Archive of Our Own ^beta

My target left his tattoo parlor, locking the doors as he exited. He took a moment to blow warm air into his hands. The cold air coming from the bay and the winter temperatures mixed poorly. I would’ve been freezing if the body suit I wore under my hoodie and sweatpants didn’t regulate my temperature.

He got into his car and pulled away, driving down the street. Normally I would have to give up my investigation at this point - my suit made me incredibly mobile, but a car could still outpace me - but I had learnt from my mistakes, and had slipped my tracker parasites into his greasy, fatty takeout last night. I grabbed my mask, letting it writhe and envelop my head, then began following the unique scent my parasites gave off.

My bodysuit wriggled as I began running. Bones, fungi, meat and skin worked in tandem as I leapt from rooftop to rooftop, my jumps propelling me across forty feet gaps. I misjudged the distance on one jump, and slammed into the side of the building. I wildly grabbed at the wall, and when my hands made contact, I stuck to it. I should’ve really taken my clothes off - they were getting in the way of my suit’s adhesive properties, but at the same time I still wanted to be able to slip back into my civilian mode.

It was freeing, doing this. Each step I took wasn’t just a biological process, they were messages, symbolic of my conquest, of my dedication, of me.

The parasite’s scent changed slightly. The target had stopped traveling in his car. Within the minute, I had arrived where he had parked - a mechanic’s shop, closed at this hour of night.

Strange. My three days of investigation on this man didn’t reveal any reason why he’d be here. Was he meeting someone? The mechanic’s looked closed, but someone could have been inside. I made a mental note to finish my thermal vision project.

With a final burst of exertion, I jumped across the street onto a telephone pole, then onto the side of the shop. I was able to smell what he was here for. Since he was taking his time getting out of his car, I crawled along the side of the building, then jumped down behind it.

The trash bag hidden underneath the dumpster had a smell I was familiar with. I pulled it out, then grabbed the plastic wrapped package from it.

My target’s car door slammed shut. I hid before he spotted me.

The padding in my gauntlets squirmed as I clung onto the side of the building. I watched as my target looked around to see if anyone was watching him. He missed me, of course. The Scene didn’t let idiots join them, but I doubted even trained professionals would’ve spotted my hiding spot. People rarely looked up, and the cloudy night shrouded me in darkness.

Assured that he was seemingly alone, my target reached underneath the dumpster, trying to grab the package that had previously been there.

“Missing this?” My target looked up at me just in time to get hit in the face by two pounds of cocaine. I jumped down from the wall, falling fifteen or so feet, and pinned the man to the wall.

“Do you know who I am?” I asked.

My target gulped. “You’re Nidus, right?”

Good. Their rank and file were beginning to fear me. I pulled a dagger out from my ribs. The man dry heaved as I did so.

“This knife is one of my favorites. Inside is a colony of special flesh eating bacteria, designed to specifically keep people on the brink of death. It eats just enough of you, as to not kill you. It's gruesome to watch. The first to go are your extremities; fingers, toes, ears, whatever you keep in your pants. After that, your skin, eyes and tongue. Eventually all your limbs fall off, and you're left as a sack of organs, barely functioning. The nifty part is that they keep you from getting sick. That's the big thing with full body trauma - infection is usually the killer. But this? It kills cancer, antibiotics, germs, you name it. Short of a healer cape, your only cure? Bullet to the head.”

My target was still, locked into place, his frantically darting eyes the only form of movement from him.

“Now, we both don't want you to get hurt tonight. Me less than you, I suppose. So if you tell me where your stash house is, I’ll let you go.”

“I - I don’t know.” The man stammered. I held the tip of the dagger a quarter inch away from his eye. “I mean, we don’t have any stash houses. Not at the moment. That plant bitch and Overlooker have fucked our operations up.” After a second, he hastily added; “You as well.”

“Then why are you grabbing two pounds of coke from underneath a dumpster?”

“That's what we do now. All the product gets split up into small pieces, then we move it around to each other randomly. We just keep it at our houses or whatever. Sure, there's some loss, but it beats having millions worth of product gone in a single night whenever the Protectorate’s bloodhound comes knocking.”

Fuck. I was dreading this. If their operations were spread out, how was I supposed to hurt them? And every time I went out there was a chance I’d encounter one of their capes. I could hold my own against a group of normals, but against a cape? I doubted I would win unless I resorted to lethal force. The Protectorate already had a dour opinion of me, I didn’t want to gain any more scrutiny. And the less attention I had, the less likely my past would get brought up.

Notoriety was good, but fear alone wouldn’t topple my enemies. I needed more from this encounter. I punched the wall next to my target’s head, cracking the concrete. The bones in my fingers shattered, but my new organ filled with my regenerative elixir was already hard at work, mending the damage. My target flinched, then tried his hardest to shrink away.

“Nine fifty Sinclair Avenue.” I growled. This part was my favorite. “Whitney Shutton, Hayden Shutton, Silvia Shutton. Urban Assisted Living, room fifty one, Sheldon Shutton. Four one oh four Outlook Drive, Pittsburgh, Ruth Young and Wesly Young. Do those names and addresses sound familiar?”

His mouth hung open for a moment, like a fish. “Y-yeah.” I smiled beneath my mask, an involuntary action. It was good my mask was faceless, otherwise my target would have seen me grinning.

“Good. I’m only so good at remembering things like that. If you start telling me names and addresses, I might start forgetting where your family lives.”

He stammered, unable to form a coherent string of words. I pushed my knee into his stomach, slowly forcing the air out of him. I relented when he stopped struggling.

“Okay, okay, okay.” My target was crying at this point. “My uh, boss. His name is Brax. I uh, don’t know his last name. He lives in Oakwood, Lynn street. I don’t know the number - I’ve only visited him once.”

I slowly pushed my knee into his stomach again.

“His car.” The man wheezed. “It has a custom number plate, Zeus, like the god. It’s a yellow Ferrari. It's easy to spot.”

“Why should I care about him!?” I shouted, inches away from his face.

“His phone. The lieutenants keep in contact with everyone, making sure we keep moving the product around, that sort of shit. It’ll have names, addresses, even cape shit.”

Hmmph. I lessened my grip on the man and put my knife back inside my ribs. “Good.”

I grabbed the brick of cocaine that had fallen onto the ground and smashed it into his face. Powder flew everywhere, most of it onto him. Almost immediately he began coughing and retching. After a moment he fell over, shaking and convulsing as he began to overdose.

A quick search of his pockets revealed a phone. I dialed 911. “There is a guy overdosing behind the George Street Auto Shop. I’ve put him into the recovery position.” The last part was a lie.

I didn’t hear the reply, as I had already tossed the phone away. This wasn’t the best night, but it was far from bad. I’d hurt the Scene just a little, and gotten a potentially useful nugget of information. I took a moment to change back into my clothes, then began making my way to my base.

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My base was as secluded as you can get, whilst still being in the heart of Manhattan. Behemoth had razed a path through the city, and when they rebuilt parts of it, instead of demolishing what remained, they had simply built over the ruins. Great concrete pillars held aloft a concrete sky, whilst abandoned homes and forgotten neighborhoods lurked below. I had settled into a relatively intact apartment block, utilizing the ground floor as my lab and the upper floor as my living quarters.

Other outcasts had claimed the Underground as their home, but they were content to leave my small space alone. I’d even made a non aggression pact of sorts with the Tunnel Rats, who’d been haunting these thirty or so city blocks of space for the last eight or so years. Ironically enough, they were more than happy to let me cull the rat population. Living organisms needed food to live, and living organisms were all I could make.

I hopped through the window I hadn’t trapped and made my way to my lab. A squirt of pheromones caused my bodysuit to shuck itself off. It wriggled along the floor towards its nest, crawling over someone's foot as it did.

“Fuck me, thats creepy.”

I dashed to my rack of guns, grabbing one of the nephrolithiasis launchers. As my hand wrapped around it, a set of legs erupted from the fungal membrane. The pistol forced itself from my hand and scurried away into the dark.

“Calm down, please.”

I grabbed my half finished minigun, grasping it extra firmly so that it couldn’t escape. When I held down the trigger, the spine didn’t begin rotating. Hundreds of insect legs had clogged the insides. I threw the gun at the intruder, but it quickly grew a pair of wings, and flitted away from her.

“Fucking christ, I’m bleeding to death here. Can you calm your tits, sister?”

I looked at the intruder properly. A woman with a delicate frame. She wore a pair of emerald green tights and a low cut blouse. In lieu of hair, she had long vines adorned with flowers sprouting from her head. Her jacket was pressed against her stomach, the poor lighting of my lab doing little to hide the blood.

Laurel. New York had over a thousand capes, but I recognised her. It’d be hard not to. The hair, the blatant sex appeal, the fact she wore no mask. She was the type of villain parents hated and the media loved. Her partner’s recent notoriety only added to hers.

“I’m not your sister, villain. Get out of her before you face my scorn.”

She cackled, then began coughing heavily. “I can’t believe you actually say stuff like that. You vigilantes are all the same.” Laurel looked down at her wound, then flinched. “Are you going to just stand there, or are you going to let me bleed out?”

“I don’t really have a problem with that. Some of my creations might enjoy the taste of long pork.”

“Brutal.” She coughed some more. “How does this sound? Fix me up or I’ll trash your lab. All the shit you’ve made from plants? Ruined, in the blink of an eye.”

I scoffed. “You’re sure you can trust the big bad biotinker? Aren’t you afraid I’m going to turn you into a monster or something?”

“That's not your style. Torture, maybe, but that Lab Rat shit? Nah.” Laurel replied.

“And what if I patch you up and hand you over to the PRT? You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a tranquilizer or a regenerative serum.”

“True.” She wheezed, then slid down the wall. A trail of blood marred the space behind her. “How about I sweeten the pot? You hate The Scene right?”

I nodded, suddenly curious to hear what she had to say.

Laurel continued speaking after seeing my reaction. “I know where their money stash is.”

“Bullshit. They’ve spread out all their operations.”

She scoffed. “Not the money. You think that they’re going to give their thugs and dealers twenty grand each to look after? Drugs are one thing - cash is another. Give a man twenty grand and they would just leave the city. Nah, they keep their money in a really safe spot.”

I got closer to her. “Where. Tell me.”

“Nuh uh. Gunshot wound first. I’ve been waiting here for hours now. I’m pretty sure I’m going to die in the next half hour. Demons has been whispering in my ear for the last ten minutes, and let me tell you, I’m not ready to go to hell.”

Fuck. I heaved her onto my shoulder, eliciting a drawn out moan of pain. I was a little more gentle placing her down on one of my tables, sweeping away the bones and chitin that were part of my attempt at making power armor. I didn’t want to damage anything that I hadn’t finished building.

“Stay still. I need to grab my stuff.”

Laurel grunted, then did the exact opposite of what I said, prodding at her wound.

The hives were my first stop. I grabbed three of the unprimed injector wasps and yanked out their stingers. Normally I’d be more careful, utilizing every single part of my creatures, but time was of the essence here. I dipped each injector into a different tank, making sure they had filled to the brim, before rushing back to Laurel.

“Those are some big needles.” Her false bravado did little to hide her fear.

“Nature often triumphs over humanity. Bee stingers are sharper than any needle you’ll find in a hospital. The tips of these are ten times smaller than a bee’s stinger.”

“They’re the size of knitting needles!”

“The tips are the sharp part. The rest of it needs to be rigid enough to be fired out of a gun.” I held up the first needle. “You got shot right?”

She nodded.

“This one has a metal eating bacteria inside it. Don’t scream.” I prodded the wound with the injector. Almost immediately Laurel began screaming out. I placed my hand over her mouth. The vines on her head began spasming widely, leaving red welts all over my arm and hand.

Once she stopped screaming, I swiftly jabbed her with the next two needles. Her entire posture relaxed.

“Ahhh, thatsss better. Why'd that hurrt?” She was struggling to keep her eyes open at this point.

“The bacteria bonds with metal to become a corrosive substance. I basically poured acid into your wound. It reacts poorly to regeneration - I uh, made it for um, this specific cape - so I couldn’t use the regeneration or antibiotics on you first and you’ve passed out. Great.”

Laurel looked peaceful now. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. Her wound was beginning to scab over. It looked like her liver had been nicked, so I’d have to replace the entirety of the damaged tissue, but in the meanwhile, at least she wouldn’t die of blood loss or anything.

I dragged a man-pig out of its nest and began cutting it open.

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The parasite I had put inside Laurel released a blast of pheromones. She had finally awoken. I’d placed her in my bed as she recovered. All of the other beds in the apartment were ruined, either by water damage or rats. I didn’t sleep much nowadays, so it wasn’t a huge deal. I finished detaching the spine from the nine foot long snake’s flesh and set it aside for later.

Most of the apartment building had been severely water damaged after it had been built over. Water had a way of making its way from the Overground, dripping down from the ceiling. An artificial rain of sorts. A lack of functioning sewage meant that parts of the underground were flooded, and nearly every building had some form of water damage. I’d fixed the damage here by spreading a fungus throughout the building. It absorbed, purified and stored moisture, whilst also reinforcing the building. It was probably my best invention that wasn’t for fighting or hunting people. My power struggled to come up with out of combat creations, so I had to cleverly work around this restriction. This fungus was originally meant to suck out a person’s blood, turning them into a dry husk.

Regardless of its origin, I was glad I made it. I’d broken my leg climbing the stairs to the second floor within my first week of inhabiting this place. That wasn’t that big of a deal to me - I’d suffered far worse than broken bones - but still, it was the principle of the thing.

I jogged upstairs and opened the door to my room. Laurel had her eyes shut, and was staying still.

“I know you’re awake.”

“Ah, I see.” She didn’t bother trying to get out of the bed. I had tied her down with some bedsheets I scavenged from a Bed Bath and Beyond that was down the road. I’d hate to have to try and capture her if she escaped. “You know, normally I’m the one tying my partners up in bed. It's… interesting being on the other end.”

“Don’t be foul.” A patch of wall caught my eye. The top layer of the fungus had been removed. I looked under the bed. The missing fungus had sprouted a set of legs and a menacing set of mandibles. I squashed it, then tossed it on the bed. After a pause, I sighed, and untied Laurel.

“My safeword is eyepatch, just so you know.”

I hated people like her. I could never tell if they were flirting or mocking me. They were like two tongued vipers, every word and sentence having two meanings. If I ever got insulted, they could just hide behind the other meaning, and make me seem like the asshole.

“Just tell me where the money is.”

Laurel pushed herself out of the bed, wincing as she did so. The external parts of the injury had already healed, but her liver and colon needed more time to acclimate to the replaced tissue. I put my hands on her shoulders, and pushed her back onto the bed. A flash of panic was quickly replaced by a flirtatious expression.

“Stop fucking moving. It took me five hours to fix you. I’ll get pissed if you ruin my work.”

“So you consider me as one of your projects now? How possessive.” She waggled an eyebrow at me.

I held her face in place, and put mine close enough that I could feel her breath on my lips. “Money. Where is it?”

She didn’t say anything. I could see that she was thinking about something, her eyes glimmering with schemes and trickery. After the drawn out pause, she smiled.

“I’m not telling.”

I started squeezing her skull. She squealed loudly. “Ow! I’m not telling you right now! But I will! Later!”

I stopped squeezing. “Speak.” I growled.

“Well, it isn’t kept in some warehouse or guys' garage, I’ll tell you that. It's hidden away in a place you’ll never find. And they’ve got, what? Ten capes?”

“Twelve.”

“Right, twelve capes. You piss them off, and blam, twelve capes are suddenly gunning for your ass. Do you actually think you could handle that?”

“So what, you expect me to do nothing?”

“I expect you to wait. Once I’m fully recovered, we can work together.”

A full bellied laugh escaped my stomach. “We? As in us? Working together? Are you crazy?”

She looked indignant. I finally offended her. “I’m not crazy. We’d make a good team. Nidus and Laurel. I control plants, you build crazy shit with them. I'm sexy and you're handsome. We both hate The Scene - it all works out!”

I shook my head and chuckled. “Sounds to me I’m your rebound. Can’t cope with being by yourself now that your precious Door to Stygia joined up with the Protectorate.”

A blur, then a sharp pain on my cheek. Laurel had slapped me. Tears were welling up in the corner of her eyes. I’d really pushed her buttons with that last remark. I rubbed the tender flesh, the numbing effect of my regeneration already kicking in.

“Sorry.” I didn’t mean it, and I wasn’t good at apologizing or thanking people, but it was better than saying nothing. Probably.

“She goes by Slipthrough now. And her decision was something we had discussed. It was for the best.”

“Whatever, I guess. Sorry.” Fuck, why did I say sorry twice?! “Do you actually think teaming up with me is a good idea?”

She looked at me as I was stupid. “Duh, of course? You could tinker up a giant tree or something and let me control it.”

“See, this is what I fucking hate about people. They see a Tinker, and they’re all like ‘Why don’t you go and make me a bunch of stuff for free’. No. Fuck them, fuck you.” I started walking away.

“Wait, wait, stop.” Laurel scrambled out of the bed, then doubled over in pain. “Fuck. Just stop.”

I let her catch her breath.

“Information. People look at me and think I’m just some weakling who animates potted plants and shrubs, but that's only half my power. Aren’t you curious how I found this place?”

I was actually. She somehow snuck in without setting any of my traps off either. “Go on.”

“I sense plants all around me. For thousands of feet. And I say plants loosely. Pollen, the wood in your house, the vegetables in your fridge. Your lab was basically a giant shining light to me.”

“Awesome, you can sense wood. How is that going to help us?”

“To quote Sun Tzu, knowing is half the battle. Informational advantage, baby.”

“GI Joe said that, not Sun Tzu, you dipshit.”

Laurel rolled her eyes, and scoffed. “It doesn’t matter. Capes get stronger when they work together, and our powers? You can’t deny the synergy.”

Hmm. “You said you can sense pollen?” Laurel nodded. “Can you tell the difference between different types of pollen? Say, if they came from different flowers?”

“Totally. If I focus on stuff, I get a really detailed picture. It blurs together if I’m not paying attention, but otherwise…”

An idea was beginning to form. I wanted to start working on it, but first, I had to deal with her.

“Stay here. You’ll need a couple more days of rest before you can move around normally. I need to build some things. Don’t piss me off or disturb me.”

I got up and walked away, slamming the door shut.

“Okay, alrighty then.” I heard her mutter.

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“Soooo.” A voice whispered into my ear. I jumped out of my seat and grabbed a spike. Laurel didn’t seem to care, as she draped herself onto a stool. “Watcha doing?”

“I’m working. I told you to stay in bed.”

“But I’m bored.” Laurel whined. She put on a pouty face. “And I wanted to see my new BFF. Not that you can see much in this dump. How can work like this? Can’t you tinker up some light bulbs?”

I stammered. Too many questions, several lines of conversation at once. I needed to take a moment.

“No.” I blurted out.

“No?”

“I can’t make lightbulbs. Only organic stuff. Glow-worms maybe. And this place isn’t a dump, so don’t call it that.”

“Ah, my bad. This abandoned apartment building with no lighting, heating, WiFi or any amenities of sorts is actually an oasis of refuge.”

“It has WiFi.”

“Oh crap, really?”

I reached for my laptop and pushed it over to her. She eagerly grabbed it and began typing away. Dull pulses of discomfort went throughout my body. I was stupid to let her near my belongings.

Laurel glanced up at me. Her brow creased every so slightly. Was she mad?

“Am I going to find something naughty in your browser history? I’m sex positive, so don't worry about it.”

“Ew, no. No, no, no. I don’t look at that stuff. I don’t like it.”

“If you say so.” She tapped away for a few more minutes, then shut the laptop. I continued dissecting the insect I had pinned onto my workbench. Laurel was looking at me with a keen intensity. I deliberately cut an artery so that blood would squirt onto her face.

“Eww, it’s sticky.”

I mumbled an apology.

She wiped the blood off her face with her already bloodstained jacket, then started making an annoying popping sound with her lips.

“Stop that.”

“Sorry.” She paused for a moment. “You know, I thought you’d be all over the chance to start explaining your… creations. Isn’t that a Tinker thing? You guys like talking about your stuff?”

“Only on TV. Its one of those stereotypes you see, kind of like how Brutes are dumb, or plant controllers are incredibly obnoxius.”

She didn’t take the bait. “Whoa, I’ve never seen anything on TV that had a plant controller in it. We are a rare breed.”

“Cuckoo Tree had one as the main character. His power is meant to represent the change in traditional male roles in society. He’s a plant controller in an urban environment, and both him and his power don’t fit in until he starts adapting to the shift in circumstances.”

“Whoa. Fancy. So you're into films and stuff.”

“What, did you expect I spent all my time hunting, tinkering or brooding?”

“Honestly, yeah. You’ve got the vibe down. I mean, you have an honest to god lair of all things. Like, not just some dude's basement or whatever, but an actual sickass, mushroom infected, underground, abandoned part of the city lair.”

I smirked. It was pretty cool. And this was the perfect chance to get her to stop annoying me. “I have it downloaded, if you want to watch it.”

“You said it's about a guy, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll pass. I don’t watch things with male leads.”

“What?”

“I don’t watch things with male leads.” She said that like how you’d say the sky is blue. “I don’t like those things.”

“Those things?” I asked.

“Men.”

“What?” I was stunned by this point.

“Yeah.” She began inspecting her nails. “I just don’t like them that much. Honestly, I kinda hate them all.”

“So you’re what? A sexist?”

“Mhm.”

I laughed. Loudly. I couldn’t believe this. I put my tools down. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

“Nope. I mean, it's not like I want to eradicate them all. I just find them annoying. And when they start speaking, ugh. It makes me feel sick.”

“I can’t believe this. An actual man hating supervillain has wandered into my lair, and has manipulated me into helping her. Am I in Honduras again? Am I still hallucinating? Because this can’t be real.”

She huffed. “Men ruled the world for the last ten thousand years. Why can’t it be our turn?”

I didn’t have a reply. The conversation didn’t die, but instead awkwardly lingered in the air, unresolved and unfinished. “I was one of those… things once.” Fuck, why did I say that? “Used my power to fix myself.”

Laurel inspected me up and down, her amber eyes oddly visible in the dark, almost like a cat’s eyes. “Mmm, you made the right choice sweety. Good to have you on the right team.”

A knot of tension I didn’t know I had unraveled itself. Why did I care about her opinion? This villain was getting into me, trying to twist me around her finger. I needed to be careful.

“Are you going to finally tell me where the cash is?”

“Just can’t wait, can you?”

I shook my head. “I could make something useful in preparation. I don’t want to waste my time.”

“Fair enough. You know who Red Wraith is, right?”

Obviously I did. “The leader of The Scene. The epitome of douchebags. Has ghost powers - makes himself and others invisible and intangible until they start attacking you or try to move stuff around.”

“Yeah, that's where you’re wrong. His power isn’t invisibility or intangibility at all. What he actually does is enter an alternative world. Slips between ours and his, moves past obstacles and attacks in his ghost world, then stabs you in the real one.”

“And you know this how?”

“My old partner. Her power is similar - so similar that they share the same alternative world. She’s basically his archnemesis. He can’t do anything against her.”

“Huh.” That was an interesting tidbit. I didn’t know powers could intersect like that. “So, what does it have to do with the money? Does he keep it in his ghost world?”

“Yup. Before they launder it, they store it there. We’re talking at least four million at any given time.”

I sighed, loudly. “Well, that's fantastic. How do you suppose we enter an alternative dimension? I’m not Haywire or Dragon, I only work with plants and meat.”

“Iunno. Beat Red Wraith up until he wants to give us the money?”

This was a fucking stupid idea. “Are you dumb? How do you plan on beating up a person who can teleport to a different dimension? By punching the air?”

“Look, I’m going to be completely level with you. I was just spitballing ideas to try and get you to save my life. I have absolutely no clue how to do this. But if you have a plan, I’m totally down to help.”

What a conniving bitch. I slammed my head onto the workbench.

She kept talking. “But I mean, you’re a Tinker, so you can basically do anything if you have enough time, right? You could build interdimensional tardigrades, or a mind control device, or a four dimensional tree that teleports people or something.

The innards of my grenade launcher twitched - the nerves firing off periodically as I ran diagnostics on them. The pea sized brain I had put inside the weapon had gotten injured and hadn’t healed properly.

“That could work.” I murmured.

“Huh?” Laurel leaned over. “The four dimensional tree idea?”

I shook my head. “No, of course not. Are you stupid? The mind control device. It wouldn’t be easy, but I can make one. I’d need some really annoying to get stuff though.”

“Like what?” She asked, eagerness present in her voice.

“A parahuman who can control people. Preferably alive, but just the brain could work.”

“Sounds like a plan, then.”

I looked up from my spot. Laurel had a determined look on her face. She was being serious about this.

“Are you for real? You’re willing to kidnap or kill another parahuman, just to get some money?”

“Not just any other parahuman. The Scene has the bling dude. You know, the one who controls people with gold and jewels and stuff.”

“Avarice. And he doesn’t mind control you with gold, he makes you extremely greedy, to the point that you'll listen to anyone you think is rich - say, a guy covered in 24 carat chains.”

“How is that not mind controlling you with bling? Whatever, would his brain work?”

It would, actually.

Laurel must have seen my expression, because she smirked. “And because it’s The Scene, no need to feel guilty, right?”

Shit, she was right. This could work. And we could use their rank and file to test out the technology.

I chuckled. “You know what, this does sound like a good plan. And I think I know exactly where to start.”

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New York was often called the City That Never Sleeps, but out in the suburbs of Staten Island? It got pretty drowsy. Laurel and I stuck to the shadows as we made our way. It pained me to acknowledge it, but Laurel wasn’t half bad at sneaking about. I was fantastic at it - my crusade of retribution only honed the skills I developed in the jungles and cities of Panama. Survival was nature’s greatest teacher, and survival is what I’m great at.

Laurel was keeping up with me. Surprising for someone with literal vines for hair. Maybe it was her mutated appearance that made her good at this? She disappeared from my hideout to grab spare clothes and supplies from her apartment yesterday. I supposed she had to get around unnoticed somehow. And if I didn’t know to look for them, I would’ve completely missed her grassy creatures as they scurried between cars and fences.

A number plate reading Zeus. That gangster wasn’t wrong - Brax’s car really was an eyesore. An F430 Ferrari in obnoxious yellow. I’d scouted his house this morning, taking note of everything, including his vehicle.

“He’s on the top floor. Lying down, I think,” whispered Laurel.

“Bedroom then. Follow me.” I stalked up to the front door, pulling a dagger out of my ribs and slotting it into the gap between the door and the doorframe. The metal eating bacteria made quick work of the locking mechanism. Most of Laurel’s plants squirmed their way into the house before I even fully opened the door. They were cockroach-esque in appearance and fully capable of crawling on walls, much like how I could.

I hoisted my grenade launcher and fired off two shots - one into the kitchen on the first floor, and the second at the top of the stairs. Plumes of spores coated every surface, rapidly spreading until a thin layer of fungi covered every surface in the house. I heard Brax exclaim from his room, prompting Laurel to dash up the stairs with her plantroaches. The man screamed - loudly. Not that I was worried. Noise dampening fungus - a project that had been collecting dust for a long while. I was glad to be putting it to use.

I made my way to the second floor bedroom. Laurel was leaning against the doorframe, whilst Brax was spread eagle on his bed, each limb pinned down by four plantroaches. I stood beside him, watching his panic turn to horror, then to uncertain resignation.

“Hello Brax. Nice place you’ve got. Could do with a bit of professional cleaning, mind you. I think you’ve got a mold problem.”

He let out a nervous chuckle, the faintest hint of hysteria present.

“I’ve got good news for you, Brax.” I sat down on the bed and stroked one of the plantroaches, running my fingers through its grassy fuzz. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Oh thank fuck,” he exclaimed, letting out a sigh of relief.

“But I am.” Laurel had a giddish smile plastered on her face. The plantroaches holding down his left leg began squeezing the limb. Brax screamed until she let up.

A plantroach crawled from beneath his pillow resting under his head. Brax was hyperventilating.

He’d be ready to talk now. Fear was the greatest weapon. “We know you’re part of The Scene. We’re looking for Avarice. Where is he?”

A blank look of stupidity appeared on his face, as he struggled to comprehend my simple question. “I uh, I don’t know.”

Crunch. The roaches broke one of his legs.

He screamed. Laurel giggled.

“Where. Is. Avarice.”

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I swear!” His bed sheets were soaked with sweat. My enhanced nose was picking up all of his repulsive stench. “I’m just a distributor! I’m not involved in the cape stuff!”

I hummed in thought. “Maybe don’t just break the entire limb at once this time? Start from his wrist, and work your way up?”

“Wait wait wait!”

I shared a look with Laurel. Her critters had begun squeezing his right arm, but hadn’t broken it. Not yet, at least.

“A fight. Tomorrow night. With the Executioners. They’ve been scooping up our territory ever since we scaled back our operations. Midknight and Switchblade are getting involved, and if they’re involved, so will Avarice.”

“Tell me more. Where is this fight?”

“The car wash by Ocean View cemetery. The Executioners have been seen coming in and out of there. That's all I know, I swear.”

Fuck. Getting involved in a fight would be risky. I could catch them off guard and hopefully get Avarice then. But if I fucked up, it was possible I’d have two gangs gunning for me. Three, if the Protectorate decided to interfere.

But it was the only lead I had.

“Thank you, Brax. We’re leaving now.”

The man relaxed a fraction, then tensed when he saw me pull a knife out of my ribs. I jabbed it into his thigh, causing him to thrash against his restraints. After twelve or so seconds, he fell asleep. Once I was sure he wasn’t having an allergic reaction, I gave him a second dose of the tranquilizer. He wouldn’t be waking up for a couple days.

I looked at Laurel. “You did well tonight. But we need to get back to the lab soon. I need to prepare for the fight tomorrow.”

“You got it sister.”

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

The Executioners were what I referred to as a ‘theme team’. It wasn’t uncommon for a group of capes to have some sort of unifying motif; be that the D.A.R.E’s 80’s themed iconography and drug paraphernalia, The Animal’s animal costumes and names or The Amazon’s all female team.

The Executioners took a darker approach to their theming. Each of their capes was named and themed after a type of execution. They even went as far as incorporating their themes into their costumes. Headsman carried an axe, Guillotine adorned herself with blades, Lethal Injection carried needles that he stabbed you with. It would’ve been comical if they didn’t publically kill their enemies on a fortnightly basis.

I guess that sort of behavior should've been expected from a group of people who name themselves after ways to kill people.

Laurel and I were camping inside the second floor of some apartment building that I had broken into. Our perch overlooked the supposed gang hideout. I wanted Laurel to hide out atop the deli on the other side of the road, so that we’d have two angles of attack if any fighting occurred, but she said that I could “Bite her ass” and that there was no chance in hell that I could get her to sit outside in the cold for a fight that might not even happen.

I guess I could’ve hidden atop the deli myself, but Laurel was right - it was freezing. I didn’t like getting cold.

“Any activity?” I asked. Laurel glanced away from the window to look at me, then grimaced.

“No. And what is it with you and keeping deadly weapons inside you? Ugh, it makes me sick.”

She was talking about my sword. It was my first big project I made after Panama. I didn’t have a lab back then - or any sort of long term residence, so I mainly stuck to bombs and knives. Things I could make in a few hours.

My sword was pretty great. It was designed to inflict grievous wounds and inject venomous payloads. I could swap between a paralytic agent, a pain inducing one and a flesh eating toxin, using the special organ at the base of my spine. Simply sheathing and unsheathing the blade would let me swap the poison mid fracas.

“It’s convenient. I can carry them in my civilian mode, my poison and bacteria producing organs can refill them automatically, and most importantly, it cuts down on the bulk. My power is finicky when it comes to things that aren’t weapons or armor. Things tend to get bulky and inefficient if I can’t stab someone with it. So I try to be efficient where I can, just in case I have to use something cumbersome.”

“Ah.” She rubbed her chin as if she was capable of deep thought. “So, working on anything cool?”

“Tons of things. My suit of armor is the big thing. It's about seventy percent done, but I’ve put it on hold for the moment. I want it to be modular - I had this idea of putting wings or tentacles or a mortar on the back of it - but to make it modular, I actually need to finish my tentacles, and those are being a pain in the ass.”

“Why is that?”

I shrugged. “Like I said, my power doesn’t cooperate with me if I’m not making a weapon. I basically have to trick it. The tentacles are meant to grab things, or to act as limbs that can hold onto walls.”

“Like Doc Ock?” She asked.

I nodded. “Like Doc Ock. I had to add fifteen inch blades to the end of them, just so that my power would let me make any progress.”

Laurel looked pensive. “That's a bummer, I guess.”

The conversation lapsed into an awkward silence. I already finished double checking my sword, but I continued fiddling with it. I had nothing else to pass the time with.

Laurel glanced at me. “Sooooo…. Uh, actually, nevermind.”

I sighed, loudly. “Say your words.”

“Well… It just with all this talk about your power and how it's some sort of crazy serial killer, I was wondering if, well… you know?”

“I don’t know.” This was becoming very tiring.

“Have you killed before?”

“Have you?” I deflected.

“Yup.” She had a note of pride in her tone. Disgusting. There was nothing to be proud about when it came to murder. “Both of my parents. They had it coming.”

“Gnarly.” I replied, non committedly.

“You didn’t answer my question, Nidus.” She said, playfully. Back to the flirting again. Gross.

I put my sword back inside my spine. I could be equally as disgusting. “I have.”

“Cool. Can I ask how many?”

Why did people insist on asking me questions? Annoying. “I don’t know.”

She barked with laughter. “You don’t know?”

“I wasn’t keeping track. Somewhere between thirty to fifty people. It got a bit indiscriminate at the end.”

Laurel whistled. “Damn. And I thought my patricide was impressive.”

“Parricide. Patricide is killing your father, Parricide is killing your mother and father.”

“Hey, you never know. I could’ve had two dads.”

“Did you?”

“Nah.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You know what I like about us?”

Oh my fucking god. Could this fight come anytime sooner? “What do you like about us, Laurel?”

“We both be gay, and do crimes.”

“I’m not a lesbian.”

Laurel snorted. “Same. I’m bisexual.”

I furled my brow. “I thought you hated men though?”

“Yup.” She did that annoying thing where she popped the ‘p’ sound at the end. “I hate men, but I love what they have in their pants.”

I gagged.

“Yep, put a sock in their mouth and a paper bag over their head, and I’ll go al-”

“Stop! That's disgusting. You’re making me sick. Eugh.” Anger quickly overtook my nausea. She had made me raise my voice when we were both trying to be discreet. What an idiot.

“I’m making you sick?” She sounded equal parts incredulous and worried.

“Yes!” I forced myself to calm down some more. “Yes, you are. I don’t like… kissing and stuff. I just can’t handle anything like that.”

“Oh my god.” She exclaimed, apologetically. “I’m so sorry. I’ve been such a huge dick to you this whole time.”

Something we agreed on. “You have, yes.”

“I just thought you were playing hard to get. You know, like a ‘will they or won’t they’ sort of thing.”

“I don’t even know your real name, how could it be anything other than ‘they won't’.”

“Lauren. I’m called Lauren.”

I would’ve raised an eyebrow, but my skinsuit covered every inch of my body. “Your real name and cape name have a one letter difference. Are you being serious?”

“Yeah, well, it's hard to keep a secret identity with vines growing out of your scalp.” Her hand reached out for hair, almost instinctively. I watched as she tenderly stroked it. “Same reason why I don’t bother with a mask.”

Ah. Made sense, I guess. Not really, actually, but I wasn’t going to argue with her. “That's a bummer, I guess.”

“So what's your name? You know, if we’re trading secrets.”

It hurt that I had to think about it. “Um. Arleen?”

Laurel laughed. “You sound a bit uncertain about that.”

“I’m not. My name is Arleen. It’s a good name.”

“Sounds cute.” She smiled. “I like it.”

“Yep.”

We settled into silence once more. It felt different this time. Intimate, almost.

I didn’t like that.

“Holy moly.”

“Holy moly?” I asked.

“They’re here.”

I dashed across the room and looked out the window. Three capes were piling out of a Honda Civic, each carrying a lit molotov. Midknight pulled his arm back and threw it at the car wash. Switchblade and Avarice copied him.

The building was ablaze. An orange light was illuminating the street - although the space around Midknight was pitch black as his power kicked in.

Two figures emerged from the burning building. I recognised Lethal Injection immediately. The other one had been set on fire.

No. I corrected myself, they were fire. That’d be Pyre, The Executioner’s pyromaniac. Searing hot plasma lingered where they walked.

I swore.

“What’s wrong Nidus?” Laurel was pressed up against me, looking out the small window as well.

“Pyre is the worst possible matchup for Midknight. You know how his power works?”

“He absorbs light to heal, resurrect and enter a temporary but powerful shadow form. Yeah, I get why Mrs Matchstick is only going to make him worse, but we’re not here for Midknight. We cut off Avarice’s head or whatever, and we bail.”

She didn’t get it. We couldn’t just attack them and run. We had to win. We had to prove our strength. We wouldn’t strike fear into them otherwise.

“Pyre is going to start setting buildings on fire. Get to the bottom floor and make sure you have an escape route. Focus your minions Midknight. If he’s resurrecting, he isn’t attacking us.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll focus on Switchblade and Avarice.”

She began speaking, but I had already jumped through the window, my grenade launcher at the ready. Switchblade was quick to react. His arm unfurled into a thirty foot long blade quicker than the eye could react, then retracted back into his arm just as fast. His blade dug into my ribs, then flung me to the side. I collided with a light pole. It was hard to breathe. I was pretty sure one of my ribs had punctured my lung.

It didn’t matter. I fired my grenade launcher at the group. Switchblade swiped the projectile out of the air, then began screaming in agony. I grinned.

Metal eating bacteria. Many changers kept their mutations hidden within their body. I wasn’t a hundred percent certain, but I had always suspected Switchblade’s blades were actually his bones. The bacteria would be eating through his entire skeleton at this very moment.

Or not. His right arm had sloughed off at the shoulder. Were only parts of his skeleton metal? Or was it a dense enough metal that they had already gorged themselves full?

My ribbed had already pushed itself back into place. I stood up and dove behind a parked car. I could hear the sounds of buzzing wings and scurrying feet. Laurel’s plantroaches. There were also the lumbering footsteps of that tree she had uprooted from the park earlier.

I slotted another shot into the grenade launcher - just a regular slug round - and looked out from cover. A bladed arm shot towards me.

Switchblade’s attack barely missed me as I ducked. That was close.

.......

Crap. There was a blade in my gut. He hadn’t bothered to wait for me to reveal myself, and had just stabbed through the car.

Another blade pierced through the car, grazing my arm. I fired my slug round blindly, but the third attack told me that I missed.

Instead of reloading, I simply smashed one of my grenades against the side of the car. The bacteria quickly ate through the chassis - and Switchblade’s other arm, as he tried to attack me for the fourth time.

I ran out from behind the ruined car, and promptly fell over. Fuck, he had hit my spine and the regeneration was still busy healing my ribs and lung. I pulled myself along the ground, using my wall climbing gauntlets and strength to move faster than what would’ve been normal. My goal was a transformer box across the road.

Someone had thrown a grenade at me. Shrapnel buried itself into my skinsuit, but didn’t puncture my body underneath. With a final heave, I pulled myself behind the transformer.

A blast of plasma melted through it - and my right arm. What was the point of taking cover if everyone could just attack through it?

“Why the fuck are you attacking me?!” I yelled out. “We’re only after the Scene!”

Laurel’s bug-tree swung a giant claw at Lethal Injection.

“What the fuck Laurel?! Don’t attack the Executioners!”

The bug-tree looked at me, then began lumbering over to a transformed Midknight. His nine foot long blade of shadow buried itself in the creature, to little avail. A tree trunk arm swung through him, doing nothing as well. He was a fucking fifteen foot tall suit of shadow armor. Why the hell was she attacking him?!

My spine had healed enough for me to move. I got up from my ruined cover and drew my blade. I wouldn’t be able to reload my grenade launcher with only one hand.

Lethal Injection dashed towards me with a burst of enhanced speed. He swiped an oversized needle at me, but I intercepted it with my sword. Fuck. I was resistant to toxins, but if anyone could kill me with poison, it’d be this guy.

“The hell are you doing?” I screamed. “English, motherfucker! Do you understand?! Attack them, not me!”

Lethal Injection attacked twice more, forcing me onto the ruined slag of the transformer. It was a good thing my bodysuit was insulated for electricity, otherwise I might’ve just gotten shocked to death.

A pun about electric chairs came to mind.

Lethal Injection was wary to get close to me. The ground I was on was still burning hot, and as far as I knew, he didn’t have any sort of method to deal with extreme heat. We were at a standstill. Neither of us could risk getting closer.

A gun went off from behind me. The impact of the bullet was strong enough to throw me off balance. Lethal Injection tried to make a swipe at me, but I scrambled back onto my patch of red hot metal and concrete.

Avarice had snuck behind me and was taking aim with a gold plated revolver. I got it now. He had gotten his grips into Lethal Injection. Fuck, in fact, I could I feel power working itself on me. I had to get out of his line of sight.

Or I could just kill him.

I threw my sword at him. It arced through the air and hit the wall beside him. Why the hell would I do that? I’m right handed and none of my weapons were made to be thrown.

Screw it. I grabbed a handful of super heated gravel and threw it at him. He screamed as my improvised flak hit him. Two more shots impacted me as I ran at him, but I pushed through them and tackled him to the floor.

Lethal Injection was already rushing towards me. I ripped off Avarice’s biggest gold chain and tossed it at the other supervillain. He greedily scooped it up, then dropped it in disgust, the mind control vanishing like a snap of the fingers.

“Oh god, please don’t.”

I turned my attention back to this twerp. I couldn’t afford to get distracted. I put my hand against his throat and crushed it. He flailed pathetically as the last flickers of his life drained from him.

A nasally voice spoke out from behind me. “Protectorate’s coming.”

Lethal Injection was pointing down the road. Sirens accompanied by green and purple lights. Fuck. I grabbed my sword and began sawing off Avarice’s head. Lethal Injection didn’t see any reason to stick around, and began fleeing into the surrounding suburbs, assisted with bursts of super speed.

My frantic sawing wasn’t getting me far. This sword was made for tearing fleshing, not cutting through bone. I placed it flat on his neck and stamped on it three times. Avarice’s head rolled onto the sidewalk.

As I went to pick it up, a flying blur tackled me. One of the Protectorate - Mithral. A kinetic themed Alexandria package. I scrambled for one of my non lethal knives, then stabbed her six times in the back. Each strike barely broke her skin, but that was enough for the paralytic to kick in. She dropped me, then flew head first into the pavement.

Laurel’s critters were attacking the horde of PRT soldiers, giving me enough room to scoop up Avarice’s head and begin dashing away. Bug-tree was buried in foam, but had managed to grab someone in a colorful costume before doing so. Even so, I could see people in costumes rushing towards me. I had to carry Avarice’s head with my mouth as I climbed onto a building. Pyre had set it on fire, so hopefully the Protectorate wouldn’t follow me atop it.

Midknight was waiting for me. Flickering flames illuminated him and his hostage. Laurel looked at me with pleading eyes, unable to breathe properly with Midknight’s combat knife to her throat.

The next rooftop wasn’t that far. I had the head, and none of my other plans needed Laurel.

There was nothing stopping me from running.

I hated myself for this. I wanted to stay.

“The PRT are here. Can’t we postpone this for another time?”

“You killed my friends.” Midknight answered. His voice was emotionless, but the rest of his body language betrayed him, revealing his fury and sorrow.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” I lied.

“Fuck you.” He spat.

People below us were shouting. The building we were standing on shifted as part of it gave way.

Midknight was staring at me. The only thing I could look at was Laurel’s eyes.

I couldn’t handle people. There was nothing I could do to stop Midknight from slitting her throat.

The roof gave in.

I leapt across the gap. My body collided with Midknight. There was blood. His blood. My remaining hand was full, so I sunk my teeth into his throat and tore the flesh of its bone. I didn’t stop after the first bite. I couldn’t.

Laurel was screaming at me. One of her arms was hanging onto part of the collapsed roof. The other was bent and bloodied. I had to stop eating.

It was dark. Midknight was absorbing the light from the flames, using it to heal his ruined flesh. I stamped down on his skull for good measure, even though I knew it wouldn’t kill him, and then I leapt upwards. I had to put Avarice’s head in my mouth again as I pulled Laurel off the ledge of the roof.

I heard a high pitch buzzing, then an ear splitting crack.

A basketball sized hole appeared in my chest. One of the PRT officers had fired a railgun at me. It had barely missed Laurel.

I landed in the alleyway, barely able to stand upright. Laurel threw her hand out. Seconds later people were screaming. She had set her critters on them, ordering them to bite and claw at wrists, ankles and faces.

The hole in my chest had destroyed part of my spine. I couldn’t run, so I stumbled forward, pulling Laurel with me. Already people were catching up to us, despite Laurel’s efforts, so I dropped her, and tore free the rib that held all of my grenades. Incendiary, oxygen eating, flesh eating, bioluminescent, pain inducing, any and everything.

There wasn’t an explosion, but there was a blast of heat, and then a wave of sickening cries.

I kept moving forward. We had to get off of Staten Island and back to Manhattan. From there I could get Laurel into the Underground, where we would both be safe. The car was parked right ahead. We had to get into it. I had gotten so far. I couldn’t lose now.

I rounded the corner. A woman was waiting for us, standing in front of the car.

Door to Stygia. Laurel’s old partner in crime.

Slipthrough. I corrected myself. She had changed her name.

“Lauren.”

“Lydia.

The pair were looking at each other. An emotion welled up inside me. A mixture of fear and jealousy? No. I wasn’t allowed to feel that. I needed to be angry. I needed to be hateful. I wouldn’t survive otherwise.

Slipthrough’s gaze settled on my broken form. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Was she perceiving weakness? My vulnerability? I would kill her if she tried to attack me.

She stepped aside. It was Laurel who did the heavy lifting this time as I was dragged into the backseat of the car. Slipthrough quietly observed me the entire time.

The car started. We drove away. Laurel sobbed, her tears of both relief and terror.

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

“Nidus. Nidus!”

The voice dragged me out of the deep dark abyss I was resting in. Not that it mattered. I could already feel it dragging me back inside it. I was ready for its warm embrace.

“Fucking hell! Arleen you stupid bitch, wake up!”

I groaned. “What?”

“You’re dying. What should I do?”

“Just let me. I’m tired of living.”

Laurel must’ve thrown something, because I heard something smashing against the wall. “Don’t say that shit! Think of the money. Think of it! We’ll stick it to the man and live like queens for the rest of our lives. Daiquiris, a private beach, a three story house in a country that's always warm.”

She wasn’t going to let me pass away in peace, was she?

I cracked open an eye. She had splayed me out on my lab’s workbench, knocking all my projects onto the floor. A distant part of my brain was mildly annoyed at the mess she had created.

“Do you see the red maggot creatures?”

Laurel hurried over to their tank. “These things?”

I nodded. “Grab two, then put them in my mouth.”

She had to tuck one of the foot long maggots in her armpit as she rushed over to me. Her left arm was limp, and I could see where the bone threatened to poke out from the flesh. How the hell did she manage to drive here?

The first maggot practically dove out of her hand and forced itself down my throat and into my guts.

Laurel puked.

“Stop vomiting and give me the other one. They refill my regeneration organ.”

Laurel tossed the second maggot onto my face, still wiping her dinner off her chin. My healing organ swelled in size. Normally two maggots would leave me bloated, but with this much damage? I needed the double dose.

“Good. We don’t want this to take days, so we’re going to speed up the process with a shortcut. Do you see the see-through snail shells?”

I was referring to my fish tanks. I had engineered a bunch of car sized snails with glass shells for some stupid idea that I scrapped. Nothing went to waste, mind you. Their shells made for great fishbowls.

“Okay, now do you see the bone fish? The ones that look like human bones with fins attached?”

“Yeah, I see them.”

“Good. Don’t stick your hand in there. They’ll attack you. Use my net to grab the spine and rib cage fish, then give them to me. And uh, don’t look at what I do.”

My partner gingerly carried the spinefish over to the workbench, then dumped it beside me. With my remaining hand, I grabbed it, then shoved it down the hole in my chest.

The fish tore out my damaged spine, then settled in the unoccupied space. I stifled a scream.

“Oh my god. Did you just rip your spine out?” Laurel squeaked.

“Yeah.” I chuckled. “Barely even stung. Now chuck me the ribcage fish.”

Laurel swore, then tipped the ribcage fish out of the net. She didn’t look away fast enough, and got to see the whole process. If we weren’t seventy feet underground, I would’ve told her off for screaming so loudly.

“Thank you Laurel. That's enough.” The regeneration was working much faster now. I sat myself up, then fell back down immediately. My body was barely functioning, even with the regeneration working again. I’d torn several muscles, and my tertiary lungs had filled up with blood after Switchblade stabbed me. That wasn’t even mentioning my arm and the hole in my chest.

Instead of sitting upright, I settled for turning onto my side. Laurel had slid down the wall, and was cradling her arm.

She was upset. I didn’t know what to say.

......

“Your arm is broken.”

Laurel snorted. “Your arm is missing.”

“Uh, if you want, you can use one of the maggots.”

“Fuck no.” She shuddered. “How did that even fit in you? It was as thick as my wrist.”

“Well you see, my throat produces a special enzyme that- nevermind. You can just cut it open and drink the juices. Not as efficient, but far more palatable.”

Laurel got up and began looking for a knife. One of my scalpels had fallen to the floor when she put me on the table, so she used that. After a moment's hesitation, she plunged the blade into the maggot and began gingerly drinking the fluid. Her face twisted into a grimace. The liquid was foul tasting - I knew that from experience. Still, I could already see the muscles in her arm writhing and beginning to heal.

That was close. Way too close. If I hadn’t already altered my body’s hormones, I knew I’d be in the middle of an adrenaline crash at this very moment.

“What the hell was that nonsense earlier?!”

I looked up at Laurel. “What nonsense?”

“You wanted to die. The fuck is up with that?!”

Why did you care? I shut my eyes and rolled onto my back. My slumber was interrupted by one of Laurel’s critters jumping onto my face.

I threw it off me. “Just leave! I can’t be with people! I don’t deserve it!”

She let something that was part way between a scream and groan. “Can you quit it with the bullshit edgy loner crap?! What is ‘I don’t deserve it crap’?!”

“I’m going to kill you if you stick with me. It happened before, and it will happen again. I tolerate you, fuck, I kind of even like you. I don’t want to lose someone again.”

“Bullcrap.” Laurel slammed her fist against the wall, then winced. She had used her bad arm. “People in our line of work die all the time. It's hardly your fault.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I mean I will kill you myself. I’m fucked in the head.”

Silence settled into the room, the only noises coming from creatures inside their homes.

I couldn’t look at her.

A shadow passed over me. Laurel sat down on my workbench next to me. A melancholic expression had settled onto her face.

She took a deep breath. “My parents were enamored with the idea of a celebrity child. Beauty pageants, acting classes, advertisements, the whole lot. That was my childhood. But it was never enough for them. So somehow they got it into their head that they wanted me to be a parahuman. I have this vague memory of my mum talking about how she wanted me to star on Keeping up with the Capedashians. Anyways, they somehow found this group of people who sold powers in a bottle.”

Laurel paused, then gave out a quiet chuckle. “Crazy, huh? I thought every cape got their power like that, until five years ago. But yeah, mum and dad come home, pour the power juice down my throat, and bam! Superpowered daughter. Except I get freaky vine hair and plant insects in the process. My parents were angry. First at the people who sold me powers, then at each other. I hadn’t left my room for a week at that point, because my parents were scared that if people saw my hair, I’d get kidnapped by villains or something.”

Tears were welling up in her eyes at this point. “One night they’re having a huge fight. We’re talking about screaming, throwing shit, hitting each other, the whole lot. I was in my room, listening to them. Then it all just stops. I heard them go outside, then come back inside a minute later. Both of them barged into my room at the same time. They wanted to get rid of my hair, s- so.” Laurel’s voice hitched. “So they grabbed a pair of garden shears. I didn’t know what to do, so I killed them.”

Laurel took a moment to wipe her eyes.

“Yeah, that uh, sucked, to put it kindly. I was only thirteen at the time and I didn’t know shit. So I ran off into the night, looking for some place to stay. Couple men with powers picked me up, made me part of their gang. I was only just a little kid, so I didn’t know how to fight back against them. I did everything they wanted; hurting, stealing, killing. One of the guys in charge, he liked to…”

She shuddered.

“Nevermind. I killed them too. Wandered around until I got here. Had just turned sixteen. Life was pretty miserable, but then I met Slipthrough. She was testing her powers out in the old greenhouse I was using as my base. There I was, the experienced and badass villain, whilst she was the doe eyed newbie. I won’t lie. I manipulated her into becoming a villain. But for those sweet four years, I was on top of the world. Me and her, making bank, humiliating assholes, being in love. It was great. Then she wanted to be a hero. Said that the Protectorate managed to get in contact with her, said that neither of us would face jail time if surrendered. I was… too scared. I’ve been doing this for seven years. I don’t know anything else. She left me behind, and took a piece out of me whilst doing so.”

I didn’t know what to say. This was too much and too little at the same time. I settled for putting my hand on her knee.

“So yeah, that's my tragic backstory.” She forced out a laugh. “You think you’re ready to tell me yours? What’s the cause of your lone wolf shtick?”

Laurel was looking down at me. Her eyes shone brightly in the dim light.

“I- I guess it started before I was even born. You Americans had people like Legend and Rime spearheading your gay rights movements, but Panama? Where I grew up? We had nothing like that. Our government is ruled by strong parahumans, and they don’t like people like me. Transgender people. Asexual people as well, but the transgender part was the main thing.”

Memories I didn’t like to think about flashed before my eyes.

“I had a friend. He was great. We joked that our lives would’ve been perfect if we had each other's body. Our dream was to leave San Miguelito and go to a place where we could get our treatments. But we needed money. So we got it into our stupid teenager brains that we would steal from the Villa Belle Tontos - some street gang that distributed drugs they smuggled from the canal.”

I sighed.

“Have you ever seen ten million in cash? It's a lot. We had to use three duffel bags to carry it all. But you don’t steal that much cash without people noticing. First it was all of the Tontos, then their hired mercs, then the vultures who had gotten word of what we had. We had to run somewhere that the cartels couldn’t go. That place was America. So we traveled by car when we could, and when we couldn’t, we carried three bags of money through the wilderness. It was stupid - we didn’t need that much. Blinded by greed, I suppose.”

This was the part of the story I didn’t like.

“It was in Honduras, just outside this town called Santa Barbara. We got sloppy. My friend got hurt. He was dying, but he was dying slowly. I had to drag three bags of money and an injured person down through the forest, all while armed men and capes looked for us. I managed to find a cave that we could hide in. They were all around us. I was staying quiet, but my friend was in pain. He wouldn’t stop crying and moaning. I was tired, broken, defeated. But I didn’t want to die. So I killed him. I got a rock and smashed it against his skull until he stopped making noises. I got my powers after that.”

I had to stop and calm myself. I’d get overwhelmed if I didn’t.

Laurel waited calmly for me to continue speaking.

“So I improvised my way out of Santa Barbara, and I kept doing that until I crossed the border into Texas. Of course, getting into the USA was harder than I expected. Do you remember that strain of mega-flu that got into the water supply around the border? That was me. I also lost all of the money at some point, which really stung. I’m pretty sure my parents got killed as well. I haven’t been able to contact them at all. Easily the worst decision of my life. I’m never stealing an exorbitant sum of money from a gang ever again.”

That made Laurel chuckle. I joined in too, although I wasn’t really in the laughing mood.

“Look.” Laurel paused for a second and looked me in the eyes. “I can promise you this. We’ll get that cash, and neither of us will get hurt. We’ll win, okay?”

I had my doubts about that. But the ball was already set into motion.

“Yeah.” I said. “We’ll win.”

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The final piece of my armor crawled up my leg and attached itself to my thigh, its teeth digging into my protective underlayer.

Laurel let out a long whistle.

“Damn. You look… You look like a badass.”

I flexed the tentacles on my back, experimenting with how they felt. Powerful, like me.

My armor made me bulky, the largest pieces an inch thick in parts. It was worthwhile - I could get shot in the chest and not even notice. Mobility was an issue, but that was why I added the tentacles to my suit. Each of them were six yards long, and had a blade attached to the tip. I could use them to climb on walls, crush things and stab people. Stuffing them and the rest of my weapons in the back of the van was a struggle.

I looked at Laurel. She was holding the mind control device with both hands, clearly afraid of dropping it.

“We’ve only got one shot with that, remember?” I said. “Once it's attached, we only have ten minutes before it breaks.”

“I know. We’ve been over this, remember?”

“Just making sure.”

She rolled her eyes, then put her ear plugs in.

I copied her, then opened the doors to the van and hopped out. Laurel followed me shortly afterwards.

Here we were. Laurel said that Slipthrough discovered The Scene’s money was hidden here - a funeral home in the most scenic part of Staten Island. This was their headquarters. All their unlaundered cash would be hidden here, slowly funneled out into the nearby businesses that they owned, getting cleaned in the process.

Our plan was simple. We would trash the place, lure them out, capture Red Wraith and make off with the money.

The Protectorate had an auxiliary headquarters nearby, so we’d be dealing with them as well. This was beyond risky. It was insane. But it was our only option. We had no other way to lure Wraith out, and even if we did somehow manage to do that, our mind control device had a time limit. It wasn’t like we could detain a man who could slip in and out of our dimension.

So here we were. In the middle of day, about to get the attention of two groups of capes, ready to knock over a funeral home.

I aimed my grenade launcher at the building.

Someone screamed.

I fired. The fleshy projectile splattered against the wall and quickly spread. Bloodstained mouths appeared and began wailing so loud I could feel them vibrating my bones. Even with the earplugs I made for myself and Laurel, it was still uncomfortable to stand next to.

The pollen grenades were next. I fired them into the air, watching the microscopic red plantlife burst out of the casing once the grenade reached the apex of its arc. Laurel would be able to sense anything that got dusted by it.

Laurel funneled her power into the plantlife nearby. Spindly trees grew claws, entire patches of grass became vibrant green moths and the thorns on a rosebush doubled in size, becoming venomous stingers in the process. They set off to start destroying the building, knocking holes in the windows and walls.

People were running away from us. Someone had crashed their car into a power pole, and was crawling away from the accident. I looked away from him.

There was movement from within the funeral home. All of a sudden, I began floating into the air. I quickly jabbed my tentacles into the ground, halting my movement. Several cars around me were already several yards in the air. My van in particular was floating directly above me.

Another movement from the funeral home. Gravity reset itself. The van fell onto me, but I simply shoved it off, barely worse for wear. The source of this effect would be Gravitas, the Scene’s gravity manipulator. Through the window, I saw that some of Laurel’s minions were swarming him, biting and tearing at his flesh.

Speaking of Laurel herself, she was clinging upside down onto a power pole, struggling to hold on to it and the mind control device at the same time. I dashed over to her and wrapped a tentacle around her waist, before setting her down.

Laurel said something, but I didn’t hear her with my earplugs in.

“What!?” I shouted.

She leaned in and shouted once more. “PRT!”

I looked behind me. Laurel was right. Two PRT armored vehicles had rounded the corner. That was faster than I had anticipated. This plan would fail if Red Wraith was too afraid to show up. I had to deal with the cops immediately.

Holstering my grenade launcher, I pulled out my SMG, or as what Laurel affectionately called it, my “terrifying wasp filled tommy gun”.

The PRT soldiers were quick to use the upturned cars as cover, or in one case, a fresh pile of containment foam, but it would matter little. I fired an entire magazine at them, and a cloud of wasp-like insects flew out, homing on their targets and burrowing underneath their armor to bite the vulnerable flesh. Some of the cops ineffectually tried swatting away the insects, but eventually they all succumbed to the pain and collapsed. I emptied another magazine in their general direction again, just for good measure.

A shirtless man wearing ocean blue pants and a mask ran past his fallen teammates. The exposed parts of his flesh were covered by a layer of water roughly five inches thick. My wasps were swarming around him, but were failing to get past the liquid. I recognised the man, but only vaguely. Some sort of Brute with water powers, evidently.

He was charging towards Laurel, but I intercepted him, raking a blade tipped tentacle across his knees. He stumbled, and where I had hit him, water had ballooned out. I attacked him again, this time striking against the water covering his chest. The blades barely penetrated the liquid, only sinking in an inch. It was if the water was incredibly dense - more akin to mercury or some other molten metal. Not that I had ever tried to stab mercury before.

The Brute changed courses, clearly aware that I wasn’t going to let him go after Laurel unhampered. He swung at me with a water covered fist, clipping me on the side. It hit my armor, but I still felt the impact. It was like getting hit by a car the size of a fist. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a couple hundred kilograms of water packed into such a tiny space.

Speculation aside, he clearly wasn’t hindered by the weight, as he unleashed a flurry of attacks. I jumped upwards, then grabbed onto a street light with my tentacles. As I hung upside down above him, I swapped my SMG for my grenade launcher, and loaded a napalm grenade.

The Brute clearly wasn’t an idiot, because he tried to dodge my attack. Sadly explosions were hard to dodge. Bacteria stuck to every nearby surface - including his hyper dense water - and after a brief moment, ignited. There was no immediate effect, and the Brute took the chance to knock down my perch. I landed with a roll, then pushed myself away from him using my tentacles. Steam was rising from him, and as if a switch was flipped, he began flailing as his protective layer of water began boiling.

Suddenly he burst. The water coating him exploded outwards, creating a neck high tidal wave of scalding water. I stabbed my tentacles into the ground, then held myself above the water. Laurel scooped herself up with her tree golem, which was struggling to stay balanced.

The tidal wave left as quick as it came. Parts of the street were flooded, and a dense cloud of steam was forming. The Brute was lying in the middle of the road, his skin badly burnt and peeling. He wouldn’t die from this. Probably.

Laurel had demolished one of the walls of the funeral home, and was sending in another swarm of critters. She had to duck behind one of her bigger creatures as a storm of coffins, chairs and other bits and bobs flew out of the building. It did little to harm her horde of critters - they were surprisingly durable. Her minions charged forth, but were being flung out of the building the same way the debris had been flung out. Gravitas had flipped gravity on its side, and Laurel’s larger creatures lacked the ability to climb on walls like how her plantroaches could.

Shit. This guy needed to go. I ran around to the other side of the building and dove through a window. Almost immediately I began falling sideways. I grabbed the floor with my hand, sticking onto it and breaking my fall. The inside of the funeral home was trashed - furniture was piled up against one side, and there were cracks in the ceiling and walls - likely from the vibrations of my noise fungus.

Gravitas had an interesting powerset. Most kinetics only have a single way to manipulate their element; a thermal-kinetic might be able to superheat everything in their vicinity, but would be incapable of producing flames, cooling things down or generating friction, even though all of those things would fall under the same umbrella. Gravitas didn’t have that limitation - he could change the direction of gravity, make it weaker or stronger and generate black holes. The catch was that he is just as vulnerable to his power as anyone else. That thermal-kinetic wouldn’t be able to burn himself alive with his power, but Gravitas could very easily fling himself into the sky, or crush himself with gravity ten times stronger than it should be. Coupled with the fact that he always had to be included in his powers' area of effect, it neutered him somewhat.

Still, it was hard to call his power bad after he nearly flung you into the sky.

I had to find where he was hiding - it’d be somewhere small, like a broom closet, so he could use his power as much as possible without hurting himself. Or maybe an office with a window, so he could see us.

Shit. That thermal vision project that I never finished would be really handy right now. I crawled along the floor until I reached an office. A single slice from my tentacle cut the door off its hinges. I scurried inside with my sword drawn, but nobody was here.

I felt something nipping at my ankle. It was one of Laurel’s plantroaches - the only type of critter she could get in here. The critter stopped biting me, and scurried out of the office. I followed. The plantroach led down a hall and into a display gallery for various coffins. One of the coffins was covered in plantroaches. I noted that it was bolted down, and that the lid had a hefty latch.

I drew my sword from my spine, priming the paralytic toxin, and plunged it through the side of the coffin. There was a grunt of pain, and when I pulled my sword out, the tip was coated with blood.

All of a sudden, gravity reorientated itself, making some of the critters tumble. I stood up, only to get stabbed in the armpit.

A woman who looked like a snowboarding themed ninja had snuck up behind me. When I swung at her with my fist, a blast of cold air and icicles blew me over, whilst she dashed away at an unnatural speed. Another member of the Scene - Icefall.

I yanked an icicle out of my chest plate, then unholsted my shotgun. I tried aiming at Icefall, but she was dashing around the room, doing her best to avoid my line of sight. I fired anyway. Kidney stones flew out of the gun and created a dinner plate sized hole in the wall. Icefall ran in close, ducking under a tentacle, and punched me. She didn’t have super strength, but when you could move eighty kilometers an hour, you could still pack a nasty punch. I skidded forward several feet, crashing into an overturned coffin.

I was being foolhardy. Icefall’s superspeed had a time limit. I just needed to hit her when it ran out.

Icefall kicked me in the back of the head, then tried to grab my gun, but ran away when I went to grab her wrist. I saw her running at me again, so I leapt upwards and latched onto the ceiling. She was too short to hit me with her knife, so she threw a handful of ball bearings at me. They bounced off my armor, leaving me unscathed.

She began slowing down, so I raised my gun, but before I could pull the trigger, she vanished.

Red Wraith. He was in this room, hiding out in his alternative dimension. I was split between being ecstatic and frustrated. His power complemented Icefall perfectly. She could hide away whilst her power recharged, never leaving herself vulnerable.

Crap. My plan for taking down Red Wraith was to release a paralytic gas into the air. When he came to attack, he’d breath it in and hopefully get stuck in the real world. I could use it against Icefall, but he’d catch on and never leave his alternative world. I wouldn’t be able to take her hostage either - he’d simply vanish her away from me. The same would go for trying to harm Icefall - she’d disappear before I hit her.

I needed to lure her into a trap that neither of them expected. What were my options? My melee weaponry wasn’t helpful here. The same went for my shotgun. My SMG could hamper her, but it wasn’t the linchpin I needed. That left my grenade launcher. I had still had incendiary, flesh eating, flashbang, shrapnel, metal eating, stone eating, the wrigglers and pain inducing grenades. Which one of them would be useful? Maybe I could somehow use the stone eating one to put her in a hole? She simply get out of the way if I just fired it at her though.

One of Laurel’s plantroaches scurried into the room.

Fuck. Maybe she’d catch onto my idea? I’d shown her all of my inventions, but I had no idea if she could recognise my grenades.

Screw it. I palmed the stone eating grenade, then discreetly tossed it behind me. The plantroach scurried over and picked it up with its mouth.

Before I had the chance to watch the critter go, Icefall appeared before me. She dashed away with me, with her accompanying blast of cold. An icicle managed to pierce through the palm of my hand, where there was minimal armor. I yanked it out, and let the regeneration kick in. Icefall was capitalizing on my injury however, attacking my injured side. I used my tentacles to try fend her off, but she was evading them with ease. She was clearly one of those speedsters that had enhanced reflexes or a slowed down perception of time. Each of her hits left deep gouges in my armor. Every time I overextended to try to hit her with my sword, she’d land a blow in an unprotected area. The third time I tried that, she knocked the sword out my hand, which promptly got banished into Red Wraith’s ghost world.

Shit. My regeneration was being spread too thin. My wounds weren’t being healed fast enough to withstand this. I fired a pain grenade at my feet, creating a thick cloud of bacteria. Icefall dashed away, staying far away from me and the cloud. I noticed Laurel’s plantroach standing in an unassuming corner of the room. Was this a sign?

I fired my grenade launcher, aiming to Icefall’s side, rather than at her. I was trying to get her to move over to the corner. She took the bait, and dashed to the left. I fired two more shots in a similar fashion. When she stepped into the corner, the floorboards collapsed underneath her, causing her to drop into a pit.

Good work. I’d give Laurel a high five if she was here right now.

With Icefall gone, I released the paralytic. Miniscule pores along my arms opened, and invisible gas leaked into the room. I paced around, knives drawn, giving off the illusion that I was waiting to stab Wraith when he materialized.

The tension was palpable. If I could sweat, I’d be sweating buckets.

Red Wraith appeared before me, a grenade in his hand. He immediately toppled over, the grenade falling to the floor beside him.

It was live.

I dove towards him and picked up the grenade. I tried throwing it away, but it detonated in my hand, blowing all of my fingers and most of the palm off. My hand was irrelevant. Did Red Wraith get hurt? He looked fine, but the blast could have ruptured his organs. I fumbled for a regenerative maggot, awkwardly trying to reach into a pocket on my right side with my left hand.

Laurel rushed into the room just as I managed to pull out the maggot, her mouth and nose covered with the mask I gave her. She knelt beside Wraith with the mind control device ready. I squashed the maggot, letting the juices drip on him, then nodded at Laurel. She placed the device on his head. Spindly spider-like legs pierced into his skull, causing the villain to twitch.

I jabbed him with the anti-paralytic, then yelled into his ear. “Take us to your cash!”

There was a woosh. Red Wraith had transported us into his ghost world. The colors of the funeral house were replaced with a rich crimson, and the air seemed to crackle with electricity. Red Wraith stood up and began stumbling down a hallway.

“Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. We actually did it.” Laurel was flabbergasted, her mouth hanging open. She looked like a neanderthal.

“Say that when we get the cash back to the base. You’ll jinx us otherwise.” I walked past her and grabbed my sword, before following Red Wraith, who was leading us into a basement. It was filled with drugs, stacks of money and weapons - all of them seemingly unaffected by the effect that made everything else red. I pulled a duffle bag out from underneath my chest piece, and began filling it with money. Laurel pulled me aside and took over for me. I’d gotten my blood on some of the money.

Whoops.

I started hacking at the weapons. The catharsis was overwhelming. It felt good to cripple the Scene, to make them suffer.

Something heavy was thrown at my back. A duffel bag of cash.

“C’mon, let's go.” Laurel swung her bag over her shoulder and nearly toppled over. I wrapped a tentacle around mine, and did the same for Laurel’s.

Laurel slapped the drooling Red Wraith across the check. “Alright numbskull. Take us back to the real world.”

Woosh. We were back. The noise fungus immediately assaulted my senses. I hadn’t noticed its absence in the ghost world. We both ran up the stairs, then through the giant hole in the side of the building. I was only outside for a split second before a salvo of lightning blasts struck me and Red Wraith. A man wearing an electric blue trench coat was partially hidden behind an upturned car, both of his hands aimed at me. He was a Protectorate hero - Detective Shock or something similarly banal.

Red Wraith fell to the ground, spasming.

Detective Shock fired another barrage of lightning at us. I shoved Laurel out of the line of fire, and took the full force of the attack head on. It scorched part of my chestpiece, but didn’t harm me. My undersuit was technically skin, but a more accurate description would be ‘living rubber’. Electricity wasn’t a concern for me.

I tossed Laurel the bags of cash, then charged towards the man, dagger at the ready.

A visibly bug bitten PRT trooper appeared out from behind the upturned car. She aimed her hose at me, and unleashed a torrent of containment foam. I dodged - but not fast enough. My left foot was stuck to the ground.

The trooper was aiming at me again. I threw my dagger. It wasn’t anything like the movies - the handle struck her in the gut instead of the blade. But I was strong enough that the trooper doubled over in pain. That gave me enough time to fire a metal eating payload out of my grenade launcher. The car Detective Shock and the trooper were using as cover disappeared in mere seconds. A moment later, the bacteria chewed through the trooper’s foam tanks. The pair of them vanished in the swelling mass of containment foam.

I tried lifting my leg out of the foam, but it was futile. It was stuck.

Fuck.

I tore off the armor protecting my calf, then hacked away at the leg. It took me three swings. Once I was free, I used my tentacles to hold myself aloft.

There was a loud crack - loud enough for me to hear it over the noise fungus. I toppled over and collided with the concrete, scraping away the thin layer of film covering my helmet. Two of my tentacles had been severed at the base, and the third was badly damaged. I looked up. A fresh batch of PRT troopers had arrived. The assholes had shot me with another railgun.

I turned around. Laurel was on the opposite end of the street from the troopers. The only thing between her and them was me. She was looking at me, the panic clear on her face. I made a shooing gesture, then pulled out my launcher.

I wasn’t getting away. I’d lost. But I wasn’t going to let Laurel lose as well. I aimed and fired. The flashbang I had loaded wasn’t too effective against them. These troopers were wearing heavier armor. Their helmets were different as well. I fired a shrapnel grenade at them this time. It didn’t even slow any of them down. My efforts were rewarded with a hail of gunfire. A bullet knocked my grenade launcher out of my hand. I glanced at it. The brain stem had been severed. It was useless.

Laurel was riding on the shoulder of a tree golem. She glanced over her shoulder, and we met eyes for a split second.

Then she turned around a corner. She’d gotten away.

Two troopers ran up to me and sprayed me down. I was trapped.

I’d lost.

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“Hey. Hey!”

I kept my eyes shut and ignored the woman sitting on the opposite side of the van from me.

“Hey, I know you can hear me.”

I opened my eyes and looked at Slipthrough. “What do you want?”

“To talk.”

Great. I rolled my eyes. “Talk away. It's not like I can stop you.”

Slipthrough glanced down at the mound of containment foam I was sitting in, then back at me. “So… how’s Laurel been? Was she being weird or depressed or anything?”

“She was being obnoxious, mainly.” Slipthrough scoffed at my comment.

“That's good, I suppose. Means she’s back to her usual self. I hope.”

“Were you… Was it hard to leave her behind?” I didn’t know why I was asking. But I knew that I had too, for some reason.

Slipthrough was silent for a long moment. “Yeah. Probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I chose to stay silent.

After a minute, Slipthrough spoke up again. “So like, what was up with you and The Scene? None of us could figure out why you had such a vendetta against them. I mean, they’re bad, but they’re not as bad as say, The Executioners or Magic Bag. What made you go after the least offensive gang in Staten Island?”

I tried shrugging, but couldn’t, because of the containment foam. “They reminded me of this gang back in my hometown, I guess.”

Slipthrough raised an eyebrow. “That seriously can’t be it.”

I tried shrugging again. This foam was incredibly annoying. “I like having an enemy. It forces me to… survive. I guess.”

“So you’re an adrenaline junkie then?”

“That's not really it. I just have to be surviving. There's nothing else to it.”

“Won’t say I get it, but I vibe with you.”

I wasn’t eager to continue this line of conversation. “Isn’t your presence here a conflict of interests? Because of Laurel?”

“Oh, totally.” Slipthrough chuckled. “I’m meant to be in the other van, actually. Braveheart is meant to be babysitting you, but he owed me one, so we swapped.”

That was stupid of her. She was putting herself at risk for a chat?

Slipthrough kept talking. “So what's going to happen to you? Nobody actually told me.”

I stopped myself from shrugging again. “A temporary detainment facility first. After that? Nobody knows. I’m an utter mess of a legal case. My status as an illegal immigrant is what's making it difficult. They don’t want to extradite me, but if the Panama government starts putting pressure on them, they might have to. Or they could just throw me into the Birdcage and save themselves the headache.”

“You could get a probationary deal like me.”

I scoffed. “As if that would ever happen.”

“It could. I can even put in a good word for you. The fact that you were a vigilante and not a villain is a point in your favor. Makes you easier to rehabilitate apparently.”

“I’ve killed people, though.” The camera in the van caught my eye. Was this being recorded? “Allegedly.” I added.

“Even then, I think your chances ar-”

A crash cut Slipthrough off. The van flipped over onto its roof, rending the metal. The foam protected me from the crash, absorbing the brunt of the impact. Slipthrough wasn’t as lucky. She had keeled over and was groaning in pain.

Heavy thuds approached the vehicle. The wall I was sitting against was torn free from the rest of the van by a pair of wooden claws. It was one of Laurel’s critters - a huge one made from a tree.

A whole horde of the critters were swarming the PRT troopers, biting at their joints and dogpiling them. A cape - Braveheart most likely - was throwing ghostly axes at them, doing little to cull the horde. A trooper armed with a flamethrower was faring better against Laurel’s creatures, but even he couldn’t defend himself from every direction.

The tree critter began striding down the road, narrowly avoiding stepping on parked cars. That was oddly considerate of Laurel, given how much property damage she’d caused by uprooting all the nearby plants. The tree critter scrambled over a two story building and then into a parking lot. Laurel was waiting beside a parked van. She slid open the door so the tree golem could cram me and my giant blob of foam inside it.

Laurel dived into the van and slammed down on the pedal.

Why was she here? She could have escaped with all the money by now.

“Why?” I asked.

She didn’t reply. She took a hard right, then slowed down to legal speed.

“Why?” I asked again, this time louder.

“I’ve gotta focus Arleen. We’re nearly safe.”

We took a couple more turns, then drove into an auto repair shop. Laurel rushed out of the van. I heard her grunt. The garage door began whirring shut.

“Fuck me. That was stressful.” Laurel slid open the van door. “I used some of the cash to bribe the owner of this joint. Hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t give a crap about the money. Why did you come back for me?”

She rolled her eyes. “Because I like you? You're my friend.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Laurel kept speaking. “Okay, so it's going to take half a day for that foam to decay, but once that's done, we gotta get out of New York. I know a gal in Atlantic City that knows a guy who knows this guy called The Number Man - he’s a cape banker. We’ll drive down the coast, stay in New Jersey for a couple weeks, get the money sorted, then-”

“Lauren.” I cut her off.

She was out of breath. “Yeah?”

“Thank you. Truly.”

Lauren smiled at me. I smiled back. She went back to explaining her plan, but I tuned her out. Despite my missing leg and various injuries, this was the best I had felt in a long while.

For once, I had hope for the future.