“You’re really okay?” Amy asked, looking me over as I came in.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied, taking off my mask and hood. “Really, I appreciate it but I am invincible.”

  “This from the girl missing three fingers and who’s literally di---”

  “Yeah okay, I get it,” I cut her off. “Not actually invincible, but enough that Skitter’s landed on me twice now without hurting me.”

  “Fucking insane,” she muttered as we headed over to the kitchen; bread day, or evening in this case. “Can’t believe she came to school, took you hostage.”

  “And I can’t believe the heroes decided to try and capture her at school,” I retorted, retrieving the butter and yeast from the fridge. “Look can we just...forget about it? I’m tired of hashing this out.”

  “You’re taking this well,” Amy said as she grabbed flour and sugar from the cupboard. “Warlord shows up at your school, uses you to escape and it really doesn’t bother you?”

  “Bother me?” I let out a sharp bark of laughter. “Amy, if I had the option I’d have broken her legs myself so she couldn’t get away. We don’t live in that world though, so I’m just...coping. Can we please just talk about something else?”

  “Yeah okay.”

  She pursed her lips and measured out a couple tablespoons of sugar, dumping it in a bowl. I followed up with the yeast, then added the warm water. The counter had enough space for both of us to work comfortably, and we’d done this enough now that we weren’t in each others’ way too often. It was a little weird, since this was a hold over from the other; I’d never cared much about baking. Now though...well, I couldn’t deny it was nice to work with someone on something other than capeshit.

  “How was class?” I finally asked as I dumped some flour in the bowl and Amy began mixing. “I uh, kind of missed them.”

  “No kidding,” Amy grunted. “Uh, it was fine? We didn’t really do much today, just got some worksheets and the syllabus. Seems like it’s going to be a pretty fast month or so, with how they have it set up.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said, adding some more flour. “Guess they’re trying to push us into the next grade, right? Hard to complain about that, since it’ll be my last year.”

  “Mine too,” she said, cleaning the fork she was using for mixing before starting again. “Seems like a waste for me to keep going though.”

  “Why do you say that?” I cocked my head.

  “I’m Amy D-- Lavere,” she spat, stumbling a little over her new-old name. “You know, world famous healer, the living cure-all? It’s not right that I’m wasting time on school when I could just like, get my GED and use the extra time to go to the hospital.”

  “Amy you haven’t been to the hospital since…” I trailed off.

  “I was just there last week,” she retorted. “And it’s worse than ever. Could have spent the whole week there and barely made a dent.”

  “Hard to believe it’s still that bad,” I sighed. “You know you can’t do that. You’d be burnt out within a couple days.”

  “Still, it’s what’s needed.”

  “It’s not,” I countered. “Okay like...think of it like this. How many people can you heal in an hour usually? Ten, twenty?”

  “About twenty, I guess,” she said with a shrug. “Depends on their injuries, obviously someone with a broken finger doesn’t take as long as a car accident victim.”

  “Okay, twenty an hour. Let’s say you did twelve hour days for a week, I think that’d exhaust you plenty don’t you?” Amy grimaced, but nodded along with me. “That’s what, just over fifteen-hundred people you’d help? It’s a lot, for sure.”

  “That few?” she replied, voice shaking.

  “That’s still a ton of people,” I reassured her as I floured the counter and grabbed the dough, beginning to knead. “But if you’re totally burnt out, it means you won’t be able to keep that pace up, you know? Let’s just say you do it for a year, that’s like seventy-thousand people you’d save. I mean, if you managed to make it a year working twelve hours a day, seven days a week. You’re not exactly a Brute, no offense.”

  “That’s...okay that’s a good number.” She nodded.

  “But then you’re fucked,” I continued. “Your performance slips because you’re exhausted, or maybe you start making mistakes. People could get hurt or worse, and that cuts into your numbers, and wears you down. You get it?” When she didn’t answer, I kept going. “What if you just worked like a normal person though, nine to five or night shifts from whenever to whenever, take your weekends when you want?”

  “Wouldn’t that cut into how many people I’m helping?”

  “Sure it would, hey soak that cloth would you?” I frowned and tried to run the math through my head while Amy did so and I put the dough in another bowl. “Uhhh, well, like you’d lose two days which is four hundred odd people a week if you were doing twelve hours and...okay let’s just say you’re healing half the people, for the sake of argument. Within two years you heal as many people as you did in one before, but now you’re not even half as tired because you’re taking breaks and stuff. You can keep healing like that...well, as long as you want to treat it like a job, I guess.” She pursed her lips as she covered the dough and set an hour-long timer on the microwave.

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  “That’s...I don’t think I’d be doing enough,” Amy said after a moment. “There are just so many people that need help.”

  “And there will be for a long, long time,” I replied. “If you’re fucked after a year and can’t heal anymore, there are a lot more people that’ll go unhealed in the future. Two years and twice the number of people you healed have gone without. I’m not saying you should stop, but you should plan maybe a little further ahead. Got to think about the future.”

  “What future?” she grumbled. “The one where the world ends in two years?”

  “I think it can be stopped.” I hoped. “And if it does happen, the survivors are going to need you too, you know?”

  “I guess.”

  “Plus you know, if you burn yourself out who am I gonna bake bread with?” She snorted and I grinned. We headed over and sat on the couch, Amy grabbed the remote. “You thought about what I said, about uh, rebranding?”

  “Yeah I…” Amy frowned. “I don’t know, it feels weird.”

  “Because you wouldn’t be Panacea?”

  “I’m not Panacea anyway, not anymore.” She sighed. “No like, I shouldn’t have a mask, you know?”

  “Why, because New Wave raised you? No offense, but that’s a little dumb.”

  “Heroes have to be accountable,” she said flatly.

  “And they usually are,” I said. “God knows the PRT has loved holding me accountable for shit.”

  “I mean to the people they’re supposed to help,” she snapped.

  “Exposing your face doesn’t make you accountable, it makes you a target,” I countered. “How many villains would love to get their hands on Amelia Lavere? Without a whole team of heroes in the way...well I’d do my best, but I’m not exactly Legend.”

  “Can we stop talking about this?” Amy said plaintively. “I just…please.”

  “Sure,” I offered, shuffling over a little. “Want to watch something?”

  She nodded and flicked the TV on, shuffling over until our shoulders were pressed together. I smiled and settled in for a comfy end to a dogshit day.

  I woke with a start to the sound of furious buzzing. Opening my eyes gave me no clues, but the pricking on my skin did. I fought the urge to flinch as thousands of bugs crawled over me in my bed. My stomach churned and I pushed down the panic threatening to rise with my bile. Consciously I knew I was safe, that the bugs couldn’t get through my projection. My lizard brain still screamed at me to fight and thrash and get them off me.

  A deep breath forced its way into my lungs, then slowly out. I counted to five as I inhaled, held it, and exhaled and held it. Square breathing, that was what Dr. Yamada called it. Soon my panic subsided to mere fear, and I shook my projection around my body to disrupt the swarm. There was slight resistance, but it vanished as soon as I tried to get up.

  The insects didn’t stop dogging me as went to my closet and retrieved my costume and ‘weapons’. Changing into it was quite the ordeal, since even when I was naked the swarm still tried to attack. Somehow I managed though, even if it took almost ten minutes to be done. All the while, adrenaline was spiking and making my mind race.

  What the fuck was Skitter thinking, attacking the PRT building again? It hadn’t gone well for them last time, and now we had all kinds of backup. The Wards and Protectorate would be coming back from their patrols, and there were dozens of PRT officers here. Even if it was her entire gang, there was no way this was viable.

  As I began walking out of my room, I noticed a tugging at my limbs. Looking down, I could see the faint light from the common area catching on strings tied around my joints. There had been spiders laying silk lines for me, it seemed. I tested it, and as long as I kept my projection still around my wrists, they just snapped when I moved. Good.

  I stalked towards the stairs, keeping my projection constantly shifting to stop the swarm from finding a perch. The door was covered with spider silk, jammed shut. Unfortunately for Skitter, my projection was able to force it open enough for my scrawny ass to slip through. I never thought I’d be happy to be as thin as a rake. The stairs were tricky to navigate, with the swarm blocking my vision like it was. Still, I managed them with careful, steady steps and soon reached the main floor.

  It was a nightmare. The screams of officers being attacked by insects echoed through the large room. I couldn’t see their source, only vague thrashing piles of bugs dotted around the room at random. At least they were screaming, which meant Skitter probably wasn’t trying to kill them. Besides the wounded the room was empty, but I could hear the sounds of battle outside.

  I wanted to go check on Amy. She wasn’t a fighter and probably needed help, especially if Skitter was attacking everyone in the building as it seemed. But I couldn’t, I had to be here. There was no telling where Skitter was, but I had a feeling ‘inside’ was the answer. This was her retaliation for earlier, and she’d want to send a damned strong message with it.

  Well I'd send one right back. Skitter had slapped away my open hand, so now she was getting a fist right in the mouth. I told her outright I wanted to take her down, that I just didn't want her outed. Time to see if she remembered.

  I’d catch her as she left. There was no telling where she’d be coming from, or who she’d have with her, so I had to be ready. I ran over to the nearest fallen officer, brushing the insects away as best I could. Mostly, I focused on his hips. It didn’t take long for my reward to appear, a shiny black pistol wrapped tightly in silk cords. They were no match for my projection, and once I found where I could slip a finger, the silk snapped and I claimed the weapon.

  Bugs immediately swarmed my right hand, since I couldn’t actually move my projection around it anymore if I wanted the gun. I kept it moving over the rest of my body, slowly backing away from the fallen officer and grabbing my pepper spray. I shut my eyes and blasted it liberally over my hand and the pistol I was holding. When I cracked them open again, I saw bugs dying in droves, and soon the gun was clear.

  The insects attacking me were thinning out, Skitter apparently realizing that she couldn’t actually do much against me when I was trying to fight her. For now, she was nowhere to be seen, so I went around and made sure the officers still being attacked weren’t actively dying, helping them into the recovery position, and clearing bugs where I could.

  There were just too many for me to do anything. Whenever I cleared or killed a bunch, more would flow in to replace them. I wasn’t sure how much attention Skitter was actually paying, since it seemed more automatic than anything. A shiver ran through the bugs and I frowned. Weird. The reason soon became clear, as I heard clacking footsteps and quiet murmurs of conversation over the hum of beating wings.

  I didn’t hesitate, not this time. I saw Skitter stumble into the lobby, leaning on Tattletale, and took off sprinting. Tattletale shouted a warning and bugs descended, but I shook them off easily enough. Skitter drew her pistol and began to raise it, but I was already too close, my free hand stretching out for her. She pulled away, but wasn’t quite fast enough to stop my fingers from closing around her wrist. I yanked down hard and jammed the muzzle of the pistol into the base of her skull, the safety making a loud ‘click’ as I flicked it off.

  “Fucking gotcha."