Mimi shook her head in mild disbelief. “That is indeed disconcerting. Yes, exactly as you’ve said. I actually only have one Slot free, instead of two.”

“You’re probably a little curious as to why my powers are so much lower than advertised,” I said, reaching out for her hand. “Moscow.”

She took my hand with complete familiarity, which didn’t surprise me. I had known Peggy Carter for years now. “Yes. I’m getting nothing from you at all?” she asked reasonably, looking down at our hands. “Even touching you.”

“I have an Astral Ward. Your power naturally requires you to sense someone’s power and abilities before you can Mimic them. Since you cannot sense me, you cannot Mimic me.”

The Portal assembled itself out of my Masspack in front of us in mere seconds. It energized with a flash, and I stepped through, leading her calmly out into the street at the edge of St. Peter’s Square, the Kremlin visible nearby.

“If I may be allowed to?” she asked with a smile, holding up our hands.

“I doubt you’re actually going to receive much from a real standpoint.” I lowered my Astral Ward down for her, and she watched calmly, waiting.

My Red Eyes popped up suddenly, and I felt a tingle that wasn’t there before. Her head tilted sharply, as if sensing something, looking around alertly, then up at the sky. “I seem to feel... something?” she asked, letting go of me. She went up on her toes a moment, then on one foot, holding her poise effortlessly. “Yes, muscle control and balance. The increase in strength is negligible.” Her hands blurred for a second, winds whipping around us. “No particular improvements in hand speed.” She focused on her hand, and particle effects started up, but there was no electricity. “That is very strange. My thoughts seem clearer, and my memory sharper, but I’m not even getting your bioelectrical ability. Yes, there’s a considerable amount of magical and alchemical knowledge filtering in that I did not have before, along with mathematical and scientific support, but it is not excessive...”

“That’s because you’re already damn smart, and you’re only getting half the benefits. Most of my powers are either trained or not intrinsic. Could you copy the Phoenix’s powers?”

She gave me a look of mixed emotions. “Yes and no. Her abilities that were enhanced by the Phoenix, yes. The abilities conferred upon her and actually powered by the Phoenix, no.”

“Same thing.” I brought my voltage up crackling on my hand, and she studied it intently, her eyes glowing slightly. “My Patron actually empowers this. Without a Patron, emulating most of my powers grants you basically about a +15 to human base physical Stat line, some radiation and poison resistance, great balance and fitness, and that’s about it. You’ve probably got equivalents or better, so the stacking grants you almost nothing.”

“This way.” I rose into the air and followed her as we flew towards a branch of the Kremlin just above the ground, so as not to alarm the soldiers and officials wandering about, although I was pretty sure they recognized Callie, and by the way they were pointing, soon me, since I was in my colors.

“Likewise, you can’t imitate my magical ability, as you’ve no spells or formal training, although you probably have my magical potential at the moment. You can’t copy my Nova Core, I imagine, artificial as it is, or I imagine you’d have one already.”

She sighed. “My prime...” she began.

“Call her Callie, Mimi,” I interrupted her.

She smiled again. “Callie, then. She did obtain a Nova Core, but it was disrupted and reset every time her power set changed, and is effectively useless unless we don’t shift power sets for long periods of time.”

“That’s probably because you have and are emulating multiple different Cores. I only have a Nova Core, my Caster Matrix stays separate. The Buffs which give me height and strength are also from a device. Any Cores I get will have to integrate into and be Powered by my Nova Core.

“I imagine you can charge a Nova Core up VERY quickly with Comet’s ability to absorb energy?” She didn’t really have a limit on that stuff, as I understood it.

“Yes... but if we link the two together that way, the absorbed power in the Core starts getting used to feed her power-up set, instead of remaining to the side as a Passive supplement.” She waved me to a halt, nodding. “There is a Madrox.”

I looked over and identified the brown-haired fellow climbing into a military transport immediately. A second was all it took to Ur-Copy his Duplicate ability.

This meant I could contact my three ‘wild’ Duplicates and reunite with and upgrade them for popping back out.

I could also form three more.

I /sent out the Messages promptly, and got /replies quickly enough. Even Tatyana was available and willing, between missions and stuff.

“Would you like to go up to LaGrange now?” Mimi asked calmly, glancing at the sky and smiling.

“I might just be a little faster than you think,” I smiled, as we both began rising into the air together.

“Let me clear it with Air Traffic.” We kept rising slowly as she shifted through Markspace to find the right people. “Okay, getting clearance... we’re good to go.” She cracked her knuckles confidently. “I’ll let you go first.”

I raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and took off.

There was no boom, because Elemental Command slid me through the air as if I wasn’t there. In less than a second, I had a two-mile lead and was only accelerating as the air grew thinner.

I had never really pushed my acceleration like this, and the faster I went, the more time slowed down as my reflexes increased.

I was pretty sure I’d shocked the Hell out of her. The combination of Specs, Beaubier, and Nova speed was not small, after all, and unlike her, my powers operated at full strength.

---

Specs noted that Mimi was definitely burning after me, leaving a trail of light like I did electricity, but she was not catching me as we both converged on the great floating space station of Terra, headquarters of the High Guard.

I swooped in close and decelerated. Mimi flashed up behind me a second later and came in next to me.

“Impressive,” she said, projecting telepathy easily in space, undeterred by the hard vacuum. I was using Specs’ invulnerability to ignore it, beyond my Amulet’s protection. “I truly did not think you could move that fast. You have something more than a Nova Core?”

“A false Core the Nova Core ate when it was formed. Major speed buff. You’d probably need your last Slot filled to keep up with me.” Magevoice worked without atmosphere, too, amusingly enough.

“Are you anticipating this power-up?” she asked curiously. “I can totally confirm it is life-changing to have power at this level. You... are probably the most advanced Nova Core that we have, but I’m fairly sure this is stronger than that by a considerable margin.”

“Honestly, I doubt it is going to work.”

“Oh?” We came up on the main hangar doors, me following her lead, and flew leisurely inside.

“You should make your hair purple, so you look like a Mimi, and so they don’t mistake you for Calli.”

She glanced at me, thought that over, and a second later her hair went from brown to lavender, and her eyes to magenta. She seemed to find it amusing. “Should I start wearing some punk rock jewelry, too?” she proposed.

“It would totally make people think you’re twins instead of cloned,” I agreed.

“Not a bad idea,” she agreed with a thoughtful nod. We descended to the ground, as flying around inside the station would be awkward in the narrow tunnels, which actually had a fair amount of traffic of all kinds.

In particular, I noticed quite a few Xandarans around, confirming where a lot of the new workers and bots around the outside of the station were from.

“Keeping the Acanti out of sight?” I asked quietly.

“Aye, they stay on the far side of the Moon. Don’t want the ground-pounders getting nervous about state-sized space whales with cities on them flying about. Very nice creatures. They speak well of you.”

“I got to put ‘Save the Whales’ into practice. It was great!” I answered.

“Why don’t you think this will work?” Mimi asked seriously.

“What you said about the Nova Core,” I answered. “You’re the master of using your Mimic ability, but you can’t get a Nova Core to work with it. Obviously, I have an established Nova Core. It devoured the false Core I had when it was established. What are the odds I’ll be able to set up a permanent network of other Cores around it while it exists?”

“Oh.” She thought about that. “How long do you think such things will last, then?”

“Until my Renewal at dawn, when I lose the Copied ability.”

“That is... unfortunate.” Still, she wasn’t unhappy. “I guess my... Callie and I will have to suffer with being unique!”

“More power you!” I agreed without regret. While that level of a power-up would indeed have been something... eh. “I can still do the temporary boost if we know something is coming, or we are in a teamwork situation. I just can’t have it stick around by itself and become Miss Invincible or something.”

“But, but the conspiracy theorists! You’re gravely disappointing them!” Mimi protested.

“I do so love to do so, too,” I agreed. “How are we handling this?”

“Having lunch and playing cards for an hour works best for me.”

“Lunchtime already? Oh, you’re on a different clock. Never mind, carry on.”

------

And thus I was shown into the company of the High Guard, the foremost protectors of Terra from otherworldly threats.

Primus, Paragon, Comet, Atom, Lantern, Wrench, and Flux were all present to greet me formally, as was Callie the Mimic, masquerading as basically the team manager, and Kismet, who had been called up from the Moon. Having a super-enhanced Super-Soldier/Black Widow there was certainly a boon to the team, and even if some people outside had deduced the High Guard had a Widow advisor, they likely had no idea she could back up the entire team on her own.

Callie was a bit surprised when Mimi came in with purple hair, but took it right in stride as I shook hands with all of them, having met everyone but Callie socially and professionally before.

Flux I encountered frequently since she often advised Ben Parker... who was not here only because he was absolutely need-to-know.

Primus and Wrench had been a big help refitting the Starholder. Atom and Doc Bronze I talked with all the times on the science side of things, as I was the go-to person for profound math and dimensional physics. I double-checked a lot of equations for them... or improved them.

Comet and Lantern basically ran the station and security for the system, with the former having decided that I was going to be one of her few social companions and having shared many an opera or play with her.

She loved a full-body lightning massage, too.

Kismet was being groomed as someone to enter the High Guard, but simply didn’t have the experience or maturity to do so, although she was learning quickly.

There was a Nova Corpsman present too, a freshly-minted Centurion Prime by the roughness of his Nova Core, named Lygaete. I was guessing that he’d been fed some from the M’Kraan Crystal to get him up to Core Seven to work with the High Guard as an equal. I hadn’t met him before, but he knew of me, and the fact I’d reached a Core Six in just a few months meant he was hardly going to look down on me, especially after my extremely destructive defense of Xandar.

“How does this Copy ability of yours work, Dyna?” Primus asked curiously, gesturing at Callie. “Is it similar to Callie’s Mimic ability?”