Anna’s mind was racing with so many questions as he led her back to the gym.  Tyrese Cain: coworker, trainer, sparring partner, and now rescuer.

“Later,” he had signed to her when she’d tried to ask him what was going on.  “Get off the streets first.”  

He’d taken her back to the gym she’d trained with him in.  It wasn’t her apartment, but she’d spent so much time there the past few months before Ursula had snatched out of her life, it had the familiar feeling she’d been craving, and a sense of relief washed over her as she’d walked through the doors and the old lights slowly flickered on.

As soon as Tyrese finished locking the door behind them, she threw her arms around him in a hug.  She had no idea what was going on, how or why he’d managed to show up and save her when he did, but it was really, really good to see him.

He hugged her back, crushing her in his powerful embrace.

“It is really good to see you again,” he signed when he finally released her.  He looked her over, finally seeing her in the light, noting how pale and thin she was.  “What happened to you?”

Anna had no idea how to answer that.  She decided to start with the beginning, and found she didn’t even know how to do that.  It was the first time she actively realized she didn’t know how to say Siren in sign language.  “I’m S I R E N,” she signed, spelling out the layers.

The reveal didn’t get the reaction she was expecting.  The look of concern on his face was not replaced by shock or even a remote hint of surprise.

She asked him how long he’d known.

“I had my suspicions for awhile.  I knew for sure when you disappeared and the imposter started showing up on the news,” he signed.

“I thought I was more careful than that.”

His nostrils flared as he snorted.  He didn’t like to laugh.  His tongueless mouth tended to freak people out, so he rarely opened it unless to eat, and even that he rarely did in public.  “You come to me to help you learn to fight the same time a super heroine starts cleaning up the streets, a redheaded teacher who spends all her time around the deaf and a redheaded heroine whose voice can command anyone who hears.  Too many coincidences.”

“I’m done,” she signed.  “I’ve lost my power, I was clearly bad at this, who knows how many other people have figured it out, and how many more I’ve put in danger.”

“What happened?”

She told him.  She told him how she decided to become a super heroine and had been recruited to the LC, and then how she’d been forced to retire.  She explained that when she’d come back she’d caught the eye of a sorceress who’d found a way to steal her power, and had spent the last month in hell as an unwilling patient in an insane asylum.

“So now you’re just waiting until your power comes back?” he signed.  They’d moved to the office, her seated in the old leather sofa and him perched on a stool.  

“And hope that she doesn’t disappear once she loses my power and that the LC can deal with her.  But either way, I’m done.  I tried, but this isn’t for me.”

Tyrese snorted again, this one his incredulous snort.  “You’re not a quitter,” he signed.

“You don’t get it.  This isn’t like it when they made me quit.  I’m in over my head.”

“You got knocked on your ass, it happens to fighters all the time.  That one defeat that makes them rethink everything.  You, you’re one of the ones that gets back into the ring.”

She shook her head, but he kept signing.

“You’ll start training again, you’ll get your strength back.  Your power will come back.”

“This isn’t like that, there are-” she was going to sign real consequences, but given her company, it didn’t seem appropriate.

He guessed what she had in mind anyways.  “I figured out who you are, I can assume you figured out who I am?”

She nodded, signing “Sorry, I looked you up.”

He shrugged it off.  “I got an opportunity, but it came with a caveat.  I was told to take a dive.  I had a mouth on me back then.  I told them to go fuck in themselves in so many words.  Right before they ripped my tongue out, I told them I was going to break their guy’s neck in the ring without my tongue, and then I’d come for them.  After they ripped my tongue out, they jammed screwdrivers in my ears, destroyed my eardrums, and I never made good on my threat.  I’ve given up on killing them, but I always regretted not being able to fight.  And then you showed up.  I won’t ever go back in the ring, but I can still fight.”

“That’s how you found me,” she signed.

He nodded.  She felt a twinge of guilt.  He’d been a big part of her resurrection as Siren, but she’d largely forgotten him, her mind drawn back to her original trainer Callie.

“I’m not a hero, but I’m observant.  I notice things, and this city has noticed your absence.  I can’t fill that void, but I go out sometimes, bust some heads, feel like I’m making a difference in some small way.  And I noticed the guys watching your place.”

“And you saved my life.  Well, you might have saved the world, big guy.  The Sea Witch needs me, and she’s got something big planned.”

“Then you need to stop her.  She took your power, she took advantage of you.  Wait, get your strength back, get your power back, and stop her.”

Anna shook her head again.  “I just need to stay out of her way until my power comes back to me.  And then people more capable than me can handle it.”

His lips tightened, but he nodded.  “Whatever you need,” he signed.  “You can stay with me, no one will find you there.”

She thanked him.  She was beat, and he let her stay on the couch in the office, waking her before dawn to go back to his apartment.  She refused to take his bed, sleeping on the couch while he went back to school, where he was still subbing for one of her classes since she’d gone missing.



Ursula gritted her teeth.  Five lowlifes she’d compelled to watch over her quarry’s old apartment, all hospitalized.  Five people she had to visit and silence.  Hospital staff she had to keep from asking questions.  Cops she had to keep off her trail.  Things were getting out of hand, and the one thing she knew was that somehow Anna had another benefactor.  

Killing those involved in the growing scenario would only draw more unwanted attention on her operations, and using magic would draw the attention of the LC immediately.  She was left telling those involved to forget and to keep their mouths shut, a power that she knew was waning.  It was still reliable, but that may not be true the next day or the day after that.  And the source of her power was in the wind again.  Ursula was close, so close, to her goal, but without the power of compulsion reliably at her lips, any attempt was far too risky.  

Ursula sighed, walking out of the hospital.  There was a move yet to play.



The LC, even when it was fractured, tended to run as one cohesive unit.  Aegis’ and Lady Sapphire’s displeasure at Barrage trickled down through the ranks, and soon everyone was giving him the cold shoulder.  It was a response he had expected, and under normal circumstances, it might have bothered him.  He liked most of his fellow Legends for the most part, but at the moment, it suited him perfectly.

He was an observer, left to analyze everyone else's actions without interference.  He scrutinized all of them; any one of them could have fallen under the Sea Witch’s sway.  

He leaned causally in the door to his apartment, watching his coworkers make their way to a meeting he’d evidently not been informed of.  Most made conscious efforts to steer their gaze away from him, a few granting him apologetic looks, and Lynx greeting him with, “You’re an idiot,” before she turned the corner.

His phone rang, with an unknown number.  He answered hesitantly.  “Hello?”

“Barrage,” the female voice said on the other end of the line, a seductive purr.

The voice was foreign, but he knew exactly who it was.  “Ursula.  The Sea Witch I take it?”

“Very good,” she responded.

“How did you get this number?”

“That’s not important right now.  What is important is that you have that I want,” she replied, her voice sultry.

“I know what you want, and I made sure I didn’t know.  Still though, I thought you’d find me in person.  You could try to control me; I could try to kill you.  But this, over the phone, it’s just sad.”

“Another time, perhaps.  I’m sure you can find her.  She was dumb enough to go home.  I just want you to deliver a message for me.”

Izzy had to stifle a groan.  It wasn’t surprising, but it was still frustrating.  “And why would I do that?”

“Well, you were curious how I got this number.  Macy Williams had it in her phone.”

Izzy bristled, unbridled kinetic energy roiling from his body.  “You fucking bitch,” he growled through gritted teeth.

“If I could find her, I’d tell her to come alone.  But I have a feeling you’ll leave the LC out of this.  You’ll test your mettle against mine, because really, who else can you trust?”

“You fucking cunt I’ll rip your goddam throat out,” he growled.

“That’s the spirit.  Have Ariel call this number back, and I’ll give her a way to free her sister,” the voice said.

“I swear to god,” he started, but she’d already hung up.  He could call back, but the result would be the same.  He’d failed.  

He left.  The tracker on his truck was easy enough to find, and he left in in the corner with a note scratched into the concrete reading “I’m sorry.”

He really was.



The day in Tyrese’s apartment while he was at school had done Anna good.

Tyrese had his own personal weights.  Most of them were far heavier than anything she’d have been able to lift at her peak, let alone in her current state, but the empty barbells proved to be about right for where she was.

Her skin gleamed with fresh sweat as she walked out his kitchen when he came home.

“You’ve been working out,” he signed.

“If you can call it that,” she signed back.

“You gotta start somewhere.  You weren’t that strong when you first approached me, if I remember correctly.

She did, and he was right.  He’d taught her a lot; even if her muscles had forgotten, her mind had not.  

“How’s class?” she signed.

“It’s hard not to tell them that their teacher is a super heroine, but they’re doing alright,” he signed back.

She nodded, giving him a grateful nod.  

“I’m as bad a super heroine as I am a teacher.”

“You’re a terrible teacher,” he signed, “but you’re not that bad a super heroine.”

“You sure about that?” she signed.  “Because I feel like I’ve really fucked it up.”

He gave her one of his rare smiles.  “It’s not over yet.”

“I want it to be over,” she signed.  “Need it be over.  More than anything.”

“Then finish it.  On your terms.  Let’s hit the gym.”

“And then?”

“And then we see if people are still scooping out your old apartment.”

“And if they are?” she asked.

“Then we deal with them.”



There was no one guarding her apartment.  They were able to walk right into the building.  It took nothing for Tyrese to put his shoulder into the door and knock it open.  

“Macy must have paid my rent, “ Anna signed, looking around, finding all her stuff intact.  Tyrese nodded, signaling that he was going to double check the alley.

Anna nodded, resuming her check through of her apartment.  Someone had been in there since she’d been captured, but there was a reverence with which her stuff had been put back in its proper place.  Yes, Macy had been here.  Most likely looking for answers, looking for some connection to Anna.  She hated that she couldn’t give her sister those answers.  

She checked her closet.  The trunk in the hidden compartment under the floor of her closet was empty.  All traces of her armor and costume gone.  She’d seen the footage of the Sea Witch masquerading as her, bust she had to check, just the same.  It was a blow of finality, her identity truly stolen from her.  Still dressed in the dirty sweats Izzy had given to her, she was no heroine.  Somewhere out there, was Ursula, with her power, with her armor, with her identity.  

She was truly no longer Siren.