Chapter 964 - Chapter 4

Yeah. That… that kicked my ass. When I woke up, I didn't feel superhuman. I felt like a big old ball of ache. Which I suppose was to be expected.

Someone handed me a bottle of pills. "Take two of these every six hours for the next four days. Try and keep to conventional regenerative effects while you're at it. Since this was 'after market modification', we've flooded your systems with a mild but conceptual paralytic to help you ease into your boosted strength and senses."

I didn't even recognize who was talking to me at that point, though their words seemed to burn into my skull in a way I couldn't forget. Psychic effect, or maybe conceptual imposition. Translation maybe? Benign but easily weaponized.

"Had some issues with the magic system database. Closest local match was for pact magic, with no local sources to make a pact with. Since that was a lawsuit waiting to happen, I opted to leave it out for when we get your elemental engines prepped. Did a little pre-work for that as well. Don't mind the hollow feeling, there's nothing medically wrong, and I put in some temporary filler to make sure there are no complications."

"Wa-aer?" I eloquently phrased my deep and insightful question.

A glass was handed to me.

I sipped.

Going over the impressed period again, I blinked a few times. "What… kinda recovery period?" I had stuff to do. Snakes to stuff. Wait, no. People frowned on human taxidermy. Also it'd look incredibly tacky. Along with legal and moral concerns.

Drugs did weird shit to your head kids. Don't do drugs. Unless you're in surgery. Then do all the drugs.

Wait, I was just in surgery. After surgery. Same thing.

"Four days," repeated the doctor, whose face I still didn't recognize. Wait no, that was probably deliberate. Name tag was an elder sign reading 'Gnarly'

Huh, no wonder he had a Californian accent.

"Right. And you said conventional regeneration effects. No magic?" I frowned.

"Healing boosters are fine. Nothing that works under the principles of conceptual imposition or temporal reversion," The doctor explained.

"That takes my best medical spell off the table," I said warily. "I'm also working off an ongoing curse issue-"

"I saw that," he noted. "Nasty little infection. You seem to be clearing it out fine with your own remedies, but don't worry about the veto allowing for a relapse. The pills will keep it where it is."

I grunted at that. "No chance you can flush it outright?"

"Not on your treatment plan," he said bluntly.

"Figured. Had to ask though," I grunted easing myself up.

The lights were too bright.

"You'll ease into your new normal," The doctor reassured. "That will take longer than a few days, but should be clear in a month or two."

"I might be fighting a kaiju in a month," I said seriously. "And a fight in a few minutes."

"That could actually speed up your adjustment period," he (at least I think he was a he?) said. "Don't worry about stitches popping, this isn't that kind of recovery. I'm just telling you it's not instant, and reminding you to take your meds," he said.

"Two every six hours," I repeated. "Six hours exactly?" I questioned. With the soulwork in place these things could be as much from the mystical angle as the chemical. Probably some nanotech or even more advanced crap tossed in.

"You've got some wiggle room, but try and keep within the hour," he suggested. "Call home office if there are any interruptions."

"Got it," I confirmed, getting up, taking the chance to look at where the flesh of my left leg ended, and the multitude of 'cloth' curse eating bandages began. It wasn't a clear line, with the fabric visibly fused into the skin, seemingly converting into it before wrapping around the more conventional steel socket that had been drilled into the remaining bone, as an anchor for my prosthetic.

One I was going to have to adjust soon. Well, apparently not that soon. I typically only regrew/reclaimed about half a millimeter or so a month.

I'd still need to make a few more to replace the ones that would 'go bad' before I could resume regrowing my leg. Elixir was potent stuff, but unfortunately without some hard to get magical stabilizers…. It didn't have the best shelf life. Even soaked into bandages. Which I then had to re-apply in a manner as tedious as it was painful.

Fucking vampires.

On the brightside, I might have new methods to deal with that. "You said I had options for the default database on the Magical Brilliance package?" I asked, it was obviously at least partially up and running, though I couldn't feel any clear mental divide in my head.

"I said that there were options, not necessarily that you get to pick them. That's dependent on your contract terms," he said. "Magical Brilliance normally works on a number of defaults. First priority is to local magic systems, but your assigned world doesn't have one, and the closest parallel relies on external resources. It's in iffy legal ground, because management might say that it counts, but if it doesn't and I install it anyway then I open myself up to a malpractice claim," he explained. "So I'm bumping that up the chain. You can take it up with them. I wouldn't hold my breath though."

Good to know.

"The other functions should ease on like everything else though, including spell creation and emulation," he added. "Should also help with your other contract."

Good enough. That's what I'd bought the option for. Not that I was dumb enough to say that out loud even while hopped up to my gills. "How does this relate to perk sharing?" I asked. "Do I need to bring the others in, or what?"

"Your 'Unity String' should perform the needed adjustments in the field," he replied, probably deliberately mislabeling the Unity Thread by his tone. "As long as you can act as a template, it can take care of the rest. Don't worry about the physiological differences, it'll automatically adapt the process as needed."

"But they'll still need the adjustment period?" I asked.

He shrugged, "It's an older model. Though, speaking of your waifus. The robot girl is waiting outside with your stuff," he said, nodding to the door. "You can use the dressing room across from the office."

I looked at him, then at my stump of a leg for a moment, then at the door a good thirty feet away, then back at him.

"No non-staff or non-patients in the room," he said bluntly, making no move to assist me, hand me a crutch or whatever.

"And no spellcasting," I asked.

"Nope!" he replied, wordlessly adding 'get hopping/crawling'.

I grunted getting up and balancing as I used the passive ability to levitate a few inches, granted to me by my mastery of Featherfall to slowly glide over to the door. Much to the doctor's disappointment. Finding Penny waiting on the other side, holding onto my clothes, phone, eye and foot.

Her eyes lit up at the sight of me at the door. "Agent Tarn!"

"Friend Penny," I responded.

Her eyes lit up further, so much so I wondered if one of her optional vision modes had triggered. "You consider me a friend!?" she asked happily.

"I'd hope we can be friends," I said. "We're supposed to be companions in all this after all."

"This is not a social club," the doctor said, slamming the door shut behind us.

I rolled my eyes. Where was that 'no wasting time' attitude when I needed to reach the door? "I need to get dressed. Help me to the changing room?" I pointed out the door in question.

"I am happy to assist, friend! She beamed, lending me an arm.

"Thanks," I replied. "Enjoy the tour?" I asked her.

"It was highly informative!" she agreed. "I also observed your Unity Thread installation! Did you know that the legacy Unity Thread unit you use has more in common with Shroud of Power originally released with the Premium Contract than the successors of either module!? It's a real demonstration of the growth and diversification of the Company's services over time!"

"I did not know that," I confirmed. Made sense though, both were ultimately empathy based linking/power sharing semi-magical metamaterials.

"I am worried that we might have taken too much time though…" Penny replied. "The others seemed eager to begin operations against Coil, and we've been here for several hours now."

"That's relative time," I assured her. "We'll be back within twenty minutes or so of when we left. They're probably not going to set the entire city on fire in that short a time."

Probably.

Fuck. Maybe I should double time it.

Chapter 4: The First Kidnapping Arc

Part 1

Luckily, the entire city was not on fire by the time we got back.

Just Coil's base.

And, I suspected, his house, though I was less sure on that.

"Twenty minutes," I grumbled as I flew through the air towards the address we'd found on a hastily scrawled note, already in my 'Kamen Rider' armor. Dialing numbers on the burner phone Lisa had given me the night before as I did. "We were gone for twenty minutes!"

The address was close at least. Less than two blocks away, practically spitting distance. The only reason we were flying was that well…

Big trail of smoke in the air kinda explained how things were going for them.

"Companion Lisa did mention that Coil might be insistent!" Penny said as she blazed along beside me.

The phone continued to ring.

"Yeah, but-" I frowned as I caught sight of a familiar van while we flew over the roof to the burning building.

Well, smoking building. A smoking building with a mysteriously Supergirl shaped hole punched through its garage door that said smoke was leaking out of.

"Fuck," I grimaced. Looked like we were late. "Conjure a mask if you can!" I said to her.

But, forget the building, back to the van. It was not the van Brian had used to drive us around, but it was a van that looked almost exactly like another van we'd parked that van in front of. Same plate and everything. Something I knew, because the license plate had 'I', 'C', and '9' as the last three characters. Which had amused me, because 9 was shaped like a backwards 'P', and I was an unapologetic manchild about a great many things.

Hurray, once again, childishness and ADHD had saved the day! Well not really, just clued me in on what likely happened.

Lisa picked up.

"Need a hand?" I asked her.

"I'm fine! Did you find the note with the address on it?" She asked, sounding excited, but also like she was breathing hard.

"Yeah, I'm right outside- you're all in there?" I asked, ready to charge in.

"Brian and younger me are," she said. "Supergirl should be hanging around-"

"She already punched through the front door," I said, holding up my hand to stop Penny as I held up outside the door.

"Damn it!" she cursed. "A2 Hurry it up! He might drop this timeline any time now!"

Okay, it looked like Coil's house wasn't on fire… yet. Though I still suspected they were going to fix that soon.

Then again, I'd recently learned the fallacy of assuming things. "Are you heading to Coil's place to firebomb it?" I asked as I headed into the building.

"What, no? Kick down the door and shoot him in the face if he's there," she said. "Much quieter!" I somehow suspected that wasn't the only reason.

"Great. You need backup? In a rush here." My eyes flicked back up to the hole as I spoke. I'd only been gone twenty minutes, well in my one hour window, and Kara was on hand, but…. I just had a bad feeling about this.

"Wouldn't say no," she said.

"Got it," I said, then tossed the phone to Penny. "A2 and the Company-twin could use support. You're it. Coordinate and remember to stick to code names!" I said.

"Can do!" The redhead said, eagerly, grinning wide under a surprisingly elaborate dark green Venetian mask.

Half-mask. She didn't include the lower face part.

"We'll rendezvous outside the Forsberg art gallery after!" I said, pulling the name of a relatively neutral location from my memory. "Good luck!"

And then I was speeding into a burning building at what was definitely unsafe speeds with one of my primary safety nets not accessible by medical dictate.

Fun.

I triggered Haste, the world dropping to a near stop around me as my personal timeframe accelerated to thirty times that of the normal one, and my mental timeframe within that subjective time, jumped from three times what it should be to fifteen.

Haste/Slow was probably my ultimate trump-card. The strongest Cantrip I'd mastered, and the one I was most hesitant to abuse. It wasn't just that experiencing the world at four hundred and fifty times it's actual speed was a special kind of hell if used in the long term. It was mostly that I was worried someone would figure out a counter.

Also, it made fights boring. Unless the other guy was some kind of speedster, then things could get interesting.

But, for right now? With my group having just arrived, the initiative having somehow slipped to the enemy, and while I only had a bare idea of what the fuck was going on?

Boring would do.

I blurred through the building, avoiding collisions only thanks to my ramped up reaction speeds. First into the garage, then through a door that had been forced through, down a staircase, another room. Said room had a plain-clothed mercenary, who had picked up a landline phone from the little booth off to the side he'd probably been sitting in until Kara blew through. Likely literally given their disheveled appearance and the dented file cabinet behind them.

I pulled the phone out of their hands, punched them in the gut hard enough to leave them gasping for air for the next few minutes, and pissing blood for the next few weeks. Yanked their card key, then continued on through the next door.

Which led to more stairs. Well a sort of half stair, half hallway thing.

I wasn't sure what I was expecting honestly. I knew the thing was an elaborate underground base made out of an anti-kaiju shelter, but still.

Zipping through that I found Kara in the middle of holding up a guy in a fully encompassing, and very tactical looking outfit… That nevertheless looked a lot like some kinda-edgy 'realistic' take on a Cobra 'VENOM Soldier' uniform, complete with 90s era cartoon mandated pew pew laser gun.

Of course, I could just be making the association due to the implied, similar ineffectiveness given there were also five similarly suited mooks on the ground around her, along with a Grue who had apparently just stopped actively pumping out his smoke into the room, a clearly injured Tattletale still partially covered by it.

And by 'clearly injured' I mean her left forearm was hanging onto her elbow more by a chunk of cooked meat than bone.

Fuck. Well, on the brightside, I already wasn't supposed to use Stabilize on myself.

Reversing the thrust of my Featherfall and skidding to a stop, swinging myself into a 'rocker slide' down beside her. I placed my arm carefully across her chest to keep her from bucking out of shock, as I reached out with Stabilize, grabbed onto her, then once I had a firm 'grip' pushed the cantrip to its limit.

Then all the way through those limits.

Even delayed fifteen times relative to my mind, my teeth clenched along with what felt like every inactive muscle in my body. I briefly smelt a mix of copper, along with something painfully sweet, sour and smoky. The hollow feeling in my chest echoed as what felt like a muscle cramp in my soul clenched so hard it felt like something was going to snap off.

Then released, sore. Painfully sore, but tolerable unless I foolishly tried to 'flex' it once more.

Which was actually a lot milder than the strain of using Overmagic normally was. Magical Brilliance was clearly already paying off.

And speaking of easing unpleasantness? Lisa's injured arm swung straight, as the proper Spell took root, and her cooked skin lightened to something more healthy. Blood, bone, flesh, seemingly out of nowhere began to pull inward onto the limb sliding back into place like an explosion in reverse, not so much healing as repairing the damaged limb until I was back in perfect condition. Better, likely, than it had been before it was shot.

Well, along with the rest of her. I hoped she didn't have too many fillings, those could be a choking hazard when they popped loose. Which they normally did, despite most other implants normally not being physically ejected from the body (though they were often 'healed' along with the body as often as they vanished out into the æther). It was just one of those weird quirks of the spell.

The whole process took seconds from my perspective, but would have been near instantaneous for Lisa. Which was why I was braced for when her eyes 'suddenly' shot wide, pupils slowly dilating as the sudden lack of shock threw her as off-kilter as the original injury had. More specifically, as her adrenal glands, now as repaired and restored as the rest of her, suddenly realized they were now fully restocked on their supply of magical panic goo, and started dumping it into her bloodstream as fast as they could squirt.

Speaking from experience? It was a hell of a rush. Way more so if you weren't ready for it.

Her mouth opened to scream, back and arms bucking to push herself up, scramble away, throw a punch, do something.

The arm on her chest got her swinging to try and break free of that, rather than, say, try a completely unpracticed flip up maneuver. A panicked reaction that shorted out when I removed my arm faster than she could push against it, leading to her pushing up in the air, in momentary confusion, as she looked over and saw me. That confusion slowly grew for a moment before recognition began to set in.

"Yoooooouuuuu ddddiiiiiiiddddnn'tt meenntioon you had superspeedamongyour powers," Kara said, visually 'walking up' to me as I provided treatment, first slower than 'normal' to my perspective, before she overcorrected actually speeding past my perception, before getting pretty close.

"Tiiimme maaggiic," I spat out as fast as my lips could manage. Unfortunately, I was still not yet at rap god level, so there was a pretty big lag, between even my sped up movements and perception. "Tthiink fffaassteer thaan I moovee."

"Gotcha," she replied, then glared further inside. "After you left, one of the Tattletales waited outside the portal with her phone in case Coil called again. He did, and sent some of his men to grab her, Brian and anyone with them, but I heard them coming. The Lisas already had a plan for this. One of them went out into the theater with Brian to let themselves get caught, while A2 and the other Lisa went to go to his house and office. The first team was supposed to try and buy time to make sure they had time to force Coil to pick this timeline if he was using a body double or anything. I stayed with the distraction team in case something went wrong," she explained. She then waved a hand at Lisa. "Something did."

"Shiiit pllaaaan," I grunted. "Diaaillllinng baaccck."

Then I let Haste drop down to a much more reasonable three to one ratio of my personal time, to the world's, with no further mental acceleration than my base normally had. That was a level I'd learned to live with before, back when things had really gone to shit.

Still not fun. Though I could at least understand and speak to people reliably while in it, though I was apparently pretty 'snippy' while using Haste/Slow at that level.

Lisa screamed, "What the fuck!? What the…fffuuuck," she grabbed at her repaired arm, rubbing at the exposed skin, to seemingly see if it was real.

"You're fine," I assured her. "It's just adrenaline. I healed you," I assured her.

"Thanks for the save," Grue said, looking between the two of us.

I flashed him a thumbs up.

"Fuck, right… right," Lisa said, blinking then seemingly confirming something to herself.

Then she growled as she pushed herself up to her feet. "YOU CALL THAT A WARNING SHOT YOU ASSHOLE!" she stomped over and I almost expected her to kick him in the side, or shoot him.

Instead she loomed, apparently ready to let out a lecture, "Of all the Incompetent-!"

"Coil said to wing you, not give a warning shot," Supergirl explained.

That caught both Undersiders' attention. "He did what?" Grue asked, pumping smoke over his head and hands, as well as under his clothing. Which was a pretty cool visual effect I had to admit. Different than what he did with his helmet, but still pretty intimidating.

"Did he now?" Lisa snapped, then smiled a very unfriendly smile. "He's got to be completely panicking at this point. It's your anti-thinker thing. The false readings are fucking up his power bad," she said with a downright sadistic level of satisfaction.

"Good to know," I said, quickly moving between the groaning guards, yanking power packs off of rifles and pocketing keycards. "Let's capitalize on that."

"We sticking to the plan?" Kara asked.

"We really should," Lisa said in a pained breath.

"Fuck the plan," Grue suggested as an alternative.

I looked up at the locals. "How deep in do you need to get to disable Coil's fail-safes?" as i reached out with Haste/Slow once more, this time ready for area casting.

Part 2

The answer was, surprisingly deep into the complex. Coil was a paranoid son of a bitch after all, and with his power he was a lot more concerned about being able to set off things like an explosive self-destruct than he was worried about them being used against him. It wasn't like he'd normally be at risk of actually being in his base when it blew most times after all.

Hence, I imagine, why Lisa's plan involved sending a kill team to his other locations despite the near certainty that he wasn't actually at one of them, since this whole thing kicked off at his initiative.

Meaning all she'd actually done was show how one of her plans to deal with him worked. Or at least part of it.

"I'm bad at on the spot thinking, okay!" Lisa argued, her recently mended injury not lending her any hesitance on her self appointed task of 'go find Coil and ruin his day'.

Which was admittedly, a noble and important task to accomplish.

"I had a bunch of ideas," she elaborated. "Time delayed poisons, deadman switches, a mercenary rebellion set to go off at a specific time. This was just the best one I could think of on the spot! And I planned on using it before he called me in anyway, so it should still work."

"At a lag," I noted. "Which might make him panic instead if this is the doomed timeline," which wouldn't really matter to us if the timeline was doomed.

"It isn't. His power doesn't work that way, you said it yourself," she argued. "Your other power's probably just fucking with his so much he's not sure what to do. Or maybe it forced him to stop using it. Your clone of me was the one to talk to him so I couldn't get a direct read on him, but he's definitely panicking."

"Really hope you're right about that one, Tattletale," Grue said, clearly irritated. "I'm not in the mood to get blown up," he said.

"I'm not," Kara agreed, as she tore open the next security door in our way. "Hoping that is," she said, correcting my earlier assumption. "Panicking villains make stupid, potentially collateral-damage heavy, decisions."

"Point," I agreed. "Still, we should be fine. At this speed I can generally react to most explosions."

I'd Hasted all of us, again no mental delay, this time more for the sake of others. It was disorienting having your mental clock speed run faster than your bodies. It took me weeks to get used to the 'baseline' time three multiplier mastering Haste/Slow had engraved into me. At this point it was pretty much normal for me, though I still often found myself listening to music or playing games at accelerated speeds just to enjoy them properly.

"And, naturally, you have another bullshit power that'd let you stop them- no. maybe?" Lisa grumbled, glancing back at me, irritated, before her expression shifted to what was almost a guilty-looking regret. "Not that I have room to complain," she said in a surprisingly apologetic tone.

I waved her off. To say the day had been stressful for the local supervillainess was putting it mildly. "If he does set something off I can cover for us at least. Time magic can also be used to 'hop' people through time. Not just speed things up and slow them down." Mastering it had also let me properly understand how King Crimson worked, which, frankly, was the most obscene thing the cantrip was capable of.

"As in hop past the explosion happening?" Kara asked. "That could work, but what happens when we're all stuck in the collapsed section after? And what about the people above us in the city?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I can also try and outright Stop the explosion, but that's less reliable. I know from experience that the time hop thing works though. You sometimes get buried in the debris, but even if a support beam falls into where you are, you just pop back into the closest relative space with displaceable material. As long as you can dig yourself out afterwards, you're fine, and I've got a few of those," I explained. "If you can pull us out of the path of the blast, I'm willing to make a go at the gamble, but we'll be relying on you to get us out if I fail." I outlined, wordlessly offering the decision to her on which I should go with.

Kara considered for a moment. "Try and stop the blast. I can get all of us out of here, safe and sound, if I need to," she declared confidently. Though part of me felt it might be an act.

"Of course you can," Grue grumbled at her, before turning his attention back to me. "What I don't get is, if you can do this, why the hell were you having so much trouble with Lung? I mean, I get holding an ace in the hole, but that was fucking Lung."

"I had a different strategy that could have worked," I defended. "I just needed a solid hit on his central nervous system. Spine would have been better since he'd probably survive it, but a head shot would have taken him out as well."

Fist could do more than just harden or project my blows. It could also 'echo' them through defenses. I had to be careful how hard to hit like that since I wasn't immune to recoil, but I could still strike directly through things like armor, skin hugging force fields… or the bone of a particularly thick skull.

"Lung's one of the local gang lords?" Kara asked for clarification.

"Leader of the ABB. That's the 'Azn Bad Boyz', all Z's" Lisa said mockingly, even as she remained focused on the path ahead of us.

"Also a guy who turns into a giant, regenerating, pyrokinetic, rage dragon," I noted. "He's a midweight by your scale. Not in your league, but a serious danger to local law enforcement."

"And if your plan to lure him out to sea didn't work?" Brian asked me at the same time. "Hitting fast won't help if it doesn't help you hit hard. I can't help but notice we aren't exactly playing by Einstein's physics in terms of momentum."

"We are," I argued. "It's just that this is time magic not superspeed," there were other cantrips for that. "We're not actually moving faster, we just have more time to move. Thirty seconds for every one second that everyone else gets."

"Cool," he replied, throwing his smoke over some more mooks we were passing by, as they tried to react, but did so at a near glacial pace. "That doesn't matter though. The point is, you're like Velocity. You're fast, but it doesn't help you hit hard. Run into someone tough enough and you're just beating your fists against a wall."

"Well yeah, that's why I'd have used a different ace up my sleeve," I argued. Throwing a Slow on the mooks as we passed, reducing their speed to one thirtieth for the next ten minutes, which would, as far as their minds were concerned, pass in the next four seconds. "I've still got a few more." Specifically, one more 'attack' Cantrip and two offensive uses of Cantrips I normally used more for utility.

Well, three. I could also have used Haste/Slow's overmagic to Stop him. However, Stop only lasted a week, and burnt out active Haste/Slow effects for hours after I used it. It might also remind locals uncomfortable of Grayboy, and that was not an association I wanted to risk this early on.

Grue continued to give me an unimpressed look. Which paradoxically, was kind of impressive given he was still doing his shadowy pseudo-mask thing.

I smirked. Spinning around with a Featherfall assisted spin kick launched Fist into the next security door, smashing it open. "Just be glad I didn't use the forbidden power hidden within my eye!" I said dramatically touched over where my visor hid my eyepatch as I settled back to my feet.

Brian looked at me, then back at Lisa, "Is he serious? The way today's gone I genuinely can not tell."

"He's joking," she replied. "...Probably. No? Maybe?" she scrunched her nose under her mask. "He's got something under there."

"You got me," I confirmed. "It's just a modified prosthetic. Functional though," I noted. "Nah, the real forbidden power is in my foot," I grinned pointing down to my fake leg.

"The one the vampir- holy shit, a vampire actually ate your leg," she said in sudden realization, actually snapping out of her tunnel vision for a moment as she looked back over at me.

"Not ate, but bit yeah," I confirmed. "Very nasty subspecies too. One that I'm really hoping won't follow me here. Which technically shouldn't be possible," I added quickly.

"But?" Lisa asked, eyes flicking between me and the path ahead. Wanting to know about the threat, but still focused on Coil.

"But," I simply replied with emphasis. "Like I said. Really nasty subspecies. Fuckers put Alucard to shame."

"No idea who that is," Lisa said, switching back to dealing with Coil.

"Nether do I, but I know the type," Kara nodded along.

"Don't worry too much about it," I dismissed with a wave. "If one does show up, you'll know," and we'd suddenly have much more immediate problems than Scion's apocalyptic hissy fit.

Also one that was arguably even harder to deal with. Though one with lower likely collateral… at least in the short/medium term.

Look, they were a really nasty subspecies of vampire.

Kara made to rip open the last blast door when Lisa held up her hand and instead walked up to the keypad. Slowly, and deliberately typing in a pass code before swiping a stolen keycard.

The door slowly crawled open revealing a Coil that was standing up, sidearm out of its holster turning slowly to look towards us as he was halfway across the room to where, I suspected, one of his secret escape tunnels would be.

Because of course he had secret escape tunnels. He was a snake-themed, would-be Bond-villain. Why the fuck wouldn't he have escape tunnels? I mean, even a lot of normal people had escape tunnels. Generally they were in case of fire rather than being fired upon, but it was still a very common contingency!

Just not one that was going to work for him right now.

I reached out and snapped my fingers in his direction, slowing his already sluggish turn into a near imperceptible crawl.

I then reached out with my other hand and snatched Lisa's gun from her hand before she could even get into a proper firing posture. "Nope."

"Wh- Oh come on!" she complained.

"Tattletale, what the hell!?" Brian asked. "This was not the agreement!"

"He had me shot!" Lisa argued. "He tried to have me killed! I almost died!"

"But you're alive, you're fine," Kara argued/reassured. "Tarn healed you, and Coil can't hurt you. You don't need to do this."

Somehow, appealing to Tattletale's inner need to not shoot Coil didn't seem to be working.

"Unless he's got some sort of deadman switch," Brian argued. "Come on Tattletale, you're smarter than this!"

Appealing to Lisa's ego on the other hand, did seem effective.

"How about this?" I suggested. "Disarm the bombs first. While you do that, we tie him up, and can gloat at him and fuck with his head right up until we drop him off at the PRT."

"That's not going to work," the supervillainess argued, head still not fully rational. "He's got moles in every layer of the PRT's office and it's his first strike. Officially speaking, they're not even sure he has powers. He'll be out the door in under an hour!"

"No," I corrected. "He has moles in the local offices. Not in Memphis, Texas," I clarified.

That slipped through the momentary madness, and I could see Lisa's brain momentarily go 'wait, what?' yet again, as she had to spare a moment to work out what I meant by that, obvious as it was.

"He does, however," I continued. "-have a database full of PRT secrets ones so important they'll basically have to make sure he never sees the light of day just from the risk of someone learning them from him. And you know where that leaves him."

"The Birdcage," she repeated. "Right. He knows too much. Even putting his identity aside, which, total political embarrassment there. Of course they're going to sweep it under the rug."

"Exactly," I confirmed.

"And no one needs to die," Kara offered. "Especially not by your hands."

"Right," Lisa agreed. "Right… just… fucker had my arm blown off!" she said, anger sparking back up.

"And you can tell him exactly how stupid of an idea that was," I suggested. "While we're flying to Memphis. Along with exactly how bad prison life's going to be in a cage full of people used to dealing with Thinkers a lot scarier than he is."

She held her expression for a moment, then closed her eyes and exhaled. "Fiiiine. But I want ten minutes of uninterrupted gloating time before we drop him off!" she demanded.

"Fair," I confirmed.

She then dove behind the desk and started rooting through his computer, as fast as the device would let her.

Which left me looking around, "Anyone see some rope?" I asked.

Supergirl helpfully ripped the metal armrest off of a nearby chair, the metal groaning as she pulled it straight. "Think this will do?"

"Just remember to double knot," I suggested.

Part 3

Once bound and disarmed, we dropped back into normal time. Both so we could interrogate Coil, and so Lisa didn't need to deal with an internet connection that made dial-up look speedy.

However-

"But why green jello!?" Coil asked someone slightly to Lisa's right, before his focus suddenly snapped back to her, "What?" he.

"Don't use your-" Tattletale started, then groaned as his eyes immediately began to drift.

"No, I don't want to eat Lime Jello!" the snake-themed villain/PRT consultant argued. "Where did you even get lime Jello!? Why did you bring it- no nono-" he then started contorting his mouth as if someone were force feeding him.

"UGH!" the villainess groaned in annoyance.

Right now, it was just the two of us. Brian and Kara were off to the Forsberg Gallery, to go pick up the others, once they were done, while we babysat Coil. I'd have said it was the three of us, but while Coil was physically here, mentally, he was somewhere entirely different.

Also, his power seemed to be interacting with Mask in some rather amusing ways.

"No wonder he freaked out so bad," I mused.

"He's completely locked in his head," Lisa complained. "His power's running its simulation, but your bullshit is making him think something entirely different is happening."

"Namely, being force fed Lime Jello," I mused. Which was kind of funny. Not as much as at the start where he thought he'd 'slipped his bonds' and had started sprinting to freedom… directly into a wall. But still, pretty funny.

"He's dropped his power five times and hasn't figured it out," she grumbled, rubbing at her forehead. "I'm embarrassed he ever had the upper hand on me."

"I mean he's only dropping out for around half a second," I noted. "He might be thinking his power is protecting him, since we went precog blank instead of false signals for a while."

"Can you do anything about the Jello thing at least?" she asked. "Just… make him think we're lighting him on fire or something! This does not make up for a year living under a gun."

"No, what I suspect will most be what makes up for that is whatever bank accounts you managed to isolate from his network to pillage later," I said, already guessing what else she'd done with unlimited access to his mainframe. "Though, apparently, regaining masturbation privileges is also a big one."

Lisa's face went surprisingly red. "I can't believe she said that in front of you. Ugh," grimaced. "When exactly were you planning on making good on that anyway?"

"Could do it now if you want," I said, reaching for the various buckles on my armor's arm. Strictly speaking, Mage Armor didn't need to be conventionally put on or taken off, or even need to be designed as an outfit that could be conventionally removed, but it was generally a good idea to leave a manual method anyway. Both for medical reasons, and so you could hand it over to someone else if needed.

"W-what!? Right here!? In front of him?" she asked, pointing right at Coil.

"Gargulgufff!" Coil 'said' between panicked breaths. "Please, stop! This is inhu-GAARguglg-"

"I mean, he's pretty checked out." I shrugged. "If you're worried about being observed, we could pop back into the base, but I'm not sure I want to bring him there, or show him how we access it."

"That's…" why was her face even more red- oh. Oooooh. "I don't want my first time to be in front of him!" she argued. "On his desk maybe-"

"Lisa," I said, pulling my armored glove off. "I didn't mean rocking your world right now. Just changing it. I need skin access to share my powers with someone. We don't actually need to do the deed."

"Oh," she said. "Oh, right- of course, I knew that. What did you think you perv- Fuck. Just… just do the thing."

"Okay, medical disclaimer first," I said seriously. "This is a full on soul deep bond. Which is good, in that, it offers a number of really useful tactical options, including tactical coordination, extended revival options, and of course, sharing of various powers. Downside is, it is super permanent. Possibly more than lifetime permanent. Iffy side is that there's a subconscious two way empathic bond, which encourages affection, forgiveness, and general tolerance towards each other."

"Two way?" she asked.

"Yep," I said. "Well, as many 'ways' as are part of the network. Which you would get a vote on who joins, if you're part of it, I feel I should note. Active communication with it is possible but it takes practice. Apparently it's pretty easy to manage a sort of 'compass' effect, but I've never actually been in one of these before."

"And you don't mind say, reconfirming all of that with your anti-thinker bullshit down?" she asked.

"If you don't mind stepping back into the base for obvious reasons," I said, listing my normal condition for dropping my guard.

"Okay, fine!" Coil said inhaling and exhaling rapidly. "I'll tell you everything just stop with the-" and he was back to being force fed imaginary Jello.

Lisa looked at him. "That's surprisingly effective for-" she started only to stop herself, and turn back to me. "No, wait, nevermind that just-"

The blonde villainess looked at me, first at my face, then down at my hand, then back up to my eyes… Then, after a put out huff, pulled her own glove off. "Do whatever it is you've got to do."

"Okay, hand towards me," I said, holding mine out.

She mimicked it, and after our skins were in contact… I let loose the Unity thread from out of my wrist to wrap around hers.

Her eyes momentarily bulged, but she kept surprisingly calm. Or rather steady at her current level of panic as the neon red 'cord' of magic as it slid around her in far deeper levels than just her skin.

"Okay," I exhaled. "Again, this is a voluntary thing. I can't just pop you into it, you need to just-"

"I feel you," she said suddenly. "I mean beyond just the tentacle-that's… That's.., you right?"

"Yep," I said, trying to brush aside my own nervous hesitation at the literal soul deep contact we were experiencing. "That's my cheap photocopy of a soul. Missing bits, added bits and all."

"You're not kidding," she said. "There's just… parts of you have been scooped out," she said, seeming alarmed.

"The eye," I said. "Traded it, had to. Lost my original name as well, but I think I grew into my new one."

She took a slow breath. "Okay… uh… how do I?"

"Just… let it happen?" I admitted. "Sorry, never done this before. I've poked other people's souls before, but not with this, or like this."

"You have- The magic thing?" she guessed.

"The magic thing," I confirmed.

"Huh… how do I measure up?" she asked, smirking with an aura of fake confidence.

"Beautiful," I replied, which surprised her. "Most souls are. Yours is… there's scars. A roadmap of what life's done to you. Even if you're untouched in some ways."

"Hah," she barked a laugh. "Bragging about bagging a virgin?"

"Not what I meant, but probably connected," I said. "There's… ridges. Build up defenses of hurt protecting parts of you. Places you've never let anything or anyone reach."

Not everywhere. And not the worst I'd 'seen' in that way. Not by miles.

"And that's beautiful to you?" she asked before trailing off. "It's not just your eye that's missing right? It's also something- someone else?"

"It's human," I replied. "We lose things, we lose people. A bunch of stuff we miss, or that marks us, even after we get used to it."

"Hah," she let out another of those barking laughs, then drew quiet for a moment.

"Last chance to back out," I warned her. "I think whatever's supposed to happen is happening now. If you pull back it'll stop, but if you don't…"

"...Forever, huh?" she guessed.

"Close to it at least," I confirmed.

There was another pause.

Coil took a deep breath. "PLEASE STOP JUST LISTEN TO- huh?" he blinked, looking at us.

Lisa turned an annoyed eye on him, "Have you finally figured out- nope, eye's are drifting again." She sighed, "some people just never learn, do they?" she asked me.

"Oh believe me, I know," I smiled in bemusement at just how many I'd met of exactly that descriptor.

"Garrglefra!" Coil choked down. "At least use a different flavor!" he yelled out, wasting a precious breath. "Nonofiluuurgl!"

I then picked up on some new senses trying to lock onto me, including the very broad mix that included X-ray vision.

"The others are almost he-" I started only for a wind to blast in as Supergirl and Penny flew up to us, Brian, A2 and Company-Lisa in hand.

"Salutations!" Penny called out in greeting. "We return from a successful operation! Oh! You're handholding! Are we holding hands now!?" She asked, face blushing. "How lewd… And in front of the prisoner…"

Original-Lisa rolled her eyes. "It's just a magic thing, don't you see the- oh," she looked down to see that not only had our fingers entwined with each other at some point, the red thread had vanished. "Well… I guess that's done," she said, gingerly pulling her hand away.

"Oh come on!" Company-Lisa complained. "I come out of the pod, all wet and willing and she gets her power up first?" she grumbled.

"What?" Local-Lisa smirked. "Jealous he went for the original first?"

"Haha, you know he only did you first because you were available right?" The older Lisa argued. "If it wasn't for your mess-"

"Okayfineplease stop-" Coil exhaled in relief. "Wh-what? How should I- Gelatin, water, food coloring."

"What's up with him?" A2 asked.

"His power involves a lot of mental simulation," I said. "Simulations our defenses are spoofing. He's basically trapped himself in his own head."

"Which he could escape if he'd just stop using his power every second of the day," Local-Lisa complained.

"We really need to solve the name thing with you two," I said suddenly. "This is getting confusing."

"Oh that's simple," Company-Lisa said. "I'm Alisa, the alternative, upgraded Lisa who actually knows what's going on. She's Elisa, the local girl, who I'm the distant twin of. Both of us respond to 'Lisa' because we were raised separately."

"You mean, you're the country bumpkin who came to mooch," Local- Elisa countered.

"And yet, I'm the one who came with all the backing," Alisa smirked.

"Backing that jumped ship-" 'Elisa' started.

I rolled my eyes. "Here," I said, holding out my hand to the other Lisa.

The local version gave a fake gasp. "And here I thought I was special."

"Very special," I replied dryly.

Company-Lisa went right for the full on handhold.

Penny eeped.

"We getting in on that?" A2 asked, curiously.

"Once I'm done with 'Alisa' here," I offered, while deploying the unity thread again.

Company Lisa shivered, "Ooooh… kinky," she teased, though she was almost as nervous as original-her had been.

"Is now really the time?" Kara asked. "We do have a supervillain to turn in."

"And a base to turn over," Penny cheered.

"There, that's all the- what? Why would- I'm moving, I'm moving!" Coil said as he tried to walk away, hands still bound behind him.

Local Lisa wordlessly tripped him over, leading to him landing face first… where he continued to try and walk into the ground.

I winced a bit in sympathy at the impact. I hoped he hadn't broken his nose again.

"This should only take a minute or two," I said. "Plus a couple more for me to make a few more things while Hasted. Then we can split up again and tackle that problem."

"Is the prisoner going to be alright?" Penny, ever the sweetheart asked.

"Who cares?" A2, also a sweetheart, in her own, special way, answered.

"He'll be fiiine," I waved dismissively. "The big issue is going to be trying to turn stuff over without the local Protectorate trying to arrest and/or pressgang us."

Kara sighed. "Well try to hurry it up. We've got a lot of problems to solve." she said, looking down at Coil then off to the shimmering bubble that was The Rig in the distance.

"We'll get it done," I assured. "One step at a time."

Part 4

'Alisa's' Unity thread set in moments later, and the 'more experienced' Tattletale quickly launched into an audible examination of all the neat features it had, that the Local her had missed.

Which did not, obviously, include a lack of need for them to one up each other.

Luckily, I had a dodge for that. Namely, I needed to quickly throw together some new costumes, or rather some new 'Costumes' for the Tattletales out of a few 'borrowed' belts, that big security door Kara had ripped out of it's housing, and some more Blood Money sourced precious metals.

I dropped out of Haste for a moment. "Oracle, Sherlock, Insight, or other?" I asked the pair.

"Sherlock," they answered jointly.

"Gotcha," I said, then zipped back into full speed. I'd been hoping for that. It let me put in an alternate 'Watson' mode, which was, naturally, activated by a little flippy bit, on the enclosing chamber that, to an outsider, would look like an oversized, overly complicated, belt buckle.

Which was foolish. As far as Kamen Rider belts went this was positively tame. Not even as big as Decade's! Who, with the card like plugins, was the natural inspiration. Nothing as obtrusive as, say, Ex-Aid's overly complicated set-up.

Though I did include some 'Minor Illusions' functions for SFX. Just for tradition's sake. There was a mute button for practicality that'd kill the lightshow and vocals, but really, what was the point of magic if you couldn't have fun with it?

A little more than two subjective hours later, I dropped back out of Haste again. "Alright, here you go. New costumes."

"They're belts," A2 helpfully noted.

"They're Mage Armor," I helpfully corrected. "The belt can deploy what's functionally a personally stylized, full body powered armor. Only a three times multiplier for strength and speed, but durable enough to shrug off anything lighter than an anti-material rifle," I knew from experience the armor would, theoretically, let you survive an RPG hit. Be blown on your ass, break a ridiculous number of bones, and suffer amounts of internal (and external) bleeding that would kill you shortly after, but you wouldn't be outright gibbed. Which, if you understood how crazy that was, was really saying something.

Kara's raised eyebrows told me she did understand that. Though she didn't look overly impressed. Which, fair enough. She knew people like Lex Luthor and Steel, who could make genuinely heavyweight powered armor.

"Shiny," One of the Lisas, 'Elisa' by the damage to her costume's arm, said, picking up the belt. "How do you use it?"

"Put it on for one," I said. "There are some other basic features I worked in. Life support, voice changer, a HUD and interface for loaded Cantrip Cards and compatible gear. A few open modules for future upgrades," Mage Armor at its highest level could be created rune enchanted, which let it simulate low end functions of some of the cantrips I knew.

In this case, the effects I'd loaded in were, Life Bubble, for obvious reasons Minor Illusion primarily as the hud display, and interestingly, Alter Object, a Cantrip I normally never even touched, to flip various switches based on commands to said HUD, and make sure various moving bits stayed still unless they were meant to be moving.

Brian let out a whistle.

Elisa had slipped the belt on while I explained, and snapped open the trigger pulling out her own Mask Card and slotting it in. "So I just… snap it shut and press one of the buttons?" she guessed.

"At least two," I said. "Top and bottom, press and hold down, there's also a third button that's an optional-"

The belt let out a humming 'Periiiinnnng!, and intoned the word "Henshin: Sher-Sher-Sherlock!" on its own as in a surge, a new base black bodysuit flowed over her, seeming to displace her current outfit. As it did so, purple and gold armored segments, including a elaborate 'visored' helmet, and a distinct gold armored 'corset' of segmented plate formed into place providing protective coverage. Finally, it was finished off by a long heavily mantled black 'coat' with a distinct magnifying glass motive and symbology 'rolled' over its shoulder… and a small deerstalker like 'hat' formed at the brim of the enclosed helmet.

The full armoring procedure took about two seconds, finishing up right as the sound effects ended. Flashy and elaborate, but that was actually about as fast as I could make it go. Lisa wasn't a mage after all, the item needed to handle all the details of the deployment on what was, by nature, a dynamic body, all by itself, and that was for each protective layer.

A2 raised an eyebrow at the display, while Penny clapped, and Kara examined the conjured armor.

Alisa snorted, and openly laughed moments later.

Brian looked at it, and raised a speculative eyebrow at me.

I grinned, "There's a mute button to the side. For when you want to transform more discreetly. You can also use the word "Henshin." as a vocal command to trigger it."

"Really pushing the Sentai Elite thing, huh?" Alisa asked, trying not to sound impressed as she checked over the fit. The way she all but bounced on her feet really detracted from the half hearted attempt at snark though.

"That this world has forgotten the glory that is Kamen Rider is clearly why Earth Bet has devolved into the Walmart of realities," I said bluntly.

"Hey!" Penny of all people protested. "I don't know what that is, but your tone indicates it was probably insulting." She seemed rather proud of this deduction.

Which to be fair, given her background? Yeah, fair enough.

"Fair. It was mean-spirited but, you will note, none of the locals protest," I noted.

"If it's got Lisa moving like that, it's got to be something," Brian noted. "We getting in on that?"

"In a way," I said. "Lis- Elisa, can you open up your belt again and flip that little thingy at the edge?" I asked her.

She looked at me for a moment, not quite yet used to emoting with head gestures instead of expressions, then snapped open her belt again, find, as I'd instructed, the end part of the opening section, a seemingly decorative little hexagon with an 'S' on it, over where it clicked to reveal a 'W'.

"Close it," I said.

She did, and as she did, the belt again belted out an audio-line. "Cast-Off! Wa-Wa-Watson!"

At once the long coat and armor on her seemed to explode off, leaving her down to the bodysuit, which now visibly included a face mask identical to her old one.

A2 Snorted. "Nice outfit."

"Lower profile armored mode," I explained. "It's lighter in more than just appearance. The strength and speed boost are the same, those are actually from runic circuity lacing the inside of the suit, but the protection value is much lower. A bit better than a ballistics vest in some ways, worse in others."

"It's practically painted on," Alisa noted, shooting me a look at that.

And well… she wasn't wrong. While it was hard to make out the details due to the uniform black cloth, the material was thin enough that you'd otherwise be able to see the outline of her navel. Hell, if not for the temperature control, you could probably notice if the weather got cold or not. It also lacked any sort of visible seam or latch. Even the belt projecting the armor was 'gone', stuffed away with the rest of her clothing.

"It's meant to be an underlayer," I noted. "For going under more conventional costumes. Which I can also provide. Secondary features are still intact though, atmospheric regulation, modular add-ons, and of course, the HUD, which is the only way to control it while it's in that mode-."

"Mode Change! Sher-Sher-Sherlock!" Lisa's new toy said, triggering the transformation back into 'armored mode' Elisa then reached down, pressed a little button on the side, then went unarmored again, this time not accompanied by the nifty sound effect and voice lines.

"Okay, you're really pushing the Sentai Elite thing huh?" Alisa asked dryly. "So what, undersuits for the others?" she asked, looking pointedly over at Brian, then back at me.

"Kamen Rider," I corrected again, knowing she was doing it on purpose.

"Who are the Sentai Elite?" Penny asked. "Are they other superheroes!" she added giddy.

"I got this one," Elisa said, before launching into an explanation of Japan's cape scene… or rather its former Cape scene.

While they did that,I focused back on Brian. First answering Alisa's actually important question. "As for costumes… yeah that's the plan. At least, if they don't want to rebrand, and join up directly," Before turning my head fully to the man himself. "No offense."

"None taken. You've got your own plans, and don't want to mix up branding," he said in an amicable tone.

And yet, I could easily read from his expression as he turned to look at the Lisas, he was pretty far from happy with how things had turned out today.

Which, you know, was understandable, but he wasn't exactly the only one whose day hadn't gone as planned.

"Rebrand offer is on the table," I offered. "Pretty sure Lisa is going to cover your money needs, and with Coil no longer running unseen interference there shouldn't be issues getting Custody. Might be a good chance to be a better role model."

"I'll think about it," he said, and while his tone was dismissive, I was pretty sure he would.

"Speaking of thinking," Elisa said, still looking over her new suit. "We're not going to Memphis, we're going to Toronto."

I blinked, "Okay, but why though?"

"Better ability to hold big time villains. More publicity, which means more attention, which means the PRT is going to work harder to hide things under the rug," she said simply. "I don't think you'll have any problems being flashy about delivery."

"I can make do," I agreed. "Supergirl, you up for the trip with me?" I asked.

"Prisoner delivery?" Kara said with the sort of tone reserved for taking out garbage, which seemed oddly appropriate. "Sure," she agreed, unenthusiastically.

"Sorry," I said apologetically. "You're our fastest flier, know how to deal with the realities of cape bullshit, even if it's not your brand of cape bullshit, and frankly, you're more charismatic than me. First impressions matter."

"You're staying to help turn over the base then?" Penny asked.

"Nah, I'll go with," I said. "Lisa-"

Both versions of the woman in question turned towards me.

I'd intended on the local one, but this worked. "Armor's normally individualized, but due to your odd circumstance, either of you can use it. Can one of you handle the turnover?" I asked. "No one else can handle the local PRT branch in all its prickliness better than you."

"I can- fuck" both started together before glaring at each other. "I got the belt," Elisa argued.

"I've actually worked with the PRT in a neutral way before," Alisa argued.

"I'll leave it up to you two to handle," I said, not having the time to mediate another fight. "Try not to be aggravating, but don't let them walk over you. If we end up labeled villains, then that'll be their problem."

"I can handle it, no sweat," Elisa argued. "Do you know how much Halbeard had been waiting for an opportunity like this?"

"Not as well as I do," Alisa argued. "You haven't even seen his fall from grace and comeback arc."

I looked at Penny and A2 for a moment, before turning my head back to Brian. "That outer suit over the skinsuit," I said. "I can slap on additional extra features if you can keep those two from mostly sabotaging one another," I offered immediately.

Let it never be said Brian was afraid of a little risk in the face of a big payout. "Deal."

"Right," I said, sucking in a breath. Even at full speed, this was going to be a long trip. "Let's go drop off the snake. Still lots left to do today."

For one thing, I still had to plan several murders and a kidnapping… Maybe two kidnappings.

Part 5

By geological standards, Boston and Toronto were actually pretty close. Not quite neighbors, but more 'just down the street' as far as country wide distances were viewed.

Which meant that it would only take me a little under an hour and half to fly there, assuming there were both no major head or tailwinds, and I actually knew where the hell I was going.

That was personally experienced time, admittedly. To keep up with Kara, I'd need to clock up to something a fair bit faster than my 'modest' flight speed of two hundred and sixtyish miles per hour. But as I'd noted before, that didn't actually change what it felt like.

Admittedly, that was probably still better than the four minutes of what the fuck levels of fast Coil was experiencing in Kara's arms, since she was easily matching my external speed of seven thousand eight hundred miles per hour while carrying him. But he was probably going to be fine. Kryptonians were bullshit like that.

And if not… well. That'd be a shame.

Mostly because Lisa (both of them) would have probably wanted to watch. And I hadn't installed a camera function in my helmet or eye yet.

On the brightside, I had some decent company for the trip. Also the opportunity to brief said company further on the mess I'd dragged her into.

"So the Protectorate is subordinate to this PRT organization, which started as a US based government organization to deal with supervillains."

"Superhuman affairs," I clarified. "If you have powers, you're under their jurisdiction regardless of what you do with them. That's why the Protectorate is technically under their command."

"Right," she confirmed. "Except that it's not just the US government anymore, but the Canadians are also part of it."

"Yep, and I think Mexico's in talks with it?" I couldn't remember if that was canon or not. "Might actually be based off of the joint missile defense thing that exists in most worlds. Part of the PRT doctrine actually authorizes missile strikes for Capes above certain threat levels."

"Do they ever actually accomplish anything?" Kara asked.

"Not sure?" I admitted. "Admittedly I don't recall them doing much, and the PRT generally prefers using nonlethal force, but it might just be one of those 'I can do this, don't make me' things."

"In my experience, if you tell a group of people that they can do something, 'if they have to', eventually one of them will," Kara noted.

"Well, of course they do," I said. "You're from a superhero setting. It wouldn't be very dramatic or exciting if they didn't. And to be clear, they do use the missiles, just… mixed bag on how useful they are."

"Overkill to the point of doing more damage than the villains, or too weak to even slow them down?" Supergirl asked, her voice indicating just how experienced she was with the problems.

"Both," I said. "Their doctrine even highlights that it's for a pretty narrow band of threat ratings. Under that they'll typically rather let you go then blow things up themselves. More dangerous than that and they start setting up specialized cape teams just to take you down or out."

She grimaced at the reminder. "I'm still not happy about that."

"No one should be," I agreed. "Like I said, your world's brighter than this one. Brighter than most actually. Back home, your heroes fought to win the day. Here? The best most can do is fight to survive it."

"Then we'll just have to be better," she said.

"That's a given," I replied. "So what's next? The cooking club, the golden idiot god, the goblin king, fairy queen, three blasphemies, Endbringers, their crazy fanboys… so much to cover."

"I'm not really up for trying to think about conspiracies right now," she said. And to be fair, she wasn't in an accelerated timerate like me, and while she could keep up with superspeed, I was willing to bet that was more effort intensive.

"Let's go with everyone's favorite then. The Endbringers," I said, before beginning to explain exactly what the iconic kaiju of the setting were, and what they were capable of. Origins could wait for later.

As it was, covering just the basics took most of the rest of the trip there. Luckily, we didn't get lost. Kara knew where Toronto was, and to our good fortune, the wacky geopolitics of DC didn't result in it being replaced by some other city, moved a thousand kilometers to the left, or something even weirder. The layout was apparently pretty different, but it was still close enough that Kara was pretty sure it was the place.

At that point, it was a pretty simple handoff. Well, not really, they took Coil to put him in the Master/Stranger tank readily enough. The man was visibly hallucinating, and wearing the costume of a known (if foreign) villain. A quick check was enough to arrange for that. The questions that accompanied that however, such as, why the man was hallucinating, why he was being dropped off in a city across the border and, of course, 'who the hell are you people' were a bit more problematic. Even as we tried to answer what we could.

I mean, they were relatively polite. Downright friendly for law enforcement in the given situation. But they also clearly would have really preferred if we sat down and waited while they did all the processing, confirmed our story, and, most importantly, had time for their backup to show up.

Which, probably wouldn't have mattered because, again, Kryptonian. And, again, was rather understandable for them to ask for, just from the sheer amount of paperwork they were going to deal with alone, buuuut, nope.

So we cut and ran. I'd honestly expected Kara to stop me, or protest, or something, but she, if anything, was more eager to cut and run than I was. So, yeah, once Coil was locked in. We ditched. Stuck around a little longer so Kara could make sure they actually got him into his cell, but once he was, we headed back to Brockton, to meet up with the others, and see how they did, and/or provide additional backup if needed.

The conversation for that trip was more me asking Kara questions. Mostly about her. Supergirl, unlike her more famous cousin, had actually grown up on Krypton, a world much more advanced than most versions of Earth. I'd been hopeful she might know enough about it to be useful.

I also needed to know where exactly she fell in the wildly wide range of 'superweight'. She was a Kryptonian, sure, but those had been depicted in a wide range from 'only' hypersonic flying-bricks, who could still bleed from things like cruise missiles, to FTL science-gods, who could contain black holes in their clenched fists.

In both cases, she ended up somewhere in-around the middle of the road.

To start with, while Kara was delightfully nerdy once I got her talking about things, she also wasn't some sort of Kryptonian database. Yeah she knew about all sorts of crazy technology, and if provided the right tools and materials, she could probably cobble it together. But the key words there 'if she had the right materials'.

Considering Krypton not only was millenia more advanced than Earth but also used a technology base very different from our own? Yeah, that was gonna be tricky to manage.

Some stuff would still be doable. It'd be a lot of time and effort. She'd be starting near the barest of basics, but there was still useful stuff that she was pretty confident she could whip up, just from basic principles.

More importantly, a lot of it was also stuff she thought could actually be useful enough to be worth that kind of effort. Like the 'fiber' her costume was made out of. And some basic pew pew laser guns that weren't blackboxed tinkertech. And an atomic resequencer.

Yes, that was apparently basic. Like I said, Krypton was just a little bit ahead of us technologically speaking.

Power wise, I'd put her around the DCAU version. Faster than the space shuttle but not personally FTL, strong enough to casually lift a fully loaded supertanker but not enough to pull a planet out of orbit. Tough enough to probably survive a nuke, but not enough to outright ignore one.

Like I said, middle of the road for a Kryptonian. Stronger than most movie versions, but not as crazy as some of the comics, to say nothing of silver age shenanigans.

Still, when you combined that with all her other nifty tricks? She was probably in the top five beings on the planet, and if you added all the potential 'cross training' and perks on top… She was potentially a stronger combatant than even the Endbringers, though they still likely beat her out in endurance.

Which was actually what I'd gotten her for. More than any Cantrip I'd hidden away, she was the real ace in my hand. Just not one I could likely convince to stay hidden.

Case in point, Kara's head began to twitch around like a bloodhound, right as we were passing by New York, a location we were passing over at my insistence. Mostly because I had a few plans in the city, and wanted to get a good look at the place, so I could avoid a repeat of what had happened on my first night back in Brockton.

"Trouble?" I asked

"I'm hearing sirens. A lot of Sirens!" Kara said, looking off towards the city.

"Go," I urged, knowing full well she'd do so anyway, and watched as she peeled ahead towards the city at a speed… honestly not that much faster than we were already going? I mean she was still visibly faster, but the difference was more akin to a man running to keep up with a hunting dog, not a horse or car. I didn't lose track of her as she peeled ahead or dove into the mess.

Which was… a cape fight. Of course it was. In New York of all places.

Huh, that was ballsy. Was Legend away or something?

I descended towards the town at a shallower arch than Kara- Supergirl did. I needed the vantage to keep track, because despite being in the ballpark of her (apparent) top speed, she'd still pulled well ahead by the time we hit the city limits, and I would have lost sight of her outright if it wasn't for the fact that, like the last couple of times, there was a building on fire to act as a convenient landmark.

Seriously, I was three for three now. Was this going to happen every time, because I'd thought that only happened in Hellsalem's lot, due to it being… well, Hellsalem's lot.

Still, with that landmark it was easy as cake to zero in on the action. Two groups fighting in the streets. Well one group was also fighting from the burning building, which didn't seem the wisest plan, but did help keep the two groups visibly distinct. Not that I needed much help, since one side was a mixture of people in plain clothes and robes, while the other was the distinctive Mad-Max-chic of The Teeth.

Who were currently getting their teeth knocked out as Supergirl crashed through their numbers, ripping weapons out of hands, tossing into walls, and generally rapidly disabling.

There were capes mixed in. Birds were dive bombing the Teeth while projecting lines of fire, and a woman who'd apparently been caught half dressed was currently in a staring contest, with a hulking, four legged, creature that almost reminded me of one of Bitch's dogs.

I was pretty sure that the big one was Animos. He was with the Teeth. A changer with a power negating screech, though he currently seemed zonked out by whatever the half naked lady was doing. The other two I could only assume were part of the defending faction, though I didn't recognize either of them.

There was also someone on a nearby roof in a skintight purple costume with a large Crossbow- no. Not a crossbow, an arbalest.

Hello Lily. Didn't expect to run into you this early!

Unable to resist the opportunity, and despite how tactically stupid it was, I dialed back on Haste as I dove down towards the New York Ward. I still had some hopes I could disguise the true nature of the spell for a while. Coil was zonked out for most of our conflict after all, and his guards had been blitzed pretty hard. As long as Lisa sanitized the security footage, there were decent odds no one would actually realize what we were doing, just that 'we hit them faster than they could react'.

The flight speed thing was going to be noticed though. That was fine. I was probably going to need to let people know I could move at extreme speed in open skies anyway. As long as they thought I needed to dial back to maneuver, they'd likely not realize what I was really capable of.

As the world sped up, Supergirl's movements shifted from fast to an outright blur, as both sides of the conflict were forcibly separated, and in a huge burst of wind, the fire extinguished like a gods-damned birthday candle.

Unfortunately, that wind also seemed to jostle Animos and the half naked girl out of their trance, and he immediately let out a distinctly inhuman sound as he lunged forward to rip his opponent apart, now that her powers (whatever they were) were negated.

Only for Supergirl to intercept, her non-shard based powers still completely intact.

Yeah, I was pretty sure she had this one.

"Hey there!" I called out to Lily, Flechette in costume, who was currently watching and, by the movements of her lips, reporting on the fight.

At once, the world's deadliest crossbow snapped up in my direction.

I raised my hands as I dropped down to the roof, "Woah! Easy there! I'm friendly!"

Surprisingly, she immediately lowered her weapon. "Sorry. Who are you?" she said apologetically, before cutting right to the heart of the matter.

"Who me?" I said, gesturing to my chest. "I'm just a passing through Kamen Ride-Get down!" I said, tackling her to the ground as a new form of super sense locked onto me.

Specifically, blood circulatory perception.

The Butcher had arrived.

Part 6

"Get off-" Flechette started.

"Butcher!," I explained in one word. "Stay down, call in backup if you can! I'm engaging!" I said before launching myself off the roof.

The Butcher. Or rather 'The Butcher XIV', the fourteenth cape to carry that cursed legacy. She was mostly a ranged combatant, tactical teleporter with a danger sense along with the power to perceive people's veins, arteries, and heart. Something that she combined lethally with the ability to 'curve' her shots impossibly to ensure a hit, and a super strength backed bow that hit more like an anti-material rifle.

Those weren't her only powers. Regeneration. Explosive teleportation. Wound aggravation. Limited transmutation of earth and rock (which included cement). The ability to induce pain and rage. There were probably more, but those were the ones I knew about. An arsenal nearly big enough to match my own, and that was without factoring in their most dangerous power. The one that probably got them to jump into this fight to begin with.

Namely, the power to jump into the body of any cape that killed them, keeping a copy of all their previous powers as they did.

Well, any local cape.

I took her in as I surged into the air, I tried to get a bead on them. To my mixed luck, that wasn't hard at all. Less lucky, that was because she and Kara were already duking it out.

A massive bow, samurai armor deliberately damaged and modified with 'decorations' which included a number of all too real human skulls. On her face was a classical demon's scowl facemask. I wasn't sure she was wearing as a mask, or just as additional armor. Oh, and she was on fire, and didn't seem to care about the fact.

Honestly…. I'd kind of expected her to be taller though?

A Blue, Red and Blonde blur crashed into The Butcher, only for the cape in question to explode into a fireball. They near simultaneously reappeared in another explosion beside the half-dressed Cape, who had earlier been in the superpowered staring contest with Animos, and was currently in the middle of trying to flee the area. I winced as she screamed out, wagering that she was now probably regretting coming to combat in nothing more than a bra and skinny jeans.

Luckily for the unfortunate woman, before the Butcher could do more than give her a bunch of surface burns Kara smashed back into the Butcher, sending her flying off. The leader of The Teeth exploded again mid-flight in another destructive teleport, where she rolled up to her feet, teleporting as she caught sight of Kara closing in, as she went for more of the defenders… only for Kara to smash into her again, and again, and again.

It was practically three dimensional whack-a-mole! Except that I knew this mole wanted to be whacked.

And by whacked I meant killed.

Fuck.

Catching sight of a monster of a bow nearby, I crashed down towards the injured. Calling out a warning as I did. "Supergirl! Switch with me! Evacuate the civis! She's a trick-type, not a brawler!"

"Not exactly making it easy!" Supergirl said, before she managed to predict the bodysnatcher's next move and Judo threw her up towards me.

Only for The Butcher to seemingly explode halfway through reappearing where Kara had been.

"Wh- Coward!" The skull-clad, 'corrupted' samurai armored cape called as she saw the Kryptonian following my advice and already zipping away with arms full of civilians.

I then proceeded to Rider Kick her in the side right as she teleported, leaving me passing through flames after a brief feeling of impact, and her flying to the side beside her bow.

I recovered first. The half impact had jostled me, but with my mind and body both accelerated, and Featherfall letting me control my position, I controlled my skid enough to keep on my feet, even as she rushed to get back onto her knees, face turning up towards me, then to her bow.

Yeah, no. I was not letting her have that. And even as she exploded again, repositioning herself, kneeing right in front of the weapon, my hand snapped up and fired a beam of white hot sticky flames across the weapon even as she grabbed it.

"Idiot!" she spat towards me, grabbing the weapon anyway headless of the flames, hand touching ground and pulling a spear sized 'arrow' out of the concrete as she rose to her feet, projectile strung and aimed all in a single motion.

I was already moving, shooting straight into the air as the arrow loosed with a supersonic crack off its string. Twisting to the side as the arrow curved up, jinking to the side hard as it slipped past me, rocketing into the sky, already turning back toward me.

I cut then reversed thrust, angling down towards the Butcher, jinking erratically to throw off the projectile's aim, while lobbing another wide bright and sticky fireball at the second fireproof enemy I'd run into in as many days. The Butcher, in turn, ignored the attack to form and string a second arrow and launch it at me

Again the bow string snapped with a bullwhip like 'CRACK!' as the arrow was shot directly towards me, too close to miss.

This time though, I was ready, and had already cast Fist even as the arrow loosed. A phantom tackle shooting out from my shoulders straight into the projectile, shattering it into fragments.

The Butcher's eyes shot wide as I plowed through the debris of their attack, then wider as I twisted, dodging the first arrow as it came around again. Its sharpened edge sliced into, but not through my Mage Armor as I twisted what would have been a direct hit to center mass into a graze across my ribs. The kinetic force was still enough to send me spinning and knock me off course.

But not off course enough.

My arm lashed out in a near sonic armbar, catching the Trump directly in the chest as my kinetic force projected outward. Their danger sense failed to detect that I'd actually hit them until they were skipping across the ground..

Not that they stayed off balance long, their body exploding into another teleport as they got distance to recover.

Again I skidded, partially to a stop, only to suddenly 'hop' up as the arrow came around for a third and final pass cashing into the ground explosively.

I immediately went on the swivel to try and spot them, noting and tagging a couple of nearly worn down trucks with Featherfall as I did. Getting ready to play another of my hidden cards if needed. Not that it'd matter if I didn't spot them fast enough to-

There!

The Butcher flashed into place on the burning building rooftop, three arrows in hand, already notched back-

CRACK!

Only for her bow, still on fire, to snap itself in half. Finally giving out from the combined strain of both the weight demanded of it, and the flames that had been heating it up nearly since this fight began.

The bodysnatcher looked at their weapon in momentary disbelief, maybe even a hint of betrayal, before snarling as they discarded it, exploding-

I twisted on instinct, deflecting a blow as I shot a Fist straight into their face, crumpling their mask into their jaw and rocking them back. I swiveled my hips to regain my footing, arm sweeping up, deflecting their attempt to grab-

Explosion.

I pushed myself, taking full advantage of my floating leverage to sweep out with both legs, tripping them off their feet, bobbing back up to knee them in the kidney.

Explosion.

I shot myself into the air, even as they appeared right above me, latching onto me, in what would quickly prove a critical mistake, as I found a grip on their knee, raised my hand in an echoing Fist, and struck them in the hip diverting the force directly into their right leg's orbital socket.

The crack that followed told me I'd hit paydirt. Thank fuck, I hadn't thought that'd work.

The Butcher exploded off of me, landing on one of the trucks I'd tagged earlier below, and I felt a flash of satisfaction as they dropped to one knee in the bed of it.

That satisfaction promptly vanished as they tore a tarp off the back and revealed a fucking .50 caliber anti-material rifle.

What. The. Fuck. Why did they have that? I knew about the gatling gun but-

No time!

I tried to flip the car with Featherfall, only to realize I'd fallen out of control range in my earlier melee. Fuck-

BOOM!

FUCK!

Butcher hadn't even bothered to properly aim, just pointed the weapon in my general direction and let their powers do the work.

I tried to jink and twist, but knew I was already too late. I'd slipped up, and this round, while lighter than the arrows was moving a lot faster than just over the sound barrier-

PLAT.

Only to watch as a pale hand shot right in front of my face, steel and dust exploding out of its palm.

"Need a hand?" Supergirl asked, apparently finished with her evacuation.

"Wouldn't mind," I agreed.

The Butcher promptly teleported again.

"She's running," Kara said, eyes jerking up to a nearby building, then across a street then further out.

"Let them," I advised.

"What?" Supergirl asked, turning to me in confusion.

"We don't have the right means to deal with her right now," I explained. "I probably should have run once I tagged their leg." Before they grabbed the gun, which turned an airborne retreat into a much more dubious prospect.

"Explain?" she said.

"Regenerating, drug resistant teleporter, who jumps to the body of any cape that kills them, or the nearest cape if they die otherwise," I explained. "We're immune, the hero on the roof wasn't," I pointed over to where I'd left Lily.

Supergirl caught on, "Lovely. Let me guess, the locals can't contain her?"

"Not easily," I replied. "Need a brainwashing power. Or an anti-brainwashing power. Give me a few hours and I might have something, but right now I'm tapped out."

Supergirl sighed, accepting the logic. "Got it. At least she's not going to be going after anyone else until she heals."

"And resupplies, and tries to figure us out," I said. "Crazy berserker in a fight or not, they're a planner. One who's been in the game a while. They're going to want to know who just kicked their collective ass."

"That gives us time," Supergirl agreed. "Okay, you know this place better than me."

I exhaled. "Right then…. Hey, where did you drop off the hero by the way?" I asked her.

Supergirl blinked, "A couple blocks over with the rest of the people from the building. Why?"

"Okay," I said. "Now this part of the plan is going to sound a lot more dubious…"