So, this update looks like it's two chapters, and... it basically works out to two chapters worth of new material in the end, but it's not quite that straightforward. In light of some of the critiques chapter four received, I decided to revamp it. The new chapter four focuses on the first part of the old one, which has been expanded considerably. Chapter five consists of the remainder of the old chapter four, with some additions. Chapter six is completely new.

I've tried my hand at beefing up the dialogue and slowing down the pace. My instinct on those parts seems to be leading me astray here; I frequently get an impulse to condense conversations by describing them rather than depicting them. Here I've attempted to fight that. Let me know what you think of my attempts at dialogue.

Thanks, as always, for the feedback, faves, and follows.

I gotta stop drinking.

That was my first thought, as I woke up. I could smell the alcohol on my breath. Of course, I had been celebrating my successful rescue of Canary...

I noticed a balled up figure in the corner of my room.

"Uh, Paige?" I said, cautiously. She seemed to register my saying her name, meeting me with a gaze of unremitting horror. I tried to remember what had happened yesterday.

"Did I... uh, do something bad?"

She shook her head, slowly.

"Did I say something bad?"

She gave a quick, vigorous nod.

Well, that could be any number of things...

"Something about Cauldron?"

"That's not what I meant," she replied, shaking her head. "Though it was bad enough."

Worse than that, then...

"About the Slaughterhouse Nine?"

She shook her head, no doubt now wondering what information I had on them that could make them more horrifying.

"The... Endbringers?"

"Leviathan!" she practically screamed. "You said he was going to attack this city!"

Oh. Fuck.

"Keep your voice down, dammit." I began to enter damage control mode. "For one thing, I don't even know if it's going to happen that way, now that I've... uh, well-"

"Now that you've what?" She seemed half-horrified, half-amazed that I might be doing anything about them at all.

I had been thinking of a plan, actually. It would be optimistic to assume the endbringers would just decay around me, but...

if Eidolon was within my radius...

"Keep quiet." I hissed. "I have a plan, ok? I think I know who's controlling them. I'm gonna see if I can interrupt his powers."

This statement managed to shock her into silence.

My plan might work, provided the Endbringers behaved similarly to how they'd acted after Eidolon had died in the story. And provided that Eidolon really was subconsciously controlling them... And assuming the Simurgh wasn't planning for all of this already. Hopefully, my power was comparable to whatever gave Zion immunity to her powers. If it was an unadulterated Eden shard, it just might be.

"You haven't told anyone else about this?" she asked. "Shouldn't you-"

"Ok, look," I began. "Let me tell you something about another Endbringer. The Simurgh. She can literally perceive almost anything, anywhere. I might be immune to her power, or I might not be. What I know for sure, though, is that you aren't, nor are the vast majority of people alive. If one of them finds out, then they'll know that I know, and then she'll know that I know. Even if she can't strike at me directly, she'll try to work around my power. And she'll probably succeed."

Paige took a moment to absorb this. "The Simurgh can attack anyone, at any time?" she asked. I nodded. "But you're immune?"

"I might be. But if I'm not, then I figure I'm already screwed." She didn't seem pleased by my reasoning, but at least she wasn't yelling any more. Now to pray that the room isn't bugged.

"Who is it?"

"Who is..."

"The controller."

"If I told you..."

"I have to be within 16 feet of you at all times anyway."

"If you tell anyone-"

"You'll use your powers to blackmail me or something. I'm not going to talk. And if your power doesn't protect within your radius, we're already dead, right?"

I glared at her, but I couldn't think of a reasonable rebuttal. "Eidolon."

"Huh?"

"That's your answer."

"That's- there's, why-" she babbled.

"I'm not a hundred percent on it actually. That's just what Scion had to say on the subject."

She stopped making talking sounds.

"On a somewhat related note, Eidolon is one of their chief agents." I absently gestured towards my left arm. "Which is why I haven't tried appealing to him directly."

That snapped her out of her brief stupor. "One of the triumvirate is part of a group which kidnaps people and experiments on them?"

"All of them, actually. One of them controls the PRT, too, so I'd avoid mentioning it too loudly around here."

Canary looked distraught. "Right... I knew they were corrupt, but, Jesus..."

"So, Paige," I managed to put on a false grin. "Whaddya think of your new workplace?"

"Your task today involves shadowing a detachment of CPS agents," said Armsmaster.

...That sounded suspiciously simple. But what use would I be on such a mission? Unless...

"So we're rescuing some kids from an abusive parahuman parent?" I asked.

"Naturally."Armsmaster stared. "You haven't heard? It was all over the news..." I had a premonition of what was about to come. Armsmaster turned to a terminal to call up an article. "The secret identities of the parahumans of Empire Eighty-Eight have been revealed. Among them is one Kayden Anders, who is otherwise known as Purity. She is an exceptionally dangerous parahuman."

As Armsmaster described Purity's abilities to an increasingly apprehensive Canary, I was left to wonder why Coil had released that information early. It was, as best I could remember, a post-Leviathan incident.

Well, Lung is gone for good, now. Maybe the ABB rate low enough on the threat scale now that he has to do this, to balance it out?

Come to think of it, Bakuda was still running around. If she found out where to target E88 capes... Would my power work on her bombs? I'd probably find out, soon enough.

We were dressed in street clothes, with body armor stored in backpacks given to a few of us. We had helmets as well, which served to conceal our identities, hopefully keeping Canary and myself from being dragged into the many conflicts brewing in the city from Canary and myself, our party consisted solely of CPS agents. We moved as a group, into her building. With lookouts throughout the hallway, we slipped into our armor.

If she slipped into my radius properly, of course, that would take care of the most imposing threat; Purity's powerful ranged attacks. But if, for instance, a bunch of ordinary E88 - or ABB - thugs happened to be lying in wait, the armored agents would be necessary.

"How's it gonna go?" Canary asked me as well moved toward's Purity's place.

"Ah, let's see," I said as I tried to recall. "One to two kids, hopefully just one to two... uh, major threats..."

A yell snapped us out of our nascent conversation. The advance agents had already gotten Purity to open her door. The latter was arguing with them with increasing desperation.

"All we have to do is stand here," I muttered. "Don't get close." I resisted my own impulse to try and look inside, to see if Theo was in there as well. Aster's presence was soon confirmed by her wailing, perhaps in response to her mother's distress. She could, after all, have a knife, or something. And hell, at this point, Theo would probably be less well disposed to an effort to separate him from Kayden.

And as I thought it, a teenage boy came running, not from inside the building, but from the hallway, having dropped a number of envelopes he was carrying at the sight of his stepmother's distress.

In a move which was unimpressive from a PR standpoint, two agents tackled Theo. Kayden made a gesture which probably would have been accompanied by a blast of light, but here only resulted in giving herself a nasty surprise, as she realized her powers were nonfunctional.

As a nonwhite person, I decided the best thing for me to do would be to hang out in the background, and hope that none of the passers-by in the near vicinity who had turned out to watch the spectacle were with E88. It was at this thought that everything went white.

As I felt my consciousness turn back on, I remembered enough to deduce that I was probably the victim of a bomb.

"Are you waking up?" a voice asked. Female.

Aw shit. Could it be Bakuda? Maybe not, it was kind of familiar...

"Canary?" I asked weakly.

"It's Paige," she replied, sounding winded herself.

"Don't use your real name on missions," I rasped. As my vision cleared, I saw she wasn't wearing her helmet. I cursed as I realized I wasn't wearing mine, either.

The - not a room, exactly - that we were in was dim, the only source of light coming from a small crack above. Rubble was strewn everywhere. Perhaps more strangely, a large, concrete hand rose up from the ground. At the opposite end of the room, a figure was nearly pressed up against the wall, kneeling, with one hand seemingly stuck in the floor. He had noticed me coming to.

"Can you turn off your power?" Theo asked. His voice sounded... not hollow, exactly. Far from defeated. But there was a little less life in it, than when he'd yelled at the agents accosting his stepmother.

I paused, processing the fact that he'd triggered, and somehow knew of my ability. I turned to Canary accusingly.

She shrugged. "We had some close calls, when he ran into your range. I had to tell him."

I realized belatedly that though Theo wasn't in my radius, his giant hand was.

"I can't move it at all, but it doesn't collapse as long as I keep my hand down," he explained.

"Hang on a sec," I said as I pulled myself together. "But you were able to set it up in the first place?"

"And move it for a while, too. But before you woke up, I started losing control."

I knew from experiment that my power didn't decrease when I slept. But, apparently, it did diminish when I was injured. Maybe I could learn to control it... But for now, we needed a quicker fix.

"Theo," I said. He did a double take, as he realized that I knew his name. "Think you can dig us out of here, if I can turn my power off?"

He considered the question. "Maybe?" he replied. "I can try, but with just one hand..."

"You can use both your hands, your arms, your feet, and your legs," I informed him. "Your face, as well, but two hands will probably be best for this situation."

He stared as I picked up a stray piece of metal nearby. "Good luck," I told him, after which I bashed myself in the head.