Much later, the sun was just starting to rise as Daniel woozily exited the police station.  The past several hours had left his bones aching and every muscle complaining.  What’s more, between the constant questions from Aguado and the gnawing worry, he hadn’t slept a wink.  Annie didn’t look much better.  She had deep, dark circles under her eyes and her expression hinted at deep agitation hiding just beneath her composed surface.

Numbskull, however, looked just as chipper as she ever did.  To her credit, she had been trying to comfort Daniel in her own way all throughout.  Despite her assertions to the contrary, he still felt at least partially responsible for what happened to Beth and Burning Sol.  As though sensing his thoughts, the skeleton shoved another whiteboard in front of his face.  He blinked.

“Sunglasses said that they didn’t find any bodies in the van,” it read.  She pointed at it insistently.

Daniel sighed and exchanged a look with Annie.  She took a break from her fatigue to give him a look of concern right back.

“I know,” he managed, “But you saw what happened.  I don’t know if even Burning Sol could-”

“He could,” his wife cut him off, “I’m sure he did.  Anyway, we need to worry about ourselves for now.”

“Right,” Daniel replied sourly, “The problem with the B.S.A.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Numbskull added via her whiteboard.

“They didn’t find any other culprit at the scene.  Just ‘extensive destruction of personal property’.  No matter what we say, there’s no evidence clearing us.  We’re liable for what happened.”

“The Bureau is liable,” Annie corrected, “We were acting within their authority.  ...You were, at least.  Numbskull too.”

“If only we had some sort of evidence-” Daniel cut off as a buzzing sound erupted from his pocket.  He was so unused to carrying his cell phone that the sensation made him jump before he patted down his clothing and found the item responsible.  After pulling it out, he goggled at the name that lit up the display.

“It’s Beth!” he exclaimed with a mixture of sheer shock and blessed relief.

What followed was a brief, mostly one-sided conversation.  Daniel ended the call, and his shoulders slumped.  Only when he realized the others were staring at him expectantly did he speak again.

“She’s fine.  Burning Sol saved her at the last minute, as expected,” the next part made him grimace, his expression even more sour than before, “The B.S.A. is in trouble.  We’re supposed to get as much sleep as we can and report to the office at noon.”

Annie’s face was lit up with relief as well, “Thank goodness she’s alright.  If there weren’t any casualties…”
“It’s not as bad for us, but it still doesn’t look good.  We left a heck of a mess over there, Bunnyboy.”

Daniel could only nod in agreement.  He scowled at the lightening sky.   Even if they left now, he’d only get a few hours of sleep, and he was already bone-weary and badly in need of a shower.

“She won’t mind if we’re a bit late, right?” he asked, more to himself than either of the others.  The mixture of guilt and relief this statement brought was cut short by Numbskull punching him in the arm.  She held up her whiteboard, a message written on it in what Daniel could only think of as very insistent script.

“We might have bigger problems than the police.  Noon.”

He looked at the grinning skeleton curiously, then to Annie.

“We’d better listen to her, if she’s being that serious,” his wife said begrudgingly.  Daniel sighed, but he could only agree.

When Daniel awoke, he somehow felt worse than when he had fallen asleep.  His whole body ached, and he could still smell some singed fur.  He decided to remedy this with a hot shower.  After some scrubbing and a quick trim of his whiskers, he was feeling almost human again.  Almost rabbit again.  Whatever.

Annie was waiting for him with gracious patience.  Particularly gracious seeing as how it was already almost an hour past noon by the time he was ready.  Without exchanging many words, the two piled into the van and drove to B.S.A. headquarters.

Daniel stepped through the door to see Numbskull, Gearhawk, Bethany, and even Mort piled around a folding table.  It became abundantly clear that the meeting had simply gotten started without them.  Looking up to see Daniel and Annie enter, Numbskull rolled her eye sockets at him and waved them over.

“Good of you to finally show up,” Gearhawk spat at him.  Daniel, with what little sleep he’d gotten, was in no mood.  He simply glared at the cowled hero as he pulled up.

“Right!” Bethany gave him a surprisingly warm smile, “Let’s get Hopper caught up.”

There was a light in her eyes and a note in her voice that were totally different from her sullen tones on the phone this morning.  Annie nudged him in the ribs slightly.  She had noticed too, and raised her eyebrows at Daniel.  Taking the cue, he finally spoke.

“Er… You’re looking well, Beth.  Is everything okay, then?”

“Yes!  I got rescued by Burning Sol!” she seemed to take a moment to restrain her enthusiasm and then continued, “It was a bit traumatic at first, sure, but what fan wouldn’t love to have her life saved by one of her favorite heroes?”

“Good.  Yes.  Good.  We were worried.”
Beth gave him an odd look.  “Why would you be worried?  Like I said, I was with Burning Sol.”

Daniel felt his face heat a little.  Would there come a time in his future where he could inspire that kind of faith in the people he wanted to protect?  He hid his embarrassment with a cough and a flip of his ears, then turned to the table.  “Right.  So, what’s all this?”

The papers strewn out on the cheap surface didn’t make much sense to Daniel.  They were maps, blueprints, and designs.  That much was clear.  What they had to do with anything, or the danger the B.S.A. was in… he was less certain of.

“It’s our best shot out of this mess.  Thank your partner,” Gearhawk growled with a nod to Numbskull.  Daniel looked her way and caught the beginnings of a smug grin on the skeleton’s face before she hid it with her whiteboard.

“I found it in Maggie’s house,” it read.  Daniel stared at it.

“Er… Maggie?” he asked lamely.

“‘Magus Cromwell’,” Bethany placed her hand on the diagrams firmly as she explained, “He’s the man behind the kidnappings.  But back to what these are…”  She turned and looked hopefully at Mort.

“Yes!  That’s rather my cue I think,” the wiry man said.  The amount of pluck he could put into his voice despite his meagre frame and pale complexion always surprised Daniel.  This time was no exception.  The white-coated man continued, running his fingers absently through his dark hair as he spoke.

“These are building plans, blueprints, and city maps.  Wonderfully accurate, as well.  I must admit I’m very curious as to where our man ‘Magus’ got all of these,” Mort caught a sharp glance from Bethany and refocused himself, “But that’s not important.  What’s important is that ‘Magus’ seems to be intent on performing some kind of ritual in all of these places.  Look,”

Mort pointed with a slender finger at one reddish circle embossed on a blueprint, then at another, this one painted on what Daniel recognized as an extensive map of the city itself.

“We don’t know what these will do, you see, but it can’t be good.  Each one is located in some kind of important building.  Ah, the courthouse, for instance.  Or the mayor’s office.  One is close to, but not actually inside, White Manor.  Er…” he cast his eyes to Numbskull, but the skeleton didn’t seem to react.

“The problem is,” Gearhawk cut in, “We don’t know what any of these things are going to do.  Numbskull over here doesn’t remember, even though they were taken from her library.”

The Numbskull in question raised her whiteboard as though to defend herself from his accusations.  “Well excuuuse me, Birdboy, for not memorizing every sigil in those big ol’ books,”

“We can bet it’s something bad,” Annie said with a slight shiver that Daniel thought only he might have noticed, “That man didn’t seem… quite human.”

Nobody spoke for a moment, and the only sound was Numbskull’s marker squeaking on the whiteboard.

“If to err is human, they say, then he’s definitely human.  Bit of a weirdo though,”

“We can be sure of two things!” Beth proclaimed, raising two fingers into the air, “First, that ‘Magus Cromwell’ has dangerous intentions for this city.  Second, that he also doesn’t value human life.  I’d be dead right now, if Sol hadn’t been there.”

“What happened to Burning Sol after that?” Daniel asked.  He’d been curious since he’d heard about the hero’s daring rescue of Beth.  She frowned, then shrugged.

“He said something about tracking the villain down and left.  If we’re lucky, he’ll have captured Magus already and we won’t have to do anything.”

“You’re wrong,” Gearhawk said suddenly, “That’s one of the worst-case scenarios.  Our whole future depends on us capturing that madman.”

Beth scowled at his contradiction, but she didn’t correct it.

“Oh, er, that’s right,” Mort said, coming to Daniel’s rescue, “Our new arrivals here haven’t heard the plan.  Miss Bethany, would you like to…?”

“It’s like Gearhawk said,” Beth took the prompt, “We’re officially under suspicion now because of what happened last night.  The state government is sending someone to inspect our organization here.  Based on what happened last night… There’s no way we’ll be able to play off so much property damage and endangerment without something to show for it.”

Annie was nodding along now, and it took Daniel only a moment longer to catch on.  He thudded one fist into his expansive palm; a gesture of realization.

“We have to capture Magus Cromwell before the inspector arrives,” he finished.

Numbskull tugged on his sleeve, then angrily shoved the whiteboard into his field of view.  “More importantly, we’ve gotta stop whatever this is!  It’s bad juju!”  She waved boney fingers at the pile of blueprints lying all but forgotten on the table.

“We’ve got an opportunity to do both, no thanks to either of you,” Gearhawk instead looked at Mort, who flushed at being the sudden center of attention.  The rush of blood turned his normally pallid skin a curious shade of pink.

“That’s,” he coughed, then gathered himself and continued, “That’s right.  I’ve, er, had an opportunity to help out a little bit it seems.  I had designed these little fellows for something else, but…”

He held his hand out, fist closed for a moment.  With great trepidation, he opened his fingers.  Daniel couldn’t help but flinch.

The same design that was the basis for his two-way communicator, that bizarre interlocking of impossible angles, had also been used for these new devices.  These, however, appeared to be little other than golden, mechanical bugs.  They skittered around in Mort’s open palm, each only as large as the thin man’s index finger.

“What are we supposed to do with those?” Daniel asked, incredulous.

“Shut up and maybe he’ll tell you,” Gearhawk growled.  Beth gave Daniel an apologetic look, but he almost didn’t notice.  His attention was focused with horrified fascination on the insectile forms crawling around Mort’s hand.

“Yes, yes I will.  I do apologize about their design.  I would certainly have liked something more… aesthetically pleasing than these.  Unfortunately, I do only have a certain amount of control over how these things turn out.”

“Is this magic too?” Annie asked.  She actually looked quite eager, her expression showing far more interested in the glittering bugs than Daniel’s.

“Of a sort, yes.  I have a theory that this may be closer to the ancient art of alchemy…” Mort responded, then trailed off, “Ah, but that’s not important right now!  Yes, each of these little machines have been fed a detailed map of the city.  I thought they may be able to help us find the fastest route to a disaster or something like that.  A romantic thought, I know, but this is a far more effective use of their abilities.  After all, we have the maps right here!”

Numbskull wrote out something quickly on her whiteboard.  “Hang on Bugboy, did you say ‘ate’?  You feed these things maps?”

“Well, yes,” Mort replied, looking a little embarrassed, “This is alchemy of a sort after all.  We have to have the proper ingredients for the reaction to occur.”

“Sometime,” Beth said slowly, “You’re really going to have to show me how you do all this.  Right now, we’ll just take them as the blessing they are.”

Mort looked a little green now at the prospect of showing Beth his work.  Daniel narrowed his eyes a tiny bit.  Just what was this man in the white coat hiding?

“For now,” she pointed at the slithering creatures which had slid from Mort’s hand and onto the pile of maps, “Everybody group up and take a bug.”

Daniel looked between Annie and Numbskull, then reached a hand out cautiously toward one of the insect-things.

“Hold it!” Annie interrupted, pointing a finger at him, “You’re working with Gearhawk this time, Hopper.”

Daniel’s heart sank.  He could practically hear the same thing happening across the table in Gearhawk’s well-covered chest.  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?  We don’t really…” he said with as much tact as he could manage.

“You two are the best in a fight, so we’re sending you to the most dangerous spot,” she gave him a smile with only a hint of an apology in it, “There’s one map we don’t recognize at all.  For all we know it could be Magus Cromwell’s secret lair.”

“Tch,” Gearhawk grunted, “I’ll just go alone in that case.  This hunk of useless muscle will only slow me down.”

Daniel’s ears flattened against the top of his head and he struggled to keep his temper from rising.  A soft touch on his arm from Annie helped him cool down, and soon he was able to speak.

“We’re a team, aren’t we?  We’d better listen to our boss’ orders if we’re going to pass inspection,” Daniel gritted his teeth, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but Beth has a point.  Remember the museum incident?  Neither of us would have been too helpful there without the other.”

Gearhawk didn’t meet Daniel’s eyes over his cowl, but from the defeated slump of his shoulders, he knew that his words had reached the green-hooded hero for now.  “Fine, but don’t get in my way.”

“He said it!” Numbskull held up her whiteboard, then scribbled an addition and held it up again, “What a cliche!”

“Oh, and Mrs. Montgomery?” Bethany added once it became clear the temperature in the room had settled down.

“Annie is fine,” Annie said from Daniel’s side, “I’ll go with-”

“You won’t,” Beth interrupted with an apologetic look, “You can’t.  You’re not an official member of the B.S.A., so I can’t let you go on this mission.  It’d look really bad on our inspection if you were to get hurt.”

Annie frowned, but it was a thoughtful frown.

“Insteaaad,” Beth drew out the word, “I’d like for you to help here, if you can.  Do you think you can answer the phone a bit and sweet talk Aguado into leaving us alone if he decides to call?”

“I work in finances,” Annie said, rolling her sleeves up, “I bet I can keep him going in circles for hours.”

“Great!  Alright, now, everyone team up and grab a bug!”

The van door shut, or rather slammed as Gearhawk slid into the passenger seat.  Daniel tightened his big fingers around the steering wheel so hard that they went white.  He braced himself.  The keys were in the ignition, but Daniel didn’t start the car.  It didn’t take long for his passenger to figure out what was happening.

“Hopper-”

“We have to talk,” Daniel growled, looking straight ahead, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but this is more important than both of us.  We’ve got to work it out.”

“Tch,” Gearhawk clicked his tongue in annoyance, “I don’t have anything to say to you.  Let’s just finish the job.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.  What if one of us ends up in danger?  We’ve got to clear the air before that happens.”

“Alright.  Fine.  I hate your rabbit-eared guts.  You wanted me to be honest.  How’s that?”

Daniel released his grip a little.  

“It’s a start,” he managed.  Honestly, he wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but the thought of a knife buried in his side hadn’t been too far from his mind.  If Gearhawk actually wanted to engage, even with insults, that was indeed a start.

“Then I’ve just got one question.  Why?  We’re on the same side.”

Gearhawk didn’t answer immediately, but Daniel could feel the cold steel in his glare even without looking.  Eventually he pulled his hood lower and laughed.  It was a cold, humorless sound.

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

“If I did...” Daniel grit his teeth and his cheeks flushed.  He was trying hard to keep his rising temper under control, “I wouldn’t be asking like this, would I?  Could you please just tell me?”

“I’ll tell you, then.  It’s simple.  You don’t deserve to be a hero,” Gearhawk laid his head back on the van seat and stared at the ceiling as he spoke, “You’re playing at this like some kind of game, but it’s not.  People’s lives are at stake.”

The words hit Daniel like a slap in the face.  “I… I’m not just messing around,” he replied through the shock.

“You aren’t, huh?  I’ve seen you give out your secret identity like it’s nothing.  You pose and preen for the news and go to parties while the rest of us get the real work done.”

With a terse frown, Daniel lowered his eyes.  From his perspective, all of that had been as much a part of the job as patrolling the streets or saving Numbskull.  Still, there was a barb of truth in what Gearhawk was saying.  It lodged itself in his throat and cut off any defense he might offer.

“That’s-” Before he could manage a reply the other cut him off again.

“That’s the problem, Hopper.  You don’t love this.  You never did.  I’ve always loved superheroes, and to see you mocking the whole thing...” Gearhawk turned to look at Daniel for the first time since entering the car.  His eyes were aflame.  “It really pisses me off.”

Silence fell for a full minute in the car, the cowled hero having turned to broodingly gaze out of the window again.  Eventually, Daniel mustered his willpower and turned the key in the ignition.  He felt hollow, and more than a bit guilty, like he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

Of course, what Gearhawk had said wasn’t true.  Was it?  Daniel was taking this whole superhero thing seriously.  He was doing his best to protect Annie and their children.  No matter how many times he told himself that, the hollow feeling remained.  

As he pulled the van out of the parking lot, he let muscle memory take over and thought more deeply than he had in a while.

Minutes passed with no sound but the hum of the engine and air conditioning.  Gearhawk sat in the same position, not looking at him.  Daniel thought briefly about how immature his passenger was being, but then chided himself.  It had probably taken a good bit of courage for him to finally confront Daniel like that.

Eventually, he felt ready to speak again.

“You’re right,” he said simply.  Gearhawk stirred and looked over at him in surprise.  Daniel adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, leaned forward, and continued.

“I thought I was just doing what heroes do, but I wasn’t, was I?  While you were out there patrolling, actually getting things done, I was performing.  A circus strongman, just like my grandfather, flexing my biceps for everyone’s enjoyment.”

“I’ve got to admit, I’m surprised to hear you say that,” the note of shock in Gearhawk’s voice quickly turned bitter, “Not that it changes anything.

Daniel racked his mind.  He felt pretty scummy, if he were to be honest with himself.  Like he had let Gearhawk down by, well, just being himself.  If Annie were here, she’d surely tell him that he shouldn’t blame himself, and that the other party was equally at fault for being such a brooding grump all the time.  Annie wasn’t here, though, and Daniel wasn’t nearly as good at convincing himself of that sort of thing.

“Alright,” he said with as much conviction as he could muster, “You’re in charge for this one.  Just tell me what to do.”

“Tell you what to do?” Gearhawk hesitated.  Daniel was sure that the cowled hero just wanted to tell him to stay out of the way, but something of what he’d said seemed to have gotten through.  The tension in the air between them had lessened, if only by a tiny amount.  “Fine.  You’ll follow my lead when we get there…”

He trailed off, and the two exchanged a glance.  Daniel wasn’t sure, but he thought at the edges of the mask, he could see Gearhawk blushing.  He himself certainly was.  The mutual realization passed between them like a big, unseen river of embarrassment.

“Neither of us know where we’re going, do we?” Gearhawk finally said.

“Nope,” Daniel replied.

“The bug.  Where’s the bug?”

“It’s uh.. It’s right here, I think.”

“You think?”

“It’s alright, I’ve got it.”

Daniel pulled the squirming little thing out of his breast pocket and tried not to look too closely at it.  Between the confusing, interlocking angles of the thing’s shell and the alien motions it made as it twisted in his hand, he was afraid he’d crash the car.  With one hand still on the wheel, he wordlessly passed it to Gearhawk.  The other hero took it, and stared at it without a hint of squeamishness.

“Well?” Gearhawk demanded, poking the creature once, then twice.  Not a creature, Daniel reminded himself.  It was a machine, kind of.  It might help if he thought of it as such.

“Erm..” Daniel pulled up to a red light.  He’d been driving on autopilot while they’d had their heart to heart earlier, and he wasn’t as sure of where they were as he’d like to be.  He hoped the bug was more oriented than he was.  None of these buildings looked familiar.

“We fed it the map, didn’t we?” Gearhawk asked, as the machine wiggled about without apparent purpose, dangling from two of his fingers.

“Yes.  I want to forget what that looked like, but I don’t think I’ll be able to.”

The other hero dropped the bug into his open palm, and it immediately straightened out like an arrow.  Its “head”, if such a word could be applied to the maze of angles at the end of its body, pointed directly ahead and a bit to the right of where they were going now.

“Huh,” Gearhawk said, his terse voice a bit softened, “We’re going the right way.  Keep driving, I’ll let you know when to turn.”

Daniel breathed out between his teeth.  That had almost been a bad situation.  “Thanks,” he replied.

“Save your thanks for when we arrive in one piece.”

“Can I thank you now?” Daniel asked as he stepped out of the van and opened the back to retrieve his top hat.  Gearhawk, already in full costume, was looking up at the large grey building they had just parked before.

“No,” the other man grunted, “Who told you to park in front?  Haven’t you heard of subtlety?”

“Ah, right… Should I move the van?”

Gearhawk shrugged.  “The damage has already been done.  Wait here.  You’ve got your communicator, right?”

“Yeah, it was in the pocket with the bug,”

“Don’t tell me that.  Just wait here while I check the place out.”

This building was on the outskirts of the city, and would have looked like an office complex if it hadn’t been surrounded by warehouses.  An old, peeling sign facing the road simply read “Tenements”.  Daniel didn’t think anyone lived here.  There was a distinct smell of rot and something a bit tangier, almost metallic in the air.  He tried not to think too hard about that last part, and instead just gave Gearhawk a nod of acknowledgement.

The cowled hero jumped, and, rather than coming back down, he just kept flying upward.  It was as though he was falling toward the sky.  Daniel whistled softly between his front teeth.  Had those teeth getting bigger lately?  He hoped it was just his imagination.

Gearhawk’s trajectory stopped near the roof of the building and he arced, then fell a short distance down over the lip and out of sight. 

Daniel crossed his arms and leaned against the van.  If it weren’t for the suit, the top hat, and the very conspicuous rabbit ears rising from the top of his head, he probably would have looked like an average goon hanging around waiting for orders.  He chuckled at the thought, and pulled the brim of his hat down in an attempt to look even surlier.  Daniel knew this wasn’t the time for such levity, but he still couldn’t help but enjoy the lightness of his mood after finally clearing the air with Gearhawk a little.

The shade under his hat was nice, but he probably was supposed to be keeping watch, so he lifted a hand and flicked the brim back up.  As he did so, he was just in time to catch a large, bearded man backing out of the building’s front entrance with something heavy wrapped up in his arms.  A shock ran up Daniel’s spine as he saw what looked like a human figure bound in cloth dangling from the burly man’s grip.  At the same time, the bearded stranger noticed him, and the two stared at each other for a moment with equally abject expressions of horror.

The sound of a car honking elsewhere broke the spell.  Daniel only had time to shout “Hey!” as the bearded goon dropped his bundle and dashed back inside.  With two bounds of his big feet, Daniel landed at the door.  The goon had closed it after him, and probably locked it too.  Without wasting any time pursuing him, Daniel instead kneeled and carefully checked the bundle he’d left behind.

Moving aside the clean white cloth it had been wrapped in, he immediately felt that this was not a person.  That, at least, was a relief.  It was far too light, and even the slight force of pulling the covering away moved it more than he expected.  He reminded himself that it might just seem that way because of his own strength, and continued with caution.  Sure enough, it wasn’t a human buried under there.  Peeking through the white cloth at every point, he found nothing but straw.  Bales of straw, wrapped with string in the shape of a human and tied up in a bundle.  That was definitely strange.

Daniel wasn’t an expert, but even he gathered that this reeked of the whole “magic” thing Numbskull had been mentioning.  Standing with some trepidation, he looked at the metal door in front of him.  Breaking and entering was a crime, wasn’t it?  Even so, could he really afford to let that bearded man get away without questioning him?  This was exactly what Gearhawk had been talking about.  When it came time to do the actual work of a hero, Daniel was always hesitating.

His decision made, he reached out and grabbed the metal door’s handle.  It was painted a sickly light green color, peeling in more places than not, and made an awful screeching noise as he pulled with increasing force.  Without even trying, Daniel popped the thing off its hinges and it clattered to the ground in a bent metal heap. Daniel winced.  That had been very loud, and anyone who didn’t already know they were here sure did now.

He chanced one more glance at the roof, but didn’t see Gearhawk.  Behind the now very open door was a long concrete hallway lined with closed rooms and fluorescent lights.  The smell of rot was stronger here.  Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Daniel ducked inside and started forward at a loping pace.

After a few turns inside the building’s labyrinthine interior, Daniel was already lost.  He wasn’t sure how he had expected to follow the bearded man’s trail.  His quarry had far too much of a head start.  With such sensitive ears, he might have been able to hear the runner’s footsteps if not for the low, droning hum that had filled the entire building.  Daniel wasn’t sure where the noise was coming from, but it didn’t sound natural.

Skirting another almost identical row of dilapidated apartment doors, his big shoes skidded on the tiled floor and made a horrendous squeaking sound.  Without wasting time to wince at the noise, he started running again.  If he did somehow manage to come across anyone in these tight confines, they would be in for a nasty surprise as his bulk came barrelling down the hall at them.

When a green-cloaked figure slipped down from behind a joist in the ceiling in front of him, Daniel was so surprised that he almost forgot to stop.  By twisting, throwing his weight backward and almost tumbling violently to the ground, he managed to kill just enough momentum.  As Daniel inevitably collided with Gearhawk, it was at only a quick walking pace, and knocked the lithe hero a few feet back.  Much better than the full-body tackle he had been imagining and dreading.

Stepping lightly to maintain his balance, Gearhawk stared directly at Daniel.  Hood lowered, he couldn’t quite see the man’s eyes, but it was all too easy to guess his current emotion from his body language.

“What in the name of all that is holy,” Gearhawk growled, “Do you think you’re doing?”
Daniel had been running for some time now, and expected himself to be out of breath.  When he spoke, however, it was without falter.  “I was chasing a man.  He’s involved with whatever’s going on here.”

Gearhawk looked theatrically down one end of the ill-lit hall, then to the other.  “A man.  And where is this man now, Hopper?”

“Er… He had a bit of a head start.”

“...A head start.  Do you have any idea where he is?  Do you even know where you are?”

“...”

Gearhawk sighed.  The combativeness in his stance dwindled, and he suddenly just looked tired.  Somehow that made Daniel feel even worse.

“I did ask you to take this more seriously.  You’re just incredibly bad at the subtle part of this job, you know that?”

Feeling a bit of weight lift off his shoulders, Daniel scratched the back of his neck.  “Subtlety never has been my specialty.”

“You don’t say,” Gearhawk answered flatly, “Look, we’ll try to find your guy, but we’ve got bigger things to deal with right now.  As much as I hate to admit it, it’s good that you’re already here.  I was on my way to get you,”

Daniel blinked, “What for?”

“The ritual,” Gearhawk gave him a grave look over his mask, “They’ve already started.”

As he sprinted down the hall after Gearhawk, Daniel started to feel a bit of fatigue creeping into his body.  He’d been running for a while now, and it was a timely reminder that as strong as he was now, his body still had limits.

“What are they trying to do?” he asked, words clipped short as he sucked in air, “And how do you know where we’re going?”

Gearhawk, meanwhile, seemed to be having no trouble at all keeping his pace.  “I memorized the map of this place before we fed it to that… thing.  You left it in the car, right?”

Daniel blinked.  What had he done with the bug Mort had given them?  It probably didn’t matter.  “That doesn’t matter right now!”

He could tell from the glare that Gearhawk gave him over his shoulder that the other hero had seen right through him, but he did seem to agree that it wasn’t their top priority.  “Here!” he shouted, as the two pulled up before a pair of double doors.  It was the kind of entry you’d see to a kitchen or storeroom, with two grimy circular windows.  Judging from the dim sunlight streaming in from those apertures, however, the doors inexplicably led outside.

That was odd.  His sense of direction certainly wasn’t the best, but shouldn’t they be near the center of the complex at this point?  Daniel took a deep breath, and then nearly choked.  The smell here was horrible.  It was similar to the musk that hay figure had given off before, but far more pungent.  For once he envied Gearhawk for his face mask.

The very same was now peeking surreptitiously over the edge of the window, trying no doubt to get a sense of what was happening outside.  Gearhawk cursed, and then jumped backward.  His power activated, sending him flying in a narrow arc around Daniel as he himself tensed for whatever was about to happen.

He didn’t have to wait long.  The door burst open from the other side, wood and metal shrapnel flying everywhere as a towering figure rammed its shoulder through and kept coming.  Before he could comprehend what he was seeing, Daniel braced himself and caught the charging thing with both of his hands.

The impact was stronger than he could have possibly imagined, and it was only thanks to the bunched muscles in Daniel’s legs and his wide stance that he wasn’t hurled backwards through the dingy hallway at speed.  His long ears plastered themselves against his head in concentration as he focused all his strength on halting the sudden assault.

There was a horrific squeaking sound as Daniel’s big shoes slid backwards on the tile floor, but soon he was able to focus again.  The feeling under his hands was… awful.  It was like mulch, grimy and a bit damp.  Worse than that was the sensation of a myriad of tiny insects crawling around just under its surface.  Disgusted, he released his grip and hopped backward.  At the same time, his attacker straightened up and poised itself for another charge.

Now that Daniel could see the thing attacking him, he hesitated a moment and let out a short gasp of surprise.  It looked for the most part very similar in form to the straw man he himself had manhandled just outside.  Tufts of the glistening, dull-yellow strands were offset by something just below.  In sections, where the straw was thinner or had been shifted to the side, Daniel could just see an impossible pattern in motion.  Glimmering with gold, turning in unseeable angles, it looked just like Mort’s own “technology” built on a much larger scale.

He had no more time to look, as it thrust its arms to the side and extended a pair of gilded claws with an audible sound of metal sliding through wet hay.  Daniel gulped.  He could probably take punches all day, but if he was cut by something like that… That could be bad.  Watching the creature’s movements closely, he tensed for the next charge.

Unseen until just now, Gearhawk dropped from a gap in the ceiling and landed gracefully behind the monster.  Had it heard him?  The thing had nothing resembling a face that Daniel could see, so it was hard to read.  He couldn’t take that chance.  Mentally cursing himself for what he was about to do, Daniel crouched down low and let loose with a mighty leap toward his opponent.

Moving on instinct alone, he pulled his right arm back and let his fist fly.  It was a powerful blow, judging by the wind it sent whistling by his sensitive ears, but a clumsy one.  The creature ducked and stepped back, rolling with the impact and right into Gearhawk’s grasp.  Daniel continued to push forward as the other hero locked an arm around the monster’s neck would be, had it anything recognizable as a head.  Pulling a combat knife from somewhere on his person, Gearhawk adjusted his grip and tore the weapon across the creature’s sternum.

To Daniel’s surprise, hay and glittering gold gave way under the attack and opened a sizeable hole in the vicinity of its stomach.  This all happened in an instant, and then Gearhawk kicked off his opponent and floated back to the ceiling as Daniel’s second punch connected and drove it back further.

Slamming into the ruined door behind it with a sound of metal on metal, the monster was clearly on the defensive, but not defeated.  It held its claws up near its chest protectively, and seemed to be watching him closely despite its lack of visible eyes.  Not wanting to give it the opportunity to recover, Daniel pulled back for another punch and aimed it squarely at the creature’s head.  He realized his mistake at the same moment as his opponent lifted its claw and caught his fist in mid-swing.  Daniel winced as its blades bit deep into skin on the backs of his palms.  Tightening its grip, the monster elicited a short yelp of pain from Daniel as it lifted him up by his lacerated hand and slammed him into the nearby wall.  The air was driven from his lungs, and he thudded to the floor, head spinning.  

For a heart-stopping, stomach-dropping moment, he thought it was over.  The creature seemed not to be pressing its advantage, however.  Instead, it scurried with uncanny insect flexibility through the hole left in the door and out into the courtyard.

As Daniel’s vision refocused, he saw Gearhawk standing over him with brows furrowed under his hood.  “Can you stand?” the other hero asked.

“Y-yeah,” Daniel replied, forcing himself to his feet.  Checking over himself, he found that he wasn’t badly hurt, just winded and with some serious cuts on his right hand.  He wouldn’t be throwing any punches with that arm for a while.

“Get yourself together,” Gearhawk growled, not a trace of sympathy in his voice, “There’s no way we’re letting that thing get away.”

Daniel gritted his teeth, “I agree, but… How are we supposed to fight something like that?  It didn’t even react when you cut its front open.”

The other shook his head, eyes focused on the door where the monster had left.  “You’re wrong.  It did react.  You saw it cover its chest with its claws, didn’t you?  That means it has something in there it wants to protect.”

Widening his eyes in realization, Daniel nodded, “You’re right.  I did see that.  Then we might have a chance.”

“Not if you don’t get moving.  Come on, I’m not going to let a monster like that loose in the city just because my partner is a laggard.”

“A wha-?”

“Just come on!” Gearhawk growled, and pushed his way out into the courtyard.

Now that they had a decent view of the place, a few more things fell into place.  It was a dingy excuse for an amenity, with water stains on the walls and a few tufts of sad grass growing in the “garden” at its center.  What little vegetation was left seemed to have been burned away by some kind of sigil carved into the dirt.  Daniel wasn’t too confident in his ability to memorize such arcane symbols, but even he recognized it as the same one he had seen on the blueprints.

“This is where they performed the ritual,” Daniel trailed off, tracing the magic circle with his eyes, before starting again, “Was Magus Cromwell here?  Is he still?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Gearhawk said, pointing at the far wall, “We’re hunting different prey right now.”

There, on the mildewing plaster, a series of deep gouges ran all the way up the wall, leaving a sequence of shattered windows and rent sills in its wake.  It was a clear trail left by the monster they had just encountered tearing its way up the wall.  Daniel winced as he regarded the ruined wall and cradled his stinging right hand in sympathy.

“Hold on to me,” Gearhawk said, grabbing a fistful of Daniel’s suit with his right hand and pulling a knife with his other.  Daniel opened his mouth to protest, but they were already lifting off.  Once again, he experienced the bizarre sensation of flight with Gearhawk.  It wasn’t exactly like they were launching upward, or falling downward, but rather moving inexorably across an arc that had been charted through the air.  Gearhawk must have plotted it well, because they landed gracefully on the building’s roof, three stories up.  For a moment, Daniel thought he would lose his balance as the ground sped toward them, but his ears straightened out on their own and he immediately felt a sense of stability return.

Across from them, the monster stood silent on the opposite lip of the roof.  Glimpses of gold flashed through the straw as it moved its inhuman head back and forth.  Judging by its body language, if that was even applicable, it seemed confused.  Daniel figured that he couldn’t blame it.  Wherever this creature was from, it probably wasn’t anything like the city laid out before it.

“Hey!” Daniel shouted as Gearhawk released him.  The monster stiffened, then turned and bared its claws menacingly.  He looked to the other hero for some kind of instruction, but Gearhawk had already vanished.  “I hope he knows what he’s doing,” Daniel growled to himself.  He clenched his fists and squared his shoulders, then winced at the sharp pain that stung at him from his lacerated palm.

Then, as though in unspoken agreement, both were running at each other.  Daniel jumped, some instinct urging him to put his legs to use, and sailed into the air above his opponent.  The creature looked up, blinding gold glittering where its face should be, and raised its claws, but it was too late.  Daniel crashed into it with all of his might and weight combined.

With a sound like screeching metal, the two skidded along the roof for a few feet.  Sparks flew up, and Daniel struggled to see the monster through all the noise and flashing light.  Briefly thanking his past self for wearing sturdy shoes today, he jumped off his opponent’s limp form.  Or, he tried to.  With the speed of a snake striking, the creature’s golden claw wrapped around his leg.

Daniel spun in the air, momentum completely displaced.  His ears twitched, and his sense of balance returned just in time to prevent him from completely sprawling onto the roof.  Even so, he was held twisted with no leverage, and the monster’s claws were digging into the flesh of his calf with ever-increasing pressure.

“Just like that!” he heard from somewhere to his left.  The creature was staggering to its feet now, arm still locked stubbornly around Daniel’s leg.  Most of its torso was crushed by the impact of Daniel leaping on to it, but even as he watched it clicked and twisted back into something resembling its original shape.  Obviously this thing didn’t play by the normal rules as he knew them.

“Like what?” he yelled, then tried to yank his leg away before his opponent could fully right itself.  That was a mistake.  He yelped as his calf shifted, but the claws did not, pulling his skin away with them.

Without answering, Gearhawk vaulted over Daniel’s back and landed lightly between him and the creature.  His knife flashed at the same time as the monster’s free claw, and Daniel paled further as he saw blood arc up from Gearhawk’s arm.  With only a grunt to register the pain, the hero drew back and plunged his fist into the hole he’d created in the monster’s chest.  

There was a sound like shattering glass.

All at once, the pressure on Daniel’s leg vanished, and he stumbled backwards.  The monster’s golden carapace seemed to collapse in on itself, and then dissolve.  When it had finished, there was nothing left but a heap of loose straw and a few lengths of string lying on the apartment building’s roof.

Daniel breathed a deep sigh, then remembered what had happened to Gearhawk, and turned quickly to help.  The other hero’s green cape was dyed dark by splotches of blood on one side, but he stood tall and held something up to the light.  It was golden, with a tiny hole in its center emitting an eerie white glow.  Daniel shaded his eyes to look at it in the bright sunlight.  In form, it most resembled the communicator that he even now had in his coat pocket.  Angles twisting and turning upon one another in a pattern that seemed too complex for human eyes to follow.

“That was… you didn’t have to do that,” he managed, “Are you alright?”

Gearhawk turned and looked at him, his steely eyes tinged with something else.  “No, and neither are you, but that’s not important.”

Daniel almost choked, “What do you mean that’s not important?  We barely survived… whatever that was!”

“That monster came from the sigil we saw on those blueprints, right?  We can assume so, at least.”

Daniel groaned in frustration and terror as the implications dawned on him.  Gearhawk only nodded.

“That was far from the only one we saw in the blueprints.  You need to call Aguado now.”