Star Harbor Nights

She didn't have anything to fear tonight, but it would be good practice for future meetings, with less trustworthy individuals.

They were already there when Allisosn arrived. She recognized them by sight, though she'd never seen them in person. The two women wore matching earth-tone uniforms consisting of a toga-like tunic cinched off by a belt with an owl-shaped buckle and a segmented leather skirt, with short capes in the back. One of them was slightly more muscular and had her hair in dozens of beaded braids. The other looked slightly taller, though she actually hovered several inches off the ground. Their faces were identical.

They were Minerva and Athena Wisdom, the twin daughters of two of earth's mightiest heroes.

"Hi," Allison said, feeling a little lame as she floated in close. How did one greet unfamiliar heroes? "Greetings" just sounded corny. For a moment, the thought struck her to throw out Champion's signature line of "Good evening, citizens."... just to sort of break the ice. She almost felt a little delirious. Earlier, she had been fuming at the thought that some elements of her case had been taken out of her hands, but now here she was, having a secret nighttime confab with a pair of living legends. It was almost too much to believe.

"Good evening," Athena said, and Allison had to stifle a giggle at the minor coincidence. She looked in Allison's direction, but not quite at her. Was she actually shy? Hard to believe. "You must be Mindfyre."

"Must be and am," Allison said. "Thanks for coming out to meet me. I know it's a little outside your beat."

"Rhyme wouldn't give us a name, but she did give up an address... a warehouse nearby," Athena said. "We can take you there."

"The three of us should be able to handle anything that comes our way," Minerva added. There was a note of eagerness in her otherwise oddly flat voice... a voice matched by the lack of expression on her face. The muscular woman cracked her knuckles as if for emphasis, but it seemed purely mechanical.

Something deep in the primitive underbelly of Allison's mind was already screaming that something was wrong when she realized she wasn't getting anything from either of the twins' minds. They weren't closed off like an extremely disciplined and strong-willed person's thoughts would be, but simply gone, or at least inaccessible… just as the Aces’ minds had been when they had been mind controlled at the start of this caper. Allison could believe that their wide catalogue of powers might include something that doubled as a mind shield, but if so, only one of them should have been able to use it a time. That was how the sisters' powers worked.

No sense going off half-cocked, though. Allison sent a simple, probing thought out into the mind of the nearer twin.

Minerva? she thought.

She felt her power brush up against what felt like a sleeping leviathan, which stirred and rolled over a bit before a familiar-feeling force clamped down upon it. In that brief moment before contact was shut down completely, Allison received a single word in reply.

Allison catapulted herself straight up into the air as Minerva came barreling across the boardwalk towards her at speeds exceeding what the eye could follow. Allison felt strong fingers grasping at her feet, but they were picoseconds too late. If not for the speed-of-thought warning, Allison would have been caught.

She wheeled around and turned herself over to look down at the ground. Athena launched herself towards Allison. Allison easily dodged her first pass. The flying Wisdom Twin might be able to soar at several times the speed of sound, but it took her time and space to accelerate. With her kinetic field bolstered by the mesh in her suit Allison could change her direction and speed with a single thought, so in the short term the advantage was hers.

Minerva gathered herself up for a mighty leap and threw herself at Allison at the same time that Athena came around for a swooping charge from above. Trying to hold off the powered flight with her mind would be like trying to arm wrestle a giant, but Minerva was essentially helpless after she kicked off... it only took a little of Allison's psychic strength to redirect her course into the place where Allison had been moments before. The resulting collision rattled the boards of the docks around them and sent the sisters plummeting.

Her opponents were physically much faster than she was, but they were being remote controlled... likely by operators of ordinary human speed. If anything, their reaction speeds were slightly lower than that of most opponents.

She didn't wait for the mind-controlled heroes to disentangle themselves. She gathered the energies within her body. It was normally a gradual progress, requiring much mental coaxing, but this time the lightning snapped up at her command. She streamed it forth from both her hands, directing it towards both of the figures below her.

As she had done against the Aces, she guided the electricity with her mind, seeking out the bit of foreign matter, the tiny circuitry that was directing their mind control. Unfortunately, the stream of lightning crackled away to nothing micrometers away from Minerva, swallowed up by the protective sheath of invisible energy around her. Athena's skin, currently invulnerable to most physical harm, presented more resistance than Allison could overcome.

Maybe there were other ways to short out the chip. She "grabbed" the planks beneath the twins with her mind and wrenched them in two directions, ripping a hole in the pier. It probably would never have worked if Athena had been in control, but she--or whoever was pulling her strings--was caught off-guard and both twins went tumbling down with a splash.

 Any hope that salt water would prove the cure was dashed when Athena came streaking up from the water like a cannonball, pulling Minerva up by her arms. Their minds were still a complete blank; their faces still showed the same identical impassive masks they'd been since before the fight had begun.

As Allison considered her next option... or potential lack thereof... a pair of projectiles came streaking out of the darkness towards the twins, one right after the other. Athena, acting on instinct, reached out and snagged them with her hands, letting her sister drop back into the drink in the process.

For a moment, she stared in confusion at the arrows in her hands. Allison felt the brief flicker of a thought and realized the action of catching the arrows had come from within Athena herself, not from anywhere outside. It was her mother's uncanny defense power at work. Then, the external force exerted itself again, and all signs of life faded from Athena's face once more. She went to hurl the tiny sticks away, but they had somehow sprouted vines that now climbed up Athena's arms and were beginning to wrap themselves around her chest.

Allison felt confused as Athena had looked. She glanced around the docks and saw a stout figure silhouetted against the a street light, standing on top of one of the buildings. She couldn't make out much details, except for the obvious bow and a helmet in the Japanese samurai style. Allison threw a glance back to her opponents to make sure that they were still otherwise occupied before she gave the mysterious newcomer her full attention... but found herself looking at an empty rooftop.

Meanwhile, Athena was struggling fiercely against the vines, but though her superstrength seemed enough to tear through them, the ripped ends continually re-grew and linked back up, trying to bind her arms to her chest. Allison threw herself up high into the air, flipped around and approached the otherwise occupied super from behind. She'd failed in her first attempt to fry the control chip... now she was going to try a more direct approach.

Her kinetic flight made no sound, but she prayed that Athena didn't currently have the hypersensory power she shared with her sister or that her controllers didn't know how to tap into it. Otherwise, Allison's plan would be tantamount to suicide. She drifted in silently, not daring to breathe, until she was close enough behind the thrashing superhuman that she could reach out and touch her.

Which she did, gathering the lightning within her once more and reaching out with a single finger to touch the base of Athena's skull on the exact spot where she'd "felt" the chips implanted within the Aces. Before she could discharge more than a trickle of the energy, though, Athena broke free of her bonds again, flailing around and striking Allison a blow that could have splintered a redwood.

Allison's protective field coupled with her loose "posture" in the air saved her, and she went sailing out over the water instead of being smashed to a pulp. She tumbled end over end several times before she righted and steadied herself.

 She re-oriented herself only to see Athena tearing the remnants of the entangling vegetation from her body and throwing it down onto the docks, where it lay inert. Minerva was pulling herself back up on top of the boardwalk, having scaled one of the pilings.

Allison briefly considered hightailing it across the bay. She'd had no problem admitting to herself she wasn't in the same league of the twins when faced with the prospect of meeting them, after all. Why let herself be captured or killed on a point of false pride? The thought was fleeting, though. Her maneuverability advantage worked in close quarters. In a distance race, Athena would simply outmatch her.

Still, she realized that she was in over her head. If ever there was a time to admit that she needed help, this was it. She floated her cell phone out of her jacket pocket and began dialing the Olympus Isle emergency number. She was only five numbers in when a burst of white-hot energy shot out from Minerva's now-glowing eyes and slagged the phone.

Allison gasped and dove down low, close to the water as she raced back towards the docks. The "electro-eyes" attack was well-documented, as it had been the hero Might's signature. Its primary weakness was that it took several seconds to build up a charge between blasts. Allison took herself out of the line of sight during that time.

Close fighting, she reminded herself. That was one of her advantages. What was another? She was a telekinetic. While she often reflexively reached with her body to mimic how she reached with her mind, she didn't need to. It would have been almost unthinkable to try to blindside the Wisdom Twins at their best, but she didn't need to fool the Wisdom Twins... she just needed to fool the people controlling them.

She visualized the layout of the battlefield in her mind as she popped up out of the hole in the boardwalk. Minerva had built up a charge, and her head whipped around to track Allison in flight.

Again, if it had been Minerva herself at the controls, she would have simply zapped Allison as soon as she came into view. Her superspeed would have made her perceive Allison as standing perfectly still. Allison turned about in the air, slowing to allow the trailing eyes to get a lock on her... right as an immense crate struck her head from behind. The blast went down, blowing another hole in the planking.

Then there came a succession of gentle whooshing sounds and Allison watched as three more arrows lanced out from the shadows to strike Minerva. Amazingly, their momentum carried them through her protective force field, though they just barely penetrated her skin. The instant they struck flesh, though, they burst into flames. Minerva screamed, a disconcerted sound of pain without rage. She wheeled about, looking for the archer. Allison did, too.

She saw the helmeted figure, on top of a stack crates. The samurai nodded towards Allison. A gloved hand was raised in front of the eye holes of the snarling visage, then lowered. It looked like sign language for sleeping or tiredness.

Was that what the mysterious figure was suggesting, that she go to sleep? Or close her eyes? Allison had heard of illusions that could only harm people who could see them, but she didn't think that's what she was dealing with.

Of course, it was just possible that she already was asleep and only dreaming that a pair of world class superheroes were out to get her... it wouldn't be the weirdest dream she'd had just lately. It was probably safer to assume that she wasn't, though.

The puppetmasters apparently decided they'd had enough outside interference. Athena threw herself forward, diving at the samurai in a horizontal flight. Unperturbed, the samurai merely jumped nimbly over the charging flyer, actually stepping on her back and using it as a springboard to leap across the battlefield. If that wasn't incredible enough, a pair of fire arrows loosed mid-air struck Athena's speeding form before the samurai landed in a spot of shadow and vanished. The arrows did very little damage... but even a little damage to a supposedly invulnerable body is impressive.

It was enough to focus Athena's attention on the interloper, who popped up next from behind a shipping container and tossed off two more fire arrows before disappearing. Athena's low acceleration rate hampered her here, too. Every time she turned to race towards her attacker, she was hit from another angle before she got there.

Allison had Minerva to contend with, though, and that was no small thing. She kept moving, turning her body in the air so she was always facing her opponent but always keeping an eye (and a mind) out for anything, big or small, she could throw to keep her distracted and off-balance.

During a moment when she had Minerva more-or-less on the ropes, she reached out with her mind and froze the water that had soaked Minerva's clothing solid. It probably would have worked beautifully on a lesser opponent, but even lacking (at that time) her father's colossal strength, Minerva was able to shatter the ice without much effort.

The attempt cost Allison precious seconds, too, and she didn't have anything ready when Minerva fired off her next blast. Allison could control energy, but she'd never channeled anything like the tremendous force behind the electro-eyes.

She put all the mental strength she could muster into blocking that lightning... everything she had, and then some, and still she felt it as keenly with her body as she did with her mind. Moreover, she knew she wouldn't be able to fend off another direct blast, and it didn't look like she was going to get a respite... Minerva's eyes were still blazing like tiny suns and readying another blast.

Then, like a stroke of lightning itself, the meaning of the samurai's gesture hit her, and as Minerva prepared what would likely be the final stroke, she reached out with her telekinesis... latched onto her targets... and shoved down, hard.

The telltale white glow disappeared as Minerva's eyelids slammed shut in front of the power rising within them. Allison focused on holding them closed in the face of that power, and the electrical blast, unable to penetrate the skin of its originator, was forced to expend its energy elsewhere.

The results looked painful. Allison watched as light actually poured from the screaming super's mouth, ears, nose, and around the very edges of her eyelids. She "felt" the spike in brain activity as the master control chip burned itself out. Minerva's physical scream was echoed by her sister, and Allison briefly hoped that some sort of feedback had freed them both. Her mind told her otherwise.

Fortunately, whoever was calling the shots evidently decided that they'd lost enough of their pawns to Allison. Athena streaked away across the bay without a parting shot, leaving Allison to tend to the fallen Minerva.

The samurai was nowhere to be seen.

The Aces had been incapacitated for some time after coming out of the Lysenkol-induced trance. To Allison's surprise, Minerva was already stirring from hers.

"You're awake," she said, a little apprehensively. She could feel Minerva's mind returning to the forefront, but had no way of knowing if she was fully in control.

"They couldn't put us all the way under," Minerva said. "He tried, but it's too close to dying. Our powers pass away on death. We were fighting him the whole time."

"Lucky me," Allison said. "You'd probably have pasted me otherwise."

"You got in some good shots. But, lucky all of us," Minerva said. "Because I remember... not all of it, but bits and pieces. It's hazy, like a dream. But I know who did this to me... who's behind this all."

"Who?"

"His name is Gepetto," Minerva said. "He wants to rule the world... and he thinks you're the key to it."