The balcony above the stadium was impressive, to say the least.

Okay, all it is is a bunch of steel walkways that can lead to lighting stuff, but the atmosphere was great. Nothing but you and the fresh air, a chanting crowd below you, and no one else…

No one else to expose your deepest darkest secrets…

Honestly, what in the hells is that kid's deal? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of him before, even with Casper constantly touting The Saints as the best hero organization in the entire world.

Was it some fey stuff? A good chunk of The Saints have strong ties to the Fey-Wild, it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the explanation. However, I know that GoldBella has nothing to do with that. Her ability to shift her entire body to various metals is entirely a naturally occurring power.

I sat down hard on the edge of a walkway and watched the performance below. SoundScape and Ice King were going back and forth in one of their more famous songs, and it’s okay, not bad at all. I can bop my head to it a bit.

Out of all of the guys in the theater, I think I’m the only one who doesn’t care for hip-hop or rap of any kind. Like, it’s honestly half of Casper’s theme when he’s Emcee, and I know he’s gotten Reed and Michael hooked on various artists.

Erik… The dude’s a part-time producer. When he’s not a mage or a villain that’s what he’s doing. He’s also the only person who I know can listen to anything as long as it has a coherent melody.

As long as it’s not punk or anything I actually like…

Don’t ask me what any of the girls in the group like. I couldn’t actually say and get it right. The topic has never come up in that way.

With a sigh I let my legs swing out into the open air. I could see a few people in the crowd point me out after a few seconds. With that, I straightened up my posture and made my ears stand on end instead of drooping like they were. After another moment I could see one of The Saints below point me out as well.

The hero they were talking to then immediately went to their communicator. It was only obvious from above, they hid it pretty well from the crowd. To most, it looked like they were laughing at SoundScape’s song.

“Thorn to Queen.” their voice sounded out, “Why is Carnival in the rafters?”

I chuckled to myself a bit.

“You do realize that The Theater can hear that right?” PrincessShifter responded. The hero, I think his name is RedThorn, immediately snapped his attention to where I was. I pretended not to see.

I also pretended not to see Emcee looking at me with a frown.

At the end of the last song, I decided that I needed to recenter myself. I sent pulses of my magic between my hands, letting the ends of my fingers form into claws and back again. Most of the spell that I was going to cast on the chimera was based on my transformation magics. The theater didn’t know that, only the Doc did. He and I had spent a fair amount of time figuring out how to take an alchemical process and apply it to my abilities… and today was the very first time I was going to test it out.

“I’m sorry about Silver.” The voice of Speed Queen made me jump. Both of my hands shifted into the clawed form I was messing with. I had to quickly pulse them away with a shake, but that didn’t stop the hero from giving me a concerned look.

I very sheepishly stood up and leaned on the railing, and my nerves caused me to stutter out a “N-no… Problem?”

Speed Queen obviously clocked my discomfort from what she just saw, but I guess she’d ignored it. “He’s still coming into his power. So he doesn’t know just yet how to control himself when stressed…”

“Yeah yeah whatever.” I said, not really looking at the hero anymore, “Tell him not to do that again or whatever a good family is supposed to do, but if I hear a thing about my secrets floating about… Even Emcee won’t be able to stop me from shutting that down.”

I let those words hang as the next song started up. Record himself was actually taking the lead on this one. Then I got a ping on my phone, it was Emcee telling me to get ready.

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The next thing I knew, Speed Queen was right next to me, her hand up to whisper in my ear. “I don’t care what you or my husband think. Even if it was in our best interest to share what we know, if you take one step too far we will destroy you.”

“At least we feel the same way.” I deadpan, not even bothering to move as the hero just disappears. The door to the caster booth closed.

And there I was again, just absently moving my magic about, letting the preverbal muscle loosen up. Then I heard the door open and close again. Whoever came through this time didn’t have super speed apparently.

“Oh…” I said when I actually bothered to look this time, “Hello there.”

“Please don’t tell me you threatened the hero,” Requiem said sternly, but I knew she didn’t care all that much. If anything happened it was going to happen to me, not her.

“Only a little, and they did deserve it for what that kid did.” I huffed as I shook away the transformations on my hands again. “I really shouldn’t have indulged him when I didn’t know what he does.”

Requiem nodded, “Actress got him to say that he can read auras… He also said that he can’t wait to ‘copy’ you. But when he said that, Speed Queen forced him to stop talking.”

I was a bit confused at that, but “That makes a bit of sense. He would have to be really good at reading auras to sense my bull or… human forms… OH WAIT SHOOT! If he got an in-depth look at my aura…”

Things clicked for Requiem the same time it did for me, cause she had to steady herself against the railing for a moment. “Then he could have read the true source of your power… which means he can discover the true source of all of ours.”

“Let’s just hope that he didn’t notice then. We can get the Doc or ‘someone’ when we get back to the lab on that.” I said with a slight grimace. Requiem responded with a sharp nod and she looked like she was going to add something when Record’s song ended.

The both of us stood there for a moment, suddenly trying to remember what was going to happen next, only to realize when Emcee stopped everyone on the ground from continuing. He then went on to announce that the next stage of the show was about to start and tried to hype up the crowd.

It didn’t take that much effort, to be honest. Everyone here was just excited to see any of The Saints in real life.

“Oh yeah!” I said to Requiem as I started to get my first spell ready, “I’ve never done anything like this before, so I have absolutely no idea how much power I’m gonna hafta put into this, ey.”

“So you might need help.” The other villain deadpanned, I nodded as Emcee started to really yell from below.

“So how about we see something cool! CARNIVAL! DO YOUR THING!”

On the signal I did a few hops before grabbing the railing and flinging myself over it, aiming at the machine.

With a flex of my show magic, it looked like I was a comet falling from the sky. And it was just enough to hide a small space spell from an oohing crowd. Just three small circles within each other, but in 3D. Barely enough to condense a bit of space to stop my descent a foot or so above the machine once I activated it.

Fortunately, none of the heroes made a move to stop me. I didn’t catch enough of Emcee’s speech to know whether or not he warned them of what was happening. But there were context clues for them to use, and it wasn’t like they hadn't destroyed any of our monsters before.

I let the spell holding me up go and landed on one hand on top of the machine. From there I pressed a hidden button that let the light show start up.

Then my nerves kicked in as the crowd went silent…

I think it might be a mistake to do this kind of spell for the first time in front of so many people. I think I know what I’m doing, but that’s only a thought.

Also only wearing an open jacket while falling upside down is not an experience I want to repeat. So with a push, I flipped from the top of the machine to just outside the edge of the spell circle. I then forced as much transformation magic as I could into my arms, which slowly began to destabilize them.

A few of the theater shouted out when they saw that, not expecting me to change like that at all. Which in turn began to cause some nerves to build up among The Saints. I even saw SoundScape take a step forward in concern out of the corner of my eye.

I struggled a bit to lift both of my arms up and draw a pair of small simple circles out of the transformation magic, which I then thrust my hands through before slamming them into the ground at the edge of the spell circle.

Only those who know how magic works could follow what happened from there. All the heroes and the crowd saw was the machine beginning to crumble. I saw the magic chaotically swirling into the beginnings of the monster, as muscles and joints strengthened. Eyes and ears suddenly opened up and a mind that never was took shape.

Soon enough, standing over the broken machine was a chimera. Its long spotted catamount body shook off the remnants of the life-sustaining goo as its snake-like tail rattled. The spiked lion’s mane flowed with the wind as it huffed out a few metallic-like breaths.

As soon as the chimera was oriented, it suddenly bound over to Emcee. Every happy step caused a hollow thumping sound to resonate out into the arena. The second it got to the villain it sat itself down and let out a few hi-hat sounding barks. Its shaker-like tail bounced back and forth to the rhythm of the beat already.

Emcee looked genuinely shocked that it worked. Many of the heroes forced themselves to relax from battle stances. Record quietly let go of a hidden spell.

None of this I noticed, however. WHOO BOY! Was I woozy.