=== KARI ===

Despite all of my cuts, I waved off the paramedics. They weren't going to be able to help me anyway. I took a few deep breaths and then flew home. Not to Suiren's place. I rushed to mom and dad. By the time I got there, I was exhausted. I collapsed to the floor, and I heard glass breaking. I heard footsteps close in, and I felt someone lift me up. A few hours later, I woke up in bed. I was topless and covered in gauze. I looked down at myself despondently. I had gained some scars. There were the ones I could see on my arms from where Curt had captured me and tried to saw them off. There were matching ones on my legs. Undoubtedly, I would have new ones under the gauze. I looked at my phone. It had been ten hours. I got up, pulled myself out of bed, and shambled into the central lab. Mom and dad were talking in a hushed whisper, but I could still hear every word. The benefits, or maybe detriments, of having super-hearing.

  "What are we going to do? She keeps getting hurt? First from Curt and now this Lady Blade?"

  "I don't know. We have to convince her to stop. She's not as invulnerable as-" Dad cut off when he saw me approaching. "Hey, sweetie, how are you feeling?"

  "Oh, Kari, baby. You should really be in bed. You lost a lot of blood," mom said, coming to my side.

  "You guys want me to stop being a hero?" I asked, tears clouding my vision. My parents looked at each other and then at me.

  "Honey," mom began. "It's just . . ."

  "You keep getting hurt. We're worried."

  "Yeah, a couple of things hurt me. It happens, but . . ." The tears leaked down my face. "I can't just stop. I'm the only one strong enough to do some of these things! I'm the only one who might be able to stop Lady Blade. Or Curt!"

  "Sweetie," dad said. "You haven't been able to yet. What's changed?"

  "I was caught by surprise. I-I've been training. I'm getting better at fighting."

  "What we're trying to say is that you don't have to fight," mom added, putting her arm around me. She stroked my shoulder.

  "But I do!"

  "There are other heroes. Like . . . Bion. And Professor Mind."

  "They can't do what I can. And even when they can, they don't. I'm stronger than they are. And I can't just not help people. I want to."

  "I know you do, honey. We just . . . we almost lost you once. I don't want that to happen again."

  "Almost lost me? Mom, I'm right here. I haven't almost died. I've gotten hurt, but lots of people will get more than just hurt if I don't help them. They'll die. I am so much less likely to die than anyone else."

  "And what if this Lady Blade or Curt decides to cut off your head next time!?" My father demanded, anger coloring his tone.

  "They're not going to! They won't get the chance." My own voice had become steady, despite the tears. It was also filled with anger. I felt my hands shake. I clenched my fists.

  "How do you know!?" He shouted. Mom shot him a look, and he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "How do you know?"

  "Because I'm going to continue to train. I'm faster than anyone on the planet. I just need to get better at actually fighting people. And I'm going to."

  "How?" Mom asked, pleading.

  "Suiren has taught me a lot. She's coming back. She might already be back." I disentangled myself from mom's arms and started back towards my room.

  "Can't you wait until you're healed up a little more?" Mom asked. I looked back at her; I could see the fear in her eyes, in the crease of her mouth. I shook my head.

  "No, mom. Right now, I'm weak enough so that those guys might present a real challenge. It'll be a good experience. And I need to figure out what's going on with Lady Blade. That sword . . . It's insane. Nothing has ever hurt me like that before."

  Mom and dad both stared silently at me for a while. I shook my head, returned, and got dressed in my Smash Gal outfit; this one had tight pink pants, the same pink top with my logo, and my same calf-length cape. I looked at myself in the mirror. The hint of bandages could be seen on my shoulder and on my back. I looked pale and tired. And I felt dead. But that was all the more reason to get back on that horse.

  I stepped out and tried to stand tall and look strong. Mom and dad both watched me go. I wished them well and then started flying. I didn't go my full speed. I was still tired and didn't want to end up crashing down. I got back to the dojo and landed heavily on the boards. They didn't buckle under me, thankfully, but I also had to catch my breath on my hands and knees for a minute or two. Suiren and her grandmother came out after a while.

  "Kari, are you okay?"

  "I'm just a little tired. H-how . . . how was your trip?"

  "It was good. What happened to you? You don't get tired." Ren put her hand on my shoulder and lifted my head.

  "I . . . got into a fight while on patrol. A horrible one."

  "Wh-who did you get into a fight with? Who could do this to you?" Suiren asked, her voice cracking. "W-was it Esvanir?"

  "No, child." Ren's grandma had closed the distance between us. "It wasn't Mr. Reese. You know who it was."

  "L-Lady Blade?" Suiren's voice broke. I couldn't tell if it was from fear, pain, or rage.

  "Yeah," I said. "You know her, right?"

  "Yeah, we know her." Ren's grandmother put her arm around me and pulled me up. She was stronger than she looked. I tried to help push myself up, and a wave of dizziness hit me. I took a few deep breaths, then started forward. "Suiren, I think it's time to tell your protege about my former protege."

  "Yeah," Suiren said in a small voice. "I guess it is."

=== CURT ===

I woke up pretty late. The bed felt cold, and I reached out without opening my eyes for Cindi. She was not there. I opened my eyes, and it looked like she hadn't been to bed yet. I checked the clock, and it was six P.M. I got out of bed and looked around. There were some new bags. I walked over to the table with all of the wedding plans on it. She had taken my note and the duffle bag I had set out for her. She's probably just on that job. Doesn't need me poking my nose into her business. I took a shower and got myself cleaned up, figuring she'd be back at some point tonight. In the meantime, I looked through some of the other things she had brought home. Her wedding dress wasn't there, but she got a few examples of the masquerade masks the guests would wear. I smiled. It was a brilliant idea, but it was also so theatrical. So . . . Perfectly Cindi.

  I looked through a couple of the other tasks that she'd accomplished, and she had been busy. She hadn't had time to look through the new seating chart proposal, but that's fine. I'm sure there were other tasks I could finish. I spent a while doing it. One of the things on the list was to get some form of tux. Des might be available to help me. And while we're at it, we can do a check-up and remove some stitches. They're getting itchy. I gave them a call; they answered on the third ring. "Room three."

  "Room three?"

  "I'm assuming you're bleeding out again since that's the only reason you ever call me."

  "Not this time. Though, I do need to have some of those stitches removed."

  "Oh, so you're calling to waste my time then. You are aware I'm a real doctor who does real doctor things, right?"

  "Painfully. But I need help picking out a tux. And you're my best person."

  "Mmm. While I agree that I am the best part of your life, I wonder how Cindi would feel about that."

  "We can ask her when she gets back from her job. But also, fuck off. You know what I mean."

  "Yeah, I also need to get my order in for my tux."

  "Decided on a tux, then?"

  "Kind of?"

  "Oh?"

  "I found this neat half tux, half skirt thing. It's pretty sweet. I might even outshine Cindi."

  "What about me?"

  "I always outshine you."

  "That's. . . fair. So, you in?"

  "Yeah. Room three. We'll do the stitches first."

=== KARI ===

I was guided over to the room they had given me to stay in, and they laid me down. "I see your wounds have been taken care of."

  "Yeah . . . What is that sword? Why can it hurt me?"

  "It's a mighty weapon," the old lady said. "An ancient one. It was forged maybe a thousand years ago and has undergone many changes since then. But the one consistent thing is that it is incredibly formidable in the wrong hands."

  "Well, that seems weird and contrived. There's just a random ancient sword that can hurt an alien-human hybrid that's basically invulnerable to everything else."

  "I don't think that was the intention. But it seems so," the old woman said.

  "Well, that's awfully annoying. What does this all have to do with you?"

  "That sword is supposed to be mine," Suiren said petulantly.

  "You've no more earned it than she did, child," her grandmother said.

  "Wait, you're supposed to have the sword? Why?"

  "It's been passed down through our family for generations."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Oh, so, Lady Blade is your sister? Cousin?"

  "No," both of them said at the same time. The grandmother nodded to Suiren.

  "She was grandma's student. She was outstanding. Unlike you, she took to fighting immediately. She learned everything grandma knows." She looked over at her relative and smiled. "And you're old enough to know a lot."

  "Say that again, and you may not live long enough to know as much as I do," her grandmother replied, smiling. "But yes. She was a great student. She naturally adopted a perfect form and was just very good at every physical aspect of it."

  "So, what happened?"

  "She was . . . angry. Her parents had been killed by some criminals in a mugging. She was furious at the criminals who got away. But her anger kept growing. She blamed society for letting people like that exist at all. She let it consume her. Now she's taken to ending anyone who doesn't live up to her morals."

  "Well, her morals are kind of fu-" I stopped, looking at Suiren. "Screwed up. She thinks PM and I should be killed because we're degenerates."

  "Yeah. She does," Suiren said simply. "Which is why we need to get the sword back."

  "So, why haven't you?"

  "Because the sword follows rules. She stole it after defeating its previous master in combat. And while she's using it wrong, it still obeys her."

  "Wh-who did she defeat?"

  "Me," the old woman said. "I'm not as young and spry as I used to be. I can't beat her like I am now."

  "Oh. So, what's the plan, then?"

  "I'm going to beat her." Suiren raised a fist. I frowned at her.

  "You're not ready, child," her grandmother said.

  "I am! You just won't let me try! I can beat Kari!"

  "Kari's not a fighter. Not like Sarah."

  "I think she's right, Ren. You're not ready yet. I'm inexperienced, but even I noticed a difference between you and her."

  "You did?" Suiren asked, her voice a little small. "So it's still that big. Damn it!"

  "Language, Suiren," her grandmother said. "So, you noticed a difference, Kari? What do you mean?"

  "Suiren is strong for her age but still short and slow. And I don't know if she . . .you can kill someone. I've seen Lady Blade do it." I clenched my fist. "But I can defeat her."

  "No, you can't," Suiren said. "It has to be me."

  "You're not strong enough yet. And I can't just let her murder people in cold blood. She's a monster."

  "I think your current state says that maybe you aren't up to defeating her either," the old woman said as she examined me over steepled fingers.

  "No, not right now. I still need to do some training, but I can beat her. I just need to get better. If you guys are still willing to help me." Suiren's grandmother's face was purely enigmatic. I couldn't decipher it at all. Suiren looked angry and hurt and didn't say anything for what seemed like forever.

  "I don't think you're the right person to take her down. But I'm still your teacher. If you're here to learn, I'm here to teach."

  "Very good, Suiren. But tomorrow. Kari needs to get some rest, and so do you."

=== CURT ===

Cindi hadn't been back in a few days. And I was trying my best not to worry. I had busied myself with the leftover tasks for the wedding, at least to the best of my ability. I contacted a few bands that could do a variety of music. We had already picked out the venue, and I ensured all the payments went through. One of the more complicated elements that Cindi wanted to happen the most was to have everything recorded but ensure that our guests' privacy wasn't compromised. We are still wanted criminals after all. I started building little drones that could fly deftly and capture everything. We had chosen a secular wedding officiant since neither of us believed. By the third day, I wondered if she had just gotten cold feet and booked it.

  Waking up alone in our hotel bed was getting harder. I was trying my best to be okay with Cindi not being around, but her scent was fading, and it was cold and lonely. And I was running out of projects; I had reorganized all the wedding notes to be easily accessible in a folder; I had made the drones. And just three days of constant planning and building later, I was trying to design new protections for my rig. I considered making contacts to replace the glasses, but I've never been good with poking myself in the eye. Which is a shame. So, I did something I never thought I'd do. I made her a rig. With this, I can be sure . . . Sure that she's staying with me for me and not for . . . I couldn't finish the thought. It hurt too much to think about. So I didn't.

  Instead, I threw myself wholly into my work. Her powers forced me to reconsider the way I designed the rig entirely. The fact that she had to be naked raised questions. She could phase with a bag, so, really, whatever caused the nudity requirement was probably more psychosomatic than anything, but it was also now her brand. So, I made her a couple of options. Firstly, I did make some special contacts that would allow her to have the same augmented reality system that I did, which was incredibly complicated, but I made a couple of quick runs to get all of the materials. AR contacts were already commercially available, and it was just modifying those to be compatible with the app. It was mostly just a matter of programming. Most of which I had already done for the glasses. I also made her a pair of glasses.

  I didn't know if either would stay on her when phasing, but it wasn't that much more work. The other thing I did, since I didn't know if the same hand rig would stay on her any better than mine would, I designed it to be a bit thinner and to fold up. I also had to insulate it from her weird electric powers. Flight, phasing, and taser fingers. She really is just a bizarre grab bag of abilities, I thought as I worked. When I was done, I got a little box for it to fit into. And a separate case for the glasses and contacts. I hope she likes it. I . . . I hope she still wants me when she has it.

After a week, I was starting to get really worried. She hadn't been back at all. There had been no sign of her anywhere in the world. No thefts were reported that could be her. There were a few more that were apparently me. But the other thing is that even if she had left me . . . Even if she was gone from my life . . . she wouldn't leave behind her identity box. Or her clothes. Or all of the stuff she had stolen. I don't think she would anyway. Her life was in that suitcase. Lots of her lives, actually.

  So, I did something else I didn't like doing. But if she left me, I still wanted to give her the rig. It was hers. And I'd need closure. So, I checked the last place where she popped. I usually am pretty okay with her coming and going as she pleased. Still, I kept a record of everything to ensure my technology was mine. With her rig, she'd have her own separate log. One that would be very hard for me to access. The last pop that wasn't mine was in the Hampdens. I brought up a satellite view of the place. It was some beach house. It looked . . . familiar somehow. I stared at it for a long time, racking my brain for where I remembered it. After a few minutes of it not coming to me, I got up and started pacing. I got myself a cup of coffee, and as I returned, I saw the blueprints still lying on the table and froze. It can't be. If it was a dangerous job, she'd escape. No jail on earth that can keep her forever. But Marcelli had found a way. The mere thought of the man tightened my chest with anxiety and anger.

I took a few deep breaths and sat down at the laptop. I went to the records site of the Hampdens to see if I could figure out who owned the house. After a few minutes, I found it. Hope Lesslier. I searched for her name, and while I found her social security number and a few other documents, her persona was sparse. She was a patron of the arts and funded a bunch of archeology all over the world. But her tax records were clean. Too clean. And she was filed as married, but I couldn't find her husband's name. I spent some more time digging into it and eventually found the marriage certificate, and ice went through my veins. Hope Lesslier and Cindi Lesslier. I couldn't find pictures of them together anywhere. I found her. Her wife was nowhere to be found. I couldn't find tax records for her. I found a birth certificate, eventually. Cindi Sapphire. I stared at the screen for a long time. It can't be her. But she's the only person I've ever met who spells Cindi like that. And . . . I stood up and grabbed my rig, and got fully dressed. I didn't know what to expect. I also grabbed the case I put her rig into and put it in my pocket. I snapped, and the hotel room disappeared.

=== KARI ===

We started at dawn the day after I returned to the dojo. And Suiren was relentless. She trained me until dusk. We started with the same no-counter challenge where I would just dodge and block several people at once. And it was just as frustrating as the last time. It is hard to keep track of ten attacks at the same time. But I was getting better. One of the hardest things was to not use my strength. I had to be careful to not block too hard. When I did, my sparring partners would go flying.

  When I wasn't fighting five or six people at a time, Suiren would challenge me. And she was worse than that. She seemed to be legitimately trying to hurt me. And the problem was that she couldn't. She couldn't even throw me around at all. Even after dusk, the training continued. Suiren had taken to trying to sneak up on and attack me. And she caught me off guard the first two times. She'd even try when I was asleep. And honestly, I was starting to find all of this really annoying. So, I stopped blocking with my body. If I heard her sneaking up on me, I would just wait until the last moment and create a small forcefield around me, and she'd bounce off. Which gave me an idea. I started spending about half of the defense sessions just working on making those faster and better. Just small panels of hardened air to take the attacks. If I got good at those, I could defend against Lady Blade's fire. And the dirty tricks that Curt kept throwing at me. And maybe those weird convulsions Buck Cherry could make me do.

  After a while, we stopped having my partners just try to hit me and started using actual weapons. Well, wooden weapons. And those are even more fragile than people. So I had to be even more careful than I was previously. And I hated it. And what I hated more than that is that it was incredibly good at helping me with quick strength control. I couldn't always stop them from breaking their weapons or hurting their fists, elbows, knees, legs, and feet on me. But I could help roll with the attacks to make them less likely to.

After a week or so, I had gotten so used to this training that it felt like I could see everything. And I was bored. Late in the day, I asked, "Is there any way we can ramp this up a little bit?"

  "Ramp up?" Suiren asked, overseeing the fight. "You're already fighting five people."

  "Yeah, and it's not a challenge anymore."

  "What do you mean?" Suiren sat up a little straighter. I sighed.

  "These guys are trying their best, and I appreciate it, but now that I'm. . . more used to being attacked, my super senses have caught up, and I'm. . . um . . ."

  "She's bored," Suiren's grandmother said. "And she has a point."

  "She's still struggling."

  "She's holding back."

  "Well, yeah, but she has to, so she doesn't hurt any of them."

  "No, I mean, she's still blocking because that's what you told her to do."

  "What do you . . . Are you saying she could dodge all of that?"

  "Well, can you?"

  "Uh," I hesitated. "Yeah. I'd have to use super speed, but it's not like I'm already not cheating by being able to see everything coming anyway."

  "I don't believe you," Suiren said defiantly.

  "Pick your fastest fighters," I suggested. "They won't be able to touch me."

  "No just flying up. Just dodging. On the ground."

  "Of course," I said. Suiren motioned for the guys I was sparring with to back off. Suiren and her grandmother walked up. "Are you guys the fastest?"

  "Yeah," the old lady said. She lifted her cane, twisted the handle, and revealed a long blade. Suiren just took a stance. They both closed the distance between us in an instant. The old woman slashed down at me, and Suiren jumped into the air and tried to ax kick me. I sidestepped them both with ease. Suiren landed and went to sweep my leg, and her grandmother's sword arced up at my head. I arched away from the blade and stepped over the outstretched leg. They continued to slash, kick and punch at me for what seemed like an eternity. They were fast for vanilla, non-meta people. But they seemed so slow, comparatively. I always tried to stay within their range, but I could have been anywhere in the compound in the time it took them to make an attack and reset for the next one. I could be out of the city. After minutes of fighting at their fastest, both of them were on their knees, breathing heavily.

  "See? It's not even a challenge anymore."

  "I-it never should've been," the old woman said, trying to catch her breath.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "You've always had super senses and super speed. Now you are just actually using them," Suiren chimed in. "We should have never been able to touch you. You have always been able to dodge bullets. You just never had to. All we did was help train your brain to be as fast as it could be."

  "So . . . Am I done?"

  "Done?" Suiren asked incredulously. "That depends."

  "On what?"

  "On what you want. You could learn real martial arts. You've learned how to dodge and defend yourself. Which is a great start. But you still don't know how to fight." I considered this for a moment. I didn't know what to do. With these skills and my power, I was more capable than ever. But actually learning how to fight would probably not be a bad thing. I can throw punches and grab people, but against someone like Lady Blade, I don't think that'll ever be enough. I'd probably have to kill her to stop her.

  "I . . . Do you think it's a good idea?"

  "Do you?"

  "I came here because I wasn't thinking clearly and kept making big mistakes. My . . . my judgment is . . . maybe not the best."

  "Perhaps not, but you're also not exactly the same person. And it's only been a few weeks. What do you want to do?"

  "I want to go back to patrolling the city. Helping people. Saving them. But. . . . It might also be a good idea to know how to actually fight . . . What if I . . ." I hesitated. "What if I split my time? I come back for more teaching, but also get back into the world and start helping people again?"

  "I like that idea," the old lady said.

  "Yeah, okay," Suiren said. She seemed a little annoyed about it.