***8 years ago***

“Your arrogance is truly astonishing.”  John Cromwell leaned against the wall, pressing his dislocated shoulder into the wall.  He uttered a sharp cry of pain as he pressed his weight into it, forcing the shoulder back into its socket with a pop.  “But I admire how close you actually came,” he finished.

Barrage stood on the other side of the wreckage, his body visibly shaking as he fought Cromwell’s control over him.  “You son of a bitch,” he growled.

“I freed those enhanced criminals so I could have a fighting force I didn’t have to micromanage.  That was my mistake.”

Barrage had made short work of the handful of super villains Cromwell had conscripted into his service.  He’d put more than a few of them away himself originally.  He wasn’t looking to take prisoners as he tore through them.  All that, only to fail to kill Cromwell in one single strike, only dropping the ceiling on him instead of blowing his head off.

“I must thank you for coming alone.  You lot are a handful, but I think you’ll fair much better against the rest of the Legendary Consortium.  A specimen of true power.”

“You have no idea,” Barrage said, his muscles strained as he fought to raise his hands.  He just needed a fraction of a second of control, and he could end Cromwell.

“I thought La Trogón had willpower.  You are really putting up a fight.  But it’s useless.  You might be a giant, but you’re a giant railing against God.”

Barrage looked for any chink, any weakness in the man controlling his body.  Injured, bleeding, he seemed to keep Barrage at bay without a second thought.  The only way Izzy even knew that it was an effort was because Cromwell had bothered to tell him, giving him hope that was ultimately false.

“I won’t be your puppet,” Barrage said.

“You won’t have a choice.”

Barrage switched tracks.  Instead of straining against Cromwell, trying to use his energy on him, his went limp.  He felt Cromwell scrabbling inside his head, redirecting, but he was too slow.  His ringer finger curled up, blasting a powerful bolt of pure kinetic energy into his own chest.  

“Shit!” Cromwell said, Barrage’s body flying backwards like a rag doll, slamming into the wall behind him.  Barrage crumpled to the ground, a bloody smear on the wall where his skull had connected.

“A pity,” Cromwell said, standing over Barrage’s limp body.  “Impressive, but insignificant.”  He turned, walking away from the fallen Legend.



***present****

Jean Delamonte walked back to her office.  It was almost time for Patient 236’s lobotomy operation.  She didn’t get to have the privilege of wholly cleansing her patients nearly often enough.  But today, she got that ultimate closure, fixing an afflicted permanently.  A doctor, Lance Roddick, who shared her ideals, was on his way to preform the final surgery to fix the poor, sick girl in her care.  It was truly a good day.

Jean froze as she opened her office and saw a woman sitting at her desk.  The woman tossed back her long, wavy, auburn locks and stared at her.

“You’re really fucked up, aren’t you?” the woman said.

“Who are you?  What are you doing in my office?” Jean asked.

The woman shut her notebook that she had been reading.  “Generally, I go by Mirage, but after looking at your schedule, today I think I might as well be called Deus ex Machina.”

Jean reached for her radio, only to have her wrist grabbed and twisted painfully, and she dropped the radio to the tiled floor.  A sneakered foot kicked the radio across the room.  She looked up, to see the same woman that was sitting at her desk holding her wrist.  She looked at her desk, and the woman there faded away.

“Mirage,” the woman holding her wrist explained to the stunned nurse, suddenly using her grip on her wrist to flip the nurse, sending her crashing onto the floor on her back.

“You’re LC,” Jean gasped as the woman put pressure on her throat.

“Oh, you aren’t that lucky.  They’d arrest your ass, and lock you up for life.  But me, I’m not LC.  And I’m not that merciful.”

Jean tried to subtly slip her hand into her white uniform, finding a ready syringe of sedatives.  She found it, uncapping the syringe and whipping it out, poised to stab it into the intruder.

Mirage caught her wrist again.  “No,” she said flatly.  “But thank you for saving me the trouble of looking for it.”  She twisted Jean’s wrist, forcing the needle into the nurse’s chest, putting her thumb on the plunger and depressing about a quarter of the syringe into her.  “Not too much.  I really want you awake for this,” she said, pulling the syringe out and fishing around in Nurse Delamonte’s pocket until she found the cap, putting it on the syringe and putting it in her own pocket.

“What-” Nurse Delamonte started, her tongue already heavy in her mouth as the sedatives took their toll.

“What am I planning?  I’m going to get Anna out of this fucking nut house.  But first, I’m going to give you a little taste of your own medicine,” Mirage stood over her, ramping up into a monologue as the nurse’s eyes glazed over.  “Hero’s a generous word to be used to describe me, but I’m definitely powerful, and I take issue with your desire to cure those like me.  Yeah, I read your psycho notes.  And you can’t cure this,” she said, jerking both of her thumbs at herself.  “I’m awesome, and I’m perfectly happy that way.  But you, well, you might actually be damaged.  Or maybe you have a legitimate reason to hate us super powered and gifted folks.  Regardless, I’ll doubt you’ll care that much for long.”

“Uhht,” Nurse Delamonte managed to mouth, surprised at how much her mouth was ignoring her brain’s attempt to form words.

“Doctor Roddick should be here soon, and he’s expecting to perform a lobotomy.  If he’s anything like you, I doubt he gives a shit who it’s on, but just to be safe, I doubt he’ll notice.”  Mirage pulled out a combat knife, kneeling over the prone Nurse.  She grabbed Jean’s blonde hair, pulling it out, and the sharp blade cut through the golden curls like butter.  “I’m not as fucked up as you, but you, I might honestly enjoy watching getting the harshest justice karma has to offer,” she said as she continued to cut off the nurse’s hair.



***8 years ago***

Siren slipped through the shadows.  The path of destruction was easy enough to follow.  The sounds of gunfire and explosions rattled in the distance, and the building still shook periodically.  She should have been with the rest of the Legendary Consortium, but her absence had likely gone unnoticed.  At the very least, she probably wasn’t missed.  Her one notable skill was useless against the army under Cromwell’s control.  She could be taking cover with the rest of the Legends who couldn’t stand up against gunfire, but this was far more pressing.

Barrage was not among the controlled waging war on the Legendary Consortium.  She was tempted to believe the worst, but it was Callie’s lingering, ever present optimism that made her look.  

She saw the cowboy boot poking out of the rubble.  Her heart sank.

You don’t know he’s dead, chica.

She dove into the rubble, pulling it away, tossing concrete and drywall aside as she unearthed Barrage’s inert form.  She told herself it was the dust that made him look so pale as she uncovered his head.

“Come on Izzy,” she said, pulling her glove off with her teeth.  She felt for a pulse.  His skin was so cold.  “Come on,” she breathed.  

She couldn’t find a pulse.

“No.  You can’t be dead.”  Hot tears rolled down her mask, onto her cheeks.  “Not you too.  I can’t do this again.  I’m not like you.  I’m not going to be able to tell your sister you died.  I can’t do that.”  She grabbed his arms, finding the backs of his sleeves wet with blood, still tacky.  “Don’t die, Izzy.  Please.”

The body in her arms spasmed, and Izzy uttered a dry cough.

“Izzy?  Come back!”

His eyelids fluttered, his eyes rolled back in his head.  He took a ragged, shallow breath.

“Oh, thank god,” Siren said, hugging him.

“What, what the hell happened?” Izzy asked, blinking rapidly.  His body felt heavy.

“I thought you were dead.”

“I’m not so sure I wasn’t.”  His vision focused on Siren’s face.  He tried to sit up, finding he couldn’t move.

“What?”

“That bright light they talk about.  I went into it.  But I could hear your voice.”

“Oh Jesus.”  Siren wiped the tears from her eyes.  “We have to get you out of here.”  As if to illustrate her point, the building shook again.

“Cromwell?”

“He’s got an army, and Tempest, and who knows who else under his control. Whoever’s left is trying to keep control of the situation.”  She got behind him and pulled him up by his arms.  There was so much blood, his hair and the back of his shirt soaked, the floor around him stained crimson.

“You gotta get me to the front lines,” he said.

“Izzy, you need to go to a hospital.”

“It can wait.”

“I’m not so sure it can.”  She helped him up, Barrage leaning heavily on her.  “You can barely stand.”

“It doesn’t matter if we can’t stop this guy.”

“Can you beat his control?”  She started to walk, more carrying than helping Barrage with her as they made their way back through the wreckage.

“Oh hell no, the guy is a monster.  But Aegis and Steph can.”

“Izzy, I didn’t save you so you could get yourself killed.”

“The way I see it, I’m on borrowed time.  I took a shot at him and I missed.  Not gonna happen again.”

Siren stopped.  “Izzy, I can’t let you do this.”

“Anna, he’s got nuclear codes.  Pretty soon he’s going to be able to destroy anyone he can’t be bothered to control.  We have to stop him here.”

Siren still didn’t move.  “Goddam it, Anna, he killed Callie.  He needs to die.”

Siren started walking again.

“Vengeance motivated you where heroics didn’t.  Tut tut,” he said, a wry smile cracking across his pale lips.

“Shut up,” she said, a small smile touching the corners of her own mouth.



***present***

Nurse Jean Delamonte was completely awake as she was strapped down the operating table.  She was of course completely paralyzed, but that’s how she liked to do it when she got the opportunity to perform lobotomies.  She also insisted on putting a mirror above the operating table, so her patients could see what was being done to them.  

She stared at her own face now, thick black marker indicating where the incision would be along her forehead.  

It was her face, and it wasn’t.

In her peripheral vision, she could see the image of her own face over the surgical mask on the women that had done this to her and was now masquerading in her place with her powers of illusion.  The face that was looking back at her from the mirror was that of Patient 236, the girl who believed herself to be a super heroine named Siren.  It should be her on the table, while Nurse Delamonte assisted Doctor Roddick in removing pieces of her frontal lobe.

Initially, she felt only rage towards the woman called Mirage, who would wink at her periodically when Doctor Roddick and the orderlies weren’t paying attention, just to remind her who had put her in this situation.  But as the Doctor started laying out his tools, a sense of dread started to creep into her psyche.  Her mind raced into panic as Doctor Roddick turned on his bone saw to make sure it was working properly before laying it on the tray with the rest of his surgical instruments.  She was going to wind up a drooling idiot like so many of her patients before her.  She knew firsthand the long and short term effects of a lobotomy.  Her future was bleak.

Mira, for her part, was glad of the surgical mask.  Less illusion she had to manipulate, for one, but it helped her better emulate the cold precision with which these people prepared for the ruthless surgery.  Mimicking the nurse’s voice was easy enough for a woman of her skill, but the barely contained glee the Doctor had hidden in his professional smile was something she was glad she didn’t have to imitate.

“Everything’s ready, Jean,” Doctor Roddick said.  He wasn’t a man for small talk, something that would have given Mirage away in a second.  “You’ve been rather quiet.  Is everything alright?”

Mirage glanced around the room.  Two big orderlies by the door, another smaller one next to her, the Doctor, and Nurse Delamonte on the table.  “No, I’m afraid not,” she said, still maintaining Delamonte’s voice.

“What’s the matter, Jean?”

“I think it’s my conscience.”

Whether it was the change in her voice, much lighter than Delamonte’s, the idea that the nurse had a conscience, or a combination of the two, but it set everyone on edge.

Even still they weren’t prepared as Mirage spun, chopping at the orderly’s throat next to her.  He coughed as she crushed his windpipe, before she kicked him in the back of the knee.  He stumbled, and as he fell, she slammed his forehead into the edge of the operating table, knocking him out cold.

The other two orderlies moved on her swiftly.  She ripped off her surgical gown with a flourish.  One of the orderlies charged, a syringe in his hand.  His hand passed right through the woman standing before him, a mere illusion Mirage had thrown up as she disrobed.  She stepped out of the shadows, grabbing his arm, using his forward momentum and confusion to swing the syringe around and stab it into his partner’s chest.  Mirage depressed the needle, ducking out of the way as Doctor Roddick swung a scalpel at her.  She elbowed the orderly that was still up in the groin as she stood back up, catching Roddick’s arm as he swung again.  She twisted his wrist, making him drop the scalpel.  She deftly caught it, dropping to her knees and slamming the sharp instrument through the doctor’s foot, effectively nailing him to the floor.  She swung back up, pushing him hard in the chest, sending him falling backwards, his head cracking into the wall.

The remaining orderly, having recovered quickly from the sharp blow to his family jewels, grabbed the girl from behind, holding her in a tight bear hug.  Mirage gasped as the air was forced from her lungs.  She struggled violently for a second, and then stopped, going limp in his arms.

He held on tighter, determined not to fall for any tricks, when he saw the patient on the table sit up despite the straps holding her down and pick up the bone saw.  He raised one arm reflexively, only to have the image disappear, and the girl slipped out of his distracted grasp.  He tried to regain control, but it was too late; she already had the upper hand, and she flipped him over her back like he was nothing.  She pounced on him, landing with her knee on his windpipe, cutting off his air.  He flailed about.  Mirage caught one of his arms, grabbing his thumb and bending it back until with a sickening pop, it broke.  His mouth opened in a soundless scream of pain, his face turning purple, and finally he passed out.  

She stayed on his neck for a moment longer, catching her breath.  Finally she stood, looking down at Nurse Delamonte on the table.  The illusion of Anna’s face over her own was long gone.

“Don’t make me regret sparing you,” Mirage said.

Nurse Delamonte was incapable of responding.  Her wide eyes said enough.

“If I have to come back here, you’re going to wish you’d gotten the lobotomy.”  She pulled off the surgical cap, freeing her sweaty auburn locks, and walking out of the operating room to get Anna.



***8 years ago***

It was a war zone.  Rubble, bodies, the smoking wreckage of military vehicles everywhere.  

“There.”  Barrage raised his arm as much as he could muster and pointed to where a blue glow pierced the smoke and dust clogging the air.  “Lady Sapph.”

The sound of gunfire rattled from that direction, a bigger boom of an explosion.

“What are we supposed to do?” Siren asked.

“Well, you’re going to stay here,” Izzy coughed.

“What?  You can’t even stand on your own.  You’ve lost so much blood, and you’re still bleeding.”

“And I’ve got a concussion, a fractured skull, some broken ribs.  It doesn’t matter.  You just have to tell me.”

“What?” Siren asked, nearly dropping him on the spot.

“You told me to not to die, so I didn’t.  Now I need you to tell me to get my ass over there and help, and I’m gonna do it.”

“It, I, my, I don’t know if it works like that,” she responded, flustered.

“One way to find out.  Hurry up; time’s a bit of a factor.  I’m not getting any less half dead.”

Siren stopped supporting him, stepping back.  Barrage dropped to his knees.  He struggled to stand back up, but couldn’t muster the strength, dropping to all fours.

“Stand up, Izzy,” she said.

His bloody arms shook as he pushed himself up and stood on quaking legs.  “Atta’ girl.”

“I’m not going to be able to control you if he gets ahold of you.”

“Luckily I’ll be pretty easy to put down if that happens,” he said, forcing a laugh.

“Izzy, you don’t-”

“Just do it, Siren!” he yelled, his voice suddenly completely serious.  He wasn’t the laid back cowboy anymore.  It was a side of him she’d only seen glimpses of.  The hero.

“Go get him.  Go help the others.  Don’t stop until he’s dead.  Go avenge Callie.”

He nodded, taking a shaky step forward, and then another, his gait widening until he managed a shuffling jog.

“Don’t die,” she whispered once he was out of earshot.



Aegis was thrown backwards by a tank missile collided with his bare chest, wrapping him in fire as the shell exploded.  The immortal coughed as he rolled over and climbed back to his feet, holding up his arm as the tank’s machine gun trained on him.  With a roar, he charged the tank, only to be blindsided by a rocket propelled grenade, sending him flying again.

Lady Sapphire watched, wondering the actual limits of her partner’s invulnerability.  Her own considerable powers were certainly being taxed.  She stepped out from behind the overturned jeep, chanting under her breath as she gestured and pointed at the tank.  Magical sapphires clogged the gun of the tank, and its next shot backfired.  The hatch opened and black smoke poured out with the fleeing operator.  She waited until the driver was clear of the tank before she mouthed another spell, putting him to sleep next to the tank.  Even such simple spells were starting to drain her.

Bullets struck her.  They bounced harmlessly off her sapphire armor, but the impact still made her stumble, and she turned, her eyes glowing blue, and the three men firing at her were encased in a prison of the blue gemstone.  She wiped sweat and grit from her eyes, looking around again for Aegis.

She froze, staring at the figure standing in the middle of the road.

“Israel.”

“Yup.”

“Are you?”  She trailed off, but controlled was the implied adjective.

“Yeah, but not by Cromwell.  Speaking of which, where is that asshole?”

Stephanie pointed further down the road.  “We managed to destroy the road.  He’s stuck here, but he’s got hundreds of the National Guard and Army under his control, standing between us and him.”

“What if you had someone to clear a path?  You think you and Aegis could finish this?”

“No offense, but I don’t think you’d be up to that task on your best day.”

“We can’t take another Legend falling under his sway,” Aegis said, jogging up to them.

“If he gets me I’ll probably die on the spot.  I’m only standing because of Siren; if his control overrides hers, I’m no threat.  Now how’s about you get me up to the front lines, big guy.”

“It can’t hurt to have a little extra firepower,” Lady Sapphire said, looking at Aegis.

“If you can take out the tanks and big guns, they’re what’s slowing me down.  Knock out the anti-air missiles and Stephanie can fly.”

“Just get me close and I’ll clear you a path.”

Lady Sapphire shut her eyes, her lips moving silently, and the sapphire armor began to fade from around her body.  Izzy watched as the clear blue magic material began to form a protective shell around his own body.

“You can have it back when I’m done,” he said, moving experimentally.  The armor was feather light, and he felt the magical energy pumped into him, rejuvenating him.

“Stay close to me,” Aegis said.

As soon as they rounded the bend, they were met with automatic weapons fire.  They both threw up their arms protectively, the bullets bouncing off Aegis’ impenetrable skin and Barrage’s borrowed armor.  Aegis charged, and Barrage struggled to keep up, firing blindly in the direction of the muzzle flashes dotting the surroundings.

Aegis plowed through the sandbags forming a barricade, stopping short as he saw the wall of soldiers, tanks, and heavy artillery Humvees standing before them.

“Steph, take the armor back.  Aegis, get down.”  Barrage stepped out into the open.  He felt the armor fading from around him.  

The soldiers hesitated, watching, likely waiting on orders from Cromwell.  

Izzy crossed his arms across his chest.  He closed his eyes.  He took a deep breath.  He opened them.

Barrage swung his arms out, wide swatches of pure kinetic energy flying from his forearms in sweeping arcs.  The two blades of force tore through the army, knocking soldiers off their feet and sending jeeps and tanks sliding across the asphalt.

Izzy was unconscious before he hit the ground as he toppled over, completely spent.  Lady Sapphire threw a protective encasement of sapphires over his prone form as she flew over him, once more encased in her armor.  Aegis broke into a sprint underneath her, charging through the slowly recovering ranks.  The tanks and gunners couldn’t get a bead on the two Legends as they rushed the human barricade, passing through them.

Cromwell stood, stunned, outside of his limo, a martini glass still in his hand.  He turned back to the limo, only for shards of razor sharp blue crystals to grow outward from the interior, and he narrowly avoided putting out his own eye.

“Wait!” he said, turning around.  His newly conscripted personal bodyguard Lynx leapt forward to meet the two superior Legends, her chain spinning.  Aegis swatted her aside like a fly, not slowing or altering his course as he barreled into Cromwell at a frightening speed, sending the mind controller hurtling into the side of the limousine with a sickening crunch.

Lady Sapphire landed next to Aegis, who was checking the limp body for a pulse.  

“Is it done?” she asked.

“It’s done,” he said, standing up.  “We won.”



***present***

Anna looked up as the door to her cell opened.  This was it.  They were going to haul her off and tear out pieces of her brain until nothing left of her old self remained.

She blinked against the harsh fluorescent lights of the hall, staring at the silhouette of the figure standing in the door.  It wasn’t one of the big burly orderlies. Nurse Delamonte had come for her herself.

She squinted again.  The figure wasn’t Nurse Delamonte.  The person was even smaller, a slighter, more petite build, and not wearing the usual nurse’s uniform, but pants and a loose fitting tank top.  As her eyes adjusted to the light, she saw the woman more clearly.

She had to be seeing things.  Another hallucination.

No, not a hallucination.  A mirage.  The Mirage.  She recognized this woman.

“Damn.  You look like shit,” she woman said.

“Hmmmm,” Anna moaned into her ever present gag.

Mira double-checked the hall.  Other than the orderly lying on the floor at the end of the hall with a syringe in his neck, the coast was still clear.

She didn’t even bother trying to remove Anna’s restraints, instead just picking her up.  Anna had a good four inches on her and on a good day probably twenty pounds, but right now, Mira was amazed at how light Anna was as she lifted her into a waiting wheelchair.  

Anna’s head lolled weakly to the side and she slumped forward as Mira set her in the chair.  She moaned softly.

“It’s alright.  I’m getting you out of this hell hole,” Mira told her, pulling her back upright and placing a strap across her chest to hold her in place before she started wheeling her towards freedom.

Anna thought she had to be dreaming.  She’d given up hope of being rescued.  But the fresh air that greeted her as Mirage pushed her through the door was real.  The sun shining down on her was warm against her skin.

Anna allowed herself to believe that she was truly free.