My heart began to pound in my chest as I scrambled to grab my phone back out. I hit the speed dial for Faultline, and I started to swear under my breath after the second ring. C’mon, c’mon… Pick up!

The ringing stopped, and Faultline’s voice filled the line, “The PRT are here.”

“I know,” I whispered. “Rune just approached me out of costume and implied she left an anonymous tip we’re here.”

“Fuck,” she swore, some anxiety bleeding into her normally collected and in control manner of speaking. “It looks like they’re forming a perimeter. Where are the others?”

“They left a few minutes ago to find the doctor. There’s no way they’ve found him, much less had time for Shade to copy him enough.”

“I’m sure the PRT will most likely be looking for our van and someone with your injuries and description, so we need to get out of here to buy Shade time. Can you get to the van without being conspicuous?”

“I’d have to ditch the chair.”

“Better than one of us coming in to get you.”

“Point taken,” I groused. Faultline had taken one of my civvy outfits to store in the van last week, and I was willing to bet she had backup clothes for herself too, but we had no time to waste.

“Go now. I’m turning the comms system back online and leaving the channel open. I’ll warn Shade.”

The call ended, and I shoved my phone back into my pocket. I pushed myself to my feet and wobbled a bit. The painkillers made me care less about the pain, but they had also left me a bit woozy. Or maybe it had something to do with the injury? When I stopped to think about it, I really wasn’t sure. I started towards the entrance of the ER but froze when I saw two PRT trucks pulling into the traffic circle just outside the door.

Aisha’s voice suddenly filled my left ear. “—as that one patient you saved from a gunshot wound! Sooo inspiring!” There was a pause as the person Aisha was talking to, presumably the ER doctor she was going to mimic to get close to Panacea, began to reply. When someone spoke, what they heard of their own voice was apparently in part a vibration in their skull from their vocal cords. The comms system was designed to pick up on only that, else leaving the channel open would result in an impractical cacophony of noise.

“Shade,” Faultline said, interrupting the ‘silence.’ “We have an emergency.”

How could I get out of here? The side exit was probably going to be barricaded soon if it wasn’t already. The rest of the crew were parked on the level of the parking lot just below the uppermost, and that had been several floors up, so my best bet was probably to take the nearest elevator to a higher floor—the roof if possible—and escape from there to the garage.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Aisha cheerfully said, her tone so full of sugar it was a wonder she didn’t instantaneously develop diabetes, “but my phone is vibrating with a call. I’ll be right baaack!” There was a brief pause, then she said, “Hi, this is May speaking!”

I switched gears and started walking away from the front door while searching for any signs indicating where the elevators were. There—an elevator symbol over the hallway Aisha had gone down to get to the bathrooms. I started that way and nearly stumbled when my feet didn’t quite keep up with my brain. Luckily I was able to grab hold of the metal in my bodysuit to keep myself upright.

“We need to switch to the backup plan after all. The Empire apparently figured out where we were and tipped off the PRT, who are already here. Meteor will regroup with us, then we’ll get out of here and reconvene with you later for you to heal her with Panacea’s power.”

I resumed moving towards the elevator as quickly as I could without outright running that way. There was no sense in drawing attention to myself and giving up the game.

There was a pause then Aisha heatedly replied, “Uh huh. Look, I don’t even have a car, so I really doubt you can save me money on my car insurance.” Wow. Was all that anger faked for the ‘telemarketer’ call?

“Wait, where are you going?” the lady who checked me in called out as I walked past her desk. I didn’t stop to bother with her and proceeded straight past towards the hallway.

“Switching your end to tap to talk, Shade. Stay focused, and get your hands on Panacea’s power ASAP,” Faultline responded.

Almost immediately I regretted not stopping when the lady at the desk called out to me. Even a second would have made a difference. As it was, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time when I walked past a triage room right as someone walked out through the curtain obscuring the entryway. They ran into my left arm, and I screamed in agony as pain lanced through my abused arm. My concentration on my power slipped, and between the rekindled pain, the wooziness from the meds, and being run into, I fell to the ground. Mercifully, momentum from the impact meant I fell to my right and didn’t land directly on my injured arm, though the landing still sent another surge of pain through me.

“Meteor?! What happened?” Faultline barked through the line.

“Jesus, are you okay?” someone said from nearby. The person who had run into me?

“I’m fine,” I lied through clenched teeth. The world swam around me in a sea of colors as I tried to get a grip on the pain, and I tried to get my bearings enough to push myself up into a sitting position but couldn’t manage it. “Just an… an accident.” Other people had rushed over to check on what had happened, and somebody was helping me sit up.

“Are there any rooms free right now?”

“No, but we can use one of the hallway beds in the back.”

“Meteor, what happened? Are you free to speak?”

“No, that’s not necessary,” I tried to argue as my vision began to settle and I found two nurses, one guy and one lady, kneeling by me and debating what to do. “I, um, got a call from my cousin. She’s a nurse here and needs me to go upstairs.”

In my periphery I saw the glass entrance to the ER slide open, and I turned my head to look. Two PRT officers with metal tanks strapped to their backs with tubes running to handheld launchers marched in, each flanking one side of a cape in military fatigues and American flag accents. Miss Militia, if remembered her name correctly. Her power was made obvious as the knife strapped to her thigh twisted into green and black mass of energy that shifted to her hands and reformed into a shotgun. It all felt quite strange to my power—sort of quickly melting away before bursting back into existence.

“That’s nonsense, we need to get you into a bed and looked over,” the male nurse replied in a stubborn tone.

“Um, okay, a bed then?” I said, shifting so I was facing away from the entrance. Hopefully Faultline could piece together what was happening from what I was saying. “Can you help me stand up?”

“Absolutely.”

The PRT officers were wearing lots of metal, and though I could feel the metal of Militia’s weapon, it felt slippery under my power. Was this what Faultline had been talking about, the Manton limit she suspected my power had? Was Militia’s weapon a ‘part’ of her? The nurse finished helping me to my feet, and I did my best to focus in spite of the pain still throbbing through my arm in order to use my power to keep myself upright and standing. Behind us, I felt Militia and her escorts reach the check-in desk, and I desperately hoped they wouldn’t look back this way. If we can just get further down the hall, we’ll be out of sight…

It wasn’t meant to be. “Meteor! Please stand down!” I felt her gun turn in my direction, though it thankfully remained aimed at the floor. The PRT goons, however, did bring theirs to bear.

I immediately reached up with my right hand to tug my scarf up over the lower half of my face. Not very subtle to do so in front of people, but better that than expose my unmasked face to a member of the Protectorate. The nurse who had helped me up looked towards Militia, glanced back towards me, then promptly stepped away with his hands in the air. Every inch of me wanted to grab all the nearby metal, form a wall between the white hats and me, and book it, but as Rune had correctly—ugh—pointed out, this was a hospital. I needed to avoid starting a fight in here if at all possible. I slowly turned around and gave the hero a little wave with my right hand. “Miss Militia, right? I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but…”

“Dammit, they already have Protectorate on-site too?” I heard Faultline swear over the comms. “Don’t do anything reckless, Meteor.”

“That’s correct,” Militia confirmed. “Please surrender and tell us where Paige Mcabee is. This doesn’t need to get rough.”

“Keep her talking,” Faultline said. “I’m on my way with Newter.”

Oh sure, keep the one person who could probably successfully shoot me talking. No pressure, Faultline! “I, um, like your mask?” I blurted out. “Most people cover the eyes.”

Her facial muscles shifted, and though I couldn’t directly see her expression, I got the impression she was smiling. “Yes, I see you’re a fan of the look.” Her expression shifted again. “Assault hasn’t been able to report much yet on account of his injuries, but he did mention you. Said you seemed like a good kid.”

I winced. “Um, thanks? And we’re really, really sorry he got hurt that badly. Never would have happened if it hadn’t been for Loki.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not. It certainly wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t attacked the convoy.”

“Sorry, but that was the job.”

“So you were hired.” Huh? Why else would we… Oh, did they think we thought she was a case 53? “Did your employer tell your team what Mcabee did? Did it even matter if the price was right?” She shook her head and lowered her weapon some more. “My apologies, that was uncalled for. Your arm clearly needs medical attention, and you don’t have your gear with you. Please surrender, so we can get you the care you need.”

“You know I can’t do that,” I replied, taking a step back. The PRT officers started to shift forward, but Militia held up her hand in a fist, and they froze in place.

“We’ve made it inside without the PRT noticing and or on our way to the stairwell by you,” Faultline updated me. Stairwell? Where is it?

“I think you’d be surprised what you can do, Meteor,” Militia calmly said. “You always have the chance to make the right choice.” The hero slowly bent over with the muzzle of her shotgun pointing to the side and away from me and set down the weapon before pulling herself back upright. “There. I know from experience with my teammates how naked a tinker feels without their equipment. Now I don’t have my equipment either. May I approach? I just want to check on your arm.”

Seems Faultline’s plan to make people think I’m a tinker worked, I thought. At least something went according to plan. From here I could see people in the ER waiting area recording our conversation. Hopefully the rumor I was a tinker would spread as people watched the videos. “Yeah, I couldn’t exactly fly under the radar if I brought in all my tech,” I joked with a faked laugh. Hopefully the very real pain it was laced would mask any deficiencies in my acting. I still needed to buy Faultline and Newter more time to get here. Maybe I could play up the injured party angle? “I, um, don’t suppose you could talk Panacea into looking at it? I mean, it was a hero who hurt me.”

Militia shook her head. “Boudicca isn’t affiliated with the Protectorate.”

“But Assault is, and he amped her up right before she battered my arm until it broke. Until it shattered.”

“We can debate culpability all we want, Meteor, but it won’t change anything. I imagine we could get Panacea to fix up your arm if you surrendered and joined the Wards, but right now it’s very important that Mcabee is brought back into custody. She’s an extremely dangerous master. If she got free, then it’s possible she could hurt someone you care about.”

Behind the three of them, four more PRT agents were coming in through the ER entrance, though only two of them had foam launchers. The other two had shotguns that I had to imagine shot beanbags or some sort of nonlethal ammunition. I could feel Faultline’s costume descending rapidly nearby. Something long and made of metal was running from her position up to one of the upper floors. A grappling hook? Just a bit longer. I nodded towards the agents coming in. “Bit much just to capture an unarmed tinker, isn’t it?

Her facial muscles shifted again, but I couldn’t make out what expression she was making. “As I said, Mcabee is a very dangerous individual. We have to take all necessary precautions. Please surrender, Meteor. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

Faultline’s descent stopped. Judging by where she was, the stairwell must be at the end of the hallway branching off from this one. That meant Faultline and Newter would be coming into the area from my side. She approached a door in that vicinity and slowly began to turn its handle before likewise slowly pulling it open. “Y’know, Assault did promise to treat me to dinner to make up for hitting me from behind earlier…”

Militia’s smile was back. “I did say you made a good impression on him. I’m going to walk over and secure you for now. Please don’t be alarmed. We’ll get you medical attention as soon as possible.” She slowly stepped forward, and I let her. After all, each step put her further away from her weapon, the lone variable in the situation I couldn’t control with my power.

The moment I saw her eyes snap up and to my left, I knew the jig was up. I swiped with my right arm, and each of the containment foam nozzles in the area turned then their triggers depressed. The two PRT officers closest to us sprayed one another, and the two with foam back by the ER entrance sprayed at each other as well while trying to also hit the remaining two officers. Militia’s weapon, which had been at the feet of the closest two officers melted away, and my eyes widened when green and black energy flashed into being in her hands followed immediately after by the same shotgun reappearing to my senses. She moved to bring it to bear on the ceiling behind me, and before it even registered what I was doing, I tried to push the muzzle of the shotgun down and to my left. Unfortunately I had no effect whatsoever, and a strange collection of metal shot out at a speed far too quick for me to follow. I heard a dull thwack just before Newter’s yelp of pain reached my ears, but I put it out of my mind for the moment in favor of trying to turn the foam nozzles this way. The foam was already solidifying to the point it was hard to move the metal with my power, but I managed to get one of them pointing in roughly the right direction.

“Get back!” I shouted as I hastily yanked myself further down the hall with my power, regretting my hasty decision when the movement heavily jostled my arm. Newter scrambled away from where he had fallen to the ground, and Faultline shot a taser at Militia while strafing sideways towards the direction I had flown. Militia was forced to dodge back and away from the taser, and I tried to depress the trigger of the foam launcher only to find the trigger had been foamed in place. In a last ditch act of desperation, I reached out to the internal components of the launcher and moved them as gently as I could in the manner I had felt when the triggers were pulled earlier. Unfortunately ‘gentle’ wasn’t really in my playbook, and the launcher didn’t so much spray foam in Militia’s direction as explode and send several huge globs of foam hurtling into her. The momentum from the globs impacting her back, left arm, and left leg sent her tumbling to the ground, and though some of it hit her weapon, it dispersed into energy once more before reforming into a pistol after the foam had fallen away. She swiftly took aim at Faultline, but my wily boss was already throwing something at the floor that exploded in a burst of smoke. She leapt to the right, and something I couldn’t feel hurtled through the space where she had been just a moment prior. Rubber bullet? With Militia distracted momentarily by Faultline and her left side being stuck to the ground, Newter managed to close the distance and tap her hand. Militia’s eyes went wide, and her weapon began to flicker back and forth between forms at a dizzying pace, barely settling on one for longer than a second before moving on to another.

I almost let my guard down, but then I heard Faultline call out, “On our six!”

I felt the guns rising behind us and cursed my distraction. My focus on Militia had led to me ignoring the rest of what my power was telling me. The three PRT officers who had snuck around to pincer us fired their weapons, but Faultline’s warning had brought them to my attention, and I swiftly melted the three bullets leaving the chambers into liquid. I started to divert my attention to disabling the guns, but the officers freaked out and started to squeeze out more rounds. I couldn’t split my attention well enough to stop the bullets and the guns firing them, and perhaps just as importantly, if I screwed with the inner mechanisms of the gun while they were shooting, the guns might misfire and explode. I turned to face the officers and saw the expressions of horror on their faces as each bullet fell apart before their eyes, adding to the growing puddle of metal hanging in the air in front of them. Faultline was already on top of one of them, ducking slightly before coming at him in a sort of uppercut that made the gun spark with red and blue light on contact and split in two. The other officers began to get empty clicks when pulling their triggers and scrambled to eject their magazines, but Faultline tapped the next gun in line. Meanwhile, I gestured negligently and made the third one begin to melt like the bullets, causing the officer to drop it like she had just realized she was holding a viper.

“KO!” Newter called out. I recognized the shorthand from training but couldn’t easily do much to get out of the way, so I stayed as still as possible as an orange blur shot past me. Faultline was already ducking out to the side, leaving the way clear for Newter to swipe his tail in an arc that touched the exposed skin of each officers’ face.

I breathed heavily for a moment, enjoying the feeling of adrenaline thrumming through my veins once again and dulling the pain back down. I was aware phones might still be recording us, though the blob of foamed officers in the middle of the hallway had to cut off some of the viewing angle. As stealthily as I could, I pulled some of the liquid remnants of the gun on the floor to me then up my front and arm to my hand before forming it as well as I could into a couple replicas of my orbs. They were a bit large, but it would have to do. “Not bad for the supposedly unarmed tinker, right?” I remarked, speaking up a bit so I could be clearly heard in the waiting room and twirling the orbs in the air over my hand. “But thanks for the backup. Very appreciated.”

“Many PRT are moving to ER door,” Gregor announced over the comms. Sure enough, a number of the rifles, pistols, and foam launchers in my range outside were advancing in our general direction.

“Time to go,” Faultline declared, turning on her heel and racing back down the hall she and Newter had come from.

“Ladies first,” Newter said, gesturing towards the hallway.

“There’s the gentleman I was missing this morning,” I joked with a hint of a wince as I lifted myself off the ground and moved to follow Faultline while trying my best to keep my left arm still by holding my shoulder in place. I made a point to bring all the liquid metal with me, so I wouldn’t be unarmed if—no, when—we ran into more trouble.

“Sorry, never been a morning person,” he quipped back as he dashed past, easily out pacing my slower, controlled flight. “I’m more the type to stay up late and have a good time.”

I could feel and hear the PRT backup rushing in through the front doors, and I made a few of the foam launchers shoot foam then grit my teeth as I pushed myself to fly faster. The stairwell was on our right, and Newter held the door to the stairwell open as I felt Faultline rapidly ascend using the grapple hook she had left in place. I flew up after her, and below me, I saw Newter jump back and forth between the flights of stairs, clinging only long enough to push off to the next. Soon enough we all reached the level Faultline and Newter had come in at, and we had a tremendous lead over the officers pursuing us from the ER.

We still had a problem though. “I think there’s a cape out there,” I alerted the team as we exited the stairwell and turned right. There were some staff in sight, but they were all taking shelter behind desks or in rooms. “There’s a metal pole, disk, and some sort of helmet like Boudicca’s in the vicinity of the parking garage. They’re all together and moving in sync.”

“Could be Dauntless?” Newter suggested, looking to Faultline.

“Can you affect these items, Meteor?” Faultline asked. “If it is Dauntless, then he has no power without his tools.”

I gently probed the three items and frowned. My power was gripping the helmet just fine, but my connection with the other two pieces felt shaky. It was almost like the metal was resisting, and I hadn’t experienced that before. “The helmet, but only kind of for the rest. Not very much.”

Faultline nodded as though she had expected as much. “It’s likely Dauntless. It’s promising that you can affect his lance and shield at all.” She paused for a moment then continued. “It’s a bad day for Labyrinth, so she should be able to affect most of the parking garage by this point. Gregor, send a message to Shade then get ready for a fight. We need to buy her more time.”

Newter and I easily crossed the gap over to the parking garage, and I carried Faultline over by forming the metal I had brought with me into two rings for her to grip. Our van was at the far end, and we had apparently been stealthy enough in crossing that Dauntless hadn’t noticed us from his position by the van.

“Exit the vehicle, but do not attempt to flee,” he called out, his voice steady and unyielding but without a hard edge.

That’s a lame costume, was my first thought once I saw his full appearance. I supposed it might appeal to some people, but the clean and neat Spartan look just seemed hollow to me. Boudicca’s hadn’t been dirty, but at least it had that weathered, realistic look that made me believe some ancient warrior might have worn the same thing. However, although the underlying elements were stupid, his equipment was amazing enough to somewhat make up for them. The pole I had felt was a lance that crackled with pure energy and looked like captured lightning, the disk was a small shield on his left forearm that emitted the same energy in a twisting spiral, and his boots, which must have been leather or some other material I couldn’t feel, were likewise glowing with energy and left him standing in midair over the floor of the parking garage. Faultline had very hastily explained how his power worked while we made our way from the stairwell to the window they had used to enter earlier. Apparently those three items, and perhaps his armor, were items he empowered on a regular basis. The lance could extend rapidly and electrocute, the shield could expand to cover an area, and the boots not only let him fly but made him very fast. The thought was he might have no limit and could grow strong enough someday to kill Endbringers. He wasn’t there yet, but he definitely wasn’t someone to be trifled with, and we had to avoid doing any lasting damage at all cost. The cape community, and not just the heroes, would come down on us hard if we ruined one of humanity’s only chances to put an end to the ongoing threat of those monsters.

“We’ve got company incoming,” I whispered when I felt a collection of metal arrayed in thin lines contouring to the shape of a woman moving swiftly upwards in a spiral nearby—presumably ascending the parking garage stairwell. The movement abruptly paused partway up and stayed very still.

I relayed what I was sensing, and Faultline quietly replied, “Battery. Can move and strike very fast but can only do it on a charge and is limited in movement while charging. There have been reports she can spend that charge in other ways, but nothing publicly broadcast.”

Sure enough, the hero burst into motion a second later and swiftly reached our level. She wore a visor made of what looked like glass for a mask, and the metal lines covering her body were apparently paths of illuminated circuitry. Their light had been dimming as she exited the stairwell, but once she came to a stop, they began to reverse course towards glowing brightly once more. Unfortunately, the stairwell wasn’t far from us, so she spotted us immediately. “Dauntless! The rest are here!” Having alerted her fellow hero, she said, “Faultline. This is a startling low for you and your group. Freeing a dangerous master? Attacking a hospital?”

“Good evening, Battery,” Faultline responded casually. “I must correct you: We were not attacking a hospital but rather getting our teammate medical attention.”

I gave a little wave from where I stood to the side. “Still haven’t gotten that, by the way. Hurts like a bitch.”

“You hospitalized Assault!”

“An accident after Loki touched one of us,” Faultline easily countered, “but I suppose it’s understandable that Assault getting hurt would make you see red, Battery.”

“No way, are they a couple?!” I blurted out when I realized what she was implying. “That’s actually kinda cute that they have coordinating names.” Battery gave me a look, and I defensively argued, “What? It is cute.”

“Tell your teammates to get out of the van,” Dauntless cut in before the conversation could get any more derailed, having flown over while we were talking.

“You seem certain they’re in there,” Faultline replied.

“It’s an unmarked van with all tinted windows, and hospital staff reported you entered the building on a level that’s more or less in line with here,” Battery darkly drawled, a hint of anger shining through in her words. “So yes, we’re sure that’s your van.”

A glob of slime slammed into Battery from the side, knocking her to the ground. At the same time, I saw the side panel of our van at the opposite end of the garage open up and reveal Labyrinth, which was promptly followed by walls rising up from the floor of the garage and blocking my view of Dauntless. “Meteor and Labyrinth, keep Dauntless occupied. Everyone else on Battery,” Faultline whispered, the comms easily picking up her words.

A hole appeared in one of Labyrinth’s walls courtesy of a crackling blast of lightning, and when Dauntless tried to fly through, I tugged his lance sharply to the side as hard as I could. Even though it didn’t move as much as it should have, it clipped the side of the freshly made hole, throwing him into a spin that sent him crashing to the ground. I immediately tried to relieve him of his weapon, but apparently he wasn’t completely out of it and tightened his grip at the first hint of it moving independently again. The ground near him twisted up into a large statue that was already in the midst of falling over onto him. He just barely managed to get his feet under him in time and practically blurred as he moved out of the way courtesy of his boots. I tried to take advantage of his distraction and send the metal I had brought with me flying towards him, but he noticed the large blob of metal in time and dodged, drawing a curse from me.

“Try to keep him occupied for a sec, Labyrinth,” I whispered. “I need a clean shot at him.”

The floor around him burst into fire, then the kindled flames shot up towards the ceiling with a roar. I felt him raise his shield, then the flames mostly dissipated when a dome of crackling lightning formed around and over him before expanding outward a short distance. Apparently not to be dissuaded, Labyrinth ignited the floor around the dome, putting the edges of the ring of flames close to the cars on each side. I felt his shield and lance shift, then they both shot forward towards me, pushing aside the flames as they passed. I dodged to the side in anticipation of a strike, but apparently he hadn’t been aiming to hit me but rather to clear the way through the flames. The lance and shield, which he had attached together to a makeshift battering ram, retracted as he dashed forward at speed courtesy of his boots. With the rest of the ring of fire still in place, Labyrinth wouldn’t be able to see what was happening in time, so I reshaped the metal I had into as close a facsimile of my shield as I could and braced myself as I pushed it into elsewhere. His shield detached itself from the tip of his lance and smoothly moved back to his left forearm without him needing to handle it—a perk of the empowerment?—and he thrust the spear forward. If he had been striking to kill, the backlash when he struck my shield would have been much worse for him, but his blow had apparently been intended to pierce my shield without moving on through me, so the backlash was only mild and mostly served to shove the tip to the side and off course.

Dauntless was close enough and his helmet open enough that I saw the look of bewilderment cross his face. The flames between us and Labyrinth finished dissipating, and a spike burst out of the floor up and into his shield. The force of the blow sent him flying away from me, and I hastily pulled my makeshift shield out of elsewhere and sent it after him. He course corrected in midair, but his impromptu flight had apparently left him disoriented enough this time that he was unable to dodge my efforts. The shield was already mid-liquefaction when it slapped against his left thigh, and the metal immediately wrapped around the back of his leg and connected together. He clumsily tried to swipe it away with his left hand, but the liquid was already splitting and spreading over him and easily shifted around his efforts. In a few moments, a band of metal was moving down each of his legs and into his boots, and I tugged them off, sending him tumbling to the ground as his ability to fly was stolen away.

“What? No!” he shouted as the boots moved to me and began to slowly rotate in orbit. “Give those back!”

I opened my mouth to reply but stopped short when Faultline spoke up from behind me, “Call off any reinforcements on their way and let us leave in peace, and I guarantee we’ll remit them to PRT custody.” I turned around and saw Gregor was standing with her and Newter was standing over a seated but dazed Battery, who had traces of Gregor’s goop all over her costume. If I had to guess, Battery had been hampered from the start by Gregor’s sneak attack, and she hadn’t been able to recover enough to avoid Newter.

“You say that like I have any guarantee you won’t just keep them,” Dauntless growled.

“Of course you do. We’re mercenaries, and this is a transaction—your boots for our freedom. If you agree to the deal, then we will honor it.”

Even from here, I could tell he was grinding his teeth. “I have to run that by leadership,” he finally said, the words sounding like they physically pained him to voice them. He slowly reached a hand into his helmet and began relaying Faultline’s terms to someone on the other end of the Protectorate’s communications system. A tense couple of minutes later, he abruptly said, “But ma’am!” He was silent for a few moments longer then slumped a bit in defeat. “Director Piggot is asking to speak with you.”

“Of course. Number?” Faultline asked. He rattled off a number, and she pulled out a phone and called it. “Madam Director, always a pleasure.”

I was close enough that I could just barely hear the voice on the other end. “Save it, Faultline. When, where, and how you will return the boots.”

“One week from today, Somer’s Rock, our whole team meeting with one Protectorate member.”

“Surely you jest. Tomorrow, the Rig, one of you and three of us.”

“You say I’m joking, but you seem to be the one playing around, Director. Five days, the Boardwalk, three of us and one of you.”

“Three days, PRT building, two of you and two of us.”

“Three days is acceptable. As for the rest… Let’s say Gregor and I will meet with Armsmaster and Gallant. Domino masks only, no gear.”

“I won’t be involving Wards in this. You and Meteor will meet with Armsmaster and Miss Militia. Armsmaster will bring his gear if Meteor will be attending with hers.”

“You say you don’t want to involve your Wards, but you’re asking me to bring Meteor in? And you insult me with your insinuation we would double-cross you, Director. Meteor and I will meet with Armsmaster and Gallant at noon three days from today at Fugly Bob’s. Again, no gear—masks only.”

The voice at the other end turned that over for a few seconds. “Done. I’m warning you, Faultline Any double crossing will be met with swift retaliation.”

“Then we have an accord. As ever, you can count on us to honor our word, Madam Director, just as I’m sure we can count on you to honor yours. We’re looking forward to your future patronage.” The call ended, and Faultline retrieved the SIM card from the phone before bisecting the phone with a brief flare of her power. She held out the pieces of the phone towards me and casually asked, “Meteor, if you would be so kind as to dump this in the trash can by the elevator. We certainly would not want to litter in front of an officer of the law.”

I had been staring at her, just trying to keep up with their rapid fire back and forth, and being so abruptly addressed startled a nervous laugh out of me. “Oh, um, sure thing.” I made a point to aim my hand at the phone remnants then made an errant tossing gesture over my shoulder before maneuvering them towards the metal trash can.

We all started to make our way over to the van, but I couldn’t help but glance back several times at Dauntless. It was obviously killing the hero to let us go, but if ‘Director Piggot’ was the regional director for the PRT as I suspected, then going against her orders would probably be career suicide. He busied himself with kneeling by Battery to check on her, and I turned my attention to climbing into the van. Newter sat in the shotgun once more to avoid touching anyone by accident, and Gregor took the driver’s seat. That left Faultline and I joining Labyrinth and the still bound Canary in the back. I briefly wondered why Canary hadn’t tried to escape, but then I glanced at her shackles again and realized escaping us was likely to lead to being recaptured by the PRT. If I were her, I would have taken my chances with us too.

Faultline retrieved the control panel for our comms system and adjusted the settings for a moment.

“—ank goodness we got her up to you in time, Amy. She would have lost her arm without you.” I didn’t recognize the masculine, rumbly voice, but since it was coming through the comms in my ear, there was only one person it could be.

“Shade, this is Faultline. I need your status ASAP.”

There was silence for a while as Shade presumably listened to whatever was being said to her locally, and Gregor started up the van in the meantime. Once he began to pull forward out of the parking spot, Shade finally spoke again. “I’ll take Masuyo back down to the ER for now, since the PRT have the building locked down. Have a good evening.”

I glanced out the tinted window at Dauntless, anxious he might decide to take a parting shot, but despite the desire to lance our van made obvious by his tight grip on his weapon, he kept it aimed away.

“Yo, I got it,” I heard Shade say, this time in her normal voice. “Where we meeting back up?”

“Get to the rooftop and avoid being seen if possible. Meteor will be flying us away.” Gregor heard the implied directions and wordlessly steered us towards the up ramp instead of the down ramp. “The PRT agreed to let us leave, but they never agreed they wouldn’t track us. We need to avoid all traffic cameras until we’re out of the city.”

“Leaving ET style, I love it. We’re on the second floor by the ICU. Give us a few minutes, and we’ll be up there.”

Dauntless stared at us as we drove up the ramp but didn’t move to follow. Hopefully that meant he had orders from his bosses to stay put. I really, really wanted to avoid any more cape fights. Three in one day was enough, thank you very much.

“You’re going to need to fly us away from here first, Meteor. We need to play this close to the chest. The PRT needs to think we all left here in this van, otherwise they might check the cameras for people in civilian clothes acting suspiciously and tie Shade’s civilian identity and your cousin to us.”

“Right, got it,” I said as Gregor slowed to a stop at the top of the ramp. I lifted us into the air and moved us up and away as quickly as I could.

“We’ll lose you on the comms for a bit, Shade. Meteor will be back soon,” Faultline said.

“Huh? Wait, just me?” I confusedly asked.

“Like I said, the van needs to have left in the eyes of the PRT. If you set us down somewhere nearby, then you can fly back and grab them.”

Newter twisted around in his seat and shot me a grin. “There’s no need to be nervous! The saying for good luck is ‘break a leg,’ and you’ve got a broken arm. It should work just as well.”

I gave him my best squinty-eyed glare. “Mean.”

“Thank you! I do my best,” he replied while giving me a shit eating grin and a thumbs up.

I grit my teeth as I flew back towards Bayside with the control panel of the comms system in hand and all of the orbs from my backpack floating en masse beside me. The winds this high in the air were a lot more brutal than they were on the ground, and it was wreaking havoc on my arm. Plus they were freezing to boot. The sooner Shade fixed me up and we were back in the van, the better. The system in my hands pinged, and I glanced down at it. The rest of the crew’s channels had disconnected a minute ago, and Shade’s channel had just reconnected with the system.

“Shade, it’s Meteor. Can you hear me?”

“Loud ‘n’ clear.”

“Super. Ready for—” I cut myself off with a hiss of pain as a particularly violent gust of air buffeted me.

“Ya okay?”

“Yeah,” I managed after a moment. “Wind is just fucking with my arm really bad.”

“Well come get us, and I’ll fix up your arm.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. I quickly flew down and started to alight on the roof by its sole two occupants only to have the air slam into my arm once more. As a result, my landing wasn’t quite as graceful as I had been aiming for, but Masuyo thankfully quickly rushed over to help me stay upright. Strangely, her right sleeve looked like it had been burned away, and some spots on the right side of her scrubs also had clear spots of damage.

“Six out of ten,” Shade remarked as she approached distracting me from my confusion about Masuyo’s attire. “I was prepared to give you an eight, but you didn’t stick the landing.”

I stuck my tongue out at her. “Any time you feel like fixing me up, I’d appreciate it.”

“So hang on, we gotta plan this out first.”

“Plan? What is there to plan?”

“What I’m saying is I’m only gonna be able to use her power for so long, and I imagine you might have other shit you want done.”

Masuyo looked as baffled as I felt. “‘Other shit’?”

Shade crossed her arms and gave me a significant look. “Yeah, girl shit. Like breasts, hips, ass, that sort of thing?”

Masuyo stiffened besides me, and I closed my eyes, resigned. “You… you know then?”

“You already forget I turned into you yesterday?” she replied. “I mean, I was pretty sure before that, but that confirmed it.”

“Aisha, I…” I hadn’t meant to say her real name, but I was completely blown away. I felt the wetness on my cheek but couldn’t bring myself to mind as I started to chuckle. One chuckle became two, became more, became outright laughing as the tears carved their way down my face. It was absurd. It wasn’t real. How could it be? She was offering everything I had ever wanted, or at least some of it, all for the price of… nothing? That couldn’t be. There had to be a catch. This sort of thing just didn’t happen to me. Just look at today: Sure, we got the job done, but I got completely trashed in the process. Even trying to fix my arm had been a complete disaster with Rune bringing the PRT down on us. Mom dying, Rodriguez turning traitor on me, nearly being drowned by a nazi… This kind of thing didn’t happen. Happy endings were just fairy tale bullshit people told kids because they didn’t want to admit the world was fucked up.

I felt the metal moving before I heard the voice. “So… this is awkward.”

Knew it.

Masuyo and Shade whirled to face the voice, but I just turned to look with resigned acceptance. I had never seen Amy Dallon, AKA Panacea, in the flesh before, but even in Brooklyn people knew who Panacea was. The wonder cape who could heal any injury that didn’t affect the brain, who had brought back so many capes from the brink of death at Endbringer fights that people treated her with borderline reverence. She was surprisingly a bit shorter than me, and her curly brown hair framed a face that was absolutely jam packed with freckles that took up the majority of her somewhat tanned skin. She was wearing a plain green, long sleeved shirt and jeans with her trademark white robe and its red crosses crammed into a ball and tucked under her arm as she huddled inward to shield a lighter from the wind and light the cigarette tucked into her mouth. Once the stick was lit, she shoved the lighter into her pants pocket and resumed trekking over to us from where she had been hiding behind the AC unit.

“Just to be clear from the start, don’t try anything funny. My sister’s nearby and will crush you like ants.” I was only passingly familiar with the rest of New Wave, but if I recalled correctly, her sister was Glory Girl, a flying, invincible powerhouse like Alexandria of the Triumvirate, the three strongest heroes of the Protectorate. Not somebody we wanted to fight if we could help it. I didn’t feel anyone else nearby, but I had missed Panacea, so I didn’t want to take any chances. The healer paused a short distance away and tilted her head. “I thought something was up when Saltzman and a nurse with an arm rotting away from acid showed up, but I gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this.”

I started at that, my eyes flicking over to Masuyo’s arm then back to Shade. “You used Gregor’s acid on her arm?”

“Hey, maybe if the goddamn Empire hadn’t fucked everything up, we could have just gone with the original plan, but I had to improvise, okay?” There was that abrupt, brief flare of anger again. What the hell was up with that?

Panacea took a long pull on the cigarette, the orange tip glowing brightly in the night, then breathed out a ring of smoke. I was impressed in spite of myself. “So what was the original plan?” she drawled. “Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Shade was going to impersonate Saltzman and get you to pay Meteor a visit in the ER,” Masuyo quietly admitted. “In and out. None of this… debacle had to happen.”

“Debacle’s a good way to put it.” The healer took another drag on her cigarette. The irony wasn’t lost on me, especially since it was well known she couldn’t heal herself. She eyed us—no, Shade—with a look I couldn’t quite decipher. “Shade, right? So how does your power work?”

“And why exactly would I tell you?” Shade demanded, her expression mutinous.

“Because… because I want to make a deal.”

That shocked the contrariness right out of Shade. “Huh? A deal?”

Panacea’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah… Provided you can do it. So spill. How does your power work?”

Shade and I shared a look, and I shrugged at the question in her eyes. She turned back to Panacea, hesitated, then replied, “I copy people—their appearance and powers.”

“You mentioned a time limit a minute ago.”

“Yeah, it’s… I copy someone by being near them, and I rack up time by staying nearby, but I get more faster by talking to them or watching them use their power.”

“And you… You know how to use the power? Just like that?”

Shade’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I get their skills too. I’m fully aware of what you can really do.” Panacea winced, and I shot Shade a confused, inquiring look, but she shook her head minutely and mouthed ‘later.’

“You could do it… You could actually do it,” Panacea muttered, seemingly to herself.

“Do what?” I asked. The other girl started like she was only just remembering I was there.

She bit her lip. “Understand that if you tell anybody what I’m about to say, I’ll leak all of your names. I know who they are,” I winced there, since she wouldn’t have known Shade’s real name if I hadn’t blurted it out a minute ago, “and it’s obvious you’re related to her,” her eyes shifted briefly to Masuyo then back to me, “so I can get your name easy. I could figure it out that way, or just check the ER records for who got checked in.”

This was feeling all too familiar. Mutually assured destruction went so well for me last time, as Rune all too clearly demonstrated earlier tonight. “Fine. We get it. Just fucking say it already.”

She brought the cigarette back to her lips and took yet another long drag while her foot tapped out a staccato rhythm on the rooftop. All the threats and psyching herself up… Just what was this deal?

“I’ll fix your arm and give you a boob job or whatever, but in exchange… Shade, you need to… to…” She took a deep, steadying breath. “I want you to make it so I don’t love Victoria anymore.”

Victoria? Who…?

“No way…” Shade muttered, her eyes bugging out a bit. “Your sister…?”

Was that Glory Girl’s real name? I struggled to remember. New Wave were famously some of the only capes who operated under codenames but no masks, but even with that minor claim to fame, I had never bothered to really familiarize myself with them. After all, I hadn’t lived in the same city as them until just a few weeks ago. “I don’t get it. You want to hate your sister? Why?”

The healer’s eye twitched. “I don’t want to hate her, you moron!”

“But then…?”

“Look,” Shade interrupted. “Imagine you and Masuyo were sisters instead of cousins.”

Masuyo and I both stiffened as Shade admitted our relation. “Way to go, Shade. Let’s make it nice and easy for her to blackmail us, shall we?”

“She already figured it out! Look, just—the point is, imagine if you two were sisters and in love with each other.”

I frowned. “What, like we grew up together or something?”

“No, not like that! Like in love love each other!”

My jaw dropped. I turned to Panacea, expecting her to rebut what Shade was implying, but if anything her miserable expression was damning. “You fell in love with your sister? What the hell?”

“We’re adopted…” she weakly defended, but it was obvious from her tone and expression that even she wasn’t buying it. “Just… look, can you do it or not?”

“How could she?” Masuyo asked. “Your power doesn’t work… on…” Her eyes widened and so did mine as we apparently both remembered at the same time what Shade had said earlier regarding Panacea’s power.

“I had to draw a line,” Panacea whispered, looking away with far away eyes. “What if I screwed up, and made someone into… somebody else? What if I couldn’t stop myself from going further, from doing more than I should? I had to draw a line, I had to!”

“Panacea—Amy,” Masuyo said, her voice firm. The sound of her real name seemed to snap her out of her reverie, and I reminded myself Panacea was exactly that: Amy. A girl with powers, just like me. Sure, the… implications of what she could do were crazy, but at the end of the day, she ate, she went to sleep, she… she loved. “It’s okay. We understand.” She looked to me, to Shade, then back to Panacea. “You want to make a deal, right? You want Shade to remove your… desire for your sister, and in return, you’ll… you’ll give Meteor what she w-wants. I think that’s agreeable.”

Shadows crawled over Shade’s skin, and her body twisted to match Panacea’s shape and size before pulling away and revealing her face beneath. Panacea startled a bit and took a step back, but Shade held out her hand—Panacea’s… Amy’s hand. Amy stared at it like it might lash out and bite her for a moment, but then her expression slowly settled into one of grim determination, and she tentatively reached out her hand and settled it in Shade’s. Shade seemed to concentrate for a few minutes, her eyes focused on something only she could see, then abruptly Amy blinked and a look of wonder crossed her face.

“I… She…”

“I’m pretty sure I only removed the ‘wanna bang her’ love,” Shade quipped. “Oh, and the damage to your lungs. Like, I get it’s stress relief or makes you look sexy or whatever, but you should probably stop with the cancer sticks.”

Amy sobbed and fell to her knees with a watery laugh. “I love her still, but like Crystal or the twerp. Maybe more? But not—not like… Thank you!”

Shade looked away awkwardly. “Guess I got it?”

Masuyo’s phone started to ring, startling us all. She pulled it out and checked the caller ID. “It’s Faultline. She’s probably worried the PRT got us or something.”

“We’ll just handle this,” Shade hurriedly said, hooking her arm through Masuyo’s and dragging her away. “You two can finish up her end of the deal once she’s, um, done with… that.”

I briefly watched them move away towards the other side of the roof then turned my attention back to the girl crying at my feet. Her eyes rose to meet mine, and she sniffled a bit before looking away, seemingly embarrassed. “Sorry, I just… You have no idea what it’s like… I didn’t want to feel that way, but I couldn’t help it…”

I carefully used my power to lower myself into a sitting position in front of her. “Not the exact same, no, but… I can empathize.” She gave me a confused look, and I sighed. “You’re gonna figure it out in a second anyway, so there’s no point hiding it. I’m transgender. All my life, people have been trying to get me to be someone I’m not. For a long time, I… I didn’t want to feel this way. Tried to ignore it, convince myself I was mistaken, you know?”

“I suppose I can see the similarities,” she softly said. “So what she was saying before… it’s not just vanity or something like that?”

“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s… it’s about being me.”

She slowly nodded. “Do I have your permission to heal you? And, uh, make… changes?”

I blinked. “That was the deal.”

“Sorry, Carol’s a lawyer. It’s second nature to ask at this point.”

Right, whoever Carol is. “Okay. Well, you have my permission to heal my arm. The rest, um… C-Can we do those one at a time?”

“Sure. We can do that, Meteor.”

“June,” I blurted out. “I, mean, um… Y-You could figure it out anyway, right?”

Her expression seemed to soften just a bit. “June then,” she whispered. Hearing her say my name like that felt like she was admitting some dark secret, and I felt a shiver crawl up my spine. She reached over and laid her hand on mine. “I’m going to remove sensation in your arm while I fix it, okay? Don’t freak out.” I was glad she warned me. It was weird and unnerving to just suddenly lose all feeling in my arm, but as I watched the bone slink back into me and the open hole in the back of my arm seal up, I was glad for it. I didn’t want to know what that felt like. I abruptly felt my arm again a few seconds later, and she withdrew her hand. “All done with that. I’ll need your cousin for the next part.”

“Why?”

“I could just eyeball adjusting things, but she’s your blood relative, right? If I base the changes off of her, then they’ll be a lot closer to what you would have naturally been like.”

What I’d have been naturally like? Tears were rolling down my cheeks again. This really is some fairy tale bullshit.

“I’m sorry!” she said, her words tinged with worry. “I guess that’s a bit presumptuous of me? Did you want something else?”

“No,” I croaked out before hiccuping. “No, that’s… That’s exactly what I want. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

“Meteor, are you okay?” I looked up and realized Masuyo had come back over.

I abruptly felt anxious. Today had been a marked change for her. She had been surprisingly cooperative and willing to put herself on the line for me, but would this be too much? Would she say no to this?

“Meteor?” she asked, kneeling down beside me. “What’s wrong?”

I tugged down my mask, wanting—no needing—her to see my feelings, to understand how badly I needed this. “Masuyo, I… Amy is offering to base my changes off of you, s-so I’m more like… like I would have been. You’ll… You’ll help, right?”

Her eyes widened, and she flopped down, so she was sitting on her hip instead of crouching. “I… I see…”

“Please,” I begged her, my voice cracking over that one, simple word.

She let out a huff of air. “And you’re sure… You’re totally sure? You have no doubts at all this is what you really want? She might not be able to… undo this.”

“Yes.”

Masuyo slowly held out her hand to Panacea. “Okay.”

I thought my face might split in two, I smiled so wide. I turned to Amy with renewed tears and held out my hand. “Thank you,” I said, not sure I could properly express how much this meant to me in only those two words.

“You’re welcome,” she replied as she looked me in the eye before coughing and blushing a bit. I probably should have dialed back my excitement a bit, but I just couldn’t help it. I was probably embarrassing her. “Let’s… let’s begin.”