Following the glowing mist turned out to be the easiest way to find Andromeda and company, all of them huddled around what could best be described as a weapon of mass destruction or similar.

  I recognize the lizard, but I don’t know who the other two are. Though if they’re here for something this important, I imagine they are actual members of whatever evil group is doing all of this. I doubt they wanted three variations of better humans.

  “Andromeda, you don’t need to do this!” I yell out the moment everyone’s in position.

  Andromeda turns the key in her hand. “Why don’t the eight of us play a game?” She asks, her voice full of mirth. “My device is going to go off, and destroying it will only make it go off sooner. But if you can get the keys from us, you’ll be able to stop it.” She says, shouting across the expanse.

  “Can you just zip over and get it?” I ask quietly, hoping they can’t hear.

  “Probably not.” Travis says, voice just barely above a whisper. “Besides, she said keys plural, so I doubt that we’re going to be able to stop it that easily.”

  “Four keys, four of us,” Amelia points out. “We can just all pick who we want to play with?” She offers.

  “Are you four done whispering over there!” Andromeda shouts, waving the key in question. “We already decided who we’re going to play with!”

  “Don’t go for one on ones, we'll try and get them as a team. Cannonball and I will be the runners. Fractal Smoulder, I want you to focus on setting a trap or restraining the ones we take the keys from.” I say speaking fast.

  Almost before I get the words out, the villains spring into action, the four of them racing in different directions. Well, except Andromeda. While a horde of her clones are racing towards the team, the one in a lab coat is still just at the control panel whistling innocently.

  Cass’s form expands as her golem form crashes into the Lizard, the two behemoths fighting for dominance.

  Travis blurs into action before almost instantly falling from the ceiling. The teleporter is here.

  Teleporter, Lizard, Andromeda. But who is the fourth? Sweeping my senses through the area, I can’t find anything. In the brief time between the go and now, they’ve vanished entirely.

  Until a fist has slammed into my jaw knocking me back, my bell considerably rung.

  “Size manipulator, space bitch, clone freak, lizard guy!” Amelia relays. “That’s what we’re working with. Lizard is keeping the key on his tail. The other three are using their powers to hide where they are.”

  This time when the shrinking man grows to hit me, I phase, letting the kick pass through me, but before I can grab him, he shrinks once more.

  “If someone could help me, that would be darling!” Travis says, and the moment I bring my attention over to him I realize just how screwed he might be at the moment.

  The teleporter caught him before he got up to speed, and now he’s stuck in a perpetually falling loop.

  “I’ll hunt down the teleporter.” I say, letting my awareness blanket the area. We’re just going to hope that they need line of sight, which means they have to be in this room and looking towards my friend.

  Despite those factors, the only people I can see are my team and the horde of Andromedas, masked up and ready to fight.

  Masked…

  Racing across the room towards where Cass and the Lizard are entangled, I phase through the two giants, coming out the other side solid.

  On reflex, the lizard flicks his tail at me, and I catch it hoping to grab the key off of it.

  The key that has been flicked with super strength and is now being sent across the room at high speeds.

  Amelia blasts herself in that direction, and I trust her to handle it as I have to try and free Travis from his current imprisonment.

  Running into the crowd of Andromeda I realize that I have not a clue on how I’m supposed to figure out which one is the real one.

  “Should I keep this guy occupied or do you need help?”

  “I need help! The midget stole my key!” Amelia complains as she releases a torrent of ice in all directions.

  I strike one clone and begin going from clone to clone hoping to take them down. Despite the fact they all have keys around their necks, I don’t bother trying to take it. I’ve seen the items the clones have disappear more than once, so unless it’s the actual key that she’s copying, it won’t be there.

  As I’m about to kick another clone, my stomach twists, and the next thing I know I’m falling through the air.

  Just like Travis, I don’t even touch the ground before being yoyoed back up via space manipulation.

  “I swear to god if you also got stuck up here I’m going to make you go through my training regime!” Travis curses.

  Ignoring his helpful words, I spike myself immutable as I concentrate. Between where I had just been and a place where Travis and I can be seen without issue…

  Crashing into the ground, I push off hard, keeping myself immutable as I charge toward the space wizard.

  As my fist crashes down, the whole world seems to fracture for a moment, and the skull of one clone appears between me and the spatial manipulator.

  I continue the assault with each time him teleporting someone or something else to intercept my attack.

  I want to relay to the team what I’m learning, but I would have to return my helmet and head to normal at the very least.

  Travis appears behind the teleporter and gives me a nod.

  Taking a step forward forces the teleporter to take a step back, stumbling over Travis and falling to the ground ass over tea kettle.

  “You got it from here?”

  Before my sentence is even done, Travis and the teleporter are gone, and now that my friend has seen the ability, I’m going to trust him that he can manage it.

  Focusing my attention back on the rest of the battlefield, it’s carnage.

  Ice covering most of it, clones and what would have been once held clone ice statues catered across everything as Amelia continues to belt out blasts of ice.

  Cass has mostly escaped the Lizard, I think. At least I see one form of Cass fighting a trio of clones.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  The lizard has not escaped Cass as it looks like he’s being held down by shackles of ash and upon returning to normal I’m struck with the scent of meat cooking and it’s not hard to figure out from there why the lizard isn’t resisting against such easy shackles.

  “Fractal!” I call, running towards her.

  Amelia laces her fingers together, forming a platform for me to jump off of, which I take gratefully.

  With the combined force of both of our strength I sail through the air, going even faster once I phase and the air can’t resist me anymore.

  “Got you!” I say crashing down next to Andromeda.

  “Fifty-two pickup!” Andromeda yelps as I reach for the key tied around her neck.

  I have just long enough to wonder what that’s supposed to mean when keys manifest into existence on her neck and if I were to hazard a guess, we’ll keep going till there are fifty-two of them.

  “For my next trick, I will pull a super out of my hat!” she says while not wearing a hat.

  Ignoring her insanity, I aim to slam a fist into her side, but in a shockingly similar display to how the teleporter fought, something appears to catch my fist.

  Though this time it isn’t the skull of Andromeda.

  My fist got caught by the size changer, and they’re growing even larger until they’re towering over me almost double my height.

  “Could I ask you to leave this all alone?” I ask, looking up at the lenses of his helmet, trying to figure out how I’m supposed to beat someone who will just change sizes to dodge my attacks.

  Also, is growing bigger supposed to make it so I can’t hurt him?

  Instead of playing with the giant, I phase through him, chasing after Andromeda, and I take great joy in the fact he’s getting turned into a popsicle as he tries to turn around.

  Amelia wasn’t exactly taking too kindly to the fact that she had been tricked.

  “You have to surrender!” I say, vaulting over a clone who had been trying to trick me.

  “A magician never reveals her secrets!” She denies pulling ?a grappling hook from her coat and shooting it off.

  “You’re in a lab coat!” I point out, unable to help myself.

  “I’m a witch doctor!”

  Despite that statement making no sense, she’s still swinging up and away, not really any faster than the two of us were running, but I still am falling behind in the verticality department.

  Travis, on the other hand, for some reason was already up in the rafters. Potentially to deal with the teleporter?

  As Andromeda is ascending, he moves over and detaches the hook from the ceiling, letting the duplicator fall towards the ground.

  As Andromeda falls, duplicates fall out of her, each ?of them also having ?far too many necklaces with the keys on them.

  “I got the two the size guy had on him, and they’re normal sized, I think?” Amelia relays. “How’s the… that’s a lot of girls in doctor cosplay.”

  “I got the teleporter. All that’s left is Andromeda. Smoulder, would you be able to restrain some of them or get ash on some of them to destroy the clones?” Travis asks as I watch him begin making his way to a ladder.

  “But!” Cass hesitates and understands. It’s one thing to use her destructive power against someone who’s resistant to almost any form of damage; it’s another for someone no more durable than myself.

  There’s a difference this time.

  While all the keys on her neck are hard to track with her wild movements falling, it’s substantially more predictable and I know which one is the real one.

  “Fractal trap field. Smoulder, restrain the ones you can, but make sure the Lizard can’t get himself back up. Cannonball, take down the ones you can; don’t worry about the keys.” I command racing towards the group.

  I don’t let Andromeda know I know which one is the real one, but slowly but surely I make sure to herd her towards the conclusion I want to reach.

  Despite my best efforts, it’s still a tedious process, and the number of clones I’ve punched into glowing blue particles I’ve long lost count of, but I can’t stop moving forward.

  “I think they’re all walled in. The only people in the cage are myself and Mask. And all the Andromedas and some Smoulder!” Amelia gasps, her breathing haggard as she makes construct after construct. “Cannon. I need you to make sure none of them escape, kay?”

  As Andromeda cackles something about how we will never be able to catch her, I get her trappedish. Just behind her is what looks to be one of the ice walls sealing us in.

  “You have nowhere to run.” I say, bringing up my fists.

  “How are you so sure I’m the real one? I don’t even know.” She says, pointing a finger to her cheek. “Also, look at my cosplay. You can’t hurt me. I’m a doctor. I save lives!”

  “You haven’t saved any lives.”

  “Not true. I saved you and Frostie if you two hadn’t met, me you wouldn’t be here!” Andromeda disagrees.

  I falter just a moment. But that’s the reason we have teams.

  “I need you to shut up.” Amelia commands a spear of ice slamming into Andromeda’s calf, spearing her to the ground.

  Unlike either clones this one doesn’t instantly dissolve into blue sparks at such abuse.

  “Frostie!” Andromeda cheers. “You’re here to save me!”

  The blow was so fast I didn’t even see Amelia’s fist fly out, but Andromeda is on the ground, hand clutching her nose.

  “I’m here to make sure you don’t hurt anyone ever again!” Amelia bellows, a trident of ice forming in her hands, poised to strike Andromeda down.

  Call it coincidence, but I find myself frozen.

  Not in the Amelia froze me solid so I can’t stop her kind of way but in that I don’t know what to do so all I can do is watch and bear witness.

  The trident slams down next to Andromeda’s head. “But I’m better than your people, so you’ll have to live knowing I’m the only reason you’re alive in prison.” Amelia snarls.

  I’m about to finally interject when Amelia’s boot slams down into Andromeda’s torso, pinning her to the ground as ice begins to crawl up the duplicator.

  “Mission accomplished.” Amelia rasps.

  “Nice job, you three,” Travis relays.

  “Guys, we’re not done yet!” Cass reminds the team.

  “You caught me!” Andromeda screeches from beneath Amelia’s boot. “That’s not how the game is supposed to go!”

  Amelia tosses me the final key. “Go shut it off now!”

  Racing over, I place the key in the appropriate spot, and the device clicks off with a shudder.

  “Did we win?” Cass asks, her voice quiet with so much of her mass being directed to holding people down, making speech difficult.

  “A little?” Andromeda says the words, making my blood run cold.

  “What do you mean, a little!” Travis barks, his head only inches away from Andromeda’s.

  “You’ll see.”

  The body of Andromeda dissolves into blue light.

  With fear, I spin around to look at the device. If she vanished, then maybe the key did, and that means that she’ll have just triggered it to go off the game was rigged from the start.

  The device is still dormant, much to my relief.

  “Does this mean she got the last laugh?”

  “We caught literally everyone she’s working with and have a truckload of supers above us ready for transport. It’s a win. Just not the game over one you wanted.” Travis says, moving forward to take a look at the machine.

  “Any idea how to take it apart?” Cass asks.

  “Not in the slightest. I’m just happy that it’s off.”

  “Ja—Mask.” Amelia corrects quickly. “Could you point me towards where it’s supposed to send the magic to make a super juice through? I figure it would be pretty handy if I just freeze that area and there’s a giant ice block down that whole pipe so if anyone does screw up while trying to disassemble it there’s something to stop that.”

  “Yeah, just give me a moment to figure it out.” I agree walking closer.

  With my eyes closed, I begin dissecting the machine quickly, finding the tube that I think is supposed to cause it to empty into the water pipes.

  As Amelia is freezing the section, she begins to speak. “Why is it that despite this place being abandoned the pipe still connect to our actual water supply of the city isn’t that a huge issue what if a random gang of super villains secretly took it over with the plan to drug the city and turn them into a horde of brainwashed super minions?”

  The three of us look at her flatly.

  “Cannonball, could you try to find whatever is blocking Asher from communicating and me from seeing super far and turn it off instead of us having to break everything?” I ask, ignoring Amelia’s antics.

  With my adrenaline finally beginning to fall, my shoulders slump as I feel my energy begin to vanish.

  I’m exhausted.

  “You good?” Amelia asks, a hand on my shoulder.

  “Yeah, I’m just tired. It’ll be okay.” I say trying to assure her.

  “Can I have a hug?” She asks, changing the subject as the ice falls off of her armor just leaving her in the regular power armor.

  “Uh, sure?”

  “I just want to go home.” Amelia admits in a whisper before disengaging from the hug. “Feel any better?”

  “Just a little bit longer and we can go home.”

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