Victorious turned his head in my direction. I followed his gaze, seeing Prism staggering to his feet. The disco-mask villain slid sideways, then slid back and vanished. The wall behind him moved similarly, but didn’t vanish, instead coming to rest at weird angles. It was like looking at a kaleidoscope.

The cape flowing from Victorious’s shoulders kicked up as he swiftly flew to where Prism had disappeared, where he also vanished. The effect Prism had made suddenly lifted with a bang, revealing Victorious having slammed Prism’s head into the floor. I winced. That was the second time Prism had had his face slammed onto the thing he normally stood on.

Prism was jostled as Victorious roughly turned him over. When he didn’t respond, Victorious looked up and saw Clothesline starting to pick up speed. The superspeed villain must have been feeling the hurt after I’d broken her leg. She didn’t seem able to move at high speeds as suddenly as she had while Slingshot and I had been fighting her.

This time when Victorious took flight it was faster, and he caught up with Clothesline in the space of a few seconds. Clothesline had made it out the door, but Victorious threw her back into the room and I saw her clutching her leg when she landed. Victorious reentered and surveyed her. When Clothesline didn’t get back up, he looked around for his next target.

Waterlad had already left, having run out the door he’d been hanging out by when I’d first entered. Headache, however, was making a break for the nearest exit, which happened to be the staircase I was taking cover by. I saw her run past two orbs she’d already placed that were nearing the end of their life span and waiting to explode.

Victorious started flying after her, and the orbs exploded right as he entered the blast radius. The same explosions had knocked me out briefly, but they barely seemed to faze the superhero. He continued to sail through the air towards Headache a little higher than he had before, only now he was glowing red. Victorious was harder to put down than that.

One blow later Headache was out of commission and Victorious was looking for his next target. His gaze fell upon me. The presence from the man was imposing, almost as intimidating as Orcus could be.

“Victorious, no!” Zephyr shouted as his gloved hand lifted me by the collar. “Lock is on our side!”

I flinched as Victorious lifted me up to look me in the eye. A tingling feeling spread from where he was lifting me up, and I smelt burning. Victorious was still glowing red, so he looked like a drunk, angry uncle. But since I had just witnessed how quickly he’d just put down three villains that had been giving us a whole lot of trouble, and since the tingling in my chest was intensifying to painful levels, I couldn’t see the humour in it.

“Are you sure?” Victorious checked.

Zephyr paused wrestling with an internal decision. “We’re sure.”

The red glow faded and I was dropped to the floor. The impact made me yell in pain and I clutched my chest as the tingling faded. As I was recovering a crash like something had just fallen onto the floor below sounded. Each of us glanced in the direction of the sound and saw that a triangle of paper marking an area of the floor that had fallen away. That had to be Junk Mail.

“One more.” Victorious said, then flew after him.

Zephyr reached over, gripped my jaw and forced me to look at her avian-like mask. “Don’t antagonize him.”

She released me and in the seconds it took me to come up with a response, Victorious flew back up through the hole in the floor. Junk Mail was under his arm, unresponsive, and with his mask partially destroyed.

Victorious dumped Junk Mail as his feet touched the floor. “Tell me what the situation is.”

Zephyr stood up and straightened her clothes. “Two prolific gangs are present in the building. The Entrepreneurs and Rising Sun. The Entrepreneurs also have three other superpowered gangs under their control: The Racketeers, the Handiemen, and the Collectors, as well as a Private Army. Members of all of these gangs have been confirmed to be in the building.

“Their forces are concentrated in the lower floors. I decided to approach from above in an attempt to pincer, but found a fight already in progress. It should be noted that their force up here is less than half the strength of that on the lower floors. Yearn and some of her villains are engaged with Orcus and some of our other Sentrys two floors below. The rest of the Sentrys are engaged with hostile forces on the ground floor. Boss and Queue are on the third floor, that is theorised to be the site of a meeting we’re aiming to interrupt.”

“Tell me about the Sentrys here.” Victorious said, glancing up the stairs where I saw Muffle and Snowflake looking down at us.

“The one wearing white is Snowflake.” Zephyr explained. “She can summon snowfall anywhere, and has hydrokinesis where she does. The big one next to her is Muffle, his power completely nullifies sound in an area around him.”

“So they can’t hear us.”

“That’s right.”

Victorious peered past the two heroes at something I couldn’t make out. “There’s another one.” He told us.

Zephyr followed his eyeline. “That’s Slingshot. Her powers consist of flight and telekinesis, but when she releases something from her telekinetic grasp, it attempts to return to the point of origin. She is a very recent addition to the team.”

“I see.”

“You should also know this is the first field mission she is taking part in.” Zephyr continued, to which Victorious just nodded.

I recalled the state I’d last seen Slingshot in. It was relieving to know she was up there with the other Sentrys.

Victorious took a few moments of consideration. “Zephyr, you’ll lead the way to the engagement between Orcus and Yearn. Snowflake will be joining us. Muffle, Slingshot, and Lock will rest and recuperate, and standby in case we need backup.”

He hadn’t asked about me. In fact, he’d assumed I was a villain until Zephyr told him otherwise. What the hell?

Zephyr’s lips thinned, but she nodded and beckoned at Snowflake. Muffle nudged her forward when she continued to stare at us for a few seconds. I found the sight amusing. Snowflake couldn’t hear what was being said because of Muffle’s power, but Muffle could listen just fine.

When Snowflake exited the area of Muffle’s power, she was quickly briefed by Zephyr. After Zephyr was done she turned her limbs into tornadoes and left with Victorious close behind. Before Snowflake left, she turned to me.

She told me. “Go upstairs. Hug her or something.” Then I was left to frown over what she said.

The stairs only Hully could have made were narrow and barely wide enough for me to walk up. It was remarkable Muffle had been able to run up here when he did. I added my footprints to the snow covered steps and joined the other Sentrys, entering Muffle’s area of silence on the way.

Slingshot was up and about, but she was in a bad way. She was holding her aviators before her and was turning them over, inspecting the shattered lens and skewed arms. There were red gashes around her eyes where the sunglass rims had broken the skin, and blood smeared underneath them. Both her eyes were open, fortunately, but it still unnerved me how close the gashes were to her eyes.

I tried to say. “How bad is it?” but nothing came out I looked at Muffle. He signed something at me and strode a short distance away, having blindsided me again with his power. Since I didn’t know sign language I didn’t know what to make of the gesture.

“How are you holding up?” I changed the question.

Slingshot’s eyes met mine without turning her head. The blood under her eyes was vibrant, but was solid at the same time. It was frozen. Which made sense considering Snowflake was just here.

“I…” Her voice wavered. I didn’t know what to do. Her eyes darted to something behind me and narrowed.

I glanced at Muffle, he was off to my side. Slingshot was looking at something else. Something touched the floor behind me, making a sharp sound. I whirled around, arms raised but holding nothing. The staff was still lying where I’d dropped it fighting Clothesline.

The person behind me was Waterlad. He had made the sound by tapping the butt his trident on the floor, and he was now leaning on it heavily. His cap had been turned around and was now on backwards. A strange smile adorned Waterlad’s face, and he was looking me right in the eyes.

“You guys got Victorious all up in here?” He spun his trident offhandedly, inadvertently slashing through his thigh. “Talk about big guns.”

I looked around and found another keyboard by a destroyed desk next to me. Waterlad started striding towards me. I took the keyboard and brandished it.

“Stay there.” I told him.

“Or what?” Waterlad laughed. “You’ll hit me?”

I returned his look, trying to stay level. “I’ve broken two people’s bones today by accident today. I can’t control my power that well and I can’t promise I won’t do the same to you.”

Waterlad kept walking. “Then do it. I don’t care, it’s not what I’m here for.”

“Stop right there.”

“That’s not what I’m here for.”

“Stay away from us!”

“You’re not Victorious, you can’t stop me.”

Waterlad wasn’t slowing down so I shoved the keyboard towards him, adding half of the force I’d used to break Clothesline’s leg. It hit him in the chest and pushed him back a fraction of a centimetre. Then Waterlad’s chest swallowed the plastic projectile and it spat out through his back. The keyboard skittered across the floor. Waterlad was unfazed.

“Very few things get to hurt me.” Waterlad said. “My power makes me water. And so it goes.”

“Shit.” There was nothing I could do against that, not with my power. Even if my power worked on people it’d be useless against Waterlad. My power worked differently on liquids, and if he really was water, then anything I hit him with would just pass through him. He was clearly fine with that after the keyboard.

“Look, Lock, is it?” He checked. “I’ve been trying to say that’s not what I’m here for.”

“Get away from me.” I said.

Waterlad sighed and gave me a look. “I just want to ask you something.” He swung his trident and stopped it just short of Slingshot, who went cross eyed and started animatedly hyperventilating. Waterlad continued, but the sound of his voice didn’t reach my ears.

Muffle put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. He started gesturing at Waterlad, who was sighing exasperatedly. Playing up the physical actions since he was now silenced. Waterlad moved his trident from in front of Slingshot and I immediately started pulling her away.

She was shaking. Slingshot grabbed my arm when I took hold of her, and gripped me like a vice. Pain was ignored as a small part of me jumped for joy. I stopped moving when we left Muffle’s area of influence. Slingshot was light, no, she was pulling upwards. I had to pull down with my power to keep us on the ground.

Muffle was animatedly communicating to Waterlad, who had leaned his trident against a desk. He didn’t sign like Muffle did, but Muffle could hear where everyone else couldn’t, so they were definitely having a conversation. Waterlad had been part of the Graceland Sentry until recently, so it made sense that he was used enough to Muffle’s power to hold a conversation like that. And that was on top of knowing sign language.

I kept Slingshot close while they spoke. Eventually Muffle violently gestured at Waterlad and stepped far to the side, leaving a space of sound between us. Waterlad turned his head to us and grinned. Slingshot flinched.

“Full disclosure,” Waterlad started. “My name is Andrew. Every Sentry knew my name until you two signed up, and I feel like that should be a tradition that continues.”

I was taken off guard. “Wha- Why would you tell us that?”

“To establish trust.”

“Why?”

Waterlad tapped his trident and pointed it at me. I tensed.

“That’s the question of the hour.” Waterlad nodded, lowering the weapon. “Tell me, do you know what’s going on here?”

Was that a trick question? “We’re... Fighting?”

Waterlad tilted his head.

I continued, stumbling over my words. “With ‘We’ being you, the villains and us, the heroes.”

“Shit, you believe that.” Waterlad scoffed. “I’ll tell you this now: The Sentinels aren’t heroes, and we aren’t the villains.”

“That’s hard to see from where I’m standing.”

“It’s what I see, and I’ve stood on both sides of the line.” Waterlad turned around and gestured at the room we were in. It was trashed by the fights that had happened here similarly to the floor below, though not to the same extent. There wasn’t any snow left here. It had melted and left the carpet wet.

“All this?” Waterlad said. “Most of it was done by your teammates.” He pointed at a wall that had been punched through. “From what I hear, Hully could reset that in a moment, but Orcus decided to punch through it and hit rubble into desks, computers, cabinets, and that guys favourite mug.” I saw a smashed mug that had “Wo-”, “B-”, “Mo-” on the side that was still intact.

Waterlad pointed at a hole in the floor not far from the staircase. “That would be where he smashed Hully through the floor, he does that multiple times each time they meet. And see the carpet? Snowflake ruined it. The owners of this place will need to get the carpet guys in over the course of a week most likely. They’ll also have to move all the furniture around while they work, or even straight up remove the stuff from the building. Talk about a logistical nightmare.”

“You’re ignoring all the paper.” I told him.

“No, I know all about Junk Mail’s power.” Waterlad turned back to me. “You just pull on it and it’s out. Much easier to fix that than a fucking hole in the floor.”

“I just saw Junk Mail make a hole in concrete by summoning paper.”

Waterlad shrugged. “Then I’ll concede that particular point. My argument as a whole still stands.”

This was going nowhere. I needed to change the subject. “Why are you here?”

Waterlad tapped his trident and pointed it at me again. “Good question, but I asked you first. Why am I here?”

I frowned and glanced at Slingshot. She was keeping her eyes locked on Waterlad and was still floating while she gripped my arm like a handcuff. Slingshot wasn’t crouched in the air anymore and had her legs outstretched, so it looked like she was standing. In any case, she wasn’t offering a response. A pit opened in my stomach seeing her like that.

I turned back to Waterlad and tried to cover the concern with confusion. “What?”

“Do you know?” Waterlad pressed, returning his trident to a neutral position.

“No, I don’t know. Because your boss is meeting with the Rising Sun?”

Waterlad tapped his trident again, but didn’t point it at me this time. “Exactly.”

“Why is that so important?” I said. “You’re the ones that came here first.”

“Actually you guys got here first. Queue pinpointed where you would be and compensated to ensure his meeting wouldn’t be interrupted.”

That was quite the claim. “So?”

“So what the hell is this meeting about?” Waterlad threw his free hand out. “I said full disclosure and I meant it. Truly, I have no idea what the meeting is about.”

“Why does it matter?”

“Of course it matters! Everyone, and I mean everyone is here in force. The Entrepreneurs have every superpower toting idiot they have under their employ in the building, plus the Private Army. The Rising Sun brought along more than half their members. The Sentinels and every Sentry showed up, and then the motherfucking Victorious from motherfucking Aegis appeared in the Thunder. It’s just two guys sitting down to talk, what the hell is going on!?”

I didn’t have an answer.

“So here’s my pitch.” Waterlad said, suddenly calming down. “I want you guys to come with me to spy on Boss and his stupid important meeting. Before you say you’ll do it on your own, you can’t. Queue’s calculations have been proven to be thorough. If you guys are going to make it there, you’ll need the help of an unaccounted variable. Namely: me.”

It sounded exactly like a trap. Still, I was curious, be that from inexperience on my part or a genuine performance on his part.

“Why don’t you just go by yourself?” I asked.

“At first it was because I needed to hang with my group, but they’re all asleep right now. Now it’s because I want backup in case we come across one of your groups. I don’t want to be attacked unnecessarily. I may be water but you’re still mixing my insides when you hit me.”

“Uh huh.” Good to know.

“So are you in or out?”

I looked at Slingshot, who had moved so I was between her and Waterlad. She glanced at me, wide eyed. I wouldn’t get anything useful from her, so I looked to see Muffle’s response. The large man was in the corner with his arms folded. His helmet on so I couldn’t read his expression. He gave no me indication as to what the right thing to do was.

“What will you do if I say no?” I checked.

Waterlad jabbed at the air with his trident. “I’ll stab you.”

A beat.

“Nah, I’m just playing.” Waterlad laughed. “But I will knock you guys around to alleviate suspicion.”

“I don’t want that.” Slingshot whispered.

I winced at the sound and resisted the urge to comfort Slingshot. “Then what if I say yes? You said that going with you is the only chance of us making it, but it doesn’t you haven’t even hinted at a plan. Doing something like you’re suggesting without a plan sounds like a great way to die.”

“I have a plan.” Waterlad assured us. “Kind of.”

“No. Not assuring.”

“Before we were split up and told to patrol, we were where Boss is going to be meeting Samurai. It’s going down in a meeting room on the third floor. I can get down there without an issue. It looks like your girlfriend can too. I’m worried about whether you’ll be able to though.”

“And why’s that?” I said. “You’re talking about it like you’re planning on taking us through some mystical pathway.”

“It’s not mystical.” Waterlad told me. “And it’s not a pathway. I’m planning on jumping down the elevator shaft.”

“That’s stupid. Even with your power that’s a huge risk to take.”

Waterlad shrugged. “I’ve jumped off buildings before.”

“So you go back when you go splat. Cool.” I rubbed my forehead with the hand Slingshot wasn’t holding. “What if the elevator moved? I’ll bet it has.”

Waterlad shook his head. “Spinnerette was summoned to this place first and took out the electronics in this place. The lights are running on backup power, and the elevators are stopped. The last time they were used was when the big gang was heading to level three, they have to still be there.”

“Then what about other fliers?” I asked. “There are three options I can think of for going between floors: Going outside, the fire escape, or the elevator shaft. The guys who want to go up or down floors are going to go for the most direct route. Literally as the crow flies.”

“That’s a chance we’re going to take.”

“No. I haven’t said yes yet.” I said. “How about you give me a moment to think it over?”

“I’m not leaving until I get an answer.” Waterlad stated.

“Then go stand where the sound doesn’t reach.”

Waterlad glanced at Muffle, who was still unmoving. “I’m still watching, and with the way this has been going you’ll want to be a part of it. It’s huge. I’m giving you three minutes.” Then he stepped into Muffle’s power and silently clapped his hands to prove he was in.

I turned to Slingshot. Her eyes were darting between Waterlad and me.

“What’s your take on this?” I asked quietly. Muffle’s power meant I didn’t have to be quiet, but I couldn’t help myself.

Slingshot lingered on Waterlad. “I don’t want to do what he’s suggesting.”

“He’s been clear on what will happen if we say no.” I said.

“Yeah.” Slingshot’s voice wavered, tugging on my heartstrings. “But if we go with what he wants, then we’ll probably end up so much worse.”

“You’re not wrong.” I glanced back at Waterlad, who was leaning on his trident. “The thing is he raised a good point. We’d do well to figure out what exactly is going on here and I’m honestly curious. You know what Metafore’s prediction was?”

“No.”

“Really?” That wasn’t a good sign.

“Who is Metafore?” Slingshot asked. She was all over the place. Her feet weren’t touching the ground, her eyes were darting in every direction, and she’d been brutally beaten by Clothesline not long ago. There was little to no chance that she wasn’t being honest.

I stopped myself from telling Slingshot just how out of the loop she was. That’d be a waste of time. “He’s a precognitive, he sees the future. Whenever something big is about to go down he sees it play out to an extent, but only sees things in metaphors. Are you following?”

Slingshot focused on me. “So far.”

“All this,” I gestured with my hand. “This was seen by Metafore last night. The prediction was that everything would happen in a waterlogged city of atlas.”

“But Graceland isn’t flooded.” Slingshot commented, focusing on the discussion.

“I don’t think that matters, there’s a dam and it’s a metaphor. Then a shadow approaches the city, three carpets of different colours meet, and a one sided coin spins, flinging what might be blood everywhere. Then there’s a plate or something.”

“Coins have two sides though.”

“Focus, Slingshot.” I pleaded. “I don’t know what the shadow approaching the city was, but the three carpets unfurling probably refers to The Entrepreneurs and Rising Sun meeting with a third party. It’s the most detailed event in the vision, it has to mean something big.”

“Aren’t Zephyr and Orcus, and now Victorious supposed to be the ones that deal with this stuff?” Slingshot asked.

“Yes, but they’re bogged down getting there. There’s dozens of supervillains in the way and there’s only three of them.”

“Then why us? Why do we have to be the ones to do it instead?”

“Mostly because if we don’t, we’ll get beaten up by the guy with the trident.” I sighed. “He turns into water, is water. Anything we try doing to hurt him will just make him ripple a bit.”

Slingshot’s eyes darted back to Waterlad. “He scares me and I don’t want to do it.”

“I agree, and it sounds like a trap.” I glanced over my shoulder. Waterlad hadn’t moved. “But I feel like we should anyway. It’s too big.”

Slingshot didn’t have anything to say to that. She glanced down, realised she was still holding my arm and flinched back. I rubbed my arm as blood started flowing properly again, but I already missed the sensation.

“Sorry.” Slingshot said, drifting so her head was well above mine. My heart plummeted, overreacting.

“I’m Canadian, that’s my word.” I rebutted, then shook my head. “We need to make a decision. I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to.”

Slingshot looked away for a few moment. “Fine.”

“You’re sure?” I checked.

“I don’t want to, but you’re going to anyway. You shouldn’t go alone.”

That made so happy it was hard to keep a level head. “I’m not going to be alone.”

“You’ll be with a villain!”

I didn’t have a response for that.

“I’m with the sentry to help people.” Slingshot continued. “I can’t do that if I just ignore you as you walk off with Waterlad. Do you know what he did?”

“I know about him switching sides.”

Slingshot shook her head. “He hurt the others when he left. He literally stabbed Blinker, Orcus, and Satellite on the way out, and hurt dozens of non-heroes in the process. Look at Muffle, he’s probably glaring a hole into Waterlad’s head he’s seething so much. Waterlad, or Andrew, is guilty of a lot of crimes.”

“Then why are they not fighting?” I wondered, glancing at Muffle. He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. His helmet obscured his face and he was entirely still. I couldn’t read anything from him.

“Well, Waterlad was right when he said we couldn’t hurt him.” Slingshot dropped a few centimetres. Neither of us spoke for a few moments. I wanted to break the tension, but that wouldn’t help us make any progress. Slingshot was right.

And Waterlad gave a seductive offer. Damn it.

I sighed, rubbing my head. “Then let’s do it.” I glanced up and noticed Slingshot’s eyes still darting around. “Just one thing, your sunglasses broke.”

“Yip.” Slingshot glanced at where the broken shades had fallen. She had dropped them at some point. “They did.”

“I can conceal your face.” I drew a line of black on my gloves, immediately regretting touching Lucidity’s gloves. “Like that.”

“Right...” Slingshot breathed out and lowered herself to my level. “Definitely do that, then we’ll go and potentially die.”

No need to be so nihilistic. I wanted to say, wanted to comfort her. “Close your eyes.” I said and pressed my palm over her eyes before dragged it sideways.

When I pulled my hand away a black patch had been applied across Slingshot’s face, covering everything above her bandana. I’d missed a few patches so I quickly touched them up to make the mask consistent. There were a few strands of hair that I accidently hit as well, but I didn’t think it was worth fixing those right now.

“Done.” I said.

Slingshot opened her eyes. They were still green.

“I can’t cover your eyes, but the rest is concealed.” I told her.

“Um. How do I look?”

I pointed at myself. “Like this with green eyes and a bandana.”

“Right.” Slingshot slowly drifted backwards. “Let’s let Waterlad know we’ve decided.”

I turned around and looked at the villain. He stopped leaning on his staff when I turned and raised his arms in a “Well?” gesture. Waterlad grinned when I gave him the thumbs up.