TCR 56) He's a madman with an evil mind.

It didn’t hurt. Not that much did to a corpse. I guess it would be better to say that it didn’t do any damage.

Mostly it just felt weird as both of my eyes filled with the purple tinged white light that felt like what I imagined it felt like to be folded away by Teamster's powers.

Wait, is that what is happening? Is he trying to get me out of whatever that thing is doing to me?

No.

Looking up at the team towering above me, I can see that I am now about waist high to them. Less than that actually, like about two foot ten.

A cracking sound made me look back down, or at least over, to where Shrike was crunching the device below her feet and the guy who shot it slumping down from where she knocked him up against a wall.

“Hey! What if I need that to get back to normal?”

She looked at me, down at the remains of the shrinking device, then back at me with a grimace. “Sorry. I’m sure it will wear off. Right?” She gave her younger brother a look.

Phoenix blinked. "I guess, I mean, where did the extra mass go? A special effect would be unstable without something keeping it that way. You should either snap back or slowly grow back."

He wandered over to me and held his hands out before flinching back. “Ah, I just want to check your weight to see if it’s just your size that changed. Do I have your permission?”

I nodded after a moment. "Yeah, just watch where you put your hands. I'm not your little woman.”

He pinned my arms down at my sides to get a grip, grinned, and lifted me to shoulder height before jiggling me a little. "Sorry, it feels like you weigh the same or at least more than I would have judged. It looks like it's more stable than I hoped. You might be stuck for a while."

Well, if my weight is the same. My strength should be about the same. The shorter limbs mean less leverage, but smaller fists mean less area for nearly the same amount of force. That's why it stings so much when a girl punches your shoulder.

“Got it. You can put me down now.”

Polygraph pointed out a directory for the floor listing things like a Physics department, as well as one for Gravity, and Anomalies.

From the look of it, the seventh floor stretched out about ten times as far as all the floors above it, but set back from all the rest of the departments was something labeled “Stepbrother.”

Falco set his fingertip on the name. “And doesn't that sound all sorts of promising?"

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

While Buzz pointed out where people were lurking in the labs we passed, by their phones and other personal electronics, no one else appeared to feel like playing hero or testing out a Genius device in live action.

The door to Stepbrother was yet another security door, but one that looked light enough for me to rip down on my own.

Falco waved both hands at it. “Eyes on the prize people. One last step for a thief, one giant leap for all criminal kind.”

Then something on the other side reached out to all of us.

For a moment I could feel everyones powers like they were my own. The surge of circuitry around me from Buzz, the sense of a direction separate from the normal three from Teamster, a sense of smooth and kinked from Polygraph.

The quicksilver thoughts of Falco.

Not their thoughts just their powers. But nothing at all from the three Talons.

We all paused and looked at each other, and then the four people with Triggered or inherited powers all looked at me.

Falco spoke up first. “What the hell are you?”

Shrike looked at him, then me. “Did something just happen?”

Polygraph backed away a few steps, “No wonder I couldn’t read you. You aren't even really here, just some kind of projection.”

The green feathered woman looked at her, then me, then at Falco again. "No seriously. What happened?"

Falco snapped his fingers at me. "Something just happened where we could all sense how each other’s powers worked, and dear sweet Pyrope is a power, not a person. The real Pyrope is reaching out from Earth below to operate this one like a puppet.

I took in a deep breath as I came up with a clever explanation on the spot. On how my real body was paralyzed from the neck down from a diving accident and I made this body with my power to run around in while my real one slept, but I never got the chance…

All the Talons had genes for high intelligence.

Shrike nearly hissed, “Orpheus…”

Crap.

Hey, at least small is fast. Not as fast as Shrike, but I guess she isn’t used to fighting someone half her size as she barley clipped me on top of my head as she came slinking in and tried to take me down in one punch of her scaled fist.

I rushed forward and got her leg as I went under her punch and kept going, still holding her leg as she toppled over me.

The guns most of the groups were packing weren't going to do anything to me. So Falco, Polygraph, Buzz, and Heron weren't a danger to me. Neither was Teamster unless he could fold me away.

Phoenix could burn me thought. Throwing a burst of flame on me might just crisp me a little, but he could concentrate his heat into a smaller area and that could do serious damage.

After him, it was Shrike if she could dig in with her claws. So I had to close on feather red with feather green as a body shield.

At least that was the plan, but bird girl dug her claws into the floor and got yanked out of my hands, just in time for Phoenix to hold both his hands in front of him and the front of my armor melted away.

Followed by my chest, and then my back as the heat went right through me.

As I dropped to my knees, the big guy gave me an apologetic look. "You're really Orpheus?"

I nodded.

He returned the nod sadly. "Thank you for giving us our stuff from our childhood back. It meant a lot to me.”

Then something hit the side of my head. Three sharp points dug into my skull and sent me flying. I could hear Falco asking “So, do we still owe her a cut? I mean we couldn’t have done it without her. Him?”

Samantha's body is regenerating. But there isn't enough left for her to heal the hole going through her, not enough to even fix the spine enough to get her mobile. And dragging myself around by the arms isn’t going to do much.

Plus Shrike still isn't done yet. Her foot comes down once, twice, then a third time. Cracking my skull.

How much can a dead body take before I get kicked out? I’ve never had to find out before today. Worst, I failed my mission. Falco and company might get out of here with the Booster and the world could burn.

Then the same sensation of knowing everyone’s power comes back and seems to narrow down to just me.

My skull popped out from below Shrike’s foot.

Something warm filled Samantha's chest as Regeneration 4, possibly even 5 began creating new material to replace missing or burnt flesh and bone.

And the Regeneration isn’t the only power to get boosted.

None of Samantha’s powers, the Booster, which I assumed this was, only seems to affect the living, but my limbs fill with power as my Brute 3 rose to at least a 4.

And my Weird 4, the power to sense and control the dead…

It’s not limited to the dead anymore.