Some indeterminate days later...

Electricity crackled over me, was promptly vented down into the pavement and grounded out beneath me.

“Yo, Crackles, you got something else?” I asked the guy with electricity dancing all around him.

He’d dropped the bags of money to blast me, and was staring at me in consternation. “How are you doing that?” he demanded, looking a bit frantic.

“Come on! Do you know nothing about electricity and the path of least resistance?” He could probably shut down a good chunk of my powers by just absorbing the bioelectricity, so I hadn’t even bothered to use them.

He was backing up towards a side door quickly, money still on the ground. He gnashed his teeth, looking around, and made the wrong decision.

“You can ground things out, but what about them?” He whipped his hand out to the side, and let go.

The people he was aiming at screamed. The Red Eyes were looking at all of them emotionlessly, registering a dire threat apathetically.

My TK line whipped down around his hand and I jerked it around at me. The blast traveled down the line, into my bracelets, and they gleamed as the juice came into them.

“Uh-oh,” he muttered, staring at them.

There was a hum as the motors engaged, withdrawing the cables with great torque and speed. We hurtled towards one another as I raised a fist.

He hit me with another blast in mid-air, thinking to catch me when I wasn’t grounded. The Red Eyes barely acknowledged it as a threat.

His reflexes were fast enough to follow the discharge down my arm, and along the thin steel cable trailing on the ground. The Eyes only acknowledged what was dangerous...

I clocked him hard, saving his teeth, but breaking his jaw for daring to threaten civilians. My wire didn’t let go, so he didn’t go flying, but his feet went out as his jaw sagged and I leveled him instantly. Staggered and dazed on the ground, he stared up at me in shock.

“If you ever threaten to kill people like that, I’m just going to crack your skull open, and that will be that,” I warned him, drawing back an open hand. “I get you want money. I might have a job for you when you get out, come find me.

“Oh, and your brain is polarizing because of your condition. Start alternating the polar charge of it automatically every minute or two, and get control of yourself, all right? You’re potentially one of the five best electrical engineers in the world, and you could be making a fortune. Leave off this petty shit.”

I forced his head down to the ground, and sat on him coolly after spinning him around three times and wrapping him up in wire. Then I took out a disposable cell phone I had picked up that morning, and noted the charge was low. “Hey, Crackles, charge this up.” I tapped it on his temple.

“’lek-tro!” he swore up at me through his lolling mouth. “Name ith ‘lektro!”

“Sure, ‘lektro. Charge my phone, you’ll be much less uncomfortable. Oh, and alternate your brain polarity, please.”

He glowered at me, but there was a spark, and my phone charged up. “Thank you. Brain polarity!” I glowered down at him, and mine had more teeth. He gave up and shifted the current in his brain, and I immediately saw a confused light go on in there. “Yeah, that’s the look. You’re not just bipolar, you’re incredibly bipolar. It’s why you’re running around in a costume instead of designing a superconductor chip only a Powered electrokinetic can make and on your way to becoming a billionaire.” He goggled up at me. “Yeah, Schmot Guy. Told ya.”

The number I called rang only twice before it was picked up. “Director Carter’s office,” a professional woman’s voice with a non-specific accent on the other end replied.

“Hello! This is Dynamo, I hope Miss Carter told you about me,” I answered calmly.

“Ah, yes, Miss Dynamo. The Director hasn’t given me an answer for you yet,” the secretary replied smoothly.

“That’s not actually why I’m calling. I’m currently at the Bank of New York in Queens which was in the middle of being robbed by a fellow in green and yellow calling himself ‘lectro.”

“E! Lek! Tro!” the guy with the broken jaw blurted out with difficulty.

“He’s a full-Powered electrokinetic with some anger issues. I don’t think the local police are going to be able to contain him, so I was wondering if SHIELD could send down someone with an inhibitor collar to help take him into custody?”

“Oh! Let me check.” I was put on hold for thirty seconds. “The New York Shieldmen can be there in a couple of minutes to help.”

“Thank you for your help, miss-?”

“Natalia Roman,” the voice on the other end answered, and I blinked. “Will that be all, Miss Dynamo?”

“Yes, Miss Roman. Thank you again.”

“It was no trouble.”

Click!

I looked at the phone in my hand thoughtfully.

Peggy Carter had a Black Widow for a secretary? How amusing was that? There was no way she didn’t know, as I was sure all the Widows were Tatted, and Peggy herself had been Marked in her nasal cavity, Sama’s preferred place to conceal the thing.

Heck, that might be THE Black Widow’s daughter or something. The Widows weren’t barren in this world, Briggs would have made sure of that...

------

New York’s Finest arrived here first, and sort of rolled their eyes when they saw a woman in a deep red mask, off-white blouse, and blue jeans, my outfit sort of visible underneath, sitting on top of a guy in bright green and yellow when they burst in with guns drawn.

The security guard who was still conscious waved them down and quickly gave them a recap of what was going on. They still had their guns drawn as they came towards me.

“Holster your guns!” I warned them sharply. “The leather of the holsters will guard against the static in the air! The metal in the guns will attract the voltage which could set off your ammo!”

Startled, they retreated two steps, and after a glance at one another, warily holstered their guns and drew out their billy clubs. “This guy throws lightning, Miss-?”

“Dynamo. This here is E-lek-tro... did I get that right?” I asked politely, tapping slackjaw under me.

“Yeth!” he grumbled in agreement.

“Right now I’ve got him grounded. I broke his jaw because he was going to light up a bunch of customers over there, apologies for the rough stuff. I gave SHIELD a call to send over an inhibitor collar so you can actually send him off to the hospital to get that jaw of his set.”

“Them guys?” the older of the two cops spoke up, rolling his eyes, but neither of them made an attempt to get close to E-lek-tro. “Always got the fancy gear,” he grumbled.

“Very expensive, fancy gear,” I noted. “Which, generally speaking, you put in the hands of those who can use it best, right? And Shieldmen can definitely use it well.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he admitted, as the doors opened, and New York’s Shieldmen, the Red and Blue Shields, walked in.

They weren’t Steve Rogers, but John Walker and Lemar Hoskins. The fact a black man was one of New York’s Shielders wasn’t lost on the population here, which actually had one of the larger black populations in the States over in Harlem. Shielders were ALL patriots, and dissing on Lemar just pissed off all of them.

The fact four Shielders were in New York was another source of great pride for the city.

They were in the standard uniforms, with John’s Shield flared blue and Lemar’s with more red, but otherwise right on trope. Every Shielder for a country was individual, and every one was the same.

They were virtually identical in build, height, and weight, effectively male Amazons of a sort with the Super-Soldier Serum in them. That didn’t mean there weren’t bigger Super-Soldiers, but this was the minimum size they ended up being after the Serum was done hyper-evolving them.

They just nodded at me, but went right to the policemen first as proper protocol. The two blueshirts straightened up and half-reported, half-advised the pair despite themselves, summing up the situation before handing over arrest authority, and turning around to get the story from witnesses and the monitoring cameras.

“Miss Dynamo, is it?” Captain Walker asked, approaching with a large metal collar in his hands.

“Captain,” I replied calmly, watching as he bent down and expertly clipped the collar shut on Electro’s neck. All Shields had military training and rank, so ‘Captain’ was the default honorific for them.

Electro slumped instantly as the inhibitor field promptly shut down his powers. I unwrapped him from my wire, which withdrew into the bracelet I was wearing. I was sure they noticed how there couldn’t possibly be enough room in there for it, but it worked anyway.

“Nice takedown,” Blue Shield Walker complimented me, helping Electro to a crouch, working his arms to apply a set of very strong, fixed-bar manacles Red Shield handed him with practiced ease. “Looks like a broken jaw,” he confirmed to Red Shield Lemar.

“I’ll phone in a stop at the ER to get it set.” The big fellow shook his head. “Electro, is it?” His voice held a note of warning that made Electro look up. “You’re lucky that she took you down before you did something stupid. Any Powered using lethal force on someone is open book for lethal force from any source, a living weapon. We would’ve put a ceramic bullet or six in your head and called it a day after painting a wall with you.

“We will hunt you down and arrest you for theft, assault, vandalism, and the like. If you kill anyone, we’re going to kill you back, and all that money you want to steal and that rep you want to make for yourself aren’t going to be worth jack. You understand me?” His voice held that special note that only those who experience a lot of prejudice in their life can have.

Electro was about to retort when Walker jerked his head over. “That goes for ALL the Shields,” he added quietly, but his blue eyes were hard. “That goes for SHIELD, the FBI, and your average cop. We won’t kill unless we have to in order to protect people. If we had been here instead of this young lady, you’d either be dead with your brains on the floor, or I’d have chopped your head off.” The edge of his blue-ringed Shield seemed to gleam for an instant, and Electro slumped a little bit more as he glanced at the sidearm that both men carried, looking over at me with mixed emotions.

I just raised an eyebrow back at him. “I could have caved your skull in, instead of just breaking your jaw,” I agreed calmly, and he flinched. “If I didn’t have my wires, that’s exactly what I would have done to stop you from discharging. Don’t get civilians involved, E-lek-tro.”

Captain Blue Shield Walker brought him to his feet. “We’re going to put this down as intervention by a concerned citizen, Miss Dynamo, but the NYPD got here first, and have jurisdiction.”

There was a warning note there. I kept my eyes on Electro. “I’m sure there’ll be someone interested in his talents who’ll spring him one way or another, sure. Whether he’ll knuckle down and use his Power to make a bloody fortune the old-fashioned way instead is up to him.”

“So it is. Let’s go. Be seeing you around, Miss.” Definitely a promise from him.

“Captains,” I saluted them both, which drew an amused smile from them. Each with a hand on Electro’s arms, they marched him out of the bank, to the cheers of the customers and the crowd.

While the crowd was looking after the criminal being marched out by the heroes, I Hid in Plain Sight and effectively vanished from their view. By the time anyone remembered that I was the one who had actually brought him down, I was already out of the building and walking down the street, looking like everyone else. Sleeves rolled up and Mask withdrawn, costume looking like an undershirt, and my non-white-tipped dark auburn hair a good foot shorter, I trundled along, extending my lived-line afoot, and quietly Scanning the area.

Maybe I’d get mentioned, maybe not. In the meantime, I was looking for aliens, Deviants, Dark Auras, and similar things, and perhaps very unsurprisingly, I was finding a lot of them here.

There was definitely going to be work for me here, a great deal of it terminal. I could only imagine what it was going to be like when I came out at night and did the same thing. After all, Vampires and Werewolves had been used against the Tribes in the past, although it was not something publicized, so their numbers here in the States were not at all low.

It was definitely not illegal to kill the undead; trying to get something like that passed was going to be impossible, and would likely have started a war, civil or otherwise. Vampires and werewolves were another reason why the Tribes didn’t trust the States.

I considered the fact that both of the Shieldmen’s Shields had been magical, definitely non-conductive and non-magnetic.

And they were Named. They weren’t self-aware, or the Shields would have warned their wielders I was also wielding something Named. Named meant they could grow over time, and sacking goldweight to make it stick was a secondary cause.

A Shield was combined Weapon/Armor, and could take a massive amount of enchantment. People probably didn’t realize how awesomely dangerous and powerful those Shields actually were. I was pretty sure they were the equal of Captain America/The Patriot’s Shield in material, able to take hits from Thor’s Hammer, beyond vibranium and adamantium... and now they were magically reinforced above and beyond that.

The fact that the States had to rely on the Russians, like everyone else, to make their Shielders still rankled them, and the Russians could and did veto any and all prospective candidates. It was the reason at least forty percent of the Shields were women, and the Shielders definitely were not all of the prevailing ethnicity in most countries.

On the flip side, the Shielders were so grounded psychologically that there had never been anything like a rebellion from any of them, although they would take the moral high ground and oppose unjust laws that were forced upon them, and violently if need be. Shielders had been exiled by their own governments, or others had even attempted to jail them when they were a little too good at what they did.

That usually ended up badly for the government involved. Shielders were strategic and tactical masters, and very good at working with and using people. Their patriotism and a selfless love was at the heart of what they were, not a lark; they represented the spirit and will of their lands, not merely the existing government. They all got along with one another, despite any political considerations behind them, and generally could get all sorts of quiet help if they requested it.

That fact was one reason why tyrannies and most monarchies didn’t want Shielders. After all, they wanted super-soldiers loyal to them, not their people, and Russia just wasn’t having it. The Great Bear didn’t want them to be loyal to him, as he’d proven time and again, but they had to be loyal to their people, and the world as a whole.

The Patriot, Steve Rogers, was definitely the most trusted man in America, to the displeasure of many powerful forces. His mastery of the system at the highest levels, and his connections within it, was something that various people and forces had been trying to break for decades.

I couldn’t believe that such a powerfully-placed and trusted man had joined the Avengers by accident at all. It was likely that Sama or The Great Bear had directly told him that the coming of the Avengers was a sign that the States could finally become something, and he would be the heart of them.

Also, he knew Howard Stark, and was probably treated just like Tony’s uncle, and their kids had grown up together.

A wave swept past me, and I looked up sharply.

A telepathic search and scan again. I guessed it was Xavier again. Looking for me, and perturbed he couldn’t find me?

Something else I was going to have to address, soon enough. There was no way I could let the X-Men stand off in their own private facility and raise suspicions from all around. Humanity had too many enemies already to be judging mutants or inventing some more of them.

Make up a list of stuff for the FF for my lab, get it set up for the kids to work in...

Track down the things I was Scanning here and ascertain if they were a threat...

I probably had to pay a visit to Dr. Strange, or he’d pay one to me...

Wait for SHIELD to approach me further, or check in with them? Decisions, decisions...

Functionally too smart to leave the future to random chance, but still on my own and not beholden to an organization, I skated along, painting Lived-Lines, Scanning for things to do, and noting that there was going to be a lot of that in the near future.

If I picked the pocket of a drug dealer on a corner so smoothly he totally didn’t realize he’d lost his entire morning’s earnings, well, it was spending money.

I also tagged him for observation. The work had already been done by others, but I needed to build up my own database of the criminal networks in New York, and who was connected to who and how.

Huh, that meant I needed to break into some secure databases and get a whole lot of criminal files downloaded. Combine with Assay and I’d soon have a pretty encyclopedic knowledge of the crime scene in the city. Who knew what I could do with that...?