It Gets Worse Pt 17 (Patreon)

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

Monday, January 17, 2011
Paleo Platter Cafe
Amy Dallon

"Seriously, Ames, I have no idea why you haven't come here already," Vicky said cheerfully as she pushed open the door to the cafe. A little bell jingled as it swung shut behind them. "It's a great way to stay healthy." Her brand-new pixie cut, a result of having shorn her golden locks perilously close to the scalp, gave her an entirely different look.

Amy wondered how Vicky's fans were going to take it. She suspected there was going to be a rash of pixie cuts among the teenage cape fan section of the community. The funny thing was that, until Vicky went out as Glory Girl and people realised it was her, a lot of the attention that normally came her way was going to be absent. While Vicky's face was one of the most well-known in Brockton Bay, the drastic shortening of her hair changed her overall appearance enough that most people were looking straight past her. Even funnier was the fact that Vicky hadn't even noticed this yet. It was not dissimilar to the way many people ignored Amy once she took off the all-covering robes and facial scarf. Welcome to my world.

"Just never bothered, I guess," Amy replied, aware that her sister was looking back at her for an answer. "I don't go out that much on my own, you know." And I don't often go out in company, except when you set me up on your stupid double dates. Which don't come to places like this. But she'd never say the latter. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt her sister's feelings.

"Well, you're in for a treat." Vicky moved up to the counter and smiled at the male cashier, dropping effortlessly into harmless-flirt mode. "Hi there. Table for two, please. We'll have your regular menu. No allergies." She treated him to a beaming smile, but kept her aura in check. For this, Amy was grateful; she didn't want to go through the embarrassing spectacle of the server staff drooling over her sister. Again.

Still, mundane flirting was bad enough. Here we go again. Amy stepped to the side to get out of the way of anyone else coming in, moving over to where the next two customers were waiting to be seated. The place actually looked fairly busy at the moment, but it looked like a couple of tables were about to open up.

The customers in front of them were a clean-shaven man in his mid to late thirties and a girl with brunette ringlets who looked to be about twelve or thirteen. For a moment, Amy wondered if she'd actually met the man before, as there was something oddly familiar about him. After a moment, she shrugged and dismissed the thought. Unless the guy was one of the heroes she'd healed over the years, it was almost certain that he just resembled someone she knew. And if he was a hero, she didn't want to accidentally out him.

The girl was studying a menu laid out on the counter intently, her nose wrinkling occasionally. Amy suspected she didn't make a habit of eating at paleo places very much either. Still, it was nice of the dad to take his kid to a cafe like this. Mark had done that for her and Vicky a few times, but rarely enough that it was a special occasion every time.

Amy glanced up idly as one of the servers approached the father and daughter in front of her. "Mr Cutter? Your table's over here, sir."

The man nodded and gave the server a charming smile. "Thank you, miss. Come along, poppet." He headed in the direction of the empty table. At the counter, the brunette girl turned to follow him, her hand swinging out and brushing momentarily against Amy's. It was a totally accidental contact, one which had to happen a dozen times a day to any one person. Most people didn't even notice it happening, though to Amy it was always somewhat irritating, as it gave her a complete body-snapshot of the person, detailing everything significant about their body and state of health.

In this case, her irritation was overwhelmed by the discovery that the ringleted brunette was a parahuman, and a very disturbing one indeed.

With hooded eyes, she watched the girl giggle as she caught up to her father and took his hand in hers. Normally, it would've been something she tried to put out of her mind, as she had no desire to out any independent capes in the city. But not only was the girl a parahuman, she was also absolutely loaded with implants and reservoirs containing lethal diseases and toxins … and her hair was normally blonde in colour. Added to the niggling familiarity of the father's face and the surname he'd used, this meant …

A lot of jigsaw-puzzle pieces clicked together at once. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck. There was only one pair of parahumans anywhere who fitted that description. That's Bonesaw and Jack Slash.

She must have managed to keep her first panicked reaction under control, because only Vicky looked at her oddly. "Ames? Is something the matter?" Trust Vicky, Miss Oblivious 2011 herself, to pick out her terror on the one occasion where she wanted the internal screaming to stay internal where it belonged. If I say it out loud, there'll be a panic, and people will die. This is the absolute worst place for something like this to happen. Probably why they picked it.

"Uh, no, I'm fine." Need to buy time, figure out what to do. She did her best to look and sound fine, but Vicky's bullshit-meter was obviously working at full strength today.

Her sister looked at her critically. "Nice try, Ames. That isn't gonna fly. Something's up. What is it?" She reached out and shook Amy's shoulder lightly. "C'mon. It's me. You can tell me."

Amy focused past her, trying to figure out what to do next. If she just walked over and immobilised Jack Slash, Bonesaw would probably unleash half a dozen lethal airborne viruses before Amy could get to her. And that was assuming Amy did get to her; some of the implants Bonesaw had built into herself were ridiculous.

Likewise, if she locked down Bonesaw, Jack Slash would almost certainly produce a knife and start killing everyone, starting with herself. Even immobilising Bonesaw was unlikely to be as easy as it sounded, given that the junior-age Tinker had apparently rearranged bits of her own nervous system to make such a thing harder. Seriously, who even did that?

"Order for Cutter."

The words, spoken by someone behind the counter, grabbed her attention and hung on. Even as the plan unfolded behind her eyes, she grabbed Vicky by the arm. "No time for that now," she said quietly. "I need you to distract that server." With her head, she indicated the teenage boy who was just then moving to accept the tray of food at the far end of the counter. "It's really important. Life or death."

For a long moment, she thought her sister was going to refuse, or demand details. Either one would waste time that nobody in the cafe could spare; this plan had just one chance of going through. Even worse, she couldn't simply demand more forcefully, because that had a strong chance of drawing the attention of the two notorious supervillains. Right now, though the sheer fluke of Vicky needing a haircut, neither one of them was being recognised. Anonymity, publicly decried by New Wave, was just what they needed right now.

After a searching glance at her face, Vicky seemed to come to a decision. "Okay, but once we're done, I wanna know why." Turning, she led the way to the teenage boy who had just accepted the tray. "Hi," she said, turning her flirt mode all the way up.

He gulped, for which Amy didn't blame him. Being flirted at by Vicky was akin to being caught in a hurricane. Things were going to get interesting, and nobody but Vicky knew where it was going to end up. "H-hi," he stammered. "Can I help you?"

"I really hope so," Vicky breathed, leaning in close. "Can you show me where the bathroom is?"

Unseen by the server, given that his entire attention was focused on Vicky, Amy stepped in next to the both of them. Bringing her hand to her mouth, she licked her finger.

Taylor

"So what are we doing here again?" I asked as we stepped off of the bus. I looked across the road and down the street a little at the imposing glass-clad edifice of the Forsberg Gallery. Just across the road, a bell jingled cheerily as the door swung shut on a cafe I'd never seen before. A brightly-coloured sign advertised it as 'The Paleo Platter'.

"You keep saying how normal you are," Lisa explained. "I want to show you just how bullshit your powers are." She pointed at a series of dark lumps in the pavement just outside the Forsberg, encircled by brightly-coloured tape. "That, over there, is what terrified a psychopathic monster into becoming a good guy."

Even though I'd seen the anvils on the news, I was definitely interested in taking a closer look. However, right then, the snacks I'd had and the steady movement of the bus ride had combined to produce a little pressure that was starting to draw my attention. "That's pretty cool," I said. "But I kinda need to go to the bathroom right now." I indicated the cafe across the road. "Can you wait a bit for me?"

"Ew," Alec said, deadpan. "I did not need that image." Deliberately, he turned his back and began to browse the nearest window, which happened to hold a selection of ladies' shoes. I couldn't tell if his interest was real or feigned.

Brian caught my eye and grimaced. "Don't take it personally," he said quietly. "It's just the way he is."

"I'd already figured that out," I said dryly. It seemed he'd gotten over being splattered by his ice-cream cone. Which I was actually okay with. I preferred that he be naturally obnoxious than artificially polite. "I'll be back in a moment." Taking Chick Norris from where he was riding on my shoulder, I held him out to Rachel. "Could you please watch him for me? He likes you."

"Sure," grunted the auburn-haired girl, accepting my tiny companion with exaggerated care. He cheeped at her, causing a tiny smile to cross her face.

As I started out across the street, I heard Alec's voice again. "I'm surprised you aren't going with her. Aren't you girls supposed to go to the bathroom in packs?" There was the sound of a light thwack, as someone got smacked. "Ow! Why did you do that?"

"Because we don't need to go." Lisa's voice was patient. "And you're disrespecting her again."

I didn't hear any more, because I was pushing open the door to the cafe. The bell swung with the movement, barely tinkling as I closed it. For a moment I thought of asking someone where the bathrooms were, then I saw the door with a bathroom sign on it. The server was busy at the far end of the counter, talking to two girls about my age. Before he could notice me and ask if I was going to be ordering anything, I pushed open the door and ducked into the corridor.

New York Public Library
Eidolon

David stood on the roof of the imposing building. Below, Fifth Avenue was busy with traffic, but he didn't see it. His mind was awhirl with unfamiliar thoughts and worries, all placed there by the auburn-haired woman with the wounded soul. That she was wounded, he had no doubt; he had seen the symptoms. Once upon a time, he'd shared the symptoms.

If it had been anyone else, in any other place, he would've dismissed her words and passed off her concerns as sour grapes. After all, the envy shown toward him as the world's most powerful cape was real and palpable. He'd experienced it before, from both capes and unpowered people.

If she'd shown any of the same, he would've known how to handle it, but she hadn't. Instead of if I had your powers, I'd be doing a better job with them, it was you have power. Why are you wasting it?

He'd tried to push back on her argument that he was no hero, by changing the focus of what she was saying. Police and other first responders also wore uniforms, he'd pointed out. Did that mean she thought they weren't heroes?

Her expression had expressed plainly that he wasn't seeing what she was driving at. Of course first responders were heroes. They routinely went into danger that could actually kill them as a matter of course, without powers as a backup. Capes, on the other hand, took on perilous situations like that because it was easy for them.

Now, he couldn't get her final challenge out of his head. A list of five ways you've changed the world for the better, that didn't involve cleaning up messes caused by powers. It was a simple enough demand, one that he had never envisaged having to meet. In fact, he couldn't meet it. Which meant he'd just have to start the list now. The trouble was, he had no idea how to accomplish this. Which was patently ridiculous. He was Eidolon. He'd—

"Halt, evildoer! Surrender at once and I will refrain from beating you senseless!"

The bright, laughing tone was exceedingly familiar to David. Hearing quick running footsteps on the rooftop behind him, he turned to face the speaker, but he was too slow. His hood was yanked down over his mask, then there was a brief pressure atop his head. Just as if someone had vaulted over him, using his head as a rest on the way. Only one person he knew was brave enough, or foolhardy enough, to use that move on him.

"Mouse Protector," he stated firmly, turning once more while pulling his hood up again. "This is not the time." He didn't even bother asking what she was doing in Manhattan. Since she'd left the Wards and declined to continue with the Protectorate, she'd been a free spirit, moving where the whim took her. Mostly she was based in Boston, but that was more a statistical matter than an established fact.

"Pfft," she said, lounging on the sloped stone parapet, one hand propping up her head with its mouse-eared helmet and the other posed elaborately on her hip. "It's never the time with you, Eidolon. Always looking for the next baddie to beat up, and heaven forfend they might not be up to your elevated standards." She twisted agilely and flipped off of her temporary resting place, pulling a perfect landing before him. "So, tall, dark and brooding, what's got you up here glaring at the building like you want to launch it into orbit? And if you are gonna launch it into orbit, can I watch?"

With an aggravated sigh, he released the breath he'd inhaled to tell her off. Shouting at Mouse Protector did little except raise the blood pressure and incite her to ever higher levels of attention-seeking behaviour. "I'm not launching anything into orbit," he said carefully. "I just came here to find the answer to a problem."

"Ooooh, a quest!" Stepping in close, she put her arm around his neck. "What's up? Who can I beat senseless to prove a point?" A pause, considering. "Or a wedgie. Wedgies work well, too. Last time I fought Ravager, I hung her underwear over the nearest flagpole. While she was still wearing it. She was still trying to get down when the PRT rolled up and arrested her." She gave a happy sigh. "Good times."

David winced. There was a reason nobody (except Ravager) wanted to fight Mouse Protector. She was so camp and cheesy about it (the word was deliberately chosen) that being beaten by her added a whole extra layer of humiliation over and above the method she used to defeat said villain.

Ravager was a special case, of course. Certain capes had their nemeses, the ones who would keep coming back after them no matter how many times they were defeated or thwarted. There were several theories about this, though David tended toward the one regarding comic books and social expectations. Either way, Ravager was definitely up there in the 'obsessive pursuit' stakes. She'd been captured by Mouse Protector several times, but she couldn't seem to resist coming back for yet another shot at the ridiculously costumed hero. David was reasonably sure that Ravager was getting close to her three strikes, where she'd go into the Birdcage and Mouse Protector would no longer have to worry about her.

In any case, he had other things on his mind. "No, I'm not trying to figure out how to beat someone," he said. "This is different. I'm trying to figure out how to change the world. To fix a problem that hasn't got anything to do with powers."

She performed an overly dramatic double-take at him, as if he'd just suggested that she dress in a tutu and sing a duet with Behemoth. "Wait, you what again now?"

He sighed internally. The concept had been hard for him to grasp as well, but now that he was used to it, it seemed obvious to him. Have I been wasting my power all this time, in the world's biggest dick-measuring contest? Jamie hadn't quite used that term, but he suspected she'd approve of it. "I want to fix things that aren't related to powers," he reiterated. "I just don't know where to start. Which was why I'm at the library. I figured that I could do some research …"

He trailed off, because she was now laughing so hard that she had to lean against him. He'd seen her laugh before, on the few times he'd seen her in action against villains. Then, she'd actually let loose her mirth while doing something else, such as dancing around the miscreants (a favourite term of hers) with her sword in play. Now, she was just letting out full-bodied cackles. He wasn't sure, but tears may have been running out of her eyes.

"What?" he asked irritably as she gradually regained control of herself. "It's not funny."

"Hell yes, it's funny," she said with a giggle. "You thought you had to research what's wrong with the world?"

His irritation grew. "Well, I know there are problems," he said defensively. "I just don't know where to start. Which one is the greatest?"

"Riiight," she drawled, rolling her eyes. "Same ol' Eidolon. Always gotta throw yourself at the biggest, baddest opposition. Can't ever lower yourself to face the little guy, because only the big one's worthy of you."

David felt his face grow hot with embarrassment. " … fuck," he muttered. "You're right. I was doing it all over again. And because I couldn't make up my mind …"

"You weren't doing anything at all," she finished helpfully. "Way to solve them problems, buddy boy. Want my advice?"

Before he could even think twice about the incongruity of someone like him seeking advice from someone like Mouse Protector, he nodded. "Please?"

A smile spread across her face. "I thought you'd never ask. So, pin back those ears and listen, 'cause Mama Mousey has some ideas to drop into them." She leaned in closer and lowered her voice. "First, we compile a list …"

Brockton Bay
Paleo Platter Cafe
Amy Dallon

"Um, um, um, over there, miss," stammered the server, nodding toward the door marked BATHROOMS, just as it swung shut behind someone. He never saw Amy brush her finger over the top of the food on the larger plate, then dipping momentarily into the bowl of soup. To her satisfaction, the soup was only a little warmer than body temperature; the highly modified e. coli she'd deposited there would find it a fertile breeding ground. As soon as she'd done this, she dropped her hand below the level of the tray.

"Thank you so much," cooed Vicky. If this had been a cartoon, Amy wouldn't have been surprised to see steam shooting out the poor boy's ears. Still, she didn't want him dropping the tray and undoing all of her hard work, so she took Vicky by the arm and tugged her back slightly. Vicky took that as the hint it was supposed to be, and stepped back out of his way.

"You're welcome," the boy replied with a slightly dazed smile. "But I, uh, gotta take this tray …"

"That's all right," purred Vicky. "Thanks again." She bestowed another dazzling smile on him—Amy tried, and mostly succeeded, to not feel jealous—then turned away, ostensibly to go to the bathroom. Amy turned with her, ensuring to keep her back to the table with the two supervillains. This caused a spot between her shoulder-blades to itch just on sheer principle, but the last thing she wanted was for either one of them to recognise her as Panacea.

"Okay," murmured Vicky as they made their way back to where they'd been waiting, "what's going on? I know you did something, but what?"

"Give it a few moments," Amy whispered back. "I'll let you know everything. But right now, things have got to look perfectly normal." She knew this was out of character for her, and that Vicky had to be bursting with questions. Fortunately, her sister obviously decided to not let her normal curiosity run rampant just this time.

Picking up the same menu that Bonesaw had handled, she brushed her fingertips over the areas where the murderous bio-Tinker had held it. All she found were the normal run of micro-organisms left behind from skin contact. Nothing nasty or virulent met her senses, which quieted her worries just a little. She's not spreading diseases just for the hell of it. Good.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as the man she'd tentatively identified as Jack Slash took a spoonful of his soup. While she was ninety to ninety-five percent sure it was him, there was still that last niggling doubt, which was why she hadn't laced the food with something immediately fatal. Nor did she want Bonesaw getting suspicious and spraying the place with plague vectors. She was good, but there was only so much she could do when someone was deliberately spreading diseases.

On the second spoonful, his expression twitched, and she tensed. If he'd made them, things were going to go sideways very fast indeed. But he never so much as looked their way. Instead, he frowned slightly as if noticing something amiss but not knowing what it was.

The third spoonful was his undoing. He'd just taken the spoon from his mouth when the first cramps hit. This particular strain of e. coli had never been found in nature; where the first symptoms of food poisoning generally took more time than this to manifest, she'd supercharged their reproductive cycle and virulence. She'd also installed a genetic marker that would cause the entire strain to die out in half an hour, because gifting all of Brockton Bay with explosive diarrhoea would almost certainly bring her unwanted notice.

She could almost admire his fortitude. He stood, holding himself upright and tall, before making his way between the tables toward the bathrooms. His gut had to be a frenzied breeding ground of the things, doing their best to make him evacuate everything between his oesophagus and his rectum and yet there he was, strolling along as if nothing much were the matter with him.

Just as the door closed behind him, the server came back to them. "Excuse me," the boy said diffidently. "Your table is just over here."

Amy followed him along to the designated table, finding to her relief that it wasn't far from where Bonesaw was sitting. The girl was eating fastidiously, one small bite at a time. She was an incredibly neat diner, with the food arranged on her plate with almost military precision. To her relief, Amy noted that Bonesaw hadn't tried to steal any of Jack Slash's food. Which, now that Amy came to think of it, was only a common sense precaution. The upside was that she could now carry out the second part of her plan.

As Vicky sat and the server went back to the counter, Amy casually wandered over to where Bonesaw was eating. "Excuse me," she said. "But we're out of salt. Could I please borrow yours?"

Bonesaw looked up at her. Even though she'd made the previous contact, Amy found herself almost doubting the veracity of her own powers. Surely this was just an innocent twelve year old, just as she appeared to be.

"Of course," the girl said politely, reaching for the salt. The movement didn't quite complete itself as she paid attention to Amy for the first time. Her eyes widened. "Wait a minute. You're—"

Amy lunged forward. At the same time, Bonesaw shoved against the table, throwing herself backward out of the chair. At full extension, as Amy fell over the table, spreading food far and wide, her reaching fingertip touched Bonesaw's for just a fraction of a second.

That was long enough. She didn't have time to do anything really fancy, so she temporarily stunned Bonesaw's voluntary nervous system. Falling out of the chair, Bonesaw flopped helplessly on the floor. Winded, Amy started to lift herself off the table, fully aware that she was wearing some of the food she'd treated. In point of fact, she was right then almost as potent a biohazard as Bonesaw.

And then Vicky was there, helping her up. "You okay there, Ames? What the hell's going on? Why did you attack that girl?"

"Bone … saw," wheezed Amy. "Bonesaw. She's Bonesaw. The other guy … the other guy is Jack Slash." She did her best to inhale, then she looked down at her clothing. It was going to need some serious laundering. Also, disinfecting. I'll do that when I can think straight.

Vicky stared at her. "You are seriously shitting me." She gestured down at where Bonesaw was glaring up at Amy with an unnerving amount of hatred. "Are you certain?"

"Sure I'm certain," Amy said. "She's loaded down with enough diseases to depopulate the entire East Coast." Now that she felt she was capable of standing on her own, she bent down to grab the younger girl's arm. Her movement was only just in time. Just as she made contact, she felt Bonesaw's nervous system stutter into action again, a good thirty seconds ahead of what Amy would've expected. What the hell has she done to herself that she can recover so quickly? Razor claws emerged from under Bonesaw's fingernails, each one coated with a different virulent disease. Amy identified the signal to retract them and sent it, then had to contend with a different impulse racing through Bonesaw's body from her brain, trying to send the apparently innocent girl into a berserker frenzy. Incredibly, even though she shut it down, the impulse still seemed to get through; the girl convulsed and tried to surge to her feet.

What the fuck is going on here? Amy manually deadened Bonesaw's major muscle groups, but the girl had so damn many, and now it seemed that the disease reservoirs were preparing to open and dump their lethal cargo into the air.

Amy had long ago sworn to never affect someone's brain. It was, to her, a step too far. So she'd made it her touchstone; the brain was sacrosanct. But here she had someone whose body was refusing to play by the rules. Locked into her own skull, Bonesaw had flipped over into a grotesque version of fight-or-flight, and she'd chosen fight. Worse, she was somehow transmitting signals to her body without the use of her nervous system. Amy had to watch her every second to shut down whatever new way her body tried to get free.

Some, she knew, would've had no compunction in killing the girl outright. Others, Vicky included, would have gone straight to shutting down Bonesaw's brain, rules or no rules. But while she knew that this was intellectually the best move to make, she was damned if she was going to let some supervillain force her to break her own rules and take one more step to becoming one herself.

Manually, she locked down the disease reservoirs, grimacing as they tried to open themselves, but her overrides held at least for the moment.

"Vicky," she said tightly. "The guy who just went into the bathroom is Jack Slash. No, don't go after him," she added hastily. With her free hand, she waved off the server who was only now belatedly coming over to see what had happened. "Stay back. It's not safe."

"Are you all right?" he asked, coming closer anyway. "What happened? What's wrong with that girl?"

"Stay back, she said," Vicky snapped, intervening herself between Amy and the boy. Rising into the air slightly, until it was obvious that she was flying, she raised her voice just a little. "If I can have your attention, please? I'm Glory Girl, from New Wave. This is a supervillain situation. Please leave the cafe in a calm and orderly fashion. This is for your own safety. Please leave the cafe in a calm and orderly fashion. This is a supervillain situation."

Wonder of wonders, it worked. Vicky was good at talking to people, as Amy already knew. By the time she finished speaking, people were already rising and filing out of the cafe. If they hurried just a little, that was understandable. But nobody panicked and (more importantly) there was no eruption of a vengeful Jack Slash from the bathrooms with knife in hand, looking for blood. She herself was busy with putting out the ongoing series of brushfires that Bonesaw had triggered within her body. It seemed that her entire spine could detach and wriggle off on its own if it had to, taking her brain with it. Amy only got the barest warning that this was going to happen, and shut down that nerve impulse, as well. How is she even doing that?

Hoisting Bonesaw to her feet, Amy half-carried, half-dragged her toward the door, being very careful not to lose contact with the supervillain's skin. Another crazy impulse from the brain set the sweat glands to producing something not far removed from batrachotoxin. Amy managed to shut that down as well, for the most part, but she was going to be very careful about where she came into contact with the girl. And she couldn't hand her over to anyone at all.

"What are we doing now?" asked Vicky, her gaze intently on the bathroom door. She tensed as it opened, but it was only two women. They blinked at the scene, but obeyed Vicky's hand gestures and headed out the door. "Do I go in there?" Her hands closed into fists. "He can't hurt me with his knives, and I can punch him through as many walls as I need to, until he gives up."

"Don't underestimate him," Amy said flatly. "If he's got one-tenth of the prep work in him that Bonesaw's carrying, there's no telling what he can do. We're gonna back off. Call the PRT. They can surround the place and shoot him right in the head when he sticks it up." She dragged Bonesaw out the door. "And this one can go into high-end containment until I can safely decontaminate her."

"Okay, sure, I guess." Vicky gave Bonesaw a dubious look, but didn't touch her. "Is she really giving you that much trouble? And what did you do to Jack Slash?"

Amy grimaced. "Remember the time you fought Hookwolf, and he just kept reforming and coming back at you? Her entire body's like that. And as for Jack Slash, I gave him an extreme case of food poisoning."

Despite herself, Vicky let out a chuckle. "Well, it certainly got him out of the way." Carefully, she closed the outer door of the cafe. "Okay, those two were the last. Customers out the door match plates on tables. Let's get back out of the way and I'll make that call."

Taylor

It took me longer than I'd expected to get a stall. There were only two of them, and they were both occupied when I got in there. Both women finished at almost exactly the same time. I picked a stall, locked the door, and proceeded to do what I needed to do.

The pressure had been greater than I'd realised, and the relief was heavenly. I was able to lean back and relax for the first time since the Chicken Festival, though that particular event had been no great problem for me. The fried-egg sandwiches in particular had been quite nice, and it was where I'd acquired Chick Norris.

Since then, things had just gotten sillier with Russian Roulette's abortive attack. In his broken babbling after the fact, he'd revealed that his power had 'told' him somehow about me. Something about two or three torn-out news articles coming together to spell my name and where I was going to be. Lisa had seemed to make sense of it, but I couldn't keep track of his ramblings.

Still, no harm had come to me or my new friends. Alec, in particular, had taken great pleasure in making the ex-Merchant minions slap themselves in the face or headbutt each other. Brian had been more professional about it, subduing and securing them, while Lisa had produced a small pistol and covered the secured ones. Rachel and her dogs had ensured that none of them got away; she didn't even need to make them grow. Growl, yes. Grow, no.

My musings were interrupted by heartfelt moaning and groaning from the other side of the wall that formed the side of my cubicle. If I was not much mistaken, that was the male bathrooms in there. It sounded like someone was having a less than pleasant time. I hoped that they would soon get over whatever was plaguing them.

Finishing up, I washed my hands and wiped them dry. Just as I opened the door, I heard the one from the male bathrooms open as well.

Jack Slash

There were many unpleasant experiences a man could go through. Jack had undergone quite a few of them. In his opinion, the last ten minutes ranked fairly high on the scale. Fortunately (for a given definition of 'fortunate') he hadn't had much to eat before he started on the soup, so that when the spasms hit, they were almost all directed downward rather than upward.

As he staggered off the toilet pedestal, he felt as though some unkind deity had taken hold of his gastrointestinal system and wrung it like a wet cloth. Every last ounce of past and present food had been squeezed from him in a series of muscular convulsions that had taken the concept of 'peristalsis' and turned it up past eleven. He wasn't totally certain, as he performed the requisite cleaning actions, that some part of his lower intestines hadn't ended up in the bowl with the rest of the expelled material. The cramps had certainly been energetic enough.

Splashing water over his face, he checked to see what he looked like. 'Death warmed over' was an apt description, given the pallor of his skin and the hollowness of his eyesockets right about then. But at least he wasn't doing his best to emulate a fire hose with a certain orifice any more, even though said orifice was certainly going to be burning for the next day or so. Whatever the hell had been wrong with his food, it had no doubt passed through him by now.

The cold impact of water with his face brought him back to a certain level of alertness, and he essayed a smile in the mirror as he dried his hands. Still a charming bastard, he decided complacently. From long habit, he checked the knives sheathed on each forearm and down the back of his neck. Everything was still there. While he didn't think it was going to be necessary to slaughter everyone in the cafe, there was no sense in not being prepared. Of course, whoever had prepared his food was going to have to die, just on general principle. But that could wait until later.

As he pulled open the door into the corridor, a girl stepped from the ladies' bathroom just down the way and headed out in front of him. He seemed to recall that she'd gone in while he and Bonesaw had been waiting for the server to stop flirting with those two girls and bring them their meal. She stopped when she reached the doorway into the cafe itself, looking from side to side. As he caught up with her, he heard her ask, "Uh, where's everyone gone?"

The question put his instincts into high gear. His normal level of paranoia, exacerbated by being in this city when he'd never intended to come here in the first place, notched up a few levels. Stepping forward, he looked over her shoulder to where the cafe was, indeed, empty. There wasn't even the ever-present clatter of dishes being washed in the back. The acrid stink of meat burning on the grill clinched it for him. Patrons and staff alike had evacuated the cafe … his Bonesaw with them.

His eyes went to the table where they'd been sitting, then narrowed as he saw the disarrayed crockery, the fallen chair, and the food smeared everywhere. It was obvious what had happened; someone had identified them and taken advantage of his unfortunate situation. Bonesaw must have been taken by surprise and disabled very quickly indeed, given the lack of bodies or blood in the room.

"Okay, this is new. What's going on?" asked the girl. Of greater than average height for a teen, she had long black curly hair and round-lensed glasses. She seemed to be more curious than frightened.

"What's going on, my little one, is that you're going to be on the news." Jack grabbed her around the upper arms and shoulders with his left arm. When he flexed his wrist in a certain way, the knife attached to his right forearm slid down into his hand.

He didn't add that her newsworthiness would be as the latest victim of Jack Slash. That sort of thing tended to make people fight. But she wouldn't die right now. That would happen later, once the forces of law and order had let him go in the vain hope that she'd be released unharmed. The only people the Nine didn't kill out of hand were those whom they recruited, and even that wasn't a guarantee.

This was, he realised belatedly, just what he needed. All he had to do was force the return of Bonesaw and get the attention of the media, and his missing team members would be able to zero in on him. The capes would come after him of course, but no cape had ever been able to tag him, and none ever would. He was just that good. And in the meantime he had a hostage, which meant the cops and PRT would be forced to hold their fire.

"Ah," she said as he tucked the knife up under her jaw. She seemed preternaturally calm, or perhaps that was barely restrained panic. "I see. Are you anyone special?"

"You could say so," he gritted, irritated by the inference that he might be merely mundane. That was a word he'd worked hard to ensure would never be used to describe him. "I'm Jack Slash, leader of the Slaughterhouse Nine. Perhaps you've heard of me?"

"Actually, I have," she said, still far too calm for his liking. Then she frowned. "I thought you'd be taller. And what happened to your beard?"

The memory of Crawler's unfortunate effusion intersecting with Burnscar's flame caused him to grind his teeth for a moment. "I'm in disguise," he lied. "And the rest of the Nine is quite nearby, so you're best off not attempting to escape. I'm a patient man, but Hatchet Face can be quite … testy. Open the door, if you please."

Reaching out, she pulled the door open obediently enough, and they shuffled out into the late afternoon sun. He was half-expecting police or PRT to already be on site, but there was a distinct lack of either one. Instead, on the other side of the road, the former patrons of the cafe were spread out into a crowd, all watching him. With them were some teens who he was certain hadn't been in the cafe. Why his attention was drawn to them, he wasn't sure. One, for some unknown reason, was holding a baby chick and had several dogs around her feet.

However, he didn't care about either adolescents, canines or poultry. He did care about Bonesaw, or at least he liked to think he did. She'd been his creation from the very beginning, turning a naïve little girl in the first flush of her power from a would-be miracle surgeon into a murderous munchkin with a body count rivalling his own.

"Where is she?" he shouted. "Where's Bonesaw?"

"Here." The voice came from off to the side. He turned his head, then shuffled the girl around slightly. She neither struggled nor resisted, which made his efforts easier while at the same time puzzling him slightly. Was she just submissive by nature? Did she want to die? Or was she that extreme rarity, a Nine groupie?

His Bonesaw hung limply, like a marionette with the strings cut, in the hands of a frizzy-haired brunette some five yards down the sidewalk. Her body twitched from time to time, but she never truly woke up. Beside the brunette was a blonde with a pixie cut and street clothes, hovering about three feet off the ground. "Surrender," the blonde stated flatly, and he felt the stirrings of fear. "You can't get away."

"On the contrary … Glory Girl," Jack said, making an educated guess. The blonde didn't contradict him, so he figured he was on the money. Which would make the brunette Panacea, which was probably why Bonesaw wasn't decimating the neighbourhood. The bio-Tinker had waxed lyrical on the possibilities to be explored if they were to capture and recruit New Wave's PR golden girl. "I will most certainly get away. Also, you two will hand over Bonesaw and then back off, or I will cut this girl's throat."

"No, you won't." It was the girl in his arms. "I'm the only reason Glory Girl isn't taking your head off your shoulders right now. She's right, you know. You have lost. You lost the moment you entered the city." She turned her head to look up at him. "And you really lost the moment you threatened my life."

The fear ramped up dramatically, washing through his body. His eye unerringly found Glory Girl, and he waved the knife in her direction. "Quit it, girl," he warned her. "I've heard of your aura. Keep it up and your sister's going to have a second mouth under her jaw." He considered doing just that, but refrained for two reasons. The first was that turning the tables on them and capturing Panacea for Bonesaw to play with would be amazingly cathartic. Secondly, he was reasonably sure that doing this would drive Glory Girl into an insane rage which Jack might not survive, even with the hostage he had. In fact, he wasn't even sure about this particular hostage but decided to hold on to her anyway, despite her ominous warnings. Or perhaps because of them; he was never one to do what he was told. In any case, a hostage in the hand was worth two in the crowd.

The fear died away, and he allowed himself a triumphant grin. There was still an undercurrent of it, but not as bad as it had been before.

Looking around, he decided where he needed to go next. This cafe was a poky little place, barely noticeable by anyone. But the art gallery next door was definitely a landmark. Once the news started reporting on his location, any members of his team who were paying attention could home in on him and then the fun would really start. With that in mind, he started dragging the teenage girl down the sidewalk in the direction of the gallery. Once I get inside, we can play cat and mouse all day long.

Bonesaw, he decided, could keep a little longer. Right now, he could tell that the New Wave girls were not open to doing the swap—and Glory Girl really could take his head off if he killed his current hostage—but all that he required was that Panacea drop her guard for even a second. That could wait till the others showed.

Vicky

"I think I've got a shot at taking him," muttered Vicky, glaring at the supervillain as he guided his hostage toward the frontage of the Forsberg Gallery. The trouble was, the girl was so tall that she went a long way toward blocking Vicky's view of the man holding her. "Think I should take it?"

"Not right now," observed a new voice. Vicky looked around to see a blonde with her hair in a complicated French braid watching the action. Her expression was almost dispassionate, but Vicky caught the hint of a grin dancing across her face. "In fact, don't bother at all. He's got no idea how badly he's just stuck his dick in the meat-grinder. Plus, your sister's got her hands full with Bonesaw. She can't deal with more wounded right now."

Vicky stared at the newcomer. "What the hell?" she demanded. "Who are you, and what do you mean?"

The girl's grin grew into a full-on smirk. She offered her hand. "Tattletale, at your service," she said politely. "Ex-villain, current minion and gal-pal to the most awesome cape ever." She nodded toward the teenage girl currently being held hostage by Jack Slash. "Her."

That got her a double blink from both Vicky and Amy. "Okay," Vicky decided after a moment. "You're gonna have to explain that to me."

Tattletale's smirk intensified. The levels of smugness rolling off of her, Vicky figured, would be just about visible from space. "You might be wondering why the number of villains around town has dropped off so dramatically in the last few days …"

Assault

"Console to all units. We have a report from Glory Girl that Jack Slash and Bonesaw have been spotted in the Paleo Platter Cafe, next to the Forsberg Gallery. Bonesaw is in custody, Jack Slash is not. Attend immediately and render all assistance, over."

Adrenaline spiked through Ethan's brain. Eyeing the building he was currently on a ballistic arc toward, he recalculated his jump to change directions. "Assault, here. We're about one minute away. En route, over."

"Battery, here. En route with Assault, over." As he kicked off the building, he saw the silver-blue blur of his wife blazing down the street to the next corner.

He'd never fought Jack Slash before, but the guy was reportedly a challenge. He was really good at ducking and dodging, and not being there when the blow landed. That was fine. Ethan was pretty good at that sort of thing, too.

"Console to Assault and Battery. Other units are inbound, but won't be on site for another fifteen minutes. Take all due care, over."

Despite his earlier bravado, Ethan nodded seriously. Alone he might be, but Jack Slash was no pushover. He'd proven that many times over the years. "Roger that, Console. Assault, out."

Forsberg Gallery
Seventeenth Floor
James Aramis

"Now, I expect you to take extra care with this," James fretted. He watched as the workman carefully ratcheted the tie-down strap on the player piano. It had come all the way from Carlsbad, California in pristine condition. If he had anything to do it, it would return there in the same shape. Rather than holding it down on the forks, the strap was there to restrain the piano from sliding off them. Thus, it was attached to the front of the forklift at both ends, with thick padding to prevent the pianola from being scratched by the metal frame.

"I got this, sir," grunted the forklift driver, tucking in the end of the strap with easy competence. He plucked the strap once, and nodded to himself as it thrummed briefly. "See? Ain't nothin' to worry about."

I thought that once before. But James Aramis was a man who had learned to delegate to the competent, and the forklift driver certainly seemed to know his job. He moved back to the mandated safe distance as the stocky man climbed on board the electric forklift. Once he was clear, the man turned the switch that started it. Almost silently, it thrummed to life. Raising the forks along with their precious cargo was a little more noisy, but only by a matter of degree.

He studied the whole operation with anxious eyes. Ever since the anvil debacle three days previously, he'd become almost paranoid about moving exhibits into place and back into storage. Nothing untoward had happened since that fateful day. Moreover, Director Piggot of the PRT had personally telephoned him and assured him that this was a cape-related incident and thus fully covered by insurance. But still, he didn't like that it had happened at all. James Aramis was a man of habit and routine, and he hated that something so drastically out of the ordinary had occurred in his gallery.

As the forklift turned in a slow circle, its wide soft tyres squeaking almost inaudibly on the marble flooring, James took note of a detail that had heretofore escaped his notice.

Player pianos were called such because perforated paper rolls could be attached to a mechanism within the body of the piano. Via ingenious mechanisms, pedals scrolled the paper from one roll to another and also worked air-pumps that drew air in through the holes that had been punched in the paper. These allowed the piano to play popular tunes that might be entirely unknown to the operator of the pianola, which made the instrument far more versatile than a standard piano, if more complicated.

To use the paper rolls, however, a sliding panel had to be opened in the front of the piano. During the exhibition, of course, the panel had been kept open so that the operation of the piano could be demonstrated to the public at large. For those used to songs that had been digitised and could easily be accessed via a smartphone or computer, the idea of music being recorded on a paper roll and played back by sitting on a stool and pedalling was almost beyond comprehension.

What James saw now, however, was that the sliding panel hadn't been closed all the way. Or perhaps it had been closed, and for some reason had been reopened by a handspan or so. It posed no danger to the pianola like that. In fact, the whole thing could be packed away and transported back to Carlsbad with that panel open. But it felt sloppy to James to leave it like that.

"The panel is open!" he called as the forklift trundled past him on the way to the freight elevator. "You're going to need to close it!"

"Panel?" asked the forklift driver, turning his head to look back at James. "What panel?" He was only travelling at a steady walking pace, but to James' disquiet, he was nearing the spot where the anvils had gone out the window. The glass had been replaced, but he'd been in a hurry and regular laminated glass had been harder to source in a hurry, so he'd had a sheet of standard glass installed, and had a rope barrier set up so that nobody was even inclined to lean against it. Come Friday, he'd have a proper window ready to install over the weekend.

"The panel on the front of the piano!" James called, trotting after the man. "It's—look out!"

His sudden exclamation was due to a mass of butterflies which had suddenly appeared where no butterfly should be. Not just one or two, or even three. There were maybe a dozen of these, pouring over the top of the piano and swarming back toward the man driving the forklift.

"Look out for wha—fuck!" yelled the man, suddenly finding himself blinded by flashing blue and black wings. If he'd been facing ahead from the beginning, he may have been all right, but the action of turning translated to his hands when he was startled, and the forklift swerved.

Straight toward the window.

Taylor

"So where are we going?" I asked as Jack Slash and I moved crabwise down the sidewalk, so as to use me as a human shield against anyone trying to attack him. The last time this had happened, I'd been a little more apprehensive about what was going on. However, given what had happened to Kaiser and Hookwolf, I was reasonably sanguine about the outcome of this particular hostage situation. Assuming, of course, nobody got killed trying to rescue me. I watched as Lisa spoke to Glory Girl and Panacea, almost certainly passing on that little bit of wisdom.

Off to the side, I could see Brian and the others. The big guy's shoulders were hunching, like he wanted to launch himself at Jack Slash, but we both knew he wouldn't get anywhere near close enough. Alec was watching narrowly, as if considering making the villain drop his knife. That could have possibilities, I figured, but I didn't imagine for a second that Jack Slash would only ever have one knife on his person. And finally, Rachel was just watching; Chick Norris on her upturned palm and a look of patient expectation on her face. I got the impression that she didn't know what was going to happen to Jack Slash, but whatever it was, she was going to enjoy the show.

"Into the Forsberg Gallery," he said shortly. He sounded irritated at my question, but keeping it from me wasn't exactly going to happen. With his knife hovering around my throat, I was there for the duration.

"Oh, okay." I glanced down and to the side. "Watch the anvils."

"What?" He looked down himself, where he'd been just about to trip over the nearest one. Up close, they were even more impressive than they'd been on TV; eight anvils of varying size, spaced around the circumference of a circle about five feet across. Around them was strung the 'parahuman incident' tape that the PRT liked to put up. In this case, it was probably more to prevent people from falling over the anvils than from any lingering power effect. "What the fuck? Is this some kind of public sculpture?"

"So to speak," I agreed with a grin I couldn't hide. "Turns out that one of our local supervillains annoyed the wrong cape, and that's what happened." This might not have sounded as impressive as my power decided to make Coil its bitch, but I'd already given the idiot holding me one warning. He wasn't getting any more.

"This goddamn city," he muttered. He was keeping relatively close to the wall and the tape was in the way, so he moved the knife from my throat briefly. A quick wrist motion and the tape was parted in two places. I was kind of impressed. Not by the fact that he had cut the tape, but that he'd put himself directly at ground zero of a previous supervillain's downfall.

Just as we got to the middle of the circle, a weird siren became audible. I tilted my head, wondering where I'd heard it before. Jack Slash tensed, moving me around so that I was between himself and whoever was coming.

In the event, 'whoever' turned out to be a decrepit sedan with the Ghostbusters logo painted on the side, complete with the flashing lights on top. It chuntered down the street and screeched to a halt not far from us. The engine cut out, and two men jumped out. One was tall and muscular, while the other one was distinctly weedy. I recognised Uber and L33t from a show of theirs I'd briefly looked at. However, they were wearing jumpsuits from the same movie as the car. If I wasn't much mistaken, they were also hefting proton rifles.

"Halt, evildoer!" shouted Uber. "The Siberian has been trapped and your comrades vanquished! Release your hostage and surrender, or face our wrath!" He and L33t aimed their guns at us, but didn't fire. I wasn't sure what they were supposed to do, but I figured whatever it was had to be nonlethal. At least, I was pretty sure it was nonlethal. L33t had a reputation for things going wrong with his inventions.

While I was off on that tangent, Jack was obviously paying more attention to what they were saying. "Wait, what the hell?" he demanded. "You trapped the Siberian? Wearing Ghostbuster costumes?"

I wasn't quite sure what relevance that had, but I heard the noise from above just as he spoke. It was kind of a tinkling crash. That gave me an idea of what was going to happen next.

James Aramis

With a sense of dreadful inevitability, James watched as the forklift went straight through the rope barrier and shattered the window with the tines of its forks. It came to a halt as the driver stamped on the brakes, but then a large chunk of the glass swung down, its razor-sharp edge hitting the restraining strap in just the right place to sever it cleanly. The forklift was tilted slightly forward with the sudden stop, and James got there just in time to see the piano begin to slide off the forks. This, of course, unbalanced the forklift farther forward. As it did so, the butterflies flitted out and perched on top of the piano, which then slid off the forks and disappeared out of sight.

For the second time in his life, James Aramis swore.

"Motherfucker."

Taylor

The shards of glass landed all around us, except for one that pierced Jack Slash's arm in just the right place to cause him to loosen his grip on me. Reflexively, I took half a step forward. He, on the other hand, looked straight up. I heard him open his mouth to utter the syllable, "F—" before his voice was cut off by a thunderous crash. Debris spun out in all directions past me, brushing my hair, my arms and my legs. Something small bounced harmlessly off the top of my shoulder, but that was it.

When I looked around, nearly every person in the crowd was staring at me, open-mouthed. The exceptions were Lisa and Rachel; the former was even more smug than normal, and the latter just looked satisfied. I had no idea how many people were filming the incident, but I couldn't resist. Bending forward with Jack Slash's knife in my hand—I had no idea how that even got there—I gave them a deep bow, hands out to the side. As I straightened up, a flock of blue-and-black butterflies settled down over me, perching on my hands, my arms and my head. One even landed on the tip of the knife I was holding. I held that pose for just a moment as the one on my forehead slowly opened and closed its wings, then the butterflies flitted away and vanished in the late afternoon sunlight.

As spontaneous applause broke out, I strolled away from the wreckage of the piano (several piano keys lying around gave me my clue) and of Jack Slash, toward Lisa and Brian. However, I was interrupted by Uber and L33t.

"Holy—" blurted the well-built muscular guy, staring at me.

"—shit!" finished his weedy buddy.

"You're the lucky girl!" they exclaimed at the same time.

I tilted my head. "Yeah, I guess so," I conceded. "Nice costumes. What do those guns do?"

But my question fell on deaf ears. L33t fell to his knees before me, and before I could even raise my eyebrows, Uber had done the same.

"We're not worthy!" they chanted, actually prostrating themselves before me. "We're not worthy!"

"Wait, what the heck?" I asked, taking a step back. "Guys, no. No cults."

"No, this isn't a cult thing," Uber explained, getting to his feet and helping his buddy up. "We're just … well, L33t built luck guns and we've been using them to take out the bad guys. And we've been using your luck energy to do it with."

"'Luck' energy?" I asked, intrigued. "Luck guns? That actually sounds kinda … cool. I guess." Though how they'd been using my luck energy to do it, I had no idea. Might've been nice to ask me first, I added silently.

"If you're the lucky girl, then what you can do is ten times what we can do," babbled L33t. "But sure … holy crap." He showed his gun to Uber. "Dude, check it! It was on fifty-eight percent and now it's on a hundred!"

Uber blinked at his own readout. "Mine just ticked over to a hundred and twenty percent. Is it supposed to do that?" He stared at me with wide eyes. "Should we even be this close to her?"

"Shit!" exclaimed L33t, as his backpack began emitting a high-pitched whine. "They're overloading! Too much luck energy!"

"Shut them down!" Uber shouted, tearing the proton pack off his back. It, too, was whining audibly, although the whine was coming out as the Ghostbusters theme tune. The trouble was, it was louder than I suspected it really needed to be.

"I can't!" L33t grabbed both packs and, with strength I was pretty sure he hadn't known he was capable of, hurled them a dozen yards down the sidewalk, rifles trailing behind them. A moment later, there was a pop and a shower of sparks from both of them, then black smoke trailed upward from each pack.

"Oh, wow," I said in dismay. "Uh, sorry? I didn't mean to do that." L33t, staring stricken at the still-smoking packs, whimpered audibly. I patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. "You can rebuild them, right?"

"Um, nope," Uber said gravely. "Normally he can only build one of anything, and he can't repair it when it breaks. He had to mainline on luck energy just to build those things."

"Guys, chillax," Lisa interjected. I jumped slightly, as I hadn't even heard her come up behind me. "Taylor's power is totally not under her control, but it is working to some sort of plan. You guys were part of that plan, which is why you were allowed to build your luck guns and have fun taking out the Nine, but now that part's done. You get to take your pay and go back to doing what you did before."

"Yeah, but that'll be boring," groaned L33t. "And they're still dragging their heels on giving us the reward for the Siberian. Even after Purity and Crusader and Rune all swore blind that I did it."

"Well, I can probably help with that," I decided. "How exactly did you kill the Siberian with a luck gun, anyway? It's not like she could trip over a banana peel and break her neck or something."

"Ghost trap," Uber explained laconically. "It was the damnedest thing. Just sucked her right in."

Well, that definitely made sense with the theme they had going, but I wasn't even going to ask how L33t had built a 'ghost trap' to contain the Siberian.

"I'll talk to the Director," I decided. "She seems to like me."

 “Incoming!” I looked around at the call. With a thud, a familiar red-costumed parahuman landed about five yards away. As far as I could tell, he'd come off of one of the rooftops opposite. Rolling to his feet, he held out his hand. “Hey there, remember me from the Chicken Festival? I'm totally a huge fan of your work. Assault, at your service. And this is—”

A blue and silver blur resolved itself into a woman standing next to Assault. “—Battery,” she said, cutting him off. “I can introduce myself, you know.” She gave me a friendly nod. "Hello again."

“Oh, wow,” I said, looking from one to the other. Tentatively, I shook Assault's hand, then Battery's. “It's an honour to meet you two. Again, I mean. I mean, I see you guys on the news, but I never think I'd actually get to meet you.” Fully aware that I'd started to babble, I shut up.

Assault snickered, a sound echoed by Lisa. "Oh, man," he chuckled. "You have no idea. I mean, really, no idea."

I looked from one to the other, wondering what the joke was. "Someone needs to fill me in, then," I said, starting to feel annoyed.

Battery stepped forward. "You have an active fan club in the PRT and Protectorate bases, Miss Hebert," she explained. "Half the capes and a number of the PRT personnel who are in the loop to know about you are following your exploits with great interest."

"What about the Director?" I asked. "I mean, she was nice enough to me when I spoke to her."

Assault snorted. "When news of whatever you've done next comes in, she doesn't even query it. I think she's torn between irritation about just how bullshit your powers are—"

"I know, right?" Lisa said.

With a broad grin, Assault gave her a high five. "And relief that you're actually a nice kid who doesn't mean us any harm. Also, she warns us about twice a day to never do anything that might possibly be taken as a threat to you or your father."

Lisa grinned. "I'm guessing that came in after, well, this?" She indicated the nearest anvil.

Battery smirked in return. "Got it in one."

"I'm glad you guys are having fun," interjected yet another voice, "but I need a hand here."

I looked around from the byplay to see Glory Girl and Panacea approaching us. The latter still had hold of the girl I understood to be Bonesaw, though I couldn't really see it. I supposed it was the change in hair colour and the lack of a bloodstained apron. "Um, okay?" I replied. "What's the matter?"

Panacea gritted her teeth. "Bonesaw has re-engineered herself to be very hard to keep on a leash. Every time I try to shut her nervous system down, it starts working again anyway. And if I try to concentrate on that, she's got reservoirs of disease that will auto-release into the atmosphere. And if I try to concentrate on that, her body's in berserker mode right now."

"Just kill her then." That was Rachel. "End the problem."

Panacea shook her head. "Maybe I could've done that in the beginning, but all of those safeguards are set up so if life signs cease, the diseases release anyway. The ultimate deadman switch."

"Allow me to help, then." We all looked up as Eidolon drifted down from above. I was beyond surprise, though I did restrain myself from letting out a little bit of a fangirl squee. He wasn't Alexandria, but he was still pretty cool.

Landing beside Panacea, Eidolon surveyed Bonesaw closely. "I see." His hand flared briefly with a golden light. "I've just dissolved the artificial neurons she was using. Does that help?"

"Does it!" Panacea grinned for the first time. "Got you, you little cow. Artificial neurons. Son of a bitch. No wonder I couldn't stop you from reactivating stuff. Okay, that's shut down, and that, and that, and that … and that … and off you go to dreamland." With the last word spoken, Bonesaw slumped in her arms and began to snore softly. Panacea looked up at Eidolon. "Thank you. That was getting a little fraught there, for a while."

He smiled slightly. "You're welcome. As it happens, I was already looking for you. It's just lucky I turned up in time to assist." He turned toward Lisa, who had burst out laughing and was leaning against me for support. I could see the joke, but it was obviously a lot funnier to her than to me. "Did I say something amusing?" he asked, sounding a little puzzled.

"Uh, a little," I said, self-consciously. "I've kind of got a good-luck power. It's kind of … strong. And it acts without my conscious knowledge."

"I … see," he replied, and just from the tone of his voice I was absolutely certain he was raising an eyebrow. "And does this have anything to do with the knife in your hand or the rubble behind you?"

"Both," I admitted. "Jack Slash took me hostage, then a piano fell on him."

"And where were you when the piano fell on him?" he asked, sounding like he wasn't quite certain he wanted to hear the answer.

"Right next to him," I said truthfully. "I said I was lucky."

"I … see," he murmured. "That's very interesting. And I would like to talk to you about it in much greater detail, but I was actually here to see Panacea. So if you'll excuse me?"

"Sure," I said with a shrug, hiding a grin at Panacea's squeak of "Me?" I turned toward Lisa as Brian moved up alongside us. Rachel came up on the other side.

"Don't ever do that again," Brian told me, his voice intense. "I was terrified for you the whole time."

"Hey, I was safe," I reminded him. "I was a lot more scared when I was kidnapped by the Empire and Kaiser told Hookwolf to make me scream."

"Okay, I hadn't heard this one," Alec put in from behind Rachel. "What happened then?"

I shrugged. "A ton of blue ice landed on them. I'm pretty sure I posted the photos online."

"Oh." His eyes widened. "Oh, that was you? How the fuck … no, never mind. I'm sure the explanation will be just as bullshit."

"Pretty sure it's what got Coil's attention," Lisa noted, nodding toward the mixed pile of anvils, piano bits and Jack Slash. Mercifully, no part of the deceased supervillain could actually be seen. She grinned at me. "I've noticed this about your power. It never does one thing when it could be doing three things at once."

Abruptly, a blue glow surrounded Eidolon and Panacea, and they vanished. Glory Girl, left behind, looked around aimlessly then began to rise into the air.

"Hey, Gee-Gee," Lisa called. "What's happening?"

For a few moments, it seemed that the teen superhero—I had to say, the pixie cut looked good on her—was going to ignore her, but then she drifted back down to us. "I have no idea," she admitted. "Eidolon needs my sister for some project or other." She nodded toward where the Protectorate heroes were securing Bonesaw. "Assault and Battery are taking that one to hand over to the PRT." She eyed Brian, Rachel and Alec suspiciously. "Are all of you villains too?"

"They're ex-villains," I corrected her firmly. Without looking, I held out my hand to Rachel and she handed Chick Norris over. The little chick cheeped at me as I cupped my hand around him. "They're with me now." I pointed at them in turn. "Cool best friend. Asshole best friend. Tough best friend. Hunky best friend."

Glory Girl's shoulders sagged slightly as I pointed out Brian. "Ah," she said. "Damn."

I looked at Lisa, unsure of what was going on here. She smirked. "Oh, you've got to hear this one."

The blonde superhero shook her head, a look of sudden worry crossing her face. "No, no, she doesn't."

Lisa nodded, her eyes bright. "Yes, yes, she does. See, Brian was taking one of Rachel's dogs for a walk …"

Part 18