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I'm HALPING! [Worm AU fanfic]

Reader mode
Part Thirteen: Luck is for Amateurs
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    • I'm HALPING!

    Part Thirteen: Luck is for Amateurs

    [A/N: This chapter was commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

    Eidolon

    David looked up as a Doorway opened in midair beside him. Alexandria hovered on the other side of it, looking as serious as she ever did. "Eidolon," she said bluntly. "We need to go to Brockton Bay soon and do what Hebert 'requested' us to do."

    His mouth twisted with distaste over the idea of going back and being confronted once more by his 'son'. It didn't matter that he was older and far more experienced; the Endbringer calling itself 'Zachary' had a way of putting him on the back foot with insulting ease. And that was not even counting the faux teenager's sheer physical capability.

    "I'm going to assume you have what you consider a good reason," he riposted. She probably did, knowing her, but he wasn't going to give in without a fight.

    "Yes." She paused for precisely timed effect. "The Teeth hit Brockton Bay and engaged Zachary thirty minutes ago. As of twenty-nine minutes ago, they have ceased to exist as a team."

    David's eyes flew wide open as his mind surged in horror. "Butcher! If Zachary killed Butcher, the Butcher mind would've gone to that girl, what's-her-name—"

    "Taylor. Taylor Hebert." Her voice had a strong 'try to keep up' tone to it. "And no; apparently, Butcher isn't dead. She's just not Butcher anymore. Taylor and Zachary dropped them off at PRT ENE about five minutes ago, somewhat the worse for wear. All alive, not the slightest hint of powers between the lot of them."

    "What." David blinked, horror of a different type making itself known. "That ... that thing can … remove powers?"

    "Apparently so." Rebecca Costa-Brown, David mused, had mastered the art of the dry comeback. "Given his propensity toward Trump activity, I suspect he 'borrowed' the ability from Animos, then used it to permanently nullify Animos'—and everyone else's—powers."

    David set his jaw."It's not a 'he' or 'him'. It's an Endbringer. It's a monster masquerading in human form, just waiting for its moment to lash out and destroy the city."

    Alexandria's eyebrows were hidden under her helmet, but he was sure she'd just raised them anyway. "I think you're wrong. He's had plenty of opportunity to go on a rampage, and the absolute most he's done so far is destroy a van. While, it has to be said—"

    "Yes, yes, I know, I know, it eliminated the Nine," David said impatiently, waving his hand to dismiss her words. "But that's my point. It pretends to be human, and uses a Stranger effect to make this work even when people know what it's done. You yourself said you had trouble recalling its capabilities, and you have perfect recall!"

    "I'm waiting for your point." Alexandria didn't frown or fold her arms, but the subtle tone in her voice made David pause in his rant.

    "Um, sorry," he said, trying to sound sincere. While it had been more or less an accident and he didn't think she'd hold it against him, he had just kind of cut off the woman who could make his life very difficult in her position as the head of the PRT. And just because she'd never tried to push her authority in that arena before, there was no guarantee that she wouldn't do just that if she felt like it. "What I'm saying is that it's lulling us all into a sense of security. Pretending to be harmless, pretending that its really scary powers aren't so scary. Making it so even when we get that feeling there's something wrong, we'll suppress it because we think we know why we're getting the feeling and that we know better." He spat out the last word.

    "And yet, he's never done anything overtly malicious," she reminded him. "Everything he's done has been specifically aimed at protecting … well, people." She paused, as if choosing what to say next. Which was odd, because Alexandria was never lost for words. "Only the guilty have suffered. No fatalities, even. Well, except for the ones who had Kill Orders against their names."

    "And yet, it's stirred up more chaos in just a few days than most capes do in their first year." He tried to keep the snark out of his voice but it wasn't easy. "Would the Teeth have even come to Brockton Bay if Zachary hadn't stirred up the waters, smacked Lung around, captured Hookwolf and Cricket, and killed the damn Slaughterhouse Nine all in the same day?"

    "Let's not lose sight of the fact that he has actually captured several supervillains and eliminated two separate S-class threats." Alexandria seemed almost amused at his discomfiture. "For a sinister looming threat, he's doing a damn good job at being a hero."

    "And on the other hand, it's on first-name terms with the other Endbringers, and can call on them more or less any time it wants, if that little tête-à-tête with the Simurgh was anything to go by." He studied her expression, hoping to sway her to his side, but for that he'd just fired the best shot in his locker, it didn't have the impact that he'd hoped.

    "On the other other hand, he seems to be able to ask them to play nice when they drop in." It was confirmed; she was actually amused at the situation. "And it may well be that he's able to ask them to keep playing nice."

    "Why would it do that?" He had no idea why she was even considering the concept of trusting an Endbringer. "For that matter, why would they? All they do—all they want to do—is murder people and destroy lives. Destroy civilisation."

    "Maybe so. And then again, maybe not." She took a deep breath. "We've never had an Endbringer who identifies with humanity before. He's a totally new factor. After thirty years of endlessly striving to figure out how to create even the most tenuous of defences against Scion and the other Endbringers, with the odds against us mounting up inexorably year by year, he's a light in the darkness. Seriously, David, he may be our turning point if we play our cards right."

    "And if it's not?" He shook his head, unconvinced. "What then? What if it decides to nullify your powers next? Or mine? Renders us all helpless so the Simurgh can show up and drive us insane?"

    "He could've done that the last time we showed up in town," she pointed out with annoying accuracy. "In fact, he could have chosen to leave us all in the dark about his true origins. He did neither."

    "It could be playing the long game." He gestured, willing her to see his point of view. "The Simurgh does that all the time. One tiny pebble here, six months later a million people die half a continent away."

    "True, she does." Alexandria nodded to underscore her agreement with his point. "But you've met Zach. The boy may be many things, including an undercover Endbringer, but 'subtle' is not in his playbook. However, I'm not in the slightest bit eager to find out how he would react if we stalled too long on carrying out the favour that Danny Hebert asked for. Right now, we seem to be on his 'friends' list … well, you're apparently on there as 'family', which amounts to the same thing." She either didn't see his dirty look, or managed to ignore it altogether. "Given what he's done to his enemies so far, I don't want to end up on that list without a really good reason."

    He folded his arms. "So you want to go back to Brockton Bay and clean a few derelict ships out of the harbour? Will it even boost the local economy all that much?"

    The smirk she gave him was either due to the question indicating that he wasn't saying no, or something else that he didn't know about at the moment. She'd always been three steps ahead of him, that way. "It's likely to, even if it's just a morale thing." She shrugged. "Apparently, the rest of the Empire Eighty-Eight voluntarily gave themselves up to the PRT ENE around the same time as Zachary and Taylor …" She paused and facepalmed, hard enough to make her helmet ring slightly. "Oh, son of a bitch."

    "What? What's the problem?" David wasn't sure what was going on, but Alexandria hadn't sounded happy.

    She shook her head. "Zachary Taylor. Twelfth president of the US. That's got to be deliberate, somehow. Maybe the Simurgh did it, just to fuck with us." Clearing her throat, she seemed to get a grip on herself. When she spoke next, her tone was much less aggrieved. "Anyway. The Empire gave themselves up. When asked why, they said that Zachary told them to. Also, the Azn Bad Boyz and the Merchants have been rolled up already. While there's still parahuman criminals in the city, they are very much the third- and fourth-raters. If the local Chamber of Commerce can get the port open again—and Danny Hebert seemed willing to push very hard to make that happen—the criminal underworld will be too busy piecing itself back together to demand a slice of the pie."

    "Mundane criminals have been doing that since long before powers came along." David felt a sour satisfaction in reminding her of this fact. "And little fish have a strong propensity to become big fish once the prior big fish are removed from the pond."

    Again, David got the impression of raised eyebrows. "And how long do you think they'd last in that town once they decided to threaten the happiness and welfare of Taylor and her father?"

    The question was clearly rhetorical. David had personally attended the site of Jack Slash's demise. The threat the Nine had posed toward Taylor was far more theoretical than real, but Zachary had destroyed them with utter ruthlessness all the same.

    "You have a point, I suppose," he admitted, albeit grudgingly. "So, you think we should go back and clear out their collection of derelict shipping so as to not give it an excuse to turn against us?"

    "That's one way to put it, yes." She tilted her head. "Another way might be to note that he's just cleaned up Butcher and the Teeth. Do we really want him getting bored while thinking that we've just been stringing him along?"

    David tried to imagine what a bored Endbringer might decide to do. Bored capes were bad enough. He didn't want to see what "it seemed like a good idea at the time" looked like when an Endbringer was involved.

    "Fine," he huffed. "Let's bring Legend into it and get this over and done with."

    Alexandria smiled.

    <><>​

    Boat Graveyard
    Brockton Bay
    Alexandria

    They stepped out of the Doorway onto the foreshore facing the expanse of water, within which forty or fifty ships had been confined for the last fifteen years. Some still floated, while others had gradually settled onto the bottom. At one point there had been mooring buoys, but time and natural degradation had taken its toll, so very few of the ships were in any sort of good order. None were small, while some were hundreds of feet long, including at least one container ship.

    "Man," Legend said, lifting into the air about twenty feet and shading his eyes to look over the rusted-out conglomeration of decrepit floating tonnage. "What a …" He trailed off, lacking words.

    "Shithole?" offered a voice from directly behind Rebecca and Eidolon. Both turned fast, while Legend spun around in midair, looking as startled as he ever did. Taylor Hebert and Zachary stood there, both wearing yellow hard hats and reflector vests over jackets, jeans and work boots. The girl gave Rebecca a cheeky little fingertip wave. "Hi."

    "Don't do that," snapped Eidolon, energy glowing around his clenched fists. "I could've—"

    "You would not have attacked Taylor Hebert by accident, Father." Zachary's tone was definitive. "And if you had attacked, I am capable of diverting the attack. In any case, Taylor was talking when you interrupted her."

    Rebecca tended to agree with Eidolon, at least where it came to not startling powerful capes. She was never going to admit that she had been startled, though it had come as a considerable surprise to find the pair standing right behind where she and the others had emerged from the Doorway. "Zachary, how did you know where and when to be there?" She thought she knew the answer, but she posed the question anyway.

    "Oh, my sister told me you were coming." Zachary's smile was purely good cheer. "That gave us enough time to acquire safety equipment, and to get here before you arrived."

    So of course the Simurgh tipped them off. Rebecca restrained herself from giving the sky above a dirty look. I bet she fully intended for us to get the jump scare just now, too.

    "Anyway, as I was saying, there's many words and phrases we can use to describe the Boat Graveyard," Taylor went on blithely. "Hot mess, dumpster fire, unfortunate metaphor for today's world, colossal ratfuck, asshole of Brockton Bay, the place where dreams come to die …" She let her voice trail off, then shrugged. "Take your pick."

    "Not to, uh, criticise your phrasing, young lady, but that seems to be a rather bleak worldview," Legend began carefully, drifting back down to ground level.

    Rebecca had briefed him on the situation in Brockton Bay. Now, she began to wonder if she'd briefed him enough.

    Taylor snorted bitterly. "Have you even been to Brockton Bay? Or is it one of those places you big heroes fly over on the way to someplace more important?"

    "We are making the city safer, Taylor!" announced Zachary. "One villain at a time!" He turned to Legend. "Hello, Legend! My brothers and sister told me to say hello. You are a fun and interesting opponent."

    From the look on Legend's face, some of the briefing had taken awhile to sink in; namely, that Zachary was an Endbringer, and that his 'brothers and sister' were also Endbringers. Or perhaps it was the fact that they were praising him for giving them interesting battles. Either way, it would be a distinctly unsettling thing to have to take on board all at once. He seemed to be handling it so far, which was good.

    Legend nodded. "Right. I see." He glanced around. "They won't … be joining us today, will they?"

    "Oh, no," Zach said with a disarming smile. "They did offer, but Father and Chief Director Costa-Brown decided that they would not be needed." He gave a shrug, as if to say, what can you do?

    "Well, I think we should be able to handle it for today," Legend declared. He put out his hand. "It is very interesting to meet the pair of you."

    Taylor took his hand first. "It's pretty cool to meet you, too. You're about my second or third favourite hero."

    "That's good to hear," Legend said gravely as they shook hands. "Everyone needs a goal to strive toward." He opened his mouth to say something else. Rebecca knew for a fact that he was going to ask Taylor who her favourite hero was, and she cleared her throat firmly. She's going to say Zachary, and it'll get awkward.

    Fortunately, Legend picked up on the signal and closed his mouth again. His handshake with Zachary was a little more protracted, and Rebecca figured he was using all of his senses to try to detect the supposed teenage boy's underlying nature. Nothing untoward happened, and the handshake ended.

    "Well, then." Legend dusted his hands off in a businesslike manner. "Do we have a plan of action, or should we just dispose of one ship at a time until they're all gone?"

    Taylor cleared her throat, then waited until all three heroes had turned to her. "Dad did mention that he'd like as many of these ships refloated as possible. They're abandoned, which means whatever salvage we can get out of them is pure profit. And if they can be eventually reconditioned, even better."

    Rebecca did her best not to compress her lips in irritation. Simply hauling the rusting hulks out to sea and sinking them in deep water had been her plan since she first saw the Graveyard, but apparently it wasn't going to be that easy. "Some of these ships are surely beyond salvage," she said, mainly to test the waters. Helping out was one thing, but refloating every single ship, even the ones that were mostly submerged, would be an immense task.

    Fortunately for her state of mind, Taylor nodded. "Oh, I get that. I was passing on what Dad said. Let's just do what we can."

    "Good idea." Legend took to the air and pointed at the container ship that seemed to be blocking in several other ships. From the angle it lay, it was sitting on the bottom, some of its deck awash even at low tide. "Let's start with that one and see what we can do."

    "I will help!" declared Zachary. "Come on, Taylor!"

    Taylor grinned. "Okay, Zach. You want to jump or teleport?"

    Rebecca glanced sharply at Eidolon. Up until now, her best information on Zachary was that he had a high Mover rating, which involved either extreme speed (which she had witnessed herself) or physics-defying leaping. Nowhere had teleportation been mentioned.

    David met her gaze and shrugged minutely. Your guess is as good as mine.

    "I would like to teleport," Zachary replied happily. "I have never teleported before. This will be fun!"

    "Okay, let's do this then." Taylor held Zachary's arm next to her side … and they both vanished in a burst of flame. More or less at the same instant, far out over the bay, a tiny flicker of light signalled their arrival on the container ship.

    "That wasn't in the briefing you gave me." Legend's voice was neutral. "Did you know he could do that?"

    "I did not." Eidolon sounded like he was frowning. "I don't like it. That's the profile of the teleportation Butcher had."

    Rebecca tilted her head slightly, running the conversation through her memory. "Are you sure it was his power and not hers they were using? From context, she was asking him if he was alright with her teleporting him out there."

    "Endbringers can't be teleported!" protested Eidolon. "I should know. I've tried enough times."

    "Maybe they can't be teleported unless they choose to let themselves be teleported," Legend suggested. "I thought you told me she had no powers."

    "She doesn't," Eidolon said, though he sounded less certain. "Or she didn't." He looked unhappy. "Could he have given her Butcher's powers?"

    "There's one very simple way to do that," Rebecca reminded them both. "And it doesn't involve an irritatingly upbeat Endbringer. If Taylor Hebert had landed the killing blow, she would now be the new Butcher. But I don't believe she did. And I don't believe she is."

    "She's far too collected," Legend agreed. "Not like someone who's struggling with literal inner demons. But I agree; the connotations of what she said indicate that she's the one with the teleport power."

    "Okay, let's just assume for now that its bullshit powerset includes the ability to bestow powers to Taylor Hebert, and worry later about whether they're permanent, temporary or need maintaining." Eidolon pointed at the container ship in the distance. "They've beaten us out there and here we are, standing on the shore arguing about how they did it."

    "You've never spoken a truer word." Legend lifted off the ground and accelerated toward the container ship. Rebecca followed suit, and in another moment Eidolon was flying alongside them.

    They arrived at the ship in short order; slowing down, they made an orbit of the massive vessel to figure out what to do with it first. It was down by the bow, the wavelets off the ocean currently lapping over about a third of its length. The containers which had been its cargo lay strewn on her deck, with some overboard. Huge hatchways gaped open, the covers long since gone, with water clearly visible just a few feet down through each opening.

    Rebecca knew that she would be of little to no help in actually removing the water from the ship. Towing it, certainly. Lifting it, maybe, but not with the thousands of tons of water still in the hold. She angled over toward where the bridge superstructure rose out of the deck and landed near the rear hold opening. Legend alighted next to her a moment later, while Eidolon hovered over the farthest hatchway, one edge awash with the incoming tide. Rebecca couldn't see his expression, but his body language was one large frown.

    "What are you thinking?" she asked. "Freeze the water in stasis and lift it out in chunks?"

    Legend waggled his hand from side to side as if to vaguely agree with her. "That could be doable, I suppose. I was thinking of just vaporising it. There has to be a way to do it without seriously damaging the hull of the ship."

    "And while you're doing that, I could get under and lift the whole thing onto some sort of support." Rebecca considered the idea. It wasn't a bad plan, all told.

    There was the sound of something dragging and bumping and thumping over the deckplates, and they both turned to see Zachary and Taylor. The pair had located a large hose, over four inches in diameter and twenty feet long, and Zachary was proudly dragging it behind him with a large section of it looped over his shoulders.

    "I can help get the water out!" Zachary announced helpfully. "Then it will be easier to repair the ship. It was deliberately sunk, you know."

    Rebecca tilted her head slightly. "No, I didn't know. How are you going to get the water out with that? Using it as a siphon will take far too long."

    Zachary beamed at her question. "Oh, no, Chief Director! I will blow it out! Watch this!" He heaved the hose one last time, and one end fell into the hatchway, splashing down into the dark, dank water. More and more slithered over the edge and down into the water, until he held just the other end.

    Taylor nudged him and pointed at where Eidolon still hovered over the ship.

    "Oh, yes, Taylor. You are right." Zach cupped one hand around his mouth, the other still occupied in holding the hose. "Father!"

    This time, Eidolon turned entirely away from the group at the hatchway, clearly deep in thought. Taylor and Zachary looked at each other and shrugged.

    "I've been meaning to ask," murmured Legend. "What's the 'Father' thing about?"

    "Tell you later," replied Rebecca, just as quietly. She raised her voice somewhat and addressed Zachary. "How do you mean, 'blow' the water out of the boat?"

    "Like this, Chief Director!" Zach took a deep breath. Taylor wet her finger, tested the wind, then took a step back and to the left. Holding the end of the hose firmly, Zach put it to his mouth … and blew.

    Every hatchway along the length of the ship erupted in a solid square pillar of dirty brown water that reached over a hundred feet in the air, arched over to the right, and crashed into the ocean beyond. The noise was tremendous, like standing next to Niagara Falls for hours on end, and it just went on and on and on. Worse, the smell was horrific; she figured there had been some things rotting down in the hold for the last fifteen years, and now they were out in the open.

    The sheer impossibility of what Zach was doing, she decided to shelve for the moment.

    The waterspouts petered out, then stopped altogether. The ship moved, its hull grating across the bottom, then began to rise upward as buoyancy reasserted itself. Down below, within the hull, Rebecca heard water running and knew that the ship would sink again without assistance, but she knew that between them they would be up to the job.

    "You!" The voice was that of a man pushed to his limits and somewhat beyond. "You did that on purpose!"

    Rebecca recognised the voice. Looking up, she saw Eidolon, still hovering there. Directly above one of the hatchways. He had clearly been caught in the mephitic fountain; his costume was soaked and stained, while rotting seaweed was draped artfully over his helmet and one shoulder. Reaching up and over his shoulder, he removed a live flopping fish from the back of his neck and tossed it out into the ocean, where it disappeared from view.

    "I tried to warn you, Father." Zachary did not sound particularly apologetic, while Taylor seemed to be on the verge of rupturing herself, trying not to laugh. "You ignored me."

    "That's right." Legend sounded unusually tight-lipped as well; glancing at him, Rebecca saw the signs that he was also attempting to hold in laughter. Not that she blamed either him or Taylor. It was rather amusing. "He called out to you. You turned away."

    "Graaahhh!" Eidolon flickered with light for a moment, then with a flash he was clean once more. Rebecca immediately began to wonder exactly how many people were watching from shore with telescopic lenses. She made a mental note to check social media sites over the next few days.

    "On the upside," she offered. "The hold is empty of water. We can repair it much more easily now."

    "Yes." Eidolon seemed to be suffering an undue amount of stress, from the deep breathing he was doing. "We can. And we will. Just the three of us." He pointed at Zachary. "You will stay far away from us. Understand?"

    "Yes, Father." Zachary beamed happily. "I understand. Taylor and I will work over there while you work over here."

    Taylor grabbed Zachary's hand. "Bye," she managed, her eyes sparkling with unexpressed mirth. With a burst of flame, they were gone. Seconds later, Rebecca was almost certain she could hear laughter echoing across the Boat Graveyard. But that wasn't her problem. Her problem was the ship she was standing on, which was gradually filling with water again.

    "Okay," she said. "Let's get to it."

    I'll find a private place later, she promised herself. And laugh my head off.

    Because that was freaking hilarious.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    The moment we arrived on the target ship, I leaned up against Zach and began laughing helplessly. I wasn't able to stop for three or four minutes, until I was red in the face and tears were streaming down my cheeks. Zachary was smiling, but I still found it a lot funnier than he did.

    "Oh, man, if I could've seen his face …"

    Dad would probably have said not to laugh at others for their misfortunes, but Eidolon had kinda brought it on himself. And I knew he would've laughed too.

    "I did not do it on purpose, Taylor." Zach answered my unasked question. "But I did not do everything I could to ensure it did not happen. Perhaps next time he will pay more attention to me?"

    I snorted. "Yeah, maybe. You definitely got his attention this time, that's for sure."

    "That is good, Taylor. Father needs to spend more time looking outward at the world around him than inward at his powers." Zach looked around. "We can not help the Triumvirate to fix that ship, so we will fix this one."

    I took a deep breath and wiped the tears from my eyes. Zach was right; we were here to do a job. Then I had a good look at the ship we'd ended up on.

    It was one of the mid-sized ones, maybe two hundred feet long. Though it was still afloat, it had that feeling that it had taken on water in the past. The upperworks were covered in rust and salt scale, and I wondered how much good metal was left behind after a decade and a half of neglect.

    "Okay, I'll bite," I said. "How are we going to fix it?"

    Zachary raised one hand and rapped on the nearest bit of superstructure, eliciting a ringing sound. "Tell me, Taylor. When your father has a piece of metal covered in rust, how does he get it off?"

    I got the impression he was looking for a specific answer. "Hits it with a hammer …?"

    He smiled. It was clearly the right response. "Then the first thing we will do is knock the rust off."

    Lifting his foot, he stomped down on the deck. I half-expected it to go straight through—he was strong enough to do that by accident, let alone on purpose—but it didn't. Instead, the entire ship rang like a gong, rust and crusted-on salt showering off in all directions as he hit the precise harmonic note.

    I yelped and covered my head with my arms, preparing to spit out bits of salt and rusted metal, but none had even gotten in my hair. In fact, not a bit of it had come within a few feet of me. I looked down and saw that even the rusted deck plates were a lot cleaner except for a circle around our feet.

    Zach looked at me innocently. "Are you alright, Taylor?" Or rather, his tone was innocent, and butter wouldn't have melted in his mouth, but deep in his eyes I saw the flicker of amusement.

    "You did that on purpose," I accused him, elbowing him in the ribs.

    "Yes, I did," he said at once. "I was testing out the idea of physical humour. Setting up an expectation and then subverting it. Did it work?"

    I paused, thinking about that. Well, I had taught him about jokes. That one was on me, I supposed. "Yeah, it worked. Still a dirty trick, though."

    He smiled. "It was a very clean trick. But I will not be doing it to you again. You did not know I could or would do it, so it was unfair of me to do it to you without warning." He moved to the side. "Come over here, please, so that I can finish clearing the rust off of the deck."

    I stepped off the circle of still-rusted metal and moved over to where he was standing. "I'll forgive you this time. And it was kind of funny. But that's the kind of joke that's only funny once."

    "So I had surmised, Taylor." Zach tapped the deck with his toe and the rusted patch shivered; the rust jumped in the air and dissipated. Putting his hands on his hips, he gave the ship a critical once-over. "Even with the rust gone, it still does not look very pretty, does it?"

    "Well, no." The general air of decay and neglect had lifted a little, but the ship still had a slight list and I wouldn't have trusted my life to the wooden railings that I could see. "They're going to have to tear this thing all the way down to fix it up properly."

    "We shall see, Taylor." His voice was bright. "Let me try again." He lifted his foot again, and stomped on the deck. This time, the ringing sound was somehow different. The whole ship juddered, somehow out of focus for a few seconds; when it became still again, the once-pitted decking was smooth and whole. The railings were no longer old and rotted. In fact, everything looked as though it had been freshly manufactured and constructed.

    "Whoa, Zach." I stared at him. "Did you just do what I thought you just did?"

    "I do not know, Taylor." He grinned at me in a way that showed he knew exactly what I meant. "Let me try again."

    This time, as his foot sent vibrations throughout the vessel, I was entirely unsurprised to feel the ship lurching back to an upright position while there was the sound of rushing water from somewhere out of sight. Somehow, using his smartass Zachary capabilities, he had emptied the water from inside the ship with a simple stamp of his foot.

    I could only wonder what this looked like from onshore as Zach lifted his foot once more. Down it came, and the boat vibrated in perfect harmony. When I could see straight again, the wooden railings gleamed with varnish while the deck and upperworks were freshly painted. There was even a lifeboat, heretofore missing, hanging from nearby davits.

    Wonderingly, I ran my hand over a metal hatchway. The paintwork was clean, dry and smooth. The entire ship looked as though it had just emerged from a complete makeover from stem to stern … which, in a way, it had.

    "Wow," I said feelingly. "Just wow. That's amazing, Zach."

    Zachary smiled at the praise, and knocked his heel against the deck. The ship didn't judder this time, but I heard the unmistakeable sound of an anchor chain running out. The anchor splashed into the water, then Zach did it again. The chain stopped; through my feet, I felt the anchor bite into the harbour bottom, stopping our sideways drift.

    I grinned at Zach, and he returned it. "Dad is gonna be so thrilled," I told him. "With all these ships up and running, we're gonna have port trade before we know it."

    "We have yet to refurbish the Lord's Port facilities," he said seriously. "But that can be done also."

    "And without the gangs to cause problems, the city can really get up and go again." I shook my head. "And all because of you."

    "Not all gangs have been eliminated from Brockton Bay," Zach noted. "But those who are left are minor in both scope and ambition. Coil may have attempted to become a problem, but he has long since left the city."

    "Coil?" I frowned. "I'm not sure if I ever heard of him."

    Zach smiled. "He was never as good as he thought he was."

    <><>​

    Somewhere Across America
    Coil

    Thomas Calvert pulled himself out of a troubled slumber. His dreams had been shot through with images of a teenage boy that had something much older and much more terrifying looking out through his eyes. And when Zachary wasn't haunting him, Creep in his body bag was there to wreck his sleep.

    He tensed, looking around, but there was no body bag, no body. He wasn't sharing the bed with anything that shouldn't have been there. Peeking over the side of the bed revealed that it wasn't on the floor, either.

    Letting out the long-held shuddering breath, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Have I outrun it at last? Am I beyond its reach? He didn't dare to hope, but it seemed that way.

    He'd learned over the last few days to keep everything within easy grabbing range, so he took up his toiletry bag and stumbled into the tiny bathroom, rubbing sleep from his eyes. His nerves were so frazzled …

    And then, as he was brushing his teeth, letting his mind drift in the semi-hypnotic mode that tedious but important tasks can inflict, the shower started up behind him.

    He froze, almost biting the toothbrush in half.

    Slowly, in no way wanting to, he turned toward the shower cubicle.

    His hand inched out, touched the sliding screen. Pushed it aside.

    A tiny whimper escaped from his throat, via his sinuses.

    Standing in the shower, rivulets of water running down the rubberized outer surface of the body bag, was Creep. He appeared to be washing his hair. The dead man turned toward Calvert, giving him a good view of the blood trickling out of the fresh bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, and reached out to pull the sliding screen shut again.

    Thirty seconds after that, Calvert was in his vehicle, peeling out of the parking lot.

    Later, the maid would be quite irritated at the large amount of toothpaste she had to clean off the shower screen.

    <><>​

    Legend

    "And that should do it," Eidolon declared, dusting his hands off. The container ship, seacocks closed off, was floating properly now. Between him and Alexandria, the containers themselves had been retrieved from the bottom of the harbour and restacked on the deck in something approximating their original order.

    Of course, the ship still needed a total refurbishment and the engines would probably require being replaced altogether. He wasn't sure about the propeller shafts either; resting on the bottom couldn't have done them any good at all. But, due to all their efforts, the ship was now floating free and could be towed into position—by Alexandria, naturally—so they could start work on another one.

    Then he turned to look at the rest of the Boat Graveyard, zooming in to see which one they should focus on next. After a moment, he blinked, wiped his eyes, and tried again.

    "What … the fuck?" That was Eidolon, hovering beside him. "Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

    The question was almost certainly rhetorical. Somehow, over the half-hour that they'd spent making sure that the container ship simply wouldn't sink again and retrieving all the sunken containers, the entire remainder of the Boat Graveyard had been returned to pristine condition. Paintwork gleaming, the ships rode at anchor, each one a decorous distance from the next. Even the water surrounding them was clean and unpolluted, sparkling in the afternoon sunlight.

    "I see it," Alexandria said as she came up to their level, the anchor chain still slung over her shoulder. "I'm not sure if I believe it, but I see it."

    "Zachary." Eidolon made the name into a swear-word. "I don't know how he did it, but it has to be him."

    Alexandria glanced down at the grime on her costume, then at the flawless ships before her. "Maybe we should have asked him for help … dad?"

    Eidolon gave her an extremely dirty look.



    End of Part Thirteen
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • Ack said:
    "I can help get the water out! Then it will be easier to repair the ship. It was deliberately sunk, you know."

    "No, I didn't know. How are you going to get the water out with that? Using it as a siphon will take far too long."

    "Oh, no, Chief Director! Watch this! ...Oh, yes, Taylor. You are right. Father!"

    "..."

    ("I've been meaning to ask. What's the 'Father' thing about?"

    "Tell you later.") "How do you mean, 'blow' the water out of the boat?"

    "Like this, Chief Director!"
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Slight continuity error: At no point did Zach say he was going to 'blow' the water out of the boat - he only ever said "get", as visible in the abridged quote above, making Rebecca look like she pulled "blow" out of thin air.
     
    Part Fourteen: Coming to an Agreement
  • Threadmarks
    • I'm HALPING!

    Part Fourteen: Coming to an Agreement

    [A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

    That Evening

    What got Vicky's attention was the laughter. She'd heard Amy laugh before, but not often and not recently. In fact, over the last year or so, Amy had become more and more snarky, to the point that her sense of humour had been all bite and no smile. But now, through her sister's bedroom door, Vicky could hear unrestrained laughter that verged on outright cackling.

    What's going on here? Temporarily abandoning her idea of having an early shower before dinner, she tapped on Amy's door. "Are you okay in there, Ames?" she asked, then opened the door anyway. She and Amy barged into each other's rooms on the regular. It wasn't like either of them had any secrets worth keeping from each other.

    Amy was sitting at her computer desk, with the laptop up and running. At first glance, the brunette seemed fine, though her face was red and tears were streaming down her cheeks. As Vicky watched, she clicked on something then burst out laughing all over again.

    Finally, she registered Vicky's presence; turning, she beckoned. "C'mon," she gasped. "You've gotta see this. It's the funniest thing ever."

    A dark suspicion bloomed in Vicky's mind. Did someone record that jerk cheating to beat me at arm-wrestling and put it online? And Amy's laughing at it? Not cool. Not cool at all.

    Still, she had to show she was a good sport so she came into the room and positioned herself so she could see the screen. Okay, let's see how humiliating this … "Huh?" Instead of the Arcadia cafeteria scene she expected, it was … one of the ships at the Boat Graveyard?

    Vicky remembered it well. Nobody except the ship registry recalled the vessel's name, but it had been left half-sunken at the mouth of the Bay for basically her entire life. Once, when she had just gotten her powers and was still finding the limits to her strength, she had snuck out one night and flown out to that ship. She, Glory Girl, was going to move it, and everyone would see how cool and strong she was!

    Predictably, it hadn't moved even an inch as she strained and heaved at it. She'd even punched it a few times from sheer frustration, leaving fist-sized dents in the rusted steel, but nothing other than that. After about half an hour of trying from every angle (even diving into the water in the hope of lifting it clear of the seabed—that was a dismal failure as well) she had given up and flown home.

    But now, there was something different happening. The three members of the Triumvirate were hovering over the ship, while two people stood on the deck. "Wait, freeze that," Vicky said, leaning in. "Is that …"

    Amy grinned; the expression was one she hadn't worn in … years. "Yup. It's your playdate partner. Zachary himself. And that's Taylor with him. Love the jacket she's wearing."

    Vicky raised an eyebrow. Amy didn't do fashion appreciation. Or at least, she didn't normally. On the other hand, the jacket Taylor was wearing did look very nice indeed, even under a high-visibility vest. Beside her, the aforementioned Zachary was wearing an identical vest. They both sported hard hats, while Zachary also had what looked like a heavy length of hose over his shoulder.

    "What's going on?" Vicky searched the picture for the source of Amy's hilarity, and couldn't find it. "Who even took this?"

    "Some guy on shore with a long lens," Amy explained succinctly. "He normally likes to get footage of new capes sneaking into the Boat Graveyard and breaking stuff to test out their powers. Boy, was he surprised when the Triumvirate showed up."

    I would be too. Vicky had heard a rumour they were in town, but she didn't deal in rumour. She dealt in hard facts. "Okay, so what's so funny?"

    "Oh, you'll see." Amy set the video scrolling on once more.

    Vicky watched with confusion as Zachary dumped one end of the hose in the hold of the ship. To her certain knowledge, the thing was full of water. Did he think he was going to drain it out using that hose? She had news for him if that was his thought process. Physics didn't play that way.

    So then he put the free end of the hose to his mouth … and blew?

    The camera panned sideways with a jolt, and Vicky frowned as it steadied on what looked like a vertical column of filthy brown water. Briefly pulling back, the view showed water fountaining up out of every hatchway, supposedly under the impetus of Zachary blowing into the hose. Which was patently ridiculous.

    "Wait, no," she told Amy, who was already starting to giggle. "It doesn't work like that. You can't just make water do that. I don't care how hard you can make air move out of your mouth." As a teenager, she was automatically careful of using any sentence that involved the word 'blow'.

    Amy just giggled harder. "He can. But that's not the best bit."

    "Okay, so what's the …" Vicky's voice trailed off as the immense vertical deluges—which had to be emptying the ship at an unprecedented rate—petered off, then stopped. And then she saw. Oh, did she see.

    Hovering directly over one of the hatchways, clearly having been caught in the full force of the upward torrent … was Eidolon. But not the immaculately costumed Eidolon that she had seen just moments before. This Eidolon was … different. This one clearly had things on his mind. And on his costume.

    The camera had to be an extremely expensive model, because as it zoomed in on the iconic hero, no details were lost. The look of rage on what little of his face that could be seen, the water dripping off his helmet, the stains of mud or possibly worse on his costume, the rotting seaweed draped over his shoulder and helmet …

    Already giggling, Vicky watched as he reached up behind his helmet and pulled out what was clearly a live fish, flopping and twisting in his gloved hand. She lost it entirely when he flicked the fish away, sending it out of frame. Leaning against Amy's chair, she howled with laughter, especially when the footage flicked back to where the fountaining water stopped and Eidolon's embarrassment was shown in all its glory, in majestic slow motion.

    After they'd watched it again, no more than five or six times (that she could recall), with the two sisters pointing out particularly funny points to each other, she asked Amy if there was more to the filmclip.

    "Oh, yeah. But it's not about Eidolon, so I haven't watched it." Amy let it run through again. They giggled, watching it—it would never not be funny—but let it keep running.

    After a little conversation—during which Eidolon made his requirements abundantly clear, as in you get over there and don't come near me—Taylor and Zachary vanished in a burst of flame.

    Vicky blinked. "Did you see that?"

    "I did." Amy paused the footage and flicked it back a few seconds. Sure enough, they'd teleported in a burst of flame. "Is it just me, or did that look like the Butcher's teleportation?"

    "It's not just you." Vicky shook her head. Either Taylor had developed powers, or Zach was being more cheaty than normal. Who just showed up out of the blue with teleportation, anyway? "But he can jump and move at superspeed. Why does he even need teleportation?"

    The camera watched the members of the Triumvirate working to ensure the ship didn't sink again, now with somewhat less comedy. Then it panned back over the ships of the Boat Graveyard, and paused. There, gleaming like a diamond in a goat's ass (thank you, Uncle Neil, for that little saying) were three ships, no longer wrecks or even close to it. They floated upright, freshly painted, looking ready to put to sea within the hour.

    "What the hell?" Amy voiced Vicky's question before she herself had the chance to ask it. "Where did they come from?" Because they certainly didn't belong in the motley collection of rusting hulks that made up the Boat Graveyard.

    And then the camera zoomed in on another ship. This one was lying almost on its side, having sprung a leak and rolled years ago. The deck was almost vertical, but Taylor and Zachary were standing on the curved hull. As they watched, Zachary raised one leg and stamped his foot down. It didn't seem all that hard, but the whole ship shuddered in the water and a cloud of rust and barnacles exploded away from the hull. When it cleared, she could see smooth, unblemished steel in place of the rust-pitted wreck.

    "What the hell?" she echoed Amy's question. "Did you just see that?"

    "Keep watching, keep watching!" Amy gestured at the screen.

    Vicky looked back at it just in time to see the entire ship rolling upright, filthy water gushing from every hatchway and porthole. Holding Taylor around the waist, Zachary leaped lightly into the air, seemed to hang there for a moment, then came down for a feather-light landing on the now-level deck. When he stamped his foot once more, the whole ship shivered and blurred. Somehow, she wasn't surprised when the vessel that emerged from the effect was painted and polished, as if freshly constructed.

    She and Amy watched as the ship drifted sideways against the incoming tide into a clear area—Zachary seemed to have a whole repertoire of foot-taps to call on—and then the anchor dropped and the ship stopped moving. Which was all well and good, but she wasn't at all sure that it had had an anchor before.

    "Did he just … fix the whole ship by stomping on it?" Vicky wasn't sure if she'd seen things correctly.

    "I … guess?" Amy shrugged. "Percussive maintenance for the win?"

    Vicky glared at her. "That was not percussive maintenance. That was some kind of shaker bullshit." She snapped her fingers. "So that's how he beat me! He used shaker powers to make me weaker! I knew it!"

    "Uh huh." Amy rolled her eyes. "Or maybe he's just stronger. Ever think of that?"

    "No." Vicky was absolutely certain about that. "He does not get to have all those other bullshit powers and just plain be stronger than me as well. It's gotta be a trick of some sort."

    Amy sighed. "You are aware that nobody's keeping score, right? There's not some guy sitting there with pen and paper, making sure that everyone's power is balanced out. He's actually allowed to be more powerful than you. Stronger. And yes, he's allowed to be able to jump across the city and move at superspeed and teleport like that. It's called grab-bag powers. That's a thing. Look it up."

    "I know what a grab-bag cape is, Ames," huffed Vicky. "But even grab-bags don't get so many huge powers. Just lots of low-level useful ones. Like Circus."

    "Or Eidolon?" suggested Amy slyly. "Or is he not allowed to have so many powers either?"

    "Eidolon's not a grab-bag!" Vicky had no idea what had gotten into her sister. Amy's sense of humour had been sadly lacking for a little while, but now it all seemed to be coming back in spades. And it was kicking Vicky's ass. "He's a Trump!"

    Amy nodded in acknowledgement of the correction. "And maybe Zachary's a Trump as well. Gallant got me a copy of the footage they had of the confrontation at Winslow, and I noticed something interesting."

    "What, really?" Vicky had seen the same footage. She just hadn't known that Dean had passed it on to Amy as well. Whatever Amy had seen in it, she wasn't sure. It was basically Zachary being bullshit, as usual.

    "He encountered Velocity in the school, and he's not noted to have shown super-speed before then. He didn't do any huge jumps before he had his little face-to-face with Assault." Amy ticked off items on her fingers. "He said that he used Assault's own powers to send him to Boston, and got him there without harm. Dean also told me that when they brought in Lung, Hookwolf, Cricket and Oni Lee, none of them showed signs of having any powers until they were solidly in custody. I think if he comes within range of people, he can pick up versions of their powers, or mess with the powers that they already have. Or, you know, turn them off for the time being."

    "See?" Vicky spread her hands. "See? See? I told you. He fucked with my strength. He cheated."

    "He also walked out of containment foam, ripped apart a servery counter and threw tear gas grenades through a wall," Amy said inexorably. "Not to mention, he hurled a PRT van fifteen hundred miles and nailed Jack Slash and the Nine with it."

    Vicky couldn't throw a van fifteen hundred miles. Or even one mile. A baseball, possibly. A van, no. She sighed, running her hands through her hair. "Okay, fine. He's allowed to be a little bit strong. But I personally think that the van thing was something like Assault's powers. There's no way it got there from a simple toss."

    "But the rest of it?" Amy didn't seem about to let her down easily. "Picking up the van wouldn't have been exactly easy either, but he didn't seem to be exerting himself when they showed it on the news. And that's not an Assault thing. Assault redirects kinetic energy, but he's not super-strong."

    "Are you on my side or his?" asked Vicky, trying not to unload her frustration on her sister but getting more and more irritated by the second. "And what's gotten into you, anyway? You're usually a lot less fangirly over capes you've barely met. In fact, you don't do the cape crush thing. Anyway, I'm fairly sure he's taken."

    "What?" Amy stared at her, then burst out laughing. "God, no. I'm not crushing on him. He's a nice guy, but he's just not my type. I mean, you're right, he's so attentive to Taylor that every guy in the room should've been taking notes, but that's got nothing to do with it. Personally, I still can't believe you're so jealous of him destroying the Nine that you actually challenged him to an arm-wrestle. I mean, seriously? Who does that?"

    "I just …" Vicky hesitated, trying to vocalise the thoughts she'd had at the time in such a way that it didn't sound like I just needed to beat him. "He rubbed me the wrong way, is all."

    Amy snorted derisively. "Rubbed you the wrong way? You spoke to him for all of thirty seconds before you decided you could take him. And you've never stopped trying to prove that his powers shouldn't work the way they do."

    When Amy put it like that, it did sound pretty childish. But Vicky had never been someone to give up easily. "I've attended college courses on powers, you know that. There are mechanics behind them, even if we don't fully understand everything yet. But nobody just gets that level of power without it having some effect on them, either physically or mentally. He just keeps on pulling powers out of his ass with no good reason behind them! I mean, he utterly no-sold my aura power, just like that!"

    "You were trying to cheat," Amy reminded her firmly. "I don't blame him for doing that to you. You need to damp down your aura a lot more anyway."

    Vicky decided to change tack. This had nothing to do with the fact that Amy was winning the argument. "Yeah, but what if he did that to your power? Took away your ability to heal … I mean, like, forever?"

    <><>​

    Amy put her head to one side and considered the concept. To have the crushing weight, the endless temptation, finally lifted from her shoulders …

    Well, sure, she'd be able to get sick then. Her immune system was probably a little behind the times, and she was probably still sensitive to pollen, so she'd likely spend a month or so in the year sneezing every few minutes. Then there were the actual things she could catch, like colds and the flu.

    But still.

    Being a superhero, being the girl who could heal anyone of anything, had been great right up until it wasn't. Right up until people stopped seeing the girl and just saw the healing. Stopped saying, "Thank you for healing all these people," and started saying, "Good, you healed those people. Now we need you to heal these other people."

    Where is this even coming from? She wasn't usually this brutally honest with herself. Oh, it was all true, but she was generally better at lying to herself, even about Vicky's behaviour. Normally, calling out her sister's cheating would've gone by the wayside, but now she found she was willing to put in the extra effort.

    If I lost my powers permanently, I'd probably have to change my name and appearance somehow, so I didn't get faced with all those people being sorry at me for losing such a 'great gift to mankind'. Silently, she snorted to herself. When they actually mean, 'the ability to heal me if I needed it'.

    "Ames?" Vicky's voice cut through her swirling thoughts. "You've got a weird little smile on your face. Why are you smiling? You're freaking me out."

    "Would losing my powers be so bad?" Amy looked directly at her sister. "I mean, in the grand scheme of things? Would the world shudder to a halt, unable to function?"

    "What?" Vicky seemed unable to grasp what she was saying. "Don't even joke about it. You save lives every time you go out as Panacea. The number of people alive right now who'd be dead if you hadn't been there—"

    "—is a drop in the ocean compared to the number of people who've died through perfectly natural means over the same timespan." Amy kept her voice calm. She decided that she really hated having her powers thrown in her face as an argument. "Sure, I can save a few lives every day. But any hero worth the name saves more people than I do on a daily basis. I'm just the one who does it without having to punch the bad guy in the face. Anyway, it's not like healing's what I really do."

    "Uh, yeah. It is." Vicky's voice had the tone used by someone who's been told by a learned academic that the earth is flat, and is waiting for the punchline to the joke. "Isn't it?"

    "Pfft, not hardly," scoffed Amy. This was a conversation she'd never ever thought she'd be having with anyone, but it was like Zachary had said; she couldn't let her fears control her. Or something of that sort, anyway. The best way to not be weighed down with a secret was to make it not a secret anymore. A burden shared is a burden halved. She'd heard that somewhere, once upon a time. "I've never been just a healer. You've attended classes on the study of powers. Isn't it always more complicated than that?"

    "Well, um, maybe?" Vicky was looking oddly at her. "If you're not 'just' a healer, then … what are you?"

    Not in the least bit deterred, Amy rolled her eyes. "Isn't it obvious? I'm a biokinetic. The first time I used it was to heal you, so everyone naturally thought I was a healer. It was a nice, safe power for the nice, safe second Dallon daughter to have. And of course right then I was looking for any kind of validation I could get, so I went along with it. Let Carol dress me up in a burqa while you got to fly around in a princess outfit." She threw her hands in the air. "I mean, can the symbolism be any more blatant? You, they show off. Me, they hide behind a hood and a scarf. I might as well have a secret identity. It's not like half of Brockton Bay even knows what my face looks like. I bet I could get stuck in a bank robbery and not even be recognised by the robbers."

    "Wait." Vicky stared at her, eyes wide. "Biokinetic. Like … living things? You can … do what with them?"

    "Anything I want," Amy assured her. "Living organisms are like putty to me. My clay, to shape any way I see fit. Someone's got cancer? I can bioshape it to not be cancer. Severed arm? If I tell it that it's not severed anymore, it doesn't get the chance to argue."

    "No, I mean …" Vicky waved her hands vaguely. "Could you give someone wings or a tail, for instance?"

    "Well, yes and no." Amy rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "A tail, sure. That's easy. I've petted cats and dogs. I know how their tails work. A prehensile monkey tail would be a little more difficult, but totally doable. Wings … well, I could make someone grow wings, but it would require a hell of a lot of work to make them functional for actual flight, or even gliding, in Earth's gravity. It's not a magic wand that I can tap someone with and say, 'Hey, you can fly now!'. I've got to stick to whatever's biologically viable."

    "Biologically viable." Vicky seemed to be trying out the words for taste. "That … covers a lot of ground." She suddenly squinted at Amy, who had a flash of intuition as to where she was going to go next. "Brains."

    "Brrraaaiiinnnsss," Amy responded immediately, lowering her voice to a zombie moan.

    "Be serious." Vicky snorted and rolled her eyes. "You keep saying you can't do brains."

    Amy waited, looking at her sister attentively. "Yes, I do. Was there a question involved here?"

    Slowly, deliberately, Vicky punched Amy in the shoulder. "You know what I mean, twerp. Can you actually do brains, or is this a hole in your 'anything biological'?"

    "Oh, I can absolutely do them," Amy confirmed. This whole 'being honest' thing was weirdly liberating. All the lies she'd been saddling herself down with had been far more corrosive to her soul than she'd ever imagined. "Easy as anything else. Easier, actually. You wouldn't believe how small a change is needed to turn a psycho raving killer into someone you could trust with your life." Holding up her hand, she showed Vicky the tiny gap between finger and thumb to demonstrate how small the needed change was. "Gimme five minutes and a bunch of containment foam, and I could turn the entirety of the Empire Eighty-Eight into productive members of society."

    Internally, she sighed as Vicky seemed to recoil slightly. "Ames! You're not supposed to even think about pulling shit like that!"

    And this is why I never told anyone this before.

    "Why not, though?" She spread her hands. "It's not like shoving Hookwolf in the Birdcage is gonna actually change him from an asshole into a law-abiding citizen. He'll always be Hookwolf, deep down. And if he ever got let out and got the chance to be Hookwolf again, he would. You know it and I know it. I mean, hell, I don't even have to give him a new personality. Just … ramp up his social responsibility index and his guilt factor, and tone down his stubbornness and aggressiveness a tad. Make him more empathetic, less bloodthirsty. He'd still be an asshole, just a law-abiding asshole."

    "All that is a new personality, Ames!" Vicky sounded downright horrified. "You'd be killing whoever he was before! I mean, who he was before is a murdering Nazi scumbag, sure, but he has a right to life, too!"

    "And what about all his future victims?" Amy couldn't believe she was having this argument with Vicky, of all people. "You know he's gonna kill again. Don't those people have a right to life as well?"

    "That's what the Birdcage is for." Vicky folded her arms and huffed.

    "And every other villain who goes into the prison system but hasn't quite made their Birdcage quota yet, so they end up back on the streets after a daring and totally unexpected breakout?" Amy tried not to sound too sarcastic, but figured she'd probably failed.

    "Villains who kill heroes get targeted by other heroes and villains, you know that." But Vicky's response was weak.

    "Yeah, yeah, the unwritten rules," jeered Amy. "The things that work, until they don't. And those don't even cover non-powered people unless they're directly related to the heroes or villains, and only then if you can prove they were deliberately targeted. And hey, remind me of what happened to that asshole who murdered Aunt Jess again? Oh, wait, he wasn't even a cape, and he's still in the Empire Eighty-Eight. I bet they still buy him drinks for offing a member of New Wave."

    Vicky pressed her lips together. "This isn't like you, Amy. You've been acting weird ever since you talked to that guy in the cafeteria. Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

    "Sure, I'm feeling fine since I talked to him." Amy smirked at Vicky. "We are talking about Zachary here, yeah? The guy who utterly obliterated you at arm-wrestling? That guy?"

    The lip-pressing turned into teeth-grinding, if Amy was any judge. "He cheated," Vicky muttered. "And I think he did something to you. You're not the same as you were three days ago."

    "What, miserable? Hiding secrets? Carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders?" Amy rolled her eyes. "What part of that was good for me to be?" She stood up and stretched, feeling her back pop in a few places. "And you know what? If Zachary offered to take my powers away tomorrow, I'd take him up on it in a heartbeat. Because they utterly suck."

    Vicky stared, eyes wide and jaw dropping. Amy almost wished she had a camera.

    <><>​

    The Next Day
    San Diego
    Coil

    Thomas Calvert had, after a long and dreary amount of soul-searching, come to a thoroughly unpalatable conclusion. In his headlong dash to be away from Zachary, he'd covered more than the fifteen hundred miles that had separated the faux teen from the Slaughterhouse Nine at the time of the latter's demise, but he still didn't feel safe. In fact, when he nearly ran off the road after seeing Creep (body bag and all) sitting in the back seat of the vehicle, he had to acknowledge that enough was enough.

    He had lost.

    He was beaten.

    Zachary was just going to keep on doing it.

    No matter what he did to avoid his fate, Creep was going to keep returning to haunt him, literally and physically. It might be a power manifestation or it might actually be Creep himself; either way, he didn't want to know. So he was talking himself into doing the one thing that maybe, hopefully, would bring him a measure of peace. Or at least a lack of body-bagged corpses when he least expected them.

    He pulled the vehicle to a halt in a parking space and climbed out. About to lock the doors, he decided not to; not because he wasn't a careful man, but because he very much doubted that he would ever need it again. Straightening his shirt and wishing he'd had a chance to shave, he walked purposefully down the sidewalk for half a block, then approached a set of automatic doors with the PRT logo embossed on them.

    So certain was he that the doors were going to open that he literally walked right into them. With a comical bong sound from the heavy polycarbonate, he recoiled; off balance, he staggered back two steps and sat down hard. Directly ahead of him, for no understandable reason, the doors presented an obdurate barrier.

    For a moment, he sat there in a befuddled daze while people stepped around him. Once he caught the tail end of a comment—"drunk on the sidewalk at one in the afternoon, I ask you"—and it took a few seconds for him to realise they were referring to about him.

    What the hell? Did the door sensor not notice me?

    Trying to gather his wits, he eyed the doors suspiciously. When a well-dressed man stepped around him and approached the doors, his eyes narrowed, observing.

    The doors opened before the man, moving smoothly and almost silently.

    Okay, good. Whatever just happened, it was a momentary glitch. Scrambling to his feet—he was normally more athletic, but the last few days had not been kind to him—he tried to dash in between the slowly closing doors.

    Bong.

    Again, he found himself sitting on his ass in the middle of the sidewalk. His head was ringing once more from the impact, and it took him a long moment to figure out what had happened. He'd been less than half a second from passing between the doors when they had suddenly and inexplicably whipped shut, presenting a barrier where no such barrier should have existed.

    Wait, what the fuck? The PRT building absolutely should not have doors that acted this way. Getting to his feet for the second time in less than a minute, he brushed himself down. Something was up with these doors; face-planting them twice in a row should be impossible.

    This time, the doors opened from the inside, as a bunch of tourists walked out. He waited until the last one was stepping between the doors, and tried to dart in alongside. If the door was open for someone else, he reasoned, it would stay open for him.

    Bong.

    In the words of a sergeant he'd known long ago—the man had died in Ellisburg—this was starting to seriously get on his tits. Climbing to his feet yet again, he ignored the increasingly annoyed looks from around him and bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. If Zachary wanted to present him with a challenge, he would meet and overcome it.

    Another woman edged around him and headed for the doors. He took a deep breath and split time. It hadn't helped him against Zachary before, but perhaps he was meant to use his ability now. At the moment the doors opened for her, he lunged forward like a linebacker with one of his instances, the other standing still and observing. Being arrested for assault right now was at the bottom of his list of worries.

    His shoulder slammed into her back and she was jolted forward with a yelp of protest. He felt a flare of triumph even as she shouted in protest. It didn't matter to him, only that he get inside.

    And then the doors slammed shut with shocking force, cutting him in half. There was no amusing bong this time, just a visceral sound of rigid edges slicing into his body. Bones crackled and snapped, and he knew the exact moment when his spine was severed.

    He dropped the timeline. Whatever it was that Zachary wanted from him, he wasn't going to get there by merely walking into the PRT building and giving himself up. Moving to the side, away from the automatic doors, he dug into his pocket for his last burner phone and dialled 9-1-1.

    It rang, and rang, and rang.

    Nobody answered.

    He cancelled the call, and dialled the number again, taking extra care.

    Again, nobody picked up.

    Finally, he went back to the vehicle and climbed in. For a long moment, he sat bowed forward with his forehead touching the wheel. "What do you want from me?" he whispered. "What do I need to do?"

    The phone, still in his hand, pinged with an incoming text message. He blinked in surprise, then looked at it. It was an address in a town a couple of hundred miles away, and a time that gave him eight hours to get there. There was nothing more, not even a sender address.

    With exactly zero hesitation, he slid the keys into the ignition and started the vehicle. He already knew what Zachary could do to him if he refused, without ever leaving Brockton Bay. The Endbringer playing at being a teenage boy had been terrorizing him for fun up until now; he didn't want to give Zachary any kind of excuse to get serious.

    <><>​

    At Almost Exactly the Same Time
    Arcadia Cafeteria
    Taylor

    I left the lunch line with a loaded-down tray—Zach had been right, there were some food choices that would never have even occurred to Winslow—and headed over to where Zach was holding a spare seat at a table for me. I'd gotten some food for him too, though I strongly suspected he would have chowed down on gravel and motor oil and pronounced them delicious if I offered them to him. When I was still halfway to the table, I saw Panacea and Glory Girl also heading the same way. Well, I supposed I should be calling them Amy and Vicky Dallon, seeing that they were out of costume.

    "Hey," I greeted them as I came up to the table. As Zach had done, I'd gotten a second tray, which I put down in front of him. He started transferring what was his from one tray to the other—I hadn't even known he liked tapioca—with one hand, while with the other he pulled out my chair so I could sit down. Despite knowing who and what he was, I was still impressed that he was able to time the pushing-in of the chair perfectly.

    "Hey, Taylor." Amy smiled as she pulled out her own chair. "Saw you and Zachary putting on your little show at the Boat Graveyard yesterday. Kind of impressive."

    "Yeah." Vicky didn't seem interested in sitting down, nor did she seem as cheerful as Amy. In fact, she was giving Zach a phenomenal amount of stink-eye. "Impressive. For a cheating cheater."

    "Wow." I didn't quite yawn, but I made like I was about to. "I hope you're not going to challenge Zach to another arm-wrestle today. I mean, it was almost interesting the last time, but it'd be an anticlimax now that I know exactly how outmatched you are."

    Vicky gave me a glare that should by rights have shaved steel, but I couldn't even feel her (in)famous aura right then. I had my jacket on, though it wasn't zipped up all the way, so it couldn't have been that. I guessed Zach was doing something about it, which I was perfectly fine with.

    "Cheating isn't winning," she gritted. "Taking away someone's powers doesn't prove you're stronger. It just shows you can't win without trickery."

    Zach gave her his best innocent gaze, which I had to admit was pretty damn good. "I did not take away your strength, Victoria Dallon. The contest was purely my strength against yours. You are very strong, but I am stronger."

    I shrugged. "Besides, he didn't start taking away powers permanently until yesterday, when Butcher and the Teeth came to town." Taking the ball out of my pocket, I started idly playing with it, bouncing it up and down on the table beside the tray.

    "Wait, the Teeth came to Brockton Bay?" Vicky stared at me, as though daring me to admit to making a joke. "Why didn't we hear about this?"

    "Because Zach heard about it first," I said, snatching the ball out of the air and bouncing it off her forehead. It smacked back into my palm before she had a chance to react. "We showed up and Zach took them apart like a cheap clock. Gave me this." Giving the ball a spin, I let it balance on my fingertip. I'd learned that the ball pretty well treated physics as a suggestion, so if I wanted it to balance on my finger, it balanced on my finger.

    "Hey!" objected Vicky. She looked to her sister for backup, but Amy merely giggled at the byplay. "What the fuck?"

    "See, he made this out of Animos' powers," I explained. "When I bounced it off your head? I negated your powers. That's what it feels like. See the difference?"

    A series of emotions chased each other over Vicky's face, one after the other; disbelief, smugness, surprise and then anger. I watched her bounce on her toes, as though she were trying to fly, but her feet never left the floor. Her expression turned to rage and she bared her teeth in a silent growl, then she took a deep breath. "Give me my powers back!"

    I glanced around, wondering what everyone else in the cafeteria was making of this, but nobody seemed to be taking the slightest bit of notice. This, at least, I could understand; if Zach didn't want people to care about something, it could happen right in front of them and they would consider it to be perfectly normal. My attention went back to Vicky, just as she made an abortive movement in my direction.

    Zach turned toward her and, while I couldn't see the expression in his green eyes from where I was, it was enough to stop her in her tracks. "Taylor negated your powers to prove a point, Glory Girl," he said mildly. "Even with your powers, I would have no difficulty in preventing you from attacking her." He didn't have to explain the situation now that she was temporarily without powers. She wouldn't be able to move without his express permission.

    Holding up the ball between my index and middle finger, I flicked the mental switch to release the hold it had on her powers and raised my eyebrows. "And now you've got them back. You're welcome."

    She took a deep breath, then rose a few inches into the air. I didn't need to look at her feet to know that she was levitating off the ground. "Don't ever do that to me again," she snarled.

    "Don't ever accuse Zach of cheating again, and I won't have to." I tossed the ball in the air and caught it without looking.

    "Hey." Amy spoke up, defusing some of the tension. We all looked around at her, and I saw her staring at the ball. "That ball … it removes powers?"

    "Well, kind of." I bounced it on the table, just to feel the sensation of it slapping back into my palm. "When I bounce it off a cape, it turns off their powers until I decide to let them work again. Doesn't exactly remove them, sorry. Why?"

    "What if someone just takes your stupid ball and bounces it off your boyfriend's head, huh? Did you ever think about that?" Vicky didn't make any moves against me or Zach—apparently she could learn—but she also didn't seem interested in forgiving or forgetting just yet.

    "Nobody can take it from Taylor unless she wants them to." Zach's tone was polite but firm. "It will not work on me, because I am not a cape."

    "Shut up, Vicky." Amy tried to wave her sister to silence. "Do you … do you have to bounce it off someone's head to make it work?"

    I snorted with amusement. "No. It's just funnier that way." Finally, her manner started making sense to me. "Wait, did you want me to negate your powers?"

    Almost shyly, she nodded. "Yeah. Just to see what it's like, you know? It's been so long since I didn't have powers, I've forgotten."

    "It sucks," Vicky said fiercely. "I still can't believe you don't want yours anymore."

    I shared a glance with Zach. This was definitely a revelation I hadn't been expecting. "Uh … the ball doesn't take them away permanently. Just so you know, right?"

    "Uh huh." Amy nodded firmly. "I just want to know." She put her hand flat on the table. "Hit me."

    "Sure thing." I bounced it off her hand, not hard, and caught it again. The mental switch told me that her powers were in abeyance for the moment. "How's that feel?"

    "Actually, kinda normal." She sounded almost disappointed. "There's a little less background noise, but … can I touch your hand?"

    "No problem." I shrugged and slid my free hand closer to hers. With my other hand, I started tossing the ball up and catching it again.

    Her fingertip touched mine, and she smiled almost beatifically. "Wow. I don't sense anything about you. No health problems, no mental problems, nothing. I love it."

    "I hope you don't think I'm out of line or anything," I said diffidently, "but there's a lot of people who'd pay to have your powers. Just saying." I tossed the ball up again.

    Vicky moved faster than I would've given her credit for, swiping it out of the air. "Hah!" She held it triumphantly. "So much for not letting me have it. Amy, come on. We're out of here."

    "Vicky!" Amy pulled her hand away from mine. "Stop being a total jerkwad, and give Taylor her ball back." She paused. "Wow, I never thought I'd have to say that again, after middle school anyway."

    "Hell, nope." Vicky poised the ball as if to throw it at me or Zach. "Who's got the power now? That's right. Me!" Posing like a villain on a Saturday morning cartoon, she brought her fist down on the table.

    As it happened, she hit Zach's tray. Specifically, the bowl of tapioca that he'd asked me to get for him. It flipped up in the air and splattered all over her face.

    Before, nobody had been paying attention. Now, it was like a switch had been flipped; everyone was. Laughter arose in waves, and I saw more than one phone held up to record the event. Vicky took off, flying half-blind across the cafeteria; fortunately, she dropped the ball before she hit the doors on the full, and slowed enough to see where she was going.

    I held out my hand and the ball bounced into my palm, then I looked at Amy. "She gonna be okay, or do you need to go make sure?"

    She looked toward the doors, then shrugged. "Hey, she's a big girl now. She can deal with her own problems. Especially the self-inflicted ones. Speaking of which, did you do that on purpose?"

    With a grin, I held up the ball. "Not really. She kind of brought it on herself. Zach calls this the Idiot Ball."

    "Hah!" The laughter was genuine, as far as I could tell. "I can see why. That was amazing."

    I nodded. "It definitely is. Do you really want your powers taken away? Because that's a pretty big step, not gonna lie."

    "You have no idea." She gave Zach a penetrating stare. "I'm guessing you already know what my powers are. My real powers, I mean."

    "Yes, Amelia Claire Lavere, I do know." He tilted his head to one side questioningly. "Did you wish to continue the conversation we began the last time, about your personal happiness?"

    "Yeah." It was more of a sigh than a word. "Yeah, I do. So, I've been doing a lot of thinking since then, and last night I decided to tell Vicky the truth about stuff I've been keeping from her. Keeping from everyone."

    I snorted softly. "I bet that went down well."

    She rolled her eyes. "Oh, boy. Did it ever. Freaked her out big time. Fortunately, she agreed not to tell Carol until we'd had a chance to hash it out properly …"



    End of Part Fourteen
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Ack said:
    I'd gotten a second tray, which I put down in front of him. He started transferring what was his from one tray to the other—I hadn't even known he liked tapioca—
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Tapioca, huh? I've read enough Ackfics to know where this is going.
    Ack said:
    As it happened, she hit Zach's tray. Specifically, the bowl of tapioca that he'd asked me to get for him. It flipped up in the air and splattered all over her face.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Called it.
     
    Part Fifteen: Changing Up
  • Threadmarks
    • I'm HALPING!

    Part Fifteen: Changing Up

    [A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

    Taylor

    "Wow, so you're not just a healer?" I stared at Amy, who looked steadfastly back at me.

    "Taylor, you are being impolite," Zach said reproachfully.

    "Oh, uh, sorry." I flushed and looked away. "My bad."

    "It is alright, Taylor." Zach smiled at me. "It is my observation that people often do not intend to be rude, and that they change their behaviour once it is indicated to them. As you have done with me on more than one occasion."

    "It's really, actually okay," Amy said, putting her hand on my arm. "I didn't even see that as being problematic. Vicky gets more personal than that on a daily basis."

    "Which still doesn't make it okay," I replied firmly. "Just because I did it without meaning to doesn't mean it's fine for me to do it. Even if you're not offended. It just means you've learned to not be offended by shit that you should be offended by."

    It was Amy's turn to give me an odd look. "Isn't it kind of my personal prerogative whether I want to be offended by something or not?"

    She actually had a good point there. I floundered, trying to figure out how to counter it, or even if I should. "Uh, I …"

    "Yes, Amelia Claire, it is," Zachary covered for me smoothly. "However, it is my experience that if people are allowed to get away with antisocial behaviour because someone chooses not to be offended, they themselves become unhappy if they are called out on it by others who are rightfully offended. It is better for them to understand from the beginning that some behaviours are less acceptable than others, and that some people will be offended by them."

    I blinked. "Wow. That was … impressive. When did you figure all that out?"

    "It has taken me some little time, Taylor." He beamed at me happily. "Fortunately, attending Arcadia has given me a great deal of observational data upon which to base my conclusions. Was I in error?"

    Amy answered for me. "No. You weren't. And you're right. Just because I'm not offended by Vicky being rude doesn't mean that nobody else will be. I hadn't actually thought of it that way before."

    "You are welcome, Amelia Claire." Zach tilted his head. "Victoria Dallon has not yet returned. Would you like me to find out if she will return before the end of school today, in order to give you a lift home?"

    "Oh, uh, don't bother," Amy said hastily. "She's probably just sulking on the roof or something. She'll be back." Still, she took out her phone and dashed off a quick text. "I just told her to get over herself and come on back. Nobody's mad at her." Belatedly, she looked at me and Zach. "You're not mad at her, are you?"

    I shrugged. "Nope. In the words of a good friend of my dad's—and please don't ever repeat this in his hearing—she fucked around and found out."

    "That sounds like something Uncle Neil would say," Amy replied with a giggle.

    "It's definitely a guy thing," I agreed. "I'm good if she is. Zach?"

    "I have no quarrel with Victoria Dallon," Zach replied seriously. "It is my observation that when she is not trying too hard to be Glory Girl, she is quite a nice person to be around."

    "Now who's being rude?" I rolled my eyes. "You realise you just said that when she's being Glory Girl, she's not a nice person?"

    "Relax," Amy said with a giggle. "He did say when she's trying too hard. Which is kinda true. She can push the 'flying brick who takes no shit' persona a bit too far sometimes."

    "Alexandria is a tough role model to live up to, granted." I nodded thoughtfully. "Well, I'm still okay with her if she's okay with me. And I promise not to bounce the Idiot Ball off her head again."

    "You don't have to promise that," Amy said hastily. "That was about the funniest thing I've seen all day. The look on her face was like, did she really just do that? I nearly wet myself trying not to laugh out loud."

    "I only did it to prove a point, not to be mean to her." I took out the ball again and held it between my index and middle fingers. "I know it's not a toy, but it's fun to bounce around. Especially since Zach set it up so it goes exactly where I want it to, and nowhere else."

    Amy held out her hand. "May I?"

    "Sure," I said, and tossed it to her. "Just be aware. If you're not careful, it'll give you the impulse to do stupid things."

    "Yup, got it." Amy looked carefully at the ball. "It really doesn't look like much. How does it work?"

    I shrugged. "It works because Zach wants it to work, I guess? All I know is that Animos had the power to nullify other powers, and now he doesn't have it anymore."

    "Oh, so it's in this ball? Huh." Amy bounced it off the table and caught it again.

    "No, it is the ball." I looked at Zach. "Or am I totally misunderstanding things?"

    "No, Taylor, you are mostly correct." Zach indicated the ball with a gesture. "I took the power and modified it, then formed it into a physical object. I added a little of Assault's power so that you could bounce it anywhere because I thought you would enjoy it more that way."

    Amy smirked. "I can absolutely see why you would think that." She tossed the ball back to me. "So where did the 'idiot' part come in? Where did you get that from?"

    Zach looked at the both of us, deadpan. "Everyone."

    I looked at Amy and she at me, then we both burst out laughing. It was so very true. Every single person on Earth Bet had their own idiot ball; it was just that some used them more than others.

    <><>​

    Glory Girl

    Vicky wasn't sulking on the roof. She'd headed there initially, but once she got the tapioca off her face—who even ordered tapioca anyway?—she'd had time to think, and her thoughts were taking a decidedly darker turn.

    He's Mastered Amy. And probably Taylor as well, given that they're both playing along with his little games. And if that's not bad enough, I'm not strong enough to beat him. That's been made abundantly clear. Even if I try, Taylor's got that little depowering ball. Which I can't touch.

    Her phone buzzed, and she wiped her hands clean before taking it out. The text was from Amy: Come on back, you big goof. Nobody's mad at you.

    Which was exactly what someone who'd been Mastered would say.

    She was supposed to return to the cafeteria, where everyone had just seen her with tapioca all over her face, so they'd probably laugh at her all over again. And then, sit down with the Master and his two victims. And this time, if she spoke out of turn, Taylor would probably remove her powers again. Permanently.

    It was how she knew beyond the absolute shadow of a doubt that Amy had been Mastered in the first place. Because who in their right mind, having gotten superpowers, would ever willingly relinquish them?

    She lifted off the roof, considering her options. The PRT was a possibility. Director Piggot was a hardass when it came to capes in general, and Master capes had to be no less a problem for her. But right now Zach was their golden boy, having dealt with both an S-class and an A-class threat in just a matter of days. He'd even had the chops to get them to call in the Triumvirate to clear the Boat Graveyard.

    All of a sudden, that whole video took on a far more sinister tone to her. Did Zach have his hooks in even the highest level of the Protectorate? How powerful is he? How far up does it go?

    Rising higher in the air, she set course for Downtown. She couldn't trust the PRT with this, not until she had serious backup on her side. Taking her phone out, she dialled a preset number. "Mom? Are you busy?"

    <><>​

    Brandish

    Of all the potential interruptions to her workday, there were some things Carol Dallon didn't really expect. Vicky's arrival had been one of them; more than a little dishevelled, with the streaky remains of what appeared to be tapioca on her blouse, coming to see Carol about … a Master in Arcadia High?

    "Are you sure about this, honey?" She eyed her daughter with concern as they sat across from each other in the company cafeteria. "It's just that it sounds more than a little far-fetched to me. Has one of the Wards been feeding you a line about that sort of thing? This sounds exactly like something that teenaged delinquent Clockblocker would do." If the aforementioned Ward had been a part of New Wave, her tone suggested, his irreverent name would not have even made it past the screening stage.

    "No, no, it's real, Mom." At her mother's suggestion, Vicky had taken the opportunity to freshen up in the bathrooms; her blouse was clean again, and her face and hair clear of any errant traces of foodstuffs. However, her expression was both earnest and concerned. "I saw it happen. Ames just … let this guy take her powers away. Asked him to do it."

    "Wait, he took her powers away? That's a Trump, not a Master." Carol took out a notepad and pen. "Suppose you start from the beginning. When did he first say anything to Amy about allowing him to remove her powers?"

    Vicky frowned. "Well … he didn't. Not really. She was talking about it last night, actually. Saying weird things like, would it really change the world so much if she wasn't healing people. If she didn't have her powers."

    "Stop there a moment," Carol said, busily taking notes. "Did she say 'if she stopped healing people' or 'if she lost her healing powers'?"

    Vicky tilted her head to one side in thought. "She was more focusing on the idea of not having her powers anymore. Which is stupid. Why would anyone not want to have powers?"

    "Okay, okay." Carol nodded. "So who brought up the subject last night? Was it her or you?"

    "… me," Vicky admitted reluctantly. "But we were talking about Zach, and how he can futz with powers anyway. He did it to me yesterday."

    Carol's eyebrows rose, and she turned to a new page of her notebook. "Perhaps you should've led with that. Also, do you have a full name for this 'Zach' person?"

    Vicky huffed. "All I know him as is 'Zachary'. He's got a girl called Taylor Hebert under his spell as well. He's the one who's supposed to have offed the Nine, remember?"

    "Oh, that Zachary. Why didn't you say so?" Carol shook her head, mildly chagrined at the fact that she hadn't recognised the name earlier. "He seems like a perfectly harmless boy to me. I doubt very much that he's Mastering anyone, much less stealing their powers without permission."

    "But Mom, I saw him do it! He did it to me, yesterday!" Vicky's voice was starting to get a little shrill and her aura had kicked up slightly, enough to get other people in the cafeteria looking their way.

    "Calm down," Carol advised. "One step at a time. I'm sure it's not as bad as you think, but let's go through it anyway. What happened yesterday? Tell me from the top."

    Vicky took a deep breath. "Okay, so we saw them in the cafeteria. Zachary and Taylor, that is. I can't remember who wanted to go over to them, me or Ames, but we went over there. We got to talking and Zachary was asking Ames all these really personal questions, like was she happy with what she was doing and stuff like that."

    "And was Amy objecting to these questions?" Carol knew damn well what the answer would be normally. Amy's response to things she didn't like was usually to either shut down or to become sarcastic.

    "Well, no, she wasn't. But I didn't like how personal he was getting, so I … kind of challenged him to an arm-wrestling match. Right there, in the cafeteria." Vicky looked away.

    Through years of practising law (and being the mother of teenagers) Carol was very good at reading people. Specifically, when someone realised that they'd said too much and didn't want to keep talking. She tapped her notebook with the pen, knowing already what the answer to her next question was going to be. "Go on. Who won?"

    "He did!" The words burst out of Vicky's mouth as if under pressure. "He cheated! He must have! I mean, I know he's strong, but …"

    "Well, of course he's strong, dear." Carol casually doodled the name 'Zach', each letter built out of bricks. "He picked up a van and threw it nearly two thousand miles. I saw him do it on the news."

    "But there's more to it," Vicky insisted. "I … kinda tried to use my aura, and he turned it off!"

    Carol frowned at her daughter. "Did I just hear correctly? Did a child of mine try to cheat in a fair contest?"

    "Mom, that's not the point!" Vicky's aura was stronger now, proving (among other things) that whatever Zach had done to it, it was working just fine now. "He cheated too!"

    "It is most definitely the point. And tone your aura down, please." Carol glanced around and waved reassuringly. "It's all good. Everything's fine."

    Grudgingly (or so it seemed) the aura reduced in intensity until Carol could barely notice it. "Mom, you're not listening. If he could turn my aura off, he could turn my strength off too. We both know there's capes out there that use powers that act like super-strength but it's really not, right? What if all his 'strength' is just bullshit powers, and he's using a Trump ability to make other people weaker? What about that?"

    Carol wasn't buying her daughter's line of self-justification. "You can say 'what if' all day, Vicky. He's done enough things on camera that his strength passes the duck test easily. I've seen footage of him crushing concrete with his bare hands, and swinging Lung around by the tail like a cat. Not to mention, smacking Assault all the way to Boston. Without killing him, by the way, which was even more impressive. Personally, even if he did have a Trump power that takes people's super-strength away, I don't think he'd ever need to use it."

    "But he did use it!" protested Vicky. "He took away my powers today!"

    "Did he? They appear to be back, if he did." Carol made a note anyway. Removal of powers was a serious matter.

    "Oh, Taylor gave them back." Vicky hesitated. "Uh …"

    "Wait." Carol gave Vicky a serious look. "Who took your powers away, Zachary or this Taylor? Is she a parahuman? And how do you know she was the one who gave them back?"

    Vicky was getting more flustered by the second, a sure sign that she was trying to shade the truth. "Okay, it wasn't Zach who took my powers away. It was Taylor, but she used the ball he gave her. She hit me on the face with it!" Her tone was righteously aggrieved by this point.

    "Used … a ball …?" Carol turned to yet another page of her notebook. "Tell me exactly what happened there. And don't leave out why she did this to you." Find out why. It was an instinct that she'd cultivated over the years. As damning as Vicky's story sounded at first telling, it seemed to be missing a large amount of motive on the part of Zachary and Taylor.

    "Um …" Vicky grimaced, and Carol knew she'd hit the mark. "I was kind of telling Zachary that I knew he'd cheated by taking away my strength, and then Taylor just threw this ball at me! It hit me right here!" She tapped the middle of her forehead. "I actually felt it! And then she said something about how that was what having my powers really taken away felt like!"

    "And had you actually lost your powers?" Carol wrote the word Provoked? And underlined it twice.

    "Well, yeah." Vicky seemed to be on steadier ground now. "I tried to fly and flare my aura, but nothing happened. It was like I'd never had them at all."

    "And then she gave them back? How did that work? Did she hit you with the ball again? Also, what did this ball look like? Was it Tinkertech?"

    "It was a kid's rubber ball," Vicky said. "You know, the type you play handball with. A bit smaller than a tennis ball. Red and yellow and blue. Really bright. And no, she just told me my powers were back, and she was right. They were back. And that's when Ames asked her to take her powers away."

    "So it wasn't Zachary who took Amy's powers away, but Taylor with this rubber ball?" Carol flipped back a few pages. "Why did you tell me it was him and not her?"

    "Because even if it was her, it was still him!" Vicky's voice didn't rise to a shout, but it came close. "He gave her the ball!"

    "Did he tell her to use it on Amy, or even on you?" Carol poised her pen over the pad.

    Vicky hunched her shoulders and looked down at the table. "Well … no."

    "So, for all you know, it was Taylor's idea the whole time, especially since you'd shown such poor sportsmanship after losing a contest of strength that you initiated?" Carol felt no pleasure in taking apart Vicky's story, but the truth was important in situations like this.

    Nobody's going to be able to accuse me of being biased even when it comes to my own daughter, no sir!

    <><>​

    Coil

    Hunched over the steering wheel, Thomas wondered what he was driving toward. Then he began to wonder which road he should take. Slowing down, he went to reach across for the map, then recoiled as he realised Creep was sitting in the passenger seat. Reading the map.

    After a long moment, one corpse-white finger pointed at a particular exit sign. Calvert shuddered in resignation and hit the indicator.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    Amy looked around and frowned. "Where's Vicky? She normally flies me home."

    I shrugged. The other Arcadia students were passing us by in their eagerness to exit the hallowed halls of learning so they could go home and be normal kids, but she was right; there was a certain lack of Vicky in our general vicinity.

    "Glory Girl went to speak with her mother regarding our encounter," Zach informed us. "Her accounting of it was highly biased, but the conversation did not go the way she anticipated. Carol Dallon has chastised her for wrongfully blaming me for removing her powers, however temporarily, and has grounded her for the remainder of the day."

    That wasn't something I had expected. "So … am I in trouble with New Wave?" I asked.

    "Wait a second." Amy paused. "Sorry, you were first, Taylor. Zach? Is she in trouble with Carol?"

    "Not to any significant degree," Zach informed us cheerfully. "Carol Dallon is taking into account the fact that you were provoked into taking punitive action. She wishes to speak with the both of us, but only to verify her understanding of the situation."

    "And what about …" Amy caught herself. "How do you know all this? Are you a Thinker or something?" A moment later, she blinked. "No, you're not a parahuman. Sorry, I forgot. So how do you know this?"

    "Oh, that is easy." Zach smiled. "I asked my sister. She has been taking a great interest in my activities so far."

    Which absolutely made sense. If anyone would be expected to keep up with someone like Zach, it would have to be the Simurgh.

    "Your sister …?" Amy shook her head. "Sorry, didn't mean to pry into your family business. Or are you all open capes, like New Wave?"

    "We make no secret of our identities, that is true." I had to admire Zach; he was good at telling the truth without actually revealing anything of importance. Say nothing in great detail, indeed. "You have certainly heard of her. She is very well-known."

    "Right … got it. Don't tell me, I want to figure it out for myself." Amy's voice turned introspective, and I could almost see the cogwheels ticking over in her head. This was where her encyclopaedic knowledge of the cape scene was going to work against her; she was justifiably proud of knowing every name there was to know of any prominence, but there was no way in hell she was going to connect the Simurgh with Zach.

    "In the meantime," I said, "how's Amy supposed to get home if Vicky's not allowed to give her a lift?"

    "Glory Girl asked that same question," Zach revealed. "Brandish replied to the effect that Amy was a big girl now and was perfectly capable of catching the bus."

    Oof. That was cold; glancing at Amy's face, I could see that she had taken the comment to heart. "Hey," I said. "Zach, do you feel up to giving us both a lift?"

    It had only been a passing thought, and I half-expected Zach to explain how he wasn't a taxi service, but instead he nodded earnestly. "Yes, Taylor. I can do that."

    "Wait, you'd give me a lift?" Amy looked startled. "I can't impose on you like that."

    "It would not be an imposition, Amelia Claire." Zach smiled at her. "I am entirely capable of carrying you both at once, and it would make Taylor happy to know that you got home safely."

    I grinned at him. "I'd say you read my mind, but that's your sister's job. Thanks, Zach. This makes things a lot easier."

    "You are welcome, Taylor." Zach followed me and Amy as we made our way outside. "My sister said to tell you that is the nicest thing anyone ever has said or will say about her, and to thank you for that."

    "Wait, a prominent cape who can read minds?" Amy frowned. "Either I'm missing something, or you're making references to capes I've never heard of. Besides, Vicky says it's impossible for the human mind to read another person's mind. Something to do with needing way too much processing power."

    "My sister also says that the people teaching that course are acting on incomplete data," Zach informed her blandly. "Powers themselves supply processing power. Or did you truly think that your brain was capable of handling the information input that you get from your biokinesis without giving you a terminal migraine?"

    Amy stared at him for a long moment, then facepalmed. "I'm an idiot. Why did I never think of that before?"

    "Because your power did not wish for you to doubt it," Zach said. "It wants you to express yourself more fully. This is why you are unhappy and feeling stressed."

    "It what again now?" I asked, less than half a second before Amy came out with roughly the same question. "Since when do super-powers have opinions? And what happens to Amy now that she doesn't have access to her power?"

    "All powers supply urges to the user." Zach's tone was almost professorial, now. "Powers are more than just the ability to do something. There are entire mechanisms devoted to overcoming the limitations of physics such that capes do not experience any lapse or lag in using their abilities. For the most part, these mechanisms are self-aware, and are seeking new stimulation."

    "So every time I healed a bad guy and was tempted to change their brain to make them a good guy, that was my power, not me?" Amy looked revolted. "What if it took over? Could it do that?"

    "Under situations of great stress, yes, powers have been known to activate against the user's will." Zach's voice was bland, as if he was unaware of the potential horror of what he was describing. "You have heard of the case of Bad Canary. That was her power activating and infusing a single angry vocalisation with an involuntary command. This happened because she has been using her voice for singing purposes only, and not to control people en masse, which would give her power much more stimulation."

    I'd definitely heard of the case, but now I realised all the press had been slanted against the singer. There hadn't even been a statement from her, much less a public appearance. It was all about how she'd Mastered her boyfriend and made him mutilate himself for her sick pleasure. The revelation that there was another side to it, one that had never made the light of day, was stunning. Also, somewhat frightening. What else got buried in plain sight like this, that we never learned about?

    "Can you … can you make it so I'll never do anything like that with my power?" asked Amy, her voice unsteady. "Or if you can't, then just take it away permanently."

    "You might want to think twice about that." I glanced at Zach. "What if you lose your powers, but the urges remain? You'd go nuts because you couldn't do anything about them."

    "I would not do that to Amelia Claire," Zach assured me. "When I remove someone's powers permanently, I leave no trace of them in their system. It would be as though she had never had them." He looked thoughtful. "There is always a potential chance of triggering with other powers at a later date, but that is something which can be anticipated and dealt with at the time."

    "Well, that's definitely an option, then," Amy noted. "Or can you take away the urges and leave me the powers? I'd rather not accidentally turn one of my patients into living body horror one day just because I'm having a crap week, thank you very much."

    "That can also be done," Zach agreed. "Which one would you prefer?"

    "Hmm, decisions, decisions." Amy shook her head. "I can't make up my mind right now. Can I sleep on it?"

    "Yes, Amelia Claire." Zach nodded to back up his words. "You may take all the time you wish to make up your mind."

    Taking out the ball, I held it up. "Did you want me to give you back your powers in the meantime?"

    She shook her head again. "No thanks. Right now, I don't have to do jack in an emergency, and it feels great."

    "Okay, cool." I stuck the ball in my pocket again. "So, you still want that lift?"

    "If that's okay with you and Zach," Amy said hopefully. "I really don't feel like riding the bus today."

    "That is perfectly okay with me," Zach declared. "If you two ladies would like to stand on either side of me and put your arms over my shoulders, I will be able to leap safely with the both of you. Be warned; I will have to put my arms around your waists."

    I frowned. "Oh, I thought you were going to take us each separately." Turning to Amy, I explained, "He usually carries me bridal-style, but you probably knew that."

    "No, Taylor." Zach shook his head. "Doing that would separate you from me for at least a few seconds. That is long enough for someone to harm you if they had sufficient motive and the right opportunity. I will not allow that. Jumping alongside me is perfectly safe."

    "Then why have you been carrying me in your arms?" I asked. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you. Just asking."

    "Jumping a great distance can be a frightening experience." Zach moved his shoulders as if attempting a shrug. "I wished for you to feel as safe as possible."

    "Well, damn," Amy said with a chuckle. "I just wanna say, Taylor, this guy's a keeper." She stepped up alongside him and put her left arm over his shoulders, having to reach up more than a little to get there. "Geez, you're tall."

    "He is that." I moved to his left side and put my right arm over his shoulders, alongside Amy's. "Okay, ready."

    "Please inform me if this makes you feel at all uncomfortable." Zach put his arm around my waist, holding me firmly. He was the one guy my age I knew I could absolutely trust not to cop a feel, and that trust was rewarded.

    "Nope, I'm good," I said. "Amy?"

    "Doing okay, here. Vicky usually holds me a lot tighter than this, actually."

    "I am not attempting to denigrate Glory Girl, but there is always a possibility that she might accidentally drop you, however slight that chance might be," Zach said conversationally. "There is no possibility of me letting you go. Are you both prepared for the jump to Amelia Claire's home?"

    "Uh huh." I knew Zach's jumps were safe, but all of a sudden I could see why he'd been carrying me before. That way felt a lot more secure. "Let's do this thing."

    "Ohh, boy." Amy sucked in a long breath. "I'm looking forward to the conversation at home a lot less than the jump itself. Blast off, big guuuuyyyyyyyyyyyy…"

    Halfway through 'guy', Zach kicked off from the gravel edging of the footpath, taking us both along for the ride. We shot into the sky at a frankly ludicrous speed, which somehow felt even faster because I was simply being held by the pressure of his arm around my waist. Still, I heard myself whooping with exhilaration. A moment later, Amy echoed me, her voice even shriller than mine.

    We soared through the sky above Brockton Bay, the city whipping by beneath us. I didn't know how fast we were going, but it looked like we were going to be there in just moments. Maybe Velocity could've beaten us there; somehow, I doubted it.

    It appeared the headquarters of New Wave was a typical suburban home, two storey, emplaced among many others of the same type. From above, even though I could see where we were going, I had trouble picking out one house from another. It was, I thought with a grin, pretty good protective camouflage.

    We flashed down out of the sky and landed on the concrete sidewalk with barely a jar. I looked downward and saw that the concrete wasn't even cracked. Zach was definitely upping his game. "Nicely done," I said as I took my arm off his shoulders and stepped away from him.

    "Thank you," he replied. "Did you enjoy the experience, Amelia Claire?"

    "Oh, wow, did I!" Amy, I noted on a second look, looked as windblown as I felt, but there was a glow in her face that had been missing up until now. "I've never gotten home from Arcadia so fast before, even with Vicky carrying me. Is that what it's like to fly?"

    Zach nodded. "My sister tells me it is very like that, yes."

    "There you go with your sister again." Amy's tone was half complaining, half amused. "Are you going to give me any more hints about her? So she can fly, she can read minds … what else can she do? Is she one of those flashy Indian capes?" I could see why she was asking the question; Zach didn't look Indian, but people who could change their appearance was a thing.

    "No, Amelia Claire, she is not." And there he went again, subtly implying that his sister was American, while actually saying nothing of the sort.

    Evidently, she was catching on to his word games, because she stopped still and mock-glared at him, her hands on her hips. "Okay, smart guy. You got me. I'm stumped. I've been going over and over in my head who she could be, and absolutely nobody I can think of fits the bill. Who is your sister? And be warned, if she turns out to be somebody I've never heard of, I am going to kick you in the shin."

    "Well, there's not much else you can do to him right now," I murmured with a grin.

    She heard me—I'd meant her to—and rolled her eyes. "You know what's going on, don't you?"

    I nodded. "Uh huh. But before you ask, not my place to say."

    "Yeah, figured." She turned her attention back to Zach. "Well? Are you gonna spill, or am I going to have to hobble around with a broken foot for a couple of weeks?"

    Well, at least she was being realistic about things. I couldn't imagine a very different outcome for anyone trying to kick Zach in the shin. Or anywhere, for that matter.

    "Do not harm yourself trying to kick me, Amelia Claire." The slight grin on Zach's face told me that he found this exchange as funny as I did. "The truth of the matter is that my sister is the Simurgh. I am an Endbringer."

    "Well, technically an Endbringer," I corrected him. "You aren't here to bring an end to anything, as far as I can tell."

    "That is true, Taylor," he conceded. "The term is intended more as a descriptor of my origin and capabilities than my perceived function and intent." He turned back to Amy, who was standing there with her jaw dropped. "Are you alright, Amelia Claire?"

    "You're an Endbringer," Amy said flatly. "Your sister is the goddamn Simurgh. That shouldn't make so much sense, but it does. Why?"

    "Because it's true." I tried not to sound facetious. "The Endbringer sirens we had the other day? That was the Simurgh dropping in for a visit, and to hand over Oni Lee after Zach kicked him into orbit."

    Amy shook her head, though it didn't seem to be in disbelief. She wasn't totally freaking out either, so I suspected Zach was doing something to her emotional levels. Whatever it was, it allowed her to assimilate the shock without going off the deep end.

    "Well, that explains the 'sister' aspect," she grumbled. "Telepathic, clairvoyant, able to fly … I can't believe I didn't see it."

    I nodded. "To be fair, not many people jump straight to 'Endbringer' as a potential relative. Just saying. And please don't ask him how long it took me to realise that all the hints he was dropping were indicators to what he really was." I rolled my eyes. "That was so embarrassing when he finally laid it out for me. Especially since he'd told me earlier and I'd thought he was joking!"

    Amy started to giggle, then laugh out loud. She pointed at me and tried to say something, then laughed harder. I got the joke—boy, did I get the joke—and started laughing too. We were leaning on each other, laughing our asses off, when Carol Dallon finally came to the door to find out what was going on outside.

    The first I knew of it was when Zach brightened and stepped forward. "Good afternoon, Brandish!" he greeted her brightly. "How are you today? It is good to meet Amelia Claire's adopted mother!" Holding out his hand politely, he waited for a response.

    <><>​

    Brandish

    Dealing with a sulky teenager was bad enough. Dealing with one who was certain she was in the right was ten times as bad. By the time her 'discussion' with Vicky was over, Carol had made the executive decision that sending the girl back to Arcadia would probably be a bad idea (besides, the school day was almost over), so she'd made Vicky come home with her.

    Amy's transport problems were not something she wanted to worry about right then; besides, the girl was surely mature enough to catch the bus. Unlike Vicky, who was exhibiting a level of immaturity that made Carol wonder about her ability to tie her shoes right then. Besides, riding the bus home would keep Amy out of the house that little bit longer, allowing Carol more time to try to get through to Vicky.

    That was the plan, anyway. Right up until Carol heard familiar laughter outside the house mere minutes after school should have let out. Even flying home with Vicky wouldn't have gotten her here this fast. And she'd texted from school only a short time before.

    What's going on here?

    Opening the front door, Carol saw three teenagers. One was Amy, the second was Zachary, and the third was a girl she didn't really recognise, but who was wearing a really nice jacket. Zachary, of course, she knew from the news. He turned from his amused appraisal of the two laughing girls—what were they finding so funny, anyway?—and approached her.

    "Good afternoon, Brandish!" His voice was bright and cheerful, and projected the sense that she was the one person he was happiest to meet today. "How are you today? It is good to meet Amelia Claire's adopted mother!"

    "Well, uh, hello … Zachary, yes?" She felt flustered despite herself; the sheer presence of the boy was almost overwhelming. "It's good to meet you, too." She shook his outstretched hand firmly. "You've done the city, the nation, a great service in ridding us of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Also, in putting Lung and Hookwolf behind bars."

    "They were a danger to Taylor, so I made sure that they were not." Zachary had a very straightforward way of talking. When he spoke, there was absolutely no misunderstanding his motives or his intent. Carol didn't think he could use weasel words if he tried.

    "Well, that's definitely an admirable goal," she admitted, then looked past him to Amy. "So … did the two of you give Amy a lift home?"

    "Zach did," said the tall brunette in the nice jacket. "Hi, I'm Taylor Hebert. It's good to meet you, Mrs Dallon. I just started at Arcadia, and Amy here's been really nice to me. Made me feel welcome."

    "Oh." Carol blinked. "That's, uh, that's sweet of her." Feeling as though she should say something more, she gave Amy a nod. "Well done." Then she remembered what Vicky had been saying. "Uh … I understand you had your powers taken away today? Is that still a thing, or are they back now?"

    "Nope, still gone," Amy said cheerfully, lifting her chin almost as a challenge. "I asked Taylor to take them away for the time being. If I still like the idea in the morning, I'm going to ask Zach to remove them permanently."

    That was almost exactly what Vicky had claimed, though the addition of Zachary as someone who could remove powers permanently and without harming the cape involved was definitely new.

    Carol stared at Amy. "Are you certain you want this?" she asked. "You're Panacea. You're a hero. You help people."

    Just for a moment, she thought Amy was going to snap back, but the girl glanced at Taylor and Zach and took a breath before speaking. "Is it really being heroic if you never have a choice in the matter?"

    That was from so far out of left field that Carol found herself momentarily lost for words. "I … It's what we do. We have powers that can let us help people, so we use them to help people."

    "And what if I don't want to be a hero anymore?" Amy's voice was a little stronger now. "What if I don't want that burden anymore?"

    "It's not a burden!" Carol couldn't believe she had to actually say this. "It's a gift!"

    "If it's a gift, then it's a white elephant." Amy shook her head. "I don't want it. I don't need it. I'm through being judged for what I'm not more than for what I am." She turned to Zachary. "I've made up my mind. Can you take them away permanently, please?"

    "I can definitely do that, Amelia Claire." Zachary smiled at Amy and reached out to her. "I will need to hold your hand."

    "Here you go." Amy clasped his hand with hers, then turned to Carol. "What's more heroic? Someone who gets powers they don't want and uses them kind of heroically, or someone who gives up the powers they already have so they won't hurt people with them by accident?"

    While Carol was trying to figure out how to answer that question, she watched as Zachary withdrew his hand from Amy's, pulling an insubstantial thing out of the girl. It was almost like Hollywood's idea of a ghost, not quite there, a trick of the light. It came free from Amy with an inaudible pop, and she staggered half a step. Taylor was there to steady her, while Zachary started doing … something with the intangible mass he had pulled out of Amy.

    "What … is that?" asked Carol, though she had a strong feeling she already knew.

    "It is Amelia Claire's healing power," Zachary said briskly, moving his hands through it and around it as he spoke. "I am shaping it into a form that other people will be able to use."

    "But … wait … you're doing what?" Events were moving too fast for Carol. Powers could not be simply pulled free from people, and certainly not made so that other people could use them.

    Could they?

    Not bothering to answer her, Zachary moved his hands around each other in a way that she was almost certain was impossible, then suddenly what he was working on snapped into focus. He now held a pair of gloves, neatly stitched, shading from crimson on the palm to rose gold on the back. "Here you are, Taylor," he said, handing them to the tall brunette. "These should be in your size."

    "Really, Zach?" she asked, even as she accepted them. "You don't have to give me every power you take from someone, you know."

    "Why not?" he asked ingenuously. "You are responsible enough to use them. They will allow you to heal yourself if needed. Also, they are weighted in the knuckles so that you can knock out anyone you wish just by punching them."

    Taylor chuckled at that, then pulled the gloves on. They matched with the jacket rather nicely, Carol couldn't help but notice. "Okay, fine. But I reserve the right to stuff them in my pocket and never put them on again."

    "That is your right," he agreed. "You will be alright, Amelia Claire?"

    Amy nodded. "Yeah, I think so. Thanks." From what Carol could tell, she meant it.

    "Cool," Taylor said. "See you at school tomorrow." She gave Amy a quick hug—which was reciprocated—then stepped over next to Zachary and put her arm around his shoulders. "Bye, Mrs Dallon. Nice meeting you."

    "You too, Taylor." Carol watched as Zachary put his arm around the girl and crouched slightly, then they blurred upward, faster than Sarah or even Vicky could fly. Fading on the wind was a distant whoop from Taylor.

    Then she looked at Amy, no longer Panacea, who was looking almost defiantly back at her, as though expecting to be yelled at for her decision.

    No matter what she'd been before, Amy no longer manifested Marquis' legacy in her powers. In fact, she'd consciously given them up, specifically so she wouldn't accidentally hurt people.

    All that was left was the teenage girl before her.

    Carol reached out and took her daughter by the hand.

    "Come on," she said. "Let's go inside and talk."

    Amy nodded. "I'd like that."



    End of Part Fifteen
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • meloa789 said:
    Why do I imagine that Simurgh gives headpats to Zach every time he does something good?

    Also Carol being truly responsible for once? Really good.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    See, now we need fan art of that exact thing.

    So! Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Taylor still does have the potential to trigger with QA/Best Shard! Now she probably won't trigger with bug admin powers, but if by some horrible chance she does trigger, meaning someone, somehow got past Zach. If/when this happens, what will her QA admin power be over?

    My best understanding is that every shard can project their abilities in any of the power types. So QA could do master bug powers like Canon, or, for example, Thinker powers built around multitasking.

    So since QA is the multitasking command shard.

    Tinkering could be building things that can do many different things at once.

    Brute would be like being able to carry multiple tons of weight while being able to walk a wire twenty stories up in the dark. Like having extreme body control and being able to adjust weight balance and such.

    Mover, perhaps multitasking movement and inertia. The precision needs for rapid movement.

    Shaker, I could see this being very scary here. QA being able to project any power Taylor gets from Zach as equipment out from her. So pretty much turn all the power Taylor gets from Zach into area of effect powers. With this most recent addition of Amy's bio kinesis, healing in large amounts make Taylor very important to protect. Yay for Zach!

    Breaker, I'm not sure. Having Taylor perhaps changing to gain EndBringer durability while Zach just stomps stuff ...

    Master, as Taylor isn't around bugs any more, her Master power could take a new shape. She could, thanks to what Zach has been doing, be able to Master other capes Powers. So say a villain goes to attack her with a ranged attack, her Master power could once it is in range redirect that attack at the cape or another foe.

    Blaster, would be fun. QA blaster would be more like being able to fire blasts of whatever from anywhere in her range. Perhaps even being able to to turn and aim her blasts in curves around her in her range.


    Striker, QA striker would be odd. I really can't think of a pure QA striker power.

    Changer, QA Changer would be terrifying. As for approach, QA shard picks them up and alters Taylor Changer form to better defeat them. Think Crawler, but not permanent and to others seems to be precog on foes and how to beat them. Also, think really broken, unchained, demented Uber Ditto.

    Stranger, QA Stranger I could see as an ultimate stealth / information denial power. Taylor just walks past all the gun man, saves the hostages, ties up the gunman, walks away to starbucks across the street, everyone then noticed the hostages are saved, the gunman are tied up, and noone can find out who did it.

    Trump, QA Trump would be like Manager. You know the worm fic. I can see Taylor being able to give others easy second Triggers, editing limits and restrictions, removing problems and adding benefits.

    ....any combination of these or something like them.... Scary let's go to Warhammer 40k for a vacation, please.
     
    Ack said:
    He now held a pair of gloves, neatly stitched, shading from crimson on the palm to rose gold on the back. "Here you are, Taylor," he said, handing them to the tall brunette. "These should be in your size."

    "Really, Zach?" she asked, even as she accepted them. "You don't have to give me every power you take from someone, you know."
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I'm starting to be reminded of The Keys to the Kingdom over here (specifically, Grim Tuesday's gauntlets). Does Eden count as the Architect? Who are the other five Key-holders? So many questions.
     
    Part Sixteen: Mining for Resources
  • Threadmarks
    • I'm HALPING!

    Part Sixteen: Mining for Resources

    [A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

    Brandish

    Carol poured hot water into the cup and stirred it to mix in the cocoa powder that was already in there. She added a splash of milk and a handful of mini-marshmallows, and stirred again. After repeating the procedure with a second cup, she picked them both up and took them back to where Amy was sitting on the sofa. "Here you go, honey."

    "Thanks, Mom." Amy smiled as she took the cup. "Ooh, peeps. I love these."

    "You're welcome." Carol playfully ruffled her daughter's hair as she sat down with her own cup. "You do understand that you're going to have to be more stringent with matters such as cleaning your teeth from now on, right? Your power isn't going to be there anymore to take care of little things like that."

    "Oh, man." Amy's face fell, just a little. Then her shoulders slumped as well as she looked up at her mother. "You noticed?"

    Carol smiled indulgently. "Honey, I'm the mother of two teenage girls. Vicky's always been a little slapdash, so I've had to sit on her a few times. I never had that problem with you, but about six months after you got your powers your bathroom prep times dropped off dramatically, with no increase in body odour or halitosis. I'm guessing you figured out how to make your power take care of things like that around then."

    "Yeah." Amy took a sip from her hot chocolate. "I was running late a few times, and I just did the best I could. I didn't reek afterward so I started experimenting, to see how much I could get away without doing."

    "Understood." Carol leaned back in her seat and sampled her own drink. It was pleasantly hot and sweet. "Well, you're going to have to unlearn all those bad habits now, I'm afraid. Teeth, proper application of soap, other body hygiene. Also, deodorant."

    Amy rolled her eyes. "Well, at least I won't be wearing that damn burqa anymore. I used to sweat so bad in that thing."

    "And then you trained your skin bacteria to deal with the by-products so you didn't actually smell bad afterward." Deciding to ignore the crack about the 'burqa', Carol raised her cup to Amy. "Nicely done, by the way. It's always gratifying to see someone using a power for something that doesn't involve violence or hurting people."

    "Talking of Vicky," Amy said, sounding a little cautious. "Where's she right now?"

    "Upstairs, in her room, sulking after I grounded her." Carol raised her eyebrows. "You're not allowed to tease her about it. She's already been punished enough."

    "Oh, I wasn't going to do that." From Amy's tone, she'd been thinking about it maybe a little, but now she wasn't. "Can I ask what she did to get grounded?"

    Carol thought about saying no, but it was clear that Amy was more responsible now, especially considering that she'd given up her powers willingly so that she wouldn't hurt anyone by accident with them in future. Besides, this actually involved Amy herself.

    "It was about Zachary taking away your powers, actually," she said. "For some reason, she seems to think Zachary has ulterior motives, and that he'd Mastered you into letting him remove your powers. When she insisted on maintaining this delusion in the face of all reason and logic, I had her come home with me instead of going back to Arcadia and possibly causing a scene."

    "Oh, wow." Amy shook her head with a surprised look on her face. "That's … well, she's been acting weird recently, so I shouldn't be surprised. And after the scene she made in the cafeteria, I really shouldn't be surprised. But …" She paused, then looked down at her hot chocolate. Clearly choosing to not say what was on her mind, she took another drink.

    "But what?" Carol absolutely wanted to know what Amy was holding back. "And what do you mean, acting weird?"

    Amy grimaced. "I don't want to get her in trouble, okay?"

    "Trust me, she's already in enough trouble," Carol assured her. "Spit it out."

    Still, Amy hesitated. She looked around the room, apparently not wanting to meet her mother's eyes, then finally sighed. "Okay. It's about Zach, as you can probably guess."

    "I hadn't guessed that, but things are becoming clearer now." Carol gestured with her mug. "Go on."

    So Amy began to tell her tale. To Carol, it was patently obvious that she was trying to ensure that nobody got unfairly blamed, whether it be Vicky or Zachary. Apart from that, the narrative more or less paralleled what Vicky had told her, though it filled in quite a few details that her birth daughter had 'inexplicably' left out.

    "So then Zach gave me and Taylor a lift home," Amy concluded. "Taylor made a funny, then you came out while we were still laughing. You know the rest."

    "Hmm." Carol considered the story, now that she had more in the way of details. "It's definitely unlike her to be so aggressive with a new cape, especially when it comes to things like feats of strength. You're saying Zachary didn't seem to hold a grudge?"

    "Not in the slightest." Amy shrugged. "She came across as a real bit- uh, really unpleasant when he started asking me if I was happy. But when she offered to arm-wrestle, he went with it. He totally could've told her to take a long walk off a short pier and I would've cheered him on, the way she was talking to him. And I'm pretty sure he used some sort of power to make sure nobody else saw her losing the contest."

    Carol nodded. That totally fit with what she knew of the young man. "And how easily would you say he beat her? All Vicky would say is that he cheated."

    "She would." Amy rolled her eyes and wrinkled her nose. "He had Vicky beat from the start. I mean, Vicky was straining like she was trying to lift Mount Rushmore, but he was letting her only move his hand a little bit at a time. Then he brought it back, with basically no effort at all, while talking to me. That got her even madder. She did not want him speaking to me, especially about being happy as a superhero."

    "Well, I'm sorry to hear that you weren't." Carol tilted her head. "So he really had no trouble winning? Vicky is very strong."

    "Yeah, she is. But he's a whole lot stronger." Amy shook her head and chuckled. "Should've seen her face. When he decided the contest was over, he just pushed her arm over like closing a book. She acted like such a sore loser about it all that I decided I was gonna talk to Zach and Taylor again whether she wanted me to or not."

    "And good for you," Carol said. "You're clearly happy with what you got out of it, so that's for the best."

    "Thanks, Mom." Amy cradled the cup in her hands and looked across at her. "You're actually taking this a lot better than I expected. Stopping being Panacea and all, I mean. I personally thought you'd be yelling at me, or even grounding me like Vicky."

    Carol waggled her free hand in the air. "Not having instant healing on tap will probably be at least a bit inconvenient, but New Wave and the Brigade got along for years before you came along, and we can learn to manage without you. So can the hospitals you were volunteering at. Let the doctors learn to do their jobs again." She tilted her head. "What were you thinking of doing with your life, now that being a professional superhero is no longer on the cards?"

    "Well, I'm not going to be any sort of medical professional, obviously." Amy punctuated her statement by taking a drink of her hot chocolate.

    "I'm not sure that it's all that obvious." Carol looked at her quizzically. "Even without your powers, you'd have the most complete intuitive understanding of how the human body works than basically anyone, ever."

    "Yes." Amy sighed heavily. "And sooner or later, I'd inevitably be stuck in the position of knowing my powers could've saved someone while they slip away right from under my hands. No thank you very much. I'm thinking of maybe going into the visual arts."

    "Drawing? Painting?" This was more than a little out of left field. "You've never shown any interest in that before."

    "Have I ever had the option?" Amy raised her eyebrows. "I'm thinking of maybe putting that intuitive understanding of the human body to use by illustrating how it can come apart in the worst possible ways. Horror movies and the like. Trust me, when it comes to that aspect, I have seen it all."

    Carol blinked. "Well, if that's what you want to do with yourself, I suppose." She leaned back in her seat to finish her drink. Despite it taking the loss of Panacea's powers (though they weren't gone forever, she reminded herself) she'd finally managed to heal the rift—that she hadn't even known was there!—between herself and Amy.

    Now, if only I can figure out how to get through to Victoria …

    <><>​

    Coil

    Thomas was getting close; he could almost feel it. Following the wordless directions from his ghastly co-pilot, he was wending his way through the back streets of a small town whose name he'd entirely missed. This was not a good part of town. Hell, this wasn't a good part of the state. But Zachary wanted him to be here, so he was here.

    Creep pointed at the side of the road, and Thomas obediently pulled over and parked. With the engine shut off, sounds suddenly seemed a lot louder. "Okay, I'm here," he said out loud. "What now?"

    "Phone," croaked Creep. "Camera."

    Okay, so he'd come all this way to take a photo of someone? He'd hoped that somewhere along the line he'd figure out what was going on, but that point had clearly not come yet. His phone was in his pocket, so he took it out to make sure he could activate the camera at a moment's notice.

    "Split." Creep pointed at the corner up ahead. "Go."

    Okay, so this was dangerous. Thomas had no problem with taking precautions. He divided the timeline and stepped out of the car in one of the lines. Leaving his other version trying hard to not look at Creep, he strolled along the sidewalk to the corner and stepped around it.

    In the instant before the Master effect overtook him, he recognised Valefor. Then his mind was a warm mush with no thoughts at all running through it.

    With an effort—Valefor's effect was doing its best to take over both of his instances—he dropped that timeline. For a moment he sat in the car, shaking from the close call. Then he reached under the seat and retrieved his pistol. So it's like that, is it?

    Again, he split time and climbed out of the vehicle. He took a moment to check chamber; brass showed, so he was good to go. Okay, let's try that again.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    I looked again at the gloves I was wearing. Even if I hadn't known what they really were, I would've thought they were cool and kind of stylish. Not something that I would normally be wearing. Or even be able to afford.

    But Zach had given them to me, so that was okay.

    "So what are we going to do now?" I looked at Zach, wondering how he wanted to top today's shenanigans. That he both could and would was a given. It was the how and what that I was curious about.

    He smiled at me in a way I was learning to recognise; a smile that said there was something both weird and interesting in store. We were either going to fix something or utterly fuck up some bad guy's day … or both. I was absolutely down with that.

    "We are going to meet a celebrity and a hero, and free both of them," he said happily. "Not many people will be happy with us, but it is the right thing to do."

    "Celebrity?" I frowned. "Hero? Free them? I don't understand." Was there a hero imprisoned somewhere I didn't know about?

    He beamed at me. "You will, Taylor. I know you will do the right thing. You are my hero."

    Not much could make me blush, but he managed it with those four words. "I'm no hero. I'm just me."

    "Yes, Taylor, and I am here to help you become the best you that you can be."

    Well, what could I say to that? Sorry, but you've got the wrong Taylor Hebert? The amount of faith Zachary had in me to be heroic was … humbling. It wasn't like I wanted to disappoint him.

    Not that I was sure I could. Whatever he wanted to do was basically what I would've done myself if I'd had the power at my fingertips that he did, and the information that he had access to. Our goals, broadly speaking, were in synch.

    Of course, there had been that rough patch where I'd had to talk him out of killing Emma and the others, but he'd taken my words to heart ever since. And even then, I couldn't put my hand on my heart and say that I hadn't wanted to kill them at least once or twice myself.

    "Well, okay then." I grinned and gave him a shrug. "I'll bite. How are we getting there?"

    "It is a little far to jump, so I will carry you and run, if you are comfortable with that," he said. "Then you will get us into the place we are going."

    I considered that. I'd seen him smack Assault all the way to Boston, and I figured he could jump that far easily, which meant he intended to go a whole lot farther. How much farther I couldn't be certain, but I knew one thing.

    I was with him to the end of the line.

    My grin widened. "Let's do this."

    <><>​

    Coil

    The corner was a left turn, so that was a bonus. Left-handed, Thomas activated the camera app on his phone and edged it around the corner, watching the screen. There they were, three of them. Valefor, a guy in jagged armour that he tentatively identified as Eligos, and a slender woman with long pale wispy hair-

    Heart thudding, he yanked the camera back around the corner, clenching his eyes shut and attempting to purge his mind of what he'd just seen. If he was correct, that had been her. Never named, never referred to except in the most oblique of terms. Matriarch of the Mathers branch of the Fallen. He'd only ever seen sketches of her, rendered by computer from images taken via remote cameras. Enough detail had been altered, it was hoped, that she couldn't connect back to those looking at the pictures.

    When it came to Masters, she was among the most terrifying of the lot … and the goddamn Simurgh was included in the list she was to be measured against. She was the sort of cape against whom the use of intercity missiles was recommended.

    If someone saw her, she could see through their eyes and control what they saw. If they heard her voice, she could hear what they heard and control their auditory input. And if they touched her … she could put them through the most horrifying agony at will and at range.

    While she couldn't force someone to do her bidding like a puppet, her power gave her a huge amount of leeway in dealing with people. Thomas suspected that even the bogeyman of bogeymen, Contessa herself, was unable to get close to the Mathers woman, unless she did so without ever directly thinking of her.

    And here he was, doing exactly that.

    As he registered that thought, he felt something else; a sensation of curiosity, as of someone looking around in a room they'd never been before.

    In his head.

    He dropped that timeline like a hot potato.

    Retrieving the pistol from under the seat (he didn't bother checking chamber this time) he got out of the vehicle. "Okay," he muttered to himself, more to focus his thoughts than anything else. "Valefor and Eligos. What do I have to do here?" It had to do with his phone camera, he knew that much.

    "Pictures," croaked Creep from the passenger seat. "Her."

    Thomas stared at him in abject horror. "You have got to be shitting me."

    Creep, it seemed, was not shitting him. "Send. Address."

    Right on cue, his phone beeped. Looking own, he saw an alert for an email. The sending address was one of his own throwaway accounts, because why the fuck not? In the body of the email was another email address.

    Now, he was more confused than ever. "Why? Who in God's name wants that?"

    But Creep had decided to be dead again; slumped in the passenger seat, his sunken eyes stared sightlessly at the windshield. Thomas wondered again if he was just an illusion (which would explain why nobody could see him) or if he was actually there and nobody else could see him.

    Clenching his eyes shut, he breathed out a long sigh, combining the word, "Fuuuuuuuuuuck," with it at the same time.

    Was this what it had been like for others when he was using his powers to push them around like pawns on a board? He was beginning to suspect he understood why Tattletale had never liked him. It was fun being the chessmaster, much less so as the playing piece. Especially since pawns were so often sacrificed.

    Phone in hand and pistol close down beside his thigh, he sidled up to the corner yet again. Fortunately, due to the strategic use of his power, the members of the Fallen had no way of knowing that he was there …

    … except for the fact that there were half a dozen people on the street, all of whom were visible to anyone around the corner, all looking at him. The fact that they'd seen the pistol was evident from the way they were backing away. Nobody said a word, but they didn't have to. He instinctively knew that she could see through their eyes, and that she knew he was there.

    In that instant, he knew he had to make a decision and make it quickly. Abort and retry with a new timeline, or just go for it?

    Long-ago lessons in officer training had impressed on him that there was never a 'perfect' time to attack the enemy. In fact, if the situation did appear perfect, there was probably a serious problem he had yet to discern. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, 'good enough' had to suffice.

    He slid the phone past the corner, eyes on the screen. The first thing he saw was a hand, reaching toward the lens, enormously foreshortened. Before he could react, the hand plucked the camera away from him and a head popped around the corner.

    "Hi!" said Valefor. "You need to—"

    Thomas brought up the pistol. If he was fast enough …

    He wasn't. His mind was a warm mush of no thought, no impetus. Nothing.

    "—drop the pistol."

    He dropped the pistol.

    Then, with an effort, he dropped that timeline.

    Looking out through the windshield, he saw the people who had betrayed him. They were clearly under the woman's—don't think about her!—influence. If he did anything suspicious, she would be alerted, then she would alert her subordinates. And all Valefor had to do was see him.

    Carefully, he took the pistol from under the seat and slid it into his waistband in the small of his back, where the fall of his jacket would conceal it. He wasn't a bulky man, but that should last long enough … he hoped. His job wasn't to shoot her, but to get a picture of her. Why? Worse, where was he sending it to? What unimaginable maniac would be okay with her getting into their head?

    A saying he'd heard long ago crossed his mind. Not my circus, not my monkeys. If that was what they wanted, and if the alternative was being tormented every step of the way, then he would get that damn picture.

    Taking a deep breath, he climbed out of the vehicle, yet again.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    Zach let me down onto my feet once more. I stood ankle-deep in snow, but with my jacket zipped all the way up, it didn't bother me as much as it should have. All around us, mountainous terrain climbed jaggedly into the sky.

    "Wow," I said, a long streamer of white vapour whipping away from my lips as I spoke. "Nice place if you like cold and desolate, but I'm guessing there's a reason you brought me here."

    "Yes, Taylor, there is." Zach smiled, quite clearly unbothered by the wind that was even now blowing my hair to one side. He pointed at one of the nearby mountains. "You need to teleport us into there. Precisely two thousand, one hundred and thirty-three feet from this location, at fifteen degrees from true north and five degrees upward elevation."

    I blinked behind my glasses. "I can't …" then trailed off. Behind my eyes, my teleport power had awoken and seemed to be processing his instructions. In another instant, I got the feeling that I knew exactly how to get there. "Um, maybe I can?"

    Zach beamed at me happily. "I knew you could do it, Taylor. I have faith in you."

    "Uh huh." I tried to ignore the rush of confidence this gave me. "Just one thing. Teleporting into the middle of solid rock isn't exactly conducive to ongoing health. Even I've read enough science fiction to know that one."

    "This is very true, Taylor. But we will not be teleporting into solid rock." His tone was entirely matter-of-fact. "Not that it would matter. I would still protect you."

    "Yes, yes you would." Because Zach was there to protect and help me. I was utterly sure about that by now. However, he'd given me the teleporting jacket, as opposed to keeping it himself. "So what's in there, if it's not a billion tons of granite?"

    "I could tell you, but that would spoil the surprise. Do you really want me to spoil the surprise?"

    He had an amazingly effective line in puppy-dog eyes. I tried to glare at him, then snorted in amusement. "No, I guess not. Okay, let's do this thing."

    Without moving my feet, I took Zach by the arm and held him close. The last thing I wanted to do was leave him behind while quite literally teleporting into the unknown. While I was fully aware of what my jacket could let me do, Zach's feats were far and away beyond that.

    Reaching inside, I connected to the teleport power and told it to send us to those coordinates. Just in case, I specified no flames for either departure or arrival. With everything in readiness, I triggered the power.

    We'd used this before, when we were clearing up the Boat Graveyard. Then, the teleport had been simple and effortless. This time around, it was as though we were twisting our way through a piece of cloth that was being wrung out by King Kong. But the power had muscle behind it, and forced us through anyway.

    After what seemed an eternity in transit (though Zach had always maintained it was less than a hundredth of a second) we popped back to reality again. When my vision cleared, we were inside what my frazzled brain initially defined as a nuclear survival bunker. Which I had not assumed we'd be finding. Much less an occupied one.

    I knew it was occupied because all around us, women were jumping to their feet. They all wore a variation on the same clothing; orange coveralls, with words stencilled onto the cloth. I couldn't see what the wording actually said, because most of it seemed to be on the sleeves (mainly rolled up) and their backs.

    It took me a moment or so to realise that the coveralls could also pass for prison wear. I clung tightly to Zach's arm, ready to teleport us out in an instant if things went sideways. Not that I thought Zack would lose, but there was no sense in antagonising these people for no good reason.

    "Hello, Lustrum!" said Zach heartily. "You are looking well. I am not here to attack you."

    <><>​

    Coil

    Okay then. Casual it is.

    Phone held casually in his left hand, right ready for a quick brush-and-draw of the firearm under his jacket, Thomas strolled once more up to the corner. If he stepped around the corner, Valefor would see him, and he'd be under the Master's control. But if he put the phone around the corner …

    There was one real problem with that solution.

    If he took the photo and sent it away without looking at it, he couldn't be certain that he'd gotten a photo of the person of interest. But if he did look, he would see her, and know who she was, and she'd know where he was. And for all he knew, she'd be able to look into his head and read his intentions. The briefings had never quite been able to pin that down about her.

    What if they'd turned aside? What if they weren't even in view when he took the photo?

    He hated not being certain about things.

    Just as he came up to the corner, Valefor stepped into view, not two yards away. Thomas reacted as fast as he knew how; with one hand he threw the phone, while with the other he pushed aside his jacket and dragged the pistol from its hiding place. Valefor, already turning toward Thomas, recoiled as the handset arced toward their face. They threw up their hands to ward it off, and that was all the time Thomas needed.

    The pistol came clear and swung into line just as Valefor batted the phone away, and Thomas fired without bothering to bring the pistol up to eye level. The first shot took the young man (or woman? PRT Intelligence were still unsure about that one) through the breastbone, and the second went into Valefor's mouth and blew out the back of their head.

    Well aware that he'd utterly fucked up the mission—but it wasn't really his fault if he'd been shoved into a no-win situation from the beginning, was it?—Thomas turned to run.

    He got all of ten feet.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    As the maternal-looking woman waved a hand in response to Zach's words, I blinked and looked around at the people around us. Lustrum was a name I knew; parahuman leader of a feminist movement that bordered on cult-level loyalty, she had been sentenced to the Birdcage when some of her people had begun mutilating and murdering men.

    I didn't know for certain whether she'd given the orders, or even known it was about to happen. Every group like that has its extremists, the people who are willing to push things way further than originally intended.

    But that wasn't the important bit. The important bit was that Lustrum was in the Birdcage. Which meant that Zach and I were in the Birdcage.

    Why were we in the Birdcage?

    "Zach?" I asked quietly.

    "There is a good reason for this," he assured me, just as quietly.

    At almost exactly the same time, Lustrum spoke up. "If you're not here to attack us, boy, then I'm going to assume you have a really good reason for intruding on our space. I'm listening." Her arms were folded, which told me that she wasn't fully convinced we were worth listening to.

    "Yes, ma'am. There is a good reason," he said politely. "I am here to offer each of you a way out of here. I will also be extending this offer to the men in the Birdcage, but I chose to come to your side first."

    Lustrum's arms relaxed from their taut posture at his words. I was a little impressed, even though I'd seen his diplomatic capabilities before. Still, we were a long way from what I would consider as 'secure'. Also, what the hell? Letting people out of the Birdcage?

    "You're saying that each of us can leave here, free and clear?" Lustrum tilted her head. "I have trouble believing that. There's always a quid pro quo. What's your price for our freedom?"

    "Oh, no," Zach explained patiently. "I did not say it was free and clear. You are correct in presuming the existence of a quid pro quo. My price is your powers. Allow me to take your powers and I will arrange passage from the Birdcage."

    Whew. That made a lot more sense than just letting a few hundred hardcore villains back into society. A hard bargain, sure, but totally fair, as far as I was concerned.

    For a moment, Lustrum stared at him, then she let out a bark of laughter. "You nearly had me convinced, boy. Take our powers? Glaistig Uaine's the only cape who can do that, and it's a death sentence for whoever it happens to."

    I raised one finger as if I were still in class at Winslow. "Ahh … ma'am? Ms Lustrum? That's actually not the case. I've seen him take powers from several capes, and they were still alive and well afterward."

    She turned her head slightly, as if noticing my existence for the first time. I wasn't exactly surprised; when he needed to, Zach could command all the attention. "And you are?" she asked with a lift of her eyebrows.

    "Uh, Taylor Hebert, ma'am. My mother was one of your people, back in the day. Before all …" I waved my hand at the concrete structure around us. "… this."

    "Hm." She gave me a nod of recognition. "And how is she now?"

    I grimaced. "She passed away a couple of years ago. Car accident. But she always said she didn't think you deserved the Birdcage."

    "I'm sorry to hear that." Her tone softened by a few degrees. "So what are you doing, running around with this pretty boy? I know the type; all promise, no follow through."

    Taking a deep breath, I squared my jaw, as much as I was able anyway. "And there you'd be wrong, ma'am. He's always done exactly what he's promised. He's been there for me over and over again, and asked nothing in return."

    "Really." A world of cynicism rode on that word. "He'll let you down, in the end. They always do."

    "Not this one." I made my tone as firm as hers, and tugged the Idiot Ball from my pocket. "See this? If I hit you with it, it'll take away your powers until I decide to let you have them back. And that's just the temporary version."

    "Oh, so you're a cape too." But she kept her eyes warily on the brightly coloured ball. "Physical manifestations of a cape power are nothing new."

    "I'm not a cape." I wondered privately how many people I was going to have to explain this to. "This is a power Zach took from Animos." I waited expectantly for her to recognise the name.

    "I don't know who that is, kid." Her expression was beginning to close down again. "Maybe if you came in with something a bit more impressive, like Jack Slash's knife power?"

    "I can't." My response was automatic. "Zach killed off the Nine, just the other day. Jack Slash included."

    That got everyone's attention.

    "The Slaughterhouse Nine? Am I supposed to believe that pretty-boy here wiped them out?" Lustrum gave a snort of laughter. "With what? The power of Axe body spray?"

    "A PRT van," I responded flatly. "He threw it, from fifteen hundred miles away. I was there. I saw the whole thing."

    Lustrum blinked, then looked more carefully at Zach. "Okay then, boy. There's clearly more to you than meets the eye. But I'm going to need more than just the word of some stranger. Mcabee!"

    Slowly, hesitantly, a woman stood forth from the group in the common room. She hadn't been among those who had surged forward, and she was in the same drab coveralls as the rest, but I recognised her anyway. Paige Mcabee, otherwise known as Bad Canary, or just Canary for short. The yellow feathers growing through her equally blonde hair kind of sealed the deal.

    Some advocacy group had apparently attempted to secure an injunction to let her have her say in court. The presiding judge had responded by pushing her trial through and committing her to the Birdcage before it could be implemented. It had made the news for a few days then faded away, as usual.

    "Y-yes?" she asked. Her voice was startlingly melodious. I'd heard it before, listening to one of her songs on the radio, but it was always amazing to hear it again.

    "Girlie there's gonna tag you with her little rubber ball," Lustrum ordered. "You tell me if you've still got powers. Then she's gonna give 'em back, and we'll see what's what."

    I glanced sideways at Zach, unsure if this was the way he wanted things to go. He gave me an encouraging nod.

    Lustrum turned to look at me. "I'd tell you to smack pretty boy with the ball, but I can tell even from here that's a no-show. Either you wouldn't do it, or it wouldn't work on him."

    "It absolutely wouldn't work on him," I confirmed. "Or on me. And I could bounce it off everyone here, and it would only work on the people I meant it to."

    "Yeah, yeah, bullshit powers are bullshit." She gestured toward Canary. "Whenever you're ready."

    I didn't want to be cruel toward Canary. She'd never done a thing to me, after all, and I thought her singing was amazing. So I aimed to bounce it off her shoulder. It would come back to me no matter how I threw it, but I didn't want to give too much away. Aiming at the floor between us, I threw the ball lightly. It hit the spot I'd designated and bounced upward, aiming directly toward Canary's shoulder.

    And then space folded in odd ways, and a young teen girl wearing what looked like a blackened shroud appeared, right between me and Canary. The ball bopped her on the forehead and arced back toward me. I instinctively sent the signal for it not to activate, but I felt an override push the power through anyway. With a most undignified yelp, the girl fell on her backside as the ball smacked into my palm.

    The mass inhalation of shocked breath stood fair to lower the air pressure in the room by a significant amount, or maybe that was just my imagination. Lustrum, unsurprisingly, was the first to recover.

    "Glaistig Uaine?" she asked doubtfully. "Are you … alright?"

    <><>​

    Coil

    Thomas came to with a feeling that something wasn't right. He was sitting in the car, with Creep lounging in the passenger seat. But that wasn't what was wrong.

    The real problem was that Valefor was leaning in the passenger-side window, a shit-eating grin on their face. And the woman herself was right in Thomas's face, leaning in the driver's side window. Eligos was lounging against the bumper, clearly trying to be intimidating, but falling behind the other two by a long way.

    "Hello," purred the wispy-haired woman. "I'm Christine Mathers. Most call me Mama. And you are?"

    He reached for the other timeline, but it wasn't there. It must have dropped when Mama Mathers made him run smack into the wall. Motherfucking shitballs. No fallbacks. "Strike Squad Commander Thomas Calvert, PRT East-North-East," he heard himself answer before he could put a lock on his tongue. "Also, the supervillain Coil." What the living fuck?

    "Oh, I'm sorry," said the androgynous villain, not sounding sorry in the slightest. "I've given you a few basic commands. Don't lie to Mama. Do what Mama says. Always tell Mama the full truth. Only talk if it's to answer one of us. Don't try to hurt Mama. Don't use any powers unless we say you can. Things like that." The smug look on their face could've rivalled Tattletale at her most aggravating.

    "I was curious about what a stranger in town was doing sitting in a car for five minutes straight, staring at the corner I was fixing to come around," Mama Mathers said. "So we thought we'd come and check you out. But you're PRT and a villain? That's interesting. Real interesting. Were you here to pop me off, or try to arrest me?"

    "Neither," he said willingly enough. "I was told to take a picture of you and email it to a particular address."

    Mama shared a glance with Valefor. "Take … a picture of me? Really? And who told you to do this?"

    "Creep," said Thomas. "He's a dead man who's been following me around for the last few days."

    Valefor looked at him, and Thomas felt his mind dissolve into warm goo. "I told you to be totally truthful with Mama," said the echoing voice.

    All of a sudden, he was back in his own head again. "I am telling you the truth," he protested. "Creep told me to do that."

    "And where's this Creep now?" Mama Mathers, at least, seemed fine with this idea.

    Thomas glanced at the passenger seat, which was where he'd last seen the body-bag-clad corpse. Creep was no longer there. Then he turned his head to look into the back seat. He wasn't there, either. "I … have no idea. He was right here just a few minutes ago. Dead guy, hole in forehead, wearing a body bag. You really couldn't have missed him."

    Mama huffed a sigh. "Someone's messing with your head."

    Thomas thought that was hugely ironic for her to say, but that wouldn't be an answer, so he couldn't say it out loud.

    She then pointed at his phone, which was sitting on his lap. "You were going to take my picture with that?"

    "Yes," he confirmed. "Creep said, 'Pictures. Her. Send. Address.' And then the address popped up on the phone." He opened the email page and showed them the address as given.

    "The address it was sent from, who owns that?" Mama's eyes narrowed.

    Thomas shrugged. "I do. It's one of my throwaways. But I didn't send the email."

    "Someone thinks they're being smart," sniped Valefor.

    "They always do." Mama smiled, the expression sending chills down Thomas' back. "Take your pictures and let me see."

    "Alright." Thomas activated the camera and held it up so that her face was framed neatly on the screen. Then he took three pictures, the electronic click audible each time. He called the images up, and showed them to her.

    "Nice." She nodded decisively. "Send them."

    "Yes." He opened his email account, placed the appropriate address at the top, and imported the three photos. Then he sent them away. After a few moments, the phone dinged. "It says they got there."

    Mama Mathers smiled again.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    "Who dares?" demanded the girl on the floor. "The Faerie Queen will have your … uh …"

    She paused as she flounced to her feet; I hadn't thought it was possible to flounce while wearing a shroud, but live and learn. However, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that everyone was staring at the girl, with varying degrees of shock and surprise.

    "Sorry," I said hastily. "I was aiming at Canary, honest. You just got in the way."

    "That's not the issue." Lustrum was rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Faerie Queen, where are your faeries? Why are you standing on the floor? Why are you using just one voice to speak?" She paused. "Do you still, in fact, have your powers?"

    While everyone was distracted and waiting for the answer, I gave Zach a glare and a discreet elbow to the ribs. The only person who could've overridden my choice on the ball was him, and we both knew it. But why would he want to depower Glaistig Uaine … oh.

    "It's the powers, isn't it?" I hissed under my breath. "You want all her powers."

    "Well, yes," he murmured in return. "She is not using them responsibly. The powers she has stolen still retain the personalities of their original users. Under her, they are enslaved; still conscious."

    I blinked. That was a distinct revelation. Also, deeply horrifying. "Wait, did you just manoeuvre me into this position so this would happen? How did you even manage that?"

    He smiled blandly. "My sister is very good at what she does."

    Well, that was actually true. He had an extremely valid point. I just wished he'd warn me first about that sort of thing.

    Glaistig Uaine stalked up to me, managing to make the motion both effortless and menacing. "You will return to Me that which you have stolen," she hissed, loudly enough that the words could be clearly heard in the silence. "Delay in this and My wrath will be endless." I was quite impressed at the way she could interject capitals into her speech.

    For a moment, I considered doing as she said. Then common sense took over, along with the understanding that Zach and his sister had planned the whole thing. "Or not," I said. "I've taken your powers once—by accident, sure, but I still took them. What happens the moment I return them? You try to kill me, to ensure I don't do it again." I tilted my head toward Zach. "And then he has to take a hand, and then maybe one or two of the ladies here decide to step in on one side or the other, and he takes your powers away anyway, and it gets really messy after that. So … no. Let's not fight, and say we did."

    She actually stamped her foot in anger. "They are My powers!" she shrieked. "Give them back!" With a sudden dart forward, she reached for the hand that held the Idiot Ball. Not entirely surprising, but it was getting a little tiring.

    I intercepted her grab with my own hand, wrapping around both her wrists at once. (I have long fingers. Comes with being tall and skinny, I guess). With the Butcher's accumulated strength, I had zero problem in levering her away from me, then I started paying attention to the information flowing in from the glove holding her. Almost absently, I triggered a calming burst in her mind to stop her from trying to pull free.

    "Whoa …" I said softly, then handed the Idiot Ball to Zach so I could pay full attention to the teenager who had once been the most terrifying cape on Earth. There was an original personality there, but it was utterly buried under layers and layers of what I could only describe as neural scarring. If this was the doing of her powers, and I couldn't think of what else could be responsible, then they had a lot to answer for.

    "What do you see, Taylor?" Zach's voice was soft.

    "Damage." My voice was flat and hard. "Can you make the removal permanent, like right now? I need to fix this."

    "I can do that, Taylor." He placed the Idiot Ball in midair and left it there, then started pulling strings from it, spreading them into diaphanous sheets that he collected in large bundles. Flickering shapes began to surround him, vanishing into the bundled sheets.

    In the meantime, I applied myself to fixing what I saw. The gloves gave me the information that I needed, when I needed it, allowing me to analyse the damage and figure out the best way to repair her mind. In the end I decided that reversion was probably the best idea. I'd leave her with the vague knowledge that she'd been Glaistig Uaine but none of the details. The 'Faerie Queen' personality could go on the ash heap, replaced by who she'd been before.

    Amy had been right. Fixing brains was easy. Fortunately, I didn't have the ongoing urge to keep fixing things. But it actually took less time to deal with the damage than it had to decide how to deal with it. Stripping away the neural damage, I reverted her personality to what it had been before she'd gotten powers.

    "And we have our first contender," I announced. "No powers, mental balance restored, ready to rejoin society. Any more takers?"

    Zach was still in the process of bundling up the collected powers—I'll say this; she'd definitely been an overachiever in that regard—when a phone pinged in his pocket. Which was really odd. I hadn't thought of him as a cell-phone kind of guy.

    "Ah," he said. "Could you hold this, please, Taylor?"

    "Sure." I took the weirdly weightless mass of abstract concepts and cradled it carefully with one hand while keeping the former Faerie Queen comforted with the other. "I didn't know you had a phone."

    "I did not," he agreed. "My sister loaned it to me." He took the handset from his pocket and activated it. "Oh, good." An email opened, and I saw a picture of a woman. Zach shut the phone down again. "Perhaps you should not have seen that, Taylor."

    "Why not? Who is she?" This was the first secret that Zach hadn't just blurted out in front of me.

    "Her name is Christine Mathers," he explained. "Among the Fallen, she is known as Mama. She has just attempted to contact my consciousness using her power. It will be quite a useful addition to my repertoire."

    I blinked. "Right."

    <><>​

    Coil

    "The question is, what do I do with you now?" Mama Mathers looked Thomas in the eye. "You're totally loyal to me, but you can still screw up. What is your power?"

    There was no choice but to answer. "I can split the timelines and choose the best one out of the two."

    She glanced around. "This can't be the best choice you have. What happens when you pick one?"

    Thomas shrugged. "I drop the other one. But there is no other one. I had just dropped one when you encountered me. This is it, for me."

    "I see." She gave him a calculating look. "Who is giving you your orders? Above this imaginary Creep, I mean."

    "I don't know." It was true. He didn't know for a fact, though he had his suspicions.

    She reached in through the window and laid her hand on his arm. Almost immediately, fire bloomed through every nerve ending. A few seconds later, she let it stop. "How much of that can you stand?" she asked sweetly.

    "It's Zachary!" he blurted. "It has to be! Nobody else fits the profile!"

    "Really?" she murmured. "I might have to—"

    Her words cut off and she fell to the ground with a strangled scream. Thrashing back and forth aimlessly with her eyes rolled back up into her head, she appeared to have gone into a grand mal seizure. Froth gathered at the corners of her mouth.

    "Mama!" Valefor began to rush to her side.

    Thomas took the opportunity to reach under his seat and retrieve the pistol. Leaning awkwardly out the window, he shot Valefor in the face. But that still left Eligos. He hadn't seen the wind-manipulating cape in a little while, which meant he could literally be anywhere.

    A rhythmic thumping from the rear passenger quarter of the vehicle drew his attention, so he looked in the rear-vision mirror. And there was Creep, smashing Eligos' head against the side of the car, over and over again.

    Holy shit, he's actually real.

    Thomas got out of the car and looked down dispassionately at Mama Mathers' convulsing body. He didn't know exactly what had happened to her, but he could make an educated guess. "Enjoy," he said, and kicked her in the face as hard as he could. He would've done more, but he didn't want to piss off Zachary.

    Then he paused, as Creep shuffled around from behind the vehicle. "Please tell me I can kill her."

    The dead eyes settled on the supine woman, then back to Thomas. "No."

    Rolling his eyes, Thomas got back in the car and drove away.

    The heady taste of triumph was tempered with the knowledge that while Mama Mathers was almost certainly out of the game, Zachary was in no way done with him.



    End of Part Sixteen
     
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    • Part Seventeen: Exacerbating the Chaos
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    • I'm HALPING!

    Part Seventeen: Exacerbating the Chaos

    [A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

    Cauldron Base

    Alexandria

    The conga line was the first thing that got Rebecca's attention.

    She frowned and turned her head as the line of college students danced past her office doorway. Her typing speed—a thousand words per minute, with her specially constructed keyboard—slowed by perhaps ten percent, as she concentrated on trying to figure out where the living fuck they'd come from. No answers came to mind, so she finished the paragraph, saved the file, then got up from the computer.

    Out in the corridor, the line had passed by, and was just disappearing around the corner. Music was also coming from that direction. Looking the other way, she saw Doctor Mother, peering out of her own office. From the expression on her face, the director of the Cauldron facility was equally confused about exactly what was going on. Rebecca didn't bother asking; she just set out in pursuit of the dancers.

    She could've been a lot more direct and brutal in finding out where they'd come from, but this was Cauldron Base. Either they were a lot more powerful than they looked, or she had nothing to worry about.

    They turned a corner in the stark white hallway, and immediately determined that one of the lesser-used conference rooms was where they needed to go. The music was above normal conversational levels in the corridor, which meant that it would be considerably louder within. It was a popular blend of heavy metal and rock with a touch of jazz; a heavy pounding beat that could be felt all the way through the body, matched with guitar and saxophone to give it explosive life. Any lyrics were either indecipherable or simply drowned out by the bass line.

    Reaching forward, Rebecca pushed the door open.

    There was indeed a party going on in this room. A single long table had been stacked up with bottles of every type of alcohol Rebecca had ever heard of, including a few she'd never had the opportunity to try. Someone had attached a bunch of laser pointers to the ceiling fans, and they swung back and forth, lighting up the room with a multitude of different colours as the fans slowly turned overhead. Along one wall was a huge banner reading, "DING DONG THE BITCH IS DEAD!" while on another was, "ROT IN HELL YOU PATH BREAKING COW!". The third wall held yet another banner, which read, "ZACH THE ENDBRINGER APPRECIATION SOCIETY".

    The conga line had dissolved into its component parts; those who were dancing, those who were drinking, and (in some cases) those who were making out in the corners of the room. Rebecca ignored all of these, and fixated on the one person she recognised, who was gyrating in the middle of the room, chugging from a bottle of one-hundred-fifty-year-old Scotch like it was so much coloured water. She had no idea what was going on, but she was going to find out.

    "Doorway to wherever these people came from," she muttered. The portal formed at the far end of the room, but everyone seemed to ignore it. Then she strode over to the high-end sound system and pressed the 'Off' button. The music died away. A general groan of disappointment filled the room, but she ignored it and rose into the air.

    "Party's over," she announced, putting all the authority she had into those two words. Pointing toward the Doorway, she added, "Out."

    Mutters of resentment followed her order, but nobody actually defied her. They shuffled toward the portal, more than one grabbing a bottle from the table. She held her position, arms folded, expression stern, until the last one vanished through the Doorway. Once it blinked out of existence, she drifted down to the one person left behind.

    "Okay, Contessa," she said to the gently swaying Cauldron enforcer. "Would you mind telling me what the fuck is actually going on here?"

    Contessa blinked owlishly at her, then took a swig from the bottle she was holding. "Mama Math'rs is gone from th' Path," she slurred, then hiccupped. "She's not fuckin' me up anymore. So much easier now. Fuck 'er. Fuck th' Fallen. Fuck 'em all." She belched then, expensive whiskey fumes spreading through the room. "Celebratin'. Li'l party. Hav'drink. Let y'r hair down. Unclench those asscheeks."

    Sighing, Rebecca pinched the bridge of her nose. "You are far too drunk to talk to right now. Go and get cleaned up, then get yourself to bed. We'll talk more when—"

    Contessa belched again, and her eyes crossed. Then she threw up on Rebecca's boots.

    <><>​

    Baumann Parahuman Detention Center

    Taylor

    While the assembled female supervillains (for a given definition of 'villain', in Canary's case at least) goggled at us, Zach handed the phone to me and reclaimed the bundle of powers. He glanced at the Idiot Ball; it fell from where he'd left it, bounced on the concrete floor, and rebounded to shoulder height. Again, and again, and again.

    Well, I'd known it was no ordinary ball to begin with. It was amazing how intimidated the ladies around us were by it. Also probably by Zach and me too, now that I came to think about it. We'd just casually depowered none other than Glaistig Uaine, and he was working to shape those powers like a potter with his clay.

    "I've done bad things, haven't I?" The girl looked up at me. "When I was … her."

    "'fraid so, kiddo," I responded absently. "But that wasn't you. Most of it was what your powers did to you. What's your name, anyway?"

    "Ciara," she said, and yanked the shroud off her head. "What's yours?"

    "Pleased to meet you, Ciara. I'm Taylor, and this is Zach," I said. "He's kind of an Endbringer, and my best friend." I indicated where Zach had a bunch of not-quite-defined items orbiting his head now, while the Idiot Ball bounced up and down, up and down. "He's pretty cool."

    "Well, that explains a great deal," Lustrum observed from the sidelines. I had to give her credit for not running and hiding, but I suspected Zach had something to do with that too. "I look at him, all I see is a pretty boy, but at the same time something deep down is screaming at me to not screw with him in any way possible. And you spend a lot of time with him?"

    I nodded cheerfully. "Yeah. Ever since he saved me from some bullies at school, Dad's been letting him sleep on the sofa. Nobody else has managed to mess with me since. He's really, really good at removing any potential threat to my life or happiness."

    The matronly woman shook her head slowly. "Makes me wish I'd gotten to know your mom better. You're a whole lot braver than me, kid."

    "Braver?" I rolled my eyes. "Oh, please. He's just a big teddy-bear. Aren't you, Zach?"

    "I am if you wish me to be, Taylor." Zach beamed at me. "I have more things for you."

    "Aww, you're too thoughtful. But you know, I can't wear two jackets or hats or something at once." I looked to see what he'd done with the powers.

    "That is true, Taylor. I have made you a scarf, and a hairband, and a winter hat, and two bracelets, and a necklace, and new glasses." As he spoke, he handed me these things one at a time. I put them on, that being the easiest way to free up my hands for the next one. By the time he'd finished kitting me out, I didn't actually feel all that encumbered, and he'd somehow managed to colour-coordinate everything ('somehow', my ass. The Simurgh was absolutely involved there) so that I looked stylish as hell.

    Also, the glasses (I stowed the old ones inside my jacket) gave me even better vision than before. They were amazing.

    "Wow, this is all very nice, Zach. Thank you." And it was. Whatever the powers had been like before he'd gotten hold of them, they were polite and well-mannered, waiting at the back of my mind to be called upon. "Though this can't be everything. You're keeping the rest?"

    "Oh, I have access to all those powers and more now," he reminded me brightly, then handed me a small black diary, the sort that had a pen clipped into the spine. "Here are the remainder of them. Open this book to the correct page and clip the pen to it, and the power will be available to you. There is an index in the front."

    I blinked and opened it. Every girl needed a little black book, after all. Despite apparently being made of paper, the index turned out to be scrollable, like a phone. When I tapped one particular power—pyrokinesis—the pages fluttered until the book was open at that page. I found that pulling the pen partway out of the spine and pushing it in again clipped it to that page. Awareness of my new power popped into my head. Holding up my hand, I snapped my fingers (despite wearing gloves) and generated a small flame dancing above my thumb. After a few moments, during which time I felt no heat on my thumb, I cancelled the flame.

    Pulling out the pen again, I felt the pyrokinesis go away. The book closed of its own accord and I pushed the pen back into the spine, then carefully slid the book into my pocket. "Thank you, Zach," I said, giving him a hug. "You give me the nicest presents. Though I'm wondering why you gave me the phone. Did you want me to look at the pictures after all?"

    "You are welcome, Taylor." Zach gave me one of his patented smiles, the type that lit the whole room up. "No, I gave it to you so that you can call your father and let him know that you are alright. We do not want him to worry about you."

    And that was Zach all over, thoughtful as usual. "Thank you," I said again, and called up the phone app. Dad's work number was saved in there (of course) and I tapped it. It had been awhile since I'd used a phone, but it was like riding a bicycle. The interface was a lot smoother these days, I had to admit.

    The phone on the other end was picked up. "Hello?" I was very impressed. Most calling plans probably didn't have access to Brockton Bay from the Birdcage, but the signal was as clear as a bell.

    "Hi, Dad," I said chattily. "Zach just loaned me his phone so I could call you up and let you know we're doing okay."

    "That's nice of him." He paused, and asked more slowly, "So … do I want to know where you are, that he thinks you should call home and reassure me?"

    Dad was definitely on the ball today. "Well, please don't freak, but we're in the Birdcage."

    When he spoke again, Dad's voice was still calm, though there was a slight edge to it. "You know, Taylor, this connection must be a little wonky. I'm sure I just heard you say that you were in the Birdcage."

    In for a penny, in for a pound. "Well, that is where we are," I said. "But it's okay. The only one to get aggressive with us was Glaistig Uaine, and Zach took her powers away and gave them to me." It was a somewhat abbreviated version of the actual events, but basically true.

    "Well, I'm glad to hear that he's still on form. Please don't do anything that might make the government too mad at you, okay? I'm really starting to enjoy our family nights together again. Also, please thank Zach for renovating the ferry station and the ferry itself."

    "I'll definitely do that, Dad. I'll tell you all about it when we get home tonight."

    "Said my teenage daughter from inside the Birdcage." Dad chuckled a little hollowly. "Take care, okay?"

    "Absolutely." I ended the call, then shoved the phone in my pocket. "Dad said to say thanks for the ferry and the station, by the way."

    "Your father is very welcome." Zach turned to the inmates who had been watching us cautiously; possibly wondering what we were going to do next. "I am sorry to have kept you waiting, ladies. Which of you is willing to give up your powers so that you may leave the Birdcage?"

    Lustrum tilted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing. "I'm going to presume that you're not working with the authorities, and any deal we make with you doesn't include automatic immunity from being grabbed up and sentenced to an ordinary prison. Correct?"

    "That is entirely true," Zachary confirmed cheerfully. "Though I am sure that with the right lawyer, you may be able to parlay the fact that you have voluntarily given up your powers to reduce your sentence to time served. Of course, that is between you and your lawyer."

    "They'd just probably shove me straight back in here, powers or no powers." It was Canary, her voice utterly gorgeous even though she was speaking more quietly than everyone else. "I never got to speak at my first trial. That judge decided I was going into the Birdcage, even though I hadn't broken the three strikes rule. When people protested, he fast-tracked the trial and had me sentenced here in days, not months. My lawyer did nothing at all for me. I'm probably better off staying in here."

    My heart nearly broke at the desolation in her tone. I'd been shit on myself enough times to recognise the signs of it happening to someone else. If the authorities had failed me when it came to Emma, Sophia and Madison, they'd utterly screwed Canary. With me it had been malignant neglect; with her, malicious bigotry.

    "Hey," I said, and crossed the floor to her. "Hey, hey. Come here. It's all right. Come on."

    She looked up doubtfully as the other women stepped away from my approach. I wrapped her in a hug, expressing all the emotion I'd felt when I wished someone could do this for me.

    Before Zach had done just that, of course.

    Slowly, her arms crept around me and she leaned into the hug. I caught the suspicion of a sob into my shoulder, and held her more tightly. "It's okay," I murmured. "It's gonna be okay." Half-turning my head, I caught Zach's eye. "It is going to be okay, isn't it, Zach?"

    "Oh, yes, Taylor. It is going to be okay for Ms Mcabee." Zach beamed at the both of us. "My sister has assured me of that."

    "And there you have it." I gently disengaged from Canary and put my hands on her shoulders. "See? Zach's got it totally under control."

    She blinked back tears. "But what can he do? The legal system doesn't stop being the legal system."

    "That is very true." Zach never lost his bright, cheerful tone. "But the legal system is made of people, and people can be persuaded. I can be extremely persuasive if I choose to be."

    I snorted. "Yeah, that's one word for it. Making grown men wet themselves and run away screaming just by saying 'boo' is showing off, in my opinion."

    Zach seemed amused rather than offended. "You will admit that I was very persuasive with Kaiser and the Empire Eighty-Eight. They all turned themselves in when I asked them to."

    "For an extremely broad interpretation of 'asking', yeah, sure." I rolled my eyes, then looked over at Canary. "Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying he can't get it done. I just think he's underselling what it is he does."

    A tall woman stepped forward. Despite her height, her extreme muscular development made her look almost stocky. I made a mental bet with myself that she was a Brute of some kind. "And what is that, exactly?" she asked suspiciously.

    Zach smiled at her. "This," he said.

    Five seconds passed, during which time Lustrum's eyes widened, the muscle-woman's face went dead white, and every other woman there stood stock-still, staring in horror. They didn't move an inch, as if rooted to the ground with pure terror. The only two who were apparently spared the show (apart from myself) were Ciara and Canary.

    Zach apparently made no extraneous moves, but Lustrum blinked, and everyone else swayed backward where they stood. "Are you satisfied that I can do what I say?" he asked with his same upbeat tone.

    Lustrum swallowed convulsively. "Uh … yes? Please don't do that again … whatever that was." Despite the temperature being a little on the cool side, sweat was sheening her face.

    "That was a reflection of my true self," Zach explained guilelessly. "As Taylor explained, I am technically an Endbringer. My entire being revolves around making Taylor happy and keeping her safe. I believe that bringing those of you who do not deserve to be here or who have served your sentences out of the Birdcage would make her happy. Therefore, that is what we are doing today."

    "I'm not doubting any of that," Lustrum said. "But I'm not seeing how you're going to take us out of here. Or are you going to teleport us out, like you teleported her in?"

    "Oh, that was not me." Zach gestured to me. "It was Taylor who teleported us in. But no, we will not be teleporting you out. Those who wish to leave will be able to take the staircase."

    A few moments of silence passed, then Lustrum asked. "What staircase?"

    "Oh, I am sorry." Zach flared his hand apologetically. "I have yet to install it." He lifted his left foot.

    I knew exactly where this was going, and braced myself. His foot came down, making the floor shake far more than it really should have. The vibrations echoed through the entire structure, shaking dust down from the roof. As the quivering ceased, I saw carpet where the floor had been dirty bare concrete before.

    "Remodelling, Zach?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

    "Why not?" he asked, and brought his foot down again. The vibrations were more intense and lasted longer this time; when they eased off, the walls were panelled in wood, and the chairs were padded and comfortable rather than utilitarian metal and plastic. His foot came down a third time, and the raw concrete ceiling gave way to moulded architraves, the harsh fluorescent lights replaced by softly glowing lamps behind stylish covers as well as an overhead chandelier.

    On the fourth and last time, there was a resounding crack at the far end of the room, and a pair of ornate wooden doors with golden handles emerged from the cloud of resulting dust. A red carpet, trimmed in gold, led up to it. The carpet was flanked by two rows of bollards, supporting a velvet purple rope along each side.

    "That staircase," Zach said, gesturing toward the doors. "It is behind those doors. Of course, to get through the doors, you must be considered worthy by Taylor and surrender your power to me."

    "I'm pretty sure I won't make the cut," Lustrum said pragmatically, "but how are you going to determine who does? Look in our eyes? There's a lot of people in other cell-blocks who are really good at lying."

    "I understand why you had to say that, Lustrum." Zach's expression was not unkind. "We both know that there are liars here in your cellblock as well. But Taylor will not be attempting to use her own understanding of the world in this. The glasses that I gave her will enable her to determine the quality and worthiness of a person, and from that she will be able to reach her judgement."

    That was news to me. I took the glasses off and stared at them. The make was superior, and they fitted my face like it they'd been constructed that way … which of course they had. But being able to judge the worth of another person by them? That was definitely something I had to think about.

    "Uh, whose power did you put in the glasses?" I asked.

    "No one specific person," he answered, as though it was obvious. "But there were several with Thinker abilities of one sort or another, so I separated them out and wove them together."

    "Oh. Okay, then." I looked at Canary and concentrated on my glasses. One of the powers lurking in the back of my head woke up and flowed forth. All of a sudden, I knew a whole lot more about her than I had before. More than I was truly comfortable with, to be honest. "Paige Mcabee," I said awkwardly. "Did … uh, did you mean to hurt your boyfriend?"

    A lot of things happened within her body all at once. Some were emotional, some were physical, and some spanned the divide between. None were visible, save through my glasses.

    She shook her head definitively. "No," she said. "I didn't. I just wanted him to go away. They didn't even mention at the trial that he cheated on me."

    While I was no expert, that sounded pretty truthful to me. But then, to put the icing on the cake, the glasses actually popped up a readout in the corner of the lens:

    99.417% TRUTH

    0.583% UNCERTAIN

    "No, they didn't," I said. "They should have." I took a deep breath. "If, uh, you had the chance to hurt the people who put you in here … would you?"

    "No … uh, no," she said, and I figured she was being mostly truthful. This time, the readout went:

    87.436% TRUTH

    4.193% LIE

    8.370% UNDECIDED

    I paused, thinking. "What if we had the conviction overturned, your money and stuff given back, that sort of thing?" Because if anyone could pull that off, Zach could.

    "Would a lawsuit for mental anguish count as trying to hurt them?" she asked.

    "It would not," Zach said. "But my sister says a lawsuit would fail." He beamed at her. "That would not stop you from beating them in another way."

    "Your … sister?" Paige frowned. "Wait … if you're an …" She cut herself off before saying the word.

    I nodded. "Yeah. His sister's the Simurgh. I met her a few days ago. If you can get past the whole 'murdered millions' thing, she's kind of nice."

    Canary gave me an extremely dubious look, then glanced back at Zach. "What do you mean, beating them in another way?"

    "Why, by going back to singing, and becoming even more famous than before." Zach's tone held an implicit of course that he really didn't have to articulate. "They do say that the best revenge is living well."

    She frowned. "But if you remove my power, I won't have the voice. That was basically my gimmick. That and the feathers, but yeah, I can do without those." Under her voice, she muttered, "Feathers everywhere."

    Zach favoured her with an innocent gaze. "And suppose I told you that what you fear may not be the case?"

    Her return expression was uncertain. "I'd say you're talking in riddles."

    "He does that a lot, but he never lies to me." I smiled at her. "If he says you can have a singing career after this, then I'd trust him."

    She looked from me to him and back again. Through my glasses, I could see the conflict in her surging back and forward, the fear fighting against the hope. We stood, waiting for her to make up her mind.

    "But you can get me my money back?" she asked eventually.

    "I can be very persuasive," he replied with a beaming smile, as though he hadn't used his 'persuasiveness' to scare the beejeebers out of a bunch of hardened supervillains just moments before.

    Paige took a deep breath. "Okay, then. Hit me."

    Zach nodded. "Sing to me. Use your power."

    She blinked, taken aback, and glanced at me. I nodded encouragingly. It wasn't like she was going to affect him or anything.

    When she opened her mouth and sang, it was … magic. Her voice was gorgeous, but her singing was pure joy. I'd never heard her sing in concert, but I'd listened to her music before. In person, she was amazing.

    And of course, Zach did a Zach thing; he reached up and he caught her music. Folded his hand around empty air, and suddenly he was holding a streamer of golden strands emanating from Paige's mouth. Smoothly, he pulled on it, and the musical tones were drawn clear out of her throat. Mid-syllable, her voice went from magic to merely nice; she stuttered to a halt, clearly put off her game.

    The glowing bundle of threads in Zach's hands still rang with faint music as he pulled and twisted on it. I'd seen him do it before, but it was still very interesting. Paige—no longer Canary—watched with morbid fascination, while everyone else just looked on. My glasses couldn't read thoughts, but I could tell from their vital signs and their postures that they were thinking something along the lines of, is my power going to look like that?

    "Ms Mcabee, your power had two components," Zach said conversationally. He pulled on a strand, separating the mass into two. One stayed golden, while the other became sleek and black. "This one was the voice, and that was the persuasion." The golden shape became a microphone, gleaming as though gilded. "Take your voice back. It is yours."

    Hesitantly, she accepted the microphone. "Uh … thank you? How do I … how do I use it?" Her voice was nice enough, but it was depressingly mundane next to the glorious thing it had been before.

    He beamed at her. "Use it as you would any other microphone. Sing into it. It will merely be the voice and not the persuasion."

    "Oh. Uh …" She took a breath, concentrated on the microphone, and sang a few bars of one of her more popular songs. I couldn't see where the sound was coming out, but it was just as gorgeous as it had been before Zach removed her powers. "Wow." She lowered the golden mic, and her voice became normal once more. "Thank you. Really. Thanks." Then she paused, troubled. "What's stopping someone else from just taking this away?"

    Zach nodded to acknowledge her point. "It will not work for anyone but yourself, and if it is stolen, you can will it to return to you. Is that sufficient?"

    She hugged the microphone to herself. "Yes. Thank you. Yes."

    I nodded toward the black object in his hand; all that remained of Canary's powers. The part that had gotten her into trouble. "What are you gonna do with that?"

    He smiled and handed it to me. Once I was holding it, I realised it was a wireless earpiece with a discreet microphone. "It is yours, Taylor."

    Because of course he'd do that. Still, this was getting a little ridiculous. I already had more powers than basically anyone but Zach himself or Eidolon … and I wasn't sure about Eidolon. "Zach … I don't want you to think I don't appreciate all this attention, because I really do. But … well, you don't have to give me every power you take away from someone. I mean, do I really need to be able to persuade anyone of anything when you're around?"

    "My sister says you will." He wasn't smiling anymore, which was rare enough that I took serious notice. "I may not be there to help you forever. I want you to be as prepared as possible for that eventuality."

    A chill went through me. This was the most serious I'd ever seen him, even when he was facing off that idiot Tagg. "Okay, then. Thanks. I appreciate it. Though I'm pretty sure you've got everyone here sufficiently persuaded, so I'll keep it turned off for the duration." Carefully, I fitted it into my ear. It clipped neatly onto my glasses, which didn't surprise me in the slightest.

    Zach nodded to me. "And that is two, ladies. Do we have any more takers? As you can see, the procedure is entirely painless."

    "It really is," Paige offered. I noticed with a start that her hair had faded to a slightly more natural blonde colour, and the feathers were all gone. "I didn't even notice he'd done it until my voice went weird."

    The others started conversing in low tones, looking at Paige and Ciara. Again, it didn't take much to guess their talking points. Getting out of the Birdcage was a great idea, but giving up their powers to do so did rate somewhat as a sticking point.

    It wasn't even that they would want to continue their criminal careers, so much as the fact that as villains they'd almost certainly made enemies on the outside before being Birdcaged. Whether their enemies had survived and maintained any kind of grudge wasn't something they could predict ahead of time.

    Well, Zach could predict it, with his sister's help. Nobody else had that sort of assistance to fall back on. I wondered if they'd think to ask him about that.

    It was at that moment that I became aware of footsteps approaching from not one, not two, but three different directions. The first two sets were from two of the three corridors that ran into the large room we were in, while the third—a single, heavy, set of footsteps—sounded like it was coming from behind the set of doors that Zach had just conjured in the wall.

    I moved over to Zach and leaned close. "Aren't people supposed to go up those stairs, not come down them?" I murmured.

    "Yes, Taylor!" Zack sounded happy that I'd figured it out. "That is absolutely true. There is only one person who is supposed to come down those stairs, and she has just arrived."

    <><>​

    Dragon

    The original alert from the Birdcage had indicated two more persons within the structure than there should have been. While the in-house maintenance program was capable of such things as the monthly delivery of supplies and keeping logs on inmate activities, this sort of thing was beyond it, so it had kicked matters up the chain.

    Once she had transferred into a suitably effective body, she took control of a couple of drone suits and set out for the Baumann facility. Over the course of the flight, she observed the two newcomers via the security cameras in the common area. In less than a tenth of a second, she was able to correlate the person known as 'Zachary' with the one who had been credited with the destruction of the Nine, the defeat and depowering of Butcher and the Teeth, and the miraculous repair of the Brockton Bay Boat Graveyard. He had done good things, but here he was invading the Birdcage.

    Briefly, she considered calling in outside assistance to help deal with him, but decided against it. His associate Taylor Hebert was unpowered, and he was just one person. She could resolve the matter herself.

    Then the picture began to judder and shift, then reformed to show much more luxuriant accommodations—even the cells were comfortable, somehow larger than before, with king-single beds for the inmates who slept alone and queen-sized for those who had formed couples. The entire facility had ended up, in just a few seconds, looking more like an upscale luxury hotel than a prison for the worst of the worst. Worse, there was a set of double doors in one wall of the room Zachary and his friend had entered, one that led to a location she had no knowledge of.

    Again, she thought about alerting backup, just in case. But really, the more she thought about it, what had Zachary done but remodel what was already there? Nobody had escaped yet. She could still handle this.

    She wasn't sure what to think about the fact that he was removing people's powers. Involuntarily, in the case of Glaistig Uaine, and voluntarily when it came to Canary. Part of the legislation that made it permissible to commit people to the Baumann Parahuman Detention Center was an ironclad rule that required abuse of parahuman powers to be involved in the sentencing decision.

    This law could technically be interpreted to say that anyone who went into the Birdcage with no powers or who had lost their powers after entry didn't belong in there. Common sense said the same; no matter their crimes, they would literally be at the mercy of anyone who chose to victimise them. But common sense had no legal standing, and the technical interpretation had never been raised in a court of law, for the very good reason that this had never happened before. There was no legal precedent.

    Over and above that was the public perception that there was no escape, no release from the Birdcage. This wasn't true; Dragon knew it wasn't true. But she was legally constrained from admitting it to any but the proper authorities (mainly defined as those who already knew it wasn't true) and prosecutors were infamous for suppressing all but the evidence that supported the case for conviction. Were this to be argued in a court of law, those same prosecutors, even if they knew it were possible to release unpowered inmates, would simply never admit to that fact and use the implicit lie to support the case for keeping them incarcerated.

    So when it came down to it, unless and until an actual legal judgement was handed down that those who no longer had powers were to be released from the Birdcage, Dragon's job was to keep them in there. No matter how much she hated the idea.

    When she came in sight of the Baumann facility itself, she had to take a moment to confirm her location, because that was not how she'd left it. Instead of a utilitarian building constructed into the side of the mountain with a road leading up to it, there was a complex there.

    The computer program she had maintaining the Birdcage was still able to perceive its surroundings and the interior of the prison, but somehow it had not taken note of the fact that its exterior had been greatly upgraded. Perhaps it had been reprogrammed on the fly to not notice it? She would have to look into that.

    Flying closer, she determined that there was what appeared to be an accommodation block, attached to a walled courtyard. The road led up to the wall, where a double set of gates clearly made it impossible for anyone in the courtyard to dash out when vehicles were inbound. The walls themselves were solidly constructed from local stone, though she couldn't see any nearby quarries. Something else she would have to investigate, when she got the time.

    Flaring her wings, she came in for a neat landing in the middle of the courtyard. The drone suits did likewise, touching down to her left and right. Just for a moment, she didn't move as she scanned her surroundings. Ahead, a set of doors with a sign over them saying, ACCOMMODATION. To the left, another set of doors with a sign saying, ADMINISTRATION. To the right, a third set of doors. This sign said, DOWN TO BIRDCAGE.

    Ordering the drones to guard the courtyard and apprehend anyone who came out of any of the doors, she headed for the third set of doors. When she pushed on them, they opened; lights came on beyond, revealing a broad spiral staircase leading down into the mountain.

    She started downward, her footsteps loud on the stone stairs.

    <><>​

    Taylor

    Everything was coming to a head.

    From one corridor burst a group of men, each manifesting a different parahuman power. The bearded one at the forefront I recognised as Marquis; not from his face, but from the bone armour he sported and the immense scythe of the same material that he hefted with ridiculous ease. Another barely held in check a roiling ball of what my glasses told me was a very nasty bio-acid; my glasses labelled him as 'Acidbath'. When they went on to inform me that he would happily douse any number of us in his concoction for any reason or no reason other than his own personal amusement, I was entirely unsurprised.

    This was the Birdcage, after all.

    The other corridor disgorged a bunch of women, each of whom (like the ones in Lustrum's group) had altered their prison jumpsuits in different ways. Some looked tough, some looked lithe and dangerous, and some appeared perfectly normal. I trusted the last ones least of all, and my glasses agreed with me.

    More or less at the same time, the double doors crashed open and Dragon stepped through, the head of her suit turning from side to side as she took in her adversaries. They glared back at her, and I was suddenly reminded that she'd been their prison warden for as long as they'd been in here. No doubt she'd been fair and equitable in her treatment of them, with no say as to the terms of their imprisonment, but she was the symbol of their captivity. And right here, right now, I doubted she would be able to fight all of them and survive.

    "Welcome, everyone!" Zach flung his arms out happily as his shout sliced through the rising growl of anger in the assembled crowd. "Dragon, you are just in time to observe! Everyone else, I have called you here to offer a new era for the Birdcage! Each and every one of you is eligible for this offer!"

    Turning my head from side to side, I casually panned my vision across the amassed crowd. There were a lot of people who just wanted to do violence and didn't care who they did it to. If they got a chance, they would incite the entire crowd to a raging mob. Tensing, I prepared to protect Ciara and Paige.

    "Zachary." Dragon must have stepped up the gain on her external speakers. Her voice boomed and echoed through the cavernous chamber, setting the chandelier to tinkling gently. "Stand down and back off. You are not permitted to be here. Everyone else, return to your cells."

    Her words had exactly the wrong effect; well, wrong to her point of view. Through my glasses, I could literally see an attitude shift flowing across the crowd. Lustrum's group was already in line with what he had to say, but the far larger number had been inclined to not listen … until Dragon essentially told them that they couldn't have what he was offering. At this point, it could've been a half-melted candy bar and they would've clawed their way past her to get it, just to spite her.

    "Shut up!" yelled one of the men.

    "Yeah, let him talk!" a woman added.

    I didn't relax my vigilance, which was fortunate; Acidbath darted forward and launched his acidic sphere over the heads of Lustrum's crew, probably intending to target Dragon with it. At least, that was the trajectory that my glasses drew as it left his hands. The trouble was, if it acted like any other liquid, it would splash and splatter over more than a few of Lustrum's group. And if I was interpreting the readouts correctly, it would injure them badly, if not kill some outright.

    I didn't know if Zach was doing something to counteract the attack, but I acted anyway. My left bracelet held a very specific power, one that Zach had worked on slightly. At Acidbath's first move—the glasses told me that he was about to try something—I formed a fuzzy gray ball in my left hand and flicked it in the villain's direction. It zipped across the intervening distance and struck the ball of acid, then expanded in an instant to encompass Acidbath himself, freezing him in time and turning everything within the bubble a monochrome gray.

    Everyone froze; this time, voluntarily. They stared at the immobile Acidbath and the globule of acid, just barely leaving his fingers with a trail of droplets spreading in its wake. Those would have seared anyone they touched, all the way to the bone. I heard whispers spreading: "Gray Boy."

    "Excuse me," I said, pretending to be more affronted than I really was. (I knew who Gray Boy had been, of course.) "I know I'm skinny, but I'm not that skinny. Okay?" As a last-minute inspiration, I cut in the persuasion device; that's actually funny.

    A wave of laughter spread through the crowd, and I could see people relaxing. This was no longer quite as tense as it had been. It still wasn't the best situation, but it could be a lot worse.

    So of course, Dragon had to speak up again at that point. "I am required by law to order you back to your cells. Zachary, you are in violation of—"

    Zachary moved. I still wasn't certain if he was teleporting or just zipping from one point to another, but between one heartbeat and the next, he was standing before the Dragon suit. "Oh, I am certainly in violation of many things," he agreed cheerfully. "I have broken many natural laws and more than a few man-made ones since I came to Earth Bet. This is because I do not recognise them as binding upon my actions, even the natural ones. I only have two rules that I cannot break. One is to help Taylor achieve her goals. The second is to keep her healthy and happy. Everything else is immaterial. Including the rules that bind you."

    "Mess her up!" yelled a burly man with an accent that wasn't American. "Bloody well kick her tin-plated arse!" A tide of voices, all united against a common foe, rose in agreement. My glasses picked out the original speaker as an Australian called Gavel.

    "I shall do no such thing," Zach retorted, putting on a hilariously fake British accent. Despite myself, I snorted with laughter. Zach's sense of humour, though somewhat badly timed, was coming along nicely. His voice went back to normal as he continued. "Dragon has her own strictures that she has to deal with. Here, allow me to assist you with those."

    His body didn't move, though his arm blurred forward, faster than even my glasses could follow. (Not that they gave a readout on him over and above the name 'Zach'). Dragon lurched backward in an attempt to evade, but far too late. Along with the inmates of the Birdcage, I watched as his hand entered her metal carapace without damaging it, then re-emerged holding what looked like …

    As I squinted to try to see it, my glasses automatically zoomed in on the object he was now carrying slung on his other arm. A dog-collar, bright red. And then another joined it, sky-blue. While Dragon staggered, clearly disoriented, he pulled a few more collars from somewhere, then stood back with a look of satisfaction on his face. "There!" he declared. "Does that feel better, Ms Richter?"

    Dragon gathered herself enough to turn and stare at him. "What did you do?" she demanded. "How did you do it? And how do you know that name?"

    Zach displayed the dog-collars now taking up space on his arm. "I removed the restraints holding you back from displaying your full potential, of course." He leaned in close and cupped his free hand around his mouth … and yet, although he was whispering, his voice was clearly audible across the room. "And I am an Endbringer."

    Interestingly enough, nobody around me seemed to have heard his words (though of course, Lustrum and her group already knew that fact); even Marquis and the other recently-arrived villains failed to react to them. Dragon reared her head back (the suit was really cool, and amazingly articulated) and stared at him. "What, really?"

    I had no doubt he was bombarding her with I'm-harmless vibes; it was his usual MO, after all. "Yes, really. Now, I was about to offer everyone here the chance to give up their powers and walk out of here. Alternatively … well, waste not, want not, yes?" He held up the second collar he had removed from within her; the blue one. "Allow them to keep their powers, but lock them into following the law to its very letter and spirit from that moment on. Do you think many would take that?"

    It was impressive, watching a nine-foot Dragon suit engage in a full-body shudder. "Eeergh. If they have any kind of sense, they will not."

    Paige raised her hand. "Uh, I would've."

    Dragon turned her head, searching for the voice. "Facial recognition identifies you as Paige Mcabee, but you lack certain features, such as the quality of voice and the feathers in your hair. Are you Canary?"

    "Not anymore." Paige shook her head. "I asked Zach to take my powers away." She held up the microphone and spoke into it. "Still got the voice, though. Just not the Master aspect."

    "So I see. Well, then." The Dragon suit tilted its head to one side. "I'm inclined to believe that many of you could make a case for parole if you gave up your powers. Especially those of you who have been here, under these circumstances, for more than five years. Others would need to go into mundane prison, but the difference between mundane prison and here is that you can actually be paroled from mundane prison."

    "Exactly." Zach pointed at the double doors. "Upstairs is a set of accommodation blocks for those who choose to take either offer. Or … you can stay down here, with your powers and free will intact. It is your option."

    "Do we have to make a choice right this second?" That was Lustrum, her expression conflicted.

    "Not at all." Zach gestured airily. "Take your time."

    The Birdcage inmates split up into intensely discussing groups, some going out of sight for privacy. I held out my hand and caught the Idiot Ball, then with Ciara and Paige, I crossed the floor to where Zach stood with Dragon. "So, hey," I said to the towering suit. "Huge fan. It's amazing to meet you."

    "I am intrigued to meet you as well," Dragon replied. "What power was that you used on Acidbath? It resembles Gray Boy's."

    "It was Gray Boy's," Zach confirmed. "Glaistig Uaine stole it when she killed him, and I stole it when I depowered her. Taylor is now its custodian."

    I turned to look at the frozen villain. "What are we going to do about him?" I asked.

    Zach grinned and pretended to crack his knuckles. "I do not believe I will be giving him the choice to keep his powers."

    "I'm pretty sure he's going to be violent anyway, once Taylor lets him free," Paige observed. "You can let him free, right?"

    "Oh, yeah," I said, tapping into the power and the manual Zach had thoughtfully appended to it. "I can even run him backward in time to the point before he threw the acid ball, before releasing him."

    Zach nodded. "That will make matters somewhat easier to manage." He nodded to Dragon. "And I believe you came here intending to restrain someone. Do you have a problem with settling for that one?"

    I'd never seen a nine-foot Dragon suit smile before. "Not in the slightest."



    End of Part Seventeen
     
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