Humanoid figures, each one different from the others.

Blastgerm’s large roster of villains from this online ad they’d put out. They weren’t real people.

Damsel smiled, looking at it all.

They’d cheated.

There was something else at the far end of the room. It looked like a boiler, but it had the same rushed, improvised feel that the vats did. Metal, welding, tubes winding around it, and a glass aperture, showing a sea of what looked like green moss on the other side.

“Step away from that,” Rotten Apple said. She was breathing hard.

Ashley extended a hand out toward a vat. The intention was to threat, but her power sparked out. It cut into thick glass, into water, and into the figure on the other side. She flinched back, holding her arm against her chest as she stumbled away.

She stood up straight, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. The remains of the body were tipping forward as the fluids emptied from the vat, and they were breaking apart like wet toilet paper as they brushed against the edges of the broken glass.

Rotten Apple wasn’t acting like Damsel had just killed someone.

“Of course Blasto isn’t around, at a time like this,” Rotten Apple said. “The asshole is probably doing something stupid like sleeping.”

“Can’t afford to sleep if you want to claim your piece of Boston,” Damsel said.

“You realize we’re going to come after you. If you fuck us on this Boston thing, we’ll make it a lifelong goal to come after you.”

“Don’t bother with threats,” Damsel said. “I don’t scare easy, and I hold the cards right now. I can do more damage to all of this than you can do anything to me.”

Rotten Apple shook her head. “The soldiers we sent out are due back soon. Blasto could wake up any time, and he could wake these guys up.”

“Or,” Damsel said. “You could give me a share of that room for the money, along with a pledge that you won’t take Deathchester, and I’ll keep silent about what you’re doing with these legions of false capes that are joining you.”

☽

“Armsmaster against Bastion, who wins?”

The replies overlapped. People were amused, happy. Angel and her brother were here. There were a few scattered others that J had invited. Ashley wasn’t sure how to label the scene, even, where J and Angel both wore bathrobes, like they were some kind of honor. Drink was being passed around freely among the teenagers.

They’d opted for slightly less money and roughly equivalent value in the drugs. Ashley didn’t care about the drugs, didn’t want to be intoxicated, but she was content to let her immediate underlings take what made them happy.