I thought about the implications of that. Northstar in particular was one of the fastest people in the Marvel Universe. That level of speed combined with my physical ability was going to be unreal in its effectiveness, literally vaulting me into the ranks of the stronger Paramounts in an instant.

And that was without my Casting, which basically Dealer was handling.

I couldn’t turn it down, because there was just no way. Flight AND superspeed? I was a genius, not an idiot. Of course I wouldn’t turn that down.

And if two mass murderers fed the Widow in the Web, I wasn’t going to regret that, either.

“I don’t have a Binder Trio set up, but I can blow a Feat on it,” I said calmly. “Can you do the Tat?”

“I kept the skill so I could Open people to Soul Magic and Scribe Tats. I’m usually scheduled to do a couple a day,” she confirmed.

I considered what it would mean to have that kind of speed available tonight, and sighed.

“Tell Dealer to come out here and guard Mr. Hill, and we need to use Mick’s Wagon for a few minutes.”

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

Customizing the Binder Pattern wasn’t too hard with our Spellcrafting Ranks (bought up in advance through many headaches, yay!), and Quar noted that the Widow Tat was moving to accommodate what we were trying to do as she worked on me.

The Widow probably wanted us to feed it more.

Transferring the souls of the twins over took a VIII Slot from Quar, which she was happy to spend since she didn’t Cast much at all. Although she had the Valences like any of us, that wasn’t what she was supposed to be developing.

They were screaming, mostly because Quar had Cursed them to relive the pain and fear of all their victims. When you’ve been reduced to brainpower that compares unfavorably to a dog, that’s a rather bad state to be in.

I knew I was going to have to dumpster-dive their memories at some point and pull out the names (if possible), dates, times, and locations of everyone they had killed, and report them to the proper authorities, just to fully settle matters.

I wasn’t looking forward to it. Responsibility is a damn pain...

Their souls were woven up into the spidery Binding Circles, Godmerge magic keyed off the otherplanar heritage that linked them, and dark legs wrapped their souls up expectantly as red eyes turned their way.

If they were screaming before, it got really bad now.

Energy flowed through me as the Binding Circles transferred what I wanted from them, and the powers of the Beaubier Twins cycled into me as metaphysical webs were woven about them and attached them to my Matrix.

Their Cores merged. Their power combined when touching, and they were screaming together now.

The combined Core was fused and solid. I couldn’t spend anything from it, which was a bit of a downer, but not a surprise. This would have been totally broken if it opened up a fourth psionic tranche or something for me...

Pretty damn welcome, too. I could always use more skill points, Masteries, and Feats...

I eyed the solid Core, and knew I’d have to be pumping Wrath into it to get any power out of it. So, it wouldn’t be ‘free’ speed, I’d be juicing the lightning...

Well, I supposed I’d be looking like a lightning bolt shooting around. Wonderful subtle stuff, that’s me...

“I’d better not forget how to glide,” I muttered as I got up, and shrugged my shirt back on. “I have to charge this thing to use it.”

Quar stowed her Tat kit in her own small Massvest, picturing that silently. “Well, I suppose you’re going to add to that Valiant Reputation with all your showiness,” she mused.

“Right, and we’ll see how fast practice becomes routine,” I sighed, draping my Chasuble on and opening the door out.

“You haven’t taken care of le Fey yet, have you?” Quar asked as she followed me out. I saw the shooters had finished up their meal and were returning as I shook my head to her. Since we had come out, Dealer’s glowing Card watching over Mr. Hill evaporated quietly.

“Alrighty. Let’s see what a trained Battlemind is capable of.”

Purple eyes glittered, and a severely dangerous telepath reached out...

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---------

The Avengers were in a different part of the city, having landed near the warehouse of a factory Stark ran here.

The incoming supervillains and mob quietly dispersed around the city as a mind like a humming blade reached out, contacted them, and attached them to a very private and very detailed map of the city.

Overlaying that map was an incredibly accurate display of where werewolves and vampires, as well as other undead, and even some other unwelcome supernatural creatures, were present.

There were a lot of them. Hundreds of them. And there seemed to be more streaming into the city along the roads and trails, brought in their coffins by their Drinkers and Thralls, or simply taking modern vehicles or back trails to do the same.

The Spirit of the City was getting a bit agitated. The young heroes here, the old soldiers, the veterans, and the total noobs looked at all of that, of the rot and infection spread throughout the city, obviously intending to do something.

I marked the presence of the master vampires, currently whiling away the daylight below ground in their Warded tombs and chambers, waiting for the night to fall.

Dr. Strange informed me that there were raiding teams of vampires and werewolves assembling in New York City, as well.

I wasn’t worried about the Sanctum. Flint and Cain Marko were both there, with forty pounds of finely powdered blessed silver sand. Vampires weren’t strong enough to take off Cain’s helmet. All Sandy had to do was fling the bastards in reach of the Juggernaut and he could wring their necks like popping bottle caps, and that was if Flint didn’t spit them with massive silver-edged silicon knives, spears, or morningstars.

If they wanted to try something worse, well, the Doc and Wong were both in residence and knew they were coming. Doc was preparing some special surprises if and when they unleashed whatever gifts the vamps were bringing along to turn the tide.

Those who had skill and experience were dispatched to take out the coffins of the sleepers here. Commune with City at VIII did an excellent job of punching through their basic Div Wards and locating the lesser vampire coffins... and showing where the Wards that could defy the Commune were, which really narrowed down the areas we needed to search.

Quicksilver wanted to use his Shi’ar energy swords, but in the interests of creating confusion and stealth, was instead dressed in black and using a mithral sword, while wearing a visored helmet of magnapsium suspiciously close to his father’s style. Vivisizing these things was going to be very important, so not just killing them, but finishing them was of paramount importance.

Fixer went into MIT’s cellars with Beetle backing him, broad spectrum lasers dealing with the vampires while the Beetle manhandled the Drinkers with brutal thoroughness.

The full moon was tonight, so dusk was going to suddenly spit up a lot of werewolves. Killing them before then in front of witnesses would be taken all the wrong ways, so, no, we didn’t do that.

Castle’s crew hit a Master’s stronghold, taking a bit more care without Hill there to back them up, but showing why they were all post-Tens and very, very good at this now.

I barged into a gathering of werewolves with fists popping before the sun even went down, and my Detect Shapechangers just blared at me as like three dozen brawny men turned in shock to look at me after I kicked in the doors.

Some had the reflexes to shoot at me. Duskstopped Reverse Missiles made sure they shot themselves rather badly, and then I opened up on them.

Magically-charged plasma bursts went through them in slow motion, force streams limned in silver fire punched through them, and vivic fire exploded as they died harshly.

Some transformed with breathtaking speed and leapt at me and my totally-charged Fists. Heads exploded left, right, up, and down as I slid aside from their shots and counter-punched, and as soon as the last one was not leaping at me, I cut down the two trying to escape out the back.

It was going to be a long night, and I had no doubt it was going to go down in history. Whether similar efforts were being made elsewhere was not our problem tonight.

---

Nova and Quicksilver were nominally on back-up for everyone, along with Dealer’s Teleporting if things were dire, and me backing that up. The ‘discovery’ of my new speed would happen when it happened.

The mob guys were given the earliest jobs, with the Mick talking them through it in their own language, and generally someone more competent or dangerous nearby if they really were stupid and couldn’t control their gun discipline. Kwannon was sure to give them clear targets and make sure there were no innocents nearby if at all possible... or have them clear out said people as the shooting started.

The Avengers naturally hit their targets like pros, operating in pairs. General Rogers was actually running most of the strategy as things happened, with the speedy fliers and runners towing the slower people around.

Just to be safe, Mjolnir actually had a custom-made mithral cap on both ends. It turned out that just because it was a Divine Weapon didn’t mean it would kill a vampire or werewolf at all here. The simple addition meant that Thor was clearing bunches of them with little trouble... oh, and Stark had convinced him to wear a gorget, lest a ratty leech get the chance to sup on some of his Divine blood, which might end up really bad for someone.

Ebersol got to live the dream of shooting up Harvard and MIT students and teachers who sprouted fur and/or fangs. Simple dreams for some geniuses, I guess.

-------

It only took a couple hours before the mob guys were out of bullets, but they all had at least half a dozen kills each, which was more shooting and killing than most of them had done in their whole lives. Rogers ordered them back to Mr. Hill, where Kwannon could take care of their injuries, and the mooks were thoroughly happy for that to happen.

Mr. Hill was sitting up, but not moving otherwise. That was fun, as when wandering werewolves and vampires looking for trouble were drawn to Kwannon by subtle telepathic encouragement, she just tossed them telekinetically at him, and their heads exploded from casual jabs with mithral knuckles too fast to see.

If they came after her, well, a golden mindblade was quick to deal with them, and if she had to cut down two dozen Drinkers at one time with a scything Fan of purple psi-lightning, they burned just like their masters did.

The Spiders had problems killing the werewolves, and that was even when they stumbled on them after they had ripped apart some innocent late-night travelers, or found them in a bloody room. Vampires, now, they had learned to take them out and seen them burn away in the sun, and had no problems dealing with them.

That left Jessica and Rich to handle finishing the werewolves if they had to. They did it grimly, but that was what they were being trained to do, and they could handle it.