Andre

Andre darted towards the building in front of him. As he moved, he called on his power to weaken gravity's hold, pointing it at himself. He jumped towards the building, grabbing for handholds and tossing himself further upwards, towards the roof four stories up. When he reached the top, he dismissed his power and looked around, surveying the surrounding streets for signs of the battle.

Several buildings were in ruins, most of them in a cluster a few blocks away. Nitroforce's work, no doubt. Andre had caught wind of the dispute with Hamilton, but he hadn't expected a retaliatory strike.

Downside of being out of the loop, he supposed. The actual bluecapes could stay on top of those developments much more easily than rogues. But bluecapes - and redcapes, for that matter - were little more than cops with more power and less oversight. After learning to be wary of cops as a kid and picking up even more reasons to as an adult, Andre had no interest in taking part in their new form.

A voice crackled into Andre's headset, cutting through the ongoing sirens. "Looks like the redcapes split up," Tameka said. "Radiance is retreating - Artemis and Cybermind chased her off, then Roadripper picked her up."

Tameka was keeping an eye on things from back at home base, as usual. She didn't have any powers, but she was good enough with computers to feel superhuman half the time regardless.

Cybermind played a similar role on her own team, but as an actual tech cape. She'd built Artemis's armor and weapons, and fought remotely with drones. And like Artemis, she was someone Andre hoped to stay well away from.

"That's good," Andre replied. "What about Nitroforce? You said he was fighting some sort of monster?"

"That's the last I heard," Tameka answered. "Looks like he moved out of sight of the people posting about it. I'll let you know if I see more."

Andre caught sight of a figure running through the streets below, wearing an orange outfit. "Think I found him. I'm going in."

Andre ran for the edge of the roof and jumped, lowering his gravity again and spreading out his arms to let his wingsuit catch the air below him. Not as flexible as a proper flight power, but it did the job. Adjusting his position and gravity, he glided down towards the orange figure, following as the figure ran into... a clothing store?

From the closer view, Andre was pretty sure the figure looked like Nitroforce, but without his iconic pickaxe. And seeing him run away like that was... odd. Andre landed outside the store and went inside.

The orange jacket was on the floor of the store, alongside what looked like the hood of a nemenon bodysuit. Andre ran to the discarded clothes, and spotted a man pulling on a dark green sweatshirt. The man turned, and Andre recognized Nitroforce's bearded, white face.

Andre leapt into action, unfurling the whip from his side and extending his power into it. He swung it forward, striking Nitroforce across the chest, and the man dropped to his knees as the force of gravity on him increased. Andre prepared to strike again, to increase gravity until he'd be flat on the ground, but...

Nitroforce wasn't fighting back. Instead of striking back with his own power, he was struggling to raise his hands in what looked like surrender. Andre lowered his whip, watching the redcape carefully.

"I'm not Nitroforce!" Nitroforce said.

Andre frowned. It was an odd claim, but the man sure wasn't acting like him. "Who are you, and why do you look like him?"

The man winced. "I'm Isaac. I got caught in the fight between Nitroforce and Artemis, and he dropped a building on me. I... turned into some sort of monster, and, uh... ate him. Then I turned into him."

What?

Andre blinked, taking it in. "I... hmm. I'm gonna try to verify all this. Hold on for a moment."

Maybe-Isaac nodded as Andre stepped back, keeping an eye on him. Andre spoke again, this time just to his headset. "I captured the guy who looked like Nitroforce. Did you catch his explanation?"

"I heard," Tameka replied. "Doing a search... okay, yeah. Someone says they saw the monster chomp down on Nitro's head. Sounds like they didn't keep watching to see the aftermath, so nothing about the monster turning into him. But the original Nitro should be dead, and there's no reports of the monster appearing later."

"Sounds like he's telling the truth, then," Andre said. "Can you get a car over here? I want to bring him in."

"On it," Tameka said.

Andre returned to Isaac, stowing his whip. "Your story checks out. Still, I'd like you to come back with me, so we can figure out a good way forward. You cool with that?"

"I guess," Isaac said. "You're... Cygnus, right?"

Andre nodded. "I am. That a problem?"

Isaac shook his head. "No, not at all. I'll take the Alchemists over our bluecapes any day, especially after that run-in with Artemis."

Andre held out a hand. "Sounds like we'll get along well, then."

He released the increased gravity from Isaac. As he helped the other man back to his feet, Andre noticed people starting to emerge back into the main part of the store. The sirens had stopped, he realized.

People were giving the pair a wide berth, and they looked wary. Not wary enough to stay hidden, though. Andre was pretty recognizable, at least while he was in costume as Cygnus, and it was easy to see that there wasn't a fight going on.

Andre glanced towards the checkout as a cashier returned to her post. "You got money for that jacket?" he asked Isaac.

Isaac dug in his pockets for a moment. He pulled out a wallet, then looked inside. "Looks like I, uh, have Nitroforce's money."

"Close enough," Andre said with a laugh.

Andre retrieved the discarded hood and jacket while Isaac paid, and the two of them walked back outside. Before long, a red car pulled up and the driver - Brian - emerged. He took a look over Isaac.

"This is the guy, huh?" he asked Andre.

"It's him," Andre confirmed.

Brian turned back to Isaac, pulling a blindfold out of his pocket. "Standard procedure for guests."

Isaac sighed. "Fair enough."

Brian tied the blindfold over Isaac's eyes. Andre helped Isaac into the back seat and sat next to him to keep watch, while Brian returned to the driver's seat. A moment later, they were on their way home.

----------------------------------------

Isaac

What the fuck did I agree to?

In fairness, Cygnus had a good reputation, and he seemed to believe me. But that didn't change the fact that I was sitting blindfolded in a car with a rogue cape taking me who-knows-where.

Would he have let me leave if I'd asked to? Not that I'd want to keep wandering around like this, but...

Specifically, wandering around in the body of a cape I'd eaten, because that was still a thing I had done. Alongside everything else, apparently I was a cannibal now, and I was pretty sure that made me an even worse Jew than all the cheeseburgers I'd had over the years.

Wait, did it count as cannibalism if I wasn't human at the time? Either way, there were rules about how to kill an animal in keeping with kosher, and also people didn't have cloven hooves, at least not without powers involved. But also I didn't actually care.

I still wasn't sure what had happened back there. I had been... dying, I was pretty sure, until I turned into a big hungry monster. And started thinking like a big hungry monster, which was why jumping into a fight with Nitroforce and then eating him had seemed like a good idea. Admittedly I didn't know much about monsters - I hadn't heard of any other powers working like that. But it sounded like something they'd do.

As I calmed down, I was starting to realize that my thoughts were still... weird, but differently so. When I introduced myself to Cygnus, I'd had a moment of wanting to say my name was John Harris, and I was pretty sure that was Nitroforce's name. And I kept having these faint impulses of how to talk, how to carry myself, impulses that I couldn't trace to any part of my life before... this.

It was like Nitroforce's body had this imprint of his mannerisms and thought processes. There was no will behind it, it wasn't like he'd left some sort of ghost behind, but... more like muscle memory. It could have its uses, but it was also really fucking unnerving.

And I didn't want to tell Cygnus about it. Letting him know that I'd inherited impulses from a redcape could make him even more wary of me than the whole turning-into-a-monster thing, and I needed this to go well.

Cygnus and the driver hadn't been talking much since we got in the car. Not to me, anyway. I thought I could hear Cygnus muttering things into his headset at times, but I couldn't make out much, especially after the driver turned up the music. The music made for a good distraction, at least, and eventually I let it overtake the noise of my whirling thoughts.

Some time later, the car pulled over and stopped. I wasn't sure how long it had taken, and I definitely wasn't sure where we'd ended up. I had the feeling they'd doubled back at least once to throw me off.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"We're here," Cygnus said. "I'll take you inside, then we can get that blindfold off."

Cygnus took me by the arm, leading me out of the car and into a building. We went down at least one floor, then through what felt like a couple of hallways. I started to hear signs of activity, people bustling around somewhere nearby.

Finally we stopped, and someone untied the blindfold. It was a small room, with four chairs around a circular table. Cygnus sat down to my left, while gesturing at the one closest to me.

"Take a seat," he said. He glanced over at the occupants of the other two chairs. "Isaac, this is Tameka and Sirona."

I sat down, taking a look at the others as I did. I recognized Sirona as the pale woman in the right chair - she was another rogue cape who worked with Cygnus. She supposedly could influence certain chemical reactions, including ones that produced medicines. From what I remembered, she'd named herself after a healing goddess. I'd never heard of her getting involved in battle, and she wasn't dressed like a combatant. She was wearing a white lab coat and glasses, and had red hair tied back in a ponytail.

Cygnus was still wearing his usual blue and black wingsuit. He'd removed the head cover, letting me see his face for the first time. His hair was braided in cornrows, and he had a well-trimmed chinstrap. I'd known he was short, but he looked even smaller from my new vantage point.

The woman across from me had to be Tameka, who I hadn't heard of. Her hair hung back in long dreadlocks, and her skin was almost as dark as Cygnus's. She was dressed much more casually than the other two - a green t-shirt with some sort of graphic, although I couldn't see much past her laptop. The only one of the three using what sounded like a civilian name, and I got the impression she wasn't a cape at all.

"So," Sirona began, "how much do you know about what we do here?"

"I know you and Cygnus run the Alchemists," I said. "Leftist vigilantes, involved with distributing medicine, food, and... other stuff. I take it that's what you mean by here."

Drugs, I avoided saying outright. But based on Sirona's frown, it was the wrong approach.

"First of all," she replied, "all three of us run this place, not just the capes. As for our work, we help people get things they need. Some of those things were illegal in the old world, but we don't live in that world anymore. Substance dependence is an illness like any other, and withdrawal symptoms are a real problem. When the best thing we can do for someone is keeping them supplied with what they're looking for, that's not meaningfully different from 'normal' medicine, and we're not interested in acting like that's some separate, unsavory business of ours."

She sounded tired. Probably not her first time saying all that.

"This happened in the old world too, for a time," Cygnus added. "People could go to doctors about a dependency, get a prescription for the stuff their body demanded. But people started thinking that was icky, and the government wanted to make it easier to lock up black and brown people, so the hammer came down. That's gone now, and so are most support systems."

Now that he mentioned it, I did remember hearing something about that practice.

Cygnus took a breath, then continued. "Look, we're not encouraging anyone to get into stuff that will do them more harm than good, or taking advantage of their situations to squeeze money out of them. This is us doing what we can to take care of our community, especially the people who fall through the cracks. That means getting dialysate to people with kidney failure, hormones to people like me, and yes, things like opiates and amphetamines to people who need them. Is that a problem?"

"No," I said. "That makes sense. Didn't mean to come off that way."

"Good," Sirona replied. "It sounds like you get the gist of it. We want to figure out if you're someone we can get along with."

I nodded. "Gotcha."

I tried to stay calm. Better for this to end up less like an interrogation and more like a job interview. I was wary of capes in general, but I didn't think I'd be able to leave their world anytime soon, now.

It'd be nice to find a way back to my old body, then just leave like none of this had happened. But... I thought back to my transformation. The ash that had fallen away as my monster form emerged, ash that hadn't been there before. I had the feeling that was my old body, crumbled away after its death.

It was disturbing to think about, but it bothered me less than it felt like it should. Guess I was never that attached to my old life. Still, the result was that I couldn't just turn around. I needed to put together a new life that would account for the fucked-up new power I'd picked up, and getting help from the Alchemists with that was probably the best option I had.

And maybe now I could actually do something to make the world better, rather than just complaining online.

Tameka spoke up. "Let's confirm some things. Full name and date of birth?"

"Isaac Edelman," I said. "Born on May 11, 1991."

Tameka typed something into her laptop. "Gender?"

I hesitated for a moment, then remembered Cygnus was there. Pretty safe bet that no one was going to give me any shit. And it felt like Tameka was verifying answers she'd already looked up somehow, anyway. "Uh, male-ish. He/they."

Seemed like the right level of detail. I didn't think she wanted an in-depth outline of the nuances of my feelings on gender, and I definitely didn't want to try to give one.

"Tell me about that Reddit post you made about capes three months ago," Tameka said. "The Problem With Capes In Politics."

"How did you..." I blinked. That wasn't supposed to be easy to trace back to me.

Tameka grinned. "I'm good at this."

"That was when Inferno joined up with Cincinnati's bluecapes," I said. "I thought she was bad news, and I still do. It's dangerous to have people like her running around with little accountability and setting progressive agendas. Which I'm even more sure of now, after her teammate left me to die and then shot at me."

Cygnus closed his eyes for a moment. "Dammit, Radha."

Radha? He's on a first-name basis with Artemis?

I didn't know much about Cygnus's personal life. Like most rogue capes, he avoided publicly revealing his real name and face, although I doubted they were well-kept secrets. Pretty much the only thing he'd shared was that he was trans.

"Speaking of that fight," Cygnus said, looking back at me. "Tell me about that monster form you used."

As Cygnus finished, Tameka spun her laptop around, showing a photo of what looked like some sort of demonic werewolf. It was me, I realized.

"It was... weird." I glanced away, feeling myself tense. "I didn't know I could do that, and I don't think I can do it at will. I think it's just triggered by me... dying. And to get out of the form, I had to, uh, get a new body."

Cygnus, Tameka, and Sirona all made faces. Sirona was the first to respond. "That's pretty fucked up."

"Agreed," Cygnus said. "That's... Tameka, do you know of any other powers like this?"

Tameka had her laptop facing her again as she typed away, and her eyes darted over her screen for about a minute before she replied. "Nothing's coming up."

"Let's try to avoid having you transform again for now," Cygnus suggested. "Is there anything you can do in your current form?"

"I think so." I held my right palm out, concentrated, and... with a sound like a balloon popping, air burst outward like a miniature version of the attack from earlier. "Pretty sure I can do anything Nitroforce could."

Cygnus nodded. "That's useful. Probably best not to publicize that you're wearing his body, though. Have you given any thought to a cape name?"

I thought back to the wolflike shape I'd taken in monster form. But I'm trying to stay quiet about all that for now. In the meantime...

"For now," I said, "let's go with Sonicboom."

We continued for about half an hour, going over the events of the day in more detail - both the fight itself and how I'd ended up as part of it. Eventually, the three of them seemed satisfied.

Tameka glanced up from her laptop. "Everything looks fine to me."

Cygnus looked first to Sirona, who nodded, then to me. "If you're interested, we'd be happy to have you with us. Can't promise much, but we look out for each other."

With my old life gone for the foreseeable future, a new source of stability was the biggest thing I needed. "Works for me."

Sirona rose to her feet. "If we're all finished here, I should get back to the lab. Those medical patents aren't going to violate themselves."

Cygnus stood as well, and I followed suit. As Sirona reached the door, she paused. "Speaking of which, next batch of T should be ready in about an hour."

"Great," Cygnus said.

Tameka, still sitting at her laptop, glanced up at me. "If you want a change of clothes, Brian has some that should fit you."

"Oh, uh, thanks." Getting back into regular clothes did sound nice.

I followed Cygnus out of the room and towards what seemed to be a lounge. He headed for a TV off to the side, which I supposed meant he was calling it a day. The driver from earlier - Brian, I assumed - approached me with a bag of clothes.

"There's a bathroom over there," Brian indicated. "And feel free to use the stuff here."

I went to where he'd pointed and started to change out of Nitroforce's bodysuit. Being in his body was still so weird, even with his muscle memory making it feel more intuitive than it should have been. My proportions were different, and I had a full beard now - I'd have to shave that, soon. And wait, what was with my...

Oh. Right. Nitroforce wasn't Jewish.

When I finished changing, I returned to the lounge. A frustrated shout - Cygnus's voice - came from the couch by the TV, where Tameka had joined him. The TV showed a video game, with one of the two combatants in the middle of respawning.

"You always fall for that," Tameka said.

I could use a distraction, too. I sat down at a computer, and signed into my usual messenger. My group chat showed another flurry of activity.

> madison (they/them): isnt it a bit late for coffee by now?

>

> Hana Needs Coffee: good point

>

> Hana @ Sewing: there we go

>

> CROCODILE PUNCHER: at the same time as you're typing?

>

> Hana @ Sewing: yes shane im typing with my feet

>

> Hana @ Sewing: its more an ideal of what i SHOULD be doing

>

> Isaac (he/they): hey y'all

>

> Hana @ Sewing: isaac!!!

>

> madison (they/them): you ok? heard about that fight in your area, we were worried

Well, I kind of got killed, but I got better, and did I mention I'm a cape now? But like, some sort of weird fucked up one, and...

> Isaac (he/they): got held up for a bit but I'm fine now

>

> madison (they/them): thats good

>

> Isaac (he/they): what've you all been up to?

>

> Hana @ Sewing: trying to fix this fucking skirt, for one thing

>

> Hana @ Sewing: what happened?

>

> Isaac (he/they): bus line went down, one of the redcapes was smashing a bunch of stuff

>

> madison (they/them): you had to walk?

>

> CROCODILE PUNCHER: mads you've been having bus issues in louisville, right?

>

> CROCODILE PUNCHER: do enbies have some sort of bus curse?

>

> Isaac (he/they): seems like it

>

> Isaac (he/they): not even sure why jobs like this insist on having us come to the office in the first place

>

> Isaac (he/they): could do it just fine from home but no

>

> CROCODILE PUNCHER: gotta watch us to make sure they're getting their money's worth, apparently

>

> CROCODILE PUNCHER: even at a time like this

>

> Hana @ Sewing: well, glad youre safe

>

> Isaac (he/they): yeah def

I didn't want to keep dancing around it forever, but I was not up to having that conversation right now. There were parts of my life that I didn't mind changing, but... not this one.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. Cygnus showed me around the Alchemists' base, giving me a proper look at the kitchen and sleeping areas, and pointing out areas that were off-limits due to having Sirona's medical equipment or anything else.

Eventually, I went to my cot and laid down for the night. I closed my eyes...

----------------------------------------

I was floating, high above the Earth. The ground below was dark, but starlike points of light moved about it - people, going about their lives.

A crack appeared, then widened. Not a crack in the ground, but in the air just above it. Blood-red smoke spilled out, flowing along the ground, around the stars there.

The stars didn't react to the smoke, didn't seem to notice it. But it reacted to them. Smoke flowed into some of the stars, as if they were wells for it to sink into, and they turned red themselves.

More cracks opened, in other parts of the world, playing out the same process, and before long the smoke was everywhere. The red stars became erratic, darting around and crashing into other stars. Stars they impacted went dark, whether they were regular ones or the increasing number of red ones.

As stars continued to disappear, I heard a whisper. The woman from earlier, just before I'd transformed. Her voice kept cutting out, but I could pick up bits and pieces.

-power that was sealed inside-

-starting to leak out-

-more and more capes will-

-if it continues-

-need to do something before-

A silhouette flickered into view, then it all vanished. I woke up, drenched in sweat.

What was THAT?