Be clear, be specific.  She would leave no wiggle room in her command.  

Anna stood inside the conjugal trailer.  She wasn’t about to sit on the plastic covered couch, and certainly not the bed.  It smelled of cleaning products, but their wasn’t enough bleach in the world to cleanse the mental image of unseen criminal… fluids… all over the trailer.  She had no intention of touching anything in the place.  Ursula’s request had been fortuitous though; it put her face to face with the witch.  No phones, no thick glass to prevent her voice from reaching her nemesis’ ears.

She’d told the guards to shut off the cameras and bring the Sea Witch to the trailer for a conjugal visit.  There would be no conjugation.  She’d take what she wanted, and leave Ursula to rot forever in prison.  Just the mere thought of denying her her end of the bargain filled Anna with a deep, primal satisfaction.  Maybe not as satisfying as smashing her face up on the roof of the LC tower, but it was a close second.  Hell, she might even hit her again, just because she could.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Anna said, looking at her hands.  They were shaking.  She took a deep breath and pulled herself together, clenching her fists and steeling her nerves.

The door opened, two prison guards entered, the shackled Ursula shuffling in between them.

“Thank you.  Leave us now.  Wait for me to get you when we’re done.”

They nodded and turned.

“What?  You’re not going to have them make these off?” Ursula asked, holding up her shackled wrists, the chains clanking.  “But if you want them to leave the keys, I’m sure we could have good fun with them.”

The guards shut the door behind them, and Anna made no move to stop them.  “New deal,” she said.

“Oh, you bitch.  I would have kept my end of the deal.”

“‘Take what you want.’  Isn’t that what you said my power is for?”

Ursula clapped slowly, her chains clanking about.  “Good job, you’re learning.  Still though, this is just bad form.  A deal is a deal.”

“And I’m changing it.”

“I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.  I’ve never been anything but honest with you.”

“Shut up.”

Ursula shut her mouth, her disappointed pout turning into a glare of legitimate anger.

“Do exactly what I say and nothing else.  Nod if you understand.”  

Ursula nodded, mute.

Now for the test.  She’d struggled to come up with a test of obedience that wasn’t overly cruel.  Getting someone to prove they’d do anything you told them to do that they wouldn’t do of their own free will was tricky, especially without resorting to self-mutilation.  She hated the Sea Witch, but that kind of thing left tracks that would be difficult to cover.  “Stop breathing.”

Ursula stared back at her, motionless.  Anna watched her chest, waiting for any rise and fall that would betray her lungs were working.  

Ursula held her breath.  Her pale face started to turn red after about a minute, but still she didn’t move, she didn’t struggle, obeying her orders.

Anna fidgeted nervously as she watched.  By her logic, Ursula would pass out from lack of oxygen, and then her body would take over and she’d start breathing again.  Or so she hoped.  It wasn’t the kind of thing she’d ever been able to put to the test.  Suppose even the unconscious brain was forced to obey her, and she just died.  If she passed out, would she be able to hear and obey a command to start breathing again.  She thought back to telling Izzy not to die when he was at death’s door, and he had listened.

“Grr.  Breath!” she shouted.  

Ursula gasped, her face purple.  She sucked down air, panting.  She bent over, putting her hands on her knees, glaring up at Anna as she caught her breath.

Anna pulled out a pad of paper and a pen.  “Come here.”

Ursula shuffled across the trailer to her, still sucking in breaths in ragged gasps.

Anna smiled.  She’d rehearsed this next part in her head.  There could be no mistakes.  “Write down the words to the spell for bringing back the dead on this piece of paper.  Spell them all out phonetically, in English, and then I’m going to let you talk and you’re going to teach me how to pronounce them.”  She held up the paper and pencil.

Ursula nodded and reached for them.  Her hands snapped forward and she grabbed Anna’s wrists, twisting them.  The Sea Witch lunged forward, driving her forehead into Anna’s chin.

“Stop!” Anna cried out, but Ursula didn’t stop.  She stepped on the stunned girl’s foot and threw all of her weight into her.  Anna tried to step back, but couldn’t, and she toppled backward, Ursula coming down hard on top of her.

“I would have honored my deal.  I was being perfectly reasonable,” Ursula hissed.

Anna struggled to get out from under her.  Ursula was still winded, but she was already on top and had quickly gotten the length of chain connecting her shackles looped around Anna’s wrists, and Anna was still trying to come to terms with what exactly had happened, and how Ursula had gotten free of her compulsion.

Ursula smiled at the look of confusion on Anna’s face as she tried to keep her pinned.  “Ear plugs.” she said, tilting her head to the side and flicking her hair out with a shake, letting the confused girl get a glimpse at the flesh covered plugs jammed deep into her ears.  

Anna still looked bewildered.  “But-”

“I’m really good at reading lips.  And I can hold my breath for a very, very long time.  You’ll appreciate that later.”

“Like hell I will!”  Anna yanked one of her arms free and struck the shackled witch on the side of the head.  It was an awkward blow, but Ursula still reeled to the side, and Anna rolled out from under her.  She hopped to her feet, but Ursula rolled onto her side and spun herself, kicking Anna’s legs out from under her just as she was getting up.  Anna went sprawling onto her chest.  Ursula pushed herself up and threw herself onto Anna.  She crawled over her back, fighting her way up until she could get the chain of her shackles around Anna’s neck.

“You’re lucky I don’t want to kill you,” she said, pulling the chain tight around Anna’s throat while the girl tried desperately to claw her fingers under the thin chain digging into her.

Ursula couldn’t see Anna’s face or hear her, but she was only missing the girl gasping for air, unable to form words.

“You surprised me on the roof.  It will not happen again,” she grunted, pulling harder.  Anna thrashed under her, finally going limp.  Ursula panted and pulled the chain out from under her throat.  The witch rolled off the unconscious girl, sitting on her butt and pulling her legs up so she could reach deep into her ears, prying out the not one but two earplugs she’d crammed deep in there.  “Aaaah,” she moaned, finally able to hear something other than her own heartbeat.  She leaned over and grabbed the dropped pad and pen.  She’d worked with less, she thought as she pulled out the wire coil from the pad and took apart the pen and began picking the locks on her shackles.  She was, above all else, resourceful.



Izzy stared at the ceiling of his room.  Waiting.  Sleep wasn’t coming, that was for sure.

He rolled out of bed and ducked his head under the sling for his arm.  He gritted his teeth as he gingerly flexed and rotated his shoulder.  It wasn’t even close to being healed yet.  He ran his fingers over the fresh surgery scar, feeling the metal plate under the smooth scar tissue that was holding his collarbone together.  The other various bruises and fractures had faded and mostly healed, but the shoulder was still giving him trouble.

“You got lucky,” he murmured, the shoulder screaming at him as he pulled on a t-shirt.  If six screws and a four inch plate were all he had to show for his fight with Aegis, that was nothing short of a miracle.

But he didn’t feel lucky.

He pulled on a pair of shorts and socks, and laced up the worn out running shoes kept buried in his closet.  He started for his door, but stopped, turning back for the sling.  He sighed in relief as his arm came to rest limply across his chest, the pain in his shoulder fading to a dull ache.  He slipped quietly out of his room and the made his way out the back door of the LC Tower into the night.

Israel LeBlanc lived by one simple creed.  Keep everything up your sleeve.  The entire world, even most of his fellow heroes saw the lazy cowboy who had a couch for his chair and slept through meetings, who rarely if ever trained and only showed up when he had to.  Truth was he was tired because he spent every night running and working out and training.  Four and half miles out to his secret gym, two hours of vigorous work out there, four and half miles back, just in time to go back to bed and sleep in and maintain his image as a layabout.  

Everyone saw a man who had the power to merely shoot kinetic energy from his fingertips.  The finger thing was all showmanship, trick shots that belied his true power.  Limitless energy rolled off every inch of his body when he wasn’t concentrating on keeping it in check.  He could stop bullets, use burst of energy as a push to increase his speed, all pulled from an, as far he could tell, an endless font of pure kinetic energy.  His only limits were his aim and line of sight.  

He bent over to pull the key out of his shoe, pausing while he was down to catch his breath.  His injuries had forced him to take it easy and he’d lost his edge.  And he was pushing himself harder than normal.

Izzy slipped into the small gym, what had once been, and still appeared to be on the outside, an old, boarded up auto shop.  He glanced around, noting the subtle differences in where he’d let things.

“Mira, come on out,” he called.  Even still, he raised his good arm, ready to shoot.

Mira stumbled sleepily out of the office, wearing just her faded green jacket and panties.  She yawned.  “You’re here early.”

He grunted.  Mira knew of his late night training, but he was up earlier than usual.  “I see you’re back in town.”

“Yeah, I figured I’d give everyone some space, some time to cool off.  I don’t know if anybody’s still pissed about the beating I gave them.”

“I’d steer clear of Lynx for awhile.  No one else will hold a grudge.”  He walked across the room and grabbed a dumbbell and starting curling it with his good arm.

“Figures.  She’s the one I wouldn’t mind a rematch with.  She only beat me because she was the seventh in line in Mira’s ass kicking tour of the LC.”

Izzy shot her a sour look.  Her pride in taking on nearly half the LC was a point of contention between the siblings.

She continued, goading him.  “True, I did push her down an elevator shaft, but that doesn’t really compare to taking out Lini and Pegasus and the twins and Adam and-”

“Enough, Mira!” he shouted, throwing the 40 lb dumbbell.  It left a crack in the cement floor where it landed.

She walked over to him.  “So you did kill Aegis.”  She’d suspected it, but he’d been tightlipped on the subject, playing it off as not wanting to participate in her boasting about beating his teammates.  But she knew him well enough to know that something was bothering him.

He didn’t need to say yes.  The look he gave her told her everything.

“Does anyone else know?” she asked.

“Stephanie.  And she agreed that no one else should know.”

Mira nodded.  She gave her brother a lot of shit about the LC, but she genuinely respected the Sorceress of Sapphires.  It was hard not to.  “Does she know how you killed him?”

He shook his head.  “No.”

“Is she going to get curious?”

“She knows I’m stronger than I let on-”

“That’s not the big secret you think it is.  Does.  She.  Know?” Mira asked slowly.

“No.  She doesn’t.”

She reached her leg out and curled her bare foot under the dumbbell and rolled it back and forth on the floor.  “That’s good I suppose.”

He grunted and reached for another.

“You need, you want to talk about it.”

“Nope,” he said, resuming curling.

“Good.  I suck at that shit anyhow.”

He paused, staring at her.  She offered him a half smile.  He nodded and returned it.