Bit of a short episode this week. This one fought me, but I think it came out alright.

Season Notes: violence, self harm mention, magical coersion mention

It had been three days and he hadn’t yet made his escape. Partly that was because MourningDagger had been keeping a close eye on him. Escaping would have been difficult. It made sense to wait until his former Master was sure he was trapped.

But more, he wasn’t sure what he would do once free.

He didn’t know if the team had moved to the new safe house, but they should have. Which meant he would have no way to find them. He’d need to start over, tracking them down and risk bringing MourningDagger down on their heads again.

His only other options were to try to hide — as one of the most recognized and most wanted men on the planet, hunted by both human governments and MourningDagger. Or to turn himself into the human government. Which would put him in an easy-to-find box for MourningDagger to retrieve and put a target on the backs of anyone who helped him.

So he kept his head down, obeyed orders as he always had, and hid in his cell whenever he could. MourningDagger wouldn’t think anything was wrong — every other time he’d tried to get free and failed he’d fallen into depression and despair. He let the monster think he was doing the same thing now.

It took him three days to realize he was stuck in old patterns. He was focused on trying to escape — but he was already free. Heals’ ‘final order’ had worked and the curse didn’t control him any longer. He was free to do whatever he chose. And he was inside MourningDagger’s stronghold.

He needed a plan.

His first thought was to stay right where he was. He would have many opportunities for sabotage, and he could continue feeding information to his contact in the US government.

That wouldn’t work. ‘Covert ops’ as they called it now was a special skill set that, like poison, his masters had always tried to keep him from learning. Worse, he would need to be fighting for MourningDagger while he did so.

No.

But one big piece of sabotage, one big attack on MourningDagger or the fortress, before disappearing. That had potential.

Once away… he couldn’t hide forever, but he /could/ lead MourningDagger on a chase. Distract them and split their attention. That might create an opening for… yes, for his /friends/ to exploit.

It was a good idea. He just needed to turn it into a proper plan.

~~~

The week after MourningDagger waved him in the team’s face was a quiet one. MourningDagger sent out a single attack, let by Poinard, but it felt more like a test than a real attack. Like MourningDagger wanted to be sure they were still there.

Blade spent time every day on the feed from outside MourningDagger’s fortress. He showed up on the cameras occasionally but mostly was staying inside the fortress where they couldn’t see.

MourningDagger himself showed up several times but didn’t say anything else about where the cameras could pick it up.

They used the quiet to take stock.

Their new safehouse had been some rich person’s hunting retreat. It was large, secluded, furnished, and stocked with at least a week of food — all things they very much needed. It was also a long way to the nearest store and strangers in the area were going to be noticed. Also, no internet service.

They were lucky to get cell phone coverage, actually.

Another thing they didn’t have was money. Salem had kept her job until the attack on their old safe house, but she couldn’t do that any longer. The others who had had any savings had run through it already.

Saving the world, they told me once, wasn’t a smart choice for surviving in capitalism.

Blade’s support powers were amazing. Every time he transformed the supplies in all his packs and pockets were restocked. Prepaid cellphones, water bottles, basic and not-so-basic medical supplies, added to what they had on hand.

The quiet was broken by an attack on downtown Chicago.

~~~

I didn’t know any of this at the time. MourningDagger’s appearance and the first attack had fucked me over and I’d been scraping a living with a group of other homeless kids. But the government hadn’t completely abandoned the city and the day before Mentor was captured, child services ‘rescued’ most of my baby gang. I escaped because I had been out dumpster diving.

You can find the best stuff in the right dumpster, but some assholes like to make it hard on homeless people. Anything in the trash is legally abandoned and anyone can take it, and — but that’s an old rant.

I heard a bit about the attack on Chicago. It was hard to miss. Big fight, so many casualties, FEMA heroes, so on and so forth.

But I didn’t pay any attention. No one in the city was paying attention. We were too focused on the explosion that took place at the same time.

Even through the shields, it made the city shake, giant gouts of smoke billowing over MourningDagger’s palace.

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Mighty Hero Force Epsilon (Series Finale)

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Mighty Hero Force Epsilon (S2, E2)
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