Martin wasn’t sure how it happened but they had all become friends with Mr. Canard. Maybe that was the natural thing to do after threatening to kill someone... or maybe it was the fact that they all shared the rare trait of having skinwalker spiders inside of their brains. Regardless of the reasons, after some rest for Cottie’s sake, they had ended up in an atompunk 50’s futurism style SCA diner called "Atomic Cafe", enjoying an all-day breakfast of pancakes and ice cream.

A round, chunky, pill-shaped droid had brought the group holo menus, skirting along the aisle with a low hum of a fusion battery. A robot bartender’s arm was mixing bubble tea cocktails at the bar.

[Well this place is all sorts of whimsy,] Cottie thought. [How do human operated restaurants even compete with the super owned ones?]

[With a struggle. Luckily there aren't as many heroes as regular people. The SCA doesn’t license its tech to mundanes. Most earth-based industries are decades if not centuries behind in development.] Mr. Canard shrugged. [The value of the Acadian dollar has really taken a hit over the years too, massively tanking against the SCA cryptocurrency S-credits.]

Ember sighed from her corner of the booth. She had given up on her looks, and accepted the fact that she was going to wear pajamas all day as penance for her future crimes against humanity. A group of kids in the booth nearby pointed at her and called her “Sleepy-Kitty-girl-hero”, asking her for autographs. Ember had to sign their shirts after the waiter drone blessed her with a color-changing, glow-in-the-dark marker per demands of the rambunctious children.

Mr. Canard smiled at the ex-hero, blue and red halogen stripes of the cafe’s interior reflecting on his bald head. [Ah. I remember being young once! It’s nice to remember, nice to think without a constant migraine, thanks to this spider symbiote in my head. Those were the good old days. We could do anything. Much less rules for heroes. The precogs weren't as organized back then and hadn’t yet imposed their rules on everyone. Why, I remember setting an entire field on fire with the boys just for some laughs.]

[The prognosticators exist for a reason. They prevent disasters! What if someone died from your field-pyromania?] Ember thought back at him, not feeling her own argument.

Alexa managed to completely obliterate Ember's belief in the power of the precogs. Her and her holographic, supervillain dad had clearly found a variety of ways to skirt and manipulate the future seers. Why couldn't precogs catch Alexa? Why were they always one step behind her? Was it because she made all of her plans in 2424, harvested resources and assembled her tools there?

[If just one fourteen year old girl villain could control the hand of Equality, who knows what kind of a power is held by an entire organization that can manipulate precog visions at will,] Cottie thought at her friends. She was feeling rather concerned about these invisible enemies. She liked seeing, knowing what she was facing. Not being aware of who or what she was up against was worrisome.

[How did she do that anyway?] Martin thought of Alexa’s ridiculous inception letter. [Did she have a precog power? Or is she really that good of a planner? Did she plan to bring all of us together, to unite us all with brain-spiders? How far back in time did she start pushing us into the right direction?]

Martin temporarily unmuted Spiderbro to see if his little skinwalker shard could bring anything of value to the conversation. This had been a mistake as Spiderbro immediately started to chide Martin.

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[Unbelievable! I just processed that letter memory! She could have just let us be and we would integrate, become one like Joseph Canard! There was no need to brute force you into being a Super!] Spiderbro was feeling extra irate. [None at all!]

[Ah, come on. It wasn't for nothing. If we went to the future and you lost yourself there we would all become skinwalkers,] Martin replied.

[You didn't have to go into 2424 with her! If you just sat calmly on your butt and did nothing at all like Mr. Canard there, we would integrate and that would be that! I nearly died for nothing from that raygun of hers! You nearly died! She's a terrible human child! A menace that dismantles everything she interacts with!]

[I can't believe that I'm thinking this,] Ember sighed. [But I'm agreeing with your brain spider thing. If you just stayed away from Alexa you wouldn't be bound into her schemes.] She tapped her pancake mountain. [Seriously, none of this bullshit had to happen!]

[If none of it happened, I would've killed you sooner or later,] Cottie thought at Ember.

[You… Argh! There had to be a better way than this!] Ember waved her hands. [I have zero mental privacy now! Zero! You all have no mental privacy either! How are you okay with this? Martin is a freaking hive mind now, not a person!]

[Says the girl who had control over hundreds of avatars of herself,] Martin commented.

[It wasn't the same! They were me, sure, but they were mere copies, Martin! Not other people! This invasive bullshit needs to end! God!]

[You are very interesting indeed,] Mr. Canard sent. [When you're singing to each other and not at me, I can't hear you at all. I feel that you are sending something, but it's like on an entirely different wavelength or something.]

[Yeah…] Martin thought back at the teacher. [Alexa created me to be a bridge between skinwalkers and people. A Super that controls skinwalkers…]

[Manipulative, conniving, little bitch.] Ember fumed.

[I believe someone promised to be her caring sister?] Cottie raised an eyebrow at Ember.

[Stay outta my thoughts, Equalizer! I can think whatever I want, damn it!] Ember shot back. [Nobody invited you fuckers into my brain! God, how I miss my privacy!]

[I do wonder how you kids have an Enforcer on your side. Here I thought that the Equalizer order existed only to murder Supers that go mental,] Mr. Canard thought at the trio. [Also, I believe that this belongs to your boss.] He slid two of Alexa’s backpacks at the teenagers. [Don’t worry, I haven’t taken a thing from these. I’m not a villain.]

[Alexa! Friggin' Alexa, that’s how!] Ember moped. [She’s been harvesting gold and diamonds from that dead planet, bribing the Equalizers and God knows who else with it! I thought that the Equalizers were immutable too, but they can apparently be influenced with mere millions of dollars in gold! That freaking girl probably bought Cottie as a personal bodyguard for herself for decades!]

[I’m not a bodyguard! I cannot be bought. I’m...] Cottie frowned the tiniest bit.

[Of course you are! You follow Alexa, upon the orders of Eminence Equality. You protect her with that freaky anti-super gun. You stopped me from attacking her. How are you not her bodyguard?] Ember pressed her point.

[Em. Don’t harass Cottie. She’s a good person, unlike you.]

[A good person? She’s a super-killer!] Ember shot back. [The SCA doesn't murder supers, we try to reeducate them into being good people!]

Martin sighed. There was clearly no dissuading Ember from being mildly antagonistic.

"I'm just thankful that Alexa is not here now,” Ember muttered, stabbing her pancakes. [Her being stuck in S-stasis up in Titanomachy is a brief reprieve from dealing with her in person. I can find solace in the fact that whatever horror she aims to inflict upon me next won’t be for…]

A loud siren suddenly blared across the restaurant, all of the screens flashing white. Ember recognized it right away, her face growing pale.

The Doomsday Warning siren resonated across town, wailed from within every SCA business with a somber, ear-piercing screech. A shimmering, pearlescent, Super-designed shield went up across every window of the Atomic Cafe.