Brooklyn, New York

Jules Cheney was having a good night. Running through an alley, goods in hand, he reflected on his good luck. He’d expected to have to dodge the police after his smash and grab action at a watch shop a few blocks behind him, but it seemed that the shop keepers hadn’t paid up on their security.

No alarm had sounded and the only witness had been some dumb kid that no one would believe and probably wouldn’t tell for fear of getting in trouble for breaking curfew. He was home free and the watches would get him a couple of thousand dollars easily.

Coming to a stop in an alley behind a Chinese restaurant, he opened his bag to check his haul.

“Stop right there!” A strange feeling ran up his spine and all his hairs stood on end. Which was odd, as the voice was in no way intimidating.

He turned and did a double take at who he saw. “Hey, what are you—“ he cut himself off with a yelp of pain as a blue spark leapt from a nearby dumpster and struck the hand holding his ill gotten gains. “What the—“ He was cut off again as the entire lid of the dumpster suddenly swarmed with sparks that pelted into him.

Just before he lost consciousness, Jules thought about what a bad night he was having.

Vorpal closed the door to her apartment. She’d managed to negotiate a rather nice one out of Liedecker, though it wasn’t the opulent palace that assassins had in the movies.

The living room was sunken; separated from the alcove that held the entryway and a small closet by a pair of wide, carpeted steps. One could walk from the alcove to the open kitchen/dining area or ascend another pair of steps from the living room. On the far side of the living room was ostensibly a study, though she had converted it to a gym by hanging a heavy bag in the corner. A set of metal stairs led up to the loft, which made up half the ceiling of the living room.

Nothing matched. The television was only big enough to be viewable from the tacky plush orange couch positioned in front of it and the leather arm chair beside that. A vintage movie poster from the romantic classic A Midnight Walk hung prominently above the stairs.

It was less a classical assassin’s lair and more an apartment of a young woman with neither the skills, nor the care to decorate.

Vorpal smirked at the thought as she went to the refrigerator and retrieved a Satin Cream vanilla milkshake. She never lived up to expectations. The only thing that bothered her was that without the mask, she certainly looked like the kind of woman you’d find living in such a place. This was exactly why the mask was key.

Taking the first gulp of vanilla flavored sweetness she’d had in several days following a stint of staking out and eliminating a handful of Eduardo Vorran’s weapons shipments, the femme fatale ascended into her loft.

Her computer screen was on, a message window blinking and demanding attention. A quick glance made her smile as she recognized the screen name of the sender: Mr. Voice.

Stretching a bit, she sat down before the computer and clicked the ‘Open Dialogue’ icon. Voice confirmed the dialogue instantly and the connection was made.

“You’re right on time.” A smooth, melodious voice came over her speakers. Vorpal could understand how that voice would turn a person to jelly, even if she hadn’t seen it firsthand. Or the other things it could do. “I just got back in from a walk around the countryside. How are you today, Alice?”

“Don’t call me Alice.” Vorpal snapped, “It’s not my name.”

“I could call you by your real name.” Voice responded playfully. When she didn’t laugh, he added, “Come now, I would think you’d take to the name Alice, being a Carroll fan.”

Vorpal shook her head even though she knew he couldn’t see. “Alice is a regular girl’s name. An average girl. I don’t want to be tied down by that.”

“This is starting to be a bit of a mania with you.” A serious edge entered his voice, but softened instantly. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine, Voice. I’m just more comfortable with Vorpal, that’s all.” She felt a bit guilty for snapping at him, but comforted herself with the knowledge that he almost always provoked it. “Now, did you call me as a friend, or for business?”

Voice sighed. “You know, they say this happens to prelates. They start to think of their alter ego as another personality, and then they start to favor it. Rumor says Arjun Ravi made up a new name for himself right before he went nuts.”

“Not business then.” Vorpal rolled her eyes in a manner that would have made the most sarcastic teenager fall to his knees and beg her to teach him.

“Actually, yes, business, but you know I’m not good at separating the two.”

“We both know you could just ‘fix’ me if you really wanted. I mean it works over the transmission, right?” An icy tone entered her voice. “After all, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“I don’t understand how you can possibly be mad at me for that, it saved your life!” Voice countered. “But no, I’m not going to do that. I’ve told you, I panicked. I don’t generally do permanent alterations.”

Vorpal frowned and ducked her head. She really didn’t have much of a right to be angry with him over that. He did it because he was her friend and he had been worried about her – and he hadn’t known just how powerful it was at the time. Still, it was a serious breech of free will, even if it was beneficial. “So what’s the business?” she asked after a long silence.

Voice began hesitantly. “You asked me to have some people look into this Vorran character. It looks like someone else is connecting dots we wouldn’t have even seen.”

“How’s that?” Vorpal cocked an eyebrow at the monitor.

“It seems Mayfield isn’t the only city seeing a new unknown trying to make a push into the organized crime business. Someone’s organizing the street gangs in Atlanta and using them to challenge the mob and maras down there. And the Tongs in New York are having problems with a new organization; Aces High, snapping up the psionic talent they’ve been trying to amass.” As Voice spoke, snapshots of news provider stories appeared on the monitor.

Vorpal scanned over them all with a critical eye. “All pretty serious pushes, even if the MOs are different This doesn’t look like a coincidence, does it?”

“Not at all.” Voice replied.

“I’m going to tell Liedecker and check it out.” Vorpal said, getting up and walking to her closet. “He’d give you a huge finder’s fee if this turns out to give him a preemptive strike at Vorran.” She opened the closet and fished behind her street clothes to pull a handle hidden therein. The whole face of the closet rotated aside to reveal her new costume courtesy of the hidden labs at the Solomon Center.

“Don’t need it.” Voice said, “Nor do I work for those kinds of people, I work with you, V.”

“You won’t work with an arms dealer, but you’ll bend over backward to help an assassin?” she asked, pulling her T-shirt over her head.

“My best friend just happens to be an assassin.”

“Even though you’ve never seen her face, and don’t know her name?”

“All in due time, I hope.” Voice said smoothly. “And if not, I think I’ll guilt her by talking about how I listen every time the guilt catches up to her and how I’ve cleaned her wounds and given her a place to hide after jobs went south or employers turned on her. But I won’t. See how I’ve grown?”

Vorpal glared at the monitor as she sat down on the bed and started putting on her tabi. “You’re lucky you’re all the way across the sea or she’d belt you one.”

“Your antiquated way of speaking, however, hurts me not.” Voice laughed. “So, which one are you checking out first?”

“Guess.”

“Not everything’s about abilities, V.”

With a grunt, Vorpal cinched her corset over her body suit. In doing so, she took time to admire the gold colored orihalcon chain at the seams. The cowl came last, pulled over her face until only her eyes were visible. “Maybe it should be, Stephan. Maybe they’ll be the thing that keeps history from repeating itself.”

Voice sighed, but she could hear a chuckle in it. “I can tell you’re wearing it now, you know? You get so intense. Come back alive, Vorpal.”

“I always do.” She replied. Behind the mask, her expression softened. “You know, I don’t need to go right now. Let’s talk – how’s the school coming?”

Again, Voice sighed, “Still not a school, I’m afraid. I’m having trouble getting staff and until then, it’s more like a halfway house. Ever try to administer a detox treatment to a boy with hide like a rhino?”

Vorpal managed a small smile under the mask. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Well,” Voice said, “Convincing him to take it is just the tip of the iceberg…”

“Are you serious?” Juniper asked Laurel. Something like outright panic was in her voice. “But it’s the weekend before prom!”

“She’s right, you know?” Cyn said, “The girl’s got to lay some serious groundwork here.”

Laurel adjusted her glasses and smiled an enigmatic little smile. She’d expected this, just like she knew exactly how to swiftly turn the tide of teenage logic in her favor. “My, my; I wouldn’t have thought the former Lifesaver’s, Inc would complain about dealing with bad guys.”

For a beat, Warrick, Cyn and Juniper looked at each other. By silent agreement, the two girls made Warrick their spokesman. “It’s not that.” He defended, “we’re still totally dedicated to being prelates – but this doesn’t seem very…” he searched for the correct word, “Prelate…ish. I mean just going and looking around?”

“That’s the best we can do for now.” Laurel admitted, “If Vorran really is connected to this ‘Johnny Qin’, character that’s running Aces High, we can’t risk him getting his mental hooks into any of you again.” Anticipating the protests, she held up a hand to stop them. “I’m already talking to General Pratt about acquiring some of the neural stimulant chips the guards at Braddock Island use to protect themselves from mentalists, but its slow going.”

“Until then, consider this a recon training exercise; you go in and observe, but don’t interfere. If someone really is assembling another team of rogue psionics—“

“Can we just call them supervillains now?” Cyn asked. “Really, it’s not just psionics we’ve got to worry about anymore. Last time we were in New York on business, the Whitecoat was talking about the tongs using cyborgs and even Tome had those inu-mutant things, so we’re way past ‘rogue psionics’ here.”

Juniper nodded. “And don’t forget Zoo Man didn’t have any powers at all, just that tiger control box thingie. Same with Maven.”

Laurel nodded. “Good point; from what I’ve gathered, Aces High doesn’t care where you got your powers as long as they’re for rent.” She looked pointedly at Cyn, “But that won’t stop Shine if she’s really got it out for you, Cyn. Keep your head down, please?”

“No problem.” Cyn smirked, shifting her face to look like Laurel’s. “As if she’ll be able to recognize me.”

Laughing a bit, Laurel nodded. “Good point. Anyway, you three should start getting ready. Alexis is getting your train tickets now.”

As the young people filed out of the room, the genius sighed. She hadn’t been able to help them when they’d first encountered Vorran and while she was waiting for the General’s reply, she wouldn’t be able to help them if they ran into him again. She only hoped Alexis’s presence would be enough…

Pushing the thoughts out of her head, she turned back to her keyboard. Her hypothesis that the other emergent criminal enterprises were connected to Mayfield’s was just that; an educated guess. Even if she was right, she’d only touched the surface; there was much digging left to do.

The top floor office overlooking Central Park was a far cry better than the cramped back room of the dojo in Mayfield. That was because while Eduardo Vorran was an upstart with a few connections and not many resources, Johnny Qin was a moneyed hotshot finally making his move into the New York City criminal world.

The man who was both Qin and Vorran put his feet up on his walnut desk and admired his New York office’s leather seats, pine paneling and think luxurious carpet. He looked as different now as his offices did. He’d traded the formal business attire for a casual, cream colored sport jacket and silk shirt and his hair was dyed black and spiked up with gel.

He started to grin, but a twinge in his shoulder made him wince instead.

Nearby, in a leather chair of her own, the dark skinned woman who was ostensibly his assistant smirked and looked up from whatever she’d been doing on the computer in front of her. “Still hurting after a week? Seriously, Thunderhead,” She took a plastic ampoule affixed to a capped needle out of her handbag and tossed it. “You need to take your medicine.”

Vorran, now Qin caught the container with his good arm and grimaced at it. “Hell no. I tried it once, when your ‘partner’ didn’t trust my ability to use basic make-up. I’m not touching this shit again; it moves when you inject it – all the way up the vein. And the shifting… it feels like rolling in a vat of worms.”

“This isn’t what I use.” She replied, shaking her head. “It’s a lower concentration of the serum – it’ll only heal you before you metabolize it.”

Qin shook his head. “Still, no thanks.” He sat the ampoule down on the desk. “So, are we still looking for a guinea pig for the full shot of that stuff? I mean since Mayfield didn’t even get off the ground?”

“That wasn’t what Mayfield was about. We wanted to see what old man Liedecker’s done in response to here and Atlanta.”

“And?”

“We still don’t know. You failed, remember?” she huffed, “By the way, that’s really impressive, you know? Failing at killing a handful of teenage girls.”

“Thanks for telling me half of them were the goddamn Descendants, by the way.” Qin snapped.

“As if I knew until the last minute.” She rolled her eyes. “If I had, don’t you think I’d have taken the chance to finish off the gold bitch? But no, instead I had to jump down five stories and separate my shoulder saving your ass.”

A rueful grin spread over Qin’s face. “How much does it urk you that your shoulder only got healed because of her blood?”

A predatory grin came over Latonya Wilkins’s face and for a moment Qin almost saw her natural form leaking behind the mask that was the mocha beauty before him. It made him uneasy. “It just makes me want more of her blood, Thunderhead.”

-- • --

“It looks different without snow.” Cyn noted of Central Park as she and Warrick sat on a bench together, keeping an eye on what Laurel’s sources said was Johnny Qin’s headquarters on Fifth Avenue. She had a burrito in hand, the lone survivor of five she’d bought from a street vendor. She was dressed in a simple white dress, all the better to quickly shift into Facsimile if needed.

“Yeah.” Warrick nodded, stretching. “Too bad, it’d be cool to have a snowball fight after this mission like we had when we were here over Christmas.”

Cyn smiled at the memory, “Yeah that was fun. I can’t believe we kept going for two hours even after your sister went home.” She gave a little laugh and glanced at him sideways. “We need to do stuff like that more often. You know, just hanging out together.”

“We hang out together all the time.” Warrick said, keeping trying his best not to look directly at Qin’s hideout as per Laurel’s directions. “We went on patrol together yesterday and we’ve been playing Deathgate all week!”

“Patrol is patrol.” Cyn rolled her eyes, “And we aren’t even in the same room when we play computer games together. I mean just hanging out, wandering around town like we used to.”

“We don’t do that anymore?”

“No, we’re always hanging out with the guys or you’re out with Tink…” She caught herself, “Not that I don’t expect that, she is your girlfriend after all. What I meant was—“Mercifully, her phone rang, interrupting her.

Letting out a relieved breath and avoiding Warrick’s confused gaze, she snapped the phone open. “Hello?”

“Juniper saw two men go into the alley on the other side of the building.” Laurel’s voice came to her. “One was a big guy, possibly a protomorph.”

“Are you okay?” Warrick asked, noting the still frazzled state of his best friend. Cyn nodded absently and held up a finger to tell him to wait.

“They didn’t come back out.” Laurel continued. “Can you two check it out? Ian and Alexis are still watching Qin across town. I’ll have Juniper keep a lookout for you.”

“Sure.” Cyn said.

“Great. And Cyn, remember, we’re just watching. Don’t get into any fights, okay?”

“We’re not that hot headed.” Cyn pouted.

“Promise me, Cyn.”

“Oh come on!”

“Promise.”

“Fine. Promise.” Cyn sniffed and closed the phone. To Warrick, she said, “That was Laurel; Jun thinks she saw two guys that may be our bad guys sneaking down the side alley. Up for snooping on them?”

“Yeah.” Warrick nodded, “But when we’re done, maybe we ought to talk, you seemed a little tweaked just now.”

“Nah.” Cyn said, thankful for the ability to control her expressions, “I’m fine, really.” The pair headed toward the alley, walking side by side.

“You didn’t sound fine.” Warrick frowned. “Look, maybe we haven’t hung out as much as we used to – but I’ll make it up to you, okay? Next week… well, not next week, that’s prom. But the week after that, we can do anything you want, okay?”

Cyn let him see a smile a quarter of the size that she felt. “That’d be nice.” She nodded. They paused to wait for the light before crossing Fifth Avenue and walking along the side of the building Qin called home. Cyn noticed Juniper sitting on the stone wall that separated the building from the street, pretending to read.

“Hey, by the way, who are you going with?” Warrick asked as they meandered past the open alleyway. There was no one there. They stopped just past the mouth of the alley while Cyn answered.

“Well…” Cyn started slowly, “Jonas did ask me…”

“Wow, Griffin really likes you.” Warrick said, trying to concentrate on his metal sense to sense the assortment of zippers, eyelets and loose change that signified the presence of the person in the alley.

“Yeah, but I said no.” Cyn shrugged.

“Wha?” Warrick almost dropped his concentration all together. “Why? Griffin’s a good guy and he’s definitely into you. What gives?” he sensed what he was looking for, but it was more faint than he expected. Detecting presence was easy, detecting position was hard. He forced himself to concentrate harder.

“Because I don’t like him.” Cyn admitted, “I mean he’s a great guy from all I’ve heard, but he’s not my cuppa. He’s a jock, he hangs out with the track and football teams—what would we even talk about? I mean I’m not like Juniper where it’s all about the eye candy despite being basically mute.”

The location just wasn’t coming to him. Warrick shut his eyes tightly and pushed his concentration harder. “So…” he strained, trying to still look casual. “Who are you going with?”

Cyn shrugged again. “Chick date with Kay. You know how her dad’s got that whole thing with his little girl dating? I figure that shouldn’t keep her from getting to go to junior prom. Plus, I’m going to see if I can convince him that we’re lesbians.”

Being an average, heterosexual teenage male, Warrick felt his concentration buckle at that comment. He managed to make a weak squeaking sound as he strained to keep on task. The extra push seemed to do the trick. His eyes flew open. “They’re below us.” He reported, “Underground.” As if that explained everything, he turned and headed down the alley.

Cyn was taken aback. For a split second, just as his eyes had opened, they had been covered over in what had looked to be silvery liquid. Writing it off as her imagination, she followed him down the alley.

By the time she caught up, he was standing off to the side halfway down the alley, looking down. In front of him, a steel grating covered a hole in the sidewalk. Through the metal lattice, concrete stairs and a nest of snaking pipes were visible.

“Why is there a door in the ground?” Cyn asked, honestly.

“They’re all over the city.” Warrick explained. “Back in the day, it was a way to have a delivery entrance if you didn’t have a back alley, or letting maintenance workers get to things without stopping traffic to pop a manhole.”

“That goes down into a sewer?” Cyn wrinkled her nose and considered shifting it away entirely. Gills were superior in such situations because they couldn’t smell.

“No, a basement.” Warrick said, “They may have a whole tunnel system down there – explains why the cops can’t connect Qin to Aces High.”

“So let’s go in there and check it out!” Cyn said with a feral grin.

Warrick shook his head. “Laurel said we were just going to watch.”

“Well we can’t very well watch if they’re in there and we’re out here, can we?”

“Point.” He conceded. “But turn on your phone’s webcam so Laurel can see what’s going on, okay? And remember, we’re just spying: we’ve got to keep quiet.”

“As a mouse.” Cyn said. “Lead he way, I’m going to shift and follow you.”

“Facsimile isn’t exactly the stealth type.” Warrick commented.

Cyn tugged at the hem of her dress. “You haven’t seen Facsimile in stealth mode yet.” She smiled coyly.

Warrick smiled back and nodded. With a thought, he summoned Isp and Osp, who pulled the grate open easily. The darkness below beckoned.

“Stealthy? Yes.” Warrick noted, by the red emergency lighting that lined the tunnel. “Creepy as hell? Also yes.”

Facsimile moved above him on the ceiling, supported by hooked claws on her transformed hands and feet. Her skin was a dull, mottled black and grey and her overall outline was flattened and emaciated. Occasionally, the light would catch her oversized eyes and make them glint with red fire. “Isn’t it awesome?” Facsimile asked in a hissing whisper, the hiss coming from having to reshape her tongue to avoid biting it with her shark-like teeth.

“There are a lot of words I’d use for it, but—hold on, I hear something.” They were both very still as they stood and listened. Sure enough, they heard voices not far ahead. Warrick motioned for Facsimile to follow him and stole farther up the tunnel.

“This is pathetic, Legion.” A low, surly voice was saying. The tunnel terminated in a wide space with a high ceiling made of pipes and beams, presumably, at one point; it had been the mechanical room for the building before integrated heating elements, air refresher technology and definitely before fire suppression units, judging by the faded stenciling identifying the sprinkler system.

At some point in the past, it had become a graveyard for all the other out of date technology of what had probably been a hotel and as such was now the mausoleum for a variety of refrigeration units, ranges, automated bed sets, and other formerly four star amenities. These provided perfect cover for Warrick and Facsimile.

From their vantage point, behind a state-or-a-previous-art range, the two could only see the speaker. This was mostly because he was so huge as to block their view of his audience as a he paced back and forth, impatiently.

He was definitely the protomorph Juniper had seen; seven feet tall and change, he was nearly as wide with shoulders a normal man could stand on comfortably. A literal mane of reddish brown hair covered his head, the back and side of his neck and part of the vast, bare expanses of his shoulders. He wore a black, sleeveless T-shirt emblazoned with a steer horns design and buckskin pants over heavy hiking boots that were lacquered a shiny black. Every time he took a step, the two young prelates could feel a reverberation through the floor.

“You tell me we’re getting in on the ground floor of something big and these are the best Qin can find?” the mountain of a man grumbled. “I could have stayed out West. You know what Tri-World Mining’s paying for guys like me? The least he can do is be on time for these dumbass tryouts.”

“Mr. Qin will be here when he gets here.” A cool female voice said from beyond him. “Until then, you should watch your language, considering the company?”

“Are you telling me, he’s seriously considering this little pipsqueak?” the big man grunted. “What the hell kinda organization is he trying to run?!”

“Hey!” an indignant, youthful voice replied. “I have the card right here. It says Johnny Qin is looking for people with psionic talent. It doesn’t say how old they have to be. You should at least give me a chance!”

Warrick looked over at Facsimile. “That voice sounds familiar…” he whispered. Facsimile nodded, it sounded familiar to her too. She just couldn’t place it.

“Whether he cares or not, you should reconsider.” A new voice, male this time said. “This isn’t work for a kid. You shouldn’t—“

“If she wants in, we’ll give her a chance; same test as everyone else.” The older female said. “Until then, there’s no reason to let the new blood in on too much.”

Another male voice chuckled. “Kids today grow up so fast, don’t they?”

“I am not a kid!” the kid protested. “I’m thirteen. I’ll be fourteen soon. I’m a teenager!”

Wheels began to turn in Warrick’s head. It couldn’t be who he was thinking of. That could be chalked up to being an argument he’d heard time and time again over Christmas break. Certainly that was it. Because if it really was who he thought it was and they really were in a dank basement auditioning to be part of a psionic gang… well, madness would follow.

The left part of his brain promised to release some nice, relaxing endorphins if he promised not to contemplate such a thing again and he started to accept the offer. Then the big man stepped far enough to the side that he saw the teenager in question.

She was definitely fourteen; all lanky limbs and emergent acne beneath the makeshift mask. She wore purple tights under a powder blue, knee length skirt, a thin, long sleeved blue shirt under a second, sleeveless white shirt, which had a pair of crossed, purple lightning bolts drawn on it with fabric marker. The costume was topped off by a purple cape that was clearly a former bed sheet and a mask of the same material tied so as to cover the girl’s nose and forehead, but allow her coif of brown-red hair to run wild and free.

“Son of a b—“ Warrick was so mortified by what he was seeing, that he hadn’t noticed the figure drop from the pipes above, nor had he heard the quick, muted conversation with Facsimile. He had no choice, however, but to notice when a rigid, plastic gauntlet closed over his mouth.

“Shh….” The Whitecoat whispered through his bandanna. “Let’s not get stupid. Looks like I didn’t have to call your parents again after all.”

Warrick mumbled something against the glove.

Whitecoat pretended he knew what his former protégé was saying. “Yeah, I just noticed this last week. Sister Sacred noticed first, but who wouldn’t notice when she leaves these on the guys she catches.” His free hand held a light blue index card up for Warrick to see.

In purple ink, someone had drawn the crossed lightning bolt logo above a line of script: THIS BADDIE CAPTURED BY THE IRREPRESSIBLE SPARK.

Warrick made another sound into the silencing glove.

“Hey, it’s your little sister, man. Don’t use that kind of language about her.”

“Uh, what do we do now?” Facsimile whispered.

Something hit the range from the other side and it was only by the combined reflexes of Isp, Osp and the Whitecoat that they all managed to get out of the way in time.

The big man snarled, looking around for the interlopers. “You’re going to get run down by the Stampede for starters!” He challenged.

The Whitecoat interposed himself between the young man and the man called Stampede. “I told you about that language!”

-- • --

With the stove that had previously provided them a hiding place on a trajectory to smash into the wall behind them, the three heroes could now see the other people in the room. The center area had been cleared away to make room for a hand full of folding chairs and a card table that held a holographic projector.

Three other people were in the room. Legion of One stood next to the table, coolly sizing up the situation. His costume, if it could be called such, still consisted of a bare chest, loose pants, a bandolier of throwing knifes and a sword on his back, but he had added armored boots to his ensemble, presumably from his earlier encounter with Facsimile.

Seated directly across from him was a thin, wiry man in sweats and a plain, white polo shirt. His head was covered from crown to nose by a bizarre helmet integrating a pair of smoked goggles into a complex and almost certainly homemade system of gears and bearings. He looked to the third person, who was seated between Spark and himself as if asking her for instruction.

That third person was a black woman dressed in a camouflage tube top and matching skirt. Her only ornamentation was a pair of dark, wrap around sunglasses and a bracelet of some dull metal that covered half her left arm. A large purse sat on the floor beside her.

“Well, that changes plenty, doesn’t it?” she said with menace in her voice. “Stampede, Spark, Fellgaze; there’s been a change of plans. This is the audition now—whoever brings down a prelate makes the cut.” She sneered as she lifted her purse and dipped a hand into it.

“Too easy.” Stampede said, throwing a punch at the Whitecoat’s head.

It was met with an open palm that was surprisingly resistant. “So you’re the big dumb thing of the week, huh?” Whitecoat chuckled as his boots held him in place while his strength stopped the punch. “If that’s all you’ve got, I’m going to have to rate you even lower than Tank and Ox.”

“This is just the start of it, cowboy.” Stampede stomped a foot into the floor as if to push off. A shockwave rippled out from it, cracking the concrete and propelling him forward with renewed power. There was a cracking sound and the floor the white garbed prelate was anchored to crumbled, allowing Stampede to bowl him over.

With just enough wherewithal to roll with the punch, Whitecoat came up in a crouch. “That was new.” He said, “Not, you know, good, but new.”

“Then maybe you’d like a rematch instead.” Whitecoat saw a blur to his left just before Legion completed his teleport and landed a hammer kick to his back, sending him sprawling. Legion had little time to gloat before being blind sided by Osp and thrown into the side of an aged refrigerator.

“He said good, not tricky.” Alloy said. The twisted metal remnants of a stove, a food synthesizer and a drawer-full of rust utensils solidified into fearsome and bulky armor.

“Wait, what’s going on?!” Spark asked the woman who was slipping a set of wicked looking claws onto her fingers. “Why are we attacking them? I thought we were supposed to be good guys!”

“Now, whatever gave you that idea, silly girl?” the woman hissed, depressing a panel on her bracelet. The change started around the bracelet as mocha skin was rapidly covered in white scales.

“Because you offered me an audition.” Spark continued to protest, rising from her seat. “I’m the Irrepressible Spark! I’m a prelate!”

“You don’t say?” The man called Fellgaze asked, turning toward her. His right hand moved to a control panel on the back of his left. “In that case, getting into Aces High is going to be easier than getting into your average street gang.”

“Yeah.” A dark shape interposed itself between the villains and Spark. “Just hold still while I jump you in.” Facsimile displayed her hooked claws with a feral grin.

“And just who are you?” Now in her true form, Shine slid her orihalcite claws together, making them rasp harshly.

“Don’t recognize me?” Facsimile asked. She shifted to her normal Facsimile form, sans wings. “Don’t feel bad, old lady; I didn’t recognize you either earlier.”

“Two for one is fine with me.” Fellgaze said, touching his controls. The gears operated shutters that lifted the lenses of his goggles. But before this could have any effect, Shine knocked him aside, causing him to fall over his chair and land with a clatter.

“This bitch is mine.” Shine snarled.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, crone.” Facsimile taunted.

Across the room, Stampede stomped the ground to propel himself toward Alloy as the armored prelate started to move toward Spark. “That armor’s not going to help you, boy!” He roared as he barreled forward on his shockwave.

“Think so?” Alloy asked. At the last minute, Isp and Osp grabbed the pipes above and lifted him clear, allowing Stampede to run headlong into a jumble of old boiler parts. With a wave of his hand, Alloy caused the now badly dented metal to entangle the huge man. “Good thing I didn’t need it, eh?”

Twisting in his metal prison, Stampede got a leg free and began kicking, sending shockwaves through the metallic bonds and tearing them apart. “This ain’t over!” With a roar, he launched himself at Alloy and tackled him into a wall. A cloud of debris covered the point of impact.

“But this is.” Legion said, appearing behind the Whitecoat to deliver a flying kick. Whitecoat was faster though and ducked the blow, striking out with his elbow as Legion sailed over. But the moment he saw that he’d missed, Legion had already teleported away.

“We’ve already fought on your terms.” Whitecoat breathed, leaping back up into the tangle of pipes. “Now let’s fight on mine. Come on, you pompous horse’s ass, let’s see how well you’re ‘port-fu works with all these pipes in the way.”

Legion appeared below the mess of pipes and swung himself up into them, landing in a ready crouch. “I’ll give you credit, you’re not stupid.” He said to his opponent. “But even without the freedom to use my abilities, my skill is more than a match for you.”

“That’d be great if we were fighting purely on skill, smiley.” Whitecoat mocked, weaving between the pipes to Legion’s right. “But I aim to go right for the weakness of all your ‘honored combat’ stuff.”

Legion laughed mockingly. “Right. And what weaknesses could an untrained, uneducated simpleton like you possibly exploit?”

“It’s all in my aim.” Whitecoat said, getting a grip on an overhead pipe.

“And what aim is that?” Legion spat, inching forward, looking for an open space to teleport to.

“Well…” With a jerking motion, he tore the pipe free, letting a gush of water loose directly into Legion’s face. While the man sputtered in surprise, he grabbed another pipe and used it as leverage to launch himself into a spinning kick that slammed Legion against another group of pipes and sent him crashing to the floor. “I aim to cheat.” Whitecoat snickered from under his bandana.

Back on the floor, claws and insults flew in a veritable tornado of gold and white. Shine ducked under a swipe from Facsimile to carve an underhanded slash across her exposed stomach. “Remember what I said back in Mayfield?” Shine asked, “About you and I could just go at this forever?”

“Yeah.” Facsimile said, instantly healing the wound while lashing out violently with attacks of her own, most of which Shine simply dodged. “But I figured we’d have to break around midday so you could watch you stories and have some tea, grandma.”

“Droll.” Shine said flatly, whipping her tail around to try and catch Facsimile’s legs. The prelate jumped over the appendage and came down with a dangerously fast right hook. “But really, it turns out that isn’t true. See, the way I can go back to looking human? That’s because of your blood.”

“Huh?” Facsimile was thrown off for a critical second in which Shine completed a second tail sweep and sent her crashing to the floor, taking one of the chairs with her.

Grinning like mad, Shine tried to stomp her prone foe, but wasn’t fast enough as the golden prelate rolled away. “Oh yeah, it’s wonderful stuff. We’re still thinking up a brand name though. I’m leaning toward Bitch Blood, personally.”

“You bitch!” Facsimile launched herself into a flurry of wild punches and slashes with claws; all of which Shine calmly dodged.

Still dodging with relative ease, Shine started laughing. “Yes, come on, burn through that energy! See, I’ve been using this shit for a few months now and I’ve noticed it goes through the metabolism like lightning. I bet you eat like a horse, don’t you? And I bet you’re getting real hungry about now.”

Sidestepping one more punch, Shine struck out and grabbed Facsimile around the neck, using the momentum to slam the girl on her back. An evil light filled her eyes. “I’m not morbid or anything, but I wonder what that shit would do to me straight from the source…”

“Hey you!”

Shine looked up to see Spark standing only a yard from her, looking defiant as she held her hands out stretched. For some reason, there were paperclips taped to her palms…

“Back off!” Spark shouted for all she was worth. Blue sparks gathered around the paperclips, which rapidly degraded and blackened as twin bolts of lightning arced from her palms.

It took all of Shine’s psionic reflexes and trained dexterity to dodge the blast. Flattening herself would have put her in range of Facsimile’s attack, so she leapt instead, twisting like a cat above the roiling electricity.

She did not, however, have time to avoid the black tabi that planted themselves in her chest and drove her back to the ground.

Vorpal rolled away from Shine the moment they landed and came up crouched and ready for a fight. “You disgust me.” She said in a low tone. “Even thinking of exploiting another of our kind like that. Sometimes, I guess, appearances can be accurate: you’re a monster.”

Fuming, Shine kipped up and squared off against her new opponent. “Yeah, a beautiful monster. And who are you supposed to be?”

“You’re the crazy chick from Stile’s rally!” Facsimile groaned, regaining her feet.

“And you’re the gargoyle that made me lose me seat.” Vorpal said in an almost friendly tone.

“Is she a good guy or a bad guy?” Spark asked, “I’m starting to get confused.”

Across the room, concrete blocks shifted as Isp and Osp hauled Alloy out of the pile of rubble caused by his collision with Stampede. They gave their friend a once over before setting him down on the ground to stand on his own.

“Good job boys.” Alloy said to them. He looked back at the rubble pile. “That was really stupid of him. Come on, we’ve got to--. The pile exploded as a shockwave tore through the blocks, vaporizing them. Stampede rolled onto his feet and sneered past a thick layer of dust that covered his face.

“Oh, for god’s sake.” Alloy groaned as Stampede lurched out of the crater. His sigh formed a little cloud in the suddenly cold air.

“You’re going to be seeing him up close and personal in a second.” The oversized villain promised. He raised a foot to stomp—and promptly slipped and fell on his ass.

“Thank you, Zero.” Alloy laughed. With a gesture, he drew on all the metal around Stampede and had it fully encase the man save for his face, totally immobilizing him.

“Sorry I’m late.” Zero said, standing in the doorway. Her identity was hidden only by her half mask. She was still wearing he breezy summer dress she’d been wearing while undercover. “I had a hard time opening the grate and… well, I had to break it. Is that okay?”

“Eh, they’re all bad guys.” Alloy shrugged.

“Oh my god, isn’t that your sister?” Zero pointed.

“Yeah and I’m going to… hey, where’d the ninja come from?”

Shine was backed up against the table, glaring at the three female vigilantes that had her cornered.

“Three against one, sunshine.” Facsimile mocked. “Give up and I’ll see if they won’t send you to a nice prison in Florida.” She took a menacing step forward.

“We can’t go easy on her.” Spark said, petulantly. “She lied to me and almost made me join a villain team. That’s like fraud or something isn’t it? It’s at least false advertising.”

“She stole my blood.” Facsimile said, “That’s at least a little bit worse, don’t you think.”

“No, that’s just really gross and creepy.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Vorpal interrupted. “all of this was based around exploiting people like us – like her even—she’s a monster beyond what the United States’ law covers.”

“So is there like a world court we can take her to?” Spark asked.

“Yes.” Vorpal said, a metallic spike suddenly appearing in her hand. “This one.”

“Whoa, wait a minute!” Facsimile objected. “She’s evil and a bitch and all but I’m not going to kill her. Rough her up a little maybe, but not kill her!”

“We can’t do that!” Spark almost wailed.

“Then may I offer you ladies an alternative?” a male voice said behind them. All three turned instinctively to see the nearly forgotten Fellgaze. He hit the switch on his hand. The shutter opened. “The alternative being; ‘you lose’?”

-- • --

The shutters opened and for a minute, all Facsimile saw were a pair of iridescent, blue eyes. A terrifying howl came from off to her right. She turned to see an inugami – one of the rough, shaggy types that had attacked Vincent Liedecker the previous Halloween.

For a moment, she wondered how the creature had suddenly appeared, but all thought fled when she saw the red foam on its muzzle and claws and looked down. He was standing astride Alloy, whose armor was rent open and steaming with fresh gore. Isp and Osp hung limply at her friend’s side.

Then the whole of the grizzly scene hit her. Alloy was only the top of a pile of bodies; Laurel, Juniper, Alexis, Ian, Melissa, Kareem – even Kay, Lisa, JC and Adel were similarly mauled and piled in a heap beneath the deadly monster. Their eyes were frozen open and staring at her as if calling for help.

Her limbs were like lead. Even if she wasn’t rooted in horror, some unseen force kept her frozen in place as the inugami leaped, letting loose a howl that ripped through her body as surely as its claws intended to.

Vorpal blinked at the display when nothing happened. “What did you think that was going to accomplish?” She cleared her throat.

“It killed you, dear.” A female voice said behind her. Vorpal turned to see a slight, blonde woman of a height with herself standing there beside a balding man with glasses. The room suddenly grew stiflingly hot and humid and there seemed to be holes blasted through the walls and ceilings at random intervals.

“Maybe it’s for the best.” The man shook his head. I’m certainly glad I wasn’t around to see how you turned out. Maybe you’ll do better in the next life.”

“What is this?” Vorpal demanded. “You’re dead.” She looked around. What had been the mechanical room below Qin’s building had taken on a disturbingly familiar appearance. “And—and I’m not. I wasn’t even here!” Her breath caught and she coughed violently into her hand. Something warm splattered into it. She looked down to see drops of blood in her palm. The palm itself was now bare and had turned ashen.

“Are you sure about that?” the woman asked, “but like your father said, maybe it’s better off this way, Zoë. Maybe you’re better off dead.”

Spark looked around. She was in the living room of her house, despite her brain screaming that she was in Manhattan in the middle of a prelate battle. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up from where she’d been lying on the couch and listened. It didn’t seem like there was anyone home, but she did hear a very quiet sound, like a violin sting. A glance at the TV showed that it wasn’t the source.

As she got up, the sting grew in volume and intensity. “Weird.” She commented, as she moved toward the kitchen. The sting grew even more intense. “Hello?” she called out, hearing only her own echo in response. The violin continued. She’d heard it before – lots of times. She couldn’t place it, but she got a sort of déjà vu from hearing it at the same time as calling ‘hello’ into an empty house.

“Anybody there?” she asked, reflexively, as if her body was working off a script. Anxiety started to knot her stomach.

The sting grew into a crescendo and something made her jump back just as a huge iron sledge hammer came down, just missing her. A hunched figure ambled into view, garbed in a rat eaten overcoat and pants, an old fisherman’s hat obscured most of the face and what little could be seen was bluish and bloated.

Spark recognized it in an instant from the Terror Channel’s summer Monster-thon. “Old Man Hammer!” she screamed before turning and bolting away. The terrible B-monster lumbered after her with grim inevitability.

“That’s it?” Shine asked, looking down at Spark, Facsimile and Vorpal, who were prone and seemingly catatonic at her feet. “That’s the ‘awesome power’ Legion says you’ve got hidden behind those ridiculous shutters? I was expecting something powerful enough to blow a hole in a mountain for all his hype.”

“I’m sorry that dropping three prelates with a motion of my finger wasn’t exciting enough for you.” Fellgaze deadpanned. “But what you don’t get is that right now and for the next ten minutes or so, they’ll be experiencing a waking nightmare so realistically intense that it jams their flight or flight and renders them immobile.”

“Ten minutes, huh?” Shine regarded Facsimile with a devious eye. “Just enough time to carve a face up.”

“Uh, how about no?” Fellgaze countered in a disgusted tone. “They weren’t alone, remember, we should take this time to make a get away.”

“Listen to the man, Shine.” Alloy said, charging toward the pair. “A getaway is just what you need. I hear Braddock Island is beautiful this time of year; the grass in the exercise yard is at its greenest you know. And all your Redeemer buddies will be there.”

“Oh, you could have a reunion!” Juniper added happily.

“Again. How about ‘no’.” Fellgaze asked, reaching for his shutter controls.

“My sentiments exactly.” Alloy gestured and the metallic components in the assemblage swelled and warped, jamming the shutters closed. “On the plus side, maybe the government will get you some fashionable eyewear to replace that thing.”

“Did you just make a fashion joke?” Whitecoat said, leaping off a wall to engage Shine who blocked his flying kick.

“Yeah, no good?”

“You’re a man, damn it.” Whitecoat narrowly avoided a slash from Shine. Sparks flew as her claws scored the armor hidden within his trademark coat.

“I thought it was funny…” Zero said, icing up the ground at Shine’s feet, only to have the villainess leap away from it.

“Who’s the mentor here? No fashion jokes!” Whitecoat delivered some firm correction as he simply used his electrostatic boots to walk on the ice. “Unless, of course, you’re being ironic – which I don’t think you were, Alloy.”

“As riveting as this conversation is,” Legion appeared from behind and slammed his fists into Whitecoat’s back, causing him to stumble and slip on the ice. An instant later, he reappeared behind Zero and kicked her in the back of the knee, forcing her to kneel. His sword came out and its tip pressed firmly into the crook of the girl’s neck. “Let’s change the subject to you letting us go scot-free.”

“Dirty pool, ‘port monkey.” The Whitecoat snarled as Shine danced out of his reach and regrouped with Legion behind Zero.

“You changed the rules, you sad attempt at an urban cowboy. And I’m not so much honorable as one who will bring a knife to a knife fight and a gun to a gun fight if you follow.”

“You bought knives to a super powers fight.” Whitecoat pointed out.

“It’s a metaphor.” The villain grunted.

“It’s a pretty poor one if you consider your shtick.”

“You’re still mouthing off to me? I don’t think you understand—I have the advantage! I hold all the cards!” He pressed to blade a bit closer to Zero’s neck.

“No, you really don’t.” Alloy observed.

“What in the name of God are you talking about?”

“No, he’s right.” Zero said, “You really don’t.” Before the words had fully left her mouth, she bought up her fist and shattered the sword, which she’d been freezing throughout the verbal sparring match.

Before any of the three villains knew what was going on, the prelate had rolled onto her back to deliver a backward kick to Legion’s midsection, sending him stumbling back.

Snarling her surprise, Shine slashed down with her claws, only to have them stopped by a thin shield of dense ice, which Zero then hurled at the woman’s head. Her attention on dodging the throw, Shine didn’t even notice Zero sweep kicking her before she was on the way to the floor.

“Screw this, I’m taking the chance.” Legion stepped forward as Alloy and Whitecoat did the same and grabbed both Shine and Fellgaze.

“You told me you’d never done this before” Shine barked in a warning tone.

“I’ve also never gone to jail before and only one of those two holds any appeal right now.” Legion said, throwing himself and the others backward. Their outlines blurred, then stretched and they were suddenly gone.

“God damn it, that’s twice!” the Whitecoat cursed as the villains disappeared.

“But at least everyone is alright.” Zero consoled him. She rolled into a sitting position. “And the way New York law works, they’ll take our word to heart that Qin was hosting supervillains.”

“Why were you here anyway, sir?” Alloy asked, moving over to check on his sister. “I’ve never heard of you operating outside Brooklyn.”

“Qin is getting the Tongs riled up.” Whitecoat responded, giving Zero a hand up. “And that makes it my business. The real question is ‘why did you guys come up from Mayfield for this?’”

“It’s a very long story, Mr. Whitecoat.” Zero said.

“And we’ll be glad to tell you while we wait for Chaos and Darkness with the police to pick up Stampede.” Alloy added.

Tammy groaned as she woke up. Almost immediately, her hands traveled to her face. “My mask!” she shrieked, sitting bolt upright. She found herself in the back of Laurel’s SUV with her brother sitting next to her.

“Welcome to the land of the living, kid.” Cyn said from the seat in front of her. She was holding an ice pack against her temple.

Halting her search for her mask, Tammy flashed Warrick one of her most winning smiles. “Uh… hi, bro. I didn’t know you were coming home.” She glanced sideways for a bit, looking for some way to get off the hook. When she couldn’t find one, she resorted to her old standby: blame shifting. “You know, mom and dad will be really mad that you didn’t call first.”

“I did call first.” Warrick said flatly. “Mom said you’d already left for the park.”

“Well I was at the Park.”

“I really don’t think she thought you meant Central Park. And she definitely didn’t think you were hanging out with supervillains.”

“Okay, in my defense, I didn’t know they were supervillains until they, you know, started attacking people.” Tammy defended, sitting up into a more comfortable position. “See, I caught this guy who’d broken into a watch shop the other day and he had this card on him advertising ‘unique job opportunities for psionics’ and that sounded like code for ‘prelates’ if I ever heard one, so I went.”

Warrick blinked. “So you thought you were joining a team?”

“Uh, the Whitecoat told you as much.” Cyn broke in. “Remember, he was talking about her leaving calling cards on the hoods she caught? I really don’t think criminals would offer her a job with that kind of track record.” She turned around toward the front of the car “By the way, those calling cards are good idea, we should do that.”

“No.” Alexis replied firmly.

“I don’t know, that sounds pretty cool.” Ian, who was driving said.

“I don’t see what the big deal is.” Tammy pouted, “I have powers now; why can’t I be a prelate?”

“Because it’s dangerous, Tammy.” Warrick said, “Look, I’ve got armor and the boys to protect me. Do you have any of that stuff?”

“No.” Tammy shook her head. “But I make metal stuff shoot lightning. I can knock out guys way faster than you could without Isp and Osp.” She gestured at Cyn. “And she can be a prelate and she doesn’t have armor or tentacles.”

“Cyn regenerates.” Warrick sighed. He was starting to feel really torn; on the one hand, he was in full big brother mode, but on the other, his little sister had manifested powers and that was definitely in his ‘awesome’ column.

“She doesn’t regenerate.” She said, pointing at Juniper who was pretending to read again while clearly listening in on the conversation.

“She’s right.” Juniper said, “I’m pretty shootable. But people always aim for you guys all the time. I guess that’s lucky of me.”

“Well who would you rather shoot? The big, scary metal thing, the gold thing with crazy claws and horns and shit, or the girl in a theatre mask?” Cyn piped up.

“You make a good point.” Juniper said, “I don’t want to be a thing.”

Warrick sighed, trying to cover his smirk at his friends’ conversation. “Look Tammy, there’s a lot of stuff you’ve got to do before you even think about it—the least of which is telling mom and dad. You remember what the Whitecoat told me; you need to train with your powers first or else you’re just another problem for other prelates.”

“But there are no other schools! Not ones we can trust anyway.” Tammy whined, “Come on, you just got lucky finding people that’ll train you and let you be a hero. I still have to go to regular school where if they knew about my powers, they’d tell me never to use them.”

With his heartstrings thoroughly tugged as he himself had to hide what he could do from his other friends; Warrick put an arm around his little sister and hugged her. “It’s pretty tough, isn’t it? But we’ll find a way to deal with it, okay?”

“Really?” Tammy asked, hopeful.

“Really.” Warrick said, aware that everyone else in the car could hear it. “And this is me talking. You know I don’t break promises.”

-- • --

“So mom and dad really weren’t mad at you?” Warrick asked. He was in his room, talking via a messenger program and flipping through a digital catalogue that showed what various formal jackets would look on him. Laurel had offered to pay for all their prom attire, which had led Cyn to immediately search for ‘cloth-of-gold’. Warrick was looking for something far more modestly priced.

“Not really.” Tammy said from her room in New York. She was sitting with her head and shoulders on the bed and the rest of her leaned against the wall. “I’m grounded for a month for lying to them and after seeing what I can do, they said I’m not allowed to use my powers indoors.”

“You convert metal into giant lightning bolts, I’m saying this is a good call.” Warrick replied, rotating an image of him in a dark red jacket on the screen.

“Not like I can do much with it.” Tammy pouted, “You know, besides stunning gangsters and stuff. And now I’m not even allowed to do that. This is so unfair.”

“Mom and dad dropped the hammer on Spark, huh?”

“Not like that’d stop me.” She grinned, displaying the emergent teenaged rebellion that was already giving comfort and support to her natural rebellious state. “I am irrepressible after all.” She heard her brother sigh in preparation to give a speech, but she cut him off. “But – but you’re right, I do need to learn more about my powers first.”

“Good to hear you’re taking my advice.” Warrick said, frowning at the red jacket and switching to one labeled as gunmetal grey.

“Well, seeing as you, mom, dad and the Whitecoat all said the same thing, You can’t all be wrong.” Tammy teased. “The problem is finding someone to teach me. All the schools that send us brochures asking if I’m psionic yet are all pretty scummy—one’s in Jersey.”

“I told you we’d look into it.” Warrick assured her. “Laurel’s even talking to the General to see if the military will start up their old training program now that the Enforcers old job have fallen to Superhuman Intervention.”

“Military school? Ew.” Tammy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t wanna be a soldier, I wanna be a prelate!” She held a hand in the air to envision a marquee, “Talia Coulmni Kaine; the Irrepressible Spark. I’ll also be the only prelate with an adjective!”

“And you’re just going to tell the world your name? What about Tome?”

“Well hurry up and kick Tome’s ass. I don’t want to be all secretive and stuff. I want people to send me letters thanking me and telling me how awesome I am.”

“Believe me, I would kick their asses.” Warrick said, opting for silver cufflinks instead of gold. “If we could find them.”

“You know, I don’t get that part,” Tammy said, “Even with all the trouble they were in, how did the Academy and these Tome guys disappear so quickly anyway?”

“It’s such a beautiful day today, don’t you think?” Brother Wright breezed into the meeting room, carrying a drink tray holding four tall, paper cups of store bought coffee. Whatever his reasons for being so upbeat, they did nothing to penetrate the atmosphere of brooding and discontent that filled the room.

Fellgaze, his head covered in a biker helmet, sat at the far end of the room, quite possibly asleep behind the opaque visor. Legion sat across from him, arms crossed with a sour look on his face. The scabbard on his back was empty. Beside him was Thunderhead, his make-up and prosthetics gone, leaving him looking like the blonde, harried looking teenager that he was. Shine sat at the head of the table, clearly separated from the others. Her expression told Brother to step lively around her.

“Setbacks are a natural part of any new endeavor.” Brother said, drawing on some of the stock phrases he’d cultivated during his stint on television. “Rome, as they say, was not built in a day after all and we can’t expect to hit a homerun every time we go to bat, now can we?” He sat down next the Shine and placed the coffee cups before him on the conference table.

“Losing once is fair.” Thunderhead said sourly, “If you learn something – gain something from it. But this was just sad, man. They didn’t even use their powers in Mayfield and from what I’ve heard, we had prelates I’ve never even heard of showing up in New York. I say we bug out of Atlanta before something worse happens.”

“Bad things come in threes.” Fellgaze nodded, proving he wasn’t asleep.

“So much negativity.” Wright clucked, shaking his head. He selected one of the coffee cups from the holder and slid it over to Thunderhead. “Would you feel better knowing that even with these ‘sad’ losses, we’ve gained something, Mr. Dodd?”

“What have we gained?” Thunderhead asked, accepting the drink, but not sampling it. “What? The knowledge that the Descendants can beat us at half manpower and powerless? That I was right and an open casting call for our criminal enterprise was a goddamn bad idea?!”

“The auditions were pretty atrocious.” Legion agreed. “Not just in concept, but in turn out. Hughes here,” he gestured to Fellgaze, “was a good acquisition, but now Van Ashe, Stampede is in prison; possibly looking at a trip to Braddock Island for a few years, and we dragnetted a junior prelate.”

Brother nodded as he passed a cup to Legion. “I agree, I was disappointed in that. Ideally, the team would be six.” He sat back and regarded the four. “Currently, we have two light hand to hand combatants, and two mentalists of varying degrees. We need range and strength badly.” He nodded to Legion, “But we at least have transportation.”

Shine shook her head vigorously. “He is not transportation.” Her eyes narrowed and tracked between Brother and Legion, “We’ve been over this, broken bones are not an acceptable price to pay for the quick escape.”

“The Potentia healed you back to perfectly hail and healthy condition.” Brother offered, using his own name for the extract of Facsimile’s blood they were using.

“It still hurts like hell.” Shine snarled, “And an arm is one thing, but what if it was my spine? That blood is good at patching people up, but it’s not going to bring me back from the dead.”

“I explained that it’ll just require some training.” Legion defended, “When I first gained my powers, I had trouble with conserving my own momentum and I’ve never had to compensate for the weight of two other people before.”

“Stow it, Lancaster.” Shine snapped. Irately, she snatched a cup of coffee from the holder. “You almost killed us!”

“I kept you from getting a trip to the Island.” Legion pointed out.

“Is it any wonder why we failed?” Fellgaze asked from within his helmet. “It’s nothing but a grand melee! We fight for ourselves and don’t’ give a damn about how the others come out.”

“That brings up a concern I’ve got.” Thunderhead, said raising a finger in Fellgaze’s general direction. “You don’t have any control at all, right?” Fellgaze nodded, “Now, I’m not going to say that it’s a bad power or weak in any way. It would take me probably an hour to drive someone down like that and it would wear off faster – but what’s keeping use from being friendly fired, Pete?”

Peter Hughes, Fellgaze, shook his head. “Honestly, not a damn thing. The only thing I can do is promise to be careful.”

“Oh that’s extremely reassuring.” Shine rolled her eyes.

Before the inevitable bickering began, Wright held up a hand. “Now, wait just a moment, friends. Mr. Hughes is right on this. Part of why you didn’t succeed is because you didn’t work as a unit – as a team.”

The last cup was slid toward Fellgaze, followed by a straw so he could drink without opening the helmet’s visor. “But that’s just the start of it.” Brother said. “The other part is that you didn’t have a goal in mind besides following orders.”

“Isn’t that your job as boss?” Legion asked.

A whimsical smile crossed Brother’s face. “I don’t consider myself your boss as much as your advisor, or partner.” He put an arm around Shine, but she ignored him. The arm was swiftly withdrawn. He’d learned after several minor lacerations. “But really, if we examine things closely, we all have goals that are being met just by being here, don’t we?”

With a sweeping gesture, he indicated Thunderhead. “Christopher Dodd, you can’t tell me that this is worse than being on the run from Project Tome or stuck eeking out a pathetic on the road existence like the other youngsters that shared the *ahem* facilities with you in Florida. You’ve tasted what you can be now; manipulating Tong underbosses, using your powers for your own gain? Do you want to give that up now? The government will have you ‘correcting’ mental patients for forty thousand dollars a year.”

Another gesture brought his attention to Legion. “Scott Lancaster, you’ve been a mercenary for what? Eight years now? The Tongs were the best job you’ve had in half a decade and they hurled ethnic insults at you all the time. Once they’d mustered more steady help, where would you have gone? Back to Brazil to help the European vultures pick the bones off plague corpses? Back to the Ukraine to help another anthill dictator set up another five day regime? I think it’s time you were your own boss.”

Not giving Legion time to reply, Wright moved on to Fellgaze. “And Peter Hughes… why are you here, I wonder? You’ve got no criminal record, no known history of violence, in fact, except for your psionic gift, you are wholly unremarkable. But yes, the gift… I’ve seen the Academy files on cases like yours. They’re designated NCU – No Civilian Uses. There’s nothing they can exploit you for domestically, so if you wanted to legally get money for using your ability… well you’d have to become a living weapon for the government wouldn’t you? And honestly, what other job could you get that would allow for an opaque eye guard as a standard of dress? None that I know of… well, no legal ones. But there are groups – like ours, that could definitely use your firepower and will provide you with a more wieldy mechanism to employ it with.”

Skipping over Shine, Brother held a hand to his own chest. “As for me, I vowed no so long ago never again to become some faceless tool to short sighted men with no understanding of the eccentricities of the animal human or the value of out society mind. As it turns out, I’m very lucky – there are some very rich people willing to invest in my theories and philosophy of mutual benefit.”

“Mutual benefit.” Legion echoed. He said it as a sentence, but it had all the hallmarks of a question.

“The idea that anything I ask you to do or ask you to do on behalf of another will also advance your own goals. Money is all well and good as networking is essential, but nothing motivates and gets better results than both parties enjoying the consequences of an action.” Brother said with the speed and fluidity of generations of snake oil salesmen.

“Screwing up in Mayfield and getting trashed in NYC didn’t help anyone.” Thunderhead countered.

“Really?” Brother looked shocked. “Perhaps we were watching separate events unfold. Or perhaps you need to look into the macro instead of the micro, Chris.” He ignored the bewildered and affronted look he got for that.

“We learned many things during those two forays. Maybe not what I originally intended when I asked you to carry them out, but this knowledge is still useful. For example, maybe we didn’t lure Liedecker’s new mercenaries out in Mayfield, but we did find an undocumented and completely untapped technopath in Martin Hill – proof positive that there are psionics out there that the government and by extension Tome doesn’t know about. Psionics that no one will be expecting if someone were to… persuade them to our side?” he gave Thunderhead a pointed look.

“You know where there are others?” Thunderhead asked.

“Not yet.” Brother shrugged, but with time and with the Theta based tracking systems some of our independent labs have provided, we will and you’ll be first to know, Mr. Dodd. You thought being Johnny Qin was a joy? Imagine if you had a gang of psionics at you side.”

Brother smiled. He knew he had Dodd hooked and the others would soon follow, if only for the fact that he was the only one currently offering partnership instead of simple employment. It was his dissolution of half Project Tome’s research arm all over again.

“But,” he continued, “We’ll have time to cross that bridge when we come to it. Right now, we need to shore up our numbers. Like I said, six is the ideal number in my mind.”

“So we need one more?” Fellgaze asked.

“Two more, actually.” Brother noted. “In case you all haven’t noticed, I am non-powered. I’m a regular, average man who sole strength is his address book and wealthy sponsors. So unless you have tactical need for Wallet-Man in the field, we need two more members. Fortunately, I’ve got that well in hand.”

“Then who are they? Anyone we would know? More ex-Enforcers?” Legion motioned toward Shine.

“Ms. Wilkins was the only worthwhile member of that entire organization, I’m afraid.” Brother said, tentatively putting a hand on her shoulder. She let it remain there with a hungry sounding purr. “And most psionics are either already under government contract or untrained children. So we go a third route: Science.”

“Potentia.” Thunderhead correctly ascertained. “You’re going to use Facsimile’s blood to manufacture our other two members.”

“Partially correct.” Brother nodded, “Though only a handful of the many, many volunteers from the gangsters we recruited in Georgia are showing any promise. Out of them, I only project one being the kind of person our little cabal needs.”

“Then where’s the other one coming from?” Thunderhead asked, counting out on his fingers, “Not psionic, not homebrewed, what’s left? An interfacer?”

Brother gave an enigmatic smile that the other members of the group (sans Shine) were beginning to dread. “A cyborg? Again, Mr. Dodd, you’re half right.”

End Issue #20