Scions of Shadow #006: Bad Kids

Chapter 1: School Night Superhero

Fifteen year-old super heroine Moonless (real name Luna Hellsing) would rather not have been stalking villains at 9 PM on a school night. There was a real chance she could pass math this year, and finals were just over a month away. At least this time it wasn’t a particularly dangerous mission. Stupid, sure, but not dangerous.

For two weeks now, someone had been spray painting vulgar images on abandoned buildings in Factory Row in Old Tranquility City. Normally, that wouldn’t have been the sort of thing you called the Justice Union about. This time, though, security cameras had captured a trio of teens (or possibly even tweens) using what appeared to be some sort of telekinesis to move the cans of spray paint around.

And one thing the Justice Union cared about deeply was making sure anyone with superpowers had the sort of proper guidance that would have prevented the behavior that got these kids labeled “The Penis Painters” on social media. Vandalism sometimes escalated into true villainy.

That same drive was the reason why Luna’s deeply stupid junior team existed. Luna herself was not only the child of two very active Justice Union members, she’d been actively doing the cape thing with them since she was in diapers. The team’s powerhouse, a black-furred minotaur from another world named Rorn, had reacted to being summoned to this world to cause havoc by turning on the summoner immediately and trying to stop the other monsters. He had a bit of a short temper, and sometimes got a bit competitive during training, but it was hard to argue he wasn’t a hero at heart. Luna actually would have liked to spend more time with the big guy.

It was the other half of the team Luna and Rorn were supposed to be encouraging to be better people. Luna still couldn’t believe her parents were making her work with them at all.

“Stay away from the edge, their lookout is smart enough to keep looking up,” Pandora ordered.

“I literally just said that,” Luna struggled to keep her voice a whisper.

“Yes, but you’re usually wrong about everything, Moonless. So you’ll forgive me for reiterating the rare smart thing you say.”

Luna ground her teeth. Pandora was nominally the leader of the Scions of Shadow, but the Justice Union wasn’t a military organization. Blind obedience and strict hierarchies were anathema to the whole vigilante thing. That didn’t stop Pandora from acting like she had far more authority that she did though.

It probably didn’t help that the only thing stopping her from being a literal princess was that the law of the rogue African state her father had ruled explicitly barred illegitimate children from claiming that title. Not that it stopped her father from dubbing her “Princess Aetherium” when he’d given her the shiny metal armor she was now wearing—a title she kept using after betraying her father and preventing him from helping an alien warlord conquer earth. The armor was full of alien tech, most significantly the tractor and repulsor beams built into the armor’s gauntlet’s and greaves. In addition to being made of shiny aetherium, the armor had several power lines that ran along it, glowing bright pink in the city night. Pandora was staying well back from the rooftop’s edge, as there was no way anyone looking in their direction was going to miss her.

Luna had first met Pandora when the Justice Union had raided the flagship of the alien warlord her father had been aiding. Their fight had been brief, and Pandora had won it by tossing Luna off the ship; meaning she’d spent the dramatic climax of that alien invasion catching a cold from treading water in the Atlantic for the better part of a day. Luna had no idea why her parents thought that this would be a good basis for the two of them being friends, now that Pandora was (theoretically) on the side of good. But they’d been pushing that since before Rorn had even come to earth.

“We should all try to keep our voices down,” Dakota sounded deeply unsure of herself. “The buildings around here are a little echo-y.” She was the last and youngest member of the Scions of Shadows. Her criminal record was nothing like Pandora’s. They’d let her off with a warning for the shoplifting after she’d returned the various lock picks that she’d stolen. And, of course, Luna had elected not to press charges for all the stalking and invasions of privacy. Still, she’d demonstrated enough skill at breaking into specifically the Justice Union headquarters that her parents had convinced enough of the Justice Union to vote her in. Dakota Lyon wasn’t much of a criminal, but she was the sort of criminal that could—in theory—be helpful to the union if her obsessions were channeled in the right direction.

Dakota Lyon, or Fletching as Artemis had dubbed her, didn’t have any powers. She wasn’t even in particularly good shape. In order to help her not be a complete drain on the team, Artemis had gifted Dakota with some of the older cape’s trick arrows, which had occasionally proved useful in the month and a half or so the Scions of Shadows had existed. Luna hadn’t known that Dakota hunted and killed animals for fun when she’d decided not to press charges for the stalking.

Her Fletching costume—unlike Rorn’s black fur or the habitually black and near-black clothing Luna wore—wasn’t exactly suited for stealth. It featured a bright green tunic, and matching long pointy hat, as well as fake elf ears that didn’t quite match Dakota’s skin tone. She wore blue sports goggles for her corrective lenses that didn’t fit with the aesthetic at all. She also didn’t wear any makeup. She was nervously wringing her bow—one of those small, compound numbers with wheels on it. At least she’d stopped pestering Luna with questions about other stake outs she’d been on.

“I still don’t understand why we’re sneaking up on these people if all we want to do is talk to them,” Rorn grumbled.

“Assume for a moment, Son-of-Rore, that you were desecrating the properties of the sort of humans who owned many buildings. How close would you let their agents of the peace get to you?” Pandora managed to be much quieter than the large minotaur.

“Wait, are we doing paid guard work?” Rorn asked.

“I wish,” Luna whispered back. “Capes don’t charge money. We just help people and fight for justice because it’s the right thing to do.”

“Oh. Okay.” The minotaur sounded a little disappointed.

“Focus, team. Tell me what we’re up against.”

“There’s three of them,” Luna reported, glancing back over the edge of the building they were on. “The telekinetic one is a small girl, I’m guessing twelve or something. She’s got a really baggy hoodie on, so could be hiding a weapon. I’m not sure how strong her telekinesis is, she seems to be struggling a bit with the paint cans. By her side is a boy closer to my age with a purple mohawk.”

“I don’t think it’s a mohawk unless they gel it up,” Dakota added unhelpfully.

“With whatever you call a haircut where you shave the sides of the head and leave a short, bright purple floppy bit on top.” Luna made an effort to lower her voice before continuing. “He’s holding the telekinetic’s hand stable as she uses it to direct the cans. He’s got a skateboard under one arm, and carries himself like he’s been in a few fights.”

“How can you tell?” Dakota interrupted.

“Ask me again if you still can’t tell after ten years of doing this.” That shut Dakota up. “The look out is bigger—not Rorn-big, but he’s got to be the oldest. There’s definitely something up with him. He’s wearing a big rain coat, and it’s hiding his face in shadows.”

“I wouldn’t consider shadows obscuring his face on night like this unusual, Moonless.”

“Yeah, well you aren’t a failed avatar of Grandmother Night.” Luna pointed at her eyes. It was possible to get violet eyes like hers with colored contacts, but it wasn’t something normal humans were just born with.

“Wait, more than one of them has super powers?” Dakota sounded so afraid for a girl who had fought so hard to get into the Justice Union.

“I think it might just be a spell. I don’t know, it has that kinda feel to me.” Between the circumstances of her birth and the amount of magic her adoptive parents tended to use, Luna was pretty good at intuiting shadow magic. Although magic being magic, it wasn’t an exact science.

“How many exits, Moonless?”

“Assuming they can’t go into the building itself, both ends of the alley are open, and there’s an entrance to this parking garage. It’s much closer to that end of the structure.” Luna waved a hand.

“Alright, Scions of Shadows, this is the plan. Moonless, you will use your shadow teleportation to get yourself and Fletching down over there.” Pandora gestured in the opposite direction. “That way you aren’t blocking their obvious escape route. That should leave them motivated enough to talk. Son-of-Rore and I will move into a position to be ready to dramatically drop down in their way if they do immediately run.”

“We do just want to talk to them, right?” Rorn son of Rore still seemed confused.

“Which we can’t if they run away, Son-of-Rore. Being big and scary is approximately the only thing you’re any good at, so use it.”

The minotaur let out a very low growling noise. “You don’t want me to actually stop them?”

“No,” Luna interjected. “The last thing we want to do is hurt them.”

Despite what Luna was expecting, Pandora just nodded. She did tend to be slightly less of a bitch when they were on a mission.

“Wait. Am I supposed to be the one talking to them?” Dakota sounded deeply concerned.

“You are the one with the most experience with thieves, Fletching.” Pandora gave one of her cruel smiles.

Dakota winced. “I thought my parents were art sellers,” she mumbled. Her parents were currently in the Spike for an impressive collection of thefts.

“You’ll do fine.” Luna shot Pandora a quick glare. “This won’t be as hard as talking down that changeling.”

“Really?” Dakota seemed reassured by Luna’s smile.

“Okay, Scions of Shadow. Move out.”

Tranquility City was a large enough city that it never got truly dark. There weren’t any street lights in the small ally between the abandoned factory and the parking structure the junior cape team was hiding on. The few lights inside the structure were in the process of dying. Even the members of the team who weren’t born of literal darkness weren’t carrying flashlights. Still, it was more than dark enough for Luna to slip Shadowside. She and Daktoa took a deep breath, clasped hands, and slid sideways into Grandmother Night’s realm.

Shadowside was a close parallel world. Inside, to Luna, it looked like series of great deep violet and red clouds drifting through one another without properly occluding as they would in the regular world. To her, it was easy to spot the places where the lights were stronger, on the far side of both the abandoned factory and the parking structure where pools around the still functioning lights burned bright enough to bar her passage back sunside. She pulled Dakota downward, drifting through the gravity-less nothing of this place.

There was air here, but it wasn’t safe to breathe, giving a tight limit to how far they could travel here. The three stories from where they were in parking garage to the street was pushing it. By the time the reached the plane where the limited ambient light was swallowed by the solid earth below, Dakota was clinging quite tightly.

The moment Luna slid them back sunside, they both took several deep breaths. Dakota’s came out louder and more gasping, but the three kids didn’t seem to hear it over the hissing of the spray paints. The delinquents were in the same position, the blue haired boy helping hold the short, long-haired girl’s hand steady, and the heavyset one in the raincoat beyond them. The last was actually looking right at where they’d been lurking in the parking structure.

Luna gestured for Dakota to go first, but the girl glanced between the cape and the delinquents, and nodded for her to take lead. The dark-clad girl sighed and did her best not to roll her eyes. Why were they even bringing Dakota on these things?

She walked towards them, deliberately clomping a bit with her big stompy boots. Giving her best friendly smile, she announced their presence with a, “Hi there. Making some art?”

The boy with the purple not-technically-a-mohawk shoved the long-haired girl in the big hoodie behind him. “Capes! Scatter!”

“Wait,” Luna began, but they were moving. The long-haired girl and the bulky kid in the raincoat fled away from them. The boy with skateboard charged her.

He came in, swinging the skateboard with both hands. Luna dodged back from the blow, and then further back from it’s follow up.

The can of spray paint clattered to the ground behind him.

“We just want to talk,” Dakota stepped forward, hands up. She must have dropped her bow somewhere.

“Sure you do,” the boy shot back, turning his attention to the green-clad girl. Faced with violence, Dakota froze, eyes wide.

“Shit.” Mohawk was already too far for Luna to grab, so she manifested a tendril of shadow. Using the umbral appendage ran from her hand to his back, she pulled the boy towards her.

He spun, and Luna realized she was over committed. As strong as her shadow tendrils were at pulling, they couldn’t block a blow.

The scream that she heard as the board collided with her face wasn’t her own. Something had also happened to Rorn.

Chapter 2: Mission Failed

Luna Hellsing came back to herself flat on the cold, hard asphalt. She couldn’t have been out for more than a second or two. Rorn was still screaming, and she could hear the chittering wheels of a skateboard rolling away. Her left eye wasn’t opening.

There should have pain, but for now, her adrenaline was holding it off.

Grinding her teeth, Luna rolled to her feet.

It wasn’t immediately clear where Dakota had gone. Purple-mohawk was speeding away away on his skateboard, furiously pushing in attempt to gain speed.

That was probably wise. He’d just attacked a goddess of the night.

She extended a long shadow tendril to the side of the nearby building, and pulled.

She twisted as she flung herself, leaping off the side of the building, and giving herself another burst of speed by swinging a pair of tendrils into the ground and pulling towards him.

Mohawk glanced over his shoulder, up at her. He wasn’t fast enough.

Her feet bounced as she hit the ground, and she lunged. Shadow tendrils snaked out, seizing onto the kid’s skateboard.

He shot a smirk back as he flew off the board. The bastard tipped an imaginary hat, before folding in on himself.

His form slid through the darkness, through a closed—but transparent—window.

That was a spell Luna had seen before. It looked like mohawk—not raincoat—was the shadow mage.

Whatever. The shadow-slide spell was a dim imitation of her own power to slide into and out of shadowside. She didn’t even need to stand up to do it.

She followed him through where the wall was, sliding back sunside in the pitch black of the abandoned factory interior.

It was quiet in the old factory. The space was an open floor with only a few pieces of machinery not stripped out of this place when it had shut down. There were few places to hide, and as loud as her own first footstep had echoed, definitely no one running inside.

So where in Endless Night had the prick who’d hit her gone?

Jumping, she was able to extend a shadow tendril all the way up to the ceiling, pulling herself above the floor. She swung over the few scattered bits of machinery, but saw nothing.

It was a big room, but it was mostly empty. There weren’t even any walls around that he could have slid through. It would take worlds more magic than he’d shown so far to just outright disappear.

Luna wasted a few more minutes looking at the only features in the nearly empty room. There was nothing. Somehow, the slippery bastard had gotten away.

Her face was throbbing now. Her left eye still wasn’t opening. Tentative prodding had revealed that there was a lot of swelling. It was going to be a nasty back eye.

Frustrated, tired, hurt, and trying very hard not to think about the homework she still hadn’t started yet, Luna was forced to admit defeat. She had no idea how, but he had gotten away.

A quick trip through shadowside brought her back outside.

Down the street, Rorn still lay on the asphalt, one hand propping himself up, the other holding his face in pain. Dakota was with him, dithering. There was no sign of either of the other vandals or Pandora.

Luna glanced down at her feet. There was the younger girl’s bow, right where she had dropped it. With a sigh, Luna picked it up, and brought it over to her team mates.

“She cast some sort of acid spell,” Rorn reported. From the smell, Luna was guessing mundane pepper spray. Rorn assumed everything he didn’t understand was magic. “She knew my weakness.”

“You have a weakness?” Luna asked. They’d trained regularly for the better part of two months and he’d never mentioned it.

“The goddess’s blessings don’t cover my eyes. Mine are no tougher than yours.”

Luna tried to way an eyebrow, but was forced to stop by the pain of her black eye. “Eyes are weak points on most animals.” Rorn just snorted.

“He still can’t see.” Dakota sounded like she was holding back tears.

“Still? That’s not normal.”

“What part of taking an acid spell to the eyes is normal?” Rorn bellowed.

“It’s just pepper spray.”

Further conversation was derailed by the sudden arrival of Pandora. She dropped directly between Luna and her teammates, landing lightly. She must have used a repulsor beam to slow her fall, but Luna had missed the subtle light of the beam.

“This would have gone much better if more of these places had functional cameras.”

“They get away too?” Luna asked.

“No, Hellsing. I just came back empty handed for the fun of it.”

Luna rolled her un-bruised eye. “It’s late. Let’s head home.”

…

During the nearly hour-long train ride out of Tranquility City, Luna managed to finish her reading for English. That was the most important assignment; she needed to keep that B if she was going to avoid being held back outright. It also was the best distraction from the pain radiating from her face.

Rorn spent the trip grumbling, rubbing his still stinging eyes. After washing his eyes out, they were red and stinging, but he’d regained most of his vision. It still seemed worse than other times she’d seen people hit with pepper spray. Maybe his eyes were his weak spots after all. It was a shame Omnimind’s healing tubes couldn’t help with eyes. Her own black eye was throbbing, and was just as out of luck.

Pandora was occasionally chuckling at her ebook at the far side of the train car. Luna was sure she was being deliberately loud just to annoy her. She’d folded her armor back into the crown in her massive designer purse, and could have been any other rich, black girl on her way home if you ignored her golden eyes. At least she was far away.

Luna wished the same could be said for Dakota.

The younger girl had managed to get dirt on her green costume somehow. Luna had rolled around on the asphalt in the fight and looked less disheveled. Dakota had also insisted on sitting in the very next seat, and would not stop apologizing.

“What are you even sorry about?” Luna asked after the eighth or ninth time.

“You got hit because you were protecting me. I’m such a poor excuse for a super hero.”

She was, but Luna wasn’t going to kick her when she was down. “That’s not how I remember it. Besides. You don’t do cape stuff without expecting to get injured sometime. This is nothing compared to what Rorn did to you when we fought that psychic.”

“That was an accident! You got hurt because of me.”

Luna couldn’t help but chuckle. What did this girl think joining a super hero team would be like?

“It’s not funny. You got really hurt.”

“It looks worse than it feels.” Probably. “Black eyes aren’t serious. This isn’t the first time I’ve taken a skateboard to the face, you know.”

Dakota was quiet after that, but only for few minutes. Than she started apologizing again.

Part of Luna thought about telling Dakota that if it bothered her that much she could always quit being a cape. Unfortunately, that was too mean. The younger girl really didn’t have much going on in her life besides the cape stuff. It was one of the few things they had in common.

It was almost a shame Pandora wasn’t part of the conversation. She wouldn’t have hesitated to kick Dakota when she was down.

Transaconic University was the second to last station on the Ensberg Line out of Tranquility City. Dakota and Rorn stayed on for that last stop, but Luna and Pandora got off here. This was the station closest to Pandora’s boarding school, and therefore where her car was. She was Luna’s ride home from the train station.

Pandora’s car had been a gift from her rich, super villain father, from back before she betrayed him. It was a truly obnoxious purple sports car with flame decals, and lines of LEDs that called back to her Princess Aetherium armor. It only had two seats, and didn’t so much have seat belts as crash harnesses. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable car, but it was fast, and Pandora was obnoxiously competent at getting all she could out of the thing. Which was a good thing, the less time she had to spend with her older team-mate, the better.

“You know what your problem is, Hellsing?” So much for a quiet ride.

“I’m stuck here with you.”

Pandora let out a cruel chuckle. “Oh, if only there was some plot we could be part of to break up the Scions of Shadows. Wouldn’t be wild, Hellsing?”

Luna gave the other girl a glare that Pandora didn’t see because here eyes were on the road. “Gee. Is there something I should be doing differently?”

“You need to stop thinking like a cape, Hellsing.” Pandora risked a quick glance across the car. “You were trying way too hard tonight.”

“Of course I… was…” Luna trailed off. Pieces started clicking into place. “You let pigtails escape.”

“Exactly, Hellsing. We agreed to deliberately fail every mission we could without putting people at risk. And the only one in any danger tonight was you, because you just can’t turn it off.”

Luna glared across the car at her drive for several moments. There weren’t even any real villains out tonight. Just some idiot kids being idiots. “Grandmother Night,” she swore. “We need, like, a code or something you can use to remind me to slack off.”

“Hmm,” Pandora looked oddly thoughtful. “That’s uncharacteristically smart of you, Hellsing.”

“Thanks?”

“I’ve got it. If I call you ugly, Hellsing, that will be your cue to chill the hell out.”

The swelling meant Luna couldn’t give Pandora a proper side eye. “You call me ugly all the time.”

“No, Hellsing, I call you stupid. And self-righteous. And annoying. Because you are frustratingly air-brained hypocrite. But unlike the cow or the fat kid, you at least manage to look good doing it.”

“Sure. You’re a model of kindness.”

“It pisses me off, sometimes.” Pandora didn’t seem like she was listening, which, to be fair, was pretty normal for her. “Every time I try to complain about you to my friends, they start harassing me to get make-up tips from you, Hellsing. I mean, dammit girl, you got hit in the face, rolled around on the street, and your mascara is still in better shape than mine. There’s no way in hell your broke ass can afford the top shelf stuff I use, so how do you manage to pull that off?”

There was something off about Pandora. She was angry, as usual, but… she wasn’t radiating open hostility. For the first time ever, when talking to her, she wasn’t pronouncing “Hellsing” like it was meant to be an insult. “Y’know, I wasn’t going to say anything, but if you’re going to be spending hours walking around grungy city air, you really need to find a brand who’s top priority is stability. I could send you some shopping links.” A smile crept onto her lips. “I bet it save you a lot compared to the overpriced shit you buy.”

After a moment, a small smile crept into Pandora’s face. One devoid of the usual sadistic glee that usually characterized Pandora’s smiles, at least the ones Luna had seen in person. “I would appreciate that, Hellsing.”

Luna sat back, as much as she could, in the sport scar seat. “Darkness. I don’t think my parents will let me hear the end of it if we actually start getting along.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Hellsing. I’ve already bought the ‘this is your fault, dumb-ass’ card for when you fail math. I know how much time you’ve been wasting on that lately. Imagine an idiot like you passing math.” The old, sadistic smile was back on Pandora’s face.

Luna ground her teeth so hard her black eye started throbbing. “I hate you so much.”

Pandora took her eyes of the road just long enough to sing, “Samesies, bitch.”

Chapter 3: Mental Health Day

Dakota Lyon didn’t feel any more like a super hero when she woke up the next morning. She’d had nightmares about Moonless getting hurt because of her.

Becoming a super hero, a real proper hero with an actual Justice Union id badge and everything, had risks. Obviously, Daktoa knew that. Artemis II (the mother of the Artemis who had given her trick arrows and named her Fletching) had been killed by Dr Ragnarok before the cape had turned 40, after all. But she’d never considered her being there would get Moonless hurt.

Rorn was also hurt; but Dakota felt a bit less guilty about that. She should have been better at talking down the short girl. If the two were talking, the tiny redhead wouldn’t have felt the need to mace the minotaur. But he was really, really big, and even when he wasn’t trying to be, he could be really, really scary. Dakota kept telling herself that was why that had happened. And besides. Rorn was super-mega-ultra tough. Yes, his eyes were still red, and his vision still a little blurry in the morning, despite washing his eyes out a bunch. But he was getting better, and eventually he’d get all better. The normal medical tubes might not work on eyes, but surly Omnimind could figure out something. She’d built machines that would repair torn muscles and broken bones overnight. Eyes couldn’t be that much harder.

No, the real thing that was eating away at Dakota was the fact that she gotten Luna hurt. Moonless was the best, bravest, prettiest super hero ever. There’s no way she would have gotten hurt if she wasn’t defending Dakota. She’d even gotten see the real cape in action a few times now, and there was no way some punk kid could have gotten a hit in if she hadn’t been distracted.

“You doing okay, Bug?” her brother asked her at the breakfast table. Bill was twelve years older than her, and had already gotten married and bought a house by the time they found out their parents were going to prison for not actually being art sellers. He’d been taking care of her since then. He’d never been able to keep up with her, even when he was younger, but he’d always tried to be nice to her. “You’re cereal’s gone soggy.”

“Being a cape is harder than I thought.” She stirred the cereal around in the bowl. She’d have to eat it. The budget had been originally created for just Bill and his wife, Sakura, and now had to not only cover Dakota, but also Rorn who ate even more. It definitely wasn’t going to cover throwing out food.

“You want to talk about it?” Bill was always so calm, so sincere. He didn’t even wear anything other than a plain white button down for Halloween. He’d never even come close to understanding why she wanted to be a cape so badly.

“No.” Dakota forced herself to take a bite of her cereal. It was way sweeter than someone like her deserved.

“Hmm. You always want to talk about your Justice Union work.”

She put down her spoon, and looked away. “Not this time.” This time she was a complete and total failure who’d gotten Luna hurt.

“I see.” Bill sipped his coffee. “It sounds like you might need a mental health day.”

Silently, Dakota nodded.

“Alright. Finish what you can of the cereal while I call the school. Then I’ll drive you to the library.”

“Thanks, Bill.”

…

Even back when she still lived with her parents in Ansford Corner, Ensburg Public Library had been one of Dakota’s favorites. Firstly, it was closer than most to the train station, so she could get to it easily even when here parents were traveling. Secondly, the library had a little museum in the basement with various rare books and artifacts given to it over the years by various residents of Ensburg. The most famous was a large collection of regimental flags from both sides of the Civil War; but since the Professors Hellsing had lived in Ensburg since they were in grad school, it included a few things they’d taken from supervillains they’d defeated over the decades. She used to stare at them and fantasize about working with them, just like their daughter Moonless did.

The library itself was an unassuming, old building that had seen better days. The librarians had allowed ivy to grow up over its stonework, and the wooden parts could really use a good power washing. The parking lot was much newer, but still pockmarked from years of wear. They’d re-done the walkways a few years ago, so they were nice. It was very quiet this early; the library wouldn’t even open for another hour, but Bill needed to get to his office soon, and the library was a long way to bike from his house.

“You got your books?” Bill asked after they parked.

Dakota nodded, clutching her backpack. She’d replaced the textbooks with the ones she’d need to return to the library anyway.

“Alright. Let’s see what we can spare.” Bill pulled out his wallet. “$30 aught to do it.”

Dakota looked from the cash up to her brother. “What about the budget?”

“There’s money in budget for mental health days. You’ll need it if you decide to head into the city. Do try not to spend it all, though. Sakura and I might need it for own mental health days.” He smiled at her. “Besides. Like dad always said…”

“What’s the point of having money if you’re not going to spend it?” The smile faded from her lips. “I miss him so much.” Things had been so much easier when they were around, and she didn’t have to constantly think about the budget.

“Just one more week, Bug.” It was quite difficult to arrange a visit to the Spike, where their parents were serving out their sentence. “Rest today so you can be stronger tomorrow. And text me whenever you decide to go somewhere else.”

Dakota just nodded quietly. One more week.

She moved to the benches outside the main entrance to wait for the library to open.

She sat for a whole thirty seconds before the horrible vision of Luna’s perfect face getting hit by skateboard forced her way back into her head. She pulled out Cardboard Cages: A History of Prisons for Supervillains and did her best to distract herself.

It was a good book. Basically everything the internet knew about the Spike came from it’s last two chapters. She’d read it before, but she’d read it again. It almost (but not quite) explained why there was no way she could even call her parents while they were there.

When Dakota next looked up from the book to check the time, the library had been open for an hour. It was still early on a random Thursday, so there weren’t many more cars in the parking lot, but at least now she could go in. With a sigh, she closed the book.

“Good morning, Mr. Jenkins,” she greeted her favorite librarian. The bulky man was certainly a factor why Ensburg Public was her favorite library.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite super hero!” There was something bombastic about Mr. Jenkins that made it seem like he was always shouting for joy, even when his volume was actually library-appropriate. As always, he put aside what he was working on and got down on one knee to look her in the eye. Even as tall as he was, she’d been looking down on him when he did that for the past year or so. “I was just thinking that it would be most serendipitous if you decided to cut school today.”

“I’m returning my—wait. You wanted a super hero, and you thought of me?” An icy hand clawed at her chest. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

Mr. Jenkins waggled a finger at her. “None of that young lady. I know exactly where to find what I need, and right now, Fletching fits the bill perfectly.”

“Are you sure you don’t need a real hero?”

“Actually, what I need is a junior librarian.” The big man glanced around the empty distribution desk area, before dropping to a proper whisper. “Some suspicious rapscallions showed up not five minutes after we opened, and have been down in the display room ever since. Now nothing too dangerous is on display, but they had the look of ne’er-do-wells who might ignore a ‘Don’t touch’ sign.”

“You want me to protect the displays?” It was the first time a civilian had ever approached her with a cape task. Which was super exciting, but also kinda terrifying. Other than that one time with the tiger, she didn’t have the best record at actually protecting anyone. “Are you sure?”

Mr. Jenkins wagged his finger again. “I said I need a librarian. I’m sure bright, inquiring minds like theirs would love to get a proper tour of everything. And if they think better of any rule-breaking they were considering because a Justice Union member is right there, what a happy coincidence that would be?” He gave her a big smile that made it seem so easy.

Dakota couldn’t help but smile back. “I think I can do that, Mr. Jenkins. Can you processes my returns?” She held out Cardboard Prisons and the other two books she’d taken out last time she was here.

“Of course! I am a librarian, after all.” They shared a small, library-appropriate chuckle before exchanging a few thanks, and parting ways.

The basement was dingier than a museum should be, but it did add to the atmosphere. Dakota walked past the displayed flags, and rare books behind glass to find what had to be the people Mr. Jenkins was talking about. They seemed far to old to be “rapscallions”, but maybe the bearded librarian had a different perspective than the high school freshmen.

There were two of them, one a very short woman who was wearing a corset-looking top that drew attention to the considerable cleavage she had on display. Her blonde hair was in a very short pixie cut, and she an agitated look about her. Dakota placed her a few years older than herself; definitely still a teenager. The other was a moderately tall boy on the heavier side. He wore a Transaconic University hoodie, hands tucked into the pocket. He actually gave off the impression of being somewhat simple, staring at the display in confusion, his tongue stuck out just a little bit.

They were looking at what was the easiest the coolest thing the library’s collection (assuming Mr. Jenkins was joking about the secret cursed stuff they weren’t allow to show anyone): the mummy Dr. Egypto had used to terrorize the other Virginia Tech professors he’d had a rivalry with.

“I don’t get it,” the busty girl was telling the boy. “There’s no Liddian marks, none of the stitching a galvanic zombie would need, there’s not even any runes on the bandages. How the hell did he get this thing to walk around?”

“Nanites!” Dakota’s voice caused the girl to jump and the boy to turn, pulling his tongue back into his mouth. “Dr. Egypto research was in micro-robots. He only dressed it up as a mummy so the Professors Hellsing would think it was a magic undead, when he was really a science villain all along. Also, he was just a little obsessed with Egypt.”

The two stared at her in a level of shock that seemed to go beyond not hearing Dakota’s approach. The nearly-bald girl recovered first. “Seriously? This guy starts a fight with a bunch of robotics researchers, and none of them figure that out?”

“Well no one else could make nanites like that. It only worked because he was a meta-genius; no ones even figured out how he got the parts to make robots that small.” Smiling she held out a hand. “I’m Dakota. Dakota Lyon.”

The girl had taken her hand, but froze when she said her name. “Get out!” she said. “You’re really the Dakota Lyon. The youngest non-legacy every accepted into the Justice Union?”

“Oh my God, you know about me?” No one had ever recognized her before. Dakota had spent a lot (like a lot-a lot) of time picturing how it would go, but this was the first. “I had to get my sister-in-law to publish an article about that so CapeWiki wouldn’t delete my page. I thought, like, no one even read it.”

“Good thing she did! You have the coolest super hero origin ever! Breaking in and making them accept you. Ha! I wish I was that clever. I’m Riley by the way.”

“I don’t know if it was that clever.” Memories of last night tugged at her.

“No, it’s the most genius thing ever. How better to prove you’re better than what they’ve got than breaking in three different times? Oh, this is Caleb, by the way. He doesn’t talk much, but he’s cool.” The boy held out a fist, which Dakota dutifully bumped.

“Nice to meet you Caleb.” This was going very well. “Did you see the Iseg scroll they got.”

“Ugh, that’s so lame.” Riley rolled her eyes. “It was a fake Grim Broker was using to fleece would-be sorcerers. Why even put that on display?”

“Wow. You must be really paying attention.” Only her fellow editors of CapeWiki seemed to have that level of knowledge of obscure cape escapades. “The Iseg scroll is a really good fake. It fooled both the Roman and Hudu. Even the Professors Hellsing didn’t realize it was fake until they did the carbon dating. And even if it’s not the real Iseg scroll, it’s something real super heroes fought real super villains over. That’s totally cool!”

Riley was not impressed. “Pft. A fake mummy and fake apocalypse scroll. I bet the Justice Union has way cooler, real stuff in it.”

“Oh my God, it’s the absolute coolest!” Dakota said. “They actually have the literal skull of the for-realsies abyss dragon magically sealed. Artemis even let me touch it, you know, under her supervision.”

“Okay, now that is cool!” Riley looked gleeful. Caleb nodded, his face looking impressed. “You’ve got to show me that.”

“Oh, uh,” Dakota scratched the back of her head. “I kinda promised I wouldn’t do any more unauthorized access to the Justice Union building when they gave me my ID card.”

“So what? You broke in dozens of times, and now you’re too square to show off a little?”

“Well, yeah. They couldn’t kick me out of the Union until after they let me. Besides, we did kinda-sorta just meet.”

“Pft,” Riley rolled her yes. “I bet we’ve met before. What’s your CapeWiki handle?”

“Uh, well.” Dakota felt a little color rise in her cheeks. “It was LegolasGrrl, and I mean, I guess it still kinda is but…”

“You did the big re-write of Moonless’s page.”

“You know my CapeWiki?”

“Uh, duh. I’m ShadowBabeX08XO. We collaborated on the page on the Toronto Night Beast attacks.”

“Oh. Oh wow. I remember that. I’ve never met another CapeWiki editor in person before. Thanks so much, by the way.”

“It was nothing. Caleb did the hard work, he just made me do the posting parts, because he doesn’t like it when people pay attention to him.”

The bulky boy gave a shrug that seemed to be an admission.

“It’s so nice to meet you in person.” Dakota only hesitated an instant before going in for the hug. Riley returned it enthusiastically, which was such a pleasant contrast to how much Luna hated hugging. “Wait. I thought you said you were based in Canada. Why are you in Tranquility City?”

“It’s dumb. My mom got a new job and dragged us down here. It happened so fast, I’m not even enrolled in school yet.”

“Oh, right. School.” Dakota felt color rising in her cheeks again. “I’m playing hooky today.”

“Nice,” Riley said with honest glee. “That means you can show us that abyss dragon skull?”

“Uh… not really. Artemis was really, really clear that I wasn’t supposed to go near that when other capes weren’t around. Oh, but I do have a Transaconic University library card that lets us see the weapon collection.”

“What, Zerker’s weapons? I thought you had to be a student to see those.”

“No, you just need to fill out the right paperwork. And you’re totally allowed to bring friends to show that off. The won’t let you touch it, but it’s soooooo coool!”

Both Riley and Caleb were smiling now. “What are we waiting for?”

Chapter 4: Warnings

Luna Hellsing was genuinely enjoying the first day of school that Dakota had missed since her parents had started forcing her to spend time with the freshman. It was quiet, almost peaceful. She could actually rest on her lunch break. Sure, she was spending it alone, but that wasn’t a bad a price to pay.

It was a good thing that it happened today, too. During the free period she had ever since being kicked out of band, Morrigan Gomez dropped by the classroom to point and laugh. The brute got a lot of laughs for asking “Penis Painters too much for you, Moonless?” before the teacher shooed her away. She didn’t get punished. No. It had long been established that Ensburg High’s zero tolerance bulling policy didn’t apply to anyone bullying Luna Hellsing.

After the period where band met, she started getting people doing a pirate “Arrr” at her in the halls. When she got it from Dylan Jackson (one of the band kids who had never pretended to be her friend), she replied, “Did I ever tell you about the time I kicked a space pirate out of an air lock?”

He gave her a sarcastic “Suuure. I believe a cape did that,” before leaving. He was absolutely right—the Justice Union took it’s no-killing rule seriously—but it still got him to leave her alone.

Things took a bit of a turn during the afternoon. At the start of her math class, she got a text from her parents informing her that an aide to the junior senator from Minnesota had vomited up a dozen demons in front of some tour group. They said not to expect them back tonight. And also that Omnimind wanted to talk to her at seven PM for reasons they declined to specify, even when asked.

“That’s fine,” she whispered to herself. “It’s not like going out multiple school nights in a row is going to hurt my grades.” With that distraction on her mind, the math lecture was more of a waste than usual.

After math Luna was supposed to have a her second free period of the day. What she got was a call from what caller id identified as her maternal grandmother.

It had been four years since Nana Victoria had been pardoned for her time as the supervillain Femme Mystic, and it was still a bit odd that she could just call now. It lacked the dramatic flare her older, more mystic (and harder to trace) methods of contacting the family, but it was hard to argue against practicality.

Luna ducked from the busy hallway into a shadowy corner, and from there into a dark janitor’s closet. Sliping shadowside broke contact with the cellular network, but one of the perks of being a witch of Femme Mystic’s caliber is that you knew when it was a good time to make a call. “Hi Nana,” Luna answered the redial as soon as the phone started vibrating.

Nana Victoria, who loathed small talk almost as much as she loathed men, replied with, “I have a message you need to deliver to the bastard.”

“Still mad at dad, huh?”

“Is the bastard still brainwashing my precious daughter into defying all that is right and just in the world?”

This was not the first time they’d had this conversation. Her parents had started joking that they were one person in two bodies within minutes of meeting. Between their commitment to that bit and the fact that Nana Victoria was already a notorious super villain by that point, she’d taken his name when they got married, rather than keeping the alias she’d been using when they met. Nana Victoria had never forgiven the betrayal of her radical feminist morals (both the marriage and the name thing). The fact the Professors Hellsing were so committed to the shared personhood bit that they’d found a way to share a cell phone number only made things much worse.

“Hey, Nana, I was talking with a friend of mine, and a funny thing occurred to me. You never married, but only ever refer to dad as ‘the bastard’.”

“Do you have a point?

Luna sighed. “I guess not. What’s the message?”

“Eclipse is in Tranquility City.”

That made Luna stand up. “Are you sure?”

“Do you think I’d mistake the woman who tried to kill my precious daughter and beloved grand daughter for some other shadow worker? Yes, I’m sure!”

“I meant how’d you find out? Mom will want to know.”

“I cast a spell, child.”

“Ugh. Which spell, Nana?”

“You should know better than to ask me a question like that over these machines. You know they’re listening.”

“Fine. Keep your secrets. Anything else, or can I go get a head start on my home work?”

“I just wanted to make sure you’re staying out of shadowside.”

Luna swallowed. This was also a not a new conversation. “Of course I am, Nana.”

Nana Victoria let out a suspicious “Hmm.”

“You’ve made the dangers perfectly clear.”

After a moment of grumpy silence, Femme Mystic growled, “If a shade finds you shadowside, it will eat you, one bloody bite at a time.”

“I know, Nana.”

“I’m not joking, child. They’re incredibly dangerous monsters—especially in their domain.”

“I know, Nana.” That was true, but it was also something she generally didn’t need to worry about. Her parents had run the numbers, and there were only a few thousand shades inside the earth. They avoided getting close to surface where they might be able to perceive the impression of the deadly light of the sun on the other side—and especially considering they could run through miles-deep bedrock and great depths of the ocean without trouble—the odds of encountering one by chance were basically zero. Going back to the original Captain Hellsing, no cape had ever encountered one that wasn’t working for a shadow mage of some sort.

Of course Eclipse wasn’t just a shadow mage. She was another failed vessel for Grandmother Night, a subject of many of the same rituals that had been performed on Luna when she was still in her bio-mom’s womb. Not only did Eclipse have every single one of Luna’s own powers, she’d also been the leader of the Cult of Grandmother Night for almost eight years—one of the most powerful shadow mages that could ever exist (discounting Shadow Maw, but she wasn’t around any more). Luna’s parents had brought her along to fight dragons, super-powered gangsters, and even kaiju, but they’d sent her into hiding whenever Eclipse was around.

“The bastard has been telling you to slip shadowside, hasn’t he.”

Both the Professors Hellsing had. As had Rainbow Mage, Omnimind, and every other mystical cape in the Union, but Nana obviously didn’t want to hear that. “Dad’s an idiot, why would I listen to him?”

Her grandmother gave a suspicious snort. “Go get started on your homework, child. And stay away from Tranquility City!”

Chapter 5: Friendship Montage

Dakota Lyon was having a really, really, really, really, really great day with Riley and Caleb. They spent hours looking at the collection of artifacts and relics on display at the Transaconic Library and the little-known museum on the back of campus. Riley continued to impress Dakota with just how much she knew about the history of the artifacts. She almost managed to match Dakota’s enthusiasm—closer than anyone else at any rate. Better yet, since she was from out of town, and hadn’t been here hundreds of times before, she didn’t know about the older or more obscure stuff and actually, for realsies, enjoyed Daktoa rattling off the facts and history.

No one ever enjoyed her going off about Cape stuff!

Caleb, well, Caleb continued to be there. He did prove he wasn’t actually mute by asking, “What’s that?” at one point. He didn’t laugh at her jokes the way Riley did, but he smiled at them. And he didn’t really ask questions or contribute insights, but he did grunt inquisitively or appreciatively, and nodded along. It, well, it wasn’t how she liked to be a friend with someone, but he was nice and attentive, which is more than she could have said about anyone in her old home school group or anyone at Ensberg High – not counting Moonless, obviously. Moonless was perfect.

Things got even better when it came time for lunch. After finding out about her tight budget, Riley suggested that they pick something up with a five-finger discount. “Come on. I bet a girl who sneaks into the Justice Union building knows all the tricks about how to get away with that sort of thing.” She had a devilish grin when she said it.

“Well, I mean,” Dakota played with one of her pigtails without meeting the nearly bald girl’s eyes. “I may have done some stuff like that back in the day. But I kinda, sorta stopped when I decided I wanted to see if I could make it into the Justice Union. It kinda felt like, you know, not cape behavior.”

“What are you talking about? You’re hardened vigilantes. You do whatever it takes to see justice done, whatever the law says.”

“How is stealing food I could afford to pay for doing justice?”

Riley opened her mouth, and then closed it. “I did not think that part through.”

“Wait! I got it.” A smile welled up from somewhere deep inside Dakota, a part of her she hadn’t let out in years. “There’s this convenience store, just outside Tranquility City proper. The owner’s been sued four times for racial discrimination, but he’s still managed to keep it open.”

This caused Riley to blink, and then give Dakota a little side eye. “How do you know about that?”

“My sister, well, my sister-in-law, wrote an article about it. And she checks up periodically to make sure he’s still the owner so we know not to shop there.” A forgotten, forbidden thrill pulsed through her. “If there’s anyone it’d be okay for a cape to steal from, it’s him.”

“See?” Riley remarked to Caleb. “I told you Fletching was the best hero in the Union.” Caleb grunted in agreement.

The three of them ended up making a great team to go through the lifting. Caleb found just the right spot to stand to block the camera with barely any prompting. Riley walked around with a pronounced arch in her back, making her significant cleavage stand out even more, which distracted the sole clerk at the store. And sure, chips and cookies didn’t make that great of a lunch, but it tasted so much better for having it be stolen (for justice). Also, Caleb had managed to snag two of the cold sandwiches. He just shrugged when Dakota asked, “When did you pull that off?”

Riley added, “See? I told you he was cool.”

It was an exhilarating experience. Dakota decided she wasn’t going to think about the fact that her new friends had obviously done this before.

Because they had so much fun ripping off the racist store owner, there was another store Dakota had always wanted to do something about, just a bit further into Tranquility City. Being a florist, it wasn’t exactly as practical to shoplift from. But the owner did have a very prominent sign that said “JK Rowling did nothing wrong” that had always sat wrong with her. And hey, Caleb did manage to snag her a very nice white and green corsage, and a few handfuls of rose petals she stuck in her belt pouch, next to her flashlight, for later. Sakura loved the smell of fresh roses, so she’d appreciate that.

After that the three of them had spent some time on their phones looking for a wicked ice cream shop, but they were ultimately forced to actually buy some from Coney’s (they talked about it and decided a really ugly mascot wasn’t enough to count). It ate a bit of her $30 budget, but she had done way more for way less today than she could have expected.

Things continued to get better after that. Riley had the great idea that, since they were Tranquility City—the super hero capital of the world—Dakota could show her where some of her favorite battles took place. They checked out few of the placards around historically significant stuff, but spent much more time looking at the aftermath of Brick’s latest throw down with Lionheart, marveling at the craters in the facades of the buildings down town. They also checked out where workers were clearing the vines from Verdant’s last break in. Riley and Dakota traded ideas about what he couldn’t have stolen from that one ninth story apartment, but ended up no closer to an answer than the news had. Dakota was sure they’d find out soon; Artemis and Truthseeker were working that one together.

The next stop was a bit less fun. Riley asked if there was any place she’d done any super battles, and there was kinda a yes to that. Dakota wasn’t 100% where in Africa the Red Desert was, and neither Aslton State Forest nor the Rose King’s arena in faerie were remotely accessible by public transit, which only left the semi-abandoned factory where last night’s kerfuffle went down.

Dakota wasn’t in a hurry to get back there, and for some reason that suggestion made Caleb seem nervous. He hunched down into his hoodie even more than he had been. But Riley was insistent, so they went, and Dakota told her story of how she’d gotten Luna hurt.

And it made Riley laugh. The older, shorter girl really did a bit to put things into perspective. Luna had battled space aliens, kaiju, her own grandmother, and tons and tons of really, really scary villains. She’d gotten hurt worse before—including the other time she’d fought a villain who used a skateboard as a weapon. Dakota did start to feel better after that.

Riley did spoil the moment a little bit by asking, as she had been all day, to see the collection of really, really, really, cool stuff inside the Justice Union building.

However, it had been a long, very fun day. And for the first time, possibly literally the first time, Dakota felt she found some one who understood her. Not someone who liked her and kinda nodded along, like Bill or her parents. Not someone who was so steeped in the cape life it was all normal to her, like Luna. Not someone who viewed dishwashers and flying non-binary arch-mages as equally magical like Rorn. Someone who saw the all the cape stuff and went, “That is really, really cool,” just like her.

And, during the assorted train rides, Dakota had double checked, and bringing guests into the Justice Union building wasn’t exactly, fully forbidden in all circumstances. “Outreach” was explicitly one of the reasons it was allowed, and this did technically (if you squinted a little) fit the official definition the Union used. Dakota had checked that too.

So when Riley said “Come on. If I was the cape, you’d want me to show it off, right?”

Dakota finally broke down and said, “Okay… but we should wait until it gets dark, you know. So we don’t run into anyone who might object.”

“I like the way you think.” Riley smiled.

“Mm-hm,” Caleb nodded.

Chapter 6: What could go wrong?

Dakota Lyon still couldn’t decide if bringing Riley and Caleb to the Justice Union headquarters was a good idea. It had all seemed so much simpler to sneak in by herself; she had so much less to lose back then (like, six weeks ago).

But Riley got it. Like, got it got it. She suggested, with no prompting on Dakota’s part at all, that they kill time before checking out the abyss dragon skull by checking out the cinema that showed the anime imports. She liked both super heroes and anime, Dakota needed her to want to be her friend.

After the movie, and the train ride from the import cinema to the Justice Union office, the street lights were on. It was far from quiet, the tail end of rush hour traffic was still rumbling away. Riley was giving a bunch of details about why the old Sailor Moon cartoon was great. Caleb was his usual quiet self. And Dakota did her best to silence the voice telling her this was a bad idea.

She badged them into the building with her ID card and a palm on the bio-metric reader. The night security guy wouldn’t be on duty for another twenty minutes, so no one objected. It would be on the security footage, but this couldn’t have been as bad as breaking in the first place, right? Even if it wasn’t something she was supposed to be doing, they’d give her a little leeway because “Outreach” was technically allowed, right?

“Alright, now we need to be quiet,” Dakota warned her guests, not that they were making much noise. “Omnimind basically lives here, and she built most of the security systems. So we got to be very careful so we don’t accidentally alert her.”

“Omnimind the mad scientist lives here?” Riley sounded torn between horror and excitement—which was exactly how Dakota felt.

“She’s not… mad,” Dakota whispered into the empty hall. “And according to her, she’s more of an engineer than a scientist anyway.”

“There’s a difference?”

Dakota shrugged. The three of them had made it to the end of the first hall, and the first serious steel door. The kind that let the office get away with the light lobby security it had. But it was the control panel for the lighting that held Dakota’s attention. “Okay, wait here for a moment. I’m going to disable the motion sensor lights in the next hallway; so maybe they’ll be less obvious changes on the security logs.”

Riley nodded, but Caleb pointed at the door. “Wards.”

“Where?” Riley asked, cocking her head.

“Oh, that’s a super neat trick. The Professors Hellsing got the runes to be made with a different kind of steel as the rest of the door. You have to look super close to see it, but it’s there.”

“Oh, and they polished it back, so it looks like it’s all the same steel. Damn, Caleb, nothing gets by you, huh?” The big teen hunched a bit further into his hoodie.

Dakota double checked she had her flashlight, just in case, before saying, “Let’s go.”

They quickly made their way down the dark hall to the stairs to the basement. “This one doesn’t have an electronic lock, so I’m going to have pick it.” She pulled out her tools from her belt pouch.

“Wait, really?” Riley sounded generally surprised.

“I mean, yeah? It could be really bad if the wrong person broke the seal and the abyss dragon started to return.”

She blinked several times. “I wasn’t expecting you to break in to a secure area for me. I though it would be more like the library, where you could just walk in if you have the right permissions.”

“The abyss dragon is a lot more dangerous than Zerker’s weapons. They have to keep it locked up.”

Riley exchanged a quick glance with Caleb, and then licked her lips. “Hey, can you, ugh, show me how you do that?”

“What, pick a lock?” It was Dakota’s turn to be surprised. “It’s not that hard. I learned from watching videos online.”

“You’re parents didn’t teach you?”

The lock picks froze in Dakota’s hand. She hadn’t discussed her parents all day; she’d been trying not to think about it. “No. I didn’t know they were involved in any sort crimes until… I read about it on the news.” Technically, she found out about it when Paige made fun of her about it, but Paige was a dirty lying bully, so that didn’t count.

“Huh,” Riley was a little taken aback. “But you can still teach me, right?”

“What now?” Dakota whispered. This definitely seemed like a bad idea.

“Who knows when we’ll get another chance? Besides, do you know how badass you look with those picks? Like, look out villains, Fletching is going to steal your… uh…”

“Well,” Dakota could feel herself blushing. “When you put it like that…” It wasn’t not a bad idea, but she did really, really,reallywant Riley to like her. And once she tried lock picking, Dakota was sure she’d like it. Then they’d have CapeWiki, anime, and lock picking in common. There couldn’t be that many other girls like that out there for Riley to befriend, right?

In retrospect, she should have been paying more attention to Caleb. He may have been big, but he was a very quiet young man. Not just that he didn’t talk, but he was constantly hunched in on himself as if trying to take up less space. He seemed like a deer, or maybe a wild cat, nervous that you might bite him at any time and ready to run. He was about as non-threatening as someone of his size could be. And since Dakota spent so much time hanging out with Rorn these days, Caleb didn’t even seem big.

She didn’t think anything of it when Caleb disappeared from her peripheral vision when she started her little lesson on lock picks. She didn’t think anything of not seeing him when Riley asked question after question. She was way more worried about the amount of time the busty girl’s question was making the infiltration take than the big guy being out of sight.

But when she did notice, right after the door to the basement stairs opened, Dakota dropped her lock picks.

He’d gone back to the big, serious steel door, a knife in his hand. It was bloody, a shallow cut visible on his forearm where he’d rolled up his sleeve. Distantly, Dakota noted the arm was criss-crossed with long cuts in different stages of healing.

He’d drawn a circle on the door with his blood, one hand in the center of it, whispering away. His back was to the two girls, and his hood was up, so Dakota couldn’t see if his eyes were alight with any sort of power.

“W-what’s going on?” Dakota asked.

Riley glanced back at her friend, and then moved to stand directly between him and Dakota. “What’s the matter, Dakota? Never seen real magic before.”

The young cape staggered back, past the door to the stairs up. “But… but… Why is he doing magic?”

“Come on, Dakota. You’re a smart girl.” She held out her hand and Dakota’s lock picks flew up from the ground into her hand. “You know it’s way easier to take down a ward once you’ve been invited inside it.”

That was telekinesis. Something heavy dropped in Dakota’s stomach. Here eyes had gone wide. “You’re… you’re the girl from last night?”

Riley chuckled. “Yeah. I still have no idea how you and the armored lady got the drop on us. That was some real impressive cape work.”

“But.. but you look so different?”

“Ugh, tell me about it.” Riley was still smiling. “I had to cut my hair, and then walk around all day with my tits out. For some reason if I cover them up, everyone assumes I’m, like, twelve. Man, the matron mother was so pissed we almost got caught.” She ran a hand through her pixie cut. “I didn’t want to cut my hair this short, but the matron insisted I needed to be punished for being stupid enough to be almost caught. I was lucky Nancy wasn’t there. She always insists a punishment isn’t complete if the initiate wasn’t bleeding”

Dakota swallowed. She was reeling from all the implications. But then the big one hit her. “Matron mother? Nancy? You’re…”

Riley’s smile got a big bigger. “An acolyte of Grandmother Night? Yeah. When we bring Her to this world, I’m going to be a queen. You should join us.”

Behind her, Caleb finished his incantation. A wave of shadow flowed past them, blanking out the emergency lighting for a moment.

“Speaking of joining us,” Riley’s voice spoke in the darkness. “Welcome, mother.”

Blinking in the slowly returning light, Dakota saw a women standing just in front of Caleb. “Luna?” Dakota asked in disbelief. Riley was bad enough, but Luna couldn’t be betraying her like this. She just couldn’t.

The woman clicked her tongue. “Don’t you start with that. I barely resemble the Hellsings’ brat.”

It wasn’t Luna; but she did have a face that was very, very similar, including Luna’s beautiful, supernaturally violet eyes. She wore a near identical velvet black half-cape. But she was at least six inches taller than Luna, and underneath her cape she wore a form-fitting black cat suit that showed off the contours of her body in a way Luna never would. And unless Luna’s baggier clothes were hiding a lot of recent puberty-induced changes, the younger girl didn’t have this woman’s moderate curves.

Behind her was a hulking black creature, it’s head as high as her waist. The head was shaped like a frog’s, and large enough to eat a cat in a single bite. The rest of it was built like a six-legged worm. Dakota had seen enough pictures of those things to know what it was. A shade—a monster like the one responsible for the Toronto Night Beast attacks. An eater of humans.

The Cult of Grandmother Night, the shade, the resemblance to Luna Hellsing. There was only one person this could be.

“E-E-Eclipse?” Dakota whined.

The supervillain who had so long frustrated and eluded the Professors Hellsing while causing so much trouble smiled politely and nodded. “Fear not child. The tales you’ve heard about me were exaggerated. Lies told by my enemies to deliberately discredit me. They aren’t true.”

“B-but, but you fed people to monsters.” Dakota couldn’t back any further away. “I read the interviews with the Toronto Night Beast victims’ families. And I saw the shrine to Hector Wayne at the Spike.”

The dark-clad supervillain walked slowly forward, hands up as if to show she was unarmed. As if she needed weapons to be dangerous. The shade lumbered along behind her. “Be at peace child. I was not the one who did those things. And you have parents in the Spike. Can you really blame my sister for doing whatever it took to escape that place?”

“She killed someone. He had a husband. And a son.”

Eclipse sneered. “So those who have spread lies about me have claimed. The guards of the Spike would gladly lie to cover up their own failings. We cannot know what really happened until Nancy is granted her trial.”

Her voice was so calm, so warm; so like the Professors Hellsing when they were talking about justice, Dakota was finally able to put together a thought. “But… but Shadow Maw never stood trial because she escaped the Spike before it could happen.”

There was a twinkle in those entirely too Luna-like eyes. “And that is the biggest lie that’s been told. My sister Nancy—who has always hated the name the papers gave her—didn’t escape that day. If she did, she would have contacted me by now; or responded to my own attempts to reach her. Please, Fletching. You’re a hero, I need your help to find my sister. The Justice Union makes a such a big deal about never killing anyone, but my sister is gone. Either someone from your own side has broken that rule they pretend to care so deeply about, or they’ve done something unspeakably terrible to hide her somewhere even the Mother of Darkness cannot find her. I just want my sister back. Please, Fletching. Help me save my sister.”

Dakota tried to swallow, but her mouth was dry. Eclipse was saying reasonable things, but she was wrong—a villain. And Shadow Maw was the worst kind of villain: a killer. Dakota was in so much danger right now.

The sound of an opening door turned everyone’s heads. The serious steel door had popped open, and standing on the other side was Omnimind, goggles on her eyes, and one of her Omni-guns in her hand. It was a massive thing, nearly as large as Riley, with no less than six barrels to accommodate all of the functions built into it.

“Evening, Jennifer,” Omnimind said, raising the Omni-gun towards Eclipse and pulling one of its triggers.

A bundle flew from the largest barrel with a pop of compressed air, and immediately shattered into dozens of pieces. Dakota flinched, Riley and Caleb dove to the side, but Eclipse stood firm.

The projectile splintered again, and then again, shooting chunks of itself into every corner. Dakota had just enough time to wonder why none of them were hitting anything before they exploded into whirling light.

The shade let out a hiss, and the smell of burning immediately hammered into Dakota. Blinking her eyes against the bright light, she saw each piece of the projectile had turned into a hovering drone. Each was set with a dozen lights, and was now spinning rapidly. There were enough of them that it wasn’t really a strobe effect, but they were unpleasant to look at directly.

Luna would never be able to use her powers with this much light. Dakota realized that was the point—everything Luna could do, Eclipse could do and more. She not only wielded Grandmother Night’s power, she was her willing servant.

Blinking though the light, Dakota saw the Shade staggering around behind Eclipse. At first it wasn’t clear why, there was just as much light behind her, but then it stuck its frog-like face up under her cape, and it became clear. There was enough space around the villain’s body that her cape could capture a little shadow, enough for the creature to find its way back shadowside.

“My name,” the matron mother’s voice was ice, “is Eclipse.”

Omnimind had lowered the Omni-gun to avoid pointing it directly at anyone. “I apologize if I was unclear. I am deliberately using your legal name to express the disdain and disrespect I fell for you, Jennifer. Does that shed light on the matter?”

“You can’t help yourself, can you Jaswiinder?” Eclipse used the Indian cape’s own legal name. “You just come running at the first sign of danger.”

“That is what heroes do.” Omnimind raised her gaze to look at Dakota. “Fletching, if you could kindly drop prone. Your relative position is making deploying many of this Omni-gun’s features dangerous.”

Dakota blinked. But before she could react, Eclipse was moving. She was quick, dashing down the hallway as fast as Luna would have.

Omnimind raised her gun, but it jerked unnaturally upward. She turned her goggled-gaze towards where Riley had a hand raised towards it before Eclipse struck.

It was all over so quickly. A blade plunged into the side of the Omni-gun. Then Eclipse was atop her, wrapping the gun in her cloak. Then, she kicked off, the Omni-gun flying free of Omnimind who slammed back into the serious steel door. There was a flicker of the tell-tale signs of one of Luna’s shadow tendrils being destroyed by the bright lights.

The Omni-gun crackled with electricity where it landed. Dakota couldn’t tell if that was a safety feature to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands, or if the knife still sticking out of it had hit something important.

The sicking clork of a boot hitting someone’s head drew Dakota’s attention back to Eclipse, who was standing over Omnimind. She kicked aside the older woman’s arms and then stomped on her head again. “Caleb, help me secure her.”

“Me?” he bulky teen asked, but Riley was already at her side.

“Here, matron. I got the zip cuffs you told me to.”

“Excellent work.”

Dakota was transfixed, frozen in fear as they rolled Omnimind on her stomach, and forced her arms behind her. They pulled the goggles from her head, Riley using her telekinesis to toss them aside without ever touching them. Omnimind was blinking unsteadily. She’d been defeated so quickly.

This was all my fault. Dakota thought.

Eclipse cast her gaze back at the young, shell-shocked cape. “Caleb, my child, can you perhaps help secure your new friend?”

Caleb swallowed. He didn’t look at her as he walked up.

He stopped, more than six feet from where she’d backed herself into a corner. “Uh… hi, Dakota.” He said awkwardly.

“You were a bad guy this whole time?” she asked, only now aware of the hot tears streaming down her face.

“Not that bad,” he mumbled. “No one’ll hurt if you do what ‘Clipse says. Promise.” He finally managed to meet her gaze. He looked so very scared. “Please?”

“Hurry now,” Eclipse was behind him. She and Riley held Omnimind between them, boat-shaped bruises beginning to form on her forehead. “We need to get to a computer room, and away from all these lights.

Dakota had no idea what she should do; what she could do.

Then Omnimind caught her eye and gave a small nod.

Omnimind had plan. Omnimind always had a plan. And for now, they were going along with the villains.

Something clicked into place for Dakota. This was just another infiltration, another sneaking into someplace she wasn’t supposed to. She could do that, buy time for Omnimind’s plan.

Weakly, she said, “Okay.”

Chapter 7: Never Give Up

Dakota kept trying to look over at Omnimind as the villains walked them up the stairs to the computer room. Caleb tentatively had a hand on her shoulder, as if he was afraid of her. She could bolt, but what if that messed up Omnimind’s plan? And where would she run? Down the stairs wasn’t an option, Eclipse had brought the shade back out of her shadow the moment they were out of the drone’s light, and she didn’t want to risk fighting that thing. She’d seen pictures of what those things could do to people.

Her heart was pounding and her mind was racing. If she did make break for it, she could get to the trash chute and slide here way out. But she’d told Riley about that one, and Omnimind had been distressingly vague when she said nothing was getting in that way again. There was the loose ceiling panel she’d noted in the gym. There was enough space for Dakota to get in there, and no one would know to look in the gap between the floors. She had her doubts the panels would take her weight though. And what if the shade had a good since of smell, like a dog? It would track her down immediately.

This would be so much easier if she knew what Omnimind was planning. Eclipse pulled her ahead, one arm linked through the older woman’s. The cape stood tall, shoulders square and chin up. She didn’t look to either side as she walked. Her white lab coat made the tendril of shadow sliding out from Eclipse’s cloak onto her back various obvious. Omnimind wasn’t making a breaking for it anytime soon.

They were already at the computer room, Dakota had already dithered too long. “Now,” Eclipse said, a wicked smile on her face. “Let’s find out what you did to the other matron mother.”

“You could try asking nicely, Jennifer.” Omnimind sounded so calm, although Dakota supposed she’d been in situations like this before.

“I’m not going to deal with your lies, Jaswiinder,” Eclipse shot back, putting venom on Omnimind’s civilian name. “And the fact that you’re here means that I need to get this done as quickly as possible. So, Dakota, dear. Open up one of these machines and pull up the file on Nancy Night.”

Dakota’s eyes darted back between the villain and the captured heroine. Omnimind gave the tiniest shake of her head. Okay then. Stall. Dakota could do that. “W-what happens if I don’t?” she asked.

Eclipse’s face turned serious, and she held out her left hand. She’d produced another pocket knife, the blade shooting out of it’s handle with a snap.

“Don’t let her fool you, Fletching,” Omnimind sounded so calm. “Jennifer doesn’t have it in her to torture a child—especially not someone who’s practically an orphan, like she was.”

That was a plan she could follow. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen my parents.” Dakota sniffed as if she was holding back tears. It had only been two weeks since the Spike had last opened for visitors. Dakota still missed them so bad that it barely took effort to sound like she was about to cry over it.

The matron mother sighed, real sympathy in her face for a moment. But only for a moment. “Riley, Caleb, you’re about to get a lesson in forcing a hero to do what you want, so pay attention. The first thing you need to is pick your target carefully. Jaswiinder here is one of the older still active capes. She’s watched people she loved sacrifice themselves, or die spectacularly before her. She’s buried capes she loved far more than Fletching. She’s known she’s going to die pathetically attempting to foil a bolder, younger villain, and has long ago made peace with that. There’s no point in threatening her.”

“Are,” Riley swallowed nervously, “are we going to hurt Daktoa?” The younger girl couldn’t help notice that Riley stepped slightly between Eclipse’s knife and herself. It looked like doing all that stuff to make Riley like her might have been working after all.

“No, Riley. The world will judge us far more harshly for hurting a child. Besides. Lesson two, capes are self-sacrificing fools by they nature. They live to put themselves at risk to keep others safe. It’s far more effective to threaten those they care about.” She raised her knife to Omnimind’s throat.

“No!” Dakota shouted, taking a half-step forward.

“Relax, Fletching.” Omnimind remained calm, almost detached. “She’s not going to hurt me.”

Eclipse gave a disgusted snort. “Lesson three: you can only kill someone once. A dead hostage had no value.”

“So… what’s the point?” Riley asked.

The smile that Eclipse gave her student was pure evil. “There are a lot of things one can do to someone before they die.”

“Wait!” Dakota called out raising a hand. Riley grabbed her wrist, squeezing tightly.

Eclipse did not wait. She moved her knife, raising it to Omnimind’s face. A quick motion flicked it past the Indian woman’s face. A line of crimson blood formed along her cheek.

Omnimind didn’t flinch, not even a little bit. “Do not give her what she wants. Bodies can be healed, but knowledge, once given, cannot be taken away.”

Eclipse clamped her free hand over Omnimind’s mouth. The shade moved along side her, grasping at the older heroine’s elbow with two midnight-black paws. “Now, Dakota. I take no joy in hurting others. When Grandmother Night comes fully into this world, she will bring cleansing justice to those who have abused their wealth and power for too long. But I will do whatever it takes to see that done.” The point of her knife dug into Omnimind’s other cheek.

Grasping at a way to stall, Dakota said, “I don’t even know what you want. I’ve read Shadow Maw’s file, and it lists her as still at large, whereabouts unknown.” That much was true—she’d read the Justice Union files of most of the villains whose CapeWiki’s pages she’d edited.

“Very well. Show me that.” A drop of blood flicked from Eclipse’s knife as she gestured towards one of the sitting computers.

The movement of Omnimind’s head was so small as to be almost invisible. None of the bad guys seemed to notice it, but to Dakota the message was clear. She had to keep stalling. Or start stalling, really. This hadn’t been her finest moment so far. “If,” she swallowed. “If I show you that, do you promise to leave us alone?”

“Of course,” Eclipse lied. “You have my word.” Of course she lied, she was a villain. Maybe not the best way to stall.

“S-swear it!” Dakota shot back. “Swear it by Grandmother Night.”

“You have my word.” Eclipse’s expression didn’t change in the slightest. The supervillain tucked her knife behind Omnimind’s ear. “Now. Please hurry before I have to hurt Jaswiinder any more.”

Dakota swallowed. Eclipse hadn’t invoked Grandmother Night’s name, which meant she hadn’t actually sworn by the dark goddess. She could have objected and tried to stall for more time. Maybe she even should have. But a better idea had occurred to her. “okay” she said weakly.

She crossed the room to the furthest computer and adjusted the height of the chair before sitting down. She pulled out the keyboard and brought up the login screen. These computers were mostly used by the Justice Union’s various volunteers, each of which had their own password to tightly control and track who accessed which of the Union’s many databases. Dakota slowly began pecking away at the keyboard, typing out her user name, and the very long required password. Her hands were shaking which was really going to help this plan.

The computer screen blinked and displayed Username or Password not correct. “What? Oh, that’s the wrong user name.”

She slowly began pecking it all out again. “Stall not, child. Remember, it is Jaswiinder who will pay for your sins.”

“Come on, Dakota,” Riley added. “You really don’t want to make the matron mother mad.”

Dakota balled up both her hands into fists and shoved them down by her sides. “I’m trying my best!” she wailed. “This just really, really scary, okay? I’ve not done this before.” She could feel tears on her cheeks.

“Be at peace, child,” Eclipse spoke through closed teeth. “All you have to do is type in your password.”

“You can do this,” Riley added.

“I can do this.” Daktoa repeated, trying to will her heart to stop pounding. “I can do this.” She began to slowly peck out her credentials again, one key at a time.

“Damn, girl how long is your password?” Riley asked.

Dakota blinked a few times. “Damn it, now I have to start over,” she shrieked. That was a natural reaction, right? Surely, Eclipse would buy that, right?

The matron mother let out a frustrated sigh. “Riley, you shall not distract the little hero again. Fletching, avoid making further mistakes. They will be paid for in blood.” Her knife was still tucked behind Omnimind’s ear.

The whimper Dakota let out was entirely genuine. She had until she finished typing to figure out how to stall further, and she really didn’t want to make a mistake now. So she went even slower this time, double checking what each character was before she entered it.

As she hit the twenty-second (ish) character, the monitor suddenly blanked out. “I didn’t do it!” she shouted, desperately hoping it would somehow be enough to keep Omnimind safe.

From behind her came the most wonderful voice Dakota had ever heard. “My bad.” Luna said. “I hope you didn’t need anything on these computers.” She was standing right next to where the machines on this side were all plugged into a single power supply.

The massive swollen bruise over her left eye didn’t make her look even the least bit less heroic.

Chapter 8: Shadow Fight

Luna Hellsing had never seen Eclipse face-to-face before. She knew the older woman had the same powers she did. A similar series of rituals had been performed to attempt to turn both of them into vessels of Grandmother Night; the Professors Hellsing had interrupted the final ritual that had empowered the younger girl as an infant and when the Cult had tried again twelve years later, the spell hadn’t been strong enough to work with an adult woman.

No one had mentioned how similar the two failed avatars looked. Eclipse was at least a decade older, and both taller and more full-figured (she was flaunting the latter with a formfitting black catsuit), although perhaps not as full-figured as one might as expect of someone known as a “matron mother.”

“You must be the Hellsings’ brat.” Eclipse turned to her minions and remarked, “See, Riley? We don’t look anything alike.”

The female minion and Dakota’s eyes met, and they let out identical-sounding confused “Uhh…” If there hadn’t been such serious annoyance in the villain’s voice, Luna would have taken her for joking. Eclipse had even cut her bangs and styled her make up the same way she did, at least when her eye wasn’t a single giant bruise.

Eclipse had two young human cult members, a nearly-bald girl flaunting impressive cleavage, and a boy sulking in the corner in a navy Transaconic University hoodie. He was a large one, but hunkered down in trepidation. Eclipse also had brought one of the shades, who was holding Omnimind fast. The super genius was bleeding badly from a cut on her cheek. It was first time Luna had seen one of the shades as well. In theory, her power over darkness should extend to them, but given the size of that thing’s mouth, she was less than eager to test it.

It wasn’t the only shade here, though. Luna could see the rippling nothing of three more of the creatures orbiting about her. They must be waiting shadowside, hoping for one of the shadow mages to pull them into the fight.

“No matter,” Eclipse adjusted her grip on Omnimind. “If you’d kindly surrender, I shall spare the old lady my wrath.”

Luna shrugged. “I mean, if you want to hurt her you can try. I don’t like your chances, though.”

“Hubris is a sin.” With no indication she was aware of the irony, Eclipse moved her knife away from Omnimind to call forth several tendrils of shadow. “I have your powers and the favor of Grandmother Night. You are outclassed, child.”

“Please, lady.” Luna called up a tendril of her own. “You’ve been shaping the shadows what, three years? I’ve been doing this since I was three. Forgive me if I’m not afraid of some rookie, even if she is ancient.”

Eclipse’s face twitched in anger. “I am thirty-one.”

“Wow,” Luna feigned surprise. “I knew you were old, but I didn’t realize you were old-old.” The girl minion suppressed a giggle.

The grinding of Eclipse’s teeth could be heard clean across the room. “You are outnumbered, and outmatched. You cannot win. Just tell me what doom has befallen Shadow Maw. Or there will be consequences.”

“See, the thing about that is I don’t even have to win.” Luna smirked. “You’re in our place of power. Obviously, my parents are in DC dealing with that whole situation with the Senator’s aide, but Artemis will be here ten minutes. Then you’ll have to face the Mighty Arzan in twenty. Brick might beat him here, depending on the winds. And they’ll be calling up the rest of the Union on the way. And that’s ignoring the fact that Omnimind has been facing down scarier villains since before you were born, and that Dakota can’t see in the dark.” Please get what I’m saying, Dakota.

“What does—AH!” Eclipse screamed.

Omnimind was making her move. She bit down hard on the hand holding her mouth, even as she stomped on the rearmost of the shade’s legs. The lab coat-clad woman twisted and pushed, but Luna was faster. She leapt forward lashing out with a shadow tendril while another anchored behind her.

The tendril connected on the squirming omni-scientist, and with a heave, Luna jerked her free. Omnimind crashed, and slid across the floor. Her arms were apparently still bound, but at least she was away from the knife and the shade’s terrible maw.

“Shade,” Eclipse began barking an order, but the beast’s screams cut it off. Dakota had pulled out her flashlight and turned it’s obnoxiously strong beam on the creature. Clever girl.

The tiny female minion, shouted, “Hey, stop that!” and moved to grab the flashlight from Dakota’s hand. The two struggled, but the beam splashed on and off the shade, which staggered away. The minion must be new at this, or she might have tried to simply block the beam by standing in the way. The male minion had pushed himself back into a corner, and pulled up his hood. He was crushing his head with both of his hands, eyes wide with horror. Not a fighter that one.

That just left Eclipse, and the three more shades lurking shadowside. One rippling invisible presence move closer to the matron mother, but the villain dismissed it with a wave: not willing to escalate or at least expose another of her monsters to the dangers of sunside. Dakota had managed to cut the one that was here clean in half by this point.

Slipping away from where the bright lights were waving about erratically, Eclipse conjured a series of shadow tendrils between her and Luna, each one snaking about.

Luna met her eyes. “Okay then, old lady. Let me show you how its done.” It felt oddly good to be going up against someone whose weakness she knew so well.

Her first attack had her grab the ceiling with one tendril, the floor with another and launch herself feet first at the shadow villainous like a spinning missile.

The second great weakness of Luna’s shadow tendrils (the fist being their vulnerability to light) was the fact that they could pull, but not push. This meant they were nearly useless at blocking.

Luna flew right through Eclipses defenses, narrowly missing her doppelganger.

Eclipses eyes flew open as a shadow tendril landed on her midriff. Luna pulled on her as hard as she could, killing her own momentum, and sending the old lady flying in the direction she had been headed.

The cape hit the ground where her foe had been standing. Across the room, Eclipse pulled herself out of the wreckage of one of the cheap tables the computers had been set on. The table was splintered, but she’d managed to catch herself with her tendrils before she’d gone all the way through to the wall. A shame. That much force might have been enough to break limbs.

Something clattered to the ground between them. It was Dakota’s flashlight, turned off before being tossed aside.

Both shadow controllers glanced towards where the wheezing of the shade was melting way. There wasn’t much of it left, and what there was oozing into three or four different inky puddles.

Dakota seemed to be losing the fight now, though. The smaller girl had one of Dakota’s arms twisted up behind her back and was forcing the cape’s face down into a table. Both were making noises, but neither was speaking. Dakota didn’t seem in mortal peril, and she was keeping the more proactive minion occupied, so Luna left them too it.

A click brought sudden painful light all around them, disrupting both Luna and Eclipse’s tendrils. Omnimind stood next to the light switch, a tiny razor blade in one hand and rubbing her wrist. “You have approximately eight and a half minutes before Artemis rives.”

Eclipse glanced at her acolytes. The silent, near invisible ripples of her additional shades, lurking shadowside. They’d gathered around Luna, which could easily be either them waiting for a threat, or confusing her for the other failed avatar of Grandmother Night. “Caleb, be a dear and gather up what’s left of Kanda. We’re leaving.”

“What abou – ack!” the girl minion was interrupted by Dakota kicking back into her shin. Luna’s teammate shoved free and rushed to hide behind her.

“Well too bad!” Dakota shouted. “Moonless is here, and she’s not going to let you just go.”

Caleb—apparently that was the larger minion’s name—had dashed and scoped up handfuls of the shade’s melting remains. He was still looking between Luna and Omnimind with abject terror.

Luna tried to give Dakota some some side eye, but the girl was hiding on the same side as her black eye. “If you’re leaving in peace, I won’t stop you.”

“W-what?” Dakota whined, but Omnimind nodded.

The three of them, along with the inky slop remains of the shade gathered on the far side of the room. Her shadowside minions remained close to Luna. Both Caleb and the girl shot almost apologetic looks at Dakota, which was interesting, but something Luna would have to unpack later. The shadow-controlling cape nodded to Omnimind, and she cut the lights.

Eclipse slid her minions shadowside, and Luna watched the three of them rush through the space towards the west wall, which was nearest to an exterior wall.

“Are we letting them go?” Dakota whined. She was painfully loud in Luna’s ear, still clinging unhelpfully to her arm.

“We are picking our battles.” Omnimind tucked an ear piece over her ear. They really must not have searched her when they had the chance. Into the ear piece, she said, “Boris, let me know when you have eyes on Moonless’s doppelganger… Thank you, Boris.”

“She gone?” Luna gave a sigh of relief when Omnimind nodded.

“W-what happened?” Dakota asked.

Omnimind glanced at her before turning her attention to Luna. She rubbed the bruised side of her head and sat down in one of the mismatched office chairs without breaking eye contact. “That was an excellent lie, Moonless.”

“Lie?” Dakota’s voice was really getting on Luna’s nerves.

The shadow-controlling heroine sighed. It should have been obvious that Dakota would have needed it spelled out. “Artemis, Kalysto, and Truthseeker are trying to chase down Verdant. There’s no way they’re still in the city, let alone ten minutes out.”

“The Mighty Arzan had warned me that he was entering a nap.” Omnimind added. “Once asleep, he is impossible to wake. He was much further still.”

Dakota’s face was blank confusion. “And the rest of the Union?”

“You picked an optimal time to sneak your friends in for unauthorized sightseeing.” If Omnimind had smiled, it would have seemed like a joke. “Boris is the only other person besides us who is here, or could come to this building easily.”

“Who’s Boris?” Dakota asked.

“Ex-marine civilian security.” Luna said. “Did you let the Cult of Grandmother Night into the Justice Union offices?”

That made Dakota flinch. “I just wanted Riley to like me.”

“Do not trouble yourself, Ms. Lyon.” Omnimind had pulled out a small, unlabeled tub of ointment and was rubbing into her temple—near but not on her bruises. Her cheek was still bleeding freely. “Had you correctly asked permission, I would have allowed you to bring your new friends. Those two were, unfortunately, not on our radar.”

Luna felt her teeth clench shut. “She let members of the Cult of Grandmother Night into the Justice Union offices, and you’re not even mad.” Dakota slumped further down.

“According to her background profile and your own reports, Ms Lyon is rather short on friends. If she found someone who shared her passions enough, it would have been more than acceptable for her to bring them here to do a little showing off. She has earned it. Even your father was not admitted to the Union until he was properly enrolled in University, and his social life was relatively healthy.”

Luna stared in disbelief. Why, in Grandmother Night’s name, was the Union bending over backwards for this child? She wasn’t the only friendless loser at Ensberg High—she wasn’t even the only such loser in this freaking room, and they’d only made thing worse by forcing for Luna by making her spend time more time with her former stalker.

“But, uh, even if help was more than ten minutes away,” Dakota mumbled, staring at her feet, “why let Eclipse get away? She didn’t seem like anywhere close to a match for Luna.”

Luna snorted, and folder her arms. Omnimind turned and looked pensively up at the ceiling. “We have to pick our battles carefully. Between the human cultists and the shades waiting shadowside, and the great unknown that is what a matron mother of Grandmother Night’s cult can do to Moonless, victory was far from a sure thing. It was a risk that it was wiser not to take.”

“But…”

“The difference between Shadow Maw and Eclipse, is that the latter has understood discretion. That is why Eclipse is still at large, and Shadow Maw is rotting away on a habitable planet only accessible via the Azurian’s portals.”

“She’s what?”

“Eclipse knows we are spread thin, always so thin. So she avoid becoming our largest problem, and keeps slipping away to fight another day. Shadow Maw laughed as she fed those people to her beasts in Toronto. Then she proved to be too dangerous to keep contained, even in the Spike. She kills, and kills again, and then kills to be free. For the sake of the world, we lie, and imprisoned her without trial. There is little Shadow Maw can do that Eclipse could not, if she were only willing. But Eclipse plays the game, and remains free to be our third priority for another day.”

“Besides,” Luna added. “What am I supposed to do, kill her? Even if I could beat her, and her minions, and the extra shades she had on tap, I know how hard it is to secure someone with my powers—and any setup that does so would also render me powerless. And I wouldn’t bet on me in a fist fight.”

“But… but… she broke into the Justice Union office. She cut up Omnimind’s face!”

“Faces heal, and the secure serves where our data is actually stores are not located on this premises. The stir in DC centers on someone who passed along congressional messages to US military, and the robots that put half of Team Elemental into the hospital today were far larger threats.”

“Team Elemental is in the hospital?” Dakota was so distraught.

“Ah. You had not heard of that.” Omnimind sighed. “We are spread so thin.”

Chapter 9: Epilogue

Dakota Lyon received a letter three days later. The return address belonged to one of the victims of the Toronto Night Beast, but it lacked international postage.

She pretended it wasn’t a big deal, but she wasn’t sure her brother bought it. He did let her go to her room and open it.

The note was short, written on single pieces of loose leaf paper, and not even using most of that. It read:

Hey Badass,

I just wanted to let you know I wasn’t pretending at all. I really loved seeing everything you showed me, especially Zerker’s weapons. It was freaking sweet.

You’re amazing, and don’t let anyone tell you you aren’t.

Stay cool,

In lieu of a signature, it had a doodle of a penis, just like the one Riley, Caleb, and their blue-haired skateboarding friend had been painting on abandoned buildings.