The burning scraps drifted to the road around her, but she only felt cold.

Every action had its consequence.

Hah, I knew we’d eventually call back to that line!

She covered more distance with the start-stop motion of charging and running than she did just running, but it made for a halting progress where Assault simply continued forward.

This is a thing I like about Worm’s individualized powers. Effectively, they’re both speedsters, but their speed works in very different ways and you can see that on the way they move.

He made some headway on her.  She knew he’d stop at some vantage point to wait for her.

As she stopped to charge, she felt a tingle from her hand.

…magic invisible ink?

Or maybe a paper cellphone of sorts?

The note?

She spent the energy of a charge, but she didn’t run.  Again, that tingle.  She used her ability to manipulate electromagnetic energy and focused it on the note as she smoothed it out.

Ah, right, I suppose that makes sense with her electric aesthetic. And since Cauldron knows her power, they can make ink that only shows when that power is used on it.

A pattern emerged: simple black lettering.  A second after they’d appeared, the paper started to smoke.

Of course, they still don’t want it to end up in the wrong hands after she reads it.

She had only a few seconds to read and process the message before the paper ignited.

Siberian and Shatterbird are to escape the city, and our business with you will be done. Thank you.  – c.

Well, fuck. That’s actively helping the villains escape justice.

Y’know, I wonder if the customer from the second favor is someone we know. I doubt it’s Shatterbird, though – she seems to have been in the game for a while, longer than two years.

“Right.  Patrol together or apart?”

“Together at first, assess the situation.”

“Okay.”

Makes sense. With communication out of order, they’re better off learning the same basic things about the situation and making a joint call on what to do.

“A courier dropped this off for you,” he pointed at a small envelope on the hall table.

Ahh, would this be the third favor?

She saw the undercase ‘c’ on the front and felt her heart sink.

Yup.

“Puppy?”

She picked up the envelope and checked the contents.  A slip of paper, blank on both sides.

Well, that’s odd. Invisible ink?

A joke?  A reminder?  The last one had been two years ago.

“Let’s go,” she said, crumpling it in her fist.  She charged up and ran, and Assault crossed a similar amount of distance with his long and powerful leaps.

I’m not sure what it’d be a reminder of, exactly. “We’re still here”? “Stay as quiet as this sheet of paper”?

Nah, I’m sticking with the invisible ink idea.

“Ethan!”  Battery called out.

Who’s Ethan? She’s not living with Assault now, is she?

“You’re okay,” Ethan said, as he came down the stairs.  He was still in costume.  Only a single cut marked his cheek.

Seems so, unless he’s a different hero.

“I didn’t know where to find you, and since the cell phones don’t work anymore, and you weren’t at headquarters, I thought I’d come here.”

“I know.  I thought much the same thing, but I came here first.”

Seems reasonable enough.

“You’re okay?”

“I’m okay, puppy.”

Yep, that’s him alright.

I guess this really did go all the way.

She punched him lightly in the arm.  She didn’t resist as he swept her up in a painfully tight hug.

“We should go on patrol,” he said.  “This is going to be bad.  They’re kicking us while we’re down.”

And they’re kicking hard.

Hm.

What if Chariot is not one of Coil’s spies, but one of Cauldron’s? Cauldron would absolutely use the kind of encrypted email services from back then, and we’ve seen them asking Battery to join the Protectorate (via the Wards). Why not another one?

Assault caught her eye and a slow smile spread across his face, as the little girl in his lap read some of the next poem.  The look was smug, sly.  

He knows exactly what she wanted to happen, doesn’t he.

He knew exactly how much this was irritating her.

Yeah.

“Jackass,” she muttered.

But she couldn’t stop a smile of her own from spreading across her face.

Alright, I’m sold. Black romance it is!

■

Wow, there’s even more?

The glass in the little window of her front door was shattered.  It fell on her feet as she pushed the door open.

Ah, looks like we’ve reached roughly the present. She’d be coming home from the Lake Heroic meeting.

Perhaps to the third favor?

Battery’s phone vibrated.  She excused herself from the librarian’s company and checked the display.

Customer wants product hand delivered by known parahuman.  Package waiting in your apartment.  Second task.  -c

Ah, okay, I guess it really wasn’t the favors she was thinking about earlier. Unless she was feeling bad in advance.

And hey, this seems innocent enough. Might be a bit awkward if it turns out the customer wants to be a villain, though.

Cauldron had sent it to the phone the Protectorate gave her?  To a number that only the Protectorate had?  Did that mean something?

…huh.

I suppose they may somehow have access to PRT files. The Doctor didn’t have any trouble looking up Madcap’s classification and rating, so that seems likely already.

She deleted the message.  It would be easy enough to handle.  If the recipient wound up being a villain at a future date, she’d stop them, put them away.  This would just be a delivery.

Fair.

“…And caught out little suck-a-thumb.
Snip!  Snap!  Snip!  The scissors go;
And Conrad cries out – Oh! Oh! Oh!…”

Is this Assault reading nursery rhymes?

I really hope this is Assault reading nursery rhymes.

Assault read from the book of poems, and every one of the ninety kids that sat around him were leaning forward, eyes wide.

yessss

“He’s so good with kids,” the librarian murmured.

Ahahaha!

Either he’s really not and this is ironic because of how wrong they are, or he actually is and it’s ironic because Battery’s plan backfired and Assault had an unexpected side to his character. Either way, I love it.

“Of course he is,” Battery said.  Maybe there was a hint of bitterness in her voice, because the librarian gave her a funny look.

This is beautiful.

She plastered a fake smile on her face to assuage the woman’s doubts.

“…both his thumbs are off at last!”  Assault finished.

So, uh.

Did this nursery rhyme just tell the story of a kid cutting his thumbs off with scissors?

Yikes.

The kids squealed in delighted horror.

Pain in the ass, she thought.  If I were reading that one they’d all be crying.

That’s… probably not a good thing, but on the other hand it might imprint on them the value of scissor safety?