About a century and a half ago, Hepatica City had been a bustling metropolis of its age, and architecturally speaking it had never left this golden age. Indeed, it would be fair to say that Hepatica had hardly changed at all since those times. It was the world that had changed around it. Its sister city, Alba, had seen tremendous growth around the 40s, when the Cape Boom happened. Inexplicable powers had always been around, as was the notion that they should be used for the good of the people, but when Alba University made a breakthrough in the testing and classification of inborn parahuman powers, it quickly became the international capital of superheroics. Today, it housed the Global Guardian Guild, one of the most prestigious groups of superpowered peacekeepers in the world.
Hepatica, by contrast, was a quiet place. Close enough to its big sister that small-time supervillains didn’t want to risk operating there, but not notable enough for the real megalomaniacal power wielders to bother terrorising it to make any kind of grand statement. Hence tonight, like most nights, was a quiet one. Sylvia Brace had just finished a gig performing in one of the local clubs and, guitar case slung to her back, was about to head to her apartment to catch some sleep. She shivered in the treacherously cold autumn wind. Her leather leggings and jacket afforded her some decent protection from the elements, but the latter wasn’t made to be closed. And the skintight silvery crop top she wore under it left her belly almost completely exposed to the elements, with nothing but a fishnet undershirt to cover it. She was really starting to regret her drinking choices of the evening. Enough to stop her from taking the motorcycle home, but too little to really numb her against the cold. As she groaned softly under her breath, she heard a beeping next to her temple. By ingrained habit, her hand glided up, index and middle finger placed on the pressure pad of a small, smooth, white earpiece. A voice called out from the other end, slightly shrill and almost too fast to keep up with its own words.
“Silver? Silver, this is Mission Control! My network’s detected a break-in and you’re the closest cape.”
Sylvia sighed. “Yep, this is Silver Siren. How’s it going, Emcee?” Her voice was rich, on the deeper side and had a huskiness to it that was emphasised by her lethargic tone. “Listen, I’m off the clock, half-drunk and freezing my tits off. Can’t you just call the cops? Are we even sure this is a super?”
“Yep!” Mission control continued. “I worked out they’re a class 2 zoomorph, further details unclear. I’ll send you the coordinates.” She sounded chipper. A little obnoxiously so, if you asked Sylvia, as she always did when presenting something she’d worked out. Sylvia’s earpiece emitted a light ahead of her that briefly flickered before forming into a holographic map of the block she was on, highlighting a location she recognised as a nearby shopping mall.
Sylvia redoubled her pace and started heading in the indicated direction, exhaling another sigh. “I really wish we had enough capes in the Society to fill up the night shifts again. These substitute missions are killing my sleep schedule, Emcee.”
“Like you ever had a sleep schedule,“ the girl on the other side chuckled, “you’re right though. Rebuilding has been slow. That LACE incident really did a number on us.”
Sylvia kept up a light run, conserving her energy for whoever was waiting in the mall. “No kidding. If I see one more evil robot maid in my career, I’m quitting.” She came up on the sliding glass doors leading to the indoor shopping mall. “I’m here, Emcee. Catch you tomorrow.”
“They should be on the ground floor. Good luck,” came the voice from Mission Control,“ You’ve got this, Silver. Time to be a hero!”

Silver Siren examined the doors. Around eye level, there was a neat round hole about the size of a basketball in one of them. Emcee had said she was dealing with a class 2 zoomorph, meaning the culprit had likely cut the glass, then turned into their animal form and slipped through. Given the size and height of the hole, Silver figured it was probably a bird, or possibly something like a cat could have jumped through. Only one way to find out for sure.
She held up a hand, lightly trembling in its fingerless glove from the cold, and snapped. Half a second later, a loud reverberation came from the hole in layered glass panes of the door, like an amplified echo of her finger snap. The glass around the handle shattered immediately, leaving half of the double door wide open for Silver Siren to enter through. The stage outfit she was wearing wasn’t too much different from her actual hero costume, and luckily that included the heavy boots that let her step right over the shards without much worry.
The inside was pleasantly sheltered from the autumn wind, but Silver had little time to enjoy it. The loud noise she used to enter had to have alerted her quarry, and she could only assume she didn’t have much time to catch. She started to make her way past the shoe shops, bakeries and electronics boutiques, keeping an eye out for any movement. The sparse light wasn’t helping; aside from the occasional neon glow of a sign, the mall was as dark as it was quiet.
After a long, drawn-out minute or so of quiet searching, she heard a rustling sound coming from her left. Looking over, she saw it came from Penny’s Pendant Paradise, a small jewellery shop near the escalators. In the soft glow of the shop’s signage, she saw that many of the display pieces had been torn from their mannequin busts and were strewn all across the tables and floor. Looking more closely, she could see that a few of them had open sockets where gemstones were supposed to be. Careful not to step too close to the light, Silver formulated a plan. If the burglar fled up the stairs, they’d have a whole new floor to hide on, but moving past the window to get there and cut off their escape might result in her getting seen. Not having enough time to think of much, she decided on a bluff. She inhaled softly and opened her mouth, bellowing out a warning. Instead of flowing from her own mouth in her own voice, however, the words reverberated from halfway up the escalator, in a gruff male voice as Silver herself remained perfectly silent: “Stop! Police! Come out with your hands up, thief!”
She grinned. Her impersonation of Inspector Ingram, her favourite TV detective, had improved a lot since the last time she’d tried this.
For a few tense seconds, she waited to see what kind of reaction the panic would elicit in the burglar. That was when she suddenly heard the rustling again, alarmingly close to her this time. With only a fraction of a second to spare, Silver Siren had no time to consider what was happening. What she did have, however, were the instincts that she’d built up by spending well over a decade as a member of the Hepatica Society of Superheroics. Before her mind could catch up, her legs had already thrown her into a leap and landing painfully on her side on the cold floor.
“Tch,“ the sound of a tongue clicking in frustration came from the spot she’d occupied just a second ago. Silver quickly kipped up, feeling a sharp pain on the side of her cheek. Reaching up at the spot, her hand came back holding a lock of her own hair, the colour of her namesake and stained with her blood.
The culprit, turning to glare at her from under her long messy black hair, was a short woman of athletic build. She looked younger than Silver and was wearing very little aside from a strapless bra, a pair of ripped jeans and a generous helping of smudged eyeliner, all black. Her entire body was covered in short, black hair and folded underneath her arms was a pair of large, leathery wings. As she looked Silver up and down, the wings and body hair quickly receded, leaving the long claws on her hands and feet as her only remaining animal traits. “Nice try with the voice trick, silver sea-hag,” she said, licking a trickle of blood from one of the sharp, elongated claws on her fingers, “But you can’t fool my senses.” She smirked, but something about her confident expression was off.
“Belle?” Silver asked, “Belle Fry? I didn’t know you were a jewel thief these days.” Her hand twitched, she just needed a few moments, and banter might just buy her that time. “haven’t seen you since the attack on headquarters. I’d say it’s good to see you alive, but my blood on your claws there is kinda putting a damper on that.”
“I lived, alright, “ Belle spat,“no thanks to you capes. The holding cells were the first place you abandoned when you retreated to your little inner sanctum.”
“I’m not gonna defend the Society on that one. Just calm down, Belle. Let’s just get through this without killing each other.” Silver had started to move her hand back towards her back, ever so slowly. It was good practice to give villains a chance, but they rarely took it.
“Good call, silverfish. Why don’t you just let me fly on out of here, and that head of yours can stay right on your shoulders.” Belle flexed her claws, “You don’t think I’ll miss a second time, do you?”
Silver sighed, “Belle… you’re a smart kid. I don’t think you’ll try a second time.”
Belle’s eyes narrowed. “W-what do you mean?”
“Come on, Belle. You’ve tangled with my friends before, you think the Society doesn’t have water cooler talk? I know how your transformations work.” Silver inspected the metallic nail polish on her free hand in a show of affected casualness, “and you’ve clearly heard of me, what with the cute little nicknames you’ve been making up. I’m keeping ‘Silver Sea-hag,’ by the way, might make for a fun title for a single.”
“What are you getting at?” Belle spat, her composure showing that she had a pretty good idea of what Silver was getting at.
“Let me ask you a question… how did you figure out my little sonic police illusion earlier?”
Belle remained silent, glaring at her.
“It was echolocation, wasn’t it? You didn’t hear a body to go with the voice, so you figured out the trap and set up a counter. Quick thinking, there. Between that and your fashion sense, it really is a shame you’re not on our side. You would’ve made a good hero.”
“Stop stalling and make your point already!”
Silver smiled. It wasn’t often she was on this end of a monologue, she was starting to see why villains liked it so much. “Oh, you know my point. I know you can turn into a little bat and run, and I know you can turn into your hybrid form to fight me. And yet… you’re choosing to stay fully human, with nothing but some sharp fingernails to protect you. It’s because you can’t turn off your enhanced hearing, isn’t it? Against someone who can psychically manipulate sound waves, that kind of power is a death sentence.”
“Tough words for someone within clawing distance,” Belle said in a tone that might have been mistaken for intimidating if her voice hadn’t cracked halfway through. “But there’s one thing you-“
Silver snapped her fingers, which made no sound at all but set off a small sonic detonation right in front of Belle’s face. Disoriented, she lost her footing and fell to the ground. As she did, Silver’s other hand, which had crept towards her guitar case, clicked a small button on its side that activated the quick-draw mechanism inside, sending her trusty electric guitar flying into her hand. With practiced ease, she slung it past her side and grasped it with both hands. “Now… I’m sure you can feel your head spinning from that little warmup act…”  Silver’s fingers hovered threateningly over the strings as if they were a trigger, “I hope you’re smart enough to listen before I do it once more, with feeling.”
Belle tried to get up, but stumbled and fell back, leaning against the wall behind her for support. “You… you fake punk rock bitch… what are you gonna do, arrest me?”
Silver stifled a laugh, “Pfft, do I look like a cop? I didn’t get into this business to feed kids like you into the revolving doors of a super prison.”
This seemed to catch Belle unaware. She blinked twice, her anger diluting with surprise.
“Look. I know it’s hard to believe, but not all capes are status quo hugging thugs. I can help you get off light, and even get a start finding honest work, if you’re… in…“
She trailed off, interrupted by a silent emergency call from her communicator. “Silver, I got access to their security footage. The burglar has exclusively taken jewels that function as spell components. I hate to say it, but… this may be connected to the Mayflower Witch.”
Silver hid her shock. Not wanting to escalate the delicate situation, she kept her expression and tone neutral. “I see. Are you sure?”
“Not yet,” went her earpiece,“ but we need you to take her out and bring her in.”
“Understood. I’ll proceed as planned,“ Silver said in her businesslike deadpan. Belle was eyeing her suspiciously.
“Oh no, I know what that means. Silver, this is our first chance to get intel on Mayflower! Any possible accomplice is both too valuable and too dangerous to just walk back to the Society!”
Silver sighed. “Listen Belle,” she said, “I think I’m going to have to cuff you on the way back. Mission control is insisting.” She hoped that the gesture would be enough to tide Emcee over. She didn’t like using her power to knock people out, the volume control was tricky and she always felt at risk of causing permanent harm.
“I’m not compromising on this, Silver!” Emcee’s voice was rarely this serious, “There’s a time to be a hero, and there’s a time to be realistic. You can’t take risks when Mayflower is involved. Take the strum, Silver!”
Belle’s eyes widened slightly. Perhaps her hearing in human form was better than Silver had anticipated. “I’m sorry, kid...” muttered Silver. Her fingers came down on the strings and produced a chord, which proceeded to spring, sharply amplified, from the invisible amp her powers had placed to overlap with Belle’s skull. Silver would never find out if Belle would have fled, fought or simply remained standing. Emcee was right, of course. Mayflower was just too dangerous to take any risks with. Still, that knowledge was cold comfort as Silver hoisted an unconscious Belle over her shoulder and noticed the trickle of blood flowing from one of her ears. She only hoped the Society would find that replacement healer soon.