“Stop and stand down!” Battery repeated herself when we didn’t respond. “This doesn’t have to get worse if you cooperate!”

“This isn’t what it looks like,” I blurted before realizing how damning that sounded.

“Again,” Labyrinth whispered, making it clear she thought that was a bad response too.

Shaking my head, I hastily added, “The Empire attacked us—are still attacking us. I, um… incapacitated Rune when she tried to choke me.”

Battery literally blurred as she moved at high speed over to the cage I had formed. “Console, get EMT here now. Rune is down and bleeding out.”

Well shit, that really wasn’t going to help our case. We needed to get the fuck out of here before the heroes tried to force us to come in, which wasn’t going to happen. Preferably without fighting them, since the last thing the crew needed right now was to piss off the Protectorate and PRT again, and this time in our home city… also again. We had only just barely smoothed things over after the hospital. The problem with escaping was any two of the heroes present would be a significant obstacle together because of how their powers synergized. Assault and Battery were well known for how their powers played off of each other, and Boudicca should in theory be able to swap out for either of them without ruining the general makeup of the combo.

It was an issue I didn’t know how to solve, so I focused on damage control for the moment. Even if we got away, we needed them to realize we really were attacked by the Empire and defending ourselves. “Witnesses!” I called out to them, pointing out the people who had been sheltering from the fight that were still present. “These people can testify it was self-defense!”

Battery was trying—and failing—to lift the cage off of Rune while Assault jogged over to some of the people nearby to corroborate what I had said. I pulled the cage out of elsewhere and turned it into liquid before the hero could pull a muscle trying to lift the immovable object. She started a bit at the cage collapsing but recovered quickly and moved to staunch the bleeding.

“They’re booking it!” Shade said over our comms.

And fate provides, I thought with a smile. If we claimed the Empire was fleeing, then one of the heroes would almost certainly go to verify, and one of them—likely Battery—would have to stay with Rune and the witnesses, since the villain was bleeding pretty badly. That left only one hero to ditch, which would be significantly easier.

Mind made up, I relayed to the heroes, “Othala and Victor are getting away,” before quietly adding just over our comms, “get ready to get the hell out of here, everyone.”

Battery looked over at Assault, who was already running back over to where she and Boudicca were, and though I could see they were quickly but quietly conferring, I couldn’t hear what was being said from up here. What I did hear, however, was Shade’s reply. “Fuck that! Get over here and get me! I’m not letting him get away!”

Oh shit. I hadn’t expected that response, but I probably should have. “Shade,” I whispered, looking to Labyrinth in a panic, “Faultline would want us to retreat. We’ve got to go.”

“Should leave,” Labyrinth agreed. Down below us, Assault was punching Boudicca’s upper arm. As I recalled, her power was the inverse of what you would expect. Being hit made her offense better at the expense of defense, and hitting someone made the opposite happen. Was being faster part of her offensive boost? I couldn’t recall but had to assume it was.

I could hear Shade’s huffing from exertion through the line. Was she running? Climbing? “Don’t you dare bail on me,” she hissed. “Don’t you dare. I need you two.”

I grit my teeth. If the crew hadn’t saved us, we would still be Octavia’s slaves. On top of that, Shade had been badly injured at the library too and would still be out of commission if Sakura hadn’t been nearby to give her a convenient regeneration power. We owe her.

Boudicca leapt and reached the roof by us in a single jump with obvious ease. Fucking hell, she’s a monster when she’s boosted. “Where?” she asked. What little we could see of her expression was set in a frown. It didn’t escape my notice either that the metal parts of her outfit had been replaced with something else. They looked the same, but I couldn’t feel any part of her outfit with my power.

I was familiar with the feeling of our earpieces through my power, and I could feel Shade running west and nearly out of my range, roughly proceeding towards BBU. I grit my teeth and, remembering the Empire was mostly present in the southern parts of the city, pointed south towards downtown. “Shade reported they’re fleeing south two streets west of here.”

The hero immediately sprinted to the roof’s edge and leapt not to the next building over but the building past it. She was already jumping up to the next one when Assault began to bounce his way up to the roof we were on, ricocheting back and forth between two buildings. Once he had reached our level, he asked, “So did Faultline pick up another cape, or am I remembering your voice correctly, Meteor?”

“You actually remember me?” I replied, dumbfounded as I took a step between him and Labyrinth. After the library at UPenn, I would be shocked if they didn’t have a standing capture order on us, and I would be able to tank a hit better if he made a move. I remembered Faultline describing him as a kinetic energy manipulator, and Battery must have punched him hard to give him enough to scale a building this tall. Could he store unused energy? How much might he have left? “I… suppose I’m supposed to be flattered or something?”

He chuckled and said, “Your crew did a number on Boodie and me. Hard to forget.” His body language was easy-going, and he didn’t sound pissed off about what happened, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. He wasn’t the only one who remembered Providence; namely, I recalled how easily Loki had tricked me into letting down my guard. I wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice if I could help it.

I felt a small spike of metal begin to grow out of the roof by his foot, and I sent a silent thank you to Labyrinth. I had been in the process of melting the dumpster in the alley behind Assault, but I abandoned that effort in favor of focusing on what she had provided me. I didn’t stop pulling my orbs discreetly towards our position though, since we would need to get out of here soon.

“This is a hell of a costume change,” Assault remarked before soberly adding, “Looks like the getup you had in Philly.”

Warning bells were going off in my head as I stared at him. “Something like that,” I agreed as I quickly turned the spike into liquid and tried to wrap it around his ankle.

Assault leapt forward towards us without warning, completely dodging my trap without so much as looking at it. I instinctively reached for one of my swords only to realize I wouldn’t have time and pushed my armor into elsewhere instead. He made to punch me in the breast, and a look of confusion marred what I could see of his face when he connected and nothing happened. My swords weren’t connected to my armor and could still be moved, so I swung them around through my power in a pincer attack. He fell backwards out of the way, and though the slapdash dodge should have put him at a disadvantage, he bounced off the rooftop with just enough rotation to put him facing back towards us. The walls of a maze began to rise up out of the roof, but the growth was too slow to properly catch the hero off balance.

This was a fight we couldn’t afford, not if we were actually going to help Shade. I whirled around as I put the swords between us, and grabbing Labyrinth, I rocketed away with my orbs moving to follow, all subtlety abandoned. I wasn’t surprised in the slightest to see Boudicca had reversed course and was only a block away or so, which meant my efforts to try and split up the heroes had failed entirely. What did surprise me, though, was the familiar drone flying not far from her that I could see but couldn’t sense. What was Reconnoiter doing here, much less with a drone I couldn’t detect?

We were going to be outmanned and outgunned soon. We needed to get to Shade now.

“Hold on,” I yelled to Labyrinth, then I dove into the alleyways and pushed us as fast as my power would allow westward towards where I had last felt Shade.

“Control lost,” Labyrinth said a moment later, and Shade came into my range right after. We had passed the edge of Labyrinth’s zone, which meant she couldn’t contribute again until some time after we had stopped. It also meant my armor would eventually begin reverting to Meteor’s costume, and that might cause our flight to go haywire when it did.

Could this situation get worse? I thought as I twisted us around to look backwards without breaking our momentum westward. Assault and Boudicca were both hot on our heels, and my orbs were behind them and unable to catch up—I was already at my limit. The only thing going in our favor was the drones—and I noticed there was a second, which probably explained how Assault knew to jump—were clearly unable to keep up with the high speed chase.

“We’re coming in hot with Assault and Boudicca,” I announced over comms. “Drones behind them. Look like Reconnoiter’s, but I can’t feel them.”

“Can you handle them?” Shade gasped out between sucking in gasps of air. A gunshot rang out, and I heard her curse but not yell in pain. “Outta my charge of you. Only got some of Faultline ‘n’ Gregor with a bit of Othala.” She could have built up some of Labyrinth’s or Newter’s powers, but the risk was too much for her to bother. She would knock herself out with Newter’s power the moment she reverted to any form other than his, and Labyrinth’s power was almost certainly what affected her mental state, and there was no telling how it would interact with Shade’s power if used.

The heroes were catching up, and though I tried to hit them several times with metal we passed, they managed to dodge every time. “Honestly? I really doubt it. They’d cream me.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Get to me, and I’ll make you able to handle them.”

That could only mean she was going to use her charge of Othala to boost me somehow. The question of how remained, but at this point, we needed any edge we could get. We were almost on her, but the heroes were still tailing us. We needed to ditch them if we were going to have any real chance at capturing Victor, but that was easier said than done. They might not be able to fly, but they had caught up to the point they kept pace with us on the rooftops. I might be able to lose them in the alleys if we got really lucky, but I seriously doubted I could manage it before the drones got to us, and who only knew what detection equipment they were stuffed with.

That left doing something stupid and reckless.

This is either going to be amazing or fucking terrible, I thought with no small amount of dread as we moved into position parallel over a street with cars everywhere, both in motion and parked. I reached out to the roof of an immobile one coming up and prepared to rip it free, then I metaphorically crossed my fingers and yelled, “Sorry in advance!” to Labyrinth loud enough to be heard over the rush of wind.

I threw her up into the air.

Labyrinth hadn’t expected to be tossed around like a sack of potatoes, if her shriek of terror—and possibly a bit of indignation—was any indication. The heroes meanwhile were caught between trying to figure out whether they needed to intervene to save Labyrinth’s life and figuring out what I had planned as I changed my angle of flight, putting me on an intercept course with them.

The problem with their power synergy, or more specifically how they approached it, was they generally moved in close proximity. Maybe Battery and Boudicca couldn’t aim for shit, but in theory, they could have just thrown an object at Assault with the same results—in theory. What I knew of them from Faultline and PHO said they didn’t do that, and sure enough, Boudicca moved to close the gap between her and Assault, her arm already cocked back to hit him. A burst of energy to give him what he needed to catch Labyrinth.

I messily tore the roof off of the car up ahead, making a point to let the metal screech as I tugged it free. In the moment their eyes flicked that way to figure out what was happening, I made my move. I moved in between the now close together heroes, pulled the arms and upper back of my armor free in one clean piece, and promptly shoved into elsewhere directly in front of them. My focus at that point was almost entirely on catching Labyrinth with the car roof, a task I managed without issue, but it was impossible to ignore the scream and the sound of bones shattering behind me.

My best guess at my maximum speed was 45 miles per hour. I had never measured it exactly, but that ballpark figure was more than sufficient for illustrating consequences. Assault, who could redirect the energy of his impact, would at worst have his momentum killed when he struck an immovable object. Boudicca though, for all her current amplified strength and agility, was no more durable than I was. I wasn’t smart enough to even remotely guess the exact numbers for how much force her ribcage had just been hit with, but I did know seatbelts were a thing for a reason.

I caught Labyrinth halfway to the ground as I left Assault in the dust, scrambling to help Boudicca hit him enough to recover. I had to hope he would manage it and that they wouldn’t bear too large of a grudge. We zipped past the abruptly quasi-convertible car, and I diverted us into the alley that I could feel Shade running down, slowing down only enough to let my orbs finally catch up.

Labyrinth smacked my bare arm—hard—then a second and third time before making her thoughts on my stunt crystal clear with only two words, “Never again.”

“Yes dear,” automatically slipped from my lips, which earned me another smack in the same spot as the first three. “Ow, fuck, I mean it! Really!”

Shade was looking over her shoulder at us as we closed the gap with her running—more jogging at this point, with how winded she obviously was—but that was no surprise. Even if she hadn’t been able to sense our approach and general location via her power, my yelps from Elle smacking me would have given us away. I slowed down just enough to properly grab Shade by wrapping her in orbs, then we were off.

“Where are they?” I asked, wishing I could rub away the sting on my arm. For the moment though, my arms were occupied with holding Labyrinth to me. I wasted no time in pushing us up to speed and dodged down an intersecting side alley between the backs of the buildings.

“They were heading that way when I lost them,” she said as she pointed. “That was just a minute ago. Couldn’t have gotten far.”

They could have, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to point that out. “Okay. Need to swap to carrying us all with orbs before—”

Of course that was the moment I felt the armor Labyrinth’s had birthed begin to vanish. The effect wasn’t immediate, more or less a same speed rewind of how it had come to be, but it meant I had to immediately slow to a stop and set us down.

“What’re you doing?! They’re going to get away!” Shade all but yelled at me.

That made the past several minutes of tension catch up to me all at once. I whirled towards Shade the instant Labyrinth was on the ground and got up in her face. “We had to risk our hides to get over here to help you, not to mention me breaking god knows how many of Boudicca’s bones. We might’ve crashed as Labs’ power unwound my armor, so fucking excuse me for taking a goddamn second to make sure we didn’t crash to the ground and have half our skin ripped off from high speed road rash!”

Shade’s domino mask made it hard to read her emotions based on her eyes, but the rest of her face made the barely restrained fury obvious. “They’re going to get away,” she repeated obstinately, her voice a growl and her jaw set.

My arm twitched as I fought down the urge to punch her for being so goddamn thick. The feeling of soft fingers on my bare skin pulled my attention away from thoughts of violence, and the sight of Labyrinth gently holding my arm calmed me down. I took a deep, centering breath and quickly ran through an inventory of what remained of my costume after my little stunt. Everything from my breast down was more or less fine, including all the metal plating and my hip cases, but the upper chest and arms of my bodysuit were gone, leaving tattered edges behind. My backpack was lying on the ground behind me with part of its straps gone, and likewise my sports bra was missing a portion of its shoulder straps. I was worried for a moment I might accidentally flash everyone, but it seemed the clingy fabric of my body suit was going to hold up. All the same, I melted some of my orbs and made a sort of wrap around strap that combined with the black metal of my breastplate. The sudden transition from black to silver metal probably looked tacky as hell, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“And now that I’m confident I’m not going to maim us all by losing control mid-flight, we can go,” I replied as I pulled my backpack to my back with my power and fashioned some makeshift metal straps out of metal orbs.

“Good,” she muttered. It was quiet enough that I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear it, and my eyebrow twitched in response, but I managed to let go and focused on wrapping the two of them in my orbs and taking off.

I pushed us up to speed and followed Shade’s directions, moving westward while flying low to ensure we didn’t go too high for her to detect the Empire capes. For a worrying minute, I thought we really might have lost them. Shade was growing visibly more agitated the longer we flew in silence, and I honestly didn’t know what she would do if we didn’t find them. More distressingly… I didn’t know what she would do if we did find them either.

“Could they have started south?” I hesitantly asked, worried how she might respond.

“I don’t know,” she bit out through clenched teeth. “I don’t fucking—THERE!”

Shade jabbed her finger to the southwest, and I immediately adjusted course. She gave me a few more corrections until she brought us to a stop. There was nothing but regular street traffic below that was waiting on a red light. What immediately caught my attention was how the cars and passerby were acting. Nobody was freaking out that capes were driving a car among them, nor were they trying to flee, to get out of the villains’ way. If Shade hadn’t insisted they were here, I would have had no idea.

We had caught Victor and Othala, but we had caught them unmasked.

“Shade… This isn’t a good idea,” I warned, immediately uncomfortable with being here. Going after the Empire capes now would be a flagrant violation of the unwritten rules, on par with what Lung had done to Masuyo’s apartment.

Labyrinth agreed as well, chiming in, “The rules.”

Our friend didn’t reply, simply staring down at the cars below. Her face had been tight with anger since we picked her up after ditching the heroes, but now there seemed to be conflict in her expression. The bared teeth were gone, and in their place her lips were drawn into a thin line, twitching as if she was fighting off a scowl. Likewise her hands were clenching and unclenching into fists. I wanted to say more, to reassure her doing nothing was the right course of action… but I couldn’t. There was an aura of agitation hanging over us all, and I knew a single misstep, the wrong action, and it would all come crashing down.

The red light below finally shifted green, and traffic began to inch forward, the accordion effect slowing the progress down as it always did.

Shade broke the silence. “Let’s go.”

I sagged in relief as the tension dissipated. “We’ll figure something else out,” I assured her as I started to turn us around, adjusting the orbs when I felt Shade shift around a bit. “We’ll talk to Faultline, see if we can’t—”

The sound of tearing metal filled the air.

I whirled back around in horror. I had thought Shade was adjusting her posture when I felt the pressure on my orbs move, but she had transformed into me. I stared down on the street below, completely paralyzed at the sight of twin spikes jutting at an angle out of a red sedan.

“I had to.”

Guts and blood were smeared across the improvised spears, dripping down on the roof of the car. The peace of everyday business was shattered. The people on the sidewalks were screaming and running in terror, and the cars that had been queued for the intersection were running into each other, trying to bump one another out of the way as they all tried to flee at once.

“They killed Brian. I had to.”

Shade and the rest of the crew had put their lives on the line to rescue us from Octavia. Yes, they had taken preparations to avoid being mastered themselves, but all it would have taken was one misstep. One mistake, and they would have been that bitch’s slaves like we had been, forced to dance at her command without even realizing they were caught. I owed her my life—had risked antagonizing the Protectorate instead of fleeing—but this…

“I hope it was worth it,” I said, the words coming out empty and hollow.

She said something in response, but I wasn’t listening anymore. The orbs I had been using to carry her fused together in an instant, becoming a seamless entity, and I started to shove her down towards the car. She fought it—of course she did—and for several long moments, she vibrated mid-air as we warred for control over the metal holding her. It didn’t last. I began to win because in the end, that was her power’s nature. She could be anyone, do anything, but there was a time limit, and that limit drained all the quicker when she used her borrowed powers. She could be anyone, do anything, but there would always be a limit.

She would always be Shade in the end.

Shadows flared over her again and again as she tried to fight me off, but the metal encasing continued its intermittent jumps closer and closer to the car. She yelled and screamed at me the whole time. I heard her, heard the words, but I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t. I kept pushing her away, and I pulled us further and further away from her. We both had limited ranges, but mine stretched for blocks. She would lose, and she knew it. We eventually crossed the event horizon, and I planted her right next to what she had done

I left her there. Left my friend for the heroes to lock away, staying only long enough to keep her trapped in elsewhere. All three of them—Battery, Assault, and Boudicca—came in the end, and though a small part of me was relieved to see Boudicca unharmed, the feeling was overwhelmed by doubt.

Did I do the right thing? “Let’s call Faultline,” I whispered to Labyrinth, hiccuping lightly as I cried freely.

She reached out and squeezed my hand, but said nothing, letting me grieve.