Yuriko heard sirens and the squeal of tyres burning on the road not a minute after she finished off the squigglies. She looked askance at Lightfoot, who shrugged and said, “Someone must have seen and reported the dismembered bodies on the road.” She shook her head, “Isn't it a bit cruel?”

Yuriko hummed. “Perhaps, but it was the best way to subdue them. I saw their body shifting capabilities were enough to close their wounds, and maybe reattach their limbs afterwards.”

“Uhm…” Soundwave started, “those things were also in them?” He pointed at the squigglies. “There were holes in some torsos and no inhuman parts. They’re also catatonic, and their stumps started bleeding.”

“Ah.”

The three of them gave her a strange look. “Are they not regular humans infected by those things?” Lightfoot pointed out.

“It seems so,” Yuriko said, then added, “but I had no way of knowing that.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t seem bothered by almost killing a dozen men and women,” Weavemaster ventured slowly.

Yuriko turned to look at him, then asked, “Should I have been? They tried to kill during the fight. I spared their lives, albeit without arms. If you hurry, I think you can still get those reattached.”

“I, yes…that’s true,” Soundwave said, though his voice was somewhat doubtful. Yuriko shrugged as her perception showed her that while the stumps on the bodies were closed, the severed limbs were fresh and perfectly severed.

The three heroes exchanged another set of looks as Yuriko returned to her slaughter. The police and ambulances arrived a couple of seconds later, and out poured the blue-uniformed law keepers. The ambulances disgorged their own set of emergency medical technicians, and they hurried to the downed men. Half were dead, a couple because they fell head first from the top of the building. Another two bled out but the technicians tried to resuscitate them anyway. The rest were hastily brought to the vehicles along with their severed limbs, and the police rushed into the warehouse.

To her disappointment, none of them yelled ‘Freeze!’ like they did in those television shows. Instead, they took one look at the squigglies emerging from the rift, pointed their guns at them, and started shooting. They did have the grace to move in front of her, too. A couple of them gave her some odd glances, but otherwise didn’t comment; neither did they look panicked. All in all, they looked fairly used to this kind of situation. Odd.

Yuriko stepped away from the rift and from the shooting policemen, after making sure that their bullets could actually harm the squigglies. The lead tore through the daemon’s skin, but it took more than one to kill them. They essentially needed to be crushed, from the looks of it, considering that the squigglies didn’t have exit holes.

More policemen…or were they really policemen? The uniform tripped her up, but weren’t they too heavily armed and armoured to be basic law enforcers?

One of the officers moved towards her, holding out a hand to stop her.

“Please stay, miss, we need your statement on the matter at hand.”

“Officer, she’s with us,” Soundwave said.

The man was masked, and his eyes were covered in some kind of darkened goggles. She couldn’t see his expression but he did stiffen in surprise. She also sensed a little bit of hate and anger, but the man took control of it as he nodded.

Yuriko nodded even as she wondered why her emotion sensing worked even if she was not connected to the ones she sensed. An unexpected advantage from her Mien’s strengthening, she supposed.

Soundwave, Lightfoot, and Weavemaster had already exited the warehouse. Yuriko checked her phone for the time and saw it was barely eight in the evening. She spread her perception aura to its full reach of ninety paces and saw nobody other than the fallen, the police, and the ambulances. Her scooter was still in its place inside an alley a couple of blocks away.

She started walking towards it, and after another glance at each other, the three costumed heroes walked with her.

Weavemaster snorted a chuckle when he saw where she went, “You rode that?”

Yuriko shrugged. “It's mine. I don't have the funds to replace it.”

“Don’t you have a way to travel quickly with your powers?” Lightfoot asked curiously.

“I do, but I came from his place,” she nodded to Weavemaster, “for work.”

“I don’t own it, I just work with Dreamedia,” the shorter man said. “Ah!”

“Did you just out yourself?” Lightfoot asked both of them.

Yuriko shrugged. “He followed behind me.”

Soundwave and Lightfoot rounded on Weavemaster. “Creepy, dude,” Soundwave said.

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Weavemaster raised his hands defensively. “Hey, I already knew what she looked like under that sorry excuse for a costume. I saw her a couple of weeks ago near a grocery store robbery, of all places.”

Lightfoot arched an eyebrow and looked at Yuriko. “You helped?”

“No, though I followed the culprit to the alley thinking to catch him,” Yuriko admitted. “Weavemaster already caught him by then. I suppose you were on the rooftops?”

“Yes.” He shrugged, “Imagine my surprise, two weeks later, when, uh, Yuriko?” at her nod, he continued, “found her way into the fashion shoot with the clothes I designed. As a model.”

“That was my first one,” Yuriko said to the other two’s questioning looks. “Anyway, where do you want to talk?”

Soundwave said, “NPP wants to talk to you about how you managed to locate the incursion points so quickly.” He shook his head and added, “I didn’t even know about them that first time, but it turns out that there was a bureau in charge of things like this.” He snorted, “Ironically, it's one of the few places Altered Humans are welcomed. Nominally.”

“NPP?”

“Ah, Neo Prism Protectorate. Well, the Neo Prism City branch of the Protectorate. A division of the Republic’s home guard.”

“Ah, I get it,” Yuriko said. “They want to talk to me about that? I can’t really say much. I just felt them.”

“Yes, but from how far away, and all that,” Soundwave said. “The brainiacs want to know more and probably to tweak their equipment.”

“Those weren’t regular policemen, were they?”

“Not at all,” Soundwave said. “They’re Protectorate rapid response teams.”

“Alright, so where are they located? The NPP, I mean.”

“Ah, in Windefield…”

“I’m not going back there again, it’s late and the traffic’s horrendous,” Yuriko said bluntly.

“Oh, right, uhm, do you mind if we speak somewhere a bit more comfortable then?”

“Sure,” Yuriko agreed readily.

They were in the midst of the industrial sector, but there was an open strip mall near the highway. Yuriko rode her scooter there and entered a cafe named 5th Layer. Of what, she didn’t know, but the logo next to the name was a white, feathered wing, curled around the name.

At a corner table, she found Lightfoot, Soundwave, and Weavemaster, all three were without masks and had their costumes hidden in an overcoat or a cardigan in Lightfoot’s case. Yuriko had lowered her hood.

As she expected, Weavemaster was Lance Hiller, who waved at her sheepishly. Soundwave was a tall man, just a bit shorter than Heron, and a bit less broad across the shoulder. He had short brown hair, green eyes, and an earnest face. Lightfoot was a short woman with dark blue hair and midnight black eyes. Both of them were staring at her with slightly open lips.

Yuriko sat down on the last chair. They sat across a round table with Lightfoot directly across from her and Lance Hiller to her left. They’d gotten to the cafe faster than she did, and already had tall glasses with sugary drinks. Well, the men did; Lightfoot had a mug of coffee. She pushed a fourth drink towards Yuriko. “Careful, it’s piping hot.”

She took a sip and hummed happily. The sweetness perked her up and the aroma tickled her senses. While it wasn’t chocolate, coffee seemed a tasty enough substitute.

“Right,” Lightfoot mumbled. “Since we already know your civilian identity, let us introduce ourselves in the interest of parity. I’m Haven Owen, and that’s Jeremiah King.”

“Nice to meet you. Lilibeth Lawson,” Yuriko said. “So…what did you want to talk about?”

Soundwave, Jeremiah King, said, “The Protectorate officially invites you to join their ranks. As an Altered Human, and one capable of sniffing out incursions, your help will be invaluable in locating and containing such threads. I understand that you’re already doing that, at least on three occasions, but joining up means you’ll be supported by others who have the strength to help—backup in case you are injured or in trouble—and, more importantly, paid for the public safety you help foster.”

Yuriko hummed. “That’s quite the mouthful.”

“Well, it's the spiel I’ve been told to give,” he admitted with a chuckle.

“I don’t know the Protectorate, so I can’t accept it.”

“Understandable,” Jeremiah said. “But that can be remedied, too. We invite you to visit the Protectorate HQ. Not tonight, as you’ve stated, but tomorrow?”

“I can’t. I’ve my obligations. On Sunsday?”

“That is acceptable,” Jeremiah said.

“Well,” Haven said, “now that the official thing is done, I’ve got to ask,” she grinned, though Yuriko detected quite a bit of nerves hidden beneath the smile. “Are you… uhm, single?”

“Haven!” Jeremiah gasped, while Lance chuckled as he loudly sipped his drink.

Yuriko gave the woman a small smile, “Yes.”

“Oh! Are you…?”

Yuriko tapped her lips. “Are you asking if I like women?”

“I, uh, yeah, I mean, I…” Haven stuttered.

Jeremiah grumbled. “What the eff, woman, why are you like this? I apologise, Miss Lawson, Haven’s just like this. Not this forward, normally.” He knuckled the woman’s head, pressing down a bit.

“Shut it!” Haven yelled. Jeremiah’s knuckles bounced off her head even if she didn’t hit or move it.

“Hey, no powers!” Jeremiah hissed.

Yuriko chuckled quietly and sipped her drink while the two heroes bickered. Lance shrugged at her and grimaced.

She closed her eyes briefly as her true body refined the use of the Ennoia of the Bladeless Sword. Without the Swordlight, the invisible cutting edges lacked power. But using an infinitely fine blade required skill more than anything else. At the moment, her incarnation body was building up her Swordlight core bit by bit. Now that she wasn’t using it constantly, and the rush of knowledge and insight from the initial touch ebbed, the Ennoia was proving difficult to use beyond the normal limits of a blade, about two paces from her body. While she was building her core, while she was sipping the coffee, and while she listened to the banter, while measuring Haven with some interest, if only for her strange abilities and techniques more than anything else, she was also creating and unleashing quarter-inch wide blades that flew from her fingertips.

She set them to dissipate once they exceeded a couple of inches away from her skin, while she tried to control the moving edge to orbit around her finger. It didn’t want to and resisted every effort she made to have it turn from its initial trajectory. She managed to alter the original direction by a couple of degrees, but that was it. So far.

A new thing to train and it made her shiver with delight. Her true body had better control but that was because she used her Anima to anchor and guide the invisible edge. Here, she used nothing but her focus and a little bit of Intent.

“I suppose you wouldn’t answer…” Haven sighed, looking like an abandoned puppy. Huh.

“Well…” Yuriko drew out, “I am attracted to the person rather than the gender.”

“Eh?”

Yuriko smiled. “I mean, gender doesn't matter much to me if I like someone.”

“Oh.” The woman’s emotions rode high and bled over to Yuriko, making her feel a bit giddy too. She shrugged it off, though and finished her drink.

“Give me the address for the office and I’ll be there on Sunsday. Let’s say, 10 in the morning.”

“Alright.” Jeremiah King, Soundwave, said. “We’ll see you then.”

Yuriko stood up and nodded. “Thanks for the coffee.” Then, she left.