Everyone was gathered around for an emergency meeting. Midnight looked around at everyone else before speaking. “So… how did these people all break out?”

Calculator shook his head. Lady Recollection sighed, “That is one of the first things we will be investigating. They weren’t supposed to even be at the same location. It has to have been the work of that mental super.”

“Actually…” Calculator frowned. “Unless every security protocol failed, it’s impossible for such a situation to occur without the intentional assistance of insiders.” He saw the looks people were giving him and raised an eyebrow. “I’ll have you know that I did consider the other options. But having gone through them all, it ultimately came down to this. Alternatively, this unknown super has been slowly infiltrating local organizations in the long term. But you should be prepared to do some restructuring.”

Lady Recollection looked defeated. “Crown Forces look like a joke.”

I had a thought, but I didn’t say it out loud. It felt weird to not just say what I was thinking, but perhaps this was progress. Or maybe I was being twisted by politics. Either way, it didn’t seem that bad to me that there was a breakout just as a group was being secured. Was it really any worse than Stargirl escaping? Or rather, Darkstargirl now.

“Well, come on then,” Lady Recollection said. “We must go assess the location in person.”

I nodded. “What are the chances that it’s a trap and they’re all still there, including the mind control and memory altering lady?”

“It’s not impossible,” Calculator said. “Especially with Switch there, altering the security camera footage.”

“Right,” Lady Recollection said. “Then we’ll have to approach with caution. You two can protect people against mental influence, correct?”

“It’s not perfect, but yes,” I nodded. “Up to four people is fairly simple… eight would mean we couldn’t do much else.”

We discussed as we made our way to the vehicles. Ultimately, it was determined that we should protect Squad Ten, Dart, Lustre, and Sir Kalman. Calculator was here in more of an advisory role, and while he was more than capable in combat that wasn’t his main strength. With Midnight and I sharing one Mental Freedom and our new Multicasting ability, we spent about as much mana as we would have for four people previously. A bit more, given the missing mana efficiency from upgrades, but it would require six upgrades in Variable Freedom before Multicasting would lose out on efficiency. And by that point… I really hoped Multicasting would get an upgrade. Sure, it was new and I couldn’t expect it to grow terribly rapidly, but slight increases would still be significant.

We went the the holding facility- notably not the maximum security one most of them were supposed to be in- and the six of us approached ahead of the others. A quick circle of the facility and its alert guards revealed a brand new hole in a back wall, with security standing around it nervously. Rubble had burst out away from the facility and only barely been cleared away from where they were currently standing.

We moved to the front and approached with caution, but I didn’t sense any super activity except from the facility itself. It could have been covering up a bunch of hidden supers, but ultimately we had to make our approach eventually. The looks of relief on the guards seemed genuine, and I didn’t sense any lingering power on them.

They saluted. “The director should be inside. He arrived just before you.”

“We need to sweep the facility first,” Squad Ten declared. One of him walked bravely next to Sir Kalman. Was that a copy? Or were people just supposed to think it was? Well, either way I knew his copies were all offensively viable, and he would know what the best defensive option would be.

It took us a while to get through the layers of security, which was ironic because we could have saved so much time going in the back through the big hole. Once in the area of the cells, we saw bent and twisted bars. It was a relatively small facility, since each cell rated for supers of any level could be rather expensive.

The only real oddity we found was that there was one woman in a cell. Specifically, one that was still twisted open. When Sir Kalman stomped towards her cell, she held up her hands. “Look, I don’t know anythin’! I was just booked for shoplifting and then all these looneys tore the place apart.”

“Why aren’t you in a secured cell?” Squad Ten asked.

She shook her head. “This was my cell and nobody moved me to another one.”

“You appear to speak the truth,” Sir Kalman said.

“Uh… thanks?” the woman tilted her head.

He nodded. “We should go find this director.”

After we checked out the last few cells and found nothing different, we made our way back through security. Though realistically, there was only exactly one inmate to worry about. Squad Ten was remaining in contact with the rest, and we had confirmed the official side of her story. A simple shoplifting arrest- though with powers involved any crime was a step more severe.

“Thank goodness you’re here!” a well dressed man stepped out of a nearby door as we approached. “This has been a crazy night.”

“You’re Director Abrahams?” Squad Ten asked.

“That I am,” he nodded. “Come in. Let me explain what I know.”

His office was large enough to not be cramped with two well armored individuals, my largish frame with Midnight on my shoulder, plus Lustre and Dart. Though any more might have been an issue.

“The prisoners seemed to be reasonably well behaved…” Director Abrahams began. “Everything was going well, until one of the guards seems to have loosed the restrictions on that ‘Digits’ fellow. At least, that’s the theory we’re working with. I’ve been reviewing the security footage to try to find the exact moment.”

“Let’s see it,” Squad Ten. “I’d like to go over it in detail.”

“Of course,” the director said. “I have the timestamp right here. As you can see, he enters the cell at this time. Then he changes Digits' restraints from spread arms to either side to simply locked in front of him. And it’s likely that the power suppression was insufficient as well.”

That sounded weird. Specifically, that they would even have restraints with insufficient power suppression. Then again, it was easy to say why things ended up as a disaster after the fact. Maybe everything seemed reasonable at the time. Or perhaps it was broken. Waves of suspicion and curiosity were also radiating from Midnight.

Director Abrahams brought up more on his screen, showing it to us. “If we match the video to our employee logs, it appears to be this man here who was responsible, Arne. I was hoping to have your help arresting him. Arne is not supposed to have powers but working with these fellows you can’t be too careful.”

“I see,” Squad Ten said again. “Show me his face in the video again.” The process continued like that for a good ten minutes, with Squad Ten clearly looking for something. There was a lot of zooming in on the video, which was quite high quality. I honestly didn’t see how the face could be mistaken for the wrong person. With tech supers existing it might have been meddled with, but it was still a place to start.

I honestly couldn’t tell what Squad Ten was looking for, and I beginning to get annoyed. This was a waste of time. Especially since I didn’t need to be in here. I could be out grabbing that guy with Sir Kalman. Fortunately, that problem solved itself soon when he popped in. Along with Lady Recollection, Calculator, and Current. Plus more of Squad Ten.

“Ah,” Director Abrahams said. “The honored Lady Recollection. I see you’ve already found him. Good, that should help me not have to explain things twice.”

“Indeed,” she said. “We are aware of what to do.” For a guy under arrest, Arne sure didn’t seem particularly restrained. “Director Abrahams, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting supervillainy.”

Huh. Not what I had expected. Nor, apparently, the director. Squad Ten had been rather quick on the cuffs, though. It was like he already knew what was going to happen. Which was… quite reasonable, considering he had also been with Lady Recollection.

“What is the meaning of this?” the director said. “Arne was the one who-”

Lady Recollection cut him off. “While he was indeed the one who performed the tasks, he was only following official orders.”

“From who?” Director Abrahams said.

“You, obviously,” Sir Kalman said.

“That’s not true,” Director Abrahams rejected the accusation. “I sent no such orders.”

“You said the orders to me directly,” the security guard finally spoke up.

“A fine excuse to cover yourself,” Director Abraham shrugged. “But that’s just your word against mine. When do you say this happened?”

“In the west corridor, right before I went to follow your orders. So about ten minutes before the breakout,” Arne said.

“Then a simple check of the security cameras will reveal the truth,” Director Abrahams said. “Just look.” Squad Ten was quite happy to take control of the Director’s computer. And the security footage of the area showed… nothing. “See? Now, perhaps I was a bit hasty in my accusations, Arne. After all, there is a memory manipulator associated with this group of supervillains.”

“And how do you know that?” Calculator asked. “Because that information is secret.”

“Well I am the director of a security facility. Of course I was apprised of-”

“We specifically didn’t reveal that information,” Lady Recollection said. “Just that there was a mental controller.”

“Well perhaps she… manipulated my memory too?”

Lady Recollection sighed. “Sir Kalman, does he appear to be under any mental influence?”

“He certainly seemed in control of his own actions for all of this. And he was lying up a storm earlier. Actual lying, not just being incorrect,” Sir Kalman replied.

“Well then. It appears we must take you in after all, Director,” Lady Recollection said.

“I’m innocent!” the man protested. He certainly wanted us to believe that, but even I felt it was a little… desperate? Then again, that would be true of someone innocent.

“Our investigations will reveal the truth. You don’t have to worry if you are.”

Once he was brought out of the room by a pair of Squad Ten, Lady Recollection looked at the rest of us, then gestured to Current. “If you could attempt returning the security footage to its prior status, that would be excellent. As for the rest of you… the director appears to be unclear on my powers, and I would like to keep it that way.”

“There’s only the normal security camera,” Current said.

“We will discuss further away from here.”

-----

“I saw him give the orders,” Lady Recollection said. “I reviewed back from the breakout, after you all determined it was safe to enter. So I know the security footage should have him, unless it was being manipulated during the recording. And if not, we can compare to everything along Arne’s path. Regardless of anything else, that man was following official orders. He might have been more cautious to get it in writing, but from the director’s mouth is still official. And now I have to follow the Director’s former path to determine if there might be some more subtle manipulation… though it does seem most likely he’s one of those involved with the corruption. Obviously he didn’t have the authority to transfer these people here, however.”

“As we discussed,” Calculator said. “We’ll have Familiar help escort you, just in case of mental tricks. They can’t afford to get into a big public conflict or it would draw in greater forces. Meanwhile, Mage will be attempting to scry our missing supers.”

“Okay,” I said. “Who’s the weakest willed in their group? Digits?”

Calculator stroked his chin. “It certainly won’t be the mental manipulator. Nor the one with confusion powers. But I think it would be that one individual. Iron Bloke. Based on his profile, anyway.”

Dart nodded. “Digits isn’t dumb. Otherwise his power would be… extremely ineffective. That other guy seems like a straightforward ‘invulnerable’ type… which most likely means extreme gaps in defenses.”

Well. All the mana we spent on Mental Freedom was wasted… or at least it hadn’t been necessary. But I could attempt a Scry or two. And then hopefully I could sleep while people figured out where this group was and planned stuff. If they were smart they’d be trying to flee the area, but in pretty much any direction they went the population density would increase and that meant passing by more supers who could be looking for them. So we could speculate all night about whether they would be taking their time or try to find where they were. Though perhaps we should have had me Scry immediately before going to the escape site, my mana was needed for Mental Freedom and potential combat.

With every level I got, I always felt like I needed more. At least there was no lack of combat… and if we fought these supers again, I could almost certainly level up. Though perhaps that might only be true if I fought new ones, and that might not be our most effective strategy. Then again, I had barely done anything to Digits and I had a dozen ideas for bringing him down so I thought that would be a good matchup for me.