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Predatory by sinereal

Books » Worm Rated: M, English, Romance & Horror, Vista, Panacea, OC, Words: 246k+, Favs: 1k+, Follows: 1k+, Published: Jun 12, 2022 Updated: Jun 25, 2022

198Chapter 8: 08

Predatory

08

"Alright. This is going to take some Bill and Ted level bullshit. Give me a minute to think."

Widow blinked from where she sat on the ledge of a building downtown. ''Bill and Ted?' Never heard of it.'

"Two '80's comedy movies in my world, with Keanu Reeves and… uh… fuck, I forget the other guy. They time travel using a phone booth. The end of the second one is basically a game of 'I did X,' 'Well, I did Y to counter X,' 'Oh yeah? Well, I did Z AND Y so that X would work.' It's basically the simplest explanation of who wins in a time war. Answer: whoever acts first. If you have the initiative, you win, because you can always move a step ahead of your enemy. Unless they're some sort of bullshit super strategist, in which case, don't fuck around and lead with an attack addressed 'Dear Grid Square.'"

Chuckling quietly, Missy nodded and went silent, letting Miles think. Finally, he spoke up.

"So, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to create a bunch of animal bodies and stake out the PRT and Coil's base from a safe distance. We're going to wait a few days to confirm it's him. In the meantime, we RTB and talk Allison into making us some very tiny explosives. We slip them into his tea at home. Then we rely on IF/THEN statements. IF Coil goes in to the office, explode his head. ELSEIF, Coil is in his hideout, we sneak in and eat him. If he panics in the office we blow his head up, because it means we fucked up and closed the wrong one."

Humming quietly, Missy considered the plan before asking, 'Why not send in bugs or rats or something to both the PRT office and his base? Then eat him no matter where he is.'

Her head tilted to the side, outside of her control. A laugh escaped her lips. "Fuck me," her body sighed. "Yeah, okay. I'm overthinking it. But if we're eating Coil, we're doing it as Noh Face. And it's going to be public. Very, very public. In a way that says we can get in and out of their security and leaves them checking under every desk and in every cabinet for months."

'Works for me. I know most of the secret entrances into the PRT building. If you give me eyes from your… drones?'

Her shoulders shrugged. "Not really. I'm controlling them all as if they were bodies, not any sort of disconnect like with drones."

'Extra bodies then. Give me the feed from them and I'll point us towards them." A moment later, Missy's field of view expanded to include two new perspectives. One from a raven over Fortress Construction, the other from the one nearing the PRT building. "Okay, fly east another block… Yeah, you see that closed down business? See if we can fly in.'

While Missy directed the raven heading to the PRT building, Miles directed the second one into the bowels of Fortress Construction.

The raven descended and made a sweep of the building, but surprisingly found no easily accessible entrances. Not to be deterred, it flew back up to the roof and exploded into a swarm of wasps as it neared an old air conditioning unit. Maneuvering through the air conditioner and down the pipes run to carry air, the wasps exited through another vent duct inside the building before combining back into a raven. The bird tilted into a glide circling the interior of the building as it looked around.

'There! There's the sensor and keypad!' Missy pointed out the items in question, camouflaged on the walls. 'The floor towards the back wall tilts down into the ground.'

"Okay. Not getting through the security and it'd trip sensors anyway. So, let's try the other way," Miles mused, and the bird dove for the floor. A puddle splattered on the ground and rolled around a bit, before finding a seam and squeezing through. "Now what?"

'Follow the road. It's pretty straightforward. There's another checkpoint ahead. I'm not sure about what sort of security they have, but assume it'll spot a bird.'

Instead of reforming into a bird the puddle shifted into a swarm of roaches and took off at a run that, if roaches actually moved that fast, would spur humans into finding a way to wipe them all off the face of the Earth. They found a locked rolling door on the other end and fell into a puddle, before slipping under it. Making sure the coast was clear, the roaches reformed and moved into the room—which appeared to be full of vehicles. "Need a directory or something."

'There's one posted on the wall beside the elevator,' Missy supplied, and the bugs made their way across the room under her direction. 'There it is.'

Sharp eyes with binocular vision peered up at the directory. "And there's our asshole. Fourth floor. Room 414."

All but one roach reformed into a puddle, slipped into the elevator shaft, and went up. The last one stayed behind and took up a watch of the elevator and nearby stairwell, after confirming they were the only ways down. On the next floor up, the ground floor, a new roach broke off and slipped out to watch the lobby, while the rest continued upwards. Up to the fourth floor, they made their way down the hall and slipped under the door to one Thomas Calvert.

"Looks like the asshole is in."

'So, should we just attack, or…?' Missy asked, watching through the eyes of Miles' insect bodies.

"Looks like the asshole is in," Miles mused as they watched Coil work at his desk in the Endbringer shelter turned hideout. "Or at least someone who looks like him. Paranoid fuck leaves his mask on in the hideout."

'So, should we just attack, or…?'

Miles hummed, before pulling out his phone. Checking the time, he nodded. "We wait until 4:30. We've got time. When the clock hits 4:30—"

"—we roll."

'Why not now?' Missy wondered.

"Coordination. If he's split the timelines, it'll have given any alternate version of us time to investigate his office. Hopefully he's there. If he's not, he's going to know we're coming for his civvie identity, so he'll likely turtle up in his base. Right where we want him. Hopefully. That, or he'll call for help from the boogeyman. Which could end poorly for us. Now, for some setup…"

They spawned more birds, all but one of which split off and headed away, while Widow dropped off the ledge she was sitting on and swung away. A few blocks later, she swung down into an alley, made sure no one was watching, and disappeared—Missy's body pulled into Miles' pocket dimension for biomass. There, her body shifted to the now familiar form of Noh Face.

The bird that had stayed behind waited a moment, before taking off away from where Widow went. Several blocks later, it dove into an alley and changed, its form swelling up into a perfect duplicate of Widow (on the outside), which swung out of the alley. A bit of shifting things around got her phones over to the new body, and she made her way to the Boardwalk, where she settled in on top of one of the street lights and proceeded to hang there, upside down, with her mask tucked into her pocket. Then, she took out her phone and started shitposting on PHO as Widow—complete with pictures.

Meanwhile, the rest of the birds flew in the general direction of the PRT building. Some of them took the same path through the secret entrance, into the elevator, and to Coil's office. Others burst into swarms of tiny flies as soon as they neared the front of the building. In both bases, bits and pieces broke off of them, leaving behind an expanding trail that quickly connected itself into a single, thin line of biomass about the thickness of a human hair and colored to match its surroundings.

The trail of biomass stretched from the outside of the PRT building, through the lobby, up the elevator shaft, through the fourth floor hallway, under Thomas's door, and stopped beside his desk chair.

The trail of biomass stretched from the exterior of Fortress Construction, through the secret entrance leading out of Coil's office, to the man's office itself, stopping at his desk chair.

The clock ticked down as they waited. Finally, it ticked over to 4:30.

In one timeline, a pool of shadow appeared outside the PRT headquarters, where it then raced into the building—spreading over the floors, walls, and ceilings as it went, glowing red eyes spawning around those people unfortunate enough to be caught in the hall before it hit the elevator and disappeared through the cracks.

An alarm sounded in the building and everything began to lock down—shutters dropping down over the doors in front of the lobby, heavy steel partitions dropping into place in front of every set of elevator doors and every stairwell entry. It mattered none as the 'shadow' simply shifted its mass further down the string of biomass, appearing in the fourth floor hallway.

In another timeline, a pool of shadow appeared outside Fortress Construction, where it then raced into the building through the secret entrance—spreading over the floors, walls, and ceilings as it went, glowing red eyes spawning as it filled the secret exit to Coil's office. Watching from the bugs in his office, they saw the man start for no apparent reason (at exactly the same time the lockdown alarm sounded in the other timeline), sitting up and pulling out his phone, which he hit speed dial on.

"It's me. Sitrep on PRTHQ."

"Nothing to report, sir."

Coil's brows furrowed under his mask.

"We've got your ass, shitbag. There's our proof that he's split the timelines or running a simulation, whatever."

And then, the overhead lights of his well-lit office flickered as the bugs moved in concert with the incoming tide of shadow and eyes, flying up to the light fixture and chewing out the connection. The office went dark a moment later. Coil stumbled towards the secret exit, only to be thrown off his feet when it opened in his face and a sea of red eyes spread out before him, through the escape tunnel, and into his office. From the darkness, a figure with a bone-pale mask emerged, its eyes and mouth full of glowing eyes—

The overhead lights in Thomas's well-lit office flickered as the bugs moved in concert with the incoming tide of shadow and eyes, flying up to the light fixture and chewing out the connection. The office went dark a moment later. Thomas stumbled towards the exit, only to be thrown off his feet when it opened in his face and a sea of red eyes spread out before him, through the hallway, and into his office. From the darkness, a figure with a bone-pale mask emerged, its eyes and mouth full of glowing eyes—

"Wait!" Thomas/Coil pleaded in both timelines holding up his hands.

"I can pay you!" Coil offered.

"Why are you here?!" Thomas yelled.

The masked cape tilted her head to the side in both timelines, before holding up a single finger and wagging it side to side in time with the shaking of her head. A low moan sounded from her throat and the sound of bats clicking echoed through the hall/tunnel.

Coil slapped the panic button on his desk.

Thomas drew the 10mm handgun from the shoulder rig under his jacket.

From a connected door, a tall, leather-clad figure wearing a skull-shaped helmet stormed into the room along with a team of five mercenaries. Black smoke or fog leaked from the helmet and distorted his voice. "What the fuck."

"Get me out of here!" Coil shrieked.

"Open fire!" one of the men yelled, and the well-disciplined group drew up their laser rifles and did exactly that. Only for their target to explode into a mass of skittering bugs, screeching bats, cawing ravens, shrieking mice, and hissing snakes—all black, all with glowing red eyes, and all streaming over them like a tidal wave.

"Fuck! Grue!" the same one yelled.

Not needing to be told twice, the young man filled the room with smoke—which did precisely fuck-all, considering Noh Face could literally feel them standing on her biomass. The exits slammed closed and walled over with more biomass, locking them inside.

Then, mouths formed in the darkness, in the sea of eyes as insects began crawling over everyone, bats and birds harassing them, snakes and mice crawling over them. In random orientations, with different shapes, some with normal teeth, some with perfectly square and flat teeth, some with teeth that looked like they belonged on a shark. The whispering began, then. In different voices, at different pitches—from a young girl, a young boy, man, woman, old man, old woman, and one feminine voice in particular that would have sounded like liquid sex…in literally any other context but currently, made everyone that heard it want to hide.

"Grue."

"Grue.""Grue.""Grue."

"Grue." "Brian." "Grue."

"Brian~"

The young man shuddered as one mouth set particularly close to his ear purred his name in a way that made him want to retch—his real name. The one with the most disturbing voice.

"Give him to us."

"Give him."

"Give."

"Coil."

"To us."

"Let me have him, Brian~"

"Don't fucking listen to it!" Coil yelled, cowering under his desk.

"All you have to do…"

"All"

"you"

"must"

"do"

"Is give him to me… and leave~ That's it. And you're free~ to~ go~"

"Brian."

"S-stop calling me that—" Grue shook his head, eyes darting frantically around the room under his mask. Only for the whispers to speak over him.

"Think"

"Think""Think""Think"

"about"

"Aisha~"

Grue's blood ran cold and he stilled. Froze in place.

"Cute""Sweet""Vulnerable"

"little"

"Aisha"

"All alone~ Why, someone might just… gobble her all~ up~"

Brian turned and ran, not walked, for the door. Surprisingly, the sea of eyes and mouths parted around it and it opened as he approached. Just before he left, one of the eyes set above a Cheshire grin full of sharp teeth winked.

"Be seeing you~"

The door slammed closed behind Grue, disappearing back into the sea of black and red.

"Now."

"Now.""Now.""Now."

"Who"

"Wants"

"To"

"Die~"

"First?"

Men screamed as the sea of red and white descended on them, mouths gnashing, biting, tearing. Coil desperately closed off the horror he had found himself in—

Thomas drew up into a shooter's stance, took aim, and opened fire. The pistol in his hands barked three times as he drilled home two shots to center mass, shifted his aim, and followed with a third shot to the face—the Mozambique Drill or Failure Drill. Or as it was known in Internet parlance, the Dijibouti Shooty.

Three 10mm jacketed hollow points slammed home on their targets.

And did precisely dick.

Noh Face looked down at where the flattened lead had landed on the ground, before slowly bringing her head back up to regard Thomas.

The sea of eyes was split by white crescents. Mouths formed in the sea of eyes. And then, the whispering began.

"Thomas Calvert."

"Calvert.""Calvert.""Calvert."

"Thomas."

"Coil."

"I""We"

"have"

"come"

"for"

"You~"

"You've got the wrong man! I'm a consultant for the PRT! I've been vetted—"

"I""We"

"don't"

"care"

"Tom~"

"I""We"

"know.""know.""know."

"We know"

"what"

"you've"

"done."

"Planned to do~"

Thomas shuddered, feeling tears well in his eyes as his second timeline showed much the same scene, save that the voices were trying to talk Grue—who this parahuman somehow also knew the civilian identity for—into giving him up. "I have no idea what you're talking about—"

"I""We"

"have"

"her."

"She's within us now."

"now""now""now"

"Your Tattletale."

"Sang"

"like"

"a"

"canary~ So sweet were her words~"

"What." That wasn't possible. He had spoken with Tattletale just the previous night, using her to the fullest in two timelines before sending her home, then splitting off a new timeline so he could sleep and go to work and the other pull an all-nighter in Coil's base.

'Say… do you think we could hook her up temporarily?'

"Oh fuck yes. Hang on, connecting… Okay, we can speak to her and I can connect her to a lump of Lisa-shaped biomass when we're ready."

'Do it.'

"You're live."

'Hey Lisa~,' Missy taunted, and somewhere in the mass of multi-dimensional alien crystal and flesh that made up Lisa's shard, the girl's consciousness recoiled. 'We're talking to your boss. Hope you don't mind if we use your face as a sock puppet. Just sit back and enjoy the show.'

A thin smile split Noh Face's bone mask from ear to ear, causing Thomas to flinch.

"Would you"

"like"

"to"

"see""see""see"

"for"

"yourself?"

Noh Face turned her head to the side and, at her prompting, Thomas followed her gaze. A bulge formed where there should be a wall but was instead a sea of black, red, and white. A mound of flesh welled up out of the horror before splitting down the middle like—exactly like—a mockery of birth, a blonde head of hair slowly pushed itself out of the wall. For a moment, it hung limply there, hair soaked and dripping with some sort of clear slime or mucus. Then, the head, disconnected from everything but a neck trailing to the wall and the split open vagina it was sticking out of, tilted up.

Bottle green eyes opened and a familiar, vulpine grin crossed her lips (as they tapped into a simulation of Lisa's personality to get everything just right). "Heya~ boss man."

Thomas took aim and fired completely on reflex.

Tattletale's head exploded in a shower of gore.

Gore, which immediately slid back up the wall and reassembled itself into her head. "So rude!"

Her head shifted around and the bulge grew. With a grunt of effort, an arm—black gloved hand and purple catsuit trailing up to the lips it came from, and presumably a shoulder beneath—stretched out from the wall and waved at Thomas. "Give us a hand?" Thomas simply stared, wide eyed. Dumbfounded. Tattletale sighed, rolling her eyes. "No gentlemen left any more, huh boss lady?"

Noh Face shook her head, but didn't move from her position.

With some more effort, Tattletale managed to work herself out, slowly pulling herself out of the orifice that really should have been too small for her and falling to the floor, covered in a thin film of slime. The gaped open snatch on the wall sealed itself back up and after a moment, Coil couldn't even tell that spot was any different from the rest.

Standing up, Lisa wiped her face off and shook off her hands. "Yuck! Seriously, boss lady, you've got to figure out a better way of bringing back damned souls." Sighing, she shook her head and turned her attention to Thomas. "So," she drew the word out. "She knows."

"She knows."

"We know."

"I know~"

"The moles? Told her." Lisa ticked off a point on her finger. "Your plans for the Bay? Told her." Another point. "The plan to expose the civilian identities of every member of the Empire? Oh yeah, told her that one too." Another point. "Oh, and guess what else I told her!"

His other timeline shut down as walls of eyes and teeth descended on himself and his men to devour them all. Thomas's mouth worked seemingly on auto-pilot, out of sheer morbid curiosity, shock, and terror at this point, as he croaked, "What?"

"I told her all about your new pet. Dinah Alcott."

This time, when he fired, he didn't stop until the magazine ran dry and Tattletale's head was a mangled mess as her body lay twitching on the floor. The body was swiftly swallowed up by the sea of darkness.

'We don't think he liked you much, Lisa. But hey, how about we let you watch this next part too? Just so you can have some closure on that part of your life. And violently murder any thoughts of Coil somehow coming to 'save' you.'

Thomas registered movement from the corner of his eye and turned to find Noh Face stalking towards him.

"And now"

"you"

"die"

"in"

"every"

"time."

"No running away for you~"

Thomas tried to run, only to find the ground he stood on had surged up and trapped his legs up to the knees. Bringing the gun up, he put the hot barrel to his temple and squeezed the trigger, only for nothing to happen. Pulling it away from his head, he found the slide locked back—he had never reloaded. Reload— That's right! He had a backup magazine in the pouch on the opposite side of the holster from the gun. He reached for the pouch, only to freeze when a cold hand splayed itself over his face.

"Goodbye.""Goodbye.""Goodbye."

"Sayonara Coil~"

Thomas felt his face catch fire as something dug into it, and then burrowed through his flesh. He screamed, and screamed, and sc—

The room fell silent as Thomas Calvert's clothes fell empty on the ground, leaving only his skull in Noh Face's hand—his very empty, stripped clean skull, which made its way into Miles' pocket dimension. And in a dimension isolated from the others, down a pinhole connection in what had once been Thomas Calvert's brain, black and red biomass flooded in and devoured a fourth shard and added it to the collection.

This time, Miles was ready, capturing the short burst of sense memories as they came and tearing them apart. Fucking Marvel. Who the fuck is crazy enough to play with Klyntar clones of Venom? Or fish out fucking Blacklight? …My money's on Hydra or some variant of SHIELD. Fuck it, I'll deal with it later if they come looking for their 'property.' In the meantime, I've got shit to deal with here.

'Wow. I mean, just, fucking wow. How can one man be so incredibly evil? I mean, we suspected he was raping Lisa in 'simulations,' but this…'

"At least we know he hasn't hired the Travelers yet."

'Who?'

"Group of traveling capes from Aleph. All with canned powers. One of them, Noel, has the shittiest end of the shittiest stick this side of the globe. Maybe we can use his contacts to reach out to her. I could probably do a good deed and fix her."

'Sure, why not?'

In Coil's base, the insects that had been stationed there just in case liquefied and oozed through the vent, up to Coil's desk. Miles pushed more biomass through to form his new human-shaped body—complete with Alex Mercer style glowing pattern on the back of the jacket. Sitting down at the desk, he dipped into the memories stolen from Coil and unlocked the man's computer, then used those same memories to begin immediately liquidating everything he could and transferring funds into various backup-to-the-backup-to-the-backup accounts the paranoid shitbag had kept just in case Cauldron ever came after him.

Tomorrow, he would sit down and create new accounts, unrelated to Coil, and transfer the money into those. But for today, this would do.

Once he was finished, disconnected the computer from the port replicator it was using for its multi-monitor setup and closed the lid. Thankfully, there were no backups for this unit. No servers it connected to to backup data. No external hard drives. Nothing that could be stolen or physically accessed without Coil knowing about it. And it was a laptop specifically so Coil could pack it up and leave with it quickly—or destroy or dispose of it more easily.

Tossing the laptop into his pocket dimension, Miles disappeared, leaving the office behind for the authorities to find now that he had taken everything of value.

Outside the PRT HQ, the entire Brockton Bay Protectorate had gathered, along with the Wards, New Wave (minus Panacea), and half a dozen independent heroes, including a certain spider-themed cape. And with that, Noh Face… vanished, taking her shadows, eyes, mouths—every trace of her simply disappeared from the fourth floor and their cameras.

Only to reappear in a flood of black in the lobby, coating the walls, floor, and ceiling. The doors opened as she approached and stepped out into the fading light. A flood of black stretched out ahead of her, but stopped shy of the gathered PRT and Protectorate forces, and for the moment, the eyeballs had yet to make an appearance. "And firing up Eidolon's shard…"

Someone, likely Piggot given the morbidly obese frame and 'I want to speak to your manager's manager' haircut, hefted a portable megaphone. "Put your hands—"

Noh Face raised her hands, only to draw a skull from the shadows between them. The gathered crowd fell silent. Cupping the skull, she wagged its jaw up and down a few times before tilting her head to the left in confusion. She nodded to herself a moment later, taking her right hand off the skull, only to slap it against the top of the sloped dome repeatedly like someone trying to tune an old TV. Darkness filled the skull's eyes, mouth, and nose holes—and there were the eyeballs.

Putting her hands back into their proper places, she worked the skull's mouth open.

"AAAHHH!"

A man's scream rent the silence and she quickly closed the skull's mouth again. Her right hand came up, scratching at the side of her mask in… embarrassment? Then, she snapped her fingers and slapped the skull again, before taking hold of it properly once more.

"Ow! Stop it you bitch!" Thomas Calvert's voice echoed over the gathered crowd, too stunned to move. "It's bad enough that you ate my soul, do you really have to parade my skull around like this?!"

Another slap to the skull and more whining. "Yes, okay, I confess already, stop hitting me! My name is Thomas Calvert and I am—" she thumped the skull. "—was the villain Coil. If you'd like proof of that, Emily, you'll find the hidden entrance to my base under the abandoned Fortress Construction demonstration site built into a locked off tunnel in a storm drain a quarter mile south of the construction site. I always hated you, you fat fucking bitch. Too stupid, prideful, and stubborn to ask Panacea to spend five minutes fixing you. I guess I won't get to see you die of your own stupidity."

Another slap. "Alright, fine! I kidnapped Tattletale and forced her to work for me at gunpoint! I used her powers to discover the identities of the Empire and Protectorate capes. Including Armsmaster. Otherwise known as Col—"

Noh Face slammed the skull's mouth shut and shook her head, moaning low in her throat in warning.

Moving the jaw again, 'Coil' continued to speak. "I planned to kidnap and drug a recently triggered, twelve year old precognitive Thinker. Get her addicted to 'candy' and use my new pet to turn out predictions of the future, in order to take over the Bay. There, is that what you wanted, you evil bitch?"

Noh Face slapped the skull's jaw shut and the life it had fled as the darkness and glowing eyes faded. Carefully, she leaned down and placed the skull on the ground at her feet. Around her, her shadow retreated, withdrawing fully until it was beneath her.

Suddenly seeming to remember what they were there for, the gathered heroes, PRT, and police all tried to act at once—shouting orders, yelling over PA systems, firing containment foam, beams, or blasts, or running/flying/launching themselves at Noh Face—who simply disappeared, falling into her own shadow without so much as a ripple. And then even that was gone.

Widow was close enough for her sharp ears to catch Piggot groan. "Costa-Brown is going to have our asses in a fucking sling."

Hiding her grin, Widow joined the others in their after-action debrief, more to introduce herself to the other heroes than out of any sense of needing to follow any sort of protocol. Before the hour was out, it was agreed that some kind of Master/Shaker effect had prevented them from moving or acting until the mysterious cape, tentatively being called 'No Face' in official documents (and 'that scary bitch,' 'nightmare fuel,' and 'the other boogeyman' in private conversation), had made clear her intent to leave.

Whether anyone who wasn't there would believe that excuse or not was another story.

Missy laughed as they spilled out into real space, on a rooftop across the city, disguised as Gwen. "Ho-ho-holy fuck," she giggled, falling onto her back and kicking her feet. "Did you see their faces?! I think Piggy pissed herself!"

"See it? We got it all on video this time. Remember those body cameras we bought a while back? Yeah, I've been moving those around through the biomass full of creepy shit and getting footage. I wonder what PHO would think if we uploaded it."

"Do it!" Missy yelled, holding her sides. "Oh God, do it. It'll be great!"

"Later. We should check in on Amy and our guest."

"Right. Let's," Missy agreed.

Her body burst into a flock of ravens—or at least, appeared to, as Missy's body was shifted into pocket space and biomass winged its way to her apartment. A few minutes later, a puddle slipped under the sill of her guest bedroom window. The redhead noticed immediately and jumped up from the bed, taking up a defensive stance. Amy followed her gaze to the puddle sliding across the floor and sighed. "It's just—"

Gwen rose out of the puddle. "Me."

"You've been practicing with that," Amy accused.

"A little," the platinum blonde nodded. Turning a smile on the redhead, she asked, "So, any luck with a name?"

"I found two I like," the redhead answered. "Barbara… Gordon, I think. Or Mary Jane Watson. Not sure which I want to go with. My power likes them both, anyway."

"Of course it would, I've basically been using it to lead her by the nose to one of those conclusions," Miles resisted the urge to roll Missy's eyes.

"So… Barbara. Barb? Babs?" Gwen tried.

"Babs," Amy agreed with a nod.

"Don't I get a say?" the newly re-christened Babs asked, looking put upon.

"Sure!" Gwen nodded. Her demeanor shifted slightly. "Do you prefer Babs or MJ?"

The redhead sighed, collapsing back on the bed. "I think I like MJ better."

Amy smiled. "Well then, Mary Jane it is."

The redhead huffed out an annoyed breath from the bed. "I'm… bored. I want to do something with my hands. Like, I keep wanting to tear apart the alarm clock and make something out of it."

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Tinker too?"

Gwen nodded. "Sounds like the Tinker curse to me." Turning back to MJ, she asked, "Have you given any thought to what you want to do?"

The redhead nodded. "Pan—sorry, Amy has been filling me in on this whole thing while you were gone. I want to help. I don't… have anything of my own. No family, no friends, nowhere to turn to. I've never seen the world outside of these four walls. But I want to—I want to have all of that, see the world, do… everything! And I can't do that if there isn't a world to do that in." Pausing to consider, a small smile crossed her face. "And the idea of playing 'cops and robbers' sounds fun. I kind of like the idea of going around and beating the crap out of people who deserve it."

"So, you're sticking with us?" Gwen asked, to clarify. MJ nodded. "Okay then. That's great."

The platinum blonde's demeanor shifted and she crossed her arms over her chest. "With MJ on board, this place is getting too small for us. We've got the funds and it's not like the housing market in the Bay is booming. Places are cheap. I'll do some digging—"

"If," Barbara interrupted, then covered her mouth and huddled into herself a bit. Gwen waved for her to go on. "If you get me a computer I think I can do it? My power really, really wants a computer to play with and is suggesting that it could easily comb through everything in the Bay and find a nice place if you could get me some idea of what we're looking for."

"I'll have my other body pick one up," Gwen nodded. "As for what we're looking for… Minimum four bed, two bath, with a basement and preferably a garage—doesn't have to be attached, but I'd prefer it, for obvious reasons. Either in a good neighborhood with a somewhat central location to the city, or on the outskirts of the city with no neighbors. If it's in the city, ideally somewhere with overlap for Winslow and Arcadia as far as districts go, cause reasons. Nothing too expensive and nothing gaudy or flashy. We're not trying to draw attention—the exact opposite."

Barbara nodded. "Okay, I'll do what I can. Do we have bank accounts?"

"We will in the coming days," Gwen nodded.

Knocking on the door to the old, closed down building, a tall platinum blonde waited… with a taller man wearing a hood at her side.

"Ms. Face. Who's your friend?"

Miles looked up at the camera and grinned. "I'm mr10tickles."

"Come on in, we're ready for you," Leet's voice called over the speaker, and the door's electronic lock buzzed.

Uber greeted them as they walked in, ushering them into the same room they had seen last time. Leet quickly joined them from the adjoining office as the pair each set a briefcase on the table and opened them up for inspection. "Two more IDs, and a change in the previous two, right?"

"Correct," Miles nodded.

"I'm getting married!" Ms. Face cheered, leaning against Miles' side with the look of a newly wed wife. The man smiled and put his arms around her.

The two gamer-themed capes shrugged. "Fair enough," Uber nodded.

"Fucking normies," Leet grumbled, but there was no hostility there. "So, who's the last identity for?"

"My daughter," Miles answered, and Ms. Face's form in his arms shifted down into the redheaded form of Mary Jane Watson.

Looking up adoringly at the man with those bright blue eyes, 'MJ' beamed a smile. "I'm so glad you found me a new mom and a sister, daddy."

Uber and Leet shared a look. "Awkward," Uber muttered.

Leet sent his friend a scoff. "I think you mean 'hot.'"

"I worry about you, bro."

The smaller of the two shrugged. "What? Oyakodon is the best fetish. Does it even count as incest when the wife, daughter, and step-daughter are the same woman though?"

Shaking his head, Uber dismissed the comment and pulled out the paperwork. "Miles and Mary Jane Watson. No name changes for Gwen and I still can't believe you chose Zelda Stacy?"

Miles shrugged. "No, just the update to marital and custody status. There are enough of these 'blended families' floating around that no one's going to think twice about it, and hyphenated names are stupid. Pick one or the other, not both."

"Mary Jane's mother?" Uber asked, as he sat down and began tapping away at a computer.

"Mama died giving birth. Daddy named me after her," MJ put on a sad look.

They quickly took the required photos and let the two villains do their work. As they were nearing completion of the job, Uber looked up from his computer and frowned. "Hey, is it just me, or did it get dark?"

Miles and MJ looked up from where they had been sitting, the older-looking of the two frowning. "Yeah, I think you're right."

Leet glanced up from his own computer. "I think so, dude. Weird, the lights are all on—"

The room flooded with darkness. They had just enough time to register a sea of red eyes opening, before all four occupants of the room collapsed on the spot—MJ's form rippling and shifting back into Ms. Face as she apparently lost her hold over her power.

From the sea of red eyes, the figure of a Japanese school girl in an old-style school uniform and a bone mask rose. She stepped first over to Ms. Face, splaying her hand over the woman's head, before moving on to Miles, then Uber, then Leet. When she was finished, she sank back into the sea of eyes, the eyes closed, and the unnatural darkness fled the room as quickly as it had come.

Not long after that, Leet woke up screaming his head off, which woke the other three occupants of the room. "What the fuck was that?! Dude, are you alive?"

"Nng. Still kicking, bro," Uber groaned. "Mr. Watson? Ms. Face?"

"Not dead yet," Miles grumbled.

Ms. Face sat up off of him. "A headache, but I'll live. What happened?"

"I'm checking the security footage now," Leet answered. The other three gathered around as he brought up the footage from the room's four ceiling-mounted security cameras. Leet paused, looking back at Ms. Face and Miles. "We uh, don't use this for blackmail or anything. Just security."

"Get on with it," Ms. Face growled.

Leet nodded and hit play, and the four of them sat or stood in growing horror as they observed their… visitation.

"Okay, yeah, fuck her," Uber shook his head. "That is entirely too fucking creepy. And tracking people down to their secret base? Not cool, man. Not cool."

Leet paused the footage on one particular shot. "I think… it was a message." At the others' curious looks, he backed the camera up a few frames. "Before she leaves? She eyeballs every camera. Makes a point of doing it. She knew she was being watched. She left us alive. I think it was a warning."

"What, that she could come back any time she felt like it and finish the job?" Miles asked.

Leet nodded hesitantly. "Maybe. I wouldn't be surprised if the other gangs got visits like this."

"At least there wasn't any fucking whispering," Uber shuddered. "Those videos, man." Looking thoughtful, he asked, "Would you two mind if we blurred your faces and uploaded the video to PHO?"

"Entire body blur and remove where I lost my form," Ms. Face immediately countered.

"Deal," Uber agreed. "People need to see this shit. That scary bitch is a menace."

'Why are you cackling?'

"Don't worry about it."

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