Inez stared at Shawn in horror, breakfast forgotten. As the implications of him having died five times on the same day sank in she dropped his hands, reaching instead for Victor’s. Victor took her hand, pulling her close to him.

“This is very bad,” Nick said.

“That’s an understatement,” Victor said.

Inez frowned at them, leaving Shawn to stare into his coffee. “How many people know what Shawn can do? It has to be one of them if they put a bomb in the basement as a red herring.”

“Anyone with access to the register,” Nick shrugged. “That narrows it down to a couple thousand people.”

“Ok, but how many of those people have a reason to kill us?” Emmy asked.

Victor shook his head. “I don’t think we’ll find them by going through the register. It has to be someone we know, right? Someone who knows how we work.”

“That narrows it down to everyone in the city,” Nick said cheerfully.

“Everyone in any city with more than one superhero team,” Inez corrected.

Emmy took a bite of her toast. “My question still stands.”

“Yeah, the number of people who want us dead has to be lower than the number of people in the city,” Nick agreed.

Inez started counting. “Everyone we’ve put in jail, everyone we’ve denied entry into the team, everyone who we won’t date, everyone we’ve explained Emmy and/or Victor won’t model to, every street reporter, and probably all the construction workers who fix what we break.”

“That about covers it,” Nick said.

“You forgot all the moms of teenagers who say we’re a super bad influence,” Emmy said.

Victor shuddered. “Maybe we should start with them.”

Suddenly Shawn slammed his fist on the table. “Shark man!”

They all jumped back, startled.

“The shark man has to be working with them,” Shawn continued, looking wildly around the table. “Whoever breaks in has to know when to do so. They have to know when we’ll be out. They had to know to plant the fake bomb yesterday. The shark man has to be working with or at least for them. Right?”

The look in his eyes would have made Inez agree with anything he said for safety reasons, but this made sense.

“Absolutely,” she said, smiling reassuringly at Shawn.

“Right.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yes.”

“Ok.” Shawn got to his feet and began pacing. “So we have to capture him conscious this time. Nick, stop shooting him with sleeping darts.”

“Will do, boss,” Nick said cheerfully. “Want me to sit the whole fight out?”

“No!” Shawn screamed. “I don’t want to come home to you murdered, too!”

“You won’t,” Inez told him calmly.

“I can stay at the bagel shop across the street,” Nick said. “I won’t leave until you get back. A little stakeout. I can’t be murdered in a bagel shop.”

Shawn calmed down. “Ok. …Ok.” He sighed. “Ok.”

Inez got up and put a hand on his arm. “We’ll figure this out,” she promised. “You aren’t alone.”

“Yeah,” Victor said. “You have us.”

Emmy jumped up to put her arm on Shawn’s shoulder. “We’re the best team ever. They might get us a couple times, but we’ll win in the end!”

Nick leaned back in his chair. “We always win in the end. No worries.”

“No worries…”

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

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A woman glanced at the last security camera as she left the building. It failed to activate. In one smooth movement she held up her middle finger to the motion sensor. It remained off.

Hopping over the fence was laughably easy. She walked across the street to a bagel shop and went to the counter, looking over the menu. The bored teenager behind the register asked what she wanted.

“Just a sesame bagel with cream cheese, and a medium coffee,” she said, reaching into her pocket.

“Make that two coffees,” a cheerful voice behind her said.

The teenager glanced behind her before looking at the woman questioningly.

She turned as Nick held out his credit card. “Thank you! You’re so kind.”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said. “What’s the price of a bagel and coffee between old friends?”

As far as she was concerned, they’d hated each other from their first meeting. “And they say chivalry is dead.”

Nick got his card back, leaning against the counter. “So, Cathy, what brings you to this part of town?”

Catherine bristled. She smiled at him. “Well, Nicodemus, it’s the strangest thing. I got off the train at the wrong stop and found myself here!”

He looked delighted. “What a coincidence!” He took his coffee from the teenager, probably knowing she would insist on a new one if he even looked too hard at hers.

Catherine took her bagel and went to a table, sitting down facing the window. Nick followed her after a few seconds, stirring cream into his coffee.

“You know, they say people who drink coffee black are more likely to be psychopaths,” he said, the forced joyousness gone from his voice.

“You’d say I prove the theory?” she guessed.

“I would.” He sat down, pulling the phone out of his pocket. He checked it without touching the screen, then placed it face-down on the table next to his coffee. “What are you doing here, Catherine?”

She laughed, picking up his phone. “You already know, don’t you?” She hit the home button, and when the screen lit up it showed an ongoing call. She ended it for him. “I’m sure Shawn has told you about the tragic explosion in which your team dies. What cycle is this for him?”

“Why?”

“I asked first.”

He glared daggers at her. “Sixth.”

“Yikes, he must be going insane,” she said, biting into her bagel. “Because you’re all insufferable.”

“Seriously?” he hissed. “You’d kill five people- murder them because you don’t like them?”

Catherine looked him dead in the eye. “I don’t not like you. I hate you. I detest you. I want you to suffer as much as possible before meeting an inevitable end.”

“Why?”

It struck her that he really didn’t know. That made it… funny. Somehow. Catherine smiled, tilting her head as she looked the mad scientist over.

“Catherine-”

“Pax.”

Nick stopped, confused but now cautious. “What about him?”

“He died. And instead of helping, instead of mourning, you made fun of us.”

“How did we-” He cut himself off. “I’m sorry. You didn’t ask soon enough for Shawn to help. Which is regrettable for a number of reasons.”

“Why did I have to ask for help at all?” she snapped.

“Because some people don’t want Shawn to meddle,” Nick snapped back.

“So why didn’t you ask?”

“It wasn’t our responsibility.”

“I suppose getting people to stop making fun of our name was also not your responsibility.”

“How would that-”

“Because Victor started it!” Catherine caught herself just before she set her fists on fire. “Two days after Pax’s death, we were already getting mocked. And if that wasn’t enough, ever since then we’ve had sponsor after sponsor drop us in favor of you.”

Nick took a deep breath. “So instead of talking it out like adults… Straight to murder.”

Behind him, a car pulled up to the gate and turned down the driveway. Team Vines was back home. Catherine sighed.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe we are overreacting. Maybe we can be friends, if we just talk it out.”

“That sounds suspiciously like there’s an ‘or’ about to appear.”

“Well, Shawn knows I’m the one who’s been planting the bomb now. This will be my last chance to make you suffer. I’m sure we’ll be able to talk it out tomorrow.”

“Catherine,” he said warningly.

“Maybe there is something to the stereotype,” she said musingly, pulling the detonator out of her purse. “Pyromancers have to be pyromaniacs. We just want to watch things go up in flames.”

He lunged for the detonator, spilling the coffees. She knocked his hands away, flames following her fingers through the air. Catherine didn’t know why she loved toying with people like this; she couldn’t help herself.

Nick rolled off the table, jumping for the detonator. She spun out of her chair, almost laughing at his clumsy attempt to catch her arm. When he swiped for the box again she put a hand over his face and sent out a flash of heat. He yelped, falling backwards as his eyelashes burned off.

Smiling at him on the ground, Catherine pushed the button. Nothing happened for a heartbeat, and then with a boom the building across the street exploded.

Nick scrambled to the window, staring in horror as flames started to lick the sky. Catherine hadn’t planned on killing him directly, but the back of his head presented too easy of a target.

She pulled out her laser gun and took aim.

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Nick stared into the liquid nitrogen, hit with a sudden feeling of deja vu. He pulled out the noodles, knowing he’d done this before.

Something was wrong.

He didn’t know what.

He didn’t know why.

But something was wrong.

Something was very, very, very wrong.