The conference room in the DURABLE office was massive. With only five ultrahumans in attendance, it seemed almost empty.

Lady Lumina, Soundwave, Viking and Quintana were all there when I walked in, as was someone I’d only heard of by reputation - David Wong Lee, director of the Tanisport branch.

“Welcome, Belessar,” the director greeted me. “We thank you for coming.”

“It’s the least I could do,” I said, “since Agni seems to have targeted me.”

“There’s no guarantee she won’t target the others, I’m afraid. Please sit.” Director Lee turned to the screen, which showed a map of the world. “This is a list of the past attacks carried out by her.”

Red dots appeared on the map - Pakistan, several countries in Africa, and two dots in South America.

“Each of these attacks has been targeted either at the military,” explained Lee, “or at ultrahumans in positions of political power. In Sudan, she attacked the military government of General Ulvar, who also had a secret identity in the form of the supervillain Zaka. In Colombia, she hit the drug plantations under the control of different supervillains. When the druglords sent their mercenaries against her - and particularly when they took the field - Agni hit back hard.”

“She wrecked the drug cartels in Colombia,” Quintana spoke up. The secretive ultra wore a white bodysuit with stylized red eyes and a half-mask. “Way I see it, that was good work.”

“She also left thousands dead in the process,” Lee said. “Not all of those were gangsters. The fires she starts tend to take on a life of their own.”

“She has absolute control of fire,” added Lady Lumina, “so if she starts a fire and people burn to death in it, you can be sure she wanted it that way.”

“She’s never operated in the United States?” I asked.

Lee shook his head. “As far as we can tell, this is her first operation against a U.S. city. However, considering the body counts at Rawalpindi, Islamabad, and Medellin, we don’t want to take any chances.”

“What happened at Medellin?” I asked.

“Agni hit the cartel’s militias,” Soundwave explained. “Several cartel leaders had gone to ground in the slums. She sent out a warning saying she was coming in, and anyone not associated with the cartels should leave. Many didn’t. Then she burnt the entire slum to the ground.”

“Fifteen thousand dead,” Lee added. “And she killed the ultras Beros and Titos in the process as well.”

“Heroes?”

“Villains and drug enforcers, but not particularly bad ones - they fought the aliens a few times. She just roasted them alive.”

“Understood. Very dangerous ultrahuman.”

“Frankly, we don’t know her underlying motivations. She doesn’t appear to ever have been aligned with the Grunters or Blackhats, so probably not revenge.”

“Does she target any type of military?” asked Viking.

“Or paramilitary organization. However, there’s no sense to why she targets specific organizations - she hit some of the cartel militias in Colombia but not others, and in Sudan she targeted the actual armed forces of the country - as in Pakistan.”

Lee gestured at the dots on the map. “Pakistan was driven by King Shah, from all accounts, but since then, she’s been working on some unknown criteria for her targets. We do know that she gets paid, though.”

“She gets paid to hunt armies?” asked Quintana. “Who can afford that?”

“Well, the operation in Sudan was paid for by a number of interested parties opposed to General Ulvar. Multiple rebel groups and dissidents got together and reached out to offer a bounty on Ulvar’s head to several ultras. Agni was the only one who took it up, and as far as we can tell she asked for three times the amount, and no questions into her methods.”

“How much did she get paid for that job?” asked Quintana.

“Thirty million dollars.”

Soundwave whistled. “That’s one hell of a payday. Where’s this information coming from?”

“Some sources the CIA had. They’ve made the summaries available to us - the sources are themselves now dead, a fallout of the civil war that erupted after Agni left. That was six years ago.”

Lumina frowned. “If that’s the typical size of her contracts, who’d pay that much to torch Tanisport? It doesn’t seem worth her time.” She looked at me. “Do you have any enemies with that much money?”

I shrugged. “The Grunters. That’s it.”

“Not the Blackhats?” asked Quintana curiously.

I’d forgotten about that - they probably didn’t know about the ambush. “I, uh, haven’t given them any reason to see me as that much of an enemy.”

RELATIONSHIP WITH QUINTANA DECREASED. QUINTANA NOW DISTRUSTS YOU (-2).

RELATIONSHIP WITH LADY LUMINA DECREASED. LADY LUMINA NOW DISTRUSTS YOU (-2).

Great. I gave the wrong answer. Ah well, can’t win them all.

“Moving on,” Lee explained, “we expect Agni’s actual objective to become clear eventually, based on the pattern of her attacks. It could be as simple as an attack on Belessar for his support of the U.S. Army, or a genuine desire to just burn everything down. However, none of these outcomes are acceptable to us, and that’s not even considering the civilian casualties she generally leaves in her wake. We have therefore started extensive city-wide surveillance operations to try to track her down.”

“How would we engage with her, once located?” asked Quintana.

“We have some ideas. Viking and Lady Lumina are the ones most likely to be effective against her - that is, of course, not considering any resources Belessar brings to the table. However, her ability to teleport away through flames is the real limiter to pinning her down.”

“No idea on the range, right?” commented Quintana.

“We have no data points to work from. However, she will only teleport if she thinks she’s losing - so we have to fight her in a manner where she thinks she’s winning, right up to the point where we can hit her hard enough to knock her out.”

I frowned. “How do you convince someone they’re winning without actually letting them win?”

“... We would need to look into synergies between powers for an effective response. Belessar, I understand you have healing abilities.”

“Yes, a few.”

“In a confrontation, we would anticipate you distributing your time between actively engaging her and providing healing support to the others. The pace of the battle would have to be completely synchronized, in order to prevent casualties on our side and simultaneously give Agni a sense of victory. This would give us the element of surprise needed to allow us to neutralize her.”

“.... I see.”

“To locate her, we will be using the following search pattern….”

A low buzz filled the air.

"SURGE pager," snapped Lady Lumina, as I realised where it was coming from. Every ultra in the room had theirs in front of them in seconds. "Attack in…. England."

Director Lee did something, and the screen lit up with the image of an officer in the uniform of the Stratospheric Guard.

“... attack confirmed in Liverpool, the breach was over the North Sea,” the uniformed man was saying. “The Government of the United Kingdom has sent out an all-hands call, SURGE pagers are being activated and units are being scrambled from local defense forces. The carrier strike group led by the HMS Fortitude has already deployed and is hitting the aliens, but a landing is imminent. Requesting all available support….”

Lee switched off the screen. “The Stratospheric Guard’s put out the all-hands call,” he said. “I’m requesting a priority deployment for a Traveler, one should be here in five minutes, depart in fifteen. Since we’re all assembled here, you can move quickly.”

“I’m in,” replied Lumina. “Viking? Soundwave? …. Quintana?”

The other heroes nodded. Lumina looked at me. “Belessar? Will you join us?”

“Sure, but some of my gear… needs time to bring. Can we wait for a few minutes?”

“Hurry,” replied Lumina.

I only had five Fullersteel Pilums on me…. not enough. Not enough time to drive home and bring more back, either, even if we left out the security breach….

I activated my messaging system.

: hey

: sup

: attack in Liverpool. Need to go

: can you get me my stuff? The spare pilums, the power packs and the backup rifles? The backup armor?

: sure

: but i’m coming with you

: what? No

: yes. You need my nanobots

: i’ll stay with the support, don’t worry

: you’ll need time to get your armor

: my suit’s in the back of the autocar and so is a metric ton of your gear

: we were supposed to shift it tonight, remember?

I’d forgotten. We’d loaded up a bunch of things into the Spinmaker in case I had to rush into combat at short notice. Anne had been taking it to school.

Technically, she was supposed to still be in school….

: you’ll miss your classes if you come

: come up with a better reason. I’m already out of class and halfway to the car

Dammit. She needed to complete her education…

…. And I needed the gear.

Well.

: bring the autocar to 16th and Main, the Gladiator’s parked in an alley there

: i’ll figure out a way to come and get you

: no need. I can drive your car that far

: fine

“We need to wait a few minutes,” I replied. “My partner is on her way.”

Lady Lumina fixed me with a stare. “You have a partner?”

“Her name is Nanocloud. She’s on her way with some of my equipment.”

“Will she be joining us for the Liverpool deployment?” inquired Soundwave.

I sighed internally. “Yes.”