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Cimmerian had never received a class in knightly etiquette. When Gehenna went to get a beer, she followed him and asked, "Hey, get me one? I'm going to check on Bill." It was the least she could do, really. He was a decent guy. He always let her stay after closing, at least, and knew the kind of cab service she liked to take her home if she ever took it too far to make the call herself.

Crossing to the wall, Meri squatted down, exposing most of her thighs. "I'm not sure how practical this uniform is," she mused. "I've worn more clothing during sex." Bill was breathing normally. The only sign of trauma was a gash on his head, but it wasn't bleeding much. Meri grabbed the towel from his waist and pressed it to the wound.

Foraging in his pocket, she came out with a cellphone. "I'll call the ambulance. They average around ten minutes response time in this area." Tiny finger tapped onto the phone bed, and she let the paramedics know there was an emergency at the bar before hanging up abruptly. "Enough time for a beer!"

Just like that, Meri was back at the bar waiting on a beer as if nothing had happened at all. "I've never seen you in here before," she said, twirling a coaster. "Maybe you coming in here to my spot was some sort of catalyst. Set this s**t right off." It made sense to her. Well, about as much sense as any of this made.

Cimmerian shrugged. “This one isn’t decent. Just cheap. Cheap can make up for it,” she said, taking a big gulp off the side of her beer. “So cheap it doesn’t have security cameras, which is good news for us.” She took one last look down at herself in the uniform. How was she supposed to get out of it? As soon as she thought about being herself, suddenly… she was. No more Xena, Warrior Knightness. It was just Penny in a pair of black slacks and a white button-up. She raised both eyebrows in surprise, and then downed half of her beer to make herself feel better.

Chipped nails tapped along the handle. “I’ve only ever been away from Destiny City for a few years back in college. And that was long before these weird things started happening. Deaths, disappearances, people claiming to be superheroes roaming the streets. You’ve missed a lot, man. You’ve missed a cornucopia of ********.” As horrifying as some of that sounded, Penny seemed excited to talk about it. The crazy s**t of Destiny City was going to make her career, and no matter how horrible it seemed, she always managed to cling to that one fact and find joy in it. She was absolutely certain that, somehow, this was going to be her big break.

“I’m a producer for DCNN – Nightly News, if you remember it – and you would not believe the volume of amateur footage we get every day about the goings-on in DC: monster attacks, dead bodies found mangled and mutilated, schoolgirls leaping off of buildings, military guys shoving their hands into people.” Penny shot one hand out as if to illustrate and then let it fall back to the side of her beer. “I spend at least two hours of my day just viewing fifteen second snippets to choose which one will make it to air. Most of it gets swept under the rug as doctored, or staged.” Penny shook her head, tugging a strand of silver hair over her shoulder. “But now this? Seeing me like this? And you? I’m starting to believe what all the crazies say. I’ve just never heard any of them talk about Knights before.”

It was strange to have this new perspective on the situation out of nowhere. Penny felt like she needed to adjust her entire worldview to really understand it. Instead, she took another swig of beer. “I’m Penny, by the way,” she said, raising her beer up to him to clink. “We should trade numbers. I have a funny feeling that I’m going to need someone to talk to about all of this bullshit.”

Penny had a sixth sense for camera awareness. She lived with them, slept with them, ate with them. A lot of the footage they used on DCNN was from street cameras and traffic lights. She could draw a map of downtown DC and mark a hundred cameras in under a minute flat. It was a gift, just one she hadn’t found much use for – until now, apparently.

“Kam and Penny. Two ******** musketeers if I ever heard it,” she said, laughing. It was less funny to hear that her brand-spanking new ally didn’t have a phone to call, or maybe even a place to live. Penny had supreme faith in her ability to fix other people’s lives. She had no problem extending a branch to the only other person in the world who might be able to understand the exact bizarre a** situation that she currently found herself in.

Grabbing the pen, Penny jotted down her number and, under that, her address. “Look, if you don’t have a job, I can get you one. I have hiring power for the stage crew at DCNN. It’s grunt work almost exclusively – carrying heavy stuff, passing that heavy stuff to people who know what to do with it, that kind of thing – but it pays $15 an hour, which is pretty damn good in this economy. Granted, you have to have some qualifications for it, but, lucky you, you know the person who is reviewing resumes.” Bureaucratically, she knew how to make him seem like the perfect candidate too, and she had no qualms about doing it. “Just don’t ******** screw me on this. If I get you hired and then you suck or don’t show up? You’re fired. I’ll do it my damn self and then tell them I found out you lied your resume.” Her face had grown serious, grim even. Penny’s job was more important to her than anything else in the world.

There was only an inch left of her beer. Penny polished it off and then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Once you get an address, just call me. I can do all the rest,” she said, shoving her glass where Kam had thrown his.

In the background, the buzz and crash of sirens split the air. Penny turned to stare out the window and then got up from her seat. “Look, you should get out of here. I’m a short white girl who can cry on cue. You look like an extra from a Bone Thugs N Harmony video.” Pinching at her cheeks, the tiny producer appeared to be taking the necessary steps to look teary eyed and flustered. It was almost as if she had done it before…

The front door opened just as Kam disappeared out the back. Three uniformed officers burst inside, weapons drawn. Penny forced her nose to crinkle, brought a wibble to her chin. “I – huff – was – huff – so – huff – SCARED!” Her cry was a sharp knife stabbing into an eardrum. She threw herself forward to the floor, wrapping her arms around her knees and rocking back and forth.

An officer stooped to comfort her, patting her gently on the shoulder. “What happened, miss?” he asked, holstering his weapon. “Please take your time.” There was no bad guy to be caught here, and the paramedics were already busy at work with the bartender.

Penny sniffled, looking up at the officer through wisps of silver hair. “You’ll never believe me,” she said, dashing her head dramatically to the side. The officer encouraged her to continue, offered her a glass of water. “Well,” she said at last, blinking slowly. “There was this monster attacking Bill – poor sweet Bill – and then like a miracle! The most beautiful, fiercest warrior woman I have ever seen before in my entire life came rushing inside like an angel from God – sir, I cannot stress this enough: she saved my life. And she was so wonderful!” She let a sob wrack her frame, accepted a handkerchief when it was offered to her.

“Oh, and there was this other guy. He helped.”

Two hours of questioning later, Penny was taken back to her apartment downtown. She sat on her fire escape for most of the night, smoking and staring up at the sky. The foray to the police station had been a welcome distraction, but now she was all alone with her cats – and the never-ending spiral of thoughts about her new-found Knighthood that would not leave her alone.