“You see the mark, big guy?” I lean over, bonking my head into Meathead’s shoulder as he uses his binoculars to scope out for the transport that we’ll be hitting.

He moves a hand from the binoculars to my head, holding the device up with one paw. “Not yet. We might be here for a hot minute. You might want to get comfortable.”

I giggle, nuzzling in against his shoulder, the fur on his lined jacket’s collar tickling at my eyelashes. “Oh, how will I ever do that? What with this big lug right in the way!” I swear I hear him choke, him fumbling his binoculars, and that just makes me giggle harder. It was such a David thing to do.

That revelation this afternoon, honestly, was freeing. I was always a bit of a flirt, sure. But I felt conflicted about it. Like I was two timing on my best friend every time I did it on the field, and also like I was hiding too many secrets from him at home. And as fun as flirting with Meathead was, that would never go anything beyond little games. He thought I was a girl, after all. That wouldn’t last. 

But now? It’s like the gates have come down and everything was fair game. Daring myself a little, I air kiss right next to where his ear was, and gently blow it over the rest of the way through our masks. That one does get him to actually fumble his surveillance device a bit. “Girlie!” he yelps out. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but we’re on a mission!”

Still, that large arm of his comes down around my shoulder, dragging me in tight against his side, pulling me to lean in even further. I knew if I could see his face, it would be blushing bright red, with that same starry eyed look he was giving me just hours ago…

Honestly, it wasn’t even the thought that I knew who was under that mask that made my heart race so hard. It was the implication that he saw me right back. Under the clothes and the voice and the behavior, he still saw me. And he’s still holding me tight, still protecting me, still letting things go on. Things could still go horribly wrong when the bandaid came off, and it stops being “probably me” and it starts being “definitely me”. Even if I was sure he knew, I was terrified of showing him my face and finally finding out if the cat was alive or dead. We’re in a superposition, and that means I can still safely cling to this absolute unit without anything collapsing.

Besides. If there was any night to have this kind of conversation, now would not be it. Not in front of any mission; certainly not this one. Today’s mission was time critical, and we were only going to get one real shot at it.

Almost everything on Basilisk’s shopping list had been accounted for; plans and contingencies, best times to hit, strategies for optimal order. The outliers which hadn’t been poured over were miniscule before I even joined in the party. And then, there was Lockdown’s tech, the one item that had bested any of our schemes. 

As an active villain, the easiest thing would have been to simply buy it off of him, or find some excuse to work with him and snatch it mid gig. But Lockdown, unfortunately for our plan, was a complete psychopath. Most villains were already solitary enough that communication and deal making was extremely rare in the first place. And even if we could find him? There was no chance that we were ever going to help that man with anything, when it seemed like he went out of his way to kill as many people as he could. How many times has he sealed a room completely shut and allowed all the poor trapped souls to slowly suffocate? 

So instead the plan shifted to waiting for him to eventually lose. A man that cruel didn’t have any crew helping him, and for as impressive as his nigh-impenetrable containment tech was, he wasn’t much to write home about for himself. He was relying on a gimmick, and the fact that he mostly did small beans robberies with it, to last as long as he has. It wasn’t until he showed how little he cared for people’s lives that CCHIP really brought down the hammer, and from there it was only a matter of time before we could pounce on the leftovers. 

When Basilisk called us in and told me the good news that they took his ass down, I cheered. The idiot got into a fight with Speedburst earlier this afternoon and couldn’t keep up, and now Lockdown will rot in lockup for the rest of his life and deserve every second of it. And while they’re taking him down to the holding cells, his control pad and locking devices are on a separate van heading straight towards their forensics lab for study. That means this is our one shot at getting the devices without staging an all-out invasion. 

I look up at Meathead. “Any sign yet?” 

“No,” he said with a sigh. “You just need to be patient, girlie.”

I sigh back in return. “Are you sure they’re even going to come this way?”

“I programmed the route myself. This one is too important to leave to chance, my little chickadee. Leading them out here off the crowded route will shift the encounter to our advantage.” 

I bite my cheek, reaching up and playing with the fur on his coat with my exposed fingers. “That’s our I.T. savant at work. Although you know they’re going to have at least one cape riding in the paddy with them. How much you willing to bet it’s our number one fan?”

He shakes his head. “Bad deal. That woman’s obsessed.” He’s quieter for a moment, pensive. “I’m not going to let her get the drop on you again.” 

I know he blames himself for how our last hit happened. That’s why he’s sitting directly next to me scouting the road the old fashioned way, instead of at some command center tracking everything beat by beat. He refused to let me out of his sight for even a moment. I argued with him while planning the hit that I was a big girl and could take care of myself, actually. But now that I’m actually back on the field, I don’t much feel like putting on a brave face anymore.

Impulsively, I give him as tight a squeeze as I could. “Thank you for being a great partner. Don’t ever believe you’re not.” It’s tender, him melting into my arms for once.

Suddenly he tenses up, leaning forward. I perk up, slinking back into my own ready-to-pounce position. “They’re coming. Wait for my signal.”

I can feel the rumble of the truck coming closer in my chest, my heart pumping rapidly. It’s only the one, short transport truck on its own. I look up to the sky, the distinct clear lack of buzzing. “There’s no drones out today. Something feels screwy. Keep your guard up.” 

Meathead grips me, holding me back, and then flips a switch on his console. Pylons we set up shoot out blocking the road, causing the truck to slow down. “Now!” Meathead lets go of me and I spring into action, jumping down, landing on top of the truck itself. Claws out, zapping it so the wheels will no longer spin at all. It screeches forward through momentum, threatening to tip over the entire vehicle. I grip on tight, praying I don’t get thrown off the top, as it mercifully screeches to a hold. 

Meathead clambers down, gripping into the brick of the building itself using his powered gauntlets, lowering himself slowly. He reaches the ground as I jump off the truck myself. I walk up to the back of the truck, zapping the locking system into putty, and throw open the doors, rea–

A fist smacks me directly in the jaw, dropping me to the floor. “Surprise, bitch!” Ow! Damn it! I look up at Shiftra’s scowling face as she hops out of the truck, arms twisting into those giant claws she favors. “Do everyone a favor and stay down this time.”

“Don’t you touch her!” Meathead roars, tackling into her full boar, dragging the fight up and out past the truck. I spring up to my feet, jumping into the van. It’s stark. There’s only a few boxes in the corners that I dig through, tearing them completely apart, trying to pick up the mark as fast as possible.

Spare uniforms, hats, empty papers. There’s absolutely nothing in here. No! God damnit, it was a trap. “Meathead!” I scream into the coms. “There’s nothing in here. We got bamboozled!” 

“Fuck!” I hear him crackling through the earpiece. “Fall back, get out of here!” I could hear him grunting from outside the truck, then crashing into the hood of it. A large spike shoots through the truck itself, before retreating. Screw that. I’m not abandoning him to that psychopath. 

I jump out of the truck, running out enough to see the two of them fighting, her pinning Meathead with a giant meaty claw. She turns her head over to me, fury burning on her face. “Hey there girlie!” she shouts at me mockingly. “This didn’t go like you planned, did it?” Her arm warps, cracking and shifting, into a large semi-metal semi-flesh cannon of some kind. It seems heavy, quickly dropping down at her side. She presses the end of it against Meathead’s face. 

I frown, gripping my fists tight, nails digging into the palms of my hands, stepping towards the two of them. “Let him go! You hurt him and I’ll–” 

“Uh-uh!” She tisks, interrupting me. “That’s far enough, Biotwister. Stand down, and this won’t have to go sideways.”

I freeze, worried. She wouldn’t, would she? And that name… My guts twist up, my brows furl. “I don’t claim that name. Call me anything else! You need to come up with something better! It’s disgusting, it doesn’t fit me at all…”

She frowns, glaring back at me. “Doesn’t it? After what you did to Zero?” Shame fills me, and she sneers.

“No… It was an accident, I didn’t know it would…”

She rolls her eyes, scoffing. “Pathetic. We have you on camera, the entire world seeing the horrific shit you do, so now the best you can come with is manslaughter? You’re just absolutely pathetic, Biotwister.”

Meathead grunts out, squirming to free himself from her grip. “She said… You don’t call her that!”    

She growls, shouting out into the air. “I’ll call you whatever I want to, murderers!” She drops her grip on Meathead, her wrist lifting up her other, transformed arm. She walks towards me, steam hissing out from vents in the transformed limb. Suddenly a huge javelin of bone shoots out from it, soaring directly over to me.  

I lean over, zapping the road, lifting a huge segment of earth up to block her shot. “Oh, you’re one to talk, bitch!” I see Meathead is already up to his feet, so I nod towards him, then zap the back of the road wall, sending a pulse over to where she’s standing, launching Shiftra up into the air. Meathead takes the assist, grabbing her out of the air and swinging her down into the pavement hard, landing a punch to the face that could smash teeth in on a normal person. He then picks up the pace, running back over towards me. 

I start booking it with him, Shiftra not far behind us, launching herself into the air. She shoots another javelin down at us, yelling incoherently. “God damn it,” I shout over at him, weaving through her intermittent shots. “How are they always a step ahead of us? I thought you said your hack was bulletproof?”

“It was!” He smashes through a barrier wall, leaping through it, myself running right through with him. “There’s no reason they should have been suspicious about it! I just made sure they took their route away from people!” 

We turn the road into a dark alleyway and are stopped by a silhouette standing in the middle. Meathead keeps running, but I stop stock still. The mint green armored visage felt like he was a million stories tall. My mouth went completely dry as he whipped out both batons, electricity illuminating him more fully.

“Zero…” I back up slowly, shaking slightly, arms locking up. I throw my hands up into a clawed strike position in front of me, but they’re trembling too hard to give the threatening aura I wanted to give off. How is this happening? This isn’t real, he can’t be real…

Meathead doubles back, holding his arm over me, standing between us. The figure walks out of the shadows and… And it’s not Zero. It’s not him. He’s wearing his helmet, his gauntlets, and a smattering of armor and gadgets probably salvaged from the scene. But it’s haphazardly sewn together, thrown over his usual biker inspired garb. “You!” Spiderbyte screams over at us, baton crackling. “You’re going to pay for what you did, murderer!” 

Suddenly, it wasn’t fear I was feeling. It was anger. Indignity. How dare he! I grip onto Meathead’s arm, shouting at the halfwit hero in front of us. “That’s not yours! What are you doing, Spiderbyte? Take that thing off, it’s disrespectful!”

He snarls, running up, swinging wildly at us. “Disrespectful! It’s not up for you to decide, monster! I’m going to take up the mantle, and I’m going to take you down. You’ll never kill his memory, the way you–” 

He wildly over swings, whiffing completely, striking against the cinder to our right. Meathead immediately takes the opportunity to grab him, smashing him straight through the building wall, plumbing on him into the building itself. I move to run after them, but a loud thud behind me draws my attention away, Shiftra landing down at the entrance of the alleyway.

I turn, glaring matching hers. She’s standing there, cannon pointed at me, other arm supporting it. I shout at her, gesturing towards where Spiderbyte probably is now. “Shiftra! Did you know he was doing this? Did he even wait for the body to get cold before he started rifling through his things?” 

“Shut up!” She snarls at me, stepping forward. “As if you get to have any say in the matter. Mantles are passed on all the time. Ask your mass murder friend about how it works sometime.” 

She shoots a bone javelin out at me, and I duck it last minute. It embeds into the wall behind me, and I grab it, shaping it into an incredibly sharp bone spike, running up against Shiftra, swinging against her. She blocks it with her arm, turning into hard crystal, before swiping back at me with a clawed arm. I twist a handful of my cape up in my arm, shocking it into a shield, blocking her swipe.  

We clash, over and over, her blocking with her crystalline arm, me with my cape. Before long she goes for my weapon, snapping it in half completely. I simply shock the half I was holding back out into the rest of the pike, and jab it out towards her. She leaps back, wings out, shifting her arm into the bone gun. “Stand down,” she shouts over at me. “This isn’t going to go how you think. You will serve for what you did to Protoco–”

“I didn’t mean to!” I shout over her, anger creeping up at me. “I didn’t even know it could happen! He was going to kill me and I was just, I just tried pushing him away…”

“Again with ‘it was an accident’. Poor little Biotwister. I’m sure the terrorist you threw your life away in defense for was just making a little mistake too?” 

“Yes!” She rolls her eyes, and I resist the urge to slap her. “He told me all about the hospital, and how he was given the blame for something not hi–”

“What about all the murders afterwards, huh? He’s not just lying to you, you’re lying to yourself. He’s had years to turn himself in. Don’t make his mistakes, ‘girlie’.” 

I bite my cheek, fists gripping the pike as hard as I can, clutching it for dear life. “With how you all act? Can you blame us for not trusting you? When you’re scared for your life, mistakes happen, and–”

“I’m sorry,” she sneered at me, “you’re not going to get sympathy from me. You are a criminal, you’ve been breaking and entering government facilities, stealing our equipment. You don’t get to just go ‘oopsie’ to killing a good, a great man, who was trying to prevent your crimes. If you actually were sorry, you’d give in and serve your time.” 

I snarl. “Oh, you’re just going to apprehend me? Like you were to Basilisk, right? Where are your drones, Shiftra?” She falters, and I huff. I throw my weapon down to the ground, and step forward into her face. She presses her cannon up against my jaw, and I glare at her. “So the only difference is you get to kill off screen? You act like you’re better than us, but you are just a bunch of murderers. How many villains ‘die’ in battles where the cameras just so happen to be off? How many civilians? Because I know it’s more than none.” 

She glares, teeth bared. “You… You can’t lecture me. I’m a hero! An officer of the law! I save people, day in, day out. I’m nothing like you monsters!”

“Prove it.”

She presses her gun-arm deeper against my jaw, hard enough to push my entire head back, hard enough that I can’t move my mouth anymore. Her entire body is shaking, but we just stand there like that, what feels like minutes going by.

“Shiftra!” Meathead screams out, rushing through the hole in the wall he made earlier. She turns, and he barrels into her again, punting her over and out of the standoff. “Your man is down! Go fetch him.” He grabs me, ripping me off the wall. And we run off, her floating in the air, staring at us momentarily before flying off into the building for Spiderbyte.