Lucas stared up at the enormous portal before him. Portals were his thing. They were second nature to him. There must be a way to close it. He tried again. It was as simple as zipping up the world. Why wouldn’t it work?

“You gave me your blood, Lucas,” Valpurgia explained. “You gave me influence over you. I chose to claim it in the form of that portal.”

“What do we do?” Krisztina asked, her voice quavering.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Check on Nova Legion and Adam. See if you can do anything for them.”

The two of them weren’t dead yet. That meant there was still a chance to find a solution.

Lucas was a planner. He tried to make plans within plans. He had plans for if the artifact had turned out to be a fake, for if they couldn’t find it, for if they couldn’t find Nova Legion within it. He’d even considered the blood thing and had prepared for the possibility of Valpurgia trying to mind control him. But all of his plans required him having control over his portals. He hadn’t anticipated Valpurgia seizing control of one.

That was it. She only controlled one.

He opened another portal, right in the same space as the current one, just a fraction of an angstrom on the labyrinth side. It led to the labyrinth dimension. It was so perfect that Lucas could barely detect the sight of it opening across the alabaster landscape. From this side, the result might look exactly the same, but from the other the demons would be sealed inside.

There was the slightest flicker across the landscape. The portal had closed.

Valpurgia could control all of his portals.

“Lucas, I would prefer not to end your superior bloodline,” Valpurgia said. “But I will if you keep causing trouble.”

Lucas only spared her a momentary glance before staring back up at the portal. There was a solution, he was sure of it.

Time to make a new plan.

 

---

 

Something had gone horribly wrong. At some point, monstrous creatures of various shapes and sizes—no doubt demons—had flooded the skies. The Einherjar were fighting them. Built-in lasers, hellfire, machine guns, tangles of wailing souls, rockets, flaming swords, and lightning cannons flashed across the sky like a storm. The Yamosian ship was locked in combat with a winged serpent of terrifying enormity, producing a dazzling display.

But Shudder was focused on following the trail of destruction she believed was produced by Meerak. Why was she doing this? Was the threat of Meerak even relevant in the face of the army of demons? But what else was she going to do? She was no help in any of the ongoing fights. So she might as well stick with the one she’d chosen.

She couldn’t reach Lucas. It was possible that he’d betrayed his allies, but unlikely. Valpurgia probably had a secret method for getting her demon army into this world and Lucas had been unable to stop her. Hopefully, he was too busy finding an answer and not too busy being dead.

Curiously, Meerak was heading for Old Town, away from the area Shudder imagined Sila would be patrolling.

However, soon enough she rounded a corner to find Sila and Meerak in the middle of a street, facing each other down.

“Is that the Epsilon Seraphinite?” Sila asked. They didn’t sound as frightened as Shudder would have expected. They sounded almost sad.

“Valpurgia gave me new strength,” Meerak growled. “Seraphinite and the vampire’s gift.”

As she got closer, Shudder could see that, yes, Sila looked heartbroken. “Why did you let her do that to you? Our family will never take you back, now. Even if you kill me, you won’t be able to take my place.”

“Don’t care, don’t care.” Meerak took a step forward. “I hate you too much to care.” Another step. “I’m too hungry to care.”

They lunged forward. Shudder wasn’t expecting it, but apparently Sila was. They had already formed a fireball which burst against Meerak’s face without slowing them. The monstrous alien reached Sila, grabbed them by a leg and flung them into the side of a building.

Sila didn’t stand a chance.

What could she do? The only advantage Shudder had was that Meerak seemed completely unaware of her, but did that even matter? Of course, from her vantage, she could easily see the broken, green-glowing piece of machinery that had once formed Meerak’s force field generator. If it was embedded with Seraphinite, it must be still active in some way, right? And it certainly was positioned in the place where it made the most sense to hide something important-yet-external.

Screw it, she decided, it was worth a try. She increased her pace to sprint as fast as she could. When she was close, she leapt high into the air and brought down her baton with a loud whang right on the machinery.

Meerak turned around slowly. Then, in a flash, Shudder was on the ground, hurting all over, unable to breathe from the weight of Meerak’s hand pressing down on her chest.

Shudder stared up at Meerak who stared back down at her. She couldn’t even move enough to struggle. Fireballs burst upon Meerak’s head, but they ignored them. Their mouth opened, and they leaned down, fangs looming larger and larger.

Then something dropped on top of Meerak and the Nanzaran reared back in pain, releasing Shudder. Shudder gasped for air as Meerak screamed, parts of their body growing and shrinking seemingly at random, straining so hard against their cybernetics that their skin was tearing open in places.

They were finally able to throw off their attacker and Shudder was able to register who it was. The cat-eared form of Stray, who landed gracefully between Meerak and Shudder.

“Keep this shit out of my neighborhood,” he said sternly.

Meerak’s body was returning to its previous state, their wounds rapidly closing. They kept their focus on Stray. “You’re dead.”

“You can kill us,” Sila replied. Shudder looked around Meerak to see that they were standing again, clutching their side with one hand. “But it’s not going to end. Hunger and anger. That’s all you feel now, isn’t it Meerak? Hunger from the vampirism and anger from the Seraphinite.”

Meerak slowly turned to face Sila.

“You’ve been tricked. And I think you know it because it’s not just hunger and anger, even if those are all you can think about. There’s a little bit of fear there, too, isn’t there? Fear that there really won’t be any satisfying that hunger or dowsing that anger. That they’ll stay just as intense forever.”

Sila was setting her up. It was just like before when she’d protected Stray from Prometheus. There was something Shudder could do.

Meerak’s mind wasn’t completely invisible to Shudder as Prometheus’ had been, probably due to the fact that Meerak’s brain was at least partially organic. She reached out, searching for the fear Sila had described.

And hooked it.

And pulled hard.

The roar Meerak let out resembled no animal Shudder had ever heard, yet the fury in it was clear.

“Valpurgia!” they shouted. They paused to sniff the air.

And took off with a leaping run.

Shudder struggled to her feet.

“Everyone okay?” Stray asked. “Shudder, darling, I assume you’re on our side again.”

How much did she want to explain? She settled on the short answer. “Yeah.” She glanced after the departing Meerak. “Can I borrow your bike?”

Stray raised an eyebrow. “You’re going after them?”

Shudder shrugged. “I helped out once, maybe I can again.”

Stray tossed her a set of keys. “Good luck, then. I’d offer to join you, but—” there was an explosion a block away. “I’m a little busy here. Bike’s over there.” He pointed.

 

---

 

Adam couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. He couldn’t taste. He couldn’t feel. He couldn’t smell. He had no sense of balance. He had no sense of spatial orientation. He had no kinesthesia. He had no sense of the passage of time. He had no pain, hunger, thirst, nausea, or need to breathe.

His body was hardware and his mind was software. That was how he had come to think of himself. It was tempting to imagine every bit of that software as him, but it was more complicated than that. After all, the nanites had chosen for themselves to make him metal, they’d chosen to make him taller, and so dense and heavy that he couldn’t so much as ride a bus. He hadn’t made that choice, and he didn’t believe his subconscious had, either. So he was a program being run by the nanites’ operating system. This was something he had believed for some time. He had not, however, considered that someone else might have admin privileges.

So he was locked out of his body by someone else who had higher access than him. If it hadn’t been for Shudder’s pep talk earlier, this might have given him more of an existential crisis. As it was, he was severely doubting that he was a person at all.

But he was still thinking. Which meant the program was still running.

Shudder had said that he needed to figure out how to tell the nanites what he wanted them to do. That seemed impossible at the moment, since obviously there was someone else whose word overruled his. However, he recalled watching a video about games with glitches so bad that they ruined consoles. And another video about players performing sets of seemingly nonsensical action that lined up and executed bits of code, often with surprising results.

So he just needed to be like that. If his thoughts were a program, then maybe he could undermine Dawn’s control just by thinking in the wrong way.

It was worth a try, at least, since he couldn’t do anything but think.

 

---

 

It was easy to keep up with Meerak on Stray’s motorcycle. Of course, Shudder kept some distance to avoid drawing their attention. They weren’t an ally, just an enraged beast who was currently focused on Valpurgia.

The portal came into view as they continued down several streets, then off the road and into a park’s grass. Shudder considered slowing, but Meerak only sped as Valpurgia herself came into view. Lucas and Krisztina were there, too. And another woman Shudder didn’t recognize. Several bodies were laying around them. Was that Nova Legion?

As Meerak neared Valpurgia, Shudder felt her excitement grow. They towered over her. They had all the strength the Seraphinite could give them on top of the power of a vampire on top of their cybernetically enhanced Nanzaran body. Valpurgia had made them too powerful. She wouldn’t stand a chance.

As Meerak thrust a claw out there was a flit.

And they were no longer moving. Valpurgia’s fist was in their chest.

They stared down at her in surprise. Their lips moved silently. Then, the Seraphinite faded to its regular, non-illuminated green, Valpurgia removed her blood-soaked fist, and Meerak collapsed.

Shudder pulled to a stop.

Valpurgia was too powerful. It was hopeless. The Igor in her told her to flee. Doc would be disappointed if she died here. The small fry in her told her to flee, too. No job was worth one’s life. If she had a superhero in her—she still doubted that she did—she told her to flee, too. Come up with a new plan. This fight might be lost, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find a way to win the next one.

But she didn’t flee.

She stood there, frozen, staring at Valpurgia, unable to think. Her chest still ached so hard that she could barely breathe. Her shoulder felt wet. Had she bled through her bandage?

“How did you…?” Krisztina asked, stunned. “I can’t do anything like that.”

Valpurgia paid Shudder no notice, turning to address her daughter. “You never earned more than a fraction of my power, Krisztina. And, it seems, you never will. But, no matter. I have a new daughter who has already demonstrated her worth.”

“Speaking of which, I’m still hungry,” the other woman said. She pointed to Shudder. “She’s not anyone important, is she?”

Valpurgia glanced at Shudder. “Her? No, she’s no one. Feel free.”

The other woman didn’t move with Valpurgia’s impossible speed, but Shudder had hit a wall. She couldn’t think enough to react before the woman gripped her collar and slammed her against a tree, pinning her in place.

The new burst of pain seemed to awaken Shudder a little. She clawed desperately at the woman’s hand and, when that failed, bit down on her finger. In reaction, the woman changed her grip, clutching her throat instead. Shudder reached out psychically, but she had no idea who this woman was. She reached for a fear of the sun, a fear of magic, a fear of failure, but found nothing she could twist.

She looked to the others, but Krisztina wasn’t moving. Lucas wasn’t even looking. He was staring up at the portal.

The woman bit down on her neck. There was a small jab of pain, but it was barely noticeable among all the other pain she felt.

And the realization that she was going to die. 

Why had she tried to go up against vampires? Like they said, she was no one. She struggled to keep enough income to survive. She relied on being too insignificant to arrest. She barely even had a superpower. She was just a girl with a baton. The only thing noteworthy about her was that she had been chosen by Dr. Tlön.

Doc. Might as well let her last thoughts be about her. She was someone. The genius who had invented Orbis Tertius. Of course, now that seemed less impressive than the work she’d done maintaining Tutamaqui. There was also the fact that she was a Norn. Shudder had never really taken the time to appreciate how cool that was. Partially because she still didn’t completely understand it, aside from the fact that it came with some nifty powers and a tragic drawback. Apparently it was a legacy powerset that had influenced some old stories. Or possibly been influenced by stories.

Wait.

Lucas had talked about a subtle magic that was tied to the collective unconscious. The magic of stories. Could the Norns have that type of magic? If that was true, then that meant…what did it mean? It was getting harder to think.

It meant that Shudder was a hero.

Not a superhero, but a hero of myth. Chosen by a goddess and gifted with a weapon. She was a legendary hero wielding a holy weapon. 

Someone who could change the world.

If this worked, it was going to be terribly embarrassing. Stray and Quetzal would both tease her about it.

She found the baton at her side, gripped it as tightly as her weak hand could.

And thrust it into the woman’s chest.

It was as if it were sharp. It pierced through the skin—probably even pierced through a rib or two—with almost no resistance, until it punctured the woman’s heart. The woman’s grip, and her jaws, both weakened until Shudder was able to push her off.

Valpurgia’s face flashed with anger.

In her half-dazed state, Shudder had forgotten just how hopeless her situation was. Valpurgia was nearly as fast as Hypersonic. Having a holy weapon didn’t matter if she couldn’t hit her enemy. She was still dead. Ah, well, it had been a good try. At least she’d made Valpurgia a little less happy. There was some satisfaction in that.

Why hadn’t Valpurgia killed her yet?

She blinked. There was some sort of silver tendril wrapped around the vampire, extending from a strange puddle on the ground which Shudder hadn’t noticed before.

Was that Prometheus?

She lurched forward in a half-run. It was the best she could manage. Valpurgia struggled, shouting words which might have been in another language, but the tendril only tightened. The vampire twisted and writhed, she was starting to get one of her claws loose.

Then Shudder plunged the baton into her chest.

Lucas had turned to watch the display, his eyes wide. But once he saw the baton in Valpurgia’s chest he turned back to the portal and waved a hand, his tattoos glowing. The tear in the world repaired itself, leaving only the spectacular sight of the battle in the sky. Shudder sat down in the grass, then laid down. It didn’t feel as good as she’d hoped.

The metal reformed into Prometheus. It was hard to tell, but he looked shorter. Still tall, but he no longer towered like he had before. A large amount of the metal puddle remained pooled around him.

“Was that okay to do?” she murmured. “I’ve never killed someone directly.”

The world faded to black before she got an answer.

 

---

 

She awoke in a hospital, still in pain, though significantly less than before.

That wasn’t good. Waking up in an underground clinic was good. Waking up in a regular hospital was a problem.

She moved her arm and found that her wrist was restrained to the bed, confirming that this was, indeed, a problem.

There was a STRIX agent in a chair nearby.

“Hey,” she greeted.

He activated his radio. “James here. Shudder’s awake.” He smiled at Shudder awkwardly. “Sorry about the handcuff.”

“You could take it off,” Shudder replied.

“If it were up to me, I would.”

“I mean, you literally have the key, don’t you?” she countered. “It’s absolutely up to you.”

“No, I mean it would be against orders,” he explained, as if she didn’t already understand that. She decided not to pester him further about it. It would be hypocritical to pretend like he was the only one of the two who did immoral things for money.

“Look, thanks for saving, uh, everyone,” the guard said. 

Okay, she couldn’t resist that. “If you really want to thank me, you could—”

The door opened, admitting Commander Reginald Tomahawk. The sight of his face brought more important matters to the surface.

“Commander, hey, did anyone…? No, of course they did. It was chaos. How many people died?”

The commander gave her a surprisingly gentle smile below his mustache. “That’s still being assessed. Current estimates are around fifty. But it would have been a lot worse if not for you.”

Shudder almost groaned at that last line. She did not deserve that kind of praise. Well maybe a little. For the mind controlled people at least. That had been pretty badass.

“Is Nova Legion okay?”

He nodded. “All five are alive and stable. Just got done listening to Hex complain about the loss of a number of magical items. Hypersonic and Titan are recovering. Repulse’s armor is totaled, but she has spares. Mr. Landis…the Aerialist was a little less lucky. He took some permanent damage. Knowing him, I doubt he’ll be retiring entirely, but he’ll likely be taking a step back from the action.”

Shudder felt a little sick. She was about to ask a follow-up question when something else struck her. “The Crimson Conjurer! What about him? He was a victim, too.”

The commander shook his head. “He didn’t make it.”

Should she feel guilty about that? It was technically her fault he’d been freed from mind control before Valpurgia’s death, allowing her to activate her failsafe and kill him. She considered this and decided it was too much of a stretch even for her most self-loathing side to accept.

“But the Outcasts are safe, with minimal injury,” the commander continued.

Who else was there? If Valkyrie had any sense, she and the Einherjar would have cleared out as soon as the fight was over. Tomahawk wouldn’t know if they’d lost anyone. And the small fry were smart enough to stay in hiding until the fighting was over. But she was forgetting someone.

“Wait, what about Whisper?” she blurted energetically enough to send a wave of pain through her body.

The commander took a moment. “There was no sign of the group who attacked the condo.”

Was that a good or bad sign? Probably bad, right? STRIX had worked with Whisper in the past without arresting him, so there was no reason for him not to report in. Shudder suddenly desperately wanted out of this hospital bed. She needed to check with Snapshot. Or Arachne. Someone.

The commander sat in one of the chairs, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “Which brings us to another matter. As we’re piecing together what happened, we’re receiving report after report that your actions were particularly admirable.”

Shudder dreaded this part.

“You single-handedly saved Valpurgia’s mind control victims.”

“Not single-handedly,” Shudder objected. “Doc helped me build the device and the other supervillains helped me get into the warehouse.”

“You turned the alien against Valpurgia,” Tomahawk continued.

“That was Sila’s idea.”

“You inspired a group of supervillains into protecting the city from the demons.”

Shudder blinked. “I…what?”

“A group of them helped fight the army of demons, when things turned chaotic. I believe their handles are Ifrit, Quetzal, Bodkin, and Gremlin. After they saved one of my men, he attempted to thank Ifrit and she told him to thank you instead.”

Shudder shook her head. “They must have chosen to do that on their own. You can’t pin that on me.”

“Fine. But you defeated both Valkyrie and Sapphire Dawn.”

Dawn. So that had been the other vampire. “That was pure luck.”

The commander chuckled. “You refuse to take credit for any of this, don’t you? Well, regardless, you were key to putting an end to a major threat.”

Shudder made a frustrated noise. Technically that was accurate.

“So, since you’re clearly a potential asset, we want to offer you a superhero license.”

Ah, of course that was what he was leading up to.

“I have a lot of respect for the licensed superheroes of Fairfield. I mean, the Aerialist is one of the people I look up to most, if you can believe that.” She narrowed her eyes. “But being a licensed superhero means acknowledging that STRIX has a right to exist as an authority. And that’s something I won’t do.”

Tomahawk’s expression was thoughtful. “What’s wrong with STRIX?”

“In 1997 STRIX launched an attack on a town called Tutamaqui. Supposedly it was controlled by supervillains, but no one there was a supervillain. At least not before the attack. Because of the hundreds who lived there, only three survived. Three women who would go on to become Valkyrie, Snapshot, and Dr. Tlön. Everyone else was murdered by STRIX.”

The commander looked surprised. “Korris was involved in something like that?”

Shudder nodded.

“I’ll have to look into it. I knew the circumstances of her employment were unusual, but…” he shook his head. “At any rate, I’m sorry you feel that way. I was hoping we could make this easy.”

Of course there was something he was hiding. There had to be a reason Shudder was restrained, after all.

“If you were a licensed superhero, this would be of little concern, but you’ve committed a number of crimes. Yesterday alone you broke into private property, assaulted a licensed superhero, and set off a psionic weapon.” Shudder glared at the commander. It was a weapon now? “An investigation will also have to be conducted into the deaths of Dawn and Valpurgia to determine whether you truly acted in self-defense and whether you used excessive force. And of course, there’s the matter of your recent escape from STRIX custody, the attempted kidnapping of Sila Filvus, property damage at Charles Ranium University, all within the last two weeks. Before that are your numerous crimes as a freelance supervillain and the even more serious crimes you committed when you worked as Tlön’s assistant. Going all the way back to, as I recall, a number of convenience store robberies.”

So that was how it was. Become STRIX’s goon or face Singularity.

“The Aerialist isn’t going to like this.”

“The Aerialist has bigger concerns right now. And even if he didn’t, there’s only so much he can do to circumvent my authority.”

“You won’t get a jury to convict me.”

“I will.”

He would. She was guilty of countless crimes.

“I leave you to think about things,” he said. “See you later.” Then he stood and departed.

Apparently ‘later’ meant ‘tomorrow’ because Shudder was left to spend the rest of the day staring daggers at the guard who awkwardly avoided meeting her gaze. As the sun sat, she found herself becoming tired and eventually drifted off to sleep.

She was awoken by a sensation of falling. Letting out a loud yelp, she flailed to catch herself only to find she was in someone’s arms. Squinting up into the darkness, she discovered it was Whisper.

“You’re alive,” she said. Pain struck her neck, shoulder and, well, entire upper torso in belated response to her flailing.

“Keep quiet,” he replied, his voice low. “Luckily, yes, I’m alive. I almost wasn’t, but Snapshot found and saved me.”

He dropped them through another floor and Shudder tried not to tense.

“Oh, you aren’t an Einherjar, are you?” she asked.

“Thankfully, no. Just needed a blood transfusion. I’m still not at the top of my game, but I came away better than you, from the looks of it.”

“I killed two vampires!” Shudder said indignantly.

They continued down floor after floor until they finally dropped into one of Sapper’s tunnels and Whisper sat Shudder down. She wobbled a little, but only for a moment.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Where do you think?”

There was only one place, of course. A lengthy walk, made longer by how slow Shudder was moving, and they finally reached Valkyrie’s makeshift base. The Einherjar buzzed with excitement, and maybe just a little reverence, at the sight of them—that was odd—and Shudder was ushered to a meeting room where Valkyrie, Snapshot, and Doc were seated. Doc offered her a tiny smile as Shudder sat down.

“Hello, Daisy,” Valkyrie began. “How are you feeling?”

“Well, the pain isn’t completely overwhelming,” Shudder replied.

Snapshot chuckled.

“I see,” Valkyrie replied. “I’ll dispense with any praise, since I’m sure you received plenty from STRIX.”

“Please dispense with any handcuffs, as well.”

Valkyrie frowned. “I see they’re keeping up their reputation for hospitality.”

“So this all looks a little formal,” Shudder observed.

“Yes,” Valkyrie said. “Now that the Valpurgia matter has been resolved, we’re left with the question of what to do with our little group. As you know, my sisters and I have only a little time left, and we’ll be leaving behind both a number of resources and the Einherjar, who will require guidance. Someone will need to take our place.”

They weren’t suggesting what it sounded like, were they?

“As we discussed successors, one name kept coming up,” Snapshot continued. “One person who is very close to one of us, one person who we can trust to use these resources responsibly, and one person who has demonstrated a combination of leadership and technical knowledge.”

“You mean me,” Shudder concluded.

Doc nodded. “What would you do with all of our research, all of our data, and a squad of loyal superhuman followers?”

She didn’t even have to think of it.

“I’d build a utopia. Right here in Fairfield. A place where everyone gets what they need to survive and no one has to do terrible things for Arachne, or fear getting arrested by the police or STRIX. Right under their noses, I’d rebuild Tutamaqui.”