Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

ILLUSIONIST, RISING?

The streets are rocked once again by a new presence on the rooftops and in the skies as another super joins the fray. Illusionist — a hero who appears to be entirely new to the scene — went viral last week with her debut into the ongoing competition between superheroes to achieve the title of ‘#1 Hero’. Not only did she tackle an entire group of notorious criminals, who have been terrorising the finance sector for two months, but she also made a move that no other hero has yet tried: she released footage of her fight on social media.

As it turns out, Illusionist is the very first super to voluntarily show her actions to an audience online. A channel called ‘CoolMagicTricks’, which has been publishing videos of a masked performer showing various basic illusions for several years, skyrocketed into the Trending tab of YouTube just hours after posting its latest video, titled ‘watch out, witchington >:)’.

The video shows what appears to be a vlog of Illusionist doing her usual introduction and then immediately heading into the streets of Witchington. She proceeds to spend some time on the rooftops, looking out for other heroes to perform tricks to, before stumbling upon a suspicious trade of weapons. The rest of the video is a series of blurry shots of her taking down these individuals followed by footage of her recapping the fight to the camera as she runs from the scene later.

Since then, there has been somewhat mixed reception to her vlog. Some young people seem excited to see a hero who might be open about her methods and experiences, whereas others claim that releasing such footage might encourage other civilians to endanger themselves in the hopes of gaining popularity themselves.

We reached out to established hero Dread, known also as Scott Mortimer, for a statement on these events.

“It’s completely irresponsible to get involved in these fights with only a camera and some simple magic tricks,” he told us. “I hope that Illusionist returns to her usual content and does not continue to attempt to tackle criminals without the appropriate training or supervision.”

When asked about whether he thinks that Illusionist is in the running for #1 Hero, Dread did not seem to have high hopes.

“Not at all,” he said. “She didn’t even arrest anyone. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: you must be a part of the official hero organisation to be in the running for #1 Hero.”

With this information, we have to wonder what Illusionist’s motivations are. Perhaps she is just trying to gain popularity, or perhaps what she did was a genuine act of goodwill. But as the debate continues, the real question is this:

Will she return to the rooftops, or will she fade back into obscurity?

Yeah, okay. She’ll address the elephant in the room.

El is absolutely, completely, one hundred percent out of her depth with this one.

Did she know what she was doing when she published that video? Absolutely! She’d spent a whole day editing it carefully, choosing her shots and ensuring there was nothing in it to give away the trick she was pulling. And she’d conceived the idea weeks ago, building it up slowly and then taking a full three days to film and re-film it, getting the perfect angles and dodging every legitimate super who came her way. She’d planned and executed the entire thing perfectly.

She just didn’t expect people to actually believe it.

When she arrived home after a long day at work, she’d been taken off guard to hear a clatter from the kitchen and see Lizzie sprint directly towards her with an excited expression pinned to her face.

“El! You’re famous!” she’d yelled, and before she could even process that Lizzie had grabbed her shoulders and started lightly shaking her. “The news is talking about you. The news! Like, the actual BBC, I’m not even kidding.”

She’d sat her down on the sofa, pressed a glass of lemonade into her hand, and pointed directly at the small screen they’d set up on top of the games cabinet — and sure enough, there was her vlog, being played for all of the nation to see.

“Well, shoot,” she said, which brings her to now: the very sudden realisation that she’s blown up a little too much.

“Isn’t this amazing?” Lizzie says, her eyes shining as she takes the place of the TV right in front of El. “You’re a hero!”

“That’s — that’s not me,” she replies hurriedly, lying through her teeth. She is not very good at lying through her teeth. “Why would you think that’s me?!”

“Of course it’s you. Gosh, El, it’s so cool to see you using your powers for good,” Lizzie pushes on. Her eyes gain a dreamy quality. “Taking down real criminals, meeting other heroes, going out every night on cool patrols… you could even be the number one hero.” She gasps and looks at El. “Oh my god, please become number one hero.”

“I’m not—”

“I spoke to some of my friends, made some calls, and they prepared you a costume and everything! It’s going to be so, so good.”

“Wait, it’s been less than a day. How did you—?”

“You can’t let it go to waste, El! This is your big break!”

Still unconvinced, and now growing increasingly afraid that Lizzie might have been fooled by the video too, El stares doubtfully back. She’s not sure how to let Lizzie down slowly. She’s actually not sure how to let Lizzie down at all.

It should be noted that she is notoriously bad at saying no to people.

Before she has the chance to, though, Lizzie kneels down so their eyes are level and takes her hands, a sincere expression on her face.

“I want you to know that, no matter what you do, I will always support you. Hero, villain, vigilante, whatever. If you have a million fans, I am one of them. If you have a hundred fans, I am one of them. If you have one fan, it’s me. If you have no fans, it’s because you ate my cookies again.” She squeezes El’s hands just a little tighter. “But I really think this is a chance for you to do a lot of good. You’ve turned heads, and people are going to take you seriously.”

“I might not even be Illusionist,” El says weakly.

“Eloise, I love you, but you can’t keep secrets like this from me,” replies Lizzie. Her voice is gentle and accepting, and El thinks if she really was a real superhero she’d be very grateful for it. “I’d know your power anywhere. There’s no one out there quite like you, and your personality shines through no matter what you do.”

For a moment, El smiles, feeling somewhat sentimental about her friend.

“Also, we set up CoolMagicTricks together,” Lizzie adds.

Right. That’d do it.

“I don’t know, Lizzie,” she says anyway. “It’s a lot of pressure. And, like — it’s kind of dangerous, you know? I’m not equipped to handle real villains. I don’t even have levitating boots.”

There’s a pause. Then Lizzie nods, her excited smile finally gone, and El lets out a relieved breath.

“And Broomtech is really expensive, too,” she adds. “Flying these days is, like, basically only for billionaires.”

“Yeah,” Lizzie says. “I guess so.” She sighs. “Dang it, I was so excited. I even set up an email address so news outlets and sponsors could contact you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m grateful for the effort and the – uh, the support. But some things just can’t work out, right?”

“Right.”

Lizzie looks at El’s full lemonade glass sadly. El, in turn, takes an awkward sip.

“Alright, I’m going to get back to my work,” Lizzie finally decides. “I sort of haven’t been answering messages all day. I got really excited about this.”

A sliver of guilt appears in El’s stomach. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay! Not your fault. It’s a classist system, totally corrupt.” Lizzie sighs, then gets up. “See you at dinner.”

“Yep! See you then!”

That was a close one. El wipes her forehead — she isn’t sweating, but the effect is important — and waits for Lizzie to leave the room before pulling up Twitter on her phone.

It really does look as though her channel has blown up overnight. CoolMagicTricks is trending right behind the Olympics under the entertainment tab, and people have been arguing all over her feed about the ethics of filming criminals and disturbing the rooftops. On the television, the news reporter reads through a police statement, their voice carefully neutral.

But knowing that this was just a one-off prank, El is pretty sure she won’t have to worry about any of this. Her main concern revolves mostly around how exactly she’s supposed to let down all the new subscribers she’s earned overnight.

El manages to get five minutes into a peaceful walk before she is reminded of the newfound fame she has achieved.

Her usual route passes along the river and over a small bridge. It’s not a path frequented as often as it deserves — El suspects it’s somewhat related to its tendency to flood during any rainfall — which makes it perfect for when she needs a little space and a little quiet.

What she forgot was that she happened to pass by this bridge while filming her vlog. It hadn’t seemed a big deal at the time — just another calm path to walk along and chat to her camera on — but today the entire bridge is surrounded by a crowd of people looking at something specific.

Her first instinct is to turn around and try another route, because she’s really ruined this secret spot for herself and that’s somehow more frustrating than anything else that has happened today.

Her second thought is: wait, what are they all looking for?

She spins on the spot, first to turn away and then to double back, before speed walking right over to the bridge.

“It could be any of our shoes,” one of the people is saying, their voice flat and uninterested.

Their companion nudges them lightly. “Come on, Cleo, play along a little. It could be the Illusionist’s shoes!”

“Nobody uses this bridge, it has to be her,” says someone else. “Look, the feet are pointing forwards and stay close together along the whole route — that’s the sign of someone running!”

“She must have come this way at the end of the video. Do you think we could identify the type of shoes she’s got?”

El’s eyes widen and she glances down at her shoes, panic shooting through her. This is suddenly no longer a safe place to linger.

“And why would that matter?” the first person pipes up again, looking a little irritated by now.

“Well, we could figure out who she is! How great would that be?! Find you a new friend, right?”

“That’d be weird.” The first person shakes their head again, and El lets out a relieved breath. “Give the poor kid some privacy.”

The gratitude that has built up in El’s mind comes crashing down. She frowns. Kid? Really?

“If you ask me,” she pipes up before she can stop herself, “she sounds a lot older than a kid.”

Apparently surprised to see her enter the conversation, they turn around. Their eyes narrow a little. “Yeah, I just meant that colloquially. I thought that’d be obvious.”

“Right,” El says. The small crowd is still looking at her, and she begins to regret her interruption. “Sorry about that. Also, uh — yeah, we should definitely leave Illusionist to herself. I mean, who even knows if she even meant to post that, haha, right?”

“I mean, it’s pretty hard to fully edit and publish a whole video by accident,” one of the others counters.

“Yeah, I guess…” El racks her brain. “But maybe she’s just a regular citizen, right? I mean — I mean, I agree with, um, this person here about. Leaving them alone. Privacy and all. Yes.”

There’s a pause, everyone still looking at her expressions that vary from thoughtfulness to contempt, but then the first person finally speaks up.

“Exactly, thank you,” they say. “Take it from me if anyone, guys. It’d be really rude to try tracking her identity down.”

A few people grumble, but eventually their companion shrugs and nods, and the crowd begins to disperse a little. The first person — the one who’s just backed El up — takes the opportunity to gesture to El to walk with them further along the path.

“It’s Cleo, by the way,” they tell her immediately. “Might be easier than ‘this person’.”

El can feel herself turning red. “Oh. Uh — good to meet you, Cleo.”

She offers out a hand a little awkwardly as they keep walking, and Cleo shakes it without hesitation. She’s glad that at least one of them is somewhat socially competent. She’s also glad that they don’t trip up in the middle of attempting the whole handshaking-while-walking manoeuvre.

“And you are?”

“I’m El,” she says. “Short for Eloise. But you can call me either! Most of my friends call me El, though. I mean, not that you have to, we’re not friends or anything, it’s just what I’m… yeah.”

Cleo laughs. “I can manage El. So, did you come out here to join the amateur detectives back there, or were you an unfortunate bystander who happened upon us?”

“I was just out for a walk,” El replies honestly. “Didn't realise there'd be such a big deal about that video.”

“Hmm.” Cleo gazes off across the fields on their right. “It is a startling video, to be fair. People don't usually see our side of things. It must have taken them off guard.”

El opens her mouth to reply, and then stops. What was that Cleo had just said?

“What do you mean by ‘our’?” she asks cautiously.

“Us. Me, Scott, Pris, and so on — heroes.”

It only clicks then that Cleo is that Cleo. The one who flies around every night and morning, her every moment carefully measured, villains falling before she's even raised a hand. The time bending Cleo. The Witch of Time Cleo.

“Oh,” El says.

Their brows raise. “You didn't recognise me?”

“I'm sort of new here,” El flusters, even if that statement isn’t quite true. “I didn't — I mean, I'm not exactly looking out for you guys — oh goodness, I'm sorry about that.”

Cleo seems to find this funny enough, because they just laugh and carry on walking, leaving El to trail behind, miserably embarrassed. The pair get to the end of the path before she finally catches up with them, at which point Cleo seems to already have a new line of conversation.

“I was actually on a walk myself,” they tell El, who takes it as a relief after her recent social goof. “I wanted to get a good look at this route before my meeting later.”

Curiosity wins out over mortification. “Your meeting?”

“The other heroes and I are discussing the Illusionist and the implications of her video. It's just a few of us, which means I actually have to participate.” Cleo pauses to turn and look back at where the bridge is now far in the distance. “I do hope they have half the sense you seem to.”

“They're not going to try and arrest her or anything, are they?”

“That,” Cleo says, “remains to be seen.”

She watches the path behind them still, as though expecting something or someone to appear, before sighing and shaking her head.

“Speaking of which. Do you happen to know which way it is to Nandini's Noodles?”

El squints around, and then points to the direction she's pretty sure the town is in.

“Perfect. I'll see you around,” Cleo says, before snapping her shoes together as though they're magical red shoes retrieved from a dying green witch, and promptly launching into the sky.

On the path, El watches her go, gaping. She's seen Broomtech in action before, but never so close. It's really just as simple as clicking one's heels together?!

As if on cue, there's a ping from her pocket, and she unlocks her phone to read the unread message.

Hey El! How's this for a late birthday gift?

Another text appears right after — an image that takes a moment to load. When it finally does, El's mouth drops open the second time that minute.

How on earth did Lizzie manage to get hold of a Broomtech hoverboard?!

Chapter Text

Section 5: Distribution of Flying Transportation

The distribution of any mode of transport that enables individual flight, boosts levitation capabilities, or otherwise allows a single person to control their own movements through open airspace is limited to manufacturers and distributors approved explicitly by the government.

The purchase or acquiring of any such mode of transport is limited to:

• Members of a government-approved group;
• Sponsors of a government-approved group;
• Emergency service workers with a government-issued licence;
• Members of law enforcement.

The penalty for the distribution of any such mode of transport without specific and explicit approval from the government is a sentence of ten years in prison, or classification as a Class D villain.

The penalty for the acquiring of such modes of transport not included in the aforementioned circumstances is a sentence of three years in prison, or classification as a Class E villain.

As it turns out, the Broomtech is a lot harder to use than El expected.

She’s not even sure where she got the impression that it would be easy from. Maybe seeing Cleo take off into the sky so easily fooled her into forgetting the years of experience they must have; maybe she just assumed something so expensive must be simple to pick up for the average user.

Realistically, though, she reckons she just hadn’t taken into account that flying involves a completely different type of control. Leaning forward sends her spinning head over heels in place, and leaning back to try and recover then shoots her back to the ground. Going up and down is a hazard to even attempt, if she’s honest. And she doesn’t even have a clue how to go about turning around.

Lizzie, a few feet below her, seems entirely amused by the whole situation.

“What’s taking so long?” she calls. “I thought you needed to get somewhere fast!”

“I do, I just—” El accidentally leans sideways while trying to answer, and the board starts to spin in place. She yelps and straightens out, though she can tell she’s still spinning slowly. “These are just taking a bit of getting used to, is all.”

“You look like you’ve got the hang of it,” Lizzie teases. Even from here El can hear the smirk in her voice. “You are trying to turn around and around like a microwave, right?”

Grumbling, El stretches out her hands even further than she already is and feels the board finally steady under her. “Are you sure it’s not broken?”

“Would I bring you a broken hoverboard?” Lizzie asks, offended.

“I’m starting to think so!”

The whole endeavour seems utterly doomed, she decides, and pounces from the board to the nearest structure, which happens to be their garden bench. The hoverboard moves a couple of metres further as she does, which really brings into question how she’s going to retrieve it later, but that’s not a problem now.

The problem right now is that El really, really needs to get to that meeting Cleo mentioned. If the heroes have a problem with her, she’s — well, she’s doomed. And she really, really does not want to be doomed.

She’d hoped the hoverboard would be the perfect way to zip over and eavesdrop, though now she’s beginning to realise that getting the hang of how to use Broomtech at all will take longer than just walking.

So that is precisely what her new plan is: just walking.

“Lizzie, let’s get noodles.”

“Noodles?”

“Yes. I’m absolutely craving noodles.”

Lizzie seems entirely mystified. “I guess so. But didn’t you have to rush off somewhere urgently?”

“I need to urgently satisfy my craving for noodles, exactly. Are you coming?” El asks.

“I… I suppose so.” Lizzie glances over at the hoverboard. “Should we hide that thing?”

“No time!”

With a quick glance at the time on her phone, El grabs Lizzie’s arm and drags her out of the garden and out to the street, barely stopping to lock the gate behind them.

They half-walk, half-jog through the streets, dodging past the occasional pedestrian moving too slowly, and arrive at Nandini’s Noodles some ten minutes later. Lizzie seems out of breath, but El’s adrenaline and anxiety about this whole thing keep her moving forward quickly. She leaves Lizzie at the entrance and ducks inside to grab a table.

It’s easy to identify which table is the heroes’ — and not just because she can see Cleo scrolling on her phone on one of the corner seats. For some reason, half the group seems to have elected to wear their costumes to the store. They’re not even the masked ones; some of the heroes who typically hide their identity have worn masks with unassuming civilian clothes, while some of those in full costume have their faces bare and identities open to the public. So El isn’t entirely sure why they’re doing that. Maybe they’re just dropping in from patrol.

She collapses into a seat on a table a little behind them and picks up the menu. Lizzie is still lingering at the door, and El takes the opportunity to text her that it’s safe to come in but that she’ll have to move sneakily so that she doesn’t draw attention, and that she’d like the vegetable hakka noodles, please.

While she waits for Lizzie to order, she leans back and finally listens in on the conversation occurring on the table nearby.

“Lauren wants to know if we can get her lunch as well,” one of the heroes says. “She is, and I quote, ‘super hungry’.”

“Oh, it’s a pun!” another chimes in.

“One I’ve never heard before,” deadpans yet another. El recognises this one as Scott, one of the more vocal heroes of the city. “Tell her she should be focusing on keeping an eye out. Now, can we get back on topic?”

There’s a few murmurs of assent.

“Great. So, we’re all agreed that we’ll arrest this new hero on sight?”

El’s hand flies to her mouth before she can even think about the implications of such an action, but luckily nobody seems to spot it.

“Arrest is a strong word.” That’s Cleo. “Just talking to her would be enough. I don’t think she’s likely to run away from us.”

“But if she does,” Scott argues, “then we’ll miss the chance to have a proper conversation. It’ll be easier and cleaner to just arrest her and get her to HQ.”

“Which part of arresting someone makes you think it’d be ‘easier’?” another hero chimes in.

“Easier for us, definitely. She looks new to this whole thing,” says someone else. “I doubt she could take us in a fight.”

“You guys are really quick to jump to conclusions, you know. We don’t know anything about what power she might have.”

Scott speaks up again: “That’s another reason we should arrest her. There’s no way of knowing what she might do to us if we don’t make the first move.”

Frankly, El doesn’t think she’s going to make any move. She’s a little terrified to even be in public now, paranoid that they might realise who she is the moment she starts talking.

“I don't think it'd be a good look for us,” Cleo says. “Think about it, Scott: the first hero to show the public what they're up to, and we arrest them? It's going to look like we're hiding something.”

“No, it's going to look like we deal with things properly.”

“I'm with Cleo. Plenty of people already think we're, like, an exclusive club or something.”

“Yeah, but… we kind of are?”

“Doesn't help when the public is meant to trust us,” Cleo says.

Someone else hums thoughtfully. “That's a good point. We need to stay in people's favour, or we'll get disbanded. We all know what happened to Bertha.”

El does, in fact, know what happened to Bertha, so that's a statement more accurate than the hero saying it probably realises.

There are murmurs from the other heroes, and El catches that they all seem a little unnerved by this possibility. She has to admit she sort of feels the same; while she's never been particularly invested in the goings on of superheroes and supervillains and supervigilantes (or whatever members of that subgroup decide to call themselves), not having half of them protecting the city would probably be far from ideal.

Especially if she's the one who's meant to fill their shoes. No, absolutely not: she can't let them be dismantled.

A new idea forms in the back of her mind, right as Lizzie finally seems to be done ordering and begins to walk over with a mildly disgruntled expression on her face.

She passes by the heroes’ table but doesn't seem to be paying attention to them, so doesn't hear Scott as he picks up the conversation again.

“We should launch an investigation into that. Gather public opinion of us. How does that sound?”

“Yeah, I don't know if that'll be a fair way to collect data,” one of them counters.

There's a shuffle, and El hears Lizzie yelp. She spins around just in time to see one of the heroes — Pris, if she recalls correctly — pull Lizzie over to the table.

“Hey, random citizen,” she greets, smile bright and wide. “What do you think of us heroes?”

“Uhh,” says Lizzie. “Um. I guess you're okay, I mean… Are you going to hurt me if I say no?”

“Exactly!” Pris exclaims, turning to Scott. “See?”

Lizzie, not knowing that Pris is referring to something entirely different and isn't threatening her at all, shoots a terrified look over at El, who tries to gesture her away frantically.

“Well, we're not going to ask people while suited up and in a big group. Walk around as a civilian, pose a few questions,” Scott is saying. “Don't make a big deal of it or anything. We just want to know people don't hate us, they don't need to love us.”

“Hm.” Pris seems doubtful, but does at least let go of Lizzie.

From there, El is more focused on getting Lizzie sat down and caught up with what’s happened so far — reassuring her that they really did just pull her over as a random citizen — and then with eating the noodles that arrive a little after she’s done with that. By the time she’s finished the last of the peas lingering at the bottom of the bowl, the heroes are already dispersing, only Cleo and Scott staying back to talk about something or other to do with some recent activity around the meat markets.

El listens in for a while, but it sounds as though the conversation has moved past her fate, more or less, and Lizzie is beginning to look a little on edge.

“Shall we go?” she asks.

Lizzie nods, a little more aggressively than she’d expected. “They’re going to notice we’re still here if we stick around. Can we head home?”

“Sounds like a plan,” El says, and gets to her feet. “Hey, maybe we’ll figure out how to get that board down to the ground again!”

It takes a little longer than El wants to admit to get the board under control, and longer still for her to figure out the controls enough to simply move up, down, and in various directions. Changing direction is a lot harder, which is exactly why she’s practising it now.

She twists her feet round, and the board shifts just slightly — before bursting into a rapid spin that almost has her flying off. Between these two states of motion she alternates, until she finally has vague control. As it is now, she can turn in place. She can just only do it really, really slowly.

After this, she tries heading up to an actual rooftop. She hovers a lot better than she’d expected to — maybe it’s the adrenaline kicking in, but she doesn’t want to question it in case that ruins the effect — and finds herself quickly being able to manoeuvre from building to building.

She zooms from one to another, using the rooftops as a sort of terrible safety net to go over, past empty parking lots and flat glass panels. Below her the city glimmers with distant lights, the streets a deep purple in the orange glow of the streetlamps. Dots of yellow form a lattice of bedroom windows still letting light out into the night, and far smaller still are the groups of partygoers heading out for late revelries and, El assumes, plentiful volumes of loud music.

There isn’t enough time to take in all the sights just now, though. El has a mission. She’s here to be a terrible — an absolutely awful, gobsmackingly horrendous, frankly appalling — hero. She’s here to make all the other heroes look fantastic, by method of making herself look atrocious.

The alternative is actually trying to be some sort of role model, and that’s a lot more pressure than she needs right now. She’s been new around here for two whole years now. Does she really seem like she has the energy for the commitment?

Still, that doesn’t mean she can’t have fun while she’s out here. She can take in the view. Actually, doing something profoundly dreadful at the highest point in the city might even be the perfect place to start with this whole thing.

She stops over at the rooftop of one of the parking lots she’d been observing just minutes ago. It gives her enough room to try and land the hoverboard without knocking into anything.

Once she’s on level ground, she takes the moment to glance around at her surroundings. With it being only the evening, there’s actually a few cars parked nearer to the lifts. With it being the middle of the week, however, that seems to be about it; everyone else, she assumes, has opted to park on a lower level. Apart from that there’s only the lifts themselves and a short radio tower near the corner of the building, assumedly leading down to something other than the parking lot.

El tucks the board under her arm and — after hopping over the protective gate — climbs the small ladder to the radio tower. Up here gives a little better view than the parking spaces themselves, being a little further from obstructions, and she’s able to pick out where exactly the skyscrapers go from sort-of-tall to genuinely terrifying. That’s where she’ll stage some sort of incident.

The next step, she knows, is figuring out what sort of incident she has to stage.

Before she can dwell on that, though, she’s distracted by a movement from a nearby rooftop.

That could be a hero or a villain, a criminal or a citizen. She honestly doesn’t really want to check it out. But — as whatever it is moves again — she can’t quite get over the curiosity.

She positions the hoverboard right in front of her again and hops on, the small amount of momentum she gets from landing on it pushing her off towards her target already. In a few seconds she manages to regain control, and the rest of the distance is covered by a combination of sneaky zooming and terrified wobbles that careen her from side to side.

The hoverboard decides it would prefer to skip straight past that rooftop, it seems, and she has to slowly loop around to try landing on it again after already rushing past once. But then she’s going too fast, having accelerated a little too sharply, and the colours of the streets below blur by right as—

Something stops her mid-air, and she very almost faceplants off the roof. Instead, by some sort of luck, she only falls off the board, tumbling into a standing position on the metal roof with a clang.

She looks back immediately to see what stopped her and if the board has survived. Her mouth drops open.

“I know you,” she says.

The person holding her board nods slightly, almost agreeably. “Most do. Or, rather, they know of me.”

They’ve managed to catch her board with one hand alone, and now they hold the thing in midair, where it exhibits complete obedience. Over their entire self is an indigo cloak rather similar to the roads far below, and along its lining glows a faint line of gold. El can tell, just from looking at them, that they hold tremendous power in their soul.

And the glowing white eyes help with that impression, too.

“You’re Bertha,” El continues, once she’s over her shock.

“I’m aware of that myself, yes,” Bertha replies, looking faintly amused. “Would you like your hoverboard back, Illusionist?”

Right. That’s her. “Yes, please.”

“Here.” Bertha hands it over. Somehow, despite them having any visible facial features, El can sense that they’re smiling. “Take good care of it. There is much that many people would do for one of these.”

“I will,” El says a little too quickly. “I sure had to do a lot of — uh, lots of paperwork to get it myself! I’m taking very good care, yep.”

“You look a little unused to it. Did your mentor not give you the appropriate training?”

There’s a pause as El tries to figure out if she should be honest about not having a mentor or just make one up. It’s enough, it seems, for Bertha to draw their own conclusions.

“Oh dear. How things have changed since I used to be involved in such circles,” says Bertha. They shake their head slowly, as if all the time in the world rests in their unseen hands. “If you’d like, I can offer my own help.”

“I don’t, uh—” El starts, before stopping with a wince.

She can’t deny that she really, really isn’t any good at the flying stuff yet. And the way Bertha is looking at her, she is finding it increasingly difficult to give excuses. Something about the raw power standing right before her, probably. The intimidation factor and all that.

“I guess I could do with some help,” she concedes. “Just for a few nights, to get the hang of this board.”

“Wonderful!” Bertha says. “How about we meet here again tomorrow, at around the same time? I can offer you a few hours of help, as long as you maintain a good image as a hero.”

“Oh. Do I have to be doing the hero thing while still learning?”

Bertha tilts their head. “I would prefer that, Illusionist. My hope is that helping you will perhaps allow you to aid me in the future. We can help each other, you see.”

“Like Eddie and Venom,” El agrees, nodding.

“Hm. Not perhaps like them. But a balance indeed, yes — and one with a goal for a more open future, if all goes well.”

They raise a hand out before them. El stares at it for a moment before realising what she’s meant to do, and shakes their hand hurriedly. As she does, she gets the distinct feeling that she might be signing up for rather a lot more than she intended to get into tonight.

Worse than that, she can’t help feeling thrilled at the idea.

She’s just doing this to get the hang of flying and then promptly fuck up in the most spectacular way, she reminds herself, curbing her own excitement. Letting go of Bertha’s hand, she straightens up her back.

“Do you have any open cases?” Bertha asks her.

“Um, sure,” El lies, “a couple. Just this and that, you know. But if you have another for me…”

“I do indeed.” Bertha steps away, and El realises the conversation is drawing to an end. “We’ll see, however, how you fare these next few nights. Farewell, Illusionist.”

Before El even has the time for a ‘nice to meet you’, they take another step backwards and vanish into shadow.

She watches the empty air for a moment, stuck in place, before the reality of what’s just happened actually hits her.

“Holy shit, I just met Bertha!”

Chapter Text

El's attempts to get the hang of her hoverboard go over surprisingly well with the media.

She sort of expected people to be making fun of her — and don't get her wrong, some of them are — but most of the more vocal reporters and online presences seem thrilled to see a hero struggle with Broomtech.

Her lack of experience with the technology proves her to be a citizen genuinely stepping up to fill a role long taken by only a specific subset of government-selected individuals, reads one article.

Meanwhile an account she follows on Twitter has said: she's SO real for that, which frankly approximates to about the same meaning.

Lizzie looks positively elated at the reaction, shoving her phone in El's face the moment she sees her leave her room and then dancing all the way down the stairs. After yesterday's excursion to eavesdrop on the heroes’ meeting, she'd been a little nervous that Lizzie might want to abandon her to do the whole thing alone, but it seems her excitement has only been boosted since.

“They even love it when you mess up!” Lizzie sings gleefully, and El covers her face with a hand. Things are not looking good for the be-a-terrible-hero plan. “You're doing so well playing the young, inexperienced hero!”

“I am a young, inexperienced hero.”

“That's the spirit!”

Still, Lizzie helps her plan out a patrol route for the next evening, which El figures will be alright until she's done with Bertha’s training. She's not expecting to solve any crimes or anything, but if she does have to she at least has a few tricks up her sleeve.

It's a good thing she does, too.

That night, as she makes her way along the planned patrol route, she hears a loud crash and spots someone jumping through a broken shop window, alarms blaring around them.

Honestly, she's not entirely sure why people bother with obvious, petty crime in this city. She'll take the opportunity either way.

Leaning down a little, El directs the hoverboard towards the shop and hangs tight to it as it zooms right down. She barely stops it in time, wobbling as she gets off the board. The whole affair takes about ten seconds, which is a terrifyingly short time and also a blessing, because the burglar is already hopping right back out of the shop.

It looks like there's still people in there, all gaping and shrinking back against the wall. The burglar is holding something silver and round and shiny, oddly familiar. El squints.

“Is that a tiara?” she wonders aloud.

In response, the burglar hides it behind their back. “No.”

“Oh my god.” El looks up at the name of the shop, and then over at the clearly tiny people inside the shop. “This is a birthday princess parlour. Why are you stealing from here?”

“I'm not stealing!” they protest. They stop hiding the tiara, now holding it in the air before them. “I'm taking what's rightfully mine.”

As El pauses to try and understand what on earth they're talking about, the staff member in the shop steps forward, a disappointed look on their face.

“Jennifer, is that you?”

The burglar freezes.

“What are you doing?” the person continues. They turn to El. “Sorry, Illusionist. She keeps coming back here to try to take the tiaras, but she doesn't usually break in.”

“I've been pushed to an extreme,” the burglar — Jennifer — declares. “There's no turning back for me.”

“You know you can just buy one of the tiaras, right?”

“Why pay for something I'm owed?” Jennifer shoots back, giving the staff member a disdainful look.

“Okay,” El says slowly, interrupting what appears to be a very confusing grudge. “So are you returning the tiara or not?”

“Not,” Jennifer replies firmly.

“Gotcha.”

Without any more fanfare, El stretches her arms out and fills the air around them with rabbits.

Okay, she's not going to lie: it's not exactly the scariest illusion she could conjure right now, but it's one she's familiar with. She's been doing magic tricks for years. Convincing people her rabbits are real is easy.

The shock of the hundreds of rabbits floating around them definitely startles Jennifer. She jumps back and yelps, trying to bat them away from her face and then faltering when her hand goes straight through them. El takes the opportunity to lay out her trap, increasing the rabbit density a little here and reducing it a little there, hopping around to keep an eye on the burglar lost within.

Jennifer takes the bait.

El glimpses her heading straight for the path she's formed for her, going for what seems to be the area of more visibility, and grins to herself. Now she just has to wait for—

There's a clatter, and El drops the illusion just in time to see Jennifer tumbling to the ground right behind the hoverboard that's still dutifully waiting in place.

“The first rule of being a princess,” says El, stepping forward to swipe the tiara away, “is to always watch your footwork.”

“That’s definitely not true,” Jennifer grumbles, though she's far too quiet against the cheers of the young children at the princess birthday party.

“Listen, you still have to pay for the repairs of this window.” El quickly glances over at the children. “Luckily, you didn't hurt anyone inside, so at least there's that.”

“Of course I didn't, I'm not a monster,” Jennifer says. She sits up, looking miffed, and El crouches down to tie her hands up with a bit of rope she's prepared for the occasion. Granted, it's the only rope she has, so she's really hoping she doesn’t run into any more trouble. “How much is the window?”

“You guys can discuss that,” El replies. She indicates the staff member still standing inside the shop and now herding the excited children upstairs. “I'm calling law enforcement to clean up and whatever else they need to do.”

“You're not arresting me yourself?”

El shrugs. “I don't really have the authority to do that.”

Jennifer mutters something about vigilantes, while El calls back the staff member to call the police and return the tiara. And to turn off the alarms that have gone off in the shop. They're both loud and annoying to talk over.

Apparently, as she learns while they wait for the correct authorities, Jennifer has been trying to take tiaras from this shop ever since her seventh birthday party — which was meant to be there — was cancelled. Every employee there keeps an eye out for her so she doesn't drop in and try to sneak out with one, and it seems they're all familiar with her by now as well. Jennifer even abandons the hood and face covering she's been using while they talk, joining in to defend her stance.

“Everything in my life went downhill after that party was cancelled,” she argues. “If I'd had it, I'm sure it all would've been different.”

“I don't think you need a tiara,” El says. “I think you need a therapist.”

“It does sound like you're looking at this all wrong,” the staff member agrees. “Do you really think having that party would have changed the course of your life?”

“It's about what it meant to me,” says Jennifer, though before they can dig any further into that the sound of police sirens becomes audible a street or two away.

“Well, that's my cue,” El says, hopping back onto her hoverboard. “See you around, Jennifer and princess party person!”

“My name's — okay yeah, sure,” the staff member sighs. “Thanks for your help, Illusionist.”

El salutes, and then lifts up off the ground to continue her barely controlled flight along the skyline.

Chapter Text

Hoverboard training — and regular-fight-based training — with Bertha is going surprisingly well.

There's a sentence El never thought she'd be thinking. Even the fact that she's met Bertha — is actively acquainted with them — feels unreal. But here she is anyway, following Bertha’s strict training exercises and finding that she's actually getting better at them.

They usually talk when training, which really gives El an insight into what the former hero is like. They're generally polite, helpful, and very intent on avoiding the subject of their own career path. Whenever she brings it up, they don't answer for a few moments and then pick up the conversation thread from right before her question.

El asks, once, what they've been up to since getting essentially fired, and actually gets a half-answer.

“I still desire to help this city,” they say. “I simply do so outside of the public eye. The skills I have picked up over the years should not be wasted.”

“That does make sense, I guess,” El replies from where she's flying the board in large circles on the rooftop. “It's nice that you still want to help, even when everyone basically abandoned you. I'd want revenge, personally.”

Bertha sighs slightly, gazing off at the horizon. “And I did, for some time. But it was not fulfilling. There is no joy in retribution, Illusionist, which is something more pleasant to learn from others than to learn from your own experience.”

As much as that sounds sound, El isn't entirely sure it's accurate. She remembers a time when her friend Owen poked fun at one of her drawings at a sleepover; she'd drawn a few ridiculous accessories on his face with a marker after he'd gone to sleep a few hours later, and that payback had felt amazing. Still, it's a different level of revenge, she supposes, and shifts her attention back to the donuts she’s making with her hoverboard.

Another thing she comes to realise about Bertha is that they have a lot of issues with the current system. Like, a lot. Half the things they mention in passing as problems she might face are things El never even considered: the way the police often uses heroes as a crutch and a defence, disputes among heroes themselves, dealing with smaller criminals who don't really deserve to get blasted with fire or hit with the full strength of some superpower. Bertha also mentions the scrutiny from the public eye she might get, but El is well aware of that. That's how she got into this thing. That's also, if all goes well, how she'll get out of it.

She also tackles a few minor villains around the city. Since Bertha mentioned not targeting people who aren't exactly hurting anyone, she's mostly trying to keep an eye out for people who are purposefully going out of their way to cause problems. This mostly ends up being the criminals promoted to the level of at least a Class D villain, which is what the government considers someone who ‘poses an active threat to the safety of citizens’. Which sounds like a pretty noble class of people to be fighting. She can work with that.

The public still seems to like her so far, more or less. This isn't something she's actively monitoring, though — she's too busy with work and superheroing and hoverboard practice and straight up just doing everyday tasks. It's Lizzie who's bringing her the latest from social media.

“So I've been monitoring your socials,” Lizzie begins, the moment El gets back from her day job, “and it looks like your recent fight against Skeleton has gone down very well with the fans.”

“I have fans?”

“Yes, keep up, El. Anyway, I found a few accounts competing to be the biggest Illusionist updates account on Twitter, which is so objectively funny. And I also found this really cool gifset.”

She holds her phone up for El to see, and the latter squints at the gifs she's got up. They're a lot better quality than El had expected — whoever took this footage must have been much closer than was probably safe — and the dark shades of night have been brightened and enhanced so that it looks like the footage is straight from a movie scene.

“This looks way nicer than it did in the actual fight,” El says, a little impressed.

“And,” Lizzie carries on, “you have fanfiction.”

“I have what?!”

“Look!”

El bats away the phone directed once again at her. “No, no, don't show me. I don't want to see it.”

Shrugging, Lizzie turns it back to herself and keeps scrolling. “It's only been a few days, so they're all really short or partway done, but it's still really fast, y’know.” She looks up. “When you get an interview, you have to mention me as your woman-in-the-chair.”

“But you're not my woman-in-the-chair,” El frowns. “You're my woman-in-the-next-room-over.”

“Yes, but if the fans know about me, they might start talking about me too! What if they write fanfiction about me?” She gasps. “What if they start shipping us?”

“Why would you want that?” says El, now thoroughly alarmed by the escalation.

“Because, Eloise,” Lizzie says, gripping her hands and staring deep in her eyes, “it would be really, really funny.”

So that's how Lizzie’s been keeping herself busy, it seems. That and monitoring the business email associated with CoolMagicTricks, which is now getting some hundred emails a day. Lizzie says she's just keeping an eye out for any news companies who might want to ask her questions. El has decided that, for the sake of her own sanity, she'll believe that.

The week goes on.

El next sees Cleo in a café, which is a surprise.

She's come here to get a coffee and read a book for a bit, just to refresh herself from the constant superhero-related happenings. Whether online or just on the street, there really doesn't seem to be an escape, besides tucking herself into the corner of this café and reading her copy of a To Be or Not to Be: That Is the Adventure.

And then Cleo appears.

She sits opposite El and pops down the little table number that waiters use to find where to bring an order.

“Hullo again, El,” they say. “What are your opinions on the current members of the Coven?”

For a second, El thinks she's been caught. That Cleo knows who she is, and this is their opening to arrest her. In the current moment, though, all she can manage to say is:

“Huh?”

“On a scale of one to five, how would you rate your trust in the current official protectors of the city?” There's nothing in Cleo's expression except complete and utter boredom. “One means ‘no trust’, five means ‘complete trust’.”

El blinks.

“I'm gathering public opinion,” Cleo adds.

“I feel like you might be asking the wrong person here. We already sort of know each other,” says El.

“What Scott doesn't know won't hurt him.” Cleo leans back and grins. “Besides, you're a member of the public. It counts. And I'm not approaching some poor random citizen with this interrogation.”

“Well, thank you, I think? I'm honoured to be chosen. If you did choose me and didn't just happen to see me, of course.”

“Let's go with that,” Cleo agrees. “It sounds better if I picked you out for your excellent opinions.”

“Of course, naturally.”

El puts her book down so she can properly pay attention to the conversation. Nobody else in the café seems to have recognised Cleo — that or they simply don't care that she's decided to sit here.

“Do you actually want my rating?” El asks.

“Nah, it's fine. Rating trust on a scale of one to five is kind of bullshit.” Cleo rests their arms on the table casually. “Just look like you're answering the question or something, they'll never know.”

“Sure.”

There's a few moments where she pretends to think very hard, and then she says:

“So how did the meeting go the other day?”

“I can't tell you that, it's very confidential.” They raise a brow. “Although…”

“Although?”

“Well, I will say that the group got themselves sufficiently distracted. As usual.” As usual?! El has some concerns about the protectors of this city. “I don't think Illusionist is in any trouble, though, unless she's a lot more well-liked than us and someone takes issue with that.”

“Oh gosh,” El says. “Well, I'm sure she'll mess up soon enough! You guys are uh — you guys are great! Five out of five rating, haha.” And then, voice lowered and more hurried, she adds: “Please don’t send the other heroes hunting after this random girl.”

Cleo laughs. “I'll do my best. I think it'll all blow over, honestly, and even if it doesn't we could do with some new allies.”

El nods and takes a relieved sip of her coffee.

After a moment, Cleo speaks up again. “Though I am curious how she managed to acquire Broomtech.”

“That's… a good question, actually,” El replies. She's doing a very convincing job at seeming oblivious, she thinks. “They don't sell those, do they?”

“Only to those who can afford it. I suppose our young hero could be buying her tech legally, but…” Cleo taps her chin thoughtfully. “If that's true, why hide?”

Why hide, indeed. El considers, for a moment, telling the hero in front of her everything. It isn't as though Cleo hasn't been sympathetic to Illusionist since the moment they met.

El sets down both her coffee and that thought.

She's sticking to Plan A.

ASK MILDRED!

Send in your questions for relationship advice from our very own expert!

Hi Mildred,

So I've dedicated the past twenty years to rescuing my rightly deserved crown. I have tried plan after plan after plan in vain. It was because of my quest that I ended up getting divorced from my spouse of two weeks, and I haven't returned to the dating market since.

But recently… I met someone. It was one of the people keeping my crown from me. We've been negotiating about that recently and I've gained a lot of perspective about whether or not owning that crown would actually mean anything for my real life. And the more time we spend together, the more I start to realise I think I have feelings for her.

Is that normal? Can you still get a crush as a divorced adult? I always assumed that was more of a high school thing, but I think I really like this person. It's stressing me out. I haven't dealt with anything but righteous vengeance for the past ten years! It feels like this whole thing is doomed anyway, I just don't know what's wrong with me.

Crown Chaser

~

Hello Crown Chaser,

First of all, don't worry. Having a crush is super common even as an adult. Being divorced doesn't mean you can't catch feelings again! I'm really happy for you and for the new emotions you've unlocked.

You might want to deal with that crown quest first, of course, but if you think you'll still be interested in her after that's done then I 100% encourage you to give it a go! Especially if they've broken through your negative feelings. Seriously, that's awesome!

Best of luck, Crown Chaser. We're all cheering you on!

Bertha gives El a case after about six days of training. It's surprisingly simple; they just want her to keep an eye on any imports to the dock by the river. But apparently they're expecting some sort of gathering to happen there on the night of the next day, and they want El to practise a little eavesdropping by manoeuvring her board into a nook nobody would think to check.

Since her latest vlog, El has gotten used to keeping a camera on her. Usually it's just tucked into the stitching of her costume, but lately she's invested in a new one that's even smaller and more secure, and which can catch motion shots from a moving vehicle — her being the moving vehicle, of course — far better. She suggested using it for the eavesdropping to Bertha, although the other had immediately vetoed the idea on the basis of it being a ‘poor basis for learning how to eavesdrop’. Which is fair, El supposes, but does make things harder.

She heads to the docks tonight anyway in order to scout out some good spots. Now that she's got the hang of the hoverboard, she can easily swoop her way around buildings and up and down to various levels, even if she mostly avoids doing so out in the open. She's learnt her lesson with Skeleton: there's plenty of villains who like to take advantage of a hero flying around away from cover.

A few minutes of testing out potential hideout spots later, she hears a few movements and dives behind one of the crates nearby. It's barely enough to cover her, but she strikes gold; one of the backs of the crates is loose, and she manages to pry it open and enter the hollow space inside, pulling the Broomtech behind her.

Outside her crate, the movements still continue, going from a few shuffles to clanging sounds that fill the whole dock. Then a voice:

“How many shipments do you think we'll get?”

Radio static.

“That'll be plenty, then,” the same voice says. “Enough to fuel sales for months.”

Static again.

“What? No, don't worry about that. The heroes aren't watching this spot.”

El's eyes widen, because this is very obviously criminal activity. Then her eyes narrow a little, because this is very obviously criminal activity.

Still, she doesn't want to risk messing up her first case just because it seems too easy. That would be a rookie mistake. Granted, she is a rookie, but that's not the point.

“Yes, I'm sure! Look, just meet me here tomorrow night, okay? You won't regret it.”

There's a beep, and then more shuffles. She waits, breath suspended in her throat, as the movements go past her spot, all the way down the side of the dock and then onto the main road outside. The clanging has long stopped. For a long, long minute, El waits for any sign of life.

Everything is quiet.

She peers out of the crate, blurring the air around her as best she can as she glances around. It does seem as though the dock is empty — but she finds it curious that the person only bothered to stay a few minutes. What were they doing?

After hopping back onto the hoverboard, she pushes off from the crates and heads over to where the clanging came from. There's certainly nobody here, though there's an entire ship full of barrels she hadn't noticed before.

Curiosity gets the best of her, and she opens one up.

The world turns blank.

Yelping, El throws up a barrage of illusions as a panicked form of self defence, releasing nine parrots and twenty five fully-armoured knights into the night air. As they dissipate, though, so does the sheer bright whiteness of the world, and her vision clears to reveal that she has just opened the lid of a barrel of flour.

Plain flour. That is all: plain, white flour.

“Why would they want the heroes not to see this?” she mutters to herself. “Is there some sort of black market for flour? Is it an ingredient for a weapon?”

She recalls having read something about household baking materials being used in homemade weapons in the past, but she isn't fully sure about it. Either way, Bertha will know more. Maybe she could just pass on the message, and that'll be that.

She pokes at the flour to test whether it feels like actual flour — which it does — before instantly regretting it as she realises it is probably a foolish move, especially if this isn't actually flour. Luckily, nothing happens, though the whole thing makes her concerned enough to leave the scene with a handful of the substance, closing the barrel as she goes.

She does get the white flour checked out in a local police office, as it happens. They're very stand-offish about letting her use their equipment, so she waits outside as they take their time testing it. They finally return with a grumble about wasting precious law enforcement time; it turns out that it really is plain flour after all.

Chapter Text

El summarises everything to Lizzie the next day over breakfast. She's halfway through pouring milk into her bowl when Lizzie finally looks up from her laptop, her furious typing suddenly halted.

“Wait, there was only one person there?” she asks.

El frowns. “What?”

“Like, you only saw one guy at the docks?”

“I didn't really see them as much as I heard them,” El clarifies, “but yeah, just the one, I think.”

“That's so, so strange.”

El turns that sentence over in her head. She's not sure why that exactly seems to be the strange part to Lizzie. The short visit to the docks, maybe, and the obvious plan-revealing, and certainly the part about the flour that she hasn't even gotten to yet — but the person being alone?

“Why would that be strange?” she says hesitantly.

“Okay, look at this.” Lizzie clicks through a few things on her laptop, before spinning it around to face El. “Do you see that email?”

She does, indeed, see that email. She nods.

“It says that there's some weird people hanging out at the docks every night. And the sender wants you to investigate.” Lizzie turns the laptop back around before El has even finished reading, eyes flicking back to the screen. “But you saw just one person. That doesn't add up at all.”

“Well, they also barely spent a few minutes there, during which they only said really suspicious things,” El points out. “And do you know what was in the barrels they were messing with?”

“What?”

“It was just flour. Just like — like normal flour.”

Lizzie waves her hand, still focused on the email. “No, that sounds pretty normal. There's probably an underground market for that sort of thing.”

“For flour?”

“Are you really sure there was just one person there?” Lizzie says instead. “Who sent me this?”

Shaking her head, El picks up a box of cornflakes and resigns herself to confusion.

At work, El typically helps with sorting through images of various pieces of debris, and double checking the components that her company’s equipment has found within them. It’s all from the site not too far from the centre of town, where a meteor struck quite a few years ago and granted some unknowable amount of people with fabulous and mundane powers. It’s been a fascination of local archeologists as well as those from the rest of the world. It’s also been the most boring task El has ever had.

She hasn’t always worked here — when she started out, she rotated through several locations, the typical routine for graduates in the company. But ever since the size of the Coven increased and new laws were passed to elevate their status from volunteer heroes to government-supported protectors, there's been funding pouring in to keep a team of staff working around the clock to find out more about their origins.

Today, she's texting Lizzie between findings. They've had a lot more correspondence in the last week, and more and more El has been avoiding her responsibilities at work to focus on figuring out various technicalities with Lizzie. They've been trying to use code words for everything so that anyone peeking at their messages won't understand, which leaves their texts something of a soup of random words.

It's only because she's texting Lizzie at all that she sees the post about Cleo, as Lizzie sends it to her with a few rolling eyes emojis. It contains some rather rude sentiments about which genders should and shouldn't be allowed to roam the skies, and is put in rather rude words.

El isn't sure if it's a sense of social justice, defence for her new acquaintance, or her own status as a female hero, but she's immediately filled with a passionate rage that has her opening up Twitter and typing out a snarky reply to the post. She hits send before she's even thought too hard about it.

She rides the high of posting a public comeback as she resolutely turns her phone off, returning back to work with a new vigour.

[Unknown Number]

Hey El, this is Cleo

Don't ask how I got your number, by the way

Anyway, you up for coffee on station road? I have some gossip I think you'll find entertaining

how did you get my number?!?

…

oh

coffee sounds good!

Great :)

“You know,” Cleo says, drumming her fingers on the arm of her chair, “I didn't just reach out because you spoke up for me. Though I do appreciate that.”

El has already figured that couldn't be it. If heroes were to invite everyone who publicly speaks up to defend them for a coffee, she doesn't think they'd get any actual work done.

“You did mention gossip,” she says. “Unless it's confidential?”

“It's a little confidential, but I don't think you'll tell anyone,” Cleo admits.

“In that case, I will hold it as a great secret never to be shared.” El pauses. “Actually, am I allowed to tell my best friend? We live together, so…”

“Sure. But they can't tell anyone else.”

Cleo takes a long, long sip from their mug as they consider carefully. Behind them, the coffee shop bustles on, the barista steaming some milk as two customers by the counter discuss an upcoming driver's test. An elderly man at a table nearby turns the page of his newspaper. Somewhere, a radio plays a song El thinks she remembers from her childhood.

Cleo places their cup down on its plate, and the reverie is shattered.

“Scott wants to meet Illusionist.”

El's eyebrows raise, and her mouth falls open. “He what?! I thought he didn’t like her?”

“Well, he hasn't been very kind about her in interviews, that's true,” Cleo agrees, “but let's just say our main topic of recent meetings has been how to track her down so we can get something of an interview.”

“An interview or an interrogation?”

Cleo smiles slyly. “That's a very good question, Eloise.”

Notably, they do not give her an answer, which does begin to make her somewhat anxious.

“How does he plan to do that, then?”

“Oh, who knows,” Cleo says. They shrug. “He has a way of tracking people down. Either way, what I think is more entertaining is the way he's been going about it. Do you know they make amulets that restrict powers?”

“They do?” That's news to El. “Is that his plan to catch her?”

“It was. But it turns out the amulet stops Broomtech as well — since so many villains have stolen copies or just bought some themselves, you know? So he can't exactly search for Illusionist and carry the amulet around. It's the funniest sort of mess.”

They pull out their phone suddenly and turn the screen to show her a blurry video.

“No way,” El says, once it's done playing. “No way.” She covers her mouth with her hand, because giggling at this would feel very rude, but Cleo just laughs for her.

“You're allowed to laugh, it's hilarious,” she tells El, who can't help grinning along. “Anyway, that's all I have for now. How have things been for you? I take it that work's not too busy, since you're on Twitter at all hours.”

Pushing past the immediate embarrassment at that poke, El shrugs. “It really isn't too busy. A lot of double checking other peoples’ work.”

“Hardly sounds fun. I should take you around the rooftops one of these days. There's a nice view from up there, when we're not fighting superpowered criminals.” Cleo takes another sip. “Though there's less of those these days. I think we ran out of superpowered people not being tracked by the law.”

“It's just people with high tech, then?”

“For the most part,” Cleo nods. “A couple petty thieves, but I don't go after them. Not my area.”

“But someone's?”

“The police are meant to handle them. Scott sends Lauren to fix things when they don't bother.”

“Huh.” El finally pays her iced coffee some attention, still thinking this information over. When she's done, Cleo is looking at her with something expectant in their eyes. “How did the survey go?”

Cleo appears pleased with the question. “Slowly. We have a few people in charge of us — government officials, you might have heard of this. They caught wind of an opportunity to do something that sounds bureaucratic and picked up the task immediately. So we're back to fighting crime.”

“Oh. That seems… controlling.”

At that, Cleo just shrugs. “It's all we've ever known. Who are we to change it?”

Somehow, El gets the feeling that Cleo doesn't exactly agree with what they're saying out loud.

The hours El spends ducked in the crate on the docks end up being easy enough to pass. She has games on her phone. She has a podcast downloaded. She has the horrors of her own imagination when left alone for too long. What else could she possibly need to entertain herself?

At about one in the morning, someone enters the docks, footsteps loud in the empty air. They come to rest at a point near where El had glanced through the barrels of flour the other night, and then the silence continues.

El waits for five minutes, and then lowers the volume of her podcast and presses play again.

It actually takes about half an hour for the next person to turn up, and they are much quieter than the first person. El actually misses their approach, and has to hastily pause her podcast to catch their greeting.

“What've you got for me, then?” says a gruff voice.

The reply is from a familiar person: it's whoever was here last night, El thinks. “Take a look.”

“I'm not opening that.”

“It's safe! Seriously, just take a—”

A click. “Open it yourself.”

“Geez, okay, okay.” A few footsteps and the telltale sound of a barrel lid sliding and clattering to the ground, then a grunt. “What's the problem now?”

“What are you showing me here?” the gruff voice asks, seemingly thoroughly irritated now.

“This, my good friend, is flour.”

“...Flour? Why are you trying to trade me flour?”

El sighs. Thank goodness someone else is asking that question. She's tempted to get up and shake this guy's hand, bad guy or not.

“It's not about the flour,” the second person says dramatically. “It's about what's inside of it.”

“What? No — no, I've had enough of your games, Oli.”

The rise in tone prompts El to peek out from the barrel, and she's just in time to see a bulky figure kick over the very barrel she searched the night before.

Flour spills out over the planks of the dock, a splash of white that glows like silver in the low lighting of the dock lamps. Oli cries out in protest, but the bulkier figure ignores them to lean down and investigate the flour. El tries to look closer, too, casting a prepared illusion that imitates another crate so that she can shuffle forward into what is technically open air.

Within the puddle of flour, various shapes seem to form: a candlestick, two large bricks, a few dozen large coins. The bulky figure gestures with a knife El hadn't noticed earlier, then Oli kneels down to pick up the candlestick and brush off the flour.

The gleam of gold flashes in the light. Immediately, the bulky figure straightens up.

“See?” says Oli, looking relieved. “It's the perfect hiding place for expensive items. Super cheap, too. And with my business, you too can use Floury Barrels to—”

“You're selling the barrels of flour?” the first person interrupts. “Not the gold?”

“Of course not! That's my gold, it's not for sale.”

“I'm not—”

A loud sound cuts through the conversation: Katy Perry, singing loudly about how baby, you're a firework. It's a very familiar section of the song, and takes a few seconds to register in El’s head as her own ringtone.

Shit, she thinks, scrambling to turn it off, but the damage is done; the bulkier figure is already darting away, mostly-white candlestick in hand, while Oli is now face down in his own barrel of flour.

She'll take what she can get, she supposes, and darts out of her illusion to snatch up the criminal with the handcuffs she's been carrying around lately. As she flips him over, she realises something else is very wrong. A whole patch of the flour has been stained a deep red; Oli must have been slashed at briefly before the other person left, as his face now scrunches up in pain.

“Ow,” he says. “Why would you do this to me, Katy?”

“I'm not called Katy,” El says, frowning automatically.

“No, no, not you, Illusionist… It was Katy Perry… How could she betray me like this…?” His eyes snap fully open. “Wait, Illusionist? Is that you?”

El stares. “Okay, I'm calling an ambulance for you. I don't have any first aid training, and you seem disoriented.”

“Never mind that!” Oli exclaims, still bleeding all over his flour. “Can I get your autograph?”

Chapter Text

LIZZIE

still up for frisbee practice tonight?

i have that sailing project, remember?

ohhh

ok, sailing is super important

did you bring your frisbee to work?

yes, i’ve been using it to get here

isn't that going to give away your headlights, though?

nobody's cared so far

do you think i shouldn't be using it?

honestly? kinda

might give away the whole bubbles business tbh

okay :/ i guess i can walk home

do you need anything from the shops?

uhhhh can you get milk?

yeah sure

but after that i’ve got to chat with

do we have a code word for bertha?

you can't just say that!!!!

shoot. we need a code word for code word

“I’ve secured you an interview!” Lizzie cheers suddenly.

El spins around from where she’s watching the Tenth Doctor blast open a set of alien spaceship doors. She’s not actually sure what’s going on in the current episode, but they’ve got a TV licence, so they may as well use it.

“You’ve what?”

“Plenty of people have been asking, of course,” Lizzie continues as if she hasn’t said anything, “But I won’t have just anyone being your first interview. You know how those YouTubers are.”

“Hey,” El frowns. “I’m technically a YouTuber.”

Lizzie waves her off. “You know what I mean. Anyway, some journalists over at HeroWatch and I have been talking—”

“At HeroWatch?!”

“—and they’ve promised to treat you very well and ask very polite questions. And I figured, since they’re a household name, we can trust them enough to interview you, you know?”

Frankly, El very almost says no.

And then she remembers her long term plan. If she can mess up this interview enough…

“Sure!” she says, smiling. “That sounds great!”

She turns back to Doctor Who, feeling rather pleased with herself, and tunes out the sound of Lizzie’s rapid typing and quiet whoops.

As it turns out, the interview is scheduled for that very afternoon. Lizzie wastes no time, it seems — and, since she knows El’s work hours, she’s just picked out a time that gives her a few hours to get ready and zoom over on her hoverboard. She barely even has time to have dinner; it’s lucky that she’s stocked up on tomato soup lately.

She dons her costume and sets off with her hoverboard, wrapping a vague illusion of the sky around herself. As she approaches the HeroWatch offices, she starts to see other figures up in the skies: a hero that she thinks she recognises as Pris; a few packages being lifted around by Broomtech drones; and someone incredibly suspicious flying at what seems to be the centre of a high up cloud, weaving around Pris’s line of sight. That last thing makes her pause — but there isn’t really time to investigate that. She does have an interview to get to!

Finally, she catches sight of the logo of HeroWatch, neon and bright across the top of the tall building it’s on, and begins to descend to the roof. It doesn’t look too busy at the moment, with most people having left work. She lets her illusion fall as she lands on a balcony, before peering into the building.

If she’s being completely honest, something about the HeroWatch studio prompts the childlike wonder in the back of her mind to awaken. The sofas are all made of strange, abstract shapes of various colours, adorned with round cushions and hanging from unseen wires. They’re scattered around the room, all facing a central stage.

El’s mouth drops open. Is that stage… for her?

It certainly looks that way. The backdrop is made up of swirls in her colour palette, with two stools perched in front. A few people are gathered near one of the chairs, someone glancing through a laptop and speaking, and the others all watching them and nodding along. On a whiteboard on one of the walls is the text ‘ILLUSIONIST INTERVIEW TODAY’, with the last word underlined several times.

One of the people in the room suddenly points at El, and then all of the others are spinning around and jumping into action. Someone rushes up to the glass balcony door to let her in, while someone else starts making a hasty coffee. Rising from their chair, a person with tightly curled red hair and a sharp, smart look makes eye contact with El, and she is given the distinct impression that this is her interviewer.

“Hello, Illusionist, welcome,” her interviewer says, as El is ushered to the studio stage. “Please do sit down, we’ll get you some refreshments in a moment.”

The coffee is offered out to her — and she’s definitely feeling too uncomfortable to refuse — and another employee appears with an array of biscuits and crudités, their eyes wide with what seems to be excitement. She freezes with indecision for two minutes, then finally picks out the plainest biscuit she can see.

It takes a moment, but eventually the room settles into order. There’s a camera being set up, microphones leaning towards them both, and everyone is watching closely as the interviewer settles down and gives El a friendly smile.

“My name is Geoff, and I’ll be interviewing you today,” they say. “Am I right in thinking this is your first interview?”

El nods. “Unless you count the villains I catch? A few of them ask a lot of questions.”

“Yeah? What sort?”

“Stuff like ‘who authorised this?’ and ‘how dare you?’, mostly.”

“Oh my,” Geoff says with a grin, “we are going to get along very well.”

Geoff gives a more full introduction then, telling her everything from his pronouns to the fact that he’s actually only been working with this company for a few years. He’s simply been the best at lighter interviews, he informs her, which makes him perfect for these more anxiety-inducing first interactions with heroes.

“And I’m also excellent at recoveries,” he finishes with a wink. “My team and I can fix any little stumbles you make, so don’t worry about that.”

“You don’t have to do that,” El says, laughing a little nervously.

“No, no, of course we do!” Geoff places a hand on his clipboard, a serious look on his face. “Image is everything. We won’t let you down.”

Well, that might hinder her plans somewhat. El tries her best to give him a grateful smile, and he seems to take it well enough. He shoots the camera a thumbs up, before he turns to El with a renewed energy.

“Good morning, Illusionist, and welcome to the studio at HeroWatch!” he greets. She realises with a start that the interview has officially begun, and almost drops the coffee in surprise. “How are you feeling today? Pumped?”

“Mostly very nervous, honestly.”

Geoff laughs, the action almost exaggerated now that the cameras are rolling. “That’s perfectly normal. You’re very new to this whole superhero gig, right?”

“I am. I actually kind of started by accident, if anything.”

“By accident?”

“When I uploaded that first vlog, I… didn’t really realise that any of this would happen. I’m not very hero-worthy, and all that.”

“I’m sure you’ve learnt plenty since you’ve started.”

“I have! There’s—” El catches herself, and remembers the self-sabotage plan she keeps forgetting the more she gets into the swing of this interview. “Ahem. I have learnt that… There are some rules for some… and some for others. And being a hero lets you really, uh.” She waves a hand. “Blur those lines.”

The interview team are glancing nervously at each other. That means she’s doing badly, which means she’s doing well, she figures.

“Is that so?” Geoff asks, a brow raised. “Do you find that you have to take advantage of those blurred lines, then?”

“Who wouldn’t, right? Haha.”

“Very interesting. What a revolutionary revelation that must have been. Have you met other heroes on the job, then?”

“I’ve met Scott,” El lies quickly. “Uh, Dread, I mean.”

Geoff’s eyes light up. “How was that?”

“Oh, he was, uh…”

El has to stop and think for a moment. What’s the worst answer she could give? Dread has almost always been the #1 Hero, and nobody ever really seems to have anything bad to say about him. Actually, El herself thinks he might be the coolest hero in the city, besides Cleo — granted, she’s biased on account of now somewhat being friends with Cleo.

So the logical thing to say is:

“Horrible.”

“Horrible?” Geoff repeats, clearly taken aback. She can hear the other employees murmuring in the background, echoing the sentiment. “Really?”

“Oh, yeah, just the worst. Really terrible,” El says, nodding rapidly. “You know what he’s like, always telling people about how they’re uh — how they suck so much, and all that.”

“We’ve had Scott in here a lot of times. He’s never said anything like that to us.”

“Well,” says El. She does not elaborate.

“That’s incredibly interesting.” Geoff leans forward. “He hasn’t been very kind about your approach in the media, either, has he? Do you think that perhaps some see you as a vigilante, as you don’t have official endorsement?”

“You never know, really. I could be anything! A hero, a vigilante, a misguided villain — it’s all a matter of perspective! Really, I might actually be a really bad hero, right?”

Perfect execution, if she may say so herself. And, judging from Geoff’s elevating eyebrows, something that will surely make waves across the Internet and entirely destroy her reputation.

It’s all going exactly as she planned.

El has a lot to think over after the interview. She thinks she’s done a good job of doing a bad job, but one thing she’s come to learn is that there’s really no saying how people are going to take things.

Instead of thinking too hard about it or sitting on the sofa and scrolling through social media with shaky hands, she opts to head out to the hospital she dropped Oli at to see if she can get information out of him now. With patrol plans she's made with Lizzie at the back of her mind, Cleo’s description of the Coven's duties earlier that day hovering somewhere at the forefront, and Bertha’s mission having a stand-off with both of those thoughts somewhere in the middle, it should be no wonder that she's quite distracted as she is.

Still, excuses are just excuses. She is distracted, and that’s all it takes.

She misses the flash of dark blue across the vision, so she's caught off guard two seconds later when someone grabs her arm and swings her around to face them, her hoverboard following the turn through in a way that leaves her just barely standing on it. She gapes at the person who's caught her, dread sinking deep into her stomach.

“So,” says Dread, #1 Hero of the entire city and exactly the person she’s been trying to avoid. “This is the mysterious Illusionist. What are you doing patrolling in my territory?”

El's brain is silent for three full seconds.

“Well?”

“Heyyy, Scott!” she blurts out. “Wait, should I call you that? No, probably not, sorry about that, Dread, uh — hello! Hi! So cool to meet you, by the way.”

Dread stares at her for several very long, very silent seconds. Then his head tilts a little.

“You,” he eventually says, “have no idea what you're doing, do you?”

“That's not true! I'm on a patrol!” El defends, though even she has to admit the defence sounds weak.

“What sections are you patrolling?” he shoots back. “And under whose authority? Where do you log your patrols? Who are you coordinating patrols with? Do you have a full kit? Is that Broomtech legitimate? Do you even have a base or holding cells?”

“Well, now,” El replies, sweating under her costume. “I haven't got all of that ready yet. But I do have a mentor, if that counts as authority?”

“Who is it?”

El opens her mouth to speak, then promptly snaps it shut. She isn’t… fully sure she’s meant to be saying anything about Bertha yet. Even though she’s planning to jeopardise herself, she really doesn’t want to ruin Bertha’s plans in the same blow. This is really getting a lot more complicated than she’d originally wanted.

“That’s none of your business, Dread,” she says.

Glowering, Dread tightens his grip on her arm. She can practically feel herself shaking, but she holds herself up because it would be dreadfully embarrassing to just collapse now.

“You are a danger to this city, Illusionist. If you don’t clean up your act soon, I won’t allow you to patrol here any longer. Do you understand?”

Logically, El should really just nod along now. She should not try to change his mind. She should not try to challenge him. She should not—

“Why do I need your permission?” she counters. “I want to help, and it feels like a net good to have another hero on the streets, right?”

“You want to help?” Dread laughs, and his manner is so cold it reminds El very suddenly and unpleasantly of exactly what his powers are. “It doesn’t matter if you want to help. Everyone wants to help, but there are very few of us who are actually equipped to. True heroes are not motivated by their whims, Illusionist. They are motivated by duty. That’s what separates us from vigilantes. From villains.”

He lets go of her arm, giving El momentary relief, and prods a finger at the centre of her chest. Somehow, it hurts more than it should.

“One day you’re going to go out there not because you want to, but because you have to. And that is when you’ll be a real hero,” he tells her. “But until then, stick to magic tricks.”

The air seems to close in on itself, as if it’s being sucked out of the sky. Around El, the world seems to freeze and go grey, a momentary lapse in the universe’s onward march of life. Her lungs burn suddenly, so overwhelmingly that she can’t focus on the way Dread is finishing casting whatever spell he’s laid upon the space they’ve been floating in.

When it feels as if she’s about to pass out entirely, Dread suddenly takes two steps backwards and vanishes into thin air. Oxygen rushes back into El’s lungs. She gasps on it, one hand on her chest, and squints out into the night for any sign of the hero.

He’s gone. Wherever he’s gone now — the shadow realm, or the world of death, or whatever — it’s not somewhere she can even try to follow.

I guess I wasn’t too wrong about him in the interview, huh, she thinks to herself.

Even the irony doesn’t ease her fear.

Oli looks, for lack of a better phrase, pretty fucked up.

He was definitely bleeding last night when El dropped him off, sure, but now he’s tied up in several casts and wearing a helpless expression like some sort of lost puppy and El just feels bad for the guy. She has a job to do, sure, but now she feels like she should have brought flowers or some sort of Get Well Soon card or something.

It does seem like he’s happy enough when she arrives, though.

“Illusionist!” he calls, brightening up immediately and waving with a heavily bandaged arm. “Hi! Hi! Hello! This way!”

Some of the other patients peer over in interest as El slinks her way over to Oli’s bed. She’s still not sure why he has so many bandages. She’s pretty sure he was only stabbed in the side, though she supposes she isn’t exactly medically qualified so perhaps he did also break his arms and legs at some point too. Did she drop him too hard while dropping him off at the hospital, maybe?

“Have you come to check in on me, your favourite fan and newest best friend?” he asks, grinning widely and fluttering his eyes.

“Oh,” she says. “Not really, no. Why do you think we’re friends?”

“Because you saved my life? Obviously?”

“Is that the qualification for being friends now?”

Oli sighs. “If someone saved your life, would you not also consider them one of your favourite people in the world?”

“I… suppose I would like them a lot more after that,” El replies slowly. “But I still don’t know if we’re friends. I mean, I do still intend to arrest you once the nurse gives me the all clear for that.”

“You don’t think we’re friends?” Oli says. His eyes widen and begin watering at a scary speed.

“I still don’t see why we would be.”

“Oh.”

El pauses just a second longer, then adds quietly, “Unless you can do a favour for me.”

Sparkles seem to appear in Oli’s eyes as he perks up and beams.

“Really?” he asks. “You’ll be my friend? What do I need to do?”

“All I need to know,” El says, “is a little bit of an — an icebreaker. You know, to check that you’ll be a good friend.”

“Go on…”

“Who was the other person at the docks? The one who stabbed you?”

Oli shrinks back just a little. “Why do you need to know that?”

“Well, of course, I — I do need to enact my revenge upon anyone who harms my friend. If I ever see them.”

“I can’t help you there,” Oli says.

“You don’t have to protect them. And if they’re threatening you—”

“That’s not it. I genuinely have no idea who that guy was. I was just told to try and sell my wares to him, at that time and date, and also to do a bunch of weird stuff in the nights leading up to it.”

Oh? “Weird stuff? What sort?”

“Well,” Oli says thoughtfully, “my Employer told me to hang out around the docks every night, just act like I’m setting up a deal or something. I asked my Employer if I should actually organise the deal, but apparently that was already sorted by someone else ages ago, so I just sort of rang random pizza delivery services instead. I’m banned from a lot of Pizza Huts now.”

“Your employer?” says El, holding on to that detail. “Who’s your employer?”

“Oh, I haven’t a clue! Just, y’know… the Employer. You really have to emphasise that capital E.”

“The Employer,” El repeats, rolling the name around in her mouth and determining that it is somehow more ominous to say than hear. “I see. And you don’t know anything about them? At all?”

“Well, I do know one thing.” Oli moves his arms, though El’s not sure what gesture exactly he’s trying to make. “But if I tell you, you have to promise to un-arrest me.”

El squints at him. She’s not actually she has the authority to do that. Then again, she’s pretty sure she’s seen police do it in the movies, so it’s probably alright, right?

“Sure,” she says. “As long as it’s useful information.”

With a glance around the room, Oli leans as far out over the bed as he can and, with a lowered voice, says, “The Employer always leaves my equipment and instructions in an empty flat at the edge of the city. I can give you the address if you want, but it’s the only place I’ve ever had contact with the Employer.”

At El’s prompt, he scribbles out the address on the back of one of the patient monitoring forms next to his bed. She doesn’t recognise the building, though she doesn’t think it’ll be all too difficult to find, and so she tucks it away in her pocket and gives him a grateful pat on the head.

“Thank you for this. You’re doing great at this whole friend thing,” she tells him. “I’ll leave you alone now — no arrests after your recovery and no chasing after you once you get let go. Does that sound like a good deal?”

Oli gives her another pleading look, eyes wide and shining. “Can we be pen pals, too?”

“That depends,” El shrugs. “You’ll have to reach out to my official email address. On the, uh, YouTube channel. But I’ll put a word in for you with my email manager.”

“Yes!” Oli cheers. “Oh my god, I’m going to send you so many emails.”

El’s stomach sinks, although she doesn’t let it show.

“Great,” she says. “See you around. Or not!”

“Aha, yes, ‘or not’.” Oli winks. “Suuure. Goodbye, Illusionist!”

With that, El leaves the ward, her mind whirring with a new direction for her case and the strange suspicion that she’s being set up. Before she can get started on that, though, there’s someone else she needs to meet with.

She steps out of the hospital and onto her hoverboard, the wind cool on her face as she sets out into the night.

SUPERPOWER MONITORING AGENCY

SECURITY CLEARANCE: RESTRICTED

PERSON OF INTEREST FILE #891

Bertha takes the news about the docks and the Employer about as well as El had expected: with complete and utter indifference.

“So,” El concludes, “I’m going to the address that my informant gave me, and I’m going to look for any clues or hints about who or where the Employer is.”

For a moment, Bertha doesn’t react. Then:

“No.”

El blinks. “What?”

“You’ve done your part in this case. I’ll take it from here.”

“I don’t—”

“That was all you needed to do,” Bertha cuts in. “Now you’re free to continue with your own cases. If you need help I can give you more training, but for this case that’s all.”

Their voice is sharper and harsher than El has ever heard it, and she has to wonder if she’s done something wrong. Did Bertha… not want her to actually look for the person behind this? Maybe she’s after the wrong person anyway, seeing as Oli was just selling barrels of flour. Is that what this is about?

“Do you want me to—?” she tries, but Bertha shakes their head definitively.

“No. Don’t do anything else related to this. Go home, do an interview, but leave this alone.”

They turn on the spot and cast a portal out behind them, before stepping through without a second glance. El, now alone on the rooftop, watches with a growing sense of unease as the portal closes in on itself, space folding around the area until it’s set back into the regular continuum.

Without the case, El feels like she isn’t sure what to do anymore. It doesn’t feel like she’s done anything useful; in fact, something seems dreadfully off about the way Bertha told her to stop investigating. They didn’t even ask for the address.

Do they already know of the Employer? Is that why they called El off? That idea seems to make the most sense so far, she thinks — it clicks in her head like a bike seat being pulled down a few notches, leaving her feet finally on level ground.

Yes, she decides. Bertha knows of the Employer, and thinks that this opponent might be too great for her to face yet.

But that suspicion at the back of her mind grows all the same, and she realises it may be more urgent to get Oli somewhere secure.

If her instincts are right, he’s thrown himself into far more danger just by telling her anything at all.

Chapter Text

By the time she gets back home, El is exhausted. She drops her costume off in her room and crawls into bed five minutes later, barely bothering to tidy them away. It’s something close to five in the morning when she shuts her eyes; it is six thirty when she’s shaken awake again.

“El! El, wake up!” Lizzie practically shouts. “You’ve sparked a revolution and the government is calling for your arrest, you need to get up now!”

El stares up at Lizzie blearily. “Lizzie?”

“Eloise, if you don’t wake up in the next five minutes, I will have no choice but to steal both of your pillows and refuse to return them for a week.”

That certainly gets her moving. Horrified, she sits up hurriedly and shakes herself awake, trying to clear the fuzziness in her brain.

“What’s the matter?” she asks. “I feel like I barely got any sleep.”

“You,” says Lizzie, “have gone absolutely viral. And not in a good way, this time! People think you’re trying to undermine the Coven, and while I would completely support you on this, it sort of looks like there’s several MPs campaigning to label you a villain. We need to fix this!”

For El, who still isn’t entirely sure if she’s dreaming, this is rather a lot to process at once.

“Hang on,” she says, raising a hand. “There’s politicians who want me arrested?”

“Yes!” Lizzie kneels down on the bed and places a hand on each of El’s shoulders. “Listen. I know this isn’t what your goal was. I know you like the Coven decently, and that whatever you said about Scott last night was probably all just for show, so we need to make sure we set the record straight so you don’t get branded as something you’re not.”

El tiredly turns that over in her brain. Across from her, Lizzie waits with an intense and anxious look on her face.

“It’s fine,” El finally says. “It doesn’t matter that much anyway.”

“You need to take this seriously, El,” Lizzie scolds.

“I don’t think I want to. Hey, can I go back to sleep now?”

“No, absolutely not.” Lizzie shakes her head. “Look, I’ve organised another interview with a journalist from The Events where you can clear this all up. They’re a broadsheet and not a tabloid, so I’m hoping people will think it was all just gossip and you can get back to building your superhero career and—”

El interrupts the accelerating rant with a raised palm. “I’m not trying to build a huge career or anything, Lizzie. It’ll be fine.”

“It’s intimidating, I know,” Lizzie says calmingly. “It’s a lot. Trust me, I see all the emails you get and the headlines you’re in, and it looks so difficult. But I’m here for you, okay?”

She releases El’s shoulders and takes her hand instead, smiling gently as she holds it between her own.

“I’ll be by your side for the whole interview this time. Everything will go so smoothly. We can fix this.”

The thought of Lizzie being dragged into all this — being present at these interviews, her own life on the line as she begins to realise that El is undoing all of her efforts to help her — feels like an alarm bell in the midst of a slow, foggy haze. El straightens her back and swings her legs over the bed, pulling free of Lizzie as she gets to her feet.

“I don’t want to fix this,” she says.

She can’t see Lizzie, but she can practically sense her freezing on top of the bedcovers.

“What?”

“I don’t want to be a hero,” El repeats. “I never did. It was just — an accident.”

“Maybe it seemed like an accident at first,” says Lizzie, and her voice is imploring, “but it was like fate or something. The night you went out, when you fought those criminals—”

“That wasn’t fate, Lizzie. That was a joke.” She turns around. Lizzie is looking back at her, almost lost. “It was a prank video. It wasn’t real. None of it.”

Silence falls on the room. Several dozen emotions seem to flit by on Lizzie’s face, before something frustrated and furious settles over her and stays.

“So all of this was a lie?” Lizzie asks, voice quiet. “You’ve been lying to me and to — to everyone, right from the beginning?”

El shrugs, even as her insides begin to curl back in regret. “Yeah. I mean…”

“So — what? You never wanted to do good? You never wanted to help people or use your powers for good or actually change things for the first time in — in years? Are you saying that, too? That you’re nothing but a fraud?”

“I didn’t want to be a fraud,” El argues. It feels as though the air is buzzing around her. “I just wanted to get out of this whole situation. Which I wouldn’t even have been in if you hadn’t made me! So when you really think about it—”

“Oh my god, are you really blaming me for your lies?” Lizzie laughs, but it sounds all hollow and unfamiliar. “I have done nothing but try to support you this whole time. I — I stole Broomtech for you! Do you know how risky that was? I’ve done so much just so you could get off the ground! More than that, I’ve had your back this whole time. No matter what!”

“I didn’t ask for any of that!”

“You don’t need to! You’re my best friend, it goes unsaid that I help you. And it should go unsaid that you don’t keep things like this from me!”

By now they’re both standing, the floor turning dark around them as unease spills out from El’s subconscious. It’s only as Lizzie pats frustratedly on her trousers and begins to retreat out of the door that El even realises this, and then she feels too much as though she’s about to burst to even care.

All she knows is that this is it for Lizzie, that she just won’t understand any of what’s happened no matter what El says.

That’s the thing, she tells herself. Lizzie doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get it, she hasn’t been at the centre of all of this, hasn’t seen the way that the thrill of fixing things wraps around someone and drags them in deeper than they can help. And at this point El doesn’t even know if she wants to be a hero or scrap it all or get to the bottom of who the Employer is or anything.

“If you want this whole charade to end, then fine,” Lizzie declares from the doorway, voice still bleeding with anger. “I’ll let the Events know myself. Don’t bother with patrol tonight.”

Lizzie slams the bedroom door behind her as she leaves. Everything crashes down on El at once, the exhaustion and bitterness and sorrow.

Dread was right. She really doesn’t know what she’s doing.

And now, even worse, she’s alone.

If Lizzie is ending her career tonight, El may as well do as much as she can before tomorrow.

Not in the — not, like, partying and such, like some sort of Pitbull song. She has a case to do, she hardly has time for dancing.

She guides her Broomtech out a little after lunch, as well as the cover of her own powers, and begins to make her way towards the apartment blocks near the edge of town that Oli had described. As much as she’d like to use a navigation app, she’s also well aware that she needs to be more careful now; if she really does get in trouble after tomorrow, she doesn’t exactly want further evidence that she’s crossing over roads and streets at high speeds only possible with Broomtech.

So instead she has a road map she dug out from the books that her landlord left behind in her and Lizzie’s house. It’s one of those old A-Z Maps guides, and frankly it takes her longer to figure out where she is than to actually plan out the route. Still, the setup works well enough, and she zips past parks and rivers and motorways and some small variety of landmarks while tracking them all with one finger on the map itself.

It’s definitely out of date, she knows, but some things endure the test of time far more than others. Rivers, for example. Rivers don’t tend to change all that much.

Speaking of which, it turns out the apartment in question is barely just off the track of the large river that winds through Witchington. She meanders out towards it and finds the building in question relatively easily — though this time by stowing her hoverboard over her back and just walking around until she finds the right address. After that, she simply counts the floors upwards and begins her search past each room until she can find one that looks abandoned.

That proves to be trickier, as it happens. Turns out that this far out, most of the apartments are derelict and in desperate need of some tender loving care. Each apartment could be the one Oli meant, and each could equally be entirely clueless.

She almost gives up.

And then she hears a very familiar voice.

“No, redirect all mail to our new dead drop,” says Bertha’s voice, from just beyond the window pane. “This one is compromised, I’m burning all evidence of it now.” And then, a few seconds later. “Yes, we have a defector. I’ll be dealing with them presently.”

What are they doing here? Did they pursue the case without El?

A phone inside the apartment rings, then is picked up nearly immediately.

“You found him?” Bertha asks. El wonders when they put down the other call, or if they even have at all. “What do you mean, he vanished? How can you have found him if you’re saying he has vanished? Do you hear yourself? No, quiet. I will get back to you, I have more important things to settle.”

It dawns on El so suddenly that she can’t help the gasp she lets out. Bertha is wrapped up in this, somehow — wrapped up in the case and the Employer and — why the hell had they even sent her on this case if they didn’t want her finding this out?

The curtain in front of the window is thrown back.

Bertha stares out at her from beneath their hood, eyes glowing more brightly than El’s ever seen. She’s dazzled for a moment by the light, and raises a hand to shield her own eyes.

“Illusionist,” Bertha says, and the words seem to echo in the very particles of the air all around her despite the pane of glass still between the two.

El is too terrified to hear what Bertha is about to say. As they open their mouth to speak again, she pushes off from the building and directs her hoverboard to zoom upwards and out in a spiral, away from the view of the window. She flies so fast she has to crouch down and grip the hoverboard so that she doesn’t accidentally fall off in the process, and that action in itself unsteadies her almost as much as the realisation that her mentor has set her up from the very beginning.

Is the Employer even a real threat? Was Oli lying to her, too? Or is he now in danger, stuck injured and helpless due to El’s own presence the other night?

She can barely think. It feels as though everything she’s been doing has been pointless, just a wild goose chase with no cause and no consequence.

Maybe it’s best, she thinks, if she just goes home and waits for Lizzie to blow her whole lie apart.

As she slowly begins to weave her way back over various rooftops and towards her home, she does not notice that there is something else — something dangerous — following the very same route.

El gets back home as the sun is setting. She had taken a detour on the way; for a half hour, she stood at the edge of the tallest building in the city to look down at all the sprawling streets below, and to say goodbye to the view that she knew she’d miss when all of this was finally brought to an end.

When she does arrive, though, she finds the door ajar.

That puts her on edge. They don’t live in the sort of neighbourhood where one can leave the door unlocked, and out of the two of them El knows she’s far more likely to forget this than Lizzie. She pulls her hoverboard from her back, where it has been hiding beneath the illusion of a rucksack, and holds it like a bat in front of her.

With careful steps, she enters the house. There’s no sound from any of the downstairs rooms, though she can see that several of the shoes at the front door have been knocked from their rack. The door to the kitchen stands wide open. She approaches it as silently as she can, raising her board, and enters.

There was definitely a scuffle here, she realises immediately. Half of the table mats are on the floor and several others are in disarray, while various pans have been flung across the room. El is glad to see a lack of kitchen knives and blood left from the fray, but her temporary relief is soon after sunk by the sight of a printed note sitting neatly on the countertop.

She sets down her hoverboard next to it then picks up the note with shaking fingers, and her eyes fix first on the name written at the bottom.

Panic courses through her veins. She sits down to read the note, and then reads it again and again. This can’t be real — it can’t. How do they even know where she lives — how did they find Lizzie, how did they know—?

She needs to get help, but her closest friend is gone and her mentor is literally involved with some puppet master who seems to run an entire underground criminal organisation, and now even her house is compromised and — are they coming for her landlord next? Her friends? Her colleagues?

She has to warn them, she realises. If she even can, that is — she doesn’t know if someone is watching her or watching her outgoing texts. What will they do to Lizzie if she tries to call someone?

In the midst of frantic indecision, as she scrolls through her contacts, she hears someone else step into her house and freezes in place.

Of all of the people in the city, it is Dread who steps inside. He stops to look around, clearly caught off guard, but his face doesn’t betray any emotion. Instead, he just stares back at El.

“I seem to have caught you at a bad time, Illusionist,” he notes, though he doesn’t sound sorry. “Have you figured out that you’re not ready for this, then?”

Emotions battle at the pit of El’s stomach. The one that emerges is not pretty.

“Of course I’m not ready,” she retorts. “I only just started being a hero. It’s not like you’ve offered to help me at any point.”

“I’m not going to help an inexperienced—”

“Yeah, I know! I figured that out, actually!” She storms up to him, eyes narrowed. “From the very beginning, you keep saying I’m irresponsible and unsuitable and — and you’ve just been against me from the start! I haven’t done anything to you.”

Dread isn’t much taller than her, but the way he stands makes him seem almost as if he’s towering over her all the same. “You have been undermining me and the Coven from the moment you put on that costume. This isn’t a game, Illusionist.”

“I know that. I know that, you don’t have to treat me like a child,” El hisses. She shoves the note at him. “Does this look like a game?”

For a moment, Dread actually does go quiet. He glances over the note, a frown now on his face.

“You have to help me,” she says.

A pause.

“I will,” Dread replies. El sighs, but then he adds, “But you have to ask through the right channels. Go to the police, and they’ll deal with it or call on us. Ask like a normal civilian, which is what you are.”

“If I do that, they’ll find out my secret identity.”

“Do you realise that that’s for the best? They’re the ones who are supposed to know your identity.” Dread pushes the note away, and it slips through El’s fingers and flutters to the ground. “I’m not helping you take any shortcuts.”

“My friend is a civilian, she’s in danger—”

“And we’ll help her! But it’s clear that you need to do things properly, for once,” he shoots back. He indicates the note, now lying face down on the ground. “Or these things happen.”

El feels as though the ground has fallen out beneath her. “So you won’t help me.”

Dread doesn’t deign to answer.

A last, desperate idea comes to El’s mind.

“If you help me,” she says, “I’ll never go out there again. No more cases, or patrols, or interviews. Illusionist will be gone forever. That’s what you came here for, right?”

“It is,” Dread replies. He considers, and El holds her breath as he does. “Fine. We’ll rescue your friend, but if I ever see you in that costume again—”

“You won’t. I promise.”

“Good. Then we have a deal.”

Chapter Text

El didn’t get much sleep the previous night, and she can’t sleep tonight either. She tosses and turns in bed, tiredness and fear churning within her as she thinks of the hundreds of ways that a rescue mission could go wrong.

The next morning, she enters a coffee shop at opening time and sits down with an espresso and the laptop Lizzie has been using to answer emails. She shoots off a single text, vague in meaning and innocent enough to pass any monitoring, and then waits.

Cleo arrives a few hours later, by which time El has made it through about half of the emails in her inbox.

“Good morning, Eloise,” she greets, and if El didn’t know better she could pretend that this is just a normal day and a normal meet-up. “You look a little tired.”

“I’ve had a busy few days,” El replies. “I… assume you’ve heard about it from Dread.”

Cleo’s face turns sympathetic. “The first kidnapping is always the toughest.”

“The first kidnapping?!”

“Well, if you plan to be a hero, this certainly won’t be the last,” Cleo says with a small smile. “It’s never pleasant, though, and I suppose you must be terrified now.”

“I am.” El takes a sip of her second coffee. It has long gone cold. “I know I’m meant to leave this to the professionals, but I can’t help thinking that it’s all going to go wrong. I mean, if they see anyone but me coming… But I can’t intervene. I’m not even a real hero, I’m just—” Her shoulders drop. “I’m just making a mess of things.”

For a few moments, Cleo is quiet. Then they turn to glance around the mostly-empty shop, before leaning in and lowering their voice.

“You know,” they say, “I do think that Scott isn’t taking you seriously enough.”

“What?” El squashes down the hope rising in her. “You do?”

“I looked up the Employer in our files. We don’t have much information on whatever they are, except that they’re a high priority threat and that they’re tangled with a lot of past cases.” Cleo sits back, looking thoughtful. “Scott is taking a laid-back approach to this operation, but I don’t think it will be enough. His methods don’t work on criminals of this kind. He just refuses to budge.”

“What do I do?” El asks. “I can’t go out as Illusionist, or Scott will — I don’t know what he’ll do, but I promised.”

“I won’t say you should break that promise, but… I think that you’re very valuable to this city. We need a hero who inspires change and honestly just wants to do the best they can.”

“You want me to keep being a hero?”

Cleo nods. “I think you should rescue your friend yourself, and stay as a protector of the city. It’s your choice, of course — I’d just like you to know that Scott isn’t always right about everything. There isn’t always a certain way to do things — in fact, it’s usually better when there’s other ways, other options.”

If she’s being honest, El can’t really think of anything to say. She doesn’t know why Cleo has this unfounded faith in her, or why she’d openly disagree with Scott like this, or why she even accepted the invitation to come here at all. In the end, she doesn’t ask about any of that.

“You’re taking the fact that I’m Illusionist really well,” she observes.

“Oh, El,” Cleo says kindly. “I’ve known all along. You’re not that subtle.”

El gapes. “And you didn’t say anything?!”

“I figured you’d tell me in your own time. I’m very sorry you didn’t get that chance.”

“It’s fine, it’s—” She sighs into her coffee. “It’s kind of my fault, anyway.”

While not disagreeing, Cleo does raise an eyebrow to that statement. They lean forward again, this time nudging El’s coffee to the side and out of the way.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to tell me what you know so far, and I’m going to help you make a plan,” they tell her. “We have until six in the afternoon. Where do we start?”

[Scott] Alright, recording the official mission start time as seventeen forty-eight. Any signs of people in the area?

[Shubble] Negative.

[Scott] Good. Lauren, you make sure no citizens enter the plaza. Shubble, you’re with me.

[Shubble] I think it’ll be wiser to have two people watch the area.

[Scott] I’ve dealt with this sort of hostage situation before. We need to focus on intimidation first, they’re unlikely to try and fight us.

[Scott] Cleo, do you have eyes on Illusionist?

[Cleo] Looks like she’s not coming.

[Scott] Sounds too good to be true. Keep an eye out.

[Lauren] In location! I see someone heading towards one of the entrances as we speak.

[Scott] Describe them.

[Lauren] Long coat, wide hat — I think those are sunglasses?

[Cleo] (laughing) That’s practically the picture of suspicion.

[Shubble] Sounds like they’re trying to draw attention to themself. Should we go in?

[Scott] We’ll wait ‘til six on the dot.

[Scott] It’s five fifty-six. Cleo, eyes on Illusionist?

[Cleo] No sign.

[Cleo] Wait — yes, she’s heading towards the plaza, via Church Road. Lauren, do you see her?

[Lauren] Church Road… that’s this way. Um — yes, I see her! Should I stop her?

[Scott] No, focus on the exits. Shubble, can you start negotiations without me?

[Shubble] Of course. (half-sarcastically) Are you sure you can handle Illusionist?

[Scott] Yeah, very funny. I’m taking her down before she messes this up for us.

[Cleo] Good luck with that. I’m getting a drink.

[Lauren] It doesn’t seem like a good time for that, I reckon?

[Scott] Wait. What just—?

[Scott] How is she doing that?

[Shubble] What’s happening? Speak to us, I’m walking over to start talks now.

[Scott] She’s dodging every — what?! I can’t hit her!

[Scott] Illusionist, stand down. Don’t go into the plaza.

[Scott] How is she — did she just teleport past me?

[Lauren] Doesn’t she have…?

[Scott] Ah. Illusion-based powers.

[Scott] But if she’s casting an illusion here… where is she?

Watching from a window nearby, El can see the plaza perfectly clearly. She locates Lauren easily enough as she hops from rooftop to rooftop above them. Then there’s Stormthrower, striding towards the strange figure at the centre of the plaza, her white hair crackling slightly as she moves. The strange figure itself is distracted from her by Scott, who is chasing after El’s illusion with a deep scowl on his face.

He stops short and looks over at the strange figure, who now chooses to finally speak up.

“I believe,” they say, directing their words at the false version of El, “that you were supposed to come here alone.”

El clears her throat and focuses on the movements of her illusion’s face.

“I don’t think anyone told me that,” the El-lusion says. “Was I meant to? I’m so sorry.”

“It is typically implied that you don’t bring friends, yes,” the figure returns through what sounds like gritted teeth. “Call them off.”

“Sure thing.” Her El-lusion turns and waves off Scott and Stormthrower. “I’ve got this, you guys. Don’t worry about it!”

“You’re not meant to be here,” Scott says, and — boy, he sounds annoyed. That’s fair, El supposes, but the El-lusion still takes a subconscious step away.

“Are you sure you can manage this alone?” asks Stormthrower, noticeably more concerned. “It’s our job to deal with these sorts of things.”

The El-lusion glances at her, wide-eyed. “I can. Really.”

“Okay.” Stormthrower turns to Scott and adds something that El barely catches. “Let her do this, Dread. We all have to start somewhere.”

With a small sigh, Scott turns to the illusion, which now mirrors the relief and worry on the real El’s face.

“You’d better know what you’re doing. If the civilian isn’t safe by the end of the day…”

El nods, and her illusion nods with her. “I do.”

Reluctantly, the two heroes back away, until the figure seems satisfied enough to address the El-lusion again.

“Walk with me,” they say, opening up a hand to grab at her arm. The illusion dances back quickly.

“Release my friend first.”

They laugh. “Absolutely not. We’ll release her after you’re safely in our facilities.”

“Well,” the El-lusion says, “I need some way to confirm you’ll follow through. At least take me to her first, and once I see you let her go then I’ll go where you need. How’s that?”

“That’s not at all how this works.”

“It’s the only way I’m doing this.” The El-lusion folds her arms.

“Are you hearing this?”

El blinks, a little confused, and sees her illusion’s feet flicker slightly as her concentration wavers. She refocuses, and then realises that the figure is talking to someone through a radio communicator of some sort.

“What the hell am I meant to do?” they continue. There’s silence, and then: “What?”

“So?” the El-lusion asks, after a few seconds of silence.

“My Employer seems to think it’s fine,” they grind out slowly. “Which does not make sense, if you ask me. But apparently, you’re not much of a threat.”

The El-lusion frowns. “That’s a bit rude. I guess I’ll take it, though.”

“Alright, this way.” The figure leads the way, and the El-lusion follows, still careful to avoid making contact with them. “Tell your hero friends not to follow, or we’ll gut your friend before you can say plausible deniability.”

“Why would I say plausible deniability?”

“Because I can’t be held responsible for the potentially violent actions of my colleagues, at least regarding your friend.”

“I feel like you don’t know what plausible deniability is,” the El-lusion says, and that’s about when she begins to reach the edge of El’s range.

She has to act fast now. Not willing to lose even a single moment, El steps onto her hoverboard, invisible, and follows behind them as they walk away. The heroes stand around, looking unsettled, but don’t make a move to give chase — thankfully.

There’s streets and alleys she manages to weave through, and then a building or two that the figure seems to weave around just to throw off any stragglers. It’s not nearly as much as El had anticipated, though she suspects that’s to do with the fact that Illusionist is a well known hero, so every moment outside is a chance for someone to see them. At various points, they stop to say something to their communicator, and once or twice El catches a few words of ‘nobody following’ and ‘all clear’.

Finally, they stop at a large set of double doors, guarded by two people with thick vests, official-looking uniforms, and comically long batons. El isn’t sure if she’s just walked into a Sherlock Holmes mystery or something — though she doesn’t get much time to ponder it.

The moment that they step inside, the El-lusion is going to vanish and the figure is going to realise that they’ve been tricked. And that will be the exact moment that Lizzie’s fate will be entirely doomed.

There’s too many windows that she could be behind.

Or — or, El could just ask.

“Where is she?” she makes her illusion ask. The illusion looks up at the various windows as she talks, and El catches the quick upwards dart of the figure’s eyes right before they scoff.

“I’m not telling you that. Do you think I’m that stupid?”

El is no longer listening to them. She’s racing towards the window that they looked at, mostly invisible but clearer now that she's moving too fast to properly form her illusion. There’s nothing different about that window, she thinks, but if she squints she thinks she can see a light that’s been switched on beyond.

She braces herself and holds her breath.

And then, with as much force as she can summon, she charges her Broomtech hoverboard right through the glass pane.

Breaking through the window was not, strictly, part of El’s plan. And judging by the shards of glass pane and the pain itself, it will not be part of any future plans either.

Adrenaline alone lifts her to her feet. She picks up her hoverboard, slings it over her back, and limps her way down the corridor ahead of her. She can hear several people shouting in confusion outside, though also — a little closer and a little less noticeable — someone calling her name.

Three doors ahead. That’s where it’s from — and it’s got to be where Lizzie is.

El speeds up and pulls out her board again, ready to strike the door.

“Stand back,” she says loudly, and someone shuffles away on the other side. “Three… two… one!”

With more power than she expected to have, she smashes a whole portion of the door with the board. She lifts it again and then strikes another blow, and then repeats this a few more times until there’s enough of a Lizzie-sized hole for the other to crawl through.

Lizzie appears through the hole as soon as she drops the now-slightly-damaged board, eyes wide and excited. El reaches out to help her crawl through, past the sharp splinters of wood and into the relative safety of the hall.

Before she can say anything, Lizzie lunges forwards and squeezes El into a tight hug, paying no heed to the glass still embedded in her costume.

“I knew you’d come and save me,” she whispers, muffled by El’s shoulder. El, despite herself, hugs back.

“Weren’t you telling me just yesterday that I should stop being a hero?”

“Yeah, but — I was angry. Truth is, you’re a good hero, El.” Lizzie gives her a few pats on the back. “It doesn’t matter why you started. You’ve still been helping people and standing up against all the villains who keep trying to take over the city.”

“Honestly, you’d think they’d have given up by now,” El agrees.

“Maybe you started this because of a joke, but you sure sound like a hero to me now,” Lizzie continues. She untangles herself from El and steps back. “Now, where to next?”

El picks her board up. “Ideally, we get out of here as soon as possible.”

As if agreeing with her, footsteps begin to pound their way up the stairs, further shouting following them.

“See, the thing is, normally I’d agree with that,” says Lizzie, a little rushed now. “But I don’t think I’m the only person who’s in this house. Do you think we should look for—?”

The door at the end of the corridor shakes violently as someone tries to throw it open, and in an instant El has an illusion up to cover the half of the corridor furthest from the shaking door, thus setting the scene to look as if they’d flown right back out of the window. She tugs Lizzie into the hidden half.

“Wherever you’re trying to take me, we’d better go fast,” El says furtively.

“Got it!”

Grabbing El’s hand, she guides her through another door and up a set of steps, emerging into another similar-looking corridor, though this one has open doors. She glances at the floor as if calculating, then takes five long strides forwards and turns directly to the left, where a door stands exactly in front of her.

“Through here,” she says, though her voice is drowned out by the yelling and thumping just one floor down. “Whatever’s in there, it’s something a lot of people went in to see.”

El gestures for Lizzie to go right ahead, and the door cracks open with a soft whine.

Inside is a large room — much larger than Lizzie’s room downstairs, it seems, and thankfully empty — and a massive table that fills up most of the space. Scattered all over it are papers, endless documents and blueprints and plans covered in annotations and embellished with stamps of security levels. This is a gold mine for figuring out what the Employer is up to. This is also far too much to pick up in the time it will take for their pursuers to reach them.

“Get what you can,” El says, kicking the door shut behind her as she follows Lizzie inside. “I’m going to open up the window so we can make a quick escape.”

“Can’t you just smash through?”

“Absolutely not.”

She gets the window unlatched and open before she had expected, so turns to grab a few of the closest documents to herself as she can as Lizzie makes her way over with the armful of sheets she has.

“Okay,” Lizzie declares, “I’m ready.”

El grins and sets down the hoverboard, letting it float a few inches above the ground before getting on and extending a hand.

“Hop on board the Broomtech Express! Next stop: anywhere but here!”

With a laugh, Lizzie takes her hand and lets herself get pulled onto the board. El pushes them through the window just as they hear footsteps in the corridor outside, and then they’re off, soaring through the air and utterly free.

Lizzie clings tightly to El’s waist as they accelerate through the skies, eyes screwed shut against the wind.

“Where are we going?” she shouts. El can just about hear her past the sound of the air speeding past. “Home?”

“Our house is sort of compromised,” she calls back. “They’ll find us too easily there. Don’t worry — I have a safe spot where we can stay for now!”

After a few minutes, she spots it at the edge of her field of vision: a cathedral that Cleo and she had decided would be a good enough landmark. She begins to slow the hoverboard down as she approaches, keeping her eyes peeled for the specific building where she’d left all her things. It’s a pub called The Swan, and one of Cleo’s friends owns it, so it should be a secretive enough place for—

There!

There’s no good landing spot so, with whatever energy she has left, she aims towards the tall spire and begins to descend into the square. Nobody pays much heed, not quite looking that far up into the sky, and El gets them both to the cathedral roof.

She’s too tired to go any further than that, and so promptly collapses onto the tiles.

Meanwhile, Lizzie is looking down at the building below them. It’s a tall cathedral, its stained glass painstakingly painted and the walls strong and ancient. She’s been here before, El knows, for a few events that require a large space and a certain echo, but there’s something in her expression that seems more awed than usual to see it from up here.

“It’s magnificent,” she whispers. Then she turns around, and is startled to see El lying flat on the roof. “Are you okay?!”

“Eugh,” El replies. “I think I’m going to sleep down here for a bit, actually.”

She half-closes her eyes and drops the documents next to her, and Lizzie says something else that she doesn’t quite catch.

After that, it’s all a blur. She hears something land on the roof next to them, then a familiar voice, a little faster than usual. Time seems to move like honey around her, which is either a bad sign or a fantastic sign, depending on whether it’s a concussion or a Cleo. Someone scoops her up, and it’s about then that the world fizzles further and further out of view, until heroes feel like an idea and hoverboards a mere fantasy.

Yawning, El leans against the person carrying her and lets herself doze off. It’s not exactly like she has anywhere to be.

Chapter Text

El does, at least, finally get a good night of sleep. She wakes up at six in the morning to the quiet conversation of two people in the other room, and blinks up at the ceiling.

It’s a good ceiling. Solid. It makes for a nice view as she slowly gains more awareness and awakeness, subconsciously tuning into what the people in the room next door are saying.

“… don’t think she can go back there again anymore.”

“So where will she go?”

“Witness protection, ideally. There’s no safety for her in this city anymore.”

“Hmm.”

“… What?”

“What do you mean, what?”

“I know your judgemental expression, Gem. You’re judging.”

There’s a laugh El doesn’t recognise. “I was just thinking — you’ve never had to worry about that, right?”

“That’s a little different. I have the Coven to protect me.”

“Who’s to say they can’t watch over Illusionist too?”

El’s eyes widen comically and she sits up at once. They’re talking about her! That’s — well, she’s a little flattered, but she’s also duly offended. Once she’s sitting up, though, she’s finally able to take a good look at her surroundings.

While she’s sure she didn’t fall asleep here, she’s now resting on a surprisingly comfortable bed that she’s practically sinking into. There’s a window with its curtains drawn on one side of the room, though it still lets light in fairly well, and a little desk with a dressing mirror on the other. Sprawled all over the bed are dozens and dozens of papers, all neatly set out in rows and labelled using sticky notes. The door is half open, which seems to be why El can hear Cleo and their friend’s conversation at all.

On the desk sits Lizzie, her laptop open in front of her as she assembles something in a movie making application.

“What’s that?” El asks, before clearing her throat when she realises it’s a little hoarse.

Lizzie jumps, and her hand flies to her chest. “Oh my gosh, you scared me! I thought you were asleep!”

“I was,” El says. “So you’re not wrong. Uh — how are you after being, you know…” She waves her hand about for a moment. “… kidnapped, and all of that?”

“Oh, I’m doing great!” Lizzie beams, lighting up. “I really do feel like I’m in an action movie now!”

“Right.” El hesitates. “I’m sorry for lying to you, by the way. I should have just — I mean, I should have told you, at least. You deserve more than that.”

“You were stressed. I get it. Like, you still should definitely have told me, I think, but — this is all really big, and really scary. As long as you promise not to keep something that huge and that important from me again… Well, you seem like you’re sorry. So I forgive you.”

“Thanks,” says El, though she’s not sure she feels like she deserves any of it.

Lizzie must catch her expression, because she frowns and gets up to sit at the edge of the bed. As she does, El takes note of the way the papers are all delicately arranged so that they’re nowhere near her own legs — at least, before Lizzie picks up half of them so she can have a seat.

“You should read some of this stuff,” she says, instead of addressing any of the other things El had expected. “I think we’ve found some really big plots in here.”

She hands El a thick folder — Project Canterbury, it’s called, though as she flips through she realises it seems to be based around this city instead. There’s details of events to infiltrate and people to contact and all sorts of odd little posts that agents are to take. At the middle of the folder is a folded roadmap as big as an A0 paper, with dozens of labelled steps and strategies.

“It’s some sort of conspiracy,” El concludes, finally setting down the giant poster. “But there’s nothing more than that written here. Just… getting people into position.”

“Look at the last page,” Lizzie says, so El does.

At the end of the folder is a short report, but one word stands out to El: FAILED.

“Oh,” she says, almost disappointed even as she feels relieved. “That’s awkward. If this failed, why is it so important?”

“Take a look at these too.”

Lizzie drops a whole lot of identical files in her lap, and El sighs and begins to check each one. It looks like each has a similar approach, similar graphs and similar results. Failed, due to the connections between the agents being discovered. Failed, due to lack of time. Failed, because by now the agents are being recognised from previous missions. Project Glasgow, Project Lancaster, Project Casnewydd.

“They’ve really got a theme going here,” El points out, discarding yet another failed mission folder to the side. “But all of these take place in Witchington. Why have they named these after other cities?”

“Honestly? I think they just committed too hard to the naming scheme.” Lizzie is already back at the laptop, tapping away on the video editing software.

“And why keep trying when they’re failing so much?”

“That’s a good question. It does feel like self-sabotage, doesn’t it?”

El glances down at the remaining folders, before tossing them all aside too. “Do you know why, though?”

“Not a clue!” Lizzie replies cheerily. “What I do know is that I’m leaking all of it as soon as possible! Cleo says that’s the usual procedure, making these sorts of plans public so the threat is neutralised.”

It seems like a good plan. A safe plan, too, because then the people behind all of it will be easier to find by law enforcement. El’s still really not sure why Lizzie is making a movie, of course, though she’s willing to bet it’s related.

She turns back to the files and rummages around until she finds the most recent one. This one is Project Bath, started a few weeks ago and apparently catalysed by her own appearance.

This one hasn’t failed yet. It looks like it’s reliant on Illusionist being an oblivious participant of the operation and feeding information back to them in order to dismantle—

“They want to get rid of the Coven?!” El exclaims. “How would they even do that?”

“It looks like it’s a case of challenging their philosophies and splitting the members apart.” Lizzie doesn’t even turn around this time, distracted with dragging sections of video to various places. “See, their past missions failed, but they have had some small successes. They incited the introduction of the whole hero ranking thing.”

“It doesn’t seem like the heroes are particularly bothered about who’s ranked number one, though.”

“They’re not! That’s what these guys didn’t see coming: the Coven is actually really chill with each other! They were competitive at first, but they got tired of the infighting. That is, until…”

Lizzie stops and shuffles her seat around, her expression sombre.

“Do you remember Pris?”

“Of course,” El says. “She’s one of the heroes who started out as some sort of vigilante, right? Led an uprising.”

“This group — whoever they are, the Employer or whatever — are the people who tried to push the uprising into success, to dismantle the Coven and hero system, and ultimately caused it to backfire completely.”

El remembers hearing about that. It was all over the news everywhere — the tragic deaths of dozens of aspiring vigilantes, and the months of reviews and debates and bills that followed. If this group was behind that, even by accident…

“They’re dangerous, even if they’re consistently failing. Whoever runs this whole thing… I mean, it’s the Employer, Cleo reckons,” Lizzie explains. “But nobody’s caught them yet. And it seems like they’re the one coordinating all of this.”

She gestures to the files on the bed, and El feels something uncomfortable in her gut.

“Does it say who the Employer is anywhere?” she asks.

“Not that I could find. Why?”

“Even if we make all these documents public, they’ll still get away, right?”

Lizzie considers. “I guess. I mean, I was hoping this would be enough for the police to start a manhunt or something.”

If she’s being honest, El isn’t sure it’ll be enough. In fact, revealing their hand might scare off the Employer, and — especially if Bertha is closely connected to them — it’ll be very hard to catch them after that.

Bertha is sort of her only lead, at the moment. Or at least, they’re the only person El can certainly try to reach out to. In a way, she already has a feeling she’s going to have to face them soon, which is utterly terrifying based on the fact that Bertha is the one who trained her.

El runs through a few of their practice sessions in her head, remembering the seamless way Bertha was able to weave through their portals so that it seemed they were almost everywhere at once, closely surveilling El’s progress during her training.

“You know what,” she says suddenly, rolling out of the bed. “I think I need to get some fresh air.”

“Don’t go outside the pub!” Lizzie calls, as El staggers as gracefully as she can towards the door.

“Sure thing!”

With that, she heads through the corridor and downstairs.

It’s a good thing that The Swan is a large pub, because El feels like she’s going to combust. The people milling around are very few, as they’re just the guests staying in some of the other rooms upstairs, so she can have her mini breakdown in peace.

She sits and thinks very, very hard about how the fight with Bertha might go. Approximately two hundred and seven possibilities for how Bertha could beat her up flick through her mind, though about seventy seven of those don’t even seem possible and are just a result of her own overthinking.

She’s well aware that she’s overthinking. That awareness just doesn’t exactly seem to help. All she can think of is that she really doesn’t like how deep this whole thing is going; the vigilante uprising, the Coven’s ranking system, Bertha’s mentorship of her… they’ve always been so disconnected. Now she can’t stop wondering what else is involved. How much of the superhero scene has been touched by this group? How has El been the first to find them? What will they do once they realise it’s her who has given them all away?

The same thought that struck her the other day returns full force: how much of this is real? And how much is an orchestration by the Employer, endlessly pulling their strings as they weave their way through Witchington?

Is she, by any measure, a hero?

“Oh, it’s just adorable!” a familiar voice declares from a few tables over. “Look at those little eyes!”

More out of sheer curiosity than anything else, El peeks up from where she’s been burying her face in her palms. She’s surprised to actually recognise the speaker as fast as she does.

“Is it a cat or a dog, do you think?” the person in question continues.

Their companion gives them an odd look. “It’s a labrador.”

“Oh! I see.” They kneel down. “Hello there, little kitty!”

Somehow, their companion just shakes their head fondly, setting down their purse on one of the seats of the nearest table. The person who caught El’s attention — a woman named Jennifer, who she thinks must have been one of the first people she ever fought — seems intent on petting a small dog that’s happy wagging its tail by the next table along.

What surprises El even more is their companion, who seems to be the exact member of staff who was supervising the party on the night that El has stopped Jennifer.

As Jennifer finally sits down at the table as well, El gives up on fighting the urge to speak to them and gets up to say hello. She only remembers she’s in her civilian clothes when she’s halfway there, and at that point she’s already committed to this.

“Hello there!” she calls. “Uh — hi! Can I speak with you?”

Jennifer and her companion both turn around, each a little confused.

“Us?” the companion asks. “Why?”

“Would it be strange to say I recognise you?”

“Not at all!” Jennifer says.

“A little, actually,” her companion says.

“I just, uh. I saw the whole Illusionist thing go down the other week from across the, uh, the road,” El lies, which ends up seeming reasonable enough to satisfy both of her new conversation partners.

“Oh, yes! Our meet-cute, so to speak!” Jennifer smiles. She pats the seat beside her. “Come and sit here, we’re not expecting anyone else.”

“So I’m right in assuming you both are dating?”

“We are,” Jennifer’s companion says. “Trust me, it’s the last thing I expected. But Jennifer is…”

Jennifer glances over with a small grin, ready for the compliment on her companion’s tongue.

“… How odd,” her companion says. “I no longer feel inclined to say.”

“I — Layla!” Jennifer protests. “Surely you can think of something nice about me.”

“I can think of many, I just don’t want to share,” Layla replies. She rests her chin on her palm. “You have to get to the third date to unlock that one.”

El can’t really help chuckling a little. That, however, seems to draw attention back to her.

“I’ll tell you something,” Layla says, addressing El with a lowered voice. “Jennifer really isn’t like what you must have seen the other day. I mean — well, she’s just as daft, in many ways, but she’s reflected on her whole purpose in life very quickly. And I’m very fond of her particular brand of daftness and kindness, as it happens.”

Jennifer nods solemnly. “All my life I’ve been after that crown, but having that talk with Illusionist when I got arrested… well, after that, I got a therapist. When they arrested me, I mean, there was an officer who asked why I did all that and — it was rather like a therapy session, really, so I think it counts.”

“That is pretty unconventional,” El notes.

“But it worked! I think all along I was just clinging to that birthday party I never got because it felt like my whole childhood. Everything was better than, but it seems that’s a common perception,” Jennifer says. “That crown was just… my way of hoping that maybe everything afterwards could have been different. But the crown wouldn’t have changed that. Time marches on, right?”

She glances at her date when she says this, and Layla nods approvingly.

“So that’s… yeah. I’m glad I got caught,” Jennifer finishes. “At least, I’m glad I got caught by Illusionist. She seems like the nicest hero out there.”

“Didn’t she fight you?”

“I don’t think many of those other heroes would have stayed to chat,” Layla says. “It’s not Coven protocol, from what I hear. It’s cool to have a hero who’s a little different.”

“Definitely,” Jennifer agrees. “I’m excited to see what she gets up to now that she’s really making waves.”

For a few moments, El can’t think of anything to say. Of all people to believe in her, she’d hardly expected it to be these two. It’s touching, somehow, that she even helped bring them together like this.

“Was that what you wanted to speak to us about?” Layla asks.

“Really, I think I just wanted to talk in general. I also don’t want to interrupt your date, though!”

“We’re hardly in a rush,” says Jennifer, shrugging. “Apparently, the kitchen doesn’t open for a while. I thought the ten o’clock opening sign meant, like, ten last night.”

“Jennifer hasn’t quite got the hang of how to adjust to society outside of chasing plastic tiaras.” Layla laughs. “I had a feeling she might get this part confused, though. There’s nobody you know better than the person you’ve been trained to fight, right?”

Jennifer makes a face but agrees. “That is true, I suppose. Really, I can’t believe the princess party staff had protocols for me.”

“Speaking of which — how did you two even end up dating, after that?” El asks.

“Now that’s a story,” Jennifer chuckles.

As she begins to tell it, though, El is rolling Layla’s words around in her head, wondering if perhaps there might be a truth in there for her as well.

There’s nobody you know better than the person you’ve been trained to fight.

Right?

Chapter Text

hero noun

UK /ˈhɪə.rəʊ/

1. a person who is esteemed for having done something very brave
2. the main character in a story, typically good
3. (REGIONAL) a protector of Witchington, usually endorsed by the government
4. someone admired very much

El is back in her costume in less than an hour. It seems that Cleo is pretty handy with a needle and thread, so between the pub’s laundry facilities and their craftsmanship, it’s pretty easy to fix. Her wig is also a little out of order, but that’s far easier to comb back and re-braid.

She does a few test stretches to ensure the costume hasn’t lost any of its usual flexibility, then hops on her Broomtech and does a few rotations of the room to check that it has survived the amount of brute force damage it has sustained. Surprisingly, it seems to work well enough, though it’s a little less sensitive to El’s directions.

Considering the limitations of their resources, though, it’s not all that bad.

When she does finally head outside, she won’t be wearing the costume, of course. That would draw immediate attention from the public — and, while the Employer and their group may know her civilian identity, most people don’t seem to, meaning that they won’t report her location via some innocent social media message or the like.

So she packs up her costume and hoverboard into a rucksack that Cleo’s friend — the pub’s owner, Gem — brought in for her, and checks in on Lizzie before she goes.

“Has Cleo already left?” she asks.

“Yep.” Lizzie turns around in her chair. “I’ve finished and queued up the document leak video, too. You’ll have a few hours to get Bertha arrested, and then it’s all going live.”

That’s an answer to her confusion, at least. It wasn’t a movie Lizzie was making, but some sort of slideshow of the various projects to make up the data leak Cleo had suggested. It’s a creative way to do things, that much is certain.

Really, El is so grateful for the allies she has by her side. She’s especially grateful for Lizzie, though. Even now, after their argument and the kidnapping and everything falling apart, she’s lively and she’s safe and she’s here. She’s still by El’s side.

Fondness gathers in her chest.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done to help me with this,” she tells Lizzie, tightening her rucksack straps. “Helping me with patrols, encouraging me at every step, doing all this research with the files… I wouldn’t be Illusionist without you.”

Lizzie sniffles a little, before opening her arms out for a hug that El gives her without hesitation.

“You’d better take care of yourself out there,” Lizzie orders, but she says it so tearfully that the effect is somewhat ruined.

“I’ll do my best. We have plenty more vlogs to make, right?” El finally lets go and picks up the bread roll Gem has given her for the journey. “Seriously, thank you. You’re the best woman-in-the-chair I could ever have asked for.”

She sees the delight on Lizzie’s face right as she leaves the room, and feels herself starting to smile as well as she continues down the hallway.

Being from outside of the city, El has never studied at the University of Witchington. She honestly never even applied — it was an awkward distance from home, and the archeology course wasn’t particularly esteemed.

Now that she’s here, she does sort of see the appeal. The buildings are all built of old stone, giving it a bit of a traditional vibe, and when she peers inside she can see mostly-empty common rooms furnished with oaken desks as well as bean bags in bold colours. At least for the aesthetic alone, she loves this place. Maybe they do postgraduate degrees in archeology and anthropology?

Not the point, of course. She’s meant to be finding the computer labs.

The computing department is a little further out, being newer to the campus, so by the time El reaches there’s already far less people on the road. That’s probably for the best, she decides, considering that she’s trying to avoid any public spectacle.

She tries to peer inside, but the blinds are completely down. While Bertha isn’t due to arrive for another few minutes, she has no way of knowing when they arrive, especially since no classes are scheduled here for that time.

With a sigh, she heads for the department entrance instead. She combines the delicate art of lingering and checking her phone with the science of waiting for someone else to leave the building, a tactic she picked up back in her own university days whenever she forgot her access card.

After throwing up a few quick illusions to obscure the security cameras present with the images of empty rooms, she locates the correct lab. The tiny window blinds here are also shut, though, and the door is completely locked, which doesn’t exactly help. As she stands by the door and ponders whether or not just breaking in would be worth it, she hears footsteps across the foyer behind her.

“Hey!” someone calls.

El panics and throws an illusion of Layla’s face onto her own, her words being the ones repeating themselves over and over in her brain at present. There’s a definite mismatch, but it’ll have to do since she doesn’t exactly have a mirror on hand to fix it.

She turns around, a small and sheepish smile on her face. “Hi! Um… sorry, is it past lab hours?”

“Oh!” The person who’s been approaching her stops to blink at her for a few seconds — choosing Layla’s face may have been a mistake, but it’s too late now — before politely choosing to move on. “Not at all! I mean, we’re allowed in the building, but we’re not really meant to use that lab without supervision. Because of that, uh, more powerful computer, and all that.”

“Right. I totally forgot,” El says. An idea strikes her. “I think I left my USB in there, do you think there’s someone I could ask to open the door for me?”

“The IT crew is in, but…” The student glances around, then swipes their card and kicks at the door. It opens with a soft thud, and they wink as they hold it open for El. “Much easier that way.”

El gapes. “Thank you so much!”

“Good luck finding your USB,” the student grins, then ambles off with a small salute.

Thanking the camaraderie of university students and the weakness of old electronically-locked doors, she enters the laboratory and lets the door fall shut behind her as she goes to set up the same security camera illusions here. She stops when she sees that they’re already entirely covered; it seems Bertha’s allies have already gotten to it in advance.

Speaking of which, the clock in the room declares that she has about two and a half minutes to hide before Bertha arrives, so she ducks behind the large computer at one end of the room. She slips on her costume, tucks her rucksack securely under a table, then gets into position, ready to pounce and initiate a fight.

Keeping her eyes fixed on the clock, she waits for ten past three, her heart beating loud in her chest as she slips.

Ten past three arrives and, as the second hand of the clock ticks past twelve, a portal appears momentarily at the centre of the room. Bertha drops in a moment later and it closes behind them.

Their eyes scan the room, bright and glowing as they pass unknowingly over El’s hiding spot. She holds her breath as they seemingly drop their guard and start to walk across the room, steps silent on the carpeted floor.

A breath in. A breath out.

El leaps out from her hiding spot and towards Bertha, who immediately vanishes into the air. A kick lands on El’s side before she even realises Bertha has reappeared there, but by the time she spins around they’re already gone again.

Another strike appears from behind her, though this time she grabs the hand that appears and hits back while Bertha is still connected to her.

“What are you trying to do here, Illusionist?” Bertha says, pulling themself free and disappearing the moment they’re done speaking. They appear a little further away, this time surveying El’s stance. “Have I not made it clear to you that I’m dealing with this case?”

“If I’m here, that means I’ve already figured out which side you’re on, doesn’t it?” El dodges another attack, then goes for one of her own. “So you can drop the pretence.”

Bertha tsks, avoiding her hand before punching hard into El’s stomach. “There’s not so much pretence here at all.”

“You’ve been using me to spy on the Coven. I’m not even in the Coven!”

“You don’t think nearly as highly of yourself as you should, Illusionist.” As El still tries to recover from being winded, they strike her chest and teleport to the other side to catch the other side of her momentum. “Even if you couldn’t get into the Coven, that was never my goal for you. You’re far too powerful for that.”

The pair exchange a set of blows, and El feels her strength waver a little. She can’t lose this soon, she thinks to herself, and turns a more vicious punch towards Bertha. Still, the other just steps backwards into one portal then through another mere steps away, before using the opportunity to return the strike.

This goes on until Bertha speaks up again.

“I’d rather have you on my side. Even if your fighting style leaves much to be improved upon.” They aim a kick at El to punctuate the claim. She lands in the middle of a computer setup, keyboard clacking loudly under her weight. “Illusionist. Eloise. Do you not think you’d serve a greater purpose as an accompaniment to someone else’s strength?”

El frowns, but doesn’t halt — she grabs the computer’s keyboard instead and hurls it towards Bertha, who teleports out of the way without their expression even shifting.

“Someone else can give you direction. You can find purpose. And with a leader who can handle any fighting that is direct…” They pause to counter another attempted kick from El, then appear a little further away and stretch their arms out to each side. “You will be set.”

“Are you trying to recruit me?” El manages to say.

“Wouldn’t that be easier than fighting against a cause you already know is just?”

For a second, El doesn’t let their words sink in, focused on aiming towards the weak spot on Bertha’s left that El can recognise from her own fighting. Bertha reels back, surprised, and El finally lets herself think long enough to give a proper answer.

“Which cause are you calling ‘just’? Your endless city-named projects?” she says, advancing forwards. “From what I could see, they look like they’re trying to take over the government.”

“That is only a temporary plan.” Bertha stands up taller and pulls themself back into the fight. “A necessary evil. All we want is to disband the Coven as it is. There’s a world of advancement — a world of research — that they refuse to allow. They know very little, and they tell their citizens even less. Do you really trust them to run anything of true importance?”

“They do research,” El insists. She steps aside as Bertha swipes past her briefly. “They’re trying to figure out the root of these powers, they’ve got people studying the meteor.”

“I don’t count that for anything at all. They look to the past, to the source of what you and I have. I, however, wish to look to the future.”

They gesture once, and then suddenly teleport across the room. And then another portal opens up behind El, and another seems to be present right next to it, more and more portals appearing like strange refractions in the air. Bertha moves so rapidly through them that they appear to be in half the room at once, a hundred versions of them all looking right at El.

“What the fuck?” El whispers to herself.

Bertha laughs, and the sound echoes around the room in terrifying multitude.

“You see? There is so much more potential to us. And that isn’t all, either,” they add. They raise a hand as if to begin some new trick, and El finally panics.

Gathering up her energy, she casts an illusion around her. The room begins to fill as dozens of images of herself pour out of her palms and spring into full size, each image wearing an identical skirt and identical black boots, standing idly but looking around at the many Berthas that now begin to slow down and decrease.

El pushes past them to get closer to the door, just wanting to get a little further from the tight space of the room, but at the last second a large portal opens before her and Bertha blocks her path.

“That is impressive,” they state, and they really do sound pleased, “but this is more so.”

Without warning, El feels hands push her from behind, and she tumbles gracelessly into the portal before her.

Chapter Text

If she’s honest, El hadn’t had any expectations for what might be in between portals. She’d assumed that Bertha just entered one and came out of the other automatically. Certainly, she hadn’t expected this.

Around her, a universe of nothingness stretches.

It feels as though she’s floating but without any air to aid the sensation, or perhaps as if she’s simply existing with no anchor and no link to anything at all. There’s nothing she can grasp onto except herself, and even that feels like it’s losing meaning.

She looks around — though, with everything being so blank and directionless, she can’t tell if she is doing so successfully until she spots another version of herself by her side. And then another on the other side, too, a second identical copy of her exact self, eyes open and afraid as they drift.

“Hello?” she calls, though the sound turns to nothingness at her lips. The other Els do not react either way; she’s not even sure they’re alive. “Where am I? Bertha?”

When she turns back around, she sees that there’s yet another version of her drifting on. Her eyes widen as she comes to a realisation — and she looks down at her hands.

Just like back in the computer laboratory, she’s still creating those panicked illusions of herself, but this time they only float out into the endless space here and lay by her side. She reaches out as another sprouts from her palm, this time growing with more surety as El realises what she’s doing.

Her hand closes on cold skin, and she lets out an embarrassing yell.

This El is meant to be an illusion. How is she able to touch it?

She grabs onto the clone and uses it as an anchor to pull herself up and spin around to truly look all around. There’s no portal, it seems, that she can use to get through — but then again it might simply blend in with the utter blackness of the void.

What is Bertha doing out there, outside of these portals? Are they executing the program as planned? Can El even stop them now?

Despair hits her like a speeding bus. Is Bertha ever even going to let her out of here?

She needs to — she needs to hold onto something, to stand on level ground and think.

Almost as soon as she has the thought, her feet hit solid flooring and she looks down to see she is now, indeed, standing on level ground.

Right. Right. If her illusions are real here…

She summons a chair and a table with some effort, then a lamp with a little less. Each arrives exactly as she expects them to look, and each is tangible and constant even when she lets go of the illusion in her mind. How this is even possible is escaping her entirely, but it’s not exactly like she’s ever claimed to be a physicist. That said…

Waving a hand, she marvels at the way that the void seems to tilt to her will, easily reshaping itself at her command.

“This is incredible,” she murmurs to herself. “If I wasn’t stuck here forever, it might actually be really cool.” She laughs, and this time the laugh seems to spread throughout the tiny room that is forming around her. “If only I could summon a portal.”

Then she pauses to consider that.

“Wait. Could I?”

She closes her eyes and tries to remember the portal that Bertha pushed her through, set just before the door of the laboratory and seeming to swirl in on itself like a whirlpool.

When she opens them again, a portal that looks exactly like it stands before her, visible just behind the chair.

“Holy shit. I can do that?!” El exclaims.

It would be good to check if this works, she decides. She illusions up a football and tosses it squarely through the portal. It vanishes from sight as expected, which means the portal probably works, so perhaps…

This could be a huge mistake. She could be erasing herself from existence, for all she knows. But she’s got a feeling about this, and it isn’t exactly like there’s anywhere else she can go from here.

Taking a deep breath and preparing to jump back into what could be a complete and utter mess, El steps through.

Lizzie (El’s friend)

Is everything on track?

Slight complication. She isn’t here

What??

She isn’t there????

Listen Ms Witch of Time I understand that you’re fighting an intense battle right now but I need an answer

There was some mess when we arrived so I think she was here before

No sign of her now

Is she okay?

Did Bertha do something to her?

I hate having to wait for you guys to check your phones oh my god I need one of those radio communicators like in the movies

That would be useful at this moment

You’d be able to tell me what happened to Illusionist

Oh hang on what the fuck is that

What the fuck is what?

Cleo!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

It’s a football…?

Okay what the heck are you talking about

There’s a whole array of heroes present when El exits back through the portal and into the computer labs.

She recognises Stormthrower — who waves in greeting — and Lauren — who is in the middle of swamping one of Bertha’s portals with sand. There’s also Cleo, who’s taking a picture of the football El threw through the portal, and Bertha, who is actively dodging the torrent of sand being thrown at them. Other heroes are also involved in the battle, spread out around the room and attacking Bertha whenever they appear near to them.

One of the walls is entirely destroyed, vines crawling over the rubble, while half the computers are either broken or scorched.

El knew that the heroes didn’t always have to keep things orderly when fighting. She was never aware that they were actively so messy.

“Illusionist!” Stormthrower calls. “Welcome to the party!”

“Not sure I like the kinds of parties you guys throw,” El says, but even she can feel the grin on her own face.

“You’re here!” Cleo sounds entirely surprised as they look up and meet El’s eyes. “Where have you been?”

“Oh, you know,” says El. “In some place between time and space, or something. Sorry I’m late, though.”

“You’ve been where—?”

“Illusionist!” Bertha greets, except that the greeting is a shout from across the room. They teleport in front of El and their eyes seem to be glowing brighter than ever. “You’ve seen what you can do. You understand your own power now. If you choose, you can turn everything around, and—” They stop to dodge a barrage of sand that sweeps past them, then continue. “—you can change everything now, by letting this play out and letting me continue my work.”

El opens her mouth, and then closes it. “You want me to do what?”

“I want you… to embrace your full power.”

“Does ‘embracing my full power’ include taking down the Coven?”

For a second, Bertha is too busy tackling a fire-wielding hero with another hero’s impromptu tree-creation to answer. Then they spin around, and once again El is taken aback by how bright and white their eyes are.

“It’s a needed step,” they tell her. “They cannot stay.”

“I mean, I get it, but…” El gestures around. “It’s really awkward to talk about them like they’re not here.”

“Seconded,” Cleo agrees, putting her phone away.

“Yeah, I feel like this is a bad time to run through the evil monologue,” adds another of the heroes.

“Get rid of this thing!” shouts the one who’s trapped under the tree.

Bertha flickers into view, and somehow they seem to radiate disappointment. “I assume that you’re declining my offer, then.”

El nods, then shrugs. “Sorry.”

“What a shame.”

With a sudden clatter, half of the monitors on one of the walls are thrown across the room, and as everyone rushes to avoid the debris Bertha appears at the powerful computer they’d started executing the program on. El spies the estimated remaining time: eight minutes and three seconds.

She’s got to act quick.

Bertha is moving randomly, is the thing. They appear before Cleo and then — when Cleo slows the world around her — move right behind her to throw her forwards. Seconds later, they’re dodging a fireball so that it’s sent barrelling into Pris, then appearing out of Pris’s sight to strike from there.

That’s just it, El realises. They’re dodging, and then moving out of people’s sight. It’s a defensive strategy more than anything — one that El thinks she might just be able to overwhelm.

She watches Lauren sweep some of her sand around into a swirl, carefully manoeuvring it across the room. As Bertha appears nearby, she strikes, though her opponent catches the motion and teleports away immediately.

El watches Lauren raise another batch of sand to the air, and this time she joins her with an illusion of her own. Lauren looks confused for a moment, glancing around, before her eyes meet El’s and then widen in stark realisation.

With a nod, Lauren sends her spiral of sand hurtling towards Bertha, while El follows from the opposite direction. They miss but, in the next sweep, El manages to copy the image over in another direction, and this time the sheer amount of apparent sand looks as if it’s already affecting Bertha’s focus.

She switches between different illusions: first the stretches of sand that Lauren sends across the room in hazes and tight whips; then the balls of fire and ice that burn as they shoot over to wherever Bertha is moving; then the vines and spurts of water and Stormthrower’s bright flashes of electricity. Bertha tries to dodge them at first; then, realising that some are not real, begins to ignore them, which only leaves them more vulnerable to the real attacks.

The problem with this plan is, of course, that it leaves El as a key target.

Bertha seems to realise this a few minutes into the plan. El can feel Cleo drawing a little closer behind her, watching her back, but she’s still pretty sure Bertha could beat her quite easily just from an attack to her front.

Just as she thinks this, Bertha appears right there, their portal snapping shut as they take one stride towards El and then hit her hard enough to toss her all the way across the room.

She feels the pain radiate in waves from the point of impact, years of frustration and rage packed into a single punch. Around her, the illusions she’s been trying to keep up all fail and fall into nothing, and Bertha begins to advance again.

The other heroes prepare to intervene, but they don’t get the chance.

A loud roar bursts into the room as a motorcycle suddenly appears through the broken wall, a helmet-wearing man at the front and Scott sitting right behind him with sunglasses and an iced drink.

“Evening, everyone!” he says loudly, and hops off the bike. “I hope I’m not too late.”

“Who’s this?” Pris frowns.

Scott lowers his sunglasses. “It’s me. Scott. I had a bit of an adventure just getting here without my powers or Broomtech, but—”

“I obviously meant your companion.”

“What companion?” Scott asks. As he speaks, the rider of the motorcycle revs their engine once and then shoots back out of the wall, a cloud of dust rising in their wake. “I came alone.”

Everyone pauses to stare at him. Even El feels her pain go on hold for two confused seconds.

“Sure, whatever,” Cleo sighs. “Did you bring it?”

Bertha takes their momentary distraction to turn back to El and keep heading forwards. El tries to push herself to her feet, but it seems that the combined exhaustion of the past few minutes and the sheer blunt force of being thrown across a room hasn’t left much space for getting back to her feet any time soon.

“Hey!” Lauren suddenly shouts, finally having noticed Bertha. “Get back!”

The rest of the Coven shift their attention to El, and suddenly the room seems to charge itself as each hero readies their respective power, bar Cleo and Scott.

“Don’t take one more step towards her,” Stormthrower warns Bertha.

Bertha tilts their head. “Of course. I won’t move a muscle.”

They raise their hands above their head before, with a whoosh of air, both they and El go plummeting down into a portal in the very ground itself.

El finds herself back in that strange void for a brief moment before they both fall through another portal and back into the computer laboratory. The heroes reorient themselves and Scott throws something over to Pris, who is nearest to El.

The water that’s been floating, ready, around Pris’s head splash unceremoniously to the ground. Unbothered, Pris begins to rush forward with the object in hand, and Bertha drops them back through the ground again right before she reaches them.

This time El rolls out of Bertha’s reach as soon as they enter the void. Bertha vanishes, and El flexes her fingers. She just needs something to fight with, something strong and light and—

A saucepan lands in her hand.

Well, she does enjoy Tangled. She can draw a little inspiration from time to time.

She raises the pan and waits for Bertha to reappear. For several long moments, it feels as though they won’t — and then a portal opens to the side and El dives forward to throw all of her weight into clanging the pan against whatever was coming through. The portal closes behind them and El recreates another in its place, the same way she did before.

“Alright, Bertha,” she mutters. “Taking me back here was your mistake.”

She summons a pair of handcuffs for Bertha’s wrists and then spin-kicks them through the portal.

When she tumbles back out of the emptiness, it is to the sight of the Coven gathered around an unconscious Bertha. Scott sits at the centre, fastening a familiar-looking amulet to their neck, while one of the others is peeking under their hood to try and get a look at their face.

The amulet that stops powers, El realises.

She casts a glance to the computer, still ticking down, and rushes over before anyone has the time to notice she’s even back. She stares at the keyboard for five of the precious twenty seconds left on the timer, then shakes herself out of bewilderment and just starts pulling random wires out.

The clock stops at eleven seconds. She sighs in relief.

Behind her, Cleo is pulling Bertha to their feet as Pris handcuffs them from behind. They begin to tug them outside as they begin to deal with wrapping up this mess, while Cleo detaches herself from the group and approaches El with a small grin.

“Not bad for a first case,” they say.

“I had a lot of help.”

“You’re allowed to, trust me.” Cleo gives her a small pat on the shoulder. “If you want, I’d be happy to mentor you for a while. Seeing as your last mentor wasn’t exactly… reliable.”

El’s mouth drops open. “Yes! I’d love that, I — I really need to get better at fighting.”

“Awesome. And don’t forget to text Lizzie, she was worried about you.”

“Of course,” El says. She pulls out her phone and glances at the twenty two unread messages. “On second thought, maybe I’ll do that after Bertha’s been safely arrested.”

“Good plan,” Cleo laughs. “Speaking of, you want to go watch?”

“Feels a bit sadistic, but sure!”

They head out of the broken wall and catch sight of the police car that Bertha is being unceremoniously shuttled in. Stormthrower has her arms crossed as she delivers instructions to the police driving the car, and a few metres away Lauren is questioning Scott on something.

After a moment, El decides to approach Bertha and lean down to their window.

“Hi Bertha,” she greets.

Bertha, handcuffed and amulet-ed, stares at her with dimly glowing eyes. “Illusionist.”

“I wanted to ask you about that void place, before you go. Where, uh — where was that?”

“That is precisely what I have been trying to tell you,” Bertha grits out. “It was somewhere else — it was a place unexplored, a realm where everything is greater and more powerful than it is here. And once I am free, it is precisely what will overturn everything the Coven’s weak ideals lie upon.”

“Once you’re free?”

“You will realise it soon enough, Illusionist. You will see how the cracks in the Coven run as deep as the Earth. And then, finally, you will truly stand by my side.”

“I don’t think that’s ever going to happen,” El says.

Bertha laughs, and their eyes shine a little brighter.

“Until then, Illusionist.”

As the police slam the doors shut, El steps back. She watches the car drive away with an odd squirming in her gut.

Scott is the next person to approach her, though his sunglasses are now back on and he’s whipped the iced drink out again from what appears to be nowhere.

“You told me,” he drawls, “that you’d never get in that costume again.”

“I did say that,” she nods.

“You lied.”

“That I did.” A little nervously, El does jazz hands. “It was an illusion!”

Scott sighs deeply, but seems not to be too upset. “Well, I’d prefer you don’t do it anymore. Apart from that… I’ve been asked to forgive you.”

“Really?” El looks around until her gaze catches Lauren’s. The latter gives her a thumbs up motion. “Oh, that’s great! So I can keep on superhero-ing now if I want?”

“If you need to. It’s dangerous and you’ll be on your own for the most part, but if you have to then you can.”

El isn’t so sure he’s quite right about all this. In fact, she’s not really sure that she only has to fight if she needs to, either. She’s beginning to realise, more than ever, that there’s a certain element of choosing to help that can’t be untangled from the necessity of her role.

Instead of telling Scott this and upending this entire settlement, though, she just grins.

“Great! Then I’ll see you tonight!”

She stretches out a hand to him. With some reluctance, he transfers his drink to his other hand and shakes it.

Yet he does shake it, which is definitely a win in her books.

Chapter Text

El takes the night off.

She’s still patrolling the city, in a way, but she’s decided not to seek out any wrongdoing or any supervillains for now. Most of them seem to have been scared off by the number of heroes who converged on Bertha yesterday, actually. She’ll take it — she could use a break.

For now, though, she just flies from one rooftop to the next, watching the moon take occasional gasps of air from between the clouds. The city is prettier like this, she thinks. Looking at it all from above makes it almost feel like a normal place.

Being a hero makes it almost feel like a normal place. Ironically.

She isn’t sure if she’ll regret getting Bertha arrested. Granted, they did get Lizzie kidnapped and also beat the absolute shit out of El herself, so she’s not that unsure — yet she still wants to know what that place within the portals was.

Nothing in the documents had indicated anything about the place. Surely, though, Bertha’s words meant something; somewhere out there, there’s got to be some research behind that El might be able to find. It’s a good aim, she figures, for now: figuring out what that was and figuring out what it means for the city.

She cuts herself off from those thoughts. Tonight is supposed to be a day off, after all.

Far below her, she spots a familiar figure waving goodbye to their friends and then heading down the street, a bounce to their step. An idea strikes her.

“Alright, Broomtech,” she says, “let’s see what you’re made of.”

She hops off it and onto the roof, before sending it spiralling down towards the street level. After a moment, she readies herself and jumps into the air below, the wind strong in her face and her costume billowing out around her.

The hoverboard swoops her up as she’s halfway there, and the downward momentum brings them all the way to some few metres above the ground itself. The figure she’d been watching screams, before spinning around and gasping.

“Illusionist?” Jennifer exclaims, eyes widening in the bright light of the streetlamps.

“Hi, Jennifer!” she grins. “How are things?”

“I — how did you do that? Are your legs not broken?”

“They’re fine! I’m a professional now, don’t worry.” El lowers herself the last few metres to Jennifer, then slides off the board and tucks it under her arm. “Not going after the tiara anymore?”

“I’ve found other things to do. Actually, I have friends now!” Jennifer looks confident. “A girlfriend, too, but I think it was really that I was lacking human connection all-around.”

El nods. “I’m glad for you. I really came down here to say — well, to say thanks!”

“To me?”

“You’ve shown me that I can do good! Amongst other things, but… yeah. I’m really happy things worked out for you.”

“I’m glad things are working out for you, too,” Jennifer replies, smiling back. “I saw your vlog last night — it looks like the Coven and you are getting along.”

“We are! Uh, moderately!”

They both go quiet for a second, having each run out of things to say.

Then El asks, “Would you like to grab a coffee? I actually wanted to run a few things past you, if that’s okay.”

“I’d be down for that,” Jennifer says. “Crown-related things?”

“More breaking-and-entering related things, but sort of, I guess.” El lowers her voice. “I have a new case, and there’s a couple of materials I’ll need for it. I was wondering if I could get your advice.”

Jennifer’s eyes sparkle. “Absolutely. Can we go using the hoverboard?”

“Of course we can,” El says. She places the board down, then steps on before holding out a hand. “Hop on!”

It’s a few months before Lizzie finds a decent house they can move into. Not that they’ve been having a terrible time staying at Gem’s pub, of course, but it’s nice to have their own place again. El takes a few days off to help move and unpack everything, Lizzie ‘borrows’ half of the food from the pub’s kitchen for their own, and they have the whole move sorted in a day and a half.

After collapsing on their sofa, the pair release identical sighs and glance at each other.

“This still feels pretty weird,” Lizzie admits. “I’m not used to the stairs being that small.”

“I’m sorry we had to move at all,” El says.

Lizzie snorts. “I’m not! It’s way cooler here, especially now that you’re a legit hero. Worth it, I’d say.”

“You know, if it’s ever not worth it…”

There’s only one person who could truly convince El not to keep being a superhero, after all.

But Lizzie just laughs and gently punches El’s shoulder. “Don’t get cold feet now! I’m finally your woman-in-the-chair, and you’re not firing me now.”

“Alright, alright!” El giggles. “I won’t.”

“But what you can do is be my own personal hero and pass me the remote. I need a good movie and a good break after all this heavy lifting.”

“You didn’t lift any of the boxes,” El counters, though she’s already getting up to pick up the remote and prepares to toss it over. “You told me it would be good training and made me carry all of them.”

“It was good training!” Lizzie catches the remote as it flies across the room, then pats the seat next to her. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Come sit down, I’m not watching this alone.”

El thanks the universe that she’s got Lizzie back as she heads over to sit beside her best friend. She leans her head on Lizzie’s shoulder, and is already dozing off by the time she’s picked out a movie.

The new house isn’t all that bad, really. After all, they’re still together, aren’t they?

ILLUSIONIST, RISEN

When the hero Illusionist first graced the screens of millions of viewers just a month ago, many questioned her presence and motives. Her reputation was one of accidental goodness or staged popularity, depending on the journalist or publication reporting her actions.

It seems that Illusionist has no intention of entering the Coven or racing for the title of #1 Hero. Her recent YouTube videos — which is where she communicates with the public — have included various members of the Coven, who all seem accepting of her presence despite her not being included in her ranks.

A comment on one of her videos speculated that “[Illusionist] isn’t interested in going up against her allies in some sort of contest of who can arrest the most people, and neither should [the watchers of the video]”. Illusionist’s account has since ‘liked’ this comment, indicating agreement.

Other videos have included some new magic tricks, though these are now known to almost all be illusions, and a few other data leaks that expose criminals working incognito to bring harm upon the people of Witchington.

Her popularity has increased and she appears to have drawn good favour from most parties, apart from a small minority who still question her supposed former alliance with the criminal Bertha Darling.

Here at The Events newspaper, we have been preparing to interview the hero herself. In our next issue, we will release the highlights from both this and an interview with her unnamed ‘woman-in-the-chair’, who has a behind-the-scenes perspective on Illusionist’s career.

One thing seems certain, however: Illusionist’s success seems to be no illusion at all.