"...complaints from no less than thirty-four foreign governments that we're weaponising the new phenomena. Even our allies are uneasy about the latest developments and the numbers of non-government organisations very publicly screaming about your people's latest stunt continues to grow," a bespectacled, chubby, middle-aged man finished summing up more than two hours of official questions, even more official whining, and an entire month's worth of political ass-covering. He hadn't paid attention to it yet could have repeated most of it word for word from similarly useless paperwork he'd received in the past. "Honestly, General, we created your current position to handle the situation yet all we've seen is things continuing to get worse."

"No, you created my position in a bid to put people with powers under government control, not understanding the ramifications of that action." The tall, thin, ageing man most people in the underground bunker this 'conference' was taking place knew as General Rinaker puffed out a cloud of cigar smoke that shifted into the shape of a tentacled monster fighting a tiny flying woman. Several members of the so-called Oversight Committee flinched, whether at such a minor display of powers or at the images he'd chosen to display he could not tell. "Now, when one of your messes blew up on international television because you did not even consider adhering to the rules and guidelines we all agreed to, all you can do is blame others. Secret bioweapon tests and human experimentation? Cooperating with super-powered terrorists? Carrying out assaults on both allied governments and American targets?" It felt great, finally being able to speak up against such idiocy. "Were you trying to get us all killed?"

"Now, now, General. We both know how the game is played," a middle-aged, black-suited, bespectacled man in the back of the small group of Committee members spoke up. He had such a stereotypical 'spy' aesthetic it could be nothing but deliberate and from both his tone and the fact that Rinaker had neither seen nor heard him enter the room or take up a seat, he liked this whole cloak-and-dagger scene far too much for everyone's health. So the General narrowed his eyes and puffed a few more clouds of cigar smoke, his attention fixed on the potential complication. "This is nothing every major government has not done before, openly or otherwise. The Invasion cost this nation tremendously, but also offered us unique opportunities. For the moment, we are the only country that can reliably source powered individuals but the phenomena are steadily spreading. If we are to keep our lead and recoup military and economic losses..." he shrugged. "Sacrifices will have to be made."

"And I suppose the Commander in Chief authorised your operations? The Joint Chiefs? The Congress, perhaps?" No reply came. Rinaker snorted. "No, this was a move from your old playbook. The one everyone who had sufficient knowledge of how powers worked, or a good enough head to notice all the traps told you would not work." He crossed his arms and stared at the oldest Committee member. "In fact, I remember both the Warden and I warning you such methods constituted a dangerous approach of powers, Dr. Brown. More than once, in fact, during your work on power evaluation in our New York base."

"I only remember being fired-" the old scientist snarled but the Committee Chairman interrupted what promised to be an entertaining and illuminating tirade.

"Enough!" the bespectacled man whose name Rinaker had already written off his mind shouted. "This is not a debate to air grievances. It is not a discussion, or a court of law." He scowled at both the Committee members who'd spoken up and Rinaker himself. "It's a tribunal to decide whether General Rinaker's handling of the super known as 'Maya Wennefer' makes him responsible for the third power-based nuclear detonation on North American soil and the threat it represents to both our allies and this nation."

What followed was a long, dull, obviously scripted question and answer session. Had he ordered Wennefer to the Devon Island facility? Had he been aware of her nuclear capabilities? Why did he involve himself and his people in a situation he'd been told to ignore? Why had he not informed the Oversight Committee of the CIA's unofficial requests to investigate the matter? Why did he not send a proper military escort with the reporters instead of an asset of questionable reliability? Why did he not confiscate the reporters' equipment, their recordings of classified information, on their return?

The line of questions and their very obvious answers lead to a rather unfavourable outcome for him and if he'd actually considered the entire procedure anything more than a sham he might have been worried about it. Unfortunately, he had bigger and uglier things to worry about. Things he had been worrying about for the past seven months that, unless he really missed his guess, were finally coming to a head.

"...in short, it is this Committee's finding that General Rinaker's conduct constitutes sufficient grounds for his immediate detainment under article seven of the Secret Homeland Incursion Protocol."

"Huh, you went for it. Brought up the Shitty Treaty and everything," Rinaker mused as several guards slowly approached. "That's a bit of a snag." Instead of getting up like the Committee goons were waiting for, he sat back in his chair and puffed out some more smoke.

"Excuse me?" the bespectacled idiot demanded like all politically powerful but personally weak people that felt they were being slighted. At least Rinaker finally knew he was stupid rather than merely poorly informed or unwittingly manipulated, and at their level there had only ever been one punishment for stupidity.

"You seem to be labouring under a misconception about the purpose of this meeting," the General explained, smiling for the first time in over the week. "It had never been about my actions; it had always been about yours."

The fool just gave Rinaker a look of total incomprehension, but several of the other Committee members either scowled in hostility or widened their eyes in realisation. And the four guards that had been approaching ostensibly to arrest him? They did not disappoint at all; without warning, without a hint of their intentions, they drew far heavier than normal sidearms and started shooting from less than fifteen feet away.

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Gunshots were always loud. Up close they can even be flashy, especially with the larger caliber guns. In the gloom of the underground conference room and from point-blank they were both deafening and blinding. So the General blinked and shook his head a few times, scratched at his ears, then fixed on his face the same confused expression the bespectacled idiot had thrown at him twenty seconds before.

"That was horrible trigger discipline, boys," he told his would-be killers. "And why are you shooting blanks?"

Their response was to shoot him again, filling the room with even more puffs of smoke than his old Cuban cigar had. They hadn't, of course, been shooting blanks and at least none of the four were stupid enough to stop and check. Great at being soldiers, but either poor at being human beings or under someone else's thumb. As for the Committee members? None, not even Dr. Brown had shown any surprise at the initial shots but many were showing confusion or disappointment now.

A knife came at Rinaker's head from apparently nowhere, its thrower neither seen nor heard. The old General rolled to his feet in a single fluid motion, then turned his head just enough for the blade to pass a hair's width from his nose and embed itself in the left wall... the wholly solid, foot-thick steel wall. Then the four men tried to grab and pull him down, but they were only human. Rinaker's once creaky, ageing joints flowed through the relatively slow and clumsy attacks like so much smoke with about as much effort as he put in his morning stroll.

The smoke clinging heavily to the room's atmosphere started moving. First to manifest was the image of ropes, snaking around the soldiers' limbs seemingly on their own accord and pulling them back. The four troopers struggled but physical force and integrity was not what had given shape to the things binding them to begin with; trying to break them with it was useless. More ropes lashed out at the suddenly panicking Committee members as he walked up to the fool that thought had been their leader.

"I am curious," Rinaker asked the shorter, paler, heavily sweating man. "When we sat down and wrote the articles for the Incursion Protocols, wasted night after night to put words on paper I had always known could never be enforced, did you already know you were going to break them all in the most heinous manner known to man?"

"You idealistic fool!" the traitor shouted more in fear than in anger. "Work with supers? The mere existence of powers shatters the premises modern governments are based upon. When a mere handful of people can do what great armies cannot we only have two options; either gain such power for ourselves, or destroy it."

"Who is this 'we' you keep talking about?" the General mockingly asked as more of his smoke pacified the remaining Committee members. "You do not represent the US government; your prior actions and your conduct today made that clear enough. You don't have powers and from what you just said your representation of supers would be laughable. Given your history and current state you're too cowardly to act alone... so who do you really work for?"

Another thrown dagger came from nowhere. Instead of dodging, Rinaker made the image of a steel wall out of smoke and the blade sank into it with the scream of metal grinding into metal. But the knife had only ever been a distraction. That was proven conclusively when the image of a wrecking ball intercepted the entirely invisible, inaudible figure that had made a beeline for the trapped Committee members and slammed it against the wall with, literally, building-breaking force. The air between the smoky wrecking ball and the wall flickered and cracked like shattering glass to reveal the very obvious spy that had spoken up earlier.

"Well," the trapped black-suited man said, "This is awkward."

"By which you mean you were supposed to kill those fools and blame it on my people, so your patsies in the government would have a proper excuse to dismantle the super cooperation program," Rinaker said as if discussing the weather.

"...what gave us away?" the would-be assassin asked in the same genial, even friendly tone as if he hadn't attempted to kill him several times in the past few minutes.

"The invisible, inaudible people sneaking into my base?" the General answered. "Or maybe the odd absence of several high-end members of the government from anything to do with supers? Maybe the repeated terrorist hits on secret sites or highly defended positions across the US?"

"Huh... your smoke? Probably smoke displacement, then" the assassin mused. "But we were careful not to approach you before today."

"We live in a world of cars, guns, and heavy industry, boy." Rinaker sneered. "Do you really think there are places on Earth without smoke of some kind?" The smoke in the air took the form of a rocket already flying towards the assassin faster than normal human eyes could see. A split second before it struck, the assassin vanished into his own shadow and reappeared across the room, already running for the exit. The General let the rocket fade back into smoke and conjured the image of thick metal bars blocking the exit.

The shadow-assassin blinked between shadows once more, reappearing in the corridor beyond. He turned around and mockingly waved goodbye at Rinaker. Then the assassin's legs were shredded from heel to hip as huge metal blades sprouted from the ground faster than he could react. The blades then grew further and split into more blades, carving him to pieces so fast he looked as if he'd exploded.

"Very thorough," Rinaker commented when a steel statue of a girl walked out of the corridor's metal wall. "Messy, though. Do you have to scare the janitors so?"

"It's flesh and blood, they have a metal content," Liz, the super known as The Warden responded in a dull metallic voice in her full-metal form. "Honestly, sir, I'm handling a whole prison complex by myself. A little messy spot is nothing in comparison."

"And it did help you vent," the General added, then shrugged. "Keep it limited to useless enemies and it'll be fine."

"Does that mean we got the useful enemies, then?"

"Oh yes. It went more or less like we expected." Really, the only bad part about the plan was having to live through the discussions. "Four boys under mind control for your people to examine and as proof of the threat, and at least some people that had a hand in writing the enemy's playbook if the assassin's attempts at clean-up mean anything."

"That's step four done with, then," the much younger woman commented with a scowl. "Now comes the hard part."

"Ain't that the truth," the General agreed with feeling. Cleaning up a government of traitors during an undeclared war... one mistake too many and the whole thing would collapse into anarchy at best, a rampage of unkillable monsters at worst.

Fortunately, he had the perfect way to draw everyone's attention away from the really important bits...