To be perfectly honest, this was not the ideal scenario. Tin Triumph was by far the most difficult to overcome opponent, so my hope had been to take her by surprise while still in deep cover. And there was nothing in Scarescholar's arsenal capable of cleanly taking her out. This would be tricky.

"What now, MC?" Jess asked.

Time to improvise.

"Can you lift her up with your magic?"

She shook her head. "I tried that while ya were up and away fooling around with Dorothy, but she just turns all gloopy and stuff and flows out again. "

Right. Jessica could lift objects containing liquids just fine, but she couldn't hold on to the liquid itself.

I furrowed my brow. It was really taking a while for her to pull herself back together this time. I turned around and immediately saw why. Only the head and the shoulders of the amorphous hero were reconstituting before us. The rest of the body had been pulled together behind our backs.

"Shit." I murmured and grabbed onto Jess' broomstick. "Witchling, fly!" She turned her head and looked at me funny. "We've been tricked. Fly upwards! Just do it!"

She nodded. "Aight. Hold on tight."

The broom lifted itself in the air faster than I expected and I had to grab on with my other hand to keep steady, but we made it just in time as no sooner had my feet left the earth a giant metal hand took their place trying to grab me.

As we rose higher I could see Tin Triumph's separate halves merging below us. The giant appendage stretched upwards, still trying to catch us but we were rising too fast.

.

Just when I thought that we had earned a moment of respite the hand started to melt and the silvery mass stretched further skyward, much faster than before. Damn. I really hadn't thought this through. Maybe I wasn't ready for runs this big yet.

At this rate, it was only a matter of seconds before she had caught up and snatched both of us. I took a deep breath and did the only thing I could think of to slow her down. I let go.

Jess looked down due to the sudden lightening of her load.

I did not have to fall long before the liquid tin engulfed my legs and I braced myself for the searing hot pain. But I felt nothing.

It only took me a second to figure out why. Of course! Why hadn't I thought about that sooner? A new plan began to rapidly develop in my head.

"MC!" Jess yelled. "Let her go ya big tin bimbo!"

TT raised a metallic eyebrow. " 'Her', huh? Interesting." Jessica put a hand in front of her mouth and looked at me apologetically, but I really couldn't care less about that slip-up. The jig was up anyway.

With no time to waste, I grabbed the final implement I would need to end this battle from Scarescholar's belt. It wasn't a gadget per se. It was a knife. A utility knife. Lots of heroes had one somewhere on their bodies. Not to fight people with, but rather for situations where something needed to be cut free or open. Heroes with equivalent Powers naturally forewent carrying one, but for the rest, they were basically essential. Any pro who was long enough in the cape game had at least 3 or 4 stories about how a knife was either critical to an engagement or at least majorly beneficial. But the knife usually wasn't used the way I was going to now.

"Hey, tinhead! If you know what's good for your little team of children's book cosplayers you should shrink back down, liquefy, and go hide away in that trashcan over there!" I yelled and pointed at a can standing next to one of the buildings. The silver giant laughed.

"Well-written children's media like the Oz tetradecology are full of beneficial and eternally relevant lessons in behavior and morality. They are the most fitting inspiration for people who want to make the world a better place to live in. You can't insult us like that. We are proud of our inspirations." She lifted me up so we were tiny face to giant face. "And what exactly do you think you can do to me if I don't do what you say? Lecture me to death? Not that you'd be capable of even that, impostor."

I shook my head. "To you? Nothing. But to him..." I raised the blade and held it against my vessel's throat. The heroine's face fell immediately.

"You may be an impostor, but I'm fairly certain you are a Polymorph. The real Scarescholar is safe and secure tied up somewhere." It is difficult to discern subtle emotions from her inhuman face, but I could hear her voice waver ever so slightly. Good. Doubt was all I needed.

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"I'll grant you that Possession is a rare Power but...are you willing to chance it?"

TT grit her teeth. "I saw you rescuing innocent bystanders. You aren't the type to just kill someone who can't defend themselves."

She was right, of course. "I admit that I bear no ill will toward the general public. But that same courtesy doesn't apply to you, holier-than-thou arrogant do-gooders. One White Cape less in the world makes no difference to me."

In general slang, regular heroes who act just and noble are called White Capes. Gruffer. rougher and less idealistic heroes as well as anti-heroes are referred to as Gray Capes. Harmless, jokey, and anti-villains get labeled Red Capes, while full-on capital b indisputably Bad people are Black Capes. Lastly, unlicensed costumed vigilantes are categorized as Capeless.

"You're bluffing." Tin Triumph said, sounding less and less certain.

I dug the blade deeper, feeling it cut into the skin. "Right. Save me a seat for the funeral. I'll be there. Not as myself, of course. I'll even let you cry on my shoulder." With a slow and deliberate motion I dragged the skin-deep knife along his throat.

"STOP!!!" TT screamed. She began to shrink down and soon I felt my feet touching the floor again. She released my legs and looked me in the eye. "I won't forget this. You better watch out in the future."

I just chuckled but before I could say anything Jess levitated the trash can in front of us. "It's not very hero-like to hold a grudge, Missy." She lifted the lid and pointed inside. "Now get in, will ya?"

The metal woman lifted herself over the open can and melted inside, chunks sliding off her body until it was filled to the brim with liquid tin. Jess slammed the lid on top and I quickly got out the Incapacitator and applied it around the rim.

Jess looked at me, the biggest grin I had ever seen beginning to spread across her face. She opened her mouth but I interrupted her before a word could escape.

"No time to celebrate yet. One of these bozos..." I gestured all around us toward the civilians. "...is bound to have called 777 the second Tin, Tall, and Creepy fell for my bluff. We have at best another 10 minutes before another cape shows up here and that's generous. Let's get to it. We'll party at home." She nodded and we made our way to the tour bus.

777 was the emergency hotline for heroes, for use only when in dire need of rescue or to report villainous activity. It is frowned upon for heroes to assist others if not specifically asked, but when a hero is defeated then another coming along and finishing the job is a-okay.

The air of fear inside the bus was palpable. I could hear murmuring in a foreign language and some faint English swears. "I'm sorry to inform you that the tour is prematurely canceled."

Jess giggled in a deliberately sinister way. "That sure was money well spent." she added. I gave her a nod.

"Oh, certainly. The mighty Yellowbrick Society was here to protect them, after all. A 100% safety garuantee. But enough chit-chat. Pull out all of the cash you have on you. Or...." I took out the knife and drove it between one of the tourist's legs. "....I won't miss again." They complied immediately.

I wasn't able to count money just by seeing the bundles, but even I knew this was a big haul once they had all finished rummaging through their bags. Well, big for us. The big-time Villains would wipe their shoes with this meager an offering, but for small-timers, this was huge.

"Why are you doing this? You're a well-off, well-respected hero." the one I threatened with the knife asked while Jess floated the money into my bag, waving her wand around like a conductor all the while.

I grinned under my mask.

"I'm not Scarescholar. I'm just using his body right now. You had the honor of being robbed by the Master Controller. Tell your family. Tell your friends."

"And I am Witchling, her spellbindingly charming companion." Jess threw in and let out another cackle.

Now that we were done with the actual robbery, I had to take care of one more thing. I really didn't want any deaths on my hands, so I saved two groups of people from flaming car wheels, and that was a problem. It was a problem for the same reason I did not want my Involvement in stopping Leotigris to become publicly known; The heroic drive to redeem villains. So if I wanted to keep any and all wannabee redeemers off my tail I needed to do something that would piss off heroes specifically while not actually harming anyone. And I had just the thing in mind.

I stepped back outside and addressed the crowd. "People of LA! I want you all to know that as long as you don't get in my way you have nothing to fear from me! The Master Controller is fair to the citizenry, generous to her allies, and vindictive, petty, and cruel toward her enemies! The man whose body I am borrowing right now has done nothing to me. But his friends have. And what is more vindictive, petty, and cruel than to rob someone who has not wronged me directly of something he can never buy back? His privacy!"

A mix of worried and excited murmurs erupted out of the crowd. Nowadays secret identities were rare for heroes, but they had the option to request them while applying for their license. The government still knew who the hero was, of course, but everything was redacted on the public side of things. Some cultivated a secret identity just to strengthen their brand, but of the 23% of active heroes who had them the majority just wanted to be left alone when out of the cape.

The Yellowbrick Society had two of them, Scarescholar and Dame Dorothy (though she did say in an interview once that Dorothy was indeed her real name.), and within the heroic community, these sorts of things are taken very seriously. Not enough that they'd be forming squads to hunt me down if I'd reveal his, but enough that no one would want to pull me over to the light.

I raised my arm and ripped the mask from my head. The murmuring intensified, and the soft clicks of snapped pictures joined the cacophony of noise. I closed my eyes and let the cool breeze wash over Scarescholar's face. There is nothing as refreshing as the first few moments out of the costume after a hard day of work. I focused on the crowd again.

"This man is named Nigel." I fumbled around in his pouch and pulled out his Hero License. "Nigel James Krane. Do with that what you will." Jess put a hand on my shoulder. It was time. "Sadly, our time together has ended. But don't you worry your pretty little heads. I'll be back soon."

I handed Jess the Incapacitator. I could just lie down and have her restrain me before I leave Scarescholar's mind, but a villain's exit has to have at least a little bit of a dramatic flair to it. I balled my left hand into a fist, pressing down all three buttons needed to charge the Shock-Glove, but without letting go.

I raised the fist up to my head and began disentangling my mind from my puppet's body. Just before I fully lost control I opened the fist to salute the onlookers, making sure the tips of the now-charged glove made contact with my doll's forehead.

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

As I slowly come to in my own body I mentally congratulated myself on a job well done. There had been a few hiccups along the way but all in all, this went surprisingly well.

But I also noticed some of my glaring weaknesses. Back in my hero days, I was support. Yes, I knew how to fight, but my main purpose was backing up the others while they fought by reading and relaying the enemy's intended actions. That and extracting critical mission info. But that also meant I was always just a cog in a greater machine, just doing what I was supposed to do, what I was told.

Now I was the one who drew up the blueprints for the greater machine, and it was much harder making the correct decisions to make sure a plan goes off smoothly than to competently execute someone else's idea. I would have to work on that in the future.

But that was a problem for later. For now, I could just sit back and relax a bit.

It's not like things could go wrong at this stage.

Right?