***9 years ago***

“You’re slow, sloppy, and weak,” Callie said as she threw Anna down on the mat, hard.

Anna coughed, gasping for breath.  “That’s not fair.  You know what I’m going to do.”

“I’m barely even cheating.  And still my point remains.”  She extended a hand to help Anna up.  Anna used her upward momentum to strike at her mentor, a move Callie easily dodged, throwing Anna over her shoulder and back onto the mat on her back like it was nothing.  “Saw that coming a mile away without looking into the future.  You telegraph your hits, and you’re slow to make your move.”

Callie usually went a little easier on her than this, but today she was brutal.  Sometimes there was a lesson that came with these relentless lessons.  Some days it seemed like Callie just used her as a punching bag, and if there was a lesson, Anna never picked up on it.  She supposed it was how to lose gracefully, but that point had been hammered home a long time ago.

Anna struggled back to her feet, her breath hot and heavy as she struggled to get her eyes to focus.  As much as Callie had taught her in the last 18 months, it was still nothing compared to Callie’s own speed and skill.  She struck, feinting to the right and striking from the left, quick jabs that Callie easily absorbed, quickly grabbing her arm and using her own momentum to spin Anna around and throw her against the ropes.

“Better, but still weak,” Callie said.

Anna leaned on the ropes, trying to catch her breath.  Her vision was swimming as she saw Izzy walk into the LC’s training gym.

“Tap out kid,” he said, walking up to the ropes and patting her foot.  She gave an exhausted sigh of relief and dropped to the floor of the mat and rolled under the rope onto the floor, lying spread-eagle on the floor, grateful for the reprieve as she caught her breath,

“Feeling froggy?” Callie asked Izzy as he ducked under the ropes.

He set his hat on the corner of the ring.  Callie was wearing shorts and a tank top, as was Anna, but Izzy was as ever in his jeans, white shirt, vest, and cowboy boots with the spurs.  They rattled with each step he took as he approached the precog.

“You seem like you’re in the mood for a challenge today, after the ass kicking you just gave Anna.”

Anna wanted to speak up, but she kept her mouth shut.  It had been an ass kicking, and if it was a challenge Callie wanted, she wasn’t up to the task.  Callie was actually perfectly suited for training with most of the Legends.  Her ability to see incoming attacks made her the ideal sparring partner, letting the rest of her super powered allies go all out with little risk of hurting her.  Training Anna and the less physically empowered Legends must’ve seemed like a chore to her, Anna thought as she rolled over into a sitting position so she could watch.

“Let’s see what you got, vaquero,” she said, a wide grin across her face.

Barrage moved with startling speed.  Despite his power being suited to range, he was more than adept at hand-to-hand combat, closing the gap between them in a flash.  Callie easily blocked his first few strikes, but she narrowly dodged his powerful kick, the spiked spur catching the fabric of her tank top as she leaned out of the way, ripping it, exposing the black sports bra she wore underneath.

“You’re still holding back,” she said with a smile.  

“I didn’t think it was fair to open with this,” Izzy replied, blasting his kinetic energy blasts at her.  She dodged them, closing the gap between them to force him back to hand-to-hand combat.

Anna watched as the two entered what looked more like a well choreographed dance than a fight.  She blocked and dodged everything he threw at her, throwing in a few jabs of her own that he either took or blocked.

“You’re still holding back,” she said, mildly annoyed.

“I’m always holding back,” he said.  He fired at her, and she ducked under the blast, grabbing his arm and throwing him over her.  He hit the mat in a roll and popped up to his knees, firing again, catching her full in the chest, sending her flying against the ropes.

“Not bad,” she said after a few coughs.  “Not bad at all.”

“Do you appreciate me holding back now?” he said with a smile.

“What, so you could’ve finished this early?” she asked.  She rushed him, ducking under his defensive blasts.  There was a quick exchange of blows, and Callie had him down on the mat, her heel at his throat.

“Watch the fingers,” Izzy said.

“I am,” she retorted, stepping on his outstretch hand.

“Wrong ones,” he shot back.  She was too slow as he rolled up, freeing the other hand that was pinned under his body, blasting her off of him.

She was flung against the ropes, and she bounced off, laughing as she lay sprawled across the mat.  Izzy crawled over the opposite side, leaning against the ropes, laughing as well.

“You’re getting faster at changing tactics in the moment,” she said.  “I saw it coming, but not in time to do anything about it.”

“Nah, I’m still the same, you’re just getting slow.”

“Fuck you,” she said.

Izzy smiled, sliding under the ropes.  “You’ll get there, kid,” he told Anna as he walked past.

Callie struggled to get up, watching him go.

“So, are you and Izzy like, a thing?” Anna asked as Callie took a long drink after Izzy left.

She took a spit take, laughing.  “What?”

“It’s not often I can surprise you like that,” Anna said with a smile.  “But I can take that as a no?”

“You can,” Callie said, wiping her mouth.  “I respect the hell out of that man.  He acts like he’s in it for the fun and the flash, but he’s not.  He does exactly what he needs to and no more.  But no, we’re just friends.”

“Okay,” Anna said.

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason.  You two just seem close.”

Callie nodded, giving her a knowing look.  “What are you doing tonight?”  

Anna shrugged.  “I don’t have any plans.”

“You’re coming out with me.”  It was an order, not an offer, and Anna happily agreed.



“When you said come out with you, I dunno, I thought,” Anna said as Callie sped down the highway.

“You thought I meant a club.”

“Kinda.  Do they have that?  Places for super heroes and heroines?”

“Thank god no.  No, this is just something I wanted to show you.”  They’d been on the road for almost two hours, Anna’s attempts to discern their location coming up with vague non-answers.  

Callie pulled off the highway, traveling across the back roads at her typical breakneck speed until they were on a dirt road.  They pulled up to a small house tucked away in the woods.

“What is this place?” Anna asked.

“Hold your horses, chica,” Callie said as she got out.  The door to the house opened, and a small, dark skinned Latina girl came rushing out.

“Mommy!” the girl squealed as she ran up to Callie, the super heroine picking up the girl and hugging her fiercely, showering her with kisses.

“Hola, mi amor.  I’ve missed you.”

Anna was speechless.

“You’ve brought company, Calita,” a tall, dark skinned Latino man said from the door.  

“Sí.  This is my friend Anna.  Anna, this is my husband, Mauricio.  And this angel is my daughter, Rosita.”

Anna waved, still unable to find words.

“Come inside, mommy,” Rosita said.

“Of course, mi amor,” she said.  “Come on, Anna.”

Anna followed her inside, dumbfounded.



Anna sat through a dinner, politely answering questions, unable to bring herself to ask the literally thousands of questions on her mind as she watched her mentor of a year a half interact with her secret family.  Rosita had a thousand questions of her own for Anna, the large majority of which Callie answered herself.

Finally, Callie was ready to put her daughter to bed after dinner, and Anna joined Mauricio on the porch.

“We were resistance fighters in Cuba.  We were doing good work.  And then we got pregnant.  Callie can’t see far into the future, but she knew she didn’t want to raise our child there.  So we fled to America.  I don’t have any powers; I had no trouble settling in here.  She tried, for three years to just be a mother, but she has a gift.  After three years of trying to be just a mother, she couldn’t do it,” Mauricio explained, taking a puff of his cigar.  “I quit my job as a mechanic to stay home with Rosita, and she went straight to the Legendary Consortium.  She figured it was better than trying to do work locally, and it was less likely to draw attention back to us.”

Anna nodded.  “I had no idea.”

“That was part of the deal.  We were kept secret, to protect us.  You are the fourth member of the Legendary Consortium to even know about us.”

Anna did the math in her head.  “Lady Sapph, Aegis, and?”

“Izzy.  He’s a good guy.  He’s the only one besides you to actually get a dinner invite.”

“This is blowing my mind,” Anna said, taking a sip of her wine.  Callie had of course made a crack about her being underage, to which Anna had once again responded that she’d been telling bartenders to believe that she was 21 since she was 14.

“We couldn’t be prouder of what Callie’s doing.  We don’t get to see her as much as we’d like, but we know she’s out doing good.”

“She doesn’t wear a mask,” Anna said suddenly.

“No need.  Technically all three of us are illegal aliens.  There’s no record of her marriage or her daughter.  She can’t be traced back to us, and that’s fine by me, and I’m fine with her not wearing my ring,” Mauricio explained.

“Rosita will probably come to resent me at some point for being absent in her life,” Callie said.  

Anna turned in surprise, not having heard Callie come outside.

“But every teenage girl hates her mother at some point.  She’ll eventually realize that what I was doing was worth the sacrifice,” Callie continued.  She poured more wine into her glass, and sat between Anna and Mauricio.

“Until then we have a few good years where she still worships the ground you walk on,” Mauricio said, leaning over and giving Callie a kiss.

“That’s why I’ve been so firm about you still wearing a mask,” Callie said.  “Right now you’ve just got Macy, but someday, you’ll have more people you care about.”

“I just can’t imagine,” Anna said.  “I mean, having kids, doing what you do.”

“We’re of course more careful now,” Mauricio said.

“Well, we thought we were both about to die the night we made Rosita,” Callie said.

“Yeah, impending doom sex.  It’s the best,” Mauricio said with a smile, giving Callie another kiss.

“But she’s my world.  And I do what I do to make her world a little bit better,” Callie said.



***present***

The door to Anna’s apartment was open when Ellen tried it.  She saw the hope in Macy’s eyes when she opened the door, and then that hope was dashed when it was revealed that it was just Ellen.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get your hopes up.  I just figured I might find you here.”

Macy set down the framed picture of her and Anna.  It was from a few years ago when the two had taken a trip to Madrid.  Back when their lives had been normal.  They’d been happy, genuinely happy, as the sisters smiled for the camera.

“Yeah.  I wanted to pay her rent and stuff, make sure when she- when she-” Macy quickly found herself choked up, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.

Ellen rushed to her, grabbing her in a tight hug.  “She’s gonna come back,” she said, stroking her girlfriend’s long brunette hair while Macy sobbed into her shoulder.

“I pushed her into this.  I encouraged her.  I keep thinking, what if I hadn’t supported her in this?  She might still be here, safe, teaching.”

“Hey, you can’t do that Mace.  You can’t think like that.  She’s going to come back.”  Ellen held the smaller girl in her arms for a long time, trying to reassure her with hope she wasn’t sure she believed herself.



***8 years ago***

Bill Moore sat back in his office, his feet propped up on his desk.  Being the Secretary of Defense wasn’t always a great job, but when he had a good day, he tried to enjoy it.  Things had been going great for the past few weeks, and that meant shit would inevitably hit the fan soon, but until then, he was going to ride out the peace and quiet.

The sound of his door opening startled him, and he kicked a mug of Irish coffee on his desk as he fumbled to sit up.

“Carol, I said I wasn’t to be disturbed,” he said.  But it wasn’t his secretary at his door.  Or anyone he’d ever seen before.

“Excuse me, but you shouldn’t be here.  Do you have any idea who I am?”  He reached under his desk as he spoke, hitting his silent alarm, calling for the Pentagon security.  They’d be there within 30 seconds.

“There’s no need to call security, Mr. Secretary.  They all work for me now,” the man said.  He strode into the Secretary of State’s office, allowing the door to close behind him.  He wore a perfectly tailored gray three-piece suit.  His short black hair was gelled and styled, not a hair out of place.  

“I don’t know who you think you are.”  Bill reached for the drawer where he kept his Beretta, when his body stopped, unable to move.

“I know exactly who I am, Mr. Secretary,” the man said, adjusting his coal black tie.  “My name is John Cromwell, and I’m going to rule this world.”



***present***

Stephanie Royal made her way to the top of the LC tower.  The Sorceress of Sapphires was deeply troubled.  Her flowing blue robes swished with each step as she ascended the stairs.

She got off near the top and made her way down the hall, knocking on a nondescript door.

“It’s open,” Aegis said.

Stephanie went inside the dark room, making her way to the large glass window occupying the far wall.  Aegis stood at the window, his hands clasped behind him, looking out over the city, all lit up still in the early evening.

“What’s on your mind, Stephanie?” he asked.

She stood silently next to him for a long moment before answering, staring out at the cityscape below them.

“We’re definitely dealing with a magic user,” she said finally.

“That is the least of our worries,” he said.

“And you see the public fallout as the most pressing concern.”

He nodded, turning away from the window to look into her deep blue eyes.  “We can’t afford another hit like Cromwell.”

“This isn’t Cromwell.”

“No, but he left scars that will never fully heal.  Siren wasn’t the only casualty of his actions.  He made the world fear all of us,” Aegis said.

“The world will always fear what it doesn’t understand, what it can’t control.”

“That’s why we must control their perception of us.  In my life I’ve been worshipped as a god and hunted by nations and armies.  What we’ve built here, the relationship we’ve established with the world, the compromises we’ve made to create the level of trust we’ve achieved, it’s the best we can hope for.  Siren and the Sea Witch can’t be allowed to jeopardize that.”

“I can’t argue with your experience Aegis, but I think you’re wrong.  The world needs to believe in our morals.  They want heroes.”

“We don’t have the luxury of only helping those that want heroes.  The majority of people want that illusion of control.  We have to protect that, so we can keep doing this.  That comes with sacrifices.  It’s always come with sacrifices.”

Stephanie frowned.  It was the very principle they’d built the Legendary Consortium on.  To put an end to the petty power struggle between the government and the gifted and super powered.  The concessions made to forge that peace had been costly, but they’d been made largely in part due to Aegis, and had been made on his terms.  He wore the leash the government put on him because it eased their minds, but they all knew that there was no one on the other end who could hold that leash.

“None of this matters if we can’t find her.  Either of them,” Stephanie said, looking back out the window.

“She’ll slip up eventually.  Until then, we wait.”