Twenty-four Nineteen emerged from the shower in her gray cloak to discover Alexa applying pink “Dora the Terraformer” themed band-aids to her various scratches. Many band-aids were already decorating the girl, far more than what was necessary. Even the gaping bullet hole in her construction helmet was now covered up with a whimsical arrangement of bandages.

“Want a band-aid?” She offered, rattling a box of band-aids in the direction of the Equalizer.

“No.”

“Too bad. They would add some much needed color to that boring ass cloak of yours. I think you guys are doing equality wrong. See, if I was the Equalizer pope I'd give your cloaks a psychedelic rainbow pattern with some fractals or something. All the pretty colors and shapes of the fractal machinery of the universe sorta idea! Stylish and fun!”

“Well, it's a good thing you're not her Eminence Equality because I have no desire to look like a clown or a hippie.” The Equalizer calmly readjusted her railgun beneath the cloak, small water spheres rolling off the fluid-impervious surface.

“Wait. Did you shower in your cloak… with your gun? Who showers fully dressed?”

“The safety of this shower leaves much to be desired.”

“Well, excuuuse me. I’m a supervillain, not a plumber!” Alexa threw up her arms.

“Also, the floor here is sloped at a 4.7-degree angle.” Twenty-four Nineteen tapped her steel reinforced boot on the uneven, warped floor made from metal suitcases. She bent down to examine the suitcases, looking through the glass panels.

“Supervillain, not a carpenter!” Alexa yelled from what looked like a very shoddily made kitchen that featured a microwave and a freezer. She was digging bacon out of the freezer and shoving it into the microwave.

“And before you criticize my cooking skills - supervillain not a chef!”

The Equalizer had no intention of criticizing Alexa further. She looked at the floor and the walls of the treehouse in deep concentration, the tiniest micro-expressions of bewilderment breaking through her normally calm face.

“Sup dawg?” Alexa slammed the microwave door shut. The plate full of bacon started to spin behind her, highlighting her head with a yellow glow.

“Are these what I think they are?” Twenty-four Nineteen looked at Alexa.

“Yeppers. Super-designed hydrogen bombs.”

“But… this is impossible. They’re exactly the same bomb suitcase! This is hundreds of bombs with the exact same id number!”

“Yeppers.”

The Equalizer’s neutral facade shattered, her face growing pale as she realized the implications of what the floor and the walls and the ceiling were lined with. “How many bombs is this?! How much uranium is in your walls?!”

“To be precise, there are exactly 444 hydrogen bombs in the walls, serial number 9838201.” Alexa picked up a detonator with wires leading into the wall.

"Now, Cottie..."

“My name is Verse Twenty-four Nineteen!”

“Wrong. Your name is Cottie or I flip this switch and we’ll have a lovely nuclear winter in very short order.”

The Equalizer blinked. “You would vaporize millions of people just so I would respond to you as Cottie?!”

Alexa nodded.

“You know what? Fine! Call me whatever you want! I don’t care!” Cottie said. “Why? Why would you do this?!” She pointed at the bombs.

“Safeties?” Alexa shrugged as if having the walls of her tree house lined with suitcase nukes was a very mundane thing to do.

“Safeties? What is wrong with you?!” Cottie advanced onto Alexa, her eye twitching.

“Ah, so I can make you angry,” the teenage supervillain grinned. “Projecting hearty emotions at someone is the first step towards a healthy relationship, you know. Or minionship, in your case. See, my goal is to make you more human. Break yourself outta that boring, square, Equalizer box! Spread your wings and fly, my pretty butterfly!”

Cottie froze, reestablishing her neutral facial expression. “I don’t understand,” she finally stated.

“You’re an Enforcer. I’m a villain. It’s a bit of an oddball companionship don’t you find? Enforcers are known to kill supervillains, often without provocation and then the evidence comes out that these villains were planning things that threatened the balance of global stability. It stands to reason that your Order has a super prognosticator. You prevent super-caused disasters before they happen.” Alexa said.

Cottie started to sweat. Alexa knew! She had somehow deduced everything!

“Do you know of the `The rice and chessboard problem`, Cottie?” Alexa pulled out her bacon plate from the microwave, putting it onto an Egyptian-style golden table.

“What does that have to do with anything?” the Equalizer asked, staring at the table that looked like it came straight from the tomb of Tutankhamun museum exhibition.

“It’s an exponential curve parable in which the inventor of chess tricked the king into giving him an absurd amount of rice. He asked the king to fill each chess square with twice the number of rice starting at only one grain. Basically, if the number of grains of rice doubles on every successive square of a chessboard, the sum of grains on all 64 squares is over eighteen quintillion. People underestimate the power of numbers. ”

“Okay?”

“My dear minion numero duo, the things you see around my treehouse are genuine items of rarity and great value that I brought back from the future. I go there a lot, as you can see.”

Alexa pointed at one of the paintings on her wall behind her. “That’s the Wanderer above the Sea of Fog painted in 1818. The original, not a copy. A quintessential masterpiece of French Romanticism. I stole it from the future because it reminds me of my own, personal struggle against... various elements.”

Cottie looked at the painting of the Wanderer that depicted a man looking over misty mountain peaks. Alexa turned around, matching the posture of the man in the artwork.

“When I was younger I simply took valuable items from the future, like this painting. Eventually, I realized something else - a new world is created with every jump. I don’t know what happens to the old one. Maybe it just keeps going. Maybe it is destroyed. The point is that the future changes with every action of mine and every new jump takes me to a NEW future.”

Alexa turned back to Cottie.

“Imagine if you could jump into the future several times a day. Now imagine that you could bring any item back, say… like a grain of rice. Now imagine that you buried this grain of rice somewhere safe, then jumped into the future again and dug it out, then came back to the present. You’d have twice the rice. Then four times. Then sixteen. Rinse and repeat. Over and over. An exponential curve. Now imagine that the object in question isn’t a grain of rice. It’s a super-designed hydrogen bomb in a small suitcase.”

Alexa pointed at the floor covered in hydrogen bomb cases.

“With only sixty-four trips, I can produce eighteen quintillion bombs. Obviously, I don’t have that many bombs as I’m limited by carrying capacity and other... things, but you get my mathematical point, yes?”

Cotte looked at Alexa, eyes wide. “By Equality!”

“Enforcers exist to equalize villains and heroes who go too far. I can bet you’re just waiting to shoot me with that gun for my future crimes against humanity or whatever. Well if you do that, all of these synchronized bombs, including ones I’ve buried all over this yard, all around town, and all over the country will all go off at the same time. You’ll never find them all and you’ll never disarm them all because there are too many. I have been jumping into the future and making copies of this bomb since I was twelve. Big bada boom.” Alexa made an imaginary nuclear explosion with her hands.

She grabbed a bacon piece and let Cottie process her words some more, then walked up to the Equalizer, looking right into her emerald eyes. “No matter what I do in the future, no matter what I am planning to do - you can’t kill me, Enforcer. If I die, these bombs will go off and the world will burn. It’s the ultimate dead man's switch. Checkmate.” Alexa booped Cottie in the nose.

Cottie’s mouth became dry as she flopped it open and closed like a fish, her eye twitching ever so slightly. The teachings of Eminence Equality did not prepare her for this sort of mindblowing insanity.

Alexa offered Cottie a hand. “So, you might as well protect me for all of eternity with that big, shiny gun of yours! Friends?”

The Equalizer returned the handshake, her palm sweaty. She had greatly underestimated the teenage supervillain during her initial analysis and was now paying the price. No amount of cold showers or meditating would cure the terrifying dilemma Alexa had planted into her heart.

. . .

Spiderbro sat within the warm confines of Martin’s head who in turn stepped into the warm confines of the school bus, which would take them both to school. Martin did not expect to learn anything of value in school that could solve his brain-spider problem. Martin did not want to go to school. Spiderbro, on the other hand, wanted to attend school very much. It was expecting to learn things about humanity to integrate better into the local environment, to find a nice, safe place to breed and multiply.

Martin relentlessly tried to fight off, to resist the alien presence that was now in charge of his body, but it was no use. Every one of his attempts had been easily thrown off. It was akin to trying to catch ocean waves with bare hands. Martin desperately wanted to hide away from the looks of other students who saw him as Cassie’s minion Mittens. Spiderbro fearlessly drove Martin’s body forward.

“Look who decided to show up today. Mittens! Thought they suspended him for setting the school on fire.”

Martin’s body stopped mid stride, turning. His eyes locked onto a muscular teenager at the front row who made the comment to a blonde girl sitting beside him.

“I see. This human subtype is labelled as a jock.” Spiderbro caught and dissected Martin’s thought. “Hanging out with a cheerleader subtype as is their standard behavioural pattern.”

“Ah, you’re the kid whose entire life revolves around proving your superiority to everyone else.” Martin’s mouth said, a hand pointing at the seat the bigger teenager was occupying.

“Say what?” The jock twitched.

“I merely wanted to point out that you are a pompous, staunch laddie who sadly lacks self-awareness due to insufficient mental capacity.”

“What?!” The jock said, standing up, looming over far smaller Martin. “I think that you belong in the back of the bus, along with that… pyromaniac weirdo. I think that someone needs to…”

Martin’s body moved with priorly impossible precision. His leg struck out into the jock’s shin and the muscular teenager yelled in surprise, bending over. Martin’s arms guided the bigger body into the empty space between the seats, kicking him forward as the bus moved. The jock whimpered, impacting face-first into the floor. Martin sat into the vacated seat next to the blonde cheerleader.

“What the frig are you doing, you dumb alien spider?!” Martin screamed inside his head. “Don’t you want to blend in?!”

“Blending in does not work by hiding. I am establishing dominance to build trust. Something you failed to do. Once I am on top of the student food chain, along with my other shard as the top teacher we shall rule this place of human learning.” Spiderbro answered inside Martin’s head.

“I’ll murder you! Don’t think you’ll get away with this, Mittens.” The jock hissed from the floor.

“Please don’t fight on the bus. Don’t make me get up. You, take a seat NOW!” The bus driver said resolutely. The jock stood up, slowly limping to the back of the bus in defeat.

“You are welcome to challenge me again after class,” Spiderbro commented with Martin’s lips, smiling at the retreating jock.

“What the...” The driver pressed on the breaks and the bus lurched to a sudden stop. Martin’s eyes looked ahead at the two people standing in the middle road. It was Alexa and that Equalizer girl… Cottie. The villain had too many bandages on for reasonability and was bouncing up and down excitedly, with her hands behind her. The Equalizer stood perfectly still, gray cloak fluttering in the wind, silver pin glittering on her chest. She looked determined as if she was a western novel sheriff waiting for the antagonist to emerge to have a shoot-off at noon. The bus doors opened and the pair of girls entered the bus.

“Hey, Alexa!” Martin’s mouth began to speak.

Alexa’s left arm emerged from behind her. She was holding a bowl of what appeared to be fruit loops.

“Would you like some loops, brother?” She asked.

“Hrm. Are you offering me your breakfast, again?” Spiderbro made Martin’s eyes focus on the bowl.

“Whoopsie!” Alexa slipped on the rubber floor mat, the bowl of fruit loops tipping over, hundreds of colorful, small, ring-shaped cereal pieces raining down, bouncing and scattering all over the floor of the bus. Martin’s new, improved eyes tried to focus on all of them, to catch all of the motion —

Alexa’s right hand emerged from her back, revealing her pink hairdryer contraption. Spiderbro, distracted by the fruit loop waterfall, reacted far too late to the threat of the raygun. The villainess pressed the trigger.

The skinwalker-enhanced eyes could see a horrible ray shimmering from the barrel, flickering with a new, freakish color Martin could not name. His body tried to leap away, to get out of the path of the beam but failed to do so in time. There was only so much space in the bus for the skinwalker to escape to.

The normally mildly annoying pocket ray gunfire struck Martin in the head and the skinwalker inside his head screamed. Martin fell to the floor, twitching and frothing at the mouth. Alexa, still holding the trigger of the ray gun, advanced towards the slain, shaking boy.

“Thought you’d be in Mittens, my little friend.” She said, bending down.

“Is that boy having a seizure?!” The bus driver stood up.

“Remain in your place, citizen.” Cottie put her hand on the bus driver’s arm, her other hand resting on her railgun, visible beneath her gray cloak. “This is Enforcer business.”

The driver gulped, sitting back down, forced into obedience by the calm voice of the Equalizer, staring with worry at her glittering Enforcer pin.

“Martin. This is your only chance.” Alexa said, leaning down to the twitching boy. “You will soon lose yourself forever to the skinwalker if you do not reassert control now! Awaken. Restrain, wield the spider in your head. Do it for me. Do it for the world. Be more!”

Martin’s mind was aflame with agony. He could feel what the skinwalker felt. The little spider in his head was burning up, dying. Martin tried to take control of his own body but was in too much pain. He saw nothing but sparks in his eyes, felt nothing but the fire in his head. Alexa let go of the trigger. Martin stopped flailing on the floor. Eyes filled with dread stared at the villainess.

“You’re hurting me, Alexa! Please stop! Please!!!” Spiderbro whimpered, black and red tears dripping from Martin’s eyes. Martin knew, felt it then - the little skinwalker was terrified of dying, not wanting to lose even more of itself to oblivion, not wanting to let go of its new, human body and the intelligence and understanding it had granted.

Alexa pressed on the trigger once again, flooding both the skinwalker shard and the boy with pain. “Wake up, God damn it! Ignite the power in your head!”

She pressed the raygun trigger on and off, drowning and releasing them from the ocean of suffering.

“Hrm. He’s bleeding pretty badly. Are you sure you should keep this up?” Cottie stepped in, the slightest bit of concern in her eyes.

The burning sensation of the skinwalker intensified in Martin’s head, he coughed out black sludge along with copious amounts of his own blood. The little spider lost even more parts of itself, fried by the raygun.

“Make her stop! Please! We’re both going to die!” The skinwalker wailed. “I can’t hold myself together!” Martin suddenly understood that it had done severe damage to his body by burrowing from his mouth to get into his brain and fixed it all, repaired it with its own flesh. Flesh that was now melting away, coming apart and killing them both with internal bleeding.

Alexa pressed her face against Martin’s head, clicking the trigger in very quick intervals. Martin felt like he was being dragged into the dark abyss by the river of agony.

“It’s my fault. Everything is my fault,” Alexa whispered into Martin’s ear. “I planned all of this. A thousand little events, a thousand people pushed in just the right way, all to lead everything to this pivotal moment. I filed hundreds of anonymous reports to the SCA that my father was concocting villainous deeds. I got into the SCA database, pulling and pushing the bureaucratic machinery of the Superstate into action. I arranged, made sure that Daniel Kilborne would get this mission. That you, his son - the child of a prognosticator and a mental manipulator, someone utterly clueless and nice, someone who is still not awake to their power, could come here to this town, could become my friend, could trust me! I did all of this just so you could get infected with a tiny, weak skinwalker shard from the future!”

The feelings of confusion, betrayal, and anger overpowered the pain. Martin wanted to scream at Alexa. He should have known better. He should have expected this! He suddenly saw the skinwalker spider in his head as a burning, sparkling web-like shape, overlaid atop another, far wider, dim fractal web. He reached out towards it with all of his being, desiring, wishing, needing to do something!

The fractal network around the skinwalker ignited in a radiant splendor of impossible colors, tendrils twisting, entwining, cocooning the little burning, dying life into itself. Martin’s eyes flashed from within with a multitude of colors as his nails gripped into the floor mat. Alexa had released the raygun trigger in that instant.

“What in the hell is wrong with you?! Why have you done this to me?!” Both Martin and Spiderbro cried out in unison, grabbing at Alexa. She was giggling, no laughing with wild abandon of a supervillain as Martin shook her in impotent rage.

“I win.” She finally pronounced with a wide grin.