Adam stood in Lady Sapphire’s office.  The sorceress was meticulously straightening paperwork on her desk.

“Look, I just wanted-”

“Adam, I said I’d talk about it in the meeting with everyone.”

He sighed.  Things could have gone worse, but they hadn’t gone well, and he felt responsible.  He’d come, trying to own up to the mistake, but Lady sapphire had cut him off at the door and told him that she’d address everything with everyone in a meeting in two hours.

“It’s my fault.”

“Adam.”

“I screwed up.”

“Adam.”

“I shoulda known Zoe was off, and I didn’t even see the other-”

The light in the room tinged blue and intensified.  Adam shut his mouth.

“Adam, I said I would talk about it with everyone,” she said, bringing the lights back down to their soft white glow.  “It’s something I only want to say once.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.  I will see you in a few hours.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

He ran into Megan outside Lady Sapphire’s office.  “I’m guessing DC didn’t go well?”

She laughed.  “No, not really.  And I heard you guys screwed the pooch.”

“Did we ever.  It was like, everyone just took out their frustration out there, myself included.”

“Tell you the truth, I would have rather been there, kicking ass.  Instead I’m stuck intimidating pissants in suits.  All cause I didn’t fuck up and get my ass handed to me like you guys.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, apparently that was my ‘reward’ for not getting thrashed by the LeBlancs.”

“Damn.  You don’t think…”

“That you got put on point because your gun knocked you out before little LeBlanc got ahold of you?”

Adam hung his head.  “It feels like that’s worse.”

“Oh, it is.  I mean, your gun made the right call, she would have walked all over you, but it’s still pretty pathetic.”

He couldn’t even argue with her.  Still, if Arquebus’s merciful act of knocking him out had earned him some goodwill with Lady Sapphire, his performance had surely lost it.



***Twenty Two Years Ago***

A swath of destruction lay behind Lady Sapphire.  Megan was safely hidden away until she was done, tucked away behind a magical shield.  Stephanie didn’t doubt for the girl’s safety anymore, but she didn’t have to see what came next.  

She refrained from killing anyone, though the power to do so hovered at her fingertips as her rage grew.  Instead she focused on raw destructive power, throwing the staff and security around like rag dolls as she made her way through the facility.  

The sealed and locked doors didn’t even slow her down, drawing on raw magic to rip through locks and gates that would keep out a rampaging elephant with a mere flick of her wrist and a whisper.  Her font of power was greater than it had been in years, fueled by her emotions.  

She’d found the other children.

Whether they’d snapped and lost their humanity like the boy Billy, or they’d lacked the strength and luck Megan possessed to survive the disaster that had befallen them, she’d never know.  But one thing was sure; those responsible would feel her wrath.

Bullets disintegrated inches from hitting her as they burned up in her aura.  She’d only managed to summon such power once before, but she didn’t even register it as she was doing it, walking blindly into gunfire, confident she couldn’t be touched.  A wave of hand, and the security guards stupid enough to shoot at the enraged sorceress were thrown at the walls, their guns disassembling before the individual pieces disintegrated, metal dust blowing away in the forceful winds emanating from her.

A reinforced steel door crumpled in on itself, bending and folding into a jagged ball of metal barely a foot in diameter before dropping to the floor.  A man in a suit, woman in a lab coat, and three uniformed security personnel stared, wide eyed.  The three guards raised their guns, but they slumped the floor, unconscious, after merely making eye contact with the sorceress.

She studied the man and woman for a second, the two staring back at her, too scared to move.  Married, but a business marriage, the passion long since gone in their relationship.  He was the face of the operation, and the money, but she was the brains behind the operation, and the true monster behind the scenes, experimenting on children.

Lady Sapphire threw out her hand, a shard of sapphire flying from each of her fingers, hitting him in his wrists, ankles, and crotch, throwing him back against the wall and pinning him.  She tightening her fist, and the shards exploded, maiming him, and he screamed until he mercifully blacked out.

The woman’s jaw worked uselessly as she tried to form words, but no sound came out.

Stephanie stared her down.  She could rip the woman’s very soul out of her body and shred it with her bare hands if she wanted to.  She felt it.  She wanted to.  As she looked on the monster responsible for experimenting on kids, the lucky ones already dead, and the surviving girl having to live with what had been done to her, and what she’d had to do, she knew that there was no forgiving what she’d done.  It was within her rights to dispense justice right then and there, and immolate her from existence with all the tremendous power at her disposal.

“Do you know what you’ve done?” Stephanie asked, staying her hand as she reached out for the arcane forces to end the life before her in the most painful way imaginable.

“You practice the old, mystic arts,” the woman stammered, her voice growing more steady as she went on.  “The future is in science.  How many sacrifices has your kind made?”

“I don’t speak for my ‘kind’, but every sacrifice I’ve made, I made it!  Me!  I’ve known exactly what I was doing and every choice I’ve made has been mine to make.  What you’ve done is unforgivable.”

The woman had no response.  Lady Sapphire opened her fist and reached out.

“Please,” the woman said.

If she touched her, she would kill her.  There was no holding back at that point.  She clenched her fist, swallowing back the magic force roiling from her body.  

It wasn’t her job to kill this woman.

She looked at her clenched fist, and then swung, sending the woman reeling from the blow.  She may not have been able to hold back her magic in her state, but she could still beat the shit out of her with her bare hands.



“I was all ready to ream you all out for what happened in Tennessee.  You put eleven people in the hospital.  Three of them in critical condition.  Already the human rights' activists and anti enhanced groups are rallying and calling for excessive force charges brought down on you all.”

It certainly felt like reaming out to the five Legends who’d been there.  The twins looked at the ground and Lini shifted nervously.  Adam and Impaqt both took it, meeting Lady Sapphire’s cool gaze.

“I’ve had a rough couple of days.  We’ve all had a rough couple of weeks.  But I’m not going to overlook what else happened.  Zero civilian casualties.  In a hostage situation with over forty people, that’s impressive.  And if the three rangers that are still in the hospital pull through, there will be no deaths at all.  That will be a miracle.  Even if they don’t, no one else could have done what you all did.  It would have been a bloodbath if the army went in there.  It was their people that started this little incident, and at least someone over there knows that we were the right people for the job, because they called us.  I’m going to make sure everyone knows that, and I will defend and support your actions yesterday.

“So while yes, it could have been handled better, it couldn’t have been handled better by anyone else.  We’re still the LC.  We’re heroes, and we get the job done.”

Lady Sapphire paused, letting it sink in.  Hesitantly at first, Lini clapped.  She looked around at her fellow Legends as none of them joined in.  “Really?” she asked.

Lynx gave two slow claps.  “Good speech, boss.  Now, let’s try not to fuck anything else up.”

“Thank you,” Lady Sapphire said.  “The pressure is on all of us now.  But on the bright side at least you,” she looked at Siren, “are out of the hot seat.”

Anna nodded, more than a little grateful.  She wasn’t out of the public eye by any means, but she now shared the same scrutiny as fifteen other people.  It felt good.



Izzy brushed past his allies after the meeting.  He knew that despite Lady Sapphire’s morale boosting speech, he wasn’t out of the doghouse yet, but he had more important things to worry about it.

He checked the messages on his phone: “Call me.”  He ducked back into his room and dialed.

“What have you got?”

“Well, there’s good news and bad news,” Mira replied.

“Good news first.”

“You weren’t wasting my time.”

“That makes the bad news that I was right?”

“The security cameras were turned off at the prison for a few hours the day your girl raised herself a zombie.  None of the guards even seem to be aware of it.”

Izzy sighed, dropping his forehead into his phone.  

“Yo,” his sister said, getting his attention back.

“Anything else?”

“What do you mean, anything else?  This was not easy information to come by.”

“It’s not conclusive.”

“Bullshit it’s not.  You asked me to look into the prison because you suspected Siren might have gone there for the Sea Witch’s help.  I find pretty clear evidence to support your hunch, and now it’s not conclusive enough for you?  I have better things to do, you know.”

“Legal things?”

“This isn’t legal!”

“Keep looking, find something concrete.”

“You’re in denial.”

Izzy sighed again.  “Look, just do me a favor, alright.  I can’t do anything until I’m certain.”

“You owe me,” she said.

“So do you.”  With that, he hung up.  He was certain.  He knew deep down that the Sea Witch was where Anna had gotten the magic to attempt to bring back Ellen.  Mira’s intel only confirmed it.  

He just didn’t want to believe it.

And more importantly, he still had no idea what to do with that information.