“You guys… done?” Celestial looked over at Alex, her eyes fixating on his clearly unmasked face. “Huh… she could do worse.”

  Alex huffed and rolled his eyes, but made no other response as he walked over to her work station. Well, this one. Actually he was beginning to notice she had several of these scattered throughout the lab, the labyrinth of freestanding computer servers hiding them from one another. That realization made him wonder how many projects she had running at any one time.

  Off to her side, Val was lounging on a plush chair that seemed to have been fished out of one of the dumpsters they hid the teleporters to this place behind after being aggressively cleaned over with a pressure washer. She was deep into playing a videogame on a handheld device with the sounds for it turned up. Alex imagined that was entirely for the point of making sure no one lost track of her.

  “Thanks for the point of confidence,” he muttered. “Name’s-”

  “Nope!” she quickly interrupted him. “You’re Riftmaker or ‘boss’. You two haven’t even gone on your first date, and if this ends badly and I have to help bury your body then I don’t want to attach a real name to the face. T’s already got long enough of a rap sheet as is.”

  Alex frowned while she wore a chesire grin. Abruptly, her lips quickly turned upside down to match his as a thought clearly crossed her mind, “Wait a sec, it’s been like an hour and half. You guys haven’t gone on a date yet, right? Oh gods! Did you two ruin the meeting room?!”

  “We just kissed a little! That’s all!” Alex lied in defense.

  Lyn had decided to call it quits before anything too intense but… Alex got the feeling that maybe Starweaver hadn’t been telling the entire truth about how long it had been since she’d been in a previous relationship judging by some of the things that had happened. They’d laughed off the chair they’d destroyed in their first round of making out, but he now wondered if he needed to run off and hide that.

  Celestial was scrutinizing his face so Alex kept as strong a control over his expressions as he could muster in the wake of the past hour. Memories of it kept threatening to cause a stupid grin to split his face.

  “Pretty sure she’s called Celeste,” Val broke the tension and the squeak from the scientist seemed to confirm the speedster’s statement. “In case you want to know who will be burying you.”

  Alex’s eyes bulged as he looked over at the small woman, unable to believe she’d gone with “Celestial” as a supernym, and he couldn’t stop himself from crying out, “Are you fucking kiddi-”

  “Shut up!” she snapped, face red and mortified. She rounded on the disinterested woman in half an aviator’s outfit, “How the hell did you know that?! I know for a fact we’ve not used real names around here since you moved in!”

  “It took me forever to get used to ‘Val,’” the speedster shrugged. “You react too quickly to the word ‘Celestial’ but I can see your body start to relax on the final syllable with my enhanced vision.”

  The green haired woman’s face remained red but the expression had firmly changed from embarrassment to outrage. Whatever response she had cooking died the moment Val chuckled, “Actually you left your diploma in my room. I put it on your dresser.”

  Celeste’s face flipped back to embarrassment as Alex groaned, “We need to address security soon if we’re going to be facing the League.”

  “T told you?” Celeste bit her lip.

  Alex couldn’t stop his eyes from drifting to Val. Lyn had been a little too busy with other things as a slightly numb part of his mouth could attest to really cover their shared hatred of that glorified country club. The speedster’s attention remained fixed to her game and so she failed to notice Celeste’s pointed look when she followed Alex’s gaze. Something told him she wouldn’t care one way or another however. He wondered if this was over being forgotten so often and made it a point to set a periodic alert in his helmet to check for her from now on.

  The scientist just pinched the bridge of her nose after getting no reaction and instead looked back over at the villain employing her.

  “We’ll definitely be addressing security concerns,” Celeste dragged the last two words out as her eyes flicked over towards the other woman. “For now I wanted to go over something else. Is T going to be here? I thought she wanted to be a part of this.”

  Alex shook his head, “She got a call from a friend and then rushed out. She said she’d give me a call later. Should I go hunt down Starweaver?”

  Val sighed and began to stand up, “I’ll go-”

  “No!” Celeste shouted, shocking both of them. “Starweaver doesn’t need to be here for this. Terror just wanted to see the look on your face. I’ll record it.”

  He rolled his eyes once more, but didn’t protest as she began rolling up one sleeve. A thought crossed his mind, “So, what’s up with Starweaver? Does she run things around here? I get what you and Terror do, but-”

  “Can we not fucking talk about Starweaver for a bit?” Celeste snipped, causing Alex and Val to exchange looks. However, despite allegedly not wanting to talk about her, the tiny woman immediately began launching into a rant. “Oh, she absolutely thinks she runs things, thinks she knows soooo much better, even when she’s clearly just setting a fucking timebomb. But does she want to hear it? No! I’m just the mad scientist who doesn’t know what she’s talking about! ‘It’s a villain thing.’ Bah!”

  She glared at Alex, which didn’t seem fair to him but he held up his hands in surrender all the same. Thankfully her sudden burst of anger quickly abated, “Weaver’s new. There’s been a lot to get used to. Terror will tell you more eventually I’m sure.”

  “Okay, but none of you are dating each other, right?” Alex decided to just jump to the heart of the matter.

  “Why does everyone ask that?!” Celeste threw up her hands in frustration.

  “The vibe,” he and Val answered at the same time, earning both of them another scathing glare.

  “No. We are not dating,” Celeste gnashed her teeth as she spoke, evidently having dealt with this particular rumor for years. She briefly looked like she might say something else but thought better of it and took a deep breath, “I’ll let T tell you about her exact relationship with Weaver when she feels like it, but it’s nothing to get jealous of. She’s something of a new friend that she met thanks to a wizard.”

  Alex couldn’t stop his lips from beginning to curl towards a grimace at the mention of wizards. He wasn’t quite over whatever had occurred with the archmage’s wand just yet. Mentions of magic kind of felt like poking a fresh wound somehow. Still, he stopped the involuntary movement before it got too far and Celeste seemed to have missed it since she immediately launched into what sounded like a planned speech.

  “Anyways, the interpersonal relationships of our fine lab aside, I’ve called you here today for one purpose! Velocity Val! If you would?”

  The speedster set down her game and rushed off. Then came back abruptly.

  “It’s not there.”

  “Wh- Yes it is! Did you check behind the machine?”

  “Why would I check behind it? Your workbench is in the front!” Val huffed but ran off before the scientist could respond. A second later she returned with something wrapped in what looked like a bathroom towel.

  “Why do you have two work benches there?” the speedster muttered, holding out the item towards Alex while Celeste was apparently getting a camera set up.

  “Because that machine is big and I don’t want to walk all the way- DON’T OPEN IT YET!”

  Alex’s hand leapt away from the proffered bundle as though his fingers had been shocked and glared at the scientist.

  “Don’t give me that look. I don’t like acting like a mom on Wintershare morning getting the camera ready either, but pretty sure T would actually bite me if I missed this.”

  “Is that a common thing for Wintershare?” Alex asked.

  “Yeah, you know when you want to open gifts but the family wants to record it so you have to wait around?” Celeste shot him a confused look. Apparently his face told too much of a story and her nose crinkled, “Right, forgot that you guys don’t end up as villains if you have a healthy relationship with your parents.”

  “I do!” Val beamed. “They send me care packages every couple months!”

  “Do they know you’re a villain?”

  “…No.”

  “Then you don’t have a healthy relationship,” Celeste pointed out, causing the speedster to frown and mutter some things that no one could make out.

  When he glanced back over at her while Val stewed on that remark, Alex realized that the scientist’s arm now had a serpentine tendril branching off from it just below the shoulder, an eye-like lens now fixated on him. It wasn’t the first time he’s seen her cybernetics but it was the first time it had been this off-putting as the snake-like appendage wagged just a tad too near his personal space.

  Celeste seemed oblivious to his discomfort as she instructed him, “Okay, now we’re rolling. Go ahead and open it up.”

  Alex rolled his eyes and flipped the towel open, wondering if Celeste had intended to use a blanket or a bit of cloth and couldn’t find it around the lab. No, he knew that’s what happened.

  Okay, one qualification for minions that he was looking for had to be ones that didn’t mind doing some extra work cleaning in exchange for some extra cash. If he was going to have a mad scientist on retainer, he needed her to be able to find things around her secret lab.

  As he finally finished unwrapping the object in Val’s hands, he blinked in surprise. He couldn’t stop himself from asking aloud, “What the hell did you do to my gloves?”

  Celeste laughed, “Knew you’d say that. Calm down, they’re just missing the outer plating right now. I needed you to see what I’d done.”

  “You removed the gravitor generator,” he sighed.

  Despite proving its worth to her, somehow he’d known she’d still try to ditch it the first chance she’d get.

  “Relax, you big baby. Look again,” she instructed.

  Alex picked up one of the gloves, or rather gauntlets, as these truly were the beginning of a sort of armor with how sturdy they were. While clearly in a state of disassembly, these were made of a rigid structure that would cover his whole forearm, much like the bracers he’d previously worn but now completely attached to the actual glove component. Without any paneling over them, these had an uncanny resemblance to sleek cages that would wrap his arm. As he turned it over, he recognized something.

  “No way… Does this work?!” he asked excitedly, earning a satisfied chuckle from the scientist as he recognized the coil wrapping around where his arm would be, protected by the exterior cage structure. He traced it back to where the elbow would rest and saw several nodes attached there.

  “We’re substituting commercial grade pulse ion magnetrons for high yield quantic generative induction motors, still able to run off the same minuscule amount of energy you were using before,” Celeste smirked. “That doesn’t completely solve the heat problem, especially since the new design uses a much larger coil, but this also lets us better utilize your new gel layer more effectively. I’ve got one other trick to go along with it, but you shouldn’t be burning yourself anymore even with a higher upper threshold. But that’s not the fun part.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow, “Wait, what did you do for the carbid-”

  “Just put the damn thing on and you’ll see.”

  She didn’t have to tell him twice. As he slipped his hand inside the contraption and his fingers slid into the fingers of the actual glove part of the device, he immediately felt something odd. He raised the arm, holding his hand up to his face for inspection.

  The palm of his glove was covered in segmented plates that were barely visible to the naked eye against the leather-like material.1 He brought them up closer to examine them and saw hexagonal shapes imprinted across the material. He tested making a fist and outside of some initial resistance from the newer material, it didn’t seem to impede his range of motion for his fingers. With his hand closed, he noticed the back of the glove seemed to have similar plates running across it as well. Was this armor plating?

  “That,” Celeste grinned, “is how we solved the issue of the focusing lenses, the carbide, and the thermic properties of the Kit’Alli reaction, which I’m sure you know all about.”

  Alex just shot her a smarmy grin back. She frowned, knowing he didn’t know but not getting the response she wanted. Meaning he won. She rolled her eyes and continued.

  “We’re using a composite with a small amount of carbide honeycombed through it. I’ve got all the details if you want to read over them later, but the long and short is that these will take punishment any type of lens wouldn’t and still let you fire off your beams. No more orbs though,” she had an air of satisfaction as she said that last statement that punched into his heart.

  Rest In Peace, my balls. You will be missed, he lamented to himself.

  …Wait. That didn’t come out right.

  Quickly switching from that train of thought on the off chance a mindreader was nearby to embarrass him, Alex asked, “Is there anyway to adjust the output? Or am I stuck at max for this? That’s gonna be murder on my shoulders.”

  He didn’t think the scientist could get any more proud of her own work, but apparently he’d been wrong. She quickly zipped over, seeming to forget about the camera slithering around Alex’s face as she rushed to prod at the device on his arm.

  “First up, you’ll notice that there’s some new controls for this. There’s more options that will integrate with your helmet’s onboard system, but I’m not done with that yet and manual controls are always better. Anyways, if you rub your thumb along this crease in your hand like so…” she demonstrated, almost knocking the camera limb into his eyes a couple of times. Still it seemed easy enough to operate.

  He was about to ask about the firing mechanism but apparently she was ahead of him, “Here’s where the beauty of my design comes in: hold out your open hand. Val, go grab something!”

  The woman was already blurring away, the other gauntlet left behind on the nearby desk. It barely came to a rest when she came back holding a handful of empty drink cans. She quickly set down one on the ground, away from any of the servers and zipped to the other size of the room, apparently to put down the rest.

  Alex reached out at the trash and clawed his hand. He felt something against his pointer finger that hadn’t been there previously.

  “Good, didn’t really have to walk you through the motions. You can feel the trigger? Go ahead.”

  It was a subtle motion but it felt like one he’d struggle to accidentally set off. Immediately the can flew to his hand, illuminated by a burst of violet light, similar to Orbit’s gravity wells. Alex quickly turned over his hand to see the fading glow of the plates on his finger. He noticed the coil on the arm glowing as well but the heat wasn’t uncomfortable just yet. A worrying plume of black smoke curled from the elbow though.

  “Point a closed fist to do your shots, open hand to pull things. Bam! Improved gauntlets for an improved Riftmaker.”

  “It’s smoking,” he noted.

  “Yep…” Celeste scratched the back of her head and grabbed something off the desk. It looked like a disc attached to a hose of some sort. “Here, forgot to attach this.”

  She hooked it up directly to where the little wisps drifted off his arm and the smoke ceased.

  “So it’s good now?”

  “Oh, kinda? We got rid of your little orbs, but there’s still some weirdness with the Kit’Alli reaction. That’s not anything to worry about but you are going to be puffing gas after every shot, big or small,” she admitted.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  She cut off his argument, “Before you say anything! I have something. Rather than make this look like a weakness, we’re going to give you some supervillain style.”

  She held up the disc and touched a knob on the side. Vents unfolded along it, immediately releasing a puff of the black smoke. Alex looked between it and her.

  “The final result will look great, just trust me. Seriously, you’ll need the extra pizzazz if you’re going to rule the world. Also, I almost forgot. Try a full blast at that can!”

  She swiveled him around towards another target. Alex reluctantly raised his arm again and prepared for the recoil as he increased the output, only realizing he wasn’t wearing the underweave midway through activating the hidden trigger. He braced himself and rode out the backlash.

  It wasn’t nothing but… that hurt less than what it felt like wearing the underweave. Actually, if it was a higher output like she’d implied, then this was a massive difference. The cage on his arm groaned in protest though.

  “Right, that still needs to be hooked up to the actual rest of your armor, but you can already see that it disperses the increased force better now that I know what you’re working with. Give me like… four days to figure this out so that you can do that bouncy trick again without shattering your ribcage.”

  His arm ached but he couldn’t help but smile.

  “Alright, I’m impressed,” he admitted as he slipped the glove off and placed it next to its pair.

  “One final thing!” Celeste yanked on that injured arm, causing him to wince as she pulled him along further into the lab. “We’ve got the start of something that you need to see. Since we’re going up against the big baddies, I thought you might enjoy this.”

  She lead him to a large machine towards the back of the lab, half hidden by tarps. Exposed wires spilled out of almost every visible surface. Parts of the skeleton that would hold it together were laying on the floor and Alex spotted more of those empty cans littering the workbench nearby, along with half a dozen electronic components in various states of construction.

  It took a moment after Celeste gestured triumphantly at the odd machine for him to understand. The clue that finally made it all click was the antenna-like emitter that jutted out from one end of it with rings running down it. It was a stereotypical design anyone in the cape business would recognize as “a big ray gun” and there was only one thing it could be in a lab like this.

  Alex hesitated to ask, knowing the answer was obvious but still needing to hear it said, “Is that… a death ray?”

  Celeste simply flashed her teeth at him in what looked less like a smile and more like the last thing a mouse sees after it meets a cat.

  ---------------------------------

  [Earlier]

  Ned knocked twice before throwing the door open the moment the sigil showed the slightest bit of light. It felt uncharacteristically rude for him, even though he’d burst through windows more times in his life than anyone really should.

  He hadn’t gotten an ounce of sleep as he’d fallen down a rabbithole of research before having to pause it in order to redact his personal files from the previous day. A pile of messages sat unread in the corner of his heads up display, but the moment he crossed the threshold and the connection to the city’s intranet cut out, they mercifully vanished.

  One would think being a solo act would mean he didn’t have to deal with all of these alerts, but between a lot of automated messages he set up himself and being a publicly known hero, his inbox filled up every single morning, even this early into it. Granted, last night saw the League announce itself across the city with glee so it should be expected.

  Almost every reporter who knew how to contact him and several villains he’d floated a safer number to had crawled out of the woodwork to talk to him. Amberheart was dumping message after message to every hero it could to keep them apprised of the situation and to desperately beg the more rash heroes to not pick fights they couldn’t win. Arrestor contacts were reaching out for projected villain analysis to try and prepare for containment while also requesting backup for any and all transports across the city. And of course the mayor’s office and the district attorney were personally shooting him some special instructions. The DA in particular had some choice words for him. She always did.

  Entering into Fencer’s domain, Ned let all of those worries exit his mind as he let his senses reach out, aided by the detection suite in his suit. He immediately stepped to the side and let a trio of shuriken thud into wooden door he’d crossed through.

  Apparently, his host wasn’t going to take another IOU on this fight.

  Fencer leapt down into the same arena as last time, cackling, having clearly been hiding in the rafters. Ned’s back legs unfolded and blocked three strikes in rapid succession from the rapier in his hands, one leg pulling back to act as a pivot for his whole body to gently float around, letting him drift away from the door while Fencer pursued.

  Ned raised an arm and let the lightly reinforced plate on the back of it knock a main gauche held in Fencer’s offhand away from his chest. While the arm was raised, he fired a line of web to the ceiling and yanked himself away from the villain all in the span of three heartbeats.

  He didn’t bother to carry himself all the way upwards, twisting himself as he let go of the silken thread to flip away, right as Fencer was letting his weapons fall to the ground to withdraw one of his ranged options: a folding crossbow of all things. Ned instructed the legs to cross over each other in front of him right as he saw the man level the weapon at him, forming a shield across his chest. The smile on Fencer’s face let Ned know the true plan and the moment he landed, he immediately whipped the legs outward right as the bolt fired.

  To Fencer, it would look like he’d fallen for the trick. Oh no… Ned had intended to swat away a bolt meant to pierce his chest! But what’s this? The dastardly fiend had actually loaded a special surprise on the tip instead! However will our hero handle this smoke-slash-net-slash-chemical concoction he foolishly allowed himself to be covered with?

  By not being there in the first place, duh.

  One of Ned’s lower legs ripped into the stonework with its pointed tip and immediately flexed, flinging him away from the incoming projectile. He let his body go horizontal and allowed the other spider legs to quickly pierce the ground as well to arrest his motion before lunging forward. With his legs tucked in order to shift his center of gravity, he resembled a pouncing spider as he crossed the distance towards the villain.

  Fencer was ready for it, no doubt having seen this move somehow in the one or two times that Ned had used it, rolling to the side towards one of the weapon racks nearby. He wasn’t prepared for the webbolt aimed that direction from the start of this pounce though, accidentally rolling directly into its path.

  Ned hadn’t aimed for that as the webshot had only been large enough to encompass the man’s hand. It had been meant to nail it to the rack as he reached for something there. Instead, with Fencer moving directly in its path, it slammed him to the ground as it impacted his lower back. His unarmored head cracked against the stonework with a worrying sound. Ned hissed and let himself lower to the ground, fastwalking over to the prone villain.

  Thankfully, Fencer seemed to be recovering. Though as he turned around, Ned noticed a gash leaking blood onto the spectacles that somehow never slipped off his face.

  “Ah, I admit my defeat here,” he laughed. “I didn’t expect you to be so earnest so quickly. Had I known, I would’ve prepared some robots for you to fight with while I recovered.”

  He dusted off his outfit, wincing midway through the motion as apparently that fall did about as much damage as it looked like it had. He looked over at Ned, “No quips? I know it’s early and you’re a night owl, but still… Oh well, let’s get you those little artifacts. I regret to say that the Scroll of Silence is taking a little longer, but the rest of them are done. Of course, you’ll have to figure out which is the genuine article and which is the replica and you can only have one!”2

  Fencer sneered at Ned who simply crossed his arms.

  “…You are in a mood today. It’s almost like…” Fencer’s eyes widened. “Oh gods, you’re ‘serious’ aren’t you.”

  “Despite what people think, always,” Ned let the holographic eyes narrow.

  “Fine…” Fencer stood up and gestured at the door as he began to walk past the hero. “Let’s get you your prize and-”

  “Keep it.”

  That made Farrow stop in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder, evaluating Ned.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Keep. Them. The League’s here and they’re going to start trashing museums to make a statement. I’m here for something else.”

  Ferric stood there silently, clearly thinking. Ned decided to put his cards on the table.

  “I want to see the League exhibit.”

  “Ah!” Fencer smiled and clapped his hands. “You want to see if there’s any weaknesses. Of course. Truly this will be a fight to remember. You must know I’m a neutral party so I can’t give you any answers outright but a performance like that deserves some hints. Well, let me at least narrow your search. I think you’ll find the most important ones to visit will be-”

  “Thunderer.”

  Fencer frowned, “I- I don’t think that theirs will be the most relevant for-”

  “Do you have a section devoted to Marquis Blood?”

  Fencer’s friendly demeanor vanished and the man became colder than Ned had ever seen him before. A face like carved marble with the look that belonged on judgmental gods pierced the hero, but he didn’t waiver.

  “I’m here for answers.”

  “Some answers cannot be said aloud,” the edge in the villain’s voice was so sharp, it almost sliced Ned’s ears. He snapped his finger and the door he’d been headed towards toppled to the ground, inert.

  “I’m not leaving until I get them,” Ned warned, feeling as though he’d already confirmed enough but half a lifetime of letting this rich b-word do whatever he wanted grated on him. There was a danger in this city and while he could stomach Fencer’s quirks when it came to aiding kleptomania, abetting this threat was a bridge too far. He pressed, “I need to know: Is OC30-”

  “STOP!” Fencer shouted, his face cracking into one of worry. Ned jumped, taking in the geniune concern written all over the villain’s exposed face as a trail of blood dripped down its side. “Stop, please. You don’t know the danger you’re walking into.”

  “I have spent most my life intimately familiar with this kind of danger,” Ned tried to project as much confidence as he could.

  “Not for you…” Fencer warned. “Some answers cannot be said aloud… because words linger even after they’ve been spoken. And I would like to remind you: This is a museum too.”

  Ned processed that for a moment before a tingle ran down his spine.

  They’re going to start trashing museums.

  “I am always on the side of keeping as many villains alive in this world,” Fencer solemnly spoke. “I trust you, ArachNed. You are a true hero. But there are ways of making the past come to life. There are ways of making the sounds made when no one’s around be heard. I know you came here trying to head off a conflict, but if you ask that question, even if I give no answer, it will leave its mark and the trail will grow warmer.”

  Ned examined the middleman as he considered this. It was obvious that Fencer knew who he was after. But did he know the link? Did he know which villain in this city Ned suspected? He bit his lip and wondered. There was a good chance of it, but still only a chance. However, if Fencer was right, then actually trying to confirm it outright would possiblly leave some kind of record behind.

  That meant immediate escalation. Ned didn’t know if he could handle… him on his own if his theory was right, but he wasn’t willing to risk that person coming into open conflict with the League just yet. Either the League would walk directly to their doom or Ned would be indirectly responsible for them assassinating this mysterious villain. His fist clenched, unsure of how to proceed.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a sigil flashing on Fencer’s gauntlet. The man looked down and raised an eyebrow, shooting a look up at Ned. When he got no response he shook his head. Then another sigil flashed.

  Fencer’s face drained of blood as he examined it this time. His finger immediately began to scratch at his chin, eyes looking around frantically. Then they locked on Ned and the hero saw a plan hatch behind his eyes.

  “Perhaps… you can get what you want? I shall have to trust you but you must act quickly. Follow the lights and… ugh, make a mess.”

  ---------------------------------

  Over Seer floated behind the slab of muscle that technically outranked her, rings around her hidden eyes.

  She had a thousand things to do today that she was mentally checking off. Sadly, almost all of them required her direct oversight and intervention, as she trusted none of the imbeciles brought in for this assignment. All of her competent pawns were deployed elsewhere, ensuring the larger plan was being carried out correctly and that her information networks didn’t collapse without her at the helm. The League had “graciously” allowed her to call upon any of its resources in this city during the operation, but that left maybe three or four actual useful tools to call upon and none of them with the discipline and, more importantly, her leverage over them that would ensure their “trustworthiness”.

  Tapping local resources was currently underway and proving as useful as she expected. If the heroes of this city were disorganized, that meant its underworld was in an equal state of disunity. Vandal Eyes had been a font of knowledge, most of which Over Seer was more than aware of, and it was clear the girl was holding back. Ugh, whatever had happened with the Broker was just one of many failures Maniacal had left them with.

  She hoped that Fencer would be more enlightening to their search, especially after blue failed to yield any more truths to this little mystery.

  Arex whistled as he looked down the stacks of villain memorabilia. To Over Seer however, this place reeked of failure. Either those who had cashed out of the life or those had simply grown too old or weak to hold onto any power or significance any longer. It was a monument to Fencer’s obsession more than anything else. Admittedly, she could appreciate a good obsession and as her magic sight brushed up against a myriad of magical artifacts, this almost reminded her of her own sanctum. Oh how she longed to return after tearing apart this mystery villain piece by piece.

  “Ah, the most illustrious League of Domination,” Fencer’s voice came lilting down the stacks as the man descended on a floating platform that had been hidden among the stacks. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Arex chuckled, “You know why we’re here.”

  Fencer, dressed in archaic armor, strolled forward to meet the shapeshifter and the spellcaster, seemingly unconcerned by the danger either posed. Over Seer noted the man had a bandage running across his forehead.

  “Get into a fight?” Arex pointed at it without a shred of subtlety. “Smells fresh.”

  “Just the usual kinds of dangers my house offers me,” the man waved away the question. “I don’t tend to invite in things I believe will harm me.”

  Arex let out a dangerous laugh and Over Seer wondered if she’d have to try restraining him in a second. The bastard could forget what “restraint” was when it came to being contrarian.

  “So you think you’re safe with us?” he clapped a massive hand onto the man’s armored shoulder.

  Fencer shook under the blow but to his credit the man simply smiled upwards, “I think after you see your exhibit you’re more likely to send me flowers than hospitalize me. I’ve got some of your best works on display.”

  Arex’s toothy grin stretched across his whole face. Fencer turned to regard her now, “And of course, yours is one I’m particularly proud of.”

  The flaming sigil narrowed in her own threatening display, “I don’t like having people document me.”

  “It’s mostly allusions to your works, as your agents are sadly quite adept at ensuring no evidence of your masterful manipulations actually remain. I do think it paints a lovely picture of the breadth of your influence even if I one day hope to obtain actual artifacts to accurately show the strength of the League’s Mistress of Spycraft. Authenticity is important to convey the power of titans to mere mortals.”

  She let her lip quirk upward at that. Pure flattery, but it came from someone outside her department for once. She was used to groveling for the sake of mercy or to request her assistance, and while Ferric Farrow might still be doing so for those reasons, she could still enjoy it for now.

  “I suspect you’ll want to visit my exhibit on Marquis Blood? You are searching for his underling after all.”

  Neither of the Leauge members frowned, but their lips did draw into tight lines, the previous air of false friendliness cast aside. Fencer had played his hand, revealing himself to be more informed than most they’d questioned by this point. His words oozed with smug confidence that made Over Seer itch to put him in his place, regardless of his flattery. She retrained herself, knowing that if she felt this, the giant brute next to her was probably barely holding himself back as well. She didn’t need to ruin this investigation by acting like a bad example and enabling him to accidentally murder their best lead. No, she had to be the adult here.

  “Correct,” she hissed. Then she added a lie, “I appreciate you not wasting our time. Now, if you would: Please lead us there immediately.”

  “I will, but I would like to offer my apology first,” Fencer raised a hand and the door they’d entered through flashed. “I’m afraid I did have one visitor before you. A Ms. Alsdottir.”

  Seer had more than enough experience to not let the eye sigil widen in shock at that news and the practice to keep her facial muscles in check. Arex simply raised an eyebrow.

  “I’m afraid she absconded with the replica artifact from that display,” Fencer shook his head mournfully. “I had warned her it was not the original but apparently it was still too much for-”

  “Show us. Now.”

  ---------------------------------

  Arex had lingered in his own exhibit while Seer shot directly towards the Thunderer’s where Fencer had directed them. Let the idiot bask in his past glory. Over Seer would accomplish what they were there for without him. And later on, if they had time, look at her own. But only once the mission was taken care of.

  Sure enough, it was immediately obvious that the place had been ransacked with a specific goal in mind. A wall of glass was scattered across the floor and a huge space on the wall was now empty right near some 16th century clothing that looked like it would belong to a guy with “Blood” in his name. Seer cursed and began to form a tracking spell only for it to hit heavy resistance.

  This place was warded. Of course it was. Not to mention the spacial distortions all over the place. Her lip peeled back in anger before she kicked the glass. She wasn’t unafraid of cutting herself as much as she simply could not care about the consequences.

  “Well that’s unfortunate,” Arex trundled up beside her. “Going to try casting a spell?”

  “I already did!” she snapped. “Wards. His other exhibits weren’t this protected.”

  Arex scratched his neck, “I think Draven demanded he do that for these ones? Didn’t want anything coming back to us.”

  Oh fucking perfect.

  “Find out what this object was and ask him when she stopped by. I want to know how long a head start she has,” Seer hissed. Then she remembered who she was speaking to. Fuck, she was used to only talking with underlings.

  Contrary to her expectations, Arex just laughed it off like he did with everything, “Don’t worry so much! He said it was a replica. We’ve still got some other leads to check. I’ll go ask, little bird. Try to relax.”

  The hand that clapped on her back didn’t feel as threatening as he usually acted. Worse than that, it felt pitying or condescending. Her face burned with anger and embarrassment as the giant shifted to some tiny reptile that sped away at twice a human walking speed. She fixated on the pile of broken glass, trying not to feel small after that.

  It wasn’t just Arex’s words, it was just how many dead ends she’d been hitting as of late. Half the reason she was here rather than directing this entire thing from back at her sanctum was that she felt like she needed to be right here in order to prove all of those around her were incompetent and that she could easily solve this. If that wasn’t the case then… then…

  Something stood out to her in the glass. She motioned with her hand and the tiny object extracted itself from pile of smashed silica. A tiny black fragment no larger than her smallest fingernail. She didn’t hold it in front of herself to examine it, instead letting the magical senses that were still working through the wards creep down her arm and poke at it while she hid it in her palm.

  A composite material… carbide? Something missed in the confusion.

  She looked over the other objects on display and didn’t see anything it could belong to. This tiny chip left behind was alien to just about anything on this wall as far as she could tell.

  A ghost of a smile threatened to break out on her face, but she resisted it. She had her thread to pull on once they were safely away from Fencer’s warded exhibits. Let the Stormdaughter try to outdo her when it came to finding someone with magic. Even if this was a replica, she was determined to figure out whatever she could learn.

  1. While leather is still widely used in commercial markets, its use for most costumes for super powered individuals has fallen out of favor due to the difficulty in maintaining the material. The methods Dr. Photon created for self-mending fabrics don’t work on the animal material. Plastic leather’s rate of decay also outpaced the repair abilities of this method. The most common substitute on the market comes from CreateCo’s advancements in the field and utilizes a genetically engineered tree sap as its base.

  2. More than one “returned” artifact from Fencer’s lair has been revealed to be a forgery. They are often of such fantastic quality that most advanced methods still fail to detect them under scrutiny. Other private collectors have been known to pay large sums for these, knowing them to be forgeries. Sometimes these sales even exceed the amount paid as ransom in the first place and the proceeds of the sales often being used to repurchase the genuine article from Fencer. It is suspected that this double purchase is one of the ways the villain funds his collection.