Daniel couldn't exactly practice his doorways out in the open. His Natural status might be a poorly-guarded, almost open secret, but he doubted any of his friends or acquaintances really had any idea of what he was capable of. He preferred to keep it that way, not only because all of his friends were cops, but because Dan was increasingly certain that a Natural's lifespan came down to how closely guarded he kept his powers.

The People were still out there. Dan didn't think they were having him watched or anything like that, but conflict was inevitable. He'd made an enemy of them by choice of his lover alone. Dan would have preferred to keep out of the mess entirely, but he wouldn't fool himself into thinking that was possible, long-term. For now, he would practice, he would advance, and he would prepare. And in-between all of that, he would live.

The point was, he had to keep things subtle. Dan habitually extended his veil wherever he went, using it a bit like sonar. Now, he added an extra step, opening doors the size of a pinhead as he moved. He needed to get the act down to instinct, something automatic, otherwise it would be useless. Dan wanted his doorways to be a strictly offensive tool, but as they were, there were some dangerous limitations.

For one, Dan couldn't teleport while maintaining a door. Every time he tried, the portal slammed shut the instant he dropped into t-space, with a sort of finality that he didn't want to push. If the portal was occupied with something living—Dan tested this with a bag of crickets purchased from a pet shop—his veil locked up entirely, refusing to pull him into the Gap. It was a horrible feeling, like hyperextending a muscle. This issue made actually utilizing his doors' portal-cut properties a risky proposition.

Dan's second problem was a little more mundane. This evolution was too useful. As in, if Anastasia found out she would almost certainly try to monopolize his abilities for her own schemes. Dan was done doing her favors. As far as he was concerned, they were square, and he intended to keep things that way. Of course, that didn't mean she wouldn't find herself facing a surprise portal, should things go badly wrong. He liked the idea of summoning her into dangerous situations, out of sheer convenience. It put a smile on his face.

He'd have to check that impulse. He probably would only get to do it the once.

The final issue was one of practice. Dan could only reveal this aspect of his power to Abby, and he couldn't practice any of its more lethal applications in a spar. They kept things simple. She threw slow punches, and he did his best to catch them in a door. It was tricky, because he had to use an exit door, rather than an entrance. The entrance could only be opened from his veil, which didn't do so well in open air. Usually, Dan created the entrance somewhere near his feet, and the exit within arm's reach of himself. In a real fight, he'd intercept his opponent, then forcibly destabilize his own portal, separating whatever bits of his enemy had passed through it.

Obviously, he wasn't about to do that to Abby.

It was incredibly dangerous, because Dan's preferred fisticuffs style revolved around constant teleportation and attacks from impossible angles. Standing still for any length of time was anathema to him, yet this portal trick required it. Reflexes were incredibly hard to rewire, and Dan struggled to not blink away every time Abby so much as squared up. He consoled himself with the knowledge that this would only be used against opponents he couldn't reasonably railgun into a casket. That wasn't a long list.

It was one of those classic 'better have it and not need, than need it and not have it' situations. So, Dan practiced his ass off, anticipating the inevitable rematch with Cannibal once the rabid creature fished himself out of whatever ocean Dan had booted him into. Dan just wished there was something safer he could do with his portals.

It was Abby who pointed out the obvious.

"Can't you just stick the entrance in the ground?" she asked him, as they cooled off after a long spar.

Dan frowned at her. "That's what I've been doing. Why do you think your fist keeps popping out beside my feet?"

"No, Danny." She rolled her eyes, and emphasized, "Inside the ground. Inside."

Dan blinked at her. "What for?"

She shrugged. "All sorts of reasons. Instant cover? Make a door facing downwards, and an exit in front of yourself. Alternatively, scoop out some dirt and trap whoever's attacking you underground. That's just off the top of my head."

That actually seemed incredibly useful.

They were in his basement, so he speared his veil straight down into the bedrock. Once it hit dirt, he spread it narrow and wide, like a pane of glass against the ground. With a flex of willpower, his veil opened. The exit door appeared in front of Dan and Abby, an impenetrable wall of dirt. The entrance and exit were always the same size, and Dan had made it wide enough to go across the room.

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Abby whistled. "It's like a wall on demand."

Dan could think of a few uses for this. More flexibility was never a bad thing. Though, this only exacerbated his problem.

"I can never use this in public," Dan declared. "Not where anyone can see me, at least."

"It's not like anyone can see that you're doing it," Abby pointed out. "Just don't do any silly hand motions and you'll be fine."

"I don't do 'silly hand motions!'" Dan squawked.

She snickered. "You kind of do." She flicked her fingers like someone trying to dislodge water droplets. "Like that. Only sometimes. When you're feeling dramatic."

Dan pouted at her, flicked his fingers, and closed the portal.

___________________________________________________________________________

Austin had mostly settled down in the month following the UT Massacre. With the city's largest gang presence neatly decapitated, and a police force hungry to prove itself to its citizens, the criminal element of the city had been mostly playing duck and cover. Those happy days were unfortunately coming to an end.

The violent crime rate of Austin was historically quite low, at least over the past decade. Gangs focused more on illegal modding and protection rackets over outright murder. Mutates were rare, Naturals even more so. The threat level of the average gangster was, comparatively speaking, quite low. That all had changed in the lead up to the UT Massacre.

The People had imported a large number of seasoned criminals, ready and willing to do violence on their behalf. Not all had been caught, and many remained in the city. Coldeyes' Crew had given out unstable upgrades to a huge amount of impoverished, angry, and desperate teenagers, most of which had scattered into hiding after the capture of their leader. The Scales were just as much of a community as a gang, and while their most violent hitters were in custody or dead, just as many ancillary members remained.

Enough time had passed that boundaries were once again being pushed. Crime was slowly ticking upwards in the Crew's old stomping grounds, localized around a few distinctive landmarks. The first was the old gym where Coldeyes had routed the APD's SPEAR Teams. The gargantuan ice monument was still standing strong, though it had been fenced off and permanently restricted. This hadn't stopped it from becoming both a tourist attraction and a gathering point for young toughs looking to make trouble.

The second landmark was more of an issue. Coldeyes had iced over several blocks of downtown Austin, sealing away the doors and windows of dozens of buildings and businesses. Fire upgrades were sufficient to deal with the thinnest layers, though many buildings still had their street view obscured by a layer of opaque ice. Unfortunately, the parking garage that had housed NG command was completely unsalvageable. Coldeyes had frozen the entire structure, and he'd put some serious effort into it.

Gregoir's escape from that frozen hell had opened a way inside the building, and rescue efforts had been fairly successful in extracting the National Guard's higher-ups, who had all been nearby Gregoir's exit point. What they'd failed to secure was the majority of the NG's mobile assets that peppered the garage. Armored vehicles, troop transports, and two helicopters that were buried under a small mountain of ice. Gregoir had been brought in to assist, but without the urgency of battle, his power had not been sufficient to crack the barrier of ice. The National Guard were forced to shrug, take the hit, and move on. They left behind millions of dollars in hardware, locked in an impenetrable tomb, when they fled the city.

That, at least, was the official story.

Unofficially, Dan had just gotten a call from Captain Gable, asking if he would be interested in transporting some moderately frozen military hardware to a secure location. For a considerable fee, of course.

Now, Dan stood upon a layer of ice, at the top floor of a frozen parking garage. The ice here was twenty feet thick. He couldn't even make out the shape of the helicopter that he knew lay under it all. Gable, Ito and Gregoir stood beside him as he examined it. It was night, and nobody else was around. Even the lights were dim, casting their bodies in shadow.

Dan's veil pierced through Coldeyes ice with the same ease at it did everything else. He examined the first chopper, gauging its weight.

"Can you do it?" Captain Gable asked.

Dan hummed to himself. "I can clear a path through the ice, no problem. The chopper... Well, I can probably manage it. Might need be done in pieces, though."

"I can bring in a technician," Gable replied immediately. "He can show you where to cut."

"That should work," Dan agreed, nodding. He eyed the officer dubiously. "People are going to notice if I carve a big ass tunnel down to the ground floor."

Ito stepped forward, shaking his head. "You're not cutting a tunnel where anyone can see it."

Dan frowned at him. "How are you gonna get your people inside, then?"

"Nobody is going inside," Gable corrected. "Nobody but us will know about this operation, or your role in it. As far as the world will be concerned, all the equipment you retrieve is still inside this garage."

"How will that play out when you're flying around the city in an NG chopper?" Dan asked pointedly.

"Anything recognizable will be... refurbished," Gable admitted. "But the majority of the mobile armor will only be brought out in case of another emergency. The APD is underfunded and underequipped for large scale threats. This is only a small step in rectifying that problem. In the meantime, it will be kept off the books, in a private facility generously offered to us by Congressman Graham."

Gable was playing fast and loose with the rules, but Dan could hardly blame him. The past few months had been a wake-up call for the APD. They were woefully unprepared for the big leagues. Gable was attempting to correct that, any way he could. Dan respected that. Encouraged it, even.

"You got a picture of the place I'm taking this stuff?" he asked.