“Here you go,” Ned offered a bottle of water to the odd blue woman in a black dress.

  He’d finally managed to convince her to at least relocate to a shaded bench underneath the leaves of a small tree. She’d stubbornly and viciously refused to let him help her walk the whole block over to it from the alleyway he’d found her in. Not to mention the fact that he’d already had to usher her back onto it when he returned from grabbing the water, having caught her limping down the sidewalk while some other concerned passersby pointed her out to him. She wasn’t in any shape to go anywhere but avoided answering pretty much any question about how she got into this situation. All he’d managed to weed out of her so far was that she’d gotten a procedure of some kind done across town (obviously no details on what that was) and lost her phone and wallet on the way back and had been forced to walk. He’d offered to call someone they knew to pick them up but was quickly rejected on that too.

  Ned was quickly becoming as frustrated trying to keep her from hurting herself due to her stubbornness as she was having him around.

  “...Thanks,” she took it with a frown. He was about to offer to help crack it open before she almost twisted the entire top of the cheap glass off with a single twist of her hand. Ned was sure he could hear the glass actually beginning to crack with that motion.

  If the woman noticed, she didn’t show it, downing the whole drink in one go like she’d just walked out of the desert rather than an alleyway. When the last of it was gone she seemed to relax slightly with a sigh.

  “I actually needed that. I shouldn’t be this dehydrated, unless I now need double-” she cut off her mutterings as she remembered he was there. “Anyways, like I said, you can go now. I’ll be just fine.”

  His mask’s eyes flickered to a confident and absolutely not smug expression (there was a 5 pixel difference that took a whole week to get right! They weren’t the same thing!) while his own rolled, safely obscured, “And like I said, given your condition, I don’t feel comfortable leaving you here. I’ve told you, I can get another hero or heroine here if you’d like them to look after you, but it looks real bad for me to leave the scene and you end up not making it home tonight, ma’am.”

  He’d hoped stressing the heroine might’ve been the thing to resolve this. Fair was fair, he knew that a pushy masked man wasn’t always what put women at ease, but for some reason she was reluctant to accept him bringing anyone else here, as evidenced by this being the fourth time now that he’d offered that. He had a minor suspicion of what that meant, but that unfortunately meant even more that his patrol was stuck here until she at least could get on a bus. Sadly, the next stop was at least 10 blocks from this particular street due to construction nearby and she wasn’t getting there anytime soon unless she let him help her out.

  There was also this nagging sense of familiarity when he looked at her. Ned didn’t have a true sixth sense, despite some online speculations about his reaction times, but the years of being a street level hero that was too nosy for his own good – along with a disproportionately sized rogue’s gallery because of it – told him that his natural paranoia should always be trusted. Maybe not acted on, especially since not everyone he wanted to punch in the face was actually Morph-O-Man in disguise, but definitely heard out, sat down for a quick chat when it was feeling talkative, and letting it ramble about what movies it had seen and who it thought was out to kill him lately.

  So when he met an injured woman with a clear reluctance to be around heroes who tripped that part of his brain that went haywire to tell him that he was in a room with someone who wanted him dead, he knew that up and leaving with a “Take care, citizen” was the dumb thing to do here.

  Okay to be fair, that same part of his brain buzzed whenever he saw a conventionally attractive brown-haired guy onscreen that he just knew was someone from a show or movie that he recognized, but couldn’t quite figure it out since they all looked alike these days. So, sure, there was only like a 60% chance she was someone who had pointed a death ray at him instead of just being related to, owing money to, or having worked for someone who actually had done that.

  But that also meant he kind of wanted to figure out why Blue Mystery here seemed so familiar at the very least. Not to mention that 40% chance that little Miss Backless-Dress-and-Stumbles-Through-Alleys wasn’t on the wrong side of the cape still left a lot of dangerous scenarios for her to be in. If that was the case, he’d be kicking himself over leaving her here defenseless.

  Still, he couldn’t just outright ask “Hey, have we met before?” Pretty sure there were some seminars and workplace training videos at Amberheart Tower on that. Not to mention that he had a feeling she wasn’t going to be forthcoming even if she didn’t think he was trying to get her number. He was also pretty sure going with “Hey are you in trouble with someone in a cape?” was probably about as useful as him trying to fight Frost Fiend with a corner store lighter, and bet that if she was this “friendly” with him from the start that there wasn’t much he could do to reassure her that he could either A: handle her problem or B: wasn’t her problem.

  So he had to be smart and figure out what he could. In the meantime, did he throw on his best Mr. Wonder impression that almost every hero tries out at one point or another when dealing with the spooked citizen, playing into the stereotypical hero bit, or did he go for the sarcastic but lovable scamp persona he’d cultivated since his teenage years? Eh, when in doubt go with what’s worked out.

  “So is there a reason I’m sitting here with an elf who clearly forgot to load up on healing spells before venturing forth?” he decided to quip.

  “I’m not-,” she reached up and touched her ears and a look of shock spread on her face. “What?! Wait, seriously?”

  He’d only seen the tips poking through her white hair himself but apparently this was news to her given how she pushed the hair back to feel out a pair of pointed ears. Alright, that’s a little something to file away. Also the feeling of familiarity was even stronger with that reaction of hers. Something about the shocked and indignant response there.

  “Yeah, too many doctors these days are sword and sorcery fans. I think Dr. Elemental1 is to blame for that, but honestly ninth edition Swordworld2 is really popular in general so it might just be a fad. Regardless, I hope you got your receipt itemized.”

  She gave the spider themed hero a blank look.

  “You mentioned your limp was due to a procedure,” he explained. “I’m assuming that you picked up your +1 to casting from that.”

  She muttered something that he could’ve sworn was “plus one to wizardry”. Oh man, what a nerd. She quickly spoke up, “Yeah it was a cosmetic thing. I, uh, let them throw in some personal touches to keep the price low.”

  Mystery lady quickly went quiet and offered no more information than that on her own. She looked like she was trying to figure a way to end the conversation permanently but was struggling to find something. Sure, Ned had been in situations where small talk was almost literally hell – and he could accurately make that comparison thanks to being dragged along to delve there thanks to a stint in the Victory Sentinels – but this didn’t have the same vibe. She seemed to regret almost anything she told him for some reason, like he’d hold it against her rather than just wanting to stop talking to him in general.

  As he watched her, it was clear that she was instinctively moving her hand around for a pocket or pouch, as though she could actually magically make her missing phone appear to fake a call or even just call for a ride to assure him he could leave.

  Ned shifted as he leaned against the nearby tree. He spent a moment and analyzed her movements. Something about them was off. It took a moment before something clicked: she didn’t seem to be shifting her shoulder as she made those subtle unconscious motions. She wasn’t used to wearing a purse or at least keeping her phone in one.

  This wasn’t the kind of thing you realized without a life on the job, but a small tell for heroines and villainesses who spent too long in the mask was they got used to life without a bag. A couple of his friends had pointed it out to him once and it was that kind of thing you occasionally noticed, like how some people’s feet would point forward when they were standing still while others would form a V. He thought back and verified to himself that she’d mentioned that she’d lost her phone and wallet, not bag. He stealthily took a quick once over her black dress. Nope, no pockets as far as he could tell. He doubted the odd brace on her back was where she left her phone either.

  This tell wasn’t a 100% reliable method of telling if someone moonlighted in a mask, after all she could just be used to having pockets, but everything was starting to add up to the distinct possibility that the unnamed woman in front of him probably punched about as many people as he regularly did. That 60% was starting to look a lot closer to an 80%.

  He narrowed his real eyes at her, letting his mask’s remain cheerful and oblivious. Without letting his suspicion creep into his voice, he decided to risk a few more questions.

  “Sorry for asking again, but what was the procedure for? I’m assuming it wasn’t just a touch up on the eyebrows if you’re willing to let your doc sign you up to help a couple of short guys drop jewelry into a volcano as part of the dealer’s choice package.”

  She didn’t answer. He was about to try another question only for her to speak up.

  “Look, could you just leave? I’m fine. I can manage on my own and I’m tired of you hanging around here, Ned,” she turned to glare directly at him, spitting the words through a scowl.

  Ouch, well clearly she wasn’t a fan of-

  Wait.

  Cautiously, he raised a hand up, letting his fingers block out the top of her head, leaving only a familiar, if less angular chin that was slightly off color.

  “What are you- shit,” she realized.

  “No way!”

  “Fuck you,” with a sigh Terrorantula turned away from him to angrily brood on her bench.

  “Language. Also, oh man, you finally managed to fix yourself!” he exclaimed. “Oh, wow, I’m so happy for you!”

  That was genuinely true. Terrorantula had been an ordinary lab assistant named Evelyn Everett at a college he’d been visiting during his senior year of high school when she’d had the misfortune of being caught in an accident that turned her into a half-spider monster with a lot of anger issues. As much as the two had battled in the years since, Ned had always hoped to help her as much as he tried to get her to stop stealing every spider-themed museum piece that made its way to Victory City.

  This wasn’t even the first time he’d ended up just chatting with her with neither of them attempting to punch each other. That was true with a few of his rogues, but with Terrorantula, she’d occasionally wave him down on patrol when she wasn’t skulking about on a mission. Sure, sometimes those were part of a trap but like nine times out of ten it was just to vent. He was fairly sure that she pretended to hate him more than she did. After all, who could hate a face like this?

  She grumbled and scrunched up on the bench, clearly somewhat embarrassed to be found out. He held back another laugh and lightly patted her on the shoulder, hopefully not hard enough to cause any of her apparent pain to flare up.

  “Still, ending up as a Delf? You trying to stay on theme with the spider thing even in your new body?” he joked, referencing the fictional Swordworld race that ran around in caves and turned into spider, bat, and mole people. Well they used to, apparently mole elves were too silly so it was just bats and spiders now.

  “Shut it, nerd,” she pushed his hand off her shoulder. “Also they’re called Dravah these days.”

  “In my heart they’re still delfs, regardless of what the new authors say,” he playfully affected a mournful tone. He quickly swapped to something more cheerful, “So I take it the new body is taking some getting used to? Need a lift?”

  “Yeah, just got it this morning. It hurts a little more than I expected it to.” Terror rolled her shoulders with a wince before turning to give him a side eye, “Trying to find out where your nemesis’s lair is?”

  “Eh, you’re more a repeat antagonist.”

  “HEY!”

  “Look, you want to say you’re a more dedicated hater than Sir Squid, the Cephalopod Socialite?” Ned’s eyes flickered to a doubtful gaze.

  Terrorantula’s outrage faded into contemplation and then acceptance, “Yeah, okay, fair. Gods, he had that whole thing about the two of you having 8 legs.” She shuddered, “You have no idea the amount of fights that started on the Eight.”

  Ned shrugged, “I mean, squids have eight arms and two tentacles and no legs, so honestly I think everyone would’ve been wrong in those arguments.”

  “That was my answer!” Terror let out an exasperated sigh. “Hey, is that dandy still hooked up with the alien parasite?”

  Ned grimaced behind the mask and wasn’t quick enough to flick a command to stop his mask from displaying a sorrowful expression. Sir Squid was one of many of his rogues that had taken their rivalry too far. While Terrorantula was the type that he could sit down and joke about dumb tabletop games with, Ned’s former friend who went all in on the aristocratic and sea creature theme had taken Ned’s foiling of his plots personally and legitimately had tried to kill him multiple times. From starting the Evil Eight to ending up exposing himself to a strange ink-like being from space that made him into a mini kaiju, Herbert Humboldt had slowly abandoned bits of himself until only the villain persona remained.3

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  “Yeah…” Ned trailed off, remembering the corrupted form of his friend slipping away down the sewers with hateful eyes locked onto him. “He’s still with that alien as far as I know.”

  He saw Evelyn’s face get conflicted for a second. She put on a cocky mask quickly.

  “Well, turns out that I’m pretty sure another downside of this body is that I probably doubled my meal cost, so I’m probably going to have to do a job pretty soon,” she gave him a predatory grin.

  He turned his face directly up, and put as much exasperation in his voice as he could manage, “Please tell me that means you’re planning on putting out a few applications and finding someplace where you can use your degree.”

  “Nope!”

  “Of course not. Hey, where did you sell the Web of Anari?” he remembered the necklace she’d nabbed a month or two ago. “I still need to get that back.”

  “Same place as usual,” she happily told him.

  The Fencer. Great. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Ned was pretty sure that despite the man’s reputation and seemingly endless funds, he bought almost every score off the villains not to sell at auction but to line his house both as a vanity project and to get a near endless set of fights out of heroes. Non-zero chance that the guilds actually funded this to make sure no valuable art pieces got lost and to let some newbies train against a legitimate threat. Still, now that he knew there was a cultural artifact one of his rogues had dropped off in the fight junkie’s house, he was going to have to swing by and do yet another painful dance with the man. What a pain.

  He looked over at the self satisfied look his repeat villain of the week was giving him and decided he’d tease back.

  “So what brought on finally getting yourself your fifth… or sixth pair of legs?” he let a knowing tone creep in.

  Immediately Terror’s face fell, an uneasy look replace the smug one she just had, “I mean, I’ve been trying to do this forever. You know that. It just finally came together, you know.”

  Ned admitted he felt a little guilty about pressing these buttons, but also she did just threaten to steal again. With almost a decade of this, he knew he couldn’t try to scare her straight, but sometimes as childish as it was, it was worth being able to get under the skin of the villains.

  “You sure that nothing else prompted this? Nothing at alllllllll?”

  A small squeak escaped the Delf, no he was not letting that one go, and she hid her face. As Ned retreated from his teasing he grinned. Oh, man, Menace, looks like things weren’t so bad. Next time I web you up, I gotta give you the good news.

  “Relax, I’ll let you have your secrets, T,” he let her off the hook. “That said, you know anything about the guy who killed Maniacal?”

  She visibly untensed, “I’d say you guys will probably know more than me soon. I happened to hear that you guys are bringing in an expert to look over the body.”

  She leaned back and had a wicked grin on her face, “You guys will get a headstart but word in my circles is that the League will probably post a bounty the moment an ID goes up. Best of luck.”

  So, Azure really did call in help. Ned had managed to shake loose some info last night that a new name in town was hiding around and figured with what Azure was dealing with that the man would want results quick. Ned’s hands slipped behind his back and his fingers danced on his vambrace, activating a little “tip line” he’d managed to hide away years ago.

  “Hey, Terror,” he let the seriousness harden his voice, “I’ve got my own warning about this.”

  All playfulness disappeared from her as well. The two didn’t pull their punches when it came time to actually duking it out, but even then there was something of a performance on both of their ends. It created an unspoken rule that when either of them dropped the act they knew when to listen.

  He chewed on this. It was one thing to let a villain off with a warning, even brush off them joking about an upcoming crime, but it was technically against a whole bunch of rules, spoken and unspoken, with the various hero guilds to actually tell the actual villains sensitive information. Sure, Azure had never said it was such at the meeting but he doubted that the New Aurora Champion wanted the information to be public just yet. And yeah, Ned had let it slip as a possibility that the mystery killer might have made off with Maniacal’s goodiebag of power last night to a few of the numbskulls he roughed up to see if he couldn’t spook them, but he hadn’t actually confirmed to anyone it was the hero guild’s current working theory. D-listers were often as paranoid as he was and their stories might be brushed off without anyone else backing them up. Letting someone like Terrorantula know outright, that could easily get some of the more dangerous types a little excited at the prospect of gunning for the prize themselves. There were a few kinda large threats loose in Victory City that were looking to make it to the actual big leagues and they might see this as their shot.

  Still, this could save lives if T spread the news selectively. Fact was, if the heroes were correct, and if the killer actually got an entire city’s worth of power and stabilized it into themselves, almost all the villains that had slunk off to lick their bruises from yesterday would probably be killed if they went after the culprit expecting an easy win and a hefty League paycheck. And from Ned’s experience, a lot of those guys who cut and run would be the type to back off the prize if they thought that would be the case.

  “It’s currently our best guess that Maniacal was killed to seize the power he was gathering up,” he decided that it was worth telling her. “We think that the killer used a spell to kill him and siphon off the energy for themselves. This bounty might not be worth it even if the culprit looks like a small fry.”

  Terror retreated into thought, her fingers weaving between each other in silence. Some of his other rogues might keep that to themselves and let some of her competition find out just how dangerous this mystery killer might end up being. But while she was cutthroat in some ways, she was one of the many rogues that he trusted to help keep the others in line. He hoped-

  “That sounds dangerous,” she concluded. “I’ll let a few friends spread the word. We don’t need Laser Badger pissing off a new wannabe god impersonator because the furry dipshit wants to take a vacation overseas and thinks this is an easy mark. But depending on how things play out, don’t expect us to just sit on our hands because we’re waiting for you lot to save us.”

  He smiled, letting the eyes flip to happy as well. She rolled her eyes in response to that, which was way easier to read with her new face. Gotta say, even with the kind of evil red glow, they weren’t quite as scary as the pure darkness that her previous ones were.

  “Aw, there’s the desire to save the world! I’ll make a hero out of you all yet!” he joked.

  She gave a playful retch and smacked him on the shoulder.

  “Get out of here, Ned, you’re ruining my day with all the sunshine coming out of your ass,” she grinned. Holding up a hand before he could object, she reassured him, “I’ve actually got my phone, it’s just... a little weird right now. I can get home just fine.”

  “Fine, fine,” he held up his hands as the legs on his back unfurled, beginning to carry him away. “Stay safe, and please try to use your new body for good this time. Besides, I don’t think there’s as many elf artifacts to steal in this town anyways. You’ll need to wait until there’s a convention in town for that.”

  He leapt away as she flipped him off. Once out of sight he pulled up the feed from the “tip line”.

  “Okay, Azure, let’s see what you found out…”

  ---------------------------------

  Peeling herself off the bench, Lyn glared at a few people who came by to fawn over her after Ned left. While she wasn’t nearly as intimidating as a towering spider monster, this apparently got people to mind their own damn business. Wish that worked on Ned, but whatever. At least he’d helped her not run headfirst into some juiced up Endbringer sequel unaware.

  That said, despite her bravado, she definitely couldn’t make it home like this. Bare minimum, she’d need her phone to figure out where the hell she needed to go from here. She vaguely recognized the area, but with everything that had happened, the directions back to the hidden teleporter weren’t coming to her.

  Hobbling over to an alleyway, she bit her lip, interested to see if this worked but also a little nervous. Scarlet had warned her that this wasn’t going to be pleasant and given how many aches she was already dealing with with just their “this will hurt”, she had a feeling their warnings might undersell the pain involved.

  Still, she needed a GPS, and possibly a ride if she didn’t want to camp out in this alleyway. Ugh, she should’ve just tried to see if Scarlet could let her stay the night, or just pretend she couldn’t move. Then she wouldn’t have had to run into Ned.

  Fine... in terms of heroes finding out, Ned wasn’t the absolute worst. He was annoying and too uptight to ever turn the other way even if she really needed to make a score, but he didn’t take her trying to do her job as a personal insult like some other heroes. Plus the dork was more than willing to let those like her who knew to behave between jobs keep walking free as long as he thought he could web them up next time rather than immediately start chases if he saw you in public.

  Still, it sometimes felt like he thought his rogues were beneath him, like he considered her harmless. All the more reason to put a team together and crush that bounty when it got posted. She didn’t promise she’d stay away after all. Hell, warning some of the others might also scare off some competition too.

  Anyways, first things first, time to try shifting back to Terrorantula. She closed her eyes and began to “feel” around her.

  Instantly a familiar presence was there, and, yeah, it did feel like it was “outside” her body. Like a part of her was floating just out of reach and oddly disconnected from “her”. Lyn tried to reach towards it mentally and felt an instant connection to it. She gave it a testing “tug” with her mind and instantly it was like a dam broke and a whole lot of something flowed towards her all at once.

  She didn’t have time to process the burning feeling before it was over and barely kept down the scream as it quickly faded. Opening her eyes, she saw her hands slowly fading from a glow with small trails of vapor wisping around them. Well, rather than hands she should say “talons”.

  A quick look down confirmed that it was her other body (or original, she guessed), complete with everything she’d been wearing at the time. Her vision felt different as well, incomplete with the small eyes hidden behind her mask.

  She felt… fine? Yeah, there wasn’t any lingering aches outside of the feeling that she’d been flash fried for an infinitesimally small time. Well, actually she was starving. Oh gods, it seemed like she might need to eat enough for two bodies now. How did that work? Did she have to take the time to eat in both forms or…? Huh, she didn’t feel parched so maybe the water she’d drunk earlier was shared? Hopefully she could just eat more often rather than having to set reminders on her phone to have a second breakfast every day.

  Reminded of it, she fished out her phone from a pouch at her waist and looked at some of the messages, preparing to write some quick ones out to warn some of the more palatable “coworkers” not to get their teeth kicked in, only to pause and see a message from Celeste.

  “Made a sale. Going to Red Rum Pub. Hunt my killer if I die. Name is Steelstar? Also hope you’re not dead either and you fixed yourself.”

  Of fucking course she ran off to go sell weapons to supervillains without waiting for her muscle. Patience was not that mad scientist’s virtue, so of course the day that Lyn wasn’t there, her roommate ran off to go meet someone and potentially get kidnapped again. Lyn began to pull up a map and saw she wasn’t too far from either home or the Pub. Might as well make her way-

  As she tried to scurry up the wall, she got maybe ten feet up before the hunger pangs hit like a truck (she had a point of comparison. Like she said, Ned wasn’t the worst hero out there). She almost lost her footing and plummeted into the ground before catching herself.

  This complicated things. If she was starved across two bodies, and one of them already being a giant spider tacked onto half a human, the Red Rum Pub was going to be… pricey. With the last job turning out to be a wash due to Maniacal, rushing over there would mean she’d show up barely able to stand, have to down a whole plate or two, basically wipe out the last of what she’d made off fencing the Web of Anari, and all the while hope that Celeste’s client would politely wait for her to finish up so that she could keep her friend safe.

  Don’t mind me, I’m just crashing your meeting, devouring a fuckton of food, and don’t really want you to start doing business until I’ve got that partly digested on the chance you’re here to kidnap my friend to turn her into your personal weapon factory or worse.

  Gritting her teeth as she pulled herself to the rooftop, she decided to ring the mad scientist.

  Four complete rings played, each of which dug into Lyn’s heart as the worst case scenario beginning to run through her head, before Celeste picked up.

  “Hey! You alive?” the chipper voice of her little idiot friend asked.

  Lyn sighed, “Of course I’m alive, just starving and-”

  Dull as opposed to overpowering and ever present like they’d been when she’d been “wearing” that form. Apparently bruises were something she could keep isolated over there. Probably best not to do that with any wounds though. She wasn’t sure if her other body could bleed out in wherever it was currently located in. Remembering more of Scarlet’s words, she also wasn’t sure that those aches would heal if she left it like that. Probably best to try and “wear” her new body while it healed. Hopefully she kept her healing factor in that form. Assuming that was true, she would definitely need to chow down.4

  “-And a little achy,” she finished up. “I don’t think I can make it over to the Pub right away but I’ll-”

  “It’s fine!” Celeste interrupted her. “Look, for real, just get some rest and finish off the pizza. I’ve got this.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, I think I like the other place’s crust more.”

  “No, I mean about you having this. You know what to do at the Pub right?” Lyn sighed, feeling a headache coming on.

  “Sure, yeah, I’ve done deals before. It’ll be fine! You told me this place was a good safe spot for these kind of things.” the scientist protested, not reassuringly at all.

  Okay, fine, Lyn had told her about using the haunted pub for hand offs before, and there were systems to keep people honest there. Well, as far as deals were concerned. It was still a haunted pub full of malevolent spirits frequented by supervillains. Still, she wondered about shooting off a text to one of the living waitresses she knew who worked there to keep an eye out.

  “Look, T,” Celeste got serious. “This is a really big sale and I don’t want to ruin this one. Look, my lead for you was solid, so please let me do this one, okay?”

  Lyn grimaced. The last few months hadn’t been great. Celeste’s clients hadn’t been coming in lately. Lots of them had either moved on to bigger labs, had gotten captured on some job gone wrong, or just up and quit for a quieter life. They’d only had two contracts recently, one with Isolated Isotope Inc when there was some project that they’d outsourced to a bunch of independent scientists. The other meanwhile had fallen through, backing out citing lack of trust since Celeste hadn’t shown up in person during the trade and being a little too jumpy about having a villain like Terrorantula show up instead. Celeste had been stewing on that one for the past month.

  Considering that her heists had basically been keeping them afloat for almost the last half year, Lyn realized that getting roped into Maniacal’s plot had probably been just as big a blow to Celeste as herself.

  “Okay,” she relented. “Just follow the rules there and everything should be fine. You’ve got this.”

  “Yeah I do!” Celeste chimed back before hanging up, her voice confident but with a small waiver to it that let Lyn know that she’d needed the show of trust.

  She’d still text Banshee Bandida to keep an eye out, but she’d try to unwind at the lab. I’m not her mother, and she’ll be fine, she reassured herself.

  In the meantime, Lyn started shooting off some messages to keep some other idiots from getting themselves killed as she made her way back to the hidden teleporter while thinking about which of them she could use to take out whoever had killed Maniacal. Maybe with her new body, she’d be able to surprise whoever they were before they got a chance to unleash the power they’d stolen from the fight.

  Hell, she figured she owed them a solid beating anyways given that they seemed to be the only one that made off with any prize from that fight.

  Whoever it was, she was going to make them regret that.

  1. Dr. Elemental, whose public identity is Ryan Rockroot, was formerly a discredited nutritionist who found a magic scroll which allowed him to transform into a proficient wizard. He became popular for his decision to use his abilities to aid his studies over immediately beginning a superhero career, obtaining several medical degrees and doctorates in an effort to redeem his public image. While a part time member of the Protectors of the Globe, he spends the majority of his time in costume on the Nations Union’s public health committee.

  2. Swordworld is a multimedia franchise based on classic fantasy and mythological elements, including movie series, tabletop roleplaying games, a controversial television show, several novels, and a videogame series. While it’s enjoyed some mainstream success, it tends to be seen as geek culture due to its fantasy setting, especially with real magic and Fey becoming more and more present in daily life. However, ironically, while it is considered more niche media in mortal society, it is incredibly beloved by several Fey populations in the western world, and it’s been suspected that its underground success for much of its career was boosted by one Court or another introducing it in various parts of the world thanks to their strange connection to one another across vast distances.

  3. Herbert Humboldt was once the heir to a laboratory supply empire who had attempted to leverage some of his company’s latest advances in biotech to become Sir Squid, the Cephalopod Socialite, with court ordered psychiatrists suspecting that it was meant to be an outlet for his violent tendencies. Refusing to work with the local heroes, and after hospitalizing a minor villain, he eventually clashed with and was defeated by ArachNed, going on to lose his company in the process. His last sighting was during an alien invasion of the Amera Union by The Stain as one of the many villains who chose to voluntarily merge with a Stain parasite and refuse treatment. His whereabouts are unknown and has been considered a City level threat all on his own.

  4. Common to most self healing abilities is an increased metabolism, especially when the body is actively healing. This, along with a recent boom in speedster heroes, has actually led to some brands of food that are especially rich in various nutrients and calories being regularly available around the world. These foods tend to come with a warning as a few bites is usually enough to cause digestive discomfort to those without hyperactive metabolisms.