Brown hair, longer and wavier than the short curls I remembered it as. Same green eyes, though. Looked as though they were piercing your soul. Face actually had cheekbones, now, and I could see that she was wearing makeup, which the almost tomboy younger her would never have done.

Scanning down, I saw she was wearing a loose-fitting red blouse, drawn tight by the strap of her purse carving a valley across her chest. Never paid much attention before, but she was definitely bigger there. And curvier, too, with what the tight black business skirt showed off. Long, toned legs, and red heels. Not too high, though. Something that would be reasonably comfortable for walking out and about.

Looking back up at her face, I smiled, and said, “Well, Crystal, you’ve certainly grown up since the last time I saw you.”

Her confusion was plainly written on her face she looked at me. “Do I know you?”

I nodded, once. “Yeah, once upon a time. Probably don’t recognize me, since my hair’s longer, and I’m wearing better clothes than t-shirt and jeans from Walmart. But perhaps I can spark your memory?”

I’d figured that she wouldn’t recognize me, after all this time, so I prepared in the cab. In addition to the Mist Form power, so I could escape, if things turned nasty, I prepared a simple power, so I could show off a bit. Not too much, of course, given the constraints I had to work under, but enough to spark the memory, I hoped.

Cost

Power

End

8

Simple Ice Sculpture: Major Transform 1d6+1 (Air to Ice Sculptures) (20 Active Points). No Range (-1/2), Concentration (0 DCV, -1/2), Conditional Power (Does not work in high heat, -1/4)

With a bit of focus, Iceblade is able to create small ice sculptures on a whim. They generally are lacking in detail, however.

2

Iceblade’s Transform roll: 1d6+1 = 4

A quick look told me there was no one actively watching us, and no phones turned our way. That’d have to do. I held my right hand out, and, with the left, focused the cold. Ice formed in my hand, creating a simple statue, only five inches tall, on a circular base of ice. It was devoid of any real detail, to speak of, but it was clearly meant to be a female figure skater, in the midst of her performance. More importantly, it was an icy mirror of an actual sculpture I’d bought her as a birthday present, before my powers had manifested.

I sat the statue down next to me on the bench, and Crystal’s eyes followed it the whole way. Finally, they turned to me, green eyes piercing me so deeply I was glad that she didn’t have heat vision, or I’d be dead. I could see her hands ball up into fists at her side, shaking. Yep, she was definitely pissed.

“You bastard. You run away from home, let us think you’re dead. No contact for how many years? Didn’t even bother to come crawling out of the woodwork when Mom and Dad died. And now, NOW you show yourself?”

I shook my head, and let her acidic tone roll off me. “I ran away because I was a fucking mess. I couldn’t control my powers, because I wasn’t willing to admit to being a freak. Mom and Dad tried to hide it, but I could tell they were hoping it was all a phase, too. I was a fucking mess. So, I ran.”

“When we found the gun—”

“Yeah, I tried, but I couldn’t go through with it. The headlights in the window startled me. So, I went out the back door while Dad was parking the car. After that, I kept running. Eventually stopped, but, by then, it was harder to come back than to stay gone.”

She sat on the bench, the statue between us. “And then? You obviously didn’t die. So, what did you do? And why didn’t you come back when Mom and Dad died?”

“Couldn’t. Not openly, anyways. By that point, I’d already found a new path, and it would have been bad news for everyone, if I came around. Especially since the timing would have prompted people to start asking questions.”

“What timing?”

“You remember what happened to the leaders of the Greene Revolt? The ones that didn’t get caught by the National Guard?”

“Yes, they were mutilated, and delivered to the state police. Still alive. Wait, you don’t mean?”

I nodded. “I was the one who tracked them down, and put them in the condition they were in. Unable to move. Unable to talk. Unable to communicate save through nods, blinking Morse code, or screams. A fate worse than death.”

Dumbly, Crystal nodded. “But, Miri, why now? Why come back now?”

“Because I’m the Local Administrator of the System for Earth, Crystal. When you started trying to hack the System through the blue boxes, I got an alert. You weren’t the only one to try and change things, though. You’ll probably hear about it soon, but all the Reality Controllers have disappeared. I used the System controls to ‘quarantine’ them, until I can figure out a way to let them back out without them being able to break the world.”

I sighed. “I need help, Crystal. The System is impossibly huge, and I know I’m only barely scratching the surface of what is possible. But I figured that, with a proper Web Mistress to help me, then it would be possible to uncover all sorts of secrets, and twist the System to do whatever we want it to.” I looked her in the eye. “So, you want to be an Admin for reality itself?”

“No. No, no, no. We are not having this conversation here. We are going to go somewhere that I can get some alcohol, because I am not talking about this sober.”

Laughing, I couldn’t help but nod in agreement. “All right, that sounds like a plan. And it would be good for me to get out of the heat before things really start to get steamy. Not exactly going to melt away, but it definitely isn’t comfortable.”

She frowned. “That’s another reason you stayed away, isn’t it? You have some kind of weakness to the heat?”

“Yeah. Actually, that’s one of the things the System changed. Used to be that I would be physically ill if it got too hot. Now, I just lose some of my powers. On the other hand, I’m vulnerable to fire attacks.”

Crystal nodded. “Fine, we’ll find someplace with air conditioning and alcohol, and you’re going to explain EVERYTHING to me. Starting with what you’ve been doing this last decade.”

“Let’s go, then.”

Twenty minutes later, we were at a comfortable bar, and had each finished our first beer in silence. I was paying, of course, since Crystal was still mad at me. Second round was on the table, and I started explaining what I did for a living. Needless to say, she needed to think a bit.

“So. Iceblade, huh? All those times I’ve seen him galivanting about on the news, that was you?”

“Yeah, that was me.”

“And did you really turn Miss Liberty and Pyra from the Squadron Supreme into your sex slaves?”

I chuckled. “No. Or, not entirely. I picked up a few things over the years, and one is a ring which gives me a lot of power over the minds of women. Understandable, since it contains the spirit of an incubus inside it.”

“Ah.” Crystal blushed. “Is that why just looking at you makes me want to climb you like a tree?” She stopped, blinking. “Did I just say that out loud?”

“Yes,” I nodded. “The ring includes a glamour that basically makes any woman who looks at me think that I am their ideal man. And the System codified part of it into some ‘disadvantages’, including something called ‘Tangible Sexuality’ and ‘Sex Object’. So, women look at me the same way men look at porn stars and supermodels. Sometimes it helps, and other times, it can cause awkward conversations with your sister.”

“Oh, fuck, this is so embarrassing!”

“Well, it isn’t any worse than when I found out about my powers by freezing the bath into an ice cube while I was still in it. You want to talk about embarrassment? It took hours for the ice to melt enough for me to actually break free!”

“Anyways!” She took a long drink of her beer, to cut off that line of thinking. “So, you went and became a supervillain, and have only been back once since, to brutally take down the people who got Mom and Dad killed. How did you end up getting to be the Local Admin?”

“Well, the Doctor of Time and Master of Paradoxes were fighting…”

“God, those names are so pretentious.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that those are just translations. They look human, but according to the System data, they’re actually aliens.”

“Figures. So, they were fighting, and what happened?”

“The Doctor’s time powers hit the Master’s paradox powers, and basically acted a lot like how matter and antimatter do when they meet. The blast jumpstarted the System, which had been offline since the first reality-warping superhero showed up in ancient Egypt. And, since I was the closest person to the instigating event that met the minimum criteria, the System offered me the Local Administrator role.”

“And you took it, because you aren’t a complete moron.”

“Hey!”

“Uh-uh. You still haven’t worked your way out of the doghouse, bucko. So, you became the Local Administrator, and are in over your head, so you wanted me to come on board, and help?”

“Well, that, or it was send you to Quarantine like all the other problem kids that won’t stop trying to break reality into pieces.”

“What is this Quarantine, anyways?”

“Basically, it shunts them into some kind of stasis space. They’re apparently time-locked, caught between one instant and the next. Don’t feel anything, not aware of anything. Just frozen, unable to act or do anything else until I release them from the Quarantine. But I’m only able to do that through Administrator controls, and only when the System recognizes a danger.”

“All right, I’m in.”

“Sure, but before I send the invite, mind answering a few questions of my own?”

“Fine, I guess I did just get you to tell me all your secrets.”

“Not all, but enough.” I winked roguishly at her. “But how did you become a supervillain? You didn’t seem like the type, when I left.”

“Neither did you!”

“Fair enough.”

“Heh. Well, it isn’t really all that unusual. At first, I could just interface with machines. You know, write text messages with my mind, while my phone was in my pocket. Cool, but not really superhero stuff. But it got me started, learning computer programming, which got me into learning about computer security, IT stuff, and, eventually, hacking. There are a bunch of guides on the dark web, you know, and by then, my brain was able to consciously think at supercomputer speeds, processing tons of data every microsecond.

“So, I became a hacker. I started as a Grey Hat, mostly doing it for my own enjoyment, and to see whether I could, but making some money, as well. Girl has to eat, after all. After Mom and Dad, though, I went Black Hat. Not just hacking and malicious code. You know those politicians that died when hackers took over their cars?”

“Yeah, it is part of the reason I chose to meet you at the park, instead of somewhere with more technology. So, those were your kills? What did they do that set you off?”

“They were involved in some child sex stuff. I found out about it while following breadcrumbs about something else, and found a ‘client list’. They were on it, and they weren’t the only ones on the list who had ‘accidents’, just the highest profile ones.”

I nodded slowly. “Makes sense. Fine, let me toss you a System invite.”

Administrator Control

Elevate user ‘Crystal Mollen’ to Local Administrator status? (Warning: This will give user equal access to yours, and cannot be revoked once given, except by higher authorities.}

Yes / No