"Doctor. Doctor Chance. Chance. Pajama Boy. Tobias. Mr. MacClain! Doctor MacClain. Doctor Tobias! Tooobyyy. Doc!"

Tobias groaned loudly and hung his arms around his head, pressing his one ear harder into his makeshift pillow. The black hoodie rustled against his curls. The smell of cheap wine wafted from the empty jar on the floor a few feet away. He scrunched up his face and bunched some of the hoodie fabric over his mouth and nose.

"Doctor!" The voice came close in his ear-hole, startling him enough to jolt upright.

"Hiccup!" Tobias's hand smacked against his side at the sudden motion. His muscles scorned him with fiery sensations in his abdomen and underarms and he sorely fingered the bruises from his restless slumber on the steel floor. He glared at his assailant's blond-framed blotchy face, blurry eyes unable to focus on any features but the swirling brown freckles and the spinning blue discs where her eyes should have been. Hazy visions clouded his sight, quickly inducing a familiar morning migraine. As more power had come to him, the aches had only increased in intensity, though they seemed to clear sooner than they used to. He pressed his hand over his eyes. "What is it, then?"

"Dizzy said to tell you we got you coffee." Hiccup stood. Boy's shorts hung around her knobby knees like the casings of bells. "And also that the volcano might erupt today."

Tobias jumped to his feet, almost tripping over his hoodie as he strained to remember how to work his peg. He seemed to learn it every single day. With no articulation in the thin black foot, it truly felt like walking on peg leg. Hiccup grabbed his robe and helped him to come steady.

"The volcano?" Tobias breathed shakily, fingers splayed at his sides. "What's this about the volcano?"

Hiccup shrugged and waved for him to follow her out of the dark, barren room. He shuddered and bent to pick up his glasses and the emptied jar. Limping wearily after his companion, he retrieved his cane by the door to ease his steps. As the cane lifted the weight and reliance heaped on his prosthetic, the strain on his brain was relieved by a fraction and he sighed quietly. He slid his spectacles over his nose, balancing the right arm on what little remained of the ridge of his removed ear.

As far as lair living quarters go, the central volcano's facilities were not the most accommodating. In my time of reporting, sleuthing, hiding, and making pacts to keep authorities off my back and my business unheard of, I have found myself in a great many lairs. Some, I entered by invite. Others I entered of my own accord—with good reason. The most reclusive villains tend to have the strangest lairs, while those most publicly known have quite a similar trend in décor and design. For example, Whetstone, a stone golem villain whom the nation frequently forgets exists, has lived in a cave lair so dark and so sparse for so long that he has developed the ability to see in the dark and spends most of his days in meditation. No furniture softens his lair and it is crawling with giant bat-eating millipedes. At every hour, you will find that some flying mammal is being digested by an arm-sized crawler overhead.

On the other hand, The Verdant Flame, who has been featured on newspaper front pages at least once a month for half a dozen years, lives in a suite built around the lava chute of a West Benediction volcano. The suite is to die for. I explored my love for margheritas at its fully equipped bar, served by a trained monkey, then explored the drinks' aftereffects on a king-sized, curtained bed even softer than Tobias MacClain's lush robes. Fully-equipped waiting staff, lavish hidden rooms, and furniture so white it makes you forget that the owner gets off on spilling blood.

Tobias's new lair, historically well-known, had a strange in-between level of décor that made it feel unfinished in the areas where the press and the heroes seldom reached. The living quarters and scheming rooms took up the lowest level of the volcano, beneath the main floor and entrance where Mr. Might and Vine Voodoo had once crossed paths with Hephaestus Hellfire.

Of course, what strange, reclusive nutcase would choose to live in the base of an active volcano, nowhere near any land? Many famous ones, but never for long; hence why the lair was a chaotic halfway blend of "I never associate with humans" chic and "I deserve worship" lavish.

There was one rock-hard queen-sized bed, which Tobias had given up to the three girls to share. Both against the same wall in the bedroom, there was also an empty steel bookshelf and a walk-in closet with a hidden compartment—in which there was a spool of sparkly red spandex. In the kitchen, lava had infiltrated and cooled to basalt, taking up much of the space and rendering many appliances and wares unusable; including the refrigerator and oven.

The freezer worked at the time of their purchase, though Tobias told me the smell of it had filled the entire lair when he'd first walked in. Hephaestus Hellfire must have had a taste for fishing in his spare time, for the freezer—unplugged and unattended for two weeks—was packed with rotted shrimp, shellfish, and trout, which took close to an hour to empty and scrub out. Weeping with exhaustion, Tobias had scrounged up his box of wine from the boat to pour a jar-full in the only glassware he could find. He had used a few mouthfuls to wash away the foul taste of marine death before collapsing for the night, stamina all but spent and misery maxed.

Hiccup loped past the kitchen door, and Tobias recalled the reek so strongly that he had to stop and press his head against the wall. A tide of nausea rose from his gut and he focused on pushing it down. With a thick gulp, he held his breath and dipped quickly into the room to discard his wine jar in the sink, then continued down the narrow hall. White LED lights ran overhead, casting the steel floor and concrete walls into unkind clarity. It felt like a prison with so little space, so little decoration, such invasively bright LEDs.

Footsteps made a racket on the steel beneath. The tapping of his cane and peg echoed and filled his spiraling head with a jumble of discordant thunks.

What did Hiccup say about coffee? Where would they have gotten coffee? Oh, how he longed for a good cup of it, however unlikely.

His eyes adjusted to more moderate yellow-toned lighting as he ducked into a control room. Small lights, buttons and screens mingled across his hazed vision, creating a blur of blues, greens, and reds. What he saw was akin to what one might see through a car windscreen on a rainy night after one window-wiper has been shot off by pursuers and the other is streaking the water quite uselessly.

"Morning, Doctor."

Tobias rubbed his eyes and located Dizzy among the glare, perched in front of a computer. Green and yellow glinted off her rectangular reading glasses, making her eyes appear closer to brown. Milk Chocolate spun around aimlessly in a chair beside her, chanting an advertising jingle from a hero-sponsoring cereal company.

"Good morning, Dizzy. Good morning, Annie."

Dizzy pushed back her chair. She stretched and yawned, then moseyed towards him. "You look trashed."

"I barely slept," Tobias defended, pulling his robe tighter around his chest. "It was a long night."

The teen pulled off her glasses and frowned at his bent knees, his wrinkled shirt, his shaky hands, his twitching and squinting eyes. She took him in as a powerlifting coach might take in a petite ballet student with unrealistic dreams, and she rolled her eyes. "You really aren't a very strong hero behind the scenes, are you?"

Tobias gasped slightly, posture stiffening. "My powers are quite potent, thank you very much." He scowled and shook his head, leaning on his cane. "I can't help that I haven't had the time to recharge properly. I'm exhausted. Hiccup said you had coffee."

"Hm." Her eyes slid from side to side. "Yeah, I have coffee, alright..." Pushing up her sleeves, she narrowed her eyes towards him.

Tobias stepped back. "What do you—AH!"

He collided with the floor, letting out a stunned wail. He wheezed, inhaling deeply, and quickly repositioned himself to be less vulnerable, jolting back off his burning hands. Shoulders against the wall, he pushed his good knee up, preparing to stand.

Dizzy staggered back at a quick movement of his cane in her direction. He instinctively held the stick out in front of himself like a weapon, but realized in mere moments, it wasn't needed. His mind was clear, his visions sharp.

Heart pounding, stub knee throbbing, back blazing from Dizzy's sharp, sudden blow, he tossed the cane aside and grabbed handfuls of his hair. He leaned against the wall, sliding down to his rump, and listened to the echo of the wooden aide clattering around the concrete trap.

"Sorry," offered Dizzy quickly. As if it were awkward to admit apology, she pressed on as if it hadn't happened, reassuming her casual and arrogant air. "We don't have coffee, but we need to talk and we need you awake and... and I noticed that you get charged by..."

"Yes, Dizzy," Tobias snapped, jerking his head up. "Pain causes a release of epinephrine. Thank you so much. You just about gave me a heart attack. I've already been betrayed by one team, I didn't need it from another."

She cringed, raising her hand to the back of her neck. Her eyes flicked awkwardly from his hands to her boots, to his hands. "Yikes, Doc... I mean, I didn't... I didn't mean to..."

He looked down sharply and found clumps of oily brown curls entwined with his fingers. All the color drained from his skin and when he raised his eyes again, they quivered. His jaw hung slack.

Dizzy grimaced, crow's feet deepening below her brows. "I didn't mean to..."

Milk Chocolate stopped spinning. The cap from her chocolate milk bottle dropped from her open mouth and bounced over the floor. "Uh oh."

Hiccup's nose wrinkled as if on a drawstring, and her finger lifted. "The burnt half's crying again."

"Ohh," Tobias whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut. He shook his hands to one side, ridding them of the hair, then combed over his scalp again. Thinner clumps fell into the pile. "Ohh! Don't watch me, for crying out loud! Give a man some privacy!"

The teenagers looked between themselves uncertainly. Tobias knew they would not leave. Tobias knew they would not laugh or tease, or salt his wounds, either. He pulled his robe over his head, sitting against the wall and bringing his legs to his chest as if being smaller might help him disappear. If it were possible, his blood would have turned into liquid shame.

Milk Chocolate was the first to move.

Her footy pajamas scuffled over the cement.

Her soft gloves picked up his hand and lifted it away from where he pinched the robe. She smiled at him as strongly as she could when the red fell from his face, exposing two wide and wet brown eyes. She squeezed his burnt black hand between both of hers, bringing its trembling to a standstill.

"You're still my favorite hero," she told him gently.

Tobias swallowed, shuddering meekly. Unable to find his voice, he offered a small smile of gratitude and squeezed her hand back, only lightly. He tried to say thank you, but as his lips moved, only a pitiful squeak passed through.

Hiccup crouched in front of him and lifted a handful of her long spaghetti hair, tilting her head to one side. "Your hair's still thicker than mine, see?"

Tobias laughed a little and pressed his bulky sleeves against his streaked cheeks. He nodded slightly. She crawled under his arm and warmed his good side, pulling his elbow around her. Tobias turned his gaze to Milk Chocolate, who he could hardly detect against his burnt side without looking. Her humming vibrated against the underside of his arm and a patch on his chest where the lava had not quite reached. The breakfast cereal advertisement jingle brought a smile to his face. So out of place; as he was.

"I'm really sorry... Doctor MacClain," Dizzy mumbled, eyes on the floor. "I shouldn't have..."

"No, Dizzy, you shouldn't have," Tobias interrupted sternly. "But, this is not your fault." They looked at each other for a moment before he glanced off. "I think we all know what is happening."

"It's not true," Milk Chocolate huffed, fists balling around his robes.

"You pull at your hair whenever you're stressed. That's all." Dizzy bit down on her thumb. "You're always stressed. When we finish all this, you'll be fine."

"It isn't just stress, it is—" Tobias began.

"The wig!" Hiccup interjected. "You must have been allergic to the wig that I had you wear last night. Or the glue."

"I..." I don't think so. He met her hopeful blue eyes and couldn't finish. Instead, he smiled wearily. "I'm sure you're right. Nothing to worry about."

The two girls held onto him tighter. Stings reverberated through his body where the most painful burns stretched or were pressed into, but he didn't flinch at it anymore. He would have been bawling a week ago. It felt too good, now. It felt less like fire and more like a good stretch, sharpening his mind and his body more and more as moments went by. Signs were building up, weren't they? Pain felt good, sparking a reward of power. Spells of anger were frequent and, now, his hair was falling out? Every pom seemed to start that way. Though it wasn't proven, it felt like every hero that changed allegiance demonstrated the same symptoms.

Teddy was right, Tobias thought, I am the next pom.

He feared that the changes meant that he was losing himself to something sinister. He feared that he was becoming exactly the kind of villain he had fought against all his life; and he feared most of all that he had little desire to stop it. He wanted Mr. Might to crumble more than anything, and only then—when he saw that wretch suffer—did he think his dark tumble might stop.

"Do you know what?" he murmured, drying his face. His breath shuddered out, chest constricted against the warm pain. He looked from Hiccup to Milk Chocolate to Dizzy. "I'm starving. I could go for a large plate of roast potatoes. Are you girls in the mood to go to shore?"

Hiccup leapt up, throwing her fists in the air. "Yes! I'm so hungry I could eat an elephant!"

Milk Chocolate jumped to her feet, next. "I'm so hungry I could eat a whale."

Dizzy put her hands on her hips. "Okay. But, Doc, what about the volcano? Didn't Hiccup tell you? It's..."

"What makes you think it will erupt anytime soon?" Tobias edged himself up the wall. The concrete scratched his raw back through his shirt and robe and he had to hide his pleasure, restraining a grin. He listened to her answer long before she spoke it, clear as a bell even in the future. Still, he awaited her to speak, at least minding his manners.

The white-haired teen gestured to the computer monitor that she had been working at. "The computer has been giving alerts all day. Lair integrity low, repairs needed, high risk of flooding in the hero lobby, etcetera. Then it keeps bringing up this bar of eruption likelihood and the percentage keeps getting higher. This morning it was at sixty percent, now it's at seventy."

Tobias closed his eyes, inhaling deeply through his nose. "I will look into it. Why don't you all get the boat ready while you wait? I think I will be looking quite far into the future."

"I need to do your make-up and glue on your wig," Hiccup said. "Or we can use your full mask, instead."

"It is three o'clock in the afternoon," Dizzy grumbled, raising a pointed index finger. She took ahold of Milk Chocolate's hand and started towards the door. "If you wreck yourself, it will mess up all of tomorrow. I mean, you've already slept through one day. Just take care of yourself and be as responsible as you tell us to be. Your max time was eight hours, last you looked, right? Don't exceed that."

"But, Dizzy, imagine seeing twelve hours ahead. I could—" He lowered his eyes, waiting for her impending interruption over a grimace. Words hurt. Over and over, repeating in his head, spoken in many ways. The clump of hair on the ground called his attention. His remaining curls spread over the wall.

"Promise me you won't try to see more than eight hours." She ushered the younger girls out and tried to find his eyes. He reluctantly met her blazing, stern look. "Promise. Prove to me, and to Hiccup and Milk, that you aren't going pom."

Tobias almost snapped at her. Yet, at the same time, he almost cried. At the same time that he was infuriated, he was wounded deeply, and seeing the chances of each different variation of meltdown flood across his vision tore him to bits, leaving him in a confusing neutral pool of miserable uncertainty. Much of him wanted it all to go away so that he could react as himself, not as some artificial selection of himself.

He almost asked her if she wondered how far she could push herself. He almost fell to his knees and begged forgiveness and mercy. He almost told her it wasn't a hunger for power, but a scientific fascination. He almost pressed his forehead to the ground and hid his hideous, sniveling face.

He was sure of none of it. After investigating the possibilities of what response of his would bring the most favorable reaction, he followed this future to a tee.

Tobias covered his burnt cheek with his uninjured hand, knocking his glasses askew. "I may look the part, but it is only a face. Hair is only hair. If I never saw my skin or my missing pieces, then I would see the same hero that stopped a steel beam from killing a hundred children, just a little more frightened. I am not going powermad. I won't need to look past eight hours. In fact, I shall be careful not to exceed seven, to be safe, to be responsible. I promise."

Milk Chocolate's gloved hand shot through the doorway, little finger extended. "Pinky promise!"

Tobias, leaning against the wall, limped into reach. He crouched and locked his pinky with hers. "I pinky promise it." He met her wide, serious brown eyes. She nodded curtly. "Seven hours in advance, and no further."

Hiccup's pinky came through the doorway next and Tobias was sure to make his unbreakable vow to her, too. She brushed her hair out of her face. "I'll get the full mask ready."

"Thank you."

Tobias stood to face Dizzy last. The black star piercing on her nose lifted as her pale skin twisted in half of a sneer.

He held his hand out flat. His left hand, his normal hand. Dizzy took it, giving him a shake. She held the grip.

"I need you to stay sane, Doc."

He smiled thinly, bittersweet, and pressed a finger to the bridge of his spectacles. His heart twisted. "I know."