Star Harbor Nights

Allison's dedication to the obligations of her civilian life required her to return to work at SGI the next day, house full of heroes and a night of freaky dreams notwithstanding. The Thunder Brothers and Minerva Wisdom used the day to search the warehouses by the piers for anything suspicious, or anything that would shake loose something from Minerva's hazy recollections of her captivity.

As all three were capable of moving, thinking, and reacting at superspeed, they probably could have cleared the whole city between them... but Minerva, guided by her wisdom power, judged it most prudent for them to stick together and keep one eye on each other's backs.

Allison's permanent roommate, Amy, had her own responsibilities in the waters of Crescent Bay in her true identity of Amphitrite, but she'd focused on the area around the piers to aid the search. That seemed fairly safe, as she was quite literally in her element.

The plan was for everybody to meet up later at Olympus Island, headquarters of the Pantheon of Heroes. It was too risky to have nationally known heroes coming and going at Allison's beachfront home.

Normally Allison felt a little insecure about visiting the Pantheon's facilities and using their resources, as so far she'd seen herself as being strictly minor league compared to them. She didn't intend to stay that way, of course, but she prided herself on having few illusions.

The events of the past few days were forcing her to re-evaluate her status, though. She had fought several more experienced heroes while they were under the influence of sinister mind control technology, and come out on top. Her telepathy, which had always been the least developed of her gifts, seemed to be blossoming... possibly as a result of the psionically-augmenting mesh in her new costume. There were a few kinks, including weird dreams that might not entirely be dreams, but those could just be growing pains.

All in all, as she soared over the water towards the island she felt less like a kid playing dress-up in grown up clothing than she had the last time she'd done so.

Of course, the fact that this time she had a bone to pick with one of the Pantheon's members helped. That's why she was heading there ahead of the rest of her ad hoc team, in order to have a chance to speak with Thoth in private.

The Pantheon's master detective had given her every impression that he trusted her to handle the superhero mind-control case she'd stumbled into on her own, with his support but without anybody looking over her shoulder. She had since learned that he'd recruited the Wisdom Twins to speak with their deranged half-sister Rhyme on her behalf before she even knew the villainess was involved. Allison also had reason to suspect he'd hidden information from her that showed Rhyme wanted to contact her.

"I had good reason," Thoth said when she confronted him with her suspicions. "Yes, I believe that Rhyme wants to speak with you, but that alone should be reason enough for you to stay away from her."

"That's what Amy said, too... but you still could have told me and then trusted me to make the right decision," Allison said.

"I think you're forgetting which one of us is the mind reader," Thoth said. "Which is the reason why, if you didn't make the right decision, I would have had to try to stop you, thus making the apparent trust a mockery. Her mind operates at a speed that you or I cannot fathom. As soon as your power brushed up against her... and it would, whether you were aware of it or not... she'd grab hold and start pulling. I've seen tapes of her sessions with Department psychics before, and they don't even convey the full effect of what's going on inside. It's... well, it's been called the telepathic equivalent of somebody ripping your arm off and beating you to death with it."

"There's always psi-blockers," Allison said.

"Psi-blockers leave sensitives confused and off-balance," Thoth said. "You don't want to face Rhyme with that kind of disadvantage."

"There are less intrusive ways of blocking telepathy," Bast said from behind Allison.

Allison hadn't heard or sensed her approach, but that was normal. Thoth's wife had cat-like grace and stealth, as well as the ability to somehow hide herself from Allison's telepathy.

The woman beside Bast had never appeared in any photographs of the Pantheon, though she'd been with the team since its founding and there could be no mistaking who she was. Allison's red hair was often said to have an unnatural resemblance to fire, but her shade would look positively dull compared to the vibrant red hair of the woman in the flowing purple gown.

When Allison met her regal gaze... it wasn't the look in her eyes... which was coolly neutral, if anything... so much as what was behind them. The raw power in her gaze hit Allison like a ton of bricks. The sensation she felt was like being knocked to the floor at the same time as being frozen completely in place.

As completely as Allison had been unaware of Morrigan's presence before, she now felt positively overwhelmed by it.

"There are... older ways," Morrigan said. "Have you forgotten the star metal, little bird?"

"No, but it's not mine to offer..."

"A paltry excuse, at best," Morrigan said, her lips twisting ever so slightly into a smile. "You are married to the metal's keeper, are you not?"

"And what's mine is yours," Bast purred.

"That's not what you said when I asked..."

"Oh, hush, my poor, confused husband," Bast said, laughing gently. She reached into an invisible seam in her tight blackoutfit and pulled out a flexible silver circlet, which she presented to Allison. "You should be able to wear this without any unpleasantness. Just be sure you're not wearing your amplifying mesh... in fact, I would change out of it long before you enter the asylum."

"But... I'm not..." Allison began.

"Well, of course you are," Bast said. "Somebody has called you out. You can either answer that call, or you can slink home with your tail between your legs. We'll give your team use of the big Chariot, of course." She shot a brief glance at her husband.

"Yes, of course," he said. "Amphitrite knows how to work the autopilot. But..."

"Then it's settled," Morrigan said. She tilted her head almost imperceptibly to the side, then turned to Bast and said, "Come, I do not believe you want to be here much longer."

"Right, Mo," Bast said. "I feel a serious nap coming on."

"Don't you want to meet the Kittens?" Thoth asked. "The mainland transport just docked... the Herald's been instructed to guide them to the conference room. I know you used to follow them in the news."

"I took a passing fancy to them, yes," Bast said. She stifled a yawn. "But... I fancy I'll pass. I'll be in the solarium. Your other guest is already waiting in the conference room."

 With that, the two women departed. It was only as she looked back on it later that Allison realized she hadn't actually seen Morrigan walking away; after a certain point, she had simply not been there.

"Kittens? Other guest?" Allison asked. There were a lot of things happening that she didn't completely understand; she was just focusing on the highlights.

"Our puppetmasters made several more 'hits' in the past day," Thoth said. "The attempted abduction of a former American Hero contestant tipped us off. Three more contestants... Hollis Woodrow, Bertha Jorgensen, and Samuel Williams are unaccounted for. Bertha was spotted at a bar. She left with a man in a suit. That's no proof of foul play, of course. Woodrow's neighbors say they've hardly seen him since the contest ended, but since he can travel anywhere in the world... or even off it... without being seen, that's hardly definitive, either."

"Who's Samuel Williams?" Allison asked. Like most heroes, she'd been aware of the American Hero contest even if she hadn't followed it. She and Amy had rooted for the flashy "Holly Gram", and Bertha didn't use any name but her own, but most of the others she would only recognize by their chosen handles.

"Slam, the kinetic field manipulator," Thoth said. "I've still got feelers out on him. All I've been able to confirm is that he's not home and not answering his cell phone. The other former contestants are all safely accounted for."

"So, who's the guest, then?" Allison asked.

"Why don't I just introduce you to her?" Thoth said.

He lead her into the conference room. Allison actually recognized all four figures seated at the tape. Echo Chambers, the original frontrunner of the Hero contest, who'd taken a bit of a savaging in the media since... and Dandy, Lily, and Willow Binder, the musical group known as the Hex Kittens.

Thoth made introductions, despite the celebrity status of the four.

"I didn't realize you'd stayed in Crescent Bay after the show ended," Allison said to Echo.

"Oh, I didn't. I just flew in this afternoon. I had a little bit of trouble after switching planes in Colorado," Echo said. "But Thoth was already expecting me..."

"My wife was on her way back from a thing in New York, so she stopped and picked her up," Thoth said. "She actually got here sooner than if she'd taken commercial flights all the way."

"What kind of thing?" Allison asked.

"A thing," Thoth said.

Allison briefly considered pressing her luck, but just as she considered the information about Rhyme that Thoth had held back from her to be her business, whatever Bast had been doing on the east coast was not.

"Anyway, I think... I'll let you handle this alone," Thoth said. "Unless you think you need my help."

"No, no," Allison said, though part of her wanted to ask him to stay. "I think I've got this."

"Great," he said. "I'll be nearby."

"So," Allison said. "You guys all were targets?"

"Just barely," Echo said. "I mean, it was just a phone call to try to set up a meeting. I wouldn't have realized it was a precursor to an abduction attempt if there hadn't been an alert out through Broker... uh, he's a sort of information processor for Star Harbor. I don't know if you knew that."

"Didn't, but noted," Allison said. "How about you guys? What brings you into this?"

"Well, it just so happened that we're playing a concert at the convenient center," Lily said. Under the table, Dandy stomped on her foot. Lily ignored her. "I mean, a contrived at the convention center. I mean, who comes up with this shit?"

"You know, it's probably comments like that which get you thrown into brick walls so often," Dandy said.

"Probably," Lily agreed. "And yet I keep on making them."

"Um, if you guys are done being crazy, we've got a lot of ground to cover," Allison said, "can we please get on with this?"

"Right," Dandy said. "So, anyway, we're playing a concert in town later tonight..."

"...which apparently gives us an unlimited amount of downtime," Lily said.

"...we were playing a concert in town, and this woman who said she was with the paper called me directly. She told me she wanted to do a little interview for the weekend insert," Dandy said. "I wasn't clear on how she got my number, but you know, it didn't sound like a big deal. Turned out it was a set-up. She had some kind of, I don't know... neural thing... disguised as a camera, an animated mannequin for an assistant, and a bag full of little troll dolls as a diversion."

"What was her name?" Echo asked.

"Andrea Markham," Dandy said. "That's what it said on her driver's license, anyway." She shot a sour look at Willow, who ignored her.

"Andi Markham was the name the woman who called me used," Echo said. "I refused to meet her without some sort of credentials first. The one thing I don't understand is why she'd go after you."

"Minerva told me that Rhyme said there was a reason they went after both the Aces and the Wisdom Twins... the only thing they have in common with each other is they're both multiple births," Allison said. She looked at the Kittens. "You guys are triplets, right?"

"Right," Dandy said.

"Well, yeah," Echo said. "I mean, why musicians? There's some risk in going after well-known superheroes, but if the trade-off is a superpowered puppet then it might be worth it. What exactly do you get with mind-controlled celebrities?"

The Binder sisters exchanged uneasy glances with each other. Rather, Lily and Dandy did. Willow didn't appear to have heard anything that had been said.

"Look, we've all heard the rumors," Allison said. "I can understand why you might want to keep some things out of the public eye, but you're dealing with the good guys here."

"You mean the rumors that we're secretly mutants or witches or werecreatures or something?" Dandy asked. "Well... none of those stories are true... exactly, but we do have what you might call powers, of a sort."

"So, if you're not mutants, what are you, then?" Allison asked.

"I'm awesome," Willow said.

Allison blinked.

"Of course you are," she said. To Dandy, she said, "So what kind of powers do you sort-of have?"

"Well, I guess you could say that we're bonded with the spirits of mystical cat totems," Dandy said. "Lion, tiger, and... uh..."

"Pussy," Lily said.

"Black cat," Dandy said.

"Pure elemental awesomeness," Willow said.

"Wait, so your given names are Dandelion, Tigerlily, and Pussywillow," Echo said. "Three different flowering plants with a cat's name embedded in them, and they just happen to correspond with your guiding spirits?"

"Who said they correspond to our spirits?" Lily asked. "I am totally guided by pussy. Anyway, what's your point?"

"I just find it a little... far-fetched."

"...says 'Echo Chambers'," Lily countered.

"Yeah, I'm shutting up now," Echo said. "I hate my parents."

"I'm not that fond of them, either," Lily said.

"Will you be nice?" Dandy hissed.

"Historical evidence suggests I will not," Lily answered. "But you know what they say, hope brings eternal."

"That's 'springs', you anorexic twit," Echo said.

Allison stood up. Lacking a gavel, she raised the conference room table up an inch off the ground and brought it down. Willow, who'd been leaning forward and resting her head on her arms, jumped about three feet into the air. All eyes were on Allison now.

"Look, here's the deal," she said, trying to sound like she wasn't picking the words out of the air one at a time. "Somebody came after you, tried to steal away your free will and turn you into mere tools. I assumed you're here because you want to do something about that. I know I intend to. I may be about to face the biggest challenges of my life, and up to this point, I haven't been the least bit worried because I know I can trust the people who're standing beside me. We need the information that you guys have, and we can use whatever powers you have, but more than that we need... I need... to know if you're going to be serious about this."

"Yes," Echo and Dandy said.

"Hell yes," Lily said.

"Whatever," Willow said, settling back down.

"Okay, then," Allison said, sitting back down. "The rest of our little team should be here shortly. I guess we're... well, I mean, I've been given authorization to take a Pantheon Chariot to Nebula City to interview Rhyme. Minerva Wisdom has suggested it's best for us to stick together as a group, now that the enemy's aware that we're onto them, so I'd recommend that anybody who doesn't want to come along should stay here, under the protection of the Pantheon."

"Well, we really can't afford to miss our own concert," Dandy said.

"Though we've got absolutely no schedule conflicts after that," Lily said. "As one would expect from a nationally touring act."

"This is our last scheduled stop," Dandy said. "We started on the east coast and now we're ending it here."

"See? Convenient," Lily said. "Jesus Christ, I swear she puts more effort into those stupid pseudo-intellectual debates she starts all the time than she does planning out any sort of..."

"Oh, nobody wants to hear that, Lily," Dandy said.

"I understand very little of this," Echo said.

"I'm going to just assume it's some kind of inside joke with them," Allison said. "Okay, so you guys have a concert. I think we can assume they won't make another move on you in front of a couple thousand screaming fans. How about you, Echo? You coming along for the ride?"

"Well, I've been here for half an hour and nobody's asked me if I've turned villain or what my real name is," Echo said. "I call that a good start."