With time running out, the team prepares themselves for a rematch with Xenos. They have a few tricks up their sleeves, but they know they’re walking into the devious villain’s trap. Are they ready for him?

Identity Crisis: Adventures in Babysitting

By Jenny North

The next morning, Lydia and I were up early, ready to head to our rendezvous with the others. For not the first time I wished Lydia could just fly us there, but her fear of heights made that impractical. Although as I flashed back to how I'd been clinging to her for dear life a thousand feet above the city, I can't say that I was all that eager for a repeat performance. It was dumb luck that we'd managed to survive.

I figured that our next best alternative that would keep us safely off of Xenos's radar was to once again enjoy the comfort and safety of the Faraday Transit Authority's Connector buses. Lydia seemed slightly taken aback that modern superheroing required the use of so much public transportation.

However, she had other things to occupy her attention. Since the point of the exercise was to remain incognito, she'd shapeshifted back into me as Chris, and was fussing and squirming at her wig and outfit. Seeing her like that perturbed me. It was one thing to see her as Prodigious Girl, but watching her as Chris was yet another uncomfortable reminder that she and I hadn't just been transformed, we were literally trapped in each other's bodies. I wasn't comfortable loaning her my cell phone, much less my body.

Meanwhile, I was back in a land of giants. When it was only the two of us at the garage it was easier to handle, but now riding the bus I was reminded that not only was absolutely everybody much bigger than me, the world wasn't designed for someone my size. The seats were enormous, and I couldn't reach the handrail, so every time the bus lurched, I had to grab onto Lydia for support. I felt so helpless. And it didn't help my mood that nobody seemed to think it was the least bit strange that I was clinging on to Lydia like she was my big sister, or something.

Once again the bus lurched to a stop, more abruptly this time. I grimaced in annoyance, but I suddenly realized what the problem was. Traffic had come to a complete standstill, which seemed unusual for a Sunday morning. Then, I watched as all the adults on the other side of the bus took a sudden interest in something going on outside.

Not good.

I jumped down from my seat and squirmed past the adults to get a better view. It was a traffic accident, but it was a bad one with a multi-car pileup. I could see a jackknifed tractor trailer, and a number of cars surrounding it. The accident had occurred in the lanes going in the opposite direction, but apparently it had spilled across the median to stop traffic in this direction, as well.

"AHHHH!" the crowd on the bus chorused in shock as there was an explosion, and a plume of fire and smoke. At first I assumed there was some kind of metahuman fight in play, but it looked like a high-tension wire had fallen and had ignited some spilled fuel. I saw people running from the blast, so hopefully everybody was okay.

Then I noticed that the latest explosion had caused the felled power line to fall in a different location. It was still sparking violently. Fortunately, people nearby had cleared out of their cars and moved away, but that's when I saw that the tanker truck was leaking fuel. Nearby, I could make out a number of cars with people in them who were either trapped or too scared to get out.

Along with a school bus. Filled with kids.

I turned and looked back at Lydia, who was wide-eyed with fear. I hurried over to her.

"We're safe here," I assured her. "It's on the other side of the road. It's okay."

There was another heavy thump-BOOM of an explosion outside. "AHHHH!" the crowd on the bus yelled, even louder.

Across the aisle from us, there was a little girl just a little younger than Lydia—that is to say, me, at the moment—and she had her face buried up against her mother, who had her arm around the frightened little girl.

"Someone's gonna help, right mommy?" the little girl implored. Her mother didn't say anything, but just squeezed her tighter.

"We're fine...we're fine," I repeated to Lydia.

Lydia nodded, and then she got a funny look on her face as she looked at me. "There's people in trouble, aren't there?"

I didn't say anything. Meanwhile, Lydia's eyes locked on the scared little girl.

"Chris, we should do something," she whispered. Then, she amended, "I should do something." She got a look of concern as the magnitude of that distinction seemed to settle in.

I spun and looked out the window on our side, wondering where the hell the fire and rescue drones and vehicles were. Or another superhero, for that matter. Surely, they could—

Then, from the window behind me, I saw a bright flash of—something—come from downtown, along with multiple plumes of smoke. Streaks of color like reverse lightning bolts came streaking up from the ground. I recognized what I was seeing as the energy blasts and flight auras of supers in some kind of pitched battle. Whatever was going on was much too far away to be a problem for us, but it explained why help wasn't coming—they were already occupied with something bigger.

By the time anybody got here...

"Chris?" Lydia prompted.

We had a different problem, one much more immediate. We were close to our rendezvous point with the others, which meant that we were nearing the place where I'd last encountered Xenos...at the redevelopment site where I'd tried to give my speech. It was the best place to look for him, which meant he'd likely be there as well, because he had to know we'd eventually come looking for him.

In other words, it was a perfect place for him to set a trap for us.

Or rather, almost perfect, since he knew we'd be on our guard.

But this...this was perfect. Xenos couldn't have unleashed a giant kaiju monster or whatever it was that was occupying those other heroes downtown, but he was more than capable of arranging this accident. He had to know I wouldn't let Lydia charge in against armed supervillains, but a low-grade industrial accident with innocent lives on the line? He couldn't possibly know we'd be in this bus, but it's possible he suspected that we'd be close.

*BOOOM*

"AHHHHH!!!"

"Chris!" Lydia implored.

This could be a trap. This could easily be a trap. Hell, it probably was a trap. I couldn't let her take that chance. We'd sit tight. Help would come. Eventually.

I felt as Lydia put her hand on mine, and she looked me straight in the eyes. "Chris, I can do this. I'm not scared."

That was a lie, of course. I could plainly see how scared she was. Although something in her face made me flash back to a conversation I'd had with Prodigy back when he'd tried to get me to quit being a superhero, warning me of the dangers. At the time I'd countered that the lives I saved had to count for something, too.

Xenos had me scared. Heck, he had me freaking terrified. But I didn't even know for a fact that he was here. I was so afraid of him that he had me jumping at the possibility that he was around.

Like hell was I going to live my life like that. Not when innocent lives were at stake.

"Come on," I whispered to Lydia. I led her toward the back of the bus. Pretty much everyone was focused looking out the other side, so nobody paid much attention as Lydia forced the back door open and we slipped outside.

We ducked for cover, and I dug into my backpack and handed her my CosFit device. She activated it, and as the nanites began the process of transforming her clothes into PG's costume, she shapeshifted into PG without me even having to remind her. She gazed in concern towards the direction of the explosions as I dug around in the backpack.

"Listen. You get in there, you save the people, and you get out. Don't try anything fancy. I don't think there's anything there that can hurt you—much—but don't take any chances, got it?"

"Okay," she said breathlessly. Then she turned to look at me.

I'd just finished pulling off my top to reveal that I'd been wearing her pink 'superhero' costume underneath. As she watched, I fumbled with my little blue plastic mask and tried to adjust the rubber band that had gotten caught up on one of my pigtails.

"You wore it," she said with a smile.

I shifted uncomfortably. "I...don't want anybody to recognize me. Now go."

The last 24 hours had done leaps and bounds to both redefine and expand upon my comprehension of the word "helpless." It started when Lydia had first gone missing when Xenos had abducted her. Then when I found myself as a powerless little girl in various superhero fights. Then when I tried to figure out a way for us to get swapped back. And now once again, I was a defenseless little girl edging much too close to a zone of life-threatening danger.

Danger that I'd just sent my seven-year-old cousin charging directly into.

I couldn't help her. I couldn't even direct her, since there was no way she could hear me over the noise. All I could do was watch from the sidelines. I also tried to keep an eye out for Xenos just in case he actually was here, but I'm not sure what I could possibly have done even if I saw him. I wouldn't even know what he looked like. If he was masquerading as a person trapped in one of those cars, he could easily swap with Lydia, and this would all be over.

I watched as Lydia ran right into the thick of things, clearly confused at what to do first. However, the people trapped in some of the cars were only too happy to get her attention. One by one, she used her super strength to muscle the cars out of the pileup and pulled off the odd door or two as people scrambled to safety.

That's when I saw the gas from the tanker truck starting to pool up and then trickle down towards the live electrical wire.

"Look out! Look out!" I yelled, pointing at the wire. She couldn't hear me, having instead focusing her efforts on getting the school bus loose.

I climbed over the embankment, cursing my diminutive body as I struggled to get past the obstacles in the way. I shouted at her as I ran closer, now fully aware that if the wire hit the gas leak, I was very much in the explosion radius. My only consolation was that I probably wouldn't live long enough to regret my mistake.

"The wire! Get the wire!" I cried out, pointing in that direction.

Lydia finally saw me and tore off in that direction, and it was a race to see if she was going to get there before the fuel spill. Luckily, she got there first and saw the fuel seeping towards her, and apparently understood the danger. Then she grabbed for the wire.

"Wait!" I shouted, but it was too late. She grabbed at the wire and shrieked in pain as the electricity raced through her, but to her credit, she focused through the pain and managed to move the wire up to higher ground. Then, with the immediate danger past, I instructed her to dig a small trench to keep the fuel from getting near any of the other fires.

"That might have been better if you'd been flying," I told her. "I think you were electrically grounded."

"Yeah, I don't know what that means. They're mostly still teaching us about magnets in science."

We moved over to the school bus, and Lydia was able to get it loose so that the kids inside could get out. They were apparently on a field trip, and most of them were only a couple years older than Lydia...well, than me, I guess. They seemed pretty fascinated with a genuine superhero having her own kid sidekick. The adults didn't seem to approve as much.

"She's Pretty Good Girl," Lydia said, introducing me as she helped another kid off the bus. "Ooh, I like your backpack. And I'm Purple Dishes Girl!"

I sighed heavily. I didn't think I could blame Prodigy for me not getting credit for this one on HeroTracker. Though now Lydia's comment about it being a dumb name suddenly made a lot more sense.

By this point, more of a crowd had developed, and emergency vehicles were finally on the scene, so I knew it was time to make our exit. With every extra minute that we stayed there, in the back of my mind I could practically hear Prodigy screaming that this whole thing could still be a trap by Xenos to draw me out...but the more I watched Lydia, the more entranced I became.

She'd handled the crisis well and saved the passengers, but now having to stand off to the side and watch her deal with the public was strange. I have to admit that it felt weird to see someone else getting credit for Prodigious Girl's good deeds, but in this case, Lydia had earned it. From the happy but flummoxed expression on her face, she enjoyed it too, but also wasn't quite sure how to process it. From her perspective, she'd saved those people simply because she could, without consideration for thanks or people looking up to her.

I was really proud of her, but it also made me feel ashamed of myself for counting the number of notices and mentions that I got on HeroTracker. My intentions were good, but I was so fixated on inspiring people that I never stopped to appreciate that I was doing that every day, with every action that I took. Good or bad, for that matter. Lydia had looked up to me and I'd frequently been short with her, having been so focused on my own fame and attention. I'd barked orders at her like Prodigy had done at me. But now, looking at her, I guessed she'd picked up a few good things from me, as well.

Lydia's growing look of panic from having to deal with the adults signaled that it was time to go. She made eye contact with me, and I motioned over to the side to meet with her. She'd only taken a few steps before she stopped short, staring blankly at the microphone being jammed into her startled face.

"Prodigious Girl! Meggan McKay, HeroVerse News," the fresh-faced young reporter said, introducing herself.

"Okay."

"First, congratulations on rescuing those people! That was quite an accomplishment."

The lack of an actual question in there seemed to throw Lydia slightly, so she responded with an artless and detached shrug in the awkward and exaggerated manner that only a child could deliver.

If Meggan was in any way caught off guard by Lydia's non-answer to her non-question, she gave no indication as she steamrolled forward.

"Many young heroines such as yourself have taken to launching their own music careers. Can we expect any hit singles from you anytime soon?"

Lydia's jaw went slightly slack, and her eyes narrowed as she furrowed her brow. She blinked twice.

"What?" she responded.

"You've already got a terrific look, and I bet you could really kill it. Maybe you could do like what Decibelle did with her—"

"I'm a superhero," Lydia said, interrupting her. She over-enunciated the word like she was explaining something blindingly obvious. "Superheroes just save people." She pointed towards the scene of the accident as if by way of explanation. I half expected her to punctuate it with the word "Duh," but instead she gave Meggan a comically overexaggerated look of sarcastic disbelief.

To my surprise, the people in the nearby crowd who had been listening in actually started to applaud.

Lydia seemed equally thrown by the sudden applause, but she nodded in agreement. "See? They get it."

I managed to grab her attention and jerked my head twice to the side in a way that set my pigtails to bouncing. Lydia gave me a wide-eyed look of understanding as she moved quickly over to meet me.

"You're gonna have to fly us out of here," I told her.

"Yeah, okay," she said as she swept me up into her arms. We were both holding our breath as she took flight, but to my surprise, she executed a pretty capable takeoff. I could only pray that the landing would be half as proficient.

As we took to the air, the last thing I saw was Meggan McKay turning to the camera with a look on her face somewhere between impressed and amused. I heard her say, "Wow. There you have it. A young heroine really focusing on the basics. Refreshing..."

Our rendezvous point with the others was in a parking structure a few blocks away from where we'd first fought Xenos. We'd gone back and forth over the location, and at first I'd suggested a tall building with a commanding view of the area, but we rejected it once we realized that Xenos himself might choose that as a lookout point. We repeated that conversation a few times until finally settling on a parking garage that was largely unused on the weekends, a location so shitty that Xenos wouldn't bother.

That said, I was still jumping at every shadow. My research had shown that as Chimera, Xenos had access to a personal cloaking device. Apparently it wasn't perfect, but it would be good enough to sneak up on us.

My one bright spot was that Lydia had become a regular chatterbox as she talked about her adventure. Saving people, and how much the high voltage hurt, and everything. I had to smile. It reminded me a bit of my first outings as Prodigious Girl, helping people out. It felt...good.

"Well, I think you made a very good Prodigious Girl," I complimented her. (We'd also had a conversation where I reminded her that my heroic identity was not in fact named after purple dishes.)

"Thanks," Lydia said with a smile. "You made a pretty good Pretty Good Girl, too."

High praise, obviously.

Fortunately, now that my iComm was working again, I was able to confirm that the big disturbance downtown seemed to be under control. I guessed that was something. At least it was one less thing to worry about. One of the exciting things about living in Faraday City was that disasters tended to get more hyperbolic until you were no longer able to prioritize which problem to solve. Catching bank robbers is important until a giant mega-parakeet kaiju shows up and threatens the city, which of course happens on the same day of an alien invasion. Although sometimes those problems tended to solve each other. (The aliens were absolutely not prepared for the mega-parakeet.)

For now, it was time to focus on problems that were closer to home.

"Listen, Lydia," I said. "You remember what we talked about earlier? We're gonna have to fight that guy in the armor with the rifle again. Xenos. Are you up for that?"

She nodded hesitantly.

"Good. Just remember what we talked about. Fly as much as you can, and dodge if he shoots at you. My friends will try to keep him off of you, but it's you he's after. Or, that body, at least."

She pursed her lips. "Yeah, I'm bait, again."

I smiled. "Sorry. There's one other thing, and it's really important. In order to put us back into our proper bodies, we need to get Xenos to do multiple body swaps with us, and he's not gonna want to do that. But if things go wrong and he tries, I need you to try and swap bodies with him at the same time."

"I can do that?"

"Kind of. You see, I can copy other people's powers when they're close by. Sometimes. I've never been able to control it, but I did it with Xenos accidentally. If you get close to him, you should be able to do it, too."

"How?"

"I...don't know. When it happens, it usually feels like an instinct, like your body wants to do it. Just go with it. It's super-important that you try. If we can force him to do a double-jump while I'm close to you, then that'll put me back into my own body, and we'll have a much better chance of taking him down."

Just then, one of Enchantrix's teleportals appeared a few feet away from us. A moment later, three figures emerged—Trixie, Mari, and a heroine I didn't recognize. Trixie and Mari were all smiles, but the new girl seemed strangely awkward and flustered.

She looked to be a teen like us, and quite pretty with a fairly stunning figure that was packed into what looked for all the world like a slutty and edgy Little Bo Peep costume all done up in dark pink and black, with a short and frilly skirt covered in fur and lace. As I looked at her in bewilderment, it occurred to me that with her domino mask she appeared strangely familiar, especially with her black hair that was styled into two huge ponytails that were bunched high on the sides of her head and bounced around with her every movement.

Suddenly remembering the big blonde ponytails that similarly graced Candy Scrapper's costume, I realized that this was Candy Scrapper, but with some cosmetic differences and a costume change. Then the penny dropped. As did my jaw.

"Caleb...?"

The girl waggled her head shyly in response, which had the unintended side effect of causing her ponytails to bounce about again. Even Lydia giggled.

"Why are you—" I gestured at him helplessly, "—Skanky Ho Peep?"

He shifted uncomfortably. He looked like a busty girl who got talked into dressing in a stylized maid's costume for Halloween and was now having second thoughts about it now that she was out in public.

"The name is Hissyfit," he corrected me.

"That does not make it better," I said, laughing.

Mari signed a message. My ASL wasn't the greatest, but she was suggesting we get moving.

"Good point, Mari," Trixie said, as she pulled out the small talismans and handed them out to us. "Wrap the cord around your left wrist. Theoretically, these should prevent Xenos from being able to swap with us."

"Theoretically?" Caleb asked.

"It was a rush job. If you find yourself in somebody else's body, you'll know it didn't work."

"Swell."

I handed mine back to her. "Keep mine for now. If he swaps with me, we're one step closer to putting everything back to normal. Not that I think he's going to want to be a seven-year-old girl. I'm speaking from recent experience."

"Hey!" Lydia complained, shooting me a look as she fumbled with her talisman. Bhramari helped her tie it on properly.

"Lydia, do that thing I showed you," I said to her.

"Oh, yeah!" Her face brightened up as she punched some codes into the iComm. A moment later there was a vorp sound, and my little "warp closet" opened up, a very handy extradimensional portable storage that was linked to the iComm. It was barely the size of my school locker, but it was big enough for me to fit a couple useful things from Prodigy's garage.

"That's so cool," Lydia marveled.

As she looked on, I retrieved the items and handed them to Caleb.

"Here's that old energy rifle of Chimera's. I've got it locked on what should be a heavy stun setting. And this is a force field belt. It should deflect most energy attacks."

Caleb nodded. "What about physical attacks?"

I paused to consider that. "I dunno. Kinetic energy is energy, right?" I shrugged. "Don't get punched."

Caleb slung the rifle over his shoulder. It made for a funny image, a girl in a short frilly dress packing such a big weapon. Then he held the belt out to me.

"Wait, you should keep this. You need to stay close to Lydia and Xenos in case he swaps."

I shook my head. "I tried it, I'm too little. We may as well get some use out of it."

"Plus, you can hide it under that skirt ruffle around your waist," Trixie teased.

"Terrific."

"Okay. Caleb here—I guess I need to start calling you Hissyfit—is our ace in the hole," I said. "Xenos has already met me and Lydia, and he'll probably be expecting Trixie and Mari. But he won't know about our newest member."

Hissyfit hefted his—her—rifle and took a quick peer down its sights. "Chris, you do know I've never actually fired one of these things before, right?"

"Well...let's hope you won't have to." But that reminded me of something.

"There's one more thing," I said. "Right now, our best edge has been that Xenos doesn't seem to know our secret identities. So, during the fight, don't call Lydia and me by our names." I turned to look at Lydia, who had been quietly listening to the conversation, and was nervously fretting at the edge of her cape. "From now on, you're Prodigious Girl, okay?"

Lydia straightened up and nodded. "Yeah. O-okay."

"What do we call you?" Hissyfit asked.

"I'm—" I let out a little sigh and glanced over to Lydia, whose face had lit up. "—Pretty Good Girl."

To their credit, the girls didn't scoff or giggle, but the amused look they shared between them was impossible to miss.

"That's...kind of a mouthful," Hissyfit said, with a slight quaver to her voice.

I thought for a second. Logical nicknames would be PGs, or Pee Gee Gee, but those were likely to be confusing. "You can just call me Pretty," I said, much to their obvious amusement.

"Gods, that is adorable," Trixie teased.

"All right, let's go get this jerk," I said to them.

As Prodigy liked to remind me, "Don't make battle plans when you're desperate. You'll make stupid dumbass mistakes."

It wasn't exactly Sun Tzu's The Art of War, but as usual, my mentor had a point. Still, as much as I would have appreciated his help right now, I was grateful that he wasn't here to witness this.

However, the plan started off well enough. If Lydia and I could get close to Xenos, then I knew we could entice him to swap with Lydia. It's what he wanted, and he'd likely be cocky since he knew that a seven-year-old girl was at the controls.

Then, if Lydia could instinctively do what I did and trigger a double-swap, that would put me back in my body. It would leave Lydia and the swapper still switched, but one problem at a time.

From what I'd learned about Xenos and what we'd observed firsthand, it didn't seem like he was able to switch immediately back into a body he'd just vacated for some reason. Otherwise, during our last round robin he'd simply have bounced back into my superpowered body immediately. That meant that once I was back home in my body, I was likely safe for at least a little while, hopefully long enough to subdue Xenos.

Then, finding himself in a seven-year-old girl's body and facing down a full-power superhero, I'd then need to turn up the heat and encourage him to swap with Lydia back into his original body.

Unfortunately, my best plan to do that was to put Lydia—or at least her body—in life-threatening danger as we did the swap. Xenos would swap out of danger into his original body, and he would know that I'd immediately focus on saving Lydia, even if it meant potentially letting him get away.

My immediate problem with this plan was that since I currently occupied Lydia's body, I would need to place myself in mortal danger. Also, as Lydia sagely pointed out, I'd be using her as bait. Again.

The bigger problem was that this entire plan hinged on the assumption that Lydia in my body could copy Xenos's powers and force him to do a double-swap. If she couldn't, then we were totally screwed. Because then Xenos would be in control of my super-powered body, I would likely die in Lydia's body, and Lydia would be stuck forever in the body of a stranger.

Mari snapped her fingers twice to get our attention.

Our battleground with Xenos was to be the same as last time, in the shell of the building that was being renovated. We'd moved to take position across the street, and from here I could even make out the smashed window that Lydia and I had busted through when we escaped our prior encounter.

This time was going to be different. For one thing, we had Mari to tell us exactly what we were walking into.

She stared off into space as she sensed the world through the insects she was controlling that were scouring the site. As she did so, she signed what she was seeing.

Trixie provided a translation. "In that big room you fought him in last time, there's a woman tied up, right in the middle of the room. She's conscious and yelling for help."

"Bait," Hissyfit and I said in unison.

"Or it could be Xenos in her body, trying to lure you closer," Trixie suggested.

A few moments later, Mari signed that she'd found two more people.

"They're on the next floor up. Two men, both alive, but unconscious. Some older guy with gray hair, and what looks to be a security guard. They've got—" She signed back to Bhramari for confirmation. "They've got some weird tech on their heads. Like a headdress or a tiara."

"It could be a neural scrambler," Hissyfit offered. "I read about those. Doctors sometimes use tech like that to induce comas. You could keep someone knocked out that way."

I shook my head. "I don't get it. How do those two fit into his plan?"

Trixie gave a half-shrug. "They might be bystanders. Could be people Xenos could swap into if things don't go his way. Maybe an escape route?"

Mari gave an excited snap of her fingers. My ASL was dodgy at best, but even I understood her message this time.

"You found Xenos? Where?"

"Sneaky little prick," Trixie said as she translated for us. "He's hiding in a crawlspace on the second level. We'd never have seen him if Mari's bugs hadn't gone in through the vents."

"You're sure it's him?"

"Oh, yeah," Trixie confirmed, nodding to Mari. "Just like you described him. Black and white armored costume, red mask, energy rifle."

Hissyfit looked confused. "I don't get it. How does hiding in there help him?"

"Mari says he's looking through the scope on his rifle. He must have infrared on it or something to see through the walls. But those interior walls are like cardboard. He could just sit up there and snipe."

"Freaking camper move," Hissyfit muttered.

I had to admit, it was a hell of a good plan. He baits us into the kill zone where he could snipe away to his heart's content. That rifle of his packed a wallop, so a few shots could even take Lydia down, much less the rest of us. He didn't have to get up close and personal like he did the first time...he could attack from safety, and then swap with Lydia after it was all over. Also, if things went badly for him, he could maybe swap with one of the hostages and turn it into a shell game.

I really hated this guy.

"So, what's the plan?" Hissyfit asked.

I blew out a slow breath of air and glanced up at Lydia. "She and I go in and spring the trap."

"Bad plan," said Hissyfit.

"We have to. He's expecting the two of us, and I'm not sending Lydia in there on her own. We need to let him think his plan is working. Meanwhile, Trixie and Mari sneak up there and ambush him."

"I can take him myself," Trixie said. "We can leave Mari on surveillance duty."

"No, we're not taking any chances with this guy. Plus, we don't even know if your talismans will protect us from his swaps. He probably wouldn't be able to use your magic in your body, but if he starts swapping with all of us, this will get out of hand in a hurry."

Hissyfit nodded. "Right. So, where am I in all this?"

"Not far away," I answered.

My heart was hammering and I thought I was going to throw up as Lydia and I entered the building. The whole thing had a nasty sense of deja vu about it. The last time I'd walked through this doorway it was me as Prodigious Girl with Xenos in Lydia's body entering into his trap, and now we were doing it all over again in the exact same space. Judging from Lydia's body language, she was feeling the same way.

"Stay close to me," I said to her in as reassuring a tone as I could manage. "Remember to fly and dodge, like we practiced. Don't let him get close."

"Okay."

As we entered the big room, the woman who had been tied to a chair saw us enter. Her eyes went wide in panic.

"Please don't hurt me!" she begged.

"It's okay," I said as Lydia and I approached, slowly and warily. The room still had the damage from our earlier fight, but I didn't see anything else that seemed out of place. "We're here to help."

"Are you superheroes? Please, you have to get me loose before he comes back!"

I signaled for Lydia to pause while we were still some distance away. We were probably already in range of Xenos's rifle, but we were closer to the door than the woman. He'd want us closer.

"What happened? Who brought you here?" I asked.

"I don't know. Some man. All I saw was a red mask, and the next thing I know, I woke up here. I don't even know where here is! Please, let me loose!"

I still wasn't convinced that this woman wasn't Xenos, somehow. I needed Lydia to free the woman from her bonds, but if Trixie's talisman didn't protect her, getting close wasn't a great move, either. Of course, it wasn't like I could prove this woman's bonafides by asking her questions. "Ask me a question only a hapless citizen would know" didn't really help things.

"Is there anybody else here with you?" I asked her.

She gave me an extremely irritated look. "Listen, little girl, I'm sure this is all really interesting to you, but the adults are talking here!" She then looked directly at Lydia. "You in the cape! Get me out of here!"

Lydia looked to me for confirmation, and I held my breath for a moment and then nodded.

The two of us moved closer, right up next to the woman. Center ring of the bullseye. But as Lydia used her strength to start to remove the woman's bonds, we heard the sudden sounds of furious combat coming from upstairs.

A few minutes earlier, Enchantrix and Bhramari appeared on the second floor of the building, having traveled up there through one of Trixie's teleportals. Not wanting to risk tipping off Xenos to their presence, they'd teleported in from a discreet distance and edged quietly closer. Each step was carefully placed to avoid making any noise, which was a particular challenge for Mari since her attention was split. She had placed a few of her insects in the crawlspace on sentry duty to keep an eye on Xenos, but for the moment his attention seemed to be riveted on the situation unfolding below.

Trixie and Mari silently signed back and forth. It started off simply enough with Trixie confirming their target's location using Mari's insects as spotters, but their conversation became more heated as Trixie seemed to call their plan into question, since it put a lot of pressure on Mari to be the one to score the first hits and take Xenos by surprise after Trixie portaled him in.

Mari's response turned from emphatic to outright vehement, until she finally ended with a gesture not found in any ASL book and followed by an impatient nod for Trixie to get on with it.

"Fine," Trixie mouthed sarcastically. Both of them were attempting to mask how on edge they were, but they got into ready positions.

Trixie prepared her spell and mouthed a countdown. "One... Two..."

By the word "two," Mari had already braced herself and then launched into a dazzling spinning side kick, seemingly aimed at the thin air between them. But her intent became clear as Trixie's portal opened a split-second later, depositing Xenos squarely in her target zone.

The red mask of his costume prevented the girls from seeing any shock or confusion on his face, but they weren't planning to wait to see it, anyway. Mari's kick was good, and it landed the moment Xenos was there, slamming him in the gut and causing him to double over. Mari immediately spun into a takedown move that snatched the rifle out of his hands and sent the two of them to the ground. Mari maintained control and executed it in such a way that she was able to carry her momentum to tumble back up to her feet while Xenos slammed down on his back.

She threw his rifle to the ground behind her, well out of Xenos's reach. However, Xenos's armor had obviously protected him from the worst of the impact damage, and he unsteadily tried to get to his feet.

This time, it was Trixie who didn't give him the opportunity. With her portal gone, she was able to focus all of her energy into three full-power energy blasts that slammed viciously into him. The first hit hammered him and knocked him back, crashing him against the wall. The next hit him hard enough that it knocked the wind out of him, and he was reeling. The third shot was practically gratuitous as he crumbled to the ground, slumped up against the wall, massively dazed and groaning in pain.

The moment stood frozen as the two heroines stood over him, waiting for him to make a move. But when it was clear that he wasn't getting up any time soon, they shared a relieved high-five.

"Nice kick. Never doubted you," Trixie said.

Mari playfully flipped her the bird.

"What's going on up there?" Chris's voice came over the communicator.

"We got him," Trixie replied. "Cocky git never knew what hit him. Give us a second to tidy things up, and I'll portal us all down to you."

"Ugggh...what the hell, man?" Xenos groaned.

The heroines were already wary, but immediately went back into high-alert stances.

"Stay the fuck down if you know what's good for you," warned Trixie, her hands glowing with a brilliant shade of crimson energy as she readied her next shot.

"Bitch, I think you broke my ribs, what the actual fuck?"

Trixie and Mari glanced at each other uncertainly.

He was still slumped up against the wall, but he unsteadily reached his hands upward to his mask.

"No tricks, or this is going right between your eyes!" Trixie warned. However, from the look on Mari's face, she seemed less inclined to give him even that level of consideration.

Xenos didn't seem to care. He fumbled at the bottom edge of his mask, and then pulled it off to reveal a heavyset guy, dirty and unshaven.

"Ugh, I couldn't freaking breathe in that thing. This is so not worth a hundred bucks."

Trixie was still lined up to take her shot, but she straightened up slightly. "What?"

"That dude. He gave me a Benjamin to cosplay in this stupid costume and hang out in that little space. That gun was cool, though. You could see everyth—"

Trixie's head snapped around to Mari, who had stepped back and was looking around nervously. Trixie could see that Mari was splitting her attention between what was going on there and checking in on the insects she'd set up as sentries.

She frantically signed a message.

"What d'you mean, the gray-haired hostage is gone? Gone where? He's got to be ar—"

Mari looked up just in time to see the rippling effect of Xenos's cloaking shield, right behind Trixie. Before she could react, the gray-haired man—Xenos—pounced and placed one of those technological neuro-disruptive 'crowns' on Trixie's head.

"Oh, bloody he..." Trixie murmured as she fell the ground, unconscious.

Mari was on him in an instant, leading with a snap kick to the face that he blocked, followed by a spin kick that he also blocked. It was quickly evident that he was bigger, faster, and stronger than her, and clearly knew how to handle himself in a fight. He threw a roundhouse punch at her head which she ducked beneath, and she then took advantage of her position to do a leg sweep to try and knock him on his ass.

However, to her surprise, he not only jumped over it, but he leaped over her entirely. He dove into a tumbling roll from which he then sprang onto his feet, continuing to race away from her. Belatedly, Mari realized that the reason that he'd telegraphed his punch so carelessly was because he'd set her up to do her leg sweep. His intent had been to elude her in a way that he could make for that side of the room.

Straight to where his rifle still lay on the ground, where she'd thrown it.

Two simultaneous droning noises filled the room. The first was that of Xenos's energy rifle as he snatched it up from the floor and activated it. The second was the high-pitched sound of insects pouring into the room, crawling and flying, seemingly from every crack and crevice.

Mari nimbly dodged as he loosed a blast at her, a lance of energy erupting out of his rifle. And then another. His first shot was close, and his second shot even closer. Worse, dodging his second blast had caused her to fall off-balance, and she struggled to regain her footing as he again took aim.

She chanced a glance to see that Xenos was covered in insects. Normally by now her target would be writhing around or panicking, taking reckless and uncontrolled shots. But Xenos merely stood there calmly. He might have been carved out of wood.

Mari took a bad step. One bad step, that's all it took. She looked up just in time to see Xenos fire at her again.

Downstairs, Lydia and I listened apprehensively as the sounds of combat upstairs died down. Then it got very quiet.

"Trixie?" I tried. No response. "Mari?"

A couple tense minutes passed as Lydia fussed at the captured woman's bonds, clearly not wanting to injure her with a misapplication of super strength. But the longer it took, and with still no word from the girls upstairs, I started to get tense.

Then I remembered that Mari had positioned some insects around here as a way of keeping tabs on us in case our comms went down. So, even if they couldn't get a message to me for some reason, maybe I could get a message to her. I then turned to look for the housefly that she'd been keeping dutifully parked on my shoulder all this time.

It was gone.

"Oh, shit," I whispered.

I looked at the woman still tied to the chair. She'd also heard the sounds of fighting and was nearly frantic. "Get me loose! Get me loose!"

Finally, Lydia was able to loosen the woman's bonds, and she was soon on her feet. I wasn't wild about this. I wasn't sure if she was a lure or decoy, or if she had some bigger part to play in Xenos's trap, but I figured with a body swapper on the loose, the fewer people who were on the playing field, the better.

"Get out of here!" I said to the woman. "Run!"

Whatever remaining qualms she may have had about taking orders from a little girl, this time she seemed perfectly happy to take my advice.

As she ran out the exit, I could see Lydia's eyes tracking her, looking rather longingly towards the escape route. Even she could tell we were in trouble.

"We're not leaving," I told her. "We gotta go check on the others, but he may have booby-trapped the stairs. Can you fly us up to that wall up there and punch through?"

"I think so," Lydia said as she picked me up and started to hover.

Just then, a stray beam of sunshine came in through the broken window high up on the wall. It caught my eye for some reason, and I peered through the gloom to see that there was a subtle twinkling effect in the hanging dust. And it was moving closer.

"Broken window, on the floor, 20 feet towards us," I whispered into the communicator. Then I turned to Lydia. "Prodigious Girl...get ready to dodge."

"But..."

"Now, PG! NOW!"

I clung on to Lydia as she executed a sudden pinwheeling turn, and immediately as she did so, the room erupted in weapons fire. Over by the door and entering the room was Hissyfit, blasting at the spot that I'd tagged. I wasn't sure if it was a natural ability with the rifle or good old-fashioned beginner's luck, but her aim was good, and out of a salvo of shots, she managed to tag Xenos twice. His cloaking field collapsed, and his high-powered blast at Lydia and me went wide.

Unfortunately, Xenos's armor as Chimera appeared able to take the brunt of Hissyfit's shots, and he didn't seem overly phased. As a result, he seemed to largely ignore Hissyfit for the moment, instead concentrating his fire on Lydia.

Lydia shrieked in alarm as bolts of energy sailed around her, and she spun so hard while dodging that we lost our grip on each other. I went sailing out of her grasp and went tumbling to the floor. However, that proved to be lucky for me as Xenos switched his rifle to a wide-beam sweeping energy burst that Lydia wasn't able to dodge. She cried out in pain and fell to the floor, but fortunately she didn't seem to be hurt too badly. Though it occurred to me that if I'd still been in her arms and taken the brunt of that blast, I didn't think I'd have been as fortunate. Xenos wasn't messing around.

Lydia was freaking out, and I can't say I blamed her. But Hissyfit pressed her attack. Unfortunately, her unfamiliarity with the rifle meant that her aim wasn't great, so she had to move closer to get a better bead on our attacker. Xenos, for his part, had evidently upgraded his threat assessment of her, and he squeezed off an impressive blast that hit her square in the chest.

I cried out in alarm, but apparently her force field belt did its job, and the energy dissipated as soon as it made contact. I watched helplessly as the two squared off against each other.

"Nice gun," Xenos said, recognizing his former weapon.

"I like yours, too. Maybe I'll take it when we're done," Hissyfit responded. She then edged backwards and fired a new barrage of shots at him.

To my surprise, Xenos didn't return fire, but instead he dexterously dodged the fusillade of incoming energy bolts. One blast managed to hit him and another grazed his leg, but his armor seemed capable of handling most of the damage. Then, he unexpectedly stopped and stood still, seemingly daring Hissyfit to take the shot.

She didn't hesitate to pull the trigger. But nothing happened. Her gun didn't fire.

"Yeah, that model had a tendency to overheat in the heavy stun configuration," he said.

It was then that I realized that Xenos had another reason for drawing Hissyfit's fire as he did. The cacophony of all of her shots had masked the telltale high-pitched whine that was coming from his own rifle. That was the reason he hadn't been firing his own weapon—his rifle was in overload!

Hissyfit tried to evade the blast, but the explosion of directed energy that erupted from Xenos's weapon made that impossible. I dove for cover behind Lydia as I felt the intense heat from the blast, even from a distance. Fortunately, Hissyfit's energy shield seemed to protect her from the worst of the blast, but the force of the attack knocked her halfway across the room, and she appeared to be barely conscious.

Xenos then turned to look directly at Lydia.

"We gotta run! Now!" I said to her.

Lydia seemed uncertain, but she clearly wasn't keen on sticking around, either. She grabbed me, and we flew towards the hole in the windows we'd made the last time. But as we got to it, we ran straight into a nearly invisible fine wire mesh—a stunweb lattice!

Lydia and I both cried out in pain as the energy discharge from Xenos's trap hit us, but luck was with me and she took the brunt of the damage. We fell and hit the floor, and I got the wind knocked out of me...just in time to see Xenos standing there, barely a few feet away.

Lydia lifted her arm defensively, and Xenos snapped off a quick shot with his gun. At first I thought he'd missed, until I realized that he'd blasted Trixie's protective talisman off her wrist.

"Prodigious Girl! Use your power!" I cried out to Lydia. It was now or never. If she could force him into a double-swap, I'd get my body back, and we still had a chance. If not...

I could only watch, powerless to intervene as Xenos and Lydia both seized up in unison. Then, as my body stood up straight with an arrogant grin on its face, I knew beyond doubt who was in control.

Xenos, now in my body, backhanded his old body in a ruthless display of strength that sent it—sent Lydia!—sailing across the room from the impact. A blow like that would easily have killed a normal man, but between the armor and Chimera's enhanced physique, I could only pray that Lydia was okay.

"Stop it!" I shrieked.

"Or what?" Xenos asked me dispassionately. He flexed his fingers into a fist and looked at it. "Curious. You're strong, but I expected more from one of the Kindred."

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I couldn't just let him leave. I had to bluff him. Get him talking. Play for time. Something.

"What would you know about it?" I shot back.

"So, it is true," he said with a smile that sent a chill up my spine. "With the power of a Kindred, I'll make short work of the sorcerers still on my target list. In fact, your little friend upstairs is one of them. I may have to move her up to the top of the list while I'm here."

"You stay away from her!"

Xenos wasn't paying attention to me. "It's...odd. Something doesn't quite seem to fit. Something is—"

Before my eyes, I watched as he shapeshifted into Chris—my male body! He looked ridiculous like that still dressed in Prodigious Girl's costume, but it only took him a moment to appreciate the magnitude of what he'd just done.

"You're a shapeshifter," he whispered as he looked down at himself. He then shifted back into Prodigious Girl's body. "Ohh, little one. I take it all back. You have no idea what I can do with power like this. Once I get what I came for, I can truly be anyone."

He lifted off the ground, hovering there for a moment. Then in a blink he flew off at full speed through the exit.

I turned in stupefaction to look at Hissyfit, who had staggered to her feet. The two of us stared at each other in stunned disbelief as the magnitude of the situation hit us.

Xenos was gone. With my body.

And I had absolutely no idea where he'd gone.

My legs buckled beneath me and I slumped onto my knees on the cold floor. We'd lost. I reeled as my mind slipped into shock.

"Get on your feet," Hissyfit said as she staggered over to me.

I stared up at her blankly. "He's gone. He could be anywhere."

"Up!" she said impatiently. She was obviously in some degree of pain, but she reached down and hefted me up onto my feet. Yet another reminder of my diminutive size. Of my new body.

"He's gone," I repeated.

Hissyfit put her hands firmly on my shoulders. "Dammit, Chris, snap out of it! This isn't over."

I shook my head as I tried to process that statement. "Why do you think that?"

"Because we're still alive," she said as she looked me straight in the eyes. "And because this is what you would do, if this was anybody else."

I nodded a little.

She turned to look at the other end of the room. "Go check on Lydia," she said, staring at the prone figure wearing Chimera's body armor. "I'm going to go upstairs and check on the others."

Oh, my God. Lydia.

She was laying on her side and turned away from me, but at least she appeared to be breathing. She was alive. I made my way over to her, and as I got closer, I could hear her ragged breaths. At first I thought she might be hurt worse than I'd realized when I suddenly recognized her deep gravelly sobs.

I rushed over to her and managed to get that red mask off to reveal a gray-haired man in his late 50s. He was handsome and clean-shaven and had a strangely familiar look about him, but his face was contorted in absolute fear as he wept.

Not knowing what to do, I threw my little arms around Lydia, choking out a sob of my own before trying to pull it together for her sake.

"Lydia, it's okay," I said, not really believing my own words.

"It's not okay!" she cried. Her words were like a dagger in my heart. I'd failed her so completely. I had no idea what to say.

"Lydia, I—"

"This is all my fault," she sobbed. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

I looked at her in confusion. "Lydia, you didn't do anything wrong."

"Yes, I did!" she insisted. "You told me what to do! You told me to use that special power. And I tried! I really did! But I couldn't do it."

I touched her big male face gently, wiping away a tear. "Lydia, that's not fair. You did your best."

"You could have done it. You would have."

I didn't know what to say, but a moment later we were interrupted by the sight of one of Enchantrix's teleportals opening up. That was a sight I'd never been so happy to see. Out of it emerged Trixie, Hissyfit, and Bhramari. Trixie seemed okay but pissed off, and Bhramari looked like she was still unsteady and shaking something off as she leaned on Hissyfit for support.

Trixie looked like she was about to make some snarky comment, but then stopped as she looked at me and Lydia, realizing how dire the situation had become.

"The two guys upstairs are dead," Trixie informed me. "That security guard hostage, and the guy who Xenos hired to wear his costume."

"Covering his tracks," Hissyfit said.

Mari signed a message over to Trixie, who shook her head.

"I dunno," she answered. "He should have killed us. It would have made sense. He could have killed us and then taken off in Peej's body and taken the kid as a hostage," she said, casting a glance over at Lydia in Chimera's body.

"Why would he do that?" Hissyfit asked.

"Because then he gets everything he wants. He gets Peej's body as well as Chimera's, which is the one he's been living in, somewhere. He'd get to crawl back under whatever rock he's been hiding under all these years."

"Then why didn't he?"

"Because he's not going back to his old life," I interjected. "Now that he's got my body, he's planning on keeping it. He told me as much." I practically choked on the words as I said them.

We all fell quiet.

"No, he didn't," Hissyfit said. "Well, I mean, he did say that, but that's not all he said. He said something about 'once I get what I came for.'"

Mari signed a message, and Trixie nodded.

"Good point. He needed—he needs—Peej's body for something."

"Then after that, he's in the wind," I said.

"Right," Hissyfit agreed. "Still, it means we've got a chance. We just have to figure out what he's after."

"But I have no idea," I said. "I've been racking my brain, but I can't think of anything. He said something about hunting down sorcerers, but I don't know how that helps. He also said something about me being a 'Kindred,' but I don't know what that is. Do any of you know?"

They fell quiet again, but Hissyfit was quick to speak up. "Okay. That's a lead. Maybe he thinks you're part of a secret society, or something. We figure out what that means, and—"

"It's a red herring," Trixie interjected. "He's trying to distract us. 'Once I get what I came for,' remember? He wasn't after Peej for something that she is, he was after her for something she could get."

Hissyfit looked down at her rifle. "Like something of Prodigy's?" she suggested. "He's got all sorts of junk in that garage of his."

"Good idea. How about it?" Trixie asked me.

I thought it over. "Maybe? It makes sense. I don't get why he'd need my body, though. It's not like I have the location of the garage tattooed on my arm."

Hissyfit glanced over at Trixie and winced a little. "Actually, I think maybe you do."

I followed her line of vision to Trixie's wrist. To her iComm.

"My iComm," I realized. "If he could somehow unlock that, he could probably trace back the location."

Mari signed a message. This time I was able to follow what she was saying.

"You're right, it's not just a biometric lock, he'd also need the access code. That means he's probably going to need someone to break... the... encryption..." I trailed off as my eyes fell on Lydia, who had been quietly standing there all this time. "Holy shit."

"What?" Hissyfit asked.

"I never understood why he swapped with Lydia that first time. If all he wanted was my body, he didn't need her. He could have just ambushed me and swapped with me and left her out of it. But he made a big deal out of me calling in emergency personnel right away." I looked up at all of them. "He wanted to see me enter my access code. He didn't try to swap with me until after I tried to use my iComm."

"We gotta get to Prodigy's garage," Hissyfit said. "Fast. He's got a big head start."

We all turned to Trixie. She was the only one of us with movement powers that could traverse that distance quickly.

She regarded us hesitantly. "That's on the other side of the city. The more people I take, the shorter my teleport jumps become. I've never taken this many people that far. If it was maybe just one or two—"

"No. It's gotta be all of us," I told her. "He'll be even harder to take down now, now that he's in my body. Plus, it's a good bet that whatever he's after is gonna make our job more difficult. It's gotta be all of us," I repeated.

Trixie took a deep breath. "Right, stay close to me. This might get a little rough."

Xenos had lived long enough to appreciate the dangers of overconfidence, and he reminded himself that the day was not yet won. However, things were going exactly according to plan. With the girl's iComm code, he was able to quickly find her mentor's base of operations. Then, even despite Prodigy's cluttered disorganization, he was able to find the item he'd been looking for with little effort.

Now, Xenos flew back to his mansion—or rather, Beaumont's mansion, he reminded himself, now that he'd moved on to a new mount. It was daytime, but he didn't even bother trying to hide his approach. In fact, if someone were to witness Prodigious Girl entering the building, it could even be advantageous.

"Prodigious Girl," he sniffed as he peered disdainfully down at his new body. He'd certainly had worse mounts in the past, but it was still...undignified.

But it didn't have to be.

Xenos reminded himself that he was on the clock. He had the item in hand, but he had some work to do here before he could leave for his appointment. With time for one small detour along the way.

However, he decided that he could indulge his curiosity a little.

The girl's shapeshifting power wasn't entirely what he'd hoped, but it would more than suffice. He'd hoped for something more instantaneous, but it seemed that changing his base forms took quite a bit of time and concentration. By way of a test, he fixed his attention on his girlish fingernails in their purple color, and over the span of a few minutes, they faded to a more natural color. At that rate, he calculated that larger changes like impersonating another individual could take over an hour.

Nevertheless, he was patient. His skill would improve with time, and soon he would have all the time in the world. Very shortly, he would have all of the tools he needed to impersonate anyone he wished in an impenetrable disguise. His enemies would never see him coming.

He entered his study and activated the "warp closet" entrance to his hidden chambers. The extradimensional storage space had proved useful for Xenos over the years. It wasn't overly large—hardly the size of a studio apartment—but it had proved to be an excellent place to store his acquisitions that he'd gathered over his many long years. Best of all, with the proper infrastructure in place, it could be opened and accessed from almost anywhere. He could set up a new life somewhere else and still keep easy access to this little vault of treasures.

Xenos moved a few items from Beaumont's house into the warp space storage to take with him. It wasn't much. He knew how to travel light, and he wasn't sentimental. He'd used Beaumont's body as a mount for over two decades, and it, much like his entire life, was little more than an empty shell. Xenos, however, was fixated on the future.

He retrieved an iComm from the desk drawer and used it to close his "warp closet" storage with a soft vorp sound. He tossed his new mount's long dark hair over his shoulder and a small smile came to his lips.

"Computer, enable Prodigal Son protocol," he said, smirking at the irony of the name.

"Confirmed," the computer responded, and the iComm unit beeped a recognition code.

"Computer, activate Samaritan protocol. Encode one minute. Mark."

"Confirmed. Self-destruct in 60 seconds."

Xenos paused for a moment to look around the study at the various pieces of artwork he'd collected over the years. Beaumont had been an effective mount, but it was time to move on.

He retrieved the item that he'd collected from Prodigy's garage and flew out the window. Behind him, a series of explosions sounded as the mansion was engulfed in a blazing inferno.

Xenos didn't look back.