Fern, I, and Fractal walked down the corridor, all costumed up and looking as dignified as possible. For me, it was a bit harder with my nose and toe still aching a bit, but I did my best. At least it seemed like my power had stopped boycotting me.

As we finally approached the doors, the two identical-looking guards clad in white robes nodded to us and let us through.

Super creepy.

Was this a cult? I had thought we were trying to stop one!

The door before us opened and we stepped inside the grand room with a spherical table surrounding an odd machine in the middle.

“Oh, hello!” a voice immediately caught our attention. A very inhuman, almost goddess-like sounding voice.

When I turned to look at the source, I found a white floating girl. White as in, a white costume, a white mask, and even white hair. She kind of reminded me of Aura.

“Hi! We’re… uh, transfers from Kitran,” I spoke for us.

“Yes, I heard about you! Former villains who switched sides, right?” her echoey voice asked.

“Um, yup. That’s us.”

Even though I had never technically been a villain… Just a minion, and a girlfriend of one.

“I’m Typhoon! I’ve been a hero for three years now!” 

She extended her hand whilst floating toward us in a position as if she was napping on a cloud.

“Hi! I’m Princess Fox!” I grabbed the hand.

“Iron Pack.” “Fractal.” My companions shook her hand after me.

“Oh! You must be the secret weapon everyone was talking about!” She beamed at me.

What? A secret weapon? What was--

“And I heard about your machines! You created the Spa, right?” She turned to Fractal, glossing over my apparent secret weapon status.

“Yes, that’s correct. Unfortunately… I had to disassemble it before we moved here and I haven’t yet started reassembling it again.”

“Aww… That’s a shame. Can I come to look at your workshop sometime?”

“Sure…?” fractal half-asked in confusion.

“Great!”

With that line of dialogue done, I was about to ask about the secret weapon thing when Fe- Iron pack interrupted.

“Oh! Typhoon! I get it. You are an aerokinetic. Vibrating the air to create sound and mimic speech? That’s really impressive.”

“Aww, thanks!” She flipped in the air, now ‘lying’ on her back and looking at us upside down. “I did my best to practice! It wasn’t easy.”

I just noticed her mouth was visible through her mask, and it had not moved at all when she’d ‘spoken’.

Anyway, I finally had a moment to ask--

“Oh! Looks like the others are here! Let’s get this meeting started then!” She floated away.

Come ooon! What others?! There was still nobody but us!

A second later, the doors opened and various people in costumes streamed inside the room.

What?! How had she known?! Precognition?!

“Oh… She can even sense through the air. That’s one heck of a power,” Iron Pack commented.

“We better take our seats,” Fractal interrupted my internal frustration.

“Yeah,” my girlfriend agreed, while I grumbled my affirmation and we all found our designated spot at the table.

A few minutes later until everyone got seated, and then the main-hero-looking guy began his speech. Welcoming the newcomers -- us --, low-key threatening former villains -- us -- if we ever have a relapse, and then beckoning everyone to introduce themselves -- mostly, for us.

Typhoon, Shifter, Recoil… 

Okay, there were way too many names shooting at us from all sides! Don’t just toss thousands of new characters at us at once like that! There was no way anyone would remember this massive info dump!

When the introductions finally ceased, all I remembered was Typhoon. And only because she had introduced herself before the avalanche of names.

The meeting proceeded to hero discussion. The machine in the middle activated and began projecting 3D images of relevant topics. The Brimscythes, Mama’s cult sightings, Neutra’s movements, and so on. I zoned out during most of the discussion since it was yet another huge info dump my poor fragile brain couldn’t handle.

When the conversation turned to Mama’s cult though, I caught onto a shocking piece of information. Apparently, one of the heroes recently experienced a temporary loss of superpowers -- I think her name was Recoil -- and the very next day a new daughter of the cult appeared, seemingly using the same powers as Recoil.

That was scary. Was this Mama stealing powers and then granting them to young girls then? Why? What was her goal?

Iron Pack bumped me with her shoulder to get my attention.

“Aster… This is…” she whispered, concerned.

“Yeah… This sounds really messed up,” I whispered back.

“No, Aster… Your powers were acting up yesterday, weren’t they? Did your powers get stolen too?”

…

“Oh… Shit…”

When? How? I had never noticed any suspicious cult leaders getting close to me and snagging my powers yesterday. Was this really…?

“An enemy with your powers would be an absolute nightmare…” she grimaced behind her mask.

That… It would.

“M-maybe… It was still just a normal malfunction. It happened before, after all…”

She frowned. “Let’s hope it was.”

We went back to quietly listening to the discussion, but I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling anymore.

When could have my power been stolen? I pretty much hung out with Alex and the kids all day, and then headed straight home. Was it a passerby? How does this Mama even steal powers? Does she need to touch me? Or maybe just looking at me is enough?

The meeting concluded while I mulled over these thoughts. I haven’t felt any more cheerful by then.

Although, apparently, the Typhoon girl was still very excited about Fractal’s devices and dragged him off to chat with him, leaving me and Iron Pack off to the side.

“You alright?” she asked.

“... Yeah, I--”

My phone vibrating in my pockets interrupted my reply.

“One sec…”

I fished it out and looked who was calling. It said ‘Alex’.

Remembering yesterday brought a smile back to my face as I picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hey… Aster. How are you doing?” Alex’s voice asked. A bunch of other voices could be heard in the background.

“I’m doing great!” I said, already forgetting my previous conundrum. “How are you? Is Shifra giving you a hard time again?”

“Well… She really wants to hang out with you again. And… ahh, the others want to meet you too,” Alex said, clearly feeling awkward about it.

“Oh! Sure! I would love to! My schedule’s pretty open right now. When can we hang out, then?” I beamed.

“Huh? Oh, that’s good. I didn’t want to bother you, but Shifra just kept on nagging me…”

“Hey, auntie Aster!” a voice in the background yelled.

“Hey, Shifra! And it’s fine, you know? It was fun hanging out with you all, I don’t mind at all.”

“Um, alright. How about tomorrow after lunch then? Are you free? You can come to our house if you want to.”

“Sure! I’ll be there!”

A choir of yay’s resounded from the other side.

“Alright. We’ll be looking forward to you then.”

“See you!” I hung up with a smile and pocketed my phone again.

Fern raised an eyebrow. “So… That was the egg you were talking about?”

“Yup! And tomorrow I’ll have a chance to help her!”

“Hmm… Well, if you --”

My phone interrupted us by ringing again.

“Hmm? Did Alex forget something or --” I froze as I looked at the screen.

“Something wrong, Aster?”

My reply was showing the phone screen to her.

It displayed the word ‘Mother’.

BottledChaos

Hmm? What is this? Maybe the other reason why part 2 is called 'family issues'? Nah, surely not.
Also, obligatory patreon plug.