trying to knock out all three at the same time.

However, a piercing bang sounded and something bit him in the neck. Walter looked back at Gemma before blacking out and hearing a second bang.

Light returned, paired with an aftertaste of burnt sugar and hops beer. Next came the headache, followed by a few spinning shapes that refused to settle down for a moment. His hearing was too impaired to hear a woman’s voice clearly. Strangely, the lights flashed all over and around.

Most of the effects passed after a minute, and Walter was finally able to see Gemma crouching beside him. They were outside, and it was night.

“What happened?” Walter asked.

Gemma said, “You may or may not have gotten in the way of another of my darts.” She looked sheepish and pulled up one of her sleeves to reveal a long wristband made from plastic and ceramics.

“Gemma, do me a favor if you’re going to keep carrying weapons around of any kind. Work on your timing.” He struggled with himself to sit up, and won. “Better yet, try aiming for the bad guys not standing next to me.”

“I got one of them at least. If this thing could shoot more rounds, I would have gotten more of them, but they didn’t know that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I held them at gunpoint, basically, and had them tie themselves up inside that office before I left and called the police. You missed the three mobsters being taken away, as well as one of the security guards.”

“Probably recognized by the officers who came. Good job. What about Mr. Fierro?”

“I tied him up separately, but still somewhere the police could find or question him. I didn’t want any of them getting bright ideas about escaping before the police arrived. When I came back down to claim my rifle, the other security guard was patrolling the building. It’s a good thing you talk in your sleep, because the guard who was there thought you were just out of your mind.”

“It sounds like Fierro and the second guard got away,” Walter said, considering the habits he knew of the bank manager. “That’s sure to raise suspicion at least, but this has become a mess. I think it might be safer to go with another bank, or a credit union, for your father’s business.”

“The process takes so long, though,” Gemma said

“Oh, I think I can pull a few strings. You and your father will be able to watch over your clientele in just a few days.”

“Yes!”

“But! I want you to promise me you’ll do something about your habit of carrying weapons. More than that I want you to promise me that you won’t become like the mob families out there.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to grab some food and drink to wash this bad taste out of my mouth. Until we meet again, Gemma.”

“And that’s what took me so long to get here,” said Walter to his audience. “Why, what have you all been up to while I was away?”

He was certain that the young woman cloaked entirely with a single bed sheet, and sitting closest to Mary, was Jackie. But the makeshift hood came down as the mystery woman leaned even closer Maryann, revealing a more Asian look to her features. Her familiarity struck Walter like a train.

“He hasn’t exactly changed much, has he?” asked Judy.

Walter just let his open jaw hang like it was while he stared in disbelief.

A pair of officers sat, watching a closed, unlocked door while three men behind it argued about the same thing for the fourth time in the last couple of hours.

One officer tipped over the bag of potato chips in his hand, and his partner grabbed a few of the crisps.

-------------
Chapter 11
-------------

When Judy awoke in the morning, it was to a gentle touch on the shoulder by Kyra. Her equally soft and genuine smile highlighted the winning battle against being up so close to sunrise. Or was it a losing battle? Judy couldn’t be sure with that one, but to this day she was certain alarm clocks were the epitome of evil.

Kyra held a short stack of clothes and said, “I brought you a shirt and some pants, based on the few measurements we took last night. Sorry I didn’t get you a bra, but I think Tatiana said she’d help you after work. She said it’s a short shift today.”

“Thank you,” Judy accepted her gift. “What about you?”

“Oh, I need to catch some shuteye.”

“It’s Friday morning.”

“My part-time job doesn’t need me today. Also, no classes since Math was canceled for the day.”

Judy stepped into the restroom to change from last night’s shirt to today’s outfit, but continued her conversation. “I wish I was in college. I didn’t even get to go to high school.”

“Maybe you can go once things get better; to college, I mean.”

“Yeah, maybe.” With her arms sticking into her shirt, Judy stared down at her boobs. The air caressed her nipples, leading to a feeling she hardly knew five years ago. They wanted to be touched by something firmer, and she resisted. “I wonder if there’s some special scholarship for people who’ve come back from the dead?”

“Maybe at the Undead University of Universal Umbrience, wherever that is.”

“Oooooh....”

“That sounded really creepy.”

“Sorry. My boobs just really liked this shirt rubbing over them is all.” Judy blushed. Why was she blushing?

Kyra, however, started laughing. “Welcome to being a grown woman. Now, be sure to give them plenty of water and sunlight.”

“What, my boobs?”

“Yeah, you never know; you might have some cute guy all over them.” There was a sudden pause. Then Kyra’s tone changed. “Oh, Judy, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“What do you mean? Why shouldn’t you suggest me being with a guy?”

“I mean, with how you died.”

By now, Judy had stepped out of the restroom and tilted her head at Kyra.

“You really don’t remember,” said Kyra.

Judy said, “I have a hard time remembering even the day before. Everything’s so foggy. If I try to remember after that, there’s these two strange dreams. One, was when I watched over the old base in a haze, unable to process any thought, unable to speak or act with anyone.

“And the other one is swimming between light and darkness, hearing the voice of everyone there, though all they did was hum. Then I heard Warren asking me if I could hear him. I did. For a moment, I thought I was inside of some computer, so I reached for him, thinking I could just pop out like I used to. Then I heard nothing, I was cold and alone, and there was so little light where I was. So little will left to move where the light was plenty. I couldn’t tell how much time passed, but I knew it was too long.

“While I was there, some of the light I did see was swept away by these shooting stars of almost every color you can imagine. It looked beautiful, but it left me more and more alone as it went on. A few of those stars felt like they could be touched if I just reached out to them, and let them carry me away as well. I was tempted, oh so tempted. I’ve no idea what would have happened to me then, but the feeling was there. It shakes me up to even think about it.” She shivered.

“Then,” said Kyra, rubbing Judy’s forearms, “let’s try not to think about it. You’re back here, and soon you’ll be able to see everyone you haven’t already.”

“Mom. And Denise.” Those names made her smile.

“Denise? Who might that be?”

“She was a friend of mine in middle school. I wonder if she’s done anything with her life yet? Denise was an excellent swimmer, but also a troublemaker. We’d probably be on the run as supervillains by now if I didn’t put my foot down at least once or twice. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just curious. You wouldn’t happen to mean Denise Grandt, would you?”

“Yes, that was her last name. How did you know?”

Kyra pulled out her phone, and looked something up. Judy couldn’t see what she was doing until Kyra turned the screen around. It was a news article about Denise, now a professional athlete with several deals and trophies to her name.

“I’m surprised you didn’t know, what with your computer access and everything,” said Kyra.

Judy shed a tear of joy. She made it; Denise followed her dream and made it. Judy did wonder if her friend still remembered her now, but she decided it was for the best to push that thought aside.

“She’s famous now,” said Judy.

“A professional athlete who grew up in Paragon without any superpowers. The media went nuts with the hype.” Kyra explained. “Weirdoes.”

“Thank you for showing me this.”

“What are friends for?”

“Any more surprises you have for me?”

The doorbell rang pretty much on cue. Kyra and Judy stood in silence while someone answered the door. Who else was here this morning? Judy didn’t know. Not until she heard Walter and an older woman. Not just any older woman.

“Mom.”

Mai ran inside, barely able to speak. She barely managed saying “please” and “help me” countless times amidst her frantic behavior. She might have even spoken in Japanese for some of it, but there was no way to be sure. She didn’t care. All Mai knew was that she needed help, and the League was the only group of people she trusted these days.

The only other person she saw was Walter. He was doing his best to calm a storm when he said, “Calm down, Mai. Calm down. What’s happened?”

“It’s my baby girl. She was stolen.”

“Stolen? I don’t understand.”

“After that phenomenon last night I could hardly sleep. I had to go see her. I went to her grave, and it was dug up. Who would do this? Why?”

Walter looked stricken. His gaze did not meet Mai. But then Mai heard a whimper behind her. She turned toward the stairs, and saw the impossible standing before her. A young woman with the appearance of a grown-up Judy stood, grasping for words and trembling.

The young woman took two steps toward a frightened Mai, even raising her arms, and then she collapsed to the ground.

Kyra ran down the stairs too late. She picked up the young woman, and felt at her wrists.

“Her pulse is weak,” said Kyra, “but she’s alive.”

“How is this possible?” asked Mai. “What have you done?”

“This wasn’t us.”

“Is this some kind of trick? Have you become villains or monsters?” Mai said this while whipping her head between Kyra and Walter.

“It’s nothing like that! She appeared last night. We don’t know how it happened. Not enough, anyways, but Warren says Judy left a part of herself locked away inside the base computer. He also said that there was powerful magic at work, probably aiming to do something else. Something terrible.”

She lifted and turned over the young woman. “This is Judy,” Kyra said.

Mai trembled the entire way towards her daughter. She fell to her knees and held on to her tightly. Tears rolled down Mai’s cheek.

A hand came down on her back. Walter said, “We will find out who is behind this. And, if possible, we will make things right again.”

“Make things right? My daughter’s come back. This is more than I could hope.”

“Bursts of emotion and power make her susceptible to fainting. That’s hardly living. That’s why we’re looking for answers. Judy has every right to be alive, truly alive.”

That was when Mai stood up carrying Judy in both arms like she weighed nothing. “Do you remember when she was kidnapped, and you promised to bring her home safely? Do you remember what you told me, Walter? You better make good on this promise.”

“You have my word, Mai. I will honor it.”

“Um, Mai?” said Kyra. “Not to change the subject or anything, but do you need help carrying Judy somewhere that’s comfortable?”

Jail gates opened with all of their metallic racket and fanfare. Patrick Franks stepped through them while his hands and feet continued to be bound so well that someone twenty times his strength could not break either cuff nor chain.

Two guards guided him from behind as Patrick walked into the visiting room. He sat down at the designated window and recognized his ex-girlfriend right away.

Neither of them liked seeing one another. At least this wasn’t an interrogation room; that would have meant she was especially pissed. The woman scared him, and he had every right of it.

After sitting in grim silence for a time, Mai said, “Do you remember our deal?”

“It’s not something I can forget,” said Patrick.

“Good. I came here to let you know that you will hear things, see things, but our deal doesn’t change. You continue to pay for what you’ve done, never stepping out of line, and I won’t have to kill you.”

There were cameras, microphones, guards, and other measures in place. Yet, Patrick knew that she meant it, and could do it with ease.

He nodded.

“Is anyone giving you trouble in here?” she asked.

“No.” He spoke the truth.

“Have you started or joined any gangs?”

“No.”

“Anything else?”

“The same as usual. I’d change it all if I could. Now, can I go back to serving my sentence in peace, or would you like to go make our visits more conjugal?”

Mai stood up and left without any show of emotion.

A guard came to start off Patrick’s escort back to the holding cell. Everyone here still hated him who knew what he had done. That was the way with prisons. A man didn’t rape and kill his own kid without being loathed and worse. For him it was even worse since his child was a hero respected by even half of the men in here.

He was surprised no one killed him yet. But then he figured that someone, probably Mai, got to the guards and top gang members. No one made things easy for Patrick, but no one went out of their way to make things difficult for him.

So then he lied back down on his bed, wasting away the first of multiple life sentences.

-------------
Chapter 12
-------------

Mary walked out of the coffee shop, and narrowly dodged the man she encountered right outside of the door. Her sidestep became an awkward step when she saw the man’s face. He wore no mask, but she recognized him regardless with his chin structure and green eyes.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she said to him.

He smiled back at her. Of course he knew who she was. A few months ago, he saw Mary and Kyra naked after they washed up on the beach following a major battle.

The man she only knew as Mr. Sullivan or Saelum Blaster said, “Well, well. This is a surprise. Are you in a hurry?”

“No, I have a few minutes before I have to run off to my second day job,” Mary replied.

“Second day job? We teachers really don’t make much, do we?”

“I get by. This one’s more of a personal project than anything ever since a few friends of mine died without their folks knowing that they had done so as heroes. I happen to make a small income from it, but I donate most of it to various fundraisers.”

“Oh, I think I heard about that program. You’re informing family members of the deceased and putting fallen heroes to rest, right? I had no idea that was you.”

“It almost wasn’t.” In more ways than one.

“Hey, I have to get somewhere in a few minutes as well. Why don’t we talk about it tonight?”

“I can’t tonight. An old, dear friend is in town, for one thing. Also, Kyra told me this morning that she wants to treat me to dinner tonight. She was rather adamant about it.”

Just then, Mary could hear her friend Wyatt saying You could say she was Adamast about it. She pushed the bad joke aside with a hidden sigh, a blink, and a smile.

“Then I guess I’ll catch you later,” Mr. Sullivan said. He gave Mary a polite kiss on the cheek.

And yet, Mary could do nothing about the feelings of nervousness or lust for this man now walking the opposite direction from her. Mary shivered. Then she hurried off toward her office.

It was late in the morning when Kyra returned to the mansion after an errand.

Kyra heard Warren humming a random tune in one of the adjoined rooms as she entered the hall with one of the stairways around the expansive mansion. She often found it hard to believe that Warren and so many kids had grown up in this house, and not just because the whole building was still in one piece.

Through one doorway, she spotted Warren wiping the bracelet gifted by Trash Knuckle with a cloth. He was also checking on some machines in that room.

She looked back at the side of the stairway and saw Judy sitting down against the rail.

“I see you’re up again,” Kyra spoke softly.

“Yeah,” said Judy. “Mom and Tatiana came by moments ago to measure my new bra size. They handed me a smart phone with the understanding that I can’t be zapping myself into it, both for my safety and also because they’re going shopping. They want my opinion on what they find at the different stores around the mall. So now I’m just waiting around here for that.”

“That sounds rough.”

“It’s not as bad as having a small part of myself stuck inside a computer and watching everyone carry on with their lives, but it’s still so boring.”

“I hear you. I can hardly imagine, having been locked up or possessed however many times by now.”

“At least you didn’t get to see everyone naked except for Walter. Thanks for the peep show, by the way.”

“What?”

Judy giggled.

Kyra vaguely recalled her time spent inside of the abandoned base that the Dallevan League once rented from the Blue Pillar System. She once toyed with the idea of imagining the base’s watchful camera as someone attractive, but now this just made things a little awkward.

“Ha, it’s working!” Warren announced.

“What?” asked the girls at once.

Warren poked his head out of the doorway. “The system I built to record superpowers being used. It, and the other computers, are all fully operational again, and I got some recorded footage from last night.”

“Back-ups are nice,” Kyra said.

“Gods bless DVR. Now to check on the timeframe during Judy’s resurrection.” His voice trailed as Warren emerged back into the downstairs observation room.

Kyra said, “Oh yeah, there’s a thing. Were DVR and internet streaming a thing five years ago? I forget. But you can watch a bunch of stuff you missed while you recover.”

“Always a thought,” Judy said in a contemplative tone. “A couple of my favorite bands broke up, one of the biggest metal acts right now consists of girls who are now what my age was back when I’d died, and I hear there’s a girls’ show on TV that’s attracted a bunch of grown men. I never thought I’d ever see the day where I’d say that the internet scares me.”

“If you think that’s scary, I think some crazy guy made a top ten alien invasions in the last five and a half years, ranked by how enjoyable they all were.”

“Oh, those are still going? Fun.”

“I’m almost curious as to why they keep coming.”

“You’re probably better off not knowing.”

“Mortar’s fault?” In truth, Kyra meant it as a humorous jab at her friend and colleague.

“Mine, actually, and I sort of guess Tatiana’s as well,” Judy said. “Though, yes, it did involve one of his gadgets.”

After an “I heard that” from the other room, Kyra and Judy exchanged glances and laughed themselves silly.

She wasn’t sure at what point her body slammed into the side of the stairway, but Kyra came down from her high and pushed away from it while she could. She saw that Judy was holding herself up by the railing, and trying not to pass out again. It was good to have a laugh with someone she could relate to. Here she was, enjoying her time with the girl whose shadow she lived and worked in for a while now.

Kyra wanted ever so much to truly be out of Judy’s shadow, and pretended that she wasn’t, that it didn’t bother her, but she felt like the first person who needed to help Judy in any way she could.

Why was life so complicated?

A moment later, Mortar Mage walked out of the room he was in, and said, “Alright, you two, I need to check something out. War Lagoon’s going to meet me there. I know this goes without saying, but try not start any thunderstorms in here. Unless you’d like to come along, Kyra?”

“I’ll pass, Mortar,” Kyra said, “but thanks.”

She waited for the man to leave, but he was barely out the door when Judy spoke up. “Are you sure you don’t want to go out?”

“Of course I do, but I don’t want to leave you alone if I don’t have to. You know what, though? You need to go outside and see Paragon with your own eyes.”

“What about my condition?”

Kyra pulled out a small case and extracted the item within it. She showed the new necklace to Judy. “Here, put this on. I think we still have a drawer full of domino masks somewhere around here.”

“Yes, we do. What’s this necklace?”

“I went shopping this morning, and tracked down an old acquaintance of mine from my villain days. I know you’re not a summoned spirit from the umpteenth and a half dimension or whatever he said it was, but he said the gem on the bottom should still work for similar cases where someone is caught halfway between dimensions.”

“So you’re saying I’ll be able to wander around and live like an actual person with superpowers with this on?”

“I hope,” said Kyra. “I didn’t want Mortar to confiscate this to see how it works when we could skip to field testing. What do you say?”

“My kind of dangerous. I want to say yes, but my mom and Tatiana!” On cue, she received a message on the phone in her possession. She checked it.

“You can bring that with you, you know. I’m only asking you to come outside with me, smile a little, and maybe show off your powers if you’re able. I don’t want to jinx it by asking what’s the worst that can happen, but, actually, that’s exactly what I should be asking.”

Judy put on the necklace and tucked it under the shirt she was wearing. “Go get your costume.”

Mortar traveled—first by portal to get away from the mansion, and then by magic-fueled flight—beyond city limits to the northeast. The recorded scan had picked up an anomaly just within its range during the time window he was looking for. No, an anomaly wasn’t the right word for it, but a mere magic spell wasn’t it either.

What he saw was a special kind of magic that had no place in the mortal realm, and was frowned upon in the eternal one. That much, he was sure with a glance, but being a scientist meant testing that theory. Being a hero meant acting against it. Being the sole guardian between the realms meant both.

He spotted and joined War Lagoon mid-flight. They were moving fast. If it wasn’t for their earpieces, then communicating with mere words would have been difficult.

“Do I want to know what this is about?” War asked.

“I’m not sure even I want to,” said Mortar.

“That kind of answer isn’t going to work anymore, not with Judy being back with us. What aren’t you telling me?”

“Did anyone fill you in on what I said about the war four years ago?”

“I’ve heard bits and pieces. Most of it, I heard from you some time ago.”

“I suspect it’s all connected. I saw the work of powerful magic right there when viewing last night’s map. We need to check it out.”

“Why aren’t we bringing everyone else?” War Lagoon said.

“If anyone with enough magic power to burn a dried leaf showed up on the map when I called you and left the mansion, I would have called the others. Still, it’s better to be careful. This is urgent, and I’m thankful you came.”

“Yeah. Let’s check it out.”

They descended and found the top of a temple sticking out of the ground. Mortar Mage and War Lagoon searched the immediate area for an entrance and found it. They went down some stairs, finding hollowed crystals of various colors, and no light, poking out of the walls and steps at some places.

This place must have belonged to the Circle before the Dallevan League evicted them from the city. That was Mortar’s only guess, judging by the type of stone the temple was made out of and the types of crystals they passed.

If that were the case, then the crystals would have been lively and full not five months ago. They would have been assaulted by protective mages and spirits as well, if the Circle were still here.

It didn’t take too long to find what looked like the central chamber. It was dark, but there was no arguing about how massive the room was, or the vibes that came from how important it was to this temple. However, there was something uneasy about this room. More than that, Mortar needed to see the chamber in great detail.

He needed to know it all.

War Lagoon said, “Mortar? I don’t like this.”

Magic surrounded them suddenly. Mortar cast some illumination magic to light up the chamber. Groups of dark figures appeared, all matching Ohm Wires description of the grave diggers. Their tiki masks glowed red, orange, and violet now.

He felt his gut recoil. “Yeah, I have a bad feeling too.”

The masked figures jumped at the heroes.

-------------
Chapter 13
-------------

Fire and arcane energy erupted beyond Mortar Mage’s hands, and his partner produced shadow constructs and summoned dark tentacles too. They spent minutes blocking and striking down the masked figures. Some were fast, some were strong, and some just took
more hits to bring down than the others.

A couple faster ones managed to hit Mortar. He wouldn’t have been surprised if War Lagoon was hit as well.

The glowing stopped after the figures were knocked to the ground. The earth shook for a time. Mortar was uncertain if it was one of those odd quakes that only affected the magic temple, or if Paragon City felt it as a larger whole.

Either way, he walked to the stones set up in the middle of the dip in the ground to look like some sort of table, or an altar. He flipped the button on one side of one of his belt satchels, and pulled out a thin stick. Mortar carried a number of these, but rarely ever needed to use them on the field.

He pointed it at the altar from above and circled the stick to get a reading of the energies around this area of the room.

Sacrifice and human ash. Otherworldly energies. A focal point not seen by the human eye in so very long.

If there was an easy way to quantify these things, Mortar would have written it down right now. Instead, he elected to jot it down inside his mind.

“I don’t think anyone’s home, save for these guys,” said War Lagoon. “Something feels very wrong about them.”

“I wouldn’t recommend undoing their suits or masks,” said Mortar. “You might not like what you find under there, if my guess is right. Can you use your shadows to examine this temple for a workshop of some sort?”

“Do you plan to make something? Here?”

“No. I mean to confirm a suspicion without having to look at anything too grotesque. But, if it’s too much effort, I’ll peek under their masks myself.”

“This temple is big, but let me try to find what you’re asking.”

War Lagoon shut his eyes and stood for a moment. He convulsed in what Mortar could only assume was disgust.

“I found a room with an unlit furnace, some saws, metal staples like you would find for heavy duty stitching, and is that dried blood?” War’s eyes opened. “What the hell did we walk into?”

Just then, the tiki masks glowed again. The figures were on the rise, and their growls added to the dark depths of this place.

“Think we should get out of here?” War Lagoon asked.

“Actually, I think we need to start digging deeper,” Mortar responded, preparing to fight this wave of abominations all over again.

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

The second assault began.

There was a knock on her doorway. Mary looked up and saw Walter.

“Hi, Walter. No offense, but I’m busy with a couple of cases right now.”

“I was beginning to think that lunch might help you in your endeavors,” he said.

“No time for that, not unless you can miraculously get one of these parents to sit down with me for lunch.”

“Oh, trouble?”

“You could say that. Some parents are too far away, they say, to come here and hear about the fates of their missing children. Some want to live in denial that anything is wrong. And then there are two men here in Paragon who won’t give me the light of day unless I use brute force as a hero to bring them into custody, be it trumped charges or real ones. Then, on top of that, a number of heroes or villains who died four months ago had run away from home anywhere from overnight to fifteen years ago, and I’m having to organize their cases. I need help, and I can’t afford it unless I turn those cases into another charity, which takes time, money, and effort just to file.”

“Really? Well, that’s too bad. I have an appointment at the Aquamarine Pizzeria in Founder’s Creek, and was hoping you would be my plus-one. I could always use trusted backup when meeting a mob boss.”

“Which mob boss?”

“Vanni Rivano.”

The name caused Mary to shuffle through a stack of folders until she found the one she sought. It carried the Rivano name, and this was one of the two men she spoke of only a moment ago.

She rushed to the door and grabbed her things, ignoring the smile on Walter’s face. Among her things was a parasol built to take a beating.

“Walter,” she said, “I see your simple walking cane, and raise you a parasol. To lunch.”

Judy sent back another text message to her mom, saying she liked the pink, striped bra out of the three latest ones shown to her. Meanwhile, she ignored the curious glances she was getting from people on the sidewalks.

How many heroes went out in street clothes, nice ones even, and a simple mask?

She walked side-by-side with Ohm Wire, who was probably doing a better job keeping a lookout for crime they could intervene with since her folks weren’t texting her and expecting a response post-haste.

On the other hand, it was nice to finally walk around again for the first time after five years. Some buildings changed by merit of having been rebuilt in all that time. Some changed by way of businesses moving in and out. Every other structure was so familiar and alien at once, begging to be basked within.

Every deep breath she took, though filled with smells not worth mentioning in addition to the more pleasant ones, told her she was alive. She was back. No one was taking that away from her now, no matter if she could remember what had happened before or not.

“So far so good, right?” asked Ohm Wire.

Judy said, “Hm? Oh, yes. If nothing else, we found a way to keep me awake. I haven’t felt dizzy or drained since we left the house.”

Ohm wire smiled at her, and looked like she was about to say something else when they were interrupted at random by a passerby saying good job to her for beating some bad guys trying to bomb a liquor store.

“What was that about?” Judy asked her.

“It’s a long story,” Ohm Wire said. “About a month ago, someone was going around bombing businesses that sold things like alcohol, adult toys, and a bus depot. Some people were getting hurt, and I ended up leading a trio of smalltime heroes to take down the lunatics responsible.”

“Oh, now I remember. Wait, why do I remember that?”

“Joule Say-cot-suu?”

“Sigh.” Judy stopped in place. “Joule Saikatsu fifteen. Oh my god, but how? I was inside the system when that all happened.”

“I was hoping you would tell me. You’re the only person who ever calls me 'Ohmie.' That means, all this time, my informant, whose only sign of a personality was that nickname, was you. It means I owe some of my success and heroic redemption to the one person whose shadow I sometimes thought I was living in.”

“Now what?”

“Now I try real hard not to think about how weird I look about this in public. Good luck, right?”

“It could be worse. I could be a figment of your imagination.”

“I’m pretty sure seeing dead people started someone’s villainous career somewhere, resulting in a long line of bad plots and twists.”

“Good thing I’m not dead.”

“It’s a good thing I don’t make movies.”

They smiled at one another and continued walking through Talos. It wasn’t long after that that they heard someone screaming for trouble, and both Ohm Wire and Judy went running.

They passed a few corners and traffic to reach a gym where a giant, inflated balloon of its gorilla mascot was standing out front. Judy spotted a trio of masked thugs with guns inside the gym. The trio had a hostage; everyone else was fleeing the scene.

One of them shouted outside, “Nobody try any funny business, or the cheating bimbo gets it!”

The abominations fell at War Lagoon’s feet, and the temple shook, for the third time now. He looked over by his friend, and saw that Mortar’s hands were glowing with arcane energy.

“Come on,” Mortar Mage said. He repeated himself multiple times.

The temple jolted again. This time, something broke through the altar. War Lagoon couldn’t see what it was, but he suspected that this was what Mortar was looking for. The temple rattled and roared as the elongated object seemed to grow.

“Almost there,” Mortar said.

Meanwhile, at that second, the abominations’ masks glowed again. How many times did War and Mortar need to knock them down?

War Lagoon was starting to feel like they were inside of a monster instead of a temple, and the object coming out of the ground looked like a jagged fang between its shape and pearl color. He prepared to fight the abominations again when he saw Mortar place a hand on the abnormal object.

“Duck!” Mortar yelled out.

However, War Lagoon realized what he said only a second too late. The chamber filled up with an explosion.

Ohm Wire wasn’t sure if her legs were trembling or if the ground was vibrating. All she knew was that both she and Judy needed to do something. Maybe if she used her faux invisibility? Oh, but the doors were closed and any idiot would notice them opening.
She couldn’t ask Judy to enter the gym by exiting the front desk’s computers, because no one knew yet, even with that necklace, if Judy could handle the trip. She wasn’t sure how Judy could get from here to those computers, either.

Then a blaze of static and light caught the corner of her eye. In a flash, Judy disappeared, leaving behind the phone and necklace as they fell to the ground where she once stood.

Most people backed away from where Judy had been. Ohm Wire took a step closer.

“Oh no.”

-------------
Chapter 14
-------------

Diamond Grace stepped out of the cheap hotel with her costume on. She had invited her new lover to come with her as she explored the city and did some good in it. He declined, leaving her to see the heroic life for herself. There had to be something to it if her sister had been enjoying it all this time, even if Diamond Grace disagreed with having these powers.

She walked eastward after settling on a random direction. She tried to push thoughts of her sister and their powers out of her mind. Today was going to be about doing some good. That was what she told herself.

Then she wondered how so many heroes around this massive city managed to be in the right place at the right time.

Being frisked as a man had been uncomfortable enough. This was Mary’s first time being patted down as a woman, and suddenly she understood the dangers and concerns more than she’d ever thought she would be aware.

The cane and parasol were checked, presumably, for any sign of blades or ammunition. When one of the men checking them out turned again to Mary, she promised silently to herself that if they patted her down one more time then she was beating these men to a bloody pulp.

However, they only handed her back her parasol, and Walter his cane, before the two of them were guided to an outdoor table where a single man in a tailored suit was sitting and relaxing, if looking displeased with the world was by any means relaxing.

Maryann and Walter sat on the side opposite to the man without waiting for him to say anything.

“Please, be seated,” said Vanni Rivanno. “Well? I don’t mind a good lunch, but I have better things to do than find myself at anyone’s beck and call.”

“Beck and call?” Mary said. “I somehow doubt it was that easy.”

“Indeed. Someone put a stranglehold on a few of my assets, with a message attached. It said to meet here at one, sharp, or find my assets in worse stock. I do not take kindly to threats, especially not when a rival family is on the rise. They need to be quashed, along with their new muscle that’s in town. The Banker, he’s called. You might find it beneficial to go after their lot rather than pester me.”

Walter said, “No, I think we have the right person before us now. This family you wish to be dealt with is no mob family, no opposition to be dealt with. They are merely a legitimate business trying to get off the ground.”

“I have heard this tune before. My father heard it before me; he invented this ruse.”

“Let me assure you that it is no ruse. Your only competition is your shadow, and whatever wet spots you leave in the bed at night while you cozy up next to—“

Vanni pounded the table with a fist. “I do not . . . ! Do not insult me. I have had bigger men removed for less.”

“For being bigger than you, certainly.”

Mary held in a sigh as Walter continued to provoke the mob boss whose territory covered from Founder’s Creek to Steel Canyon, despite the law’s best efforts or villainy’s greatest examples of harassment. Vanni was fuming now.

Judy shot out of the computer, hoping to get her trajectory right. She hadn’t done anything like this in too long. For a brief moment, she felt fully alive.

She collided immediately with one of the three thugs, bringing as much juice as she could in that tackle. Then, the world spun, and she was too tired. She heard a gun being aimed nearby, possibly at her, but her senses wavering. She grasped at her chest.

No, the necklace was gone. Where was it?

There was shouting, and then a grunt, before one man fell. Judy focused on the world before her, focused on staying awake with deep breaths, and saw Ohm Wire strike down the third thug.

Ohm Wire ran to Judy and the other woman. “Take my hands, both of you. Let’s go.”

With the help she got from her friend, Judy sprinted awkwardly to the front door while the thugs worked to get up again. She heard a gunshot, but all three women made it out of the building. The civilian they helped ran the rest of the way into the safety of the police and another hero who had arrived. Ohm Wire guided Judy off to the side.

“Here,” Ohm Wire said, handing Judy the necklace and the phone.

Judy slipped the necklace back on. The whole world around her felt lighter. The light was less blinding or nauseating. It was like she could suddenly remember where she was, and that there was a thing called breath.

“Look out!” Ohm Wire cried out, and she grabbed Judy with enough force that they tumbled past the legs of the gorilla balloon.

There were a number of gunshots. Judy was too busy between her vertigo and trying to hang on to her necklace and phone so that they didn’t fall again, so she wasn’t sure exactly how many shots there were.

When the other hero on the scene took down the gunman, Judy looked up to find that the balloon had come loose due to the thug’s poor aim. She jumped up to catch it just to keep it from flying away; there was no telling where it would have landed otherwise.

Her slim body wasn’t enough to weigh it down. How much air did they put in this thing? She felt someone grab onto her legs. Judy looked down to find Ohm Wire. Then she heard a car screeching, or something similar that was larger.

Everyone below was running out of the way, and for good reason. An unloaded rig was swerving around the next corner. It was moving fast, and the balloon was almost on top of it.

When the smoke cleared War Lagoon found that the enormous fang was gone and that the abominations were no longer in his immediate surroundings. He turned to find the dozen of them huddled in the far side of the chamber, without any sign of glowing or movement. The dust that covered them looks more like ash, and their outfits were torn.

Back at where the fang used to be, Mortar Mage stood up coughing and dusting himself off.

“Crap,” Mortar said. “Not good, not good, not good!”

Arcane energy lit his feet again, and Mortar took off flying through an opening in the ceiling that War Lagoon was just now processing inside his head. War tried calling after his friend, but he knew it was useless.

War Lagoon took another good look at the sad state of this chamber.

“That’s just great.”

Mortar Mage flew as fast as he could. He pushed harder and harder still. He had to catch that crystal beacon before it hit someone, or something, and did irreversible damage. He wished he was right about the crystals all being lifeless earlier. He wished that this white object flying into Paragon had gone with the temple’s previous owners.

Wishing wasn’t going to get him anywhere.

He grabbed the beacon and pulled himself forward until his rear end touched down on the object. Mortar saw that the numerous skyscrapers of Talos were dangerously close. It was time to go to work bringing this thing down safely while also studying it if time allowed.

So many thoughts and ideas entered his mind. It was hard not to feel giddy like a schoolboy upon a toy horse, but now was not the time.

Oh, who was he kidding?

Doctor Wyatt Brooke stood by his patient, age eleven, who was refusing to accept the shot that needed to be administered, by order of the kid’s parents and school alike. Wyatt didn’t blame the kid. Who in the right mind liked being penetrated by a needle?
It was a simple flu shot. Wyatt had to give countless numbers of these every year around this time, and some patients were more resistant to the idea than others. This young boy crossed his arms, and refused to even be entertained by his once-favorite, now-traitorous doctor, no matter what tricks Wyatt utilized.

Wyatt had more tricks, but it was starting to look like he might have to use the one. He refused to use his power on children if he could help it.

Right then, as Wyatt was beginning another attempt at winning the boy’s heart over again, he felt Warren’s mental presence. It was moving fast, it was enjoying itself, and it was right outside the window.

A streak of pearly white, and something red and small on top, passed the corner of Wyatt’s eye. Wyatt’s patient, who was staring grumpily out the window suddenly let his mouth and arms drop.

It was now or never.

Perhaps it would be easier to make the kid think he won, and that his arm felt a little funny by sheer coincidence. Meanwhile, on the other hand, Wyatt resisted the urge to smile and shake his head at his friend who had passed by the hospital.

Judy and Ohm Wire managed to fling themselves onto the gorilla balloon’s back before it collided with the side of the passing truck. The inflated beast waved in the air for a moment and steadied. Judy thought they were in the clear to land safely on the other side until the balloon yanked backward and flipped around.
Both girls fell onto the truck while the balloon slipped away and stuck to the rear, with the faux gorilla’s front facing the vehicle and its arms in the air like it had been designed to be furious or amped up at all times.

She grimaced and looked forward. There were a hero and villain back here who had been in the middle of a fist fight when they got temporarily distracted by the balloon and the girls. Both men resumed their fighting, and the truck swerved again. The girls held on to their limited footing as it did.

Ohm Wire said, “Why aren’t we stopping?”

The supposed hero said in a German accent, “The brakes are busted, and there’s a bomb!”

“Get out?”

“Nobody’s stopping me this time,” the villain said.

Something roared in the sky above. It sounded unlike any jet, or even any alien craft, that Judy heard before in her lives. Yet it seemed to be coming closer and closer as if on a collision course with the truck.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” she said. The heroine fell forward out of instinct to get out of the way, and then the phone she carried rang. “Or that.”

Another costumed person boarded the vehicle. The older woman pointed. “Ohm Wire! Prepare to meet your doom!”

-------------
Chapter 15
-------------

Mai was in the process of gingerly tearing a corner of her ketchup packet when Tatiana sat down with a tray of food across the table from her. They were in the food court in the mall having lunch, and Tatiana had unsurprisingly grabbed enough food for two people. Mai remembered the feeling from two decades ago.

“Still no word back from her?” Mai asked.

“Nope,” said Tatiana. “Maybe she fell asleep again.”

“Possibly. If that turns out to be the case, then I guess we can skip the last place we had planned for today.”

“I suppose. Wait, the last one planned.”

“What?”

“Let’s spend the rest of our day at the spa. It’ll be great.”

“You’re kidding, right? Although, I suppose it’s been a while, and I could use a good foot massage.”

“Eh?” Tatiana was incorrigible, like everyone else was in that supergroup. Maybe that was part of why Judy spent so much time with them.

Someone turned up the speakers on the nearby television screens. Mai could see why. A truck with a giant gorilla attached to the back passed in the distance behind a reporter, whose attention was pointed in its direction a second later. Meanwhile, there was something else moving in the distance. It was large and white, but it was no cloud.

“Paragon City is at it again,” Mai said.

Finally, a text message came.

Ohm Wire and Bucht tag-teamed against the two villains they now fought on the back of the truck. She couldn’t remember which villain this was who wanted her dead, but she fought anyways.

Meanwhile, Judy sent a message to Mai and was now looking for a way to take a good look at the bomb beneath them.

The villain who had come after her was a terrible fighter, even as her limbs turned into mud that flowed around Ohm Wire. This was made worse for the villain when the mud dried instantly, because streams of water came out of it and entered the vicinity of Bucht’s control.

“Yeah,” Ohm Wire said, “smart. I don’t think fighting dirty will get you anywhere.”

Watching the villain scramble to reattach parts of herself should have been too grotesque, but Ohm Wire found herself wanting to laugh at the villain before she and Bucht switched off their opponents again.

There was a ringing sound while they fought. Ohm Wire ignored it. She hoped it wasn’t the bomb. She saw the wet spot on the other villain’s chest, and she prepared an electric punch that she aimed straight for that spot.

“Everyone shut up a second!” a girl shouted.

Ohm Wire’s fist stopped inches from that wet spot. Everyone stopped moving to look at Judy, who was answering her phone.

“Yes, Mom? Yeah, I’m taking a walk outside. No, I’m fine. Ugh, Mom . . . Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom.”

The heroes and villains eyed one another while she repeated herself a few more times.

“Shit. I’ll be right back. Call you later.” Judy hung up. “Duck!” She dropped.

A sound akin to a jet engine on drugs—at least that was the best Ohm Wire could come up with—boomed above the truck again. She could see its source this time, and Ohm Wire did as Judy suggested.

The truck moved quickly to the left.

He couldn’t hold on much longer, and Mortar could see that the beacon was on its way to colliding with something mildly ridiculous from behind. He swung his arms from side to side, hoping to get the attention of whomever was driving that truck.

“Get out of the way! Get out of the way!”

The truck was moving, but he wasn’t sure it was because of anything he did.

Mortar Mage got on his feet and tried to steady himself. This was going to be a tricky landing with or without the use of magic, and he didn’t bring any gadgets to help with this matter. The object passed some costumed figures before the front tip broke through the back of the truck’s cabin.

His attempt to grab the top edge of the truck wasn’t as successful as he had hoped. He would have called it a failure if it didn’t at least slow him down. Mortar Mage slid back onto the front end of the pearly white beacon, and then toppled over to his right and caught the bottom of the windshield with his hands, his legs struggling to stay on the object.

“Dock?” he said, recognizing the driver.

Vanni smacked the table and got up.

“I show you more kindness than you have any right to have, and this is how you repay me?” he said. “I should have you both removed for this out . . . rage . . .”

There was a sound at first, and then the unbelievable sight of something large coming straight for the pizzeria. No one sitting out here had any escape unless they were fast enough to jump into the sea behind him.

Once the object had passed overhead and crashed into the passenger side of the truck, Ohm Wire got up and rushed the villain who had come for her. She spun around with her dance training, and kicked with all the spite she’d learned as a teenager.

She sent the villain flying into a cart selling produce on the sidewalk. It might have been leafy greens, and the owner might have been screaming something. Ohm Wire couldn’t tell at this point. She had more important things on her mind at the moment.

However, another villain—one wearing a mechanical power suit—landed feet-first on the roof of the truck’s cabin.

“Ah, Mortar Mage,” said the new villain in a triumphant tone. The metallic filter in his voice was apparent from where Ohm Wire was crouching. “Remember me?”

Mortar, who was exerting himself at this point to stay on the roof of the truck, said, "No, not really." His reply resulted in a growl from the armored villain.

The first villain was fighting Bucht again, and the hero wasn’t doing too well without his element. Ohm Wire looked both ways trying to decide which villain to deal with.

Behind them all, sirens blared as police vehicles strove to keep up with the gorilla and truck both. How was that thing even staying where it was?

Suddenly, the villain in the power suit flew backward and skidded against the surface that seemingly everyone was standing on. War Lagoon touched down. He remained focused on the villain, who was getting back up.

“Some party,” War Lagoon said.

“Uh, guys?” called Mortar.

Dock shouted, “We’re going to crash!”

It was then Ohm Wire realized that they were going downhill toward a gated patio area belonging to a restaurant. She braced herself.

Mary heard the truck before she saw it. She heard someone say, “War, brake right. Now!” There was a sudden appearance of a dark tentacle on one side, and the truck swung around the corner at the last possible second to continue along the next street. It took several costumed people and a balloon with it.

“That looks fun,” Mary remarked.

A cop car crashed into the far corner up the street, and more were piling up, leaving the truck and everyone on it for the time being.

Vanni’s eye was twitching nervously at this point, no doubt caught somewhere between his ongoing anger with Walter and the brush he just had with death.

Now that he had more control over his momentum, Mortar Mage flew over the roof of the truck and landed on the other side where the fighting was going on. He helped Judy up to her feet.

“Mortar, I . . .” she began

“Never mind, never mind,” Mortar Mage said, trying to console her for whatever ordeal she was going through rather than berate her for going against a doctor's orders. “We can talk about it later.”

“There’s a bomb under here. It’s timed to go off in two minutes.”

Dock honked the truck’s horn and yelled for people to get out of the street.

“Ah,” Mortar said. Then the pearly beacon glowed. If he was right about what this thing was then that was a bad sign, made even worse if the bomb went off with it full of energy. He crouched to try taking care of the bomb.

An explosion went off then. It took Mortar Mage a second to realize that it wasn’t the truck, and another to see an additional explosion in the street. They were going off like plumes more than anything. He looked ahead.

There was a man ahead on the road. His hand rested on the pavement, his teeth were bare, and there was a sickly, yellow light drawing lines up the man’s arms.

The truck was going to run him over if the man didn’t knock it over first, or set off the bomb trying.

Ohm Wire said, “I’d ask if the whole city’s gone completely mental, but I think that’s kind of obvious.”

A third explosion came, and then a fourth.

While they didn’t have long, Mortar scanned the surroundings and saw a fire hydrant further up the road from the fool who was trying to kill them all.

“Bucht!” Mortar called. “Get ready.”

“Get ready for what?” the exhausted hero asked. The next second, one of the villains got a good hit in on him using a left hook engulfed in flames.

“Judy and Ohm Wire, take care of the villain he’s fighting.”

War Lagoon was already fighting the one in the power suit, and they were close to even when it came to combat. War was using his powers to contain the laser blasts from the suit.

Mortar Mage turned again used a concentrated fire spell to cleave the side of the fire hydrant. He hoped that Bucht could catch on quick. When the fifth and sixth explosions went off, water shot out from the hydrant.

Bucht reached over the top of the truck then, and his arms directed the flow of the water. It knocked the man off of the street with ease, and the water then arched over the truck in time for the vehicle to pass under it, safe from the massive pressure. The jet of water swung inward at precisely the right time to strike the suited villain and yank him off of the truck. Mortar’s last vision of the villain was the water pinning him down against the sidewalk before the hydrant fell out of Bucht’s range.

It was then that Mortar dropped down and used his magic to temporarily dissect the truck while the girls finished apprehending the last villain aboard the truck. He needed a better view and access to the device underneath, and the short-range portal he made was perfect for what he was trying to do.

He found the bomb. Twenty seconds remained.

At least it looked like a simple disarm. Mortar Mage reached in and worked to undo the bomb. He was two whole wires from being done with it when he heard Dock shout:

“Whoa, shit! Hold on, everyone!”

The truck swerved and turned in several directions, and the ride was only getting bumpier as the clock wound down ever closer to zero. It was do or die.

“Look,” Maryann said, “if the two of you could both sit down and stop acting like little boys who are comparing dick sizes, we all came here for good reason.”

“I have a business to run,” said Vanni, turning his gaze to Mary, but still standing.

“So I’ve noticed. Here.” She dug through her tote bag and grabbed the folder that Mary had brought with her for this occasion. Then she slapped it down against the table surface.

“What is this? Some sort of blackmail?”

“This is your son, Mr. Rivano.”

“My son? What have you done with my son?”

He flipped open the folder and examined the photographs and papers. His expression, wedged between angry and indignant, shifted with every page.

Mary asked, “Did you never even notice he was gone?”

Vanni said, “He was a big boy. He could take care of himself. My son often went on excursions and got out of trouble in the end. What is this about him being some sort of costumed hero? Where is he now?”

“Four months ago, many young men and women dropped from the sky. Until four months ago, he fought against crime wherever he went. There was such a mass influx of patients being teleported from danger into hospital care for heroes, but he didn’t make it from the outer range of the field. He was among the first to be identified, and I have been trying since I heard about his case to contact you.”

“If this is the least bit true, then this should have come to me sooner.” His voice cracked and still boiled with anger, but it was calmer now.

“Yes, it should have.” She stared at the mob boss in the eye. There were no more lies to be told here today, and no amount of intimidation that could make her step down from finally getting this truth out to the right person.

The mob boss fell in his chair. “How could it have come to this? How could anything you tell me be true?”

“Inside that folder, you will find the original copy of the letter he was working on, that was meant for you.” Every line and scribble was there. Every sign of a rough draft mixed with emotion poured from it. “It was found inside his costume when he was examined. You will also find details of his deeds. The media was never told for fear of how they would treat it. Your people were contacted time and again, but to no avail because you did not wish to be disturbed.”

“Mary,” said Walter.

“You have a business to run, I get it. But—“

“My own children should have come first,” Vanni said. “Now I have only my business, and someone wants to take that away.”

Walter said, “Mr. Rivano, no one wants to take away the services you provide. It’s not the 1920s, nor the time when your family took over. You can let a man follow his dream to be a protector of those he cares about. You don’t need to draw lines in the sand to make others show their respect.”

“No. No, I don’t suppose it works that way.” Vanni closed the folder. He stood up again and took the folder. “Thank you for bringing this to me. You don’t mind if I take this, do you?”

“It’s your copy,” said Mary.

Vanni nodded. He turned to the main building with a smile and back away from it. “This is a good place. Order whatever you like. It’s on me. I think I have a fundraiser to attend tonight. Come on, boys.” He departed from their luncheon, trembling and clearly resisting a good cry.

“Thank you, Walter. I don’t know how you arranged this, but thank you.”

Walter repositioned himself as one of the servers approached, so now he was opposite to Mary. “I listen. I saw an opportunity, and remembered that I listen.”

-------------
Chapter 16
-------------

By some miracle in disguise, Diamond Grace passed a man watching a video on his phone at full volume. She had always been annoyed by people who turned up their phones all the way for any reason; where was their sense of privacy? This time, however, she overheard the video and discovered that it was the local news. It pointed her to the center of the district she was currently in.

She could follow that, she thought. It seemed more doable than street names for a city she hadn’t lived in long enough. So she hurried in the direction she thought was right. She knew that major landmarks were where people tended to gather more often than not, and if the runaway . . . thing out there was going to draw near a crowd, it would cause a panic or worse.

There was a town square with a fountain in each of its corners, and a larger structure in the middle from which the major streets could be seen. Sure enough, there were a ton of people all around the area. They either didn’t know nor paid any mind to the thing that was coming, if the news was right.

Suddenly, screeching could be heard in the distance. Then came the honking of a loud horn. Diamond Grace saw the oddity coming. She shouted for everyone to move while she grew a suit of ice armor and lunged at the vehicle barreling their way. The next few seconds were a blur, but she remembered either hitting something, or something hitting her.

Diamond Grace fell on her ice-clad butt, and feared that what she did was not enough. However, the truck finally stopped, and not a moment too soon. Just another second, and she would have been flattened. Two or three more seconds, and so would the important looking monument in the middle of Founder’s Creek.

She breathed heavy. She steadied it by force of will.

During that time, a man on a cell phone passed by, talking aloud. “Yeah, I’m fine. Did I ever tell you about the time Pixeletta led some heroes in saving a parade from a strange new villain?” He was gone in seconds. His timing was odd, Diamond Grace thought.

Then a young woman sprang up on the back of the truck. “That was awesome! Who wants to do that again?”

Diamond Grace groaned and let her upper body drop before her ice armor shattered. There was some arguing—something about one man trying to get to safety, a bomb, and taking a few wrong turns—but it was all beyond her that moment. Life in this city was far more overwhelming than she had imagined, and her brother . . . her sister made it sound like a daily walk in the park.

A soft shadow passed over her. Diamond Grace opened an eye to find that young woman from a moment earlier. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“I will be,” Diamond Grace said.

“I’m glad. Mary will be too, both that you tried to help and that you’re safe.”

“How do you know Mary?”

“It’s a long story. Here, let me help you up.” The young woman offered a hand, and Diamond Grace accepted. “My name’s Judy.”

“Mine’s Ja . . . I mean, Diamond Grace.”

“Yes. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

Ohm Wire walked up to them then. Diamond Grace looked at the crowd by the truck, and saw Mortar Mage and War Lagoon standing with a couple other costumed men she did not recognize. Another costumed figure was being escorted away by the police.

She knew now that she was among friends, though staying here meant living in their shadow. Diamond Grace still didn’t know if it was right to try to outshine it, to make a name for herself elsewhere, or what she was going to do. Right now, none of that mattered.

Judy suddenly looked shocked. She was looking past Diamond Grace and in the general direction of the monument Diamond Grace had helped to save from the massive vehicle.

Diamond Grace looked back and found a number of people, but only one wasn’t fooling around with a phone or camera, or gabbing with the others. The same woman, who wore a cloth to cover half of her hair, took a few steps forward. The officer closest to her tried to stop the woman.

“Wait, let her through,” said Judy as she pushed past. It was enough for the officer to let the one woman through the line of people. “It’s you.”

The mysterious woman said, “Yes. Welcome back to the living.”

Devon examined the bookshelves that he had seen so many times since moving to Paragon City. He assured Vidnyanta that he had already seen everything here, but she told him there was yet one book here he did not see. Strange was how she said the book existed, but she did not know its contents.

Here they were, Devon and these so-called gods whose names he never heard before, along with a few of their countless minions, at the largest public library in the city. The sun was just past setting, and the library was otherwise empty.

That was an early time to close for a Friday.

Nervaeus dropped a book on top of the table where Vidnyanta sat. He turned away and walked off into some unknown part of the library as far as Devon was concerned. He had no idea what the man’s problem was, and he didn’t care.

“Here, Devon. Come take a look.,” Vidnyanta said. That creepy mask of hers still gave Devon the shivers.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It is a written record with entries from the late 1800s, by your recollection, and four years ago. There were more like it by the same family, but none of them relevant to your interests I don’t think, not unless you seek dealings with city politics and the activities of the Hobbs family, who were close allies to the keepers of these records.”

“You know a lot about these records.”

“I know a lot about most things. Unlike some fools who ignore certain . . . holes . . . and claim to see everything, I recognize those gaps in what I know. I do not like having the unknown beyond my grasp where it might strike and prevent me from doing what I will. No matter. This book is one that interests us both. Once you know its contents, I shall learn of them myself.”

“Pardon my saying so, but it strikes me as odd that you would have the others here with us. I also thought you wanted me to stay at that temple.”

“The temple was doomed to be compromised. I foresaw it. It will have been trashed by now, its purpose fulfilled. I can only hope the minions left behind did their job against the one I have trouble seeing. He escapes my sight, just as the future does mere days from now.”

“Days from now?”

“Don’t you worry about that. You have a book to read by two writers over multiple periods. Let the world outside burn on its own for tonight. It won’t matter when the time comes. The flames now are a mere hearth to the inferno we bring.”

“So you keep telling me. Very well.”

He took the book and found a comfortable place to read. It was going to be a long night.

Judy was glad that Warren and Jeff weren’t too hard on her or Kyra for her going out, or for using the necklace behind everyone’s back, but she should have seen it coming when her mom and Tatiana practically squeezed the life out of her with a single hug. That was probably when she received the most endearing berating in the history of the universe from both of the older women.

That was it, everybody, go home; or so it seemed without their new guest.

The afternoon was getting on, and the Dallevan League, plus Judy’s mom and Jackie, sat around the lounge facing the woman who sat in a comfortable chair with a cup of tea.

Her name was Halah. “Everyone is finally here,” she said. “It has been a long time since I’ve seen most of you in the flesh.”

Walter said, “Six years, and there were seven of us then.”

“You hadn’t met your eighth yet.” She nodded to Kyra. “Two of you are important as well, but not of the eight I saw that day. Eight of you cast shadows leading from before we met until next Monday morning. I saw these shadows since my awakening.”

Everyone was as quiet as Judy was apprehensive all of a sudden. What was supposed to happen Monday morning?

“I don’t know what happens. I doubt anyone does. It’s like a gleam of light beneath a black door in a dark, rainy night. Tell me, Judy, do you remember what I said to you during the mass invasion those years ago?”

Judy said, “You had told me something about choices we all had to make.”

“You all did then, and everyone does now. The eight of you will impact what we see beyond that door, if we are lucky enough to see it at all. It frightens me more than anything.”

“You knew my baby girl was going to die,” said Judy’s mom.

“I did not know for sure. As I said, there were choices. She made hers, and I cried when I heard that she paid the price for it. I cried for her soul and her loss, and again for what it could have meant for the few days ahead. There were gaps then, and discord, before I saw her shadow again, but it was always there. I could hardly understand it, but it was meant to continue for these few days before everyone’s shadow suddenly stopped. She’s not the only one.”

Halah looked in Warren’s direction. “Yours torments me most of all. It weaves in and out of time as we know it. When I look at your shadow I cannot see you as I can anyone else. Yet, here you are before us.”

War Lagoon said, “This talk of shadows is unnerving, even for me.”

“The unknown does that. It’s why our kindred were feared and despised like the other two.”

“Other two?”

“The Demon Thorn, and a group of banished gods you’ve only begun to meet.”

Warren said, “The Circle and the Vanquishiri Bahitians, you mean?

“The same,” Halah said. “You know their name?”

“I know they shouldn’t be here. But, what’s this about a kindred?”

“You mean Jeff never told you? The source of his power is the same as mine. Our powers hail from the Sillinisu, or ‘Shadow Kin.’”

Most of everyone was staring at Jeff now. Jackie was staring blankly into whatever was in front of her, and Judy reached out to comfort her. This was all far beyond anything Jackie thought she was ready for, Judy imagined as she caught a glimpse of the woman's expression. It was a lot for her as well.

Walter, Judy noticed, didn’t look the least bit surprised at the revelation about Jeff’s powers. Intrigued, perhaps, but not surprised.

Jeff said, “I swore to help people with it. It was a promise they were happy to hold me to. It’s not like I can just go around saying I do this for an entity locked away by the people they’d sworn to protect ages ago.”

Halah said, “It was they who advised that I come to this country and watch over the forces of good and evil, and help those whose shadows were shorter than the rest, to give them comfort or direction where they might best know peace. When I saw your shadows, bound to converge by this time, I had to see for myself. All shadows fade and run out, but the eight of you, and all you care for, will mean the difference between life and oblivion.”

Kyra said, "You mentioned seeing our shadows upon your awakening. What did you mean by that?"

"A few months after Jeff and his friend left for home, I was given my abilities by the same people who bestowed Jeff with his own powers. I saw so much that I needed time to fully awaken to them and walk among mankind again. Your eight shadows were among the first that I saw. Your eight shadows were so strong, so right, so ready to change the world. Our kin charged me with my mission for when I was ready, but I slipped away too soon. For months still I must have seemed like I was out of my mind from substance abuse or worse. I still had to come. I still had to come and meet you all."

"What can we do to save the world?"

"I do not know. The door I alluded to is closed, and I know not the outcome. I know only that you have choices before you great and terrible. These are the choices that will decide if the universe remains to see another Monday or beyond."

Warren, who stood up straight, said, "The universe will exist. It has to. I have seen into the end of everything."

"Have you the sight? Have you seen beyond next week?"

"Neither of those. There was a war beyond mortal eyes, and yet it affected this world. I was among the gods in their realm when I saw it. It's shape folded and renewed to something else in moments, I thought. What I saw was reality shifting, my own eyes and mind bending to comprehend it as time and matter ceased around a single point. You say our choices will decide the outcome in a few days, but every choice made is a million bends or more around oblivion. If this door opens, as you say, and this point is behind it, then this conversation neither mattered nor happened. The universe won't just end. It simply will not be. So, you see, there's no way what you say can be right, Vanquishiri Bahitians or otherwise be damned."

"Then this is a fate that we must all avoid. Make your choices, the best ones you can. Make the best choices you can so that any of this will matter."

When Halah had left, Mary took her sister with her to another room to comfort her from a state of trauma. The talk of demons, multiple gods, benevolent beings of shadow, and a potential apocalypse must have caused her to shut down. Kyra could only guess.

Warren was examining a shard of the pearly white crystal in the garage, which had been enchanted several times to safeguard against explosions.

Everyone else was sitting around the main living room like a social circle, but they were silent. Judy looked to be dozing off in her mother’s arms.

Knowing Walter, he was planning everything in his head as to what to do next, with or without any pieces of a puzzle offered by whatever Warren discovered. Kyra wanted to offer something, anything, but ideas weren’t her strong suit. Sarcasm, yes, but not ideas.

Silence was broken abruptly when the emergency radio received a broadcast meant for all heroes. There was a major disturbance at The Asylum, a high security facility for the most dangerous metahumans.

Those who heard it groaned. As if it wasn’t already a long day.

Wyatt got up. When Tatiana grabbed his arm, he said, “I don’t know about you guys, but I can do with a little kicking butt. It’s OK, love, I promise to stay safe and only provide my healing. I’ll be home when I’m done.”

“I know,” said Tatiana, “but still. Be safe.”

He kissed her, once on the lips and again on the forehead, patted her belly softly with one hand, and left the room to change into his hero costume.

As tired as Kyra was, she was considering whether or not to go with him. While she thought about it, Kyra went upstairs and followed the sounds of a woman sobbing. She turned into a guest room, and saw Jackie crying into Mary’s shoulder, as well as Mary rocking her. No, this was where Kyra needed to be tonight.

She sat on the bed and leaned her head on Jackie.

-------------
Chapter 17
-------------

The sun had barely risen when Mortar Mage left the mansion. Mary followed from a distance. She had been curious about that man for some time, and her gut told her that he went somewhere that Mary had never known before.

If it was home, and she saw nothing suspicious, then of course she would turn back and go somewhere else.

However, she soon found herself in Siren’s Gauntlet, and suddenly doubted that Mortar was heading home, least of all in his hero costume. Mary followed him to a building wedged in the corner of the district. The building was unmarked save for its address. It wasn’t built like any residence, as were most of the poorly maintained structures in this district.

She didn’t normally care about Mortar Mage’s personal affairs, but Mary had reason to get involved now. Everything Mortar had said lately about a war, what Halah had said about Mortar’s shadow, made Mary think there was something important that the man was still hiding.

Once Mortar had entered the building, Mary waited a moment before walking up to it and knocking on the door.

“I don’t want any cookies, thank you!” came his voice from within.

Mary said, “That’s not until February, Mortar. It’s me.”

Seconds passed, and the door opened with banging sound. Mortar Mage looked at Mary with a curious look on his face. Then he stepped aside and let her in. The interior was that of a laboratory with low lighting in most places, from what she could tell at the entrance.

“Welcome, I guess,” Mortar Mage said while walking deeper inside. “You’re now the third person who knows I come here.”

“This isn’t where your magazine is printed, then?” Mary said. She entered the next room, and the one after that, while taking in the sights.

“Not even a data printer for a calculator from the 70s.”

“There’s some high tech stuff here, though.”

She stopped in a room with computer consoles that made up a circular pattern in the middle, and tubes decorated the walls at even intervals. Mary looked inside the tubes and found people with similar, familiar features sleeping without any sign of motion. The tubes all had signs at the top with serial numbers and the word “Model” on them.

One tube had a woman in it. Mary recognized her, and the others, before seeing the sign above her where the number had been crossed out and a name was written in its stead.

“Toyenna,” said Mary. “These are all androids.”

“They’re more than that,” Mortar said as he was setting something up by one of the consoles.

“What is this?”

“It’s a terribly long story. To make that story as short as possible, they were built to terrorize everyone, regardless of what dimensional realm we live in, but something happened with one of them. The others eventually learned of her and aimed to destroy her if she could not be fixed. She agreed to a plan—the only one we had—to use their combined power to create a seal. She baited them to this place, and now they stand between us and something that would make The Event look like a cute puppy trying to bite at you playfully.”

“Something?”

“The literal end of the universe, out of phase with our own time.”

“That sounds like it could be important.”

“You might be right. This is the biggest project I’ve been working on for the last four years. I’ve been maintaining the equipment and trying to upgrade some of it as safely as possible. If they awaken or if any one thing goes wrong, we’d be worse than dead; we’d be nothing without past, future, or meaning. However, I’ve been running calculations and upgrades in hopes that I can at least awaken Tawnya without disturbing the balance.”

“Warren.”

“But enough about me, or her. How is your sister doing?”

“She’s sleeping finally. Jackie needs time to adjust.”

“And what about you?”

“I’m OK, I guess.”

“Liar.”

“You do know I can kick your butt.” Mary looked at him plainly, and Mortar only laughed. “I’ve been having nightmares lately, and feelings.”

“Oh? What kind of nightmares?”

“I’ve been dreaming that my succubus self has been coming back. It scares me, Mortar. I’ve been getting closer and closer to losing myself to feelings that I can’t even deal with. I feel like, at any moment, I might harm or kill again because I can’t control it for long.”

Mortar beckoned with his fingers, and pointed to a circle on the ground. Mary walked into it warily, and saw Mortar walk to another computer. Seconds later, a nervous Mary heard some clicking and beeping.

Then her feet lifted off the ground, and a column of light engulfed her floating body.

A projection appeared between Mary and Mortar Mage, which showed a female body. A bar of static ran down the projection, and it changed to reflect various systems.

“As you can see,” said Mortar, “you’re quite human, albeit one mutated to a point that allows you to compensate for ice powers, super strength, and accelerated reflexes. I may not be a doctor of medicine, but I see nothing wrong with you. You’re a perfectly healthy young woman.”

“What about my feelings? My urges?”

“What part of ‘perfectly healthy’ did you miss? It’s normal to have feelings, though mileage may vary from person to person. There’s no shame in having them. Maybe you should communicate this with Kyra?”

She felt excessively warm in the cheeks. “It’s more than just Kyra. There’s someone I’ve been trying not to do anything with.”

“Is it because you’re afraid you’ll lose Kyra?”

“No. Yes. Damn it, Mortar, it’s everything I’ve yet to truly understand. Why did my life have to get so complicated since becoming a woman?”

“I think it was destined to become complicated since the day you were born, my friend.” He pressed some keys, and Mary was let back down on the ground.

“You’re a help.”

“Remember, Mary, when you became a human woman after our conflict with the demons a few months ago, I referred you to a couple people who specialized in transformative magic in case you wanted to change back into a man. I guess my question is: why haven’t you if you hate it?”

“I don’t hate it. This might sound weird, but, urges aside, I actually like it.”

“That’s not so weird. We have another transgender among us, in case you forgot. Everyone discovers themselves at different points in life. I won’t judge either of you, no matter what your sexual preferences, or what sex you choose to be. Don’t think of your urges as a curse. That’s just your hormones, and your body, telling you what it wants. Choose responsibly what you do with those feelings, is all, because ignoring them isn’t healthy at all.”

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but Mary wasn’t sure what she wanted. She thanked Mortar, wished him luck, and made her way to the door.

“Mary,” said Mortar Mage, “you’re one of three people who know about this place. I would appreciate it if you didn’t spread word about it.”

“Not a problem.”

Despite being dead for five years, last night was the best sleep Judy had had in recent memory. She walked into one room wiping her eyes clear of some leftover grogginess, and sat down on the sofa facing a television.

Judy made sure to call her mom once she woke up, because her mom promised to bring breakfast from somewhere, probably UHOW. Waffles were always good.

Her necklace sat in another room, placed in a jar that Warren had told her, yesterday, could charge magical artifact items over time. He suspected that the necklace would need it, and Judy was now reluctant to part from it. She only wished Warren had specified how long she would need to leave the necklace in there. So she guessed that it might need an hour, or to check on it then.

Now, there was only time to kill before her mom came.

She turned on the TV after finding the remote. Judy flipped through Saturday morning cartoons and various forms of paid programming until she hit the news. One station was reporting on two attacks that had happened last night. She listened for any details in case they had something to do with what Halah had said, but nothing did unless she counted four assassins whose powers vaguely resembled the four horsemen.

Two of the news stations showed reporters standing outside of the main city library. It was supposed to be opened, but a group of people slipped in late last night, did away with the staff and last few visitors for the evening, and stayed the whole night for purposes unknown. This group was refusing to let anyone enter.

Suddenly, the front door opened to the library, and cameras zoomed in on the group leaving the building. They were led by a woman in Egyptian garments and a mask that resembled a spider to hide all but her mouth. Five others exited with her, but only three had faces that could be seen by anyone.

This looked important, and Judy clicked the button for the digital video recorder to start recording. That was a split second before it hit her that the two other figures were wearing tiki masks.

The woman with the spider mask put up her hands like some sort of accepting ruler to her subjects. She spoke out, and her voice reached the reporters’ microphones from yards away. There was something familiar about her as she did so.

“Mortals of Paragon, and of Earth, you are blessed for the time is soon upon you. All that separated you from us and an eternity of discord and endless death was the truth of a single event, but in just days you will not have such a reprieve.”

“What?” Judy asked. However it had been in reaction to the faces she had seen. She recognized the woman in the mask at once, but there was another. The face she’d seen was mostly hidden by everyone else on either TV station, but there was the one glimpse. She got up and moved closer to the screen, switching stations rapidly in case she saw that face again. She needed to be sure.

“Have you foolish cattle forgotten so easily the truth?” The woman on the screen asked. “We have seen a glimpse of this truth, a truth so many of you have deemed inconvenient and unworthy of remembering, and the rest of it eludes us even now. There is someone out there who knows the rest, and yet he says nothing. Will this person step forward?”

Judy said, “No. No, come on. Show me your damn face. It can’t be you, so show me.”

“Some of you will think to laugh or jeer. A few of you will try to stop us. Worry not, for it will be over for you in two days’ time. In the end, you will all be the same – basking in all the pain and horror we shall bestow upon you. I have seen it, and it is glorious.”

“Come on!”

“What’s the shouting?” asked a voice behind Judy. It was Jackie, but Judy continued to focus on the two channels.

Finally, the face she thought she had seen shifted back into view as the group walked forward. Judy paused on his face. Those gaunt features. That expression void of everything but pride.

She felt the world around her crush her every fiber, body and soul. Someone shouted out after her, but it was drowned out. Everything was.

-------------
Chapter 18
-------------

Walter found Jeff directing some construction work. He waited for the opportunity to arise to approach his friend. Years ago, when they had met, trying anything of the sort was deemed suicidal, and a good way to end up cleaning toilets and floor tiles alike with only a toothbrush. Oddest of all, those were simpler times, Walter recalled.

“I haven’t seen you around Striga Island all that often,” said Jeff.

“Oh yes,” Walter said, “I’ve been meaning to see this place for some time. You don’t mind me being here, do you?”

“Not at all, as long as you stand back and wear a helmet.”

“Good, good. Does anyone in your company know what you can do?”

“Some do. They’re grateful enough for the lifesaving to keep my secret, even though I never really asked for it.”

“That’s always good to hear. It’s almost as good as the truth, for those ready to hear it.”

Jeff called out to his crew that it was break time for those who needed a few minutes. He oversaw the tools being set aside safely, and then he walked with Walter.

“That’s some timing on my part,” Walter said.

“Uh-huh.” Jeff’s tone was easy for him to read. If Walter had told him that coming here when he did was an accident, Jeff would have called him out on it, with or without words depending on his mood.

“I think the last time I was in this area was before I left. It appears that this whole island is doing better since you’ve come here.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t alone. There are plenty of good men and women here keeping the peace now that they know they stand a chance.”

“Does the local family still give you trouble?”

“Always, but we can manage. What’s with the social call, Walter?”

“Oh, just that, just that. I’d hate to see you become distant because everyone in the League is just now learning about where your powers come from, but most of all you’re my best friend since our military days.”

“Friends tell each other when we’re going to disappear for a few years.”

“That one’s on me. I dropped contact from everyone out of shame for all that happened the moment I left, and I thought sticking to my guns was the best course of action. I don’t think there was a right in that, but I made it worse.”

“Walter, stop. It’s all behind us now. Like you said, we’ve been friends since our military days. You covered for me when I first showed signs of having powers. If you hadn’t suggested we come home and try new lives as both civilians and superheroes, I might have been shunned, used as a weapon, or worse. Instead, we’re here.”

Walter’s phone went off. Judging by the raised brow his friend was giving him, it was time to change the ring tone. What a shame, he liked this song.

“Hello?” he answered.

“Hi, Walter?” said a young woman.

“Speaking.”

“Oh good. I don’t know who else to call. It’s Judy. Something’s happened to her.”

“What’s happened to her? Wait. Jeff, can your shadow portals take me back to the mainland in a hurry?”

Mortar Mage walked through the convention center at a gathering for scientific theorists and promising inventors. These sorts of things often amused him, but he wasn’t here for the show. He was looking for someone.

These conventions sometimes had booths belonging to the most harmless mad scientists to have ever scienced in the name of science. As such, they also drew in crowds of people looking to do grunt work for scientists who could pay them for experiment-related labor.

He passed wild theories about the recent boost in birth rates, a model of a device that boiled the filthiest water and caught the vapor, and more before he found the man he sought facing away from him.

Once he was within earshot, Mortar said, “Tunnel Hound.”

The low-ranking villain turned, and said, “I should have expected you to be coming along sooner or later.”

“You’ve been making yourself a hard man to find.”

“A man’s got to look out for himself. Some crazy chick’s out to get us less-than-stellar mutants if we get too close to Paragon.”

“Yet, here you are.”

“A man’s also got to find work. You got something for me?”

Mortar nodded. He pulled out some cash and a note folded together with a clip, and he handed it to Tunnel Hound. The man separated the note from the money, and held up the latter.

“Call it an advance bonus,” Mortar said. “There’s more waiting if you finish this project no later than tomorrow night. Easy money, I figure.” As the villain reviewed the note and nodded, Mortar added, “I would also appreciate it if you kept your job quiet.”

“Is this cleared with the city council or whoever?” Tunnel Hound asked.

“It will be, if everything’s followed to a ‘T.’”

Tunnel Hound examined Mortar for a time. Then he showed his toothy smirk. “Awight.”

Not long after that, they parted ways, and Mortar casually looked at the many displays on the floor before leaving himself. The few months of searching for someone to carry out his plan had come to an end.

Wyatt pounded open the bedroom door, the sound of Walter’s footsteps trailing from the stairs. He found Judy on the bed with her eyes closed, her body twitching, and words coming out of her mouth that he didn’t understand if they weren’t in mumbles.

“Good, you’re here,” said Jackie, who was in the room. It looked like she was patting Judy’s head with a cool, damp cloth. “I didn’t know what else to do. She was just watching the television, and then she convulsed and passed out. I had never seen lights flicker like that.”

He rushed to Judy’s side. Something was missing. “She was wearing a necklace yesterday. Kyra and Warren both said something about it when talking about her. Where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Walter, who had just gotten to the door, let out a grunt and fled back to somewhere else in the mansion.

Wyatt took this chance to examine her vitals.

“Oh, her heart rate was twenty b-p-m when I checked it after calling you both,” Jackie said. Wyatt glanced her way briefly, but returned to his patient to confirm it.

“Good work, and thanks for letting us know what happened. Did you contact her mother?”

“I found her cell number and called it, but she must have left it here by accident.”

Seconds later, Walter ran in joined on the other side of the bed with the necklace in his hand. “Here, help me get this over her head, like this . . . thank you. I found it in one of Warren’s charging jars.”

The mumbling stopped. Wyatt raised his hand to silence everyone for a moment.

Then, Judy’s eyes shot open, and she sat up. She said something else, louder and more clearly, but also in another language. She collapsed on the bed with eyes closed. Judy was breathing next to normally again.

“Dear, oh dear,” said Walter. “I had no idea she spoke Rhakian.”

“Rhakian?” Jackie asked.

“One of the alien races always sending dignitaries and invaders our way.”

“She’s an alien?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“Judy was speaking another language when I came in here,” said Wyatt.

“Japanese, probably. I heard a bit of it while we were getting her necklace on.”

“I can hear what you’re all saying, you know,” groaned Judy. She shivered.

A portal blasted open outside the door. Mortar Mage stormed in, and wasted no time getting to the bed.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Warren,” Judy said, “don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I feel like death, but I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

Walter said, “She didn’t have her necklace on. She was catatonic and mumbling about something. She started to get better when we got the necklace back on her.”

“Good thinking. Still, what happened? Even if the necklace was off, Judy, you had to have experienced something traumatic to have declined in health, for a lack of a better word. For that matter, why did you have it off?”

Judy said, “I thought it was low on its charge when I woke up this morning. Normally, I can feel something from it. It’s peaceful, and touching my being gently. I woke up feeling much better than I have been, but that feeling from the necklace was weak.”

“You probably absorbed a majority of it while your mind and body went through your sleep cycles. If you hadn’t, I hate to think what would have happened to you.”

“I left the necklace in the jar, and went to watch TV while I waited for my mom to get here with breakfast.”

“In the future, Judy, you only need to wait five minutes for the necklace to fully charge.”

“Oh.”

In the main entry of the house, Mai walked in. “Hello?”

“We’re up here, Mom!”

“Sorry I took so long. I had to take half a dozen detours, and someone tried to rob the UHOW I went to. It’s crazy some of the places these burglars try to rob.” She joined everyone, who were all waiting silently. “What’s going on?”

“I fainted again. Don’t worry about it.”

“You know, I had a little surprise for you, but if you’re going to lie to me I might just chuck it.”

“Oh, Mom.”

“Out with it.”

“OK. While this necklace was charging, I watched the news. I saw something that looked important, and recorded it.”

“Good girl,” everyone but Jackie interjected.

“Those people who came out of the Library, it’s them. They’re the ones behind this. The one in the spider mask has my body. I’m sure it’s her. And that’s not all.”

Everyone stared at her, waiting for her to finish.

“You all might want to sit down for this.”

They looked around at one another. Walter said, “We’ll take our chances.”

“Well, OK. How do I put this? They’re a group. One of the men standing next to me, her . . . ugh, the one with my body! The one of them was hiding from view on both channels, but I saw his face. It was him, I know it. You must think I’m mad. He couldn’t have been there.”

“Who was it?” Jackie asked, when no one else would.

“Harvey Stone.”

Mai dropped the bag of food in her hand.

-------------
Chapter 19
-------------

Mary and Kyra didn’t have a dining room table. They barely had any sitting furniture. When it came to dining of any sort, they had eating-ware that could be flung off the bed at a moment’s notice. They had made plans to buy more at some point, but it wasn’t a priority for the two of them.

Today, they enjoyed breakfast in bed. The dirty dishes were on a tray at the foot end of the mattress. The only clothes Mary and Kyra had on was their underwear.

A rarity in these parts.

Mary grabbed Kyra’s sexy waist and kissed her on the lips. “Breakfast was delicious, honey.”

“Thank you, love,” said Kyra.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to make the dinner you had planned last night.”

“If only there were some cool storage device for food and ingredients so we can make something another night. We’ll be fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Who’s worried?”

Her phone went off in the other room. Mary could have kicked herself if her legs weren’t presently tangled with Kyra’s equally smooth legs.

From the sound of it, Mary’s phone was receiving a text message. It could have been any number of people at this point. Maybe it was the school telling her something she needed to know for Monday, if there was going to be a Monday. Perhaps it was the supervillain-run, fake health insurance company that called random people expecting money they didn’t actually owe; someone needed to track and shut them down already.

She kissed her girlfriend on the lips, and again on top of one of her boobs, before slipping out of bed begrudgingly. Mary took the tray of dishes with her to the kitchen, where her phone sat on the counter.

The message read: “Emergency League meeting 2p.”

It was 1:35. Real smooth, Walter.

Judy couldn’t remember the last time she had had a chocolate-covered banana. Having one in her mouth right now was just beyond words. She might have done the embarrassing thing and moaned about it in front of everyone in the room, but too bad.

“Is there something special in those things?” asked Jackie.

Meanwhile, Tatiana snickered in her seat. Taking the laughter as a challenge, albeit a playful one, Judy aimed for the empty soda can next to Tatiana, and shot a thin bolt of electricity at it. The can went flying.

Tatiana whipped her head between where the can landed, where it had been previously, and at Judy a couple times.

“Nice shot,” said Jackie.

“Yeah,” Tatiana said, “but try not to push yourself too hard there, Judy.”

She could have said so many things there. Judy elected to stick her tongue out, and continue eating the treat that her mom had left her. Sure, Tatiana and everyone else was right to worry about her, especially after what had happened this morning, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t show how much better she was feeling already.

While Judy enjoyed her chocolate-covered banana, she wondered when the meeting was going to start. She could hear Mary and Kyra coming up the walkway to the front porch. The only person not accounted for that moment—aside from her mother, who had to take care of some things—was Warren.

He had said that he needed to check on a few things around the house. Often times, when Warren said that, he ventured into a room that Judy had never seen, even when a part of her was inside of the computer overseeing the League’s base. For that matter, she’d never seen a third of the mansion until she came back to the world of the living.

Yet, there was the one room. It was warded against portals and teleportation. It was out of sight of any camera in the house, and out of range of any microphone. The only reason Judy hadn’t gone in there yet was because she respected Warren enough not to venture in there without his knowledge. It crossed her mind that, if no one saw Warren in the next five minutes, she might have to go looking for him and start there.

Three sets of footsteps drew near. Two of those sets came from the League’s queens of sarcasm, walking hand-in-hand. Behind Mary and Kyra was a man they were teasing on the way inside the room.

Mary said, “Hey, guys, look who we found on the driveway.”

Everyone who at least knew who he was said their hellos to Peter. Peter waved.

“Who’s he?” Jackie whispered to Judy.

Judy said, “He owns this house.”

“Oh.”

Peter looked over at both of them and smiled. “Hello, young ladies. I don’t think we’ve met.”

He took a hand each from Jackie and Judy, and kissed them. Judy felt charmed by his behavior, but she couldn’t help but notice something was odd about his hands.

“Careful, Peter,” said Mary. “The one on your left is my sister.”

Kyra chimed in, “And the one on your right might still count as necrophilia.”

“Kyra.”

Peter pulled away without any sign of fear or disgust. “It looks like you’ve got a big gathering here today. Where’s Warren? Oh, never mind, I think I know where he is.”

“I’m right here,” said Mortar Mage, coming up the steps from the cellar. He didn’t wear his costume around the house very often, let alone with the fancier work gloves he only put on when he meant business. “I wasn’t expecting you back in town today.”

“Big news. SAM hit a million subscribers in the US today.”

“That’s great news. You could have told me this over the phone or by email.”

“When do you listen to news about our circulation when I contact you that way? Besides, I came back to Paragon because I wanted to celebrate. What do you and your friends say to going out, tomorrow night?”

There was a short, tense silence about the room before Wyatt said, “Um, well . . .”

“That serious, huh?”

The hologram played back both news stations’ points of view during the appearance of the Vanquishiri. The woman in the anthropomorphic spider mask finished her speech, and the group walked forward, except for the two lumbering figures in shiny, black, skintight outfits and tiki masks. It was hard to call what they did walking.

A pair of heroes entered the scene as the cameras zoomed out. At least one of them was new and unknown to Walter’s memory.

In a split second, one of the Vanquishiri zipped across the screen and punched one of the heroes. The hero flew back. The two figures in the tiki masks attacked the other hero. The hero struggled to fend them off while the muscular man went after the one he hit. Seconds later the hero still on the screen panicked and fled.

Everyone saw why the next second as the muscular man dragged the other one back into view. With a malicious grin pointed at both cameras, he tugged and dislocated the squirming hero’s arm. Then he threw the hero to the ground, and stomped on his back.

The transmission feed cut off from both networks as soon as the man’s foot sank into the hero’s back. The projection changed into four portraits as best taken from those news feeds.

Mortar Mage indicated from the top left. “Devon Tartakovsky. He is a historian and archaeologist whose credibility in both fields plummeted as of late when he started to research the war that happened four years ago. He was last seen alive a few days ago.
“Here, we have a man named Vincent Desrochers, with the villain moniker Black Rift. With a power to turn almost any fluid into coffee, you’d think he would have had it made, but he chose to keep his power secret until a trail of caffeinated corpses led to his home in Oregon. He was beheaded by another villain with a laser sword.”

He moved his pointer to the woman on the bottom left, and looked over in Judy’s direction with a sad set of eyes. Walter could see her take a deep breath, close her eyes briefly, and nod back to Mortar.

“This woman in the mask,” Mortar said, “if what we’re led to believe is correct, is Judy Tanimoto. She was a hero, named Pixeletta, right here in Paragon City until the age of fifteen when her life was taken from her. Her powers included electrokinesis and the ability to enter computer systems from up to thirty feet away.”

“Whoa, wait a minute,” said Peter. He was looking from the secondary image of Judy and the Judy sitting on one side of the room. “How could she be dead? You mean to tell me she was that woman in the creepy mask?”

“It’s complicated. She should be resting in peace, if not alive and clear of this situation, but now there are two people who look like an older version of her. The one using her body is here on the screen, and the one sitting here with us is the real Judy made recorporial.”

“That’s insane.” Even saying that, Peter kept his calm as if trying to register this all in his mind rather than lash out over something being difficult.

“I know.”

“How? Pardon my asking, but how did she die?”

Judy said, “I wish I knew.”

“What?”

“I don’t remember the last day of my life. Nobody’s told me, and it’s not in the system. I feel like I should know it, but it’s like a burnt page from a book. That page is missing, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see what was on it.”

“Probably for the best,” Mortar Mage said. “You might not be ready to know yet. The mere trauma of knowing could destroy you.”

“You don’t know for sure!”

“I don’t want to take that chance. I lost you once; we all did.”

“Fine.” Judy crossed her arms.

Walter said, “Why don’t we move on? We have one more person to go over.”

“Right,” Mortar Mage said. “The last one is Harvey Stone. No alias. It was believed that he was related to the leader of the Arachne Regime. His power was that of compulsion. It was easy for him to hide it except for when we saw his wake. People lined up to die or perform egregious acts because he spoke to them. The higher-ups of the Arachne Regime either feared or loathed him, save for the one on top, and he worked for their organization until the day he died, more than five years ago.”

Mary sighed and groaned. Curious; it was as if she had expected to see the man’s face, though she had clearly not wanted to.

Jackie said, “I heard of that awful man.”

“You have?” said Mortar Mage.

She nodded. “How did he die?”

“I killed him,” said Judy. “I thought I saw my best friend die, and I burned him to a crisp.” There was no sadness in her voice. No trembling. All there was, was anger and calm.

“I thought heroes don’t kill people?”

“We try. I’m not sure I ever got over it, until now. Now we need to know why we’re all back to life, if you can call it that. We need to stop them before they do any more harm. Sitting here, I thought I would kill him again and again if I have to, until he stops coming back.”

“Judy!” said Tatiana.

“I won’t. It’s not going to fix things, or make me feel any better, if I hunt him down myself.”

Kyra said, “That’s probably for the best. I already fought him once. He’s strong; not as strong as the big guy, I’m sure, but still powerful. He can multiply into multiple bodies as well.”

As she explained this, Walter imagined everyone was piecing it together as he had that she was referring to the night that Judy’s body had been taken from her grave. That, in addition to the masked woman’s words and the strength shown by the muscular man, indicated that the Vanquishiri Bahitians came with their own powers.

Somewhere out there, this villainous group was either wreaking havoc in an unknown corner of the world, they were planning something, or they were waiting for the time to strike. But, why wait? They showed that they were powerful enough to strike now, but Walter’s contacts told him that the group left after the feed ended.

Jeff said, “Now what? We do have a plan, right?”

There was a ring at the doorbell. Walter noticed the curious, stunned look on Wyatt’s face as the resident psychic faced the door. Walter got up, volunteering to answer the bell. He opened the door, his friends and allies ready at a safe distance to attack if the need arose, because they couldn’t see who was behind it otherwise. There slouched a woman with red hair, blood and bruises, and a costume that had seen better days.

“Not the house I wanted.” She collapsed in the doorway.

-------------
Chapter 20
-------------

“Isn’t that—?”

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t we call—?”

“No.”

Jeff stood in the kitchen with Mary and Kyra while the new guest was taken upstairs and treated by Wyatt. Mortar Mage and Walter were up there with them in case she woke up during Wyatt’s treatment. Jackie walked in, in full costume.

Diamond Grace was unhappy with everyone else’s decision not to call the cops, but they assured her that their new guest was far less of a villain than the media and the law enforcement made her out to be.

“Walter told me to tell everyone to suit up,” Diamond Grace said.

“I figured he might,” Jeff said. “Did that include Tatiana?”

The young heroine only nodded slowly. Kyra and Mary had wandered off, probably to change into their costumes. This would only leave Peter, who wasn’t known to ever have a costume because he didn’t involve himself in these matters, and Judy, who hadn’t worn or even been sized for a costume in half a decade.

Tatiana teleported into the kitchen with an altered version of her costume that she’d once said she wanted to try out. That was before her decision to give being a heroine a break, on account that she didn’t want her unborn baby to break her back when Princess Undercut was able to deflect bullets with ease.

“This thing doesn’t feel like it fits right,” she said.

“It doesn’t look so bad,” said Jeff.

“Right. You try thinking that when carrying another human inside of you, and enough hormones for a bus full of hot chicas.”

“You look pretty, and the costume looks like it fits you nicely,” he insisted. Meanwhile, he was thinking something along the lines of, “Please don’t kill me.”

“I can’t wait until I can go around in my regular costume and start kicking some ass again. When my kid’s old enough for it, I’m grounding them for every small thing just to get back at them. With my luck, he or she will do the same with their kids after I’m old and gray.”

“Suddenly, a lot of kids’ woes growing up have been explained.”

“I’d ask about your costume, but that’s pretty obvious, huh?”

Jeff took a step back and drew in all of the shadows around him. Splotches of black circled around him from his feet upward. The shadows returned to normal, and War Lagoon’s costume replaced his work clothes from earlier in the day.

The look on Tatiana’s face seemed to call him a showoff, but he didn’t see Adamast Cross walking in.

Adamast said, “I imagine that has some effect on your laundry.”

“Nope,” War Lagoon said.

Footsteps hurried down the stairs closest to the kitchen, and War heard one set of steps head off into the downstairs observation room. Walter popped his head into the kitchen the next moment. Without a word, he moved his head to indicate for everyone to follow.

The Dallevan League gathered by Mortar, who was tinkering with three smaller computers. Mortar said, “That one there, this from here, and oh gods damn it. Here, though . . .”

War Lagoon asked, “How’s our guest?”

“Sleeping and recovering,” Psi Wizard said. “We left her a letter for when she wakes up. ‘One, you are safe and among allies. Two, you are not a prisoner. Three, please read on, because it’s complicated.’ And four through a hundred or so sums up everything that’s relevant and has happened so far while including a guess as to what happened to her. She can prove us wrong when she’s ready to do so.”

“That sounds reasonable, assuming she bothers reading the letter and doesn’t storm out of here the second that one eye cracks open.”

Mortar Mage said, “OK, I’m ready. Here we go.” Some holographic projections appeared above the computers. They showed maps of the city. “This one, as some of you remember, is from The Event when Maryann and Ohm Wire shared parts of a succubus. Here are a couple shots of our guest flying in and out of town. The Vanquishiri are outside of our field of detection at the moment, as well. However, they were in the library last night as you can see here. Judging from this, the three of them with powers can ward off the effects of power suppression.”

Jackie said, “You can seriously track everyone with superpowers with this thing? Why not keep it up at all times? Use it to prevent powerful villains from doing too much harm?”

“There are two reasons we don’t do that. One, it would take up a lot of electricity to maintain, even with equipment that should be efficient and on the market in another two or three years. Secondly, there is a line most of us prefer not to cross when it comes to spying on people. If that wasn’t the case, we could give up a lot of heroes’ secret identities in a flash. Which reminds me!”

He pulled out a remote with a single, covered button on it. Mortar said, “It should be fully charged by now. Psi, you might want to brace yourself.”

“How come?” Psi Wizard asked.

Mortar pressed the button. Instantly, something felt different about the air around them. “That. Sorry.”

“Dude, holy shit. I thought it was just you recently, but now everyone . . . augh! Suddenly you’ve all gone from a masterful renaissance painting to a five-year-old’s attempt at abstract art. What did you do?”

“While we’re all here inside of this house, our thoughts cannot be read, our possible futures cannot be seen, and the ability to feel our emotions or powers will be difficult.”

“Why would you do this?”

“Because, for the last few months, I’ve felt like we’ve been watched by more forces than I care to count. An acquaintance of mine is helping me work on something similar, should we ever need it, but this will give us the ability to plan without anyone knowing what we’re up to unless they’re already here in the flesh. I know it sounds paranoid, but I didn’t have much choice.”

Walter said, “Very good. Now let’s discuss how we’re going to locate and beat the Vanquishiri while getting our friend’s body back for her.”

Mortar held up a vile with a shard of the pearly white crystal they encountered the day before. “I suggest looking up a few leads tied to this. It’s a crystal from another plane, and only a select number of people or companies handle anything transdimensional like this. Investigate them, and we might get closer to finding the Vanquishiri or thwarting whatever it is that they’re planning.”

War Lagoon said, “I think it’s time I had a chat with the Sillunisu. One or two of you are welcome to come with me. They might know something about the Vanquishiri Bahitians that we don’t.”

“We can do that?”

“I think so. There’s a chance I might need some help making it work since it requires using my mind to visit their plane of our reality.”

They looked over to Psi Wizard, who pursed his lips for a moment. Psi Wizard then nodded and gave a thumb up.

Judy said, “Awesome. So who do I go with?”

“We need you to stay here,” Mortar said.

“What? But I can kick butt again. I can do so much.”

“Yes, but you aren’t ready yet. We don’t know what will happen once you meet your doppleganger, especially since she has the original body. You have another important task of watching over the house while our guest is asleep. If she wakes while we’re all out investigating, and beating up the random bad guys, then try to be a good host.”

“I can do that.” Disappointment dripped from her voice. Mortar had to have noticed, because he was patting her on the shoulder.

Adamast said, “Not to sound impatient, but who’s going with whom?”

Devon read alone amidst a view, Paragon City basking in the daylight in the distance. He tried to put out of his mind what he saw these so-called gods do to a number of heroes. He tried to put out of his mind the likelihood that he, and the rest of the world, could die any day, any moment.

They had let him take a few more volumes of this record before they left the city. How had he not heard of such a thing before? It chronicled Paragon City possibly from the day it was first built. That was one volume he couldn’t carry.

He hoped that, just maybe, there was an answer in these books as to what he could do. Where was this Hobbs family that worked in the shadows? What was this “Frozen Pendulum” event spoken of in the start of one volume, but contained hopefully in the previous book? Why was there such a long gap before the next writer came along? And, who was this W-M that appeared again in the last volume?

He heard strange whispers and echoes coming out of the ground along this hillside. Normally, it wasn’t so distracting, but this was one of the few instances where the sounds ripped his eyes from whatever page he was on.

Vidnyanta and the others never told him what exactly they were doing, and he decided that it was for the best if he didn’t ask. So, he looked at the two masked, zombie-like guards watching him from the same trees and rocks that hid most of the rest of the hill, and he went back to the current volume with a acquiescing sigh.

-------------
Chapter 21
-------------

She opened the door, hoping it wouldn’t creak. Judy saw the bed where their guest lay, and had a suspicious feeling about her. Five or six years ago, she would have sneaked in and poked the woman on the nose just to be sure. Sleeping people breathed differently from anyone who faked being asleep.

To their guest’s credit, it was slow and steady and easy to fool most people who didn’t know better. Judy had half a mind to say she invented that technique, but she doubted she was the first. She doubted either woman in that room would be the last, Monday be damned.

Judy smiled at her. As quietly as possible, she whispered, “I’ll be downstairs if you need me. Let me know if I can get you anything.”

The door closed almost as softly. Another whisper passed through it before the door was closed completely. “Water, thank you.”

Did Psi Wizard ever tell anyone he wasn’t a fan of mindscapes? He totally wasn’t.

Inside of his own mind, he found the edge of a beach to prepare himself while he stood with Mortar Mage and Psi Wizard on the backyard patio. He glanced a short ways into their mindscapes. Not enough to enter their thoughts and memories, but enough to establish a short-term link.

“Ready?” asked War Lagoon.

“I am when you two are,” Psi Wizard said.

He could see that War Lagoon was concentrating and calling forth a shadow. Shadows moved around their physical bodies, and then shifted back into place. War tried again and again as if trying to get it right.

A sphere of many dark colors appeared between their mindscapes. War Lagoon was doing it. Now the sphere was growing. Psi Wizard reached from within his own mindscape into those of his buddies. Once the sphere expanded past Psi Wizard’s sight, all three of them were floating somewhere that defied the rules of light and shadow.

There was no light source, but every detail was visible among all three men, as well as the dark clouds circling them from an immeasurable distance away.

Mortar Mage said, “When we’re done here, War, we need to talk about adding a few throw pillows. Maybe add one of those rugs with a cool pattern on it.”

“I’ll take it up with management,” War Lagoon said. “Let’s see if we can find them.”

“I think they found us.” He pointed in one direction, but there were a few like it.

Tall, unnaturally lanky figures with no discernible features emerged from the clouds. They were pitch black. Each and every one might have creeped out the average person, or make someone act out in fear, but Psi Wizard didn’t sense any amount of danger or malice from these figures. Gentle might have been a liberal term for what he sensed, as well.

With the water delivered, Judy was officially bored. She needed to go out, and no form of entertainment was going to play the salve. Years ago, she had sworn to be a hero because she was inspired to do so. Years ago, being a hero became as important as breath. Now, Judy could only guess how pathetic she looked while the upper half of her body was sprawled out against a table surface.

She examined her necklace with its two discs on either side the size of her thumbnails, and a rectangle in the middle. This one thing kept her health stable. It didn’t feel drained yet, but she looked over at the charging jar all the same.

Sure, her powers her slowly creeping back. Her friends were infuriatingly right to be worried about her going out. Yet, it didn’t help. She knew what she wanted to do. Judy knew what she needed to do. If only there was a way to overcharge the necklace, or something.

Judy exchanged another glance between her necklace and the jar. Then she had a sudden idea. It was a wicked idea. It was dangerous.

There was no way she wasn’t going to do it.

The shadow creatures had no visible mouths, and yet it didn’t stop them from speaking. One of their voices echoed:

“Welcome, Jeff of family Charleston, and friends. This is an unusual time.”

Another, deeper voice said, “What brings you to us, this day?”

War Lagoon, “It’s about a threat here in Paragon City. We came to see what you know of it.”

“We know only a fraction of what the seer has seen,” a third, feminine, but raspy voice said.

“Yeah, we already spoke with Halah. She told us that the world could end soon, and that the Vanquishiri are behind it.”

A fourth voice spoke out. By now, Psi Wizard could guess they would hear as many voices as there were of these Shadow Kin present, if not more. Their persistent lack of mouths made him uneasy.

Meanwhile, the fourth said, “The Vanquishiri Bahitians?”

“Yes, them,” Mortar Mage said.

“That cannot be, or it shouldn’t be.”

“Halah seemed to know they’re involved,” War Lagoon said.

“Forgive us, but as we said before, we only know a fraction of what the seer has seen. That some of the things she has foreseen has not driven her mad . . .” “. . . such as that Ninja Turtle movie . . .” “. . . is proof that we chose the right person for the job.”

All three men stood there full of questions, full of more words than existed in any language, but none of them spoke. Psi Wizard knew the other two felt as he did. Where could they possibly start with their questions?

“You appear to need our guidance on the Vanquishiri, and it would be our pleasure, and our shame, to tell you what we know of them,” said one voice.

Another said, “There was an age of three. It was a time when man created the Demon Thorn from their own bodies in an attempt to bypass the laws of magic no mortal body could contain. It was a time when we were born to guide all creatures toward the unknown. It was a time when one man took over his domain in the eternal realm.”

“A beast had been made to keep us in check, but it was too dangerous for the ones who made it, and they locked it away upon realizing their error. The Vanquishiri were of the gods, superpowered men and women who found a way to reach and dwell within the mortal realm. The other gods and their followers detested the death and discord wrought by a number within their many pantheons. The souls of this number were torn from their flesh and locked away in your world. Their followers could do little more than protect their prisons and hope for a day that their twisted masters would rise again.”

“There was a family who sought answers as to the means to defeat a carnal demon running rampant in the young Americas. A hunter in their employ—a man with electric powers—learned of the arcane device used to trap the souls of the Vanquishiri, because the hunter and his father found their way to us. We taught them how to contain and release that demon, but the lesson must have passed on to another, and then another.”

“The beast was made to keep us in check. We did not fight except to protect, though man has its habit of fearing what it does not understand. We were trapped while the other two fought over control of humanity, the demons and the followers of the Vanquishiri. When the demons were finally contained, save a few, the two avoided one another. The followers of the Vanquishiri stayed out of any place with a strong presence of the Circle. However, when the carnal demon was trapped inside of the device, one of the hunters was captured by the Circle.”

“So, you see, we aimed to help humanity and may be responsible for dooming it. If you say the Vanquishiri are involved, then they will have resorted to a twisted version of our means of containment and release. They will need bodies, fresh ones, to access their godly powers. They will do terrible, despicable things to the ones they cannot possess. They will torment the soul of whomever they possess until the body withers beyond the scope of their soul magic.”

Mortar Mage said, “They have taken the bodies of two criminals and of a friend of ours. Is there a way to remove them without harming the bodies? Or the original souls of their hosts?”

“No.”

“What if I told you one of those souls got away? What if I told you she is walking around in a highly unstable copy of her old body?”

“Then protect her new body.”

Warren’s workshop in the garage had many things. Judy knew most of what these things were because of her time in the base’s computer system. Now she foraged the racks and cabinets for everything she needed.

She set down the massive battery in the middle of the concrete floor, and hooked up a set of jumper cables. The switch wasn’t on yet. Good. The battery was at full power. Better.

Judy clamped the ends of the jumper cables to her hands. It stung a little. She looked at them real quick, and realized that using her hands to flip the switch might not have been a good idea. She might accidentally create a circuit and do more damage than this was worth. So she kicked off her socks and shoes. She reached for the switch with her toes.

“You can’t just tell us to give up like that,” Mortar Mage said.

A voice said, “It is the truth. When her old body is done, it could very well spell the end for her new one as well. We are sorry, but that is a function of life and death. It is a function that will restore itself when the time comes, if it comes. Cherish the time you have left with her.”

“She deserves better than this.”

“Everyone deserves better than the twisted machinations of the Vanquishiri. The only way to beat them is to contain them. Simply killing their current bodies will cause them to move on to the next, a poor random soul no one has control over. It will lose you what time you have left.”

Mortar screamed in frustration.

War Lagoon said, “Halah mentioned that the world could be ending in less than two days.”

“Hmm . . . Not the world; the universe. This darkness, greater than any shadow, goes beyond the confines of any one world. Everything leads to a single point. In that, we are sorry to say, cherish your time with everyone. Be thankful you have any time anew with your friend. If the Vanquishiri are behind it, your only chance is to do the unthinkable. You must make a terrible sacrifice.”

“How can we find them? How can we contain them?”

“They will come to you. Trap them. There isn’t enough time to find the tools you need to hold them our way. If you can find another to trap a soul, do it. Save the universe, for everyone’s sake.”

The final voice said, “We must part now. Let the light and shadow both see the dawn, hand-in-hand.”

Mortar Mage wanted to shout at them, but he watched as the clouds and Shadow Kin vanished. The trio of heroes stood in the backyard of the mansion again. Even if he had shouted at them, what could he say? What could he change?

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and turned to enter the house with his pals. Mortar had a plan, or the making of one, but he had no idea how to break it to them.

They stopped after the door. Mortar lifted his head to see why. Their guest was sitting on a chair with a glass of water in one hand, and the letter in her other one. She regarded them with a dry writ to her eyes.

“Some show you put on back there.”

Psi Wizard shot open his mouth as if to speak, but the few lights and electronics present that were on during the day all flickered. Everyone was looking around curiously.

Mortar said, “Computer, where is Judy right now?”

Rather than a feminine voice, he heard one that sounded more like a generic tin can. “Judy Tanimoto is. Presently. In the garage.”

He ran when he heard it. He tuned out any shouts or footsteps that followed. He had to get to Judy and fast, fearing what she might do in there. He opened the door. There was a smell. He charged inside and stopped at the sight of fumes rising from a single body.

-------------
Chapter 22
-------------

The switch flipped with a click. Instantly, Judy felt the electricity fill her body. The sensation took her over, and she fell over in an uncontrollable fit of laughter. She felt her clothes burn and peel away from her skin. The juice from the battery only worked harder, and Judy only laughed more intensely.

She could barely move.

Could hardly breathe.

Her surroundings danced at blinding speeds until she heard a voice shout her name. The electricity had stopped, so Judy was free to look up. However, there was still a residual need to laugh.

“Warren, hi,” she said in a daze.

“What the hell were you thinking?” Mortar Mage asked. He bent down to scoop her up with one arm.

Mortar examined the battery on the ground. It was burned out beyond any future usage. He wasn’t looking at Judy, probably because, as she quickly noticed, she was naked with a few singed threads lingering on her form. Her charm she had gotten from Kyra was still around her neck as well, though a few scorch marks sullied the surface. The clothes and battery were gone, but her skin showed no signs of burning.

She looked backed at his averted gaze. Judy said, “I’m sorry. I just wanted to see if this could help me. I wanted to see if it would let me help out as a hero again.”

“Did it?” Mortar asked. His voice had a degree of harshness to it.

“I don’t know yet. I feel more alive, but just as tired. I don’t think I laughed that hard in ages. I think Wyatt might say it tickled my socks off, or something.”

He exhaled, eyes closed. “Up we go.” They stood. Judy covered her breasts with one arm and her vagina with the other hand while Mortar guided her back into the house. “Let’s get you some clothes on.”

“What?” Ohm Wire asked as she and Adamast walked.

“I don’t know,” Adamast said, “I just figured your old contacts might still be in the Nerva islands.”

“No, maybe one or two of them, but most of them live outside of Paragon City these days.”

“But not this one?”

“Not this one, no. This one fell for another man whose father owns a shop in Steel Canyon. Now they work together, and sometimes stage fake robberies to attract business.”

Adamast was caught between a simple nod and shaking her head sideways.

Something like that sounded familiar in a city like this. It recently made it harder to tell if a hero should step in or not. Usually, the staged robberies were filed with the police ahead of time, and they tried to make these things obvious at the end so no one got the wrong idea. Thinking of it further, the whole thing was on-brand for this city.

They found a jewelry store after a while. Adamast had been eyeing this place for a while with the idea of maybe one day buying something for Kyra. Mary’s salary as a teacher kind of made that look like it could happen as soon as they were old enough to retire; maybe a decade or two after that.

“We’re here,” Ohm Wire said.

“Is there a secret entrance to another store I’m not seeing?” Adamast asked.

This was actually one of the best jewelry stores in the city, too, in regards to its selection and pricing. That a former villain could work here boggled Adamast’s mind, or it would have if she hadn’t known better by now. Some villains needed help to live better lives, and her own girlfriend had a short stint as such a villain that had ended recently.

Ohm Wire opened the door and stepped inside, prompting Adamast to follow. The interior took on a look of wooden display casings, rather than a sterile white and silver that she was used to from the couple of times she rescued such shops from robberies.

There were five customers checking out the wares or talking to one of the clerks, of which there were two present. Adamast wasn’t sure if Ohm Wire’s contact was the man or the woman among them. Ohm Wire didn’t give any indication, and the two heroines examined a number of pieces of jewelry before Adamast heard the sound of beads banging together.

Another man, well-dressed, passed through the curtain of stringed beads. He said, “Ohm Wire, hello!” The man walked to her with his hands clasped together. He was enthusiastic, but he otherwise sounded normal. “How did my little gift work out for your girlfriend?”

Ohm Wire coughed. “No, just a friend, who is a girl.”

“So a girl-friend. Go on.”

“She’s doing better now, thank you. Actually, while we’re here, I’d like to introduce you to my actual girlfriend. Tucker, meet Adamast Cross. Adamast, Tucker.”

They shook hands. Adamast felt the man’s eyes on her and saw the smile on his face. He leaned in with a whisper. “Nice to meet you, Maryann.”

“What?” Adamast asked.

Ohm Wire giggled. “It’s one of his gifts. He’s totally careful with it though.”

“I try,” Tucker said. “You wouldn’t imagine the sarcastic pounding I got from her when I nearly let slip her name back in the day.”

“She’s my girlfriend, Tucker, not a random woman I picked up off the street. I’m pretty sure she’d come to expect something like how I’d react.”

Tucker’s smile twitched. “Pop quiz, then, if you don’t mind me asking. What is Ohm Wire’s favorite gem?”

“Unless your gift has grown to things people like, I doubt either of you will get this one.”

Adamast said, “It’s Benitoite.”

Ohm Wire, rather amusingly, looked at her with a state of shock. Tucker looked at the younger heroine and then back to Adamast.

“I’ve seen her look at a few things on the Internet,” Adamast said.

“Well now,” Tucker said, “the world certainly is full of surprises. I can’t say we have anything in with that one, though; it’s kinda rare and on the other side of the country. So how can I help you both today?”

“We’re here because of a crystal a couple friends of ours found yesterday. Also, we were wondering if you heard anything from the criminal underground about the new villains in town, or where we can find them.”

Tucker leaned against a display case that was fixed to the ground. “I don’t really listen to the underground these days, save for the whispers coming through here. As for your new villains, I only know what everyone does. They’re dangerous, and they move fast. If they are up to something, I can only hope they’re more bark than bite. Where they went after their appearance this morning, I couldn’t tell you. Wait, no, I heard they beat up someone that had followed them, but no one got a good look at who it was. It was a cape who ended up getting away super-fast.”

“I think we know who that was.” It didn’t make Adamast very happy, but she wasn’t going to turn down helping someone who needed it, not unless their intent was malicious at best. “I wish everyone was so lucky.”

“As for your mystery crystal, I wonder. I heard there was something flying around town yesterday, and that it was taken away by men in tailored dress robes, rather than your usual suits. There was a whole crowd present, but the best I heard was something about a giant pearl.”

“It wasn’t a pearl, according to Mortar Mage,” said Ohm Wire.

“Oh? That guy’s a class-A genius.” Both women barked a laugh when they heard Tucker say that. “What did he say it was?”

Adamast said, “I think he called it ‘Aelshinyx.’ I hope I said it right. That guy says a lot of things I can’t get right still.” What was that hippopotamus thing again from a few months ago?

Tucker paled about a shade or two. “Aelshinyx? Are you sure?” His deep breath was visible and audible from the other side of the room, judging by the man behind the counter who looked over their way. “That’s a trip. I thought that stuff was banished from our plane long ago.”

Ohm Wire said, “What is it?”

“That’s a fine question. It’s obscene is what it is. Do you remember any of the rules of magic I told you about a few years ago?”

“I can’t say. I wasn’t exactly listening back then.”

Adamast vaguely remembered something of Mortar Mage mentioning rules of magic, and how half of those rules came from other realms and plains. The few times Mortar had mentioned it in the past, Adamast told him he or she would take Mortar’s word for it.

“Well,” Tucker said, “there are rules. Not just guidelines; rules. For instance, some forms of magic cannot be performed correctly in a plane or realm when the tools are missing from a certain radius. Aelshinyx is responsible for soul magic that could, very easily, be argued as being evil. Hogwash, of course, since evil comes from the user, but that didn’t mean most of the worst spells weren’t used by the worst of beings.

“Aelshinyx. Damn. The last time I heard of it being sold in this world was some nine or ten years ago. It was purchased by the Circle of Thorns, here, in Paragon City. They’re all gone, as far as I care to tell. If you say that crystal yesterday was as you say it is, then it had to have come from back then.”

“It was in a magic temple the new villains were using until yesterday,” said Ohm Wire.

“That makes sense. I had heard a rumor that someone moved into some of the old Circle hideouts. This strikes me as odd, though. Aelshinyx is bound to the buyer’s soul. If the buyer dies or moves far enough away, then the gem moves as well. Could I have heard wrong?”

“Maybe we should look for the seller,” suggested Adamast.

“That might be a good idea, if just to get the seller off the market. Find a gem smuggler, an artifact smuggler, or someone who deals in both. The list will be long, even here in Paragon, but if you can do everyone a solid by removing their presence, you’d have my thanks.”

Her mom wasn’t going to be happy that Judy had literally burned through an outfit already, but she walked out of her room fully dressed. She passed the guest, who was sitting on her bed contemplating something.

Judy, rather ironically, asked her, “Would you like new clothes? Or even for us to wash your costume?”

“Thank you, no,” said the redhead.

“OK. I can’t speak for everyone, but I think you’d be welcome here any time.”

“I’d rather not. It’ll put everyone at a greater risk once I’ve been seen here. It’ll happen eventually. It happened at least once with that . . . woman.” She exhaled, and shook her head. “I meant to find someone else today. I’m not ready, not with her hanging around there. No, it’s more complicated than that.”

Those words seemed cryptic to Judy, but she said, “Try me. I don’t know if that letter mentioned anything, but I spent the last five years dead. Before that, I was going mad to the point where I would have become a villain, because I thought I was losing everything that mattered to me. I can’t remember my last day alive, but I can only hope something came along that redeemed me.”

“What do you know of redemption or villainy? I’ve killed.”

“So have I. In my final days before dying, I thought I was lying to myself by saying it didn’t feel good. Now I know better. It didn’t feel good at all, but I would do it again if it meant saving someone close to me. Like mother, like daughter, I guess.”

“I can kill you lot, you know.”

“We could do the same. Every one of us is thankful when we don’t have to kill, or even fight. That’s because we have our way, just as you have yours now. I won’t stop you if you decide to leave, but do us one small favor.”

“What?”

“Wait until dark. You were lucky enough coming here during the day.”

The guest laughed. “Does being dead come with wisdom or something?”

“No, but being a fifteen year old girl babysitting a bunch of adults will sure do it.”

The other woman laughed even harder, this time with a sort of “Yeah right!” to it. She was probably right. Pixeletta was known for instigating a lot of the League’s mischief.

“Very well,” said the red-headed guest, “I guess I’ll let you all be the ones to beat these Vanquishiri I read about. I have a dangerous villain to track down who fled the country.”

“Good luck.”

-------------
Chapter 23
-------------

His phone was silent, and the city was unusually quiet for this time of day.

Walter sat along the edge of the skylight of a three story building, his chin pressed against the top of his cane. It was, after all, a good time to ponder on things while he waited for someone to get back to him.

It brought back an odd memory from his youth, decades ago, when he had applied to a few places for his first job, just to get out of the house. He had waited by the phone for far too long for one of those places to call. That memory of the old him came and went as moments often did.

He could hear someone climbing the ladder on the side of the building, but he didn’t turn his head to look in its direction. Instead, he listened. The hands and feet had to be small, but either the person was heavy or they were carrying something big on their back. Walter moved his eyes over to confirm what the sound was when Gemma appeared at the top of the ladder.

“Ah, Gemma,” he said, returning his gaze front and center with a smile.

Gemma said, “I thought I would find you up here. One of our new customers said they spotted a banker getting ready to jump.”

“Oh? Does your father’s company watch over this building now?”

“It does, as of this morning. It almost didn’t happen this soon because that fundraiser was attacked by some villains.”

“Assassins, actually, but close enough.”

The young woman sat next to Walter. “You’re not actually going to jump from anywhere, are you?”

“No, of course not. I’m just waiting on some people to call me back while two of my friends are out patrolling somewhere that doesn’t get terribly good reception. Meanwhile, I thought I would enjoy the air and think about the days gone by.”

“Oh my god, it’s worse than I thought. You’re not a banker; you’re an old man.”

“Gemma!” He chuckled.

“I looked up the Dallevan League after we met the other day. How did I miss the heroic supergroup known for its wild reputation?”

“Truth be told, I think a lot of the city likes to pretend we didn’t happen. We had our share of adventures, because we were naturally a dysfunctional, loving family the moment we became a team. We had an impact on the city as a whole because our methods were more outlandish than the average person was ready to believe. Then, in a brief period of time, we vanished from the scene.”

“Do you have any favorite stories to tell?”

“A few.”

A sleigh burst through a window, out the side of an office building where a duo of villains were attempting to terrorize and extort money from the company. The fight against the villains led to one thing and another, and one of them fought against a still-male Adamast Cross on the back of the giant sleigh. Mortar Mage stayed at the front, acting like a driver, while he used his magic to slow the sleigh’s descent.

Eventually the sleigh landed on a boat leaving Shiva Bay. Adamast managed to knock out and cuff the villain while they all drifted further away from Paragon City.

“That must have been a fun trip back to Paragon,” Gemma said.

“Fun or them, maybe,” Walter said.

“Why did she—or I guess ‘he’ back then—go with the name Adamast Cross? I always wondered that since I heard the name.”

“One word is the root behind ‘adamant’ and ‘diamond.' The other referred to Adamast’s signature punch to the face at the time. I don’t think I’ve seen her use it lately.”

“Huh. I see.”

“She never was that good with coming up with names. In fact, I think her girlfriend still pesters her about it.”

“I guess that’s why they leave all of the planning and big decisions to you, huh?”

“Not necessarily. Aside from providing them with the things they need, I’ve tried my best to teach them all to think and act on their own when they need to; to come up with their own master plans, especially after more recent events. The problem with that, though, is that being a chess master isn’t for everyone. A small part of me misses being able to live without that particular skill. As for the part of me that enjoys it, well . . .”

An illegal gambling ring had moved into town. It was so bad that people were already starting to lose homes and lives while the group responsible worked underground for one week. Those same individuals behind the gambling ring made a mistake early on. They let slip an email advertisement when Pixeletta was active with the League, but the League had their eyes on the place already for other reasons as well.

The party lasted for a few hours. The gambling organizers who didn’t immediately try to leave couldn’t do anything but watch while they were bound.

Now, Gemma was laughing a little. “You’re crazy.”

”Whoa, what? What is this?” a villain asked, coming to.

It turned out that the villain had always wanted to try bungee jumping as a child, but his parents never let him try anything fun, as he put it. The experience on the bridge awoke those old memories, and made the villain ready to turn himself in, set on a path for redemption.

“Why didn’t you just bring him in?” Gemma asked.

Walter said, “It’s in our nature as heroes to help people. Often times, villains are people who need a hand no one else would give them. It’s why the Dallevan League usually avoids exposure with the media, and the media often leaves us alone when we work. They think we’re somehow laughable and boring at the same time. Meanwhile, Channel 9 still hasn’t figured out who sent them the cake-flavored condoms that one time.”

“Cake-flavored what-now?”

“That was my reaction at first.”

Suddenly, sparkles the size of Gemma’s fist flashed in the air in one corner of the roof. A woman appeared, wearing what looked like a one-piece suit, excluding her tangerine colored sash tied below her visible belly, and her boots. The woman’s mask looked like a folded cloth of the same color, with two holes cut into it.

It had to be Princess Undercut, who hadn’t been seen or heard of in over a month. Gemma had no idea the heroine was pregnant, or even a member of the Dallevan League, before today. For some reason, she was soaked from head down to her ankles.

Princess Undercut said, “Two showers down, and I still feel dirty.”

Walter said, “How did it go? And where’s Diamond Grace?”

“She’s in a bubble bath back at my place. We brought breathing masks with us, but it just wasn’t enough. I don’t know how those people live down there. Still, at least we know that they haven’t seen anything of the Vanquishiri. The only thing they did see or hear was someone digging through the ground, but no one dangerous.”

The heroine sat on the opposite side of Walter and leaned back against the glass of the skylight with a sigh of relief.

After a moment, Princess Undercut said, “Hi, by the way. What’s your name, sweety?”

“This is Gemma,” Walter said.

“Oh, I should have guessed with that large gun you’re carrying around. So what were you both up to before I came here?”

Gemma said, “He was telling me some entertaining stories about your supergroup.”

Was that a giggle, or a low cackle, coming from Princess Undercut? “Was he now? Did he ever tell you about the time . . . ?”

Adamast returned to the mansion with Ohm Wire, and joined the few others in the downstairs observation room.

“Welcome back,” Psi Wizard said.

“Hello,” she said in turn. “Mortar, I have a list of smugglers that we might want to look at if we have time. There’s a chance that at least one of them might know a thing or two about how we can find the Vanquishiri before they cause too much trouble.”

She reached into her top and grabbed the written list that Tucker had provided her and Ohm Wire of possible suspects of smuggling artifacts and jewelry from other countries. Adamast handed the note to Mortar, who looked it over.

“We’ll see what we can do,” Mortar said. “In the meantime, you received a voicemail from someone while you were out.”

“Thanks.” She took her phone off of the charger, and took a look at the call history before checking her voicemail. The call had come from Saelum Blaster.

Author's Note: So uhh... There is a sex scene in this chapter. I don't write very many of them ever, as ironic as that sounds in my own head.

-------------
Chapter 24
-------------

What was with half of the skyscrapers in Talos and being the target or base of a major crime? That was something Adamast Cross had always wondered since coming to Paragon City or joining the Dallevan League. She almost wanted to say that if she had a dime for every time she saw or heard about such a thing then she would have had the money to run such a building of her own.

She entered one possible such place while Saelum Blaster was kind enough to hold the door open for her. A number of people were on their way out the door. It was getting late in the afternoon, and the sun was about to set. Some of these people were leaving to go home, she hoped. Adamast didn’t want to think about the effect arresting their boss might have if it came to that, nor did she want to imagine any of them as willful villains.

The receptionist looked at the heroes and crooked her neck at them. Her eyes gave off the expression that she wouldn’t have understood the color of the sky if anyone told her.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.

Saelum Blaster said, “Yes, we’re here to see your boss. We have a few questions for him.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“No, this is an investigation, and should only take a moment of his time. We could have come crashing into your boss’s window, but we don’t think anyone wants that, do they?”

During the entire conversation, Adamast tried her hardest not to press her hand over her face in embarrassment while the man spoke loud and energetically enough to fill the whole district. She tried to tell herself that it was a turn-off, but the man’s enthusiastic display only served to make her want him more.

When she got home, Adamast was going to have a serious discussion with the mirror.

The receptionist pressed a series of buttons on her phone and talked into her headset. The only amount of listening Adamast did was in hearing out for key words or phrases that sounded suspicious; such as a signal for someone to make a run for it, or an order coming through to remove the visitors by any means necessary.

The woman behind the desk became bewildered after a moment, and then she tapped a button on the phone. She said, “There is a meeting upstairs, but they should be ready for you by the time you get up there. There is an elevator down the hall to your right, second corridor on your left.”

Adamast followed her directions with Saelum Blaster once again at her rear. He caught up before they were halfway down the first hallway, but he let her walk onto the empty elevator first.

Neither one of them had any reason to worry about a trap, because the other members of the League told Adamast that they would follow the contingency plan if they suspect any amount of foul play. So she took a deep breath upon pressing the button to the top floor. Just once, however, she wished that CEOs and the like would have their offices closer to the ground.

She watched the door close, and noticed that none of the surfaces were reflective, only least of all the wooden panels that ran around the middle of the elevator car.

Saelum Blaster opened his mouth to say something, but then the elevator stopped with a jolt that Adamast wasn’t ready for. Her legs gave away. She could have caught herself; she knew she could. However, Saelum caught her first. When he finally let go, Adamast was quick to realize that she was holding him.

Her throat cleared as if something was there. She let go, and pressed the button for the floor they wanted a few times. Nothing. The power was still on, but the elevator wasn’t moving.

“I somehow knew we should have taken the stairs,” said Saelum in an indoor voice.

“Anyone? Come in.” Adamast pressed a finger over the top of her earpiece to let Saelum know she was talking to someone else. No answer. “Can anyone hear me? And what are you doing, Saelum?”

He was waving at something in the ceiling. It was a camera. There was an emergency speaker, but no button to activate it. No voice coming through from the other side. Adamast and Saelum were trapped inside of a little box.

Any attempts to move the door failed as Adamast couldn’t even get a good grip on it.

Adamast punched a dent in the metal wall of the elevator, hoping that she could at least make a hole for air. The metal groaned back at her. A few more hits could either take the wall off, or it could simply reshape the car. She wasn’t sure if continual hits were a good idea.

“Stand back,” Saelum said. “Let me see if I can make a hole.” Good idea. At least his powers were designed to cut into rock if he had to.

The man pointed at the dent and shot a short, thin beam at it. The wall absorbed the beam like a sponge would do to water. Frowning at the results, he examined the floor, and then pointed at the middle.

“Wait,” Adamast said, “you don’t know if that will hit anything that keeps us suspended as high as we are.” Enough time passed before the elevator stopped to where she was sure they were at least ten stories up. “Well, hopefully the others will be quick to notice that something’s wrong.”

She punched the dent again in frustration.

A voice came through the speaker finally, “Sorry to keep you waiting, in there. One of our clients is being difficult and we need a few more minutes. We’re not hopelessly cruel, so we’ll be opening a vent in there for you, should this meeting take all night. No need to worry about swearing or threatening us. This speaker is one w—“

Adamast muffled the speaker with her ice. Then she noticed that their captor was at least true to his word in opening a vent above them. It was circular and located under the ceiling in one corner, however it was too small to climb through if anyone would punch a hole in it.

She tried again to signal her friends now that there was a vent. Still nothing. So she removed the earpiece and turned it off. No use wasting the battery life.

“I should have brought some cards,” said Saelum Blaster.

“Give it a couple weeks,” said Adamast, “and you’d be saying homework instead.”

“Grading homework is a terrible way to spend an eternity. Have you seen half the students’ work I end up with?”

“No, but I’ll take your word for it. So then, how would you rather spend your time in here?”

“With you? Doing anything.”

Adamast suddenly felt hot in here. She checked the vent to see, or feel, if it was blowing any hot air into the elevator car, but it was all her. It was her, and she was trying not to feel giddy about the answer that Saelum gave her.

“What?” Saelum asked.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” Adamast said. “I’m just not used to guys telling me things like that.”

“Like what? That you’re pretty, that you’re intelligent, or that I think we relate so well? I know that you’re loyal to the girlfriend you have now, but, even after the times you lead me on, I still love every moment we spend with one another.”

She pushed Saelum up against the wall, trying hard not to break his bones as she did so. Adamast leaned against him. “I love our time together too. It’s so much more complicated than that. You saw me with those horns. What if they come back. What if I kill you when we make love?”

“I thought it was because of you and Ohm Wire.”

“No.” She looked him in the eyes. “She wants us to be open, for my sake. I keep telling myself I want her, and only her. I keep telling myself that it’s easier that way so I won’t hurt either of you. But, I can’t. I can’t keep doing this. It’s not fair to either of us.”

“I’m not going to lie, your horns were cute.”

“Saelum.”

“But, the rest of you is better. The rest of you is still here, as I will be. I promise.” He stroked her hair. His gentle caress triggered a less gentle flurry of emotion.

Adamast kissed him on the lips. Suddenly, she didn’t care if it was the last time. The world could end any day. She wanted Saelum, and she wanted him so bad.

He broke off their kiss. “No more games.”

“No. I want you.”

“What about the camera?”

The metal encasing them might have been able to absorb Saelum’s energy beams, but Adamast touch the wall above them and made ice form along the ceiling until it covered and crunched the device.

“What camera?” she asked.

He responded in kind by turning them around. Adamast’s back slammed against the wall of the elevator, and it turned her on more. Why was it turning her on? Why was she breathing so heavy right now? Saelum kissed her again, and she knew the answer to those questions and more. She felt his bulge threatening to destroy her, and she felt like she knew the many answers of the universe.

“Crap,” said Saelum. “I think I left my condoms at home.”

“Birth control, how does it work?” she quipped. No, she wasn’t on it yet, but a run to the doctor or a pharmacy could fix that tomorrow if it came.

She helped Saelum undo his pants while he groped her inner demons out of her left breast with one hand, and held her up by her butt with the other. His hand had already slipped under her skirt and underwear.

There were no words telling Mary that this was her last chance. All she saw was a look in her lover’s eyes that something was coming, now, that she had been waiting for, for so very long. When his own hot, hard endowment stretched the source of her warmth, she cried silently to the heavens that it took too long, and that silent cry became an audible one by the end.

Saelum thrust into her, and she felt every inch of it, and the one after that, and the one after that. Of course she still feared what could happen in the end, but the sensations filling her tied up her fears and locked them in a dark room. She wanted more of him, and he was giving it to her in a slow but powerful rhythm.

Then he did something she never expected. Saelum chomped through her costumed and bra, and into her other breast. She wanted to scream as the man played with her nipple with his mouth. He must have gauged her reaction to it, because he kept going with just the right amount of roughness until it added all that it could to her arousal.

His mouth pulled away from her chest, and he stopped thrusting. Adamast couldn’t understand why he stopped. his mouth and tongue invaded hers before she could protest. Yes, she was putting up a fight with her own tongue, but it was a hopeless victory as she welcomed Saelum’s tongue beyond her lips.

When the blessed, wonderful thrusts continued their rocking of her world, the elevator began to move again. She panicked, and Adamast pushed away from the wall, striking the stop button in her bound. She heaved. What was she doing? This was crazier than anything she had done. Adamast looked back at Saelum, his stud body, handsome and sweet face, and throbbing cock waving in the air.

"I'm yours right now," she said.

Adamast twisted around and lifted her right leg. Saelum needed no further invitation to shove his dick back inside of her. He did so, and suddenly Adamast felt as though she made the best mistake ever. The best! Something hit the nerves inside her vaginal walls, and they were just the right nerves to drive her mad.

She moaned, and choked every scream she could catch, as her lover shoved his member deeper and deeper into her, always pressing against that spot like it were some kink and he were a masseur. It was so good that her senses exploded with pleasure. It left her too weak to stand on one leg, and Saelum caught her before it registered that she fell as a result of a powerful, fulfilling orgasm. Adamast shivered like her ice affected her.

Saelum hoisted her up, and repositioned her body so that she could wrap her arms and legs around him. As soon as she did, they kissed, and he moved into her again. She was afraid of something. Where was that fear again? She didn’t know, and, with the steady rise of her second orgasm on the horizon, she didn’t care. Her man held and cared for her in all of the right ways.

Her sensitive, big breasts rolled against his chest. Her pussy kissed and devoured his length, and yearned for more with each thrust. The softest voice to ever come out of her mouth accompanied her breaths, and she could hear Saelum grunting, softly at first. It picked up in volume while her pleasure picked up in intensity.

It was then she knew what was coming, for both of them, and it was going to come hard. If there was any doubt as to why it was called “coming,” then those doubts were set on fire between Adamast and Saelum making this elevator car hotter than the sun. Her climax was coming. It was here. She couldn’t resist this scream, and neither could Saelum repel his own needs. She hit her plateau of pleasure, and what a wonderful place it was even after she drifted downward from it. There was another warmth in her, but it was another kind. She knew right away that it was her man’s seed.

He lifted her head gently and kissed her again. “I’m here for you.”

“You are,” she said, “You really are.” Since then, the fear she had had packed its bags and left. She flipped it a rude gesture that only such a fear could understand, and she kissed Saelum back.

“You of course realize we need to get out of here,” he said.

“I’m not in any hurry to spoil the moment.”

“Neither am I.”

“But, you’re right. Let go.”

“No, you let go.”

-------------
Chapter 25
-------------

The elevator door opened on the twenty-fifth floor. This wasn’t the tallest tower in Paragon by far, but Adamast thought that she and Saelum Blaster might have taken the longest elevator ride in the history of the city.

As they walked onto the floor, Adamast saw a fight going on all over the place. Members of the Dallevan League were combating forces who appeared to be equipped with rifles and arcane-powered nightsticks.

There was an explosion in one room, and a man went flying from that room into another one across the hallway. The same man happened to scream in a way that sounded like the stupid, fake ones only heard in TV shows and movies. Adamast would have remarked about that, but somehow that was trumped by Ohm Wire appearing a short distance from the elevator.

“What took you guys so long?” Ohm Wire asked.

Adamast Cross opened her mouth to speak, but every word she could come up with was suddenly too embarrassing. She closed it back up and cleared her throat while looking Saelum Blaster’s way. He had an awkward expression of his own.

“No way,” Ohm Wire said. “The two of you?” Her gaze passed them towards the elevator. “In there? Seriously? And I thought I had a kinky side.”

“Ohm Wire,” Adamast began.

“What? Can’t I be happy for my girlfriend?”

“How can you be so accepting of this? And, what the hell is going on up here?”

“We lost the signal to your earpiece. When Mortar hacked this place’s security and found that an elevator had been stopped, we decided it would be a good idea to take action. It’s a good thing, too, because they had more than a dozen guns aimed, and a few flash grenades primed, for when you got up here. As for why I’m able to accept the two of you getting it on, it’s because, well, we’ll talk about it later. OK?”

Saelum asked, “So, what about our original reasons for coming here?”

“Walter’s interrogating the CEO of this business now. Our boss, I mean. He’s got War Lagoon with him.”

Adamast pulled out her earpiece and reactivated it before sticking it in her ear. “Walter?”

“Ah, Adamast!” Walter said over the earpiece. “I trust you and Saelum Blaster are well?”

“Great, Walter. Listen. I don’t know how many of these people are in on the illegal activities around here, but I have a concern about the ones who aren’t. If whoever’s in charge is locked away, I hate think what will happen to everyone’s jobs. Is there any way you can pull some strings to save their employment?”

“I’ll see what I can do. If the front business has to be liquidated, I’ll make sure someone can step in to take over the legitimate business.”

“Thanks.” She removed the earpiece again.

Ohm Wire said, “What was that?”

“That was me, making a change around here. The last thing we need is people losing jobs and risking a life of crime because of something that wasn’t their fault.”

Sure, many of these people could just find work elsewhere. Some might be lucky enough to skip only a week or two of pay, some a month or three. Adamast had seen enough good people turn to desperate measures, which was a dangerous thing in Paragon City, in the west coast city of Cap au Mercy, or a number of places in between.

Now, Mortar Mage and Psi Wizard were rounding up and zip-tying the people who were only doing their job, if it was on the wrong side of the law. Adamast Cross was one of the many people who spent years saying something needed to change. As far as she was concerned, there was no time like the present to make changes.

Her train of thought changed course that moment as well when she noticed Ohm Wire hugging her. Ohm Wire reached over and pulled Saelum Blaster into the hug.

“I’m going to go help them now,” Ohm Wire whispered. “The two of you can take the night off if you want to. And Mary? We’ll talk tomorrow, OK?”

“Thank you, Kyra.” Adamast kissed her, and turned to the stairs. Saelum Blaster followed.

“You’re really lucky to have someone like her,” Saelum said.

“You don’t know the half of it. I’m sorry your investigation didn’t turn out as expected.”

“No, this was a good surprise, I think. Now what? Would you like to come over to my place and maybe watch a movie?”

“That sounds like a date. Let me pick up something from the pharmacy on the way, as well as a change of clothes, and I’m all yours.”

Mary entered his house, Quentin’s house, now that he held the door open for her. She had clenched her sides as though she were bracing for the cold or some alien environment. Neither was true, but the latter was still a hard feeling to shake.

She had never gone inside another man’s house—save for the mansion that the League used as a base of operations—since becoming a woman. In fact, she had a hard time remembering the rare occasions as a man where she entered a girlfriend’s home. Suddenly, there were questions about what to do in this situation.

Where in the house could she go? Was what she was wearing a proper attire? What was the right etiquette? What would she do if tiny, rabid hyenas came crawling out of the different hiding places? Damn it, she needed answers.

“Make yourself at home,” Quentin said as he entered another room.

No, man, do you have any idea what you’ve just said to a woman who’d never been here before?

A message machine beeped, catching her attention. Who still had those in this day and age? There was a woman’s voice that came with the one and only message:

“Quentin? Hi, it’s me, Kathy. I was just wondering if you wanted to grab a drink or a bite to eat before Tuesday. Call me. In case you forgot, my number is . . .”

“Nope,” Quentin said as the message cut off.

“Who was that?” asked Mary, drawing closer to the source of the sound, but still wary of being in an unfamiliar place. Oh, come on, Mary, you’ve been in plenty of places since becoming a superhero.

“That was a coworker of mine. She teaches English.” There was a strange shift in his tone when he said that.

“But?”

“She can’t even spell a third of the words she assigns her students. She’s nice, and usually pretty smart about things, but her own subject she teaches . . . I kinda fear for those kids. Anyways, would you like anything to drink?”

“Maybe later if you have tea.”

“Alright, well, let’s find a movie to watch.”

They decided on an animated movie Mary—David back then—had wanted to see since more than a year before becoming a hero. How it took over seven years to see it, she couldn’t guess. Nor did it matter.

Mary and Quentin laughed at parts, and she leaned in closer as the movie progressed. This felt right, being in his arms, just as being with Kyra did. Now she had two people she had no interest in losing. By all rights, it should have scared her. However, the thought calmed itself when Quentin kissed her on the forehead.

She felt his hand brush softly across the area behind her ear, and her eyes felt the need to rest before the credits could roll.

Mortar Mage ran into the secret lab. The installation of the replacement console should have been complete, and the diagnostic program should have finished. Sometimes, he had to replace wires or other components, which wasn’t easy. Sometimes, the gauge inside the system had a warning that there could be a problem if a minor issue wasn’t addressed right away.

Earlier today he took care of one such issue. He looked at the gauge, and read the information it processed during the diagnostic.

“Potential critical system failure. ETA 2 days, 13 hours, 37 minutes, 22 seconds.”

He clenched his fists. There had to be a way to fix this. Mortar looked up at Tawnya’s tube, remembering the day she found amusement at his new name for her, remembering the day he got her to try ice cream even though androids didn’t need human food.

Yes, of course there was a way. It was something he never wanted to do, but there was a way to save everyone if it meant undoing those wonderful memories.

Finally, after years of being locked away in the deepest depths of the Asylum, he was out. His cell was far behind him, demolished in fact, but now the suppressor cuffs drummed against the ground. The beat died. Perhaps it was trembling too much to keep going. It should have been. Everyone and everything needed to fear Bloodthorn’s return.

It was almost ironic that the key to his freedom was the same clipping device used to remove certain tags in clothing stores.

Thirty-eight cellmates dead, at least one survivor of the seven fled as far from Paragon as they could. No, Bloodthorn was staying here. He had business in this city. He was going to build strength, and then he was going to tear his captors into shreds.

Before that, however, there was an itch he needed to take care of. He felt something creep through his skin. He turned.

A security guard aimed a gun at him. “Freeze!”

The guard was too slow. Bloodthorn threw a bone-colored thorn, and it landed inside of the gun barrel. He still had it after so long.

He charged the guard, raising his other hand with a second thorn that he grew from his skin. Bloodthorn thrust the thorn into the man’s neck. Even in the dark of night, within this closed thrift shop, he could see enough of the guard’s face to revel in what he had done. Oh, it had been too long since he last experienced this.

The itch wasn’t over, however. He turned with a third thorn aimed at the only living company he had left.

A woman sat on top of a clothes rack. She had wings like a vulture. Bloodthorn knew that callous smirk and long hair. He knew that feminine figure of hers too, though he never got to experience any inch of it.

Their cells in the Asylum were close together. There were a handful of dangerous criminals who never escaped that place as often as everyone else seemed to, earning the Asylum a revolving door reputation. She was the only one, save for Bloodthorn himself, who came to mind. When they met, he said that he’d love to get a piece of her. This woman, Carrion, had said she would rape him right back.

Back then, she laughed when she had said that, as though she made some sort of joke. Since then, they were at odds as to how many inmates they could rule, and how, in the chance that they would escape. Here they both were, outside, without any inmates to follow them.

Carrion approached Bloodthorn, his hand and makeshift weapon of choice still extended, and she let the point press against her cheek. She took the thorn in one hand. She stroked her cheek with the thorn’s tip. Then she licked it.

“For me? Ya shouldn’t have.” Carrion took the thorn out of Bloodthorn’s hand. He was too irritated with her to even bother arguing. “It’s not like I didn’t already trust ya. Oh wait, I don’t.” She chuckled.

“What do you want?” Bloodthorn asked.

“I want what everyone wants, including you. I want to stay out of that forsaken Asylum. I want to be free to wreak havoc. Doing so alone means capture, or worse.”

“You’re offering a partnership?” He resisted the urge to spit at her feet. Not because it would have been cliché, but because he didn’t need his DNA leaving a trail so soon.

“No, an alliance. You, me, the other lucky jackasses. I hear there’s a new trio of villains in town. We might even be able to strike a deal with them, even if that deal is making them swear fealty to us as I pound their faces in.”

“Do what you like. I have one goal in mind.”

“And what is that? The death of everyone in the Dallevan League? The massacre of other heroes across the city? You’re not the only one with a vendetta. Ya just so happen to have one of those and a brain. So use it.”

“Do you have a place to hide away until tomorrow night?”

“I can find one,” Carrion said. “Tomorrow night, though? Why so soon?”

“It’s all I need to build up strength. If we ally ourselves with the others, then so be it, but those infernal heroes must fall.”

“Then tomorrow night, the fun begins.”

-------------
Chapter 26
-------------

Diamond Grace kicked down the door. The people inside the warehouse were surprised, or at least they were now scrambling for any combination of weaponry or hiding places. This was the last place in Paragon that the League said they needed checked today, saying I had something to do with crystal smuggling. What Diamond Grace saw instead was signs of crystal meth production.

Ohm Wire and Psi Wizard followed her into the warehouse, and the three of them took down the handful of people working or defending the lab. Diamond Grace worried that the bullets might penetrate her ice armor, but her sister had told her once that she could make it extra dense if she tried. The bullets that came her way stopped halfway into the ice.

She was, ironically, frozen stiff by how close she came to having her first gunshot wound, and her second, and her tenth. She felt a pat on the back through the ice armor, and Diamond Grace found a smiling Psi Wizard nodding to her.

Her armor came down instantly once she let it go.

“Walter,” Ohm Wire said into her earpiece, “this one was a bust as well.”

Walter said, “What was it?”

“Just a meth lab. They probably wouldn’t know where to look for the Vanquishiri if we asked them.”

“Very well. At least we removed a large number of criminal operations from the city. It could always leave room for more, of course, but good work. We’ll just keep an eye on these areas in the future.”

“Now what are we supposed to do? It’s already one in the afternoon, and we’re no closer to finding those guys or stopping them.”

“Yes, and Mortar’s tracking spell didn’t work when he tried it on Judy using, well, Judy. He said that might be the case before we tried it. Oh well. Peter’s offer still stands for tonight. The least we can do is relax while we wait for something to come along.”

“Right. I’ll call Adamast to let her know.”

“Diamond Grace, we’re welcome to join us this evening. We’re going to have dinner with Peter to celebrate his and Warren’s magazine reaching a major milestone.”

She had been helping the other heroes in the room tie up the lab workers when she pressed a finger on her ear. “Thanks for the offer, Walter, but I’ve made plans. I met someone in town the other day, and we’re spending some time together.”

“Look,” Kyra said as she and Mary walked into the mansion, “all I’m saying is that I’m happy you found someone. The way I see it is that you have such a huge heart that it takes more than one person to love you.”

“I’m just not used to the idea of having multiple partners,” Mary insisted.

“I’m aware.” She stopped and grabbed Mary. “Look, I love you. I really do. I also think this Saelum person sounds like a good guy. I can’t speak for him, but I think we’ll both be here for you until we’re all old and gray and telling the young kids about the good ol’ days that never really happened the way we remember it.”

“Longer than that, I hope.”

“Obviously.” Kyra embraced the love of her life. “No more complaining about your sex life, OK?”

“I wasn’t complaining about it.”

“Yes you were,” Kyra jested. “In all honesty, though, I need you to promise me one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“If you and Saelum Blaster . . .”

“Quentin.”

“Quentin! If the two of you ever discuss having kids, include me in the conversation?”

Kyra pulled away from the hug to find Mary blushing, her eyes widened. After a few months and menstrual cycles, the thought of having kids must have finally dawned on her, or finally hit some register in that beautiful head of hers with a mallet. The expression on Mary’s face made Kyra giggle.

“Not funny,” Mary groaned.

“Come on,” Kyra said, “I think you’d be a great mom.”

They continued walking when Kyra heard rapid, heavy footsteps coming from upstairs. Judy entered the room with a panic. She was wearing a nice semi-casual dress.

“Looking cute there, Judy,” said Kyra.

“Thanks, but . . . um.”

“What?”

“I might have, maybe, accidentally told my mom that I knew how to put on makeup, sort of, when I talked to her on the phone earlier, and she’s on her way here.”

“So, do you?”

Judy made an embarrassed aversion with her gaze. That said everything that needed to be said that moment. The poor girl. How did she not know how to do something that Kyra knew how to do since age twelve or earlier? Well, maybe not knew in the strictest sense, but she tried.

And she cried. Clowns were fucking scary.

Mary walked up the stairs and rested a hand on Judy’s back. “Come on. I’ll help.”

“Are you sure?” Judy asked.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Where’s the bucket of face paint you’re using?”

All Kyra could do now was watch from a distance as Mary once again proved herself to be the most endearing person in the room, with or without her sarcastic quips. She could see the bond there between the two women after so many years that Kyra had missed, but now she was a part of it all.

Mortar Mage wandered through the underground tunnel network with a gas mask to go along with the spell he’d activated to keep a number of . . . not-fun stuff . . . off of his clothes. Not all tunnels were bad. Still, he was ready for them, and he lugged a sack over one shoulder as he treaded through the subterranean space.

He turned a few corners into one of the better tunnels, and Tunnel Hound was there waiting for him.

“The big man, himself,” said Tunnel Hound.

“How’s your progress going?” Mortar asked.

“It’s done. I just finished five minutes ago.”

“Down to the letter?”

“Man, it’s down to the grain of sand. Everything is how you asked for it.”

“Good, good.” Mortar pulled a check out and gave it to Tunnel Hound. The former minor villain examined the check and nodded before stuffing the check into his back pocket. “I have a question for you. Do you have any friends or family in the Paragon area?”
“I might know a few people. Why? You got another job for me?”

“Something big is about to go down. I don’t know if leaving state lines will be far enough, but if you have anyone in Paragon that you care about, I suggest you head out of town as soon as possible.”

“Is it anything to do with the digging job you had me do?” Mortar only gave Tunnel Hound the coldest glare he could, which probably wasn’t cold enough to scare a baby. “Say no more. Thanks for the tip.”

Tunnel Hound left through his signature method of jumping into anything made of dirt or stone, leaving a disheveled spot in the wall behind him.

Now, Mortar thought, it was time to get to work on something he needed. He gave the sack over his shoulder a good heft, and then he walked to the first location.

Devon closed the old book, his mind and body feeling weary from the minimal sleep and the few scraps of food those Vanquishiri gave him. He wanted to read and learn more, but he couldn’t take in any more if he tried. College was never this bad.

Back then, he could choose more comfortable places to read, larger meals or more frequent snacks when he could remember them, and showers. When was the last time he bathed? A man with his degrees should never have to ask that.

He looked toward the sound of feet crunching against the sand and small twigs. Vidnyanta and the other two had finally come out of their little cave.

“It is time,” was all she said.

She took the full force of a hug that she could barely see coming. Judy’s mom embraced her, and placed a wrapped box on her lap before sitting down in the seat next to her. Their party had been seated toward the middle of the restaurant.

“What’s this?” Judy asked.

Her mom said, “It’s a little something I picked up. Your aunt strikes again.”

“Remind me to ask her her secret.”

“Feel free, but I’ve been trying since before I wedded your father. Now I know why she never sent anything for your funeral.”

“Let’s not talk about that.”

“No. Let’s not. You look good, by the way. Where did you learn how to put on your makeup?”

“A friend taught me.”

Before their conversation went any further, there was a tapping of silverware against a glass of wine. Peter was standing, and everyone else at the dinner table fell silent.

Peter said, “Thank you, everyone. Warren said he’d be a little late, so I’m going to go ahead and say a few words for the both of us. Six years ago, this summer, we embarked on a journey to reconcile the gap between science and magic most people believed to exist. Science and Mysticism grew faster and greater than we dreamed it would. Take it from me, I’m half-dragon, and the result of several scientists’ dreams. I would like to thank you all for being Warren’s friends, and my favorite guests to have ever graced the house we grew up in. You have all been an inspiration to keep going, just as much as our many subscribers in the US.”

He tipped his glass to a cheer around the table, and then he drank from it.

Judy wished she could at least try alcohol tonight. Something told her that her mom would tell her no, even though her twenty-first birthday was only a few months away, assuming months continued to exist in another day or two.

She looked over to where Mary was sitting. Kyra and a man Judy had never met before were assaulting her with playful gestures from both sides. Apparently, Kyra was the one to call and invite Quentin, while Mary wasn’t looking, and his arrival was a surprise for Mary. Five or more years ago, Judy would never have imagined David to be in a relationship like this, but now here was Mary, fully realizing this revelation for herself.

“So, sweety,” said Tatiana, who sat across the table from Judy, “are you going to open your gift? Not to pry, but I’m pretty curious as to what it is.”

“Knowing my aunt Takako, it’s probably some embarrassingly cute dress that I’ll end up loving no matter how much I kick and scream about it.”

“Haha, I remember my mother doing the same for me when I was a teenager. Where does your aunt live?”

“She’s in Japan. Somehow, she manages to make and send us things when we say so little. Like, Mom, what did you tell her after I came back?”

Her mom had just ordered a glass of wine when she asked that question. “I was working up the courage to tell her. I called her, but the words wouldn’t come. She told me that it was alright, and something was in the mail.”

“Does Patrick know?”

“No, but I told him that whatever he hears, I still don’t want him stepping one foot outside of that prison. At this point, I think he’s tired of the threats he gets from people, but that’s too bad. You deserve better than what he did.”

Judy raised her eyebrow at her mom. So far, this was the most anyone told her about what had happened. Judy felt like she might have written something about it somewhere, but that couldn’t have happened. Walter whispered something in her mom’s ear to the effect of her not remembering that day, and it prompted an “Oh.”

Judy shook her head, and went about opening the light box on her lap. The wrapping was nice while it lasted. The box was beige and plain as, well, a box. If she commented on as much, she wondered if Wyatt would suggest boxing the designer over it if she were to have commented out loud. She removed the lid, and there was the last thing she expected to see right now.

With a gasp, she lifted the outfit from the box. It was a new costume modeled after her old one. The fabric was a little different. A cape had been attached to where the neck and shoulders would meet. It was probably her size, knowing her aunt.

The waiter, who had returned and handed Judy’s mom her wine, gaped.

Devon followed the others past an upended car toward a group of people laughing in the middle of the street by a couple of small fires. Half of those people looked like they had just gotten out of prison, and the other half looked like they at least had time to scrounge up their clothes.

“Hey, who’s this?” asked one woman, still garbed in prison grays. Devon thought people stopped dressing like that in the 90s.

One man—with dark skin, and braided hair running against his scalp and falling behind his neck—said, “It’s that one fool who appeared on the bridge when I tried to leave.”

Cingeteyrn said, “I see you took my advice. Is this all the party you can muster?”

“The fun’s only started. Isn’t that right, Dreamreaver?” He looked back toward a man who was holding a police officer with one hand, and raising his other hand while holding eye contact.

The officer looked petrified. The officer’s face streaked forward for a moment, and he screamed. Dreamreaver grinned before dropping the officer to the ground, leaving the officer twitching and drooling on the ground. The villain’s grin turned toward Devon’s group, and Devon averted his gaze out of instinct and disgust.

He had no doubt in his mind that they were all villains. Who they were and where they came from wasn’t important.

Just then, the first woman who’d spoken out about their presence screeched out in laughter and pointed up toward the early evening sky. A strange line shot from her finger as she did so. The line vanished in seconds, and Devon had no idea how or why in addition to what it even was.

“This is what we like to see and hear,” Vidnyanta said. “Yes, I have no doubt that this city will burn because of you, because of all of us.”

A big man, who twirled some sort of spike or thorn in his hand, said, “You sound like a psycho nutcase. What’s with the spider mask?”

Vidnyanta flicked her wrist, and something thick and white shot out at the man. It yanked him forward into her grasp. “That’s because I am, on a good day, and I think these sheep are all out of good days.”

She let him go before his stunned look could wear off. Then she walked forward to join the gathering of villains. Her feet lifted a few feet into the air, her arms spread.

“Tonight,” she said, “you all have an easy choice to make. I know the choices and actions you’ll take, but they’re yours. Tonight, we burn this city and ravage the hearts of those who call themselves heroes. Days ago, I set out to find a curious truth that shielded itself from me before I destroyed everything around it. My companions and I have prepared for this moment to rise to our greatest glory. So, who among you will deny this chance? Who among you thinks you want nothing to do with tearing this disgusting, marvelous city and its people apart?”

“How about the man with the answers?” asked a man from several yards behind Devon.

Vidnyanta whipped around to face him, and Devon turned as well. There stood a hero that he recognized, but wasn’t sure of the name.

The big man with the thorn is his hand hissed, “Mortar Mage.”

Author's Note: The final conflict of the trilogy begins, not to overshadow one scene in this chapter...

-------------
Chapter 27
-------------

That half a dozen of the Asylum escapees were here with the Vanquishiri Bahitians did not bode well. Mortar Mage tried to put names to their faces, but only the big man Bloodthorn, the woman with the vulture wings Carrion, and the other woman Needlepoint, came to mind. He had to assume the other three were just as bad, not just for where they had been locked up.

Bloodthorn leaped for Mortar, several long thorns sprouting from his body, but Mortar threw down a gadget and stepped aside. He let the gadget explode into a taffy-like substance to hold Bloodthorn a moment while Mortar walked forward.

“I’m not here to fight you assholes,” Mortar said.

The hovering woman with the spider mask said, “With my sight, you shouldn’t be here at all.”

“Precognition, is it? Good. I don’t like being watched when I work. It ruins the surprise.”

“Who are you? How are you able to elude my sight?”

The muscular member of the Vanquishiri said, “This one’s just a mere mortal.”

“I’m both a scientist and a high-level magician, wizard, sorcerer . . . whatever you wish to call it. It just so happens that my father is a demi-god.”

“Pfft . . . Still a mere mortal.”

“I am using a spell that misaligns my presence within the timeline. Psychics have difficulty reading me, people with full awareness of the present regardless of location can’t see me unless they use their own eyes, and precogs of any sort are unable to watch me or any object I am directly working on. It’s a spell I learned during my time in the eternal realm.”

The one with Stone’s face said, “That cannot be possible, not unless a god or a demi brought you into the eternal realm.”

“For a time that was true. Then, one day, in a not-so-strict sense of the time, a number of banished gods returned to the eternal realm and used the plot of a mad scientist to their advantage. The Earth, this one, was pulled little by little into the eternal realm until the fighting amongst the gods during their war touched down on the mortal realm. Then a little more until it drove people mad with trauma no mortal could withstand. Then, finally, they threw this version of Earth into the End of the Universe. The androids used to start this mess were again used to close the rift between us an nothingness. You can try it now, but you’ve probably noticed you can’t go back to that realm.”

Mortar turned his head harshly at the one called Devon Tartakovsky. “And you. You had to pry into the truth, into my family’s records. I hope you’re happy with the result. Now, what do you lot suppose will happen if I open that rift? Who among you is ready for absolute nothingness?”

“We can kill you now,” said the muscular Vanquishiri.

Bloodthorn, who broke free of his restraint, said, “I can agree with that. Tear him apart.”

“If you kill me now,” Mortar said, “the rift will open on its own and do worse than kill you. You won’t even be a memory. It is timed to do just that.” He saw the woman with the spider mask come down, and Mortar walked toward her. “I can let it go unless you give my friend back her body.”

“Impossible,” she said.

“She already came back from the dead. Don’t tell me what is or isn’t possible anymore. I want you to give her back her body, take your friends, and leave. You have eight hours, or I will make sure you never get to see even the burning of an insect. None of you will see anything. Consider this my only warning.”

“That’s enough,” said Devon. “Look, I don’t know what is wrong with you people, and I don’t care. I came here to study the facts because this city is a hotbed for the unknown. This is the city of Paragon!”

Suddenly, there was a sound from above of metal and wood twisting in ways it wasn’t meant to. A billboard fell from the top of a building, and it crashed in the middle of the gathering of metahumans and bodysnatching gods.

Mortar Mage formed a portal with his magic, and tackled Devon into it while everyone else was still reacting to the falling billboard. The portal closed behind him. Mortar stood while Devon crashed into the ground.

They were on the edge of town where a cliff overlooked the city. This was a common spot for tourists to enter the area. Fitting, Mortar thought.

He pointed forcefully at Devon. “I hope it was worth it. Some things people are just not ready to know. The metahumans in the nineteenth century and earlier, the things people with powers had to do to be safe, the reason I kept so much knowledge of the events four ago to myself; all of it!”

“I know. I know.” Devon held up a hand.

“My mother’s family held secrets that were dangerous. The average person, whether here or out there,” he pointed outside of the city, “can become mad or dangerous with that knowledge. Do you know how metahumans were treated in the 1800s? Imagine that, but worse. Now, because you had to find the answers, many good heroes have to face a half dozen highly dangerous criminals in addition to the banished gods.”

“I’m sorry, OK? You can’t tell me what I did was wrong. You can’t just stand there and tell me that everything you say and do is right.”

“No. I don’t care what you do now, just so long as you leave Paragon. Tonight.”

“Is that a threat?”

Mortar opened another portal. With an exhalation of relief, he smiled. “It’s a warning. The world could very well end. You don’t want to be here when it does.”

It might be better to be blissfully unaware.

“It’s like,” Wyatt said, “I ran into ol’ Exspira the other day. He passed through me on his way to the bar.” Tatiana gave him a smack upside the head. “Worth it.”

All Mary could do was shake her head and continue to drink her water. She heard Quentin utter a small groan to her right. Perhaps someone, either she or Kyra, should have warned him about Wyatt’s bad jokes.

“Welcome to the family,” she said. “Oh, there he is!”

Warren entered the general vicinity of the long table where the whole group sat. It had been a long time since the whole League sat together in a public restaurant like this, Mary realized, not to mention it was about time that Warren arrived.

“Sorry I’m late,” Warren said. “Hello, and you are?” He stuck a hand out toward Quentin.

Quentin shook it. “Quentin Sullivan. I’m a friend of Mary’s.”

“Boyfriend,” Mary and Kyra both chimed in.

“And that.”

“Are you that one hero I saw her with last night?” Warren asked.

“That would be, uhh . . .”

“Congratulations. Fair warning, though, Mary is one of three people in the universe I consider to be a sister. And Mary, save some for the rest of us.”

Kyra laughed while Warren walked over to the only empty seat at the table. The waiter came by with food and a drink all ready for him. Warren thanked the waiter, and again for Peter. Peter must have ordered for Warren some time ago.

She didn’t want to jinx anything by saying that this was a relaxing evening, but she then saw Walter examining his phone with a sigh. It was the sort of sigh that often came with bad news of some kind or another.

“Mortals, hear me!” a voice boomed from out of nowhere. It stirred various reactions around the restaurant as people wondered where it was coming from. Was it the stereo? No, the subtle music was still going in the background. “Your night of retribution has come. A few of your best have already threatened us, but I am Nervaeus. We are the Vanquishiri Bahitians. And you, even your strongest, are cattle.”

Everyone around the restaurant stared silently. Everyone except for Warren.

“I hate it when my warnings don’t take,” Warren said.

“Warren,” the party around the table said.

“Here I was thinking we could have a few hours at least. I guess I’ll have to box this up already. Has everything been paid for already?”

“It has,” Peter said.

“Walter, I think we need to go Code Alpha on this one, the works.”

Most of everyone at the table nodded immediately, though slowly. Mai grimaced with a deep breath and nodded too eventually. Quentin asked, “What’s a ‘Code Alpha?’”

Mai guided her daughter into the mansion from behind. “OK, go change and grab whatever you need.”

“What about you?” Judy asked. “Are you going to be alright?”

“Yes.” As her daughter climb the stairs with her new costume in hand, Mai turned to Walter. “What will you be doing?”

Walter said, “Directing as much as I can while helping people to safety. Curious, did Judy’s new costume come with new boots?”

“No, but I ran to the store to buy them and sneaked them into her room before we left here to go to dinner.”

“Holy crap!” Judy shouted from upstairs.

“See?” She noticed a peculiar smile coming from Walter. “What?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that tonight would be a good night for even older heroes to appear, including lost idols. I’ll be in the living room while I wait, I think.”

That was not something Mai wanted to hear. She spent years resisting the urge to go out and be a hero. She spent years shaming herself for letting the unthinkable happen. Being on the other side of the country at the time was still a terrible excuse in her mind. Tonight, her daughter was going out again. Tonight, her daughter might not be ready for it, but there was no more waiting. She always was a girl who made her own miracles.

Mai touched the wall on the side of the stairway, and looked up. She remembered a “boy” parading around in a mini Swan Diva costume, her sister pointing out the “boy’s” favorite color, and the baby girl coming out. She remembered one fateful day when her own hands were forever changed by a single action, and Judy was there to defend her. She remembered when her baby girl set out to follow a path that she might have known too well herself.

She looked down, and noticed that her feet had already carried her to the top of the stairs. She could have turned back, but no. She was done running.

Alright, I’ll do it. I’ve put this on for too damn long.

She made her way to the attic. Judy might have noticed her heading this way, but she didn’t follow or call out to her. Mai knelt over by the chest full of so many memories. She opened it. At the top, there were two costumes. The one on the left was the old Pixeletta costume. The other . . .

Mai kicked away her heels, slipped off her dress, and reached for her hero’s uniform.

Her full-facial mask and wig went on last, just as it always did. The mask allowed for the essentials—sight, breath, speech—but it covered her full identity as a mother and a hostess at a restaurant. It felt good to be her other self again. She turned, and at the doorway stood a stunned young woman in a costume.

Pixeletta, at long last, put her new boots on. They were styled a little different from her old ones she used to wear, but she liked them. Perhaps, given time, she might like them more. Having this small, light cape on her back, reaching barely past her bra, however, that was an entirely new experience that left her a little giddy.

She had to show her mom. More than that she needed to see her once more before the evacuation went underway, or things got too crazy. More than that, she really had to show off her new look to her mom.

The hallway wasn’t necessarily a long one, even before counting the turn she had to make to reach the stairs leading further up. Pixeletta climbed, somewhat curious as to why her mom would have come this way.

Once she was at the doorway, she stopped. Her eyes widened just in time for the only person in the attic to stand and turn. It was Swan Diva.

Many feelings exploded inside of Pixeletta. They wanted to erupt all over. She walked so slowly to her lifelong idol, who stood only as tall as she did now. Pixeletta reached with one hand to adjust the shoulder on Swan Diva’s costume. Tears flowed into her eyes, but Pixeletta held them.

Then, after an eternity, she threw her arms around her mother. Of course it was her. Of course she knew. And, of course one tear broke free while her greatest hero hugged her right the hell back.

[“I’ve wanted to tell you for so long,”] Swan Diva said in Japanese. The same feelings flooded her own voice.

[“I wanted to hear you say it for longer. We’re both here now.”]

[“Thank you, Judy.”]

“Let’s go save the world.” Pixeletta took her mother’s hand, and they walked down to the first floor.

Princess Undercut teleported into the living room with her husband. She knew that talking right away sometimes unsettled people when they still only saw her sparkling teleportation—something she had only ever seen on video—but she didn’t care. There wasn’t much time to care.

She said, “We’re here. Who’s got the suppressor cuffs, in case we need them?”

Walter tossed her a pair. “Here you go. The alpha frequency has been tested, and we’re good to go on that end.”

“Perfect. Is Judy gearing up? Whoa!”

Her answer came faster than expected, yes, but Princess Undercut did not expect to see Swan Diva walk into the room with Pixeletta.

“This is a little awkward,” Swan Diva said, “but do you have a couple of spare earpieces for the two of us?”

“Yes, right here, Mai,” Walter said, heading over to a drawer where the extra masks and earpieces were kept. He clicked another device in his hand while two earpieces here in the other. “There we go. Everyone in the League who’s working the field will be able to talk to everyone within range across the city. We’ll be passing the frequency along to team leaders as we find them. Here.”

The two heroines put their earpieces inside of their ears. Swan Diva said, “Well then, let’s get moving. Ju—Pixeletta, would you like to fly with me?”

“Yes,” Pixeletta said.

“I’ve been waiting twenty years to hear you say that.” She ruffled up Pixeletta’s hair.

“Mom!”

They laughed as they walked out of the house. Princess Undercut stood there, gaping. This was more surreal than that time a satellite crashed down and injected her with tiny robots that altered her body to allow for superpowers. It was far more surprising than when Wyatt proposed to her.

“Computer,” Walter said, “turn out the lights while we’re away, would you?”

A tin voice said, “Right away.”

Somewhere in Paragon City, there was a sound of boots marching. Then they appeared. Men in skintight black outfits and smaller versions of tiki masks entered the city. They marched through the city streets, their mere appearance unnerving or outright scaring a number of witnesses.

One unit with an organized number of these men stopped once their number stretched past a few buildings. The flanks checked the doors, and a handful of the troops marched into the buildings carrying something on their backs.

The unit proceeded in its march, and explosions burst from those same buildings that the troops broke into seconds before.

Now people were screaming. Now they were running.

A reporter sat waiting when the broadcast began. Countless homes, not just in Paragon City but also the world, were watching her.

“Could the world be ending as we know it? Find out. Here, at eleven.”

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

Mortar Mage carried a box into his lab. It had the vile with the aelshinyx sample he’d taken before the big crystal had been taken away days earlier. It held supplies for powerful spells he had not performed in a long time. It held a book, the only one he had, that detailed potent soul magic in all its grotesque grandeur.

If it wasn’t for the smugglers the League had taken down last night, the Circle would never have had so much power in Paragon, and their strongholds and artifacts wouldn’t have littered the city after they were gone. That was the only conclusion Mortar Mage had. If it wasn’t for those smugglers of artifacts, the Vanquishiri wouldn’t have been so powerful now.

Blaming anyone didn’t change what he had to do to fix things.

He set aside his materials and set down the book before opening it. Mortar flipped through a few pages before smacking his own forehead and looking in the back for an index. What? No index! This search for the right spell was going to take a while.

Orange lights flashed in a few corners around the lab. He looked at them with a blank stare. Those meant something. Then he remembered.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

The President strolled into the Oval Office after spending an evening at another lavish party, telling people the nation had lots of work to do. He undid his cufflinks while perusing the stack of papers that found a new home on his desk while he was away. More bills, more policies.

He chuckled to himself. Tonight, he had had a little fun at the party by passing around a napkin with various scribbles and the title “I Am Awesome Act.” He let the news pundits from both sides see it, knowing that at least a third of them would overreact to it. At this point, that was the real joke.

Someone knocked on the door. “Mr. President. We have a potential situation.” The man held a thick folder. It was a shame the man didn’t look spooky or mysterious, or carry a cigarette. There were some things the president never wanted to change.

“What kind of situation?” he asked.

“It’s about Paragon City.”

“Paragon? Is it another Event?”

The man handed over the folder. “It appears to be a bit of everything, sir. Everything but her.”

Documents summarizing recent events and an anonymous tip took up the whole of the folder, barring the few necessary pictures to push the point. Otherworldly crystals, superpowered criminals of the highest caliber breaking out of a major facility, grave robberies, classified reports involving a series of gang war outbreaks, sightings of a young woman brought back from the dead, and another appearance from them.

Diamond Grace kicked another of these freaky foot soldiers to the ground. Or was it the same one? It was hard to tell with how they dressed and moved so much alike. The ones with the bigger masks chased down people in the streets, while the ones in smaller masks kept marching.

She heard Trash Knuckle laughing behind her. He seemed to be having a time of his life trashing the larger-masked creeps.

Where were these things coming from? Diamond Grace hoped the answer could be found and resolved quickly. She feared how much of a disaster this night could become if the presumably human things weren’t dealt with.

Off to the side, she saw a random hero and villain she’d never seen before duking it out, their powers tearing through the air.

Multiple tiki-freaks, or whatever they’re supposed to be called, jumped Diamond Grace at once. She braced for impact, knowing that her limited fighting skills that she had learned from watching her father duel a punching bag would only get her so far. She was going to knock down what she could before they wailed against her ice armor.

Then someone moving at a blinding speed kicked into the side of one attacker, and then swung a weapon of some sort against another. It was Adamast Cross, and she was beating down the tiki-freaks with a parasol as if it were an average day in the park. Diamond Grace literally couldn’t grasp what she was seeing.

“Welcome to the party,” cheered Trash Knuckle. He charged again at the marching tiki-troopers.

Adamast rested the now-open parasol on her shoulder. “Swell. Here, take this.” She tossed something tiny to Diamond Grace. It looked like a device that she could put in her ear. She had used one of these earlier today, and knew that the earpiece could resist heat and cold to a certain degree. “It’s set to the main frequency everyone in the League is using; us and every other cape in the city, actually.”

Diamond Grace said, “Cool. Look . . . out.” She had tried to warn her sister against an attacker, but Adamast punched the large tiki mask in the nose, like they both learned from their father, with hardly more than a glance. It busted open the mask as the freak went flying backward.

“And we’re a-moving.” Adamast smiled and ran off.

Once her sister was gone, Diamond Grace stepped close to the freak that Adamast had punched. She recoiled with a hand over her mouth when she saw its face. It was like a patchwork quilt of human flesh, its eye sockets burned out.

What the Hell were they fighting?

Swan Diva landed on the pavement, and she and her daughter let go. Long ago, she had hoped to treat it as a flying lesson, but this was never that time. That time might never come, and she learned to live with that fact.

“Alright, you know the plan,” Swan Diva said.

“Yep,” Pixeletta said, “help the civilians, call if someone shows who I can’t handle alone. Good luck.”

Pixeletta ran off to some frightened civilians who were likely on their way home from work, shopping, or eating out when the shit hit the fan. Luck? Swan Diva never needed luck. But she was grateful for it.

She turned and wasted no time yanking a “Slow” sign out of the nearby sidewalk. Swan Diva used her flight to charge and swing at a group of tiki mask bearers marching in the streets. Her first swing thrust a few bodies into the air and resulted in a man shouting “Whoa!”

It was Captain Patriot, the younger, who was descending mid-flight. “Careful, there. You might kill someone.”

“They’re already dead.” Swan Diva took another swing. "Reanimated corpses, I’m told.”

“Hey, you kinda look like Swan Diva. Has anyone told you that?”

“Has anyone told you that you look like your father?” Another swing. Then she backed away quickly when one of the tiki mask bearers raised its arms in fury, growled an unearthly sound, and a wisp of vapor arose from the pack on its back. “Look out!”

The one reanimated corpse marched at her at a high pace. Captain Patriot grabbed and lifted the mask bearer, and it exploded in his hand. The blast knocked him sideways, but he remained unscathed. Knowing his father, he could have taken a whole lot more than that.

“What was that?” Captain Patriot asked.

“They’re carrying explosives,” Swan Diva said. “I know you can take it, but most of the city can’t.”

“You’re well informed about this. I would like to know what I can, you know.”

“If you haven’t already,” Swan Diva hefted the sign in her hand, “switch your receiver to the Alpha signal.”

“Alpha signal?” He winced a second later as though someone was shouting into his ear, though brief as it was.

As Swan Diva dived back into the action, a woman’s voice came through on the earpiece. Boy, did she sound (not) pleasant? “Did someone say something about the Alpha signal?”

June Ur, a costumed hero for the past eleven months and some weeks, missed a vital attack against his opponent, a minor villain wanted for random car bombings around the city. The villain’s own attack threw him backwards into a shed outside a hardware store.

The shed was demolished, and if he didn’t get up fast enough then so was he. Someone had to bring down Carjack Carl. June Ur pushed himself up with a groan, and flopped back down on his ass when a pregnant woman in a costume took the villain down in a series of attacks that looked like a gymnast’s worst nightmare.

“Woo,” said the woman, who now looked down at and touched her belly, “I better not catch you doing what mommy did, sweety, or I will ground your ass.”

She looked up at June Ur as he finally managed to get up and grab his hammer. Holy shit, it was Princess Undercut.

“Hello,” she said. “do you have a radio receiver on you, per chance?”

“Just the one in my ear, sorry,” he said, making a point to breathe.

“Perfect. You’ll probably want to listen in on the Alpha Signal while we detain the bad guys and evacuate those who need it.”

“Alpha? Evacuate? Huh?”

“One sec.” She pulled out something that looked a bit like a buzzer someone would use as a joke when shaking hands. She clicked it next to June Ur’s ear while bearing a gentle smile on her face. Then she walked away, and vanished in a flash of large sparkles.

Walter was the last to leave the mansion. He knew that before he headed out he’d need to get a message out across the channel without any disreputable fellows with precognition listening in.

A few voices joined the Alpha Signal. A couple were more curious than others, and one was a verbal dissenter judging by the way she spoke. Oh, she was a hero, if Walter’s suspicion was correct about her identity, but this was a reserved channel.

“Good evening, everyone. While we’re asking questions and doing our best to save the good people of Paragon City, let me explain what this is. We are entering a situation where the villains will be many and powerful, where droves of reanimated corpses will run rampant to kill and destroy, and quite possibly minor villains will step in and make a choice to be a part of the mayhem or to make things right with whatever conscience they may have left. On this channel, which was constructed in response to the great invasion five years ago, we have leaders, willing and able, so that we can coordinate in our efforts and prepare for the worst. This is not a drill. By tonight’s end, there could be very little city left, or no world at all, unless we work together. I wish I could tell you more than that.”

“Who are you?” asked the woman whose voice was now draining of the cold attitude she was known for.

“My name is Walter Dallevan. I am the man responsible for a league of heroes you might have heard about, and a chief strategist for soldiers, costumed heroes, and diplomats alike. Tonight, I am one of you, fighting by your side to save our city.”

So now it began. He walked out of the house, whispering a goodbye to the computer, and made for the motorcycle in the driveway that Mortar Mage had left just for him. On a night like this, getting around on foot was a timely endeavor he could not take.

He rode for the main of Talos to the south. He watched the sky as people fought with their various powers. He listened while people pointed out collapsed buildings in Steel Canyon where a few survivors needed digging up, and while villains above rank 7 were spotted.

One hero said, “Hello, is this working?”

“Loud and clear,” another responded.

“Good. I’m by Kingston and Siren’s. There are a lot of people stuck in traffic over here. My team’s doing what we can.”

“Good work. We’ll send someone your way to assist when we can.”

“Hello, are you here to help? We need to get these people to safety. Wait, what? Ahh!” The hero’s piercing scream was accompanied by a woman laughing, and she kept on laughing through a gushy, crunching sound that followed. It was akin to a watermelon being crushed if it had a harder exterior. The sound cut out in a pitch of static.

Walter stopped his bike at the side of the road. He got up, wishing he only had to offer his condolences to the unknown hero who had lost their life.

There was a barricade of police officers shooting at the foot soldiers with the larger masks. Behind them was a muscular man just folding his arms with a malicious smile across his face. Walter vaguely knew his face as the villain who had died in Oregon.

The man’s eyes turned to Walter.

She grabbed Captain Patriot and pulled him out of the way when she caught a glimpse of a giant robot taking aim at him. It fired a massive laser that shook the whole area and took out some of the marching mask bearers. The laser swung left after Swan Diva and the national icon for a few seconds before dissipating.

“Friend of yours?” she asked.

“If it is, I’m not sending them any Christmas cards,” Captain Patriot said.

A voice from within the robot spoke out through an amplifier. “I will bring the world to its knees, Captain Patriot.” His voice was nasally like a stereotypical nerd.

Swan Diva said, “You didn’t break into his house and juggle his book collection, did you?”

“Hey now,” Captain Patriot protested.

The voice said, “First you, then the city. Ah-hahaha!”

“Oh, one of those,” both heroes said.

She dropped the other hero at the robot’s feet, and then flew where the neck should have been if the giant robot were anatomically correct in even the slightest sense. With one punch after another, she struck at the metal body. Her super strength wasn’t enough.

Meanwhile, the good Captain was undoubtedly having as much luck trying to penetrate this thing, and the group of tiki bearers was drawing closer.

If only there was a way to knock out two birds with one stone.

Wait, what was she thinking? Pixeletta, a girl known for her mischief as well as her heroics, was her goddamn daughter. Of course there was a way.

“Get behind it!” she yelled.

Swan Diva flew down and met Captain Patriot. She wasted no time pushing behind one of the robot’s stiff legs. She jerked her head, looking from the Captain to the other leg, and he caught on. Her strength, or even his, might not have been enough to make a dent in this thing, but just like a tree branch could trip a person, the two of them combined could hopefully move the overgrown contraption.

It budged.

The robot fell forward.

The nasal, idiotic, would-be villain screamed as his toy crushed the zombie-like abominations belonging to the Vanquishiri. His momentum shattered the pavement, and now there was at least one new crater in the northern side of Steel Canyon.

It was too bad this wasn’t enough to completely deter the mask bearers. Some even began to climb onto the backside of the robot and continue their death march.

“Is there no end to these undead freaks?” Diamond Grace asked over the earpiece. “If we don’t end this, we’ll all get tired and overrun by these things.”

Walter said, “Don’t tire yourselves out too much. Let someone from the evacuation efforts trade if they’re able, so you can catch a respite.”

The cold smile from the muscular Vanquishiri held. Walter was unsure if the bodysnatching, banished god had heard him or not; he gave no indication. He didn’t even dignify the fact that his group of masked foot soldiers had fallen, or that the police were threatening to shoot him if he didn’t get on the ground.

Somewhere, another hero called out for help, only too late in the face of a villain of some higher rank. It was as though the villains were too being directed.

“This is War Lagoon,” came a welcome voice. “I have found one of them.”

“Prepare to die, hero!” said a man’s voice.

Ohm Wire said, “We have a hostage situation here at City Hall. I can’t even fake invisibility to get past the creepy guys with the big masks.”

It was then that the muscular Vanquishiri laughed. His voice filled the air. Walter put a name to it from what he had heard earlier.

Nervaeus said, “Fight, little ants. Fight as long and as hard as you can. I told you, tonight is your night of reckoning. We will show you how hopeless it is to resist before I, Nervaeus, crush you.” He crouched, and then he jumped on top of a building, leaving a caved hole in the ground where he once stood. “Tonight, darkness falls forever upon this world. See even now as the sky darkens, signaling the end.”

Walter looked at the deep black covering the night sky, which had already lacked any fair visibility due to the city’s light pollution. The air rumbled.

“I’m not so sure that’s what Nervaeus thinks it is,” Walter mused aloud.

Tiny lights appeared in the darkness. It was the underbelly of something huge. One of the alien races had just dropped by for an invasion.

It fired a flaming ball of light at one of the Talos skyscrapers.

-------------
Chapter 29
-------------

Striga Island had its own share of trouble, off to the east of Paragon’s mainland, but it was nothing compared to the city most days. War Lagoon knew this. He counted on it about as much as being able to find a few smalltime heroes on patrol who were willing to help out with the increasing efforts across the sea.

He met two sibling heroes chatting at the docks who looked bored. It didn’t take much convincing to ask them to come along before he left.

Nothing reached the earpiece he wore. That wasn’t too surprising since the Alpha Signal required a central point somewhere in Paragon City. The city had three such locations in case of an emergency. Striga Island and Nerva didn’t have either, and they were both out of range of the beacons hidden around the city, even though the Event had barely touched the edge of Striga’s docks a few months ago.

Once they got closer to the mainland, however, whatever was going on was going to reach War Lagoon’s ear. He knew to expect it once they were in range.

The sibling heroes went off in their own direction to help out around the city, and War Lagoon listened to everyone reporting across the channel while he scanned the streets and alleys in Founder’s Creek. Something didn’t feel right.

However, he saw the ambush too late. A muscular man jumped out of a window at him, and they fell the better part of two stories. War Lagoon crash landed on top of a closed dumpster. He recognized his attacker before the man could sprout a body full of thorns and stab War Lagoon with them.

He kicked Bloodthorn away, as sore as he was from the fall. One question he had was how the villain knew he was there. War Lagoon tried to push it to the side of his mind, but he heard what sounded like a hero being killed while calling out the location of another villain.

“This is War Lagoon,” he said into his earpiece. “I have found one of them.”

Bloodthorn shouted, “Prepare to die, hero!”

The villain’s spikes and thorns were full grown now. War Lagoon would have stated his location, but Ohm Wire was reporting that the enemy was surrounding City Hall. And then the fight truly began between him and Bloodthorn.

Or it would have if not for the fact that they were in a dark alley at night. War Lagoon used his power to intensify the shadows and use them to hold Bloodthorn’s entire body in the middle of the air. War Lagoon shook his head while he felt the villain struggle inside of the darkness.

As the struggling weakened, perhaps a little faster than expected, a man’s voice echoed from the unknown:

“Fight, little ants. Fight as long and as hard as you can. I told you, tonight is your night of reckoning. We will show you how hopeless it is to resist before I, Nervaeus, crush you.”

The struggling stopped, and War Lagoon released the shadows. He heard the body drop, but now he was facing away, looking to see if he could spot the source of the voice. It was annoying, and someone had to bring down those Vanquishiri as he was sure Nervaeus was certainly one.

Something stung him from behind. Stabbed, even. It hurt. The low, rumbling laughter caught War’s ear.

Nervaeus said, “Tonight, darkness falls forever upon this world. See even now as the sky darkens, signaling the end.”

War Lagoon stumbled forward after he swung back with his right arm, which was closest to the stab wound. He barely hit Bloodthorn, who withdrew. War Lagoon fell to his knees as the lights appeared on the ship overhead.

Adamast Cross stomped on the ground, not really sure she needed to, and extended her ice armor powers across the pavement until it hit and encapsulated a number of undead foot soldiers. She could have gone longer and harder with it, but there were plenty of villains and banished gods to fight.

This simple trick and her melee combat with the parasol would have to suffice.

More heroes joined to take down the ring of foot soldiers that surrounded City Hall while the alien ship above made itself more pronounced with those lights. It looked like the ship covered more of the east side of the city than the west.

“Dock,” Adamast shouted out to one of the heroes, “Get your ass on the Alpha Signal.”

“Serious? On it, thanks.” Dock backhanded a foot soldier that came after him, and he tinkered with something on his cybernetic arm while observing the heroes on the scene. Adamast could hear a few snickers before Dock’s voice joined the radio channel. “Hello, can everyone hear me?”

“Crystal clear,” said Ohm Wire, and others had a few variant words.

“What started these guys off?”

Adamast said, “It’s a long story. Let’s just put these undead creatures to rest and head inside to check on Mayor Oldman to make sure he’s safe.”

“Undead?”

“Pieced together from multiple bodies, all of them. Their leaders are gods who were banished from their pantheons. Oh, and we have a half dozen villains out here who escaped from the Asylum the other night. Any questions?”

The alien ship took another potshot, this time at a building to the north of City Hall.

The Rhakians made it to this planet, and, judging by the state of the city below as well as the absence of every other ship that came before them, the others had failed to beat these irksome creatures as much as they deserved.

[“Sir,”] the ensign said, [“our chronometer is showing signs of malfunction.”]

[“Priorities, Ensign!”] the commander said. [“Prepare to fire at their buildings to test for integrity and instill fear in the enemy. Fire!”]

Moments passed swiftly. The people of Earth were in no condition to fight back. The commander ordered for another shot. Then, half as long later, he ordered a third.

The third shot didn’t come. The weapons officer tried again and again.

Then a man in a flame-colored hood and a mask appeared on several screens. He wore a ridiculous smile as well. The commander ordered the translation software to go to work when the officer was already on it.

“Hello,” said the Earth man. “Sorry to commandeer your ship’s main weapons and communications array, but I’m going to need them in a moment. You can have your silly little toys back when I’m done, or you can leave. Your choice.”

Once the screens went out, the commander said, [“I hate this planet so much.”]

“No, wait,” War Lagoon said in a hoarse voice, only too late.

Another hero flew in to fight Bloodthorn. The hero was ranged in terms of power, but he wasn’t quick enough. Bloodthorn jumped the hero and slashed his neck with one spike protruding from his arm. The hero was tossed like a doll into the nearby canal.

War Lagoon hammered a fist into the ground as he got up. He called on a shadow to patch up the hole in his lower back so that it wouldn’t bleed out. Then he summoned a tentacle from the dark abyss to rise up from the middle of the street and smack Bloodthorn sideways at full force.

Yeah, he hurt like hell. That didn’t mean War Lagoon didn’t have a ton of fight in him. He could have tried running off to get help, but there was no telling how much damage the villain would have done then. War Lagoon shot multiple short bolts of darkness at the villain. The villain grew extra thorns to block the attack.

Bloodthorn threw a handful of bone-colored spikes his way. War Lagoon opened a dark portal between them and himself, and a second one behind the villain. The spikes were long enough for a railroad, but if they hit Bloodthorn he didn’t show any level of concern for it.

Both men charged at one another. War Lagoon formed a pole with his shadow energy and pulled it back for a swing. Bloodthorn threw something and dodged to the side. War Lagoon wrapped the item on the ground with a heavy dose of shadow energy when he recognized it, but the grenade will threw him backward when it blew.

Great, now his vision and hearing were disoriented to go with the pain. Where the hell did Bloodthorn even get a grenade? He steadied his senses as best as he could rather than dwell on that question.

“You’re one of the tougher ones to beat,” Bloodthorn said. “Killing you means the whole League can be beat. I look forward to my revenge!”

War Lagoon got up using his flight. He redid the patch on his back now, realizing that holding it required a small amount of concentration, but now there were enough bruises and scratches forming on his body. There was only one way to deal with this fight.

He wrapped his whole body in energy, and flew at the villain as fast as he could. Bloodthorn parried against the blow, and War Lagoon parried against his counterattack. They went back and forth for a few seconds, during which time their powers raised from kittens to beasts of a jungle, fists turned from the slamming of car doors to the collision of freight trains, and breath transformed from a gentle sea breeze to the turbulence of a tornado. Every attempt the villain made to stab him burned like the coldest ice against his skin. He took a couple punches, expecting to win because he knew he could end this storm if he acted quick.

This was a terrible idea, but it was the only one he had until, by the end of the same brutal moment, War Lagoon managed to attach the first cuff of a power suppressor on the villain’s left wrist. He kicked inward at Bloodthorn’s right leg and held the pressure as his knee buckled in pain. War Lagoon whipped the second cuff around a streetlamp, and attached it to the other man’s right hand.

As the thorns and spikes disintegrated, War Lagoon said, “Nighty night,” and punched the villain one last time across the jaw.

They both collapsed. War Lagoon felt woozy. His own power felt like it was slipping away. Parts of him felt numb now, but he couldn’t count where or how many spots. Someone ran to him with a device. He knew this device. He thought he did. The dark, messy world slipped away. And then, he was somewhere brighter and spinning.

Adamast Cross led four other heroes into City Hall. A desperate criminal held a gun to the mayor’s head while they marched forward. Ohm Wire went ahead and used her faux invisibility to release the clip and put the safety on. The only hero in the room that Adamast didn’t recognize was the one who charged in and took the criminal down.

Adamast took out her earpiece and turned it off. It was a habit as much as it was a show of respect when walking into most places.

“Thank you,” Mayor Oldman said. “That damned fool held me here since those people appeared outside.”

“They’re not people,” Adamast said. “They’re someone’s idea of a bad joke.”

“Well, still. Please follow me to my office. We need to discuss what to do about this situation that’s going on.”

“I’m not sure how much longer these plants can keep the freaks out of Talos,” said one voice. “We’re giving this spot everything we have, but we need more people to help evacuating.”

Another said, “I just gave my emergency teleport device to another hero. He was bleeding everywhere when he was sent to the hospital. I think he took down Bloodthorn!”

“Oh my god,” a third said, “how many of these things are there?”

“I’m pinned down by Peregrine Labs. Send help!”

“They’re coming up through the sewers.”

Their voices came from the radio set up in one corner of the lab where Mortar Mage was working. The only break he had away from his work in here was when he took a portal to board the alien ship and apply a device to their computer controlling the core. Any attempt to remove the device would give those extraterrestrials a nasty shock.

“. . . War Lag . . .” Static. “. . . critical condition. Hand me . . .”

The name stole Mortar Mage’s attention for a brief second. If he heard what he thought was just said, then things had already gone too far.

He checked the progress on everything while thinking to himself. The aliens wanted to trigger the alarm? Fine. The Vanquishiri wanted to move up the time table he’d given them? Fine. Everyone was entitled to their decisions, and now he had made his.

His radio wasn’t the only device for communication he had, however. There was a camera, and a few screens showing off the many security feeds around the city. Most of them were outdoor feeds. That was where the fight was, across Paragon’s mainland area.

Mortar looked at a clock. It had been four hours since he told the Vanquishiri his terms. Their forces and many villains alike were now tearing through the city. Heroes were exhausting themselves in a citywide effort not seen in close to five years, except this time was more dangerous. More costly. Even now, as more heroes were being hospitalized.

Tears didn’t come. No matter how hard that part of him screamed for what was happening, Mortar did not cry. He did not yell. He did not let himself frown for what he was about to do, as serious and as risky as it was. His fury was unbridled if not for his will to do what was now necessary. Mortar Mage forced himself to smile, and he turned on the camera and the microphone.

They were linked to every channel of every audio device or physical display in the city. It was time.

“Ladies and gentlemen and everyone else of Paragon City! Hello, can everyone hear me right now? Enjoying yourselves in all your glory, I see,” said Mortar Mage, knowing that his face could be seen and his voice could be heard by all if only the city were quiet. When was it ever? But he had prepared for this.

He clicked the first button on a remote, and whispered a few words.

Like a boiling kettle of arcane energy, the first of ten runic symbols—each one large enough to fit a pair of cars on its space—screeched, and it shone gloriously from the ground to the now-occupied sky in the northwestern corner of Paragon’s city limits.
Then the second did the same in the northeastern corner, followed by a third south of the first, and so on until the first eight surrounded the vast majority of the city. This caught the attention of people everywhere, regardless of whether they were in the city itself or on the other side of the world, and it did so in time for the ninth to appear in the undesignated zone in the north and the tenth to the south where Shiva Bay once thrived.

Mortar’s voice filled the air as the screeching died down, “That, my friends, is the sound of silence crashing down on all of Paragon.” The runes hissed.

He knew that no one with the sight, whether by god blood or mutation or other origin, could see Paragon’s future or pinpoint where he was. None of them could see past this moment. If Mortar Mage was bluffing, no one would be able to call him on it.

Not that it stopped anyone from trying. Mortar could feel those runes tingle out there, as well as on his back.

This was the moment Halah saw. The Vanquishiri woman saw it too. It has to be.

“Now,” continued Mortar Mage, “first question, to all you gods, you demi-gods and quarter gods, you wannabes and could-have-beens: Who here remembers the war fought over four years ago? Better question: Who wants to wake up tomorrow? Because it’s time we had a talk.”

The mobs of abhorrent minions belonging to the Vanquishiri stopped, ceased by a single hand belonging to none other than Nervaeus. The whole trio was listening.

Just like the rest of the city. Just like the entire world.

“In the last seven years, can anyone tell me what’s changed? What’s different? You’ve all pushed and you’ve prodded since before then. I used to think this city was ripe for change when I took up my moniker as hero. I used to think my hand alone could tip the balance for the better.”

Too many variables, not enough constants. Mortar thought to himself.

“Four years ago, when a seal was made holding back a place called the eternal realm, everyone on the planet went about their business as if all we had was a simple gang war spanning random cities and streets across the globe. It was another day, another headache.”

He used the hacked feed to show images on all of the televisions screens and smart phones in Paragon. They were the surviving images of the eternal realm bleeding into this world, and the gods fighting at random places around the globe.

“But take a good look. Let these images seep into that corner of your minds you’ve all forgotten. Let it stir the fragments of your memory you seemed to have lost ever since we drifted too close to eternity and nothingness. Take a good guess what may happen when I open the seal.”

The final image was alike to an explosion north of Siren’s Gauntlet. In the same place where there remained a “mysterious” crater. No, it wasn’t an explosion, or an implosion, but an erasure of a space. A single point in which the mortal realm had been consumed by pure oblivion.

Had the seal been activated even a second later, half of Paragon would have been sucked into the end of the universe. The trauma of that time was too much for everyone alive. Mortar had no idea why he remembered it so well when no one else he knew did.

Mortar Mage said, “On the other side of this seal is the eternal realm, home of the gods, and final resting place of everything as we know it; and I am going to open it and close it again because it needs to happen if we are to survive. So, to all of you with the blood or ego of a god, or the power to face one, enjoy your final moments before the rift opens around this city and you get sucked in. You remember the little good every last one of you has ever done with all of your petty squabbling. All of your deeds. All of your words. When the seal opens, and you are sucked into the eternal realm, leaving everyone else behind, remember how little it all mattered in the end because that memory will be the last thing you have.

“If you value your time, as well as those around you, then start running. If you think you’re big and bad, and are done listening to me, then fight to your heart’s content. Either way, remember, you have one hour. So start packing. We have a one-way trip to make.”

He ended the transmission at last.

-------------
Chapter 30
-------------

“What has he done?” Mayor Oldman asked, grasping his thin hair with both hands and pacing around his office while the heroes watched him. “What has that madman done?”

Adamast Cross said, “Sir, we need to get you to safety.”

“I’m fine right here. It’s this menace. We need to do something about Mortar Mage before he kills us all.”

“He’s not going to. You can count on that, but we need to help everyone and do something about the villains going crazy out there.”

“No, no, no. Don’t you see? These villains want something. Something set them off. It was Mortar Mage. Yes, it had to be him. How else can we explain this? Listen, I want the six of you to team up. I know you’re short two members. Doesn’t matter. By the powers invested in me as mayor, I’m making you a task force to bring down Mortar Mage. Use lethal force is necessary. That should fix things.”

“That’s not going to work,” Adamast Cross said.

“It has to.”

“I’m not killing Mortar Mage when he’s not the problem.”

An enraged Mayor Oldman said, “You will do it, or I will have you arrested! You Dallevan Leaguers have been a thorn in my side since I appointed your task force six years ago. It is bad enough having one or two strong-willed mutants or other so-called heroes having their way with my city, but you! You lot have to make things difficult for me at every turn. So do as I say, or else!”

Around the room, the other heroes were shifting uneasily. There was no telling if half of them, even Dock and Bucht, would have tried to arrest Adamast if the mayor gave the order. She did not lose her resolve.

She said, “No. I’m done following your orders, Mayor. When tonight is over, if it’s over, I only hope the people are done as well. There are good people out there. Not just the men and women fighting as we speak to save countless lives, but the everyday person. If we abandon them to follow your whim now, we doom them to pain, death, or possibly worse. Don’t ask me how. Mortar made his decision, and we have an hour to make sure it is the right one. We have an hour to get our people to safety, which is Herculean to say the least. Do you know how many of those villains out there started out as good people? Do you know how many villains you will birth if we do things your way?

“No, Mayor, we will not abandon them. And if you want to bring up the last six years, then let me bring up what I’m going to do when this is over. I’m going to start a campaign to find someone who will replace you. Someone who can provide this city the help it’s needed since you came to office so the good people can go back to being good people. If I can’t find anyone, then I will run against you myself.”

“You?” asked Mayor Oldman. “A scantily clad mutant with porn tits? Who’s ever going to listen to a freak like you?”

Never mind the fact that her breasts were a cup and a half smaller now than when she had been a succubus; she wasn’t going to dignify half of what the mayor just said. “When this is over, I hope everyone in the city will listen. I’m going now, to help those people you would rather ignore. You can try to stop me, but remember that every life I’m unable to save is on you. Someone get the mayor to safety.”

Adamast turned to the door. She heard people following her while she reactivated her earpiece. The only person not following her was Ohm Wire.

“I hope you’re right about Mortar,” said Dock.

“So do I,” Adamast said. “Ohm Wire, are you OK on your own?”

Through the earpiece, she said, “I am, love. I’m just going to escort the mayor to the bridge.”

“Good. I don’t think the Escapist will let him in.”

“The Escapist?” came another voice over the radio.

“They probably have their underground gateway open to somewhere safe. We can use that as an auxiliary outlet for people closer to the center of the city. We’re going to need people ready to teleport the sick and injured to a safe distance. We’ll need all ports and major roads as clear as possible, and evacuate from the center of town outward. Someone needs to plug up the source of these masked zombies, and we need to do something about the villains posing a threat right now. That’s what we have ahead of us for the next fifty-seven minutes. Alright, everyone, let’s do this.”

His smile was wider now than he had felt in a long time. Walter rode across town on his bike, having heard what Adamast said to the Mayor. Everyone did who was on the Alpha Signal. If Walter was right, a lot of heroes were feeling encouraged right now. It wasn’t going to be enough to beat the growing threat across the city, but every little bit helped.

Walter spotted a pile of rubble that made a ramp and some of the masked foot soldiers charging at someone from behind. He rode up the ramp, aiming his bike in what he hoped was the right direction. The bike’s front tire smashed into one of the foot soldiers and knocked it down as he pushed forward with his bike. The other foot soldiers turned his way, but he left them behind.

He spoke into the earpiece. “If anyone is able and interested, I last saw Nervaeus in Talos. I do believe he’s quite strong, however.”

“Thank you, Walter,” Adamast said. “I think a few of us should head that way now. Saelum, would you mind heading north and seeing about where these undead creatures are pouring in from? There are more heroes that way, so you should be fine.”

“You got it, honey,” Saelum Blaster said.

When Ohm Wire barked a laugh, Adamast sighed. “I am so fucked.”

“In more ways than one, love,” Ohm Wire said.

“And you thought my puns were bad,” Psi Wizard said.

Princess Undercut said, “They still are, sweety.”

Walter drove through the Kingston district until he wrapped around the south side of City Hall where he suspected he might spot Ohm Wire and Mayor Oldman. Indeed, they were coming down the steps as he reached the front. He honked the bike’s horn, and beckoned them over.

“Mind if I take him?” Walter asked. “I appear to be on evacuation duty since Adamast has things well in hand.”

“I have a car,” the mayor said. “We can take that.”

“Cars are but tools that can be replaced, Mayor; something I feel you might appreciate. Cars are no doubt flooding the streets as we speak as people try to leave town. A motorcycle would be quicker.”

The mayor showed reluctance as he got on the bike behind Walter.

“So now what?” asked Ohm Wire.

Walter said, “There are still plenty of villains to subdue and arrest, not to mention the Vanquishiri. A number of heroes will now be appearing in hospitals in the city. I’ve bargained with the police already to help get those heroes and everyone else to safety.”

“You can’t do that,” said his passenger, “I’m the mayor!”

“Oh, shut up. Anyways, Ohm Wire, what you do and where you go is up to you. But I recommend the hospital in Steel Canyon. I’d give you a lift if not for our passenger.”

“That’s OK. I’ve recently mastered travel by sliding along power cables and metal rails. I can be there in seconds.” She ran off before Walter could get another word in. Sure, he could have contacted her over the radio signal, but he didn’t have anything substantial to say.

Walter drove off toward the southwest.

The most delicious thing was terror and pain. That was what Dreamreaver often told people when he pulled against their minds, memory by memory.

He strolled through the grounds outside of Peregrine Labs while the savage things with large masks went around attacking anyone they could find unless he got his hands on them first.

Suddenly, explosions went off that threw a handful of the savage things into the air. A hero showed up. Good. Heroes were often better than everyone else when it came to reliving their pain, and having it torn out like using a sharpened spoon to deal with a cut.

A second one landed on the ground with bright wings. A third person arrived on the scene, but she, the winged one, was the first to make the ultimate mistake. She made eye contact.

That was all Dreamreaver ever needed to feast on their minds.

He reached in. She fell to her knees and screamed.

Psi Wizard teleported in with his wife’s help in time to see the hero with the hat tackle the villain. Thankfully, Psi recognized the villain in time.

“Stop!” Psi Wizard said.

The hero who pinned Dreamreaver to the ground had his fist in the air. The villain was chuckling. The winged heroine had just gotten up again when she screamed.

Psi Wizard wrapped a psionic field around the hero’s mind, and a second around the villain. He knew, with Dreamreaver’s strength, there was only so long he could hold. It didn’t help that the other man on the scene was a psychic as well. The other psychic was poised to assault Psi Wizard’s mind in the confusion.

“Are you alright?” Psi Wizard asked Dazzling Dawn.

“I don’t think you’re in any position to be asking her that,” the other psychic said. Psi Wizard knew he looked familiar, but who was he?

“That down there is Dreamreaver. If you look into his eyes, he can infect your mind and tear it to pieces from a couple miles away. If you knock him out, it’ll be much worse.” He released Texplosion.

Texplosion growled, and he looked around at the sparkling lightshow that Princess Undercut was putting on. At the same time, the undead creatures were dropping from the sky. However, Princess Undercut stopped in the middle of the group, panting, while Dreamreaver got back up.

Dreamreaver said, “Oh, a pregnant hero? This should be the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

It was a good thing she was smart enough to keep her eyes closed. Psi Wizard wished she had teleported behind the heroes instead of in front of them like this.

There were still plenty of those undead things, too.

“You guys deal with the undead foot soldiers,” said Psi Wizard, gritting his teeth. “I’m going in.”

“Alone?” the other psychic asked.

“Unless you want to make a bet. First to beat him buys a round?” Drinks were always reasonable. The other psychic nodded in agreement.

“You boys think you can take me?” Dreamreaver asked.

The psychics established a link with the villain’s mindscape. Psi Wizard could feel a level of sickness try to encroach his own mindscape. Those beaches remained untouched. He checked on the other psychic, and saw finally the man’s hero costume.

Something appeared ahead in the murky mindscape full of reds, black and browns. It was a pile of muck and slime at first. Then a huge eye appeared and the pile lifted into the air, turning into something rounder as it floated there and looked at the two heroes.

Whatever that thing was, it laughed, somehow, through its prism-shaped iris. Its pupil was shaped like a double helix. “Kill, kill, kill!” The thing inside Dreamreaver’s head shot a tentacle of black, sounding of metal as it flew through the air, at Psykick first, and then another in Psi Wizard’s direction.

The tentacles kicked rubble into the air above Psi Wizard’s head if he had stood still. Then again, if he stood, still, he wasn’t sure he would have survived. Psykick moved aside as well, but the tentacle blade scratched his leg.

Psi Wizard reached out toward him. His hand glowed a cool green. The gash on Psykick’s leg healed, as did that patch of his costume.

Of course. Wyatt’s powers had been developed to heal, so his role as healer was amplified here. That made more sense to Psi Wizard than his success at healing minor injuries in the real world. So he wasn’t going to argue with it. He at least had some form of mental attack when it was necessary.

Dreamreaver withdrew the tentacles, and laughed again as the ground shook. “Run!” Psykick shouted, and they both moved forward in time to dodge spinning pillars of specters and dark clouds.

Psi Wizard did a jump-kick at Dreamweaver’s mental form of choice. He wasn’t as good at those attacks as he wished to be, as much as Tatiana tried to teach him the basics, but he scored a hit at the bottom of the eye and then managed to land on his feet without falling on his ass.

A golden, blinding light shone in the form of a ball rather than a typical ray or beam. It flew from Psykick’s form to the monstrosity they faced. Dreamreaver cried out in pain. Then it grunted. Lightning flashed. The mindscape shook.

Both heroes moved as best they could, but Psi Wizard felt something lift him before he could see the hand of grime appear around his form.

“Pain! Pain feeds me in ways you’ll never imagine,” Dreamreaver said.

“Is that so?” Psi Wizard asked. He reached outward.

Princess Undercut teleported closer, crouched, and performed the punch she was named for against Dreamreaver’s crotch while doing her best to avoid meeting the villain’s gaze with her own.

I hope that worked, Wyatt.

Getting up was a little harder. The weight in her belly had a habit of making things a little more difficult than she liked.

Meanwhile, the villain squeaked in pain. He fell to his knees. Princess Undercut resisted the urge to look into his eyes; she came so close to losing that control. However, a line of drool soon dripped from his mouth, and the man fell over.

The two psychics took audible deep breaths like they had both emerged from a pool.

“You’re sure he’s alive?” the man in street clothes asked.

Psi Wizard said, “He’s breathing, and might someday put together coherent strings of thought. But his power is a goner, and he’s a vegetable until then.”

“That’s just gruesome.”

“At least we won’t be seeing any brain coleslaw out of him.”

Princess Undercut said, “I’m going to go take him to the authorities. Think you boys can make it to the Escapist?” She so owed her husband a smack upside the head.

A trench coat, matching hat and sunglasses had to be the perfect disguise, as cliché as it was. Sure, Carrion would have simply flown out of city limits. She still might if this plan didn’t work. She still had to try it. Could anyone imagine what it would be like to step through a portal in the hopes of safety only to be massacred on the other side? The terror sounded worth the attempt, for a time anyway.

She walked to the “heroes only” bar located in the northeast corner of Galaxy Park, hoping the rumors were even true about what that place had in its basement. She paid good beatings to that hero who had told her about it.

On the way, she spotted a young woman in a costume leading a group of people to the bar. Carrion felt absolutely stupefied when the woman’s familiarity set in. The people were safely inside the bar by now, and Carrion feigned confusion when the heroine looked her way.

Pixeletta—yes, it had to be her, even though it couldn’t be—ran to her. The heroine guised as her said, “Excuse me, miss, are you lost?”

Carrion grabbed the heroine’s costume by the scruff of the neck and grinned. “Well, well, as long as I live and breathe. If you were a cookie, I'd munch ya. Oh hell, I'll munch ya anyway! And then, maybe I'll track down your old costume and kill your parents while wearing it. How 'bout that?”

Her wings unfolded and tore through the back of her coat.

-------------
Chapter 31
-------------

With a second wind, Swan Diva resumed fighting to help push back the mask bearers. Captain Patriot finally sat back at the end of his first. Near boundless energy, that one, just like his father said once or twice.

Pixeletta’s voice came over the earpiece, “Is anyone else near ‘The E?’ I spotted someone dressed suspiciously. Approaching now.”

Suspicious how? An uneasy feeling hit the pit of Swan Diva’s stomach.

“Excuse me, miss, are you lost?”

A second woman, her tone notably wicked, said, “Well, well, as long as I live a breathe. If you were a . . .” She cut out.

Swan Diva turned, fear and anger using her face as a battlefield that no one could see under her mask. Without warning given to anyone, she flew, and she flew hard.

“How 'bout that?” the woman asked. Vulture wings burst from her backside. She opened her mouth and leaned in slowly as though she were about to take a bite out of Pixeletta’s neck.

Pixeletta, however, shot out an electric wave of energy against the woman holding her. The woman let go and stumbled. Pixeletta dropped to the ground.

The woman laughed. “You’ll have to do better than that. Huh?” She looked toward the direction of a growing sound, and then someone rammed into her. Suddenly, it was Swan Diva floating where the winged woman was, and the presumed villainess slid through the air into the side of a building.

Her hat and sunglasses didn’t survive the flight.

Swan Diva said into her earpiece, “Which of the villains is known for her vulture wings?”

“That would be Carrion,” said a woman that Pixeletta didn’t recognize. “Why?”

“Because I’m about to fight her, it looks like.”

Carrion stood, holding back the better part of a laugh. “Good luck with that. Your luck ran out already when ya got the jump on me. Ya should have chased me down like a piece of dog meat, you bitch!” She flew toward Swan Diva, who braced for her attack. It wasn’t enough to be knocked back herself.

Her feet dug into the hard pavement for the short distance she was knocked back. Swan Diva caught Carrion’s arm amidst a follow-up attack, and she used the momentum to swing around a few times and throw the villainess into the air.

“Get to safety.” Swan Diva flew after Carrion.

Once her mom was too far too hear her without the earpiece, Pixeletta said, “Right, safety. I’m going to go help more people evacuate.”

“No, please,” cried the woman sticking to the wall above eye level.

Vidnyanta, however, shot more webbing, the same that held the woman, into her victim’s mouth and nose. Her screams and gags muffled, and the web kept forcing its way in until the woman lost consciousness. This left Vidnyanta feeling elated.

Her pleasure from this kill wasn’t enough. She couldn’t see those pillars of light around the city anymore, but she knew they were there. How could a mortal block her vision from such an area of land? How could he even have learned the spell on himself?

A better question she had was where that fool Cingeteyrn was. Before those runes had activated around the city, Vidnyanta had sent his copies out to the mortals wishing to ravage the land and its people, telling them what she knew regarding these so-called heroes. Now she was as good as blind, the threat of fate worse than death hanging over her head, and Cingeteyrn was nowhere in sight.

The last that fool said, he was opening the way for their escape at the bridge. Finding and undoing the runes would take too long, far longer than sabotaging the radio channel the heroic mortals had been using, and that had already proven to be difficult. If all of Cingeteyrn’s copies were at the bridge, then Vidnyanta had to trust that he was successful now. So why the silence? Why was he not coming back to her, leaving her in this despicable spot to be spotted by mere mortals with no power but plenty of fear.

She couldn’t wait any longer. It was time to move.

Swan Diva pulled her fist back for a single punch. It wasn’t going to be everything she had. Not yet. She flew at Carrion hoping she could get the one blow in before the other woman recovered enough to take any sort of action against it.

She was off by a fraction of a second. Carrion swung around in the air and kicked Swan Diva in the back. The attack sent her plummeting toward a major road that she could barely recognize in this speed. Swan Diva should have expected the counterattack. Being away from the hero gig for so long must have made her rusty.

As she drew ever closer to the major road, Swan Diva used her flight ability to pull up. She definitely remembered this feeling, half of her body lagging with the momentum for a split second. At least it got better with time as her body became attuned to both flight and super strength.

The villainess was a loud one as she flew after Swan Diva as fast as she could. It gave Swan Diva enough time to dodge to the side and watch as Carrion slammed into a building. The impact left a dent in the wall the size of an exercise ball. Both women flew at one another then with their fists clenched.

By all rights, their punches should have resulted in a broken nose for Carrion and a shattered collar bone for Swan Diva, but the heroine was made of sterner stuff. She suspected that of Carrion as well while the villainess’s body made the dent larger and added another hole behind it. Swan Diva, once she collided with the ground, created a furrow in the asphalt.

She fully expected Psi Wizard to appear out of nowhere and call it an “ass fault.”

Swan Diva pushed herself up, and she was once again off to follow Carrion through the air. Carrion stepped up to the hole her body made in the wall, and she crossed her wrists as if to block another punch from Swan Diva. The heroine, however, tackled her at the torso and flew the both of them through a series of thin, weak walls and one concrete wall at the end.

Once they were out on the other side, Swan Diva clasped her hands and swung them downward against Carrion’s back. Carrion fell through the ground below. She descended slowly while the dust was in the air.

Carrion grabbed her by the ankle the next second, and pulled her down with a screech.

There was a small family in and around a car that had a broken windshield and a flat tire. Pixeletta happened upon them while looking through the streets near the Escapist. The father of the family pounded on the trunk, and it opened to reveal some luggage.

“Come on,” the father said. “We’ll reach the bridge by foot if we have to.”

“Daddy, look out!” shouted one of the children.

Pixeletta saw it too. A pair of those horrors with the large tiki masks had shambled their way into the scene and now they were picking up the pace to attack the father.

She ran in and zapped each of the horrors with her electricity. Pixeletta got in close and tried some attacks with her fists against the masked things until they fell to the ground. It was safe to say her attempt worked, but now she needed to catch her breath.

Note to self, ask Tatiana and Ohmie for a few fighting lessons.

The father said, “Oh, thank you. Wait. Wait, wait, wait.” His eyes narrowed on Pixeletta for a moment. “It can't be? You look a lot like that one heroine who died five years ago. What was her name?”

“I, uhh . . .” said Pixeletta.

“Pixie-something or other?”

“Pixeletta. She did. It’s a long story, but . . .”

“Hey, kids, this is Pixeletta! She was one of the best heroes around five or six years ago?” His kids cheered for her. “I don’t know how you’re here, but we’re rooting for you. When our neighborhood turned its back on you heroes for so long, my wife and I cheered you and your friends on for always disrupting the way of things and bringing down the worst villains this city had to offer at the time. When Shiva Bay was destroyed, I blamed the fact that you weren’t here to prevent it. Now you are. I know you can save this city.”

His words sparked a tear that she held back. Pixeletta said, “Thank you. You said you were heading to Independence Bridge?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“The Escapist is closer. They are helping people get to safety with a portal.” She pointed in its direction.

“Oh, perfect. Come on, everyone, let’s head that way.” He started leading the family away.

Of course Pixeletta was happy to have saved a family, but she yearned to save more people. She yearned to fight alongside her greatest hero – her own mother. She’d need energy to do a thing like that, however. Then she considered the car.

She said, “Wait. I know this is an odd question, but is your car battery working, and is there a chance I can use it?”

After slamming face-first into the ground Swan Diva got up and immediately blocked another hit from Carrion. She punched back, and it was blocked as well. Swan Diva gabbed the other woman’s arms and threw her overhead.

Carrion managed to regain control of herself, and her vulture wings flapped rapidly before she made a dive for Swan Diva. First, Swan Diva afforded herself the luxury of remarking mentally that the other woman lacked grace while she also drew back her right fist. Then she waited until the last possible split second to move down and punch upward into her opponent’s stomach with her left hand.

Then she yanked the passing woman back and punched her with her right. The second hit sent Carrion through another set of walls. She chased after her on foot, paying little mind to the fact that they were now in Faultline.

She had to finish this soon, Swan Diva realized, because her second wind in a fight could only last so long. Swan Diva slowed down and took a deep breath while the villainess got up from the pile of rubble she made by the far wall.

“Damn,” Carrion said, “You are a strong one, aren’t ya? I’d say ‘Birds of a feather,’ but now I really am gonna have to kill ya.”

“Tough words,” Swan Diva said.

They collided again, only now Carrion fought with more fervor, and thus Swan Diva had to up her game as well. She wasn’t the best fighter, but then, Carrion showed no signs of being trained in hand-to-hand either. Neither was invulnerable, but their super strength made them crash through more and more walls throughout the Faultline district.

Their flight made the holes they punched vary in height.

For more than six years, Faultline had taken a beating from so many battles. This one was little different, aside from how far and how long they went at it. Swan Diva wondered how the district had any walls left before now.

If any walls remained when they were done fighting, she was going to call shenanigans.

At one point, a tenderized Swan Dive managed to grab one of Carrion’s wings by the end, and then thrust an elbow down against the bone sustaining the wing with as much force as she could muster. There was a crack. There was a blood curdling scream. And then there was a retaliatory swing and punch into Swan Diva’s chest.

Swan Diva flew backward again through another wall. Damn it, let it be the last wall. She forced herself up, her chest hurting like a bitch.

The villainess heaved in pain and rage, and stomped the ground toward Swan Diva. “I’ll make ya pay for that. I will break ya, unmask ya in front of everyone, and then kill everyone ya care about.”

Swan Diva, trying not to tremble or fall over, shook her head calmly the one time, and just stood there staring at the villainess. She needed to muster more strength. She needed to attack one more time somewhere that mattered.

“What?” asked Carrion. “No witty comebacks? No pleading? No saying ‘Over my dead body?’”

Someone else said, “No, mine.”

A ball of lightning struck Carrion as soon as she turned her head in the direction of the woman who said it. Swan Diva knew that voice. She also knew the smell of cooked bird and the sight of a person being knocked sideways by the force of a truck.

Out in the clearing stood Pixeletta, and she was toting something that looked like a smoldering battery.

It was impossible to be mad at Pixeletta under the circumstances. Carrion, on the other hand, had nothing but contempt coming to her. The villainess struggled to get up, fumes rising from her beaten and bruised form.

“. . . make . . . pay,” Carrion barely managed to say.

“Why do you suck so much?” Pixeletta asked.

Carrion huffed a laugh, and then fell to the ground. It took a moment for Swan Diva to see if the fallen villainess was breathing, but she ending up looking in the distance as the alien ship took a couple shots at the city.

“It’s times like this I wonder why I ever retired,” Swan Diva said, trying and possibly failing to make a joke. She examined the battery that her daughter was carrying. “That looks like it could be heavy.”

“Doesn’t it?” Pixeletta asked. “I half expected to drag it here from Kingston, but feels pretty damn light; almost as light as the amulet I’m still carrying.” She dropped it to the ground. “Too bad I used it all already. Are you alright?”

“Just give me a moment, baby girl, and I’ll be ready to take two of her.”

Pixeletta giggled at her.

Static interrupted them. Someone on the radio channel said, “There’s cobwebs all over the stadium in Galaxy Park. I’m trapped here with lots of people. I can’t break through.”

“It’s her,” Pixeletta said. “It has to be. Mom, could you give me a lift?”

“What’s going on?” asked Mayor Oldman after they stopped.

“I’m not too sure,” Walter said. He pulled up closer.

Further up ahead, there stood three men, or rather three of the same man. His hands were glowing a sickly shade of green, and it looked like he was levitating a car. The car went flying, and the nearby evacuees ducked.

The trio called out in unison, “No one leaves until we do. No one try if you value your life.”

-------------
Chapter 32
-------------

The ring on her finger twisted around as she nudged it from side to side with her other hand. Gemma knew it to be a family heirloom, its sister lost to her family when a group of mages had ransacked their house one night.

Now, she and her father were helping people to escape the city, whether through the bridge, or through the cliff-side tunnel far to the west. Few people opted to go that way since the tunnel wasn’t built for cars. Seconds after she led a group of people to the area before the bridge, a car was flung through the air.

That explained the traffic, if the sheer amount of people did not.

Gemma heard the sound of a motorcycle to her left. Two people sat on it, with the driver being none other than Walter. His sight was welcome, but where were the costumed heroes? Why were the police around here so few?

“Do something!” the mayor demanded.

“Dear, oh dear,” Walter said. “I really do wish you’d appreciate the use of brain before brawn. Now, let’s see.”

There was a slot on the side of his bike that held a few different walking canes. He checked them until he found the one he wanted. Then he flipped the kickstand and walked into the ground with the stick and keys in hand; the latter so the mayor wouldn’t try anything.

He watched the three copies of the Vanquishiri stop bullets midair as a few police officers emptied their clips at him. Walter knew what was about to happen. A malicious telekinetic surrounded by gunfire and lots of innocent life?

“Everyone get down!” he shouted before diving to the ground, taking two people with him.

The bullets started flying. There were screams. Likely, there were casualties or injuries as well. He wasn’t too sure at first.

Walter rose up, and dusted himself off before walking forward again. The officers who had fired their guns were among the dead. This wasn’t the moment to count them all, nor was it time to stand around doing nothing.

“Enough,” Walter said. “No more.”

“And who are you to command such a thing?” the Vanquishiri’s copies asked him in unison, their shared face once belonging to Harvey Stone becoming ever clearer.

“The name’s Walter Dallevan. I went through the trouble of making this city a better place, despite my many obstacles. What do we call you?”

“You mortals do not deserve the likes of my name.”

“You’re just another ego then. I know your type. So you have duplication and telekinesis. What of it?”

“I am a god. You should fear. You should kneel, and beg!”

“Is this the eternal realm? Are you able to go there now? You are hardly better than any hero, villain, or otherwise in this Earth. You’re anything but special, so let these people go.”

“Or else what, mortal?”

Her rifle wasn’t too heavy when she walked around with it, but Gemma swore it doubled in weight whenever she climbed a ladder. It was almost like trying to pick up a medium sized dog that decided it didn’t want to be lifted.

Luckily, the building she climbed was only two stories tall. The buildings this close to Independence Bridge usually were, sometimes even shorter than that.

The roof was mostly flat and surrounded by the walls, each coming up to her waist. This was perfect cover while she couched to one side and aimed her rifle into the general direction of those triplets. Walter was standing among them. With a sigh, Gemma aimed for the one furthest back from the costumeless hero.

There was a good chance that they might catch her shots like they did those bullets earlier, so she waited. Walter was a man with a plan. He had to have some way to allow her to take a shot. Right?

“I’ll do what any man in my position can do,” Walter said. “It’s two thousand fourteen. We’ve all grown quite resourceful. In fact, just the other day, I was sent an amusing video on my phone that even you might appreciate.”

He pulled out his phone, the front facing the three copies of the man before him, and his thumb activated a video player. Walter turned the phone and quickly flipped through an internet search list while also turning up the volume as high as the phone would go. He found the file he was looking for. It wasn’t necessarily a video, in the strictest sense, but sound effects put to a moving background.

When Walter showed the video on his phone, there was a cacophony of explosions and gunshots coming out of it. The trio looked at him and the phone curiously.

Then, suddenly, one of the copies flinched and grabbed his neck. That copy’s eyes glazed over before he could successfully pull out the dart.

Good job, Gemma. My Turn.

Walter swung his cane at the copy in the middle, in the leg, and he danced like a swordsman while dealing his pre-emptive blows against the two copies who weren’t falling over. It didn’t last nearly as long as he would have liked, but they at least showed no further sign of telekinesis when only two were both awake and present.

At least, that’s what he hoped it meant by the time they retaliated by physical force alone.

One of the copies kicked him in the chest. It wasn’t terribly hard, which meant that Walter didn’t have to worry quite so much about super strength or speed like anyone might have against Nervaeus. Instead, both copies still standing took out a short sword with crescent moon shapes along the top and bottom of either hilt.

“You appear to be more interesting than I thought,” the two said, their third disintegrating and vanishing. “Do you think you can best me with your stick?”

He didn’t have to think that. Walter pulled the handle of his cane away from the body, and revealed that it was a fine, thin sword. Walter took a fencing stance to start, and noted the amused expressions on the copies’ faces.

The people behind Walter, however, were screaming and scrambling to move around the men in an attempt to reach the bridge by foot. If there was any choice Walter was going to make, it was to confront villainy so others might live.

“Thank you for letting them go,” Walter said.

“Thank you for giving me something to do while I waited for my companions,” The two responded. “Do not disappoint.”

She could have cheered and jumped with joy at hitting something other than Walter for once. Gemma was starting to wonder if she’d somehow hit him when aiming for a target on the other side of the city, even knowing why she hit him both times.

Now she reloaded her rifle and watched the fight that ensued below. Walter was more amazing as a fighter than Gemma had realized up to this point, and she had seen glimpses of his prowess just a few days ago. Walter used his sword to match the two twins.

Wait, where was the third one? She had a bad feeling about this, deep down. The third guy had to be somewhere. With all of the noise between the sword fighting and the people screaming to get to the bridge, Gemma could barely hear anything that was behind her. Behind!

Gemma lunged to the left, her heart suddenly pounding against her chest as she sees the third man stab the wall where she was standing. She took aim quickly, and pulled the trigger on her rifle.

However, the man dissolved into nothingness before the dart could reach him. What was that? A teleport? Wait, the first dart she shot hit him with earlier; there was no way he was still standing.

She arched her head back to see the man appear again. He swung his sword down at her.

His opponent was no amateur of swordplay, but Walter could keep up with the two copies of the one man. The real trick to the fight was baiting the duo away from the mass of people trying to cross the bridge on foot.

Walter slashed, he thrust, and he parried his sword. At this pace, he could go for over an hour, but he didn’t have that long if he was going to continue helping with the evacuation like other low or non-superpowered heroes.

To do that, he needed a plan to beat this Vanquishiri. To help these people now, he needed to move the fight off of the street. To help everyone later—as well as possibly himself here and now—Walter needed to gain answers, and he had plenty of questions. He hoped the man he fought was willing to provide elucidation.

“Fine form you got there,” Walter said.

“Careful, mortal,” said the Vanquishiri duo. “I might take that as a challenge to put in more effort.”

“Oh, you’re welcome to, but I’d rather you did that away from these people.”

“They’re mere cattle for the slaughter.”

“You don’t say? And why should it matter to you how or when they die? For that matter why do you want them to die anyway?”

“You mortals have shows depicting worse fates, be it against your own kind or other creatures in your realm. You’re entertained by it. You dare to ask a god why he enjoys the death and discord brought down on your kind?”

The Vanquishiri on the right vanished as the one on the left picked up the pace with his swings. Walter suspected a ruse here, and so he parried the blows to the left, kicking the man in at his front on the inside of the leg and hoping his first guess was right about the ruse.

When he turned and saw that the second man appeared behind where Walter was standing not two seconds ago, and that the tip of his sword penetrated the other man’s chest with a grunt, he knew that he was right. The copy whose face he could see flashed his eyes a sage-colored light.

A second later, the copy that was stabbed vanished, and a new copy appeared standing next to the one that stabbed him. Neither copy was angry, rather they smirked.

“It appears you can do that to get just about anywhere,” Walter suggested.

“Correct,” the duo said.

“Pardon, but do you mind me asking your name? It’s a bother keeping track of this fight without it, and I doubt you would have me call you the name of the man who last bore that face of yours.”

“You’ve at least earned that much. It is Cingeteyrn.”

Their swordplay recommenced at once. Now Walter knew to watch out for tricks and try to stay at least one step ahead of them while he was able.

Cingeteyrn said, “You seem to be quite the thinker in combat. If you showed any sign of having powers, I would consider you a worthy enough adversary to take your body, should I ever need it.”

“Why should certain abilities make a difference?” Walter asked.

“When we were cast away, wishing for oblivion, our old bodies destroyed, it was an age when we learned the truth behind the Sillunisu’s magics that trapped us. To escape, we would need new hosts, but our hosts need power of their own that we could feed upon. All it takes is one to sustain us, and we can live longer in the bodies of our choosing that way. The Circle had one of their own released much the same way.”

“Yes, I remember that, just as well as I remember disposing of your current body so his death looked more like an accident than it was.”

“You knew this man?”

“Many people did. If one of your number wasn’t wearing that mask of hers, then her own face might have been better known. She was a hero before she died.”

“Vidnyanta? Yes, I remember someone demanding that she give her body back. That would be impossible if we wanted to.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” said Walter. “This is Paragon City.”

“The ritual that restores and sustains our new bodies requires that we summon the souls that once owned these vessels of flesh. You see, we devour them over time. Their powers are sustenance. Their strongest memories are a delicacy. I understand it brings their souls nothing but pain dilated in time.”

How did Mary and Kyra survive that succubus, Walter wondered? While Cingeteyrn explained these things, Walter made sure to have his earpiece broadcasting for anyone to hear if they could. Radio signals were terrible in Shiva Bay since it had been massacred years ago, so he had no way of telling who heard it.

Walter said, again through the earpiece, “Something happened this time, didn’t it? The one you call Vidnyanta is hiding something from you.”

“She hides much from everyone,” Cingeteyrn said. “If you were as all-seeing as she is, you would know no one would listen if you rambled on about every last thing you saw.”

“And the cosmic accident that gave our friend a new body? That brought Judy back from the dead? Surely something like that would be important.”

“Enough!”

One copy kicked Walter in the chest in an angry flash. Walter slammed into the side of a truck with wooden beams along its sides. He coughed. He gasped for air. That only served to intensify a smell in the air.

He saw both copies coming for the kill at different angles, but Walter had just enough time to climb up into the truck bed. Metal struck metal. Soft body hit plastic-coated metal, loose wood, and a dirty blanket folded in one corner of the truck bed. Walter took a quick look around and grabbed a gas container, feeling some fluid in it.

Then he climbed over the front of the truck and ran for the pumps at the nearby gas station. Walter stopped a little more than halfway there. He turned, his sword ready in one hand.

Out the corner of his eye amidst the turnabout, Walter saw something swing down toward him. He used the gas container as a one-time shield, knowing he would need to discard it before the gasoline poured all over his arm. Walter met another sword with his own, and he moved hurriedly between his parries and casting the container toward the pumps.

His move could have been argued to be a mistake as one of Cingeteyrn’s swords pierced him behind the knee that Walter bent against the ground. Recoiling in pain, Walter was barely able to block another swing meant for his neck.

The sword in his leg withdrew, and Walter had a sudden challenge working to keep both copies of Cingeteyrn at bay.

Walter managed to cut one copy’s right cheek and the side of the other’s neck, pulling away from them and toward the station house, before one of them stabbed him in the right shoulder. The two of them were trying in earnest; Walter could tell.

He thrust his sword in the wrist of the copy who stabbed him, and the other kicked him away. Walter’s grip on his own sword faltered as he fell.

Grunting in pain, Walter made rowing motions to push himself closer to the gas station’s main building. He grabbed a remote from his pocket as he did so.

“You have nowhere to run, mortal,” Cingeteyrn said. “You fought well for your years, but it is time for you to die.”

Cingeteyrn’s eyes all flashed that sage color again. Oh, Walter hoped it meant that a third was out there and being beaten by someone.

“A man has to die by his own terms,” Walter said. He clicked the red button on the palm-sized remote a few times, and tossed it past the duo’s feet. He could already hear the buzzing sound with what little faculty he had left to his senses. “Yours, perhaps?”

His motorcycle came speeding their way. Three presses. Yes, that was enough.

Walter stood in one last triumphant push to stare down a god.

She rolled out of the way of the downswing of the blade, and swung her rifle around to strike the man’s leg. Meanwhile, all she could think was, Great, someone who can teleport and be anywhere.

Her swing wasn’t as effective as she wanted it to be, but it was something. It had to be.

The man she now fought made another swing, and she blocked it with her gun again and again as she regained her footing. His eyes flashed the same sickly shade of green Gemma saw when the trio used their telekinesis earlier, but nothing was flying around now that wasn’t supposed to be in the air.

Gemma raised her gun for another round of blocks and blunt attacks if she could manage them. Rifles weren’t built for this sort of thing, but it was the only hard object she had at her disposal, save for her ring.

“Young and foolish,” the man said.

“I’ve been around longer than you know,” Gemma said.

They moved all across the rooftop in more directions than Gemma cared to count while she used her gun to block the sword. It probably wasn’t going to be making any more shots after this with all the damage it was taking, but she was holding her own.

She slammed the back of the gun against the man’s face, he teleported away almost instantly and back again just as fast, only standing as though he never took a hit at all. He wasted no time attacking from the side he appeared on, and Gemma pushed herself to knock the blade away before it could touch her.

Weapons from opposing time periods clashed, and Gemma got more hits in on the man’s body. He showed no sign of slowing down. She needed to end this before she was too tired. She kicked him in the groin. She swung her rifle like a bat at the man’s face. He teleported.

Then his blade sank deep into her torso. Her body screamed that it hurt, but her mind begged to say the man’s gratified expression was worse.

Gemma dropped her gun. She reached up feebly at the man’s neck.

His lips severed to reveal a grin.

“Teleport from this, asshole,” Gemma said. She pulled her other hand up to her wrist, and activated the trigger on her wristband. Twice.

Both darts shot directly into the man’s neck. His eyes widened and twitched before glazing over, and the man fell to the floor.

She hunched over then. The green gems against the gold band of her ring didn’t need to flash a red light for her to know she was dying. Again.

Please no. Not yet. This can’t be the end.

A moment later, she heard the sound of an engine revving. She looked down at the road, and Walter’s bike sped off toward the gas station in the distance. Her heart beat with dread for reasons she couldn’t explain. Why wasn’t she excited?

Then the gas station exploded.

After a long struggle, Gemma was uncertain how she got within a stone’s throw from the gas station. She bunched the cloth of her shirt around the entry wound of the sword, knowing it wouldn’t stop the blood completely from the front, and that it did shit for the back.

No one stopped her. She couldn’t remember most of the trek. All she did know was that she had to find Walter.

The front of the gas station’s building was completely collapsed. By it were two identical corpses with all the signs of blast damage. A past Gemma was this once, long ago, across the ocean from here. Or was she the same Gemma? She still could never tell.

She searched around, her senses fading in and out, and her pain trying to pull her back down to the ground where she belonged longer ago than she ever told anyone.

A leg was sticking up from the debris of the store that ran the gas station. Gemma made her way closer to the building to investigate. There was Walter. He was unconscious, and just as bad of a shape as Gemma felt. She let her knees crash by his side. Her eyes watered.

“No. No, the world needs you. We can’t both die. Help, someone.” Her voice was too weak to scream.

Gemma looked at her ring one more time. She hated the only solution she had. One of them had to live on. She had only begun to remember her life before the ring had touched her finger. Now, it was time to decide whether or not to keep those memories.

She slipped off her ring and put it on one of Walter’s. Her blood covered their hands. Her hands wrapped around his, and she prayed with what willpower she had left. Gemma shut her eyes, feeling her energy slip away.

Then nothing. Nothing but a pool of memories, and even those were fading.

-------------
Chapter 33
-------------

Defiler grinned as he strolled through the chaotic hospital. One officer tried to turn him away earlier. That officer was dead after a mere scratch on the neck. He was going to leave, sure enough, but Defiler came here for one reason. He wasn’t leaving until his work was done.

Doctors, nurses, and other staffers worked to helped the injured, with less severe cases being guided to safety outside of the city. Defiler would join them after his trip to the nurses’ station on the third floor of the north wing. That was where he was going to find the woman responsible for his path he took. That was where he was going to thank her by ending her.

If she wasn’t there, she was close by there. The bitch was working tonight, Defiler had learned since breaking out of the Asylum.

It was here, tonight, or he would have to wait even longer.

When he saw her shuffling through a few clipboards, of paperwork belonging to patients who were being treated and evacuated as soon as they could be moved, Defiler told himself that he had waited long enough.

Ohm Wire guided an elderly woman to a S.W.A.T. truck being used to drive a number of patients, and their family members, to the bridge. As she helped the lady up inside the back of the vehicle, she noticed a police lieutenant trying to listen to his radio amidst the noise.

She dug out her earpiece—nearly swearing aloud at her girlfriend’s habit that she picked up all of a sudden—and put it in.

“. . . repeat. There has been an attack at the bridge. The road is blocked of all cars. Low level heroes are working to escort everyone across the bridge on foot while one fights the villain. Over.”

Without a word to the people inside the vehicle as to what had just been said, Ohm Wire walked to the lieutenant.

She spoke through her earpiece, “Is anyone available to help clear a path by Independence Bridge? We have a hospital full of people in Steel Canyon who need to be moved.”

“I’m trying to get over there,” said a voice. “A swarm of these undead creatures just saved a villain from being apprehended.”

Ohm Wire shook her head. “I’d head there myself if super strength was one of my abilities. What about teleporters? Are any available to help evacuate these hospitals? There are a number of patients in intensive care.”

“Fuck,” said a woman’s voice. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Not a fighter?” asked the lieutenant.

“Level 8, reformed villain status, until the new year actually,” Ohm Wire stated. “I have to wait that long for the re-classification, so I’m trying to keep it down and do my best without throwing punches and kicks at anything that moves.”

The man whistled. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m helping in case a villain shows up. A friend of mine suggested that I come here, which I’ve learned often means he knows something might happen.”

“Ha! So far the worst that’s happened here is one of my men has missed his check-in. It’s probably nothing since he’s not the most punctual of the bunch.”

“I’m about to head back in. Where was he last, in case I see him?”

The second floor, north wing, was nearly empty by the time Ohm Wire got there. The last few people were leaving, and she nodded to them. Ohm Wire checked a few rooms before she heard whimpering.

Ohm Wire investigated the source to find a patient, a balding man, huddled in one corner. How long was he here, and how did the hospital staff miss him?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said.

More, harder whimpers.

“What happened? Why haven’t you fled to safety with everyone else?”

“Bad man. Dead man. No.” His gaze never once met Ohm Wire. It was fixed on something at the far end of the room.

Ohm Wire followed his gaze and walked past the curtain separating the near side of the room from the far. She pulled the curtain aside and saw a police officer lying under the sheets. There was a look of fright on his face, mixed with suffering as if from an illness. He was dead, his neck scratched by something unknown.

She looked back at the patient, ready to defend herself if need be, but the man in the corner only cried some more.

“Did you see who did this?” Ohm Wire asked.

“A bad man,” said the patient. “A bad man with bad nails, bad smell.”

“Damn it. Look, would you like to help me to safety?” She didn’t need the help, but she hoped that the offer would in turn help him have the strength to get down to the police below.

He was surprised at first. She held out her hand, and he accepted.

Ohm Wire let him take the lead, his legs wobbling, as they walked to the stairs. “This way much safer,” he said. He opened the door.

And, as though timing were the universe’s plaything, a woman screamed from above them. Her footsteps trampled along the steps until she hurried into view.

“Please,” the nurse said in a frantic voice, “please tell me you’re one of the good guys. You have to help me.”

“What happened?” In hindsight, Ohm Wire shouldn’t have asked. A villain came into view up the next landing in the stairs. She recognized his face and dark complexion from a report she had once caught Walter reading about dangerous villains. It was Defiler, if she remembered the name right, but she barely knew anything about what he could do, only thanks to his work on the officer in the other room.

“You can only run for so long,” Defiler said. “It looks like I’ll have to kill all three of you.”

“Run, help her to the police lieutenant downstairs,” Ohm Wire said, shoving the patient and nurse towards the flight of stairs going down.

Defiler jumped down to intercept them, but Ohm Wire was quick to kick him aside before thinking twice about what she was doing. In spite of her inhibitions, she had to keep this villain at bay, if not subdue him, until help could arrive. She pulled her leg away as he tried to grab for it with those nails of his. She couldn’t take any chances. Defiler’s nails were probably responsible for the officer’s death.

He coughed up something and spat up toward Ohm Wire. She ran over the bars in haste to escape whatever was coming her way. It sounded like a massive spray, and smelled horrific, whatever it was.

The patient and nurse were already out the door and running for the front entrance of the hospital, leaving Ohm Wire to deal with this villain whose abilities she was suddenly having to learn as she went along.

So far, it was avoid the nails and potentially toxic spit. Hopefully, no one else was coming through this stairway any time soon.

Ohm Wire drew the metal claws from the sheaths within her bracelets. She hadn’t had to use these in a while, but this seemed like an appropriate time. She told herself they were for distance and impact, not for stabbing or scratching. That was going to be difficult, but the alternatives were losing her life or losing her chance at redemption.

She saw and heard Defiler coughing up more fluid to add to the already nauseous supply. Ohm Wire thought she heard a sizzling sound from above as well. She chose to exit the stairwell rather than run at Defiler. She closed the door and held it shut as soon as the spray began.

A vapor escaped through the crack in the door, and the bottom corner of the thin window melted first before the rest of the door did. Ohm Wire stepped aside, shouting for everyone to get to safety.

Her electric field that bent most light around her came up as she generated it to do so, and Ohm Wire waited.

If she wanted to kill anyone and have that death be seen by more than enough witnesses for it to plague her life, now was the time to do it with her claws. However, she didn’t want to kill this villain if she could help it.

As soon as Defiler stepped out into the first floor, Ohm Wire kicked him in the face, and swung around to kick again. This time, she felt the villain sink his nails through the fabric on her legs and into her skin.

She hated how attacking or moving suddenly dropped her faux invisibility.

She grunted and surged her electric energy through her leg in hopes of cauterizing whatever might be entering her system. She wasn’t sure if it worked to save her, but it at least shocked Defiler, and he let go.

“You’ll be dead soon enough,” said Defiler.

“Don’t count on it.” Ohm Wire struck a fighting pose.

“If I have to coat your entire body with my venom, I will. You should have let me kill the woman.”

“Not happening. I don’t even care what she is to you.”

Defiler coughed up more of his toxic spray. Ohm Wire dove as much out of the way as she could, rolling on dry ground as a violet fluid covered a large portion of the corridor leading to the ICU.

The nausea was excruciating for the moment it took for Ohm Wire to get up, use her metal claws as a shield against a swipe from Defiler, and kick him in the stomach.

Meanwhile, an officer ran into the corridor and immediately hunched over at the edge of the puddle of toxic fluid. The officer regurgitated the contents of his digestive track before falling to the ground.

“How can you still be standing?” Defiler asked.

It had to be her electric powers somehow. They weren’t perfect for making her immune, but they gave her a fighting chance. Hopefully they held long enough. Hopefully, she could survive long enough. The stench of the miasma rising from the violet fluid was making her feel sicker by the moment.

“It’s our audacity, we damned heroes,” Ohm Wire said. “Someone has to stand and fight against the worst, and tonight that’s me.”

She charged him with a flowing flurry of punches and kicks. Defiler shifted from an act of surprise to fighting out of desperation. His attacks were slower and messy, though harder hitting, compared to Ohm Wire’s. For a time, she thought she had this fight in the bag, but the feeling in her stomach caught up to her, and she hunched over in agony. Defiler used the opportunity to punch her in the face.

It took a moment to realize that she was on the ground, or that the villain was grabbing her by the hair.

He said, “I’m going to enjoy finishing you.”

The next second, he coughed up more fluid. Ohm Wire struggled to no avail. Even stabbing Defiler’s arm with her metal claws, the villain pulled her in, his lips puckered.

She wasn’t sure if her next attack would even work. Panic was setting in. Panic that she was going to die, panic that she was going to fail as a hero, and panic that who she’d been would cease to matter to the love of her life. How could she think such a thing? As the villain drew closer, she fought with herself and who she was now.

Gushing water came in from the side and saved her from the villain’s grip. Beyond the far side of the puddle of toxic fluid, there was a fire hose held and aimed by a construct of shadow. War Lagoon was further back, and he looked as though he were about to fall over.

Once War Lagoon turned the water onto the edges of the toxic fluid, Ohm Wire grappled Defiler’s next attack and let her electric fields surge with power.

The villain roared in pain until seconds after Ohm Wire let go. Defiler stumbled sideways.

Ohm Wire limped over to the man and said, “I told you; tonight, that someone is me. I’m a damned hero.” She punched him in the face one more time, knocking the man out.

She looked back over to War Lagoon to give him a cheer, but he had already collapsed into the arms of a couple nurses while the water continued to leak out of the hose toward the violet mess separating Ohm Wire from where everyone else was.

Her insides burned a little, and her head felt woozy. Ohm Wire traversed the wet floor while trying to figure out the best thing to say to everyone on the Alpha Signal. Her mind was drawing blanks, as were growing spots in her vision.

Someone might have caught her on the other side. She couldn’t tell.

While her numb legs struggled to do anything legs were supposed to do, and her lungs burned, she thought long and hard about what had brought her here. She thought about the choices she had made as far back as choosing to embrace her powers, about dating a hero when she had become a villain in name, about going through with the redemption procedure, and trying to help her girlfriend find more love than Ohm Wire alone. This fight to save the city was another damned Monday, and now she chose to burn harder. She chose to stand.

Damn, Ohm Wire was tired, but she had tonight in the bag. She pushed herself free of the person helping her, and then stumbled forward, ready to help the next person. She could chew herself out in the mirror later.

“They’re finally letting up!” someone shouted as Diamond Grace took down another undead foot soldier.

Up the road, sure enough; the seemingly endless columns of the marching foot soldiers was thinning in number. How long had Diamond Grace been fighting tonight alone? It was supposed to be a random night out with Trush Knuckle, and she was getting so tired. It made her wonder how the heroes and villains did this sort of thing on a regular basis, though maybe not to this extreme.

At least the man sounded like he was still enjoying himself.

Diamond Grace cried out, “Let’s push these freaks back and get out of here!”

She nodded to Trash Knuckle, and they jumped at the front line of the remaining foot soldiers. Sure, the civilians were gone and the heroes could have left already to help with the evacuation efforts in other parts of the city, but there needed to be a city left when everyone came back. That was why the heroes, and a few villains, redoubled their efforts when the immediate danger was nearly over.

A static-ridden voice said through the radio signal, “Attention all teleport . . . repeat, calling . . . teleporters. You’re needed . . . hospitals. Get your butts over . . . .”

Diamond Grace tried to listen to the broadcast more clearly. It sounded like Princess Undercut. The fighting didn’t help, and neither did the growing sound of someone laughing.

Then, suddenly, there was a sound akin to the squealing of speakers, and another of bones crunching. A man screamed out for a moment before he was silenced.

Trash Knuckle tackled Diamond Grace from the side before she could look to see what was happening. The two of them were inside the smoldering ruins of a shorter building that those foot soldiers had blown to pieces.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Shh!” Trash Knuckle said, “Be quiet, and stay down until I say we can move.”

“What?” She usually didn’t mind when Trash Knuckle pinned her down, but this time it hurt. There was nothing intimate about it.

Someone joined them in the building ruins. Trash Knuckle swore under his breath. “I’ll distract her,” he whispered. “You get running. I’ll catch up when I’m done with her.”

The woman who joined them said, “Sorry to break up your little moment. Wait, no. No I’m not. If you’re just going to sit still like that, then I guess I’ll just kill you both now like I did your friend over there.”

Diamond Grace didn’t understand. Who was this woman? How did she kill the hero standing beside them a moment earlier, and why?

Trash Knuckle stood and clubbed something sticking out of the ground at the woman with his fist. The mystery woman was too nimble for the projectile to touch her. The area around the ruins suddenly wreaked worse than any sewer. Diamond Grace knew that was Trash Knuckle. He was unleashing his full power. With a growl, he launched himself at the unknown woman.

He told her to run, but Diamond Grace didn’t. She couldn’t. She sat up and did the only thing she was able to do.

She watched in horror.

In no time, the unknown woman kicked away Trash Knuckle’s balance, and then pointed at his head. The squealing sound rang through the air again, and Trash Knuckle screamed. His whole body shook.

The woman laughed as she clenched her fingers, and the first man Diamond Grace ever felt anything for fell to the ground without a sound, or any sign of a head. Blood spilled out where he landed.

“No!” Diamond Grace screamed.

“Now,” said the unknown woman, “for you.” She stood over Diamond Grace, one arm extended in her direction. She laughed, and she lifted a finger.

-------------
Chapter 34
-------------

Even though he wasn’t the best at flying, Saelum Blaster flew like the wind to the hills north of Steel Canyon. A villain chased him here, thinking he was trying to fly away from the fight or something. Saelum Blaster ignored the flying villain for now.

The undead creatures had to be coming from somewhere like a bunch of ants. That somewhere happened to be one of these hills.

He vaguely heard the idiot taunting him and attacking him verbally while Saelum Blaster scanned the dark hills below. It was difficult to see anything, let alone an army of undead abominations with bombs strapped to their backs.

“Excuse me,” Saelum said to the villain, his cheerful enthusiasm emulated much the same way as when he spoke with most people with his heroic persona. “Would you happen to have a ranged attack in your power set?”

“What’s it to you?” the so-far nameless villain asked. “Is the cowardly hero afraid a little ranged attack going to kill him?”

“Nonsense. I was wondering if you’d be interested in helping me by lighting up that hill down there so we could see where those zombified time bombs are coming from?”

“That’s your problem, man.”

“If you insist. I guess I’ll just have to do this myself, not that that will be a problem.” Saelum Blaster struck a pose with his knuckles at his hips.

With hardly a huff, Saelum shot a car-wide beam at the ground. He counted the seconds, knowing an attack this big couldn’t last very long, or that it would leave him vulnerable to an attack. Then the beam fizzled in his hands.

He coughed.

At least he found the hole those things were coming out of, even if his beam was mere feet away from closing it off. At least a number of those atrocious things were removed from action as well.

The smalltime villain’s snicker was barely audible between the growls below and the winds surrounding the pair of metahumans.

“Let me show you how it’s done, man,” the villain jeered.

The next instant, the villain unleashed a flurry of sonic waves from his mouth, and they crashed against the dark hill. Saelum had to brace his ears even though the assault was not aimed at him. He was grateful that it wasn’t. He could neither see nor hear what was happening to the ground. Saelum could have illuminated the area again, but that would have required more of his own power.

“Ha!” the villain barked, “How ‘bout that, old ma—?”

Saelum Blaster figured that boasting was going to be in this guy’s nature. He launched himself forward and winded the villain with a punch to the stomach. No, Saelum wasn’t tired at all.

“Sorry for the trickery,” Saelum said, “but I need to get you somewhere safe. Thank you for your help.”

His would-be adversary passed out in his arms. He sought out a safe spot before flying back into Paragon City. The search took him a while, but he trusted that the woods north of the hills were safe for putting the young man down, and that he had plenty of time to help out more with saving the city.

On his way back into town, Saelum looked at the thinning numbers of walking time-bombs and zombie-like foot soldiers. He hadn’t been gone for long since the hill to the north was collapsed, which went to show how quickly the heroes—as tired as they were—were dealing with those things.

He was about to lend a hand on one front that seemed to need it when he heard a woman cry out: “No!”

Saelum flew toward that direction with good haste, and saw a few people in a clearing where a building once stood. One was a bulky man with what was left of his neck spilling into a hole in the ground where his head should have been. Another was a woman on her knees wearing a hero’s uniform.

The third person was a woman who looked familiar, too familiar, and she was raising her hand at the heroine’s direction. The heroine just froze. Literally. A sheet of ice covered her in a way Saelum knew too well.

Instinct took over. Saelum shot a blast toward the apparent villain, but it only landed at her feet. He shot another, but the cursed woman jumped back.

Saelum landed next to the woman encased in ice armor. “Are you alright?”

The heroine said, “She . . . she killed my . . . Oh, God!” Her voice wasn’t too far off from Mary’s. It was possible that they were related.

“Just my luck, a ranged hero, huh?” said the villainess.

“Ah, Hell,” Saelum swore under his breath. He finally recognized the villainess, Needlepoint. “This one’s one of the worst; keep your distance.” He kept one eye on Needlepoint with her twisted grin growing as he spoke to the ice-clad heroine at his side.

“Oh, yes, one of the worst. What did they call me before trying to lock me up for good in the deepest, darkest depths of that island? A nine? If I cared I would have been a ten. Of course, if I cared about anything, I’d have torn holes through this city on my way out.”

“Are you always so talkative?”

“Why? Do I scare you, oh poor little hero?”

“Because I see at least one hole that needs closing.”

Saelum Blaster clenched and stretched his fingers. Needlepoint stood smiling, twitching a hand every so often. All they needed now was a tumbleweed to roll on by, or for a clock tower to strike Noon. If only such time still existed.

He leapt left and shot right from the hip. His concern was more in getting the frozen heroine somewhere safer than this shootout spot, than it was hitting the equally agile villainess.

A high-pitched screech rang through the air behind him, and with it there was the sound of tile and pavement crumbling at a high rate.

Somewhere else in the world, all of that solid material was dumping out of thin air. That was how Needlepoint’s power was supposed to work, Saelum once heard. As long as he and the heroine could keep their distance, none of their limbs could be torn away and sucked into the thin, long line shooting out of Needlepoint’s finger.

The thin line vanished from one finger, and appeared beyond another, taking anything it hit for a short, painful ride, even if the object could not feel it. Anyone who watched it could feel it, or imagine that they did.

Likewise, Saelum shot another blast at the villainess’s way, and missed. Both he and Needlepoint were moving around too much for him to hit her, at least while shooting behind him, without striking it lucky.

He set the ice-clad heroine down. “Can you run? I need you to get away. It’s too dangerous here. Go.”

He shot his beam towards the general area of the villainess, who was somewhere behind the crumbling walls of the building they were in. Saelum hoped it would keep Needlepoint from hitting him and the heroine while they were sitting here, but, more than that, he hoped to contain this threat before Steel Canyon looked indistinguishable from Faultline.

Saelum Blaster flew low, but fast, into the clearing where he first saw Needlepoint. He ducked down, hitting the ground with a rolling motion, when he barely caught a glimpse of Needlepoint pointing in his direction. She was to his side, he realized, and he leapt forward when the screeching sound behind him came down. The ground cracked and twisted and broke off into practically nothing in a line that cut across where his body just rolled.

Keep your distance. Shoot from the hip until there’s opportunity to aim properly. Hope she makes a mistake. Take her down. Easy. The lack of belief he had in winning this fight showed itself in the end of that. Protect everyone. Take her down. Get out before the city gets sucked into the unknown. Piece of cake.

“It took me small group of powerful, ranged heroes to take me down, years ago,” Needlepoint gloated. “They were lucky.”

She shot at him again, and he at her. As he dodged, Saelum witnessed his beam get sucked into the thin line before both dissipated in a crackling flash.

“Lady,” Saelum said, “try teaching a foreign language to a bunch of kids who don’t care, and get back to me when half of them earn As, if you want to talk about lucky.”

He hid behind a wall and waited. One sound from her, and he’d fire in her direction at full power. His was an ability to chisel the hardest of rocks and concrete, but he wasn’t sure he cared if one of his beams punched a hole through the woman’s body.

“I don’t need to,” her voice called back. Before Saelum could get a shot off, that wretched line appeared, piercing the wall just above him.

It was a good thing he was crouching down, preparing his shot, because the line missed him. He threw his body at the wall, and grabbed at whatever he could with either hand. His hands were slipping too easily. The line of every color at once screeched at him, pulled up at him. The hole it made in the wall was getting bigger. He needed to shoot at her fast, and make it good, or his head was going to end up in a swamp in Florida, or somewhere else at random. Just one shot. If only he could focus or make it without losing his head in the process.

So much of what she learned in life contradicted this moment at every possible angle, Diamond Grace thought. So many teachings conflicted one another and gave her no answer.

It was time instead to trust in her brother . . . her sister’s work, and everything Mary stood for. Heroes risked their lives and beliefs almost every day here in Paragon. That was why it fought so well, so hard, and so long against the crimes that ruled other places like Empire City.

There was no armor that could shield her from what she needed to do. Teachings be damned, there was only one answer. Amidst the noise of battle, Diamond Grace sneaked behind the woman who killed her lover, hoping the bitch wouldn’t look her way.

Once she was close enough—and Diamond Grace was ready to break down crying because of the fear and anguish that wreaked her—she pounced onto the villainess’s back and grabbed her wrists.

She followed advice from her sister, and grew a new suit of ice armor. This time, encasing the villainess as well. The villainess screamed while Diamond Grace held her arms out at their sides.

While the ice grew thicker around them and the villainess swore at her, Diamond Grace said, “Eye for an eye makes the world go blind, but you? No more!”

Diamond Grace squeezed the other woman’s wrists with her enhanced strength. The sensation of bones breaking did not escape her, nor did the villainess’s screams before the ice covered her mouth as well.

She heaved and stepped back away, breaking off from the majority of the new suit of ice armor. Diamond Grace wanted to do so much more, so much worse, but this was enough. It had to be. The other woman collapsed backward onto the ground, and the pity Diamond Grace should have felt for her was replaced still with only the vilest of feelings.

There was a sound of shuffling in the near distance. Diamond Grace gasped, and she saw the hero catching his breath and looking at her.

“I probably went too far, didn’t I?” Diamond Grace asked.

“No, you didn’t,” the hero said.

“So that’s it? Are we doing away with the no kill rule?”

“No, we’re not. Is she alive? Then leave her. We have people to save. I know you probably need time,” he nodded to her fallen lover, “but we don’t have long. I don’t think Adamast will be too happy with me if I let a hero get swallowed into whatever it is Mortar has planned, either, so say a few words if you need to. We need to get going in a few minutes.”

“You know my sister pretty well.”

“Sister?”

Of course there was a group of these things here. Adamast and her small team met with a bunch of the masked foot soldiers on their way to their destination. She nodded to the others to move onward while she dealt with these things.

She struck a combat stance, and Adamast used her ice armor to skate and intercept the one foot soldier that tried to attack Dock and Bucht as they passed.

“Don’t get greedy,” she said. “I’ve got plenty of kickass for the lot of you.”

-------------
Chapter 35
-------------

Bucht followed Dock through the disheveled streets into the Talos district. Nervaeus was last seen in the area.

“What’s the plan?” Bucht asked.

Dock said, “Adamast shouldn’t be far behind us. If we spot Nervaeus, we slow him down if necessary, but wait for her to launch an all-out assault. I’ll scan for any weaknesses, and heal minor injuries, as usual.”

“Works for me. I think we should have packed some water.”

“There should be plenty around this part of town for you to play with.”

“I meant to drink. I haven’t felt this parched in a while.”

Dock eyed him curiously, and popped out the scanner in his prosthetic arm. Dock turned about, aiming his scanner everywhere but Bucht. The little man sensed something was wrong. When Docked stopped at one direction, Bucht looked the same way and found a man step out of the shadows.

“I should have guessed,” Dock said. “It’s one of the Asylum escapees.”

“Which one?” Bucht asked.

“Dissipate, stop where you are! You’re under arrest! Bucht, you might not want to get too close. There’s no telling who’ll win out if your powers clash.”

The villain only barked a laugh. “So, I get to meet the two of you. Tell me, little hero, will your minor healing abilities work on someone when I’m done with them? Yes, stay your distance if you can. It won’t do you good for very long.”

“He’s the reason we’re both feeling thirsty right now. Much closer, and we’d dehydrate to death.”

“We’ll see about that,” Bucht said.

“Bucht, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Do anything foolish.”

“Foolish it is!” He reached out for the nearest sources of water with a grin while his friend wrapped his own face with his palm.

A tentacle of water burst through a manhole cover, and Bucht swung it at the villain. So much of it evaporated before reaching the man, Bucht might as well have shot a water pistol at a mountain and call it a night.

Judging by the look on Dissipate’s face, Bucht had to guess that this had taken the other man a fair amount of effort. It was possible to win, but, as Dock suggested, he needed to keep his distance.

“We do not have to fight,” Bucht said. “You could always walk away.”

Dissipate said, “And have you heroes stab me in the back? I don’t think so. How about you two turn around and leave?”

“We can’t do that. There is a dangerous man ahead. We have to stop him from doing any more harm. We know your history, but we can go our separate ways.” He leaned closer to Dock, and toned down his voice. “He’s one of the dangerous ones, right?”

“Even for Asylum standards,” Dock remarked.

“What do you say? Yes, no?”

“No,” Dissipate answered. He ran towards the heroes.

In a bout of quick thinking, Bucht turned a fountain into a geyser half a block away, and the water came gushing from the side, taking an empty car with it. The car slid across the ground and cut off Dissipate in his path. The gushing water arched above the car as it stopped, and it turned on the villain.

The villain managed to evaporate most of the gushing water from the fountain before it doused him as hard as a garden hose. Bucht followed the assault up with another swipe with a tentacle from the sewer.

Disspate shouted, and the water all evaporated. Even at this range, Bucht felt even more parched than before. If he didn’t end this soon, or if Dissipate got any closer, he’d lose this fight.

Dock throw something at the car, and it exploded with a small, concussive blast while the villain climbed on top of the vehicle to get closer to them. The car flipped into the air and tumbled back down mere feet from where it started, and Dissipate fell to the ground with a vulgar scream.

“Punch him,” Dock said.

“Right,” Bucht agreed. He grabbed more water from the fountain on the edge of his own range, and shot a massive jet of it toward Dissipate, who was still behind the car and trying to get up.

However, someone came down feet-first where the villain was, and jumped again over the car with Dissipate in hand. The muscular figure landed a few yards away from the heroes while the water passed behind. He sneered at them.

“Puny things think they’re strong,” he said. His voice gave away that it was Nervaeus. He twisted his handed as he held the groaning villain by the neck, and Bucht could hear the violent, telling crack that came with it.

The heroes could only watch Dissipate fall lifeless to the ground.

Both of them scrambled to move, Bucht’s water powers and all, but Nervaeus was quick. He knocked Bucht back with a simple backhand against his chest. Bucht coughed and made a sharp inhale for air, and he sat up. Dock punched Nervaeus once with his cybernetic arm—which packed a hell of a punch—but it did nothing more than provoke the big guy to grab the recoiling arm and crush it with a single grasp.

Dock fell back with a loss of balance from trying to pry his arm free, only to have lost it, and Bucht charged at Nervaeus without another thought. It was the last coherent thought Bucht had, as bad as it was, as Nervaeus caught him and punched him in the chest again. This time, Bucht could feel it going through him. He tried to move, tried to think or to deny it, but he lost his senses one by one, touch and sight being the last to go.

“Shit, shit, shit . . . !” she grumbled to herself as Adamast tackled the asshole who just punched a hole through her friend’s chest. She was too slow to save him.

The impact forced the two men sideways even as the larger of them withdrew his hand. Adamast punched Nervaeus and sent him flying as Bucht’s body turned and fell.

Dock crawled to his partner at speed.

“Get to safety,” Adamast said.

“He killed him,” Dock said.

“I know.”

“We can fix it; we can make it better!”

“Dock, no. Don’t do this to yourself. Get going.”

“But I . . . I can heal him. Just give me a minute. Oh, Bucht, please not like this. I promise to give you my sister’s number. Please!”

“Dock! He’s gone. Get to the E since it’s close. We’ll honor him later.”

Nervaeus said, “Honor him now while you still can. You’re all going with this pitiful city.”

“Adamast?” Dock said, “Kick his ass.”

“Planning on it,” she said.

“You think that one hit of yours means you can?” Nervaeus said. He took a step toward Dock, who still wasn’t moving.

Adamast used her ice armor powers to grow a trail of frozen spikes on the ground from herself to Nervaeus, and a wall sprouted in front of him. Nervaeus brought the wall down with a hit, and Adamast slid at him for another attack, hoping the wall placated the big guy. She punched him, skated after him, and punched him again.

Nervaeus’s body slammed through a pillar and a corner of two brick walls. The alleged god got up with a proud smile set directly upon Adamast. “Very well, mortal. It will be your last.”

“Shut up,” she demanded.

He came at her with his own assault, and she was ready with a dense layer of ice guarding her extremities. His punches still hurt as her form crashed through several surfaces, but she was just getting started.

“None can stand against me,” Nervaeus said, “for I am a god.”

“You’re on my turf.” Adamast tackled Nervaeus, fists first, and pushed him into a wide intersection that looked abandoned now that people were fleeing the city. Nervaeus crashed down against the pavement; Adamast somersaulted over him. “Godhood means nothing here. You’re nothing but another villain at the end of another day.”

He got up, raging at her. “I am Nervaeus!”

“And I’m recalling a moment ago when I told you to shut up. Put your actions where your loud mouth is and prove it.”

Nervaeus charged her, and they exchanged heavy blows. It caused their feet to dig into the asphalt and concrete, their bodies to smash through vehicles and walls. Nervaeus grabbed for her neck at one point, and she maneuvered around in a way that caused Adamast to lift her opponent with her legs and swing him down against the ground. It left a crater the size of a taxi, which she promptly grabbed with her hands and swung down against the banished “god.”

With a yell, Nervaeus got up a second later and tore the taxi in half with his hands. He was bleeding at least a third as much as Adamast now felt bruised. If she was going to win, she would have to go all-out.

The last time she had done that, she had somehow managed to be responsible for several walls being rebuilt across the city even though most of the fight had taken place in another realm. If she didn’t unleash her strength now, however, there was no telling how much worse the city was bound to face at Nervaeus’s hands.

She launched herself at Nervaeus again, trading a small fraction of her strength for extra dense ice. With every punch she made, more ice covered the ground and the Vanquishiri, until there was enough on the ground to satisfy her. She solidified it, anchoring Nervaeus to the ground.

Adamast ran at full speed. She found the nearest wall to run up, and she ran.

“See now how your champion flees!” Nervaeus yelled after her loud enough for the city to hear.

But she kept running, pounding her feet into the wall and using ice to secure herself so she wouldn’t fall. Then, near the fortieth floor, she pushed back down against the building. Glass shattered and concrete caved in behind her.

The heroine focused large quantities of her strength and ice powers, especially the former, into a single punch. She only hoped that her aim was true. Nervaeus yelled out and raised his arms as if to block her, but he was too late. Adamast yelled out as well as she plummeted, faster and faster.

Upon impact, the whole world around her exploded. Cars lifted into the air. The ground became a suggestion. Ice grew and flew in every direction. Finally, Nervaeus collapsed with a scream, with feet still secure to the bottom of the crater that Adamast made. His knees and shins severed and snapped in a few places.

He shivered, though whether from the cold or the pain Adamast could neither tell nor care. She only kneeled over him with her fist clenched one more time.

“It’s a world of cardboard, and you’re just another sticker,” she said.

Then she delivered one last jab—her father’s signature punch—to the man’s face. It knocked him out cold.

When she stood up, Adamast surveyed the area around her. With or without the ice everywhere, the crater went a few feet below the sewer line, and spanned well beyond the edges of the intersection.

She activated her earpiece after a wince. “Mortar? Mortar Mage, I know you’re listening. Is what you’re doing worth it?”

There was a long pause. Then, finally, Mortar responded. “Yes, my friend.”

“The city is in ruin, and many lives have been lost.”

“More will be when this is done, but it’s either this, or everyone goes. There won’t be a city left, or even a universe. I hate this more than you know, but I’m doing it because no one else will. I’m doing it, because the hole would be tearing open on its own any moment. I’m sorry to scare everyone, but it had to be done. It had to buy me time to get my calculations and spells right.”

“Nervaeus is down. He’s breathing, but he’s not going anywhere.”

“Most of the villains are, by the sound of things. It’s hard to tell now, with signals dying in parts of the city. Grab who you can, and get going. When the fissure opens, oblivion will take care of the rest.”

“Take care of the rest?” asked Adamast. “Mortar, you’re talking about killing.”
“I’m talking about taking a huge risk. It’s possible they’ll end up in the Eternal Realm alive, and become the gods’ problem for the short time it takes to deal with them all, but unlikely. Please, old friend, this is my choice. Let this one be on me, and me alone.”

“I’ll see you on the other side of Halah’s door. You’ll seal this thing right and it’ll be another week for us, right?”

“Probably not. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to perform a simple child’s spell when I’m done here, let alone escape. Good bye, old friend. I wish I could have fought by your side one last time.”

“Mortar? Mortar!” Silence followed. Adamast’s legs came close to collapsing under her weight. She wiped a tear from her eyes and ran for The Escapist.

-------------
Chapter 36
-------------

Beyond the walls and webbed barriers, there was singing from a voice that barely showed any nervousness, muffled weeping, and the sounds of people trying to break free of the webbing. When Pixeletta walked into the rounded corridor between the stadium and the park, she wasn’t sure what she was expecting to see, but this wasn’t it. If she could somehow read her mother’s facial expression through that mask of hers, she was sure Swan Diva felt the same.

They hustled to one barrier where Pixeletta heard what she guessed was people trying to work away at it.

“Hello? We’ve come to help,” Pixeletta said.

“Oh, thank God,” said one man.

Another said, “Wait, that voice. You sound like the one who put this webbing here.”

“The stadium was still loud after the show was done, man. How can you be so sure?”

“How can we be sure it isn’t, and she’s not back to play some cruel game?”

Pixeletta said, “Please, I’m only here to help you. We both are.”

Swan Diva nudged the side of the barrier. “This is quite thick and strong . . . and gross. There is a quick way to get everyone out, but it’s going to require some serious property damage. That is, unless, you can scrounge enough juice to burn these webs.”

“That might start a fire.”

“Alright, everyone, stand back! I’m going to break this down, and we don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

Seconds later, Swan Diva punch away sections of the walls that held up the webbing. Thousands of people waited on the other side. The sight of them all made Pixeletta gasp.

“So many,” she said. “Why didn’t you all flee with everyone else in the city?”

One person said, “This is Paragon, dear. Do you know how many evacuations are called every week, and nothing comes of it? Wait, you two look familiar. Oh my god! It’s Swan Diva, and someone who looks like Pixeletta!”

“Calm down, everyone. Stay calm! We need to get you all out of here. This time is no joke. The evacuation is real, and we need to get everyone across the bridge.”

“Independence Bridge?” asked a man who didn’t sound like he was all there.

“The one and only. Did anyone see the woman who did this?”

“That’s where she headed, don’t you know?”

“What?”

“She left for the bridge after having a laugh. If you hurry, you might . . .”

Pixeletta ran. She heard her mom calling after her, but she didn’t care. This nightmare needed to end here, right now.

Vidnyanta stopped hovering amidst her brisk pace again, and looked back at the city. She wasn’t sure whether to call this a success or a failure. The place was in turmoil, but far too much of it wasn’t to her bidding.

Where was her glorious army harvested from so many worlds? Was Nervaeus too busy inflating his ego to see the looming threat that fool mortal was bringing upon them? Why had so many of the city’s people managed to flee already when Cingeteyrn volunteered to wreak havoc upon the exit until her arrival?

Questions plagued this evening that should have been rightfully hers. Hers to strike at the mortal world so loved by those fools in the Eternal Realm.

She would have to rebuild and return. She’d have to find a new way to burn everything to the ground and reign over the destruction. Vidnyanta dropped her mask to the ground, as well as her robe, leaving only her simple layer of garments. She could pose as a hero and blend into the crowd to make her escape. Yes, that was a simple plan. She wasn’t in the mood for any more obstructions.

She started toward the bridge again, walking instead of levitating, but the lights flickering caught her attention. They shouldn’t have; the city was taking heavy damage and probably losing power for an unknownth number of time in the past month alone. But there was something about this time.

The lights flickering came with the sound of heavy static.

Someone was coming. Disappointing. Vidnyanta found where the person was coming from, and she shot a line of webbing at the interloper.

Pixeletta wasn’t sure when she had picked up a strong sense of instincts, but she shot a bolt of lightning at Vidnyanta. She was going to anyway, but now seemed like the best time. She was glad she did, as her bolt blew through a rope of spider webbing that had been aimed at her.

She kept an arm raised and rested the other hand against a lamppost as if casually holding it. Pixeletta was going to need sources of energy if she was going to fight this woman on her own.

Now, both of them were looking upon one another’s face, same as though they were, with the exception of Pixeletta’s mask.

“The impossible!” Vidnyanta hissed at her.

“The body thief,” Pixeletta said.

“Should we be here like this? I’m sure this meeting will cause the universe to implode.”

“That’s multi-verse theory, and you’re giving me back what’s rightfully mine.”

“The whole world is about to end, you fool!”

“All the better.”

Both women breathed heavily and screamed before charging at one another. Spider silk and electricity burst through the air as Pixeletta struggled hand-to-hand against this so-called goddess. Their strength and speed were evenly matched. The fact that Vidnyanta had her face only served to make the fight ridiculous.

“How? How are you doing this?” Vidnyanta asked.

“Magic,” Pixeletta said, her tone as defiant as all the teenage years she never got to live.

“Why do you keep fighting me? I can’t give you your body until it turns to dust. So just die and become one with me.”

Pixeletta drained multiple currents of electricity from the surrounding lights, and she let off a massive bang of power as Vidnyanta grabbed for her neck. It knocked her back, disorienting her. She could hear the other woman grunt as well.

That was it. She herself felt drained, and would need more power than the lampposts could withstand—they were already burning out after what she did—if she was to dish out any more attacks, or even a tiny spark.

Damn, she was dizzy.

Her version swung left and right until Pixeletta managed to focus on the object on the ground. It was the amulet. She picked it up, and the band was broken.

“Why?” the other woman asked again, this time hacking and grunting as she stood. “Why can’t I have things my way?”

Pixeletta said, “It’s because you try too hard to use what isn’t yours.”

“Like your body, your powers, your memories?”

“What?”

“Yes. I bet you didn’t know I could tap into everything this body can do. But it’s too stubborn. I thought it was fitting, but it’s a herd of stubborn cattle trying to remember something beyond their scope to see or hear. But I know; I know all of it.”

“The day I died. You can tell me what happened, can’t you?”

“Join me, and I can show you. I can make you whole, and more.”

“You’re bluffing!” She watched Vidnyanta take a step back. Pixeletta took two steps closer with the amulet in hand. “If you really know, then tell me now.”

“I . . . No, not until I’ve taken your soul.”

She wrapped the amulet around her hand. She could barely feel the electric energy fizzling out inside the lampposts. “My memory, give it to me. This is your last chance.”

Vidnyanta held out her arms with a knowing smile. Living bodies had currents in them, and Pixeletta could almost feel hers from a few feet away. It was disturbed. It was like plugging an American appliance into a European outlet, only faint.

“You think I’m coming to you like this,” Pixeletta said, “that I’ll fall for your false promises. I can live without the one memory. It will hurt, but I will live. There’s only one thing I can’t live without. The world could end right now, but I had to come, had to stop you, for one thing only. And that is my own body!”

She grabbed at the surrounding electrical energies and punched into Vidnyanta’s chest with her amulet-wrapped hand. The other woman trembled and mumbled against her before the blow, but now she screamed. All of reality screamed, even after light consumed them both.

Swan Diva accompanied the crowd of people from the stadium across the park on their way to the bridge. They all hurried across as much as a number of obstacles could allow, but Swan Diva and a couple other heroes on the scene tried their best to keep everyone calm. To keep everyone from trampling over one another.

They all reached the far side of the bridge when a girl’s scream echoed from afar. A pale green light illuminated the sky in a thin pillar that narrowly missed the alien ship.

“Oh, my baby girl,” Swan Diva whispered. She looked to the other heroes. “Get everyone to safety.”

Then she flew with all her might toward the source of illumination.

Mortar Mage gave his face a harsh wipe with one hand. He was missing something. His calculations were great—better than anything devised in the histories of magic or science—but they missed an equation within an equation. Time was running out, and, at best, his work could have resulted in the instant eradication of everyone and everything in a ten mile radius.

The remaining reports coming in through the radio only weighed down on him more heavily as they went on. Friends and colleagues hospitalized, or worse. People trapped in one building or another.

He failed. He promised to bring back his love, to protect everyone in the city, and to prevent the end of the universe from coming many billions of years too early.

Someone’s scream reached him then. He looked at one screen monitoring Paragon City; a number of screens even.

There was an eerie light, taller and slimmer than the ones he’d put in to protect against the tampering of anyone with the sight. His magically inclined senses told him everything he needed to know. That was a beacon, or he was about to make it one.

Suddenly, he had everything he needed. Mortar Mage could shift and focus the effects of the rift opening between here and the end. He plugged in the numbers, and adjusted the reagents around the lab.

Everything was where it needed to be. Even magic had its laws, even if they were bound to another realm science was not.

He stopped briefly when a dark brown line cracked across one of his arms. Too much magic in too little time. All the runes in the mortal realm couldn’t change his need for more time to try and rest or recover, and not even the best mages who tampered with time could give him any more.

Time was up. The clock he had set up ticked away its last seconds.

Mortar Mage grasped the first lever. Then pulled.

-------------
Chapter 37
-------------

Everyone who remained in the city that night knew terror by sight and sound. Some knew it one moment, and soon knew nothing at all.

A luminescent bubble grew from the center of the Faultline District. It grew and grew, crossing streets in a matter of seconds, passing through walls, shaking everything it touched.

A villainess breaking free of her ice prison was among the first to go. She swore that one day she would get her revenge on the one who had done this to her. Then the thing came. She moved her feet to try and get away from it, but she fell. She slid back towards it. Her final moment was a realization of how her victims had felt, getting pulled into something stronger. Her day of vengeance would never come.

There was a man cuffed to a pole. He was awake by the time he saw the thing growing his way. He pulled, he yanked, and he tried with all his might to use his power. Then, once the dome consumed him, he had nothing.

A god who slept, and another who remained unconscious, were unable to fight their fate that awaited them. It was the ultimate price for trying to bring about the end of the world, and they never knew they’d paid it.

Doctors and nurses scrambled to help whomever they could while metas teleported in and out, taking patients and staff with them. Among those patients was a fallen hero, War Lagoon, barely able to see the world around him as his consciousness would allow. He saw two doctors and a nurse being taken away in time for another man to appear at the doorway. The man was a bloody heap of a mess, and he carried a knife. He approached the fallen hero, and was within arms’ length when the blistering light appeared in the same door. The hero’s vision faded as something else appeared at his side.

Meanwhile, in the lab where Mortar Mage worked, his own effervescent barrier countered the growing dome with all of his magical and intellectual might. More lines appeared on his person, tolling his body’s limitations, but he pressed on with activating and deactivating the different spells and switches in a calculated sequence.

It was tiring, but his work was not done. Not yet.

Soon. Soon I can let go of it all. Tawnya, sorry I couldn’t keep my promise.

He grabbed another switch. Then there was a bang. And two more. And another. Mortar looked around the lab. The male model androids had awoken. Tawnya did not. It was like a slap in the face from the very universe he was trying to save. If just she had awoken, he would have been able to see her smile one last time, and been at peace when his time was over.

“You all know, don’t you?” Mortar asked the androids as they pounded against their capsules. “You know you’re going with me into oblivion. You think you can stop me. You think you can take everything else with us. Well, pack your bags, because the universe is staying put. The city is staying. You have tried in the past and keep trying now, but you underestimated the power of a mortal who knows the greatest magic of all. You can try sending a signal to the ones who made you, or corrupted you, but you will have never seen the beauty and the joy of good people fighting for what they believe in. You will never have taken in the splendors borne of the universe in all of its corners, all of its realms, with all of their silly games and rules. I wanted to see and do more, but I have worked for years to make sure others could have a chance to do those very things. You want my blood, and you can have it, but one last switch is all I need. I have failed to live, but you have lost, and I will go to the other side happier than either of you will ever know.”

His arm trembled no matter how much strength he thought he had. The dark brown lines grew longer. The androids grew closer. The effervescence consuming the city was growing larger, and soon could grow stronger and out of control.

All he needed was one more ounce of strength, and this was over.

A soft hand touched his while Mortar focused on the switch. He turned his head and saw a woman with long, black hair and flowing garments of white and light blue. She had Tawnya’s face, and she nodded to him.

Mortar Mage was stunned and confused. Tawnya the android was still in her tube. The woman next to him placed a finger over his lips with a smile, and concealing a device in her same hand.

Then they turned to the switch they both held, the male androids almost within reach even though they approached so slowly, and they pulled it down at last.

The last few people running across the bridge broke down when the luminescent bubble took them. Several other people budged as if ready to go help or save them, but they were too late. Then the bubble retracted in an instant.

Its movement could be felt in the water, on the land, and in the sky. In the distance, Faultline and a few surrounding buildings became nothing but rubble, void of any walls or structures.

Back on the bridge, the people who had run and fallen remained. The dome had no effect on them, and no one was sure why. Several people ran to them.

In the distance, the alien ship lifted out of view. If what was known about that one was true, then the invasion that had started over five years ago was finally over, and it was going to be a while before the next one arrived, if ever.

Swan Diva hovered in the sky above the bridge, hugging an impossible body in her arms. Her daughter was breathing, barely. It had to be her, wearing the outfit she had received mere hours ago. Swan Diva descended near a makeshift encampment of medics.

Some of the people there backed away at first. One man in a decorated military uniform approached.

He said, “Swan Diva? This may not be the best time, but there is a question of murder and jumping bail that you need to answer for.”

“Yes,” she told him, “you’re right. This isn’t the time. There are medics here, right? Does anyone have equipment for reading vitals, or powers?”

“I-I have a scanner,” said a shorter man. He had a cybernetic arm that appeared to have been broken off near the wrist, and he sprouted a monitor from it that also looked to have seen other days. He looked like he just got done crying as well. “Set her down here; I’ll take a look.”

“Vital signs and owers; I need to know her powers.” That had to mean something.

“Understood.”

She set her daughter down. Pixeletta’s costume had a number of holes and singe marks in it. Her amulet was no longer around her neck. In fact, the burnt, decrepit piece of jewelry still falling from the girl’s hand piece by piece might have been it.

The small man panned his monitor up and down Pixeletta’s form.

“She appears to be alive, uninjured even,” he said. “Just passed out from exhaustion. You said something about powers? It’s hard to read their potency, but . . . Digitization, electrokinesis . . .” His words brought Swan Diva a sigh of relief. “. . . super strength, and flight.”

Her baby girl was alive. Rightfully, truthfully alive. Wait a minute. Swan Diva said, “What were those last two?”

A distant voice brought her to her senses, and her senses hit back with thorns. Gemma felt groggy as she sat up. Something about this moment set in like a déjà vu, and she literally could not remember the last time she felt this way.

Red and gray dust scattered next to her, and flames lit the buildings nearby. Any moment, she was going to remember where she was, not quite all of why she was here, and little of who she was or what she was doing. That was what her déjà vu told her.

The distant voice came closer. She stumbled to pick herself up. Gemma looked outward. This was the southern edge of Paragon City. What happened to this place?

“. . . if one of them happens to be my daughter, let me know.” The distant voice was close enough now. Gemma knew it well. She knew the face better than the name, at least. Only, the face was older than she remembered, once she saw him.

Gemma breathed in, preparing to talk, but words failed her. Instead, the man—he was her father, she recalled—spotted her after turning about.

He ran to her and hugged her in great haste. “I thought I lost you,” her father said. “Why are you in this suit?”

“I don’t remember,” she said.

“Oh. It happened again, didn’t it? That’s alright, I got you. I’ll find a place you can rest safely while I help reclaim the city, and save anyone who’s trapped.”

“What happened?”

“It’s a long story. Tell me, while we walk, do you remember your mother at all? No? Well, I’ll gladly tell you all about her.”

Jeff awoke in a hospital bed, fully bandaged and in stable condition. He had to be. The world was still here, for one thing. He gazed at his bedside in time to see a pair of feminine hands—one of them had a vaguely familiar ring of gold with green gems on it—setting down a vase of flowers.

The young woman in the room said, “Oh, hello. Sorry, I just wanted to . . . I gotta go.”

“Wait,” Jeff called out, “do I know you?”

“I don’t know. It just seemed like the right thing to do.” Then she was gone before Jeff could get another word out.

He exhaled away what little aggravation he had. She was only being nice. There was no need to beat anyone up over it.

Now that he was awake, waiting for a doctor to look him over, and tell him the rigmarole about doctor-patient confidentiality and how it applied to superheroes, Jeff grabbed the remote control for the TV suspended on the far wall.

It was a good time to check in on what the world knew according to the mainstream media.

“. . . continue around the clock since the incident in Paragon City two days ago. An estimated six thousand survivors have been found within city limits without any superpowers, another twenty with low-level powers, thousands dead, and less than a hundred high-level metas are still missing. The vast majority of those missing all ranked 7 or higher, with the remainder unknown or unregistered.”

In war, Jeff learned that collateral happened, no matter the type or size of the bomb or the efficiency of the team sent in. Considering the stakes, Jeff was impressed with what he was seeing so far, even if he was going to have to help out with reconstruction soon.

“Son of a bitch,” Jeff said, “he did it.”

On another channel: “Hundreds of thousands of Paragon residents returned home today, most reuniting with their animal companions. More are expected to return in the next week.” There was a shot of a family being greeted by their ecstatic dog. “In the wake of recent events, Mayor Oldman’s approval ratings have plummeted to a new low both before and after a sound clip was broadcasted over the Internet showing his attitude towards anyone with superpowers.”

And back on the first: “Big news today as Adamast Cross revealed her identity to the public. She had this to say, ‘I have spent the past half dozen years of my life educating children and helping those in need. Unfortunately, I have found that I need time and energy to find a suitable replacement to run for mayor, to find someone who can steer our city toward a better future while we still have one, and this means stepping down temporarily as coach as well as heroics. The city needs all the good people it can get, regardless of our history on either side of the law. Thank you.’”

And then: “Mai Tanimoto, alias Swan Diva, has received a prison sentence of fifteen months today after charges of skipped bail and manslaughter. This comes during an arraignment this morning where she turned herself in and pled guilty on both counts. In related news, her daughter Judy, alias Pixeletta, has returned after a miracle that has been classified as, quote, ‘A really long story.’ She is seen here hugging her mother goodbye before Mai Tanimoto is escorted to a minimum security prison.”

Jeff turned the TV off. The world didn’t go to shit, for one thing, but he had all he could take of the news for the time being.

Kyra visited a few times over the next couple days, during which time she did her best to bring Jeff up to events with everyone in the supergroup she was able to contact. That fateful night she had come so close to death, but she recovered from the poison to help direct the evacuation of the hospital and was one of the last to leave along with War Lagoon. She had passed out when they were safe, awoken in a hospital bed, and was now largely immune to toxic substances.

She told him about how Mai turned herself in willingly, because she felt it was the right thing to do, and the judge was lenient due to the service she’d provided past and present. She wanted to teach Judy how to control her new powers, too, but a hard choice had to be made. No one else in the League knew how to fly except Mortar, who was gone, and Jeff, whose power worked different than most people in the world. Mary was willing to help with the super strength, which was an idea that had made Judy smile.

All that was left was the mansion with all of the base systems still working. The remaining members were content to only operate what they needed for now, but the city was quiet; too quiet to need a whole lot of heroing for the time being. If Tatiana wasn't supposed to be off duty for the next several months, then she was tempted to go somewhere random, like Moroumont or further west, to bust up any bad guys that needed it.

Jeff supposed that the League was done now. Everyone was still in good terms, and probably they’d be willing to work with one another, but things were changing. Times were moving forward.

When he was out of the hospital, Jeff was probably going to have a lot of work ahead of him in his own civilian life. Heroics? That would have to wait.

Wyatt entered the mansion. The world was saved, but there was no telling if this was his last time here or not. The League was done, but its members still sought one another out. Peter had let them continue to use the house so it wouldn’t be empty without them, but it wasn’t the same without Mortar Mage.

Today, he came here looking for something that Tatiana had left by accident before Doctor Terrell ordered her to cease teleporting around during the last trimester of her pregnancy. He figured that it was a good excuse to drop in and say hello in case anyone else happened to be around.

“Is anyone home?” he asked.

“I’m in here,” Judy called back. Not that Wyatt needed her to respond to know she was in the console room. Manners, they matter.

He found her pacing, her mind anxious. He was getting a minor case of déjà vu being here with Judy, but he said, “Is there something I can help you with?”

“No, no. I’m just . . . There’s so much going on. Mom’s serving time, I’m taking care of her new condo so she doesn’t default the loan by the time she gets out, and my powers. Too many powers.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have all of mine, but I have hers now too. It’s too much. No one should have this much power.”

“Ah.”

Judy said, “No one should have to cope with all these things after coming back from the dead, you know? I haven’t really slept since that night we fought the Vanquishiri. I’ve only dipped inside a computer for one moment to see if I really had full control of that power again, and it’s tempting to stay in there for a while.”

“You still need sleep, Judy.”

“I know, but I can’t. Not with all that I have to do. All that I can do. All that I can remember.”

Oh. Judging by her words, her expression, and the flows of her thoughts, Judy remembered everything about her old life. Everything. Now Wyatt got to see if it was better for that knowledge to stay gone, or if it was best for Judy to remember. It was hard to tell other than the fact that the young woman needed a release.

“I’ve been thinking, actually,” she said. “I should see the world with my own eyes. The city’s rebuilding. My mom’s bank provided us with paperwork that we don’t have to worry about payments for the next three months. I think the bank rep was trying to get her to give up her condo on the spot, but she declined. That’s why I’m helping out where I can, but I don’t have to be here every last day, do I?”

Wyatt said, “No, I don’t suppose you do. Paying loans takes money, though.”

“That’s not going to be a problem. We have more than enough for a couple years of automatic payments. Then her job is willing to take her back when she is out.”

“What’s keeping you then?”

“I don’t know where I want to go first. I have most of the world immediately open to me, and more of it that I can fly to. But I never made a list of places I want to visit, or things I want to do, except visit my family in Nippon or an old friend if I can find her. I don’t think I’m ready for that. These powers . . . I need to go somewhere to get full control over them. Maybe I’ll find somewhere nice, and they can help me get some sleep.”

“You could always visit my brother’s place.”

She laughed. It wasn’t meant as a joke, but she was laughing. Electric currents lifted off of her body as she did so. Wyatt had seen a lot of amazing things while living in Paragon City, especially since becoming a costumed hero, but the power coming off of Judy was stunning.

Judy turned on a computer screen, and loaded up the internet browser to see if it was working. It was always hard to tell with their service provider.

“Promise me something,” Wyatt requested.

“What’s that?” Judy asked.

“See the people you love, and never forget your dreams, wherever you go.”

“Wyatt, that’s so damn cheesy, just like your puns. You have a point, though.” Static appeared between her hand and the computer’s main tower. She was about to go.

“You have to promise.” His tone was playful.

In kind, so was hers. “No I don’t.”

Judy stuck her tongue out, and then she was gone. Wyatt exhaled humorously. Good luck, you silly brat.

-------------
Epilogue
-------------

Patrick walked, hands and feet bound, toward the interrogation room where a guest awaited him. This was some reporter, he’d heard.

Six days since his wife had been locked up, and their child discovered to be alive. Patrick and his lawyer put in a bargain to get him out of this place. The person he feared most was in another prison far away. The person he allegedly killed was alive. It had been a long eight weeks, trying to file for the motion, but things were looking up. Perhaps the reporter was here for his side of the story. Perhaps they were here to try and nail him, but too bad he had a story ready thanks to his attorney.

Life was grand.

He entered the room, and was led to the side opposite to the attractive young woman with dark hair and glasses with matching rims. Her features reminded Patrick of a young Mai when they had first met, between her hips and waist, her posture, and her eyes and face.

Ah hell.

The guard who had led him in was already out of the room. Patrick stood after him, but, the next second, the table knocked him back and he was pinned against the wall. The lights flickered. The young woman’s eyes filled with lightning. She hovered in the air.

“You,” she said. “You seem to think that my resurrection undoes everything you did to me. You’re wrong. I came here to tell you that whatever you thought, you’re staying here to rot for the rest of your life, or I will gladly cross the no-kill rule just for your sorry ass. Do I make myself clear, Father?”

Yes. He shook his head yes, as did his bladder. He was going to need new pants, and Patrick wasn’t sure if or when anyone was going to give him some.

“Good.” She settled down and walked to the one-way mirror. “See that you don’t forget it. I have no desire to see you ever again, not even in the news. Goodbye.” She was gone in an instant.

The prisoners gave her a mixed reception as she passed. Mary considered not caring at all. Her advisors often told her not to acknowledge these people were even there. She had a different philosophy on the matter.

Two guards escorted her as per procedure, but she didn’t mind saying hello to the prisoners in passing, even if she was here for one person.

She formed a snowball in her hands, and tossed it into one cell where two men fought over catching it like a pair of children at softball practice. It made her giggle, though she did have to tell the guards to leave it. The fighting wasn’t too violent.

Eventually, they reached the female cells. Most of the inmates from this block were outside getting their exercise. One woman sat at a table, wearing a power suppressor and a smile.

There was silence at first once Mary sat with Mai.

Mai was the first to speak: “So, Mayor Mary now; or will be once the election is over.”

“Yep,” Mary responded. “Apparently, the people of Paragon enjoyed my gall for doing what I thought was right. That, or having a former superhero as mayor resonated with them. I still have no idea why Captain Patriot or his close friends didn’t take the job.”

“I hear one of them took your old job helping the youth.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“He was here talking to one child’s mother.”

“Oh.”

“So, how is everyone?”

“Everyone is as can be expected. Walter’s missing, again, though I feel like he had something to do with my nomination for mayor. Jeff helped take charge in the city’s reconstruction efforts; we’re rebuilding Faultline finally. Wyatt and Tatiana are fixing up their home for the coming baby. Kyra and Quentin are getting along so well I often fear for the pranks they might pull together, and I love them both for it, strangely. Jackie went home to pack all of her things and move to the Pacific Northwest where she plans to continue her nursing school. Warren is gone. I asked Peter about the magazine, but he said it’s carrying on with a new name in their staff. What?”

There was a look on Mai’s face. Mary had a hard time reading it.

She responded, “I received something in the mail, actually, now that you mentioned Warren. Let me tell you about Judy while I dig it out of this envelope here.”

“OK?” Mary was equally intrigued and confused.

“So she tried some sort of roulette to choose the first destination in her road trip. Net trip? Anyways! She accidentally emerged in a brothel that specializes in bondage. They didn’t do anything to her or anything, but the headmistress there asked her to stay a while and rest. Apparently, this person is as good at reading people as my sister, and she outfitted Judy with a non-conductive suit of latex. No pictures, but she said it made her blush profusely every time she thought about it during those few days. It also helped her focus her abilities some before she left the brothel.

“Since then, she’s sent a few postcards from a number of places with great scenery and very few people; not just to me but also our doctor. She spent one week in South America to put down a drug trade in a humorous way. Some major lab or another had staff so dumb that they just ran the machines to make the products after putting in the ingredients; somehow she turned a cocaine farm into a candy cane ice cream factory. The drug lords were furious, and she took them down once they were out in the open. That country’s economy remained intact once they were in jail, their assets literally frozen.”

Mary was laughing now. Oh, how she missed the good old days of running with Judy. Those were easier times. Then again, Mary realized, if this was a cheesy ending to a book or movie, this would have been the time for a happy-go-feely montage. So, she sighed and relented to the reality she lived in.

“Is this the letter you wanted to tell me about?” Mary asked once she had seen the paper in Mai’s hands.

Mai said, “Yes. It’s the strangest thing. The letter was addressed to me with an obvious alias name so that it would go through the mail system, but the postal workers and guards here should have picked up on that. What's more is how the letter starts.”

“Did you take it to anyone?”

“No. When I read the cover page you’ll understand why. Here: ‘To Ms. Tanimoto. Thank you for opening this message. I trust my risky enchantment helped it to find you. I hope you are doing well. You didn’t have to turn yourself in, but I will respect your decision. However, I must ask that you hang on to this letter and share the next page with a friend of ours who will be visiting you soon.’”

“Ominous. See, I’m not sure Paragon City or I can do ominous right now.”

Mai nodded, and flipped the pages in place. Then she slid them across the table for Mary to read. The second one, of course, was longer:

“Hello, old friend. Sorry for using Mai like a conduit here, but this seemed like the best opportunity compared to the alternatives I considered. The universe is safe now. Well, as safe as can be considering its own inherent dangers. With the Arachne Regime broken down to mere mercenaries for hire, the Circle subdued eternally to harmless mages, the Vanquishiri Bahitians gone forever, and the rift sealed tight between us and the end of everything, there is time to live. Time to explore.

“Now that I have time again to myself, and a certain loved one by my side, there is something I need to do while I see the world. Everyone who was once in the League will be receiving a gift soon. There will, of course, be spares, but consider it the final gift of a man who had to make a mess bigger in order to clean it completely.

“Someone may be able to guess my true identity, but that will raise questions too difficult to answer in simple terms. For that, I’m glad to say that I don’t mind them knowing, because they’d have to prove it. Sometimes, real life has bigger plot holes than our favorite stories combined, because that’s the universe. It has holes to slip through, and it wouldn’t surprise me if someone finds these holes that take them into the unknown. However, that’s a tale none of us need to worry about, for now. Scratch that, none of us need to worry about it ever.

“We have come a long way in a little over six years, as is to be expected. A couple that once couldn’t stand each other can start a loving family. A number of transgenders can find themselves and become who they were meant to be, though not always in that order, and we know of at least two whose lives are finally moving forward. The notions of love can be challenged for better or for worse, leading into the most important relationships of our lives. Leaders are born from those wishing to build where others see only debris. People come and go with different consequences. Ah, I might be losing track of what I’m trying to say here.

“As I sit here in a water park where the love of my life is trying waterslides for the first time in her life, I write to you with a point in mind. There may be many endings to the little things in life, but there is only one definitive end, and this isn’t it. We do not need to worry about that here, now, or possibly ever so long as we live. There’s time ahead of us to make more choices, to grow, and to enjoy what we find. I hope you take the universe up on its offer. While the long journey started one crazy night by a band of fledgling heroes is coming to its conclusion, it’s become time we move forward with our new lives, and pass the torch to another generation. Perhaps one day you will play a part in another’s story while you continue to grow. Let’s see where the next six years take us, or the six years after that.

“With love, the son of Cupid and Psyche.”

Mary leaned back as far as gravity would allow since these seats had no backsides. She was strong, but her boobs were still heavy enough to make her fall if she lost her center of gravity.

She looked at the final line again and again, always hoping to find that answer that would never come.

“I thought they had a daughter,” Mary said.

Mai said, “That’s what the stories say.”

“Well, that was odd . . . coming from a woman who went through all that I did.” If she could only count the ways, she’d probably be admitted to a psych ward.

“Yes it was.”

“So. Cards?” Card games were, after all, the main pastime she and Mai shared during these visits.

Twenty-four laps. Denise swam both ways across her pool at a leisurely pace. It was another fine afternoon in this part of California, and she had a small competition to attend in a couple days in spite of it being the middle of November. Simply being active in her element was more than enough. It had been the only thing that kept her going for longer than she cared to count.

After her last lap, she floated on her back in the center of the pool. She heard that Paragon City had gone utterly mental in the last several months, but the news here didn’t say who was involved in the latest near-apocalyptic scuffle. On the west coast, the news rarely ever spoke of the deeds of heroes. She tried to ignore anything to do with that city for the last five years, but bits of news always found a way to her.

In spite of her ears being submerged in water, Denise heard footsteps and clicking noises. Her peripheral vision told her something was at one side of the pool.

She turned to look, and gasped in shock when men in suits had their guns pointed at her.

“Out of the pool,” one man said. “You’re coming with us if you value your life.”

Big mistake. She wasn’t sure if she did. Oh, she enjoyed the swimming and the numerous competitions, as well as most of Cali’s weather, but life? She just stared at those men in an annoyed defiance.

There was a bang, but it took Denise a moment to realize that it hadn’t come from any gun. Her nerves took a moment to recover from the shock and clear her mind enough to see those men had all been knocked back.

A woman clad in a familiar costume descended where the men stood, and she kicked away a gun when one man tried to point it at her. The gun slammed against the fence. The mystery heroine set her foot down on the would-be kidnapper.

Before anyone else could say or do anything, Denise’s two bodyguards ran into the poolside, one of them stumbling while the other had blood dripping from his nose. The aimed their own guns.

“On the ground, now!” one of them shouted. “That includes you, hero!”

Denise said, “No, wait. She’s with me. She’s a friend.” She wasn’t sure why she said that since she never saw the woman’s face.

“Are you alright, Ms. Grandt?”

“I’ll be fine. Can you just cuff those men and get them out of here?”

“Heroes and their kind aren’t exactly welcome around here. Are you sure she’s a friend?”

“Please, just do as I ask, or I’m finding new bodyguards.”

“Ma’am.”

The bodyguards took the suited men away, and the heroine just stood there, never turning to face Denise while she remained safely in the pool. Denise hoped she was right about this one, but it was so impossible.

“Hello,” Denise said to the heroine.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” the heroine said. She lifted into the air.

“No, Judy, wait!” She saw the woman stop. Pixeletta didn’t fly, did she? “It’s you, isn’t it?” Denise climbed out of the pool and approached the woman.

The heroine turned. She was older, but there was no mistaking Judy’s face. “I’m sorry. This was a mistake. I need to go.”

“No.” Denise grabbed her arm. “You’re alive.” She had so many questions. How was Judy here? How was she flying? More, but most of all, “That’s all? Dead for five years, you never write, and now you’re taking off after saving me? Stay with me.”

Judy set her feet down again and gave Denise a weak smile. Denise could no longer tell if she was breathing. Not even her dreams were like this, and she had some wild ones since becoming a professional athlete.

Say something, she told herself.

However, Judy stepped closer. Words, thoughts, feelings, and penguins all crossed Denise’s mind as she tried to get something out to her friend. She leaned in to hug Judy. Judy leaned in, but head first, her eyes closing, and her lips . . . .