Celestial Worm Pt 3 (Patreon)

[A/N: This chapter beta-read by the author of Ties that Bind.]

Danny

“Keep your head down,” murmured Janesha. “You're only mortal, after all.” Kicking off from the concrete, she took two running strides toward the tank. In the middle of the second stride, she vanished completely from his sight. Half a second later, she appeared directly in front of the overwrought contraption that Danny refused to call a 'vehicle', out of respect for all vehicles everywhere.

Drawing back her fist, she threw a punch at the bulldozer blade on the front of the thing. He wasn't quite sure what he'd expected, but the immense CLANG that echoed back to him, and the sizeable dent that appeared in the broad slab of metal, wasn't it. Even more impressive was the way the whole tank was driven back a yard by the force of her blow.

Sonovabitch. She's a Mover and a Brute, too? Danny stared in amazement. He'd occasionally seen capes using their powers, but rarely so blatantly and never so close.

Armsmaster was made of sterner stuff. Abandoning his bike, he started moving toward the ongoing fight with his halberd up and ready. Danny wondered for a second if that was a smart move, then shrugged. Who was he to tell a cape how to do his job?

The tank engine suddenly over-revved, leaving no doubt the driver stupidly thought the best way around the obstacle in front of them was to go over the top of her. Surging forward, the metal cleats on the tank's tyres bit into the already-broken concrete, crushing it to dust. Janesha responded by raising both fists up over her head. When the blade was almost on her, she slammed them downward into the top edge of the attachment, crunching it in half lengthwise and driving the nose of the tank into the ground at her feet. Before Danny's horrified gaze, the back end of the tank flipped into the air. He cringed, already envisioning the whole thing landing on top of Janesha and flattening her. Skidmark, whose head and shoulders were out of the hatch, was just as likely to be killed, but Danny didn't care about him. He cared about Janesha.

And then she caught the tank. It was literally airborne, the back end pointing vertically into the air as it arced over to a potentially catastrophic landing, when she reached forward and seized hold of the badly bent blade. Ignoring all rules of physics as Danny knew them, the tank stopped, steady in her hands. Then it kept going, but only because Janesha wanted it to.

Balancing the weight of a thirty-ton Tinkertech tank at an impossible angle (backward and upside down at forty-five degrees) she glanced over her shoulder at Armsmaster and called out, “Hey, you with the flashy stick. Make yourself useful. Catch!” Then she shook the tank, like Danny might shake up a can of Coke to make it spray everywhere when he popped the top.

“Wha—hey—you motherfucking camel-fellating—whaaargh!” Skidmark didn't have time to say any more, as the shaking dislodged him from the tank. He fell more or less on top of Armsmaster; fortunately, the armoured hero got his halberd out of the way just in time to prevent a Skidmark kabob. Less fortunately, Armsmaster caught him with an armoured hand, which was probably better than falling on the bare concrete, but not by much. Not if the way he folded in half over Armsmaster’s forearm was anything to go by.

Having removed Skidmark from the equation (and the tank), Janesha blithely reversed its movement and slammed it back on to its wheels. Just like in the cartoons, the shattering impact popped all eight wheels off of the tank and sent them careening into the distance. Likewise, the engine stalled. Whether the latter was due to the loss of the wheels or the sudden changes in attitude, Danny wasn't sure. He was hardly a mechanic.

Jumping lightly over the now non-functional bulldozer blade, Janesha grabbed the front armour panel and tore it away from the armoured vehicle in a cacophony of popping bolts and ripping steel. She casually tossed it aside and surveyed the internal mechanisms of the monstrosity. The plate crashed loudly to the concrete behind her then rocked back and forth with a clatter, but this was quickly drowned out by more engines roaring in the distance.

With one hand still on the tank, Janesha leaned back to look in the direction of the newcomers, just as a van followed by a 4x4 charged through the gap originally made by the tank. Standing up in the back of the 4x4, hanging on to the headframe with hands that … really weren't hands, was a pile of muck and trash in (very roughly) humanoid form. Despite the fact that the villain looked different every single time, Danny recognised Mush immediately. Crap. Janesha, I hope you know what you're doing.

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Janesha

Janesha let out an aggravated breath. “Of course there’s fucking more of them…” she muttered with a cross-eyed curse, because this was getting tedious. Just on a hunch—this was a close replica of Earlafaol’s America and those shits looooved their guns—she took a moment to reinforce her body so that she was as durable as Danny. As the vehicles roared closer, she saw gun barrels come into view and knew she'd made the right decision. However, without a powerbase, or even a Realm-wide attunement, she could only deal with one mortal situation at a time and her priority was whatever idiot was driving this monstrosity. She looked over her shoulder and made eye contact with Cloudstrike, then inclined her head towards the two vehicles.

Cloudstrike didn't need a second invitation. With a ringing whinny, she was airborne before the oncoming enemy came to a halt.

There was a reason that mystallions were known as one of the fastest creatures in all the realms (behind the Hellion brute squad, of course. She'd heard Uncle Avis talk about how scary fast those things were, which had impressed her considerably). In the time it took for the van and the 4x4 to screech to a halt alongside each other, Cloudstrike was already there. She dipped her shoulder and rammed the right side of the van with enough force to send it airborne into the 4x4. The van bounced off the 4x4 and rolled over and over, while the pickup with the trash golem in the back careered off to the side; equally out of control.

Sssstriiiike! Janesha chuckled, turning her attention back to the tank. Tenpin bowling was one of the many small pleasures that the Mystallians had taken back with them from their extended stay on Earlafaol. Uncle Chance was particularly fond of it, despite the narrow margin for luck, but he’d always been a goofball like that. Of all the elders, he was the one most likely to be in the middle of the pool on someone else’s shoulders, challenging any newcomers to topple what he decreed was their indomitable ‘tower’. Everyone wanted Uncle Chance on their side in a game. Who wouldn’t want Luck on their side?

But that wasn’t helping her now. Focusing on the task at hand, she grabbed hold of something that looked important and heaved, savouring the sound of shrieking metal as it tore from the tank. Wanting a repeat of that sound, she tossed it over her shoulder and climbed into the space thus emptied out, looking for her next viable target.

Another whinny from Cloudstrike caught her attention and she lifted her head. Not that she was concerned about her friend’s welfare but because it sounded like she was having way too much fun. That thought was confirmed as Cloudstrike delivered a powerful two-hoofed kick to the trash golem, driving it backward fifty metres into the side of a shed.

Moving on to her next toy, the mystallion lifted into the air with a single beat of her wings and came down next to the van. She latched on to the corner of the van roof with her teeth and brought her wings down, at the same time swinging her head in a wrenching motion. Already dented and battered by its previous encounter with the angry mystallion, the van barely lifted off its wheels before the roof tore free.

Janesha laughed openly. They screwed with us. They asked for it. And went back to burrowing her way into the tank. Grabbing two pieces of machinery at random, she pulled them away from each other with another wrenching crunch, and came face to face with a woman wearing something that Aunt Emi might decide to throw on for a casual day in. Except that nothing would be permitted to mar the Mystal's goddess of Love, Lust and Fertility’s exquisiteness. Certainly not the splotches of oil that this woman had all over her. Also, Aunt Emi had never pointed a pistol at Janesha's face. Now, that was just rude.

“Hi,” said Janesha cheerfully, pretending to ignore the mortal weapon. “Are you going to surrender, or do I have to explain why fighting back's a bad idea?”

“F-f-fuck you!” blurted the woman, then grabbed a lever beside her seat and yanked on it. The explosion partially deafened Janesha for a few seconds, and the cloud of smoke made her cough, but neither did her any real harm. But by the time she could see again, the woman was gone. Janesha climbed into what had been the control compartment of the tank, which no longer had a roof, and looked up. Far above, she saw the seat, suspended under a parachute that might have been stitched together from whatever the woman had at hand.

Do you really think you can get away from me that fucking easily? I’m a Mystallian, bitch. Janesha shook her head as the multitude of ways she could bring the mortal to heel flashed across her mind. Deciding on the most hands on approach, she leapt through the hole in the roof to land on top of the tank. From the new vantage point, she saw Armsmaster subduing the men who'd been in the van and the pickup, while Cloudstrike continued to play tag with the trash golem. Well, Cloudstrike was playing. As expected, the golem wasn't. The mystallion was alternating shoulder-checks with solid kicks that sent the reeking thing bowling across the concrete for tens of metres at a time, whinnying happily with each strike. That's my girl.

Lining herself up to intercept the woman who’d bailed from the tank, Janesha leapt upwards. At a hundred metres up and about twenty downwind, it wasn't even a difficult jump. Fortunately, the woman didn't have any way to steer away from her, and Janesha came close enough to grab hold of the ersatz ejection seat with one hand. She heard several loud bangs, but it took a second or so to realise that the woman was shooting at her—point blank.

“Seriously?” she asked, shifting her eardrums to remove the ringing. “I just ripped the shit out of your little toy tank and you think a gun is going to affect me?”

“Just fuck off!” shouted the woman, trying to stamp on her fingers. “I never did nothing to you! Leave me alone!”

Janesha sighed, and with a firmer grip on the chair, she climbed to hang on to the seat alongside her quarry. “First things first,” she said, and severed the parachute cords. The last thing she needed was that stupid thing dragging along behind. The chair immediately began to plummet and the woman screamed, but by that stage Janesha had a strong grip on the chair. Making a stepping motion, she pushed them both into the celestial realm.

The woman’s scream switched pitch to a shriek as she stared at the unnatural surroundings, both the un-Earthlike sky overhead and the crystalline landscape below. “What the fuck?” she babbled. “Where the fuck did you take me, you fucked up fucking…?”

“Oh, shut up,” growled Janesha, and used her shifting to temporarily paralyse the woman's vocal chords. As she did so, she noticed something odd. From the woman's head, a celestial energy line stretched off into the distance. Orange-red in colour, it glowed with a steady intensity. What in the Realms is that? she wondered. It wasn't something she'd ever seen before, although this was the first time she'd ever personally pulled a mortal through into the celestial plane. No doubt, someone, somewhere, had to have done something like this before, given the uncountable number of eons since the Twin Notes had first been sung, but she'd never even heard of this particular effect.

Definitely something to look into, she decided. But not right at that moment. Stepping back into the mortal plane, she chose to emerge right next to the tank. As the ejection seat fell the last few centimetres to the concrete, she retained her grip on it. This allowed her to use her shifting to fuse the buckles together so that the woman could not escape. Then she took hold of the woman's pistol and removed it from her grasp. “It's for your own safety,” she explained, as she crushed it into useless metal chunks. “You might hurt yourself with it.” Dropping the pistol remnants to the ground, she straightened up in preparation of dealing with whoever was left.

Which, as it turned out, was just the trash golem. Armsmaster had wrapped up the last of the mortals from the overturned pickup, but the golem was still up and around. Much as she didn't want to ruin Cloudstrike's fun, Janesha knew she had to finish things up, so she let out a short whistle to get the mystallion's attention. When Cloudstrike glanced her way, Janesha gestured at the golem, then flicked her finger in a beckoning motion.

She grinned broadly at her friend’s look of disbelief and almost laughed at the disappointed huff that seemed to end in a pout. Nevertheless, Cloudstrike obediently flew past the golem—the barrel roll was unnecessary but would be impressive to anyone who didn't know a mystallion's true capabilities—and slammed her rear hooves into its back. Shedding random pieces of crap, the golem was sent flying across the battlefield until it rolled to a complete halt under Janesha’s raised foot. Niiice, old friend. Janesha stepped back and resumed one of her Uncle Avis’ preferred poses when dealing with inconsequentials. Her hands were clasped in the small of her back under her cloak and her booted feet were parted as she stood at ease.

The golem clambered to its feet and took a blind swing at her. She caught the incoming punch just as easily as she had the tank, and the moment the contact was made, she noted all the trash on the golem was acting as a singular unit. Well, well, well. Who said you needed Uncle Chance’s blessing to get lucky? Before it could learn from its mistake, she locked all of those things together into a solid mass, immovable and unbreakable.

“That was waaay too easy,” she observed to nobody in particular as it consequently fell over. Of course, she’d have to turn in her celestial-card if she allowed a pack of mortals to defeat her inside the mortal realm. It wouldn’t have been anywhere near as much fun if Cloudstrike hadn’t been there, and no doubt some of the little pests would’ve gotten away.

“I wouldn't get too cocky if I were you,” Armsmaster said as he headed in her direction. His hearing wasn't too bad for a mortal's, to have heard that. Unless his armour had sound pickups, of course. She wasn't totally conversant with the levels of mortal technology available here, but she wouldn't have been surprised. “You got lucky with the tank. Squealer's work is pretty hit and miss. What if she'd had armour you couldn't get through?”

Janesha ran through several options in her mind. Laughing in his face probably wouldn't make the best of impressions, so she decided to humour him. For now. “That's not actually possible,” she said, and picked up the armour plate she'd torn off earlier. Cheating just a little with her shifting, she flattened it out then creased it down the middle with her thumbnail and folded it over. Then she folded it again, and a third time as well. Taking hold of the now inches-thick slab of steel, she looked Armsmaster straight in the visor and casually tore the folded armour plate in half. “Bring me a real tank, and I can shred it just as easily. This was nothing.”

“I … see.” Armsmaster looked from her, to the trash golem, to where Cloudstrike was trotting over. He gestured at the motionless golem with his polearm. “What did you do to him?”

“'Him'?” asked Janesha, honestly puzzled. “That thing's a 'him'?”

“That 'thing' is Mush, of the Merchants,” Armsmaster said severely. “There's a man in there. Didn't you know that?”

“Ah…no. Actually, I just figured it was a trash golem.” And this right here was a classic example of why celestials looked into the minds of mortals. It saved a lot of misunderstanding and backtracking if they were all on the same page from the beginning.

The edges of the chunks of steel were still glowing red from where she'd torn them. Tossing them aside, she bent down and scooped up the trash golem, lifting it to chest height. Then she brought it down on the concrete, cracking it open like an egg. Within lay a wizened little man who could've been any age from nineteen to ninety. Weird tendrils were retracting into his body, and he drew in a long shuddering breath of air as she watched. “Okay. There you go. One de-mushed Mush.”

“He was suffocating,” Armsmaster said accusingly. “You could've killed him.”

Janesha gave him the same sort of flat stare she'd gotten from her great-grandmother on occasion. “He was going to hit me hard enough to flatten any m—uh, mundane,” she retorted. “And his cohorts were pouring gunfire everywhere. I was just defending myself, or isn't that allowed around here?” She shrugged carelessly. “Besides, I didn't tell him to wrap himself in garbage. He was dumb enough to do that all by himself.”

“Superheroes don't resort to lethal force straight away,” Armsmaster insisted. “We're supposed to use restraint.”

Cloudstrike trotted up then, and Janesha reached up to caress the mystallion's cheek and ruffle her ears. “Who said I'm a superhero? And he’s alive, isn't he? So, what’s your problem?”

Armsmaster stood up straighter, and his halberd lifted a few inches. “Are you saying you're a villain?”

“Oh, get a grip.” Janesha snorted and gave him an unamused look. “I don't accept labels from people who aren't qualified to give them to me.” You don't worship me, so you don't get to define me.

Armsmaster didn't seem able to process that. He stared at her for a moment, as if trying to determine her secrets through sheer force of will. For her part, Janesha returned the scrutiny with rather more effect. Danny had given her a great deal of information about this 'Earth Bet', but she figured that Armsmaster would know more that she could find useful. So she dived into his head.

His thought processes were smooth, efficient, almost mechanical in nature. He was a man solitary and lonely by turns, never really able to relate to others very well. There was only one real personal attachment, with another Tinker—those who built highly-advanced machines and other devices—in Canada, called Dragon. It was kind of sad that the two had never met in person.

Interestingly enough, his helmet had just taken a picture of her and was running it through a database of images, but she knew damn well he wouldn't get anywhere with that. Deciding to allow him his fruitless quest—this time—she kept looking.

 She skimmed over what he would consider confidential information about the Protectorate, as she couldn't really be bothered with it. Armsmaster's personality was much more interesting. The man had pride (as Uncle Chance would put it) out the wazoo. He was fixated on proving that he was the best at what he did, even when he wasn't doing what he was best at.

Which brought her to his current thoughts. He had two goals right at this moment. One was to garner as much credit as possible for the arrest of the three parahumans as he could manage. The second was to attempt to recruit her into the Wards … which, while it might be amusing for about ten minutes, she really wasn't interested in. As she followed the branching lines of his thought processes, she mentally frowned. If he couldn't recruit her, he'd claim as much of the credit as he figured he could get away with. Why, you sneaky little …

More informed about the Protectorate, the PRT and Brockton Bay in general than she had been before (and much more informed about Armsmaster's level of ethics) Janesha pulled back out of his head. No time had passed, of course, so he was still reacting to what she'd said to him. It was plain to see, even without the benefit of the excursion into his mind, that he didn't hold any significant respect for her.

Still, he managed to put on a reasonable simulacrum of a friendly approach. “If that's the way you want to play it. I'll put you down as a rogue. Now, let's talk about credit for this arrest.”

“Sure,” she said promptly. “Cloudstrike and I get credit for Skidmark, Squealer and Mush. You can have the rest of those guys over there.” Casually, she indicated the minions whom Armsmaster had subdued and secured. “I mean, sure, technically you caught Skidmark, but only because I dropped him right on top of you first.”

“Understood.” He nodded, and she knew exactly where his mind was going, even without stepping back into his head. “If I understand matters correctly, you're either new on the scene or you're from out of town, so have you considered joining the Wards? Everyone needs backup at one time or another, and we have a good team here—”

Now he was just slathering on the bullshit. The Brockton Bay Wards team may have been world-beaters for all Armsmaster knew about it, but he barely spent any time with them. In any case, had any recruitment pitch ever opened with you'll probably have nothing in common with them, but …?

“—and I'm sure you'll get along. New Wards get an automatic transfer to Arcadia High if you want—”

“Pass,” she said. “I'm on holiday, not in school. And I've got all the backup I need right here, don't I, Cloudstrike?” Leaning her head over, she rubbed her cheek against the mystallion's. Right on cue, Cloudstrike snorted in agreement, then rapped her hoof against the concrete sharply.

Armsmaster didn't seem totally pleased at her brush-off, but he nodded. “Well, then,” he said, folding the halberd and racking it on his back. “That seems to be all. One question, though.”

She looked over at him, wondering if he was going to have an attack of conscience and ask again for credit for the arrests. “Yeah?”

Reaching up, he touched his helmet; the metal gauntlet tinged on the side of his headpiece. “Aren't you concerned about your secret identity? Your family might be under threat if someone figures out who you are.”

She laughed out loud at that. “Oh, if anyone even figured out how to get to my family, they'd be in so much trouble. My parents are so much more powerful than me, it's not even a contest.”

Interestingly enough, that seemed to really get his attention. He performed a kind of double-take, his lips drawing down in a frown of disbelief.

Okay, what's he looking at now? But rather than go back into his head, she ran back through the knowledge she'd lifted from his head. Image after image of his thought processes went past her inner vision, then she got to what he was seeing. And there it was; a green LED illuminating the word TRUTH. Beneath it was an unlit one with a red tinge, and the word LIE. Huh, so I just lit up the truth meter, and he has no idea how to handle it. Inwardly, she smirked. Chew on that, halberd-boy.

“I … see,” he replied, while it was abundantly clear that he didn't see at all. “Well, in any case, the PRT will be arriving shortly. You don't have to wait around for them. If you want, I can give you my card, and you can go on your way. I'll deal with the statements.” His tone of voice implied boredom, but she wasn't fooled.

“Yeah, I know exactly what you want me to do,” she said flatly. “You want me to go on my merry way so you can give your report, which will by sheer accident claim the greater part of the credit for all this, won't it?”

It was intriguing, she decided, to watch the face of someone who had been caught out in a deception. The shock was inevitable, but then the anger came up. There's nobody so pissed as he whose hand is caught in the cookie jar.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded.

Pretending not to hear him, Janesha shook her head and ran her hand over Cloudstrike’s nose, now addressing her friend more than the mortals. “Can you believe we spend three weeks riding away from one pretentious, thunder-stealing blowhard, only to run smack into another? What’re the odds, Cloudstrike?”

Cloudstrike looked over at Armsmaster arrogantly and nickered in agreement.

“Your allegation is ridiculous,” he snapped. “That wasn't my intention!”

He was good; if she hadn't read that exact intent in his mind, she would've been doubting herself. But she had, so she rolled her eyes. “Bullshit. You were planning to do this if you couldn't recruit me because you want to scrounge every bit of credit for yourself, just like someone else Cloudstrike and I know. By the time you were finished with your report, I'd just be some nobody who came in at the last minute and lent a hand. Well, I didn’t let that red-headed asshat get away with it, and I’m not about to let you get away with it either. You want glory, go look somewhere else for it.”

“That's a very dangerous allegation to present without proof, young lady.” Armsmaster's lips visibly tightened.

Janesha was just about to say how she’d shout it from the rooftops if she felt like it, when Cloudstrike unfurled her off wing and flicked it around with pinpoint accuracy. The feathers that made up the very tip were more than a metre long, and far stronger than they looked. Cloudstrike's wingtip thwacked Armsmaster across the side of the helmet, then the wing re-furled just as fast. Caught off guard by the impact, which would've felt like an open-handed slap delivered by a strong man, Armsmaster stumbled a step and reached around to grab his polearm; a second later, it was unfolded and in his hands. Cloudstrike gazed back at him innocently, then spoiled the effect by nickering with amusement. Or maybe it was Janesha’s giggle that gave it away.

“Young lady!” snapped Armsmaster. “As the leader of the Protectorate in Brockton Bay, I'm ordering you to stand down your projection.” He didn't threaten her with the halberd—he had to have seen what she'd done with the tank—but it was almost angled toward her.

Okay, I guess there is one more mortal who needs to be put down here, Janesha thought as both she and Cloudstrike stiffened in response, no longer finding the situation funny. She glared at Armsmaster, her hostile gaze matched by that of Cloudstrike. “I didn't tell Cloudstrike to smack you, you arrogant prick, but if she hadn't, I would've. And you’ve got two seconds to get that thing out of my face, or I’m gonna do something with it that'll make you cry.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Danny running toward them. It was sweet of him to think she needed the protection, but right now Armsmaster would need it more. To her surprise, he grabbed her by the elbow and not Armsmaster.

“Janesha,” he said urgently. “Don't hurt him, please? Despite what you might think, he is one of the good guys.”

Janesha twisted her lips as she bounced the pros and cons around in her head, along with the options. “Fine,” she huffed, turning back to stare straight at him. Put the halberd away. This was a celestial command from mind-bender to mortal, and he had as little chance of disobeying as water had of running uphill naturally. The halberd was folded and racked on his back within seconds.

Then, for the second time in less than a minute, she went into Armsmaster's mind. This time, however, she wasn't there to just do some light reading. Going over the last minute of memory, she frowned inwardly. Armsmaster was a stubborn individual who could make life difficult for Danny and his family, and Danny didn't want her hurting him. Which left her a grand total of two options (because Danny would've probably objected if she turned Armsmaster into a house cat) and fleeing from a mortal wasn’t gonna happen.

Accordingly, she began modifying his memories.

“Well, in any case, the PRT will be arriving shortly. You don't have to wait around for them. If you want, I can give you my card, and you can go on your way. I'll deal with the statements.”

“Of course,” Janesha replied sweetly. “That's Janesha, with a J. And Cloudstrike. It's spelled the way it sounds.” Cloudstrike tossed her head and whinnied, and Janesha stroked her neck.

“What is Cloudstrike?” asked Armsmaster, finally seeming to notice that the mystallion wasn't a normal horse. “Some kind of projection?”

“No, she's a mystallion,” Janesha told him. “My name's Janesha of Mystal, and you will show us the respect to which we are entitled.” She made the last part of that sentence a mental command that he would have no choice but to obey. Then, realising that her order would make the hero grovel at her feet in the presence of a deity without knowing why, she amended it to,“You will show us the respect of an equal.” There, that would ensure that he wouldn't try to steal their credit, and also make him keep a civil tongue in his head while speaking to her and Cloudstrike. This would go a long way to maintaining his unharmed state in the future. He’d still be his usual dickish self to everyone else, but not to the visiting celestials. Danny would probably have kittens if he found out she could do this, but it really was the easiest way to wrangle a feral mortal without doing anything physical to them.

Just to ensure everything in the newly created memory flowed the way she wanted, she stepped back and replayed the interaction between them from the very beginning.

Which was when she saw it.

In the top right hand corner of his field of vision was a little blinking red light with 'REC' next to it.

Oh, you sneaky little vermin.

The mortal had recorded her. Okay, that could have been a problem if she hadn’t caught it. She could easily see him overreacting to the discrepancies between his memory and the footage in his helmet. Get ready to kiss your techie-toy goodbye, butt-baster. She waited just long enough to memorise the speed at which the REC light flashed before returning to the physical realm.

“Very well, Janesha,” Armsmaster said. “If you're certain about wanting to take the credit?” As expected, his tone was much friendlier now.

Janesha nodded. “I am,” she confirmed with a carefree nod of her head. “Thanks for being concerned, though I'm pretty sure we'll be fine.”

“Understood.” He paused. “I would strongly suggest wearing a mask, to prevent any problems in the future, though. Even a domino mask. It's very dangerous to go around unmasked.”

“I'll keep that in mind.” Janesha said the words to keep things civil, but inwardly she knew the other eight levels of Hell would freeze over before she ever hid behind a mask. She’d never live it down if anyone back home ever found out. Mystallians were proud of what they were. They drew a line, and dared anyone to cross it. Period. She forced herself to smile as she held out her hand in farewell. “It was very informative meeting you.”

Having no clue just how informative he’d been, Armsmaster took her hand in his and shook it. “I'm glad you think so.” The moment their hands touched, she used shifting to fry that damned recording chip in its entirety, but kept the little ‘REC’ light flashing for another two minutes. Just long enough to not be blamed for when it stopped and the conceited jerk realised the whole chip had suffered a catastrophic failure. Had she been more conversant with the technology, she would've overlaid the recording with what he remembered happening, but that wasn't the case here. Armsmaster dipped his head and stepped away, breaking contact. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to see to the prisoners. I'll be certain to make sure you get all the credit for this.”

“Thanks,” she said, barely biting back the words, ‘That’s a good boy’. She thought about mounting Cloudstrike and going airborne for a little bit of a dramatic exit, but realised if she did that, she might lose track of this Danny, and cursed herself for agreeing to stay out of his mind. He hadn’t told her anything about himself that she could use to find him later, except for the fact he worked on the docks and was invested enough to put in the hard yards. It was time she didn’t want to waste, so she took up Cloudstrike’s reins and stepped towards Danny’s car. “Come on, Cloudstrike.”

As Cloudstrike allowed herself to be led away, Danny fell into place beside them. Janesha could almost feel the waves of parental dissatisfaction coming off her human friend and fought to keep her face unreadable. She knew Armsmaster had some kind of heightened hearing, so she didn’t open the discussion until they were on the other side of the yard with Danny’s car between them. Still, she did have the image of all teens everywhere to uphold, so she gazed at Danny guilelessly. “What?”

“What the hell was that?” he hissed, glancing over his shoulder at Armsmaster. “What did you do to him? And how much do I get for betting that it goes hand in hand with how you somehow knew that he was going to try to steal your credit?" She suspected he knew the answer and was asking the question in the hope of getting a different one.

Janesha followed his eyes to the hero in question, who at that moment was tapping the side of his helmet. Sucker! “He wasn't going to let it go,” she said. “And since I'm not about to let him arrest me, and you didn't want me to hurt him, you left me with only one option. I rewrote his memories and took out the part where Cloudstrike hit him.” He didn’t need to know the second part of what she’d done. 

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Danny

Danny didn't know what was worse; that she'd done what he feared, or that she was so forthright about it. “Don’t turn this back on me! It’s not right!” he snapped, barely keeping his voice down. “And you read his mind before that, didn't you? I told you not to do that!”

“You told me not to do it to you,” she corrected him. “You never said anything about other people, and besides, you heard what that idiot said. That thing I thought was a lifeless trash golem turned out to be a living, breathing mortal. Because I didn't find out who was who beforehand, he could've died. This is exactly why we do what we do. To avoid any mistakes we don't want to make."

It wasn't the first time she'd used the term 'mortal', but he'd get to that in a minute. "You're still not supposed to do it, to anyone. That should've been understood from context."

"Why? He was trying to get into my head first. Fair's fair." With a wry grin and a wiggle of her eyebrows, she added, "I'm just better at it."

"Not funny. And altering memories is just not acceptable.” For a moment, he considered demanding that she change the memories back, but then recalled the point the standoff had gotten to. He was uncomfortably certain that Armsmaster would not stand a chance against Janesha. “Well, don't do it again. To anyone. I mean it.”

She spread her hands and smiled in a show of innocence. He wasn't fooled for an instant, especially when she added, "It's not my fault that your cheap knockoff copy of Simurgh has got you all rattled when it comes to mind benders. Most of us are pretty cool."

He glowered at her. "And if we didn't agree to that, we soon would?"

Janesha at least had the grace to shrug. "Not that you'd notice the difference, if that's any consolation."

Danny shook his head very firmly. "No. It isn't." He took a deep breath. “Since we’re clearing the air, why do you keep calling us 'mortals'? Is it like the way Myrddin keeps calling himself a wizard?”

“Wait … you’ve got real magic here? Cool! Man, you have no idea how rare real magic really…” She didn't seem disbelieving so much as excited, but then she blinked and her enthusiasm waned. “Oh, I see. He's just a cape that pretends to do magic. Wow, that’s disappointing.”

“Oh, for—!” Danny's fists clenched uselessly. It was a gesture of frustration rather than aggression, because she just kept pushing his buttons. “I just told you not to do that!” Going from ignorance to fully knowledgeable in an instant was a dead giveaway, as far as he was concerned.

“Do what?” She blinked at him uncomprehendingly, then realised. “Oh! Oh … no … chillax, Danny. I didn't read your mind that time. I didn’t have to. Armsmaster’s already given me all the information I need about your supers.” She tapped the side of her temple. “Time runs differently in here, so from your point of view, it all looks instantaneous. For me, I was gone about an hour going through all the info until I found Myrddin.” With a frown, she added, “You have a hell of a lot of supers here, by the way, and Armsmaster hasn’t exactly met them in alphabetical order.”

“Oh.” He let his hands unclench. “Ah. Sorry. I jumped to conclusions there.” The fact that she had lifted swathes of knowledge from Armsmaster didn't make him feel any better, though. “Still, that's a horrific invasion of privacy.”

“I didn’t touch his private stuff,” she assured him. “That's boring and creepy, all at the same time. I just went after the relevant stuff about the Protectorate and PRT and Wards.”

He tried not to think about how she wouldn't have known Armsmaster's private life to be boring and creepy unless she looked first. “Okay, please don't read peoples' minds, and definitely don't talk about doing it. I don't care if you think the Simurgh is a fake; around here, she's very real, and anyone reading minds or implanting memories is about one accusation away from arrest and Birdcaging. I know you're powerful, and you could probably hold your own against most capes, but if they took a step past that and declared you an S-class threat, nowhere would be safe.”

She gave him one of those penetrating looks she was so good at. “I'll do nothing against anyone that isn't warranted, but I will stand my ground against people like that, any way I see fit. It's the way I was brought up, and that's not going to change any time soon.”

He sighed, fully aware that her definition of 'warranted' was likely to differ from his. “Okay, fine. Just don't go overboard. No killing people unless they're trying to kill you, or me, or some other innocent bystander, and you can't stop them non-lethally.”

“You do realise bending them into compliance is exceedingly non-lethal, right?” she asked, obviously trying hard to sound innocent.

I walked right into that one. “We both know you've got other options,” he said firmly. “Mind control is the last resort.” And I can't believe I just said that out loud.

She rolled her eyes, confirming that yes, she was indeed a teenager. “Anything else you want to do to limit me? Tie one hand behind my back? Make me push a rock uphill? Put a shackle on my ankle, maybe?”

“No, no and no.” He gave her a direct look. “Just give me your word that you'll at least try other things first.”

“Fine,” she grumbled. “I'll try other things first. Happy?”

“Yes,” he said, and opened the passenger side door. “Now get in the car. You obviously don't have any place to stay, and I'm not going to inflict you on Brockton Bay without proper warning. So you're going to come back with me until your parents come and get you, or you find a better place to stay.”

She raised one finger. “But I can find—”

“Without controlling someone's mind in the process,” he finished.

She gave him a dirty look. “If I bent you into ignoring my bending, you wouldn't give a damn about it,” she muttered.

“So, why haven't you?” he asked. “It's not like I can stop you.”

Her tone was no less sullen. “Because I was stupid enough to tell you I wouldn't.”

And you’re a girl of your word. That’s good to know, Danny thought to himself, happy that his initial instincts about her weren’t wrong. “True,” he agreed, waving one hand at the passenger seat. “Now, get in the car.”

She regarded both the open door and Danny with equal scepticism. “I think I’d rather stick to riding Cloudstrike. There's no room for her in there, and I can’t say what she’d do in retaliation if I rode with you and she had to run along behind like a dog or something.”

Danny didn't like the idea of Cloudstrike retaliating in any way either. He'd seen what she did to the van and the 4x4 when she was unhappy with them, and he'd just gotten his car fixed once already. “You won't want to leave her elsewhere in the long term either,” he mused. “She's very striking. People would definitely talk about her, or even try to steal her.” This, he was fully aware, would go very badly. Cloudstrike was … impressively capable.

“That’d be funny to watch,” Janesha laughed, shaking her head. “But all jokes aside, I don’t suppose you have a stable or something where you live?”

“No, just a regular house,” he replied absently. “Though …” He looked over the slabs of concrete that Janesha had replaced seamlessly. “Can you do that reshaping-matter thing to anything?”

“Pretty well, yeah,” she said. “Why?”

He didn't want to say anything right then, but it had occurred to him that the basement had quite a bit of empty space in it; enough to accommodate a horse, even. Getting said horse in and out of the house unseen would normally have been quite a task, but Janesha and Cloudstrike had both shown an aptitude at moving from point to point without crossing the intervening distance. And of course, Janesha's ability to make matter do whatever she wanted would go a long way toward making the accommodations far more comfortable for the mystallion.

Still, he wanted to look the basement over before making any rash promises.“I think I have an idea. I'm just going to have to see if it works. Is there someplace you can put her for half an hour or so? You know, so I can drive you to my house.”

“Hmm.” Janesha thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know about the whole ‘putting her somewhere’ thing, but I guess I can send her over to the Scottish countryside to graze for a bit. She never turns down a feed from the Highlands.”

Danny blinked, and breathed out heavily. Of course. Highlands grass. Because the Highlands of Scotland are just around the corner. “How far does your teleporting work?” The question fell out of his mouth before he could think better of it, and hearing her response, he really wished it hadn’t. 

“We don’t teleport. We realm-shift.”

Realm-shift. Right. Gotcha. Why didn’t I know that? Danny sighed. “Okay. I’ll bite. How far can you realm-shift then?”

Janesha’s shoulders rose and fell in an indifferent shrug. “It honestly depends on how many steps we take. In the case of this place, we can be anywhere in the world in two.”

“TWO STEPS!”

“Well, more, if we’re dragging others with us, but yeah.” Her smile brightened. “Wanna see?”

“No!” YES!!! “Ahhh, not right now. Right now, we need to get ourselves home. Taylor’s probably going crazy, wondering what’s taking me so long.” He looked at Cloudstrike nervously. “So … how … how do you tell her …?” Without having the right words, he used his hands to convey ‘leave’.

Janesha chuckled. “Hey, Cloudstrike. Did you know they have the Highlands here, just like on Earlafaol?”

Immediately, Cloudstrike's head came up and her ears pricked forward. Snuffling the air eagerly, she pranced forward, her hooves tap-tapping on the concrete in a rapid rhythm. The excited nickering was almost superfluous as she looked beseechingly at Janesha.

“Well, if she didn't before, she does now,” remarked Danny, finding the mystallion's patent eagerness somewhat appealing. He'd honestly never seen puppy-dog eyes on something so big before.

Janesha smirked in agreement. “That’s right. So, why don’t you go and graze for a bit and I’ll call you when I need you, girl.”

A gust of wind walloped Danny in the chest before he realised the space Cloudstrike had filled was empty. And he’d been looking straight at her. That … wasn’t teleport … “I don’t want to ask how fast Cloudstrike really is, do I?”

“Probably not,” Janesha laughed, having far too much fun at his expense. Then she sobered. “But you did bring up an interesting point before. Technically, you don’t know me from a rock on the ground, so why are you offering to take me back to meet your daughter?”

“Okay, first?” Danny pointed at the statuette of the talot that he still held in his hand. “You saved my life. I owe you a debt of gratitude as well. Second, it's pretty obvious that you're one of the good guys. Third, you're about Taylor's age, and I'm not going to just let you wander around without any place to stay. Fourth, like I said, I'd prefer not to inflict you on Brockton Bay without some kind of prep.” He gave her a stern glance. “Because wherever you're from, you don't have much of a grasp of how things are done around here, such as we don’t mess with people's minds.”

“And I still say that mind-benders aren't nearly as bad as you guys seem to think,” she huffed. “It's simple. Older ones keep the younger ones in line until they're old enough to be responsible about it. Don't you have any of that here?”

“Well, in a very general way, yeah,” he admitted. “The Wards are junior heroes who do public appearances and work alongside the Protectorate heroes until they turn eighteen and become superheroes in their own right. But we don't have enough, uh, 'mindbenders' to keep the others in check. In fact, I can't really think of any heroic mentalist capes. They're all villains … and of course, the Simurgh. Our Simurgh,” he added sternly as she opened her mouth to say something. “She's killed hundreds of thousands, millions even, and caused entire cities to be barricaded away.”

“Well, the real Simurgh wouldn't do anything like that,” Janesha said, just as adamantly. “She's a kind and gentle person who just likes to help people. She'd be really upset if she heard that someone stole her good name and turned her into a mass-murderer.”

Once again, Danny was struck by Janesha's odd worldview. Calling him and Armsmaster 'mortals', sounding more excited about the possibility of magic than the reality of super-powers, and claiming that there existed a 'real' Simurgh who was nothing like the one that had terrorised the world for the last nine years and change was beyond unusual. But given her very real accomplishments and capabilities, not to mention the very existence of Cloudstrike, he was disinclined to dismiss her words and attitudes as a mere delusion. Which left the conclusion that she was telling the truth … and that was a rabbit-hole he really didn't want to go down right at that moment.

Part 4