[Vista POV]

  Waking up early sucked.Disaster relief also sucked.

  The aftermath of any disaster was emotionally exhausting. Sure, there was some relief in not having a time limit to help people, but that's only because we couldn't stop it in the first pce. So, y'know. Not great.

  Stupid morals, making her job harder than usual.

  The worst part? It's her home that's getting dunked on! Not by one, but two Endbringers at the same time!

  Echidna and her creepy, messed-up minions were already a walking disaster, but somehow, somehow, their effects on the world got even worse after they were gone. Like, a whole month ter, people were still freaking out.

  Not that Leviathan didn't do his own wrecking. Octopus guy trashed the pce real good, but the PR disaster that Echidna dumped on the PRT? Oof. Big enough to make the news, and that's saying something. The PRT hates bad press. They micromanage their image so hard, you'd think their whole job was just making themselves look cool and friendly. And yet? Still got their reputation dunked on. Love that for them.

  "Probably on purpose." I sip my coffee—because I'm an adult—obviously and sigh. At least the disaster made some people take pity on her, so hey, free coffee.

  "You say something?"

  "Nothing."

  Maybe she could slip a taser into her costume now that the PRT's image is tanking. Like, spin it as heroes taking threats more seriously. Sounds responsible and reasonable, right? Probably not happening, but a girl can dream.

  Humanity will prevail and all that stuff.

  Honestly, if one asked her, she'd say the whole thing was a Simurgh plot. She would know, she managed to overhear the Travelers talking about it. Good thing Trickster was deader than dead. Good riddance.

  Sitting with the other Wards in the 'big meeting room of doom' was a doozy. Armsmaster and Miss Militia were setting up for a normal debrief on disaster relief. No one commented on how Piggot kept grimacing and gring at the state of things at regur intervals even though she technically should already know all of the stuff.

  Not that much different from before.

  "Sooo… all we know is that it's going."

  "Shut up, Clock."

  Dennis grinned, even as we all answered on reflex. Not that his jokes weren't welcome—seriously, this early in the morning?—We needed the entertainment. But it was the crack of dawn, and there simply wasn't enough coffee to go around for everyone.

  Suck it, Dean, and your healthy habits. I get ALL the coffee today.

  With a sigh, Armsmaster put up one st image of the Bay. With so many vilins dead—and with him under tight scrutiny after his screw-up—it seemed like he was putting in extra work. He probably didn't want to come off as incompetent.

  Or maybe he was feeling guilty about the whole Skitter debacle…

  She didn't know what to think about that mess. And Panacea? She definitely didn't help the situation. Not that Skitter would've de-escated anything even if given the chance.

  Meh. Not her fault. She'd think about it ter. Apparently, they were finally getting a therapist who might actually stick around for more than two weeks.

  Not that superpowered teenagers needed anything like that in a city as chaotic as this one, no sir.

  Take what you can get, Vista…

  With a silent sigh, I try to focus on the debrief, as tedious as it is.

  "Apart from the rger number of members and the new hierarchy the Merchants now have, a new gang has established itself and 'cimed' a chunk of territory."

  Even Shadow Stalker paid some attention to that. Normally, telling us which gang took over what was pretty pointless, but they still did it.

  With all the old gangs recovering and new ones popping up like weeds, the stupid map kept changing way too fast to keep up on any meaningful way.

  As always, criminals were like cockroaches. Or maybe a particurly annoying invasive species. Clear out one infestation, and two more show up.

  No rest for the wicked.

  The map filled with color, old borders redrawn while new ones popped up. A new blue highlight covered a big part of the trainyard and was even seeping into the docks. By that I guessed they weren't an exactly a lucrative gang—probably just another bunch of squirrely low-lives like the Merchants.

  "Normally, we wouldn't cover them thoroughly since they're not influential at all," Armsmaster said, "but the main problem lies in their origins."

  He grimaced. And not his usual 'This could've been an email' face. No, this was an actual frown. With emotion and everything.

  "They're clones."

  "…"

  "Oh."

  I try to keep my face still. Echidna clones were one of the more… disgusting powers I'd ever seen. Even Shadow Stalker didn't seem comfortable killing clones wearing the faces of people she worked with.

  Especially not children.

  …Not that mine even had faces to begin with.

  Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Be mature about it if you happen to think about it.

  "The… Doppel Gang, as they call themselves, is a group of parahumans suspected to be Echidna clones. They seem to be sticking to harassing civilians in odd ways…"

  Armsmaster paused, letting everyone digest that little horror nugget of information. Of course, we hadn't expected to catch every single clone, but we hoped they'd all just… die with her.

  These ones didn't.

  And what were they, exactly? Just clones? Things? People? They looked like they had independent thought, but… whatever.

  Don't sympathize with the enemy.

  "We have some confirmed sightings and very little intel on their powers," Armsmaster continued. "They're definitely fshier than the Undersiders, even if they use simir tactics. But they are still clones, they have simir powers…"

  The unspoken part? They also have kill orders.

  They were basically Simurgh bombs aimed at their non-cloned counterparts. Or so we were told. The Eidolon clone definitely hadn't minced his wor—

  "Fshy?"

  What.

  Armsmaster pulled up a blurry photo of… a Panacea clone, and standing next to her? Some short girl with an animal head sloppily photoshopped over where her actual face should be.

  Great. That's not ominous at all.

  He left the image up for a few seconds before switching to a clearer close-up of the cloned Panacea. Wide smile. Straight posture. Not a single trace of the familiar bitterness and exhaustion that had practically been etched into Amy's face for years.

  Was it weird that the expression looked wrong on her?

  Then again, probably not her fault. Amy really needed to get more hobbies than reading trashy romance novels.

  I had to admit, the clone had more style than Amy—not that it was a high bar to clear—She stood proudly with small, dressed in a crisp white button-up with poet sleeves, embroidered with flowery patterns. Dark gray high-waisted trousers, a matching coat draped over her shoulders like she thought she was royalty.

  It looked good. Annoyingly good even. But then we got to the real problem: the stupidly dramatic crown of thorns. Bone twisted into thorns, complete with tiny deer antlers, and leaves growing from them.

  And of course, because that wasn't pretentious enough, she was holding a bone staff with two live snakes wrapped around it.

  Because of course she was.

  It's smug aura… it's mocking me.

  "First unconfirmed sighting of these clones was three weeks ago. First, the more well-known one, the Panacea clone who calls herself Duchess," Armsmaster said, looking distinctly uncomfortable. The older heroes, like Miss Militia, seemed outright unnerved by her whole getup.

  No wonder. She looked like someone had taken a pile of trauma, and then handed her a fashion budget.

  "...She was first seen offering healing and aesthetic enhancements for money within their territory, along with healing civilians as a free sample. She also handed out pamphlets advertising her services."

  "…"

  Armsmaster flipped through a few PHO posts, showing more angles of her. Most of them just confirmed she was doing the usual Panacea thing—healing by touch. But then came the close-ups of the pamphlet.

  And oh boy.

  "…Seal the deal, healing for a stealing?" I read aloud, struggling to process the disaster of a flyer in front of me. It featured a poorly drawn chibi version of Duchess, beaming as she gave a thumbs-up, surrounded by inexplicable capitalization choices and questionable grammar.

  "Not even grammatically correct," Armsmaster muttered with a disappointed shake of his head.

  "That's not the problem," Piggot ground out, her teeth practically audible as she clenched them.

  "Looks stupid," Shadow Stalker stated the obvious before tuning out of the meeting again. Honestly, I agreed, but no reason to take personal offense at the pamphlet.

  The before and after pictures were almost identical. What the hell did 'toofpick changes everythang' even mean?

  "Duchess has been seen answering questions about their gang and taking donations while walking around the neighborhood, announcing their presence," Armsmaster continued, as if nothing he said was ridiculous.

  The next set of images showed what looked like bones and blood left behind in some random warehouse near the docks. So that was that.

  "For her power, she appears to create biological matter from any surface she touches. However, this biomatter vanishes after a few minutes. We believe she can make it permanent for healing to work and for other things." Armsmaster sighed, looking down at his own report like it had personally wronged him. "…The sudden rise in organ trafficking also corretes with her appearance, though I wish the Think Tank reports were clearer."

  "Oh, what do they say?" Assault asked, grinning as Battery braced for impact.

  "3.14 axolotls per ant colony, which means most likely apparently."

  "Oh, a new one! Must be a new recruit" Assault said, grinning—right up until Battery elbowed him in the ribs. To be fair, even Armsmaster looked like he agreed.

  The screen switched to the next clone—the short girl with the badly photoshopped animal head.

  In. Every. Single. Photo.

  Her costume was way simpler than Duchess's. Just a bck biker jacket with red highlights over a white t-shirt that had Who's Who printed around an open eye logo, plus denim pants, boots, and a belt with a weird gun strapped to it.

  "Who's Who, Witness statements are contradictory—some victims cim they felt compelled to look at her, while others swear her face was so unnerving they refused to look at all," Armsmaster expined, sounding deeply annoyed. "She also cannot be photographed properly. Every attempt to capture her image results in these… animal heads pstered over her face."

  He clicked through image after image, each one featuring a different awkwardly pced head—dog, owl, cat, fish—all of covering what should've been her face.

  "...Sooo, the animal heads aren't a stylistic choice?" Dean asked on our behalf.

  "They are part of her power; we wouldn't have minded seeing her face if she showed it as btantly as she did." Miss Militia sighed, clearly resigning herself to this nonsense. "She's a stranger if I've ever seen one."

  Armsmaster cleared his throat. "As mentioned earlier, Who's Who and Duchess have been visiting every house in their territory to introduce themselves and to say that, and I quote: 'Their new evil lords would like suggestions to improve the community'.'"

  The room stayed silent.

  Armsmaster of course carried on not noticing anything amiss "They also asked civilians if they'd like to join their gang for benefits such as dental and maternal leave.'"

  "…"

  What.

  BioedwinMX