***8 years ago***

“Because we have the most experience dealing with mind control and manipulation, that’s why.  You, because you can do it yourself, and me, cause I’ve put up with you for the past two years,” Callie told Anna with a smile.  

“Still though.  The frickin’ Pentagon’s compromised.”

“Relax, chica.  We’re just reconnaissance.  We slip in, have a little chat with the brainwashed, and then go back to HQ and plan our next move from there.”

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t share your eternal optimism.”

Callie laughed.  “In the next ten seconds, nothing bad happens.  We don’t get in a car accident, no one calls us with bad news, and ZZ Top is up next on the radio.  That’s enough for me.”

“What about after ten seconds from now, where you can’t see.”

“That’s future me’s problem.  And I know her; she’s a badass.  She’ll take care of it.”

Anna managed a smile.  “I envy your confidence.”

“Time, chica.  Give it time.  Now, get ready.”

Anna put on her mask as Callie drove up to the security checkpoint.

“Let us through.  Don’t tell anyone we’re here,” Siren commanded as Callie rolled down the window.  The guard raised the arm out of the way and waved them into the Pentagon parking lot.

Siren and La Trogón entered the south side.  It was strangely quiet and empty.

“I don’t like this,” Siren muttered.

“Would you rather there be people shooting at us?  Cause that’s usually the alternative.”

Siren shrugged.  She was actually getting kind of used to people shooting at her.  But the idea of a mind controller made her uneasy.  She and Callie may have been the two with the most experience with this particular brand of threat, but she was also under check.  Very rarely had she controlled Callie, and even then, generally it was to make her shut up.  Callie hadn’t really experienced what she could really do.  An enemy who wouldn’t hold back in the use of such control made her more than a little uneasy.

“Would you relax, you’re starting make me nervous,” Callie hissed.  Siren noticed her hand resting easily on the butt of her gun.  

“Sorry, I’m-”

Callie froze, holding her hand up.  

“What’d you see?”

“Just a glimpse, on the rim of my sight.  It’s gone now.”

“We should get backup.”

“It’s fine.”

“Callie-”

Callie smothered Siren’s mouth with her gloved palm, interrupting her before she could tell her to call for backup.  “We have a job to do.  Buck up,” she said before removing her hand.

“Alright, jeez, jus-”

Callie spun, pulling her gun out, when she froze.

“So this is what the great Legendary Consortium sends to deal with me.  A precog whose ability is inconsequential, and a manipulator who uses her power to tell thugs to put their guns down.”

Callie struggled to move her finger to the trigger of her gun.  Her body wasn’t obeying her commands as she stared at the man in the suit who’d walked in out of nowhere while she was distracted with Siren.  Siren drew her baton reflexively, watching Callie out of the corner of her eye for her next play.

“Whatever you’re doing, stop,” Siren ordered.  

Beside her, Callie holstered her gun.

“I can’t seem to control you, but your words have no sway on me either, Siren.  A fact I’d find interesting if it mattered.”

“You’re-”

“John Cromwell.  And I have places to be, but your intrusion works.”

“Siren, I can’t move,” Callie said.

“Ignore him,” Siren told her.  She turned to Callie, watching Cromwell out of the corner of her eye.  He watched them, comfortable, his hands to his sides.

Siren spun back towards him, winding up to throw her baton when Callie grabbed her wrist, twisting it, forcing her to drop the baton to the floor.  Callie spun her, kicking her in the stomach, sending her crashing into the wall.

“Callie,” Siren said, pulling herself back to her feet.

“Don’t,” Callie warned her, and as Siren tried to dodge past her towards Cromwell, the controlled heroine was on her in a second, seeing through all of her feints and once more throwing her to the floor.

“Callie listen to me,” Siren said, getting back up.  “You’re stronger than this.  Whatever hold he has on you, fight it.”  She made another attempt to get past her partner, but Callie easily put her down again.  

“Anna stop,” Callie told her.  She could feel him in her mind, pulling her strings like a puppeteer.  She could see it before it happened each time Anna got back up, and she was forced to put her back down.

Cromwell watched.  La Trogón had a tremendous amount of willpower, and holding her would have been hard, even for him, had she not been so distracted by Siren, her efforts to wrench herself free of his control split as she fought with the other heroine.  

“Your power is interesting,” Cromwell said, scratching his chin as La Trogon kicked Siren in the chest, sending her flying against the wall yet again.  “But I have much better talents at my disposal.  And your inherent resistance to me is inconsequential.  You, La Trogón, will be message to your kind, and you, Siren, will be my messenger.”

Siren pushed herself up to all fours, breathing hard.  “What do you mean?”

Callie saw what he was about to make her do before it played out, and could only watch helplessly as Anna turned back to her.  “Anna, look away,” she said.  She pulled out her gun, switching off the safety.

“Callie!  No!” Anna screamed, forcing herself to her feet.

“Look away,” Callie said again.  She put the barrel of the gun in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.

“No!!!!” Anna screamed.

She caught Callie’s body as it dropped, limp, lifeless, the gun falling out of her hand.  

“Deliver my message to the Legendary Consortium.  I cannot be stopped,” Cromwell said.



***present***

“Why didn’t you just tell him you wanted your blood back?” the woman asked.  “You said he offered to give it back.”

Izzy shrugged.  “For a moment I think I was actually going to let him have it.”  

Considering the woman was only staying in his safe house to sleep, she had managed to totally trash the place.  He kicked a pile of dirty clothes and fast food wrappers across the floor with his foot.  “But it doesn’t matter, he confirmed Anna is alive.”

“Probably,” she added.  “And if he’s right, your Sea Witch is smarter than we thought.”  She stood up, stretching.  She was dressed in one of Israel’s shirts, the white t-shirt hanging loosely on her small frame.  

“She figured a way to steal someone’s power.  We always knew she was smart.”

“Fair point.  But this still doesn’t change the fact that we’re looking for a needle in a giant fucking haystack.”

“I have a few more locations we know she’s robbed.  They’re all over the map, and there’s no discernible pattern.  Plus, these are just the ones we know about.  With Anna’s power, I’m sure there’s plenty she’s hit that we don’t even know of.”  Izzy pulled a map out of his pocket.

“These are all over the entire east coast,” she said.

“Yeah, not making things easier.  And the one out in Arkansas is only a maybe.”

“You know there are more qualified people than me to be doing this,” she said, sorting through her crumpled clothes on the floor.

“There’s no one I trust more,” he replied.

“You mean there’s no one else you can trust.”

“That’s part of it.”

She shook out a faded pair of jeans before stepping into them, pulling them up her smooth legs.  “So she needs to re-steal Anna’s powers periodically?”

“That’s what Sisaro believes.”

“And even he doesn’t know how often that is?”

“No, but magic’s not his thing.”

“Still, she’d need to keep Anna readily available so she could suck out her voice or whatever at a moment’s notice.”  She shed Izzy’s shirt, putting on the cleanest of her own shirts she could find, a light gray tank top.

“We’ve been over this, she could be keeping her anywhere.”

“Yeah, but that was under the assumption she could count on Anna’s power to compel people to hold onto her.  Now we know she can’t.”

“So she’d need to keep her someplace she can count on to hold her without using Anna’s power,” the woman mused.

“True,” Izzy replied.  “But that still leaves paying people, not to mention what she can potentially do with magic.”

“Ugh, you and your logic.  I think I’m on to something here.  Plus, she’s robbed a few banks now, and hasn’t taken any money.”

“Of course she can always just tell people to give her money.”

“Will you stop?  I’m trying to narrow the search here.”  She glared at him.

“Sorry.  You have an idea.  What are you thinking?”

“It’s a long shot, but I have some leads to check out.  You’re probably right, but I’m going to check these out before I open my search back up to literally everywhere.”  She combed her fingers through her thick, wavy auburn locks, brushing it back.

“You care to tell me what your leads are?”

“Nope.”  She rummaged through her clothes until she found two matching socks, and then put on an old, worn pair of sneakers.

“Alright then.  Let me know if you find anything, Mira.”

She nodded, heading for the door.  “Will do.”  

Izzy looked around the trashed safe house.  He sighed.  She was a mess.



***8 years ago***

Anna sat behind the wheel of her car, willing herself to stop crying.  Through the prisms of her tears she could make out the little house in the woods.  Callie’s house.  

It was still early; she’d driven straight there after being debriefed through most of the night.  She didn’t see any movement from the house.  Mauricio and Rosita were probably still asleep.  She couldn’t interrupt the last peaceful sleep they’d have, blissfully unaware that the wife and mother would never come home again.

She choked out a fresh sob, laying her head on the steering wheel as more hot tears spilled down her cheeks.

Something tapped on her window.

Anna almost jumped out of her skin.  She wiped her eyes frantically, only to see Izzy standing outside her car in the predawn light.

Anna unlocked the car doors and Izzy got in.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“The same thing as you.  You left before I could get to you."  He paused. "You know you didn’t have to do this right?  Not alone anyways.”

She looked back out the windshield at the house.  “I was just here two weeks ago.  I played Candyland with Rosita.”

“That’s exactly why you can’t be the one to tell them.  That little girl is going to hate the person who knocks on her door and tells her that her mama is never coming home.  That’s not your burden to bear.”

“Izzy-”

“No, it’s written all over your face that you blame yourself.”

“I was right there.  I couldn’t, I couldn’t stop her,” she said with a strangled sob.

“No one could have.  And that’s not on you.  But you can’t tell Mauricio and Rosita that Callie died and leave any hint in their mind that something could have been done.”

“She’s dead Izzy.  She saw it coming, and, and-” she broke off into racking sobs, leaning over and burying her face in Israel’s chest.

He held her while she cried, until there was movement from the house.  He slipped silently out of the car, leaving his hat on her dashboard, and she watched him go up the door.  Mauricio answered.  She couldn’t hear the words, but she saw the reaction as the big man broke, clutching the doorframe as he dropped to his knees.  Rosita walked into the door, putting her small hands on her father’s back, trying to figure out what was wrong.  He turned and grabbed her, hugging her fiercely, holding her tight.  Izzy said something else, and then he turned and walked away from the house.  His somber mask faded, and she saw an expression that was unfamiliar on his face.  Fury.



***present***

Lobotomy.

The word rang in Anna’s ears.

All the drugs and electroshock therapy and psychological torment had failed to achieve Nurse Delamonte’s desired effect.  Anna wished she knew what that effect was; at this point she would gladly fake it.  Anything to make her torment stop.

But it seemed like her captors didn’t care about actually fixing her, even in their bizarre idea of what fixing her actually meant.  She wasn’t Siren anymore.  Since Ursula’s visit to steal her powers again, the brief hope that her power had evidently returned to her was dashed as she realized it didn’t matter.  Ursula would keep coming back to siphon away her voice, and in the interim, she would wait in this hell, spending her days locked in a straitjacket in a tiny padded cell between having her brain shocked for sport by her sadistic captors.  She wasn’t escaping this hell.  No one was coming to save her.  She wasn’t even sure how long she’d been kept locked up.  Days, weeks, months, it didn’t matter.  This was the rest of her miserable life.

She was wheeled back to her cell, to spend her last night with her brain still intact and whole.