Star Harbor Nights

"There were seven god-kings who ruled in ancient Atlantis," Poseidon said. "The greatest of these was the Sea King. This was his scepter of office, his weapon of war... and, some say, the source of his power. When the Amazons fled before the cataclysm, they took what relics of their homeland as they could, including this. It stayed with them through the millennia, lying unused in their museum vaults until they bestowed it upon me."

He held out the device which he had retrieved from his rooms. It was something like a flattened silver rod where the ends had been cut away at an angle, leaving the figure of an elongated rhombus when viewed from the side. It was just small enough to be gripped comfortably in the hand, and covered with seashell-swirls.

"I now pass it on to you," he said. He laid the rod in his daughter's hands, who took it reverently.

"I... I will honor it," Amy said, blinking back tears.

"Time to go," Thoth said quietly.

Poseidon started to turn and draw back, hesitated for a moment, then turned again and swept his daughter up in an impulsive hug before rushing out of the room, Thoth in tow.

"Be careful, Daddy!" Amy called after him.

"Wow... never thought I'd live to see that," Minerva said softly.

"Yeah, a woman that age who still calls her father 'Daddy'," Lily said. "I'm equal parts awed and frightened. Anyway, what's this doohickey supposed to do?" She reached out for the device.

Amy gripped it in her hand and waved it airily in Lily's general direction. There was a subsonic sensation, which was somewhat reminiscent of the sound of a speaker turning on or a noisy electric switch clicking shut... only felt, not heard... and a bolt of glistening gold streamed forth. Lily jumped back, but the flow pulled itself back and solidified into a triple-pronged fork, the tines tipped with points like those of an arrow. The butt end of the shaft, which had flowed out of the other end of the handle Amy held, resembled the stinger of a deadly sea creature.

Lily gave an impressed whistle. "That's one hell of a can opener," she said.

"A what?" Willow asked, perking up.

"A can opener," Allison said. "You know, a thing for opening cans?"

"What are you talking about?" Willow asked disgustedly. "Nobody can open a can. It's impossible."

"Uh, that's kind of Willow's one weakness," Dandy explained. "She's a little touchy about the subject. But... um... nice weapon."

"How does it feel?" Allison asked. "Amphitrite... goddess of the waves."

"Strange," Amy said, with a laugh. "Powerful. And... somehow... right."

"I'm not surprised," Minerva said. "You know, it took your dad a month to figure out how to do that."

"Well, he'd never seen anybody using it," Amy said. a little self-consciously. The lustrous metal shimmered and melted back into the handle. "I've been watching him do it all my life."

"Touching. But... now that the parents have left, isn't it time for us to, you know... sneak out to the party?" Lily asked.

"Are you crazy?" Allison asked. "Go behind the Pantheon's back? After everything they've done for us?"

"What have they done? They give you guys the good toys, but other than that they just let us into their clubhouse," Lily said. "And that's just so they could keep an eye on us. Anyway, we've all got powers... I say we use them."

"Lil, we're not even superheroes," Dandy pointed out.

"We fight monsters all the time," Lily said. "Big, giant monsters even. How is this any different?"

"We're made for fighting monsters," Dandy said. "How often do we end up fighting ordinary criminals?"

"As often as one of them decides to put on a monster costume to frighten people away," Lily said. "Which is way more often than I'm comfortable with, frankly. Those cosplay freaks give me the jibblies."

"My point is we're out of our territory here," Dandy said. "I say we stay put. Will, you're with me, right?"

"I'm not in favor of staying, so much as against moving," Willow said lazily.

"That's a shock," Lily said. She turned on the speedsters. "How about you guys? You're men of action, right? Movers and shakers? I bet you guys aren't afraid to get out there and get the job done."

"Yeah, I think we could take down a bunch of old men and their minions, easy," Beau said.

"Well... the minions don't worry me so much," Ford said. "But don't forget that they've got superpowered zombie slaves, and if we go in on our own and get defeated, we're giving them all our powers to play with."

"So we don't get defeated," Beau said. "I say we do this."

"Alright, then I'm in," Ford said.

"You're going to change your mind, just like that?" Dandy asked him.

"Anything we do, we do together, as brothers," he explained.

"What do you do when you get to the bathroom and there's only one open urinal?" Lily asked.

"Hey, back off," Beau said. "We're on your side here."

"Lily's never really on a side," Dandy said. "Anyway, I can't honestly believe anybody is considering this. Echo, how about you... you seem pretty level-headed."

"Well, I..." Echo began, uncertainly.

"C'mon, Echo," Lily said. "All that stuff you said on TV about nobody giving you a fair chance... you can't just sit it out now."

"We're not sitting it out," Echo said. "Just waiting until the time is right."

"Headline: 'Pantheon Stop Bad Guys; Echo Also There'."

"You're not going to browbeat..."

"'Pantheon Stop Bad Guys; Rogue Hero Echo Spotted On Scene, Eludes Capture.'"

"Fine," Echo huffed. "I'm in, if only to shut you up."

"Yeah, that'll work," Lily said. rolling her eyes. She turned towards Allison, Amy, and Minerva. "And you guys are practically like the Pantheon Junior, right?"

"Junior?" Minerva sniffed. "I've had my powers since you were in diapers."

"We wouldn't even know where to go without Thoth's help," Allison said. "I'm not going to betray him."

'What was all that stuff about it being your case?" Lily asked. "Can't you even make up your own mind?"

"I certainly can," Allison said.

"And yelling at people isn't going to change anybody's minds," Amy added. "I'm not going."

"Dude, don't you think your daddy gave you that tripod thingy for a reason?" Lily said to her.

"He was showing me that he trusts me," Amy said.

"Right, he trusts you do to the right thing," Lily said. "And fighting evil is pretty much the definition of the right thing... how can you sit on your ass when there's bad stuff afoot?"

"Why do you even care so much?" Dandy asked. "I mean, I usually have to drag you out the door when there's some caper..."

"That's because you use words like 'caper'," Lily said. "And 'hijinks.' I don't do hijinks. Anyway... they came after us. Don't you get that? We have to go out looking for the ghouls and goblins and things, but these assholes came after us. That means whatever happened, they started it... and I want to finish it."

"When you put it that way..." Minerva started to say, then she stopped and shook her head. "The wisdom's saying no. I don't know, though. Allison, you said it... it's your case. I'll go with whatever you choose, but only if the group stays together. We've stuck by each other, and it's worked so far... so whatever the majority decides, we all do."

"I'm fine with that," Dandy said confidently.

"We've got four for, you've got three against," Lily said. "Odds are on my side."

"Uh, if Minerva is going to vote with Allison, then the odds are fifty-fifty," Dandy said.

"Yeah, but they're fifty-fifty in my favor," Lily said.

"Will you two please shut it?" Allison cried. "Amy's right... shouting isn't going to settle anything."

"See, Lily," Dandy began, before Allison cut her off.

"I'm talking to both of you," she said. "Now, I don't like having people come after me, or having people used as pawns to get to me... but... we've managed to stay one step ahead of these guys by playing it safe, by sticking together. We haven't given them a chance to..."

She was interrupted by, of all things, a tinny recording of The Flight of the Bumblebee played on a xylophone, emanating from within her jacket pocket.

"Ugh, that's just my friend Sam," Allison said, recognizing the ringtone. She flicked the ignore function with an electrokinetic thought wave. "As I was saying... they haven't had a chance to nab any more of us, and I think there's something to be said for..."

The tune started up once again. This time, she switched the phone to vibrate, for good measure.

"She calls me at weird hours of the morning one or two times a month, all giggly-drunk... usually while I'm on patrol or something," Allison explained. "Anyway... anyway..."

Her train of thought was derailed immediately again by a brief buzzing from the phone, followed a few seconds later by another burst of vibration. With an exasperated groan, she floated it out of its case and saw that there were two new text messages from Sam's number.

"Oh, well, if you've got more important things to do," Lily said, "like playing phone tag with your..."

"We're going," Allison said. "Now."

"Gatinha, you can't just..." Amy said, though she stopped when she saw the look on Allison's face. Allison turned the phone around, moved it slowly so that everybody could see the image in turn. None of them knew the woman in the photo that had been sent to her phone, but the meaning with crystal clear: she was tied to a chair, with a gag in her mouth.

The message which accompanied it said, simply enough, "COME & PLAY."