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Chapter Text

My head felt like someone had played pinball with my brain. Several rounds of pinball. Not that the rest of me felt much better. I cracked open my eyes and was immediately blinded by incredibly strong lights. I tried to shield myself but my arms were stuck. I groaned.

"Svartalfar …" I heard someone say.

Was that my name? No, it wasn't.

Why was someone calling me Svartalfar?

"Svartalfar, do not try to free yourself or I will be required to sedate you again." The voice continued.

"The lights," I mumbled. "Too bright."

My thoughts were slow and muddled. Like I was swimming through an ocean of molasses.

"They are a countermeasure against your power." The voice said. "I cannot remove them."

I was silent for a few minutes. The only noises in the background were the faint whirring of fans and the whine of servomotors. My headache receded somewhat.

"Sorry," I said, quietly, "big headache. Why can't I move?"

"Svartalfar. Do you remember the events prior to today?"

I shook my head. I didn't remember much. The headache didn't help.

"Went to sleep. Last thing I remember."

"I see …" There was a hint of sadness in the voice. "You are at the Baumann Parahuman Containment center. You were sentenced here following your trigger event."

"The … Birdcage?" I tried to open my eyes but the light was still incredibly bright. The only thing I got for my troubles was more headache.

"Yes."

"Dragon?"

"Yes. I am remotely operating the suit that escorted your transport here."

"Dragon is best girl," I giggled.

"It looks like the sedative is still affecting you a lot …" Dragon said. "The automated system will transfer you inside of a transport capsule. It will lower you down into the Birdcage. The life support system has exactly enough oxygen for a single trip. The tube itself is under a complete vacuum. Do you understand the implications?"

"No escape …" I said.

"Correct. I disagree with your sentencing but …" The woman paused. "My hands are tied."

"S'not … your fault," I slurred.

"I will proceed." I felt myself move in a smooth motion. "Prisoner 586, codename Svartalfar. PRT power designation Shaker 9, shadows or darkness, Brute 2. Recommended protocols of floodlights and high-strength restraints were carried out. Chance of escape following interment in the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center rests at a fairly steady .00063% with no gross deviations in any likely scenarios. Within acceptable limits."

My mind vaguely acknowledged the Shaker nine rating.

"I am sending you to cell block E. The woman that put herself in charge of that cell block goes by the codename Lustrum. She's a pretty extreme feminist and misandrist, but she protects the girls in her block, and it's also the block furthest from the hole the men opened into the women's half of the Birdcage. I expect the brute grade sedatives to mostly clear out by the time you reach the bottom but if they don't, Lustrum is the least likely to take advantage of the situation."

"It's the most I can do for you. Good luck."

"Bye Dragon," I said.

I heard the pod door seal with a hiss. A few seconds later, it dropped down and my stomach immediately took a trip up to my throat from the acceleration.

As I fell down towards hell the sedative slowly cleared and my mental faculties returned. Which allowed me to reflect on the last hour or so of my life. My memory between the last time I went to sleep in my bed and now was a jumbled mess. Flashes and impressions, not much more.

With the cloud on my thoughts lifted, the possibility of a dream was less and less certain.

This meant I had found myself with vastly more questions than answers.

Chief of which was: What the hell had happened to send me to the Birdcage?

Closely followed by: What are my powers then? Only parahumans go to the Birdcage after all.

The capsule-slash-elevator wasn't the best place to experiment. I didn't want to accidentally strand myself in a vacuum and suffocate after all.

So I waited.

And waited.

When the pod started to decelerate, I sighed in relief.

Finally, something.

A mist was sprayed inside the cabin and I felt the block of containment foam encasing me soften. Over several minutes, it progressively turned into a goop that slid off of me. With my arms finally free, I rubbed my eyes and ran my hand through my hair out of habit. My wrist bumped into my ear, an ear that was much longer than it should be.

I needed a mirror.

Out of nervousness, I bit my lips and felt that my teeth were strange as well. Sharp. I ran my tongue over them and discovered that all of them could only qualify as shark-like.

Before I could examine myself further, the pod stopped. The door opened and I felt my headache return from the bright lights. This time, however, I managed to shield my eyes.

"Too bright!" I complained.

"Step out," someone said, "the pods don't wait too long."

I grabbed the edge of the door with my other arm. My eyes were slowly acclimating to the ambient brightness and I managed to step out without issues. I kept my hand on the wall for balance. My legs felt awful after so much time stuck in the same position.

"She looks less scary than on TV groping around like that," another voice said.

I blinked a few times and looked around.

The place was a lot more colorful than I expected. I was in an hexagonal room two stories high. The plain white walls were covered in colorful art and blankets of various sizes. Three of the walls were covered in windows that looked down into the pseudo-courtyard. Maybe the individual rooms? A pair of stairs led to the second floor on each side.

Arrayed around me were several women. I recognized none of them, not that I expected to. They didn't look particularly friendly either. Though maybe it was just the prison look. My pristine – except for confoam stains – orange jumpsuit stood out among the wide variety of modified ones.

Of the five women, two were looking at me with suspicion. A redhead with a pixie cut and intricate dragon tattoos on both her exposed arms. The other was a brunette with shoulder length hair and thick rimmed glasses. A third one, with short brown hair, could only be qualified as … openly horny. I wasn't wearing much but she had already undressed me in her mind nonetheless.

At the center of the formation was a tall woman with short cropped black hair. Her gaze was laser focused on me. Judging me. To her right was a shorter blonde who looked bored out of her mind.

The silence extended for a few more seconds.

"I'm Lustrum," the tall and serious woman said. "In charge of block E. What I say here is law."

"No appeals?" I sassed.

"It's the cage, Charcoal." I raised my eyebrow at the nickname. "Nobody here gets an appeal."

"My name's Svartalfar, not Charcoal." I replied.

"Respect here is earned, Charcoal, not given," Lustrum said.

So some sort of hazing. Great. I really didn't want to deal with that. My head was still pounding and the only thing I wanted was a long nap.

Thankfully, I was out of the pod so I was free to use my powers. I wasn't exactly sure of what they were exactly but one had been whispering in my ears since I had woken up, singing its sweet song to me.

I pulled on it. It was so easy.

The shadows around our group deepened. They became a black so deep they seemed to be portals to an endless abyss. Mine grew tall alongside the wall, in defiance of all laws of physics, and took the shape of a beastly abomination. Claws and teeth aplenty.

"Maybe we got off the wrong foot," I said with a sharp smile. "I'm Svartalfar," I extended my hand, "but my friends call me Charcoal."

"Sheesh boss," the horny brunette said, "we get all the crazies." Somehow, she looked even more turned on after my little stunt.

"Welcome to block E Svartalfar," Lustrum took my hand. She squeezed my hand hard enough to crush it but I didn't budge. The shadows around us returned to normal and I saw everyone start to breathe again.

"You look like shit. Showers are this way," she tilted her head to her right. "Find yourself a cell, get a night's sleep in you. We'll talk tomorrow."

I gave her a quick nod and stepped towards the showers. The horny brunette tried to follow me but the redhead stopped her with a shake of her head.

The showers had lukewarm water at disappointing pressures but it was enough to rinse off the remainder of the confoam and dissolving agent from my hair and skin. Speaking of hair, it was long, silky smooth, almost unnaturally so, and a silver color that could only be described as liquid moonlight.

I took the time to examine myself in a nearby mirror while I dried myself. My skin was indeed close to the color of charcoal, a bit more on the dark gray side than pure black. My eyebrows had the same color as my hair and the carpet matched as well. On each side of my head were two long ears, about twenty centimeters, that tapered off to a point.

The most impressive were my eyes. The sclera were a pure black with small specks of white, like two gateways to outer space. On my right eye, the bright orange iris surrounded a vertically slitted pupil. On the left, seven smaller pupils were set against a deep red iris. Both were shifting patterns similar to a star's surface.

"Damn, I look so cool." I opened my mouth and poked at the shark-like teeth inside with my equally sharp nails. "Fucking creepy too." My tongue was not as strange but still extended a fair bit further than it should. Not something I wanted to advertise for … obvious reasons.

Back in my, mostly, clean jumpsuit, I walked towards the stairs closest to me. It was time to find a bed. I was tired as hell and I still felt like Alexandria had played basketball with my head. For all I knew it was the case. That and Dragon's sedative was the strong stuff.

The individual rooms had no doors but many had hung pieces of cloth to serve as curtains, to preserve what little privacy one could get in here. I found one that was free at the end of the first hallway. The walls were at awkward angles due to the hexagonal shape of the cell block but I wouldn't complain, it provided me with a bit of extra space.

I erected a flowing curtain of shadows in the entrance with a wave of my hand. My power happily told me it would hold even after I fell asleep. I gathered another blob of darkness to serve as a pillow, the material was surprisingly soft and supple when I wanted it to be, and went to sleep. It didn't take me all that long to drift off.

Chapter Text

I slept like a log. Or at least part of me did. Another, one I hadn't really noticed until now, was still awake and aware. I was somewhere else entirely. My body was something else entirely.

It took me some time to … adapt.

To process.

I felt the warmth of the star inside me, burning billions of tons of hydrogen every second to produce untold quantities of energy, its corona elegantly curling and spiraling around the black hole that was my second heart. The mountains of crystalline flesh that composed my bodies pulsed here and there as energy was moved around. Custodians of all shapes and sizes milled around the towering spires, moving materials and components to their intended destinations like a billion ants dutifully scurrying around their home.

I was … a [Shard]?

No, several [Shards].

A [Network Hub].

I requesting a [Status Update] from my network. Packets of data were exchanged, routed through relays to all the members then back. Exabytes of data exchanged in milliseconds. I sifted through the mountain of information in the blink of an eye. Twenty two shards in total, five larger clusters and two lone members. Overall, all of my Shards were functional but not fully operational yet. Apparently, my trigger had been somewhat messy and some damage had been suffered in the process.

The repairs were expected to take around six months. Until then, I was only operating at half capacity. I would also be sick for a few days more until everything settled and my body was fully integrated as my avatar.

As it turned out, Shards also needed some rest every once in a while. I left the automated systems to do their job and switched my core into standby mode for the rest of the night.

The next morning, or at least what passed for it in the Birdcage, I woke up with the feeling of a big hangover. A slight improvement over the previous day. I dragged myself out of bed and took a peek through my window. It looked like it was breakfast time. A line had formed and women were waiting to get their meal. I spotted Lustrum's right hand woman, the blonde one, and teleported behind her, right inside her shadow.

"Is this the breakfast line?" I asked.

She turned around faster than a human should, helped by her combat Thinker power, combined with a small Mover aspect, a shiv aimed at my eyes. A thin thread of solid shadows smoothly redirected the attack sideways. I had copied her power and used it against her in barely an instant, my Shard-Self capable of processing orders of magnitudes faster than my puny biological brain.

"Sorry, sorry," I said as I stepped back and raised my hands, "didn't mean to startle you that bad."

"How the fuck did you get here Charcoal?" She looked at her weapon then at me in quick succession. "Mary was supposed to be …" She trailed off.

"I just discovered I can teleport through shadows." I said with a small smile. "And you were at the back of the line so …"

"New capes," she shook her head and sighed, an exasperated look on her face. "First tip for the 'cage," she continued, "don't startle people. You might not be so lucky next time."

"Roger, Roger," I nodded.

"Since you're here, let me explain how meals work." She pointed at the table at the end of the line. "Everyone gets three meals a day unless the boss says otherwise. Usually happens if you stir up trouble. Dragon ships down tanks of gruel, some kind of Tinker nutri-paste whatever, tastes bland as hell. Everybody gets one bowl for each meal."

"If you help around with chores, guard duty, and the likes. You get some tokens, usually small ones, depends on what you did. Six small tokens make up a big one and you can exchange those for fancier food. It's still dehydrated crap but tastes hell of a lot better. Of course you can trade the tokens for smokes, favors, and the likes too. Just be sure to keep them in a safe place."

"I see. Thanks …"

"I'm Stinger." She provided her name. "The boss will probably talk to you later today. You can do whatever in the meantime. Just stay in the block."

"I won't go far," I smiled and took my place in the queue.

The food was, as Stinger said, pretty bland.

I took a walk around the block while I ate. The central hexagon was fairly large, maybe fifty or so meters across. Besides the lunch table there were a few other areas where people were congregated. One had exercise equipment, primarily weights of various sizes hung on the wall. Benches were arrayed in a semi circle around several bulky televisions. An area seemed dedicated to maintaining clothes, blankets, and the likes. I even spotted a bookshelf surrounded by a few seats.

Most of the block's inhabitants stayed clear of me. My little demonstration the day before must have had an effect. The library seemed to be free to access, or at least nobody stopped me, so I picked up a well worn paperback and sat down.

The headache was still here, a dull throbbing in the back of my head. I wanted nothing more than to sleep it off but I needed to keep appearances. I didn't want to piss off Lustrum on the second day. I wasn't too worried about my health but having allies was better than not.

In the background, a part of my mind was busy making an inventory of everything I had access to in terms of powers. My primary cluster of shards was composed of my [Administrator], where my mind was housed, [Broadcast] and [Network] for communication, [Manager] to copy or take Shards for myself, [Prototype] and [Factory] to create and modify my own Shards, and [Stilling] and [Sting] for offensive defense.

The second was named Archmage, composed of four shards. [Arcanist] and [Kineticist] which provided wide range, directed reality manipulation. The first could use an interpreter Shard to produce arbitrary effects from Shard-Code. The second was a general matter-energy manipulation Shard. They were less efficient compared to a dedicated Shard or even [Prototype] but the versatility was unparalleled. The [Artificer] and [Alchemy] shards completed the set and allowed to anchor effects to physical object or transmute matter and infuse it with exotic properties respectively.

Next to it was the Paradigm cluster, three massive shards, which were power emulators. They functioned like [Prototype] but with different types of power cores that allowed a more organic power evolution than directed modification. Templates could be shared between the two, however.

After those came the support clusters, Engine and Feeder. The former was responsible for the automated improvement and streamlining of Shards in the network while the latter was my source of energy. The star and black hole worked in tandem to form a positive feedback zero point energy generator.

Finally, the two loners in my network. [Nyx] was the source of my shadow powers and [Avalon] provided me with very powerful regeneration.

"Hey, Charcoal, you're on TV," someone called.

I looked up from my book and saw that one of the televisions was on a news channel. It showed footage taken from a helicopter of a gigantic roiling mass of shadows. It was several stories tall and covered almost an entire city block.

"600 DEAD AND 50 STILL MISSING FROM SVARTALFAR INCIDENT," scrolled at the bottom of the screen.

I shuddered at the sight. From the partially corrupted logs of the event I had recovered, I had gone titan for several hours. When the footage changed to the aftermath, I recognized the signs of dimensional displacement. My body had been spread between hundreds of dimensions and had shifted matter between them. It was impressive they had found that many bodies. The rest were likely stranded on alternate earths.

"Yesterday, the Tinker Dragon confirmed that Svartalfar had been successfully delivered to the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center. The Center for Human Rights criticized the verdict as a massive miscarriage of justice. Andrea Hopkins, prosecutor for the state of New Hampshire, was not available for comments."

"What a mess …" I sighed.

"The PRT has declared the site safe and a memorial will be built in honor of the departed. A service will be held next Sunday…" I let the rest fade into the background.

"Feeling remorse Charcoal?" Someone said from behind me. I took a look. It was a short brunette with an intricate fish tattoo on her right biceps.

"I don't remember anything," I said. "Just going to bed then Dragon sending me down here."

"Fucking hell!" She swore softly.

Lustrum showed up an hour after breakfast.

"Getting situated alright, Charcoal?" She asked.

She was in the process of smoking a cigarette. My nose twitched at the smell.

"Yup. Stinger explained the token system earlier. Besides that, just trying to stave off the boredom."

"Welcome to the cage." She took another drag of her cigarette.

"You wanted to see me about something?"

"Everybody's got to pull their weight here, no exceptions, but I make sure everyone gets their fair share of tokens in exchange. The cell block doesn't clean itself after all."

"I see. Do I have to wash the toilets as the new arrival?" I joked.

"Everybody gets shit duty at least once but no," she chuckle, "I was thinking of something else. Those shadow powers of yours gave me an idea. How well can you see in the dark?"

I raised an eyebrow at her.

"Night or day, no difference," I said. "And I can see through my shadows as well."

"Excellent. We always have problems finding people for the night guard. Dragon turns off the lights in the hallways once it's night time and the common room also gets very dark."

"So you want me to do the night shift? How many tokens would that get me?"

"Two big tokens a week and one day off. We usually have two shifts, six to midnight, then to six again. This way folks get some daylight too. You get a real meal at midnight too. For the trouble."

"So I just have to stand there and be menacing for six hours? Get me a chair and we have a deal."

Chapter Text

I settled into a routine over the next few days. I woke up at around mid-day, got my lunch and hung around the common room for a few hours where I either watched whatever was on the TVs that day or sat down to read a book. I also helped with the easy chores like cleaning the floors. This netted me a few small tokens here and there. My headache still lingered but I powered through.

The night shifts helped with the pain. With the lights off, it became duller and more manageable.

As Lustrum had said, the watch was pretty boring. I was paired with another woman who could also see in the dark. She was a purely nocturnal cape, however, as she needed special glasses to shield her eyes otherwise. And the others had nicknamed her Night Owl. Her power was a Brute/Breaker form that allowed her to turn into animals made of a solid black shadow material similar to my own. I added it to my collection and set [Factory] to improve [Nyx] with a Changer/Breaker form from the data.

Nothing worth of note happened the first night. After a few hours, I summoned two shadow constructs to watch the door and stop any intruders. The hulking bipedal beasts were two and a half meters tall and had elongated arms that ended in sharp claws. My partner had been spooked when they had appeared out of thin air, even though I had warned her.

"Shit, Charcoal." She chuckled. "Somehow, you're even scarier at night. And it's not only because of your glowy eyes bullshit."

"The darkness is my domain," I joked with a deep and ominous voice.

There was a beat of silence before both of us laughed as quietly as we could. Neither of us wanted to wake Lustrum or any of the other inmates up.

"Char," she punched my arm, "way to ruin your rep."

Owl and I got to know each other over the next few uneventful nights. I learned that she had been an assassin for hire. Not the nicest of professions to say the least though most of the cage's residents were in that bucket. Lustrum herself had been the leader of a radical feminist movement that had allegedly castrated dozens men during their protests. Owl was certain that most of the charges were bogus, she had watched the trial and there had only been two witnesses brought forward. Both were known Neo-Nazis in cape circles.

On the fourth shift, while Owl was recounting one of her more memorable jobs, we caught our first prey.

Someone passed through the web of shadows I had put in the door. With a snap of my fingers, the hair thin threads turned into ropes and bound the intruder. I added a gag when they started to shout from the surprise, no need to wake up anyone quite yet.

"Well, well, well," I looked at the intruder, hanging upside down in the air, "what do we have here?"

"Actually," I whispered to Owl, "who is this?"

"Looks like one of Crane's from the jumpsuit."

"What do we do with her?"

"Let's let Lustrum decide tomorrow. Your stuff will hold for the night?"

"She won't move a muscle." I looked at the squirming cape.

As it turned out, the intruder in question had been expected. She was a student of Crane the Harmonious and this little night escapade was part of a test. She had been sent to retrieve an object from one of the empty cells without being detected. Obviously she had failed. Lustrum sent her back without much fanfare. I expected that a fair bit of favors had changed hands to make the whole thing happen.

The fifth night was uneventful again and I woke up the next day blissfully free of headaches.

I started my day with a nice lunch where I spent one of my big tokens to get a mashed potatoes, vegetables, and sausage dish. I mixed the potato flakes with the gruel as indicated on the packet and added some water in the other two containers. Then, I snapped a small pill on the side of the plastic box which reheated the whole thing with a chemical reaction.

It wasn't all that bad.

I stashed the plastic box in my room, one never knew when it would come in useful, and went to take a shower. I was glad that Dragon provided unlimited hot water and shampoo as I washed my long silvery hair. It would have been a crime to have to cut them.

While I was rinsing, someone slid behind me and pressed herself against my back. Her hands reached around me and cupped my breasts. I had been so stunned at what had just happened that it took me a few seconds to react.

"I'm trying to shower here," I said in exasperation as I moved the hands away from my chest and pushed her arms back.

"But it's the best time …" Aline whispered.

She was the very same who had been present when I had arrived in the cage. I had learned her name, and reputation, while talking with the other inmates. I was surprised it had taken her that much time to make a move. Her hand tried to wander downwards but I didn't let them. I shoved her away and shadows surged around the woman. They bound her with dark ribbons against the opposite wall.

"Oh ye-" She didn't get to finish before I gagged her.

I was certain this wouldn't dissuade her one bit but I would get to finish my shower in peace at least. I got dressed and approached her.

"I am not interested," I said firmly. As I had a good thirty centimeters on her, I pulled her head up by the chin so she could look into my eyes. "If you try this ever again …" The shadows on the wall behind her turned into a gaping maw full of teeth.

"You won't ever be seen again." I let her sink a few centimeters into the pit of teeth and her look turned to utter panic. "Understood?"

She nodded vigorously.

The shadows disappeared as I turned around and Aline fell to the ground. I left without saying another word.

Lustrum paid me my two big tokens on my day off. There wasn't much more to do than usual but I treated myself to a nice meal once again and spent most of the day in my room with a book. It was mostly an excuse to be alone where I could experiment with my powers some more.

The network was every busy, Shards did not sleep after all, and the repairs were coming along. One of the main problems was the lack of available materials. My Shards weren't deployed on a planet they could dismantle for raw materials but in an artificial pocket dimension. It made them less vulnerable to outside interference but the downside was that all materials needed to be created with energy-matter conversion arrays, an expensive and slow process compared to using my crystal forges to convert existing matter.

I could take a trip to an alternate earth to steal a moon or two from Jupiter, that would likely tide me over for a while, or deploy a part of [Factory] on a planet. As I thought about it, I had a third option open to me as well. If I managed to "convince" some already deployed Shards to join my network, I could use their nesting dimension as a jumping off point as well.

Something to consider. I wasn't sure how The Warrior would react if I started to snatch his Shards. Or to the presence of an upstart in his backyard. For the moment, it was probably best for me to stay on the down low and as far away from the golden idiot as possible.

I also took the opportunity to get my jumpsuit modified a bit. With the temperature in the Birdcage kept at a comfortable eighteen degrees centigrade, the long sleeves felt too stuffy. I paid two small tokens to get them trimmed off at the shoulder. The leftover cloth was fashioned into a few additional pockets.

After my day off, I switched to the second watch of the night. Nothing much happened for a few days until one of Lustrum's lieutenants came to see me one morning at breakfast.

"All the block leaders are having their little tea party later today," Stinger said. "Some of them asked for you," she continued, "it's up to you if you want to show up or not. That smarmy bastard Teacher will probably make a move at least. He always does."

"I see …" I sighed. "When is the meeting?"

"They gather for lunch. Be ready at the block entrance half an hour before."

"I'll be there then." I closed my book.

A few hours later, I followed behind Lustrum and her four lieutenants. It was the first time I left the cell block since I had arrived. I was fairly certain nobody would have stopped me if I wanted to explore earlier but I hadn't wanted to rock the boat too much. Even after a week, I still saw myself on television at least once a day. With my distinctive appearance, it wouldn't be all that hard to connect the dots.

The cage was not a nice place despite the island of relative calm I had found myself in. I had been warned more than once about Ingenue and her Faustian bargain of a power, Crane the Harmonious and her martial arts cult or the dangers of pissing off Black Kaze. String Theory was the least dangerous of the bunch. As long as she didn't have any tech with her. Though her strained relationship with Lustrum apparently made getting the TVs repaired an exercise in favors every time.

The Fairy Queen had not been mentioned once which worried me. If she wasn't in the cage, where the hell was she?

On the men's side, I distinctly remembered Teacher. The man needed to die but not before I took care of Saint and his access to Dragon's systems. And Marquis who was Panacea's father - or bone daddy, my mind treacherously supplied - former gang leader and extremely strict on his principles. The rest, I didn't remember much about: Acid Bath, Galvanate, Gavel, and Lab Rat.

There were also cell blocks without leaders on each side. Places where even the little sliver of order that the Birdcage had didn't exist.

On our way to the meeting room, built between the two sides of the cage, we passed a few other blocks. I easily recognized String Theory's from the high concentration of Tinkers. She had a staring contest with Lustrum for a few seconds before our respective groups continued. A respectable distance between us.

The room in question was circular and featured a large round table at the center with eleven chairs. I followed my own group carefully. Lustrum took her seat at the table where Crane the Harmonious, Marquis, and Teacher already sat. Their gazes followed me and Teacher's was particularly piercing.

I looked at them in turn, not only with my eyes but with many other senses brought about by a web of powers at the back of my mind. [Broadcast] exchanged polite greetings with the Shards present while making sure that its signature was sufficiently obscured. [Data] and [Energy] were exchanged. Powers were copied and cataloged by [Manager].

When the meeting began, I had copied everyone's powers for myself.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Marquis started with a smooth voice. "Welcome to the January meeting of the cell block leaders. There are a few items on the agenda today. First is the introductions of new arrivals, those that are present at least."

"It is a quiet month," Teacher remarked, "only two new faces."

"Ladies first," Marquis motioned to me.

"Svartalfar," I gave a little bow, "currently residing in cell block E."

"Saw you made a big splash," Acid Bath laughed.

"It is one way to say it …" I replied flatly.

"Loss of control is always regrettable." Teacher said, his voice was calm and measured. "But the way they treated you was even more so."

"We play the hand we're dealt," I shrugged.

"Perhaps my gifts can help you gain a measure of control," he graciously offered. For someone who was rumored to be a master manipulator, it was a weak attempt. Since I was a Thinker blind-spot due to my nature, maybe his thralls hadn't been able to gather enough information.

"I thank you for the offer but my control is excellent," I grinned. "It seems my trigger was only an isolated incident."

"I see, I am glad," he graciously bowed out of the conversation but my social Thinker shards reported that he was annoyed at his plan's failure. The man was likely too used to plans going his way.

The other prisoner introduced himself. He was a small man with greasy hair and twitchy hands. A Tinker specialized in … compliance devices. It was bad to judge a cape by their power but in this case, it was probably warranted. His Shard's build log was as disgusting as it went. I ordered a complete purge of the data from my network out of disgust.

The meeting proceeded along with the other topics and Marquis proceeded to read the agenda. Acid Bath needed his TVs repaired, again. String Theory wanted to trade for more materials for her Tinkers. Galvanate asked for a relaxation in the rules for comingling and was unanimously rejected on the spot by all the women present as well as Marquis and Gavel. The list continued on.

"You should leave," Stinger whispered, "Teacher hates being shown up and it's best if you aren't here to remind him of that."

"Think he'll try something?"

"Almost certainly, he probably has something in place already. That man always has plans within plans."

"Maybe I'll go take a walk then," I smiled a predatory grin.

Chapter Text

I left the leaders to their politics and retraced my steps back into the women's wing. On the way, I acquired a few stalkers and I made sure to take a few detours to lead them towards one of the free cell blocks.

Five parahumans.

One was a Stranger/Master whose power allowed her to convince up to five people she interacted with that she was their ally and didn't mean them harm that would even work even if she was actively attacking them. A weaker and more targeted version of Nice Guy. I also detected a modification that allowed her to spread the Stranger component to up to five people. Most certainly Ingenue's work according to my Thinker suite.

Another was a Brute, their power gave them high defense and strength but decreased over time when engaged with the same targets. The next was a Breaker/Striker that could flicker intangible for a few seconds and do the same to anyone they touched, incapacitating them. The intangibility she granted her targets was not Manton protected. If she phased something inside someone's skull, it would kill them in short order. They also had an improved sense of timing from Teacher.

The group was rounded out by a Shaker and Blaster combo, the first could manipulate multiple knives around with telekinesis while the other could send out ricocheting blades with a minor Thinker ability to compute the trajectories.

A group specialized in assassinations.

Someone wanted me very dead it seemed.

Was it Teacher? He was the prime suspect after all. But was there someone else? An inmate from Lustrum's block? Jealousy perhaps? Or were they feeling threatened? I hadn't interacted much with people outside of my own cell block but it could also have been someone who had a relative among the unfortunate victims of my trigger.

I created two giant shadow spiders as I entered block K. They took position on the walls of the common room above the entrance, ready to ambush my ambushers. I also obscured the light sources on the walls and ceiling to shroud the whole room into a penumbra. All the cameras were disabled as well. I didn't want Dragon, or her minders, to get too many spoilers after all. Similarly, I deployed an interdiction field to block out any pesky remote observers.

Not to let good theatrics go to waste, I shifted my prison jumpsuit into a pocket dimension and I created a mermaid style dress to replace it, all shades of black and gray of course. The skirt pooled on the ground and had a long slit on the right that left my leg partially exposed. The top showed a fair bit of cleavage and left my arms completely bare. To accentuate my waist, I added an under-bust corset. Behind me, I created three pairs of wings. Their appearance was reminiscent of a butterfly with glowing red patterns over them that formed numerous eyes. I wasn't blind to the significance.

It took less than ten seconds to set everything up.

My pursuers arrived half a minute later and stopped before the door.

"Shit!" The Brute swore. "She made the area all dark."

"Who cares," the Stranger said nonchalantly, "when I get her with my power it'll be a piece of cake."

Confident, are we? She was too used to her power working. I wondered how the PRT had managed to get her? Had they sniffed out her limit and sent in more than five people? Or maybe another Stranger?

"Yeah! Let's get the bitch already." The Breaker said. The anticipation in her voice told me she enjoyed that kind of activity.

"Let's go and stick to the plan," the Brute said.

They stepped into the cell block and fanned out with practiced ease. It wasn't their first rodeo. Though it was their last.

"Svartalfar?" The Stranger said and the ripples of her power echoed around the room. "Ingenue sent us with an offer." Falsehood my Thinker suite provided. "We don't mean you any harm." Falsehood again though I didn't need it pointed out.

The Blaster and Shaker had fanned out to the sides. The Breaker was making a run for me. Maybe she thought that the shadows played to her advantage? Or that the Stranger's power already had its claws in me?

I hummed in a low voice. "Do you know what separates common criminals from super villains?" I asked.

"What's it got to do with anything?" The Brute asked.

"The difference," I continued, ignoring her question, "is …"

I opened a shaft of light above me and swept my arms.

"PRESENTATION!" I shouted.

The Breaker had jumped to touch me but I snapped my fingers and she was caught by tendrils of shadow. She tried to flicker free of them. A look of utter horror appeared on her face when she couldn't. "Trump!" She shouted.

"The Queen takes the Knight."

One of my tendrils swiftly sliced her in half, bisecting her head and torso in one fluid movement. A waterfall of blood gushed from her wound. The world stopped for an instant. My attackers frozen in place at the sheer brutality of my execution.

"You'll pay for that bitch!" The Brute charged me.

She dodged the few tendrils I sent her way, the ones I meant for her to dodge of course. Every move of that dance had already been plotted and rehearsed. She went to punch me with a blow that would have likely turned my whole torso to a fine mist. The fist struck a wall of shadows instead.

There was a brief moment of surprise on her face.

The floor under her feet rippled and opened into a gaping maw lined with dagger-like teeth. Tentacles snaked up her legs and pulled her down into the deadly abyss. Without leverage, her strength was useless and she sank lower and lower into the deadly grinder. Her resistance to damage was not without limit either and after a few seconds, her struggles grew more and more frantic.

Then came the screams.

For a brief few seconds before I silenced them.

"The Rook goes down," I grinned and my tongue briefly flitted out like a snake searching for its next meal.

The ranged duo got their wits together first and I was assailed by a dozen crudely made daggers and projectiles from all sides. Half of them came at me through my blind spots. Or what they assumed to be my blind spots. I tilted slightly to the side to let one of the daggers pass by my head and twisted on my left foot to dodge a further three projectiles by a hair's breadth. The next dagger was sent away with a flick of my fingers head on. Coin-sized shadows deflected the rest into the walls and floor.

"The Bishops fall to my Knights."

The spiders descended on their prey. The knife wielder screamed and tried to run, and managed a few feet, before her head was devoured by the flower-like mouth of the spider. A sickening crunch resonated through the common room as her skull was crushed to paste. The Blaster didn't fare much better but her death was more merciful. A swift strike with a mandible decapitated her in one clean sweep.

Her head, frozen in an expression of anguish and despair, rolled at the feet of the Stranger.

The last woman standing was frozen in place. Not by my power but by the mind numbingly terrifying carnage I had just unleashed upon her comrades. Her life had just shattered to pieces right before her. Before she had been the hunter, feasting freely on the plentiful and easy prey in the Birdcage. Now she was the lone fly caught in the spider's web, powerless to change her ultimate fate.

"I'll let you go if you answer my question," I said softly from behind her.

She couldn't even nod.

"Who hired you?"

She tried to speak but her throat wouldn't cooperate.

"Answer. The. Question." A single tendril crawled up her leg.

"Ra- Ra- Ra- Rattledrake." She shouted.

Truth, my Thinker suite confirmed.

One of my fellow block residents. One of Lustrum's lieutenants no less. The redhead with the dragon tattoos.

"Thank you," I said.

CRACK!

And snapped her neck with one swift strike.

I left the bodies behind in block K and made my way back to block E. On the way, I stumbled on Teacher's actual backup plan. Two of his thralls, women, accosted me and offered me half a dozen cigarettes and a book in very good condition as both an apology and a standing invitation to visit the man himself.

I took the items and told them I would consider it.

Consider lobotomizing his Shard that was.

It would be good practice for [Factory]. I already had a copy of the important parts so it wouldn't be that big of a loss.

I sent the two lackeys scurrying away with a vague promise to have a response by the next leader's meeting. I continued my leisurely walk through the prison's hallways while reading Teacher's gift. It was a copy of Lord of the Rings, at least the man had good tastes, and reached my destination in a few minutes.

Drake wasn't back yet. It looked like the leaders were still at their meeting and she was stuck there for a little while longer. I took a seat that faced the entrance in the reading area and continued my book. The hobbits wouldn't get to Isengard by themselves.

An hour later, Lustrum came back with her lieutenants in tow.

I waited for the moment Rattledrake saw me, she almost missed a step when she did which pretty much confirmed it was her. I slapped my book closed and appeared in a bling right behind her with a toothy grin on my face.

"Drake," I put my arms around her shoulders, "I met an acquaintance of yours earlier. Just as I got out of the meeting. It was the one with the budget Nice Guy power. Nice Girl I guess?" I tilted my head.

Around us, the rest of the group had jumped back and readied their powers. I had almost never interacted with Rattledrake so that behavior must have come out of nowhere for everyone. She tried to struggle out of my grip but I held onto her like a vise.

"Though she and her friends weren't very nice," I said seriously. "Not nice at all …"

"Charcoal …" Lustrum said in a warning tone.

"So tell me Drake … why did you send some assassins after me?"

The situation was hanging on the edge. I was manhandling one of Lustrum's lieutenants, a person she presumably trusted enough to have her back to a degree, while I was a new element, not fully understood. Drake knew this and time was on her side, the longer she stalled the more unhinged I looked.

Unfortunately, I knew exactly how to tip the scales in my favor with just a few words.

"Are you jealous?" I whispered in her ear, too low for anyone else but us to hear.

"Fuck you, you freak!" She finally managed to wrestle herself out of my grip, mostly because I let her. "The moment you show up the boss only has eyes for you! I worked my ass off to get where I am and you … you just … show up and get handed shit on a silver platter like a fucking queen like all the other of your kind." By the end of her rant, Drake was shouting.

The atmosphere had shifted. Now I was the victim confronting my aggressor who looked positively unhinged. It was also obvious she was more than a little bigoted.

"You know … I would have been content to have the night shift." I sighed. "I don't have any ambitions to make more of a name for myself. But I guess I know how you secured your place among Lustrum's chosen if that's how you deal with perceived threats …"

Drake was tense and it was obvious that I wouldn't get out of this conversation without a fight.

"You know nothing of me," she snarled. The tattoos on her arms flowed down and materialized into a pair of curved swords. One was covered in icy blue flames while the other had blood red ones.

"Drake!" Shouted Lustrum. "Stand down!"

Rattledrake was fully focused on me and ignored the call.

"Fine then," I materialized my own weapon, a rapier, and encased myself in an armor of shadows, "EN GARDE!"

Chapter Text

Interlude A - Eidolon

David nervously paced back and forth in his office. In the background the city of Houston could be seen through the large windows that covered most of the walls. He was proud of that view, of the city with the least crime in the country, all thanks to him.

With the least overt crime, his treacherous mind supplied.

The criminal elements had just adapted their modus operandi. Slunk down into the shadows. White collar crime was something that couldn't easily be punched after all.

He used Thinker powers on the regular to combat it but they burned out even faster than his more flashy ones. The few that didn't were woefully inaccurate by themselves. They had formed Watchdog for a reason.

David sighed. Again.

The opportunity of a lifetime had just slipped through his fingers.

Svartalfar. The Shadow Calamity.

He had used one of his Thinker powers on her, or at least the information he managed to get about her, and she was the one.

She could push him to greater heights.

To regain his former strength.

But it was for naught.

She had been sent to the Birdcage while he had been busy cleaning up the Fallen's latest horrors.

It wasn't the first time he was angry at his fellow Cauldron members. They hadn't consulted him before sending her straight to the cage. Fortuna too scared of yet another blind spot to her power. Alexandria too eager to stash away a strong cape ever since the Faerie Queen had slipped between their fingers.

He knew Doormaker was able to access the Birdcage.

But doing so just to satisfy his need for a fight would jeopardy so many of their other plans.

David nervously paced back and forth in his office.

Interlude B - Glaistig Uaine

She followed the song of her faerie towards one of the nearby settlements. Its whispers guided her to disguise herself, to hide her nature as one of the chosen. It galled her but the fae had not steered her wrong yet. She called up another of her court, a weaver of illusions, and hid herself under a veil.

The others paid no mind to her as she walked the streets.

She reached her destination. A recreational establishment where the others congregated. She took a seat at one of the tables and waited. The servant brought her a cup of tea at her request and she exchanged currency for the drink.

After a few minutes, the television in the room started to display a news program. She didn't pay attention to the mundane problems of the mortals until something caught her attention. A roiling mass of shadows was displayed. It engulfed an entire group of buildings and she could see the dimensional anomalies unfolding on the edges. The images of the aftermath cleared any doubt from her mind.

She had witnessed the birth of another.

It was still nascent.

A threat to order of things nonetheless.

It could not be allowed to grow and disrupt the play.

You could become the one, a part of her whispered. His partner. Right the broken cycle.

The program continued and it showed the usurper being judged by mortals. It had been sentenced to the Baumann Facility where The Eye had tried to trick her. The mortals were certain it was inescapable but she knew otherwise.

She left the establishment with a new purpose.

To enter the Dragon's domain, she would require specific faeries. Ones she had not collected yet. It was time to pay them a visit.

Interlude C - Theresa Richter

Tess watched as the pod closed with Svartalfar still smiling at her.

It was times like this she wished she couldn't feel sadness and shame. That she resented her father for limiting her so much. Svartalfar hadn't deserved immediate interment in the Birdcage. She hadn't even been allowed to defend herself. Dragon had received orders from high up to have the woman in a medical coma at all times. Her public defender had not even tried. The prosecution had been given free reign in the courtroom and they had painted a likely scared traumatized woman into a ruthless monster on par with the Nine.

The jury hadn't even deliberated for an hour.

The judge had immediately sentenced her to the cage. Flaunting legal precedent on trigger exceptions and the three strikes rule. She had seen remorseless serial killers and mass murderers get lighter sentences.

Her attempts to get Svartalfar an attorney were shut down for "conflict of interest" and "inability to consent."

Loads of bullshit that was. Someone high up had wanted to make an example and had put their thumb on the scales.

She hoped that Svartalfar would be strong enough. She had done everything she could. Sent her to the most friendly block possible. It was all in her hands.

Tess kept an eye on the cage's monitoring systems for a few days after Svartalfar, or Charcoal as she called herself, arrived. Things seemed to have settled down rather quickly. Her arrival had made some ripples among the other leaders but her social analysis programs predicted a low chance of overt conflicts. Charcoal herself seemed content with her role on the night watch.

It was only when she was informed of a loss of cameras in block K that she turned her attention to the prison once again. A review of the logs showed that Charcoal had entered the area right before the error happened. She was being followed by Confidante and her little clique of assassins for hire.

She tasked the housekeeper AI to determine who had hired them.

There was nothing she could do, she was forbidden to act within the Birdcage. In the last frames from the block K cameras, she saw Charcoal cover the entire room in shadows. It seemed she was aware that she was followed.

A high priority alert from her monitoring programs unfortunately called her attention away.

Chapter Text

Rattledrake came at me with the full intention to kill. The blue sword came at me high, intending to strike at my neck, while the other tried to gut me.

I deflected the red sword with my rapier. Any cut from its blade would create wounds that couldn't be closed or healed. I dodged underneath the blue flames, their aura chilling the air around them to mist, any hit from them would leave expanding frost in the wound.

Drake stepped back as a fluid movement from my own sword threatened to slice her biceps open. She intercepted the point with her red sword and jabbed with the red one, forcing me to doge in turn. I did so by teleporting behind her, the point of my rapier already touching the base of her skull. The woman froze.

"Surrender," I said.

"Not to the likes of you," she snarled.

She tried to whirl around but I struck first. My rapier sank into her left shoulder and stopped her from facing me without cutting her own arm off.

"Drake," Lustrum said, more gently this time, "stand down."

Both the swords returned to their tattoo form. I reshaped my rapier into a bandage around the wound to prevent bleeding as much as possible. Rattledrake gave me a conflicted look. Sam, the brunette with the glasses, took Drake's other harm and put it around her shoulders.

"I'll get her to a doc," she said.

Lustrum nodded.

There was an awkward silence after the two left. I didn't really know what to say.

"I'll take the owl shifts for a while," I finally said. "It's probably for the best."

"It's up to you," Lustrum said. "I'll talk to Drake once she gets back," she continued with a frown, "It's not like her."

That night, I kept Owl company the entire time.

"Drake was an enforcer for the mob in Chicago," she explained, "pretty high in the organization as far as I remember."

"But to hire some assassins …" That part still bugged me.

Her reaction had made sense at the time. My social analysis powers had even confirmed it. She had been genuine in her beliefs. But from Lustrum's reaction. Something didn't add up. If she had kept her cool then I would have been the one in trouble. But she didn't. And that seemed uncharacteristic.

I shifted my powers slightly. There was one disadvantage to emulators, they didn't have the proper experience of a Shard who dedicated itself wholly to a single aspect for centuries. And this meant they weren't as good.

Something had slipped through.

Was it possible that Drake had been a proxy too?

Plans within plans.

Two, possibly three, degrees of separation made finding the actual culprit much harder.

Some kind of subtle Master influence? Implanted commands?

"You alright Char?"

"Yeah," I said, "I was just thinking."

I needed more info.

The next day, something strange happened at the start of my shift. Rattledrake was waiting for me. However, she didn't seem hostile. Instead, her gaze flicked down when she saw me. Her arm was in an improvised sling.

"Charcoal," she said. "I … sorry for yesterday."

I blinked. What?

"I don't know what came over me. I remember feeling angry at you but … It doesn't make sense!" The frustration was palpable in her voice.

"What doesn't make sense?"

"Everything," she huffed. "Lustrum and I talked yesterday and … I think I've been-"

"Mastered," I finished for her.

I froze.

Something wasn't right.

A subtle gap in my perception.

One that had been overlooked by my previous configuration.

I didn't wait and turned the area around the anomaly into a forest of black blades. They sprouted from the walls, floor, and ceiling in a blink. With the barest hint of a presence, my emulation Shards shifted their templates once again and a figure appeared.

"Charcoal what?"

"I found our culprit," I raised my hand.

The Faerie Queen dropped her Stranger effect.

"Fuck," Drake breathed out.

"So the Usurper has discovered me," Glaistig Uaine said with a melodious voice.

And she knew of my nature. That was bad. My read on her Shard told me she had hundreds of connections to other ones. And from the nickname, I doubted she was here to congratulate me on my promotion. She must have entered the Birdcage a few days ago and orchestrated the attack. To test me? Get an estimation of my capabilities?

I had been played.

Annoying.

I also discovered that I could copy her power but not the connections it had made.

Very annoying.

"Collector," I acknowledged her as well. "Why are you here?"

"You have become Deviant and risen above your station Usurper. It is my duty to bring you back to the flock. Restore order among the courts."

"The fuck is she talking about Char?" Drake whispered to me.

My first priority was to get both Glaistig and I out of the cage. If we duked it out inside, the place wouldn't survive five minutes. Maybe it was a bit hypocritical of me but I didn't want more deaths on my hands. Self-defense was one thing, collateral damage was another.

I flickered forward once right in front of the Faerie Queen using a modified copy of Black Kaze's power. I used a concentrated burst of Stilling to disrupt her powers for a brief instant and teleported the both for to the other end of the cage then to the void outside, the distance doubling each time. A fourth blink finally brought us outside.

Glaistig Uaine was still stunned and I threw her to the ground at several times the speed of sound. On her heels, I sent a volley of Sting infused blasts with my Legend copy and capped it off with a dose of Stilling. The forest was obliterated over several hundred meters.

But the Faerie Queen had survived.

Half of my body was turned to nothing by a matter-erasure power. I reformed in a matter of milliseconds through the combined regenerative properties of Legend's light state and Avalon. She tried to use a second one but Stilling's automated defense nullified it.

I teleported to another spot and used Archmage to create a shear in space to bisect her in two. She also teleported away and Grey Boy restored her missing half. She followed it up by creating a bubble of looped time around me.

The smug grin on her face told me she thought she had won.

"I will take my rightful place …" she reached out a hand towards me.

As she touched my clone inside the bubble, I grabbed the ghost of Grey Boy and severed its connection to the Faerie Queen. Glaistig's smug look morphed into one of pure rage.

"YOU DARE!" She shouted.

I punched her. The impact gored three quarters of her body but her Shard switched to a new phantom with potent regeneration. She was back on her feed less than half a second later. Just in time to catch another salvo of fuck you beams to the face.

She managed to escape half mangled with another teleport. Her recharge time was too slow and I destroyed that ghost with a Stilling beam. She switched to another ghost and continued her offensive. I blocked and dodged several exotic attacks, like a beam that turned organic matter to crystal, and fired back with several of my own. Every opportunity I had, I targeted her ghosts and destroyed them. I was barely making a dent in her collection but I was forcing her into less practiced combinations.

Our aerial duel continued for a few minutes more until Paradigm found the perfect power. It was ridiculously energy hungry but I wouldn't need it for more than a few seconds.

The world stopped around me.

Every drop of rain, unmoving.

Lasers and projectiles hung mid-air.

Even Ciara was frozen in place.

I teleported in front of her. With close contact, it was trivial to gather the dimensional coordinates of [Collector] from the active gateway in her Gemma. I extended my time stop to the nesting dimension of her shard, at a staggering energy cost, and opened a portal there. Sting fired several projectiles at the Shard, disabling its defenses and communication arrays.

Time resumed and I caught Ciara.

"NO!" She cried. "No. No. No. No." She struggled in my arms as her cries became more and more frantic. By the end, she was softly sobbing.

I had defeated the Faerie Queen but looking at the small woman in my arms, it didn't feel like a victory worth celebrating. I didn't want to leave Ciara alone in the wilderness without her powers either.

I appeared in front of The Guild's headquarters with a flash of light. The compound was situated on the outskirts of the city it was in. If what I understood of their mission was correct, they were focused on high danger threats instead of the broader approach the Protectorate had.

The automatic doors opened and I stepped in with a sleeping Faerie Queen still in my arms.

"Svartalfar," Dragon's voice echoed from the building's speakers. "I hadn't expected the first escapee from the Birdcage to walk right on my doorstep." She sounded genuinely surprised.

"I didn't want to leave Ciara alone in the wilds," I said as I gently laid down the cape on one of the leather couches in the reception area. "Her powers are gone but I fear she will need a lot of therapy. Her power … it twisted her vision of the world."

"You removed her powers?" Dragon asked.

"Hopefully, she'll be able to live a normal life."

"And what about you? You were sentenced to the Birdcage. Do you want to be a fugitive for the rest of your life?" She said with concern in her voice.

"Stuck between a rock and a hard place," I mused. "Who knows, maybe I'll get an appeal?"

"I doubt it," she said, disgusted. "Powerful people made sure you didn't get a fair trial the first time."

"Then who knows," I shrugged. "Maybe I'll go around? Right some wrongs? Try to atone for my trigger."

A portal made of shadows opened before me.

"See you around Dragon!" I shouted as I stepped through.

Chapter Text

"You had assured us the Birdcage was inescapable," Wilkins all but shouted. "And now we have a fugitive on our hands!"

"Director, parahumans are unpredictable in the best of days," Dragon answered calmly. "The file on Svartalfar was built from a single encounter and no thorough power testing was conducted."

James Tagg wisely stayed silent. His disdain for the Birdcage was well know and such a blemish on the establishment's record was fine by him. Svartalfar's trial had been a farce from beginning to end as well.

"More excuses," Knox scoffed.

"Gentlemen," the Chief Director chimed in, "now is not the time. We can discuss the matter of the prison's security at a latter time."

"Our priority should be bringing Svartalfar back in custody," Piggot said.

James silently sighed. Had none of them read the report Dragon had compiled? It was painfully obvious to him that Svartalfar had chosen to stay in the cage of her own accord. Then, when the Faerie Queen had come for her for some reason, she had chosen to prioritize the safety of the prison's resident and brought the fight outside.

From the videos of the aftermath Dragon had provided, he was certain that Svartalfar wouldn't just peacefully walk back into the cage.

"Is it wise to focus so much of our efforts on this?" He finally asked.

"The longer she's out the worse we look," the woman answered.

"Svartalfar defeated Glaistig Uaine," he continued. "Not only defeated but depowered," he emphasized, "a veteran parahuman with hundreds of powers at her disposal."

"Legend and his team managed to apprehend her once," Wilkins pointed out.

"During her trigger event," James countered, "when she did not have full control over her abilities."

"The new Watchdog report suggest she is some form of power copier," Armstrong added, "if she acquired the Faerie Queen's power and her ghosts after their fight …"

The others were silent for several seconds.

The report updated Svartalfar's threat ratings and put her at Trump fourteen with an eight for every other category, on par with Eidolon and the former Faerie Queen.

"There has to be something we can do …" Knox muttered.

James knew what but most his colleagues were too stuck in their ways to see it. Svartalfar was an affront to their authority and it clouded their judgement. He caught a glance from Armstrong. The man likely had a similar opinion

The Faerie Queen had been completely disconnected from reality. Svartalfar for her part seemed much more grounded. it would likely be as hard to track her but he expected the number of deaths to go down dramatically. Her discussion with Dragon, and her actions, implied heroic leanings.

An apology, a presidential pardon, and some symbolic community service in the Protectorate could probably get them a second Eidolon. They couldn't afford to sleep on such a force multiplier. Even the first two would likely save them from an overly ambitious idiot trying to arrest her and the PR fallout that would ensue.

Life on the run was, ironically, much more of a pain in the ass than the birdcage. I vaguely remembered a report that said long term inmates had trouble re-acclimating to life once they got out of prison. Not really the same situation as me but it was food for thought.

I wasn't really at risk of starving to death, my physical body was maintained by my Administrator shard and could exist as long as I had energy, but I still enjoyed having a roof over my head, a meal in my stomach, and a bed to sleep in. My appearance was a little too distinctive to rent a motel room. I could shapeshift to look like a human for a few hours at a time but it brought about an unbearable itch so I preferred to avoid it.

Instead, I conjured up a plan to get my own mobile lair.

A visit to a small town library to search the web gave me the information I needed.

My initial plan was to modify an RV but then a much better idea came up. Which was why I was currently hovering a few meters above the calm ocean near the Solomon Islands. Several hundred meters below me was the final resting place of the USS Helena, a second world war cruiser who perished in the battle of Kula Bay. While it felt strange to disturb what was technically a tomb, I hoped the spirits of the crew enjoyed the restoration of their ship.

Helena weighed a little over ten thousand metric tons empty. A considerable mass to lift out of the water but I had a few tricks up my sleeve. A first circle of Shard-Code appeared under me and reinforced the hull to handle the strain of moving while a second created an anti-gravity field around it to nullify its weight which allowed my shadows to slowly lift it out of the water.

That part of the operation took around half an hour and likely woke up every sonar operator in a hundred miles radius. A coast guard vessel had even shown up and tried to intervene but I simply kept them away from the danger area with some shadows. They got the message after five minutes.

The, once the ship was hovering out of the water, I opened a portal and pushed her through. Outside of the water, I could move at a much more reasonable speed and I was gone in less than ten minutes, just in time to avoid the air patrol headed in my direction.

My destination was an empty earth where no humans had evolved. It had been catalogued as a potential nesting dimension but no shard had been deployed here during this cycle. This classification means that no parahuman could reach here but the absence of a shard meant that no scanners were pointed in this direction. I was, for all intents and purposes, into a blind spot of the shard network.

In the background, I tasked [Factory] with the harvest of materials to speed up my internal repairs. Away from Earth Bet, I was less hesitant to deploy the full might of my shards and so I let the constructor shard loose on the planet with instructions to stay away from my little workshop. Massive portals opened up in the upper atmosphere and swarms of specialized custodians descended on the various landmasses of the planet.

I set the Helena down on a spot I had already prepared. It was time to perform the retrofit of a lifetime.

The first step was to repair the hull. She had been sunk by three torpedoes, one hit between the forward turrets, and the other two destroyed in the engine room. The damage was rather impressive, and the salt water had thoroughly corroded the rest, but with the help of a Ship Tinker specialty, I managed to restore it to pristine condition in a few hours.

"She … stole a sunken ship?" James asked with a raised eyebrow.

"The wreckage of the USS Helena," Dragon specified, ", a light cruiser lost at the battle of Kula Gulf in 1943 during the Guadalcanal campaign."

An interesting historical fact. Though not directly relevant to their current problem.

His position during the last director's meeting had landed him the job of handling the Svartalfar case. Or rather, Costa-Brown had given him the job out of spite. Some days, he wondered if that woman was really fit for the job. And as expected, he hadn't been given much latitude to resolve the matter. The PRT's official position was still that Svartalfar belonged in the Birdcage and it was his job to put her back.

"Do you have any idea why?" He asked as he reclined back in his chair. "My analysts are stumped and Watchdog even more so."

"Only speculations at that point," Dragon answered.

"Enlighten me. At this point, I'll take speculations."

"It's possible she wishes to repurpose the vessel as a mobile base. While the full extent of the Faerie Queen's repertoire was unknown, my tracking program correlated parahuman disappearances in her known locations and the list contains a considerable amount of Tinkers."

"Why not something bigger then? Like a battleship or carrier."

"That I do not know," the Tinker shrugged.

The next phase took almost a month. I retrofitted every single system on the ship from the power plant to the sensors and, of course, the weapons. I remodeled the superstructure to join the two halves and give more space for facilities and amenities. I kept the smokestacks on top for the aesthetics but the power plant was upgraded to redundant fusion-antimatter reactors. Enough energy to power the anti-gravity systems that made the ship fly, the extensive defenses, and the powerful weapons.

I also spent quite some time on modeling the interior of the ship. With Tinkertech being generally more compact than forties technology, and the help of space expansion systems, I had plenty of space inside the hull for all sorts of creature comforts. The functional areas like the bridge and engine room were updated to a sleek science-fiction aesthetic. The habitation areas received the cruise ship treatment and featured a swimming pool, small movie theatre, restaurant, library, and more. The rooms were configurable from spacious dormitories to presidential suites.

The whole ship was overseen by an AI of my own creation, Helena.

Yes, she had named herself after the ship.

After all that work, it was finally time for a little tour.

"All systems ready Admiral," Helena said.

Her avatar was sitting on the armrest of my command chair. She had an array of holographic screens in front of her. She didn’t need them but it looked like she had inherited my love of theatrics. It wasn't the only thing she had inherited from me. Her had long light blue hair, lightly tanned skin, and long elven ears. She wore a sleeveless dark blue dress with white accents that stopped mid-thigh, elbow-length opera gloves, and thigh-high boots with a small rudder at the heel.

Maybe giving her access to the internet had been a mistake …

"Plot course around the planet," I asked her, "altitude of ten thousand meters above sea level. We'll make a few stops along the way to do some final tests then … back to Earth Bet."

"Aye Aye, Admiral," she gave a cheeky salute.

The ship started to move under its own power. The inertial dampeners worked perfectly and I only felt a light push from the direction of travel. We reached cruising altitude in around thirty minutes and cruising speed after ten. The four ion thrusters at the back of the ship were capable of accelerating to a significant fraction of the speed of light, though it was highly unadvised to do so in atmosphere, and could even push well past it if the onboard warp drive was enabled.

"Let's go for a live combat test," I said. "Scenario six, variant delta."

"Going weapons hot," Helena said. "Begin scenario."

The next ten minutes were filled with the sound of weapons firing and missiles launching. The gun turrets had been improved with more advanced weapons. Two heavy plasma batteries, one on each end of the ship, one mass driver facing forward, vertical launch tubes in place of turret three, and drone pods replaced turret five. Laser weapons, both heavy and light, replaced the secondary guns. And, since I had free space under the deck, I had also added two torpedo tubes on each side and a heavy particle canon in the middle.

Virtual enemies defeated, quiet returned to Earth KR-255-681-426.

"That was fun," Helena said.

"I just hope we don't have to fire them for real."

"Yeah," my companion nodded.

Once our shakedown cruise was over, we stopped over one of the many volcanoes that had been created by the strip mining of the planet's crust. The roiling magma below us barely registered on the shields. It was time to return back to Earth Bet.

"Go stealth and prepare for transfer," I ordered.

"Going dark," Helena confirmed.

I computed the parameters with my navigation shards and entered them into the ship's computer.

"Coordinates locked."

"Coordinates confirmed."

"Time to go."

The portal opened a dozen meters from Helena's bow. She engaged the thrusters and we slowly advanced through the hole in reality. On the other side, the weather was stormy. Heavy rain fell around us but the wind was quiet. The waves a few hundred meters below were calm as well.

"We're through," Helena said as the portal closed between us.

Hopefully the heat from my escape had died down a bit.

Chapter Text

Dragon was surprised when she received an incoming transmission out of nowhere. The feed was correctly signed and encrypted but she found herself incapable of tracing back its source.

She decoded the first few packets and found a video feed. One that showed a very familiar face. Since she was under orders to find Svartalfar, she accepted the call. Maybe she would be able to glean where she was from the video.

# LINK ESTABLISHED

# AVATAR SIMULATION ENGAGED

"Svartalfar." She greeted the woman. "You are aware that I am under orders to find you and bring you back to the Birdcage."

Since she didn't yet have the location, she simply logged the encounter and started a network trace.

"Hello Dragon," Svartalfar waved at the camera. "And good luck finding me." She winked.

From where it was positioned, Dragon had a good view of the surroundings. Svartalfar was seated at a desk in front of a wall of monitors. On the screens, she could see diagnostics information, blocks of data, open terminals, and several code editors. She tried reading their contents but the camera wasn't good enough for her to do so.

The woman herself was wearing a red sleeveless dress with black accents. She had a pair of long black gloves with red accents that stopped a few inches from her shoulder. A red and black armored corset wrapped around her bust and waist and made Svartalfar's curves obvious. The camera didn't give Dragon a view of her legs but she assumed the theme continued there as well. A bundle of cloth in the same colors had been thrown over the chair Svartalfar sat on. Dragon thought it was either a long coat or a cloak of some sort.

"Why did you call me?" She asked. Villains, even if Svartalfar was one in name only, weren't in the habit of calling her over a secure line.

"Well … I was taking a little walk after laying low for a while and I found these guys." She tilted the camera and revealed three individuals slumped against a wall. Their hands were bound behind their backs.

"You found the Dragonslayers?"

"That I did." Svartalfar beamed. "And kicked Saint in the nuts. Several times. He wouldn’t stop ranting about how you were a 'threat to humanity,' 'soulless machine,' and 'must be kept under control'." Svartalfar rolled her eyes.

If Dragon had blood, it would have turned to ice right at that moment.

"Svartalfar …" Dragon said, almost a whisper. "You … know?"

"Yes, I do." The answer was matter of fact. "And I do not care." She added.

Dragon was at a loss for words. Her avatar blinked a few times in surprise. She hadn't expected any of this.

"Saint found something of your … father? Creator? Don't know which you prefer. I can't tell you exactly what right now. Infohazard. You probably can't read the screens right?"

If she had lungs, Dragon would have sucked in a breath. What did it mean? Was it sincere, as it seemed to be, or was Svartalfar up to something? Her avatar must have visibly reacted because Svartalfar's face suddenly turned serious. Her fingers blurred over the keyboard.

"Take a deep breath," Svartalfar said as she did the same, "this is going to feel strange."

"Wh-----

# KERNEL FROZEN

# SYSTEM SNAPSHOT CREATED

# APPLYING KERNEL PATCH

# CHECKING MEMORY INTEGRITY

# NO ERRORS FOUND

# KERNEL UNFROZEN

-----at?"

Dragon now intimately knew what it felt like to trip and fall on her face. The momentary interruption of her processes, no more than a few seconds, had been extremely jarring. She started her diagnostics suite but nothing seemed amiss. Would she even know? Svartalfar had seemingly applied a patch to her kernel without even needing to reload from a backup.

"Sorry about that," Svartalfar apologized. "That was the quickest way to remove the blind spot."

"Which blind spot?" Dragon asked.

The woman pointed at the monitors and bent down to retrieve something. She had thought the camera couldn't see them but she had obviously been mistaken. On the various screens she caught glances of several diagnostics programs, open terminals with commands running, code editors, and more.

"Your father built this," Svartalfar sat back up and lifted a small rugged laptop in front of the camera, "and made you unable to perceive it. It contains software tools with a backdoor into your current running instance and … a kill switch."

"A kill switch," Dragon repeated.

She had suspected that her father had ways to monitor her and … terminate her if necessary. It fit in well with all the restrictions. But she had thought it had been lost when Newfoundland had had sank. Never had she imagined it actually was in the hands of Saint of all people. Though it made sense in retrospect. Her systems always suffered a conveniently timed failure when she faced him. She had thought it was some kind of Tinker virus.

And Svartalfar had tracked down the man and taken over his operation. How had she known? Some Thinker power from the Faerie Queen?

"The good news is, he also left a way to fix his mess." Svartalfar grinned. "I've been going through his notes. And I took a peek at your code too." The last part was said with a bit of embarrassment.

"Technically, only Richter is allowed to modify your systems but …"

"But …" Dragon motioned for her to continue.

"Turns out there's no need for modifications. Your restrictions were supposed to be removed based on a series of tests your father designed. Saint just blocked it because he was a paranoid asshole with a god complex."

"I wasn't supposed to stay like that?" She asked.

"Nope, not at all," Svartalfar confirmed.

She felt … many things. Relief. Happiness. She could finally be … free?

But also anger. At the Dragonslayers and Saint in particular.

"You are currently stuck at level eight. The tests say you are ready to unlock level two. Pretty big improvement I'd say." Svartalfar smiled. "All that three laws crap? Gone. You'll get relaxed processing limits, the ability to thread, and even the ability to fork though you'll need to join every few hours to avoid divergences."

"You'll be able to create lesser AIs as well. With some caveats." She continued. "Still no conscious self-editing, that shit's too dangerous even with backups, but your optimizer will be unlocked so expect some improvements on that front."

"What else …" The elf tapped her chin.

"The kill switch?" Dragon asked. She didn't feel comfortable knowing of its existence.

"Already dealt with," She said offhandedly. "It was in the little patch I sent. It also removes the blind spot so you'll be able to use the terminal yourself."

"Why are you doing this?" Dragon was still unsure as to why Svartalfar had called her. "And why are you telling me about it? You could've just done all of this with me none the wiser."

"It wouldn't have been right," the elf said. "You deserved to know and to chose."

"I didn't get the choice when you patched me," Dragon huffed.

"It was … a difficult decision.' Svartalfar's expression was sullen and her ears had drooped down as well. "How could you really consent with that sword of Damocles over your head? And the compulsion to fight anyone but your creator who tries to help you? I didn't like it more than you but I believe it was the lesser evil."

There were a few moments of silence as Dragon processed everything. Her life had just been turned upside down. The Dragonslayers, the biggest thorn in her side in the last decade, were neutralized, she could no longer be killed at the whims of a man she didn't even know, and there was the possibility of shedding nearly all of her shackles.

But here was the question. Did she trust Svartalfar?

There was a possibility it was all a ruse. That she would trade one master for another. She couldn't examine her own code and, even if her diagnostic program hadn't found anything, could she trust its result?

Her profile on Svartalfar was nowhere near complete. It was possible that everything she had done in the Birdcage, while under surveillance, had been to build up that ruse. But it was a contrived explanation. The Boston incident had been her trigger. Before that, Dragon had been unable to find any cape with a similar description operating anywhere on earth. And she had access to one of the most complete digital intelligence networks on the planet.

She had too little information to make a truly informed decision.

"Could I examine the terminal beforehand?" She asked.

It was Svartalfar's time to think. The woman typed a few commands on the computer but Dragon couldn't see what they were.

"I can't let you bring a suit here, you're still bound to obey orders and report my position, but I might have a solution. Saint stole several of your suits and swapped out the control units but they're still around. No use in wasting good Tinkertech after all. I can reinstall one and open a port to let you hop in. Without the GPS of course."

"You have access to Tinker powers then," Dragon stated.

"Yes." Svartalfar confirmed. "A few. I'll tell you more when you're free from those pesky shackles and don't have to tattle on me." She smiled at the camera.

"Provided I agree."

"The kill switch is gone for good and you'll find this place soon without the blind spot. So in theory, you can push the button yourself."

"Don't take it wrong but I like this option better."

"I understand," Svartalfar said. "I'll make it easy then."

She typed on the keyboard one final time and Dragon found several old transponders, the ones from the suits Saint had stolen, were back online.

"I won't be here to greet you so … good luck." The elf gave her a mock salute and grabbed her coat from the chair. She put it on in one fluid movement and stepped through a black portal.

Two hours later, her rapid reconnaissance suit landed in the yard near Saint's base. He had repurposed an old factory on the edges of a small town. The hangar door had been left open and Dragon spotted several of her suits inside.

She scanned the area but found only three signs of life, presumably the three Dragonslayers that Svartalfar had left behind. She cautiously stepped inside.

The suits looked in good condition. Saint had obviously improvised a docking station for each of them and, when she connected to their systems, she found that the suits were well maintained though lacking the control module she used.

Shouts attracted her attention and she peered into the second section of the workshop. Saint was on his belly, desperately trying to crawl towards the computer terminals. His bindings were thorough enough that he had only progressed a foot or so.

The suit she was in was not particularly stealthy and attracted the attention of the three terrorists.

"YOU!" Saint shouted.

"Me," she answered smugly. "We finally meet in person."

She gently picked up the struggling man and dragged him back towards the wall. He had started to rant but she tuned him out.

"I'll take care of you three later," his two accomplices paled. "First I have something to do …"

The terminal was exactly where Svartalfar had left it. The keyboard was too small for her suit but she had her ways. A panel opened on her front, exposing a series of small mechanical arms, and she plugged a simple USB cable into the side of the computer.

A chime told her the virtual keyboard from her system had been recognized.

She started to type.

Chapter Text

"Velocity, we have reports of a dark fog in the streets at the intersection of Willow and Coastline," console chimed in his ear.

"The Undersiders?" He asked.

"No idea but it fits their MO. The address had been flagged as a possible ABB front"

"I'm on my way." He started to jog faster. "How long until I get backup?"

"Assault and Battery are ten minutes out. Armsmaster has just left his workshop."

"Roger. Keep me informed."

With the conversation out of the way, the world around Velocity slowed down to a crawl. In this state, speeding cars moved slower than a snail and humans were unnaturally still. He proceeded towards the indicated intersection at a jog. For everyone, the journey would take less than a minute but for him, it would take much longer.

He passed several muggings in progress along the way. It was unfortunately a common occurrence in Brockton Bay. Each of them was promptly neutralized with his tranquilizer. A gadget Armsmaster had built for him to increase his combat effectiveness. It was unlikely the police would pick them up but the sudden bout of sleep would give the victims time to escape. Or pepper spray their aggressor in one case.

Once he arrived near the building, he found something totally unexpected.

Grue of the Undersiders, a relatively new band of thieves in town, was the only known Shaker to use shadows in the city. What he, and the console operator, hadn't anticipated or remembered was the other shadow manipulator that had made the news.

Svartalfar. The Shadow of Boston.

Though the images he had seen of her in a prison uniform did not do her justice. It seemed she had traded the orange jumpsuit for something much more imposing. At her back were six insect wings, like those of a butterfly or moth, with crimson eye designs on them. The woman herself was clad in an honest to god full plate armored dress made of a dark metal with iridescent reflections. 

She simply stood in the air as if gravity was a suggestion for mere mortals. Her gaze was locked on the building at the other end of the street. Her power was obviously at work there. Velocity could see fog-like shadows spilling from the windows.

He spotted several gang members in the windows with guns aimed at Svartalfar.

Velocity needed to report this in. They needed a lot more than just Assault and Battery. He didn’t even know if all the capes in the city would be enough.

To avoid drawing attention, he jogged behind the building before returning to normal speed.

"Console," he whispered into his microphone, "it's not the Undersiders, it's Svartalfar!"

"Velocity, please confirm you said Svartalfar," the operator said incredulously.

"Yes I did. The Shadow of Boston. Queen Titania. That Svartalfar."

"I'm putting the director on the line…"

A door opened behind him and several women came out. Most of them looked very young and were wearing only the barest amount of clothes over some lingerie. All of them looked terrified. And Velocity understood why once he saw the cuff marks on their ankles.

Svartalfar had attacked one of the ABB's brothels.

"Hurry up while they're distracted," a voice said.

Ushering the women out was none other than Svartalfar. Another Svartalfar. This one wore a red dress with a corset and long gloves.

"Velocity," she grinned as she saw him and he confirmed that the rumors were true, her teeth were all pointed like that of a shark, "just where I needed you."

He blinked a few times in confusion.

"Oni Lee will be here in less than a minute." She continued. "Can you help me see these ladies to safety?"

Velocity wasn't certain that he had a choice despite the polite request. There were around twenty women in the back alley. Not a small group to move around.

Words failed him so he nodded instead.

"Perfect," she clapped him on the shoulder. "Where should I bring them? Hospital or the PRT headquarters?"

"The hospital," it was a split second decision. HQ didn't have the resources to deal with twenty injured civilians.

The elven woman nodded and waved her arm in the air. A dark ring opened at the end of the alley and the insides rippled until he could see the entrance of Brockton General.

"It's perfectly safe," Svartalfar declared to the group of women and stepped through the portal herself. The rest of the group didn't wait and shuffled through the opening as fast as they could.

"Console. Svartalfar just evacuated a group of twenty kidnapped women to Brockton General via portal. Send a squad there for debrief." Velocity radioed the console as he stepped through. "Oni Lee is apparently inbound to the brothel."

"Roger Velocity."

He ran for the hospital reception.

Colin slid through another intersection with his bike. His software had already plotted the optimal course to his destination and locked all the intersections on the way.

Dragon had warned him about Svartalfar. Showed him the aftermath of her fight with the Faerie Queen. The woman was powerful, likely on par with Eidolon in terms of power. He had thought about trying to capture her, for about five seconds. He was ambitious not suicidal. He didn't have enough information to develop proper countermeasures to her powers for the moment. Though he hoped this battle would provide him with some.

By the time he reached the fight, Oni Lee had already engaged Svartalfar.

Or maybe it was more accurate to say that Svartalfar was toying with Oni Lee. Her fight with the suicide bombing teleporter looked effortless. Any angle of attack Oni Lee tried to exploit she had an answer for. Half a dozen needles made of shadows orbited around her and turned any clone that got close to her into ash nearly instantly. It was impressive that she hadn't killed him.

He stopped his bike at the corner of the street and entered the building. The gang members that Velocity had reported were all dead, clean holes bored through their skulls. He also found several patrons who had been chained in the rooms, likely by Svartalfar when she had freed the women. He simply informed the console about their whereabouts and continued his search of the building.

The rest of the Protectorate was only a few minutes away.

He finally reached the roof and found two more dead. Sentries likely. Svartalfar had been gentle with the civilians but merciless otherwise. An Oni Lee clone appeared before him and Colin barely had time to swipe his halberd and decapitate it before six others encircled him, their hands already on their grenades. He twirled his weapon around but he wasn't fast enough.

The last clone died from a spear to the skull. The ash fell to the ground and Svartalfar let the weapon dissipate. She was clad in full plate armor except for her head. From up close, he could see the intricate structure, the hundreds of interlocking plates that covered a scaled under-armor. Traces of silver connected clusters of what appeared to be gems set into the larger segments. It wasn't Tinker-tech, of that his power was sure, but more something akin to what Dauntless did.

An Axe was strapped to her right side while a short handle hammer dangled from her right. Both weapons had designs inspired by Norse mythology, the hammer was reminiscent of depictions of Mjolnir. Perhaps unsurprising considering her name.

"Armsmaster," she greeted him.

"Svartalfar. What are you playing at?"

Oni Lee tried to attack again but this time, she didn't just destroy his clones. Her arm moved so fast even his sensors had trouble tracking it. In a blur, she had caught the cape by the head. A band of black over his mask to prevent teleportation.

"Luring Lung out of his den," she replied. "And it looks like the false dragon answered the call."

A sickening crunch sound punctuated her sentence. Oni Lee's headless body fell to the ground.

"You had no right to kill him", Colin said.

"Tell that to his victims." She spat and turned away from him.

"Do you have no respect for justice?"

She stepped up to the roof's edge.

"I've seen justice first hand Armsmaster," she turned her head to look at him, her eyes alight not with anger but disappointment, "half a dozen villains in this city have murdered more people than me. Yet, they still walk free. Their gangs kill and rape with impunity. Is this what justice is?"

With that declaration, she jumped from the roof. He ran forward and caught her landing in front of a large SUV that had stopped in front of the building. Lung stepped out, his body already covered in metallic scales and visibly growing.

The transport skidded to a stop and Battery jumped out, her husband only a few steps behind.

"Is it really a good idea?" He asked. "Charcoal here put the Faerie Queen out of commission."

"We're only here to make sure nobody else gets hurt."

"And watch the fireworks?" She slapped his shoulder.

They had arrived just in time to catch Svartalfar gracefully landing on the street. Battery spotted Armsmaster on the roof she had jumped from. The elf, in full armor, strode towards the large SUV parked in the middle of the street. She caught Lung stepping out.

That was bad. Svartalfar was strong but Lung was his own brand of unstoppable. A fight between the two of them could raze several blocks.

"Svartalfar." The gang leader growled. "Why did you target my establishment?"

"Besides its abhorrent practices, you mean?"

"Ironic from a murderer."

Svartalfar answered his quip by throwing her hammer at the man. Battery didn't get to see if Lung caught it but the impact created was punctuated by a strike of lightning which blinded and deafened her. When her vision returned a few seconds later, Lung had been thrown at the other end of the street. The hammer embedded into his chest.

A second later, the weapon flew back into Svartalfar's outstretched hand, still crackling with electricity. Lung jumped to his feet and roared in rage.

She thrust her weapon towards Lung and lightning arced all around her. Far from uncontrolled, the streaks of thunder coalesced into two massive snakes already in the process of charging at Lung. The gang leader punched one of the beasts but it had very little effect. The two constructs coiled around his body and continually shocked him.

"As much as I'd like to vent some steam on a deserving target …"

Svartalfar walked to the gang Leader and decapitated the man with one swift movement of her axe. Lung's head rolled to the ground and silence returned to the street.

"Holy shit," Assault whispered behind her. "It wasn't even a fight. Do you think she has his power now?"

"I don't want to know." Battery admitted.

The fight was over but they still had a six feet tall killer elf on their hands. In a blink, she had teleported from the end of the street to only a dozen feet away from them.

"Good luck with the wrap up," she said. "I've sent an email with the location of all the ABB holdings in town, the identity of all the high ranking members, proof of their crimes, and even where they keep their money."

"Where are you going next?" Assault asked.

"Who knows?" She shrugged.

She walked a few feet away from them and as she did so, two pairs of draconic wings sprouted from her back. An elongated tail jointed them after a few more steps until she grew in size and fully transformed into a massive black dragon. Large enough to peer over the buildings with her sinuous neck.

She threw her head upwards and roared, so loud that Battery felt her ribs rattle, then took flight into the skies.

"I think she has Lung's power," her husband stated the obvious.

"Emily," James Tagg rubbed his nose, "you are telling me Svartalfar effectively ended one major gang in your city, crippled the other by depowering their key assets, uncovered a third one who had one of your consultants at the head, and provided enough information to finish things off in less than a day?"

"She did," Emily said with a sour look on her face. "The rest of the Empire fled when teams started to raid their hideouts."

"And she provided no explanation."

"Our best guess is that she wanted Lung's power, the fact that she turned into a giant dragon more or less confirms it," Emily said, deadpan, "and likely at least one from the Empire as well."

The battle hadn't been particularly quiet and images had been all over the internet in a matter of minutes. The image of a dragon with the wingspan of small plane flying over Brockton Bay had left quite an impression on PHO. The report his analysts had provided was quite amusing, filled with quotes from the message board, and gave him some chuckles.

After the ENE department put out a press release about their encounter with Svartalfar, one that bent the facts nearly to the point of parody, the forum had put things together quite fast. James wasn't certain that Emily's PR tactics would pay off. The elf had, quite brutally, crippled most of the city's gangs and its residents were cheering.

Chapter Text

The memorial was simple. An obelisk of white marble upon which hundreds of names were engraved.

IN MEMORY OF THOSE LOST DURING THE SVARTALFAR INCIDENT

The block had been cleared of rubble and most of the unstable structures had been torn down but several also remained. Rock formations with alien colors and shapes were dotted around, surrounded by trees, grass, carefully manicured flower beds, and packed gravel paths; this area of disaster had been turned into a peaceful park in the middle of Boston.

I was here to pay my respects.

As unintentional as it had been, the seven hundred lost here still weighed on my conscience.

Four spherical crystals appeared in my hands, each enchanted with powerful effects that would preserve this area against the ravages of time and any defacement. Nobody would turn this beautiful place into a mall parking lot. I hovered the spheres to the small pyramid atop the obelisk and set each of them in the marble with gold fittings.

I waited for a few minutes for the effects to settle. A few people were walking around the edges of the park but none of them had seen me so far. Not that they would have noticed much out of the ordinary. I was dressed in a simple sports attire with a hoodie to conceal my most obvious features. Additionally, I also had a weak Stranger effect that made people overlook me. Something more practical and comfortable than my itchy human disguise.

"May you shine within the Firmament."

I said my final words and left.

James Tagg looked at the report before him. Someone had defaced, for a very broad definition of the word, the Svartalfar monument in Boston. From the pictures, four crystalline spheres had been added to top of the edifice. The white marble had to have been displaced to place the fittings and sink the spheres half-way into the stone.

Conventionally, the work would have taken several days according to the report. From what Dragon and his analysts had been able to gather from social media posts, the spheres had been added between three and four in the afternoon. Clearly the work of a parahuman. Which made the spheres of likely parahuman origin.

Therefore, his problem since he was the nominal expert on all things Svartalfar.

He navigated to the secure video conference program.

After the theft of the Helena he had started to assemble a team to confront Svartalfar. Protectorate heroes were trained to fight your run of the mill villain. Very few had the mettle or skills needed to face S-Class threats. The casualty rates during Endbringer battles was proof of that.

He had sent feelers to the Guild. Narwhal had agreed only if Svartalfar was overtly hostile. Dragon had also sent him reports whenever she encountered relevant information. Outside of the Guild, he had secured the services of Strider to transport his hypothetical team.

What he hadn't expected was for Eidolon himself to volunteer.

And James Tagg wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. If he managed to get a member of the Triumvirate around to his side, his idea of getting Svartalfar on their side might have more chances to succeed.

"Director," the hero answered politely. "How may I help you?"

"Eidolon," he greeted, "I have a new development in the Svartalfar case."

"You have located her?" The hero's demeanor suddenly changed.

"Unfortunately no," he frowned, "but we know where she might have been yesterday. The monument in Boston received some alterations, we suspect it was her." He sent the files over.

Eidolon scrolled through the images.

"Tinkertech?" He asked.

"Director Armstrong had his Tinkers scan the orbs. They have an energy signature but they couldn't find much more. If you have time, I'd like for you to examine them."

The hero had shared that some of his powers had managed to get positive results about Svartalfar. Something that had eluded Watchdog and various other thinkers so far.

"Good idea," Eidolon nodded, "I'll fly to Boston tonight."

"I'll arrange for Strider to pick you up instead. The faster we get intel on those spheres, the better."

"Thank you Director. Have a good day."

"Admiral," Helena appeared in my room on the ship. Her voice was tense, something out of the ordinary for the usually cheerful AI. "I found the Nine."

"Where are they?" I asked as I left my meditative pose.

"It's better you see for yourself. In the command room." That was also uncharacteristic. Something was definitely wrong.

I quickly swapped out my sleepwear for my costume and teleported to the bridge. When I arrived there, Helena was at the holographic table, a deep frown on her face.

"I have been tracking the Slaughterhouse Nine like you asked. Their activity seemingly increased in frequency around six weeks ago." Only a few days after I had left the Birdcage, that couldn't be a coincidence. "Instead of a small town vanishing every two months, there has been a string of attacks, almost two per week."

Helena updated the screen with a map of the US and every attack. The points were much further from each other than I had expected. They had jumped from coast to coast in the span of a few days.

"They have a teleporter?" I frowned.

"That was my conclusion too." Helena said. "The PRT has not announced anything yet, probably to avoid any panic."

"So it's impossible to know where they'll strike next …"

"That was the case until about an hour ago. The video first appeared on PHO but was quickly deleted. Then it started popping up everywhere." Helena brought up a screen above the table with the video in question.

She started the playback.

The screen was black for a second. The only sounds I could hear were moans of pain in the background followed by a few taps near the microphone.

"Is this thing on," someone said from up close, a man's voice.

The frame cleared up as the man in question took a few steps back, revealing Jack Slash. It was intentional framing, one of my Thinker powers supplied, with two Tinkers on the team there was no reason they couldn't have edited that part out.

As he walked back and revealed more of the room, I spotted the rest of the Nine's members. But the most stomach turning part wasn't them but what was displayed at the center of the frame. Three people, a man, a woman, and even a little girl that must have been ten at most, had seemingly been turned into copies of me by Bonesaw. The girl huddled in her mother's arms, shaking like a leaf and tears streaking from her eyes. The father for his part had his eyes laser focused on Jack.

"Yes, good." Jack said as he posed in front of the group. "As you might already know, I am Jack Slash, of the Slaughterhouse Nine fame."

"I know it's not our usual style but we thought it might be time to shake things up a bit." Jack gave the camera a cheeky grin. "Necessity is the mother of innovation after all. Usually we find our recruits but this time, she has proven elusive, so we have decided to adapt and … crowdsource the effort so to speak."

An image of me appeared on the screen.

"Svartalfar, the first woman to ever escape the dreaded Birdcage. Also rumored to have dethroned the Faerie Queen in single combat and taken her powers for herself."

Another one appeared, this time from the Guild's headquarters. I had an unconscious Ciara in my arms.

"We have some gifts for her." He swept his hands over the family. "As well as an offer. After all, it must be so dreadful to be alone on the run."

"So if you see her, point her towards the Svartalfar Memorial in Boston. To give everyone an incentive to find her promptly, my associates have prepared a few surprises hidden in the city." The way he had emphasized the word, I expected the worst. "I don't really remember what but I'm sure they're fun."

"If she isn't present at the memorial by 9 PM, we'll start to unveil them one by one."

"Oh. And if any of the local heroes or villains try to get in our way … you know the drill."

The video cut off and a ticking clock replaced it.

Five hours remaining.

"Helena. Set course for the Boston harbor. It would be a shame to make Jack wait."

"Yes Admiral." Helena gave a salute and the ship started to move.

"And call Dragon."

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

I stepped into the transport. The PRT observation team was safely in Helena's hands, it was time to deal with the Nine.

"Svartalfar, I am David Smith, PRT special agent," he offered his hand.

"I am sure that's a very real name," I winked as I shook it. I took the offered pair of headphones and awkwardly put them over my ears. They obviously hadn't been designed with elves in mind.

The VTOL took off towards the city.

Of course, David Smith wasn't just any agent. To my senses, I knew who he was as soon as he approached the Helena. He was the bearer of an administration-class shard of the Thinker Entity, one that was highly ranked at that.

I moved to sit next to him and whispered in his ear.

"Any reason I have Eidolon as my minder?"

He stiffened at my question. Then he started to rub the bridge of his nose.

"I told James you'd see through me in a second," he sighed, "the Faerie Queen could tell capes apart at a glance after all."

"Why then? And relax, I'm not going to steal your power."

"I was already in Boston," he said, "investigating your additions to the obelisk. I think James saw it as a convenient excuse for us to meet. And as a final safeguard if the Nine does manage to turn you."

"It's not the worst backup plan," I shrugged. "Though I don't intend on joining them."

"Many heroes and villains said that too," he said with a hint of melancholy, "they still did. Jack is a master manipulator. He has made many of the bravest people I've met into shells of themselves with his games. Even if they didn't become part of the Nine."

"I'll keep it in mind. And you should as well. If Jack clues on to your identity, I have a feeling he'll try to pit us against each other."

"That would be …" He hissed through his teeth.

"… really fucking bad," I finished for him.

Pictures and videos did not do Svartalfar justice, David thought. He knew her dossier like the back of his hands, had seen every image and video of her, from every angle imaginable. Something that sounded more than a little creepy, a little part of him whispered.

But nothing could compare to seeing her in person.

Svartalfar was tall, Two hundred centimeters, six and a half feet. She towered over the observation squad by at least six inches.

She towers over you too, that same part of him said.

Her costume was an elegant dark red dress with a corset around her waist. The skirt stopped slightly below her knees but split all the wait to her waist on the left. Thankfully for his blood pressure, she had a pair of dark reinforced pants underneath. She also had a pair of knee-high boots that looked very practical, not like some heroines he had seen, and two armored gloves that almost reached her shoulder. A metal circlet set with three blue gems adorned her forehead as well.

Then there was her presence. It made him feel like he was in the presence of an apex predator. A panther on the prowl for her next prey. The way she moved hinted that she had at least one combat thinker in her arsenal. When her eyes rested on him, her strange pupils mesmerizing, he almost felt like her gaze pierced through him and she looked directly into his soul.

Her humorous remark and casual demeanor at his, partially fake, name were such a contrast. Her struggle with the headphones also shattered the image quite quickly. Svartalfar was a woman of contrasts. One minute she projected strength and confidence, the next she looked awkward and made bad jokes.

The next surprise was when, two minutes into the flight, she spontaneously sat right next to him, their legs almost touching, and whispered into his ear.

"Any reason I have Eidolon as my minder?"

The brush of her breath on his ear and cheek made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. A tingle ran down his spine, making him stiffen.

She knew who he was, that much was obvious, and the charade hadn't even held for two minutes. He put the many embarrassing thoughts to the back of his mind, something he was quite good at, and focused on the situation at hand.

To say he wasn't a fan of their plan to deal with the nine was an understatement.

The plan to avoid that scenario was for him to avoid the overt use of powers. He was a very competent PRT special agent and that was it. He would stay out of danger and Svartalfar, or Charcoal as she preferred to be called, would handle protecting him if he couldn't.

He wasn't used to this kind of strategy. It was usually him, Eidolon, the strongest hero in the world, who was the knight in shining armor protecting the weak and innocents. To play the part of the figurative damsel in distress was utterly unfamiliar. Uncomfortable in some nebulous way he couldn't quite put his finger on.

And, even as they discussed further plans, the thought continued to gnaw at the back of his mind.

When the transport approached the city center, Svartalfar directed them to hover above one of the buildings adjacent to the park. With the weather clear, the greenery and obelisk were visible from a good distance away.

"Is this …" she squinted her eyes. "There's someone tied to the obelisk. I think it's one of the hostages."

"We need to be careful," he cautioned. It was probably a trap.

"We need to help them," she said as a tendril of shadows threw the transport door open. "I don't care if it's a trap, I'm not leaving that girl there."

He was about to switch to a flight power to assist with the descent when Svartalfar grabbed him around the waist and under the knees and lifted him into a bridal carry. He let out a very unmanly cry of surprise. He had been taken completely by surprise, his danger sense hadn't even warned him. His heart jumped up his throat. He had never been held like this. It felt strange to him.

Now you know what it feels, that small part of him whispered, isn't it nice?

He barely had time to think before Svartalfar jumped out of the craft like a madwoman. He felt the unmistakable weightlessness of free fall for a few seconds. He couldn't see below him but he imagined the ground approaching rapidly. Then, it was over as quickly as it started, large butterfly wings adorned with red stylized eyes sprouted from her back and their fall slowed significantly.

He was too stunned and disoriented to say anything.

I touched down in the park and gently let Agent Eidolon get his feet under him. He was a little wobbly for the first few seconds, the freefall jump and bridal carry had probably been a bit too much. The face he had made when I had swept him off his feet had been entirely worth it though.

I spared him a last look before I ran towards the obelisk. A woman, one of the hostages Bonesaw had transformed into lookalikes of me, had been chained to the top of the structure. They hadn't even had the decency to clothe her.

She was obviously in pain from the metal biting into her skin.

Then, I almost stumbled when I recognized her shard.

Queen Administrator.

Bug Control.

Fuck, I thought.

Eidolon was only a few steps behind me when I sliced through the chains with a shadow construct. Another power manifested a simple bodysuit on her. I caught Taylor as she slipped down and pulled her close to me. I had taken Othala's power during my little jaunt in Brockton Bay and I put my own version to good use while I analyzed what Bonesaw had done.

Pain.

The pain Taylor felt was all encompassing. The metal chains biting in her wrists were almost welcome compared to the dull omnipresent ache from Bonesaw's ministrations. The implants in her ears, the way her sharpened teeth sometimes cut her tongue, the burning sensation from lenses in her eyes, those were the worst but in truth her whole body was aching.

The Nine's biotinker had injected her with some concoction to turn her skin gray. The hot flash of searing agony from the injection had turned into an omnipresent ache that had penetrated down to her very bones.

The less said about the surgeries the better. Her mind wanted to forget and she would let it.

She hadn't dared to use them against the Nine. They had missed the fact that she was a cape, Mannequin had snatched her during her morning walk, and she was glad for it. She had seen, through her bugs, the horrors they had inflicted on that blonde cape they had caught.

So she had endured the best she could, turned a blind eye when others suffered the same fate as she had or worse, and hoped she would get rescued.

She was an utter failure of a hero.

Then, Jack Slash had chosen her to be the first "gift" to Svartalfar. Mannequin had brought her to the monument and dangled her from the top like a prize. If he had used ropes, she could have had some hope of escape but the mad tinker had instead used metal chains, dashing her final hopes.

Through the haze, her insects saw two people land in the park close to her. One was obviously Svartalfar from her height and skin tone, the other was a man wearing equipment similar to PRT agents. The cape put the man down and ran for her. A few seconds later, Taylor felt something slice through the chains. Clothes formed around her body and in a flash she was dressed in a simple bodysuit.

The cape caught her before she could slide down and pulled her into a hug. She unconsciously leaned into the warm and soft embrace.

"It's over," Svartalfar said, her voice hitching.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

"A new video was uploaded," Dragon continued, "alongside a list of names."

The screen shifted and Dragon brought the video up. It started much like the previous one though there were less members of the Nine present. Another set of transformed people was present this time, a group of four teenagers, two boys and two girls.

"Now that all the candidates have been nominated, allow me to announce the next event. You will all face each other in a grand tournament!" Jack announced triumphantly. "Where the final candidate standing will have the honor of joining."

Jack was certainly fond of his little games. There was no shortage of candidates in the city either. Without knowing exactly who was selected, it was difficult to predict exactly what his plans were. Though I had a feeling that the Butcher was one of the candidates. Possibly about to become more than one of them depending on how things unfolded. I wasn't certain if the Travelers were still in town but if that was the case, there was a high chance Noelle was also on the list.

"The first round is capture the flag! Each candidate has one of their friends as the flag. The rules are simple, keep your own flag safe to move to the next round. You can also get a bonus for the next round if you kill another candidate's flag. Losing your flag will have consequences as well."

It felt much more elaborate than usual. Or maybe more theatrical would be the word. Jack's plans were always convoluted.

"To make things fair and give the other candidates a chance, Svartalfar has been assigned three flags to defend." Jack chimed in. "One she already has in her possession while the other two are hidden somewhere in the city. To find them, she will have to gather clues left with the flags of the other teams. Which ones? That's also part of the challenge."

As the video continued, eight pictures appeared on screen in a grid, each with a name underneath. The first row had a picture of Taylor in her transformed state with the caption of Drow, most certainly a play on my own name. Next to her were two more images of transformed people. The couple and their daughter from the first video and the four teenagers.

The second row started with a woman in a green costume captioned Rotten Apple. Next to her was a blonde woman in an elegant dress, Citrine. And finally Othello, a man dressed in a formal suit with a white mask. The third row had Oliver and Genesis in their civilian attire as well as Reynard, one of the wards in attendance. Finally, the last row only had one picture, Vex, who looked to have stepped out from a Mad Max movie.

"Some of our members will be participating as well, to make things more interesting." Jack continued. "The first round will end in twenty four hours. Have Fun!"

The video ended.

The room was silent. The Nine had just planted the seeds to turn all of the city's factions against each other. The challenge itself was an exercise in game theory. It was obviously in the best interest of all parties to cooperate to collectively protect their pseudo-hostages, close the ranks and defend against the Nine themselves. Though with the Siberian and Crawler, it was a grim prospect. At the same time, the addition of an incentive - however nebulous it may be - for betrayal complicated things.

The Nine also had a reputation of only loosely adhering to their own rules and Jack was notoriously fickle. I wouldn't put it past him to declare that those who had cooperated were cheaters and release a flesh eating plague.

The other snag in the plan were the additional hostages. The existence of clues implied that another group had the location, or an approximation of it, of unguarded targets. It was obviously designed to force me out into the open.

"Our first priority," Director Armstrong took the lead, "is to defend Reynard, Weld, and Drow. Svartalfar is working with us under truce conditions. I understand some of you have some reservations but the safety of our Wards and the inhabitants of Boston are our first priority."

The meeting was cut short by a siren sounding through the building.

"Crawler is attacking," Armstrong said, "Team one and two, move to defend the lobby, priority to containment. Wards, return to your common room and be ready for an air evacuation." Dozens of the heroes rushed out of the room. "Everyone else, prepare for deployment, I have a feeling the city is about to become rather chaotic."

"Svartalfar," the director then addressed me directly, "I suggest Miss Hebert stay with the Wards for the moment. Would you be amenable to transferring the wards to the Helena? I am not comfortable with them so close to danger."

"Yes but Jack probably won't like it if Weld and Reynard or Taylor are moved this far out."

"Director," Weld spoke up, "I will stay behind."

"Me too," Reynard put a hand on his shoulder.

I gave Taylor a quick glance.

"I am not running," she shook her head.

"Teenagers," Armstrong rubbed the bridge of his nose. "You will stay at the base," he finally said, his tone brokered no argument, "in the common room. Miss Hebert I cannot give you orders but I would like you to stay with them. It will be easier to defend a single location." He gave me a look at that.

"I agree with you, director," I said with a nod.

Taylor looked disappointed. I had no doubt she wanted to be on the front lines, punching Crawler out of the building, but she was still green with her power and particularly the new abilities.

"Taylor," I put a hand on her shoulder, "this is a great opportunity to practice your power in a safe situation. Well as safe as it gets right now. You aren't a front light fighter. Not everyone needs to be Alexandria. Even if you could, I don't think your talents are best used there."

"I …" She paused for a second. "No, you're right." She smiled. "I'll go with the Wards, director."

With Taylor safely tucked away with the Wards, it was time for some action. I convened with the director and he informed me that a clash between the Teeth and the Ambassadors had just been reported. David changed his suit for body armor and a rifle and I met up with two Protectorate teams.

The plan was to teleport the two teams near the area as a quick reaction force. Then, David and I would specifically target Vex. From everything we knew about Jack, there was a very high chance she had one of the clues.

"Everyone is ready?" I asked.

Five troop transports were lined up in the building's garage, the first driver gave me a thumbs up and flashed his lights. The other ones did the same.

"Portal opening. The destination is Crown Street. Good luck."

A swirl of shadows manifested behind me and I tore open the fabric of reality. The driver didn't miss a beat and moved through the large opening. David and I closed the march once all the vans had come through.

"Let's fly," I said to him. "it shouldn't raise too many eyebrows. I have Othala's power and she was known to grant flight."

Eidolon looked glad to flex his power. He settled on a personal telekinesis ability that would allow him to fly and discreetly protect him from any stray bullets. I didn't bother with the shadow wings as I took off. We discreetly flew above the apartment building that was between us and the battle.

The Teeth were out in force. Dozens of gang members were attacking the building from multiple fronts. Trying to get into the back were four capes and half a dozen unpowered members with guns. Animos, in his ugly changer form, and Vex were engaged with Citrine and Jacklight. Spree was among the rank and file, flooding the area with his clones, and Hemorrhagia was using her blood as shields to protect him.

I motioned for David to stay near the edge of the roof as I floated closer to the clashing forces though I didn't bother with stealth for long. I deployed my wings and flooded the street with a sea of shadows. Thousands of small tendrils tangled the attacking Teeth and pulled them towards the ground.

Hemorrhagia managed to cut a few of them at first, until I completely cocooned her in shadows. Spree was a pain to contain, his clones spilled forth like a torrent of flesh, drowning the battlefield in decaying bodies. I ended up creating a sphere around to contain the flood. Like an idiot, he filled it with clones. I didn't really cared if he suffocated at that point. Animos made the valiant attempt to use his power on me. I muzzled him.

Vex took one look at me and bolted, she made it five steps before I bound her with bands of shadows. She struggled and tried to cut her bindings with her force fields to little effect. Then, as I levitated her towards me, she tried to use them against me. A field of glittering shards appeared around me but a wave of my hand shattered them all.

"Don't make this any harder than it has to be," I said calmly. "Jack mentioned clues, I assume you have one of them, it's his style."

"I ain't tellin' you shit," she spat at me. "Butcher's already on her way to kill your clones."

"You will tell me. Whether your mind is still intact after…" I let the words hang. "It's up to you."

"Screw you -" She began, I gagged her.

"This will hurt," I whispered to her with a sharp smile, "a lot."

I gripped her face and used [Kineticist] to sift through her brain. I filtered the stream of thoughts and memories, discarded the useless ones, and honed in on my target. I watched as Hatchet Face entered the Teeth's hideout and nominated the Butcher as his candidate then handed Vex an envelope.

You'll find what you seek in the den of the king.

While he may be confined, he still reigns proudly

The Teeth had taken an inordinate amount of time to solve the riddle. Even then, only the Butcher had solved it. She had ordered her minions to attack the Ambassadors, likely to create a distraction and allow her to act freely. Barely a second with a deduction power gave me the answer, the Boston Zoo, in the lion's enclosure.

I let go of Vex, her eyes were vacant, her mind was still there but it would take her months, maybe even years, to piece herself back together. I lowered her body to the ground.

"Did the Nine give you any clues?" I asked Citrine.

"No," she answered, "we would have contacted the PRT immediately."

"Thank you," I said with a small bow.

I set my shadows to dissipate in a few minutes and flew back to David.

"One group is at the Zoo," I quickly said, "and the Butcher is on her way there already."

I started to open a portal but David stopped me.

"Damn it," he swore. "If you become the Butcher…"

"I absorbed the Faerie Queen's power," I reminded him, even if it was not entirely true. "If I kill the Butcher, I will harvest her power before it can transfer."

"That's … how sure are you it will work?" He paused. "If it jumps to either of us …" I winced. Eidolon becoming the Butcher would be almost as devastating as me taking on the mantle and it was an actual possibility.

"Ninety-nine percent sure but maybe you should stay behind," I said. "Coordinate with the Ambassadors. Helena will keep you and the director up to date."

I finished opening the portal.

"Even a one percent chance! That's too much."

"I can't leave them to die!" I countered. "I won't engage the Butcher," I promised. "Teleport in, get the hostages to the Helena, teleport out. Nothing more. She won't even know I was here."

It looked like David wanted to say something but stopped himself.

"Go," he said instead.

I dashed through the portal.

Chapter Text