At this time of day, the world is silent. Nobody is awake to see what my friends and I are off to try.

  If all goes well, the whole world is going to be caught completely unaware.

  Perched on top of a building, I finally stop running around, canvassing the area. I’m not seeing anything notable, which is good. Seems like we’re in the clear today, just as planned.

  “In position.” I say quietly, drawing my senses closer. I have to trust the others for the big warnings.

  “Ready,” Amelia says from her position in a tucked-around alley near where the hangar doors are.

  “Ready,” Travis says through the communicator.

  “We’ve got this,” Cass says enthusiastically. I still feel bad this is more or less going to be her super debut, and I won’t be there to help out.

  Not that she really needs my help, and Travis is a significantly more helpful shadow than I could ever hope to be.

  “Alright, I’m going to split the channels so there’s reduced crosstalk, so if you have anything you want to say to the other group, speak now or forever hold it.” Asher warns.

  “Uh, if you see a cat in a tree, don’t pick it up because he’s an asshole and belongs there.” Amelia snaps back.

  “Stay safe.” I say once I’m over the fit of giggles trying to break through my mask.

  “You too.” Travis says, and I can see the gentle nod he’s giving.

  “Don’t worry about us and kick ass!” Cass calls.

  “So, Miracle, are you listening to two channels at once or are you just going to flip through them like a madman?” Amelia asks, already moving toward the entrance to the lab.

  With that being enough for me to get moving, I scale my way down the side of the building, going slow to hopefully not alert anyone.

  “I’ll be listening to both but switching my mic,” Asher explains. “Though besides moral support, I don’t exactly know what I’m supposed to offer your team.”

  “Well, I need moral support. Have you ever talked to…” She trails off as she turns her head to look at me. “What name are you going by tonight I forgot to ask?”

  “I’m not going by a name, so I really don’t think we have to worry about it; you can just call me by my name.” I sigh.

  “Nope, we can’t do that. What if our channels get leaked?” Asher jokes. “And I think the time of being Alias is over, so we’re going to have to come up with a new one. Let me go see if Smoulder and Cannonball have any recommendations.”

  I glare at Amelia, knowing full well she’s purposefully instigating this for her own amusement.

  And she has the gall to tilt her head upwards and start whistling innocently, which is exactly what I expect out of her.

  “Cannonball says you really need to pick a name if you want anyone to ever take you seriously. And Smoulder suggested Remenant, which sort of defeats the purpose of the game, but if you want to pick an actual name, that’s okay too.” Asher says, having switched back to us.

  “I just don’t think I should pick an actual superhero name,” I grumble, getting ready to break through their front door.

  While there was much debate of what exactly our method of breaking in should be, we ultimately decided on loud and fast.

  Hopefully, with a slow response, they would just start conveyor belting into us over and over again, letting us win easily.

  “Let’s just go with Mask today because you’re in a mask,” Amelia finally offers with a dramatic sigh as if she’s doing some kind of monumental favor for me.

  “Works for me. You ready?” I ask, casting my senses down the tunnel to see if I feel any guards.

  I actually feel several guards, but none of them seem concerned with what’s going on over here. Makes you wonder if they knew or that the person at the cameras is a person already asleep even if they’re supposed to be on duty already.

  “Stand back. I have a lot of vitriol this door deserves.” Amelia says a gigantic spear of ice beginning to form in the air as she pumps more and more energy into it.

  Call me crazy, but the explosive ice spear feels really dangerous to me, so I move away, though with being behind Amelia the most likely place of guaranteed refuge, that’s what I hide behind.

  The ice spear as it grows larger seems to almost glow with dull light.

  “Here’s Johnny!” She barks, slamming her hands forward the spear puncturing through the concealed door of the lab with ease as an explosion of cold blasts back towards us though most seems to go down the tunnel further into the lab.

  Once I can focus again, I can tell that ice has crept far into the space, several guards caught in it, probably frozen near solid.

  “You get the guards out of the popsicles and I’ll begin forging forward.” Amelia says before charging in.

  “Don’t stray too far from me.” I say, darting over to the first guard, who caught the majority of the blast. He’s alive, though not sure how much longer it’ll be if I can’t do something.

  To concentrate better, I close my eyes and activate the helmet’s sound canceling so that unless Amelia talks to me, the only sound I’ll be hearing is my own breathing if I elect to do so.

  The concentrated black mist flowing around envelops the ice around the guard until most of it phases.

  The man collapses immediately, slumping over, and I grab his shoulder, dragging him the rest of the way out before letting the ice return solid.

  She could make some scary, realistic ice sculptures by freezing me and then just letting me walk out of them.

  The next few guards work much the same phase a chunk of the ice so that I can drag them out, then return the ice back to normal.

  Reunited with Amelia, she’s made it to the main part of the lab on this floor, ice bulwarks conjuring and being pushed down hallways as they use various weapons to batter through them.

  “What do you want me to do?” I ask quietly, standing shoulder to shoulder with her.

  “Any sign of the big ones?” Amelia asks as she makes another wall of ice.

  Scanning the place with my mind, I’m not finding anyone I would call the big folks. At least not close to us.

  The Lizard is still two floors down, though whether it’s because they’re guarding it over there or for some other reason like they can’t get up the small stairways, I’m not entirely sure.

  Good luck with finding Andromeda or Vertiga being normal-sized people.

  Kurt is easier for me to find as I can feel some kind of energy swirling around the man as he flies from the sleeping quarters towards the two of us.

  “Kurt’s on his way here. Lizard at the basement, no idea on the other two or anyone else they’ve added.” I relay fast, spinning around towards the hallway Kurt will show up from.

  “Leave Kurt to me. But could you be a doll and break all the normal guards here trying to break my ice?” Amelia asks, her voice going cold.

  Without another word, I run to the ice bulwark Kurt will show up through and leap through myself. The greatest way to nerf that guy and help Amelia is to take away some of his toys to move around.

  “Boo!” I hiss, coming up to the smallest guard in this group and putting a hand on their wrist. Power ripples out of me, causing them to turn mist-like as they begin to fall through the floor.

  Letting them go, I move to the next one, turning my left hand immutable as I slam a fist into their face, crushing them into the wall.

  Can’t say for sure, but only the small one was enough that I was positive I could fully phase with all of his gear on.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The other two, I’m just gonna bludgeon.

  Once both guards are down for the count, I quickly phase their gear, dropping it to the next floor before darting towards the next group.

  The next hallway is ever so slightly more prepared for me in that one of them shot me as I was coming out of the ice wall.

  “Enjoy the trip.” I hiss to the smallest one, repeating the grand cycle of just dropping him to the next floor before I take the other three down and drop their gear away from them.

  “Mask if you’re going to drop them through the floor, you’re supposed to say see you next fall.” Amelia tuts.

  “Excuse me.” I say, rolling my eyes. “Kurt will blow through the wall soon. You sure you’ve got this?”

  “Hell yeah, he’s not going to beat my ice domain.” Amelia says, her voice wavering ever so slightly as I feel ice build in the room behind me.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to tag-team him?” I ask, hesitating to leave her to fight him alone.

  “You’re just going to get in both of our ways with all the kinesising going around, so buzz off and fight someone else cool. Besides, you need me to set this place up as our retreat point and where we’re going to escort any civilians we find to. Now go.”

  I dart towards the stairwell to the next floor. This floor only houses the guards and storage, so there’s not much for me to fight.

  The guards? seem real upset about my plan to just break through them and deal with the lab below.

  The discussion of our methodologies breaks down when they discover they can’t hurt me, and I blow through them, leaving a trail of bodies behind me.

  I never stop watching the fight between Kurt and Amelia in the other room, though an absolute vortex of destruction going on as the two fight both physically and with the projectiles they have at their disposal.

  If I didn’t hear all the dumb lines Amelia was saying midfight and her cackling, I would have a hard time guessing who was winning, but with all the background noise, it’s a lot easier to guess.

  Pausing at the stairwell door, I consider my option of just dropping down instead of dealing with the contingent of guards I feel on the other side.

  With an echoing slam, the door bursts open, revealing a dozen people who definitely aren’t guards.

  Unless guards are supposed to be wearing sexy cop cosplays and all look identical.

  Before either of us say anything, a fist slams through the first one's chest at full power.

  The Andromeda disappears in a flash of blue light as the eleven others stare at me in shock.

  “That wasn’t very ni—” The next closest Andromeda says before being cut off as I barrel through them as if they’re bowling pins, knocking them to the wall and off the railing as they get trampled underfoot.

  The greatest threat Andromeda brings to me is that we have no idea if I could ever beat her without knowing what other abilities she has.

  “Asher, should I head to the main lab, or should I try and free and escort people up?” I call out as I break down the door in front of me to the main floor.

  “Don’t bother.” Amelia rasps. “I’m still setting up here; it’s better for them to wait in their cells till I’m ready.” She says, gasping for breath.

  “Did you beat Kurt?” I ask, unable to stop the concern dripping from my voice.

  “Of course I did. Made a Kurtcicle though he did bang up my armor pretty good when he tried to crush me. I think it’ll take either a blowtorch or Mask to get me out of this tin can.” She laughs.

  “Mask, is Andromeda still moving towards Fractal, or did all the clones you fought vanish?” Asher asks.

  It only takes me a moment to find and begin tracing their path. “Heading towards Fractal. Along with some actual guards. I didn’t get everyone in my mad dash.”

  “Well, feel free to fight some more people before sending them to me. Looks like I’ll be busy.”

  “Be careful, Fractal,” Asher warns.

  “I was only going to torture the psychotic bitch a little bit!” she says, which is entirely unrelated to what we were talking about.

  Tuning the two out, I make my way towards the room I met their leader so long ago. With how strong we are now, I wonder if I could take the cyber-octopus man now.

  Probably not, though Amelia just turned their head enforcer into a popsicle, so maybe it will go better than we think.

  On my way towards the main lab, I make a pit stop to grab a few things. Another container of Enhancement to see if Asher can play with it and make something that doesn’t harm our power to enhance it.

  I also stop in an empty room to grab a few vials of the glowing liquid they kept injecting me with to prime my body for powers.

  If we could find a cure for it, that would be awesome. I’m sure most people who got abilities wouldn’t want to keep them…

  That’s a lie. I would want to keep my powers. Having two of the worst days of my life led to me being able to go through anything. At the outset, I bet most people would take that trade in a heartbeat.

  If I didn’t know, I would have too.

  Maybe Asher can use them to make a safer version of the serum that doesn’t involve people getting tortured for their powers to increase.

  “I’ve decided I hate Andromeda.” Amelia growls. “More than usual, I can’t believe her!”

  “What’s wrong?” I ask canvasing the area. There’s a few more guards on this floor, the people they’re experimenting on and three people in the main lab who are hunched over computers, probably trying to download all the information they can before trying to escape.

  “She has the gall to laugh as I blast her clones to bits as she talks to her favorite Horrorfrostie she’s crazy!” Amelia complains, and her mic just barely catches the mad cackling of someone.

  “Maybe just frost all of them?” I offer as I zero in on my next target.

  The three in the main lab probably aren’t dangerous to me yet.

  Besides, if I take down as many of the soldiers and guards as possible, that has to reduce some of what they can escape with, right?

  With me being able to leap through walls, getting to the various guards and taking them out quietly isn’t hard, even with me trying to avoid the man lab in every way possible.

  Once I’m sure all the guards are out, I canvas the area. The three in the lab are working in the same way. Amelia seems to be done fighting and mostly just piling people into a room to clean up the space for captives to move through.

  And there’s a contingent of guards grouping up around someone down below me, with the Lizard standing guard.

  That’s probably Vertiga or Andromeda discussing their escape plan while they wait for people to finish getting the info from the computers.

  Makes sense they’ve regularly been sending info to other labs, so the computers are probably not as important as the supers running the show.

  Could the plan be to sacrifice Kurt and The Lizard to make us happy enough that we don’t care about getting everyone?

  The other thing that is really bothering me is the fact that they’re not grabbing the people they’re experimenting on.

  There’s over twenty different people in various small testing rooms, not including the folks they haven’t processed yet.

  What is the plan here?

  Sure, Amelia and I made the commitment that we are going to prioritize the civilians over them, but would they really be willing to abandon everyone? Especially when they’ve started their empire of selling body-jacked supers?

  It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

  “Mask top floor is secure. How about the last two floors?” Amelia asks, sounding significantly calmer now that she’s had the chance to crush two of her abusers.

  “Trio is still in the man lab on the second floor. And a large group congregating on the third floor seeming to wait for something?” I whisper, trying to keep my voice soft enough that nobody with normal hearing will hear me.

  “Are they taking people with them?”

  “Doesn’t feel like it, but I don’t have a ton of detail.”

  “Miracle you got a suggestion. I’m not sure what we should do here?” Amelia admits the words landing heavy.

  “Fractal start taking people out of there. Mask, I want you to stop those three people in the main lab. They could be trying to scrub everything or set up a self-destruct sequence or who knows what.” Asher says having come up with a significantly better plan than I could hope to realize.

  Both of us echo agreement, and I run towards the main lab.

  Metal doors stand between me and my target, and I have to decide if I want to go in loud or soft.

  We decided to go in loud. And I didn’t get the chance to burst through the main door, so I’ll call this compensation.

  I spike my body immutable, and charge into the metal door, the steel bending and crunching around me before finally bursting as I fly through.

  As I burst into the main lab room, my first thought is that it’s a trap. My second thought is that I really should have thought they might know about my spatial awareness with how I move sometimes and that I should have expected this.

  Standing before me is a trio of Vertiga, another Andromeda, maybe even Andromeda prime and a figure I don’t recognize wrapped in bandages that seem to pulse with a viscous green light.

  “Ah, Subject forty-three, isn’t it nice for you to join us,” Vertiga says, standing to her full height to look me in the eye.

  Through the power of keeping my eyes shut, I don’t see it, though I do pull in my senses to maximize my awareness of the area.

  Bandage-boy bothers me. It's as if the bandages are writhing on their own, which is gross to keep my mind on.

  “If you three would like to surrender, I’m sure something could be done to make it more comfortable.” I say, bringing my hands up to prepare for the fight.

  “No,” Bandage-boy says before tendrils unwind from his arms and they reach out to attack me.

  The most important part is information.

  I phase as they pierce through me. Thankfully, their new recruit doesn’t have any ability to hurt something phased.

  Going immutable, I grab the bandages with a hand and rip forward, trying to pull him to me.

  As he flies through the air, I wind up my fist, slamming it into the super and crushing him to the ground.

  I let my power fade as I walk towards Vertiga, even while Andromeda begins to blur and split as clones form.

  “The three of you can’t beat me.” I warn. “I won’t let you.”

  “I really don’t care if I can’t beat you. That’s not my job.” She says, snapping her fingers.

  Not sure what that was supposed to be, but I can feel bandages flying at me.

  As I leap to the side, the next thing I know I’m in a different room.

  Not sure what happened, but one moment I was fighting in the main lab, jumped to the side, and now I’m in a room that feels full of various strings.

  I snap my awareness back out to natural distance, and I breathe a sigh of relief that I’m still in the lab, so I wasn’t teleported far. But I’m on the third floor now.

  “Fractal Miracle. I got teleported to somewhere else in the lab?” I say, opening my eyes to see if there’s something that can tell me.

  In one of the larger experiment rooms, the only thing of note is all the silver wire across the whole place in some kind of demented spider web.

  “Do you need me to come get you?” Amelia asks, but rage is already beginning to burble out of me.

  Thankfully, a target shows himself soon enough as through a shadow in the corner Bandage-boy stumbles out.

  “No, I’m going to get answers.” I growl.

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