Celestial Worm Pt 14 (Patreon)

Part Fourteen: Eclectic Boogaloo

[A/N: This chapter commissioned by Fizzfaldt and beta-read co-written by the author of Ties That Bind (and the upcoming sequel, The Long Way Home), Karen Buckeridge.]

Hebert Household
Taylor

" … so once I got out of there, I started walking west," Taylor concluded. "Janesha dropped in about ten minutes later and we came home."

Danny shook his head wonderingly. "Did they try to follow you?"

Taylor snorted. "They'd already learned that was a bad idea in the base. When I throw things, it seems I throw them really hard."

Janesha cracked her knuckles. "So where is this place? We need to go back and explain to them exactly why they don't kidnap my besties. Like, ever. And by 'explain', I mean 'pull down their stupid base around their ears and mindscrape the survivors into a drooling puddle'."

Mindscraping didn't sound like fun to Taylor. She suspected it was even worse than it sounded. "I know where it is, but Coil wasn't actually on site at the time. I'm pretty sure he's got another base. This was just a secondary." She shook her head. "Supervillains. How does someone get to build even one secret base under Brockton Bay, anyway, much less two?"

"What part of mindscraping did you not get?" Janesha smirked. "If even one of those guys has ever been to the other base, or even better, has seen his boss with his stupid mask off, I'll see what they've seen. Then we go say hi to Coil and deliver him to the PRT. In a flat-pack envelope, for preference."

"I would much prefer that we keep the mindscraping to a minimum," Taylor's father said firmly. "Not that I don't want to exact bloody vengeance against the people who kidnapped Taylor and tried to kill her, but messing with peoples' minds will still draw a lot of attention."

Janesha wrinkled her nose. "Stupid pretend-Simurgh. I should totally go up there and smack the shit out of her until she stops fucking around with you mortals. Then go and do the same to Leviathan and Behemoth."

Danny raised his eyebrows. "Okay, not to doubt you in any way … I mean, you've done some pretty amazing stuff since you got here. Shit, I saw you walk on water and juggle container ships. The entire hero population of Brockton Bay saw you do that."

"And every single one called bullshit," added Taylor with a smirk.

"Trust me, they've got no idea how far celestial bullshit can go," Janesha assured them, then looked at Danny narrowly. "You were saying something about not doubting me, but I heard a 'but' in there. Mind finishing that sentence?"

Danny nodded. "But … the Endbringers have been terrorising the world since before Taylor was born. Thousands of capes have fought them. Hundreds of capes have died fighting them. Not one Endbringer has been killed. The most that's happened in return is that they've been driven off. And you can't even really call it a victory, in most cases. Cities have been levelled, or they've had to be quarantined. Entire islands have been sunk. Are you absolutely certain you're up to dealing with something like that? Sure, you're more powerful than any ten capes I could name, but they've proven they're capable of taking on hundreds of capes at a time." His voice held nothing but honest concern.

"If it was anyone but either of you two asking that question, Danny Hebert, I would consider turning them into a newt." Janesha's tone was deadly serious. "A small, ugly newt with a habit of licking its own butt. Nobody asks a Mystallian if they're sure they're capable of doing something. If we weren't sure, we wouldn't say it. The very last thing we want is some mortal doubting us, or infecting other mortals with that doubt."

"But what if you think you can handle it, but then find out you can't?" Danny asked, not to be cruel, but in genuine curiosity.

"Then you own the mistake," Taylor answered, before Janesha could. "I gotta confess, when you first started trash-talking the Simurgh yesterday, I didn't realise you were serious about it."

Janesha cracked her knuckles again and grinned evilly. "Petal, that pretender out there is one of three things. She's either a cape, a construct or a celest. If it's a cape, she's done. If she's a construct, she's just as done. Constructs are … well … constructs are built by celests, and as such, they don't get our power upgrades with establishment. Even if she's a celest, I'm one of the top tiers when it comes to standard power. In fact, the only thing I have to worry about is whether or not she's an established celest. Everything else, I can pretty much handle."

"What makes you think she's established?"

Janesha curled her lip. "Because, contrary to his wimpy shit personality, it looks like Scion's casting himself in the role of a saviour god, while the Endbringers are presenting themselves as a scourge of humanity. If that's the case, they might very well be the rest of his pantheon, and if they are, my friend is gonna be sooooo pissed."

Taylor rolled her eyes. "So, how do we find out which she is? I mean, what are you going to do if she is … uhh … an established celest? Does that mean you won't be going after her?"

"Oh, I'll be going after her all right," Janesha said firmly. "Even if I have to bring in reinforcements myself. She's impersonating my friend, and that shit don't fly. But it wouldn't hurt to check things out a little more, given what'll happen to me exactly two seconds after she's been dealt with." She paused with a wry grimace, and Taylor realised the reinforcements she'd bring in would be her family, who would then land on her for not going home. But, as if to break that train of thought, Janesha clapped her hands together and brightened, "But either way, that's for another day. We've still got another pest to take care of first. Your friend and mine, Coil."

"Wait a minute," objected Danny, as Janesha went to take Taylor's hand, probably to realm step away. "You're not going after anymore supervillains tonight. House rules."

"What?" Janesha stared at him, along with Taylor. "What house rules are these?"

"My house rules." Danny stared right back. "My new ones. Rule one: One supervillain incident a day, tops, in this house. Taylor's already used up that one by being kidnapped from the mall by Coil, and my heart won't take a second confrontation so soon. The pair of you can leave retaliation plans till tomorrow."

"But what if he leaves town tonight?" objected Janesha. "He might get away."

"Honestly, I don't care. You're more than capable of tracking him down tomorrow, if you need to. Tonight, we're all having dinner and then we're all having a shower and going to bed, like a normal family. The end."

Janesha looked as though she couldn't believe she was being grounded by a mortal. "You're yanking my chain now, right?"

Well, well, Taylor thought to herself. Look who was listening to the kids at school today. She was almost certain that saying didn't originate in Mystal.

Danny didn't back down. "I wish I were. But we've all had enough excitement for one day, and at the very least, we could use a good night's sleep before we make our next move. You two have school tomorrow, for God's sake!"

Janesha growled, and Taylor didn't think it was because of the restriction. "You can always hunt him down tomorrow while I go to school," Taylor suggested, trying to smooth things over between them. "No one says you have to come with me …"

Janesha huffed and looked from one to the other and back again. "Fine," she huffed. "I'll go after him in the morning then. He messed with me and my friends twice, and he's not getting a third swipe at you."

"I'd really rather you went to school …" Danny's interjection died off and turned into a drawn-out sigh as Taylor shook her head behind Janesha's back. "But technically I suppose you don't have to if you don't want to. It's not as if you're going to graduate and get a job here."

Janesha huffed again, this time in derision.

"So, we're all going to eat, have a shower and go to bed, right?" The question was aimed more at Janesha than Taylor, who everyone knew would do as she was told.

Janesha lifted her chin to scratch her throat and rolled her eyes to the side to stare at him. "I already said I would, Danny, and I'm not in the habit of repeating myself."

"I'm pleased to hear that." Taylor had never known her father could pull off snark like this before, especially in such a bland tone of voice. "So, would you like a slice of cold lasagne for dinner, or something more fancy?"

Yet another dig - this time at their tardiness. Taylor didn't think either of them was at fault for that.

"You just have to keep pushing, don't you, Danny?" Janesha sneered, which meant she didn't think so either. At his smug eyebrow wiggle, she twisted her lips to avoid smirking and said, "Fine, I'll fix us something better, but only because I want to eat, too." But as she turned and went back into the kitchen, she muttered under her breath, "Not my fault Scion had me running all over the fucking planet …"

Taylor grinned at her father and followed her friend into the kitchen.

Coil

"Going somewhere?"

Calvert didn't look around as the sardonic voice sounded from the region of his open bedroom door. His suitcase was nearly full, and his bug-out bag lay on the floor next to his bed. Silently, he cursed himself for not simply grabbing the bag and leaving, but he knew quite well that this would have done him no good at all. Contessa would've found him no matter where he ran.

"I've just kidnapped and tried to kill a teenage girl," he stated tiredly. "The friend of arguably the most powerful cape in Brockton Bay. I failed to kill said teenager because she's only one step short of an Alexandria package herself." For the first time, he turned to glare at her. "Which you could have warned me about!"

"Why would I do your job for you?" Contessa asked carelessly. "You should've done your research before you snatched her up." Leaning against the doorframe, she inspected her fingernails. "So how are you going to remedy this blunder?" Implicit in her question was the fact that he didn't have the option of walking away.

"Well, given that nothing I've got will so much as scratch the Hebert girl, I'm not entirely certain," Calvert said, trying not to sound as irritated as he felt. Smart-mouthing a member of Cauldron was never a good career move. "Do you have any suggestions on where I could start?"

Contessa rested her elbow on her arm, and rubbed her lips with her thumb. "I wasn't made aware of the fact that the Hebert girl had been given an upgrade." She tilted her head forward and to the side as if to give something over her shoulder a dirty look. Whoever it was meant for, Coil was glad it was in the opposite direction of him.

WHen Contessa turned back to him, her expression was as neutral as ever. "Fortunately, it's a problem I can easily deal with. By the time you get back to her, she won't be so … durable."

Calvert felt his brows raising. When he'd purchased his powers from Cauldron, he hadn't been able to meet the full price up front, so they'd required him to pay it off over several years. To forestall any inclination to use his powers to skip out on the debt, he'd been warned that failure to keep up with payments could result in the revocation of his powers, and he'd still owe for the balance.

Which meant that the concept of Cauldron being able to remove powers wasn't totally foreign to him, but the next question was something he had never really considered. Can they just take anyone's powers away? He wasn't sure what it meant that Contessa was revealing this specific aspect to him now.

However, he was still himself, and he was fully aware that he had managed to piss off a very powerful cape. "And Janesha?" he asked. "Do you have any tips on how to deal with her and live after the fact?"

"Just one," she said, and looked him in the eyes. He recoiled from the sheer power radiating from her gaze. "If she can see you, she can read every thought you have. Every memory you've ever had. She can strip you to the bone, mentally speaking, and you'd never know it." She paused, meaningfully. "And that goes for your men. Anyone who's ever seen your face, no matter how loyal they are, she'd know what you look like. And any of your men at that secondary base who know where your primary one is, she can find out from them. Just so you know."

Turning, she left the room. Her shoes clacked on the floor once, twice, three times, then fell silent. He knew she was gone, back to wherever Cauldron held sway. That she would carry out her promise, he had no doubt. Of course, that didn't do anything to deal with Janesha, and her warning about the girl's powers hadn't helped to allay his nerves in the slightest.

Mind reader? What is she, the Simurgh's little sister?

To be honest, given her stupidly ridiculous range of powers, he wouldn't have been at all surprised if Contessa had told him that Janesha Nascerdios was indeed linked somehow to the Endbringers. With that in mind, he split the world into two timelines. In one line, he continued to pack the suitcase; in the other, he left the house again. Getting back into his base would be a long and intricate process, but maintaining absolute security regarding his secret identity suddenly seemed a lot more important than it had been up till now.

Once there, he would revisit his plans to separate Taylor Hebert from Lady Janesha Nascerdios of Mystal. At the same time, he had some loose ends to deal with.

Cauldron Base
Fortuna

"Well, that should deal with that." Contessa quickly slid her seclusion ring back on, and sighed at the loss of her power. It had taken only the slightest effort of leaning into her attunement to remove the celestial improvement from Taylor Hebert. She had made it an ongoing effect, so no matter how many times Janesha bitchface Nascerdios of cocksucking Mystal upgraded her mortal toy, it would always revert. "Let's see her protect the little bug now."

"I still can't believe she actually fucking upgraded a mortal like that." Dorian leaned on the doorframe with his arms crossed, shaking his head. "I mean, who even fucking cares about one mortal? Other mortals don't care about other mortals."

"Who can understand anything a fucking Mystallian does?" Clare wandered into the room. "Not me, that's for fuckin' sure. At least the mortals are fairly set in their ways. All they think about for the most part is food and fucking, and sometimes not even food."

Contessa crossed the room before the other two members of Abbadon could react. Her hand closed around Clare's throat, and she slammed him against the wall. "If you'd been paying less attention to the 'food and fucking' side of things and more attention to Taylor fucking Hebert, maybe I wouldn't have been left swinging dickless in front of the Calvert mortal. I need to be on top of shit like that. I want to know before the mortals know! Not! After!" As she ranted, she pulled his throat forward to knock him off-balance, then rammed her knee into his ribs with enough force to lift him completely off the ground, then punched him into the floor while he was still airborne. She'd have done a lot more if neither of them had been wearing their seclusion rings. Frustrated by his continual failure, she ignored the way he tried to stand again and kicked him in the ribs, this time hard enough to send him sailing into the far wall under her wide screen monitor. He didn't hit her monitor, because it was hers and she was innately lucky like that. "Am I fucking making myself totally fucking clear to you?" As she screamed out the last sentence, Clare bounced off the wall and fell in a heap on the floor. If he didn't understand now how serious she was, her next trick would involve his arm and an industrial meat grinder. Dorian was acting as his keeper, so her psychic didn't need either one to do his job, and retards were always having accidents. Besides, he'd grow them back … eventually.

"Y-yes, sister," Clare managed to spit out, along with a mouthful of blood.

All at once, the hairs on the back of Contessa's neck rose, just as Clare's flame filled gaze jerked towards the closed door. Both knew what their innate abilities were trying to tell them, and while Clare dampened down his fire and rolled his shoulders into a meek pose, Contessa jerked her head at Dorian, who was already moving towards their prone brother.

"You really have to be more careful," Dorian began as he slid one hand under Clare's arm, just as the door slid open and Doctor Mother's head popped in.

Wearing gloves as she did, any damage Contessa took as a result of punching her brother was already well on its way to being healed and Doctor Mother would never know about it. She released a breath that put her back into her icy persona.

"Is everything alright?" the mortal woman asked, her face alight with concern for the fallen man.

"Clare just tripped over his own feet," Dorian answered, as Clare giggled stupidly at their visitor through a mixture of blood and drool.

Doctor Mother's gaze narrowed. "You don't take that much damage to a face from just falling ov…" her sentence was cut off mid-word, and knowing she hadn't done anything to intercede, Contessa swung her eyes to her brothers ...

… and found Clare's right hand free of his ring. By the time he'd pushed it back onto his finger, his head was tilted to the side and he'd started giggling again. Doctor Mother's apparent concern for him evaporated and she shook her head at his foolishness. "Your brother's right, Clare. You really should be more careful," she said, dismissing the worry that had previously been all-consuming.

"Did you want something?' Contessa asked, pleased that her brother had been at least that much on the ball.

The dark skinned woman blinked, as if to collect her thoughts. "Oh, right. Yes. Alexandria wants a meeting. Legend and Eidolon are showing up as well. It's about this new cape in Brockton Bay."

Fortuna pretended to think. "Oh. Yes, I think I've heard something about her. Janowitz or Jashena or something, wasn't it?" She saw out of the corner of her eye the way Clare's lips twitched in amusement, but as it blended in with his cover, Contessa knew no one would notice the slip.

"Janesha. Janesha of Mystal." Doctor Mother shook her head wonderingly. "Not only is she a Nascerdios, but from the power level she's showing, she may well rival any member of the Triumvirate. Alexandria wants to work on strategies for if she turns out to be a villain."

It sounded like a good idea; or rather, any kind of planning which treated Janesha like a potential enemy sounded like a good idea. Of course, Legend would counsel on the side of a softy-softly approach, while Eidolon would probably feel threatened due to the sheer range of abilities exhibited by the Mystallian. None of the fools had any idea what they were truly dealing with.

But all in all, it sounded like a good opportunity to spread disinformation and shape the perception of the Triumvirate the way she wanted. The only trouble was, she didn't dare take off her seclusion ring and simply implant the knowledge straight into their heads. Every instance of doing that risked being contacted from home, which meant she'd have to talk them around to her way of thinking. That, unfortunately, could take half the night.

Fortuna was nothing if not patient. She had trained her whole life to fixate on objectives and no amount of time was a problem for her when it came to getting everything just right for a devastating strike. Especially not half a night. "I'll be there," she said.

Taylor
The Next Morning

"Ow, what the hell?"

Taylor stood on one foot and rubbed her shin, staring at the chair she'd bumped into on the way past. The sudden pain, as negligible as it was, had caught her by surprise.

Since meeting Janesha, the worst sensation she'd undergone had amounted to solid taps from the guns belonging to Coil's mercenaries. Even the purple lasers they'd shot her with hadn't so much as blistered her skin. Not even interstellar space had bothered her. And now, she was pretty sure a bruise was coming up.

"What is it, petal?" Janesha swung around the doorframe from the basement, entering the living room with a flourish. On her hands, Taylor smelled the aromatic fragrance of the hay that Cloudstrike enjoyed so much.

Taylor pointed at her shin accusingly. "You never said the powers you gave me came with a use-by date. I hit my leg on the chair just now and it hurt like hell."

"Oh, for fuck's sake." Janesha shook her head. "Celestial alterations don't come with a use-by date. They're good until I say they're not good. Are you sure they're gone?"

"My shin is gonna be bruised." Taylor pulled up her jeans leg to show the red mark. "If I was as tough as I was last night, that chair shouldn't have been able to do that."

"Huh. Okay. What about your other powers? The bug thing?"

Taylor blinked. "Oh, uh, they're still there. Same as normal." To illustrate the point, she had three flies orbit Janesha then buzz away.

"Okay, that narrows things down a lot." Janesha held out her hand. "Mind if I take a look?"

"Sure, go right ahead." Taylor sat down in the chair and stuck her leg out. Most of the pain had subsided, but a dull ache remained.

Leaning down, Janesha put her hand on Taylor's kneecap, and frowned. "What the fuck? You're normal again. How in the name of the Twin Notes did that oooooooooohhhh-hohh-hohh -oooohh…" Janesha made the noise and straightened a little as if the possibility had only just occurred to her and she didn't like it at all. "Why, that mother-fucking golden skinned, chicken-shit scumbag," she swore, even as Taylor felt the rest of the ache vanish. Janesha's nostrils flared and the blood drained from around her lips, making her more than a little terrifying. "Oh, now it's fucking personal! And if he's taking swipes at you like this from the shadows, I'm gonna need to check on Danny too."

"Who?" Taylor asked, trying desperately to keep up. "Who's come after me?"

Janesha refocused on her friend. "Who else? I go after that golden skinned bastard last night, and this morning you wake up without powers. My people don't believe in coincidences unless my Uncle Chance is behind them."

Taylor blinked. "Wait … Scion? Are you talking about Scion?" Taylor felt herself begin to panic. "Scion is taking a personal interest in hurting me?" That last sentence came out as a squeak.

Janesha's gaze slitted dangerously, even as she squeezed Taylor's forearm. The motion gave Taylor a deep sense of security and she immediately felt better. "He only outdoes me when you're outside my range, petal, and that's only if he wants to. Trust me, when you're with me, that yellow shithead isn't going to do crap to you."

"Don't you mean gold?"

"Yellow," Janesha emphasised, stabbing the chair arm that Taylor sat on with one finger. "That gutless wonder who hides wherever and takes potshots from the shadows doesn't deserve to be gold."

"B-But if you need to keep me in your line of sight to counter him, how will that work?"

"Ever gone fishing, petal?"

Taylor was confused; Janesha changed subjects faster than a thesaurus index. "W-What?"

The Mystallian was already hauling her into the kitchen, clearly looking for something. In exasperation, she turned to Taylor and said, "I need mass. About a kilo or two's worth."

"Kilo?" Taylor asked.

Janesha groaned, and rubbed her hand against her forehead. "Two to four pounds," she snapped irritably. "I swear to the realms, it would be so much easier if cousin Columbine just took control of her mortals and smacked them into a uniform system of measurement that matched ours." She shook her head, her eyes darting around the room. "Fuck it. I'll just take it out of the freakin' table…"

"The trash!" Taylor immediately suggested, not certain if Janesha was joking or not about the table. It wasn't something she could risk, given the mood her friend was in. Thankfully, with everything that had happened last night, she'd forgotten to take the trash out and it was still sitting in the bin beside the back door. Mass for the taking. She ran forward and removed the lid from the bin, then took the handles of the nearly filled bag liner and lifted it out for Janesha to see. "Will this work?"

Janesha nodded and waved her back. Taking the handles from Taylor, she shifted the mass into a crude looking spool of black, woolen thread about half the thickness of her little finger. "Here," she said, handing Taylor one end of the thread.

The moment Taylor took it, the thread slipped through her fingers and travelled along her arm and down her body to her left foot. Somehow, the clothing opened and closed around the thread's motion. Taylor went and sat down on a kitchen chair, then kicked her left leg up on to her knee. The thread was nowhere to be seen, but then she noticed it lay across the floor to her other foot. Lifting it an inch or two off the ground, she saw the thread and followed it back to the spool still in Janesha's hands. "Seriously?" she asked, as she dropped both feet to the floor in annoyance at her friend's ridiculous plan. "You're tethering me to you?"

"More than that," Janesha admitted with a grin. "The thread will travel almost instantly to whatever the lowest point is within your body and drop straight to the ground. The weight of the thread will keep it grounded under you and stop anyone else from tripping over it."

"They're still going to trip over it," Taylor argued.

"They won't once I give it the thickness of a hair. Starting with a black thread that thick was for your benefit, so you could see what I was doing. Observe."

As Taylor did just that, the thread thinned until it vanished from her sight. "The bastard's not getting you a third time, petal. You're mine."

Taylor wasn't sure how she felt about such a possessive statement coming from the junior goddess, but didn't think now was the time to mention it. "And how far away from you can I be before this thing yanks me off my feet?" she asked, focusing hard on the shoe that she knew had the thread, even though she couldn't see it. A light sweep of her fingers couldn't find it either, and then it dawned on her why. Her foot was no longer the closest point to the ground. Her other foot now was. And if she lifted both feet and tried to feel for it, her fingers would then become the lowest points. She would literally never be able to touch the thread, ever.

When she looked back at her friend, Janesha's hands were free of the spool. Almost instinctively, Taylor's eyes went to the girl's black boots, to which Janesha nodded without answering. "It's not a secondary thing anymore," she explained. "The thread has been added to my body mass and is now infused with my divinity. It's me, in every sense of the word. And if a certain dip-shitted celestial tries to cut it, believe me, I'm gonna notice."

"Are you going to do it to Dad, too?"

Janesha huffed and looked to the doorway that led into the lounge. "I want to, but he's already at work. Scion's definitely going to notice a celestial thread that long."

Taylor frowned, trying to think of a way around the problem. "Can't you give it the same freaky ability that the power threads in the celestial realm have? They're able to stretch all over the world and then some. Not only that, but it'd be like we're hiding a book in a library."

Janesha's eyes widened and the left side of her mouth curled into an appreciative smile. Then she hooked her arm around Taylor's neck in a stranglehold and gave her a playful noogie. "That's fucking brilliant!" she declared, as Taylor squirmed and fought for her freedom. "I can keep you both tethered to me, and by putting in a fake crystal in the celestial realm, it'll look like all three of us have 'powers'. Why didn't I think of that before?"

"Maybe because hiding in plain sight isn't really your style?" Taylor suggested dryly, after she managed to pull her head free.

Instead of being insulted, Janesha lifted her chin and grinned proudly. "Damn right, and it never will be. But just this once, and to fuck with that chicken-gutted yellow-skinned bastard, I'll do it to keep you safe." She tilted her head to one side and the other, cracking her neck. "Fucking thinks he can use his attunement to negate your powers, does he?"

Enlightenment burst over Taylor. "Oh, so that's what he did." It barely struck her as weird anymore that she knew enough about celestial capabilities to understand what Janesha was talking about. "I thought he used one of his, you know, regular Scion powers to somehow negate my abilities. But it was a celestial thing."

Janesha rolled her eyes. "Pfft, no. Unless the local mortals have taken to believing he can actually remove powers, he has to use his attunement to pull that crap. Basically, by telling reality that it's no longer possible for you to be so tough and shit."

Taylor gestured at her feet. "And you can beat that with a thread?"

"Well, yeah." Janesha prodded Taylor's shoulder with her finger. "I've just changed you back, and his attunement isn't doing jack to it, so I'd say at a rough guess he's not even a touch shifter naturally. So long as my thread's in contact with you, I've got him trumped."

"Oh. Huh." It still messed with Taylor's head that Janesha could make such a massive change to her physiology without her even knowing about it. Then again, she figured she could really do without long drawn-out transformation scenes. Those looked painful.

Then the other implication came to her. "Wait. You're saying that Scion is weaker than you? Like, by a lot?"

Janesha huffed and tilted her hand. "Okay, two things to deal with here. First, there's no difference between 'a little' and 'a lot' when it comes to comparing the power level of two celestials. Either you beat them or they beat you. Second, in terms of raw power, it looks like my shifting shits all over his but he's got attunement and probably even establishment here, so in this realm he can pull any ability out of his ass that the mortals believe he can do. Same goes for bending, otherwise the bastard would've stood still, let me come up to him, then made me forget all about wanting to talk to him. Instead, he ran and hid like a chickenshit."

This was probably the hardest thing for Taylor to fit her head around. Scion had literally been the most powerful being on Earth Bet for as long as she'd been alive. He'd been fighting Endbringers for longer than that. 'Cowardly' was not a word that anyone, anywhere, associated with him. But here was Janesha, who only wanted to talk to him, and he was running away from her? What was with that? "Are you sure he was running away from you, specifically? Maybe he had places to go and cats to save from trees?"

"Once, maybe." Janesha folded her arms. "But he left an apartment building to burn, then went to Paris. Soon as I got there, he stepped away again. This time, I found him in the middle of Antarctica. And after that, fuck knows where he went. Outer space, underground, wherever it is, I can't find him. If someone runs away three times, it's because they don't want to talk to you. Which is what's got me puzzled. I don't even know the guy, I've certainly never met him before and none of my family has ever mentioned having a run-in with him. So why's he so shit-scared of me?"

Taylor smirked. "Don't look at me. I'm a mortal of knowledge, not a god of knowledge."

Janesha started laughing so hard she had to sit down. "Fuck … me," she wheezed. "That's the funniest thing I've heard in years. I am so gonna have to steal that one and tell Uncle Culkin, once I get back home."

Taylor leaned back in the chair and grinned. Sharing a room with a celestial had its odd moments (and its really odd moments) but there were fun bits, too. She didn't even mind when Janesha leaned across and ruffled her hair fondly. "Okay, so I'm just gonna go and check on your dad then set up that fake crystal thing. Shouldn't be more than five minutes. You good here till then?"

Taylor rolled her eyes. "A girl gets kidnapped just once, and even manages to free herself before the cavalry arrives, and suddenly I can't be left alone for more than ten seconds at a time?"

"Now you sound like a Mystallian," Janesha laughed flicking her fingers in congratulation.

"Just go. I'll be fine." Taylor shooed her friend with both hands, smirking at the way the dark-skinned teenager poked her tongue out right as she took a step forward and vanished from her view. Thanks to her association with Janesha, Taylor was no longer surprised or even impressed by the act of realm-stepping. It was just another thing that celestials did.

Standing up from the chair, she yawned and stretched, then decided to make a sandwich.

Fortuna

"Hey, guess what."

Fortuna turned, coffee cup in hand. She wasn't a morning person at the best of times and spending half the night talking to fools who were beneath her grated on her last nerve. As such, when Clare and Dorian came in, both were wearing shit-eating grins that were way too intelligent to be part of Clare's cover, she put the coffee mug down to free her hands and backhanded both of them at the same time in a double swing of her arms. Both took the blows without question, though one of Dorian's eyebrows rose in surprise. Contessa addressed him first. "You let him break cover like that again, and you're in as much shit as he is, understood?"

Dorian's eyes swivelled to their brother accusingly, who had his mask of stupidity back in place. They could sort that out later. "What'd you want?"

"To tell you that you did it," Dorian replied, speaking for their brother who wasn't about to let his facade slip again. At Contessa's impatient frown, he quickly went on. "When you took away the mortal's abilities, Janesha blamed Scion. She thinks he's the one trying to attack her through the mortal. She pissed as hell at him, and with the right push we can take it to hating his guts with a passion. You fuckin' did it."

Now it was Contessa's turn to smile, though she raised her hand to hide her whole mouth behind her palm. She should've known her innate ability had something up its sleeve. "Excellent," she said moments later, dropping her hand to her side only once the desire to smile had passed. "Where is Scion? We need to keep this friction going."

"Still hiding in his little pocket dimension," Dorian answered, suddenly all business. "To be honest, I don't get that one. Up until now, he's been the biggest glory hound in existence. Unless … do you think he's already run into Mystallians before coming here and knows to go into hiding?"

Contessa shook her head in denial. "Not a chance. He'd be dead already if he ran into any of them away from Earlafaol."

"Maybe he ran into them before he left Earlafaol?" At Contessa's dark frown, he added with a shrug, "Hey, I'm just spitballing ideas here. He knew to run, but he didn't learn that here. If he didn't run into a Mystallian after he left Earlafaol, logic says he has to have hit them before. And whoever it was has clearly left a lasting impression if he's bolting from a stupid kid."

Contessa couldn't argue with his logic, though this would've been a lot easier if Scion had kept his chest-beating superior attitude going. Mystallians hated that. Not the superiority itself, but the thought that anyone was superior to them. Now they were going to have to make shit up and hopefully draw the bastard out.

Annoyed and looking for someone to vent at, Contessa threw another punch at Clare, though this time he maintained his cover and dropped to the ground with a pathetic whimper. His arms encased his head and he curled into a foetal position, looking for all the world like a terrified child instead of the seasoned warrior he was. She leaned in close, so that only the two of them would hear her next words. "Whatever happens to us when we get home, you're going in the sin-bin for an extra six months for your constant run of failures. From this moment on, you will do nothing, but focus on the mission. Nod if you understand."

Only the smallest, smallest thinning of his lips right before he silently jerked his head once gave any hint of his understanding. Right now, he was so entrenched in his cover she doubted if the arrival of the entire Mystallian pantheon could break him of it. Which was good. It was how they operated and they needed to get back to their roots.

Just as she was about to dismiss them, Clare froze, then said in a quiet, deadpan whisper out of the corner of his mouth, "You're not going to like what Janesha's just gone and done, sister."

Contessa and Dorian looked at each other. "Report," her second in command ordered.

"If we thought she was stupid just empowering her favourite mortals, now she's gone and tethered herself to one."

Her eyebrows rose. "Well, that's fucking new."

Dorian frowned. "Wasn't that other mortal supposed to be killing one of them?"

Contessa shrugged. "We can't break the tether without breaking cover. He's on his own."

Which was the simple truth. Mortals were expendable, and there were always more where those came from.

Coil

In the one timeline, Calvert had finished packing and notified his superiors at the PRT that he was going to be taking a leave of absence. What he didn't tell them was that he intended to leave within twelve hours, rather than giving them the two weeks' notice that regulations required. Easier to beg forgiveness, after all.

The other timeline had him in costume at his base, dealing with matters. Creep was the only one of his men who could possibly identify him, so he'd had the man shot. Likewise, he'd called up the records of each of his men at the secondary base, and each of the ones who'd spent time at the primary base was singled out by the others and executed. The bodies would have to be disposed of, but that was what the Bay was for. He had no idea how many sets of human remains now resided on the sea floor off the Boardwalk, but more than a few of them had been deposited there by him or his men.

Now that that was dealt with, he was listening in as his men closed on the Hebert house. Danny Hebert was already at the Dockworkers' Association and would be until early in the evening, if his previous habits were anything to go by. Infrared imagery—normally this would be useless in the daytime, but tinkertech ignored things like that—showed two people in the house. One of these was Taylor Hebert, while the other was almost certainly Janesha of Mystal. In the basement, and Calvert had no fucking idea how it had gotten there, was that impossible winged horse.

His men were on hold at the moment. There was no way they were going to prevail against a cape who could toss around thousands of tons of steel like papier mache. But then, one of the images vanished.

"Sir, this is Red One." That was the team leader. "Joker Mike has left the building. Green light?"

He tensed, leaning forward to stare more closely at the screen. She was nowhere to be seen. Had she spotted the men? Was he about to undergo yet another fiasco?

"All units, report in," he said into the microphone.

One by one, they sounded off. Nobody was missing.

"Green light," he said clearly. "I say again, green light."

All he had for a visual feed was the tinkertech camera in the car. It was left behind as his men piled out, pulling balaclavas over their heads to conceal their identities. This was going to be a quick in-and-out raid. Smash their way into the house, shoot her until she fell down, then break off and make a bolt for it. A single sniper would be cleaner but those took too much trouble to set up, especially if the target wasn't a public figure with a known itinerary. He also wanted them well away before Janesha returned.

He watched as his men converged on the house, moving with the assured teamwork that had won them so many battles before. With his capabilities, he'd ensured that they never entered a losing fight, so they were confident and eager for action. Some might have been less than enthusiastic about what amounted to murdering a child, but those were the ones he'd tasked with hanging back and guarding the getaway vehicles. Besides, he'd spread enough disinformation about why the other men had died that they were half-convinced she was responsible.

Over their headsets, he heard the harsh breathing as they prepared to assault the building. Doors were kicked in, and his men swarmed inside. The harsh rattle of gunfire filled his ears. She was in a crossfire; there was no way they could miss.

He couldn't see properly once the gunfire started, of course. Too many heat sources. Then someone yelled, "Cease fire!" The shots petered out.

"Red One, Red One." Calvert spoke clearly and concisely. "Verify that target has been eliminated."

"Red One, roger. Target is down. Approaching target now. Uh … "

"Say situation, Red One." Calvert was getting a very bad feeling about this.

"Fall back, fall back. Target is unharmed. I say again, target is unharmed. Fall back!"

Calvert blinked. Unharmed? But she said …

"Abort abort abort," he snapped over the radio. "I say again, abort abort abort. Simurgh conditions are now in place. Do you copy, Red One?"

Red One's breathing was once more harsh, but this time Calvert was almost certain this was from fear and not exertion. "Red One copies Simurgh conditions." His voice was as crisp as ever. "Aborting mission now."

'Simurgh conditions' meant that nobody was to be left behind alive. Anyone too wounded to keep up would be shot without mercy. The last thing Calvert wanted was for Taylor Hebert to capture one of his men alive for Janesha to casually uncover every last secret he held.

The feed from the tinkertech camera showed the groups of men breaking away from the house and fleeing along their designated exfiltration routes. Behind them, a skinny figure emerged from the house. She shouted something, but the microphones were just too far away.

Calvert flipped up a clear plastic cover on his desk, and poised his thumb over the row of large red buttons underneath. Unbeknownst to his men, each vehicle was loaded with plastic explosive. If Hebert captured even one car, it could be disastrous for him. Fortunately, he was well acquainted with the need for making hard decisions. All it required was one press of his thumb, and the car in question would become a flaming ball of debris. Anyone inside would be pulped, then burned to a crisp.

There was no way any of this shit was getting back to him.

In the Celestial Realm
Janesha

"There, that should do it."

Janesha put the finishing touches on the fake crystal, making sure it would radiate the same odd lighting as all of its neighbours. She'd made it as tall as herself, larger than some but definitely smaller than others. Once it had been constructed, she'd attached the line she'd run from herself to Taylor to it, then she pulled another line from it. Once attached to Danny, the second line would allow Janesha to maintain his relative invulnerability, no matter what attunement bullshit Scion tried to pull.

Taking a step forward, she vanished from the celestial realm and reappeared in the Dock Workers' Association parking lot. Workers performed double-takes as she strode up to the building and pushed the door open, but nobody tried to stop her. Probably because they'd been part of the audience yesterday and seen her little show; also, possibly because they realised she was a friend of Danny Hebert's.

"Uh, hello." The receptionist, clearly a long-time fixture of the place, stared as though she were a star-struck teen. "I, uh, can I help you?"

Janesha guessed that they didn't get many capes through the place. "Sure," she said. "I need to see Danny Hebert. Is he in?" She could've easily have looked into the woman's mind for the information, but Taylor's influence was all too pervasive.

"Uh, yes." The woman pointed down the hallway. "The office on the end. Can I ask … uh …"

Ignoring the rest of what the woman had to say—politeness to mortals was one thing, but there was a limit to her tolerance—Janesha turned and strode down the hallway. As she came up to the office, she noted the title HEAD OF HIRING on it. Favouring it with a single knock, she turned the handle and went in without breaking stride.

"I said I wasn't to be—oh, hello, Janesha." As Danny looked up, his tone went from irritated to receptive in just a few words. "What's up?"

Janesha pushed the door shut with her heel and came over to the desk. "What's up is that your homegrown Superman knockoff has decided to neutralise Taylor's modifications with his attunement to this realm. I came over to see if he's done the same with you, and to give you a fix if he had."

Danny came to his feet, alarm flaring in his eyes. "Taylor? Is she all right?"

Janesha's hand shot out. "She's fine. It's sorted." Her hand fell to her side and she wrinkled her nose. "I swear, I never had one tenth the trouble with mortals back home that I do here. I had to pull some tricky shit to make sure we always stayed connected, which allows me to maintain your upgrades." She reached across the desk and tapped his wrist with her forefinger. "And that lowlife mother-fucker has cancelled yours as well. Oooh, what I'm going to do when I get my hands on that sneaky little shit."

"Huh." Danny looked down at himself. "I hadn't noticed."

"Good thing, too." Janesha strolled around the desk. "Hold still." Gripping the end of the cord between her forefinger and thumb, she touched it to his shoulder. His shirt parted briefly to allow it through, then the connection was made. Through her own cord, she re-established the upgrades. As a mortal, Danny may have been irritating from time to time, but her respect and liking for him had only grown in the last few days. There might have been a teensy hint of possessiveness in play too, but hey, that was to be expected around her kind.

"What did you just do?" asked Danny curiously, as his shirt repaired itself. He couldn't see the cord, as it was only visible in wavelengths that his merely mortal eyes would never be capable of registering. It connected him to the fake crystal junction in the celestial realm, which then connected through to Janesha.

"I made an end run around that attuned asshole." Janesha smirked. "There's more than one way to skin a talot. And trust me, when I do catch up with him, and I will, I'm gonna make him regret even thinking about fucking with me through you two."

Belatedly, Danny must have realised who she was talking about. "Scion?" he asked. "Are you saying Scion cancelled the powers you gave us?"

"Yeah, Danny, Scion pulled that shit." Janesha huffed irritably. "Don't look so shocked. That piss-ant yellow asshole wouldn't stand still long enough for me to talk to him, which tells me he's got a guilty conscience about something. And now he's trying to send me a message saying that he can cancel my protection on you if I don't back off? Well, screw him. You're mine and I'm protecting you anyway."

"So are you going to go looking for him again?" Danny seemed determined to state the obvious.

"Well, duh." She paused, reconsidering her answer. "But not right this second. Nobody threatens me or mine and just walks away. I will have words with him about what the fuck he thinks he's doing with you and the other mortals on this world, and if I don't like the answers, he's not gonna like what I do next."

"Okay, so if you're not going after him, what will you be doing? Right now, I mean." He paused. "Going to school with Taylor, or heading off on your own?"

"Actually, seeing that nobody at school is likely to be bothering Taylor today, I was gonna take Cloudstrike for a nice long ride." Janesha smirked. "She's starting to get restless, and when mystallions get restless, they tend to break shit. Including whatever buildings they're stabled in." She tilted her head. "You know, you haven't been up on her yet. I could take you along for an hour or so."

"Hm." Danny smiled. "The way Taylor waxed lyrical about it, I'm actually tempted. But I've got responsibilities, which suddenly got a lot wider." He gestured at the wall, and by inference the busy office beyond. "Since you and the other capes cleared the Boat Graveyard, we've had all sorts of calls coming in asking about the port facilities. This, right here, is the opening up of a massive opportunity for Brockton Bay, and it's all due to you. So I'm going to have to call a rain check on that, but thanks for the offer. And say hi to Cloudstrike for me."

Janesha nodded. "I'll do that, Danny. And just between you and me, I'm glad it's you managing this situation. If I'm gonna do something nice for someone, I'd prefer that it get handled right, not half-assed." Hand raised in a wave, she realm-stepped back to the Hebert household.

Taylor

Leaning back on the sofa, watching TV and eating her sandwich, Taylor waved as Janesha appeared in the middle of the living room. "Oh, hey," she said, the words a little muffled. "How'd it go?"

"Went off without a hitch." Janesha plopped on to the sofa beside her. "He cancelled the protections on your dad too, but I renewed them and made the celestial connection. It's all above-board and automatic now, with the bonus that if I do have to do something in a hurry to save your lives or something, I've got constant contact with you."

Taylor shook her head with a smile. "Only you. Only you could take something like that and turn it into a positive."

"Hey, he started it." A dangerous glint came into Janesha's eye. "But if he tries pulling that shit again, I will finish it."

"I don't doubt it for a second." The sandwich finished, Taylor sat up. "So, what are your plans? Are you still going after Coil? I know I told dad that I'd go to school, but let's be honest. I don't think Blackwell will be totally broken up if I don't show today." She snorted. "She's already got me down as a 'disruptive influence'."

Janesha raised an eyebrow. "You know, your dad's going to blame me for your sudden switch to the dark side, since I'm already playing hooky with my family?"

Taylor looked at her friend, then knotted her fingers into a double fist and rested them against her throat, batting her eyelashes playfully.

"I am too young to be dealing with that shit!" Janesha laughed, tossing a cushion at her friend hard enough to knock her off her feet. "Cut it out."

"C'mon, Janesha. You already said you were going to take Cloudstrike out for a long ride first, and sooner or later you're going to leave. You've gotta let me have as many rides as I can to remember you by. And then I can watch what you do to Coil. It was me he tried to kill, remember?"

"I did plan on smacking Coil so hard his grandchildren will suffer a concussion," she admitted. "And I suppose it was you that he screwed over."

"So, I get to go?"

Janesha scratched the back of her neck thoughtfully. "You know, how badly do you really want to finish school anyway?"

Taylor's gaze slitted suspiciously. She knew enough to know she probably wasn't going to like what came next. "Do I have to do one of those unspecified boon thingies?"

Janesha dropped her hand and shook her head. "No, not at all. It's just … you know how I can go into people's heads and look at memories after the event?"

"Yeah?"

Janesha sighed. "The truth is, I can do a lot more than that. People suffer amnesia all the time, but sometimes, it's a bender stealing their knowledge. And not just stealing it, but handing it over to someone else."

"What, like Victor of the Empire?"

Janesha scrunched up her nose. "Victor …" She held her hands about four inches apart. Then she opened the space to as wide as her hands could go. "... me."

Taylor suddenly realised what Janesha was offering her. "Not just no, but hell no! In fact, never offer it again!" she practically shouted the last sentence, mortified that her friend was actually suggesting that she could take someone else's hard earned knowledge and just give it to her. "Ever, ever!"

"Okay, okay," Janesha said, waving her anger aside. "It was just a thought. Sheesh."

"A really, really, really bad thought. My god! If dad had've heard that …"

"Calm down, petal. It's why I didn't offer it in front of him. Like you said, I'm not staying here forever, and if you miss too much school hanging out with me, then your future's gonna suffer for it."

Taylor tried to calm down by at least attempting to see it from Janesha's point of view. Unlike everyone else in the world, she mattered to Janesha. So when she found herself at an impasse, Janesha wanted to step up and fix it for her. That part was a really sweet offer. But the bit she couldn't get past was how little people still mattered to Janesha. She really didn't care about them, or about how hard they had to work to get where they were. To just take that from them because she could was ... wrong. Sooo wrong. "Just don't ever offer it again. I mean it. Not to me. Not to anyone. I'll take one of those unspecified boon thingies, if I have to, to stop you."

Janesha's eyes widened in surprise. "Do you want me to erase the last two minutes of conversation? I can if you want. I didn't mean to upset you."

Taylor had never been so tempted to take her friend up on her offer, but in the end, she shook her head. "No," she finally said. "My memories are mine, and I want to keep them. Just … promise me you won't ever offer anyone that again."

Janesha looked torn. "How about from here?" she offered in compromise. "You can't ask me to say I'll never do it again, petal. Once I leave here and go home, it's an entirely different ballgame back there, and you know it." She licked her lips, her brow creasing into a frown. "I'll never lie to you, petal. Not even when you want me to."

Taylor knew that. "Okay, fine. I won't do the boon thing, and I won't even ask you to promise me you won't. Just tell me you won't. That'll be enough for me."

Janesha relaxed and nodded. "I won't switch out knowledge while I'm here in Earth Bet, unless you or Danny ask me to."

"Janesha …"

"No, that's fair," Janesha insisted. "It's too hard to backpedal if, for whatever reason, something happens in the future that puts us in a position where we need it. Having one small out that puts you in control is the best I'm willing to offer." She raked her fingers through her hair and rubbed the base of her neck. "And I cannot even begin to describe the amount of shit I'm going to wear when my family finds out I handed control of anything over to a mortal. But that's exactly how much you've come to mean to me, petal."

Taylor didn't know what to think. On one hand, she was so flattered to have such a loyal friend, but on the other, her disinterest in the rights of everyone else was downright terrifying.

Perhaps she was looking at it the wrong way. She had presented her powerful friend with a problem, and expected Janesha to find a solution that met her moral standard. But what if she took Janesha out of the equation altogether? Owned her own space.

It was worth a try.

"I'm not going to school today," she declared. "I'm already weeks ahead of my classmates, despite all the time I was in hospital, and after everything that's happened, I'm entitled to a little me time, dammit."

Janesha grinned and opened her arms to her. "You absolutely are, petal," she said, wrapping her up in a tight hug. "You're entitled to anything you want." Wonderingly, she shook her head. "I can't believe I was actually thinking of a mortal's future, even yours. That's like the weirdest thing ever."

"Yeah, yeah, because you'll live forever and I'll be dead in a century or two," snarked Taylor. "You don't need to rub it in."

Janesha shook her head. "No, it's not that. Celestials don't think of individual mortals' futures, because by the time we get around to putting things in motion to help them, that mortal's usually long dead. But I actually care about you and your dad, and how you'll do once I leave. How in Hell did this happen?"

Taylor considered her answer. Snark didn't seem to fit the occasion, and saying 'because you're more human than you think' might be mistaken for snark. So she hugged the other girl again. "I don't know, and I don't care," she said. "I'm just glad you're here and that you're our friend."

Janesha returned the hug. "I'm glad I'm here, too. I mean, my family is gonna be giving me shit about this for the next millennium, but it'll still be worth it."

Taylor smirked and let Janesha go. "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, for one thing, I need you to show me where the base is."

Taylor tilted her head. "I'm pretty sure I told you it looked and felt like a secondary base. From the background of his CCTV footage, he was in a similar base, but my bugs couldn't find him anywhere."

"So we'll ask the guys we do find there, where to find the main base." Janesha grinned evilly as she smacked her fist into her palm. "I'll make sure they're falling all over themselves to tell us what they know."

"If there's even anyone there anymore." Taylor had been thinking about this. "Coil has got to know that I'm your friend. There's no way he can know you can read minds, but he's probably decided to abandon the base altogether in case I come back with you as backup. Because if the footage of you cleaning up the Boat Graveyard hasn't already made it to every villain gang in the city, I would be absolutely stunned and shocked."

Janesha wrinkled her nose. "I hate it when you use common sense and logic. Okay, fine. How do we find him?"

Taylor grinned. "Oh, I might have an idea or two."

Coil

There was no future for Thomas Calvert in Brockton Bay any more. In fact, he was starting to wonder if there was a future for him anywhere. Contessa had assured him that Taylor Hebert was no longer invulnerable, but the girl had then shrugged off massed assault-rifle fire like so many raindrops. Then she'd pursued the nearest group of soldiers, and leaped through one of the vehicles, snagging one of his mercenaries on the way. Calvert had blown the vehicle, but it was too late. She had a survivor. Twenty minutes after that, he'd had to drop that timeline when Janesha, along with Taylor and Danny, had broken into his main base and proceeded to lay waste to it.

He was being thrown to the wolves by Cauldron. There was no other explanation for it. They'd set him up, and now they were going to let him take the entire fall. He blessed the fact that he'd never dropped the 'getting ready to run away' timeline and was in fact prepped to run right now. All of his bank accounts had been shifted to different numbered accounts in case someone tried to follow him that way and he was on the way out the door, right now.

It was time to shake the dust of Brockton Bay off his shoes forever.

Janesha

"Okay, petal, work your magic."

It was odd, Janesha, mused, to be associating with a mortal who was capable of things she couldn't automatically do, by virtue of being a celestial. She knew quite well it was due to the crystalline constructs that Scion had planted in the celestial realm, but who in their right mind would come up with bug control as a power to give to a mortal who wasn't their high priest? Empowering mortals was strictly a thing to give the high priests authority over the other believers, and to give them something to focus their belief on. "I believe in my god and he gave me this in return" was a powerful message, after all. So why just give any old schmoe powers beyond those of mortal man? The superhero concept just didn't make sense to her at all.

"You got it." Taylor, riding behind Janesha, leaned out and peered down toward the ground. "Can we go a little lower?"

"Sure." Janesha gave the knee signal. Cloudstrike, her wings extended in a glide, turned her head and gave the celestial teen a look as if to say, we're almost on the ground as it is. Are you kidding?

"Go on, girl. Do it," murmured Janesha. "I'll make it up to you in a bit." With an irritated snort, Cloudstrike lost fifteen metres of altitude. She should by right have been satisfied with the hour-long ride Janesha and Taylor had taken her on—this time, Taylor had taken a camera and gotten some pretty nice photos—but now she was all charged up and wanted to go everywhere at top speed. Then again, that was Cloudstrike more or less all the time.

"Okay, I've got a good read of the ground now." Taylor took a deep breath. "I just don't know how slow we're going to have to go for me to register and notice bugs significantly below ground."

"Oh, that bit I've got covered." Janesha threw a smirk over her shoulder. "I'll go through your memory, then head over to your imagination where we can look it over in a more understandable format. You good with that?"

At Taylor's nod, Janesha's smirk broadened. "Hold on. This might get a little jerky."

This wasn't the way Janesha had foreseen spending her morning, but after Taylor had posited using her power to detect significant numbers of bugs underground, it seemed the most effective move. Zipping back and forth across the city, moving over after each pass just far enough that they didn't miss any significant area of land, was going to be more tedious than time-consuming. She was pretty sure she'd have to take Cloudstrike out for another ride after this, to apologise for the absolutely petty use they were making of her flying capability.

Across the city. Back again. And again. And again. The buildings blurred in her mind, but that didn't matter. In her memory, where it mattered, the images would all be razor-sharp.

Cloudstrike was travelling much faster than the speed of sound, so Janesha considerately made sure they wouldn't be bombarding the city with multiple overlapping sonic booms. Not that she particularly cared about the city or their windows—as low and fast as Cloudstrike was flying, those would be gone—but because Taylor cared. And because it didn't overly matter to her one way or the other, she made that little extra effort to be nice to the mortals.

They were well into the foothills before Janesha twitched the reins. "Whoa up, girl. We're done." She shaded her eyes to look at the distant glint of the ocean. "Took less time than I thought, too. You are good." Leaning forward, she slapped the mystallion on the side of the neck and scratched behind her ears.

Cloudstrike tossed her head and nickered proudly. Of course she was good, Janesha translated. She was a mystallion. Nothing mortal—and few things celestial—would be able to keep up with her.

"That's it? Wow, that didn't take long." When Janesha looked around, Taylor was a little windblown. "I hope you can get the information you need."

Janesha grinned. "Whenever you're ready, petal."

Taylor nodded. "Let's do this."

Taylor

Barely had the words escaped her lips than she was standing in a darkened room next to Janesha. The room was large and circular, and it contained a glowing circular blob in the middle. As she watched in fascination, strips started colouring themselves in, about four inches wide at a time. Leaning down toward the first strip, she saw the Boardwalk. Even the pedestrians were represented, as tiny as they were, so clearly that she could make out what they were holding in their hands. Straightening up, she watched as the strips flickered into existence, building more and more of the city out of nothing.

"I'm impressed," she said. "I didn't think I saw everything this sharply."

"You didn't." Janesha smirked. "I'm adding my memories to yours. Besides, we've both seen the city from the air before. Most of this is stuff we already know." She gestured toward the the map as it finished filling itself in. "No, what we're looking for is in your memories of where the bugs were."

The map faded a little, then a constellation of tiny stars sprang up across Brockton Bay. The vast majority were white, but a significant fraction were red. Frowning, Taylor looked more closely. "White is above-ground?" she guessed. It certainly seemed that way.

"Got it in one." Janesha clapped her hands, and the white stars winked out. The red remained. There were quite a few, though, scattered across the city. "Okay, now to eliminate other areas. Where do you find bugs underground when they're not in a supervillain's base?"

"Huh." Taylor frowned. "Sewers and storm drains?" She pointed at where lines of red dots connected in networks across the city.

"Good one." Janesha gestured, and the storm drains disappeared. She pointed at a section of map where a tall building stood. "There's significant underground space under that one. Think it could be what we're looking for?"

Taylor looked more closely, then shook her head. "Ah, no. That's not it. That's the Medhall building. Besides, those sub-basements go down, not outward."

"Okay, then." Janesha dispelled the Medhall basements from the image, then pointed toward the northern part of the city, where the Trainyards were. "Is that where he was keeping you?"

"Yup. I doubt there's anyone there, though. After all, he's gotta know how powerful you are. And I was ripping doors off their hinges. Secure, the place ain't."

Janesha snickered. "Nice. Okay … we have a few more larger collections of bugs. What about there, there and there?" She pointed.

"Ah." Taylor rubbed her chin, then indicated one. "That's an Endbringer shelter. I had a drill there once. That's one, too. And that one … that one … that one … wait a minute."

Eyes coming alert with sharp interest, Janesha leaned forward. "What is it?"

Taylor pointed at one particular congregation of red sparks, showing several rooms on different levels. "I don't know what that one is. It's not an official Endbringer shelter. We have to study the maps, just to make sure we know where our nearest one is."

Janesha cracked her knuckles and grinned evilly. "Gotcha."

 Part 15