Well, shit, Hard-Light thought as he saw just who was coming for him.

“Hard-Light?” Blur said as she stopped at the entrance of the hall. “I thought you were dead?”

“You sound disappointed.” Hard-Light warily eyed the woman across from him. “It seems even the Blur has to think twice before fighting me.”

“Hardly,” Blur scoffed. “I was just hoping to see someone else here. Taking you down will just have to be my consolation prize.” She started advancing again.

“Ah, hoping for a family reunion?”

That stopped the woman in her tracks.

“What do you know?”

“Enough,” Hard-Light said simply as he capitalized on the woman’s momentary hesitation.

He shot her in the chest, the explosive vaporization blowing the heroine backward with a good chunk of her chest missing.

Silence filled the room, broken only by the sound of steam wafting from the corpse of the world’s most famous hero.

“…Well, shit. That was easy.” Hard-Light said, more than a little stunned.

Perhaps her abilities have been exaggerated.

A force blast took him in the chest, blowing him across the room just as surely as it drove the air from his lungs.

Before he could even figure out what had just happened he activated both his blades to block a blow from above. The sheer force of it rang down his arms and drove him back another foot.He found himself staring into the very much alive eyes of Blur. The woman’s face was split into a rictus grin that seemed entirely out of place on the paragon of justice. More importantly, her eyes were dilated in a manner that was familiar.

Is she high?

Throwing the thought from his mind, he shoved the smaller woman back as he dashed in for a counter-attack. One that connected, driving into the woman’s ribs with the sound of sizzling flesh.

Which was why he was caught off guard once again as the mace in the woman’s hand narrowly missed his head, slamming into his shoulder.

What the fuck!?

Jumping back, his arm throbbing with pain, the villain backpedalled furiously as the entirely unharmed woman came at him with a flurry of blows. Each one was like a hammer, jarring his now injured shoulder and sending pain lancing up his neck.

Drugs numbing the pain?

He franticly tried to figure out how the fairly slender woman was pummelling his guard with strikes that would have given some Bruisers trouble. Still her frantic attack was not without weakness. Skilled as she might have been, whatever substance she was taking was clouding her judgement. Slicing out between attacks, Hard-Light was once again rewarded by the sound of sizzling flesh as his blade cut into the woman’s forearm.

This time he refused to let his guard down.

And he was rewarded for that caution when the limb that should have been inoperable blurred before coming at him again; as hale and healthy as ever.

Not numbness then. Regeneration.

The exact nature of Blur’s powers had always been something of a subject of debate in both the civilian and the villain communities. Some thought she was a Bruiser on account of her resilience, others an Artificer because of her gadgets, and others still thought she was some manner of Speedster on account of her sheer speed.

The only consistency between all of them was her habit of ‘blurring’ during a fight.

Guess I’ll have to go for the head then…

Perhaps under different circumstances he might have hesitated at the thought of killing one of the most famous heroes of this generation.

That would bring a lot of heat down on his head—assuming the Guild figured out who did it.

Unfortunately for him, given that said hero was directly across from him and coming at him with all the tact and grace of a berserker on steroids, he had little choice in the matter.

The two locked weapons again, Hard-Light’s projections sparking against Blur’s mace. Increased strength or not, sheer weight had a role to play as Hard-Light shoved the shorter woman back.

Putting his theory to the test, this time he swung for the woman’s neck, and was rewarded when she chose to parry rather than take the blow.

Well, at least she can be hurt.

He took the offensive. The woman moved to parry another blow, only to hiss in surprise as Hard-Light’s projection twisted into a hook, wrenching the weapon and pulling her off balance.

She let out a gasp as Hard-Light’s shoulder slammed into her frame, forcing her a step back. It provided Hard-Light with the opening he needed. Moving with the momentum, the air whistled as he swung, taking the heroine’s arm off at the elbow, sending it and the weapon it held flying.

In any other situation the fight would have been finished there. Even for a regenerator, losing an arm was pretty traumatic. Even if it wasn’t, his opponent had just lost her only melee weapon.

Surrender was pretty much guaranteed.

Still, Hard-Light hadn’t lived as long as he had by engaging in half measures. His second blade was aimed unerringly for the woman’s neck.

Which was why he was surprised when the heroine spun with the first blow, deftly twisting around to allow the blade to pass harmlessly over her head. She brought a foot around in a perfect arc to slam his head.

The counter from an unexpected angle stumbled him, his head ringing, and he only barely managed to avoid the woman’s follow up kicks.

Blinking away spots in his vision, he back peddled franticly, only to grunt as several gunshots slammed into his shield. Half blinded, it was only long experience that had him diving away from the unexpected gunfire. He slid behind a nearby pillar.

When the hell did she get a gun?

She sure as shit didn’t have one when she came in. He’d checked. She had a mace. That was it. Which was mostly why he’d chosen to start their little engagement by shooting her.

Pain throbbing in his head, he waited for the distinctive click of a clip running empty before poking his head out, his own gun in hand.

He flinched back, pistol flying from his hand, as a dozen more rounds slammed into his hiding spot and his shields.

That was bullshit.

Apparently his opponent didn’t need to reload—somehow. He prepared to tank a few hits as he dove from cover, his shields lighting up as he dashed toward his opponent energized by frustration.

His hasty decision was vindicated when he saw his opponent armed with little more than their apparently magical pistol. Experience, or the drugs she was taking, allowed the woman to duck underneath his running strike, rolling forward.

Unphased, Hard-Light didn’t hesitate to twist back around for a second strike, only to jerk in surprise as his blade impacted a very familiar mace.

Did she pick it up again? No, she couldn’t have.

The weapon had been thrown in entirely the opposite direction from where she’d rolled. So how did she have it now?

He parried a series of blows from the now rearmed heroine.

Does her gear have some sort of bullshit ability to teleport?

Blur ducked under another blow and stabbed back, only to have her mace deflected by Hard-Light’s blade. In doing so she missed the fist that followed it. The blow disorientated her, sending her a few steps back. Under different circumstances he might have pursued, but he needed the moment to catch his breath.

He wasn’t as young as he used to be, and even if he was, going toe to toe with Blur was like trying to wrestle down a bull. Power enough to make his arms shake backed up by a stamina that seemed endless.

Hell, is she even sweating?

She wasn’t.

What kind of horseshit is that?

“I guess you’re reputation isn’t total bullshit,” Blur said, irritation on display.

Despite the fact that his entire body was throbbing with pain, Hard-Light couldn’t help but grin. “If this old man is too much for you, you’re welcome to step away.”

“Hardly,” Blur scoffed. “This is just taking longer than I wanted it to.”

He wanted to argue, but he knew she was right. He was getting some good licks in, but that was more a result of carelessness on Blur’s part than skill on his .

“Fuck it,” Blur said finally. “You’ll be going into cryo after this anyway. Not like you’ll be spreading it around.”

“Spreading wha—”

Blur exploded.

“Christ, I hate doing that.” Blur grunted as her powers reset.

At the very least, her latest stop point had effectively purged the stimms from her system so she could think clearly again. Enough to know that she’d lost her patience too easily.

The hallway was a mess.

Still, the device she’d used was more percussive than anything else, so it wasn’t like the damage to her surroundings was anything more than skin deep.

Well, mostly.

Hard-Light had been blown clean across the room. Though, to give the tough bastard credit, he was still conscious.

If only just.

“What the fuck was that shit!?” The man, kneeling against the wall, coughed.

“Me getting serious for half a second, asshole,” she muttered.

The man couldn’t hear her. The explosion would have blown out his eardrums.

Dodging an ineffectual swipe from the prone man’s blades she casually kicked him onto his back and started pulling on her powers for a sedative. She started reaching for the usual memories, before remembering that they were supposed to be using that new stuff from Cardine Chemical.

Pulling up the correct set of memories, she felt her body shift. The slight hunger she’d felt earlier faded, filled with the vague tipsiness of one too many drinks.

She frowned as she remembered that she’d spent that day dodging the advances of the company’s incredibly pushy CEO. In doing so she’d imbibed more drinks than she really should have, in an attempt to make the wait before the new sedative’s reveal tolerable.

It hadn’t worked.

Should probably make a new stop point when I get back to base, she thought. Don’t want to be slightly drunk every time I have to dope a perp.

Taking the sedative, she leaned down to administer it quickly so she could pull up another stop point—and almost jumped out of her skin when someone shouted from behind.

“Don’t kill him!”

She twisted round to glare in Gravity’s direction. “It’s a sedative.”

“Oh,” the yellow clad woman said.

“When did you get here anyway?” She asked, wondering if the woman had seen her… explode.

That would make this more awkward, and would no doubt require the former villain fill out half a dozen non-disclosure agreements. Which combined with the amount she would already be filling out to ‘switch sides,’ well it might just drive the woman back to a life of villainy, if only to avoid the inevitable writer’s cramp.

“Just now,” the yellow-clad woman said. “You move really goddamn quick. And you won… even quicker.”

The woman’s eyes seemed to linger on Hard-Light’s downed form. “He always seemed so… invincible. I knew you were stronger than him… I just didn’t expect for you to beat him… so fast.”

Blur shrugged, more than a little uncomfortable with the awe in the woman’s voice. “Once you reach a certain level, fights usually don’t last more than a minute.”

Blur knew she was an exception to that rule, but Gravity didn’t need to know it.

“I guess,” Gravity said.

Driving the needle into Hard-Light’s neck with just a little more force was really required, Blur clambered to her feet.

“Do you know where Jas— Mechromancer is?”

To her dismay, Gravity shook her head. “No. Comms dropped out completely after your fight with Hard-Light started.”

“Shit,” Blur muttered. “You stay here and keep an eye on him. I’m going after Mechromancer.”

She didn’t wait to her the other woman’s response, as she dashed for the control centre. Pulling on her ‘Close Combat’ time stop once again, she felt the familiar cocktail of stimulants run through her system as well as the discomfort of a dozen odd cybernetics phasing into being beneath her skin. Still, her trusty mace reforming in her hands was a comfort.

A comfort she sorely needed for what might just end up being a… trying confrontation.

Which was why she was surprised to face no resistance at the doorway of the control centre. Instead she was greeted by an unexpected and worrying sight.

A blonde woman lay sprawled out on the ground.

Bronte…

The shallow rise and fall of her chest told the heroine the blonde woman was still alive, if in critical condition. It looked like something had taken both her hands off at the wrist – before messily applying a tourniquet to each.

She wondered if it was a weapon malfunction as she noticed the blackened scorch marks at the edge of the wounds. Such things weren’t entirely uncommon where Artificer tech was concerned, but the timing was odd.

Either way, another combatant down made her job simpler.

The woman would survive for now.

“He’s not here,” Blur spoke into her communicator. “Bronte is, and she’s hurt, but no Mechromancer.”

“She’s what!?” Gravity’s voiced chimed in. “Is she—”

“She’s alive,” Blur cut the other woman off, “but right now I need you to focus. Where would Mechromancer be if not here?”

The heroine had to wait a few agonizing seconds while the other woman thought.

“Cell Block A,” she said finally. “That’s where we were going to start extracting the prisoners. If he’s not in the control room… he might have cracked the Ball and Chain.”

A shiver went down Blur’s spine at the thought. Her primary motivation in coming on this mission was personal, but if the Mechromancer had managed to crack the Ball and Chain…It became more imperative that she find him.

“I’m moving. Hard-Light should be reasonably secure under sedation, so you can move up to aid Bronte. Do what you can to keep her alive until emergency services get here.”

“G-got it.”

“Hey Sis.”

It sounded like him. The same jolted, almost monotone speech. It looked like him too. The same mannerisms. The same awkward, slightly hunched posture. Like a man uncomfortable in his own skin.

The only thing that didn’t fit the image of her brother was his suit of power armour.

It was crude. Haphazard. The sort of thing a newbie hero—or villain—would wear. The sort of thing they’d used to laugh together about once upon a time. Watching the news and pointing out the myriad design flaws they could find.

They’d made a competition of it.

She never won, but she’d enjoyed it all the same. It was the only time Jason ever really seemed to… come out of his shell.

“Well, you caught me.” The stranger in her brother’s skin said. “To be totally honest, I was hoping Hard-Light would last a little longer.”

“What are you?” She asked, hating the way her voice hitched, almost imperceptibly. “Plastic surgery? A clone? An android?”

The man, Mechromancer, scoffed.

So similar to Jason.

“It’s kind of amusing,” he said, “that even here and now, in your mind, this is all about you.”

“Answer me,” she demanded.

“I still hate it. The inherent dismissal of it. The idea that I’m not my own person. Just a means. A vector from which to target you.”

She never thought of her brother that way, and to hear it said by this imposter… it made her blood boil.

“Answer me, or I’ll make you answer me,” she uttered through gritted teeth.

If her PR people were here they would be appalled at the venom in her tone. She didn’t care.

“What makes you so sure that I’m not the real deal?” the man asked.

“Jason’s dead.”

She’d checked. Oh how she’d checked. She’d turned over every rock. Shook down every crook. Praying that it wasn’t the case. All her efforts. All her attempts to skirt the rules in the name of finding answers.

They’d all come back with the same result.

Jason was dead.

…and now this asshole was pretending to be him. Mocking his memory.

“Nope,” the man said. Casual contempt pervaded his voice,. “And don’t take another step or a lot of people are going to end up with perforated craniums.”

She frowned, not realizing she’d begun to advance. With a thought she pulled away from her CC time stop, instead pulling on her ranged one. It wasn’t her preferred loadout. No drugs to dim the pain as metal and ceramics phased into places they really shouldn’t.

Places that were lethal for a human. Given enough time.

Of course, that was true for most of her combat loadouts.

“You think the life of some scumbags is more important to me than bringing you down,” she asked.

But she warily stayed where she was. Even as emotions flowed twisted in her mind, she was searching for a way to get the Omni-Pad away from the villain without setting it off. She really should have brought Techno along.

“Yes. Yes I do.” The doppelganger said it with such confidence. It was infuriating. “I doubt your personality has changed much in the intervening years. Still the perfect ‘hero’ at heart.”

She hated it. The implied familiarity. The assumption that he knew anything about her. He was just another villain searching for a way to beat her. To bring her down. He’d just chosen a route that villains wiser than him had decided wasn’t worth the risk.

“You aren’t my brother. He’s dead. You’re just the result of some asshole desecrating his memories.”

He’d pay for it. Make no mistake.

“You don’t really think that,” the villain continued. “I’ve seen your little chats with Gravity. Some part of you believes. Probably because they never found a body.”

He was right. It galled her to admit it, but he was right. Even as her mind boiled with rage at the insinuation, god help her, some tiny part of her wanted it to be true.

“The experts said he was vaporized.”

“They were wrong. Well not really. As I recall, the first reports suggested I might have survived. Something about a relatively unscathed patch of ground where I might have been sitting? They only changed that theory later.”

She remembered that report. She’d obsessed over it. It had represented a chance. A hope. One that was ultimately proven false.

She wanted to yell at this scumbag for bringing it up. To berate him for not even having the basic fucking human decency to let the dead lie in peace.

She didn’t though. She was a hero, and right now hundreds of lives rested on her ability to control her self long enough to come up with a plan to disable the omni-pad in the villain’s hand.

So she let him talk.

“And I can probably guess why,” the villain went on. “The Guild might have tried to cover it up, but you were on the war path for weeks afterwards. Trying to find the villain that kidnapped your brother. You certainly had me nervous. I kept thinking you were going to bust down the door of my crappy hotel room.”

The man laughed, as if at a particularly embarrassing memory.

“Hell, I’m pretty sure they only changed the theory from kidnapped to vaporized to get you to calm down again. It was certainly a weight off my shoulders when it popped up on the news.”

“You aren’t my brother!” She shouted, her patience reaching its end.

The man’s smile fell . His eyes dulled and his features twisted towards a grimace. As if he was speaking to a particularly slow student.

It was familiar. Oh so familiar.

“When we were twelve,” he began. Blur felt her heart pounding in her chest. She knew what story he was going to use. “You had us both sneak out of the house to ‘fight crime’ after you first got your powers. I got stabbed in the hand and you put a mugger in the hospital with four broken ribs and a perforated lung. Our parents got a call from the hospital and put a media blackout on the whole thing. Didn’t want the ‘little incident with unlicensed vigilantism’ to tarnish our reputations when we joined the guild.”

“Anyone with enough time and resources could uncover that.” She shook her head vehemently. “It proves nothing beyond you, or your creator, being an obsessive creep.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted. “Though I think you might be underestimating the lengths dear old Mom and Dad went to bury that incident. You might think yourself a paragon of justice, but Mom can be a bit more pragmatic.”

She flinched. Just for a moment. So fast that it would be almost impossible to see.

“Still,” he continued. “I doubt anyone else knows that afterwards you confessed to me that you were so terrified you wet yourself and had to abandon your panties in a dumpster while we waited for an ambulance.”

Her heart stopped in her chest.

“We laughed about it at the time, but afterwards I could remember thinking that it was the only time that you expressed even a hint of doubt. Something beyond that perfect façade.”

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t!

“Ah, there’s that belief.” He smiled. That damningly familiar smile. Jason’s smile. “The stunned realization. The happiness. The sadness. The betrayal. The anger. The fear.”

He sighed. “Save it. I don’t want or need it, it’s the Blur I want, not my sister.”

Lucy barely heard him as she started walking forward. “Jason… I… I can’t believe your alive. We need to—”

She froze as he raised the Omni-pad once more into view.

“To stay where we are, lest something go explosively wrong,” he said. A hint of irritation entered his voice.

And that small phrase reminded Lucy of where she was. Where Jason was.

…And what he was doing.

“Why Jason? Why are you doing this? This isn’t you. You’re not… like this.”

She didn’t understand. Couldn’t understand.

“I’m the villain. You’re the hero,” he said simply, as if that explained anything at all.

It didn’t. Not a damn thing.

“Jason… you can’t beat me,” she said. She'd unconsciously fallen back on her diplomatic training.

“Can’t I?” He laughed, emotion cracking through the apathetic front he.d created, and just a hint of hysteria. “I mean, I can understand why you’d think that. A no-name villain like me, a nobody, against the Blur? It’s laughable. Hell, for you it’s just an average Tuesday. You put chumps like me in the slammer all the time.”

She started forward again, just a tiny step. “Jason… You can stop this. We can stop this. Here and now.”

Erich waved a hand in front of him forcing her to stop in her tracks as his finger wavered dangerously on the button.

“Don’t!” he said. “No, I can’t beat you. At least, not in a fight. I take my hand off this button and you flatten me in seconds.”

He giggled, hysteria coming back strong.

“Which is why the victory conditions change. A win for me? For a villain on the level of the Mechromancer? That’s escaping.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “There’s no way out of here.”

“You think?”

She frowned, hesitating. “There is nowhere you can go that I won’t find you.”

“Even out west?” he asked.

“Even there.” She affirmed, meaning every word. “I don’t know what happened to you Jason, but I’ll find you. I’ll bring you home, one way or another.”

“The only way I’m coming with you is in cuffs,” he snarled.

She nodded. “If that’s what needs to happen to get you home.”

“Good.”

There was no warning. No hint about what was about to happen. He just disappeared. One second her brother was there.

Then he wasn’t.

Jason was gone.

The ‘Mechromancer’ was gone.

Lucy screamed.

Anger, relief, sorrow and frustration melding into a single symphony.

Erich barely had time to react to his change in surroundings before a collar clamped around his neck and he was shoved down into the dirt.

“Just you?” A voice said from overhead. “I guess you failed then. Can’t rightly say what else I was expecting from a bunch of amateurs.”

Erich didn’t respond. He couldn’t even if he wanted to. Though even as electricity ran through the collar and into his body, he managed to retain his smile.

I beat her.

Finally.

He wasn’t nothing.

He’d beaten the Blur.

Uncaring of his thoughts, the voice from overhead continued. “Well, I hope you perform better in the Dome than you did on this little heist of yours boy. You’re gonna need to.

The flow of electricity stopped, and he collapsed bonelessly into the dirt.

“Get him to processing.” The voice said as two powerful hands seized him by the shoulders, dragging him up. “Tell the boys at the front desk that we’ve got another contestant for the games. Ten million in debts.”

The man scoffed. “Though we'll be lucky if he pays even half of that off before he bites it.”

Erich didn’t care.

Zig-Zag was gone. Gravity was gone. Bronte was gone. Hard-Light was gone. He’d given Blur a black eye. Everything was going according to plan.

“Welcome to the Dome, kid.”