Seeing the dumbfounded expression on the faces of the gathered thugs warmed Cheshire’s heart. That was, until one of them took a swing at her with a bat while screaming, “Cape!”

She ducked under the blow, took a step back, and almost tripped when her foot landed on the guy she’d knocked out. “Dang it,” she muttered as she took another step away from bat-guy. Narrowing her eyes, she waited for him to finish his wild swing, then punched.

Her claws bit into his forearm, locking it in place for the seconds it took her to get her head in close and chomp down on his hand.

His scream was musical, and the metal bat clanged to the ground at her feet as his hand spasmed. He tried to back away, so Cheshire helped him along by ramming her head in his gut as hard as she could.

That was one more idiot down. She started to bend over to pick up the bat when another thug ran at her, knife in hand. Phasing out of reality, she avoided his first swing, then jumped backwards again to gain some ground. The idiot just stood there, slack jawed at her awesomeness.

“Super Secret Cheshire Special!” she screamed before swinging her foot forward as hard as she could and punting him between the legs.

He went down wheezing.

Grinning, Cheshire turned to the other idiots only to see a couple of them take off running. Another fell down with a bolt sticking out of his chest and another ran full tilt into a wall that warped around to block off his path. Then the heroes arrived, Vista beelined towards the nearest downed idiot and started tying his arms together with cuffs while Shadow Stalker stomped over to Cheshire.

“Hey,” Cheshire said.

“You little shit, you stole my power!” the older girl screamed.

Cheshire glared up at her, arms crossing. “No I didn’t.”

“I just saw you!” Shadow Stalker pointed off behind her to where Cheshire had turned smokey just a minute ago. “You’re the reason my power’s been weird all week. You stole it!”

“If you were afraid of gettin’ y’er power stolen, you should’a kept a better eye on it,” Cheshire shot back.

“Guys,” Vista said as she cuffed another thug. “We should really just wait a bit. I’m sure we can figure things out once the others arrive.”

“Oh, I’ll figure things out, all right, when she starts squealing,” Shadow Stalker said. She reached out to grab Cheshire but the girl phased out and reappeared with her tongue sticking out and her middle finger holding one eye open. “You little shit!”

“No, y’er a shit,” Cheshire said.

“Guys, just wait, Console sent some adults,” Vista said.

“Shut up,” both Shadow Stalker and Cheshire said at the same time. They turned back and stared at each other.

Cheshire hrmped. “I’m goin’ home. You cowards are too much for me.”

“Cow-- I’ll strangle you,” Shadow Stalker said as she tried to grab onto Cheshire. The girl spun out of the way with a squeak then started laughing as Shadow Stalker chased her around in circles.

“Oh my god,” Vista said. “Piggot’s going to kill us.”

With a running leap, Cheshire hopped up, used her power to become lighter, then jumped off one wall. She spun in mid air and did the same against the opposite wall, gaining height with every bounce back and forth.

Shadow Stalker screamed incoherently as she started following her up. The girl was taller, and had stronger legs, her flight up the side of the buildings around them was quite a bit faster, and by the time Cheshire was on the roof she was hot on her heels.

“Screw you, shadow girl!” Cheshire screamed over her shoulder as she sprinted to the edge of the roof and jumped off. She could hear Shadow Stalker’s angry panting as she followed. There was a twang behind her, and on instinct Cheshire phased out of reality just in time for an arrow to dart through where she was. “What the hell!” she said.

Figuring that speed was the better part of valour, Cheshire started sprinting all out, not that it helped much, Shadow Stalker was fast.

Growling, she let herself phase through the roof of an office building, landed on a desk and grabbed a heavy lamp from off the top. When Shadow Stalker’s shadowy form followed her down, she threw the lampat her, keeping her phased out long enough that she dropped to the floor below.

She took her chance and ran off in another direction, phasing through cubicle walls and then out of the side of the building to land on the street.

A few people screamed as she landed in the middle of them, but she paid them no mind, too busy trying to put distance between herself and Stalker.

***

She was sweaty and tired by the time she made it home, but there weren’t any homicidal Wards on her tail. She had cut through buildings and alleys and kept off the rooftops as much as she could. It added a few minutes to her travel time, but at least it made it nearly impossible to follow her.

She hoped.

Landing in the backyard, Cheshire brushed off the pants of her onesie, straightened its hood and wiped the sweat away from her forehead with the back of one hand. She was going to need to be extra sneaky as she ran a bath and tucked her onesie under some dirty clothes.

Phasing through the backdoor into the kitchen, she started to pad over towards the staircase when the lights flicked on.

Taylor was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, brows drawn and not a hint of amusement on her face.

“Heya, big sis,” Cheshire said.

“Sit.”

“Aww, shit.”