Oops. I really didn't think my seafood diet tactic would have an issue like this so soon. In all honesty, I still thought it was a great idea. Maybe I can just kill this guy. That seemed like it would solve the problem—I just couldn't do it right now. Fighting him would either expose me to the entirety of my old team or I would be forced to kill them too. Then I'd be right back to where I was with my other, original identity.

Logically, that meant I needed to get through the immediate present with my identity as Vonnie still perfectly intact—and if possible, optimize things such that it would be easier to deal with the problem later.

As Surfer Dude raked his gaze over us, confusion mixed with hesitant realization washed over everyone's faces to varying degrees. Not too hard to put the pieces together. They know it has something to do with me—with Alex—but not the details.

Also, Surfer Dude's arrival had been confrontational, and having an unfamiliar, stern-faced, Tier 3 Guardian looming over you throwing around implied accusations of assisting an Anathema was fertile ground for tensions to rise.

It was Maria who was the first one to speak up. "First, you should be aware that we're all registered Guardians and AAG members."

I frowned. That's not true. Only the rest of them were. That being said, I understood what she was doing. She was putting us on more level footing as well as establishing the general context. It was entirely possible that Surfer Dude had no idea any of us were Guardians.

Despite tasting like a strong Tier 3 and thus a significant threat at my own current strength, he didn't have an aura. Even if he did have one, it would be hard to distinguish between different kinds of esoteric influence.

Conveniently, that had helped me sell the idea that I was a Guardian myself previously. Unless you had an ability like Katherine's, you wouldn't be able to sense nearby Anathema or Guardians or anything else. That changed at Tier 4—but again, unless you had abilities like Katherine, it was hard to tell the difference.

Regardless, my valuation of Maria rose, and she continued to speak. "Second—what do you intend to do, here? Are you representing a particular agency?"

Damn. My valuation of Maria continued to rise even higher. Getting all the immediate context, clarifying the stakes, figuring out what kinds of legal implications there might be for everyone involved—and all without coming across as confrontational.

I decided then and there that I wanted to keep her on my team—whether literal or metaphorical. I also couldn't forget how useful her own power was—after all, she was using it.

She was being very discreet about it, and the only reason I knew to look was because I kept tasting the air at regular intervals. That was what allowed me to catch on that she was using her insane ability to literally do multiple things at once.

And, while I didn't think she could completely hide what she was doing when she used her power, the inherent, confusing nature of it meant that she could conceal what she was doing by keeping attention focused on one thing she was doing instead of the other.

In this case, she was throwing some kind of hand signs at Katherine at the same time that she was speaking. That by itself shouldn't have been impressive—but since her ability let her do otherwise impossible multitasking, and since normal senses could only perceive one of her parallel actions at any given moment—well, there was nothing stopping her from exploiting it for simultaneous actions that weren't logically impossible.

Put simply—she was splitting the hand gesture and speaking actions as if they were two separate versions of herself—and since it was instinctive to focus on what she was saying, her nonverbal cues would be literally invisible to anyone who didn't already know to look.

Clever.

I wondered what she was signalling, though. Maybe she's just telling Katherine to use her own power for something—but for what?

Surfer Dude relaxed, if only slightly, and I could tell that he was thinking through the best way to respond. "I also represent the AAG," he said after a moment, "and all I want to do right now is check on any boats like this one entering the area. You're probably fine, but I have to check. If you just let me take a peek in that storage area and let me record your IDs, I'll be more than happy to get out of your hair."

I made a slight frown. He still hasn't said how he knew about me, and does this really feel like an official AAG investigation? He's just one Tier 3 Guardian, no officer uniform… This whole thing is super fishy.

Ha. Fishy.

Maria looked like she wasn't quite buying it either. "You never explained how you know any of this—"

"A porpoise told me," he snapped—rather sarcastically, implying that a porpoise did not actually tell him…

"—and what's your actual AAG status? Are you any kind of officer?"

Ha. Bingo!

I was starting to get major vigilante vibes from this guy, and it seemed as if Maria felt similarly. Also, the more I looked at him, the more I felt like I recognized him from somewhere. Like I've seen him at least once before in some other context—kind of recently, I think. Not like in the last day or anything, but…

At the same time that I began figuratively headscratching about from where I recognized Surfer Dude, tensions were rising again. Seems like Maria struck a nerve. Bingo?

I saw a vein pulse against Surfer Dude's otherwise immaculate hairline. Laurence looked ready to say something—my money would be that he was going to just pop open the storage hatch and whip out his own ID to get things over with—only for Katherine's voice to unexpectedly cut across the boat.

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"You're right."

Wait, what?

Katherine stood up and stepped forward—much to everyone's shock, including my own. "You're right," she reiterated, then paused, looking around at everyone else. "...But we shouldn't keep talking like this." She nodded at Surfer Dude. "I'll talk to you. Alone."

The Tier 3 Guardian hesitated. Katherine, you bitch. Inside I was fuming. The fuck is this bullshit? I didn't know exactly what angle she was pulling, but I absolutely knew that I didn't like it.

If she got my new identity exposed because of this—yeah, I will totally rip her head off.

Surfer Dude himself looked like he was about to take the bait—if that's what it even was—but then paused. His eyes raked back over each and every one of us—and then landed on me. Shit.

"You said you're a Guardian team," he said, "so prove it."

I blinked. What?

"What?" Katherine asked.

"You're right. I'm part of the AAG, but I'm not an officer. None of this is official. I'm being a Goddamn vigilante right now, so there's either nothing you can do about it or you have enough collective firepower to get me to fuck off. So show me."

Is he seriously asking us to fight him? That didn't seem quite right—he's definitely threatening us, but what—

Teal light exploded from Kevin's side of the boat, racing across the interior surfaces like arcs of lighting that all converged at a single spot, manifesting a glowing, crystalline spike that speared just millimeters shy of Surfer Dude's throat.

Well that's one way to make a demonstration.

Surfer Dude stared at the esoteric manifestation, completely unperturbed. Grasping it with one hand, he snapped a good half foot of the tip off, causing motes of identically colored light to explode outwards and slowly drift back towards Kevin.

"Good. That's the spirit." He pointed the spike tip at Laurence. "You next."

And I guess that's another way. It was a good demonstration of power—it was nothing more than leveraging raw, superhuman strength and an utmost confidence that it wasn't a real danger to him—some solid intimidation.

Laurence shared a nervous glance with all the others, but quickly complied, conjuring a small, refreshingly cool whirlwind to form in the middle of the boat. It was honestly pathetic—it wouldn't have hurt so much as a garden slug—but it got the point across, and it was far less aggressive or potentially dangerous than Kevin's own power demonstration.

One by one, the others proved that they were, in fact, Guardians. I still didn't know what this self-admitted vigilante was aiming at anymore—but it definitely made me nervous. I'm not supposed to be a Guardian. I'm just Vonnie.

Technically, I could do a number of different things to demonstrate a power of my own—even one that no one else present would recognize as belonging to my old identity—but doing so would instantly shatter the effect of the masking elixir.

Katherine would know instantly, and from there—well, I didn't want to find out. Goddamn it. Fucking catch-22 situation. I decided that when my turn came, I would just tell the truth—or at least Vonnie's version of it. Look at me, I'm just a normal girl who somehow got caught up in something she shouldn't have. Oops?

It took a few tries for Maria to convince our effective captor, but eventually he figured it out. From there, Chloe had it easy—she just had to start floating—and then it was Katherine's turn.

I wasn't sure how she intended to demonstrate her power—but that was because I'd forgotten that she could talk to machine spirits or whatever other bullshit she could do. It turned out to be as simple as pulling out her phone and showcasing her touch free, mental control of it.

And then it was my turn. I swallowed with nervousness. Which is fine, because anyone would be nervous in a situation like this. "I'm not a Guardian," I stuttered out, "I'm just a student, and she's my upperclassman mentor," I gestured shakily at Katherine, "and I don't have any idea what's happening, I just—"

I fought not to frown. Did I just feel something—oh, bugger. There was a deep cut on my exposed upper arm, but no blood was welling up like it should have. Instead, faint, gossamer threads of pale, coppery metal stitched the wound back together in mere seconds.

I didn't even see what he used to cut me—but that didn't matter. The game was now up, and there was only one rational response.

Violet lightning exploded through the boat, catapulting me straight up into the sky. And not a moment too soon, because I felt multiple somethings whip by, scoring even deeper gashes across my body, and even more hitting glancing blows.

Water, maybe?

I wasn't stupid. My instinct was to put as much distance between myself and the water as I could with my opening move. A guy who rode around on a conjured wave, who called himself Surfer Dude, and who probably couldn't actually talk to porpoises—yeah, fighting him on a boat was probably even worse than fighting a shark in the water.

While I couldn't yet tell what was happening below me, I didn't waste time ripping my Vonnie persona to shreds and pushing myself into full dragon mode as fast as I could. I wasn't kidding around when I made the judgment that this guy was on the upper end of Tier 3, and a strong one at that.

That was the same effective tier as myself—only that I was at the bottom—and I was not the one with an environmental advantage.

Unless you count the fact the sky exists, I guess.

To put it simply, this was not a fight that I was optimistic about. In the middle of dry land, maybe I would be more enthusiastic about it.

As I continued to transform and my wings took proper shape, I began to analyze the resulting situation. My first observation was that someone had capsized the boat. Probably me. My opening blast of weird, magnetic lightning would have put a lot of force down on one end of it.

Weirdly, the ocean looked calm. There were no raging waves, no flashy attacks flying up towards me—in fact, I didn't even see any sign of the Tier 3 Guardian I was supposed to be fighting for my life against. That's weird.

It kind of unnerved me.

When I finally caught sight of him, I realized why I hadn't sooner—he was already at least a quarter mile away from me, and I'd been looking straight down. And that wasn't all—it wasn't a simple move to put distance like I'd done.

He was still moving at top speed away from me. My massive, golden eyes blinked. Why is he—oh. I realized what direction he was racing in. Oh, shit.

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