Sisterhood (Worm)

[Alterego9]

Crossposting from Spacebattles.

Instead of Glory Girl's canon interlude where she knocked out some thug, things go a bit more wrong, upsetting the lives of herself, and her sister.

Index:
Chapter 1 (this)
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
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Chapter 1
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Ribs, lung, muscle, skin, teeth. With all of them put back to their place, and no excessive internal bleeding that would be too messy to fix, I still had enough time to clean out the rest of the ward through this session, unless any more urgent cases were thrown at me.

"Thank you, Panacea. I already feel much better." said the girl, with a fake smile. Of course, given the way she got those kind of injuries, they must have hurt her in ways that I couldn't help even if I were willing to. It's all right.

"I'm glad I could help... Andrea." I replied routinely, only fumbing at reading her name from her record, but this time with a smile of encouragement that was not entirely fake. In spite of my sense of apathy growing with every day, it still moved something in me whenever I could use my powers to counter human evil. Curing cancer, heart diseases, and all the rest, sometimes felt like trying to empty the sea with a bucket, fighting against the way human bodies all inevitably break down. But when I was cleaning up after Endbringers, villainous capes, or even just everyday racist thugs like in this case, it always felt almost like if I were out there with the actual heroes, holding back the tide, making a difference.

Of course, the distinction was silly, thousands were dying from war and crime in every hour, just as certainly as they were dying from any organ failure or infection. But hey, who was I to complain? If at least some stupid bias of my brain finally gave me a break, and allowed me feel like a decent human being for a change, I would gladly take that.

"So, did anyone at least identify that nazi?", Andrea asked with a casual indifference that could have been either genuine or forced. "Honestly, I don't even care all that much if they catch him, but I really hate thinking that it will just all get swept under the rug, as yet another day in Brockton Bay, barely worth filing the paperwork. At least an arrest warrant would make him squirm."

"If I understood things correctly, my... Glory Girl is after him in hot pursuit. It will be taken care of." I replied, with a burst of pride that overshadowed even the annoyance that I would have normally felt about being held back on a single patient's whims, while I could have spent my time finishing up the ward. "She is no Great Detective, but if she got her target, the bastard won't know what hit him".

My phone began to ring just as I finished the sentence, the ringtone marking a New Wave member.

"Hey, Ames! Could you help me out with this case I've been, umm... working on?" She opened cheerfully. With a quick guess of exactly what kind of help she might be asking for, I stepped outside to the corridor and asked back quitely, with a less natural tone than hers :

"Oh, of course. You need me to ask some information from the victim?" At this point I still kind of hoped that really that's what she called me for.

"No, I've found the guy. He's here with me in the third alley opening from your left of Vikare Street. That's what I need your help with." She said confirming my fears, while technically leaving them unsaid.

"Are you... again! You can't just... All right, look. Just don't move him, I'm on my way." I quickly confirmed that none of the other patients at the ward are in immediate danger, then hurried down to the main entrance of the building. As I reached the outside, I slowed down a bit. The address she gave me was five minutes of running from the hospital. A few minutes more would hardly matter for the skinhead, but maybe it would give Victoria a bit more opportunity to look at the consequences of her actions, and think through her attitude. I returnedd to a jog right before the alley's corner. And there was my sister, impatiently walking up and down right next to an unconscious, bruised skinhead's form, and a dumpster with a skinhead-shaped dent in it.

"Well, congratulations on solving the case, Glory Girl." My usage of her name was dripping with the kind of sarcasm that emphasized the alley's distinct lack of anything glorious. "The citizens of Brockton Bay can finally be at peace knowing that no criminals are about to jump them in an alley and beat them senseless."

"Oh, shuddup, it's not the same thing." She said, theatrically waving her hand as if to push away an insect. "I'm sorry that I went overboard, if for nothing else, then because now we can't property arrest him, but don't waste your time making me sorry for the racist bastard. He had beaten an innocent girl for being black. I'm keeping the streets safe. Now patch him up, maybe at least he can tell us something about the Empire's plans."

"Oh, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't patch him up at all." I said with a straight face.

"Hey, come on, don't even joke about that!" She sounded a bit scared now, or at least concerned enough to start spreading her aura to support her in convincing me. "We are not taking about getting grounded here, I'm pretty sure this mess was several shades of illegal." If this goes into the legal system, Mom might even help me somehow to walk away from it without going to juvie, but the media scandal alone would still wreck New Wave. Is that what you want?"

You have no idea, Vicky.

I shuddered at the fantasy of New Wave broken, through no fault of my own, giving me an excuse to stay away from the public and rest, at least for a while, and of Mom acknowledging that she has been barking up at the wrong daughter all along, coddling the unhinged brute and burdening the responsible healer. Two birds with one stone, my two biggest problems solved simply by letting this dangerous criminal deal with whatever injuries he has, the normal way.

Well, two of my biggest problems.

As she grabbed my hands pleadingly, her aura grew stronger through touch. Still just a weak tingle, not strong enough to influence me the way she would expect it to influence anyone else, but along with the actual sisterly skinship itself, even a mild hint of it's effect was enough to remind me of my own deeper, unrelated reasons to keep Victoria pleased. Those reasons were enough that every other personal desire and moral argument paled next to them.

"All right, but this is the last time. And I mean it."

As I crouched down to the unconscious body laying on the ground, I felt something terribly wrong even in the quick moment between touching him, and activating my power. My analysis running beyond the cooling skin that I touched, just confirmed my first fear.

"Victoria, he is dead."

"Heh. Good one, Sis, that scared the shit out of me for a moment. And you say you are 'not messing with brains'?"

"Victoria!" I said with panic creeping into my voice "He is dead. Has been before I arrived."

"But he moved just after you touched him!"

"No, he didn't. This is a corpse."

While I was pointlessly intensifying my scan, bringing up nothing more useful than an increasingly detailed map of the fatal injuries, I was trying to turn my eyes away from Victoria with a sense of nausea. Regardless of this, I could easily guess what she would have been doing: The same thing as me, turning a hundred and eighty degrees away from me and the body, desperately trying to erease the reality around us.

"No, no, no. Fuck no! No. It can't be that simple. The body is still whole, you can always just restart the organs one by one, right, Amy?"

"It doesn't work that way. He has been lying here for several minutes without a heartbeat. The oxygen loss alone has wrecked the brain and the mind in it. I can't..."

She interrupted me: "Come on, Ames, we both know you really can work with brains, please, this is really not one of those blurry lines! If he stays dead, they will definitely put me away for this, and besides, he stays dead. How is that a dilemma?"

"That's not it. I can't. My power lets me modify all of his brain cells, but I can't recreate lost brain data out of nothing. At best I could just reanimate his corpse, but that would lead back to us pretty quickly. He is gone."

"All right. All right. So What do we do with this?"

"What do we do??? This is your mess, Victoria. I... I warned you half a dozen times about exactly this! Did you honestly expect that I will just pull a card out of my sleeve and raise the dead for you? Well, I can't do that's so I guess that already makes me your accomplice, right?"

Great. Here we are, with the body still warm, and we are already blaming each other. Apparently I have no room for sisterly love, nor for the other kind, when I have to save my own skin. Is this who I am when the chips fall down?

The only thing that had hurt more than my own cowardice, was my hypocricy. Obviously, this really was our shared mess. I might not the the one in legal trouble, but it was my fault too.If I hurried a bit more instead of teaching Victoria a lesson, the guy would be only one or two minutes beyond breathing, that's fixable even without touching the brain. We just killed a man. I toyed with his life just as indifferently as Victoria must have been toying with it based on all these bruises. And now everything was over.

Victoria interrupted the realization of my own guilt with scared backtracking: "Oh, wait, no! I didn't want to imply... Fuck, I'm asking you, help me! I mean, What comes next? Should I call Mom? The cops? The Protectorate?"

I couldn't really answer. I had some minimal familiarity with the law where it related to my own powers, but nothing like this. After we were we were both quietly thinking about this for a minute that felt like an hour, I was just about to suggest to call Mom, when Victoria seemed to have her own sudden realization:

"Fuck, no, i can't go on a murder trial! I just can't! With a Master rating on my file, they wouldn't even give me a chance, and forget about allowing Mom to defend me. That's definitely a Birdcage sentence coming my way."

I won't allow that!

This burst of entirely unfounded determination made me stand up and face Vicky again, running up to her from behind and embracing her in a hug. I quickly considered sedating her just enough to stop her from flying away and doing something stupid, but then decided against it as I thought that maybe I wanted her to fly away while she could.

"Don't panic. This looks bad right now, but there is no reason to expect the worst. They give three strike treatment even to villainous capes with murder records, there is no way that they would throw the book at you just for a mistake."

"Tell that to that Canary girl! Fuck, I remember even you were going on a rant about her, on how recklessness is just as bad as cruelty, when mind control is on the table. It will be the same issue with my aura, even if it has nothing to do with... this. People are really paranoid about the safety of their minds."

"We have to hope for the best. Besides, do you have any better idea? Hide the body in a dumpster, and hope that no one identifies the cause of death as "Pummeled by a Brute right while Glory Girl was looking for him?" Or you would just fly over to a major villain group, like the Ambassadors, and set up a new life under their protection while I'm stalling the cops?"

As I was going over these three possibilities, I started to honestly realize for the first time that in either case, I seriously have a high chance of losing Vicky forever. We really can't go to the public with this. Even if I tried to put my own selfish desires to rest, that path had the highest chance of her ending up locked up in a pit of monsters. Unacceptable. Running away would guarantee her freedom almost certainly, and I could even go away with her, but it would mean a lifetime of hiding or villainy, confirming all of Mom's fears, and pushing me towards using more of my more disturbing powers to survive.

We needed a way to remain heroes, to take this one last chance to straighten our lives, and do some good that can make up for the bad. Or at least to tell ourselves that we are able do that.

Another glance at Victoria, by now with tears in her eyes and with her hands shaking, and my mind was made up.

"All right, Victoria, I think I have decided on something that we can do." I said, and I crouched down next to the body again. As I was touching it, it's whole mass began to turn into a pile of cockroaches, beginning with the toes, moving up to the head, and finishing with the patch of skin on the neck that I was touching. Most of them instantly dispersed, with enough following my special instinctive order to start tearing apart all the fabric remaining around them, and carry away the pieces into every direction.

Three minutes later, only the two of us were standing in the alley, with Victoria now crying openly, while I was staring with a terrified fascination at the last few cockroaches skittering away.
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[Alterego9]

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Chapter 2
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The next few days crawled forward more slowly than any time in my life before. With every action I took, moral contemplations and self-loathing criticisms zig-zagged across my mind. For every sentence I spoke to others, I played dozens of variations in advance, carefully running through their possible implications. Both of these were still more bearable than the longer empty stretches of time: the walk to school, the more boring classes, the minutes of staring at the ceiling before falling asleep, slowly stretching into hours.

On Monday, I first tried to stay in the hospital longer than usual, but the Dr. Petrovich, my current supervisor, reminded me of my time limit after the obligatory three hours. As if he cared about my well-being at all! Not that I could blame him. If any critical cases would have arrived through the rest of the day, they could have died just because I wasn't there long enough. In what world does this make sense, to legally secure a single teenage girl's "stress-free" environment at the price of regular human deaths?

By tuesday, I figured out how circumvent the regulation by asking around school for requests. Hospital shifts can be limited, but there is no rule against me visiting my friend Dennis's family, not even after I just happened to learn about his father's cancer relapse, or my classmate Penny, whose grandmother is blind, or half a dozen more.

I still struggled to actually care about any of them, but I was more determined than ever, to at least pretend. In the end it only matters what I do, not how I feel about it.
I was enough of an introvert, that my parents instantly noticed when I started arriving at home later. It's not even that they minded it. Or if they did, then at least they realized that they have no right to complain too much about it while barely paying attention to Vicky's coming and going. Still, just the fact that it was a noticeable change, meant that I had to make up even more excuses and half-truths.

As I was arriving home on Wednesday night, Vicky, sitting in the diner over an empty plate, noticed me first. "Hi, Amy. I just wanted to show you something!" she said cheerfully, but with her eyes, she meant: My room. Now.

"All right, let's go" I croaked with a lump in my throat, and started following her. Maybe I've misread her, maybe she just wants to talk about our feelings again. We did that quite frequently in the past days, after all, staying in silence couldn't have been any easier for her than for me.
My hopes were dashed as soon as she locked her room's door behind herself, and whispered: "They identified him as Andrea's attacker. The skinhead, I mean. Will Simpson. That's his name. Was. There is already a missing person report filed for him."

"Damn. That was fast. And how do you even know that? You already promised that you won't be snooping around the case. That's the worst kind of risk for you right now."

"Yes... I mean, no, I didn't. It's worse than that. In their interview with Andrea, it came up from her that I was supposed to be pursuing him. They just called me up about it. I tried to downplay it, said that I really just walked into the crime scene by chance, then took a few circles around it in the air."

"That's not that bad, right?" I tried to convince myself. "They just asked you as a fellow crimefighter to match their records, right? Not even as a witness."

"I thought of that too. God, I hope so. It still feels like this whole thing is about to collapse on top of me. Maybe it's time that we start matching our own stories in a way that I won't drag you down. We could either say that you were Mastered, but then their instruments might prove that my Aura isn't really that direct, or we could say that I threatened you or something, but I'm still not sure how much of a legal excuse or exculpatory circumstance that is".

"Victoria, you have already been thinking about this a lot, right? Don't worry, it will be fine." I said, while stepping closer to hug her. "It won't get this far."

"Yeah, off course I looked up a few options. There is no way I'm taking you down with me, sis."

"I stiffened while hugging her "Uhh... Looked up? Please, Victoria, tell me our home IP address is not connected to a bunch of search results about how to claim circumstancial excuses against murder."

She furrowed her brow for a moment, then covered her mouth with a hand. "Shitfuck. I... err, I have no idea. If I just Googled for 'Wikipedia', then jumped across a few links in there. Do those still count as IP adresses? Anyways, even if they do, I could have been plausibly looking those up for myself. If they were checking my browsing history, then I would already seven shades of screwed by that point anyways, right? "

"It doesn't matter, they won't get to that far anyways. And if they do, I'll owe up to what did as well." I reassured her once again.

"What you did? You were just trying to protect me! All right, it's a bit sweet how you are trying to share all this crap with me, but it's really not the same thing. You failed to get to an injured person in time. That must happen all the time in the hospital. But I killed a man!"

"Well, it is the same for me. For years, I have been afraid that I would go too far, that I mess with someone's brain, or that I accidentally kill instead of heal. This just confirmed all my concerns, and all the concerns that people have about my power. I can't be that girl, who runs around healing people at her own pleasure, on her own terms."

"And why the hell not?" She asked, with a fake teasing tone covering her nervousness. "Even if you would make mistakes half the time, you would still be a great force of good for this town, and for this world. I don't think I have ever truly saved anyone's life at all. There were a few muggings that may or may not have gone awry without me, I gave the Simurgh a punch in the face that might have helped somewhere down the line, and I guess that Demonicon idiot woud have ended up killing some people, but nothing direct like with you. I would love to go out and use my power to make up for what happened, but all I can do is punch things real hard, and that's what got me in this mess the first place, right?"

She laughed out at her own insensitiveness, while on the verge of crying. "But you? If you ever had any fault in it to begin with, then you are making up for that every day. Hell, you could go out and immolate a schoolbus full of children, and you would still be a hero."

I cringed at that. "I don't think it works that way, Victoria." With her simple outline of the problem, she just laid out one of my biggest problems in the open. "When I can save lives with every hour of my time, then just failing to save people can be as bad as killing them. I've already felt that way for a while, what happened just reminded me of it. íi can't afford to be late to for another patient, just to prove some inane point to you. I can't be taking risks. I can't really just read a silly novel, or go dating boys..."

"Hah, so that's what it's all about! All this talk about guilt, and morality, was just a build-up to your excuse for cancelling the thing for Saturday? Well, no such luck. You are coming." She teased.

Thanks for reminding me of that. I wouldn't even truly mind dating some guys, as long as they truly just want a dinner and a movie. After all, Vicky does have a knack for matching me with appropriately reserved boys, so really, I can just treat such 'dates' as some baby steps towards socializing with friends.

The double dates are a lot less bearable, for obvious reasons. It's one thing that I have to keep staring at Vicky and Dean actually being intimate right in front of my face. I never had illusions about how much more they must be doing behind closed doors, so really, it barely even stings. What's worse, is how obvious it is that they are truly crazy for each other, and not just in a shallow, 'hormonal teenager' way. I don't need Dean's powers to notice how much happier they get in each other's presence, how sincerely they pay attention to every word that the other one speaks... ugh.

Speaking of which...

"Speaking of which, have you met up with Dean since Sunday, Vicky?"

"No, I'm still thinking about that. I guess I will have to make up some excuse for why there is a massive black cloud of guilt following me, or at least hope that he will be polite enough to ignore it. Just to be safe, I have been avoiding him until I can think of something."

"Great, so now he will see you for the first time when you are with me, on Saturday, with both of us having the exact same guilt signature. 'Cause that won't be revealing at all."

"All right, you are right. That would be bad. But there is no way you will cancel your date with Brett because of that. I'll just meet up with Dean tomorrow, and convince him that the two of us go someplace else. This way you probably won't meet him for a few more days. If he asks me while it's only the two of us, I can just make something up. But he won't. Who knows, maybe it's not even that visible, I mean, really, I feel fine."

Who are you kidding, sis? Even I can see a big black cloud of guilt floating around you.

 

[Alterego9]

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Chapter 3
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It was during next day's lunch break, that I decided to slip out of school and pick up some of my money from the 'Central. It was close enough that I could probably get back in time for class, and even if I didn't, I had enough justified emergency leaves that probably no one in the school bothered to confirm all of them, easier for them to just assume that me, Victoria and the Wards wouldn't be cutting class without reason.

I still ended up hurrying rather quicky, switching between jogging and fast walking. I don't think I will ever feel comfortable with casually breaking even the kind of rules that no one else takes seriously, there will always be this little voice in the back of my head going on about how maybe I misjudged the rule's seriousness, and I'm about to get in big trouble. Of course, my recent not-so-insignificant rule breaking didn't help the matters either, as now my risk-averse mind could keep me in line with even scarier visions of how even a pirated movie, a copied exam, or a free ride on the bus, would somehow snowball into the kind of investigation that would snowball into calling Master/Stranger protocols over me, that would snowball into uncovering the secret that could put me and Victoria in prison.

As I arrived at the bank, I was pleased to see that there were few enough people in line that I might get back to school in time. Then, just before I could even stand in a line, suddenly hundreds of spiders started to flood the lobby, coming from the direction of a side door. Flies and other flying insects followed them from the ceiling. As the fourty or so customers started panicking, it became clear that the spiders were herding them, away from the main exit or the side door, and into the corners. I had no rational reason to be afraid of spiders, I could easily kill them as soon as they touched me, but expecting that capes are about to follow them, I decided to follow the crowd rather than stick out of it.

I didn't have to wait much. A sudden wave of darkness covered the lobby, like a smoke, but thicker and somehow more real. It went as quickly as it did, half a minute later, but by the time it did, two bear-sized monsters stood in the main exit on four legs, and a third was standing next to the vault, next to five villains. I recognized them as the "Undersiders", an obscure team of robbers and troublemakers.

Their leader was Grue, the darkness generator. I also recognized Hellhound, the one who could control their three beasts, essentially serving as their Brute-Master, and Regnant, who served as some sort of minor telekinetic or other ranged support. I can't remember him ever causing any injuries that I healed, so he can't be that bad. The blonde bitch I couldn't recall by name, but I knew she was seen at earlier operations and didn't cause much harm either. Maybe she was their leader? The only member I didn't recognize at all was the one obviously responsible for the swarm of spiders, as evident from her black and grey costume's theme with mandibles and chitin-like armor. She was the one who spoke up first:

"Calm down, everybody, this is just a bank robbery. In fifteen minutes, we will be out of here, the good guys come in, and you can all go home, if you manage to keep your head down until then. If you don't, I will know about it. So really, don't try to be a hero, you would only hurt yourself or others, to save some of your bank's property." She held up a spider, a Black Widow, dangling from a thread. "I have full control of these little ones, and I have at least one on each of you. If you start misbehaving, I will know it instantly, and I can make them give you a deadly bite in a second. So don't."

I couldn't feel a spider on my skin normally, but as I flexed my power, I indeed felt a living organism on the nape of my neck.

Don't be a hero, huh? Well, you have a problem here, Undersiders, because being a hero is exactly what I just committed to be.

Finally, here was my chance to kick some villainous ass, like the rest of my family, instead of just placating myself with improving Brockton Bay's mortality statistics. But what could I do exactly? Three of the Undersides showed open skin surfaces, so I I could have knocked those out with a touch, if I got to them, and I could neutralize the new girl's bugs. But that would have still left me with two villains to physically restrain, one of being quite a big man.

Besides, even if I could have protected myself from bugs, they would have still held everyone else hostage. I would have to get creative with my power.

Let's see, Bug Bitch said she can sense her bugs being moved. But how exactly is she moving that? It sounds lika Master power, but maybe it's a deceptive Shaker, moving chitin like Shatterbird moves silica or Parian moves textile. We had a Bio-Shaker like that back in the Bad Old Days, a villain who was impervious to all our Master protocols because he was actually moving the bones of his puppets, not their minds.

That could screw me here too, if it turns out that she still controls dead bugs, or that she can sense their position even after their senses are muted. On the other hand, if Bug Bitch is a generic animal-Master, taking over their minds, I may have an opening. I can control minds too, and I will control the mind of a little spider if that helps me here.

Let's see, how to test this?

The Undersiders have just finished emptying the vault while I was contemplating this, and experimentally started analyzing the spider's biology. Now they were peeking out the front windows, apparently preparing for a showdown with the Wards.

That's good, I can just neutralize my own target, and let the heavy hitter good guys worry about all the physical restraining.

At that moment, I seriously considered taking out my phone and texting Victoria for help before they could attack me.

I decided against it for two reasons. First of all, remembering our latest discussion, Glory Girl wouldn't be much help in a fight nowadays. She would keep second guessing her every move. Where I recently felt the need to punch vilains in the face, she felt a need to stay in the background. Besides, even if I had enough time to send the message, she wouldn't arrive soon enough to break apart this particular fight. This one was on my shoulders.

So first thing, I neutralized my spider's venom, ejecting it all and filling it's venom glands with harmless liquids. In case I'm wrong about everything, she still couldn't make it bite me with anything.

As the rest of the Undersiders and their beasts started moving alongside, right after a dozen randomly picked hostages, she started pulling her bugs outside too, other then the few that were on the remaining hostages. This was my chance. I started rewiring the spider's senses in every way I could think of. Warped it's own space perception, and time perception, multiplied the sense of it's own body to trick it it into feeling hundreds of copies of itself, then gave it extreme visuals that couldn't even fit it's field of view, in higher resolution than it's brain was handled to interpret.

The result was instantenous. Bug Bitch was turning around from the window where she observed the battle, making a surprised sound. I grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall next to me, and started to run towards her with it. At the middle of the distance, I suddently changed direction, and jumped towards the blonde girl, the only other one who stayed behind in the building. She showed skin, so I should take her first, obviously.

My fake out must have been more transparent then I thought, because she easily dodged my swing, and jumped behind a counter. She cried out: "Striker!"

The other girl started running towards me, and tackled me to the floor without much tactic, and apparently without understanding the other's warning about my power classification. She might have been taller than me, but obviously not a Brute, or really anything else than an ordinary teenage girl. So I quickly gained enough distance that we were facing off against each other again.

"My powers!" She groaned! "Did you take them? Are you a cape? What did you do?"

"Just a little balancing of the playing field" I grinned. "You lunatics were so brave about terrorizing a bunch of unpowered hostages! Well, how does it feel to be just as unpowered as them? You can't swarm me, your friend can't even get close to me, so the two of us can finish this, one on one."

I lunged forward, grabbing her right hand as it would have reaced for a knife at her belt, and grabbing her throat with my left. After a few seconds of struggling, I managed to slip one finger behind her ear, reaching skin. Moments later, she was falling unconscious.
I noticed the other girl pointing a gun at me, right after her limp body fell on the floor. She said:

"Sorry, Panacea, I have to correct you on the level playing field thing. I don't have to touch you to take you down. And I'm not talking about this gun, either. In fact, I don't even need to be on the same hemisphere. So pretty please, wake up Bug, and let us go." I froze, furrowing my brows considering what power she could refer to, and whether it was really more of an imminent threat than the gun.

She went on: "All heroes have their great weaknesses. Vikare was taken down with a metal pipe to the head, Hero was taken down by an infinitely powerful Brute, Sphere was taken down by mindfuckery, and so on."

"And which of these are you supposed to represent, you terrorist?"

"If you really want to put labels on it, I hold the weak point of all heroes: the knowledge of all secrets, everything that makes you weak. Basically, think of it as me being a psychic. "

God, let that be a bluff.

"That's nonsense! True psychics don't exist! The neural data that..."

"Then don't think of me as a true psychic, I guess." She shrugged. "The point is, that I see everything going on in your head. In fact, I have prepared for situations like this by figuring out all the secrets of all capes in the Bay, just as a contingency. Amy girl, your family is one big emotional weak point." She literally licked her lips at that.

"There are all sorts of fascinating secrets in there. Carol's secrets from you, for one thing. Have you never wondered, why thy felt all right with admitting that you are adopted, but not who was your father?" She was obviously stalling now, but that was fine with me, I had as much chance to hope for a cavalry as she did. I kept up with the unpleasant discussion about my family:

"Oh, that? I've figured that out years ago. He must have been a supervillain."

Yeah, that's the boring part. The interesting part is, that he is still alive, in the Birdcage. Do you want to know who it is? Exactly why Carol has been so secretive about it?"

"Even if you tell me, then what? I'm supposed to crumple on the floor from the knowledge, and let you walk away?"

She's definitely bluffing. That sounds more like Thinker detective work, or maybe a Tinker's digital record-gathering, than mind-reading. If I get out of this with some family drama, and with some increased fear of myself, that's a bargain. I would rather take down these two, than keep the remains of my sense of normalcy.

"Actually, I was expecting you to let us escape before I was forced to say it. Oh, well, you will have that option in the next round. Anyways, the correct answer was 'Marquis'. As in the mass murdering bio-manipulator obsessed with his meaningless moral code."

Fuck. That description was scary specific. There is no way she figured out my fears with just detective work.

Blonde Bitch went on. "So, let's move on to round two, the dirty laundry. Your and Victoria's secret from the rest of the world. It's not what I tell you that will finish you, but what I tell with everyone else. Even if you walk away from that scandal, she would get crucified, if the public ever connects it to her Master powers..."

"Stop! I will wake her up. If you never talk about the accident, you can go wherever you want."

Blonde Bitch seemed to be caught by surprise by my answer, opened her mouth, then just nodded.

There is my lesson about trying to be a hero. I would have been better off not even trying, they would probably still be running, and at least I wouldn't feel I just made a deal with the devil.

At that moment, Regnant ran back through the front door.

"Fuckadoodle, girls! We are getting hammered out there." Then he paused at the scene of one of is allies just waking up, while the other held me at gunpoint. He continued, unfazed:

"Clockblocker got Grue and two dogs, before getting stuck with the second. Half the Wards are working on Bitch with the remaining dog, while the other half surround the building. So, if you have any Plan B..."
She waved the gun at the back door from where they came first, then at me: "Back to the offices! Panacea, you come too."

The four of us walked there, Bug Bitch last, probably still dizzy from the sudden appearance and disappearance of sedatives in her system.

"Hey, Tattletale, you heard the part where I said the building is surrounded?"

Tattletale just grinned. "We are not escaping that way, we just needed to be out of the hostages' sight. You and I are getting arrested."

The bug girl started panicking. "What? Are you sure? I'm getting my power back, maybe we could rush through..."

Tattletale shaked her head. "Not all three of us, and not without the dogs. We have to prepare for Grue's and Bitch's jailbreak too, and for that, we need you to be free, so we can't risk a run."

"Me? You are the one to crack security systems! Not that I'm opposed to stying free, if you have a plan, but I can't even begin..."

Tattletale replied: "My plan is that you take off your costume, and pretend to be a hostage while Bug just teleported away. Or let's say that she turned into a swarm and flew away. My face is too recognizeable without a mask, to pull off that trick."

Ok, why am I here listening to this?

Tattletale went on: "Besides, we need Panacea here to stay motivated to assist you. I've just blackmailed her while you were out. She lets us escape, I won't ruin her life. As long as I am personally in custody, she has more reasons to break in, then to stab us in the back."

I raised voice at that for a moment, before lowering it to a whisper: "What? That was about surrendering the fight against you, not about committing crimes for you!"

"So, Glory Girl goes to the Birdcage, that's it, huh? Or will you help us out?"

"How would I help in a jail break anyways? I'm a healer!"

Yeah, like I'm a psychic. No such thing as real healers, the concept doesn't even make sense. Bodies don't have a single 'healed' default, they can only be modified. I'm not asking you to turn people into your mindless minions, or to release a flesh-eating plague, but at the very least you could do as much as Bitch, but with more versatility."

No. That's just... wrong.

Wronger than Vicky going to prison?

Yes. This is just getting worse and worse. How much more of my values can I give up, because it sounds reasonable at the time?

This is not just my decision. Agree now, then talk with Victoria before doing anything irreversible.

"All right. Now hurry. Bug Bitch can stay, you two should try to make a run for it at the back door.You might even escape anyways."

As the other two left the room, she said: Umm, could you not call me that? I mean, I don't like you either, but it's also confusing with a Bitch already on the team."

"Whatever. Just what's your cape name anyways? Simply 'Bug'?"

I haven't really picked one yet. My top contender before the robbery was 'Myriad'. "

"All right, Myriad, the heroes might be coming in a minute. You should get out of the costume. Leave the talking to me.

 

[Alterego9]

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Chapter 4
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Ten seconds after the two villains left the room, Myriad was still just standing around, appearing a bit lost.

"Hurry, we have about one minute before the wards arrive! Get out of the costume!"

"But you are a hero! What about my secret identity? I can't just show my face!"

"There is no time for that know. I swear, I will not use your civilian identity against you. I can keep a secret, I already hold plenty of them through doctor-patient confidentiality. And you know my face anyways, so if I ever come after you, you can come after me. Now hurry!"

As she reluctantly started to take off the mask, then pull out of the suit, she transformed into a perfectly ordinary civilian in less then half a minute. I have known a few capes unmasked, but hers was probably the most dramatic transformation, from tall, dark, insectoid villain, to a lanky teenage girl so plain, that in a group of other teenage girls, she would only stand out as "the plain one".

The shift in her personality was just as sudden, from bank robber who just threatened innocents with deadly spider venom, to awkwardly looking around with her folded costume in her hand until I exasperatedly took it out of her hand and hid it in my school backpack.
She asked me: "So, what's going on, Panacea? Why would you be teaming up with criminals to help them escape? I know Tattletale can be convincing, but..."

She stopped the sentence, just as Kid Win opened the door. "It's the Wards, all clear, the robbery is over. Hey, Panacea? What are you doing here inside?"

"It's Amy Dallon. I was just taking out some of my allowance from my bank in civilian, when suddenly spiders. I neutralized their controller, then Tattletale and Myriad noticed my identity and dragged me out here. I asked to bring along this girl because she had a panic attack, and I could help out with that."

Maybe I was saying it all a bit too quick, too practiced, but Chris has never been a very sublte person. He just nodded, and asked back. "Yeah, we just caught Tattletale running outside, but do you have any idea where the bug girl went? Myriad, did you call her?"

Damn, Tattletale did get caught, and with her, my last hope the get out of this peacefully.

"That's the name they used for her. She must be a changer, when Tattletale told that they are surrounded, she just turned into a swarm of insects and went through the ceiling. She must be far by now. Is there anything else I can help with?"

"No, only Aegis got injured, and he will be fine. You would be welcome at the debriefing on Mriad's powers eventually, but we should probably hold that up until it's clear who she teams up with next. So, I guess there is no need for you to wait for the current police interviews. Come with me and no one will stop us on the way outside."

"Thanks a lot, Kid. Could she come with me too? She didn't see anything more than I did."

"Whatever, already a dozen others leaked away anyways, so go for it, it's not like we can legally detain you anyways."

Once we were outside, and the two of us started walking down the street, Myriad asked me quietly: "You just lied about my powers. You just lied about a lot of things. But you still haven't answered: Why?"

"Does it matter? I had a talk with Tattletale while you were knocked out, and it looks like I need to help her. Is that enough?"

She looked at me incredulously: "No, it's not enough! You are supposed to be a hero, you can't just break out villain gangs because they asked you nicely, it doesn't make any sense!"

"It doesn't have to make sense. You saw that Tattletale trusted my willingness to help you spring him, so you can trust me too. Or not. Your choice."

We both walked silently for a moment, before I decided to add: "Besides, you are wrong. I stick around with New Wave because I have to, but I've never truly gone out of my way to help anyone. Also, my real father was apparently Marquis, the famous villain. That's one of the things that Tattletale told me about the bank. So I guess that explains it."

At that, Myriad blinked in confusion: "Your father... what? You mean with Brandish? How is that..."

"Eww, no! Eww, the mental image! No, no, no. I mean, I'm adopted. I knew that before. I even suspected that it was from some sort of cape, given my powers. But still, Marquis... it's pretty bad. He was a huge gang leader, like Kaiser and Lung nowadays. Killed people. Removed all their bones. You know, that just makes you think".

Maybe a month ago, I would have tried to hold refuge in the knowledge that good and evil aren't really genetic, they are taught, so I belong with my adoptive family. That all my apathy towards the suffering, all my perverted feelings for my own sister, the hatred towards my mom, are all just big coincidences, normal problems for a teenager, and it's up to me to be good.

But as I tried to combine all that with the last week, with me literally covering up murder, and now explicitly agreeing to commit another crime to protect my own skin and Victoria's, the tally just tipped over.

This is not a coincidence. Even if evil is not supposed to be genetic, I still inherited it. Maybe only through Mom's prejudices and concerns, and through my own buried early memories, or maybe more literally, as a part of my power. I know that Corona Pollentia is speculated to influence thought processes, and that powers can directly descend from each other. For all I know, a partial copy of Marquis's brain appeared inside my own the day I triggered.

Or maybe I was too quick to discard lessons from Sunday School, and there really is a Devil, that just arranged the worst possible temptations for me, based on my desire to protect my sister.
But whatever may be the reason, I have all the motives, powers, attitudes, and goals of a villain.

Finally, Myriad spoke up: "So nothing will change your mind? You will break the Undersiders out of jail?"

She sounded strangely sad, as if she didn't just receive unexpected help for getting back her friends.

"Probably. There is one last bridge I have to cross. Tattletale didn't really blackmail me, but my sister. When I agreed to her demands, I decided that I will talk to Glory Girl first, and see what she wants. If she would rather go... face the consequences, I will honor her wishes."
I took out my cell phone, and looked around. Without thinking, we have walked all over to the Docks, with an abandoned warehouse right nearby us. That will be perfect. I looked around for street signs, and started to type: "Come alone to the warehouse near MLK st. & Putin st. " Then after I realized how much it looked liked a kidnapper's note, added an "Amy" to the ending.

"Let's get in there." I pointed for Myriad's sake, and jumped over the concrete fence that was nominal even before it's top half has fallen over. Once inside, I threw my backpack at her. "Put these back on. I guess you want to minimize the damage."
In two minutes, Glory Girl has arrived. Through the only window that still had glass in it.

"Panacea, are you all right? What are you doing in this place?" She asked while still floating down to the ground level.

Without directly replying to the questions, I turned to introduce them to each other as if we were at a social event: "Myriad, this is my sister, Glory Girl. Glory Girl, this is Myriad. I just bumped into her at the Central Bank."

"The one that just got robbed? I thought no one got injured there, why did they call you? And how did a new independent get there in time?"

Myriad spoke up first: "I didn't get there, I was, umm, robbing it. With the Undersiders. Panacea helped me get away."

Glory Girl barely tensed at that, even if her eyes went wider. She was at least quick enough to realize that neither of us were in danger.

"Panacea? Why are you hiding in a warehouse with a villain whom you just 'helped to get away'? And why did you call me?"

I sighed. "It's a long story. Well, moderately long. I was in the bank to take out some money, when Myriad and the undersiders came in. I tried to stop them, but the Undersiders' leader is a psychic, she somehow read my worst secrets and threatened to expose it unless I get Myriad outside, and help her break the rest of the mout of PRT custody. Which, given what my worst secret is, I did."

"Shit, just like that? Are you even sure that she is the real deal? Psychics aren't supposed to be real, maybe she was just bluffing you. If she was, we can still fix this, just arrest this bug bitch here and find some excuse for the delay."

"No, she knew some pretty specific things. If she is not psychic, then she has information from other sources, but that can still screw us."

Myriad spoke up: "Yeah, that's right. She has some sort of Super-Sherlock power. She works though guessing, body language reading, and deduction, but it's powerful enough that if she spent a few minutes reading your reactions to her speech, that must have been enough for her to deduce all your secrets as much as with mind reading. I don't know what's the Deep Dark Secret you two worry about, but if she actively tried, she did figure it out."

Glory Girl laughed out. "All right. So we are fucked all the way through. Oh, we can try and do some more desperate covering up that will inevitably just end with us being in an even bigger hole. Or we can just fly over to Indonesia, or whoever we don't have an extradition treaty with."
"There is a third option, Glory Girl." I interrupted. "We could just stay. Your power is strong enough to carve out our own place against all the heroes and villains in town. The same is also true for me. If I varied my usage of it a bit beyond just healing, my biggest problem wouldn't be how to defend myself from Armsmaster or Miss Militia, but how to avoid a nuking of the Bay."

Myriad took a step back at that, but even Vicky's eyes widened with fright. Let's see if you can accept that part of me, Sister. Let's see if we can live like this.

"That's right. You know that I can modify living things in any direction, but you haven't thought it to it's logical extreme, have you? With enough creativity, I could not just give people cancer or paralyze them, but also turn them into quickly breeding Nilbog-monsters, or world-depopulating viruses."

Myriad interrupted at that. "But like you said, that would just mean Brockton Bay getting nuked, so you won't do that, right?"

I shook my head. "I wouldn't do that anyways. Just because I no longer pretend to be a hero, doesn't mean I want to destroy the world either."

She asked: "So, you reject Tattletale's bargain? Let her stay in PRT custody, and come out as a villain before she could out you?"

"No." Glory Girl replied instead. "If you won't, then I will. Maybe I was right and this is all falling apart, but I don't want to become a villain. I would rather pretend to be one for just this one day, and help you with the escape, if there is even just 1% chance that it will stop at that and afterwards we can go back to Mom and Dad. Besides, I would really like to have a talk with that Tattletale girl about her blackmailing my little sister."

"So, don't we need any particular plan? Or do you expect that we can just storm in, grab them, and get out? " Myriad asked.

I've been to the PRT cells plenty of times, fixing up captured villains. With Glory Girl on our side, we could just get in and get out in half a minute, but carrying outside four extra people plus the two of us, with a single flyer, wouldn't really work out. Still, we really only need to crash inside, then support the Undersiders as they are getting outside on foot.

Glory Girl replied before me. "Nah, if even Squealer or Leet can do it, then I'm sure just improvization will be enough for the three of us. Now we only need two extra villainous costumes, preferably ones that look unrelated to our official ones. I have some ideas for that, let's meet here an hour from now.

And with that, she was gone.

Myriad turnd towards me: "And you? Do you have a plan for your disguie?"

I replied slowly, knowing that this is the true momen where I out my power and my true allegiance. "I do have an idea. Could you provide me with some biomass?"

 

[Alterego9]

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Chapter 5
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"Biomass?" Myriad asked back.

"Living matter that I can apply my power to." I explained. "I thought you could gather around a swarm of bugs to use. I mean, unless you are one of those lunatic Masters who obsesses over each of her minions' well-being as if they were her babies."

"Uh, no problem. I don't even like bugs, really. They are just biomass, like you said."

Flies and mosquitos started to gather first in the air, right between me and Myriad, then after a few minutes, spiders, centipedes, ants and others started crawling forward in great enough numbers to build up a waist-high mound, which grew even higher as the fliers landed right on top of them.

I reached out to them with a mix of apprehension, and anxiety. I have never actually tried to meld together different animals while only touching one of them. It ought to work, after all, during my healing routine, I have regularly killed infectious bacteria, balanced gut flora, and otherwise interacted with the surprising amounts of independent organisms inside a person that were not, strictly speaking, parts of the same organism if you thought too hard about it. Logically, my power has to apply to all living matter, that is in contact with any living matter, that is in contact with me.

But then again, powers have lots of strange conceptual limits. It might simply be that my power applies to whatever I believe to be parts of the same creature.

So I reached out to the swarm with that in mind, trying to tell myself that it's really just a peculiarly organized creature, and it's origin as a swarm of many insects is just a meaningless trivia. It worked. I couldn't sense as many insects as I could see with my eyes, probably because not all of them connected properly, but I still gained control of several pounds of biomass.

First, I gave it a generally humanoid shape. Hollow, but it's outside layer densely held together into uniform matter, as if all the bugs would have been melted and cast into a mould shaped like a human. The matter that it consisted of was still largely chitin, with the muscle, brain matter, and other inside tissues of the bugs hopelessly mixed around. It didn't matter. I would have to be insane to let this life form remain insectoid in any form, with Myriad being around to possibly control it. I started to organize humanoid features, veins, muscles, fat, but without any of the centralized vital organs that humans always kept damaging for themselves. Instead, the blood was circulated by several tiny hearts along the main arteries, while air was consumed through the pores of the skin. A brain wasn't needed, only a nervous system to sustain circulation and follow my power's commands.

Finally, I created an opening in the back. Instead of anything natural, it imitated a simple zipper made out of bone, with a muscle to pull the slider from the inside, the whole thing concealable by a flesh covering. The inside cavity was shaped just for me, with skin covering it like an inverted version of the outside.

As I stepped inside, I first added a few final touches to the inside's shape to more tightly wrap around me, then finally, added two holes for my eyes, and one for my mouth, with the suit's skin appearing to seamlessly connect to my own. I saw Myriad gesticulating wildly at me. Oh, of course. Ears. I needed two holes for those too.

"Sorry, Myriad, did you say anything?"

"Mostly just swearing. You just built a costume out of human skin! No! You just made a human skin costume out of bugs! And it looks like a giant fucked up bald barbie doll! How does that even count as a medical power?"

"Barbie doll?" I inquired. "Oh, yeah, that's no good. It was supposed to be a disguise, after all. Give me some more biomass, please. Just put them down on the skin."

As more bugs started to settle on my costume, I started to integrate them into the system, mostly as muscle. I Added much more to the shoulders, but also to the limbs. I Changed the whole face to be wider, the chin, the nose, the forehead. I intentionally started to change the whole outside to look more masculine, then more monstrous. When the skin was already bumpy and veiny from underlying muscles, I started to change the skin itself to be shaped and colored to look like a set of exposed veins and muscles. I added four coiled tentacles to my right wrist, and disproportionally more muscle to my left. There still remained some biomass that I kept in the form of a hump on my back, in case I ever needed extra usable biomass.

"All right. That will be enough". I said.

"Shit. You can just change it into anything? It's like you just created an unlimited Changer power for yourself. Like, can you build better bone armor? Or wings? Or poisonous fangs?"

Yes, I already did add a second skull to the head, and a bone plate to the chest. No, this thing already has too much biomass to fly, I could probably build one like that, but I would have to leave a bunch of this weight behind. And I don't know about poisons, I guess I could, but I already have a more safe Striker power anyways." I tried to answer to the quick questions in order. "Oh, and no, it's not really unlimited. Crawler is unlimited. I still have squishy old me at the center, so I could die by being cut in half by a laser, or burned, or just punched to death by the kind of people who can puch through several layers of reinforced bone. I still don't have any idea of how to deal with those issues."

We spent the next few minutes testing out my suit's strength. I managed to lift every piece of debris that we found lying around, although the rusting machinery in the corner caused enough strain that I had to actively heal my arm's muscles every second, and reinforce my legs' density. I couldn't tell the exact weight, but it must have been around an average car's, and apparently that was around my maximum.

I could almost certainly punch through a wall, but we decided against testing that, the building being as crumbling as it was.

My tentacles could reach about a forty feet distance, and while they could be stretched beyond that using the emergency biomass from my backpack, that would take seconds, so it wouldn't be useful during a fight. The tentacles' strength was nothing amazing, they were stronger than an ordinary human arm, but not by much. They might break someone's neck, but they couldn't be squashing people like grapes. That's not what I made them for anyways, but to serve as a forty feet extension of my striker power.

My legs' speed was nothing special, barely making up for the increased mass. I was mildly faster than normally, but not fast enough to race with a speeding car. To do that, I could add four horse-like legs, but powering those also required central breathing system, and it weighted so much that I needed to strip down all but the skin of my suit's top half, making me extremely vulnerable.

"Myriad, can I ask you something?" I turned towards her after stopping for a minute to check all the minor details of my suit after putting it back together from the centaur form.
"Hm?"

"Why did you seem so hesitant about this whole plan at first? I mean, it's okay that you are on board now, but you were more hesitant than me, and that's because I really, really don't want to help Tattletale at all, or you for that matter. But you are their teammate, I would have expected you to jump at the opportunity that even the heroes are willing to free your friends."

"Hm."

"Myriad, are you with them at your own will? If she is forcing you, or blackmailing you with anything..."

"Then what? They are blackmailing you, and you go along with them anyways, so I guess it shouldn't matter. Does it really matter if I robbed a bank so I can buy a new house from the money, or because otherwise Tattletale will burn down my house? It's self-interest in either case."
"You are calling youself selfish?" I asked with confusion.

"I'm not talking about myself. I have my reasons. I'm talking about you and Glory Girl. You are in some sort of trouble that could already put you in jail, so you help the Undersiders to keep up your current lifestyle. Now you want me to be the good kind of villain, forced to be a criminal only by threats, because then you can be that too. But don't kid yourself, you might as well be saving them for the fun of it, in either case, you are just doing what you desire the most."

It sounded very organized, like she has been thinkig about this a lot. Still, something was missing here. Why would a villain, and apparently an unrepentant one, go to such lengths, to call me out on being a villain? Tearing down my confidence in a fight would be one thing, but we are supposed to be cooperating here, not arguing.

Maybe she was just generally that insufferable and judgemental?

Myriad tilted her head up. "Ah. Glory Girl is coming".

Maybe she felt that through her bugs, but I could feel it too, a particularly strong wave of aura that appeared as knot in my stomach, a strong sense of yearning for the unreachable.
Glory Girl entered walking through the door.

She wore heavy boots, bright yellow stockings, a simple blue dress, and a home-made bright orange balaclava.

"Hi, girls! Whoa, Amy, are you that ugly mutant over there?" A few seconds later, she added. "If not, then I'm sorry, sir."

"Yeah, it's my costume".

"But how? You broke your Manton limit?"

I laughed out. "It's not a Manton limit, it's just me being a Striker rather than a Changer. And no, I just circumvented it. This really is just a costume, I created it with my power around my real self, but that is unchanged inside".

"Huh. Clever. And what about mine?"

"Your costume? It's seriously awesome! I think it makes you appear even more powerful than the white one."

"Yeah, it's brillant." Myriad added. "Although maybe it's a bit too... heroic? But that's good, it will confuse them."

"Hehe. No, actually that's all my aura. I've just thrown together the costume from random crap I found at the bottom of my drawer, as a tribute to my favorite Russian punk band. Their career ended... badly. Anyways, the idea was that I would crank up my aura a lot, and downplay the Alexandria package, to generate a different identity as primarily emotions Master, who can also fly around. So it's now strong enough that even Amy can feel it a bit, regardless of her immunity."

"Wait." I interjected. "We need names".

"Yeah, I thought about that. I guess 'Riot Grrl' would be a bit too on the nose, right? Too bad, it would have been the best, I guess you can still call me that when probably one is listening. In public, 'Incite' will be good enough. How about you?"

"It's just a throwaway identity anyways, especially if everything goes according to the plan. But even if it doesn't, mine can turn into a human shapeshifter, or a demon, or really any other theme. For this time, let's just call it Body. Also, male pronouns."

"All right. So. Are we doing this, or not?"

"Do we really need to do it today?" Myriad added. "Even if you two are familiar with the place, and we have the raw force to get ourselves inside, we still need a plan to get out."

"It's better as quickly as possible. It's been only an hour since the arrest, they must still be processing them on the mainland base, before they can ferry them off. Also, they are unclear on what their powers are. Even if we could break into the proper HQ, I can't really think of a way to break out of there, but we have a window before that happens. That's the time frame when most cape jailbreaks happen, and for a reason. Well, that and during transportation to a max security prison, but we can't wait for that before Tattletale starts tattling tales."

"All right. But first we should land a block from the base for a few minutes, so I can gather a proper swarm." Myriad replied.

"That will work, I can think of an alley there that we could use. That neighborood is pretty stupidly built, now that I think about it." Incite replied.

"All right, let's fly over there. Body, you should hold Myriad, and I will carry you somehow. Unless you two want hanging from my two arms."

"I can help with that" I said, and made a bone luggage handle grow out from my shoulders."

"Eww. That'll work too, I guess." Incite said, and we lifted off. The way we were sticking together, it would have been difficult to tell for the passersby from below to tell which one of us is the flier.

We were about three blocks from the containment center, when we first noticed a massive black dog-monster running out of a corner ahead of us into the middle of the traffic, with four figues trying to hold on to it's back, while being chased by a flying Aegis carrying Miss Militia.

The figures were too distant to make out beyond their basic costume themes, but close enough to see as one of the four turned to waved a hand towards us.

The shit-eating grin that the wave was paired with, was too distant to see, but too easy to imagine.
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