Blue Line (Story)

If you don't know the hero side Crey high level arc...

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

-Ahem!-

So! With the advent of the Mission Architect, I've been reviewing the stuff I have written and done about my own characters, to see if there is anything salvageable for creating missions.

That aside, going through the stuff I realized much of the things follow the in-game story arcs and canon (unsurprisingly), but trying to flavour it up: slight modifications and parts about my own characters. What follows is my attempt to mix the backstory of my main - Aliana Blue, unsurprisingly - and the story arc that pits her against her arch-nemesis.

A couple of friends have read it (hi Stargazer, Penn! ), and didn't immediately fall of their chair laughing, so to find out if they were just being nice or not, here is the whole thing, let's see if anyone manages to finish it without falling asleep Be gentle, it's my first time posting anything longer than a one page joke!

(If I can figure out how many splits I have to make, that is).

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0. Prologue.

Dawn had just come, and everything was quiet inside the Aurora women's prison. It would still be one hour until the wake up call, but inside cell block C Aliana was sitting on her bed, waiting and thinking. Three years had passed, today would be her last day, and yet no one but her could say why exactly she had been locked up. She didn't like to talk about it, and everyone soon learned not to ask.

It was rather curious how a small, 5'4" woman could command such respect. She was rather quiet and reserved, yet she was very peppery if aroused. After the first few weeks of solitary confinement, earned at the expense of the self-proclaimed toughest of the tough, the rest of the women kept a respectful distance from her. She was short, slender but fit, her muscular frame visibly solid. Blue eyes, a small gentle nose and thin lips on an oval face, framed by black smooth hair cut to under her ear's length.

On the table was a small box with the few belongings she had gotten inside the prison's limits. A diary. A rather beaten picture of two youngsters, a small girl much like herself and a cheery boy a head taller than the girl, with the same green eyes and blue-shaded black hair. Three books, all on biochemistry and molecular biology. A tin box with childish, colourful designs, with pens and pencils.

That was all she had, and all she wanted. Whatever was in her possession before her imprisonment, she didn't much care.

The women began stirring, the muffled noises of awakenings started to fill the air. A few minutes later it was wake up time, and after the call it was like she had been dropped in the middle of a rush hour bus stop. It was time. The distinct steps of the officer Brunelli stopped in front of her cell.

"All right honey, it's your big day. Hurry before we change our mind." She said. The metallic clang of her stick against the bars reinforced the command.

Aliana looked at her for a heartbeat, sitting with her feet on the bed and her knees against her chest, arms wrapped around them. It was unlikely that Brunelli could see her eyes from her position, with the cell in darkness. When Brunelli started showing signs of impatience, she nimbly jumped down the berth and grabbed her box. The cell door was opening with a loud buzzing sound.

Brunelli stopped her with the stick, put the end under Aliana's chin and made her look up. She was an impressive six-foot figure, and knew how to give her face a predatory look to make almost anyone uneasy.

Aliana gave her a half grin as only answer.

"Okay, move it." A push of the stick on her back, and they were on their way out.

"Stay cool girl." "Don't get into trouble." "Don't want to see you in here again."

As they passed other cells, some of the women gave her a last departing word, a slap on the shoulder. Few had really anything against her.

Outside the morning was radiant and blue, not a single cloud in the sky. With an old black sports bag on her shoulder, some clothes and her few belongings inside, and some pocket change, she got in the prison's line bus. Hers was the last stop, where her new life and new plans began. Where she hoped to find some peace for her ghosts. Paragon City.

1. News report.

*Bzzt*

"And at this time we can verify that a cell of rikti has indeed been seen in Founder's Falls, although we have no more information at present." The commentator talked in an almost droning voice. Rikti attacks were not something very rare, but because they had a knack for knocking transmission equipment out as soon as they made any move in the open, it was rather difficult to get information about them. The only way to know how an encounter with rikti went was to ask the police or heroes involved, or be a witness.

Being a witness of a battle against those aliens, which drove earthlings to the brink of extinction, against any of the flaming, buzzing or otherwise exploding heroes that populate Paragon City, though, is no small feat. The usual tales went along the lines of "they opened fire, I ran like hell."

Who can blame them.

"Freedom Corps, we work to make you safe. This message was brought to you by Paragon City Council."

How can they put adverts in the middle of a Rikti crisis? Easy, the extraordinary can become ordinary by pure repetition. There were ten such attacks only last month, and even more the month before.

And we still have no clue what the Rikti really are after. Invasion for the sake of it?

It's the waiting. The mind cannot sit still while you wait for important news. Just what the heck is going on?

Founder's Falls was possibly the most posh part of town. Built like a small Venice, the streets crossed with numerous channels that were basically part of the open sea. The only access was either through the sea, or the highway that connected the mainland to it via Talos Island. A lofty retreat, at least it was until the Rikti came. For some reason, it was one of their favourite areas. Property value had decreased sharply in there after the war.

"We've got contact! Here's the report, going live in 20 seconds."

And now the rush! Fast reading is, of course, a must in these cases. No wounded, six rikti dead, none by the injuries sustained but by suicide as usual, ten drones reduced to scrap metal. Damage to two buildings, barely enough time since they left the canal before the Ascendant got the drop on them. Damn! The interview with him is going to be annoying. But people love him, despite being so over the top.

"In five, four..." Three, two and one were silently mouthed, and then he was on the air.

"Bringing you an update on the rikti situation, our first reports indicate that at least six rikti were neutralized, together with ten of their dangerous drones. We are already afoot at the confrontation site, and connecting live with our special correspondent, Sandy Walkers. Sandy." With that, his part was ended and all he had to do was not to look too bored while the interviews happened. Damn the producer and his liking for split images on the screen.

"Thanks Ryan. We're on Founder's Falls, as you can see, at the highway, near the tunnel to Talos Island. As you said, the attack was made by six rikti troopers with a support of drones of at least ten units." The camera wavered to show the background where the remains of the fight could be seen, six blankets on the ground indicated where the rikti had fallen, and the drones were being piled up as if they were nothing but rubbish.

"The attack was first intercepted by Yellow Spark, a well known electric powered hero, and received the quick reinforcement of the Ascendant, who was close to the area, filming a new advert for a yet undisclosed product. Yellow Spark isn't available, as he sustained some injuries and was taken to the Harvey Medical Center, but we have Ascendant here with us."

Yellow and blue costume, neatly combed blonde hair, perfect smile, the Ascendant entered the scene with a galling ease.

"Please Mr. Ascendant, tell us what happened here."

"Not much to tell really, Sandy. As a defender of pe.."

*Bzzt*

"..ave with us the FBSA agent Janet Kellum, who I hope will give us an update on what has happened here. Miss Kellum."

"We don't know much yet, the attack was quickly intercepted by some of the Paragon City heroes and as usual we couldn't get any information off the rikti troopers. We hope we will be able to extract some infor..." She appeared distracted for a second, watching a motorbike passing and stopping some twenty meters away from them. "Some information from the drones."

"Well thank you miss Kellum." The reporter said as Kellum nodded to her and walked away, towards that biker, who had dismounted and was taking her helmet off. "That's all we know from the site for now, we will continue giving you updates as we receive them."

2. The case.

"Hello Ali." Kellum said to the woman on the bike as she took her helmet off. Her smooth hair seemed to shine in a dark blue hue under the summer sun as it fell flat on her head.

"Hi Janet. I got your message..." She looked around. "Had any problems here?"

"Nothing serious, had some rikti come out we still don't know what for, I'd say testing the grounds but who can tell. Yellow Spark and Ascendant there stopped them." Both women turned to look at the Ascendant, who was making quite a show in front of the camera. They both smiled.

"He can never get enough of that, can he?"

"Well, as he says, he has to make a living too."

"Oh don't get me wrong, he's one of the best heroes we have in this city."

"I know, I know." Kellum started rummaging through her briefcase. "Ah here, I wanted to ask you a favour Ali."

"What, a favour?" Her tone showed that she was a bit surprised at this entry. They both were way past the favour asking stage.

Madeleine Casey had introduced them almost two months ago. Crey being one of the most powerful multinational companies in the world, and with their base located in Paragon City, it was hardly surprising that it was under heavy scrutiny by all sorts of government agencies. They became good friends soon, and went through all kinds of trouble together.

Janet Kellum was one of the few people with whom Aliana had talked about her brother. She suspected that she knew about the later incident with Crey that sent her to jail, but if she did, she never mentioned it.

"Yes, you see, this has nothing to do with Crey or the Countess at all. I've got a file on a missing person and I was hoping you could help me find her."

"Oh interesting. But shouldn't the police handle this first? I mean we're after Crey and..."

"I'm keeping my eyes open and my contacts have nothing new to say. After the last one, the Countess is being careful, so we have to wait. Knowing that I couldn't convince you to just go and relax a few days somewhere, I thought that a little detective work will keep your mind busy."

Aliana gave her a dubious look.

"I guess you're right." She sighed, and grabbed the folder that Kellum was handing her. "Who am I looking for?"

"Her name was Julianne, her mother came to me saying that she has almost given up hope, she has been trying to find her for the last ten years and hasn't found anything."

Aliana looked up with mild surprise, and then browsed through the folder.

"As you can see, she ended up in jail after she had a run-up with a crooked politician. According to her mother, she had trouble afterwards getting any of her projects started due to having this on her past."

Aliana kept looking through the file, saw the incident remarked. Yet, There was no picture, but some information about the girl's movements, friends; she had been to England and had worked with heroes too. Good contacts. There would be no lack of people with information... but ten years? And nothing found in those ten years? That was suspicious, and she said as much.

"I agree. If nothing else, that should be enough to expect an interesting case."

"Any suggestions about where to start?"

"Well, I'd suggest going to the city council Archive and getting some information on her there. You know, where she worked, possible contacts. The file is rather complete, but we may need more info. Then I'd suggest looking at her last known address. If it isn't the one in the file, you can find out in the archives. At this point the best thing we could find is a picture, the only one the mother could give me was of when she was twelve, not very useful really."

Aliana looked up at Kellum, a questioning stare.

"I know Ali, but you've waited long enough, you can wait a bit more. We really can't do much more than wait. We'll catch the Countess, but for now, Julianne, and keep your mind off Crey." She smiled saying this, like if she was chiding a stubborn child. They were good friends enough for that kind of jab.

"All right, all right." Aliana said, and put the folder in a bag on her bike. "I'll let you know what I find. If I had known I'd be playing bookworm today, I'd have worn something different!"

And with that, she put her helmet on, jumped on her bike, and was gone.

3. Atlas Park.

Atlas Park was always the busiest place in town. You could count the newly arrived heroes by the dozen there, the freedom corps liaisons trying to help them get started, and Miss Liberty in the centre of it all, always with good advice and a kind word ready at her lips. If nothing else were heroic in this city, her patience would still be.

The City Hall was located in the enormous central plaza, elevated some twenty feet over the streets, rectangular in shape 600 by 400 meters on the sides, and with the massive statue of Atlas erected in the centre. Atlas, the hero that single handed contained the Axis attack on Paragon City on December 7th, 1941, the same day the Japanese fleet stormed Pearl Harbour. He paid for it with his own life, but saved countless others by deflecting that attack until the Freedom Phalanx arrived as reinforcement.

The City Hall itself doubled as the centre for all hero operations. All paperwork came through here, and they even had a special operative to help the new heroes get started, working together with the Freedom Corps, the group of heroes started by Statesman as an answer to the Hero-for-profit Hero Corps.

She parked her bike at the south part of the plaza, close to one of the police drones. She didn't really trust the things; they were, after all, just dumb automatons with a general programming to "stop criminals", but she trusted the gangs that prowled the city even less. Atlas Park, even with all the hero activity about, was never short of them, and she didn't particularly care to have the bike jacked. With her folder in her left hand, she went up the steps towards the plaza.

She smiled as she remembered the first time she came here; it was quite a different experience.

The bus from the prison had dislodged her on the other side of the plaza. It was late in the afternoon, and the summer sun had started to dip in the horizon. There wasn't much activity around, but she didn't care to wait for a busier time to fix her papers. She ended up getting in the building through one of the doors at the back, not very difficult considering that they were almost as busy as the main one, with the caveat that the "trench coat and hat" vs. "bright costume" ratio was disproportionately high. Some people never grow up of their little spy game she guessed, then she mentally chided herself for such an attitude: she would be wearing a costume soon enough, as soon as she could make one that is.

The front desk clerk didn't even blink when she presented herself and told him she wanted to register. With a look of boredom that said he'd rather have finished and gone home, he sent her to one of the small offices for registration. Aliana couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy; she didn't want many questions asked about why exactly she was doing community service as a registered hero in Paragon City.

The woman behind the desk was reading through her papers carefully, now and then she raised her eyes and looked at her with an unreadable expression. She was slender, tall, with almond eyes and a sharp nose, blonde hair falling to her shoulders. The face was as inexpressive as if it had belonged to a wax museum. She took a sheet of paper from a cabinet under the desk, grabbed a pen, and without more preambles started asking questions.

"Name?"

"Uh... Aliana Blue." She was startled by both the severity of the tone and the question itself. Wasn't that on the papers she gave her?

The woman looked up at her, with something resembling disdain on her face. Aliana would have had her keep the waxen face if she could have chosen.

"No, your hero name. The one to give the press if anything happens."

That "anything" sounded more ominous than heroic.

"I... Em... Aliana Blue will do."

The woman sighed heavily and scribbled on the sheet.

"Powers?"

"Strength and superior fitness..." The woman looked at her. "And... martial arts." Aliana bit her tongue; she had as much finesse fighting as could be expected from a Palaeolithic axe, but that woman was driving her crazy. She merely scribbled on the paper.

"Natural origin for your powers I assume."

Aliana nodded with a faint "yes" and a bit unsure of what that was.

Then came the oath and talking with her assigned officer, who'd try and give her some assignment fit to her powers. It came to her that she wasn't sure how anyone could know what was fit for her 'powers', and then she realized that they'd likely seen quite enough people parading here in bright costumes to know at a glance what most were capable of. She looked down at herself, plain white T-shirt, jeans, sneakers... not a very heroic look really.

First thing she did was to take the voucher she had gotten, together with her ID and mediport transreceiver, and went to get a costume.

The Mediport network was one of the best things of being a hero in Paragon City. A small transreceiver worn close to the body monitored the vitals of the hero, and in case of serious injury, he was teleported to a hospital, where a regenerator healed the wounds instantly. It was very reliable but not fool proof, and the regenerators, though very powerful healing devices derived from rikti technology, had trouble repairing some of the most delicate tissues. Nevertheless, it was an excellent insurance against surprises of the nastier kind.

"Good for a 50% discount in three pieces of new hero costume." Read the voucher.

It was a long ride, the sun had gone and the bright lights of the city made it look like a place full of life. It looked better at night than it did during the day, she thought.

The shop was rather empty at the time, and looked like it would be closing soon. Aliana went to the man behind the counter and showed him the voucher. A broad smile crossed his face and he looked down benignly at her.

"Welcome to Paragon, my dear lady."

"Thank you." Aliana smiled. The kindness of the man radiated sincerity.

"Well, coming to the city without a costume, eh? That's less rare that you may think, my lady. Serge always has something ready for the new people!"

She walked her to a side of the store where some clothes were piled up, neatly folded: single colour overalls, tops, trousers and skirts. Aliana felt the material, it was rather soft and she wondered a bit about how useful that'd be when fighting armed thugs, and worse.

"I assure you it's very strong material." He said, no doubt recognizing the look on her face from experience.

"Feels very soft."

"The base is cotton, but the fibres have been treated with an insulating resin and weaved with stronger polymeric ones. Resists fire, ice, waterproof and gives even some electrical insulation. It has also very good tensile resistance."

Aliana smiled as she passed a glance over the pieces. Didn't seem like much, but it was better than what she was wearing now.

"Don't worry too much about the costume for now, most heroes just choose the base colours of the costume they'll wear later on, just to have some brand recognition."

As she glanced around, her eyes fell on a pair of boots on the display. She looked at them, got closer, and checked them out. They seemed like strong combat boots, with a flared fold that covered them like a large bell almost to the ankle. Blue, with white reflections. She knew those boots would be hers.

"Oh my. These are very special boots. They are Kevlar-coated, with a mixture of gore-tex and an organic derivate of byssal threads for reinforcement. I'm afraid they're quite expensive and I can't really make you a discount on them." Aliana looked at the price tag, did some mental calculations... and resigned herself to eat ramen until she could get a paying job, and that soon. But she knew those boots were made for her. They were even the right size.

Serge gave her a mask free of charge with the boots, conscious that she looked like she had spent almost her last cent on those shoes, but not daring to say anything and with a sympathetic smile on his face. He had seen how she had looked at those boots, and what is money compared to the excitement he saw in her eyes.

The rest of her costume... she had made another decision of what it would be. She should have thrown those clothes away, she thought. But now she had decided. A bit of blue dye and perhaps some white lines. They had to combine with the boots after all. She grinned, unsure between the painful memories these clothes had brought, and her vanity of matching colours with her brand
new boots.

"Tomorrow I'll get my first assignment. It'll be all right."

She shook her head as she reached the top of the stairs, exchanged a greeting with Miss Liberty, and went to the Council archives, a small building to the east of the main City Hall. It seemed like an eternity had passed, but she had just finished her community service period less than two months ago. So much had happened in that time.

---

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It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...

The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013

4. Bookworm.

The Archive building was surprisingly empty. In a city like this, with heroes growing like mushrooms and villains like underbrush, information of all kinds was always needed. It was not unusual to see a bright costumed hero going around the place, but the majority of the visitors were commonplace people, the "contacts" as the heroes liked calling them, who didn't get involved directly in struggles but tried to help as they could.

But today, not a soul could be seen. Aliana approached the unavoidable man behind the counter (you could make a line across the Atlantic with all the counter-bound people in this city), wondering what was up.

"Morning. Not very busy today, are we?"

The man was dressed in a smart black suit, black tie, perfect cut and fit.

"No ma'am. We've closed the archival information today for inventory, so I'm afraid you won't be able to look for anything." The perfect smile on his face reeked of falsehood.

"Oh. Going to be at it for long?"

"Hard to say, this place is a mess; so many people come through here every day..." He shook his head in mock dismay. "If they had done this sort of work more often, we wouldn't have had to close today."

"Figures. And I was so looking forward to spend the day sitting uncomfortably in front of a pile of paper."

The man simply looked at her, the smile still on his face. Aliana looked around a bit, there was something nagging at her unconscious but she couldn't really see anything wrong with the place.

"Oh well, I guess I'll be back tomorrow. Thanks."

"Goodbye ma'am. Good luck in your investigation."

She was in a thoughtful mood all the way to her bike, and drove rather slowly, thinking. She was almost at the junction to the highway towards Steel Canyon when she abruptly turned around and rode towards the Archive again.

"Damn my suspicious mind!" she thought as she parked behind the building, then proceeded to break in carefully through one of the back windows.

She was very good at sneaking. She shorted the cables on the window so that they wouldn't report a break in, and as silently as possible she went up the service stairs. There were only seven floors, so she could check the building in little time. In the first floor she drew a blank, the place was rather messy with papers and folders thrown all over the place, less than half resting on the shelves. Same for the rest, but finally on the fifth floor she heard noises, and knew she had hit gold.

In the wide room there were half a dozen men, two of them armed with SMGs, the rest likely with handguns in holsters under their perfect suits. In a corner there was a woman Aliana recognized, one of the clerks working in the Archive that she had seen before. It was all clear as water now.

Without hesitation, Aliana walked in the room and slammed the door behind her. She saw there was a key in the lock, so she turned it, showed it to the astonished men who had stopped rummaging through the folders, and put it in her pocket. A feral grin came to her face.

After the initial astonishment, in which they looked at her as petrified statues, the men knew what was in store, and turned their guns towards her. As she suspected, all suited goons produced handguns in the blink of an eye, as if by magic. Aliana tensed her muscles and rushed forward.

5. Mystery.

Her most immediate worry was to down the two with submachine guns, the ones that looked like common guards. She feinted a crouch and ran to the right, and noticed that the two were firing at her in a wide pattern with slightly separated aims. Good training there, she thought. They're trying to cover ground and don't interfere with each other. She felt the bullet impacts, on her abdomen and her left leg, her tensed muscles absorbing the kinetic energy with only the mildest pain. She'd need some rest and a good massage afterwards.

She reached the right guard and punched him without a very strong chi focus. It was enough to disorient him, and a quick one-two set him on his back. The second guard got ready to open fire on her again, now that his partner was out of the way. Behind him, she could see one of the suited agents moving towards the hostage.

With a sudden surge she jumped towards the remaining guard and sent him flying back with a powerful thrust on his stomach. She focused as much chi on that hit as possible, and sure enough, he flew far and landed on that agent she was worried about. The hit hurt even her; it always did when she went too far. She didn't stop and lurched towards the agent before he could recover, ducked below his gun, and raising it with her left hand she sent an uppercut with his right that settled that one.

A sharp pang on her side reminded her of the remaining agents. A bullet was shot with exquisite precision when she exposed her side on the uppercut, hitting the rib where little muscle could protect it. She felt it crack, not completely of course.

She tensed her right arm muscles even more, and protecting her face with it (mostly because she didn't like bruises on it), she went towards them. With her muscles at maximum tension, she felt several bullets ricochet away, one of them *chack!* hit someone. She didn't stop to check, she hit the agent she had reached nearest with both hands in an up-down hit that sent him face down to the floor, and whirled to try and catch the second with the back of her hand. He had ducked and took the chance to shoot at her while she was open guarded.

The bullet barely did any damage, landing on her abdominal muscles. There was not much surprise on him though, and took two more bullets off the clip before jumping back, trying to gain ground. But Aliana had grabbed the pistol cannon, and with a shout of effort, she had crushed it under her firm grip. Her punch hit him on the stomach and sent him bent to the ground.

The last agent didn't stir. He was bleeding profusely from a wound on his chest. A lung, most likely. Didn't look good for him. On his right hand was a small object, and recognition sent her flying towards the hostage as it fell out of the man's hand.

A remote control trigger.

She ungagged her but didn't try to remove the rope binding her yet.

"Thank goodness! What were they..?" The hostage blurted as soon as the gag was out.

"No time! They've set a bomb, we have to get out of here, now!"

The building trembled under their feet for an instant, with the dull report of an explosion below. Two seconds later, another identical one followed, only closer. They were coming from the ground floor.

"Hang on to me!" Aliana shouted, as she grabbed the woman and ran towards the window. Only then she registered that she wasn't going to hang to anyone until her hands were freed.

"This is a fifth floor!"

"No other way!" Was the last thing Aliana shouted as she jumped through the glass, back first to protect the woman from glass cuts.

As they soared through the air and through the thick smoke that was rising from the floors below, she calculated how to land on the building in front. She better cushion the hit on the wall for that woman, she thought.

The impact was less clean than she had expected, hitting the rail of an emergency fire ladder with her hip, and had to grab with one arm desperately to it to avoid falling, holding the woman with her left arm tightly. She dangled on her arm for a second or two, slid down until she could swing on it, and with a push she jumped on the platform of the stairs below them. On the other side of the street, the last explosion was heard and all seven floors of the Archive building were burning, with the six people she had fought inside. She didn't know if the fake clerk would have been caught too.

They walked down to the street slowly, taking the moment to catch their breath. Several ice-based heroes were already on the scene, and the sound of a fire brigade rushing towards the building could be heard not far behind them.

"Are you all right? What's your name?" Aliana asked, looking at her to find any sign of injury. Little bruises, but nothing major.

"Yes, thank you. I'm Sarah. Sarah Peterson."

"Who were those people? Do you know?"

"I... no, I don't know. I was at my desk when they came; I hadn't even opened the door yet. They tied me and started asking questions."

"What did they want?"

"They were looking for some girl. Some Julianne Thompson or something. They wanted everything we had on her."

Aliana showed her surprise on her face. Treachery? It wasn't like Kellum, but she can be set up just like anyone else. Or did someone find out she was looking for this girl? Coincidence? Not very likely.

"Did you give them anything?"

"No. I would, but I couldn't. They didn't let me use the terminal in case I did something 'wrong'. So they dragged me along and started searching."

"Why would they search if they just wanted to torch the building?"

"I don't know." There were tears in her voice now, after the rush had passed and the facts started to settle in her. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

Aliana hugged the young woman and tried to calm her down. She grabbed her cell phone and called the hero-emergency line.

"Emergency line."

"Hello, Aliana Blue speaking, code H200400115. There has been a series of explosions at the Archive building in Atlas Park, provoked. Six hostiles were trapped in the building for sure, a seventh was present but it's unknown where he is. I would advise to alert the central Archive for security."

"Understood. The fire was reported already, and we've dispatched units to extinguish it. I'll forward this to the central Archive."

Aliana had little doubt that the central Archive would be attacked too. This one contained merely copies of all the authentic documents, which were more safely stored in a higher security facility outside of town.

Why rummage through the building if they wanted to destroy it? The destruction could have been an emergency plan. True. She wasn't sure that those six wanted to commit suicide, so the activation may have been an accident; the guy had the remote in his hand and pressed it when the bullet hit him.

Perhaps they did want to destroy the building, but wanted to find out some information before, to confirm if certain information existed, or not to let anyone else access it. They would have to go to the Central Archive to make sure of it.

The Central Archive was full of useful information, so perhaps they wouldn't want to destroy the totality of it, just whatever they wanted to hide.

While she was musing, Sarah looked up at her and placed something in her hand. It was a small USB memory stick. Aliana gave her a questioning look.

"I got this without them noticing. It's the digital copy of some of the information they were searching." She smiled then. "Who'd have thought that learning to type with my hands on my back would sometime become useful."

They both laughed at this. Apparently that little trick had gotten her a few free drinks during her college days.

6. Crey.

When the authorities arrived, after giving her statement, Aliana jumped on her bike and rushed towards the supposed apartment of the missing girl, Julianne. She wasn't sure there would be anything there, but if there was, there was a good chance of finding more people trashing it. The place was in the industrial part of the city popularly named "Crey's Folly".

Formerly it was the industrial section of the city. During the 70s, it was cleaned and rebuilt so that, what used to be the usual nasty industrial area that unavoidably became attached to a blooming city, became the favourite example for the conservation activists of the times of how industry, progress
and nature could live in harmony. The area slowly lost its stigma, and living and working in it stopped being something to be ashamed of. Today, though, it was a rather unpleasant area, closed and with restricted access; trashed during the rikti war and abandoned since, it constantly receives visits from rikti, Crey forces, and even the strange Devouring Earth creatures trying to strip it bare. The destruction of all the chemical plans and industries in the area, plus whatever the Rikti were trying to accomplish there, made it so that the former industrial black pit looked like a blessed garden in comparison.

Luckily, her security level was high enough to grant her entry without many questions asked. The area was eerily quiet, with the usual foul-smelling mist cutting any view further than a couple of hundred meters away. She found the apartment building in a few more minutes, and walked up the stairs carefully. She had parked the bike at the back of the building, well hidden from indiscrete eyes.

She listened attentively, but heard nothing. Tried the door and found it locked.

"Well," she thought, "seems like nobody's home. Either that or they've gone away already."

She had the door open in about 20 seconds and the lock pick back in her pocket. She took the precaution of locking the door behind her, just in case. The place was totally empty, some sparse and spartan furniture, and nothing else. There wasn't even much dust around, something that made her immediately suspicious.

"Am I too late?" She asked herself as she examined the place. No, there was dust enough, but the place had been emptied more recently than the ten years since the supposed disappearance. There didn't seem to be much left for her.

Nevertheless she examined everything as minutely as possible. Nothing of importance in the closets or the desk. The drawers were empty. She looked under them and behind them, nothing. She examined the bed, all the cupboards. Nothing. The place was pretty clean.

She went back to the desk to sit down and think, looking around her. She played with the drawers for a bit, absently, thinking where would she hide something if this apartment were hers. Slowly, the sound of the drawers came to her. There was something fishy about them.

She opened the left one, closed it with a slam. Did the same for the right one. They sounded different. The right one seemed to hit something hollow. She touched under it, above. The bottom seemed to be partly hollow, it only sounded so if she tapped it on the sides, the centre was solid.

Solid? Carefully she pushed and pulled at the bottom plank from the top and the bottom. Finally, she managed to make the top one slide _sideways_, a position where it wouldn't slide unless the drawer was out of its place in the desk.

In this false bottom, she found a book, thin but big, A4 size. She opened it, and saw it was the diary of Julianne. Bingo! Perhaps it wouldn't be much, but it was a start. She was placing the drawer back in its place when she heard the sound of the door lock.

So they had come.

She produced a small microphone from a pocket in one of her bandoliers and, putting an adhesive on top to make it look like wall plaster, she placed it next to the window and went out through it. She closed it behind her and hanged from the windowsill, holding to the sides with her fingers hidden from view and her legs flat against the wall. It took quite a firm grip to be in that position, but she didn't mind. The receptor in her ear told her some people had entered, she counted three different footsteps. She hoped they wouldn't talk too loud, it's not like she could free a hand to lower the volume of the ear receptor.

"What are we doing here?" A shrill voice whispered. Aliana mentally labelled him "wimpy."

"You heard the orders, clean the place of anything that may be a clue." A deeper voice, full of command. "The boss" she thought.

"We've been through this place three times before." Wimpy.

"Then you better open your eyes, we're not leaving until we find something." Boss.

The third one was totally silent now. Where was him?

"What are you doing?" Wimpy.

"Checking this window... seems like it's not closed."

The voice was a whisper, but came out overly loud to Aliana's ear. The man was right next to the microphone, and seemed to be checking the window. Her heart was bumping, she didn't fear for herself if she was discovered, but she preferred if the men thought they were alone, it always makes investigations easier when no one knows you're there.

"It's open?" The boss.

"It's down, but it isn't latched."

Aliana heard the angry stride of the man, and soon afterwards a loud snap next to the microphone.

"Well, that's why it wasn't latched. This whole place is falling apart." Boss again.

"I guess so..."

"Found anything?" The boss' voice rumbled in her ear. The patience of these men was wearing thin; they were no longer speaking in whispers.

"I've cleaned the bathroom, including the bathtub, to remove prints. Seemed like I could see some marked in the dust." Wimpy.

"Well, that's something." The third.

Aliana could hear an exasperated sigh from the boss, and some mumbling. More steps. Finally, a loud crash.

"Screw this. You found some prints, right? Well, that's bloody good enough, let's get out of this hole."

And with that they were gone. Aliana caught a glance of the men as they left towards a vehicle parked nearby, and recognized the logo on the back of one of the jackets. She felt her pulse throbbing when she did.

Crey.

7. Friends.

Evening found Aliana and Kellum sitting in front of a computer in Kellum's apartment. They were browsing through the files given to them by Sarah, of Archives, and trying to find suitable references in the diary.

"Night Fox, why does that name sound familiar?" Aliana said. Kellum looked at her.

"Well, he was pretty famous some years ago, retired about two months before you came to the city."

"And according to the diary, the girl spoke with him very often. I wonder what that plan of hers was? It's only mentioned at the end of the diary..."

"Yes, one would expect a diary to be the place where this kind of secret would be explained, wouldn't it?" There was an amused note in Kellum's voice.

"Yeah, yeah, I know, it's never actually that easy."

"We should probably talk with the Night Fox. I've got the location of his cave somewhere in my files. Yes," she added when Aliana looked at her, "he's very much the typical brooding hero kind of guy, he still lives in his Fox-cave."

"What about the Crey guys in the apartment?" Aliana said after a moment of reflection.

"Not much you can prove with that really." She smiled softly at her companion. "Patience, let's follow the thread and see where it leads. We may suspect that Crey had something to do with the disappearance of Julianne, since they seem to try and be one step ahead of us every time, but we need evidence."

Looking at the files about this girl, a bit more of the picture seemed to become clear. She went to England for some time, and seems like she was trying to start some project with heroes there. Perhaps the Night Fox would know more.

"I still think the Night Fox is out best lead. England is awfully big to just go with a name and 'she was here', like Kilroy."

"Perhaps. What if..."

"Dinner's ready!" Shouted a masculine voice. "And I'm hungry!"

Kellum and Aliana looked at each other and smiled.

"Coming, Joe!"

"What if we try the Freedom Corps information channels?" Said Aliana. "If she was involved with heroes, she may have tried poking some of them in England."

"Hmmm, not sure how well that'd work. Maybe Hero Corps would have better information."

Aliana looked at Kellum with a wary eye.

"I don't trust Hero Corps much, if they have information about this for us, I'm sure they'll sell information about what we're doing to someone else."

Aliana seemed to remember something.

"Oh yes, what did Pamela say when you told her about the wonderful day I had looking for her daughter?"

"Heh, you wouldn't believe it." Kellum said with a rueful smile. "Apparently this sort of thing had happened before every time she tried to get a hero to look into the matter. Some disappearances, others abandoning the case, dead ends... You name it."

"Ooh, so nice of her to share that information with you now."

"I can understand her if she's looking for her daughter, although..."

"Five more minutes and the cats get your dinner! And counting!" Joe shouted again.

Aliana smiled at Kellum, and although she was smiling too, she had gotten up and was putting all papers back in place with an obvious hurry.

"Wait, he doesn't mean that does he?"

She gazed Aliana with eyes bright and amused.

"Yes he does. And it wouldn't be the first time!"

---

Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!

It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...

The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013

8. Past.

The following morning Aliana woke up as Kellum was leaving her room wrapped in a bathrobe and a towel around her hair. She had slept on the sofa in her apartment, as it was very late when they had finished reviewing all the information. Nonetheless, she had spent some time thinking before falling asleep. This was a familiar situation, she was on a trail and could feel she was close, but she couldn't help feeling uneasy about it. She wanted to hurry, yet she had to make sure she wasn't making a mistake again.

"Good morning sunshine! Shower's free, there're towels in the right-hand closet in the room."

"Good morning." Said Aliana as she got up. "What time is it?"

"A bit after six, we have much to do today!"

Aliana sighed and yawned. She stretched her back for a few heartbeats and concentrated. Faster pulse. Oxygen to awaken the brain. Deep breaths.

After that, she was quite awake.

She went to the closet and opened it, but couldn't find any towels.

"Janet, are you sure there're towels here?"

She entered the room and looked at Aliana with half a smile in her lips.

"Your other right, Ali."

Oops!

"Heh, right. And I thought I was awake!" Before she closed, her eye fell on a bright piece of clothing in a hanger. She hesitated for a second, then grabbed it and pulled it out to have a better view.

Tights. A curious fabric, but they were bright colourful tights with a strange pattern and some stars.

"Wow. I had no idea you had beaten the streets wearing spandex too, Janet."

But she looked at the costume with a melancholic look, a sad smile in her lips. "Not mine, that was a friend's. Seventh Star they called her. She worked with Statesman and all the gang. Good times, she was a bright kid."

"Oh." Aliana started to regret having pulled that out. "I'm sorry, didn't mean to..."

For an instant they both were silent. She shook her head and smiled a real smile now.

"That's ok, don't worry. It's just that she was a friend of mine. This was one of her spare costumes."

She went to touch the costume, caressed it with love.

"Look at the pattern Ali, does it look familiar?"

"Well... now that you mention it, isn't it a bit like the Freedom Corps' uniform?"

"Exactly right. The Freedom Corps use the same pattern, but with reversed colours. Red where this is white, white where this is blue. That's the kind of thing Statesman likes to do. They were friends, too."

"What... what happened?"

"The war, the Rikti." She looked sad. "Nothing original, but not less sad because of that."

Aliana looked again at that garment. At least someone remembered her, her friend did.

"Anyway, better go get your shower, I'll check on Night Fox's address after breakfast and see if you can find something from him. Give me a call later?"

"Sure thing."

9. More disappearances.

"We never get a break, do we?" Kellum ironized over the phone. "We thought we had a clue with the Night Fox, and now he's gone missing too."

"Any idea where he may be?"

"If there were obvious signs of struggle, he didn't go like a sheep, not unexpected from this guy. It's unlikely they'd have carried him far. I've asked heroes in the zone if they saw anything, and I've made you a list of potential hideouts where you may want to check. I'd bet another cave, I don't think they could keep quiet otherwise."

"You think he's still alive?"

"Possibly. We'd have seen if he had been killed in the Fox-cave, and why drag away a person to kill him so soon afterwards? He may be in danger, but I don't think it immediate."

Aliana wanted to go and check the cave again, but it was better not to waste more time. She had to trust what she had. After doing an initial check on the entry of the caves in her list, being careful not to be seen, she found some promising signs at the mouth of one of them. Crouching low and making as little noise as possible, she entered.

It was a rather deep cave, but not intricate. It was a long winding tunnel where she didn't have many places to hide, but unguarded. Before long she could see light coming from the end, someone was there. It was very possible that it was not her lead; Paragon City's cave system was livelier than Pocket D.

Hugging the wall, she approached the light. There was a more spacious chamber, and at the end she could see a figure on the ground, bound and gagged, and pacing a few meters from him a tall humanoid figure clad in some heavy armour.

"Crey tank," she thought. "Caught red handed kidnapping a retired hero of the city. Shame this kind of thing never spills high enough to reach the countess."

"Hey!" Someone shouted to her left. There was an armed guard there, eating a sandwich sitting next to an improvised kitchen. He dropped it and immediately raised his machine gun. The tank saw her and rushed in.

She didn't have much time. She lurched straight towards the guard, poised and ready, and caught the muzzle of the SMG while it was still firing, leaving a trail of small bruises on her right side. Without any ceremony, she threw him hard on the rock wall, and finished him with a straight jab with full-focused chi. Her left hand was numb after the punch, but he was out of the fight.

She whirled quickly to meet the tank, and met his fist with her face, "bam!" with an electrical discharge that made the room go spinning. She took a step back to balance herself and raised her guard, then received a punch to the liver of equal strength and power. She wrapped her arm around his, to try and gain a second to catch her breath, and saw his metal-masked face close to hers. Without thinking more, she gave him a headbutt and a kick on the stomach afterwards, gaining space between them. She could feel a throbbing on her forehead where the impact had been.

"Hey, that hurt buddy. You should never hit a girl on the face you know."

He didn't make any reply, but recovered and charged again. Aliana was ready this time, and the fight went in a flurry of punches, dodges and blocks. She had to focus her chi strongly on her fists to make him feel them through the armour, very tiring work. Finally she caught him off-balance, sent a quick kick to his ankle to force him to step back, and entered with a powerful blow to the solar plexus that went through the metal and sent him to the floor, unconscious after a few seconds in which he couldn't breathe.

She took three deep breaths and went to free the Night Fox.

"Thank you lass. That was some fine work you did there, where did you learn to fight like that?"

"Back Alley Brawler for the technique, for everything else I'm self-taught." Aliana smiled as she freed his last bound.

"Should have guessed. If I were your age I'd have shown those guys a thing or two."

"Yeah I bet. Shall we go?"

"Yes, of course. Better tell the police where to find these clowns."

They talked as they walked out of the cave. Cell phones didn't do any good as soon as you were one meter under the soil of Paragon City, something to do with metallic parts in its composition. Only the mediport network was reliable enough, but it worked on different technology.

"So what brought you to the rescue so soon? I don't get many visits since I retired, I figured it'd be a week before anyone showed up."

"I wanted to talk to you about Julianne Thompson, I'm investigating her disappearance and we found that she had had dealings with you. Crey has been trying to foil me on every step of this case, and I'd like to know why."

"Goodness! Is this all because of that girl? Whatever did she do to Crey?"

"What can you tell me of her?"

"She was a very sweet girl, full of ideas about justice and heroism, a bit over the top you may say, but I always thought that was her youth talking. She wanted to start an international group of heroes. She was always saying that other groups were terribly managed, and that under her supervision everything would work much better."

"I see. Did she ask you to join in then?"

"Indeed she did. Not only me, she was in a frenzy trying to recruit people, except she didn't have much luck. She went to England to try and drive her recruit from there, said that the Phalanx was just too oppressive here. I think it was more the trouble she had had on the past, but I didn't want to be too judgemental. Everyone can make mistakes."

"You know where she went in England?"

"I do: not very far. The poor girl died in a car accident shortly after her arrival."

Aliana was struck dumb, as if lightning had come from the sky and fulminated her.

"D... dead?"

"I'm afraid so, lass."

"But... but if she's dead, why all this ruckus with Crey?"

"Hang me if I know! But she died and was buried in England. One of the cemeteries in North London, can't remember which one."

The world came crumbling around her. Another case with Crey sticking their nose when they weren't invited, and another dead end.

10. Resignation.

"I'll arrange to have her remains brought from England; I had hoped for better news for her poor mother, but knowing for sure that she's dead will let her go on with her life, better than not knowing."

Aliana nodded, still looking a bit absent.

"Anything else, Janet?"

"Not much really, the Crey guys that were arrested are likely to get out pretty lightly, you know what influence they can have. That won't go very far. Just go home and take it easy, I'll let you know, probably the mother will want to speak with you after they bury her daughter."

The trip to her apartment was very slow. She had found similar ends to other cases involving Crey, but she couldn't get used to it. Kellum was very good, she knew that it was a matter of time before she had the Countess, but the road to that day was an unpleasant one.

The door to her apartment was locked just like she had left it. It paid to be mindful of those things in this city, but all her subtle signs were intact. The door, the situation, it all sent her mind racing back to another door, another apartment. Four and a half years ago.

It was still very early in the morning. She had finished her exercise routine, including the ten-mile track. A good shower and a hefty breakfast would be perfect now. She unlocked the door and got in, and was startled when she saw Matthew not only already awake, but ready for leaving.

"Ah Ali, great, I was about to leave you a note."

"Matt? What time is it?"

"Quarter to six. I had a call from the lab, some VIPs are coming today, surprise visit." His tone was not of amusement.

"I thought you liked surprises." Aliana said, ginning.

"That'd depend on the surprise!" He laughed. "Have to get the lab in proper showing order and all that."

"Yeah, take the lunches off the samples fridge and flush all the radioactive leftovers down the drain. And don't forget the curtains!"

Matthew smiled at her.

"The scary thing is that I never know what of that you really mean. I'd have liked to see your lab!"

He embraced her and kissed her lips softly. She put her arms around his waist.

"Quiet dinner tonight? If they're dragging me out of bed early, I'm taking off early too."

"Quiet dinner." She smiled. "And now off you go, I have to go get a shower."

He never saw her change of expression when he turned around and left the apartment. Her cold and calculating look, the tension along her jaw.

"I have everything ready. We'll see how your VIPs like it."

Today, when she opened the door, the apartment was a different one, and there was no one there to greet her. She closed the door behind her and rested her back on it, eyes closed, face up.

"I still need that shower." She thought.

11. Blue.

The following days usually found Aliana in her exercise room. Flexing her muscles under the strain of hundreds of kilograms, hoping for the burning sensation to keep her mind off other things. That and the dietary complements of her invention were the only secrets of her powers. "Chi", the universal life force. She didn't think what she did was exactly what the Chinese philosophy referred to, but she had found the only biochemical explanation for it she could think of. Chi, she could focus her body's energies, she could feel the charged particles, their flow as she controlled them from the neuronal terminals. The electric signals that cursed our bodies were, after all, energy.

She prepared one of her draughts for muscle recovery. She had studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology with the only goal of achieving that, find ways to improve her body and become a hero. First, with the zeal of youth and the shared dreams with her brother. Later, with the burning desire of revenge for the loss of him.

Joshua Blue. They both wanted to be heroes, ever since they saw that fight over their small town, the green costumed hero that rescued six people from a fire produced by whom he called his 'arch-nemesis'. She remembered fondly the day they ruined the fridge trying to make a "frost cannon" to freeze evil bad guys. In time, Joshua and Aliana both went in their different paths to become heroes. Aliana thought that her own body should be the source of her powers, which was the most reliable thing. Joshua was convinced that technology and gadgets were the way to go, as they would be more powerful than whatever he could do with his body. When Aliana started in college, Joshua was in his last year of electrical engineering, and entered an internship with Crey industries,becoming a full time employee afterwards.

After he joined Crey, Aliana only received news from him in the form of postcards, Crey promotional ones. He was part of some very important projects, so he couldn't give her a proper location. All came shipped through the main Crey industries mail office. Joshua was full of nostalgia, was always reminded her of the good times they spent together playing hero.

The last postcard she received... she still remembered it, word by word.

"Dear Ali,

"Gosh, what a day! It's amazing the kind of things that Crey can do, they have some absolutely brilliant minds working here! I wish I could tell you more, I really do. I bet you'd jump off your shoes!

"I was telling the boss the other day about the frost cannon we "built" with that fridge compressor. Remember it? My, did _I_ ever get into trouble for that one! Good thing that dad had a softer spot for you, huh?

"I wish dad could see me now. And you too! See us both together; he always let us play hero all we wanted, even if we got into trouble. I think he just sneakily used that to get us to study a lot back then, hehe.

"Anyway, just a little note, to remind you of your big brother. I bet you'll go nuts when you hear of us in the news!

"Love you,

"Joshua."

The fridge, that was a funny one. Yet there was something strange. Joshua didn't get into much trouble, no more than her, after she had convinced their dad that she had had as much part in it as him. He always said afterwards that she had come to the rescue.

That's when everything clicked in place. She read the other postcards. Like every group of kids that plays to be hero, sometimes you go rescue your friends from the evil clutches of the arch-villain, sometimes it is you who is rescued. Joshua was constantly reminding her of the times she had gone to her rescue, not vice versa. Was he in trouble? She had to find out. College could wait.

Oh, how clumsy she was back then. She was good at finding and following clues, no doubt of that. But she was so open, so clear, anyone could anticipate her movements; she asked questions without second thought, and she didn't seem to mind looking suspicious. She tried to find her brother, but every time she followed a clue, she found a dead end.

In her investigations she finally came across a hero, Masquerade, who was investigating Crey. He came to her six weeks after she had received that postcard and went looking for Joshua. He wanted to know what she was looking for, what she had found, and to ask her to step aside since she was interfering with his own investigation. She didn't trust him much at first, but he produced interesting information to convince her, things she didn't know but complemented perfectly with what she had found out. The kind of information no one at Crey would give easily to someone who was sniffing around the place. So she told him everything, including the search for her brother.

At the end, one thing seemed to float to the top. Project Delaile.

Masquerade thought it was a project in which volunteers were recruited for experiments towards infusing them with some powers; he suspected they were trying to reproduce some of the better-known accidents that had given powers to certain heroes. Aliana was sure that the volunteers weren't volunteers at all, or at the very least they weren't told everything they should have known. Masquerade could track some of the materials that could have been used in the experiments; they were notoriously dangerous, most of them. Aliana had tracked several possible facilities where this project was taking place, and Masquerade could cross-reference it with the known track of these materials.

The investigation, however, came to an abrupt end the morning of the 27th of October 1998. A loud explosion destroyed the facility they had determined most likely to hold Joshua and the rest of the project. The explosion was ascribed to an "unfortunate accident", and all evidence of the project was burned to a crisp. Aliana was at the place, without Masquerade, when the fire brigade arrived, looking, and soon there was a crowd. The Countess herself was at the place soon. When the fire was extinguished, the rescue teams went looking for survivors, but could only find bodies. One of them was that of her brother.

One thing that Aliana could never forget was the cold look in the Countess' face when she saw her crying over the body of her brother. A cold, calculating look that told her that nothing that had happened in there was without her knowledge. A look that changed her life forever, with a single thought drilled into her mind.

It was _her_.

---

Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!

It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...

The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013

12. Chicken bones.

After a few days, the call that she was expecting finally came. But its content wasn't what she had expected. Kellum was on the other end of the line.

"Ali, sit down if you're standing. I've got news."

"Hi Janet, what's up?"

"You won't believe this. Remember I told you that I'd get the remains of Julianne back from England? Well, it turns out that the body in the coffin wasn't the daughter of Pamela Thompson at all!"

"What? Are you sure?"

"Positive, DNA tests are very accurate. At first she refused to admit that was her daughter, so I arranged for a DNA test. It's not her."

"So who the hell is it?"

"We don't know, but I have an idea. I've got a lock of hair from the body, I suggest you come and grab it, then go pay Cadao a visit. I'm pretty sure he can tell us who it is."

"Cadao? Um..." She hesitated. "I bet the witch doctor will find out, but I also bet it won't be admissible in court if we need it."

"Don't worry about that for now, we first need to know who this is. Come over to my office."

Ten minutes later Aliana was riding down to Founder's Falls. She always thought it was a fine place to have the office, channels and all that, like a little Venice without the sinking part. More comely than her small apartment in Steel Canyon, that's for sure.

Half an hour later she was at Cadao's shop. It was quite a picturesque place, with skulls and charms and amulets and the like. Aliana knew that half of them were totally worthless, but in the doctor's own words, they were "good for atmosphere."

"Ah Aliana Blue, welcome. Please, come and sit down, I have everything ready."

Aliana had stopped wondering at this kind of thing. Cadao seemed to always know when she was coming and what she had in mind. A good thing, only fake ones ask, "who is it?" after you knock at their door. Cadao would instead go and open directly a second before you knocked.

She sat and produced the small envelope with the hair sample inside. Was going to hand it to Kadao when he raised her hand signalling her to keep it.

"Your soul has crossed the path of the one you seek, you should keep it to focus the invocation."

On the table was a small and low wicker basket, with a design over it, and four candles on the corners. Aliana also knew the table was precisely aligned along a Ley line that crossed the shop.

"Show us, oh fortune, show us the one."

He threw a bunch of chicken bones from a small pouch on the basket, studied them for a second, and gave one to Aliana.

"Keep this in your left hand, hair on the right. Very good."

Cadao closed his eyes and concentrated.

"Spirit, speak! The name of the dead person is... Clarissa van Dorn."

He opened his eyes.

"Clarissa van Dorn! That's the maiden's name of Countess Crey!"

"The Co... C... What? Are you saying she's dead?" Aliana was shocked to her very foundations. She had half raised from her chair with the surprise.

"To be sure. Not only she's dead, she has been dead for almost ten years!"

"So.. who..? Bloody hell! This is big!"

"Indeed! I'm sure Miss Kellum will want to hear it too, you better go tell her."

"Yes. Yes of course. Thank you Cadao! Thank you!"

She rushed out of the shop, almost upsetting the table in her haste. She rushed back in, handed the chicken bone to Kadao, and then ran off again. Her mind was racing.

That Countess was impersonating the real one! She didn't know who she was, the only sure thing is that Julianne was involved, it could even be her! She would find out, but regardless, that fake Countess' days as a free woman were numbered. She had her, oh she did.

13. Entrapment.

Janet Kellum was as excited as she was. As soon as Aliana had told her, she started moving every resource she had. She even told her to wait in the office, as she wanted her to go get the Countess as soon as she had the means to.

Her contacts network was so tense that you could feel it almost snapping. She had everyone moving, looking for a clue. She had tried unsuccessfully to get a judicial order to arrest the Countess, so she wanted to confirm the identity of the dead woman first; but Countess Crey had no known direct relatives, so digging out potential DNA test controls was difficult. Without a warrant, she couldn't just go and get a sample from the remains of the dead parents of the real countess.

In the end, she had only one clue to follow.

"Okay, this is what we will do. Here is the address of one of the data centres of Crey. For what I have gathered from my contacts, there could be information there to either prove that Countess Crey is an impersonator, or to find out how to prove that the dead woman is the real Countess."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to go in and get some classified files. I have a list here in this USB stick; it has 1Gb capacity, which should be enough to store everything. Go in, get the data, and then get out fast. Once we have it we'll know how to proceed. I've got you an username and password."

"What's security like?"

"Tight. You'll have to be careful."

Aliana nodded and pocketed the stick. This was dangerous work; it was the best lead they had ever had, but they didn't have anything with which to go to court. Besides, the Countess seemed to have all judges in her pocket, they couldn't get a warrant for anything touching Crey these days.

The building was north of the tram station in Independence port. There were no guards at the doors, although she was sure the data facility would be well guarded and underground. She checked the perimeter and decided to enter through one of the third floor windows, it seemed to be the most empty. The climb wasn't difficult, and that side of the building faced the sea, so there were no indiscrete eyes looking at her.

The window had no security system attached. A bit strange, but maybe the building wasn't entirely Crey's and they just had a data centre in the basement.

Indeed, soon she saw that was the case. "Wincester Shipping Company" was visible on a few places all over the office she entered through. She had to go over the ledge outside the building until she could enter through the window under the movement detector at one corner. Not a very strong security there.

The basement, though, turned out to be a tougher nut to crack. The only access was through the lifts. She sent the lift to the top floor without her from the ground one, forced the door open and slowly went down to the bottom. There was room enough to squeeze to safety if the lift went down all the way, so she could take her time. She examined the lift doors and found nothing for intruder detection, slipped an optic fibre mini-cam between the doors, and saw what was behind her. Just a guard behind a desk, and behind him a much more secure door, she could see a code lock.

She decided to use the simplest entry method. Wait for the guard to step out, get in through the lift doors, and then have at it with him. Time passed slowly, and the guard started to nod on the chair. She didn't like that; she'd prefer to go in when he was not in the room, not when he was asleep. Presently, the guard seemed to try and wake up, got up and went to the code-locked door, punched in some numbers (eight, she counted), and went in.

That was her chance. Always trust the human element to make the most secure installation an easy job to enter.

She had seen also a security camera on top of the lift door pointing at the other one. Not a problem; with the guard out of place, she could freeze the image. The guys at the camera console will wonder what was taking their friend so long, but other than that it'd be safe if she was fast. She bypassed the main feed cable through a mini-coder and set it with a frozen image of the aisle.

When the guard came back, with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, he barely had time to wonder what was going on before he was immobilized and gagged. A quick check and she saw he had a swipe card and some keys. She went quickly through the rooms and found a terminal. The provided login worked like a charm. It seemed to be almost too easy, something that always made her suspicious. She mounted the USB stick and looked for the files indicated in it. She looked at the clock, half past five in the morning. It'd be light soon.

Her bash script finished, she looked and saw that none of the files had been found in the system.

"Bugger!" She though. Was the SAN offline? No, it was right there. All directories with the data she was looking for were empty. All of them.

Except for a file called README.

"Hello hero,

"If you can read this, you are too late. Crey got wind of what you were doing, and cleared the place.

"I have, nevertheless, some information that you may find interesting. You will be able to find me at (859)555-4991, Ext. 523.

"If you are wondering, this actually was the least risky way of communicating with you. Before the next backup run, this message will be deleted and disk-zeroed with a well-placed bash script.

"Good luck, you will need it."

That was the kind of thing for Kellum to handle. She grabbed her mobile phone, sent her a message with the phone number and a telegraphic note of what had happened, closed the session, and left, tapping the guard on the head as she passed. She went straight for the lift, since at that time the building was starting to become alive and sneaking out not only would be very difficult, it'd probably be unnecessary.

The personnel at the ground floor had all the looks of people who had just come in, so they had changed shifts already. Not many questions would be asked, she had just pulled an all-nighter in one of the offices. Costumed heroes didn't seem any less commonplace than any other folk in Paragon. With a confident stride, she went past the janitor and the clerk, giving a friendly nod and trying to give a look of as much tiredness as she could muster, and left the building.

"Freeze!"

That was the first thing she heard when she stepped out.

14. Flight.

"Hands up where we can see them!"

She counted six well-armed police officers, two drones, and three heroes (a rather huge looking fellow, a ninja-wanabee with short metallic blades fixed over his hands, and a hovering man with a sort of flame around his hands). This didn't look good. She raised her hands.

"All right, now put them behind your head and turn around."

She did as they asked for the first part, but not for the second. She studied them for a few heartbeats, gauging her chances. The drones seemed fixed on her head, so it was likely that they had been given the parameters to chase her. There was something she knew about it that she was likely not supposed to know: when a drone is sent to stop a rampaging hero, they are given the frequency of their mediport transreceiver. The drones had a good enough targeting system to know when to abandon that track and chase the human, but it could be used to put them off balance for a second.

"Turn around lady! Now!"

"This is it." She muttered. The countess had trapped her again, but this time she had done nothing wrong. It was a set-up.

Whoosh! She threw something up and rushed forward. The drones aimed immediately towards the sky following the mediport transreceiver, and by the time they had turned around to aim at her instead, she had passed between them and was behind the line of policemen. The drones were not very fast, which was a plus. The bullets whizzed on the air and some landed on their target, but none hit anything vital. The bigger danger were the drones, and after them those three heroes.

The three launched themselves to the chase. The policemen were stunned by the surprise and by the crash of Aliana forcing her way through them. The first one to try her was that flying fiery guy; he threw some small fire shots at her without much success, as she didn't let him get a good aim. She was forced to run away from the tram station, surrounded as it was by police drones, and tried to go to one of the quays. Perhaps she could lose them there.

A shadow whizzed by and she found the ninja-guy suddenly in front of her. He jumped in, Aliana tried to dodge and punch him, but he slipped under her left hand and hit her left leg. There was more resistance than he had anticipated, as he was dragged back by her impulse, but the claws hit home and gave her three deep cuts in her thigh. She screamed in pain, and clipped him with a heavily charged backslash of her left hand, sending him sprawling to the ground.

The big guy had caught up with her now. His first attack tried to hit her as if his fist were a hammer and she was a nail, but she dodged and it was lost against the asphalt. "Boom!" A shower of small road fragments hit them both. Then a shot of the blaster caught her left shoulder, and sent her to the floor. The burn was less important than how hard the hit had felt.

Again the giant attacked. She rolled out of the way and used the impulse of the impact shockwave to jump up. She had to get rid of that blaster and fast.

Without any hesitation she ran with all her speed towards one of the cargo areas. She was too fast for the giant, but the blaster followed her easy, shooting at her constantly. She hit a big sign on the side of the street and dragged it with her, then jumped across a fence surrounding a depressed area. The blaster didn't realize what it was until it was too late, his shots hit one of the big propane containers and all went up in a huge explosion.

He didn't see Aliana flying up to him until she was right at his face. She had used that road sign placing it between her and the explosion, although the right leg showed some painful looking burns, to propel herself up, and had then kicked it with all her strength to send it flying in one direction and herself in another.

She focused all her power in this hit, and sent the blaster straight down with a two fist up-down punch that made him go through the quay floor, into the sewer tunnel that ran underneath.

Aliana landed with a roll to try and lessen the impact. Both her legs were getting weak because of the injuries, and she had a few more cuts, bruises and burns. She hadn't finished getting up before she felt a hideous impact on her stomach and was sent hurling into a wall.

The big guy had caught up, and seemed ready to finish her off. Behind him, she could see that the ninja-looking one had recovered and was coming to help. She got up painfully and looked for a way out. There it was.

She ran towards the big guy. Breathing sent her some sharp pain if she did it deeply, the floating rib again, she thought. When he was about to punch her again, she jumped under his legs, rolled and jumped up, to land going through the hole in the ground and into the sewer. A second later the blaster was flying up the hole with a new punch mark on his face.

She didn't run straight towards the other tunnels, she instead ran to the exit and jumped in the water. The salt water felt like acid on her wounds, but she held her breath and swam deep, exiting on the other side behind one of the biggest boats.

The search teams were already scrambled, and likely trying to block the exits. However, she had a good chance of avoiding them if she used the abandoned sewer network, the closed off section of the sewers in which all sorts of nasties, Rikti included, liked to prowl. It'd be dangerous, but it was her best chance. She ripped a piece of her T-shirt and wrapped it tightly around her left leg cuts. She was off the mediport network now; it was her best chance... if she survived.

15. Plans.

When Kellum went home in the late afternoon, her mind was racing with all the troubles she had. First having the wrong corpse, and then being unable to get a single judge to issue a warrant against Countess Crey, and finally Aliana on the run. The report from Independence Port was downright scary, getting away from six police officers, two drones, and three high calibre heroes. Not to talk about the estimated two million dollars in property damage.

She didn't know what to do. She didn't know where Aliana was, or what she had found out in that Crey data centre. She didn't know what steps to take next, other than trying to verify with legally binding means the identity of the corpse of the real Countess. It was clear that proving the current one to be a fake was a closed avenue. She had all the information from Howard Quigley, the man that had left that cryptic message, and had arranged a rendezvous, but without Aliana there she'd have to go herself, and that was worrying. Not that she was afraid for herself, but if she got into trouble that could end the case.

Briefcase in one hand, a bag from the Chinese takeaway in the other, and her handbag hanging from her left shoulder, she did the twenty meters from her car to the door of her apartment building at a remarkably slow pace. She wanted time to think, but there was a sense of urgency in all the recent happenings.

"Pssst! Janet!" A voice called in a hoarse whisper. She almost jumped out of her shoes when she recognized the voice.

"Al..."

"No, they may be watching." Kellum busied herself looking for the keys inside her handbag.

"Where have I put those keys..." She mused, in a half murmur meant for the nearby walls to hear.

"I need the file on the girl and whatever you have found out. We have to get the Countess before they get me."

Kellum nodded.

"Are you all right?" She whispered.

"After a fashion. If you could hand me a first aid kit too, I could use that." Her voice came trembling at the end of that phrase.

Kellum hesitated.

"Please hurry, Janet."

She found her keys and flew inside the building. The lift was slow, slow, slow. Once inside her house she rushed towards the bedroom, threw the briefcase and handbag on the bed and rushed towards a closet. The clatter of her running and slamming of doors, cabinets and drawers was pandemonium come again.

"Janet?" Joe's voice came from the kitchen.

The clattering and running continued unfretted.

"What on earth..." He wondered as he made his way towards the bedroom. A final slam could be heard and, when he entered, Kellum was sitting on the bed.

"What was all that about?" He asked.

She didn't answer, sitting on the bed and bent forward, arms wrapped around and hugging herself. He sat next to her and passed his arm over her shoulders.

"Are you okay honey?"

"Yes..." Her voice came with effort as a whisper. She swallowed in a tight throat, then a bit louder, "Yes, fine."

Joe pressed her towards him, put his other arm around her neck.

"What's wrong?"

"It's... it's all this chaos with Ali and the case, I don't know what I'm going to do to save her..." She broke down, some tears flowing over her cheeks. She put her arms around Joe and buried her face on his shoulder.

"You'll figure out, don't worry. I know you will, it'll all be okay."

Below, on the streets, a small figure with a backpack on one shoulder made her way into one of the sewer entries and disappeared inside.

16. Boomtown.

Paragon City offers numerous hideouts for people in need of one. One of these places was the neighbourhood north of Steel Canyon, Baumtown, popularly called "Boomtown" after the first Rikti invation, since at the time it was levelled to the ground.

Nowadays it was but a wasteland enclosed in the omnipresent war walls, where the little robot scavengers of the clockwork abounded. These little robots had been at one time a great boon to the city, after the war, as they very efficiently helped clear the rubble in a very speedy way. Afterwards they had become a pest, scavenging metal from absolutely anywhere they could grab it.

Aliana knew of a good basement in one of the semi destroyed buildings where the water pipes were still in good condition and electricity available. The background murmur of the clockwork working was all that could be heard in the eerie place. A couple of them were struggling with the door of the building where she was going.

Like the prey when the predator comes, the clockwork scattered when she approached. The building had barely changed since the last time she was here, and she couldn't see any recent signs of it being used by anyone other than the scavengers. Good, she needed privacy.

Before going down the stairs she glanced back to the entry. The clockwork that were looking from there immediately ducked out of view again. She sighed; they were like a real pest plague. She walked down and entered the restroom. A single lightbulb dangled from a cable in the ceiling; she tried the tap and found that water was still running.

The first aid kit was very complete, something to be grateful for. Kellum was very thoughtful; no doubt she had had a full report on the Indy Port incident. She got the thread and needle out, and proceeded to carefully wash and dress her cuts. She had lost much blood, but she knew her metabolism would recover her fast enough.

"One... two..."

She was in the habit of counting everything, and the stitches couldn't be less.

"Twenty-three... twenty-four..."

The cuts on her leg had been her biggest worry; they were the worst for blood loss. She had a deep one on her left shoulder, partly across a nasty burn, another one where her floating rib was broken, on the back of her left hand and on her right forearm, where a piece of shrapnel from the explosion had embedded itself. She had removed it almost immediately, but the damage was done.

"And forty-three." She sighed. She hadn't taken any painkillers until after she had finished the dressing; she wanted to be careful when doing it. Next she dressed the burns on her shoulder and right leg, and finished with an antibiotic ointment. She covered the leg cuts with long strips, adhesive on the side, and placed patches on the other cuts and burns. She wanted them held tight since she knew there would be some dancing to do before this was over. Tetanus wasn't a problem; most heroes in the city had the shot regularly either by prescription or by need a few days after their arrival.

She made her bedroom in the adjacent room, placed a blanket on the floor and sat on it to have her dinner while she browsed through the file. Chinese food, she liked it but hated the chopsticks. Her ragged clothes lay in a jumble in a corner, and she was down to her underwear. Little chance of anyone seeing her like that in here, she thought.

"Besides," she mused, looking inside the backpack, "I have something else to put on."

Kellum had made some interesting additions to the folder. She had talked with the man who had left the message, and had arranged an interview. There was a quickly scribbled note "you have to go to that meeting!" he promised some very juicy information about CreyComp, the new Crey Industries computer operating system that had even Bill Gates worried. Next, a map with several circled locations and a footnote, "Crey data centres." Finally, there was a list of possible contacts that may help Aliana in several computer-related fields.

"We'll see what this guy has to say." She said to herself. She still had some time to rest and recover a bit.

A scratching sound came from above her. Aliana looked up and saw the cable of the light bulb move a bit, then "ziiiiiiip!" disappear in the ceiling, leaving her in complete darkness.

"Oh for crying out loud!"

Above, she could hear some metallic chuckles.

---

Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!

It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...

The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013

17. CreyComp.

It was about half an hour before dawn. In a dimly light back alley, a short man was fidgeting impatiently and constantly looked around him with a hunted look in his face. He consulted his watch almost every minute.

He heard some steps coming from the left, and tried to peer through the darkness to see what it was. He couldn't see anything, but soon the footsteps of someone running in his direction were very distinct. He got up and ready to run away, then the sounds of a struggle held him in place. Shots, scuffs, some punches and some strange loud reports, like that of static electricity but much louder. Gods, it was enough to wake up the whole neighbourhood.

He ran in the opposite direction, and ran straight into a wall. Only it wasn't a wall, he looked up and saw it was a man, of rather big proportions, looking down at him, dressed in a straight black suit and wearing sunglasses despite the dim of the hour. An earbud in his left ear.

His expression didn't change when he looked down at him, only when he suddenly looked up behind. The short man turned around and just caught a glimpse of a small figure in a bright costume zooming past him and going straight towards the suited guy. "Bamf!" A sound like the reports he heard before, and when he turned again, that large man was laying in a rubbish heap three meters away, and there was a small woman in front of him, tight white costume with a blue pattern along the back, stars in a repeated pattern on her arms and legs.

"You were followed."

The short man swallowed in a dry throat.

"I... you... who are you?"

"Name's Aliana Blue. I'm a friend of Janet Kellum, the one who found your message in the data centre."

"Oh... oh, nice to meet you. And thanks, I suppose."

"So Crey isn't happy with you I see."

"Yes, yes." The man grabbed her left arm and pulled her away from the scene. "I suppose that threatening the director wasn't a very smart idea."

"So who are you?"

"Howard Quigley, I was the lead programmer in the CreyComp project. You see, that project was a great opportunity. My team, we were doing some great work, but the higher ups kept nagging us about it, demanding constantly that we added extra modules, changes that were said to come straight from the Countess." He was getting more excited as he talked about it, leaving some of his reserve aside.

"Yes? What about them?" Aliana said, finding the excitement of the man contagious.

"Well, these changes didn't make any sense, there was something fishy about them. I couldn't find much, everything came compiled and encrypted, but I think they were planting some kind of backdoors or something like that. At the end I couldn't take it, so I left and told the director that wasn't the last they'd hear of me." He looked around, with an air about him between resignation and amusement. "I guess that was just inviting for this kind of trouble. Anyway, I have planted a backdoor of my own in the system, here's the program to access it." He handed her a mini-CD. "You can go to the data centre in King's Row, it's in..."

"I know, the one behind the police hall, right?"

"Why... yes, that one, how did you..." He looked at Aliana with a perplexed eye.

"Never mind that. What am I looking for?"

"The source code! I know they have the source code for CreyComp stored there, including the source code of these additions! I tried accessing them, but it was very restricted and I couldn't make it. Raised a lot of questions too, that was when I decided to leave. You'll have to go in there and get the code."

"All right. Secure place?" That question had a nasty echo in her ears.

"Sort of. Not many guards in place, but more will show up quickly once the alarm rings. You're going to have to force your way in, and that fast. Any of the terminals will work if you put this CD in and reboot it, I've programmed it to retrieve the code and put it in a USB storage unit. You have one?"

Aliana opened one of the pouches in her belt and extracted a 1 Gb stick. She had lost most of her tactical gear with her bandoliers when she fled at Indy port.

"That'll do, that'll do. Be careful and good luck. I'm going to keep low until this is over one way or another. Good luck."

18. Trespassing.

Aliana arrived to the building just as the sun came out. She didn't have time for subtlety, so she decided that, if they were looking for her for assault, trespassing, and stealing Crey technology, she may as well do all that and be done with it. She chose the front door, as it was the one facing away from the police hall. The door was closed, and a bored-looking clerk was sitting in a chair, half-asleep.

She blew the lock with what she called an "emergency lock pick", a small explosive charge in a flat, thin shape that could be inserted in almost any lock to blow it up with minimal fuss, and rushed in. The clerk didn't have time to wonder what was happening before he was on the floor unconscious.

"Security will be here soon." She thought. The second floor was her target; she ran up the stairs and looked for a terminal next to a window. She had her escape route traced already: out through a window, over the fence, cross the street towards the abandoned lot, then into the sewers through the gate there. Gate that she had unlocked before coming. There was a junction of tunnels not far from that entry, she knew; she could lose any pursuit easily once inside.

She locked the door as she entered, and rebooted one of the terminals. CD inside the tray, USB stick in the back, she had only to wait.

<font class="small">Code:[/color]<hr /><pre>
--Booting from CD............ --
-- --
-- --
-- Abandon all hope ye who enter here --
-- --
-- Connecting to mainframe........... --
-- .................................. --
-- .................................. --
-- ..... --
-- Connected --
-- --
-- Mounting USB storage.............. --
-- ................ --
-- Retrieving data --
-- 1% --
-- 2% --
</pre><hr />

Before 3% there was a loud banging coming from the door. She had to delay them to give the program enough time to retrieve the data.

She walked towards the door, placing herself between it and the terminal, and prepared for action. She forced herself to calmness, focusing on her muscles, poised and ready. The door flew open and a Crey Tank with a security guard on each side stood there.

Aliana gave them a grin.

The guards opened fire, and Aliana jumped forward, presenting her right side first. Bullets hit her and bounced off, not ricocheting as her muscles absorbed most of their speed. She whirled giving her left hand speed with her hips and shoulders, and scored a blank over the head of the right guard. She found herself a bit slow because of her injuries.

The guard had jumped back, and gave her a spray of bullets in an upwards trajectory, she felt impacts on her left leg, her stomach, all the way up to her left shoulder. She staggered as the cuts and burns there sent sharp pain pangs.

A hook with her right hand did catch the guard, sent him flying back. "I can't let them realize their advantage," she thought. "I have to end this quick."

Bam! A strike to her left shoulder sent her tumbling backwards, her flesh tingling with the static discharge and her whole arm trembling with pain. The second guard opened fire and once again she felt bullet impacts on her left leg. She staggered.

She didn't have a single instant to recover, the tank charged again towards her. She straightened and raised her guard, reversed with her right arm and leg to the front. Her left arm hanged down limp, but she caught the punch the tank was sending her with her right arm with ease, pulled him towards her, and gave him a hard hit on the stomach with her knee. She then let go and pushed him back, sending a chi charge to her palm. "Snap!" The tank's armour cracked on the chest, a few pieces falling to the floor.

The guard fired at her again. He aimed low looking for the injured leg, but Aliana turned and had it covered with the right one, where the burns hurt slightly with each bullet impact but were not as serious. She lurched and grabbed the gun, twisting it away from her.

Behind, the tank had recovered and saw her busy. If she let go of the gun to defend herself, the guard would have a clear blank point shot, if not it was him who'd have the opening. Aliana looked back and saw him coming, but didn't let go of the gun. At the last instant, she raised her left arm without hesitation and met him with her hand open. Under the mask, the tank probably had a surprised expression.

The contact was devastating. The focused chi produced a shockwave that threw the tank against the opposite wall, and Aliana against the guard and both two meters away.

She stood up with some effort. On the other side of the room, the tank was slowly coming back to life, pushing some of the rubble away. The guard she was fighting wasn't stirring, but the one that had been knocked out first had been awakened by the shock.

Fatigue and pain made her arms and legs heavy as if they were made out of lead. She took a deep breath, tried to ready herself for more action.

*Beep!* the terminal happily chirped, and the CD tray opened.

Success!

The sound gave her new energy. She sprinted ahead, grabbed the CD and the memory stick, and ran straight to the window. She had noticed they were bulletproof panels, so she'd have to hit them hard to get through. She focused, let loose a strong punch, and hundreds of fragments went flying out. A spray of bullets served as farewell, most lost through the window through where she had disappeared.

Outside more Crey guards tried to stop her, but she was too fast. Once she cleared the fence the shooting stopped and the shouts faded in the distance. By the time they got their wits together and organized a chase, she was gone and no one could find her in the sewers.

19. Code.

Another day at work. Justine Kelly had just arrived to the office and was settling in her cubicle. There was a pile of documents in her 'in' file, the answering machine was blinking to indicate waiting messages, and her email inbox was overflowing with spam. She sighed and started by sorting the documents waiting on her desk.

A PPS messenger arrived with a package for her. She barely raised her eyes from her work to grab the envelope and sign on the pad she was handed. The messenger was a small woman and seemed to walk with a slight limp, she noticed.

It was at least half an hour before she had finished with the documents and opened the package. Inside there was a CD, a USB memory stick, and a note.

"Justine,

"In this stick you will find the source code of the new CreyComp Operating System. The head programmer believes that there are intentionally installed backdoors of unknown purpose.

"The CD contains a program made by this head programmer specifically to boot from one of the Crey network terminals and look for this source code. It may be useful to you.

"I'm a friend of Janet Kellum, please see what you can find. When you have information, please pack it and drop it in the yellow trashcan next to the sealed sewer entry of King's Row, shouldn't be far from your work.

"Thank you,

"Aliana Blue."

She had to restrain herself from running to the window to try and catch a glimpse of that Postal Service woman, but she knew she would be far gone. She contemplated the USB stick for a few long minutes, wondering.

"Seems like it won't be such a dull day after all." She thought.

Outside, Aliana had made her way back to the Paragon Postal Service van, trying to walk with a casual air as if nothing in the world could be wrong with her.

"¿Todo bien, Ali?" The driver asked when she opened the passenger door.

"Sí, gracias Francisco." She sighed as she sat down and closed the door. It had been a long night, and she was tired.

"Don't worry my friend, I doubt anyone will notice you here, you're just another post woman." And turning a mischievous eye towards her, he added "With a poorly fitting jacket though."

"Yeah well, you're just too damn tall Francisco!"

He laughed appreciatively, oozing good humour.

"Ah well, what can you do." He winked at her. "Will you stay with us tonight?"

"No. No thank you, I've already put you in a bad enough position, that with half he heroes in the city looking for me."

"Pah!" He expelled with a complacent air. "Nothing is too good for my Ali. And you'll have this cleared soon I bet."

She left the van at the closest point to the Steel Canyon east sewer entry of the mail van route, she didn't want him to deviate from it and raise suspicions. She had learned to be paranoid in these cases, but she trusted Francisco. He had had a run with some Outcasts a couple of months ago and Aliana had saved him, and again when the gang tried to get revenge on him, as if it were his fault. She had paid a visit to the local gang leader and made him understand he was to leave Francisco and his family alone, and he hadn't forgotten. She had only asked him for a postman outfit to do this, but he had insisted to take her in the van as if she were a regular mailwoman.

"Here, take this."

He handed her a small green linen bag. Aliana grabbed it and wondered for an instant.

"What is it?"

"Lunch, darling. Migas, croquettes and a tortilla."

"Oh? Well, thanks, but..."

"No, no, no buts. You can say that you don't want it, but the growls in your belly tell me that you do."

He winked at her and laughed, seeing that he had hit home. Aliana blushed, then smiled and thanked him, promising to go pay him and Barbara a visit when this was all over.

The day was well spent when the detector inside that trashcan sent a signal that it had received something. The thing was out of the way enough that she knew no one would actually drop any trash inside, only what she was waiting for. She had slept, eaten, and was feeling much better, her leg and shoulder wounds once again closed and somewhat recovered. The broken rib was the most uncomfortable.

When she arrived to the King's row sewer entry it was already dark and no one was stirring. She reached inside the trashcan, pulled out a rather empty-looking trash bag, looked in it to make sure it wasn't actual trash, and made her way back to Boomtown through the sewers. She didn't examine the contents minutely until she was in her relatively safe hideout. Inside were a single CD and a note, scribbled in what looked like a fast and jerky way.

"Dear Aliana Blue,

"I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the code that you gave me. It was somewhat obfuscated, but I've had previous experience with this kind of stuff. The core of the Operating System seemed sound enough, so I examined the modules that you indicated were added afterwards. They are backdoors all right, but much more. They contain subtle mind controlling code, to make people want to buy more Crey products and above all, to love and respect Countess Crey.

"I'm having a hard time trying to stay calm writing this. The nerve! But I've got the way to pay them back. I took the program you gave me, decompiled it, and added some stuff of my own, a little virus to help turn Crey upside down. The fact that they coded their own backdoors was mighty helpful I may say. All you have to do is to put this CD in a terminal like you did before, and it'll all go automatically.

"I have a copy of the CreyComp source code, and gave Janet the one you gave me.

"Good luck,

"Justine."

So, she had to get into a Crey facility again. She got the city map with the marked data centers out of the case folder and examined it, and her face brightened with a smile. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid would be proud.

20. Tempest.

*Bzzt*

"At this time, however, we have been unable to contact any Crey representative to discuss the implications of the classified files leaked yesterday. Judge Harrelson, of the federal court, is rumoured to be looking into the matter, but is also keeping silent for now. He did not, however, issue a secrecy order, as he recognized that the information is spread too far and wide to be of any use. With thousands of initial recipients, including this very network, he is likely to be right. We're back to the Crey headquarters with our Paragon City correspondent, Sandy Walkers. Sandy."

"Thank you Ryan. The latest news is that, apparently, judge Harrelson has issued a warrant against Countess Crey, for the charges of conspiracy, fraud and murder, pending further investigation. It is unlikely that the Countess will be the only one implicated in this plot, however we haven't got any information from any spokesperson from Crey. The Countess is rumoured to have gone to ground, and a wide hero operative is on the move to locate her. So far that is all we have from here, back to you Ryan."

"Thank you very much indeed, Sandy. After the break, we will talk with a panel of experts in criminal and vigilante law, and analyze the actions leading to this point, including the involvement of Aliana Blue, who went from a rogue hero to the star of the moment."

*Bzzt*

"So it's true then?" Asked Aliana over the phone.

"It is! Justine told you that she wanted to put a virus into Crey's network, right? Well, what she didn't tell you is that the virus was a little bit more capable than that. It scourged for all kinds of secret files and massively mailed them to everyone in the contacts list of Countess Crey. Literally thousands of people received all sorts of incriminating documents."

"Good show, even better if the people receiving them seemed to trust the Countess."

"Yes. And among the documents there was proof that she had those charges against you fabricated. I just got off the phone with the Major, you've been given a clean bill again, so you can come back anytime you want now."

"Great." Aliana's voice came fatigued through the phone. "That's great."

"Listen, where are you? I can go pick you up if you want."

"Eh... doesn't matter, meet you in half an hour at the Boomtown gate in Steel Canyon?"

"Sure. Boomtown, huh?"

"Yeah. Getting out shouldn't be a problem if I have my clearance back, I've got my ID with me."

"Okay then, see you in half an hour. I'll give you more details then."

Aliana went back inside the building and started packing. There wasn't much, she put all the rubbish in one bag, her old torn clothes and the med kit in the backpack. She still wore the old Seventh Star costume, which showed signs of the fights it had gone through with grime and dirt, but not a single tear or scratch.

"Heh, I look worse than this costume by now." She muttered.

Waving goodbye to a group of clockwork that were tearing an old lamppost, and who didn't notice her gesture more than if it had been a gush of wind, she made her way back to the Steel Canyon gate. Her clearance had indeed been restored, so she waltzed in front of the police drones without hesitation and gave the armed guards a friendly wave of the hand. Kellum was waiting for her.

"Psst! Did you actually see her come in here?" Asked one guard in a coarse whisper.

"Not really, no."

"Shall we report this?"

"What, and let the boss think we don't know who comes in and who doesn't? Forget it!"

They watched as a woman got out of the car, gave Aliana a hug, and both got in again. The car disappeared down the street in the morning traffic.

"We've got a warrant for the Countess," Kellum started to explain, "but we have no idea where she is. Without a doubt, Crey had plans for emergency evacuations in cases like this, but we're pretty sure she hasn't left the city. Of course, Paragon is the perfect place for anyone to go into hiding," She gave Aliana a meaningful look, "but we've got a whole bunch of people scanning every inch of the city. We'll find her sooner or later."

"So what do I do now?"

"For now, I'm taking you to the Steel Canyon Medical Center for a check-up with your doctor. And then I'm taking you home."

Aliana started to complain, but Kellum cut her short.

"You've had enough work this far, and I'm going to need you fresh and relaxed when it comes to arrest the Countess, since I want you to do the honours. I want you to go home, eat something, get some rest, and wait for my call."

"What if whoever finds her gets there first and brings her in?"

"Not without the warrant, this is a Federal case now. Heroes have less latitude when working in Federal criminal investigations. Whoever finds her will have to report and nothing else, unless they try to escape."

"All right, all right." And she added with a note of humour, "I yield to your authority."

She sank in the seat and watched the city go by as they drove to the Hospital. It wasn't a long ride, and she was talking with Doctor Kynes about twenty minutes later. After a brief talk, she started examining her.

"Nice stitches, Ali. If you had given them some rest, the scar would have been almost invisible."

"I imagine. I had to reapply a few of them about twenty four hours after I made them first."

She examined then the other leg's burns, the broken rib, the cuts on her left shoulder and right arm, the bruises. She nodded to herself now and then, with a satisfied air.

"I'm pretty sure we'll be able to fix all of them with the regenerator. I want to check your vitals while we do it, then we'll talk again."

She undressed fully and put a light robe on, then was taken to a wide empty room with a large apparatus in the middle, somewhat resembling a typical X-ray scanner. This was a regenerator, similar to the ones used for the mediport network to heal heroes that fell in battle. The purpose of this one was to heal those heroes that came without the aid of their mediport.

Less sophisticated than his sibling, this device was nonetheless perfect for fixing solid muscle, skin tissue and mending bones. More delicate tissues and organs usually required surgical intervention, with the added bonus of being able to use it for speeding up recovery afterwards.

Aliana felt a familiar tingling and warmth on her bruises and cuts, and five minutes later she was out of the room. Some of the bruises remained, and were even mildly uncomfortable, but otherwise she was in good health again.

Doctor Kynes waited for her to get dressed, with some papers on a pad in her hand. Afterwards, she asked Aliana to sit down and handed her the pad.

"You keep pushing yourself too far."

She examined the pad. Report of some increased scarring in her right lung, high tension, brain scan... She knew what the alteration of her metabolism carried with it, she could force her pulse to be faster and increase adrenaline discharges, as well as the expenditure of focusing her chi, which always disrupted muscle-neuronal connections.

"You can't keep up like this Ali, you have to take better care of your body. You know as well as I do what everything in that report means, but I don't think you have realized the fact."

"Doc, I still have things to do, I can't just stop and give up. After I finish with this case..."

"Yes, of course. That is, until the next case comes along, and with it a little bit more."

"No, this one is different."

"Ali, I know how you feel. Trust me, I know. When you have been through thirty hours straight in ER and suddenly comes a kid that has been hit by a car, you want to go and save that kid, but you have to realize that at some point you have to step back and let others do their part too. Hurting yourself like that is not going to save more lives."

"After this one. I mean it, when I'm done with this case, I'll come in and we'll talk about what you want me to do."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Kynes sighed and put the papers back inside a bulky folder.

"Very well. Then, as far as I can tell, you're fit for duty again."

Aliana thanked her and left the office. Kellum was waiting for her just as before, leaning on the car and chatting incessantly over her mobile phone. Not wanting to intrude on her, Aliana got in the car and sat down on the passenger seat. All the weariness of the last few days started to get to her.

After just an instant she heard a door close and looked around; to her surprise, they were in front of her apartment, and Kellum had just gotten out of the car, likely she wanted to wake her up softly from her side. She regarded her with a smile.

"Well Ali, here we are. You dozed off as soon as you sat down."

"I see," said Aliana, with a wearisome grin. "Anything new while I was talking with the doctor?"

"Not much, a few more people arrested under the judge's orders, and a lot of offices ransacked for information, but nothing new on the Countess. I'll have the warrant for her ready for you when we find her, but meanwhile go get some rest."

"Yeah, ok." Aliana looked at her with more intensity. "And, um, thanks a lot for everything, Janet."

"That's what friends are for. Want me to walk you up?"

"It's okay, thank you."

It was the 16th floor where Aliana lived, and she walked it up the stairs as she always did. There were at least a dozen other heroes living in that building, but she didn't come across any of them on her way up; she wondered if they were all out there busy today. So much to do, she disliked having to go back home and do nothing, but sooner or later the body makes undeniable requests. Besides, with so many people looking for her, the countess wouldn't be long in being found, and afterwards she'd be plenty of busy.

She threw the Seventh Star uniform in the washing machine, set it for a fast cleaning and drying cycle, and went in the shower. A bath would have been better, but she didn't want to fall asleep while in it. Her muscles ached as she relaxed them under the flow of warm water, but felt quite restored afterwards. A heavy mixture of one of her draughts and some sleep would finish this restoration.

What was going on?

Fatigue forced thoughts about the Countess out of her consciousness, but they were still there nagging at her. Turning on the TV, she sat to watch the news, but the reporter droned uselessly about the "latest developments in the Crey scandal." Aliana had fallen asleep scant seconds after sitting down on the sofa.

---

Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!

It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...

The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013

21. Past mistakes.

She woke up shaken by some blunt object. It was dark around her, she couldn't see anything. What time was it? Her head was a bit foggy.

"You, wake up."

That voice? Officer Brunelli, no doubt. What time was it? An ungodly hour of the night it seemed, no one was stirring in the prison. What the hell did Brunelli want? She forced herself awake by the most direct path, and felt the adrenaline flowing in her veins, readying her body for action. She didn't know what to expect from this night visit from Brunelli, but it could only be bad news.

"What time is it?"

"3 in the morning. Get up, you have a visitor. And don't make any ruckus, I'm not in the mood to have it with you."

Aliana got up and followed Brunelli. A visitor at this time in the morning was strange enough to pick her curiosity, and seemed to irritate Brunelli, which was always a plus. The bulky guard led her to a different room than the usual screened visitors centre. In it she could see a desk, a TV with a VCR next to it, and sitting on a chair...

She tried to hide her surprise. Looking at her, with an expression of disdain, was the FBI officer that had handled her case two years ago. She took a moment placing her and getting a name. Sander. Clara Sander.

In front of her were a number of paper folders, somehow worn out, on which she could scarcely distinguish whatever was written. Sander hadn't changed her expression.

"Sit down."

With a suspicion that she couldn't hide from her face, Aliana sat down on a chair facing her. Sander grabbed a remote control, turned on the TV and VCR, and sat back to watch it, ignoring Aliana. She turned to it and watched too, waiting for some clue to whatever had brought her here, and at this time of the night.

The reporter showed great signs of agitation while he talked. Some sort of biological attack on a grand scale had started all over the world, and all sorts of defensive elements were being mobilized at full speed to stop it. The incessant repeat of the phrase "please remain calm" seemed to be designed to achieve the exact opposite effect.

"This was being broadcast less than an hour ago. Once this report finished, I decided to come and pay you a visit."

The reporter stopped as a sheet of paper was handed to him. He barely stopped a heartbeat to read it, and then resumed his talk with a renewed air of excitement.

"Some new information has just reached this office. The Freedom Corps have already identified the source of this attack, and are in the process of neutralizing it. A countergerm for this new virus is currently being distributed over all the attack points, and it's expected to completely neutralize the biological agent in mere hours. If you feel symptoms of the disease, don't worry. Help is on the way. The Freedom Corps assure us that the cure will be available to everyone. While we get more details about this cure, let us remind everyone about the symptoms they should be looking for, and what they can do to prevent them."

The TV was turned off. Aliana turned to face Sander, and this one tossed the top paper folder towards her. She got up and started pacing, and then to talk without looking at Aliana on the face.

"We first located the virus close to five years ago. A hero by the name of West Wind found a canister hidden in the sewers of New Orleans. It was unlike anything we had seen before, both the virus and the technology. It was encased in a high-tech container that kept a stable atmosphere inside the canister, and seemed to act as transmissor-receiver."

Aliana was reading all this at the same time, the folder produced a series of documents about the incidents: preliminary studies on the virus, the canister that contained it, schematics of the transmitters, everything.

"We looked for more, and we found them. This first canister had been defective, or somehow damaged. The others self-destroyed before we could examine them, leaving no trace of the virus and nothing but a charred piece of useless junk in place of the high-tech canister. Soon we noticed that the pattern was changing, and instead of destroying the virus, the damn things tried to discharge it into the air when discovered."

Aliana kept reading. "Symptoms of infection", medical records, list of casualties. The virus was not very fast, but it was a powerful mutagen and treatment did little to help the victims. Strong physiological changes were registered in the victims before their death.

"We had no clue where they were coming from, but we were backing them into a corner. We knew we were at risk of a massive exposure to the general population if we continued pressing. Based on the information obtained from that first and only recovered canister, we knew that some sort of massive scale attack was being readied at some point in the future. Estimated three or four years from then. So, we decided to take a different approach. We made a big show of 'having neutralized the last of the viral menace' after the destruction of a particularly large batch, and used that first sample to try and design a cure."

Risky, Aliana thought.

"Of course, we kept a very conspicuous eye open to locate any other possible location for more of this stuff. We had heroes working for us that were very good at spying and concealment."

Sander walked back to the pile of folders, tossed another one to Aliana.

"Getting a cure, however, was a different matter. We couldn't do it as a government effort; it could be kept as a secret project, but the danger of leaking this was higher in a government agency. We had no idea who was behind this. So, we entered a join effort with Crey Industries to develop a cure."

Aliana opened this new folder. Details of the project were there, design, selection of the team. Aliana turned a few pages and stopped short on the fifth. Her mouth was opened in surprise, her pulse quicker. There were pictures of the most important members of the research team, and right there was a picture of Matthew.

"Matthew Rabbe was chosen as head of the Crey lab team. He had quite a reputation among his peers, and even the other three team leaders said he was the best. Matthew focused the research in three points, finding how the virus actuated, finding how the organism responded to it, and finding a way for a massive delivery of a cure. He troubled himself little about where did it come from, or if it was a natural or engineered strain."

Aliana felt Sander's eyes fixed on her with uncommon intensity. She felt something cold setting in her stomach, and realized she was starting to have some difficulty breathing.

Matthew?

Another folder was tossed at her.

"The project was successful, as you saw on the news. The cure was finished about three months ago, and since then all efforts have gone into creating massive amounts of it. It's still early to say, but we have used about a third of all we have synthesized to distribute it over all the attack points."

Aliana was now reading the different progress reports. Following the timeline, she jumped to the date two and a half years ago. A particularly long and detailed report was dealing with the destruction of the main laboratory, contingency plans, and the loss of the head of research, Matthew Rabbe. She looked up at Sander.

"You set us back almost a year with your tomfoolery. After you blew up the lab we had to move the whole research to a secondary one and recover everything. Had Matthew not rescued the samples from the freezer... well, who knows, but I can tell you we wouldn't be talking so calmly here today. He gave up his life to save those."

Sander's eyes were blazing now. She was clutching the back of the chair in front of her and could hardly contain her rage. Aliana looked at her and at the report alternatively, she looked like a drowning woman trying to find something to hang on and stop her from sinking.

"I remember during the talks before we reached a deal, how you told your lawyer that we were hiding something. Yes, I can read lips," she added when Aliana looked up at her with some surprise. "Now you know what we were hiding. We couldn't let this all come public before we were ready."

Aliana remained silent.

"And you wanted to get advange of that and just walk out after blowing up the lab and getting Matthew killed."

Silence.

"Have you nothing to say?"

She only managed a feeble "I didn't know" past a constriction on her throat. Sanders slowly moved her head from side to side.

"Yes. Right."

She knocked at the door, signalling that the interview was at an end. Before leaving, Aliana turned at her and, with the same feeble voice, said, "I'm sorry."

Sanders looked at her.

"Doesn't matter. That won't bring him back."

The morning bell ringed to signal the start of the day, over and over.

Aliana started on the sofa. The bell was her phone ringing. Outside, the sun was low on the horizon, still warming the late afternoon. She took a moment to breathe deeply and picked the receiver.

"Ali, we've found her."

22. The Countess.

Aliana's mind cleared with the singleness of purpose that she felt at the moment. She was meeting Kellum at the police station of King's Row for briefing and to get the warrant. Even before she entered, she felt the agitation inside, with heroes in bright costumes coming and going incessantly. The whole city teemed with heroes on the warpath.

"Ali!"

She was at the back of the main hall, talking with two police officers. She waved at her and made her way through the restless mass of people inside the building.

"Here you are! Well, this is the warrant. All there is left now is to go and pick her up. Two heroes from the Freedom Corps are keeping an eye on the place waiting for your arrival."

"Where?" A single word was enough to convey the excitement that she felt.

"Perez Park. She's in one of the caves inside the park fence perimeter, next to the Skyway City entrance. Seems like the cave was prepared as a refuge; we guess they're expecting a pickup team, possibly a helicopter that could easily land in the open area in that part of the park."

"But.. Perez is a hazard zone!"

"Yes, I suspect that the restrictions would be easily bypassed by Crey. Anyway, that's where she is. We think there's a strong bodyguard force with her, possibly some armoured bodyguards too. Judge Harrelson has restricted circulation for these suits for now, so they won't show themselves out on the open."

"Okay. I'll call when I've gotten her."

"Careful Ali, we won't be able to send reinforcements easily. We're spread pretty thin already, there are a gazillion Crey facilities we have to secure."

"Don't worry. I'll call when I've secured the place."

Aliana rushed out with all speed and jumped on her bike. Kellum herself went back to work coordinating the operation. It was only a few minutes later that she gave a sudden start and a small cry, when putting a pencil in her pocket. She took a small object out of it.

"Ali's mediport! Oh god, I forgot to give it to her!"

She took her mobile phone and dialled quickly. She had been off the network since she went underground a few days before, and she was going to face what was probably her most dangerous mission to date.

"Hello, this is Aliana Blue. I'm currently busy, likely on a mission. If you leave your name and number after the beep, I will call you back as soon as I can."

Kellum left a hurried message, but thought it wouldn't do much good. By the time she could have reached Perez Park, Ali would already be in the scene and rather too busy to stop to talk with her.

"Please, please, please, don't let anything happen to her!" Was her silent prayer.

In Perez Park, Aliana had stopped to talk with the two Freedom Corps heroes that were watching the zone. One of them would remain outside the cave entrance. Supposing there was no other door, he'd keep an eye for anyone trying to beat a hasty retreat. The other had been asked to help in a different part of the city.

"This is nuts." He had said. "I've been with the Corps almost six months and I've never seen anything like this."

"Oh, you get used to it. Trust me."

"I suppose so. Well, I'll be out here, good luck and good hunt."

Aliana thanked him and advanced carefully towards the cave entrance, barred with a lapidated door and a "keep out" sign. She could almost smile. Pretty much every cave in the city had those, yet it seemed like none of them was ever empty of inhabitants.

She crouched next to the door and slid a small optic fibre camera under it. No guards at the entry, no doubt they kept a prudent distance from it to avoid easy detection. She applied some quick lubricant on the hinges, and entered noiselessly. The door wasn't wired either.

Once inside, she heard some distant crying in the voice of a woman. The contrast between that crying, which called for her for comfort, and the knowledge that it was the voice of of the Countess, for whom no pity could be spared, tore at her.

She advanced slowly, looking attentively for any intruder detection equipment. She didn't think Crey a pack of fools, so she was reasonably sure that there would be some other exit somewhere in the back of the cave. Soon she came to the main guards room, and saw that the Countess did indeed have a heavy compliment of guards with her. She counted four armoured tanks, at least a dozen regular guards. On the back of this wider room there was a reinforced door, and she suspected what, or rather who, was behind it.

Aliana took several deep breaths and relaxed in her hiding spot. She listened carefully to the conversations to decide how to proceed next. The charges against the countess seemed to be the prime theme of conversation.

"So, do you think the Countess did all that?"

"Don't know. And I don't care, even if she did I'd still follow her."

"I'm sure she had her reasons," added a third one.

"So you believe it? How could you?"

"The Countess knows what she's doing."

"Damn that Aliana Blue!" A different conversation.

"Once we get the Countess away tonight, we'll take care of her."

"Are we getting reinforcements?"

"Not us, a new escort is coming with the pickup tonight, but they're leaving with her."

Tonight. There wasn't really much day left, so this delivery couldn't be too far off. It was clear that she couldn't wait until some of them were asleep and taking guard turns, they all seemed resolute to stay up and see this through.

"Take care of me, huh?" Thought Aliana. "I may as well give you guys the chance."

She started pumping up and readied her body for battle. The adrenalin flowing and the muscles tense, she gauged herself for a prolonged confrontation, she didn't want to be out of breath when it came to talk with the Countess herself.

Minutes afterwards, a great commotion could be heard outside the security barred doors. Gunshots, fighting, all sorts of things breaking and beating against the walls and floor. The shouts of her guards didn't leave any doubt.

Aliana Blue.

The Countess was looking at the door with some anxiety. She had composed herself after crying when she heard the name of the hero that had caused all this trouble, and her hatred had replaced her sorrow for now. Next to her, a woman in full Paragon Protector custume, with a full face mask and all, waited patiently.

The door popped out of its hinges and fell back, and through the open space flew one of the Crey tanks that were guarding the outside. The room behind had been reduced to a pitiful state of disarray, with bodies lying here and there where they had fallen in battle, and in the centre of it all was a small woman in a blue costume with white stripes.

"Countess Crey, I have a warrant to place you under arrest." The woman said as she entered her security room.

Small, not very imposing. The Countess had read Crey's file on her, she knew about her past and about her. She could easily guess why she hated Crey Industries too.

"You have the right to remain silent, of course." Aliana said, not without some sarcasm in her voice, when the Countess didn't answer.

The Protector advanced towards her instead. She had recognized her. This was not the first time they had fought, last time it was that fateful day four and a half years ago, when she destroyed the Crey lab and Matthew died. He was the one who had stopped her, hes presence in the place a mere coincidence owing to the presence of the Countess in the area for a visit. Recognition stroke as Aliana watched the woman move.

Aliana tensed herself. She had taken the few moments after throwing the tank through the door to relax, the battle before had been very tough. With the element of surprise she had taken two tanks out in the very start of the confrontation, but it had been very trying. She wouldn't mind a visit to the regenerators afterwards.

She waited the Protector out until she threw the first punch. Aliana dodged easily, and tried a countermove under her guard to the belt line. The woman was infernally tall, almost two feet taller than her. She replied with surprising speed and hit Aliana's arm with her fist. "Bam!" She felt a discharge on her arm not unlike her own chi-focused attacks.

That was new!

She had not done that in their first encounter. Did she hold back back then, or did she acquire this capability afterwards? Aliana whirled and sent a kick to her chest, turning over her hands in an upside down position. The kick hit right where she wanted, at the join of the rib with the sternum right over the diaphragm. Her foe stepped back and recovered quickly, but she had expected it.

She was faster than her, and she knew it. She countered her next punch with her own chi and the impact made both of them recoil. She was rubbing his arm more lovely than before, was she angry? Aliana pressed her hand and tensed the arm muscles all she could for a second, to lessen the pain.

"On her next attack, I'll go behind her under her guard and hit her on the kidneys, we'll see how she likes it."

When the punch came, she found it easy to go under it. Before she turned to hit her back she realized her mistake, and as she was trying to get out of the way, felt a hard impact on the back of her head that sent her flying to the back of the room. She had hit, too, and the Protector was holding a hand to his back with an obvious gesture of pain.

*Clatter* *Clatter* Aliana landed on a bookcase and all but levelled it; splinters and pieces flew all around her. She felt dizzy, but regained her balance and stood up. She turned around to look at her enemy, who had lost all her self-control and was just blindly charging at her. There was a crack on her full mask, but still didn't show anything of her face.

"Danger!" She thought that as she felt something stirring behind her. But that was her last thought.

Everything plunged into darkness.

23. Royale.

She felt herself floating. It was like being on the sea, but she couldn't feel any water on her skin. She was naked, but her body seemed to be of a strange white, almost as if it could glow. It felt so peaceful to float there.

"Where am I?"

There was nothing at all around her, it was all black. It wasn't even dark, there simply was nothing to see. It was only that feeling, the floating, and the peacefulness.

"It's so quiet." She whispered as she closed her eyes.

"Ali." A distant voice called her.

"Ali." The voice again, a bit closer. She thought she could recognize it.

"Joshua?" She whispered.

"Ali, get up. You have to fight."

"Joshua..." She felt tears on her eyes.

"Come on, Ali. Fight!" The voice was closer.

"But I want to be with you."

"Fight Ali!" Closer.

Aliana felt cold on her feet, on her hands. She looked at them and saw them frozen, then flying into bits away from her.

"Joshua!"

"Fight!" The voice was next to her.

Her limbs continued freezing. Bits and pieces flew away from her ankles up; she could feel her body vanishing away.

"What's happening!"

"FIGHT!" The voice was a shout now.

Aliana closed her eyes and shouted, in pain, and in anger. She felt the last of her body disappear, and then felt two hands holding her head. Her body was back again. She was kneeling on the floor, she could feel every bit of it distinctively, every nerve in her body, she could feel them all in a way she couldn't describe in words. Her body was one again, she felt it completely, both inside and the surface, every bit of it fitting in her mind. As she shouted, she released her chi through every one of her peripheral nervous system neuron terminations. It was like an explosion, the pulse sent the Countess back against the wall and released her grip on Aliana, and the Protector too was pushed back, although she regained her footing quickly.

Aliana felt a tickling down her nose, and knew she was bleeding, both through there and her ears. That feeling of floating, that ethereal body, it was her mind shutting down under the pressure of the Countess' powers. So she had Psionic powers.

But something else had happened. In her struggle she had climbed her ability to control her chi to a new level. She could speed up her heart or reduce its beat at will, not though psychological triggers like the adrenaline discharges. She felt every muscle; she could control every part of her body now. She could cut down pain sensations from the neuronal receptors.

She raised her pulse, felt the blood racing in her veins carrying oxygen to the muscles. When the Protector had gotten up, she rushed at her.

She was good; her counter to Aliana's movement was as good as she had ever seen. But this was not the same enemy he was facing moments before. Her punch hardly did any damage, the muscles absorbing the impact, with hardly any pain being felt. Fatigue was not in Aliana's vocabulary at that point.

Grabbing the fist that had hit her with her left hand, she raised the arm and focused her chi in her right one. "Bam!" the hit was direct over the lower left ribs, and she felt as at least three of them broke. She had never focused so much chi in one attack, and the result was hardly more damage to her than in a training session.

Her foe reeled. A second impact with her left hand on her stomach made her bend forward, and an uppercut caught her on the face, breaking the mask and sending her flying up and over her back. Before she could get up, Aliana caught her on the chest with a furious punch that made her lose consciousness.

At that moment she felt again her mind blacking out, and a burning sensation in her head that almost made her pass out. She turned and saw the countess was up again.

"You have ruined me, but I will kill you!"

Aliana rushed to her, fighting hard to remain balanced on her feet. She felt something holding her limbs back, but could see nothing.

"A psionic barrier!" She thought.

Her mind was on fire. She staggered and almost fell. The feeling of floating was back, but it was mingled with her normal senses.

She had an anchor to the real sensations now. She could fight it. Looking up at the countess, who had an expression of rage and of effort on her face, she willed her muscles to move, her legs to obey and walk. Slowly she did, every step was the last and most important in the world. The Countess now started to show fear. Her hold on Aliana seemed to lessen.

"No!" Shouted Aliana, as she freed herself, and reached the Countess.

Bam! A strike to her left cheek made her back two steps. Two more quick punches sent her against the wall. It all turned into a slugfest, neither of them even pretending to do anything other than pound on each other with all they had. In the end, the Countess turned and tried to run, but Aliana held her and hit her with all her strength, almost losing her balance and dropping the Countess to the floor. She was panting now, and knew she was at the limit of exertion. The Countess, however, didn't stir.

Aliana looked at her for a few moments, as she let her heart slow down from the hyperactive level at which she had forced it. Her legs started to tremble and she fell to her knees, and had to support herself on her hands. She started to cough, and spat blood, and then she knew she had driven herself almost to her death. She was totally exhausted.

But before that, she had to finish the job. She stood up, took three trembling steps to the countess, and fell on her knees again by her side. She turned her on her back, and felt the neck with a finger. There was still a pulse.

Not for long.

She grabbed the Countess by the collar and raised her slightly with her left hand, while she raised her right hand in a fist over her head, ready to strike.

"It was a hard fight, anyone will be able to see that. She died during the fight, an unfortunate accident."

She looked at the Countess, who was completely helpless, eyes closed, her head falling back with her face turned towards Aliana. She realized that she was trembling.

"I have to do it!"

"Do you?"

A small voice in her head. So small. She knew it was her own.

"It's her fault!"

"Is it?"

"They are dead because of her!"

"Because of her?"

Aliana clenched her fist tightly, focused her chi.

"I must kill her!"

"Can you do it?"

"I must!"

Her chi dissipated slowly, and she unclenched her fist. Carefully, she laid the Countess back on the floor.

And there, on the cavern floor, next to her sworn enemy, Aliana cried like she had never cried before.

---

Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!

It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...

The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013

24. Pieces.

*Bzzt*

"And in the latest development of the Crey plot, we have received news that the Countess is finally in custody. She was arrested, together with a strong force of bodyguards, by no other than Aliana Blue, who has placed herself at the very centre of this whole controversy. The arrest happened in Perez Park, and there we are going with our correspondent, Sandy Walkers. Sandy."

"Thank you Ryan. As you can see, we are at Perez Park right now, right by the Skyway City hazard entry. We have not been able to see the Countess yet, but we expect her appearance any minute now."

The image changed and an open ambulance could be seen. Aliana Blue was sitting inside, and two people with white coats were next to her.

"These images, recorded earlier, show Aliana Blue receiving first aid care in an ambulance. Apparently the fight with the Countess' forces was very strong, and she sustained some injuries that required prompt treatment. We cannot confirm this yet, but it would seem that the Countess herself was able to join the fight against her, something that will possibly sound surprising. During the time since we have been here, we have seen eleven people taken into custody and away in police cars."

The view changed again, back to Sandy Walkers. There was some movement of people behind her, but it turned out to be yet another Crey goon being taken into a police car.

"Sandy, what do we know about the Countess? Any news on when she will come out?"

"We don't know anything new yet, Ryan. About ten minutes ago, Aliana Blue went inside with some police officers and a doctor, and then came out alone. We have tried to talk with her, but she didn't answer questions. She is still inside the ambulance, though, and one of the police officers holding the line around the area has told us that he heard she was spending the night at the hospital."

Excitement broke out and several people started pressing the police line. Sandy and her cameraman advanced to see what the commotion was about, and saw that the Countess was finally being taken into custody.

"Countess Crey! A word please! How do you intend to proceed? Countess Crey!"

The Countess walked without looking up. Her hands were held behind her back with some regular looking handcuffs, and some strange looking circlet was wrapped around her head. She had a look of deep sadness on her face.

The police line held the reporters in place. Flashes went all around, and a million questions were shouted to the Countess, but she didn't look up. She sat inside the police car, and they were off immediately afterwards.

"Well, there you go Ryan, the Countess is in custody now, and as you could see, wearing signs of the recent struggle too."

"So it was true that she fought Aliana Blue herself."

"It would seem like it Ryan. We will be trying to get more information from here, but for now that is all we have."

*Bzzt*

"There she goes." Said Aliana, looking at the police car speed away carrying the Countess.

"Yes, it's finally over." Kellum replied, she was standing next to the back doors of the ambulance.

Her distress when she arrived to the scene, after receiving Aliana's call to signal that it was over, could scarcely be imagined. Aliana was lying on a stretcher in an ambulance, and looking very weak. Her apologies for having forgotten the mediport transreceiver were cut short by Aliana, though.

"I forgot it too!" She had said. "And they would have gotten away if the mediport had gotten me out of there when she almost killed me. No, it was more my fault than yours, so stop it!"

The doctor looked worried. Her pulse was irregular and he wanted to do a brain scan back in the hospital as soon as possible. However, Aliana insisted in going back to the cave with the police and with Janet Kellum when they arrived to take them all into custody. She had warned them about the Countess' psionic powers.

"It's sad, isn't it?"

Kellum looked at Aliana to gauge her reaction before venturing to continue.

"I told her that her real mother wanted to talk with her, but she refused to talk with anyone." She shook her head. "It could have been so different..."

Aliana didn't answer at first. She merely looked at the police car, and stayed like that long after it was gone. She, indeed, had a sad look on her face too.

Finally, she spoke.

"What now?"

"Well, with this arrest done, it's up to Judge Harrelson really. For you, though, whatever the doctor says. Get some rest, you've earned it."

Aliana nodded but said nothing. She was helped back in the ambulance and they took off to Steel Canyon. The police were already dispersing the crowd, and making them leave the place. Perez was still labelled a Hazard zone, and thus movement in and out of the area was restricted.

"We are going to be cleaning up this Crey mess for a long time." Kellum said to herself.

25. Epilogue.

Aliana arrived at her apartment after a week in the hospital, where all kinds of tests were performed on her. The Countess' powers had, fortunately, not caused any permanent damage in her brain. But her heart had required a radiofrequency catheter ablation to stop the tachycardia, and the electromyography had shown some abnormal electrical activity in her nerve-muscle connections. She was off duty for the time being, and booked for recovery treatments for at least two months.

The answering machine's light blinked demanding her attention. It would be full of messages from different reporters for sure. She left her bag of clothes on the floor and turned the TV on. The news was still going about the Crey plot, and the "latest development" was that Aliana had left the hospital already. She wanted to turn it off, but she needed to know what was going on with the case.

She sat down wearily at her desk. The phone started ringing, and on the fourth ring she suddenly slashed at it with the back of her left hand, smashing it to pieces against the wall.

From a drawer she drew her diary, and opened it on the last written page.

She started writing on it.

"Dear Joshua,

It's over. We won."

---

Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!

It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...

The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013

Um, that came out a bit longer than I thought it would... It's only 25,000 words o.O

---

Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!

It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...

The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013

I know what you mean about long stories. I've got one I'm working on that's only half-done and already passed 9700 words. I'm thinking of making it as a PDF and publishing it at the City of Heroes Writer's Guild, clearly labeled as a "novella" when it's done! Ha ha!

This is a pretty good story. You've obviously put a lot of thought into how your hero's version of the Countess Crey story comes out. You managed, I think, to weave Aliana Blue's story into Countess Crey's without straying really into "cheesy" territory.

The README bit made me think you were going to work The Doctor in there also, but that seems to have been a bit of misdirection. *heh*

---

Thanks for the kind comments

21 was supposed to be a dream flashback, to the point where Sanders showed Ali just how bad she had screwed up when she destroyed Matthew's lab (and btw, just spotted a very very annoying typo there, I think OpenOffice autocorrected Sanders' -&gt; Sander's &gt;_&lt; ). Hm, I may need to clarify that one a bit, probably something at the end of the chapter along the lines of "That same dream again, bad memories always find a way to stay around" maybe.

And heh, the Doctor is one of my favourite characters, I really liked the story when I first "liberated" her. Maybe that's what made me leave the clue for Ali that way... My subconcious betrays me!

---

Players' Choice Awards: Best Dual-Origin Level Range Arc!

It's a new era, the era of the Mission Architect. Can you save the Universe from...

The Invasion of the Bikini-clad Samurai Vampiresses from Outer Space? - Arc ID 61013