“So umm…how did that happen?” Spangle asked, emerging from her cell to stare down into the ball pit, opposite Perry.

For a moment, the surface was still, and all was quiet…

Then Serenity erupted from the ball pit like a demon from an angry volcano, spewing brightly colored plastic everywhere.

Time to go, Perry thought, leaping over the pit towards his rescue-e, ankle dangerously close to being grabbed by the maddened Bruiser.

“I’ll tell you later.” Perry said, dragging her down the hall towards the exit.

“Also, who are you?” Spangle demanded, shaking him off her wrist and coming to a halt. “I appreciate the rescue, but I gotta know who’s doing it, ya know?” Her words were slightly slurred from the massive bruising across her face. If it weren’t for her distinctive hyperweave, he might not recognize Chase’s daughter.

It was reasonable to ask his identity. She didn’t know if Perry was worse or better than her current situation.

Perry glanced to the side and spotted her current situation; The crimson-faced bruiser charging towards them, nearly knuckle-walking out of pure rage.

“We’ve met before,” Perry said, seeking out the inset button in the floor with his foot, catching its edge with his toe.

“I’m Paradox,” Perry said, giving a foppish formal Manitian bow, kissing the back of her hand as he used Serenity’s dollop of life-force stored in the Pernicious Prison to heal her swollen face to something more comfortable.

Spangle gasped, touching her face.

Click. Perry pressed the button with his big toe.

The floor gave out beneath them, dropping them straight down an instant before Serenity flew directly over Perry, arms outstretched like a pouncing tiger.

“Wheeee!” Perry threw his hands up and Spangle gave a strangled yelp as they slid down a plastic slide.

Crunch!

Behind them, the slide dimpled slightly as Serenity sprinted down after them.

Perry caught one of the levers hanging from the ceiling and the slide kicked them up into a tiny glass elevator, barely big enough for the two of them.

“Sorry, figuring the scale of everything all at once is a little tough to do with Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation,” Perry said, the two of them sardined into the tiny container that zipped upwards.

“Maybe I should include something that will give me extra fields of vision as part of the spell, to prevent problems with forced perspective.” Perry mused as Serenity climbed the side of the shaft beneath them, her eyes bloodshot.

It was always combat situations that highlighted areas for improvement.

The elevator came to a sudden stop and spilled them out into the main hallway again, only feet away from the open hole in the floor.

Perry clapped his hands twice, and all the wall panels flipped around, revealing funhouse mirrors. Suddenly Perry and Spangle were reflected in every direction out to infinity.

“Hold on,” Spangle said, stopping again as Perry led her to the next trap, eager to see how well it performed.

“Eh?”

“Are you actually trying to escape or are you just trying to humiliate her?” Spangle asked, casting a dubious glance his way. “You could’ve made that elevator go all the way to street level, couldn’t you?”

Perry opened his mouth and closed it again. He may have gotten a little carried away with the desire to utilize more aspects of his trap-building rather than make a quick getaway. Logically, every minute he toyed with Serenity was another minute the tables might turn and wind up getting him killed.

Perry had other things to do today.

For a smart person, he was being very stupid.

“Because I’m totally down to rub some dirt in her face if you are.” Spangle gave a winning grin.

“Oh.” Perry relaxed. “I guess I was.” He supposed it was unconscious. His way of ‘defeating’ someone who couldn’t be defeated physically. The urge to prove himself intellectually superior by bullying them mercilessly. It was a bad habit.

“I want in. I owe that bitch a lesson,” She gestured to her previously swollen face.

“Fair enough,” Perry said with a shrug, the excitement giving way to pragmatism. “This way. I know how to really humiliate her, safely.”

***Serenity***

That little shit. That little shit, Serenity growled inwardly as she tore through the elevator and out into the hallway of the government black site, coming face-to-face with a seemingly endless hall of mirrors.

She caught the tail end of Paradox and Spangle disappearing into one of the walls.

Fool me three times…Serenity thought, able to think despite the rage burning her viscera. One good thing about always being angry. Eventually you learn how to think during it.

The little punk was playing games with her. Trying to prove how much smarter and cleverer he was. Making her out to be an idiot.

He’d done something to the building to turn it into this stupid fun-house. Implying he wasn’t taking her seriously.

That she was a child’s game to him.

Traps and tricks of that nature are all reliant on carefully calibrated hinges, catches, levers and releases. Moving parts were the weak point of every machine.

All Serenity had to do was break them.

She puffed in a breath, her lungs expanding painfully.

“AAAAAH!”

A shockwave erupted from Serenity’s mouth, treating the entire building to a concussive blast of force.

Can’t have a funhouse if there’s no house.

…nothing?

That usually breaks everything, Serenity thought, frowning as the remaining agents – bleeding from the ears – staggered toward the exit, Where Blitz was prying aside the black spiderweb with a steel beam, allowing them to crawl out under it.

She turned to the side and experimentally punched the wall.

Crack. The mirror reflecting her face cracked in a spiderweb pattern, only allowing her fist to sink a quarter inch into the wall.

Shit, that’s strong. On a scale of sandcastle to reinforced concrete…this stuff is off the charts. I could’ve scratched diamond with that plastic slide. Is he a Tinker? No, that was obviously magic. What the hell is going on?

“Got the big bad wolf thing going on, huh?” The little shit’s voice said from behind her.

Serenity whirled and lashed out with every ounce of her strength, punching into the smug prick’s nose.

Spiderweb cracks formed on the kid’s face: He was talking to her through a floor-to-ceiling monitor.

“Who the hell are you?” Serenity demanded. She was trying and failing to quantify his powerset. He was strong and fast, like a low-tier bruiser, had obvious magic, and fighting him in this funhouse felt a lot like attacking a Tinker in their Lair.

It was weird.

“They didn’t tell you?” The green-eyed pissant asked, cocking his head.

RIIING.

Serenity’s phone went off, and she held it to her ear without breaking eye contact.

“It’s Paradox, he’s attacking your location! Extract your asset and relocate to-“

Serenity crushed the phone, cutting the stupid-as-hell delayed warning off with an electric chirp.

“You’re not leaving here in one piece, Paradox.” Serenity growled, tossing aside the scrap electronics.

“So you have heard of me,” Paradox said through the wall as she scanned the environs, narrowing in on the spot she’d seen them disappear.

Karen sharpened the tactile telekinesis around her bladed hand, and buried it six inches into the revolving wall they’d walked through.

“GAH!” She wrenched her shoulders and back pulling the ungodly strong wall away from it’s seat, tossing it aside as a dark passageway revealed itself.

When she stepped through, a blast of Spangle’s glitter caught her full in the face, rocking her head back even through Karen’s armor.

“Is that the best you can do?” Karen demanded, stalking forward as Spangle paled, taking a step back. “Don’t quit your day job, Infusers aren’t worth the-“

Karen’s words were cut off as she walked face-first into another screen.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe you fell for that again,” Spangle’s image said, giggling and pointing a finger at her.

…

“AAAH!”

White-hot rage filled every sense she had, and Serenity clawed at the screen like an animal, tearing chunks away and tossing them aside, practically burrowing through the wall to get at the cunt.

“Oh, shit.” On the other side of the wall, she saw a control panel being quickly vacated by her prey and she snarled, tearing her way through and grabbing a chunk of the previous wall, throwing it at her target.

Crack.

The image cracked. Another convincing illusion.

If a single shout won’t work, then I’ll do it the old-fashioned way.

Serenity ripped a pipe out of the wall and began laying about indiscriminately, breaking every panel, smashing every trick, gutting every pitfall the instant it was deployed.

The little prick’s voice seemed to come from everywhere, flitting from room to room, which she dismantled with equal ease.

Soon he would have nowhere left to hide.

***Paradox***

“I mean, it’s nice,” Spangle said, listening to his description of Serenity’s Rage-fueled vandalism, “But it’s not as satisfying as seeing it in person.”

“Yeah, well, I weighed it against our safety and found it ‘good enough’.” Perry said as they flew through Washington, darting between buildings through alleyways, flying low to avoid being spotted.

Getting away was his win condition, after all.

Besides, I need to drop off Spangle with her dad and get some pants, then check on the androids. If Washington is planning on disposing of them for…whatever stupid reason they have, my recent chaos is probably going to cause them to have a knee-jerk reaction.

Perry and Spangle landed a block away from her dad’s secondary safe house: a luxurious hotel room rented out permanently by a rich guy who, quote: ‘was very disrespectful’.

Using your mind powers to program someone to permanently rent out a specific room was kind of a dick move, but low on the list of things Chase could’ve done, so Perry let it slide.

It wasn’t his job to reign in the Minder: Spangle had that part under control.

When the door opened, revealing Chase with a revolver, Spangle practically tackled him with a hug before shoving him away at arm’s length.

“Dad, what the hell did you do?” she demanded.

“It’s his fault,” Chase said, gesturing towards Perry. “Half the Minders in the city are sniffing around, block by block,” He turned his gaze to Perry. “You gotta get out of here before-“

“Oh, no. don’t you try and shift the blame, what did you DO that caused this mess?” Spangle demanded, hands on her hips.

“I lied on my report and said Perry was an easy job for a Minder, okay!? I’m always riding the edge of losing my freedom, so I lied!” Chase said. “Either way it’s still his fault for being a pain in the ass!”

Perry didn’t have time to stop and chat. Chase was right about not being able to stay if Minders were sniffing him out like bloodhounds.

The middle-aged Minder had a trunk lying on the floor beside the bed, and Perry kicked it open, revealing an extra change of clothes.

“It isn’t my fault, but I am involved,” Perry said, grabbing some slightly oversized clothes and running for the bathroom: He was still covered in blood and viscera form his previous disguise.

Perry rinsed the blood off and had the clothes on in under a minute, utilizing the Pernicious Prison as a squeegee.

“Pants are a little loose around the waist,” Perry said, looping the inky black spell around his waist, holding the pants up to where they were comfortable, causing them to dangle a bit above his ankles, just an inch or two short.

“Very funny, get the hell outta here.”

“Dad!”

“No hard feelings, I really do have a lot on my plate today, and I have to go.” Perry said, offering Spangle his hand.

“It was good seeing you again,” Perry said, shaking her hand as she watched, bemused. “You’ll be glad to know that while I was in the shower, Serenity punched out her boss for trying to calm her down. He’s currently in the hospital and she’s likely going to catch hell.”

Spangle blushed and broke into a shy grin, squeezing his hand. “Yeah, that does make me feel a bit better.”

“He’s gonna be a father in a month or so, you know.” Chase said, expression flat.

Spangle’s eyes widened.

“Bio-Teleportation accident,” Perry said with a shrug before dipping his finger in some gunk and writing down Natalie’s number in blood on a nearby take-out menu. “You can text Hardcase later if you want the details. She’s super stoked to be a dad and will probably share baby pictures with everyone, but she doesn’t have a lot of friends on her contact list.”

“…Okay.”

Perry chuckled at Chase’s expression and excused himself before heading for the android district.

***Marigold Zauberer***

“My queen,” The head of security on her great-grandchild said, giving a quick bow before motioning to the bound and gagged man frantically looking around the room with wide, bloodshot eyes.

“Our enchantments caught someone with ill-intent two blocks away from the mother’s residence. He handed her the man’s wallet. Marigold glanced down at it, seeing a slightly younger version of the man smirking back at her with a level of confidence he certainly didn’t possess now.

Kevin Glee

“Kevin Glee? An assumed name, I suppose?”

“MMMPH!” ‘Kevin’ said.

“Indeed, we had some of our younger members run a ‘background check’ on him and it was a poorly doctored alias. We assume he mostly maintains his false identity because he is a Minder, able to deflect suspicion.”

“A Minder?” Marigold drawled. “Good heavens, whatever will We do?”

The surrounding Manitian court chuckled. Defense against mental influence was so deeply ingrained in manitian high society as to become banal.

“Kevin. You’re going to die.”

“MMMPH! NNNNN!” ‘Kevin’ tried to shout through the gag in his mouth.

“Unless…you tell Us everything.”

Obviously, she was still going to kill him, but it was best to keep cattle calm before being slaughtered.

Her servant tore the gag away from the man’s mouth and Kevin began spilling every detail. What an unsurprising lack of loyalty.

When she’d heard enough, she motioned to her general, who cleaved the spy’s head from his shoulders, causing the confused expression on his face to roll across the floor a few times before coming to a halt.

“Do you wish for me to kill this David Manchin, my queen?” Andre asked, wiping the blood from his blade.

Marigold tapped her fingers on her throne.

“This seems like a teachable moment,” Marigold said. Her grandson often needed that extra push to achieve his full potential.

“Fetch me some dopplegangers. We’re going to put on a little play.”