The puppeteer of Mr. Canard sat inside his portable office, feeling irate and spooked. He was slowly devouring his order of seventy eight burgers and twenty four pizzas from a McHeroes delivery order. He had purged a lot of biomass from his host to get out of the damned pipe. Precious, precious biomass that he had to gain all back as not to look questionably thin. Eating what he had purged off the ground was out of the question. Humans did not eat things from the ground. The other shard was right. He had to blend in better. Blend in... much better.

The host’s brain meats were giving him information randomly and sporadically, resisting the little shard’s influence over it. The more the little spider learned of this new world, the more terrified he became. The all-seeing megastructure ring in the sky was the worst. He now knew that he could not do anything odd out in the open, or they would know.

Don’t give them a reason to check. Don’t be weird. Be a teacher. Blend in.

Anyone or anything could be an agent of the Superstate, he knew this now. He made a foolish mistake in making a nest in the bank. Thankfully, that little blonde girl impervious to the hypno-pacifier had destroyed it. What was her name? Alexa? Alexa. A nice target for the propagation. No! No she isn’t. She knows things. She vanished and reappeared beneath the bank somehow. Was she a super? There is a lot of gold in this backpack of hers. Mr. Canard was in possession of two of Alexa’s backpacks now, having confiscated one and taken the other from the Ice Cream van. So much gold in the black bag and strange devices and diamonds in the pink one. Where did all of this stuff come from?

The little shard tried to draw conclusions from Alexa’s bags full of loot and failed, its desires for propagation and the strong mind of the host constantly interfering with its ability to formulate coherent thoughts. The need to make more of itself nagged and persisted. He pushed it all back, focusing on the thoughts and desires of the host. The host's wants provided the shard with useful information.

The host, the real Mr. Canard, was really hoping that some super observer from the station noticed that he was acting weird. The host hoped that he would be rescued. The host knew that it would be a strike team of five supers with powers that reinforced each other.

The shard worried that the SCA team would come for him. He feared that they would mentally disable him like the hypno-pacifier did, rip the little alien life out of the head of the teacher and vaporise it. Yet, nobody showed. Perhaps the little skinwalker still had a chance to exist in this terrifying world full of powerful hosts. The longer he spent inside the teacher, the more he had become like the host. Perhaps, there was still hope. Perhaps there was still a way to survive and propagate.

No. Don’t think about nests. Don’t think about making a nest.

He wondered how the other shard was doing in the boy. Its integration had seemed far more successful. It seems that the children made better hosts than the super adults. Don’t think about infecting children, damn it! The eyes in the sky are watching. The prognosticators are calculating the future. Change too much and they will come down and destroy you.

Don’t do anything out of the ordinary. Just be a teacher. Just eat this delicious pizza. Don’t be a monster. Belong.

. . .

Unfortunately, he could not hide forever away from the world, as being a gym teacher was a thing he had to do now. He put on a pair of mirrored sunglasses to hide his glowing, silver eyes and emerged out of the relative safety of his portable. As the pretend teacher walked across the gravel road into the gymnasium, he tried not to look up at the terrifying ring in the sky, dotted with eternally burning lights. Upon arrival into the gym he waited for the 8th grade students to emerge from the changerooms.

When the kids started to come out of the changeroom, three of the girls immediately drew the shard’s attention to themselves. The teacher froze.

Firstly, his eyes settled on the Equalizer. He was warned via a text from the Vice Principal that she was a transfer student that was coming today. What he was NOT warned about was the huge, gun-shaped thing beneath her clothing, which the super’s eyes could immediately see through the cloak. It immediately stood out against the red pulse of the Equalizer’s body heat. Mr. Canard gulped. This was a very dangerous gun, its core was colder than anything he’s ever seen. Fractal tendrils of darkness wiggled within its depths, reaching, wanting, waiting. The gun was alive and it wanted to feast, to devour his power. The super instantly realised that this girl was the highest ascendant of the Equalizer Order, a Paladin who executed true enemies of Equality. Mr. Canard took a step back, the host sweating in dread of the gray Executioner and her living gun.

The second girl that caught his attention made no sense. She was a bit too tall to be an 8th grader. The host’s mind determined her age to be approximately 15-16. She was even more spooky than the Equalizer because she didn’t belong to his class. His all-piercing eyes detected a pair of Superstate handcuffs in her pockets. Mr. Candar saw ghostly, barely perceptible, off-color... things floating all around the girl. They were just as terrifying as the living gun. This girl was a concealed Superstate agent, the one who he feared would come for him.

Were these two part of a group that came to take him down? Where were the other three? Mr. Canard’s eyes beneath the mirrored sunglasses rapidly spun in their sockets, in different directions, calculating possible routes of escape.

The third girl that emerged from the changeroom was Alexa Terranova and she was holding a very large, shiny, brass tuba.

“Sup teachersama! Why are you wearing sunglasses indoors? I know what’ll cheer you up! A nice song!” She yelled, waving an arm at him and put her lips to the tuba, blowing.

A cloud of sparkly dust exploded out of the tuba. It was the last straw. Mr. Canard flung himself out of the window, glass shards raining in his wake.

. . .

The students looked at Alexa.

“What? What?” She asked them. “I was about to play the school spirit song for our lovely Mr. Canard, but I guess some jerk put all this glitter into my tuba as a practical joke. Don’t judge me! I’m as perplexed as you all are about this spontaneous teacher departure.”

Martin rushed out of the changeroom to the sound of the tuba as the sound of “distraction” made by Alexa. He arrived into the gym gripping the raygun and panting, only to discover that one of the large windows and the gym teacher were missing in action.

“Shoot.” He swore under his breath. The skinwalker must have somehow figured out their plan and left before they struck him down.

The cloud of glitter began to come down, settling on the confused students. The only person who was not confused was Ember. She marched towards Alexa, fists opening and closing.

“What the fucking hell?!” She growled.

“I agree. This glitter is going to stay with me forever and I didn’t even get to play my whimsical yet morally inspiring song. There’s no escaping glitter.” Alexa said solemnly, her clothing and hair sparkling as more glitter snowflakes fluttered down all over.

“I know you did this.” Ember growled.

“Eeeh.. Alena, lay off Alexa! It can’t possibly be her fault that the teacher jumped out of the window.” Martin reached the pair of girls.

“Allinna, Allinna damn it! You can’t even remember one name!” Ember snapped at Martin.

“I don’t give two shits about your dumb-ass name!” Martin yelled. Some glitter got into his mouth and he started to sputter and cough.

Cottie silently stared at the glitter storm. She stood exactly far enough from Ember not to get attacked by her avatars.

“I didn’t do nothing.” Alexa shook her head.

“Liar! This is all your fault!” Ember growled.

Alexa stepped closer to Ember bravely looking right into her eyes. “Look, warden dum dum. I called the SCA for help. They in their unquestionable wisdom, sent you here. There’s an escaping monster. Go catch him before he starts eating people or something. It’s your job. Do your damn job.” The villain pointed at the broken window.

“I’m not doing anything of the sort.” Ember hissed back, grabbing Alexa’s arm. “In fact, I’m arresting you and taking you in for questioning. I’ve had enough of your bullshit.”

A flickering refraction of Ember appeared in the air, snapping a pair of ghostly handcuffs to link Ember’s arm to Alexa’s. The real handcuffs vanished from Ember’s side pocket, now appearing between her hand and Alexa’s.

“You’re making a very biiiiiig mistake there, warden.” Alexa said. “Last chance to leave me alone. Let me go and walk away now or you’ll lose everything forever.”

Cottie raised an eyebrow at the handcuffed pair. Ember didn’t look like she was convinced by Alexa’s threat.

“What? Are you going to interfere with me? Go ahead, you brainwashed twat! I don’t care if I get shot, you hear?! This shit ends now!!!” Ember yelled, pulling Alexa towards her, sending sparks of glitter all around.

“I have no intention of shooting you if you do not hurt her.” Cottie said expressionately.

“Let her go, damn it! This isn’t her fault!” Martin yelled. He thought about threatening Ember with the raygun, but then realised that at best he could menace her with a migraine.

“This is a nuthouse not a school.” Ember groaned. “Martin, I need you to stop being a moron for just one minute.”

“I’m not a moron!” Martin growled, his eyes flashing with silver sparks. He’s had enough of his sister bringing him down. The spider in his head was calculating the best place to attack Ember to bring her down, ready to direct his feet exactly where to strike.

“You are because you don’t know anything! She’s a monster who killed her father and I’m going to prove it!” Ember shook Alexa with the handcuffs.

“Hey I’m cool and hip, definitely no monsterness in me.” Alexa objected. Her bracelet beeped.

“Oh for fucks sakes!” Martin swore, rushing towards Alexa.

“Cottie! Martin! Grab my hand, now!” Alexa yelled.

“What? What is this?!” Ember barked, hundreds of her avatars flickering into existence, shoving Martin away from Alexa.

Cottie pressed on the railgun trigger and the avatars vanished as quickly as they appeared, as colors drained from everything nearby. The other students stood with their mouths open, confused at what exactly was happening here.

“I don’t need my power to break you, Equalizer!” Ember yelled. Martin crashed into his sister, as her avatars holding him back suddenly vanished. Cottie made it across the six meters separating them just in the nick of time, grabbing at Alexa’s hand as Ember’s fist collided with her face. Darkness fell.

. . .

“This is an unexpected foursome. Or a Fifthsome? Hmm, you know what… I don’t know the proper term for a group of five.”

“Quintet.” Cottie answered, still holding onto Alexa’s hand. She was barely keeping herself together. She did not like what she saw.

“Let go of the gun trigger. Let her enjoy this.” Alexa whispered to Cottie.

“Where the fuck are we?! What the fuck is going on?!” Ember yelled, trying to untangle herself from Martin. Her ghostly avatars came into existence once again all around the four humans as Cottie released the trigger.

“Shut up! Shut the fuck up you friggin idiot!” Martin yelled. “You don’t know anything! You always jump to the quickest conclusion possible! Look! Look at where we are! Feel with your freaking avatars if you must! Go ahead!”

“What?! But this can’t be real…” Ember muttered. Some of her fake persona had been seemingly stripped away by the power Cottie's gun, eyes and hair returned to their usual gold and orange colors. She still looked like a 15 year old. Apparently the de-aging was a much more permanent and complex super-made modification for the gun to remove.

“Oh but it is real! So very real!” Martin snarled.

“No, no, no.” Ember spun in a circle, ghostly avatars flickering all over, touching the ground, looking all around. The information that they were sending into her head was impossible. Everything except for the four people was in ruin. The very air felt wrong, broken somehow. It had no life in it. It was chillingly cold and dead.

“What the fuck have you done?!” Ember turned to Alexa.

“Me? Oh. I didn’t do anything. You couldn't possibly think that a fourteen year old girl could kill an entire planet worth of life, do you?” The silver-haired villain smiled.

“She didn’t do nothing, you friggin nutter! This place is Earth, but four hundred years in the future! She… oh… oh no.” Martin’s face fell, his eyes looking up.

“Martin? Tell us. What do you see?” Alexa prompted.

“I know ...what happened here. I know why everyone is dead,” Martin whispered, his voice shaking. Even Ember fell silent at this moment, waiting for Martin’s answer.

“Titanomachy… it fell from the sky.” Martin finally clarified.

“Welp, there goes my wizard theory.” Alexa interjected a comment into the deep silence that followed.