“That’s ‘cause you weren’t biting the furry bastard hard enough,” Dealer replied smoothly, and Mr. Hill spluttered and almost lost his drink. “What’re you recommending to Wanda, Dyna?” she asked the phone.

“That the Avengers deploy to Boston and get ready for a big vampire hunt. The living ain’t the only ones gonna be panicking about that going sideways.”

“Fuck...” Castle murmured, pouring Mr. Hill another mouthful. He gave Dealer a look, having seen her patch up some horrendously wounded members of his team. “Will Hill be ready in time?”

“He can hold a position, but he ain’t moving anywhere. I can stop all the decay on the wounds and clean them up, but he’s healing them with Earthpower. He gets up or moves around, the healing stops, and he’s gonna start bleeding bad. Oh, Dyna, if you could ‘port me over a glass of cheap diamonds, Mr. Hill’s gonna need them. He’s been shredded like a slasher flick. If he were human, he’d be totally crippled with the wounds he has.”

“He’s just trying to get out of were-chasing. He hates kicking dogs.”

“I heard that, girl!” Mr. Hill called out. “It only got one ear!”

“Okay, I’ma leave you guys to stew in your misery. I’m sure the Tribes will be coming over to add to it for you. Keep me posted.”

“You got it, Dyna. Don’t you worry about the lads, I’ve got ‘em.”

“Damn right you do.”

---------

I hung up the call, and looked at Ebersol and Jenkins, who looked back at me.

“So... that’s the kinda shit that’s really been happening on the border?” Ebersol asked slowly.

“Yes.” My eyes flickered. “I’m going to Boston tonight. By the morning, I don’t want any vampires or werewolves left alive in the greater Boston area. You wanna help with that?”

Ebersol’s eyes lit up. “I’ll have to tweak my suit, probably need more silver.” I waved it away. “Can I, uh, clean up MIT?”

“Sure, but it better be all clean by the time you are done.”

This fucking world...

-------------

The disinformation that hit the State news networks was almost laughable, although you had to have a REAL good information source to get a clean source from outside the country. Their average tech level making it easy to control what they were fed, and the government tried really hard to jam the rest.

There has been a major ambush by Tribal forces at the border, attacking a joint American-Canadian unit on deployment exercises. Several heroic members of the Powered teams were killed in a barbaric manner, and there were no known non-Powered survivors of our units. Tribal activity is expected to spike sharply at this blatant display of aggression...

Funnily enough, Ebersol, Jenkins, and even Mr. Hill made some calls to certain sections of the public, and the real news spread through the underworld before the spin hit the air. Those who had money and could cut through the jamming and get some extranational news soon had access to the vids as the death toll in the Tribal lands climbed.

Primus was visible up in space in stationary orbit, watching. If anyone launched nukes, he’d intercept them, and whoever ordered the launch and sent them was dead. The only approved target for nukes was aliens, and most aliens weren’t worried about nukes.

Everybody on the planet knew about Primus’ Decree. It had stood for many years, and nobody wanted to test it, because nobody wanted to die.

------

I turned down my Mask of Clarity, and called up Director Cassandra Rantha.

“Dynamo?” she answered quickly, sounding a bit distracted. “This is not a good time...”

“I’m putting together a rather eclectic band of misfits who are going to take a field trip to Boston. I need a telepathic coordinator. No active hand, just keeping everyone in contact. Jean would be ideal, as she’s a citizen, but I’ll take anyone competent.”

There was a pause on the other end, considering. “The Phoenix is going to be rather occupied for a few days, at her insistence. I can send you a very skilled battlemind for a night. Or two, if the field trips continue.”

“That would be fine. Should I send Scott over to help?” I inquired.

“Not unless he wants to be branded a traitor. If he can contribute on his end at the same time, that would be fine.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Said very confidently.

“I’ll send her to meet you in Boston. Anywhere specific?”

I considered that. “The gates of MIT sound fine.”

--------

The Mick’s Ride came purring up the road, towing his floating Wagon full of shooters. I was sitting on a bench in a green area. Mr. Hill, sort of covered with his trenchcoat, was splayed on the ground next to me, looking up at the sun.

He wasn’t going to be moving around, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t Earthjump, so he just beat everyone here and gave them a beacon to home in on.

The Mick had somehow managed to keep the flames on the side of his sleek dark overbuilt Mustang bright, and its hood was still polished enough to do my hair in... if I wasn’t under Vampire’s Veil. The fact it was bright and shiny and polished, as was the Wagon, meant it didn’t get nearly as much attention as it could have for parking there, and the illusions of wheels meant the hovering Wagon didn’t attract nearly as much attention as it might have.

Ebersol and Jenkins were on the way in the former’s van. There was a small caravan of other interested parties tagging along, ranging from Irish Mob shooters with nickelback rounds prepped to Diamondhead and the Basilisk, of all people. Heck, even the casinos contributed some hardcases.

It was the woman in the front seat of the Mick’s car who drew my eye. Oriental, deep lilac hair, figure a definite head-turner, in a currently insignia-less Cynosure instructor’s uniform. Looked maybe a couple years older than me.

Quar smiled when she met my eyes, and I rolled mine.

What the Hell? She was supposed to be taking it easy and having a good time enjoying herself at whatever while she did the Heavy Gravity Training for all of us. That crap took two and a half years to get in place, and made a mess of your life while you did.

She still had at least six months to go on it. What was she doing in a Cynosure instructor’s outfit, and looking like Psylocke’s Japanese phase?

Wait, the battlemind?... She didn’t...?

Oh, Hell.

The shooters, in carefully cleaned-up civvies, disembarked from the wagon, looking like a football team ready for some grub. There was a diner not far away, and Dealer led the whole crew over that way, including the Mick, while Quar strolled over my way, getting all kinds of looks from them as she did.

I put a bottle of Dealer’s Best on Unseen Servant drip above Mr. Hill, who just glanced at the two of us as we wandered off, and sat there enjoying the sun while his wounds closed at a slow and steady pace. He was also sucking and crunching on a couple hundred thousand dollars in diamonds, too.

I resisted the urge to stroke my temples as she smiled at me. “Do I even want to know?” I sighed at her. I could totally feel the Dupe Vibe from her, but changed, in a different way from Ursula.

Ursula had used the Asgardian Godmerge spell against Amora the Enchantress. Among other things, that gave her a partially-independent soul attached to her, effectively making her both a Dupe and a totally unique person at the same time.

I hadn’t re-merged with her yet, because I didn’t want all of us to maybe suddenly be faux-Asgardians. I mean, it wouldn’t have been so bad for me, but Sunny, Dealer, and Felicia would have looked very different.

“Kwannon, Assistant Dean of Battlemind Studies at Cynosure,” she introduced herself, extending a hand. I shook it promptly, sighing.

“Possession?” I asked fatalistically. The genetics didn’t lie.

“Not for very long. That Godmerge spell is remarkably adaptable when the original soul is gone and all.”

“You’ve got her Core.”

“I do!” she smiled winningly. “And I dumped eleven Levels straight into Psion once I did that I’d been holding back.”

“Her Hand brain death came a bit early?” I asked with a sigh.

“Yes. I actually made contact with her and Yukio independently while doing night runs in Tokyo for exercise. I fixed them up a couple times after some altercations, easy way to make friends. I, uh, might have gotten on the bad side of the Hand and some rival Yakuza factions, too...”

I waved it off. “Murim shit, sure. Was that you on the Colosseum?”

I hadn’t known it was her, and our eyes had never met.

“Yes. The fight with her rabid Hand fanboi would-be lover was fifteen months ago.” Her purple eyes flashed once. “The preservation spell the Hand used prevented me from calling back her spirit, so I couldn’t bring her back. She was just a brain-dead shell they were holding onto for some purpose, although I’m pretty sure their head priestess was planning on taking her body for herself, given how enamored she was of the clan lord, and jealous of Kwannon.”

“I’m totally out of the loop as far as most of the Murim go,” I told her, going through my backlist of who had done what and where. The Hand’s activities didn’t make it into a lot of stuff... maybe SHIELD had an idea of what happened.

“Oh, that whole House of the Hand no longer exists.”

Surprise, surprise. A 14/15 Melee/Scout Ur-Priest slams into your organization with a mad on, bad things tend to happen.

“I wasn’t going to leave her laying around for a random demon or wandering ghost to Possess, so I did it myself. Lo, and I got myself access to a very substantial Core doing it!” She smiled hard.

“Speak with Dead/telepathy combo to access memories, and simply using the excuse of the slaughter to explain that you had to leave probably solved the rest. But... Cynosure?”

“We didn’t know Kwannon had a daughter in the books.”

I opened my mouth, closed it. Given her age, that meant a teenage mother, in a Japanese criminal organization. “How bad was that incident?” I had to ask.

“Yukio and I went totally berserk on my erstwhile Oyabun’s organization looking for her after this. You could say all my superiors and instructors who thought Kwannon was their tool and she had to do whatever they said were enlightened at the end.”

I quirked a half-smile. Opened to the light, indeed. “So the Hand’s goal of removing said organization from the criminal underworld was accomplished posthumously.”

“So the Yakuza know exactly who to fear and blame. Yukio has assured me that Tokyo is a fun and profitable place right now.”

A thought struck me. “The Yashidas?”

“Were quite quick to take over many of the operations. One might even say they were informed ahead of time by someone, and owe said person a great debt.”

“Mmm.” I had no idea how tied Master Logan was to the family in this world, of course, but there was still the Silver Samurai... and Shingen Yashida, if he was around, was a very dangerous man. “Then what?”

“I flew north, crossed the Bering Bridge, kept going cross-country until I reached Cynosure, and enrolled without any problems.”