7

The dealers were pretty confident.

The four of them were working together. Things were going smoothly for once. Once they'd heard about the Skinwalker, and how he was going through the dealers in the area like a lawnmower, they had taken precautions. They had set up a folding table in the second floor of a half-demolished parking garage, using the security fences and barricades to block off all but one entrance. A couple of trash barrel fires spaced around the closed-in area gave them plenty of light to see by, but not enough to attract the bored cops who wandered through the Docks. They all had guns, pistols mostly but at least one kalishnikov, and they had not two but four big ugly dogs, Rottie halfbreeds, not well trained but mean enough and smart enough to "sic" whatever they were pointed at. The customers, unsurprisingly, were much better behaved than usual.

"This works better," one of them noted, idly folding bills.

The guy next to him holding the Kalishnikov grinned, baring a mouthful of rotten teeth. "Shoulda thought o' settin' up like this years ago," he said. "Steada handin' off baggies in the street like a chump. That Skinwalker guy did us a favor."

The guy tending the dogs huffed. "Huh, here's hopin' he don't do us no more favors, thank you very much," he said.

"Ah lighten up," the one holding the kalishnikov said, hefting it. "He shows up, we've got some surprises to give him."

The guy tending the dogs looked over his shoulder. "Well, you do that, be sure you do it right and make sure he's dead," he said fearfully.

"What's you're problem, man? He's just a cape." The guy at the table shoved a baggie into their latest customer's hand and sent him shuffling for the exit."The fool plays with US, he's gonna get the short end of it."

"Don't you know nuthin' about animals?" the dog guy said. Having to pour kibble for the mongrels had apparently convinced him he was the expert on animals in the group. "All this stuff he's done so far-- he's not playing around; he's toying with his prey. Ever seen a cat play with a mouse? All lazy n' shit… till they get serious. Then those claws move so fast you can't even SEE 'em.

"If you shoot this guy, get it right the first shot-- cause if he gets serious, you'll never get a second."

FOOSH. The four Merchants yelped like scalded cats and wheeled about to face the direction of the sound. Had they been from Azeroth they might have recognized the sound of a gnomish fire extinguisher. The two trash barrels at the far end of the garage had gone out, plunging it into darkness. In that darkness something moved. And growled.

"It's him!" Three of them aimed their guns at the shadows. "No wait!" the dog guy said. "You shoot that thing you'll pull every cop in the city. Let the dogs at him first!" He unlocked the dog's collars and pointed at the glowing eyes in the dark. "GET 'IM!" The four dogs pounded for the shadow, snarling and slavering.

Two clawed hands shot out of the dark and grabbed the first two dogs by their throats. They were whipped around in a circle in the air and brought down on top of the other two, slamming all four to the concrete with canine shrieks of pain. The Skinwalker opened his mouth and ROARED into their faces. Two of them rolled over on their backs, whimpering. The third scuttled backward, limping and cringing and shrieking like an old woman's pug who'd seen a cat for the first time.

The fourth one tried to press his luck. He leapt for the crouching figure's throat, snapping and snarling, its eyes mad with fury. The hands seized it again. There was a loud crack and the struggling dog went limp.

The guy holding the Kalishnikov opened up; the other two beside him fired their pistols. The dog's corpse came hurtling out of the shadows like a softball, striking the guy with the assault rifle and knocking him backwards twenty feet, cutting the bark of the gun off. The dead dog was swiftly followed by the two burn-barrels; they struck the Merchants with the pistols with a loud gong, laying them out flat. Vines sprang out of nowhere, cocooning the concussed dealers and tangling the legs of the last one standing, immobilizing him.

The fourth merchant wet himself in terror as the Skinwalker stepped fully into the light. He kicked the table into the ceiling, scattering the goods and the money everywhere. A taloned hand grabbed the terrified merchant by his ratty shirt front and lifted him off the ground till he was looking at the feral cape face to face. He'd never seen so many teeth in his life. "You're not worth my time," the Skinwalker said in a voice as deep and resonant as a god's. ""Where'd you get this? From who? Names, places, I want everything you know."

Fifteen minutes later, after a great deal of hysterical ratting-out, he left them. He took their guns, he took their cellphones, wallets, shoes, and left them hogtied on the floor… watching their merchandise burn to ash in one of the burn-barrels, and their instructions etched in a nearby support column with a diamond-sharp claw:

TELL SKIDMARK I'M COMING

This scene was repeated all night, all over the city. Three locations, five locations, a dozen. Dawn came with dozens of merchants left trussed for the cops or simply looted of all they had, hundreds of thousands in illicit drugs burned, who knew how much drug money confiscated...and no real clues on where Skidmark and his crew were hiding.

Adrian sighed in disgust as he dropped down through the skylight into his lair. His bones ached, he was so tired. He had a handful of cellphones and wallets; he'd go through them later. Maybe he'd find something in the contact lists… but he wasn't hopeful. He was no Sherlock Holmes, or even a Sam Spade. He could only hope the pressure finally flipped Skidmark's switch.

The first snow of the holiday season came in, thick and heavy, cloaking everything in billowing waves of white. Even Brockton Bay couldn't help looking better when it was wearing its winter best, and a tiny bit of genuine holiday cheer seemed to be making the rounds.

Dinah Alcott wasn't feeling it very much though. All she could feel was afraid.

School was out for the holidays; they'd had a "holiday party" instead of classes-- what her friend Elliot joked was "a Christmahannakwanzaa party"-- and watched old christmas movies and eaten popcorn and junk food till everyone was buzzed out on sugar and caffeine. The school bus packed full of shrieking, excited kids had just dropped her off on her street, and she was trudging home through the still falling snow.

The streets were already plowed, but the sidewalks were still covered in a deep layer of white. It made for slow going when you were short and dressed in klunky rubber galoshes. It was pretty at least, Dinah thought. And the falling snow made everything so still.

She went over the numbers in her head again.

Chance she would be abducted this week? 23% and rising.

Chance she would be abducted before the end of the holidays? 67% and rising.

Chance she would be abducted by the end of January? 89% and rising.

She bit her lip and sniffled. She hated her power. All she had to do was ask, all she had to do was hear a question or think a question about the future, and her power would tell her how likely it was to happen. No lies, no secrets, no mistakes. And since adults went around all the time saying things like "what are the odds?" or "how likely could it be?"-- she'd known all sorts of horrible things, almost from the day she'd triggered.

Among all the horrible things she now knew, she knew that someone was going to kidnap her.

She wasn't foolish; she'd tried to warn her parents, to warn any adult. But they'd laughed and said the same thing that she had heard on a TV commercial that had activated her power in the first place. "Don't be silly, do you know how unlikely that is you'd be kidnapped?"

She had. She'd told them, to the third decimal place. They'd ignored her.

Probability that anyone she told would believe her before it was too late? 5.3%

Tears puddled in her eyes, she struggled to wipe them away with her mittens, to little effect. Whoever they were, couldn't they at least wait until after Christmas?

She heard a footstep and a twig snap. She looked around, her breath hitched in her throat. There was noone around; her footprints were the only ones that marred the fresh-fallen snow. There was a little park across the road that all the kids played at-- noone was there now; they were all inside where it was warm and dry. What she saw standing on the rise made her breath catch in her throat, but in an entirely different way.

It was a reindeer.

It was snowy white, with huge antlers like the branches of a tree. It was wearing a harness and saddlebags of some sort and had bangles-- Christmas ornaments?-- dangling from its antlers. It stood there, just looking at her, majestic and unafraid.

"Omigosh. No way," she breathed. She stumbled; without realizing it she'd walked towards it, across the street and up over the little ankle-high wall surrounding the park. The reindeer was less than twenty feet away from her now. It pawed at the ground; she heard bells jingle.

"No. Way..!" she said again.

Slowly, gracefully… almost majestically, she thought; that was a good word for it, majestic…. It stepped through the snow, walking towards her. For the first time she realized just how big it was; she didn't even come to its shoulder. She hesitated. She was a sensible, practical little girl. And her practical side reminded her that it was a strange animal; it could be dangerous…

...But still, her struggling, battered innocence protested...

It stood perfectly still. Slowly it lowered its head till its nose was almost touching her. Carefully, she lifted up one hand and put it on the reindeer's nose, feeling the velvety pad under her palm. "Oh wow," she said, a smile of wonder creeping across her face. "Hi. I'm Dinah," she said. She felt silly even as she said it. It couldn't possibly--

The reindeer tilted its head, almost like a dog. It made a "whuff" sound and craned its neck back, reaching over its shoulder for the bag hanging on its side. When its head came back around it was holding a giftwrapped box in its mouth by the ribbon. A tag fluttered from it, the words "FOR DINAH" on it in big black letters.

"For me?" she squeaked. She took the package, wrapping her arms around it-- it was huge and bulky, twice as tall as it was deep and wide. "Thank--- thank you!" The reindeer nuzzled her. It wheeled about and galloped away, bells jingling, and vanished into the falling snow. The bells fell silent and she was alone.

She staggered through her front door a few minutes later, package in arms. "Mom, Dad, I'm home!"

Her mother came in from the kitchen. "No need to shout, Dinah, I-- goodness, that's a big package. Where did you get it?"

Dinah considered her options, realized she couldn't possibly make up a really good lie, and went with the truth, which was confusing enough. "One of Santa's Reindeer gave it to me!"

Her father was on the couch, reading the paper (who DID that anymore?) He looked up in confusion. "What?"

Her mother looked confused, but then her expression cleared. "Oh, that's right. That's what they call the school gift exchange thing. When you get a gift they say you got it from Santa's Reindeer… I remember her teacher saying something about that..."

Dinah resisted the urge to roll her eyes and stamp her foot in frustration. Her parents seemed to have a superpower too-- only hearing what they wanted to hear.

"Well it certainly looks like they splurged," her father said. "So which reindeer was it, Punkin?" he teased. "Rudolph, Vixen, Blitzen?"

Dinah's eyes went round and her mouth popped open. "Oh, NUTS!" she said, stamping her foot for real this time. "I forgot to ask!!" That was going to bug her forever…

Her parents blinked, then burst out laughing. "Oh Dinah, you are so silly!"

Arrrrrrgh!

"Well, go on honey, open it!" her father urged.

"Oh, honey, she should really wait till Christmas--" but before her mother even finished speaking Dinah had already torn half the paper off.

"One early present won't hurt," her father said indulgently. "Why when I was a boy we had a tradition where we opened one present on Christmas Eve..." he chuckled. "Of course we always ended up breaking down and opening ALL of them that night, but--"

Dinah laid the box down on its side on the coffee table and opened it. Inside were two very expensive looking toy robots stacked up on one another, with squat bodies, headlight eyes and rotating strobe lights for heads. "Unusual sort of gift for a little girl," her father murmured, lifting one out of the box and looking it over. "Beautiful work though. I think this is real brass, or maybe bronze."

"There's a business card in the box," Mrs. Alcott said, plucking it out. "From the workshop of World of Crafts.' Oh, HIM."

"Him who?"

"There's a fellow with a pushcart down on the Boardwalk, he sells things like this," she said. "Little brass toys, wind up butterflies, trees in bottles, all sorts of things. He sometimes shows up at the Lord Street Market, too, I hear."

"Huh. Nifty." Mr. Alcott turned the one he was holding over in his hands. "I guess it's some sort of alarm clock or something?" He put it back in the box. "Why don't you take those on up to your room for now, Punkin. We'll be having dinner in a little bit."

"Okay." Dinah scooped up the box and raced up the stairs.

"No running!"

Grumping, she slowed down and walked like a proper lady up the stairs and into her room. She laid the box on her bed, carefully closed the door to her bedroom, and fished out the pamphlet she'd spotted in the bottom of the box. She noticed her new toys had names engraved on their chests.

The first one was OB-1.

The second was KEN-OB.

Ugh. Grownups and their jokes.

She unfolded the accordion paper and started to read.

CONGRATULATIONS!

You are now the proud owner of TWO (2)

A-O-B model Defender-Bots (limited edition.)

Custom built to be Danger Tuff™

and

READY FOR ACTION!

Awesome DEFENDER-TASTIC FEATURES include:

Super durable!

Self recharging!

High volume and visibility DANGER ALARM

To let the forces of JUSTICE know

when EVIL rears its ugly head!

GPS and DISTRESS BEACON!

High power ELECTRO BEAMS

to give the Bad Guys the shock of their lives!

INVISO FIELD

to render you and your defender-bot

undetectable to the Enemy!

(Lasts indefinitely; only remains active while stationary)

ULTRA DEFENSE FORCE FIELD

Nullifies all incoming attacks!

(Field of limited duration and durability; must recharge

forcefield capacitors approx. 60 seconds between uses.)

And when things are at their most dangerous, the

GNOMERIGAN WORLD ENLARGER/REDUCER

is there to help your Defender-Bots SAVE THE DAY!

Take them with you everywhere!

Ask yourself: what are the odds

that you could need a Defender-Bot?

Beneath each blurb was a cartoon drawing of the "Defender-Bots" punching, zapping, and force-fielding their way through evil aliens, sinister ninjas, raging monsters and more. Just silly Saturday morning cartoon stuff.

She traced her finger over the line that had been double inked. "Ask yourself: what are the odds?"

Hastily she pulled her backpack open and dug out a pencil and a piece of paper. Hands shaking, she wrote out her questions.

"If I keep the Defender-Bots with me… what are the odds I'll be abducted this week?"

0.2%

"If I keep the Defender-Bots with me… what are the odds I'll be abducted this month?"

.25%

"If I keep the Defender-Bots with me… what are the odds I'll be abducted in a year?"

.49%

Her breathing quickened. No, wait. Just because she wouldn't be abducted, didn't mean something worse could happen. The bad guy, whoever he was, could still decide to do something horrible to her or to her family. There were just too many bad things that could happen, or that the villain could do.

Her head was already aching from so many questions to her Power. She wet her lips and asked the best question she could think of. "What are the odds that the Defender Bots came from someone who can save me and my family from the bad guy?"

93%

She asked one more. "What are the odds he will?"

100%

"Biddlbiddlebip."

"Bbbltp."

The two Obie-bots' eyes lit up. The box they were in tipped over and they climbed out to stand on the bedspread. They watched her with unblinking yellow-green eyes. "Obie-One?" she said. The one on the left went "Ding" and saluted with a Clink! "Ken-Obie?" The other one went "Ding" and saluted as well. "You guys are gonna keep me safe? And my family?"

"Ding!" "Ding!"

The tears that had threatened before finally spilled over. It wasn't till now that she realized how much it mattered to have someone, or even someTHING, to talk to about her troubles that believed her. She pulled the two little robots into a hug. For the first time in forever, she felt that things were gonna be okay.

Panacea walked out into the enclosed garden. It was a breath of fresh air; cold, freezing snowy air, but fresh air all the same. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes, started to light up… then reconsidered. "Eh," she muttered, stuffing the pack and lighter into the nearby trash can. "I'm turning into Miss Polly Pureheart."

"Goooood..." she yipped and turned around. "I didn't see you there!" Snow covered or not, how did she miss a talking tree?

The Giving Tree was there again, his branches laden with snow. He'd been dubbed that by one of the nurses, a lady who was a fan of Shel Silverstein, and it had stuck. Every couple of days he would appear at one hospital or clinic or the other for a few hours, rooted in the middle of the garden or the quad, reaching for the sky and shedding that healing light as far as it could reach. Sometimes there would be secondary growths here and there around the hospital; foot high mushrooms that shed their own healing aura, redoubling the effect. The staff at each location had taken to putting the more "in need" patients closer to where they thought he would appear, or if the weather was good wheeling out the more ambulatory patients to rest in his shade.

"How are you doing?" she asked. He shook the snow off his branches and smiled at her. The cold didn't seem to bother him, but he did seem a little more sluggish than the first time they'd met a month ago.

"I am…. Well," he said. "Howww. … fares… the seedling?"

She pointed past him. In the middle of the quad in a planter was an oak sapling. Were one to judge by its growth, it would be at least a year or two in age. "Ahhh," he said. He ambled around it, examining it from all sides. "You have… been trying things… I see," he said, looking at her knowingly.

She nodded. The sapling was stronger, hardier, with a more robust immunity to insects and diseases. Its xylem and phloem were scattered in several layers, rather than in one thin vulnerable layer under the bark. She was tempted to see if she could somehow make it evergreen, but had resisted the urge so far. The Giving Tree rested his hand against the trunk and nodded. "It will grow… well. Good. Strong."

He looked at her. "I should… let… you know…. This… will be… my… last visit… till spring." He looked up ruefully and shook more snow off his crown. "I have… stayed over long… as it is."

Amy wrung her hands. She had postponed asking this for too long as it was. "Then with your permission," she said after a deep breath. "There is one more change I would like to make to the sapling."

He looked at her, curiosity plain on his craggy face. "Oh?" She held out her hand. "Ahhh. I..see." She took his hand in hers, and placed her other hand on the trunk of the oak sapling. She closed her eyes and opened her Power.

She would probably spend the rest of her life trying to describe, in analytical scientific terms, what she saw… or what she did. But she understood it somehow all the same, like a fish understands water or a bird understands the sky.

The sapling began to glow. Leaves or no leaves, winter or no winter, it grew several feet taller and several inches thicker. The bark split, then healed, then split again. It stretched, waxed, grew--- and then stilled. Panacea opened her eyes. The sapling was glowing like the Giving Tree… faint, a barely visible aura almost like a heat shimmer, but it was there.

The Giving Tree patted her shoulder, then patted the trunk, obviously pleased. "It… sleeps… for now. But in the Spring… it will share. Healing. Life. Yes."

"It won't be, um, intelligent like you," she said. "But it will give off that healing aura like you do." She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, under her hood. "I'm going to, to make more like it," she said with the air of someone finally committing to a course of action. "Plant seedlings and saplings at every hospital I can. They won't breed, the PRT would have kittens if they did. They'd have ALL the kittens." She grimaced. "They can't do much, though, so long as they can't breed. My mom's going to have thirty percent of the kittens all by herself, as it is... But you shouldn't have to bear all the burden alone."

The Giving Tree laid a hand on her shoulder and leaned in. "Neither… should you..." he said solemnly. He tapped her on the nose. "Beep."

He suddenly turned solemn. "I need… to ask a favor..."

"What is it?" Wordlessly, he handed her a pasteboard card. Where did that come from? She read the wording on it and blinked. "I… okay, I don't do requests," she said. "Not… okay, not usually. But because it's you, and just this once." She pulled a pen out of her uniform pocket (why did so few capes wear costumes with something that common sense?) and signed the card. "I'm trusting you," she warned him. "I figure it's gotta be important if you're asking."

He took the card back and tucked it away… somewhere. "It could change… the fate… of the world," he said ominously. She shivered, and it wasn't from the snow seeping through her boots. He gave her a reassuring smile. "Be well."

There was a sudden gust of wind. The snow blew up and swirled around the garden, blotting out everything in a blinding cloud of white. When the wind fell away, he was gone. Amy looked around, blinking and wiping snow off her face. "I hate it when he does that," she muttered.

Armsmaster hunched over his worktable with a digital magnifier on an armature pulled down in front of his face and one of his custom-made multitools in his hand. He was picking apart yet another of the Alarm-O-Bots that had mobbed him at the end of the farcical "cage match" Skinwalker had set up. The broken remains of a half dozen others were scattered around him. None were in any condition anyone would call "reparable." He had been a bit… enthusiastic in subduing them.

There was a knock at the door. "Enter," he muttered. The voice-activated door slid aside, admitting Velocity. "So how goes the research?" he asked, looking around at the scattered parts.

"Not very far," Colin admitted, pushing aside the magnifier. "No serial numbers, no seals, all the major parts seem to be recycled or even hand crafted." He tapped a part. "I'd swear these parts here were actually drop forged."

"What about the 'brain,' the CPU?" Velocity suggested.

"Bits out of old cell phones or electronic toys," Armsmaster said. "The programming itself is simplistic-- little more than "Run at target. grab hold and climb. When knocked down, get up and repeat.'" He grunted. "Less brains than your average Roomba."

"You forgot "Spray target with CO2 extinguisher," Velocity quipped. He picked up one disemboweled bot and looked at it. "You know, these could be useful. With a little better programming and a little containment foam--"

Armsmaster set down his multitool with a clang. "No. Just…. no."

Velocity held up his hands in defeat. "Fine, fine."

Armsmaster pulled out a thumb drive and handed it to Velocity without looking. "If you'd do a hi-speed review of my helmet cam for my last patrol, I'd appreciate it," he said, distracted.

Velocity pulled back a bit, miffed at Armsmaster's brusque request. He took the thumb drive anyway; there was no point at being annoyed with Armsmaster for being Armsmaster. He looked around for a laptop. Armsmaster shoved an app-book across the tabletop to him. "It's at 120x," he grunted.

Now Velocity was getting annoyed. He took the book and plugged the drive in. Eight hours of video footage began playing at 120 times normal speed. Velocity blurred as he allowed his power to speed him up to match the video. He picked up a digital pad and started noting time markers down. For several minutes all you could see of him was a very blurry, and very bored looking man in tights.

His expression changed considerably when the tape suddenly cut to footage of Armsmaster and Skinwalker's "cage match." He watched it through, carefully keeping a poker face, then watched a good bit of the rest of the footage for good measure before he stopped it. "Spot anything worth noting?" Armsmaster said, his voice bland.

Velocity suddenly remembered that most monitors and digital cameras, save for the ones Armsmaster had designed specifically for Velocity's use, only worked at a top speed of 60 frames per second. Anyone attempting to spy on them via hidden camera would only see a pixelated blur on the screen in front of him or on the pad in his hand at best. Clever sod. "A couple things," Velocity agreed, tapping the pad. He scribbled several notes next to the list, then passed the pad over. How many have seen this ? Was written in the corner.

Armsmaster nodded and pretended to write a note next to the first item while Velocity looked over his shoulder. You, me, Dragon, Miss Militia .

Any evidence?

Dragon' s spotted some things: back doors, keystroke loggers, time bombs, dormant programs to take over key systems. Still tracing them back to TC. Software and hardware both compromised.

Piggot? Was the second.

May be compromised , Armsmaster wrote. Served with TC vs. Nilbog. Velocity suppressed a shudder. The Ellisburg incident was a horror story come to life. A man named Jamie Rinke had Triggered as an S-class biotinker-- able to create autonomous lifeforms from any living organic material. He'd gone completely insane and released a swarm of monsters on the city that devoured the populace or dragged them off to be ingredients for new monsters. The heroes they'd sent in had been routed and the PRT team accompanying them had been wiped out to a man-- save for two: Calvert and Piggot. And Piggot had only mostly gotten out. She'd left most of the flesh on her lower legs and several internal organs, including her kidneys, behind. The authorities had resorted to walling in the entire city and manning the wall 24-7 with a small army and nearly every weapon of destruction known to man.

Why they hadn't simply nuked the abomination until the ground was molten for a thousand years was beyond Velocity's ability to guess.

If Calvert and Piggot were brothers in arms from that crucible, there was a good chance they were working together now, too.

There was a click on the intercom. "Armsmaster, this is Piggot. Please assemble the Protectorate AND the Wards in my office immediately."

"Speak of the Devil," Velocity muttered.

Armsmaster ignored the quip and hit the reply button the bracer of his armor (he hated having to drop everything just to cross the room and hit a button on the wall.) "On my way. What is the reason for the call?"

"I have an inquiry to make," the Director said, her voice as flat and level as always. "I want to know one thing:

"Why the HELL is there a reindeer standing in the middle of my office?"

It was a bit of a trip from the Protectorate base out in the Bay to the PRT building in the heart of the city. Armsmaster constantly resented the inefficiency of the arrangement, even if he accepted the alleged need for some illusion of distance between the two organizations. Even the two-minute flight from helicopter pad to helicopter pad was an annoyance, but at least it was no longer than that... even with everyone and their cousin deciding to tag along.

The Director's office took up one entire floor near the top of the building. Which was fortunate, as she was about to need the space.

When the heroes and wards all arrived, they were greeted with a strange scene. Outside in the hallway were several armed PRT guards, all trying both to look alert and intimidating, and to peer past each other into the Director's office. They squeezed past the gauntlet of guards and entered to find the tableau within to justify the one without.

Director Piggot was sitting at her desk, utterly still, her scowling face as immobile as if it were made of stone. Standing in front of her desk, grazing placidly on one of the potted plants, was a white stag with an enormous rack of antlers.

Everyone stared. "But-- how?" Assault said, waving one hand about.

"That would be MY question," Piggot said grimly. "I went to use the facilities, came in, sat down, turned around and there he was."

"But how did he get through the door? His antlers…" Assault persisted, measuring off their size in the air with his hands. "He wouldn't fit through the door--"

"He's a shapeshifter isn't he?" Battery said. "… assuming it is the Skinwalker."

"Iunno, he seems like the sort of guy who'd buy a real elk and drop it in Piggot's office just for the giggles," Assault pointed out.

"Why hasn't the Director shot him or something?" Triumph asked in a (inevitable for him) stage whisper. Piggot sighed. She'd obviously heard that. People three floors away had obviously heard that. Never ask a cape with voice-blaster powers to whisper.

"Because," she said in annoyance, not taking her eyes off the reindeer desecrating her desk plants. "My gun is missing, the controls for the office security systems are for some reason not working, and as annoying as it is having a 500 pound live reindeer stuck in my office, having a 500 pound DEAD reindeer stuck in my office would be considerably worse. Do you have any other questions, Triumph?" The lion-themed hero looked sheepish.

"Well somebody think of SOMEthing," Battery said. If her husband started giggling again she was going to have to hurt someone.

The Protectorate, or at least the local available numbers, were crowded at the door, unwilling to step closer. Battling violent gangs, brutal villains, and sociopathic megalomaniacs had apparently left them untrained for dealing with livestock. Feeling a bit embarrassed for himself and his team. Armsmaster stepped up. "Skinwalker, you are under arrest for trespassing on PRT offices. Stand down, and return to a, er, more compact form immediately." The reindeer stared at him with all the apparent comprehension of a cow, then returned to its al fresco lunch. "And I just tried to arrest a cow with antlers," Armsmaster said in a tired monotone. "Truly a highlight of my career."

"If you do not stop eating my violets, I swear I will find a way to crate you and ship you to Finland for soup ingredients," Piggot hissed. The reindeer stopped chewing and stared at her for a long moment. Then slowly, deliberately, it took another bite. Piggot made a sound like an angry schnauzer revving up.

Armsmaster stepped forward and waved the unbladed haft of his halberd at the elk. "HO! Hah! Er, Giddyup!…. Whooaah--!" The reindeer bugled angrily at the implied challenge and took several lunging steps at the armored hero, who hastily retreated back to the group of capes blocking the door.

"My hero," Piggot said. The sarcasm in her voice could have curdled gasoline.

Per fire regulations, the office had two entrances. The other one was the elevator that ran from the basement garage clear to the top floor, and was situated on the far side of the room. It dinged, signaling the late arrival of the Wards. "Sorry we're late Director Piggot," Aegis was already saying as he stepped off the elevator, "There was a tour group and-- what the hell?" He stumbled to a halt just inside the office.

Shadow Stalker clapped eyes on the reindeer next. She whipped her crossbow out of nowhere, nocked and ready. "Holy crap, a moose! ...You want me to shoot it?" She sounded way too eager.

"No!" Armsmaster said "I do not even want to try to think of how to get an unconscious large ungulate out of this office. And tranq darts can make the target void their bowels as well. I do NOT want to see that."

Shadow Stalker lowered her crossbow in surprise. "What, they can?" she asked, disbelieving. "Why didn't you jerks tell me that? I coulda stabbed myself with one of those! "

"A guy can dream..." Clockblocker muttered.

"Coincidentally, Clockblocker," Piggot said in a conversational tone, "If I find out any of you had any part in this little prank, there will be hell to pay."

Kid Win snorted. "On what she pays us? Get real," he muttered to the others.

"Where would you buy an elk in Brockton Bay anyway?" Aegis muttered back.

"Maybe they rent…?"

The elevator dinged again, announcing the arrival of Gallant, Browbeat, and Vista. "Okay, we had to get our gear out of-- oh my gosh, a REINDEER?" Vista said, her voice rising to a squeak. Then, with the artless naivete that underlined for the hundredth time that for all her experience as a Ward she was still just a twelve-year-old girl, she walked straight across the room and began petting the reindeer on its nose.

To everyone's relief, the deer merely nuzzled her palm and butted its head into the patting. Vista laughed and scratched behind its ears. "I know some of you guys wanted to get into the holiday spirit, but this is ridiculous," Vista giggled.

Slowly the two groups filtered their way into the room. Not all the way, though. Missy and the reindeer still had a fairly good clear space around them. Miss Militia couldn't resist putting her oar in. "We do seem to make things more difficult for ourselves than we need to, don't we," she said. Several capes glared at her.

"Okay. So why is it here?" Browbeat asked.

That seemed to be the magic question. The reindeer's ears perked up. He craned his neck back and dug around under the flap of one of his saddlebags and pulled out… a gift wrapped box. He set it on the ground at his hooves and then pulled out another. And then another.

Armsmaster felt himself on the verge of an apoplexy. This HAD to be Skinwalker, in yet another form… and now showing off a bit of tinker tech Armsmaster would have given his left arm for: a dimensional pocket. To deliver Christmas presents!

"Ooh, presents!" Assault said. With a jesting grin he reached down to pick up one of the bigger boxes.

Whop. An enormous cloven hoof came down, pinning the box to the floor. The reindeer glared at him and snorted, eyes narrowed. Assault backed off, hands held up. "Whoa. Eheh. Kids go first, right?"

The reindeer gave him a disdainful look. Then it picked up one package with its mouth by the ribbon and handed it to Vista. "Ooh, thank you!" Before anyone could say anything she began ripping open the paper.

"Vista!" Gallant said. "That could be booby-trapped!"

Vista shot him a scornful look. "A reindeer in sleighbells shows up in the Director's office, eats her desk plants, pulls like a jillion packages out of hammerspace while every hero in the Bay watches, then just stands there watching while one of us gets ready to set off a bomb in its face? What part of that story makes sense, Gallant?"

You could almost hear Gallant's jaw opening and closing behind the visor of his full-face helmet. He didn't have time to formulate a comeback, because the reindeer was now handing him a package as well. "Iii..."

"The word is 'thank you,' Gallant," Vista said without looking up from her package. The sticky tape was giving her gloved fingers trouble.

Packages were handed out in swift order to each of the wards. Then it began nudging boxes in the direction of the Protectorate heroes. The first of them had plucked up their nerve enough to pick the boxes up when Vista squealed. "Oooh, look!"

She held up her prize. It was a gun of some sort, done out in emerald green crystal and brass trim, along with a holster in gold and green. Vista gleefully strapped it around her waist. It had to be said, it went well with her costume. "It looks like a Weta ray gun," Clockblocker commented.

"You know the Tinker who made that?" Armsmaster said.

"No, not a tinker," he said. "Propmakers. They make widgets and gadgets for the movies, and they have a sideline selling these prop weapons to collectors."

While he was talking Vista was drawing a bead on a nearby filing cabinet. "Eat hot subatomic death, evildoer," she muttered, and pulled the trigger. There was a crackling noise and a jagged beam of energy leapt from the muzzle of the weapon, striking the steel cabinet and limning it in light. There was a loud "smeeeerp" sound and the filing cabinet shrank to one tenth its size.

Everyone froze in shock. Vista stood there, rigid with surprise, the shrink ray held stiffly in her hands. "I thought it was a toy!" she squeaked.

"Teach you to assume," Aegis said unnecessarily.

"Are you out of your mind?" Miss Militia barked at the reindeer. Several people started to speak up at once, a couple of them looking as if they planned to snatch the ray gun out of Vista's hand. The reindeer looked unphased. It began clopping it's hoof on the floor.

Clop… clop… clop….

When it reached thirty, it stopped. There was a "vuuuum" sound, and the filing cabinet returned to normal size. "Oh thank--" Vista said, relieved. "It's only temporary!"

There were many sorts of ray weapons in the gnomish tinker inventory. The shrink ray was just one. And, if Vista ever read the manual and figured out how to flip the reverse switch, the enlarger ray was another. A ranged weapon that could safely render anyone attacking the young dimension warper harmless would go a long way to easing Bayleaf's mind.

"Temporary or not, that thing is untested tinker technology from an unknown maker," Armsmaster said sternly. "It's going through the full testing regime before you even THINK of touching it..."

"Great," said Clockblocker, a slightly panicked note in his laugh. "Then would somebody please come take this from me before I hurt myself?" He was holding another ray gun, a slightly sleeker model in grey, silver and white in his outstretched hand.

"Just put it down, Clockblocker," Armsmaster ordered.

"I'd like to," Clockblocker said, his voice very small. "There's only one problem."

"What?"

"There's a warning light on this thing," Clockblocker said. "And it's blinking." He was right. There were two vacuum tubes sticking out of the back at an angle, just above the grip. One was blinking red.

"Time-freeze the thing!" Aegis said.

"I'm trying," Clockblocker said, his hand shaking. "It's not working!" As they watched the little blinking light began to blink faster, and faster...

Clockblocker's power was potent, if esoteric. He could make anything he touched freeze in time. The effect was apparently random, ranging from thirty seconds to ten minutes. (If anyone had managed to chart the time immobilized vs. the mass involved, then added a third axis for power he had put into the effort, they might have noticed a pattern. But alas for insufficient data points...) And it worked on anything solid, liquid, and even on rare occasions on gases or energy fields. For him to be unable to time-freeze something wasn't merely unusual, it was alarming.

The light was strobing five times a second now. Clockblocker cringed and got ready to fruitlessly fling the gun across the office when the radio tube suddenly blinked out, and the one next to it began glowing green.

The reindeer grunted. Clockblocker looked at it. The reindeer had stepped into one of the open boxes and, agitated, was trying to shake it off. With a kick of the forehoof it flipped the empty box into the air, straight at Clockblocker's head. Clockblocker, already jittery, jabbed the steampunk-looking ray gun in the direction of the cardbard and spasmodically pulled the trigger. A pencil thin ray of light struck the box and it froze in midair. Not even the paper or ribbon fluttered.

"Holy @#$%@ in a buttered bundt pan," Clockblocker breathed. He poked the box with the barrel of the gun. It was immobile. "A gun that duplicates my power?" You couldn't see his face behind the blank visor he wore, but the confusion in his voice was clear. "Then what the hell was up with that light?"

Triumph suddenly started kicking through the papers still on the floor. "Ah, there it is." He reached down and pulled out an accordion-folded leaflet. "When all else fails, read the instructions," he said to everyone.

"How did you know that was in there?" Velocity demanded.

Triumph gave him a knowing look. "My family goes through this every Christmas," he said, opening the leaflet and starting to read. "You'd think 'read the enclosed manual before using' was ancient Greek or something..." he muttered. "Okay, 'Gnomerigan Temporal Energy Immobilizer Ray.' Big clue there… Ah. That blinky light? Just indicated it was recharging. one to three shots depending on settings. Green light for full charge." Clockblocker made some surly-sounding oaths. "Oh wow. 'Your Temporal Energy Immobilizer is self-recharging, automatically re-energizing its capacitors off of ambient temporal energy in the immediate environment. Full charge may take up to thirty minutes to reach.' And the rest looks like explanations of what all those fiddly dials on the side do." Triumph grinned… well, Triumphantly. "Of course. Temporal Energy. Except Clockblocker was wetting his pants--"

"Hey!"

"-- and pumping it full of 'Temporal Energy' as hard as he could, " Triumph said. "Dude. It recharges its batteries off your power!"

A curious individual would wonder where the schematics for the time freezing ray came from. This in fact was one of Bayleaf's own Azeroth inspired inventions. Azeroth magitek had multiple ways to temporarily freeze a target in place… ice spells and the like... but what few people knew (unless they had been given very comprehensive education in the matter) was that they ALL involved time manipulation. The hunter's freeze trap, the mage's Ice Block, all of them actually used temporal energy to suspend the target temporarily in time… the appearance of icy crystals and the aura of cold was a side effect of the water and air molecules around them suddenly being immobilized. (basic reasoning would lead to the realization that it was not usually real ice, as suddenly freezing and thawing a person like that would not put them in suspended animation but turn their tissues and organs to mush, killing them. Not that such methods didn't have their use in the ruthlessness of combat, but it was always better to have options.) From there it was a quick hop to using the gnomish and goblinish knack for synthesizing the effects of such arcane spells, and the first Time Ray was invented.

Clockblocker had gone from badly rattled to all but cackling with glee. "Oh wow. Oh wow. And it turns my power into a ranged attack, " he said giddily. "No more having to touch villains like Mush with my bare hands to time-freeze them!" The box tumbled to the ground, unnoticed. "Don't you get it guys?" He looked at the others. "It's gear. It's gear to upgrade our powers!"

That was the cue. The Wards were the first to move in. Vista being the closest, she began reading off gift tags and handing them to their recipients. Wrapping paper was soon flying. Half the adults present were all but tearing their hair out at the violation of security protocol. The other half…

"Screw it," Miss Militia said. "I just HAVE to see what this guy came up with to leverage MY power." She took the box Vista handed her.

"Darn straight, free loot," Assault said.

Armsmaster threw his hands in the air. "Fine… PERFECT..."

"We have to open them anyway, Armsmaster," Velocity said. "Might as well...see… hmm." He lifted his gift out of the box. Inside were a pair of elbow length gauntlets. The gauntlets had what appeared to be brass knuckles built into them.

"I suppose he doesn't know the limitations of your powers," Armsmaster said.

"Well, the thought is appreciated," Velocity said.

Velocity's speedster powers came with one incredibly aggravating drawback. The faster he moved, the less he could affect the environment and vise versa. While it meant he was essentially untouchable once he was moving, it also meant that he couldn't even pick up a coffee cup while at speed, and his punches had about the same impact as those of an anemic toddler.

Bayleaf had resorted to brute forcing the problem. The gloves had been crafted by Parian, and infused with as much Strength enhancement as she could manage. The brass knuckles, being technically separate weapons, had been infused with even more Damage. Then Bayleaf had taken the completed gauntlets and put outright enchantments--- Strength and Damage enchantments--- on top of THAT. Bayleaf had guessed (correctly, as it would turn out) that this would counterbalance the diminishing effect of Velocity's power and enable him to manipulate… and punch… with the strength of a normal human adult.

He would be proven correct. Of course, at normal speed Velocity could now punch out a compact car. He was in for a surprise when they all finally got to the testing range.

Armsmaster was holding his own gift and looking pained. They were… boots, technically. Armored boots. Armored boots in blue and silver (his colors!) with downward rocket thrusters sprouting out of them at the ankle and heel. Gnomish flying boots (though he didn't know from Gnomish.) They were fuel efficient, provided excellent flight speed and looked like something Squealer had invented on "test the new synthetic drug" night at the Merchants lair. Never had a man looked so torn.

Dragon was giggling in his ear-- deliberately. A thousand or so miles away in her secret base, all her backup drives were defragging in the computer equivalent of hysterical laughter. "Well, they match your suit," she said to him.

Armsmaster was looking in the bottom of the box as if all his hopes had been lost there. "Well the utility of them probably compensates for the aesthetic and-- oh thank GOD there are schematics in the box--" he dove into the packing paper frantically. Maybe he could rebuild them into something more streamlined and above all efficient--

Miss Militia was looking pleased. She was trying on a new bandolier with ten fist-sized, futuristic looking metallic cylinders on it and reading the leaflet that came in the box. "Grenades. Reusable. Variety Pack, includes Darkness, EMP, Stun, Kinetic, Thermal, Cryonic and… Force Field? Bandolier serves as recharger; works off ambient energy in the immediate vicinity but will recharge faster with a wall outlet… Niiice."

There was something else in the box, a rather heavy item. She dug down in and cooed like a Beverly Hills starlet over a new diamond necklace at what she found: A colt 45 peacemaker, obviously an antique and lovingly restored. (Bayleaf truly had found all sorts of treasures with his garage-sale run.) A loaded ammo belt and holster were included. With it came a single note: Always carry a hold out. Happily, she strapped it to her hip.

Triumph looked at her, part in wariness, part in amusement. "And here I thought you couldn't possibly look more dangerous," he said.

"And what did you get?" she asked him impishly.

He read the card as his new cape swirled around his shoulders. "A… parachute cloak… and a sonic shield.. I'm not sure if it's a belt or a bandoleer though..."

"A box of bandage rolls??" Aegis said, looking into his box in confusion.

"For the human meat shield," ClockBlocker quipped. "Imagine that."

"Those are the bandages Skinwalker uses when someone gets hurt," Vista said. "They heal normal people fast, I bet they'll heal you even faster."

"And a… Recombobulator belt. Whatever that is." he looked through some more. "Ice deflector bracer, fire deflector bracer. Hm."

Aegis was technically a flying brute. But only technically. The reality was that he was not remotely invulnerable or even truly super strong; he just simply could take monstrous damage and keep on going. He had high speed healing, and a hyper-efficient biology with super-effective redundancies. Blind him and he could see through his skin; stab him in the heart and other organs would take over the job of keeping his circulation going. Even monstrous damage such as decapitation would not kill him. Of course the nature of things meant that, since he could take horrendous damage and live, that he inevitably would. He spent most of his time healing or regrowing lost body parts.

Bayleaf had been at a loss as to what to give him to help, so he had simply decided to cover a few of the bases. The bracers were rebuilt gnomish fire and ice deflectors, as he estimated that fire and freezing effects were the most damaging to human tissue. The recombobulator would provide a boost of near-instant healing ten times a day. The First Aid bandages also had healing effects but their purpose was largely to act as human duct tape, and hold Aegis' guts in or his limbs in place till they healed. If the boy was intent on going in harm's way, then all he could do was try to mitigate the harm.

"Hey, they FIT!" Browbeat came back into the room, his voice beaming.

"Where did you go?" Gallant demanded.

"I had to go find someplace to change," he said. "I just had to try 'em on." Everyone then noticed his normal blue-and-diamond body suit had been replaced with a new one, this on in a similar pattern but in green and purple, with the top predominantly green, the bottom predominantly purple. "And holy cow but they FIT."

"Uh, so big deal," Shadow Stalker said.

"Nah, you don't get it," Browbeat said. "Look." He began to grow and swell, his biokinesis coming to play as he forced his muscles and skeleton to grow. Soon he was pumped to his max, with a chest like a beer barrel and arms as thick around as the next person's waist… but the cloth didn't tear or stretch. "And look--" he deflated like a beachball, shrinking down till he was nearly as skinny as Clockblocker. The suit didn't fold or sag, remaining comfortably snug. "I think it's armored too… watch." He began growing spikes from various points on his body. They grew out six inches and more, needle sharp…. While the cloth tented it did not puncture.

"I did not know he could do that," Gallant muttered to Aegis, looking at the spikes.

"I coulda lived without knowing," Aegis agreed.

Browbeat slowly returned to his normal musclebound proportions. "I don't get the colors though," he said. "Green booties, purple pants, green top..." Some of the older heroes in the room contemplated telling him about a certain gamma irradiated, size-changing, overmuscled superhero from comic books of yore, but decided against it.

"….Invisibility and Force Field belt," Battery murmured. She strapped it on, it hung stylishly loose on her waist. "It's a bit bulky, but I think I like it." Battery's power granted her speed and super strength… but only in proportion to the amount of time she spent remaining totally stationary "recharging." Which meant she was often a sitting duck. With the belt, cobbled together from a gnomish force field generator and a stationary invisibility cloak, she would now either be in motion as a super-strong and super-fast cape, or turtled up as an invisible, invulnerable one.

"Yeah. Whoever this guy is, he's a genius," Assault said. "This stuff is all brilliant." His holiday gift was a bag of tricks… a handy haversack filled with a random selection of toys, widgets and gadgets: paint guns, fireworks, smoke bombs, noisemakers, decoys, dazzlers, distractors and the like. In World of Warcraft they were just "toys." In reality, they could have constituted the contents of the utility belt of a demented Batman. Assault was sure to get some truly interesting uses out of them. "What do you suppose a 'Puntable Marmot' is?"

Kid Win shook the overlarge box he'd been handed. Whatever was in it sounded broken. He set it down and opened it. "It's junk?!" he blurted, shaking the box again. Bits and parts rolled around inside. "No, it's… a box of parts?" It was parts. It was a sampling of all the components and reagents in the Warcraft engineering portfolio, along with a broad selection of loose electronic and mechanical parts from more mundane sources. There was at least one or two of everything. Just the sight of some of them was enough to get Kid Win's tinker power senses tingling. He fished out the card he saw sliding around inside and read it.

Kid Win had a few handicaps getting in his way of being a great Tinker. He had a minor case of dyscalculia which made the basic mathematics needed for his skillset a trial, as well as a minor case of ADHD. He was also too fixated with attempting to emulate Hero, the world's first tinker and one of the world's greatest heroes when he was alive… but to whom Kid Win had nothing in common. And most vitally, he had not figured out what his specialty as a Tinker was. So the writing on the card constituted, for him, a life-changing epiphany:

THINK

MODULAR

He blinked. Then he grinned. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah!" He sat down on the nearest piece of furniture, pulled a multitool out of its compartment on his armor, and began assembling some of the components into… something noone else there dared speculate. Whatever it was, it was going to have a LOT of USB ports.

Gallant was holding an open box… and a pair of goggles with a wraparound band. "I… have no idea what this is about," he said.

"Try 'em on," Browbeat urged. Gallant shrugged. He turned his back, removed his helmet, and put the goggles on. "Huh. Nothing looks any different." He slid his helmet back on. "At least they fit on underneath my…. WOAH." He staggered a bit. Several people took a step towards him in alarm.

"Gallant, are you all right?" Piggot said, half rising from her seat before grimacing and sitting back down.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Gallant said, waving everyone off. "I just got this rush to the head..." for some reason he looked at his hand. "Whoa. Auras are a LOT brighter and clearer now." He looked around. "Or is it just me….?"

Gallant had been a challenge. His power was, no other word for it, weak sauce. He could sense and, to some extent "see" the emotions of others as colored auras. He could also shoot blasts of emotion at others that were accompanied with a weak telekinetic push. It was the main reason he wore a suit of power armor crafted by Kid Win, to compensate for his relatively weak combat ability.

Bayleaf had, once again, no direct way he knew of via enchanting, engineering, or druidic powers to enhance Gallant's abilities or make him more formidable. And just giving him more armor to wear would have not helped that vulnerability. He'd had to extrapolate.The closest approximation in Azeroth terms to Gallant's ability was the "Fear" spell. And the way arcane abilities were boosted in Azeroth was through boosting the attribute of "intellect." So Bayleaf had built Gallant a pair of the highest-ranked intellect boosting goggles in the engineering schematic library.

What Bayleaf didn't know was just how effective this was going to be. He'd removed the built in gun from the "Heavy Skullblaster", tweaked it with some night vision, and replaced the gun slot with a couple of gem sockets... which he'd then fitted with two of the semiprecious stones he'd salvaged, ones aligned to enhance intelligence as well.

Intellect boosting items were, Bayleaf found after some personal experimentation, unpredictable. Much like certain pharmaceuticals were alleged to boost intelligence or creativity, sometimes the results were highly subjective… the wearer of an intellect-boosting gem wasn't infused with new knowledge or experience, but was instead more able to access what they already had, or to think more clearly without distraction or mental clutter. And that only within certain limitations. It could only work with what was already there, and sometimes what was there wasn't much.

Gallant however, did not number among those type. Gallant was already fairly intelligent. The helmet alone boosted Gallant's intellect and stamina attributes by almost 2,000 points each. The gems boosted intellect further. When he donned the goggles, it was the equivalent of forcing a rushing flash flood down a riverbed. The pathways in Gallant's mind and between his mind and his Power were irreversibly opened wide… turned from a steady stream into a rushing, wide open river. And the sensation of his once sluggish powers flowing at full force was intoxicating.

Gallant flexed his hand, watching the aura pooling into it, forming a swirling ball only he could see. He looked up and saw the filing cabinet Missy had shrunk just a few minutes ago.

It was a bad day to be a filing cabinet.

Gallant lashed out his hand. There was a loud WHUMM, and a semi-visible ball of something shot from his hand, raising a wind with its passing, across the room and struck the filing cabinet. Yesterday Gallant's blast would have barely jostled it. Today, it nearly obliterated it. It hit the cabinet with a deafening crash, crumpling it like a beer can hit with a shotgun blast, and launching it across the room. It banged against the shatterproof transpari-luminium window and slid to the floor in a cloud of loose paper.

Everyone stared, stunned.

Carefully, Gallant lifted his helmet and pulled the goggles from underneath. He looked at his hand and flexed it again. The swirling ball of aura formed just as easily as before. "I, um," he said. "I think I want to submit myself to Powers Testing again..." he sat down on one of the nearby chairs, still staring at his hand.

Shadow Stalker had stuck to leaning against the wall while she watched the proceedings, arms crossed and radiating contempt for everyone in the room. She'd turned her nose up at the box Vista had tried to hand her. Vista was in no mood for it and dropped it at her feet with a shrug.

It had sat there this entire time while she avidly ignored it. But avarice was winning out over ego; she finally reached down and picked it up. A quick flick with her pocket knife and the box was open. She dumped the contents out in her hand. There was a folded Christmas card, and what looked like a miniature model of her mask. The hell?

It was a perfect duplicate of her frowning-woman mask, about the size of the palm of her hand, and hung from a leather thong. Was it supposed to hang around her neck like a pendant or something? She read the card. "The F@# is this?" she snapped. She tossed the card and the pendant away and stormed out of the room.

Vista picked the card up and read it herself. She exploded into snickers and giggles, then read it aloud for the others.

YOU'VE BEEN ROTTEN

AND HERE'S THE SCOOP

YOU OUGHT TO GET NOTHING

BUT REINDEER POOP

The Wards all cracked up. Clockblocker had been taking a drink from the cooler. Half of it ended up across the room. Vista finally stopped giggling and turned the card over to read the rest. Her smile turned to a frown of puzzlement.

BUT BAD TIMES ARE COMING

FOR ALL, ITS TRUE

SO WEAR THIS TOKEN

SO NONE CONTROL YOU

Shadow Stalker was a rotten person, one who would deserve a lot of the things that happened to her. But there were some things Bayleaf could never permit or tolerate, not even passively. Some time in the near future Shadow Stalker was going to run afoul of a young villain called Regent. She would badly hurt one of Regent's few friends… and Regent would take revenge.

Regent's power was the ability to take control of other people's bodies. At first, causing spasms or twitches, making them fumble or trip-- but with enough exposure gaining the ability to control them entirely like puppets, hear through their ears, see through their eyes. He would seize control of Shadow Stalker this way, and force her to do… deplorable things, both in and out of costume, stripping away her secret identity and utterly destroying her life.

Bayleaf could not live with himself and not at least try to prevent that. But after hours of sifting through all his endowed knowledge of Azeroth's magitek, one distressing fact became clear: there was nothing, absolutely nothing that yet existed in azeroth's magic system or technology that would protect a person from having their mind, emotions or body taken over by another. No protections at all-- not even partial protection from the oh-so-common FEAR spells that were constantly flung around. He had resorted to cobbling together bits and pieces of anything that came remotely close to what he was looking for. Purify spells to try and purge outside influences, freedom of motion spells that prevented binding or freezing, wards to protect from spells in general (though he had no idea how well they would work against mind influences-- as he recalled they'd done jack diddly against fear effects in the game), even one or two "reset" effects that would essentially jolt the person's mind awake by rebooting it, hopefully throwing off any fugue it was under. He hodge-podged it together into the amulet, cursing the blinkered lack of creativity of Azeroth's tunnel-vision mages the entire time, and packaged it up for Shadow Stalker to claim. It was the best that he could do with what he had.

What little he could do, was enough to set the imaginations of all the Protectorate gathered running wild. "You're telling me he has the ability to craft protections against Master-Stranger powers?" Piggot said in disbelief.

"Claims to, at least, if we're understanding that bit of doggerel right," Armsmaster said, crossing his arms and eyeing the medallion. "That may be a difficult thing to safely test."

"I wanna know why he thinks Shadow Stalker of all people needs it," Aegis said.

"Well if YOU could tell anyone in the world to go take a flying leap, and they'd do it-- who'd YOU pick?" Clockblocker quipped.

"Clockblocker--" Aegis and Armsmaster said simultaneously. Clockblocker just stared at them. It was amazing how a blank face mask could convey defiance so easily. Armsmaster just halted in mid sentence, lips compressed in his one-size-fits-all expression of annoyance. Aegis threw his hands in the air. "Whatever."

Piggot rubbed her face with her hands wearily. She'd spent the first ten minutes of this ridiculous fiasco hammering on the emergency lockdown button like she was playing "the Little Drummer Boy," to no avail. Steel shutters should have dropped down over the doors and windows; containment foam sprayers should have lowered from the ceiling and coated anything in the room that moved with brute-rated restraint foam. Nothing happened, of course. Then she had spent thirty minutes watching her merry band of mutant lunatics sitting around opening presents like some deranged funhouse mirror version of a family on Christmas morning.

"My nerves are shot," she muttered. Someone rapped on her desk. She looked up. The reindeer was standing there, holding an envelope in its mouth. The words TO EMILY PIGGOT were clearly visible in big block letters across the front.

"There's no use pretending I don't see you and waiting till you go away, is there," she said. The reindeer solemnly shook his head no. She sighed and took the envelope, ripping it open with quick efficiency.

A pasteboard card fell out. She picked it up and read the calligraphy, lips moving.

FREE

ONE (1) COMPLETE HEAD TO TOE RESTORATIVE HEALING

FROM PANACEA, AKA AMY DALLON of NEW WAVE

NO Payment necessary

NO Obligations, social legal or otherwise

NO Favors owed, demanded,

or expected in return

so you have

NO EXCUSES

Call RIGHT NOW

Panacea's signature was across the bottom.

She stood up, quivering in rage. "How DARE you--!"

Before she could say another word the reindeer head-butted her in the chest, knocking her back down in her office chair. It glared at her from an inch away, clearly mad and taking no crap. It set its hoof on the envelope; with an expert flip it sent the envelope sliding across the desktop to her.

"WHUFF. Mrrrr."

She dared to look down and saw that the envelope held something else; a piece of typing paper. She slid it out and unfolded it

Emily Piggot,

We know your past, we know why you

refuse treatment from a Parahuman.

We also know we cannot afford to waste time

putting up with your phobias,

your stubbornness or your bigotry.

The PRT, the City, and the WORLD

need you sound of mind and body NOW.

So do your duty, soldier, hitch up your pants

and DEAL WITH THIS.

Because I swear if you don't

I'll come up there, hogtie you and THROW you

at Panacea if that's what it takes.

PARA BELLUM.

The lights in the room flickered. Startled, she looked up. Odd lights were swirling around the reindeer. He stepped back and gave her a wink. With a rush of wind and a flash of glitter, the reindeer who may or may not have been the rogue known as Skinwalker vanished.

"Aaaaaand he can teleport too," Assault said. "Or he can teleport other things to and from himself..."

Piggot flipped the signed card over and over in her hands. "Can anyone tell me, or even just guess, what that was all about?" she said. "The newest and most notorious rogue in the Bay shows up in my office disguised as an elk-- or sends an elk on his own behalf-- to my office, hands out "presents" that qualify as UPGRADES to all the capes in the building, all but forces me to take this card-- why? Someone, anyone, give me a clue here."

Armsmaster, Velocity and Miss Militia all glanced at each other. "Are the security systems working again, Ma'am?" Miss Militia asked. "You might want to check just in case. The stage one office lockdown at least." She gave Piggot a meaningful look.

Piggot looked at her askance, but nodded. "Yes, just the minimal check at least. I think for my own mental wellbeing..." she pressed a stud on the underside of the desk. Shutters over the doors and windows dropped. External power was cut off, as were all data lines in and out. Almost before the shutters had locked Armsmaster was sticking little rectangular boxes to the walls, evenly spaced apart. Velocity blurred around the room, checking every available corner and crevice for lenses-- and spraying over one or two with a can of foam.

Armsmaster pulled out one last device, a small quadcopter drone, and set it to hover in the exact center of the room. A faint hum filled the room. "White noise generator," he said. "It won't interfere with our conversation but will white out any digital audio device."

He looked around the room. Everyone except Shadow Stalker was here. Good enough; she was still probationary anyway. If he decided she needed briefing he'd do it himself. "Everyone, what you see in this room now does not leave this room," he said. "Countless lives may depend on it."

He still had the thumbdrive. He stuck it into Piggot's desktop (after brusquely yanking out both the cable and the wireless feeds) and switched it over to "project" mode. "In my last run-in with Skinwalker," he said as he fast forwarded to the cage match, "He managed to pass some vital information to me..."

Skidmark was pissed.

Of course, Skidmark was always pissed. He was also usually soused, stoked, fried, wasted, buzzed, lit, stoned, pickled, toasted, plastered, embalmed and possibly sauteed. That was the consequence of being the drug kingpin of Brockton Bay and the leader of the Merchants, and having the self-discipline of a toddler in a candy factory. Any other human being, any other organic lifeform would have been a broken down spasmodic wreck after the years of debauchery and chemical abuse that Skidmark had subjected himself to.

Yet somehow, through who knew what perversity of nature-- perhaps some secondary attribute of his cape powers that made him impossible to kill as crabgrass-- somehow he was able to retain enough cohesive brainpower in his sputtering neural tissue to keep his gang together and keep the wheels moving, even if they did only spin idly in the air.

That still-functioning strata of his brain was currently aware that the Merchants were having serious trouble. And that conscious portion of his mind was bile-spitting furious about it. "Don't tell me that BLEEP!" he yelled, cuffing the runner upside his head so hard he fell down. "I don't wanna hear no BLEEP about how you ain't got no BLEEPing product and no BLEEPing money!"

The runner glared up at him and wiped the blood off the corner of his mouth. "So waddya want me to do, read you a bedtime story?" he yelled. "We got hit by a cape, lost everything! The money, the drugs, the guns, hell we even lost one of the DOGS! Three of 'em don't do nuthin but lie on the ground and cry, and one of 'em he snapped its neck like a pretzel stick!"

Skidmark muttered an oath. "Who was it? One o' them krauts? The chinks? WHO?"

"Some new guy. Big frickin' werewolf guy. Huge. Threw one of our guard dogs like he was a baseball. " He spat on the floor, leaving a red stain. "He left a message, too."

He curled up on the ground when Skidmark spun around. "What?" Skidmark spat.

"'Tell Skidmark I'm coming,'" the guy said. "Carved in the concrete with his claw."

Skidmark cursed again. "It's the same BLEEP then." He staggered over to the broken down recliner that served as his throne and threw himself down in it. He covered his eyes with one hand. "That makes a dozen. Twelve, twelve times we been hit in the last two BLEEPin days." "This werewolf guy, some invisible BLEEPing tiger thing, couple of our runners had backpacks, got the stuff snatched off their BLEEPin' backs by a giant BLEEPing owl…"

Squealer raised her head from the couch. "My favorite was the one where we lost that fishing boat fulla coke to that walrus," she said lazily. "heheheh."

"Benny got hit by a tree," one of the stoners on the floor said.

There was silence for a few minutes while everyone tried to digest that.– and failed. "A what?" Skidmark said.

"Benny. He was swipin' some stuff at the ER, this… friggin… TREE grabbed him. Vines everywhere. Tied him up, then told him that this was bad for him and he should clean up and.. you know… find God and stuff or whatever, the usual stuff those types give ya." The junkie paused. "Only he talked real slow. Kiiiiiiindaaaa liiiiiike thiiiiiiiiiis. So slow noone'd ever understand."

"Then how'd Benny understand him?"

"He was on Quaaludes."

Skidmark thought that over. "Shut up," he said.

Mush leaned forward on his pile of garbage in the corner. "Word is, the PRT thinks that at least some o' those guys are all the same guy," he said. "Some sort o' shape changer cape." The deformed little gnome looking cape took a hit off his spliff. "At least some, anyway."

"So is it one guy, or like, half a dozen?" Squealer asked.

"Who BLEEPin knows, who BLEEPin cares," Skidmark snarled, baring his rotten teeth. "Point is they're hittin' US and they're turnin' up the heat more every day." He brooded. "I gotta think." He got to his feet again and slouched out of the room.

"You want anything babe?" Squealer said, waving at the coffee table. There were a few scattered bits of drug paraphernalia on its glass surface.

"No, BLEEP it, I said I gotta THINK," he yelled over his shoulder. The others heard the door slam, but took little note.

The room Skidmark had retreated to was his ultimate sanctum. His sanctum… something or other, BLEEP it, he couldn't remember the word. It was little more than a closet, just a back room in a lousy apartment in a lousy abandoned tenement building in the failed Projects. But as far as Skidmark was concerned, what he kept in there was the secret of all his success.

There was nothing in the room but a scattering of pillows on the floor, and small bedside style cabinet with a locked door. Skidmark locked the door he'd entered, then unlocked the cabinet. Inside was a bottle of dried buttons of some unidentifiable substance. Sitting next to it on a velvet cushion was a magic 8 ball. Skidmark sat down on the cushions crosslegged and set the ball on its cushion in front of him. He took the bottle out, tipped exactly ONE shrivelled little fibrous button out onto his palm, placed the bottle inside the cabinet and stuck the pill under his tongue. He took a deep breath and got ready for the dive.

"Time to talk to Mr. Lucky," he said.

Years ago, when Skidmark had first got his powers and his woman and was just starting his gang, he used to carry this same toy 8-ball with him wherever he would go. It was his lucky charm, he'd joke, and more often than not it was almost true. Just for the hell of it sometimes he'd use the thing to make some decision or other, just to see what would happen. By sheer blind luck, or perhaps misfortune depending on your perspective, he had a winning streak. Every time he consulted Mr. Lucky, things went wildly right. They went from a couple of freaks selling dope out of back of a van to being in charge of a BLEEPing gang, running hookers, protection, and every kind of drug imaginable. Money flowing like water. He took to keeping Mr. Lucky out of sight, consulting him when it was only big questions. He didn't want Mr. Lucky to run out any time soon.

It was about five years ago that he noticed that Mr. Lucky's advice got a lot more detailed, more clever, more useful when he hit a little something before one of their talks. At that time they were starting to pull in and put out a lot of the truly weird stuff. Peyote, Kava, Jimsonweed, shrooms, acid, jungle frog spit, you name it… It was during an experimental phase that Skidmark hit on just the right blend of dope, salvia, ritalin, and a few other herbs and spices that made his consultations with Mr. Lucky even more fruitful. Mr. Lucky's suggestions were more brilliant than ever, and thanks to the magic pills Skidmark would walk out of his little room with every detail burned into his brain in mile high neon letters. He'd never managed to make that mix just right ever again, so he husbanded his last bottle of the dried, pressed pills like they were gold.

He waited until the colors and edges of everything started to ripple, then picked up the ball and shook it.

He waited a minute. It took a while for Mr. Lucky to wake up. The words finally appeared in the little window.

HELLO, OLD FRIEND.

HOW ARE YOU?

"Doin' good, Mr. Lucky," Skidmark said with a lazy smile. "Doin' real good like always. Got me a problem, though."

GO ON.

"Some BLEEPers are hittin' my dealers, my runners. They even got one of my shipments. Bam bam bam, night after night, five, six, ten times a night. And they ain't lettin' up. It's startin' to hurt morale, y'dig?"

DESCRIBE THEM.

"My boys are seein' all sorts o'… things. A tiger. An owl. A wolf-man. Mostly the wolf-man." He decided not to mention the tree or the walrus. There was a long pause. Then the words bubbled up.

HIS NAME IS SKINWALKER.

HE IS VERY DANGEROUS.

YOU MUST ELIMINATE HIM.

Skidmark nodded; that was the gospel truth, right there. "Question is, how?"

DRAW HIM OUT.

"Okay, how?? We stick our noses out, he hits us, then he vanishes before we even knew he was there."

There was another long wait while Mr. Lucky thought. Skidmark was cool, though; the longer Mr. Lucky took to think, the better his ideas were. He sat and watched the colors swirl around the edge of the cosmic void.

HE HUNTS YOU.

"Yeah, I got that," Skidmark said, nodding like a bobbing doll.

HE ALSO HUNTS

NAZIS.

"Do tell."

PRESS THE E88.

FIGHT THEM. DRAW

THEM OUT.

A SMALL

TURF FIGHT,

NO CAPES.

BUT

HE WILL NOT

BE ABLE TO

RESIST.

Skidmarks lips peeled back from his teeth, making him look like a rotting jack o' lantern. "I get it. The BLEEP won't be able to resist the chance to bust a buncha junkies and a buncha Nazis too."

WHEN HE INTERVENES,

YOUR CAPES WILL BE

WAITING FOR HIM.

AND IF YOU

ARE LUCKY, THE

E88 WILL KILL

HIM FOR YOU.

Skidmark's gruesome grin grew wider. "I always am with you around, Mr. Lucky."