“She knew they experimented on me.”

We hadn’t even made it back to the car before Mia started to spill. There was a tinge of fear in her voice, that she couldn’t hide. Alice walked ahead of us and she didn’t even look over her shoulder to answer.

“Gaea knows a lot of things,” her answer was vague and I had a feeling she was doing it on purpose. “More to the point, she read your biology and that tipped her off. Whatever the Cains did to you isn’t just surface-level. I’d be more surprised if she didn’t notice that something was up.”

“I…” Mia’s voice was strangled. “I thought it was just my Awakening that did this to me.”

“That can happen, but that’s only for morphers and their changes are very obvious, while you just look like a normal person on the street. More to the point, Gold can’t find any connection between your physical changes and your powers,” Alice explained. “Which means, something else was done to you.”

“Like what?”

Alice stopped and turned. Her gaze flicked to me.

“Splicer,” she said the name like she was testing how it rolled off the tongue. Her features twisted into disgust the longer she lingered on it. “Clue is in the name.”

“So like… they splice stuff together?” Anomaly asked. Alice opened her mouth to reply but his face lightened up as the realization struck. “Wait-wait! They were trying to do that Artificial Awakening thing, right? Were they trying to like, merge powers into a person or something?”

“Power fusing,” I said, frowning at the conclusion. “Is that even possible?”

“No,” Alice said with an air of uncertainty. “Well… nobody’s ever managed it before. Sure, the kid of two supers tends to get a piece of each parent’s power, but even that isn’t merging powers, it’s more like creating something new with influence from both.”

“You don’t think it’s even theoretically possible? We hadn’t even heard of Splicer until now,” I pointed out. “For all we know, this could be their speciality,” I looked toward Mia and noted how pale she was looking. She looked almost sickly. “Are you okay?”

“W-Who me? Oh yeah, I’m fine,” she replied with a shaky voice. “Just coming to terms with the fact that some sick fucking weirdo might’ve impregnated me, or–or—”

Alice rolled her eyes. “You’re not pregnant.”

“I-I— you’re the one that brought up kids and—”

“You’re panicking. Take a breath and relax,” Alice said. “What did Gaea say to you? Word for word, if possible.”

“I…” Mia shook her head. “She told me that she knew what happened and that I’d be better off joining her, that if I joined she could put me back to how I was before,” I noted her fingers digging into the hem of her jacket, her knuckles turning white. “I asked if there was something wrong with me and she said no, but that people would try to take advantage of me – to hurt me.”

“She promised to protect you from the Cains,” Alice summarized.

Mia just nodded.

Anomaly crossed his arms. “You’re not considering joining it… right?”

Mia looked scandalized.

“Of course not! I don’t want anything to do with her crazed gang of weirdos. Plus, her policies are utter garbage!” Anomaly and I just stared at her while Alice snorted. “What? Didn’t you see her tax plan?”

Sometimes it was difficult to remember that Gaea wasn’t just an international S-class Super, but a politician. She could take over the country if she wanted, but she wanted to do things the democratic way. If nothing else, I had to respect her for that.

“Politics aside, you just declined a recruitment pitch from The Queen’s Court,” Alice sighed, rubbing her forehead. “An invite from Gaea herself to boot. Normally, that’s Springsong’s job. She must have thought you were very valuable.”

“Ah, is that how you know Springsong?” I asked.

“Yeah, it wasn’t a pleasant meeting,” she replied casually. “But we didn’t fight. That’s not how QC rolls. If you're not interested, they aren’t going to go out of their way to get you.”

“Awfully civil of them,” I mused aloud.

“It doesn’t even feel right to call them a gang,” Anomaly countered. “More like an… organization or something. Is The Queen’s Court copyrighted?”

That got a few chuckles out of us and led to a bit of small talk until we arrived back at the car.

On the way back we kept the conversation light and made idle chit-chat, mostly discussing the different Supers at the meeting. Anomaly didn’t have a high opinion of the Cains, but he freely admitted that he had never interacted with Mirage, Bonesmith, or Banshee before.

I filled him and Mia in on what I had gone through and what those three specifically had done to me. I found a kindred soul in Liam when he promised to beat the shit out of them if we were to ever cross paths again.

Mia, on the other hand, started to contribute less and less to the conversation. Her eventual silence didn’t go unnoticed and it stretched into the evening after we got back to the apartment.

Sam had taken it upon herself to organize dinner for the four of us, seeing as none of us had any plans of going anywhere. I texted Mom to tell her that I’d be home late, to which she gave me a curfew of 10:30 given that it was a school day.

“I can’t go home, can I?”

Mia’s question spoiled the mood. Liam had just been in the middle of talking to me about which room in the apartment he wanted.

“It just dawned on me; the situation I’m in,” Mia looked up from her food. Liam and I were at the table while Sam was occupying the couch. “If I go home, my parents will call the ECU and I’ll get questioned. I bet they have psychics on payroll so they’ll find out everything, even if I don’t tell them anything.”

Sam’s lips thinned as she placed her food to the side. “Yep.”

“The meeting and everything. They’ll know.”

“Yeah,” Sam said again. “What do you want to do?”

Mia’s expression was unreadable, completely blank like all her thoughts had evacuated her brain, leaving nothing but a white void.

“I… don’t know,” there was clear dissatisfaction on her face and in her tone. “Will my family even recognize me? Will they accept me?”

“You don’t look that different,” Liam countered. “You’re a bit bigger—” he stumbled a bit when she glared at him. “—in a good way—” she glared harder. “—I mean, you look virtually the same. I recognized you immediately. Why wouldn’t your parents?”

“You’ve never met them. You don’t know what they’re like.”

Sam cringed. “Ouch, that bad?”

“They’re just very intense. Protective… perfectionists. Ugh, it’s hard to explain,” Mia shook her head. “They’ll probably accept me, but they’ll call the ECU no matter what and pressure me to be a hero. It’s just, I’m not sure what I want, everything’s changed. I look different and…” she sighed and turned to Sam with a forlorn expression. “Am I stupid to hope there’s a chance to fix this without Gaea?”

Sam pursued her lips and opened her mouth to speak but Mia was quick to interject.

“Please don’t lie.”

Sam’s shoulders fell.

“There are ways to fix this but none of them are available to us, yet. If you go to the ECU, they’ll put you through intense questioning. You’ll have a couple of Mentalists prodding you and you likely won’t even know. After that, they’ll test to see if you have powers – which you do – and then they’ll talk to your parents about— wait,” she paused. “You’re nineteen, right?”

“Yeah.”

“No parents then. They’ll try and get you into the Rookies, if you don’t want to, then they’ll mark you down as an independant and keep an eye on you.”

Mia absently began picking at her fingernails.

“Okay. What would happen to you guys?”

“Assuming they can catch us? We’ll be arrested. I’ll skip town before that happens,” Sam replied casually. “Assuming we got caught, we’d all be put through the legal system as minors. Depending on what they can prove. Liam will probably get a few months of juvie and maybe some community service. All monitored.”

“Really?” Liam said, sounding rather surprised. “I thought it’d be much worse than that.”

Sam chuckled. “Max would get about the same and he’d probably be slapped with some fines if they could prove he was selling mechatech. Pretty basic stuff, but it would be easy for him to cut a deal with the ECU. They need to stay ahead of the competition in tech, otherwise they’ll collapse, so he has leverage there.”

That all sounded pretty mundane. Then again, we hadn’t done anything too bad.

I shrugged. “It could be worse.”

“I told you,” Sam said in her knowing tone. “But once you start murdering people, it becomes a different ballgame. We’re still minors so the ECU tends to be more lenient,” her gaze flicked to Mia. “Not you, since you’re an adult, but you haven’t done anything.”

I could almost hear the unspoken ‘yet’ at the end.

“So, you kill someone and the kiddy gloves come off?” Liam didn’t sound like he understood the reason why. “There are heaps of other bad shit other than murder. Rape, torture… you know. Do they just get a pass?”

“No, but it’s very rare a minor commits those crimes,” Sam pointed out. “Unless they’re deranged. But that’s not a Super problem, just a mental health one.”

I frowned. “What about powers that mess with your head?”

“When that happens it’s taken into account, but they’re not that common,” she flashed me a smile. “You know, some might consider me utterly insane, what with all the voices and different personalities I switch between, but I am perfectly in control,” I saw her head twitch ever so slightly and her eyes flash Pink before returning to Blue. “...sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” Liam edged away from her, his tone cautious.

“The point is you’d drag us all down with you,” Sam said, ignoring Liam and focusing on Mia. “Not to put any pressure on you or anything, but I’ll ask you nicely to not do that,” she said, slurping in a mouthful of noodles. “Pwetty pwease.”

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Mia’s concerned features cracked and she let out a snort.

“I don’t want to do that. You guys saved my life. I’m not about to throw you to the wolves,” she replied, rubbing the back of her neck. “But I can’t just let my parents think I’m dead. I need to at least call them or something.”

“Max can help with that,” Sam said, offering up my services without my consent. “He needs to make his phone harder to trace anyway,” she hummed for a moment. “Or you could just go out and buy a burner phone. That works too, though with Seer around it’s not foolproof.”

Mia heaved a sigh. “I guess I have to stay here.”

“Gee, you don’t need to sound so excited!” Sam pouted. “We’re not that bad for company, are we? I feel like I’ve been a good host.”

“It’s just a lot to take in, sorry,” Mia replied, smiling weakly at Sam’s attempt to lighten the mood. “I just… I had a whole life ahead of me before all this. I have friends, family… I was halfway through my degree as well. I was doing so well at uni.”

“What were you studying?” I asked.

“Art History.”

I scoffed. “You’re better off here.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, stick with us,” Liam said.

“I’m not making any permanent decisions,” Mia said, making it very clear that she still wasn’t entirely sure what to do. “But for now, I think I’ll stay here, if that’s okay with you.”

“Sure,” Sam took another bite out of her food. “Been a while since I had a roomie.”

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

My investment in 3D printers had proved fruitful.

But there was an issue I couldn’t seem to get past with my current level of equipment. The printer was capable of creating the base models of almost anything I needed, but my power would have to fill in the gaps. For example, the tranquilizer rounds for my sniper rifle. I was able to easily recreate the bullet and casing, but chemicals like the primer or the sedative inside were a different story entirely.

As the machine worked in the background, creating empty rounds, one after another, I held one in my fingertips. To an onlooker, it would appear I was simply lost in thought, staring at the casing of a bullet. To me, my mind was filled with possibilities, pathways that stretched on forever.

My power recognized the bullet as [Empty Tranquilizer Round] and the steps to upgrade it into a proper one were few. All it cost was a single charge, but I resisted the urge. There had to be a better way to do this. I had done it before, bulk-upgraded ammo into something else. When I was running away from the Cains and more recently, with my initial batch of tranquilizer rounds. The question was, what would my power let me get away with?

It seems my power can recognize objects contained within other objects and consider them to be one singular entity.

Idly, I reached for one of the empty magazines, placed some bullets in the casings, and started loading the new tranquilizer rounds. I filled it right to the brim before observing the magazine in my hand.

[Tranquilizer Magazine]

I had already done this before so the cost was halved from its initial price. It now sat at a measly one charge to improve a whole cartridge.

What if I loaded a bunch of them and then stacked them inside of a box? Would my power recognize it as a box of empty tranquilizer magazines? If so, how far can I stretch it?

“Knock knock.”

I turned to see Sam standing in the doorway of my workshop. Her hair was drenched from a recent shower and she was dressed in a tank top sweatpants combo. She sauntered into the room with a knowing little smirk on her lips.

“So eager to keep yourself busy. Don’t think I didn’t notice you sneaking away as soon as you could,” she dropped into a chair adjacent to me and crossed her legs. “It’s funny, you know. You’re all the same. Mechakinetics that is,” she clarified quickly. “Even though your power is different from the norm, tech still dominates your mind, doesn’t it?”

“Every second,” I replied, placing the [Tranquilizer Magazine] on the table. “It’s like an itch in the back of my head and when I have charges to spend it’s at its worst. But even once I’ve spent them, my mind still drifts. I can’t stop thinking about what I should make, and questioning if I’ve made the right choice, if I’m focusing on the right things.”

“You can’t think of everything, Max.”

“That’s what I have you for,” I said with a smile. Her lips twitched upwards as I gestured to the machinery around me; all the tools that were still in their infancy. So much to do, so little time, and so few charges. “It’s not enough is it? No matter what I do, there will never be enough time. It’s stupid to hope that I’ll get some time to breathe.”

Sam’s lips thinned and she kept quiet for a moment.

“It’ll get better.”

I wanted to believe her, but it didn’t seem like it would be anytime soon. Grim was coming and I had a feeling a bloodbath would follow soon after. The only question that remained was when it would all kick-off. I needed to be ready… but how do you prepare for something like that?

“We need to be protected first. My suit needs to be better than the stuff Nanoforge makes. I know I can do it and… you know maybe I can do the same for you. After that, I can turn this place into a fortress. I can upgrade the motion sensors and cameras we bought to improve security. I could install an automated defense system. The last thing I’d want is Mirage sneaking in and slitting our throats at night. I’d have to tune it so it recognizes us so there’s no friendly fire, but upgrading accessibility should be easy enough – if a little costly. And—”

I turned to Sam and blinked, stopping myself. I wasn’t used to her being so silent. I also wasn’t used to rambling like that.

A playful smile stretched across her lips and I snorted.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. If you hadn’t picked it up already, I’m committed to the team now.”

“And for that, I promise I’ll have your back. Every step of the way, Max.”

Sam was happy, genuinely. She wasn’t elated or ecstatic about the admission since she likely already knew. Instead, I guessed she was happy that I had finally said it out loud.

“So,” she continued. “What’re you working on? Is there anything I can help with?”

Outside of directing me toward what’s best to build, I wasn’t entirely sure how Sam would be able to help. Mechakinetics were able to teach others how to use, maintain, and in some cases even recreate their technology, but that process still required Mechatech made by said Mechakinetic. At most, Sam would be able to use the 3D printers to make what she wanted.

“I was investigating how my power interacts with objects that contain other smaller objects. I can sort of cheat if my power recognizes the smaller parts as part of the larger object,” I felt my eyes narrow as I tried to make sense of what I just said. I picked up the [Tranquilizer Magazine] and handed it to her. “I was worried I’d have to upgrade every single bullet individually, but if I place all of them inside the cartridge, my power recognizes it as a smaller piece of a bigger, err… puzzle?”

Sam pursed her lips and nodded slowly. “You can skip wasting your power on these smaller bits?” She plucked one of the empty tranquilizer rounds from the magazine and looked at it for a moment. “You’ve done this before, back at the mall when we were running away from Bonesmith. You changed the toy gun’s rounds into real bullets because they were loaded into the gun.”

I shrugged. “It didn’t occur to me at the time.”

“I don’t blame you for not noticing. It took me a while to figure out I had Orange,” she paused for a moment and scowled. “And Purple.”

I chuckled. “I bet there’s a story behind that.”

Sam dropped the bullet back into the magazine. “There is. Another time though,” she handed it back to me. “So… you want to make me a new costume, one that has similar protection to Nanoforge’s stuff?”

I leaned back in my chair and contemplated my next words. The last time we talked about this, she said her current costume held sentimental value. It was something important and she didn’t want to part with it easily and while I could maintain the look, It would forever be worse than just making proper armor.

“I can continue to improve your costume as is but eventually, it’ll become too costly to justify investing the time and charges into it,” I reasoned. “That stuff isn’t designed to protect you, even if I’ve altered the material to Areium. I still don’t know how to get energy shields —though I do have a few ideas in the works— so that’s out as well for now.”

“Okay,” she said easily. “What did you have in mind?”

I stood up and retrieved a book from one of my bags that I used to scribble down designs during my spare time at school. I opened it and flicked through a few pages before I handed it to her.

It was a slimmer design compared to my suit, consisting of three different Evomats, all lightweight and specifically designed to be worn underneath clothing. It was purely theoretical but with those specific materials, I might eventually be able to incorporate some kind of energy shield, assuming I integrated a power source and my other ideas didn’t pan out. I had to get through to Sam and her reluctance to change her costume. She needed better protection, even if she was an Aspect. Our assault on Grim’s bunker was proof that Red was a crutch – one she often used after she had already been hurt.

“I can make that strong enough to defend against most projectiles, shock resistance, fire retardant, and strong enough to withstand some of the most corrosive substances in the world,” I said. “Assuming they haven’t been tinkered with by other supers. You’d be a walking one-woman army. Well, moreso than you already are.”

She was staring intently at the page. I watched as she tilted her head to the right, and then slowly to the left. Then, she nodded slowly and hummed.

I cleared my throat awkwardly. “I will also point out that like my suit, I would be able to incorporate other tech into it. Power systems, interfaces… stuff I have now,” I stared at her, wondering if she was even listening to me. “Sam?”

“Hmm?” She didn’t take her eyes off the page.

“What do you think, can you work with that? I know you said you liked your costume so I’ve tried to keep that in mind with the color scheme. I suppose I should also make something for Mia. Liam too… although he’s pretty durable anyway. Maybe we could have a uniform,” my thoughts began to trail off as I pictured the four of us in similar suits of armor, all color-coded. Though, Sam’s would have to change, based on which power she was using. Pink would probably demand a function like that, it would also let us know what she was currently—

“Did you draw this?” Sam asked out of the blue.

I frowned. “Uh, yeah. In my free time. I gotta keep my mind occupied somehow. Why?”

Her lips curled into a smile as she tilted the page to look at it from different angles.

“Did you draw this with me in mind?”

“...Yeah?”

She chuckled. “There’s a lot of angles here Max… have you been looking?”

My bones turned to jelly and I slouched in my chair, cheeks burning. “Could you be serious, please.”

Sam turned the book to face me and pointed.

“I mean, look at that! It’s quite detailed. ” she teased, turning the book back to her. “I like this. You have a point, and Gold does too. I’m just stubborn,” she handed the book over to me and I took it, desperately trying to banish the embarrassment. “I suppose I’ll leave it to you then.”

“I’ll need your help,” I said with reluctance in my voice. I had neglected to really think about the specifics of the creation process and it was only hitting me now how important it would be. “I’m not exactly a designer and you’re welcome to alter the look. I’ll also need—”

“My measurements? Gotcha,” she stretched her arms and stood up. “We can do that now if you want.”

“What?”

“Kidding,” Sam cackled. “I’ll give them to you. It should be easy enough to build with the printers,” she strolled back toward the door with the intent to leave but paused as she passed one of the tables that served as a place to store the stuff I wanted to work on… eventually. She picked up Banshee’s knife and twirled it between her fingers. “I was wondering what you did with this.”

“It’s not that useful honestly, I could get a knife just like that with a butterknife, a charge and about two hours of time. I was planning on using it for decoration.” I dismissed it idly.

She placed it down and reached for something else – Deadlock’s cube.

“Probably pointless to ask, but any progress on this?”

I shook my head. “I’ve been preoccupied. It’s not important right now. It can wait.”

She narrowed her eyes at the cube before flashing to Gold briefly. “No progress on why your power can’t interact with it?”

“Same as before, something about an incompatible component and there’s no way I’m able to hack into it with my current gear.” I shook my head. “It’s blocking me from making any changes, assuming I’d even want to, given how expensive they are.”

“Incompatible…?” Gold’s voice was barely louder than a whisper. “Interesting.”

“What is it?” I asked, curious. I had mostly put the thing out of my mind but if Gold had answers, I was eager to know them.

“Nothing,” Gold dismissed, switching back to Blue. “It’s not important right now. What’s more important is your secret information source but that can wait till tomorrow,” she placed it back on the table. “Just make sure not to forget about it. It’s the most valuable thing we have. You never know, it could be used as a bargaining chip.”

As if I’d give away something like that.

“Don’t worry,” I waved her off. “I’m not that forgetful, I wouldn’t leave something that important to the wayside.”

I wasn’t sure if Sam could see it, but even though I fully believed the words, there was a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that I had forgotten something.

For the life of me, I just couldn’t figure out what.