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Things had been quiet for Laney for the past while. Since that night with Tara -- Sailor Aquarius -- when Laney had discovered a floating golden distaff and awoken to magical powers on her own, she hadn't run into any more monsters. The city, as far as she knew, had been quiet. And if that had something to do with what she'd been up to during the interim, which mainly involved going out only during the daytime and to heavily populated areas, she preferred not to think about it.

This time, though, she hadn't been able to avoid moving through the quieter, less populated parts of town on her errands.

Laney was crossing the street, walking past a few nightclubs not yet opened for the evening and a corner shop that had gone out of business. She had a plastic dry cleaning bag slung over one shoulder, and a Big Gulp soda cup in her opposite hand. There was no one else around that she could see.

And that was what made the hissing so easy to hear.

Laney felt her blood run cold, just like it had the last time. She spun around once, then again, looking for the source of the noise. Hoping, hoping, that it was her imagination. The wind blowing through the trees, perhaps. Anything but another monster.

Unfortunately, wishing was not enough to remove a youma from existence. The physical, brute force method usually worked better.

Laney never saw where the thing came from. She turned, and suddenly it was there, where it hadn't been before. It was a large, ungainly, awkward thing that mostly looked like a giant snake, with no legs attached, lurching slowly and stutteringly toward her with a pair of unevenly sized crab claws attached to its upper body.

Panicked, but trying to force herself to think better on her feet than she had the last time, Laney took two frightened steps back, then stopped, squared her shoulders, and gave an angry, wordless howl that she hoped sounded appropriately fearsome in the way of Mel Gibson in Braveheart. The youma stopped to stare at her, and in that moment, she drew back her arm and threw the remains of her Big Gulp at its big, reptilian head.

It didn't really do any damage -- apparently the youma didn't have a weakness for high fructose corn syrup or anything as convenient as that -- but it did give Laney an opportunity to turn and run for cover.

She didn't need to get far. She didn't get far, either, just to a recessed alcove of a door in the side of a building, but it was far enough to be able to transform into her powered self -- the magical knight-woman called Hvergelmir Page -- without being seen. She reached for the golden distaff again, and the power came to her in a rush. She pulled the magical persona over herself like a comforting blanket.

Maybe as this other woman, the one in the gold filigree and the shimmery white dress, she could pretend to be someone else. Someone brave. Laney Sutton wasn't brave. Laney Sutton cried when people picked her last in gym, or didn't want to be her partner for group projects. Laney Sutton couldn't stand the disappointed looks of her own parents, or the disapproval of her friends. She was spineless and toadying. And Laney was usually okay with that.

But today she had to fight a monster, and all she had was a superhero costume to hide behind. So she had to make the most of it.

No one knew Hvergelmir Page yet, after all. Maybe Laney could invent her to be someone brave and strong. Maybe if she told herself she was this other character, this brave woman, she'd have the courage to do something heroic.

Maybe that was why all superheroes had personas, really. Maybe they needed to invent a brave version of themselves to confront the things that frightened them.

That thought comforted her as the monster attacked. It wrenched her out of the alcove she was in, and tossed her back into the street, then pounced. Hvergelmir rolled, narrowly avoiding a sharp strike from one of its large pincers. Not a great start.

Remember, you're a brave hero, she tried to tell herself. Do something heroic.

Unfortunately, knowing you should do something is a far cry from actually knowing what it is you should do. In the circumstances, all Hvergelmir really knew that she should do was try not to die. She hung onto her distaff, just out of instinct, and then it came to her that she could try to use it as a weapon, if not much of one. She struck out desperately with it, feeling the asphalt dig into her back when she moved, trying to smack or jab or otherwise dislodge the creature bent on ending her life. She didn't manage much, although at least the distaff didn't break. Maybe she just didn't have that much physical strength.

Still, last time she'd been in Hvergelmir Page's clothes, she'd been stronger than she'd remembered. It seemed to still be true. She wasn't strong enough to completely get out from under the monster's hold, but she managed a few lesser feats. She pried away one of the youma's claws when it nearly had her by the throat, and she managed to get both her arms completely free to try and extricate herself more fully.

The biggest obstacle to that was her dress: her pretty, shimmery, hero costume that also was long and cumbersome and made it difficult to try and get her legs free to do anything like kicking at the monster. Whose idea had this dress been? It certainly didn't seem designed for fighting.

"Help!" she tried calling out when she realized she might not be able to escape on her own. "Somebody, please help!"

It wasn't too likely in a deserted area like this, she knew. But she had to try something. She was supposed to be a hero, after all. And heroes never died insignificant, ignoble deaths. Heroes were scrappy and they never gave up. So Hvergelmir couldn't and wouldn't, not even as the youma got its big blunted claw around her throat and tried to squeeze down. She clawed one of its eyes out and kept fighting, no matter how grim things looked. Heroes always clung to hope, even when the world started to fade to black.

Hvergelmir couldn't immediately make sense of what was going on. She was feeling dizzy -- being choked, it turned out, was not fun -- but she could tell that she wasn't being choked anymore. She reached for her own throat on instinct, coughing hard and looking up through watery eyes to see what was happening.

Someone had saved her. She'd been rescued. Thank God.

"Yes," she gasped, trying to gather her wits about her and hoping to catch a second wind. "I can stand." She scrambled to it, aware that the monster might come back for more, and after a few false starts that mainly involved being tripped up by all the extra fabric at the bottom of her dress, she found her footing again.

Her rescuer was some kind of military man in a crisp uniform dotted with red rosettes, with striking hair of the same velvety rose-red color that she could just see peeking out from beneath his hat. She didn't have time to pick out too many of the details of his clothes, since, in her mind, the youma was more important, but there was . . . something else about him, something she couldn't put her finger on, and it was bothering her right away. It was like a -- a bad vibe.

That had to be the dizziness talking. He'd saved her, after all, and he was human like she was. He was just like her, some kind of magical knight. The youma was their enemy. And it was still alive and kicking.

It came after them again -- or, more specifically, it came after Hvergelmir again, not that she was aware of the distinction -- but it came more slowly this time. Perhaps because of its missing eye that she'd gouged out with her fingers . . . or perhaps it had more to do with the looks that the thing kept giving to her new teammate, looks that to her appeared cautious, but that in reality were more simply confused. The youma, a singleminded and stupid beast, didn't understand why it had been kicked by a Negaverse human or what it was being told to do. So it just came back again to try and do the same thing it had done the first time.

Hvergelmir winced at the sight, steeling herself for a second round of fighting for her life. The distaff clutched tightly in her right hand felt like a lifeline.

She tried to concentrate on the man who'd helped her, instead. They could fight together. That would be good -- it'd be easier to pretend to be brave around someone else, she decided, easier if someone else's approval was riding on her performance. "I thought I was done for," she said, just in case things went badly and she didn't get a chance to say it later. "Thank you. You saved my life." She still couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right about him, but she pushed it to the back of her mind, determined to trust him. Besides, he was the only thing that made her feel brave right now.

With her free hand, she reached down to bunch the last few feet of her dress up in one hand while the monster advanced on them. The last thing she needed was another tripping incident when they both might be fighting for their lives.

Pale calves peeked out from beneath the hem of her dress, now hiked up to the knee , and beneath them, Hvergelmir's feet were encased in a delicate pair of dark blue flats, shimmery with the illusion of tiny stars and trimmed in gold detail.

"Oh. Hunh." She looked up and over at her companion, with a sudden, sunny smile for the absurdity of it all. "So that's what my shoes look like. What do you know."

It was very nearly her first day on the job, after all. Hvergelmir decided to cut herself a bit of slack for not having investigated her own footwear before now.

I'm afraid I lack the authority to control this thing...

Something was wrong with that. Something was off -- youma were monsters, just plain evil monsters, and no one had the authority to control them. No one like Hvergelmir or Aquarius, anyway. Maybe Hvergelmir should be running from the both of them.

Social programming was hard to overcome, though, and just because her companion gave her a bad vibe didn't mean he necessarily was a danger to her. He'd helped her so far, and that was worth the benefit of the doubt. He was gracious and helpful and had excellent manners, and he'd saved her life. She couldn't very well abandon him right now, not just because she had a nebulous bad feeling and some unanswered questions. Heroes were better people than that, so Hvergelmir had to be a better person.

"Let's go," she said in her bravest voice.

Hvergelmir turned and ran. She assumed her rescuer would follow suit, or else grab her arm and redirect her if he needed to.

Laney had spent quite a while wandering Destiny City since her coma, avoiding life and responsibility, and she'd learned her way around some of its districts that she hadn't really been familiar before -- but that didn't mean there was anywhere in the night club district that seemed like a good place to bring a monster. Still, there had to be something . . .

Hvergelmir looked around, hoping for inspiration to strike. What would a hero do here? What brilliant idea might Aquarius have come up with in her place?

Her golden eyes fell on a fire escape that scaled the side of a building. She thought about the monster's ungainly, legless body.

"Hey," she called out, pointing with her distaff, "how high can you jump?"

Hvergelmir held on tight, marveling at the brief sensation of gravity letting them go as her companion made his powerful jump. Their collision with the fire escape was jarring, though, and while she was gratified that he managed to hold on somehow, Hvergelmir nearly found herself knocked loose by the impact. As it was, one of her hands came completely loose, and she slipped back with a frightened yelp, hanging on by just one arm wrapped around her companion's neck and no doubt momentarily choking him with the drag of suddenly bearing all her weight.

She scrambled to throw her free hand wide and grab onto the railing as quickly as she could, huffing for breath as her fingers caught and held. She was more than a bit relieved that her strength, for once, held her in good stead -- outside of her powered-up form, that had certainly never happened -- and Hvergelmir disentangled her other arm from around her companion's neck (doing her best not to hit him with her distaff in the process) to try and brace it awkwardly along the railing as well. The weapon clutched in the fingers of that hand didn't help matters, as it couldn't lay flush with the railing and her hands weren't big enough to get a solid grip. She could hang on with just the one hand, for now, but without both hands she wouldn't be able to pull herself up.

"You go on," she said between bouts of trying to carefully hold her breath and maintain her grip. "I'm okay. Are you okay?"

Beneath them, the youma had reached the fire escape and had begun clacking its claws at their heels, trying to reach them.

Hvergelmir couldn't help herself; she laughed outright at her companion's cheerfully sarcastic response. It may not have done much for him, she didn't know, but she, for one, found his sense of humor bracing. It was companionable, and in spite of her apprehensions about his weird vibe, that gave her courage.

He took the time to help hoist her over the railing and up onto the landing of the fire escape too, even if his way of pulling her up by her clothes had left her arse-over-teakettle until she could catch herself on her hands. She lay on the landing for a few seconds, regaining her breath while her ally peeked over the railing to assess the situation. I don't want to concern you, he said in a voice she found amusingly faux-mild, like one might say 'it's nothing to be alarmed about, but your hair's on fire.' But it looks like it can climb.

She got to her feet and joined him at the railing, the both of them peering over the side and down at the youma, who'd just found the dangling ladder with one of its claws, and was using it to lever itself up to get ahold of the main fire escape.

She nodded, eyes wide, listening to his suggestion as they watched the youma. "Oh yeah, that sounds like a plan," Hvergelmir told Buddingtonite enthusiastically as he led her away from the railing and toward the stairs. "That sounds like the all-time best plan in the history of the universe. My plan was screaming and widespread panic. Let's definitely go with your plan. I like your plan. Your plan's awesome."

Hvergelmir hiked up her skirt again and they started their frantic sprint up the stairs, the youma now hot on their heels.

The youma was too large and too legless to follow them up the stairs directly; instead, it settled for climbing up the side of the fire escape, claw over claw, clamping its grip down in the iron bars as it went. Each fresh clench of its claws brought with it a horrible, metallic shriek of iron bending unnaturally. Its climb shook the fire escape, which struggled to keep its hold to the brick wall of the building holding it. The idea that it might detach fully, and they might all fall to horrible deaths, speared into large kebabs by broken bits of metal, sped on Hvergelmir's ascent. They had to reach the top.

"So," Hvergelmir called out, panting for breath, hoping to drown out the terrifying noise of the youma chasing them, "You come here often?"

Laney may not have been much of a planner, and she certainly wasn't much of a hero -- this whole episode was really just proving both of those things to her -- but she found that she was actually pretty good at pretending to be both of those things. It wasn't quite the same as the real deal, but whatever the case, Hvergelmir and Buddingtonite were still alive so far, and still had all of their moving parts, and that was an accomplishment she intended to take all the way to the bank, assuming those circumstances continued.

She kept an eye on the swift ascent of the youma as her ally ducked into a tool shed to forage for a weapon, and Hvergelmir took a few speedy hops backward as the thing managed to lever itself up onto the roof and fixed its remaining, hateful eye on her. She hefted her distaff and braced her legs apart as much as her costume would allow, preparing to defend herself. To defend them both.

Fortunately, before she had to put her abysmal hand-to-hand fighting skills into practice, her cohort reappeared with a much more wicked-looking garden hoe in hand. He wasted no time running toward her with it, holding the handle out to her, and she grabbed on instinctively, her fingers clasping around the wood.

The youma looked at the redhead in growling confusion once more, just briefly, and it swept out its claws to try and swipe at them both as they ran towards it, and for a moment, Hvergelmir nearly flinched away -- but she didn't need to. The combined strength of two people was more than enough to topple the ungainly, legless thing backward, and with a determined heave, they used the garden hoe that was stretched between both of them to force the youma backwards and off the rooftop via a long wooden bar to the midsection.

It fell, and after a moment, there was a sickening, wet-sounding crunch. Somehow, still running on pure adrenaline, Hvergelmir found the courage to lean over the roof's edge and look down. Sure enough, the creature far beneath them looked quite dead, or safely on its way there, at least.

Which just left the two of them.

Hvergelmir stepped back from the roof's edge, letting go of her end of the gardening tool. She belatedly noticed that she was shaking. "So..." she said with a brittle laugh, and a good amount of delirious sarcasm. "That was... fun."

Unlike Buddingtonite, Hvergelmir didn't have to worry about any superior officers showing up and taking her to task for how she conducted herself in a battle, or whose monsters she killed and why. She didn't have the formalized guidance that a military organization offered, but at least she didn't have its strictures, either. The only person she had to live with after this incident, just like the one before it, was herself.

His comment about people who'd have his head for what he'd done unnerved Hvergelmir a great deal. She'd had her suspicions before, but it was hard to deny at this point that, though he'd helped her, Buddingtonite, as well as whoever 'they' were, were in league somehow with monsters like these -- or in control of them. Hvergelmir was a fairly hopeful person by nature, but she wasn't catastrophically stupid: she could connect the context clues. Something was quite rotten in the state of Denmark. Who was he? Who did he work for?

"'Lieutenant'..." she echoed him, turning the word over in her head. Military ranks implied some sort of large organization, something planned. Beyond that, she didn't have much of a clue -- her imagination always ran more to the fantastical than to the practical. Still, the obviously intended question hung in the air between them: lieutenant of what army?

Hvergelmir squinted her eyes at Buddingtonite, at a loss to make sense of any of this. If he was connected to that monster, why had he helped her? Why was he being so kind? Augh, why any of it?! Not for the first time, Hvergelmir felt completely bereft of information and guidance. Why was she so alone?

At least her dashing rescuer had good manners. Hvergelmir could certainly appreciate a good dose of theatrics ('my lady!' really! her!) -- if Laney was anything, she was certainly theatrical -- and at least she knew how to respond to good manners. He was being kind to her for now. She could be kind too.

"Hvergelmir Page," she said, putting her hand out cautiously to shake. "Or . . . you know what, call me whatever you want. It's kind of a mouthful, I know. It's lovely to meet you, lieutenant."

"Mira it is," she nodded, taking her hand back. It was certainly a lot easier than the real name of her wonder -- she wished she could just introduce herself that way. Mira, Page of the Cosmos.

Who do you serve was an interesting question, and Hvergelmir wasn't sure how to answer it. She'd wondered that herself, after all. What were people like her like? What were they supposed to be doing?

Hesitant to admit as much and risk looking even greener in front of someone who apparently knew more about what was going on than she did, she decided to go for an answer that was neither complete nor necessarily untrue. "No one," she said. "I don't serve anyone. The universe, maybe. It's just me."

She turned the question back on him, unsure how much her answer had revealed about herself or her current lack of knowledge of her situation. "What about you -- who do you serve? Why do you call yourself a lieutenant?"

His uniform was certainly much more militaristic in style than hers. He looked much more like a part of an organization than she did. It was very hard to imagine the universe issuing a bunch of sparkly white dresses to its army.