A/N: Hey everyone! Chapter time. I'm going to start my break week now so that I can do The Very Serious Juniper Dev Game Jam, which starts today and ends one week from today. The next MGMH chapter will be afterwards, but we should still have the same total number of chapters this month. Anyway, enjoy AYEH!

"This unit (An Evil Divided Approaches Zero) will accompany you, Twisting Scars Reshape Fate."

"Acknowledged," I send back. "Query: effects of blessing?"

"Spontaneous creation of impassible barriers within domain. Visibility optional."

Oh good, I'm teaming up with a mime. Well, they sound pretty useful, as long as we're not dealing with a critical mass of Danielles yet.

"Stay behind me and provide support as deemed necessary. Maintain substantial physical distance from any suspected targets."

"Agreement."

I fly forward as fast as I can without wasting mass to some kind of catapult system, trusting my Angel backup to keep pace. I've spread my domain out far to try and catch something, but just like the Queen, I end up feeling nothing at all. No, wait. I'm actually feeling nothing at all. There's… nothing alive down there.

I halt in the air, reeling from the sudden realization that in front of me, there isn't so much as a blade of grass left alive. There aren't any bugs, or birds, or even bacteria. What the hell happened?

"Al ert. Sco uting div ision thir ty-thr ee has cea sed contac t an d is ap proac hing yo ur locat ion," the Queen suddenly reports.

More Raptors going silent? But these ones haven't disappeared, they just seem… what, controlled? Maybe this isn't Danielle after all. I don't know what this is. Shit! If this power is completely removing biological matter in its radius, then it's almost certainly here to kill me. It's too obvious of a counter. I need to play it safe here.

Floating high up in the air, I soon spot the Raptors the Queen is referring to. Ignoring all communication pings, they stumble like zombies in my general direction, several of them tripping over their own feet and having to drag themselves back upright as they approach. One by one, they line up in the middle of the street, in clear view. One by one, they lift up a foreclaw and point directly at me.

Well. They're certainly here for me. The question is: is this a parley or a trap?

"I am moving closer," I declare. "All units, stay away from designated zone."

For my own part, I keep a long line of my own domain trailing out behind me, ready to form a new body outside the apparent death area and abandon the old one completely if needed. I'm usually resistant to mind-controlling effects, but… I can't be sure what's actually affecting these things until I get closer.

Slowly, nonthreateningly, I descend toward the Raptors. Very carefully, I extend my domain towards them, conscious of the huge red flag that is a lack of enemy domain having been detected thus far. It has to be somewhere, which means it has to be hidden somehow. I can't imagine effects this wide-reaching and complex could occur entirely remotely.

The Raptors continue pointing until I'm directly in front of them. They lower their claws, then, but predictably, none of them speak. The insides of their bodies feel… hollow. Like pieces of their brains have been carved out, somehow without leaving any scars.

"What do you want?" I ask out loud, and through the network. 

At first, I don't think I'm getting a response. Then, one of the Raptors buckles. The empty parts inside them expand, something inorganic devouring them from the inside. I brace myself to abandon this body and run, but then a pink mist starts hissing out from the holes opening up from the Raptor's flesh. A familiar pink mist. And alongside it, now that she's in the open air, I feel a familiar Bliss-based domain as well. This is one of In-Joke's cronies, isn't it? I think I remember her name…

"Rapture…?" I prompt. "Why are you attacking us?"

Slowly, the pink mist coils in the air, bunching together and keeping its distance from me. Little by little, it shapes itself into letters and words in the air.

I'm not, Rapture answers. Yet.

"You've killed at least two dozen people," I point out.

Nuh-uh. I've only killed aliens.

"Aliens are people, Rapture," I insist.

Maybe. Don't care. I need your help.

"This is… a bit of a weird way to request it," I say. Slowly, the other Raptors start to dissolve as well, more and more pink mist leaking into the air.

It's not a request, Rapture says. Sorry.

"You're threatening me?" I ask.

Yeah. Well, I'm threatening everybody. But mostly you I guess. In-Joke says I can kill you, but it'll probably end the world.

"Do you… want to end the world?"

Nah.

Okay, well, that's good.

"What do you want, then?" I ask.

Oh, sorry. I need you to save Artifact. The pigs got him.

The 'pigs…?' Oh, the government, probably.

"…We're likely going to end up going after them in a couple days anyway," I say. "Agnus Dei either has performed or will perform a coup, and we're going to stop her and force the U.S. into negotiating terms with us. We can probably just free him then."

No. Do it now.

I blink. Uh. 

"Is there… a particular reason?" I ask.

Because if you don't, I'm going to kill you and maybe end the world or whatever.

Okay. Alright. I… feel like this is a position I can potentially negotiate her down from, but with her being floating pink letters in the air and nothing else, it's a little difficult for me to get a read on her. 

"I meant a particular reason you can't just wait like, three days," I clarify. "I've got nothing against saving Artifact. He seems very nice."

"Our council member is in peril?" Blossom suddenly butts in. "Stop talking and go now!"

"Hush, A Blossom of Wilted Chances," I say. "I'm handling it."

He is, Rapture agrees. I'd probably be crazy or dead if not for him. 

"Oh yeah?' I prompt. "Why's that?"

Get her talking, establish a rapport, engender some sympathy… hopefully we can get to a point in this conversation that doesn't keep turning back around to threats.

Well I sort of ate myself and turned into acid mist, Rapture writes. It has not been great. I sort of… evaporate away and get smaller if I don't use my powers enough, but when I get too big it becomes hard to stop using my powers. Artifact makes me things that help prevent those extremes. He also helps me not get bored. I can't do most things by myself.

"Are you afraid you aren't going to be able to last three days?" I ask.

A little, she confirms. I'm also afraid they'll hurt him, or try to mind control him, or maybe just kill him. He's kind of weak and dumb. He's useless without me. I need to be there for him.

"Request: beat them up. Only I am allowed to call our council members weak and dumb," Blossom insists.

"I can't beat them up, they're made of mist that dissolves flesh," I grumble at her.

"As your people say: issue of skill."

"Do you know where they're keeping him?" I ask, trying to get back on topic.

No, but they just took him a little while ago, so he can't have gotten far, right?

"There are powerful teleporters working for the government," I say. "But I don't think Cross-Country handles prisoner transport… I guess it would depend. Anyway, I'm worried just trying to storm the closest military compound would put Artifact in more danger, not less."

Then don't screw up, Rapture says.

"It's… not really that simple," I press. "I would love to help Artifact, but—"

SHUT UP, Rapture interrupts me, writing the words extra large in the air. Look. I don't care. I just know In-Joke talks about you like they shoved their head up your ass and found nothing but sunshine. You're supposed to save the world and become a god queen or some shit. You make miracles. So go make a miracle, or else I'll kill everybody ever. I want him back. NOW.

"Rapture, please calm down," I press, holding up my hands in a surrendering posture. "I am going to help Artifact. I promise. It's just a question of what the best way to do that is."

The remaining bodies of the infected Raptors fall one by one, their cordyceps-like zombification coming to an end as more and more of the deadly pink mist billows into being like a low-altitude storm cloud. The more of it that gathers in the open air, the more strongly I feel Rapture's domain, a honey-sweet siren song about deliciously pleasurable death.

Wrong, Rapture insists. I don't care about your stupid words. I care about Artifact. You are going to rescue him, and you are going to bring him to me. I don't care how you do it, I just care that you do it, and that you do it NOW.

I hesitate. It's coming to this, then? I might have to fight her, but can I win? I'm not sure if it's even possible. She's just as immune to physical damage as I am, if not moreso. I can't just tear her apart and eat her like I would most any other enemy. Trying to eat her would probably be the thing that kills me permanently; I'd basically be inviting her into my meatspace where my real brain resides. She's very much a hard counter to all of my abilities. If I'm very careful, I can probably survive Rapture, but can I beat her? Can I stop her from slaughtering countless people? No, I'm not really sure I can.

Can the others take her, then? Maria might be able to do it, but only if her fairies happen to be immune to Rapture's power in the same way they're immune to mine. I don't actually know for sure if Rapture is restricted to biological targets; it's just the only thing I've seen her infect. I barely know her, though, so I can't trust my assumptions there. Maria could be in as much danger as anyone else. That isn't even mentioning how Rapture can apparently hide her domain inside things, potentially waiting out an offensive and counterattacking elsewhere. The best answer to her power in our group is probably Peter, since he can obliterate the air just as easily as anything else if he chooses to. 

He's just one guy, though. Once again, we run into the issue of her simply splitting herself up and attacking on multiple fronts. Maybe she can't do that, but I doubt she'd be a legitimate threat to the world if she couldn't. Rapture and In-Joke have both emphasized how dangerous she is, and while it's possible they're lying in anticipation of this exact thought process, I have to play it safe and assume that Rapture can hypothetically spread across the entire globe if she grows large enough.

"Just help them, idiot," Blossom says, cutting into my thoughts. "We will be fine. Go infiltrate the enemy, and save our council member. The answer is obvious."

It is not the obvious answer. It's absurdly risky!

"You are absurdly powerful. It's fine. If you're still worried, then eat me and bring me with you. I make for quite the nasty surprise."

"Can I get some other opinions, here?" I groan. "Omen of Final Mistakes?"

"You've survived worse odds," Emily says. "More importantly, Rapture isn't bluffing. If I instruct you to turn her down our odds of survival completely tank."

"I want to go with you, but I doubt I'd be any good on a stealth mission," Maria says. "I cannot intentionally create falsehoods with your level of skill."

"This unit is too recognizable," Peter says.

"I'd obviously give you a different body for infiltration," I say. "Or just carry you there in my meatspace."

"Hard pass on both," Peter says.

"I want to come," Ana says, "but Omen of Final Mistakes says I should stay and protect our presently reconstructing friend."

I wouldn't want Ana to do an infiltration mission with me anyway. Ugh, alright. You know what, it's probably fine. The more information we can gather about the military's plans before they attack, the more likely we'll be to survive it anyway, right?

"…Okay," I tell Rapture. "I'll go save him now. Blossom is yelling at me to do it now anyway."

The Angel? Rapture asks.

"Yeah, your friend was blessed by the same god as us," I answer. "According to said god, he's a member of our council. So we're kinda duty-bound to protect and help him anyway."

Oh. Cool. I was afraid I'd have to kill someone so you'd know I was serious.

Again, you already did, but now is perhaps not the best time to argue about alien personhood.

"That will not be necessary," I assure her. "Though if I screw up, and you do end up killing everyone, I told you so."

Just don't.

"That's good advice, I'll try that," I deadpan, jumping up into the air and shifting into a bird.

While I can't say I expected this, and I certainly can't say I'm happy about it, I can at least make the most of it. This is far from the worst-case scenario. It is true that I have even more absurd infiltration capabilities than I did the last time I snuck into a military base, so whatever improvements to their security they might have made against shapeshifters probably won't even work. And sure, that 'probably' might be doing a lot of work here, but since I apparently don't have a choice, I'm just going to have to give it my best shot regardless.

Actually exfiltrating Artifact once I find him should be relatively easy. Finding him, however, probably won't be. If he was literally just captured like Rapture said, there's a chance he's still nearby, but generally speaking, forward operating bases are not the ideal place to hold prisoners, and he'll almost certainly be slated for transport elsewhere sooner rather than later. If he's already gone, it will be extremely difficult to catch up to him at this point.

Of course, if he is still in the nearby base, it's still not going to be easy to find him. Given my experience in the army, I have a few good guesses on the kind of place they'd likely hold a supervillain temporarily, but they're just that: guesses. I can't exactly spread my domain out and just hope to run into him, either. It might let me find him immediately, but it will definitely let Agnus Dei find me immediately. I would prefer to have the backup of an entire colony for that fight. Being smack-dab in the middle of enemy territory would be less than ideal.

I swoop down where the others have gathered—which happens to be exactly in the direction I was traveling to reach the FOB, that's Emily at work for you—and give everyone a hug, Maria a kiss, and Blossom a one-way trip to the meat dimension.

"Wheeeeee!" Blossom says as she dissolves into nothing.

I close my eyes, making sure she made the trip over okay, and she seems absolutely delighted to be surrounded on all sides by ever-shifting viscera. So yeah, she's fine. I shift back into a bird and fly east, the military ready and waiting ahead of me.

Up front with the tanks and machine gun emplacements is an unbroken row of powered domains, an invisible vigilant wall against surprise intrusion. I would have been forced to circumnavigate it entirely before, but now I can hide my domain entirely as long as I… well, possess something, basically.

I'm not entirely sure why that's a requirement, or if it even truly is a requirement, but it's what felt right when I tried to do it with Emily, and it's what feels right now. To simply make my domain feel weaker than it really is, all I really need to do is change how I present it. Bunching up a bit here or there, covering it up with something… it's like putting on a costume. Easy enough to do, even out in the open. But to hide my domain completely? I need something, or someone, to hide behind. I need to give up most of my direct control on the world, and meld into the shadows.

So, even though I'm a bird already, I figure it would be easiest to just possess another bird. Possessing Emily and getting all of her thoughts streamed into my brain… no, I guess technically I was just thinking her thoughts, because she was me, but that's getting a little pedantic. Reading all of my sister's thoughts was awkward and surreal, but reading all of a bird's thoughts is just disorienting. It's suddenly so much harder to understand anything, to see patterns or infer conclusions. Everything is more immediate and instinctual: scan surroundings, identify movement, determine distance, catalog threats and opportunities. Perched high on a tree, there's a safety net of open air between me and anything that might want to do me harm, but I know that if I want to flit down and snap my beak around any of those tasty bugs I'll have to get closer to danger. It's always a balance of waiting for the right moment at the right time, a balance ingrained in my mind from a short lifetime of experience.

I really need to head over that way, though. Past the line of huge creatures that I know are dangerous despite largely seeming content to leave me alone. And sure, yeah, there are a lot of good bugs over here, but there are also a lot of other birds and some of them have been scooping up the best catches and I bet there are also some bugs over there if I look for them because there are always bugs all over if I look for them because there are a lot of bugs and I would like to eat some.

There! That one! It's a bit close to one of the huge creatures but it's a fat and plump bug and it's probably worth it I guess because yummy so I swoop down close and woah. Okay, I'm Private James Lancaster now.

I mean, of course I am. And I've got places to be. I'm due to change shifts with one of the people on watch, and if I get there late my sergeant is going to kick my ass. It's pretty much what sergeants are for. Ass-kicking. The movies usually direct that ass-kicking at aliens, but in my experience, the ass-kicking is mostly directed at me. Honestly, it's a miracle I survived basic.

"Yo, James!" my squadmate greets me as I approach.

"Hey. Anything to report?" I ask.

"All quiet," he denies. "The LT's have been coming by to stare way more than normal, though. Keep your eyes up more than usual, yeah? They've already made an example of somebody."

"What has the brass buzzing?" I ask.

"Who knows? All kinds of rumors. Probably the precogs getting worked up over nothing again. But you never know, maybe today's the day the xenos come for us. Somebody was even swearing up and down they heard people talk about Seraphim attacking."

Ooh, awkward.

"Seraphim? You mean the nudist wing ripper?"

The WHAT?

God, she was hot. It really sucked when they took all the posters down. Shoulda snagged one.

Please get me out of this body.

"Wait, you seriously didn't hear? She went villain."

"Damn. Really?" I ask.

Wow, that's even hotter. Villain Seraphim… what would she look like then? Maybe all of her feathers would be black instead of white? That's also a good look.

I'm going to fucking die.

"Cut the chatter, you two!" I hear a female voice shout.

You know what, that's enough, that's my new body now. Getting the fuck out of here!

A similar strategy gets me deeper into the base. Ping-ponging between potential hosts, I climb the ranking ladder in hopes of possessing someone who might actually know where Artifact is being held. It's far from effective, but I can't really make any more overt moves without someone inevitably figuring out that something is wrong. Sudden betrayals of one's own body tend to be extremely noticeable, and while it is possible to use my shapeshifting to directly modify neurochemistry and affect thoughts, I'm nowhere near good enough at doing that to make it subtle, and probably not good enough at it to prevent accidentally giving someone brain damage. It didn't really matter when I was giving the bird a direction to fly, but that's several orders of magnitude less complex than trying to subtly extract memories about a certain supervillain who, at minimum, is completely unknown to the rank and file.

What I need is a better target. I need to find someone whom I could make aware of my presence without causing them to immediately panic and fight me at every turn. I need someone who either trusts me enough, owes me enough, or is scared of me enough to go along with whatever I say. Ideally all three.

…Oh hey, is that Rafflesia?

I don't know how I'm going to survive this shitshow. There's obviously something seriously wrong going on, but even if I figure out what it is, what am I supposed to do about it? The biggest red flag is that Commander is here. What the hell is Commander doing here? This is an Air Force operation, not an Army one, so she's not only outside the standard chain of command, but completely outside her normal zone of operations. I mean, she runs a super-training camp in Georgia. There are not very many reasons the men upstairs would pull a mind rapist all the way up from Georgia, and I don't like any of them.

But what do I know, right? I'm just here to be another low-rank wing ripper, on resonance duty as always. My powers are too weak and too unpleasant for anyone to ever give me any other job, other than my usual anti-supervillain work. Meat tentacles are pretty good at restraining people, at least.

Regardless, something smells. The mood here is just… off. Like most people know something that the rest of us don't, and that makes us not one of them. The worst part of all is Agnus Dei, though. Not that I have anything against the woman personally, it's just… that feeling in the back of my mind that always used to point at the moon is whipping all over the place nowadays. It was just yesterday that I figured out it's pointing toward her. Instead of that fucked-up monster in the moon, that weird sense is pointing toward America's strongest super. And the way that woman looks at me… I swear, she knows that I know. She's always smiling at me like we're both in on a little joke.

I doubted the joke was going to be very funny before she ordered me to see Commander, and I seriously doubt it's going to be funny now. Reaching my destination, I clench my fists, thinking about the arm Seraphim regrew me. They've never trusted me since then, and frankly I can't blame them. That entire experience was terrifying, and rumor is she actually managed to wound Agnus Dei somehow shortly afterward. Whatever. Nothing I can do about it now. I knock on the door.

"Come on in," that mockingly sweet voice invites me.

I step inside, standing in front of the woman sitting at her desk.

"Chief Warrant Officer Noemi Davidson reporting, ma'am," I announce myself.

Commander grins at me from behind furniture far too expensive for her actual rank. I get the distinct impression that this was someone else's office when it was first set up, and sure enough a quick glance at the desk shows a photograph of a family that doesn't have her in it. Did she just commandeer this room, then, or did she leave that photo there as some kind of joke? I can't imagine why that would be funny, but it still wouldn't surprise me.

"Rafflesia. Do you mind if I just call you Rafflesia?" Commander asks.

She's probably going to do it no matter what I say, so…

"No ma'am," I answer. It's true anyway. Rafflesia is as much my name now as Noemi ever was.

"Do you love America, Rafflesia?"

Red alert! Red alert! There is no good reason she could be asking me that question!

"Of course, ma'am," I say, keeping my voice as even as possible.

"We all do," Commander lies through her fucking teeth. No way she cares about anyone or anything other than herself. "So from time to time, we all have to ask ourselves what's best for America."

"I'll do it," I blurt.

"Hmm?" Commander says, seeming surprised.

Shit! Fuck! Whatever, just keep going. You can never let people like these know you've made a mistake. Confidence is everything.

"Look, I'll do it," I say. "I can read the writing on the wall, ma'am. You tell me what to do, I'll follow my orders, and nobody has to do anything unnecessary. Such as with each other's brains."

Commander stares at me for a while, and then she… pouts. This grown-ass woman who's probably close to twice my age pouts because I'm not giving her an excuse to use her creepy-ass powers on me. Unfortunately for me, it doesn't take long for her pout to turn back into a grin. That's the thing about excuses, after all: you can always just pull another out of thin air.

"If you're this easy to intimidate, Rafflesia, I'm forced to wonder where your real loyalties lie," she says.

"I'm not easy to intimidate," I insist. "It's just you specifically, ma'am. You scare the hell out of me."

That gets her to laugh, but I doubt it gets me off the hook. Well, I tried my best. Time to get an addiction to obeying a crazy woman as a consequence of only ever following my orders and never actually doing anything wrong. God, I hate my job.

"Let's change that, shall we?" Commander says, a drip of sadistic glee leaking into her words. Has this woman always been this cracked, or is it a more recent thing? "Sit down, Rafflesia."

And here it comes. Her domain is on me, and it's very active, so any order I follow will flood my brain with so many happy chemicals that I won't be able to think. I've been fully briefed on her powers, so I know that, technically, she doesn't exert any kind of full mental domination over her targets. She just hits them with a hammer's worth of soft power, turns them into addicts, and presents herself as the only available cure for the withdrawals. Not that there are any physical symptoms, but the psychological addiction is deemed to be exceptionally potent.

I don't want to do this. But if I refuse, I'll get far worse than an artificial dope addiction. So I steel myself, I sit down, and I wait for the power to hit me.

And wait.

Aaaaand… wait. I definitely feel weird all of a sudden, but it's more of a dull headache than anything.

"How was that?" Commander asks. "Not as bad as you feared, is it?"

The hell is she talking about? She didn't do anything! Was she spooking me on purpose? Was this all just a bad joke?

She starts forcing me through more orders, talking bit by bit about what my duties are going to be from here on out. Throughout it all, my head just feels like static. It's like someone stuffed my brain like a teddy bear, and I just go through the motions of her commands robotically, feeling no particular desire to do so outside of the general willingness to obey orders that I already had. If anything, it's a little harder than usual to actually listen to her and do what she says. By the time I find myself stepping out of her office with my new orders, I'm struggling to remember what those orders even were.

I'm not really sure how much it matters. Literally everything that just happened is wildly illegal. Commander's a villain now, and I know what to do about those. The question in this case is just who it's safe to report her to. She probably would have tried to reach as many higher-ups as she could before converting someone like me. That whole thing was weird, though. Why am I not… huh?

I jolt a little as I feel a pinch on my thigh. I look down, but don't see anything. Then, I watch as my own fingers pinch my thigh again. Well, fuck. I guess I didn't get out of that as unscathed as it appeared. But why is Commander's power working so differently all of a sudden…?

My hand makes a thumbs-down, and then points towards a side room. Fuck it. Whatever. I'm stuck on this wild ride. I step inside, finding an empty room. How exciting.

"Hey, Rafflesia," my mouth suddenly says without my permission, causing my heart rate to absolutely spike… and then calm down just as quickly. "Has the arm been treating you well?"

Oh god. No fucking way. Seraphim!? I try to blurt the name out loud, but I can't. My whole body is suddenly outside my control.

"Sorry about that," I whisper to myself. "I know it's unpleasant, but hopefully it's less unpleasant than what Commander tried to do to you."

Again, I try to ask "did you stop that?" out loud, but I fail to say anything at all.

"I did. Her powers interfere with the brain biologically, so I can counteract it fairly trivially," I whisper to myself again. 

I guess Seraphim can read minds now? Sure. Why not. Fan-fucking-tastic for her. What can't the bitch do?

"A little rude, considering that I just helped you," I… no, she says quietly.

Yeah, sure. Saved from getting controlled by one supervillain because I was already getting controlled by another. How could I not be grateful for such an incredible deal?

"I'm not going to use you for much, I promise," Seraphim lies through my teeth. "Though on the subject of supervillains, do you know of one that goes by the name Artifact?"

Him? Yeah, I was the one who brought him in. Poor kid. With powers like his, I can see why he would want to stay away from his duty. The powers that be are going to bleed him dry.

"Yeah, I can't let that happen," Seraphim says. "Where is he?"

Fuck if I know. He stopped being my problem hours ago. They've probably loaded him onto a truck and shipped him off to a black site by now. 

"Who did you leave him with? And where? Take me to them," Seraphim orders. "It's vitally important that I get him back. Someone with potentially apocalyptic powers is going to go nuclear on everyone if I can't save him."

A very convenient story from 'Warrant Officer Lia Morgan,' aka the girl who has lied about basically everything regarding herself since before the two of you ever met. Hell, she might even straight-up be an Angel. I don't know. Nobody knows. 

"Well, several people know," Seraphim says. "And I am of course one of them. I was born human. My real name is Julietta Monroe. That's not really important, though. I'm here to rescue Artifact, stop a coup, and end the war for good. I've been recruited by a colonel to prevent Commander and Agnus Dei from taking over the country. Help me out, Rafflesia. Please."

A colonel? Which one? Why would a colonel ever… hmm. The idea of a coup brewing is extremely believable after all that shit with Commander, actually. And Agnus Dei is the one who declared you a supervillain…

"And forced Colonel David Sanderson into silence, yes," Seraphim confirms. "He came to me because I was the only other survivor when she killed a bunch of our own men."

Sanderson, huh…? I don't know him personally, but I recognize the name. But ultimately, whether or not she's lying isn't the real question. She's controlling my body. I don't get to say no, do I?

"You do," Seraphim insists. "I'm not that kind of person. If you say no, I hide you somewhere secure and knock you unconscious. You'll wake up after all this is over, no worse for wear. You were always fair with me, so it's only right I return the favor."

Well honestly, that sounds like a damn good deal right about now. Nothing quite like paid leave.

"…I'd really appreciate it if you helped me save Artifact, though. It genuinely is important," Seraphim presses. "Please?"

Man, what kind of supervillain says 'please?' Whatever. Fine. I guess I owe you a little for growing my arm back. Can you get out of my damn body, though?

"No, but I'll give you control back now. Please get us to Artifact as quickly as possible."

Again, I don't know where that is, but… whatever. Sure. Fine. I'll go track them down.

The feeling suffusing my body lightens, and all of a sudden I can move myself again. I stretch my jaw just to make sure I can.

"Alright. Cool. Just saving America," I mutter to myself, stepping out of the room and speed-walking towards the only place they might still be keeping a prisoner here: the interrogation room. If he's on a transport already, there's not much I can do. Ignoring the few people who greet me as I pass, I rush over, and… oh my god the room is occupied. I'm surprised they're trying to interrogate him at all, honestly. The kid has a tricky power. Who knows what he might pull out of his ass?

I walk into the observation room, pretending that I'm allowed to be there. My question is answered fairly promptly: while I don't recognize the man interrogating Artifact, I do recognize that zoned-out, glassy-eyed look in the kid's eyes, at least by reputation. He probably doesn't even know where he is, the poor guy. Hypnotist doesn't have the best power for keeping people lucid enough to answer complex questions, but he probably has the best power for keeping prisoners docile.

"Rafflesia, right? What are you doing here?"

I'm not alone in the observation room. Another super I don't recognize is here too, staring at me suspiciously. Although either this one or the one in the interrogation room itself is probably Hypnotist. 

"They're worried about how unpredictable the kid is," I say. "I'm here to help restrain him, just in case."

"Doubt we'll need you," my fellow observer shrugs. "Even before I got to him, he wasn't trying to do much of anything other than cry. I doubt he's suddenly going to…"

He trails off. A beat passes as we share a moment of shock.

Artifact is gone. The poor guy basically imploded in on himself, leaving nothing but his clothes behind to flutter uselessly onto the chair. It was sudden, horrifying, and utterly disgusting.

Clearly, Seraphim has made her move.

"Shit!" the man in the room with me swears. "Are you—gughak!"

All of a sudden, his demeanor shifts. He takes a deep breath and smooths down his clothes. The interrogation room is now totally empty. I missed whatever made the interrogator himself also vanish, but I doubt it was pretty.

"Okay, great!" Seraphim—because whoever this person was before, they're obviously Seraphim now—says cheerfully. "That's the hard part. Let's get somewhere outside and I'll be out of your hair."

My hand jerks towards the door again. Ah, she means it literally. She is currently still inside my hair and that poor bastard. Horrifying.

"Mostly just you," she assures me. "I'm not inhabiting this body, it's just more polite to talk with you using someone else's mouth, I think. I had to suppress so much adrenaline in your bloodstream to stop you from freaking out; you were producing it like crazy."

Gee, wonder why.

"…This way, then," I say, and she nods… and then consumes the entire man in front of me, once again leaving nothing but a pile of clothes. Jesus Christ, she's like the goddamn rapture.

"Funny you should say that, actually," my mouth says. "Get moving, please."

I'm going, fuck! I break into a jog as I start to take the quickest path out of the building… and then stop, my heart thundering in panic as I feel Agnus Dei suddenly shoot towards my intended exit point, zipping across the base like the crack of a whip. I turn and start to take a different route, but the moment I get close to the new door, Agnus Dei zips in front of it. She's definitely trying to cut us off!

I pause for a split second, trying to figure out a better way to go, but a searing white light cuts through my vision and thoughts, the entire section of the building in front of me now nothing more than bubbling rock. I stare up at the shining form of America's strongest hero, a manic grin parting her face as she points her palm at me.

My tongue clicks in irritation of its own accord.

"Sorry, Raff," Seraphim says, and then I feel nothing but darkness.