—the Nazi’s knife caught in my stomach, cutting through my turtleneck. The surge of adrenaline from a blade against my belly briefly cleared my head and I destroyed his wrist with a meaty ‘crunch’. I stumbled back as he fell to his knees, shrieking in pain. The fuck just happened? I tried to remember, but the harder I thought, the more it escaped me. I took a step and fell to the ground, heart hammering.

  I coughed and gagged, barely stopping myself from throwing up as a wave of dizziness hit me, followed by a migraine that made my vision swim. I blinked rapidly as fractal spots made things briefly hazy before clearing in an instant. A loud roar nearby made my head pulse with agony and my teeth itch.

  Fuck, right, the fight, the dogs. Whatever happened...happened, couldn’t sweat it right now. Focus, focus. I forced myself up on shaky legs, glancing back at the dog pen. It was...quiet, silent as a tomb. The handler was shuffling away from me on his knees. I stared until another guttural bellow shook me out of it.

  Okay, so that was Bitch out there, probably, definitely. I shook my head and turned to the kennel, walking forward on weakened knees. She could handle herself, I was doing...something. Dogs, freeing them, causing havoc. Another roar told me that was probably unnecessary, but I was a believer in P for plenty.

  I paused by the door, listening out for any potential ambush. There was...some noise further in, sounded like wailing or something. I took a deep breath and strode into—

  —the Nazi’s knife caught my stomach, cutting through my turtleneck. A surge of adrenaline meant I reacted without thinking, grabbing his wrist and snapping it even as my right arm delivered a nasty hook to the side of his head. He dropped without a sound and I stumbled back, a migraine practically blinding me.

  I dropped to my knees and barely moved my balaclava out of the way as I spewed my dinner onto the concrete floor. I heaved again, then spat and shook my head. The fuck just happened? I looked around, flinching as a roar shook me to my bones. My gaze landed on the door to the kennel and I held back the urge to throw up again.

  I died.

  How did I know that? How was I alive? I… This wasn’t the first time. I blinked and found myself slumped over, staring at the puddle of vomit I’d made. I remembered too much, memories battering at my mind like a whirlwind of Shatterbird’s glass. I forced my eyes shut and breathed as slowly as my shattered brain could make my panicking body.

  Okay, lots of memories, I… I had to sort this shit out later, couldn’t deal right now. Important things: Bitch was fighting and the dog run meant death. But at the same time, I’d heard something inside. Was it whatever was responsible for what happened? There was only one way to find out and it made me sick to my stomach.

  I pushed down the ill feeling and spat once more, then pulled my balaclava back over my face. I opened my eyes and rose unsteadily, leaning against the wall as I approached the door. I stopped outside it, warily eyeing the threshold. I shuffled to one side and grimaced as I caught sight of the pens, all filled with a mess of gore.

  What the fuck was going on? A cape? I could hear that same wailing and crying from inside. Did that...had they just got powers? It would explain why they’d killed me outright without even seeing me. I flinched at a loud crash from the warehouse. I should probably help Bitch out, but if someone had just triggered they probably needed a little more. I took a deep breath and came as close as I dared, about a foot from the open door.

  “Hello?” I called, raising my voice to be heard over the sounds of nearby battle. The crying quieted, but didn’t fully stop. Were they trying to hide? “Hey, is someone in there? I’m a hero, I’m here to help.” A choked sob sounded out.

  “D-don’t come close,” a shaky voice called back. “I— I don’t—” Their voice cut off in another choked cry.

  “It’s okay,” I said, wincing as one of Bitch’s dogs hit something that made the walls all shake. “I think, maybe, it’s your power. Can you turn it off?”

  “Power?” There was a pause. “Like...a parahuman?”

  “Maybe,” I replied. I didn’t have many other explanations for why I suddenly faded out, or remembered dying to Crawler in a concrete hall that looked— “Just try and turn it off.”

  “How?” It was a desperate cry. That was a great question.

  “Close your eyes and think,” I said, hedging for time. My power didn’t exactly have an off switch so… “Breathe, try and relax and...let go?”

  “O-okay.” I wracked by brain, trying to figure out how to help. I bit my lip and realized, really, I had to call the heroes. They were probably on the way as it was, but if there was a fresh trigger in there then they definitely needed to know. “Um, I… I think it’s okay?”

  “You sure?” I asked, staring at the open door. I didn’t want to die again, even if it wouldn’t stick.

  “I… The blood’s flowing faster.”

  With that grim assessment in mind, I tentatively stepped through the doorway. I didn’t get another knife in the gut, so I guess they were right; and my advice had somehow helped, and they had powers. I spared a single glance at the kennels and grimaced, swallowing rising bile at the ruddy mush of gore that spread as far as it could, only contained by wooden baseboards and those were leaking.

  I shuddered and moved deeper into the room, towards the back where the voice had been coming from. There was more blood, sticking to the bottoms of my sneakers. I couldn’t see it very well, the floor was dark and half the lights were out. I knew it was a lot though, too much for just a few dogs...or people. I heard a sharp breath as I came around a corner and turned, instinctively holding out my hands.

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  “It’s me,” I said quickly, really not wanting to take the brunt of whatever the person huddling in the corner of the dark cage could dish out. Guy? Girl? Too dark to tell, and they were facing away. “The hero you were talking to. Um, what’s your name?”

  “Joy,” they whimpered. Well that was an unfortunate name choice for this situation…

  “Okay, Joy, I’m going to get you out of the cage,” I said gently. “Then we’ll get out of here and get you to the hospital, or back home, or whatever.”

  They, or she because who named their boy ‘Joy’, didn’t respond. I slowly approached the door of the cage, no different than the ones the dogs had been in except hers was mostly clean. Some blood had trickled in from the neighbouring cages, and I could feel that I was standing in a thick puddle of the stuff. I was going to need new shoes…

  “Okay, here we go,” I said, crushing the padlock that kept the cage shut easily. The door swung open and I took a step inside, then blushed realizing she was naked. Her black hair was long enough that it nearly covered her ruddy brown skin. “Uhh, do you want my jacket?” She turned her head and I saw her eyes glittering in the dim light.

  “Y-yes please.” I dug it out of my bag and draped it over Joy’s shoulders. “Thanks. Um...you’re a hero?”

  “Off duty, technically,” I hedged as the walls shuddered again. “Look, lets get you out of here, there’s still a fight going on nearby, it’s not safe.”

  She nodded at that and rose unsteadily. I beckoned and led her out, trying my best to ignore her whimpers at the gory scene in the dog run. My focus was on the hallway, on making sure we didn’t get ambushed. The dog handler was gone, presumably conscious and either mauled by Bitch’s dogs or hightailing it across the city.

  What the fuck was I going to do with Joy? I wasn’t sure, but considering the amount of blood in the kennel and how she was the only living being there… It was some ugly math, and the PRT could add up better than me. With Bitch on the scene though, I had another option. I really didn’t want the Undersiders getting some crazy powerhouse of a cape on their team, but they had the resources to take care of her and wouldn’t charge her with homicide if her power killed a bunch of people.

  And I could only assume it had. Not all the cages back there had been full of blood, but the ones next to her were. Why Joy had been in a cage in a Nazi den was...not something I needed or wanted to think about right now. I led her through the utility hallway, then had her stop outside the door to the warehouse.

  Poking my head through, I saw it had quieted down. The bleachers were mostly empty, and all toppled over and torn up. A couple Nazis were laying on the ground in various states of injury, while massive, demonic dogs prowled the edges. One turned it’s head towards me and snarled, and I heard rapid footsteps coming towards me.

  “Who the fuck—”

  “Bitch, truce, it’s Amaranth,” I said. No minced words, not with her.

  “The Ward bitch,” she growled. Well...that was at least a little ironic. “Fuck are you doing here?”

  “Same as you, crashing the party,” I replied. “I need a favour. There was a girl in the back, with the dogs and—”

  “Where’re the dogs,” she demanded.

  “They...didn’t survive,” I said, wincing at the furious glower she gave me. “Not my fault, not anyone’s fault. This girl, I think she’s a new parahuman. If she hurt people… Look, can you just get her out of here? I’ll fucking pay Tattletale later if I have to, or you, just get her to safety.”

  “If she killed those dogs she can fucking die for all I care,” Bitch spat, making me sigh.

  “Yeah, okay,” I said, shaking my head. “Gonna call the PRT to clean up. You’d better go.”

  She sneered at me behind her mask, then whistled loud enough to make my ears feel like they were bleeding. A moment later, she’d hope astride one of her dogs and the entire pack took off through a hole in the wall.

  I sighed and returned to Joy, leading her out the back of the warehouse; I figured taking her through the bodies and gore in the warehouse would have been shitty of me. Once there, I called the PRT emergency line, told them what was going on, and verified who I was so they’d get their asses moving. Was I fucking myself over? Almost certainly, but it didn’t matter if lives were on the line.

  I went back in through the hole Bitch had left, telling Joy to scream if she saw anyone that wasn’t with the heroes. There were a dozen or more bodies of mauled Nazis strewn all over the place, most with pretty ugly injuries from the dogs. I wanted to leave them but...no, even if they were rats, they were still just injured civilians right now.

  With my knife, I tore strips of cloth from their own clothing to dress their injuries. I didn’t have a first aid kit and wasn’t about to waste time finding one. I ignored the sirens as they got louder and louder, and the roar of one hero or another’s patrol cycle. I was fucked, I was deeply aware of that fact, but I couldn’t care about that when I was trying to keep some baby-faced fascist from bleeding out through a missing chunk of his thigh. I’d managed to tourniquet him enough that he wasn’t gushing anymore when a hand grabbed my shoulder.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t guess,” Miss Militia’s voice said, a cold edge to it. I shrugged her off.

  “People are bleeding out,” I snapped. “The bullshit waits.”

  At least she seemed to agree with me, calling on the PRT medics they’d be rolling with. Once they were there though, they took over and I was practically dragged away despite my vitriolic protests. I was taken by the van, where I saw Joy sitting in the back being comforted by a blonde officer who’d removed her helmet. Miss Militia led me around front, kicked out the driver, then sat us both down.

  “What the hell is going on?” she demanded, her gaze steely. I fought back my nerves to meet it; I’d done nothing wrong.

  “Nazi dogfighting ring,” I explained. “And maybe worse, considering the girl in the back of the van. You got my message about her maybe being a cape?”

  “I did,” Miss Militia said. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

  “What’s there to explain?” I grumbled. “You took me off patrols, stopped me from helping people. If I just sit there and let it happen… I couldn’t.”

  “Amaranth you were slated to be back on them before the end of next month,” she said, not raising her voice but there was a subtle pressure. “Now… God I don’t even know quite frankly. I didn’t expect to get a midnight call from one of my Wards for backup. We’ll deal with this in the morning.”

  “Sure,” I said, frowning as my phone buzzed in my pocket. I glanced at Miss Militia. “Can I?” I got a nod and dug it out of my pocket, pressing the answer button. “Hello?”

  “Please tell me you’re not why I’m getting called to the PRT headquarters at eleven,” Amy’s voice answered, sounding dead tired.

  “Um, not...exactly?”

  “Lia!”

  “Look just...I’ll explain when I can okay?”

  “Fine.” I winced as the line clicked. Fuck me I guess for trying to do anything good in my life.

  “That was Pandora?” Miss Militia asked, getting a single nod. “Did she know?”

  “Don’t you dare go after her,” I barked. “She didn’t know til a few days ago, didn’t know about this at all, so leave her the fuck alone.” She seemed taken aback.

  “I don’t plan on doing anything to Pandora,” she said evenly. “If she’s done wrong, the PRT will decide whether or not to take action.”

  “She hasn’t,” I said.

  “That’s not for either of us to determine,” Miss Militia said sharply, then sighed. “Enough. Stay here until the driver returns to take you back to headquarters.”

  She left me alone and I brought my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them. I tried my best not to remember dying...or how many times I had.