Exhibition 25-07 (Summus Proelium)

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I was trying very hard not to think about the fact that I was leaving Izzy, Amber, and the others behind to fight a bunch of bad guys who were boosted by Banneret. They could handle it, right? I wasn’t going to come back later and find out that–

Fuck, stop it. Stop thinking about that. There was nothing else that we could do. The other bad guys were still after Inessa for whatever reason (and boy was I going to ask questions about that as soon as the opportunity presented itself). We couldn’t just leave her high and dry, so we’d had to split up. It was the best–only choice we’d had. 

And yet, none of those thoughts stopped me from worrying while gripping the handle on the marble-board tightly. Peyton was sending it as fast as she could across the park, toward the west exit. On the way, I did my best to distract myself by giving the others a quick rundown about what Fogwalker and Theory/Praxis’s deals were. Obviously, on the latter all I could do was say ‘try to stop them when Theory is out,’ which wasn’t much. I just felt repeated waves of confusion and trepidation about this whole thing. Why were they so intent on grabbing Inessa? This wasn’t just an ordinary kidnapping of a celebrity, was it? There were much better targets than her. As much as she might’ve been my hero, I knew she was relatively minor as far as that went. And this wasn’t just a small operation. They had at least five Touched here along with all these Prev troops. It would’ve been completely insane for all of this to just be for kidnapping one minor-to-moderate celebrity. So what the hell was actually going on? I still had no idea.

None of the others were any closer to an answer either. At least not in the brief time we had while soaring just above the trees, our eyes frantically scanning for any sign of our quarry. We were just going to have to deal with this first before finding out why it was happening. And seriously, where the hell were these guys?! They had been just ahead of us before. But obviously, Praxis was back out with another transportation power. Did that mean we were too late? Did they already have–fuck, no. That wasn’t helpful either. Just keep looking, they had to be somewhere around–

“There!” It was Calvin, the boy shifting his weight a bit as he continued gripping the handle with one hand so he could point off to the left side with the other. “Over by the tennis courts!” 

He was right. Even as my gaze snapped that way, I could see another group of those Prev thugs swarming over the courts, which were set next to one of the large restrooms. The full brick and mortar building type in this case, rather than the line of port-a-potties that had been over by the skating area. There was a sidewalk leading out of the restrooms and over to the courts, before it split off to head back deeper into the park or over the lot where several cars were parked. 

For a second, I didn’t see Theory, Praxis, or Fogwalker. Or any sign of the latter’s power. Then there was a loud bang, just as we flew far enough to see the front of the restroom. Praxis was there, having just ripped one of the apparently locked metal doors off. It crumpled in her grip before she tossed it over her shoulder and barged inside, shouting something I couldn’t make out. Fuck, fuck, was Inessa in there? Were they about to take her? 

Not on my watch. Without wasting another second, I blurted for the others to follow while hitting them with a quick spray of orange just in case. Then I dove over the side of the board, using a bit of blue at the last second to launch myself out and forward. I could see my target ahead, a skylight in the top of the building. There were two, one for each restroom. I was aiming for the one on the side Praxis had just gone into. And I wasn’t satisfied with my normal falling speed. Instead, I shot two bits of red to either side of the skylight and activated those along with red spots on my boots. Just as I started being yanked that way, I also activated a pair of long green lightning bolts along most of my legs. Between the green boost, the red yanking me that way, and my normal falling speed, I rocketed toward that building. At the last second, I canceled the red pull and tucked my arms against my chest while using an orange dumbbell symbol across my chest and a matching one taking up most of my back to make sure I didn’t go splat.

Please don’t die, please don’t die, please don’t die! 

Was I talking to myself or Inessa? I had no idea, but the advice was probably good for both of us.

An instant later, I hit the window and the glass shattered underneath the impact. If I hadn’t been protected by the orange paint, I would’ve been cut to ribbons. Not that it would’ve mattered, because if I didn’t have the orange paint, I would’ve died about a nanosecond later once I hit the floor of the restroom. It was cement, which cracked a bit under the force of my landing. 

I didn’t consciously take the time to look around and actively take in anything about the environment other than ‘inside a restroom with a cement floor.’ And yet, I instinctively knew the doorway was six feet ahead of me and one foot to the right, there were four stalls to my left, and a couple urinals to the right, with two sinks to the left of the doorway against the same wall as the stalls. I knew all of that without thinking about it. The information was just there in my head. 

Even as I hit the ground in a crouch (feeling a wave of pain run through my legs despite the paint), I could already see my target ahead of me. Praxis was slower than me for the moment, her gaze still raised as she had reflexively looked up at the sound of the glass shattering. She was starting to lower her head to bring me into her vision, but I was faster. A shot of red paint hit her front, while I sent another one behind me toward the wall. In the next second, she saw me, and raised her hand. But I was already diving forward and down into a roll while activating that red paint. Instantly, the woman was yanked off her feet and went flying over my body as I rolled under her. She slammed into the far wall, cursing up a storm. 

For a brief, happy moment, I thought I had a good ten seconds where the paint would hold her. But no sooner was I back on my feet, than the woman slammed both fists into that wall, punching two holes into it. She was going to rip that part of the wall apart within a couple seconds, and then it wouldn’t be able to hold her. 

Or she would have. To slow that down, I shot the woman with a blotch of yellow paint across her back. She couldn’t move as quickly, so she couldn’t punch as hard. Then I hit the wall itself with orange to protect it. There, that should hold her for–

She wasn’t there anymore. Theory was. But he wasn’t stuck to the wall, because his body hadn’t been hit with paint. Nor was he slowed down, which he demonstrated by immediately spinning toward me with a gun raised, and my green speed boost had worn off right then. Fortunately, I still had another second or two of orange time left for protection. But the thing didn’t fire bullets. Instead, I was hit by a concussive blast that sent me flying through the open doorway. In mid-flight, just as I reached the outside, I managed to activate a yellow parachute design across most of my torso and down my legs. It slowed me down enough that I could flip over in the air, sending red shots toward either side of the doorway, and yank myself back that way. As soon as I was going back the right direction, I canceled the yellow paint to get my speed back. 

Theory had turned back toward the bathroom stalls as I rocketed back into the restroom. I saw him spin back toward me, raising that gun again. But before he could do anything with it, Poise appeared, standing right on the edge of that now-shattered skylight I had gone through. She saw me, saw the man with the gun raised, then dropped down onto him, taking him to the ground under the weight of the impact. A second later, I landed on one knee next to them. 

That should have been the end of it, by all rights. Unfortunately, the second Paige brought the asshole to the floor, he vanished. Praxis was back, but she wasn’t underneath the other girl. Instead, she had reappeared about two feet back, in a standing position. Before Paige or I could react to that, the woman caught hold of both of us, one with each hand, and hurled us forward into what remained of the same wall I had red painted her to a few seconds earlier. We both hit the wall together, and I was really glad I had my helmet. Even then, I was going to be heavily bruised after all this. 

There was a loud clanging sound behind us, and I twisted my head back just in time to see Praxis rip one of the stall doors off. She glanced inside, apparently saw nothing, then pivoted to swing the whole door at the two of us. But Paige had recovered by then too, and both of us dropped to the floor, letting the thing slam into the wall just above our heads. 

By that point, Style had arrived as well. I didn’t know where the others were, but she came through the open doorway behind Praxis while she was still in mid-swing with that door and launched herself into a kick at the woman’s back. It didn’t actually do much. Strong as my doppelganger was in her biolem body, Praxis was currently an order of magnitude stronger. It did, however, draw her attention. The woman spun that way, throwing a punch that was actually quick enough to catch Sierra across the face (or rather, the visor part of the military-style tactical helmet she was wearing). Fortunately for Sierra, the other woman’s super strength had apparently worn off somewhere between the time that Sierra kicked her and when that punch landed. Because her hand just bounced off, and Praxis blurted a sharp, pained curse. 

Paige and I were both back on our feet and turned that way by then, while Sierra went to grab the woman’s arm. But even without active powers, Praxis wasn’t helpless. Her uninjured hand extended, and I caught a glimpse of some sort of silver bracelet on her wrist, just before it sent out a blast of concussive force similar to the one Theory’s gun had hit me with. But Sierra was quick enough to pivot out of the way, so the blast went over her head and took out a chunk of the door frame behind her.

Paige and I both moved to grab the woman’s arms, even as Sierra continued her pivot and came back around to kick her in the stomach. But all of us missed. Primarily because the woman wasn’t there anymore. She was gone and Theory was back. Like before, he didn’t appear in the same spot Praxis had been in, which I hadn’t even known was an option until a few moments earlier, and still felt like cheating. Either way, the man popped into view a bit to Sierra’s left, and already had his gun raised that way. But before he could pull the trigger, Paige had already recovered from missing her attempt to catch Praxis’s arm and instead lashed out with a kick. Her foot hit his wrist, sending his aim off to pulverize one of the other stalls. 

And then I saw her. Inessa was there, crouched in a corner of that now-demolished stall. She had barely avoided having her head taken off by that blast. Theory saw her too and started to turn that way, but both Sierra and Paige jumped over and got to him before he could do anything. Both of their fists collided with his head, dazing the man briefly and hopefully preventing him from switching places for the moment. Together, they caught his arms and shove-threw him out the doorway as hard as they could. 

“Get her out of here!” Paige blurted at me, just as she and Sierra went through the doorway after Theory. 

Wait, yeah, good idea. Pivoting back to where my idol was, I shoved all questions and confusion out of my head (along with the urge to giggle stupidly when I saw her), and just reached out to grab her arms. “Sorry, Miss Sidorov,” I blurted, “but we’ve gotta go!” Before she could respond, I activated purple hammers along both of my arms to help her get up. Then I wrapped my arms around her (stop thinking about that, Cassidy) and planted a blue puddle under our feet. But not just any blue puddle. First I made an empty circle of green, like I had done with the empty circle of yellow earlier. Then I filled it in with blue and allowed the former to feed into the latter. 

Yeah, when I activated that thing, we were rocketed out of the restroom and through the broken skylight. It was a good thing the glass was all gone by that point (crunched into tiny shards under our feet throughout the room below) because we went up through the hole like we had been shot out of a cannon. 

And this time, I wasn’t the only one giving a loud whoop of delight. Inessa’s rang through my ears as we soared high up, reaching a spot maybe ten or twelve feet above the roof of the restroom. Then I activated a yellow parachute ship I had put on both my back and Inessa’s as my arms were wrapped around her. That slowed our fall just enough that I could look around quickly. And I finally saw what was keeping the others busy. Alloy, Calvin, and Hobbes were dealing with those guys we had seen on the tennis courts. Or keeping them occupied, at the very least. Which explained why they hadn’t come rushing to their boss’s aid. 

After taking that in, I used red and orange paint to get Inessa and myself to the ground as far from the courts and restrooms as I could manage. We landed safely in the grass about seventy feet away, both of us dropping into rolls to deal with the momentum before popping back to our feet. She was slightly quicker about it than I was, which really said a lot about how amazing she–

Later, Cassidy. 

Right, we knew where the Prev troops were, and Paige and Sierra were keeping Theory and Praxis busy for the moment. Hopefully they wouldn’t give Theory the time he needed to set up a new power. I still wasn’t sure exactly how she’d kept the super strength for a few more seconds after switching with him that one time, but maybe it gave her a little more time if she ended early or–whatever, there wasn’t time to think about it. Right now, I just had to figure out how to get Inessa out of–

Darkness enveloped me, cutting off my vision almost entirely. I could barely see a few inches in front of my face. And it wasn’t just darkness. It felt like being underwater without actually being wet. The air was literally thick. This cloud that had appeared slowed my motions, slowed everything. It felt like my thoughts were slowed down. 

Oh, right, this would be Fogwalker. I had forgotten about him for just a second. And now the two of us were caught in his power. I grabbed Inessa’s arm, looking around quickly. Not that it helped. I could still sense every object around us. I knew where the trees and bushes were within the vicinity, and even knew exactly where the edge of the restroom building and tennis courts were in the distance. Unfortunately, that didn’t really help me know where the Touched lynx was. And to be honest, the idea of one of those things prowling through this fog toward me really–yeah it wasn’t fun. 

Thinking quickly, I released Inessa, stepping in front of her while covering my upper torso and helmet with a mix of pink and blue paints. The former fed into the latter as I activated them. Then prayed that Fogwalker would make his move soon enough. And asked myself just what sort of insane person hoped that a basically-invisible superpowered lynx would jump at them within the next ten seconds. Why would I do that?

Because it was better than the fucking thing doing it in eleven seconds, that’s why. 

The lynx was so quiet, I didn’t hear it approach until the very last second. A slight rustling on the grass was my only warning. Then the full weight of that oversized cat crashed into me, knocking me backwards and down. And yet, under that impact, my entire pink-blue-painted torso sort of collapsed in on itself. It felt really weird, the way my whole chest seemed to turn into an accordion. And no sooner had Fogwalker hit me, than my torso snapped immediately back to the way it was supposed to be, catapulting Fogwalker away from me. I heard his panicked and confused yowl as the big cat went flying away from me with several times more force than he’d actually hit me with in the first place. In the distance, I could hear him crash into the dirt with another yelp. 

Quickly canceling the paint, I grabbed Inessa’s hand again and started running. Well, as close to running as we could get in this stupid fog. “Come on!” I shouted her way. “Trust me!” 

Thankfully, she didn’t argue, and the two of us were soon ‘sprinting’ (if you could call it that) together through pitch black fog. I directed her around bushes, avoided a few random statues, pulled her away from a tree, and overall just kept running as fast as we could in the fog. We just had to reach the edge of Fogwalker’s power, and then–

We hit open air and sunlight just in time for an invisible force to pick me up and throw me up against the nearest tree. My back hit it hard enough to make me flinch. 

Praxis, of course. She was there, panting heavily while clearly glaring at me. Her hand was extended, using what was obviously a telekinesis power to keep me pinned against the tree. “No… more…” she managed through hard breaths. “She’s coming with us.” 

My eyes were scanning the area around us in a panic, but there was no one else in sight. No one here to help out. Everyone was busy, or hurt, or… or…

“You don’t have to be such a bitch about this. I mean, come on, your brother made a lot of fun toys,” Praxis was saying, her gaze laser-focused on Inessa. “And now all of it’s just sitting there, all sad and alone while he’s stuck on Breakwater.” 

Wait… wait…

What?!

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The Storm 21-06 (Heretical Edge 2)

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So, our group walked together across the orange-red ground. It continued to crunch under our feet, more like very thin snow than the dirt it resembled. The air was almost unpleasantly hot, and filled with that sulfur scent, which threatened to make us cough uncontrollably as we got closer to the volcano. But we dealt with both using magic, specifically the fresh air spell and another one Judas knew, which basically kept the temperature around our bodies to a more tolerable level. Although he did warn us that it wouldn’t stand up to very extreme temperatures, so we shouldn’t try to go swimming in lava or anything like that. 

Jaq and Gus were riding on my shoulders, while the latter held Herbie in place on that side so he could see where we were going. I knew my little cyberform mice were worried about Mom too. She’d been giving them special treats now and then, little pieces of rare metal that was supposed to make their bodies tougher once they ingested and processed it. I wasn’t exactly sure how that worked, but apparently it was a thing for all Cyberforms. They rebuilt and repaired themselves over time using the metal they ‘ate.’ That was in addition to the way ones like Vulcan turned the ingested metal into new bullets. When they were able to get a particularly durable bit of metal, they could use that to strengthen their own form. My buddies were much tougher to squish by this point, all thanks to Mom’s help after she had been able to produce some truly rare samples. So they really wanted to find her too. 

I did think about using the speed rings to make us go faster, but as impatient as I was for this to be over, the others needed to conserve as much energy as possible. It wouldn’t do us any good to sprint all the way there, only for half of us to collapse in exhaustion right when we found ourselves in trouble. Not everyone had the near-limitless stamina I had, or were a robot like Robin.

And speaking of Robin, they were in the lead, since their senses were better than anything the rest of us could boast, even the vampires. Especially with the way the volcano was messing with that. We might’ve had the fresh air spell keeping us from choking on the fumes, but that just meant that Senny and Stasia couldn’t smell anything beyond the effect. And if we lowered it, all they’d be able to smell would be the sulfur. It affected them even more than the rest of us. 

But that was okay, because again, we had Robin. The Mevari could see and hear much further than the rest of us, even through the fog-like haze we began walking through. They made sure we didn’t stumble into any problems. Between Fossor and Denuvus, I was almost positive that there would be some sort of trap before we made it to our destination. Hell, probably more than one. For all we knew, the witch was watching us with magic right now, just waiting for us to get a little closer before–

No. No, Shiori had that power that allowed her to sense when she was being observed by someone she didn’t know about. She’d know if someone was watching us. Unless they had some way around that, of course. There was always magic and other powers to counter various abilities, including that one. And it would make sense for someone like Denuvus to have that. So really, there was nothing proving she wasn’t staring at us right now and plotting about what to do. 

Shoving that incredibly unhelpful thought out of my head, I glanced around once more. Everything still looked the same. Robin was out in front, with Judas slightly behind them. Shiori, Tabbris, and I were walking side by side a few feet behind those two. About ten feet back from us, Stasia and Asenath were walking together, having their own telepathic conversation about vampire things. And a few feet further back from them, Persephone was riding on Twister, who was in the form of a rhino. They were also having their own conversation through the magical mental connection we’d set up. I hadn’t been privy to much of it, but from what they’d said a few minutes earlier when I asked what they were talking about, it had something to do with some very minor Seosten member of the Olympus Twister had met about eighty years ago without knowing what he was. It sounded like they had got along pretty well, and she wanted to know if he had just been manipulating her for some reason or what. 

Eighty years ago would’ve been while the rebellion was still going strong. A rebellion Twister had been part of. Did her memories of meeting with this minor Olympian have something to do with that? Or was it entirely unrelated? I was going to have to ask her about that later, after we got through this whole thing. One problem at a time–okay, as few problems as physically possible at a time. 

Squeezing my hand, Tabbris spoke through that same mental conversation spell. Despite the fact that she wasn’t talking out loud, her voice still came through in a whisper. Which wasn’t really necessary, but still. Do you think the people who live here are gonna be okay? I mean, on this world. Her telepathic voice was pensive, the girl squinting off into the distance as though trying to look toward one of the cities we knew were somewhere off in that direction. There was no chance she could see it, of course. The nearest inhabited area was thousands of miles away from here. Fossor hadn’t allowed anyone to live anywhere close to his old home. I still wondered if that had more to do with him being spiteful, or because he had put something important there. Maybe a bit of both. 

Returning the squeeze, I replied, They have a much better chance of it now that he’s gone. It’ll take a long time for them to move on, but at least they’ve got the opportunity now.

Shiori nodded from my other side, speaking up equally softly through the telepathic connection. Yeah, without that evil jackass around, these people can figure out what sort of society they actually are, you know? It’s sort of like a whole new world is being born. She smiled briefly before grimacing. A world that’s been through a lot of horrific trauma.

They will heal. That was Rahanvael. The ghost girl appeared slightly ahead of us, her form coming into view as she stared at the volcano. Her mental voice was tentative, and I could tell it was all she could do to keep herself somewhat together. And yet, there was hope in her words. With my brother gone, the people of our world can move on and become something better.

I started to say something about how she had made that happen, wanting to help alleviate some of the guilt I knew she still felt. But before I could, Robin stopped up ahead and held their hand out. A small hologram projector embedded in their palm made the words, Hold here appear in the air so we could all see. They looked back at us, and I saw the dark blue eyes of Sec as the hologram changed to, There is a tunnel running below the ground. It appears to be artificial, given the metallic walls. That lasted long enough for all of us to read, before changing once more. It runs from that direction, to that direction. First he pointed off to the west, away from the volcano, then his hand moved east, to the volcano itself. We had been moving in a north-eastern direction, toward the volcano at an angle. 

Wait. Rahanvael floated that way, stopping right next to Robin. She turned, looking to the west, the way Sec said the tunnel originated from. That direction is where my brother took me that day, the day he… She trailed off, visibly frowning before turning back to the east, the way the tunnel went. And that is the direction of our old home. It is… close. Her form flickered a little, probably thanks to what had to be a wave of conflicting emotions. From here, it would only take twenty minutes to reach our old farm. Or ten minutes to reach the spot where… he took me. 

Either of those could be important to him, I agreed, stepping up next to her and Robin while reaching up to put Jaq, Gus, and Herbie away in my pockets. I guess it just depends on which one you think we should check out first.

Da, Stasia murmured as she and the others joined us. The Russian vampire stepped out a bit before crouching over the spot where the tunnel was supposed to be. It should be her choice which way we go to start. But either way, perhaps we should see if we can do so from inside. 

She had a point. Whatever we were about to find, it would be better to get there from inside the tunnel. Any defenses or traps that were set up would probably be mostly pointed toward the entrances. Not that I expected it to be completely safe going in this way, of course. We all took a minute to spread out along the apparent path of the tunnel, figuring out the best way to get inside. According to Robin, the tunnel was about ten feet wide, and equally tall. The top of it was six feet down from where we were standing. 

So, Judas started while staring at the dirt beneath our feet, what do you all think? I don’t know about you, but I didn’t bring a shovel. And even if I had, I don’t fancy spending the next couple hours doing this manually. 

Twister, who had shifted back to her normal form after Persephone dismounted, kicked the dirt. Me neither. Even if I could maybe speed it up with an animal, there’s gotta be a better way. Do you Heretics have any spiffy powers that might help? 

I–wait, maybe. Focusing on the dirt once more, I thought about my sand control power. Maybe this stuff was similar enough to that? If there was silica in it, or something that my power could pretend was silica, it might work. 

We were in luck. The dirt, or sand, or whatever we wanted to call it now, moved under my focus. I could still only move about fifty pounds at a time, but it was still faster and easier than physically digging. The others helped by pushing the loose bits back as I dug down, making sure the stuff surrounding it didn’t fall into the opening and cover it up again. Before too long, I had managed to create a hole four feet wide and six feet deep, revealing the green metal top of the tunnel. There was also some sort of energy field running along it. At first we didn’t know what it was, but the moment Rahanvael tried to float through to check the place out, she was violently hurled backward. Anti-ghost field then, apparently. 

Fossor put up an anti-ghost shield around his secret tunnel? Shiori sounded confused. Why would he do that? I mean, he was the only one who used ghosts here, right?

Rahanvael, recovering after a moment, shook her head. Our people are known for producing Necromancers. None anywhere near his level, but still. And our ghosts commonly lingered until they were sent onward by our priests. It makes sense that he would take measures to prevent any of them from reaching whatever he was hiding here.  Her telepathic voice turned a bit bitter then. Even if he did attempt to kill any who demonstrated that sort of skill. Some might have been able to hide it for a time.

Yeah, of course he would have made a point of killing any of his own people who might have posed even the tiniest bit of a threat to him, no matter how remote. That and there was the fact that he never missed a chance to be as petty as possible. 

Rahanvael continued. I think there’s a lot of that necromantic energy in the shield itself. There’d have to be, for it to react so violently and effectively against ghosts. It seems to be a mix of magic and technology. Some sort of generator he set up and fueled with-– She blanched, arms crossing over her stomach with a look of disgust. 

With more of his sacrifices, I finished for her, sighing. He’s been gone for awhile, I don’t suppose there’s any chance of it running out of energy soon?

Considering how quick he was to kill off his own people, Judas put in, I wouldn’t count on that. He’s probably got enough power in there to keep the thing running for years. You said he didn’t come back here that often anyway. The dark-haired man rubbed the back of his neck before glancing toward me with those piercing eyes that I could feel even through the sunglasses he almost always wore. And personally, I don’t really feel like sitting around waiting to see if the power goes out.

Of course. I knew Judas, Robin, Stasia, and even Asenath really wanted to focus on finding Rasputin. They were all totally willing to help with this thing, Senny especially, given how important it was to me. And, most likely, the fact that we all thought Rasputin being here probably had something to do with Denuvus as well. Sure, it was possible that they both wanted to get completely different things from this place right after Fossor was killed. But given the way things had gone so far, I was willing to bet there was some sort of connection. At the very least, it made sense for all of us to stick together and look for my mother first. Stopping her from doing whatever Denuvus had sent her to do had to be our top priority. Not only because she was my mother, but also because whatever Denuvus wanted probably wouldn’t be good for the rest of us. That and none of us liked the idea of that woman popping up out of nowhere to fuck us over while we were distracted. 

But even with all of that in mind, I couldn’t blame them for wanting to get on with this so they could find Rasputin. If he wasn’t connected to this, then they were potentially losing the chance to find him here. 

Between that and my deep-seated fear that whatever Denuvus was sending my mother to do would be very bad, it was clear that we couldn’t wait around hoping that shield went down. We had to keep moving.

Persephone straightened up after poking her finger into the dirt beside the tunnel and tasting it with a thoughtful expression. It is probable that any breach of the shield would send an alert, which this Denuvus might become aware of. If she is actually here. Or anyone else who might be nearby.

What if Flick did it? Shiori asked, turning my way. Rahanvael said the thing has a lot of Fossor’s energy in it, and you have his power. Maybe you could disable it without setting off any alarms or anything. She offered a weak shrug. I know it’s a longshot, but still. 

No, she’s right. That was Rahanvael herself, focusing on me. I think you can push the energy out of the way to create a hole. But everyone would have to create an opening in the metal quickly and go through. 

I can do that! Tabbris piped up while raising her hand. Her expression was determined. I can use my wings to cut a hole in it, I promise. I’ve been practicing. 

I knew she felt guilty about the fact that she hadn’t been able to use her wings to cut through the security door back when Mom had locked us in that asteroid station. I’d tried to tell her not to worry about it, that Mom knew about her power and had prepared for it. But I wasn’t sure it helped all that much. At the very least, she was intent on using the wings now. 

So, while the others waited, I held my hand out and closed my eyes to focus on the shield in front of me. They were right, I could feel the necromantic energy interlaced throughout it. I’d expected this to be hard and take a lot of focus, but it really wasn’t. Almost as soon as I had the thought about the energy moving, it reacted. A hole appeared in the shield right below our feet, and I blinked a bit in surprise. Uhh, go for it. I’ve got this. I really did have it too. This wasn’t difficult at all. Was that weird? Probably not, since Fossor wouldn’t have wanted to make it hard for himself to get through his own shield, and this stuff probably thought I was him. And yet, it still made me uneasy. Maybe just because of the reminder that I was using his power. I was pretty sure I’d never really get used to that. 

Tabbris, standing on the opposite side of the hole in the dirt I’d made, manifested her wings and extended them. Within a few quick thrusts, she had cut an opening in the metal ceiling wide enough for all of us to go through. And one by one, we did just that. Asenath went first, followed by Stasia, then Shiori, and the others. I went last, allowing the shield to resume its position as soon as I was through.

Soon, we were in what was essentially a long metal tube. It was lit by some sort of glowing lines along the floor in the ceiling, farther from that, it looked empty. Looking both directions, I turned back to Rahanvael and gestured. Up to you. Which way sounds best? 

She thought about it briefly before giving a decisive nod. Toward our old home. We can see what my brother hid in his secret spot after we check on what he has done with this volcano.

So, we began moving east through the tunnel, keeping our eyes open for any sort of threat. Now we had the added feeling of claustrophobia to go with paranoia, which was fun. But either way, we kept going, doing our best to ignore that feeling. 

As promised, it took about twenty minutes to reach the general area that had apparently been where Fossor had grown up as a child. We found ourselves emerging from the tunnel into a wide open underground cavern that had to be part of the volcano itself. It was a good three hundred feet wide and just as long. There were stalagmites and stalactites scattered throughout the cave, along with a small stream of crystal clear water running down the middle of it, perpendicular to where we had entered. We could also see glowing crystals embedded in the walls of various colors. Red, blue, green, white, and purple mostly, though there were a few gold and green as well. 

Uhh, what is this place? Shiori asked as we all stopped and stared. 

I have no idea, Rahavael assured us. This is… I have never seen it. She sounded confused and a bit lost, understandably. I don’t even know what those glowing crystals are. Those… are not natural. 

Biting my lip, I started to step closer to the nearest cluster of the things so I could get a better look. Just as I moved, however, the cave rumbled around us. It only lasted for a couple seconds, but it definitely got our attention. As did the hole that suddenly opened up underneath the spot where Robin and Persephone were standing together. Before any of us could react, including the Mevari and Revenant-possessed Seosten, they had fallen through the hole and were gone. The ground reappeared just as quickly. 

I dove that way, along with Judas and Stasia. But before we could do anything about it, a voice that spoke up from about a hundred feet off, far enough to be out of range of our mute spell. 

“Well how about that! I told the old lady you wouldn’t sit still on that asteroid, and lookie here.” 

It was… Trice? Fucking Trice of all people? I’d almost forgotten about him entirely, after he’d disappeared from the cell Gaia put him in so long ago. The tall, green-haired Eden’s Garden Heretic stood there next to the stream, watching us with clear amusement. He held his pike in one hand, the end of it planted on the ground like a walking stick as he stared at me. “Let me guess, you’re here to find your mom. Well, I’ve got bad news. We still need her for awhile. But don’t worry, we’ll keep you busy.” 

We? What did he mean by–

The answer came even as I had that thought. Several more figures appeared around Trice. In front was a boy, a year or two older than me, with long, shaggy dark hair and an olive complexion. His left arm was covered by a metal gauntlet. He was accompanied by a pale, red-haired girl, a slightly taller black girl, a blond caucasian guy with very piercing blue eyes, a scrawny Latino guy with short hair and a goatee, and another caucasian (though quite tanned) guy with brown hair cut into a flat top. 

At first I didn’t recognize them, but then I realized. The guy in front was Miles Cleary, the guy whose ‘bogeyman’ father had been imprisoned by Fossor. And the others were all members of his team. 

Wait, hold on. Why didn’t I… why hadn’t I talked to the guy after we found his dad? Why didn’t I… even think about him that much? The realization of just how much I had not thought about him, and how strange that was given the circumstances, had just started to fill my mind when Trice spoke again. 

“You guys heard what Denuvus said, right?” 

“Fight,” all six of the others replied together, their voices a disturbing monotone that made it clear they weren’t in control of themselves. “Hurt the intruders.” As Miles said that, the gauntlet on his arm broke apart, turning into hundreds of tiny metal cyberform bees, which quickly reshaped themselves into a sword and shield. Meanwhile, the others all produced their own weapons.  And just like that, we had seven Boscher Heretics about to launch themselves at us. Seven Boschers on their side, versus two Boschers, a tiny Seosten girl with terrifyingly powerful energy wings, two vampires, a Pooka, and a Natural Charmeine Heretic. And we had no idea what had happened to Robin and Persephone, or if they were okay.    

“Yup, that about sums it up,” Trice agreed, almost as though he’d read my mind. His eyes narrowed at me, while lifting his pike to join the other six. 

“Let’s have some fun.” 

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

Commissioned Interlude 20 – Arthur and Morgan (Heretical Edge 2)

Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

A/N- This is not the regularly scheduled chapter. That will be out tomorrow morning.

The eerie creek of an old wooden door being pulled open filled the air inside the dimly lit shop. Spread throughout most of the space within were several crooked counters and thin tables, all filled with various random objects, including skulls and other types of bones, cups, knives, books, bottles with glowing fluid within, and more. At the end of the room was a rocking chair, where a figure sat. Her exact form was impossible to make out, as she was covered by a mix of blankets and shadows. A gray and tan cat perched on her leg, glaring in the direction of the now-open door, as well as at the man who had just stepped through. 

“If you came for a healing tonic,” the woman in the chair informed her new arrival, “I’m afraid you’re out of luck. The last one was just sold, not even a single bell before you came tromping through the mud outside. Speaking of which, do wipe your feet. Or, better yet, be off with you. I’ve things to do and they don’t include playing saleslady for a gape-mouthed sight-seer.” 

Rather than leave as she had requested, the man in the doorway paused for a moment. Then he spoke in a simple, yet hopeful voice. “Morgana?” 

His words were met with silence at first. Then the woman in the chair spoke a single word, and the dimly lit candles flared to much brighter life. The room was suddenly filled with light, enough to make the man blink once against the force of it. He could see the figure now, an ancient-looking old crone, bundled into those blankets. She looked frail enough that a stiff breeze could have turned her to dust. Her gaze looked him up and down, taking in his long, dark hair that fell just to his shoulders, his deep blue eyes, the gleaming metal armor he wore, and the sword at his hip. Finally, she spoke. “Arthur, it is you, isn’t it?” 

“Mor… Morgana?” Arthur looked her up and down, taken aback by her incredibly ancient-looking appearance. “How–I mean, it hasn’t been that long, has it? I’m not– I mean I didn’t think…” 

A tiny smirk played across her face. “Relax, Arthur. It’s not what you think.” With that, she started to rise. The cat jumped down with a hiss of agitation, while the woman swept the blankets aside. Her figure blurred slightly as she rose. The wrinkles vanished, her gray hair turned bright, vibrant red, and all the supposed weakness and age faded away. Soon, the woman was standing upright, amusement seeming to dance through her eyes. She was still older than he had last known her, yet not that old. Those who had not grown up with her as a sister would have called her beautiful, with her slim form and long, exotic red hair. Hair she rightly no longer dyed black just to keep a man who was ashamed of his wife’s infidelity happy. 

“You should have seen the look on your–” she started to say, only for her words to turn to a surprised gasp as the man crossed the distance between them and pulled her into an immediate embrace. There was no hesitation at all. One second he was standing across the room, and the next he was right in front of her, his arms hauling the woman off the floor in a crushing embrace. 

“I’m sorry,” he informed her in a low, yet rumbling voice. “I looked for you, I did. But I couldn’t find you. I just–I’m sorry, Morgana.” 

There was a brief moment of silence before she spoke. “Morgan,” the woman informed him. She returned the embrace for a second or two, then slipped free of his grasp and took a step back. “Not Morgana anymore. My name is Morgan Le Fey. It–that’s my name.” There was a lot more to that whole thing, but she didn’t want to get into it just then. 

“Le Fey? Of the Fay?” Arthur blinked again before shaking off the confusion. “Whatever you want to be called, Morgana–Morgan. You–you’re alive. They said–the rumors about–I heard the–” Giving up on trying to find the right words, he just took her hands and squeezed them tightly. “I’m sorry,” he repeated yet again, needing to keep saying the thing he had thought for so long. “I went back for you, I swear. But it was a couple days later, and when we couldn’t find you anywhere, I thought you were–” He swallowed hard, glancing away. “I thought you were gone forever.” 

Her mouth opened, before she froze and looked away. A series of painful emotions played across the woman’s face at the memories of those days. Then she pushed the thoughts aside and focused on him. “It doesn’t matter,” she announced in a soft voice. “That’s all over now. It has been for a long time.” She looked him up and down once more. “And speaking of long time, you’ve grown up.” 

“Me?” He laughed incredulously, squeezing her hands. “We both have. But at least you don’t really look like… that.” His eyes flicked over toward the rocking chair. “What was that, magic? You know some magic.” 

“I know quite a bit,” she confirmed with a soft chuckle. “You could say I’ve been busy over the years.” Again, painful memories crept up, but she shoved them aside while barely allowing her expression to shift at all. “Arthur, I can feel… I can sense… Are you the magical king everyone has been talking about, the one building a new city?” She had a lot of questions about that. The name ‘Arthur’ had reached her with those rumors, but it wasn’t exactly an uncommon one. Though a part of her had wondered, she hadn’t truly believed it. Not until now.  

His grin seemed to fill the room with even more light than the blazing candles. “Camelot. Morgan–” He coughed to stop himself from saying the last a. “You have to see it. You have to come, it’s–there’s so much I want to show you, so much to talk about.” 

Morgan made a show of hemming and hawing a bit, glancing around the crowded shop. “I don’t know, I have my store here. It took awhile to build up my business, you know. I can’t just walk away from–” She saw his expression and laughed, her hand swatting his shoulder. “Of course I’ll visit your city, idiot. To hell with the shop, I was almost ready to move on anyway. I don’t–” Yet again, that flicker of painful memories. “I don’t stay in one place for long.” Another pause came, then, “And you’re right, we have a lot to talk about.

“Most importantly, what happened with that dragon?” 

******

Obviously, they had a lot to catch up on, and doing so was going to take a long time. Morgan didn’t want to talk much about what she had gone through after being separated from him when the dragon had attacked their village. Her past was too sensitive, so she continued to press him for his own story. And Arthur was more than happy to explain everything. He told her the whole story about taking the dragon’s tooth and then being found by the woman who called herself Nimue. Over the next hour as they stood in her tiny shop, he told her about learning magic, about testing his new power, how amazing it was to fly through the clouds, all of it. 

“You can fly.” Morgan shook her head in wonder as her brother described what that was like. “If he knew what you could do, Chadwick would demand you take him and Chickee the… Ninth out for a trip.” 

“You’ve been keeping up with him,” Arthur noted, a small smile of pride playing at his face. 

Morgan glanced away, exhaling heavily. “I checked in a couple times, just to make sure he was okay. And to see if you showed up. You never did.” 

That time, Arthur looked visibly guilty, grimacing. “I wanted to let him live a normal life, without putting him in danger because of who–what I am. He wouldn’t be able to remember all these extraordinary things anyway, but anyone who wanted to come after me could.” His eyes found her again, as he added, “But you remember. You weren’t affected by that… whatever it is that makes people forget. And you can use magic.” 

If Morgan hadn’t been focused on very pointedly not thinking or talking about her past, she might have picked up on the fact that he had clearly been about to say something else about who was responsible for ‘making people forget.’ Centuries later, the woman who eventually called herself Gaia would find herself wondering what might have happened had she pressed him in that moment. It would not have taken much for him to crack and explain things to her. What if she had? What if she had known the truth about the Seosten as far back as that day? 

But she didn’t. Instead, the Morgan of this moment cleared her throat and changed the subject. This day was already enough without adding in time spent talking about how she had gotten to where she was now. “And you have been busy forming a whole new kingdom and bringing all those people together.” She eyed him slyly. “Pretty impressive for a peasant boy. Especially one who could never beat me in a duel.” 

Scoffing, Arthur retorted, “Only because you cheated and threw dirt in my eyes.” Before she could respond to that, he waved a hand. “Yes, yes, I know true opponents would do the same. I’ve gotten better at preparing for that, believe me.” He gave her a lopsided grin that reminded the woman of the small boy she had known all those years earlier. The one whose abandonment, intentional or not, had stung for so much of her life. “Come, I think we’ve both been cooped up in here for long enough. I finally found you!” His hand came down to squeeze her shoulder. “This calls for a true celebration. And we can start by finding the best meat and drink this town has to offer.” 

Before moving, however, Morgan caught his hand as he started to lift it from her shoulder. She took a breath, meeting his gaze. “Arthur, I want you to know…” Several things passed through her mind in that moment. She could tell him about the terrible things she had seen and been through, could explain why she needed to disguise herself to make sure certain people didn’t find out where or who she was. She could tell him why she was more withdrawn, why being separated from him on that day was the worst thing that could’ve happened to her. But that would only make him feel guilty. She didn’t want to get into all of that, and she had no desire to put the weight of it on Arthur’s shoulders. He clearly had enough as it was. 

So, she pushed the impulse down and simply continued with, “I am very glad to see you. I know that I may not be showing it as much as you are. But I am… incredibly happy that you’re here.” She swallowed back every other thought she had in that moment, and simply stepped over to embrace her brother once more. The only other words that came out, through the thick lump in her throat, were, “I missed you, Arthur.”

******

As it turned out, Arthur wasn’t here alone. He’d actually come, along with a few of his people, on a mission to deal with reports of monsters in the deep forest, miles beyond this small village. This area wasn’t officially part of his burgeoning kingdom yet, but he was hoping to convince them to join. And part of that involved stopping whatever beast was out there from slaughtering any more innocent people. 

“I saw your charms up around the village as we entered,” he informed Morgan while the two of them walked together to join his companions in the tavern. “You put them up to protect the people here, didn’t you? Does that mean you know what this monster is?”

Morgan, who had used another illusion enchantment to shift back into her old woman disguise, hobbled along beside him. They made a very strange pair, given how old, ugly, and decrepit she appeared to be, next to his tall, handsome self with gleaming armor and perfect posture. People continued to give the pair double-takes as they passed. 

Smirking a bit to herself at that thought, Morgan glanced toward one of those charms he had mentioned. It dangled from an old broken fence, a wooden figurine shaped like a person with an oversized head, wide grinning mouth, and an assortment of symbols across the body. “I had to add another spell so these people wouldn’t notice them. The idiots kept taking them down. That’s why the beast managed to take as many people as it has.” 

She turned back toward him then, sticking her cane hard into the dirt while adding, “I don’t know what that thing is, exactly. But it’s very large and very dangerous. The protection spells I’ve put over this village are holding it away for now, yet if you hadn’t come… I was going to find a way to drive these people out of here, make them move on. This creature is not one to be trifled with lightly.” 

“Aww, are you worried about me, sister?” Arthur kept his voice low so it wouldn’t carry as far as the onlookers staring at them from a distance. He was a man in bright, gleaming armor, and she was the town herbalist, a strange old woman who was only worth talking to when one wanted help with a cut or infection. Certainly not someone who was often seen walking down the middle of the street in broad daylight. 

“Worried that you’re still stupid enough to charge straight into a battle you don’t understand, yes,” Morgan shot back with a tiny smirk. 

Arthur chuckled and waved a hand in acknowledgment. ”I suppose I have had a habit of running into things. Maybe it’s a good thing that you’re here to help with that again.”

Morgan raised an eyebrow pointedly. “Maybe? If you hadn’t run into me, your reign as king of this new land you’ve been putting together would probably have ended in tears and tragedy.” Her hand, hidden behind its disguise as a wrinkled, leathery old thing, gripped his shoulder tightly. “But don’t worry. As long as I’m with you, I’ll make sure you’re safe. Just as long as you don’t go running off to fight another dragon.”

With a broad smile, Arthur retorted, “Why not fight another dragon? After all, now we’d be on closer to even ground. And with you at my side, the dragon wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Morgan rolled her eyes at him. “Do you really think I’d stay with you if you went charging up to another dragon to pick a fight?” She squinted that way  while he simply smiled at her expectantly. Finally, Morgan exhaled ruefully. “Damn it. 

“Fine, but this time I get the dragontooth sword.”

*****

In the end, the monster in the forest was, of course, not a dragon. It was, however, quite the threat. Killing it required everything Arthur, Morgan, and the two knights he had brought with him could do. Those two knights, Lancelot and Percival, were very curious about who Morgan was, especially once she dropped the old lady disguise as they left the village. So, Arthur had introduced her while they were hunting the beast, with the story continuing after it was dead.

Now, with the village as safe as it could be, the four of them were heading back the way Arthur and his knights had come. It would have been simple for the man to fly them back that way, but he preferred to take the long route in order to see more of the people and lands he was supposed to be protecting. 

So, they rode horses. Apparently it would be at least a week’s journey that way to get to the place they called home. On the way, the others, mostly Lancelot, asked Morgan a lot of questions. She answered as best as she could, but refused to get into the details of what had happened to her after leaving Arthur as a child. All she would say was that she had been taken by terrible creatures, and that she didn’t like to think about that time. 

Eventually, they were only a few hours from reaching the place where Camelot was being built. Camping out that night, Morgan sat by the fire and stared into the flames. Behind her, Lancelot stared silently at her back for several long minutes. Arthur and Percival were asleep, but these two remained alert and on watch for any threats. 

Morgan knew the knight was staring at her. And he, in turn, knew that she knew. But neither spoke up for some time. 

Finally, Lancelot broke the silence. “He missed you, you know. He talked about you a lot, his memories of you. He thought you were dead, but there were a few times when he might’ve found you and he always ran off to check. He got to the point where no one really thought too much about it when he’d go away on one of those missions, because it never panned out. I didn’t even think about it at all this time when he said he was going to check something.”

Without turning around, Morgan simply replied, ”And then it turned out to be real this time.” Her voice was soft. She took in a deep breath before letting it out. “To be honest, I never expected him to find me either. Mostly because I didn’t expect him to be alive. I thought the dragon ate him. When I was a child, I thought that the only reason he ever would’ve left me alone for that long, the only reason he would’ve abandoned me like that, was if it ate him. I grieved for him. I had a funeral in the cell they put me in. Couldn’t bury his body, obviously. But I used a skull that was in the corner as a stand-in. I buried him, and I thought I was going to be alone forever.”

After getting that much out, Morgan forced herself not to think about those days anymore. They were getting too close to dangerous memories. Instead, she turned her head slightly, lowering her voice while looking at the light out of the corner of her eye. “Does he know you’re a woman?”

There was a brief pause as Lancelot absorbed the question before chuckling softly. “Oh, he knows. But how long did it take you to figure that out?” The question came idly, though Morgan could hear the slight intensity behind it. Whoever this Lancelot really was, she cared about Arthur and was worried that he was blinded by his memories of his sister. Which was fair. 

“Longer than I’d like to admit,” Morgan replied easily. “But I picked up on a few things as we went along. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a secret for me or everyone. And, well, I thought it would be a bit rude to bring it up in front of the others.”

“I appreciate that,” Lancelot noted quietly while continuing to stare intently at her. “As I said, he talked about you a lot, with all of us. He’s been pretty intent on finding you whenever there was a hint that you might be alive. So I know he doesn’t think all that clearly when it comes to you.” She paused then, clearly considering her words. “Be careful, please. I don’t know what it is, and I’m not saying you intend to do any harm. But I also know that you could hold a grudge about Arthur disappearing all those years ago. From everything I can pick up, you went through a lot. Arthur never intended that. He never wanted you to be hurt, and he went to find you as soon as he could.” 

Morgan looked away, her gaze returning to the softly crackling fire for a few long, silent seconds. “You believe I could hold some sort of grudge against my brother because he chose to run into the village after the dragon and left me in the forest, where I was taken to be…” She trailed off before simply shaking her head. “I understand. Believe me, I do. There have been times throughout this life when I did harbor anger toward him. But only because he was a convenient target. It was not his intention to abandon me, you’re right about that. And he couldn’t have known what would happen.”

Turning then, she looked right at Lancelot. “You say he missed me. That was mutual. The anger I held toward him in those little moments was driven by the fact that I missed him. He was my brother and my best friend. I have been through a lot, but I have not forgotten that. Arthur meant more to me than anyone in this world. You don’t have to tell me that I am one of his blindspots, because he is one of mine as well. I may not show such things openly as much as he does, but believe me when I say I feel them as well. I’m simply not as good at showing that as he is.” She swallowed slightly. “I never have been, even when we were children. But it is worse now.  

“So yes, I promise that I mean no harm to him. I wish to see and know the man my brother has become, and the life he has created. I would have wished for that had he simply been a cobbler, a farmer, or a traveling bard. Knowing he has become this? I want to know everything. And I want to help create the kingdom he envisions.”

For a moment, it seemed as though Lancelot was going to say one thing, before stopping herself. Instead, she simply adjusted the hood a bit over her head and smiled faintly. “I’m glad to hear that. For all his power, there’s still a lot of danger out there. Creatures and people who want to tear this whole idea down before we can actually build it. So we need all the help we can get.” Saying that, she shifted over a bit before extending a hand. 

Morgan glanced at the offered hand briefly before accepting it. They shook firmly and held on while she spoke in a soft voice. “I hope I can be that sort of help. And that I can get to know you better, Lancelot. 

“So far, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.” 

*********

Camelot was still deeply under construction. It would be many years before the vision that Arthur and those closest to him had in mind would be realized. And yet, even in its unfinished state, the city was still quite beautiful. At its center was a pristine, gleaming white palace with three finished towers that seemed to reach high into the heavens. The fourth tower was still being constructed. Once all four were finished, they would work together to project a powerful shield across the entire city proper.

Extending out from the palace grounds were four different streets at the cardinal compass directions. The streets were constructed from smooth stone, and had been enchanted to glow faintly in the dark in order to provide a lit path no matter where one was in the city. The north path from the palace led to the merchants quarters, where their shops and homes were. The south path led to the soldiers’ barracks and training yards, along with the homes where their families would stay. The east and west paths, meanwhile, led to the main city proper, where everyone else lived in a mix of half-finished houses and tents next to construction sites. Following the east path far enough would lead to what were known as the slums of the area, where the poorest lived. And yet even they would have been considered quite lucky in comparison to most other cities, because in this area they were protected from the many dangers which roamed the countryside. They were poor, but they did not starve. Arthur made certain of that.

Following the west path far enough, on the other hand, led to the laborers camp, the part of the city where those most responsible for building it set their own assortment of small cabins and tents.

A tall, imposing wall had been half constructed around the land as well, at the very outskirts of the area Arthur had designated for his city. Once it was finished, along with the towers at the palace that would project the powerful forcefield, the city would be all but untouchable.

Taking all that in as she stood at the base of the palace staring at the unfinished tower, Morgan spoke quietly. “I have to say, you’re certainly going to great lengths when it comes to protecting this city.” She turned slightly to look at him, raising an eyebrow. ”Is that simply to avoid what happened to our home, or is there something specific you’re worried about?”

Arthur started to say something, but before he could finish, Lancelot spoke up. “It won’t surprise you to know that there are a great many people out there who aren’t happy about what Arthur is trying to do here. Not the least of which are those who are quite annoyed about their own citizens leaving them to come here.”

“Yes, well, that was my next question,” Morgan agreed. “More to the point, how do you claim ownership over this land, let alone name yourself king?“

Arthur chuckled a little, looking simultaneously amused and embarrassed. “As far as that goes, you might say it was a bit of a sword in a stone situation.” He smiled a bit more than before adding, “The creature who once ruled the lands here for as far as you can see was a giant made of stone. He enslaved the people and forced them to work in his mines. I challenged and defeated him, and thus inherited his lands. He called himself king, and others say I inherited his title when I slayed him.”

“He speaks as though it was simple,” Percival put in. “Yet it was anything but. Entire armies had fallen to that beast before. Arthur defeated him in one on one combat. He has earned his title. And now, what was once a land devoted to slavery and misery will stand as a beacon of freedom and prosperity.”

“Only with the aid of friends and family.” Arthur said that pointedly while looking at Morgan. Then his expression softened a little as he extended a hand to her. “Come, there is more to show you. And you must be introduced.”

Morgan accepted his hand before pausing. “You aren’t going to go overboard with this, are you?”

The innocent look he adopted had not fooled her as a child, and it didn’t do so now either. “Overboard? Please, trust me, my dear long-lost sister. This will be a quiet, personal event. I simply wish to welcome you home. 

“Now, is pheasant still your favorite?”

******

“This is what you consider to be a quiet, personal event?“ As she asked that rather incredulously, Morgan’s voice remained a low hiss. Now they were in the center of the grand dining room of the palace. Apparently these rooms had once belonged to the stone giant who had once ruled the lands. The majority of that castle had been knocked down, but what remained served as the central most point of the kingdom. There was powerful old magic in these walls, she could feel it. 

And in addition to the powerful magic, there were people. There were a lot of people. There had to be a thousand of them filling the tables spread throughout the room. All of them were staring up at the front where Arthur’s table sat. No, they weren’t looking at the table. They were looking at Morgan as she stood next to their king. She could feel the questioning gazes, wanting to know who this stranger was and why she had been put at such an important position. She could almost hear their judgments, and it made her hackles rise despite herself. That wasn’t exactly fair, of course. She knew that. They hadn’t even said anything yet. But that didn’t stop her feelings from running ahead of the situation. 

Smiling as he stood next to her, Arthur put a hand on her shoulder. “Believe me, this is smaller than it could’ve been. Now, let’s get through these introductions so our new friends here will return their attentions to their own business.” 

If he truly believed that the people here would stop staring at her once he introduced her, Morgan truly wasn’t sure how much experience he could possibly have in these situations. Still, she did want to get the introduction part over with, so she gave a slight nod. “As you wish.” 

So, they moved out from behind the table, passing the rest of those knights Morgan had been briefly introduced to in the past few hours. Then she was standing at the head of the room, wearing the dress Arthur had produced for her. It was a deep red and gold color, more beautiful than anything she’d ever worn in her life. It felt odd, but she wanted to make as good of an impression as possible, for her brother’s sake. 

“My friends!” Arthur began, with every eye in the room focused intently on him. “Thank you all for coming on such short notice. You were told that the purpose behind our gathering this evening was a celebration, but not what that celebration was in regards to. Now, allow me to alleviate that confusion.” He stepped aside and raised his arm to indicate the woman beside him. “I would like all of you to meet an incredibly important person. This is my sister, Morgana.” 

Morgana, the name he had once known her by. Not Morgan, the name she had chosen. It wasn’t intentional, she knew that immediately. He wasn’t trying to dismiss her preference. That wasn’t the sort of person he was. No, this was simply a case of Arthur not thinking about what he was saying. He was excited and happy to show her to these people. He was thinking about the time they spent together as children, lost in those memories rather than in the far more recent one where she had told him her new name. New name? It was a single letter. Was it really something she should worry about right now? Was it worth saying anything about? 

Perhaps not to some. But it was to her. This was the name all these people would know her by. Intentional or not on his part, it still mattered. 

So, pushing aside her doubts, she put her hand on his arm, stopping him in mid-sentence. She could hear the reaction go throughout the room as their king was touched like that, but ignored it. Instead she spoke up. “Actually, I am known as Morgan le Fay.” A pause to let that sink in, then, “Morgan of the Fey. Morgan.” It was all she could do not to very pointedly add, ‘not Morgana.’ The point had been made well enough, there was no need to hammer it home any further. 

If he was bothered at all by the correction, Arthur didn’t show it. He simply met her gaze and smiled a bit before nodding. His voice rang through the room. “My sister, Morgan le Fay.”

Applause filled the room, though not all of it was enthusiastic. Morgan could see the questions and calculations in some of those eyes. They wanted to know if there was a way they could use this to their own benefit. Or if it would, on the other hand, be used against them. Not all were like that, however. Arthur had done a very good job of surrounding himself with people who were important, yet shared his goals for the most part. But even then, one could share his goals and still want to further their own power. 

Then, of course there were those who were suspicious that she would have ill designs, or would in some way distract their king from his own duties. She could see that in their expressions as well. They loved Arthur and were afraid that this suddenly appearing long-lost sister would present a threat to him and his people. None of which she could blame them for. But she would simply have to show them that they were wrong. This city Arthur wanted to create, the kingdom he envisioned, she wanted to be a part of that. She had seen some of the worst that this world had to offer, and if her brother had stumbled across the power necessary to create something better, then she would be there for it. No matter how uncomfortable the situation made her. 

******

“I’m sorry,” Arthur quietly informed her many hours later, once the long meal and subsequent discussions were over. The two of them were alone now, standing out on top of one of the finished towers overlooking the partially-completed city below. “You told me you don’t like the name Morgana anymore. I know that, and I wasn’t trying to–”

“I know,” Morgan interrupted, still staring out across the buildings and tents. “You didn’t intend offense or dismissal. But I still had to correct you.” Her grip tightened on the railing before she turned to look at him. “I couldn’t have those people know me by that name. And if I waited any longer, it would have solidified in their minds. There would be no chance of correcting it once that name got out. I would forever have been known as Morgana to your people.” She sighed then, pushing aside the doubts and uncertainties she had about this whole situation. She wanted to make this work. It would work. 

Arthur’s hand found its way to her back and squeezed. “I’m glad you corrected me. You should be known by the name you choose, not one that makes you uncomfortable.” He hesitated before adding, “I don’t want to be someone who makes you uncomfortable. I want–” There was a pause as he considered what he was saying. “I want you to be a part of this, a part of what we’re building here. Not the city, I want you to be part of… everything. Camelot is going to be a lot more than simply a city. It’s going to change the world.”

Arching an eyebrow, Morgan gently nudged him with her elbow. Then she did so again, harder. He could take it, and much more besides. “Someone’s received a large dose of ambition along with their great power.”

Arthur’s low chuckle filled the air while he nudged her back. “Maybe I have become ambitious. But sometimes ambition is good to have, especially when it’s pointed in the right direction. Or against the right enemies. And the enemies who are out there…” He trailed off, his eyes turning to look out over the horizon. But he wasn’t looking at the houses. Morgan could tell that much. Whatever he was seeing, it wasn’t in front of them. Some threat, something he hadn’t talked to her about, haunted his gaze. 

She intended to ask him what it was, press him to explain what this whole thing was really about and why he was putting so much effort into creating so many protections for this city. The words were on the tip of her tongue. But before they could come, Arthur turned away from the view and began to move back to the door. “Come, Morgan le Fay. This is a very large palace, and there’s still a great deal to show you. I think our next stop should be the training yard. 

“After all, I believe someone thinks she can still beat me in a duel.” 

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Exhibition 25-06 (Summus Proelium)

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It would’ve been nice if I could have called a time-out for a few minutes so I could explain everything that was going on, including the new power tricks I had figured out, to my newly-arrived friends. But something told me the bad guys here weren’t exactly likely to accept something like that. Especially not with the Minority people still in the middle of fighting those other two. To say nothing of how many random mooks they had helping them. Thanks to the flurry of chaotic motion, water, random bits of flying glass, and flailing energy coils, I couldn’t see how Fragile, Whamline, Wobble, Raindrop, and That-A-Way’s fight against Banneret and the goons helping her was going. And it was completely impossible to have any idea of what was going on with Carousel and Syndicate with Fogwalker. 

Unfortunately, we couldn’t check on them any more than we could call a time-out. Poise, Style, Calvin, Hobbes, Alloy, and I had our own immediate problem, in the form of Theory and Praxis, and their own thugs. I’d taken several of them down, and Alloy knocked down more with her arrival. But more were showing up, and they did not look happy. 

That wind blast from Praxis had knocked all of us flying, scattering our group across the grass. And even as I scrambled back to my feet, my eyes caught sight of the woman holding one hand out toward where Poise, Hobbes, and I were, while the other was pointed more toward the other three. My mouth opened to blurt a warning, just before twin blasts of wind tore into us. I tried to brace myself, but it didn’t help. Once again, we were picked up and thrown, tumbling end over end under the sustained barrage of wind. On the way, while I was crashing and rolling along the grass, I tried to shoot a bit of red paint toward the woman. Honestly, the mere fact that I could aim at her in the midst of that was pretty crazy. Unfortunately, it didn’t help. My paint was caught by her wind and tossed aside, scattering into useless droplets across the grass behind me. 

Okay, so I couldn’t shoot her with paint. But I could use it on myself. While the wind continued to throw me, I focused on making red paint appear on my hands and knees, then put more of it directly under me on the ground and activated all of it. The paint yanked me down and held me in place against the force of that rushing hurricane-like air. Thanks to the visor of my helmet, I was able to look that way without the wind tearing into my eyes. I could see Praxis focusing even more of her power on me, trying to force me to go flying again. But my paint held firm. To one side, I could see Alloy shielding herself, Calvin, and Style with a low wall made out of a couple of her marbles. Poise and Hobbes, meanwhile, were crouched behind a heavy tree. Even that was bowing sideways against the force of the wind. Most of the leaves were gone, and even a few branches had snapped off to fly away along the grass. I was afraid the whole thing was going to be torn out of the ground any second. 

Fortunately, Praxis’s power didn’t last forever. After those thirty seconds (which honestly seemed like a hell of a lot longer than that in the heat of the moment), the wind died down. She immediately shifted back to Theory, with his lab coat and goggles. Which we would’ve taken advantage of, but the instant that happened, a handful of those armed thugs took up position in front of him and opened fire with an assortment of guns. It happened so smoothly that I was pretty sure they had training and practice with jumping in to cover their boss while he took the time to set up new plans and powers for his partner. Which made sense. Of course they would’ve compensated for that sort of weakness. 

Seeing those goons jumping into position with their weapons raised, I quickly triggered an orange bullseye symbol across my chest, just before those first few bullets hit my arm and shoulder. It stung a bit, but I ignored that and scrambled to my feet. The others were protected by Alloy’s wall and that tree. But we still had to move quickly. Any second now, Theory was going to finish making his ‘plan’ and bring Praxis back out with a new power. The wind had been bad enough, I really didn’t want to think about what other dangerous shit she might come out with now that they were even more pissed off and had seen how we could defend against that wind. I had a feeling that whatever they came out with next would be even more dangerous, and very different.

To stop that, I planted blue under my feet and launched myself forward and up while shouting, “Rebound!” toward Alloy. 

Thanks to all the talks we’d had, she immediately knew what to do, positioning one of her marbles in a flat, wall-like shape in the air above me. It was angled just a bit toward the group of bad guys. Just before hitting it, I sent a new shot of blue that way while inverting myself in the air. My feet hit that spot, and the blue circle launched me off it like I was a ping-pong ball, sending me straight toward the gathered group. They were still trying to adjust to my rapid movements, most of their shots flying past me. 

The plan was for me to crash into Theory and take him down before he could bring out Praxis with new powers. Unfortunately, just before I would’ve hit the man with that flying tackle after rebounding off the marble wall, one of his minions threw himself in the way. I collided with that guy instead, and we went tumbling head over heels. I could hear him yelp and curse in pain. 

Seriously, these guys were both trained enough to immediately cover their bosses weakness, and loyal enough to throw some selves into the path of my flying body? How much were they being paid? Would it seem weird if I asked this guy if I could top it? 

While those thoughts were flying through my mind, I activated a purple unicorn shape on my arm before slamming my elbow into this guy’s face. His head snapped down into the ground, leaving him dazed for the moment. 

Meanwhile, from the corner of one eye, I could see Style driving her foot into the back of one guy‘s knee from behind while he was focused on me. Her hand caught the back of his neck as he started to stumble, and slammed his head forward into another guy’s temple as that one spun to see what was going on. Beside her, Calvin quickly dropped down next to the two fallen figures and snapped a pair of handcuffs on each of them to keep their hands trapped behind their backs. 

By that point, I managed to roll backwards off of the guy who had thrown himself between Theory and me. My foot lashed out to catch his chin as he started to blearily lift his head, putting him back down for the moment. 

Now that I was up and facing the other way, I could see Poise step smoothly between two guys while catching their extended arms as they aimed their weapons my way. Before they could react, she swung their captured arms around so the pistols in their hands slammed into one another’s faces hard enough to make them stagger backward. The guns fell, and Poise caught them in mid-drop, pivoting while firing one shot from each into the two men’s feet. In the exact same motion, as she continued pivoting, her foot came up to kick each of them in the face, one after the other, while they started to collapse from being shot in the foot. 

In the span of about two seconds, these guys had both gone from pointing their weapons at me, to having their arms grabbed, guns slammed into each other’s face, shot in the feet, and then kicked in the face in the exact same spot their own guns had hit. Needless to say, they both hit the ground and didn’t seem that interested in getting back up. 

Alloy and Hobbes were also doing something, but I didn’t have the chance to see what it was. After all, I was still standing in the middle of a large group of bad guys, who were reacting to my arrival by taking quick aim. They weren’t quite aware of what was going on to the guys on the outskirts, and it would take another couple seconds for the others to reach me. Seconds I wouldn’t have before these guys opened fire. 

Luckily, I had a plan for that. I just hoped it would actually work. Even as I was taking in what Paige was doing, I had been painting a new symbol across my chest, of a sword stretching from my waist up to my neck. At the same time, my hands snapped out to send a thin spray of paint at the semi-circle of thugs in front of me. They all recoiled reflexively, likely expecting to be yanked together or sent flying. But this time, it wasn’t red or blue. Each of them was hit, much to their probable confusion, by a tiny bit of the orange paint. It wasn’t much at all, just a thin line across each of them. They were clearly confused, yet didn’t waste time trying to figure it out. Instead, they opened fire. 

And that was their big mistake, because by that point, I had activated the paint I had put on my torso in that sword shape. The blade itself was orange, while the handle was pink. Praying that this would actually work, I had fed the pink power into the orange before immediately canceling it.

Normally, when I canceled the pink paint early, it made the spot that it was affecting very bouncy. Unfortunately, it only affected the actual spot it was touching, unlike the rest of my paints, which affected a larger area. Like, in this case, the orange paint, which would protect my entire body. But if I could use my newfound ability to combine my paint into new effects…

It worked. The temporary bounciness from the early-canceled pink paint fed into the protection from the orange. As these guys opened fire, their bullets rebounded off me much faster than they would’ve with just the orange protection. They went flying back the way they’d come. And since these guys were directly in their path, they ended up basically shooting themselves. 

That, of course, was why I had hit them with orange paint, so I wouldn’t turn into a killer. I didn’t give them enough to completely protect them, just enough that the bullets wouldn’t slaughter them. It was still obviously like being hit by dozens of baseballs or whatever. Enough that the assembled group in front of me hit the ground, cursing and groaning in pain. They had no idea what had just happened, only that they started to shoot me, and had suddenly been hit by a bunch of stinging pellets that would leave pretty solid bruises and possibly even a few broken bones. But hey, at least I didn’t let them actually take the full damage from being shot?  

I didn’t have time to think too much about that. I was already pivoting to catch sight of Theory so I could take him down. Unfortunately, just as my eyes fell on him, his form shifted again. Now he was gone and Praxis was back, with that same dark blue bodysuit and mask with white chestplate, boots, and eye lenses. Her powers, however, were obviously very different. A fact that was made rather obvious as she extended her arm, with electricity coiling around her finger. She sent it flying toward me, while I flinched reflexively. Thankfully, while the bouncy part of the canceled pink paint had gone away, the actual orange was still active. So I wasn’t completely destroyed by that shot of lightning. It still shocked me a bit, yet I was able to throw myself that way through the crackling line of electricity. 

“Hey!” I blurted while catching her extended wrist. I’d already activated a couple purple dagger shapes along my legs for added strength so I could yank her off balance. “Didn’t you know I already fought an electricity guy a few minutes ago?! You’re supposed to vary things up so the audience doesn’t get bored!” 

She was still trying to shock me, even as I kept hold of her arm. I could feel the electricity pouring into me, making my body spasm and jerk a bit out of my control. But, through sheer force of will, I kept my hands on her while rearing back to kick the woman in the stomach. I just had to hit her hard enough to make her stop trying to electrocute me before my protection wore off. 

Unfortunately, her new powers apparently weren’t limited only to shooting electricity. Just as my foot passed through the spot she had been in, the woman vanished with a burst of lightning and clap of thunder. I stumbled off balance, hearing another burst of thunder a short distance away, somewhere behind me. 

Pivoting quickly, I saw her appear behind Alloy, hitting the girl with a quick shot of electricity that knocked her to the ground, twitching and crying out. 

Poise was right there, already taking aim with one of the pistols she had stripped from those guys. Before she could fire, another burst of electricity shot from the other woman’s finger. Thankfully, Paige managed to throw herself into a sideways roll, letting it go right over her head. Belatedly, I realized that she had been acting as a distraction, giving Style a chance to hit the woman from the side. But just as she would have crashed into her, another lightning bolt appeared and Praxis was gone, leaving Sierra to crash into the ground where she had been an instant earlier. 

That time, she reappeared near Hobbes and tried to grab her, hands crackling with power. But Hobbes reacted faster, hand already extended toward Calvin as she snapped her fingers and activated the suit’s teleportation power. It was Praxis’s turn to have her plans foiled by someone vanishing right in front of her. 

Before anyone else could move, a voice shouted over the sound of fighting, “Praxis!” It was… Fogwalker, who was, as promised, a lynx. A gray-furred lynx with black spots, with some sort of metal collar around its neck. The animal was perched just on the very edge of the cloud of fog he had created. Fog that Carousel and Syndicate were apparently still trapped in. 

“Time to go!” the lynx TONI called toward Praxis. When he spoke again, the voice was clearly coming from the collar itself. Apparently he wasn’t one of those that could speak normally. It always seemed weird that some ended up with the power to talk and others didn’t. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to wonder about that too much, as Fogwalker added, “Target’s near the west exit!” 

Without a word of question or protest, Praxis vanished in another burst of lightning. A couple more followed as she appeared next to Fogwalker before disappearing with him. Then she did the same with Banneret, who was still fighting the others. Her time with that power had to be about to run out, but it didn’t happen before all three of them were gone.

The fog vanished almost immediately, and I could see all four Syndicates alongside Carousel, staggering suddenly as they could finally see where they were. Meanwhile, Whamline, Wobble, Raindrop, and That-A-Way were spinning around to look for where their own opponent had gone. They were also moving slowly and clumsily, practically falling over as though they were very thoroughly drunk. That was obviously thanks to the assortment of those small, flag-like marks over their bodies, courtesy of Banneret. The weapons she had taken over with more of her markings had all hit the ground together the instant she disappeared.

“Hey, what the fuck?!” That was Whamline, almost falling over as the marking slowing him down vanished and he went back to normal speed. “Where’d that bitch go?!” Belatedly, he glanced toward Raindrop and Fragile before sheepishly amending, “Sorry, I mean, what happened?” 

One of the Syndicates managed to orient himself and look back and forth between our group and the rest of their team. “Everybody okay?” 

Alloy, picking herself up from the ground after being hit by that electrical blast, grunted, “Fine, just peachy. Wait, is it over?” 

My head shook quickly. “No!” I shouted despite myself. “They’re still after Inessa Sidorov! And they found her by the west exit!” I was already trying to orient myself that way to start running, even though I wasn’t sure what good it would do. Not with that group being able to teleport. Yet even as that thought filled my mind, I saw the other group. Or rather, Fogwalker and Theory. The two of them were running past a nearby basketball court. They hadn’t teleported all the way to their target after all. Apparently Praxis’s teleportation had been strictly line of sight, and now it would take time for Theory to give his partner another transportation power. Time that we could hopefully take advantage of. Where Banneret was, I had no idea. But there wasn’t time to think about that. Not when Theory could finish charging up new powers for Praxis any moment. 

“There!” I was pointing while starting to move. “We’ve gotta stop them before they can teleport again!” 

The others were already moving to follow me, our combined teams starting to chase after the departing trio. But, of course, there were still the remaining Prev goons, who had pulled themselves together and were moving to intercept us. Worse, now we knew where Banneret was. Namely, right there in the middle of the assorted thugs, several of whom she had already applied boosting powers to. 

“We don’t have time for this!” one of the Syndicates blurted, before looking at me. “Take your team and go, stop those two! We’ll handle these guys.” 

So, we split up. Alloy created another board for our team to hop on top of, before it flew open over the heads of Banneret and her minions. They tried to aim up at us, but the Minority hit them from below, taking their attention and giving us the chance to fly after the other two. 

“Why the hell are they so obsessed with going after this skater chick anyway?!” Murphy shouted from her crouched position as she clung to the handle Peyton had created for us. 

My head shook quickly. “Dude, I’ve got no idea!

“But something tells me we really don’t want it to happen!”

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The Storm 21-05 (Heretical Edge 2)

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Apparently the metals in the volcano, and possibly other things, were interfering with the sensors on the ship. We could tell there were some life signs down on that spot, probably dozens of them. But it was hard to make out specifics, and we couldn’t get a good, close visual beyond a few very static-filled images. The only solution was to land and go over there ourselves to check it out in person. We all just hoped that, whatever Mom had been sent here for, it wasn’t too late to stop Denuvus from getting it. 

And on a more personal note, I hoped that it wasn’t too late to punch Denuvus in the fucking face. Preferably repeatedly. 

Obviously, we didn’t put the ship down right where we had detected the Jitterbug. There was far too much chance of something going wrong with that, and this ship had zero defenses. It could barely actually fly, let alone get in a fight. Fortunately, at least in this case, the world didn’t seem to have any non-automated defenses. Which made sense, given Fossor wouldn’t dream of teaching his slaves how to protect themselves, or give them the equipment to do so. Given the Renaissance-level technology level we were able to pick up, it was likely that they had no idea we were here at all. We certainly didn’t pick up any activity as the ship descended toward the landing spot we had picked out, a bit of a hike away from the volcano. The cities we were able to scan seemed to be going about their days normally. Not that we had an idea of what normal was for them, either before or after Fossor’s death, but still. 

We had to take it slow going down there, considering the condition our ship was in. It wouldn’t really help us save Mom and the others if this thing burned up thousands of feet above the planet. Something told me Robin didn’t want to survive falling from orbit a second time. And the rest of us probably wouldn’t even be that lucky. So, we were heading down at what felt like a glacial pace. Even then, the ship was steadily rocking enough to make me a little nervous, though I did my best to push that out of my mind. After all, it wasn’t like I lacked other things to worry about.

Standing between the pilot and copilot seat, I reached out to indicate a few different spots on the scanner. “What are those lifesigns between the big cities? It looks like they’re moving. They’re not just animals, right? I mean, tell me those wouldn’t be the only animal lifesigns we’re picking up on the entire world, cuz…” I blanched at the horrible thought that the entire planet might have a few dozen animals out in the world. It couldn’t be that bad. Please don’t let it be that bad. 

Persephone sat up a bit, giving me a quick, encouraging smile. “They are not wild animals. The scanners are calibrated to only pick up humanoid life signs. We think those are caravans, Felicity. We have also detected large amounts of tools and food stuff being moved along with them. Probably in wagons, pulled by beasts of burden.” 

Robin gave a short nod, eyes the amber-brown of Hood as he looked over at me. “It looks like the cities nearest to one another have begun to establish a rudimentary trade network. We don’t think they have direct communication with each other yet, but there are a few smaller, faster sets of lifesigns that are probably just two people each, riding faster beasts without the supply wagons. They’re probably carrying messages, like the old Pony Express on Earth.” 

Their eyes shifted to the yellow of Sprite. “We used to ride for the Pony Express, that was fun! It was back when Sec and Brawl were the same guy. And more like a cowboy.” Her tone became a bit wistful. “I liked being a cowboy. And chasing bad guys when we were a bounty hunter. That was fun too. So was helping Eliot Ness in the 1930’s, but we didn’t get to ride horses then.” She sounded sad about that.

Ducking her head under my arm so she could see them, Tabbris piped up. “Maybe after we save Flick’s mama and the others, and get home, we can go to a ranch and see how you ride horses. I bet you’re really good at riding.” She was holding Herbie in one hand, having spent the past couple minutes getting reassurances from the brave little guy about how this whole thing was going to go. It always helped to know that, whatever happened, Herbie had our backs.

Turning away to let those two talk for a minute, I glanced to where Asenath, Shiori, and Stasia were whispering intently together. Judas was standing a bit out of the way, clearly lost in his own thoughts. He gave me a short nod before continuing to stare at the wall. It looked like he was brooding a bit. Which, given who he was and everything that happened to him, was probably understandable. On our way here, we’d asked him a bit about that, just to get his side of the story. We’d already known that he’d been possessed and used by Charmeine, of course, which helped explain why he hated her so much. But getting the details about how all of it had gone down… it was rough. He seemed relatively well adjusted now, and he was clearly glad she was dead, even if he hadn’t done the job himself. Even so, I couldn’t help but wonder how he was going to react the first time we ran into Invidia. 

I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation between the other girls, so I stepped over to stand next to him. “It’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Thinking about how you’re about to set foot on a new planet, I mean.” 

Raising an eyebrow at me, he replied, “Like we said before, it seems like this is old hat for you.” 

Snorting, I shook my head. “Believe me, it’s still weird, even after it’s happened a few times. Especially–” Cutting myself off, I swallowed hard, trying to find the right words. 

“Especially considering just what planet it is?” Finishing that for me, Judas waited until I nodded before continuing. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about how I’d feel if we were about to land right next to Charmeine’s childhood home. It’s uhh…” He considered before simply finishing with, “Seems like you’re handling it pretty well, all things considered.” 

“You mean considering my mother has been puppeted by some crazy bitch to come to the planet of the guy who abducted, imprisoned, and tortured her for a decade and do fuck knows what?” Through that little bit, I had started to reflexively glare at the wall, before catching myself. A heavy sigh escaped me. “Sure, I’m doing my best not to freak out here. Glad it’s working at least externally.” 

Before I could say anything else, Robin turned to look away. Their eyes were the purple of Grease. “Okie dokes, gonna need y’all to strap on in real quick-like. We’re jest about tah set this puppy down, and it might be just a wee bit bumpy. And by wee bit bumpy, I mean it’ll be like tryna ride a greased hog into a chicken coop. After all, we’s barely holding together for the flying part. The landing part might be too much.”

“Have I mentioned I love Grease and want her to keep coming back when this is over?” Twister whispered my way. 

“You know they can hear you, right?” I whispered back. 

“Oh trust me, babe, I know.” Twister proceeded to give the Robin System a thumbs up. 

So, we did just that, strapping ourselves into the seats. The subtle vibrating by that point had become much more pronounced. Grease and Persephone were talking back-and-forth in what sounded almost like code and pointing to various instruments as they worked together to keep the landing as smooth as possible. Or at least keep the ship from breaking apart completely. Either way, the turbulence was getting pretty bad. I felt Tabbris take one of my hands from her place on my left side, while Shiori, sitting on my right, took the other. It was all I could do to offer them both encouraging smiles without upchucking from the way the ship was shaking. And boy wouldn’t that be a fantastic way to start off our whole mission here? 

The shaking was getting worse by the moment. Within a minute, Grease called back for us to brace ourselves. Then the whole ship lurched so much that I would’ve been thrown out of my seat without the safety harness. We spun around in several full circles, all of us trying not to cry out. There were at least three different warning alarms screaming through the cabin, accompanied by shouts from our pilots to one another about keeping the ship in one piece. I heard screeching metal, and then it was like the hand of a giant came up and swatted the entire ship. The lights went out completely, and we started plummeting really fast. Too fast, actually. Way too fast.

Thankfully, the ship slowed down abruptly, knocking us hard against our restraints. But on the plus side, we were now falling at a survivable rate. That lasted for just a couple seconds before we finally came down into what I prayed was the ground. And just like that, everything was completely motionless and silent, save for a slight creaking sound from the body of the ship that I was praying didn’t mean it was about to completely collapse in on us while we were sitting here. But hey, at least the alarms had stopped. Though I wasn’t entirely certain that was a good sign.

For a brief handful of seconds, we all just sat there in the dark. Then the emergency lighting came on. Well, it came on, then off, then on, then off, and finally back on and stayed relatively steady. I didn’t trust that to last, though. Hell, for all I knew, it was about to start an electrical fire. We all looked around at one another in the dim, somewhat flickering lighting before checking ourselves for injuries. Finally, Senny spoke up. “Something tells me we might want to get off this thing before it explodes.”

“Da,” Stasia agreed, already unstrapping herself as she added in a mutter under her breath. “And hope that we are not forced to use it again to get off this planet.“

Persephone promptly piped up with, “Oh, I have good news for that!” She beamed in the dim lighting. “This ship will probably never fly again. At least, not without months of work, and supplies that we can’t get on this world. So you’ll never have to ride it again.” 

There was a lot I wanted to say to that, but I kept my mouth shut and instead unstrapped myself. Then I had to reach down to pick Marco up off the floor. The poor beetle must’ve fallen out of my pocket while we were being jostled around so much. Together, we made our way to the exit. Robin had to shove at the door a couple times, before the whole thing completely fell off, hitting the ground beyond with a loud clang. That was punctuated by a large amount of smoke or steam filling the air in the doorway for a moment before it dissipated. Yeah, we had to get off this ship, right now. It had done a really good job of getting us to this point, but that was enough. Or at least I really hoped it was. 

Taking a deep breath while the others looked at me expectantly, I moved to that opening and looked out. They were giving me the chance to be the first of our group to stand on the planet, which I sort of appreciated. But first, I focused on Rahanvael, who had disappeared while we were descending. Looking that way as the ghost girl appeared beside me in that hatchway, I gestured with one hand. “After you.” 

She didn’t move at first, which I couldn’t blame her for at all. There had to be a lot of emotions running through the girl right now. Not only was she back on her home planet after so long, a planet that her own brother had so thoroughly devastated for millennia, but she was even back near her own actual home. Or the geographical spot where it had been, anyway. When I tried to think about how I would feel in her situation, I just… couldn’t. I couldn’t even start to comprehend what that would be like. But at the very least, I knew why she had to take a few seconds, and it seemed from the way everyone was patiently waiting, so did the others. No amount of preparing herself on the way here would have left her ready to immediately move when the time came. 

Finally, Rahanvael seemed to give herself a little nod, before floating forward. I watched as she emerged from the ship and went out several feet, clearly looking around. From the pain visible on her face when her gaze turned back my way briefly, seeing the place in person wasn’t helping. 

Looking back to the rest of the group briefly, I spoke in a soft voice. “We don’t know exactly where Mom, Denuvus, or the others are. Hell, Denuvus herself might not even be here, but let’s not count on that. You guys ready to get those spells on?” 

The others nodded, and we took out the coins we had prepared ahead of time, on our way here. There were three of them for each of us, for three separate bits of magic. The first coin had the spell that Judas had mentioned before, though modified with help from Persephone, Robin (they couldn’t cast magic but they had knowledge about a lot of it), and even Shyel. And boy had that been an interesting explanation to give. Telling the others (only Shiori and Tabbris knew before now) that I had a mental copy of Chayyiel living in my head, communicating with me while I was asleep and helping me train, had been a bit of a conversation. And had seemed to reinforce the idea of just how weird my life was. But in any case, between all of that, we’d managed to get the distance no one could talk within up from fifteen feet, all the way to about seventy-five. If we spread out when we saw Denuvus, we could make that cover a lot more ground. Which would hopefully be enough.

But if it wasn’t, we had the second spell. This one had come from Persephone originally, though like the first, we’d given it a few tweaks. If the spell picked up the words ‘My name is Den,’ it would immediately transport us to the nearest safe location at least one mile away. It shouldn’t hear that at all, given the first spell. But if, for whatever reason, that first spell failed, we had this one as a back up. It wouldn’t help us beat her, but it would remove us from the situation before she had a chance to make us do anything. That way, we could regroup. 

Finally, the third spell was specifically one that Shyel had taught me, when I told her what we were trying to do. It allowed telepathic communication amongst everyone who was using it, though only those people could send their thoughts. Others could receive them, but not send. So no matter how hard Denuvus thought her commands at us, we wouldn’t pick that up. We also wouldn’t be hearing every thought each of us had, as it only picked up what you intentionally tried to send. Now we would be able to communicate with one another even with the voice-muting spell active. 

Well, most of us would, anyway. The Robins were sort of the odd persons out on that front. Not only were they in a robot body, but that body also generated a constant field that negated active magic. The field didn’t extend any further than their body, but still. We couldn’t use any of these spells on them. Which, I still wasn’t sure how that worked with them being able to pass through portals, but maybe that was designed to be an exception or something? 

Either way, not being able to use the mute voices or instant teleportation spells on them wouldn’t really be an issue as far as Denuvus went. Her power didn’t work on machines. Which was largely why plan A for dealing with any sighting of that woman was for Robin to shut her up. We didn’t hold any illusion that it would be that easy, of course. But that didn’t stop me from smiling as I imagined the look on Denuvus’s face just before taking Robin’s fist to the face hard enough to knock her out. 

There was also the fact that the voice power wasn’t the only threat she presented. Just like Ammon, Denuvus had the same ‘kill things to gain their powers’ ability Bosch Heretics did. That’s why he’d had the ability to do that in the first place. Actually, I wasn’t sure if hers was more like ours or the stronger Natural-Reaper Heretic version. I’d never been clear on which one of those Ammon had. Either way, she obviously had a lot of powers. And we had no idea what those powers were. We had to be ready for anything.

With all that in mind, and the three spells activated, I slowly stepped through the hatch and down from the ship. My feet seemed to crunch the orange-reddish dirt, though I couldn’t hear it thanks to the silencing spell. I moved several feet away to let the others descend, while looking around. 

My first breath of air on Fossor’s planet wasn’t the best. I could smell sulfur and something else I couldn’t really identify but definitely didn’t smell good. The volcano in the distance took up almost the entire skyline. It had to be as big as the tallest mountains back home, if not more so. The whole thing was black and dark red, with imposing-looking jagged rock peaks all across it. 

Beyond the volcano and attached mountain range heading north, the ground was mostly flat and empty, with just this bare dirt. There were a few large rocks and very small hills, almost like sand dunes. Other than that, I saw no plants, no animals, nothing. 

At one point, this place had been a beautiful forest. But not anymore. Now it was barren. It was unlikely that anything could actually grow here for a very long time. Fossor had done his level best to destroy anything alive within several hundred miles of the place where he had grown up. Which seemed petty, but then again, this was Fossor. He was basically the patron saint of petty. 

Nope, nope, I didn’t like thinking of Fossor as the saint or god of anything. He was just a sick, twisted, dead piece of shit. 

Focusing on Rahanvael, I stepped that way and focused on my mental connection to her. Speaking aloud wouldn’t have accomplished anything. I know you’re not okay right now, but… I just want you to know that I’m here. And so is your world. So are your people. They survived. He’s gone. He’s dead and he’s not coming back. Your world might take a long time to get better, but now it has the chance. Your people have a chance. Thanks to you. Without you, I never would’ve survived what happened, and he… he’d still be out there. You saved your world, Rahanvael. You saved your people. Your dad would be proud of you. Your people should be proud of you. 

There was no response for a moment. She was staring off over the horizon. Finally, her gaze shifted to me, and our eyes met. Thank you, Flick, she silently sent. I think I’m ready now. 

Let’s go see my old home, and find out why Denuvus sent your mother here. 

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Exhibition 25-05 (Summus Proelium)

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No answers about why these guys were after Inessa, or where she had disappeared to, presented themselves as Amber, Izzy, and I raced across the park together. Apparently the other main source of fighting was going on near a small baseball field that had been built in the past couple years. There had been a Little League game going on, and the thought of those kids being traumatized and attacked by a bunch of gang members really pissed me off. Seriously, what were these assholes trying to accomplish? Had my family actually approved this? That didn’t make sense. Why would they let something like this happen, no matter how much money was paid? Attacking a Little League game? What the fuck was up with that? 

On the way, I realized that my call with Eits had been disconnected. A surprisingly painful flash of worry shot through me then, but a quick glance at my phone revealed a text from him promising to contact me as soon as he could. He said something about Pack showing up and how they had to do something now that I had Raindrop and That-A-Way for help. And he wished us luck.

It was taking us a minute to get over there. This wasn’t a small park, to say the least. But it did give me a chance to get filled in on what was going on, and what we were running into.

Beyond this whole situation, there had apparently been a flare-up of fighting between some of the Easy Eights (or the Fantastic Fives or whatever they were calling themselves now) and Oscuro near one of the old malls. Neither Deicide or Cuélebre were involved, but things were still pretty heavy, which was what some of the other Star-Touched were dealing with. 

Even worse, it sounded like Jennica had chosen now to make a nuisance of herself as well. She was in one of the police precinct stations, using her control-gems to force several of the cops to attack the others. So my dad and a couple others had to go do something about that. What made it worse was that they apparently had no idea how many of the cops in the station had been affected, or where Jennica herself was at the moment. 

The point was, between those situations and the usual crime around the city, it was taking time for more people to show up here. Which, come to think of it, maybe that was the problem? Maybe my parents expected the hero types to show up and drive these guys off pretty quickly, before there was any real danger, but then this other stuff happened. Hang on, was that the problem? I was completely positive that Jennica didn’t clear any of her criminal activities with the Ministry, so they wouldn’t have known about her plans. And from what Amber and Izzy were saying in those few moments while we were running together, the gang fight by the mall had erupted naturally, just when a few members from each side ran into each other and started a shoving, cursing match. That had escalated into a full brawl including Touched. So yeah, I was definitely willing to bet that this was the only situation that had specific Ministry approval, and likely only because they were supposed to be interrupted and driven off or whatever. 

All those thoughts flashed through my mind in a couple seconds, even as I looked toward the baseball field. Right now, all I could see was a bunch of indistinct shapes, but they were getting larger and more clear with each step. “Tell me what we’re dealing with!” I blurted that with a glance toward Amber. I knew Janus and Juice, along with that Devil’s Due guy, had joined up with a brand new gang from out of town. Well, technically they had been recruited by Cuélebre and then traded to this new gang in exchange for their own Latino Touched. But either way, I had no idea who these other people were. 

Speaking quickly, Amber explained, “Banneret looks like a mix between a medieval knight and a biker! Any inanimate object she touches she can put a mark on that makes that object do what she wants. Any living animal she puts the mark on gets a boost if they’re on her side and a penalty if they’re not. Stronger, weaker, faster, slower, all of it!”  

Izzy explained the next one, “Fogwalker’s a lynx TONI. He makes these clouds that’re like air for his friends, but really thick and hard to move in for other people, like Jello! It’s like moving underwater! I mean, what that’s like for most people.” She added the last bit a little sheepishly. 

Finally, Amber put in, “Theory and Praxis are the last one!” She saw my glance and gestured while we continued running. “They’re like Janus! Two people sharing one body, only there’s just one of them physically present at a time. They shift back and forth!” 

Like Fisher and Price, I realized, though I wouldn’t say that out loud. Not out here right now. 

Amber continued. “Theory’s the guy. When he’s out, he’s planning. He’ll look at a situation, figure out what he wants Praxis to do, then switch with her!” 

“And what can she do?” I called, eyes scanning ahead of us. We were definitely running into a mess. That much was clear. I could see a bunch of people on the ground, though they didn’t look dead. It was like they had hit the ground and were staying there to avoid drawing attention or getting hit. There were also what looked like gang members, armed with a mix of shotguns, pistols, and more melee-oriented weapons, running from group to group. I was pretty sure they were checking their faces. Were they looking for Inessa? 

“Anything!” Amber answered, making my eyes glance that way. Her head was nodding. “Within reason! I mean, within Touched reason! If Theory wants her to lift a bus and throw it, she can do that. If he wants her to fly up to the top of a building, she can do that! If he wants her to teleport, she can do that too! She gets powers based on what he plans, and his plans can only last something like thirty seconds or so before they have to switch back again. Once he’s out, he has to focus and plan out what happens next! The more power he wants to give her, the longer it takes. That’s when they’re vulnerable!” 

“Could he just say, ‘I want you to punch that Abyssal and kill it in one hit’ and give her the power to do that?!” I demanded. “Cuz I gotta tell you, I’m gonna be really pissed off if that’s a thing they could do!” 

“The power isn’t unlimited!” Amber called back. “She can get ‘shot put a tank’ strong, not ‘punch out an Abyssal’ strong! And she can’t just snap her fingers and kill people or anything. We don’t know what sort of limits there are, only that she’s only got about thirty seconds per ‘plan’ and she can’t become a god or anything.” 

Right, well, that was good to know. I would’ve hated to try to go fight someone who could turn into a god. That didn’t exactly sound like my idea of a good time. Then again, even with their so-called ‘limitations,’ I was pretty sure this wouldn’t be easy. 

By that point, I could see Whamline, Wobble, and that new Fragile girl. They were facing off with what had to be Banneret. She really did look like a cross between a knight and a biker, with black leather over most of her body, a gleaming silver chestplate, leg and arm guards, and a helmet that looked like both those things at once. It had sort of a medieval design, but was shaped like a motorcycle helmet. The visor was painted on the front to look like a knight’s helmet visor, but was clearly transparent from the inside. She had half a dozen guns, and twice that many knives, all spinning around her, along with a bunch of other random objects that she had clearly taken over. It was all the three Minority members could do to keep up with her. Fragile was using a bunch of glass shards to intercept the incoming knives, or hit the guns to knock them off course. Between that and Whamline’s coils plus Wobble’s vibration waves, the three of them were barely able to avoid being torn apart.

I couldn’t see Fogwalker the lynx, but I could definitely tell where he was. There was a thick reddish-gray… well fog over on the infield, stretching about from home plate to just a bit past second base, and covering first as well. I could just barely make out third. Whatever was going on inside that fog, we couldn’t see it. But I was willing to bet that that was where at least some of the Syndicates were. Three of them could be intangible at a time. That had to help with moving through that fog, right?  

I was guessing Carousel was in there too, because I couldn’t see her either. But I could see the person who had to be Theory. He was black, and his costume made him look like a scientist, basically. He had a long white lab coat that was just a bit thicker than it should’ve been, making me figure it was armored in some way. Beyond that, he wore heavy combat boots, cargo pants with a lot of pockets (all of which had random tools, notebooks, and other stuff sticking out of them), and a gray and black checkerboard-pattern plaid shirt. His head was bald, and he wore heavy green-tinted goggles over his eyes and a fairly large portion of his face. 

For a second, I couldn’t tell what he was doing. Not from this distance. Then I realized. He was talking on the phone. His focus was on that, as he turned in a circle while gesturing wildly. It looked like he was yelling on the phone. Whatever was happening here, it wasn’t going perfectly. Probably because they still hadn’t found Inessa. 

And seriously, why the fuck did they all want to find Inessa?!

Whatever the reason, an answer wasn’t coming immediately. Especially since Theory noticed us. I could almost see his double-take and the way he cursed, still holding the phone. Then he shouted, and I barely caught the word ‘those guys’ while he gestured our way. 

The thugs who had been going around from civilian to civilian all looked up, before focusing on us. Which meant the good news was that those people weren’t going to be harassed for a bit (or anymore at all, hopefully). The bad news was that now we had trouble, of the ‘lift their guns and start pointing them at us’ variety. 

“You guys go!” I blurted, activating the green and orange paint I had put on Raindrop and That-A-Way while we were running over here. “Help the others with Banneret! I’ll do something about our new friends!” Even as I said that, my eyes were scanning for Alloy or any of the others. The last text I’d gotten said they were coming and would be here soon. I just hoped it was soon enough. 

There were seven Prev thugs coming our way. Or rather, my way, once Izzy and Amber took off running toward Banneret and the others. Two of the approaching guys had shotguns, one had a long chain with some sort of blade attached to the end, another had a simple knife, two more had bats, and the last one had a pistol. That last guy was already lining up a shot, but I trusted the orange barbells I just activated on both of my arms to protect me from that. Not that I was going to be sitting idle anyway. Even as he was taking aim and starting to pull the trigger, I sent a shot of red paint that way while activating a bit of blue under my feet to send myself upwards. As the red paint hit his chest, I activated a bit of matching red on the bottom of one of my shoes. I was yanked that way in a Kung Fu-style wirework thirty-foot long jump kick that ended with me colliding with the man foot-first. He hit the ground, having only been able to let off a couple shots, which rebounded off my costume like hurled pebbles. 

At the same time, I put both hands out to either side, hitting the two baseball bats that the nearest guys had with red paint. They were already in mid-swing, but the paint yanked them toward one another rather than into the back of my head. The bats slammed into each other, and before the guys could actually let go, I took advantage of them being right next to each other by slapping the ground at their feet to make a blue circle. And this time I tried something else. Thinking about how I’d mixed white and green as well as red and green, I tried something similar here. First I made a quick empty circle of yellow, then I filled it in with blue and sort of… focused on both being connected. Then I activated them at the same time. 

It worked. The two men were launched into the air, but after they reached the first few feet off the ground, their flight slowed dramatically. They were still flying upward, but it was in slow motion. And more than that, they were flying higher than they normally would have. Like twice as high, actually. The entire effect was slowed down but also extended dramatically. It took them longer to reach the normal height, they went up twice as high anyway so that was even longer, and then they had to come back down. Which was also slowed. 

Well, at least they wouldn’t hurt themselves when they landed. And that little show even worked to distract the other guys here. While they looked that way reflexively, I hit the nearby shotgun with a bit of pink right around the middle of the barrel, while simultaneously activating a set of green wings on my back. With that burst of speed, I reached up to twist the barrel around so he couldn’t fire the gun. Not unless he was very stupid, anyway. Unlike when I used the pink paint on living targets, inanimate objects stayed the way I left them. 

Boy, between this and using the pink paint on that lamp post earlier, I really was turning into a cartoon, wasn’t I? 

The man cursed at me and dropped his weapon while trying to grab my arm. At the same time, the other shotgun guy was trying to slam the butt of that weapon into the side of my helmet. I supposed he didn’t feel great about trying to actually shoot me with it while I was so close to his buddies. Which, of course, was one of my main reasons for closing the distance the way I had. 

So one guy trying to grab my arm and the other trying to hit me with the butt of his shotgun. I certainly wasn’t going to let either of those things happen. Fortunately, I still had the green speed, so I was able to snap my arm out of the first guy’s grasping fingers before using a set of purple dart images across my leg to boost my strength enough to grab his wrist and twist it. He cried out and stumbled, before my foot collided with his knee, making him collapse fully. 

Oh, and the other guy, the one who had been trying to smack me from the side? I did something special for him. First, I made an orange smiley face appear on my helmet, right where he was aiming. The orange face had a blue mouth for a smile, along with blue sunglasses. Blue with orange. I focused on the former feeding into the latter.

In this case, when the butt of the gun hit that paint, I expected to be protected while the man was knocked away. But that wasn’t what happened. Instead, the instant the impact happened, I was fine, but the man himself jerked his head a little with a yelp of surprise, turning to look behind him. It was like someone had smacked him in the– Wait. Oh. 

Right, feeding blue into orange didn’t simply make it repel an object and protect the thing it was on. It protected the thing while also rebounding some of the damage back into the person responsible for it? I was guessing that the amount of damage returned had to do with how much blue I included. Either way, orange paint protected from damage, and blue-infused orange paint sent a portion of that damage back. 

Well, that was sure something. But I didn’t have time to focus on that now. Even as the guy turned his head away from me to see what had popped him, I was lashing out with my elbow into his stomach. It made him double over, before I caught the collar of his shirt and shoved him forward so he crashed into the guy whose leg I had kicked out from under him. They both went down in a tangled heap.

Before I could focus on the others, one of Alloy’s marbles flew in and transformed into a long, wide bar to slam into them. As I went down, my gaze snapped over and up. Sure enough, the girl herself was there, along with Style and Poise on one side of the long, wide board three of her marbles had turned into, and Calvin and Hobbes on the other side. 

They landed next to me, with Peyton asking, “Hey, are we late?”

In that moment, I caught a glimpse of Theory in his mad scientist getup walking our way. In the mid-step, his body transformed. No, he didn’t transform. He switched places with his partner. Now we were facing a woman in a form-fitting dark blue bodysuit that had a white chest plate and white boots. Her face was covered by a blue mask that covered her entire head, with white lenses over her eyes. 

Just as I took that in, the woman extended her hand and a blast of powerful wind erupted from her palm. It caught our entire group, picking us up and throwing us a good ten or fifteen feet. 

As we hit the ground and rolled, I called, ”Nope, I’d say you’re right on time!”

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The Storm 21-04 (Heretical Edge 2)

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Our borrowed and slightly cobbled-together ship wasn’t going to win any big races, that was for sure. Not against most other ships that we could’ve been racing against, and definitely not against the Jitterbug. We were basically a guy limping along with one leg and unstable crutches, while the Jitterbug was… well, a teleporter. Mom didn’t just have a head-start, she had already won the race. The one to get to Fossor’s planet, anyway. I just had to hope that, whatever she had to do there, it would take long enough for us to finally make it and stop her. 

Stop her. Stop my mother. Fuck, god–I really did not like this Denuvus chick. I was willing to go out on a limb and say I was not a fan. Making my mother do–making anyone do something against their will made her horrible enough, but my mom? After everything she’d already been through with Fossor, and, and… and everything? Fuck that. Fuck Denuvus. If I could find her, and manage not to be completely controlled by her voice before–

Okay, thinking about the things I wanted to do to that bitch for pulling this shit with my mother wasn’t easy when I let logic slip in. She was dangerous, too dangerous for me to do anything to by myself, that was for sure. And yet, I really, really wanted to punch her. I couldn’t even picture her properly because I had no idea what she looked like, but I still imagined it. 

The only advantage we really had was that we knew where my mom was going. There was really no other reason for Denuvus’s orders to kick in right now. She had to be heading for Fossor’s homeworld. We still didn’t know what the puppeteering bitch might want there, but it was the only thing that made sense. She had known that Mom was with Fossor, and almost certainly knew that he would take her to his world now and then. 

We knew where she would be, so I didn’t really have to spend any time trying to solve that particular mystery. Which meant the next few days were mostly spent doing nothing but sitting around this tiny, cramped ship, urging it to go faster with every fiber of my being. It didn’t help, of course. But I still thought about it very, very hard. 

The other thing I spent a lot of time doing, while we were all collectively sitting around rocking back and forth as though that would make the spaceship get to another planet any sooner, was talk to Rahanvael. She didn’t know what Denuvus might want there either. Not specifically anyway. She knew her brother had kept a lot of powerful items locked up in various safe locations, but it could be any of them. Or it could be something else. Hell, for all we knew, Rasputin being there and Denuvus having designs on the place (or something on it) could be related! We just had to get there and find out. 

We also checked in with the people back on Earth. Or, well, in the Sun, but still. The last person I had possessed (which was intentional) had been my dad, so I’d used the partial recall to let him know what was going on. He uhh, he wasn’t happy, to say the least. They were sending another ship out to help with this whole situation, but even with the help of some powerful transportation magic, it wouldn’t be here for awhile. Dad and I had a long conversation about that whole thing. Part of him clearly wanted to tell me to stop and wait for backup. But this was my mother, his wife. We’d just gotten her back after so long apart. There was absolutely no way I would sit around and wait to see what happened. By the time those reinforcements showed up, it could all be over. So, reluctantly, he had agreed that I needed to do this. We were the closest group to Fossor’s world. We had to stop whatever Denuvus had planned. And not just to save Mom, but also because, well, hadn’t the people of that world been through enough? We might not know what Denuvus wanted, but I was willing to bet it wouldn’t be sunshine and rainbows for anyone there who might get in the way. 

Finally, after several days of sitting in what amounted to a slightly oversized van, we were getting close to our destination. Well, somewhat closer anyway. We still had about half a day to go. Still, we were all going to be glad for the chance to get out of this thing and stretch our legs. The front of the ship had two seats, one for a pilot and one for the co-pilot, while the back had about a dozen of them arranged along the walls of the compartment. The seats could face inward, toward one another, or turn to face the front or back of the ship. They also reclined like airplane seats when in the front or back facing position, so we were able to sleep… somewhat. Still, this whole thing had been like sitting on a plane for several days in a row, and that wasn’t exactly an experience I was eager to repeat. 

“How many more do we have?” Asenath asked, while holding up the half-finished bag of blood that Shiori had passed her a minute earlier. “We should keep rationing them. We don’t know how long this’ll take, and…” She paused to consider her words. “And we don’t know what the animal situation on the world is.” 

Stasia, the other vampire in our little group, shifted in her seat while flatly putting in, “Besides which, if we cannot reacquire your special transport ship, the trip home could be very long indeed. This may have been an unpleasant few days within this ship, but an extended trip all the way back to Earth without enough blood to maintain our functions…” She trailed off before simply finishing with, “Not my idea of a good time.” 

The other thing they weren’t saying out loud, of course, was that they weren’t going to drink from the people on that world. Again, they had been through enough. Hell, for all we knew, Rasputin was there using those people as Lunchables right at this very moment. 

“Don’t worry,” Shiori quickly assured both of them. “We weren’t stupid. Athena and Wyatt were the ones who helped pack the blood reserves, and uhh…” She shifted the sack she had pulled out to show them several dozen bags of blood still inside. “They might’ve over-prepared a little bit. We could be out here for another couple months before you guys would start running out of these things, as long as you don’t gorge yourselves.” 

“Yeah,” I agreed, “for some reason Wyatt thought it might be a bad idea for us to be in a confined space all alone with a couple hungry vampires. I’m surprised he didn’t make us take a year’s worth of blood, to be honest. Maybe he couldn’t actually find that much in stock.” While saying that, I watched my new monkey-tailed beetle run back and forth along my arm, from the tips of my fingers all the way up to my shoulder and back again. I could say this much about the little guy, he definitely had a lot of energy. And he was curious. He kept crawling out of my pocket to wander around. The dude was a brave little explorer. Which was why I had decided to call him Marco, as in Marco Polo. Which worked even better considering how often I ended up calling his name while looking for him when he kept wandering off.

“How does that work, anyway?” Twister, sitting up in the copilot’s seat next to Robin (the only one of us besides Persephone knew how to pilot a ship), piped up. “I know how Senny gets blood most of the time. From people who deserve to lose a little bit of it. But how do you guys end up having hundreds of bags of blood just sitting around waiting to be part of a picnic lunch? I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but in the Bystander world, blood for hospitals is kind of important. They’d notice if a few bags went missing, and they’d definitely notice if a hundred of them disappeared. Even if you only took a couple from a bunch of different hospitals all over the world, that’s still–” 

“Don’t worry,” I quickly informed her. “We didn’t take blood bags from any hospital. You’re right, they need everything they can get. There’s volunteers on the station who give blood for any vampires we run into, or who, uh, live there sometimes.” My head nodded toward Asenath herself. “With regeneration powers, giving blood isn’t really that big of a deal. I’m pretty sure you’ve even got some of mine in there.” 

“I thought I tasted snoopy reporter turned heroic Necromancer in one of the bags,” Stasia informed me with a very slight smirk. 

Flushing a bit despite myself, I retorted, “Yeah, well if you start experiencing an abnormal amount of being abducted away from the people who care about you by megalomaniacs who deserve to swallow all of their teeth, that’s probably a side effect of my blood. Sorry about that.” 

Her gaze met mine while she gave a single nod. “I’ll keep that in mind, but do not apologize. I never object to an excuse to make someone who deserves it swallow their teeth.” 

“That said,” Judas put in, “it’s a lot more fun to make that a group activity. So let’s try not to get separated while we’re doing this.” 

“I have become slightly… fond of working alongside you and the Robins,” the woman agreed. Then she looked back to me and sobered slightly. “But speaking of working with a group, what about your food? Asenath and I aren’t the only ones who will be in bad shape if our nourishment runs out.” 

“We’re good on that front too,” I replied, “Right, Persephone?” 

Brightening a bit, the white-haired woman gave a quick nod. “Yes, Flick. We are very good on that front.” She carefully repeated my words back to me, adding a thumbs up. It was a somewhat new gesture for her, and she seemed to like making it. At the same time, she held up the other bag of provisions we’d brought so we could see inside. As promised, there was still plenty, another product of Wyatt insisting we be overly-prepared. “I assisted Mister Rendell in making many of the sandwiches, and selecting fresh fruit. He found me choosing fruit to be amusing, because of the stories of my namesake.” 

Snorting despite myself, I nodded. “Yeah, well, Hades may not be here with us, but let’s still try not to get stuck anywhere. And uhh… did you choose any pomegranates?” 

She just smiled at me. “Do you enjoy pomegranates?” 

My mouth opened, then shut. “Ah, you know, I’ll wait and be surprised. Anyway, yeah, we’ve got enough food for awhile at least. And it’s probably easier for us to restock than you guys. I’m pretty sure we’re gonna run into and through a lot of other problems before food becomes an issue.” 

Judas nodded. “As far as that goes, can I just ask if we’ve put any more thought into how we’re going to stop this Denuvus if she’s on this world too? It was one thing when we were coming here to find Rasputin and possibly any allies he managed to recruit. But with your mother being compromised,” he added with a look toward me, “that complicates things to begin with. No offense, but she’s a pretty damn strong Heretic with a lot of experience. If Denuvus gave her orders to stop us with violence, that could get… bad. Add in the possibility of Denuvus herself, and I’m afraid it goes from bad to impossible.”  

“It’s not impossible,” I objected. “Difficult, sure. The main thing is to get to Denuvus, if she is around, and contain her before she can say anything. Which, I mean… that probably gets a little more difficult considering none of us actually know what she’ll look like. Denny described her, but I get the feeling she changes her appearance a lot. You know, cuz she’s sneaky like that. She could look male, female, or anything in between.”

Tabbris hesitantly spoke up. “So we have to look for someone your mama’s spending time with who isn’t someone we know? Or even if they are someone we think we know.” She frowned then. “Maybe just knock everyone out and sort through them after?”

“I like the way the kid thinks,” Judas put in. “And as it happens, I might have something that could help with any potential Denuvus shenanigans. It’s a spell that blocks anyone from talking inside a certain radius. I can’t get that radius out to more than about fifteen feet myself, but maybe with some help from those of you who can use magic, we can extend that.” 

My head bobbed. “Right, and we have Robin too. Does, uhh, can Denuvus actually affect you?” 

There was a brief pause before their eyes shifted to green for Med. “Perhaps not, but that is not something we would want to test the hard way. We have no desire to hurt any of you if it turns out her power does affect us.” 

With a grimace, Judas gestured. “Yeah, believe me, I’ve seen them go to town on someone before. You really don’t want to be on their bad side. Let’s operate under the assumption that they can be affected, just so we can be pleasantly surprised if the situation pops up and they’re not.” 

“Fair,” I agreed. “Let’s talk some more about this spell of yours, and see if we can come up with some sort of plan. Then we should get some rest, cuz it looks like we’ve got about ten hours before we get to the planet. 

“And something tells me we’re not gonna get a lot of sleep while we’re there.” 

******

Well, whatever Denuvus had sent Mom to do on this world, it wasn’t immediately apparent as we came into orbit. I finally had my first real look at the place, as we stared through the forward viewpoint. The image was enhanced somewhat on the dingy screen. We could see the land masses down there. It looked like there were three major ones. The largest was shaped like a potato with a thick stem sticking out the top, near the middle. It was big enough to take up just under half of the planet by itself. It looked like there were a lot of large lakes and rivers on it, but still. It was a huge continent, considering this planet was a little under twice as large as earth. 

Meanwhile, the other two continents were each shaped a bit like crescent moons. They were on the opposite side of the planet, where most of the ocean was. One was almost nestled inside the other, like two people spooning, though there were a few thousand miles worth of water between them. The slightly larger one on the outside looked like it was about as wide as the United States at its fattest point right in the middle, and about as long as the distance from the bottom of Mexico up to the stop of Canada. The second, smaller one on the inside was about two-thirds that size, and a lot more curved. It was more like a C than a crescent, come to think of it. 

From what we could see, the smaller continent there was mostly desert. The larger one on that side had a good bit of greenery, as well as snow toward the northern end. And the massive continent on the other side of the world had a bit of everything. There were forests, deserts, snow in the north and south, tropical areas, all of it. From here it all looked like what we might see on earth, mostly because it was all just colors and vague shapes. The clouds were even white, the water blue, it was just… immediately familiar. And yet, seeing it still made a shudder run through me.

That wasn’t fair, of course. This world had done nothing wrong to me or my family. Nor had any of the other people on it. They were even more the victims in all this than we were. And yet, staring down at it, part of me couldn’t help but think that this was where he had come from. I shoved the thought down hard and swallowed before turning to look over my shoulder. 

Rahanvael was there, hovering near the back of the ship, past everyone else. Our eyes met, and I gestured. “Come on, you should see this place.” 

She was a ghost, of course. But the others still moved out of the way as she came closer. I stepped aside as well, giving her a chance to stare through the screen at the world she had left behind. I heard the sound she made deep in her throat as she stared that way. It was a mixture of relief as well as regret. And, I was sure, a lot of grief.

“Home.” Her voice was quiet, as she raised a finger to point toward the south-central area of the large continent, just a little bit above the snow line. “Our home was there, in a city that doesn’t exist anymore.” She looked away, gaze dropping. “Now there’s a volcano where it was.” 

Fuck, he really was a spiteful piece of shit, wasn’t he? Absorbing that reminder, I sighed. “I wish we could just introduce ourselves to your people down there and talk to them about everything that happened.” 

“Soon.” That was Judas, stepping over next to me in the cramped space. He was peering at the image on the screen. “You’ll be able to tell those people what happened to the monster who enslaved them, and we’ll be able to find Rasputin. But first, priorities.” 

“Yeah, whatever Denuvus is up to is a pretty big priority,” I agreed in a soft mutter. “And so is my mom. We just have to find her. Them. Mom, Nevada, and Mercury. Before something bad happens. Sorry, something worse.” 

To that end, I glanced toward Robin and asked, “Do we have anything yet?” 

Their eyes were amber-brown at the moment, so Hood was the one talking. He was also the one who knew how to pilot the ship, as it happened. “I see a lot of dormant defenses all around the planet. Both on it, and on one of those two moons over there. If we hadn’t shut down those alert systems, we would’ve had a lot more trouble when we got here. Other than that, most of the planet appears to be stuck in very… near-Renaissance era Earth level of technology. Our scans didn’t detect any ships, except for one. I can’t say for sure, given how old and… ill-maintained the equipment on this thing is. But the basic shape and size does seem to fit the Jitterbug.” 

“Where is it?” Asenath immediately asked, leaning up over the back of the seat behind them. 

In response, Hood pointed to the exact same spot Rahanvael had earlier. “There. Near the base of that volcano.” 

We were all silent for a moment, until I sighed and reached up to let Marco crawl off my shoulder to my hand. “Well, of course, that’s where Fossor would keep something important. Rahanvael, I hope you’re ready for this. 

“Cuz it looks like you really are going home.” 

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Exhibition 25-04 (Summus Proelium)

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Well, assuming my intention had been to piss off a whole group of people who could kill me, then mission highly successful. All of the guys with guns who had been standing guard over the hostages immediately turned their weapons my way and opened fire. At the same time, Juice sent a blast of electricity into the area he clearly thought their gunfire would send me dodging into. But I had been pretty sure that was exactly what would happen. So, instead of throwing myself into that open space, and therefore right into the lightning, I trusted my orange paint to keep me alive. It still wasn’t fun, considering being hit by all those bullets felt like being in a hailstorm. I would definitely have a few bruises. But they didn’t penetrate, and that was the important part.

In the midst of all that gunfire, my hand touched the lamp post I was perched on. All the way down the length of it, the lamp turned pink. They noticed just as Juice’s lightning bolt went flying off a bit to my left. Before they could react, I hopped backwards, quickly activating and disabling the paint at the same moment to turn the lamp post into a springy surface. My hands caught the end of it, yanking it backwards and down with me. The pole bent all the way over, like in the cartoons when they pull a springy tree. And just like in those cartoons, when I released the pole, it snapped all the way back up and over in the opposite direction, slamming down into two of the gunmen before they could react. They were knocked sprawling down into the pit with the hostages, guns cluttering along the cement. Meanwhile, the pole snapped back upright as if nothing had happened.

Janus, by that point, were sending a massive fist the size of a Volkswagen right at the spot where I had landed. From that and the large amount of cursing they were doing, I was starting to think they didn’t like me very much.

I wanted to use yellow paint to slow the fist down, and the rest of them by extension. But I was pretty sure I was running very low on available paint at that moment, after all of it I’d used while quietly taking down those other guys coupled with turning that entire pole pink just now. I had to wait for a few seconds. Instead, I activated another couple spots of green along my legs and ran forward. Just before the fist would’ve collided with me, I activated a couple blue stars on the bottom of my shoes. It launched me upward into a flip before I came down on the men’s enormous arm. They were still reacting to that while I raced along it. “Hey guys, I think I really–” My knee slammed into one of their faces. The Mr. Harmful one, as it happened. “–kneed you!”

My momentum, combined with the fact that I had activated a picture of two crossed purple baseball bats along my arms, were enough to snap their head backwards despite their enhanced strength. I didn’t think it actually did that much damage, but still. Their right arm was still extended and shrinking back down, but the left snapped upward to grab me by the head. Before they could do that, I threw myself backwards, planting both shoes against Harmful’s face to launch away from them. “If I’m too close, I’ll put a couple feet between us!”

Juice had pivoted by that point, taking aim at me once more as I went into the air. However, before he could hit me with his second lightning blast, I pointed with both hands. One shot of red hit his extended wrist, while the other hit Janus in the shoulder. I could tell that would be the last of my paint for now, but it was enough to yank the man’s arm down just as he unleashed that blast. The lightning slammed into Janus, drawing a pained and furious cry from both of them. They stumbled backward and down onto one knee, clearly needing a moment to pull themselves together.

Juice, on the other hand, didn’t need a moment. And he was pretty damn pissed off by that point, as was the one remaining guy with his gun. That guy came charging forward, pulling the weapon up as he shouted something about me being a little son of a bitch. He opened fire, but despite all the stuff that had already happened, the ten seconds of my orange paint protection still wasn’t up yet. Three or four bullets rebounded off my helmet even as I grabbed a piece of broken cement off the ground. It was about the size of a ping-pong ball, and I pushed it against my palm while raising my hand. Before the guy knew what was happening, I activated the blue circle that was already on my glove there. The rock was launched out of my hand and smacked right into the middle of his forehead. He dropped his gun and staggered with a cry.

Meanwhile, Juice had abandoned trying to hit me with electricity. Or maybe he only had so many shots he could use in a limited time. Either way, he was running at me. And that was kind of terrifying, considering his powers didn’t just let him use electricity for lightning blasts. He also used it to make himself stronger and faster. I saw a shower of sparks from the same lamp post I had used before as he sucked the energy out of it and came running right at me like a runaway freight train. He was a huge, muscular black guy all on his own, and now he was empowered to the point that he could probably literally run right through me as if I was a squirrel and he was a truck. And my paint reserves weren’t ready to do anything yet. Fortunately, I had prepared for all this, and still had an assortment of paint scattered across my body. And, as it happened, on things other than my body. 

So, tempting as it was to stay crouched there and stare at the incoming man like a deer in headlights as he reared back his fist, I pulled out those two rocks I had painted green and white earlier. Holding them tightly, I waited as he ran, telling myself to hold off until the last second. Finally, just before he would’ve been on top of me, I activated two more small spots of blue paint on my heels. Thanks to the position my feet were in, I was sent backwards and up slightly, as the man let out a screaming curse and swung at the spot where I had just been. At the same time, I threw both of those rocks up toward his face. The second I activated them, the white paint I had covered them in went off in a quick, incredibly bright flash. 

Wait, what? That was actually a lot stronger than I’d expected, or seen up to that point. Every other time I used the white paint, it just made objects glow. My thought had been to throw white glowing rocks into his eyes to maybe distract him or whatever. The green paint had been to make them fly faster, but… Actually, come to think of it, the rocks didn’t continue to glow afterwards. It was like they had expended the full effect of the paint at once. Had I somehow put the entire ten seconds worth of light into that single flash? Wait, when I put the green in there, the two colors sort of ran together. Did the green imbue its speed into the white to make the effect faster, but more powerful? Was that something it could do?

All those thoughts jumped into my head as I came down back on the ground and rolled along the cement. Juice was bellowing loudly as he reeled and waved his hands in front of his face. Yeah, he had been at least temporarily blinded. Which was better than I had expected this to go. I was really—

A giant hand wrapped around me from behind, hoisting me off the ground while squeezing tight enough to hurt. 

Oh, right, there was still that other problem. 

Janus, who had apparently recovered, were taking themselves off the ground while holding me even tighter. If they squeezed any more, I was pretty sure something would start to break. Uncle Friendly was the one facing me, but he didn’t look all that friendly in that moment. They stepped closer, maintaining their grip while I grunted in pain. His voice came in a low snarl, teeth clenched. “Now, see, you just can’t leave well enough alone, can you? You really think you’re enough to rescue all those people by yourself, you stupid little shit?”

Grunting a little as he kept squeezing, I took a moment to force the words out. “You might be right about me being a… uggnn…. stupid… little shit. Maybe that’s why I’m confused right now. Since you’re, ugggnnn… so much smarter than me, could you maybe answer one little question?” Pausing just a bit, I made the next words come out pointedly, while they leaned a bit closer to hear me better. “Rescue what people?” 

The skating pit was to their left, out of sight of both of them. With a confused noise, Mister Harmful turned their head so he could see it… and realized that the pit was empty, save for the two disarmed and thoroughly pummeled thugs I had knocked into it. Throughout the past few moments, while I was playing distraction, the hostages had all clambered out the opposite side and were running off across the park. 

While they were distracted by that, I activated my secret weapon, the thing I had prepared ahead of time for something just like this (yeah, I was expecting them to grab me at some point). I had painted my entire body under the suit pink. I activated that paint now, and the force of their hand squeezing me instantly made my body squirt down both of their grasp. It was a very weird sensation, to say the least. My head inside the helmet stayed intact, but the rest of me was basically like an old tube of toothpaste. Well, more like my body was the toothpaste itself and my costume was the tube. Either way, I went schlooping down out of Janus’s hand, landing on the ground under the massive fist while deactivating the pink paint. Since I had done so before the ten seconds was up, my body was instantly very bouncy, so I managed to spring backward away from them as they brought that hand slamming down into the spot where I had just been with a loud curse.

Oh yeah, and Juice had recovered from that temporary blindness by that point. So they were all up and pissed at me. Which was… fun? I really hadn’t thought much further than this. Carefully and quietly taking care of all the wandering thugs and then distracting the big guys long enough for the hostages to escape was basically my plan. Except now I was stuck here facing a couple very pissed off and powerful Fell-Touched, who probably wanted to play table tennis with my head. And I was pretty sure I still wasn’t quite ready to start using new paint yet. This uhh, this could be a problem. 

“Hey guys?” I started a little weakly after standing up. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a lit-aaahh!” That last bit came as the two figures launched themselves at me. I activated the last bit of green paint I had, before launching myself forward in a roll that carried me just underneath their outstretched hands. I was pretty sure the only thing that saved me in that moment was that none of them expected me to move toward them rather than away. Janus had actually been extending their arms, anticipating my retreat. The fact that I moved forward into that diving roll between them caught everyone involved (even me, to an extent considering the terrified screaming some small part of my consciousness was doing) off guard. Before they could recover, I kept going, popping my skates out as I dove down into the pit. My wheels caught the cement ramp partway, and I went rolling halfway up the embankment on the opposite side. 

From the corner of my eyes, I could see Mister Harmful facing me, even as he sent one of their gigantic fists my way, their arm extending a good thirty feet in the process. Just before it would have collided with my very fragile body, I leapt off that side of the concrete embankment, landing sideways on the railing of one of the short bridges people could use to walk over the pit. My skates grinded along that railing while I shouted, “Can we talk about this?!” 

Judging from the lightning blast that Juice sent my way, which I barely managed to dodge by dropping off the railing back into the pit, the answer was no. They really did not want to talk. Though maybe they just wanted me to not be able to talk, or breathe for that matter. 

I, on the other hand, quite enjoyed my ability to do both of those things. So I breathed a sigh of relief at the feeling of my paint returning. The tanks were refilled. And none too soon either, as I was barely able to send a shot of red against the cement half-pipe in the distance to pull myself off that spot just before the Janus jerks crashed down right there. They tried to grab my foot, extending their arm after me, but I twisted around in midair and shot a burst of yellow right into their incoming hand. It slowed them down enough that I was able to land. Or rather, hit the cement and rebound off it. Because I’d put blue paint on my shoes right before impact, so it simply launched me upwards and back the way I’d come. 

A thought occurred in that instant, as I went flying back toward Janus, feet-first. Lifting my head, I quickly extended both arms to point toward them. One fired off a shot of red, while the other hit them with green. Both shots of paint hit the same spot simultaneously. Like before, with the rocks, the two colors sort of melded together in a swirl pattern. At the same time, I made the same green-red swirl pattern on the bottom of my shoes, activating all of it together. 

Okay, holy fuck. The world was suddenly a blur as I was hurled that way. The green paint definitely sped up the pull from the red. I went from being yanked in that direction to being shot like a bullet. It also made the red paint immediately vanish, but still. The momentum was already there. I barely had time to start to scream while activating an orange elephant symbol on my back. 

Uncle Friendly, the one who had been facing me, made the faintest noise of disbelief before both of my feet collided with his face. All that momentum I’d built up, from yanking myself one way with red paint, then rebounding backward and up with blue, and finally speeding myself up with that weird green-red combined pull, every last bit of it went into that impact. Even with the orange protection I had, I could still feel it. And they definitely felt it. Janus hit the ground, blood flying from Friendly’s nose and mouth. Not that I had much of a chance to notice, as I landed in an awkward rolling tumble, falling end over end along the concrete before coming to a sprawled heap. 

Boy was I glad for the orange paint. Not to mention my helmet and knee and elbow pads. That definitely hurt. But hey, I had managed to put Janus down, and they weren’t moving very much. Which gave me a chance to just lay there for a second, eyes wide behind my mask and helmet. Holy shit. Holy shit, that was something new. Green made the other paints work faster but also wore them out immediately. That was–

Oh shit there was still– A large orange hammer appeared on my chest and reactivated my protection just before a blast of electricity slammed into me. It felt like getting a nasty static shock after rubbing my sock-covered feet on the carpet and grabbing a doorknob. Not fun, but definitely not the kind of damage Juice had clearly been going for. Unfortunately, it was still enough to stun me for a moment. Which gave him a chance to grab me off the ground by the throat, still channeling more electricity into me.

Spasming as he held me off the ground and squeezed tighter, I tried to grab his hand to pry his fingers off my throat, to no avail. I was pretty sure that even if I painted my entire body purple, it wouldn’t beat his strength. But maybe if I used the new green-boosted-purple? Unfortunately, with the continued shocks running through me, I couldn’t actually focus enough to paint myself properly. Every time I tried to do so, another shock hit me. It still wasn’t doing nearly as much damage as it should have, but the jolt was enough to stop my concentration. 

This could be really bad. I only had a few more seconds of protection before he’d be able to do some real damage. I had to focus, had to force myself to push past the shocks and get… myself… 

“Hey, jerk!” A voice shouted those two words from the side. As Juice turned his head that way, he was hit in the face by a firehose-like concentrated blast of water. The force, suddenness, and (I was guessing) coldness of it made even him recoil reflexively. His grip on me loosened, just as someone appeared next to me. I felt hands grab my shoulders before I was suddenly a good twenty feet away. Twenty feet north, of course. 

“You okay?” Amber, now dressed as That-A-Way, asked as we both pivoted back in time for me to see Izzy, also in her own costume as Raindrop, facing Juice. He’d recovered from the initial shock from that blast of water, and was trying to hit her with an electrical shock. But she had half a dozen park benches and chairs from the audience floating between herself and him, and whenever the man tried to blast her, it was intercepted by one of those obstacles. 

Oh yeah, and Juice’s situation was further complicated by the fact that he was floating up off the ground. Izzy had reversed his gravity, or removed it, or whatever the term was. He was going up, anyway. 

Shaking off the last of the lingering effects of being repeatedly shocked, I started to nod. But before I could say anything, Amber pivoted so she was facing east, while putting herself in front of me. At that moment, Juice shot off another electrical blast, this one in our direction. But Amber was invulnerable in that position, and blocked me from getting hit. 

“You little fucks!” the man was shouting while still shooting off one blast after another. “You think you’re hot shit?! You think making me float up here is gonna accomplish anything?! You got no clue, you fucking neurodivergents!” 

Except he definitely did not call us neurodivergent. The word he used started with R and should have resulted in whoever his mother was washing his mouth out with about seventeen bars of soap. 

We didn’t have soap. But Izzy had water, and she used it to spray him down thoroughly once more, while he recoiled and spun in the air. Before he could recover from that, she called, “Why do you guys always forget the second half of my name? It’s Rain–

“–drop.” And with that, Izzy must have dramatically increased the amount of gravity on Juice, because he wasn’t floating anymore. He went slamming hard into the cement with enough force to crack it all around him. Even with his enhanced strength, he was out. 

Looking from his unconscious form over to the still-barely moving Janus, I slumped in relief. “Thank God. I am so glad you guys managed to… uh… wait, how did you… you know, change?” I kept my voice low. 

Amber, also whispering, replied, “Wobble brought the costumes. He and the others are on the other side of the park, with the rest of your team. There’s more of these guys and a bunch of their lackeys, looking for that Inessa chick. They’re tearing the place apart.” 

“I am so confused,” I admitted, already starting to move. If the others were still in the middle of a fight, I wanted to be there. “Why the hell are they after some random celebrity skater?!” 

Izzy joined us in running that way, while Amber shook her head and replied, “You know what, dude?

“That’s a really good question!” 

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The Storm 21-03 (Heretical Edge 2)

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“Flick!” A voice shouted in my ear, drawing my attention away from seeing through Rahanvael’s eyes. Suddenly, I was back in the locked room, facing the others. Shiori’s hand was on my arm as she shouted my name, with Asenath and Twister right behind her. Tabbris was to one side, with Persephone, Stasia, Judas, and Robin a bit further back. All of them were staring at me intently, wanting answers about what the hell had just happened. 

My mouth opened, then shut, as a wave of confusion, fear, and guilt washed over me. Guilt that I hadn’t noticed anything wrong with my mother, no matter how ridiculous that was. Fear over what she was being forced to do and why. And confusion over what we were supposed to do now. Finally, I swallowed and quickly told them what I had seen. 

The revelation made them all reel backward. Stasia was the first to find her voice. “Denuvus? He is just a myth, a story!” 

“No, she’s not,” one of the Robins put in before adding that Denny’s power had come from Denuvus, by way of Ammon. 

“Yeah, she’s definitely more than a story,” Asenath murmured, frowning at the wall. “Even if she’s spent a lot of time and effort muddying the waters as far as that goes.”  

While they were explaining that, I looked back to the emergency containment wall. “We’ve gotta get out of this place. And then we’ve gotta find that ship, stop Mom from doing whatever Denuvus is trying to make her do, and–” I stopped myself. Focus. First we had to get out of here. Then I could think about the next part.

“Well, you can’t break it down.” That was Judas, speaking remarkably calmly considering the situation as he stepped up closer to examine it. “I’ve studied a lot of this stuff when I was trying to track down Charmeine, and this sort of seal is meant to hold in dangerous things.” 

“We can’t even break it with Robin?” Twister looked that way pointedly. “You guys are really strong, aren’t you?” 

“It’s not a matter of being strong enough,” Judas informed us. “It’s the fact that if you do break it down, the station goes with plan B.” 

“What’s plan B?” Shiori put in, giving me a quick, worried glance. 

“It vents all the atmosphere,” came the flat response. “And if that doesn’t do the trick, it gets rid of everything else. By which I mean it transports everything that is not marked as belonging in this structure out into the nearest star. Which, believe me, is harder to survive without one of those special stations you do your math homework on.” 

“He is correct, Flick,” Percy confirmed after reaching out to poke the metal wall. “This sort of system is designed to ensure that any dangerous thing–most dangerous things that might escape confinement are killed before they can become a threat.” 

Which, of course, meant Tabbris’s wings were out. She couldn’t destroy the wall that way. She and I exchanged a quick, meaningful glance. We’d both been thinking the same thing. 

Asenath sighed softly, fingers brushing the wall. “So we need a better way.”

“Yeah, and I have one,” I agreed, turning back that direction. “My ghosts. We can send them to find the control room and undo this lockdown. This place can’t be that big.” 

So, that’s what I did. Sitting down cross-legged on the floor, I focused on summoning up more of the ghosts I had brought with me, including pulling Rahanvael back and bringing Seth and Grover out. In total, I sent about twenty ghosts through the facility, telling them to look for anything that could control this security lockdown and to give a tug at our connection if they found something. 

Once they were all moving, I opened my eyes and focused on the others. They were staring at me again. Immediately, I glanced away before muttering, “I didn’t know she ever had any contact with Denuvus. When? Was Denuvus here on the station? Could she–” 

“No,” Asenath interrupted, taking a knee in front of me. Her gaze was gentle, yet I could still see the intensity buried behind it. She was suppressing all the emotions she was feeling right then, over yet another obstacle being thrown up between her and answers about what had happened to her father. “It had to be while she was with Fossor. Don’t you see? Whatever actually happened, the trigger was clearly her coming to his world. Denuvus had to have set that up while she was still with him, because she thought he’d take her back there.” 

“She’s right, Flick,” Shiori agreed, dropping down to sit next to me. “You said yourself that Fossor had a bunch of randos in that place watching his fights or whatever, right? She probably got in that way. It wouldn’t have taken long to talk to your mom and give her… whatever orders. Maybe she even told her to check in now and then without anyone knowing, so she could update them.” 

“But what orders?!” I found myself blurting. “Why–what does Denuvus want with Fossor’s world? Why is she taking Mercury and Nevada with her?! I don’t–I’m lost right now.” I felt like flailing, but instead folded my arms tight against my stomach. Even with the reassurances, I was still terrified about what Denuvus might be having my mother do, and what she might make her do when she was done. 

“We are all very confused.” That was Stasia, of all people. When I looked up, she met my gaze evenly. “And your fear is understandable. But fretting will not produce answers. Panicking will not produce answers.” She paused then before adding a bit more quietly. “Discussion can be helpful. Blaming yourself, or spiraling inside, is not.” 

Tabbris, crouched next to me, gave a quick nod. “We’ll find your mama, Flick. It’ll be okay. You know, cuz if Denuvus had her take Nevada and Mercury, it’s gotta be because she wants her to do something big, right? I mean, something that’s gonna take time. And we can use that time to get out of here and find a way to follow them, right?” She offered me a faint smile, hand touching my shoulder. “Denuvus does big plans, not little ones. And big plans take time.” 

“Besides,” Senny pointed out, “I doubt she would’ve allowed any leeway for your mom to leave the note telling you who it was if she intended to kill them. Murdering the founder of the Heretic Rebellion and letting everyone know who did it is… a bad idea.” 

She was right. They all were. Squeezing her hand, I looked over at Stasia. “Yeah, I’m not going to blame myself. I think I’ll focus on blaming Denuvus. Especially once we find her. But before that, we’ve gotta get out of here, then find my mom and the others before they do whatever that puppeteering bitch wants them to do.” 

Persephone spoke up then. “If this woman really set up these orders before your mother was ever rescued, it must be about something on that world that has been there for a long time. Something she could be certain wouldn’t be removed or leave before Joselyn could go there.” She paused then before adding, “Or die.” 

I blinked up at that. “You know, that’s a good point. This can’t be about a specific person there, because that piece of shit killed his own people all the time. He sacrificed thousands on a whim. There’s no way Denuvus could be sure that any particular person would still be alive by the time my mother was sent there. So it’s not about a person, and it can’t have any sort of time limit. It’s not a specific day or hour or time of year. Denuvus must’ve sent her for something that’ll always be there. Maybe some sort of artifact that Fossor found at some point and put in a treasure room or something?” I shrugged helplessly. 

We talked a little bit more, but didn’t really get anywhere important with it. We just didn’t know enough. Before long, however, one of my ghosts tugged at our connection. I focused on seeing through his eyes, and found myself looking at a small, twelve foot square room with a bunch of computer consoles around the sides of it and one chair with a few small beetle-like creatures crawling across it. Apparently even a place like this managed to have an insect problem somehow. In any case, I quickly thanked the helpful ghost and asked him to wait there. Then I relayed the information to the others before adding, “So, now what? How does my little buddy out there actually disable the security alarm?” 

It was Persephone who answered, her voice steady and… kind of calming, actually. In this moment, she seemed completely at ease. “Tell him to look for a series of four small light bulbs in a vertical line. The second one down should be slightly larger than the others. And there should be a horizontal lever somewhere close to it, probably a bit to the right. Do not touch it, but find the lights and tell us what color they all are.”

So, I passed the message along and then watched through his eyes as he scanned the consoles before finding what she was looking for. Speaking aloud, I informed the others, “Okay, the top light is sort of light blue, then the bigger one under it is red, and the other two below that are yellow. There’s that lever you were talking about about six inches to the right of the third bulb. Well, sort of in between the second and third.” 

“Good,” Persephone replied simply. “From the third bulb, moving to the left and slightly down, there should be a small toggle. It will be very difficult to see as it is quite small and the same color as the console, so he will probably have to look very carefully.” 

Once again, I relayed those instructions, and once the ghost found the toggle (brushing another bug out of the way in the process), I sent along Percy’s message to flip it. That turned one of the bottom two lights from yellow to red, but Percy insisted that was a good thing. And from there, we continued that way. She described what she needed to look for, I passed on the message and he found the bit in question. He pushed buttons, pulled levers, moved a small plug from one outlet to another, even ripped a couple wires out. According to Persephone, we didn’t have the actual code to shut down the alert manually, and it wasn’t as simple as just hitting a button. But apparently she knew the system well enough to actually override it. Essentially, we were hotwiring the damn thing. I had no idea the Revenant girl knew how to do something like this. But then again, she was full of surprises. 

Before long, even as a part of me was saying it was taking forever, Persephone passed along one last instruction, and when the ghost touched that final button, there was a loud buzzer that rang throughout the entire facility. Then, with a whooshing sound that was positively beautiful, the security door retracted. We didn’t waste another moment. As soon as it was out of the way, we were all running down the corridor. From my pocket, I produced the two tiny glowing rings from that power I had inherited from that Olympian ghost, Elemiah. Tossing them ahead of me, I made the rings flip around and grow so we could all run through the acceleration sides, picking up speed as we went. Soon we were running several times faster than usual. Obviously the vampires and Mevari could go even faster if they wanted to, but we were sticking together. 

We didn’t head for the hangar bay, however. We already knew that was empty. The ship we had arrived in had been the only one in there, and Mom had taken that. However, Grover had actually found another ship while he was searching for the security console. We weren’t sure what sort of shape it was in yet, considering how dark it was in the area where he found it, but it was our best shot.

Grover and Seth had used the time while we were getting the security lockdown lifted to carefully find a path through the corridors for us to take that didn’t involve needing to go through walls like a ghost. I followed that path now, with everyone else trailing right behind me. There was absolutely no time to waste. Whatever that woman had sent my mom to do, we had to catch up with them and make sure it couldn’t happen.

The area this other ship was in was some sort of maintenance hangar. Thanks to the investigation the other ghosts had done, we knew there was a sort of long, winding tube thing leading from here to the actual hangar bay. Or rather, the area underneath. We were pretty sure there was a lift or something that would carry the ship up into that so we could get out into open space once more. 

First things first, however, we had to get this ship up and running. I just hoped it being in the maintenance hangar didn’t mean it was completely broken. I was pretty sure we didn’t have time for all of us to become expert space mechanics or whatever. Even if we did apparently have a head start with Percy. 

As we went into the small hangar itself, Shiori, Judas, and I all set off light spells to illuminate the place so we could see what we were dealing with. And what I saw wasn’t exactly encouraging. My first impression was that I was looking at a Volkswagen bus. That was seriously what it looked like, though maybe a few feet longer than one of those. The main body was red, with a white trim. There were two ovular wing-like structures sticking out of the middle on either side, both of which were kind of an ugly off-green with spots of blue. The hatch on the side was actually missing. Well, it wasn’t actually missing, I could see it laying on the floor nearby. It just wasn’t attached. And the rear of the ship was open with several components lying around on the floor behind it. Also, there were more of those bugs crawling around, most heading for darker shadows. We all stood there and grimaced at the sight. So much for just jumping in this thing and turning it on. Which, to be fair, really wasn’t that surprising at this point, but still. Not surprising, and not frustrating were two different things. 

“Tell me you know how to fix this.” Judas was saying that while looking over at Persephone, his fingers visibly crossed. “Like you fixed the lockdown.” 

“Eh, I think we can do something about that ourselves.” Robin, whose eyes had shifted to purple, grunted the words while rubbing their hands together. They were staring at the bits of ship eagerly, as if they couldn’t wait to get started. Purple eyes… I didn’t know that one off the top of my head. 

“Grease?” That was Judas, blinking that way with what looked like surprise. “Haven’t seen you out for a while. I was starting to think you didn’t like us anymore.” Glancing to the rest of us, he added, “My old friend Grease here is a she/her facet. She runs most of their mechanical knowledge.” 

“Ain’t no reason for me to pop out willy nilly,” the purple-eyed Robin, Grease apparently, retorted. “But it looks like y’all need some help getting this puppy up and running.” She looked over toward Persephone. “That said, I wouldn’t mind a couple extra hands if’n ya got some idea of what you’re doing. Especially hands as lovely as those.” 

I swore Persephone actually blushed a little bit, reflexively looking down at her hands before giving a quick nod. “Yes, I believe I can help. But it would be good for you to take the lead. I am not an expert at putting space boats together.” 

“I know a thing or two about regular cars back on Earth,” Asenath noted. “It might not mean a lot when it comes to this sort of thing, but I can chip in.” 

“We will all help,” Stasia put in. “At the very least, to be extra pairs of hands. Just tell us what to do.” 

While they were starting to work on that, I turned to Grover, who was hovering in the background staring at the ship anxiously. When he saw me looking, the small ghost boy came closer, shaking his head. “Sorry, boss-lady. We tried to find something better, but that’s the best–” 

“Stop,” I interrupted. “It’s fine. It’s great. You did great, all of you. Seriously. This is a random defensive security station Fossor threw up. The odds that there would be anything we could use were pretty freaking low, dude. We can work with this. We’ll find my mom and the other two, and we’ll find this Denuvus bitch. And then–” 

“Stabbing?” Grover piped up, sounding hopeful. 

Smirking just a little despite myself, I nodded. “Definitely a lot of stabbing. As much as you can handle.” By that point, I could see Seth coming near, so I looked that way and met his gaze. “Hey, we’ll get to Fossor’s world, and find Rasputin so he can tell us what happened to Tiras.” 

“You’re right,” he agreed, “we will. But one thing at a time. You ready to see what we got?”

As he asked that, a dozen more ghosts appeared, all of them holding or dragging what looked like large pillowcases made of the same stuff they themselves were made of. Another thing I had learned from my studies was how to help my ghosts make these bags. It took a good bit of energy to make them solid enough to hold things, but I managed it. And they had put that to use while looking around for a ship we could use, grabbing as much of Fossor’s tucked away treasure and trinkets as possible. Anything that looked like it might be special. 

“No time right now,” I replied, tugging a real bag (this one with its own extended space inside so it could fit anything) from my pocket before tossing it that way. “Can you guys put all that stuff in here? We’ll look through it later. And… and thanks, without you we’d still be stuck in that room. We–I owe you guys.” 

While they were busy with that, I turned back to face the partially disassembled ship once more. The others were already starting to go about putting the thing together under Grease and Percy’s supervision. From the look of things, this wasn’t going to be easy. Some of the components literally fell apart as they were picked up. But Shiori had already found a crate of replacement parts, which she and I started sorting through together to find stuff that wasn’t completely busted. I pushed all my worries about my mother as far down as I could for the moment, and just focused on helping to get our ride working. 

In the end, it took us two and a half hours, and a lot of broken parts. But finally, we stepped back, covered in (lower case) grease and dirt. Asenath was alone inside the ship itself, and as Grease (upper case) called out for her to ‘hit it,’ she did so. There was an initial whine of protest, then a few stuttering coughs from the engines, followed by a thick plume of purple smoke, then nothing for about three seconds. But just as my heart started to sink, the engines caught and thrummed steadily, as the junky-looking little ship rose a few feet off the floor and hovered there. It was working. We’d done it. Step one was done. We had a ride. 

“Hang on, Mom,” I murmured while everyone celebrated. “We’re com–” In mid-step after catching a hint of movement, I stopped myself and looked down. Sure enough, another of those beetle-like bugs was there. It looked unique and kinda cool, so I gestured toward Robin. “Hey, can you like, scan this thing or whatever? Is it dangerous?” 

Robin, eyes shifting to green for Med, looked it over before shaking their head. “I detect nothing venomous or poisonous. It does look unique, however.” 

“Yeah, it does,” I agreed. Tentatively, I put my finger out. “Hey, little guy. You wanna come on a trip off this station?” When the beetle crawled up my finger, I straightened and grinned toward Shiori. “See? New friend. He’s coming with us.” 

Yes, I was trying to distract myself from my total panic when it came to what was going on with my mother. Seriously though, the beetle looked really cool, with its metallic, almost neon pink and blue shell, three antennae instead of two, and what looked like a tiny unicorn-like white horn coming off its head. But really, it was the small, yet clearly prehensile tail sticking off the back that really made this beetle unique. 

It almost looked like a monkey tail. 

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Exhibition 25-03 (Summus Proelium)

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Okay, this was bad. But on the plus side, one benefit of these guys being so good at drawing attention was that no one happened to be looking my way. They were very focused on the two Fell-Touched (three? two and a half?) who had just made themselves known alongside all their Prev gang buddies. I took advantage of that by dropping the tray of nachos and water bottles onto a nearby table before throwing myself sideways toward one of the nearby tents. I dropped down and rolled under it to get inside and out of sight.  

This was one of the refreshment tents. There were stacks of coolers full of ice and soda in the corner, and I managed to drop behind that spot while taking my phone out. Immediately, I sent an SOS text to Wren, Paige, and the others, before also sending an emergency alert via the Doephone with the new recognition code that Silversmith had given us, along with sending a text to the phone number he’d given me too. I figured others were already doing that, but it couldn’t hurt, especially with that code. I also called Amber, while sticking my earbud in. While the call was connecting, I was already tugging the bag that Wren had given me out of my pocket. In the background, there was a lot of shouting. It sounded like the gang assholes were spreading out to start forcing people together into a group. Juice was bellowing demands, and there were a couple shots. But it sounded like they were just shooting into the air. 

Abruptly, the call connected. “–gonna get away with any of this, you know?” Amber’s voice was saying. 

“Uh huh, sure,” another voice replied. “Now shut up and sit there before you get hurt, babe.” 

Okay, great. Amber, and presumably Izzy and the others in the VIP tent, were already being held. Which meant they couldn’t reveal their powers without exposing their identities. For now, at least, they couldn’t help. Not until someone helped get them away from those prying eyes.

I also couldn’t talk to Amber, since I was pretty sure she had just hit the accept call button on her phone and left it in her pocket. At the very least, I would’ve been very surprised if these guys had willingly allowed her to answer it the normal way. They didn’t strike me as that polite. 

Leaving the call connected so I could keep listening, I shook out the bag and made it restore the contents of the other one. Specifically, my costume. While everyone outside the tents were shouting and running past, I hurriedly changed into that. It was almost the fastest change I’d pulled off in my life, topped probably only by that time I’d had to get out of my costume and into my dress back at that hotel while my dad was about to come through the door. 

From what I could hear through the phone connection, these guys weren’t robbing Amber and the others. They didn’t seem interested in anything other than keeping them under control, which seemed strange. If they weren’t here to rob the people in the VIP tent at the very least, why had they come in the first place? Between that and the fact that they were openly attacking a skating demonstration, none of this made any sense. There had to be something else going on. 

At least one of my questions about what they were doing was answered as a voice spoke up from just outside the tent I was in. A voice that made me freeze up in the midst of pulling my helmet on. It was Mister Harmful, snarling an order to one of his subordinates about ‘finding that Ukrainian cunt before the Stars arrive and this whole thing goes tits up.’ 

Wait, Inessa? They were here for Inessa? Why? Just because she was famous? Did they think they could hold her hostage for some sort of payout or something? What the fuck? She was pretty important, and several companies had a lot of money invested in her, so maybe it was that simple? 

One thing was for sure, like hell was I just going to sit around and let them take her. Yeah, I’d been ready to stop these guys before when I thought they were just here to rob people or whatever. But now? Now it was personal. They wanted to hurt the girl I’d idolized since I was in second grade? Fuck every single part of that. Now I was really gonna make these guys regret ever showing up here. 

I uhh… just wasn’t exactly sure how to do that. Especially considering I was all by myself out here, for the moment. But I definitely couldn’t just wait until help arrived. Wherever Inessa was, these guys would’ve found her by that point. I had to make sure that didn’t happen. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t know where she was either. But I did know where these guys were, which meant my best way of dealing with this was to distract them long enough for reinforcements to show up. 

To that end, I took a few seconds to put as much paint over myself as I could manage. If I was going to do this without getting myself or anyone else killed, I had to be ready. Before long, my entire suit and helmet were covered inside and out. I also reached down and found a few small rocks on the ground. I was going to paint them white and maybe use them as a distraction. But at the last second I realized it would probably be a good idea if they flew faster too. Green and white together. Fast rocks that would glow. That had to be useful, right? At least to catch someone’s attention. So, just as I was focusing on making white paint appear, I also thought about adding some green lines. 

It worked. Most of the rocks were white, but they had some green swirls mixed in. Weirdly, however, when I looked closely it seemed like the green was sort of bleeding into the white. They weren’t smooth lines, it was more like they were blending together. 

Weird, but whatever. I didn’t have time to focus on that. Not when I could already hear more and more complaints and demands. It sounded like they were rounding up all the civilians and making them stand together in the middle of the skate park’s bowl. Which was a pretty good choice, all things considered. The ‘bowl’ was actually four impressions in the cement, each about ten feet deep and shaped like a four-leafed clover all together. With everyone down there, squeezed into that space, they would be easy for just a few people to watch over. While, presumably, everyone else looked for Inessa. 

Seriously, how had she managed to stay hidden for so long? Was she actually part of that crowd, blending in somehow? She was famous, but it was possible. It wasn’t like she was a movie star or whatever. If she had a hat on to hide her distinctive blue hair, maybe she could stay incognito for awhile. Or maybe she was hiding somewhere like I was. 

Before I could focus too much on that, I heard another voice. It was Juice, snapping something to one of his subordinates about securing the perimeter, and that ‘the others’ wouldn’t be able to delay the Stars for that long, so they better hurry the hell up. Their voices faded as they kept moving. 

Locking my fully-painted helmet into place, I pushed myself up just as my phone buzzed a few times. The first was an answering text from Peyton, letting me know she was grabbing the others. The second and third were responses from the authorities and my dad (as Silversmith), confirming that they were sending reinforcements. Unfortunately, that didn’t include an ETA, and at least according to what I had just overheard, they were going to be delayed. 

The fourth thing wasn’t a text. It was an incoming call from… from Ryder? Seeing that, I blinked before disconnecting from Amber’s phone. It wasn’t like she could talk to me anyway, not without people noticing. Ryder on the other hand, if he could do something with his mites…

Sure enough, as soon as I connected, an electronically-generated voice spoke. “Paintball. Can help direct you through cameras, tell you when someone is behind you or where to move. Can hear you through connection with Mite if you speak.”

Eits. Eits could help me. He was here, he knew who I was. Even standing in a group, he could still use his mites to control the electronics that he’d already infected, and apparently he’d done so with the cameras surrounding the park. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him that much. Especially not now.  

“Got it,” I whispered mostly under my breath, hoping the phone would pick it up. Janus had moved on from being right outside, but I knew there had to be other guys relatively close at any given point as they ran around searching the place for stragglers. 

So, I had Eits in my corner, playing… well, the Eye in the Sky. He was gonna be doing the same role he did as a member of La Casa, only he’d be doing it for me this time. I was just going to have to hope that between the two of us, we could pull this off. If I screwed it up…

Pushing aside that thought, I focused. If I needed their attention on me for a while in order to protect Inessa from whatever bullshit they had planned, then by God, I was going to get their attention. Which meant I was going to have to piss them off. Thankfully, I was pretty good at pissing people off. Especially when it came to my old pals Janus. Would they remember me? I was pretty sure they remembered me. 

And hey, if they didn’t, I’d be glad to remind them. 

******

“Wait, two guys talking to your right.” The electronic voice was talking in my ear as I crouched by the exit to the refreshments tent. Eits was apparently able to track my phone well enough to know exactly where I was, and coordinate that with the view he could see through the mix of various security cameras and the ones that had been set up to broadcast the event. 

Closing my eyes, I focused on what I could feel. There were three tents in this area, including the one I was in. The one straight across from this one was fifteen feet away, with an opening flap that was about four feet further to the right than this one. The other, smaller tent was next door. I could feel tables and chairs in that one, and figured it was some sort of autograph tent or something. Or maybe a command tent for the organizers. The opening flap of that one was perpendicular to these tents, facing the skating area itself, where most of the people were. Which made sense. These were the supply tents, they didn’t need everyone to see them. Whether the smaller one was a command tent or a place for Inessa to sit and sign autographs, facing the public area was just logical. 

All that passed through my mind, before the voice spoke up again. “One guy left, twenty feet to your right. Still looking your way, so wait. Wait… Go.” 

Immediately, I rolled out of the tent, staying low to avoid any other attention. Sure enough, one of the Prev thugs was there. He was faced away from me, as promised, with a shotgun held to one side. He was holding the thing loosely by the barrel, with his hand nowhere near the trigger. 

Bringing both hands up, I hit the guy with a shot of black paint from one and red paint from the other. While he started to turn upon feeling the impact of the paint, I hit the ground in front of me with a spot of red, yanking the guy off his feet. The black paint kept him silent, and I hit the gun with another shot of red as he dropped it, yanking it to my red glove. 

The man hit the ground in front of me, still flailing and trying in vain to shout. I quickly tapped the guy’s shoulder to plant a red star there, then held the tent flap aside while activating that bit of red, plus the one I’d left on the ground in there. Immediately, the guy was sent flying that way, landing between a couple of the stacked coolers. Looking both ways to make sure nobody had noticed, I took the gun with me and quickly moved to the guy, hitting him with another small shot of black to keep him quiet a bit longer. Then I went for the longer way of keeping him quiet. Namely, by grabbing one of the many Inessa-themed merch bandanas from a nearby box. Activating a line of purple stars down my arms, I drew back my foot before kicking the guy as he tried to scramble to his feet. As he went down, I dropped on top of him and stuffed the bandana in his mouth, then wrapped another around the back of his head to keep it in place. He was struggling, but I had leverage and strength over him. Enough, in this case, to flip the guy over and use several more tied-together bandanas I had prepared to secure his wrists and then his ankles. I left him there, shoved back behind the same boxes I had been hiding behind earlier. He was still making a little bit of noise, but it was doubtful that anyone would hear him. At least, not until it was too late anyway. And Eits would be able to tell me if anyone came this way.

Speaking of whom, according to him, Juice and Janus were mostly playing overseers. They were simply standing out of the way, ordering their thugs this way and that to search for Inessa. They were too important (or lazy) to do the searching for themselves. And I could use that right now. Instead of following my first instinct and just throwing myself into plain view to draw their attention, I was going to even the odds a little bit by dealing with as many of the separated Prev thugs as I could. Then we’d see just how much I could piss off my old pals. 

As I reached the entrance to the tent once more, I spoke quietly. “Positions?” 

There was about a five second pause, before the electronic voice returned. “J and J still by the pit. Three armed guys around that. One guy by soda and hot dog truck three hundred feet behind tent, past more trucks. Watching road for anyone coming. Two guys together one hundred and seventy feet ahead of tent, searching in and under staff vehicles. One guy one hundred feet to the left side of tent, looking through port-a-potties.” 

He kept going like that, giving me detailed locations for every person here. The guy by the bathrooms was the nearest, so I focused on him. Telling Eits to warn me if anyone else came close, I grabbed some more bandanas, shoved them in my pocket, and activated a bit of black on my shoes before running that way. 

Twice, Eits warned me about passing guards who could have looked over and seen me. Each time, I managed to duck down out of sight before they could. Then he warned me not to go one way because two guys were standing in plain view together. So I slipped around behind a parked trailer, heading the long way around toward the back of the port-a-potties, where my target was still carefully opening each door in succession. I was close enough by that point to hear him muttering to himself as he closed another door none-too-gently. 

Pressing my back up against the side of the one he was moving to next, I waited until I could hear the door open. Then I stepped around, putting myself directly behind the man as he scanned the empty space within. A shot of black paint into his back assured that no one would hear him, as I activated a series of purple X shapes across my stomach and gave the guy a hard shove from behind. He fell forward, while I snatched the gun out of his grip. Before he could recover, I hit each of his shoulders with a shot of red paint, then added two quick shots to either side of the toilet hole. Activating those meant he was yanked down hard onto his knees with his face basically over the hole. Probably not the nicest position to be in, but on the other hand, these guys were assaulting innocent civilians at an Inessa skating event, so fuck them. 

The guy was still flailing, but the paint was holding him down. Before any of it could wear off, I grabbed one of my strings of bandanas and wrapped it around his neck, before pushing one end through one small air hole in the back of the port-a-potty and back through another one, tying both ends off like that to hold him in place. 

By that point, the black paint was about to wear off, but before his shouts could attract anyone, I shoved another makeshift gag into his mouth and tied that off as well. Then I whispered, “How popular do you think you’ll be with your buddies if they find you facedown in a port-a-potty like this, dude? Think you’d ever live that down? Or would your nickname be Port-A-John from now on?” 

He froze briefly, clearly considering that as I went on. “And just so you know, if I start hearing you make a bunch of noise, I’ll just have to tip this whole thing over. You wanna think about how that’ll go for you in this position?” 

Again, the man didn’t seem eager to find out. So I patted his shoulder a couple times. “Hang out here for a bit.” Then I stepped out, closing the door behind me. From the outside, everything looked fine. I took the man’s pistol and hid it under the john for the moment. 

From there, using Eits’ directions, I made my way to the parking lot where a couple more guys were searching vehicles. Rolling underneath a truck, I watched until they separated to go around either side of one aisle. While their backs were to each other, I hit one in one foot with black paint, and the other foot with red. A second later, he was yanked down and hauled all the way over to the truck where I was waiting with active purple paint to pull him out of sight. Soon, he was tied and gagged as well, with his wrists secured to the exhaust pipe of the truck as he lay on his face. 

The next guy eventually came around the side, looking for his buddy. Before he could find anything, I hit him as well and had him in the same position under the opposite truck. The two men could see each other, grunting with annoyance through the gags. 

And so it continued. One by one, I made my way through the outskirts of the skating park, securing as many of these random goons as I could. It would’ve been impossible without Ryder’s help, telling me exactly where and when to go to avoid being seen. All the while, I could hear the Fell-Touched guys growing more and more annoyed by the lack of progress. They had not, however, noticed that their men were disappearing. Not yet, anyway. 

Finally, there were no more I could easily get to without being seen by others. Which meant it was time to move on to phase two. Or rather, phase three. Phase two had been getting Inessa out of sight, but she seemed to have handled that on her own, because I still couldn’t find her and Ryder had no idea where she was even with his camera view. 

Just as I had that thought, Mister Harmful bellowed in the distance, “Okay, enough of this! Hey cunt! You either come out now, or lose some fans. Let’s say six to start, huh? That sounds fair! You got five seconds to show yourself! One… two…” 

Without missing a beat, I went sprinting that way, using green paint to speed myself up. Just as I came around the corner, I used a blue square on the ground to launch myself high into the air, activating a pair of orange criss-crossed sword shapes on my back for protection. At the same time, I aimed down, sending a spray of orange protective paint over the assembled hostages just as I went sailing past them. 

“Dude, you can count to five?!” The blurted words escaped me as I landed in a crouch on top of a lamp post that was meant to illuminate the skating area. “Well, that’s one bet I lost. If you can multiply, I might have to get a part-time job to pay off those losses.”

Quivering with rage as he glared up at me. Mister Harmful snarled, “Ohhh you little fuck.” But it was both him and Uncle Friendly who shouted together, 

“Kill that piece of shit!”  

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